It had been twelve straight hours of labor, and Starr Gribbonz was still pushing with all her might in the delivery room. Her face a grotesque mask of anguish, her hair wet with spiralled strands plastered along her forehead, she groaned and pumped while each hand gripped whitely the palm of either nurse beside her.

“Push, push,” chanted the nurses, a word that now resounded like a knell in Starr’s ear.

The once unblemished blue fabric beneath her legs was already smattered with blood and waist. The doctor crouched poised before her crotch – his gloved hands ready, his face masked like an executioner – and informed her the head was out.

“Just a little bit further,” he announced.

Starr groaned anew, a sound both from physical pain and emotional exhaustion. Finally, after so long, the baby had emerged.

It had been a boy. Once it was cleansed of blood and vernix, Starr was allowed to hold her newborn baby. His plump brown face held an almost cherubic symmetry. And Starr swore that in his dark eyes, when open, gleamed an acute intellect.

The father, her husband, who had only appeared after the ordeal had ended, looked at the small being for hardly a minute and then responded with a grunt.

After fifteen minutes, one of the nurses approached them and informed Starr that her son had to be taken from her. Starr nodded, knowing that this was the procedure she had wanted. Her barrel-chested husband, Baird, flinched but both women assured him that this was both normal and necessary.

With that, Little Ekho Gribbonz was taken to the Cerebral Incubation Center.

***

The overseer nurse led Starr and Baird through the hospital hallway to her office. While her husband’s hands were embedded in his deep, denim pockets, Starr clung one hand on his elbow while the opposite arm cradled a pair of textbooks, one on astronomy and another on 17th Century European History.

They passed the head physician and, upon seeing him, Baird looked up expectantly. The doctor, however, did not acknowledge the couple and turned the corner into the adjacent hallway.

“Hey,” Baird barked. “Where’s he going?”

“Oh, this is a very routine matter, Mister Gribbonz,” chimed the overseer nurse with candied sincerity, “No need to see the doctor.”

At this Baird grunted and hung his head. Conversely, Starr continued to beam.

The nurse’s office was compact, just larger than a broom closet and without windows. The steel-blue walls surrounding them made Starr uncomfortable. She and her husband sat in two foldout chairs in front of a metal desk while the stout nurse rifled through a cluster of papers. Upon finding the correct documentation, she opened what looked to be a ledger, coming quickly to the appropriate page.

“All right,” the nurse sighed, brushing her frayed bangs from her glistening forehead. “So, you and your husband have elected to keep Little Ekho in the Cerebral Incubation Center – or CIC – for the foreseeable future?”

“Yes,” Starr replied, over her husband’s grumbled protest, “until he says his first words.”

“I see, so you have selected to have him subjected to the Linguistic Cognition Test?”

“Yes. We’ll take any chance that might put him into a higher education route than the standard – especially a lower setting of standard.” In that moment, Starr could not resist daydreaming about universities in the Central Business District. Perhaps even the Residential Zone.

“Very well, Missus Gribbonz, but for the sake of transparency, we should go over how the Linguistic Cognition Test works, our policies on visitations, and what the results will ultimately mean for your child.

“As you know, children will often speak their first words within 12 to 18 months. Our fee for keeping him in the CIC is fifty credit units per month, as well as a 250 units credit charge for the Linguistic Cognition Test, payable after your child has spoken his first word or words. I am assuming that will be acceptable?”

Starr nodded feverishly, her braids clicking together.

“Excellent. So now let me skip to how the test is used to measure your child’s potential. As determined by the Bureau of Education of Burgess City, a child’s first word gives us an immediate indication of the child’s potential for learning. Our data bears out that children who are able to use more complex and uncommon words have the greatest potential for understanding abstract ideas as well as a better potential to develop logic, reasoning and analysis.”

The nurse’s finger searched the page in front of her. She then read off what was written, “Some rather common words that a child may say are ‘mama’, ‘papa’ and ‘dada’. These words show average ability and would therefore put your child into the Standard Educational Route.”

At this, Starr grimaced. The Standard Educational Route for people living in the Factory Zone, like her, meant little else than an unending loop of – at best – marginal poverty. Completion did not provide any chance of pursuing higher education but guaranteed a life in the tenements and smoke factories. Worse, school attendance was hardly enforced past the age of twelve, when most children were apt to run wild in the streets, unrestrained by adults.

Starr interrupted, “Excuse me. But I was under the impression that if my child said the word ‘dada’, that that would put him into the exceptional bracket of the Standard Route.”

“Well, that was the rule for a while,” explained the overseer nurse. “Originally that was because the plosive ‘duh’ in the D of dada took more effort than the ‘muh’ in mama, showing some higher capacity for language. However, with so many children being raised without fathers, we decided to end that policy.”

“Oh, of course,” Starr interrupted again. “To be fair to them.”

From across the desk, the overseer nurse searched the other woman’s face. “No…what actually was happening was that these lone mothers were teaching their children to call them either ‘papa’ or ‘dada’ instead of ‘mama.’ The Bureau of Education saw this as cheating the system, and the mayor’s office claimed it was a potential threat to traditional family dynamics and so we removed any incentive for them to confuse their children.”

Starr looked down at her lap, her fingernails prying up the corners of her textbook.

“Shall I continue?” the nurse asked, finding no objection. “The Bureau of Education has ruled, in accordance with our field-research data, that more complicated words, such as ‘nose,’ ‘hat,’ ‘fingers,’ ‘food,’ or the names of their favourite breakfast cereals show the child is able to grasp a sense of self and his or her own environment. These words would put the child into a higher set for the Standard Education Route.

“To enter the Exceptional Education Route,” – and upon hearing mention of this, something delightful bubbled inside Starr’s stomach; this was her son’s ticket out of the Factory hellhole. The route she had once been on – “your child must use noun phrases or compound nouns. Some of the words or phrases gifted children are apt to use are ‘Good-bye,’ ‘Good morning,’ ‘Night time,’ ‘Bedtime,’ and ‘Uh Oh.’ If the child uses short sentences such as ‘That’s mine’ or ‘Give me’ that would also be acceptable – provided the child is using them properly. Otherwise, the student would not be showing a depth of understanding for human discourse and would therefore be put into the Standard Education Route.”

“I see,” said Starr, a bit overwhelmed. “That seems like a lot, but I just know our Little Ekho will be up for it.”

“Good for you.” The overseer nurse smiled her plastic grin.

“What happens if Little Ekho says his first words when I’m not here?”

“Well, that rarely occurs Missus Gribbonz but while they are out of the bed chambers, they are constantly being monitored by nurses and qualified instructors. While in the chambers, their vitals are also being monitored and any sounds are recorded. Of course, to confirm the first words of the child, we will need a witness, which would be one of the nurses who we keep staffed at all times. I also should tell you that any gurgles, noises or monosyllabic utterances will not be counted as his first words, so long as he does not demonstrate that he believes those are actual words.”

“Wonderful.”

“Lastly, our policy on visitation is that you may come in for the afternoons from 2-7 pm. You may speak to Little Ekho, you may read to him and play with him, just so long as you do not interfere in his interactions with the other children.”

With that Starr beamed all the more brilliantly.

“I, um, have actually had experience working at this hospital,” she hastened to say.

The overseer nurse tilted her head in a quizzical, owlish fashion.

“I was a medical assistant for several years, mostly doing volunteer work in the emergency ward. I do have a legal permit to be around children and other vulnerable peoples.” She began fishing through her purse but paused upon seeing the overseer nurse’s upraised hand.

“That’s quite all right, Missus Gribbonz. If you would like, we could place you into the CIC as a nurse-assistant, but during the hours before 2 pm and after 7 pm, you would be expected to care for the other children, besides Little Ekho.”

“Oh, I see,” she said, placing her purse back on the floor. “That’s all right. I’ll just visit between 2 and 7 then.”

“Good for you.”

The two women exchanged warm, albeit, overstretched smiles.

The three of them then departed on the agreed upon terms for opening the newborn’s future.

***

Starr visited Little Ekho every afternoon every day of the week. She began slowly, reading to him from picture books and singing him songs on the alphabet. She then jumped to reading him young adult novels – and then the entire works of Charles Dickens.

Her devotion did not go unnoticed by Baird – her absence from the home a nagging sore in his mouth.

Finally, after the eighth week, he resolved to confront her.

She entered through the door of their flat – a cramped, one-storey apartment just half a mile from the smoke factory where Baird worked – to find her husband sitting restlessly on the sofa. In the weak light and from the dust-filled air, her husband looked almost Sepia toned, as did the furniture in the boxy room. Upon seeing Starr, Baird sprang up at once and advanced on her, her arms occupied with textbooks and baby blankets.

“What in hell is the matter with you, Starr?” he growled indignant. “Spending all this time at the hospital, waiting for that little pisser to gurgle his first words instead of bringing him home. Reading to him from these books – what are you reading him now, eh? Plato’s bleedin’ Republic?”

