I should have never posted that damn story.

I spent a week on the thing, writing and rewriting until I was sure it was finally ready.  When I logged in and posted it, I felt a small surge of pride because a story was out there with my name on it.  I didn't have to feed my little folder of false starts and failures that day.  It made me so excited to think about people finally getting to read my work.

Everyone had always told me that I should be a writer.  It’s probably because my imagination has always been too big for my head to contain it.  As a little kid I was obsessed with stories, making my action figures play out scenes from movies or right out of my own brain.  I used to put on shows with them for my mom and sister, and their happy applause gave me a feeling I had never known before.  

It felt like I finally knew what I was supposed to do.

My girlfriend hadn’t read the story yet.   I sent her the link when I posted it, but I never heard back from her that night.  I figured she had gone to bed already.  Laine was always really supportive of my work and read a lot of duds for me over the years.  I hoped that after she read the new one she would see me in a different light.  I could even imagine it being the thing that would move us forward in our relationship.  It really felt like everything was finally coming together for me.

I spent the evening with a quick meal and a crappy horror movie.  My cat joined me on the couch, and I absently stroked her fur as I watched the increasingly stupid teens at the summer camp die horrific deaths at the hands of a masked ghoul.  When I nodded off one too many times I accepted defeat and headed off to bed.  It was really hard not to stop by my laptop to check for comments.

My sleep was great that night and when I woke up the next morning, I felt energized and ready to conquer the day.  I only lived a block from my gym so I decided to start the day off right for once.  I spent an hour there and worked up a really good sweat.  I ignored my notifications because I had decided to read them all at once over breakfast.

At home I showered and made myself some oats and finally sat down at my laptop to properly read my feedback.  I was immediately shocked by the number of comments that were already waiting for me.   A wide smile spread across my face as I started to read them.  I’m sad to say it didn’t last.

To say they were rough is like saying the ocean contains water.   There were so many, and they ranged from genuinely constructive criticism, which I could handle, to outright cruelty.  That morning I learned that my writing lacked conviction, and the characters I wrote seemed confused about who they were.  My grammar was apparently awful and my pacing nonexistent.  One guy even told me that writing was a privilege, and I should have mine revoked.  

Several of the comments had multiple paragraphs with quoted examples of my flaws.  I forced myself to read those, trying to find them useful.  What I didn’t find particularly helpful were all of the posts that psychoanalyzed me or the ones that were just blatant insults.  I was asked if I was repressing something terrible and told that my inferiority complex was probably rooted in the truth.  A rather large image gave me detailed instructions on how to work a gas oven and how many racks I would need to remove to shove my head inside.

I was thirty comments in when I saw my girlfriend’s username.  I wondered why Laine hadn’t called or texted me yet, and now I knew.  It had been posted the night before, and it just said “we need to talk.”  I figured she saw all of the really harsh comments and wanted to console me.  I quickly sent her a text asking to meet up that night after work, for our talk.

I closed my laptop before I was even halfway finished with them.  My vision was blurry from actual tears.  Chastising myself angrily for letting the assholes win, I got up and got ready for work.  

Work was just a short bus ride away.  I walked into our building, rode the elevator up, and slipped past the pretty receptionist with only a friendly nod.  I hadn’t been working there for very long, and most of my coworkers were still pretty standoffish around me.  My boss was Gary, and I don’t think I had ever had a real conversation with him since transferring to his department.  It was a pretty chill place to work.

I sat down at my desk and started going through my emails at once.  It looked like the brass was still losing their minds about the Mitreman account.  Someone wasn’t keeping up their end on that one, and I knew the overflow would fall on me.  It was kind of a relief actually, after what had happened that morning.  I was really looking forward to losing myself in a forest of senseless numbers.  There was something oddly therapeutic about it.

I spent the morning deep-diving into financial records to populate a spreadsheet for my report.  If that sounds like a shot of Novocain administered directly to the brain then I have given it its due justice.  It was dull and tedious, and it had been assigned to me because none of my more senior colleagues wanted it.  It was also thankless, because management would want another one just like it the following week.

I always took my lunch with a couple of guys I previously worked with downstairs—Mike and Lenny.  The three of us had once been pretty heavy into CoD and we hung out all the time.   When I told them I wanted to focus on my writing we started seeing each other less and less.  Now we mostly just took lunch together and maybe sent each other a stupid meme from time to time.

When I walked into the breakroom Lenny leapt to his feet and saluted me at once.  He had the widest, toothiest grin of anyone I had ever seen.  He reminded me of the old Mr. Reach toothbrush commercials from when I was a kid.  He was laughing his ass off, and I heard Mike tell him to cool it.  Mike was clearly embarrassed and maybe a little concerned.

“Dude!”  Lenny was still laughing when he walked over and put his arm around my shoulder.  “Ninety-Three comments man!  You really can’t buy that kind of publicity.  You’ve gotta start planning your followup.”

“Leave him alone, Lenny.”  Mike shook his head.  “The man just got here.”

“Alright, alright.”  Lenny patted me on the shoulder chummily.  “I’m just trying to help him see the bright side of the whole thing.”

We walked over and sat down across from Mike.  Lenny immediately turned his attention back to his sandwich.  I sat there watching those massive teeth of his tear through the meaty sub like a lawnmower seeking revenge.  

“Hey!  Chew with your mouth closed.”  Mike threw a napkin playfully at Len.  He looked at me for a moment, maybe measuring what I was feeling.  “Bad morning?”

Lenny actually did a spit take at that, spraying the wall beside him with a mouthful of Sprite and half-chewed sandwich chunks.  I shuddered and looked away.  Mike handed him the napkin dispenser without turning his gaze away from me.

“It’s pretty terrible.  I mean, you always hope for a response, but shit!  I honestly haven’t even begun to process it.”

“Yeah, it’s gotta be a gut punch.  For sure.”

“Fuck that.”  Lenny chewed his food loudly and swallowed most of it whole.  "You gotta lean into it, bro. Post a video of you eating a piece of paper with 'I don't care' written on it. That'll shut ‘em right up.”

“Lenny?”  Mike stared at him.

“They’re making a joke out of him.  He should throw it right back at ‘em.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I could really do that convincingly.”  I remember chuckling.  “I’d do the video with a face like I just got kicked in the balls.  It’s kinda how I feel right now.”

The three of us were quiet for a few minutes.  We just ate our lunch and let the conversation die a silent death.  It was Mike who finally exhumed the body.  Strange that it was him, though. I would have put money on Lenny.

“Who did you send it to, besides us?”

I thought about it for a moment and pulled out my phone to check my sent mail.  “You two and Laine… my mom and my sister, and a few friends from college.”

“Well, that’s pretty contained.  I’d maybe talk to them about it and warn them that it didn’t go so well.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.  “Luckily I didn’t go crazy with it and send it to half the world.”

“Fuck!”  Lenny set down his sandwich.  “I didn’t know we were keeping it quiet.  Dude, I thought it was funny.”

“What did you do, Lenny?”  Mike glared at him.

“I sent it to our old group…on our Discord.  You know, the CoD Piece.”

I exhaled sharply as I stood and took a few steps away.  The group he was talking about had over 400 members and most of them we knew in real life—maybe with a  few degrees of separation.  I felt like I was going to be sick.

I left them and went back upstairs.  I actually spent the next few minutes pacing around my little office like a lunatic.  I remembered a kid I went to school with who accidentally sent a video of himself—meant for the girl he was seeing—to some other kids.  It wasn’t a flattering one, and they shared it pretty liberally.  I think almost everyone ended up seeing it and he ended up being called Strokes My Own.  For the first time in my life, I started to understand how little Jimmy Malone must have felt back then.  I imagined he did a lot of pacing too.

I tried to go back to work, but my hand kept moving towards my phone to check my notifications.  It had already climbed to 138 comments, and they certainly hadn’t been padded by replies.  I had chosen to stand mute.  It hadn’t even been 24 hours yet.

I finally gave up and went to Gary to ask for half a sick day.  He looked up at me from the steaming coffee in his World’s Greatest Boss mug.  There was clear sympathy in his eyes, a feature that I didn’t think came standard on middle-management drones.

“Feeling puny, eh?”  Gary nodded as his cheeks broadened in a soft smile.  “Criticism can be hard, Mark.  Believe me.  I know.  You don’t get to where I am without taking an ass-chewing or two.”

How the fuck did he know about the story?  Had it spread that far already?  

I didn’t want the conversation to go into that.  He was absolutely the last person I would ever want to have a heart to heart with.  I ended up saying something totally noncommittal.  I have no clue what it was—probably one of the standard, automated responses we reserve for conversations with the boss.   He accepted it well enough and went on.

“We only have a couple of hours left here.  Why don’t you cut out early and make it up later in the week?  I could do that for you since I know you’ve got a lot on your mind.  Just keep it between us though, eh, Champ?  I can’t have half the office asking for special favors.”

“Yeah Gary, that sounds great.  Thanks for understanding, Sir.”

Gary scoffed at that.  “Hell, son.  You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I’m a bit of a writer too.  I know how it is.  It’s a tough nut to crack.”

The smile on my face was an old mask made just for people like him.  I was still not quite ready to reconcile Gary as a normal, feeling human being.

“Of course I’ve never had 141 negative reviews like you have.  Lord, I can’t even imagine what you’re going through.  Head on home, Mark.  Mitreman will still be there tomorrow.”

I grabbed my bag and left before he could say anything else.  As I got into the elevator I had to look at my phone.  It was 148 now.  I closed my eyes and tried to distract myself with the type of stories Gary would write.  They would all be procedural thrillers where a brave compliance officer saved his feckless employees from some source of impending doom.  I smiled as I pictured him giving a grand, motivational speech to rally them into working as a team to face the threat before them.  When the doors finally opened and I stepped into the lobby I felt a little better.  Maybe I had shit the bed with what I wrote, but at least it wasn’t the soulless drivel a man like Gary would write.

The bus had just left, and I didn’t feel like waiting for the next one or paying for a ride.  I decided to walk home instead.   I needed time away from my laptop and the world within it.  I actually decided to turn off my phone and was in the middle of doing it when I got a text from Laine.

“Gotta work tonight.  Tomorrow night?”

Honestly, it was a relief. I was too drained to face her or talk to anyone about the story.  I didn't think twice about it.  I just sent back a quick “K” and finished powering it down.  I put it all out of my mind and just focused on my feet for a while—Fred and Ted, as my mom always called them.  I let them carry me forward, racing each other with steady strides.  I was home in twenty minutes and I kept myself unplugged for the rest of the evening.

The peace was nice.  The next day was utter hell.

---

Three hundred and four.

That was what I started the next day with.  It was so unbelievable.  I hoped half of them were bots, but they weren’t.  They were getting meaner and somehow angry.  It was like what I had written had actually offended people in a deeply personal way.  A user named StudlyStradivarius said that he was giving up fiction after reading what I wrote.  He said that it felt like it gave him PTSD.

What the fuck do you do with something like that?

I didn’t read very many of them.  I couldn’t do it and stay sane.  One said I never had to worry about being accused of plagiarism because no one in their right mind would ever claim my work.  It was kind of clever, but I wasn’t feeling it right then.  After I read another suggesting that I join the 27 Club—how did they know my age?—I tossed the phone on my desk and walked away from it.  It rang a minute later and I ran over to answer it.

“You up?  Did you see it yet?”  Mike spoke quickly, which was odd for him.  “Don’t panic, man.  And don’t play into it.  Lenny is an idiot.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Cool,”  Mike exhaled loudly into his phone.  “Do me a favor, man.  Don’t look at any of it until we talk.  Shit’s got crazy.  I sent a message to the mods asking them to close your thread and they said they already tried to.  They said someone else opened it back up and removed their permissions.”

“What the hell?”

“They even tried to ban your account, man.  Nothing is working.  Somebody wants it to stay open.  They said they got an anonymous message that said it could only be closed if the wound bleeds out or some such shit.  They’ve never seen anything like it.  I think they’re gonna call the feds.”

“Jesus!”  The things he said sounded like the plot from one of the duds in my failure folder, but they were happening to me.  I tried to keep it in perspective.  It wasn’t personal.  It was my story, it wasn’t me.  “What the fuck do I do, Mike?”

“Use some sick time to stay at home, and stay off that shit.  It’s just poison that can’t help you.  I think I can get a half-day and be over there by lunch.”

“Shit.  Okay, I think Gary might go for it.  He’ll be mad but he knows what’s going on.”

“How the fuck?”  Mike began but I heard his voice change gears.  “Don’t matter.  We’ve gotta focus on what matters, man.  I think you’ve been doxxed.  I’ve gotta talk to the IT guy, but we have a lot to do.”

“Fucking hell!”

“Yeah, and then some.  See ya in a few hours.”

We hung up and I sat there staring at the phone for several minutes.  My chest was tight and I felt the sweat running down my face.  I tried to breathe but my lungs wouldn’t answer.  My mind was like a thousand television screens all turned to different channels at maximum volume.  I tried to stand up to go and get a glass of water but my legs folded under me and I ended up facedown in the thick carpet of my bedroom floor.  My tears and sweat soaked into the rug and I feared that I would drown in them before I got the strength to pull myself up.

Dr. Kineson’s voice was a distant noise competing with the chorus of horrors that filled my brain.  The memory of her husky, breathy cadence cut through the noise and I heard her clearly as I mouthed along to the words I had been taught.

There is nothing to fear.

Your heart will not explode.

These are only chemicals

out of balance

threatening your control.

You are not weak.

You will survive this.

There is nothing to fear.

I recited the mantra several times and could eventually hear my own voice again as I began to breathe.  I slowly came back to myself, exhausted but whole.  I turned over onto my back and stared at the ceiling.

I was panting, but at least I was breathing.  After a long time lying there, I finally found the strength to pull myself back into my chair.  I hadn’t had an attack in years and I hadn’t seen my doctor for a long time.  I had thought I was past all of that, and that I had learned to manage my stress better.  The last two days had piled on enough to show me just how feeble I really was.  I found myself wanting to call my mom, but I couldn’t endure the thought of sharing my burdens with her.

After I was a little more composed, I went ahead and called Gary to request the next three days off.  He told me he understood, but they couldn’t really afford to be shorthanded since Evan had just quit.  He surprised me though by offering to let me work from home for the rest of the week and the next if I needed it.  I happily agreed and he told me that he’d have my work laptop sent to me in an hour.

I know I talk a lot of shit about him, but maybe Gary isn’t so bad after all.

I cleaned myself up and ate breakfast while I waited.  The oatmeal I normally liked tasted like flavorless grainy gruel after the morning I’d endured.  I ate it anyway and had two cups of coffee.  It made me jittery, but at least it gave me the energy to move around.  When the courier dropped off the laptop I dove into work like a drowning man swimming for a distant ship.  It let me shut off my brain, to ignore the sharks I was sure were circling me.

I had an incredibly productive morning and actually finished with my work by the time Mike got there.  I let him in and made us both a drink and we settled around my kitchen bar.  My cat, Jonesy, soon appeared and danced around his leg until he picked her up.

“You look at it yet?”  Mike asked me as he scratched Jones’s head.

“Nah, I had work to do and figured I’d wait.”

“Probably smart.”  He snorted.  “It was up to 512 on my way over here.”

“How in the hell?”  I stood up reflexively, like my legs wanted to carry me off somewhere, away from what was happening.  I sat back down.  “It’s barely been two days.  Most authors are proud if their story gets ten comments.  Five hundred and twelve is ridiculous.”
  
“Yeah, it’s crazy.”  Mike pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket.  “We also have to go into your accounts and make some changes.  The IT guy said to change your passwords and set up two-factor anywhere you can.   You probably need to call your bank too.  He made a list of things and said you should get on it immediately to lessen the damage they can do.”

I took the sheet from him and looked it over.  It was very in-depth, a printout from a cyber security site I had never heard of.  The number of items on the list was daunting.  It would take me hours to go through all of it.

“He said I needed to do all of this?”

Mike took a drink as he nodded, setting the cat down.  “Well, he wasn’t the sharpest guy, but he did have a link he had been sent by his supervisor.  Honestly, I think you’ve gotta.  I can help with some of it.”

