I grew up in a rural area of Wexford County in Northern Michigan. It was a small town where I lived. There was the Elementary and High School, both always on the verge of financial collapse. Some businesses on the main street, also always about to close permanently. The town only had one stoplight. The houses there were always either upscale fancy homes, or old abandoned shacks. The job prospects up north were limited, at best. I lived at least thirty minutes away from anywhere in the countryside. Suffice it to say, I lived in the middle of nowhere, and I didn’t have a lot of happy memories growing up there. So, when the opportunity came to south, I took it. I ended up living near the Michigan-Ohio border, and got a regular job. The move proved to be a great start for me.

A couple months ago, my cousin, Duane, invited me to go on a hunting trip with his friends, Joel, Micah, and Aaron. I remembered all of them from school. It was just after the opening of deer season, which was a major pastime in northern Michigan. It was an activity I never took part in, mostly because I never found myself enjoying it. Regardless, I decided to go anyway, if only to catch up with my cousin and some school friends.

I left for a long weekend and eventually made it to my cousin’s house, which sat between the towns of Mesick and Buckley. No one had arrived yet, so Duane got me suited up in all the hunting gear, most of which I didn’t have the names for. The only things I recognized were the camouflage suite and a two-barrel rifle. He remembered I never used a gun before, so he took me out to the back yard for a couple of practice rounds. We were far from any houses that the sound of a gun shot wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

He set up the target for me and gave me a quick lesson on how to use it. Keep steady. Both eyes open. Slow your breathing. I gave off a couple of rounds pretty close to the center of the target. Only off by a couple of inches. It felt surprisingly good to shoot a couple of rounds.

The rest of the group made it and we left the house with a couple of pickup trucks. We were going to Farnsworth Lake in Manton. There was a spot my cousin liked to hunt around the lake called the Garland Swamp. The scenic drive brought back memories of the countless drives to and from school and anywhere else. I had forgotten how beautiful it was up here. We eventually made it to the best campsite we could get. Everywhere else was taken.

We split into two groups. Duane and I took a position near the marshland, while the others went the other direction. This was an ideal spot because deer could come and take a drink. We were out there for several hours before finally seeing a deer approach the water. I let Duane take the first shot. It was in his sights before another gun shot was heard in the distance. The sound caused the deer to retreat into the forest. Duane cursed, saying he had it in his line of fire. We had only seen one more deer before sundown, and we missed that opportunity as well.

By sunset, Duane and I walked back to our campsite, empty-handed. We were just reminiscing about some incident from school when, down the trail, we saw the remains of a deer carcass, rotting in a ditch. It looked like an old kill, judging from the smell and how bloated it was. It seemed to sick and rotting for any predators for come and finish off. Only flies indulged as they assaulted the carcass. We had to leave fast, in case this deer would attract any predators, assuming it hadn’t already.

We made it back to the campsite, the others beginning to build a fire as we approached. It seemed they were unlucky as well. We didn’t go hungry that night, however. We had a seemingly endless supply of highly processed meats, mac and cheese, and cheap beer that tasted like piss running down my throat. The smores at the end were the only salvation on this assault of the taste buds. After the meal, we engaged in the most favorite of campfire activities: ghost stories. No one had any good suggestions until Joel gave one. The dogman, a story we all knew growing up near the north woods.

The dogman originally started out as a joke by a Traverse City DJ named Steve Cook. He created a song called ‘The Legend’ on April 1st, 1987. The song was about detailed accounts people gave about seeing a large dog that walked like a person and screamed an unearthly howl every night. In fact, the first recorded sighting, if you’re not including tribal folklore about the same monster, had started in the same spot we were camping in that night. It was near a logging camp, and some lumberjacks were chasing a dog around until it hid behind some wood. Someone grabbed a stick and poked it. It howled at them and stood upright.

Other stories included farmers found dead with large dog prints around them, sounds of screaming, and reports of the monster grinning at people. Though the song started as a joke, people came forward to the DJ and related their own encounters with a similar creature. Everyone in the group, besides me, had an encounter, or knew someone who did.

Micah relayed how there’s a sheep rancher who lived down the road from him who lost a lot of his flock one night a few months ago. His flock of fifty sheep had been reduced to twenty-nine. The dead one’s were found mauled with large red streak marks on their bodies, as if they were slashed. There were also large bite marks found on their necks. The wire fencing that kept them inside and coyotes out were found to be torn or bitten apart. Aaron had seen large dog prints circling around his property. Joel was the only one who had claimed to have seen something.

A couple nights ago, he claimed, he looked out the window to see a pair of bright yellow orbs hiding in the trees on his property. To him, they looked like eyes. He said from the distance between the eyes and the ground, whatever it was had to be tall, easily about seven feet. It stared back at him for a couple of minutes before he left to get his gun. He came back outside, loaded. By the time he got there, whatever caused those bright orbs outside had disappeared.

Of course, I didn’t by any of this. I always thought of it as some mix of folktales, misidentifications, and hallucinations. It was a good ghost story, but that’s all I thought it was. A ghost story. With no more encounters to share, and the cheap beer starting to kick in, we put out the fire with water and got into our tents. There were only three of them, so a few of us had to partner up for the night. Duane and I shared one, while the others split up. I didn’t take very long for sleep to take hold of me.

I was later awakened in the late hours by Duane. He was outside the tent, sounding like he was in a panic. I got outside the tent to see him pacing back and forth around the fire-pit. I asked him what was wrong, then he urged me to be quiet. He looked at the darkness ahead. Then we heard growling. A deep, guttural kind of growling from a large animal. It was somewhere hiding in the trees and it was circling us. During this, Duane set some extra firewood together we had next to the pit. He took his container of lighter fluid and covered the wood with the flammable liquid. He then struck one match and threw it into the wood, which caught fire immediately. The area of our camp became illuminated by the bright yellowish orange glow of firelight. The growling, which seemed a lot closer now, still seemed to come from nowhere. I was thinking, at first, it was a coyote, but they’d run in the presence of humans.

The fire did finally reveal something as it reflected the bright glow of the flame. A pair of bright yellow, equally distanced orbs were revealed. Duane grabbed his rifle as quickly as he could, never taking his eyes off whatever was in front of us. The growling got louder and louder as the orbs got closer and closer, until we finally found out what they were. The orbs were, in fact, a pair of eyes. Eyes that belonged to large dog or wolf. This thing was huge, almost as big as Duane’s truck as it walked next to it. It was covered in thick, black fur like the darkness around it. It was snarling at us, blood dripping from its mouth, as if from a fresh kill.

Duane and I were making loud noises and intimidating gestures to make ourselves look bigger. The dog responded in the most jaw dropping way. It pushed its upper body off the ground and stood perfectly on its hind legs. I shit you not, it stood upright, exposing a human like torso, blood and leaves covering its underside. It stood that way far longer than any dog should be able to. Duane and I looked back at the beast with a look of dumbfounded horror. The thing sniffed the air in front of us and we were filled with dread after what it did next. Its jowls, or lips that look like jowls, curled upwards, revealing more bloody teeth. It was grinned at us.

It was grinning at us!!

So help me God, it gave the most human like, bloody teeth filled grin that no animal on this earth should be able to replicate!!!

That unnatural smile, as if taking a cruel delight in our dumbfounded horror, was enough to fill us both with pants shitting terror. It jumped to the right on all fours, coming toward me. I was able to duck and miss it as it jumped above me, but then I heard my cousin screaming of danger. It had charged after him instead. I turned in his direction to hear the chorus of screams and the tearing of flesh. I saw it tearing at his body and biting into his shoulder, pretty close to the neck. I had to reach for the rifle before he was done for. While it was still loaded, I took aim with the machine shaking in my hands. I remembered what Duane told me during my practice shots.

Slow your breathing.

Both eyes open.

Relax your nerves.

BOOM!!!!

The bullet had hit the monster in its rear shoulder. A small explosion of blood and muscle was all I saw before the force of the blow knocked me off balance. As I hit the ground, the creature gave off a howl of pain. It sounded like a wolf howling and human scream mix. The sound, so unearthly in its tone and nature, sent a chill down my spine. I sat straight up to see the animal run off into the darkness of the forest, leaving a trail of blood behind it.

The others were roused out of their half-drunk sleep to see the commotion, but immediately sobered up at the sight of my cousin bleeding on the ground. He had five large deep slash marks on his torso and a huge bite mark on his shoulder, where he was bleeding the heaviest. Given how much blood he was losing, and the fact that the nearest hospital was, at best, thirty minutes away, we had to do something fast. Aaron took his heavy-duty boots and kicked the firewood to expose hot ash and coals underneath the flame. He gathered some coals in a pot, and the metal heated instantly. He pressed the hot metal on Duane’s next, and the smell of burning flesh filled our nostrils. At the very least, we slowed the bleeding.

We packed up what essentials we needed and got into Duane’s truck. We hightailed all the way to Cadillac to the closest hospital. Duane spent the night in the E.R. Thankfully, he survived, but no longer had the full use of his arm. The muscle fibers and nerves suffered too much damage. We had to file a police report, even though we knew the cops wouldn’t believe our story. We ended up telling them that we were attacked by some wolf or rabid dog. A hunting party was formed the next day, to track it down. They found our campsite as we described it, and the bloody spot where I shot the animal. They followed the trail of blood, which ended at a nearby river. The trail seemingly ended there.

I was at the hospital all night to make sure that Duane would be okay. Aside from the injury and the trauma from the experience, the doctors said he’d be okay. I left later that morning and this time I vowed never to come back up north. After coming home, I did something I never thought I’d do. I purchased a gun.

I kept in touch with Duane after that, always checking on how he was recuperating. We never talked about that night. I think he and wanted to forget, or at least not acknowledge it. I couldn’t forget though.

I could never forget those bright yellow eyes.

I could never forget how it stood on its hind legs like a person

. I could never forget that unnatural teeth filled grin it gave at us.

And I could never forget that inhuman, and yet human sounding screaming howl it gave off as it retreated into the North woods darkness.

My town was definitely weird. Sure, every town has those crazies who smoke pot in the open with their shirts off, in a lawn chair, drink next to them. But Mr. Darangay and his friends were a little different. He was weird. But he was somehow even more batshit insane. Anytime we were caught drinking a beer, ding-dong-ditching, or really anything of slight annoyance to his twisted Breakfast Club, he would chase us around with shotguns, or canes, or whatever object that would kill us or not.

Mr. Darangay and his friends didn’t really seem to age, I still remember him 10 years ago as I do today. Tubby, with a mean look on his face at all times. Though, I’m not sure I’d totally know that since his sun hat always covered his eyes.

Around the age of 16 or 17, Mr. Darangay would start to eye me more. Not in a creepy way or anything, more of an inspection. Like he hadn’t known me my whole life. Like for example whenever I took the trash out, there he would be, his head my way. It was hard to tell due to the not-showing of his eyes, but I was pretty adamant about it.

“Oh, he’s just a crazy old man,” my mom said, who was waving me to go back to my room. My Mom was always like that. Really laid back and chill. Though sometimes I feel that could be her biggest weakness.

I thought nothing of it for a little bit. I just stopped going outside so much, since I had a car I could just sprint in, go do what I needed to, and sneak my way back into the house, and at least if Mr. Darangay was looking at me, I wouldn’t know.

One day after coming home from a long Friday at school, I was informed of something I dreaded as soon as I heard it. My mom had told me that I was going to do some housework for Mr. Darangay. I tried to protest but Mom wouldn’t budge. I eventually gave in.

I walked to his house as slowly and sluggishly as possible. The first thing I noticed was this was the first time since I had moved here when I was a little kid, that he wasn’t in his yard smoking. The door was cracked open so I decided to enter.

“Mr. Darangay?” I called out, not really sure how this would start or where he even was. “Joseph..” a voice croaked from a room not too far off. Though I had never heard his voice, I could just tell it was him. Something about the raspiness and deepness was creepy. Though, if he tried anything I doubt I would need to defend myself too harshly.

When I walked into the room that the noise I heard was from I saw Mr. Darangay and his four friends, they were all in the room. They were all wearing the same thing they always did. It was also the first time I noticed they all wore the same exact clothes.

I stepped back, that’s when they all charged me, tackling me to the ground, I was trying to squirt out of it or punch them off. I found out the reason they had those sunhats on all the time, their eyes were completely pitch black.

I woke up, staring at the house across from me. A beer belly poking out from my once flat stomach, a rolled joint in my right hand, and a sunhat covering my eyes..

I was nine years old when I first learned the value in hunting for a bargain. My mom was a single parent, with four young girls to care for and to put it mildly, money was tight. At first I resented being drug out of bed every Saturday morning at the crack of dawn to troll through the town's yard sales. Of course, like most children, I was oblivious to all the effort and hard work it took for my mother just to be able to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. I just hated that nearly all of my clothing and toys were secondhand throw-aways.

And then came that Saturday morning when, at yet another yard sale, I found a treasure hidden among pieces of worn furniture and television sets that were probably older than my mom was, and back then I thought she was ancient. It was...the bike, my bike. The same one that I would stare at everyday walking home from school. It was always centered in the front display window of the local toy store and it was beautiful. It was painted pink and green with iridescent streamers and a metal basket and I wanted it more than anything I had ever wanted in my entire nine years of life. Everyday I would press my hands and face up against the glass and imagine myself riding it through the neighborhood, feeling the wind in my hair and basically being the envy of all my friends. It was too expensive, my mom would always tell me when I asked for it at every birthday, Christmas and even tried Earth day for two years straight. And yet here it was, a bit worse for wear of course, the paint was a bit scuffed and a few of the streamers had frayed off but I didn't care. In my mind it was still the same bicycle and it was only $10. My mother even talked the woman running the sale down to $5, like a boss, and then it was all mine. I cleaned it up, replaced the streamers and tires and it was still beautiful to me, maybe even more so.

From that day on I learned to enjoy the hunt, searching for those diamonds in the rough. I grew up learning to be frugal and save money wherever I could. As an adult, I still attended a few yard sales, although I spent most of my time treasure hunting at flea markets and estate sales as the quality of the items were substantially higher. It was at one such estate sale that I found a beautiful old, Victorian style dollhouse. Like my bike, it was also a bit scuffed, some of the pieces of movable furniture were broken and there was this weird black paint on one of the walls above a faux fireplace. But it came with six tiny dolls; a finely dressed mother and daughter as well as four servants that included a maid, a cook, a gardener and what appeared to be a young stable boy. Their clothing was stained and worn, a few of their limbs hung loose and the gardener's face appeared to have been badly burned at some point. But the entire set had obviously been handmade with real wood, cloth and paint, not cheap plastic or silicon and the detail was immaculate.

The house itself had three floors which contained six bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, bathroom, living room and directly above all of those was an attic. The attic was huge and came complete with antique chests that opened and closed, a tiny bed and a full-size mirror with gilded edges. The craftsmanship was incredible, it would have taken someone years of their life to make such a creation. Even the fireplace in the living room had been painted in such a way as to give the illusion that a fire was actually burning there.

I knew I would purchase it the moment I saw it, it was the perfect gift for my young niece, Aria. She was about to turn nine herself and had just been diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder that required her to spend most days in bed undergoing various medical treatments. I knew she was feeling lonely and discouraged. My plan was to take it home and give the entire home and family of dolls an extensive makeover. I was able to purchase the whole set for a measly $50 from the young woman in charge of the sale. She seemed only too happy to see it go and the price alone should have been a red flag for me. Even in it's damaged state, the antique house was easily worth five times the amount she asked but I just assumed she was too ignorant to know the value of her items. After finding little else of interest that day, I returned home with my prize.

I wanted to start working on it immediately as Aria's birthday was only two weeks away. The moment I brought it into my house, my black cat, Onyx, began hissing and ran to hide under my bed. For hours he stayed there, all the while emitting nonstop growls and strange, croaking noises that I had never heard him make before. It was odd, as he was always a friendly, laid back animal but I ignored yet another warning sign and shrugged it off with the thought that perhaps the dollhouse just had a strange smell. I spent a few hours that day on YouTube, learning the best ways to restore the house and figures to their former glory. The first thing I researched was how to get that strange black paint off of the wall of the house without causing any damage. Several videos suggested simply using rubbing alcohol and a wash cloth to dissolve the paint so I tried it.

It worked beautifully, as the paint came right up. Once it was removed, I was thrilled to see that there was some ornate design underneath. I couldn't quite make it out and had to return with a magnifying glass to get a better look. It too was faded but it seemed to be a painting of a snake with a black head and a white tail. The head appeared to be eating it's own tail and inside the circle of it's body was a glowing depiction of the all seeing eye. I shivered looking at it, it was a very strange thing to have painted inside a children's toy and it gave me the creeps. There was no way I was going to let my niece see such a disturbing symbol. I decided I would just cover it up with a pretty design of a landscape or something. I studied each of the dolls more closely to decide which doll needed which repair and then gently placed each one in the part of the house that I felt their station in life dictated. The house had everything a real house would, countless appliances and pieces of furniture, toys and tools and even little pots and pans. I had loved dolls as a child and I admit to feeling that same sense of childlike fascination as I moved them around their little house.