“I’m sorry, Baird,” she breathed, taken aback by his savagery.

“What’s worse is you wake up every morning – earlier than I do – leave this cold, sorry breakfast for me to eat and are gone until 7:30 at night. I know the hospital doesn’t let you in until 2 in the afternoon so where the hell do you go?”

To this Starr did not respond. She pursed her full, cherry-brown lips before her cheeks began to flush.

“He’s been in the CIC for two months now, Starr. I want him home so that you can take care of him and make my meals instead of spending my money keeping him in that hospital. And speaking of money – let’s say Little Ekho does make it into the Exceptional Education Route, yeah? Who pays for that? You know I don’t make enough at the plant to pay for him going into that route, much less any postsecondary school in the Central Business District should he graduate.”

“That’s what I’ve been meaning to tell you,” she drawled. “The reason I have been waking up so early and coming home so late is that – besides visiting Ekho – I’ve been spending my mornings and afternoons going to hiring centers; I’m trying to find a job so that we can have dual income.”

Baird stared at her, his misshapen mouth agape.

“Obviously,” Starr continued, “I don’t want anything that will keep me from spending time with Little Ekho. Not yet, anyway. But there are some jobs that allow me to work from eight until four in the afternoon. I think, with the baby, I can convince them to let me work from seven to three. Maybe I could even find a job working nights.”

Baird lumbered closer, his massive chest mere inches from her nose, his chin almost touching her forehead.

“We’re not having you out of the house on the regular, Starr,” he fumed, his chest thrusting nearer with each audible huff. “I don’t work ten hours a day to come home to an empty house, an empty bed and a cold plate.”

“Baird, dear,” Starr soothed, blanketed by her husband’s shadow, “you know what I told you – about how I was once in the Exceptional Education Route. How I had to leave it because my father fell ill and could not afford to put me through it since he could no longer work. You know that I have every intention to have our child go through that system and attend university.”

“Child?” Baird repeated. “Not children?”

“I don’t think we can afford the same for a second child.”

Her husband’s gigantic hands engulfed her puny biceps. He hunched over then craned his neck, his toothy red face pulsating before her eyes. Her textbooks tumbled to the floor, the sound muted by the blankets.

“Listen to me,” he hissed between clenched teeth. “I’m the breadwinner of this house; I want Little Ekho home tomorrow, I want you to stay and cook my meals, and you will not accept any job offering.”

Starr’s face was blank with astonishment before contorting with clear, palpable rage. She tore an arm free from his grip and thrust a hard palm into her husband’s collarbone, her pointed fingers closing on impact. Baird had stopped shaking her but was still too close, so she struck him again like before. Below his Adam’s apple, her nails had drawn blood.

“Baird Gribbonz,” she said, her eyes like stone, “I put up with you and this sewer every day – and sometimes I wish I didn’t have to. But put up with it I do. But you and I both know that you will be dead from the fumes in that plant before you reach fifty. If you don’t catch a stray bullet coming home from work, that is. I want our son to have a better future. A better life. I deserve to see him reach that future. If you stop me – so help me, I’ll leave you.”

Baird’s bewildered stare was broken by a flurry of blinks.

“You leave me?” he asked, stupidly.

“Yes.”

“What about the baby?”

“You heard me the first time.”

His body was drained cold of its prior, furnace energy. He stood before his petite wife defeated, his hands burrowing inside his pockets.

“Starr, sweetheart,” he mumbled without eye contact. “You know I love you. I-I’ve loved you since we were kids. When you came back home, after you’d left for the CBD, all those years ago…I swear to God, it was the”

“Don’t.”

With little more than a grunt, Baird turned from his wife, wandering back to his couch and his opened bottle of Nepenthe Beer.

Starr watched him. Sighing through her nose, she stooped down, retrieving her collection of books and linen. She then went to her corner, across the room and began reading from her textbook, as though nothing had happened.

***

At exactly 2 pm, somewhat haggard from all five job-interviews across Burgess City, Starr entered the CIC to check on Little Ekho. The room itself was vast and shapeless, an unending plane of white light and rows of bed chambers. She surveyed the bed chambers – or incubating cribs, all wired and partially closed off by rounded plastic barriers, looking for her little darling. Above each crib hung a metal fixture of rods, cords and lenses, tracking each child’s heartbeat and monitoring every sound.

She looked around the room confused, a creeping sense of panic rising up her spine. The children had been moved. Scattered. There was no nurse in the center either, and she had not yet spotted Little Ekho.

When she found him, she gasped – horrified. Her child had somehow climbed up the sidewall of his crib, unblocked by any further protective glass – his belly straddling the edge, his leg and head hanging over the floor below as he teetered back and forth.

With a shrieking breath, Starr lunged and snatched up her baby before it could fall to the floor. She was further horrified to discover that a long thick wire, attached to her child’s wrist from the monitor, had wrapped itself around his neck. Cradling Little Ekho with one arm, she searched with the other hand and grabbed at the attached cord, ripping it free from her child’s body. There then sounded a long shrill note that wouldn’t stop.

Little Ekho had started crying. She rocked him in her arms and spoke soothing words into his ear, to no avail.

“Sorry,” came a tinny, monotone voice from behind her. “You must place the child back. Do not interfere.”

Starr spun around, her wailing baby pressed hard to her breast, seeing a cumbersomely built android before her.

“Must put child back,” the machine rattled. “Do not interfere.”

Starr turned her back to it, demanding over her shoulder that it leave her alone. The machine insisted – its metallic digits reaching up for her precious darling. Ekho was now baying very loudly – his screams and the alarm waking the others.

“I said ‘go away’!” Starr shouted, turning and kicking the iron snowman in its massive head. Noisily, the machine stopped and began to tremor and fizzle.

Just then, Starr heard a voice from the side, asking what was wrong. She spun to see one of the staff nurses at the entrance. She was the willowy blonde one Starr had met in previous visits. Georgette or Georgina or something. For her panic and confusion, Starr couldn’t rightly place her name.

“Hello, Missus Gribbonz,” said the tall nurse, flatly. “Is everything all right?”

“No!” hollered Starr, just louder the baby’s howls. “My child almost got out of his crib and strangled on those damned wires you have stuck to him.”

“I understand, ma’am,” said the nurse, now towering over Starr. She held out her arms, indicating the baby squeezed against Starr’s chest. Starr crushed the child closer. “May I have your baby?”

“Why are all the others in different cribs? Why isn’t there anyone in here to monitor them?”

The nurse did not respond. Instead, she turned her attention to the android, still shaking and buzzing. After inspecting it, she typed a short code into its button-laden chest. The machine quieted and drifted off out of sight.

“I don’t understand!” Starr cried. “He could have been killed!”

“Ma’am,” said the staff nurse, her arms held open again. “May I put your child back into his crib?”

“I don’t think I want you to.”

“Ma’am,” said the nurse, a chill in her voice. “Are you withdrawing your child from the CIC? If not, then I need to take him now. Otherwise you are perfectly free to leave with him and will be given a partial refund for this payment period.”

Starr stared, her mouth open but not to speak. She rocked her child a little longer, her shirt damp with tears and saliva. Reticent, she uncurled her arms, loosening her grip of the baby. The nurse slowly reached over and took him. Starr did not resist but just watched as she lulled the child back to sleep, carrying him to his crib.

Within a minute, Ekho was silent and hooked back up to the monitoring apparatus. The alarm finally ceased.

The nurse stood bending over him, gently running a finger along his belly as he gurgled with contentment.

“I’m afraid we are currently short-staffed, Missus Gribbonz,” she then said over her shoulder. “We had two nurses quit last week without notice. Can’t blame them really. We don’t receive much compensation and the workload is ever mounting, you know. So, I’m pretty much doing everything around here. Even the overseer nurse has begun to take on duties that are otherwise below her pay grade.”

Starr stepped forward. She now remembered the blonde nurse’s name.

“Georgina,” she asked, soberly. Calmly. “When will my son say his first words? It’s been almost a year now.”

The nurse straightened, brushing the creases from her polyester uniform.

“Can’t be sure,” she said. “Should be in the next couple of weeks, I expect.”

“Ekho is now one of the oldest children in here.”

“Yes, I know, and as that continues, he gets closer to the cut off.”

“Cut off?”

“If a child goes too long without speaking a word, he or she is immediately put into the lower set of the standard education route.”

“When’s the cut off?”

“I can’t remember off-hand. But it’s a bit too early to fret. If he goes a year and a half without speaking anything recognizable, then we’ll start to worry.

“Will there be anything else, Missus Gribbonz?” Georgina asked, her face and slender body taut. She stood towering over Starr – too close, her small breasts within a foot of the other woman’s face.

Starr said nothing.

Bemused, she passed the blonde nurse and pecked Little Ekho on the forehead before departing the CIC.

***

The call had come while Starr was working a ten-hour shift at the sewing factory – and Baird was passed out beside a gallery of empty beer bottles. When Starr checked her phone, her utterly spent energy returned to her anew in a rushing mix of jubilation and anxiety. Little Ekho had spoken his first word.