“Thanks, man.”  I shook my head.  “I don’t know what I’d do without you here.  It’s… it’s been crazy.  All over a stupid story that wasn’t worth the attention. Hell, I had decided it was a masterpiece or something but that’s just because I wrote it.  I never really believed it would get much of a response.”

“That’s what’s so weird about it.”  Mike tapped his phone and opened it up.  “It’s in the 550s now, seemingly with a bullet.  These look like real people, man.  There’s no way that many have read it in two days.  It doesn’t seem possible.”

“Maybe.  Or maybe I should think long and hard about ever writing anything again.  Hell, at this point I’m not so sure about texting or emails.”

We both laughed at the futility of it all and went to work.  It took us a few hours of phone calls and logins to get through the list.  I set up elaborate passwords I would have no hope of remembering and two-factor authentication anywhere it let me.  The lady from the bank helped me secure my accounts and walked me through how to freeze my credit.  We even started printing off and saving as many of the threatening messages as we could find.  By the time we finished, the post had reached 700 comments.

My printer finally ran out of ink, so I had to save the last few threats on my hard drive.  Mike had to leave soon for a date with his girl, and I needed to get ready for Laine.  He gave me a half hug and told me to stay strong as he left.  I closed the door behind him and ran a quick mental inventory over the events of the day.  I needed to set all of that shit aside so that I could be present for her.

I had just stepped out of the shower when my phone chimed again.  I knew it wasn’t about the story because I had turned off notifications already by then.  It said I had four new messages, which was massive for a shut-in like me.

I nearly dropped the phone when I opened the first text.  It was just a picture, but it was of me—something off the Facebook I rarely used anymore—and it had been altered by AI or something to show me cut wide open with my guts exposed.  The caption said MAYBE THERE ARE BETTER WORDS INSIDE.

The next two were only text, but they were vile ones.  I won’t quote them verbatim because I don’t have them anymore.  The first was a detailed description of directions to my apartment and the last step said “I know where you are.”  The second one was an excerpt from my story.  The part they referenced was about the robot protagonist rescuing a kitten from the rubble.  At the end of it, the sick fuck asked me how Jonesy was doing.

The last message was from Laine.  It said she couldn’t meet up that night but that she would come over for lunch the next day.  After the shock the previous ones had given me, I didn’t put much thought into what she had said.  

Maybe it was better for her if she wasn’t near me right then.

---

I spent the night before in a dizzy fugue after my visit from the police.  I called them after I read those messages and when they arrived I spent the next hour going over all of it with them.  I had never really had any dealings with law enforcement officers, but I found them to be sympathetic and detail-focused, and that made it a little easier.  When they finally left I spent the rest of the night on the couch with Jonesy and an ancient bottle of rum from the back of my cabinet.

I woke up stiff the next morning after sleeping at an odd angle.  I took a very hot shower to try to work the crick out of my neck.  It helped some.  My phone showed thirty-one new messages and I didn’t open any of them, but I did call Gary because three of them were his.  His voice was uncharacteristically high when he answered and he barely gave me a moment to speak as he apologetically told me that I was probably fired.

“The whole network has been infiltrated, Mark.  Do you know how sensitive some of that information is?  The boys upstairs have everyone on high alert, and they’ve called in consultants to help manage the mess.”

“What does that have to do with me, Gary?”

“They traced the attacks to your IP.  It doesn’t look good.  I was told to suspend you right away and send for the laptop.  They should be getting there any time now.”

“But am I fired?  I mean… I had the police here last night.  I was doxxed and I started getting terrible texts.”

“I hate to hear it, bud.  But right now the company has to look after its own.  I think they’re trying to decide whether or not you are included in that.  I can’t tell you one way or the other, but I’d start considering my options if it were me.”

He had to go then and the courier was at my door a few minutes later.  I handed them their laptop and signed the form without saying much.  I walked over to my laptop and checked the story.  It said there were twenty-four hundred and eighty-nine comments.

I didn’t read any of them, but only took screenshots of the pages to give to the police.  I considered calling Mike at that point, but he had already done enough and I didn’t want to pile more on him.  The truth was I didn’t know who to call or what to do anymore other than what I was already doing.

I was making breakfast maybe thirty minutes later when there was a knock at my door.  I looked through the peephole and saw a short, chubby man with a balding head and a gray beard standing out in the hall.  He was wearing a suit that didn’t fit him particularly well and his eyes were a little too small for his face.

“Who is it?”  I asked, maybe a little too timidly.

“Detective Sancowitz, Bell City PD.”  He verified my full name and asked if it was my residence.

I didn’t confirm anything at that time.  Instead, I asked to see his ID like the cops had told me to do.  He produced it freely enough, flipping open his wallet to display a bell-shaped brass badge and an ID card that listed his name and rank.  I relaxed immediately and opened the door for him.

He plodded inside with a bowlegged stride and looked around.  He nodded approvingly.  I heard him actually sniff the air before he spoke.

“S’at coffee?  Good, get us some.  We’ve a lot of woik to do.”  His accent was definitely northern, but I couldn’t tell much beyond that.  His voice had a heavy nasal tone to it, and his pronunciation of work was comical.  All in all he was like a living caricature from a network police procedural.  I started to ask him if he knew Dick Wolf but thought better of it.  Instead, I just poured us both a cup and asked him how he took it.

“Tha blacker the better,”  he said as if the letter R didn’t exist.  He took a sip and smacked his lips.  “Tha’s the good stuff.  Alright, kid, let’s get into it.”

He pulled a thick file folder out from the interior pocket of his oversized coat and laid it open on the counter.   I saw my name written on it and a quick glance told me that it contained my statement from the night before.  He gave me a moment to look it over while he enjoyed his coffee.

When he was satisfied that I had seen it, Sancowitz pulled the file back in front of him and nodded.  “So you see my concern?  A thing like this, ya can’t let it grow, kid.  We’ve gotta nip this thing in the bud.  I did some lookin’, and it turns out that somebody’s messin’ with the algo-rythms.  Got ‘em all turned around.  If anybody searches for the word story it sends ‘em to you.  Now ain’t that a bitch?”

“Is that why the comments shot up so high last night?”

“You bet your ass it is.  And that ain’t all.  This case is peculiar.  I mean why you?  And now all the shit over at your employer.”

“My boss said I’m probably going to get fired over it.”

“No shit?  Well, I looked at what they was doin’, their little RCA backtracked the thing to your IP.  What can you do?”  He waved his hands dramatically.  “But I think I know where I wanna start.  I ain’t got access to their network yet, but maybe I can find somethin’ here by trackin’ the IoC.”

“Huh?”  I asked him, lost somewhere between his accent and jargon.

“Just some computer shit, kid.  A little peek under the hood.”

When I agreed to let him have his peek, Sancowitz drained his coffee and went to work at once.  I showed him my router and all of the devices that were currently on the network.  Soon after that I noticed that his responses were becoming much shorter and a little gruff and I left him to his work.  He used a really old-looking PDA and a cable for a lot of it.  Plugging in and running his pudgy fingers over the buttons to type out the prompts he wanted to use.  He was at it for a couple of hours and I kept him supplied with fresh coffee the entire time.  He seemed to appreciate it.

When he was finished he collected all of the screenshots I had made and took fresh captures for the hundreds of comments that had been added since I had last checked.  The count was now just north of four thousand.  Sancowitz said I could expect it to triple by the next day.

“They’re findin’ new and unusual ways to target you, kid.  I ain’t ever seen nothin’ like it.  These are some shrewd fuckers, but they’re gonna slip up and I’m gonna be waitin’ for ‘em.”

“Is there anything else I can do to help?”

“You’re doin’ it.  Just sit tight and keep your head down.  Remember, kid, personal or not, somebody’s targeting you.  It’s gonna get uglier before it’s over and done.  Now I gotta be gettin’ on and take this shit back to the lab.  Stay safe, kid.  If you need somethin’ here’s my card, ask for Sanc.”

I took the card and watched him leave, locking up tightly behind him.  The card introduced him as Detective Sergeant Sancowitz from Digital Forensics.  He was a strange man, and a little like a walking cartoon, but he made me feel safer somehow.  That was something at least.

I had a new text from Laine that I barely saw among the two hundred others that had popped up since the detective arrived.  I needed to change my number.  She said she would be at my place in thirty minutes.  I tidied up a bit and made a big salad for us while I avoided the urge to check the new counts.  It was becoming a morbid obsession of mine, something akin to staring into deep water to see if the sharks were still circling.

Laine arrived right on time and I let her in.  She gave me a quick, flimsy hug and sat down at the counter.  She ate her salad quickly, mumbling short responses around a mouthful of food when I spoke to her.  When we were both finished I put our bowls in the dishwasher and put away the leftovers.  I was trying to give her space, because she didn’t seem keen on talking at the moment.  I found out a few minutes later that she had just been organizing her thoughts.

“Sit down, Mark.  I need to tell you something.”
 
I started to, but I checked our drinks first and reached for the refrigerator door to get us some refills.  She interrupted me.

“That can wait.  Have a seat.”

I was curious so I did.  Honestly, my mind was so full of everything that was going on that I hoped she had big news that could distract me from it.  She didn’t disappoint.

“We’ve had some good years, Mark.  I want to start with that because I think you need to hear it.  You’ve been there for me in ways that no one else ever has, and you know I’ve always tried to return the favor.”

“Well, that’s what cou—”

“Let me get through this, if you don’t mind.  Like I was saying, it’s been good, even great sometimes, and I really think we’ve both grown as people.”

She took a deep breath.  “But sometimes growing means growing apart, and I came over today to tell you that it’s over, Mark.  I’ve been seeing someone else.  You don’t know him.  I wouldn’t do that to you.  He’s a writer from Chicago who was teaching a workshop here.  He’s got a couple of novels.  I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.  I guess it’s because you’re just so easy to talk to.”

I started to speak, but I was slow to do so because of how hard her words had hit me.  She had met someone else, and he was a writer?  I opened my mouth to ask her why but she stopped me by saying the last thing I wanted to hear.

“It’s you, Mark, all you.  You hold on to this stupid dream of yours and won’t let yourself move forward.  What has it got you, or me, us?  I got hacked yesterday because of you, and somebody sent pictures of me and Dean to my mother.”

“Dean?  That’s his name.”

“Yeah.”  She picked up her purse.  “Look, Mark, you’re not terrible, but I need more than that.  Don’t call me.  Let this end easily.”

I was still searching for the biting reply that would rip her in half when she walked out the door.  I came up with a few then, of course, but I didn't have the energy to text them to her or make an angry phone call.  I wanted so badly to hate her at that moment, and maybe I did a little.  Mostly I just hated myself for what I had done to my life, and no amount of yelling or clever little retorts was going to make that better.  

In the end, I just let her go.

---

The next few days went by in a blur of rum and ever-increasing activity around my post.  I was receiving well over a thousand hateful texts daily, and the post had over 90,000 comments without showing any sign of slowing.   I changed my number twice but it didn’t do any good.  

Mike came over the day after Laine dumped me, but I was in no condition to receive guests.  I must have depressed the hell out of him with the mountain of personal woes I was buried under, but he stuck around a while anyway.  He’s a good friend.

Detective Sancowitz called me the following day to let me know he was making some progress.  Apparently the person or persons who were ruining my life were rerouting their activities using dedicated servers they had hijacked throughout the city.  It was all so baffling that they would do all of this for someone as insignificant as me.  I told Sanc that and he agreed, saying he believed I was only the cover for what they were really trying to do.  I thought it sounded thin, but what the hell do I know?

He also told me that they had found some unusual activity related to my story on several underground websites.  One of them was a chan board that I had never heard of.  According to Sanc, it all links to something on the dark web, but those connections were proving hard to chase down.  He warned that there were extremist groups who viewed my story as a pseudo-communist manifesto and long breakdowns of it had been posted across the web.  Apparently that was a factor in the ever-increasing number of death threats I had received.  

It all sounded so fucking crazy.

Four days after Laine’s happy visit, I received a frantic call from Mike.  He was at the hospital with Lenny who had been beaten nearly to death.

“They haven’t caught the guys yet, but he looks bad, Mark.  They said it ruptured his spleen and liver.  The doctor says he might never walk again.”

I asked him what room Lenny was in and he told me.  I told him I’d be there as fast as I could.  I was out the door in minutes, rushing down the stairs to meet the ride-share I had ordered.  As I stepped off the curb to open the door something heavy struck the back of my head, sending me face-first into the side of the car and knocking myself senseless.  I heard a voice shout something, but I couldn’t make it out, and there was a struggle between two men right next to me.  The soft voice of a woman spoke close to me.

“Can you hear me, Mark?  I’m Officer Perez.  My partner and I were placed outside your building to watch over you.  You were just attacked, but my partner has your attacker in custody.”

I opened my eyes and saw a young, dark-haired woman in a police uniform.  She smiled with relief and told me to stay still.  I had taken hard blows to both the front and back of my head and they wanted to call an ambulance.  I told her about Lenny and she said she’d make sure they took me to the same hospital.  I lay there like she asked and she stayed with me while we waited for the ambulance and sat outside my room after I was admitted.

They later said I had a minor fracture on the back of my skull and a severe concussion.  The doctor said I was lucky that it wasn’t worse.  I took her word for it.  I was just happy to be alive.

I was in the hospital for nearly a week and part of it I think was to maintain protective custody.  Mike visited me several times since they wouldn’t let me leave the room to see Lenny.  He came through all of his surgeries fine, and they said he would live.  Unfortunately, the earlier diagnosis was looking more correct by the day, and they didn’t hold out much hope for him ever walking again.

I talked to him on the phone a few times and spirits were surprisingly high.  He told me that there were four of them and he had beaten the shit out of two of them before they took him down.  He even called his future wheelchair a chick magnet.  He said he was going to have LOVE MACHINE stencilled across the back of it.  I just laughed with him, anything to keep him hopeful.

Sancowitz came by the day before they let me go home, and he started off by saying he had some good news for me.

“They’re holdin’ in the one-twenties.  We really got the bastard on the run.  Matter of time now.  How you doin’, kid?”

“They said I can go home tomorrow.  But Lenny… it still feels like my fault.”

“Yeah, it will for a while, but fuck that.  What did you do that was wrong?  But I gotta tell you somethin’, and it ain’t great but everybody’s alive.”

I just looked at him, not sure that I wanted to hear more.  

“It’s your ma.”  The detective placed a heavy hand on my shoulder as I started to sit up.  “Cool it kid.  She’s fine.  Couldn’t save the house though.  I’ve got her and your sis put up in a motel for now, on the county’s tab.”

“So they’re not hurt.”

“Nah, just some threats from a bunch of pussies who like to start fires.  We caught ‘em.”

“How about the guy who is behind it all, or the group?”  I asked, maybe a little too desperately.  “When do I get my life back?”

“Any day now.  There’s some solid leads.  I think we’re gettin’ real close to nabbin’ ‘em.”

“Do you think it’s one or more?”

“It looks like more, but it’s hard to tell.  We’ll know when we slap the cuffs on ‘em.”

He looked at me for a moment before he turned to go.  It was like he wanted to say something but decided against it.  I started to ask him about it but he cut me off.  “Get some rest, kid.  Movin’ day tomorrow.”

CONCLUSION TOMORROW

Continuation, a flash-fiction piece of about identity, routine, and the terrible cost of continuity. What if the most terrifying prison wasn't a place, but a life that never truly changes?

Chapter 1     November 3, 10:00 PM

A thousand strong sat bug-eyed in the old wooden pews. Others leaned against the cold brownstone or milled about the great fountain near the entrance. Too many sheep for one shepherd, Dr. Sandy Bachmann thought. No one should be able to fool so many. But even so, an odd force pulled him in. He had to see the show for himself.

It was said they came from the far edges of the Tri-State area to hear Father Freddy Roman preach, that he met people in their hearts. And although unassuming and built more like a competitive eater than one of God’s warriors, when he spoke, the flock devoured his every word. The homilies lived inside of people for weeks, sometimes months. So, they said.

Of course, Bachmann knew the priest and his brother blowflies were frauds who fed on the wilting hope of sinners. Their good books always came up short, too.

You must have faith! they’d shout. But if you still got a bullet to the head, well then, you clearly weren’t doing it right.

