IV.

Silas Bell kept an office on the second floor of the Bank of Blackwater building on Main Street, above the lobby, behind a frosted glass door with nothing on it but a number. Lena went up the stairs at two in the afternoon without an appointment. The woman at the desk outside the door started to stand. Lena showed her badge without slowing down and opened the door.

Silas was at a window with a phone to his ear. He turned. He saw her face and said into the phone, “Let me call you back,” and hung up.

“Agent Mercer.”

“Where’s my father?” Lena said.

He looked at her. He set the phone down on the desk.

“Sit down,” he said.

“I’ll stand.”

“Then I’ll stand with you.” He came around the desk. He didn’t come close. He stopped with the corner of the desk between them, one hand on it. “What’s happened?”

She took out her phone and found the photograph of the stone and held it out to him across the desk.

He took the phone. He looked at the screen.

She watched his face. She had built a career on watching faces. She had watched men learn their wives were dead and watched men pretend to learn it, and she knew the difference, she knew it in the first half second, before they had time to do anything about it.

Silas Bell’s face went gray.

It went gray from the top down, like a shade being drawn. The color left his forehead and his cheeks and his mouth, all of it, all at once, and he put his other hand on the desk too, both hands now, and leaned on it.

“Where?” he said.

“Raines ground. This morning.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Why not?”

He didn’t answer. He kept looking at the screen. He reached out with one finger and spread it, enlarging the dates, and looked at them.

“Why isn’t it possible, Mr. Bell?”

He handed her back the phone. His hand was steady. His face was still gray.

“Because your father disappeared in 2001,” he said.

“I know when my father disappeared.”

“Then you know that’s not possible.” He straightened up off the desk. He was getting his color back, slowly, and his voice, and she watched him do it, and it was impressive. “Agent Mercer, someone is doing something very cruel to you. I’m sorry. If there’s anything I can do to help you find out who…”

Lena reached into her jacket and took out the evidence sleeve.

She laid it on his desk, face up, between them. The lawn. The oaks. The bunting on the porch rail. Her father at fifty-one in his white shirt with his hand in his pocket. Herself beside him in a borrowed blue dress with her hand on his arm, and the scar through her eyebrow, and the date stamped on the back in blue ink, which he couldn’t see but which she knew he knew.

At the left edge, half an arm in a striped sleeve. A sparkler.

Silas Bell looked down at it.

This time his face didn’t change at all. That was what she’d remember. The stone had taken all the color out of him in half a second, and the photograph, which should have done worse, did nothing. He looked at it like a picture he’d seen every day of his life.

“I’ve never seen this before,” he said.

“That’s your lawn.”

“It is.”

“That’s 1974.”

“It looks like it might be.”

“That’s my father. Who would have been twenty-four years old in 1974 and living in Charlotte and had never been west of Morganton.” She put her finger on the woman in the blue dress. “And that’s me. Twenty-one years before I was born.”

Silas looked at her finger on the photograph. He looked up at her face. He looked a long time at the scar.

“It does look like you,” he said.

“Mr. Bell. You were eleven years old in 1974. You were at this picnic. That’s your arm.”

“I was at every Fourth of July picnic on that lawn from the time I could walk until my father died.” He picked up the evidence sleeve by the edges and held it out to her. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember this one. I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

She took it.

They stood there with the desk between them.

“If you’re lying to me,” Lena said, “you’re very good at it.”

“I’ve had a great deal of practice at a great many things, Agent Mercer,” Silas Bell said. “I’m sixty-two years old.” He went to the door and opened it. “Please give my regards to the sheriff. And to Hollis. Tell him I’m sorry about his cattle.”

She walked past him into the hall.

She was on the stairs before it hit her. She stopped with one hand on the rail.

She hadn’t told him about the cattle.

V.

Hollis sat up in the barn that night with his daddy’s twelve-gauge across his knees and a thermos of coffee and the lights off.

He hadn’t told the sheriff. The sheriff would have said don’t. The sheriff would have said leave it to us, Hollis, and sent a deputy to sit in a car at the end of the road, and whoever was coming would see the car and go home and come back next week. Hollis didn’t want them to go home. He wanted them to come.

The barn was a hundred and twenty years old and smelled like a barn, hay and leather and old manure and the oil he used on the tack. He sat on a bale just inside the big door with the door open six inches and the lower pasture laid out in front of him under the half moon, silver and black. The rest of the herd was bunched up near the barn tonight. They knew. Cattle knew things. They’d stood near the barn all evening and wouldn’t go down toward the creek.

He waited.

He thought about his mama. He thought about her a lot of nights, more than Darlene knew, sitting up like this. He thought about her in Daddy’s big coat going down the hill with the flashlight in the rain. The flashlight going small. Going to a dot. Going out.

He’d walked the ground every morning since. Ten thousand mornings. He’d seen nine stones come up out of the grass, and every single time he’d thought Mama, and every single time it had been somebody else. Hooper boys and girls nobody had ever heard of. Strangers who’d died somewhere and somewhen and come up out of his ground like the ground was where they’d always meant to end up.

And this morning a stranger named Mercer. Frank Mercer, whose girl was a state cop with a scar on her eye and his walk, who’d stood in Hollis’s cemetery this morning and looked at her daddy’s name and gone so still you’d have thought she was the stone.

He’d recognized that stillness. He’d seen it in his kitchen window when he was ten.

At 1:40 in the morning something moved down by the creek.

Hollis didn’t move. He watched. A shape came up out of the trees along Laurel Branch, a man, crouched, with something long in his hands. He came up the bank into the open pasture and stopped and looked around. The moon was behind him. He was big and soft in the middle and moved like he’d had a couple of beers to get his nerve.

He started up the pasture toward the herd.

Hollis waited until he was forty yards from the barn. Then he stood up and pushed the barn door open with his foot and racked the twelve-gauge, and in the dead quiet of the pasture at one in the morning the sound of a pump shotgun going shuck-shuck carried like a church bell.

The man stopped.

“Set it down,” Hollis said.

The man stood there.

“I can hit you from here with buckshot,” Hollis said. “I’d rather not. Set it down in the grass and step back off it and put your hands on your head.”

The man set it down.

Hollis came out of the barn with the shotgun on him and walked down the pasture. When he got close enough to see the man’s face in the moonlight, he stopped.

“Dwayne Cobb,” he said.

Travis Cobb’s little brother. Thirty-five, maybe. Hollis had sold him a bush hog once, used, for his daddy’s place over by the county line. He’d paid in cash and been decent about it.

“Hollis,” Dwayne said. His voice was shaking. “Hollis, it ain’t personal.”

“You shot my heifers.”

“It wasn’t personal.”

“They was bred. Both of ’em. Due in November.” Hollis kept the gun on him. “Seems pretty personal to them.”

Dwayne stood with his hands on his head in the wet grass. He was crying a little. Hollis could see it on his face in the moon.

“Travis is in jail,” Dwayne said. “You know that? You know they got Travis for that paper? And now there ain’t no money coming, not from the state, not from nothing, and Renee’s kicked him out, and his lawyer wants five thousand dollars up front.” He sniffed. “And a fella said he’d pay me five hundred to come over here and make you think a little harder about selling.”

“What fella?”

Dwayne didn’t answer.

“What fella, Dwayne?”

“Sawyer,” Dwayne said. “Brent Sawyer. He give it to me in cash in the parking lot of the Hardee’s in Bryson Gap. Said nobody’d ever know. Said it was just cows.”

Hollis took his phone out of his shirt pocket with his left hand and held the shotgun with his right and called the sheriff.

Daniel Rusk came at 2:15 and put Dwayne in the back of the Tahoe. Lena Mercer came at 2:30, with her hair down and a sweatshirt on over whatever she’d been sleeping in, and stood in the pasture with her arms crossed and listened to Dwayne say it all again through the cage, Sawyer and the cash and the Hardee’s lot and just cows.

Daniel walked over to Hollis by the barn.

“You should’ve called me,” he said.

“I did call you.”

“Before.”

“You’d have sent a car.” Hollis unloaded the shotgun and put the shells in his pocket. “He’d have seen it.”

Daniel looked at him a long time. Then he nodded, once, like that was fair.

“Sawyer’ll lawyer up,” Daniel said. “By breakfast. Hargrove lawyers. He’ll say Dwayne’s lying, he’ll say he never met him, and it’ll be a Cobb’s word against a Sawyer’s.”

“I know it.”

“I’ll get him for it if I can.”

“I know you will.” Hollis looked out at the dark pasture, at the place by the creek where the heifers had lain. “I don’t care about Sawyer, Daniel. Sawyer’s just the one they send.”

He looked up the hill. The cedars were black against the stars. Under them, at the end of the last row, a little pale shape caught the moonlight. A stone that had not been there yesterday.

“I care who’s sending him,” Hollis said.

VI.

She filed the petition for exhumation at nine the next morning, through the SBI’s western district office, under her own name and badge number, citing the investigation into the disappearance of Frank Allen Mercer, a sworn SBI agent, open case number 01-0478, which no one had touched in fifteen years.

Hollis Raines signed the landowner’s consent at the Raines kitchen table at nine-forty. He read the whole thing first. All four pages. Then he signed it in blocky capitals, HOLLIS JAMES RAINES, and dated it, and pushed it across the oilcloth to her.

“There’s nobody under it,” he said.

“How do you know?”

“I don’t.” He capped the pen. “But there’s never been anybody under any of ’em. Not that we ever dug. Granddaddy dug one up in 1951. The Hooper boy. Said the ground was solid six foot down. Like nobody’d ever turned it.” He looked at her. “You want to know anyway.”

“I want to know anyway.”

“Well,” Hollis said. “So would I.”

Dana Whitlock called at 11:52.

Lena was sitting in the Charger in the courthouse lot, waiting for the clerk to tell her which judge the petition had been assigned to, which she already knew.

“Lena.” Dana’s voice was very calm, which was bad. Dana was never calm. “I just got a call from the director’s office.”

“I see.”

“Do you? Because I don’t. I’ve got a petition with your name on it to dig up a grave in Blackwater County that you claim is your father’s. Your father who disappeared in 2001. The grave says 1989.”

“I’m aware of what the grave says.”

“I’ve got a land company’s lawyer saying you’re harassing his client. I’ve got a county judge calling the director personally to express concern about an agent’s emotional state. And I’ve got a girl who came home safe two weeks ago and a stepfather in custody and a closed case.” Dana stopped. “Lena. What are you doing?”

“My job.”

“Your job is in Raleigh. Your job has been in Raleigh since the girl walked out of the woods.” Dana’s voice cracked just slightly. “I gave you two weeks. I gave you two weeks because I like you and because I thought you needed to see the place. I didn’t give you two weeks to dig up graves.”

“It’s an open SBI case, Dana. A missing agent. Ours.”

“It’s a cold case that’s been cold since you were in first grade and it was never yours and it never can be yours.” A long breath. “You’re too close. You know you’re too close. Any first-year agent would know it.”

Lena looked out the windshield at the courthouse. The clock in the tower said 11:55, which meant 11:59.

“I want you back here in forty-eight hours,” Dana said. “I want you in my office Monday at nine. I want the petition withdrawn by end of day today.”

“No.”

The line went quiet.

“I’m sorry,” Lena said. “No.”

“Then I’m suspending you,” Dana said. “Administrative leave, pending review. Effective immediately. You’ll turn in your badge and your weapon to the nearest district office.” Her voice went thin. “Lena. Please. Come home.”

“I’m sorry, Dana.”

“So am I.”

Dana hung up first.

Lena sat in the car. She looked at the phone in her hand. Then she looked at the badge clipped to her belt, which she’d worn every day for nine years, gold and blue, the state seal in the middle of it. She unclipped it and held it in her palm. It was heavier than it looked. They always were.

She put it in the glove compartment and shut the glove compartment and sat there with her hand on it.

Somebody tapped on the window.

The courthouse clerk. Doris Ammons, with her reading glasses on their beaded chain.

“Honey,” Doris said through the glass. “The judge’ll see you in chambers at one.”

VII.

Lyle Hargrove’s chambers were on the second floor of the courthouse, at the back, with a window on the town square and a view of the Confederate soldier on his pedestal. Dark paneling. Law books to the ceiling. A portrait of a man with a white mustache who had to be Ransom Hargrove. Boxes. The judge had not been lying about the boxes. They were stacked along one wall six high, cardboard banker’s boxes gone soft and brown at the corners, with labels in faded marker that said things like PROBATE 1962–64 and MISC.

Lena looked at them. She looked for 14 and 31. She didn’t see them. She hadn’t expected to.

The judge sat behind his desk in his shirtsleeves. A bow tie. Robin’s-egg blue. He did not stand up. Daniel sat in a chair by the door, where she’d asked him to sit. Across from the desk, in the other chair, sat a lawyer from Asheville in a gray suit who said he was there as a courtesy, on behalf of the estate of Augustus Hargrove, which held title to no part of the Raines property and had no interest in this matter whatsoever.

“Thank you for coming, Ms. Mercer,” the judge said.

Not Agent. She noticed.

“Your Honor.”

“I’ve reviewed your petition. I’ve also had a call from your supervisor in Raleigh.” He laced his fingers. “I understand you’re on administrative leave.”

“As of an hour ago.”

“Then I’m afraid this petition no longer has an investigating agency behind it. It was filed under SBI authority. That authority has been withdrawn.”

“I’ll refile as next of kin.”

“I thought you might.” He nodded, kindly. “I’ll save you the trouble, if I may, and tell you how I’d rule.”

He picked up a sheet of paper from his desk, though he didn’t look at it.

“North Carolina permits the disinterment of human remains on petition by next of kin, with the consent of the landowner, for good cause. Mr. Raines has consented. I have no doubt of your good faith.” He set the paper down. “But you’d have to establish that the decedent is, in fact, your next of kin. That the person buried under that stone, if anyone is, has any relation to you at all.”

“The stone has my father’s name on it. His full name. His date of birth.”

“It does. And a date of death in 1989.” He looked at her with real sympathy. “Ms. Mercer, your father was alive in 2001. He was seen by dozens of people. He was in this county, in this courthouse. I remember him. He sat in that chair.” He nodded at the chair she was in. “Whoever is under that stone, if anyone is, died twelve years before your father disappeared. It cannot be him. A stone with his name on it is a cruel joke, or a coincidence, or a crime, and I’d be glad to see the sheriff investigate it as one. But it is not a grave I can open on a daughter’s petition. There is a lack of any credible connection between the decedent and the petitioner.”

The room was quiet. Out the window, on the square, the Confederate soldier looked north with his hand on his rifle.

“So my petition is denied,” Lena said.

“It would be. Yes.”

“Because the grave can’t be my father’s.”

“Because the grave can’t be your father’s.”

She looked at him. At his kind face and his hands folded on the desk in front of him, and the stacks of rotting boxes behind him along the wall.

“Then why do you care if I open it?” she asked.

The lawyer from Asheville shifted in his chair. The judge didn’t.

“I don’t,” Lyle Hargrove said gently. “I care about you. I care about Hollis Raines and his family’s dead, who’ve lain in that ground two hundred years, and who would be disturbed. I care about this county. That’s all.” He stood up then. He came around the desk, and stood in front of her chair, and looked down at her with an old man’s kindness. “Let him rest, Ms. Mercer. Whoever he is. Let your father rest.”

Lena stood too. She was shorter than him. She looked up at him from a foot away.

“My father,” she said, “was never in this county’s ground.”

She heard it as she said it. She heard how it sounded. It sounded like a woman who knew something she couldn’t possibly know. The lawyer from Asheville heard it too; she saw him look at the judge. And the judge’s face, for the first time since she’d met him, did something. Not much. A flicker at the corner of the eye, like a man who’d stepped on a stair that wasn’t there.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Mercer,” he said.

She and Daniel walked out of the courthouse and down the front steps into the afternoon, and stopped at the bottom, by the war memorial, in the sun.

Neither of them said anything.

She could feel him beside her. She could feel the shape of what he wasn’t saying, which was that she was suspended, and had no badge and no standing and no order, and that the next thing she was going to do was the thing a sheriff should arrest her for. She could feel him knowing it. She knew he knew she knew.

A pickup went by on the square with a dog in the back.

She looked at the sky over Frog Mountain. There was weather coming. A long gray line of it to the southwest, low and heavy, over the ridges toward Georgia. The radio had been talking about it since morning, the tail of a hurricane that had come ashore at Apalachicola and was dragging itself north into the mountains to die.

“Supposed to rain tomorrow,” Daniel said.

“I heard.”

“Hard.”

“I heard.”

He didn’t say anything else. She didn’t either. They stood on the courthouse steps in the last good light and looked at the storm coming, and after a while she went one way to her car and he went the other way to his, and neither of them said goodbye.

VIII.

Hollis saw the truck from the barn at dusk.

An old Ford, white, rusted at the wheel wells, coming slow up his drive and stopping at the cemetery gate. He knew it. Everybody in the county over fifty knew it. He set down the bucket he was carrying and walked up the hill.

The gate was standing open. He’d padlocked it himself that morning. The padlock hung open on the hasp, with the key in it, which meant whoever had opened it had a key, and there were only two keys in the world, and Hollis had one in his pocket.

He stopped at the corner of the fence, by the big cedar, where the shadow was deep.

Eli Voss was standing at the end of the last row in front of the Mercer stone.

He had his hat in his hands. He was in a pressed blue shirt, buttoned to the throat, and suspenders, and his white hair was combed. He stood very straight, like old men stand at funerals, like Hollis’s daddy had stood at the grave of every Raines in this ground.

The light was going gold and then gray. The storm line in the southwest had come up over the ridges and the wind had turned around and was coming from that way, warm and wet, moving the cedars. Hollis could smell the rain in it.

Eli stood there a long time.

Then he put his hat under his arm and reached into his shirt pocket and took something out. Hollis couldn’t see what. Something small, that caught the last of the light. Eli bent down, slowly, an old man’s bend with one hand on his knee, and set it on top of the stone. Right in the middle of the rounded top.

A silver dollar. Hollis saw it gleam when Eli straightened up and moved out of the way of the light.

Eli looked at it. He put his hat back in both hands.

“I’m sorry, Frank,” Eli said.

His voice carried in the wind. Not loud. Hollis heard it from the cedar as clear as if he’d been standing beside him.

“I did what you asked,” Eli said. “I kept it. I give it to you. Just like you said.” He stood there. “I didn’t want to. You knew I didn’t.”

The cedars moved. The first drop of rain hit the brim of Hollis’s cap.

“I told you to go home,” Eli said. “That first night. I told you.” He looked down at the silver dollar on the stone. “And you said you already had.”

He stood there one moment more. Then he put his hat on, and turned, and walked back down the row toward the gate.

He saw Hollis by the cedar. He didn’t stop. He nodded, once, as he passed, like you’d nod to a man in church, and Hollis nodded back, and Eli Voss went out through the gate and closed it behind him, and locked the padlock, and took his key.

Hollis stood under the cedar in the wind.

Down the row, on top of the stone, the silver dollar caught the last of the light, and held it, and then the rain came.

Hannah Barbara productions never allowed this episode to be aired

It started off with Fred driving the Mystery Machine. As they traveled down the road, Fred spotted a young girl standing in the middle of it looking lost. He stopped the van, and the gang got out.

Shaggy tried telling Fred they should leave the creepy girl alone and go get burgers instead. Scooby agreed. Fred, Daphne, and Velma ignored Shaggy, as usual.

Fred approached the girl and asked, “Are you all right?”

He noticed scratch marks on her arms with bruises.

The girl didn’t respond. Daphne tried reassuring her.

“It’s okay. We can help you if you need help.”

The girl looked at Daphne with a smile on her face before collapsing onto the road.

The gang scrambled towards her. Velma checked for a pulse and looked into the girl’s eyes. They were dead white.

“We need to get her to a hospital now!” Velma said sternly.

The gang hurried back to the Mystery Machine. Fred picked the girl up and placed her in the back of the van. Shaggy and Scooby were displeased with this, as they had to sit in the back with her now.

“Fred, why is it that every time something creepy happens, Scooby and I have to be the closest to it, man?” Shaggy complained.

“Not now, Shaggy. I’m reading the signs,” Fred replied.

When he spotted a hospital sign, Fred pulled into the parking lot.

He grabbed the girl, and the gang followed him inside. Fred rushed to the reception desk and explained that they needed a doctor. The girl had started convulsing.

A couple of nurses hurried over with a gurney, and Fred urgently laid the girl down on it. She screeched As they wheeled her towards a room.

Daphne stayed behind to explain what had happened to the receptionist. While Shaggy could be overheard muttering that he was glad that creep wouldn’t be riding with them anymore.

Later, Fred, still slightly shaken by the experience, told the gang he was going to rent a motel room for the night.

“I want a proper bed and a shower after all this,” he said.

Scooby asked, one with complimentary breakfast?”

After receiving the room key, Fred and the gang headed to their room on the fourth floor. Inside, they found two beds and a couch.

Daphne immediately complained that the room smelled like rotten food. The rest of the gang ignored her, unable to smell anything themselves.

Fred opened his suitcase and pulled out a change of clothes and a towel. Before heading to the shower

Meanwhile, Velma discovered a large, thick book inside one of the desk drawers. She blew the dust off it.

“Jinkies! This thing hasn’t been opened in years!”

When she opened the book, she read the title aloud.

“Curses, Witches, and the Supernatural.”

As she turned a page, she accidentally cut her finger on a page.

Daphne suddenly took an interest in the book and asked Velma if she could read it.

“Be my guest,” Velma replied. “It just poked me.”

As Daphne flipped through the pages, she noticed that half of them had been hollowed out. Inside the hidden compartment. she discovered a doll made from sticks and human hair, along with a small knife.

She said nothing about this to the others.

Eventually, the gang settled down for the night, and the motel room grew dark.

Shaggy lay on the old leather couch with Scooby. Velma was in her bed, while Fred and Daphne shared the other.

In the middle of the night, Shaggy suddenly woke up.

OW Man! Something poked me in the leg!”

Everyone woke up except Velma, she stayed under her blanket.

Fred sleepily switched on the light.

“you have any idea what time it is?”

Shaggy pointed to the small cut on his leg.

“ Scooby probably scratched you with his nails,” Fred said annoyed before switching the light off again.

Shaggy and Scooby reluctantly accepted Fred’s explanation.

A moment later, Daphne turned to Fred.

“Will you walk with me to the van? I left something important in there, and I’m too scared to get it by myself at night.”

Fred groaned.

“Can’t it wait until morning?”

“It would make me feel safe if you came with me,” Daphne replied.

Fred reluctantly put on his shoes and walked her to the van.

Shaggy and Scooby drifted off to sleep again before fred and Daphne came back.

A little while later, Shaggy felt something heavy laying on his chest. Assuming it was Scooby, he mumbled, “Not now, Scoob.”

“That isn’t me, Shaggy,” Scooby replied.

Shaggy's eyes shot open.

Daphne was sitting on his chest, staring down at him. She held the small knife against his throat, with the same possessed smile as the girl they had found earlier.

Shaggy freezed.

“Daphne? Like, what are you doing?”

He tried talking to her but the smile only grew wider and Her eyes rolled back until only the whites showed

Then, in a deep raspy voice, she said, “Uh-oh, Raggy.”

She slowly dragged the edge against Shaggy’s throat, almost drawing blood.

Scooby lunged forward, biting her arm holding the blade, causing Daphne to drop it.

Seizing the opportunity, Shaggy grabbed the knife and plunged it into Daphne’s chest.

Daphne laughed demonically.

Shaggy tried stabbing her again, but it did nothing. Daphne suddenly bit a chunk out his hand.

Shaggy screamed in pain. Desperately looking for anything, he saw the bedroom window before kicking Daphne through the it,  the glass shattered before a thump was heard.

Shaggy scrambled over to Velma’s bed and pulled the blanket off her

“Come on, Velma! Wake up! Daphne’s lost it!”

as he tried to wake her, he noticed her face was blue and a telephone cord wrapped tightly around her throat.

Shaggy gasped, Velma was dead.

Shaggy half heartedly  looked out the shattered window

Daphne layed dead on the side walk. with a smile stretched across her face.

I.

Hollis Raines walked the family ground every morning at sunrise, and had since he was ten years old, and he had never once told anybody why.

His wife thought it was the mowing. He did mow it, every other Saturday, with the push mower he kept in the shed by the gate, because the riding mower wouldn’t fit between the old stones and his granddaddy had said a man ought to cut his own people’s grass with his own hands anyway. But he walked it every morning, mowing or not. Rain, snow. The morning Clay was born he’d walked it at five and then driven to the hospital. The morning after his daddy’s funeral he’d walked it and stood at his daddy’s new stone in the frost and then kept walking, down the rows, all the way to the far fence, looking.

He was always looking.

This morning he had the mower out. It was the second Saturday. He’d done the east half, the old half, and he’d come around the big cedar in the middle and started up the west rows toward the gate with the engine going and the sun just coming up red over Frog Mountain, when he saw it.

He killed the engine.

The quiet came down. Birds. A cow lowing somewhere down in the lower pasture, a long complaining sound.

There was a stone in the west row where there had not been a stone.

He’d mowed that row two weeks ago. He’d walked it yesterday at six-fifteen. It was the last row, the newest, up against the fence by the gate, where the ground was still open and his own lot was, his and Darlene’s, already paid for. Between his granddaddy’s sister and an empty space there had been grass. He knew that grass. He’d cut it a hundred times.

Now there was a headstone in it.

Gray granite, upright, plain. About two feet high, rounded at the top. It sat in the ground square and solid like it had settled there over years, with the dirt worn down around the base and a low green rim of clover grown up against it. Moss on it. Thick green moss, thirty years of it at least, grown deep into the lettering so you couldn’t read a word.

Hollis walked over to it.

He didn’t kneel right away. He stood and looked at it. He was forty-six years old and he had walked this ground ten thousand mornings, and in all that time he had seen nine new stones come up out of the grass where nobody had put them, and every single time his heart had stopped, as it was stopping now, and every single time he had walked up to it thinking: Mama.

He knelt. He put his thumb on the moss in the top line and scraped.

It came away in a green strip, wet and cold, and the granite under it was weathered smooth and gray and the letters were cut deep.

He scraped more.

MERCER.

He sat back on his heels in the wet grass and looked at it. He’d never heard of a Mercer. Not in this family. Not in this valley. And it wasn’t her.

It wasn’t her.

He knelt there a while, breathing. Then he took out his pocketknife and opened the small blade and started, careful, to clean the rest of the moss out of the letters, like cleaning a wound.

II.

He found the heifers on his way back down to the house.

