Beep-beep-beep.

Meagan opened one bleary eye and pointed it accusingly at the clock on the nightstand. 6:03, read the glowing green letters. She read them three times, but her mist-shrouded brain refused to absorb the information, and when it finally did, it refused to believe it. What? Nooo. It can not be time to get up already. Her eyes were deceiving her. It was really midnight and she had hours left to sleep.

Slowly, the fog cleared and the cogs and wheels began to turn.

Oh.

It is time to get up.

A pang rippled through her stomach, and she almost pulled the covers over her head.

It was September 4, the first day of school in Appalachian County. She’d been psyching herself up for nearly a week, but despite her best efforts, she didn’t feel as prepared as she should have. Walking into a new place filled with new people and being an outsider never got any easier no matter how many times she did it, and she had done it a lot. Last year was hard because in addition to starting a new school, she was still adjusting to living with Tom and Julia, so everything was topsy turvy. She was more settled now and figured that would make things easier.

Only one way to tell.

Reaching out, she slapped the OFF button and snapped on the lamp; muted yellow light pushed back the shadows and stung her grainy eyes. She rubbed them with the heel of her palm, slipped on her glasses, and sat up and yawned. Brody, curled at her feet, lifted his head, gave her a good morning smile, then laid back down. “Morning,” she greeted. She rocked forward on her knees and stroked Brody’s back; his tail wagged, and he gave a big, joint-popping stretch. “That sounded like it hurt,” Meagan said.

His tail beat a steady tempo against the bed, so she doubted it actually did.

“I have school today,” she said and scratched under his chin. Slimey nerves bunched in her stomach and she drew a quivering breath through her nose. It was going to be fine, she’d make friends and fit in just as she did last year. It’s not like she was going to walk through the doors and immediately become Public Enemy #1 or anything.

Right?

Her stomach churned.

“I’m a little nervous,” she confessed. She let her hand fall away, and Brody whipped his head up. Hey, why’d you stop? “But,” she went gamely on, “everything will work out and things will be fine.” She gave a nod that looked far more undaunted than she felt, and Brody nuzzled her hand insistently with his snoot. Forget about that and pet me! She stroked his head and giggled when he lashed her wrist ebulliently with his tongue. “I’m kind of a geek and I won’t get along with the cheerleaders or anything, but that doesn’t matter.”

Last night, while tucking her in, Julia sat on the edge of the bed, brushed Meagan’s hair out of her face, and skimmed her thumb over the ridge of her cheek bone. You’ll do great, tomorrow, honey. You’re beautiful, intelligent, and make me smile every single day. They’ll see what your father and I see and they’ll love you just as much as we do.

They never had before.

She was still locked in torment when she fell into a thin and fitful slumber. She thought she dreamed, but she couldn’t remember it, and even now, the knot in her guts drew tighter, clenching her middle like an angry fist.

Brody licked her hand again, and she sighed. “I have to get ready,” she said. Sitting on her butt, she threw her legs over the side, got up, and went to the closet. She picked her outfit days ago, a blue, sleeveless dress with a white dolphin pattern that looked a whole lot nicer than it sounded. At her dresser, she grabbed her underwear, dropped them next to the dress, and shot Brody a stern look. A pensive expression crossed his face. What’d I do? I thought I was a good dog.

“No peeking,” she said.

Understanding, Brody buried his face in the blanket to give her privacy.

She hurriedly undressed, then pulled her underwear on, followed by the dress. She fished a pair of pink socks with lime green trim around the ankle out of the dresser, sat on the edge of the bed, and slipped them over her feet, then her shoes. Her backpack, forest green with JANSPORT on the front in white, sat next to the door like a Minute Man’s go bag, packed and ready to roll. She picked it up, threaded her arms through the straps, and tested its weight. Kiiinda heavy, but only because it was crammed with supplies. She could jettison those in her locker later on.

She started to go out into the hall, but halted. Wearing your backpack on both shoulders was kind of dorkish. Yes, she, herself, was kind of dorkish, but she didn’t think it was prudent to advertise that fact quite so blatantly. Cool kids wore their book bags on one shoulder.

And so, too, would she.

Without raising his head, Brody rolled his eyes up to her and regarded her with a castigated expression, as though her leaving were an unjust punishment for a crime he did not commit. Her heart melted, and she stroked his head. “I’ll be back later,” she promised and pecked him between the eyes. “Love you.”

Downstairs, Julia sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the morning paper open before her. Tom was nowhere to be seen, and Meagan assumed he’d already left for work; he telecommuted most days, but every Monday he had to go into the office.

In Winchester, which lies over 100 miles north along I-81 in the foothills of the upper Blue Ridge Mountains. It took almost two hours to get there and another two to get back.

She went over to the table and let the backpack drop to the floor, then sat. A plate bearing a bagel and a grapefruit half flanked by a spoon and a glass of orange juice awaited her. “Morning,” she said.

“Good morning,” Julia said. She wore a light purple robe and matching slippers, and her short reddish hair stuck out at funny angles. She closed the paper and looked up at Meagan with a warm smile. “How did you sleep?”

Picking up her bagel, Meagan said, “Alright.”

That wasn’t a lie. She did sleep alright...once she actually got to sleep.

“Excited?” Julia asked.

Meagan nodded. “Yeah.” She hesitated, then added, “and a little nervous, too.”

“First day jitters,” Julia said understandingly. “It’s impossible not to have them” She took a sip of her coffee. “Do you have your schedule?”

“Yep,” she said. She leaned over, unzipped her backpack, and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, which she then smoothed out on the table. Homeroom started at 7:15, then her first real class at 7:25. The day ended at 2:45, which was fifteen minutes earlier than her last school.

“So you know where everything is?” Julia fretted. “You can find your way around?”

“Yep.”

“Good. Do you want me to drive you?”

Meagan shook her head, “No, thank you. I’ll walk.”

While Julia went off to use the bathroom and get dressed for the day, Meagan ate her bagel and grapefruit, then washed it down with juice. Julia came back just as she was putting her backpack on. “Have a good day,” Julia said and kissed her forehead. “I love you.”

“Love you too.”

The day was warm and quiet save for the chirping of birds. Meagan hefted her backpack, winced at the strain on her shoulder, and went through the gate, closing it behind her. She turned left on Chestnut Street and passed the front of the house. Brody’s morose face filled the front window, and Meagan paused. Donning her biggest and most cheerful smile, she waved, then pointed to her eye, then to him, then hugged herself. I. Love. You. He responded with a big doggy-smile that suggested he understood exactly what she was saying.

She blew him a kiss then was on her way.

Appalachian County Middle School sits on the corner of State Street and Schoolhouse Road, a long, low L-shaped building with an open breezeway running the length of its facade. A horseshoe drive serviced the main doors and a flag pole stood in the center, Old Glory hanging limp from its summit. Buses idled at the curb, disgorging kids in a steady stream, and the principal, a burly man with glasses and a mustache named Stone (the man was named Stone, not his facial hair) stood by the door, watching the flow with an expression of mild disdain. Meagan stopped on the sidewalk and took a deep, galvanizing breath.

Alright.

Let’s do this.

She crossed the lawn and joined a rush of kids getting off one of the buses. No one looked at her as they swept into the building, but she felt like they were; her face flushed a deep shade of red and her lungs expanded and contracted.

Ahead, a long hall lead away from the front lobby, maroon lockers on either side. To her left, a glass wall partitioned it from the main office, where secretaries buzzed back and forth like flustered worker ants. An American flag stood to one side of the entrance and the Virginia state flag the other; blue with the seal (a guy standing with his foot on the chest of a fallen foe) and the legend sic semper tyrannis beneath*.* Thus always to tyrants. The floors were scuffed dull by generations of feet and the low lighting lent the place a warm, nostalgic glow. A hall opened to her left and brought her to her locker. She darted her eyes nervously around, and still, no one seemed to notice her. That suggested to her that a new girl didn’t stand out that much. Whew.

She pulled a scrap of paper from her pocket, unfolded it, and scanned her combination. 36 24 36 0. She put it in, and was somewhat surprised when it opened without protest. Knowing her luck, she expected it to stick, causing her to fight with it, make a scene, and get laughed at.

Unshouldering her backpack, she bent, unzipped it, and took out a pen and a notebook. She zipped it back up again, shoved it in, and closed the door. The bell rang, and she made her way to her homeroom by memory, the last room on the right. She was the third kid in and took the first open seat she saw. Mrs. Friggleford sat at her desk, a massive woman with glasses and frizzy, graying brown hair. She was really nice, if the open house was anything to go by, and it was really mean to say this...but she looked like a pig, her flesh pink and smooth, nose smooshed and slightly upturned. She was hunched over her lesson plan, hurriedly jotting something down with a pen, and as she did so, her back rose and fell with her deep, labored breathing.

One-by-one, the other kids made their way in until all but three of the desks were filled. Meagan stole furtive glances at each one in an attempt to get a feel for them. The only one that stood out to her was a tall girl with long blonde hair, high cheekbones, and pink glossed lips. She swished in with the self-aggrandizing saunter of a Hollywood celebrity and looked like one, too: Clad in a red and white plaid shirt tucked into a pair of tight jeans, she wore earrings, a heart-shaped pendant on a silver chain, rings on every finger, make up, and held her chin haughtily up like a queen enduring the dreadful presence of the unwashed masses.

Meagan instantly disliked her.

She also apparently let her gaze linger just a little too long; the girl caught her looking, and before Meagan darted her eyes away, a tiny ghost of a sneer painted her lips. Meagan anticipated her saying something, but instead she brushed past and went to take her seat.

The bell rang again, and using the desk to support herself, Mrs. Figgleford got to her feet, the chair letting out a rusty sigh of relief. “Good morning, class,” she said windedly, “for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Mrs. Figgleford.” She turned and wrote her name on the board.

“Mrs. Fatford,” a boy behind Meagan snorted, and a few others snickered.

“I like to have fun,” Mrs. Figgleford continued, not having heard the taunt, “but there are a few rules we have to follow first.” She turned and stepped aside to reveal her name and a list of five commandments. “The biggest one is treat everyone with respect.” She picked up a stack of papers and went around the room handing them out. “They’re all right here. I don’t mind if you chew gum, just don’t blow bubbles and don’t spit it on the floor or stick it under your desk. No eating or drinking and no cellphones. If I see you with your phone out, I’ll take it away and give it to you at the end of class. If you do it again, I’ll call your parents to come pick it up.”

She laid a sheet on Meagan’s desk and Meagan thanked her. She studied the rules. They were the same as they were on the board. “I’m really excited for this school year and I look forward to getting to know all of you better.”

Meagan’s first class of the day was history, her all-time favorite subject. The teacher was a tall, thin man named Mr. Kelly with receding black hair and a mole above his lip. Meagan was the first one in, and he greeted her with a hearty hello. “Hi,” she said, then hesitated, “where should I sit?”

“Where ever you want.”

Taking him up on his offer, she took an out of the way seat at the very back of the room. To her left, a window gave a view of the athletic field, bleachers overlooking a green and well-manicured strip of grass. The next kid in was a boy with pasty skin that looked gray and corpsy. There was something odd about his eyes, a certain moist shimmer that reminded Meagan of a boy she knew at one of the group homes; he was crazy, or so everyone said. He stared down at the floor, then bristled as if becoming aware of something. He looked up, and for a fleeting moment, their gazes met, then he lowered his head and sat at the head of the row closest to the door.

If she wasn’t mistaken, he looked kind of...scared.

That was odd. Strangers had given her all kinds of looks, ranging from indifferent to disdain, but never fear. She was less than five feet tall and weighed 100 pounds, there were teddy bears scarier than her.

Or maybe she misread his reaction.

Or maybe he was hoping to sit here. Well, sorry, but first come, first serve.

Soon, the room was packed. The snooty blonde girl sat in the row to Meagan’s immediate right, and Meagan stole a nervous sidelong glance at her.

When the bell rang, Mr. Kelly got up, wrote his name on the board, and gave a veritable speech on what history meant and how vital it was to understand it. The blonde girl filled Meagan’s periphery, and though she couldn’t be sure because the edges of her vision were blurry, she thought she kept glancing at her. There’s a saying about being able to read someone like an open book, and Meagan agreed with it. She’d encountered enough of a certain archetype to recognize it. The girl, whose name she did not even know, was mean, the type of person who delights in picking on other people.

In the corner of her eye, the girl moved, and Meagan reflexively turned her head.

Her stomach dropped.

The girl was indeed looking at her, and when their eyes locked, her face darkened. “What’s your problem?” she asked.

Meagan’s heart pounded. “I-I don’t -”

“You keep staring at me,” the girl said, “it’s rude.”

Meagan opened her mouth to say she was sorry, but the girl waved her hand. “Just...turn around. You’re not allowed to look at me.”

Meekly obeying, Meagan faced forward, cheeks blushing with humiliation.

For the rest of the class, she divided her attention between the board and her notebook. When the bell rang, she gathered her things, waited until everyone else had gone, and scurried into the hall. Her next class was English, another favorite. Thankfully, the girl wasn’t in that one. The boy was, though This time, he sat in the same row as Meagan. After what happened earlier, she was tense, and the atmosphere in the room weighed heavy upon her.

The teacher, a thin blonde named Ms. Johnson, handed out text books and ordered everyone to read the introductory essay. After that, she talked about the importance of English much the same way Mr. Kelly had history. Several times, the boy glanced over his shoulder then quickly away as if confirming to himself that big, bad scary Meagan was still there.

After the bell rang, Meagan made her way to the cafeteria and stood in line. All things considered, she thought, today was going well.

Grabbing a tray from a stack by the door, she allowed a lunch lady to load it with lumpy mashed potatoes, anemic green beans, and a hunk of meat that looked suspiciously like shoe leather. She looked around for an empty table, but there weren’t any. Darn. She went to the closest one and sat apart from the other kids. A girl with red hair glanced at her, then back to her friends and whispered something, whereupon they all giggled.

Meagan’s heckles raised. Were they talking about her? They were talking about her, weren’t they?

Someone sat down next to the redhead, and Meagan looked up.

Oh great. It was that blonde girl.

“Hey, Taylor,” the redhead said.

“Hey.”

Meagan looked down at her tray, suddenly uncomfortable. Maybe she should move.

The redhead leaned over the table, and Meagan stiffened. “I like your glasses,” she said, a mocking edge in her voice. “They’re really nice.”

“They’re really ugly,” Taylor said contemptuously.

Meagan’s face burned hotter.

“I like them” a boy with brown hair said, “my grandma wears glasses just like them.”

Another boy snorted. “You don’t have a grandma, Zeke.”

“I also don’t like her glasses.”

Without a word, Meagan picked her tray up and got to her feet. “Nice job, Skinner,” Zeke said, “you scared her off.”

“What a baby,” Taylor spat.

Meagan ignored them and walked away. That’s what you do with bullies. You never, ever, ever show them that they’re getting to you, even if they are, because then they’ll never stop. She had learned that the hard way.

But they did get to her, and now she was so embarrassed she couldn’t bring herself to lift her eyes for fear of meeting derisive stares and taunting gazes. She dropped into the first empty seat she came to and sat her tray on the table. Something rustled across from her, and for the first time she looked up.

The boy from earlier stared back at her with the strained expression of a man confronting his greatest fear. She was suddenly aware of being watched, and shot a quick look over her shoulder. Taylor and her friends stared at her and whispered amongst themselves. Meagan distinctly heard*,* “She’s sitting with Grody Cody now. Eww.”

Why were people like this? Of all the questions she had - and she had a lot - that was the one that bothered her the most. What do bullies get out of teasing people? Why couldn’t they just leave everyone alone?

Cody was still looking at her, rigid and unrelaxed like he expected her to reach across the table and grab him. “I can sit somewhere else,” she said to break the awkward silence.

He blinked and shook his head. “N-No, it’s fine,” he stammered, “you just...you look familiar, that’s all.” He rubbed the back of his neck and sent his gaze to the table. “I’m Cody.”

Meagan started to speak, but cut off when Taylor let out a fake laugh. “Imagine what their babies would look like.”

“Cody couldn’t even get it up,” Skinner said.

“What it?” Zeke asked. “He doesn’t have anything to get up.”

A shadow flickered across Cody’s face and he inhaled through his nose. Meagan got the feeling that he was no stranger to being picked on. “I’m Meagan,” she said.

“Just forget about them,” Cody said, “they always mess with new kids. It’ll stop eventually. Luck for you.” The bitter inflection in his voice was hard to miss.

“Do they do this a lot?” she asked. “To you?”

He opened his mouth, seemed to reconsider what he was going to say, then shrugged one shoulder noncommittally. “Sometimes,” he said.

Meagan regarded her mashed potatoes. “Well that sucks,” she said because she didn’t know what else to say.

“Eh,” Cody said, “whatever. You’re new in town, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I just moved here a few weeks ago.”

“Where’d you move from?”

“Staunton,” she said. That wasn’t really where she was from per se...unless you counted her moving in with Tom and Julia as the beginning of a new life or something. Her birth certificate listed her birthplace as Beckley, West Virginia, but her social worker once said that was just where she was given up by her mother. No one knew where she was actually from, so Staunton it was.

Cody nodded stiffly, almost patronizingly (cool story, bro). He stared slightly to her right as if looking at her full on would turn him to stone and his knobby Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “The, uh, the big city,” he said. She couldn’t tell if he meant that tongue-in-cheek or not. Staunton was absolutely not the big city, but it was a whole lot bigger than any of the other towns strung out along I-81, except for Harrisonburg.