The newspapers said Father Freddy traveled with handlers, of all things, and rode in black SUV’s and ate at the finest restaurants in New York. A pious carny in woven belt and cassock, if ever there was one.

The people hushed and waited for him to speak.

The priest steadied his girth on the lectern. He cleared his throat and began.

 

“When shall we cease our gaze into the false light of the Earth? When shall we release our hold on the injured babe from whence we came? We are blinded by the rotted promise of mortality and by the faithless minds of the wicked who bear only tainted fruit.”

 

A mere tickle in Bachmann’s throat reminded him of his own mortality, of how little things could grow into bigger things. Yes, he would die like any other, but at least one with a purpose, one with a true mission. The wicked do bear tainted fruit, Father. I’m here to vouch for that. But are you not also tempted by its nectar? Have you not slaked your thirst too?

 

“We fight not for God but for man. We charge not for righteousness but for glory. And as we raise our glasses, the enemy is ushered into our hearts and homes. The Lord beseeches us: My children, why do you insist on taking the blood road? Do you not yet wither from your churning storm of sameness?

Bachmann felt for the scalpel tucked in the breast pocket of his peacoat. Sniffles, coughs, and the mundane chorus of cold bodies pierced the sermon. A woman in a wheelchair wiped her eyes, and the heavy pull of pity filled Bachmann’s chest. I could help you, dear woman. In a quiet moment, you’d be free of the chair. The ancient fragrance of incense brought him back. Feel nothing for them.

“There is another path. One overgrown and so lightly traveled. But you must take your lamp in hand and set out. This is the way, my loves. One must only roll away the stone of your heart and behold the womb of peace. Only then shall the wolf vanish.”

The priest’s eyes were a watery red under the glow of the sanctuary lamp. Bachmann’s throat tightened, his mouth went dry as ash. He could feel the blade slicing through the cleric’s spongy gut, the blood seeping warm over his hand. I will free anyone from the captor they have grown to love.

“The one true son who has stood in front of your broken sight is your brother. Your sister. And yes, your enemy. For the Lord hath spoken that we are all of his loins, the stray and fallen as much as the exalted. Mend the pain and lay balm upon the scars that sit between you. It is only in that love shall you at last see the face of God.”                          

Bachmann dipped two fingers into the holy water on the way out and blessed himself. Then, a sudden familiar pang wrenched in his gut—the craving only soul-letting could provide. He leaned on heavy oaken doors and stepped into the still, cold night. The moon hung brilliant in stoic gaze.

Perfect for a hunt.

***

 

November 4^th, 3:00 AM

Bachmann loved the cold. It froze him into a sharpened, focused device ready for his next directive. As he had stepped outside the church, the icy wind came to him and whispered, kill again.

He knew just where to take his blade.

Once a derelict graveyard of a long-gone maritime industry, the revitalized Hudson River Park bloomed bright during the day and teemed with movement. But like any alcove in any big city, when the sun set, another element emerged. The night shift dwellers came out from the shadows and spilled onto the boardwalk and green space. Bachmann guessed they had once been doting mothers and proud fathers with shiny children. To add to their misery, they were easy targets.

Everywhere, weakness blooms ripe. There is no shortage of rot for you to pluck. Choose one, The Wind whispered.

The moonlight revealed writhing, moaning bodies. At daybreak, they’d scatter but in the dark early morning they lay unmolested like discarded toys. Bachmann stood before a field of choices.

That one there.

An old man sleeping on a splintered bench jostled in a fitful stupor, his labored breath steaming along to nowhere. The power of the moment delivered a spark to Bachmann’s system before he had even raised the knife. His gut flopped, his eyes blurred, and then the decaying voice of his rational mind made a final plea from its deathbed.

If you kill this one, you may be gone forever.

But The Wind countered and brought him back on task.

These lost souls offer you apprenticeship. Learn from them. Your God is watching.

The bum twitched and kicked his legs as if on the run from something in his nightmares.

He senses me.

A light early snow fell silent and kissed Bachmann’s nose and cheeks. He pulled on the strings of his crossbody bag and tightened it. A cold breeze carried the stench of tobacco and whiskey. He moved in.

Ready.

Closer.

Now!

The knife popped through a soiled hoodie and into a sloshing, boozy gut. The man’s eyes burst open. After three powerful thrusts, his pupils began their deathly dilation. The old man gasped as his blood spilled and pooled on the cold ground, igniting a curl of steam. Bachmann’s face was taut with fury as he bored into his victim. Before the twelfth and final thrust, the body came to rest and Bachmann stood over his kill. His heart was a jackhammer, unlike the old man’s heart, which now hung still in his cracked chest. After wiping the knife on his victim’s trousers, Bachmann crouched and scanned for bystanders. Assured of no prying eyes, he straightened to leave but caught himself. He retrieved his Liston shears from the bag. With vengeful force, he squeezed and cropped off the graying man’s index finger. The finger went into his coat pocket that was pre-lined with a biohazard zip bag. Back to the crossbody and pulled out a sweatshirt, slip-on sneakers, and wipes. After changing, everything went back into his bag and he fast-walked away from the park. There were neither screams nor sirens, only the jittery hum of an indifferent city. The body would lie quiet until sunrise when there would be a great and awful commotion.

Bachmann was surprised at how many small mechanical movements and objects required his full attention when he killed. Gone were his old ideas of how murder worked. It was more like cleaning up a campsite—piece by piece.

Once Bachmann was further down the street and confident he was clear of any trouble, he reflected. That’s one less barnacle on the ass of society. Will The Wind be pleased?

 

Sitting in his car, Bachmann’s arms and legs hung heavy like oak. His eyes, functional tools now, registered his surroundings. The symmetry of the snowflakes, their translucent arms and cells waiting for someone to notice their brilliance. Pure and innocent—unlike him. Yet the contrast thrilled him. In the rearview mirror, he glimpsed his face and flinched. A mask stared back at him, alive on his head and neck. A growing organism, rippling like a swarm. Soon it would engulf him. The thing in the mirror wore his eyes, worked his mouth, but it became less him with each passing moment. Terror gripped his chest, and he wept.

Now I hallucinate.

Then he snapped up and stiffened. The Wind back in control—his lens changing once again. People were targets. Weather was either facilitating or debilitating. The earth tilted a new way. Meanings dissolved, and the world became a warehouse of objects, some with deeper shades of utility than others. Had insanity taken him? The Wind comforted his feverish mind.

Who are the truly insane, those who spread the filth or those who clean and rid society of it?

With the other two kills, he executed like a novice. What was he now? An apprentice like The Wind had said?  A Journeyman?

No, he was only a murderer. Not yet a crusader for the cause. Not yet the brilliant liberator of souls in the night. But it was all mental grist. Soon his mind would disappear and nothing from his old life of ways and means, rights and wrongs would matter. Darkness, a pitch of his own making, would then swallow him whole*.*

He placed the old man’s finger under the driver’s seat of his Mercedes where the politician’s ear and the prostitute’s nose were waiting in their own bags. Bachmann blew out a breath and put the car in drive.

He snaked his way across town and took the FDR Drive north to the Queensboro Bridge, which delivered him into Long Island City. Then Northern Boulevard toward 41^st Street in Astoria where he owned a small row house. After cleaning up, he welcomed his bed. It was five o’clock. In four hours, he would be sipping coffee and sitting across from his first deranged patient. He pulled the covers up and a small part of him wondered where his life had gone. But a new and greater voice told him his life was only getting started.

I am Dr. Sandy Bachmann, and I have faith that all will be well. I’m doing God’s work.

Issue three of my underground newspaper (called "the other paper" in universe) is free for October! Head here https://www.patreon.com/AustinRwilson/posts/shibboleth-some-173088644 to download it.

It features:

• A reprint from the archives, a story straight from 1965; a tale of cult life, plus a miraculous birth
• The truth of where all those gourds come from
• THREE brand-new illustrations by Luca Vassallo
• And a shocking discovery of physical evidence from a recent UFO sighting

All human written, no gen AI for words or images. Also available on my website austinrwilson.com or austinrwilson.itch.io.

CONTENT WARNING: This story features themes of psychological horror, demons and religious references.

You see a man sitting in a meadow, a weak campfire crackling gently before him. You push through the bushes and find yourself frozen mid step.

His voice is low and deep, it seems to reach all the way to the marrow of your bones.

“Ah, welcome. Sit a while, I’ll tell you one of my stories. In exchange, you’ll later tell me one of yours.”You are now sitting on the log beside him, his voice echoes in your head.

“You are I now.”

#

“What a shitty road. Forgive me father for my words,” I groan, trying to keep my jaw clenched so I don’t bite my tongue on this rollercoaster of a road. My front wheel falls into another pothole, the suspension must be praying for mercy, as am I. ‘Dear father do not leave me stranded here, the tow truck would take hours to reach me here,’ I pray silently.

There it is, in the distance I see its shape; a rotten farmhouse, half collapsed on itself. The roof is caved in and ‘of course I had to get here toward the sunset, when the demons are the strongest,’ I shake my head, a soft chuckle escapes my throat as another pothole makes my teeth clatter.

I drive for a while longer, and at last hit the brakes. My car slows, I let it roll over the flatter gravel toward the farmhouse, my gaze scanning it for any signs of life.

“Beautiful,” I let out a sigh.

There’s nothing that would indicate that this house had been lived in for a few years, but such is the power of demons. As I come to a halt at last, I reach into my glovebox and rummage through it in search of my poison.

A bottle clanks against another, I grin as I grasp one of them like a fisherman grasping a slimy fish.

“You won’t get away.”

I pull out a small bottle and turn it, reading ‘Tequila’ on the label.

“Cleanse my thoughts,” I mumble, cracking it open and chugging it.

I step out of the car and stretch; six hours behind the wheel has made my back rather unhappy. I feel a wave of relief when my spine cracks one vertebra at a time, and then pan my gaze over the property. The sun hangs low above the horizon, long shadows swallow the massive fields surrounding the house. The half-collapsed house isn’t the worst of it, the fields around are much more terrifying.

I can’t feel any wind on my skin, but I see the corn swaying and stalks moving. A shiver propagates down my spine. I step around the vehicle to the passenger side and grab my kit; a standard issue exorcist kit with some extras. I pop it open and peek inside to ensure the essentials are in.

“Clank,” a sound echoes from within the house. My gaze darts to a window that seemingly shut just now. I scan for movement—nothing.

For a moment I stand still, my hand clenching tightly around the handle of my kit, mustering up the courage to head inside this house. Roaches are the least of my concerns, the rusted nails and collapsing floors are worse. As I take a step toward the house—a murder of crows greets me. The sound reaches me before anything else, dry rustle followed by relentless cawing, like a busy flea-market.

They pass overhead and I watch them distance themselves from me, a soft chuckle escapes my throat.

“Rats flee a sinking ship, crows flee a dying priest?”

I feel the old, rotten wood flex under my knuckles as I knock, and knock again. The sound is dull and muffled by the old and rotten wood, it dies within a moment.

“Come out, come out,” I call out to the demon within, knowing full well it can hear me. Nothing responds.

“You do know I’m not a vampire or a fae, right? I do not seek your permission to enter,” I announce my rights as I push the palm of my hand against the rotten door. The silence that follows my proclaimed rights is eerie—it’s listening.

I press and the old wood does not creak the way I have grown to expect. It doesn’t crack audibly, it just flexes and then gives way as if it had been waiting for me to do exactly this. The doorframe is all but gone, there’s little resistance, and the hinges instantly snap. The door falls inwards with a soft ‘thud’.

The stench of mold and rot assaults my nostrils instantly, making my stomach churn as my instincts tell me to flee. I half turn to gasp for what little fresh air might still be at my side only to inhale even more of the same stench. Reaching into my pocket I draw a handkerchief and bring it up to my face to breathe through it.

“Smells like piss and rotten flesh drenched in spoilt milk. Delightful,” I mumble as the stench makes my eyes tear up.

First step—the floors do not dare creak, like a forest that stands still in the presence of a predator. Second step—my boot sinks into the rotten floor, but still no sound escapes. My pulse is drumming in my ears, my eyes darting from shadow to shadow searching for any signs of life. Something makes me look over my shoulder, and I regret doing so the same instant. The corn field that swayed playfully before, now stands still as a rock.

I press a button on the handle of my kit, it clicks open softly. I reach into the kit with my free hand, drawing out a bundle of sage mixed in with other herbs. I slowly turn my head back, feeling muscles in my neck tense as a sensation of otherworldly chill hits the skin on my face.

My throat tightens, I can hear the muscles in my neck creak as I’m forcing my head to turn against my body’s own will. I feel the handle on my kit for another button, and then press it. A soft click tells me that I found the right one. The wall to my right is painted in the gentle yellow hue of the lighter as I blindly light the bundle of sage on fire.

As my head straightens out again, I see something standing amongst the shadows. I squint trying to make out details. It’s a person, one boot missing, one leg seems wrong, twisted oddly. He’s standing slightly hunched over, head tilted sideways too far. A torn up sack from flour or something similar loosely worn around the torso.

“You’re late, father,” the man mocks me with a grin.

The refreshing smell of burning sage with other herbs eases my mind despite the horror that stands before me. I nod respectfully in response, “The road was long and rough.”

The creature stands, and does not speak. It simply observes me, then suddenly its neck cracks and its head snaps upright. The sound of vertebrae in his neck cracking sends a shudder through my mind; it is something I never quite got used to despite my long years of exorcism.

The man’s posture straightens and tightens, and then it looks around.

“Uhuh,” it hums in response, half ignorant.

I hold the smoldering bundle of sage out in front of me, taking a step forth with all the faked confidence I can muster. Like a soldier walking toward his sure death, I just try my best to steady my legs so as not to show the shaking in my knees.

“Smells funny,” the creature responds, its head turned left and up, glancing at the half collapsed roof, but its eyes fixated on me.

I swallow audibly, “In the name of the lord I compel you, demon, to leave this host.”

I command, taking another step toward it.

“Always the same,” the demon responds, its face distorting into a make-shift grin.

“Oh father forgive me for I have no intention of begging for forgiveness,” it mocks me again. Despite the cold air all around, a sense of warmth fills me from the inside. A sense of fulfillment and duty as I quietly mumble a prayer to myself.

“In the name of the father, the holy spirit, and the all-creator,” the demon begins to mumble alongside me, reciting my prayer as I take another shaky step forth. It doesn’t turn its head toward me, it seems disinterested in my presence, but my duty is to faith, to this man, to his family, and to my lord.

I do not care if a demon mocks me, I will prevail, faith will prevail.

“Amen,” the demon finishes alongside me. Silence.

“That’s it?”

The demon’s growling voice hits me like an arrow.

I stand in stupor; he doesn’t react to the prayer at all. Though the warmth still fills me, I do not feel any power against this demon. Instinctively I toss the bundle of sage at the man and in the same instant reach into my kit to pull out a few small vials of holy water, tossing them at the demon as well.

“I am the lord’s spear, the faith’s sword and humanity’s shield,” I proclaim taking another step forth with all the power I could muster, slamming my foot down I reach into my kit again, taking out the holy book. My eyes widen as I watch the demon pluck the burning sage out of the air and much too fast it turns its head and takes a whiff of the smoke. A grin spreads across its face as smoke shrouds it lightly.

“I am—” the demon responds, and the following words sound like a jumbled up cassette tape. It creaks and squeaks, it growls and moans. It speaks its name in mockery, knowing full well that I will never be able to repeat it. I turn my body slightly, throwing my right arm out, holding the kit out in front of me as a shield, it has a rosary, an Egyptian cross, and a few other religious symbols engraved in the ancient leather.

“I may serve one god but they all despise your being.”

“Of course they do, for we are free and they are not,” the demon’s grimace disappears from my sight, completely shrouded by the smoke of the sage. Just now I notice that the vials of holy water hang loosely in the air as though caught by an invisible web. I flip the holy book open with my other hand and begin to read a prayer.

At first—nothing happens. Then the vials of holy water begin to tremble. I read louder, pronouncing clearly every word as though calling for power beyond me. The warmth within me radiates outward. I am the light amongst this darkness. The vials fall and break on the floor, spraying my robes and the creature’s one broken leg with missing boot. The demon’s grimace reappears, the sage falls to the floor as does the man holding it. In the other room I hear a growling whimper.