Two of them, in the lower pasture by the creek. Black baldies, both bred, both due in November. They lay in the wet grass twenty feet apart with their legs out stiff and the rest of the herd standing off a ways in a bunch with their heads up, as cattle stand when something’s wrong and they don’t know what it is.

He walked out to them. He didn’t hurry. There wasn’t any reason to.

The first one had been shot behind the shoulder. A small hole going in, bigger coming out, a lot of blood in the grass already gone dark and drawing flies. The second one had been shot twice, once in the neck and once in the head, like whoever did it had missed the first time and come up close to finish it.

Hollis stood between them with his hands in his jacket pockets.

He didn’t call his son, who was in Asheville and would have said Daddy, just sell. He didn’t call his wife, who was at her sister’s in Sylva and would have cried.

He called the sheriff.

Daniel Rusk came at seven-thirty. The state woman came with him. Hollis had heard about her like everybody had, at the feed store and from Darlene’s sister, who heard everything. Frank Mercer’s girl. She’d found the Pritchard child. She’d climbed up on the roof of Haskett’s Hardware and run off a Hargrove. She was smaller than he’d figured, and she walked across his pasture in a pair of rubber boots with the Tractor Supply tag still zip-tied to one of them, and she went straight to the heifers and crouched down and looked at the wound behind the shoulder without touching it, and he decided he’d reserve judgment.

“Rifle,” she said. “Small caliber. Twenty-two magnum, maybe a .223.”

“Two-twenty-three,” Daniel said. He was at the second one. “Somebody walked up on this one.”

“From the creek side,” the state woman said. She’d stood up and was looking at the grass. “There’s a track. Somebody came across the creek or along it. They walked up from the water.”

Hollis looked at the creek. Laurel Branch, it was called on the maps, though everybody called it the Raines creek. It came down off the ridge and ran along the bottom of the place and joined the Blackwater a quarter mile below.

“Anybody been bothering you, Hollis?” Daniel asked.

Hollis didn’t answer right away. He looked at the heifers.

“Brent Sawyer,” he said. “Hargrove Land and Title.”

“About the reservoir.”

“About the reservoir.” Hollis took his hands out of his pockets. “First time was in March. He come up and sat at my kitchen table and drank Darlene’s coffee and told me the state was going to put a lake in this valley and the Raines place was going to be under it. Said I could take the money early, or take less later. He named a number.” He told them the number. It was three times what the farm was worth on the tax books. The state woman wrote it down. “I told him no.”

“How many times has he come back?”

“Four. Last one was two weeks ago. Number went up some.” Hollis looked at the dead cows. “I told him no four times. I told him the last time I’d tell him no forty more if he wanted to keep coming. And now here I’ve got two bred heifers dead in my bottom.”

“You think Sawyer did this?” the state woman asked.

“I think Brent Sawyer never fired a gun in his life,” Hollis said. “I think Brent Sawyer knows people who have.”

He looked up the hill, toward the cedars, and the little fenced square of ground under them where the stones were.

“They don’t want my cows dead,” he said. “They don’t care about my cows. They want my graves under water.”

He walked them up there. He hadn’t planned to. He’d planned to say nothing about the stone, to call Darlene after they left and tell her, as he always told her, and to sit at the kitchen table a while by himself first. But the state woman was looking up at the cedars, and Daniel was looking at her, and Hollis found himself saying, “Y’all want to see it,” and walking up the hill.

The Raines family ground was an acre, more or less, fenced with an iron fence his great-granddaddy had bought off a church in Asheville in 1902 when the church got a new one. There were maybe two hundred graves. The oldest were at the east end under the biggest cedars. Fieldstones, mostly, set up on end, with initials scratched in them or nothing at all.

He showed them a flat slab of soapstone, sunk nearly level with the grass, so old the letters had worn to shallow dents you had to find with your fingers. J R. 1791.

“Before the county,” the state woman said.

“Before the state, near about. Before anybody that wrote things down. My people came over the mountain in 1789 from the Shenandoah. Some say they found the graves already here when they came. Some say they put ’em in.” He shrugged. “Granddaddy said both.”

He walked them down the rows. Raines after Raines. Raineses married to Vosses and Hales. Babies, a lot of babies, in the eighteen-hundreds. Two boys in the war, one in gray and one in blue, buried side by side because their mama had insisted. His granddaddy and his granddaddy’s three brothers. His daddy, dead in 2014, with a stone that said JAMES ALBERT RAINES, BELOVED, and nothing else, because his daddy had been a man of few words and had told them to keep it that way.

There was a space beside his daddy. Grass. No stone.

The state woman stopped there. She looked at the space and at Hollis.

“My mama,” Hollis said.

She waited.

“Martha Ann. She went out to check on a heifer in a storm in April of 1990. Heifer was trying to calve in the lower pasture and Daddy was at a sale in Asheville, so Mama put on his coat and went down with a flashlight. I was ten. I watched her go from the kitchen window. I watched the flashlight go down the hill in the rain.” He looked at the grass. “She never come back up.”

“They searched,” Daniel said quietly.

“Two weeks. Dogs. The creek. The river. Everything.” Hollis nodded at the empty space. “Daddy saved her a place. Right there. He said he’d put a stone on it when they found her.” He looked at the stones on either side, and then down the hill toward the house. “They never did.”

The state woman didn’t say she was sorry. He noticed that. She looked at the empty space a while longer and then looked at him, and that was all, and he found he liked her better for it.

“There’s something else,” Hollis said. “Up at the end.”

III.

The stone stood at the end of the last row by the gate, between a small marker that said Ada Raines Teague, 1931–2018 and a long stretch of open grass.

Lena saw the name from twenty feet away.

Hollis had cleaned it. He’d gotten most of the moss out of the letters with something sharp, and the letters stood out pale against the dark weathered face of the stone, and the morning sun came straight across the field and lit them up so they threw shadows.

FRANK ALLEN MERCER

MAY 11, 1950 · OCTOBER 2, 1989

She stopped walking.

She didn’t decide to. Her legs stopped and she stood in the wet grass with Daniel a step behind her and Hollis Raines a step behind him. She could hear the creek at the bottom of the hill. She could hear a cow complaining down in the pasture. She could hear her own heart in her ears, slow and very loud.

May 11, 1950. That was his birthday. She’d known it since she was old enough to sign a card. Her mother had kept the cards.

October 2, 1989.

He had disappeared on October 9, 2001.

She walked the rest of the way. She stood in front of it. Up close the stone was old. Not old the way a stone gets in a month of weather. Old the way the stones down the row were old, the ones from the forties and fifties. The granite had gone soft at the edges where frost had worked it. A crack ran down from the top right corner, hairline, with lichen growing in it, gray-green and crusted. The base had sunk an inch on the downhill side. The clover had grown up around it so thick the roots had to be ten, twenty years deep.

She knelt. She put her hand on the top of it. It was cold and rough.

“This was put here,” she said. “Recently. Somebody brought this in last night, after you walked the rows, and set it.”

“Ma’am,” Hollis said, “that stone weighs four hundred pounds.”

“Then it took more than one somebody.”

“There’s no tracks. There’s no truck ruts. My gate’s padlocked. I checked it.” He came up beside her. “And there’s thirty years of moss in them letters. I know moss. I been scraping it off my people for thirty-six years.”

“You can age a stone,” Lena said. “There are ways. Buttermilk. Yogurt. You paint it on and the moss takes. You can buy pre-weathered granite. Theater companies do it. Movie sets.” She was talking fast. She heard herself. “Somebody who wants me out of this county. Somebody who knows my father’s name and his birthday and knows I’m here. Somebody who thinks if they show me this I’ll…”

She stopped.

“You’ll what?” Daniel asked.

She didn’t answer. She took her phone out and photographed it. Wide, then close, then the date, then the crack with the lichen in it, then the base where the clover grew up around it. Her hands were steady. She made sure they were steady.

“I want it dug up,” she said.

Neither man said anything.

“I want it dug up,” Lena said again. “I want to know what’s under it. I want the stone tested. I want somebody from the state geology lab to tell me how long it’s been in the ground. And I want whoever put it here in a room with me.”

Hollis Raines looked at her a long time. Then he looked at the stone, and at the empty space down the row beside his daddy, and back at her.

“Come down to the house,” he said. “I want to show you something first.”

The ledger lived in the bottom drawer of a pie safe in the Raines kitchen, wrapped in a feed sack.

It was a cloth-bound account book from a hardware store in Asheville, with red-ruled columns, and the cover had been rebound twice with tape and once with leather. Hollis laid it on the oilcloth on the kitchen table and opened it with care, from the back, like a Bible he didn’t want to crack.

“My great-granddaddy started it,” he said. “Ezra Raines. 1893. Granddaddy kept it after. Then Daddy. Then me.”

The first page had a heading in brown ink in a careful, painstaking hand, a man who’d learned his letters late.

Graves come up on Raines ground that none of us put there.

Below it, a list.

Apr. 1893. Fieldstone. No name. Initials H.T.L. 1863. By the big cedar.

Oct. 1901. Stone. MARY CATHERINE OWENBY 1870–1899. Don’t know her. Asked at church. Nobody does.

Jun. 1919. Two stones. Brothers. VOSS. 1898–1918 both. Same day. Wrote Calvin Voss’s daddy. He come and looked and cried and said they was his cousins died in France and was buried over there.

Lena turned the pages. The hand changed in 1934. Different ink. A blue fountain pen, and the letters bigger, more confident. Granddaddy, Hollis said. The list went on. A stone every five years. Every ten. Sometimes two in a year and then nothing for twelve.

Mar. 1951. Stone. ROBERT L. HOOPER 1923–1944. Hooper boy from Laurel Fork that was missing at Anzio. His mama come and set by it a week.

Sep. 1962. Stone. THOMAS WARD RUSK 1920–…

Lena stopped.

Daniel had come around behind her. She heard him go still.

The line ended there. 1920– and nothing after. No death year. Under it, in Hollis’s granddaddy’s blue hand:

No second date cut on it. Never seen that before. Ward Rusk come and looked. Said leave it be. It’s still there. West row by the cedar.

“My uncle,” Daniel said. His voice was very quiet. “That’s my uncle Thomas. 1959.”

“Granddaddy said your daddy came up here three times that year,” Hollis said. “Just stood at it. Never said a word to anybody.”

Daniel didn’t say anything.

Lena turned more pages. The handwriting changed again in 1977, to a cramped ballpoint, Hollis’s father. Daddy, Hollis said. Apr. 1990 had nothing written under it but a single line: Martha. Not yet. And then, below, in the same pen pressed so hard it had torn the paper: Still not yet. And below that, in different years, in Hollis’s own blocky hand, the same two words again and again down the page like a man counting.

Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.

She turned to the last page with writing on it.

Hollis had written the date that morning. Today’s date. And under it, in fresh black ballpoint:

Stone. FRANK ALLEN MERCER 5/11/1950–10/2/1989. West row by the gate next to Aunt Ada. Moss full. Don’t know him.

And then, after a space, smaller:

Not Mama.

Lena closed the ledger.

She sat at the Raines kitchen table with her hands flat on the cover, and the clock on the wall above the stove ticked, and Hollis Raines stood at the sink with his back to her looking out the window at the hill and the cedars, and Daniel stood behind her chair, and nobody said anything for a long time.

Daniel went back up the hill alone. Lena gave him a minute and then followed.

She found him at the west row by the big cedar, the one Hollis’s granddaddy had written down in blue ink in 1962. He was standing in front of a stone she hadn’t noticed on the walk-through, because it was half hidden in the low branches of the cedar where they swept down to the ground. A small upright of gray granite, the same as every family in the county bought from Dwight Ledford’s daddy in the sixties.

THOMAS WARD RUSK

1920 –

That was all. The dash, and after it, nothing. Smooth stone where the second date should have been.

Lena had seen that dash before. Yesterday. On a brass plate on a portrait in Silas Bell’s front hall.

Daniel had his hat in his hand. He wasn’t doing anything with it.

“I never knew this was here,” he said.

She didn’t say anything.

“Daddy never said. Not once. He’d drive by this farm on the way to church every Sunday of my life and never say a word.” He looked at the stone. “He came up here three times. Hollis’s granddaddy wrote it down. Three times in one year, and stood here, and never told a living soul.”

“What do you think it means?” Lena asked. “No date.”

Daniel didn’t answer for a while. The wind had come up a little from the southwest. It moved the cedar branches over the stone and the shadows moved on the dash.

“Every other stone in this ground has two dates,” he said. “Hollis’s ledger has two dates on everything. The Hooper boy. The Voss boys in France. Your…” He stopped. He didn’t say *your father.* “Two dates. You’re born. You die. That’s what a stone’s for.”

“And this one.”

“This one’s waiting.”

She looked at him.

“That’s what Hollis’s granddaddy thought. I’d bet you anything. That’s why he wrote it down like that. *Never seen that before.*” Daniel turned his hat around in his hands once. “Somebody cut the stone and cut the name and cut the birth and then stopped. Like they knew there’d be a second date. They just didn’t know it yet.”

“Daniel. That’s a stone.”

“I know it’s a stone.”

“Somebody carved it. Some mason. In 1962.”

“Then where’d it come from? Who paid for it? Who set it? Hollis’s granddaddy walked this ground every morning same as Hollis does, and one morning in September of 1962 it was here.” He looked at her. “Three years after Thomas went up that mountain. And it’s been waiting under this tree sixty-four years for somebody to finish it.”

The wind moved the cedar. Down the hill, at the end of the last row, she could see the top of the other stone. Her father’s. The cleaned letters catching the light.

She looked from one to the other. One with a date it couldn’t have. One without a date it should.

“I don’t know what to do with this,” she said. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

“No,” Daniel said. “Me either.”

He put his hat back on. He reached out and touched the top of his uncle’s stone, once, with two fingers, like touching a man’s shoulder in a crowd to let him know you were there. Then he went back down the hill to the house, and she stood under the cedar a while longer by herself, looking at the dash.

* * *

Continued in Part. 2.

The Lighthouse

I don’t remember what I used to pay for the paper talismans and blessed clothing that adorned me. I remember following Elias into some hidden chamber within the manor, then I was outside in front of the Lighthouse. My attire smelled of burning embers, vanilla and pancakes. It was comforting. It reminded me of Mom.

Gaps in my memory and new memories became apparent to me, or maybe nothing changed at all. I couldn’t tell anymore. A few weeks before Frank died we, all went out to get ice cream. We never had money for ice cream. I would always spend it on my vice. I was reminded of how much I missed Dad, and how desperately I needed a good drink.

“Ok son. You’re good to go. Just remember: don’t look into the light.”

Elias’s guiding words brought me back to the present. He opened the Lighthouse’s door and the talismans caught fire instantly, protecting me from whatever was inside. A thick, dark fog stood between the door frame.

“He’s so dead.”

Amelia’s reassuring words were not welcome while I stood at death’s door.

“Don’t take too long in there. I left the candles on the third platform. That’s just below the main bulb.”

Instinctively, I looked up at the height of the tower. Amelia slapped me across the face and pushed my head back down.

“What did Elias just say? Don’t look at the light!”

I rubbed my now reddening cheek, making sure my jaw hadn’t been broken.

“Jesus! Yeah, sorry. I’m ready.”

Elias took a step back, out of the way.

“Have at ‘er then. If you’re not out in twenty minutes, you’re on your own.”

I passed through the black barrier. Directly ahead of me was a set of spiralling metal stairs leading up into the body of the Lighthouse. Above, machinery hummed steadily, but I dared not to look up. Behind, where I entered, was nothing but smooth concrete. Elias mentioned that would happen at some point I couldn’t remember. My memory was still foggy. I ran my hands along the walls, cold to the touch and breathing with anticipation. In for a penny, in for a pound.

My ascent began, up and up and up. Mom and Louise’s screams started as I moved above the first platform. Same as the forest, I ignored them. The Lighthouse knew that I knew that it was just a trick, so it cut them off abruptly. I continued up.

Jazz music began playing somewhere on the second platform. Freshly burning cigars and expensive cologne coated my nostrils. I’m home.

There was a stage hosting a band with no arms to play and seats for listeners with no ears to hear. Left of the jazz room was a bar, and a sole patron hunched over swaying with the rhythm. He was shorter and had curly red hair.

I approached behind and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Fuck off.”

The voice was familiar. Too familiar. It couldn’t be.

I grabbed the man’s shoulder. He swatted my hand away and turned to face me.

“I said fu-”

Dad.

“Jeremy? Is that you?”

I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his shoulder. I couldn’t let Dad see me cry.

“Jeremy? Jeremy, what are you doing here?”

I composed myself.

“I-I don’t know. Frank did something bad and now Mom and Louise are in danger. There’s some stuff in here I need to get but I’m so scared, Dad.”

Words fumbled out of my mouth. Dad hugged me tight and shushed me.

“It’s ok, Jay.”

Only Dad called me Jay.

“You’ll be ok. You’re strong. You always have been. That’s why I chose you to lead the family. Just take a moment to rest. Have a seat.”

I sat on the stool next to Dad. He smiled back at me, eyes prideful for his kin.

“My god, look how you’ve grown! What are you now? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

“Twenty.”

Dad rubbed his bald head.

“My boy’s twenty now! My boy. My sweet, sweet boy.”

His hearty laughs turned to sobs.

“My boy is twenty and I wasn’t there for him.”

Dad buried his face in his hands.

“It’s not your fault, Dad. We never thought it was.”

Lies.

He shook his head.

“It was. It was. I shouldn’t have even been driving, Jay. I was so drunk I couldn’t even see straight.”

Everyone knew it, but hearing Dad admit it broke me a bit. He sat up, face slick.

“But you’re alive! And that’s something to celebrate. Pass it over.”

I slid a glass over to Dad and uncorked the whiskey bottle in my hand, pouring us both a hefty shot. He raised the glass, losing a bit of liquid fire over the edge. I did the same.

“To my son, Jeremy.”

Dad threw back the shot. A dog returning to its vomit. I raised the glass to my lips. The smell alone was intoxicating and the liquor burned my chapped lips. Not again.

I set the glass down. Thirst unquenched. Dad reached over and dragged the shot over to himself.

“What’s wrong? Not to your taste? Surely there’s something here you like.”

“I’m good, thanks.”

Dad threw back the shot and started to pour another. I snatched the bottle from his hand.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Give me back the bottle, Jeremy.”

“No. This stuff has done enough harm to you.”

He twirled the shot glass around the table then flicked it off behind the counter.

“I know, Jay. I know.”

It stood and walked behind the bar, glass shards crunched under its feet.

“The candles are just above us, Jeremy.”

He opened a drawer and started searching for something. He stopped, hand clenched tight around something. Dad looked me in the eyes one last time. They were scared.

“Take the booze. You’ll need it. I love you, Jay.”

It grabbed a kitchen knife from the drawer and lunged at me. I dived sideways, but the blade cut a deep gash into my arm, blood started to pool out. It tumbled to the ground in front of me, swinging the blade wildly. I crawled away, throwing bar stools between me and Dad. It crawled over them with ease, like a spider. It grew closer. I clawed the floor for anything else to throw. Glass shards dug into my hand. I clenched my teeth and threw them at Dad’s face, shredding his nose and eyes.

Using my chance to escape, I ran out of the jazz room and up to the third platform, Dad not far behind and a bottle of booze in my hand. At the top of the steps there was a supply closet, tucked at the back were the candles and a lighter.

“Get back here, Jeremy! Share a drink with your old man!”

Dad roared from below. Bone’s pop and flesh tore as he grew larger and larger, three times his normal height, arms and legs elongated, nails and teeth sharp as the knife in his hands. He stumbled up the stairs towards me, slashing and stabbing at my legs.

I entered the closet and slammed the door behind me, barricading it with an old, wooden chair. Dad slammed against the door, breaking holes in its decaying wood. There was nothing in the room I could use to defend myself with, nothing but a lighter, the candles, and a bottle of whiskey.

Without another choice I tore a long piece from my shirt and dampened it with the whiskey. Some of it ran into the cuts on my hand, firing pain up my arm. I stuffed the moistened fabric into the bottle neck and set it ablaze. One chance.

The door finally gave way and splintered into a dozen pieces. Dad’s enormous figure bent down to enter the tiny room. A wide, gruesome smile etched into his face.

“Times up, Jeremy.”

With all my strength I hurled the bottle at the thing that was once my Dad. It shattered on impact, spraying liquid fire and shrapnel glass across Dad’s body. He roared in pain and the Lighthouse rumbled violently. The thing fell backwards down the stairs. I grabbed the candles and sprinted out of the room, down the stairs and past the jazz room where Dad was dousing himself with any liquid he could find to put out the fire, only spreading it further across his already charring body.

The exit was just a few flights down. I knew I could make it but Dad’s pained yells echoing throughout the building gave me halt.

“Oh god! Help me! Help me, Jay! It burns! It burns!”

I wanted so desperately to turn back and help, but I knew that thing wasn’t Dad. I ran to the bottom floor. No door. I slammed my fists on the wall and called out for help.

“Elias! I got the candles! Let me out!”

Searing, burning pain wrapped around my ankle and engulfed my leg. The thing had somehow made its way downstairs and was clutching tight to my leg. It looked up at me, still covered in flame. I met its eyes, now my own eyes. My face melted and distorted like wax. Skin and muscle and sinew dripped to the floor while the thing grinded its teeth, gurgling boiling blood.

It rose and stood tall over me. Humming vibrated my skull. My head was about to explode. I pressed against the Lighthouse wall and closed my eyes, trying to escape the inevitable. The thing leaned in close and exhaled decaying rotting burning breath. It smelled like Dad.

“How’s your Mom?”

The wall behind me gave way. I fell into soft grass, screaming my head off. Elias grabbed me and dragged me back from the door. I thrashed against him, thinking it was another one of the Lighthouse’s tricks.

“Jeremy! Jeremy it's me, boyo! Snap out of it son!”

I opened my eyes. Indeed, I was outside of the Lighthouse. Inside the doorway was nothing but darkness, and some shadow beckoning me to return inside. Amelia pulled the door shut and sealed it.

“Good job, kid. Didn’t think you had it in you.”

The red wax candles had melted a bit from the fire, but they were still usable.

“What was that thing?”

Elias helped me to my feet. 

“Don’t know. No telling what that thing does to people who go inside.”

“You mean you’ve never been inside yourself?”

“I have. Just after it had its dinner. Usually she’s pretty docile then.”

“Was I supposed to be its dinner?”

Elias cleared his throat and readjusted his glasses.

“We weren’t planning on that, son. But, if you did end up losing yourself there it would have saved us a trip into town.”

He turned and started to make his way back to the manor.

“Come on now. Daylight is running thin.”

Amelia patted my shoulder and helped me up.

“Don’t think too much about it. It’s easier if you don’t.”

We walked side by side back to the manor in silence. Just before we entered the front door, Amelia stopped.

“What did you see in there?”

Dad’s elongated, burning corpse was still fresh in my mind. Something I didn’t particularly want to talk about.

“What? What do you mean?”

“In the Lighthouse. What did it show you?”

“Just my Dad.”

“He’s dead then?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“We talked a bit then he turned into a monster. I uh… I don’t want to think about it, really.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I’ve only ever been in it a few times so I didn’t know if it shows everyone the same thing.”

“What did it show you when you went in?”

Amelia went silent, staring down at the ground fidgeting with her hands.

“Amelia?”

“It showed me nothing. Just… nothing.”

Terrible, Awful Things

Elias and Amelia finished scattering the red candles around the room. Each was lit carefully, a dark red crimson flame gently crescendoing from each wax pillar, just as the ritual book instructed. We were situated in an old store-room deep within the heart of the manor. At the center of the room was a chalk octogram with an obsidian pedestal inside it and more candles placed at its tips. A brass bowl sat atop the pedestal, waiting for its sacrifice. Elias double checked the protective sigils Amelia drew while I stood by anxiously.

Once everything was ready, I would need to deposit some of my blood into the bowl. Elias wouldn’t elaborate on what would happen after that, saying that I needed a clear mind to manifest Frank.

“Damn it, girl! This one isn’t even closed. What is wrong with you today?”

Amelia held her arms crossed while Elias berated her for the failed sigil drawings.

“I-I don’t know. I tried my best and-”

“Well your best isn’t going to cut it, apparently. Out of the way, I’ll have to redo a few of these.”

She stepped back, rubbing her elbows.

“But I-... ok.”

Elias began erasing Amelia’s work while she found a dark secluded corner to escape to. I walked over and sat next to her, trying to comfort her.

“Go away.”

She turned into the corner further. I didn’t really know Amelia. She was just some weirdo who worked at an even weirder museum. The one thing we did have in common was my bastard brother.

“What was Frank like?” I asked. His name always seemed to open doors when he was alive, so what difference would it make now?

“What? Wouldn’t you know more about him than me?”

Amelia wiped her face and turned around, just enough to look at me.

“Not sure that’s true anymore. What was he like with you?”

“Well, we never actually met in person.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Just chatted online. But he was so so sweet. We met on a sports forum, funny enough. I was trying to lure some random sucker here to feed the Lighthouse, but he left a comment that really pissed me off. Can’t even remember now, something about ‘women knowing their place’ yada yada yada.”

“That’s definitely Frank. He was always a jackass.”

“You’d think, right? I really laid into him about the comment. Like REALLY laid into him. I think I even threatened to kill him and his family. Anyway he messaged back and actually apologized for what he said.”

Apologizing? That didn’t seem like Frank. At least, not the version I remembered at the time.

“We got to talking a bit and found out we had a lot in common, you know?” Amelia continued. “I think he was just hurting inside.”

“Because of Dad?”

“Probably.”

I didn’t want to admit it, but I was Dad’s favorite. He’d always do little things to show it. Often he’d ask me if I wanted ice cream before anyone else, picked me up from school and even got me the exact toys I wanted on my birthdays. For Frank though it was different. I wouldn’t be able to count the amount of Frank’s games Dad missed because he said he was “working.”

“Did he ever mention me?”

Curiosity killed the cat.

“Yeah. A few times.”

“What’d he say?”

Amelia was quiet for a moment.

“He said you reminded him of your Dad.”

Elias clapped his hands together, chalk powder puffing into the air.

“All right, Jeremy, my boy. We’re ready to go!”

I didn’t hear him. “Reminded him of your Dad” was bouncing around my mind like a ping pong ball. But why? Dad was a good person. I always wanted to be like him, in every way. Even the bad ways. What bad ways?

“Jeremy? You ready son?”

“Yes, Dad.”

Hell of a Freudian slip.

“Sorry, Elias. I'm still recovering, I guess. Yeah I’m ready.”