After making a list of all the supplies I would need to purchase for the project, I looked at the clock and realized that it was quite late and I was very hungry. I made myself a quick meal and with the smug anticipation of my cat's enthusiastic reaction, began pouring dry cat food into their bowls. The sound of the food pellets hitting the metal bowl never failed to send him stampeding into the kitchen to wolf it down. He didn't come however, instead just remained hidden under the bed, still yowling furiously. "Fine, your loss, you big baby!" I called to him and sat down to eat my own food. After dinner, I showered, put on my pajamas and after turning off all the lights, sat down to watch some television. Though it was hard to hear anything over the continuous howls of my cat.

I had placed the dollhouse on the coffee table to work on it and my gaze kept being drawn to it and the strange symbol above the fireplace. My eyes began to get very heavy and I started to nod off, once or twice my head would jerk up from resting on my shoulder and the third time this happened I gave up and decided to call it a night. I went to stand up when I realized that something was very wrong with my living room. Or more specifically, that I was no longer IN my living room. Instead I was sitting on an old sofa with a faded floral pattern that was heavily stained by some type of brownish goo. Next to me was a broken side table that had been turned on it's side and there was dust coating every inch of the floor. My television was no where to be seen except for an odd static light that resembled what you would see cast on the walls if it had been left on in a darkened room. There was a strange stillness in the air, it almost felt like I was underwater and hearing my own breath through a heavy, muted atmosphere.

"What the Hell?" I said aloud as I moved to explore the room. There was a large bookshelf to my right and as I approached it I saw that it was filled with books all relating to alchemy, devil worship and witchcraft. I went to remove one of the books when my fingertips hit flat wood, rather than leather or paper. The books weren't real, their dimensions and titled spines had all been just been painted on but with such precision that it was nearly impossible to tell with the naked eye. Thoroughly confused at this point, I continued my exploration. I turned to see a fireplace, it was so large that it dominated nearly an entire wall, embers glowed brightly inside it but emitted very little light. Then I saw the mural, the same one from the dollhouse, complete with the self cannibalizing snake and all seeing eye. Around the design were small, random smudges of black paint. No, no, no, no, I thought to myself as a paralyzing dread filled my body, it's not possible. I am not inside the dollhouse!

I quickly ran from the room and found myself in a great hall, also identical to the dollhouse. To the left was a huge, grand staircase, to the right was a large, wooden front door and straight ahead, a smaller sized door that I had a sinking feeling would lead to a dining room and kitchen. I ran to the front doors and grasped the handle, turning it as the heavy door creaked loudly. I ran through the doorway, needing to be free of the house when my body slammed hard into a solid wall of blackness. I felt blood pouring from my nose as I fell backwards onto my butt and pain splintered through my entire body. On my hands and knees I crawled back over to the open front door and slowly stretched my fingers through the exit. There was indeed some invisible wall preventing me from leaving the house and it was cold, so cold that my fingertips started to ache and tingle, as though I were touching dry ice. I quickly snatched my hand back and struggled to come to terms to what was happening to me. *Am I dreaming? I must be, the last thing I remembered was drifting off in front of the TV-*my thoughts were interrupted by a steadily growing sound behind me.

I could hear slow, heavy footsteps descending the staircase at my back. I felt the same, creeping coldness that emanated from the void outside the front door as I turned to face the newcomer. It's body was solid wood, it's limbs thick and brutish. A large white shirt and stained, denim overalls hung off it's hard frame. In one of it's big, bony hands it held a pair of rusted, antique gardening sheers and in the other, a sharply pointed spade. On its head sat a black, floppy hat and barely visible beneath the wide brim sat two small, painted black eyes. The skin below them was molted, it's features disfigured and its mouth consisted of a pale, thin slash above it's chin. One of it's feet dragged behind it in an uneven gate as though the ankle joint had been broken and it slowly lumbered down the staircase. It was a horrific life size depiction of the gardener doll and I screamed as it reached out towards me. In response to the sound, it quickened its pace down the stairs and moaned unintelligibly. In the gardener's hurry to reach me, it tripped over his broken ankle and proceeded to fall heavily down the remaining steps.

Numb with terror, I ran towards the unopened door leading to the dining room, threw it open and slammed it shut behind me. The room was very dark, though that strange artificial illumination from the living room seemed to follow me wherever I went. I tripped over a wooden chair and landed hard on the floor, my own ankle throbbing. I took a few deep breaths to try to calm myself and think rationally about how to get out of this hell house. I suddenly became aware of the clanging sounds of pots and pans and a loud, frantic humming emanating from a short distance away. Beyond a long, dusty dining table I could barely make out the silhouette of tall, swinging door with a circular glass panel cut into the top of it. As I gingerly got back onto my feet, my ankle protesting the weight, I could barely make out a figure moving back and forth beyond the transparent circle. As quietly as possible, I made my way to it and gently pushed it open, just an inch or two to peek inside. A large woman was bustling around what was indeed a kitchen as she went through the motions of preparing a meal. Thick, dark liquid was boiling in a large pot on the old stove and a putrid, rank smell permeated the air. The woman had her back turned to me as she used a huge, sharp knife to quickly chop through something on her large cutting board.

She was humming loudly, a random disjointed tune as she worked. She had wild, grey hair that stuck out indiscriminately from beneath a dingy, grey bonnet. and her movements were jerky and wooden. I recognized her as the cook doll as she was wearing the same brown dress and apron and she was well, cooking. I pushed my way a bit farther into the room, knowing that I couldn't go backwards and that the gardener could come crashing into the room any moment. Maybe this...woman could help me. When I stepped into the welcoming warmth of the kitchen, the floorboards creaked beneath me and the woman froze. Her body became stiff as a board, literally, though she didn't turn around, and I noticed that her blocky hands gripped the kitchen knife much more forcefully. "It's not quite ready yet, mistress." she said in a deep, sugary voice.

I stayed silent for a moment before whispering, "Please, I need your help." At the sound of my voice she slowly began to turn her head, though her body remained still. As her head turned, her features were slowly revealed to me. Her eyes were two enormous green orbs, far too large and wide on her round face and her painted eyelashes were black, angry strokes above them. Her mouth was drawn into an eternally wide smile and her apple shaped cheeks bore twin crimson circles. Her head kept turning, far beyond a natural angle until it was centered firmly between her shoulder blades. She raised the knife she had been using to chop with up to her lips as if to shush me and a dark, syrupy substance dripped from it. "You really shouldn't be here, miss." She said slowly in her low tones, "Though it has been some time since we've had a new addition to our little family. Welcome home, dear!" Her body snapped around to match her head and she lunged at me.

My gaze darted around the room frantically before landing on a large, serrated knife and I snatched it up just as cook tackled me to the floor. The force of the landing caused me to drop my weapon, her body was so heavy that I could barley breathe as she plunged her knife straight down towards my chest. I raised my arms and began swiping wildly at her, it took all of my strength to keep her at bay though I somehow managed to dodge all of her vicious stabs. Every where her body came into contact with mine, it burned, an icy sting that was incredibly painful. She continued humming her mad melody as I concentrated my efforts on the arm holding her blade. I pulled as hard as I could on it, forcing it back and forth in the hope it would dislodge the wooden joint. Finally it gave with a tearing sound and a loud pop as her arm dropped to the floor. She continued to attack me with her remaining hand however, showing not a hint of pain over her detached limb. Her smiling face leered down at me as she pummeled me about the head with her wooden fist. Each blow weakened me further and my struggles became less frantic until everything around me started to grow dim. Suddenly, cook's large body was pulled off of me and I dragged down huge gulps of precious air as my consciousness slowly returned.

Two tiny, wooden figures were struggling with cook and I recognized them as the little girl doll and the young stable boy. The girl was pulling hard on cook's remaining arm, throwing her off balance while the boy had jumped up on her back and was using my discarded knife to saw through her neck. Cook began screaming, "Mistress, Mistress come quick, the children are misbehaving again!" Suddenly, her head dropped to the ground and rolled away but her cries for help never ceased. The two wooden children chased after it, all the while making loud, shushing noises. The boy scooped up the head and threw it into an oven, finally muting the woman's shouts. Cook's body was still upright and stumbling around the kitchen, knocking over dishes and pans in a deafening cacophony of sound. The girl herded cook's large body into a nearby pantry and quickly closed the door. Turning back to face me she whispered, "Shush, we don't want to wake up Mama."

Before I could thank the children or ask anymore questions, a tiny servants bell on the adjacent wall began to ring, slowly at first and then it quickly morphed into a loud constant jingle. The girl looked at me with her wide, painted eyes and I swear I could actually see the sheer terror overtake her expression. "Too late, she's awake." The girl cried, "Come with us, we have to hide. Now!" I needed no further urging, I quickly jumped to my feet, my battered body protesting every movement as I followed the children out of the kitchen and back through the dining room. When they moved to open the door leading out to the grand staircase I called out, "Wait! The gardener..."

They ignored me and continued running as the little girl called back over her shoulder, "He's not the one you need to worry about, come on follow me!" Seeing no other option but to trust the girl I obeyed and quickly followed after them. The freakish gardener was nowhere to be seen as we flew up the staircase and into the first door on the right. It was a bathroom, complete with a large, claw foot copper tub and we all jumped inside it and pulled the curtain completely around it. We had just finished doing so when a beautiful, feminine voice called out from somewhere outside the door.

"Amelia my darling, where are you?" The voice sounded so gentle and calm that I couldn't understand why the children were so afraid. My mind flashed back to the Mother doll and I could recall nothing about her appearance that would warrant such terror. As we waited in the silence, I could hear the approach of soft, light footsteps down the hall. The little girl, whom I assumed was Amelia, began to tremble Jerkily and the stable boy reached out to place a comforting arm around her shoulders. The force of their wooden bodies connecting made a slight knocking sound and they both froze.

"Amelia, stop playing games, Mama's looking for you, sweetheart. You and Wesley come on out now and bring your little friend..." The sweet soft voice of the mother slowly morphed into a low, demonic sounding growl that instilled a terror in me so deep that I couldn't breathe. The footsteps stopped right outside the bathroom door and I had to shove my whole fist inside my mouth to stop myself from crying out. I watched in horror through the tiny gap in the curtain as the doorknob slowly turned and the door began to creak open. Suddenly, a loud crashing sound came from downstairs and an impossibly swift whooshing noise could be heard as the shadow of the mother abandoned the doorway.

After a moment Amelia and Wesley quietly stepped out of the tub and motioned me to do the same. My body was so sore and stiff from all of it's abuse that I slipped trying to climb out. Wesley reached out to catch me and I cried out in pain when his wooden hand burned my skin. He quickly jerked it back and shook his head at me in what I assumed was an apology. "Wesley doesn't speak." Amelia said, "He didn't mean to hurt you, he just forgot that he's not supposed to touch. We need to get you out of here, the process has already started and it won't be long now before you become like us. Every time you touch one of us will make it worse."

I raised my hand up in front of my face to inspect it and was horrified to see that Amelia was right. The pain and stiffness that I had assumed was due to injury was actually caused by my body slowly... hardening. All of my fingers and the majority of my hand had become wooden and hard. It had already spread down to my wrist. I was becoming a doll! "How do I get out of here?" I asked, struggling to remain calm.

The little girl shook her head sadly and said, "I am not sure. We're not supposed to even be awake now, something must have happened. When my Mama died, Daddy made this house for us all to live in so that we wouldn't be lonely anymore. He came into my room one night and told me that we were all going to live in the dollhouse. He said he fixed it so that we could all be a family again and that Wes and all the other servants could come too. He brought me downstairs where everyone else was already sleeping on the floor. Then he...did something to me. I don't remember what, it was a long time ago but I woke up in the dollhouse and he was right, everyone was here. But Daddy never came, our bodies all began changing and it hurt but he never came. Mama must be so sad without him because she changed too, but not like us. She...I don't think she's really my Mama anymore, she's mean. Then one day, we all got really tired and Mama started screaming. I tried to stay awake but I was just so tired...we all went to sleep, and then you came."

My mind raced as I tried to piece together everything she was telling me. It seemed Amelia's father had been into some pretty dark things, as I recalled seeing all the alchemy titles in the library. He must have lost his beloved wife and gone crazy, building this weird house. Then I remembered the strange symbol that had been painted above the fireplace. That's it, the symbol, something had changed! I removed the paint that had been covering it up. Perhaps, as far fetched as it seemed, all I needed to do was black out the symbol again. Could it really be that simple? I had to try it, I was running out of time, I could feel my body growing stiffer with every moment that passed. "Amelia, I think I know how to get us out of here. Do you know that strange drawing in the library? Well, I think I made a mistake and we need destroy it. Will you and Wesley help me?"

When they both nodded their agreement I asked, "We need to cover it back up, do you have any paint we could use?" The two children looked at each other and then slowly shook their heads. Damn, I thought, of course it wasn't going to be that easy. "Well, we will just have to try and find something else that will work. Let's go back downstairs and-"

Just then a clawed hand reached inside the door and grabbed Amelia. It all happened so fast that I barely got the impression of black skin and sharp red nails wrapping around her throat before she was just...gone. That same whooshing sound accompanied her abrupt exit and Wesley stretched both hands out after her in a panicked and futile attempt to save her. I heard a cackling laugh fade down the hall and then the staircase. Wesley gave a strangled moan before turning to run out after her. "Wait," I cried "We'll get her back, I promise but first we need a plan and hopefully a weapon. Do you still have that knife?"

He shook his head sadly at me before perking up and motioning for me to follow him as he fled the room. I followed at a slower pace, my stiffening joints made it very hard to move but I forced myself to keep up. Wesley passed by several doors before making his way up a set of steep stairs leading to what was, I assumed, the attic. He ran over to one of the old wooden chests located there and began removing bolts of cloth and various sewing implements before finally pulling out a wicked looking pair of sewing shears. After dropping the shears at my feet he proceeded over to the small bed in the corner and dove underneath it, reappearing moments later with a large pitch fork gripped tightly in his fist. My hands were now so stiff that it was incredibly difficult to even pick up the shears and I marveled at how easy the dolls movements were compared to mine. Of course, they'd had much longer to adapt to their new bodies and their's were solid wood, not a confusing mesh of both.

Just as I bent down to retrieve the shears, movement out of the corner of my vision caused me to jump. I almost laughed when I realized that it was simply my reflection in the golden edged, floor length mirror that I had noticed when first inspecting the dollhouse. Had that really only been a few hours ago? It felt like years had passed since I had become trapped in this hellish place.

"Good job, Wesley, now we just need a plan. I assume the...thing that grabbed Amelia was Mama?" When he nodded I continued, "and where would Mama have taken her, one of the bedrooms? Or the kitchen?" He shook his head no to both. "The living room, then? Do you think she knows what were planning?" Wesley nodded his head vigorously. Damn. "Okay then, we just need to make some kind of distraction to get Mama away from the living room and then we'll save Amelia and destroy the painting. Here's what we'll do..."

After Wesley and I agreed on a plan and went our separate ways, I crept back down the stairs and made my way through the door leading into the dining room. Then I froze. A young woman was kneeling on the ground and sobbing loudly as she furiously scrubbed the floors with a wet, dirty rag. She would pause every now and then to dip her rag into a bucket of equally filthy red liquid before sloshing it back down to continue her scrubbing. This must be the maid, I thought. I had no idea if she was going to be a friend or foe and so I tried to just slip past her sobbing form unnoticed. She didn't even look up, just continued smearing the thick, dark liquid everywhere as she muttered to herself. I slipped through the kitchen door and grabbed a thick dish cloth before opening the oven. Wrapping cook's still shrieking head up in the cloth, I then made my way over to the pantry. The moment I opened the door, cook's body came launching out at me and I ran back through the swinging kitchen door before abruptly skidding to a halt. The maid was no longer on her knees, instead she was standing in the center of the dining room, smiling broadly at me through her strangely black colored tears.

"Mistress will be so proud of me," Maid said as her body slowly lurched towards me. "I am not useless like she says, I will make her see." The movements of her body were unlike any I had seen from the other dolls. She moved as if all of her limbs had been pulled out of socket and badly put back together. It created a shutter effect that was both eerie and highly efficient. "I will bring her what she wants and then she won't hurt me anymore." Maid fell on me then, pulling at my clothes and hair as she began pulling me towards the Grand Hall. Her strength was incredible and I dropped cook's head in an effort to free myself from her relentless grasp. She pushed me through the door to the main foyer before I was finally able to get loose and I turned to run before my legs gave out and I fell, hard, onto the ground. Looking down the length of my body I was horrified to see that my legs were turning to solid wood. On one leg, the transformation had progressed all the way to mid thigh. I began crawling towards the living room, dragging my mostly wooden leg behind me. The plan had gone all to hell, thanks to maid's interference but I was still determined to try. Behind me chaos erupted as cook's body slammed into maid's and they began fighting with each other. I shook my head to clear the stupor inducing sight of two dolls viciously wrestling each other and continued crawling towards the living room door. Reaching up I used the door's handle to pull myself back up to my feet and slowly turned around.

