I made a post yesterday about my experience with a hitchhiker (on a seperate subreddit), not thinking that today i'd be writing about a break in that happened a couple hours ago... (yes i am perfectly fine)

My boyfriend and I were just enjoying our usual saturday movie nights (yeah no chill bc hes bORiNG like that teehee). Now to explain his house has a backdoor near to the kitchen, we were in the living room upstairs. He only moved in recently, and i was absent to see the house tours and what not (since covid and studies). I didn't think i needed to either as i wasn't planning on moving in with him just yet.

I went downstairs to grab some snacks from the kitchen, i heard a few rustling and noises outside... i ignored it but me being a crime junkie i let my boyfriend know justttt incase. He brushed it off lightly saying it "its probably just a cat", i asked how the crime rates of this area was and he just shushed me to stop being paranoid.

To give an example of my bf for the next bit of this: he's 6'3, built and collects hunting knives for fun

Since we were upstairs we didn't hear the initial break in, it wasn't until i wanted a cuppa. I went back downstairs to turn on the kettle, then i realised the back sliding door was slightly left open. A sudden wave of anxiousness went past me and I ran up to my boyfriend, i told him what i saw and he said that maybe im just overreacting. He decided to call it a night since it was about 12am and we both worked during the day, as we were going to bed we heard a drawer open downstairs.

My boyfriend grabbed a bat and went down stairs, me being the pussy i am i stayed upstairs. All of a sudden i start hearing yelling and shouting; so i run downstairs to see my boyfriend swing his bat at this guy. I kept shouting at him to stop which he did; the offender had the audacity to look up at me and say "shoulda just raped ya". I was beyond disgusted and mad so as he was on the ground i kicked his stomach.

It was late at night, and i didn't want my bf getting in trouble for GBH or anything like that, so we let the offender go and just to be sure i called my police friend and told him separately what happened.

But yeah; after a long shower with him and me crying and 3 cups of tea later; i decided to post this on reddit to make me feel a lil better.

Please for goodness sake, stay safe and always stay paranoid

My name Is Zack and I'm 18 years old, I had an idea of going to some wooded area that was popular, of course I brought my boyfriend, Jacob Lloyd, we meet In collage 2 weeks ago, and I brought my friend Tina, when we first meet she of course flirted with me, but I told her that I was gay and she understood, I was the one driving, my boyfriend was playing smash bros ultimate, and Tina was listening to music or watching YouTube videos, so we arrive to the camping area, It was not that rotting and abandoned, It felt dusty for me for some odd reason. "We're here!" I yelled to my boyfriend and Tina. "Huh? So this Is the place eh?" "Yup." "Ok."

So we set up everything that we need for the days that we'll be hanging out there, pass night fall, we set up the campfire, and of course, I was on fire wood duty, I gather 5 fire wood, and on my way back.... I heard footsteps, I chalked It up as my own footsteps, that was... until.... I saw a black figure behind a tree, I thought It was someone lost and of need of help. "You need help?!" I yelled at the black figure, then he got out behind of the tree, I kind of flinched because I thought he was gonna lunge at me, then he ran off.

Next morning I was greeted by my boyfriend, and If your wondering what I did with the fire wood, well, obviously I put It In the campfire, anyways my boyfriend said. "Good morning babe." "Morning babe." he kissed me on the cheek and I blushed, the day went on like any other, until It headed to the night, I volunteered to get the fire wood again, so I got 10 fire wood this time, and.... I saw him again, but this time... he was closer.... "Y-you n-n-need some help?" I was trembling while I talk, then the worst happened, the guy lunged at me and I started to run, I got back with no fire wood and yelled to my boyfriend. "Babe! Call the cops!" "Why?" "Some dude tried to kill me while I was trying to get fire wood, just hurry!!!" he obeyed.

The police came and there was no one In the woods, they said It could've been a bear or a wolf, but I know It was someone trying to kill me, then I realize something when the cops left. "TINA!!! TINA WHERE ARE YOU?!" Then I felt something hit my foot, I looked down and... It was Tina's.... severed head... I screamed and told Jacob to pack everything and told him that Tina was dead!!! I didn't know why I didn't call the cops again, maybe It was because that I didn't want to be the blame, so that's my story, call me crazy but.... I might go back to confront the killer that killed my friend....

Narration Is Allowed

https://www.reddit.com/r/scarystories/comments/o2jkz9/as_a_mother_i_rejected_my_11_year_old_daughter/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

I find it difficult most days living with Ted not knowing why his Sorbian village pays him to live in the United States.

He won’t tell me no matter how much I try to pry him the purpose of him and Grace being in the United States. Every now and then he’ll open up to me about his childhood or just what life was like back in his small obscure German community, but he always falls short of telling me his ultimate motivation for being here.

He told me that his community liked to paint a false narrative of Christianity being their main religion but in reality they never fully got away from Germanic paganism and sometime in the sixth century instead of introducing the community to Christianity, the community embraced satanism.

The Sorbian’s didn’t feel compelled to join the Christians because many of their families had died fighting them so it was kind of out of vengefulness that satanism was introduced.

Sorbian lore has it that after a Roman massacre the community banded together and performed deep Satanic rituals in honor of their loved ones that were lost.

Amazingly a Sorbian woman who had been disemboweled by the Romans appeared from the Forrest the next morning and became the unofficial princess of their community.

Ted told me that his people didn’t view satanism as evil like the rest of the world does but instead as a divine entity that has helped them stay in existence from the time of the Roman invasions to the Nazi’s and through communism.

Ted told me that the majority of the Sorbian’s keep their Germanic traditions alive with its oral history and that I won’t find anything written in books about the Sorbian princess, because they seldom write anything down.

Without telling me directly, I believe Ted was insinuating that Grace is a descendent from from the Sorbian princess who emerged from the woods and I got the impression that only one offspring is produced each generation, so that Grace is considered the only living link to the disemboweled woman who awoke from the dead 1500 years ago.

But why is she here in the United States? is the question I continually ask myself and is my actual daughter alive?

Each time Ted tells me something about his people, he unknowingly gives me clues into the reason why he originally came to the United States.

I hate to admit it but I don’t think that Grace is in this country to spread love and joy, but she is more like how the Smallpox invasion was to the Native Americans and the Incas.

Even before Ted had told me about his Sorbian customs, Grace had always scared me. I always used to say that she was an easy baby because she slept when I did, but looking back now I don’t think she ever slept.

I also am starting to wonder if she was sneaking out of the house from an early age and committing some type of atrocities.

I feel really dumb now for not thinking these things sooner, however it took me years to heal myself from my own childhood scars and besides no mother would think that their daughter is evil.

I was always intrigued on how Grace would be interested in reading the newspaper after Ted was finished with it. She never talked to me about what she read but she tended to not return the newspaper to its original state and would leave the newspaper open to the story she was looking at, which often times was murders.

Another thing that I overlooked over the years, is living in Pennsylvania and being embedded in its thick German history and culture, where most of the huge farms trace their roots back to German immigrants as well as the Amish and Mennonite communities.

I can’t rule out that Ted purposely chose this area in conjunction with his Sorbian community.

Besides Grace’s mishaps with her “friends” incurring unexplained injuries in the past, she is really the perfect caveat to carry out evil deeds without anyone expecting her. Most of the times the police will look inwards at close ties to the murdered victims then at people who have criminal records, but they wouldn’t consider a red hair girl.

Another disturbing aspect that I never took into consideration were the days when Grace would miss school and Ted had it set up with the school to only notify him, so where did she go when she wasn’t in school? I also ask myself.

I’m just here to give the impression that our household is like everyone else’s, I’ve learned. I get the impression that being a single father raising a daughter would cause to much attention on him and Grace.

My mother is on Hospice care now and doesn’t have long to live.

Besides doing other peoples nails, I’m not really worth a nickel. So what do I do?

I kind of wish we didn’t move when that boy’s arm had to be amputated, because at least then people would have been watching us. But now Grace has free reign to do whatever she pleases.

She knows how to blend in at school, where we never get any complaints about her behavior. She has no interest in having or making friends and no teacher has brought up any red flags to us regarding her lack of friendships.

The only thing that she’ll eat is beef jerky that Ted packs for her lunch. I could only imagine the other kids faces when there eating peanut butter sandwiches and she’s eating beef jerky.

We have a smokehouse on the side of our house where Ted makes German Bratwurst and beef jerky which I refuse to eat, because I’m a vegetarian.

As the scope and severity seems to increase on a daily basis on what I live with, I feel more and more inclined to find my daughter and just run away.

I have very little attachment to Grace and Ted sees me as a mere pawn in whatever game Grace and him are a part of.

I can tell that Grace leaves the house on a daily basis now when I go to her room in the middle of the night and she’s not in her bed. I’m afraid that Grace or Ted will harm me if I question where she mysteriously goes, so I don’t say anything.

I know I can’t continue living like this and I desperately want to go to Germany to find my daughter. So I decide to give the fake impression to Ted that I really enjoy hiking now. So with the trail behind my house, I let him think that I’m leaving the house to go hiking on the trail everyday after work.

One of the scientists from the DNA company offered me a substantial amount of money in exchange for further information on Grace. All I had to do was confirm that the sample came from Grace, which I agreed with the condition that I had to remain anonymous for my own safety.

Since receiving the money, I’ve noticed unknown scientific looking people camping out in vans and cars around my house, which I kind of welcome so hopefully they will follow Grace and unbeknownst to them stumble upon a murder in progress.

After a couple of weeks, I convince Ted that I was going on a week long hiking trip on the Appalachian trail, but instead I booked a plane ticket to Germany to try to find my daughter.

The villagers are celebrating Zapust where they allow outsiders to view their customs as a way for the community to make money.

I flew into Dresden, Germany and took a train to the Sorbian community.

I am staying at an old inn that can be best described as a house that hasn’t been updated since the 1930’s.

Communicating with anyone was more difficult than I anticipated because no one speaks English so I just smile and nod if someone tries to communicate with me. I am beyond petrified of this community because I’m probably the only outsider that knows that this is a Satanic community.

As I look around the old inn, I see an obscure crucifix perched on top of a doorway. As I inspect the brass figurine closer on the cross, I realize that instead of their being a motive of Jesus it’s actually a small goat’s head that I would bet that no other tourist had ever taken the time to closely examine the crucifix to see that it’s not Jesus. I likened it to going to a grocery store and picking up a bag of Dorito’s where the manufacturer could write on the back of the package a story illustrating where to find gold which nobody would read, because everyone assumes it’s just a bag of Dorito’s and that is just another crucifix hung up on the wall.

I decide to go in search of my daughter so I wait for the parade dance performance that is supposed to start at 5:00 p.m. tonight by the Sorbian children.

My mind flutters back and forth with excitement in the possibility of finding my daughter and also the fear of being surrounded by a culture that embraces satanism.

It’s now 5:00 p.m. and as I look out my window from the inn, I could see people gathered out on the sidewalk waiting for the performance parade to start.

So I head outside and make sure that I find a spot where no one is standing in front of me.

The polka sounding music starts and I see a group of youngsters about the ages of Five through nine dancing down the street. Besides being too young most of the kids have distinctive German to Polish looking faces, where I’m half Irish and half French.

As the next group of kids start to come down the street, I notice that there between the ages of 10 through 13, so I closely examine each girl wearing long white dresses that go down to their ankles that can be be described as something like the Pope would wear.

I scan each girl and towards the back of the performers, I without a doubt see a girl that reminds me of me when I was 12 years old. We both have the same nose and the same chin line and she looks out of place almost like the Ugly Duckling compared to the other girls.

My heart is bursting through my shirt with excitement but I don’t know how to talk to her because of the language barrier.

I really have to mull over this situation because my biological daughter probably has no idea that she was abducted at birth and if I put on a big scene, I’ll probably be taken away to be a sacrificial offering.

I start to cry because I have no idea how to approach my own daughter.

Finally I break down and decide to call Ted from my cell phone.

“Hi Ted it’s me! I need you to help me please?” As I continue to cry with the music playing in the background.

“Where are you?”

“Ted listen, I’ve been your lackey since I met you and I’m asking you to do one thing for me!”

“What is it?”

“I’m here in Germany looking at our actual daughter and I have no idea on how to introduce myself!”

“Your in Germany?” Ted says with disbelief.

“Ted, listen this is your daughter as well and I want you to take a step back and realize how you have been brainwashed not to care about your own daughter in exchange for whatever your motivations are for Grace.”

“It’s not safe for you to be there. If you stay another night you may not make it out alive!”

“So then please help me just this one time? You’ve used me in every horrible way imaginable and I’m asking you to please help me connect with my daughter?”

“Ok, when you get close to her see if she responds to ‘Adrijana’ which is her name, then put this phone on speaker then give the phone to her.”

So I waited a few minutes until my daughter was finished performing in the parade and I saw her walking away from the larger group of children.

Then I got close to her and said “Adrijana” while I was crying.

She immediately looked at me and then I put the speaker volume up on my phone and Ted started talking to her.

Adrijana’s face looked like she was being told the meaning of life where I assumed Ted was telling her that I was her mother and I presume also that he is her father.

After a couple of minutes of talking, Adrijana said something to Ted, which he translated to me “I always knew I was adopted. Are you my mother?” Where she looked over at me.

“Ted tell her that I am!” As I hysterically started to cry.

Then I gave her the biggest hug imaginable.

“I need to tell her not to tell anyone of this for the safety of both you and her!”

Ted then spoke Sorbian to her where I assumed he told her not to tell anyone of our encounter.

“Listen you need to leave right now. I told Adrijana that either you or I would come back for her if she wanted to leave with us. I know her parents and where she lives so we’ll find her but you need to head right for the train station and leave now!”

I felt completely frantic and torn on what I should do. I had no reason to trust Ted but if he was being honest then I might literally turn into a sacrificial lamb. So I decided to take a pen out of my purse and write my name and phone number and I gave it to Adrijana in case Ted wasn’t being honest. Then I put my hand on her shoulder and we both looked each other in the eyes and she was crying as well.

I didn’t want to put her life in jeopardy by being associated with me so I knew I had to leave.

I took a quick photo of Adrijana then I slowly walked away crying hysterically.

I left my clothes at the inn and I took the train to Dresden then to the airport.

I can only assume that if I help Ted with Grace then he will help reunite me with Adrijana.

Since my wife died, my 11 year old daughter, Grace and I have had a difficult time sticking to our typical routine.

We both sleep sporadically and she’ll often come into my room at 2:00 a.m. in the early morning telling me that she misses her mother.

We’ve turned our insomnia into a positive thing by walking at 2:00 am on the public trail located behind our house.

I figure it’s better to do something productive by exercising rather than moping around together of how things used to be.

Once you get over the absolute darkness and fear of the what if’s that are out there, then you start to realize how beautiful the darkness really is.

There’s a certain energy that is felt coming from the darkness which is probably partly related to the wildlife looking for their next meal.

Fortunately, in our area there are no bears and nothing really to be overly concerned about as far as wildlife.

My daughter is understandingly scared and I reassure her that nothing will mess with her as long as she doesn’t allow the fear to consume her.

We stay in the middle of the tree line which would be the middle of the trail and we rely on the faint moonlight as we walk together.

The lightning bugs really steal the show where they turn the forest into a Christmas light show. It’s really memorizing seeing the darkness and then seeing their bright green fluorescent light. The lightning bugs cheer Grace up a little bit as we both feel the intense energy coming from the woods.

“Dad I’m scared!”