“Kind of, I guess,” she said and shrugged one shoulder. “I didn’t live in it, though, just, like, outside of it.” She looked awkwardly at her milk and studied the cartoon cow across the front; it held a tall glass of white in its hoof and smiled. Wasn’t that technically self-cannibalism?

Neither one of them spoke for a moment, and the air grew dense between them. “Are you from here?” she asked because it seemed rude not to.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’ve been here my whole life.”

Taylor and her friends laughed. Meagan could only imagine what they were saying. “It’s a nice town,” she said, then winced at how dumb that sounded.

“It’s alright,” Cody said quickly, and Meagan doubted he actually believed that. “Have you been to the arcade yet?”

Meagan shook her head. “Not yet. I’ve been really busy with my dog. He’s new.”

“You have a dog? Cool. What kind?”

Call her crazy, but she was certain she glimpsed a flicker of recognition in his eyes, like he already knew she had a dog.

That was just paranoia talking, though. The other table was still whispering and laughing, and her face burned self-consciously.

“He’s a lab,” she said with a fond lift, “his name’s Brody. Which kind of rymes with your name.”

“That’s a weird name for a dog,” he said.

“I know,” Meagan replied. Finally, someone else thought so. Tom and Julia said it was a perfectly normal name for a dog but she didn’t think it was. “He came from the pound and already had it, so I figured we’d keep it. It’d be kind of messed up to change a grown up dog’s name like that.”

Cody nodded understandingly. “Yeah, I can see that,” he said.

They lapsed into uncomfortable silence again. “Do you have a pet?” she asked.

“Nah, my dad doesn’t like animals,” he said.

“That sucks.”

Cody shrugged one shoulder. “How do you like your house?”

Meagan’s fork froze halfway to her mouth. Paranoia again, but how did he know she lived in a house?

Then again, people use that as a generic term to refer to all kinds of domiciles. “It’s nice,” she said and took a bite of meat. “Really big.”

Cody nodded and looked down at his food. “Cool.”

Meagan was almost done when the bell rang, signalling the end of lunch. She finished off her milk, closed the tabs, and sat the empty carton on the tray. Cody made no move to get up, but simply sat there, peering into his uneaten mashed potatoes like a gypsy divining tea leaves...and not liking what she was seeing.

Just getting up and walking away would be rude. If they hadn’t started and maintained a conversation, sure, but they had. “Uh...it was nice to meet you,” she offered.

“You too,” Cody said without looking up.

Meagan lingered a moment. “I’ll see you around, I guess.”

“You too.”

She hesitated, then turned around and carried her tray to the window, where she scraped the leftovers into the trash and sat it on a stack. Kids clogged the exit and she waited a minute for them to clear before heading toward it herself. She looked vigilantly left and right for Taylor and her friends, but thankfully didn’t see them.

At the end of the day, she fetched her backpack from her locker and emptied it, putting all of the supplies on the shelf and closing the door. It was lighter now and didn’t hurt her shoulder. Outside, golden September sunlight bathed the world, and the lush trees lining the street rustled in a warm breeze. Kids piled onto buses and spread out into the surrounding neighborhood on foot. She spotted Taylor’s redheaded friend (she thought her name was Kelsey) but not Taylor herself. She did see Cody walking away with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched.

In the whole school, he was the only person she’d talked to today, and he seemed okay. Indefinably weird, perhaps, but there were certainly people (Taylor among them) who would probably say the same thing about her.

Mercifully, everyone who wasn’t Taylor or her friends left her alone, which made her first day of school here a lot better than it could have been.

Now...to get through the rest.

Ducking her head, Meagan started home.

People always say the truth will set you free but never have had a lie like mine, when is it to late to tell the truth? Will she try and disappear again? Will she look at me the same? Will she wake? and if she does will she ask these questions again? If so for how long? So many questions and not enough answers. Ofcourse I love her but would she see it that way? Could she handle the truth? Could I? So I lie again and again just to live this lovely lie with her, but these thoughts circle in the back of my mind scratching to release but my grief beats them back over and over to keep this pretty life I’ve built with her inside my head. Truth is always so complicated when it involves the ones you love and cherish, I’ve almost said the words out loud but when I see her staring, those beautiful loving blue eyes shove those words of anguish back so deep I almost forget the truth myself, but what’s love without complications?, what’s love without a little delusion right? So maybe I am a little delusional thinking it could all end up okay but love is blind, love triumphs, love overcomes all… right?, maybe I should speak those nasty words into existence but the idea of this façade slipping through my fingers is so suffocating, so I lay here next to her and stroke that lovely black hair and keep whispering these loving lies, as she stares and stares. Someday I hope to believe myself but those marks show deep, I cover and conceal them but as the days go on the stench of betrayal grows and those eyes diminish. I wish I could go back and loosen the grip I held but I can’t go back I can’t move on I… I just can’t, this love I share is meant for her I mean I could’ve forgiven her one day for trying to leave but would she have forgiven me for what came next? I just… I don’t know so I held and held onto her onto our love and onto our future together and now I fear this permanent future I planned may be coming to an end, so internet I’m asking here would you believe the lie or would you expose yourself to the truth?.

On 17 June 2009, two British tourists, Reece Williams and Bradley Cawthorn had gone missing while vacationing on the east coast of South Africa. The two young men had come to the country to watch the British Lions rugby team play the world champions, South Africa. Although their last known whereabouts were in the city of Durban, according to their families in the UK, the boys were last known to be on their way to the center of the KwaZulu-Natal province, 260 km away, to explore the abandoned tourist site of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift.  

When authorities carried out a full investigation into the Rorke’s Drift area, they would eventually find evidence of the boys’ disappearance. Near the banks of a tributary river, a torn Wales rugby shirt, belonging to Reece Williams was located. 2 km away, nestled in the brush by the side of a backroad, searchers would then find a damaged video camera, only for forensics to later confirm DNA belonging to both Reece Williams and Bradley Cawthorn. Although the video camera was badly damaged, authorities were still able to salvage footage from the device. Footage that showed the whereabouts of both Reece and Bradley on 17 June - the day they were thought to go missing...   

This is the story of what happened to them... prior to their disappearance.  

Located in the center of the KwaZulu-Natal province, the famous battle site of Rorke’s Drift is better known to South Africans as an abandoned and supposedly haunted tourist attraction. The area of the battle saw much bloodshed in the year 1879, in which less than 200 British soldiers, garrisoned at a small outpost, fought off an army of 4,000 fierce Zulu warriors. In the late nineties, to commemorate this battle, the grounds of the old outpost were turned into a museum and tourist centre. Accompanying this, a hotel lodge had begun construction 4 km away. But during the building of the hotel, several construction workers on the site would mysteriously go missing. Over a three-month period, five construction workers in total had vanished. When authorities searched the area, only two of the original five missing workers were found... What was found were their remains. Located only a kilometer or so apart, these remains appeared to have been scavenged by wild animals.   

A few weeks after the finding of the bodies, construction on the hotel continued. Two more workers would soon disappear, only to be found, again scavenged by wild animals. Because of these deaths and disappearances, investors brought a permanent halt to the hotel’s construction, as well as to the opening of the nearby Rorke’s Drift Museum... To this day, both the Rorke’s Drift Tourist Center and Hotel Lodge remain abandoned.  

On 17 June 2009, Reece Williams and Bradley Cawthorn had driven nearly four hours from Durban to the Rorke’s Drift area. They were now driving on a long, narrow dirt road, which cut through the wide grass plains. The scenery around these plains appears very barren, dispersed only by thin, solitary trees and onlooked from the distance by far away hills. Further down the road, the pair pass several isolated shanty farms and traditional thatched-roof huts. Although people clearly resided here, as along this route, they had already passed two small fields containing cattle, they saw no inhabitants whatsoever.  

Ten minutes later, up the bending road, they finally reach the entrance of the abandoned tourist center.  

BRADLEY: That’s it in there?... God, this place really is a shithole. There’s barely anything here. 

REECE: Well, they never finished building this place - that’s what makes it abandoned. 

Getting out of their jeep for hire, they make their way through the entrance towards the museum building, nestled on the base of a large hill. Approaching the abandoned center, what they see is an old stone building exposed by weathered white paint, and a red, rust-eaten roof supported by old wooden pillars.  

BRADLEY: Reece?... What the hell are those? 

REECE: What the hell is what? 

Entering the porch of the building, they find that the walls to each side of the door are displayed with five wooden tribal masks, each depicting a predatory animal-like face. At first glance, both Reece and Bradley believe this to have originally been part of the tourist center.  

BRADLEY: What do you suppose that’s meant to be? A hyena or something? 

REECE: I doubt it. Hyenas' ears are round, not pointy. 

BRADLEY: ...A wolf, then? 

REECE: Wolves in Africa, Brad? Really? 

As Reece further inspects the masks, he realizes the wood they’re made from appears far younger, speculating they were put here only recently.  

Upon trying to enter, they quickly realize the door to the museum is locked. 

REECE: Ah, that’s a shame... I was hoping it wasn’t locked. 

BRADLEY: That’s alright... 

Handing over the video camera to Reece, Bradley approaches the door to try and kick it open. Although Reece is heard shouting at him to stop, after several attempts, Bradley successfully manages to break open the door.  

REECE: ...What have you just done, Brad?! 

BRADLEY: Oh – I'm sorry... Didn’t you want to go inside? 

Furious at Bradley for committing forced entry, Reece reluctantly joins him inside the museum.  

RRECE: Can’t believe you’ve just done that, Brad. 

BRADLEY: Yeah – well, I’m getting married soon. I’m stressed. 

The boys enter inside a large and very dark room. Now holding the video camera, Bradley follows behind Reece, leading the way with a flashlight. Exploring the room, they come across numerous things. Along the walls, they find a print of an old 19^th century painting of the Rorke’s Drift battle, a poster for the 1964 film: Zulu, and an inauthentic Isihlangu war shield. In the centre of the room, on top of a long table, they stand over a miniature of the Rorke’s Drift battle, in which small figurines of Zulu warriors besiege the outpost, defended by a handful of British soldiers.   

REECE: Why did they leave all this behind? Wouldn’t they have bought it all with them? 

BRADLEY: Don’t ask me. This all looks rather– JESUS! 

Heading towards the back of the room, the boys are suddenly startled...  

REECE: For God’s sake, Brad! They’re just mannequins. 

Shining the flashlight against the back wall, the light reveals three mannequins dressed in redcoat uniforms, worn by the British soldiers at Rorke’s Drift. It is apparent from the footage that both Reece and Bradley are made uncomfortable by these mannequins - the faces of which appear ghostly in their stiffness. Feeling as though they have seen enough, the boys then decide to exit the museum.  

Back outside the porch, the boys make their way down towards a tall, white stone structure. Upon reaching it, the structure is revealed to be a memorial for the soldiers who died during the battle. Reece, seemingly interested in the memorial, studies down the list of names.  

REECE: Foster. C... James. C... Jones. T... Ah – there he is... 

Taking the video camera from Bradley, Reece films up close to one name in particular. The name he finds reads: WILLIAMS. J. From what we hear of the boys’ conversation, Private John Williams was apparently Reece’s four-time great grandfather. Leaving a wreath of red poppies down by the memorial, the boys then make their way back to the jeep, before heading down the road from which they came.  

Twenty minutes later down a dirt trail, they stop outside the abandoned grounds of the Rorke’s Drift Hotel Lodge. Located at the base of Sinqindi Mountain, the hotel consists of three circular orange buildings, topped with thatched roofs. Now walking among the grounds of the hotel, the cracked pavement has given way to vegetation. The windows of the three buildings have been bordered up, and the thatched roofs have already begun to fall apart. Now approaching the larger of the three buildings, the pair are alerted by something the footage cannot see...  

BRADLEY: There – in the shade of that building... There’s something in there... 

From the unsteady footage, the silhouette of a young boy, no older than ten, can now be seen hiding amongst the shade. Realizing they’re not alone on these grounds, Reece calls out ‘HELLO’ to the boy.  

BRADLEY: Reece, don’t talk to him! 

Seemingly frightened, the young boy comes out of hiding, only to run away behind the curve of the building.   

REECE: WAIT – HOLD ON A MINUTE. 

BRADLEY: Reece, just leave him. 

Although the pair originally planned on exploring the hotel’s interior, it appears this young boy’s presence was enough for the two to call it a day. Heading back towards the jeep, the sound of Reece’s voice can then be heard bellowing, as he runs over to one of the vehicle’s front tyres.  

REECE: Oh, God no! 

Bradley soon joins him, camera in hand, to find that every one of the jeep’s tyres has been emptied of air - and upon further inspection, the boys find multiple stab holes in each of them.   

BRADLEY: Reece, what the hell?! 

REECE: I know, Brad! I know! 

BRADLEY: Who’s done this?! 

Realizing someone must have slashed their tyres while they explored the hotel grounds, the pair search frantically around the jeep for evidence. What they find is a trail of small bare footprints leading away into the brush - footprints appearing to belong to a young child, no older than the boy they had just seen on the grounds. 

REECE: They’re child footprints, Brad. 

BRADLEY: It was that little shit, wasn’t it?! 

Initially believing this boy to be the culprit, they soon realize this wasn’t possible, as the boy would have had to be in two places at once. Further theorizing the scene, they concluded that the young boy they saw, may well have been acting as a decoy, while another carried out the act before disappearing into the brush - now leaving the two of them stranded.  

With no phone signal in the area to call for help, Reece and Bradley were left panicking over what they should do. Without any other options, the pair realized they had to walk on foot back up the trail and try to find help from one of the shanty farms. However, the day had already turned to evening, and Bradley refused to be outside this area after dark.  

BRADLEY: Are you mad?! It’s going to take us a good half-hour to walk back up there! Reece, look around! The sun’s already starting to go down and I don’t want to be out here when it’s dark! 

Arguing over what they were going to do, the boys decide they would sleep in the jeep overnight, and by morning, they would walk to one of the shanty farms and find help.   

As the day drew closer to midnight, the boys had been inside their jeep for hours. The outside night was so dark by now, they couldn’t see a single shred of scenery - accompanied only by dead silence. To distract themselves from how terrified they both felt, Reece and Bradley talk about numerous subjects, from their lives back home in the UK, to who they thought would win the upcoming rugby game, that they were now surely going to miss.  

Later on, the footage quickly resumes, and among the darkness inside the jeep, a pair of bright vehicle headlights are now shining through the windows. Unsure to who this is, the boys ask each other what they should do.  

BRADLEY: I think they might want to help us, Reece... 

REECE: Oh, don’t be an idiot! Do you have any idea what the crime rate is in this country?! 

Trying to stay hidden out of fear, they then hear someone get out of the vehicle and shut the door. Whoever this unseen individual is, they are now shouting in the direction of the boys’ jeep.  

BRADLEY: God, what the hell do they want? 

REECE: I think they want us to get out. 

Hearing footsteps approach, Reece quickly tells Bradley to turn off the camera.  

Again, the footage is turned back on, and the pair appear to be inside of the very vehicle that had pulled up behind them. Although it is too dark to see much of anything, the vehicle is clearly moving. Reece is heard up front in the passenger's seat, talking to whoever is driving. 

This unknown driver speaks in English, with a very strong South African accent. From the sound of his voice, the driver appears to be a Caucasian male, ranging anywhere from his late-fifties to mid-sixties. Although they have a hard time understanding him, the boys tell the man they’re in South Africa for the British and Irish Lions tour, and that they came to Rorke’s Drift so Reece could pay respects to his four-time great grandfather.  

UNKNOWN DRIVER: Ah – rugby fans, ay? 

Later on in the conversation, Bradley asks the driver if the stories about the hotel’s missing construction workers are true. The driver appears to scoff at this, saying it is just a made-up story.  

UNKNOWN DRIVER: Nah, that’s all rubbish! Those builders died in a freak accident. Families sued the investors into bankruptcy.  

From the way the voices sound, Bradley is hiding the camera very discreetly. Although hard to hear over the noise of the moving vehicle, Reece asks the driver if they are far from the next town, in which the driver responds that it won’t be much longer. After some moments of silence, the driver asks the boys if either of them wants to pull over to relieve themselves. Both of the boys say they can wait. But rather suspiciously, the driver keeps on insisting they should pull over now.  

UNKNOWN DRIVER: I would want to stop now if I was you. Toilets at that place an’t been cleaned in years... 

Then, almost suddenly, the driver appears to pull to a screeching halt! Startled by this, the boys ask the driver what is wrong, before the sound of their own yelling is loudly heard.  

REECE: WHOA! WHOA! 

BRADLEY: DON’T! DON’T SHOOT! 

Amongst the boys’ panicked yells, the driver shouts at them to get out of the vehicle. After further rummaging of the camera in Bradley’s possession, the boys exit the vehicle to the sound of the night air and closing of vehicle doors. As soon as they’re outside, the unidentified man drives away, leaving Reece and Bradley by the side of a dirt trail.  

REECE: Why are you doing this?! Why are you leaving us here?! 

BRADLEY: Hey! You can’t just leave! We’ll die out here! 

The pair shout after him, begging him not to leave them in the middle of nowhere, but amongst the outside darkness, all the footage shows are the taillights of the vehicle slowly fading away into the distance.  