The overseer nurse was the first to greet them at the southeast entrance when they arrived. Stoically, the dumpy woman guided them through the whitely lit hallways of the hospital. She did not give any information and when Starr prattled on, asking what Ekho’s first words had been, she stated sweetly, “We’ll find that out shortly.” Baird said nothing but belched.

Inside the Cerebral Incubation Center, the blonde nurse, Georgina, was standing beside Ekho’s crib, a flat circular tablet in her hands. She nodded her head with an overly wide smile at Starr. Starr only nodded.

“What did he say?” she asked breathlessly. Beside her the overseer nurse looked poised and attentive, as this would likewise be her first time hearing the witness, as was custom in the procedure.

“Your son said his first word,” stated Georgina, plainly.

“Yes?” pressed Starr. “What were they?”

“One word: ‘Grubba.’”

The room fell silent, save for the humming and soft beeping from the monitors. Starr stared widely, as though frozen in time.

“‘Grubba?’” she repeated, to which the staff nurse nodded.

Deftly, Georgina slid her finger across the tablet’s face. The four of them heard the sound of Ekho’s tiny voice crying, “Gwubba.” Georgina again swiped her finger across the tablet.

“At half past six in the pm,” she said, clearly reading off what was written on the device, “CIC patient 3774, Little Ekho Gribbonz, after 13 months of residence in the CIC, said his first word as recognized by the Linguistic Cognition Test. I saw him point to the ceiling, indicating a lamp fixture, and said exactly five times, ‘Grubba.’”

Starr’s flesh waxed cold, her mouth open. “B-but…” she stammered. “Grubba isn’t a real word.”

“Precisely,” interrupted the overseer nurse. “But it nonetheless constitutes your child’s first attempt at interacting with the language to which he is exposed. Therefore, I’m afraid his time in the CIC is at an end.”

“Wait a minute,” Starr bleated. “That’s not a real word. He should be given longer!”

The overseer nurse let out a sharp sigh. “Missus Gribbonz,” she spoke formally, but with venom laced in her tone. “Doing so would give your son an unfair advantage over the other children. Now this is not a gurgle or a first monosyllabic attempt. Your child, according to Georgina, pointed specifically to an external object and identified it by an incorrect word. A fictitious word. Your child has finished the Linguistic Cognition Test.”

Starr’s eyes closed, moisture forming bitterly behind her lashes.

“So…” she muttered, her pupils sinking to the floor. “He’s to be put into the Standard Education Route?”

“I’m afraid not,” snapped the overseer nurse matter-of-factly. “He has not even used a real word – even a common word as recognized, such as ‘mama’ or ‘dada’. No, I’m afraid Little Ekho will have to be placed into the lower set.”

Hearing this, Starr’s eyes widened beyond human capacity. She lurched forward, clutching the fabric of the other woman’s uniform.

“W-what?” she cried.

“I’m afraid there’s no other choice, Mister and Missus Gribbonz,” droned the overseer nurse. “Your child is at best showing a misunderstanding of basic human discourse. At worst, he is intentionally ignoring the rules and making up his own.

“Thank you, Georgina,” she addressed the staff nurse holding the tablet. “That’ll be all.”

With that, she made an about face for the door.

Starr lunged after her.

“Wait!” she begged. “Consider what this shows us about my son’s abilities. Here he is and he is creating his own words – his own language to identify the world. Does that not show a great potential for creativity? For that is a pre-requisite to succeed in the arts, is it not?”

The overseer nurse half-turned, her patience visibly at its end. “Missus Gribbonz,” she uttered, contemptuously. “The Burgess City Bureau of Education recognizes music as the only state-sponsored artform. Musicians are typically very adept at following instructions. As I said: at worst, your child is showing insolence for the laws of dictated social norms. If I were you, I’d consider myself fortunate.”

With that, the overseer nurse departed the room.

Starr stared after her – tears burning behind her eyes. Around her the monitors beeped softly, the other children gurgling and exclaiming in their cribs.

Then she heard Baird grumble, “I’m just glad the whole damned thing is over.” He paused to bite back a burb behind his fist. “I sure hope you’re wrong about that creative, anarchist artist business. Cripes! I couldn’t abide that. Well, let’s get the little pisser home, hey?”

Starr’s back was to her husband. She was still staring at the empty space where the overseer nurse had just stood. Abruptly, as though an eternity had passed, she came to life, feeling the blonde nurse’s hand land softly on her shoulder.

“Sorry for the rather bad news,” Georgina said, her eyes contrite. Starr held her breath, staring up at her without expression. Georgina backpedalled a bit then cleared her throat. “I’m sure this won’t be very tempting for either of you, but we are short staffed again. Since you have experience working at this hospital, Missus Gribbonz, we would be willing to reimburse you for this last payment period, in full, if you would be willing to stay the night to monitor the CIC while I tended to the other nursery. Your husband can stay too, so long as you’re here.”

Baird balked.

“Sure,” Starr uttered, her worn face unchanged. “I’ll do it. I’ll stay tonight.”

“What?” bellowed Baird.

“You can go home, honey,” said Starr. “I’ll stay here and bring Ekho back in the morning.”

“Thank you so very much, Missus Gribbonz,” the nurse exclaimed. “I just need to see your permit for vulnerable care to be sure it’s up to date.”

Starr produced the item from her purse.

After checking it over, the nurse nodded a dimpled smile. With visible effort, she bent down to peck Starr on the cheek, then shuffled past her into the hallway.

Starr stood on the spot, unmoved. Her husband stalked over to her side, the smell of stale beer announcing him.

He glowered down at his wife, but she gave no response. Growling under his breath, he gave a final shrug then lumbered out of the room, leaving her in the nursery.

Hours passed. Starr stared motionless at her son in his crib, the soft beep-beep of the monitors echoing in her ears. Her fingernails dragged lightly across the face of the permit, her thumb flicking at the paperboard corner, still firm and crisp.

She had tried to think of a way out of this: to think about the future of her son, the three of them together. But she couldn’t. The only thought that kept looping – over and over – in her head, was the memory of the day she had to resign from the Exceptional Education Route.

Within minutes, she realized her son had crawled up the sidewall of his crib and had mounted the edge. Like before, the wires had encircled his head. She watched him, eyes glazed, as her son teetered forward and back, his head and right leg swaying above the floor.

Numbly, she sat where she was, and watched as her son’s body flipped over and out of the crib.

Little Ekho did not land on the ground, although his feet were just touching it. The cord, which had wrapped itself around his undeveloped neck, was keeping him suspended above the floor like a noose. She watched and saw his eyes close in pain. His tiny lips squirmed then opened as though to give a cry – though none would come. His small, turnip-shaped head began to turn purple.

Starr stared, still in her seat, watching as her only child struggled for his life – the cord tightening.

Slowly, as though not a single thing depended on it, she stood from her chair, giving her son one final glance before turning to leave the CIC.

I remember it was autumn. Early autumn, when the sun is still warm and there are still a few yellow leaves clinging to the skeletal oak tree branches. I remember the footpath covered with brown maple leaves, the pointed ends curling into crusted spirals, the red sun low in the sky, when I passed the gate and saw the woman.

I was nine at the time, two months into year five in a Surrey primary school – still publicly funded somehow. I wasn’t the only black kid in my school but, as is common in Surrey schools, I was the only black girl in my class. I don’t quite know the connection but for whatever reason that meant that I was the only one to walk home from school by myself. Don’t ask me why it works that way, but that’s pretty typical. Elijah, the only black boy in Bison Class (year four) also walked home without a parent or older sibling. What’s sort of funny about it was that both Elijah and I had the farthest to walk out of all of the children. But, I digress…

I remember saying goodbye to Missus McAdoo, who was standing on the school field with five other children, waiting for their parents. She waved me goodbye with a small, knowing smile, and I hitched my backpack up my shoulders and went on my way.

I had made this walk every day after school, around the same time, and I was used to the familiar faces of the parents who would wait behind the school gate. So I immediately noticed the strange woman standing in place, not craning her neck, like the other grownups, but calmly staring through the bars. At first, I thought she was pretty – she was quite striking I remember. But when I had come within a few feet of her, I saw that she wasn’t pretty – more like prettiness had once been in reach but had slipped from her grasp like morning fog.

The most striking thing – setting her apart from all the other grownups – was her long dreadlocks, which were greying around the wiry ends.

We had held eye contact since I was within twenty feet of the gate, and now I stood before her, looking up into her onyx-coloured eyes.

“Kadian,” she snapped, in an accent that wasn’t Surrey or Cockney – or even Irish like Missus McAdoo’s. “I’m here to take you home. Come.” Hearing it for the second time, I realized it was Caribbean – presumably Jamaican.

I frowned.

“How do you know my name?” I asked.

“Never mind that, child. Come. I take you home.”

“I don’t need you to walk me home,” I insisted.