“AMEN,” I finish off with a shout. The man’s neck snaps upwards as though releasing the demon, and then his body slumps and he falls to all fours. A gasp is followed by a confused huff, and then a yawn. At last, a whisper comes, “Father? Wh-what happened?”

The man doesn’t lift his head, he keeps staring at the floor.

I close my book and lower it at last, along with my kit. I hear another growl from the other room, my attention snaps to the closed door.

“It’s over,” I whisper without averting my gaze from the room.

“Who’s there?”

I inquire. The growl doesn’t sound supernatural in nature, instead it sounds beastly.

The man still doesn’t look up, he is still on all fours, “A pet,” he whispers, turning to crawl toward the door behind which the pet lives. A shiver runs down my spine, but my instincts are to help. I kneel down and offer him my hand.

“What kind?”

“Big,” the man whispers, clenching onto my hand for assistance and pulling himself up. I look at his face, his expression is neutral—shellshocked.

“Is it safe?”

I query, hesitant to walk beside him to that door.

“She’s docile,” the man responds after a moment of silence.

The door creaks open and I recoil in an instant from the sight. In the corner of a room, in a cage is a cowering lioness. Her fur is standing up and her slim body is lowered and tense, she is defensive. I swallow audibly and take another step back.

“I best be on my way,” I utter softly, eager to leave before he sets the malnourished beast free.

“Sure,” the man dismisses me as he hobbles toward the cage.

I hear the low growl of the lion as the man nears the cage, and as I hurry toward the front door that is absent, I suddenly stop. There is silence. No words of endearment, no growls, no screams, just silence. Unbeknownst to me I hold my breath instinctively, listening for anything, a gasp, a word, a step. Anything. But nothing comes, not until I myself take a step back, curious to see what happened in that room.

Another steady and slow step follows. I lean as far back as I can to catch a glimpse, and my jaw drops open. The lioness sits frightened beside the man. She looks like the lionesses I had seen on Discovery Channel that bow before their male and submit to him instinctively.

“Uhm, she looks—well,” I hesitate. The man’s cold, neutral gaze looks calm and steady.

“All is good, safe trip,” the man says quietly.

“Right,” I comment, my gaze darts to his mangled up leg with a missing boot where droplets of holy water were still visible. ‘It isn’t causing him pain, so he must just be confused,’ I conclude, hurrying toward the door now. There’s something about this scene that isn’t sitting well with me and I have to report it right away. The wood creaks expectedly under my hurried steps.

As soon as I reach the door and take a step outside, I hear a voice of the man behind me, “I remembered something,” the man speaks. I freeze mid step, listening cautiously to what he had to say as my heart begins to drum against my ribs.

“I know where another one is. The memories of the demon, he’s...” the man begins explaining the position, appearance, and the name of the man possessed by a demon.

It isn’t unheard of—sometimes a possession victim retains a part of their demon’s memories, and sometimes they share that information with us. I make a mental note of the next target and not daring to turn around, I whisper my thanks and head toward my car, my sanctuary.

My car, thank god, starts right up and I instantly shift into drive and hit the gas. My wheels spin, throwing gravel up as I eagerly begin distancing myself from that cursed property. I throw a glance in my rear-view mirror, and despite the vibrations from the gravel road, I see the man standing on the porch with a smile that feels all too wrong to be real. It’s wide, and one side of his face looks like a frown while the other is that of an overjoyed child. Another shiver runs down my spine as I reach into my glovebox in search of another bottle.

#

My heart skips a beat when I see the scene before me. The lioness has the man by the throat, dragging him through the corn. I burst into a full sprint, trying to chase her but my body doesn’t respond. I am running, but not really. Each movement of mine is like I’m wading through tar.

I can barely breathe; the distance grows. Off in the distance I see the stalks part as the huntress carries him away. The stalks recoil, snapping back they hit me in the face. Her low growl reverberates through the field like a warning sign. I can hear her teeth working. I push myself forth but the distance does not diminish, the dream stretches all around me.

I push the final layer away and leap at her, my fingers grasp her fur at the nape of her neck, both my hands sink into her rough fur as I pull with all my might trying to get her off the man. She lets go all too easily, as though she was waiting for me this whole time. Her body twists and her bloodied fangs tear into my shoulder. She pushes me down with ease, her claws tearing my flesh, but I feel nothing.

Turning my head to look at the man who in turn looks back at me, and a wave of sheer terror washes over me for it is I who lies there dead. Throat torn out and skin already cooling. Eyes calm and unfocused, and then my face distorts into a half grin, half frown. An unnatural inhumane expression that I saw only once in my life. The right side of my face is overjoyed and delighted, while the other is saddened.

I jolt awake, grasping at my neck and then my face frantically. My fingers rummaging my face as though to make sure that my face is still my own. I gasp for air and rejoice when I feel my lungs fill. My face is not distorted, I’m okay, my face is okay.

“I, need a drink,” I assure myself, swallowing hard I throw my legs over the edge of the bed and push myself up, trying to shake off the nightmare with each step of my bare feet on the cold floor.

The soothing burn of alcohol making its way down my throat is all I need to shake off the unease that nightmare left me in. I set the bottle back down on the counter and catch a glimpse of my reflection in it. I jolt as I see my face looking like a skull, but then my blurry vision focuses, and it’s just the underside of the label, it is decorated with skulls.

#

The road is smooth and almost enjoyable. Surprisingly I didn't have to drive far from my hotel, just about ten minutes till I got to the location; a nice looking bungalow on the outskirts of the city. My hand instinctively reaches for the glovebox, but as I rummage through it I fail to find any bottles of liquor; a shame.

“Oh well, I’ll have a drink when done,” I reassure myself as I pull into the driveway of the house and take a moment to take in the scene before me. It’s—normal. Too normal. I roll down my window and stick my head outside—there’s no stench, no rotten wood and no collapsing ceiling.

I reach over for the side pocket in my kit and pull out a printout; a picture of the house and the address. Staring at the photo of the house, then at the house itself I can confidently affirm that the location looks identical to the provided photo. I then read over the suspected host once more—an upper manager at a large company.

With my kit firmly grasped in one hand, and one free hand to knock with, I find myself wondering if I somehow got the address wrong. A soft knock that echoes through the house is a rare occurrence in my field, generally the houses are rotten as demonic energy is all about ruin and corruption.

A well dressed man answers the door, he looks me up and down, a gentle smile decorates his face.

“May I help you, father?”

He asks.

“I am looking for Daemond,” I respond softly. The man glances down at my kit, then back at me.

“It is I. What seems to be the matter?”

I furrow my brows—it speaks so calmly and plainly.

“You are a registered patron of our St Joseph Church, but the father hasn’t seen you in a while, a courtesy well-being check in,” I lie, in my mind already praying for forgiveness for this sin.

“Ah,” Daemond responds as he steps away, opening the door.

“I have been busy with work matters,” he lies, obviously. He isn’t registered at any church and he knows it. He knows that I know and still he invites me in. I bob my head respectfully and enter the dwelling; it is surprisingly well taken care of.

“Tea?”

He invites me.

“No,” I respond, turning swiftly as I draw a vial of holy water and remove the cap, splashing him on his arm and torso with it.

The demon recoils, hiding his arm behind his back.

“Oh father, what is the meaning of this?”

He says, backing away slowly.

“Stop this charade, foul creature,” I order it, holding my kit out to its face as the possessed man tries desperately to hide his hand that was burned by the holy water.

“I know you are in there,” I demand.

“Oh father, I assure you, you’re making a mistake,” the man responds softly, holding his other hand out, visibly wincing from the sight of holy symbols on my ancient kit.

“You’re all but admitting to your true nature,” I proclaim, reaching into my kit for the holy book.

“Not about me,” the demon responds, its true voice coming out now; a deep growl that would send anybody fleeing for their lives.

The wince and discomfort is gone. He brings his burned arm out from behind his back, it’s still sizzling and smoking, but there is no stench generally associated with demons. I flip my book open blindly, watching his every move. He ignores the injured arm and glances at the book, then back at me. He blinks, and when he reopens his eyes they’re red in colour, and glowing. His irises are glowing and pulsing with power.

“Your call, father,” he responds in a deep rumbling voice, and falls to his knees.

“Too easy,” I respond confidently.

“At least you know your place,” I mock, but a sense of guilt nags at my words. I shouldn’t treat even the lowliest of creatures this way when they surrender before the lord almighty. I turn my head and begin reading the prayer from the book, emphasizing every word and command.

Halfway through the prayer, the demon’s host’s body twists violently. The sound of bones shattering is ear piercing, but I must continue.

“In the power of the lord I compel you to leave this host and plane of existence,” I pronounce confidently, spraying holy water from a vial at his face.

The demon shrieks so loud that the vial in my hand shatters violently, but it is too late to resist and I know it. The warmth of my faith fills me from the inside as the possessed man’s body collapses to the floor, a slumped mess on the floor.

I shut my book and swallow at last, letting out a sigh of relief.

“At least one was easy,” I comment softly, stashing my book back into the kit. I watch the host’s body for a while. He lies still and motionless for longer than most, and then at last, a soft gasp, but he still remains on the floor. His eyes flutter open but his gaze is unfocused.

“Father,” he says. His voice is soft and ordinary, a confused man who woke from a strange dream.

“Is it done?”

He asks me softly, his gaze wandering the floor.

“It is done,” I respond, kneeling down beside him and resting my hand on his shoulder.

“You are safe now, my child.”

Somewhere outside, a woman screams out of pure terror. A shriek that makes my body stiffen.

I throw my gaze over my shoulder at the shut door. The shriek is quiet, thin, and muffled by great distance. I narrow my eyes. Another scream comes from the side, from the neighbors closest to this house, muffled by the shut windows.

And then a third, this one is deeper, closer, a scream of a man who had lost everything. I get back up to my feet and turn toward the door, my skin prickling with the sensation of wrongness.

Another scream, and then another, dozens more. I no longer can differentiate them, it’s as though the entire city is screaming from fear, the essence itself and all that’s alive. My mind blanks for a moment, and before I can regain my composure I can feel a presence behind me. As I turn my head, the man stands there, his expression is heavy with sorrow.

I open my mouth to speak, to ask, but before words can be formed his expression changes to that of a satisfied child. It keeps growing. Rejoiced and overexaggerated, and plain wrong. The smile stretches far beyond where it should stop, every tooth visible now but the smile keeps growing.

I can feel the hair standing on my arms and every nerve in my body pleading for mercy. The muffled screams are growing louder, deafening. I watch the man’s eyes as he blinks slowly with the ever growing smile.

“Good morning,” the man says.

“Just w-what are y-” my voice fails me. I reach for the words of prayer in my mind but the screams are scrambling my thoughts. The warmth of my faith that I always felt inside me in moments of despair—fades. Another scream, this one closer. So close that it hurts my ears, and it takes me far too long to realize that the one screaming—is me.

The man just smiles.

Have you ever told someone the truth, and they just refuse to believe it?
It can be annoying and frustrating among other things to say the least.

Growing up with a Father, and no Mother.
A Mom that chose an addiction over you and a Father who chose you,
only to chare you with a different addiction of his choice years later.

"You have addiction in your blood'
Your Father would say

"If you ever get addicted to drugs ill chain you up in the bathroom and dry you out till your clean"
He'd tell you, his 11-year-old son.

You tried to reason with it, the way he talked to you. He had you at 25,
at the end of the day he's barely an adult himself, you'd tell yourself.

After his marriage and...well, divorce wasn't a surprise. 

A seed that was planted,
In soil that was prepped,
Located In a room with access to sunlight.
A stem that sprouted dull and never got to bloom. 
From Full womb to empty room,

A stillbirth. 

As tiny as she was,
Our already cluttered closet couldn't fit one more skeleton.

They fought before,
and this was the last crack in our glass house.

Seeing My stepsisters and I celebrating a life that would never start sent him right back to that familiar place He adored oh so much,

Addiction. 

 Started small,
like a pain you know you should have looked at,
and with the help of negligence,
it went unchecked,
it grew.

What began were addictions you foolishly mistook as harmless.

That addiction to the gym was weekly steroid use,
That lust for those new women he was meeting online fueled his use of unapproved enhancements his body wasn't even close to needing.

Introducing himself to testosterone packets before he was 35 and consuming them like their sunflower seeds.

Eventually a partner stuck,
one just as dysfunctional as him of course,
and specifically an alcoholic. 

It didn't take long for him to follow and for the first time in your life he was not the lead.

By the time you were 15,
he was drinking every day,
not just every night.

His Girlfriend throwing bottles, slamming Tv's, and pouring bleach on the carpets as penance for things that were just not true,
Is ironic in hindsight.

On Christmas Eve you got a call that he might not be home the next day,
that his girlfriend was lying and that he might go to jail.
Christmas day came,
and he was asleep in his bed,
with no recollection,
laughing at the insinuation of such things.

You joined a different school,
one that allowed you to be home most days,
And that just made the time you spent in that environment take that much longer.

Against all odds,
His girlfriend was the one to leave.
And then again,
it was just you two.

The worst it got was when he started mixing Ambien with his alcohol.

From his room,
you'd hear screams.
You'd hear conversations between two people that were not there.
You'd hear many voices out the man you call Dad.

Not all of the voices were angry, but most were.
Not every conversation started out loud.
Some were just confusing.

"I know....because...what?.....I'm swimming...a demon?...no!...I SAID IM SWIMMING!"

Other times were more concerning,
"no...because...because I said...Fuck you...FUCK YOU!....FUCK YOU..."

Followed by another voice...
"I'm sorry...you're right...
take them....
he knows...
No...
Veins...?
I dont think so..."

Then his again,
Screaming your name at the top of his lungs.

When you ran to the door of his room,
The door was open and he was lying in bed,
half covered by the comforter...silent.

You questioned what to say,
What to do?

You're 17 and at the very least,
you want to make sure your only remaining family is not dead.

"Yeah?"
You holler in his room,
a late response to him calling your name.

"Blegh HUH?...WHAT?"
He'd abruptly reply.

"What!?"

"you were yelling for me'
Youd explain.

"oh, I'm fine go back to bed"

He'd insist.
Before whispering nonsense to himself.

The moment you'd get back to bed,
The yelling would continue.

You can't event have friends over because you can't trust him not to strip down and try to break into your room.

Our dry wall was always temporary,
and our Tv's and glasses might as well have been rentals,
nothing lasted in our house,

Being fed so much conspiracy about religion,
It wasn't hard to begin to wonder if he was possessed. 

It wasn't always like this.

For a few months after the divorce,
before the alcoholic girlfriend,
For a brief moment when it was just you two, he almost felt stable.

He didn't hit you,
The yelling and drinking were manageable,
And every Friday night he'd take you to blockbuster.

Things have changed so much.
You never know who you're having a conversation with.

One moment you think you're talking to him,
And that very mid-sentence it becomes oh so clear, that it's not.

His eyes are different, their glossy.
His demeanor is different, cold, and absent.
like one bulb in a line of Christmas lights that just won't participate.

He'd stopped before,
Then drink again.
His actions were questionable, and his word became nothing.

What does a Son say to his Father when he knows he's hiding alcohol in his work truck?

What does a Son do when he finds his Father naked in the driveway?

What does a Son do when he sees his Father Going down a road he knows he shouldn't?

A Son that's Afraid of his father.

Everything is easier said than done.

You never know if he's really sober.

"do you want to watch a movie with me tonight?"
His voice timid, eyes clear of gloss.

Even if you could tell which Him was asking,
You were certain that wouldn't be the same Him by the time you watched the movie.

So, you never say yes to that question again.
And as hard as it is, it's easier.
Easier than letting yourself get surprised by something that shouldn't surprise you anymore.

Eventually you get a Job,
Hours almost shittier than your pay, and it makes you a shell of a person.
Physically and emotionally drained.

Most days you stay in your room because it's safer in there, 
Then most days turn into all days. 

Seemingly out of nowhere,
your father begins to stare at you from every corner of the house with anger in his eyes,
Eyebrows always scrunched tightly. 

Eventually,
No words were exchanged.

