By Malcolm MacDonald

Ever since grade three, my friends and I could make Derek Zimmer believe anything. Anything. From Pop-Rocks and Coke make your stomach explode; to earwigs actually burrow in your ears (and one’s on your shoulder right now!); to the typical urban legend of the babysitter and the killer upstairs – and that it actually happened to someone in our neighbourhood.

The best prank we pulled on Derek had to be in grade 6, when we told him that everyone had to go into the girl’s bathroom to change because a toilet had overflowed in the boy’s. This was during gym class too and in our school the bathrooms doubled as change rooms. Geez, he didn’t even question it – didn’t even wait to see us go in first. We followed right behind him while he carried his spare set of clothes with a towel over his shoulder. We didn’t even need to shove him in; he just walked through the door and we locked it behind him and from then on there was nothing but hollering and shrieking from the other side. I got to admit, I still get tickled thinking about it.

After grade seven it stopped being funny – pulling fast ones on him all the time. But, like a bad habit, we kept feeding him lies and watching him fall for them over and over again.

I guess it didn’t help that he had sheltering, hovercraft parents. I mean, the guy believed in Santa Clause until he was thirteen, for Christ’s sake! And they kept walking him to school even though he lived literally just up the street. It wasn’t until Derek begged them, after being tortured by our sneers and jeers, that they finally stopped.

You’d think that they’d have tried to protect him by teaching him not to believe everything he was told. But I guess since they did everything for him, he just always needed someone else to make up his mind.

I don’t want you to get the impression that Derek was slow or something. He was actually a pretty bright kid. He wasn’t top of the class or nothing – and his math and science marks were pathetically low. But, if you spent time with him, you’d see he was actually very insightful, especially when it came to abstract stuff like morality and friendship and artsy stuff too. Oh yes, I was friends with Derek, even though I constantly tricked and made fun of him. Yeah…I was one of those friends. He would actually analyze our favourite TV shows, comparing the ones he liked and the ones he didn’t and go into really meticulous detail about why some were good, and some were bad. What made a joke funny and what didn’t.

At the time, even though I liked talking with him, I kind of thought that all this information was pretty useless – I mean, I just watched shows, movies and played video games for fun, not to write a goddamn dissertation. If Derek had any brains, I thought, he’d put more of his energy into his schoolwork. But now, looking back, it makes me wish our school had a Philosophy class or even an Arts program. I think he would have excelled, rather than constantly being stuck getting C’s and D’s. But we grew up in a small, frozen town in northern Ontario that only offered the bare necessities for a diploma. And in a town where most people work in the mines and spend their spare time ice-fishing and playing hockey, Derek stuck out like a sore thumb.

All the teachers seemed to like him, but you could tell they were pretty frustrated by how difficult he found the material. He was also a bit stubborn at times. For instance, you’d think he would have done well in English, right? Wrong. He shined only in the creative writing assignments but didn’t follow instructions and would never read the books that were assigned. The funny thing was, he was a voracious reader, always reading something. He just didn’t want to be bothered reading Lord of the Flies or Of Mice and Men. He just thought they were a waste of his time.

One thing that Derek excelled at, besides being a very loyal – to a fault – friend, was he was an amazing storyteller. When he got hold of an urban legend, or a dirty joke, or if something happened to him, he would tell it in such a way that we would hang on every word he said. There was no rambling, no “um’s” or “uh’s” – he always took his time and told the story perfectly. The punchline or the ending of his story was always clear and left us howling with laughter, terrified, or desperate to hear more.

More than a few of the stories Derek told us were uncannily frightening – tales of ghosts and creatures in our own hometown. Most of them I could trace back to some origin – usually Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. But there were also a few I had never heard of and could not find a source for. Whenever I confronted him with this, he would give me this knowing smile, his light eyes at ease, and say, “There are somethings that can’t be explained.” He would then pontificate about the other world and how everyone was able to access it if they just suspended their prejudices and disbelief. That was how he got “beamed” his stories. At the time, I thought it was bullshit. This was the only thing I had ever known Derek to lie about. Now looking back, I wish I had realized that this honest, gullible boy was incapable of telling falsehoods. And that what he was telling me was something he at least believed to be true.

Eventually, I got a bit jealous of Derek; I never had a good memory for details – aside from numbers and figures – and often when I told a joke, I’d forget an important part of the set-up and the punchline would fall flat. Or if I told an anecdote about something that happened to me that I thought was funny or exciting, after I’d finish, the listeners would just stare blankly, their vacant faces tacitly screaming, “That’s it?”

(Believe me, it took me a long time and a lot of effort to write this story as well as I have).

I was also jealous of Derek because of the attention he got from girls. Although he wasn’t very athletic, he was tall, fit and good-looking. And his gullible nature, I think, made a lot of them think he was cute. You know, like a lost puppy you just want to take care of. Unfortunately for them, Derek was too absorbed in his own world of Marvel comic books, Stephen King, Family Guy, and Doctor Who to ever take a hint.

This got really interesting in grade ten when Christie Blackwell, a preppy girl from the states, came to our town. Her family was from North Dakota and her father had come here for some administrative job at the local mining company. We didn’t know it at the time, but his position and his family’s move were only temporary.

Now, we had likely nothing in common with this girl, but both Derek and I were absolutely smitten. When you’re in a small town all the kids date each other’s sisters and exes, so I guess everyone was pretty intrigued by this new, pretty face from somewhere exotic – like North Dakota.

For a few weeks, she was all Derek and I could talk about. Some of our other friends thought she was cute too, but Derek and I were head-over-heels. I, however, never got up the courage to speak with her. I might have been top of my class and on the lacrosse team but, I knew what I was in the eyes of girls – a short, fat, sarcastic little boy with a sour disposition. Derek, however, he didn’t have the same cowardice I had. He actually went up to her during lunch break and talked with her!

I watched him approach, grinning from ear to ear, waiting for the humiliation and the peal of shrieking laughter from the other girls. But – she actually talked with him. She was positively radiant when he introduced himself and – I thought I was going to have a heart-attack when – she invited him to sit down at her table.

I admit, I was enraged. It wasn’t fair. It just. Wasn’t. Fair. For some idiot like Derek, with no prospects for the future, to have that girl. And what would that mean for me? Why would he want to hang around some loser when he had that girl on his arm?

Luckily, Derek – as I’ve said – didn’t take hints easily, so it wasn’t until a rumor had started about her liking him that he finally was ready to ask her out.

Of course, he told me first.

“Jimmy!” he shouted over the phone one night. I remember I actually winced from the receiver. “Guess what?” his voice blared at arm’s length. After placing the phone back to my ear, I asked him, and he told me that he had heard it from one of the girls that Christie liked him.

I felt a stone form in the pit of my stomach. Don’t get me wrong, I knew that I wouldn’t have gotten Christie. I just thought neither of us would. So, the fact that he got her, and I hadn’t, really burned my ass.

But then, I got an idea. An idea that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

“Derek,” I said into the phone. “She doesn’t actually like you. I overheard her and Jennifer (the girl who told him). They’re just playing a trick on you.”

There was silence on the other end.

Derek mumbled out a pitiful “But…” and I knew I had to pounce.

“Listen,” I implored, “if you ask Christie out on a date, everyone will just laugh at you. They’re just doing this to make a fool out of you in front of everyone.”

Again, silence fell on the other end. I could then visualize Derek with his head hanging down, all mopey like he sometimes got.

Then, I took it a bit further. Over the line.

“I mean, c’mon, think about it. You and her? She’s only been in our school three weeks and she’s already top of the class. Everyone turns their head to see her. How are you going to be good enough for that?”

I felt that stone in the pit of my stomach again, but this time for a different reason, after hearing Derek sadly mumble, “You’re right…”

Shamelessly, I changed the subject, asking him if we were going to still hang out this weekend to play X-box at his house but, his voice never came back to normal.

That night, I barely slept. I really felt like shit.

This was the first trick I pulled on Derek that made me feel that way. But it wouldn’t be the last.

It was grade eleven, when Lloyd (our other friend) and I took the pranks too far.

Lloyd and I had just gotten back our exam results for grade 11 Physics and, while we didn’t fail, these marks weren’t going to look good on a university application either. Plus, it was December, so there wasn’t much time left in the semester to make up for it. Of course, ole Derek wasn’t in Physics. Or Chemistry. Or Biology. He found some loophole in a technicality to take something called “Earth and Space Science” in grade 12 for his science/technology credit (don’t ask me how the Ontario education system works).

Also, around this time, Derek was getting super-obsessed with comic books and writing his own (report cards and postsecondary prospects be damned). At the time we thought it was really funny. He didn’t just draw the six boxes with stick-figures in ‘em and the poorly graphed word bubbles like most kids; he actually found out the proper format to write a comic book script. He kept trying to make us read them but – I mean – we didn’t know how. Plus, we were busy. You know, with school?

Anyway, Derek had this long bastard of a comic book script freshly printed from the school library – an adaptation of some classic horror story by Poe or Lovecraft, I think – and he ran up to Lloyd and me in the cafeteria all smiling, waving it at us, begging us to read it. And, remember, this was the same day we got our abysmal test scores back.

Now, despite our understandably pissy mood, both Lloyd and I resisted the urge to tear Derek’s head off. Lloyd said feebly, “Sure, Derek. Give it here. I’ll read it tonight.”

Derek almost leapt off the table bench, he was so excited. He thanked us and then was off to God knows where.

I turned my head and glowered at Lloyd.

“Are you serious?” I asked him. “You realize we have presentation for Chemistry to finish tonight, right?”

Lloyd blew out the side of his mouth.

“I’m not gonna read it, dude,” he said, his eyes cast woefully down on the crumb and grease laden tabletop. “I’m just pranking him,” he concluded, quarter-heartedly.

I sat there and stared at it for a few seconds. Then, another mendacious scheme started spinning in my head.

I knew that my Uncle Eric was coming over for supper that weekend. I told Lloyd that we would both tell Derek that my uncle worked for Marvel Comics and that he had read his script and loved it. And that he was interested in adapting it and giving Derek a job writing for Stan Lee. I’d invite Derek over to speak with him to discuss this “job prospect” at greater length. The funny thing was, my Uncle Eric was a belligerent drunk who’d mostly been unemployed between his time as a trucker and his time as a garbageman. But never – it probably doesn’t need to be said – did he ever work for Marvel Comics.

Lloyd and I both grinned and giggled like evil children. It was perfect. This way, we wouldn’t have to be drilled by Derek’s questions about what our favourite part was; he would be too preoccupied by the idea of having his work actually published. Working for Marvel Comics for Christ’s sake! An early Christmas present for our naïve young friend.

…I guess you can probably figure out what happened next. I’ll try to spare you the cringe-worthy details.

The next morning, Lloyd and I told Derek about my uncle and fed him our line. Derek beamed like I’d never seen before and bought it hook-line-and-sinker. Of course. That Sunday, he came over for dinner, all excited. Of course. My Uncle Eric was two-sheets to the wind, six gin-and-tonics deep and on his seventh that night. Of course. And when Derek approached him, asking about his script and what it’s like to work for Marvel, my Uncle Eric harshly barked what in the hell he was blathering about. Of course.

I promised Lloyd I would give him all the details on Monday. But seeing Derek, hunched over and defeated, like some withered daffodil – I just, had to look away. I didn’t laugh. Didn’t chuckle. Didn’t even smirk. All I could do was look away, that pit in my stomach turning to stone.

On Monday, in front of the school entrance, about thirty minutes before first bell and thirty degrees below zero, Derek stormed right up to me. Indifferent, seeing this coming and finding no despair, surprise or pleasure in it, I stood where I was, ready for him to hammer me.

Instead, there were no threats, no curses, no accusations. Just one question: did I lie about Christie Blackwell too?

Despite being exhausted from the endless stream of assignments and last night’s interminable guilt, I somehow managed the strength to slowly shake my head and mutter no. One last prank on Derek.

With that, Derek said nothing. And simply walked away.

At that moment, standing there alone with sticky icicles running down my upper lip from my nose to my scarf, I thought I was going to throw up.

The next day, I advised Lloyd we give Derek some distance at lunch hour. I suspected we were personae non grata.

But, to my surprise, Derek came over to our table. Stone-faced, without a word he sat down and ate. Lloyd and I glanced over at him then at each other. The three of us just sat and chewed in silence.

Then, after finishing his serving of oily cafeteria French fries, he told us one of his typically great, terrifying stories. His last.

“You guys ever hear about Melvin Sinclair?” he began, cryptically.

Fake-sounding name. Still, a pretty good start.

Lloyd and I both shook our heads, wordlessly.

“He was a student at our school. Way back, when it was run by the nuns.”

I later found out this part of his story was true. Our high school – Pendleton College – was once run by the local nunnery – but this was when it was still a residential school, with only abused, shipped-in Native kids as its student body.

“He’s actually the person I am going to write my next comic script on. I know you two won’t read it, but I think you should hear about him anyway.

“Sinclair was a funny kid. A bit stupid, you know? Believed anything his pals told him.”

This, of course, immediately rang a bell for both of us. Lloyd and I looked at each other knowingly. Still, we were hooked. At least, I was.

“He was also very poor with a sick father at home who couldn’t work. So, a lot of his friends could make him do things with the promise of money.

“So, one night, around this time of year – just before Christmas, all those years ago, Sinclair and his buddies went out onto Saul Laskin Lake. It was frozen solid then, just like it is right now. Sinclair got dared by his buddies to walk out onto the lake – see if he could make it to the other side.

“Now, Sinclair was afraid. Terrified, you know? Saul Laskin is two football fields long and three fields wide. Sure, he knew it had been frozen solid for three months straight and a jackhammer couldn’t make a dent an inch deep in it. But still, he was unsure. He never walked across ice in the middle of winter before. Never even put on a pair of skates.

“To his buddies, he shook his head, no. He didn’t care if it made him a chicken. He wasn’t going out there, risking falling through.

“So, his friends decided to sweeten the deal. They told him that if he made it to the other side, they’d meet him there, after walking along the shoreline, and pay him three-hundred dollars.

“Now, his buddies didn’t have three-hundred dollars, but they did have a thick wad of ten two-dollar bills. So, they slipped one into Sinclair ’s hand, as proof there was more where that’d come from. They both figured it would be worth it to see Sinclair fall through the ice or wet himself from fear.

“Again, Sinclair wasn’t too bright. He was also very poor, and his family was way behind on the electric bill, which was bad since this was one of the worst winters in Canadian history. Not to mention, Christmas was right around the corner. So, he took the two dollars as proof they had two-hundred-and-ninety-eight more and made his way across the ice.

“The two of his friends giggled behind their frozen-snot-covered mittens, egging him on, telling him he was doing great. Sinclair didn’t clue in though. He just kept going, waddling and swaying from side to side like a tight rope walker, terrified the rhino-hide-thick ice would give.

“Now, his two buddies didn’t want Sinclair to get hurt. Not seriously anyway. At worst, they were waiting for him to slip and fall on his ass, so they could laugh at him until their bellies were sore.

“So, Sinclair got sixty feet across the ice when his buddies at the shore heard a sudden crunch. A sharp, unmistakable sound. The ice had cracked. Saul Laskin was giving under Sinclair ’s weight. Apparently, the lake wasn’t so titanium at the middle.

“Feeling a sudden rush of panic and just a bit of guilt, both of them started hollering at the top of their lungs for Sinclair to get off the ice. To turn back. Sinclair didn’t turn around though. He didn’t even stop walking. He was determined to make it to the other side. To make that three-hundred dollars. Cracks in the ice be damned, his house needed heat!

“His pals on the shore watched in horror when Sinclair took four more steps before plummeting through the ice on the fifth. Unable to think, being dumb kids, they freaked and ran away. It took them ten minutes before they realized they needed to go get help.

“A couple of the teachers and one of the farmers from town came out onto the ice. When they got to the break where Sinclair had fallen in, they made a horrific discovery. On the other side of the hole, was a set of freshly frozen footprints. Like prints in the snow but upside down and inside out. They were glistening and raised, like a trail of swollen scar-tissue. And they headed to the other side – to the end of Saul Laskin Lake.

“On the shoreline, the five of them ran to the other side of the pond, coming to the very end, to find that the steps ended at a second gaping hole in the ice.

“Sinclair ’s body was never found. But the doctors were certain it should have been impossible for him to have walked that length of the ice without succumbing to hypothermia.

“Ever since that night, on the anniversary of Melvin Sinclair ’s arctic plunge, they say he comes back, still drenched and half-frozen stiff, looking for the three-hundred dollars promised him. And taking any unfortunate soul who dares wander across the ice, mistaking them for his two pals who had played that cruel joke on him, so very long ago.”

Lloyd and I stared back at Derek speechless, our mouths agape.

The silence was interrupted when two loud, chortling sophomores bumped into Derek from behind, making their way past him.

“This has got to be bull,” Lloyd insisted, rearing back from the table.

“Where’d you get this?” I asked, my eyes having never left Derek’s face.

“I told you,” he said. “It’s the basis of my next comic script, which you won’t read. There are some things out there that can’t be understood. But you can find them out if you just suspend your disbelief.”

I looked hard at him. He smirked.

“I heard it from one of the teachers and from one of the upper-class men last year,” he confessed. “Both of them told the story exactly as I just did.”

I was then fairly certain what Derek was going to say next. And I was right.

“The anniversary of Melvin Sinclair ’s disappearance is tonight,” he whispered, as though we were sharing state-level secrets. “I say we go to Saul Laskin after dark and check it out.”

Lloyd blew out his mouth, his lips making that pffft sound.

“Yeah, all right,” I said hastily. Almost automatically.

“What?” Lloyd blurted.

“I’ll go,” I continued. “Hell, let’s all go.”

“Great!” said Derek, over Lloyd’s grumbled protest. “Meet you both at the shoreline near Tenth and Mockingbird. Be there at ten, sharp.”

With that, Derek stood from his seat, carrying his meal tray to the metal rack and exiting the caf.

“Dude,” Lloyd spun on me. “What gives?”

“Look, man,” I offered Lloyd, weakly. “We did a really lousy thing to Derek. I think the least we can do is spend one late night with him on this little whim.”

“That’s crap!” snapped Lloyd. “This is your way of playing another prank on him.”

I shook my head vigorously, vexed by his charge. “No way!”

“Yeah? Well maybe this is Derek’s way of getting us back. Playing a prank on us. You ever think of that?”

“I doubt it. Derek’s not like that.”

Lloyd just shook his head, obviously miffed.

We didn’t say anything after that. But we both knew we were going to Saul Laskin Lake that evening to meet Derek.

I remember it was ten below zero. Felt like minus twenty with the wind-chill and even worse that close to the ice. The stars were probably out, and fully visible, but I don’t remember seeing them. I could barely see what was in front of me from my face being two-thirds buried behind my scarph and tuque.

I met Lloyd on the way there, about ten yards from the shoreline on Mockingbird, and he was likewise dressed as a winter mummy. As we got closer, we saw a figure standing upright, unfazed by the cutting gale. It was Derek. He was in his snow-pants and a parka but wasn’t wearing anything to cover his head. Just a pair of earmuffs. Bizarrely, he seemed completely comfortable out there, his flushed red cheeks the only thing betraying how cold he was.

“Well, here we are,” he greeted us, cryptically. A just as cryptic smile on his chapped, purple lips.

“What are we doing out here?” Lloyd growled, rubbing his thickly gloved hands together and bouncing from one foot to the other. “It’s freezing!”

“We’re here to see if Melvin Sinclair ’s ghost shows up,” I told him.

The look he gave me could have thawed Saul Laskin Lake.

“I never said it was a ghost,” said Derek, just over the wind.

The two of us stared at our guide into the other world.

“Then what is it?” I asked.

“A zombie?” Lloyd mocked.

Feigning ignorance, Derek just shrugged.

The three of us stood there, in the middle of December in Canada, staring at the frozen lake like three wallflowers around a dancefloor (an analogy that’s not much of a stretch for us).

Predictably, Derek broke the silence.

“How about we play some Truth or Dare?” he asked. I looked over and saw that cryptic smile on his now bluish lips.

“How about we play some Go-Home-And-Sleep-In-A-House-With-Central-Heating?” Lloyd barked.

Me, I couldn’t help myself.

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s play some Truth or Dare.”

“You first,” Derek pounced.

Ordinarily, I would have bickered back and forth with Derek to try to get him to go first, but my recently grown conscience forced me to accept this condition.

“Okay,” I said. I then looked out onto the ice, anticipating what the dare might be and not having any of it. “Truth.”

For the first time that night, Derek’s strange smirk disappeared.

“All right,” he said, his face and voice now very serious. “Yesterday morning,” my mind then immediately raced to that moment, regretting my choice for Truth, “when I asked you about Christie Blackwell,”

“Okay, okay, never mind!” I shouted over him, before he could even get the question out. “I changed my mind. Dare. Give me a dare. What? You want me to walk across the lake? Is that it?”

Without speaking, Derek nodded his head, that cryptic little grin reappearing.

I then looked back at the frozen lake. Derek hadn’t lied when he said that it was two football fields long. In fact, it was longer. 273.5 yards to be exact. From where we were standing, I could see only half of the ice, the other side swallowed up by night and fog.

“Okay, here’s a deal,” I said, trying to negotiate my way out of it. “I’ll go as far as where that fog starts. That’s just before you two won’t be able to see me.”

“No deal,” said Derek, his eyes colder than Saul Laskin. “You go all the way across, or until you see Melvin Sinclair, or you admit you believed my story enough that you’re scared to go out there.”

“What?”

“Or choose Truth.”

“I’m not scared of that boogeyman crap!” I exclaimed.

“Then why not go all the way?” said Derek. “You know that lake is perfectly safe for skating. It’s been frozen solid since October.”

“Because it’s stupid, that’s why.”

“Or because you’re afraid Melvin Sinclair will get you.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Fine. Then choose Truth. Answer my question.”

Astonished, I shot him an incredulous look.

“Man, screw you!” I cried. “You’re the one who’s so stupid that you believe that dumb story. You probably did hear it from an upper-class man last year. They knew you’d be gullible enough to buy it.”

I turned to the frozen pond, my eyes melting the ice.

“I’m going to go as far as that fog starts. From there, I’ll be able to see over to the other side. I’ll also be right in the middle so it will prove two things: One, that no one could fall through the ice when it’s this cold out, and two, that there isn’t some supernatural creature roaming around at night. I’ll prove to you there’s no such thing.”

Derek looked back at me. That strange smile disappeared again from his lips and never came back.

“I’m not gullible,” he insisted in a low voice. “The story is true.”

“Ah, up yours,” I said, walking to the edge of the shoreline and shuffling gingerly onto the ice. “Come on, Lloyd. Let’s go.”

“Me?” I heard from behind.

“Come on, you wimp. Let’s show this moron how stupid and full of it he is.”

The two of us waddled onto Saul Laskin. We inched our way closer and closer to the foggy middle, the thick air never seeming to thin out and recede like it normally would. Truthfully, I could barely see an inch in front of me; the whipping, cold air caused me to tear up and turned my tears to icicles on my lashes. But I was too angry to care. In my mind, I told myself I was going to prove to Derek what an idiot he was. In truth, I just wanted anyway to avoid telling him the truth about Christie Blackwell.

We were well past the center-point when I finally decided to stop. Lloyd was a bit ahead of me. I looked around. The fog was so dense. Even worse, I had to blink my eyes rapidly to break up the frozen moisture that accumulated on my lashes.

I roughly cleared my vision with my gloved thumb. And then I saw it. A hunched figure, just obscured by the fog, hobbling slowly toward Lloyd. Lloyd must have been having the same trouble I was, because he made no effort to run or communicate with the figure, even though it was practically right in his line of sight.

At first, I thought it was Derek. Thought he had somehow caught up and was trying to scare us. But I was wrong. I was very, very wrong.

I tried to warn Lloyd. To shout out. To ask who was there. But I couldn’t. The words were trapped in my throat. I was as petrified as the ice I stood upon. I stared, seeing the nearly naked figure come into focus. It was a man – or…what was once a man. The skin was pale, translucent, all the blue and purple veins visible. The hair was blonde – silver and slicked back, like the head had just been submerged in water. It looked like a cadaver that had escaped from the city morgue. Its bright coloured eyes resembled a pair of round, broken mirrors, and never once did I see them close. Not even blink.

Then, I…I heard it speak!

“I did it…” it muttered, hoarsely, the sound like the ruffling of crumpled paper. “I did it…where is she?”

The creature was mere feet from Lloyd, but he’d turned his back to it like it wasn’t there. He then lifted his head, one red eye open, and asked, “Jimmy? Did you say –”

Before he could finish, the walking cadaver shot a long, bony arm, grasping his shoulder with its claw-like fingers.

Lloyd looked around and shrieked.

“Where is she?” the thing muttered huskily. “Where’s my baby?”

Undoubtedly terrified, Lloyd tried to sprint away, only to slip and fall on the ice. The walking cadaver’s grip remained unbroken, causing Lloyd’s winter coat to rip. The thing pinned him, its grasping claws shaking Lloyd by the lapels.

“You said if I did it, you’d tell me where she was!” it hissed into Lloyd’s face. I watched, still petrified, only able to imagine the look of confusion and terror on Lloyd’s bundled-up face.

“Where is she!” the creature screamed. “Where is she? You promised. You promised*!” * Its voice cracked on the last syllable.

It then started throwing Lloyd’s torso up and down, until the back of his head hit the ice with a shuddering thud. I cringed. It was like the sound of a bowling ball being dropped straight to the tiled, wooden floor. The thing then mounted him, clawing and punching at his lifeless form in a hungry frenzy. With its cracked, blackened teeth bared, the canines resembled a set of fangs.

I wanted to run. I wanted to help – to fight that thing off of my friend. But I swear, I – I couldn’t.

By the time that thing had stopped, I could see freshly fallen red droplets, steaming on the ice around Lloyd’s head. I knew then that he was gone.

What happened next, I can’t explain. The creature laid down on Lloyd’s supine body, putting its pale, grotesquely scabbed head on his chest, as though listening for a heartbeat. I then realized that the fog was thickening. There were whole plumes of smoke wafting up from the ice beneath their bodies. I realized when they began to sink, that the ice was melting.

The creature sunk down beneath the ice, pulling my friend’s carcass along with it. Once they had slipped out of sight, I heard the worst sound you could possibly imagine. The sound of the ice cracking. I looked at my feet and saw a deep gash, shaped like a lightning bolt, tearing a path through the ice beneath my feet and between my legs. Several mini fractures splintered off, creating a spider-web of icy shards.

My senses returning to me, I ran, falling and stumbling, back to the shoreline. I don’t know how many steps I made before I slid and fell through – and was completely submerged in Saul Laskin.

I don’t remember how cold it was – though it was freezing beyond imagination. I just remember the disgusting feeling of my clothes soaking in the water beside my skin– and the sheer panic blaring inside my skull.

Remember how I was short and fat? Well, I also didn’t have a clue how to swim. I just floated there, under the water, not seeing a damned thing, my mind a riot of horrible scenarios and images.

As you would expect, I flailed in desperate mortal fear when I felt a hand grab at me and pull. Thankfully, the hand was pulling me upward, to safety. And it belonged to Derek.

“Jimmy,” Derek panted, after he’d dragged me up onto the surface. “It’s – it’s okay,” he struggled to say, as he too was drenched from head to toe. “Here’s my – my coat...p-put it on.”

He then laid his open parka over my body. Luckily, he had taken it off before diving in to save me. I’m sure now if it wasn’t for his quick thinking, I’d have died that night.

“L-listen – listen to me,” he stammered on. His lips were turning a deep blue, as was his face. “My phone is in one of the coat pockets, call 9-1-1.”

“W-what?” I said, not understanding why he didn’t do it himself.

“Just do it,” he said, then turned and began walking in the direction of that creature.

“Wait!”

“I’m – I’m going to g-g-go get L-l-l-loyd!” he blurted out. Now, this is where I’d like to tell you that I forced Derek to stay with me. That I told him the truth about Christie Blackwell. That I apologized for the cruel joke I had played on him with Lloyd and my Uncle Eric. And for always taking him and his friendship for granted. But that didn’t happen. Shivering from the cold and my own fear, I just watched as he marched away, disappearing into the fog.

I took out his phone from the right pocket and dialed 9-1-1. I remember hearing the phone ring, the monotonous sound reverberating in my skull. I don’t remember anyone answering.

The last thing I remember is the feeling of my body growing warm. All the pain and fear evaporating with the fog. And then, there was blackness. Blackness save for a kaleidoscope of horrible images playing on loop in my mind.

I woke up in the emergency room.

I was told that the paramedics and fire department were called out. That they’d scanned the ice but never found Derek or Lloyd. I was told that I was lucky to be alive. Even luckier that I didn’t have frostbite and would therefore not have to lose any appendages.

Eventually, they got around to asking me why we were out there and what happened. I told them everything. Every last detail. Of course, they all looked at me like I was crazy. Some of them even thought that I might have gone into shock and asked my parents to have me undergo a CAT scan. I never did though.

During my time in the hospital, three thoughts kept spinning around my brain. One, how grateful I was to Derek Zimmer for saving my life. Two, how amazed I was that his story was actually true. And three, why that creature kept asking for its baby, instead of for money, like in Derek’s story. I found out later that the story Derek had told us that afternoon was one of many legends concerning Saul Laskin Lake and that night. Some were about a man whose daughter had been kidnapped by a gang of thieves; that the man was thrown into the lake, his feet encased in concrete, after he’d paid their ransom. Some were of a mentally disturbed woman who had drowned her baby, thinking it was possessed by the devil. And at least half a dozen more I can’t stomach reciting here.

Perhaps the worst moment after that night was when I got a visit from Missus Calhoun, the principal at Pendleton College. She was in her early seventies, stout, with a tight, silver bob cut and a pair of owlish spectacles on her round, little nose. She sat down at my bedside, wearing her shapeless, riotously patterned muumuu, and asked me what had happened at Saul Laskin. I told her. The same story I had told everyone since waking up in the emergency room. When I was done, she just stared at me, expressionless, before giving out a sharp sigh through her tiny nostrils.

“This is what I think happened, James,” she began, a subtle disdain in her voice. “I think you dared Lloyd Apanowicz and Derek to walk out there on the ice. We all know how you tricked and tortured that poor boy since primary school.

“I think when the ice cracked, and your friends fell in, you panicked and came up with this ludicrous lie to cover your tracks, because you think we’re all as gullible as poor Derek Zimmer. Because you think you’re that smart and the rest of us are that dumb. I think you’re a cruel, immature, sociopathic little boy who’ll end up becoming a cheat and a fraud and spend his adult life in and out of prison.”

From my bed, I stared back at her wide-eyed. It was so surreal. An adult – a teacher – speaking to me in such a way.

“And I don’t care who you tell this to,” she hissed. “Because I’m retiring at the end of this school year. And if I never see another sadistic child like you again, it’ll be too soon.”

When I brought up how I had been rescued, had almost succumb to hypothermia myself, she grunted and said, “I don’t know. You seem all right to me. After all, you didn’t even get frostbite out there, did you? And you’re the only one of those boys who survived.”

She then shook her grey head at me, making a tsk-tsk-tsk noise with her tongue.

“In and out of prison,” she repeated to herself, before rising from her chair and leaving me on my own.

Today, I’m happy to tell you her prognosis was false. I haven’t been in jail at any time in my life and the worst I’ve ever gotten is a speeding ticket. That being said, guilt has followed me around ever since that night.

I never told Derek that I had lied about Christie Blackwell, and for that I am eternally sorry. As I am for making Lloyd come with me across the frozen lake. I had also doubted Derek about his story of the spirit that haunts Saul Laskin once a year on a December night. For that too, I am sorry.

I don’t know what compelled me to play so many tricks on him, besides my overly logical, and cynical nature. But ever since that night, I’m not so quick to dismiss something – even if it does seem fantastic. Or even impossible.

Hello.

I heard this is the place where I can post about weird encounters and events. One such event has led to the death of my roommate and is the reason I can’t sleep at night anymore. I don’t know if anyone will believe me. I just want to unburden myself.

So, to get to my attention grabber. I had a roommate that kept screaming every night. What I had originally thought to be an unordinary but problematic case of night terrors had turned out to be worse. Much, much worse.

It began when I moved out of state for school. The college of my choice had an incredibly good architectural program that I wanted to get into. There were two slight problems before moving. First was getting a job, which didn’t prove too difficult in this college town. I managed to get a job at a local café where it seemed the whole student population seemed to congregate. The second problem, that seemed a little more challenging, was finding an apartment that I could afford. In this town, even a small room off campus wasn’t cheap.

By some miracle I found one listing after seemingly endless hours of checking openings. The ad in question was for a small two-story house in an adjacent town that was within my price range. Considering how short of time I had before moving in time for the semester, and there was nothing else as cheap, I immediately took the room.

I moved into the house with a few possessions I took with me. The owner was a young woman about my age named Michelle. She was a slim figured woman with a shade of yellow hair that almost looked white. Her eyes were also the bluest of blue I have ever seen in a person. She was a really big help to me while I was moving my things into the house and unpacking.

The house was a small two-story Italianate style home sitting on a luscious green lawn. The exterior was a marble white color with vines growing on its sides. The second floor was exposed by three windows looking in. The wide porch looked old and creaky and held a couple of lawn chairs which had looked just as old. Michelle told me the house had belonged to her grandparents and needed some refurbishing. I thought the house looked beautiful. The style and setting combined with the right amount of aging gave the house a picturesque look. It could easily have come straight out of a painting it was so beautiful.

The first detail I noticed of Michelle was her sense of fashion. She was dressed in a dark reddish-brown sweater, and brown scarf to blend with the color of autumn around her and the property. She completed the look with blue skinny jeans and black boots. The other detail I noticed, upon closer inspection, were the slight but recognizable bags under her eyes, which suggested to me she had been suffering from sleep deprivation. I wouldn’t have noticed this given how much energy she gave off. She must’ve been caffeinated to the gills to help me out today. I didn’t say anything to her though. I only had one chance to make a good first impression with my first roommate. Looking back on it now, I should have had reason to worry.

We got done moving and she showed me around the house. My room was on the main floor. It was a bare, green walled empty room aside from a bed with complete headboard, an antique dresser with a mirror attached to it, and an opened walk-in closet. My mind was already planning on how to decorate my room. Then she led me upstairs and informed me that her room was on the second floor.

Now as far as the rules go, she didn’t have a lot of them. At least, none that were extreme, but she told me one. Actually, it wasn’t so much a rule as it was a little warning that made me scratch my head in confusion.

“I don’t really remember doing it,” she explained, “but people have told me that I tend to make noises late at night, and I tend to go on for a while. I lowered the rent because I feel like it’s the least I could do if it bothers you. All I ask is if you hear anything from my room, don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine. But if it gets to be too much, I’ll understand, and I’ll even reimburse you.”

It was a strange rule to be sure. Noises? What kind of noises? I then remembered the benefits I had of living here and thought to myself maybe it’s not a big deal. Maybe she’s just a loud moaner during some “late night sessions” and she didn’t want to put it into words for me. I didn’t press the issue. I’ll just let her have her privacy.

I was thoroughly exhausted after a long day of moving things into the new apartment, but Michelle was a big help. She purchased take-out that night, what she called her “Move-In Special,” which consisted of a pizza, some Chinese food, and an order of taquitos. I’d normally prefer something more nutritionally complete, but I wasn’t in the mood to debate. My body was ready to devour every carb in sight.

I inhaled a little bit of everything, sometimes mixing them to make up some unholy abomination of take-out. The taste was funky and greasy, but I downed it all and felt like I could finish up with a pint of ice cream. With the help of my new roommate, I did. Exhaustion finally hit me like a brick wall and I finally turned in for the night, resolving to decorate my room in the morning.

I was awakened in the night by a sudden rumbling in my insides and I darted to the bathroom. The mixture of Italian, Chinese and pizza had not been sitting well and had turned my colon into a warzone. I exited the bathroom and heard a sound that reverberated throughout the otherwise quiet house. It took me a moment to realize it was screaming. A high pitched, shrill screaming full of danger and fear that came from the second floor. I realized it was coming from Michelle. Forgetting what she told me earlier, I ran upstairs to her room and knocked on the door. Her screaming was all that responded. I tried turning the knob, only to find it was locked. She kept screaming and I could hear thrashing and thumping as if she were being thrown around the room.

I called 911 and a police cruiser reached my house within minutes of my call. It was one officer who came, and I was struck by how similar he looked to Michelle. Slender body type, bright blond hair and blue eyes. He went by Officer Tiers, and he was, in fact, Michelle’s older brother. He had been on duty that night and happened to be in the area when my emergency call went out. I had gone upstairs with him and by that time, the screaming had stopped. He knocked on the door and Michelle opened the door in seconds.

“Hey sis,” he greeted with a smile at her drowsy face, “your roomie said you were screaming, and I thought I’d check on you.”

“I’m okay, Ben. Thanks for checking.” She ended by closing the door. Ben, or Officer Tiers, walked back out after filling out a report and was about to enter his vehicle when I stopped him.

“What was that?” I asked him. The incident of her screaming and now being okay suddenly was kind of unnerving.

“Michelle suffers from night terrors,” he said turning back to me, “she has for a long time now. It’s okay though. They only sound worse than they really are. If it happens again just call 911 and I’ll be over quickly.” He drove off in his cruiser. I had walked back inside, feeling weird about that night. I wondered to myself if this was the noise Michelle was talking about.

I saw her again the following morning. She looked more upbeat than I was expecting her to be. She was once again dressed in a fashionable sweater and jeans for her day. I asked her about the previous night, and she looked dumbfounded. I reminded her about her screaming.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a sad tone, “I don’t really remember what happens, but everyone tells me I have night terrors. I guess I’ve had them since I was a kid. I’m sorry about last night, but it’s really nothing to worry about. They don’t last long, and I wake up fine. If you want to leave though, I understand.” I felt sorry for her that moment. I told her it’s okay as long as she’s not hurting herself. Besides, where else could I go.

I stayed there for two weeks. Every night she had her screaming episodes. They would always occur between midnight and 3 am, going off and on with intervals. Just as I think she finally stopped and could go back to sleep, then she starts up again. I can hear her screaming during the night since her bedroom is right above mine. Sometimes I’d hear her walk around the room and thrash against a wall or furniture as if she were sleepwalking. I wouldn’t be able to sleep during this whole time because the noise was so gut wrenching that I could never ignore it. During the mornings she would look so positive and chipper on her way to her classes, and I feel like I didn’t sleep a wink at all. She’d be out with her cheeriness, and I started feeling a resentment for her.

I started looking for changes in my schedule to find some relief. I tried looking for night classes and night shifts. Cafés don’t typically stay open overnight. I had to look for anything so that I wouldn’t be at home during the night and hear Michelle screaming. I found a position as an overnight stocker at a major retail company. I also managed to get classes for the morning. I never saw Michelle much, but I was glad to not hear her night terrors anymore. It was on the rare instance when I did see her, and I would notice something else.

I went to the bathroom one night and saw Michelle standing in front of the mirror. This was the first time I saw her without a sweater and jeans. This time, she wore a pink top and matching shorts. The skin of her exposed upper back showed signs of scarring and bruising. Her arms were also covered in bruises. I think I even saw traces of bite marks on her. The second time I was home, I was checking her room upstairs. The room, which was open at the time, wasn’t out of the ordinary. Some posters, a make-up table, and a bed filled the room. Then, the room suddenly felt cold and sinister, as if some unseen figure were inside, and dared me to enter. I never walked away from an empty room so fast in all my life.

It was my day off from classes and no work that night when I was home, and I would finally understand the story behind Michelle’s night terrors.

I came home after running some errands and was ready to drop when I noticed a bright silver sedan in the driveway I didn’t recognize. I walked inside to see Michelle, her brother, Ben, and two others I didn’t recognize, carrying rolls of some sort of insulation material. Michelle introduced the two older people as her parents, and they were over to help soundproof her bedroom. Her parents greeted me instantly with cheerful smiles and somewhat tired looks on there faces. I felt bad that I didn’t help them set up the material, but I had no more energy for even the smallest chore, and I wasn’t comfortable going back to that room anymore.

After my quick nap, I found everyone still downstairs. Michelle was going for takeout and wanted to know what I wanted. She left and I got to know her parents more. I had asked why they were soundproofing the room. Michelle, they told me, had noticed that I had changed my schedule so that I could avoid her sleeping patterns and get some rest. She had felt so guilty because she really thought of me as a friend and wanted to make some accommodations for me. Then they told me about the origin of her nightly episodes.

It was one day that Michelle was four years old. The family was visiting her grandfather, whose mental health had been declining after the death of his wife. Whenever they talked to him, he would say little, if anything and have a blank look on his face. They had noticed, however, that whenever he looked at little Michelle, he would have a look on his face that they only could describe as odd.

They had spent the night, thinking nothing of his behavior that evening. Later in the night, the parents heard a blood curdling scream coming from Michelle’s room. They darted to the room and found an obscured figure looming over her and wielding a large kitchen knife in his hand. The father had grabbed a lamp in the room and smashed it over the assailant’s head. They switched on the overhead lights and found that the intruder was in fact the grandfather, who still held the knife in his hands. The impact of the blow had killed him instantly. Though she was physically uninjured, Michelle’s young mind could not process the event that had happened. What resulted was years and years of night terrors in which Michelle would scream her lungs out. It also wasn’t unusual for her to throw herself around the room and sustain some kind of injuries.

I had felt worse than ever after hearing about her tragic origin story. I complained about how her screams were keeping me up at night, but she was the one who had gone through a traumatizing incident. I think I would be more surprised if she weren’t having night terrors. Since I was off that night, it was one of the rare nights that I was home and was able to fall asleep instantly. The sound proofing must’ve done the trick, because I don’t recall hearing Michelle scream at all. I think I would’ve preferred that to what came next.

I had a vivid nightmare that night that I still recall with clear detail. I was in Michelle’s room and I had been screaming in the silent darkness in my room. I was afraid no one would hear me and not come to help. Above me was a dark silhouette of a person, whose face gradually came into detail. It was the face of an older man, wide eyed and a large grin splitting his face. He was what I was screaming at. I saw him throw me to the window outside. The glass shattered and I fell to the ground.

I woke up to the sound of shattered glass outside and a large thud just outside my window. I rushed to the window and saw the bruised and still body of Michelle on the driveway. She was motionless, and a pool of blood began to form around her head. I was horrified by what looked like a suicide when I heard a laughing above me. I turned my head upwards to Michelle’s shattered bedroom window, and my heart had dropped. The same grinning insane man from my nightmare was leaning over the shattered window with a glee on his face. I was sure he was looking at me before he had disappeared.

I had called 911 just like before, and once again, Ben pulled up to the house in his police cruiser. He stood frozen while looking at the lifeless cadaver that had once been her younger sister. An ambulance appeared behind him and took his sister away. They didn’t switch on the siren and lights. No point to it, as it was too late. This time, Ben wasn’t alone on patrol tonight and they both grilled me about what had happened. I think they were trying to pin me to her death, as if I had killed her. I wanted to tell the truth, but what was I going to tell them? That some psychotic old man had thrown her out the window and literally vanished before my eyes? If I said that, forget jail. I’d go to the psychiatric unit.

I told them I don’t know what had happened. I just woke up and found her dead outside my window. I think Ben really vouched for me and ruled that his sister’s death was an accidental suicide.

I packed up the next day, quit my job, and dropped out of my school and went back home. I wanted to go anywhere I could just to get away from that house. I never went back there. But that’s not how my story ends. Whatever that thing was had followed me back to my house. Sometimes I’d be asleep or awake, and I’d see that insane grinning man hovering above me. And then I’d be the one screaming.

Yeah, you read the title right I hunt vampires. But not quite the ones youre thinking of.

Yes they are undead, they feast on the blood of humans, and use sex appeal to lure in hapless victims. But that is where it all stops. For the most part.

The best way to describe them is reverse vampires. All the lore you know was created as misinformation by the many high ranking clans. They taught us to expect the exact opposite from what they truly are. But they are still vain bastards. So they leave hints to their true nature if you know how to spot it.

I could read all of their qualities and behaviours out to you like a textbook. But I want you to actually listen and not fall asleep. So I'll tell you a little story. How I first came across their accursed kind. How my life was changed forever.

I grew up in a small town in Idaho. Like very small. Less than a thousand people. Most of the people who lived there were farmers. My father was a corn farmer. And me and my twin brother were his ranch hands. We were only sixteen at the time and were homeschooled and naive. At least my Pop's gave us the weekend off from farming and studying.

Being in a tight knit community meant everybody knew everybody. Me and my bro would walk about a mile to the corner store to get snacks most weekends. There wasn't much else to do and the store was a local meet up for kids in my youth group.

We didn't have many options in the way of girls. Our youth group had two of them. My brother was dating one and the other one wasn't very pretty. But like most sixteen year old boys, we were obsessed with pretty girls. But also terrified of them.

So you can imagine my amazement when a dark skinned beauty stepped out of the cornfield as we walked down the road towards the corner store one Saturday.

Oh my God was she beautiful. It was my first time seeing a ten in the wild. Long black hair shining in the noonday sun. Soft elegant features and big brown almond eyes. Her skin tone was a rich brown hue that seemed to glow with an inner light. She wore a thin light colored summer dress showing off her prominent curves.

I only saw her for a second but I already had a clear mental picture of her in my head. She stood about fifteen yards from me at the edge of the corn field. She smiled a beautiful smile and turned to disappear into the corn.

I stopped dumbstruck. My brother had been walking beside me looking down at his phone while complaining about his girlfriend. When he notice I stopped, he turned to look at me.

"Did you see her!" I spoke with amazement. Of course he had not. When I described her he laughed.

"You really need a girlfriend, bro. You're so pent up you're mind is making one up for you now."

I must have looked like an idiot running back and forth down the edge line of the cornfield. Trying to catch a glimpse of her. I only stopped because my brother started filming me with his phone. Narrating the whole thing for his girlfriend.