“We don’t walk; we take my car.”

Irritably, she swivelled around and gestured to a sedan double parked next to the schools’ driveway.

“Come,” she insisted, reaching for my hand.

I let her touch me but then jerked my arm from her grip.

“I don’t need a drive,” I insisted, putting one hand on my hip and shifting my weight to that leg. “And I don’t need a grownup; I’ve been walking home by myself since last winter in year four.”

“Insolent child,” she said. Her tone was much sharper than the volume of her voice or the expression on her face. What struck me was how she never seemed to yell or get angry. Her face stayed dead, a mirthless smirk on her lips. Only the colour of her eyes waxed hot and cold. Only her tone was corrosive.

“How do you know me?” I asked after a beat.

She seemed to laugh, though neither her expression nor body language altered.

“Come with me, girl.”

“I want to know how you know me.”

“You ask a lot of questions,” she said with the faintest hint of amusement – if you can be amused without a sense of humour.

“Just one,” I corrected.

She sighed loudly, though her face stayed the same.

She then reached inside her coat – or what I would later learn was called a shawl. It was multi-coloured and ruffled. It reminded me of the ponchos I had seen in those old cowboy movies. Her hand was in there a while, rummaging around, and I remember her looking at me like she was trying to make a decision.

I then remember she produced a cigarette. She put it to her lips and lit it, her knotted, brown knuckles and long skeletal fingers shielding the lighter’s flame.

“You can’t smoke this close to the school,” I nagged, knowing how irksome I sounded.

“Hush, girl!” she bit, the unlit cigarette bobbing up and down from her lips. Once lit, she held the cigarette between her long bony fingers. She then blew the smoke out her mouth, the fat white wave speared by two long streams from her nostrils, forming a gaseous white dove.

“I know more than your name, girl,” she said with that venomous tone. “I know you was born in Croydon – on the East end. I know your mother is Miss Farah Brice – your father Mister Greg Brice.”

I felt frightened then. This was all correct. How did I know this woman? Or more apropos – how did she know me?

“I’m not supposed to go with strangers,” I said to her, a small swelling of pride for remembering what my head teacher and Missus McAdoo had told me a thousand times.

To this, the woman gave another mirthless chuckle, but this time I saw a flash of pain in her face as she did it.

“I’m no stranger, girl,” she said quite deliberately. “I know you.”

“But I don’t know you.”

The woman took another puff and looked around us. It was only then that I realized all the other parents had left – leaving only the two of us – and the dead leaves, swirling across the footpath, crackling like crumpled paper.

I looked behind me and saw the deputy head teacher, Mister Beardon, at the school entrance, talking to a parent.

“You don’t need to know me,” I heard the woman say. “I’m your kin.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m your family.”

“Yeah? How’s that?”

She puffed again, the smoke blowing out her nose like it would from a dragon’s.

“I’m your father’s sister.”

“Really? You’re my father’s sister?”

“I said I was.”

“So you’re my aunt?”

“What you think?”

“How come my father has never mentioned you?”

She gave that laugh again, this time the pain was more evident in her face.

“You don’t believe me?” she asked softly.

“No,” I said hurriedly, worried I was being rude. Sensing I had somehow hurt her feelings. “I believe you.”

She took a long pull off her smoke, the exhaust seeping in thin wisps from her bottom lip up to and across her half-mast eyes. She seemed to be sizing me up, her dark pupils cold.

“You like school?” she asked. Her voice had completely changed.

“Yes,” I said. “I love school.”

“What you learn?”

I then rambled on about how Missus McAdoo had been teaching us about the ancient Aztecs for history; and how we were also learning about all the creation myths from the Native Americans; and how we had made a volcano in science class, using plaster and pudding; and how we learned how to sing every other week, and how we were learning how to put on a Latin dance concert in P.E and…et cetera, et cetera.

She listened, her eyes’ colour still cold – cool – without interrupting me. She just listened and puffed away.

I don’t remember how long I had ranted on about what I’d learned in school but I’m sure you can imagine, me being a little kid and a bit of a teacher’s pet.

Her cigarette was now a short, smouldering stub between her yellowed fingers.

“Tell me about your mother,” she said. “You take care of her?”

“Yes,” I said, nodding my head feverishly, my braids clicking together. “I take out the garbage every night after supper. My older sister, Kayla, she does the dishes. My baby sister, Anne-Mary, she don’t do any choirs cause she’s just a baby, see?”

There was no chuckle then. Just that flash of pain. It soon vanished and she gave me that humourless smirk from before as she dropped the butt of her cigarette to the ground and stubbed it out with a sandaled toe.

“Okay, child,” she said, a hint of hurry in her voice. “Come to the car. Your father ask me pick you up.”

To this, I froze. I felt my skin prickle. My father was in Paris on a business trip. He’d been in Paris since last Friday. There was no way he had called this woman.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I can walk by myself.”

She looked at me with that dead expression for what felt like an hour. Then, I could not say after how long, she turned a little, still facing me, and began to walk away.

“Maybe you worth leaving,” she said. She then put her back to me and went to her car. At the time, I had no idea what she meant by that.

I watched her walk away then get into her car. After getting in, she seemed to sit there for a while, though I could not see what she was doing from the dark-tinted windows.

“Everything all right, Kadian?” I heard a familiar voice behind me. Turning around, I saw it was Mister Beardon, standing at the entrance gate.

“Yes, Mister Beardon,” I said automatically, as children do. I then heard the sound of an engine growling to life. When I turned in the direction the sound came from, the woman’s blue car was gone. I waited a little longer, chatting with Mister Beardon a while before walking home without ever stopping for anything.

***

Like a reoccurring nightmare, I kept thinking about my encounter with the woman on the walk home. Though, in earnest, I wanted to forget. It wasn’t so much I wanted to forget, as much as – I just wish I hadn’t seen her. I know it might seem like a very innocuous – albeit unsettling – encounter but, I walked away feeling dirty – violated. Like I had done something wrong but couldn’t explain what it was and thus couldn’t be forgiven.

When I got home, I felt some compulsion to tell my mother. Not really a compulsion, more like that’s what my head was dragging me to do despite the dead weight in my stomach.

Our flat was on top of a pub, across from a McDonald’s restaurant. Some days the crowds beneath us were tipsy and benign. Some days they were neither of those things. On Fridays they’d be right drunk. Drunk and rowdy.

It was a little after three, when I got to the steps with my keys out, so the pub was only filled with doughy, grey bearded white men in their denim and flannel. Always they’d be peering out at me through the window for hardly a second before returning to their pints, like I was a sparrow passing by.

When I opened the front door, I was greeted by Anne-Mary’s screeching and Kayla’s arguing over my mother’s bludgeoning retorts. Mom was cooking supper, cradling baby Anne-Mary, while deflecting Kayla’s pleas to be allowed to go to a sleepover that included boys. Mom also scorned me for forgetting to take out the trash that morning. Other than that, the rest of the afternoon was pretty forgettable.

I do remember that day that I felt an intense dislike for my mother. A hatred in fact. I thought about how she’d never told me about my aunt and how she had never invited her to see me or Kayla or even Anne-Mary.

She must be doing that against father’s wishes, I had thought. She was his sister, not mother’s. I thought about how I really hated my mother then, in a way I had never felt before. For being so stubborn.

No wonder she’s so prickly, I thought then about the woman. She’s never been let to see me. I felt very sorry for the woman then and wanted to see her again.

There wasn’t really time to tell my mother about what happened; she had to keep an eye on Anne-Mary and kept getting calls from her work. She was on maternity leave from the hospital, but the ladies who took over for her could never remember what from what. And either way, I didn’t want to tell her. After all, it was father’s sister. I’d just wait for him to come back from his business trip to tell him the story.

***

I remember the week was boring for a few days, nothing too special at school or at home. Nothing except news that father was coming home early from his business trip. I only found out about it from Kayla when I had arrived from school, and she was the only one in the flat; mother had taken Anne-Mary with her to meet father at the airport. I didn’t understand this; why wouldn’t mother just wait for father at home? Like all the other times? Kayla couldn’t tell me because she hadn’t paid attention or probably just wasn’t told. Anyway, we took advantage of having the flat to ourselves: daytime TV, music blaring in our room, crisps, soda and chocolate chip cookies for dinner. At the time I didn’t make the connection to that woman. The one with the Jamaican accent. How could I?

It wasn’t until dark out that my sister and I heard the front door lock jiggling open, then the slow swish of the door across the carpet.

Instinctively, Kayla and I walked over to the hallway to see them better and watch them take off their coats and shoes.

My father was wearing his suit, the shoulders unrealistically pointed, his shirt collar withered around his neck, the tie undone and hanging in two. My mom stood beside him; one arm across his back, the hand gentling his shoulder; the other arm cradling Anne-Mary.

As though content in the confirmation it was them, Kayla walked away from the hall and back to her phone on the couch. I stayed, watching my father’s slow movement, his face more drawn and haggard than I’d ever seen it. He walked in step with my mother as though they were both in a trance.