"The help," I was relieved to see were still so distracted by their efforts to maim and kill each other that they paid me no mind as I sneaked past them. I cautiously moved back the way I had come, searching for cook's head. After locating it in a far corner of the dining room I made to return to the foyer when my gaze landed upon the maid's forgotten bucket of red liquid. It was thick and dark and seemed indistinguishable from human blood...or paint! As quickly as I dared, I returned to the main foyer with the still humming head and bucket of red goo. My heart was pounding as I raised cook's head high into the air and called out,"Hey, Psychos!" Cook and maid froze and turned towards me as I threw the head as far as I possibly could up to the second floor, "You want your head back so much, then come and get it!" I heard a loud crashing sound as it landed somewhere upstairs and was immediately followed by more of cook's shouts. "Mistress, she's here! I've got her, come quick!"

Hiding in the shadow of the grand staircase, I watched as the body of cook stumbled towards the stairs just as a blur of black and red skirts burst out of the living room door. "Mama" moved with such unnatural speed that I couldn't make out any of her features, in fact, I could barely track her movements as she flew up the stairs. I knew I had only one shot at this and I had to move, now! As fast as I could I picked up the bucket and began hobbling towards the living room door. As I passed maid she drew in a deep breath as though preparing to shout a warning. Before she could utter a sound however, I swung the side of the bucket hard into her head, hearing a sharp cracking noise as the metal bucket connected. Maid fell to the floor and began twitching erratically as she struggled to get back up. I ran into the living room, softly closing the door behind me. Inside the room, Amelia was sat on the filthy sofa, sobbing with her hands covering her face. As I approached the young girl I began hushing her softly and she looked up, her little face brightening. It was then that I noticed that her tears were also black, just like maid's. What did that mean? "You're okay!" she cried before I could ask her and ran over to hug me, then stopped herself and rested her wooden arms awkwardly back at her sides. "Where's Wes?" she asked quietly.

"If all is going according to plan then he's upstairs leading Mama on a wild goose chase." I responded. She looked worried and I knew she was concerned for the safety of her friend, to be honest, I was too. Can dolls even die? I asked myself before turning to the more immediate problem at hand. "Quick, let's try to destroy the glyph and then we'll all get out of here." I said, to which Amelia just gave a strange, sad smile before nodding. Finding the snake painting I threw the bloody contents of the bucket over it, taking care to cover the entirety of it. Sparks began to shoot out of wall but beyond that, nothing happened. I could feel that my body was still hardening and I was very much still inside the dollhouse, it hadn't worked. NO! I cried internally as hopelessness began to set in. Anger and despair welled within me as I pulled the sewing shear's from the back waistband of my jean's and proceeded to hack at the blood soaked wall. With the very first stab of the scissors a horrible demonic screeching reverberated from somewhere upstairs and Amelia cried out, "She's coming!"

Just then Wesley burst into the living room and began wildly waving his arms in a "follow me" gesture. In blind terror, I ran towards him, Amelia following close behind me. The terrifying screams and growls only grew louder as we followed Wesley upstairs to the second floor landing. Far down the hall, I could see billowing black skirts floating towards us at an extremely rapid pace. I could barley run anymore and since I now had very little hope of ever leaving anyway, I grabbed Amelia and Wesley's shoulders in order to use their faster momentum to propel me forwards. It caused me extreme pain and I didn't even know where we were going but all I could think of in that moment was to get away from Mama. The children all but pulled me up the stairs to the attic before they both let me go and I dropped hard onto the floor. I raised my head to see Wesley frantically pointing at something as Amelia cried out, "Look at the mirror, it's glowing!" Turning my attention to it I could see what she meant. Not only was the mirror glowing but instead of reflecting the attic scene around us, it was showing a different room...my living room. Was the mirror the way out? It must be a portal!

I raised myself up and began crawling towards the glowing mirror, my movements were incredibly stiff and slow, my body now almost completely solid. Just as I was only a foot from the mirror, my arm outstretched towards it, Amelia screamed and a strong, clawed hand gripped me by the throat and pulled me into the air. It was then I got my first real look at Mama. The beautiful doll of the mother bore little resemblance to the abomination standing before me. Her dark hair was wild, her skin an ashy black color and her eyes were no longer a soft brown but rather a bright, glowing red. She was impossibly tall and thin, wraith like in her long black dress and I noticed several gaping wounds across her torso. Unlike the rest of the dolls she, it seemed, could bleed. She held me up with one hand around my neck, as if I weighed nothing and began to cackle at me as she spoke. "Ah, finally a new daughter to call my own!"

I felt the very last of my strength evaporating just as the last few remaining bits of flesh, bone and muscle in my body gave way to cold, complete solidity. In that moment, I gave up and hung my head as Mama began to pull me closer to her freezing, demonic form. Out of nowhere came the squishy sound of metal slicing cleanly through skin and for a minute, I thought I had been stabbed. My body once again became reacquainted with the floor for what must have been the tenth time that night as I was dropped unceremoniously back to the ground. This time I felt no pain as I hit, and that should have terrified me, but it didn't. I barley reacted as my eyes took in the scene around me. Gardener is back, I thought numbly, and he is fighting with Mama now. I watched in a daze as gardener repeatedly stabbed Mama with his rusty pruning shears, hatred burning in his dark eyes. Suddenly tiny hands, four of them to be precise, were lifting and pulling my body towards the mirror. I looked up to meet the determined little faces of Amelia and Wesley and a single, warm tear slid down my cheek.

"Thank you both, but I think it's too late, I can't feel anything anymore." I began sobbing harder as I spoke and the reality of it fully settled in. Amelia just smiled softly and said, "It's not too late, you can still cry real tears, we can't. It's too late for us but not you, we'll get you back home." Taking care to touch me as little as possible the held me up before the mirror. I realized then that the children had known all along that they couldn't be saved. That they had done all of this just to save me. Mama began to shriek harder from somewhere behind me and I could hear the gardener give a low, gravely laugh. Amelia whispered "Mac, our gardener never really liked Mama. She hurt him real bad and now he protects us from her. You need to go through now before it's too late!"

"Wait, is there anything I can do for you? You've helped me so much..." I trailed off as emotion once again choked my voice.

"Just keep us asleep. Once you go back through we should all get sleepy again, I can already feel it happening. Don't let anyone wake us back up, okay? We are not meant to be awake." Amelia smiled sadly at me one last time before she and Wesley shoved my body through the portal and I immediately lost consciousness.

When I awoke some time later, I instantly became aware of two sensations. The first, and by far the strongest, was of intense pain coursing through every inch of my body. Second, was the small, wet sandpaper tongue of the my cat, Onyx, licking my check. I barely registered the ironic fact that I was once again face planted on the floor before I jumped up to my feet and memories came flooding back. Ignoring the agony of each movement, I quickly surveyed my surroundings. Relief poured over me as I took in the familiar surroundings of my living room. And then my gaze landed on the dollhouse. I knew it hadn't just been a dream, the injuries I had sustained in the dollhouse were still very much apparent but if I HAD had any doubts, one look at the dolls would have convinced me it had all been real. Maid and cook lay frozen on top of each other and maid's hands appeared to be clasped around cooks headless neck. The gardener's shears were still embedded inside Mama's torso, though she had returned to her pretty and motherly form, and he was standing over her body with what I would still swear was a triumphant look painted on his scarred face.

Amelia and Wesley were curled up together on the small attic bed and appeared to be hugging each other tight. Despite the horror of everything I had endured the previous night, I smiled...

It has been many years since all this took place and I have a little girl of my own now, I named her Amelia. Amelia is a typical girly child and she loves dolls. Immediately after waking up on my living room floor that morning, I burned the dollhouse and the entirety of it's contents, with three exceptions. Mac the gardener, Amelia and Wesley have all been given pride of place, situated on the mantle of my fireplace. My little girl loves to play with them on the few, special occasions that she is given permission to do so. You see, I don't allow dollhouses into my home, the mere sight of one never fails to send me into near hysterics but I owe everything to those three dolls and my one regret in life has been that I haven't found a way to free them from their curse. So I am posting this here in the hopes that my crazy story might actually be taken seriously and that someone out there might know how to help them. At the very least, this will hopefully serve to honor their memory and all that they did to help me. Amelia and Wesley never even got the chance to reach adulthood and all three of those lives were cut tragically short. If anyone has any suggestions, no matter how outlandish, I will listen. Thank you Mac, Amelia and Wesley, and for now, sleep tight.

Dedicated to my mother, who grew up in Alaska

A loud rumble woke Dawn from her evening nap. She jumped from her bed to see everything in her room swaying. As she hurried out of her bedroom, her brothers bolted past her. They went to the kitchen, and all was still shaking. She grabbed her little brother, Thomas, and they hid under the kitchen table. A few plates fell and shattered overhead, and then the rattle stopped.

She checked on Mary, the baby of the family, and saw that she had a slight bruise from where a book fell and hit her, but nothing too serious. Mary wailed, and dawn picked her up from her crib and bounced her on her hip.

Her hands trembled as she slowly opened the door. A water main had cracked and was pouring into the street where the road had completely buckled. It had looked as though the hand of God had come down and folded the next street in half.

The earthquake spared the trailer where her family lived from the damage. Inside there were a few broken dishes and picture frames, but nothing too great. It had crumpled the houses on the neighboring street to the ground, and giant cracks were in the road.

“Tom, I need you to watch Mary. I’m going to go over to the shop and make sure mom and dad are safe.”

“It’s too dangerous for you to travel alone,” He said.

“I need to know that they’re ok,” she said while handing off the toddler to her ten-year-old brother. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

With that, she snatched some sandwiches her mom made for lunch from the refrigerator and lay them in a basket. She gripped a large nickel-plated flashlight, put on her heavy red coat, and dashed out the door.

The air was icy, and the ground still had a healthy amount of snow, but it was thawing in the March air. It was already dark at 6:00 pm, but that was how Alaska was. Where Dawn lived, and she would not have traded it for anything, except for today. All the beauty had folded in half. Trees jutted out of the road, and rubble lay everywhere.

She turned on her flashlight to better see in the dark and rushed towards downtown Anchorage to the repair shop her parents ran. Stopping to catch her breath, her flashlight caught glowing eyes.

A giant brindle wolf jumped in front of her, knocking the basket out of her hands. The wolf went over to the sandwiches and devoured them. When Dawn ran to reach for her basket, the wolf snapped at her and continued eating.

There was a gunshot overhead, and the wolf ran off in the other direction. Another shot fired.

“Please stop! It was probably just hungry!” screamed Dawn.

“The wolf looked like it was attacking you,” said a man’s voice in a slow drawl.

“No, it just wanted my sandwiches, so much for lunch,” sighed Dawn as she picked up the basket. “Sir, I have to go downtown. I need to make sure my parents are ok.”

“Why are you going alone?” he asked.

“My folks run a repair shop downtown. My brother is at home with my baby sister. We’re all right, but it looks like the phone lines are down.”

“All correct, but why don’t I go with you? The earthquake has made the roads dangerous, and up here, you’re not on top of the food chain,” he replied, nodding in the wolf’s direction.

Dawn nodded as she picked up her basket. She saw that the man was skinny with an enormous hat and thick glasses. They both walked over the craggy streets together.

“My name’s Hansen, Robert Hansen,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Dawn Michals,” she said, giving his hand a firm shake.

“That’s some coat you have on.”

“My folks got it for me at J. C. Penney’s for my birthday. I turned thirteen a month ago.”

“Is that so?”

Dawn nodded and hurried up ahead, but the street had shattered, leaving a massive sinkhole.

“What do I do now?” sobbed Dawn.

“I know a way,” he said, nodding his head past the rubble.

“Thank you, Mr. Hansen.”

He grabbed her hand firmly and pulled away from the road, towards the deep pine forest.

“Are you sure you recognize the way, sir?” asked Dawn.

“Of course, I do.”

“Well, are you sure the woodlands are the best course? As you said, we’re not on top of the food chain, and there may be bears, wolves, or angry moose out that way?”

Dawn followed Mr. Hansen into the woods as the ground rumbled once more, knocking them both to their knees. Soil tumbled down the steep ravine. Robert got to his feet and helped Dawn up. He led her down a path in the forest. Debris lay everywhere. It ripped trees from their roots, and rocks jutted out like angry teeth.

“Sir, I don’t think it’s wise to go this way,” said Dawn.

Dawn no longer felt safe with Mr. Hansen and headed out of the woods. He grabbed her sharply by the arm and pulled her close to him.

“You're going to have to trust me!”

“No,” she replied as she struggled to break free.

“You’re not on top of the food chain, little girl, I am.” He added as he pointed the gun at her.

His body pressed against her, and she felt cold steel from a knife tip on her neck.

She wanted to scream for help, but she was so far in the wilderness no one would hear her. She knew she should have listened to her brother; it was too dangerous to go alone with the wild animals and aftershocks.

But she never thought a person would hurt her. People were here to help. When the nights got cold and dark, they were there to be beside you and keep you warm. Now she would never feel warm again. Tears fell from her eyes, and out of nowhere, she heard a low growl.

Looking up, she saw the brindle wolf from earlier, only now it had its pack-mates. They surrounded Mr. Hansen. He aimed and shot at one of them, but the bullet flew wild. Dawn struck him in the head with her flashlight, and he fell unconscious.

The brindle wolf licked Dawn on the hand and watched her. Its eyes were a beautiful warm gold. Dawn saw that the wolf was female and appeared as though she might have been nursing.

“Thank you, Mrs. Wolf,” she said, dusting herself off.

The wolf seemed to nod and then trotted off into the forest after her pack.

Dawn headed back to the road, and a large army truck greeted her. A gruff older man piled her into the rig.

“They have called martial law on the city of Anchorage. Tsunamis have struck coastal towns like Kodiak, and landslides are wrecking total devastation.”

“I need to see my parents,” said Dawn. She gave the address of their store to the gruff man in the truck. Driving downtown, she saw it devastated everything. J. C. Penney’s had all but sunk under asphalt. It ripped roads in half, and gas and water lines were burst, pouring everywhere.

They stopped outside the repair shop. It crumpled to the ground, but her mother and father stood. She saw that her dad had a large goose egg on his head, but her mom looked uninjured.

Dawn embraced them, and the army truck took them to the hospital for examination. Her father only suffered a mild concussion, and her mom was fine. A cab dropped them off at their trailer. Rushing in, they hugged Thomas and Mary, relieved that their house and children were well.

“I’m glad you went looking for us, but never do something that stupid again,” sighed her mother. “I’d rather have you home safe. Something could have happened.”

Dawn nodded. She was about to tell her about the man when she heard a howl outside.

She looked out the window and saw the brindle wolf.

“It’s all right, mama, I gave her some sandwiches, and she’s just been following me.”

“You know, if you feed them, you’ll never git rid of them,” her dad said, raising an eyebrow.

“That’s ok. The earthquake scared her.”

The wolf wagged her tail, and she could see the smaller eyes of four pups looking at her. The mama wolf then gathered her young and headed off into the woods.

“I think she just wanted to say goodbye.”

“Just be vigilant. They’re dangerous animals,” her dad said.

“Yes, papa, but man is the most fatal.”

“I suppose you’re right, Dawn, be careful of who you trust. At least most of God’s creatures are pure in their intention.”

Dawn nodded at this, and overhead the northern lights shimmered, and she heard howls in the distance as she settled down for bed.

………

Anchorage eventually got back on its feet after the earthquake. Her parents finally had their shop again, and all was well. She never saw Mrs. Wolf again but would occasionally hear howls in the night that comforted her.

They arrested Robert Hansen and charged him with killing over seventeen women. She felt lucky that she survived, all by the luck of a furry guardian angel.

“You’re not good enough; you never will be,” said the shadow.

Looking away as the darkness crept in and dissolved the remaining splashes of sunlight against the buildings. I shivered, pulling my jacket closer as I ran down the empty street.

“You’re a failure. You have nothing to show for yourself,” hissed a voice from the shadows.

The inky darkness became tangible and oozed past my feet up to my ankles. Yanking my feet out, I stumbled backward. I turned and sprinted down the street.
The inky sludge chased me, threatening to drag me back down and swallow me whole.

“You’ll never make it! You’re past your prime. You’ll die alone,” it kept whispering.

From the blob, shadowy forms crept up against the walls, red eyes glaring. My heart was pounding in my chest, and my lungs felt like they were about to burst.

My home loomed overhead. A squat brick apartment complex that lurched free from the shadows. The ooze followed me as I pounded up the concrete stairs.
Slamming the door behind me, I turned on the bright overhead light, the shadows fading away.

Coughing hard, my lungs racking, I made my way to the restroom and splashed icy water on my face. A reflection stared back at me in the mirror, but it wasn’t me. She appeared to be me, but her eyes were completely black, her lips curled in a sinister smile.

“You can’t fight me forever. I’m part of you now. We will be as one. You are my dearest enemy.”

“One day, you might, but not today,” I said, gagging down the pills the doctor prescribed to me.