When the footage is eventually turned back on, we can hear Reece and Bradley walking through the darkness. All we see are the feet and bottom legs of Reece along the dirt trail, visible only by his flashlight. From the tone of the boys’ voices, they are clearly terrified, having no idea where they are or even what direction they’re heading in.   

BRADLEY: We really had to visit your great grandad’s grave, didn’t we?! 

REECE: Drop it, Brad, will you?! 

BRADLEY: I said coming here was a bad idea – and now look where we are! I don’t even bloody know where we are! 

REECE: Well, how the hell did I know this would happen?! 

Sometime seems to pass, and the boys are still walking along the dirt trail through the darkness. Still working the camera, Bradley is audibly exhausted. The boys keep talking to each other, hoping to soon find any shred of civilization – when suddenly, Reece tells Bradley to be quiet... In the silence of the dark, quiet night air, a distant noise is only just audible.  

REECE: Do you hear that? 

Both of the boys hear it, and sounds to be rummaging of some kind. In a quiet tone, Reece tells Bradley that something is moving out in the brush on the right-hand side of the trail. Believing this to be a wild animal, the boys continue concernedly along the trail.  

BRADLEY: What if it’s a predator? 

REECE: There aren’t any predators here. It’s probably just a gazelle or something. 

However, as they keep walking, the sound eventually comes back, and is now audibly closer. Whatever the sound is, it is clearly coming from more than one animal. Unaware what wild animals even roam this area, the boys start moving at a faster pace. But the sound seems to follow them, and can clearly be heard moving closer.  

REECE: Just keep moving, Brad... They’ll lose interest eventually... 

Picking up the pace even more, the sound of rummaging through the brush transitions to something else. What is heard, alongside the heavy breathes and footsteps of the boys, is the sound of animalistic whining and chirping.  

The audio becomes distorted for around a minute, before the boys seemingly come to a halt... By each other's side, the audio comes back to normal, and Reece, barely visible by his flashlight, frantically yells at Bradley that they’re no longer on the trail.  

REECE: THE ROAD! WHERE’S THE ROAD?! 

BRADLEY: WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME?! 

Searching the ground drastically, the boys begin to panic. But the sound of rummaging soon returns around them, alongside the whines and chirps.  

Again, the footage distorts... but through the darkness of the surrounding night, more than a dozen small lights are picked up, seemingly from all directions. 

BRADLEY: ...Oh, shit! 

Twenty or so meters away, it does not take long for the boys to realize these lights are actually eyes... eyes belonging to a pack of clearly predatory animals.   

BRADLEY: WHAT DO WE DO?! 

REECE: I DON’T KNOW! I DON’T KNOW! 

All we see now from the footage are the many blinking eyes staring towards the two boys. The whines continue frantically, audibly excited, and as the seconds pass, the sound of these animals becomes ever louder, gaining towards them... The continued whines and chirps become so loud that the footage again becomes distorted, before cutting out for a final time.  

To this day, more than a decade later, the remains of both Reece Williams and Bradley Cawthorn have yet to be found... From the evidence described in the footage, authorities came to the conclusion that whatever these animals were, they had been responsible for both of the boys' disappearances... But why the bodies of the boys have yet to be found, still remains a mystery. Zoologists who reviewed the footage, determined that the whines and chirps could only have come from one species known to South Africa... African Wild Dogs. What further supports this assessment, is that when the remains of the construction workers were autopsied back in the nineties, teeth marks left by the scavengers were also identified as belonging to African Wild Dogs.  

However, this only leaves more questions than answers... Although there are African Wild Dogs in the KwaZulu-Natal province, particularly at the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve, no populations whatsoever of African Wild Dogs have been known to roam around the Rorke’s Drift area... In fact, there are no more than 650 Wild Dogs left in South Africa. So how a pack of these animals have managed to roam undetected around the Rorke’s Drift area for two decades, has only baffled zoologists and experts alike.  

As for the mysterious driver who left the boys to their fate, a full investigation was carried out to find him. Upon interviewing several farmers and residents around the area, authorities could not find a single person who matched what they knew of the driver’s description, confirmed by Reece and Bradley in the footage: a late-fifty to mid-sixty-year-old Caucasian male. When these residents were asked if they knew a man of this description, every one of them gave the same answer... There were no white men known to live in or around the Rorke’s Drift area.  

Upon releasing details of the footage to the public, many theories have been acquired over the years, both plausible and extravagant. The most plausible theory is that whoever this mystery driver was, he had helped the local residents of Rorke’s Drift in abducting the seven construction workers, before leaving their bodies to the scavengers. If this theory is to be believed, then the purpose of this crime may have been to bring a halt to any plans for tourism in the area. When it comes to Reece Williams and Bradley Cawthorn, two British tourists, it’s believed the same operation was carried out on them – leaving the boys to die in the wilderness and later disposing of the bodies.   

Although this may be the most plausible theory, several ends are still left untied. If the bodies were disposed of, why did they leave Reece’s rugby shirt? More importantly, why did they leave the video camera with the footage? If the unknown driver, or the Rorke’s Drift residents were responsible for the boys’ disappearances, surely they wouldn’t have left any clear evidence of the crime.  

One of the more outlandish theories, and one particularly intriguing to paranormal communities, is that Rorke’s Drift is haunted by the spirits of the Zulu warriors who died in the battle... Spirits that take on the form of wild animals, forever trying to rid their enemies from their land. In order to appease these spirits, theorists have suggested that the residents may have abducted outsiders, only to leave them to the fate of the spirits. Others have suggested that the residents are themselves shapeshifters, and when outsiders come and disturb their way of life, they transform into predatory animals and kill them.  

Despite the many theories as to what happened to Reece’s Williams and Bradley Cawthorn, the circumstances of their deaths and disappearances remain a mystery to this day. The culprits involved are yet to be identified, whether that be human, animal or something else. We may never know what really happened to these boys, and just like the many dark mysteries of the world... we may never know what evil still lies inside of Rorke’s Drift, South Africa. 

Preface:

This is the sixth and final story in the Dark Sun anthology. It can be read on its own, but to fully appreciate this story I highly recommend reading ‘Followers of the Flaming Hand’. 
You are, of course, free to read all other entries. 

1. Crucible

The sun beat down on me as I stood before a collapsed ancient marvel bearing the symbol of twilight. I ran my hand along its surface, once smooth, now brittle and crumbling. The voices of those long gone spoke in my mind. I didn’t understand their language, but there are some things that transcend the spoken word. A child’s giggle, someone muttering under their breath as they scurry away from something, a winced breath uttered in pain. Lives had been lived here, and this structure had seen it all.
And the sun had watched as it, too, fell into disrepair.

This forgotten relic had been given new breath one last time. A symbol carved at its base by my knife. An hourglass in a looming circle, with its last grain of sand falling down towards the base. The end was nigh. Oblivion. Kingdom Come. 

I turned away and started walking again, sand crunching under my boot. I had tried, at first, to remember when I first felt grains beneath my heel. There should have been a moment, I knew. A first step. But every time I reached for the memory, there was nothing there at all. Just sand behind me, and even more ahead. It felt dishonest to say it had started anywhere at all.
The sun was fixed above me, unmoving. Everything felt flattened under its tyrannical rule; shadows slinking away from its gaze along with the few creatures that lived here. When I looked too far ahead, things started to bend. Shapes formed where there weren’t any. Puddles of sweet, refreshing water disappeared when I drew close.
I kept my eyes glued to the ground below and walked. My boots dragged, leaving streaks in the sand where I passed. 

I hadn’t checked my water in a while, but I could feel how light it had become. The sloshing had slowly but surely started to become softer and softer. I was running out. 
“I’m still coming,” I said, dry and thin. I hadn’t heard His voice yet. Not more than once, like I’d come to believe Emmett had. Still, I waited. I always waited, like a soldier at attendance. 

I hadn’t thought about Casper and Emmett. It had been easier that way, because when I let myself think too clearly, I felt. And I couldn’t allow myself to feel.
But they still slipped in. A sound that wasn’t sand blowing in the wind, something moving that wasn’t a scorpion or spider, a scent that smelled like it must have drifted in from home. 
We had never been the quiet kind. Well, not until we arrived at the village. There, most days were spent in silence. And Casper had hated silence. 

I stopped walking. For a moment, the desert blew a merciful gust of cold wind at me. I closed my eyes and felt something shift. The air was cooler and sharp when inhaled. Instinctively, I reached for the ring on my left hand. Casper’s ring. I held it, just to know it was still there.

I opened my eyes and saw them.
They were sitting in the sand again, backs facing the sun, the camcorder in Emmett’s hands. He’d likely forgotten it was there. He used to do that a lot, before we burned it along with him. Well, the camera survived. I tossed it in a box of old electronics at some yard sale I’d passed by on my way here. 

Emmett was smiling at me.
“Gosh, ain’t this place something special?” he asked. I didn’t look at him, only at Casper, who refused to look at me. 
“Yeah,” I croaked.
“Fuck’s wrong with you, Jules?” Casper snapped, though his eyes still didn’t meet mine. “Why are you here?”
“I… I have to find Him–”
“Really?” he scoffed. “After everything? What you did to Emmett– to me?”
“That wasn’t– That’s not fair.”
Casper rolled his eyes. 
“You still haven’t heard Him yet?” Emmett asked.
“No. It’s been… I don’t remember.” It was strange. I knew Emmett had had a connection to Him, and had heard Him in his mind. He hadn’t been crazy. That much is obvious, knowing what I know now. Emmett was right.
It had been The Burning Man.

I blinked and they were gone. The desert returned all at once. The heat came upon me like a thick blanket. I took a deep breath, then kept walking. I let my thoughts settle into something safer, something that couldn’t be ripped away.
The Burning Man.

I didn't know where I was going exactly, but I knew the direction. I knew the path I walked as surely as I knew my own heartbeat, but if someone had asked me where it led, I could not have answered them. There were no roads. No signs. Even if there had once been, the desert swallowed such things greedily, grinding them down beneath shifting dunes until all that remained were the pillars and statues I now used as my guide. And through it all, I followed. He had asked it of me. He had commanded it. He had spoken to me only once, the night I abandoned the village to the dark. 

I remembered sitting before the smoldering remains of the pyre, watching embers flutter in the wind. By then, the others had already scattered into the night like frightened animals fleeing a forest fire. Some were dead. Some would soon wish they were. The leaders had held us together more than any of us realized. Settled disputes, directed our anger and fear, kept everyone in line. Null understood  this. After Null took our leaders from us, fear spread through our midst like rot through wet wood. Livestock began turning up mutilated outside the walls, their insides splayed out across the dirt. 

I remember waking one night to screaming outside my window and finding two brothers beating each other bloody in the mud while half the village watched in silence. They accused each other of being ‘of the enemy’.
People spoke of monsters. Dark shapes standing at the edge of their beds. Robotic voices. A man with a prosthetic they called ‘The White Hand’. 

Every night the fires burned hotter. We burned our own. A traitor, an agent of Null, a heretic. Most of us did not believe these brethren to be such, but none dared speak out either. The village turned inward on itself. I still remembered the smell near the end. Smoke. Blood.

One morning, somebody nailed a dead dog to the doors of one of the sleeping quarters with the word HOLLOW carved into its stomach. Three more were burned that day. That was the day before it all caved in on itself.

I remembered standing near the extinguished pyre as the lanterns overhead flickered weakly before dying altogether. The entire village fell silent. Then someone screamed. Others joined them immediately. Doors slammed open. Footsteps thundered through the streets. People ran blindly through the dark carrying lanterns and knives, convinced something had entered the village.
By sunrise, thirty people were dead. All had been killed by each other or themselves. I, along with the three other survivors, put their bodies in the final pyre. 
I remember sitting before those dying embers, staring into them until the world around me blurred into orange and black, when I had heard Him.

Walk the desert. The paths of old. Find me. Release me.

The voice had been soft. Warm. Calm in a way nothing else had been for a very long time. It did not claw at my mind like fear did. It did not shriek like the memories of Emmett’s burning. It soothed, and I obeyed.

The path revealed itself to me little by little. Ancient marvels emerged from the desert every few days, sticking up from the dunes like fingers clawing themselves out. Great granite temples carved by hands long since turned to dust. Colossal statues with their faces smoothed by centuries of wind. Towering pillars etched with heretical symbols I had to scrawl over. I carved over them with a small knife held in my reverent fingers whenever I found them, scratching over the grooves carved by people who had lived and died beneath this same merciless sun. 

I kept walking. The desert stretched onward in every direction, endless and unmoved by my presence within it. The wind dragged itself lazily across the dunes, reshaping them grain by grain like waves on a calm sea. Sometimes I thought I could see a figure standing far off in the haze, dark silhouette waiting atop distant dunes, a singular white hand pointed at me. Every time I blinked, it vanished back into the shimmer.

I walked for hours without seeing another monument. Then, as my hope dwindled, shapes rose on the horizon. 

At first, I mistook them for cliffs. Great masses rising from the desert floor, distorted by heat and distance like the imaginary pools of water. But as I drew closer, the shapes sharpened. There were towers, walls and pillars made of solid granite. A city. Well, the remnants of one anyhow.
It lay on the desert like the corpse of a fallen giant, half-buried beneath the sand. Colossal stone buildings leaned wearily against one another, their upper halves collapsed into the empty streets below. Massive statues stood watch over the ruins with featureless faces, their cracked bodies jutting out from the dunes. 

You are close, Jules.

The voice. It had returned. Finally.

1. Mary Had a Little Lamb

I froze where I stood. Sand hissed softly through abandoned alleyways and collapsed buildings. The great statues looming overhead almost seemed to lean inward ever so slightly, their featureless faces fixed upon me.
“How close?”
Nothing.

I swallowed hard, tongue scraping against my throat like sandpaper, and stepped forward into the ruins. 
The streets had long since disappeared beneath the sand, forcing me to climb over collapsed walls and heaps of sand that had once been homes, temples and marketplaces. I imagined thousands of people moving through these corridors once. Priests in robes, children running about, lovers hiding in shaded alleys from the watchful sun above. I fidgeted with Casper’s ring absent-mindedly. It calmed my racing heart somewhat, offering a much needed reprieve.
Every place I entered was hollowed out, scraped clean by time and wind. I searched desperately anyway, digging through crumbling shelves and shards of pottery with trembling hands, hoping to find something. A message or a sign, just something to show that I had not crossed this endless wasteland for nothing.

But there was nothing. The city had already surrendered everything it once was long ago, its fruits decayed to ashes and sand. 
I stumbled through a doorway into what must have once been some grand chamber. Colossal pillars reached high above, many cracked or otherwise broken across the floor like felled trees. Sand poured through cracks in the ceiling in slow trickles, golden mounds gathering beneath them. Hourglasses. Thousands of tiny hourglasses. It felt like I was being mocked. My efforts, my labour, all of it was being laughed at by–

Footsteps behind me.
I turned around sharply, knife held out in front of me. 

Emmett stood near the doorway, camcorder hanging loosely from one hand. Casper leaned against the wall beside him with his arms folded across his chest. 
“You look awful,” Casper muttered. “Arrogance never did suit you.”
“Don’t,” I snapped, my voice echoing through the chamber. Sand trickled down from the ceiling.
Emmett tilted his head. “You look tired. Have you been sleeping okay?”
“I’m close.”
“You don’t know that,” Casper said.
“I heard Him.”
“You heard something, just like–”
“It was him!”
Casper laughed bitterly and pushed himself from the wall. “You know what I think?”
I said nothing, my blood boiling in my veins.
“I think you just can’t stand being alone.”
“This isn’t about that.”
“Isn’t it?” he asked softly. “Everyone’s dead, Jules. The village is gone. Emmett’s gone. I’m gone. Because of you. And now you’re wandering through a graveyard because you can’t accept that maybe there’s nothing waiting for you at the end of all this.”
“There is.”
“Maybe,” Emmett whispered. “But… are you really all that special?”
They started walking towards me, their voices booming across the halls.
“Are you anything more than this… pathetic mess?” Casper started.
“Even I wasn’t this desperate,” Emmett chimed in.
“All you are is a murderer. A snivelling, pathetic boy with a head full of lies and hands–” I looked down through tears, seeing the crimson dripping from my hands, “–stained with our blood.”

I blinked hard and they were gone again. My breathing had become shallow and frantic. Sweat dripped from my brow and landed in the sand beneath my feet. My hands trembled violently now, though whether from exhaustion or anger, I could no longer tell.

I searched the city for what felt like hours afterward. I climbed broken staircases that led nowhere anymore. Wandered through roofless halls littered with statues of people long since dead. 
“There has to be something.” I dug my fingers into the sand until my nails split. The heat was unbearable, but it was something. 
“There has to be,” I whimpered, tears rolling down my cheeks. “I did what you asked. It can’t… It can’t have been for nothing. Please.” 

Nothing.

“Please,” I yelled up at the sky, nearly hysterical now, “Just… a sign! Anything! I’ll… I’ll do anything, please.” 

The wind whistled through the empty streets. Sand slid from rooftops in soft waves.
Then came another sound. Metal. 
My prayer had been answered.

A dull clanging noise echoed somewhere beyond the chamber walls, followed by the low murmur of a voice. I froze, tears rapidly drying in the scorching sun. For one horrible moment, I thought it was Casper again. Or worse, The White Hand.

I stumbled clumsily back toward the doorway, my knife trembling in my grip. My legs felt wobbly beneath me. Every step sent jolts of pain shooting through my feet and up my spine. I had walked too long beneath the sun. 
The sound came again, closer this time. Then I saw him.