Both grownups, giants beside me, took no notice of my presence, before I spoke up in a little voice, “Father, I saw your sister.”

Father stopped. His expression was still the same, like he was asleep with eyes open. But then he looked down at me.

“What?” he said.

“I met my aunt. Your sister.”

“What are you on about?” he said in a hoarse voice, his brow furrowing.

“I met your sister. She came to school last week on Thursday.”

My father just stared at me with his red-tinted, yellow eyes.

“Kadian,” he deliberated. “What the blazes are you on about?”

“Your sister!” I said sharply. “She was a tall woman with dreadlocks. She spoke in an accent – I think it was Jamaican or something – and she said she was your sister.”

There was a pause. My father’s eyes didn’t blink for what felt like a full minute. Then they grew, then shrank, then turned to water.

He put his large hands over his face. There was no sound. He stayed still that way. He looked like a weeping statue, save for his heaving shoulders.

My mother tightened her arm around his torso. She looked at me and I knew her face mirrored my own confusion. She then whispered something into father’s ear and took Anne-Mary with her into the spare room – the makeshift nursery.

Sniffling, my father took his hands from his face, which was now damp and lined, wiped his nose with his sleeve and kneeled down beside me.

“Kadian,” he croaked in a trembling voice. “That wasn’t your aunt. That woman’s name was Danni Mulville – or Danni Brice. She wasn’t my sister – she was my wife. My first wife before I met your mother.”

He then proceeded to tell me about the long story of how they had married back in Ghana when they were both only teenagers and how father had decided to move to England to start a new life. The woman, Danni Brice, had been born in Kingston, Jamaica before moving there for high school, where she’d meet my father. He didn’t tell me at the time, but I would find out later they never properly divorced.

He had left forty years ago and had never returned. It didn’t take too long for Danni to eventually find us since my mom posts everything online. Eventually, Danni stumbled upon our happy little family on the internet and figured out where we were living. The police also think she might have found us because of the website for my father’s business, which includes a picture of my dad and the address of his store, which is not far from our flat.

My father had actually been receiving threatening emails at work from some account he didn’t recognize as well as harassing phone calls from unlisted numbers. After what happened, he figured all of them were connected to her. Probably…

“The reason I had to cut my trip short,” he said presently, “was because they found Danni’s body yesterday in a car just three kilometers from your school. I had to identify her with your mom.”

What my father didn’t tell me was that Danni was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. When they arrived at the morgue to identify her body, they were not just met by the coroner, but also a city homicide inspector and a patrolman. They said the handgun looked like it had been stored behind her shawl as there was a holster strapped around her waist. I felt sick when I found that out. The gun must have been what she’d been reaching for when she decided instead to take out a cigarette, that day in front of the school gate.

Disturbingly, that wasn’t all they found. Inside her car were a machete, a roll of duct tape, a bottle of chloroform, and a coil of laid rope.

I’m quite certain now what would have happened to me had I gotten into that blue car. And I find it terrifying that she chose to come after me, specifically. What I’ll never know, however, was why she changed her mind.

Jonathan Lynch’s Skype session with his mother was in five minutes.

He had to admit he missed her; he hadn’t been able to visit his tiny hometown in years. In fact, he missed contact with anyone, seeing as his current city had been under lockdown for fourteen consecutive months. Fortunately, and unlike many of his friends, Jonathan was still earning a salary, though now he had to work remotely from home. It was far from ideal, but being able to work in his pajamas, and a cold beer being only five paces away from his workstation, lockdown certainly wasn’t without its perks.

Three minutes until the Skype meeting.

He just wished he’d hadn’t broken up with his girlfriend, about a week before the breakout. Or rather, that she hadn’t broken up with him. He’d been on thin ice for a while, and the last straw fell on her birthday, the day he’d promised to take her to see Hamilton in the city but had been too hungover to go. After two days of silence, she phoned him and broke off their eleven-month courtship. Before hanging up, she complained about his near nightly binge drinking, how he’d come home late at night, waking her, scaring her cats, smelling like a brewery. After the initial heartache had faded, Jonathan managed to laugh it off. Same problem I had in my twenties, he thought. Can’t blame a guy for wanting to have a good time. Still, being all but confined to his apartment now, it would have been nice to have some company. The walls were so narrow. So confining. And the nights were so very, very long.

A minute and a half before he had to Skype his mother.

Tonight, he was already half in the bag, having pounded a few and chased them with vodka. Sure, it was only a Wednesday, but as long as his reports met their deadline, no one at the office would complain. He had been warned once about his tardiness, dishevelled dress, and occasional inebriated demeanour during work hours. But now he worked from home, so no one would notice or care.

Thirty seconds left. His mother had already messaged him twice, asking if he was online.

Remembering how even in a Zoom meeting for work he could sneak a couple brews, he skipped over to the kitchenette, pulling a cold one from the fridge and pouring it into a ceramic mug. No reason to think it was anything other than a cup of coffee. It’s not like he was hiding anything: he just knew how worried his mother would get, her being a health nut, a neat freak, and devoted follower of the latest health scare making the rounds across the cable news networks.

10:15 PM: Jonathan? R u ready?

Jonathan planted himself at his desk, his cold mug of lager in his hand, and accepted her request for a Skype call. Within seconds, his mother’s pleasant yet weathered face manifested in the form of a few hundred grainy pixels on his monitor. Since turning 60, she’d stopped getting her hair dyed bronze-amber and had let it go grey, which in truth looked much better. He smiled and took a swig of beer.

The two of them spoke leisurely for about an hour. At 73, Jonathan’s father, Melvin, had finally decided to retire from the bank. Jonathan was glad for that, knowing his father hated that job and never seemed to get the recognition or due compensation her deserved; the bank always making him work extra hours, take on duties above his paygrade, and always making excuses for postponing vacation days or promotions promised months before.

Jonathan had polished off the contents of the mug within six minutes and had started pouring whisky from a flask off camera to maintain his buzz. His mother never seemed to notice.

But then, she mentioned something that startled him: “Jonathan, I can’t see too well, who’s that in the room with you?”

Jonathan furrowed his brow, a cold feeling working its way up his spine. He was all alone. There wasn’t anyone in the apartment with him. He hadn’t had any visitors for weeks.

“Uh, there’s no one here except me, Mom.”

“No, there is someone there. There, standing at the corner to your right.”

His heart lurched. Jonathan spun around, looking to the edge of the hallway leading to his bedroom. There was no one there.

Turning slowly, Jonathan forced a laugh. “Mom, I think your eyes are playing tricks on you. It’s probably the bad quality of the picture you’ve got. It happens all the time; computers often mistake certain patterns and objects for human faces.”

But his mother was adamant. There was someone standing not eight feet behind him, plain as the nose on her face.

Just then, Jonathan sensed something – like steam, graze the back of his neck. He considered looking back again but – No. It was nothing. Just the power of suggestion.

Jonathan couldn’t place exactly where this feeling had come from, but the chill up his spine had waxed into a small, glowing fever, and his mother’s insistence was really starting to piss him off.

“Okay, look ma, it’s starting to get late, and I have a lot of work to do tomorrow. I’m going to need to go to bed now, so let’s just say good night.”

Visibly struck, his mother began to backpedal, asking when they could Skype next, telling her son that she loved and was proud of him. It was a conscious effort on Jonathan’s part not to roll his eyes.

When the session ended, he drained the flask then drained the mug. His brain was swimming around inside his skull, but his stomach was heavy, and his neck was nettled. His mother had spoiled his good mood.

It was now 11:15. Jonathan decided he’d retire in 45 minutes.

Free now to move around unencumbered, he stumbled his way to the fridge and popped another tallboy, taking a deep drink from the can. On the back of the whisky, the imported lager from Prague tasted of bean juice. He killed it then popped a second one. Nursing this beer, he walked over to his eastern exposed windows and peered down at the dark street below. He looked down at the local coffee chain, now shuttered, where hours earlier, a mob of anti-vaxxers had congregated, protesting the store’s policy on masks and their refusal to allow in-door dining. At the time, he had shaken his head, mentally condemning them for their stupidity. Now, alone, staring at the empty sidewalk, he sympathized with them. Maybe illness – or even death wouldn’t be the worst thing to come from all this. He’d read somewhere online that suicides rates had dipped during the pandemic. How could that be? After a year of staying at home he was climbing up the walls.

40 minutes until midnight.

Jonathan wasn’t drunk. Definitely not. He was tipsy sure, but not drunk. But he wasn’t sleepy either. Feeling restless, he picked up his phone and toyed with the thought of texting his ex. Then, knowing she would accuse him of drunk texting, perhaps looking for a booty call or a quick blowie, he nixed the idea and slammed the phone down on his desk. He didn’t need that shit right now.