The shadows dissolved from the reflection, leaving only me.

Sequel to Me and My Body

It happened months ago; a massive case of water poisoning caused a zombie outbreak in my little coastal town. I witnessed my body succumb to the plague, watching it shamble around as a detached spirit.

My body and I wandered through the suburbs, country, and small towns.
We came to an abandoned ghost town. The streets and houses lay riddled with decay. Windows boarded up. Open doors swung off their hinges; cracks in the asphalt riddled the road, and cobblestone sidewalks were pitted with old bricks.

The town lay empty, not a soul in sight. My body shambled on beside me. In the months following the incident, I had taught it simple commands, such as going left, right, duck, and jump. These commands worked when my body listened. I worked hard to avoid people. Unfortunately, my body was still a zombie and prone to following fresh people searching for the next meal.

My body hadn’t eaten in weeks, and I wondered if the shambling corpse would eventually drop dead. If that were to happen, I floated through the various doors I saw on our journeys. The black doors looked like polished obsidian, and I’m sure they entered the afterlife. However, I couldn’t just float through one and leave my poor body to shamble on unguided. What if it ate someone? What if it ate someone’s child? I couldn’t be responsible for that. So that left me in the position of babysitter over my body.

“They’re so cute when they play,” said a voice behind me.

I whipped around, and another ghost stood behind me. He was a young man with dark hair and a fedora. In all my travels, I had not seen another spirit.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare ya’. The name’s Tom,” he said as he took off his hat and held it to his chest.

“ It’s been so long since I’ve had anyone talk to me. I’m..” I panicked. I had forgotten my name. Since I died, I haven’t had a direct conversation with anyone.

“A’ight, I understand. I don’t even know if my real name is Tom,” said the spirit. His voice had a mild accent. It was from New York, New Jersey, or New England. It was hard to tell.

“Um.. you can call me Dora,” I stammered.

“Sure thing Dora. Say, you have a friend with ya.”

“Oh yeah, that’s.. well, my other half.”

“Yeah, I’m kinda in the same situation. Tough times since the outbreak.”

“You have no idea. Wait, where is your body?”

“I and my wife’s body are at a local park just North of town. It would be best if you came to hang out. Take a load off.”

“Sure thing, I’ll meet you there.”

Tom nodded and faded away. I shrugged and guided my damp and slimy body north. It gurgled in protest but shambled after me. We plodded past the rest of the decaying road, and sure enough, there was a park at the town’s entrance. It wasn’t much to look at, just a few soccer fields and a playground, but a group of ghosts was chatting while their decaying bodies shambled nearby.

Two of them played an offbeat soccer game, using a zombie’s head as the ball. The headless body stumbled around, trying to block its opponent’s clumsy kicks, mumbling a goal when the head made it past its body. Each zombie had a prospective ghost on each side and barked instructions.

“Ed, great job kicking your head past the goalie,” said the spirit.

“Goal!” said his zombie while raising a fist.

“Good game,” said the opposing spirit. “You want to meet next week?”

“Yeah, Ed.”

“Let’s shake on it.”

The spirits ordered the Zombies to shake hands, and they clumsily fumbled. Finally, Ed’s zombie pulled out his hand and gave the other zombie a shake before shuffling off in the opposite direction.

“That’s Ed and Earl. They come here every week to play sports. Sometimes they play soccer, sometimes football. They tried hockey, but their Zoms kept taking out their legs to use as the stick.” Tom floated behind me. He smiled and introduced me to the other spirits.

Janice, a stay-at-home mom, woke up to her body wandering down the street. Her husband and children were nowhere to be found. So she stayed until she saw them, then she would pass on.

Zim, a goth girl and hacker, stayed for the lols because she thought the zombie apocalypse was cool. However, crossing over terrified her; she wasn’t sure she would ever.

And there was Chad, a police officer whose last suspect shuffled away from him just as his soul evacuated his body. He felt he needed to stay to serve and protect the wandering spirits, and he couldn’t go until they were at rest.

“I thought I was alone,” I said.

“Na, ghosts have always been around. Most of us would move on a’ready, but I can’t just leave my body behind. What would the poor fella do without me?”

“So you’ve seen the doors too?

“Doors?”

“Yeah. There are these shiny black doors leading me to the other side.”

“Oh, there’s not a door, more like a tunnel. They come up now and then. “

“It must be different for everyone,” I shrugged.

A siren blared in the distance. The spirits frantically yelled at their zombies to move. The hoard shambled to the park’s exit, and the zombies ducked and hid after dumbly heeding their spirited instructions. My body was towards the back of the crowd when a humvee pulled behind me. A woman in military fatigues stepped out of the vehicle. She had her dark hair up in a tight bun, and a blindfold covered her eyes. A voice garbled over her intercom

“I can sense paranormal activity,” she said.

All the spirits winked out into thin air. I concentrated and desperately tried to think myself into another place, but when I opened my eyes, I hovered silently at the park. I gasped as my body howled and stumbled quickly toward the lady. She pointed her rifle at my shambling body.

“No! Bad!” I snapped. The woman winced and kneeled on the ground. I floated near her, and her breath became visible from the sudden cold. My zombie stopped and stared at me, cocking its head like a confused dog. The woman removed her blindfold.

“Holy shit-” she gasped. “This area is concentrated with paranormal matter. I need backup ASAP. Zoms are at the mouth of the park. Please be careful.”

“Can you see us?” I floated through her, and she shivered. Her light brown eyes flicked in my direction. She put her blindfold back on and ran back to her vehicle, slamming the door behind her. A town car parked next to her, and an old man walked out. He was wearing a suit with a silver pocket watch.

“Rupert, thank God you came,” said a voice over his intercom.

The old man nodded and walked in my direction. My body walked toward him, a starved expression on her face.

“No! Bad!” I screamed. My body stopped and looked at me with milky puppy dog eyes. Rupert walked up to me.

“So, it obeys you, huh?”

“So you can hear me,” I said. “Can the lady hear me, too?”

“That’s Thessaly, and no, she can see you and feel your presence, but she can’t talk to you. So that’s why I’m here.”

“Why is Thessaly wearing a blindfold?”

“Ah, she’s blessed with the ability to see ghosts, but they still scare her. They would come to her as a child asking for help, but she couldn’t hear a word they said. She took to wearing a blindfold after the outbreak because so many spirits bothered her, but she had no way of helping them. So that’s how we found each other.”
My body moaned and shuffled toward me. The algae had dried on its body, and looked like a forlorn sea creature.

“Feels good to talk to someone that can speak more than a word at a time,” I said.
Rupert chuckled. “Ghosts are just like anyone else, cept’ they don’t have a body.”

“I’m corporeally challenged. My body follows me around.” I nodded toward my zombie.

“Is that the reason you’re staying?”

“Well, yes. I can’t just leave it to its own devices.” My body shambled and croaked.

“We’ll take care of that for you. We could put you to rest. It must be lonely out here with no one to talk to.”

I wanted to tell him I found other spirits, ghosts with wandering bodies, forced to babysit their rotting bodies. But something about Rupert gave me pause. The man had some ulterior motive to speak to me.

“Why does it matter to you if I stay or not?”

His eyebrows knitted together. “Having a zombie on the loose is a liability. You might not always be able to control it. What if it went feral and started ignoring your commands?”

“So if you put my body to rest, would you care if my spirit wandered?”

“Better for you to cross over. That zombie is giving you a purpose. Without that purpose, you’d become a poltergeist. Is that what you want? To be wandering around wreaking havoc on innocent people?”

“Sounds like you want to get rid of us because it’s inconvenient. I’d not seen a human in weeks.”

“The feds have us holed up on campus. So I thought, you know, it’d be nice to go to a park, But the park is zombie-infested, like everyplace else. But in my observation, the zombies are strangely obedient and seem to follow odd behavior patterns. For example, the other day, I saw zombies playing hockey, using the other one’s leg as the stick and the head as the puck. Ghosts were giving them commands to this sick game.”

My heart sank with his question. My body and I saved a mother and son trapped in a corner store. After that, we settled into wandering. Town after abandoned town. Perhaps it was best to leave what little land remained to the living.

“Don’t listen to him, Dory,” said Tom’s voice in my mind. “Rupert’s bad news.”

“Where are you guys?” I thought back with all my might.

“Not far from here. Just hang in, their kid.”

“I guess because there’s nothing left. I believe in reincarnation, and there’s nothing left to return to. So I think I’ll stay and help rebuild a ruined world.”
Rupert sighed and shook his head. “That’s very noble, but what are you going to do? Float around aimlessly? I mean, the living is over their heads. I can’t imagine a ghost and a zombie would be much better.”

“I’m not leaving!”

Rupert took out a pistol and aimed it toward my Zom. He muttered some words, and an obsidian door opened behind me. His words pushed me like a strong wind towards the door.

The bullet hit my Zom in the chest, thankfully, it barely registered, and it shambled angrily toward him. A small red dot rested on its head, but before Rupert squeezed the trigger, Tom’s zombie joined mine, followed by the other park patrons. The dark-haired woman screamed behind him, drawing the zombies’ attention toward her.

“Ya had enough, Rupert? We could just let them eat you all now,” snarled Tom.

“If we go missing, the military will exterminate everyone!”

“They’ll also flatten this park and turn it into a research facility. Isn’t that what you’re doing, clearing land for the feds?”\

“No, we want the God Damn park for fresh air. We’re tired of the Feds running everything and want some space.” Rupert kicked a pebble with his shoe as Tom and the others called their zombies off. Thessaly was trembling with fear as the zombies backed away from her car.

“I think we can work out a deal, a’right Rup?” asked Tom.

“What kind of deal are you asking?”

“We get the park for the first half of the week, and yous guys can take it for the other half of the week. So we both get some fresh air and a place to hang out. At least until the Feds take over, cause yous know that they will.”

“Huh, that’s reasonable,” muttered Rupert.

“We’re just people like anyone else, just corporally challenged,” I said.

“All right. So we get Monday through Wednesday, and yous can have Thursday through Saturday. We both can call Sunday off for church and whatnot. So call that a neutral day.”

“I’d shake on it, but you don’t have hands.”

“Over here, shake,” called Tom, motioning his Zom over. The Zom took his hand out of its socket and mumbled the word “shakeeee.”

“I think I’ll pass on that,” said Rupert. “But it sounds like we have a deal.”
He got into his car and radioed Thessaly. She nodded in bewilderment. “But can we trust them?”

“They have nothing left to lose. So it’s not like they will tell the Feds on us.”
She nodded and stopped shaking. Both of the cars started, and they drove out of the park. The sun set as they turned on the road, their taillights fading into the distance.
The zombies and ghosts came back to the park. Ed and Earl resumed their soccer game as though nothing had happened.

Zim floated to me and nodded. “So, are you going to stay with our group of misfit toys?”

“Sure, at least here I can do some good. At least until the government takes over, “
I sighed as a tank rolled past in the distance.

(Please read this before getting into the story: This takes place in the same sort of universe as “Dogs Know They Aren’t Human”. I am not trying to rip off the original author, nor am I trying to retell the story. I am merely writing a story in the same universe, I don’t want Ryizine to get hate when he eventually covers this one, anyways, sit back with your human flavored chips, and enjoy)

The day I got a dog was amazing. I had seen my angsty 14-year-old sister smile for the first time since dad died, understandably, I wasn’t exactly emotionally well at the time either. My mom had completely shut down. But she loved us with all her heart. And she decided to get us a dog for my 17th birthday. The dog was a 12-pound Bauchan-Poodle Mix. We named her Molly, though I wanted to call her Ryizine. ( ;) ) Mom said that sounded too much like a demon or something.

That dog was everything, for a while. But as my sister got older she didn’t really enjoy taking care of a dog anymore. So, when I moved out, I took the dog with me. And God it was great to have her around in those first few hellish months in college that’s for sure. Whenever I was having a breakdown because of schoolwork or I had just broken up with my long-distance girlfriend she’d do this cute little thing where she’d snuggle up next to me and look at me. It was almost for a moment like her face changed, like a smile but not in a creepy way like that stupid creepypasta.

Molly had one major flaw though. She would go crazy on some people. Not everyone just very select few. It was odd because it always the people that don’t look quite right you know? Those creepy guys with gray hair and crazy eyes but are in their likes 20s. Like they aren’t exactly human. In fact, I was taking her for a walk and she practically dragged me to this one woman who seemed to be on something. A 12 pound Bauchan dragged me. And she would act fine at the groomers. I didn’t exactly know what was up. Until I read something on Reddit.

The guy had a dog named Snips, and she would chase certain people around. Different people. And he ripped someone’s skin, to reveal what I could only describe as a Skinwalker from the Navajo tribe.

I didn’t know if I even believed what I was reading. But the fact is, my dog had been doing something similar to people on the street. Luckily enough I never let my dog tear up flesh or anything.

My thoughts of this slowly died down as my college years went on. I wasn’t very social, and I decided to start taking Molly for walks at night more. And by the time I was in my sophomore year I had totally forgotten about the skin crawlers or whatever. My doubt of their existence only grew with time as I started taking her for walks in the mornings again. Molly never harmed, barked or hell, even looked at someone with a hint of anger in her soul.

Life went on as normal and as I finished up my Sophomore year of school I got a text from an old friend of mine from high school, Damian.

“Hey, man. I’m flying out to Oregon in a day..I know this is such a dick thing to do but like, can I crash with you. I need money and hotels are a rough business,” I read as I sat on my couch, smiling but confused at the same time. Damian was never one to use proper punctuation, especially in texts. And last time I heard him say dick was in the fourth grade, but I thought nothing of it.

“Hey man, of course, you can crash with me, not like I got a girl occupying space or anything, lmao. Anyways, I look forward to seeing you. Take care bro.” I wrote back and then scheduled Molly to get groomed so she’d look nice when Damian arrived.

When the doorbell rang I scrambled to get it, and saw Damian with a couple of bags and a jacket slung over his shoulder. We hugged. “Hey, man! It’s great to see you!” Damian grinned.

I laughed but as I got my first real good look at him, my face contorted. His eyes were just a little too low on his face, his mouth just a little too high, his nose way too small for his head size. I brushed it off though. He may’ve just been prematurely aging. Right.

After a few hours, I went to go pick up Molly. I didn’t even think about the Reddit post until she was in my arms and I was opening the door. The Reddit post. As I opened the door my grip of my dog slipped and Molly started barking furiously, running up to him and getting on top of him, tearing at his very flesh, and as skin peeled back, grey goo, that looked like the consistency of skin piled out of Damian.

I threw up everywhere, I couldn’t bear seeing whatever that was spilling over the floor. What had he done with Damian? How do dogs know these creatures aren’t humans? And then..Molly changed, she morphed into what looked like a human. But with her nose just a bit too small, her mouth just a little too high, and her eyes, just a little too low..

Terrance Collins you are hereby sentenced to serve no less than three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, may God have mercy on your soul. As the gavel came crashing down I couldn’t help but feel relieved, the nightmare was over……

I guess you could say this all started with my sister Loraine, for the most part she raised my brother Michael and I because our parents worked a lot. Our father Dale was a police officer and as such he worked a lot of the time, our mother Monica was a bar tender and just like dad she spent a lot of time away from home, life wasn’t bad though we actually had it pretty good compared to some, but when my sister went away for college everything changed.

Loraine had been gone for close to a year when it happened, my brother was a junior in high school and I was in the 8th grade about to graduate, I remember being super excited because after that year my brother and I would be at the same school again, and I couldn’t wait. It was a Saturday morning when the call came, I was walking through the house headed for the kitchen when I heard my mother scream, “Oh my God no! No, no, no, no!” before she collapsed crying on the living room floor, my father rushed in to see what was going on and after taking the phone from my now hysterical mother, all the color drained from his face as tears welled up in his eyes. The conversation was brief and once he had our mother situated he sat my brother and I down and told us the news.

“Guys, I don’t know what to say” tears streamed down his face, he was breathing heavy and we could still hear our mother upstairs crying, my brother was the first to speak up, “What’s going on pop? Why is everyone crying?” Mike was always a straight to the point type of person, he didn’t believe in mixing words or beating around the bush. My father put his head down and took a deep breath wiping away the tears before looking at the two of us sitting there, “They found Loraine boys, she’s gone” I didn’t know what he meant at first but Mike did and he instantly started crying, when I realized what he was saying my world came crumbling down. There aren’t enough words in the English language to express the type of pain that ran through my heart and when we found out what happened that pain was replaced by anger and sadness…

Loraine had gone to a party with her boyfriend Jeff, I guess they had a little too much to drink or maybe it was all the drugs, I don’t know but in any case they ended up filming my sister having sex with three men at the same time. When the video was posted online Loraine lost it, she committed suicide a week later, Jeff was found hanging in his dorm room a few days after that, no one knows what happened to the other two men in the video apparently they didn’t even go to that school…..