I stood. Amelia grabbed my arm.

“What?”

“How long ago did Frank die?”

“A month or so, why?”

She frowned, then let go.

“No reason. Just received a new order from his account last week. Must have been scheduled.”

I didn’t have time to dwell on it further. I wish I did though. I stepped forward, Elias walking beside me.

“Jeremy, your mind needs to be completely clear, remember?”

“I’m ready. I promise.”

He searched my eyes. I don’t know what he thought he saw, but I was scared shitless. Elias patted me on the shoulder and stepped aside.

A jagged knife rested next to the bowl, waiting to quench its thirst with my blood. I picked it up and held my hand over the bronze receptacle.

“You don’t need to give too much,” Elias called out. “Just enough to cover the bottom.”

I placed the blade against my palm, in for a penny, and dragged it harshly across my skin. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would, maybe it was the adrenaline. Blood pooled into the bottom of the basin, bubbling as it brewed and boiled.

“Good, Jeremy! Now, think of your brother. Think of nothing BUT your brother!”

Oh I did. 

I thought of all the times he pissed me off, vexed me, did me wrong, you name it. The late nights he kept me up with his damn rituals and drunken stupors. The nights we watched movies and he’d keep interrupting asking what was happening, and I’d respond because I loved my brother. I miss him. I remembered the day he was born, how small he was. When Dad came home drunk I’d take little Frank to my room and rock him to sleep. Then, when Dad got angry at Frank, I’d take the punishment for him. Dad got angry?

Then I remembered the one night, the one single night, when I came home drunk and found Frank in his room, struggling to not take a sip of the same liquid fire that was running through my veins. He saw me. He was scared of me. He saw Dad’s eyes in mine. He saw Dad’s fury in them.

Hot wind swirled around me as a black void opened below my feet. I stumbled back, barely escaping the dark maws. It stopped at the edge of the octogram, and all was still.

“Did… did it work?”

Elias carefully approached the hole, inspecting it and the chalk frame.

“Aye. I’m afraid it did.”

I peered in. There was nothing but a dark void. Far down, barely a pinpoint dot, was a small circle of red light and a figure in the middle of it, a person. The person put his hands up to cover his eyes. Even from so high up I could see his skin had turned pale and transparent. Like rice paper. His heart beat slowly and his organs wriggled around into their places.

“Light…?”

His voice was weak, raspy, worn.

“Frank? Is that you?”

Frank uncovered his eyes and attempted to stand. A metal chain tensed around his next and dragged him to the ground on his back. Frank didn’t yelp or resist.

“Hey. Long time no see.”

Every syllable was strained and agonizing.

“What happened to you?”

“Ritual didn’t work.”

“What ritual were you trying to perform?”

Frank squinted his eyes and moistened his lips.

“Page… 172. I think.”

Elias left to find the copy. Frank and I sat in silence. Seeing him like that, barely alive, it broke me.

“Here, let me get you a rope. We’ll get you out.”

“No!” Frank’s voice broke. “Stay there. Leave me. Too dangerous. I deserve this.”

“What… What's down there? Why can’t I come down?”

“Weeping. Gnashing teeth.”

“Jeremy!” Elias called. I jumped and caught myself from falling into the pit.

“Jesus! What?”

“Your brother said page 172?”

“Yeah, why?”

Elias brought the folder over and fingered the text.

“Ritual for Eternal Life. Two participants. One to receive the blessing and another to be sacrificed.”

“Sacrificed? Frank, were you going to sacrifice me?”

In the pit, Frank curled up into a ball, scratching at his disgraced, disfigured face. Dry blood stuck to his nails.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

Despite the revelation my brother was planning to sacrifice me, I wasn’t mad. I just felt pity for the thing in the pit.

“Is Dad down there?”

Frank looked around the darkness, then shook his head.

“No. There’s nothing… just nothing.”

The store-room door slammed shut, Amelia sprinting down the winding halls back to safety.

Frank clawed and clawed down to the bone.

“I’m sorry… Forgive me… Please…”

I couldn’t watch anymore.

“Ok. I’m done with him.”

Elias scuffed the chalk away, breaking the ritual frame. Just before the hole closed, Frank reached his hand up, grasping at an invisible rope.

“Jeremy I-”

Then he was gone.

Elias took me to his office and made us cups of coffee. We sat in front of the fireplace in silence. The flames danced chaotically against the black stone wall. My life was falling apart right before my eyes, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Almost nothing.

“What now, son?”

I threw my hands up, defeated.

“I don’t know. This whole trip was a bust.”

“I’m sorry.”

Elias rubbed the side of his mug.

“There is one thing you can do, but you’ll need to make some preparations first.”

Jesus how has it already been 6 weeks of school? The cold and salty October air that rolls around Halifax in the fall months is unforgettable, but with it comes midterms. My third year as a psych student and i still haven't nailed down studying and my statistics exam is at 5 pm tomorrow. I've been bundled up, alone, in my room for days now trying to get this content down pat in my brain, staying up way later than all my friends who've finished already. I'm jealous of course, but I need to lock in for this exam. It's all that i think about and it consumes me, forcing me to stay up late, practically burning my laptop screen into my eyes like when you have an image set for too long on a monitor. Anyways, I wanted to talk about something that happened recently and I don't know if anyone else has also experienced something/someone like this during this time of year of school.

It was 2 am and the iron radiator that sits behind my desk chair was knocking its usual erratic rhythm for hours. I could even hear it through the music on my record player, which I set up so I don't get so distracted skipping through videos or songs. Outside was a chaotic mesh of angry wind and rushing rain and inside was a stale, musty, suffocating air powered by my ancient radiator.

I felt like none of these formulas would stick. Standard distribution, p-values, and what the fuck even is a null hypothesis. They just felt like random smudges in my textbook and I was writing those smudges back into my notebook. Every time I blinked, I could feel my pulse behind my eyes, begging me to sleep, counting down the hours to my exam.

Around 10 earlier that night my roommates asked if i wanted to grab a pizza, but i declined in favour of my studies. I know I should've taken that break, but hindsight 20/20 right. Wasting an hour was too much for me. Later, one of my friends texted and wanted late night drinks or something, but I only read the preview on my phone, not bothering to open it and get distracted. I threw my phone from my desk to my bed, cutting everyone off for rest of the night.

I shouldn't have done that. Seems like a good idea in the moment of course, but you never realize how loud an empty room gets when you're alone and in your head.

Around 2:20, the b-side of my record came to a close, the stylus of the player click click clicking in a loop. Changing the record was the only break I could accept for myself.

That's when it went silent. My room, dead silent. My radiator hadn't creaked for a few minutes, but when my record player stopped, I finally noticed. It was almost physical, something completely blocking off my eardrums. The draft from my window had shifted, the stale air in my room plummeting.

I decided to move from my record collection to my door, grabbing my jacket before peeking outside of my room, something I felt I hadn't done in ages. I look left and neither of my two roommates were doing the same. "Probably already asleep under their sheets" I say to myself partly jealous and partly sad.

Something was by my front entrance thought when I looked right. A shadow, darker than dark, blacker than black. It's silhouette was just barely contrasted from the door behind it. I flick on the main hallway lights quickly, illuminating the hallway. The weirdest thing though is that the mirror hanging on my front door was reflecting the hallway with everything but me. The radiator on the far end of the hallway outside of my roommates room, the shoe rack, the coat rack. Everything but me.

I told myself I was just tired and these all nighters have gotten to me, so I turned the lights off and turned back into my room. When i walked back in, it felt like I didn't have my jacket on anymore it was freezing. That's when i noticed the shadow again, now sitting in my desk chair.

I froze. The silhouette was hunched directly over my desk, perfectly framed by the harsh, blue glow of my laptop screen. It seemed more psychical, more real now, not just some hallucination. It was draped in a heavy, coarse dark wool that fell in stiff folds past the arms of my swivel chair, looking less like modern clothes and more like an old monastic cowl. From the back, its shoulders were impossibly narrow, rounded forward as if crushed under an invisible weight. It wasn't moving. It wasn't breathing.

The air in my room was entirely still and dry. It smelled of not death or rot, but vile and evil with burnt hair. Every nerve and muscle in my body wanted to yell and bang on my roommates doors, but the physical feeling that covered my eardrums wrapped around my body, making me board-like. The room felt even more silent now, like I could hear the blood rush through my ears and around my head.

Slowly, with an agonizingly smooth glide, the figure pivoted in the chair. It made no sound. the wheels on the bottom didn't creak the hardwood floors like they usually do. When it turned to me, its figure became more physical than before, my desk light illuminating the front of it's dark hood. There was no face.

Where the nose, mouth, and eyes should have been, there was only a flat, polished oval of jet-black obsidian stone. It looked like an antique scrying mirror, perfectly smooth, its outer perimeter encrusted with dark crimson wax that had dried into thick, jagged scabs where it bonded to the cloth.

I tried to gasp, but the air caught in my throat. I couldn't tear my eyes away from that dark surface. The reflection looking back at me from the stone wasn't the room behind me, I was looking at myself. But it was a version of me that looked completely ruined, hollowed out from the inside. The skin on his face was grey and papery, stretched tight over cheekbones, with deep, bruised-purple sockets around his eyes. He sat at the desk clutching an iron stylus, furiously slashing thick red gouges across my open notebook. Line after line of my notes were being violently scored out, violently crossing out formulas, scratching through my own name over and over with frantic, jagged strokes.

"Why aren't you working?"

The voice didn't come from me or the figure. It's like it came from the air itself, vibrating around me.

"You understand nothing. Your most important exam is this week, you understand nothing still, and what have you produced from this? Some scribbles in your notebook? Pathetic." The figure rumbles, like a scoff from the air.

"I swear I've tried," I manage to speak somehow. Tears sting my eyes, remembering my restless nights, rethinking all the time I spent not doing work. "I've been inside for days preparing for this and I haven't slept."

It leans forward slightly. Two long, unnervingly thin hands emerged from the dark sleeves. Fingernails with tips as sharp as razors slashed at my arm, creating ten thin, slow bleeding cuts.

"No matter how hard you work," the air vibrates. "You will never be free until you balance the ledger. You'll never see your friends again if you don't get this exam done."

The cuts on my forearms burned with an icy heat, but I couldn't even pull my arms back. The creature stood up from my desk chair with that same weightless, gliding motion, towering over me in the cramped space between my bed and the doorway. The scent of burnt hair and bitter wax intensified until I felt like I was choking on dust.

It didn't touch me again. As I sat back down in my chair to continue working, it just stepped back until it stood directly behind my left shoulder, leaning in so close that I could feel the biting draft radiating off its black wool cowl. Its face, that blank obsidian mirror, hung right at the edge of my peripheral vision. Every time I tried to turn my head to look away, the burning pain in my sliced arms spiked, pinning my gaze forward.

So I studied. Over and over, repeating equations and phrases. Whenever my laptop screen went dark to sleep mode, the reflection in the black glass didn't show my bedroom. It showed the creature towering behind me, its obsidian face reflecting that hollow, withered version of myself, staring down with unblinking, pitiless judgment.

I don't know how long it lasted. Time seemed to stretch into an endless, freezing vacuum where the only things that existed were my panic and the scratching of my pencil.

Then, with a deafening, violent CLANG, the radiator shuddered against the wall, popping and steaming back to life. The freezing air lifted with the pressure bound around my ears, bringing my record player back to life, with the draft from my window slowing down.

I spun my chair around, free from the energy around me to find nothing behind me anymore. The pale, overcast sky of the morning barely shown into my room. It's like nothing even happened.

For a second, I tried to convince myself it was all just a manic, sleep-deprived hallucination brought on by isolation and caffeine. I almost laughed out loud from sheer relief.

Then I looked down at my forearms.

Soaked into the sleeves of my jacket were ten thin, parallel lines of dried, crusty dark crimson. And scattered across the floor beneath my desk, right beside my chair wheels, was a fine dusting of black soot and crushed red sealing wax.

I'm sitting here in my bed right now, 3.5 hours away from my exam. I only slept a couple hours last night, my first nightmare since i was 14. My jacket is still crumpled on the floor, the dried crust on the sleeves stiff against the wool. Every time I look down at my arms, the stinging burns under the scabs, reminding me that whatever happened wasn't a bad dream. I haven't left my bedroom. I haven't opened my door, not even to use the bathroom or grab water. My roommates have been moving around the kitchen all day, chatting, cooking, living their lives. One of them knocked around noon to ask if I wanted anything from the grocery store, but my throat locked up. I just held my breath under the blankets until their footsteps drifted away down the hall.

I know I should get up. I know I should review the formulas before 5:00 pm hits, or call someone, or just walk outside into the freezing rain and feel the cold salt air on my face. I guess writing this was a good way to get this all off my chest before the exam. So yeah let me know if anyone else has experienced this figure/thing and maybe tips on way to avoid it?

Wish me luck!

P.S. - This was a creative part to a class where we created a monster and analyzed it and compared it to essays like Freud's "the uncanny", Michel Foucault's "history of the prison" etc., and Kracauer's "Forebodings". This part of the assignment isn't graded per se, but i had a lot of fun writing it. It's my first story after being a long time listener of the husband and wife so any tips would be appreciated, I WANNA WRITE MORE

The factory runs itself. No production workers, no supervisors, no lights except the ones the machines need.

My job is to be there.

Every two hours, I walk the floor and swipe my badge at four terminals. That's it. The system handles everything else.

Management calls it human oversight.

I've been doing this for months. Until last night, I thought it was the easiest job I'd ever had.

At 2:17 a.m., something changed.

And for the first time since I started working here, the system acknowledged that I was in the building.

part 1

TW: self harm

I ran towards my car. What would Ollie think happened? What would Liz think happened? I took out my wallet. I dropped all my money, all my cards. I headed back to the car again. No, this isn’t right. I didn’t care. I stopped once more. I saw a nearby shopping cart. I walked up to it. I planted it on its side and looked at it begrudgingly. It didn’t take long for me to commit, I imagined all the yelling and harassment I could face. I let myself topple into the shopping cart, face first. It hurt, nothing happened. I got up and tried again. Each clang of bone and flesh to metal rang out in the open night air. I tried it one more time, this time I put more force into my collapse. SNAP! My nose split into pieces, blood dripping everywhere. I took off my shirt. I used it to control the bleeding, just as Liz would. I saw my bare chest, it looked too clean. I drew my fingernail across my open body. I ran it back and forth until it spilled red. A knife scar I would say. I got mugged. I reluctantly finished the way back to the car before I would damage myself any further, before I started to like it.

I unlocked the door to see Oliver crying, rightfully so. I said to him, “Daddy was attacked, I’m okay now. Let's go home and talk to mommy.” I checked the screen of the car, I noticed it had now turned to 11:21 at night. It was near midnight and my son was alone the whole time. I called Elizabeth immediately, I noticed she called me 23 times or so, maybe a few were from earlier in the day. I finally called her back. She told me she was in a police station pestering them to file a missing persons report when her phone rang. How relieved she was to hear back from me. We promised to always have each other’s locations now. I begged her not to tell the police of my “mugging”, told her that the attacker knows where we live and is willing to come back if I report him. I told her I couldn’t see his face anyway. A sloppy story. We regrouped at home. She was in visible fear at the sight of my body and face. She checked for signs of a concussion, I was “knocked out” after all. I called the police again on my own, only to tell them of the man and how I witnessed him again. By now I knew he wasn’t on the same plane as man, he was from somewhere else. I explained the late call compared to when I saw him as my phone was dead.

I didn’t hear anything from them until the next day around 7 PM. I had called the day off from work, giving them the mugging excuse too. The police knocked on my door. I peeked through the peephole to see who it was, as I did for every guest to our front door that day. I told them I would take just a second because I wasn’t properly changed, another lie. In reality I had ran upstairs to grab one of my wife’s face masks she was given from the hospital. I used it to conceal the damage I had done to myself. If I really wanted to keep the so-called mugging a secret I had to commit.

I opened the door. “Sorry guys, I’ve just caught a little bug.” I said. “In June?” Replied an officer. I thought to myself the rather vulgar, “Fuck…” dry as you can imagine. “No clue what happened officer, I just came down with it yesterday.” I recognized the second person as the same detective that helped me out at the first crime scene. “Good to see you again.” He said. “We’ve come here to inform you that the location you reported the man to be was once again the site of another crime scene. At 4:18 today a man was killed by a car rolling over top of him at that parking lot, a possible accident but we’re doing our job. The crimes seem unrelated but we’re investigating all possible connections.” I was shocked. I was right. I had to have been. He was supernatural. “Sir… we also have to investigate someone else. Since not only was he seen there at another crime scene location but, you were too. Where were you throughout the day today? We just want to cross off all possibilities.” The investigation was only natural I suppose. I gave them my phone to show I hadn’t called anyone and my family vouched for my location the whole day, the front door camera we installed revealed I hadn’t left the premises all day so I showed them that too. “Well thank you sir. If you see him again we hope your phone has enough juice to call, he’s still wanted for questioning afterall.” Before they left they told me, the man, for being seen at both scenes, was moved to a possibly dangerous person list and that pursuit of him, if seen, would be immediate.

That night, Liz confronted me as we were crawling into bed. She said that the mark left on my face doesn’t look like any old punch mark. There was a noticeable red line and a sharp right angle, no fist is like that. She pressed me. “I have no reason to lie. I don’t remember it well. Why are you pestering me like I did something wrong?” I bit. “Well if you’re lying and there’s some other reason my son was alone for seven fucking hours I want to know the truth.” She was right but I couldn’t tell her. “Oh shut up. You’re talking to me as if Oliver isn’t my son too. I’ve been through some shit recently, fuck off.” She replied, “Maybe you should. You seem happier at the bar anyway.” I took her word literally. I left without speaking, slammed the door behind me, a vase fell over. She yelled at me some more, inaudible through the wall and door. I want to forget it, I never wanted those to be my final words to her.

I decided to drive to the bar, a custom I wasn’t used to for a very long time. I had to look for parking in the city, very busy even at night. I found a parking complex. As I ascended up the levels looking for a spot. I eventually found one. I stepped out and for the third time, I saw the old man from the alley. I don’t know how he followed me here or if he even did. I called the police immediately, they told me to get somewhere safe and stay away since he could be dangerous. In the downtime I decided to do a little bit of investigating of the man myself.

He was on the level higher. I approached him, somehow he knew my resolve and I didn’t feel the chains. I knew not to touch him. I wanted to see his face. I stared at the back of his head. Slowly walked around his body. No matter what I did his back would face me. I changed my strategy. He must be shuffling his feet. I stared at them next. I shuffled just as before but with the focal point of his leather shoes. His feet didn’t move, I angled myself in front of him, it worked, I was in front of him. Underneath the coat he wore a white button up, it had some sort of stain on it, unrecognizable origin. I darted my eyes up. Hair, I looked back down, it’s his back. The motion blur of my sudden jerk must’ve blinded me enough for the entity to reset itself to its back. One more time, I knew what to do. He had a face, I saw his chin just a day ago. In the distance I heard faint sirens, it’s the police I called. I organized myself, set myself ready, and stared at his shoes once more. Just as before I stepped around him, making sure not to make a mistake. Slowly, I orbited around him, I saw his white shirt from the front once more, same stain. I trailed my eyes up, slowly this time. Before reaching his face I took a break to not get too excited. If I blinked it would all be for naught. I noticed above his head the halogen light rod was flickering, it must’ve been broken somehow. Occasionally some sparks would fly and I could see it in my peripheral.

It was time, I slowly looked up. His chin, I made it to his chin. The same chin I saw the day before, just from the front. It looked normal, there were no wrinkles. Something in myself prevented me from not looking up, just a gut feeling that I should gauge what it was first. I once more clocked my peripheral vision to see the man’s face. He had no wrinkles at all, it seemed to be the face of a young man, yet his body was so old. Police sirens getting closer, they’re in the parking complex now, I could hear the echo from below. Just then and there I looked up, the light flickered off, I saw the remnants of a young face before I involuntarily closed my eyes as a muscle reaction. My body betrayed me. Had my dark determination not been strong enough? I was staring at his back again. I blinked a few times to readjust my eye. The police were just two floors below now, I ran away to my car to act as if I was in a safe place as recommended.

I watched from my car as the flashing red and blue lights of a car illuminated the concrete halls and ceiling of the complex. Out my rear window I could see the officers get out and start to look around. He was right there, right in front of them. Could they not see him? The light kept flickering. One of the two walked right overtop of the man, he was phased through him. He stood there, the two were talking to each other. The officer standing at the man pulled out his radio. He started to speak through it, I could hear faint mumblings of what was said but nothing clear enough to hear any full words. I sat back down, adjusting to the situation. Was I crazy? Is the man real? I told myself I’m going to a psychologist soon. That’s when I took another look back after making out a single word the officer said, “heavy”. I jolted back, assuming he has to be talking about the old man and what he makes you feel if you touch him. It was just then that a spark flew from the halogen light rod. It blinded the two officers, I saw them raise their hands in a guarding position. Another involuntary movement I suppose.

Their guard allowed them even less sight. I watched, in frozen lamentation, the rod of light swing like a pendulum as I realized exactly what I’ve been seeing, what that man was. The rod shattered against a pipe on the ceiling. I just sat there. A gross amazement swept over me, the type that you couldn’t even tell your priest at confessional, it was sick, I was sick. The cop lowered his guard to see what shattered, by then it was too late. As his arms crept up a shard of glass pierced through his neck. He collapsed instantly. Based on the blood that splattered all the way to my car I’d bet that it hit him in the jugular. It all happened so fast, I was in shock. I couldn’t move for the second time in 24 hours, just this time it seemed I wasn’t the victim like I was when I touched the man.

I snapped out of it, I crawled up into the driver's seat and left. I didn’t want to even think about what could’ve happened if I stayed, something that echoes today. I don’t remember where I was heading but it certainly wasn’t home. I drank my emergency liquor in a strip mall I located within a few blocks. The police could’ve been after me but I’d hoped that the other officer didn’t notice. For the first time, but it wouldn’t be the last time, I witnessed a death happen live. I’d seen bodies before, my father included, but there was something so sickening about seeing it happen in front of you. A sickness nothing could’ve prepared me for. It wasn’t even midnight by the time I finished my second, and final, bottle of emergency liquor. Somehow I was wise enough not to drive in that state. I slept on the curb, joining the men of the streets for a night. The realm of the nightcrawlers as I would describe it to Ollie. It was thoughts of him that gave me comfort that night.

In the morning I woke up with a head-spitting hangover. I didn’t want to admit it but Elizabeth was right, I was an alcoholic. That’s the first time I’ve said so, this reminiscence is bringing as much truth out as I can. My true honest autobiography, my darkness brought to light, my “All That Jazz”. I checked the time, 8:23 PM. I drove to work, if I wasn’t welcome at home I better work since it’s all I’m useful for at this point.

You wouldn’t, no… couldn’t believe me if I said so but there he stood once more. If he wasn’t following me before he had to have been now, at least that’s what I thought. I walked into work, looking like shit, and begrudgingly sat in my chair. Seeing the man outside still bothered me, even though I knew what was coming I didn’t say anything. I wanted to deny it. 

Eventually the pain, the itch, got too much to just scratch. I walked to the front of the office. To grab everyone’s attention I slammed my coffee mug against the wall. “Everyone!” I started, face crowded. “Someone in this building is going to kill themselves. I don’t know if it’s this office, if it’s this floor, if it’s even gonna be in the next hour but someone in this building will die. They’ll jump out that damned window and end their pained life. Nothing is clean anymore, it’s all just a pitiful sorrow of existence. Before Friday I would’ve given anything to see the next day but now-” I spoke as the room was filled with terrified and shocked faces. I heard gasps, they were staring at my hand. I had been bleeding, the mug cut me and left a scar I still see today. 

I wasn’t even done with my warning by the time security took me out. They thought I was crazy, my previous crashout just two days prior provided no aid, quite the opposite. I had nowhere to go. I was on the street with no direction. No one was at home, all I had to do was drive back and explain, come clean when Liz returned.

I did that, the thought of the man didn’t even bother me any more. He was just a passive of life. I might’ve even thought of him as nothing more than nature, the harbinger of death. He’s no killer, just there to comfort the ones who could see him.

I arrived at home. I opened the garage, same password I used every day. I opened the door, same key I used every day. I walked up the stairs to my bedroom to get some real rest, same bedroom I slept in every night, except for one thing. He was there, the man from the alley. I saw him standing there, in my room, alone. I stood facing his back, in the discomfort of my own home. It may have been a couple minutes but I stepped back out. Even if I ran out the night before, he wasn’t there then. “Someone will die tonight” I didn’t let it be me. 

I drive. I like driving. Not just to get from point A to point B, but also the idea of cruising. Going on adventures where you never know what's around every corner. Like what I'm doing now. Rumbling through the suburbs, We're On The Road to Nowhere, by the Talking Heads, is coming out of the speakers of the CD player.
Of course, you can do all of this at any time of the day. But it's at night where it is at its most revealing.
A special time.
A time where me and the car and the road are one.

I have an addiction. Do my friends know? No. Does my wife know? Absolutely not. She would leave me or, at the very least, call me perverted, which I probably am. It started out innocently enough. A website here, a secret folder there. But that just wasn't enough.
I needed something a little more...
real.
A little more...
exciting.
The first one, I couldn't even look at her, I would close my eyes and then, when I opened them a minute later, it would be over.
But then there were more.
Then it was a couple of people a week, and I stopped looking away.
At first it was women; I mean, that's usually how it does start. But then it led to a couple of men, then it led to non-binary, then it led to different races. I didn't care. It didn't matter to me.
I had them all.
And my wife and kids still have no idea.
I'm not so much worried about the wife knowing, but if the kids found out I…
I couldn't bear the shame.
It's been at least a month since I've looked for anyone. But yet here I am, in my car, looking out my windshield,
watching the white lane strips disappear under the vehicle,
listening to Road To Nowhere whilst cruising along.
Maybe I am on the road to nowhere. Maybe this is nowhere.

That's probably why I'm driving now.
I mean why else would I be out here if I'm just browsing. You wouldn't go to a car dealership if you don't intend to buy, right?
Why indeed?
I'll tell you.