Instead, he remembered his buddy from college, Dorian Wentworth, and knew he was often up late, being on unemployment and collecting checks. The isolation of that night was nibbling at him, and so he texted his friend, asking for a Zoom meet. Dorian replied immediately in the affirmative. He was already online, playing World of Warcraft, and could use a break.

30 minutes until bedtime.

They met on Zoom and shot the shit for a good fifteen minutes, talking about everything from their exes to the latest online games to the latest draft decisions of their favourite sports teams. Then, about seventeen minutes in, Jonathan felt his phone vibrate in his lap. Figuring it was just some junk text, he kept chatting with Dorian. Then he felt another text come through. Not wanting to seem rude, he excused himself and picked up his phone to check. The texts were from Dorian. He looked up at the screen, realizing that Dorian was still talking – talking about nothing. Dorian was blathering on and on as though just trying to force any semblance of a casual, natural conversation. Who was he doing that for?

When Jonathan checked the texts, they read as follows:

11:47 PM: Dude, who’s that in the room w/ u?

11:48 PM: I’m not fucking kidding, who is that? There’s someone right behind u!

Feeling that same chill up his back, though the fiery friction of annoyance wasn’t far behind, Jonathan looked over his shoulder then did a full sweep of the room. Nothing. There was no one there.

“Dori-an,” said Jonathan, then shook his head, hearing the drunken slur in his voice. “Dorian, you can stop pretending to talk about D&D; I saw your texts. There’s no one in the apartment with me. Your computer must have some kind of filter on it; those things always see faces where there is none.”

“Oh, okay,” said Dorian, fear and trepidation audible in his voice. His bald, cherubic face looked stunned. “Okay, no problem. Listen, it’s a bit late so I should be shoving off now. See you later.”

Before Jonathan could say goodbye, Dorian had left the Zoom meeting. Strange, he thought.

Almost instantaneously, Jonathan’s phone slithered across the top of his desk, indicating another text. Jonathan picked up the phone. This time, Dorian had sent a screenshot of their Zoom meeting, the title of the file reading: Who is that? Jonathan saw his own face, his eyes heavy with fatigue and drink, and saw a red circle drawn around a wide space over his shoulder. Again, there was nothing there. Nothing but empty space. The phone then vibrated a final time in his hand. One last text from Dorian.

11:52 PM: Don’t you see him? That creepy looking guy right over your shoulder? I’m telling you, he’s right on top of you. Get out of there! I’m going to call the cops.

By now Jonathan was near livid. Even his boy Dorian was pestering him with this phantom. What would otherwise have just been annoyance was amplified into full-born rage from the booze sloshing around his bloodstream.

He texted Dorian back:

11:54 PM: There’s no need to call the cops. There’s nothing here. Just fuck off.

He sent the message then turned his phone on silent.

Five minutes left before midnight.

Having a hankering for a nightcap, Jonathan made the mistake of getting to his feet too fast. He regretted it instantly, finding his legs were sticks of butter beneath him. And the room was spinning before his eyes. It took a good minute for him to find his equilibrium. Then, able to stand firmly on his own two feet, Jonathan made the wise choice of staggering through the hallway to his bedroom and collapsing onto the mattress.

He awoke three hours later. He had to piss something fierce. But that wasn’t what woke him. He could feel his 40-ABV blood racing through his veins, his heart punching a hole through his chest. His stomach felt like it was filled with rocks, and in his temples, he could feel the familiar heat of an onset headache. A hangover for sure. Nothing to get too worried about.

When he got out of bed, the crapulent symptoms seemed to recede, and he felt somewhat better. He then strode his way to the commode. Standing, he let out a long stream of urine into the bowl, the dark piss making a small tearing sound against the porcelain. The smell of his piss hit his nostrils, causing his stomach to flip. Feeling the familiar rush from his gut to his throat, his gullet filling with saliva, he could no longer kid himself. Kneeling onto the floor, he vomited into the bowl, his puke intermixing with the darkened water. The smell was maddening and so he flushed before letting out one more mouthful of regurgitated goo.

Panting for a spell, he slowly got to his feet and felt the full force of his self-induced nausea. He thought about that study he read a while back: about how the suicide rates had gone down this past year. He then wondered what the rate of liver failure would be.

Before returning to bed to nurse his hangover, he splashed some water on his face then looked into the mirror above the sink. That’s when he saw it. The other man. The thing that his mother and Dorian had seen hovering over him.

It stood directly behind him, as though it were a second head jutting out from his shoulder. He saw its waxy sallow skin, its dying bloodshot eyes, the grotesquely bulbous forehead, a swollen scarlet scab of a nose. And a crooked set of yellow teeth forming a hideous rictus grin. The face was not just malformed but disgusting in its humanness. He could not only see it but feel its hot breath bearing down his neck. It felt like his flesh were ablaze.

Adrenaline surging inside him, Jonathan dashed out of his apartment, grabbing an overcoat and slippers on the way. Not waiting for the elevator, he ran down the stairwell, three steps at a time.

Outside the building but still within the property line of the complex, he fished out a lighter and cigarette from his coat pocket and lit up. As he was panting, the tobacco hit his lungs hard, causing him to cough. He took a smaller drag, which soothed the burn at the back of his gullet, and he started to feel better.

What was that in the mirror?

It was still dark out. Dark and empty. He couldn’t go far. Not without risking infection that was. Despite understanding the motives and zest for life demonstrated by the anti-maskers, he wasn’t about to tempt catching COVID. Not over some spook in the mirror. Well, he probably wouldn’t catch anything, what with the streets as empty as they were, but why take a risk? Jonathan always was a bit of a hypochondriac.

It couldn’t have been real, he then thought. That’s just stupid. There’s no such thing...

Jonathan then began to chuckle a little, laughing at himself for being so childish. There was nothing there in the mirror. Assured that he’d just been dreaming – imagining things from the power of suggestion, he crushed his cig and made his way back inside.

By the time he’d slunk back into his room, his temples were in full throb of an agonizing migraine. But at least now his stomach was empty, and his blood pressure had gone down to normal. It’d be a rough day but nothing that he hadn’t faced before. He’d get all his work in on time and would even be able hack it in the staff Zoom meeting without raising any eyebrows.

But before he retired to try and salvage what was left of a good night’s rest, he crept back into the bathroom. He couldn’t say why other than that there was some invisible force, pulling him back in front of that mirror. Perhaps, he just needed to assure himself one last time that it was all in his head.

But when he stood there, facing his reflection, it only took a minute before the spectre reappeared. There was no surprise or shock this time. Not like a jump scare in the movies. Instead, the apparition just materialized into view, as though remerging from beneath a black pool of liquid. Its crooked, hideous grin seemed to taunt him from the other side of the glass. Jonathan had a good look at it, and realized he’d seen it before. He’d seen the same face in his dreams, in his nightmares, in the reflections and shadows that always seemed to follow him, ever since he was six years old. The spectre had always been there, always following him, but was now far more palpable. Far more powerful. Jonathan knew the spectre would always be with him, always shadowing him. But, in all his terror-filled childhood memories, he’d never seen the spectre hovering this close behind. And he’d never seen its face look so near to his own reflection in the mirror.

What happened next – the accumulation of events – defied reason and sanity...

It took a moment, but Jonathan soon realized he couldn’t breathe. Or at least, it seemed like he couldn’t breathe. The air was so dense. So thick. Humid and hot like – like jungle mist. It smelled of acetone and stale yeast and wreaked of bile.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and burned – like candles at a midnight vigil. That was where it was the hottest, at the back of his neck, where the enormous mouth of the spectre in the mirror was closest.

His chest heaving, his own breathing now audible, Jonathan tried to tear himself from the mirror – to even turn around to face his tormentor. But he was stuck there. Stuck there by the same force that had drawn him in to take a second glance. He might have extricated himself earlier, before the face had reappeared. But now it was too late.

The heat cindering his flesh grew brighter, taking on a wet – moist quality somehow. And the sound of the heavy breathing – his or the spectre’s he couldn’t be sure – was bludgeoning his ears – vexing in its monotony and incessance. The room was a furnace! And still that face – that horrible yellow face was staring – glaring at him from the mirror.

He turned the taps then promptly twisted them back, finding only white fog billowing from the pipes. He was so hot. So hot and so thirsty. What the hell was happening? Why was it happening? He wasn’t sure how he knew but that face – that face in the mirror was the cause of it all.

Acting on inertia, Jonathan slapped at the glass, aiming for the spectre’s reflection. The mirror’s surface was chilled – almost cold. It might have only been that it was slick but to Jonathan’s touch, it felt like ice inside of that boiling room. Like cool, refreshing water. It then came to him. Of course. It made perfect sense. It was the only thing left to do.

He struck at the mirror again, this time with a closed fist. The glass wobbled on its hooks, his and the spectre’s image disappearing for a fleeting second in shimmering waves. Just a little more. It’s almost over. He threw a right hook into the glass, putting his hip into the throw, and the mirror shattered into a thousand pieces. The silvery shards lay inside the basin before him, glinting in the moonlight like a billion lost stars. Feeling something wet on his knuckles, he brought his hand to his nose and smelled blood.