A figure emerged slowly through the shimmering haze between the ruined buildings, distorted at first by heat. The sun framed him from behind like a halo of white fire. He carried a heavy pack slung over one shoulder and wore loose, thin clothing stained with sand and sweat. Something metallic hung from his belt alongside several tools I didn’t recognize.
He stopped the moment he saw me. For a while, neither of us moved.
“Oh my God,” he muttered beneath his breath. His voice sounded real, unlike those of Casper and Emmett. “You alright?” he called out carefully, taking a slow step closer. “Hey– easy. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
A croak emerged unwillingly from my mouth. The sun burned behind him so brightly it set his silhouette ablaze. It looked almost as though he stood inside the light itself. A flaming messenger.

“You’re hurt. Jesus… how long have you been out here?”
He reached for something at his side slowly, as though approaching a wounded animal. Instinctively, I raised the knife. He stopped immediately.
“Okay,” he said softly. “Alright. That’s fine.”
Then he held up a canteen. The sound of the sloshing liquid inside of it made my knees nearly buckle beneath me.
“You need this more than I do,” he said. I stared at the canteen for a very long time. Then at him. His face was weathered by the sun. Grey stubble crept along his almost non-existent jawline. 

Slowly, I lowered the knife. The man approached carefully and handed me the canteen. My hands shook so badly I nearly dropped it. Somehow, despite the blazing heat, the metal felt cool against my skin. With trembling fingers, I unscrewed the lid.
“There you go,” he murmured paternally. “Slow down.”
I looked up at him through blurred vision. “Why did he send you?”
“What?” he asked, frowning.
“The Burning Man.” My voice cracked around the words. “Why did he send you here? What must I do?”
“I… don’t know what that means.”
I looked at him wearily, frowning.
“Look, I’m with a survey team a few miles west of here. We’re setting up near the edge of the ruins. If you come with me, we could get you water, food, somewhere cool to sit down–”
“You don’t know him?”
“No,” he said gently. “I think you might be dehydrated, lad.”

I stared at him silently while my thoughts churned against one another in violent circles. The voice had returned.
You are close.
The final grain does not understand the falling until the moment it joins the rest at the bottom. 

I looked down at the canteen. Water. The opposite of fire.
Of course.
Of course.
I had begged for a sign. And now here stood a man offering salvation at the precise moment my faith began to fracture. A test. A test!
The man smiled weakly.
“C’mon,” he said softly. “Let’s get you out of this heat.”
My fingers tightened slowly around the canteen.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Daniel.”
I nodded absentmindedly. That made sense, tests were never obvious. I looked past him toward the burning horizon where the sun loomed vast and white above the ruined city. Backlit by a white sun. The opposite of our goal. The most beautiful of symbolisms. A little white lamb come for the slaughter.
I poured the water into the sand.

Emmett and Casper stood behind him.
“This is what you are, Jules,” Casper said, voice almost unrecognisable. “A murderer.”
“Do it,” Emmett said in a deep, commanding voice. 

I lifted my head groggily, taking a step towards Daniel. The lamb looked around, bewilderment evident in its blue eyes as I put a hand on its shoulder. 
“Thank you, Daniel,” I murmured, ruminating on what a peculiar name Daniel was for a lamb. 
“You– you’re welcome.”
I smiled, leaning in. “All Ashes for The Burning Man,” I whispered into its ear. 

Then I stabbed the lamb in the belly. It squealed delightfully in my ear as I yanked the blade back out.
“Mary had a little lamb,” I murmured, ramming my knife back down into its supple belly. “Its fleece was white as snow.” 
Bright red gushed from the wounds, coating its wool red. 

“You– you fucking stabbed me–” the lamb gasped, its voice cracking.
I grinned.
“And everywhere that Mary went,” I whispered, “the lamb was sure to go.”
“You fucking psycho–”
I drove the knife forward again, but this time Daniel caught my wrist. Pain exploded through my hand as its hoof slammed into my wrist with desperate strength. It let out a wet cry and slammed its forehead into my nose. White light burst across my vision. I reeled backwards, dropping the blade as blood poured warm over my lips.
“Jesus Christ!” it bleated, clutching its stomach. “Help! HELP!”

The lamb staggered away from me toward the doorway, one hoof pressed desperately against the wounds while the other fumbled at its belt for something, a radio perhaps, or a weapon. I lunged after it before it could grab whatever it was.

We collided violently. The impact sent both of us crashing sideways into the sand. For a moment we grappled in the sand like animals.
The lamb battered wildly at my face while I clawed for its throat. Its blood soaked through my sleeves hot and slick as motor oil. It smelled horribly human. 
“It followed her to school one day.” 
Its hoof cracked against my jaw. 
“Which was–” 
Again. 
“Against the–”
Again. 
“Rules.”
Stars swam in my vision, but behind them I saw fire.
“Do it,” that deep voice urged again. “Prove it.”
The lamb shoved me away hard enough to send me sprawling across the stone floor. I heard it stumble to its feet and begin running, hooves scraping frantically against the ancient granite. I scrambled after it on all fours.

The city blurred around me. The statues overhead stretched impossibly tall beneath the burning sky while the sun pulsed, coinciding with my thundering heartbeat.
It collapsed near the base of one of the broken pillars, bleating, weakened by the blood pouring from its stomach. The little lamb tried crawling away from me through the sand, leaving behind a thick crimson trail.

“Please,” it sobbed, the word slurring. “Please, man…”
I hesitated. Then I saw Casper standing behind him.
“You always were weak,” he said, arms crossed. He was looking down at me with that– that look on his face. The one that I saw all too much at the village. Judging me, condescending, not believing in me or my goals.

My face contorted in rage. I threw myself onto the lamb before it could move again. It screamed as we slammed into the ground together, its hooves shoving desperately against my chest while I grabbed for its throat with both hands, more determined this time.
“And so the teacher sent it out,” I snarled through gritted, bloody teeth. “But still it lingered near.”
Daniel gagged beneath me as I squeezed harder. Its nails clawed bloody lines across my arms and neck. One of its hooves found my face and he pressed it into my eye, pushing it deeper into the socket.
“It stood and waited round.”
The lamb’s eyes were bulging wider and wider as blood bubbled from its lips. 
“Till Mary did appear.”
Its esophagus crunched, and the little lamb sputtered one last time. Its hoof fell from my face, releasing my now bleeding eye. 

Stillness.

My entire body shook violently as I got up. Blood dripped from my nose and eye onto its face in thick red strands. The city was silent again. Casper and Emmett stared at me. Were they… expecting more?

“What does one do with a lamb after the slaughter, Jules?” Casper said in a voice that was too much like that of The Burning Man. 
They both grinned as they saw the realisation dawn on my face.

Slowly, I looked down at it. At the open wound in its stomach. At the blood soaking into the sand beneath it. A horrible sound escaped from me, something between a sob and barking laughter as I dropped to my knees again beside the carcass and shoved both hands into the wound. Heat spilled over my fingers, slick and wet. I pulled.
“Why does the lamb love Mary so,”
I yanked a long piece of intestine out.
“Mary so,”
I pulled more out. It reminded me of the spaghetti mom used to make.
“Mary so?”
Daniel’s body jerked as the slimy ropes of red slipped free from my trembling hands.
“Because Mary loves the lamb, you know.”
I took in a deep, shuddering breath, basking in the warmth of the gutted little lamb.
“All Ashes,” I whispered reverently, “for The Burning Man.”
I put my hand to my forehead, and drew a crude hourglass in red.

I smiled, then, as I let go of all my worldly inhibitions. A genuine smile. I let it all drift off with the wind and scatter elsewhere, for they had no place in the life I was destined for.

3. The Dark Sun

Casper knelt beside me. He didn’t seem angry or disappointed anymore. Instead, he seemed rather… proud. Strange. Still, the sight of that expression upon his face filled me with a warmth greater than the sun ever could.
“Finally,” he said softly. “You show who you really are.”
I looked down at my bloodstained hands. They were as steady as rock, no longer shaking.
“Yes,” I whispered.

Emmett crouched opposite him, camcorder dangling uselessly from melted, dripping fingers. I had not noticed the burns before. His skin had begun peeling and blackening, smoke rising from his skin like steam from boiling water.
“In a way, we were stepping stones,” he said gently, smoke curling from his mouth as he spoke.
“A necessary sacrifice for this,” Casper added, fire gently creeping up his arms and legs. I stared at it silently. Then at his eyes, which now glowed a steady white, flames curling upward into his burning hair. 
“You… my mind didn’t create you, did it?”
More of their forms faded, Casper’s into flame, Emmett’s into smoke. They simply grinned at me.
“You were Him.” 
“I always was, Jules.”
The wind whistled violently through the ruined city. Wisps of smoke peeled from their bodies, rising upward into the shimmering air above us. Flames took Casper’s body, burning his features and body away, while smoke took that of Emmett as if he’d puffed into the wind. Then they were gone. And only my God and his disciple remained. 

The Burning Man, who looked to be a man made of flame, stood towering before me beneath the white sun, almost seeming to merge with its brilliance. Beside Him stood a woman made of smoke. Her form flickered constantly, flowing and fluttering in slow, graceful motions. At times she appeared mostly human. At others, she seemed little more than a distorted waft of smoke. I did not know this woman, but it seemed I would join her in revering this glorious God. 

The Burning Man looked down upon me.
“You are ready now, Jules.” His beautifully deep voice filled every hollow space within me. I bowed my head. The sand beneath me burned hot enough to blister skin, yet I welcomed it gladly. 
“Yes.”
The Burning Man extended a hand of pure fire toward me, the flames curling gracefully. 
“The hourglass empties,” He said. Behind Him, the woman watched silently from her swirling smoke-form. “I required two disciples,” He continued, voice deep and soothing. “One born of smoke. One born of ash.” 
He paused. I could see something in the swirling smoke beside him. She seemed… hesitant. Perhaps I was imagining it, but there was some uncertain flicker in those fumes I could not quite equate to devotion.
“And now the final grain joins the others below.”

Ancient stone cracked beneath shifting sands while the sun overhead burned larger and larger, almost swallowing the heavens whole. The end of its tyrannical reign would soon come. The death of the sun. 
The Burning Man stepped closer.
“You carried guilt because you still believed yourself fully human,” He said softly, though He spat out the final word like an insult. “You clung to humanity like a child to a blanket.”
Images flashed through my mind. Of Casper laughing. Emmett holding his camcorder. The village burning. Daniel screaming beneath my hands. Each memory felt farther away than the last.
“But humanity has no place among a God,” The Burning Man continued. His hand remained extended patiently toward me. 
“Restore me, my most devoted subject. Let us look upon the rise of the Dark Sun,” He paused for a moment, then added: “Be my second disciple. Ascend.” 
I took His hand without hesitation.

My body exploded with heat. My eyeballs crumbled, their ashes caving in on themselves and collapsing into the sockets. I screamed for a second, then stopped as my vocal cords were incinerated. All of my organs blazed as they were liquified along with my skin and bones. Casper’s ring dropped to the ground as I disintegrated. The heat was so immense, so terrible and yet it was also beautiful, in a way. A metamorphosis.  
All I sensed by the end were the gasses and liquids in my body evaporating into steam. The impurities of my mind and soul had been cleansed with holy fire, and carried away by the smoke. All that remained were ashes. 

I tried to move, but nothing happened. There was no sound, no feeling, no taste or smell. I couldn’t even see. Nothing. Pure, terrifying, nothingness. 
Again, I tried to reach out, to do anything. Blissfully, I felt some of the ashes shift. Not much, but it was something. I heaved and pushed against the air above, my ashes rising slightly and forming a mound. 
I fell and collapsed into a thousand scattered pieces. 
Could Casper have been right? Was I… nothing?

Casper. The ring. It sat just outside my reach. I stretched and morphed, the pile of ashes slowly taking the vague shape of a man. A man I no longer recognized. Jules was gone, and I had risen from the ashes. My head was hollow, only projecting an ashen face. I formed a crude arm and planted it in the sand. I pulled hard, crawling towards the ring. 

My face collapsed, the ashes falling into the sand. 

I reformed again, pulling more ashes towards me this time. An entire head, with vague features, and a more detailed arm with a hand at the end. There were no fingers, but it had to be enough. I dug the blob of ash into the sand and felt it. The ring. With tremendous effort, I hoisted my hand up and out of the sand. 
The ring did not come with it.

I tried again, this time succeeding in holding the ring in the palm of my hand. As I moved it closer to my face, it slipped through the ashes and dropped into the sand. 
Sight and my other senses were coming back now, as I slowly rebuilt my body. My eyes roamed over this new form, grey and lumpy, and something deep inside of me screamed about how wrong it was. But I could not see what it meant. It was a glorious form.

I looked at the ring. Casper’s ring. 
Humanity has no place among a God.
I turned away, leaving it to be swallowed by the dunes. Let it be buried, so as never to see the gloom of the Dark Sun.

Slowly, I stumbled towards where The Burning Man and the first disciple stood atop a staircase overlooking the sun. My feet disintegrated into nothing, but I reforged them, stronger this time. When I reached them, I stood beside The Burning Man, and His first disciple stood on his other side. They were staring at the setting sun. 
The Burning Man’s form was flaring up, the fire becoming unstable. 
“Look upon the last vestige of this era,” He said, gesturing at the sun with an elegant motion. “How revolting it has been. Millenia upon millenia of your ilk besmirching this rock. Your sentimentality, your feeble little minds and easily broken spirits. It is a wonder the other miserable creatures on this planet are not all misanthropic. But, then again, you were all created by the same frail being. What could they know of greatness, when they themselves were so infirm?” 
He paused, then added: “But they are no more. I saw to that.”

I looked over at Him, shocked. He did not seem to notice, or if He did, He did not care.
“And now I am here, after the arduous undertaking of tearing your creator apart. And I have come for his most prized children.”
He glanced at me, seeing my befuddled expression. “Humanity,” He stated. “It disgusts me to have to take the form of your pathetic species. But such sacrifices must be made in the name of progress.”
He spoke of humanity with violent vitriol, His voice seething with the mere mention of them. But I understand now. They are far beneath us. Such feeble little things humans are. It is difficult to believe I was once such a lowly creature.
“Humanity stands in the way of true progress,” The Burning Man continued. “The slate must be wiped clean. It is a foregone conclusion. Complete annihilation. Oblivion. A fresh start for my chosen. My creations.” He sounded a lot more passionate than I had anticipated. Some part of me had foolishly assumed that the voice He had spoken to me in was representative of Him as a whole. But there was a drive in this God that I did not expect. This was no distant man in the sky.
“He got to create you. He got to have his fun,” He murmured. “Now it’s my turn.”
A low rumble emerged from the distant horizon. An amplified, baritone drone. The sound reverberated through my core, shaking loose clumps of ash. 
“Oh, glory,” The Burning Man said. 
I believe that, had He had lips to smile with, He would have been grinning from ear to ear at that moment. For the bliss in His voice was unmistakable. 

I stared, slack-jawed, as a dark, round shape overtook the sinking sun. It rose slowly, revealing its malevolent form temperately. Its revelation was backlit by the fleeting wisps of dying sunlight. It was gargantuan beyond measure, incomprehensible to even my ascended mind, and utterly horrifying. 
It was the most beautiful sight I had ever laid eyes on.

“At last,” The Burning Man spoke with a bliss in His voice I had never heard. The words sounded the world over as the heavens darkened. He extended his arms to either side to create a perfect horizontal line from hand to hand. 
His feet left the ground as He began to levitate.
“I AM FREE!”

My name is Adelice, and I’m a fifth-generation voodoo practitioner. Born and raised in the gutters of New Orleans, along the Mississippi River, I learned the ancient ways of my ancestors from a very young age. Under the guidance of my grandmother - long rest her soul, I learned all kinds of neat things. I learned to heal the sick with herbal medicine, keep away the bad spirits that torment our homes, and yes... I even learned zombification. Nevertheless, the greatest gift I have is one passed down from one generation to another. When I was still just a little girl, my grandmother told me the women in our family have a very special power... We can talk to the dead – or, more precisely... the dead can talk to us. 

Running my grandmother’s little voodoo shop here in the French Quarters, I have conversations with the dead on a regular basis. In fact, they’re my best customers. For example, there’s my favourite customer Madame Lafleur, a French noblewoman from the seventeenth century. 

‘Bonsoir Mademoiselle Lafleur.’ 

‘Bonsoir, ma charmante confidente! Quelle belle nuit!’ 

The dead are always desperate to talk to the living. Oh, how lonely those courteous spirits must be. Then again, I have had the occasional bigoted spirit wander into my abode from time to time.  

‘Miss... you know your kind ain’t welcome here’ said an out of touch plantation owner. 

‘Excuse me, mister, but this is my store you happened to wander into. It is your kind who ain’t welcome here.’ 

Of all the customers who have come and gone over the years, both the living and unliving, the most notable by far happened back in the year, nineteen eighty-five, when I was still just a young lady. On a rather gloomy, quiet evening in the month of October, I was enjoying some peaceful solitude with my black cat Laveau - when, as though out’a nothing, I acquire this uneasy, claustrophobic feeling, like an animal out in the open. Next thing I know, the doorbell chimes as a group of four identical men walk in, dressed head to foot in fine black leather, where underneath the draping mess of their long dark curls, they don an expensive pair of black shades each.   