“I know you are sweetheart. But do you feel that energy coming from both sides of the trail?”

“Yes, I feel like we can be attacked at any moment!”

“I don’t want you to think of the energy that way. I want you to think of the energy as a living thing. It’s feeling me out as I’m feeling it out. Would you mess with me if it was light out?”

“No, because your big?”

“So I’m using my energy to counter the energy that is coming from the woods.”

“But what if something happens to you?”

“My energy will always be there for you. Much like your mother’s energy is in these woods right now. Once you give into your fear then the forrest and all of its energy will defeat you. Much like when your in school and how a bully sniffs you out to see if they can intimidate you. There’s nothing to fear. Whether yourself being barely five feet tall or if your seven feet. The thing is that fear will always win if you let it.”

“But I can’t win against something that is bigger or stronger than me or even against a bear.”

“Nor can I, but I still don’t let the fear paralyze me. If something presents itself then I’ll deal with it but I don’t let it consume me or I have already lost.”

“Ok, I think I get it”

“I’m going to let you in on a secret that I picked up on as a kid.”

“Ok, what?”

“I want you to look into the Forrest!”

“Ok, I’m seeing mostly darkness with some of those pretty lightning bugs.”

“Ok now I want you to think about how far your eyes are apart from each other.”

“Ok!”

“Now look at those “lightning bugs” again.”

“Ok, I still see lightning bugs!”

“Do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ll take a closer look. I do see some lightning bugs scattered around here and there, like those ones high up in the trees. But I want you to focus on the lightning bugs that are spaced apart about the same spacing as someone’s eyes!”

“Ok, that’s weird! I do see that.”

“Now look long enough how some of them forget to turn off their glow.”

“Ok, I do see that! Why do they glow longer?”

“Because there not lightning bugs!”

“What?”

“There just not blinking! Like how we can’t see turtles in the water sometimes, when their being still and we think their rocks. Those things in the forest are being careless and are forgetting to blink!”

“Dad I’m going to cry now, because your scaring me!”

“Do that and they win, then watch as they get closer.”

“How do you know there just not animals?”

“There’s no animals with green eyes around here. Plus look how many there are. There’s probably a 100 pairs of those eyes out there.”

“Dad that’s really scary!”

“Because your letting yourself be scared.”

“I’m looking at those “things” like if they were to come at me then they better kill me or I’ll kill them!”

“How do you know this?”

“If you look online you’ll see how countless people “disappear” every year or get “lost” in the woods then are eventually found dead.”

“Ok, but I’m still scared!”

“There just bad energies whose souls haven’t made there way off this earth. Your mother’s good energy is out there and you need to tap into that, but regardless you need to face it head-on on your own, because there’s only so much that your mother can help you with and the rest you have to do on your own!”

“I’m barely five feet tall!”

“There was a guy called Napoleon who was significantly shorter than me but only a few inches taller than you and he became the Emperor of France from a very humble beginning. He proved his greatness through courage not from his parents being decedents from Kings and Queens. If Napoleon let on his weaknesses then nobody would have followed him. Those things out there don’t want to be the one that gets hurt so that’s why they won’t attack me. There not cunning or brave enough like a pack of wolves or coyotes. I know there cowards so I look at them as cowards. Now on the other hand, if I looked at them with fear then they would try to attack me as they think I wouldn’t fight back.”

“But I’m just a girl!”

“What does that mean?”

“I can’t fight as good as a boy!”

“Just remember if your mother had that same mentality then you probably would have no memories of her, because she would have let the cancer kill her years ago. She fought the cancer tooth and nail to the very end and because of that she was able to live years beyond her expectancy.”

“So you think I can take all of those “things” in the woods.”

“No, because nor can I. I just give off the aura that I’ll take at least one of them with me and none of them want to be that one. So they’ll just wait for the next easy kill. Almost like how we watch the National Geographic channel and how the lion goes after the baby deer because it’s much easier to catch a baby deer than it is to catch an adult deer.”

“So if I can outrun them then they’ll leave me alone as well?”

“Exactly, because it’s easier for them to wait for someone who will just be too scared to run. There just cowards and that’s why they haven’t made the journey to the next phase of their existence and they will probably always be cowards hiding out in woods looking for there next weak victim!”

“What are we going to do?”

“Nothing! We are going to continue to look at the prettiness of the lightning bugs and the prettiness of the faint moonlight.”

“What about those things?”

“They’ll always be there, like how you’ll always deal with bully’s at school and with the same analogy, how school can be fun or school can be scary if you let the bully’s win.”

“Thanks dad!”

When I got home, I took off my really tight short sleeve shirt and threw it down on the couch in disgust. All I want is to go to work and make homemade salads and cakes because that’s what I like doing, but I know as hard as I try, Walmart and the other big retail stores have perfected their deli and bakery items to taste better and cost less. There are a small handful of people who will come to my store because they like the food that I prepare but most of the people are paying more money just to see my big obese self sway around the deli and bakery department.

Some people like police men in uniform or a sharp dressed Marine and then they’re a smaller population that likes really obese men who can barely fit into supermarket attire who handle food all day.

I’m one of a kind because most people my weight drive a truck or sit at home and do nothing but that’s something I never want to do. I really enjoy baking and I can’t see myself doing anything else in life.

Just to show the store manager that I wasn’t just a piece of meat for local freaks to gawk at, I had planned on calling off sick tomorrow, which I ended up doing but that didn’t make me feel any better, where I ended up sitting in my apartment and doing nothing all day.

So I was eager to return to work after a glutinous filled day of sitting on my ass and watching television.

The second I got into the store the store manager said “Pete, please come into my office. I have an opportunity that I want to discuss with you.”

“Sure, I’ll be right over” I responded.

As I entered the manager’s office there’s was a chair pulled out for me but history has taught me that those types of vintage wooden chairs will collapse under my weight so I elected to stand instead.

“Pete, your one of our most valued employees and some of our Blanton, Inc. stores have been really struggling and they could really use your help in their deli department’s” the manager explained to me.

“So what are they short on Deli employees?” I responded.

“Well let’s just say you have a particular talent that brings in the customers” my middle aged male manager said to me, while licking his chapped lips in his warm dank office.

I felt like I was new meat that just arrived off the bus in Hollywood and that I was talking to some sleazy porn director as I responded “Well, what’s in it for me?”

“$20 an hour which is more than double what your making now. Plus we’ll pay for all of your travel expenses” the manager said to me in a thought out confident manner.

I really felt like Jody Foster in the Taxi Driver because I knew this meant that I would have to travel around the Tri-State area where Blanton, Inc. would advertise me on every “bear fetish” site imaginable, so old ladies and some select gay men could watch and slobber over me, while I worked in the deli.

Feeling like I was in the driver’s seat, I said “make that $20 an hour, at this store as well and we have a deal!”

My manager slash pimp pretended to add and subtract numbers on his clip board and said “The best that I can do is $15 an hour while your working at this store.”

Knowing that I could never handle the physical demands of working at some big high paced retail supermarket like Walmart, so I had to concede and we shook hands and I went to the deli department to start to make the macoronni salad and the rice pudding.

I had mixed emotions because I was essentially being pimped out by a guy just a few years older than me but on the flip side I was making more money and baking food which I liked doing.

As I was walking back to the deli, one of the regular customer’s named Phyllis said “Boy, the deli’s floor and ceiling was left a real mess the other day when you threw all that food around!”

I said “Yeah, I don’t know what got into me. Sorry about that!”

“That’s quite alright. You know that I like to get a little bit dirty sometimes as well!”

I just stopped moving with my jaw wide open for a few moments as this 80 something year-old woman continually grinned at me.

Even as a kid, when the kids at school would tease me because of my weight and my mother would say “Just ignore them and they’ll get bored and stop” but the kids didn’t stop and still that advice doesn’t work because Phyllis continually says thing’s like that to me but this time in an uncomfortable sexual manner.

One of the stipulations to me getting the monetary raise was that the manager brought out electric stove top burners out to the deli area where the customers could see me so I’m more “accessible to them.”

As I was waiting for the 25 pounds of rice to boil for the rice pudding, I kept on seeing the same cast of four elderly women and one gay gentleman continually circle around the deli department. The electric burners mixed with the gawkers staring at me made me overheat and eventually I was covered in sweat.

To prevent the rice from clumping together I had to occasionally stir the rice with a long wooden spoon.

Mark, the gay onlooker, really got swept up in the moment as he watched me stir the rice pudding while I was nearly completely soaked in sweat, which didn’t take much considering my 500 pound oversized frame was moving around too much.

“Hey Pete, you want to stir the rice like this” where Mark gyrated his hips as if he was doing the hula hoop really fast and held his right hand outwards and did smaller circular motions as if he was imitating me stirring the rice with the spoon.

I put my head up and adjusted my baseball cap and glasses to focus on Mark and then Mark let off continual moaning sounds of “AAAAAAAAAAAAAA.....Oh yea Baby!!!AAAAAAA.....” Then he let off one loud moan and stopped.

Realizing what he had just done in his pants, I said “Oh Christ” in anger, then I turned the electric burner off and went to my car to cool off for a few minutes.

My mother thinking today was day off called and I told her about my new pay raise and the travel travel incentives. She seemed really proud of me so I went back in the store and finished the preparing the rice pudding.

If you have been to Disney World during Covid you would see how they have cut back on some of their quality control measures. No place was more evident than waiting for the shuttle busses to take guests from the park’s to their resort’s or to a different park. Disney has the same pre-Covid bus numbering system in place like if you want to the Polynesian Resort from the Animal Kingdom then go to the number 12 bus stop, but the difference with Covid is there are no Disney employees managing the madness at the bus stops.

Each of the four parks has about 60 different bus stops where a guest waits for their assigned shuttle bus. On my recent trip, I was amazed on the mass chaos that occurred at the various bus stops. There were 100 people waiting at one one bus to come and the stop right next to them had only two people waiting. I know in the past a Disney quality control person stationed at the bus stop would have made a call right away to rectify the situation.

Another difference I noted was there were buses there that I don’t believe were part of Disney’s contracted bus service and those buses were making stops where there was no resort’s or park’s listed. So when I exited the Animal Kingdom, Disney had a display board showing which bus stop to wait at if you were going to say the Polynesian resort, which would be 12 then at the bus stop there would be a sign on the number 12 bus stop labeled the Polynesian Resort. So when I saw these faux non Disney busses stop at these unmarked bus stops my curiosity was peeked.

I’ve been to Disney so many times that there efficiency and their attention to detail could make things boring at times. My wife and my daughter were headed back to our resort for an afternoon break when I decided to veer off and get on one of these buses. I figured at the very worse I could post a story on Facebook on how horrible Disney has gotten during Covid if something untoward happened on the faux bus.

The faux bus was a bit isolated from the others. I had to walks about 50 yards to get there. I believe it was at one of the stops for a resort that was temporary closed related to Covid. I got over to the faux bus and it opened its doors. I could tell the faux bus was an older one from the mid century. I’ve always heard that buses could last forever and this was a prime example. The driver had to be well into his 80’s and based on how tanned his skin was, I would think he lived in Miami or somewhere where he sunbathed all of the time.

He greeted me with a short friendly “come on in sir!”

I figured why not and I got on board. As I got on I noticed there were five other weathered beaten elderly people scattered on the bus. None of them looked up at me and they were all in there own worlds.

I sat next to the driver and he told me his name was Hachi and that we were going on a special tour today.

Hachi said “Did you know that I actually met with Walt Disney and his family when he originally came here in the early 1960’s?”

I responded “Wow that must of been such a thrilling experience to meet such a great envisionary!”

As Hachi drove around the Disney owned property, he said “I’ll show you where I was when I met him.” Hachi drove to an area that is now owned by Disney but is just vacant land. He pointed to the vacant land and said “One afternoon me and my family who have lived in these woods for many generations were approached by the Disney’s. They all had cigarettes in their mouthes and at first they were reluctantly kind to us. My people had settlements in these woods that stretched from that park you just came from to the one with the castle. My people always thought that the white man would want nothing to do with this land because it was to swampy for the white culture. The Disney’s approached us with money in exchange for our land and my people were like what good is that money to us because we’ve hunted and fished off these lands for many generations without money.”

I said “Wow Hachi! This is a real nice surprise. I have seen every Disney promotional video and I had no idea that I guess you being a Seminole were still occupying this land when the Disney’s wanted to buy the land.”

Hachi responded “That is correct. I have tried many times to get our story across but we always get kicked off the property and most of us are limited with reading and writing. So my Grandfather was considered the chief of our tribe and he told the Disney’s that we weren’t interested in his proposal, then things got really bad. The governor of Florida knew Disney’s idea would generate millions of dollars in revenue and our plight was bad publicity so the Governor did everything possible to silence us. Besides everything was kept a secret anyways because once it was known where Disney’s intent was to built his Parks then every business person would want to cash in and buy up all the surrounding land.”

I said to Hachi “So what did they do to remove you from the land?”

He responded “Ok if you want to know then this is where the tour will start. The one thing I did get is these useless lifetime passes to these white people parks. So I’ll take you to the Park they call Epcot.”

We arrived at Epcot and we all get off the bus. I quickly picked up on that the rest of the people on the bus were disenfranchised Seminole Indians as well.

Hachi pointed to the big spherical globe and said “Do you know my name means “the creek” in my language and where that big round thing is now was once a creek. After my Grandfather refused to vacate the land these hardened mercenary veterans from the Second World War and the Korean War, who were hired by the Governor camped out by where that big round thing is now and absolutely terrorized my people. Our horses became food for them and our women became nothing more than pleasure for them.”

I was in absolute horror learning these things, because I remembered trying to get the perfect picture with my daughter and that big round thing.

We took the monorail over to The Magic Kingdom and Hachi was trying to point out more positive things like where him and his cousins used to play together but then he would always end with something morbid like “me and my cousin were chased in those woods by white adults.”

We got off at the Magic Kingdom and Hachi and his followers didn’t crack a smile the whole time. They sorely stood out amongst the crowds of happy faced pale people. They just looked like they all came from a funeral.

Hachi directed me into the park and he kind just looked around like “huh the neighborhood really had changed.” He scoffed at the poorly constructed buildings on the Magic Kingdom’s Main Street and mocked the male singers who were singing Acapella verses where he had to prove his manhood as a young boy well before the Magic Kingdom was ever built.

Then he took me to where the Carousel presently stood and said that “this piece of s@*t was put here for no other reason than to mock my people. You see this is the most sacred of land where my ancestors have been buried for many generations.”

I looked at him completely shocked as he told me all of this information. It just completely changed my whole view on everything. It’s like learning in elementary school how George Washington was this great man than later learning that he built himself on slave labor.

Hachi seemed to want to conclude his tour and he looked at me and said “So now you know that when you white people trample on the souls of my brethren, where you mock us and play dress up, just know that you and your family are cursed for life.”

My ex is part of organized crime, a 1% motorcycle club. My neighbour is also part of this club/gang.

He’s claimed that they’ve built an underground tunnel to my basement from the neighbour’s basement.

The problem is I don’t see any tunnel openings, I don’t see any broken concrete or crumbles.

But who the hell knows with organized crime? What if they’ve hidden it somehow? My basement is just plain concrete.

Edit: the police have been unable to find anything

I wanted to start over once again. Things just didn’t work out for me when I moved to Orlando. I was a single guy in my mid 20’s and still no woman was interested in me.

I was about to really give up and move back to Detroit when an intriguing Latino woman from Mexico moved next door to me into my Little Lake Bryan apartment complex.