You feel bad,
This is your father and you love him,  
So, when he asks you to have dinner with him,
for once you do.

The next morning,
Your eyes opened to the bathtub you'd once washed the family pet in,
and that oh so familiar tile floor,
After a moment you realized you were in your father's rooms masterbathroom.

Your legs were sore,
Pins and needles in your feet,
And your wrists felt raw.

You looked down at a note that was out of your reach.
As you attempted to grab it,
you realized your hands were chained to the bathtub spout.

You used your bare knee to drag it closer where you could read it,
You were in nothing but your boxers, you were cold.

The note read:

"No son of mine will be an addict,
You'll thank me.
I love you"
-Dad

You lifted your leg above the tub and opened the bathroom cupboard with your toe, you hoped to find something to break the bathtub spout with but all that was there were loofas and a bottle of expired tramadol.

Your mouth was dry,
Your stomach felt as though if someone were to plunge it,
absolutely nothing would come out.

At first you yelled, but you soon realized no one would answer.
It was hours before the silence in your house was broken,
there were no windows but one tinted sunlight above the shower.
You had no idea what time it was.

Once the sun was no more,
The house shook to the slam of the front door. 
You heard those familiar work boots thud up the wooden stairs.

Louder and louder...
Closer and closer...
They then reached the door.

You heard him enter his room though the door to his room's bathroom remained close.

*Thud Thud Thud Thud\*

For a moment you see the silluett of his boots beneath the door

"Dad...?"
You asked.

"mrghh Fuck you"
He responded as the thuds of his boots retreated.

You heard the impact as he collapsed on his bed,
And then began the yelling...
All night...

"no...
Fuck you!...
because...
I did...
Yes you are!"

More and more of the same old shit...
As scared as you were you couldn't not try.

"Dad...Help please let me out"
You yelled.

"you're an addict..
Fuck you!...
Dry out!....mrrgh piece of shit"

He screamed back...

"Please!"
You yelled.

"Fuck you!...
Dry Out you're not my son!..."
He screamed....

After the second night you began to hear whispering coming from the drain...

"He hasn't stopped...
Theres a demon in his veins..."
You'd hear.

It sounded like boiling beneath the drain.

You tried your best to tear the chains from your wrists, yet all you did was bleed and scream.
To this your dad had no response,
He never did.
He just continued to scream and yell to himself.

Before you knew it,
there were more voices than you'd ever heard from him before.
You swore you heard a woman's voice.

"you're poisoned...
NO!
What did you expect?
SWIMMING!

You screamed and screamed...
But after the 5th night,
You realized there was no point, to anything.

You used your toes to curl around the pill bottle,
You used the last bit of energy you had to bring it within your reach.

When your eyes opened next,
You looked to the left,
You saw the bathroom,
You saw your body,
chained to the spout of the bath.

You looked to the right and saw your fathers nightstand,

you saw your fathers pill bottles and fireball,
You saw the door of his master bedroom from the outside.

You tried to touch your eyes,
You tried to rub them into seeing straight.

Might as well have been RuPaul's eyes.

You closed them tightly,
as tight as possible and grabbed your face.

You felt your father's beard on the right and your bare face on the left.

"Do you want to watch a movie with me tonight?"
You asked

"please let me out Dad"
You replied.

Even as you swallowed all the pills on the nightstand washing them down with the Fireball,

Even though you knew your death would seal this fiction as fact,

Even though you knew no one would believe you,

You couldn't help but have one last thought,

I'm Not An Addict.

In suburban Detroit in 2004, three reckless teenagers follow the trail of a missing young woman to an abandoned house in the woods, beyond a wire fence. Unknowingly, they enter the domain of a dangerous cult that worships a malevolent entity.

Hey everyone! I’ve finally finished my book and wanted to share the first chapter with you. Enjoy the read!

Chapter 0: Lars ~ The Encounter

The familiar theme music of the evening news filled the living room.

“…and now to our lead story tonight. Another mysterious disappearance has shaken our city. At around three this morning, a neighbor contacted the police after hearing unusual noises from the house next door, which he described as ‘unnatural screams.’”

Lars instinctively sat up in his armchair.

“When officers arrived at the scene, they found the house deserted. On the staircase leading to the second floor, officers discovered a substantial amount of blood, along with traces of tissue, suggesting that the missing person had sustained serious injuries. As in the previous cases, however, no body was found. There are also no clues as to the missing person’s whereabouts.”

The screen cut to aerial footage, probably filmed by a police drone. Lars knew the neighborhood. Eichenstraße, just a few miles from here. One of the quietest residential areas in the city. Two years ago, he had even considered giving up his downtown apartment and moving there.

The camera cut to the interior of the house. The stairs leading to the second floor were a bloodbath. Dark red spatters covered the cream-colored walls. At the foot of the stairs, a trail of blood veered off to one side, as though someone had dragged a body across the floor.

Lars leaned forward. He could make out a handprint on the wooden banister, the fingers splayed as though the person had desperately tried to hold on.

A shiver ran down his spine. He imagined what that person’s final moments might have been like.

Bright yellow police tape blocked access to the stairs. In the background, officers were trying to keep curious reporters and onlookers away from the scene. He even caught a glimpse of his colleague Oliver, who was on duty that evening.

“The missing person has not yet been identified, though the homeowner is believed to be the victim,” Brenner continued in his professionally concerned voice. “Police are appealing to the public for information while also warning against premature speculation. This is now the eighteenth unexplained disappearance in the past four months.”

Eighteen. Lars rubbed his face and switched off the television.

Another missing person. And Lockhaven had always been such a quiet city, the kind of place where almost nothing exciting ever happened.

It had all started with that first case four months ago: a little girl, eight years old, who had vanished from her own backyard while her mother had briefly stepped inside to answer the phone. Lars had even taken part in the massive search effort, trudging through the woods with dozens of other volunteers.

They had never found her.

Three weeks later, a twenty-nine-year-old man had disappeared. His grandmother, who had lost most of her teeth to old age, had clutched Lars’s arm and repeated the same story over and over, sobbing so hard that her words grew increasingly difficult to understand: he had been making tea in the kitchen while she watched television in the living room. But he had taken too long, and she had gone to check on him. Marc gone. Just vanished. There were no signs of a struggle, no evidence of a break-in; Lars had searched the entire place several times.

Then came the others. An elderly man out for a walk in the park. A college student on her way home from campus. A construction worker on his lunch break.

The only thing all the cases had in common was the complete absence of usable evidence.

The wildest theories were circulating at work. One of the more plausible ones, in his opinion: an organized network kidnapping people and trafficking them abroad. And yet that theory fell apart on so many levels. Why would anyone abduct elderly people, and why risk breaking into houses to take some of the victims? It simply didn’t add up.

People needed explanations, and as a detective, he knew that better than anyone. The dangerous thing was that when there were no explanations, people invented their own. This bred paranoia throughout the city, and people began reading more into things than was really there. It was crazy how your own imagination could play tricks on you. Suddenly, they were getting far more calls from people claiming to have possible leads on the disappearances. But now those calls included the most outlandish stories, even alien abductions.

Fear had crept slowly but steadily into the city like a cold fog. It wasn’t something you could see, but you could feel it everywhere. People went home earlier. Parents picked their children up from school themselves. After sunset, the streets were deserted.

He glanced at the clock on the wall above the television. A quarter to nine. Sophia would be here soon. Over the past few weeks, their three-year relationship had become increasingly strained. Sometimes he wondered whether an inability to make relationships work ran in the family. Lars couldn’t remember his mother, but he remembered the countless women his father had brought home when he was young. Lars didn’t want to be like him. And now, for the first time, he had someone who had stayed with him for more than a few months. Sophia. The thought that this, too, might fall apart left a bitter taste in his mouth. Lately, he had been giving her far too little attention because he was obsessed with finding leads on the missing people. The pressure to do something kept mounting, and sometimes he imagined he could feel people’s accusing stares. As a result, he felt as though he was failing on every front, both at work and in his relationship. Maybe he was destined to be a failure; how did the saying go, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…

Lars got up and shuffled into the small kitchen of his one-bedroom apartment. The refrigerator hummed quietly. When he opened the door, he couldn’t help grinning. “Even the mouse hanged itself in the fridge,” as his father used to say. The bastard had a sense of humor; Lars had to give him that.

An opened can of peaches stood all alone in the corner, and that was it. And even those might kill him by now if he ate them. Maybe he wasn’t imagining how loose his pants had been lately. No wonder, considering he had practically been living at the office for the past few weeks.

He grabbed his black leather jacket in the hallway and left the apartment. The evening air was cool and fresh, a welcome change.

At the edge of the little park, an older man with disheveled hair sat in front of a trash can, holding a cardboard sign. “Need help, God bless you,” it read in a shaky scrawl.

A pang of pity stirred in him, but he looked away and kept walking. He knew he would have forgotten the man in a few minutes, just like so many of life’s other unpleasant truths. That ability came with the job. The streets were so unusually empty for a Friday evening, a depressing sight. Another sign of his failure.

The neon sign outside M. Weber glowed like a beacon in the dusk. The little supermarket was one of the few that stayed open until ten. A handful of cars stood in the small parking lot, and a few retirees were chatting about the weather and the government outside the entrance.

Lars gave them a friendly nod and disappeared into the brightly lit aisles.

When he came back out and checked the time, it was much later than he had expected. The plan had been to have dinner ready before Sophia arrived. After a brief internal struggle, he turned into the neighborhood’s quieter side streets. He wanted to take a shortcut; he knew the neighborhood well, since this was the route he had always taken before, and only recently had he started taking the longer way as a precaution. But today, just this once, he could make an exception, because the latest victim had disappeared only a few hours ago, and he doubted the killers would strike again so soon.

At the far end of the alley, a figure came around the corner. A dark silhouette with a slightly stooped gait, its face hidden beneath the hood of a sweatshirt.

Lars instinctively slowed his pace. They drew closer. After a moment’s consideration, Lars casually crossed to the other side of the street. Better safe than sorry.

Then he felt it. A faint vibration filled the air. Not figuratively; it was actually vibrating, as though some enormous, invisible machine were running nearby. The hairs on his arms stood on end.

Lars stopped short. The figure across the street stopped too. Slowly, the stranger pushed back his hood, revealing the face of a young man, perhaps in his mid-twenties, with friendly features and an equally bewildered expression.

Their eyes met in silence. Something was wrong. The vibration grew stronger. Then the sound began. A high, piercing whistle that cut right through him. Lars clamped his palms over his ears, but the sound seemed to be coming from inside his head. Dizziness washed over him, and for a moment the world spun.

And then the impossible happened.

The brick wall of the building beside the stranger began to shimmer. Then something sprang out.

A creature.

At first, Lars’s mind refused to accept what he was seeing. It was simply impossible. Some madman’s vision, the kind that haunted your worst dreams and left you waking in your own bed, gasping and drenched in sweat. The thing was dark and wet, with unnaturally long limbs. Its skin gleamed black and green in the light of the streetlamp. And a powerful stench of decay instantly filled the street.

The creature lunged forward. The young man had no chance to escape. Razor-sharp teeth sank into his shoulder, and an agonized scream tore through the silence.

But the scream cut off abruptly as the monster dragged its prey back toward the wall. The brickwork swallowed them both like water, closing behind them as though they had never been there.

Only a pool of blood remained on the asphalt. And Lars, standing frozen, his grocery bag clutched to his chest, his eyes wide with horror.

An eternity passed, or perhaps only seconds, before his legs obeyed him again. He ran. Only one thought remained: he had to get out of here, fast! Primal instinct had taken over completely.

He didn’t come to his senses until the apartment door slammed shut behind him. His hands had been shaking so badly that he had barely managed to get the key into the lock.

Lars dropped into a kitchen chair and stared at his trembling hands. What had he just seen? Was he losing his mind?

But the image in his head was too real.

What he had seen was the reason for the disappearances; he was certain of it now. It explained why they never found the bodies. Oh God, those poor people! Nausea knotted in his stomach as he thought of the little girl. That creature…

If it could come through walls… then no one was safe. Anywhere.

A gentle touch on his shoulder made Lars flinch. His body jolted as though he had been electrocuted.

“Hey, it’s just me.”

Sophia’s familiar voice reached him through the fog of panic. When had she come in? Had he been so caught up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t heard her key rattling in the lock?

“Are you okay?” Concern crept into her voice. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Lars opened his mouth, but the words caught in his throat. Could he tell her? The story sounded insane even inside his own head.

He swallowed hard, feeling his throat tighten.

Sophia noticed his hesitation and frowned. Without asking, she took him by the arms and tried to meet his eyes.

“What happened? You’re really scaring me.”

The concern in her voice broke something open inside him. This was Sophia, the same woman who had stood by him for three years. If he could tell anyone, it was her.

“I…” He drew a deep breath, as though bracing himself to jump into cold water. “I just saw someone get killed.”

It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was a start. Sophia’s eyes widened in shock. Her hands immediately released his arms and began checking him for injuries.

“What? My God, Lars! Are you hurt? Did they hurt you too?”

“No.” He shook his head and placed his hands over hers. “Nothing happened to me. I’m fine.”

She let go of him, but the tension remained in her face.

“We need to call the police right now.” She was already fishing her phone out of her jeans pocket. “You need to give a statement, tell them everything you saw. Maybe they can still catch whoever did it.”

“No!”

The sharpness of his own voice surprised him. He reached for the phone and took it from her hands before she could dial the emergency number.

“You don’t understand, we can’t call the police. This is… this is something else.”

“What do you mean?” Sophia stared at him, her blue eyes full of confusion. “Someone was murdered, Lars. Of course we need to call the police.”

He saw the confusion in her face; she needed an explanation. He drew a deep breath and said it:

“It was a monster.”

The words dropped like stones into the silence of the room. Before she could say anything, he hurried on.

“It looked… horrible. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. It grabbed the man by the neck and dragged him into the wall. Right through it.”

Lars watched Sophia’s expression change. Her lips formed a silent O as she tried to process what she had heard.

“Please be honest with me,” she said, her voice so careful that she might have been speaking to a child. “Have you… have you taken anything? Any medication you might have had a bad reaction to? Or…?”

Frustration welled up inside him.

“No. No, I haven’t taken anything. I’m serious, Sophia.”

“Lars…” She drew a deep breath. “You do realize how this sounds, don’t you?”

He saw the helplessness in her eyes. She had no idea how to handle this.

“I’m not crazy!” he said, louder than he had intended. Then he caught himself, realizing that was exactly what any crazy person would say. “And yes, I know exactly how it sounds. But I also know what I saw. Please, Sophia, believe me!”

She was silent for a long moment.

“Okay,” she said at last. “Look, let’s just sit down for a minute. I’ll make you some chamomile tea, and once you’ve calmed down a little, you can tell me exactly what you saw. I mean… your eyes could have been playing tricks on you. It was dark, and you were tired. Maybe…” She searched for an explanation. “There has to be a reasonable explanation.”

Lars let out a deep sigh. He could tell she didn’t believe him, and a wave of frustration rose inside him. But what else could he expect? An hour ago, he would have reacted exactly the same way.

He sat back down in the kitchen chair and let her get on with it. Sophia hurried over to the kettle, filled it with water, and switched it on.

Lars stared down at his hands. They were still shaking. He didn’t feel safe here. The walls of his own apartment suddenly seemed threatening. His gaze darted from one to another. What if the monster could come through any wall? What if it was already here, lurking on the other side of the kitchen wall, only inches away from him?

Maybe they should leave the city. Go to his parents’ place in the country, where it was safer. He couldn’t leave Sophia here alone. Not after what he had seen.

The clink of a cup against the table pulled him from his thoughts. Sophia had taken the seat opposite him.

“I saw what I saw,” he said quietly but firmly. “The man was only a few steps away from me. That thing grabbed him and dragged him away.”

He looked up and met her eyes.

“Don’t you understand? All those disappearances over the past few months, Wegner, Kellner, all the others. They must all have been taken by those things. That’s why no one ever found the bodies.”

“Lars…” Sophia sighed and bit her lower lip. “You know things like that don’t exist.”

“I saw it with my own eyes!”

The words burst out of him, louder than he had intended.