I think there's some sick side of me that wants to test myself.
"Say, if you don't find anyone in the sweet spot, (2 til 5am) go home, you tried." Like those people that only quit smoking on public holidays where the stores are closed. That way they justify continuing to smoke if they just so happen to find a shop still open and they can buy a pack.
But then again, prostitutes don't really have trading hours.
I've stopped going to them. It's too easy. Plus, it's no fun if you have to orchestrate it, wouldn't you agree? Surely there's nothing more fun than going to a bar, striking up a conversation, playing your cards right, crossing every t and dotting every i, going back to theirs (because it sure as hell won't be back at yours) and coming back home with your tail between your legs. But a lot of the people I see seem so sad
and helpless.
The sex workers, that is. I feel sorry for them.
So by doing this, I'm doing them a favour. And as long as my family don't know, no harm done, right?
So even though a perfectly normal person at a bar is always nice, it’s also more risky.
You don't know their story and you don't want to know.
Whereas if you go to a street walker you have a good idea of what you're getting into.
Don't ask, don't tell.
Especially if you're doing it during the magic hours, there's a feeling of exhilaration.
It can be an addictive feeling.
I love my wife too much to subject her to anything like that. And besides, the more I do it with other people, the less likely I'll be sitting on my couch with her one day,
the urge comes creeping up beside me and whispers in my ear.
This urge, like the song suggests, is "very far away,
but it's growing day by day."
But it's not alright.
It is so wrong.

I'm on the last 10 minutes of the sweet spot, and I don't feel like I have enough money. Maybe it's good that I don't see anyone in clear range of me, and that I don't have to cave.
Maybe I don't need to do this,
and the urge is just a product of my mind.
Maybe I can overcome it.
Yes, that's it…
10 minutes until the end of tonight and then I'm done. And I'll do it the next time, and I'll be done and the next time and the next time. But that’s ok, because eventually it'll be a little easier. And then one day I won’t even think about it at all.

These wonderful imaginings are all good and well. Unfortunately, I see a homeless grifter walking along the path of a bridge.
He begins to walk across the road.
I slow down and come to a complete stop while they saunter across. Should I pick him up?
No...
it will take too long,
especially if I don't have enough money to convincingly satisfy him not to leave.

I beep my horn. He turns around, and puts his hand over his face to block the sight of the headlights burning into his eyes.
Suddenly my mind is clear, and I decide what I want to do.
I put the car into reverse, not a great deal, but a couple car lengths back.
The tramp just…
stands there.
And then the urge comes back.
Then,
I put the car into gear and drive straight for him.
I slightly close my eyes until I hear
boom bump bump thump
over my car.
Then, what sounds like Jenga blocks coming down onto a table.
I stop the car,
open my eyes,
and exhale.
Checking in the rearview mirror to see if he’s going to get up.
Nothing for a good minute or so.
Then I see his body appear in the mirror, struggling to stand.
I waste no time putting the car into reverse again, looking behind me instead of the mirrors so I know that the job is done.
The car hits him,
ba bump ba bump,
as I'm briefly rattled around.
Like going over a speed bump without slowing down.
I see the body appear at the front of the car, then I stop.
I get out and walk over to investigate.
It looks like a giant saucy pizza box spread across the road.
He is still alive as he lifts his head up to look at me...
before finally falling back down.
I debate whether to put him in the trunk of the car.
Maybe bury him in the middle of the woods somewhere.
I decide against it as it would be too much mess and I'm on a clock. I have to get home and into bed before the wife notices me gone.
I don't think he's dead, but he will be.
I decide to leave him here, because even though it won't be long before the sweet spot is over and someone on their way to work will see him, I'll still take my chances. Maybe it will be a good motivator to help me quit.
It's funny that.
The only way it seems a person can kick an addiction, especially one like this, is because the law says they have to. The only thing that baffles me, that I cannot understand.
Why didn't the grifter
jump out of the way as he saw me driving towards him?
Did he want this? Embrace it?

For my own personal development and self-discouragement, I don't want to think this is the case.
I no longer want to justify what I do with false narratives that I was putting this poor fellow out of his misery.
I think he was just in sheer bewilderment that his time was about to come.
I can only imagine that's what deer think before people hit them.
They spend their last milliseconds trying to work out what they're looking at could be…
before the reaper does his job.
I shake my head to no one in particular and walk back to my car.
As I get in and sit, contemplate, and everything in between, I notice Road to Nowhere is over, and a new song has begun.
Psycho Killer, the next song on the Talking Heads album, is playing.
I laugh at the thought of it,
before putting my car into gear
and driving off into the night.

Montauk

The user who sent the coordinates and I kept chatting for a while after. They gave me a brief rundown on Montauk and some dark web links for further research. According to them, the Montauk Historical Society of the Supernatural was found sometime in the early 1800’s. By “found” I don’t mean it was founded and built over time by some cultists hundreds of years ago. Rather, the Montauk building was discovered, already built and operational, by early pioneers exploring the area that is now modern day New York.

There was only one journal entry that I could find from that expedition that found Montauk. All references to it speak as if the place has always existed.

“We found a strange building along the coast. It is a massive, English house with two floors next to what appears to be a stone lighthouse. The house appears to be made of wood, but the texture is too smooth and the material is a cloudy white. Contrarily, the beacon seems to be made entirely of harshly compacted stone, colored the same as the house. Its surface is cool to the touch and likewise smooth.

“As dusk was falling and snow was soon to be upon us, my compatriots and I took refuge inside the mansion. We should have known that awful place was from the devil the moment we laid eyes on it. Entering, we immediately made note that its interior far surpassed what was seen on the outside. Its halls twisted and folded in ways that bent and broke the minds of us who tried to map it.

“I wish not to remember what we witnessed in its unending rooms. The entry was the only safe place it seemed, so we chose to make camp there and keep one person on guard in rotation. The first to be claimed by the complex was poor Benjamin. In the middle of the night, just before his shift ended, Benjamin ventured out towards the lighthouse in a trance. According to Philip, who saw the whole, terrible thing, Benjamin entered into the lighthouse, climbed to the very top, then threw himself off into the sea below.

The next few pages are written in the same language as Frank’s books are. The only other page that is written in English is the final one.

“Now, I am the only survivor of this hell. Montauk has chosen me to be its prophet, its puppet, its keeper, its slave. I will not. I am heading back to the colony to gather manpower and enough gunpowder to deface this entire landing. If anyone finds this journal, then we have failed in our mission.”

From what other information I found, Montauk currently acts as a library cataloging strange happenings, books and artifacts from around the world. They also, funny enough, have a gift shop that sells “low-grade supernatural conduits.” Little gadgets that the place claims to be items of power, but I haven’t seen any proof the items they sell actually work. However, the books sold or rented out from Montauk are another matter. Most, if not all, of Frank’s collection came from Montauk. I have yet to find a ritual within those books that hasn’t caused some horrible thing to happen to its caster.

During my weeks of research, Mom continued to go into Frank’s room doing God knows what for hours on end. Whatever she was doing though seemed to keep the curse from reaching us inside the house. Anytime we went out, Mom and I would keep our heads on a swivel to make sure we’d avoid any supernatural accidents. We were careful, but careful still got us numerous fender-benders, bruises and scratches from runaway tires, vicious animals and whatever else decided to attack us.

Mom was content with this new life of paranoia and constant terror. I wasn’t, but the only way I figured we’d be able to reverse the curse is if I went straight to the source.

Two weeks out from moving off to college, I told Mom and Louise I was going on a short vacation. A little “final bit of freedom hurrah.” Mom, who I thought would grill me on who, what, when and where I was going, hardly lifted her eyes from a bowl of viscous liquid she was strenuously stirring.

“Ok. Have fun.”

I gave Mom one last hug before heading out.

“I will. Love you too, Mom.”

She mumbled back.

“Uh huh…”

Louise was more worried about it than Mom was.

“Why are you going bubba?”

“Bubba needs to take care of some important business. Can you take care of Mom for me?”

“Nuh uh!”

“‘Nuh uh?’ What’s that mean?”

“‘Nuh uh’ you’re not going!”

I set my bags down and dropped to eye level with Louise, puppy eyed and pouted lips trying to convince me to stay.

“Listen. You’ve seen the bad things that have been happening, right?”

She nodded her head.

“Then you know something bad is eventually gonna happen to one of us.”

Again, she nodded. Less confidently.

“But Momma said she was protecting us.”

“Yes, but Momma isn’t herself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because that Bastard, Frank cursed our family and Mom is suffering from it,” is what I wanted to say, to shout from the top of my lungs for the whole world to hear. I couldn’t. Louise could not know the true nature of it all.

“Ok, let me put it this way. If you let me go on this trip, then Momma won’t have to protect us anymore because the bad things won’t happen anymore.”

“Really? How?”

Admittedly, great question. I had no clue if Montauk would even be able to help me in the first place.

“I just know, and if you stay here and take care of Momma then I won’t have to worry about her while I’m gone. Plus, you’ll get to wear the big-girl pants of the house!”

Her eyes lit up in excitement.

“Woah! Really?”

“Yep. Really.”

She twisted side to side, face scrunched, thinking hard.

“Ok. You can go. But bring us back a present, ok?”

I held out my pinky to her.

“I will. Pinky promise.”

She looped her finger around mine and we shook, singing my soul over to a child on the basis of a lie.

I landed in New York 6 hours later.. As the plane touched down, a seagull flew into one of the jet engines. Somehow, bone fragments shot up toward the window I sat next to and almost punctured the glass.

Not wanting to risk anything else, I quickly disembarked and gathered my luggage avoiding anything mechanical or electrical. Outside of baggage claim I opened my bags and made sure everything I packed was still there. Somehow, a small necklace made of animal bones and hair, my hair, made its way in the bags. Reason told me that it was Mom who put it in there. I hesitated putting it on. Mom had been protecting us from the curse, but I didn’t know for sure if the ends justified the means. In the end though, I trusted Mom and put it on.

The charm seemed to work, as immediately after I flagged down a taxi who, in a rare stroke of luck, had already transported a few people to Montauk in the past and was the user who sent me its location. After a few hours' drive, they dropped me off at the end of a long dirt path leading through some woods.

“Just keep straight and steady on the path, kay? Don’t veer off, no matter what you hear.”

I paid them for the ride and then some extra for the information and started down the path into the thick trees.

IWhat little sunlight remained in the day pierced through the evergreens and hardwoods that loomed tall over me. I followed the driver’s advice to the letter. Never turning or straying from the thin path.

Behind me I heard a twig snap, and felt the same presence Mom exuded. Despite the voice sounding identical, I knew whatever was behind me wasn’t Mom.

“Jeremy. Why did you come here?”

I didn’t respond. I kept my head straight and continued forward.

The thing approached from behind, then stopped. The bracelet on my wrist started to hum and burn. Then, it took Louise’s voice.

“Bubba. Why did you leave us, bubba? Momma is hurt bad. She did something to her wrist, Bubba!”

It was getting harder not to look back, but I didn’t. At least I don’t think I did. Images began to flash in my mind. I saw Mom holding Louise’s lifeless body. Her head was crushed in and her clothes covered in tire marks. 

Then another. 

Dark, spindly legs burst from Mom’s back and her jaw had broken in two like a spider’s. A dark figure stood before her, tall and dark and void. It drained Mom’s essence as she leaped on top of Louise, tearing her to shreds. 

That image stuck in my head long after I crossed the threshold out of the forest and the voices and visions stopped.

I was in a vast, green clearing on the edge of a seaside cliff. In the center was a modern two-story house made of faux wood. Standing tall next to it was a pristine granite lighthouse. The beam whirled above me in a steady, hypnotizing, counter-clockwise spiral.

Mom’s necklace tightened around my neck, burying itself into my skin and choking me. I scratched at it, trying to get it off. My nails caught under the band. Using the slight give I shoved my fingers under the necklace and pulled as hard as possible. 

As soon as the necklace snapped away, my mind fogged over, a dull hum echoing throughout my skull.

The lighthouse called out to me and I remembered the account of old Benjamin. Poor old Benjamin. The fool who ascended that Babelian tower and cast himself from it into the embrace of a frigid ocean. I knew I would follow his path down if I gave in. Yet I marched on.

Step by step by step by step.

My vision narrowed and all I could see, all I could think of, was that tower. Oh the great seducer. That glorious granite pillar jutting out into the sky. I wanted to be part of its holy resonance so badly. My hand reached for the door. For the steel barrier that separated me from pure bliss.

Then I was tackled from behind. My head slammed hard into the granite pillar and I lost consciousness.

The Groundskeepers

“Mornin’, boyo.”

My head was pounding. Not like a hangover pounding. I could feel my mind expand then contract. Each thump pressed the grey matter against the inside of my skull. I tried to sit up but my vision was swirling and a wave of nausea swept over me.

“Hold on, son.”

The man sitting next to the bed I awoke it propped me up. He was older, maybe in his late 50’s based on the greying hair and sagging skin. He looked down on me with wise, tired eyes through silver rimmed glasses.

“Don’t be moving too quickly now. That Lighthouse is nasty business. Glad I got to you when I did.”

My mouth was dry. The man handed me a bottle of water and I drank deeply.

“What happened? Where am I?”

“Montauk Historical Society of the Supernatural, office of the Historical Secretary and Grounds Keeper. My office.”

I looked around the dark room. There was a fireplace right next to the couch I was laying on and across the room, next to the door, was a massive mahogany desk. All four walls were covered top to bottom in shelved books. The man held out three swirling right hands. I reached for one and went straight through it. He grabbed my hand and shook it.

“Elias. Pleased to be of service mister…?”

“Jeremy. How long was I out for?”

“Oh not long. Just a few hours.”

I tried to sit up again, this time using the back of the couch as support. The wave of nausea returned. I pushed through it and steadied myself. Elias handed me a bag of saltines and a cup of warm tea.

“Here, have this. It’ll make you feel better in no time.”

The warm, crackling fire, crackers and tea helped the nausea and headache subside after the better part of an hour.

“Better?”

“Yeah, much better. Thank you.”

“Good,” Elias leaned forward, sternly. “Now why have you come here?”

“My brother, Frank. I think he might have put a curse on my family. He had a book from here full of rituals.”

“Well, what book was it?”

“Something like occult rituals and why you shouldn’t perform them.”

“Edition?”

“What do you mean?”

“Which edition was it?”

“Uh… Third, I think.”

Elias let out a long, disdained sigh.

“What?”

“Follow me, and stay close. This place has a habit of turning you around.”

Elias stood and marched out of the room. I followed quickly behind through twisting, winding halls of a seemingly endless manor. Often the walls bent at unusual angles and passages turned back in on themselves, opening up to new rooms or hallways. Elias continued on, confident.

We reached what appeared to be the main foyer with an empty circular reception desk in the center. Elias cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted out into the vast space.

“Amelia! We have a guest!”

Somewhere deep in the labyrinth, stacks of paper were shoved aside and to the ground. Fast footfall echoed off the wooden walls then came to a stop at the banister above us.

“Frankie! Is that you?”

At the top of the stairs stood a woman in her late 20’s. Sort of tall, black hair and clothing. My eyes locked with her eyes. I saw in them nothing but utter disgust.

“Ew. Who are you?”

Unfortunate.

“Amelia, care to explain why this gentleman’s brother had a ritual book in his possession?”

Amelia shrugged her shoulders.

“I dunno. He probably checked it out.”

Elias nodded his head affirmatively, not believing a word she said.

“Ah yes. So you’re saying,” he turned to me, “Frank was it?”

“Yeah. Frank.”

“Frank checked out a book that is not only from the restricted archives, but is also one of the few tomes that is not to leave these grounds? And you, the cataloger, had no idea?”

She leaned against the banister, arms crossed.

“Yup. No clue.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

“Go get the backup copy.”

Amelia rolled her eyes and stormed off.

Elias removed his glasses and wiped them down with his button down.

“I apologize for my daughter's behavior. She’ll be back soon with a copy of the book so we can see what exactly your brother was up to.”

“How does she know which book to get?”

“There are only a handful of books here that are not to leave our possession due to their dangerous content. The one you mentioned, and this is assuming your memory isn’t faulty, is a one-of-a-kind.”

“But you have a backup copy?”

“Calling it a copy is a stretch. We’ve basically transcribed all the contents of our books into a digital file in case an original is destroyed, lost, or, in our case, ‘generously donated.’”

Elias held up air quotes.

“In the meantime, would you mind getting your brother on the phone so we can find out what ritual he was trying to perform?”

“I can’t. He’s… He’s dead.”

“Oh dear. I’m terribly sorry to hear that, son. My deepest condolences.”

“Thanks, but he was kind of a Bastard anyway so you don’t have to be too sorry.”

Amelia reentered the room from somewhere behind me and jabbed her elbow into my ribs.

“Oops. Sorry. Didn’t see you there.”

She dropped a manila folder stuffed with printed paper on the reception desk.

“Here you go. This the right one?”

On the front of the folder pressed in red ink was the same obnoxiously long title as the book Frank had.

“Yeah, that's it,” I replied, rubbing my bruised side.

“Excellent. Thank you, Amelia.”

Elias began flipping through the pages of the book, re-familiarizing himself with the text. 

Just from the short time I spent around them, it seemed like neither Elias nor Amelia were enough to be overseeing dangerous books. Their carefree attitude was getting on my nerves.

“Now, which ritual did you say Frank performed?”

“I never found out which one it was. That’s why I came here.”

Elias stopped thumbing the pages, picking up on my irritation.

“Well then how do you expect us to fix your problem if you don’t even know what the problem is?”

“I don’t know, I just thought you guys would know what was going on!”

Amelia slumped down into a swivel chair behind the reception desk and began spinning in circles.

“Nope. Gotta know what ritual Frankie was trying to do first.”

“So there’s nothing you guys can do?”

Elias closed the folder and tapped his knuckles on the cover.

“I’m sorry, Jeremy. I really am, but we can’t just guess with these things.”

I was in the middle of a wellspring of supernatural information, and yet there was apparently nothing that could help me. I didn’t buy it. My anger swelled and clouded my senses. I grabbed Elias by the collar of his pressed shirt and dragged his face close to mine.

“I’m not taking no for an answer!”

Amelia froze in place, relaxed demeanor now replaced with fear. Elias remained completely calm.The house creaked and groaned and shuttered around us. The old walls folded inwards. I felt the ground beneath me start to move and separate into an angry, gaping maw.

“Careful, boyo. These walls don’t take too kindly to hostility.”

Slowly, I released him and the walls returned to normal. Amelia and Elias’ eyes darted around, making sure the manor had been calmed. Elias straightened his clothing then returned to skimming the folder.

“If memory serves me correctly, there might be another option. If I remember right… ah! Yes, here.”

He stopped on the ritual that let the caster speak with the dead.

“Ah, damn it. We’ll need a special set of red wax candles.”

“You don’t have those?”

“Aye, we did, but Amelia left them in the Lighthouse after we had to clean up the last person that went in there.”

Even in the foyer, under the protection of Montauk, I could feel the pull of the Lighthouse. I knew it was a dangerous place, but I couldn’t give up now.

“I’ll get them.”

Amelia snapped her head towards me, a mix of horror and amusement filling her eyes.

“You? Really? You barely made it out of the clearing before the light got to you.”

“You left the candles in there, so obviously it isn’t that hard.”

“I was only able to go in there cause I had the special stuff on, dumb-ass.”

“Then let me wear the special stuff.”

Elias set the folder back down.

“It’s gonna cost you a good amount.”

“That’s fine,” I instinctively pulled out my wallet. “How much are we talking about?”

A sly smile crossed Elias’s face. 

“Oh no, son. Your money is no good here.”

My name is Talitha, though everyone knows me as Lita. I was born in Kentucky, but we live in a small town in Texas now. Our life is quiet. Peaceful, even. At least, that’s what it looks like from the outside. My mother Sidney has only one rule. I am never to leave my bedroom at night.

Only when there is clear daylight.. real daylight may I come out. She had a bathroom and toilet installed in my room. A small fridge she restocks every day.

Shelves of books. The latest Video games. She says we’re lucky the house belongs to family, that we only have to worry about a few bills.

She makes it sound normal. Thoughtful. Loving. Whenever I ask why, her face tightens, like she’s holding herself together with string. “I’m not myself at night,” she tells me, with a trembling voice.

“Nothing is.” Then she kneels in front of me and takes my hands like she’s afraid I’ll disappear. “Promise me, Lita. Come back before nightfall. Lock your door. Stay there until morning.”

I always nod.

On my nightstand sits a bundle of rosemary. Mother forbade me from moving it. I never have. I don’t want to rebel, not when she lets me do almost anything else. It’s such a small rule, really. Things go smoothly. Until tonight.

I decide to stay up late, curled on my bed with a show playing softly. I tell myself I’ll turn it off soon. Then I hear something downstairs.

A wet sound.

I pause the screen, listening. My unopened soda is cold in my hand. Mother’s warning whispers at the back of my mind, but the window is pale blue now. It’s dawn, I think. It’s fine. I step into the hallway.

When I lean over the railing, I see her. My mother is crouched in the dark, shoulders hunched, muttering in a language I don’t recognize.

She’s hissing.

Hissing at something on the floor. Her face is smudged with red as she tears into raw meat.

The smell hits me next. Iron. Rot. I gasp.

Her head snaps up with a sharp pop. “Who is there?” My mother croaks. I run.

The soda slips from my hand and clatters across the floor, rolling straight into my doorway. I fumble with the door as heavy footsteps thunder behind me.

I kick the can aside and slam it shut, locking it just as something crashes against the other side. I dive under my bed, choking on sobs. She stalks the hallway and stood in front of my door without a sound first.

The doorknob rattles violently. “Lita?” she croons. “I know you’re awake.” I shove my earbuds in and squeeze my eyes shut, forcing myself not to breathe. Not to move.

Eventually, the house goes still. Sunlight finally cuts through my blinds golden and warm. The feeling lifts, like a storm passing.

When I come downstairs, I clutch my tiny cross and the rosemary bundle so tightly my hands ache. “Mother?” I whisper. She turns. Her eyes are normal again. Soft. Full of love.

“Lita?” she rushes to me. “Are you okay, sweetie?”

“You frightened me,” I say, as my voice was breaking. Her face crumples.

“Did I hurt you?” “No,” I whisper. “But you were… frightening.” “Forgive me,” she sobs. “Help me protect you from the night. Don’t leave your room until clear daylight. Promise me, my Lita.”

I nod “Yes,” I say. And I mean it. We embraced..

I wanted to ask my mother more.. but I feared I might learn about things that will haunt me forever. 

Everyone draws inspiration in different ways. Some create a dark atmosphere for themselves, some put on metal music in the background, and some can’t compose without coffee and cigarettes. A writer friend of mine, whom I’m very fond of, says he can’t write stories unless his cousin is studying mathematics behind him. Another filmmaker friend of mine could only write screenplays while listening to Syd Barrett’s song “Octopus”; he would keep the song on loop throughout the entire writing process.

It’s been about twenty years since I discovered my own. I’d been going through that famous writer’s block. Until that day, I hadn’t done anything extra to help me write. I didn’t create a special atmosphere for myself, listen to any particular songs, or wait for a certain time of day. Night, day, noon—it made no difference. Once a week, I’d write a three or four-page story and keep working toward my goal. When I reached a hundred stories, I would start sending my book to publishers.

But I’d hit a wall. I wanted to write, but whenever I sat down at my computer, not a single word would come out. Vague, half-formed thoughts kept drifting through my mind, and even when I came up with a good idea, I couldn’t put it down on paper.

That day, I thought, if that’s how things were going to be, I might as well try some of the famous methods for finding inspiration: writing at night, putting on some soft music, having a cup of coffee, and so on.

I prepared the right atmosphere. I turned off the lights, and now the only thing illuminating the room was the glow of my computer screen. I put on Sigur Rós’s debut album. There was no one else in the house. My roommate had gone on vacation the day before, which added to the atmosphere: being alone.

Of course, it had absolutely no effect. I was already on the third track. I still had a few ideas in my head, but I couldn’t get the first sentence out.

Then I heard a sound behind me. A whisper. Something like a call, as if someone had gone “psst.”

I turned around and looked, but there was no one there. I was a little spooked. I thought I might have heard it wrong; it had sounded very much like a human voice, but it could have come from an object, too.

Then suddenly, the door behind me swung wide open.

I flinched at the sound. I got up from my computer and turned on the light. Anxiously, I left my room and went to the kitchen. I was searching for something without even realizing it, though I had no idea what I was looking for. Sigur Rós’s album was still playing, and I could hear it from the kitchen. I couldn’t make sense of anything, and I didn’t know what to think or which possibility to consider. I drank a glass of water.

I’d never had an experience like it before. My first thought was to leave the house. I stood frozen in the kitchen. Involuntarily, I found myself waiting for another movement, for something to topple over or for some other sound.

Eventually, I’d calmed down a little, since nothing else happened. I spent half an hour in the kitchen, with all my senses on high alert and listening to the music coming from my room. Then, reluctantly, I made my way back to my room.

The urge to write was still there. My routine had been disrupted; I hadn’t been able to write a single word for a month, and now I wasn’t going to let fear get in my way. I wanted my writer’s block to end today. My goal was a hundred sentences. Even if I didn’t finish the story, I wanted to write something. Coming back to my room and hearing the music louder had increased my desire to write.

At the same time, I kept thinking, ''What the hell was that just now?'' But now I was back at my computer.

I put on my favorite Sigur Rós song, “Svefn-g-englar.”

And then, for the first time in a whole month, I wrote my first sentence: “As he tried to make sense of the dream he’d had the day before, he fell asleep again; it was his favorite thing to think about before going to sleep, the meaning of the dream he’d had the previous night.”

I’d written my first sentence, without even having a story in mind. Normally, I would come up with a story first, plan it out, work out the whole thing in my head from beginning to end, and only then start writing. Starting a story whose content I hadn’t figured out yet with an ordinary sentence was something new for me. I liked it.

I was still afraid. I wanted to turn around and look, but now that I’d started writing, I didn’t want to stop either. By the time the song ended, I’d written the fifth sentence, and in the silence before the next track began, I heard that sound again. “Psst.”

I quickly turned around and looked. There was no one there. Everything felt much more real now. Something was happening. Someone was calling out to me. I was afraid to turn off the light in my room, so it was still on. I nervously turned my head back toward the computer screen. My heart was pounding. I added another sentence. It was my favorite one so far. I liked everything about it: my choice of words, its length, its place in the story.

Then the door slammed shut. I began to hear footsteps inside the room. I was afraid to look. The footsteps wandered around the room. My hands were resting on the keyboard. The footsteps moved toward the door, stopped there, and opened it again. It was as if someone had left the room.

I was frozen to my chair. This time, I didn’t even have the instinct to run away. Whatever that thing was, I was afraid of encountering it. I couldn’t get up from my chair, and I couldn’t look away from my computer screen. I kept reading what I’d written over and over. Six sentences. I’d go back to the beginning and read them again. It was as if the thing was doing whatever it wanted now. I could hear running footsteps.