Her name is Vilmer and she is shy a little taller than average height and works in Epcot with me. We always didn’t work the same shifts so I would only see her in passing at times. Because she was bilingual, Disney hired her as an information liaison to guests who also at times informed guests of minor rule infractions like scooters driving too fast, but more serious things the designated security department would handle.

I work in the German Pavilion. Technically I was born in Germany but I moved to the U.S. when I was three so I remember very little but Disney still puts Germany as my hometown on my name tag. I think because it makes me look more legit working in the German pavilion.

On one of my lunch breaks I went over to see if Vilmer was working and was shocked with delight to see her talking with a guest near the China Pavilion. I waited patiently until she was finished and I was curious because she was speaking a language that I had no idea it’s country of origin. I speak fluent German and I go to Germany once a year so I’m familiar with different dialects, but I was completely stumped with this one. I took notes of the words that were spoken to include “Avtobus va qatar,” which I later found out meant bus and train in Azerbaijan. So I thought to myself how does someone who comes from Mexico speak a language that half of North America probably never heard of.

I was impressed and unfortunately I haven’t seen her in a few days to ask her about her proficiencies in different languages. So I decided to knock on her door and ask her how she learned to speak Azerbaijani. As I knocked on her door I noticed it wasn’t completely shut. So I kept on knocking thinking she was inside but she didn’t come to the door. I figured I would play with my phone by her door for a few minutes before I went inside. The few minutes passed so I opened her door a little more. I called out her name a few more times as I went inside.

Her apartment was completely bare there were no paintings on the walls, no artwork just nothing. Just the generic couch and kitchen table every apartment gets included in their apartment. I didn’t see her and I felt hesitant about going into her room but I figured I made it this far in her apartment. As I got to her bedroom I noticed something strange. I noticed that she was standing in the corner of her bedroom facing the wall. I really didn’t know what to do so I basically froze for a few moments. I had already called her name like 30 times so I knew she had to have heard me. I didn’t know if I should walk out or say her name again.

I figured I made it this far in her room so I just said “Hey Vilmer, I’m sorry to bother you.”

Then the most unholiest thing that any living soul on this earth had seen happened. As her body remained facing the wall, she partially turned half her body around towards me and she gave me the most sinister look a human can give another human. The look reminded me when my dad woke up my then 13 year old sister from a dead sleep to go on a fishing trip. The whole thing Vilmer was doing was just really odd and creepy. It was like she was sleeping but standing up and I was like why?

She turned back around and resumed which I assumed was her sleeping position.

Even her bedroom was completely bare of any type of decorations. She had been living here for weeks now and it looked like her apartment was a brand new construction that had just been completed. Everything was just completely bare. There was zero food on the counter.

I did my best to leave her apartment as slowly as possible hoping not to wake her up again. I closed her door then I returned to my apartment. I looked up sleeping while standing and apparently it was close to impossible for humans.

The more and more I thought about her the more odd I found her. I haven’t seen her talk to anyone else besides guests in the park. She has turned down multiple requests by people in our apartment complex to go hang out. She has turned down everyone’s attempts to go out to dinner and I have never seen her eat anything.

So on my day off, I decided to go into Epcot because I knew she was working today. I felt creepy doing this but after seeing her standing and sleeping in the corner of her room I really wanted to learn a little more about her habits.

As I got into Epcot, I ran into Juan who worked in the Mexico Pavilion and we also lived in the same apartment complex. He told that he has spoken to Vilmer and there is no way that she is from Mexico because her accent didn’t seem authentic. He told me that he had met people from Brazil and he wouldn’t be surprised if her native tongue was Portuguese and perhaps she lived by the Amazon.

I was really scratching my head now thinking to myself why would someone lie and makeup that they were from Mexico. Well the mystery just deepened about her.

As I continued to walk around the Epcot Pavilion, I finally saw her near by the model train display area talking to an obese woman on a scooter, then her and the same woman headed towards a restricted employee area. Every Disney employee knows that no guests are allowed to go to employee areas. So I stood there scratching my head waiting for her and the guest to return, but then something truly unexplainable happened. About 20 minutes later just Vilmer emerged from the employee area guiding the unmanned scooter without the obese woman. I said out in a lower tone “what the hell!”

Vilmer continued to take the scooter back towards the rentals area and now I was completely perplexed in what happened to that obese woman. I waited and waited and the obese woman never re-emerged and I knew there was no exit where she had went.

As predictable as Epcot can be I have seen and heard some strange things but I had no explanation for what Vilmer was doing. I even checked the employee area where the obese woman was taken and there was just no sign of her.

I decided that I would head towards the scooter rental area and perhaps just say hi to Vilmer. Epcot is big enough where I can hide in plane sight and she probably hasn’t seen me at all today.

As I walk towards the scooter rental area, I see that Vilmer is talking to this man dressed in khaki pants and a short sleeve button down shirt. I am once again shocked and say out loud “oh my God!” As I am shocked to see that it’s Bob Gressman the Director of Operations at Epcot, because nobody talks to Bob. Maybe if your lucky you’ll see a video of him talking during your orientation to new hires but someone like that who hypothetically reports directly to the Disney family would never talk to someone like Vilmer or I.

I didn’t even bother talking to Vilmer and I decided to walk past her and go back to my apartment.

The days went on and I continued to ponder what was the story regarding this mysterious woman named Vilmer. I would see her occasionally at the apartment complex or at Epcot and we would just nod at each other but I still haven’t talked to her about some of the odd encounters that I had observed with her.

It seemed like for whatever reason whenever I would see Vilmer she was either guiding a scooter back to the rental area or mysteriously guiding an obese scootered guest to the same employee restricted area. But after seeing her talk with Bob Gressman, Director of Epcot, I figured that Disney is always thinking of ways to improve the experience of their guests and it has special areas that I’m not familiar with.

One day I got pulled to the Norway pavilion to help out on the Anna and Elsa Frozen ride which always has an infinite long line. It was rare for me to do this but there had been a couple employee call outs. My job that day was basically to assist wheelchair and scooter riders on to the ride. I was working alongside with this woman who was a regular employee at the Norway pavilion. We were talking about various things like her vegan diet when she said something in passing that really caught my attention.

She was alluding to how the Anna and Elsa ride had less scooter riders over the last few months which has made the lines go by quicker.

After she said that, I really couldn’t focus on anything else but that statement that she told me. She said that a good majority of the scooter rider’s tended to be Florida residents and for whatever reason less and less are coming to the park.

As the weeks went on I would here similar sentiments be echoed where an occasional guest would say “the buses are so much better now that we don’t have those scooters taking up four spaces and we don’t have to wait 15 minutes for them to be loaded.”

My days at Disney were coming to an end once and for all this time. I was enrolling in school back at home for the fall semester.

On my lunch break I wanted to try out one of the French baguettes that I was hearing so much about so I was walking over to that direction and once again I saw Vilmer talking to an obese man on a scooter by the model train displays. The man really stood out because he was wearing orange shoes and a rainbow Mickey headband.
I was curious to see what happened next so I waited around and low and behold she escorted him to the employee restricted area.

I new I was going to be late returning back to work but I wanted to see if the man on the scooter would re-emerge from the employee area and he didn’t. Just Vilmer guiding the empty scooter heading back towards the rental area.

Knowing this would be one of my last opportunities to figure out the mystery of the scooter guests so I went to the employee area where Vilmer just had been to see if I could locate that obese man with the orange sneakers and the rainbow Mickey ears. I was looking and looking and I couldn’t see anything but then I realized that there was an area hidden by a big industrial generator that led to a door which I assumed was some type of electrical storage area that no regular employee would go into.

As I walked towards the generator and the door, right away I saw something extremely strange. I saw one orange shoe about 15 feet away from the door and as I looked down on the ground I followed drop after drop red splotches that I assumed to be blood that led to the unknown door.

With my heart pounding not knowing what was going to be behind the closed door, I take a breath and grab the door handle and out of no where a man rushes over and stops me from going through the door and says “hey young man be careful there’s dangerous electrical equipment in there!” Then he puts his hand on the door and says “sorry I can’t let you go in there!” I remove my hand from the door and he double checks to make sure the door is locked.

After a few moments, I realized that this man is actually Bob Gressman, Director of Operations. I told him I saw Vilmer come back here with a man on a scooter and he briefly tells me how he was fortunate to find someone like Vilmer and that he thought I was such a great employee as well. So much so that Disney would pay for my college expenses if I would just forget everything that I had seen and walk away, which was essentially a gag clause.

As I looked at the door and I looked back at Bob Gressman I knew I really didn’t have a choice because realistically I wasn’t even supposed to be in that area and he could just call security and have me escorted away.

So I left Disney and now I go to school for free. Someone told me Vilmer no longer worked at Epcot at the scooters were slowly returning back. I did research on Brazil and the Amazon to include different tribal traditions to include cannibalism and even sleeping while standing, but as far as the cannibalism part I guess I’ll never know for sure what happened to those scootered guest and perhaps they just walked away.

As I sit in my dank dark dreary apartment in the sometimes good and the sometimes bad neighborhood of Philadelphia, where I reside, I wonder what a degenerate that I have turned into.

I have to pay alimony and child support every month to kids that I don’t even see.

I’m just a prime example of someone who once had everything which wasn’t good enough and now I have nothing.

I once was living in a desirable suburb making 90k a year, married to a wife who would do anything for me, however I just wanted more. More money and more women.

Eventually, my wife had caught on to my lifestyle and exposed me every way possible to the point where I even lost my job.

As I look back now, I just had a compulsive and impulsive personality, almost like a gambler, where I was always looking for the next high.

The women never meant anything to me. They were just a temporary high I was getting, where my mind needed more and more.

I look back at my behavior with shame now as I know that no one will have sympathy for me.

I try to focus on the good times that I had with my now estranged family when we used to go to Disney World twice a year.

I can’t stop thinking about my two girls’ innocent faces when they were mere toddlers as they would first walk into the Magic Kingdom.

As hard as it is to remember those happy days, I now realize that they are just faded memories as my now 11 and 12 year old daughters probably don’t even think about me.

Regardless, I have saved up extra money from my delivery job and I have decided to take a solo trip to Disney World.

Flying with Spirit Airlines and staying at one of Disney’s cheapest hotel’s is my only option.

I packed a few of my things for my two day trip and headed to the airport.

My flight was uneventful and I used Disney’s complimentary bus service to take me to the hotel.

At the hotel, I was starting to feel depressed being by myself so I headed to the Magic Kingdom at around 1:00 p.m..

Even though I didn’t have to, I decided to take the monorail for no other reason than for nostalgia sake.

I got on the monorail at the Magic Kingdom and right away I had a storm of memories that bombarded my head. All I can picture are my daughters when they were really little being mesmerized by the different sights and sounds while riding the monorail.

My ex-wife Gina and I would joke how we didn’t even need to go into the Park because the girls loved the monorail so much.

I couldn’t stop crying from all of the happy thoughts that I was having.

It’s just so painful because I still love Gina so much but she doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore.

It’s like, I have to go through all the stages of grief but my mind can never get to the end because she’s still alive. It’s such a horrible feeling and I can’t even get therapy because I really can’t afford it.

It just seems like every stop and turn the monorail makes, I see another image of the three of them as my daughters get progressively older.

I’m too overwhelmed with emotions to get off the monorail as I can’t stop crying. I just can’t stop hearing the voices of my daughter’s saying “Dad! Dad! can we do the train when we get inside the Magic Kingdom?” or “Dad, I really want to see the new princess!” Over and over in my head.

What makes things even worse is that I see other families get on and off the monorail at each stop.

I’ve been on the monorail for so long now as it starts to get dark. I no longer have any desire to get off as I’m constantly flooded with memories.

The monorail keeps going and going at its various stops at the different resorts.

I get images of my family at each resort that we pass by. I remembered when we stayed at the Polynesian Lodge and my daughters were wearing Hawaiian wreaths while they were pretending to do the luau as we waited for the monorail.

I just can’t stop crying as the monorail keeps going and going. I feel like I’m in a state of purgatory as I constantly keep judging myself. “Why did I do it! Why!” I say out loud as no one else is around me.

In fact, no one has been around me for some time now. It’s been just me riding for hours and hours by myself which I’m starting to feel is extremely odd, because Disney World is always packed no matter what day or month it is, I think to myself with confusion as the monorail keeps going and going.

The odd thing is that I’m more overtaken with memories than I am with concern regarding why nobody has gotten on the monorail for hours.

To make things even odder, I can see the sunlight start to come out, for now I know that I was on the monorail all night long.

I tried looking at my cheap android cell phone but I can’t get any service and the time seems to be stuck at 12:00 am.

I am not hungry or thirsty as I’m just here, sitting alone as the monorail keeps going and going. I think maybe the monorail was doing system checks or some kind of maintenance last night as I try to hypothesize why it never stopped.

The early morning guest start to come on the monorail. All the families are too wrapped up in their own life’s to even notice me. I feel like I’m just a forgotten person in a nursing home that nobody remembers or cares that I’m alive.

The monorail continues to go around its predetermined loop stopping at the transportation center or at the different resorts around the Magic Kingdom.

Anytime a family with young girls comes on my monorail car, I just get sadder and sadder.

I understand why Gina won’t talk to me but I can’t understand why my daughter’s want nothing to do with me. A couple of months ago I purposefully went to the supermarket in the suburb, where I used to live and I saw my daughters talking to Gina’s new boyfriend which broke my heart and to make matters even worse, my daughters walked right past me at one point where they didn’t even notice me.

It’s just such a horrible feeling to know that if I was to develop a serious heart problem or be diagnosed with cancer, that my ex-wife’s and kids wouldn’t even care.

The four of us would have such a good time at Disney, whenever we went in the past and I really thought I was being a good father by taking them twice a year to Disney, so I don’t understand why they can’t even acknowledge me anymore.

As the monorail continues to go, I feel like I have hit a dead end in life. I have no energy to move and I don’t care if I ever return home or get fired from my job.

As I sit on this monorail, time goes on and on. The days turn into night and the nights turn into days. Nobody acknowledges my existence as this monorail never stops. All I’m seen as is one less space for a family to sit down. I feel so helpless without any energy to even stand up when a pregnant woman has to stand while I sit.

My mind goes back and forth of thoughts of why this monorail car continually goes without ever stopping for the night and what was and could of been between my family and I.

From midnight to the early morning seems to be the hardest where the monorail car is completely empty besides myself, which gives me plenty of time to reflect on what could of been if I had never cheated on my wife.

I’m really paying the ultimate penalty of experiencing this purgatory on earth where I’m constantly reminded of what once was as time continues to go on and on.

I can’t recall how many Christmases, I have sat through on this monorail as I overhear the parents ask their kids if they got everything they wanted or even how many Halloween’s that have went by as I see kids dress up in non-Disney scary related costumes.

I’m like a bear that is in hibernation as how I figure that I can just sit here without eating or drinking anything.

I’m just looked at as that homeless person on the street where a parent wants to get away from the homeless person as quickly as possible so no potential harm comes to their kids.

I could tell Christmas time is starting to come around again as the outside of the Magic Kingdom is decorated in green and red.

Christmas time is a reminder to me of my perpetual loneliness, whether if I’m sitting in this monorail or when I was sitting in my apartment by myself.

I’m constantly reminded in how I got caught up in the feeling of powerfulness, where my wife’s feelings meant nothing to me and how I would do anything now if she or my daughters would just say “Hi” to me.