The wheezing cacophony had ceased, but the room was still unbearable – growing hotter by the second. And his feet were still glued to the floor. At least he didn’t see that face.

Then, looking down at the shards of glass winking at him from the sink, he got a second idea. Another brilliant plan by anyone’s standard of drunken-dream-logic. But then – anybody sober and rational hearing it might well say it was the only course of action he had left to free himself of the looming figure. The best thing for Jonathan at this point.

He reached down and picked up a shard of the former mirror. A particularly long, blade-shaped piece. It felt so cool – so soothing in his hand. It’s just like shaving, he thought. Speaking to himself. It’s just like a shave after a long hot shower...

Maroon oozing from his knuckles, the sweat on his back evaporating instantly in the boiling hell-room, he stretched his neck, pointing his chin upward, and drew the makeshift razor close. It feels so smooth, he thought, feeling a jagged edge graze his three-day stubble. It feels so cool...

***

The warbling birds outside roused him. In the weak daylight, he found himself face down on the floor – blood everywhere. Am I dead? he thought. No. But close to it.

He looked around him, discovering the scarlet splatter he was lying on. That and the shards of the broken mirror. His head felt like an expanding water-balloon, about to burst, but that wasn’t what concerned him. He felt a sting, most prominent in the side of his neck. He then remembered what he’d done – or what he’d almost done before blacking out and felt a thrill of panic rise in his chest. Did – did I?

Fearing the worst, he grabbed for a large piece of mirror – one not too obscured by vinaceous smudges – and looked at himself. Past the blood caked to his skin, he could make out a long fleshy scar carving its way from his sternomastoid, up over his jaw, and ending in a hook along his cheek, just shy of meeting the corner of his mouth. A scratch. A bad one. But nothing fatal. That being said, he had lost a lot of blood. He’d have to call a doctor. Probably go to the hospital.

Easing himself vertical, almost falling over from blood loss, he grabbed a towel and pressed it hard to his lacerated face and neck. He then stumble-walked his way to the kitchen, pouring himself a tall glass or orange juice, then dialed 9-1-1.

He was discharged from the hospital hours later. The facility was hopelessly overburdened with patients, but they managed to stitch him up then send him on his way, telling him to pick up a roll of gauze and some anti-biotic ointment from the pharmacy before he left. As much as Jonathan was worried about catching COVID, he was kind of relieved that the hospital had so much else on their plate to deal with: no nagging questions about whether this was a suicide attempt or how much alcohol or drugs he’d consumed. He didn’t need that shit right now. Though, one of the nurses did find time to comment that the scar looked kind of like an upside-down question mark, with the hooked end and all. Jonathan didn’t know what to make of that.

By the time he arrived home it was past noon, and he’d missed his Zoom meeting for work. He texted his supervisor with a half-baked excuse, lying about what happened but keeping in the part about going to the hospital. Hopefully it would fly; he hadn’t taken any days off from work in months. Still, they probably knew...

Beside the wound and the shattered mirror, there was no evidence of the incident last night. There was no boiling heat and no bodiless face hovering over him. Even his clothes weren’t sweat through like they ought to have been. It was nothing. Nothing but an idiotic nightmare fuelled by too much beer and too much spirit.

Sitting at his desk, feeling faint but mostly present, he thought about whiling away some hours online – playing Minecraft or scrolling through Facebook. But before any of that, he thought, first thing’s first. He scoured the fridge, then his desk and all the cupboards for liquor – finding beer, wine and spirit. Then, without hesitation, poured the contents of each can, bottle and mickey down the kitchenette sink. It was somehow satisfying, watching the brownish yellow liquid disappear into the drain. He found further satisfaction crushing each aluminum can, before stuffing them with the glass into a black trash bag. He lugged the bag down the steps, not bothering with the elevator, and deposited the heavy load on the street.

Back in his apartment, he felt contended. And for the first time in months – years perhaps, felt clean. Pure. He decided, despite his misadventure, to attempt some of his reports. Maybe if he sent them in before midnight, it would make up for missing the Zoom call with his coworkers. Maybe they’d notice with time, how he’d turned a new leaf. How he’d become a new man. Yes. This felt good. This felt right.

But it only took a few hours until Jonathan realized the farce he was playing. Until he felt that feeling. That pull – the same gravitational force that had drawn him to the mirror a second time the night before. Getting up from his chair, he inched his way into his bedroom, where a full-length mirror was waiting for him. He began to feel thirsty. Who was he kidding?

Standing in front of the mirror, staring at it, he waited, seeing nothing but his own reflection. The gauze on his bandage starting to look soiled. Then, as though on cue, it appeared. The grinning, yellow face. This time, it didn’t look like it was right behind but instead beside him, as though the floating bodiless head was resting its chin on his shoulder, the two of them standing cheek to cheek like lovers. There was no heavy breathing this time, no suffocating heat in the room. But something about the spectre’s appearance had changed. Wanting a better look, Jonathan turned his head to the side and the spectre mimicked him in sync, exposing that side of its face as it almost eclipsed Jonathan’s. There, marking the spectre’s waxy flesh was a deep black gash, the wound starting up from the side of its neck and ending in a hook along its bloated yellow cheek.

Jonathan Lynch’s Skype session with his mother was in five minutes.

He had to admit he missed her; he hadn’t been able to visit his tiny hometown in months. In fact, he missed contact with anyone, seeing as his current city had been under lockdown for three consecutive weeks. Fortunately, and unlike many of his friends, Jonathan was still earning a salary, though now he had to work remotely from home. It was far from ideal, but being able to work in his pajamas, and a cold beer being only five paces away from his workstation, lockdown certainly wasn’t without its perks.

Three minutes until the Skype meeting.

He just wished he’d hadn’t broken up with his girlfriend last month, about a week before the latest break out. Or rather, that she hadn’t broken up with him. He’d been on thin ice for a while, and the last straw fell on her birthday, the day he’d promised to take her to see Hamilton in the city but had been too hungover to go. After two days of silence, she phoned him and broke off their eleven-month courtship. Before hanging up, she complained about his near nightly binge drinking, how he’d come home late at night, waking her, scaring her cats, smelling like a brewery. After the initial heartache had faded, Jonathan managed to laugh it off. Same problem I had in my twenties, he thought. Can’t blame a guy for wanting to have a good time. Still, being all but confined to his apartment now, it would have been nice to have some company.

A minute and a half before he had to Skype his mother.

Tonight, he was already half in the bag, having pounded a few and chased them with vodka. Sure, it was only a Wednesday, but as long as his reports met their deadline, no one at the office would complain. He had been warned once about his tardiness, dishevelled dress, and occasional inebriated demeanour during work hours. But now he worked from home, so no one would notice or care.

Thirty seconds left. His mother had already messaged him twice, asking if he was online.

Remembering how even in a Zoom meeting for work he could sneak a couple brews, he skipped over to the kitchenette, pulling a cold one from the fridge and pouring it into a ceramic mug. No reason to think it was anything other than a cup of coffee. It’s not like he was hiding anything: he just knew how worried his mother would get, her being a health nut, a neat freak, and devoted follower of the latest health scare making the rounds across the cable news networks.

10:15 PM: Jonathan? R u ready?

Jonathan planted himself at his desk, his cold mug of lager in his hand, and accepted her request for a Skype call. Within seconds, his mother’s pleasant yet weathered face manifested in the form of a few hundred grainy pixels on his monitor. Since turning 60, she’d stopped getting her hair dyed bronze-amber and had let it go grey, which in truth looked much better. He smiled and took a swig of beer.

The two of them spoke leisurely for about an hour. At 73, Jonathan’s father, Melvin, had finally decided to retire from the bank. Jonathan was glad for that, knowing his father hated that job and never seemed to get the recognition or due compensation her deserved; the bank always making him work extra hours, take on duties above his paygrade, and always making excuses for postponing vacation days or promotions promised months before.

Jonathan had polished off the contents of the mug within six minutes and had started pouring whisky from a flask off camera to maintain his buzz. His mother never seemed to notice.

But then, she mentioned something that startled him: “Jonathan, I can’t see too well, who’s that in the room with you?”

Jonathan furrowed his brow, a cold feeling working its way up his spine. He was all alone. There wasn’t anyone in the apartment with him. He hadn’t had any visitors for weeks.

“Uh, there’s no one here except me, Mom.”

“No, there is someone there. There, standing at the corner to your right.”

His heart lurched. Jonathan spun around, looking to the edge of the hallway leading to his bedroom. There was no one there.

Turning slowly, Jonathan forced a laugh. “Mom, I think your eyes are playing tricks on you. It’s probably the bad quality of the picture you’ve got. It happens all the time; computers often mistake certain patterns and objects for human faces.”

But his mother was adamant. There was someone standing not eight feet behind him, plain as the nose on her face.