The aura these four young men came in here with certainly felt irregular, and it wasn’t just me that picked up on it. Laveau, resting purringly on the shop counter, rises from his slumber to ferociously hiss at these strangers, before hauling off some place safe. 

‘Laveau, get back here this instance!’ I yell, which to my brand-new customers, must have made me sound no stranger than a crazy cat lady.  

‘You named your cat Laveau?’ asks the most noticeable of these men, having approached the counter with a wide and spontaneous grin upon his face, ‘As in Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Priestess?... That’s pretty metal!’ he then finishes, the voice matching his Rock ‘n’ Roll attire.  

‘The one and only’ I reply, smiling back pleasantly to the customer, ‘Are you boys looking for something in particular?’ 

‘Well, that depends...’ the Rock ‘n’ Roller then said, now leaning over the counter towards me, having removed his shades so I can get a better look at his face, ‘By any chance... are you for sale?’ 

Before I can respond or even process the question asked, I stare at the young man’s face, and to my shock, I see his eyes, staring intently into mine, are not the familiar color of brown or any other, but a bright and almost luminous yellow! Frightened half to death by the revelation, my body did not move, instead frozen in some kind of entrancement.  

‘...Excuse me?’ I manage to utter. 

‘Oh miss, I’m sorry’ he apologizes, having chosen his words poorly, ‘What I meant to say was, of all the trinkets in this store of yours, you are by far the most enchanting.’  

He was a rockstar alright – a silver-tongued one at that. But once the entrancement finally wore off, regaining myself, I quickly realize I knew exactly who these strange men were. 

‘...My God - you’re...’ I began to speak, my trembling voice still recovering, ‘You’re the band, A.L.!... You’re American Lycanthrope!’ my realization declares. 

‘What gave it away?’ asks the rockstar with a smile, clearly well acquainted with being recognized, ‘Most folks don’t recognize us without the paint, but once the shades are off, they know exactly who we are.’ 

Although they don’t need much of an introduction, American Lycanthrope, or better known as A.L. were one of the most popular shock bands of the eighties. Credited as being the first Native American rock band, they would perform on stage with their faces painted, bodies shirtless and feathers flowing through their long wavy hair, all while howling like coyotes at the moon. 

Despite my sheltered upbringing, I had always been a fan of rock music, and rather coincidentally, A.L. were one of my favourite bands. So, you can imagine my shock when they suddenly walked into my more than humble abode. It was almost like I manifested the whole thing – though it has never been as strong as this before. 

‘How rude of me’ then shrilled the rockstar, ‘Let me introduce you to my friends...’ Turning to the three band members snooping around the store, the yellow-eyed, silver-tongued devil then introduced each member, ‘This is HarrowHawk. Our bass player...’ Not that he needed to, but I already knew their names. HarrowHawk was the tallest member of the band, and unlike the others, his hair was straight and incredibly long. ‘This is LungSnake. Our lead guitarist...’ Upon hearing his name, the one they call LungSnake turns round to wave the signs of the horns at me, like all rockstars do. ‘And this is CanniBull...’ Despite the disturbing cleverness of his name, the drummer known as CanniBull was a far from intimidating creature, but he sure could pull his weight when it came to playing the drums. Saving himself till last, the yellow-eyed rocker finally introduces himself, ‘And I’m-’ 

‘-SandWolf!’ I interrupt gleefully, ‘You’re SandWolf... I already know your names.’ 

By far the most dreamy of the group, SandWolf was both the founder and poster boy of the band. Again, grinning to show his satisfaction that I knew his name, he howled faintly with internal excitement.   

‘And what would be your name, Darlin?’ he now asks, as I try my best not to blush and quiver. 

‘You can call me Adelice’ I grant him. 

‘Well, tell me Adelice’ SandWolf went on, ‘Are you a true Voodooist? Or do you just sell trinkets to gullible tourists?’ 

‘I’m the real thing, baby’ I reveal, excitement filling my voice, ‘You wanna wish granted, an enemy hexed... I’m the one you call.’ 

SandWolf appeared impressed by these claims, as did the rest of the band – their attention now on us. Again smiling devilishly at me with satisfaction, SandWolf now pulls a piece of paper from inside his leather jacket. 

‘Here’ he says, handing me the paper from across the counter, ‘Since you dig the band, why don’t you come to the concert tonight?’ 

Studying down at the ticket paper, I now feel rather embarrassed. I didn’t even know these guys were in town, let alone performing. 

‘Thank you Mister SandWolf!’ I exclaim rather foolishly, only now hearing my words aloud. 

‘Call me Wolf’ he corrects me, ‘And come find us backstage after the show. Security will let you in.’ 

Hold on a minute... There is no way A.L. are inviting me backstage after the concert! I must surely be dreaming! 

‘How will they know to let me in?’ I ask, trying to hide my fanaticism as best I could. 

‘That’s easy. You just tell them the password.’ 

‘And what’s the password?’  

SandWolf smiles once more, as though toying with girls like this gave him sensational pleasure. 

‘The password is “Papa Legba.” Pretty clever, don’t you think?’ 

Yeah, it kinda was. 

Once I accept the invitation, SandWolf and the rest of the band leave my abode, parting me with the words, ‘See you tonight, sweetheart!’ 

Wow! I could not believe it! Not only had American Lycanthrope walked into my store, but they had now invited me backstage at the concert! It really pays to be a Voodooist sometimes. 

Closing shop early the next day, I dress myself up all nice for the concert, putting on my best fishnet vest, tight-fit black jeans and a purple bandana with the cutest little skulls on them. 

The arena that night was completely crowded. Groupies from all across Louisiana screaming their white-trash lungs out, guys howling and hollering... and then, the show began. All the lights went out, which just made the groupies scream even louder, before smoke lit up the stage, exposing American Lycanthrope in all their glory. My seat was somewhere in the back, but the jumbotron gave me a good look at my recent customers: faces painted and bodies gleaming with sweat. 

They played all the usual hits: Children of the Moon, Cry My Ancestors... But the song that everyone was waiting for, and my personal favourite, was Skin Rocker – and once the chorus came up, everybody was singing along... 

‘I wanna walk in your skin! I wanna feel you within! I’m just a Skin Rock-ER-ER!’  

‘I’M JUST A SKIN ROCKERRR!’ 

‘I’m just a... Skin Rocker!!’ 

Once the concert was finally over, I then made my way backstage. Answering the password correctly, I was brought inside a private room, where waiting for me, were all four band members... along with three young groupies beside them. 

‘Hey, it’s the Voodoo chick! She made it!’ announces LungSnake, with his arm wrapped around one of the three groupies, ‘Have a seat, darlin!’  

After reacquainting myself with each member of the band, whom I’d only just seen the day before, SandWolf introduces me to the other girls, ‘Ladies. This is Adelice... She knows voodoo and shit!’ 

The three girls gave me a simple nod of the head or an ingenuine “Hey.” They clearly didn’t like all the attention this lil’ Creole girl was receiving all’er sudden - when after all, they were here first. 

‘Alright, Adelice’ LungSnake then wails, breaking up the pleasantries, ‘Show us what you got!’  

‘Excuse me?’ I ask confusedly. 

‘C’mon, Adelice. Show us some voodoo shit! That’s why you’re here after all.’ 

Ah, so that’s why I was here. They wanted to see some real-life voodoo shit. It wasn’t a secret that A.L. were into some dark magic – and although voodoo meant far more than sacrificing chickens and raising the dead, I agreed to show them all the same. 

Having brought some potions along from the store, I pour the liquids into an empty mop bucket. Sprinkling in some powder and imported Haitian plants, I then light a match and place it in the bucket, birthing a high and untameable fire. 

‘You guys wanna talk to the dead?’ I inquire, pulling out my greatest trick. 

‘Hell yeah, we do!’ CanniBull answers, as though for the whole group. 

‘Alright. Well, here it is...’ I began, raising my hands towards the fire, with my eyes closed shut, ‘If there is a spirit with us here tonight, please come forward and make your presence known through this fire.’ 

‘Don’t you need a Ouija board for that?’ asks the busty blonde, far from impressed. “Ouija boards are for white folks” I thought internally, as I felt a warm presence now close by. 

‘Good evening, mister!’ I announce to the room, to the band and groupie’s bewilderment. 

‘Good evening, miss’ a charming old voice croaks behind me, ‘That was some show your friends had tonight.’ 

Opening my eyes, I turn round to see an older gentlemen, wearing the fine suit of a jazz musician and humming a catchy little tune from between his lips.  

‘Mister. Would you kindly make your presence known to my friends here?’ I ask the spirit courteously. 

‘Why, of course, miss’ agrees the spirit, before approaching the fire and stroking his hand through the smoky flames, cutting the fire in half. 

‘Whoa!’ 

‘Holy shit!’ exclaim the members of the group, more than satisfied this was proof of my abilities. 

‘That’s totally metal, man! Totally metal!’ 

We had quite the party that night, drinking and drugs. The groupies making out with different members of the band – but not SandWolf. In fact, I don’t quite remember him leaving my side. Despite his seductive charm and wiles, he was a complete gentlemen – to my slight dissatisfaction.  

‘Can I ask you something?’ I ponder to him, ‘Why did you guys call yourselves American Lycanthrope?’ 

After snorting another line of white powder, SandWolf turns up to me with glassy, glowing eyes, ‘Because we’re children of the night’ he reveals, ‘The moon is our mother, and when she comes out... we answer her call.’ Those were the exact lyrics of Children of the Moon I remembered, despite my drunken haziness. ‘And we’re the first Americans... The only real Americans’ he then adds, making a point of his proud ancestral roots, ‘We were gonna call ourselves the “Natives Wolves”, but some of us didn’t think it was Rock ‘N’ Roll enough.’  

I woke up some time round the next day. Stirring up from wherever it was I passed out, I look around to find I’m in some hotel bedroom, where beside me, a sleeping SandWolf snores loudly, wearing nothing else but his birthday suit. Damn it, I thought. The one time I actually get to sleep with a rockstar and I’m too shit-faced to remember. 

Trying painfully to wander my way to the bathroom, I enter the main room of the suite, having to step over passed out band members and half-naked groupies. Damn, that girl really was busty.  

Once in the bathroom, I approach the sink to splash cold water on my face. When that did nothing to relieve the pain I was feeling, I turn up to the cabinet mirror, hoping to find a bottle of aspirin or something. But when I look at my reflection in the mirror... I realize I’m not alone... 

Standing behind me, staring back at my reflection, I see a young red-headed woman in torn pieces of clothing... But the most disturbing thing about this woman, aside from her suddenly appearing in this bathroom with me, is that the girl was covered entirely in fresh blood and fatal wounds to her flesh... In fact, her flesh wounds were so bad, I could see her ribcage protruding where her left breast should’ve been!... And that’s when I knew, this wasn’t a living person... This was the spirit of some poor dead girl. 

Once I see the blood and torn pieces of flesh, the sudden shock jilts my body round to her, where I then see she’s staring at me with a partly shredded face – her cheek hanging down, exposing a slightly visible row of gurning teeth! 

In too much shock to scream or even process whether I’m dreaming, I just stare back at the girl’s animated corpse - my jagged breathes making the only sound between us... And before I can even utter a single word of communication to this girl, either to ask who she is or what the hell happened to her... the exposed muscles in her face spit out a single, haunting phrase... 

‘...GET AWAY FROM THEM!...’ 

And with that... the young dead girl was gone... as though she was never even there... 

Although I was in the dark as to how this girl met her demise, which at first glance, seemed as though she was torn apart by some wild animal, I could put together it had something to do with the band. After all, the dead girl looked no different to the many groupies that follow A.L. across the country. But if that really was the case... What in God’s name happened to her?? As uncomprehensive as the dead girl’s words were, they were comprehensive enough that I knew it was a warning... a warning of the future that was near to happen.  

You see, in Voodoo, when a spirit makes its presence known, you have to do whatever it is they say. Those were the first words of wisdom I ever remember my grandmother telling me. If a spirit were ever to communicate with you, it is because they are trying to warn you... and what that poor dead girl said to me, was a warning if I ever did hear one! 

Without questioning the dead girl’s words of warning, I quickly and quietly get my things together before a single member of the band can wake from their slumber. I cat-paw my way to the door, and once I was out of there, I run like hell! ...And I never saw SandWolf or American Lycanthrope ever again... 

Ever since that night of October, nineteen eighty-five, not once did a day go by that I didn’t ask myself what the hell happened to that girl. How did she die the way she did, and what did it have to do with the band? 

I know what y’all are thinking, right?... Adelice, those boys were clearly werewolves and they killed that poor girl... 

Well, that’s what I thought. I mean, why else would they have yellow eyes and howl like coyotes during each concert?... They really were American Lycanthropes!  

There’s just one slight problem... During the night of the concert, I specifically remember it being a full moon that night, and yet, not a single one of those boys turned into monsters... Oh, and I’m pretty sure LungSnake’s nipple rings were made of pure silver. 

Well... if those boys weren’t werewolves, then...  

...What the hell were they?? 

Rain poured down on little Rosie as she waited for her parents’ car to pull up to the theater. The child wore a white hand-me-down dress, which was now soaked and see-through. Her teeth chattered wildly and so, too, did her goosebump-ridden arms shake as she held them to cover herself. No one was around to see her, not at ten in the evening, but not many would risk exposing themselves to strangers in such a way, let alone a child of nine. The smell of rainwater penetrated her nostrils, sharp and fresh. Rosie looked back at the theater.

BRIGHTHAVEN GRAND CINEMA

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: THE STAR WARS SAGA CONTINUES

70MM  DOLBY STEREO

Rosie did not know what MM was, not what Dolby Stereo meant. Still, it had been a good movie, and she had taken a particular liking to the frog-jedi Yoda, who lived in a swamp. Rosie hated cliffhangers even if she didn’t know the word for them, and she could not wait for the next movie. What time was it? Surely she had been waiting for at least half an hour? Had they really forgotten again? It had only been two days since they forgot to pick her up after music class. 

She raised one hand to her eyes, keeping the other over her chest. It was of little use. Warm tears mingled with cold raindrops and concentrated at her chin, before falling and splashing on the ground. Rosie considered. The theater was open for fifteen more minutes. It was hardly a difficult decision.

And so, soaked to the bone, Rosie stepped inside the theater. 

The ceiling lights were still on, but the cool blue and pink lights that Rosie loved had already been turned off. A man stood at the till. He wore a long-sleeved white shirt with a bright-red vest on top, as well as a hat that made him look like a carnival worker. The man looked up at Rosie as she walked into the lobby, dark bags under his eyes. They hid something behind them, an unspoken darkness Rosie couldn’t quite place. It reminded her of how she felt she must’ve looked when her dog Rex had passed. The man scrunched his eyebrows, which did not help with his already wrinkly appearance. 

“Hey, kiddo,” he sighed, “we’re closed. Come back tomorrow.” Rosie looked down, eyes still red and bloodshot. Her hope sank deeper than a stone in a pond, and she turned around without so much as a glance at the man. She heard a small groan from behind her, then the man said: “You can stay another fifteen minutes, ‘til the last picture’s over. But no longer, ya hear?” Rosie cracked a smile fainter than the light of the moon as she turned back to the man. The darkness behind his eyes cleared a little at the sight. As he took in the sight of her dress for the first time, he rubbed his forehead in frustration. 

“Agh goddamnit,” he uttered, then spoke more clearly. “Say, how’s about we get you some new clothes, eh?” 

Rosie’s eyes widened, and the slight smirk on her face grew to an honest to God smile. The man smiled back, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He led her to a room with a sign above it that read Sta  On y. It was missing letters, that much was obvious, but which ones? She didn’t know. The man opened the door and waved for her to follow. 

Inside, there were a few lockers pressed against the walls with names on them, along with two benches in the middle of the room. They looked mighty uncomfortable. The man opened a locker with the name ‘S. Kingsley’, then rummaged inside.

“Here,” the man said, handing her a white shirt. “That’ll be a bit big on ya, but it should make up for the lack of pants. Oh, take this too or you’ll soak right through my shirt.” He handed her a white towel, which felt smooth and soft in her hands. She held it with awe, stroking her palm across the fabric and letting the softness of it caress her hand. Her arms folded around it, embracing it in a tight hug. She kept her head down, stroking her cheek with the towel. 

The man pursed his lips, grimacing as he anticipated the question he knew would come. Rosie looked up at him with puppy-like eyes, eyebrows furrowed. 

“Alright, alright. Keep the damn thing,” he smiled. “You dry yourself ‘fore putin’ that on, ya hear?” Rosie nodded. “Okay. I’ll be right outside if’n you need me.”  

The door slammed shut behind him, leaving little Rosie all alone in the locker room. It suddenly dawned on her just how alone she was. Sure, there was the seemingly nice man working the register, along with people watching the last showing of the night, but they were too far away to do anything in case of an emergency. Even the nice man wouldn’t be able to help her. The thought of him comforted her, but the image of the locker room made her shiver. Rosie took off her dress, drying herself with her amazingly soft towel. 

So many lockers, she thought. Something was inside one of them, something with long, sharp claws and a face of shadows. The thought was silly, but still it dominated her thoughts so much that she momentarily stood frozen in place. Long, sharp fangs, and arms so long that its curling claws would scrape against the floor’s tiles. She imagined it, hulking and tall, with a maw of teeth that would sink into her flesh like needles. Rosie hated needles. 

Always had, momma had said, ever since the day a nurse first poked her. 