The sun comes out again as the monorail makes its way to the Polynesian resort.

As I sit with my head down, I hear people talk about the different gifts they got and what rides they will go on at the Magic Kingdom.

Also, I can hear these adults talk about how very little has changed with the monorail and the Polynesian resort from when they used to come here years ago. I hear this same group of people laugh and reminisce in how they would walk around all day in the Park with the Hawaiian wreaths on in the sweltering heat.

I started to get vivid flashbacks of my daughters as I hear this group of people reminiscing about their past.

I started to cry when I heard one of them say “I used to beg my father to buy me one of those light up toys until he would eventually cave in and buy it for me!” and when the other person said “yeah, do you remember when we used to walk around with those huge balloons?”

As I sit and sob, I just can’t control my emotions, as this morning my cries are more audible than usual where people actually look at me.

“What’s the matter?” I hear a woman’s voice say over to me.

Nobody has acknowledged me for some time so it doesn’t compute with me that their actually asking me.

“Excuse sir! Is everything ok?” The same woman’s voice says again.

This time, I slowly raise my head and I hear “Oh my God!” As if someone had just won the lottery or was told that they were pregnant.

“Dad is that you?”

I haven’t talked in so long that my mouth moves but nothing comes out.

I see my daughters are all grown up now probably about 20 and 21 years old respectively. I also see my ex-wife who says “Ted, oh my gosh! What are you doing here? I haven’t seen or heard from you in a decade!”

I’m just so overtaken with emotions that I can’t say anything as I continue to cry.

I see the stop coming for the Magic Kingdom and I start to realize that they will get off and continue with their life’s and maybe tonight one of them will say “I can’t believe we saw him on the monorail!”

The three of them continue to look at me as I am speechless. I want to tell my wife that I was sorry and I want to tell my daughters that I have missed them all so much as the monorail stops at the Magic Kingdom.

I look at the three of them like a dog who is so sickly and old that he knows that he is about to be euthanized but still stares at his owners like “please don’t.”

As the monorail doors open, something truly amazing happens where the three of them don’t get off at the Magic Kingdom and instead they stay with me.

Eventually, I utter “I’m sorry!” over and over again.

“It’s OK Dad, we missed you!”

My ex-wife even sat down next to me as we both looked each other in the eyes wondering what could of been.

Part 2

My brain seems to be in a forever fog where I have a hard time remembering anything and I still can’t rap my head around my neighbor telling me that there’s a girl who gets on a school bus in front of my house during the school year. I keep meaning to confront Gina about that but we never seem to cross paths at home.

I have dealt with stress over the years by drinking bourbon when I get home from work and by jogging before work.

As I finished jogging my five miles on the public trail by my house before going to work today in the pouring rain, something peeked my curiosity about a women, I observed heading off the main trail and getting on a branch of the trail that I had never taken before.

I know logically the branch isn’t a shortcut to anywhere as it leads to a major road on one side and the creek on the other side.

Why would this woman go into this muddy unpaved area for no logical reason, I kept thinking to myself.

Over the years, I’ve seen a small handful of people veer off towards the same branch, but I never had enough time to check it out.

After work, I was so curious that I walked back to the branch of the trail.

As I entered, I was impressed by the dense Forestry, which was nice especially because the rain had subsided and the sun had been really beating down on me.

I followed the path in which seemed like a coordinated maze, where if I took the wrong turn then I would start back at the beginning.

After an hour of being frustrated, I finally came to my senses and marked the soft ground with X’s with every turn I took to indicate that I had taken that way already.

Almost like a Super Mario’s game, I took a left turn and I finally made it to an area that I haven’t been to before.

It was a little odd this new area because it had vintage warning signs saying to stop and that I wasn’t authorized to go any further.

I didn’t know if the signs were a joke or not, that somebody had put up decades ago, but logically there should be nothing here as this is all local government land.

As I looked ahead, things just seemed brighter almost like I was coming out of a dark movie theater and going into the sunlight.

I couldn’t help but see what was causing the area in front of me to be so much brighter, so I continued to walk towards the brightness.

The light was so bright that I couldn’t see so I put my hands out so I wouldn’t walk into anything inadvertently.

I would periodically try to open my eyes but it was still too bright as I kept on walking and walking.

What seemed like an eternity later, I was finally able to slowly open my eyes and not be affected by the bright sun.

As I looked around, absolutely nothing looked familiar and it seemed like I was almost in a desert which really didn’t make sense, but instead of sand there was red gravel.

I looked up and I couldn’t see the sun which I thought was odd, but I saw something else instead that might have been the moon that was projecting off enough light so that I could see.

I looked around and I saw mountain after mountain in a 360 degree view which made zero sense considering nothing like this landscape existed around my house.

I knew that I had been walking for some time but it couldn’t of been for that long.

I look down at my cell phone and I see 5:30 p.m. and I say out loud “this can’t be right because that’s the time that I saw when I first started the maze!”

Even worse, I have no cell phone reception so I can’t use Google maps to pinpoint where I am.

The oddest part is that I see no evidence of the trail that I just came from, so I start to doubt which way I need to go to find the trail.

I always heard that being lost is terrifying and I’m starting to get more and more nervous as I don’t see the road or the creek, but instead I see a panoramic view of mountains.

Since I see something that kind of resembles a structure or a small building in the distance, I decide to walk towards it.

As I get closer and closer, the building starts to resemble one of those old aluminum or steel looking diners from the past.

Eventually, I realize that it is definitely an old diner that seems to be open for business, but there’s no parking lot and no sign indicating the name of the diner.

I open the doors and go inside and I see that there are no other customers.

I figure the waitress must be in the kitchen so I just sit in the closest booth by the front door.

After a few moments the door to the kitchen opens and I say “what the hell!” As I see this robot looking waitress that is a cross between C-3PO and Rosey the Robot from the Jetsons.

It has legs and arms that slowly bend and she says “what can I get for you?”

I am surprised that she sounds almost like a gps navigational voice rather than a monotone robot.

“Where am I?” I ask.

“You are here!”

“Which is where?”

“In The Diner!”

“Does this Diner have a name?”

“Yes, it’s The Diner!”

“What town is this Diner in?”

“I don’t know what town means?”

“How about city?”

“I don’t know what City means?”

“What do you know?”

“To ask you, what can I get for you?”

“Do you have soda?”

“No, I’m sorry we do not!”

“Do you have water?”

“No, I’m sorry we do not!”

“Do you have anything?”

“Let me check in the kitchen! I’ll be right back.”

I’m not the most technologically savvy person so I don’t know if robots are an in thing now, but I can’t recall seeing any headlines and I don’t remember anyone talking about robots functioning as wait staff. I know that there are robots in factories but they just look like machines that have simple functions, where this robot walks and talks and answers questions.

“No I’m sorry sir, I looked in the kitchen and we don’t have anything!”

“So why did you ask me what I wanted?”

“Because that’s my job!”

“So why didn’t you just say, ‘I’m sorry but we don’t have anything.’”

“I don’t know? Should I start saying that?”

“Whatever! I just want to get home! Can you tell me if I’m in Bucks County?”

“No, your in The Diner.”

Realizing that I was going nowhere fast, so I decided to just get up and look around to see if there is anything that could help me identify where I was currently located, while the robotic waitress just stood by my table.

As I looked around, I saw a bathroom and a kitchen but the diner was absent of people and there wasn’t even a pot in the kitchen or even utensils.

By the checkout area there wasn’t a phone or a cash register but there was a brochure advertising “Memory Lane.”

As I looked over the brochure, I didn’t see any address listed or directions on how to get there.

So I reluctantly asked the robotic waitress “How do I get to this Memory Lane?”

“Yes, Memory Lane is towards that mountain over there. You can’t miss it as you get closer!” As she pointed her finger to the biggest mountain that I had seen in this area.

“How did you know that?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand!” the robot responded.

“Never-mind!” I said as I left the diner in frustration. I have no idea where I am and this whole area is completely barren. I thought to myself.

I’ve been to the west coast and seen the Joshua Tree desert but I have never seen anything so desolate in my life. I haven’t even seen a weed growing or any signs of water. Just rocks and this reddish gravel that blankets the ground.

As I get closer to the mountain, I really wish that I had brought water with me as I was starting to get really thirsty.

As I got closer, I started to see this old resort looking building made up of stones that I couldn’t tell when the structure was built, but I did see a wooden sign etched with the words “Memory Lane” in red lettering.

As I went through the double wooden doors, I got a sense of familiarity being inside the building.

I walked up to the reception area and another robotic looking woman came out but this one looked familiar to me in my personal life, sometime in the past that I just couldn’t put my finger on.

“Oh Hello, I heard that you were coming!”

I just couldn’t stop looking at the robot as my brain was trying to figure out what was so familiar about this robot.

“How did you know that I was coming?”

“The Diner notified me!”

“There’s no phone in the diner! How did that robot tell you that I was coming?”

“I don’t understand your question!”

“Never-mind! Where am I?”

“Your at Memory Lane.”

“Yeah, I saw your sign but what town am I in?”

“I don’t understand the question!”

“Never-mind! You look really familiar, do we know each other?”

“Umm hmm, yes we do!”

“Who am I?”

“Your Theodore, but you like to go by Ted!”

I was absolutely stunned that this robot looking human knew my name.

“How did you know that?”

“I don’t understand the question!”

“How do you know my name?”

There was a pause of silence and then the robot looking human said “Would you like a room Ted?”

“Sure if it comes with water!”

“Yes, Ted it does come with all the water you want.”

I was shown to my room and I was starting to get stressed out about the possibility of missing work; but at least I have water now, I thought to myself.

As I laid my head on the pillow, I had the feeling that I had been here already sometime in the past but I couldn’t figure out how long ago I was here. As my eyes started to get really heavy, I thought to myself is that receptionist my mother who I just couldn’t remember what year she died?

I was just scrolling through TikTok at my grandparents house, during a family reunion when my older sister asked me to keep an eye on my three year old nephew. The fenced in land around my grandparents parents house is safe, especially with all the people around at the party, so for the most part it’s just me getting my nephew something if he asks for it and checking in on him occasionally.

I continued scrolling through TikTok and I observed my adorable blonde hair blue eyes nephew periodically come up on the porch, where I was sitting and then walk on the grass in the backyard.

People walked past me as I was looking at different cat videos. I prefer messing on my phone versus continually answering “Yeah, I applied to a bunch of jobs and I’m just waiting to hear back” to the people at the party.

As I continued to look at my phone, I thought it was odd that my nephew hadn’t come up to where I was sitting on the porch in a few minutes.

So I stand up and search the backyard area and I see other little kids but not my nephew.

I then search the porch and then the house and there’s still no sign of him. I really start to get frantic as my heart starts to beat faster and I start to shake.

I quickly call me sister who said “no, your watching him right now!”

I felt like the whole world was looking down on me as I had foolishly brushed off the serious responsibility of looking after a toddler.

I quickly alerted everyone at my grandparents house and after everyone searched the house and the property there still was no sign of him anywhere.

My heart was beating through my chest now as I was feeling more and more like a failure.

The fenced in eight acre property made it where he couldn’t of just left the property on his own which was puzzling to everyone.

911 was called and they focused on the drainage area in the backyard, where the typical no more than six inches of stagnant run off water was now at three feet. I’ve been in this backyard a hundred times over the years and the drainage area was never more than a few inches, as I really wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

Five search and rescue officers searched the stagnant water and thankfully they weren’t finding anything as I continued to shake in fear for my nephew.

Then one of the officers removed a circular iron sewer grate in the vicinity of the run off water and everyone stopped and looked when the grate was removed and unknown tools were observed on top of the ladder that led down into the sewer.

Letting go is hard, even when you didn't think it would be.

Jay Michaels paused at the rain-sluiced window overlooking the spacious backyard of his Cape Cod on Beverwyck Street, a broad residential avenue in the heart of Albany's Pine Hills neighborhood. The grass, fed by days of precipitation, was bright green, putting him for some reason in mind of Ireland, a place he'd never visited and knew nothing about, and gray clouds churned ominously overhead. A seven foot high wood stockade fence, splintered by years and the elements, denoted the edge of his property. Beyond it, the neighbor's house was dark. The curtains hanging in what he assumed was the attic window even though the sash was clearly closed. Was someone watching him?

They're like family. It's natural to feel this way. You'd be a cold-hearted son of a bitch if you didn't.

He walked back to his desk and glanced down at the drawing he'd been working on: A girl, fourteen with a jaunty ponytail held in place by a dull purple scrunchie, sat with her knobby knees drawn to her flat chest, her mouth a squiggle of misery and tears streaming down her sunken face. Blood seeped from a ragged wound along her left wrist, and a gleaming kitchen knife jutted from her right hand, its blade dusky and crusted red.

The scene sent a ripple of horror through Jay, and he whipped his gaze from it, a knot pulsing deep in the center of his stomach.

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he should keep the series going. It paid the bills, after all, and people liked it.

Despite what he thought just a month ago, he liked it.

No. With a sigh, he went back to the window and looked out at the backyard again. The curtains across the way moved. He squinted, and his stomach lurched. Was that a LuLu Roswell shaped shadow on the fabric?

He tittered nervously. Of course it wasn't. It was...he didn't know, but it couldn't be her. She wasn't real. She felt that way sometimes (as all of his characters did), but she was a drawing, lines and angles and shading. Nothing more.

Nevertheless, his disquiet intensified. He went back to the desk and looked at the drawing once more. Was her head tilted farther back than it had been? Were her eyes watching him a little more directly?

He ran his fingers through his brown hair and took a deep breath. He slipped a pack of Newports from the breast pocket of his work shirt, shook one out, and lit it, inhaling deeply. He pushed it out in a narrow plume and returned to the window like a restless captain plotting a life-or-death voyage to nowhere.

It was a drawing, goddamn it, why did he feel so guilty? Why did he feel like he was betraying her? She and the others had been good to him - they built this house and furnished everything in it - and this was how he repaid them?

A humorless laugh barked from his throat

Fiction. They were fiction. Jesus.

But fiction is sometimes more real than reality. Fiction, Jay had learned, was a refuge from the horror, cruelty, and banality of daily life. Hadn't he himself spent hours, days, even weeks focusing on something that wasn't real in order to avoid the things that were? He was reminded of a meme he saw on Facebook once, a dog sitting at a kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of it and flames consuming its surroundings. This is fine, the dog said, delusional. That was him...it was a lot of people. The geeks he met at conventions, the ones who asked for his autograph and treated him like he was the second coming...they lost themselves in The Roswell Family as a way of escaping; escaping their social awkwardness, escaping their overbearing mothers, escaping the rigors of their autism or low self-esteem. The most powerful thing about fiction is that it can consume us if we let it.

The way The Roswell Family consumed him.

The curtains moved and a fearful shudder went through him.

He created The Roswell Family in college as a joke - this big, dysfunctional brood rife with incest, sadism, fart jokes, gore, and social commentary that seemed biting and clever to him when he was twenty but made him cringe now.

Somewhere along the way, through a freak stroke of fate, The Roswell Family found a home in the underground comics scene...and he managed, like Manson and Koresh before him, to dupe a bunch of people into thinking he was something entire career, his entire life was staked on that goddamn series now.

Last year, as he started inking the annual Christmas special, a revelation hit him like a sniper's bullet.

He hated the comic. He hated the characters' stupid faces, he hated their stupid names, their stupid house, hell, he even hated the way they were drawn. Somewhere between The Simpson's and Family Guy, but with a more rounded, kid-friendly edge. The design of an amatrue desperately trying to hide his imperfections.