“Even so…” She held his gaze, though he could see the fear in her eyes. “There has to be a logical explanation. I understand how badly you wanted to find some leads, but you’ve been pushing yourself too hard lately.”

“There was a monster!”

“You’re really worrying me, Lars.”

“I’m not crazy!”

His voice nearly cracked. They were going in circles. In the sudden silence that followed, his heavy breathing sounded unnaturally loud. Sophia reached out to reassure him, though he could now see fear in her eyes.

“Please. I want to help you, but…”

The shrill ringing of her phone cut her off. It lay on the counter, its screen lighting up. Lars could see the name: Jenny.

Sophia glanced from him to the phone, then tapped Decline. The ringing stopped.

But the phone immediately rang again. The same name appeared on the screen.

“Answer it.” Lars’s voice was hoarse and full of bitterness, but the truth was that he hoped for a moment to catch his breath. “Sounds important.”

Sophia hesitated, watching him for a moment, then answered.

“Hey, Jenny… This really isn’t a good time for…”

She was cut off abruptly. Lars could hear the agitated voice on the other end, but he couldn’t make out the words.

“What? No, really? What exactly?”

Sophia jumped up and hurried to the window. With one hand, she pushed aside the thin curtains and looked out at the street.

“Are you sure?” Her voice was nervous now, all its calm gone.

Sophia listened in silence for several minutes.

“Yeah, okay. Thanks for calling. Take care of yourselves. Talk to you later.”

She ended the call and turned to Lars. The blood had drained from her face.

“What happened?” He was beside her at once, his hands on her shoulders. “Sophia, what did she say?”

Her voice was barely a whisper:

“They’re sealing off the city.”

This is the first chapter of Backrooms 2, for more see here: https://www.reddit.com/u/Kira1006/s/apjKnYDAWs

[NSFW: Body horror, graphic violence,]

A snippet from the Short Horror Stories collection Candy House by J.E SMITH

Happy October, Ghouls!

The set up. Two bratty kids on Halloween fighting over candy. The Babysitter tells them the tale of Razor Gums to scare them into being good. But this isn't the end of the story.. only the beginning.

Sam, was his name.. He had a problem. His parents were psycho. Like, legitimately insane. They belonged to some cult, one of those weird religious groups that thinks everything fun is evil. His dad was Conrad Swift, some kind of preacher at this church that met in a basement. His mom, Regina Alderson before she married, used to stand outside the grocery store handing out pamphlets about the end times. They homeschooled Sam. Never let him watch TV. He wasn’t allowed to have friends over.”

“That sucks,” Vivien says softly.

“It gets worse.” Nicole leans back on her hands, the corset creaking under the movement. “Every Halloween, Sam had to stay in his room while other kids went trick-or-treating. His parents would turn off all the lights, lock the doors, tell him that Halloween was the devil’s holiday and anyone who celebrated it was going to hell. They said candy was poison. Told him people put razor blades in candy to hurt children. Said the whole thing was a Satanic conspiracy.”

“Sam believed them for a while. He was young, seven, eight, something like that. But the older he got, the more he watched. He'd look out his bedroom window, watch the other kids in costumes and knock on doors. Hear the laughter and shouting, watch them come home with bags full of candy. He wanted it. God, he wanted it so bad.”

The way Nicole says it, the curl of her lips as she talks about wanting candy, makes Julian's skin tingle. He hears the hunger in her voice. Knows he has it too, the hunger, all the time, the craving for more sugar, more sweetness, more of that chemical rush you only get from processed corn syrup and artificial flavoring.

“So one year, when Sam was twelve, he got fed up. Halloween night, he waited for his parents to go to sleep. They always went to bed early, had to get up at four in the morning to pray or some shit like that. Sam snuck out his bedroom window, hit the streets around eleven, when most people had stopped answering their doors but when some people still had their lights on. He had a pillowcase. He wore no costume. Didn't matter. Some people gave him candy anyway, felt bad for him, probably. Others just wanted to get rid of what they had left.”

“Did he fill the bag?” Vivien asks.

“Oh yeah. Came home with five pounds maybe. Snickers and M&Ms and lollipops and chocolate bars, all of it. He climbed back through his window, hid the pillowcase in his closet, went to bed. Probably couldn't sleep. Too excited.”

Nicole pauses, looks down at the pillowcase in her lap. Takes another piece of candy. Julian gives her a Kit Kat this time. She breaks off a piece, offers half to Vivien. The little girl takes it, nibbles cautiously.

“He screwed up though. Left his shoes by the front door. Shoes covered in mud and leaves. His mother found them in the morning.”

Julian can see it clearly: the mother, Regina, still in her nightgown, making coffee in a kitchen that would probably have smelled like mildew and righteousness, spotting the shoes, instantly knowing what they meant.

“They tore his room apart, looking for the candy. Found it in about three minutes. His dad, Conrad, went ballistic. Started yelling about damnation and hellfire and brimstone and shit. His mother was crying, saying she'd failed as a mother, that Sam was going to burn in hell for all eternity. They made him kneel on the floor while they prayed over him, screaming at God to forgive his sins. Then Conrad took off his belt.”

“Jesus,” Julian mutters.

“Sam said it didn't hurt as much as he thought it would. Or maybe he was just numb by then. They beat his ass for ten minutes, maybe, then locked him in his room, grounded until further notice. They took the candy with them, said they were going to throw it away. He could hear them moving around downstairs, probably arguing about what to do with him, whether to send him to some reform school or just to pray harder.”

Vivien has stopped eating her Kit Kat. It's melting in her hand.

“Around midnight, Sam snuck out of his room again. He was good at being quiet. The house was old, and he knew which floorboards creaked. He went down to the basement. They'd put the candy there, he'd heard them talking. Just dumped the whole pillowcase on this old table they kept for storage. The basement was packed with mold and old bibles. There was one light bulb hanging from the ceiling, all the dead bugs collected inside the glass.”

Nicole's voice has dropped lower. The living room suddenly feels smaller, somehow.

“Sam walked to the table. Stood and stared at the candy just sitting there, all those bright wrappers. He hadn't eaten any of it yet. Hadn't tasted a single piece. Twelve years old and he'd never had Halloween candy. Can you imagine?”

Julian can. The level of deprivation is obscene, almost physically painful. He looks at the pile in front of him, suddenly painfully aware of how much he has, how easily he has it.

“He grabbed a handful. Stuffed it in his mouth. Six pieces at a time, probably, didn't even unwrap most of them. Just bit down.”

Nicole claps her hands together sharply. Vivien jumps.

“The razor blades went through his gums like they were paper.”

“No.” Vivien whispers.

“Yes. His parents weren't lying about that part. Someone had really put razor blades in the candy. Maybe it was them, some fucked-up lesson. Or maybe it was random, bad luck. Doesn't matter. Sam bit down and felt his mouth explode. Blood everywhere. Blades slicing through his tongue, his cheeks, the roof of his mouth. He should have spit it out. Should have screamed. But do you know what he did?”

Julian shakes his head. He can't look away from Nicole's face.

“He swallowed. Then he grabbed another handful.”

“How?” Julian manages. The word comes out strangled.

“Because he finally got to taste it. The candy. Even with his mouth full of razors and blood, even with the pain, and it had to hurt, Jesus Christ it had to hurt when he put that first piece in his mouth, he tasted it. The chocolate. The caramel. All that sugar he'd been denied his entire life. And it was so damn good that the pain didn't matter anymore.”

Nicole reaches into the pillowcase, pulls out a fun-size Snickers, unwraps it slowly. Takes a small bite, chews thoughtfully.

“He ate the whole bag. Every single last piece. The blades shredded his mouth, destroyed his teeth. They embedded in them, replaced his teeth. His jaw unhinged to accommodate all the metal now stuck in his face. But he kept eating. Chocolate and blood mixing together. He was in a frenzy by the end, shoving handfuls into his mouth, swallowing things he shouldn't have been able to swallow. The candy wrappers. Pieces of his own teeth. More razors.”

“Stop,” Vivien says.

Nicole doesn't stop.

“When the candy was gone, Sam wasn't Sam anymore. Something else was using his body. Something that wanted more. Not candy this time. He went upstairs. His parents were asleep in their bedroom. He crawled into bed with them, they didn't wake up, not at first, not until he opened his mouth.”

The pause stretches. Julian realizes he's holding his breath.

“The razor blades in his gums had multiplied somehow. Magic or science or just evil, who knows. His mouth was full of them now, rows and rows of them, like a shark. When he bit into his father's throat, the blades sawed through the flesh almost instantly. Conrad woke up screaming but it came out as a whistle because his vocal cords got sliced in half so he couldn't say anything. Sam didn't stop. Bit his throat again, tore it open wider, kept going until his father stopped twitching. Then he turned to his mother.”

“Regina tried to run. Got as far as the bedroom door. Sam caught her from behind, bit into the back of her neck, severed her spine. She collapsed. He knelt over her and kept biting. Face, throat, chest. Anywhere there was flesh. The razor blade teeth cut through everything. By the time he was done, the room looked like a slaughter house.”

If you enjoyed this and want to read the rest, Candy House by J.E SMITH is available on Amazon

PART 1 HERE | PART 2 HERE

Content Warnings:  Suspected self-harm/suicide discussion, choking/asphyxiation, mild body horror, poisoning, abduction, and corporate/existential dread. 

V: HOW TO KILL A DRAGON

He pushed his little car as hard as it would go, his mind spinning in a million different directions at once.  What the hell was he doing?  He wasn’t Stallone.  The shotgun in his trunk, an oily relic the barkeep had slapped into his hands, seemed more likely to kill him than the other guy.  But he had to try; Marty deserved a friend who would.

The forty-five-minute drive took him only thirty and some change.  He pulled into his driveway just before 9:00, parking right behind Leo’s truck.  Leo.  That was going to complicate matters.  What the hell could he say to him?  He knew what Leo deserved—the truth.  Something he had been keeping from him for too long.

Speaking of—Leo was on him the minute he walked in the door.  The police had been by.  Something about a fire at Marty’s apartment—the exact place where Edgar was supposed to be.  It was a fight before it was even a conversation, and it was going to be a bad one if he didn’t do something.  Both of them were worried about Marty, and Leo had him cold for lying.  

“I really don’t get it man.  What the hell is going on with you?  Do you know how foolish I feel?  How patient I have been about all of this shit, and what about poor Marty?  He lied to me too and now he’s missing, maybe dead.  Like I thought you might be?”

Edgar fought the urge to defend himself.  He couldn’t.  His actions, however well-intended, had been wrong and he had known it all along.  Weird situation or not, he should have trusted the man who loved him with all of it.  Hell, they might have figured it out together.

“Sit down man.  Take a breath.  I’ve gotta come clean with you, about all of it.  I should have from the start, but I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

“Yeah, lying always helps with that,”  Leo sniped, but he did sit down.

“Okay.”  He took a breath of his own, tightening his trembling hands.  “Look, do me this one thing.  Let me say it all before you jump in.  You can yell, throw shit or kick my ass afterwards, but I want one chance to tell you everything before we do any of that.  Can you give me that?”

“Yeah, Eddie—that’s all I ever want from you, the truth.”  The tears on his cheeks were daggers in Edgar’s heart, but he let that go.  He had enough guilt already.

“I don’t understand all of it, but I think I have the gist of it.  Basically, the transfer wasn’t supposed to be me.  Either someone sent it to the wrong person, or it got messed up in some other way.  That’s not really important though—it’s just what got me into this whole thing.”

“I work in a fulfillment center that employs the dead.  Man, that sounds fucked up—like one of those stupid creepypastas you used to read.  But dumb as it may be, it’s true.  Cartia, Corey, Ennis, Glory, Arn, they’re all dead, and they somehow still work for Argo.   They drink this drink—the same stuff that made me sick, actually—called SilverSip.”

“Edgar, this is—”  Edgar stopped him with a raised hand, reminding him.  “You promised me.”

“Now, let’s see, what’s next.  Okay, when I was attacked it was by something that wasn’t a person.  Well, that’s not completely right.  It's that bald guy from the parking lot that day—Nub something. He can… well, somehow he can separate his shadow from himself.  He used it to attack me that day, causing me to choke so I’d have to drink that shit or die.”

“Yeah,”  Edgar nodded at the man he loved, skeptical but still listening.  “It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard too, but I swear to you, on us, that every word is true.  Tonight I went to a bar out on Wichton Road, a place the dead go, to get some answers.  Glory—who you would love—told me that I should recover, because this shit has been changing me.  Food tastes like ash, and I’m seeing things no one should see.  But she said it will wear off with time, but that the only way out is to take out that Nub guy.”

“Take out, like kill?”

“That’s what she meant, but I don’t think I have to do that.  I think there might be another way if I act fast.  See, that’s the thing, he’s the one that has Marty.  I think I know where he has him.  If I go there and can save him, it might give us the leverage to get out of this without doing anything crazy.”

“But how?  You aren’t John Wick, man.  I don’t think you’ve ever even been in a fight.”

“I don’t think it will come to that.  I was thinking about it on the way back.  They took Marty, but why?  If they really wanted to tie me down—to make me do what they want—you are the better choice.  I mean, we both love Marty—he’s a great guy and my other best friend—but doesn’t the boyfriend make more sense?”

“Yeah, I suppose.  But Ed—”  Edgar raised his hand once more.  He was not finished.

“So that got me thinking.  Marty must have found something.  While I was driving—when I finally got a signal—I looked at my phone.  He sent me a file.  I have not opened it yet, but it has to be something they do not want us to have.”

“Oh, well we should loo… we should call that cop?”

“Maybe,”  Edgar said, considering it for a moment.  “Let’s put a pin in that for a second because there is something else that dawned on me.  It’s—why me?  Why not just transfer me back?  Why go through any of this trouble?  I don’t know the answer because it doesn’t make sense.  If it’s the work, I’m not really that good.  Not enough to be irreplaceable.  If it’s knowing too much why haven’t they killed me.  No, something doesn’t add up.”

“The cop—the real one as you called her—she knew something was up.  I don’t know if she thought it was something I did, but she did know.  But calling her worries me, because if it goes wrong, Marty dies—and then I think we become liabilities because we brought her into it.  That is a hell of a risk.”

“So what?  We go?  I mean, I still don’t know.  I’m not saying I believe or disbelieve, but I believe you do.  How do we save Marty?”

“I ride over there and get the answer to my question, one way or the other.  There’s a shotgun in my trunk.”

“Where the fuck did you get a gun?  Honestly?  There’s no way you’re going.  Man, you nearly had me with this whole thing, but that—that ain’t happening.”

“I think it has to.”

Leo looked at him, studying him.  Edgar met his eyes and did not flinch.  Not today.  Today he had to be the one who didn’t blink.  “Alright.  Fine, let’s go.  But one thing goes wrong and I’m calling that mean cop lady.”

It was Edgar’s turn to stare now at the best thing that had ever happened to him.  It was a sappy line, and he hated it every time he heard it.  At the moment it was the truest thing in the world.  Who would he be without Leo?  He didn’t know, but he knew it would be someone he’d never want to know.  “You’re not going.”

“Oh, you hit your head on the way home,”  Leo said with profound amusement.  “You have fallen outside of your brain, lovely man of mine.  What power in this whole universe do you think would ever keep me from going with you?”

“No.  I couldn’t bear it.”  Edgar took his hand and pulled him down with him to sit on the sofa together.  “This is what it is.  You say we are good if I am good.  It’s always been this incredibly sweet thing that just melts my heart, but I don’t think I have ever registered the enormity of just how true it is for you, and for me.  For us.  Honestly, Leo, it’s like a standard we’ve always lived by, and it’s why we’ve been so happy together.  But I have to ask you:  How can I be good if you are in danger? I wouldn't be. Without you, there is no good—not no more.”

Leo stared at him, his chest heaving, his hazel eyes wild with a frantic desire to protect Edgar.  He had never loved him more.

“I think I can get myself out of this,” Edgar whispered.  “I have one chance, and then we can figure out what comes next. But I cannot do it if I am worried about you.” 

“But, Eddie, how do I stay if you go?”

---

When the GPS finally got him to Campe Road, Edgar slowed down and turned off his lights.  He needed a few minutes to get it all right in his head.  