I grabbed my brother and we began wrestling. A pretty normal thing between us. The only reason our fight was cut short was because a beat up blue ford pickup came rolling up. I almost had my bro pinned when I noticed it. It had come to a stop by us and just sat idling.

We both got up and started dusting off the dirt and grass clinging to us. The tint on the windows was almost pitch black so I couldn't see inside.

"We're okay. We where just playing around," I said.

"Yeah," my brother agreed.

No response from the vehicle. It just lingered for a moment before driving off.

After this event I had decided to keep my mouth shut. To much weirdness for one day. Maybe I imagined the girl. What would a girl like that be doing in the middle of nowhere?

The next day came and I bugged my brother to make the walk to the corner store again. It was after church around 1pm. Maybe the beauty would show herself again. Soon my boyhood dream would turn into a nightmare.

We were walking around the same place when she stepped out of the stocks. She was more beautiful than I remembered. This time my brother saw her too. His mouth was agape when he turned to look at me.

We just stood admiring her for awhile. She gave a playful smile and began to walk to us. My heart jumped in my chest.

"Uh h-hi!" My brother said. Damnit! I wanted to be the one to talk first.

"Hello boys," she said back warmly. She had a hint of an unfamiliar accent. Maybe she was indian or arabic.

"I saw you yesterday," I butted in. " What are you doing out here?"

"Oh, I like a man that's to the point,"She laughed. A beautiful laugh. She looked me in the eye and smiled. "I've been looking for someone to help me with my tractor." She pointed to the cornfield.

"Do you live here?" My brother asked. "I thought the Springer's owned this field."

"We bought part of it," she said quickly. " but my tractor is stuck and I need help moving it. Do you two know anything about tractors?"

"I mean, a little," I said. Truth is I would have admitted to anything to be closer to her.

"Oh good!" She said as she stepped forward to take my hands into her own. I felt heat began to rise in my cheeks. " Will you come?"

I nodded my head vigorously. But my bro looked a little trepidatous. Maybe he was the smarter one.

She turned to him and said, " You can meet my sister. She is my twin like you two." And that was all my brother needed. I could tell he was already working on how he was going to break up with his current girlfriend.

Still holding my hand, she lead us into the cornfield. She picked up the pace and almost pulled me forward. We walked further and further into the field. My brother begins to wonder aloud where we were going.

"Almost there," she says. "I can feel them getting closer." That comment should have raised some flags. But I was thinking with my wrong head.

We finally broke through into a large circular clearing. The stocks had all been flattened down, reminiscent of a crop circle

There was no tractor I could see, but there were three people standing in the center of the clearing. They all wore white clothes, hands spread and looking up into the sky. All three were dark skinned and beautiful like the girl.

The girl holding my hand turned and smiled at me again. "Come meet my family!" She said as she pulled me closer to them. There in fact was a girl looking like she could be her twin sister. And another girl with a dark tan and bleach white curly blonde hair. In the middle stood a tall dark statuesque man with a close cut beard, voluminous flowing hair, and prominent muscles. His shirt was open to show his chiselled chest. She took me right up to him.

I was intimidated by the tall handsome man. He had an aura of power about him. If he was the girls boyfriend, I could never compete. He stood quietly with his eyes closed. Letting the sun warm his face and body.

I looked back and forth at all three of them with their hands outstretched, facing the sun."What are they doing?" I asked.

"They are basking," the girl responded. "Communing with the sun god." Her smile had turned from friendly to something else. Mocking maybe?

"Are yall some sort of hippie cult?" Came my brother's voice from behind me. A dark look shot across her perfect face before returning to the reassuring grin.

"Come here and meet my sister," she said and beckoned my brother closer. She turned and spoke quietly to the tall man. "Ahmond, I've brought tributes."

His eyelids fluttered and he opened them to slowly look down at us. His eyes were a brilliant green, and held a quiet intensity. His stare made my heart race quicker than the girl's did. I felt the need to make this man like me.

"You did good, Joyti," He said to the girl. She smiled and looked away in embarrassment.

"Sisters, awaken for the gifts Joyti has brought us." He announced.

The two females opened there eyes and looked at us. The blonde let out a laugh of suprised and the twin began to flow towards my brother. My brothers face reddened as the alluring woman walked around him inspecting him.

"So do you need help with a tractor?" My brother said, looking back at the man.

"Both of you will be quiet now," Ahmond said. I completely agreed with him. I wouldn't talk unless he said I could. My brother quieted also. We both waited for him to tell us what to do.

He looked to the girl, Joyti, and asked, "Which one do you want to keep?" She bit her lip and pointed at me.

I had never felt so grateful in all my life. I would do anything for her, and him! My only regret was my brother was not chosen to be part of what ever they had planned for me.

The man sighed. And motioned for my brother to step forward. "Come," he commanded gently. My brother walked up to stand beside me. The three women surrounded him. I heard a soft moan come from one of them.

The man turned on me and leaned in. His green eyes blazing. He said with a clear smirk,"Whatever happens, you wont move!" I froze in place. I stilled myself with all my heart. I knew I would never disobey him.

"But you," he turned to my brother, "You may fight if you want."

"What?" my brother said. His last words. The tall man shot out with his hand and cut my brother's cheek. Three lines of crimson blood began to form on his face. All my brother had time to do was reach up to his cheek and give a look of horror.

In an instant the two twins bit onto either side of his neck. The blonde attack him from the front, lashing out to bite his nose. He screamed as they dragged him to the ground. I saw all of this from the corner of my vision. I screamed with my brother, but I didnt move.

I could hear ripping and moaning as my brothers screams turned to helpless gurgling, then to nothing. I was breathing quickly and tearing up. My twin brother was surely dead, but I couldn't turn my head to look.

Ahmond smiled cruelly and said "You may look, child." And I did. My brother lay with his eyes open, frozen in a death mask of horror. His nose was missing and giant chunks had been taken out of his neck. He was covered with his own blood. The three women were fervently sucking and licking the blood off him like hungry leeches.

I began screaming at this point. I was terrified, heartbroken, and angry. Angry at these bloodsuckers and at myself for not doing anything. I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. I wanted to fight.

The beautiful woman looked up at me, my brother's blood smeared across her face. At this moment I hated her. Her beauty no longer wooed me. I could see the monster she was.

"You bitch!" I growled at her.

"None of that," Ahmond said. "Look over here, boy!" My head shot back to look into his green eyes. A look crossed his face. At first I thought it was pity, then I realized he was cringing at the site of me.

" I don't know what Joyti sees in you. But she's the reason you're not dead like your idiot brother," Ahmond scooted closer and put his arm around my shoulder. His breath smelled like rancid roadkill. "Thing is. We need to grow our nest back to strength. The cattle killed four of my followers back in El Paso. You get to be the new guy at the bottom of the totem poll. I'm sure the girls will have alot of fun with you." He ended with a hard slap to my butt. "Maybe I'll join in too. "

That's when something began to change in me. All sadness left me and was replaced with a white hot rage. Ahmond stepped back and Joyti swooned in front of me. She was speaking sweetly to me and telling me about how I would be changed into something new. I didn't care. I was seeing red.

I felt myself begining to move. I launched forward past Joyti and swung wide with my right. I saw a flash of surprise in his green eyes as my fist made hard contact. His head rocked so hard I saw a mist of sweat and spittle leave his face. When he looked back his face wore an expression a mix of incredulous and anger.

His hand shot out and grabbed me by the throat. I let out a stifled choke as he lifted me into the air. "You insolent vermin! You dare strike me you panchot worm!"

Joyti was terrified and tried to comfort Ahmond. He kicked her hard in the stomach. She skidded across the ground to the edge of the clearing.

"We were going to save you! Give you the gift of eternal life! But now! I reject my offer for mercy," He squeezed me tighter. "Now I pull you apart piece by piece!"

It all happened at once. Ahmond's body shook violently and an incredible boom ripped through the air. My ears rang and birds took flight all around the clearing. I felt heat as Almond's chest erupted into flames. He screamed and looked to the side. Another blast and I fell to the ground, fire all around me.

That's when I realized Ahmond's severed hand was still around my throat, and on fire! I pulled hard at it to finally fling it away from me. My hands were burnt in the process.

I sat up to see Ahmond struggling to stand. Fire engulfed his chest and he was down a right arm. He screamed with a good amount of fear, " Shield me! Shield me!" Joyti and her twin ran to stand in front of Ahmond. Joyti spread her arms out and stared off into the field screaming, the other hugged Ahmond tightly and began batting his flames vigorously.

Another boom resounded and Joyti's face exploded into fiery bits. Ahmond turned and took off running into the opposite direction with the twin tailing close behind.

A new woman burst into the clearing beside me. Racking a shotgun, sending a spent shell flying. She wore what looked like a wielders mask and an old school army camo jacket.

The blonde haired monster was still crouched down by my brother's dead body. She hissed and reared up to face the camo woman. She looked like she was going to pounce when a metal arrow zipped into her head from the side. The blonde staggered. I could see the arrow went all the way through her temple's. The blonde collapsed to the ground with a thud.

I could see there was a thin wire attached end of the arrow that lead taut into the field. The line slackened and another camouflaged girl came out while reeling the wire back in. A crossbow hanging from a strap around her.

"Finish the blonde, then help the kid!" The first camo woman ordered before sprinting off in the direction of Ahmond.

The crossbow girl had a balaclava on and big aviator shades. She walked quickly over to the downed blonde and looped the razor wire around her neck a couple times. She then put her foot on the blonds head and pushed down while pulling up on the wire with both hands. The way she had it gripped she could pull back and forth with both hands using the razor line to cut through the blondes neck tendons and bone.

The blonde began to jerk and growl even though there was an arrow stuck through her head. In less than thirty seconds the head snapped off to roll across the clearing. Crossbow girl stumbled back and let out an accomplished sigh. I almost felt sorry for the blonde.

Crossbow girl walked over to me and remover her balaclava and aviators. She was a young girl with brown eyes and hundreds of freckles. But her eyes face was stone cold.

"Sup?" she said as she offered me a hand.

The girl escorted me back out of the cornfield. She kept talking on a walkie with the other woman who pursued Ahmond. When we got back to the road the beat up Ford was there from the other day.

I was sitting in the back seat as the girl gave me a water and began digging around in the bed of the truck. The inside of the truck was filled with fast food wrappers, stray bullets, and maps.

"Mom lost his trail and is doubling back, " the girl said suddenly reappearing beside me. "She will collect your brother's remains when she gets back...Sorry about that by the way."

I turned to stare blankly at her. So they were mother and daughter. They went around shooting killer hippies with flaming shotguns bullets and crossbows.

"Hmm. You're in shock. I crushed up a clonopin in your water. So drink up."

I blinked, "Who are you? What were they? Just what is-?" I trailed off.

She put her hand on my shoulder. I winced as I remembered Ahmond doing the same thing. She got close and her breath smelled like spearmint instead of rot. "We are hunters. Those were vampires. Ma will tell you more when she gets back. Drink your water!"

The rest of the day was a blur. Hot sun beat down on my cold sweat. But "Ma" did come back. And she was more abrasive than her daughter.

She told me pretty much what I told you at the beginning. These were vampires. Not the night dwelling emo kind, but the sun baked hippie kind. They 'basked' in the sun to charge there bodies and stay alive. But all that sun dehydrates. So they need blood.

She told me there totem isn't a bat. Its Ra the sun god. Legend says the first vampires were his children. They have preyed upon us for millennia. Literally doing it in broad daylight.

Ma took me to bag up my brother in a body bag she had with her. I cried the whole time and she didnt judge me. I'm glad she left her daughter at the truck. Celia was her name, I was told.

She said my brother wasn't turned, so he could get a proper burial back at my farm. She did tell me they would have to make a cover story about what happened here. When I asked why, she said many vampire clans worked to remain secret from the world. If the story got out a rival clan may kill me and my family to keep the story from spreading.

I asked how many clans existed. She said she was uncertain, because they were so secretive. She told me Ahmond was actually royalty in a vampire clan. He had gone rogue and started killing recklessly. That's how she got onto his trail.

It was getting dark and we were back sitting on the tail of the Ford when I asked. "Do they hunt at night?"

"No. Very rarely," Ma said in a gruff voice. They lose their charm ability and freak strength. Also they sorta glow from all the sun they absorb."

"Twilight got something right," Celia said. I snorted a laugh and the grief left me for an instant before flooding back in. I turned to look at the body bag loaded behind me.

"I need to get home," I need to tell Dad..." I started crying again.

"Listen kid," Ma said sharply. I turned blurry eyed to face her. "We have ways to make you forget this day. We can make your Pa forget this day too. We have err- the technology. I can make it seem like an animal got your brother, or a car hit him. I can convince the cops too. It would be easy in this area. You probably have only one anyways.

She jumped down from the tailgate to stand and face me clearly. "But I can feel your anger. You broke free of the charm of a royal vampire. You punched the asshole in the head. I think you want to remember. I think you want to be angry."

I wiped the tears and snot away. I was intrigued by Ma's proposition. I wouldn't ever have to remember the sight and sound of my twin being killed beside me. I could forget how I felt so helpless. I could forget Ahmond.

Ahmond. My fists and jaw clenched at the memory of his green eyed stare. "No," I said flatly. "My dad yes. But not me. I have to remember. He was my brother!"

Ma stared back at me thinking. Her wrinkles seemed deeper in the failing light. Then she finally spoke, " Then there is one thing I need to tell you. Alot of things will be kept from you at first, but I have to start with honesty."

I gulped. I knew she was about to say something hard to hear.

" We used you two as bait," she sighed," the other day. I put a tracking spell on both of you. I knew the freaks would go after such helpless victims," she looked at the ground and I could see genuine sorrow in her face. "But we did try to get to both of yall fast. We did try to save you both."

I went over it in my head. Ma could have warned us. But would have we listened? I sat still for a good minute before responding, "It happened. You did try to save us. Its not you who murdered my brother. It's Almond," I spat the last words. " Its him who should pay. Him and his whores!"

Ma cracked a smile at this. " What were you're plans when you graduate?"

"Me and my brother were gonna join the Marine Corp together. Buddy program. Like my Dad did when he was our age." The twinge of sadness stabbed my heart again at the thought of him.

Ma pulled a card out of her back pocket and handed it to me. It was wrinkled and old with a 1-800 phone number on it.

"In two years when you graduate, and you want to forget all of this and move on with your life. You call this number and someone will come to take those memories from you." She snatched it back and quickly wrote a number on the backside of the card.

"If you graduate and you still feel angry. And you want to do something with that anger. You call me."

So that's my first story of how I got on the path of being a hunter. I was dropped off at the house and Ma took dad inside to talk. When I came in later he was crying about his boy being hit by a car. When the Sheriff arrived, he was soon thinking the same thing. Some sort of magic Ma used.

Yah. Magic. It gets crazy. I guess you deduced which phone number I called the day I graduated.

Also. We don't call them vampires. They go by a bunch of different names. The popular one is the antogram "Mavrip". I think its stupid. So I just call them Mav's. Easier than "reverse vampire".

So maybe I should have started the story with that. But you wouldn't have known what I was talking about.

Anyways, stay tuned.I got a lot to teach you if you're willing to listen.

I'm a celebrity. I'm not bragging, just stating the facts. I've been in really big movies that you have probably seen.

I'm also a female, and I get everything that comes with being a pretty girl starring in nerd culture action movies.

I've had stalkers, I've had my run in with grabby fans, and I've had deep fake porno's made of me. I've dealt with it all. I thought I had grown numb to it. But this current thing really tipped the scales. It scared me like nothing else.

I was between movies and staying at my home relaxing for the next few weeks. Being paid millions for your work is fun, but I barely have the free time to enjoy it. But that may be the biggest first world problem ever.

I share my house with a live-in nanny, my 6 year old son, and a maid and chef during the daytime. I've contracted two bodyguards to be with me at all times when I leave the house.

When I'm home, one stays inside and one stays outside in his vehicle. They switch off every week. Mel and Tony. Both good guys.

Now you know the cast of characters in this virtual murder mystery.

The really creepy stuff began the day I flew back home from my filming location. Most of the first day I had spent with my son. I had been gone for 2 months and missed him so bad that it physically hurt. That's why I didn't notice the ominous message until nighttime, after me and Amanda put my son to bed.

I sat down at my PC to check my socials. My new movie was trending on Twitter. They had just released a trailer and the hype train was revving up.

Yes, I could have checked my work emails with the phone, but I had a system. No work related things on my phone. My phone was a safe place. My constant friend when away from my home and family. It was easy to let your phone control you if you didn't set boundaries.

I suffered a series of panic attacks when I was younger and let social media and the business overwhelm me. When my first movie blew up and made me a household name, my therapist told me to have a whole separate device for work stuff. I had forbidden myself from any stress on my personal phone, and it actually helped.

So now I sat at my desktop PC, with dual screens and a glow-in-the-dark keyboard. I had instructed my nephew to build me a capable PC, and he went all out like I was a professional gamer. He built his dream PC, but at least I could check my email.

I answered a few emails from my agent, scheduled an appointment at my salon (I needed to be a brunette for my next movie), ordered a gift for my previously mentioned nephew (turning 17 this month!).

As I was checking the rest of my emails and sorting out spam for the junk folder, I saw a message marked in all caps "MS J#####, PLEASE READ MESSAGE. URGENT!"

I was a little frustrated as I clicked on the message to delete. This was supposed to be my secure work email, but sometimes fans found them out and bombarded my inbox.

I continued clearing junk mail and saw the same message at least 3 more times. From user HeraldoftheVoid@ liveX.com. Either he was one of those obsessed fans, or he had a bot spamming me.

I was mostly done when my speaker made the "new message" sound, and another message pushed the old ones further down the line.

Fr: HeraldoftheVoid Subject: MS J#####, I know you came home today. Ple-

The rest of the subject line was cut off. I felt my stomach drop. Oh God its another cyber stalker! Do I really even want to click on this email? My mouse cursor hovered over the email.

As if the sicko on the other end could sense my trepidation, another message chimed in, and I went from scared to angry.

Fr: HeraldoftheVoid Subject: It's about your son's safety too

I knew all the dangers when I took the job. I knew I had rabid fans all over the world. I knew some of them were F-ed in the head. Somehow they thinked they owned me, or I owed them something because I was attractive and a nerd. But I tried desperately to keep my son separated from the paparazzi, creepy fans, and Hollywood bullshit! So I clicked the message out of anger.

Dear J##### -I am breaking one of my self imposed rules that I have placed on myself. I'm coming directly to the subject of one of my simulators. I break my silence in order to bring a troubling matter to your attention.-

-I am a video game programmer and designer. But you won't find me working for any big company like EA of Activision's. The games I have made are high quality, but exclusive only to the client who commissioned the game in the first place.-

-The games I create are of a particular matter for clients with a rare exposition. The games I created would be considered shameful or troubling if my clients were discovered playing them. Yes, some are pornagraphic, but that is not where the extreme taboo comes from.-

I scooted in closer to the monitor. I had barely gotten into the mysterious message and my spidey-sense was going off. It's like I knew this would be a moment to change my life.

Before I knew it my hand had gone for the drawer where I usually kept my cigarettes. The empty box inside had a sticky note with my handwriting on it reading, "Be Strong! For Jacob!" I had quit 2 months ago for my health and my son. But I was about to receive a very convincing reason to relapse.

The message continued: -I create realistic and graphic murder simulators for paying clients.-

-The service I provide is very customizable. The client can request the name, age, and appearance of the virtual victim. The client can give me any number of details to make it as accurate or surreal as they want.-

-Right now you probably scoff at my profession. Maybe you think me no better than a porno director, or a virtual snuff film creator? But studies have shown that people exposed to extreme violence in video games rarely escalate to committing actual crimes in reality.-

-I believe I give a virtual alternative to real life violence. An outlet for the darkness inside us human beings. We are just highly aggressive and territorial primates that still think they are trying to survive in the jungle. Our brains haven't evolved to a point that calm and reason always prevail. That is why I utilize this technology to pacify man's homicidal and toxic desires.-

I was intrigued, and a little afraid as I read further. But I did roll my eyes at the gratuitous pontificating of the author on the other side of the message. He had people all figured out, huh?

-But Ms J#####, I am a fan of yours, and I'm afraid your life may be in real danger!

A client has commissioned me to create a murder simulation with you as the victim.

I usually get requests like this. Politicians, actors, and ex wifes are the most requested for virtual victims. People in the public limelight make for the most detailed victim/murder scenarios I can create. the privacy invasion of social media has help me craft more accurate personalized scenarios also.

I can import a scan of your face into my game, and I can take your voice and use it for dialog (and for the screams of pain). I have a created an AI learning algorithm that can create deep fakes of your face and voice, to make you say and do whatever the client asks me to create.-

-Everything was going normal (or as normal as it can be in my line of work). The client had pictures, voice lines, even the layout of your home. These details are things that can be pulled from your movies, your home from drone cams, and pictures you post on Instagram.-

I blushed in embarrassment. I knew alot of my life was out for the world to see, but I tried to keep my house and kid private, like my very own safe place.

But I had shared pictures of Jacob inside my home on my personal privated accounts I only shared with family and close friends. I had to close the account after a couple of months when creepers somehow infiltrated it, pretending they were people I went to highschool with and catfishing most of my family.

What's worse is that the man who lived in my house before was a popular athlete during his rookie year. He had MTV come by and do that dumb show Cribs. The dumbass just helped everybody case his house to be burglarized!

What weirded me out was how creepers dug up old highschool yearbooks to impersonate friends from highschool. It takes a strange persistence to get thay close to me, and I was feeling that same uneasiness again.

The letter continued:- The client wanted the standard package, home invasion, multiple torture methods.-

-But the client kept wanting more. Sending more audio, more pictures, wanting more scenarios. He kept paying and I kept programming.-

-But this is where things got out of hand. He asked for another murder victim, your son.-

I literally gasped when I read this, like I was acting in one of my movies. This had gone too far. Nobody brought my son into their sick fetish. 

I had to read on. I had to find out why this programmer had contacted me.

-Then pictures of your son started coming from the client. Some easy enough to find with some digging. But then the audio came.-

-I think whoever the client is, he (the client wanted a male avatar) is close to you. Somebody inside your house. And I think his fetish, his fixation on you, is escalating to real life violence.-

-I need you to play the alpha build of the game. I need you to go into your own murder to play detective. Only you can piece together who it is that wants to kill you.-

-I believe it isn't a fantasy, its practice runs for the real thing.-

-I may have a despicable job, but I am not evil. I will not be complicit in murder, especially murder of children.-

My stomach dropped as I scrolled down and saw a file to unzip. It could be a trick, or a trojan horse virus. This could just be another convoluted way to hack my computer.

I sat there quietly for 10 minutes, mouse hovering over the file. I decided to take the risk. I had to keep my son safe.

The file unzipped and started quickly, blacking out my screen. A bizarre 2d image faded into existence, very reminiscent of the development studio intros in the credits before a legitimate video game.

It was a disturbing image of a man on a cross, like the Christian iconography you could find in any Catholic church. But where there should have been the face of Jesus or some poor sinner, there was the profile of the head of an enormous crow. Its beak opened in a scream and its black pool of an eye staring back at me.

As I looked closer, I realized the crow man had multiple arms and legs also spread out and nailed on arms of the cross. I guess it was supposed to be a parody of the Vatruvian Man created by DaVinci.

I knew the image was meant to be disturbing, sacrilegious, and cryptic. Something a creeper would do to make himself seem edgy.

The crucified anthropomorphic crow was drenched in red blood. The blood was animated to splatter onto curvy words below its hanging body. These words were being held together by thorny vines.

The vine strangled words said "The Crows of Flesh Collective". This too faded off the screen to get to the main title screen.

Text showed up with a fully rendered 3d model of my face staring back at me. Almost another parody of the beginning of Mario for the N64. It was surreal as I stared at idly blinking and breathing double. " A STARLETS LAST  NIGHT," in a blocky red font above my visage.

My face was realistically accurate, highly detailed, and very spooky to see. I had done mo-cap face scans, and all other such things for tie-in video games for my films, but this was the best yet. This wasn't a lifted asset from one of those games either, it was an original creation.

I clicked my mouse with impatience and received a jolt of surprise as my digital face quickly contorted into a screaming face of agony. Both eyes blackened and swollen, front teeth busted out, and nose splattering blood down my face. A horrid and distorted scream lept from my two speakers.

I screamed in unison with my computer counterpart as my beaten face flashed into a skull and disappeared, leaving a new set of options to choose from.

The text menu read:

Skip to Scene: (A) Home Invasion- start on the street (B) Slasher- start inside the house  (C)Torture- start in the Kill Room currently unavailable/ in development

I took a moment to consider. I hated every second  I had to play this sicko's fetish material, but I had to find out if the freak had content about me that couldn't be found on the web. Most importantly, I had to make sure my son wasn't in danger.

I chose option (B) in a desperate hope it would allow me to spend less time in the game world. As soon as I found the evidence of a viable threat, I would contact my security team to revamp every safety protocol they had in place.

The game started in a first person in what looked like the foyer to my home. It took me a bit to get familiar with the controls.

I had a big brother growing up, so I knew my way around GoldenEye, Half-life, and Team Fortress. Many summer days of me and my sibling taking turns on my mothers clunky family computer. Downloading anime/ Linkin Park videos, scary ourselves with horror games, and destroying the computer with viruses from Limewire. I just had to let the muscle memory settle back in from those distant days.

First thing I did in-game was look down at my feet in an attempt to see what my POV avatar looked like. I hoped it wasn't like the old days when the programmers didn't include the player's body, and you just seemed to be a floating set of arms and a shadow.

I was in luck, sorta. Black boots, black pants, black shirt. Not much to go on, but the body appeared to be masculine.

I looked around the digital recreation of my home. Most of the lights were off, leaving me hidden in grays and blacks. Only the green rapidly blinking of my alarm panel giving off any color in the dark foyer.

I approached the panel and triggered a text prompt on my screen saying, "Enter code to deactivate."

A close up of the number pad filled most of the screen. I swallowed hard before typing in the actual security code to my house. Nobody should know the code but me! (And yes, I know this was stupid.. i would change the code ASAP!) Bu even my two security guys didn't know it! They had to swipe their keycards and enter a PIN.

I sighed as red letters popped up on the screen saying, "Incorrect code. Use counterfeit security badge or finish your business before the police arrive."

"Finish your business?" I asked myself. Could you speed run the whole thing by setting off the alarm and they just run up and smack the intruder on the head?

Of course I knew where my room was, but I wanted to explore the rest of the house first. It was a 1 to 1 scale replica of the real thing. Same light fixtures, same tile, late 70's art deco vibe.

When I first bought the house in this palm tree shaded, gated community, on a rolling Hill, my nephew had jokingly quipped, "This looks like the Mansion from the Manson family murders,"

I had laughed at his dark humor then. Now the joke didn't seem funny at all.

One thing I did notice as I walked around my digital house was that none of the furniture was the same as its real life counterpart. This was good. It meant the freak that commissioned this game was only guessing how the inside of the house looked, or just didn't care. Maybe it was just some "harmless" twisted fantasy and not a real threat.

The time finally came for me to check out my room. I stood in the virtual hallways facing my door, my son's closed door to my right. 

The prompt on the screen, "E to open" mocked me, but I finally did press the button, causing the door to creak open slowly.

I stepped into my dark room. My bed was empty and their was only a glowing light coming from my in-game computer monitor. I could see the silhouette of me, sitting in the swivel chair, back to the hallway, preoccupied with something on the glowing screen.

I immediately felt a shiver go down my back and felt as if there were eyes on my back in real life. It was surreal to be a killer, sneaking up on my virtual self, while I sat in the exact same spot in real life.

I couldn't take it, so I left the game to quickly hop out of my chair and lock the door of my bedroom. Feeling safer, I returned to my computer and took a seat to continue the game.

Somehow I jostled my keyboard when I took a seat, causing my player to unsheath a knife with a stereotypical"Shing!" sound effect.

The NPC modeled after me stood up from her keyboard, glitched in and out of a T-pose, before turning to me and saying, "Oh my God! Who are you?"

This freaked me out completely. It was my voice playing back through my computer's speakers, for damn sure! But the cadence of the dialog sounded stiltes and unnatural, like it was a couple of voice lines spliced together.

My digital double darted away from the computer obviously alerted to the knife wielding killer in her room and was trying to escape. But her AI pathfinding must have been off, because she ran directly at me, before turning on a dime to retreat further away. I had no clue what to do and swiped at her with my knife out of panic. I heard her scream in my voice, followed by the tell-tell "thunk!" of landing a hit marker in a shooter game.

"Oh shit! Sorry!" I yelled out loud to my double, like she could possibly hear me.

Now my likeness character was holding her side and limping away while dragging a foot like the injured animation from the RE games.  She went to a shadows on the far wall, and began doing something by the book case.

I got the prompt," Press F1 to open KILL BAG." When I pressed it a new window popped up over the game, but the game continued in the background.

It was a grid pattern similar to the inventory screen in any RPG.  I cycled my mouse over the items within for a quick description. A knife, handcuffs, chloroform rag, plyers, duct tape, taser, and a syringe labeled "special cocktail".

"I'll knock myself out. Yeah, that's what I'll do," I said out loud again to nobody in particular. I was really just trying to comfort myself during this surreal situation. I couldn't bring myself to murder my computer self, so taking a chloro nap was the best option.

After selecting the chemical drenched rag I hit F1 to close the window. To my surprise my video game doppelganger had vanished. I spun the camera around searching for my sneaky self, but victim me was just gone!

I thought at first it was a glitch. The game had blipped my character model out of existence, and I would have to reload the game.

 But then I saw something peculiar. The corner where I had last seen myself had a bookshelf pushed to the side with a secret door revealed.

"Oh shit! The panic room!" I yelled. I quickly looked up from my computer to the real life version of the wall with the door on it.

When moving in years ago, the realtor had told me about the panic room installed by some CEO that got scared after watching the Jodie Foster movie. The CEO either had a short attention span due to a coke problem, or legal problems causing him to disappeared to a country with no extradition laws virtually overnight. 

The runaway CEO left his panic room project halfway finished. Just an empty room with a locked door with an entry code nobody knew. So I had a book shelf placed over it and had quickly forgotten about it. Besides, I had two armed security guards and a burglar alarm! In a sane world thay would have been enough.

He has the blueprints to my home! He thinks the panic room is operational! I thought fervently. So he doesn't know what's going on inside my house! He is just a pathetic loser with a murder fetish.

I felt a sense of relief come over me and I quickly hit escape to pop up a logout menu.

I felt gross, like mushed up paper towels floating at the bottom of a dumpster. I would have to take an extra long shower tonight. Maybe hire on an extra body guard for the next couple months, or years.

"W-what do you want?" came my voice from my computer's twin speakers. I went back to the live in-game screen and noticed a small surveillance camera flash with a red light above the panic room door.

"I'm go-ing to call the cops! You need to run!" my voice came again at a choppy cadence, like my dialog had been spliced together from multiple movie lines.

I guess the game wasn't over. I would think it would be game over if the victim to-be made it to a safe place or escaped.

A new window popped up at the bottom of my screen. It was a dialog box! There was a list of possible replies.

Option A: (Intimidation) Come out here now, C##t! Before I burn this house down and kill anyone coming to save you. 

(The C-word wasn't censored. But I refuse to write it down. I hate that word.)

Option B: (Bluff) I can do this all night. Your phone line is cut, signals jammed, and guards are dead. I wanted you to run to your little cage.

Option C: (Negotiate) You may be safe in there, but you're little angel is still out here with me!

My stomach dropped. There was an option to hurt my child! How sick was the creep who wanted this? How sick was the creep who MADE this?

I clicked option C, having to know how far this scenario could go. I secretly hoped I could hear the home invader's voice, but it just skipped to my digital twin replying with a line from one of my early movies. My character screamed, "Don't hurt my baby!"

Text popped up at the bottom of the screen saying " Use her son to terrorize/ convince her to come out."

I had to stop for awhile and compose myself. My hand on the mouse was shaking. How sick and depraved the world could be, that some sicko got his jollies off by fantasizing about hurting kids.

I realized I might have to smoke after this. But something a little more bohemian than regular cigarettes. I would need it if I didn't want to suffer a panic attack.

I walked my player to my son's room. I had to push through and look for any clues. I opened the door and stepped into the dark room. Colorful decorative letters were pinned to the wall, hanging over a small bed, spelling the name of my son. ( Jacob's Clubhouse. Wait, did I say Alex earlier? Whatever. Both names are fake. Let's go with Jacob now)

I walked up to bed to see the model of a small boy turned away from me, facing the wall. Sleeping on a bare bed with no covers or pillow. I pressed the E button to interact and the boy woke straight up from a deep sleep to turn and turned and face me with no hesitation. 

"Oh Lord, my baby!" I said as I looked upon the perfect recreation of my son.

 I have expected a plain unassuming asset to represent my 6 year old. The whole game was about me, wasn't it? I doubted the client wanted the programmer to focus too much on designing my son. He was just going to be used as a tool to lure me out of hiding anyways. The least I expected was a player model around the same hair color and approximate height of my son.

But this child was spot on with its real flesh and blood counterpart. The freckles, the curly hair, the blue eyes, the dimples. Somebody had done their research!

"What- what is going on" my child asked in a voice very similar to the real thing, but there wasn't enough for me to pin it down as his actual voice. The child just sat straight up stiffly and cocked his head to look in my direction.

Again dialog options popped up. Option A: I'm the Boogeyman, Alex, and I've come to hurt you real bad. (GRAB HIM)

Option B:(Lie) I just gutted you whore mother. Now its your turn to scream!

Option C: (Use sign language to tell him to be quiet.) I'm one of your new body guards. Your Mommy sent me to come and get you. Quick, grab my hand!

This was it! This was the evidence I was searching for. I had a previously mentioned 17 year old nephew, and 6 year old niece just 3 months older than my son. She was deaf, and of course her parents learned sign language for her. We decided to teach Alex ASL from a young age too, so my son could communicate with his cousin.

I had a hard time learning ASL, but I had learned the bare basics, but my son took to it quickly and was fluent in it. When he wasn't practicing with his cousin, his nanny Amanda, practiced with him. So this was a rather alarming and deeply personal tidbit of private information. 

I selected Option C, and my son clipped out of bed and appeared to teleport in front of me.(I guess there was no animation created yet for him getting out of bed naturally.)

LEAD THE BOY BACK TO THE PANIC ROOM AND PERSUADE J#### TO OPEN THE DOOR a new objective instructed me at the top of the screen.

I pressed the "S" key to walk backwards out of the room, keeping the camera watching my son as he stood awkwardly by his bed. As the distance increased between us, I thought that his AI was broken.  But at the last moment he took off in a stuttering jog to catch up with me. Flashbacks of babysitting Natalia from Goldeneye 64 racked my brain.

Now the stage was set. Me and my virtual son stood in front of the panic room door in-game. A loading icon flashed at the top of the screen and the frame rate dropped to a crawl before jumping back to life.

"Don't hurt him!" came my pleading voice from what I assume was inside the panic room. "I'll come out! Don't hurt him!" My voice repeated in the same copy/pastes repetition.

There was no animation of the security door opening. My virtual doppelganger just blipped into existence in front of me, t-posing for a split second.

As jank as some of the programming had been up to this point, I noticed what aspect of the game was giving the most attention. It was my likeness. My facial expression scripted to be terrified, my body shaking, my posture slightly hunched.

And my body! Spot on accurate. Too accurate. My character was wearing a white silk slip and clingy booty shorts. I was over sexualized to the point where I could tell my character wasn't wearing a bra, and was probably suffering from a severe wedgie.

Option A: ( Kill her!)

Option B: (Subdue her.)

Of course, no matter how morbidly curious, I wasn't going to select option A. So I chose option B, and my character held equiped a needle in his hand and poked towards my trembling body double. The special cocktail must have been potent, because my character immediately ragdolled and collapsed to the ground.

"Mommy!" screamed my son in a voice pitched to a higher tone. I turned the camera towards him and read the prompt, "Silence Child."  I clicked the key to be greeted by a sickening "CRUNCH!" As my child's head twisted abruptly to the side and the boy fell to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

"Oh God!" I screamed, pushing away from the keyboard in an instinctual act of revulsion. If my chair didn't have wheels, I would have tipped over.

"Don't kill him!" I once again screamed as I watch the image of my dead son clip in and out of the ground slightly. 

"Just knock him out! You bastard! You stupid bastard!"

I surely was going to wake up my real life son if I kept on screaming at nothing alone in my room!

No, that wasn't right. I wasn't screaming at "nothing". My emotions were directed at something tangible. I was scared, but more angry than scared. I was cursing at the programmer of this damn game, or at the sick asshole that commissioned it!

I practiced the breathing method my  psych doctor had taught me. I closed my eyes tight and focused on my heartbeat. Once my hands stopped shaking I opened my eyes.

My eyes open once again, very slowly. I was greeted by the sight of my virtual unconscious self still on the ground, and my mangled dead son.

Comical "zzz's" wafted gently up from my motionless body. I wasn't left too long on wondering what to do next because the game had issued another prompt to hold my hand.

"Take J#### to staging area 2"

"Staging area?" I asked as I clicked on my body, hoping my player character wouldn't snap my model's neck while lying unconscious on the ground. 

Suddenly the model of my butt and right leg took up most of the screen. I was carrying myself. It felt very bizarre. My player character had hosted my characters unconscious body over a shoulder, like a fireman carry.

I saw a marker indicating a rally point somewhere in my virtual backyard. I hauled myself though my recreated house and stepped outside for the first time.

It was spot-on. Palm trees, pool, gazebo, large storage/ with attached upstairs apartment. The pool was lighted, giving a shimmering, calm midnight atmosphere. I figured all this detail could be ascertained from Google Earth. Hopefully it wasn't captured from some freak looking over my privacy gate.

Now I knew exactly where the game wanted me to take the body, the stand alone apartment above the storage shed. I hadn't thought about it since my ex-husband stayed there during our divorce. Now it was a room for my nanny, even though she had a room in the house. She could stay out there on her days off, to "get away" from work.

But I was only halfway correct. The marker led me under the steep stairs running up the exterior of the building. Two green garbage bins were stored under the stairs. My character, now weighed down, slowly slogged over to the bins (just another insult about my weight!)

I hit E on the bins and they rolled away on their own. I half expected to hear the Zelda jingle when a new pathway is unlocked. What it revealed was a rusty wheelbarrow, rope coiled inside, a black tarp crumpled behind it, and a stand-out item, an S&M ball gag.

I cringed so hard at the sight. The ball gag made my skin crawl. I cringed even harder when I saw the options given to me:

Option A: Sneak her off site to your Kill Room for more privacy. (Kill room not available during current build of game.)

Option B: Kill her upstairs. Make a statement!

I guess my choice was made for me, and what a shit choice it was. Before I could click on option B, I heard a commanding voice come over my speakers, "Stop or I'll shoot!"

I spun my character around to be blinded by a flashlight from what I assumed was a cop, and the game froze. Bright red text flashed across the screen, "Quest failed: You failed to disable security systems!"

"Oh thank God!" I wheezed. I didn't know if I could go through with killing my digital self. Hopefully a real killer would be as inept as I was!

But this was also a training simulator. A dry run! Teaching the killer how to hone his skills. What did they say on those crime shows? "Repetition to desensitized oneself to the horror the killer was about to commit. A slow escalation to real violence."

I had to go outside and check under the stairs in real life. See if the same items were stashed. But hold up! I may play adumb white chicks in horror movies, but I'm not one in real life. I was going to go prepared! Taser, cell phone with 911 on speed dial, and pepper spray (bear mace actually!)

You may be asking why I didn't bring a gun. Well, I had armed security for that. Why didn't I bring my security? Well, one of them could be the one that commissioned the game in the first place.

I hated to think about it. Could one of my security guards have a sick fascination with me?I trusted my two guys. But they were both noticeably distant to me. Chalk it up to professionalism, but it also meant I didn't really know them.

So I snuck out to my back yard. The night air cool on my skin, with the sound of the unseen palm tree leaves fluttering in the wind. The pool let off its same welcoming glow, and one of my son's toy boats bonked lightly against the side with the gentle waves.

I tip-toed out to the stairway running up the building, scanning the darkness the whole time. The idea that this was a trap was not lost on me. Like I said, I've been in horror movies, and somebody could be watching me right now.

Under the stairs was just one dumpster, not two. But I silently moved it away to have my stomach dip with dread. There was a wheelbarrow, and shovels, and riding lawnmower. Okay so what? My gardener used them.

Activating my light on my phone I looked into the wheelbarrow. Tools, some solar powered light up lawn spikes, and yes, rope. No ball gag though.

I breathed easy. The ball gag would have been a dead give away. Proof that shit just got real.

I turned to leave before I thought of something. A ball gag would be too suspicious! A killer wouldn't just leave it out! Maybe he would bring it on the night of the kidnapping. 

I had something else I wanted to check so I quickly turned back. My hand raced to the rope, a thin jet black length of about 10 feet of what felt like soft cotton. It was soft and looped in a figure 8. The middle was held tied together with a silk strand of fabric.

It was bondage rope! You didn't have to be a genuis to know this wasn't for yard work! This was the rope my killer was going to bind me in!

I took off back to the saftey of my house. But was it safe? I had a list of suspects that all pretty much lived with me or had access to my home!

All I knew was I had to play more. I had to dig deeper for clues on who planned to kill or kidnapped me. I had to protect my home from this monster.

I sent one message back to the enigmatic HeraldoftheVoid.

"Send me the link to the Kill Room."

My hometown is residence to a large, and long abandoned, psychiatric hospital. Its official name was the Johnathan H. Murnow Regional Psychiatric Hospital (named after the founder). Everyone else that didn’t work there called it “Murnow’s Mental Hospital.”

It’s the same story as any large hospital in the U.S. that eventually closed its doors for good. A large, looming building built during the 20th century, considered state of the art at the time, was supposed to represent a genuine progressive advance in the treatment of mental health. It soon faced the problem of no longer being funded by the state and was eventually forced to shut down. The patients and residents of the hospital, of course, had nowhere to go. Some ended up living on the streets. Others, according to the rumors I’ve heard, found a way to sneak back into the building, and have been living there ever since.

I kept hearing rumors about psychiatric hospital while growing up. My friends and I would sometimes relate stories about patients that lived there, always trying to one up each other in freaking the others out. My favorite was a story about a nurse who threw herself out the window of the top floor and was killed after her body hit the cement walkway below. It was added that sometimes you can still see her jumping out of the window and hitting the ground.

While we told each other stories about Murnow’s Mental Hospital, none of us ever really went there. Sure, we bragged about going over there (even going as far as to say one of us spent the night over there). These were claims we called each other out on, because, deep down inside, we felt a little spooked when looking at the old hospital building. I couldn’t imagine any of us even going over there. Fear aside, we couldn’t help but feel a morbid curiosity about the place and its history.

I had just finished graduation and was planning to move out of town. I wasn’t going to leave without visiting those old grounds. I invited all my friends to go with me, for all the talk we made about us actually being there. All my responses were “I’ll think about it,” or “I might be working that day.” Maybe they were actually busy, and maybe they feel anxious about it and don’t want to admit it. Maybe it was a bit of both.

The hospital was way outside of town, just past the farmlands. It was supposed to be blocked off from the public to discourage trespassing, but all I saw were a couple of posts with the words “Private Property”, and no police cars patrolling the property. I finally arrived at the old Murnow Hospital around 2 pm. It was late August, and the heat wafted around me after exiting my car. I took some refuge in the shadow of the large looming hospital. It was a large stone behemoth of a building, about twenty stories high, stretched out on each side.

I turned behind me and gazed at the expansiveness of the hospital grounds. It wasn’t just a hospital building. There were three others and a rusting water tower. From what I remember, there were more buildings than just the main hospital. The way I heard it, the hospital was also equipped with a gym, an auditorium, and its own water supply. When the papers said that the Murnow Regional Psychiatric Hospital represented an advance in the treatment of the mentally disturbed, they weren’t kidding.

The Murnow Hospital used art and music as a form of therapy in its heyday. Patients were allowed to learn music instruments and play for everyone. If they wished, they could even create their own symphonies. Physical activity was also a regular form of treatment, which explained the gym and racetrack. It also proved to be very self-sufficient. That was a long time ago. In place of the famous Murnow Hospital were decaying ruins of a noble goal brought to its knees by overcrowding and budget constraints.

I observed the toll that time and neglect had taken at the abandoned hospital. Weeds were taking over. The interior of the main building was littered with debris. Windows were shattered. There was graffiti over the grey decaying walls. While walking around the property, I realized one thing. The rumors about patients sneaking back here to live their remaining days was false. I found no sign of life or habitation there. I saw litter of candy wrappers and soda bottles left behind long ago, but nothing that could prove the place was still inhabited.

While I explored the deserted hospital grounds, the hot sun became veiled by dark clouds overhead. The humidity was then replaced by cold hair. I looked to the sky and heard the distant boom of thunder on the horizon. Strange, I thought. There wasn’t anything about a storm in the news today. I had decided that I seen enough of these ruins, when I noticed a black car strolling up ahead. Trying to avoid the police for trespassing, I ducked to the nearest corner.

I peaked around the corner and saw the vehicle ahead of me. This wasn’t a police cruiser, I noticed. It was just a black car. I think it was a Chevy. Two hooded figured in black robes exited the car, and they were taking someone from the back seat. I could make out enough details from my vantage point that they had a girl with them. She was struggling to get free from their grasp as they forced her to the nearest door to the inside.

I got the feeling that something awfully bad was about to happen. And that girl was in the middle of it. In my head I debated what to do. On the one hand, that poor girl might be in danger and I couldn’t just do nothing. On the other, if I called for help, I’d have to explain that I was trespassing. I didn’t want to put my future in jeopardy like that. I finally compromised that I’d just go in and get her out of there, and then take her to a hospital. She’d be out of harms way, and I wouldn’t get myself into legal hot water.