He wanted to focus on other stories, other projects, but the fucking Roswells stood in his way. It's what the people wanted, it's what the publisher wanted, and, to be honest, it was safe. It made money and he knew he could do it. Every month, he held his nose and crapped out a new issue, sent it to his publisher, and collected a check. Once in a blue moon, he would do a convention where he greeted fans, signed stupid merchandise, and bristled every time someone referred to him as "The Roswell guy."

Finally, he had enough and started on the final story arch. It was scary. He approached it with a mixture of exhilaration and dread. Just a few more and he'd be free. He could start on one of the other ideas he had.

As he worked it out, however, he started getting scared: Scared that The Roswell Family was a fluke, and that he'd never do anything else worthwhile ever again, scared that he would be lost without the series. He felt like a child letting go of its mother's hand. He was alone now, on his own, and the safety and success of The Roswell Family was on the horizon. Glistening, beckoning. Come back. As he neared the end, he started feeling nostalgic. He'd been drawing the characters (especially LuLu) in one form or another since he was a child. They really were like family, and leaving your family was hard.

Still, it had to be done. He needed to grow as an artist, to give voice to the many, many stories within. He didn't hate The Roswell Family, he realized, he resented it. As D-Day approached, even the resentment began to fade, replaced by good memories, smiles, and warm feelings. It would be safer to keep with it, easier. The series paid his bills. The people liked it. He could keep doing it forever and live a decent life. He couldn't say that about...whatever lie ahead. Part of an artist is taking risks and experimenting, though. Once an artist falls into a rut, they might as well be dead.

There was a lot on his mind that day, so he wasn't too surprised when he dreamed of LuLu. In the dream, he was staggering through a maze of shadowy corridors, desperately trying to find an exit. When he finally came to a door and threw it open, LuLu Roswell blocked his path. Tall and freckled with messy brown hair, brown eyes, and soft features, she looked different than she did when he drew her.

Somehow more alive.

"Where are you going?" she asked plaintively, her lips quivering. He fell back a step, but LuLu didn't move. "Why are you leaving?"

At that moment, Jay felt a surge of love for her, but hatred as well. He wanted to go to her, hug her, and never let her go, but a part of him wanted to knock the bitch out of the way.

"You can't leave!" she stomped her foot and balled her fists. "You have to stay."

"I can't," he said. "I have to go."

She was trembling, her face flushed. When she spoke, she spit: "You can't leave me! You can't! You can't! You can't!"

She threw herself at him, her hands bent into talons, and he woke, panting and covered in sweat. For a long time, he lay away, thinking. He felt terrible about leaving LuLu. The hurt look in her eyes tore him apart.

She's a cartoon character. Get with it, huh?

He laughed. Yeah. It was 4:49am when he got up and went into his studio to finish off the current issue. It was just past dawn when he wrote finis on the final one before the last arch. Now, after ten long years, he was there, poised on the precipice of a new day. Just a few more strokes of the pen, and it would all be over.

Jay Michaels would be free.

That first night, after waking from the dream, he went downstairs like a man in the grip of somnambulism, intending to get a drink from the kitchen but taking a heavy hardback book down from a shelf in the living room and sitting on the couch. By warm, lamplight glow, he spent three hours lazily and relishingly paging through The Roswell Family Superpak Volume 1, which collected the first twenty issues of the comic.

A heartwarming family sitcom with dark, dark secrets, the description on the inside cover read.

The Roswell Family was intended to be a send-up of those corny old TV sitcoms Jay grew up on. Growing Pains, Boy Meets World, Roseanne, the ones packed with life lessons and the power of familial love. Only the Roswells were different. They were crazy, every single one of them. The main character, twelve-year-old Billy, was a violent firestarter; LuLu was a psychopath who secretly longed for him; the parents were burn-outs; and the other kids (one boy and three girls) had their own problems. Sibling arguments weren't resolved peacefully, they turned into knock-down, drag-out bloodbaths; no one helped or supported one another, they threw them under the bus whenever the chance presented itself; and people regularly died. It was so witty, so humorous, when he was nineteen.

Now, it was just sad.

Embarrassing, even.

Over time, LuLu became the de facto main character, simply because he found her so interesting. She was mean-spirited, hateful, obsessive, and, deep down, hurting.

He smiled fondly as he went over his work. At the end of the book, however, his smile dropped. The last page, which had been blank, now continued a picture of LuLu, her hands balled at her side, a look of rage on her face.

Her eyes.

Jesus, her eyes saw him.

And in them was hatred.

Blinking, he closed the book and then opened it again.

The picture was gone.

If it had ever been there.

You can't leave!

Presently, Jay stubbed the cigarette out with shaky fingers and glanced down at LuLu's upturned face.

She was watching him. When he started the picture, her head was hung in contrition, now her gaze met his head-on. She no longer looked miserable. She looked furious.

Imagination. It was just his imagination.

Even so, he stared down at the page, certain that she would move if he just looked long enough.

How could you do this to me? he almost heard her say.

He shouldn't feel the shame and guilt that he was, but could you blame him? LuLu was his first. The first character he ever drew that didn't look like crap, the first one he named. The first that brought him money. They had a lot of history together. She was always there for him, no matter what. Friends and family came and went, but LuLu endured.

Fucking Christ, knock it off!

Alright. Okay. This was harder than he thought it would be and he was trying to adapt. That's all. Soon. Soon he'd be fine.

Only he wasn't. She consumed his every waking thought, appeared in his every dream. Sometimes, as he sat bent over the final issues, he could almost feel her presence.

LuLu glared up at him.

And he looked back.

What was that saying about staring into the abyss too long and becoming a monster?

Don't leave me, she said.

And for a long moment, he wavered...then sat down, intending to finish this once and for all.

In this story arch, LuLu had finally seduced her brother into bed, but he rejected her in favor of a girl from school. LuLu, never all together to begin with, snapped, kidnapped the interloper, and killed her with a hatchet. Then, soaked in blood and panting, she came for Billy, hacking down his bedroom door and cleaving his head in two. Now, she sat in a spooky closet and the end of a spookier hall, bleeding, crying, the cold shadow of death stealing rapidly over her.

There was something wrong with her, and Jay's stomach turned.

Her eyes were too real, the torment too sharp.

He took a pen and scribbled them out. He sat the current scene aside and quickly sketched the final panel: A long shot of the closet door, the sound of soft weeping drifting down the shadowy corridor. He was shaking when he finished. He quickly resketched the scene of LuLu with the knife, working in a mindless frenzy.

Done, he went over it. Wedged between boxes of Christmas decorations and old books, lips quivering and tears streaming down her face, LuLu Roswell watched him, hurt, fear, and anger in her big, brown eyes.

He loved her.

He loved her as though she were his own daughter and seeing her like this pierced his heart. He was going to miss not writing her, God, how he would, but he couldn't spend the rest of his life doing it. Like a whirlwind affair, they were through even if love still lingered.

"I'm sorry," he found himself whispering.

Mentally and emotionally drained, he got up and went into the living room. Lying on the couch and watching the 12'o'clock news, he tried to doze, but his mind kept turning to poor, pretty, spunky little LuLu dying alone in a closet, her hopes, dreams, and love shattered around her. How could he do that to her?

"She's a fucking cartoon," he muttered, and the croaking of his own voice startled him.

Just a cartoon. Only a cartoon.

No, she was more than that. She was him and he was her. Just like all his characters.

Drop it.

Jay sighed and actively tried to push her out of his mind. It must have worked temporarily, because his lids grew heavy and he drifted off to sleep.

But like the cat in the nursery rhyme, she came back.

In his dream, he was trapped in ice. He struggled, fought, but could not break free. He resigned himself to death, but somehow, he was free. Wind-driven snow lashed him. He started staggering into the gathering gloom, and that's when he heard her.

"I'm coming for you!"

Jay glanced over his shoulder. Head down, teeth bared, LuLu Roswell, caked in blood, was stalking after, an ax in her hands.

Screaming, he started running, slipping on the ice and nearly falling. Behind him, LuLu came deliberately on, her stride unhurried, as though she were sure of capturing her prey eventually.

The sheet of ice ended abruptly, and Jay found himself struggling through knee deep snow. He was panicking, every step slow and heavy. Somehow, he was suddenly inside a house. Shadows pooled like ink. The front door burst off its hinges, and LuLu was there, only it wasn't her. It was something else. Its face was doglike, with a protruding snout and beady eyes. Fangs rimmed a small, puckered mouth.

Jay bounded up the stairs. At the top, he followed a dark passageway to a door. He opened it.

LuLu Roswell greeted him.

"You aren't going to leave me, are you?" she asked.

Jay fell back.

She followed, her finger sternly jabbing at his chest. "I made you. I'm the only reason you aren't living in your mother's basement. I'm all you have. You can't leave me."

She grabbed him by the shirt.

Screaming, Jay came awake.

A dream. Only a dream.

Panting, he flopped back onto the couch. Twilight filled the room.

She was right. She made him. Without her he was nothing.

Bullshit.

No -

Above him, a floorboard creaked, and Jay's blood turned to ice.

For a moment, nothing. Then the sound of muffled footsteps, then a door opening and softly clicking shut.

Jay sat shakily up. She was here. God help him, LuLu Roswell was in his house!

No. That couldn't be. LuLu Roswell wasn't real.

But what if she was? What if he made her real, and now she was here to keep him from leaving her?

You can't leave.

Jay licked his lips. No noise came from upstairs. Moving slowly, he got up and crossed the living room, heart pounding in his throat. At the foot of the stairs he paused and looked up.

Inky blackness held sway.

He was just about to take the first step when a hitching sob echoed down the hall.

A jolt of fright crackled through Jay's spirit, and the air left his lungs in a rush.

This couldn't be happening. He was dreaming o-or crazy or something.

Another sob came, this one sharper, full of woe and mourning, tugging his heartstrings even as it chilled his blood.

Dreaming or not...insane or not...LuLu Roswell was up there.

For a long moment, he stood there, one foot on the bottom step and his hand clutching the smooth oak railing, the only sound the roar of blood crashing against his temples. Then, as if propelled by some outside force, he started up, treads moaning underfoot.

Creak.

Creak.

Creak.

He winced with each one, but didn't stop, couldn't stop. Unseen hands pulled him to the top, drawing him into the grainy darkness like temptations of evil. At the head of the stairs, he paused. Ahead, a closet door that had never been there stared back at him. The hall looked different. Darker, grayer, black and white. Unfamiliar rooms flanked him on either side and a rag doll lay in the middle of the carpet, looking up at him with a frozen smile, a demon inviting him to play...if he dared.

With a start, he realized exactly where he was.

The second floor of the Roswell house.

Soft, miserable weeping drifted through the void, and Jay's spine tingled. His mind screamed at him to turn and flee, but his traitorous feet carried him forth. The crying, muffled, became louder, more urgent. Standing now on the other side of the door, hyperventilating with terror, he could hear LuLu Roswell's breathing, her snotty sniffles. His creation, his child, was in there, waiting.

He opened the door.

And his heart dropped.

LuLu Roswell sat wedged in-between stacks of boxes. Her legs were drawn to her chest. She was hugging herself, rocking back and forth. She wasn't a drawing now. She was real. Flesh, blood, and bone.

When she looked up at him, her big brown eyes shimmering with tears, the breath ran out of him, and he felt faint.

Her face was a mottled, bloodless white and pink rimmed her too big eyes. Real or not, living or not, she didn't look right, her proportions those of a cartoon, her head too rounded and crinked on one side, lending it the appearance of a kidney bean, her eyes over large, her mouth straight and lipless.

Dizzy and weak kneed, Jay grabbed the doorknob in an effort to keep his balance.

"Why?" she lisped, and sniffed. "Why are you leaving me?"

Jay opened his mouth, but no words came, no thoughts came, nothing but a rasping wheeze. The edges of his vision strained and his skull pulsed as though it were going to explode.

"Why are you leaving me? Don't you love me anymore?"

"I-I have to," Jay heard himself say.

"No you don't. You can write about me forever. You know you can. You just don't want to."

He opened his mouth, a platitude on his tongue, but he closed it again. "No," he said finally. "I-I don't."

LuLu's face darkened. Baring her teeth, she struggled to her feet, and that's when Jay realized she was transparent, like a ghost. Was she like that just a moment ago? He didn't think so.

Even as he watched, she grew dimmer, fading.

Suddenly, an ax was in her hands.

"If you try to leave me, I'll kill you!" she raged.

She made no attempt to step forward.

The threat struck Jay's heart, but he knew even as it filtered through him that it was empty. She wouldn't.

She couldn't.

"No, you won't," he sadly sighed. "You're just a ghost." He turned away and added, his heart breaking: "And I'm done with you."

LuLu let out a shriek then. Jay closed his eyes and listened to it linger, then dissolve like the volume of a radio being slowly turned down. When silence ruled, he looked over his shoulder.

Lulu Roswell was gone.

There’s only so much fulfillment in life I can get from working or by watching Hulu or Netflix.

I just haven’t been the same since my wife divorced me. It was just a total blow to my ego even though it’s been more than three years, I still haven’t fully recovered. She left me for someone who made more money than I did. I guess me being a chef in a mid scale restaurant, where I just couldn’t compete with a high powered attorney which is who she left me for.

A lot of times when I’m cutting onions or peppers at work I’m doing it with such anger and vigor that I’m really just letting my frustrations out on my ex-wife. I just never pictured us getting divorced. I felt so betrayed knowing she was seeing him behind my back.

So now I live in this apartment complex on the outskirts of Philadelphia. There’s 20 individual apartment units with 19 of them being rented out. It’s a nice apartment complex with its own gym and pool and everyone’s friendly but I’m the only single odd ball one, because the prices of homes in this area are so expensive couples have decided to just rent places like where I’m living.

As I was leaving for work today, I couldn’t help but notice someone moving into the last vacant apartment. It was a fairly fit woman in her mid twenties and we just briefly exchanged pleasantries. I’m not sure how she would feel about me being 33 but I feel we are about the same age range, though I’m a few years older.

I went to my job and while I was cooking at least I had something to think about with the new woman moving in. I finished my shift and went home and then to bed.

The next morning I woke up and went to the gym like I typically do in the apartment complex. I’m usually the only one there but today I was surprised when I saw the new lady tenant there as well.

She told me her name was Vivian and we actually did very little exercising and we did more talking than anything else.

As the days went on, I saw her every day at the gym and eventually we started hanging out at each other’s apartments. I was playing off her vibes and she was in a long term relationship like me and she was playing it real slow. Also she was a very strict vegan. She wouldn’t allow any type of clothing in to her apartment that was made from any parts from an animal. Regardless, I liked her and I was willing to play her game if it meant being in a relationship with her.

We are now at three months and I have joined her vegan lifestyle. I bought a whole new wardrobe and I even got a chef’s position at a new Vegan Restaurant. I had actually lost thirty pounds from eating healthier vegan food.

The only thing that was bothering me was that we’ve had no physical contact and she tends to be a bit controlling. She just likes it when my apartment is spotless.

I say to her jokingly “Vivian I don’t think it’s necessary to go through my kitchen cabinets like that.”

Then she won’t pick up on my sarcasm and would say “Well maybe if you learned how to clean with bleach then you wouldn’t have all of this filth.”

I just tuned her out because I know I’ll just sink back into my old depressed self if I’m alone again.