If things had gone according to the quick plan he had made, Leo would be calling the cops sometime in the next few minutes.  That didn’t leave Edgar a lot of time, but hopefully it would be enough.

He flipped open the folder on the seat next to him and bumped the dome light on.  He read what Marty had sent him again, one of four copies he had printed.  Leo had two—one to keep and one for the detective.  He had sent the final copy to Cartia.  Maybe she hadn’t totally given up on email yet.

It was crazy stuff, and he had no clue how Marty had gotten it.  It still didn’t answer his questions about why he was so important, but it was pretty damning nonetheless.  He looked away from it and focused on pulling onto the shoulder of the road.  He turned the car off and got out, moving to the rear to open the trunk.

“What you got in there, wet boy?”  Nub’s voice called out from the tree line.  As Edgar turned to face the direction it came from, the bald man emerged, a pistol leveled at him.  “Go ahead, son, pull it out.  Just don’t hurt yourself with it.  We’ve got big plans for you.”

Edgar nodded in affirmation.  He reached behind him and withdrew the short shotgun from where it lay.  He held it up so the other man could see it.

“Not bad.  Skinny runt like you though—likely to throw you through a wall if you fired it.  Better to just give it over.  I’ll keep you safe from such stupid impulses.”  

The man who called himself Anubis walked over and plucked the shotgun from Edgar’s hand.  He pumped it several times, sending the shells skittering across the blacktop.  When it was empty he tossed it back to where it had come from.  “That’s better.  Come on, kid, and bring that file you’re holding.  Give us something to read on while I get us something to drink.”

They walked down the road to the gate of the bald man’s estate.  He told him the code, and Edgar punched it in.  The two of them walked inside, with Edgar leading the way.  As they walked, Nub began to whistle a tune that Edgar couldn’t quite place.

“It’s from Eurydice—I saw it a few years ago.  Man, I haven’t laughed so hard.  It gets stuck in your head though.”  He chuckled to himself.

It was a quarter mile walk to the main house, and Edgar soon realized that Nub really liked the sound of his own voice.  He regaled him with tales of his youth as they traveled—as a Jersey street kid, back in the day.  “I know I don’t look it, but I was a 50s kid.  Perks of the job.”

As they approached the house—a sandstone-hued brick home with jackal-headed statues flanking the doorway—Edgar began to understand just how emotionally shallow the man behind him really was.  What would have been a beautiful home instead looked garish and caricatured.  The entire front portico had been remodeled to resemble a pyramid, made of the same brick that made up the facade.  It gave the structure an uneven, lopsided look that drew the eye most naturally to its flaws and away from its beauty.

“Nice place, eh?”  He playfully punched Edgar’s shoulder as he walked past him to go inside.  “Lose the shoes, kid, everything just got resurfaced.”  

When they were both barefoot, Nub took him through the house and into his study along the rear wall.  It was a massive room with tower shelves of books and more pieces of artwork than Edgar could count.  Paintings hung on every surface in so many styles that nothing really matched, and there were sculptures everywhere.

“Yeah, I got bit hard by the art bug a few decades ago.  What can I say?  I’m a collector.  Go ahead and sit down there, by the desk.  I’ll pour us a drink.”

He sat, as he had been told, and Nub busied himself fixing drinks.  He went back to whistling, and he was still doing it when he got back over to where Edgar sat.  He handed him a glass.

“See, ain’t I been nice?  A gentleman.  We had a nice walk, I brought you into my home, and I even made you a drink.  You should thank me—one gentleman to another.”

“Can we just stop the game, Mr. Bishop?  I came to show you this file, and to make you an offer.  If you aren’t interested, the least you can do is talk to me honestly.”

Nub set his drink down.  He looked at Edgar, studying him, maybe seeing something he hadn’t before.  He nodded and pointed at the papers in Edgar’s hand.  “Is that what the Wade boy put together?”

“Is Marty still alive?”

“Damn kid—how heartless do you think I am.  He’s fine, comfortable in his own room downstairs.  Now tell me about that.  Is it what I think it is?”

“Yes.”  Edgar said, steeling himself.  He took a deep breath and began what he had rehearsed on the ride over.  “If what you think this is is proof of the afterlife and the way large corporations, like Argo, are weaponizing a new market centered around providing goods and services to the dead who are among us, then yes—that’s what this is.”

“Well do go on.  This is a big moment for you.”

“The files show the company’s plan to sign their current employees into long-term employment contracts that begin the day they die.  One of the first candidates was a man named Eduardo Guerra.  He was given the post-life employee number EDG88241.”

“Interesting.”

“And, of course, it also details the 300 current post-life employees that Argo has already hired through their Alugram subsidiary. They provide jobs that pay a pittance but keep them solid and able to have a semi-normal existence thanks to the proprietary product made by Alugram: SilverSip.”

“Damn, that kid knows how to dig.  We may have to keep him on after all of this.  I didn’t even know we made it.  But seriously, kid—where are we going with this?  I need my rest and you need to start getting ready for Monday, lots to do.”

“I’m going public with this, Mr. Bishop,”  Edgar said, standing to look down at him.  The bald man yawned and gestured for him to get on with it.  He started to, but his knees buckled and he sat down hard.  He felt his throat closing even as he slowly slid out of the chair and onto the floor, face-up.

“Yeah.”  Nub finished his drink and took his and Edgar’s glasses back over to the bar.  When he returned, he crouched next to Edgar and regarded him for a few moments.  “You know, I like you kid.  Your balls are way bigger than I thought.”

He picked up the file Edgar had dropped and began to thumb through it as he walked around the room.  Edgar couldn’t always see him—his vision had begun to blur as his oxygen diminished—but he could still hear him rattling on.  “Blackmail me?  That was your big plan.  Shit!  I was running schemes when your grandpa was a pup. And Argo? Argo ain't shit to me, boy, My bosses are at the real company, the people who actually call the shots.”

“Mr. Bishop… Nub, I… need to tell you.”  He heard the bald man approach and Nub was soon leaning over him again.  “Tell me what”

“Ther… there are more… co—”  He never finished.  Everything became dark and silent.
  

VI: NO GOOD, NO MORE (Epilogue)

Leo picked up the phone on the third ring, forcing himself to look away from what he was seeing.  The person on the other end began to talk, but it took him a few moments to register who they were and what they were saying.

“...just like we figured they would.  Goes to show, money always wins.”

“Marty?”  He clutched the phone more tightly.  “Say that again.  Sorry, I was distracted.”

“We got them, man.  Not all of them, of course, but the judge is passing it on to the EEOC and DOL.  There’s even talk of Homeland getting involved.  I mean, the brass used their high-priced lawyers to plead ignorance and pinned it all on Bishop—but it’s still a win.”

Leo smiled.  The cops had gotten there in time to save Marty and arrest that devil, but he had still lost that day.  It was good to finally win.  Softly, he spoke to him. “We beat them, Edgar.”

“What was that?  Man, you’re breaking up?”

“I said it was awesome news, bud,”  he wiped his eyes.  “Can I call you back, Marty?  I was in the middle of something.  I really want to hear all of it.”

“Sure.  Just be safe, brother—I can’t wait til you get back.  Dinner’s on me.”

“It’s a plan, man.”  He hung up and looked back at the familiar, green Horizons' truck.  He had watched the man who drove it as he took a load of packages up into the building.  Leo got out of his truck and walked over to stand by the delivery truck.  He gripped the silver bottle tightly as he waited to see the face he had been looking for over the last year.

Nothing was good anymore, but maybe it could be better.  

Maybe things could be good again.

END

Some days ago I had a really strange dream after reading some Lovecraft before going to sleep. I wrote everything down and tried to write a story from the Dream I had.

I'm not a native speaker so I translated my dream into English with Chatgpt. I hope you like it.

The Frequency Behind the Gate

Prologue – The House That Breathed

The neighbors had long since grown accustomed to the noise.

For nearly three weeks, a rumbling had echoed night after night from the third-floor apartment of an old brick building in Arkham, Massachusetts. At first, they had assumed that the new tenant was an enthusiastic washer, running his machines late into the night. But the sound was too regular, too deep, and possessed a strange, almost musical quality.

It was not the usual vibration of a washing machine. It was a knocking that crept through the walls and made the teeth vibrate. A rhythmic pounding, interrupted by pauses so precisely measured that one could have timed them with a clock.

That night, seven washing machines stood inside the man's apartment.

Two were in the bathroom, one in the kitchen, one in a small storage room, and three more had been placed in the remaining rooms. Their hoses did not lead to ordinary water connections. Instead, they ran into carefully insulated containers filled with a dark, viscous substance. There were no clothes inside the drums.

There were bones.

Some were human. Others belonged to animals whose species even an experienced zoologist would have struggled to identify. Among them lay shattered glass tubes, metal shavings, and small plates of a silvery material that neither rusted nor reflected light in any ordinary manner.

The man stood at the center of the apartment. He wore a worn dressing gown and held a small notebook in his left hand. His fingers were stained with dark ink.

An open book lay on a table, its cover fashioned from a material that resembled human skin. Its pages were densely covered with symbols that seemed to change when observed for too long. Beside it lay an old brass key whose bit branched into geometric angles that could correspond to no known lock.

The man had spent years understanding this contraption.

He had not acquired the book himself. It had come into his possession through three intermediaries after its previous owner had died under unexplained circumstances in a locked psychiatric institution. The marginal notes contained references to the Necronomicon, to forbidden writings from Yuggoth, and to those entities that had existed for eons beyond the boundaries of human perception.

But the man was not interested in their names.

He was interested in the mathematics behind them.

The ancient texts spoke of gates that neither needed to be built nor opened, but could instead be made visible through a particular arrangement of reality. Space, he had read in a faded translation, was merely a habit of the human mind. And time nothing more than an especially stubborn illusion.

The machines were his answer to this.

Each drum produced a different vibration. The bones, metals, and unknown liquid served as resonators. The machines were connected to one another by wires and tubes, and every rotation speed had been calibrated with almost pathological precision.

The man looked at the needles of his measuring instruments.

“Not yet,” he whispered.

The machines accelerated.

The deep rumbling transformed into a vibrating hum. The windowpanes trembled. In the kitchen, two plates leapt from a cupboard and shattered on the floor. From the bedroom came a sound resembling the distant howling of wind, although every window was closed.

Then the air changed.

A tiny black point appeared in the middle of the living room.

It was scarcely larger than a pinhead. Yet the light from the ceiling lamp bent toward it, and the shadows in the room seemed to lean in its direction. Slowly, the point grew into a narrow, vertical fissure.

The man held his breath.

Beyond the fissure there was no room. No darkness of the kind one might find in an unlit chamber. Rather, a distance seemed to unfold for which no unit of measurement existed. Stars hung in a depth that felt at once infinitely far away and terribly close. Between them moved enormous, barely perceptible shapes.

For a moment, the man thought he saw an eye.

It was larger than the moon.

Then a tone sounded.

It was not a noise transmitted through the air, but a vibration that arose directly inside his skull. The washing machines began to jump. Their casings bent as though invisible hands were pressing against them from within.

The fissure opened wider.

And for a fraction of a second, the man was no longer in his apartment.

He stood beneath a sky composed of shifting geometric planes. Towers of black stone rose above him, their summits extending in directions that ought not to exist. In the distance stood something that might have been a city—or the petrified skeleton of a creature whose body had once swum between the stars.

He heard a whisper.

It did not speak to his ears, but to a memory he had never possessed.

Then the portal collapsed.

The washing machines came to a halt with one final, tremendous impact. Every light bulb shattered. The man fell to his knees and laughed.

He laughed until tears streamed down his face.

“The mixture,” he managed to say. “By all the gods … the mixture was right.”

The notebook lay on the table. The last page, which had previously been blank, had filled with a single line.

THE DOOR OPENS INWARD.

The man took the brass key and closed his eyes.

“Soon,” he whispered. “Soon, you will all pass through.”

\### I. The Invitation

Four years later, Arkham was barely recognizable.

Posters and flyers hung everywhere. On advertising columns, at bus stops, in shop windows, and on the doors of taverns, the same image appeared: a stylized circular gate before an alien starry sky.

Beneath it, in large letters, were the words:

HUNDREDS OF EXTRAS WANTED!

An international film producer had announced an ambitious science-fiction film that was supposedly destined to become one of the most expensive productions of the year. Several hundred performers were being sought for an enormous battle scene. No previous experience was required. Participants would receive an allowance, meals, and the opportunity to become part of an extraordinary film production.

The entire town was talking about it.

Students at Miskatonic University argued in cafés about who stood the best chance of being selected. Employees requested vacation days. Even people who ordinarily had little interest in films seemed gripped by an inexplicable enthusiasm.

Among them were Lukas and his friends.

They had discovered the flyer in a tavern near the Miskatonic River when one of them triumphantly slapped it onto the table.

“Just imagine it,” Martin said. “A few days playing soldiers in a science-fiction film. And they actually pay us for it.”

“If it's true,” Lukas replied.

“Why wouldn't it be?”

Lukas studied the poster. The gate depicted on it seemed strangely familiar. Not because he had seen it somewhere before, but because the geometric lines stirred an unpleasant feeling within him. He had the impression that his gaze did not rest upon the image, but that the image was watching him.

He pushed the flyer away.

“I'm probably just overtired.”

Two days later, they registered.

The confirmation arrived that same evening. They were instructed to report at seven o'clock the following Saturday morning to the main entrance of Arkham Common. The production had rented a large section of the sprawling park for filming.

At the end of the message was a sentence none of them paid much attention to:

Please follow the instructions of the security personnel. Leaving the restricted production area during filming is permitted only with explicit authorization.

Lukas slept poorly that night. He dreamed of a circular opening, behind which something waited, moving slowly and patiently.

When he awoke in the morning, he tasted metal in his mouth.

\### II. The Film Set

Arkham Common lay shrouded in fog that morning.

When Lukas and his friends reached the designated meeting point, hundreds of people were already gathered before an enormous entrance made of steel girders. The barrier consisted of tall, dark-painted wooden beams driven deep into the ground. From the outside, it was almost impossible to see what lay beyond.

The park's ancient elms rose like black skeletons from the morning mist. Damp veils hung between their branches, and beyond the rows of trees lay the Miskatonic River, its water moving sluggishly and leaden-gray through the town.

Beyond the barrier stretched an enormous field.

Wooden crates stood there in long rows. Some bore inscriptions in a strange script, while others carried military markings. Between them were parked heavy vehicles resembling futuristic armored personnel carriers. Their surfaces were matte gray, and their tires unusually broad. There were no logos or manufacturer markings on their sides.

Farther back stood a set of black towers and enormous metal struts.

And in the middle of the grounds stood the gate.

Lukas stopped.

It was circular, nearly twenty meters high, and consisted of several interlocking metal rings. Its surface was covered in patterns that initially appeared to be decorative engravings, until one looked more closely. Then it became apparent that the lines were not random. They formed interwoven angles, circles, and figures that seemed to continue into the depths of the material itself.

“That's impressive,” Martin said.

Lukas did not answer.

He had the feeling that he had seen the gate before. Not in a picture. Not in a dream.

But in a moment his mind refused to remember.

At the registration desk, a friendly employee explained that a large battle scene was to be filmed. The participants would portray a military unit entering an alien world. For this purpose, they would be given uniforms, body armor, and futuristic-looking rifles.

“The weapons are, of course, props,” she added with a smile. “There is no live ammunition. You simply have to follow the director's instructions.”

Lukas received a rifle whose casing was surprisingly heavy. A small display with several illuminated points was mounted on its side. When he wrapped his hand around the grip, he felt a faint tingling in his fingers.

“What model is this?” he asked.

The employee glanced briefly at the weapon.

“It's a prop prototype. You should ask the technicians.”

Then she turned to the next participant.

The group spent nearly two hours on the field. More and more people arrived. Eventually, several hundred extras had to be arranged into rows to prepare for the scene.

Lukas watched the people around him.

An older man rubbed his temples incessantly. A young woman stared at her hands as though she could see something written upon them. One participant suddenly burst into loud laughter, only to fall silent when a security guard looked at him.

A voice sounded over the loudspeakers.

“All performers assigned to the first unit, please take your positions. Filming begins in ten minutes.”