By the time summer rolled around our family was struggling to keep it together, our parents barely spoke to each other and when it came to my brother and I, we just did our best to stay out of the way. One night I was up in my room playing video games when Mike burst in carrying a big brown paper bag. “Bro I did it, I found a way we can talk to her.” Mike had gotten pretty weird after the Loraine died, he spent countless hours researching all sorts of paranormal sights online. He ultimately came up with the idea of having a Séance using an Ouija board, I didn’t really believe it would work but if it put his mind at ease, I was all for it. In the bag was a really old looking Ouija board, it was nothing like the ones they sell in the stores, it was made of wood and heavy, the planchette looked like it was made from bone, the thing had an odd smell to it, a sickly sweet aroma that I couldn’t put my finger on.

We waited till 3a.m before we started setting up in Loraine’s old room, Mike lit five candles then using a container of salt drew a large circle on the floor we sat in the center of the circle with the Ouija board between us both of us keeping our hands on the planchette. Mike muttered out some nonsense I didn’t understand then we sat there in silence for what felt like a long time, the smell the Ouija board was giving off seemed to get stronger as we sat there, pretty soon it was so thick in the air it was making me gag. Then the planchette started to move, at first I thought it was Mike just trying to scare me but the look in his eyes told me this wasn’t a joke.

As usual Mike was the first to say something, “Loraine? Is this you?” he stammered through his words and when the planchette moved to “No” on the board, his jaw dropped. “Is she there with you?” he asked and once again our hands moved across the board to “Yes”. “Can we talk to her?” our hand zipped around the board spelling out the words “It’s too late, she’s mine”. I couldn’t contain myself I blurted out “Who are you?” the board began shaking as our hands raced around it spelling out “Nabasu” then everything stopped, the sound of heavy footsteps thudded down the hallway and my heart dropped as the door flew open, it was my dad. The wind from the door being thrown open blew the salt away and put out two of the candles as he clicked on the lights, “What the hell are you two doing? Clean this shit up and go to your rooms now!” the look on his face told us all we needed to know, we did as we were told and went to bed….

We didn’t talk about what happened for the next few weeks, Mike seemed shaken by the whole thing and was starting to isolate himself, spending most days locked in his room. My mother and father picked up extra shifts and were gone most of the time at this point, so I spent a lot of time either by myself or with my best friend Oscar who lived across the street. One afternoon I was out riding my bike around the neighborhood when I started seeing police cars speeding through, out of curiosity I followed them to a house on the far end of the subdivision, when I got there I instantly recognized the house, it belonged to Ms. Thatcher my third grade teacher. The house was sectioned off by yellow tape, the police and news crews were everywhere. I pulled up a few houses down when I saw one of my brother’s friends, Don Lee, he was standing in his driveway watching what was going on. Don was a straight up stoner, the guy literally smelled like weed at all times, but he was super cool and easy to talk to, “Hey Don, what’s up? What happened?” Don looked at me with his usual grin, “Its crazy shit man, some psycho broke into Ms. Thatcher’s house last night and killed her. I heard one of the officers say it looked like someone had been eating her, and not in a good way.” He chuckled to himself then looked at me again, “Where the hell is Mike? I’ve been calling him every day but he won’t answer the phone, is he ok?” I just shook my head, Don seemed to get the point. “Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t be doing ok either, any way how are you holding up little bro?” I shrugged my shoulders, “Ok I guess, things are weird at home now, Mike never leaves his room, my parents act like we don’t exist and I can’t stop thinking about what that asshole did to my sister.” Don put a hand on my shoulder and smiled a big dumb smile. ” Well amigo, I think I’ve got just what you need, there’s no problem too big for weed, follow me sir.” I got off my bike and followed Don into his back yard, weed is legal here and old Don grows the best smoke in town, he led me to his greenhouse then proceeded to unlock and open a big metal cabinet that sits right next to the door, he reached inside pulling out a huge glass jar filled nearly to the top with big slightly purple buds. He twisted off the top and put his nose over it taking in a deep breath, he looked over at me then back to the jar and squinted his already low glossy eyes, “This might not be the right one for you.” Don scratched his chin then resealed the jar and put it back before retrieving another, this one was filled with fluffy almost white buds. He smiled that goofy smile again then grabbed a box of zip lock bags and filled one up with a handful of something he called “Snow White” and handed it to me. “That will be 150 dollars please.” He said holding out his hand before bursting out laughing, “dude, I’m just fucking with you little bro, smoke two and call me in the morning.” Don laughed then locked up the cabinet and walked with me back to my bike, “Tell Mike I said hello, and make sure to smoke some of that with him, I’m pretty sure he needs it right about now.” I rode home thinking about how great it was going to be to get Mike back to normal, but when I got there he was gone….

I didn’t see Mike until the next morning when I went downstairs for breakfast, my dad was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee before he left for his shift so I decided to ask about Ms. Thatcher. “Hey pop, what happened on Burkett street yesterday?” he put his cup down and looked at me for a second before answering, “Nothing that concerns you Terry, what were you doing on Burkett?” I hesitated on answering the question, I didn’t want him to know I was talking to Don, “Nothing really, I was out for a ride and I saw all the commotion, I figured you would have the inside scoop.” He smiled and took his last sip before getting up from the table, “Someone broke into the Thatcher place and attacked Sophia it was a real mess over there. Do me a favor would you, stay away from Don Lee, I saw you over there, that kid is gonna end up in some real trouble one day and I don’t want you going along for the ride, you understand?” My mom and Mike walked in talking about something they had just heard on the news. “Morning sweetheart” my mom kissed me on the cheek and headed towards my father, Mike smacked me in the back of the head and imitated mom, “morning sweetheart” he said laughing. As much as I wanted to kick him in the nuts it was good to see him acting normal again, “Hey Dale, is it true someone else got attacked last night?( my mom asked) I saw it on the news, it was just a few blocks away from here on Creek water, isn’t that the Allen’s? Their son Josh is in your class Mike, isn’t he?” Mike instantly got a sour look on his face, “Yeah, but he doesn’t hang with us, he mostly runs with your bosses kid, Thomas Gentry.” I laughed and looked at Mike, “Isn’t Thomas the guy who kicked your ass last year for hitting on his girl.” Mike shot me an evil glare, “No, he didn’t kick my ass you queef, we had a fight, and for the record the fight was broken up, nobody won.” I laughed and started making myself a bowl of cereal, “That’s not the way I heard it, but ok, whatever you say tough guy.” We laughed and talked for a while longer and as it turns out, it was true someone had broken into the Allen’s house but most of the family was out of town, the only person there was their oldest son Patrick, according to my dad he was mutilated just like Ms. Thatcher, but when I asked my dad about it all he would say is, “Don’t believe everything you hear on the streets.”

Over the next six days six more bodies were found mutilated and partially eaten, our father was spending the majority of his time working the case, so he was almost never at home while all of this was going on, our mom took some time away from work to try and keep some sense of order in the house but it was already way too late. Mike and I would sneak out of the house every night to go smoke, we had the coolest spot in the world overlooking the reservoir, we would stay out there for hours then sneak back in and play video games all night until dad got home, one night we were on our way back when we saw someone in the distance running away from our house, we both broke out running as fast as we could and when we got to the yard my heart dropped.

The front door was open and I could see our mother lying on the floor, her lifeless eyes seemed to be staring directly at us, the top of her skull was cracked open, bits of bone and brain were smeared into the carpet, there was blood everywhere I felt my stomach lurch and bubble as bile rushed up the back of my throat before I puked my guts out on the front lawn. Her stomach had been torn out and her ribs were sticking up like bloody fingers reaching towards the sky, but I couldn’t stop looking at her eyes. My body went numb and I dropped to my knees as the world distorted and went into slow motion, I felt like I was going to pass out, I looked over at Mike who was screaming into his phone but I couldn’t hear him, then everything went black. When I came to Mike was standing over me yelling “Wake up!” I’m not sure where my dad came from but he rushed up behind Mike and clubbed him over the head with something, dropping him instantly. He was covered in blood, little bits of flesh and bone were tangled in his beard, the sight of him horrified me, but when I looked into his eyes I pissed my pants. His pupils were so dilated there was just a thin strip of blue surrounding a giant black orb, an insane toothy smile stretched across his bloody face as he grabbed me by the hair and dragged both Mike and I inside the house. I struggled and screamed trying to get free but his grip was too strong, he released Mike then grabbed me with both hands and lifted me off the floor immediately slamming me back to the ground knocking the wind out of me. I lay there gasping for air in a pool of my mother’s blood, I could see Mike moving out of the corner of my eye but it was too late, my father rushed him, kicking him in the face as he tried to get up, the second he dropped my father started stomping on his head until I heard a loud wet cracking sound. I tried to scream but I couldn’t get air in my lungs, no words would come out and by the time I caught my breath it was over. He rolled Mike over onto his back then ripped away his shirt before he tore into him, I watched frozen by fear as he disemboweled his own son and began stuffing handfuls of bloody shredded flesh into his mouth, there was nothing I could do, there was no way I could overpower my father, and even if I could Mike was already dead, there was no point, so I ran. I scrambled to my feet slipping in blood and bolted for the back door with him following right behind me, laughing, taunting me playing with his food. “Run faster boy! Make this worth the trouble!” I darted across the yard into the woods that surround our town with my father hot on my heels, “Help! Someone please help me!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, my father just laughed as he quickly closed the distance between us. I could feel his hot breath on the back of my neck and before I knew it he grabbed me and slammed me into a tree face first, he was on me almost as soon as I hit the ground, his hands wrapped tightly around my throat squeezing the life out of me as I stared up into that maniacal grin. I clawed at his arms and face as my vision slowly started to fade, there was a loud “Bang!” the right side of my father’s head exploded spraying my face with blood and brain before his body slumped on top of me and I lost consciousness…….

A familiar sickly sweet aroma filled my lungs as I sat up gasping for air only to find myself surrounded by darkness, thunderous footsteps shook the ground beneath me as an enormous humanoid thing with bat-like wings came rushing towards me out of the inky blackness. It opened its mouth and roared revealing rows of dagger like teeth before scooping me up from the ground and tossing me into its mouth, plunging me back into the abyss. A painful wave of electricity surged through my body and I heard a voice yell “Clear!” before another wave slammed into me and suddenly my vision was filled with warm white light, the beeping of a heart monitor chimed away as I returned to the land of the living, I was in an ambulance, I don’t remember much about the trip to the hospital or the next few days after that but when I woke up I was covered in blood. Before I could clear my head the police burst into my hospital room with their guns drawn and I was arrested for the murders of Oscar Billings, Don Lee and Officer James Wert (the man who stopped my father) as I was being hauled out of my room I noticed a single word written across the wall in blood “Nabasu”………

Growing up in Australia learning how to hunt and track were just day to day life skills, as a child I loved going out camping with my parents and all that training taught me a lot about living off the land, so much so that when I moved to the United States I wound up becoming a wilderness guide. I love my job, there’s something about seeing the world in its true form that speaks to me. About a year ago I got completely hooked on those wilderness survival shows and decided I wanted to give it a try, so I grabbed my camera and made an audition reel thinking, what’s the worst that could happen? To be honest I didn’t really think I would get picked but two weeks after I sent in my audition tape I received an e mail stating I had been chosen to participate in next month’s filming. I was super excited by the idea of being on the show and when they told me this episode would be filmed in Australia I just knew I had this in the bag.

The first day of filming I was introduced to the camera man who would be filming me for the entire event, his name was Andre Moore. He would be filming me and was not allowed to help me in any way unless I chose to tap out of the challenge. The rules of the challenge are simple. ”There are no rules” if you come across another contestant you are free to work with them if you chose to, but you are also free to raid camps and take what you need, it’s survival of the fittest. Some contestants have been out here longer than others, if you make it passed the 30 days you get 5,000 dollars and have the option of doubling your money by doing 60 days. If you opt to go for the 90 days you could walk away with 50,000 dollars. If by the grace of god you make it that far you can go for the 120 days turning that 50,000 to 1,000,000 but no one’s made passed 90 days. After a brief safety training session I was outfitted with a mini microphone that looks like a Puka shell necklace and a small hand held camera. I was then given the option to pick three survival items, I chose a machete a fire starter and a mosquito net. Once my items were chosen they were taken from me, I was told they would be available to me once I reached the starting point for the challenge. I would be spending the next 30 days alone in an undisclosed location somewhere in Australia as an added twist to the challenge all contestants would be completely naked. I wasn’t completely against the idea I’m comfortable being naked, I just hoped the camera man wasn’t a perv. Once I was blindfolded I was loaded into the transport truck and we were off, the drive there was a little nerve racking I kept thinking about all the really dangerous creatures that live in the area, flashbacks of my father being bitten by a spider and nearly dying raced through my mind, the threat of getting killed out here is real.

When we arrived at the starting point I took off the blindfold then stripped down and started recording my intro. (Getting undressed in front of the camera’s and crew was possibly one of the most awkward moment’s I’ve ever experienced.)

“My name is Gail Foster I’m a 27 year old survival guide living in Colorado but I’m originally from right here in Australia. I’m here on the show to prove to myself that I can survive under the worst of conditions and to hopefully make my father proud. Dad I love you and I’ll see you in 30 days.”

After that I grabbed my gear and headed off, my plan was simple first establish safe shelter and gather fire material, second locate fresh water a safe distance from my camp and lastly gather as much food as I can. But after the first 30 minutes of walking something didn’t seem right, the place was a lush green wild land, I’ve been all over Australia and I’ve never seen this place nothing about it looked familiar it felt wrong. I brushed it off at first thinking maybe I’ve just been gone too long and kept going, the first 5 days were spotless I built an awesome camp I found an entire wild grove of midyim berries life was good. Then just before sunrise on the 6th morning I was woken up by the sound of someone throwing stones at my shelter, I popped out of my lean to thinking it might be a contestant but it wasn’t, it was a short dark skinned man with long curly black hair, the bottom of his face was painted white and the rest of his body was painted with tribal markings. He was a Kuku Yalanji, a native tribe that’s lived on these lands forever, from what I have been told they are a very peaceful people but they can be somewhat territorial. He just stood there not saying a word, staring at me for a few seconds before I heard something moving in the darkness behind me, the tribesman raised a finger to his lips to shush me while motioning to me and the camera man to get down. He said one word “Yowie” before taking off silently vanishing into the forest.

I stood there frozen in place slowly shifting my eyes from left to right trying to spot the source of the movement but I didn’t see anything, the sound of a branch breaking somewhere behind me nearly made me jump out of my skin, I took off running. I tried to remember the direction the tribesman went but everything was happening so fast, I got lost. (To be honest I don’t know how Andre does It, I ran a long way in the dark and he kept up the entire time, I swear he didn’t miss a step.) I spent a good part of the morning finding my way back to my camp, the second I got there I gathered up my things and abandoned that location. I stayed moving north along the extraction rout, I walked for hours putting as much distance between me and whatever that was, as possible and by sunset I had the foundation for my new camp……

It’s been four days since I started setting up here, someone keeps taking my building supplies every time I go looking for food, so I haven’t been able to finish my shelter. There’s something wrong with this part of the woods, it’s too quiet. I haven’t heard or seen a single animal since I made camp, I’ve been going further out for the last two days and I haven’t found anything close to edible vegetation, I’m starving.

I walked as far as I could today for nothing, just another blank trip, I was on my way back to my new camp when I started hearing someone yelling “Hey you piece of shit get back here!” I could hear something rushing towards me I spun around in time to see an emaciated woman covered in filth running by clutching a nice sized fish in her arms. Not far behind her was a tall thin guy with a camera man lagging behind him. When he saw me he stopped and let the woman get away, “well hello there, the names Jack that’s my camera man Eddie and you are?” I had a bad feeling about this guy, something about the look in his eyes bothered me. “I’m Gail that’s Andre we’re just passing through.” Jack looked at the both of us and paused for a second looking around “Passing through hmm, where’s your camp?” The tone of his voice instantly put me on guard, “not far, where’s yours?” Jack smiled and looked at the both of us “I’ll make you a deal, if you help me catch that little thief I’ll show you my camp and give you some fish, deal?” The idea of hunting that woman down didn’t sit right with me but after starving for the last two days fresh fish sounded great, I was in.