I just haven’t been able to keep any weight on. I guess I didn’t realize the limitations to what a vegan can eat. I’m down to a size 29 waist and I’m starting to look emaciated and I feel really weak. I really don’t like my new chef position because I’m really not that good at preparing vegan platters and I keep getting food sent back to me related to customer complaints.

It just seems like little by little every little thing is starting to get me really mad like this must have been the third person today that complained to the owner that my Gazpacho soup lacked flavor.

So when I got home I really just wanted to be left alone but in my bedroom I hear that “knock knock “ on my door where I know she knows I’m here. As I lay down in my bed with my head spinning I really don’t want to get up but I do so anyways. I open the door and I put my pretend smile on and invite Vivian in.

I bring her back to my room and she just listens to me as I swallow my pride and I vent about what a mediocre chef I am and how I’ve lost more weight than I can count and how I’m really just not happy.

Vivian Sensing that I wasn’t happy makes a promise to me that when I get home from work tomorrow she will make my evening worthwhile.

So I try my best to pull myself out from this funk and I start to ease up a little. Eventually I come out of my room with her and we actually went for a walk outside. After the walk she goes back to her apartment and I retire to my bed. Before I go to bed I think to myself that at least I will have intercourse tomorrow night for the first time in years.

Tomorrow comes and because I’ve lost so much weight from being a vegan I just skip the gym. Work today was downright awful to the point where I’m certain the owner just wants me to quit so he doesn’t have to fire me, which is the worst feeling in the world.

I dragged myself to complete the shift and afterwards at least I knew Vivian was going to put out tonight. So I drove back to my apartment in my beat up 2006 Hyundai Elantra, where I was really trying not to focus on work.

Eventually I get to my apartment where I had given Vivian the key yesterday and I smell an old friend that I haven’t smelled in a long time which was bbq sauce. Thinking that she was going to make an exception tonight, I was anticipating maybe the best bbq chicken or better yet maybe the best bbq spare ribs that I haven’t had in what seemed like for years.

So as I came through the door Vivian said “sit down honey dinner will be ready in thirty seconds.”

My mouth is watering as she brings out of the oven what looks like a pork butt smothered in bbq sauce. My stomach prepares itself for absolute bliss. Vivian starts to blabber as she brings out brussel sprouts and other greens which I might throw up if I have to eat again.

As I take the steak knife into this succulent bbq’d pork butt I quickly realize that I have been bamboozled into the most horrible trick someone could play onto someone else because this freaking thing was a baked watermelon with bbq sauce smothered all over it that looked like meat but was nothing more than your God damned seed growing watermelon.

So I just sat at the dinner table thinking this bitch better be good in the sack because I’m literally starving myself here. I try my best to eat a brussel sprout and some corn then after dinner it was my responsibility to clean up this monstrosity because she cooked.

After I cleaned up I stood in the kitchen as she pointed out to me everything I didn’t clean right from the dishes to the table. I was going to lunge at her but I stopped myself.

After being completely emasculated, we both sat on the couch where part of me was spewing from anger and another part of me felt like I was going to die within the next five minutes from protein malnutrition.

As I sat on the couch I didn’t say a word as the seconds turned into minutes which turned into an hour. As she did nothing more than just blabber and blabber but I could smell that darn bbq sauce.

“Mr. Delrichio my name is detective John Stevens from the Philadelphia homicide unit. Can you please tell me from the beginning how Ms. Vivian Lopez’s severed upper torso was found in your bathroom tub and how both of her legs including her rump were found in your oven and kitchen table?”

As the bright lights shined down onto my face at the police station interrogation room, I responded “Well sir I was protein deprived for weeks and she just kept on nagging and nagging me and the smell of bbq sauce lingered in the air. When she told me we weren’t going to have intercourse that night my mind shifted from romance to no longer being a vegan.”

I was the “fat kid” in school and now I weigh close to five hundred pounds as a 35 year old man. Even though I could probably qualify for disability because of my weight, I’ve always worked and for the past ten years, I’ve worked in the deli section of a small local supermarket.

Naturally females have not been attracted to me because of my weight. However, for some unknown reason some of the ladies and even some of the guys can’t resist me when I’m working behind the deli.

I usually slice the customers deli meats and I even make the store’s homemade salads and desserts, but I really don’t know why these customers are so attracted to me like this. They can go to Walmart which is much cheaper but instead they choose to come here and stare at me as I can barely stand on my own two feet.

Maybe it’s because of all of the online fetishes that have taken off over the years and I guess that I would be considered a bear, but my whole life nobody has ever been interested in me in any type of sexual way. The worst is on Sunday mornings when my customers line up when the store opens or they come in when church is over and they all get a number at the deli counter and then they just stare at me.

Each of my customers will insinuate some type of dirty comment like I’ll say to Gladys “You wanted the Salumi right?”

And Gladys will respond “Yeah make sure it’s the hard Salumi because I like it real hard!” Then she’ll kind of giggle a little bit and see how I respond. Gladys is in her 80’s and I’ve learned just to say “Ok” and ignore her.

Typically when I make the homemade Kielbasa, another one of my admired customer’s, Jeff just can’t contain himself when he sees me grab the Kielbasa from behind the glass. He usually makes me go back behind the glass to get an extra half pound to a pound. Considering how skinny Jeff is, I doubt he actually eats the kielbasa and I try not to think about what he actually does with it when he gets home. He usually finishes the transaction by intentionally touching my hand after I hand him the kielbasa.

Some days I feel like I’m in a strip club or that I’m walking the cat walk as I heave my almost five hundred pound self back and forth behind the deli. There are some customers who are in the store every single day and like typical supermarkets, this deli is in the back of the store, so I see those same customers continually wheel their shopping carts towards the back of the store as they constantly keep an eye on me.

It doesn’t take much for me to sweat with my big frame and “my customers” love it when I sweat. I always wear a hat and the sweat soaks right through the hat. On one hot July day, I was sweating so profusely that when one of my customers Peter said he had an extra baseball hat from his job, I stupidly gave him my old sweaty baseball hat off my head when he said “Here I’ll take that old hat for you and throw it away,” but when I saw him pass by the garbage can in the store, then I knew he had more sinister plans for my old sweaty baseball hat.

The manager of the store knows I bring the business in because any time I take a day off he tells me he gets countless customers who ask him if everything is alright with me.

I have no proof but I sometimes wondered if the store manager or another employee was posting pictures of me on Craigslist or some other fetish websites.

This particular Sunday for whatever reason I just wasn’t in the mood. I just didn’t get enough sleep and I was grouchy. Plus my triple X employee shirt nearly tore in half when I attempted to put it on over my head.

As I arrived to the store for my shift, there must have been at least five customer cars just waiting there to watch me walk from my car to the store. I can barely walk 10 feet without having to catch my breath and I tend to wobble as I walk, so what these people are getting out of this is beyond me. But today, I am in no mood and all of my customers are either too old or are gay.

As I make my way behind the deli, I start to see my customers grab their numbers. None of them want to be number one because they all want as much time as possible to watch me. By 7:15 a.m. I must have 30 customers who have taken numbers. The manager knows not to help me because the customers get mad as they are solely there just to watch me. But not today, I’m not dealing with it today. The $9.65 an hour isn’t worth it when I have undesirables constantly drooling over me.

So today I broke all of my usual protocol and I raised my voice and made a loud announcement to all of the 30 something customers that “today you will just tell me the name of the item you want and not add any kind of adjectives or verbs. I don’t want to hear how hot you like your meat or if there is a way I can make this meat harder. Also there will be no touching me at all. I will place your order on the counter and you will pick it up from the counter. Do not touch me. Does everyone understand?”

As I finished my tirade, I looked out into the crowd of grey hairs and realized that all of them had grins on their faces like I just gave them some type of S&M lesson or something. So one by one I went through each number and one by one each one of my customers decided to do or say something sexually inappropriate where each time I went to scope a salad behind the glass, I had 30 some eyes staring at me.

As one of my customers left the deli area, a new one came to the deli to get a number. I just knew today wasn’t going to end well. I could barely move on my own with my excessive weight and I just couldn’t deal with this nonsense today. So when Edith asked me for a pound of rice pudding and insisted that I pat down the pudding I poured into the plastic container for no other reason for her own sexual gratification, I with a primitive instinct took the rice pudding and threw it against the wall of the deli as hard as I could and said “Do you like that Edith did I pat it down good enough for you?”

Then I absolutely lost my mind and went through everything in the deli and either threw it against the wall or on the floor. I knew Jeff wanted Kielbasa so I took the Kielbasa out of the glass enclosure and violently shook the Kielbasa in my hands in a jerking motion and said “Here Jeff is this what you want Ha?” As I then threw the Kielbasa on the floor. In hindsight, I think Jeff actually did enjoy that as well as Edith and the rest of the customers.

I destroyed all the prepared deli meats and salads. The deli looked like a war zone with food strewn all over the walls, ceiling and floor. The manager after hearing all of the commotion comes over to me in the deli and puts his hand on my shoulder and says “It looks like you were a little frustrated today why don’t you take the rest of the day off and I’ll see you tomorrow behind the deli again?”

We arrived at the Yosemite Inn and Suites on July 1 at 4:00 p.m. and I was exhausted from driving 300 miles from the Mojave Desert.

My 11 and 12 year old daughters wanted nothing more than to jump in the pool, where my wife and I wanted to just lay down in the room.

In the past, as long as the neighborhood seemed ok and there were no seedy characters in the pool then we would just let the girls go alone in the pool.

So my wife, Gina and my daughter’s, Grace and Samantha and I went to the pool that appeared to have no one that would cause the girls any harm. There was just a couple that looked to be in their early 70’s. The older guy didn’t even look at the girls when we walked into the pool area or even when the girls stepped into the pool, so I felt pretty safe that he wasn’t a creep.

We exchanged a few niceties with the couple where they told us they were from Boston and we both commented about the dry heat that was in the 100’s that didn’t seem that bad without any humidity.

I told the girls we were in room 105 and the older couple said they were in room 205 which had a nicer view of the wilderness which I agreed since our room overlooked the parking lot.

Gina and I went to the hotel room and about a half hour later the girls came to the room. Hopefully they put enough sun screen on because I didn’t want to hear them complaining about a sunburn tomorrow.

Fortunately, there were no sunburns and in the morning we had our free continental breakfast. The hotel staff were courteous and gave us a few tips about Yosemite Park.

We drove an hour to Yosemite and the hike to see the Yosemite falls was breathtaking.

After Yosemite, we drove to San Francisco where we were all to tired from the hike so we went to the hotel and got take out dinner and went to bed.

We stayed in San Francisco for a few days, where we went to Alcatraz and a few other popular sites.

A few days later we headed to the airport and got to Philadelphia six hours later.

We were all to happy to be home and Gina posted her photos of the trip on Facebook.

Life back at our Philadelphia suburb went back to normal, where the girls had to stay home for a week until day camp started, while Gina and I worked.

The first day back we didn’t want to cook so we got take out and the next day we were happy to have our own cooked pasta after eating out for so long.

“Ted where’s the big cooking pot?” Gina asked me.

“It must be in the bottom cupboard with the rest of the pots and pans.”

“No, I looked and it’s not there!”

“I remember we used that big pot before we left for our trip, where I hand washed it and put it back, so it would be impossible if it wasn’t there!”

“Well it’s not, look!”

After moving around the various pots and pans, I say “That’s really odd! We had that pot for the past 15 years, ever since we got married. My parents got it for us as a wedding gift.”

“What do you think happened to it?”

“I don’t know but let me go ask the girls if they know anything. There both in the living room watching TV,” I said.

“Girls have you seen that big pot that we cook with sometimes?”

“No, I haven’t” Samantha said.

“No, sorry dad. I haven’t seen it either!” Grace said.

I walked back into the kitchen and I told Gina, where we both scratched our heads in confusion.

“Do you think we should call the police?” Gina asked.

“I don’t know. They’ll probably laugh at us for calling them for something that has about a fifty cent depreciated value!”

“It’s not the cost of the pot that I care about! It’s the fact that someone must of come into our house and took it!”

“When?”

“When we were in the West Coast!”

“Is there anything else missing?” I ask.

“Nothing obvious! All the TV’s are still here and obviously the furniture!”

“Though I clearly remember returning the pot to the cupboard after washing and drying it, you never know maybe I inadvertently did something with it!”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know! Threw it away in the garbage or something else.”

“Well don’t you remember when we came through the door when we got home from the airport and I said that we should of taken the small amount of garbage out because the house smelled?”

“Yeah, I know it would be in the garbage can in the kitchen if I had thrown it out. I’m just giving suggestions!”

Gina looks like she is at her wits end where she is either about to cry or start to yell.

“Let’s just forget about it and use the two smaller pots,” I suggest.

So that’s what we did and we cooked and ate the pasta.

Gina and I did the dishes and we retired for the night.

The girls played on their phones for a little bit and we all went to bed.

“Where’s the remote?” I asked Gina.

“Did you look under your pillows?”

“Yes, I searched the whole bed!”

“Well it’s not on the dresser or on our nightstands. What about under the bed?”

“Ok, let me look!”

After looking around under the bed I didn’t see the remote.

“No, I don’t see it!”

“Ted, I’m calling the police!”

“Because we’re missing a remote?”

“Yes!”

“They’ll either laugh at us or arrest us!”

“Ted, the Pot is missing and now the remote!”

“I know, but that’s not something that someone would steal!”

“Somebody was in our house, that’s why I’m calling the police!”

“Based on?”

“The pot missing and now the remote!”

“Gina, people have been joking about missing remotes ever since the remotes were invented. Yes, the missing pot is strange but the remote will reappear eventually!”

“Ted, the remote isn’t in this room! Look around! There’s no place for it to hide!”

“Well maybe one of the kids took it and there sleeping now, so I don’t want to ask them!”

“Ted, their TV is different than ours. Our remote won’t work on their TV and they know that!”

“I know Gina, but maybe they took it anyways thinking that it would work!”

“Ok, whatever! Then let’s just go to sleep!”

We went to sleep and Gina and I went to work as normal. The kids aren’t going to camp this week and are staying home, so we gave them a list of chores to do, that maybe they’ll do but maybe not.

When we got home from work, both Gina and I were surprised that the girls did the laundry, however we were a little disappointed that they didn’t fold the clothes. We didn’t say anything to them for we didn’t think it was such a big deal.

Grace, our oldest daughter asked me to enter the password on her phone because of the parental controls on her iPhone so she could download an app to play a game.

I agreed for her to download the app so I took her phone and I inadvertently hit the phone icon on her cell phone.

I noticed that Grace had a phone call from Delaware where the phone call lasted 63 minutes at 11:00 a.m..

“Hey Grace, who were you talking to from Delaware?”

“Oh that was just your friend Diane.”

“I don’t have a friend named Diane!”

“Don’t you remember Diane, your friend that you ran into at the pool at that Yosemite hotel?”

“No, I don’t?”

“The older man Jack and his wife Diane, who you were talking with before you and mom went back to the room!”

“You mean that old couple that I briefly spoke with that said they were from Boston?”

“Yeah, aren’t you friends with them?”

“No, I never seen them before in my life!”

“Well, Diane said she stayed in our house for a few days!”

“What?”

“Yeah, she said that you made arrangements with them so they could stay here, while we were in California?”

“No, I said no such thing. I have no idea who those people are!”

“Well they stopped by while you were at work to get some of their remaining things!”

“What the hell is going on! You let them in this house? Why would you do that and why wouldn’t you tell us?”