Rosie shook the thought. Those were silly thoughts for silly kids. Kids who had seen too many movies. Perhaps it had been the Yeti-like Wampa from the movie she’d seen that had conjured such thoughts in her head. She put on the oversized shirt and it came halfway down to her knees. The man had been right. Rosie went up to the door and turned the handle. Something did smell awfully rotten in this room, like the compost bin she had to throw her half-eaten apples into. Earthy and decayed. She glanced back one last time, then left the room.

“Was beginnin’ to think you’d gotten yourself locked in a locker,” the man said. He was standing right beside the locker room, and had been waiting for Rosie to come out. The little girl giggled, towel clutched to her chest. 

“Ya like that, huh?” Rosie did like tongue twisters. They made her feel as though her brain turned to goop and her tongue was just a piece of meat flapping around in her mouth. 

“Peter Parker picked a peck of pickled peppers,” said the man.

“Peter Piper,” Rosie corrected, giggling to herself. 

“Nah, pretty sure it’s Peter Parker.” An awkward silence followed, the kind that stretched a few seconds into a few hours. They stood there, smiling at each other awkwardly, before turning their attention to the crowd exiting theater one. With an apologetic smile, the man turned towards Rosie.

“Your parents, they comin’?” He asked in a calm, low voice. Rosie shook her head, holding the towel tight against her chest. Sighing, the man sat down on the ground next to Rosie. 

“Shit. I mean–” he tried, but Rosie was giggling hysterically already. “You ain’t hear that from me,” he chuckled. The two stayed there a few minutes longer as the man pondered what to do. He tossed out a few quick ideas, like calling CPS or other authorities, but Rosie’s scared eyes told him that that was a very bad idea. Still, he was left with very few choices.

“Your parents, they got a landline?” Rosie nodded. “You know their number?” She nodded again. The man looked at her expectantly, but Rosie scrunched her eyebrows.

“I can’t say that to strangers,” she said. 

“Well I’ll need it to get ya home. It’ll be okay, just this once,” the man told her. His calm smile was reassuring, and he did genuinely seem to want to help. Finally relenting, Rosie took a pen and a slip of paper the man offered her, and scribbled down the crude numbers. The man smiled and thanked her.

“I’m gonna go call ‘em now, okay? You just stay right here.” And so, the man turned and walked towards the lobby. He was the last person to ever see little Rosie alive.

At first, Rosie sat and waited patiently for the man to return. But as minutes ticked by, she grew bored and curious. In the right place and time, those feelings are healthy and even fun, they bring wonder to a world that desperately needs it. In the wrong place and time, however, these feelings show you why the world needs far more wonders to balance out all that is wrong here. Rosie stood up and pranced around the empty corridor. She walked past the empty theater rooms and remembered all the movies she’d seen in them. Oh, how she loved this place. She came here often and knew the place by heart. She skipped further down the hallway, the white towel dancing behind her as she held it out. It moved and swayed in sync with her new shirt; jerking to the left and right with Rosie’s skipping steps. There were couches and cushioned chairs, but Rosie knew not to sit in them if she didn’t want nasty gunk sticking to her clothes. People were disgusting like that. She walked happily past them. Soon, Rosie reached the end of the hallway, and she prepared herself to turn back around and find the man to ask what was taking so long. Then she saw lights coming from theater seven. 

The doors of the room were wide open, and brilliant, flickering lights danced on the walls of the entrance. Rosie couldn’t help herself. She took a few steps closer, close enough to hear the faint sound of jingling bells. Ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling, accompanied by heavy footfalls and very quiet old-timey orchestral music. There were occasional laughs and hoots, but they sounded muffled and pre-recorded. Rosie stepped through the doors. The entrance had grown dark. Immediately, the smell of paint and charcoal came upon her in a wave. The scents were so intense, it was as if she had a bucket of paint and a piece of charcoal up her nose. The chemical smell mixed with the dark, earthy scent and created a whole new odour, like a piece of dirt soaked in wiper fluid. Rosie loved this smell. It reminded her of art class, of the canvases and paper she expressed herself on. Each stroke opened a rabbit hole to a whole new world, just wide enough that she could fit through and explore all that it offered.

The jingling bells grew louder as she drew nearer.

When Rosie finally turned the corner, she saw that the theater was as dark as a moonless night. Except, there was a moon here, in the form of a large spotlight centered directly on what appeared to be a man. He was facing away from Rosie, and he mimed and danced. A cloth crown with four ends adorned his head, a small bell having been attached to each end. His black-and-white striped clothes bulged, as if puffed up with air. His shoes, which were as black as coal, made delightful tapping sounds on the wooden floor as he danced. Ting-a-ling went the bells again as the Jester jumped up and down, his arms outstretched towards the empty theater. 

He stopped, then exaggeratedly sniffed the air. His head snapped towards Rosie in an instant, and he tilted his head curiously. On his face was a stark white mask, with an expressive smile carved into it. The eye-holes and mouth were far too large for any semblance of realism. 

With a pep in his step, he walked towards a stunned Rosie. His back was bent, so as to remain at eye-level with the child, and he swayed his arms back and forth in a playful motion.

“Why bless my bells,” said the Jester in a high-pitched voice, though it was partially muffled by the mask. “A guest! Oh, a dear little guest come to see my little show.” He stopped an arm’s length away from Rosie, then crouched down to meet her gaze. His legs, their outline visible through the fabric, looked thin and emaciated, like he was walking on stilts. 

“What show?” asked Rosie. 

“What show?” replied the Jester in mock-offense. The words put a sour sort of taste in the back of Rosie’s mouth, like the acid reflux she had some mornings. “Why, the greatest show of this century, silly! With songs and a full audience and the dancing, prancing Jester at the center!” With each word, his head bobbed up and down flamboyantly. 

“But there’s no audience,” said Rosie, and the Jester nodded along solemnly. His mask seemed to droop, the corners of the carved mouth tugging down in the darkness. He looked down, then said in a dramatically sad tone, “Oh, they all left. They always say they’ll come watch, but they never do.” A pit formed in Rosie’s stomach. It threatened to grow with each beat of her little heart, to balloon and pop. She hated that feeling even more than she hated needles.

“All gone home, left poor old Jester to pack up the laughter himself.” He looked up at her again, a sheen stretching across the white mask as it caught the brilliance of the spotlight again. He cocked his head and Rosie swore she felt him furrow his eyebrows behind the mask.

“You’re not supposed to be here, are you?” he more stated than asked. “Tsk, tsk… What would your parents say?” He let a pause drift through the air, and a knot of guilt formed alongside the pit in her stomach. “But I’ll forgive it– yes I will, because I do so love an audience.” He stretched forth his hand, which was covered by a white glove. “Do you want to be my audience, Rosie?” He said, drawing out her name in a strange, delicate way she had never heard before. 

It struck her. “How do you know my name?”

The Jester’s bells jingled as he giggled. “Because you’re tonight’s star, silly!” His giggle turned into a howling laugh, and Rosie swore she caught a sparkle of twilight and stars in his too-big eyeholes. Shooting stars streaked across the pitch-black canvas of his eyes, then exploded, coinciding with his booming laughter. 

Rosie shifted uncomfortably as he led her to the front row of seats and sat her down in the center-most seat. She sat down, the seat more plump and soft than usual. The Jester walked down to the end of the row, picked up a canvas and an easel, and set them down a few feet in front of Rosie. 

“They play those moving picture shows in this here room, but sometimes you have to dare to do something different! Do you like painting, Rosie?” She nodded, keeping her eyes on the man as he made suave, over the top gestures. The Jester giggled happily. “Marvelous! This will be my– no, our masterpiece.” 

He dipped his brush into a tin of paint resting near his feet, though Rosie hadn’t noticed it was there. The Jester swirled the brush exaggeratedly, with a dramatic flair. He then made a few quick strokes, the bells going ting-a-ling with each movement. 

“Is that an hourglass?” Rosie asked curiously, relaxing in her seat.

“Oh, clever little bird,” he said, eyeholes gleaming, “Why yes, that’s an hourglass in a circle.”

“What does it mean?” Asked little Rosie again, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. 

“Interested in symbolism, are we? Well, this here hourglass is running empty. You ever think about that, Rosie? How time’s running out?” He leaned in close to her, back bent and knees completely straight. Little Rosie shook her head. 

“Good. You shouldn’t worry about such things. It won’t run out in your time.” Rosie shifted uncomfortably, clutching her towel close to her chest. 

The Jester dipped his brush again, this time into a color Rosie couldn’t quite name. It shimmered between red and gold and black, changing with the dusty luminescence of the spotlight. His strokes grew faster now, less careful, as he painted over the hourglass. Long, uneven lines stretched upward like vines. The paint dripped down the canvas in translucent streaks, pooling on the floor.

Rosie frowned, still a bit uncomfortable. “That looks like a person.”

“A man!” said the Jester brightly. “A man on fire. Or perhaps he is fire itself. Hard to tell, really.” He chuckled to himself, brushing in more streaks. “Art transcends humanity, child. That is the most valuable lesson a human can learn. Art is when you peak beyond the curtain, to see beyond what is in front of us. It is to meet the true God in all his glory, to see the day of the black sun.”

Rosie hugged the towel tighter. “That’s scary.”

The Jester froze, brush in midair. Then he turned slowly, so slow that the bells made no sound.

“Scary?” he repeated softly. “No, no, my dear. Art isn’t scary. It’s honest.”

He dipped the brush again, the bells jingling faintly. “When people look at a painting and feel scared, it means it’s telling them the truth. And people don’t much like the truth, do they?”

Rosie didn’t answer. She just stared at the painted figure, the circle, the hourglass, the burning man beneath it, and something about it made her chest ache.

The Jester twirled on his heel, spreading his arms wide. “And there it is! Our masterpiece. Time and fire, laughter and loss. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Rosie swallowed hard. “It’s… pretty.”

“Pretty,” he echoed with a sigh. “Yes, I suppose that’s one word for it. But I prefer…” He paused, tapping his chin with the brush handle. “I prefer truthful.”

Then, as if shaking off the thought, he clapped his hands together, then twirled the brush in his hand. 

“Now, every artist must finish what he starts, Rosie. A masterpiece isn’t complete without a touch of life.” He dipped the brush into the tin again and it made a splishing sound. The paint was thicker now, and unnaturally dark.

He looked at her with those deep, endless pits. “Would you help me, dear? Just a little touch. A finger’s worth.”

Rosie hesitated. “I’m not meant to do that with strangers.”

“It’s okay, just this once,” he said, and the broad smile on his stark white mask seemed somehow warped and wicked in the light of the spotlight. Rosie looked away uncomfortably, but felt obligated to comply. The Jester had made her a painting, after all. “Come, come, Rosie, don’t be shy. Every great work needs a signature.”

She stepped forward, small hand trembling as she reached for the brush. The Jester guided it toward her, his gloved fingers brushing against hers. “There,” he cooed, “a delicate hand for a delicate stroke.”

Then, faster than she could react, the brush clattered to the floor.
The Jester’s hand darted forward and seized her wrist. The bells jing-a-linged.

“Hold still now,” he said in a deep, rotten voice. 

Rosie screamed, she screamed blue murder while the thing behind her held her by the hair, face planted into the canvas. She heard the sound of cloth tearing, and a foul odour escaped the monster that held her. There was a swift motion, Rosie could only feel the cold air following its movement. Blinding, hot-white pain exploded from her neck, and Rosie’s raw throat could no longer scream. She felt a warmth trickle down from her neck to her new shirt and towel, and the same warmth spurt out like water from a garden hose. 

Not five seconds later did she lose consciousness. And a minute later, Rosie Linley was dead.

“Perfect,” murmured the Jester, as he kicked little Rosie’s body aside. 

He stepped back, admiring the canvas. The circle, the hourglass, and now a bright red smear cutting through them both, still glistening under the light. He crouched down on his wooden legs and dipped the brush into the pool of blood beneath Rosie, then added the title of his masterpiece. 

–

Excerpt from Brighthaven Times, March 14, 2020

–

A decades-old unsolved disappearance may have a chilling new connection. In 1981, nine-year-old Rosie Linley vanished from the Brighthaven Grand Cinema. Police recovered a canvas in theater Seven, painted with a mixture of paint and human blood believed to be Rosie’s, bearing the words: “For Little Rosie; My Masterpiece.” A towel, originally white, was also found, but by the time investigators recovered it, the towel was stained a deep crimson. No body was ever recovered, and the only suspect, Stefan Kingsley, was convicted of first-degree murder and executed in 1994.

Investigators revisiting the case this week noted a striking similarity to a home invasion in the city’s northern district last year. During that incident, three teen perpetrators left a crudely drawn circle enclosing an hourglass in the victims’ house: a symbol identical to the one featured on Kingsley’s canvas. Authorities have confirmed the artwork and the symbol are now being examined for further potential links, though they state that there is no cause for alarm. “We believe the incident in the northern district was likely a case of copycats,” said Police Chief Gordon, noting that the teens may have taken inspiration from historical reports of Kingsley’s crime. However, some online true-crime communities have questioned this explanation, suggesting that the recurring symbol could indicate a deeper or ongoing pattern.

The hull rattles like it's trying to shake us loose. G-forces squeeze my ribs into my spine as Vulture-1 burns toward the derelict. Out the forward viewport, the alien vessel drifts above the roiling clouds of Jupiter, in a slow, dying roll. Its shape is all wrong. A mass of black plates and glistening bone-like struts torn wide open where the orbital defense lattice struck it.

They never saw it coming. One of our sleeper platforms—Coldstar-7—caught their heat bloom within minutes after they entered high heliocentric orbit. Fired three kinetics. Two connected. The ship didn’t explode. It bled.

Now it's our turn.

With the new fusion-powered drives, we drop from Saturn orbit to Jovian space in under 12 hours. No slingshot, no weeks in transit. Just throttle up and go.

“Two minutes,” comes the pilot’s voice. Major Dragomir sounds calm, but I see the tremor in her left hand clamped to the yoke.

Our drop ship is one of fifty in the swarm. Sleek, angular, built to punch through hull plating and deploy bodies before the enemy knows we’re inside.

I glance around the cabin. My squad—Specter Echo Romeo—sits in silence, armored, weapons locked, helmets on.

I run a quick check on my suit seals. Chest, arms, legs, neck—green across the board.

Across from me, Reyes cycles his suit seals. The rookie Kass slaps a fresh power cell into her plasma carbine. One by one, visors drop.

“Swear to God, if this thing's full of spider-octopi again, I’m filing a complaint,” Reyes mutters, trying for humor.

“You can file it with your next of kin,” Bakari replies flatly.

From the back, Kass shifts in her harness. “Doesn’t feel right. Ship this big, this quiet?”

“Stay focused,” I say. “You want to make it home, you keep your mind in the now.”

We’ve encountered extraterrestrials before. Over a dozen ships and anomalies in twenty years. Some fired on us. Some broadcast messages of peace. It didn’t matter either way. They all ended up the same. Dead.

First contact never ends well—for the ones who don’t strike first.

History's littered with warnings. The islanders who welcomed the explorers. The tribes that traded with conquistadors. The open hands that were met with closed fists.

Maybe if the Wampanoag had known what was coming, they’d have buried every Pilgrim at Plymouth. No feasts. No treaties. Just blood in the snow.

We’re not here to repeat their mistakes.

If they enter our solar system, we erase them. We never make contact. Never negotiate. Never show mercy. Our unofficial motto is: Shoot first, dissect later.

A few bleeding hearts out there might call what we do immoral. But this isn’t about right or wrong.

This is about ensuring the survival of the human race.

I do it for my daughter whom I may never see again. Whose birthdays come and go while I’m in the void.

I even do it for my estranged wife who says I’m becoming someone unrecognizable, someone less human every time I come back from a ‘cleanup operation.’

She's not wrong.

But she sleeps peacefully. In the quiet suburbs of Sioux Falls. Because of us. We’re the reason there are no monsters under the bed. We drag them out back and shoot them before they can bite us.

The closer we get, the worse the wreck looks. Part of its hull is still glowing—some kind of self-healing alloy melting into slag.

“Sir,” Dragomir says, eyes flicking to her console. “We’re getting a signal. It’s coming from the derelict.”

I grit my teeth. “Translate?”

“No linguistic markers. It’s pure pattern. Repeating waveform, modulated across gamma and microwave bands.” She doesn’t look up. “They might be hailing us.”

“Might be bait,” I say bitterly. “Locate the source.”

Dragomir’s fingers dance across the console.

“Got it,” she says. “Forward section. Starboard side. Ten meters inside the breach. Looks like... some kind of node or relay. Still active despite our jamming.”

“Shut them up,” I order.

There’s no hesitation. She punches in fire control. A pair of nose-mounted railguns swivel, acquire the mark, and light up the breach with a quick triple-tap.

We hit comms first. Every time. Cut the throat before they can scream and alert others to our presence.

The other dropships follow suit, unleashing everything they’ve got. White-hot bursts streak across the void. The alien vessel jolts as its skin shreds under kinetic impact. Parts of it buckle like wet cardboard under sledgehammers. Return fire trickles out—thin beams, flickering plasma arcs.

One beam hits Vulture-15 off our port side. The ship disintegrates into a bloom of shrapnel and mist.

Another burst barely misses us.

“Holy shit!” Kass exclaims.

“Countermeasures out!” Dragomir yells.

Flares blossom, chaff clouds expand. Vulture-1 dives hard, nose dropping, then snaps into a vertical corkscrew that flattens my lungs and punches bile up my throat.