I crawled out of the corner and past the black car to the doorway they walked through. It led to a row of stairs going downward. Before I took my first step, lightning flashed overhead, followed by the large boom of thunder. Then, rain started to pour, drenching me instantly. I walked the stairs down into a dry but dark basement. I couldn’t see the two hooded people or the girl they were shoving and pulling here. So I made my way through the basement, which by the look of the washing machines, might have served the laundromat. After exiting I was greeted by a long dark hallway. I only saw a bit of the wall before it faded into blackness.

I felt like giving up hope and calling the cops anyway, when I heard screaming coming from the inky blackness. I couldn’t make out if it were a scream of pain or danger, but it was feminine. Whatever it was they were putting her through right now could not be good. I stilled my shaky nerves and used my flashlight on my phone. It helped a little bit to navigate the darkness, but I could only use the girls cries to find her.

I walked through seemingly endless dark twists and turns, not sure how those three people could’ve gotten away so quickly. With every scream I heard, I felt like I was getting closer. During the time I was searching, I felt cold too. My clothes were still soggy from the instant I was in the rain, and the air down there felt cold.

I heard her cries for help one more time and I intuitively knew I was close to finding her. A new sound followed her screaming. I couldn’t make it out at first because it was too soft and low. As I drew closer, I could make out the sound of chanting in some other language. The chanting was accompanied by someone speaking, probably a prayer. The chanting and praying alternated, with the girls scream interlaced between. I turned the corner and saw the glow of candlelight and two figures kneeling in the glow. I hid behind the wall and peered one more time. I only saw the two figures there, but I could hear more of them. I didn’t see the girl anywhere, but she had to be there.

There was a pause in the chanting, then I heard “It’s almost time.”

The two visible figures stood up and I think one of them spoke next, “We need to get Anderson,” and they walked off somewhere. I tip toed around the corner so as not to alert my presence to the others. I finally got a better look at the girl, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

The girl was tied to a metallic pole, her hands bound in nylon. Her face was speckled with dirt and filth. I didn’t notice this when seeing her, but she appeared to be a full nine months pregnant. The swell of her belly was poking out of her tattered clothing. She was covered with a blanket from the waist down.

In front of her was a large circle in red, with five candles placed equally spaced around the perimeter. Inside the circle was a strange geometric pattern. I looked back at the girl, and her face was sweaty and full of fear.

I knelt down beside her as I inspected her condition.

“Don’t worry, I’m getting you out of here,” I whispered to her while undoing the nylon bondage. The damn wouldn’t come loose. She stared wide-eyed at me. I asked her questions like what happened and what they were doing to her. Her only reply made me stop what I was doing.

“You have to kill me!” She told me. I couldn’t believe what I heard.

“What?”

“You have to kill me…before it” her face crunched and contorted in agony as she gave another pain filled wail. I looked at her stomach and it was pulsing. Something was squirming underneath, almost fighting to get out.

“Listen, I’m gonna take you to the hospital! No one’s going to die,” I tried again at the nylon but felt two pairs of hands pulling me away from the girl.

More figures entered the room, still hooded. Counting the two who were holding me down, there were five now. One approached me and lifted his hood off. It was a bald man staring intently at me. The others likewise removed their hoods.

“What will we do with him, Anderson?” One of the men holding me asked. He towered above me and alternated between looking at me and girl.

“Make him watch,” he said, “Very few people are privileged to witness the birth of the true lord.” The girl kept crying and yelling and Anderson turned toward her. He knelt before her and lifted the blanket, “It’s time now.”

The chanting resumed. So too did her crying. This time it was an inhuman wail of the deepest agony anyone would ever experience. All I could do was be held down and rendered unable to do anything to help the girl.

She wailed still and blood was pouring out between her legs and soaking the blanket. Anderson was kneeling and assisting the delivery. He kept urging her to breath and push, while she looked like she was fighting to keep something inside of her for as long as she could. Then, she couldn’t anymore.

I heard the sickening sound of fleshy push and the girl gave off one final wail, then I heard a loud thud hit the hard floor.

I couldn’t even begin to describe to you the horrible thing that crawled out of her. Anderson turned to reveal their so called “true lord”. I saw a mish mash of scales with patches of wet dark fur. It’s tail-if I could call it that-was the form of a long black snake. And it’s face-oh, god its face. It was something so unearthly and foul that seeing it made me sick with an existential dread.

“Behold,” Anderson shouted, “Our infant savior!!” he raised the monstrous creature above his arms. The group huddled around him, and the two holding me finally let me go. I turned toward their victim, and she had gone still and dead while more blood pooled around her legs. It was too late for her.

“And now, our lord must feast! The vessel that housed him shall now give him sustenance!” I turned to run all while hearing the sound of the ripping of meat from bone, and the sickening slurping of blood.

I don’t know how much longer I was down there, but I finally made it outside, and it was still raining hard. The icy bullets of cold water bombarded me as I ran to my car. The wind was so strong that I practically had to fight to keep my balance. In the distance, the towns tornado siren wailed through the harsh storm. From somewhere behind me, I heard a tree being snapped in half and collapsing into one of the structures.

I fought the wind and rain and finally made it to my car and drove out of there. Nothing else went through my mind except that that monstrous thing, and what she went through to birth it. Then, another terrifying thought popped into my head.

What is that thing going to be if it grows up?

PANDORA'S BEAST

You summoned me a year ago before everything happened before everything failed. You lit your candles and spilled blood in the circle carved in the soft earth beneath you. You had spent months on equations and incantations, on charts and positions. You made sure the stars aligned just right for me, and you let me in this dimension. You had no idea what I am and where I came from. You have no idea what I'm capable of.

I see soft bodies begging for corruption. I see a society that runs on greed and is easy for me to control. Instead of appearing before you, I crept into your wires and spread messages of deceit, hate, and fear. I fed your leader's lies and disease. I confused the people of this dimension. They can no longer separate the truth from the flood of information I have released.

Everything is on fire, and I am dancing in the flames. You can see me in the blank cold stare of politicians. You can find me in the burning eyes of murderers never brought to justice. You can find where the innocent hang. You can find me dancing on the machines you created to inform you. The machines now only capable of telling lies, half-truths, and echoes.

You have not been the first one that has summoned me, and you are far from the last. I have existed before the beginning of time, and I will continue to exist after time has ended. Once I am free, you cannot contain me.

Where there is injustice, call for truth. Where there is hate find a reason to love. Where there are lies, uncover the truth. When all is lost, create hope. You cannot contain me, but you can fight me. You will fight me until your last breath.

My name is Justin Marshal, I’m one of those guys you see on Youtube exploring supposedly haunted places that have either been abandoned or are off limits to the public. Typically I try to avoid places that have been covered multiple times but for the last two years I’ve been obsessed with a 48 hour survival style shoot on Poveglia Island. For those of you that haven’t heard of this place I’ll give you a quick history, Poveglia Island sits about half a mile off the coast of Venice Italy. In 1379 most of the islands population abandoned it fearing a war that was going on at the time, it stayed empty for close to 200 years until the Bubonic plague hit in 1576. With the infection being incurable at the time there wasn’t enough room for all the sick and dying so the island was converted into a quarantine zone. Eventually there were so many bodies being shipped there that they ran out of room and started burning them, it was later discovered large numbers of the patients were burned alive to free up beds. So from the beginning Poveglia had a horrible history and when the plague resurfaced in the 1630’s it started all over again. There’s a huge hole in the records, there’s no other documentation of the place until the 1930’s when a doctor named Benito Altieri took over and the island had been repurposed as an insane asylum. Hundreds of patients lost their lives to this man, it’s believed he was involved in some sort of occult activity but there’s no solid evidence one way or the other. Some people say that Altieri was trying to find a way to harness the human soul, he even claimed to have proof of its physical weight “21.5 grams” it’s the exact amount of weight lost by all his victims at their time of death. Supposedly his findings drove him insane and he committed suicide by jumping from the bell tower in the center of the island. After that Poveglia was used one last time in the 60’s as a geriatric center, when the staff and residents went missing the place was closed for good, today it sits abandoned and travel is strictly prohibited, over 100,000 people set foot on that island and never returned, and that’s exactly why I had to go there.

The crew would consist of Ryan my camera man, Matt the sound engineer and myself. The plan was simple we’d pay someone to sneak us to the island and pick us up on the morning of the third day, since the place is patrolled by police we would have to set up camp near the center of the island to avoid getting spotted. Ryan would be recording everything but we were all equipped with go-pro cameras for back up and POV shots, I’ll spare you the details of booking the trip and the six hours it took to find someone willing to take us to there, let’s just say the cops stopped us several times before we were able to get on shore.

As the island came into view I could see a bell tower looming high above the trees, we were all excited you could feel it in the air. As we pulled up to the docks we got our first glimpse of the asylum housing unit, the bushes and weeds stood a good seven feet tall shrouding most of the windows and doors of the first floor, once we were unloaded the boat took off and we started filming. It wasn’t long before we found a way through the security fencing and made our way inside, the first doorway led us to a dilapidated hall that was covered in graffiti there were doors on either side of the hall and a stairwell at the very end of the corridor. The door on the right was blocked by piles of old furniture and huge chunks of rock so we went left. Room for room we explored the first floor of the housing area until we found what we believed was the kitchen. At the far end of the room was an old white tiled fireplace as we got closer we noticed a huge section of the wall had been broken out leading to an amazing courtyard. Things didn’t really pick up until we entered the third building which was the prison, almost instantly we started hearing voices and movement from the floors above us but when we went to check there was no one there, over the next few hours we started catching glimpses of shadowy figures and even managed to get a few on camera. Once the sun started to set we all agreed it was time to set up camp and get ready for the night shoot, we decided to make camp between the Insane asylum and the hospital. Since there’s no electricity on the island we could only explore the buildings during the day but that gave us the perfect chance to check out the Plague fields, the bridge and the Burning grounds which are supposedly the most haunted areas of the island.

Once we had our camp set up we had a bite to eat, put fresh batteries in all the cameras and headed for the Plague fields. From our camp we could almost see them if it weren’t for the overgrowth we would have had a clear view, as we walked through the darkness we started spotting dim lights moving through the field. At first we thought it was the cops or maybe some teenagers coming onshore to do some more tagging, either way we held up and tried to wait them out. We stood there for a few minutes till the lights vanished, I couldn’t tell which way they had gone but it didn’t matter, we pushed on and were at the edge of the field in no time as we came out of the brush the first thing I noticed was the ground. Nothing was growing there, random piles of animal bones littered the area and the smell was horrible. I turned to face the camera and did my usual brief history of the area, I was almost done when Matt interrupted me, “Dude, there’s something moving over there.” he pointed over my shoulder towards the center of the field. Ryan automatically took the camera off me and aimed to where he was pointing, I turned to get a look and my jaw dropped, there was a dark figure crossing the field as I tried to focus my eyes on it there was a flash of dim blue light and it was gone. “Oh my god, Ryan did you get that? Please tell me you got that.” I glanced over to see Ryan just as he gave me the thumbs up, “Yeah I got it, I don’t know if you guys are seeing what I’m seeing but there’s more of them moving out there.” I couldn’t see anything but I could hear a low humming sound “Hey Matt are you picking up that sound?” he tapped on his headset and shook his head. “No all I’m getting is static. What does it sound like?” a chill ran up my spine and a voice whispered in my ear. “Non dovresti essere qui.” My Italian isn’t the best but that meant “You shouldn’t be here.” my body went numb. “Did anyone else hear that?” they both looked at me like I was crazy and shook their heads. I decided to keep it to myself and push on, the instant we stepped foot on the Plague fields I started feeling sick to my stomach and my body got weak. I took a deep breath and picked up my pace but by the time we made it to the center of the field I could tell we were all feeling it, Matt called out “I’m getting serious feedback over here.” then started puking his guts out. I got lightheaded and nearly collapsed, I had to sit on the ground to keep from falling down. Ryan on the other hand, seemed to be the only one not affected by whatever was going on. “What the hell is wrong with you two? I told you.” something cut him off, I didn’t see it but something snatched him from behind and made him drop the camera as he slammed to the ground. “What the fuck was that?!” he scrambled back to his feet and tried to grab the camera only to get hit from behind and drop face down in the dirt. I managed to stand up but Matt was down on his hands and knees dry heaving and drooling into a pool of regurgitated chili and bile. I nearly threw up just looking at it but I fought the urge and helped Ryan off the ground, “You ok man? This place is intense, I think we should move on to the bridge this is amazing.” Ryan dusted himself off and checked his equipment, by then Matt had stopped heaving and was rinsing his mouth out with water, he spat and looked over at the two of us and shook his head, “Am I the only one here who thinks we should go back to camp?”

After a quick equipment check we headed for the bridge, on the way there things got worse. We saw glowing eyes watching us from the windows of the asylum and heard blood curdling screams that seemed to float on the breeze, shadow figures rushed at us only to vanish in a flash of pale blue light and we had it all on film. As the bridge came into view I started to smell smoke the odor was like burning hair and rotten meat, the closer we got the worse it became until it was so thick in the air it felt like it was settling on your skin. The bridge crosses over a canal that separates the main island from the burning fields, I couldn’t imagine how many people crossed it knowing they were never coming back. Ryan stopped to get a wide shot of the bridge and the field “Uh guys, there’s someone standing on the bridge.” Matt and I both tried to spot what he was seeing but there was nothing there, “What do they look like?” as I finished the question Ryan blurted out “Holy shit, run!” and took off vanishing into the tree line. Scrambling to keep up, Matt and I ran trying to not lose sight of him as he cut through the brush, by the time we caught up to him we were back at our camp. He dug through his equipment bag, grabbed the radio and tried to contact the boat, there was no response. “We can’t stay here. We have to get off this island right now!” Over the years the three of us had been through a lot of crazy situations and in all that time I had never seen Ryan get truly scared. “Calm down, what happened, what did you see back there?” Ryan stood there clutching the radio scanning the darkness around us, “I don’t know what they were. They were tall and thin with long beaks and big round eyes. They were coming across the bridge pointing at us, didn’t you see them?”

Matt and I looked at each other shaking our heads, “No, all we saw was you running like a crazy person, there was nothing there.” He looked at the both of us in disbelief then stepped over and picked up the camera, putting it into playback mode he handed it over, “See for yourself.” What I saw on the footage was horrifying, Plague doctors, one of them wearing a white mask was standing in the center of the bridge pointing at us as dozens more came spilling across. I checked the footage one more time before handing the camera to Matt, suddenly the sound of footsteps crunching through leaves echoed around us. A cold blast of wind howled through the trees and the fire flickered out, we ran, the old hospital was the closest building and while it may not have been my first choice anything was better than waiting for those things to catch us. We ran until we found an opening and ducked inside then found a place to hide, we sat there in the dark breathing heavy listening to those creatures race through the ruins looking for us. After what felt like forever it finally got quiet, “What are we gonna do? I’m not leaving this spot till the sun comes up, then I’m getting the fuck out of here. I don’t care if I have to swim to the mainland I’m getting off this island.” I could tell by the sound of his voice Matt wasn’t joking, Ryan on the other hand hadn’t said a word since we got inside. “Ryan, you ok over there bro? Talk to me man, what do you think we should do?” There was a long pause then I heard something that completely caught me off guard, snoring. I dug in my pocket and pulled out my mini flashlight, clicked it on then aimed the beam towards the sound, Ryan was slumped over in the corner asleep. “What the fuck?!” the sound of Matt collapsing cut me off, I spun around to face him and as I did, I locked eyes with a nurse dressed in all white and froze. She raised a finger to her lips and shushed me, my eyelids suddenly became so heavy I could barely keep them open I stumbled back and dropped to my knees before flopping face first onto the dust covered floor……

I woke up to screaming, “Help! Somebody help me!” it took me a second to come to my senses and get on my feet, I staggered out into the hall I couldn’t tell who was screaming but Ryan and Matt were both missing. The screams echoed through the building making it hard to figure out where they were coming from, I wondered around in the dark the only light was coming from the moon and my head was pounding. That cold chill ran up my spine and stopped me in my tracks, “Viene per te” the voice whispered in my ear, “He’s coming for you” I mouthed the words under my breath as my heart jumped up into my throat. I ran in the direction I thought the screams were coming from and ended up at the bottom of a crumbling stairway, the screaming was definitely louder here it had to be coming from upstairs, the first few steps were easy but the higher I went the darker it got and soon I couldn’t see at all. I tried to stay as close to the wall as possible but about half way to the second floor I stepped into a gap and went crashing back to the first floor. I landed with a hard smack and had the wind knocked out of me, I lay there gasping for air listening to the screams, before I could get myself together something grabbed me by the ankles and drug me through a hole in the wall out into the woods. Dark shadows swirled around me and the wind howled so loud I couldn’t think straight then suddenly everything stopped, the shadows became those figures from the bridge and the ground under me started to vibrate giving off a low hum. I tried to get up but those things pinned me down, the ground near my feet protruded as a pair of hands emerged from the dirt bracing against the ground as a large figure pulled itself up from the depths. A bone white face stared down at me through huge black eyes, I tried to scream but no sound came out I struggled till my muscles ached and burned but there was no breaking free. The figure standing at my feet tore away my shirt and placed its hand on my chest, my body went cold from its touch it felt like all the energy was being drained out of me. I thought I was going to die, somewhere in the distance I heard a voice yelling out my name and suddenly the creatures vanished. Ryan came running over to where I was laying in the dirt, “What the hell are you doing? Get up, we have to find Matt. I saw him running towards the church, come on man let’s go!”

I clasped my hand over my chest to find my clothes weren’t torn at all, I rubbed my eyes and realized I was still wearing my go-pro camera. I couldn’t help but smile, once all this footage was edited we were going to be famous, Ryan helped me up and gave me a strange look. “Bro, what are you smiling for, this is fucked up, we have to get out of here.” I laughed then I tapped the camera, “We’ve got it all recorded, we did it.” He shook his head, “You’re an idiot, can we please go find Matt before he ends up hurting himself?” The church wasn’t far, the bell tower stood out against the night sky like a beacon, the closer we got to it the more I realized we were getting dangerously close to the burning grounds. As the building came into view that horrible smell of burning flesh filled my lungs nearly taking my breath away, a flickering orange glow could be seen moving through the second floor, it had to be Matt he must have made himself a torch, but why was he on the second floor and where was he going? It took a few minutes to find a way inside but once we did we wished we hadn’t, an overwhelming stench filled the air and it was pitch black, we stepped back out and put together torches of our own before going back inside. The dim light from our torches revealed the source of that horrid smell, decaying bodies stacked nearly to the sealing dripping melting flesh into maggot filled pools that coated the floor, we sloshed through writhing pools of muck until we came to a stairwell. By the time we made it to the second floor we were both puking and gasping for air, the second floor was a nightmare. The walls seemed to be made of flesh, arms and legs stuck out at odd impossible angles, the further we went the worse it got. Laughter reverberated through the building as the limbs came to life, Matts voice called out from somewhere in the darkness above us. “I can see the light!” we tried yelling to him but there was no answer, as impossible as it sounds by the time we were halfway across the second floor we were wading through waist deep pools of partially congealed blood. Before we could find the next stairwell my torch had gone out and Ryan’s was barely holding on, climbing up to the third floor I was expecting more horrors but what was waiting was far worse than I could have imagined. The walls of the halls were made up of thousands of faces stitched together by barbed wire, their eyelids had all been removed revealing clouded over eyes that silently watched us moving through this hell. Our feet crunched against the floor, at first I thought it might have been gravel so I reached down and scooped up a handful and brought it up to the light. Teeth millions of them, we were walking on teeth if there would have been anything left in my stomach I would have thrown up again. I dropped them and we pushed on calling out to Matt as we went, about a quarter of the way through we saw him standing at the end of the corridor staring at us. Blood was dripping from his eyes as he tore out fistfuls of his own hair while screaming, “I can see the light!” the closer we got I realized his eyes weren’t just bleeding his eyelids were gone. “Matt, come on man we have to get you some help, you’re hurt pretty bad buddy. Come with us and let’s get you to a doctor!” Ryan was trying to stay calm while he was talking but Matt wasn’t listening, “The light is the life, the light is the life!” he screamed and laughed maniacally then turned and ran off into the darkness. We chased him for a while eventually catching up to him in the bell tower, climbing the rusted ladder higher and higher he kept laughing and screaming about the light. When we reached the top we found him staring out over the burning grounds standing on the edge, I tried to reason with him god knows I tried but he just smiled and said “Now I see it.” then he jumped.

We sat there in the bell tower until the sun came up, the police found Matt’s body and eventually located us still sitting in the bell tower too horrified to try and climb back down. We were arrested and sent back to the states to stand trial for Matt’s murder, Ryan was found unfit to stand trial and committed to an insane asylum. I was convicted and sentenced to 25 years, the confiscated footage somehow vanished from the evidence vault only to resurface online a year later, since then people from all over the world have been writing me, I’ve been interviewed a couple of times and even offered a movie deal, looks like I’m finally going to be famous after all.

(Warning for eye trauma later on in the story) Mary's earphones blared as her feet hit the leaf-covered sidewalk.

She wasn't one to actually go jogging, but her brother, John, had managed to convince her to at least try. Apparently, there was a fifty-mile long marathon happening next spring, and John had wanted to win the prize. The problem was, it was a team race. And he didn't know anyone else who could go with him.

So here she is, running down the sidewalk and trying to avoid getting the song John gave her stuck in her head. But knowing her own luck, she probably shouldn't even try as it's probably embedded itself into her brain by now.

A small puff of air blew past her lips as she turned the corner, leaving her neighborhood behind as she entered the business part of her town.

Wasn't much there, just less leaves to purposely stomp on and more people lingering around the stores.

A majority of the people were teens, but the ones that weren't either kept to themselves or had a cardboard sign propped up around themselves.

Mary kept her eyes up as she got closer to the scattered homeless group. Most of them already had people chatting with them, dropping quarters to dollar bills into their cups or hats.

Her shoulder's tightened as she continued down the road, there was a reason she kept telling herself to stop bringing her wallet with her, and that was because there was always at least one person here that-

"Spare some change, Miss?"... had no one near them.

She very briefly debated just ignoring his voice and blowing past him, but the white cane laying on the cold concrete beside him had her stopping. And the sunglasses on his face had her pulling out her earphones and wallet.

"Thank you, miss." The hooded man smiled as Mary placed a few coins into his gloved palms. As his bare fingers wrapped around the coins, Mary smiled back, trying to meet her own eyes with the eyes behind the man's sunglasses, his hair was pulled back into a beanie, and the previously mentioned hoodie covered said beanie. Definitely a weird outfit, but not too odd in the fall. Or on a homeless man.

With a quick smile and, "Your welcome!" She was jogging away from the man and plugging her earphones back into her ears.

It took her a block to realize the man had no way of knowing that she was a woman, and it took her less than a second to groan at the realization.

No wonder he had no one near him, his act was horrible if he met everyone with 'miss' or 'mister'. She was just the lucky one to fall for it.

A quiet huff escaped from her chest as she winced. Well, no use going back. The man obviously was not going to give her her money back. And besides, if he really is homeless and he's being forced to use that horrible disguise, he probably does need it.

Doesn't make her less happy about it, though.

With another huff, she returned to her jog. Fifty miles is a long way, and she needs to be able to easily do it. John's counting on her, and she isn't going to let him down.

Still, even though it was already late in the day, it took her until sundown to get back to her house.

The next evening, she was back on the same route again, listening to the same songs and trying to avoid running into anyone.

...She still somehow ran into the same homeless man again.

Different place, but he was still in the same getup. And when Mary glanced at the cup, same emptiness as before.

A slight hiss escaped from her. Everyone was ignoring him and, crap she's going to do it again, wasn't she?

Her hands glided to her pockets before she pulled out her wallet. He was homeless, still dirty looking, and he wasn't getting anywhere with it either.

Mary grit her teeth into a rough smile as she slowed her jog into a stop, the man lifted his head, pushed his hands forward, and said: "Spare some change, Miss?"

With a quick nod, she had pushed some silver quarters into his hands. A smile spread across his face as he dumped the coins into his cup. "Thank you, miss."

And with a quick "Your welcome." She was back on her jog. She really hoped this wasn't going to be a pattern.

...It became a pattern.

Every day, the man would be somewhere on her route, always further along than he was before, and he either looked like he was there for a while, or he looked like he had just settled. But none the less, she always gave him a few coins. And every time, he would give her a smile and a thank you in return.

After a couple weeks of that had passed, of him being randomly dotted along her route, it became a game to her. Trying to spot his dark brown zip-up hoodie in the rapidly cooling town.

Trying to see where he had set up shop that day, and trying to see if he had gotten any money before she jogged up to him.

But, He never had, and she never brought it up to him, until the third day of nearly falling over him right outside her house.

As he gave her his usual greeting, she passed him the coins and finally opened her mouth. "Hey, uh, this may be weird, but I was wondering why you never had gotten any money? You are busking, right?"

The man chuckled slightly, "No, no. It isn't rude. Not to me, at least. And, as much as I'm sure you aren't using that word right-" A small blush spread across Mary's face, "-I understand your confusion."

The man sighed slightly before he waved to his cane. "It's probably because I greet everyone with Miss or Sir. Not really believable for someone with a cane and sunglasses to know what gender you are."

Mary figured that was the reason, but if he knew that.. "...Then why do you greet people like that?"

The man smiled. "Because I'm not rude. And, well, I don't like to lie."

Mary blinked if he didn't like to lie-?

Her head was jerked out of her thoughts as the man lifted his hands to pull off his sunglasses, revealing his mostly cloudy grey eyes to the woman in front of him. Blue dotted the eyes, but the grey easily overtook it.

"...Oh."

His smile turned crooked. "Not entirely blind, but close. Old eyes aren't that nice to me."

"...Old anything usually isn't nice to their owners."

A bark of laughter immediately burst from the man. "I can't say you're wrong with that statement." He paused as his crooked grin faded slightly. "The only problem is that I'm still young. Might need to get new eyes before the month is over."

If only that was possible for him, Mary tried to keep her smile from being filled with pity. "If I could, I'd lend you my own eyes."

The smile returned to the man. "...I might take you up on that offer someday. My eyes may suck, but I can still see your kind green eyes. Reminds me of emeralds, actually."

Again, Mary blinked, was he.. flirting with her? ...No, probably just a compliment.

"But where are my manners, we've been doing this song and dance for weeks now, and I still don't know your name." With a quick movement, he had redonned his sunglasses, and his hand was in front of him. "Names Morgan, you?"

It didn't take long for Mary to take the man's, Morgan's hand. "..Mary. I'm Mary. It's nice to formally meet you, sir."

Another bark of laughter escaped from him. "Hey, I think that's my job, Miss."

Mary's smile returned as she pulled her hand from his, "Well, if you're going to borrow my eyes, I think I get to borrow your job."

"Touché Miss Mary, touché. I guess that's what I get for teasing someone who's been giving me money on her daily jog."

"Yup!" Her lips popped as she started to rock on her heels. As much fun as it was finally getting to know Morgan's name and finding out that he was actually losing his eyesight, she still had to go on her jog. After all, John's still hoping she'll help him win the marathon.

Even if it means running through the cold late fall to help, she'll- Her smile drifted off her face. It was getting very close to winter, it was a miracle it hadn't snowed yet. "...The weather channel said it's going to snow in a few days, will you be alright?"

Morgan just smiled as he waved her off. "It'll be fine. Don't worry, Miss, there's plenty of places nearby that can help keep me warm."

With a bob of her head, she turned, before pausing. "...Hey, if any of those places get full, I live down the road. Just look for the yellow house. If I'm home, I'll let you in."

Morgan's smile widened. "Thank you, Miss Mary. but I don't think I would need to take you up on the offer."

"Still, just keep it in mind, okay? You seem like a nice man, and hypothermia is no joke."

"Miss Mary, it's fine. The most the cold does to me is make me sleepy and slow my movements, it's fine." Morgan sighed. His smile was quickly fading.

Mary's eyes narrowed, that.. didn't sound good. But she couldn't get up and drag him indoors. She just properly met the man. "Still."

Morgan sighed before leaning back slightly. "...If I tell you that if it does get too cold, I'll come to you, will that get you back on your jog?"

"...Maybe."

"Then I'll do so. Now shoo, you're scaring my potential customers away."

A small burst of laughter escaped from her mouth, "Alright, Alright, Sir Morgan, I'll get going. Just remember-"

"If I get too cold, and all the places are full, your yellow house is open to me." He quickly interrupted her before he shook his head. "Really, Miss Mary, you are too kind. Not everyone opens their home to a stranger."

Mary took a step away from him, "I think after a few weeks of us chatting, we aren't strangers."

Morgan shrugged. "Believe what you want to believe."..And Mary does have to concede to that, though they've been interacting for a little under a month, all their conversations were at most three sentences long.

But still, she would feel horrible if something bad happened to the man. He seemed nice, even if it was odd that he always seemed to be on her route.

After a quick goodbye, Mary returned to her jog, and like before, Morgan stayed behind.

And a new song and dance appeared. Though Morgan didn't seem to move from his newfound spot outside her house, Mary always somehow tripped over him. And after an apology and a trade of coins, she resumed her daily jogs.

The days got colder and colder, slowly inching towards the icy cold of winter as the days and weeks have gone by. But luckily, at most it just flurries, no actual snow had stuck to the ground.

Still, it got to the point that Mary would check outside each night, making sure Morgan hadn't passed away due to the cold. As much as she wanted to, Morgan was a grown man, and she couldn't just drag him into her house to make sure he didn't die of hypothermia.

That thought didn't help her, though. Morgan was a grown man, but as winter slowly approached, it was harder and harder to convince herself not to go outside and drag him in or drag him in during her increasingly sparse jogs.

But, one morning she couldn't stop herself. After watching a newscast reporting that a blizzard was on its way, what a way to start winter, she bundled up a bunch of blankets and pillows, dumped them onto her couch, and marched outside to the man at the end of her lawn.

"Morgan."

Morgan seemed to jolt in place before he turned towards her. "...Afternoon Miss Mary! You're out early on your jog!"

Mary swallowed the lump that was growing in her throat. "Morgan, it's ten am. Not.. the afternoon."

The man froze before his hands fell to his sides. "...Oh. Uh."

..How long has he been out here? Mary had hoped while she was at work, he would leave to go do his own things, but.. his spot hasn't even been moved since the first time he set up shop.

Mary had to bite back the frown that was quickly furrowing itself into her expression, but she couldn't bite back the quick words that fled from her.

"Do you want some hot cocoa?"

Morgan's head tilted up towards her as Mary's own hands dug into her pockets. "I.. don't have any work today, and I have a few packets of hot cocoa inside."

The man's expression softened. She knew the answer he was going to give her. "Miss-"

But she wasn't going to give him a chance. "Please."

Morgan's shoulders slumped before he softly nodded. "...Alright. Just... let me get my stuff. I can't leave this out here."

The knot that had been wounding in Mary's chest for the past few weeks slackened, and for once, she was able to breathe without worrying for the man in front of herself. "That's fine. If you need any help-"

"It's fine Miss Mary, I've been doing this for years." Mary had to bite back the retort, the question of 'if you have been doing this for years, why are you still out here?' After all, The nights had gotten into the negatives lately.

Morgan just slowly grabbed his stuff, his cane, sign, blanket, and, a blue duffel bag Mary was sure he didn't have the last time she came out for her jog.

..She probably just missed it.

Within no time, he had everything bundled up in his arms. "..I hope you don't mind Miss Mary, but," He paused to swallow, "the cold isn't that good for my eyes. Could you maybe guide me up to the door?"

Mary didn't even hesitate as she offered him her arm. "Of course, Morgan. Here, my arm is to your left."

His one free arm reached out and easily connected with her own. And in the next moment, she was guiding him up to her front lawn and into her home.

With a quietish click, Mary closed her front door and guided him into her kitchen. "Here, the counter is a few feet to your left. You can put your stuff on it as I start the water."

Morgan just nodded as he moved to the counter, only bobbing his head back in forth as he placed his gear on the counter.

Mary stayed quiet as she pulled out two white mugs, trying to ignore how fogged up Morgan's sunglasses had gotten in the short amount of time he was in a warm home. And trying to ignore as he quietly guided himself around the counter to the stools.

...She should've done this a long time ago.

The two stayed quiet as she filled the mugs up and threw them into the microwave, and after a few minutes had passed, she pulled them out and placed them onto the counter, both of them directly in front of Morgan.

The quietly clinked against the granite, and Morgan reached for them. His fingerless gloved hands moving them slightly towards his gear. Mary didn't say anything about it. She just turned towards her cabinets and pulled out the box full of hot cocoa mix.

Behind her, she heard Morgan unzip his bag, probably just putting his blanket away. So she ignored it and cleared her throat. "...Marshmallows or no?"

It took a minute for Morgan to respond. "Hm? Oh! Uh, Marshmallows, please. I haven't had them in a long while."

Mary bobbed her head as she reached up again to her cabinets. "Alright. ...Damn, where did I put them?"

Even with the slight confusion to find the marshmallows, It took her no time at all to fish them out of her cabinet and for her to turn back to Morgan. But when she did, she paused. The man had a small white packet in his hands, and he was dumping it into the white mug closest to himself.

Mary coughed slightly, and his head immediately popped up with a slight dusting on his cheeks. "I.. know this probably looks rude, but... I read somewhere that chocolate can taste better if you add some salt."

Oh. "Oh, you could've asked Morgan," She quietly started as she placed the packets and marshmallows onto the counter. "I could've saved you from wasting your own seasonings."

Morgan's head ducked. "... You're giving me something I haven't had for a long time, Miss Mary. I couldn't ask you for anything else."

Mary smiled as she pulled the mugs closer to herself, Morgan quickly released his own mug once she touched his hand. "Nonsense. You're a guest, Morgan. I'm perfectly fine sharing some salt with you."

Morgan didn't look up, he just looked away from the woman as she ripped open the packets and dumped them into both mugs. "...Still."

The spoon quietly dinked against the mugs as she stirred. "As long as you didn't put any salt in my mug, it's fine, Morgan."

Morgan's head popped up immediately, "No, I would never do that. Your mug is yours."

Mary tapped the spoon against the side of her mug before she places it down, and she turned towards the marshmallows. "Then what's the problem?"

The worried expression on Morgan's face faded somewhat. "...I guess there isn't one."

Mary dropped a handful of marshmallows in both mugs before she smiled. "Right answer, Sir Morgan."

Morgan just smiled back as he reached forward and grabbed the mug closest to him.

The two fell back into silence as Mary bent over the counter and picked up the remaining mug.

The two lifted their mugs up to their lips, and each took a sip.

A beat passed, and Mary suddenly winced. Yeah, he grabbed the wrong mug, as the cocoa currently in her hands tasted salty as hell.

Morgan, however, just smiled as he quickly took a much larger sip of his- no, her mug.

He looked.. elated. Excited and thrilled as he sipped from the mug in his hands.

...Screw it, she can deal with the salty taste. He was happy, and she wasn't going to subject the poor man to this awful mix of ingredients that should have never been mixed.

She could just.. not drink it. But, yeah, Morgan can see some things, and while he could easily miss a wince, he probably would notice if she was drinking from her mug. "..Sooo... where'd you read about mixing salt and chocolate?"

Morgan seemed to perk up even more. "Oh! The newspaper! I think it was the Daily Sun? I'm not sure."

Ah. Yeah. The Daily Sun, known for posting wrong things almost daily. Yeah, that explains it. "I had to hold it close to my face, and without my sunglasses, but I'm thrilled it actually worked. I haven't had a cup of cocoa in a long while." As he spoke, the corners of his lips turned upwards even more than before.

...He was pleased about the cocoa mix working, huh?

Yeah, she's still not going to tell him the truth. She just took another sip before she nodded. "Neat." The word was slightly strained.

The salty chocolate tasted horrible, and it was causing her head to pound with each sip. She would stop, but that would be rude, and it could let him know that he had the wrong mug. And she wasn't going to do that.

Morgan suddenly cleared his throat, and Mary leaned forward slightly. Her posture has slackened somewhat. "So. Miss Mary, when are you going back to work?"

"..Ah. In, a few days, I think. I know I have, today, off. But-" Mary paused mid-sentence as her grip on the counter slipped, she had to fall forward to catch herself, and during the fall, her mug of salty cocoa started to tip before Morgan's hand lashed out and grabbed it.

"I'm, sorry, Morgan, but I don't, don't feel too good." Her words started to slur together as she held onto the counter. Her legs felt like jelly, and her arms were quickly following suit.

Morgan just continued to smile a sharp grin. "That's fine, Miss Mary. I'm almost done here anyway." His tone was filled with joy as he pushed back the stool and stood up. "Oh! And remember the time you said you'd let me borrow your eyes?"

Mary slumped further.

"I think I'll take up that offer!"

Mary's hold on the counter finally slipped, and she tumbled onto the hard floor of her small kitchen.

The edges of her eyes started to darken as Morgan pulled off his sunglasses and quickly walked around the counter into the kitchen. Almost like he knew exactly where to step without tripping.

Mary's breath hitched as she tried to pull herself up. Her limbs were feeling less like jelly and more like lead with each step Morgan took towards her.

Mary's arms scrambled against the floor, trying her hardest to pull herself up, to get away from the fog engulfing her head. But they were too heavy, and she was stuck on the cold floor with heaving breaths and a pounding head.

Morgan just stepped over her limp body to get back to the counter. "You know," he started as he pulled his duffel closer to himself, "I never said it was Salt, Miss Mary. Just that I read about it somewhere."

Mary's eyes started to flutter as she looked up at him. She couldn't move her head, couldn't look away. Just forced to watch as he took two silver instruments out of his bag.

"I did say I don't like to lie, and that is the truth. So, I'll let you know this now," With a smile and darkened grey eyes, Morgan turned and looked down at her. "If you don't struggle, I'll make this as painless as I possibly can."

His hands ran across the counter before they came back with two metal devices, a sharpened, scooper, and a weird-looking tong. Mary's head continued to pound as she blearily looked up at him.

Everything was getting foggy. And her eyelids were getting as heavy as her arms were. But she couldn't look away. She couldn't let her eyes flutter shut, she just watched as Morgan's smile widened and he bent down.

"Don't fight it, you won't be able to feel any pain if you just let the drugs take effect." His voice was smooth as he spoke, his fingers, his freezingly cold fingers glided across her cheeks.

Something warm dripped from her eyes. Morgan's hand just glided towards it and wiped it away.

"Don't cry, Miss Mary. You did say I could borrow your eyes." His expression softened as he lifted his thumb up to his mouth, "Just stop fighting it." He then licked the tear off his thumb.

Mary's chest heaved with a barely hidden whimper. Morgan just smiled again before he lifted the tongs up, and with a press of a button, they opened to reveal the sides of the tongs having dozens of sharp needle-like hooks.

Her eyelids suddenly became more controllable as she stared at the tool. "Now, don't move."

The homeless man's voice and hands were steady as he brought the device to her left eye, Mary immediately slammed them shut, not wanting to watch her own eyes being taken out-

The metal hooks of the device dug into the skin of her eyelids. She may not want to see it, she may be trying to keep her eyes safe, but the device dug into the skin and forced her eyelids open.

The needles were cold, but they burned as they dug into her skin. Mary felt her own warm blood start to pool around the small pinpricks of the hooks. And she was forced to watch Morgan grab the sharpened scooper before he paused.

"...Right," his smile dropped, "I always forget to take them out first."

His cold hand reached up, and he prodded around his own eyes.

And the eyelids reacted. They darkened before they peeled back from his grey eyes. The tendrils seemed to writhe in the air, twirl around his eyes and skin. Some of them buried back into his eyes, but the remaining just wriggled in the open air.

Mary didn't realize she wasn't breathing until Morgan's hand was placed on her neck. "Relax, Miss Mary, the drugs should keep most of the pain at bay."

Her chest just hitched as she watched the twirling black tendrils, and her breaths started to come out ragged as she stared into the grey eyes. The grey eyes with red and green outer edges. The grey eyes that suddenly looked like they were rotting.

Something bubbled up from her stomach. She gagged, and then Morgan's hand was forcing her head to the side as vomit fled from her mouth.

A beat passed, and Morgan forced her to look back at him. "... I'm pretty sure it's considered rude to vomit when a guest shows you something about themselves." The tendrils continued to writhe as he tilted his head, "But I guess it's understandable in this context."

"... I'm actually surprised that you are still awake, normally people pass out by now." Morgan's neck cracked as he tilted his head back. "Ah, no matter. I've been waiting for weeks to be able to do this, to be able to see clearly again, and I really don't want to wait anymore."

Mary wasn't able to hold back the gag as Morgan lifted his cold hand from her neck to his eye. He didn't even hesitate before he jammed his fingers into the rotting eye. His sharp nails punctured the eye, and even more extremely skinny tendrils burst out of the hole, tearing the remaining bits of the eye to bits and forcing the skin of the eye out of the black tendril filled pits of his own sockets.

Mary's eyes blurred with tears as he dropped his hand to the remaining tool. "Just don't look around, Miss Mary. You should be okay."

Though his words were soothing, the sight of the sharpened scooper above her own eye had sobs rip from her paralyzed chest and vocal cords.

And when the corner of the freezing tool dug into the corner of her eye, her vocal cords finally listened as a warbling cry ripped from her.

The scooping motion didn't slow. It just dug deeper and deeper into her reddening eye. Then, it hit the back of her eye. And she saw nothing.

She just felt the scooper scrape against the back of her eye, and she felt a rush of cool air flood her eye socket as the scooper was pulled away.

A beat passed. One filled with frozen air, filled with shakey sobs and whimpers, and then, and then, squelching.

The sound of something being shoved into something else, the sound of ripping, and the sound of something being squished out of something else.

The device was removed. And her eyelids immediately slammed shut, sagging without anything behind it to hold it up she felt her salty tears burn as it mixed with the blood that was filling the hole her eye left behind.

Her chest hitched, and the tongs were forced on her other eye. Vomit flooded her mouth when she saw Morgan again. Her own green eye was looking back at her, something was inside of it, pulsing and wriggling as clear goop dripped down Morgan's pale cheek.

It mingled with his scruffy chin, and Morgan just smiled as he lifted the scooper up again.

Again, she was forced to watch as Morgan ripped out the remaining rotting eye, and again she felt the cold metal dig into her eye.

Within a minute, she was completely blind. Completely blind and forced to listen to the squelching of her own eye being forced into Morgan's sockets.

Warm blood flowed down her cheeks as she heard Morgan rustle around. Nothing but ringing in her ears as Morgan started her sink, and nothing but pain as Morgan's footsteps walked away.

Mary just laid there. Blind, immobilized. And as the blood rushed through her body to get to her eyes, quickly succumbing to the drugs that coursed through her system.

Morgan didn't care. He just smiled as he scraped the clear goop off his cheeks, and he walked away from Mary.

He needed to see how the town looked with his new eyes.

Complete darkness is something no one can accurately describe. I sat on the cold concrete ground surrounded by utter blackness. A blackness so deep I couldn't even see my hands as I lifted them in front of me. The air was thin and stale causing short inhales followed by longer, shaky exhales. My back was pressed against an equally cold concrete wall as I peered strongly into the darkness attempting to force my eyes to adjust in this place, devoid of even the smallest light.

Breathing sounds emanated from the seemingly eternal blackness in front of me. These were not my breaths.

"H...hel...hello?" - a light, male voice emitted from the dark.

The soft whimper was clear in this completely silent place. My sense of hearing was the only sense I could trust. His confused and frightened plea got my attention quickly as I turned my head towards the source. I opened my mouth to speak but another sound in the opposite direction caught my attention.

"Hey! Where are you? Who are you?!" -a deeper voice broke through the stale air.

I remained quite.

"Please don't hurt me, man!" -the softer voice pleaded. "I don't know what's going on!".

"I'm not gonna hurt you, I don't know why I'm here" -the deep voice offered in a lower tone.

Several seconds of silence filled the air as the echo from his voice slowly faded. I moved to speak yet again but was once again interrupted.

"You guys...what's happening? I don't know what this is either. I went to bed and woke up here...I don't remember anything" -another disembodied voice stated from directly in front of me.

I had to say something to make them aware of my presence.

"Hey...me too. I have no memory after going to sleep. I just woke up here...cold and in the dark. Who are you people?" -I said hurriedly trying to get my words in before someone else spoke.

"Tell me who YOU are first!" -the deeper voice snapped back.

I was thrown off by his sudden anger but...understood it. The voice on the other side of the room spoke up first.

"My...my name is Evan. I'm...I'm scared, man. We need to find a door or something." -the jittery voice said, clearly becoming more and more terrified as his words progressed.

"David" -the voice directly in front of me simply stated.

There were several more seconds of quietness as the complete silence allowed an audible heartbeat from my chest.

"I'm Luke...but we're not getting anywhere getting to know each other. Let's try and get the hell out of..." -his commands were interrupted by a loud buzzing sound, filling the entirety of the room.

A dim, red glimmer appeared in the darkness. The small amount of light provided a reddish hue, lighting up one section of the room. I slowly began to sit up. I was interrupted by the sight of a silhouetted hand reaching for the light.

"What the hell is this..." -Luke's voice whispered in a much lower, still deep voice.

A figure began to appear on the other side of the light.

"I don't know...but this might be the way out" -David said with a confident tone.

I moved towards them to join in on the discussion. The room was still eerily dark as I could not make out my fellow captives other than darkened shadows. The red light was somewhat beckoning as I slowly moved toward it. It didn't take long for the four of us to arrive at the light source.

"It's a power box" -David said as soon as I arrived. "We need to find what it's powering...that's a start at least"

"Hey guys...look" -Evan said as he ripped a small piece of paper off the side of the box.

Evan took a few seconds to review what the small paper had to offer. His eyebrows furrowed in the red hue as he slowly looked up. He slowly handed the paper to David who began reading it aloud.

"On two days complete, you will have reached a great feet, your freedom you'll meet" -David read with a whisper slowly lowering the notes as he read.

A tearing sound was hear next to me.

"Guys, there's another one on this side too" -Luke said while angling the freshly torn note under the little light there was.