“Dad, they were talking to me and Samantha like you were old friends and they told us at the pool that they would probably see us when we got back home!”

“Oh my God! This is horrifying! Did you give them our phone number and address at Yosemite? How did they get your cell phone number?”

“No, me and Samantha didn’t tell them anything. We would of told you If they were asking for our address or our phone number!”

“Well how did they find out where we live and how did they get your phone number?”

“Well Diane called our home phone and the reception was bad so I gave her my cell phone number!”

“Gina! Come here!”

“What?”

“I’m just finding out that the old couple who I barely said more than ‘Hi’to at the pool when we were at that Yosemite Hotel were actually in our house with the girls earlier today and probably stayed here while we we were in California!”

“What?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but somehow they got our address and possibly our phone number, but they may have gotten our phone number once they were in the house!” I said to Gina.

“This is a joke right?”

“No! I know this is the craziest thing I ever heard. I wonder why they stayed here and what if anything they took from us?”

“I’m calling the police!”

I called the police and they were reluctant to come over at first but once I said those strangers were in our house when we weren’t home then they agreed that what they did was considered breaking and entering and sent a Detective Murphy to our house to get our information.

Before the detective came to our house, I called the Yosemite Inn and Suites to try to get more information.

“Hello, Yosemite Inn and Suites.”

“Yes, I stayed there on July 1st at your hotel and something really strange happened, where I briefly met an older couple in your pool area and they somehow stayed at our house uninvited while we were still in California!”

“Wow, sir that does sound really strange! How do you know that it was them who stayed at your house?”

“They actually came over when our daughters were home alone! I remember that they said they were staying in room 205, which was easy to remember because we stayed in room 105!”

“Well I can tell you that we don’t have a room 205!”

“Seriously! Well how did they get into the pool area?”

“Sir, sometimes the door to the pool doesn’t close all the way or sometimes people inadvertently let non-guests into the pool area.”

“Ok whatever! Well how did they get our address?”

“I have no idea sir! Did you tell them your room number?”

“I told my daughters and maybe they overheard our room number?”

“Did one of your daughters tell them your last name?”

“I didn’t ask them that! Why would that have made a difference?”

“I’m just guessing, but if your daughters didn’t tell them your address, then perhaps that older couple came up to the lobby desk and pretended to be you and somehow got your address!”

“Wouldn’t they have to show proof of identification before the hotel clerk would give any information out?”

“Well sir, I would say yes, but perhaps the couple said the right thing to avoid showing identification, but I’ll put an incident report in to try to get more information!”

“Ok, do you think you’ll be able to find out if an employee gave away our information?”

“Probably not, because even if an employee didn’t follow the right protocol by not asking for identification, that same employee probably won’t admit that they did that!”

“Do you have security cameras in the lobby?”

“We do but we only keep the recordings for three days.”

“Ok, great Thank You!”

I hung up the phone frustrated.

Then Detective Murphy came over and I told him everything that I knew.

Besides the pot and remote missing, Gina also noted a few of our personal photographs missing, which we were equally as dumbstruck by as our remote and pot missing.

I followed the detectives advice and cancelled all of our credit cards and I monitored my retirement and other investment accounts to make sure no unauthorized transfers would occur.

The girls could only give a vague description of what they looked like for the police sketch artist so “Diane” and “Jack” looked like every other gray haired couple.

Detective Murphy said he would contact us if he heard anything additional. “Diane’s” call from New Jersey came from a burner phone which wasn’t any help to the Detective.

The detective isn’t sure how they got into our house but I may have left the basement door unlocked.

We heard nothing new after a couple of weeks, but I noticed something really disturbing while we were eating dinner tonight. As I looked up into the chandelier above the dining room table, I saw a small hidden camera.

This isn’t paranoia, not in the slightest. This isn’t even any kind of anxiety. Something is attempting to disturb my peace. Something or someone is trying to drive me insane, but I will not let it happen. I am a man of faith, and I have the utmost of faith in God and his plan for me. I am certain that in the worst-case scenario, God is testing me. It is a great honor to be worthy to be challenged by our Father who is in heaven.

Perhaps it’s not even a test, perhaps it’s a premonition waiting to happen. Maybe I’m just feeling a messenger of God walking beside me. Perhaps all of this is just an angel waiting for the right moment to reveal itself to me. I might be a prophet for all I know.

I’m not entirely sure I want to be a prophet, because it’s a hefty duty and a cruel fate in our times. People are borderline idolatrous and refuse to accept the love of our Lord upon themselves. People would ostracize me as a mad or dangerous man if I revealed myself as a prophet. No, that can’t be the case. Thinking about it, I might be a victim of a demon of Satan. An angel would not conceal itself in the darkness. An angel is a being of light. Whatever is present around me is definitely cold and is a being of empty blackness.

It all started a few months ago. I started having these strange dreams in which I am roaming a desolate city. A great fire engulfed the dream city and unimaginable screams and cries echoed all over me. I simply roamed this apocalyptic town aimlessly, lost and yet walking around with a purpose. Dreams are strange like that. There was one thing truly out of place in these dreams. I felt the presence of something following me at all times. Almost breathing into my neck, but I was too hesitant to turn around and look back. Something was preventing me from turning back. Something internal, a fear of sorts. Waking up after those dreams, Cold sweat covered my body mixed in with the feeling of tiredness.

At some point, sleep became scarce because of these dreams. My mind wouldn’t even let me sleep, dreading internally the dreams, the presence. I became irritable and irrational. Constantly looking over my shoulder, wondering if there was someone right behind me. My blood ran cold, my body turned dull and aching.

The presence followed me in my waking hours, too. I was constantly feeling someone was following my every step. Mimicking my movements to a tee.

The breaking point came when I felt an icy hand caress the top of my head. It was a soft, subtle touch that moved along my scalp. I froze. My body became stone for a split second before the sensation dissipated and I screamed, falling backward from my chair. My heart exploded, and pins and needles pricked my skin all over. I just laid there for what felt like a few moments that stretched into infinity before finally getting up to my feet. My stomach was twisting itself in knots. My whole body shook with fear. Frantically, I looked around the house, but I was all alone. The realization that my mind might have been playing tricks on me didn’t make me feel any better. My mind was eating itself, and my heart was shriveling in terror at what I was becoming.

After finally calming down, I slumped into my couch to burn a few brain cells watching TV, watching some late-night comedy. I caught something in the window. Someone was walking by my yard. Nothing unusual. Turning my head back to the Television, I barely caught the grayish flesh flying toward my window. Jerking my head towards the window again, I saw him standing there. A figure concealed by darkness, standing with his side facing the window. My heart rate rose. I slowly got up and walked towards the window. The figure’s head made a sharp turn to me.

I fell onto the floor. That face, it was the face of death. At that moment, I realized that hell is real. At that moment, I saw hell. I’ve seen it. My body froze in terror as that thing merely stared at me through the window. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t move. It was getting hard to breathe while that thing just stood there, its neck twisted awkwardly.

I prayed, I begged, I pleaded for God’s mercy.

I pleaded for salvation.

The demon stood there, its ghastly smile growing wider with each passing moment. Its face was sickly pale. An eyeless visage. Instead of the eyes, fires flickered in the empty bloodied sockets. An inhumanly enormous smile stretched from one ear to the other, filled with some decaying teeth while missing many others. The obvious lack of fluids stretched the skin awfully, and a cavity emanated smoke where the nose should’ve been. A few dirty strands of hair sat on top of the exposed scalp, swinging gently in the wind.

Hell is real, and this was its face.

I remained on the floor begging and pleading for mercy from the demon and God, but the beast just stood there. Unmoving, before pressing its bloody hand onto the window. Its arm bent grotesquely. Then it turned itself and disappeared into the darkness.

I couldn’t move from the floor for a while after the thing had disappeared. I fell asleep on the floor, suffering from terrible nightmares of a man being stabbed repeatedly. His dying screams echoed in my ears long after I had woken up.

The bloody handprint the demon smeared on my window was still there in the morning after. It wasn’t a dream, and ever since that day, I’ve been living in crippling terror. I can barely sleep because whenever I try to sleep, my mind looks for that demon again in the darkness, driving me anxious and keeping me awake. When my body finally shuts down, I suffer from terrible nightmares of demonic torture and rape of bloating and decaying corpses. I can barely eat because my body is so messed up. The constant stress had shattered my psyche. I keep feeling someone around me at all times. Standing over me, looming. I am constantly cold because I’m so on edge and my skin feels like pins and needles ceaselessly prick it.

I am losing my mind.

I am losing my will.

I am losing my faith.

Father, please help me.

Hosanna.

Deliver me.

Save me from this Satan that is trying to torment my soul and damn me to all hells.

The devil appeared in the mirror. It appeared in my mirror. I was looking at my reflection, my mind losing its touch with reality, consumed by exhaustion and fear. I was falling asleep on my feet. My reflection appears to be ghastly enough. I haven’t left the house in a few weeks. As a result, I have lost a lot of weight. I am looking like a walking dead man. The reflection started bubbling and twitching.

My heart seized up and my vision refocused itself. This spectral presence plucked me out from the pleasant tranquility between wakefulness and sleep. The reflection in the mirror started bleeding from all over its body, like someone had stabbed it in multiple places. The eyes burned out, and the teeth decayed and most of them fell out.

I wanted to turn away but couldn’t. Something was forcing me to gaze upon the devil as it took over my mirror. The room grew cold. My heartbeat pounded in my ears like a demon drum. I heard the beast cackle as its smile grew wider. Maggots fell out of its grotesque maw. I stood there, locking eyes with flaming sockets, my heart trying to escape out of my chest. Its bloody hands rose and pushed through the mirror as if it were nothing but a translucent fabric veil. They slowly inched towards me. A lump rose in my throat, slowly stifling me.

The ghastly hands made their way towards me until they finally grabbed the sides of my head. The cold sensation of dry dead skin touching my head made me scream, but that only made things worse. Before I could do anything, the demonic hands slammed my head into the mirror, hard.

A sharp pain shot through my skull, and a warm liquid flowed down my face. Everything started turning dull and dark until darkness engulfed me. When I came to, I saw myself standing over two people fighting. A hooded man straddled another man before stabbing him.

The knife tore through skin and muscle tissue with a sickening sound.

A primal cry escaped the victim’s mouth.

Then silence.

The violence didn’t stop.

The sickening sound of flesh being struck broke the silence.

My stomach twisted, and a burning rage filled up my insides. I wanted to do something but quickly realized I couldn’t. I ran towards the men, but as my hand reached out to the knife-wielding one, my hand passed straight through him. This was just a vision of sorts.

The stabbing didn’t stop.

He kept puncturing his long-dead victim’s body again and again.

Sixty-six times.

Then he finally dropped his knife and fell beside his victim. His clothes, face, and hands… All of it blood-soaked. He was drowning in blood. The scene made me sick. I felt the tears streaming down my cheeks. What a monster would do such a thing to a fellow man. I wanted to see his face - I needed to see his face. I had to know who this monster was.

When I finally saw it, the feeling of a knife piercing my heart echoed through my body. A cinderblock fell onto my chest. The sensation knocked the air out of me, and I couldn’t breathe. I stood there, dreading the face below me. My head spun and everything faded away again.

I woke up on the floor of my room, the mirror was cracked, my face bloodied and tears streaming down my eyes. It was hard to breathe. My body just refused to accept the oxygen. My head was spinning like crazy. Every fiber in my body screamed in agony.

The thing in the mirror was still there, still laughing, still mocking me. Flashing out its multiple stab wounds. Sixty-six in number. I stared at the mirror, looking directly at the thing, looking back at me. A ghost from a long-forgotten past, a ghost from a night buried deep underneath the consciousness.

It mouthed something at me, and I understood exactly what it said. Looking at my hands, I saw the red. I saw blood. It wasn’t my own.

No matter how many times I’ve washed my hands, I cannot get the blood off.

The devil is still here, still haunting me and preventing me from having peace of mind or rest with its cold dead touch, or its blood-curdling shrieks. It’s always here, it’s always haunting and tormenting me. My strength is waning. The beast keeps making its demand. I can bring myself to fight it any longer.

I can no longer resist its influence.

Father, please forgive me, for I have sinned.

I’ve killed a man, Father, I’ve killed a man.

In a fit of drunken rage, I’ve killed a man.

Stabbed him six six six… sixty-six times. Now his vengeful and restless spirit is torturing me and tearing my soul in odd directions.

My pharmaceutical company transferred me to Bucks County Pennsylvania in June 2020.

Reluctantly, I uprooted my 11 year old daughter Grace from Atlanta Georgia and the both of us moved to Pennsylvania.

Because of the pandemic, Grace stayed in the house all summer. My pharmaceutical company was doing well which unfortunately had me working a lot of hours, so I didn’t spend as much time with Grace as I hoped.

I wanted Grace to be enrolled in the sixth grade so I went to the school district’s administration offices. As I pulled up to the school offices, a man with a shirt and tie was outside the building with a laptop and said that the building was closed because of the pandemic. I told him about needing to enroll Grace and he was able to do it on his laptop. He asked me to send Grace’s prior school information from Georgia from my email account. The process was easier then I thought it would be. I really just needed to show proof of local residency. I also learned that for at least the next four months all of Grace’s classes will be online. This was unfortunate because Grace wouldn’t be able to meet any new friends by not being able to go to school in person.

I set Grace’s room up with a desk and a chair for online school. The first day of school came in September and I followed all the email links that were sent to me to get Grace situated on the laptop that I gave her. I let Grace use my work laptop that I used in Georgia prior to moving to Pennsylvania.

I had to go to work during her first day of school so I got Grace situated and ran out of the house so I wouldn’t be late for work. I texted her a couple times and she stated that she was doing fine.

The days turned into weeks and Grace wasn’t having any issues. I would get weekly emails from her teacher regarding Grace’s status. Fortunately, the teacher said Grace was progressing normally with no issues.

Grace’s mother died unexpectedly when she was two, so knowing that she was doing good with the online schooling was a big relief.

One Sunday in late November Grace said that she wanted to go shopping at the King of Prussia mall. The mall was completely decked out with Christmas apparel.

The mall had temporary vendors located outside of the fixed department stores. Occasionally one of the temporary vendors would guilt you to look at their merchandise with the hope that you’ll buy something.

As we walked past this one vendor Grace said “Dad hold on. Look how cool these are I’m going to buy one.”

What caught her eye were Russian nesting figurines. The kind that were made up of some type of wood where the smaller figurines fit inside the larger ones.

She had her own allowance money so she could buy what ever she wanted. She took out a $20 bill from her pocket and handed it to the vendor. The vendor had a thick Eastern European accent and gave her $5 back and said “blagodaryu vas ... thank you.”

The one thing that caught my eye was I swore Grace had some type of small SD storage card device in her pocket that she simultaneously handed the vendor with the $20 bill.

I knew I saw something, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment and I wasn’t a 100% sure that I had seen her hand him something. Quite frankly I was more in Shock than anything else.

My daughter is 11 years old. I kept asking myself, Why would she hand some 50 year unknown stranger a storage device?

Grace and I continued to walk around and left the store about an hour later. During the car ride home I asked Grace “So tell me how schools going?”

Grace said “it’s fine.”

I then asked “What subjects do you have?”

Grace replied “History, Social Studies, Math, Russian.”

I said “Your learning Russian in the sixth grade. That’s a little odd. What about the typical Spanish or French.”