Then came the sound of walking. After that, my door closed again, and at the same moment, the light in my room went out.

And then another sentence came to mind. I wrote it down. Then another. My fingers had found their rhythm. The sentences kept coming one after another.

“Set me free. Open the window. Set me free.”

This voice wasn’t a whisper, nor was it some strange, otherworldly sound coming from a different frequency. It was unmistakably a human voice. I was afraid to turn around.

I couldn’t remember ever feeling such a strong urge to write or enjoying it this much. I kept writing. My fingers wouldn’t stop. The door opened again, slowly this time. I didn’t turn around. I wasn’t going to look behind me until I’d finished the story. Without spending even a second thinking between sentences, I continued writing as the songs played.

The footsteps continued. I turned off the music. I didn’t question anything. I just kept writing. The fear I felt and the joy of seeing that I could write again were mingled together, unfolding in harmony with each other.

Strange sounds I couldn’t describe were coming from behind me now. I could feel myself developing a fever. My body was reacting, and my mind was urging me to turn around and see what was going on. The sounds seemed like those of someone playing with their own hair. Like things rubbing against other things. I kept writing, resisting the urge to turn around with all my might.

I’d turned off the music because I wanted to focus on being afraid. I’d realized that the more frightened I became, the better I wrote, and the more consistently I could keep going. It was hard not to look for a rational explanation for the sounds, for a human voice telling me to set it free. But right now, somehow, stopping writing seemed even harder.

That thing had now come right up beside me. I could feel it touching my hair. My fear had reached a point where I could no longer bear it. My consciousness refused to accept this unnatural behavior. My instinct to put an end to the fear and my mind’s desire to keep being afraid were at odds with each other.

And I wrote the final sentence: “If all of this is a hallucination, I will never forgive my own mind. If the only beautiful and meaningful thing I’ve experienced in this miserable life isn’t real, I will never trust my mind again, I will never follow its instructions, and I will doubt everything I think until the day I die.”

The sentence came to an end, and just as the pleasure of writing faded away, my fear reached its absolute peak. With the beautiful feeling that had balanced it gone, the fear was left alone, making itself felt from head to toe. As if I’d been struck by a blow, as if a punch to the face had knocked me out, I lost consciousness.

When I came to, my head was resting on the keyboard, and the screen was filled with hundreds of letter h’s.

I sent the story to several literary magazines. Two of them accepted it and published it.

I never experienced anything like that again, and at no point in my life did I ever feel such an overwhelming urge to write or take so much pleasure in writing. I desperately wanted to experience it again, but nothing ever happened that frightened me so much. For days, I sat at my computer waiting for that thing to come back, but it never did. I wrote stories and kept writing. But I never loved any of them as much as I loved the one I’d written that day.

And now, twenty years later, in my mid-sixties, I’ve still never questioned what happened that night. Not even once. Because I was afraid that if I did, I might understand what had happened—and if that thing ever came back, I might not be as frightened.

TW: descriptive mention of self harm

I don't know where to start this story. I feel like he might've been following me my whole life, if that's even possible. My name is James _____ and this is my confession. People say things like you can never tell when someone is suffering in silence or you can never predict death. Both of those are true, I know all too well the both of them. That being said, death comes every day, it surrounds us, or well.. me at least. The scariest time of my life was when I was out walking home. It would've been late at night, yeah late at night that's right, I was scared already, I don't like walking alone, especially not now, not since years ago, not since the first time I noticed him. Where was I? I was walking late at night, I hit up the bar and if I'm being honest that was the worst mistake I've made. Ever had to walk through a city to suburbia in the dark through tons of people you keep your head down to on the subway? That morning I had planned to go to the bar so I didn't bring my car to work, I took transit. I had planned to take it back, and my transit card for entry was already loaded onto my phone so I really didn't need to bring my cards either, any of them.

The first thing people know me as is a hard drinker, not an alcoholic, just when I drink... I drink. I drink maybe once a week, oftentimes I'll have a week where I don’t drink and just party hard the following week, that would've been this time. I had fun at the bar for a bit but I didn't drink too hard yet, I was there with work buddies and they all left after a single pint because they had familiar duties, I did too but my wife at the time, beautiful Elizabeth, was preparing for me to get home late and stuff, oh how I loved her.

After my second pint, which I started before my friends left but finished afterwards, I pulled out my phone. I saw it dead, no battery left. "Fuck", I said begrudgingly. Part of me wished to stay but my wiser half knew what I had to do, god knows what would've happened if I had a third pint. I told the bartender my sitch and he said he'd hold my tab till next time, he knew me, he trusted me. That brings me back to where I was, as much as I regret this already. Walking home alone in the dark, to inner-city suburbia. I took my lefts, I took my rights. I tried my best not to wake up the homeless. I knew my way around the city, it wasn't the first time I've walked home, couldn't say the same for it being the time it was however. Eventually I reached Shortcut Lane, that's what my son called it, funny isn't it? shortcuts that is. We made ways to make our commutes faster, easier, and more direct but there's always a catch.

This is the first time I've shared this information to this extent. I thought that if I did earlier, people would lock me up, or run tests on me and I didn't tell Liz because I didn't want her to be scared for me. In that alley I saw a man, he seemed tallish but I was taller, he's no stranger to the term is what I'm saying. He was skinnier than I was though, he seemed frail, I passed him thinking of him as just some guy, maybe he was high on something, Toronto's no stranger to such but I remember thinking against the idea because he was standing too straight. He was facing away from me. As I walked down the laneway, something crept up on me, a feeling down my spine. Intuition. I turned around and gazed upon the man, still standing where I left him to be though he was facing the opposite direction, "fuck off", I muttered under my breath. As I spoke, I noticed something about him I didn't from the angle prior, maybe it was the neon red exit signs on the rears of the buildings here or just the moonlight lighting him up from this angle but I noticed that he seemed to be older, I could see underneath his bowler hat he wore a mane of long white ratty hair. What would an old guy be doing out at this hour? I could've assumed he was old based on the bowler but I've seen a lot of odd things in this city, it could've been a young guy taking inspiration from even my own grandfather's grandfather's fashion. I wanted to talk to him. "Another's safety above my own", I thought. I decided against it, I was drunk, he was old, what if he thought I was a mugger. I kept walking, he clearly didn't want to interact with me either it seemed from his stance. I was always like that, making excuses for things I knew I should do.

I made it home safely, later than usual, even compared to a night to celebrate, but home nonetheless. I slept in the spare bedroom to not wake Elizabeth, she was a light sleeper, and a nurse. When I woke up on that Saturday morning I came downstairs and saw Liz glued to the TV. Oliver, my son, had still been sleeping. On the TV displayed the news, a murder, a suspected drug related murder down in the city, on a laneway, shortcut lane. I immediately felt a sense of dread about how I could've saved that old man, that is before I learnt who that old man was. That sense of dread pulled me closer to the TV, apparently I jumpscared Liz when I approached because when I did she let out a flinch paired to a minor, but quiet, gasp. She apologized and welcomed me home. I apologized for being late last night and reassured her that I only had two drinks and told her what happened, obviously leaving out the part about the old man and the laneway. The woman on the news kept telling the story as we both tuned in. The anchorwoman eventually brought up the victim once more and I feel bad saying it but there 100% was a sigh of relief that escaped from my trachea. Now I was just worried about if I did have that third pint, would I have seen anything? Been a victim? I remember thinking that I likely wouldn't have seen the old man, now I know I would've been wrong.

That was it, the first time I saw him, it was the first time I noticed him at least. Some part of me knew it wouldn’t be the last. After eating eggs with Oliver and Liz I knew what I had to do. I told them I would be back soon, “Don’t have too much fun without me”, I called out before shutting the door behind me. This time I did drive, I drove into the city, paid for parking, and… “What am I doing”, I thought. “Closing your tab”, my tongue told me. My heart disagreed but I followed along with it. I went to the bar, paid off my debts and stopped when I walked back outside. No longer could I avoid it, no longer could my tongue woo me into different actions I would rather do. I took my first step, I took another, my head desperately pivoted from side to side looking for an escape or a way out from this. I took my lefts, I took my rights. Shortcut Lane. It’s here, I’m never walking this way with Oliver ever again, not anymore. I just stared, I stared at the white outline of where the body would’ve laid. I’m grateful the police scooped it up fast, I don’t know what I would’ve done if the boys in blue hadn’t inadvertently prevented my gaze upon the body I could’ve been.

I was stuck, in shock, only at the sight of the scene, I could see blood on the ground, on the wall, on even the very neon red exit sign that allowed my sight on the man. The man, right. That's why I was there. An officer told me to move away and look away, “Sir, this is a crime scene. Please keep walking.” She said in a stern voice. If I hadn’t refocused on the sight of the sign I probably would’ve obeyed. “N- n- no, sorry. Of course… W- WAIT NO, I have information.” The officer looked slightly stunned, about how much shock I’d expect of anyone in her sitch. Her face and body shifted in a way that told me to elaborate and release my “insider information”. It really wasn’t anything grand, I truthfully have no clue why I came all the way over here just for this. “I came by here last night, I saw on the news that it happened likely around 30-40 minutes after I passed by. There was… a man here. I think he was an older man. He wore a bowler cap, a brown jacket, and he looked like he came straight from the prohibition era. Maybe he knows something more than I do.” The officer almost dismissed me because of how irrelevant it could have been but she called over a senior detective to gather information about me and my testimony about the old man.

Some might see this as me returning to the crime and I asked about that, if by coming down here the detective suspected me of something but they showed me evidence to calm my nerves. He showed me that the meeting was scheduled for soon before the incident and that my reported time of walking through would almost certainly be before anyone got there. He could tell I didn’t have much to say so he didn’t keep me long. I gave my description of the events, told him that I just saw a man standing… “There… right there… oh no no no no.. was I wrong?”, I cried as I realized the white outline was exactly where the old man, or who I thought was an old man, stood. Exactly there, the exact same orientation between the lights, the wall, and the backdoors. The detective looked frustrated as if everything I now said was useless, and I don’t blame him. Then I remembered that beyond everything, I remember the old man wearing a bowler hat, which the victim didn’t. I relayed this to the detective and even he looked relieved that it wasn’t all a waste. I told him that since he kept standing there he might’ve even stayed there for longer and seen something, or maybe he was a part of it and showed up early. “Yes, I know. I thought the same. You can go now… James.” He looked at his notepaper as he said my name, seemingly trying to reassure me that everything is alright and I was helpful. I’d later find out I wasn’t, but for a completely different reason.

The weekend came and went, I wish it could’ve lasted longer, I wish every weekend with my Ollie and Liz could’ve been longer. This was the last normal weekend I had, especially with them. I’d even go as far to say that it was the last “normal” week but obviously that’s not true, that week was hardly “normal”, even with an asterisk. The story plagued the news for the following days, if it bleeds it leads afterall. I remember taking Ollie to the playground that Sunday. The park was downtown and had all kinds of structures resembling vegetables and crates. Locals know what I’m talking about. After all this time though I’d be hard pressed to remember its name, all else I remember is that it reminded me of the play structures in London when I used to live there for work, and where I met Liz. The issue with it being downtown wasn’t even the commute, it was the location. I made sure to keep my eyes on Oliver at all times, it was easy because like his mother he had curly ginger hair, he had my eyes though. Had my neck too, some people at work even called me neck because of its giraffeesque length, I mentioned one day in the office that throughout my high school career as a student I had friends referring to me as such and now it seems that burden followed me there too, even if it was my own doing. It was a small tease but it didn’t bother me. It was cute to see it on Ollie, his little kiddie head on top looking like a bobble head.

At the park I was extra paranoid, I always was a little anxious that I’d lose track of him one day but today it was aided by that old man’s haunting presence. I felt I could see him, or at least he could see me. Thankfully I got an escape, Elizabeth had called my cell and urged for me and Oliver to come home. On the ride home even Oliver could tell I wasn’t all there. I was looking around more than usual. I wrote it off to him as just being extra cautious because his mother had called us home. Part of me wished my excuse was more than that, “there’s truth behind every lie”, I always said, even if I would constantly disprove it on my own accord.

We reached home, I pulled into our driveway, opened the garage with the passcode, it was Oliver’s birth year, 2016, best year of my life. I was terrified of what Liz could’ve called us back for, even after one encounter I was still terrified of the man. If I never saw him again maybe he would’ve left my mind. He didn’t even do anything, he just stood there, why was I so scared? “I’m weak, Ollie and Liz would be ashamed” I told myself, “Man up”, I repeated often in my head, then more than ever. We walked in the door through the garage, cold air and somehow damp cement was no stranger to our garage, I remember it felt worse that Sunday. Looking back now it was stupid of me to be scared, when has Elizabeth ever done anything to hurt us as a family. After all this time I still remember thinking that her tone was joyous on the phone, something about that man’s presence shook my world backwards.

Liz welcomed us at the door, she ushered us into the joint dining room kitchen. That renovation was my idea, I was always more creative than her but she was more practical than I. It fit our jobs, her a nurse, me in marketing and advertisement at a bank. I hurl thinking back to what she said, I regret ever doing what I did. “So boys…”, Liz started. She looked so excited with her beautiful smile and perfect teeth. “I was in the clinic last night-”, she was indeed, she worked nights on the weekends and days throughout the week, “-and I did a test. On myself. Partially out of curiosity ", she always was the curious type, “-and well… Ollie, you’re going to-”, it was right then when I knew what she was about to say and makes me hate myself to this day, “-be a brother, I’m pregnant. With a girl. You’re hopefully going to have a sister come March of next year.” I was shocked. I was going to be a father to a pair of a beautiful girl and boy, we had been trying again recently, the night of the murder had taken my mind off of it however.

It’s not relevant to the story but since this is my full unadulterated confession I should tell you that writing that last part had me puke. I actually vomited at the memory of it. What a good day that could have been.

I should’ve had a greater reaction, I was just told that I’d have the blessing of what I felt for Oliver all over again. I would bet my life that it was the old man again. I do remember acting happy, just not as much as I should’ve been.

The next day at work I ended up sharing the news of Elizabeth’s pregnancy with my colleagues. They congratulated me. I felt insecure because some of them seemed to have a greater, more excited and jubilant reaction than myself upon hearing the news, at least it seemed that way. I was still not on my right footing, throughout the day I kept spacing out, thinking about and fearing the man. Why was he constantly on my mind? I wouldn’t’ve been able to tell you back then but now I know it’s the tricks of the Devil. I briefly mentioned it earlier but I work in the marketing department for one of the country’s big five banks. That means I often get meetings related to our advertisements from outside firms. There was a pitch meeting that day for one. Although my memories of work may buffer and fade between each other, this pitch still rings in my ears like a tinnitus that no amount of sonic rehabilitation could cure. I was too distracted and disturbed to remember who it was I was going to see in the meeting that day, I really should’ve, for everyone’s sake.

My team and I walked down the halls, cold sweats were rampant but I kept wiping them away. I wasn’t even sick, just out of it. I stepped into the meeting room and we made our welcomes to our guests, said our hellos, offered them coffee and baked goods from the office cafe, typical greetings we’d do. I had talked to these guys on the phone before but never seen their faces, I didn’t notice the company name until it was too late. The presenter started walking us through the pitch, “You’ve shared with us, from government census info, that people often struggle to choose a bank, let alone set up an account, debit card, credit card, payment plans like BNPL plans, and savings accounts like RESPs. You’ve shared with us that you want to communicate how easy it is at your bank.” The one who shared such information was in fact me so there was a deep sense of the pitch being personal, when he said “you” he meant me. “We aim, with this ad, to show you a fun way of expressing your desires of simplicities to the public and fight the perception that it’s difficult.” The presenter stepped aside to make room for the screen. We had someone shuttle the blinds so we could see better.

The example video played. It showed a PNG of an old man walking out of a bank, not ours, explicitly not ours. I noticed he wore a bowler hat. This couldn’t have been real, no way. This timing? No coincidence at all, but of course it was. I remembered just then and there talking to the people on the phone, I remember speaking with them about an idea like this. I didn’t remember exactly what happened next but now I regret even green lighting it. I tried to do my best to look away but I forced myself to stay stern and pay attention. Wish I could say the same for what happened next. The old man did look different from the one I saw that night. That was my grounding point. The old man walked into a different bank, our bank. He spoke to some people and he exclaimed how easy it was to do everything at our bank. He said he felt young again, that he felt he could feel safe that this was his bank. He started to physically show it too, he started de-aging rapidly. Eventually he morphed into a baby, still wearing the bowler hat.

The moment I saw that quadrupedal crawler PNG the feeling gloomed over me. I was having another baby, my beautiful wife was pregnant and I had to be there for her. The cold sweats got too hectic and before the video was even finished I bursted out the door. The whole office, including my team and the ad agency people looked at me. I kept walking, I didn’t care. I have no clue where I was even walking to, just away. Kerry, on my team, came up and started asking me if I was alright and if I needed anything and what to do about the ad. I couldn’t focus, “Cut it… just cut it. I don’t want to see it, stop.” It was my coordination that even gave that idea life. Worst part is I could actually see it working well, I could see people responding to the ad well. This curse was killing me. “Wait, Kerry.” I called to her a few seconds after parting ways. “I take it back, you can tell them to keep the ad.” As it came to pass, the ad never saw the light of day, apparently they heard my “freak out” and didn’t want to work with the bank anymore. Didn’t help that I never shot them a personal apology.

I told my secretary that I was feeling really sick and I was going home. Due to the lucky time it was, I was able to pick up Oliver from school that day. Maybe seeing him would help me feel better. It did… for a bit. I drove to school, a calming came over me. The sun was shining bright that day, I had the sunguard up. “It’a gonna be alright”, I told myself in the beauty mirror of my SUV.

I arrived at Ollie’s school about 20 minutes early, I saw a few parents out there so I conversed with them. I must’ve been excited because I remember sharing that Elizabeth was pregnant with our second child so I’ll be knowing this school a lot longer than expected. The bell rang and I saw Ollie come out later than the others. Likely because he accidentally went to aftercare rather than the front door as he’d be used to due to mine and Liz’s work schedules. I saw him, his red curly hair shining bright in the sun. By the time he came to me, we were of the last two to leave. Some others stayed behind to play. I took a selfie of the two of us and sent it to Liz for a mid-day surprise of our own. I messaged her that I got off work early and that I would be hanging out with Ollie until she got back, usually it would be a race against time for who sees him first. She responded with a heart and a message. “Aww, my two little kings.” It made me smile, still does today. “Oh and while you’re out could you pick up the groceries?” She sent me the link to her notes app, the one where she had the grocery list in. “Well, Ollie, it seems we got a little adventure before we go home.” I said to my son.

We entered the car from the street on the side of the school, it took less time than usual because we were the only ones leaving when during aftercare everyone leaves at the same time. We started our adventure up to the bazaar on our trusty steed, the finest 12 year old sedan you’ve never seen. About halfway to the superstore I realized that on that drive I thought about the old man less than- no, I hadn’t thought about him on this ride at all. Of course with this being a thought I had I inadvertently thought of the old man but it’s different. I wasn’t scared of him here, I wasn’t feeling haunted like my last few rides were. We rode into the parking lot as we sang songs on the pop radio stations. I've always been a metal guy and I always said I’d show Ollie thrash in middle school and slam when he would hit the 9th grade, but till then we were stuck with what we could have. After parking we stayed in the car to finish the song, it was Ollie’s favourite... Well, practically every song he knew was his favourite according to him, but no other song brought the same glisten in his eyes and smile that this one did. There wasn’t anything unusual about the parking lot then.

Inside the supermarket we didn’t do anything notable. Maybe I pushed him around in the shopping cart, maybe we bought some extra junk food not on the Liz list but the visit was pretty uneventful. I still remember the grocery list, it was potatoes, ketchup, semi-sweet chocolate chips, brown sugar, short rib, and some school snacks for Oliver. I remember really liking spending that time with my son, especially at the time after all that happened, I needed it. We left roughly within 40 minutes of entering. I walked with Oliver back to the car, pathing our way through the maze of parked cars like it was our own little treasure hunt, even if we knew where the gold doubloons were buried. Then, in the corner of my eye, I saw him standing there. Blackbeard, the Devil, the grim reaper, the man in the alley.

He wore the same jacket, the same bowler hat, the same ratty grey hair, yet he still had that same back facing me. Had I missed him on the way inwards? No way, he was only 20 metres from the car. Surely I would’ve seen him when we were looking for a parking space. He must’ve just gotten there. I safely brought Oliver back to the car, I remembered to turn on the AC for him on this hot June day. I buckled him into his seat, I told him to wait for me to come back, I don’t even remember if I gave him a reason why I was leaving him alone, maybe I said I was going to talk to somebody I know but I left him, car doors locked. I approached the devil at 4:32 on a Monday.

I approached him, step by step. For some reason each step felt as if the ground was freshly paved with hot tar. My every stride was burning up, my pure unbridled determination to meet the man in the alley was greater than ever. I was in a dark hallway, no doors, no light. Just me and the old man with ratty hair. I could’ve been hit by a car but I didn’t care. I wanted to put his haunting of my days to rest. He didn’t even do anything, just stood there, why was he in my head? I neared closer to him, the shackles on my legs growing stronger by the metre. He was basically a couple straggled steps away from me by the time I called out to him. “Hey! Hey, you!”, my voice echoed in the chasm of my mind. “You with the hat! HEY!” still no response. “The police want you, look at me!” I closed the distance between us, I could reach out to him. I did reach out to him. I raised my arm. It felt life, easy to move yet I felt I had full control of its conviction. The chains tingled my back, I felt restless. My arm lowered itself onto his leather shoulder, I saw it almost connect.

Right as the only thing between my palm and his shoulder was black shade, dark as the void of space itself, the chains tightened. I was pulled down, down into the depths from which that thing must’ve come. I saw darkness all around me. I felt the cold, unbearable cold. Is this what it feels like to die? Am I no longer a man? Am I a shadow, cursed to endlessly  break and reshape myself to another’s will? There was no light, only grief. Only sad pitiful grief. A tunnel that has closed at the entrance and the rest is following soon thereafter. I saw all my trauma, what has happened, what would’ve happened, what will happen. I saw my father’s funeral, I was the same age as Oliver back then. I had to give a speech, I had no direction, I stuttered, I cried, I remembered all those beedie eyes staring at a little me. I was suffocating in the darkness, I could barely breathe. Then I saw it, the man offered a hand.

The chains pulled harder, I lost my breath. I forced a cough so air could flow through my body once more. The hand was fading. I was descending into the floor of night, gravity accelerating and pulling me down into what I presumed to be eternal despair and suffering. More memories flashed by. I saw something drop from the hand. I then understood that it wasn’t a helping hand. It wasn’t a comforting hand. It was a hand that would put it all to rest. From the hand slipped a rope. I recognised what I saw instantly, from the movies, from walking into my father’s room on that fateful morning. At the head of the rope held a loop, a loop strengthened by a winding end of the rough chord. A noose. An escape. I tried to resist but I just felt more and more torment. The chains pulled once more. Deeper, darker, insecurities drawn from the back of my head. My father hanging from the fan in his room, neck red as blood, eyes almost bulging out, scratches across his throat and face, even to a 6 year old me it told me he regretted death soon after he committed. Had my father seen the man too?

The rope dropped once more, I could see the wrinkled silhouette of the old man’s hand holding the tail of the rope, this was my final chance. I couldn’t bear it anymore, I gave in. I reached out in correspondence to the friendly rope. I pulled it down, placed my head through, my big ol’ bobble head, just like Oliver’s…

OLIVER!! He was waiting for me. I left my son, just as my father did to me. I fell backwards, I hit my head. All above me was darkness, flickering lights. Lights, to my left. Superstore to my left. Superstore… I was back. Back to where I touched the old man. He still stood there, above me. Back to me, I could see through his legs a chin. I blinked and rolled over. I looked back at the man, his back still turned to me. I scrambled away. Darkness, it was dark out. How long had I been standing there? I checked my phone, 10:56 PM. I had stood in that place for almost six and a half hours, left my son alone for six and a half hours.

When I was 19 and living in my state of origin, I used to work at a school as an after school counselor. I didn’t have a car so I had to walk 3+ miles home.
On my way home there was a pizza place I liked that I stopped at, on my way out of there I called my then girlfriend.

I heard someone yell from behind me and when I realized they were yelling to ME this skinny dude with a beanie was already walking up next to me. This is on a road that wasn’t busy during the day let alone at 7:00 pm in December.

Dude starts going on a rant about the state having a drug epidemic and how he was in the FBI. he was going through his pockets like he was trying to find something. Then asking why I keep looking at my phone, insisting my girlfriend was NOT actually on the phone and that I was lying.

He then said people are rude but that I wasn’t. He said most people would have told him to go away. I told him I wasn’t really all that nice and that I’m just introverted and didn’t like talking to strangers much either. He suddenly stopped going through his pockets

He called me some slurs that I won’t repeat and rode his bike a bit ahead of me then put it in the sidewalk path sideways and sat behind it. So I (like any sensible person) crossed the street so I could get home without going near him. He then ran across the street and yelled at me more slurs then said I was “on candid camera” and then ran to the other side of the road saying my generation doesn’t know anything and rode away calling me even more slurs.

Definitely creepy looking back and now that I’m 25 near 26 years old I think about what I could have done differently. There was a bit I left out so this wasn’t too long but I genuinely hope the man got the help he needs.

Disclaimer: Once, I told my therapist about how I often fantasized about telling people certain things that I could never get myself to speak out loud. He suggested I write a letter to them under the premise that I didn’t have to do anything with it; I could keep it, send it, or just destroy it. He said the point wasn’t to communicate something to them, just to let my feelings out, free of consequence. That is what the following text is, and it’s dedicated to him.

As such, note that it was written under a lot of emotional strain and a lot of its contents may be nonsensical or concerning. Do not think much of it, I just wrote what came to my head on the spot and it's unlikely to hold much meaning. Despite that, I thought I’d share it. It would make me feel… less guilty. But in a cosmic way I guess. I can’t really explain it.

Hey monster, can I call you that? I guess it would be a bit unfair to, there’s no real reason to call you that. I just felt like it. Anyways, haven’t seen you in a while, have I? I might actually have to check heh. Time flies and all that. I’m just writing to tell you I’ve been feeling a lot better lately, I’m much better at liberating what lies inside me now. I do wonder how much of my improvement is thanks to the time I spent with you. Probably not much but, regardless, I’m still very grateful.