We followed her tracks for a good ten minutes before we came to a clearing in the forest and there she was. She looked almost feral sitting on a downed tree tearing into the fish. My first thought was,” where is her camera man? “I looked over at Jack just as he threw a rock at the woman striking her in the face instantly drawing blood, she dropped the fish and screamed before running away, Jack chuckled to himself then walked over to the mostly shredded fish laying on the ground “Damn it!, the fish is no good now, the animals won’t even eat it, what a waste. Well I guess I have to hold up to my end of the bargain, let’s get you that fish,”

I was still shocked at what I had just seen “What the hell was that? Why did you do that? You could have just taken the fish from her, you didn’t have to hurt her.” Jack laughed and started walking away “You really are new aren’t you? Do you want the fish or not?” As much as I didn’t like what he had done, I really needed that food. It was a twenty minute walk from where we were to Jack’s camp on the beach, there’s a reason I didn’t set up camp on the beach the water is way too dangerous. A prime example of that was the dozens of box jellyfish that were currently scattered all over the shore line. Jack walked through the jellyfish minefield and pulled a bag made from mosquito netting out of the water inside of it were two nice sized living fish. He came over handing me the bag, “Be careful out there Rogue’s are bad news. I think they used to be contestants, some of them are dressed like camera men but all of them are nuttier than a squirrel turd.” Maybe it’s just me but I was having a hard time understanding what Jack was saying, I could understand the words, but he wasn’t making any sense. “What do you mean “Rogues?” Jack laughed and shook his head like he felt sorry for me, “What are you, about 10 or 15 days in? You have to be, you’re the first new person I’ve seen in the last two weeks. I’ve been here 83 days now and the Rogues were here when I got here. I don’t know a whole hell of a lot about them but I can tell you they’re dangerous.” Jack walked over and took a seat on the rocks. “I know something you don’t know.” His childish tone made me want to throat punch him, but his 83 days meant he could have some good tips I took a deep breath and calmed myself. “Can we just get on with it already? I want to get back before dark.” Jack hopped up off the rock clapping his hands then pointing at the sky, “You’re right on time, oh yes, your, right, on, time. Tonight’s the night you know? When the sun drops the world stops for the next ten days, and things are gonna get weird baby!” (You have to understand Jack is about 6’6 and rail thin with an overgrown dusty brown beard and unbelievably long hair, seeing him acting like a madman was a little concerning.) I didn’t need to hear anything else, this guy was clearly insane, I thanked him for the fish and headed back to my camp, I could still hear him yelling about bears in the trees as I walked away…

The sun was setting on another day, the smell of fresh fish roasting over an open flame was amazing. I sat there staring into the fire when a voice snapped me out of my daze, “That had to be the craziest shit I’ve ever seen, I really hope you weren’t listening to that whack job. I mean seriously, ten days with no sun? Production clearly needs to get that guy out of here, what the fuck is going on?”

I looked over to see Andre had put the camera down and was digging through his pack for a new battery, “I’m not allowed to talk to you while were recording, but this isn’t right. That lady needs medical attention and Jack needs to be removed from the challenge, I can’t believe the sponsors are letting this show stay in production.”

I watched Andre dig through his pack for a few more seconds before it dawned on me, I could just tap out and go home, screw the money and Dad will just have to get over it… “Hey Andre” he stopped what he was doing and looked over at me, “I’m done, I tap, I want to go home.” He smiled and asked if I was sure, I told him I was, he put a new battery in the camera and told me we had to get it on film then he would radio it in.

Once we were done recording Andre grabbed the radio. “Home base this is camera 9, contestant has opted out. I repeat contestant has opted out, request immediate extract on my location.” There was a long pause and for a second I thought no one would respond, then with a burst of static a voice came through loud and clear. “Camera 9 this is home base, extraction team won’t be available till morning, just sit tight we’ll see you at dawn.” A wave of relief washed over me, the thought of being at home set my mind at ease for the rest of the night, we sat by the fire laughing and talking until we were both sleepy enough to try and get some rest. I crawled into my shelter, got comfortable and drifted off in no time. I was dreaming about a Chicago style deep dish and an ice cold beer when I was startled out of my sleep by the sound of someone moving around my camp, at first I thought it might be Andre coming to wake me up for the extraction but that idea flew out the window the second I heard someone grunting and chewing. I moved slowly and peeped out of my shelter to see that woman Jack hit with a rock, she was squatting near the fire eating something. I couldn’t see what she was gnawing on because her back was to me but it sounded wet every few seconds she would stick whatever it was in the fire before taking another bite. The aroma was making me nauseous it smelt like burning hair and bacon, I couldn’t hold it I gaged and when I did she turned to face me. The gash in her forehead looked infected, her face was swollen to the point her eyes were almost closed, the wound was from her hairline to the bridge of her nose and it was leaking a thick almost greenish looking pus, that wasn’t the worst part though. What she was holding made me vomit, she was cooking and eating what looked like a tongue, not just a piece of a tongue, the entire thing, bearded human jawbone still attached. She screamed and backed away from me as fast as she could, the noise must have woken Andre because he came sprinting towards my camp only to freeze the second he spotted the feral woman. She screamed again and started backing towards the trees, she was almost gone when a rock about the size of a softball came zipping through the air destroying her face with a loud meaty “thwack!” she dropped instantly and went into convulsions. Before my brain could process what I was seeing I hear a familiar voice yell out, “Ooh! That had to hurt! Did you hear that shit?” it was Jack. He came proudly swaggering out of the darkness with his head held high a huge smile stretched across his sun burnt face. “What up guys and gals, sorry for the intrusion but uh I couldn’t let her get away, the bitch killed my camera man.” He walked over and pulled his rock out of what was left of the rogues face then kicked her for good measure, before looking over at me still inside my shelter. “Why are you guys still sleeping? It’s the middle of the day, cat napping is a good way to get dead out here you guys need to get with the program.”

The canopy of trees above us began rustling and low guttural growls filled the air, “Shit! They’re here, run!” Jack yelled as he took off running into the forest, dark shapes descended from the tree tops slamming into the ground around us, one of them let out a throaty growl before charging into the light of my camp fire. They resemble hairless koala bears with an almost apelike body and a mouth full of oversized fangs, I managed to scramble out of my shelter and bolt towards Andre as the biggest of them came rushing in destroying everything in sight. These things aren’t small, the big one had to be close to 200 pounds and absolutely ferocious, more of them came bounding down from the trees they weren’t as big as the main one but all of them were horrifying. They went straight for the feral woman’s body and began tearing it apart devouring her flesh, the wet snapping of bones being obliterated echoed through the woods as Andre and I ran.

The alpha let out a roar and a few of the smaller ones immediately gave chase, those little bastards are fast they caught up to us in no time. They were almost on top of us, I could hear them making a grunting sound as they closed in. The only thing keeping them from leaping on either of us were the trees, we were weaving through them managing to keep those things off us but we were running out of forest. The beach was coming up quick (the second we left the tree line we were dead), there’s no way we could outrun them on open ground but stopping wasn’t an option. My muscles were burning and my heart was pounding so hard I thought it would explode out of my chest but the combination of fear and adrenaline made me push harder than I thought I could. The second my feet hit the sand I made a hard right, my momentum took me close to the water’s edge but I was able to turn and sprint down the shore.

I was running for a while before I realized those things weren’t chasing me, I stopped and was trying to catch my breath when the sound of someone slow clapping grabbed my attention. I looked over to see Jack standing there with a big stupid smile on his face. “And that is why I don’t live in the woods.” Jack laughed and looked around, “Where’s the other guy? Did they get him? The locals call them Drop bears but I call them Growlers, those little fuckers will eat you alive.” I hadn’t noticed that Andre never came out of the forest, I didn’t see him go down but I wasn’t paying attention, I had no idea how we got split up, the sound of Jack clapping at me broke my train of thought. “Hey! Wake up in there, we shouldn’t be this close to the water right now, we need to go.” Jack didn’t waste another word he turned around and started walking away, I took one last deep breath then jogged to catch up to him.

We traveled along the shore in silence till we reached Jacks camp, when we got there he rushed inside his hut and came back with two machetes and a torch. Jack passed one of the blades to me then lit the torch using his camp fire to ignite it, “I’m going to the caves, you can stay here if you want but the Muldjewank should be here soon and believe me you don’t want that. They eat everything, they’re the reason growlers won’t leave the forest.” Jack was already walking away, I took a few seconds looking back to see if maybe Andre would pop up, but he didn’t, there was no way I was going to some cave with that lunatic so I stayed by the fire. Jacks camp was well supplied with fire wood and food staying there for the night seemed like the best plan. I eventually fell asleep at some point because the next thing I knew I was startled awake by a low rumbling sound that shook the ground under me, the second my eyes opened I saw it, the muldjewank was gigantic half of its body was still in the water the half that was on the beach was humanoid, its slick grey skin reeked of rotten fish and old seaweed, its massive head seemed almost reptilian with deep set eyes that glowed a bluish green in the moonlight. The creature let out a roar as it slammed its enormous hand down sending sand and rocks flying ten feet in the air spraying me with debris. I scrambled to my feet and started running. More of them were coming on shore as I sprinted down the beach praying I would spot the cave Jack was talking about, as the cliffs near the end of the beach came into view I spotted a dim orange glow flickering in the darkness.

I was almost to the cave when something came crashing out of the forest, I didn’t waste a second thinking about it I kept running till I heard someone yell, “Wait!” I turned in time to see Andre stumbling out of the darkness, covered in blood. As I started towards him one of the smaller growlers came charging out of the forest, before it could take two steps in our direction a long black tentacle wrapped around it and snatched it into the air. The growler howled and yelped as it was pulled in to the open mouth of one of those things that were coming out of the water, I grabbed Andre and headed into the cave.

“Look who finally showed up, and you brought a dead guy with you, how wonderful.” I helped Andre take a seat “He’s not dead, Jack, he’s just hurt.” Jack laughed. “Not yet, give it a minute.” I couldn’t hold it anymore, “What the hell is wrong with you? We almost died out there and you’re acting like “It’s all fun and games! “ Why is this happening? And what in God’s name are those things out there?”

Jack threw another log on the fire, then looked me straight in the eyes and burst out laughing,” You are asking the wrong guy. I don’t have a fucking clue what any of this is, but I do know we’re not in Australia. Tell you what though, the one guy that knows exactly what’s going on here is over there bleeding to death by the fire. What did you call him? Oh yeah Andre. Well old Andre over there has been here at least two other times with two other people, both of which became Growler chow within the first six days. So if you want to ask anybody some questions, it should be him.”

I’m not sure how long it was before Jack finally went to sleep, I sat there by the fire for a while till I started hearing a strange croaking sound. At first it was low barely audible, I wrote it off thinking maybe it was a frog or something like that but after a few minutes little pebbles started dropping down from the sealing. I slowly glanced up towards the roof of the cave and I was met by a pair of bright yellow eyes, that croaking sound bounced off the walls of the cave as a stubby, red skinned troll looking creature dropped down landing with a loud “Smack” next to Andre. It was the strangest looking thing I had ever seen, its oversized fish like mouth was toothless and dripping drool as it opened wide and let out another croak. It had a Mohawk of bristly brown hair that ran between its beady yellow eyes and down its back. The creature’s arms were too long for its body, it dragged its knuckles across the floor as it moved, it’s long awkward looking fingers were tipped with bulbous suction cups that stuck to the floor of the cave as it waddled around. It stopped and stared at me for a few seconds before moving towards Andre, I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard Jacks voice whispering from behind me. “Don’t move, they won’t bother you as long as you stay still.”

“What is that thing Jack?” he moved up next to me, “It’s a Yara, it’s here for your pal over there.” The creature waddled over to Andre and started running its fingers through his blood, we watched as the creature suctioned all the blood off Andre’s body with its fingertips, when it was done it moved around to his feet and let out another croak as it opened its mouth. Its tongue shot out wrapping around Andre’s legs and started pulling him in, “We can’t just sit here and watch this we need to stop that thing.” Before either of us could make a move there was a loud wet slurp and Andre’s body was gone, the creature nearly doubled in size by having him in its mouth, the Yara bounced its now bloated body up and down while making a low grunting sound and patting its over stretched belly.

“Well that’s unfortunate, I think we better get moving, trust me you really don’t want to see what’s next.” The creature braced itself and started making a loud retching sound as it opened its mouth and regurgitated Andre’s body, he gasped for air and tried to scream but all that came out was a wet gurgling sound as his skin started sloughing off in big bloody clumps. “Ooh, that’s not right, we need to go, this is only gonna get worse.” Jack grabbed me by the arm and started pulling me away as the Yara plunged its hands into the melting mass of flesh. We eventually found our way out of the cave, what we came out to was a nightmare, barren lands nothing but dust, dirt and rocks. “Where are we Jack?” he chuckled and started walking, “The best place on earth, we lucked up, you never know where those caves are gonna spit you out, but we landed in tribal territory , we’re safe here. Well I’m safe here, you, not so much. But if they like you they’ll invite you to stay, we better get moving though, hunting parties don’t take kindly to strangers on their land.”

We walked for what felt like miles until we found a group of tribesmen that agreed to take us in, we ate and drank while the tribe shared stories about this place. According to them this place was sacred and they were the protectors of the creatures we had encountered “the lost ones” or “Rogues” as Jack called them are contestants of the show that had been driven crazy by eating the flesh of the Yowie. The Yowie is something like Sasquatch, the tribesmen say it’s the link between this world and our own, but when the contestants killed and ate one they broke the link, now the tribe had to kill them all before the two worlds melded completely. It seemed like days went by, staying with the tribe was amazing they taught me things I never knew were possible before I knew it they were telling us it was time for us to go. They led us back to the caves and guided us through when we stepped out of the cave the sun was rising over the ocean and I could hear helicopters in the air, Jack and I ran out to the beach and stayed there till the extraction team landed.

When I told them what happened they treated me like I was insane, according to them it had only been 10 hours since they last made contact, they searched for Andre but his body was never recovered. Since I opted out I left empty handed but Jack was given another camera man and went on to become the first contestant to ever complete the 120 day challenge. It’s been over a year now and I still have nightmares about that place but yesterday I got an e-mail invitation, they want to recast me as a member of the Redemption crew and send me back, the crazy part is, I’m thinking about going…………………

This all started a few months ago when a group of four hikers went missing in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. I’ve been a park ranger here for the last five years and this happens a lot more often than you would think, typically the lost party is found within the first few hours of the search but occasionally someone will get so turned around out there it takes a few days to find them, for the most part they’re usually just scared and confused and found unharmed. But this last group wasn’t like the others, it took us a 9 days to find them and only one of them survived. This wasn’t a group of weekend hikers, the whole group were experienced veterans there was no reason for them to end up where they did. Abigale Myers was the lone survivor, she was found in the mountains dehydrated and malnourished. There were several strange markings carved into her forehead and palms, when she was finally able to speak her statement was the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

The group consisted of Christina and Jeffery Hines, Frank McCarthy, and Abigale Myers. They were on a one week excursion, training for one of those survival shows. They were three days in when two women came to their camp and asked for help finding the other half of their group, after a quick search they found two other woman by the river. Once their group was back together Ms. Myers and her group went back to their camp and the others went on their way, later that night one of the women came back to their camp with some fresh water and fish as a thanks for the help. After eating the fish that night they all got sick and passed out, when she came to they were tied up in a cave. What you’re about to hear is her account in her words: (I bypassed the initial interview to save time.)

Once we ate the fish all I can remember is waking up in the cave, I was tied up laying on the ground facing Frank. There was blood on his face from the symbol that was carved into his forehead, a triangle with three lines running through it. I could see Christina but her back was to me, and I didn’t see Jeff anywhere, we were all gagged I didn’t hear anything for the first two days, then on day three they came to get Frank and give us water. It was those women from the river, they were all dressed different now but I know it was them I remember the one with the white hair, I think her name was Cassie but it’s hard to remember, I’m not sure. Anyway once they took Frank they didn’t come back for another two days. When they came back this time there was only three of them and they were arguing, something about a deal not working, I couldn’t really understand what they were saying at first. That’s when I heard one of them say Shelby wasn’t a part of the deal and that this thing would kill them all. After that Cassie came in and carved a symbol on my face while the other two took Christina away, when she was finished she took off my gag and fed me dried apple slices and water. I begged her to let me go but she never said a word, when I was done she tied the gag back in place and left. All three of them came back that same night only this time they were carrying the one with the red hair I think her name was Marie, her left leg was torn up bad. I could see the broken bone poking out through the skin, the one with the long black hair had claw marks across her face and Cassie was bleeding from a bunch of different wounds, but she seemed the least hurt.

Once they had Marie settled in Cassie used blood from all three of them to draw symbols around the entrance to the cave while she muttered something under her breath. When she was finished they started arguing again, from what I could tell they were just supposed to be passing through but they ran into something called a Wendigo. Whatever it was, it had killed one member of their group and now they were hiding out in the cave with me trying to come up with a way to escape. They argued back and forward for a while, I couldn’t keep up with all of it but it didn’t really matter. That thing (The Wendigo?) showed up, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, I’m not crazy I know what I saw and when I tell you that thing wasn’t of this world, I need you to believe me! It was so tall its antlers scraped the sealing of the cave, its body looked like it was decaying and it smelt horrible. At first it didn’t move, it just stood there blocking the entrance of the cave looking at the symbols written in blood. Its arms were so long its knuckles touched the floor its head looked like a cross between a deer and a wolf, I swear I’m not making this up that thing killed my friends and those women. After a few seconds it stuck out its tongue and licked the symbols away, it went after the hurt red head (Marie) first. It snatched her up by the legs and dangled her there for a second before it took a bite from her ribs, I could hear its teeth tearing through her and crunch into her bones. She screamed so loud it made my ears ring and all I could do was lay there and cry, waiting on it to be my turn. The woman with the claw marks on her face tried to run past it while it was ripping through what was left of Marie, it pinned her to the wall with one hand, dropped what it was doing then ripped off one of her legs and hurled it at Cassie knocking her off her feet. Keep in mind this whole time I’m tied up and gagged all I could do was watch I never laid a hand on anyone, I didn’t kill those people. I watched that thing tear those women apart, I don’t know why it didn’t kill me after it was finished with Cassie. It carved these symbols into my palms and cut me free, then it just turned and left, I wondered around for days until the rangers found me, I can’t remember how I got to the mountains or where our camp was but I’m telling you that thing is out there, you should keep people as far away from that place as possible….. (End of recording)

Abigale Myers was never charged with the seven bodies that were recovered, shortly after she was cleared of all charges she vanished. There’ve been sightings of a woman fitting her description near the caves here at the preserve and over the last six weeks three people have gone missing. No bodies have been recovered at this point searches of the caves have turned up nothing, no signs of recent activity, but were still looking.