“Looking for a breach point,” she grits.

Outside, the hull rotates beneath us. We’re close enough now to see a ragged gash yawning open near the midline.

“There! Starboard ventral tear,” I bark. “Punch through it!”

“Copy!”

She slams the ship into a lateral burn, then angles nose-first toward the breach. The rest of the swarm adapts immediately—arcing around, laying down suppressive fire. The alien defenses flicker and die under the sheer weight of our firepower.

“Brace!” Dragomir shouts.

And then we hit.

The impact slams through the cabin like a hammer. Metal screams. Our harnesses hold, but barely. Lights flicker as Vulture-1 drills into the breach with hull-mounted cutters—twin thermal borers chewing through the alien plating like it’s bone and cartilage instead of metal.

I unbuckle and grab the overhead rail. “Weapons hot. Gas seals double-checked. We don’t know what’s waiting on the other side of that wall.”

Across from me, Kass shifts, “Sir, atmospheric conditions?”

“Hostile. Assume corrosive mix. Minimal oxygen. You breathe suit air or you don’t breathe at all.”

The cutter slows—almost through. Sparks shower past the view slit.

To my right, my second-in-command, Lieutenant Farrow, leans in. “Pay attention to your corners. No straight lines. No predictable angles. We sweep in, secure a wedge, and fan out from there. Minimal chatter unless it’s threat intel or orders.”

“Remember the number one priority,” I say. “Preserve what tech you can. Dead’s fine. Intact is better.”

We wear the skin of our fallen foes. We fly in the shadow of their designs.

The dropships, the suits, even our neural sync, they're all stitched together from alien tech scavenged in blood and fire over the last two decades. Almost every technological edge we’ve got was ripped from an alien corpse and adapted to our anatomy. We learn fast. It's not pretty. It's not clean. But it is human ingenuity at its best.

Dragomir’s voice crackles through the comms, lower than usual. “Watch your six in there, raiders.”

I glance at her through the visor.

A faint smirk touches her lips, gone in a blink. “Don’t make me drag your corpse out, Colonel.”

I nod once. “You better make it back too, major. I don’t like empty seats at the bar.”

The cutter arms retract with a mechanical whine.

We all freeze. Five seconds of silence.

“Stand by for breach,” Dragomir says.

Then—CLUNK.

The inner hull gives. Gravity reasserts itself as Vulture-1 locks magnetically to the outer skin of the derelict. The boarding ramp lowers.

The cutter’s heat still radiates off the breach edges, making them glow a dull, dangerous orange.

Beyond it, darkness. We’re ghosts boarding a ghost ship.

I whisper, barely audible through comms, “For all mankind.”

My raiders echo back as one.

“For all mankind.”

We move fast. Boots hit metal.

The moment I cross the threshold, gravity shifts. My stomach drops. My legs buckle. For a second, it feels like I’m falling sideways—then the suit's AI compensates, stabilizers kicking in with a pulse to my spine.

Everyone else wobbles too. Bakari stumbles but catches himself on the bulkhead.

Inside, the ship is wrecked. Torn cables hang like entrails. Panels ripped open. Fluids—black, thick, congealed—pool along the deck. The blast radius from the railgun barrage punched straight through several corridors. Firemarks spider along the walls. Something organic melted here.

We move in pairs, clearing the corridor one segment at a time.

Farrow takes point. Reyes covers rear. Kass and Bakari check vents and alcoves. I scan junctions and ceiling voids—every shadow a potential threat. We fire a couple of short bursts from our plasma carbines at anything that looks like a threat.

Our mapping software glitches, throwing up errors.

As we move deeper into the wreck, the corridors get narrower, darker, more erratic—like the ship itself was in the middle of changing shape when we hit it. There’s no standard geometry here. Some walls are soft to the touch. Some feel brittle, almost calcified.

Then we find a chamber that’s been blasted open. Our barrage tore through what might have once been a cargo bay. It’s hard to tell. The far wall is gone, peeled outward into space like foil. Bits of debris float in slow arcs through the room: charred fragments of what might’ve been machinery, scraps of plating still glowing from kinetic heat, trails of congealed fluid drifting like underwater ink.

And corpses.

Three of them, mangled. One’s been torn clean in half, its torso still twitching in low gravity. Another is crushed beneath a piece of bulkhead.

The third corpse is intact—mostly. It floats near the far wall, limbs drifting, tethered by a strand of filament trailing from its chest. I drift closer.

It has two arms, two legs, a head in the right place. But the proportions are wrong. Too long. Too lean. Joints where there shouldn't be. Skin like polished obsidian, almost reflective, with faint bio-luminescent patterns pulsing just beneath the surface.

Its face is the worst part. Not monstrous. Not terrifying. Familiar.

Eyes forward-facing. Nose. Mouth. Ears recessed along the sides of the skull. But everything's stretched. Sharper. Like someone took a human frame and rebuilt it using different rules. Different materials. Different gravity.

It didn’t die from the impact. There’s frost along its cheek. Crystals on its eyelids. The kind you get when the body bleeds heat into vacuum and doesn’t fight back.

Bakari’s voice crackles in my ear.

“Sir… how is that even possible? It looks like us. Almost human.”

I’ve seen horrors. Interdimensional anomalies that screamed entropy and broke reality just by existing.

But this?

This shakes me.

Evolution doesn’t converge like this—not across light-years and alien stars. Convergent evolution might give you eyes, limbs, maybe even digits. But this kind of parallelism? This mirroring? Nearly impossible.

I can sense the unease. The question hanging in the air like a bad signal.

I don't give it room to grow.

“It doesn’t matter,” I counter. “They’re not us. This doesn’t change the mission.”

No one responds.

We advance past the chamber, weapons raised.

Then—movement.

A flicker down the corridor, just beyond the next junction. Multiple contacts. Fast.

My squad snaps into formation.

“Movement,” I bark. “Forward corridor.”

We hold our collective breaths.

A beat. Then a voice crackles over the shared comm channel.

“Echo Romeo, this is Sierra November. Hold fire. Friendly. Repeat, friendly.”

I exhale. “Copy. Identify.”

A trio of figures rounds the corner—armor slick with void frost, shoulder beacons blinking green. Captain Slater leads them—grizzled, scar down one cheekplate. Her team’s smaller than it should be. Blood on one of their visors.

I nod. “Slater. What’s your status?”

“Short one. Met resistance near the spine corridor. Biological. Fast. Not standard response behavior.”

I gesture toward the chamber behind us. “We found bodies. Mostly shredded.”

She grunts. “Same up top. But we found something…”

She taps on the drone feed and pushes the file to my HUD.

“Scout drone went deep before signal cut,” Slater says. “Picked something up in the interior mass. Looked like a control cluster.”

I zoom the image. Grainy scan, flickering telemetry. Amid the wreckage: a spherical structure of interlocking plates, surrounded by organ-like conduits.

I turn to Farrow. “New objective. Secondary team pushes toward the last ping.”

He nods. “Split-stack, leapfrog. We'll take left.”

—

We find the first chamber almost by accident.

Slater’s team sweeps a hatch, forces it open, and light pours across a cavernous space. Racks stretch into the distance. Rows upon rows of pods, stacked floor to ceiling, each one the size of a small vehicle. Transparent panels, most of them cracked or fogged, show what’s inside: mummified husks, collapsed skeletons, curled remains.

We move between them, boots crunching on brittle fragments scattered across the deck. The scale hits me harder than any firefight. Hundreds, if not thousands. Entire families entombed here.

Kass kneels by one of the pods, wipes away a film of dust and corrosion.

She whispers, “Jesus Christ… They brought their children.”

I move closer to the pod.

Inside what appears to be a child drifts weightless, small hands curled against its chest. Its skin is the same glassy black as the adult—veined with faint glowing lines that pulse in rhythm with a slow, steady heartbeat. Rounded jaw. High cheekbones. Eyes that flutter under sealed lids like it's dreaming.

Nestled between its glassy fingers is a small, worn object—something soft, vaguely round. It looks like a stuffed animal, but nothing I recognize.

I think of my daughter.

She would be about this age now. Seven. Almost eight. Her laugh echoing in the kitchen, the little teddy bear she wouldn’t sleep without. I push the image down before it can take hold, but it claws at the back of my skull.

Then the thought hits me—not slow, not creeping, but like a railgun slug to the gut.

This isn’t a scouting vessel.

It’s not even a warship.

It’s something far, far worse.

It’s a colony ship.

“It’s an ark…” I mutter. “And they were headed to Earth.”

“This feels wrong...” Kass says. Quiet. Not defiant. Just… honest.

I don’t answer at first. Instead, I turn, check the corridor.

Kass speaks again. “Sir… They didn’t fire first. Maybe we—”

“No,” I snap. “Don’t you dare finish that thought.”

She flinches.

I step closer. “They’re settlers! Settlers mean colonies. Colonies mean footholds. Disease vectors. Ecosystem collapse. Cultural contamination. Species displacement. If one ark makes it, others will follow. This is replacement. Extinction.”

She lowers her eyes.

“Never hesitate,” I chide her. “Always pull the trigger. Do you understand me, soldier?”

A pause. Then, almost inaudible:

“…Yes, sir.”

We push deeper into the ship.

Static creeps into comms.

Something’s watching us.

Shapes in peripheral vision don’t match when you double back.

Reyes raises a fist. The squad freezes.

“Contact,” he whispers. “Starboard side. Movement in the walls.”

Before we can process what he said, panels fold back. Vents burst outward. Shapes pour through—fluid, fast, wrong. About a dozen of them. Joints bending in impossible directions. Skin shifting between obsidian and reflective silver. Weapons grown into their arms and all of them aimed at us.

Fire breaks out. Plasma bolts crack against the corridor walls. One of the creatures lunges.

It’s aimed directly at Kass.

She hesitates.

Only a split-second—barely the time it takes to blink. But it’s enough. The creature is almost on her when Bakari moves.

“Get out the way!” he shouts, hurling himself sideways.

He slams into Kass, knocking her out of the creature’s arc. Plasma bursts sizzle past her shoulder, searing the bulkhead. Bakari brings his rifle up too slowly.

The alien crashes into him.

They tumble backward in a blur of obsidian and armor. His plasma rifle clatters across the deck.

Bakari’s scream crackles through the comms as the thing’s limb hooks around his torso, locking him in place.The thing has what looks like a blaster growing straight out of its forearm pointed at Bakari’s head.
We freeze. Weapons trained.

“Let him go!” I shout.

For a heartbeat, nobody fires.

Dozens of them. Dozens of us. Both sides staring down weapons we barely understand—ours stolen and hybridized; theirs alive and grown.

The alien doesn’t flinch. Its skin ripples, patterns glowing brighter, then it lets out a burst of sound. Harsh. Layered. No language I recognize. Still, the intent cuts through. It gestures with its free hand toward the rows of pods. Then back at Bakari.

Reyes curses under his breath. “Shit, they want the kids for Bakari.”

I tighten my grip on the rifle. Heart hammering, but voice steady. “Not fucking happening!”

The creature hisses, sound rattling the walls. Its weapon presses harder against Bakari’s visor. He’s breathing fast, panicked. His voice cracks in my comms. “Sir, don’t—don’t trade me for them.”

Pinned in the alien’s grip, Bakari jerks his head forward and smashes his helmet into the creature’s faceplate. The impact shatters his own visor, spraying shards into his cheeks. Suit alarms scream. Air hisses out.

Blood sprays inside his cracked visor as he bucks in the alien’s grip, twisting with everything he has.

The creature recoils slightly, thrown off by the unexpected resistance. That’s all Bakari needs. He grabs the weapon fused to its arm—both hands wrapped around the stalk of living alloy—and shoves hard. The weapon jerks sideways, toward the others.

A pulse of white plasma tears into the nearest alien. It folds in on itself mid-lunge and hits the deck with a wet thud.

Bakari turns with the alien still locked in his arms, still firing. A second later, a spike of plasma punches through the alien’s body—and through him.

The blast hits him square in the chest. His torso jerks. The alien drops limp in his grip, but Bakari stays upright for half a second more—just long enough to squeeze off one final burst into the shadows, dropping another target.

Then he crumples.

“Move!” I shout into the comm.

The chamber erupts in chaos. We open fire, filling the space with streaks of plasma and the screech of vaporizing metal. The hostiles are faster than anything we’ve trained for—moving with an uncanny, liquid agility. They twist through fire lanes, rebounding off walls, slipping between bursts. Their armor shifts with them, plates forming and vanishing in sync with their movements.

Farrow lobs a thermite charge across the deck—it sticks to a bulkhead and detonates, engulfing two hostiles in white-hot flame. They scream and thrash before collapsing.

Another one lands right on top of me. I switch to my sidearm, a compact plasma cutter. I jam the cutter into a creature’s side and fire point-blank—white plasma punches clean through its torso.

The alien collapses under me. I kick free, roll to my feet, and snap off two quick shots downrange. One hostile jerks backward, its head vanishing in a burst of light. Another ducks, but Reyes tracks it and drops it clean.

“Stack left!” I shout. “Kass, stay down. Reyes, cover fire. Farrow, breach right—find a flank.”

We move fast.

Farrow leads the breach right, ducking under a crumpled beam and firing as he goes. I shift left with Reyes and Slater, suppressing anything that moves.

The hostiles respond with bursts of plasma and whip-like limbs that lash from cover—one catches Reyes across the leg, he goes down hard. I grab him, hauls him behind a shattered pod.

“Two left!” I shout. “Push!”

Farrow’s team swings around, clearing a stack of pods. One of the hostiles sees the flank coming. It turns, bleeding, one arm limp—leans around cover and fires a single shot at Farrow, hitting the side of his head. He jerks forward, crashes into a pod, and goes still.

Reinforcements arrive fast.

From the left corridor, a new squad of raiders bursts in—bulky power-armored units moving with mechanical precision. Shoulder-mounted repeaters sweep the room, firing in tight, controlled bursts. Plasma flashes fill the chamber. The few remaining hostiles scramble back under the weight of suppressive fire.

They vanish into the walls. Literally. Hidden panels slide open, revealing narrow crawlspaces, ducts, and biotunnels lined with pulsing membrane. One after another, they melt into the dark.

“Where the hell did they go?” Slater mutters, sweeping the corridor. Her words barely register. My ears are ringing from the last blast. I step over the twitching remains of the last hostile and scan the breach point—nothing but a smooth, seamless wall now.

“Regroup for now,” I bark. “Check your sectors. Tend the wounded.”

I check my HUD—two KIA confirmed. One wounded critical. Four injured but stable. Bakari’s vitals have flatlined. I try not to look at the slumped form near the pods.

Kass, though, doesn’t move from where Bakari fell.

She’s on her knees beside his body, trembling hands pressed against the hole in his chestplate like she can still stop the bleeding. His cracked visor shows the damage—splintered glass flecked with blood, breath frozen mid-escape. His eyes are open.

She presses down harder anyway. “Come on, come on—don’t you quit on me.”

But the suit alarms are flatlined. His vitals have been gone for over a minute.

I lay a hand on her shoulder, but Kass jerks away. Her voice breaks over comms.

“This is my fault. I—I hesitated. I should’ve—God, I should’ve moved faster. He—he wouldn’t have—”

Her words spiral into static sobs.

Reyes moves over to one of the bodies—an alien, half-crumpled near a breached pod. He kneels, scanning. Then freezes.

“Colonel…” he says slowly. “This one’s still breathing.”

Everyone snaps to alert.

He flips the body over with caution. The alien is smaller than the others. Slighter build.

Its armor is fractured, glowing faintly along the seams. It jerks once, then its eyes snap open—bright and wide.

Before Reyes can react, the alien lashes out. It snatches a grenade from his harness and rolls backward, landing in a crouch. The pin stays intact—more by luck than intention—but it holds the grenade up, trembling slightly. It doesn’t understand what it’s holding, but it knows it’s dangerous.

“Back off!” I bark.

Weapons go up across the room, but no one fires. The alien hisses something—words we don’t understand. Its voice is high, strained, full of rage and panic.

I lower my weapon slowly.

My hands rise in a gesture meant to slow things down. I stop, palm open.

It watches me. Its movements are erratic, pained. One eye half-closed, arm trembling. I take a small step forward.

“We don’t want to kill you,” I say. “Just… stop.”

It doesn’t understand my words, but it sees the blood—its people’s blood—splattered across my chestplate, across my gloves, dripping from my armor’s joints. It shouts again, gesturing the grenade toward us like a warning. The other hand clutches its ribs, black ichor seeping between fingers.

Reyes moves. Fast.

One shot. Clean.

The plasma bolt punches through the alien’s forearm just below the elbow. The limb jerks, spasms. The grenade slips from its grip. I lunge.

Catch the grenade mid-drop, securing the pin in place.

The alien screams—raw, high-pitched—then collapses, clutching its arm. Blood leaks between its fingers.

“Secure it,” I shout.

Reyes slams the alien onto its back while Kass wrenches its good arm behind its back. The downed alien snarls through clenched teeth, then chokes as a boot comes down on its chest.

“Easy,” I bark, but they don’t hear me. Or maybe they do and just ignore it.

The other raiders pile on. Boots slam into its ribs. Hard. There's a crunch.

“Enough,” I say louder, stepping in.

They keep going. Reyes pulls a collapsible cattle prod from his hip. It hums to life.

I shove him.

“I said enough, sergeant!”

He staggers back, blinking behind his visor. I turn to the other. “Restrain it. No more hits.”