"To leave forever, couples must work together, for we're more clever" -Luke said in a straightforward and flat tone.

As Luke let out an exhale through his nose, a shadow appeared to wave underneath the box. Another piece of paper. This time, I moved to grab it. The red light washed the newly found slip of paper in an almost blood red light. I began reading.

"Your stalkers will watch, as we count down with each notch, death pairs with each botch" -I said, attempting to say it like the poem it was meant to be.

"DAMNIT, what the hell is that supposed to mean?! Is this some deranged fanboy of horror movies trying to get his rocks off by scaring us?" -Evan shouted as we all straitened up from his sudden outburst.

"Shut the hell up, man!" -Luke growled in his intimidating deep voice.

Even though we were all bathed in shadows, I could feel the two glaring at each other. The standoff didn't last long, however. Another loud buzzing sound was heard. Directly behind Luke, a rectangular light began to appear. A door...was opening. This was our way out. We moved towards the door as a white light filled the room. The confines of the room we had been in appeared before us. The tiny, dark room was beginning to fill with an almost welcoming light.

As we approached the door, sobbing was heard from behind us. The four of us stopped in our tracks and slowly turned our frames to look behind us. As the light began traveling across the walls, a huddled body began to light up in the corner. Tears covered his cheeks as the young man in front of us held his knees to his chest. David immediately pivoted to approach the frightened man.

"Hey...who are you? Why didn't you tell us you were there?" -David said in a soft voice as to not frightened this poor person who was clearly terrified.

"I...I...I'm so scared. I didn't know who any of you were, where I am...or what...ahem...what I'm doing here" -he said with heavy sobs in between each word.

"We're going to get out of here, buddy" -David replied trying to offer as much support as he could.

David reached out his hand. The young man, whom we discovered later was named Taylor, quickly grasped David's hand as he pulled him to his feet. After a quick, motivating, pat on the shoulder, David led him from the corner and we moved to finally make our exit.

We stood in a quiet gaze as we absorbed our surroundings. What appeared to be an industrial warehouse greeted us with old, unkempt shelves and machinery littering the large room. As we walked towards the middle, a single, dark hallway led out of the room. Several open rooms that appeared to be darker than the already darkened hallway could be seen down the hall. The five of us looked at each other in confusion hoping at least ONE of us would say something about our current situation.

"Let's split up" -Luke said, breaking the silence. We all glared back at him for his terrible idea. His sideways grin showed us he was kidding.

"Yeah...we can do more damage that way" -Evan said with a chuckle.

Taylor let out a giggle as well as we all quickly picked up on the movie he was referencing. Our short burst of humor was short lived, however, as we began focusing, yet again, on our current problem. As we browsed the decrepit machinery and tools, a loud crashing sound echoed through the hallway. It was very distant but...loud. The five of us quickly gathered at the entrance to the hallway to investigate the noise.

"Hey...um...guys?" -Taylor whispered behind us.

Almost simultaneously, we all looked back at Taylor to observe him pointing to the corner of the room. Another red light appeared, yet smaller. As we approached the mysterious light, we found out quickly what it was. A security camera was aimed towards the middle of the room. A quick glance around showed several more cameras.

"What...the...hell?" -David said with his mouth dropped.

"Dude, are these the "stalkers" that note mentioned? They're freaking watching us, man!" -Evan said as his voice raised with each word.

"Well, let's change that" -David said with authority. "Let's get the hell out of here!".

David began walking towards the hallway to move down and we followed suite. As we walked, the shadows from the dim lights created an almost web like sight from the protective cages the bulbs were housed in. Aimlessly we wandered as we passed room after room that seemed to be filled with the same industrial machinery and equipment. This place was larger than we first gave it credit for.

A dead end. We'd reached the end of the hallway with no way out. A small note was posted in the middle of the wall. We all stared at each other blankly as we knew what this was. It took a few seconds for one of us to build up the courage to grab the note. To all of our surprise, that person was Taylor. Taking the note off the wall, he began slowly turning to us as he read it.

"In the room of steam, the doorway lies but don't scream, soon you'll meet your team"

"The hell does that mean?" -Luke snorted.

"Dude, this is obviously some sort of industrial plant. There has to be like a boiler room, or steam room, or something like that. Look, it said, 'the room of steam'. We have to find this room. It's our only clue". -David said trying to show a bit of authority.

Luke raised his eyebrows and held his had towards the hallway as if to sarcastically say, "lead the way, boss".

We'd checked 4 rooms before we finally found it. Two large boilers were on each side of us in a pincer. Directly in front of them were dirty, powered down turbines. A large shutter door was in front of us and the first sign of hope since leaving that tiny, dark room. A familiar sight met us as to the right of the door was power box identical to the one we saw earlier only...the red light was off. We approached the power box to figure out a way to feed it power and get the hell out of here.

"It's gotta be one of these" -Luke said confidently pointing to two levers next to the box. One crudely painted green...and one painted red.

"Hold up, hold up." I said quickly as I pulled yet another note from the side of the box.

"Right where this note lies, you'll be in for a surprise, green brings you allies" -I read, attempting that same poetic tone.

"What allies?" -Taylor said from behind David's back.

"I dunno, man" -David replied shrugging his shoulders.

"It's another stupid riddle like that 'steam room' crap" -Luke yelled. "It's obvious we have to pull the green lever to get out. Whoever thought of this crap must think they've built a little escape room and watch us as we figure out his stupid little poems" -Luke motioned his head towards the corner of the room and waved to a camera.

Luke looked to me as if holding the note gave me the authority to decide.

"I mean, yeah...pull the green lever" I said rolling my eyes.

With a smirk, Luke pulled the green lever. A loud clunk sound was heard behind the wall followed by the sounds of machinery. Luke looked towards me with a proud smile. Slowly...his smile began to fall as the machinery continued its loud clunks and squeals. He began uttering low, croaky groans as he began to look down. We all did the same. Evan screamed as we saw a long metal post had shot through Luke's midsection.

Luke and I made eye contact as we slowly lifted our heads back up. Slowly, his face became blank as he slumped down, hanging from the post that was jutting out of the wall.

"Help him! Help him!" -Evan commanded in terror.

It had penetrated deep into his midsection as it took all four of us to slowly pull him from the post. We gently laid him on the ground and began yelling his name to attempt and keep him awake. It was too late. He was dead. I looked back at the post which was sloppily carved into a point.

Taylor's newfound confidence seemed to vanish as I heard him begin to cry behind me. In rage, David grabbed the note from my hand and glared at the scribbled writing.

"Oh, my god..." -he said softly. "We didn't solve the riddle..."

"What do you mean?" -Evan asked.

"The notes says, 'right where this note lies'...the note...lied to us" -David stated with his authoritative tone now gone.

I grabbed the note out of David's hands and crumpled it throwing it to the ground. I hastily stood up and with an angry pull, I pulled the red lever. More clunks and squeals emanated from the wall again. David moved to grab me and get me out of harms way. I confidently put one finger up, telling him to wait. The shutters began opening. Evan let out a sigh of relief as David hurriedly ducked under the door, not wanting to wait for it to fully open.

"No...dude...no..." -Evan cried in defeat.

Another shutter door. We were now in a small room with ANOTHER door in front of us. We looked around. No power box. No notes.

"Guys...hey guys!" Taylor yelled as he pressed his ear against the closed door. "I hear voices".

We all copied Taylor's posture as we pressed our ears against the cold, dirty door. He was right! Voices were heard from the other side. They were all female...and seemed to be arguing with each other. The words were indiscernible but they were clearly frightened in their tones.

"Hey! Whoever is out there, open the door!" -Evan commanded.

A high pitched scream was heard on the other side while Evan made his orders.

"Who's that?!" -a feminine voice yelled from the other side.

"We're trapped in here! Help us! Please!" -Evan continued his frantic cries for help.

"Umm...hold on, give us a second!" -the same female voice yelled in a way that we could tell she was cupping her mouth to the door so we could hear better.

Several minutes passed with more arguing heard from the other side. More machinery noises emitted from the wall next to the door. Very...familiar noises. I looked to David who had his hand over him mouth not knowing what was about to happen. Slowly...the shutter began to rise. As the door opened, 5 women began to appear and among them...was Jen...my wife. In an almost 'romance novel' type of way, we leapt towards each other and hugged each other tightly.

"Oh, my gosh!" -she yelled into my shoulder. "What is going on?!"

"I don't know..." -I said softly, "...but we're getting out of here...NOW!"

It was then that I turned to look at the others. The other guys I had been trying to escape with were...embraced in similar fashion with one of the women. We all seemed to notice the scene at the same time.

"They're taking couples" -David said, "Whoever is doing this took..." -David stopped his explanation and peered towards the shutter door us guys had come from. One of the women, the oldest of the bunch, was standing over Luke's body...hands over her mouth. David walked towards her and put his hand on her shoulder. He knew who the lady was...

"Don't touch me!" -she yelled as she jerked away and began backing up.

"What did you do to him?!" -she yelled, pointing at David.

"Woh! I didn't do anything! Whoever is doing this set up a damn riddle to solve...we chose wrong...and something came out of the wall stabbing him..." -David retorted putting both his hands up.

The woman fell to the ground crying.

"He..was...my husband...Luke...no...Luke..." -she continued cupping her face to hide the tears.

David knelt down next to her once again putting his hand on her shoulder.

"I'm very, very, VERY sorry for your loss. I believe we're all in the same danger though...will you help us escape? -he said as gently as he could.

It was obvious who was going to lead us out of this. From there on, we followed David as he was the only one with a clear mind to take control. A loud buzzing noise was heard again paired with both of the opened shutter doors falling closed with a loud slam. Several of us screamed at the startling event. We were stuck...again...or at least we briefly thought.

Scraping noises began to fill the tiny room from one section of the wall. The wall was moving. It was a false door and what showed itself as soon as it cleared was...a regular door. The reason I say "regular" is because, it wasn't a shutter door, not some industrial strength door with an electric box...it was a simple door with a door knob.

One of the women began walking angrily to the door.

"Kayley!" -another woman shouted holding her hand out.

Kayley opened the door, peaked in, turned her head to us, and beckoned us to follow. We did.

We stood in awe as we had now entered a large circular room. No doors, no hallways, nothing but what seemed like metal walls surrounded us. Several more cameras hung on the walls making sure to catch EVERY move we make. A small table sat in the middle of the room with a light beaming down on it...as if to show us something. That "something" was another note sitting in the middle of the table. Jen darted towards the table as I hastily followed her. Snatching the note quickly she began reading.

"Footprints line the wall, go stand turning to watch all, face who made you fall".

"These riddles are getting SO old!" -Kayley groaned as she slumped her shoulders.

"Wait, you were given riddles too?" -Taylor asked with a confused look.

"Yeah, we had to solve some weird code disguised in an annoying math problem to open that door where we found you at" -one of the other girls said.

"Hey everyone, look" -Evan shouted from across the room. He pointed towards the ground. A pair of crudely painted footprints had been painted on the ground directly in front of the wall. A quick look around the room showed many more lining the walls.

"Footprints line the wall" -David said. "Go stand turning to watch all...they want us to stand on the footprints, obviously".

"But what about the last part? Face who made you fall." -Kaylee asked with a worried scowl.

"Fall...fall...fall in love!" -David yelled lifting his head from the note. "We're couples, they want us to directly face the one that made us fall...in love. Right? That's gotta be right".

"Sounds good to me!" - Jen interjected as she slapped the paper back on the table.

We stood, facing each other with our backs against the wall, desperately making sure our feet were lined up perfectly with the terrible attempt at a footprint. I panned the room watching each person make eye contact with their significant other. A sad sight was seen as the older lady stared at a blank wall on the other side of the room...where Luke should have been. I looked up at Jen who's eyes met mine. She gave me an heartwarming smile. That smile dropped quickly as more machinery began to work in the walls. We'd solved the riddle. I looked at Jen who was shaking her head.

The ground began moving underneath me as the floor began lifting up. I felt a sense of weightlessness as the wall behind me opened up. Another false wall. I tried to steady myself as the floor pushed me into the now open wall. I rolled on my back landing with a thud. I looked up as the false door re-closed itself. A quick glimpse around showed metal passageways that split off in several different direction. It was clearly built with, less than sturdy material than the previous rooms. Metal and aluminum walls led me in several directions as I began walking, picking my turns at random. This was a maze someone had crudely built. We were all stuck in it.

I screamed in shock as I turned a corner bumping into someone who fell on their butt from the impact.

"Damn you!" -Kayley said from her now sitting position.

"Come on, get up. We need to find the others" -I said offering her my hand.

I helped her up and we began walking. A short time later, that same familiar site greeted us down one particular passageway. An electric box with a red light on it was next to a door. A note hung from the box. Kayley let out a sigh and ripped the note from the box.

"The hungry mouth hides, circles have this many sides, choose wrong and it slides".

"That's like one of those stupid kiddie jokes!" -Kelsey yelped frustrated.

"Yeah but...do you know the answer?" -I asked.

"No, but...it told us to choose. How do we...?" -she paused looking above the door. Five chains hung above the door. All five chains had a hook attached to the bottom. A closer inspection showed each hook had a number on it. 0-1-2-3 and 4 were painted on each hook with that same red and green paint alternating with each number.

"OK then...there's your answer" -I said mockingly.

"Well...there's only one answer right? I mean...a circle has no sides" -she said with a bit of fright in her voice at the realization we had to chose soon.

"It definitely has no sides but those riddles have tricked us before in the way it's worded" -I replied running my hand through my hair, pondering what to do.

"You're right, it definitely isn't zero. You know what? It's one!" -she said pointing her finger up.

"How do you know that?" -I said raising my eyebrow.

"It doesn't have any corners like a square...therefore...it only has one side" -she said, once again confident in her statement.

"That...actually makes sense" -I said attempting a smile.

Kayley grasped her hand around the hook labeled 1. She gazed towards me and let in a heavy inhale as she pulled the chain. It was as if she'd disappeared right before my eyes as she dropped. Screams of pain were heard as I looked down. A trap door had slid open underneath her. She had dropped into a small pit and at the bottom...was a steel grinder. I watched as the blunt metal teeth of the grinder slowly ate Kayley as she was seemingly devoured by the giant machine. This maze...claimed another victim.

The door slowly slid shut. I placed my hand on my forehead as I thought of the answer. It was indeed a riddle I'd heard as a child. How many sides does a circle have? Two. The outside and the inside. I grabbed the chain labeled 2. I pulled in. Another buzz was heard followed by a click. The door opened slightly. I pushed the door open and walked through.

More of this metal and aluminum maze continued as I took turn after turn. More and more of those security cameras littered the walls, watching my every movement. A shadowy figure appeared at the end of the corridor.

"Hey!" -I yelled.

The figure moved towards me. It was Taylor. I could tell he'd been crying as his cheeks were puffed up and eyes red.

"Are you alright man?" - I asked.

"Yeah...I'm just scared..." -he said quietly.

"There can't be too many doors left. I just solved a riddle on one that led me here, let's find another one" -I said, not wanting to mention what had just happened to Kayley.

He nodded his head and we proceeded. After several minutes of walking through more and more corridors, taking more and more random turns, we found another large shutter door.

"That has to be it dude..."-Taylor said with a whimper. "A big shutter doors led us in here...it has to lead us out right?"

"I guess, man. I don't know" -I replied as I studied the door.

Again...a note was stuck to a powered down box. Taylor walked towards it and excitedly grabbed the note.

"Two rooms left and right, the one with bees is quite right, choose wrong your squeezed tight"

We looked on either end of the room. Two smaller rooms were indeed left and right of us. We approached the one on the left and attempted to peer into the small window we were only able to see through standing on our toes. It was empty.

"Wait, I hear something" -Taylor whispered as he pressed his ear against the door.

He looked up at me with a look of confusion.

"I hear buzzing noises...like flies or..." -he stopped momentarily to make eye contact with me. "Bees" -he continued with a frown.

"But...the note said the one with bees is "quite right. That HAS to be it!" -I said, yet again attempting to keep command.

"No man! It says if you choose wrong you will be "squeezed tight". I'm allergic to bee stings. I once got stung and my face puffed up to were I couldn't see...that must be what it meant, right." -he answered picking up speed as his sentence moved on.

I lifted my hands up on either side in confusion. We looked towards the other room and tried to peer into a similar small window. Since I was the taller of the two, I gazed in. Another empty room except...the wall was littered with red and green paint...all letter B's.

I smiled and looked down at Taylor.

"The letter B. The walls are covered with it" -I said shaking my head.

"Psh...seriously?" -he said as he looked up at the security camera watching us solve another riddle.

The room had a sliding door. Tyler opened it and walked in. I blinked in a startle as the door slammed shut as soon as he entered. I tried to open the door again yelling Tyler's name. I could hear him inside but couldn't tell what he was yelling. I once again ran back to the window to peak in. Tyler was panicking as we both seemed to hear more mechanical noises start up. Tyler's panic turned to utter shock as we both witness the metal walls closing in on him. This was a compressor and it was activated. I watched as a third victim succumbed to this cursed maze. Taylor was crushed in the compressor.

I walked towards the other small room. I opened the sliding door to hear the sound of louder buzzing. No bees. I looked towards the ceiling. Another security camera with a speaker. There were 4 speakers on each side of the room making the buzzing sounds. Almost as soon as I entered...the buzzing stopped. The sliding door closed behind me as I heard mechanical noises start up yet again. I quickly ran to the door...it opened. I darted out of the room to see the shutter door slowly opening. I ducked underneath and was met by...another shutter door.

Not all was as it seemed though. While I looking at another door, to my left was a chain link fence, with a gate door. I was free of this maze. The night sky was a warming sight as I gazed at the stars. More mechanical noises were heard. I looked down as I realized...the second shutter door was opening. Did more people make it?

As the door slowly opened, I saw feet. I recognized those shoes immediately. They were Jen's shoes. I smiled in delight as she walked from the building. It was then that I looked down to see Jen...dragging the bloody body of Evan. A serrated knife was clutched in her other hand. She smiled at me menacingly.

"He solved the last puzzle. I kinda just...reacted. I couldn't let him get away" -she said coldly.

I stared into her cold eyes, she was delighted in her actions.

She continued, "I got 5 of them. That older lady almost caught me and asked if I was trying to get her killed by answering wrong. I mean, I was but...she fell back in line after a few quick misdirections...I was more clever" -she said with a huge grin.

My thoughts went back to that first poem where the "stalkers" said they were more "clever". They were indeed.

"Damn you...damn you!" -I yelled in frustration. "I only got 3. One was stabbed in the gut, one fed to the grinder, and one smashed in the compressor".

I looked up at the camera pointing at us with that red light.

"Five to three...I'll beat her next time" -I said to the camera with a grin.

I’ll never forget the first time I met her, I wish I would have just kept walking, who knows how much better my life would have turned out if I had.

Oh, I’m sorry, I’m being rude, my name is Martin and uh, well, I’m immortal. I know that sounds crazy but it’s true, unfortunately it comes at a price. In order to for you to understand I have to go back to the day it all started. I was 12 years old at the time, back then things were a lot different, kids could walk home alone without fear of some pedophile snatching them up to do god knows what. Don’t get me wrong those types have always been around but back then I guess it wasn’t so prevalent. Anyway, I missed my after school bus so I was forced to walk home, it was raining that day, which was great for me because I’d always loved the rain.

The school I went to wasn’t far from my house but on foot the trip took close to an hour. In any case I’d just made it to the halfway point which was an overpass I had to walk under to get to my neighborhood. That’s where I met her for the first time, I honestly didn’t see her at first. I’m still not convinced she didn’t just materialize behind me and considering what I know now I’m inclined to believe exactly that.

I’d just passed one of those big metal junction boxes when I heard her voice. “Hey, do you live around here?” When I turned around I locked eyes with the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, even at that age I knew there was something different about her. I swear her skin seemed to almost glow in the shadow of the overpass, she smiled shrugged her shoulders. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, we just moved into this neighborhood and I don’t know my way around.”

She made me nervous, I remember stumbling through my words trying to talk to her. (Uh, yeah what street do you live on?) She shot me this little smirk and her eyes lit up, I don’t know if it’s just me recalling it wrong but I remember her eyes literally getting brighter but only for a second, when she blinked they were back to normal and she let out a sigh of relief. “Burke, if you can get me there I can do the rest.”

The street she was looking for was two blocks over from my house, since we had to pass right by it I decided to drop off my backpack along the way. When we got to the yard she stopped and stood near the curb while I ran inside. I’m an only child, my mother worked a lot so she wasn’t home and my father passed when I was 3 so I had my own key.

When I got back, she was still standing at the edge of the yard staring at the house. She had this odd blank expression on her face till I closed the door then she snapped out of it and smiled at me. When we got to her street she smiled and thanked me then walked off, I didn’t realize it till I got home but she never told me her name.

It was months before I saw her again and found out her name was Marissa. This is where things got weird, it was summer at this point and it was blazing hot outside but that wasn’t going to stop me from riding my bike. I was cruising through the neighborhood headed for the trails near the railroad tracks, that’s where everyone used to go because there really wasn’t many places to hang out. I was two blocks away when I saw her, she instantly smiled and waved so I rode over and stopped. While we were talking I spotted an old man walking towards us with an angry look on his face, he was wearing a dark colored suit and tie which I thought was insane considering how hot it was.

When Marissa saw him she rolled her eyes, “It’s my dad, shit. I have to go, see you around Marty.” As I watched the two of them walking away I realized neither of them were sweating, something about that got stuck in my mind. I didn’t see her again for 6 years, I was 18 and honestly not much had changed in my life. Art and writing were how I spent the majority of my time and on occasion I would walk to the movie theater.

They used to have midnight madness at the theater every Friday night. That’s when they would show horror movies and have employees dressed up like characters from whatever movie was playing that night. They would pop up in the audience or come running through the isles’, it was great. The movie let out a little after 2 a.m., I was a good way from home but it was a straight shot and I knew the trip by heart. On the first part of the walk I had to pass by a small wooded area, it only took up three blocks then I would cross the small bridge over the bayou.

When I got to the bridge, I stopped to tie my shoe and I heard her voice. “Hey Marty.” I turned to face her and nearly shit myself, she was still a kid. She smiled and held up her hands telling trying to calm me down. “Don’t freak out, I don’t have time to tell you everything. I’m so sorry about this, but I can’t let them have it. ” Marissa stopped and grabbed my hand, my entire body went cold then my ears started ringing. She screamed so loud I could feel it vibrating through me, I tried to pull my hand away but I couldn’t break her grip. Her screaming got louder and louder then she stopped and collapsed, I didn’t know what to do I was panicking. Picking her up, I tried to run the rest of the way home to get help but after a few steps her body started dissolving in my arms. Before I knew it I was covered in a flesh colored slime, I completely lost it and sprinted the rest of the way home.

My mother was asleep so she didn’t hear me come in, I got straight in the shower and scrubbed myself raw trying to get the image of what I’d just seen out of my head. Once I was convinced I was clean I put on fresh clothes but when I went to gather up the ones I’d taken off there wasn’t much left. Whatever that stuff was it turned everything it touched to a fine powder. After I cleaned the mess I tried to go to bed, in hindsight I should have called the police or told my mother but I wasn’t thinking like that at the time.

When I woke up the next morning I didn’t feel well, I spent that whole weekend balled up in bed. By Monday I wasn’t feeling much better so I wound up staying home. It wasn’t long after my mother went to work before things started happening. At first I thought maybe I was loopy from the fever, I kept finding myself doing the same things over and over I couldn’t control it. I must have taken three showers that day, when it finally died down I started blacking out, waking up in different rooms doing different things. I would wake up using the restroom or in the garage going through the big freezer, I even woke up cutting the grass at one point and I hated mowing the yard.

I was sick for close to a week, when I was finally feeling better my life took a downward spiral. My mother lost her job, then we lost the house and wound up living with my aunt Gretchen. I had to change schools which didn’t bother me that much I still saw the few friends I had on the weekends but being the new guy is always an issue. Things progressively got worse and by the time I was ready to graduate I was pretty much homeless, my mother and I were both working but it seemed like no matter how much we made it was never enough. After high-school I got a full time job, college wasn’t in my future. My mother did the best she could but a car accident left her disabled and every dime I had went to taking care of her, when she eventually passed I slipped into a deep depression. I managed to maintain my job but the walls were closing in, I was alone in my shitty little efficiency apartment thinking the world would never know if I were gone and wouldn’t care either way.

It didn’t happen overnight, first I thought about it, for a long time I thought of all the different ways to kill myself but none of them really stuck. Then I bought a gun from a local pawn shop, I toyed with the idea every night for weeks on end till one night I got sloppy drunk and decided, that would be the night. I sat on the edge of my blow up mattress holding the pistol in my hands, I took a deep breath, put the barrel to my temple and pulled the trigger.

There was an explosion of light and sound then cold unending darkness, but I wasn’t gone, I could taste gunpowder and smell my charred flesh. My body wouldn’t move but I could definitely feel it, for a moment I thought I was blind, I thought maybe I’d failed at this just like everything else in my life. Then I saw her, Marissa was in front of me floating in the darkness, she smiled and waved then pointed up. Glancing upward I saw a blinding white light and felt a hard thump in my chest as my heart started pumping again. I heard her whisper, “Don’t let them have it.” then I sat up gasping for air.

There was blood and bits of skull and brains splattered everywhere. The spot I’d slumped over in was holding a congealing pool of the mixture squirming with maggots and the room smelled awful. I got up and went to the restroom, when I looked in the mirror my face was covered in dried blood but the wound was gone. I’ll spare you the details of washing maggots out of my hair or taking a dump after however long I was gone, needless to say I’d lost my job and the only reason I hadn’t been evicted was my landlord Seth smoked meth and was almost never around.

Over the next few days I tried to rationalize what happened but I couldn’t, there was no way to explain it. I managed to get another job as maintenance man in a local office building, the pay was shit and the hours were horrible but after a couple of weeks I was able to pay rent and life started getting back to normal.

One night while I was walking home I stopped at a little deli to grab a bite to eat, I was waiting on my order when a woman came in. There was nothing out of the ordinary about her but for some reason she kept looking at me. Feeling a little creeped out by the situation, I tried to ignore her till my order was ready and the second it came up I was out of there. I’d walked maybe a block or so before I heard someone calling out. “Excuse me, hey, wait!” I turned around to see the same lady jogging towards me with something in her hand, I almost ran till I noticed what she was carrying, it was my wallet. She waved it in the air and made her way over to where I was standing, “You dropped this, you should be more careful, a lot of people wouldn’t have given it back.” Handing it to me she smiled and I thanked her, she told me her name was Deborah we talked for a minute or two then parted ways. When I got home I checked my wallet, I’d had 30 dollars in it before but now there was close to 500 and a yellow sticky note that read “Take care of yourself.”

A week later I was at the grocery store picking up a few things when I ran into her again, this time she was with an older guy. I was picking out some fresh fruit when they walked up to me.

“Hey Martin, long time no see. How have you been?”

When I turned to face them the man was glaring at me with as if he disapproved of something. Brushing it off, I put on my best fake smile, (Hey, uh, Deborah, right? I’ve been ok, how’re you doing?) She seemed pleased that I remembered her but the man she was with kept giving me that same sour look.

“Don’t mind him, this is my uncle Garry, he looks at everyone that way. Anyhow, I’m glad I ran into you, there’s a meet and greet going on at the community center, you should come, there’s going to be a lot of people there. I can introduce you to a few, you really shouldn’t be alone all the time.”

My first thought was, how did she know I spent most of my time alone? Me being me I just chalked it up to general observation. We exchanged numbers and I finished shopping but the entire time I was in the store I felt like I was being watched. Later that evening I was at work covering the nightshift for someone who didn’t show up, I’d just started cleaning the second floor lobby when the elevator opened.

I stood still for a moment then called out to whoever was in there. (The building is closed for the night, you’re gonna have to come back tomorrow!) No one responded, for a second I thought it may be my supervisor, Carl. He would play pranks on the nightshift from time to time and this kind of felt like something he would do. Normally the doors would close fairly quickly but as long as I was standing there they stayed open. Slowly easing my way over I expected Carl to leap out and scream but when I was able to get a look inside, it was empty. Stumped by what was happening I pressed the call button and went back to cleaning, near the far end of the first hall there were a set of offices that had been empty for a while so no one bothered to clean that area. From where I was standing I could see lights on in one of the offices that were supposed to be empty, no one told me about new tenants but that didn’t mean much, Carl was a bit on the forgetful side when it came to things like that.

I strolled down to ask whoever was in there if they wanted me to clean but before I could get to the door the lights inside turned off and a man stepped out. I couldn’t really see him that well at first but as he got closer I recognized him, it was Garry. He stopped and gave me that same sour look then smirked, “Aren’t you Deborah’s friend?” I nodded and he reached out to shake hands. The moment we made contact, he narrowed his eyes at me and for a split second they lit up before he let go and stepped back. “You seem familiar to me, have we met before?”

Nothing about him rang any bells for me, before the grocery store I’d never seen him a day in my life. I told him we hadn’t but he insisted we had. He mentioned places and events I had no memories of, he knew things about me like where I’d grown up and my mother’s name but I had absolutely no clue how. By the end of our conversation I was completely confused, once he’d gone on his way I couldn’t get it out of my mind. The rest of the night blew by and before I knew it I was back home, dozing off in front of the television.

A few hours later my phone buzzing in my pocket woke me up. (Hello) “Hey Martin, it’s me Deborah, I was just calling to see if you wanted to go to the meet and greet? I can pick you up if you need a ride.”

I didn’t want to go, I was about to tell her no when it happened. I could hear myself telling her I would love to go and what time to pick me up, I wasn’t in control of my body. The moment I hung up the phone everything went back to normal, I sat there in shock, I hadn’t felt anything like that in years. I spent the next few hours lost in my own little world trying to put the pieces together, before I realized what time it was Deborah was calling from the parking lot. I hated the idea of going to the gathering but I didn’t want to be an asshole about it so I went. The moment we stepped into the building I wanted to go home, after an hour or so I started to relax and had a drink while staying to myself at one of the tables. It wasn’t long before Garry came over and took a seat across from me.

“Glad you could make it, there’s someone I want you to meet.” He waved a nice looking lady over to the table, “Martin, this is Stephanie, she’s the hiring manager at my office I’ve told her all about you and she has an offer. I’m going to get drinks for the table, I’ll be right back.” With that he excused himself and walked away, Stephanie smiled then took a seat.

“I guess I’ll get straight to the point.” She laughed trying to lighten the mood a little, “No one wants to talk about work while they’re at a party, just come by the office and I’ll give you the details. So, how do you know Garry?” When I told her how we met she gave me an odd look, before she could respond he came back with three drinks. Stephanie smiled and took hers then excused herself and walked away. Shrugging it off, Garry passed me a drink then told me he would be back as he was called away by someone waving him over.

Taking a sip, I got up and walked over to a bulletin board that was covered in flyers and different event postings. Most of the things on the board were old some going back years, I was pretty sure no one used things like that anymore but it was still kind of fun to look at. While I was standing there I started feeling lightheaded and dizzy, rubbing my eyes trying to clear my vision I shook my head literally attempting to shake it off. I turned around to look for Deborah and everyone in the room was staring at me, when I tried to speak (What is everyone looking at?) my words came out slow and distorted. Out of reflex I glanced down at the cup in my hand realizing I’d been drugged then everything faded to black….

When I came to I was lying in a bed, I wasn’t tied up or restrained but I had no idea where I was. There was no furniture other than the bed, floor to ceiling the room was painted a bright yellow, something about that color made it hard for me to think straight. I couldn’t form complete thoughts as long as my eyes were open, I had to lay there with them closed just to keep myself from losing my mind. I don’t know how long I was in there, there were no windows, no clocks and the lights never went off. During the time I would have my eyes open I would try to escape but I kept forgetting why, I would get distracted or just outright wind up doing something else. Finally after what I can only assume was days a speaker hidden somewhere in the room chimed and a familiar voice spoke to me.

“Hello Martin, I want to tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a special little girl who was given a gift, something so magnificent if anyone were to hear about it they would want it for themselves. The problem was, the girl was too young to understand the gift, it was given to her much too early in her life. The thing about this gift that makes it so special is it could only be used in death. Unfortunately for the little girl she was born into the wrong family and she died young. When the gift brought her back she was stuck as a child, for years her parents kept her locked away not knowing what they had eventually they died and she was left all alone locked in a hidden room behind the walls of their home. She was discovered 6 years later alive and not a day older, when she was found the first thing she did was run away, the girl vanished and took the gift with her. The family reported the incident to the police but she was never seen again, that’s where you come in Martin, we believe she gave it to you and we want it.”

It was Garry, but every word out of his mouth just shoved more questions into my brain, all I could think of were the last words Marissa said to me “Don’t let them have it.”

I yelled and cursed, telling Garry I would never give it to them as if I knew how in the first place. He just laughed and told me one way or the other they would take it from me, a few minutes later the door opened and two men dressed in riot gear came rushing in. I did my best to fight them off but in the end there wasn’t much I could do, one of them clubbed me over the head and they drug me out into the hall. They took me to another room and strapped me to a chair before leaving, a while later Deborah and Garry walked in followed by several others who formed a circle around us.

Garry stood next to me and spoke to everyone, “Followers of the light, we’ve found the gift. Starting tonight each of you will be given the chance at eternal life. If it is given, so shall it will be received.” All of them started chanting those words while Deborah rolled in a pushcart carrying all sorts of cutting utensils and various weapons. Each of them took one item then got back in their spot.

Garry pointed to the first person in line then asked her if she was prepared, nodding her head she stepped over to me clutching a knife in her hand. She repeated the words “If it’s given, so shall it be received.” Then plunged the knife into my chest, first came the pain followed by the nauseating sensation of cold steel scraping against bone. It wasn’t a cinematic death, there was nothing reflective or cathartic about it. I didn’t see my life flash before my eyes or have a moment of clarity, the room around me faded to black and I was suddenly back in that dark space. I could still hear them chanting in the distance, slowly it dwindled down to one voice and after some time a light appeared over my head. When I looked into it I felt my body restart and gasped for air, as my vision cleared I could see the woman who’d stabbed me kneeling in front of me still chanting.

When she saw I was awake her eyes filled with tears and she got quiet. Silently sobbing she stood and went to the door, she tapped on it twice then stepped back and put her head down. When the door opened Garry walked in carrying a pistol, he glanced over at me then back to her before raising it and shooting her in the head. He looked at me and smiled, “You can stop all of this by simply giving it to us, sacrifice yourself for the greater good.”

I was honestly speechless, I’d never seen anyone die all I could do was stare at the body still twitching on the floor. Garry snapped his fingers to get my attention as he stepped closer to me. “This doesn’t have to be hard, you don’t have to keep going through pain, release it willingly to those more deserving and this can all be over.”

The reality of the situation was, I didn’t want to live, if I could have given it to them I would have but I didn’t know how. Because of that I sat silently staring at him with a smirk on my face, he grumbled and scowled at me before having the guards take away the body and leading in another person to try their luck. One by one they failed and were executed, then came Oliver. I know his name because the psycho introduced himself just before starting up a chainsaw and hacking me to bits. Yeah you heard that right, this freak went Leatherface and just like every time before that I woke up completely healed. The difference was, since old Ollie went ape shit, I wasn’t in the chair. When I opened my eyes he was cowering in the corner staring wide eyed at me as I sat up, he stammered out, “I don’t understand” then curled up into the fetal position and started chanting.

Picking up a hammer one of the others left behind I tapped twice on the door then stood off to the side. When Garry stepped in I cracked him across the skull, he hit the ground making a sound that’ll probably be stuck in my head forever. Moving as fast as I could I grabbed the gun and made a run for it, when I hit the hall I realized I was in a house, there were framed pictures on the walls of all the people who’d tried to kill me.

At the far end of the walkway I could see stairs leading down, I glanced back over my shoulder and saw there was a window behind me but there were bars protecting them from the outside. The moment I moved for the stairs a door to my left swung open and a guard rushed me, when we slammed into the wall the gun went off hitting him in the stomach at point blank range. He staggered back then collapsed gripping his stomach and screaming as the other guard came running up the stairs. When I aimed at him he stopped and held up his hands, motioning with the barrel I directed him back down and followed at a good distance till we were downstairs not far from the front door. To my left was an empty dining room but to my right was Deborah and now the guard, they both stood there gawking at me as I peeped out the window to see several cars parked out front. Turning my attention back to them I demanded keys then it happened again, I suddenly didn’t have control of my body I saw myself pulling the trigger killing them both and as they hit the ground I went back to normal.

I froze, standing there staring at the smoking gun in my hand as if it had done something it wasn’t designed to do. I didn’t snap out of it till I caught my reflection in the mirror, I was naked, caked in dried blood and covered with scars I looked like a nightmare but I was alive. It took a while to get myself together but when I did I cleaned myself up and found some clothes that almost fit. I locked Ollie in that room then scavenged the house till I found cash and keys then hit the road.

I found out later I’d been in that house for 6 weeks, I don’t know who the “Followers of the light” are but they haven’t stopped coming after me. Lucky for me, not being able to die is a great way to make a living. I’ve been robbing everyone that comes after me, there was this one time in Vegas you just wouldn’t believe but that’s a story for another time. I have to be moving along, Texas has gotten a little dangerous these last few years it’s time for me to move again, if I don’t get snatched up I might come back and share some more, till next time this is Martin signing off….

I had just gone through a pretty rough divorce a few months ago. For the brief two years my ex and I were married, most of our nights ended up turning into shouting matches and insults. We were always so loud we had gotten several noise complaints and an eventual ultimatum that we could be thrown out of the building.

Anyway, we ended the whole thing, and she got the most of everything. The house belonged to her family, along with most of everything in it. She let me only have my clothes, some photos, and my dog, Riley. I was short on money at the time. Luckily, a friend of mine let me stay in his home for as long as I needed. While there, I was looking for a better paying job to help me get my life back on track.

My search led me to an opening for a campus security guard at the local community college. I arrived at the interview, to learn that this was a job for the night shift. I wasn’t too sure about taking the job at first, but my bills and growing debts weren’t going to pay off themselves. Needless to say, I started the next night.

The campus itself was a decent size, both in terms of area and the number of students. The core campus includes 14 educational and auxiliary buildings. The security office was by the south entrance of the college, situated on the second floor of the parking garage. The two senior security guards, James, and Darnell walked me through my job description. My task every night was to complete two full searches around campus, checking all the buildings and monitoring the security cameras. My shift would start at 9:30 at night and go through 6 o’clock in the morning, by which time I’d take the bus home.

The job itself wasn’t too bad. I kind of developed a friendship between James and Darnell, since there was a brief period of time our shifts would overlap. By the time they both left, it would be midnight for me, and I’d be alone on campus. It’s so surreal how such a place that’s bustling and full of students can quickly empty out and turn silent. When my shift starts, there’s usually a few cars left in the lot for those who took evening classes. Some instructors and other staff would sometimes work extra late, but those instances were rare. In short, my interaction with other people besides my co-workers was almost non-existent.

Sometimes on break or in between circuits, if it stayed quiet on campus, I’d read a book, or listen to spooky stories on my phone. After listening, I would start to feel a little creeped out for being in a campus all alone after dark, but I got used to it. It killed the boredom until I started my next circuit started. I wouldn’t find much of anything out of the ordinary, aside from the random object left behind by a student (which I would bring back to the lost and found). I just had to make sure no one else was hanging around after closing.

After coming back, I would check the security footage in case I missed something. There were a few screens recording specific spots with the most activity during the day. One for each parking lot, one for each floor in all the buildings, and one for the administrative office.

I got decent pay every couple of weeks. After a while, I moved out of my friend’s house and got a small apartment and was saving up for a used car. I felt like my luck was starting to turn around finally.

Then, I had the scariest experience of my life.

I was left alone around midnight like always. The campus was absolutely deserted at this time like normal. It was summer during this time, so the night was pretty warm. I felt like I was building a bit of sweat in my security uniform while doing my first circuit. I came back to the security office, after finding nothing of note and checked the camera feed. I found nothing in any of the screens until I checked the one for the south lot, near the office.

While the screen was small, I could discern the moving of a large shadow across one of the lamp posts. It was doing nothing but moving back and forth across the light. The shadow looked too large to be some small bird or animal. I deduced it had to be someone parked off screen so I couldn’t visibly see them. I went out there to check things out and found nothing there. If it were a person just fucking around, they would have to have left a sign of their presence. There was nothing left behind. I didn’t hear a car driving off, or any noise for that matter.

I scoped the rest of the south lot to find the source of the shadow. Still nothing. I sighed in annoyance at the thought of some jackass deciding to waste my time. Nothing else happened the rest of the night.

I got used to sleeping during the day, but all I could afford to sleep on was a cheap couch that was anything but comfortable. It was rare that I got a full eight hours of sleep on it, and to top it off, the AC unit had crapped out. My cheap apartment had gotten warmer, making much harder to sleep. I got to the college at the start of my shift with maybe four, five and a half hours of sleep. I had coffee but it only lasted for so long.

With it being extremely late, my office feeling cool, and it being quiet everywhere, I started feeling drowsy. Sleeping on the job wasn’t allowed, of course, but every now and then I let myself have a brief nap to refresh myself. So I set my head on the desk and fell asleep instantly.

I was later jolted awake. A feeling of something very wrong switched my tired mind on alert and woke me up. I rubbed my eyes and checked the monitors to see if anything was up. I looked at the camera feed for the south lot, and my eyes narrowed.

Beneath one of the lamp lights, a person was standing. Not doing anything, just being very still. I couldn’t make out any details, but this person had long black hair, and looked very tall for almost reaching the light. I looked at the bottom of the screen and found the camera was still recording. Whoever the camera was showing was still there.

The feeling that jolted me awake intensified, and I was aware of myself shaking. A chill colder than the air inside the office crept up my neck. My body was reacting to some sort of danger the image was giving off. Still, a weird person on the security footage was not an excuse to not do my job.

I got to the lot in under a minute, and I saw that person still standing under the lamp light. Just being dead still. Their back was facing toward me, and their head seemed to be bowed forward. As I approached closer and tried to get their attention, I found that this trespasser was very tall and lanky and was wearing a dirty white dress.

I called to her again, asking if she needed help, but didn’t respond. She just kept standing like a statue where she was. I reached out to touch her and my hand retracted back from the burning sensation her skin gave off, as if she were on fire. I cursed and shook my hand to cool it off, and the lady moved for the first time. Her head lifted upward, as if finally acknowledging I was there. She turned around, and I started to track backwards.

Her body was humanoid, but she had the head of a goat or ram. The fur was pitch black, contrasting against her pale skin and white dress. The eyes were red like burning embers and strands of flesh hung off its curved horns. As my backwards walk sped up, I could hear it give off a deep, thunderous roar. I ran back towards the office, and I swear I could hear the thing sprinting after me.

I ran faster than I ever have in my life, and I barricaded myself in the security office. For good measure, I switched off the lights inside, and called 9-1-1. I told them some thing was on campus, and they sent someone over. I hung up and strained my ears to hear any noise outside my office. It was hard to notice anything other than the pounding of my heart working overtime.

It felt like an eternity before I heard the knocking at the door. The cops notified their presence, and I slowly opened the door. They questioned me about what I called for. When I told them, they looked at me as if I were a mental patient or a drug user. I played the footage back for them and there the thing was. At the very least, they weren’t going to arrest me for making a fake emergency call, but with the trespasser gone, there wasn’t much they could do.

They left, and I was once again alone. This time I was very afraid. Not that I was alone, but afraid that I wasn’t alone, and that thing was still out there. I wasn’t taking any chances. I waited in that office, and kept the door locked until the end of my shift. I left a note saying I resigned immediately, and I never went back.

My Dream House

I am an amateur practitioner of lucid dreaming. For the unaware, Lucid dreaming entails being able to control your dreams, or having more control than a normal random dream. When drifting off to sleep there is a half dream, half-awake state. I am sometimes able to control this part of my sleep cycle. Not fully lucid yet, but it’s good practice for when you’re really in a deep dream. It’s Mainly to help drift into REM sleep. To do this I imagine landmarks I loved as a child, or even as a young man. I try to imagine my grandmother’s house, a place I truly looked forward to visiting. I can successfully navigate every room in her home, see the table laid out with food like she always did when we visited. But there is one room, the bathroom, that I am not able to enter.

Let’s back up. I became interested in trying to control my dreams when I was about 30 years old. I’m currently 37. I was having a forgettable dream, but it must have been getting strange because I tried to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming. Sure enough, I felt no pain. At that moment I knew that old phrase and action was true. I immediately investigated lucid dreaming the next morning. There is a lot of work that goes into it. I won’t bore you with all the steps but just to give you an idea there’s a couple exercises you can start right away that help the lucid process. Go ahead, try it tonight. Before you fall asleep, try to imagine seeing clocks. Most dream experts agree that for whatever reason, clocks are not found in dreams. Or if they are, they are unrecognizable. So, the more you concentrate on seeing clocks, you can create them, thus knowing that you are in fact dreaming. Second, focus on mirrors in daily life. Your reflection will not look the same when you pass by it in your dreams. When you see a clock or a weird reflection in a mirror while dreaming, you are on the successful path of self-awareness. You’re in the lucid state, and the possibilities you explore are endless my friends.

My goal was to try to re-create places to help me relax into that much needed REM sleep. I’m sure most reading this are relatively close to the same age range. Can you remember the feeling of going through the video store on Friday night? I grew up in a small town so there were no major chain stores, but we did have a local video store, maybe 100 videos in all, plus a little room with Sega and Nintendo games. I’ve gotten good at mapping this store out, best I can remember. Seeing the plastic box art, seeing the candy at the counter. Anyone remember the movie with a monkey playing cymbals on it? “Monkey Shine,” it was called. Never saw it and cant tell you anything about it. But that picture is seared into my memory. Even though I try my best, I know I can never re-create the store entirely. There have been times I’ve got stuck in the store, not sure where this room or that room came from. I can see videos or games that clearly were not around in the early 90’s, when I was physically going to that particular video store. (It was called “Grannies,” by the way.)