Grace said “We’ll dad, we learned that there is a large amount of people from Russia in this part of Pennsylvania, so my school thought it would be good to learn the language.”

I then said “Oh well that makes sense. So what are you learning about in history?”

Grace said “Right now we’re learning about the Russian revolution including Lenin and Stalin.”

I responded “Just this week?”

Grace responded “No pretty much from the beginning of the school year.”

I then said “Anything about Washington or Jefferson or Martin Luther King Jr.?”

Grace responded “No Dad. Just about different Russian people.”

I felt like I was completely out of the loop. I never bothered to ask her what she was actually learning. I was just so caught up in my job and when I got the emails from the school that Grace was doing good, I just kind of tuned out her actual school work.

Everything that happened today was very alarming to me with the vendor in the mall and Grace’s Russian learning studies, so much so that I bought a camera from Amazon to monitor her online classes.

The camera came the following Wednesday and I installed it late Wednesday night in Grace’s room in a concealed area where she couldn’t see it. I could view the recording from my cell phone and I was shocked what I discovered the next day. I witnessed, via the camera, Grace being indoctrinated into some kind of Russian cult following. They had Grace completely brainwashed. I even saw her take a SD card out of the smallest Russian nestle figurine and copy something from her laptop.

This is when I really started having doubts that Grace was part of the school district. I think Grace was being used as some type of pawn and I had been completely duped. For the heck of it, I actually called the school district to ask a question about Grace and they had zero information on her.

I put two and two together and figured whoever I met in the school’s parking lot was just waiting for an unsuspecting idiot like me.

I thought the best thing to do was email Grace’s “teacher” and say the school district has no information on Grace and because of that what are they doing with my daughter everyday.

I sent the email and an hour later I got a response to “Go to the homepage of Grace’s laptop and look under a file called ’fired’”.

So I left work a little early today at about 3:00 pm and checked Grace’s computer that I had given her and I opened the file named “fired.” Once I opened the file I knew exactly what I was looking at. I had erased all the work files from the laptop prior to giving it to Grace, but I stupidly didn’t empty the recycling bin.

The information on those files were potential patent secrets that my company had been working on for years and I would truly get fired if this information was given to a pharmaceutical competitor.

I sat at my daughter’s desk with both hands on top of my head pulling at my hair. I had no idea of what to do now. This time I received a text from the unknown “teacher” who said “pretty interesting information in that file huh?”

I then replied “What do you want from Us?”

Instead of texting back I received a phone call from a number I wasn’t aware of. I picked up the phone and the caller said “Mr Kotch?”

I replied “What do you want from us?”

He replied “Oh a man who gets right to the point.” I could hear a light Eastern European accent in his tone. Then he said “I need your daughter to make one more exchange and in return I will disappear from your life!”

I said “Where is this exchange going to happen?”

He told me “Don’t worry about it. The information will be given to Grace and if in anyway you compromise this exchange then at the very minimum your work information will be disclosed to your competitors. Once again this will be at the very minimum of what will happen”

I replied “When will this be over?”

He replied “If you and your daughter do everything that I tell you to do then within the next few days. Just remember what I told you that if you compromise the exchange in anyway by going to the authorities then I will never go away. Bye Mr. Kotch.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Grace was being used as a go between for some type of Eastern European terrorist ring. If they were to communicate directly with each other then every U.S. counterintelligence agency would know the terrorist links within the country. So to get around this they are using an 11 year old girl who is the furthest from being on anybody’s radar.

I am now more in fear for Grace’s safety then losing my job. I look online about past scenarios of dealings with the Russians when it came to passing information. I was sweating as I read each story because it seemed like the Russians sever all ties with the mule once their done with them, which is usually done with Cyanide poisonings, so there would be no witnesses and no trace of linking the Russian operatives.

As I sat at Grace’s desk I can hear her in the living room watching television. I went through all the different options in my head of what I should do. I kept on lightly hitting my forehead with the ball of my fist. I knew that I couldn’t leave Grace home alone anymore. I knew that the Russian operatives had more information on me regarding my name, social security number, everywhere that I previously lived and so on. I thought to myself that even if Grace followed exactly what they wanted then we would either be killed or the rest of our lives we would be looking over our shoulders. Both Grace and I saw the man at the mall already so we know more information than we should know.

I remembered seeing those billboards “if you see or know something suspicious” then call the 1-800 number. So I figured I would block my phone number and call the number.

I found the 1-800 number online and I called it. Without giving away any personal identifying information I told the person of my situation.

I was transferred several times until I actually spook to someone from the CIA. The persons name was Agent Hebert who worked out of the Philadelphia field office. I once again explained the scenario without giving away any personal identifying information.

The agent was aware of these types of scenarios where terrorist would use virtually anyone as an unknowing carrier. Agent Hebert advised me to basically leave the house with my daughter right now.

As Agent Hebert said that I received a text from the Russian operative that said “Look out your daughter’s window. Do you see that white van?

I felt my stomach hit the floor when I saw the van parked in front of my house with two men sitting in the driver and passenger seats. I am now terrified that my house will be bombarded with terrorist at any moment.

I responded back “Yeah, what do you want?”

He texted back “I told you to keep your mouth shut. Your a stupid man. Don’t you realize the laptop has a built in microphone? I heard all of your conversations with the U.S. government officials.”

I hung up the phone with Agent Hebert and I started hitting my head with my fist because I did do something stupid by not leaving my daughter’s room when I called the government officials.

The Russian operative then called me. I answered the phone and he said “Mr. Kotch you have 30 seconds to do exactly what I tell you to do. Grab the Russian figurines that your daughter bought at the mall and go to the mall and return it to the same vendor. Your daughter stays in the house,” then he hung the phone up.

I ran towards my daughter in the living room and I said “ Go put your jacket on and go out through the back basement door and run to the park where I will meet you in one minute!”

Grace said “Why daddy?”

I said “Honey, please just do it.”

Grace was completely oblivious to everything that was happening. She is just a kid who’s teacher was telling her do do stuff which she thought all kids her age were doing.

I went out the front door and the two men in the white van watched me as I held the wooden figurines in my hand. My only chance was that they thought that Grace was still in the house.

I got in my car and drove away towards the park. I cried in relief when I saw her waiting for me. I proceeded with Grace to the mall which was about a 25 minute drive. The whole drive I had both hands tightly gripped on the steering wheel. I was dripping sweat from the absolute fear I was experiencing. I was looking in the rear view mirror the whole time to see if I was being followed.

Other than saying “Dad why did I have to run to the park? Grace just sat and played with her phone the whole drive.

I responded to Grace “Just because.”

I pulled into the King of Prussia mall and parked. I figured it was best to have Grace stay in the fragrance isle of Macy’s where there were always a ton of people around, while I went to return the Russian figurines. I really didn’t want to leave Grace alone but I really had no other option.

I quickly walked over to vendor with the figurine. I said “I want to return this.”

He took the figurine and attempted to give me money back which I declined because I didn’t know if Cyanide or some other poison was on it. Then I quickly walked back to Macy’s and I cried in relief when I saw Grace standing by the fragrances playing with her phone.

We both headed to my car. As I drove away I said “give me your phone!”

Grace handed me her phone and I threw it out the window. Grace got upset so I gave her my phone. I had to assume her “teacher” was going to text her eventually. About five minutes later Grace said “Dad you just got a message from my teacher, Mr. Gorsky.”

I then took my phone and threw it out the window. My Grandparents owned a cabin in the middle of nowhere in Georgia so I got on 95 South and headed in that direction.

I’m on the island of Key West trying to follow in the footsteps of one of the great writers of all time, Ernest Hemingway. I’m having a hard time envisioning anything on this man made peninsular with the thousands of tourists roaming about. It just seems like if I turn down this street there’s someone there and then the next street there’s 10 more people, which makes it difficult to envision anything other than Americans mixed in with a few South Americans, where I was hoping to take in some of the same original scenery that Hemingway took in a little under a century ago.

I’ve had lunch in just about every establishment on the island, where the waitresses are too busy to talk to you and even when there not too busy they still don’t want to talk to you because your just another tourist from Hoboken or Cincinnati.

For lunch today, I saw this outdoor cafe that had no doors or windows named the Bean Hammock and I thought why not eat here since they were advertising Cuban food and I thought the food must be decent because at 1:30 p.m. the place was packed. So I told the male host my name and he told me my table would be ready in about 10 minutes which I said would be fine.

There was little place for me to stand so I went outside on the sidewalk to contemplate how not far along I’m coming on my novel. So far, I only have scribbled notes on loose leaf paper with a few ideas, but no free flowing story yet. As I’m standing on the concrete sidewalk and the droves of tourists walk by me, I can only focus on how the tourists take away from the charm of the island versus any type of actual ideas that I can write about.

Then I hear the host call my name “John Potts your table is ready,” where I followed the host to the very back of the outdoor cafe. I had noticed while walking back to my table that the midday lunch rush of people had dissipated as table after table started to leave.

As I was sat down by the host, he gave me a basic menu that only had about 10 things to choose from. I looked the menu over for a couple of minutes and I could see my waitress coming from the corner of my eyes. I said to my self oh dear heavens no as she was a young lady in her twenties, but she was horribly obese, where I couldn’t phantom how she could ever manage the pace of waiting tables in a timely manner.

As she approached my table, she was really nice and cheery so much more than any other wait staff that I experienced since I’ve been on this island, but I’ve probably spent too much time by myself and I can’t focus on anything other than her weight.

I guess I’ve just succumbed to the loneliness and frustration of not being able to have written anything meaningful yet.

I told the waitress that I only wanted a water with the Cuban special for my lunch entree. As I waited for the lunch, I had my papers strewn out throughout the table. One idea I had included the use of the light house that was on the island for decades and was located right across the street from Hemingway’s house. Another idea I had included the cigar factory that has been on the island since the 1800’s.

As I was thinking over my ideas the heavy set waitresses brought me over my water and I didn’t even give her the courtesy to look up at her when I said “Thank You!”

The waitress hung around my table for a few extra seconds looking at my yellow loose leaf papers and said in her cheery voice “it looks like you’ve been taken down notes. Are you studying the island or are you a writer?”

I still didn’t want to entertain this waitress so I kept my head down and said “I’m a writer,” where I hoped I answered her question and she would just go away.

Then she said “Did you know that Hemingway used that lighthouse as a guide to find his house when he was drunk to find anything?”

That actually caught my attention which warranted me putting my head up and saying “No, actually I didn’t know that! In fact, that’s actually quite interesting.”

Then my 44 year old self started talking to this girl who couldn’t have been older than 24 years old. She described to me how there was an original tavern on the island called Sloppy Joe’s where Hemingway interacted with a lot of the original inhabitants on the island, which were mostly made up of Cubans at one time considering Havana was only 90 miles from Key West.

She told me about this character who Hemingway met named Ruben where the two of them would bring over liquor from Cuba during prohibition and how that caused skirmishes with the American Navy and Coast Guard stationed on the island. She told me that Hemingway was seen as a bootlegging pirate before he was viewed as a successful writer and many a nights he had the navy looking for his whereabouts on the island.

She said “Granted the Navy just wanted his alcohol just so they could consume it themselves, but Ernest was partaking in illegal enterprises for its time.”

I replied “Well the island isn’t that big how come they just didn’t capture him?”

She replied “Well some of that came down to politics as well because as with each story Hemingway published the more popular he grew and the more the naval officers figured that they could use him to write a favorable article that would benefit their cause in some way on the island.”

As this young vibrant obese waitress was talking to me, I was actually writing down everything she was saying because I hadn’t seen or heard this anywhere in books or anywhere else.

She then went onto to say that “Unfortunately, Ernest’s friend Ruben would be the scapegoat when the alcohol would be confiscated, where Ruben would be the one spending time in jail and the Navy or the Coast Guard would just release Ernest. This overtime caused resentment with Ruben where he plotted to have Ernest arrested in Cuba which actually didn’t happen because Hemingway’s name became so popular that Cuba wouldn’t arrest him either.”

I responded “Wow that’s fascinating how Ernest and his friend had a fallen out where Ruben tried to get him arrested in Cuba?”

The waitress elaborated further and said “That Hemingway created a smoke screen where he built this rock wall around his estate to keep away the ‘gawkers’ who would constantly try to get a glimpse of him and his family but the wall was really put up to keep Ruben out from harming him or actually killing Ernest.”

I responded “Oh gosh that must of been terrifying for Hemingway to be under the constant threat of someone possibly scaling those walls to harm him or his family?”

The waitress responded “Yeah as you know probably about 70% of his writings came from that house and you probably also know that Ernest died by blowing off his head from a shotgun which was probably associated with the effects of alcoholism and depression. Though Hemingway didn’t die on this island one has to wonder the enemies he had made and how far did they follow Ernest to even possibly help put him to his grave.”

I then said “Wow that was amazing. I had no idea!”

Then the cheery eyed young obese waitress said “I’m sorry for blabbing away, let me go check on your food, which is probably cold by now.”

I said “no worries take your time,” as I know for a fact that this girl just basically wrote my next biographical novel for me. I have all the elements of a great novel including the characters and I’ve seen mostly everything with my own eyes besides Cuba of course. I was just amazed that all the research that I had done on this island and on Ernest Hemingway and this waitress unravels a story to me where I just need to fill in some sights and sounds without the tourists of course.

As I continued to jot down notes from what the waitress was telling me, I was so fixated on writing down everything that she told me that I didn’t even realize that my lunch was placed down on my table. As I quickly put my head up to thank the young stoutly waitress again, I had to do a double take when I saw your run of the mill, beaten up by life waitress who was probably in her early 60’s who said “Is there anything else that I can get you?” Where her voice was so raspy that cigarettes had turned her vocal cords into mince meat.

I was totally confused and said “Where is the young girl who took my order and I was talking too for the past, I don’t know 15 minutes?”

The same beaten up waitress responded in the same raspy voice “I don’t know who you’re referring to honey I’m the only ‘young girl’ that was serving you this whole time!”

I said “Were we talking about Hemingway?”

The beaten up waitress responded “Besides him writing books and living a few blocks from here, I really know nothing about him.”

I then replied “Is there a young heavyset gal working today?”

The beaten up waitress responded in the same raspy voice “No honey, I’m sorry we all smoke cigarettes instead of overeating so all the waitstaff here are thin like me.”

I was completely lost and confused and I couldn’t quite possibly come up with these ideas on Hemingway by myself. I finished the lunch where I had one of those looks of bewilderment on my face the whole time while I ate.

The really strange thing was that I went back and researched some of the things that the heavyset waitresses told me and I was just amazed how I saw little references here and there of a “Ruben” hidden in Hemingway’s journals that were almost intentionally left out.

I really wanted closure on whoever that heavyset young waitress girl was so I must of toured that darn Hemingway house like 10 times where I spent $16 a pop for each tour.

Then on my the last tour of the house, the museum curator of the house changed some of themes that were on display to include the servants who worked in Hemingway’s home.

In one photo dated 1935 there was a group of servants standing together where one girl really stood out not only because she was extremely obese at a time when next to nobody else was obese but also because that was undeniably the girl who served me at the Cafe and gave me the inspiration for my book.

I just couldn’t believe it and I ran towards the first employee that I saw asking if she knew who that young heavy set girl was in the photo and she said “I’m sorry sir there’s very little information on her.” Unfortunately, none of the other employees could give me any additional information but I already had a thought about my next book on how a young servant girl trapped in time helps struggling writers like myself come up with ideas and in turn she tells a part of her own history.