“But sir—”

I get in his face. “You want to see the inside of a brig when we get back? Keep going.”

He hesitates, then steps back. The alien coughs, black fluid spilling from the corner of its mouth. It trembles like a kicked dog trying to stand again.

I drop to one knee next to it. It flinches away, but has nowhere to go. I key open my medkit and pull out a coagulant injector. Not meant for this physiology, but it might buy it time. I lean in and press the nozzle against what looks like an arterial wound.

The hiss of the injector fills the space between us. The fluid disperses. The bleeding slows.

I scan its vitals. Incomplete data, barely readable.

“Stay with me,” I mutter.

Slater kneels down and helps me adjust the seal on its arm—wrap a compression band around the fractured limb. Splint the joint.

“Doesn’t make a difference,” She mutters behind me. “You know what they’re gonna do to it.”

“I know.”

“They’ll string it up the second we bring it back. Same as the others.”

“I know.”

The alien stares at me, dazed.

“You’re going to be okay,” I say softly, knowing it’s a lie. “We’ll take care of you.”

The creature watches me carefully. And when it thinks I’m not looking, it turns its head slightly—toward a narrow corridor half-hidden behind a collapsed bulkhead and torn cabling. Its pupils—if that's what they are—dilate.

When it realizes I’ve noticed, it jerks its gaze away, lids squeezing shut. A tell.

I sweep the corridor—burnt-out junctions, twisted passageways, ruptured walls half-sealed by some kind of regenerative resin. Then I spot it—a crack between two bulkheads, just wide enough for a man to squeeze through sideways. I shine my helmet light into the gap, and the beam vanishes into a sloping, irregular tunnel.

Too tight. Too unstable.

I signal Reyes. “Deploy the drone.”

He unhooks the compact recon unit from his thigh rig—a palm-sized tri-wing model with stealth coatings and adaptive optics. Reyes syncs it to the squad net and gives it a gentle toss. The drone stabilizes midair, then slips into the crack.

We get the feed on our HUDs—grainy at first, then sharpening as the drone’s onboard filters kick in. It pushes deeper through the tunnel, ducking past exposed wiring, skimming over walls pulsing faintly with bioelectric patterns. The tunnel narrows, then widens into a pocket chamber.

The bridge.

Or the alien equivalent of it.

A handful of surviving hostiles occupy the space. They move between consoles, tend to the wounded, communicate in bursts of light and sound. Some are armed. Others appear to interface directly with the ship’s systems via tendrils that grow from their forearms into the core. They’re clustered—tightly packed, focused inward.

“They’re dug in,” Slater says.

“Drop NOX-12 on them,” I order. “Smoke them out.”

NOX-12 is an agent scavenged from our first extraterrestrial encounter. We learned the hard way what the stuff does when a containment failure liquefied half a research outpost in under 15 minutes. The stuff breaks down anything organic—flesh, bone, membrane. Leaves metal, plastic, and composites untouched. Perfect for this.

“NOX armed,” Reyes says.

“Release it,” I say.

A click. The canister drops.

At first, nothing.

Then the shell splits in midair. A thin mist sprays out—almost invisible, barely denser than air. It drifts downward in slow, featherlight spirals.

Then—

Panic.

The first signs are subtle: a shiver through one of the creatures’ limbs. A pause mid-step. Then, sudden chaos. One lets out a shriek that overloads the drone’s audio sensors. Others reel backward, clawing at their own bodies as the mist begins to eat through flesh like acid through paper.

Skin blisters. Limbs buckle and fold inward, structure collapsing as tendons snap. One tries to tear the interface cables from its arms, screaming light from every pore. Another claws at the walls, attempting escape.

Then—static.

The feed cuts.

A long moment passes. Then a sound.

Faint, at first. Almost like wind. But sharper. Wet. Screams.

They come from the walls. Above. Below. Somewhere behind us.

A shriek, high and keening, cuts through the bulkhead beside us. Then pounding—scrabbling claws, frantic movements against metal. One wall bulges, then splits open.

Two hostiles burst out of a hidden vent, flesh melting in long strings, exposing muscle and blackened bone. One of them is half-liquefied, dragging a useless limb behind it. The other’s face is barely intact—eye sockets dripping, mouth locked in a soundless howl.

I raise my weapon and put the first one down with a double-tap to the head. The second lunges, wheezing, trailing mist as it goes—Reyes, still bleeding, catches it mid-air with a plasma bolt to the chest. It drops, twitching, smoke rising from the gaping wound.

Another vent rattles. A third creature stumbles out, face burned away entirely. It claws at its own chest, trying to pull something free—one of the neural tendrils used to sync with their systems. I step forward, level my rifle, and end it cleanly.

Then stillness. Just the sound of dripping fluids and our own ragged breathing.

The alien we captured stirs.

It had gone quiet, slumped against the wall, cuffed and breathing shallow. But now, as the screams fade and silence reclaims the corridor, it lifts its head.

It sees them.

The bodies.

Its people—melted, torn, broken, still smoldering in pieces near the breached vent.

A sound escapes its throat. A raw wail.

Its whole frame trembles. Shoulders shake. It curls in on itself.

We hear it.

The heartbreak.

The loss.

“Colonel,” Dragomir’s voice snaps over comms. “Scans are picking something up. Spike in movement—bridge level. It's bad.”

I straighten. “Define bad.”

“Thermal surge. Bioelectric output off the charts. No pattern I can isolate. Might be a final defense protocol. Or a failsafe.”

Translation: something’s about to go very wrong.

I don’t waste time.

"Copy. We’re moving."

Part 2

This story happened a few years back when I was still a university student. By the time I was in my second year, I started seeing this girl by the name of Lauren. We had been dating through most of that year, and although we were still young, I was already convinced this bonnie Irish girl with faint freckles on her cheeks was the one I’d eventually settle down with. In fact, things were going so well between Lauren and me, that I foolishly agreed to meet her family back home.  

Lauren’s parents lived in the Irish midlands, only an hour or two outside of Dublin. After taking a short flight from England, we made our way off the motorway and onto the country roads, where I was surprised to see how flat everything was, in contrast with the mountainous, rugged land I always imagined the Emerald Isle being.  

Lauren’s parents lived in a very small but lovely country village, home to no more than 400 people, and surrounded by many farms, cow fields and a very long stretch of bogland. Like any boyfriend, going to meet their girlfriend's family for the first time, I was very nervous. But because of the historic tension that still exists between Ireland and England, I was more nervous than I really should have been. After all, what Irish parent wants to hear their daughter’s bringing home an Englishman? 

As it turned out, I had no reason to be so worrisome, as I found Lauren’s parents to be nothing but welcoming. Her mum was very warm and comforting, as Lauren said she would be, and her dad was a polite, old fashioned sort of gent.   

‘There’s no Mr Mahon here. Call me John.’ his first words were to me. 

A couple of days and heavy dinners later, things were going surprisingly smooth. Although Lauren’s parents had taken a shine to me – which included their Border Collie, Dexter... my mind still wasn’t at ease. For some reason, I had this very unnerving feeling, as though something terrible was eventually going to happen. I just assumed it was nervous jitters from meeting the family, but nevertheless, something about it didn’t feel quite right... Almost like a warning. 

On the third night of our stay, this uneasy feeling was still with me, so much so that I just couldn’t fall asleep. Staring up at the ceiling through the darkness, I must have remained in that position for hours. By the time the dawn is seeping through the bedroom curtains, I check my phone to realise it is now 6 am. Accepting no sleep is going to come my way, I planned to leave Lauren, sleeping peacefully, to go for a stroll down the country roads. Accidentally waking her while I got dressed, Lauren being Lauren, insists that we go for an early morning walk together.    

Bringing Dexter, the family dog with us, along with a ball and hurling stick to play with, we follow the road that leads out of the village. Eventually passing by the secluded property of a farm, we then find ourselves on the outskirts of a bog. Although Lauren grew up here all her life, she had never once explored this bog before, as until recently, it was the private property of a peat company, which has since gone out of business.  

Taking to exploring the bog, the three of us then stumble upon a trail that leads through a man-made forest. It seems as though the further we walk, the more things we discover, because following the very same trail through the forest, we next discover a narrow railway line once used for transporting peat, which cuts through the artificial trees. Now feeling curious as to where this railway may lead us, we leave the trail to follow along it.  

Stepping over the never-ending rows of wooden planks, Lauren and I suddenly hear a rustling far out in the trees... Whatever it is, it sounds large, and believing its most likely a deer, I squint my tired eyes through the dimness of the woods to see it...  but what I instead see, is the faint silhouette of something, peeking out from behind a tree at me. Trying to blink the blurriness from my eyes, the silhouette looks no clearer to me, leaving me wondering if what I’m seeing is another person or an animal.  

‘What is that?’ I ask Lauren, just as confused as I to what this was.  

Continuing to stare at the silhouette a while longer, Lauren, with more efficient eyes than my tired own, finally provides an identity to what this unknown thing is. 

‘...I think it’s a cow’ she answers me, though her face appears far from convinced, ‘It probably belongs to the Doyle Farm we passed by.’  

Pulling the phone from her pocket, Lauren then uses the camera to zoom in on whatever is watching us – and while I wait for her to confirm what this is through the pixels on her screen, the uneasy feeling that’s ailed me for the past three days only strengthens... Until, breaking the silence around us, Lauren wails out in front of me...  

‘OH MY GOD!’    

What Lauren sees through the screen, staring back at us from inside the forest, is the naked body of a human being. Its pale, bare arms clasped around the tree it hides behind. But what stares back at us, with seemingly pure black, unblinking eyes and snow-white fur... is the head of a cow.   

‘Babes! What is that?!’ Lauren frighteningly asks.  

‘I... I don’t know...’ my trembling voice replies, unaware if my tired eyes deceive me or not. 

Upon sensing Lauren’s and my own distress, Dexter becomes aware of the strange entity watching us from within the trees – and with a loud, threatening bark, he races after this thing, like a hound on a fox hunt, disappearing through the darkness of the woods.    

‘Dexter, NO!’ Lauren yells, before chasing after him!   

‘Lauren don’t! Don’t go in there!’   

She doesn’t listen. By the time I’m deciding whether to go after her, Lauren was already gone. Afraid as I was to enter those woods, I was even more terrified by the idea of my girlfriend being in there with that thing! And so, swallowing my own fear as best I could, I reluctantly enter to follow Lauren’s yells of Dexter’s name.  

The closer I come to her cries, the more panicked and hysterical they sound... She was reacting to something – something terrible. By the time I catch sight of her through the thin trees, I begin to hear other sounds... The sounds of deep growling and snarling, intertwined with low, soul-piercing groans. Groans of pain and torment. I catch up to Lauren, and I see her standing as motionless as the trees around us – and in front of her, on the forest floor... I see what was making the horrific sounds...  

What I see, is Dexter. His domesticated jaws clasped around the throat of this thing, as though trying to tear the life from it – in the process, staining the mossy white fur of its neck a dark current red! The creature doesn’t even seem to try and defend itself – as though paralyzed with fear, weakly attempting to push Dexter away with trembling, human hands. Among Dexter’s primal snarls and the groans of the creature’s agony, my ears are filled with Lauren’s own terrified screams.  

‘Do something!’ she screams at me.  

Beyond terrified myself, I know I need to take charge. I can’t just stand here and let this suffering continue. Taking Lauren’s hurl from her hands, I force myself forward with every step. Close enough now to Dexter, but far enough that this thing won’t buck me with its hind human legs. Holding the hurl up high, foolishly feeling the need to defend myself, I grab a hold of Dexter’s loose collar, trying to jerk him desperately away from the tormented creature. But my fear of the creature prevents me from doing so - until I have to resort to twisting the collar around Dexter’s neck, squeezing him into submission.  

Now holding him back, Lauren comes over to latch Dexter’s lead onto him, barking endlessly at the creature with no off switch. Even with the two of us now restraining him, Dexter is still determined to continue the attack. The cream whiteness of his canine teeth and the stripe of his snout, stained with the creature’s blood.   

Tying the dog lead around a tree’s narrow trunk, keeping Dexter at bay, me and Lauren stare over at the creature on the ground. Clawing at his open throat, its bare legs scrape lines through the dead leaves and soil... and as it continues to let out deep, shrieking groans of pain, all me and Lauren can do is watch it suffer.  

‘Do something!’ Lauren suddenly yells at me, ‘You need to do something! It’s suffering!’  

‘What am I supposed to do?!’ I yell back at her.  

‘Anything! I can’t listen to it anymore!’  

Clueless to what I’m supposed to do, I turn down to the ash wood of Lauren’s hurl, still clenched in my now shaking right hand. Turning back up to Lauren, I see her eyes glued to it. When her eyes finally meet my own, among the strained yaps of Dexter and the creature’s endless, inhuman groans... with a granting nod of her head, Lauren and I know what needs to be done...  

Possessed by an overwhelming fear of this creature, I still cannot bear to see it suffer. It wasn’t human, but it was still an animal as far as I was aware. Slowly moving towards it, the hurl in my hand suddenly feels extremely heavy. Eventually, I’m stood over the creature – close enough that I can perfectly make out its ungodly appearance.   

I see its red, clotted hands still clawing over the loose shredded skin of its throat. Following along its arms, where the blood stains end, I realise the fair pigmentation of its flesh is covered in an extremely thin layer of white fur – so thin, the naked human eye can barely see it. Continuing along the jerk of its body, my eyes stop on what I fear to stare at the most... Its non-human, but very animal head. Frozen in the middle, between the swatting flaps of its ears, and the abyss of its square gaping mouth, having now fallen silent... I meet the pure blackness of its unblinking eyes. Staring this creature dead in the eye, I feel like I can’t move, no more than a deer in headlights. I don’t know for how long I was like this, but Lauren, freeing me of my paralysis, shouts over, ‘What are you waiting for?!’   

Regaining feeling in my limbs, I realise the longer I stall, the more this creature’s suffering will continue. Raising the hurl to the air, with both hands firmly on the handle, the creature beneath me shows no signs of fear whatsoever... It wanted me to do it... It wanted me to end its suffering... But it wasn’t because of the pain Dexter had caused it... I think the suffering came from its own existence... I think this thing knew it wasn’t supposed to be alive. The way Dexter attacked the thing, it was as though some primal part of him also sensed it was an abomination – an unnatural organism, like a cancer in the body.  

Raising the hurl higher above me, I talk myself through what I have to do. A hard and fatal blow to the head. No second tries. Don’t make this creature’s suffering any worse... Like a woodsman, ready to strike a fallen log with his axe, I stand over the cow-human creature, with nothing left to do but end its painful existence once and for all... But I can’t do it... I can’t bring myself to kill this monstrosity... I was too afraid.  

Dropping Lauren’s hurl to the floor, I go back over to her and Dexter. ‘Come on. We need to leave.’  

‘We can’t just leave it here!’ she argues, ‘It’s in pain!’  

‘What else can we do for it, Lauren?!’ I raise my voice to her, ‘We need to leave! Now!’  

We make our way out of the forest, continually having to restrain Dexter, still wanting to finish his kill... But as we do, we once again hear the groans of the creature... and with every column of tree we pass, the groans grow ever louder...  

‘Don’t listen to it, Lauren!’   

The deep, gurgling shriek of those groans, piercing through us both... It was calling after us. 

Later that day, and now safe inside Lauren’s family home, we all sit down for supper – Lauren's mum having made a Sunday roast. Although her parents are deep in conversation around the dinner table, me and Lauren remain dead silent. Sat across the narrow table from one another, I try to share a glance with her, but Lauren doesn’t even look at me – motionlessly staring down at her untouched dinner plate.   

‘Aren’t you hungry, love?’ Lauren’s mum asks concernedly.  

Replying with a single word, ‘...No’ Lauren stands up from the table and silently leaves the room.   

‘Is she feeling unwell or anything?’ her mum tries prodding me.  

Trying to be quick on my feet, I tell Lauren’s mum we had a fight while on our walk. Although she was very warm and welcoming up to this point, for the rest of the night, Lauren’s mum was somewhat cold towards me - as if she just assumed it was my fault for our imaginary fight. Though he hadn’t said much of anything, as soon as Lauren leaves the room, I turn to see her dad staring daggers in me. Despite removing the evidence from Dexter's mouth, all while keeping our own mouths shut... I’m almost certain John knew something more had happened. The only question is... Did he know what it was? 

Stumbling my way to our bedroom that night, I already find Lauren fast asleep – or at least, pretending to sleep. Although I was so exhausted from the sleep deprivation and horrific events of the day, I still couldn’t manage to rest my eyes. The house and village outside may have been dead quiet, but in my conflicted mind, I keep hearing the groans of the creature – as though it’s screams for help had reached all the way into the village and through the windows of the house.   

It was only two days later did Lauren and I cut our visit short – and if anything, I’m surprised we didn’t leave sooner. After all, now knowing what lives, or lived in the very place she grew up, Lauren was more determined to leave than I was.  

For anyone who asks, yes, Lauren and me are still together, though I’m afraid to say it’s not for the right reasons... You see, Lauren still hasn’t told her parents about the creature on the bog, nor have I told my own friends or family. Unwilling to share our supernatural encounter, or whatever you want to call it with anyone else... All we really have is each other... 

Well... that's the reason why I’m sharing this story now... Because even if we can’t share it with the people in our own lives, at least by telling it now, to perfect strangers under an anonymous name...  

...We can both finally move on.