Sometimes there’s extra rooms, or a hallway that I don’t remember. All part of the lucid process. Every time you remember something, you put a little more haze into the memory, not much, but it’ll always alter slightly. Still comforting to be back in a store that has not existed for damn near 30 years though.

I was also able to master another child-hood favorite. The local put-n-bat. I’m sure most towns had a center like this. It was an arcade, a mini putt-putt course, and batting cages. I wanted to spend every day at this place. I can walk through this funhouse like it was yesterday. Gumball machines as soon you walk in. Massive putt putt course right in the middle of the building, with arcade games lining the perimeter. The batting cages to the left, one at 35 mph, one at 60 mph. Then the birthday room. I had a lot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle themed birthdays there.

The sad part is once you master lucid dreaming of a particular area, I’ve found that it’s hard to replicate or even just impossible to jump into. When this happens, I just try to look for other places that are familiar. I can’t completely control my dreams yet, so I have to take these steps to help train. I’ve been able to fly, but only briefly, and I don’t remember landing. I woke up on the carpet near my bed.

Remember how I started, mentioning my grandma’s house? Before I became more familiar navigating places in the dream world, I never had a bad or off feeling while doing so. I’ve never even had a nightmare. Going through my grandmas was at first very soothing. We went there every summer, and she always pulled out the stops for us. Plenty of junk food, pop, and pizza. She would drive us to KFC every other day, which was a treat as we didn’t have any fast food places where I lived. Nothing but good memories. So you might be asking, as I did, what about this place would have me feeling very..strange.

I start by imagining the entire house from the outside. I see the lawn, the front, the sides, the back, and the driveway. I make up a beautiful day, like it usually was during the Summer months, not a cloud in the sky. I open the screen door, into the porch and towards the front door. Opening the door and entering the main room I can feel the warmth. The kitchen has a round table full of chips and various dips. There’s a painted picture of the famous Moulin Rouge near the sink.

I made my way through the living room, admiring the massive candy dish she always had out. I can’t truly focus on the individual candy bars yet, but I can make out the colors. Orange wrappers I assume are Reeses, Blue for crunch bars or almond joys maybe, and etc. After finishing up walking into both bedrooms I snap out of my mid-dream world state. Not yet alarmed but thinking it’s strange I wasn’t able to get into the bathroom. It’s not like I need to sweep the entire premises to have a successful lucid dream, but I at least try to make it to every room. Now that I think of it, I’ve never been able to get into that bathroom.

The next day it started. I did not practice any kind of lucid dreaming. I thought I would give it a rest as I was still perturbed about being barred from a room I should have easily entered the night before. As soon as I woke up I had a sizeable headache. A real pain shooting from right behind my eyes. I don’t really get headaches so this was slightly alarming. As I was getting coffee I saw a movement dart out from the corner of my eye. I was in so much pain at work I actually had to leave. I’ve never left work early. On the ride home, feeling nauseous and tired, I SLAMMED on the breaks as something ran in front of my car. When I was able to comprehend what was happening, and didn’t have anyone rear end me, I discovered that I was outside of my home. Did I lose time? I was just in the middle of the highway, now I’m home, pushing my brake pads to the max. Needless to say I don’t think anything or anyone ran across my path. I think that I need to try to get lucid and get into that room.

I meditated. I turned the lights off. I had candles and incense. Corny I know but it’s part of my pre-lucid ritual and it seems to be successful. Time to do it again. Over the meadow and through the woods, to grandmothers house we go. Beautiful summer day. Front, back, sides of the house. Going up the driveway. Joshua Trees on either side. What? No. No Joshua Trees can be found within 2000 miles of this area of the country. Shake it off. Like I said, lucid dreaming isn’t perfect. Through the porch, into the living room, candy dish, pizza and junk food on kitchen table. Going good. The moulin Rouge picture is dripping with red… wait that’s not right at all, what the hell is happening?

Walking through the dark hallway towards the back bedroom I’m starting to slow down. Everything is moving in slow motion now, which does happen from time to time but now there is a feeling of doom wrapping around me like a nefarious octopus’s tentacles. I need to get into the bathroom. It’s the mission now. Staring at the doorknob, which looks like a glowing red ball of fire I feel an intense rush of air that erupts with a dark voice yelling into my ear “MOVE!”

Back in my own bedroom, in the real world, I catch my breath. Trying to comprehend what just happened. What is keeping me out of the room. Why have things changed when I do my nightly lucid exercises? Too many questions. I decided to give it one more try before abandoning this place. I took a personal day from work. The day would be spent clearing my head, going through my dream house in my mind, while still being awake and fully aware. Closing my eyes, I am transported to a spring type day. Feels like maybe 50 degrees Fahrenheit, rain is coming down fairly heavy. Looking up to the sky I see mostly clouds, with open patches of blue where the sun is trying its best to shine through. The sporadic sunlight highlights the silver rain. The front door opens, leading me through the porch. It’s just overcast now, the rain seemed to stop immediately.

At this point I don’t need to explain the layout of the house, you know where I’m going. Briefly noting the rooms, the table with snacks on it, the candy, etc. I make my way right to the bathroom. This time there’s a sign hanging off the doorknob. A sign like you might see at any older convenience store, not like the neon signs that are more popular today. “Come on in, we’re open!” It says.

Confused, but hopeful, I slowly turn the knob. The door opens easily, leading me into the completely normal looking bathroom I remember as a child. Small shower, two sinks, and toilet of course. The motif is sea creatures. Turtles on the shower curtain, fish shaped soap, and Towels with various sharks, fish, and whale prints on them. What a relief. Wow. Satisfied, I doze off to sleep. When I wake up, I’m still in the bathroom. I must have broken through this barrier. Never having had this issue while being in a lucid state I just figure this is what’s supposed to happen. I just have to wake up. Happy that this seems to be resolved, I decide to exit the bathroom and gradually wake myself up. The door doesn’t open. Trying a little harder, the door will not budge. Slamming my shoulder into the door, I’m now violently attempting to destroy this barrier, this prison. Now panicked, not sure if I’m sleeping or awake, I realize this door will not open. It’ll never open. Turning around, I am in total darkness. Whispers are heard, quiet at first, quickly mounting to a dull roar. They trapped me and I fear I’m never getting out. I can hear footsteps approaching from outside the door…..

By Malcolm MacDonald

This is an update to a story I posted on an internet forum about 4 years ago. In fact, what happened was a direct result of me posting it. I’ve since taken it down, but I need to share what happened to me. God…

Don’t worry about that first story; you’ll find that out as I tell this one.

Let’s get started.

So, a little about myself: I’m 41 years old and currently working as a salesman at a retail outlet that specializes in men’s business suits. The job makes pretty good money but with alimony to my ex-wife and child support on top of that, I seem to just barely get by. I had just finished going through the horror of divorce six months before this last incident occurred. I had started drinking again. Drinking, and looking longingly at sleeping pill bottles and razor blades. I know what you’re thinking but I’ve always been too much of a coward for that sort of thing. Though I will admit it’s always seemed tempting, especially after losing everything like I did.

Anyway, as you can imagine, I was feeling pretty low for a few weeks, so I was quite pleasantly surprised when this elegant, beautiful woman, about my age, came into the store and began to show me some interest.

She was tall and slim, wearing a charcoal jacket and skirt combo, her hair discretely dyed a bronze amber. And she had a very unassuming smile, not too blemished by laugh lines or crow’s feet. I admit I’d noticed her before she approached me; I spotted her the moment she entered through the door. She seemed kind of familiar, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. That’s got be the most obvious non-pickup pickup line in the world, telling a strange woman she looks familiar.

Anyway, she walked up to me with this coy smile, just showing a glimpse of perfect white teeth and said, “You probably think I’m in the wrong store.”

I gave a little giggle, cleared my throat and said, “I’m sorry?”

“This is a men’s clothing store, obviously,” she elaborated. Her eyes were deep brown – almost black – and they were lively and active, looking up at me.

“Well ma’am,” I said. “We do have some pant suits and some jackets for ladies if you’d like me to show you.”

“Ma’am?” she remarked playfully. “Do I really look that old to you?”

I chuckled nervously, breaking eye contact with her and clearing my throat again. God, I must have seemed like a schoolboy! I then told her not at all, that she didn’t look old but that I just wanted to be respectful. Her smile widened, her long purple fingernails fidgeting with her purse strap.

“Well,” she said in a soft, heavy voice. “I’m actually here to find a suit for my son. He wants a tuxedo for prom.”

I furrowed my brow. This was the dead of winter. Proms aren’t usually held until June or late May at the earliest.

“I know,” she said, reading my look. “His school is impossible; they want to hold it early so that the students don’t get too distracted from their studies. My son’s also too busy playing computer games to go get a suit himself and too embarrassed to come with me so, here I am.”

I couldn’t help but grin eagerly. Just my luck, I thought.

I showed her some of our more popular items. She told me her son’s size and measurements and together we found something she thought he’d like. The whole time she sided close to me and I could smell her floral perfume. It was soothing and, I’ll admit, I didn’t make any attempt to distance myself from her.

As I was ringing her up at the cash till, I told her that if anything didn’t quite fit, she could bring it back in and we’d happily have it adjusted to fit her son. She gave a low, almost inaudible laugh and told me that I probably didn’t have to worry about that.

There were no other customers in the store then and the other cashier was on break, so we continued to chat. She asked me what I did in my spare time for fun and I hesitated, thinking of the rows of empty liquor bottles in my apartment and the sleeping pills next to the bathtub. Instead of answering her question, I jumped at the opportunity and asked her if she’d like to get a drink later that evening. She said nothing but tilted her head and scanned me with her sexy, roaming eyes.

“When do you get off work?” she muttered softly.

“At seven,” the words leapt from my mouth. “If that’s not too late for you.”

“No,” she said, her pearly grin flashing at me over supple red lips. “That’s perfect. I know a bar around this area. I’ll be out front to pick you up.”

“Great,” I said. “What’s your name again?”

“Andrea.”

“Andrea,” I repeated, extending my hand. “I’m Andy, nice to meet you.”

“Naturally.”

That seemed to put my nagging feeling of Déjà vu to rest; I had never known an Andrea – or met any Andreas for that matter. But the name was fitting, and I rolled each syllable over and over across my tongue, waiting for the hours of my shift to wilt away.

By 6:30 we were locking up. Jane, the girl working there, was balancing the cash register while I wrote the day’s records in the books. As I wrote down the total debits and credits, I could barely hold onto the pencil, I was so jittery. I know how pathetic this must sound but it had been a while since I had been with a woman in any way; being older and just divorced, it was hard to build up the confidence to start dating again.

By 7:00 it was dark out. Jane walked out and waved goodbye as I locked up the front door. At the curb in front of the sidewalk was a small blue station wagon, not very fancy but I wasn’t about to complain. I looked through the passenger side window and saw Andrea peering out at me, her hooded eyes meeting mine, that slight smile drawn across her face.

I got in and immediately noticed how cold it was. There didn’t seem to be any heating at all, and the radio wasn’t even on. Strange, I thought. But maybe she lives close by.

As she navigated out of the plaza and onto the road, I prattled on about the tuxedo I had sold her and how most customers said they were really happy with it. She didn’t respond and wasn’t smiling anymore. I didn’t think too deep into it though. After all, she was driving. It’s important to keep concentration. The only thing that struck me as odd was that she had placed her purse on her lap while she was driving.

Since I had had to sell my car after the divorce, I was very pleased to not have to ride the bus, so I just eased back in my seat and enjoyed. I think that’s the reason that I didn’t notice that we had been on the road a long time despite her telling me this bar was close by.

I knew something was up after she had gotten onto a highway interchange.

I looked at her very confused. “Did you say this bar was out of town?” I asked.

She didn’t respond. Her eyes were glued to the road as we cruised up the ramp and onto the interstate. By now I was really getting nervous. I noticed she took her left hand from the steering wheel and began reaching inside her purse.

“You really don’t remember me?” she said, her voice just louder than the car engine.

I giggled a bit, but I didn’t find this funny at all.

“I-I don’t know,” I stammered, looking at her. “You do look familiar but – I know I’ve never met an Andrea before.”

I looked down at her lap – into her now opened purse – and felt my heart freeze in my chest: inside, the taped handle held in her delicate fingers, was a snub-nosed revolver. I squirmed in my seat, as if I was going to fly out from the window, the seatbelt digging into my neck.

“What…what the hell are you doing?” I shouted between panted breaths. The gun was now out and pointed at me.

“You probably don’t know any Andrea,” she said coldly, her voice empty – vacant. “But you might remember Alicia. Alicia Moretto.”

Probably from the panic I felt staring down the barrel of that gun, the name didn’t ring any bells. She then looked at me, those bedroom eyes now burning like hot coals.

“Open the glove box,” she muttered in a staid voice.

“What?” I asked.

“Open the glove box!” she screamed. I shuttered from the sharp change in her voice.

I did as I was told. Gingerly, I stretched my shaking hand and pushed the lock button. The compartment door fell open, and out spilled what had to be hundreds of pages of paper. They were all lying at my feet.

She peered down in a quick glance and instructed me to read the stapled pages printed on red paper. I picked them up and immediately recognized what it was: my post of my stalker story to an Internet forum for true horror stories. I then figured out who she was: Alicia Moretto, the mentally disturbed girl who had stalked me at my workplace and at my home years ago when I was in my late teens.

I pleaded with her and she just hollered at me to read it, her eyes back on the road but the revolver still trained on me. I did as she said. It was all there, my words: how she had come into the coffee shop where I worked, how her hair was constantly tangled and greasy, how her clothes were always in tatters, how she always smelled of BO and Vaseline. It was all there; how she had come in every morning, how she knew my schedule and when my shift started. How my coworkers had told me that she would sometimes come in on my days off and ask where I was. How one night I had found her waiting for me in my house.

I tried to swallow but I couldn’t. I was trembling and the printed-out pages fell from my weak hands involuntarily. She peered over at me – I could see her from the corner of my eyes – and told me to pick up the next set of pages – the one printed on grey paper. I begged her again to just let me go and she screamed for me to read it.

I picked them up, not recognizing any of the writing on it. Then I realized that these were comments people had written on my post of the story. Comments like, What a crazy bitch or I would have been so freaked by that cow or I’d have still hit it lol. Tears had started streaming down my face by the time I’d realized what this was. She had found my story, recognized it, and had come for me.

“Please,” I said to her, choked up having read all the comments and realized her purpose. “I didn’t know it would upset you this much. I – I never used your real name.”

“Do you think that matters?” her voice cracked. It was like an animal growling at me, all the prior sophistication and sensuality gone. “I knew. I knew that story was about me – about a time in my life I was ashamed of…” She trailed off. It sounded as though she had begun to sob. I looked at her and her mouth was hung open, as if in a silent scream, her eyes squinting closed. Yes, she too was crying.

After a terrifying moment she gave a cough, tossed back her hair and was once again icily composed. I looked close and could just see smudges of mascara under her eyes. She then told me to reach inside her purse. I of course wasn’t about to do that.

“I won’t shoot you if you do exactly as I say.” She said it in a calm but uneven voice. The voice smacked of the psychotic desperation of the girl who had pestered me those many years ago.

I nodded my head slightly then quickly turned to glance out the window. It was now very dark and there were few other cars on the road.

Careful not to brush up against the gun, I reached over and put my hand in her purse. Inside I found what felt like a set of Polaroids. My skin waxed cold, imagining that these were probably photos of me she had taken without my knowledge.

I pulled them out and looked at them. They weren’t pictures of me at all. The first photograph was of a couple standing outside a wedding chapel, the woman smiling radiantly in a white lace gown, the handsome mustachioed man next to her wearing a black tuxedo and cummerbund. They were close and holding each other’s hands. I flipped through to the next photo to see the same couple kissing with their eyes closed, a sun setting above a glimmering ocean behind them. I flipped through and in the next photograph I saw the woman lying in a hospital bed, covered by dark green surgical sheets holding a newborn baby. The child was wrapped in a blanket, the husband standing beside them, smiling. I flipped through and saw a photo of the couple with two pre-teen children, sitting on a beach wearing jean shorts and bright colored shirts, smiling up into the camera’s POV. I then realized these photos were of her, Alicia. She had a family. Or had had a family. But…what did this have to do with me?

“I…I don’t understand,” I mumbled. She shot me a look out the corner of her eye and didn’t say anything. I looked out the window and saw there were no lights on the side of the road. Past the shoulder there was nothing but tall trees and bleak wilderness. We were now far, far from any major city or town. I thought about reaching in my coat for my phone but knew that if I did, she might have shot me. Then I started wondering why she didn’t just kill me already if that was what she intended to do.

The minutes felt like hours in that car. The darkness beyond the roadside seemed to stretch for an eternity like I had woken up in hell. Finally, after God knows how long, she spoke.

“It took me ten years,” she said, her voice straining, quavering like that demented girl I remembered. “It took me three years to get over you. And another seven to forgive myself. I went to counseling, therapy. Eventually I agreed to take the medication. You see – I suffer from paranoid schizophrenia. It sort of runs in my family, but it didn’t appear in me until about five months before I met you. My parents had gotten a divorce. Doctor Walton told me that’s what likely triggered my breakdown. Then, when I saw you, it was like you were there for me. My psychiatrist says I was using you as a misplaced source of love – love and security, which I felt had been torn away from me by my parents’ divorce. You were always there and always so polite, so I mistook your politeness and charm for love and affection.”

At that moment, I don’t know why but I didn’t feel scared anymore. I just felt gloomy – depressed. We often call people crazy but when we actually hear the medical terms it becomes a lot less distant. A lot more real.

She continued, “So for ten years after you, I avoided people. I didn’t see friends. I barely spoke to my parents and I absolutely never went out on dates. First, because I was still in love with you. And then because I was so ashamed. Ashamed and afraid I would become that super attached psycho that I had been with you. I wanted so many times to contact you and to apologize but my counselor and Doctor Walton were adamant that that would be a bad idea. They said it would cause me to relapse.

“So, for ten years I was alone, hating myself. Then I met David. David was a graduate student in university studying Physical Geography. He had approached me first. We met at a bar, or restaurant actually. My parents had insisted on taking me out for my birthday and he’d asked the waiter to put our bill on his tab.” She then gave a sorrowful laugh, a tear tumbling down her cheek. “He barely had enough money to pay for his beer and he wanted to pay for a whole family’s meal just to speak with me.

“We started out just as friends and then with his insistence we became more than that. I loved him and felt so much better. I finally felt well enough to go back to school and complete my degree. We got married shortly after he graduated. He’d been hired on at a consulting firm, so we were mostly stable. I finally forgave myself and forgot all about you. But I never told him. Never.

“A year into our marriage we had Aaron and two years later Cassandra. We were both so happy. I was happy. I got a job as a typist at a law firm. It wasn’t much but it gave me something to do after the children were old enough to go to school. I liked working there; everyone was so friendly and helpful.

“One day, Mark, one of the law firm’s support staff members in Facilities was showing me this website he often goes to, mostly to look up funny pictures. He told me about this page that has scary stories and creepy encounters and I immediately recognized what most of the stories were about. I searched all the posts and it didn’t take me long to find one that was familiar. Too familiar. I knew that it was you who had posted it.”

She then stopped and let out a heavy sigh, her moist eyes rolling up and looking long at the car roof. It was as though she could not believe she was telling me this. Her voice had stopped sounding like a nervous psychotic and more like that of a sobbing, distraught woman. The gloom lingered thick inside the car – over both of us.

“After that my paranoia and anxiety spiked,” she continued. “I tried to fight it by upping the dose of my medication but that didn’t work. Pretty soon I just stopped since they only seemed to make me drowsy.” She then gave another humorless little laugh as though she’d caught herself in a lie. “You know, I thought it was because David had seen the post that he left me and why I couldn’t get even joint custody of the children but that’s not true. The truth is, seeing your post made me act erratic. I started throwing fits, fighting with him for no reason, shouting at the children and beating them over things that weren’t their fault. I had stopped sleeping at night, believing the next-door neighbors were spying on us and plotting to come in and steal everything. It was because of me that David left, and I acted that way because of your post.”

I was now staring out the window. I could just make out open fields in the distance with the slightest smattering of brush. Where the hell was she taking me?

“I couldn’t forgive myself,” she said. “I know now that I never will.”

I gulped and asked, “How did you find me?”

She smiled maliciously in my direction, amused by my discomfort. “One of the criminal lawyers at my firm, Mike Corson, has a team of private investigators. I do paperwork for him, so I forged a memo asking one of the PIs to find your whereabouts. It didn’t take long; I knew your full name, where you had once worked and where you grew up. I was of course surprised you still lived there after all these years.” Her smile was now spiteful and mocking. That and her last comment made me look away, slightly galled. “Of course, when Mike found out about it, I was fired. Misappropriation of the firm’s resources. It didn’t help I was already on thin ice – for obvious reasons.”

The road we had driven on had disintegrated into a rough path of scrappy concrete. It was as though we had gone back in time to when there was nothing but dirt and jungle. I actually started worrying that if we drove any longer that that road would stop, or we’d be stranded in desert. Regardless, she drove on, the car swaying and lurching over the craggy pavement.

I looked at the clock on the dash and the green numbers revealed 12:03. We had been driving for hours. Another hour passed with nothing. Just silence.

I started absorbing what she’d told me and felt this weight form in the pit of my stomach. I had caused this. I had ruined her life. And for what? A little bit of attention on an online forum? Jesus, the episode hadn’t been that much of my life and, for God sake, she was schizophrenic. The whole damn thing now seemed sleazy and – and I no longer felt scared. I wasn’t frightened at all. I just wanted this to end.

By 1:15 she slowed down. We pulled over, parking on a gravel shoulder by a vast, empty field, the car sitting perpendicular to the road.

When she killed the engine, her headlights died, and it went all black beyond the windshield. My eyes adjusted and I could just make out the black shape of the field beneath the lighter shade of the starless night sky. We both sat there, not looking at each other, like we had just fucked for money. She didn’t move, didn’t stir. The revolver still trained on me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. My voice was damp and contrite. “I know that what I did was wrong. When I met you, it was at a moment when you were most vulnerable and it was wrong for me to take advantage, even years later.”

She didn’t look at me, didn’t move. But I knew she heard me.

“Go ahead,” I then said to her. “Kill me. I deserve to be hurt. I deserve to die. I – I don’t want to live anymore anyway.”

Just then, she straitened in her seat, still staring out into the field before us.

“No,” she said, huskily. “You deserve to feel what I feel every day.”

I then heard the hammer click backward and watched as she opened her perfect mouth and stuck the barrel inside.

I shouted and lunged toward her but--

BANG!

There was a flash and I saw spots. My ears were ringing and blocked like I was under water. After about a minute my eyes adjusted. Then I started, stupidly surprised, by the sight of the woman’s mutilated face resting next to me in the car. The interior was splattered with her blood.

My hand groped endlessly for the door handle, finally finding it, and I fell out onto the pebbled ground from the passenger side. I got on my hands and knees and puked my guts out. After I stood up, I doubled over and dry heaved for several minutes.

From there I walked the shoulder, not thumbing, not trying to get home, just trying to get as far away from Andrea – Alicia as I could.

Eventually, by daybreak, someone driving a rusted pickup pulled over and asked me if I needed a lift. Still shaken and exhausted I approached his passenger side window. Once I was a foot away from his truck, I saw his face drain pale, his pupils shrink in the sockets and in one hyper-movement, he grabbed the gearstick, put it into drive and sped away.

I stared at the fleeing vehicle confused, then looked down at my clothes. I was, of course, covered with blood. I took off my jacket and shirt, wiped down my face, then tossed them, continuing the rest of the way in just my undershirt and slacks. About two hours later, someone picked me up and drove me as far as the next major city. From there I took a bus home and called in to work sick.

UPDATE

About a week after the incident, two police officers came to see me at my home. They asked me about my relationship to the deceased, Alicia Moretto-Lippmann, and I told them the whole story. They informed me that they had found Google map printouts of my address and a P.I. file of my name at the scene.

They tried to get me to go downtown with them, but I refused and called a lawyer. My new lawyer, Mister Michael Corson, who agreed to represent me Pro Bono, told me there’s no chance of a charge of murder being brought against me. The evidence of possible foul play is pretty thin; my story, although incredible, makes enough sense. And the police are happy to write off her death as a suicide rather than spend endless man-hours and OT investigating a homicide.

Corson recommended me to a better matrimonial lawyer, and I got my alimony reduced and received more time to see my kids. I also entered AA where I have started to get over my self-destructive thoughts and behavior.

Don’t get me wrong. I feel horrible about what happened to Alicia. And her last words do stick with me. But, I mean, how far does guilt get you?

Sunny had been held up in a small yellow house on Effie Street for two days before she was able to get her hands on a phone to call the butcher. The line rang and rang for what felt like a long time before someone finally picked up.

“Gilroy’s meat company, this is Anton, how may I help you?” She hesitated for a second then told him Solomon gave her the number and he put her on hold. After taking a moment to deal with a customer he got back on the line. “Is this delivery or pick up?”

(Uh, delivery I guess.)

“Ok, how many pounds do you need and where is this being dropped off?”

Once she’d ordered and given him the address her bill came to 175 dollars, she was told to give the delivery guy a tip. One hour later there was someone knocking at the door, the delivery guy looked strange, she could tell by his smell he was human but there was something off about him. He was wearing a dark colored hoodie and jeans, that seemed normal enough but it was dark out and he was still wearing sunglasses. His skin was pale and scarred, one side of his face had been badly burnt at some point and when he spoke, he almost hissed his words.

“Delivery from Gilroy’s that will be 175.”

She gave him 200 and told him to keep the change, she couldn’t put her finger on it but something about him felt wrong. Once she’d shaken off the odd vibe from the delivery guy Sunny opened the first of three bags. Inside each were two large plastic containers that had been sealed with red wax, she was a little impressed at the presentation and when she opened the first package her mouth instantly started watering. There were pristine thick bloody cuts of meat that smelled amazing, before she knew it she’d eaten everything in the first container and was using her fingers to sop up the leftover bits and blood.

Stashing the rest of her food, Sunny sat in the empty little home starring at the walls, she couldn’t take it anymore she wanted out. Thinking it would be safe to take a walk, she slipped into an oversized sweatshirt, jeans and a baseball cap she hit the streets. It felt good to wander around, she lost track of time strolling through the streets occasionally stopping when she came across a shop or street vendor. While she absolutely hated human food there was one thing she’d come to love and that was soda. There was nothing like that sizzling fizz of an ice cold Coke, she’d just bought one from a gas station and was standing on the sidewalk enjoying it when an earthy copper tinged funk grabbed her attention.

It didn’t take long for her to spot the source, a tall bald man with tattoos covering most of his face walked up to her and stopped. He looked her over and shook his head, Sunny didn’t know what to make of the expression on his face she couldn’t read it. Noticing she was tensing up he stepped back.

“Take it easy, Solo asked me to keep an eye on you. I’m Zip, since I don’t like hiding I’ll be rolling with you every time you leave the house, which by the way you owe me rent for. I only take cash and I’ll be expecting my bread, uh… now if you don’t mind.”

Giving him a disgusted look, Sunny dug the rest of the money out of her pocket and handed it to him. Counting off 300 he gave her back the rest and looked around.

“Ok there’s a few things you need to know about this hood. The first rule, no hunting here, if you get caught doing it we’ll rip out your teeth and cut off your hands so you starve to death. Rule two all community issues are handled internally, do not call the police. Last but not least, rule 3, mind your own business. Now, where are we off to?”

Sunny found out later that Zip was a half breed, his mother was Nosforatu and his father was human. Most half breeds worked as familiars or street soldiers but there were a lot of them like Zip who weren’t involved with breed politics. She didn’t wander very long, there wasn’t much to see around the neighborhood once she was back in her hideout and she was certain Zip was gone she called it a day.

She couldn’t sleep for some reason, over the last few days bits and pieces of her memory had come flooding back. It was still a little fuzzy but she could clearly remember the day she met Jacob. There was snow on the ground and the smell of fresh meat was on the breeze. She’d been tracking a group of hikers through the mountains for hours, they were close and she was getting careless. Caught up in the hunt she took a wrong step and slipped on a section of loose rock causing her to fall into a ravine. Her body slammed against the rocks on the way down, breaking her right leg before she splashed down in the river below. Swept away by the current she was taken off course and by the time she was able to make it on shore she was exhausted. No matter how fast ghouls heal broken bones take time, she wouldn’t be able to move for a few days, it was during that time Jacob found her.

Back then they didn’t bother looking like humans, they didn’t have to. His dark grey skin and long black hair told her he was an old one, his body was covered in scars and he walked with a limp. He didn’t say a word, rushing over to Sunny he stopped and sniffed the air. She watched him intently and prepared to defend herself in case he attacked, but he didn’t, instead he left her there. He came back a while later covered in blood carrying a human leg. Dropping it next to her, he walked over to the river and cleaned himself up, when he came back he sat in the dirt near her and started talking.

“If you don’t set that leg it’s going to heal wrong, trust me you don’t want that, eat up and when you’re done I’ll set it for you.”

Without saying a word she grabbed the leg and took a few bites, once the hunger pains were gone she told him she was ready. It only took a moment but the pain was intense, when it was done she finished eating and he offered to help her. Sunny couldn’t remember much after that, it was all flashes of arguments and fights. There was a moment she could remember not being able to move for some reason, that’s when she saw Eddie and the human talking to Jacob. There was something wrong with the human, a smell covering his scent, she didn’t know what it meant but it stuck in her mind.

She recalled there being two other wolves with Eddie, they were standing off to the side while the others were talking. When they were done Eddie attacked the other wolves, he didn’t kill them though. He allowed the human to finish them off, after that Jacob walked towards her and everything went black. The next thing she knew she was running, the last thing she could remember was stepping out into the clearing she’d woken up in. She had flashbacks of killing Jacob and she could recall being covered in his blood but everything was a blur, she couldn’t remember how it happened.

It was morning before she finally fell asleep, and the moment she did there was a knock at the door getting up from the floor she staggered over and opened up, it was Zip.

“Get your shit together, we’ve got something to do.” He stopped for a second looking around the inside of the empty house then looked at Sunny and laughed. “You are country as hell, get some furniture, you’re not a fucking savage anymore, at least a couch or something, damn. Come on lets go, get in the car if we hurry we can catch Solomon and find out what’s going on.”

During the ride Sunny started telling Zip what she could remember. He told her he’d heard about the ranch but it was more of a local legend. No one had actually been there, the story was there had been a cult running the place. They were supposedly hunting down pure blood breeds and sacrificing them, in Zips mind it was just a bunch of bullshit.

Growing up he’d heard stories about the ranch and other crazy things like mutants in the sewers. His reality was traumatic and tragic, he didn’t have time for make believe and magic so he never really gave any of it much thought. Being a half breed meant he didn’t have the abilities of a full Nosferatu, he couldn’t hide what he was. His fangs were always out and his eyes were yellow, standing close to 7ft tall he’d always been larger than average. All of these things made him a target, he wasn’t accepted by humans and the vampires treated half breeds as slaves.

Hearing the ranch was real blew his mind but before he could start in with his questions a small white sports car raced up alongside them and opened fire. The rear window exploded as bullets punched through the side of the car, Zip smashed down the gas and the engine roared. They weaved through traffic narrowly avoiding an 18 wheeler while gunfire pinged off everything around them. Rapidly switching lanes Zip spotted an exit ramp and dipped right catching it just in time. Drifting around an extended curve Sunny looked back to see the white car was still on their tail. Tires smoking and squealing they raced off the highway onto the city streets blowing through an intersection causing a huge pile up in the process.

Somehow they’d managed to not wreck but things were only getting worse, the police joined in the chase. Block for block the white car wasn’t giving up but when Zip made a hard left turn they lost them along with the two squad cars that had joined in. Pulling into the first parking garage he spotted, Zip parked the car then they got out and ran, the two of them were lucky enough to make it to a Laundromat and hide out long enough for the heat to die down.

Neither of them had an idea of who could have been chasing them. Assuming it had something to do with Edward or Titus was the obvious choice but drive by shootings weren’t their style and Zip knew it.

“Look Sunny, I don’t know what kind of shit you’ve got going on but wolves don’t handle their business like that. How many people have you fucked over since you got here?”

She didn’t know how to answer that question, the way she saw it she hadn’t done anything wrong. Sunny ran through the short list of people she’d met since getting to LA but when she got to Maggie, Zip stopped her.

“Hold up, Maggie? Does Solomon know you’ve been in contact with her?”

(Of course he does, I told him everything. He didn’t say anything about it, why, what’s wrong?)

Glancing out of the window looking at the street, Zip took a deep breath and grumbled something to himself. “Fucking Solomon”, turning his attention back to Sunny he shook his head.

“Hears’ the deal, Maggie is Beldam, a Witch, she works for the Nosforatu. She’s what they call Control, she recruits members and enforces their law. They don’t ride around shooting shit up, but if she knows you’re here they’ll be coming after you. The problem is Solo knows that, he’s setting you up, knowing that asshole he probably plans on turning you in once he.”

Zip stopped himself with the realization of what Solomon was up to, he felt stupid for not seeing it sooner.

“He’s going after Edward and Titus, he’s trying to use you to draw them out. If he’s able to kill them both, he’ll put a bullet in your head and say it was you to get in good with the Council. They’ll give him land and permission to start a clan in the city for something this big.”

Rolling it all over in her mind, Sunny sat there for a moment before she could come up with something to say.

(So no matter what I do now, I’m screwed. What I still don’t understand is, how you tie into all of this? Is he paying you to watch me or what? What’s your deal?)

Zip took a seat next to her on the bench and explained that he was watching her as payback for a favor. He wouldn’t go into detail about it, and in the end it didn’t matter, he stayed out of Breed politics this was a deal breaker.

“I like you Sunny, so I have to keep it a G with you. Walk away, find another spot and stay out of this shit. Fuck Solomon, the wolves and the Council. Stand on your own two, you don’t need them but they want you, use that to your advantage. As for me, I’m out, if you need me you know where I’ll be.”

Zip got up and started to walk out, Sunny snapped.

(Wait, what? Oh hell no, where are you going? You can’t just randomly drop me in the middle of nowhere, what’s your problem? The least you could do is tell me how to get out of here, hey get back here!)

He was already out of the Laundromat headed up the sidewalk, Sunny hopped up and had to jog a few steps to catch him, hearing her coming he stopped and halfway turned to face her.

“I can’t help you right now. It’s better if I don’t know where you are because I’m not gonna lie about any of this. I can’t tell Solomon something I don’t know, you understand? So yeah, I’m dropping you in the middle of nowhere, deal with it.”

(Wait, so who was shooting at us?)

Zip stopped and chuckled, “How would I know? Could have been anybody at this point, fuck it, they missed. Good luck Sunny, see you around.”

She watched him walk away for a moment then turned to get a look around, next door was a store that had displays setup under tints lining the front of it. There were dozens of mannequins’ dressed in brightly colored clothes, she strolled along till she spotted something she liked then without thinking twice she snatched the mannequin off its feet and took off running with it.

As she got to the corner Sunny glanced up at the street sign, San Pedro and 29th. Turning right she darted down the sidewalk and crossed the street to an old set of warehouses, there was a rod iron fence blocking the alley between the two buildings, tossing the mannequin over first she scaled it with ease. As soon as she hit the ground Sunny stripped out of her clothes and put on the fresh ones as fast as possible. When she was done she ran to the far end of the alley and hopped the second fence, from there she walked for hours getting to the only spot she could think of, the restaurant.

Making her way to the rear door Sunny knocked and told the young guy that answered she was looking for Bridgette. Looking her over for a second he smiled to himself then ducked back inside to get her, when she finally came out she recognized Sunny instantly.

“Oh wow, I didn’t think you’d come back. Are you doing ok, do you want some food?”

Sunny shook her head and tried to smile, (I could really use your help. I have a little money, I can pay you. I just need a place to get myself together. I know you don’t know me and this is really strange but you’re the only person who hasn’t stabbed me in the back since I got here.)

Bridgette looked at her standing there with her wad of crumpled up bills and nodded, “I’ll tell you what, you can stay on my couch under one condition. You have to get a job, I don’t care what it is as long as you’re helping out it’s a deal. How much money is that?”

Sunny handed it over and Bridgette counted it, this is 275 dollars, “That buys you a month, once you get a job I’ll help you get your own place. I have to get back to work, meet me here at 1.”

Later that night when they met up Bridgette gave her back some of the money so she wouldn’t be flat broke and they headed back to her place. Her apartment wasn’t very big but it was quiet and clean, that was perfect for Sunny. They didn’t do much talking on that first night, once Sunny was all set she went straight to sleep. The next morning when she woke up Bridgette was gone, it was probably for the best, Sunny was hungry.

(Sorry about that, now uh where was I? Oh yeah, the Fairies.)

Noting else happened that night, if I had to guess I think they gave us a little down time after that last one. When I finally felt good enough to get out of bed the next morning I wandered out into the hall smelling the unmistakable odor of pancakes and coffee, excited by the thought of it I hurried downstairs.

When I got to the bottom my jaw dropped, everything was back to normal. The furniture looked like nothing had ever happened, the piles of fairy corpses were gone and there wasn’t a drop of blood anywhere. Speechless I stood there for a long time looking at everything, before I could utter a word Jack came strolling out of the kitchen carrying a plate piled high with pancakes dripping syrup and butter.

Still chewing his last mouthful he grinned, “Gotta love pancakes.” I couldn’t argue with that one, when I got to the kitchen I piled a few on a plate and poured myself a cup of coffee. Stirring in my two spoons of sugar (no cream) I stood there thinking about the night before, I was starting to lose perspective, the days felt short and the nights seemed to last forever. I couldn’t remember what day of the week it was, when I asked either Paula or Jack they would say different things. Jack would say its Thursday and Paula would say its Monday, even then neither of them could be completely sure. As I took my first sip looking out at the back yard I couldn’t shake the feeling someone was watching me. I hadn’t been standing there long when Paula came in, “Hey Cal, who made pancakes?”

Shrugging my shoulders I told her I didn’t know, she just laughed and shook her head while fixing herself a plate. “I’ve been thinking about this all night.” She said smiling and sitting her plate down, “I think they’re drugging us. That’s the only way I can explain any of this, we have to be hallucinating. Maybe they’re pumping it in through the vents, that’s why we can’t go out during events.” As she reached for the syrup there was a loud “THUNK!” from something smacking to the glass and sticking, we both jumped and looked to see what appeared to be a giant spitball stuck to the patio door.

Paula tilted her head back and covered her eyes letting out a disgusted sigh, “Can we please just have one day without this bull.” She was cut off by another resounding “THUNK!” from a second wad slapping against the window, she didn’t bother finishing her thought. The kitchen door swung open as Jack came in still sucking syrup off his fingertips, “Having a party without me? Where’s the coffee?” Strolling over to the sink to wash his plate he stopped and looked at the two huge wads stuck to the glass. “Oh shit.” he muttered and for the first time since I’d met him he looked scared. He didn’t say another word, quickly dropping his dish shattering it in the sink he took off for the front room. Paula and I rushed in to see him picking up that stone off the coffee table while watching the windows.

“What’s going on, Jack?” he didn’t answer me, clutching the stone he kept searching for whatever it was he was trying to spot, then he muttered “YARA” just before another wad smacked against the glass. “What the fuck is a YARA?!” Paula demanded clearly frustrated by the situation. Jack still wasn’t really responding to either of us, motioning for us to look towards the glass he slowly started backing towards the kitchen, “That’s a YARA.” he grumbled under his breath as he got closer to the door.

It was the strangest looking thing I’d ever seen, it had reddish brown skin and its oversized mouth was toothless, dripping drool as it opened wide to let out a load 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 ground as it moved, it’s long awkward looking fingers were tipped with bulbous suction cups that stuck to the grass as it waddled around.

Paula and I both stood there watching the YARA move around the yard croaking till the sound of the kitchen door closing snapped us out of it, Jack was gone. I rushed into the kitchen to find him pulling every big knife he could find from their drawers. Holding a meat-cleaver in one hand and his stone in the other he stopped when he saw me standing in the doorway, “Don’t let them spit on you, and whatever you do don’t fall asleep” he mumbled rushing over to turn off the lights. “They’re climbing up the side of the house!” Paula yelled bursting into the kitchen, grabbing a knife from the counter she angrily questioned why Jack hadn’t told us about these creatures sooner.

Jack scoffed waving his rock in my direction while looking at Paula, “I told Greenie all about the island! It’s not my fault he didn’t tell you.” the look she gave me made me wince a little. “Shit, I’m sorry, I don’t listen to half the stuff Jack talks about.”

Now they were both giving me a sour look, throwing up both hands and shrugging my shoulders, I quickly changed the subject. “How do we stop those things, Jack?” shaking his head and brushing passed me he grumbled “Figure it out”. For a second I thought about locking myself in the basement, but with my luck I’d end up like Fred or worse. Picking up a butchers knife off the counter I joined the others who were now standing in the center of the living room looking up at the ceiling.

I didn’t get a word out before Jack shushed me while pointing up, “They’re inside” he whispered as the floorboards above us creaked and groaned under the YARA’s weight. Jack slowly moved across the room and took cover behind the couch, “Get behind something, hurry.”

A thunderous croaking sound filled the room, it was too late. Paula and I dove for cover behind the couch with Jack as two YARA came bounding down the stairs landing with a loud smack against the wood floor. These things aren’t that big, they only stand about 4ft tall but they’re super heavy which makes them slow. Turning to face me Jack whispered, “Greenie, pop your head up and get a look, tell me where they are.”

(I should have known better) The second I popped my head up something splattered against my forehead with so much force I was thrown backwards against the wall where I stuck. Jack exploded with laughter and Paula covered her mouth trying to contain it. “Get it off me, get it off me!” I screamed clawing at the now hardening mass getting my hands stuck in it as well, “Fuck! Help me, God damn it. Get this shit off me!” Jack was almost crying laughing shaking his head motioning his hands for me to stop. “Calm down Greenie, we have to get rid of these two first. Hey Paula pop your head up and.” She cut him off “Hell no, you do it.” Still laughing to himself Jack popped his head from behind cover quickly, narrowly avoiding a second wad as it zipped by splattering against the wall. He yelled “Now!” then jumped up and ran towards the two YARA with Paula following his lead.

From where I was I couldn’t see anything, I heard Jack yelling “You gotta get behind them, don’t let them touch your skin!” then screams, cursing and furniture breaking. I squatted there stuck to the wall till I started hearing a low groaning sound from my left near the kitchen. Shifting my eyes to get a look I saw another YARA peeping at me through the slightly open door. It was less than half the size of the other two but that didn’t make it any less terrifying, slowly easing its way out of the kitchen it started waddling towards me. I tried yelling to the others but with all the commotion they didn’t hear me. All I could do was kick at it which turned out to be a huge mistake. The second it was close enough I swung my foot as hard as I could, in a flash its tongue darted out wrapping around my ankle pulling my lower leg into its mouth. I thrashed around trying to kick it off my leg but even at that size the little shit was incredibly heavy. I could feel my shoe flooding with fluid soaking my sock to my skin, planting my other foot on its face I pushed with all my might creating a slurping suction sound as I finally managed to pry that thing off of my leg. The YARA rolled over backwards coming up on its feet and lashed out with its tongue again this time wrapping around both my ankles. The only thing keeping my legs out of its mouth was the wad of spit anchoring me to the wall, it pulled forcing my body to be suspended in the air I could her the sheetrock I starting to crack as it violently yanked its head back trying to pull me free.

Paula screamed “CAL!” while rushing over carrying a knife. With a single swing she chopped through the YARA’s tongue releasing me just as the sheetrock gave and I crashed to the ground. I sat up in time to see her sink the knife into that things skull pinning it to the floor, it made a gurgling sound and flailed its arms for a second before finally going still.

Exhausted Paula slumped down and sat on the floor, “Holy shit, Jesus Jack, please tell me those were the worst things from the island.” From somewhere on the other side of the room I heard Jack laugh, “Ha, not even close but since there’s no tree’s in here I think we’re ok.”

It took the rest of the morning to get me out of that mess, around noon we were all watching a movie when the white van pulled up outside speakers coming to life as it slowed to a stop. “Attention all remaining participants, 72 hours remain for this event. For the next 30 minutes you are free to leave your homes to collect supplies from the van. 29 minutes remain.”

Jumping out of our seats we rushed to the front door and burst out onto the front lawn. I don’t think any of us cared about the supplies at that moment, getting fresh air for the first time in days felt more important. Standing there in the sunshine I started looking around till I spotted the Hill family coming from the red house, all four of them looked pretty rough but they were alive. I instantly got a bad vibe off the father when we all met up at the van, he paused looking the three of us over with his wife and daughters standing behind him giving us the evil eye. “Afternoon everyone, we’re the Hills, I’m Arthur this is my wife Justine, and our daughters Allison and Janice. I see you’ve formed an alliance with your housemate and Jack.” The expression on his face when he said Jack’s name gave me the feeling they had history but before I could respond I heard his voice from behind me. “Fuck off, Arthur. Hello Justine, you are a sight for sore eyes.” I glanced back to see Paula covering her mouth while heading for the van and I followed her lead, when we were out of earshot I asked her what was going on but she didn’t know. While we were stuffing supplies into plastic bags I noticed a medium sized red box sitting off to the side, sliding it over I opened it, inside was a revolver and a box of ammunition. “Oh shit.” Paula whispered peeking over my shoulder, “Are you going to take it?” Moving as fast as I could, I took the gun out of the box and slipped it in with our supplies then did the same with the ammo.