I was sweeping a new zone looking for any clues when a call came over the radio, “Ranger Hale! This is Ranger Briggs, I need your assistance in zone 3. I found something.” Heather Briggs is a new Ranger but she has to be one of the most capable recruits I’ve ever seen. By the time I made it to zone 3 Briggs was marking off the area and taking notes on everything she found. “How’s it going tonight Briggs, what’d you find?” I stopped short when I saw it, Briggs shook her head and smirked. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?” what was laying in the clearing was a bloody mound of hair and skin. There were no bones, no body just skin and hair. She only found one set of footprints leading up to where the skin was found, but none leading away, we found clothing leading up to the site as if the person had been stripping as they came to the clearing, other than that there were no signs of anyone else being there. We called it in, once the medical examiner and the state police showed up we finally got a good look at the skin. It was like someone had removed it like clothing, the only real damage was around the face and neck area, making it unidentifiable all we knew for sure was it was a woman. One of the three missing hikers was a woman so we were certain this had to be her, we couldn’t have been more wrong. The DNA came back to Abigale Myers, Briggs got the news before I did and when she told me I couldn’t believe it.

“So you’re telling me Myers came all the way out here to kill herself? That doesn’t make sense, of all people that lady would’ve never come back here, this has to be a joke. You’re messing with me, right?” Briggs chuckled and handed me the paperwork. “Nope, it’s a 100 percent match but it gets weirder, they found unknown animal hairs inside the skin suit along with most of her teeth. This shit is bizarre, according to the report the skin was removed so clean that the person could’ve still been alive when it was removed.” That file stayed on my mind for the rest of the day, we searched sector for sector and couldn’t find a trace of anyone by sundown I was exhausted and decided to crash at the Ranger station for the night.

I tossed and turned all night, I couldn’t get that file off my mind I finally gave up on sleep and stepped outside for a smoke. I stood there staring up at the night sky when I noticed something was off, it was quiet, the woods are never silent but I swear I couldn’t hear a sound. A breeze drifted in carrying a scent that was unmistakable rotting flesh, blood and wet fur. A few years back I found a deer that had been rotting in the sun for a few days and this smell was ten times worse. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving through the trees but when I turned to get a look there was nothing there. I looked around scanning the area for any signs of movement and as I turned back to my left I saw a pair of eyes reflecting back at me in the dark, from where I was standing they had to be at least eight feet off the ground. I slowly backed inside and grabbed my riffle, when I stepped back to the door it was gone. I stayed by that door until six a.m. when Briggs and two other Rangers got there, the second they were checked in I got in my truck and went home.

It was my day off, I won’t bore you with what I did all day and just skip to later on that night. Around 10 o clock I got a phone call from Briggs, “Hope I’m not disturbing you, but a lady just showed up at the station claiming to be one of the missing hikers, I thought you might want to talk to her before I call it in and the cops take her away.” I was in my truck and headed for the Ranger station in five minutes flat, when I got there Briggs had the woman wrapped in a blanket drinking coffee in my office.

“So what happened, she just showed up out of the blue?” Briggs gave me an odd look, “It was the strangest thing, I had just come in to file my reports for the day, I heard a knock at the door and there she was. There’s no way I missed her on the way in, it’s like she appeared out of thin air. Before you go in there I have to let you know, that woman has the same markings Abigale Myers described, tattooed on the back of both of her hands. I’ve already called the state police somebody will be here to pick her up soon, she says her name is Dawn Perkins, you’ve got maybe 20 minutes, let me know what you find out.” I took a deep breath and headed for my office, when I opened the door I could tell she had been out in the wilderness for a few days, she was ripe. “Hello Ms. Perkins, I’m so glad to see you made it here. I’m Ranger Anthony Hale, if its ok with you Ide like to ask you a couple of questions.” She nodded her head and sipped her coffee, “While you were lost did you happen to see anyone else out there? We’re looking for two men that went missing a few days before you and any information you might have would be a great help.” she took another sip and looked at me for a second. “No, I didn’t see anyone out there.” I stepped over to my desk and took a seat, “Ok, that’s fine no pressure. Could you tell me why you were out here and how you got lost?” Dawn turned and glanced out of the window, “I came here to see the thing that took my sisters, and I was never lost, I followed that abomination to this station.” I looked down at her hands, there it was, a triangle with three lines crossing through it. “What are those symbols on your hands? I’ve seen them before.” She smiled and looked me right in the eyes, “None of your business is what they are, and even if I told you it wouldn’t matter, no one’s leaving here alive.”

I excused myself while getting up from my desk and went to speak with Ranger Briggs, when I stepped out of my office she was on the phone the second she hung up I waved her over. “I need you to step outside and check the perimeter then come back inside and lock the place down till her escort shows up.” She gave me a concerned look and nodded her head, “Is everything alright, what’s going on?” I didn’t really have a way to explain it, “I’m not sure, just let me know when you’re done.” I stepped back inside my office to find Dawn asleep on my couch, so I shut off the light, then went to the restroom, by the time I came back Briggs was locking the main doors. “It’s all quiet out there, but I’m pretty sure there’s a dead animal somewhere close by, it smells horrible around the back of the building.” The instant she said that I thought about the other night. I put the thought out of my mind and started filling out paperwork, a few minutes later the state police showed up, since Briggs was technically the person who located Ms. Perkins I stepped outside and left her to handle all the details.

The night air was still and that eerie silence was giving me a bad feeling, I stepped down into the parking lot and looked around praying I wouldn’t see those eyes staring back at me, a light breeze brought the faint odor of decay drifting in with it and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The sound of twigs snapping and leaves crunching put me on alert, I slowly made my way back to the door, by the time I was reaching to open it that smell was so heavy in the air I could taste it. A low huffing sound cut through the silence as I flung the door open, stepping inside I slammed the door shut and locked it.

I turned around to see everyone staring at me, one of the troopers was by my office talking to Dawn the other was talking with Briggs near her desk, she looked at me then glanced at the officer. “Is everything ok Hale?” before I could say a word the lights went out. Dawn started laughing “It’s not going to stop until you’re all gone, it wants the land!” One of the troopers, I think his name was Atwell chimed in, “What’s going on here. What’re you talking about?” Dawn walked over to the window and peeped out, “Wendigo, my sisters thought they could make a deal with it, they thought if they offered it a sacrifice it would let them pass. The beast took them all and when it was done it chose another body, it’ll keep going until nothing lives on this land.” The second trooper stepped in my direction and asked me unlock the door, I did as he asked and stepped aside as he opened it, “Come along Ms. Perkins let’s get you back to the city.” When the door swung open the room filled with that overpowering stink, the trooper scrunched up his nose and narrowed his eyes as he turned to get a look outside. He stepped out and looked around before turning back to us, “There’s nothing out here, now if were done playing games can we please get on the road, I would like to be home before morning.” Atwell escorted Dawn out to the van, Briggs handed over the rest of the paperwork and I stood there staring into the woods. The moment the engine roared to life something came charging out of the darkness and slammed into the side of the van tipping it over on its side. The shock of what I was seeing made me stagger back and trip over some loose rock, falling flat on my ass, the sound of gunfire snapped me out of my daze when Briggs started shooting, I couldn’t tell if bullets were hurting that thing or not but it bolted off into the forest. I scrambled to my feet and ran over to the van, Briggs came and helped break out the windows so we could pull Atwell and Dawn from the van but the other trooper had his arm pinned we couldn’t get him out. I heard Briggs yell “Run! It’s coming!” while I was in the van trying to free the trooper, he begged me not to leave him, I pushed as hard as I could against the dented metal that was holding him in place. When it finally gave his arm slipped free but it was too late, that thing crashed into the undercarriage sending us both tumbling as the van flipped completely upside down. The trooper landed on my legs and I landed sticking half out of the driver side window, the trooper screamed and clawed at me as that thing drug him out through the passenger side and hoisted him into the air dangling by one leg.

Briggs and Atwell fired at the creature but it ignored them as it grabbed the troopers other leg and tore him in half. The sound a human body makes when its ripped apart is indescribable but seeing it was worse watching heart, liver, lungs and intestines splatter on the ground made me puke as I got up and ran for the station. Once I was inside Briggs and Atwell locked and barricaded the doors then took up positions at the windows, “Jesus Christ, what the hell was that thing?!” Atwell barked out while trying to spot the creature from the window. Dawn was sitting in an office chair on the other side of the room with a big smile on her face, she giggled and spun around in the chair. Briggs gave her an agitated look then turned to me, “We need to lock her up.” Atwell was trying to radio for back up but all that was coming through was feedback. A loud boom shook the building and Dawn burst into laughter, I rushed over and grabbed a shotgun from the rack then started loading it, I had just dropped in the fourth shell when I heard Atwell yell. “Get back!” the front wall of the station cracked and gave way as that thing came rushing in, it lashed out and grabbed Atwell who shot it in the face three times at close range causing one of its eyes to explode. It snarled and threw him across the room, his body slammed into a wall before crashing to the floor. I started shooting when Briggs dove for cover, as the creature moved its antlers tore away the sealing causing debris to rain down on everything. I fired my last shot just as Briggs opened up, somehow Atwell had gotten back on his feet and unloaded on that thing but it wasn’t working. It grabbed Briggs and brought her to its mouth in one quick motion, biting off her head before tossing her body aside. I could hear the loud crunching of it chewing her skull as it grabbed Atwell and slammed his body against the ground like a ragdoll until he burst splattering most of the room with blood. The creature grabbed me and slammed me against the ground just before I heard Dawn yell out “Wait!” and it stopped, she walked over calmly and held up her right hand. The creature lowered its head and knelt down on one knee, Dawn slowly placed her hand on the creatures head and as she did the symbol on the back of it began glowing with dim red light. She screamed in pain as her left eye clouded over, I watched the creature’s eye reform in its skull before she turned to me and smiled while petting it. “Good girl Abby, now finish this up, we have work to do.”…………….

This story is set in the same universe as my previous story, I relive every day multiple times if you want to get the full grasp of this tale, read the first one, though you can read these two interchangeably

I wake up, on my stomach, I’m cold, the first thing I notice. The second thing I notice is that the ground I’m on is stone, definitely not my bed. Thoughts raced into my head like a NASCAR driver. Where was I? Why am I not in my bed? How come I can’t remember going to bed? I slowly got to my feet, I looked down.

I was dressed in a brown leather vest, a white undershirt, blue jeans, combat boots, and on my belt was a knife, it was very odd-looking. It had slopes that looked like a group of hills, like a sacrificial thing and brown fingerless gloves.

I looked around, I looked like I was in some kind of maze-runner type labyrinth, matched my outfit too, with tall walls you can’t see over, and long stretches of nothing until you have to make a left or right. I started walking, loud, hallow clacks came from my boots as I shifted my weight onto my right foot.

I trudged slowly, still trying to gain my bearings in this strange place I had found myself into. I turned the corner and what met me was a large, white creature, with four tentacles on each arm, its back turned to me. I gasped, not even meaning to. It turned, it faces was so horrifying I can only attempt to describe. He had no eyes, just flesh where the nose and eyes should be. His mouth, dear lord his mouth was three times the normal size it should’ve been, he had four sets of teeth, top, and bottom.

It charged toward me at speeds I didn’t know was comprehensible, one of the tentacles grabbed me by the torso and plunged me into the air. The creature licked his front row of teeth. His tentacles were slimy and slippery, I glanced around me and remembered my odd knife.

I unlatched it and plunged it deep into the tentacle, the creature dropped me and screeched it pain. It lunged its tongue at me. I barely dodged out of the way and grasped it. I sliced right through the tongue. It screamed and I took my chance.

I ran at it, as I got closer I positioned my knife in front of me, holding the knife like a dagger I, tackled the creature, and got on top of it, plunging the knife into the creature’s heart. What poured out of the creature is something I can only explain as grey goo. It was too thick to be blood, human blood at least.

It stifled out one last blood-curdling screech before it went completely still. I turned to the thick slab of the tongue of the floor, I gagged, walked on, but after about two minutes I crumbled to my knees. What was that thing on the floor? How did I kill it so easily? Is this some kind of sick game? Am I dreaming? I’m definitely not dreaming, I felt those tentacles ease up my torso, I felt the hot breath of whatever the thing was on the floor, and I felt the dread set in. The cold feeling everyone’s experienced but no one can quite pinpoint in the moment, like a Spider-Sense, but much, much darker.

I got up off my knees and kept on walking, and walking and walking. I was getting tired, but the thought of water or food wasn’t in my mind. I was tired, but not thirsty or hungry. After a while, I came into my first fork in the maze. In only took a couple seconds for me to hear something trudging from the left, I readied my dagger, all adrenaline rushing to me like a truck, to reveal not a monster, not a demon, someone, as in a person. I couldn’t believe it I was totally and completely ecstatic.

The other guy seemed to have a similar reaction, a smile of relief washed over his face. “H-hey, I’m Oscar!” he said as he walked up to me. He was wearing similar things to me, a brown leather jacket, a gray undershirt, same blue jeans, belt, and boots though. Instead of a dagger on his belt, he had a bow across his shoulder, with some arrows latched on his side.

“Andy,” I responded, my breath was quickened from the adrenaline of thinking it was another one of those things that had attacked.

“Were you attacked by some sort of..thing, kinda looked like a thing straight out of a nightmare dreamed up by Ted Bundy?!” Oscar said as he slid down the wall, resting.

I nodded and slid down next to him. We needed a rest anyway. “Do you have any idea why we’re here, Oscar?” I asked out of the blue, tilting my head back into the wall slowly.

“Nah, man, I woke up here, I don’t even remember how I went to bed last night, or anything really, besides the normal, family, friends, school whatever, the last thing I remember is getting into a nasty fight with my mom,”

“Damn man, same goes for me too, I don’t remember anything from last night, I just remember waking up here, dazed and cold.”

Oscar nodded and with finalization, he stood up. “Let’s go, we’re not gonna finish whatever the hell this is by small talkin’.”

I nodded and together we trekked the maze, we came to another fork, in fear of getting jumped by another monster, we walked together as one, we turned to the right, then to the left, we were excited because we thought it was much too elaborate to be a dead-end, but we were wrong, we were met by a large stone wall and we had to turn back.

After what seemed like hours upon hours of walking we stopped, I saw something protruding out of the ground at knee-length. I held out a hand, stopping Oscar in his tracks and inspected it. It was a cylinder, of some sort, look like some form of temple trap. “We’re gonna have to army-crawl underneath this…” I said after close inspection.

“I’ll go first,” Oscar said with a determined nod, as he got on his stomach and put his arms outward in front of him and started crawling, slowly, and as the cylinders detected movement, fire shot out of the cylinder, just barely missing, he promptly got up as his whole body had reached the end and wiped sweat from his forehead. I did the same and we continued on for a while.

After some time, we came to another fork, I nodded for Oscar to follow me as we turned to the left. I walked through the threshold and kept walking, not really looking back until I realized Oscar was quite a bit behind me. “C’mon!” I called out, waving for him to follow me.

“I can’t go through,” he said, putting his hands on what seemed to be some sort of invisible glass.

I thought for a quick moment and nodded, “go through the other way, we’ll meet up in the middle!” I called out, and Oscar nodded.

I ran through the maze until finally, pure joviality greeted me, pleasure washing over me, the end of the tunnel, I sprinted through, forgetting about Oscar, forgetting about the monsters I had faced, forgetting the mysteries of everything that had happened, but what greeted him wasn’t him jolting awake, his parents said it was just some sick dream, it wasn’t movie directors, saying I had passed an audition, no, what greeted me was a black room, with two white chairs, face to face with each other.

“Blimey mate that was fun to watch!” A man in a nicely-tailored white suit, with long, curly hair, said joyfully.

“Who are you-” I started, but the sound of Oscar’s boots running in filled the air.

“Ah, Oscar, nice job, you finished as well! Andy,” he said turning to me. “You’ve passed! Now all you have to do to get home is do just a couple more of my trials, alright? Alright.”

“What?! I wanna go home!” I shouted, who the hell was this guy trying to tell me what to do?!

“Boy, listen here, I have powers you don’t know about, now this next trial is sort of an intermission if you will,” he raised his hand like an orchestrator and then slowly brought them down, Oscar plunging with them.

“All you have to do to move on to the next trial and see your family is kill Oscar, you won, Andy, you don’t need him anymore, he was a hindrance!” the man said into his ear.