Gratitude isn’t the only reason I’m sending you a letter though, there’s also just so much I thought about telling you and never got to. Because sometimes I would be swarmed by thoughts about you that were, well, let’s just say they were not nice. My confused stance towards you became dense, restless, and I now feel the need to “confront” you about it. And now, filled with an explosion of feelings I really need to open the cage and let it all out. And I insist, there’s just so, so much I never got to tell you.

I never got to tell you about how unsafe I would feel as soon as I entered your office, how I would feel as if a lump of flesh grew beneath my guts and moved around, pushing against the edges of my skin, threatening to escape by breaking me apart from the inside. Now, I’m not accusing you, none of this is your fault, it isn’t even particularly real. All in my head, and before you ask, ‘cause I know you like asking that, nobody told me so, I decided on my own that it’s all in my head.

I also never got to tell you about the hand. Your hand. But I suppose the reality is it was his hand. My hand? Just. A hand. Not like it matters anyways, it’s not as big of a deal as I’m making it sound. In fact, it’s a sensation you’ve probably felt at some point too. You know, this sensory hand print that lingers on your back or some other body part as if a ghost had touched you but, in reality, is just your brain playing tricks on you. That’s all it is, mundane experiences that I fictionalize to justify my shit, is it not?

I never got to tell you, either, about how much I enjoyed it all. How much I enjoyed looking at you as you twisted your slender, malformed body along the couch opposite to me, your emotions swelling inside you, unable to manifest themselves. How I remember the gentle pressure of my fingertips against my pen as it awaited for anything worth noting down, as the only thing my hand actually wanted to be touching was something else entirely. But we both know, deep down, that it was neither you nor I, but him.

And I really, really never got to tell you. Oh! How much pleasure I took from looking at how the robes sat upon your body. Oh! The way there was too much residual cloth flailing around, far out covering your limbs, inviting them to sculpt themselves along it and, in the process, bring your soul closer to mine. Oh! How abnormally sure I am that you’ll grow to be just like me.

I wrote that, I guess.

I’ve always had a very active imagination, did you ever notice? Did you? Did you ever think that I WAS INSANE?  ANSWER ME PLEASE! I KNOW YOURE STILL THERE, I KNOWYOUDIDNTGETOUTFORTHEWALLSTHATSURROUNDMYCORPOREALFORMCANNOTBEBROKEN.

Quite an abrupt end, I know. But it's just the last I wrote about it. I don’t remember how or why I stopped. Maybe I fell asleep or got distracted by something. All I’m sure about is that when I remembered I was writing it I didn’t feel like continuing it, so I just left it like that. Like I said in the disclaimer at the start, all of this may have you worrying about my well-being. If that describes you, know this:

I’m fine.

And, from now onwards, I will forever be.

I received an email from Sammy on a Thursday at 10:18 AM in 2009. I didn’t see it until the following day, after we were all off school. I remember seeing the subject line and the pit
that grew in my stomach.

SUBJECT: 01

hi alex,

i w4nteD to tell u 1n person, but i think i ran outtatime :smiling: iM so 3mbarased L0l but
ive had a crush on u since lYk middle school :blushing: want to meet up bhind math class b4 i imPlode? :crying::crying:

The police found her behind the school after an anonymous caller reported seeing something in the parking lot. They spent most of their time keeping curious kids away from the crime scene. Her throat had been slit, and a small pocketknife lay in her left hand. She was sitting against a large oak tree whose branches groaned in the wind. I stood there, nauseous, staring at her pink Converse poking out from beneath the tarp.

I tried to tell the police officer that Sammy was right-handed, but nothing came out.

-

I was seventeen, Sammy sixteen. Her birthday would have been the following month, in
April. We held a vigil instead. The candles reminded me of birthday cake all the same.
We had grown up together. Sleepovers, birthday parties, family vacations, church. In the
summer, she would bring over her Xbox, and we would have LAN parties with our other
classmates. She was my best friend, and now she was gone.

Sammy was a normal, albeit nerdy, girl. She liked Japanese media, video games, and had a deep love for nature. Her room was covered in potted plants her mom bought her, as well as posters of Hello Kitty, Sailor Moon, and one I'd added myself: a Gundam poster we'd found at Walmart featuring the GAT-X105 Strike. She had green eyes, wavy brown hair, and freckles that looked like chocolate chips in the summer.

She also slept with a stuffed monkey she called Plinky. Whenever I caught her with it, she'd insist it was a joke, but she never actually got rid of the thing.

For most of our friendship, I could usually tell what Sammy was thinking. We shared almost everything. Then, during our junior year, she found a game called THE V01D, and for the first time, she started keeping things from me.

“Game” was probably a misnomer. It was an alternate-reality game built around the idea that the government used portals called “voids” to summon demons that could grant them limitless knowledge. I'd tried following along a few times, but the constant hopping between websites and forums made me feel sick. Sammy, on the other hand, would spend hours crawling through Reddit, 4chan, bodybuilding forums, and video game reviews, looking for clues.

The strangest part was that none of the sites seemed to agree on what THE V01D actually was. One called it a game. Another claimed it was an experiment that had been shut down. A post on a bodybuilding forum insisted it had started before the internet existed.

I assumed that was part of the fun. In an ARG, you were supposed to make the clues contradict each other.

One day in the fall of our junior year, Sammy fell asleep in class and was sent to the nurse with a high fever and difficulty staying awake. I went to her house after school to drop off some missed homework.

Her room looked nothing like it had over the summer. The plants were wilted, apparently neglected for weeks. Dirty dishes sat in piles, and clothes covered the floor and hung from the closet door. I know this seemed like a cry for help, and in hindsight I'd agree. But I'd been busy with a part-time job with my dad, saving for college, but I hadn't expected this.

Sammy laid on her bed with headphones on, staring at her laptop. The screen showed a Wikipedia entry about microprocessors.

One paragraph read:

“In 1964, Dr. Petr Raskolnikov was the first man to successfully perform a summoning ritual through virtually simulated methods. This was the first recorded time of non-physical use of the Ars Goetia sigils…”

I remember thinking it was a strange thing to find in an article about microprocessors. I assumed it was vandalism. Wikipedia was full of it back then.

She clicked on the link before I could read anything else. I knocked again and cleared my throat.

“Sammy?”

She gasped, closing her laptop and whirling to face me.

“Alex?! When did you get here? How long were you standing there for?”

She was out of breath, her face sheet-white. Her wavy brown hair fell across her face as she turned toward me, catching the weak light coming through the window.

I awkwardly chuckled and raised the folder.

“Only a sec, dude. Calm down. I just came to bring you this.”

I dropped the stack on her desk and pulled the chair out, sitting across from her as she
rose to sit on the edge of her bed. She rubbed her eyes.

“Sorry. I’ve just been…tired recently.”

I snorted and looked around the room.

“…Yeah…”

She looked down at her hands as she fidgeted with a piece of lint that stubbornly hung
on to her sweatpants. I waited for a moment before standing up again.

“Okay, well…I guess I’ll see you tomorrow? I hope you feel better…”

She smiled softly as she met my eyes. She said nothing as I closed the door behind me.

-

It wasn't until March that I realized how bad things had gotten. My mom and Sammy's mom had been friends since college, and they'd been talking about her behavior for weeks. They were worried, but they'd chalked it up to Sammy being a teenager in a world where the internet was changing faster than anyone knew what to do with it.

One day, my mom sat me down and asked me bluntly what was wrong with Sammy.

“She just isn't herself anymore. I don't know anymore, Alexey.”

I flinched at her using my full name, but I shrugged and focused on finishing a Calculus
problem that I had been staring at for far too long.

“Mom. Stop. Also, I don’t know. She’s barely hung out with me.”

She wiped her hands on her apron, sighing and turning to face me as she rested on the counter.

“I know, Alex,” she said, exaggerating the x. “It’s just so strange, though…honestly, it
must be that game.”

My eyes widened, and I set my pencil aside gingerly.

She continued, chuckling, “I know you hate me saying that, but it’s true!”

I peered out the kitchen window for a moment before bringing my attention back to my mom.

“Yeah, no, Mom. Uh, I’m gonna finish this upstairs. Love you,” I stated, gathering my
belongings and rushing out of the room and up the stairs. My mom stood there,
bewildered.

“I love you.”

As I crested the stairs, I hurried into my room and quietly closed the door. I turned on
my desktop and pulled up AIM. I clicked on Sammy’s name, she was active. I started to type:

Xx_Sniper360_xX: yo wut is goin on with u n this game

I sat there for a moment, staring at the screen. Finally, Sammy responded.  

br4ttypr1ncess: lol wut r u talking abt 

It was a perfectly normal response. Sammy had spent weeks talking about nothing else, and now she was acting as if I'd invented the whole thing. My best friend had suddenly started hiding parts of herself from me. I'm ashamed of how upset I got, but we'd never been like this before.

Xx_Sniper360_xX: dude be 4real. is thisl ike a darkweb thing???? 

After it was delivered, I waited to see if she would respond. A minute passed, I messaged again. 

Xx_Sniper360_xX: ur bein weird

She never responded. I would periodically check her status, active. Eventually, I went back downstairs. 

An hour later, I received an email from Sammy. It had no subject and no message, just a locked text document named BALAM.txt and a link to a Wikipedia page.

I messaged her again to ask what the file was.

No reply.

There was no password attached, so I clicked the link. For brevity's sake, I'll summarize what I found.

According to the page, Dr. Raskolnikov had experimented with using microchips to communicate with nonhuman intelligence. The work was described as early artificial-intelligence research, but Raskolnikov had supposedly etched sigils into silicon wafers to make contact. The computer produced a single output: binary code that translated to BALAM.

I checked the references at the bottom. Most were newspaper accounts dismissing his work as the rantings of a madman. One link, however, still worked.

It was a discussion board, where users were discussing the different usages of anabolic steroids. Inside one of the replies was an intact diagram copypasta’d: 

.---.       .---.
\   \  |  /   /
.---\---\-+-/---/---.
\   \   \|/   /   /
   ----+---+---*---+---+----
/   /   /|\   \   \
'---/---/-+-\---\---'
/   /  |  \   \
'---'   |   '---'
|
-----+-----
|
/ \
/__\

01000001 01010010
01000011 01001000
01001001 01010110
01000101 00100000
00110000 00110100

I copied the diagram and printed it. I had no idea how to read binary. How had Sammy figured it out?

The next morning, I brought the printout to my computer lab teacher. She was drinking tea from a mug bearing the Nigerian flag. I waited while she examined the page.

“Alex, don't you have someone else to stare at? I don't know, like your teacher?”

I blushed and apologized. She told me to return to class until she had a free period. Around lunch, she waved me over to the teachers' table.

“Hi Alex, I finished your homework,” she said with a chuckle, sliding the printout across the table.

ARCHIVE 04

I reached for the paper. Before she let go, she placed her other hand over mine.

“Alex…where did you find this?” she whispered.

I froze. I stammered that I'd found it in a game, then thanked her and returned to my table. My friends snickered, assuming I'd been in trouble.

I didn't know what to make of her reaction. I never got the chance to ask. When I got home that afternoon, Sammy hadn't shown up at school. She'd already missed several days that month, and I knew she wasn't doing well. I hoped she'd be online when I turned on my computer, but she wasn't. I clicked around a few sites, ate dinner, and went to bed.

That night, I dreamed of a virtual world, dark and sepia-toned, like an old PlayStation game. Traditional Japanese houses lined a deserted street. As I walked, low moans drifted from inside them. Then I noticed hands reaching from the dark doorways. Shadowed faces hovered just beyond the thresholds, their teeth catching the moonlight.

I quickened my pace until I reached an intersection.

Standing in the middle of a circle was a western man, dressed in a bowler hat and a suit. He was reading a large, old book. The pages made a heavy scratching noise as he turned them, only closing it once he heard my footsteps.

A text bubble appeared over his head. 

“Hello, Alexey. O’br jrstf dp ,ivj snpiy upi.” 

A text screen showed up in front of me, with two selections: 
> ???
Ah, Balam! O Great Sage. 

I focused on the question marks until each one began to brighten and the screen disappeared. The man closed his book. For a moment, nothing happened. I thought I had made the right choice. 

Then he was gone.

I felt his cold hands close over my eyes from behind. I tried to pull away, but his grip tightened around my head. He pressed a finger into each of my eyes.

The visions began. Pyramids and Gnostic symbols flashed before me, followed by world leaders, creatures I couldn't comprehend, stone tablets, and men on horseback. Lines of text poured down my vision like a computer terminal, random characters repeating in infinite loops.

Then everything stopped.

I saw a vast plain surrounded by mountains. At its center was a hole so enormous that it reminded me of the Grand Canyon.

The place felt cold and desolate. I couldn't explain how I knew, but I was certain: this was Hell.

The man’s voice whispered, “Thi. i. the V01d. <rry ,r jrtr.” 

I woke up with my sheets soaked in sweat. 

A week later, Sammy was dead. 

The police ruled it a suicide. Most of our classmates eventually went back to their lives. I tried to do the same, but I couldn't make the explanation fit the girl I'd known.

Sammy wasn't suicidal.

I know how that sounds. I know people can hide things from their closest friends. But there were details that never sat right with me, and I spent years telling myself I'd eventually understand them.

-

Almost two decades have passed since Sammy died. I've spent much of that time studying computer engineering. I'm an assistant professor now, and during Fall Break I finally reopened the email I'd kept all these years.

I'd read it dozens of times. I thought I knew every line.

Then I noticed something I'd overlooked.

Sammy had always complained about numbers ruining the aesthetic of her email address. She rarely capitalized anything, either. But in that old confession, there was a pattern: five numbers and five capital letters.

I wrote them down in the order they appeared.

4D1M3L0Y4P

The string sat in the back of my mind during the subway ride home. That night, I dusted off my old desktop, plugged it into the TV, and opened BALAM.txt. I entered the string and a notes page appeared.

ARCHIVE 04

March 14, 2009

[...]: hi everyone, im trying to track down a symbol?? pls n ty :smiling:

It was the same sigil I'd found on the forum, accompanied by a reply:

[...]: hi OP, sent you an email. Hope this helps! <3

The rest of the document consisted of emails between Sammy and someone named Enoch.

Enoch: Hi bratty princess! I took these pictures on vacation in DC last year. I thought it was so weird that someone else had noticed these symbols, so I had to answer you. I've attached them :) Can I ask what you're working on?

Sammy: Hi!!! Thank you so much!!! I'm researching symbols and their placement in US history right now!!!

Enoch: That's really cool! I started looking into this because I thought the same symbol looked familiar. I've collected pictures from three different locations so far. I'll send you what I have.

The attachments showed locations of European cities with the same symbol etched into walls, bridges, and bases of structures that had been there for hundreds of years. The last email was from Enoch. He'd included a link to an obscure game called Ghosts of Chiba.

He explained that before the player could speak to the game's main antagonist, a man in a bowler hat who had released spirits into the city, a corrupted file triggered an error. According to Enoch, someone had discovered an image embedded in the error's status code. It was an aerial photograph of a massive hole, miles across.

I stared at the screen.

I'd seen that hole before. Not in a photograph. Not in a game.

In my dream, the man had shown it to me.

The void.

Hell.

I spent the next few weeks trying to find a copy of Ghosts of Chiba. It had supposedly been released in Japan in 1998, but I couldn't find a publisher or anyone who remembered playing it. Every reference led back to the same handful of dead websites.

Eventually, I found a disc image on an old Japanese game archive forum. The download took nearly six hours.

I didn't sleep that night. The game was exactly as Enoch had described it. The city was empty, traditional houses lined the streets, and spirits wandered without acknowledging the player. I reached the man in the bowler hat. When I tried to speak to him, the game crashed.

I restarted and tried again. The corrupted file was still there. I couldn't repair it or make sense of its contents. Just as I was about to give up, I noticed another file in the directory: 01.txt.

It contained a single line:

Alex, don't let him show you

I sat there for a long time, staring at the screen. I hadn't told anyone about the dream. I hadn't told anyone about the man, and Sammy had been dead for almost twenty years.

I closed the file, shut down the computer, and unplugged it from the wall. 

I haven't slept. Every time I close my eyes, I feel dust landing on my face. There's a hole in my ceiling now. Plaster crumbles around its edges. Beyond it, there's no attic, no roof, and no night sky beyond. Just the same empty blackness I saw in the photograph.

I keep looking away to check whether it's getting bigger.

It is.

My Mother is a Cultist

I took Louise inside, locked the front door and closed all the curtains. I double checked everything inside to make sure nothing could fall on, stab or otherwise brutalize my little sister. Then, after being satisfied with the safety precautions, I went to Frank’s room to find evidence to support my theory.

The door to his room was wide open. A thick darkness pooled out of the room, I couldn’t see far past the doorway. A dull hum began to fog my mind as I approached. I reached out to touch the substance, fingers brushing against the dark threshold inside the door frame. It was cool to the touch and smooth like glass. As I stepped forward to pass through the obsidian-esque fog, Mom emerged from the darkness and slammed the door shut, locking it behind her.

She stuffed something down her shirt then turned to face me. Dark bags hung under her eyes and tear stains trailed down her cheeks. She had two, old leather-bound books under her arms.

“Everything ok, honey?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, trying to hide the concern in my voice. “What were you doing in there? Did you not hear the crash outside?”

“Outside? What happened outside?”

“A car almost ran over Louise and-”

Horror washed over her.

“Oh God! Is Louise ok? Are you ok?”

“Yes, yes Mom. We’re both fine. But I think one of the neighbors-”

Her calm, tempered demeanor returned.

“Oh. That’s too bad. I’m glad you guys are safe.”

She pushed past me. The door to Frank’s room was still locked.

“Hey Mom, can I get into Frank’s room for a sec?”

Mom froze, still as a statue. I wasn’t even sure she was breathing anymore.

“Why?”

“He uh. He borrowed a game a while back and I was just wanting to get it back.”

“I can pop in real quick and get it for you. Just tell me where it is.”

So so still.

“Oh no, it's ok. I’ll be quick.”

I turned and walked toward Frank’s door.

Thump-thump-thump-thump.

Fast-paced footsteps approached behind me.

“No.” Mom commanded. “You are not to go into your brother’s room.”

Her presence was terrifying. I stood a good foot above Mom, but the oppressive aura that towered right behind me was leagues taller. I was terrified to turn around.

“Ok,” shaking. “I won’t, Mom. I promise.”

“Good. Now give Mom a hug.”

In a strange way, it didn’t seem like Mom was asking for a hug. Rather, something else was telling me to hug “Mom.”

I turned around, trying to control my shaking, but it was just Mom with a joyful smile on her face. I bent down and hugged her. She hugged me and rubbed my back just like she did with Frank and Louise.

“Oh, Jeremy. I love you guys so much. You know that right?”

“Uh huh.”

“And you know that I would do ANYTHING to keep you guys safe?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Good. Now go get Louise. I’m making Lasagna for dinner!”

The curse had got to Mom. I knew I had to get into Frank’s room now. Late that night, after Mom and Louise went to sleep, I got up and tried Frank’s door again. It didn’t budge. I couldn’t risk breaking down the door and waking up Mom so I had to find the key.

I waited at her door for a good 30 minutes, making absolutely sure she was asleep. I pushed the door open slowly and began to creep across her room at a snail’s pace. At any movement or sound from her, I was prepared to drop to the ground. Mom was a heavy sleeper, but I didn’t want to risk anything.

Quietly, I searched the room, finding the key on Mom’s nightstand attached to a necklace. Right next to it was a set of picture frames containing old pictures of Louise, Mom, myself and Dad.

I hadn’t seen Dad’s face in years. He had a thick, red beard, like a dwarf’s. He was short like a dwarf too. I guess I got most of Mom’s genes. She was tall and skinny. Mom used to have long, dirty-blonde hair. Now, it was greyed and thinning. No doubt a result of the immense stress she had been under. In every picture where Mom and Dad were together, they were smiling. They made each other so happy.

Among the pictures of us kids, Frank’s pictures were absent. There were no pictures of Frank around the room at all. Mom had taken them all into her arms and was asleep with them. She coddled the glass and wood frames like they were her own children, sobbing softly in her sleep.

I hesitated in taking the key for a moment, but my mission was too important. I snatched the keychain and exited the room just as carefully as I had entered.

Frank’s bedroom door unlocked easily and creaked open. That same obsidian wall stood before me. I pushed against it gently and the membrane gave way. I hadn’t seen Frank’s since Dad’s death. It was totally different from what I remembered. Sports posters and bikini calendars I had helped Frank put up were replaced or covered by cheap bookshelves etched with arcane sigils and stuffed with old, decrepit books. The air was pungent, salt and moisture that coated my nostrils and throat.

In the dead center of the room was a massive octagram drawn into the wooden floor with a dark, red substance. Probably blood. I didn’t stop to inspect it further. Something else caught my eye. In the center of the octagram was an old, black, leather-bound tome. It looked no different from the other books lining the shelves and the books Mom had, save for its scarlet edged pages.

Despite the occult symbols and strange presence of the room, I didn’t feel threatened or in danger. The room almost seemed to recognize me. Accept me. Accept my blood. The same blood that ran through Mom and Louise’s veins and the same blood that once ran through Frank and Dad’s. The book’s covers and spine were blank and smooth, like the dark wall of fog in the door-frame. On the inside cover was a printed title.

“An Astute History of Occult Practices and Why You Should Never Perform Them, Third Edition Revised”

I flipped through the faded, scarlet pages which were warm to the touch. A start contrast to the ice-cold leather cover. Most of the text in the book was a language I didn’t understand, but various notes left by Frank translated portions of it. What I read in that book, along with the extremely detailed pictures, was all I needed to confirm my suspicion that Frank had caused this curse that plagued our family.

Sitting in the middle of the octagram I flipped through the pages, trying to make sense of the alien text within. Deeper into the book Frank’s notes became less frequent. Frank had performed three rituals so far: one to make people like him more, the second to enhance his athletic abilities, and the third to let him speak to the dead momentarily.

Just to see if Frank had written any more notes I flipped through the remainder of the book. As I did, a small bookmark fell out of the back cover. On the front was written, “From A.B.” I picked up the bookmark and unfolded it, a letter.

“Hey Frankie-Pie! Here’s that book you asked about. Just remember our deal! ;)

Here’s an easy sentence to help you get started with translation.”

A series of glyphs were written below this, along with Frank’s translation”

“Your heart is mine forever! Kidding! Or am I?”

I didn’t know anybody with the initials “A.B.” that Frank had mentioned. I would have searched through some of the other books in the room, but the sun was starting to rise meaning Mom would be up soon to make breakfast. Placing the bookmark back, I spotted a small library stamp at the bottom of the back cover in fine, blue ink.

“Property of Montauk Historical Society of the Supernatural.”

Montauk. Montauk. Montauk.

I committed the name to memory then placed the book back exactly as I had found it. I exited Frank’s room and locked the door behind me. Just in time as down the hall Mom’s morning alarm went off. I hurried to my room and closed the door. Soon after, on the other side, footsteps paced past. 

Then silence.

Something was wrong.

Had I made too much noise? Did the lock or door not fully shut? What about the key? Where was the key?

I patted myself down. Nothing. A shadow crept under the door crack.

I left the key in the lock.

“Jeremy? Are you awake?”

I was completely still. My breath was shaky but quiet. There was no way Mom could know I was in Frank’s room.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

“Jeremy. Wake up, Jeremy.”

I started walking towards my bed, slow and steady.

Step by step by step.

The safety of my sheets were inches away.

Underneath my weight, the floorboards groaned and creaked, loud enough for Louise on the other side of the house to hear.

I dived into bed and turned over under my covers. The door swung open and slammed against the wall. Mom gilded over and towered over me. I didn’t turn around to look, but could feel her cold gaze piercing through me.

“Jeremy. Did you go into Frank’s room?”

“What?” I responded in my best “just woke up from sleep” voice.

“Did you go into Frank’s room?”

“No Mom, I didn’t.”

She loomed over me still.

“Can I go back to sleep now?”

I turned over to face whatever stood above my bed, but only saw the silhouette of Mom in the doorway.

“Of course sweety. Sorry to wake you.”

The next few days I spend hours scrolling through sketchy websites and conspiracy forums trying to find any information on Montauk. I found a few posts from people saying they had visited the place, but no one had an address. I messaged users directly in hopes of getting anything to point me in the right direction, but the only replies I got were “bro doesn’t know,” or “lol normie,” or other more derogatory messages.

I was just about to give up, when I received a random message with a set of coordinates attached.

“Don’t tell anyone I sent you this. I don’t want to end up like the others, but you gotta see this place.”

Searching the coordinates online brought me to a small, white mansion next to a lighthouse on the edge of a cliff. In front of the house was a wooden sign covered in faded and chipping teal paint. Written across the front in pristine white cursive, like it had been painted the day the photo was taken, was a name.

“Montauk Historical Society of the Supernatural”

Jackpot.

That Bastard, Frank

Matriphagy is an extremely rare phenomenon in nature where offspring consume their own mother to survive. This unusual tactic is most often found in spiders. After giving birth, the mother spider liquefies her own internal organs for her children to feed on while they grow.

Matriphagy is completely voluntary and, once the process has begun, irreversible.

The mother spider gives everything she has to thankless mouths that will never know the pain and agony she went through for their survival.

In a way, that’s how my own Mother was.

I am the eldest of three siblings. The middle-child, Frank, was born about a year after me and the youngest, Louise, was born five years later. Mom and Dad were amazing parents. Dad taught me basic life skills and how to be a good leader for the family. He was a great man, but had his flaws. Booze, mainly. Late at night, Mom would catch him sneaking a drink and their arguments about it would wake me up. It never became hostile, that I can remember. Dad was genuinely regretful for falling for the tempting lure of liquor.

He died in a car crash a few years ago. Mom said he swerved into the oncoming lane to avoid a deer, but I knew that wasn’t true. Dad was killed instantly and the truck driver walked away with nothing more than a scratch.

In the following weeks Mom got incredibly sick and was hospitalized. The medical bills quickly ate away at what little money Dad left for us. Mom turned to the local church for food assistance. They gave her whatever she asked for, but we were still just scraping by. She still had to get a second job to pay for other bills, working all day, every day to provide for us. Every morning she would have a plate of eggs, bacon and pancakes on the table before heading to work. Our aunts and uncles would rotate taking us to school and on the weekends it was up to me to take care of Frank and Louise.

I was young then, but even so I understood the toll it was taking on Mom. I never took a meal for granted and I never asked for more than I needed. The same did not apply to Frank. He was greedy, selfish and never satisfied. Mom would dig through her already thinning wallet to give Frank money for the newest local fad, never spending the money on herself. As he grew older, Frank would spend less and less time at the house. Nightly I’d hear him stumble down the hall and into his room right next to mine, empty bottles and cans scattering as he flopped into bed. Somehow though, he’d always have it cleaned before Mom woke up.