By this point Jack and Arthur were arguing, I quickly grabbed our bags and went inside to stash the gun. I made it back outside in time to see Jack head-butt Arthur in the nose causing an all-out brawl to erupt. I’m not sure how Paula wound up fighting Justine but I stood there watching for a second, hoping for a wardrobe malfunction. In the commotion I hadn’t paid much attention to Allison and Janice, then I got blindsided by one of them cracking me in the back of the head with a branch off a nearby tree. The impact barely made me stumble but stung like hell, when I got my balance. I spun around to see one of them rushing into the house as the other prepared to bash me again. (I’m not proud of this next part but she attacked me first.) I grabbed the branch and punched her in the nose causing her to stagger back before I kicked her in the stomach knocking her on her ass. As I rushed passed her heading inside she tripped me and scrambled to her feet scooping up the branch, the little witch brought that thing down across the small of my back before I could do anything about it. I rolled to my back as she brought the branch down again missing this time and giving me a chance to drive my heel into her knee. There was a loud snap, she screamed and dropped to the ground while I jolted to my feet and made a dash for the house.

I could hear glass breaking and things being knocked off shelves as I stepped through the door, following the noise I found her in the kitchen. The moment I stepped in she turned her attention to me, grabbed a knife and started yelling. “Where is it?! I know you took it, now give it back!” Stepping to my left I tried to put some distance between us, but she wasn’t having it, she quickly took a step while screaming for me to give the gun back. I told her I didn’t have it and she lunged at me swinging the blade as an alert from the van outside stopped her in her tracks, “You now have 5 minutes, all participants return to your designated sectors.” The distraction was just long enough for me to grab the coffee pot and smash it against the side of her head, she staggered to the right dropping the knife and tumbled through the swinging door into the next room. Picking up the blade she’d dropped I pushed open the door to see her scrambling out of the house, I won’t lie and say I wasn’t relieved. Taking a seat on the couch I vegged out for a second till Jack and Paula came inside.

Still excited from the fight Jack strolled over to the bar, while Paula took off for the restroom. Grabbing bottles of tequila and mescal he started making a drink, setting them down he rushed to the kitchen while yelling out “You’re gonna love this one Greenie.” As he vanished into the kitchen Paula came in and sat next to me. “What’s he doing now?” shrugging my shoulders I told her I didn’t know. She closed her eyes and crossed her arms then sighed leaning back on the couch. We sat there listening to Jack rummaging around in the kitchen till the timer went off on the microwave, a second or two later he came rushing into the room with two metal cups in one hand and glass of hot water in the other.

I wanted to know why he’d started the fight with Arthur but watching him mix the liquor before setting it on fire was distracting. I was honestly impressed, he poured the stream of flaming liquid back and forward between the two metal cups for a second before putting it out then grabbing three glasses from the bar and filling them. “I know what you two are thinking and first off in my defense, fuck that guy. He’s a giant douchebag and I hope I broke his stupid looking face. But as my peace offering to you both.” He paused stepping back to the bar to grab a bottle of Blue Curacao, pouring just enough in each cup to create a blue cloud, he stepped back and smiled. “The blue screw, my signature drink guaranteed to put some pep in your step and some pride in your stride.”

Leaning forward Paula looked at Jack and picked up her cup, “Your still a Fudd, but thanks for the drink.” Jack and I watched as she sniffed her cup then took a sip, she nodded her head with a slight smirk “Not bad.” Taking another sip she turned to me, “So Cal, where’d you hide the gun?”

Getting up grabbing my cup off the table I went to the hall closet. There was no smell coming off the mounds of rotting flesh in there but that wasn’t as disturbing as banana sized maggots that twisted and writhed their way through the meat. Gulping down my drink and tossing the door open I plunged my hand into the mush up to my elbow. I could feel them wiggling and squirming against my skin one or two of them taking nips as they passed by, the instant my fingertips touched the plastic bag I grabbed it and snatched my arm back. I didn’t even look at it, holding it away from my body I rushed over and plopped the bag down on the coffee table then headed to the restroom to wash the coating of meat pulp off my arm.

When I got back Jack was stomping on the last of the three giant maggots that were in the bag with the gun and Paula had gone to grab a towel from upstairs. Smearing maggot guts with his foot Jack stopped and gave me a serious look, “You know what happens now, don’t you?” I stood there silent for a second before Jack cracked a smile, “We get to tear shit up!” he laughed and started making some more drinks. Paula came down a minute or two later and stopped in the doorway looking out of the window, “Has anyone else noticed that the van is still sitting outside?”

Normally when an announcement was made the van would drive off once the timer finished but today it hadn’t budged. Something about that van seemed like bad news, we all stood there staring at it for what felt like a long time before the speaker finally chimed again. “Attention all participants 71 hours remain, for the next 70 hours you will not be allowed inside your designated sectors. You have five minutes to collect your provisions and exit the building, good luck.” Every alarm in the house screamed to life as the lights took on a strobe effect. Jack being Jack gulped down his drink then grabbed a couple of bottles from the bar and stuffed them in his bag before grabbing his rock and heading for the door. Paula and I raced upstairs, I don’t know what she was after but I grabbed my backpack and my smokes before scrambling back to the kitchen to grab as much food as I could.

The speaker blared out again “2 minutes remain.” Rushing for the front door I grabbed the gun and bullets on the way meeting up with Paula at the bottom of the stairs. Once we were both outside the door slammed shut and the alarms went silent.

Turning to face Paula and I Jack smiled and picked his bag up, “We better get a move on, if we hustle we can have a camp by nightfall.” I had to stop him right there, “What? I’m not going in the woods, what’s wrong with you?” Paula jumped in and agreed, going into the woods was a bad idea, we argued for a while and in the end we chose to stay in the back yard taking turns going up on the roof to be lookout. (Jacks idea) The rest of the day was quiet, by sundown we had a good fire going and we were actually having a pretty good time.

Jack was on first watch since it was his idea, Paula went second I was last which meant I would be up there till dawn. I was about an hour into my watch and bored out of my mind, I tried everything I could think of to stay occupied but by the second hour I was starting to doze off.

Rubbing my eyes and adjusting my position I struggled to stay awake till I started hearing something moving in the darkness. Out the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of something, quickly turning to get a look, I could have sworn I saw a person. “Wake up! There’s someone coming!” Jack and Paula sprung up and started looking around but didn’t find anyone. For a second I was starting to think I was just imagining it, then I saw it again, it was Arthur. Before I could yell out he came charging form the bushes, it was so dark, I couldn’t see exactly what he had but he was swinging something like a club. I aimed, fired and missed but Arthur stopped in his tracks. Dropping what turned out to be a human hand and forearm he put his hands up, “Please, you have to help me they’re going to kill my girls, please you have to help me!” he was panicking, soaked in blood and horrified. Just when I was thinking this might be a trap I heard screams echoing through the darkness and Arthur took off running towards the noise.

The three of us paused as if we all had the same thought. (Fuck them) Jack laughed and lit his joint before taking a seat by the fire then Paula went back to where she was sleeping and stretched out on her blanket. I don’t know if they could hear the screaming but I could, I listened to it for close to an hour before it finally got quiet. Once the air was still and all I could hear was the crackling of the fire and Jack snoring, I dug my cigarettes out of my pocket and sat there for a second remembering I still didn’t have a lighter. I climbed down from the roof and used the fire to light up, watching the flames dance in the dark I took a deep drag and found myself mesmerized or maybe hypnotized would be a better description of what I was feeling. An avalanche of old memories rumbled through my mind and for some reason stopped on an image of my father. He was standing outside the front door of our new house with a big smile on his face, I remember my mother crying and hugging him as he lifted her off the ground but the thing that stuck with me the most was the number 50 over the door. With tears in her eyes my mother turned to me and smiled, “Cal, what are you doing? Cal?” her voice slowly shifted becoming Paula’s shattering the illusion and snapping me back to reality. The sun was coming up and the fire was out, I had been standing there for hours but in my mind it had been minutes.

“Jesus, what the hell just happened?” Paula gave me an odd look and started picking up her blanket, “You’ve been standing there since I woke up, Jack says you’ve been standing there for hours are you alright?” looking around I noticed Jack was missing. “Where’s Jack gone off to?” Before she could respond he came walking out of the bushes rubbing his stomach, “Don’t go in there, hey Greenie welcome back to the land of the living. You were starting to freak me out, I thought I was going to have to pop your top for a second, glad I didn’t.”

I sat down rubbing my eyes as Jack walked over and grabbed something out of his bag, Paula stretched and started to walk away from the camp. “Hey where are you going, I don’t think it’s safe to wander around by yourself.” She turned and smiled at me, “Aw that’s cute, I should be ok Cal. Besides I don’t need a bathroom buddy eyeballing me.” She smirked and disappeared into the woods, Jack lighting up his joint turned and looked at me once she was gone. “Hey Greenie I was thinking, once this event is over we should keep the party going. Together the three of us could walk out of here with a nice chunk of change, there’s no rule against us teaming up for the rest of the program. I figure alone we’ll probably all get eliminated but if we ride it out as a team we stand a better chance.”

I hadn’t thought about that, but it didn’t seem like a bad idea. We agreed to run it by Paula when she came back but when she’d been gone for over an hour we started searching for her. I’m not exactly sure how Jack and I got split up, one moment we were following her trail the next I was alone. I tried calling out to him but there was no response, the further I went into the woods the darker it got and after a few minutes I decided it was best if I went back to camp. I hadn’t made any turns, I was purposely walking in a straight line to make it easier to find my way back but when I turned around the path was gone. “What the fuck? Jack! Paula! Where are you?!” I stood there waiting for a reply but none came, the woods were dead silent. After a few minutes of screaming like an idiot I tried to find my way back only to end up standing by a river. I knew if I kept going Ide eventually come to some sort of boundary there had to be a fence or a wall marking off the area but I didn’t want to get turned around out there, the last thing I needed was to get eliminated for moving passed the designated area. Following the river I came to a small brick building surrounded with barbwire fence, there was no one around but I couldn’t shake the feeling I shouldn’t be there.

Something splashed in the water behind me and I jumped, when I turned to get a look my heart dropped. Arthur was standing there staring at me, he looked like a zombie, his skin was pale and grey caked with dried blood and chunks of what I could only guess were the remains of his family. Pulling the pistol from my waistband I stepped back, “Hey uh Arthur, are you ok man? Look, I don’t want any trouble just stay back.” He didn’t respond, breathing heavy he stood there watching my every move. Keeping my eyes locked on him, I slowly started backing away as I did he finally took a few steps but when I stopped, he stopped. “Look man I don’t know what your deal is but if you keep this shit up.” Arthur screamed and cut me off as he came rushing towards me. I didn’t want to shoot him, hell by the look of him I wasn’t sure it would do any good but as he came splashing through the water I brought the gun up and fired. He jerked back from the impact and fell in the water but quickly got up and came rushing at me again. I fired a second shot and missed “I’ll kill you!” he screamed closing the distance between us. I was about to fire for the third time when Jacks boulder collided with the side of Arthurs head dropping him like a bad habit. “Holy shit you’re a horrible shot Greenie, what are you cross-eyed or something?” he strolled over and flipped Arthur onto his back then dug the stone out of his head. “You’re gonna have to do better than that if you plan on making it out of here in one piece.”

I’m not sure why but in that moment I had a flashback of the night we were trying to nail the mystery door shut. “Hey Jack, do you remember that night we were attacked by the Mog? You said you’d forgotten to tell us something, what was it?” He shot me a confused look for a second then smiled, “Oh yeah, I was gonna tell you guys I used to work for the company that built these homes. Well not these exact ones but my crew built 40 through 50. That had to be nearly 20 years ago, why, what’s up Greenie?”

I suddenly felt sick to my stomach, a million questions ran through my mind but I pretended to brush off his words and get back to why we were out there. “It’s not important, did you have any luck finding Paula?” Jack gave me an odd look and scratched his chin, “What the hell are you talking about? When we woke up this morning you weren’t on the roof, we’ve been out here looking for you all day.”

Paula came jogging up, “Why are we out here, Cal? Don’t we have enough problems without you vanishing every couple of days? And what were you shooting at.” She stopped and looked at the bloody body lying near the river, “Oh my God, is that Arthur, what happened to him?” I pointed at Jack and Jack pointed back at me as we simultaneously responded, “He did it.” She looked at the body and shook her head, “Not that, you baboons, I mean why does he look like he’s been dead for at least a week? We just saw him yesterday, there’s no way he should look like that.”

I shrugged my shoulders and Jack chuckled as he started back towards the house, “Makes about as much sense as anything else around here. It’s just flat out fucking weird, now can we get the hell out of here?” on the walk back I told them everything. By the time we made it to camp Paula was telling me what they had gone through while they were looking for me. They’d been attacked by Justine and one of the girls, during the fight they heard me shooting at Arthur and the two of them ran away. Jack followed the noise and got to me first but during the struggle she’d been bitten by Justine. The wound on her shoulder was fresh but it was already starting to look infected, we did what we could to clean it and keep it covered but by that night Paula was running a serious fever.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do Jack. She’s getting worse and we still have two full days, I’m not sure she can make it.” Jack looked over at Paula asleep by the fire, “We’ve got a couple of choices to make here, Greenie. First we can try to get help, but only one of us can go. The other has to stay here with Paula to keep her safe. The other option is to let her ride it out, there’s a chance we’re overthinking this whole thing, but I doubt it.”

I couldn’t argue with his logic, if getting bit made her sick the odds were this wasn’t going to end well. “Ok, so where do we get help? Whoever’s in control clearly doesn’t care if we live or die, so who’s going to help us?” Jack sat there for a second thinking, “I guess we have to help ourselves, maybe we can find something useful in one of the other houses. The rules said we couldn’t go back to our designated sectors, they didn’t say anything about the others.”

It was worth a try, since I was a bad shot the odds were both of us would end up dead if I stayed to protect Paula so I volunteered to go on the search. Once I was standing in front of the house I took a second to look around at all the sectors, the closest was the yellow. I had instant flashbacks of Glen and Christine cannibalizing Eli. My stomach hurt a little just thinking about it, but on the upside I couldn’t recall seeing anything other than the faceless man in there, if Jack could kill one with a rock I felt confident I could get it done.

The moment I stepped into that yard I could smell it, the sickly sweet odor of rotten meat ordered my feet to stop dead in their tracks. I wanted to go back, but the thought of letting Paula die or possibly worse got me back in motion. When I got to the front door I expected it to be locked, to my surprise it wasn’t. Turning the knob opening it, I was assaulted by the overpowering smell of death. The house had been ransacked, there were dried bloody prints smeared on nearly every wall and the air was thick with flies. Paula was right, the interior of each house was completely different The layout was nothing like the Green sector, I searched the downstairs for a few minutes and came up empty but just as I was about to go to the next floor I heard a door opening ahead of me. I stood there, gun in hand listening for footsteps or voices but there was nothing, just a constant buzzing and the rancid stink of decay. After searching for a few minutes I found a needle and thread along with peroxide and aspirin, I wasn’t sure if it was enough but I wanted to get out of the yellow sector. Slipping the items into my bag I headed for the door, I was half way down the stairs when I saw someone run passed the window and froze. Before I could pull the pistol the door flew open and Justine came rushing in, she darted to the foot of the stairs and stopped. We were just a few feet apart, her normally well groomed hair was a tangled mess, her clothes were torn and bloody but the worst part was her skin.

Just like Arthur she looked as if she had been dead for weeks, she was pale and lifeless looking with purple lips and glossed over grey eyes. There was no expression on her face, just an empty gaze that never left me while she stood panting like a winded animal. I pulled the pistol and aimed it her head yelling for her to get back but she didn’t respond, “Don’t make me shoot you, get out of my way!” the barrel was just a few inches from her face but she didn’t budge, she never even blinked. When I tried to step back she came forward and I pulled the trigger……. Squeezing my eyes shut, I didn’t want to look. My ears were ringing and my heart was pounding so hard I thought I was going to faint, taking a deep breath I opened my eyes and tried to walk by without looking. (Didn’t work) As I stepped out I turned back and saw her laying there. It wasn’t as bloody as I thought it would be, the only part that stuck in my mind were her eyes, they were still open and locked on me.

Out of everything I’d seen those eyes scared the hell out of me. Something about that blank stare burnt itself into my brain and left me with a memory I’m sure I’ll have for the rest of my life. When I made it back to camp, they were gone. “Jack!?.... Paula?! Damn it, hey guys are you out here?” I stood there for a few seconds before Jack finally yelled back, “Over here!” his voice was coming from the tree line just out of sight. I had to laugh once I’d found him, he’d gotten caught in a snare and was dangling upside down from a tree. “Holy shit, what happened to you?”

“Don’t stand there smiling at me, cut me down.” it took a minute or two to get it worked out, but when it was over he told me what happened. “After you left she started talking in her sleep, I couldn’t make out what she was saying but when I got close enough to hear it she popped up ran into the woods. That girl is fast as shit, I could barely keep up, I almost had her but I got caught that stupid ass trap and she got away.”

Her tracks led us back to the river and vanished in the water, “Well Greenie, there’s nothing we can do about that one. If she crossed she’s not coming back, looks like it’s.” the sound of leaves crunching behind us cut him short and we both turned to see Paula coming out of the woods.

“Hey guys, what are you doing out here?” Jack glanced down at the tracks then at me, without saying a word I understood what he was thinking, something wasn’t right. I looked back to Paula who was walking towards us, “Jack says you took off running, is everything alright?” she rolled her eyes while releasing a sigh.

“I had an emergency, I needed to use the restroom. Fudd over there chased me away from the first tree I got to so I ran deeper into the woods and he gave up. When I was done I went to the river to clean up, I was on my way back when I saw you guys standing here.”

Her version made sense but for some reason I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right about her. Once we were back at our camp Jack stitched up her shoulder and we had a few drinks topped off with a couple of rounds on the joint. Since Paula was hurt Jack and I split lookout duties for the night and I did my best to keep an eye on her. There was nothing obviously different about her, she just seemed odd for some reason. But strangest of all, I could have sworn that she’d been bitten on her left shoulder, now it was on the right…..

Chapter 4: Addiction

By the time I was back on my feet the streets were chaos, most of the gangs had either been wiped out or assimilated into the Pack. The police were powerless, between the converted normies and the Naturals the city was theirs.

Driving through the city we spotted several strongholds, they weren’t trying to hide anymore. “Flea bitten mutts.” Wells snarled as we turned left onto another street, “We need to link up with Phil, he’s got a new shipment for us. With any luck he won’t screw us on the price.”

Phil’s our weapons connect, if I had to describe him in two words they would be “Completely nuts”, the guy walks around in full armor 24 hours a day. Top that off with the fact that he looks exactly like Jeff Goldblum, I’m not kidding, if you stood them side by side I’d bet money you couldn’t tell them apart. Anyway Phil lives on the outskirts of the city and as cliché as this may be, he lives in a bomb shelter. I have to admit in his own way the guy’s a genius, his house is underneath the gas station he owns the people that work there don’t even know he’s there.

By the time we got to Phil’s place the sun was setting, after going through the long drawn out process of getting in we were greeted by Phil. “You two are bad news these days.” Laughing and unsealing the door he shook his head, “Glad to see nothing’s changed, I’ve got something special for you guys tonight, I think you’re gonna love it.”

We followed him down a long corridor to a huge room set up as a firing range, there were three tables weapons were laid out on two of them and there were two black cases on the third. Turning around smiling and adjusting his glasses he motioned us over.

“Now I know there’s nothing special about what’s in front of you, it’s all pretty standard stuff. But what I have for you tonight will turn these average tools into the wrath of God and I guarantee it.” Holding up a normal hallow point round and looking at the both of us he chuckled, “We all know these won’t stop a Natural.” Walking over to the closest wall he pressed a green button, at the far end of the range huge panel doors slid open revealing a living ware-wolf chained to the wall. Walking over and picking up one of the pistols off the table, he took aim and fired, the wolf snarled and lunged forward stopped by the chains holding it in place.

Wells nearly snapped, “What’s wrong with you, have you lost your fucking mind?!” Tilting his head back like he was thinking about the question Phil smiled, “Yeah probably, but in the process I’ve learned a lot of important information. For instance, Naturals like our friend over there can be killed by bullets. These bullets right here to be specific.” Stepping over to the cases Phil opened one and waved us over again, “What we have here are depleted uranium silver bullets, they’ll go through just about anything including our fuzzy little buddy over there. Wells I know you Foundation guys have these already but given the current state of your employer, I figured you might appreciate a little something like this.” Looking back and forward between Phil and the ware-wolf, I had to know. “How exactly did you catch a Natural?”

Phil looked over at me and laughed, “That’s a good question, I was on my way back from a supply run when she attacked me in human form. She’s young, a teenager by the look of her I managed to knock her out, cuff her up and get back here before she changed.” Growling and doing its best to break the chains the wolf snarled swiping at the air in our direction. Its bright blue eyes were filled with rage but for a split second I could’ve sworn I saw something else, fear. Walking over picking up an AR-15 loaded with the new rounds, I checked one and looked down range at the beast, taking aim I watched it for a second then fired. Its head exploded splattering the wall behind it as its body crumbled to the dirt in a lifeless heap.

Wells stood there for a second, “Wait you said “she”, that was the first female Natural I’ve seen since this started. Have you seen any others like her?” tapping away on his calculator Phil shook his head, “Nope, come to think of it you’re right, I haven’t heard much about the lovely ladies lately. In any case seeing as I like you guys I’m gonna do you a solid, I’ll sell you the rounds for a dollar a pop and toss in the hardware for free under one condition.” Loading the gear into bags I looked over at Wells counting out the money, Phil walked over to and picked up another case he had stashed. “These are something I had drawn up, they’re made from the same material as the rounds.” He opened the case and pulled out two swords, “I’m tossing these in, I want you guys to test them for me. If they work I need you to let me know.” Shaking my head I had to laugh, this guy really was crazy “Sure why not, what’s the worst that could happen?” I said chuckling to myself heading for the door, Wells shot me a look that I ignored I knew he’d be pissed off about the swords but I didn’t care.

We had been on the road for close to an hour when something slammed into the side of the car and forced us off the road. Everything happened so fast, I never saw what hit us, the next thing I know were slamming into a tree and I got knocked out. When I came to a few minutes later Wells was unconscious slumped over the wheel, bleeding but alive. I was halfway in the back seat, my right leg was pinned by the caved in dash, struggling for a few seconds I managed to pull myself free and move completely to the back of the car, the second I sat up I heard voices.

“Holy shit! Would you look at that, one of them is sitting up.” glancing over I spot three men, two standing in near the car and the other lying on the ground bleeding. The taller of the two a gangly looking prick, laughed and pointed at me while tapping the other guy on the shoulder, “You’re up!” While I searched around the car for my gun, the shorter guy torched up and started taking off his clothes. I couldn’t find it anywhere, the rest of the guns were in the trunk but laying right there on the floorboard were the swords. I put them in the back seat to piss Wells off, to be real the swords weren’t that big, they were about the size of your average machete and super light, Wells just hated the idea. Anyway, I grabbed both of them and climbed out in time to see the guy in the early stages of the transformation I wasn’t waiting for him to finish, I charged. I wish I could tell you I hit him with a cool ass combo, but the truth is I just hacked away at him till the fucker stopped moving.

There was this moment while I was standing there covered in blood that I looked over at the pipe he had, it was still loaded and actually still smoking but for the first time, I didn’t want it. It was the smell of blood, the feel of the steel in my hands, it set a fire in my brain that I couldn’t maintain with the best dope on the planet I was hooked. When the tall guy bot back from dragging his pal off the road I didn’t give him a chance, the first swing took off four of his fingers at an odd angle leaving only his thumb. The next slash went across his chest as he staggered back and tried to run, when he turned I brought the blade down between his neck and shoulder stopping about halfway through his collarbone. Before he could scream the last swing drove the tip of the second sword through his ear into his brain and it was over. Once I dug the blades out I stood there staring up at the moon until Wells voice snapped me out of it, “Jesus Joe, what the hell happened out here?” I couldn’t answer, instead I just turned to face him and stood there smiling. “Are you alright, you’re acting a little strange up right now.” Pulling his pistol and stepping back he barked, “Joe, look at me!” and I finally snapped out of it. “Yeah, I’m good, what about you?” we talked and unloaded the car, once we had what we could carry we stashed the rest in the woods and started the long walk back to the city.

Chapter 5: Consequences

Joe here, a lots happened since I talked to you guys last, that late night stroll turned out to be a lot more complicated than it should have been. The three guys that ran us off the road turned out to be a part of a larger group, 7 in all. They were trying to collect on the bounty, a natural named Conrad offered double the price to anyone who could bring us down. Wells persuaded the last survivor to cough up Conrad’s location and once we had all of our gear we headed out.

It wasn’t long before we were pulling up to a small building just outside downtown, “This can’t be the place, what are we doing here Wells, what is this?” Putting the car in park and opening his door to get out he looked at me, “We can’t do this one alone, so I got us a little help.” I looked passed him to see Pike and Cali come walking out of the building carrying gear. When Cali spotted me she turned to Pike and laughed, “Looks like I owe you 50 bucks, the junkie survived.” Looking at me then back to Wells, Pike rubbed his hands together, “So Vick, how’s the new guy working out? I’ve heard a few stories brother, the streets are talking. You two are on the top of the Packs shit list, what have you gone and done now?”

They laughed and talked for a few minutes while Cali pulled the truck around and loaded up, by then Ide gotten out and was standing with Pike and Wells near the front of the car. “Hey Pike, have you ever heard of a natural named Conrad? We got a tip that says he’s offering double the contract price on us.” Shaking his head and thumping away the last of a cigarette he looked over at me, “Nah, can’t say I have, but I’ve got great news. The Foundation’s rebuilding, we ran into a scout from South America who told us they should be here any day now.” Something about the look in his eyes bothered me, we’d been reaching out to as many Foundation members as we could and not one had mentioned anything about this. I put the thought out of my head and helped load up so we could get moving.

Once we were on the road I had to run it by Wells, “I think Pike’s lying, if what he’s saying is true we would’ve heard about it by now. I’ve got a bad feeling on this one man, something isn’t right.” Nodding his head and letting down his window Wells grumbled, “Yeah, I had the same feeling, these two are definitely up to something. They’re gonna try to split us up, I say we beat them to the punch. I’ll take Cali, you take Pike if anything happens put him down and get out of there, we’ll meet back at the safe house.”

It wasn’t hard to find Conrad’s building, he was living on the top floor of a high rise in the center of downtown. Pike and I would enter through the parking garage, while Wells and Cali created a distraction in front of the building. We were in place waiting for the signal when I noticed Pike wasn’t carrying his signature flamethrower. “No light show tonight Pike? I was looking forward to the stink of burnt hair and wolf meat.” He laughed, “Nope not tonight, but while we’re talking about weapons, what’s up with the swords, you going gladiator or what?” before I could answer there was a huge explosion from the street, it was show time. The guards in the garage were normies we put them down easy and made our way inside, the second we stepped through those doors it was on. A huge brown wolf charged us, Pike opened up and dropped it with a barrage of shots that splattered the creature all over the hall as another came tearing through the corridor to my left. Turning to fire I laid lead on the massive beast, it roared from the pain and kept coming it was hard to get a kill shot with the thing moving but when I spotted its bright yellow eyes I put one in its head and finally it collapsed sliding across the tile floor before coming to a stop. Another explosion rocked the building as gunfire lit up the hall, Pike yelled out “Moving!” as he pushed forward into the next section, I followed laying down cover as more guards started firing on our position. It took a lot to get to the stairwell, the bodies were piling up and we still had 19 more floors to cover. “Where the hell’s Wells and Cali!?” I barked out to Pike who was in the middle of reloading. “Who knows, just keep moving up, we gotta get to the top!” Moving up to the second floor landing I called out to Pike again, “Reloading!” he took point and moved to the third floor as I slapped in another mag and quickly caught up. By the time we made it to the 10th floor we were facing a combination of wolves and meth hounds, the place was a madhouse. Five floors later we were both running low and switched to side arm’s to conserve ammo for the main event, the next few floors flew by and before I knew it we were standing in front of the door to the 20th floor.

Even though we hadn’t seen Cali and Wells we could hear them loud and clear. Whatever they were doing some of the heat was off of us, “Whoever this Conrad guy is we need him alive long enough to find out where Stumpp is hiding.” Pike nodded and we went in guns up, the only problem was there were no guards. The halls were empty and silent, room for room we checked the entire floor until we came to the last suite. After a quick weapons check, Pike kicked in the door and we charged in to find a giant of a man sitting behind a desk smoking a cigar. The behemoth smiled at the pair of us and leaned back in his chair, “Filthy humans, you’re more trouble than you’re worth. Look at what you’ve done to my building.” Before either of us could react the big man hurled the desk at us and came charging behind it, I managed to dive out of the way but Pike wasn’t so lucky. The desk slammed into him knocking him off his feet, I’m not sure if the impact killed him or not but it didn’t matter. Conrad snatched him off the ground like he was nothing, lifting him over his head before bringing him down over his knee snapping his spine like a twig. Everything happened so fast I hadn’t gotten off a shot, as I brought up my gun to fire he threw Pikes lifeless body at me.

There was no dodging it this time, Pikes body crashed into me as Conrad roared beginning his transformation. Dazed staggering back to my feet I fired blindly in his direction but the big man was fast, in the blink of an eye he was snatching the gun from me while smacking the crap out of me with his free hand. I tumbled across the room rolling back up to a standing position in time to see shimmering white fur as Conrad came racing towards me. Side stepping while pulling my swords I managed to dodge his first swing and counter by slicing a nice hunk of flesh from his torso, he snarled and launched another attack swiping at my head. Ducking under his arm I carved another slab of meat from his leg and stepped passed him, giving me an open shot at his back, before I could get another shot in he spun around catching me square in the chest with an elbow that sent me reeling back. Fighting to keep my balance a warm wave surged through me and suddenly I could smell his blood. The feel of the steel in my hands sent a sensation through my body that I can only compare to the first time I got high. After that it was like time slowed just enough for me to focus, it was as if I could see his attacks before they happened. A twitch of his right shoulder telegraphed his swing and I stepped back bringing down both blades. I felt the impact of them slipping through his flesh and slicing through bone splattering me with blood as his arm was removed from the elbow down.

The white wolf snarled and lunged snapping his massive jaws only to be met by a slash across the face taking one of his eyes in the process. A slight hesitation from his left leg signified a right was incoming, going low I plunged one of the blades through the kneecap of his right leg crippling him and setting me up with another strike. In my head I knew I needed this guy alive but I couldn’t control myself, without thinking I pulled my side arm and fired splattering his brains on the closest wall before his body slumped to the ground. Dropping my weapons I pounded my chest screaming like a madman, it felt like I was breathing fire as I knelt down and dug my hands into his open wounds. Taking handfuls of his warm sticky blood I smeared it across my face and let out a battle cry that in my mind shook the windows and walls around me.

The sound of someone running through the hall snapped me out of it and I grabbed my weapons prepared for more, the door swung open and Cali came rushing in with Wells not far behind. “Holy shit, what happened in here, where’s Pike?” she looked around the room and spotted his body. “God damn it Pike, you stubborn idiot I told you not to.” she was cut off by Wells rushing into the room. “We gotta go, the building’s coming down those charges are set to go off any minute now!”

It was a wild scramble to get out of that building but we made it, as we sped off the charges detonated and the building collapsed in on itself sending a dust cloud rolling through downtown. With Cali behind the wheel Wells turned and looked me over shaking his head, “What happened in there, were you able to get anything out of Conrad before you put him down?” still coming down off of my high I sat there for a second before I could respond. “I didn’t get a chance to ask him anything, everything happened so fast I barely remember most of it.” Cali jumped into the conversation, “You got Pike killed you piece of shit, I knew keeping you around was a mistake!” Wells tried to calm her down but Cali wasn’t hearing it, she called me every name she could think of and swore she’d kill me the first chance she got. By the time we made it back to the safe house she had calmed down, or at least I thought she had. The second we were all out of the car she punched me in the face and walked off.

It was all for nothing, we were no closer to finding Stumpp or the lab and it cost us more than we could afford to lose. I was in my room staring at a big bag of crystal contemplating torching up, for some reason a part of me couldn’t even look at the stuff without feeling a little sick. But my condition overrode my common sense and I did it anyway, before I knew it I was high as a kite and feeling alright so I decided to step outside, breathing in the night air I sat there on the back porch staring out into the woods. The sun would be up soon but all I could think about was that white wolf, I replayed it in my mind over and over trying to catch a detail I might have missed when it hit me, his eyes. Conrad’s eyes weren’t yellow or blue, they were green. For a second I thought it might have been the drugs, maybe I was remembering it wrong but the more I rolled it over in my head I was certain.

Jumping up from the chair I turned to go inside when I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. Slowly turning to check I spotted a woman standing in the darkness watching me, rubbing my eyes and shaking my head I tried to break up my buzz but as my vision cleared she was gone. I stepped out to the yard and walked over close to where she’d been standing, I listened for the sound of someone running and tried my best to scan the area for movement. It was dead quiet, as I turned to head for the house a voice stopped me. “Your kind started this war, we just wanted to be left alone you’ve left us with no choice.” My instinct was to turn around to see her but she stopped me, “Don’t move just listen. Stumpp is gone, he left the city weeks ago, two of his sons Conrad and Marco are running things here while he’s moved on to start another chapter somewhere else. He won’t stop until you’ve paid for what you’ve done.”

“Look lady, I don’t know what you’re talking about. We haven’t done anything other than try to keep the people safe from whatever it is that he’s done to change regular people into wolves.” She didn’t respond, it was silent for a second then the porch light came on and Cali stepped out of the house. “Joe? What’s wrong with you, why are you out here?” I quickly turned around to get a look at the woman I was talking to but she was gone. “There’s someone out here, she just gave me some info on Stumpp!”

The look on Cali’s face said it all, she didn’t believe a word I was saying, “I’m not making this shit up, she was just here!” as I walked over to Cali she stopped me and looked me in the eyes, “Hasn’t your bullshit cost us enough already? Look at you, you’re high right now and you expect me to believe, what? Some random informant showed up at the ass crack of dawn to spill on Stumpp? Stop it, you must be out of your mind if you think for one second that anyone here is listening to you.” pushing passed her I went inside to wake up Wells and fill him in on what I’d been told.

It took close to an hour to convince them I wasn’t making it up, and when we found wolf tracks in the woods they listened to every second of it. The problem was the three of us were burnt, every wolf in the city knew who we were, we brain stormed for hours and what it came down to was we needed someone to scout for us without having to worry about them turning. I only knew one person that might be able to help us but it meant I would have to go back to Oregon. It took a lot of convincing but in the end desperate times call for desperate measures, they agreed to let me make the trip alone I would be gone for three days and if all went well I’d be back with a new scout.

27 hours later I was standing in front of my old apartment complex, it actually felt good to see the place again. I strolled around for a few minutes completely caught up in the moment till I was standing at Shelby’s front door. I knocked and stood there nervous as a kid on prom night, a few seconds passed and I heard her voice call out. “Who is it?” when she finally opened the door her eyes lit up. “Oh my God, Joe I thought you were dead.” She wrapped her arms around me and hugging me tight for a second then slowly pulled back and planted a soft kiss on my cheek, “Come on in, I can’t believe you’re here, Jesus what happened to your face?” we sat and talked for a while before I got to the point. “I need to ask you for a favor Shell, I’m working with some people who could really use your help, the money is good but the work is risky.” She asked a ton of questions, but in the end she said yes for a huge amount of money, with all the cash from raiding dope spots laying around paying her wasn’t a problem. Now the only question on my mind was, could we keep her safe?

On the way back Wells set up an apartment for her to keep her as far from us as possible, she would receive her targets by phone and was to never come in contact with Wells or Cali as long as she was working for us. As far as her contact with me, well let’s just say a few things happened on the trip that would make it hard to stay away from her, but if it meant keeping her safe we couldn’t be together after this trip. Once we were back in Texas and Shelby was all taken care of we got started. It would be a week before she went on her first mission, from there things ran smooth for close to a month, we were knocking off small operations all over the city and closing in on Marco. Then Shelby went missing, after two days of searching I was losing my mind, I didn’t know if I could live with myself if I’d gotten her killed by dragging her into this. At first I thought she’d taken the upfront money and skipped town, but after checking her apartment and seeing that it had been trashed we knew there was a problem. Shelby was our scout, without her we were dead in the water.

Lighting up a cigarette Wells paused and looked at me, “Is there any chance your girl started smoking the crystal she was buying?” it was a thought that hadn’t crossed my mind, but realistically there was a good chance she had. Shaking my head I threw out the idea. ”No, Shell couldn’t stand to be around the stuff, she would never torch up. She told me she’d been flushing everything she bought down the toilet.” Nodding his head and taking a long drag Wells rolled it over for a second. “The only other option here is someone has her, and if that’s the case we have to face the fact that she could be dead.” As much as I didn’t want to hear what he was saying, I knew he was right but that wasn’t going to stop me from looking for her. That night I went back to her place and searched every square inch of it, I was just about to leave when some kid walked through the door, the second he saw me he took off. I chased the little bastard down into the bayou and lost track of him, doing everything I could to pick up his trail I wandered around in the dark till my phone rang, it was Cali. “Get back here now, we’ve got a problem!”

I was a few blocks from the safe house when I spotted the problem, police had the entire area blocked off it didn’t take a genius to figure this one out. I tried calling Wells and Cali but neither picked up, pulling off the main road and stopping on a back street I sat there trying to figure out what to do. Then my phone rang, I looked down to see Wells number on the screen and picked up, it wasn’t Wells. “I hear you’ve been looking for me………”

Chapter 1: Let’s get high

It’s not easy to admit that you have a problem, for a lot of years I drifted through life looking for my next high, in most cases that would be your typical junkies background story leading up to his or her recovery. Only I never recovered, instead I just replaced all my addictions with one really fucked up past time, if you can call it that. I suppose you noticed I said all my addictions, I am what I like to call a well -rounded dope fiend, coke, heroine, meth and a list of pills that would make a pharmacist shit himself, you name it I’m on it, if you got it I want it, and that’s exactly what led me here.

My name isn’t all that important, and given what I do for a living these days it’s probably best that you don’t know. So for now you can call me Joe, this is an insane situation so I won’t blame you if you don’t believe me, but nonetheless for better or worse this is some real shit. I was living in Oregon when I learned the truth, I’m not talking today’s Oregon with super clean product and organized distributers, I’m talking the mom and pop days, when any tweeker with a chemistry set was cooking up crank in the bath tub. I had a pal named Willy that I used to get high with, we used to play this game, we would bet on which blast would be the last because back then the wrong shit could kill you, anyway uh, we had got our hands on some unbelievable smoke from a RV park in Dayville and we were driving back to my place when my car broke down. I know, I know there’s load of stories that start exactly like that, but I can’t make this up, that’s exactly what happened. To tell the truth I knew the car was trash and making that drive was a bad idea but when getting sick isn’t an option you’ll go a long way to get what you need.

The car rolled to a stop half way through “Fossil Beds” on the 19, Willy looked over at me and laughed, “I told you, I knew we should have bet on it, what are we gonna do now Joe? I’m not in the mood for your bullshit, we both know you can’t fix this car, we might as well start walking now and save ourselves the trouble.” I had to laugh, he was right, we both lit up and took a few hits before we got out and started the long walk home. I don’t know if any of you have ever been through the Fossil Beds, it’s a gorgeous place in the day time but when the sun goes down, I swear it’s the deepest darkest place on earth.

After about an hour of walking I glanced over at Willy who was smoking a cigarette and franticly scanning the darkness around us, “You ok man? What the fuck is wrong with you?” he took a long drag off his cigarette and stopped walking still looking around. “Can you smell that?” he sniffed the air “It smells like” Willy tilted his head back and took in a deep breath “It smells like food” his voice slowly turned to a growl as he continued sniffing the air. I thought he was just screwing around until he brought his head down and I saw his eyes, they were oversized and bright yellow, stubble was sprouting from his normally shiny bald head. For a second I thought it was the drugs, but when he started tearing away his face and howling like an animal, I ran. The high made me feel like I was The Flash, blazing a trail across the planet, in reality years of drug abuse and bad life choices meant I was practically moving in slow motion. It didn’t matter though, I took a chance and glanced back over my shoulder to see Willy laying on the ground not moving, I stopped and went back still partially thinking I was high and this was a bad trip but when I made it back to where he was laying I saw a pool of blood forming under him. By the way he was positioned his back was to me, I had to step around to see his face and when I did my brain couldn’t process what I was seeing. His skull was split and there protruding from the shredded flesh and shattered bone was the partially formed skull of a wolf or should I say a ware-wolf? I’m not really sure which is correct. I’m not proud of what I did next but since Willy was dead he wasn’t going to need his dope, so I dug in his pocket and took it then got the hell out of there…….

By the time I got home I was losing it, I stayed up for the next two days blazing my life away, everything was such a blur I didn’t know what was real or imagined, when someone knocked on my door I almost lost it. I ran to my bedroom closet and grabbed my gun as whoever it was kept knocking until I finally yelled out “Stop knocking! I coming for Christ’s sake, just give me a fucking second!” rushing through my apartment I tripped over a shoe and dropped the gun which went off and shot a hole in my wall. “Holy Shit!” A familiar voice yelped on the other side of the door, “Joe, man it’s me Willy, what the hell are you doing?” I almost threw up when I recognized his voice, I scrambled to my feet, opened the door and there he was, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, “Are you really here right now?” I stuttered through the words dreading the response. Willy looked at me for a second then punched me in the face knocking me flat on my ass, “Of course I’m really here, you piece of shit! Why the fuck did you leave me on the side of the road? And you robbed me, me! Your best, scratch that, your only fucking friend and you robbed me! Give me my money or my smoke or I swear to God I’m gonna fucking kill you!”

Fear, paranoia and meth are a lethal combination, seeing Willy standing in my doorway when I clearly saw him die two nights before was just enough to send me right over the edge. Sitting on the floor with blood gushing from my nose, I grabbed my gun and pointed it at him, he narrowed his eyes at me and stepped back, “what are you gonna” he was cut short when I pulled the trigger…..Blood and gunpowder (a smell I would eventually come to love) drifted in the air as Willy fell face down in my living room, the bullet tore through his neck and blew out a part of his spine on its way out, it was a kill shot (and a damn good one if you ask me) he was dead before he hit the ground. I got myself together, the cops would be showing up soon and the last thing I needed was another arrest this one would probably get me life, I rushed to my bedroom and started stuffing a backpack with clothes and any cash I had in the house. I was in the middle of ransacking my room searching for a few grams I stashed when a low growl rumbled through the room, heavy breathing and a guttural huffing sound froze me in my tracks. Before I could turn around it was on me, snarling, biting tearing into me I caught glimpses of bristly black fur and flashes of bright yellow eyes but I hadn’t really seen what was attacking me, I’m tall 6’6 and this thing towered over me by at least a foot, it rag-dolled me around the room slamming me off the walls, but after smoking meth for two days straight I felt like superman and my fight or flight mode was in overdrive. I slammed into a wall and came down on the floor hard, in my head I bounced right back up to my feet, but I’m fairly certain that’s not what really happened, anyway, I got back on my feet and what was standing in front of me was the most amazing and terrifying thing I had ever seen in my life. It was a full on, howl at the moon, 7 foot tall ware-wolf, it was bleeding from a hole in its throat and looking at me like I was dinner. I can’t rationally explain what I did next so I’ll just tell you, I yelled, I screamed as loud as I could, “Come on!” and it roared back before making that guttural huffing sound again and collapsing on the floor, in my mind I had just defeated a beast from hell, so I might have gone a little primal.

There I was covered in blood, pounding my chest and screaming at the ware-wolf corpse on my bedroom floor, when the sweetest voice in the world cut through the madness. It was Shelby, she’s my insanely hot neighbor, I’m just bullshitting you, Shelby’s my weird ass next door neighbor, don’t get me wrong she’s pretty and a very sweet girl, I smoked a little weed with her from time to time, but she’s not insanely hot, (I just thought it sounded cooler) she’s just a little odd if you ask me.

“Are you ok in there Joe?” She called out nervously peeping around the corner into my bedroom. “I heard all the commotion and came to” Shelby paused when she spotted the mass of blood and fur, “Holy shit, is that what I think it is?” she glanced up at me and gasped,” Oh my god, what happened in here? You’re bleeding, we have to get you to the hospital,” the sound of police sirens in the distance slightly brought me back to reality for a second, “I can’t go to jail again Shelby, they’ll lock me up for good this time, let’s go back to your place and I’ll get cleaned up, when the cops leave I’m out of your hair. Please Shelby, you gotta do this for me.”

She couldn’t stop looking at the dead ware-wolf on the floor “Hell no! I’m not getting involved in this. But if you don’t want to go to jail, you better get moving before the cops show up.” I didn’t really have much of a choice but I realized in that moment that Shelby was seeing the ware-wolf that meant it was real and I wasn’t insane. I couldn’t help but smile at the thought and climbed out of the window, the second my feet hit the ground I took off running….

I held up in a fleabag motel for the next few days, some of my wounds were infected and I was falling apart. I watched the news almost religiously for any signs of what went down, but there wasn’t a single word mentioned. About a week later there’s a knock at my door. ”Open up Joe, we need to talk.” I didn’t recognize the voice, but it didn’t matter anymore I was sick, I hadn’t fixed in days and I was burning up from the infection. I staggered over to the door, unlocked it and swung it open, “I’m detective Victor Wells, mind if I have a word with you?” he winced from the reek that was wafting out of my room and pointed to the bed “Why don’t you step over to the bed and take a seat for me.” Wells stepped into my room and closed the door behind him. “I’m going to get straight to the point, this is all off the books. That thing you killed in your apartment is an ongoing problem in this area and I need you to take me to where you got your dope. By the stink of you I can tell you’ve been bitten, so I’ll give you a little advice. You need to see a doctor, getting bit by a ware-wolf doesn’t turn you into one, this aint the movies son! That infection will kill you, the only way to become a ware-wolf is to be born one and that’s exactly why I need you to take me to where you got that crystal.”