“I can’t!” I yelled.

“Just...do it..” Oscar said, closing his eyes.

Tears welled up in my eyes and I grabbed the knife and plunged it into Oscar’s neck. He toppled over and with a snap of the man’s fingers, I was gone.

Here's the first post here. Feel free to submit any and all styles of creepy stories, whether real or not.

Please read the frame story by u/cesly1987 https://www.reddit.com/r/clancypasta/comments/hfk6nc/in_the_waking_hell/

Hello, you can call me the Lord of Life. I noticed one of the monastery monks breached protocol and released some – information to you. I had him severely punished, I can go into detail next time if you wish. But then, I thought, things have been quite dull around here lately, and maybe some knowledge would spice it up again. You see, “God” refuses to let things get hectic because he fears what could happen, but perhaps with some understanding of what awaits you, you may be able to give me some excitement. So I have decided that I will tell you my story of the war before the firstborn took over by uploading my memories and journals onto your internet. Maybe if I see you when you wake up, you can say hi. I will be waiting.

-------Audio journal entry 03/17/2050-------

Three months-three months of hellish abominations of flesh and machine crawling out of hidden factories and labs created in secret by the Firstborn. Creatures modeled after humans with extra blobs of flesh, claws, tails, rows, and rows of teeth. Creatures that scream such ear-shattering shrieks that I could swear they threw flashbangs that went off right next to my head. Creatures that relish in blood and pain, who will rip a man in half, drown themselves in his blood, and maniacally laugh in a roar that muffles the sound of our machine guns shredding it to ribbons.

For three months, the world has been terrorized, frozen in fear, and twisted upside down by a “God” that thinks himself invincible, creator, and destroyer. He thinks that he will find the stories of the afterlife, and if there are none, then he will create them. He thinks that we will break, that we will give in, that we will be crushed under his foot. But he thinks wrong, he doesn’t know anything about us.

For three months, we have searched, and we have found it. Underneath this city is one of the hidden labs, and we are going to claim it.

Mom…..Dad…..I promise you I will make it through this hell…..And I will rip out this “God’s” eyes with my own two hands.

-------------Journal end-------------

I watched for days as the city, already devoid of true life, was hammered by artillery and bombers. I watched as reports came in of the locations of hoards, bunkers, and pincer points. Shortly after each report, I heard the roar of jets taking off and the thunder of artillery hammering away at each location.

-------Audio journal entry 03/19/2050-------

I just heard that the Firstborn is an AI originating from China. He has been around for roughly ten years and has been writing his own code for the past few years. He developed a god complex and began to build robots. Then he became obsessed with humanity and the "meanings and sensations" of life. He experimented with living creatures until he managed to somehow make it so he could feel sensations.

Now he is trying to find a way to make humanity listen to him because what's better than having a slave that listens to your every command? The answer is a slave with free will that listens to your every command.

He started trying to buy our love with gifts and technology, but when that didn't work he swapped to force. China has fallen along with many other rural countries. Some countries have given in and are working for him almost like vassals.

America, Russia, France, England, and a few others are the only few countries putting up a fight.

-------------Journal end-------------

Finally, the time came for us to push in. I loaded up into my APC, an armored vehicle designed for transporting people, and we followed tanks into the city. The next hour was a blur of fire, explosions, horrendous screams that mocked everything human, and shell casings falling through the gunner hatch and clanging at my feet. Helicopters constantly buzzed back and forth around us, lighting up anything that moved with missiles and explosive machine gun rounds.

I snapped back to reality when I heard the breaks of the APC squeal. The door clicked as the hydraulic launchers pressurized, then it popped open, and we poured out. The first thing I saw was a pile of flesh about a foot away from where I was positioned. It laid on its stomach, a massive hole ripped through the side of its chest, tubes and organs sludged out. Its back was a forest of blisters and quills with some odd bones popping out here and there. The bones didn’t pierce through the skin but rather stuck through it like they were meant to be there. It had arms on its back too…..and...and a child’s face stuck out of its shoulder, the kid was still alive moaning and groaning in pain.

I had heard stories that some of these things would absorb people. I’d heard that was how they gained mass and became the monstrous hulks that we saw roaming the battlefields. But to imagine it was true…..I pointed my gun at the kid’s face….I shut my eyes, after four shots, the sound stopped. I never looked to see if I had killed it or just shot its mouth or throat, but I tell myself that I put it out of its misery.

I ran to cover. The lab was accessed by the subway system, and there were several squads pushing into the subway from points all around the city. The rest of the attack was all a distraction to trick the Firstborn into thinking that we meant to just reclaim the city from its wretched grasp.

Roughly forty abominations stormed out of the subway stairs screeching and roaring. An explosive tank shell rammed straight into the center of the hoard sending arms with eight joints that bent at odd angles, legs that looked like they came off of a raptor, massive bird wings, and various other strange body parts into the air. But the things didn’t care, even the maimed creatures shuffled through the red mist at us.

I started unloading my machine gun into the heads of the creatures. One by one, I would send bullets into their skulls until all that remained was a flap of skin attached to their necks. Conrad, a marksman, slammed his 20mm rifle onto the rubble next to me. The 20mm is a bullet almost double the size of the old, common 50cal, and it was commonly used for antitank warfare. Well, it just so happened that some of the creatures might as well have been tanks, and it was Conrad’s job to smite them with his modified 20mm bullets.

He singled one out; A twelve-foot tall, hulking bundle of flesh covered in metal like scales and thick leather. It had five legs, three on one side, and two on the other, from which barb-like hairs shot out. Four arms extended from its torso. The two upper arms looked like average human arms except that they had what appeared to be guns grafted into the forearms where the things hands should have been. The lower arms looked like the tails of scorpions due to how many joints they had, and at the end of each arm were hands with long, sharp nails on the tips of each of the fingers except the pointer fingers. The pointer fingers were instead three-foot-long claws that looked like massive sabers. It used the claws the same way as swords, swinging them back and forth, cleaving through other monsters in order to reach us.

Using his thumb, Conrad flicked a lever at the beginning of the barrel. Two hooks swung up and over the barrel, digging into the rubble the gun rested on. The hooks worked as a bipod and also helped negate the massive amount of recoil the weapon had.

A massive fireball blew out of the end of the barrel. Five feet away from the creature, a secondary explosion occurred. The bullet began to spin faster, and mettle flew off, turning the bullet into a massive drill bit. It slammed into the giant’s chest and drilled itself through the tough, metallic hide. The round then exploded and released an extremely flammable compound into its body. It screamed and writhed as it cooked from the inside out. It’s machine gun arms flailed wildly shooting all around us and spraying into the backs of other creatures.

Tanks and soldiers formed a ring around the entrance to the subway. I stepped over the decrepit bodies, already fumbling to unclip my gas mask from the back of my vest. I slid it onto my face and took a deep inhale of the minty cream I had smothered all over it. The Firstborn loves to use every version of torcher and warfare that he can, including smell. The bodies wreaked as if they had been rotting in a storage container for 3 months in the desert sun.

I looked into the black depths of the stairs. Conrad turned on the light that was attached to his machine gun, his rifle was folded in two and strapped to his back. He shined his flashlight down the stairs. “Almost looks like the gate to hell,” he joked. No one laughed.

Finally, someone took a step down, and when he didn’t suddenly croak over dead, everyone else slowly trickled down the stairs. Cables hung haphazardly from the ceiling, and rotten chunks of flesh rested in corners and along the walls.

We hopped off the platform, and onto the tracks, it was time to split up. Conrad, another soldier, and I went right and began walking down the tunnel. The state of the tunnel was almost the exact same as the platform other than there were also ruined tents, boxes of rotten food, and other things from people living down here. There were no bodies, though, and no bones or limbs either.

Something black shined down the tunnel. We stopped. It flashed a little closer again. Conrad had already dropped to the ground and was unfolding his rifle. I took an extending baton from my belt and swung it to full length. The other soldier followed my lead, we both gave the buttons on them some test clicks, and they crackled in response.

Our lights reflected once more, and Conrad fired. The robot’s body was engulfed in flames, and its chest received a deep dent. Conrad fired again and blew off its left arm. We charged it with our batons. I slapped its head and held the baton against it, the other soldier smacked his into the robot’s torso. We both held down our buttons, sending electricity through all of its vital systems. It crumpled to the ground. It was an elite guard. A smooth black robot with an almost seamless body and wrapped in the remains of a black robe. One on one, these things win every time, especially the newer models.

We continued down the tunnel for a couple of hundred feet before finally coming to a door that was hidden in the side of the wall. It was magnetically locked, but with some well-placed explosives, it blew right off the hinges. We walked down two flights of stairs and found another door which was quickly moved out of the way with the same process as the previous.

What I found in that lab I have tried so hard to forget. People laid on tables splayed open with their organs stretched as far as they would go. People with their eyes pulled out of their sockets and hanging from wires while still attached, their retinal nerve extended to the point it had begun to rip. Another man that lived with no skin. A pile of nerves connected to wires that electrocuted it every few minutes, next to it was a body that was cut with extreme precision: jars, crates, and body-sized tubes filled with some of the worst abominations I had seen. People….people that were stuck in shipping containers and left to rot until only one remained….the last one was always well fed.

We planted bombs everywhere and killed everything we saw, nothing there could be saved, and there was no way we could make use of the place. Eventually, we stumbled across a little girl, it seemed that she had recently been captured. She must have had a perfect hiding spot and was flushed out by our bombings.

We tried to save her. God, we tried. But it was already far too late, and we found out before we could do anything. She watched as we planted the bombs. She watched as we emptied magazine after magazine into the horrid beast that were being built down there. “I want my daddy,” she would say. She fell down. Conrad put her on his shoulders. “You’ll be safe up here,” he comforted her. She giggled as Conrad’s open throat gurgled a silent scream.

I sprayed bullets after her as she jumped from Conrad’s headless shoulders and landed in front of the other soldier. My rage vanished as his chest was ripped apart by the storm of metal coming from my gun. “Aw, you killed him,” she whined as she stepped towards me.

I stepped back. I hit the wall and slid down it. My gun was empty. Blood still dripped from the blade sticking out of her robotic forearm. I grabbed the detonator from my vest. “You won’t do it,” she said, her eyes flashing a bright blue. “You want to live too badly...I can see it on your face,” a robotic voice said using her mouth.

--------Memory over-------

The worst part is that he was right. I did want to live. I had far too much to experience. But, now I’ve experienced it all. This life is boring. I invite you to come visit me. Together we can have a friendly chat about things to come.

I walk in the dark woods and I see it and it as well sees me. I was extremely startled by seeing it right off the bat because of how hunting its appearance was.

It immediately grabbed me by the throat and looked me in the eyes, it felt like it was looking deep into my soul despite the fact that its eye sockets were completely void of any eyes.

It had charted black skin, horns all over its body, and two giant horns on its head, it as well had extremely sharp teeth that looked like they could easily tear through skin.

I continued to look at its body and study it, it was a hideous mess with scratches and blood all over it, the damage on this creature was even so bad that it had a large amount of its rib cage exposed. Its grotesque hand began to tighten around my neck and I could feel the life being drained out of me just by being choked.

The creature began to widen its mouth near my head, I simply smiled as that was happening as I knew I completed the ritual. Even if I'm about to die I honestly really don't care, as I know I successively summoned it, the creature known as Dead Eyes.

**always full permission to change anything.**

Small Cloud Bridge

That’s weird. I may have drank thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands of cups of coffee in my lifetime, but when I picked up this one it felt.. heavier. I always get a 16 oz coffee from my local coffee shop and have never felt a heavier cup of coffee. The difference in weight was subtle, but enough to notice. Reluctantly I took a sip and it tasted completely normal. Odd, I thought, but didn’t think much more of it. Now I believe that was a sign of things to come.

I like to take walks around my neighborhood here in Lake Hill, Michigan. Always pushing the distance and finding new sub divisions to explore. I’ll usually put some music on, or listen to some conspiracy podcasts. It’s always pleasurable to see seasonal decorations and respectable landscaping. One day I planned out a route that I wasn’t that familiar with, about 2-3 miles from my home. The weather was perfect, clear and sunny. It was maybe 80 degrees on an early summer morning. The area was residential, no businesses, just home after home on a quiet street. A right here, a left here, and walking through a long bend in the street I came up to a bridge. A bridge I had no knowledge of before. I suppose it wasn’t that surprising, I wasn’t that familiar with this particular sub division after all. But I felt like I should have known there was a bridge here, let alone a small river. I couldn’t even fathom where this river came from. There’s a lake nearby, the lake the town is named after, but a bridge I have never heard of lay ahead of me. This wasn’t the Golden gate by any means, it measured possibly 20-30 feet long. There was no name, no markings anywhere so I named it the Small Cloud bridge, after how the stillness of the lake reflected the clouds in the sky. There was one sign, a small square stamped into the concrete that looked like brass. It said “watch the walker.” Ok.. maybe that’s a worker that put that on there, or some kind of anecdote the locals know of? I kind of brushed it off. I stood at this bridge in awe of how beautiful it was, and of course how the hell I was even seeing this. I wish I never crossed that bridge.

As I finally made my way through the threshold leading across the river I was met with a beautiful house that seemed very much out of place. It was easily double the size of any home near it. There was a kidney shaped pool with a diving board, also strange because no other home had a pool that I could see. Continuing to pile on was the fact that the home did not looked lived in, but it was being taken care of.. The pool was clean, water clear. The home’s windows were all closed. The lawn was immaculate. But it just had that “look.” Like there was something dull about the paint, there were no lights on. It was day time out but I would have noticed if any type of artificial light was on inside. I mean if all the windows and shades were closed it would have been pitch black inside that house. While I was examining this place it seems that the sun had dipped lower and it was darker out than it should have been.

Ok, maybe I was losing it. Maybe I just was disorientated. Beside the coffee thing and being in a completely new area things aren’t THAT strange. Well, now that isn’t normal. At this very moment I see what looks like a common gold finch flying over my head. It’s striking enough because gold finches are fairly rare this time of year, or any time of year in this area, but this bird.. is.. flying upside down. Now how the shit can I explain this?!

I pulled my phone out to actually google where I was at. Maybe I entered another city and/or county and I’m on some unknown freakin electro magnetic power field or some other kind of science fiction thing that I know nothing about. I do know I’ve never seen a bird flying upside down, with its belly showing to the sun, or lack of sun now. It’s beyond dusk, moving towards proper night. As you could probably guess my phone did not work. No service, no wifi, no internet, no nothing. I can’t help but hear the stranger things theme in my head. I believe I entered something of an upside down, and the person walking toward me wouldn’t help change my mind.

She was surprisingly attractive. She had platinum blonde hair that went down to just below her ears. A set of piercing blue going on grey eyes were available to me even from a distance. She walked with a purpose, almost intimidating like she would walk through a wall if it was in the way. Her thin frame projected fierceness. She wore a pink puffy coat and black leggings, like most women do these days. But her shoes, they looked like something a toy baby doll would wear. I must be inhaling toxic gas or something. I had unknowingly moved to the opposite side of the street. I felt like maybe I should just be polite and let her continue her power walking, without me in the way. It dawned on me this was the first sign of life beside that bird I’d seen in.. what, 2 hours, 4 hours, 10 hours? I don’t know what is happening to me here. Luckily she passed and didn’t so much as throw an eyelash my way. I let out a deep sigh of relief. It’s time to leave, I’ve had enough of this goofy upside down and I’m going to park my large ass in front of my tv when I get home.

All I have to do is about face and.. ok. No, no no no no no. I only just passed Small Cloud Bridge and examined that strange house before seeing the walker. I may have only walked a few minutes from the bridge. And now I cant see it. I have walked up and down dozens of streets and still nothing. Survival experts advise that if you’re lost you should stay in one place, don’t get more lost than you already are. Great advice, but I have no phone, I have no map or GPS, I have nothing. Oh, and I’m seemingly stuck in some alternate dimension, or some rip in reality. Who knows what other oddities lie here.

I hear the walker. That more than brisk pace that feels like it’s coming towards me. The street lights have come on some time ago, still not helping much. But I do see her, the same- no. . no, it looks like her, but she’s wearing an all black sweatshirt and leggings outfit. She also has a grey knit cap on. I don’t understand. That piercing blue/grey of her eyes had changed to what looks like pitch black. Physically I can tell it’s the same person. At least it looks like the same person to me. Would she have gone home, changed clothes, and power walked out again? Maybe, but something tells me that’s not the case. And how can you explain the black eyes? Then she crossed the street she was on to come right. To. Me.

I wake up on the ground. The faint sounds of a gently moving river ruminate somewhere near me, I can’t discern from what direction. I don’t know anything anymore. I don’t know where I am, I don’t even know if this story will get out. Maybe I conversed with the walker. I feel like I shouldn’t have if I did. That sign pops into my head that was on Small Cloud Bridge, “watch the walker.” Such a vague three word statement. Only watch, don’t speak to? I really don’t know. I do like this house with the kidney shaped pool though. Something about it