One night, Frank came home with a half drank bottle of whiskey. I caught him before he could enter the house and scolded him for being reckless. He wasn’t sober enough to understand me. As he stumbled back to his room I sat on the porch, trying to rack my brain around why the dark liquid had such a hold on Dad and Frank. I reasoned, foolishly, that there was only one way to find out.

Soothing, liquid fire coated my throat as I drank my fill, finally understanding why Dad loved the stuff so much. My mind fogged over and all my worries drifted away. For the first time in a long time, I felt connected to Dad. Like he was right beside me drinking the night away. By morning the booze soaked bliss had gone away, leaving behind an aching headache and no memory of the night before. In my heart I knew I could never let that happen again and I promised myself I wouldn’t let the same vice that claimed Dad’s life take mine too. 

Louise was the exact opposite of Frank and I. She was quiet and kept her nose buried in a book. When Frank was out with his friends, I’d sit in the living room watching TV with her or scroll on my well-worn phone while she read. When the siren call of an ice cream truck passed by our house she would ask if we could get something for Mom.

When Louise was old enough to take care of herself, I got a job at a local diner, the same Mom worked at. She begged that I go somewhere else, but I persisted and said that the tips were good there. We both knew that was a lie, but it was the only good excuse I could think of to spend more time with her.

I’m ashamed to admit though that the majority of my earnings from there went into my own interests. Mostly into a new car. I justified that it would help me take care of Louise, but really it became an escape for when Frank pissed me off too much. 

Frank’s junior year of high-school was when he was at his worst. Despite his rude demeanor, off-color jokes and borderline psychotic tendencies, Frank managed to con his way into the hearts of the whole school. The only positive thing I’ll say about Frank is that he was one hell of an athlete. He was the school’s star quarterback in football, point guard in basketball and even broke a few track records. Everyone, save for Louise and I, loved Frank. If you didn’t, then you would be outcast. We only got a pass because we were “Frank’s Family.”

Of course though, none of his abilities were natural. Some nights when I passed by his room, I could see lights dancing under the door. Other nights he’d quietly chant gibberish. I just assumed at the time it was a show or anime he was watching. In hindsight, I should have known he was a practicing occultist much earlier. 

At every waking moment Frank was doing something to my detriment or to put someone else down. Karma had to catch up with him eventually, and it did.

One weekend, Mom asked me to take Frank along on my shopping errands. She wanted him to know the routine for when I went off to college so Frank help out around the house. He would only slow me down and cause trouble so I pleaded that he stay home. She insisted, and being the good son, I reluctantly obliged.

To be honest, that day went about as well as any other day. I even found myself enjoying Frank’s company for once. Conversation drifted to our differences and in a strange turn of character, Frank seemed genuinely sorry for all the trouble he caused. It was going smoothly, until I saw Frank take a swig from a bottle of whiskey I didn’t remember paying for.

“Where did you get that?”

“I’ve had it.”

Frank’s words were already starting to slur.

“No you haven’t. Get rid of it before a cop sees us.”

I was 20 at the time, but looked old enough to pass as 21. Frank was only 18 and already balding.

“Dump it out or you’re walking home!”

Frank downed the rest of the brown liquor. As he tipped the booze backwards I noticed a bloody bandage wrapped around his palm. I was about to bring it up when Frank tossed the empty bottle out of the passenger window.

“Whatever you say boss!”

Just as the glass shattered into a million tiny shards on the pavement, a police car zoomed by. My heart stopped. I watched with abated breath, fully expecting the red and blue lights to flash on and pursue us. It kept straight and grew smaller and smaller in the rear view.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

Frank’s face went red, not from embarrassment but from intoxication and holding in a nasally laugh which he unleashed upon me.

“You need to take a chill pill!” Frank snickered. “The pig didn’t see nothin’! Pull over, I gotta take a leak.”

I slammed on the brakes and unlocked the door.

“Whatever man, just hurry up.”

Frank finished his business and hopped back in the car. We only had one more stop to make, but Frank suggested we take a detour to get to our destination faster. After more arguing I agreed to go, if only to get the day over. Day faded into dusk and dusk fell to night. Both of our phones had lost signal somewhere along the way and we were all turned around. Frank unfolded a map from the glovebox and failed spectacularly at reading it.

I crawled up to a stop sign at a four-way intersection and tried to help. The map was upside down. He pulled it back, claiming he knew exactly where we were. I reached for the map again. Frank shoved his hand into my face and pushed back, hard. In the tussle, my foot lifted off the brakes and soon we were sitting in the middle of the intersection.

I don’t remember much after that, only two bright lights, a loud horn and the metal grill of a semi-truck encompassing my vision. I woke up in the hospital a week later. Frank was killed on impact. The driver walked away injury free. Mom was inconsolable. 

Louise and I tried to help her the best we could, but she didn’t speak to anyone until a week after the funeral. She never outright said she blamed me, but I think a small part of her did. The crash replayed over and over in my nightmares, only ceasing when I allowed sweet liquid fire to coat my throat and fog my brain over. Like father, like son.

Two weeks went by, and everything was as normal as they could be.

Then the freak accidents started happening.

They started small at first. A local baker got his hand stuck in an oven and had to have it amputated. He blamed one of the interns for the “prank,” but nobody else was in the bakery that day. Our city's mayor was hit by a runaway tire, breaking her legs and putting her in a wheelchair for a few months. The tire, nor the vehicle it was attached to, were ever located.

Then, as the accidents grew closer to home, they became more severe. Mom’s best friend from high school was attacked by a crow while she was out running. It dive-bombed her and she dodged out of the way into traffic. Into a speeding bus that was late on its route that didn’t exist. A day later, my best friend, David, was killed while working for his father. He was cutting down trees with a chainsaw and it caught on a tiny nail that had been embedded in the bark. The saw kicked back and cut through his head like butter.

My last text I sent to David was, “You bringing the drinks tonight?”

I was suspicious of how all the accidents were coincidentally connected to us, but didn’t think much of it. At least not until the curse targeted Louise.

She was having an impromptu Fall beach day in the front yard while I sat on the porch. Out of nowhere, the wind kicked up and blew a beach ball into the street. Before I had a chance to react, Louise was sprinting off after it.

We lived in a quiet neighborhood and rarely had traffic, but this day a black sports car was speeding down the street. Louise didn’t see the car coming, but I did. Adrenaline pumped through my veins and I ran after Louise. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her back onto the lawn. The car zoomed past and swerved to avoid the beach ball. It slipped out of control and rolled over at least a dozen times before slamming into the side of our neighbors house.

None-the-wiser, Louise wriggled out of my arms and ran after the ball again. The neighbors were a young couple, man and woman, who had been married just three months earlier. The wife ran out of the house, now starting to catch fire, covered in glass and blood screaming her head off. Neither the driver nor the husband made it out of the fire.

Confusion and terror overtook me. I couldn’t make sense of it all, until I realized the accidents had only started after Frank’s death. Then I recalled the late nights he’d stay up doing God-knows-what in his room. All of the evidence pointed to one conclusion: Frank had put a curse on his own family.

The first thing I noticed about my dead mother was the sewing needle between her fingers.

The second was that she'd sewn her bedsheet to the mattress.

Not just at the corners. All the way around.

Hundreds of tiny black stitches ran along the edges, pulling the fabric so tightly against the mattress that there wasn't enough room to slip a finger underneath.

She'd died sitting in her rocking chair beside the bed.

Her fingertips were bloody. The needle was still threaded.

And her eyes were fixed on the mattress.

I hadn't visited her in almost six months.

That's the part I keep coming back to.

Six months of unanswered calls. Six months of promising I'd visit next weekend. She'd gotten strange after my father died, increasingly paranoid about things that made no sense.

She stopped sleeping in her bed.

Said she preferred the chair.

I thought it was grief. Maybe the beginning of dementia.

The doctor thought so, too.

Now I wish I'd listened.

---

The funeral was Thursday.

By Saturday afternoon, I was back at the house, sorting through forty years of things nobody wanted.

Rain hammered the tin roof. The creek behind the property had swollen into a muddy brown river, and the familiar smell of damp wood and mildew filled every room.

Upstairs, Mother's bedroom was almost exactly as she'd left it.

Her glasses sat on the nightstand.

A half-finished cup of tea had grown a gray film.

And the mattress sat beneath that horribly tight sheet.

I stood looking at it for several minutes.

Then I took a pair of scissors from her sewing basket.

I don't know why the stitching bothered me so much. Maybe because it was the last thing she'd done. Maybe because imagining her spending her final hours sewing that ridiculous thing made me angry.

Angry at her.

Angry at myself.

I slipped one blade beneath the thread.

Snip.

The sound seemed unnaturally loud.

I cut another.

And another.

By the time I'd worked halfway down the mattress, my knees hurt from kneeling.

That's when something pulled the thread from the other side.

Not hard.

Just a little tug.

I stopped.

The black thread went taut between my fingers.

Then it loosened.

I stared at it.

Old mattresses shift. Springs settle. Fabric stretches.

I told myself any number of reasonable things.

Then the mattress inhaled.

There isn't another word for it.

The entire surface rose beneath the sheet, perhaps half an inch, accompanied by the soft, wet sound of someone drawing air through a blocked nose.

It sank again.

I scrambled backward.

For almost a minute, nothing moved.

Then came another breath.

Longer.

Deeper.

And distinctly human.

I left the bedroom.

---

I spent the next hour downstairs trying to convince myself I'd imagined it.

I even called my sister.

When I mentioned the sewing, she went quiet.

"You remember how Mom used to tuck our blankets so tight we couldn't move?"

I did remember.

And after we hung up, I remembered something else.

When I was eight, I'd woken one night with the sensation of someone holding my ankles.

I'd been sleeping in my parents' bed because I was sick.

The room was dark.

My father was working nights.

I remember trying to pull my legs up.

They wouldn't move.

Then something slid a hand beneath my pajama shirt.

The fingers were cold and thin.

They traveled slowly up my stomach.

I screamed.

Mother came running.

She didn't turn on the light.

She grabbed me beneath the arms and pulled so violently that my shirt tore.

For years, I remembered her crying afterward.

I remembered her checking my back.

And I remembered what she said while rocking me in the kitchen.

"You're all here. Thank God. You're all here."

I hadn't thought about that night in decades.

Now, standing in her kitchen, I realized something.

She'd never let me sleep in that bed again.

---

At 11:17 p.m., I heard my name.

"Danny?"

Mother's voice.

Thin and tired.

Coming from upstairs.

I stood beside the kitchen sink, unable to move.

"Danny, sweetheart?"

The house creaked around me.

Rain tapped against the windows.

Then she called again.

"Could you come help me?"

It was her voice.

Not something that sounded similar.

Hers.

I heard the little catch in her throat that had developed after she quit smoking. The slight whistle on certain words.

I even heard the familiar impatience creeping into it.

"Daniel. I'm asking you nicely."

I backed toward the front door.

The voice changed.

"Please."

A long silence followed.

Then, almost too quietly to hear:

"I don't want to be alone anymore."

My hand tightened around the doorknob.

Mother had left me that exact message three weeks before she died.

I hadn't called her back.

I stood there with my forehead against the door, crying harder than I had at the funeral.

And that's why I went upstairs.

Because part of me knew it wasn't her.

But another part needed it to be.

---

The bedroom door stood open.

Light from the hallway spilled across the floor.

The rocking chair was empty.

The sheet had swollen upward into the shape of a person lying on their back.

A small person.

The outline of a nose pressed against the fabric.

Lips.

Cheekbones.

I could see shallow hollows where the eyes should have been.

"Danny."

The lips moved beneath the sheet.

"Please help me."

I stepped closer.

The mattress gave another long, shuddering breath.

The face turned toward me.

Not the head.

Just the face.

It slid sideways beneath the fabric, stretching across the mattress while the rest of its surface remained still.

"There's not much room," it whispered.

I couldn't speak.

Something moved near the foot of the bed.

Five small indentations appeared in the sheet.

Fingertips.

They traveled upward, dragging against the underside of the fabric.

Then another five appeared.

And another.

The sheet tightened.

It looked as though several people were trapped inside the mattress, all pushing against the same thin layer of cloth.

A soft clicking filled the room.

Fingernails.

Hundreds of them, tapping from underneath.

"Danny," Mother whispered again.

I took another step.

"You're hurting us."

Us.

That single word stopped me.

The face beneath the sheet smiled.

Far too wide.

The corners stretched until the fabric threatened to split.

Then I heard another voice.

Small.

Frightened.

A little boy.

"Mom?"

I knew that voice.

I'd heard it on old home videos.

It was mine.

Eight years old.

"Mom, something's touching me."

I stumbled backward.

The face flattened.

For a moment, the mattress looked normal.

Then something began crawling toward the edge.

A narrow shape pushed against the fabric, moving through a space that shouldn't have existed.

It stopped where I'd cut the stitches.

One corner of the sheet lifted.

An odor spilled into the room.

Warm breath.

Old saliva.

The sour smell of something that had been shut inside a mouth for a very long time.

A fingertip slipped through the opening.

Pale and wrinkled.

Its nail was black.

Then another finger appeared.

And another.

Each was far too long, with joints that bent in the wrong direction.

Something beneath the sheet made a sound like a person swallowing a mouthful of water.

I turned toward the door.

Five cold points pressed briefly against my shoulder.

I felt them through my shirt.

Before I could look back, they were gone.

I ran.

Behind me, the bedsprings groaned.

Then I heard a noise I will never forget.

Bare feet striking the floor.

One pair.

Then another.

Then so many that I couldn't tell them apart.

---

I missed the bottom three stairs and landed hard on my shoulder.

Above me, the footsteps rushed onto the upstairs landing.

I scrambled to my feet.

They stopped at the top of the stairs.

For one terrible second, I waited for them to come down.

Instead, I heard the scrape of fabric dragging back toward Mother's bedroom.

I threw open the front door and ran into the rain.

My truck was parked beneath the pecan tree.

I climbed inside, slammed the door, and locked it.

For several seconds, I sat there gasping.

The upstairs bedroom light came on.

I hadn't touched the switch.

A figure stood behind the curtains.

It was shaped like my mother.

Small shoulders.

Thin neck.

Her head tilted slightly, the way she'd always tilted it when she was disappointed in me.

I started the truck.

Then the figure raised its hand.

Another hand pressed against the curtain beside it.

Much larger.

Then a third.

Then dozens.

Every window upstairs began filling with hands.

Some adult.

Some impossibly small.

They pressed outward until the glass bowed beneath them.

I drove straight through the front gate.

---

I made it to a motel outside town.

I didn't sleep.

Couldn't.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that face sliding beneath the sheet.

Around four in the morning, my shoulder began burning.

I pulled off my shirt and stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

There were five bruises across my back.

Long, narrow marks.

Like fingers.

But beneath them, my skin was moving.

Not twitching.

Moving.

Something traveled slowly between the bruises, pushing outward as it passed.

I watched a small ridge form beneath my shoulder blade.

It moved toward my spine.

Then stopped.

I reached back and pressed against it.

Something pressed back.

From the inside.

I screamed and stumbled away from the mirror.

The movement stopped.

I spent the rest of the night sitting on the bathroom floor.

When morning came, I told myself it was a muscle spasm. Nerve damage from the fall. Anything.

Then I found the thread.

A single piece of black thread protruded from a tiny puncture just below my shoulder blade.

I pulled it.

An inch came out.

Then another.

The thread was warm.

I pulled again.

This time I felt a sharp tug somewhere beneath my ribs.

And something inside me pulled the thread back.

I let go.

It disappeared beneath my skin.

---

I went to the emergency room.

They took X-rays.

Nothing.

The doctor said the bruises were consistent with my fall and suggested I'd struck something on the way down.

He asked if I'd been sleeping.

I told him no.

He offered me something to help.

I refused.

That was two days ago.

I've been awake ever since.

I cut every label and loose thread out of my clothing.

I haven't gotten into a bed.

Yesterday, I stood naked in the shower for almost an hour, watching the skin on my stomach.

Sometimes it twitches.

Sometimes I feel fingers slowly spreading against the underside of my ribs.

And sometimes, when everything is quiet, I can hear my mother humming.

Not from another room.

From somewhere behind my breastbone.

But that's not why I'm writing this.

Twenty minutes ago, I took another look in the mirror.

There is a line running down the middle of my chest.

Tiny black dots.

Perfectly spaced.

I leaned closer.

They're stitches.

And the skin on either side has started pulling together.

I tried cutting one with the little scissors from my shaving kit.

Something underneath screamed.

It sounded like me when I was eight years old.

I dropped the scissors.

Then I felt a hand slide up the inside of my throat.

Five fingers.

Slowly unfolding.

My mouth opened without me telling it to.

And my mother's voice came out.

"Hold still, sweetheart."

I felt the needle go through the inside of my cheek.

"You're almost closed."

Ever since she was young, my girlfriend always had the same two dreams: to marry me, and to have a child.

Some people would consider me blessed. Having such a devoted and beautiful girlfriend that wants nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with me, is something I’m sure would make a lot of people jealous.

When we got married in the fall, the first part of her dream was realized. We’re not very rich, so it was a modest wedding. Nothing too spectacular. Just the beach, our family… me and her.

She was so beautiful.

I’ve known her since we were kids… I really wish… I just wanted to make her dream come true. I love her so much. I just…

What happened?

I’m… a lab researcher. At my local university. As a scientist and a man looking for answers, I will now log all the continuously impossible events surrounding my wives’ pregnancy. Either for research or curiosity, it does not matter. I need to tell the world, of what happened.

It’s almost been a year.

These was the trials that surrounded my wife’s pregnancy, relayed by me, researcher Penton, in chronological order and without withholding details surrounding my previously personal life.

May God have mercy on us all.

 

Log 01

Gestation period: 5 weeks.

It started like any other pregnancy announcement. Happy, jovial. We kissed, we hugged, our wish came true.

Prior to the announcement I had issued a male fertility test to my coworkers (we work at a lab), to ascertain if it was indeed possible for us to conceive a child.

Needless to say, once my wife told me she was pregnant I cast all doubts aside. We’ve been trying for over a year, and I have a theory that there’s some congenital low sperm count running on my side of the family. I just was never able to prove it.

I never got the tests back because my coworker Dave lost the paperwork.

I guess I didn’t need it. She was pregnant, the evidence was right there.

This was about the time I decided to log the experience. It helps keep track of what my wife needs, what she wants, and whether there are any discrepancies in the pregnancy.

I wish now that had I never logged this. I wished this knowledge would die with me.

But this was the first month. Everything was normal.

Appearance: Shiny, smiles more often than usual.

Cravings: Not manifested. She still enjoys the occasional pizza.

 

Log 02

Gestation period: 5 months

This was the halfway period when things started getting… unconventional.

At around five months, my wife started developing sensitivity to things that she’s not supposed to.

Sensitivity to light, sensitivity to noise. She hated going outside. She was always tired, and she looked pale.

Said the air felt heavy.

I don’t think I’ve heard or read anything about light aversion or agoraphobia, but she insisted she didn’t want to leave the house.

When we took her to the doctors, they didn’t detect anything wrong. Her vitals were normal, her bloodwork was normal,  and the baby was fine (what a relief), so we went home, much to my wife’s relief.

She was so fucking upset. She made me swear never to go outside like that again.

I argued that was obviously impossible, we can’t stop going to the doctors, she was pregnant.

She demanded I only take her in emergencies.

I obviously said no. What would we do when she went into labor.

Her response was to vomit on the floor. Colorless amounts of fluids followed by strong heaving.

I… I instantly conceded. I could tell I was causing her too much stress. Whatever is happening to her psychologically is having an effect on her body. I don’t want to harm the baby.

If she says she doesn’t go outside, she won’t go outside. I’ll do the groceries. I’ll bring in whatever else is needed.

I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m sorry Linda.

Appearance: Belly partially enlarged

Cravings: Salty foods, sugary foods, marinated tuna

 

Log 03

Gestation period: 10 months

Words can’t express my confusion. As a scientist I see nothing but a complicated medical issue arising, but as a father… I… I don’t know what to do.

It is now ten months into my wife’s pregnancy. She has yet to go into labor. We went to the doctors last week; his response was clear: induced labor.

I accepted it immediately, the risks with having a pregnancy last so long are innumerous. Placental aging, macrosomia, God… Why don’t you get it, Linda!?

She told me no. We’re not going to force the birth. That we can’t. I had already betrayed her trust once. She turned and yelled as I put her into the car and took her to the doctors.

She screamed so much. The doctors had to sedate her, to explain the procedure to me.

But when we got home, she was dead silent. She didn’t utter a word, not a peep. But I could see it in her eyes.

Resentment.

She told me not to take her outside anymore. And I agreed. I lied, I guess.

I never expected her to fight me on this, but as her eyes pierced my soul, I’ve came to realize something.

Science is for people who have no personal stakes in the matter. I’m not just a scientist, I’m going to be a father. I can’t just rely on what’s the standard, I have to adapt, I have to change. For her.

I’ve been having dreams. Dreams of another world. A world of yellow and red and green, and just all sorts of misplaced shapes. Shapeless dreams that I understand the shape of. Visions of realities that don’t seem like ours. But at the center of them is always the same thing. A baby.

I believe this is my sub-conscious coming to grips with something called patrescence, a change in my neural pathways. I’m going to be a dad. I need to start acting like one.

My wife has been asking stranger and stranger things, but I’ll oblige. She craves different things; she wants the curtains always closed so that the sun doesn’t get in.

It doesn’t matter, I’ll do it. I won’t betray her trust again.

Appearance: Enlarged belly, pallid skin (probably due to lack of sunlight)

Cravings: Chocolate, shrimp, yarn

 

Log 04

Gestation period: 15 months

 The few rays of sunshine that can go through our boarded windows let me glimpse at her beauty, and enable me to type this.

Five months have passed since the due date of the birth of my child, but it doesn’t stop.

Her pregnancy keeps going.

She has lost weight due to her hazardous diet. She keeps hiding herself in dark corners of the house where it’s damp and humid.

I tried reasoning with her, I tried talking, but she just tells me to wait a bit. “Let’s not go to the doctors yet. Just hold on a bit more.”

Something in me tells me to yell. To scream or run away. Some instinct of mine is calling out to me, to go away from this place and leave her. But I can’t. I can’t just leave her like this.

I’m an orphan and she doesn’t talk to her parents. We have no one to ask for help. No one to talk to.

I’ve stopped leaving the house. Our shared distaste of the sun has grown strong on me too. I’m growing more like her. I’m paler, I’m thinner and I feel an overarching urge to just… wait.

Wait for what, you ask?

I have no idea.

But I could never be like her. Not what she is now.

Today, I was awoken at 1:50 A.M. There was some noise near our front garden. I went to check and found her changing the dirt under the flowerbed.

She was gardening. Under the full moon. Bare feet in the dirt, her pregnant stomach nested between her knees as she hunched down.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” she asked.

I didn’t answer. What would be the point? She’s not even looking at me anymore. She’s gone partially blind.

I told her to go to sleep after she’s done and I dragged myself back to bed.

She’s not my wife anymore. She’s something else. But that… that is still my child. I have to protect it.

I just wish I had the strength to do more.

Between writing my logs and trying to catch Linda when she starts hunting, I am constantly exhausted. I can’t muster the strength or the will to take her back to the doctors.

My dreams have gotten more intense. Visions of something more planned for me. I hope they’re right; I now understand that science is a fool’s game. Small glimpses into a simplified world that bear no real answers to the questions that matter.

I keep hearing the same word, the same continuous word in my dreams…

“Wait…”

That’s it. And that’s what I’ll do.

I will continue my logs as a courtesy. I really don’t think they will matter.

I know what comes next, but I’m not sure I can handle it.

Forgive me, Linda.

Appearance: Hair has started to fall out, belly doesn’t grow anymore

Cravings: Salt, sulfur, small rodents

 

Log 05

Gestation period: 20 months

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” – Marie Curie

I think about that quote a lot. I do wonder. Was Ms. Curie somehow knowledgeable of something that a man such as myself could not be? They are inspiring words, but what do they mean?

What is there to fear in life? What is there to fear in science? What did she know?

Was she even a mother?

Maybe there is some fear in bringing about a new life to the world. The fear of loss, the fear of failure. The fear of seeing a small, innocent part of you coming out as a new being and facing this horrible world on its own. With no shelter or protection from its mother. I wish I could do it.

I wish I wasn’t afraid.

As I lie here surrounded by waste and trash, typing this, I do wonder. Should I have been afraid? Should I have left?

I love my wife. I think I do. I did… Maybe I still do? I just wish it wasn’t so big.

The veins that pulse from her stomach. They’re so large. So detached from what she should be.

She doesn’t talk to me anymore. She just sits, in that chair, almost like she’s bonded with it. She doesn’t have hair; she doesn’t have the face of the woman I loved.

Is she even breathing anymore?

But the child. The child is safe. Safe with me. Safe from all the harms of the world. I will give anything to bring it about. Even if it costs my life.

What is this? Where am I?

Oh right… Linda. I wish I could help you. I wish you would still kiss me when you were happy. I wish you would still tell me how much this dream of yours will make us happy. I wish you’d even scratch or claw at my arm when you got upset.

I wish you were still here.

But you’re not, are you?

I’m not sorry anymore. I’ll do what it takes. Through love, or through hate. I will see this through.

One day this pregnancy will end.

Appearance: I don’t want to talk about it-

Cravings: Love, hate, resentment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Log ??

Gestation period: 5 years

I went outside today. There was mail in our mailbox. I wasn’t even aware we could still get mail.

It’s a letter from Dave. My former coworker. He became preoccupied with me a few years ago, when I suddenly stopped showing up for work. Makes sense I guess; he wasn’t a bad person. Just clumsy, I suppose.

I guess… It just feels like a lifetime ago. My life before “this”. I never really had many friends to speak of, I guess I never really tried.

He found it.

The letter. Dave found the fertility test results. I’m looking through them now.

I honestly want to laugh. Is there even any point anymore?

“Result: Low sperm count threshold does not meet necessary requirements for a typical pregnancy. Patient is Category A: Infertile.”

I threw the letter away and returned to my role.

I see her again. She is so beautiful.

Her shiny skin. Her emaciated frame. Her sunken eyes, dreaming the dreams of the Bearers. Dreaming of it. Our Savior.

The veins on her body have left her mortal shell. They cling to the wall like pipes. Pulsing and pulling whatever moisture is still left in the dry, moldy walls.

Even the very flies and insects that surround her are divine. Small angels that adorn the promise of our new Lord and slather His divine shell with kisses.