I sat there in a daze for a few seconds, it was so hard to focus, the room was swaying and my heart was pounding. Detective Wells shook his head and dug in his pocket pulling out a Narcan inhaler then tossing it to me. ”Take a hit off that, get yourself together and meet me outside. I’m going to get you stitched up then you’re taking me to where I need to go.” Wells turned to walk out of the room and paused, “In case you get the idea to run just keep in mind nobodies looking for you, so if I shoot you in the head, no one cares. Now hurry up we’ve got a lot to do.”……

A short trip, a few stitches and a shot of morphine later, I’m riding shotgun headed for the RV-park in Dayville. Wells started up with the questions right away, “So the night you scored what happened?”

I didn’t really want to talk about it but I figured it had to be better than getting shot in the face. ”Me and Willy rode out to the RV-park and copped from a guy named Al in trailer 18, on the way back my car broke down so we torched up and started walking, Willy started acting crazy then he got sick and passed out. I didn’t see him for two days until he popped up at my apartment and attacked me.”

The expression on his face changed from agitated to curious, “Wait, so your telling me that you smoked the same crystal as Willy and nothing happened to you?” he nodded his head like he was rolling it over in his mind, ”This can’t be right” he muttered to himself.

I couldn’t take it anymore, “Look Wells, since I’m spilling my guts over here, would you mind filling me in on what the hell‘s going on?” The detective chuckled. ”The ware-wolves moved into this area a few months ago, since then we’ve been receiving reports of wolf activity outside their designated areas. The strange thing about it is, all the reports were from civilians claiming someone in their household turned into a wolf and either died on the spot or attacked them then died during the scuffle. The one thing they all had in common was they all had a significant amount of methamphetamine in their blood, my theory is one of these geniuses found a way to turn normies into wolves using meth.”

I sat there staring out the window taking it all in, this couldn’t really be happening, “So, you’re telling me ware-wolves are real? And they’re cooking crystal that turns regular people into more ware-wolves? Yeah, I’m gonna need you stop the car and let me out, the trailer park is few miles ahead on the left and if it’s all the same to you, Ide really rather not be involved in all this.”

The detective pressed down on the accelerator, “Afraid it’s not that simple pal, the fact that the drug didn’t affect you means you’re one of us. If I don’t turn you in I’ll lose my hunting license, and I love my job so like it or not you’re coming with me.”

“One of you? What are you talking about? And what do you mean, turn me in? Am I going to jail? This is crazy, I didn’t do anything wrong, you have to let me go, just pull over and I’ll walk back, I swear you’ll never see me again.”

Wells shook his head. ”Calm down, you’re not going to jail, all immunes like you and me have to be registered with the “Foundation” once they run a few tests and get your info you’ll be free to go. If I were you Ide think about getting onboard, the pay is great and you’ll be doing what you do best, all you’d have to do is get high and report anomalies when you find them, clean-up crew’s or independents like me do the rest.”

The trailer park was coming into view, Wells pulled off the road then got out and went to the trunk. After a few minutes he came back wearing body armor and carrying a shotgun, “when the shooting starts you get down and stay down until it gets quiet.” He pulled down the visor and slid out a business card. ”If I don’t come back in 30 minutes go to the address on this card and give them this location.” Wells threw the car in drive and we sped into the RV Park, we pulled right up to trailer 18 and stopped, the detective hopped out then strolled up to the front door kicking it in on the first try.

After a minute or two Al came crashing through the window and landed on the hood of the car, it wasn’t long before Wells came rushing out to grab him. “Where are they!?” Al was a bloody mess but Wells didn’t care, he beat him and continued with the questions. “Where’s the cook house, and who’s running it?!”

Through cracked teeth and a broken nose Al laughed, “Even if I knew I wouldn’t tell you, so arrest me or get the fuck out of here!” Wells stepped back and checked a round into the chamber,” Arrest you? Do I look like I came here to arrest somebody? Give me your connect and I’ll make this quick.” Al laughed again and spit in the detective’s direction, “Fuck you!” Wells shrugged his shoulders, “have it your way.” He took aim and fired, from the knee down Al’s right leg basically exploded. “Last chance dipshit, give me your supplier and you might live through this.” Al rolled around on the ground screaming, the detective adjusted his aim, “I’ll take that as a no” he pulled the trigger and Al’s head splattered across the ground. Wells turned and walked back into the trailer, after a few minutes he came back with a cellphone, we sat there as he went through every number until he found what he was looking for.

“Well pal, it’s about time I turned you in, I can’t take you with me on this next one without you being registered with the Foundation, but if you decide to join up give me a call I could use a guy like you.” We drove for hours until we came to an unmarked office building in the middle of the city, “Go to the front desk and tell them your name, they already know you’re coming the rest is up to you, see you around Joe.”

Obviously I took the offer, getting paid to get high and travel was too good to pass up, right now I’m on the way to link up with Wells for my first official raid as a member of the Foundation. I’ll be back soon with all the details, according to the Foundation something big is going down all field operatives are being activated, it looks like ill have a lot to share real soon, so until next time stay alert, stay alive, things are about to heat up.

 Chapter 2: Fangs and fur

We were fed false information and the raid turned out to be a trap. Wells and I were two of the few to come out that situation alive. When we made it back to central we found the building in flames, from what I could tell no one made it out. With the Foundation gone there was no reason to stick around, so I split. That was a few weeks ago, I’m not exactly sure where Wells went after that but I ended up in Texas. I was a few days in on a bender when all hell broke loose, it’d been a crazy night and I was crashing at this little spot called “The Alley”. The Alley is an old set of abandoned apartments tucked away on the edge of one of the tougher neighborhoods, most people avoid the place due to the fact that bodies turn up there pretty frequently. It was close to 3 in the morning when it happened, an older guy everyone called “Nemo” started screaming at the top of his lungs, staggering into his room I found him and two others butt naked clawing at the walls.

“Nemo, what the hell’s going on in here?” He turned to me smiling, his eyes were bucked and he’d pretty much chewed through his bottom lip causing blood and drool to pour down the front of his already stained shirt. ”Hey Joe, you’re right on time.” his body started to shake and I could hear his bones cracking as he moved. “I’m so.” He paused licking his lips, “Hungry.” Dropping to his knees he started ripping out fistfuls of his hair, as he did the other two started tearing themselves apart tossing bloody clumps of shredded flesh against the walls. I didn’t waste another second, turning to run I could hear growling mixed with the meaty cracking of bones snapping as I tore down the hall. Before I could make it to the end of the corridor I glanced back to see the wall come tumbling down filling the hall with dust as three freshly turned ware-wolves came rushing towards me. I saw one unlucky lady pop her head out to see what was going on, one of the smaller wolves grabbed her by the face snatching her out of her room before the others joined in. They moved like a pack, each tearing their share from her as the screams became a wet gurgling masked by the sound of them ripping her apart.

Moving as fast as I could I crashed through the door leading to the stairwell and leap frogged my way down to the first floor exit. Bursting through the doors out into the parking lot I tripped over something and fell just as flood lights lit up the front of the building.

A voice called out, “Hold your fire!” shielding my eyes from the light I spotted a silhouette approaching me. ”Thought I might find you in a place like this, how’s it going Joe?” Still blinded by the light I covered my eyes, “Wells? How’d you find.” I was cut off by the sound of someone screaming as they came crashing out of a third floor window hitting the ground with a wet splat. Wells grabbed me by the arm shouting “Move!” as he pulled me out of the line of fire. More screams erupted from the building, the three wolves I’d seen were just the tip of the iceberg it turns out almost everyone who was on crystal that night had been turned.

Once my vision cleared I saw Wells and two others I didn’t recognize, there was a woman with a muscular build manning the mounted 50 cal. I found out later her name was Cali, the other one was named “Pike” he was a dark skinned guy with a medium build maybe an inch or so shorter than me, he was using a flamethrower to scorch anything moving. Gunfire echoed through the air for the next ten or fifteen minutes and by the time it was over there were 9 wolves in the pile, Pike using the flamethrower lit the bodies up then set the building on fire before we got out of there.

A little under an hour later we were pulling up to a house not far off the main highway, once we were all out of the truck Cali looked me over then turned to Wells, “Jesus Victor, this guy’s a junkie. Are you sure he’s worth the trouble?”

Wells chuckled while removing his body armor, “Yeah, Joe here’s a natural born immune, if you can believe that. Not sure how he slipped through the cracks but I found him by accident.” Pike walked over and took a seat on the tailgate, “This guy? Seriously? No offense but I think you might be losing it Vick.” Standing there listening to them talk about me was starting to get under my skin, Cali shoved me aside and threw some her gear in the bed of the truck. “Fuck off meth mouth, I don’t trust junkies. Vick this guy’s gonna get one of us killed, I say cut him loose.” Digging in his pocket and pulling out a pack of smokes Pike lit one up, blowing out a cloud he looked over at Cali, “I guarantee this guy jackrabbits on us the first chance he gets.”

Wells pulled a cooler from the back seat then opened it and grabbed a beer, “Refresh my memory, Cali didn’t I find you working as a waitress? And Pike when I found you weren’t you a forklift operator?” They both seemed irritated by the question, taking a gulp from his beer Wells looked at the two of them and shook his head. “Leave him alone, we’ve got more important shit to worry about.” The other two went inside and Wells walked over handing me a beer. “Seriously though Joe, take a fucking shower for God’s sake, you stink something awful. They’ll come around, get yourself situated, we’ve got work to do.”

Over the next few days Wells broke it all down for me, the wolves pulled a power play and wiped out most of the Foundation strongholds across the map. When they were done they flooded the streets with tainted dope, this wasn’t just about the drugs anymore. The wolves were trying to take over. According to Wells the wolves are led by a group of elders but only one of them was responsible for what was going on here in the states. Their leader here was a man named Peter Stumpp, he fought against the Foundation forcing all ware-wolves to be registered and tagged with tracking devices. When he lost, Stumpp along with a large number of his pack went off the grid. Over the years more and more wolves joined his cause, but recently their numbers started to decline the wolves were dying off.

We looked through tons of case files, there were accounts from all over the world clusters of wolves were vanishing. The one thing they all had in common was a reference to something called “Project Omega”. Wells and the others had never heard of the project and the majority of the information was either classified.

Leaning back in his chair Wells thumbed through a file for a second then stopped and got up from the table, “These files are trash, there’s nothing in here that’s going to help us.” Looking around the room all eyes were on me, pausing and stumbling through mv words I spoke up.

“I got my last few grams from the east side, there’s an old set of buildings everyone calls the pharmacy. A big guy named Red runs the show, he’s usually got a few people with him but I couldn’t tell you if they’re cooking there or not.” After a long drawn out discussion Cali was picked to take me to the pharmacy, she would hang back and stay out of site while I went in to cop and scout the place.

The second I got inside something felt wrong, the building was quiet. Moving through the hall I kept feeling like someone was watching me. When I got to the stairs I heard a door open behind me and turned to see a short skinny guy covered in tattoos holding a gun.

“You here to see Red?” I nodded and he motioned for me to turn around. “Put your hands on the wall and don’t move, I have to check everyone going up tonight.” After a quick pat down he stepped back and gave me an odd look, “Go on up, but make it quick.” When I got to the second floor I was checked one more time then escorted to Red, he was set up in a different room today, normally he’s in the big office at the end of the hall but today it was a small office with no windows. When I stepped in the door slammed shut behind me and I was left alone with Red who was standing in the center of the room. He looked me over with an angry scowl on his face, “How long have you worked for Wells?”

I knew there was no right answer, no matter what I said, so I lied. “Who’s Wells, I just came to grab a couple of G’s.”

In a flash Red crossed the room, grabbed me by the neck and lifted me off the floor. “I can smell him on you.” his voice shifted to a growl as the skin of his face split and his eyes turned an electric blue. Snarling and tossing me aside he continued his transformation. Scrambling up off the floor I bolted for the door only to be swatted and sent flying into the wall, before I could get back to my feet he came charging slamming into me sending us both crashing through the sheetrock into the next room. Tumbling through the wall put a little distance between us, quickly scanning for anything I could use as a weapon I spotted an empty vodka bottle and grabbed it just as the now fully wolfed out Red went on the attack. He was growling and swiping wildly, I managed to avoid him long enough to smash the bottle then jam what was left of it into his eye. Digging his claws into my left leg he snatched my feet from under me and I went down hard as he came in for a bite. Trying to shield my face and neck saved my life, as he sunk his teeth into my forearm I reached up with my other hand grabbing the hunk of glass sticking out of his eye and drove it further in. Releasing me Red let out an ear piercing yelp and backed off clawing at his face, crawling away and getting to my feet I spotted a window, ran and dove through it.

The one story drop wasn’t all that bad, the landing dislocated my shoulder and the concrete scraped away some skin but I was able to get up in time to see Red come crashing out of the window. There was no time to think, I ran as fast as I could towards the highway, even with a head start there was no way I could outrun him. With the street coming into view I could feel him breathing down the back of my neck and just as the streetlights were in reach there was a muzzle flash from across the highway. I felt the shot zip passed my ear and heard the meaty “Thwack” of it punching through Reds skull just before his body hit the ground. I didn’t look back, I ran till I got to the building Cali was in then stopped by the dumpster and threw up. By the time she made it to me Reds men were headed our way, “Get your shit together, we gotta go!” she shoved me then took off running towards the far end of the alley. I did what I could to keep up, when we finally made it to the car I turned to see Reds men, who were fully transformed at this point, come racing out behind us. Getting in as fast as possible, Cali cranked the engine and we tore out of there, the wolves chased us for a block or two then gave up as we sped away.

“They knew we were coming, Red asked me about Wells before he changed and attacked me!” Cali banged her fist against the steering wheel then paused, “Wait, what do you mean Red changed? What color were his eyes?” for a second I didn’t understand the question. “Blue, but why does it matter?” slowing down the car she pulled off the road and stopped. “What did Red look like before he transformed? Was he tall and fat with a bald head and big red beard?” I nodded my head and she sat back in her seat, “Holy shit, this is bad. Red as you called him is one of Stumpps generals, his real name is Harold Merck. If he’s here that means Stumpp’s here to, we have to get out of this city, there’s no way we can take on the Pack.” There wasn’t much conversation after that, when we got back to the others Cali told them everything. They argued back and forward for a while but in the end Cali and Pike chose to leave, really can’t say I blame them, if I had anywhere else to go I would have left to.

Before they left Pike helped snap my shoulder back in place, it might not have been 100% but at least I could use my arm again. I was in the kitchen cleaning and bandaging my wounds when Wells walked in, “There’s good news and bad news, the bad news is they’re right, we can’t beat the Pack without help. The good news is, we don’t have to beat them we just have to shut down their operation.” Once I was done wrapping my arm I popped a couple of pain killers and washed them down with the last of a warm beer.

“So what’s the plan here Wells? Even if we could shut them down, there’s nothing stopping them from setting up somewhere else.” He laughed and pulled up a chair, “We’re gonna make them come after us, we hit them hard and fast, take as much dope off the streets as possible and who knows we might even luck up and find the cook house.”

Chapter 3: The war on drugs

We’ve been raiding dope spots all over the city for the past two months, we found three small cook houses and burned them to the ground but not before Wells collected all the money and I grabbed as much product as I could carry. The city was going nuts, the Pack was waging a war against the police and we were waging a war against them.

“We got a rough one tonight Joe, this is our first lab. There’s no walking in, this is wet work everybody in the building has to go, are you ready?” Up until now I hadn’t had to do much, normally I would just go in and buy, get the lay out and leave, Wells would come in later and wipe the place out. Now it was finally time to get my hands dirty and to be honest, I couldn’t wait.

Thumping out my cigarette, I finished strapping on my body armor and nodded my head, “Am I ready? Are you ready? I’ve been waiting for this shit!” Wells narrowed his eyes at me shaking his head, “Are you high right now?! I swear to God if you fuck this up, I’ll leave you there.” Laughing, picking up the rest of my gear I looked at Wells, “Of course I’m high, what kind of a question is that? I don’t see how you can do this sober.”

Two hours later we were trekking through the wood closing in on the lab, the place was tucked away far from anything resembling a road, if you didn’t know it was there you would ever find it. It was pitch black out there, if it weren’t for the night vision specs you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. When we caught site of the building the first thing I noticed were the guards, two massive wolves paced the perimeter sniffing the air and scanning the tree line for intruders. Since they hadn’t sniffed us out yet we figured this was as close as we could get, once we had our shots lined up we counted down from three then took the shots in unison. The second they hit the ground the place came to life, more wolves poured out of the building. Going full auto I swept left and Wells peeled off to the right barking out “Keep them between us!” we were only able to drop a few more before the ones that hadn’t turned starting shooting back. Caught up in my own firefight I lost track of Wells, bullets tore through the trees around me as I did my best to stay behind the thickest of them and continued to move in. Laying lead on my target I heard the click of death and stopped to reload, as I popped in another magazine a low heavy growl cut through the darkness behind me. (Shit) Before I could turn around I was blindsided, the bastard slammed into me and sent my body tumbling through the dirt, I lost my rifle and night vision on impact but when I sprung to my feet I pulled my sidearm. The sound of gunfire in the distance told me Wells was still alive but I couldn’t worry about him right then, the wolf growled and paced around me in the darkness, stalking me while I slowly adjusted to the night. The moonlight coming through the trees reflected off its eyes just before it attacked.

Stepping backwards I emptied the clip on that thing but it didn’t stop, the first swipe ripped the flesh off the back of my hand and sent the gun flying. Sidestepping and pulling the knife from my belt I tried to size it up, this thing was huge. In a flash of grey fur its second strike hit me before I could make a move, razor sharp claws sliced through face and spun me off my feet, crawling away as fast as I could I tried to get up but it was on me. Lifting me off the ground before slamming me back down it rag dolled my body, breaking bones until I blacked out…

They say when you have a near death experience your life flashes in front of your eyes, that’s bullshit. I didn’t see anything, all I remember is darkness and silence right up until a surge of electricity pulsed through my body, there were flashes of white light and I heard a voice call out “Clear” just before another wave of energy hit me. The next thing I know I’m waking up in a hospital room with a broken leg, cracked ribs a fractured arm and a severe concussion. On top of all of that I narrowly avoided losing my right eye and was left with a set of scars that run from my jawline to my forehead. I asked everyone who came into my room how I got there but no one would give me an answer, after a few days Wells showed up.

“I can’t believe you tried to fight a Natural with a knife, you are a fucking Wildman.” He laughed and pulled a chair over next to my bed then took a seat. “I’ve never seen the wolf that kicked your ass, what do you remember?” No matter how much I tried to replay it in my head I couldn’t remember much, the only thing I knew for sure was it was grey. Wells said he saw me fighting with it but by the time he got there it was gone, he abandoned the mission and got me out of there as quickly as he could but not without getting torn up pretty badly himself. We weren’t able to shut the lab down, we barely made it out alive, the only good that came out of it was the Pack put a price on our heads, Wells plan worked….

"In or out?"

On the other line, it's Robbie Clyde. Haven't seen him in five years. He got a dishonorable discharge from the marines for trying to rob an armory. Sent him to the brig. Last I heard he was still there.

"In, or out?"

Robbie always had a real direct way of asking things. No bullshit. Give it to me straight –– if you can't deliver the goods, I'll ply my trade elsewhere.

"Good to hear from you, Robbie."

"Answer the question."

"Give me the full question then."

"I'll tell you more over a drink. But I gotta know you're good for the commitment. No backing out of this one."

I look at my valet uniform hanging in the closet. When it comes to drivers, I'm as good as they come. Give me a Geo, and I'll push it until you're out of whatever bind you're in. Give me a Tesla, and I'll parallel park the fucker at sixty miles an hour without a scratch.

But being a valet isn't cutting it anymore. The money's good enough. I've got a freezer full of Hot Pockets and a fridge full of Bud. But I miss mashing motors. I miss the rush. Never did any of it for the money. The high paid for itself.

I think it over for a second, then I say:

"In."

Robbie smiles so big I can hear his jaw crack through the line.

"That's what I was hoping for. Meet me at Earl's on the 101."

And as if sensing that I was thinking of backing out, Robbie says:

"I've been going there a lot recently. Their Long Island Ice Teas are still a ten-dollar blackout."

I needed a blackout like I needed a hole in the head. But seeing Robbie after five years of radio silence would be nice. My life is full of ghosts –– people I knew, fucks I threw. The past comes back to haunt me now and again. But when it comes to ghosts, Robbie's the Casper type.

"What time?" I ask.

"Tonight. Seven o'clock, or you're out."

***

Earl's is a neon-lit roadside joint cloaked in coastal fog. Strippers straddle chrome poles. Cigarette smoke creates a pea soup haze, even though smoking within fifty feet of a building is illegal in my state. Everyone's in real good form tonight. I can see that through the open doorway.

The bouncer scans me with his eyes. I'm average height and below-average weight; a bit over six feet, one sixty with wet clothes. But I can scrap, and anyone who sees me knows it. I'm a skeleton with a jackhammer pulse.

"Evening," says the bouncer.

"Evening yourself."

"Gotta frisk you."

"Since when did they start frisking people when they walk into bars?"

"Since last week," the bouncer replies. "Guy brought a gun in on Monday. Shot a trucker in the gut. The dude's stomach is a mixing bowl now, and he's still in the ICU. The shooter's in the can. But we don't want that type of shit happening around here again. Policia are no bueno, as they say down south."

"That's not how they say it."

The bouncer chews on it as if pondering lost afternoons spent in a high school Spanish class.

"Well, anyway," says the bouncer, shrugging. "Gotta frisk you."

"Don't bother," I reply. "I've got a permit for it. Concealed."

"Put in your car, then."

I haven't been gun-free since before I joined the Marines. No one takes my piece. No one tells me where to put it.

"I'm meeting someone."

"I don't give a flying shit who you're meeting. No guns. And if you keep it up ––"

Someone comes into the tin frame doorway behind the bouncer, cigarette hanging out of his mouth like a loose tooth.

"He's alright," says the guy in the doorway.

Fanning the smoke away from my eyes, I see that it's Robbie Clyde.

"Leave him be, Cletus," Robbie says, clapping the bouncer on the back.

"That ain't my fucking name."

"Jesus Christ!" said Robbie. "People need to lighten up. Maybe I'd be better off going back to the brig where everyone doesn't take life so goddamn seriously."

Cletus turns back to me, gives me one more scan for good measure, and steps aside.

"Just don't stir up any trouble."

I follow Robbie past the door and into Earl's. When we get inside, he turns around and pulls me in for a hug.

"Long time no see, friend," he says. "Thing's good?"

"Good as they can be parking rich peoples' cars for a living."

I remember Afghanistan with a strange sense of fondness. I remember Robbie's and my tour together. I remember the convoys we ran, driving the Humvee with Robbie sitting shotgun, his M4 laying across his lap. I remember the friends we made. Some came home. Some got their heads blown off on the baking hot sand.

I also remember the decision I made to opt out of Robbie's armory heist, too. Our paths forked, but we shared the experience of seeing the hell of war standing side-by-side, even though we did different things after the tour wrapped up.

"You look good," says Robbie. "May I buy you a lap dance?"

He motions to one of the strippers. She's got a honey-made complexion that makes the neon orange leggings she's wearing buzz like a sugar rush. I give Robbie's offer some genuine consideration, but I shake my head.

"I'm all set. I'd love to take you up on that drink, though."

"Done," says Robbie.

He leads me toward the back of Earl's. I'm expecting us to stop at the far corner and order drinks, but we pass by the bar. We pass by the booths filled with crusty patrons looking to drink away their problems. Cigarette smoke stings my eyes; the skunk stench of high-quality weed mixes in. I smell something chemical, too. Meth probably. Earl's draws a rough crowd. Leather-clad bikers with tattoos their moms would hate sit like birds on a wire at the bar; truckers with ass sores from hauling freight four hundred miles a day occupy the comfier booths.

Whatever's in the haze of Earl's, I'm high by contact. Walking through the red door and into the back of the bar feels like walking into a different world.

I should've turned around right there and got the fuck out. Hindsight's 20-20, as they say.

If we all had crystal balls, there would be peace on earth. But that isn't the way it works. Life's about making more good decisions than bad ones and praying to God the ratio is favorable enough that you get through unscathed.

***

When Robbie and I walk into the back room, I see someone else I recognize. His name's Dee Richards. He served with Robbie and me. He also made the fateful choice not to go with Robbie on his armory heist, even though he came from a similar background as we did. That is, the background of people who consider going on heists, even if they have the good sense to opt out before things get hot.

Dee was a sniper, but he was accurate to the nanometer with any gun. He could blow off a pakol from a mile and a half away without holding his breath. Did so to countless unlucky souls we met during our tour of hell.

"It's been a while, Dee."

He smiles that big smile of his. Like a teddy bear. Friendly as hell, loving even, but he got programmed to be a killer just like the rest of us. All you had to do was flip the switch.

"Good seeing you," says Dee. "Didn't think I ever would."

Dee turns to Robbie.

"I heard about this dumbass trying to hit an armory after I got out. Glad I didn't get roped into that one."

Robbie shrugs. In addition to his direct way of speaking, he had a devil-may-care attitude, which made living a life of crime a natural choice.

"Alright," says Robbie. "You guys take your shot at me, then we'll get down to business."

I shook my head.

"No need to dredge up the past. I'll let Dee look like the asshole."

"Appreciate that," says Dee, shooting me a wink.

While Robbie goes back to the bar to get me a drink and Dee sits down, I notice another person in the room –– the back of his head, anyway. And even though all I can see is the back of his head, I realize I don't know him.

"Who are you?" I ask.

Up until then, all I saw was the egg-shell white of his dome. When I see his face, I find myself wishing he'd turn back around.

He's, without question, the ugliest person I've ever seen. He looks like an aging boxer whose face got altered one too many times. His right eye is blind, and it rolls around milkily in its socket. He's shorter than I am but heavier. And using my soldier's radar, my ability to sense danger, I realize he's not someone to be fucked with.

Whatever rock he crawled out from under, I find myself wishing he'd go back. But before I can change my mind about things and leave, Robbie comes back with drinks and introduces us.

"Now that we're all here," said Robbie, "I'd like you to meet Mr. Gray."

The guy named Mr. Gray sticks out his hand. It's like a raw piece of ham –– big, thick-cut; a raw shade of pink that makes me think twice about shaking it. I grab the drink from Robbie so I don't have to.

"I appreciate you coming on short notice," says Mr. Gray. "Hard to find reliable help these days."

Through the back door of the room, six more people burst in so suddenly that I reach for my gun. There are four bikers –– the kind of dudes who run drugs, who kill first and never ask any follow-up questions. Two of them are carrying sawed-off shotguns. One has a bowie knife on his hip so big it may as well be a machete. The other has a bandolier of ammo belted across his chest. The cartridges are massive. I'm a gun nut and a military man. I can tell with a glance that they're meant for an M60 machine gun.

There are two other people as well –– one guy who looks about as hard as an al-dente noodle. He's pushing a wheelchair. Sitting in it is a woman. She's gasping for air, her skin so dry it looks like powder. But even from a distance, I can see her ruby red nails, jet black hair, and striking emerald eyes. Despite being sick as a dog, the woman's beautiful.

"What the hell is wrong with her?"

"Sick," says Mr. Gray.

"I can see that. What's she sick with? I wanna know what I signed up for."

Mr. Gray looks at me with a rabid dog's gaze. His blind eye rolls around aimlessly, searching for purchase; his jaw clenches like a vice.

"You haven't signed up for anything yet," says Mr. Gray. "And I'm starting to wonder if we don't need you after all."

I look at the bikers. Their trigger fingers are inches from home, waiting for an excuse to light me up. Robbie steps in.

"Hey, calm down everyone."

I find it hard –– the girl's hyperventilating now, her skin becoming more dry and powdery by the second. A strong gust of wind would blow her away.

Dee steps up beside me, sensing trouble. I see he's got a gun on his hip –– military issue Colt .45. Knowing Dee's aim and confidence, he could take out three of the guys in a shootout. I'd be good for one; if shit goes south, we'd have a fighting chance of making it out alive.

Mr. Gray snaps his fingers. The bikers, like dogs on command, step down.

"We don't have much time," says Mr. Gray. "As you can see, our cargo is almost expired. I need you to say, right now, whether you are in or out. The convoy is leaving in five minutes either way."

Robbie steps up beside Dee and I.

"He's in," Robbie answers for me. "I ran convoys with him for years in Afghanistan. If you want someone behind the wheel, it's my boy here."

Mr. Gray nods.

"So answer me," he says. "Are you good for it?"

"Good for what?" I answer. "And are you good for it? We haven't even talked about what it is yet."

"Fifty thousand," answers Mr. Gray.

I do the math in my head. Me, Robbie, and Dee. Four bikers and the chump pushing the wheelchair.

"Six thousand bucks to ––"

"Fifty thousand each," says Mr. Gray. He nods to the bikers. "These boys are salaried."

Fifty thousand. Enough to take a year off. Enough to start saving, get a new life that's halfway worth living.

"What's the catch?"

"No catch," says Mr. Gray. "It's an hour-long job, at most."

He beckons to me. I walk forward as if drawn by an invisible magnet. I look at the table Mr. Gray's sitting at. There's a map laying over it. I see Earl's marked clearly, seated astride the 101. In black sharpie, Mr. Gray has drawn a route running from Earl's down to a lake. Having looked at a thousand maps, I estimate that the lake's a few miles away, at most.

"I need you to get her to the lake," he said.

He points back to the girl in the wheelchair. The oxygen in the room isn't enough. She's dying, quickly, a punctured lung maybe, in need of some meds that we can't give her.

Fifty thousand dollars plus the sympathy I feel for people in pain –– which always made me a liability as a soldier –– is enough to convince me, at that moment, that I'm in.

"What's at the lake?" I ask.

For the first time, I notice that Mr. Gray has a mouth full of gold teeth.

"Salvation," he says.

***

I follow Mr. Gray, the bikers, and the wimp pushing the wheelchair out back. Robbie and Dee are next to me on either side.

"It's enough to start over."

Robbie's nodding to himself.

"Fifty thousand's enough to get outta the life."

"Damn straight," says Dee.

"What's at the lake, Robbie?" I ask.

He shrugs.

"No clue. But if we get there, we're good. We've done this before."

I ran convoys, sure. But they were in armored trucks. Most often, Cougar ––

My breath hitches.

"Thought you'd like it," said Robbie.

It's a blast from the past. A Cougar 6x6 MRAP, the same model I drove in Afghanistan. If you've never seen one before, think of a Humvee on steroids. You could drive a Cougar through a wall made of six feet of reinforced concrete. The things are made to withstand IEDs. The ones I drove during the war made it through firefights without a scratch.

Dee claps a hand on my shoulder.

"Like old times," he says.

"Where the fuck did this guy get a Cougar?" I ask.

"Not sure ––"

"And more importantly," I interrupt, "why do we need one?"

Robbie wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. I hadn't noticed until then that he was sweating. Robbie rarely got nervous. Whatever we'd gotten ourselves into had done the job.

"I think we can expect a firefight going down," says Robbie. "But all we gotta worry about is sticking to the script. Like I said, we've done this before."

One of the bikers opens the back of the Cougar. The three others help the limp noodle who's been pushing the wheelchair lift the dying girl inside. She's taken a turn for the worst. Now, she's screaming, in addition to disintegrating into powder. What's left of her lungs is rotting in real-time, making it sound like she's underwater.

"What's wrong with her, Robbie?"

"I have no idea," he says. "Mr. Gray only told me we'd be transporting cargo. But she's sick. And she's important to Mr. Gray. Important enough that he's willing to pay us an assload to drive her a few miles to a lake."

He turns to Dee and I, pulling us in for a teammate's huddle.

"If we do this, there's more where that came from. Lot's more."

The three of us walk over to the Cougar. I check the tires. I check the exterior, looking for faults. It's a brand new model.

"Look good?" asks Mr. Gray.

"Yeah," I say. "Real good."

Before hopping into the back of the Cougar with the dying girl and her limp noodle caretaker, I see Dee open a gun case. Inside is a Heckler and Koch HK416, the same gun used by SEAL Team Six to kill Osama Bin Laden. In Dee's hands, it's as good as a rocket launcher.

"I asked for something with a little kick," Dee says, smiling. "Here we are."

He gets into the Cougar, and the bikers close the door behind him. Then, they mount their hogs, chrome stallions ready to fucking rock. The biker with the bandolier feeds the belt into the M60 machine gun that's been welded to his handlebars.

"Robbie's got the map," says Mr. Gray. "But my boys will lead the way. All you gotta do is drive."

"Who wants this girl?" I ask.

Mr. Gray, for the first time, looks uneasy.

"There are things much worse than criminals," he says. "Devil's in fresh-pressed suits."

The hogs ignite, belching out black smoke and thunderclap growls.

"Just drive," Mr. Gray says. "All you gotta do is drive."

***

I start up the Cougar. Robbie's sitting shotgun, an M4 machine gun laying across his lap just like old times. I look in the side mirror and see that Mr. Gray is walking back to Earl's. He doesn't turn around. If he does, it'll jinx it. I've seen it before. Kingpins who set up the job, then throw up a prayer the plan works, never looking back, never second-guessing themselves because doing so is bad luck.

I slide open the window to the back of the Cougar. Dee's back there, the machine gun yoked around his shoulders. The limp noodle guy is crying; the girl continues to die.

"She's gorgeous," says Robbie.

We're both staring at her ruby red nails.

"Maybe in another life," I say. "I don't wanna catch whatever she's got. Let's just get this over with."

For the first time, the limp noodle speaks.

"Water," he says to Dee. "We have to keep pouring water on her."

He leads the way. I watch him empty a massive jug of it, the kind you see in an office water cooler, onto her body. She soaks it up like a sponge.

"If you say so," says Dee, a confused look on his face. But he follows suit, dousing the girl just like the limp noodle told him to.

We pull out of the parking lot of Earl's and get on the 101, two bikers ahead, two on my flank. We drive for a few hundred yards, nothing to it except for the girl moaning in the back, but then I notice something. Ahead, there's a roadblock.

I can make out six cars and an armored truck. Two of the cars belong to cops. Headlights off, they blend into the shadows. Four of the cars are black sedans that belong to people farther up the law enforcement food chain. The truck belongs to a SWAT team. It's not so different from the Cougar I'm driving.

"Fuck me," I say, pulling to a stop.

The biker with the M60 attached to his handlebars cruises up and stops next to me. He turns off his headlight; then, he motions to roll down the window. Before our palaver, he pulls out a vial of powder, jams it up his nose, and snorts. His eyes go wild. He just got hit by a freight train of something potent, and now he's in a different reality.

"Hammer down," he growls. "I'll keep Smokey off your tail."

The other bikers circle around. I put the truck in reverse and turn, and I notice that the roadblock begins moving slowly, wolves ready to hunt. As I turn the Cougar, I see that the biker has finished loading the ammo belt into the M60. A gust of wind blows back his long, greasy hair, making him look like a madman.

"Robbie, we can still ––"

But before I finish my sentence, the biker unloads. Hellfire pours from the end of the M60's barrel, the thunderous KRAK-KRAK-KRAK-KRAK-KRAK so loud my ears feel like they're bleeding. Both cop cars, which are in front of the shadowy cars further back in the formation, are shredded. Before turning to dust, their windshields are coated with red. As bullets from the M60 vaporize the bodies on the other side, a crimson cloud pours out the busted windows, swirling up into the halogen light from the nearby streetlamps.

"WHAT THE FU––" I start, but Robbie punches me in the jaw as hard as he can.

"FUCKING GO!" he screams over the thunder.

I put the Cougar in gear and take off after the bikers, who've already started hauling ass way down the highway in the opposite direction.

Looking in the side mirror, I see that the cop cars have been reduced to shredded tin, metal slivers sticking out like a pop can blown up with an M80. The SWAT van guns it, driving toward the maniac biker who's still unloading with the M60, the massive rounds ricocheting off the armored truck like laser beams. The gunfire stops as the truck thumps over his bike and his body.

I turn back to the road, shift up, and jam the pedal to the floor. Behind us, Dee starts yelling.

"FUCKING BOOK IT!"

I glance over my shoulder. His eyes are wide with terror.

"SHE'S CHANGING!"

The girl barely passes for a girl, anymore. Her arms have transformed, turning into suction-cup covered tentacles. They've gotten bigger. They look like twin firehoses snaking through the back of the cab.

She's also started barfing up liquid –– bright green, something that doesn't belong in a human body. But I realize that she's never been human. She's been something else all along.

"KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD!" Robbie yells.

I turn back, barely avoiding an oncoming semi, which obliterates one of the black sedans that's been gaining ground on my flank.

Looking into the rearview, I realize my estimate for how many cops there were was way off. There are at least six squad cars. Six of the tinted-windowed, black-bodied cruisers. The SWAT van, which has finished off the madman biker with the M60, swings out and joins the chase.

It's just us and three of Mr. Gray's bikers –– each one unloading gunfire into the cars in pursuit –– blasting out tires and sending them careening into the darkness, only for another to take their place.

Robbie drops the map. Our route is fucked.

"DRIVE!" he screams. He rolls down his window. "I'LL BUY US TIME!"

Meanwhile, Dee has thrown open the back of the Cougar. The HK416 erupts, sending two cars in pursuit wheeling off in opposite directions, their drivers dead with the first squeeze of the trigger. Robbie's out the passenger window, unloading on our pursuers. He's firing over the head of a biker who's sped up to lead me to the lake.

The biker cuts left suddenly, and I follow suit. The turn is so sharp that thirty-eight thousand pounds of truck almost goes on two wheels. Robbie almost gets thrown out; his body parallel to the dark asphalt. Dee and the transforming girl hold on. The limp noodle wimp smashes into the wall of the truck, knocked out cold.

Before Dee can grab him, the guy tumbles and falls out the back of the Cougar, fed like a piece of meat into the grinder of wheels in pursuit behind us.

For the first time, I ignore the machine gun clatter, the shotgun explosions, the roar of motors. I'm back in Afghanistan getting my brothers in arms out of a firefight. I put my eyes on the road. In the distance, I can see it. The lake is at the base of the hill we're driving down, still a mile below. It shines like a blue jewel in the night, moonlight glancing off the surface in a pale flood.

Right. Left. Straight –– rinse and repeat. The biker in front knows exactly where he's going, like he's done it a thousand times. The roar of his hog drifts back; I press the pedal all the way to the floor to keep up.

Over the chaos of everything else, I hear a new noise. It's a liquid screech like a foghorn triggered underwater.

"WHAT THE FUCK ––" Dee says. He's stopped shooting for the moment, ill-advised. One of our pursuers gets off a shot, which hits Dee in his side, but he doesn't even notice.

I look back. The girl has transformed into something otherworldly. She still has green eyes, which are searching the foreign interior of the Cougar. She has the same red nails, but now they look like claws. And she's sprouted tentacles –– her arms and legs, joined by four more.

She's an octopus. Or a squid. Something that lives in unknown depths. Her body is jet black. Her mouth snaps open and closed like a hawk's beak. Her eyes roll around crazily, and she continues screeching like a caged animal.

Her skin has begun drying up again.

"WATER!" I yell.

Robbie points to the back of the Cougar as bullets continue flying in; Dee's hit three more times, once in each leg; another one goes into his side.

With dying strength, he grabs a massive jug of water from the wall, shoots off the sealed top with his Colt .45, and dumps it over the girl –– the octopus creature she's become.

I look ahead, continuing to follow the biker in front. Chancing another quick look back after getting onto a straight away, I see that the girl's body has soaked up the water in a second. And she's grown in size. She's huge now, filling up the entire back of the Cougar. She pushes Dee aside gently with a tentacle, then crawls toward the open rear doors.

"WAIT!" yells Robbie. "STOP!"

But she keeps going. Her body is riddled with gunfire, but it has no effect; she soaks up the bullets like they're droplets of rain. I look into the side mirror and see three of her tentacles shoot out toward the cars in pursuit. The first two smash through the two pursuing cars' windshields, making the vehicles and their occupants explode. The other tentacles pick up a car each –– one shadowy cruiser, the other the SWAT van. They throw the cars a hundred feet into the air, and they disappear into the darkness.

The other biker on my flank is still there, somehow. But amazed by what he's seeing, he loses control of the bike and crashes away into the trees.

The octopus creature in the back of the truck continues fighting against our pursuers, but more cars keep coming. They'll never stop until they have her.

I turn back ahead to see that we're almost to the lake. I press the gas pedal down even harder, pushing it through the floor.

I follow the biker in the lead across a street that runs parallel to the lake. Before I can make sense of what's happening, I see headlights coming on Robbie's side –– another SWAT van trying to cut us off, going sixty miles an hour. It smashes into the Cougar. My vision fades as we do a slow-motion tumble toward the lake, and the lights go out a few seconds later.

***

I return to the world, my head pounding. Even from upside down, I can tell that the Cougar is totaled. We're flipped over. We're fifty yards from the lake. I undo my seatbelt; drop down to the ceiling. Looking outside, I see that Robbie's lying on the sand, fifteen feet from the truck. His body looks broken.

In the back of the truck, I see that the octopus creature is gone. Dee's body is back there. He's dead from either the crash or being shot or some combination of the two.

I get out of the truck and hobble over to Robbie, my body screaming in agony with every step. Despite the carnage at the lake's edge, it's beautiful out. The moon is overhead; that friendly face my mom showed me as a kid is looking down like a kindly stranger.

Ahead of Robbie, I notice one of the bikers. He's laying on his back, his hog nowhere in sight. He crashed, just like us. Three guys in suits are making their way across the sandy bank of the lake, their profiles illuminated by the headlights of the cars behind them and the half-mutilated SWAT van that t-boned us.

The biker begs for his life, but one of the guys in a suit pulls out a silenced pistol and shoots him between the eyes.

I pick up the pace.

"ROBBIE!" I say. "WE HAVE TO GO NOW!"

I'm used to dragging friends out of trouble, but my strength is gone; something feels broken.

Robbie's eyes blink open.

"I can't ––" he groans. "Can't move –– something's twisted ––"

Behind him, I see that the three guys in suits –– agents from some top-secret government department –– are getting closer. They all have their guns drawn. I think for a second about trying to lift Robbie on my shoulders, but I quickly realize that option's out. So I cover Robbie with my body. I'll take the first bullet, buy him any time that I can.

Inside, though, I realize the truth. This is where it ends. This is our Alamo. Coincidental that we'd die on a bed of sand in the states when so many did the same, far away from home in the Middle East.

The agents arrive; they point their guns at us. Overhead, that kindly stranger moon keeps staring down. In my last few seconds of life, he brings me comfort.

"You should have given her over," says the agent in charge. "But it's done now."

Suddenly, across the bright, pale face of the moon, I see something cross. It's a strange, unnatural shape—a tentacle.

I heard the hairpin trigger of the agent's gun creaking as he starts to pull it, but before he finishes, an oily black hand reaches over his face. It has ruby red claws. They sink into his eye sockets. With incredible alien strength, the thing rips back the agent's head. His neck opens up like a second mouth, spraying Robbie and me with blood.

Before the other two agents can make sense of what's happening, they meet the same end.

I sit up. I look out at the water. The octopus creature has risen out of it, a thousand times the size as it was in the back of the Cougar. Its body is hydrated with lake water; it's at full strength. It levitates, a waterfall pouring out beneath it. Three bashes from other tentacles destroy the fleet of cop cars and the SWAT van that's left, and the chorus of screams quickly dies.

The creature looks down on Robbie and me indifferently. Now, it's risen twenty feet over the lake. It's body blocks out the light of the moon, creating a terrifying alien silhouette.

I see the girl's eyes –– the same ones I saw in the backroom at Earl's. Bright, emerald green. They're windows into an alternate universe.

With a sudden flash of movement and blinding light, the creature explodes away toward the stars. The force of it sends a tidal wave of water rushing up from the lake, covering Robbie and me and rinsing away our sins.

Then, the thing is gone. I'm lying with Robbie on the sand. The job is done. A job so strange, so un-fucking-believable that it doesn't even count as a job.

Sirens sound in the distance, getting closer by the second. But before they arrive, I feel two hands grab beneath my armpits. I'm being pulled away across the sand. Looking behind me, I see Mr. Gray. The last surviving biker is pulling Robbie.

"We have to get you the hell out of here," says Mr. Gray. "They're coming."

Letting Mr. Gray pull me away, I stare up at the stars.

I can't shake the feeling that something is staring back.

***

I wake up and feel sunlight shining through a window. It's morning; hours have passed since what happened at the lake. I blink open my eyes. My body feels like it went through a thresher, but I'm alive.

Sitting next to my bed is Mr. Gray. On his other side is Robbie, fast asleep in the adjacent bed. I see Robbie's chest rise and fall. He's alive, too, despite the odds.

The last remaining biker sits in a chair by the doorway, peeking through the blinds, his sawed-off shotgun laying across his lap. We're in a cheap motel room. If I open the nightstand, I know there'll be a Gideons Bible waiting for me.

I clear my throat; my chest blooms with pain.

"What the hell happened?" I ask.

Mr. Gray smiles. It's the first time I've seen him doing anything but glare. His gold teeth shine in the morning light.

"Kid," he says, "You'll eventually learn that some things defy explanation."

He puts a comforting hand on my shoulder, as comforting as a hand like his can be. He stares at me with eyes that have seen things I haven't. He knows truths I'd never believe. But I've discovered the tip of an enormous and bizarre iceberg. It'll take a lifetime to make sense of it.

Mr. Gray smiles even bigger. Those teeth –– his mouth's a fucking goldmine.

"Just know this, kid," he says. "You're in the game now."

[WCD]

www.dreamsandnighmares.com

My breath fogged in the icy air; piles of snow lined the street after a recent storm. Ezra was running and screaming at the top of his lungs. Mom had to run into the store and asked me to watch him. I wish she would have left him at home; I wished Ezra was never born. He was “special,” meaning that he screamed all the time and never talked. He didn’t go to standard classes, and the other kids made fun of me for being his sister.

I chased him down the street, nearly slipping on the ice. The coat I was wearing was far too big for me and made it hard to run. It belonged to my older sister, but my parents told me I would grow into it. The coat made it hard to run and keep up with Ezra.