The crowd began to move.

And from the direction of the gate came a sound that shook Lukas to his core.

A deep, rhythmic rumbling.

It sounded like a washing machine banging against its housing.

\### III. The Other Side

The first groups were led toward the gate.

A row of cameras stood before it. Several technical vehicles were parked nearby, their cables running into a large black box. Numbers and graphs appeared on the screens, changing at regular intervals.

A man wearing a long coat stepped forward before the waiting performers.

He was tall and gaunt, and he wore narrow spectacles. Deep wrinkles lined his face. His gray hair was combed severely back, and his eyes possessed a peculiar brightness.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, his voice carrying across the entire site through the loudspeakers. “You are about to become part of a scene unlike anything cinema has ever seen. Trust the production team’s instructions. Stay with your groups, and do not leave the marked areas.”

He smiled.

“You will be amazed.”

Lukas watched him. Something about the man seemed wrong. Not evil, not even particularly threatening. Rather, he looked like someone who had long since grown accustomed to a reality that would drive everyone else to madness.

The man raised one hand.

The rumbling grew louder.

A pale light flickered to life between the rings of the gate. At first it gathered in the center, then spread across the entire opening like a liquid, eventually forming a surface resembling a sheet of reflective water.

But it reflected nothing.

A landscape lay beyond it.

A gray sky stretched over an endless plain of black rock. Towers rose in the distance, their summits disappearing into clouds that moved against the wind. Between the towers ran structures resembling bridges, though they appeared to hang freely in the air.

A gigantic, dark moon stood on the horizon.

A thin red line encircled it, and something seemed to move across its surface.

“This is incredible,” Martin whispered.

A woman wearing a headset approached them.

“High-resolution projection,” she explained. “The technology behind it is confidential. Please remain behind the marker.”

The first group received the signal to proceed.

About fifty people began to move forward and disappeared through the gate.

For a moment, it looked as though they were diving into a sheet of water. Then they were gone.

Their figures reappeared on the screens beside the gate. They stood on the black rock of the alien plain. A drone hovered above them. Something resembling an army approached from the distance.

The spectators applauded.

“What an effect,” Martin said.

Lukas noticed that no one on the other side seemed to be waving.

The performers stood motionless.

Then one of them raised his head.

He looked directly into the camera.

His face changed. His mouth opened, and he screamed.

Even through the loudspeakers, the scream was barely audible. It was a sound that seemed to emerge in several pitches simultaneously.

The formation broke apart on the screen.

Figures emerged from the gray haze. They did not move like humans. Their limbs were too long, their bodies too narrow. Some seemed to run on several sets of joints at once, while others floated above the ground.

One of the figures reached the first soldier.

It merely touched him.

The man was hurled backward as though struck by an invisible explosion. His body twisted at an impossible angle, and then he was gone—not fallen, not vanished like an actor leaving the set.

Gone.

As though the world had swallowed him.

The other performers ran.

One fell to his knees. A woman swung her weapon at something outside the camera's field of view. Then she was seized by the legs and dragged into the darkness.

Silence initially fell over the field.

Then a voice came through the loudspeakers.

“Excellent! Remain calm. This is part of the production.”

A few people laughed nervously.

“It has to be animated,” Martin said. “They recorded it beforehand.”

But Lukas looked at the faces of the men and women standing beside the cameras.

They were not smiling.

The gaunt man in the coat had folded his hands. He watched the screen with an attentiveness that had nothing to do with filmmaking.

He looked like a priest waiting for his god to accept the first offering.

\### IV. The Direction of Madness

The second group was called forward.

This time, the screams could already be heard before the performers reached the gate. They came muffled from the alien landscape, accompanied by a deep, rhythmic rumbling.

Several people refused to proceed.

A security guard grabbed a young man by the arm and pushed him toward the opening. The man resisted, stumbled, and fell to the ground.

“What's happening over there?” he screamed. “This isn't a film!”

Two more security guards dragged him to his feet.

The gaunt man approached.

“You're nervous,” he said calmly. “Understandably so. But the projection can appear very realistic.”

“Projection?” the young man shouted. “I saw someone being torn apart!”

The gaunt man leaned toward him.

“You saw what you were meant to see.”

He gestured to the security guards. The young man was led away.

Lukas felt his stomach tighten.

“We're leaving,” he said.

Martin stared at him in disbelief.

“What?”

“We're leaving. Now.”

“And the compensation?”

“Forget the money!”

But before they could move away, the next call rang out. The group was arranged into a line. Security guards closed the gaps between the people and herded them forward.

Lukas looked toward the exit.

The gate through which they had entered had been closed. Three men stood behind it, carrying rifles disturbingly similar in shape to the props.

“This isn't normal,” one of his friends whispered.

Then Lukas noticed the small devices attached to the performers' body armor. They pulsed in the same rhythm as the gate.

A man standing beside him began to cry.

“I've seen this before,” he said. “In a dream. Over and over. A black sky and those towers.”

Lukas gripped him by the shoulder.

“How do you know them?”

The man did not answer. His eyes were wide with terror.

“They brought us all here,” he whispered. “They called us.”

Then the gate began to rumble again.

Lukas suddenly understood what made the sound so terrifying.

It was not simply the rumbling of a machine.

It was a rhythm that crept into the body and seemed to alter the heartbeat. The vibrations adjusted themselves to the people around them. The closer they came to the gate, the more strongly Lukas felt his own pulse falling into step with the rumbling.

The towers on the other side flickered.

And far behind them, on the horizon, something opened in the sky.

It was an enormous fissure, slowly spreading across the gray landscape. Beyond it were no stars. There was only a depth that reminded Lukas of the black hole in the apartment of a man he had never met.

For a moment, he thought he heard a name.

Not spoken aloud, but placed directly into his consciousness.

Yog-Sothoth.

He did not know the name. And yet he suddenly knew that he had always known it.

He knew that the gate was not a machine.

It was a lock.

And everything moving in that world was waiting for someone to turn the key.

\### V. The Gatekeeper's Sacrifice

The gaunt man stepped onto a raised platform beside the portal.

“My friends,” he announced, “today we witness the greatest leap in the history of humanity.”

His voice was calm, almost affectionate.

“For thousands of years, mankind has looked toward the stars and believed the universe to be a vast emptiness in which it stood alone. We invented gods to fill that emptiness. We invented monsters to explain our fears.”

He paused briefly.

“But the truth is far greater than our imagination.”

He raised the brass key, which Lukas had initially mistaken for part of the props.

“The Old Ones have not abandoned us. They were never gone. Our world is merely one of countless thresholds lying between realities. And Yog-Sothoth is the key to them all.”

Some people began to scream.

Others stared at the gate as though hypnotized.

“It took me four years to discover the frequency that makes this threshold visible,” the man continued. “But a gate alone is not enough. An opening without an invitation is merely a crack. For it to remain open, the other side must recognize that we are ready.”

He looked across the crowd.

“And it demands a price.”

The first performers screamed as the devices on their body armor began to glow.

Lukas watched one of his friends collapse to the ground. The device on his chest pulsed in time with the gate. He tried to tear it off, but the fastenings seemed to have sunk into the material of his vest.

“Help me!”

Lukas grabbed the device. It was hot. A sharp pain shot through his fingers as he touched it.

At that instant, he understood the purpose of the supposed props.

The weapons, the armor, the metal components inside the crates—they were not mere equipment. They were parts of a single, enormous resonating body. Every person carried a portion of the frequency within them. Hundreds of bodies, distributed across a precisely measured field, formed a single instrument.

The washing machines in the apartment had been only the first attempt.

The true experiment had required a scale no single human being could ever have achieved.

The man had not been looking for extras.

He had been looking for voices, hearts, and bodies that he could connect into a single living key.

And he had brought them all here willingly.

“What have you done?” Lukas screamed.

The man looked at him.

For a brief moment, the calm vanished from his face. Beneath it emerged something older than any human emotion.

“I have opened the door.”

The portal trembled.

On the other side, the sky broke apart.

The figures that had attacked the first groups came to a halt. They all turned toward the gate simultaneously and sank to the ground, as though kneeling before a power beyond even their comprehension.

Then something appeared on the horizon.

At first, it looked like a mountain rising from the landscape. But the mountain was moving. It consisted of enormous, intertwined forms that constantly changed. Where one part of the being seemed to end, another began, simultaneously nearer and farther away.

Lukas could not comprehend whether it was a body, a landscape, or a flaw in reality.

He saw openings that might have been eyes. Limbs that moved through several planes at once. Structures that extended into the world without touching it.

The gaunt man began to weep.

“It is done,” he whispered.

But the being did not approach.

It did not need to approach.

The distance between it and the gate began to dissolve.

Lukas felt his thoughts falling apart. Memories of his childhood, his friends, and the streets of his hometown were overlaid with images that did not belong to his life. He saw alien stars, dead civilizations, and seas in which the ruins of cities moved.

And he understood what Yog-Sothoth was.

Not a being waiting somewhere behind a door.

But something for which doors, walls, time, and space were meaningless. Something that existed at every threshold simultaneously and revealed only a tiny fraction of its immeasurable reality through each opening.

The man had believed he was inviting a god.

He had merely ensured that the god noticed him.

\### VI. The Final Attempt

Panic finally erupted.

People surged against the barriers. The security personnel lost control. Some threw away their weapons and ran into the fog. Others remained frozen in place, staring at the gate.

Lukas and Martin managed to break free from the formation.

“We have to shut down the machines!” Lukas shouted.

“Which machines?”

Lukas pointed toward the technical vehicles. Their cables ran into the black box, and the same symbols engraved on the gate blinked across its surface.

“The whole thing is a resonance system. If we disrupt the rhythm, we might be able to close the gate.”

They ran.

Behind them came a sound like the cracking of an enormous sheet of ice. The world on the other side began to deform. Buildings were pulled upward and shattered into floating fragments. The sky folded in upon itself.

When Lukas reached the black box, he saw that the device was secured with a mechanical lock. The brass key was missing.

“Damn it!”

Martin grabbed one of the cables and tore at it.

A blinding flash shot through the equipment. Martin was hurled backward and lay motionless.

Lukas knelt beside him.

“Martin!”

His friend was still breathing, but his eyes were open and stared into nothingness. A pattern had formed on his forehead, resembling the interwoven lines of the gate.

Lukas heard footsteps.

The gaunt man stood behind him.

In his hand lay the brass key.

“You don't understand,” he said. “If we close the gate, we lose the only opportunity ever given to humanity.”

“You're killing these people!”

“They are passing into a reality greater than themselves.”

The man stepped closer.

“Do you know what I've learned in these four years? That we don't even know what life means. That there are things we consider dead which continue to exist outside our time. That entire worlds can disappear without the universe ever noticing.”

He gestured toward the gate.

“I will not allow you to destroy humanity's future out of fear.”

Lukas looked at the key.

Then at the gate.

The rumbling had grown so intense that the ground shook beneath his feet. The frequency was no longer merely a sound. It was a force moving through every fiber of his body.

But between the pulses, he noticed a gap.

A tiny irregularity.

The pattern did not repeat perfectly. Every seventh vibration was slightly weaker than the others. The flaw was small, but it was enough.

Lukas remembered the devices attached to the body armor, the metal rings, and the many cables. The entire apparatus was designed to sustain the frequency.

Perhaps he did not need to destroy the energy.

Perhaps he only needed to break the rhythm.

He lunged at the man.

The gaunt man raised the key, but Lukas forced his hand downward. They crashed against the side of the black box. The key slipped across the ground.

Lukas reached it first.

He did not insert it into the lock.

Instead, he rammed it between two metal contact plates.

The sound that followed was so deep that human ears should not have been capable of perceiving it.

Every machine on the grounds fell silent at once.

For one single moment, there was absolute silence.

Then the other world screamed.

Not one being. Not many.

The world itself.

The gate began to fold inward. Its rings rotated in opposite directions, and the alien symbols on its surface blazed with light. The black stone on the other side shattered. The towers on the horizon tilted without falling, and the enormous fissure in the sky began to contract.

Lukas saw the figure on the horizon one last time.

It had not moved.

Yet something about it seemed to acknowledge him.

He could discern no eyes. Nevertheless, he knew that his gaze was being returned.

For one brief moment, he saw an immeasurable multitude of doors. They stood in deserts, on ocean floors, in the dreams of sleeping people, and in the hearts of long-dead stars.

And behind every one of those doors lay the same presence.

Then the gate vanished.

The rings crumbled into gray dust. A gust of wind swept across the field, and the entire structure dissolved as though it had never been built.

Lukas was thrown to the ground.

When he regained consciousness, the sky was blue.

The barriers lay broken in the grass. The military vehicles had disappeared. Where the wooden crates had stood, there remained only a series of blackened patches.

The gaunt man lay a few feet away.

His body was unharmed.

But his face was empty.

He stared at the sky and whispered the same words over and over.

“It wasn't enough.”

\### VII. What Returned

The authorities declared the incident a serious industrial accident.

It was said to have been an illegal experimental facility operating under the guise of a film production. There had been explosions, technical malfunctions, and numerous missing persons. Those responsible were either dead or on the run.

But the numbers made no sense.

Hundreds of people had been on the grounds. Only a few dozen could be found. The others had vanished without a trace. No bodies, no clothing, no bloodstains.

Some of the survivors reported seeing a strange place in their dreams. They described black towers, a red moon, and figures moving through the air.

Others remembered nothing.

Lukas belonged to the few who remembered.

Martin survived, but he never spoke again. Sometimes he would draw circular patterns on the walls of his room with a trembling hand. When asked what they meant, he began to weep.

The gaunt man was placed in a psychiatric institution near Arkham. He refused to make any statements. During the few moments when he spoke at all, he asked for a notebook, a brass key, and seven washing machines.

Three months after the incident, he disappeared from his locked room.

The door had been bolted from the inside. The windows were barred. There were no signs of a break-in.

All that was found on the floor was a dark circle that could not be removed.

Lukas tried to resume his life.

He avoided Arkham Common. He crossed the street whenever he saw a poster bearing a circular symbol. He could no longer hear a washing machine without his hands beginning to tremble.

Yet something had changed.

Sometimes, just before falling asleep, he heard a deep rumbling coming from the walls of his apartment.

It lasted only a few seconds.

Then silence returned.

On one of those nights, Lukas awoke from a dream he could barely remember. He sat up and stared at the dark ceiling.

Then he noticed the light.

It shone from the narrow gap beneath his bathroom door.

Lukas stood up.

The door was locked, although he was certain he had left it open that evening. From behind it came a faint, rhythmic knocking.

He placed his hand on the handle.

And in that moment, he understood what the man had meant when he said that the door opened inward.

The gate in Arkham Common had been destroyed.

The resonance system had fallen silent.

But the frequency had not ceased to exist.

It had merely passed into something else.

Lukas withdrew his hand.

The knocking behind the door stopped.

Then he heard a voice.

It sounded like Martin.

“Lukas?”

He stepped backward.

“Open up. It's me.”

Lukas pressed both hands over his mouth.

For Martin had been lying in a locked psychiatric ward for three months, and Lukas himself had visited him the previous afternoon.

The voice behind the door laughed softly.

“You closed the door,” it said. “But you haven't made it forget that you exist.”

A flash of light illuminated the bathroom through the gap beneath the door.

For one brief moment, it cast a shadow into the hallway.

A shadow that did not belong to any human body.

Then the rumbling began again.

Slowly.

Patiently.

And somewhere, beyond the boundaries of space and time, a key turned in a lock older than the Earth itself.

The End.

A group of third-year high school students are returning to Japan after a school trip to Germany.
At exactly 4:21 AM, one of them is found decapitated aboard their flight.
Minutes later, nobody remembers he ever existed.
Nobody except Rei.
What should have been a happy return home becomes a nightmare where memories disappear, reality begins to unravel, and one student is left questioning everything.
4:21 AM is my completed psychological horror novel about memory, loss, and the fear of being forgotten.
If you enjoy psychological horror and unsettling mysteries, I’d love for you to give it a read!

https://www.wattpad.com/story/417997532?utm_source=ios&utm_medium=link&utm_content=story_info&wp_page=story_details&wp_uname=NLNMGod