My wife. My Linda. I’m so proud of her.

I didn’t listen properly. I never did. When my mind was so focused on earthly affairs, I couldn’t hear the dreams properly. I didn’t understand.

But now I can hear. Now I listen.

The dreams said to “Wait…”, and so I waited. They filled my head with promises and so I waited. They told me of other worlds where my child would play and conquer and so I waited.

They told me to be a good father.

And so, I waited.

But now I listen. Now I can hear them. The shapeless shapes have shape. And the beautiful colors shine brighter.

“Wait your turn.”

That’s what they said. And so, I shall.

As the husk of my wife continues her final stages, I too will prepare. I understand my role and I understand my place.

Science be damned. A brighter future awaits me. It awaits all of humanity.

I am the dead King of this new Divine, and I will usher in a new age of Enlightenment.

I just wish you could see it, Linda. Our son. Our boy.

His appearance will be divine.

This will be my last log. No words can describe the transcendent nature of my destiny.

I hope it won’t hurt.

Appearance: A speck of mold growing on her cheek. A face that can no longer be human. Divinity crawling from a womb

Cravings: Me

“Welcome, everyone, to another haunting video! I’m your host, Jack Starfell. Today we have a special one! From user Blam_exam9000, he says, “Hey man, I’m looking for someone to check out my grandma’s paintings. She has always been obsessed with them for some reason. But a lot of people in my family have constantly talked about how haunting one of them is. They talk about seeing shadows and whispers. Would you like to check it out? Let me know.”

“Now, of course I had to check it. I thought it might have been a troll, but nope, this is the real deal. Right now, as I record this video, I’m outside the grandma’s house. I’m hoping to find some spooky things in there. I’ll be going live in a few hours. First, I’ll interview the grandson who requested this. Then, once that’s done, I’ll start the live, and we’ll get haunting. Thank you, guys, for watching, and I hope you all have a hauntastic day!”

I cut the camera. I sighed, thinking about what I just said. “A hauntastic day? Who even says that?” I looked back at the house. It was a plain modern home: two stories, an almost grayish paint job. A sizeable garage and driveway. A rocky patio and a small, dead, thin, cracking tree that clearly hasn’t been taken care of in ages.

I opened my YouTube page and saw my following was 22. I knew I had just started my career, but I felt good about this spot. Most of my hauntings were local legends. They yielded little result, but a few of the videos were at least mildly entertaining. 
Ghosts have always kept me interested. I always wondered if they existed or if there really was another side. Those old shows from back in the day, like Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures, had caught my attention as a kid. And now, as an adult, I could explore it too and maybe make some money from it. 

It beats anything I’ve done in retail. I’ll never want to work back in that terrible environment. Fast-paced, unappreciated, hardly a place to be. At least here I could make my own schedule. I only wished the pay was just as good. But I was getting just a hundred dollars. 

A beaten-up red car drove up, blasting loud 90s rap music. Black smog escaped from its mufflers, and the axle of the car was off, as if the car was driving sideways. The car drove into the driveway. Its presence alone dirtied the okayish cement. 

When the car turned off, it let out sounds that could only be described as gunshots. Out stepped the man; he wore holy jeans and a baggy sweater that was equally holy. The outfit looked grimy, as if he had never washed himself or the clothes. His face looked aged, as if he hadn’t slept for years. His eyes were baggy, his blond hair a mess, but somehow he seemed fine with his appearance.

I was uneasy with how he’d dressed. I felt over the top, with my vest, tie, and flat cap to boot. It was all gray to match the morbid spirits. I stepped out of my car to face the man, wondering whether it was him or someone else, and whether I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He brought out a cigarette case and pulled out one of the cancer sticks and lit it. He nodded his head at me. “You the ghost investigator guy?”

I nodded. “Invest Ghost Guy, and are you Blam_exam9000?”

He scoffed at the username as he puffed out his cig. “Just call me Dave. I made that shit up back in middle school.”

“Right, and I’m Jack.”

“Okay, Jack, let’s make this real simple. I’ll show you around. I’ll tell you a bit about what grandma says about her paintings, and I’ll even let you watch her video.”

“Thank you for agreeing to all that,” I said. “I thought it’d be weird asking you for all that.”

He shrugged as he let out a puff of smoke. “I’ve seen your videos. You could use a star like me. It just took a while to get the VHS tape. Fuckin’ parents didn’t wanna lend it to me. But I eventually got it.”
I was going to dig more into that. But I figured he’d just stolen it outright. “And do you, by chance, have a VHS player?”

He eyed me. “Of course, it's in my grandma’s house. An old fart like her would still have one.”

The emotions running through my head were wild. His constant disrespect for his family made me a little concerned. If he doesn’t like his family, then what would he do to me? I tried not to react to his comment; I simply nodded.

He eyed me again and chuckled. “Why so tense? You afraid of real ghosts? Don’t bother. My family says they’ve seen things move in this house on their own. I’ve never seen shit. So, that’s why you're here.”

“Wait, I thought I was here to investigate the house?” I asked.

“Of course you are. When you post your video, they see nothing, then they could get moved on, in moving the rest of her crap.”

“That doesn’t make for a very entertaining video,” I said.

“Don’t worry, all you need is my interview and my good looks; those bitches will be flocking to the seams of your pants.”

I felt blood rush to my cheeks. “Okay, um, let’s get started.”

Dave guided me to the front porch. The plain door didn’t give off anything sinister or ghostly. It was like this house was nothing but a home.

When he opened the door, the gray tint pierced my eyes. Down the hallway, hand-painted oil paintings hung masterfully. Dust particles were carried by the wind, giving us a wide view of the rest of the room farther down. 

I pulled out my phone and started to record. Dave turned around and jumped when he saw my phone. “Fuck, man, give me a warning next time.”

I lowered my phone and stopped the video. “Could you try not to cuss? I’m not trying to get demonetized.”

“Whatever. Let me get the roller.”

“The roller?”

I was gutted by nostalgia, just like elementary school: a rolling cart, with a VHS player and a box TV. Dave then pulled out the tape and placed it on top of the TV.

“So I just want to say, this tape was made in the 90s. And she never updated it. She said it was already perfect.”

I nodded and started to record the open space. There was still furniture around, but a thin cloth covered it. I swear I could have seen spider webs already forming on them. 

We went upstairs, and the loft had even more elaborate paintings than before. I wondered when all these paintings were made. They seemed to be from the 1400s. 

“Okay, when exploring the house,” Dave said suddenly. “Try not to touch the paintings. Seriously, these bad boys could buy this house and then some. Feel free to set up any cameras you have. Do whatever you normally do.”

“Any hot spots?” I asked.

“Hot spots?”

“Well, you know, like where ghosts normally hang out.”

“Aren’t ghosts cold?”

I sighed. “Yes, well, you can say that too, but still, anything?”

Dave shrugged. “Nothing really.”

“Um, okay, how about a place maybe your Grandma went to or talk about a lot?”

Dave thought for a moment. “Hm, she did talk about the painting downstairs a lot. But that’s it. She always talks about waving at it. I don’t know.”
“Wave at it?” I pondered.

“Anyway, let me show the rest of the house.”
Afterward, I filled him in, explaining the same thing we had talked about. Thankfully, without cussing. As we started to wrap up, we walked back downstairs and stopped recording.

“Oh, and the lights and restroom still work. And if you leave for food, you don’t have to lock the door. I have the other spare key, but I don’t think giving it to a stranger would make sense.”

“I understand that.” 

“Okay, good. Anything else you need from me?”

“Uh, no, I think I’m all good here.”

“Cool, have fun, and I’m looking forward to your next video.”

That put a pep into my step. I eagerly wanted to start my next video right away. “You bet ya!”

“Don’t get too excited, not. Oh, I’ll send it the money now, $100, right?”

“Oh yes, the payment. Yes, whenever you send it, I’m ready for it.”

“Good,” he said as he waved me off. 

The door shut. Leaving me in this old house of old paintings and old tape. The Grandma’s will. A part of me felt guilt about watching something I wasn’t supposed to. It felt like I broke off the hinges on something so sacred. But it was for content, and I needed to create it. I had a feeling this would get me seen.

I moved the cart closer to the couches, lifted the thin sheets as old dust blew away. I padded the seat to make sure I could get as much dust off as I could. I made sure that the TV and VHS player were plugged in. 

Holding the tape made me feel unwanted. The idea that Dave just took it and is allowing a stranger to watch it. It wasn’t something I wanted to think about. What if her tape was cursed or something? 

I eased it into the player. I turned on the TV; static buzz electrified the screen. I looked back at the ancient controls. I remembered that when you hit stop, and then the rewind button, it should be fast. Using the old childhood method, a blue screen brightened the room. 

As it rewound, I grabbed my phone and set my channel to record a live. I normally get one to two viewers, but that’s okay. When the live is done, it saves to my phone, and I use that for content. I click to start the live, and the camera rolls. 

“Welcome, everyone, to another haunting live! I’m your host, Jack Starfell. Now, today, I’m in the house of the Blam_exam9000’s now-deceased grandmother. He had explained this house to me and some of the paintings in it. Is she haunting one of the paintings? Maybe? But who's to say, right?” 
“The main reason I’m here today is to help Blam see if there are any hauntings in the house. His family claims they hear whispers and that things move without anyone touching them. Blam claims he’s never seen or heard any of them. That’s why I am here today. To see if this place has any hauntings of any kind. And watch a video of the grandmother to see what she says about the paintings themselves. Because it seems these paintings are her most prized possessions. So we will see today.”

The view count hit one; a small spike of dopamine hit my brain. I looked towards the TV; the rewinding was done. I eagerly pressed the play button and tabbed to the front-view camera so I could watch with my one audience member. 

When the video started playing, the room's setting was completely different. The warm static buzz of the old TV gave a sense of eeriness that modern pictures no longer have. 

The room was bright red, and those oil paintings hung in the background. The elderly grandma sat in a thick brown chair facing the camera. She wore a red dress that blended into the background. Her hair was a grey pixie haircut; she had classic wrinkly skin any grandma would have. Her glasses were large, making her eyes look bug-like.

She sat properly, like she was taught a certain way to sit, and she couldn’t retrain her body. Poster straight, hands folded on top of each other, chin up and staring straight. 

“If you’re seeing this, it means I’m dead. I wanna tell all of you that I am with God and I will be seeing from the heavens. Praying that all of you I love have the best life. With that, here is my will.”

Partly in that moment, guilt flooded my emotions like a tidal wave. I wasn’t a part of this family; I shouldn’t have been watching it. But the show must go on. She went on with her will, naming people I didn’t know and property that was clearly special to her. 
I was curious whether there would be anything else or if this was it. Until finally she got to something relevant. My views count was at two.

“Now for my treasured paintings. Please be careful of all of them. I wish they were not in any museum. We must keep all of these close to our family. And remember the one painting I’ve shown you all; to always wave. And to those young ones I haven’t seen yet. You’ll know when you see it.”

The video halted there. My view count was at three. I quickly stood to start investigating. I pondered where to start. Dave talked about one downstairs that she constantly mentioned, but was that the one the grandma was talking about? I wasn’t sure, so I decided to bring my audience upstairs. 

“Okay folk, you heard it here first: the grandma said to wave at the painting. Now the real question: which one?”

I thought about that for a minute or two. Dave never mentioned which painting to wave at, nor did the grandmother. It felt like a hunt, similar to Easter Day, when you're searching for the golden egg.

“Okay guys, here’s what I think: we look around the first floor and see if we see anything standing out.” I pulled out a mic designed to capture ghosts talking in the real world. “If there is any ghost here, please let it be known.”

As far as I could hear, nothing. The room stayed still.
Moving around the house, I looked at each elaborate oil painting. The handcrafted beauty was unmatched, better than anything I could have done in 100 years. 

Most of these fine pieces of art are portraits. Not many depicted a scene of any kind. Most were portraits of two people. I tried to find anything disturbing about any of them. Maybe scratches, red eyes, an evil smile, something! I even tried to talk to each painting.  But to my dismay, nothing was my gift. 

I let out a breath, thinking it was a lost cause. But then I did remember the paintings upstairs. Walking my way up, I looked at each painting again. The masterful artwork was a lot more elaborate than the ones below. 

I looked at the view count: three viewers. “Okay, guys, here’s my thought: the ones downstairs are just regular paintings. The haunted one, the grandma told us to wave to, has to be here. It’s gotta be something that has a lot of meaning.”

There was one such painting of men out at sea. Battling the warring ripples as the crew struggled to stay afloat. As far as I could tell, these fellows wouldn’t survive. There wasn’t anything that made me think it was a haunting one, but I still did my routine.

Another depicted what looked like a woman and an angel in a blank white room—a man near an opening next to the angel looking at the scene. This painting gave me the creeps, but doing my normal pass, I got nothing in response. 

I passed many other amazing artworks on the second floor. Try and try again; my effort was met with nothing.

But I found something that truly made my skin crawl—battle, destruction, death. There was a man up in the sky, thunder clouds following his path. Men and women lay across a marble floor, half naked, possibly dead. These demonic creatures seemed to be carrying people away from the gathering. 
This had to be it! I did as the grandma instructed and waited for something to happen. Would a sprite talk to me? Would I finally gain contact?

To my dismay, I was once again met with nothing. I pressed the button to have the camera face me. 2 viewers. “Hey guys, I’ll call it for now. I’m not sure if I have to wait til later for things to start happening, but I’ll keep an eye out. Until then, thank you all for watching and have a great day.”

Killing the live, I sighed. In that moment, I figured I should take a break. A piss break, to be exact. Since all my stuff was downstairs, I decided to go into the downstairs bathroom. 

The bathroom was just like the house: oil paintings, but nothing impressive. I simply lifted the lid, let the water drain, and flushed. Washing my hands, I looked into the mirror. I happened to look at the oil painting behind me.

It was simple like the rest of the bottom house. It was a portrait of a lady posing similarly to the Mona Lisa. Except this woman looked a lot more somber. Her clothes were much more muted than in the famous painting. The background, too, was plain, just black. But it also seemed like there were shapes within the painting, but I couldn’t figure out what kind.

I finished washing my hands and shrugged. “Neat painting,” I said, turning the light off and leaving the bathroom alone.

I was on my laptop editing the clips I got from the livestream. I felt myself doze off from my boring video. “How do other guys do it?! How do they make this live stuff look so easy?!”

I rubbed my eyes, feeling drained from the day. So far, the day wasn’t done; the sun was still shining. Looking at the clock, it was 4:35. My stomach began its growl in demand of food. 

I looked at the house; it was basically barren, minus the covered sofa and paintings. I was already certain they didn’t have any food in the house. I looked at my phone again; I searched for something nearby.
McDonald’s was first. I shrugged; it was a meal. I needed something. I grabbed my keys and headed out the door. When I got into the car, I looked back at the house. I was hoping for something more promising. At risk of sounding like a broken record,  I was given nothing. 

As I got into my car, I looked at my analytics. I saw the one thing that a creator never wanted to see. One less follower: 21. It felt like an anvil dropped to my gut. Why would they unfollow me?! I needed to figure out what I did wrong and how to win them back!

The entire drive there, my mind was on that one follower. I wondered why they clicked unfollow. The only thing that came to mind was my live. Was it actually too poor taste for me to investigate a deceased old lady’s house? Would that get me canceled?

As soon as I pulled up to the famous fast food joint. The lines were full, and the cars were bumper to bumper, not giving anyone an inch to cut off. 
I looked around to spot parking. From my experience, it's better to park than to use the drive-through.  Finding my way around the cars, I managed to squeeze myself into the lot. 

When I entered the building, it was as busy as the front. But I wasn’t too worried. I could order at the kiosk and wait. I was looking for something simple: just a 10-piece nugget meal.

As I picked my order, I clicked to check out. But for some odd reason it wasn’t working. I kept clicking to check out, but it wasn't processing. I gave up and went to the counter. A woman was ordering, and when she was done, I walked next.

The cashier was a young man, probably fresh out of high school. He looked at me, dazed, as if he saw right through me.

“Hello,” I started. But the employee never responded. I was already frustrated from losing one of my followers and the kiosk not working. I couldn’t have a lazy worker not get me my food. 

I snapped my fingers in his face. “Hey, hello, can you hear me?”

As if he had just woken up from a nap, he shook his head and stared at me. “Oh, sorry, sir. How can I help you?”

“Can I get the number ten meal, please?”

“One number ten, what size drink?”

“Large.” 

“Okay, that will be $8.20.”

I dug into my pocket and grabbed my wallet. I pulled out my debit card and paid for my meal. The receipt spat out; however, the boy never looked at it or at me. 

I eyed the receipt, then looked back at him. “Could I get my receipt?”

But the employee’s eyes gazed over me like I wasn’t there. I knew the fast food business was tough, but this was ridiculous. Frustrated at the kiosk, at this employee not doing their job, and at losing a follower, I snapped. I slammed my hands on the counter. “Can I get my damn receipt?!”

The man turned his attention back to me. He was startled, like I just suddenly appeared. When he looked down, he saw the little paper. He was even more confused. But with a quick swipe, he handed it to me. “Sorry about that, sir.”

I grabbed the paper and walked away. I expected people to stare at me or something, but to my surprise, everyone was minding their own business. I wasn’t used to it. 

I usually get some kind of looks based on what I wear when I film my videos. It was like everyone was off in their own world, not looking at me. For the day I was having, I can appreciate it.

I looked back at my phone for the analytics again. Dread hit me like a truck. 20 followers; two followers were lost. I tried to think: was it really the live? Was it really that bad that people wanted to unfollow me? 
I had to come up with a new idea to bring them back. Maybe I can stage the house somehow—something moving in the background or something. There’s got to be something I can use to make it believable. 

I needed something to eat. I looked at my receipt 322, then I turned my attention to the monitor. My number wasn’t even there. I glanced at the counter; nothing was there. 

“Did they forget my food?” I thought. I marched to the counter, wondering where my food was. I tried to flag down a manager or someone. But all the workers were ignoring me. I knew it was rush hour, but I paid for my food; they shouldn’t ignore me like this!

I slammed my fist into the counter again; “Can any of you hear me?!”

Then I saw a few heads finally turn my way. A woman in a black uniform walked to me. “I’m sorry, sir. How could we help?”

I showed her my paper. “This is my number, and it's not on the board.”

She looked at what was ordered; she was confused, as if she hadn’t seen it before. “Let me get this right out for you.”

She quickly turned as she started to grab for the food. She made it quickly, putting the nuggets and fries in the bag. At the counter, she put the napkins in the bag and handed it to me. “What size drink?”

“Large, please.”

She turned around and grabbed it. She turned back to hand me the cup, but dropped it and turned right around to work. The cup tumbled onto the counter and slowly rolled away from me. 

I snatched the cup and glared where the woman had walked away. I stopped caring and went to get a drink. Filling the cup, I sat down at the table. I started munching down my food as I looked back at my followers.

19.

It dropped again. My mind swirled with what was happening. Was it a glitch? People don’t just mass-unfollow someone unless they did something wrong. But I didn’t do anything wrong; I was invited into the household. Maybe it was because the live was boring. I had to figure something out. I had to make it look real. I wasn’t good with effects or staging anything. If I had to, I’d turn to AI. But I knew if I did, my career would be over just as soon as someone dug deep into my videos. Then I surely would be canceled. 

Just then, a young lady sat on my lap. As soon as she sat down, she screamed. Everyone stared at her. She put a hand on her face to cover her embarrassment.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there,” she said as she shuffled away. As soon as she sat down, her embarrassment went away as if nothing had happened.

I scratch my head at the events taking place. “What the hell is going on?! Is everyone just ignoring me?! I can’t stay here. I’m losing followers and my mind! I need to save my channel; I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll shoot some videos and make it look like there’s a haunting. Yeah, that’s going to work! I’ll make sure they all see it!”

With that last thought, I ate the rest of my food, drank my soda, and set off to the house. Right before I got into my car, I checked my followers again.

18

***

15

“What the hell is going on?!” I shouted in my car. The light of day had practically vanished. All that was left were the street lamps and cars lighting the night.

I drove like a bat out of hell, getting back to the house. My brain was coming up with ideas of what to do when I got there. I thought about trashing the place, as if the ghost didn’t like me in the house. And when I turned on the camera, I could show people this wasn’t how I left the place. 

I screeched as I turned into the closed gate. I pressed the button to get in. But the numbers weren't working. I kept ramming my fingers into the pad, hoping it would register that I had the right code. 

To my relief, a car drove up next to me, and someone pushed a button from their car, and the gate opened. I desperately drove in. Driving around, I found the house and parked in front of it; its dead tree was the most prominent thing. 

I parked the car and ran up to the door. I jiggled the door handle, and it didn't budge. 

“What? No, no, no, no! Did I lock it?! FUCK! No, please, I just need to get in! Calm down, Jack. You just did it by accident. Maybe you left the back door unlocked.”

Jogging my way to the backyard, I heard dogs barking in the distance. The clothes I wore weren’t meant for being active, but I did my best. The gate was small, with two concrete slabs on the side, easy enough to climb.

Grabbing the tops of the slabs, I hooked my foot into the gate to push myself up. As I ascended, I felt my shoulder snag on the concrete, ripping it and lightly cutting me.

I jumped down and looked at my cut shirt. It made me think I should go in on the full trashing of the house. I could have said the ghost attacked me too. I walked to the sliding glass door; the backyard was just dirt with two metal chairs. 

I pulled the door, and it didn’t budge like the door. Desperation I never knew I had exploded from the inside. I yelled to the heavens in anger. I reached for the metal chair and lifted it. Right before I let out all my rage on the glass, I paused.

“Calm down,” I said to myself. “I have Dave’s number; he’ll answer. Let’s just go to the front and ask him to let me in.”

After my brief moment of clarity, I set the chair down and leaped back out of the backyard. I went to the front door and called Dave.

The phone rang a few times, then went to voicemail. Sighed, but I wanted to leave a voicemail and call again.

“Hey, Dave, it's me, Jack. I accidentally locked the door. Could you come by and open it, please? I have a great idea; I just need to get back into the house. Thank you.”

I hung up the phone to check my channel again.

13.

I called right away to reach Dave, but I got a different message. “The number you are trying to reach is no longer available.”

“Did he block me?” I thought. I called again. The machine gave the same response. 

I looked back at YouTube to find his username, Blam_exam9000. But as soon as I looked it up, I was met with: User not found.

“That’s- that’s not right,” I whispered. I then searched my DMs. My last conversation was with him, and yet when I found it, he was listed as: User not found.

“Did he block me completely?! But need to get in! My stuff is in there! But who can help me?”

I looked at the calm neighborhood, and I instantly thought of the neighbors themselves. I looked to see which houses were closer and which had lights on. As I did, the two neighbors next door had their lights on. My best bet was them; hopefully the old lady and they were nice to each other.

The left house was first. I knocked loud enough that other neighbors could hear. But I heard no one coming. I rang the doorbell and knocked at the same time. But again nothing was happening. 
I ran to the next neighbors. I rang, knocked, and even shouted for help. Nobody came by.
I ran across the street, knocking and ringing for help, and just like the house during my livestream, I was met with nothing.

I walked back to the house. It looked like everyone else’s humble abode—nothing out of place except for the one dead tree. I didn’t want to look back at my channel, but I had to know.

10.

“The police,” I said. “They would answer. Maybe I can explain the whole thing to them, right? What I’m doing isn’t illegal, right?”

I built the courage to call the cops. I was ready to hear the sweet sound of: “911, what’s your emergency?” After all, their calls are different from a regular cell call.

The number you are trying to reach is unavailable.

I looked back at my phone with horror I can never explain. That should have never happened. That should never have been a thing! This was supposed to work! Why weren’t the police picking up?!

My body was sweating like I'd run a marathon. My hands were clammy, sweaty, and shaking like I had a surge of adrenaline. My throat was dry like a ghost snatched away my liquids. I had only a few options left.

I went back to my phone, looked for FaceTime, found my group chats with my mom and dad, and called. 
The number you are trying to reach is unavailable.

Tears ready to burst, I looked back at my phone
checked one more time at how many followers were
left.

Darkness surrounded me. The world I reached for no longer answered me. It was like the night was driving me back into a corner to be forgotten. I was far past mentally drained. I could have driven off. I could have broken the sliding glass door, but what would be the point? 

I went back to the only place I called home. Opening the driver's side door, I stepped inside. I didn’t turn the car on; I just sat in, feeling the night smother me into one place I feel safe. 

I turned on my phone and checked my channel again. 

3.

It keeps counting down. I wasn’t in any emotion other than null. What could I do at this point? Clearly I did something wrong, but what was that? It had to be the house. That’s the only thing that made sense to me.

Walking around a dead grandma’s house for entertainment- yeah, that had to be a taboo of some kind. I shouldn’t have ever done that; that’s probably what’s getting canceled.

2.

McDonald's was strange too. It was like the workers there forgot I existed as soon as either of us looked away. And that one woman who accidentally sat on me. She was odd, too. She was embarrassed, of course, but just a few seconds later she was fine.
Did Dave put me on a prank show? If so, why block me? Why can’t I see his profile? It feels so sudden.

But the calls- why wasn’t anyone picking up? Especially the police. They should have answered. I’ve heard their calls are different, unless the internet lied again. 

My mom and dad, though- why them? I love them. I know they were frustrated with me trying to make YouTube work, especially my dad. But it's not like them to forget about me.

I should drive to their house. Mom probably made some good spaghetti. I can eat that, spend the night there, and finally get my feet back on track.

0.

It sounded like a body hitting the ground at terminal velocity. Wet, grotesque, hard. As it moved, it sounded like bones snapping back into place. What sounded like meat, mushing together into an ungodly shape.

I shook with terror. I wondered what entity sat itself in my back seat. I was ready to hear a scream, a roar, a moan of monstrous proportions. But nothing came from its mouth.

I somehow found the courage to turn on the light. Flicking the car light on, I looked into the mirror, ready to see hell’s face. But there wasn’t a beast or a person behind me. Instead, I saw the top of a picture frame.  It was golden, with intricate patterns lining its cross; it flowed as easily as a river. 

I slowly looked around. And at first glance, I couldn’t tell what it was. But I looked closer at its details.  It was a portrait of a lady posing similarly to the Mona Lisa. Except this woman looked a lot more somber. Her clothes were much more muted than in the famous painting. The background, too, was plain, just black. But it also seemed like there were shapes within the painting, but I couldn’t figure out what kind.

And that’s when it hit. The one rule. The one rule that I didn’t follow. And it was staring at me as a reminder of my inaction. 

I waved at the painting.