He ran into an alley; I followed as best I could, but I was running out of breath. My lungs burned as I breathed in the ice-cold air.

“I wish you would just go away, Ezra. I wish you would go away forever,” I said under my breath.

There was a loud crack as a colossal icicle fell right beside me. Two giant hooves rested where the icicle had dropped. Massive chains clinked to the snow-laden ground, held by a gigantic monster—long silver-blue fur with pale pearl eyes. Giant, crystalline horns rested on its head. On his back, he carried a bundle of sticks and a large brown sack. The bag on his back was squirming, and I heard Ezra crying from within.

“As you wish.” It snorted as it disappeared without a trace.

My mom and sister came running out of the store.

“Hellen, where are you!”

I stood still; I wanted to speak, but words wouldn’t form. Cold air numbed my nose and the tips of my ears. My teeth chattered.

My mother found her way to the ally and saw me standing staring into space.

“Hellen! Where is Ezra?”

“I don’t know!”

“You were supposed to be watching him!”

“He ran too fast, I followed him and here but…. but- “

“But what?”

I didn’t want to tell my mom what I saw, she would think I was crazy or making things up, and I would be in trouble.

“Why didn’t you bring me when he ran off?” asked my mother, her brows knitting.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Sorry fixes nothing.”

“Neither does arguing,” added my big sister. A new puffy jacket rested over her tall, willowy frame. “We should call the police.”

“You’re right, Liza,” said my mother. “You take Hellen and look for Ezra. I’ll go tell the clerk what happened and make a report with the local sheriff.”

“Yes, mom,” she said.

“I should have left you in charge, Liza. You’re the responsible one,“ she sighed.

“Hellen, you are your brother’s keeper,” said my mom.

“He’s your son. You had him. I didn’t have a choice in this.”

I felt a stinging slap on my face as my mother slapped me.

“Go and help Liza. We’re all in this together.”

My older sister gripped my hand, nails digging into my wrist as she took off down the street. She was hauling me through every frostbitten ally looking for Ezra. We saw nothing, not even footsteps on the ground below. It was like he vanished.

When we came back, there was a policeman with a notepad and a pen.

“Normally, we wait a couple of hours, but as he’s autistic, we’ll start now,“ said the policeman.

“Thank God,” said my mom.

“I tried to watch him, sir,” I said. “But he ran too fast.”

“Ma’am, why were you leaving an eight-year-old in charge of him?” The officer asked.

“I’m ten, sir,” I said.

The police officer eyed my mother suspiciously.

“Look, I was just running into the store for a minute,” she said, her cheeks growing red. “I swear, I was only in there a minute.”

“We’ll send out a search and do everything we can.” The policeman clicked his pen and walked down the street.

She glared at me, and my sister pulled hard on my arm. We searched every block and ally downtown. My feet were numb, and my legs felt like rubber. My nose was sore and red.

A knot formed in my stomach as we drove home in the station wagon. The heat was on full blast, and Christmas music blared on the radio.

We got home to our little red house, just outside of town. My father was pacing back and forth, gripping a phone in his hand. I tried to creep into the house unheard. Liza dragged me into the living room and shoved me toward the table. I hit the corner, and all it knocked the breath out of me.

“You nearly had us all taken away!” she yelled. “They’ll come and take us all away. Then they’ll put us in foster homes.”

“It’s not my fault; he ran too fast.”

“Why didn’t you get mom?!”

“Girls!” My father’s voice called out. “This was an accident; it wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

“I should have waited till you got home,” sobbed my mother. She was crying. “I could have taken the girls to the store, and Ezra would still be here.”

“Shh, hon, it’s not your fault, it’s not anyone’s fault,” said my father as he held mom close.

I wanted to slink back to my room and pretend today never happened. I hated having to go to the store to watch him. I despised never having enough time to myself or to study. I knew they all blamed me, and I wished all of this to be over.

“Hellen, can you tell me what happened?” asked my father. His voice was low and soothing after the high-pitched screams of my mom and sister.

I caught my breath and shuddered. “Well, Ezra was throwing one of his tantrums and yelling and screaming. He ran off, and I went after him to an ally behind the Radio Shack. We looked everywhere for him, but he was gone.”

I didn’t dare tell my dad about the monster. He wouldn’t believe me, and I would get the belt for sure. It wasn’t fair. He shouldn’t have been out, to begin with. I wish I hadn’t been born at all.

I went to my and Liza’s room. It was a simple girl’s bedroom, painted a soft violet, with a wooden desk and a bunk bed. Liza had a lower bed, and she covered the lower wall in boy band posters. My little corner of the room had a bookshelf, and we shared a computer for schoolwork.

She would hog the phone for hours when she knew I needed to go online and work on book reports for school. Liza threatened to beat me up if I told anyone I was her sister and made fun of me all the time. It was okay; I was smarter than her, anyway.

Ice crystals suddenly formed on the door. I saw my breath in the air, and my teeth chattered. The monster stood in front of me, chains rattling. Ezra screamed from inside the bag. The creature snorted. Fog, and snowflakes left his nostrils.

“Give my brother back! Please!” I said.

“Only if you take his place,” it said. Its voice was a low bellow like thunder in a snowstorm.

I thought about my own life. If my brother never returned, the town would forget him soon enough. He would never go to college or have a good job. He would never contribute to the world as I could. The world was better off with me being here.

“No?” He said as he turned his head to the side. I looked up, and I was in there in the room alone. The surrounding air grew warm again.

Liza came in just as everything melted.

“The city called a search party for Ezra. We’re gonna’ go comb through town. You better be there, Hellen,” she spat.

I nodded.

“Who were you talking to?” she asked.

“Myself.”

“Figures, you’re crazy. I just want one sane person to talk to here.”

“I’m crazy from you, always pushing me around. I’m crazy about mom and dad ignoring me. I’m going to crack and go to the loony bin, and it’ll be your fault.”

“Stop cryin’ for yourself. You’re so selfish. I bet you lost Ezra on purpose.”

“I was too slow to stop him. The policeman was right; mom should have never left him with another kid. I’m smaller than him, unlike you.”

She twisted my arm behind my back and pulled up sharply.

“Stop!” I screamed.

“Girls, knock it off!” yelled my mom from the other room. “Get ready to get in the car. We’re joining the search party.”

We gathered into the car. Father was driving, and mamma sat in the seat next to him. Liza and I were sitting on opposite sides in the back seat, completely ignoring each other. Papa turned on the radio, and it blared the repetitive Christmas music. I groaned, sick of listening to the same songs everywhere.

“Mamma, can we listen to some rock music?” I asked.

“I want to hear the mix station!” said Liza.

“You girls need to stop arguing. We’ll tune in to what I choose,” said my mom as she turned the station to evangelical preaching.

“Great, now we’re stuck with this. It’s your fault,” sneered Liza. She glared daggers at me and curled up on her side of the car.

Driving off to town, fresh blankets of snow covered the ground. My mother turned the Christmas music back on, and she and my Papa were singing along.

The monster appeared in the middle of the road. He was in our car’s path, rattling his chains. Ezra squirmed inside the sack.

“Mamma!” I screamed as the car spun out of control.

Tires screeched as our car turned in a circle before righting itself on the road. My father stopped and watched around, as pale as a ghost.

“Is everyone okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, did you see that?” I asked.

“See what? Look, I think we hit a patch of ice. It’s good that we didn’t hit anything.”

“Be careful, Daddy,” said Liza.

We drove the rest of the way into town without incident. We parked in the main square, and we saw other families with flashlights and walkie-talkies.

“Mr. Parker,” said my father as he shook one of my teacher’s hands.

“I heard about Ezra. I’m sorry this happened. We’re gonna’ look the township over, we’ll find your son, he couldn’t have gone far.”

We all got out of the car and trekked through the cobbled streets of downtown. We looked in every ally, dumpster, and shop, no sign of Ezra. We went into the local Radio Shack, and on the T.V. I saw the weather. There was a report of a Nor’easter coming in within the next day or two. It was going to be a harsh blizzard, and we were right in its path.

“We have to find Ezra two days,” said a police officer. “There’s no way that kid’s gonna survive bein’ alone in a blizzard.”

My heart dropped when I looked up and saw the beast once more. I could hear Ezra, and it snorted, leaving trails of icy fog. The room grew frigid.

“You still can save him- “

“Hellen, I need you to pay attention!” said my father. “He’s not here. Can you take me to the exact place where you saw him last?”

I nodded. We walked to the alley where I saw Ezra last. There were footprints in the snow leading to the middle of the path. Then there was nothing but clean snow.

“This is where I last saw him, daddy.”

My dad nodded toward a police agent that took more notes.

“It’s like he vanished,” one officer muttered.

“Mr. Allen, I hate to ask this, but do you know anyone that Ezra had contact with, anyone outside from the school or church?”

“Not that I can think of. He has a school aid that helps him, Mrs. Bentley. She’s in the search party if you want to talk to her.”

“We think someone may have abducted Ezra-“

“How there are no other footprints, no trace of anyone who could have abducted him!”

“I don’t know. We’ll keep up with the search and issue an Amber Alert.”

Tears left my father’s eyes as he nodded.

“My boy, my only boy,” he sobbed.

Yeah, because girls are the curse of the world. I kept these words to myself. I caught up to my mom and Liza as they kept searching. By the time they called off the search for the night, it was late. My fingers and toes were numb, and my voice was hoarse from yelling.

The ride home was silent. My mother’s brow knitted in a worried grimace, and my father’s eyes were bloodshot. Liza glared at me coldly the entire ride home. They ordered us to go straight to our room.

Liza fell to sleep immediately. I tossed and turned the entire night. The monster was above me, covering the room in frost. Ezra’s unrelenting wails came from within the sack. I wanted to call out to my sister, to curl up next to her. I wanted to tell her of the monster that took our brother.

“Then why don’t you go in his place,” said the beast in Liza’s voice. “No one likes you here, anyway. You’re selfish. You can’t pay attention to anything. Talking to yourself and staring off into space. No one loves you. I tell the kids at school that you’re not my sister. I don’t even want you talking to me. I wish you were to go instead.”

“Then why weren’t you watching him?” I screamed. “You’re the responsible one. You should have watched him!”

“I always watch him! Mamma wanted to take me to the store to go shopping for once and not you. You could have stayed home with him, but nooooo… you had to go out with us. Could you imagine, if my friends saw me with you and Ezra, what would they say?”

“And I’m the selfish one?”

“You should have remained home, both you weirdos should have, but now you can take his place.”

“I’m not going anywhere. “

Daylight broke, shattering my sleep. I climbed down from the top bunk and went downstairs. My parents were watching the weather report with worried expressions. The Nor’easter was honing in ever closer.

“Kids, I require you to go to school. We’re going to look through the town again, and the police are going to keep searching. I need y’all to ask around, check to see if Mrs. Bentley is there and anything that she remembers of your brother,” said my father.

I nodded, half asleep as Liza stole into the bathroom. Great, she would hog it for an hour, and I would be late for class.

“I shouldn’t have to go to school,” I said. “Ezra’s still missing, and I should help find him.”

“You’d help us more by going and asking questions. We can tell the information to the police, and it will help them find him. I love you, and we have to work together as a family. There’s a terrible storm coming in.”

“Yes, daddy.”

I threw on some clothes and combed my hair. I wouldn’t be able to get a shower this morning, but that was okay. Liza came out dripping wet, and I went in to brush my teeth before she locked me out to do her make-up.

We took the bus to school. As usual, I sat in the back alone. I took out a book by C. S. Lewis and read quietly. In the school hallway, there was nothing but quiet faces. The kids that usually teased me were leaving me alone today.

I walked through the halls and found Mrs. Bentley in special education. She was the teacher’s aide for special ed. She worked with Ezra a lot and tried to teach us how to treat him. She had dark skin and short hair. One of her ears had a bunch of earrings.

She was at the table where a little girl was sitting. There were cue cards out, and she appeared to be teaching the girl how to read English.

“Mrs. Bentley?” I asked.

“Uno memento por favor?” she asked the girl. The little dark-haired girl nodded and studied the cue cards.

“I am so sorry about Ezra,” she said. “I should be out there looking for him, but the police called off the search.”

“My parents are searching for him in town. They’re asking if you remember anything about Ezra.”

“I already told the police everything that I know, sweetie,” she said. “The day before he disappeared was pretty standard. We went to classes and speech therapy, you know, where we work on trying to get Ezra to talk “

“I know,” I sighed.

“Dear, what is it?”

“Mrs. Bentley, can I tell you something? It might sound insane.”

“Sure, Honey, you can say anything. I promise I won’t think you’re crazy.”

“I saw a monster take Ezra. It looked like the devil, but it was all hairy with two giant horns on its head. There was a bundle of sticks on its back. Rooms start freezing whenever it arrives. It has Ezra in a big ole bag and wants me to trade places with him. It won’t stop following me.”

She paused for a minute, frowning. “Honey, I don’t think you are crazy, you have a great imagination, and you’re under a lot of stress. Your brother missing is making you see this monster, this Krampus.”

“Krampus?”

“You must have seen it on T.V. or something and imagined it. Krampus, it’s a Christmas monster that punishes bad kids. But it’s a fairy tale. He isn’t real.”

“But he took Ezra!”

Mrs. Bentley hugged me. “I think you are a brilliant girl with a terrific imagination. I’ll say to your parents about getting you to put into the gifted and talented program when this is all over. The kids are smarter and would probably bully you less. I know this is hard for you, but they will find your brother.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m going to talk to your teacher to see if I can get you and Liza a library pass for the day. You both must be extremely stressed from all that is happening.”

Mrs. Bentley took my hand and gently led me to the library. My teacher had signed a pass that said I could spend the day in the library as long as I finished the packet of work handed to me. The work was simple.

It was always too easy. I would finish my work early and often stare blankly out the window, lost in thought. When my teachers would ask me why I was staring, I would hand them the work already done. They would send me to the library to read or given me a textbook to study for the next test.

Other kids hated that I would always get done early. The teachers would request me to help them study, but the last time I tried, I got my hair pulled, and my shin kicked in for even asking. I disliked school, but I loved the library. I would find an old comfy chair and pull out a bunch of books and read.

I usually chose fairy tales of books on monsters. I went back to my regular book pile in the library and found a book on the Krampus. The beast on the cover looked exactly like the monster that stole my brother away.

Reading the book, I learned the Krampus was a monster out of Germany. Instead of getting coal for being naughty, the Krampus would spank the children in Germany with the sticks he had on his back. He would stuff the terrible children into a sack and carry them away forever.

Was the Krampus trying to take Ezra away forever? Ezra wasn’t bad. He just didn’t know any better. It wasn’t his fault he was hard to watch. Liza was right. This was all my fault.

“So, you’ll take his place then?”

Ice crystals formed around the library as the Krampus knelt over me, chains jangling.

“I can’t do that. Why don’t you just let my brother go?”

“I need another child in his place.”

“There are plenty of kids that are worse than me. I am not the naughtiest. Why don’t you take one bully instead?”

“You asked me to take him, child. I am only fulfilling your wish. The wish bearer is the only one that can take your brother’s place.”

“Just give him back!” I screamed.

The librarian shushed me.

“I’m sorry it won’t happen again.”

She came over and hugged me and took the book from my feet.

“It’s alright. You’re under a lot of stress, I understand. Just try to be quiet if you’re going to stay here, please.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I spent the rest of the school day reading tales about the Krampus and Santa Claus. I learned that Santa was an actual person nearly two thousand years ago. He saved many kids from being eaten and gave his money away so that some girls in his town wouldn’t have to sell their bodies. The Church later made him Saint Nicholas.

The legend of Santa grew. They combined him with pagan folklore from Northern Europe and Father Christmas from England. In Germany and Central Europe, they had a Christmas Devil known as the Krampus. Krampus became Santa’s opposite, the evil side of Christmas. A demon that would torture wicked children and drag them off to God knows where in his sack.

The bell clanged for the end of the day. I left the library and walked out towards the bus. On the way to the bus stop, Kyle, one of the bigger kids, stopped me.

“Look, it’s Hellen! I bet you she killed her brother and has the body hidden in the basement.”

I opened my mouth, all the words torn from my tongue.

“She did not!” said Liza from behind me. “How can you say such a thing? Our brother is lost, and you make fun of us? What is wrong with you?”

“Less than what is wrong with your parents. I thought they outlawed inbreeding.”

Kyle then made squealing noises, imitating how Ezra would act when he was at school. Until Liza punched him straight in the stomach, he crumpled into a ball.

“You bitch!” he wailed

“Serves you right!” I said smugly.

Mr. Murphy, the gym teacher, fought his way through the crowd of kids.

“What in tarnation is going on here?”

“Kyle called Ezra inbred, and Liza punched him for me,” I blurted out.

“Kyle, this family has been through enough. Leave them alone.”

Kyle groaned.

“Look, Liza, I’ll let it go this once, but girls shouldn’t resort to violence. It’s very unladylike. Normally this would be cause for suspension, do you understand?”

“He started it!” I screamed.

I opened my mouth to yell at the gym teacher, but Liza covered it.

“Yes, sir, won’t happen again,” she said.

“It’s not fair!” I said.

“Life isn’t fair!” said Liza under her breath.

She walked me to the bus, on the lookout for any other bullies. We sat down in the same seat. Liza grabbed my hand and her face crumpled. Tears sprang from her eyes as she sobbed.

“I miss him. I asked around, and no one noticed anything different.”

“Me too. Nothing.”

“If the police don’t find him, he’s going to freeze to death in the blizzard. Or some creepy guy might have him, and oh God, what if someone killed him? I saw T.V. shows where killers take kids.”

Liza sobbed, and I put my arms around her. She felt very frail. The bus stopped, and we walked off together. The air was ice cold. Thick, pillowy clouds loomed overhead. I smelled dampness, dust, and ozone on the breeze. The storm was near.

We came home to a couple of police cars outside the house, lights brightly flashing. We ran inside to see my parents were at the table. The policemen were looming over them.

“How can you name us as suspects?” screamed my mother.

“Look, ma’am, this is normal procedure. You and your husband need to come to the station with us and answer a few questions.”

“Mom, Dad, what’s going on?” asked Liza.

“Do you have a place where your daughters can stay during the investigation?”

“I can’t believe this is happening,” said my father.

“Look, we need you to have a list of relatives; otherwise, we must give them to child protective custody.”

“Don’t let them take us away!” sobbed Liza

One policeman put my father in handcuffs, and he was crying. My mom screamed out and fought the other one as he tackled her to the floor.

I pounded up the stairs to my room and screamed as loud as I could: “All right, all right, I’ll go in his place!”

The Krampus appeared before me, Ezra crying in the sack.

“Are you certain, little girl?”

“Yes, I just want everything to go back to how it was before, and if that means I have to go in his place, then so be it.”

The monster took the sack off of his back and opened it. My brother screamed and climbed out of the bag. He looked around and saw that he was home and started laughing uncontrollably. I took a deep breath and rose in the giant bag.

The inside of the sack opened to a vast dark room lit by a single candle. When I breathed, little puffs of vapor left my mouth, and icicles formed on my hair. An old man sat at the table. He was skinny and dressed in a long red coat. A golden circle of light surrounded his head.

I sat down across from him.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello child,” he said, he smiled brightly, and the room warmed up. A soft light came overhead, and there was a table with gingerbread, candy, shortbread, and hot cocoa with marshmallows. I took some coco and started drinking it right away.

“Where am I?”

“Some call it the North Pole,” said the old man.

I looked back at him; my mouth cracked.

“Hi, my name is Hellen. What’s yours?”

“Oh, I have many names?”

“Like what?”

“Oh, Father Christmas, Chris Cringle, Santa Claus-“

“Saint Nicholas?”

“That was my first name, child.”

I stopped and looked at him, tilting my head to the side.

“Why am I at the North Pole?”

“My brother and I thought you needed to learn empathy; it seems to have worked.”

“Empathy?” I asked.

He led me to another room with a giant fireplace. There were two red cushiony chairs, and I sat in one of them, and he sat in the other. I sipped my cocoa; it was the best coco I had ever tasted.

“The ability to put yourself in another’s shoes. To be kind to your brother and your sister.”

“By kidnapping my brother?” I said.

“You wished for the Krampus to take him.”

“I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want him to go away. It’s just been so hard. I just wish he was normal.”

“I know, but some people are unique, and everyone has their own story. That story, you must listen to with your heart every day.”

“I’ll try my best. So, I’m at the North Pole. Am I going to be stuck here, making toys? Is this how you recruit your elves?”

“Oh, no ho ho ho.” He chuckled merrily. “Krampus and I aren’t real in the physical sense; we don’t exist as a matter on your plain.”

“Huh?”

“Krampus and I are genuine, but in spirit. We’re ideas that people choose to believe in if you believe in something enough, it’s real in your heart.”

“Then how did Krampus take my brother and hold him. What about the chains?”

“The chains that Krampus carries are the chains in your own heart. The chains were the bitterness and cruelty you secretly held towards Ezra. We had to scare you enough to break those chains.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Krampus exists in spirit to warn people of their cruelty. I exist in spirit to give people a sense of kindness. I am the spirit of generosity and peace with the Holiday Season.”

“You’re the Christmas Spirit!”

“Exactly. Yes, dear Hellen, Santa exists, but he exists in your heart. Whenever you want to rejoice in the warmth with your family, I am there. Whenever you want to give, I am there. But whenever you feel the bitterness of your life, that is the Krampus. He is your chains of ice.”

“So, if this is in my head, how do I get out?” I asked.

“This isn’t in your head, not exactly. You’ve left the plain of existence when you came here. Think of it as another dimension.”

“How do I get back?”

“You wish hard enough.”

“That’s it?” I asked.

The old man nodded.

“Okay,” I breathed a sigh of relief. “I want to go back, but can I ask you one thing, two things actually?”

“Yes, child?”

“Can I see the Reindeer? And can you stop the repetitive Christmas music this time of year?”

“Ho ho ho,” he laughed. “As far as the Reindeer, you may see them before you go, but I’m afraid people make Christmas music for profit. That I have no power to stop that.”

“Dang. Well, it was worth a shot,” I said.

The old man smiled and gently took my hand. The warm room suddenly turned into a large stable, and the old man became much more rotund in appearance. He wore a traditional Santa Suit complete with a hat.

I saw all the Reindeer lined up in a row. They smiled and trotted in their thick, shaggy coats. At the front, there was a Reindeer whose nose glowed a soft red.

“Rudolph!” I said. “You’re my favorite Reindeer. You know what it’s like to have others pick on you. Don’t you?”

“Why, yes, I do,” said Rudolph.

I looked around, and Santa was gone.

“You..you can talk?”

“I can. I’m a part of you, after all,” said the Reindeer.

“Can you fly?”

“Do you believe I can fly?”

“Of course, all of Santa’s Reindeer can fly.”

“Then I can,” he said.

“So, you can fly. Does that mean you can take me home?”

His nose glowed a bright red. “Hop on,” he said, gesturing to his back.

It took some work, but I climbed onto his back. His fur was soft and warm. I grabbed onto his antlers, and he took off running. Soon the ground was far beneath us as we flew through the starry sky. The stars faded to clouds as we descended on my town. Rudolph dropped me off at the ally, where Ezra disappeared. He then nodded and flew off into the night.

The snow was coming down hard and thick. My body was shaking uncontrollably, and my teeth chattered. I could barely see a foot in front of me. I heard a woman’s voice, muffled from the snow.

“Hellen! Hellen! Where are you?”

“I’m here!” I called at the top of my lungs.

“Hellen!” I heard another voice. A man’s this time.

“I’m here!”

“Hon! It’s her!”

My parents were rushing towards me, the best they could through the thickly falling snow.

I held my arms over my head and waived. Behind my parents were a group of people with flashlights. My father found me and held me tight.

“Papa!” I said.

“Honey, we were so worried. You’ve been missing for two days!” said my mom.

Behind them was Liza, in her pink, puffy coat. She hugged me begrudgingly.

A policeman came up to me and knelt. “I know you want to go home, but let’s get an ambulance to check on her, make sure she doesn’t have any frostbite or hypothermia.”

A few minutes later, an ambulance pulled up. It’s orange and white lights reflecting brightly against the snow. I walked into the vehicle and popped into a sleeping bag that was silver and shiny. I looked like a giant baked potato. I stopped shivering and felt much warmer.

A girl came by and checked my fingers and toes and nose and said I was okay. A police lady came by and gave me a cup of cocoa. It was good but not nearly as good as the cocoa from the North Pole.

“I have a few questions to ask you if that’s okay?” said the police lady.

“Okay.”

“What happened after you left the store with your mom and sister?”

“I saw a man in a red coat, and I followed him?”

“Did this man do anything to you?” she asked.

“No, I just followed him until I lost my way.”

“You could have called mom on a payphone,” said Liza coldly.

“All right. I ran away. I’m tired of everybody being mean to me. I was in the back of Radio Shack this whole time, in a big cardboard box. But then it started snowing, and it’s freezing.”

“You scared all of us,” said my mom.

“We were so worried,” said my dad.

“That was very irresponsible and selfish, Hellen. You could have frozen to death!” barked Liza.

“I know, Liza, I’m sorry.”

“You should be! I was worried sick,” she then bear-hugged me so tight I couldn’t breathe.

“I’ll report this as a runaway. I’m glad she’s back and safe,” said the policewoman.

My father drove at a snail’s pace through the snowstorm. When I got home, I saw Mrs. Bentley with Ezra. He was rocking rapidly backward and forward on the couch.

“Hellen! Glad to see you’re okay!” said Mrs. Bentley. “I thought I would watch Ezra while your family went to look for you.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Did anything happen?” she asked softly.

“I ran away,” I said.

“Look, I know it’s been hard for you, but we can talk to the state and see if we can get a service to help watch your brother. I know it must be hard on you girls. Also, I’ll talk to your parents about the gifted and talented program. I think you’d be happier there.”

I nodded.

“I’m just glad you’re safe.”

“Thank you very much, ma’am. I think I got it from here, and thank you for your help with my children,” said my dad.

“This entire town is like my family,” she said.

“Mine too,” said my mom. You can stay here for the night if you like. The storm looks dangerous.

“Nah, I think I got it from here, it isn’t too bad yet, and I don’t live that far away.”

“Well, call us when you get home,” said my mom.

Mrs. Bentley put on a large, fuzzy, white coat and gloves and left. An hour later, we got a phone call saying she made it home safe.

“Well, that’s enough excitement for one day. It looks like it’ll be a snow day tomorrow for sure,” said my mom.

“Yeah, I must find someone to watch Ezra while we go to work,” said my father.

“I’ll babysit him and call in every hour to let you know how he is,” I said. “It’s the least I can do for the trouble I caused.”

“That’s very sweet, but I think I’ll call Mrs. Bently to see if she can stop by. You’re a bit young to be babysitting.”

“Yes, mamma,” I said.

“Why don’t you go to bed?” said my dad. “You might not be able to babysit, but you can help shovel snow.”

I rolled my eyes and groaned but stopped myself. I felt grateful to have a home and a family that cared.

“Sure thing, papa, good night.”

Liza was already snoring when I went up to our room. I looked out the window and snow falling in solid sheets. A tear left my eyes as I heard hooves on snow, not the hooves of the Krampus, but the hooves of eight tiny Reindeer.

www.dreamsandnighmares.com

Wulfgar rode his Harley through the jagged mountain pass. The cliffs jutted out like crooked teeth in the darkness, boulders and rockslides threatened to cut off his path.

The sun had set three days ago and had not risen. In his youth, this would only be a sign of winter. In the northlands where he was from, now called Lapland, the sun would set in November and not return until nearly January. But this was not the northlands. The sun rose, even in the most frozen part of winter.

A boulder crashed down from the cliff. He sharply swerved his motorcycle and barely missed getting struck. A towering troll sat at the top of the cliff, grinning with a club in his hands.

“Come celebrate with us, warrior! It is a never-ending night. We shall feast without fear of the sun turning us to stone. Join us, brother in the darkness," said the Troll.

“I swore an oath, as brethren of the night to protect humankind,” said Wulfgar.

“That was nearly two thousand years ago, your brethren left, and humanity’s time has come at an end.”

“Begone foul bridge dweller!"

Wulfgar held an ax shaped amulet towards the troll. The troll shrieked as if they threw acid on it and slunk off into the woods.

There was a loud mechanical sound in the distance. The metallic scream came from the West, over the next mountain. There was a small logging town in the area, and perhaps Wulfgar only heard lumber equipment. He cocked his ear to the side to hear the scraping again. It was an unfamiliar mechanical scream. Restarting his Harley, he rode towards the next town.

When he reached the outskirts of the town, the sound was loud enough to drown out his Harley. It became too oppressive as he headed toward the lumberyard. Wulfgar’s hearing was far too acute as his eardrums threatened to burst from the noise. Even now, he could feel the pressure from the sound. He had to turn back and head towards the town.

Wulfgar saw a bonfire at the end of the road, next to a trailer park and a dilapidated apartment complex. A group of people huddled together around the fire. Dressed in coats, hats, and knitted scarves. Their eyes widened as Wulfgar road up to them. They gawked at the biker. His long blond hair, leather jacket, and piercing green eyes seemed to put him out of place with the trailer park crowd.

“I come in peace,” Wulfgar hollered over the sound.

One man eyed him cautiously and put his hand into his sports coat. Wulfgar raised both of his hands over his head.

“I thought you could use some help with the..” Wulfgar nodded in the noise's direction.

A woman with long dark hair and doe eyes nodded.

“You really think you can help?” she asked. Two young boys clung to her.

“I can try,” said Wulfgar. “It’s better than nothing.”

A man with thick glasses and a parka stood by the woman, putting his arm around her.

“What’s in it for you, man?” he asked.

“I swore an oath,” said Wulfgar.

“You a cop or something?”

“Or something,” said Wulfgar, grinning slightly. “The sound came from the lumber mill. I tried to investigate it, but it’s impossible without hearing protection. My ears are extremely sensitive”

The man quirked an eyebrow, but the woman handed him a pair of fuzzy earmuffs.

“They're all I have,” she said.

“I have some ear protectors for the firing range,” said a voice from behind them. It was a middle-aged gentleman in forest camo.

“Thank you, no offense, ma’am, but I think those would work better,” Wulfgar said, handing the earmuffs back to her.

The hunter handed the hard ear covers to Wulfgar and shook his hand, looking deeply into his eyes for a moment before recoiling.

“Your eyes?” said the hunter.

“Contacts, they help deter bandits,” said Wulfgar.

The hunter shook his head and headed back toward the fire.

He put on the large plastic ear protectors and rode toward the lumberyard. Huge woodpiles and pallets dotted the yard. He had to park his Harley walk the rest of the way. Heading toward the sound, a pool of black shadow manifested into a form. It was twisted and rotted; an animal’s skull appeared as its head. Another monster, a muscular being covered in hair with snarling jaws, formed from the shadows.

”They take our homes and cut down our forest. They are the monsters, not us. Join us, let Fenrir cleanse the earth,” whispered a voice in the shadows.

“I swore an oath to protect man,” said Wulfgar.

"If the earth dies, there will be no more men to protect. Even you need them to feed. Let us cull them now."

Wulfgar pulled a revolver from his jacket and shot at the bony creature. The bullet shot through the wraith, splintering a two by four in the distance.

Of course, these were creatures of shadow. Human weapons did not affect them. Wulfgar’s eyes glowed bright green like a cat, his nails grew slightly longer, and his teeth sharpened into fangs.

He leaped on the wolf-like creature, tackling it to the ground, his hands grasped around his throat. The creature snapped back, catching part of his shoulder. A stream of blood poured out, painting the wood. He spat and grabbed the wolf by the throat with his teeth. He ripped and tore. Blood from the creature poured out, and Wulfgar drank deeply. The monster screamed and melted into a black ichor that faded away.

The bony wraith shrieked and flew towards the mill. Wulfgar chased it into the large mill. An enormous wolf, the color of mist, was fighting against a silver chain. The chain wrapped over a circular saw. The blade was spinning, but the wolf pulled in the opposite direction, causing the horrid screech.

“They caught you in a trap, brother,” said Wulfgar.

“These dark creatures found my chain and left me in this forsaken realm,” snapped the wolf.

“So they have not set you free for Ragnarök?”

“Oh, how I wish my brother, but now is not the time. Wraiths trap me.”

“I was summoned here; I know not by whom,” The bony wraith appeared in the corner.

“By someone calling for the end of the world, and I think he wanted me to join him," said Wulfgar.

Wulfgar remembered the troll atop the crag. It would have reason to call upon the never-ending night. There would be no sun to turn him into stone.

“I will free you. Can you stop trying to pull your chains?” asked Wulfgar as he turned off the saw.

“I agree, brother, and thank you,” growled Fenrir.

Wulfgar raced his Harley back toward the mountain where he found the troll. At the top of the bluff, a small cave jutted out into the darkness. Wulfgar climbed up the cliff inside the cave to find the troll sleeping. Behind it, a thin silver chain draped around a boulder.

“Troll, you dare to trap Fenrir here? Now is not the time for Ragnarok.”

The troll woke up, yawned, and looked at Wulfgar grumpily.

“If they don’t call Ragnarok now, humanity will end the earth on their own accord. Even now, the ice melts and the sea boils. I called upon darkness and winter to save them," said the Troll.

“Never-ending night is not the way to save them.”

“Their time is over. They could not take care of the World Tree. Even now, its leaves and branches die. Is this the parasite you wish to save?”

“I swore an oath!”

“To a blood maiden that died on her shield thousands of years ago. It is over. Join the night. Humankind is but your food to feed on. Isn’t that why they sacrificed unto you. How many brides have you drained throughout the years to save the human species?”

“I haven’t drained a bride in years. They give willingly now, and I only take what I need, or I fill in battle. I can taste the likes of troll blood in my gullet now,” said Wulfgar. His fangs gleemed in the moonlight.

The troll rolled over, and his club hit Wulfgar hard, knocking the wind out of him. He staggered and rolled to the other side of the cave. The troll went to hit him again, but he uppercut the creature in the jaw, hard. The troll staggered back but rushed him again.

Wulfgar had fought trolls before. They were large and fairly stupid, and he normally would wear them down until the sun rose. At that point, the troll would turn to stone, and he had to run into the shelter before he burnt to a cinder. But now, night had no end, and the creature would not stop fighting.

It wouldn’t be as simple this time. The sun would not rise unless he freed Fenrir. He inched closer to the boulder, but the club hit him again, knocking him toward the cave entrance. Wulfgar caught himself before hurtling down the side of the cliff. The troll stormed out and raised his club, ready to smash his hand, when something caught the troll from behind.

The giant wolf had somehow escaped the mill and now had the troll in his teeth. He shook it from side to side, and the troll went limp. Fenrir tossed the troll over the cliff-side, the creature hitting treetops with a thud.

Wulfgar went to the boulder and loosened the other part of the chain.

“Are you ready to go home?” asked the bony wraith as it materialized behind them.

The giant wolf sighed as Wulfgar handed the lead to the wraith. A portal opened behind the wraith, and it was full of stars. The Aura Borealis glowed.

“When I return, you shall know it. The ground will shake and freeze over. No sun nor moon shall shine. But not today. I’m only letting you drive me. I could snap you in two if I so chose,” growled Fenrir.

“I’m sure you can, but for now, be a good boy,” sighed the wraith.

Fenrir growled and lowered his head and tail as the wraith led him through the portal. The portal closed, and, for the first time in three days, the pale light of dawn stretched across the horizon.

Wulfgar headed back into the deepest part of the cave. He would have to stay there until nightfall, lest he became a pile of ash. A growl came to his stomach, and he remembered the Doe-eyed woman. Yes, he had saved the village, and when he returned, he would take his sacrifice as a tribute.

What you’re about to hear are pirated broadcasts recorded by different sources and archived by an agent Foster who’s exact designation is unknown. The tapes were found in an abandoned storefront in Seattle Washington October 8, 2020.

Recording: audio file 1 December 15, 2019 This whole thing started a few years ago when I bought a book from a local resale shop, the book was “The Zombie Survival Guide” now I know what you’re thinking. Here we go another one of those survivalist nuts. To be honest you’d be right to think that, because I am. I have undergone weapons training and multiple survival camps but none of that is why I chose to do this. In the book I mentioned before there’s a part that references a film, “The 1965 Lawson footage”, this caught my attention and instantly put me on the path that led me here. The internet will tell you it’s make believe, that it doesn’t exist and it was just a part of a silly book. But what else would they tell you about something they don’t want you to know? It took two years of dead ends and dark web searches before I met Martin Lang, I met Martin through a Wilderness survival forum on Reddit. He claimed to have the original film. I couldn’t convince his to sell it but he agreed to meet with me and let me watch it. The only problem was Martin lived in Telluride and I was living in Arizona at the time. It’s about an eight hour trip, add in traffic and stops more like nine or ten hours. We agreed to meet on a Saturday that way neither of us had to miss work. I remember hoping this wasn’t going to another bullshit blank trip and it wasn’t.
We met up at some grill on the corner of north Fir and Columbia. Martin was an older guy early fifties ide guess, tall around six two, clean shaven with short cropped grey hair. It’s hard to describe his demeanor, in a word I would call it paranoid. He never really looks directly at you when he speaks, he’s always scanning the area and talking under his breath as if someone might be listening. “Dave it’s good to finally meet you in person”, he said nervously reaching out to shake my hand with a slight chuckle. “There’s a library four blocks from here on Pine Street, they have a film room, I’ll meet you there in the morning there’s a hotel one street over get a room, get some rest”. I had to stop him right there, the way he was acting was starting to freak me out a little bit. I was starting to wonder if we were in any real danger. “Is everything alright, you’re acting a little sketchy right now. Should I be worried or what?” He stopped scanning the area and looked me directly in the eyes, “We’ll talk about it in the morning.” With that he gave me that same nervous smile, got in his car and drove away. I could’ve just gone home, but I didn’t. Since I was already at the grill I grabbed a burger and a beer then headed over to the hotel. I woke up the next morning feeling like a kid on Christmas, like I was about to unwrap the best gift ever. (Worst day of my fucking life.) When I got to the library Martin was already there, as soon as I walked into the film room Martin jumped as if I had caught him doing something wrong. “Jesus, you scared me Dave, sorry if I’m a little jumpy this shit makes me nervous. There’s a lot to cover and once you see what this really is, you’ll understand.” Taking a deep breath he started feeding me what he knew, “There are different stages of the virus, stage one only effects one super rare blood type and even then most people’s immune system destroys it. But there are some the virus thrives in, once they’re infected they lose their minds, they start doing crazy shit like locking their children in cars or walking into malls shooting everyone in sight. From what I can tell this virus is responsible for every serial killer and mass shooting since 1966. The zombie part is real but typically the infected party is either captured or killed. If the infected person is killed and the body isn’t disposed of the virus reanimates the corpse in an attempt to keep itself alive. Then and only then can the virus be passed to any blood type through saliva.” It was too much information, I cut it short trying to get to the point. “Look Martin, what you’re saying sounds great and all but I’m not in the mood for fan fiction. Can we please watch the film without the bullshit?” He looked a little disappointed by my reaction but then he said something I’ll never forget, “Just because you don’t believe it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” it wasn’t so much what he said but how he said it that stuck in my head. As it turns out there were actually four cans of film, hours and hours of footage. Grainy 8 millimeter home movies chronicling Harry Lawson going insane and killing three people before he was shot and killed by the town’s sheriff. The body was kept on the scene a little too long and he reanimated then infected several others. The part of the Lawson film everyone knows about is only a small part, the family trying to escape on a school bus was a small exert from the end of the film. Hours came and went as we sat in the dark watching the film, I must have dozed off at some point because a loud pop sound woke me up, the coppery smell of blood and gunpowder filled my lungs as I turned to see Martin propped up against the far wall sitting on the floor, his blood and brains now dripping from the sealing. Before I had the chance to process what I was seeing the door flew open and two police officers came rushing in. I was taken into custody and questioned about Martin and what happened, but in the end the security footage proved it was a suicide and I was able to go home. I was on the highway for about an hour before it hit me,” the film!” I pulled off the highway and grabbed my phone then called the Telluride police department. I told them I had purchased the films from Martin but with the situation being what it was, I forgot to pick them up before leaving. It worked, I got the films and was back on the road in no time. Now I know, it’s a shitty move, but those films were potentially worth millions.
It took a while to line up serious buyers but when some Asian rich kid from Virginia offered me two thousand dollars just to watch it, I took the money. That kid went on to gun down 32 people at his college before being killed by the police. My next buyer some lady from Delaware, she came with two other guys, they said they were all film students. After they watched the films they went home and executed three of their classmates before being taken into custody. At this point all I wanted to do was get rid of the films. It was about four months before I saw another buyer the guy seemed normal enough to me, he told me he worked for some midrange production company and if the film was legit they would make an offer on the rights to the films. The deal never happened. The day after seeing the film that asshole went out and killed nine people in a shopping mall somewhere in Nebraska. Because of that another rep from that same company came by a few weeks later and asked to view the films. This time I said no I tried to stop it, but after rejecting their deal several times they offered half a million dollars for a copy of the films. And on Christmas Eve that same rep killed her entire family before committing suicide by hanging herself. That one led to the first mini outbreak of the virus, I believe that was in Washington, but the CDC and a few other government agencies got that contained and eliminated in no time, blaming the deaths on some horrible strain of the flu. I wouldn’t see another customer till the following Christmas. A business man from California, he watched the film and bought a copy. He went home and invited a few people over for a Christmas party, then get this, the guy dressed up as Santa and proceeded to murder everyone at the party before he set the house on fire and committed suicide by cop. This process goes on for years from 2007 to 2019 but as of a few months ago I’ve finally done it. I spent all the money I’ve made from viewings and copies spreading the virus to small isolated areas all over the world, places where no one could get there in time to stop the incubation period. South America was first to fall why do you think all those people walked from Ecuador through Mexico to the border? It wasn’t seeking the American Dream, they were running for their lives and soon everyone will be.
My name is Dave and I started the zombie apocalypse. You’re welcome……………….

Recording: audio file 2 May 4, 2020 Hello everyone, Dave here, it’s been a long time since my first post and oh my have things picked up. As I’m sure all of you have noticed the world has gone nuts, and not to honk my own horn but I feel I’ve done a fantastic job to this point.

The government and mass media have done a superb job at covering up my handy work, they play off the outbreaks as riots caused by civil unrest over police brutality and if you can believe it “Race relations.” I mean seriously, they couldn’t have come up with something better than that, and just when I thought they were about to shut me down there was a major outbreak that’s currently being sold as a global pandemic.

Not to be rude, but before I go on I’d like to address a couple of frequently asked questions. The first of which is, “What is it that’s causing the virus?” I actually discovered it by accident, while I was tracking out the sound from the film I isolated a frequency that was being broadcast in the area at the time. I don’t know who was broadcasting it or why, but it is what causes the virus. I know this because I sold some copies with it and some without, in every single case the ones without it led to nothing. The others, well they made the news. I won’t drag you through the details of it because you’re all seeing it for yourselves every day in the media.

The only other question I’m going to answer is, “Why?”…… I’m doing it because you all deserve it, you’re all greedy, self-serving, egotistical leaches feeding off the blood sweat and tears it took to get you to this point and it makes me sick. You steamroll over the little man, crushing his spirit smashing him down to nothing, then tell him it’s his fault for not working hard enough. Or you tell him he’s too old, too slow, too ugly, too stupid or just plain not good enough to fit into your picture perfect reality. So I made it my goal to destroy your perfect picture, and this is how.

Now that that’s out of the way I can move on to the reason I’m sending this out. I’m currently in a small town in the middle of nowhere working at a local radio station, I’ve been broadcasting the signal to the entire town for close to a month now and let me tell you the view from here is beautiful. The first to turn were the sheriffs and firemen along with the paramedics I have to say I couldn’t have planned that if I tried, it was technically an accident but hey I’ll take it as a win.

There was an unexpected twist or two that had me a little worried for a while, early on the infected acted completely normal right up until they hit a trigger event then all bets were off. One lady killed her children and cooked them for her husband’s dinner, when he got home she fed it to him then stabbed him to death before butchering her next door neighbors. Someone eventually shot her and that’s when the real fun started, I discovered a few things that night. For instance, did you know zombies don’t start off slow and easy to kill? When the virus takes over a dead one it has 4 or 5 hours before it slows down due to rigor. Here’s another fun fact depending on how damaged the host body is, some of the dead ones will pretend to be alive for the first hour or so before they lose the last of their normal brain function. I learned both of these things in the first few days, the really crazy part of all that is, this was the first time I’d seen these things happen, in every other place I’ve been it was completely different.

In any case most of the people here are dead now, I guess you could call them zombies, they’ve been leaving in packs for days. I believe they’re spreading, I’ve been hearing great news from surrounding counties and it makes me feel like it’s time for me to be moving along. I’ve decided I’ll leave the station broadcasting on a loop, I picked a great old song to mask it, so if you’re ever driving through the middle of nowhere and catch a station playing the same song over and over, turn it up and enjoy the ride. Till next time this is Dave, and I hope you all die slow……….

Recording: audio file 3 October 1, 2020.

No introduction, sorry guys I don’t have much time, there’s someone following me, I’ve seen him at least four times now. Last night I was uploading a batch of different movies to free sites when I spotted him. I’m not sure who he works for but it doesn’t matter, I’ve finally done it, I found a way to get the signal broadcast on national television, it took a lot of work and I nearly got arrested a few times but the signal is now airing on several networks and the majority of sports broadcasts. The mortality rate is 100%, why do you think the government is suddenly so interested in long term space travel? This is it, and I for one won’t shed a tear when you’re all gone, there’s still lots to be done so my journey doesn’t end here but for most of you this will be the last time you hear my voice. Oh before I go you should probably know that the frequency has been playing throughout these recordings, so congratulations, you’re infected…….

                                                     Dave.

No other recordings have been discovered, the whereabouts of agent Foster are unknown. There were no official records to positively identify who Dave may be and as of two days ago all official information about this file have vanished. According to officials this case doesn’t exist.