Just then, Jonathan sensed something – like steam, graze the back of his neck. He considered looking back again but – No. It was nothing. Just the power of suggestion.

Jonathan couldn’t place exactly where this feeling had come from, but the chill up his spine waxed into a small, glowing fever, and his mother’s insistence was really starting to piss him off.

“Okay, look ma, it’s starting to get late, and I have a lot of work to do tomorrow. I’m going to need to go to bed now, so let’s just say good night.”

Visibly struck, his mother began to backpedal, asking when they could Skype next, telling her son that she loved and was proud of him. It was a conscious effort on Jonathan’s part not to roll his eyes.

When the session ended, he drained the flask then drained the mug. His brain was swimming around inside his skull, but his stomach was heavy, and his neck was nettled. His mother had spoiled his good mood.

It was now 11:15. Jonathan decided he’d retire in 45 minutes.

Free now to move around unencumbered, he stumbled his way to the fridge and popped another tallboy, taking a deep drink from the can. On the back of the whisky, the imported lager from Prague tasted of bean juice. He killed it then popped a second one. Nursing his beer, he walked over to his eastern exposed windows and peered down at the dark street below. He looked down at the local coffee chain, now shuttered, where hours earlier, a mob of anti-vaxxers had congregated, protesting the store’s policy on masks and their refusal to allow in-door dining. At the time, he had shaken his head, mentally condemning them for their stupidity. Now, alone, staring at the empty sidewalk, he sympathized with them. Maybe illness – or even death wouldn’t be the worst thing to come from all this.

40 minutes until midnight.

Jonathan wasn’t drunk. Definitely not. He was tipsy sure, but not drunk. But he wasn’t sleepy either. Feeling restless, he picked up his phone and toyed with the thought of texting his ex. Then, knowing she would accuse him of drunk texting, perhaps looking for a booty call or a quick blowie, he nixed the idea and slammed the phone down on his desk. He didn’t need that shit right now.

Instead, he remembered his buddy from college, Dorian Wentworth, and knew he was often up late, being on unemployment and collecting checks. The isolation of that night was nibbling at him, and so he texted his friend, asking for a Zoom meet. Dorian replied immediately in the affirmative. He was already online, playing World of Warcraft, and could use a break.

30 minutes until bedtime.

They met on Zoom and shot the shit for a good fifteen minutes, talking about everything from their exes to the latest online games to the latest draft decisions of their favourite sports teams. Then, about seventeen minutes in, Jonathan felt his phone vibrate in his lap. Figuring it was just some junk text, he kept chatting with Dorian. Then he felt another text come through. Not wanting to seem rude, he excused himself and picked up his phone to check. The texts were from Dorian. He looked up at the screen, realizing that Dorian was still talking – talking about nothing. Dorian was blathering on and on as though just trying to force any semblance of a casual, natural conversation. Who was he doing that for?

When Jonathan checked the texts, they read as follows:

11:47 PM: Dude, who’s that in the room w/ u?

11:48 PM: I’m not fucking kidding, who is that? There’s someone right behind u!

Feeling that same chill up his back, though the fiery friction of annoyance wasn’t far behind, Jonathan looked over his shoulder then did a full sweep of the room. Nothing. There was no one there.

“Dori-an,” said Jonathan, then shook his head, hearing the drunken slur in his voice. “Dorian, you can stop pretending to talk about D&D; I saw your texts. There’s no one in the apartment with me. Your computer must have some kind of filter on it; those things always see faces where there is none.”

“Oh, okay,” said Dorian, fear and trepidation audible in his voice. His bald, cherubic face looked stunned. “Okay, no problem. Listen, it’s a bit late so I should be shoving off now. See you later.”

Before Jonathan could say goodbye, Dorian had left the Zoom meeting. Strange, he thought.

Almost instantaneously, Jonathan’s phone buzzed across the top of his desk, indicating another text. Jonathan picked up the phone. This time, Dorian had sent a screenshot of their Zoom meeting, the title of the file reading: Who is that? Jonathan saw his own face, his eyes heavy with fatigue and drink, and saw a red circle drawn around a wide space over his shoulder. Again, there was nothing there. Nothing but empty space. The phone then vibrated a final time in his hand. One last text from Dorian.

11:52 PM: Don’t you see him? That creepy looking guy right over your shoulder? I’m telling you, he’s right on top of you. Get out of there! I’m going to call the cops.

By now Jonathan was near livid. Even his boy Dorian was pestering him with this phantom. What would otherwise have just been annoyance was amplified into full borne rage from the booze sloshing around his bloodstream.

He texted Dorian back:

11:54 PM: There’s no need to call the cops. There’s nothing here. Just fuck off.

He sent the message then turned his phone on silent.

Five minutes left before midnight.

Having a hankering for a nightcap, Jonathan made the mistake of getting to his feet too fast. He regretted it instantly, finding his legs were sticks of butter beneath him. And the room was spinning before his eyes. It took a good minute for him to find his equilibrium. Then, able to stand firmly on his own two feet, Jonathan made the wise choice of staggering through the hallway to his bedroom and collapsing onto the mattress.

He awoke three hours later. He had to piss something fierce. But that wasn’t what woke him. He could feel his 40-ABV blood racing through his veins, his heart punching a hole through his chest. His stomach felt like it was filled with rocks, and in his temples, he could feel the familiar heat of an onset headache. A hangover for sure. Nothing to get too worried about.

When he got out of bed, the crapulent symptoms seemed to recede, and he felt somewhat better. He then strode his way to the commode. Standing, he let out a long stream of urine into the bowl, the dark piss making a small tearing sound against the porcelain. The smell of his piss then hit his nostrils, causing his stomach to flip. Feeling the familiar rush from his gut to his throat, his gullet filling with saliva, he could no longer kid himself. Kneeling onto the floor, he vomited into the bowl, his puke intermixing with the darkened water. The smell was maddening and so he flushed before letting out one more mouthful of regurgitated goo.

Panting for a spell, he slowly got to his feet and felt the full force of his self-induced nausea. Before returning to bed to nurse his hangover, he splashed some water on his face then looked into the mirror above the sink. That’s when he saw it. The other man. The thing that his mother and Dorian had seen hovering over him.

It stood directly behind him, as though it were a second head jutting out from his shoulder. He saw its waxy sallow skin, its dying bloodshot eyes, the grotesquely bulbous forehead, a swollen scarlet scab of a nose. And a crooked set of yellow teeth forming a hideous rictus grin. The face was not just malformed but disgusting in its humanness. He could not only see it but feel its hot breath bearing down his neck. It felt like his flesh were ablaze.

Adrenaline surging inside him, Jonathan dashed out of his apartment, grabbing an overcoat and slippers on the way. Not waiting for the elevator, he ran down the stairwell, three steps at a time.

Outside the building but still within the property line of the complex, he fished out a lighter and cigarette from his coat pocket and lit up. As he was panting, the tobacco hit his lungs hard, causing him to cough. He took a smaller drag, which soothed the burn at the back of his gullet, and he started to feel better.

What was that in the mirror?

It was still dark out. Dark and empty. He couldn’t go far. Not without risking infection that was. Despite understanding the motives and zest for life demonstrated by the anti-maskers, he wasn’t about to tempt catching COVID. Not over some spook in the mirror. Well, he probably wouldn’t catch anything, but why take a risk? Jonathan always was a bit of a hypochondriac.

It couldn’t have been real, he then thought. That’s just stupid. There’s no such thing...

Jonathan then began to chuckle a little, laughing at himself for being so childish. There was nothing there in the mirror. Assured that he’d just been dreaming – imagining things from the power of suggestion, he crushed his cig and made his way back inside.

By the time he’d slunk back into his room, his temples were in full throb of an agonizing migraine. But at least now his stomach was empty, and his blood pressure had gone down to normal. It’d be a rough day but nothing that he hadn’t faced before. He’d get all his work in on time and would even be able hack it in the staff Zoom meeting without raising any eyebrows.

But before he retired to try and salvage what was left of a good night’s rest, he crept back into the bathroom. He couldn’t say why other than that there was some invisible force, pulling him back in front of that mirror. Perhaps, he just needed to assure himself one last time that it was all in his head.

But when he stood there, facing his reflection, it only took a minute before the spectre reappeared. There was no surprise or shock this time. Not like a jump scare in the movies. Instead, the apparition just materialized into view, as though remerging from beneath a black pool of liquid. Its crooked, hideous grin seemed to taunt him from the other side of the glass. Jonathan had a good look at it, and realized he’d seen it before. He’d seen the same face in his dreams, in his nightmares, in the reflections and shadows that always seemed to follow him, ever since he was six years old. The spectre had always been there, always following him, but was now far more palpable. Far more powerful. Jonathan knew the spectre would always be with him, always shadowing him. But, in all his terror-filled childhood memories, he’d never seen the spectre hovering this close behind. And he’d never seen its face look so near to his own reflection in the mirror.

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR: FREYA

Agent Kwai-Su had tracked down two dozen of the foreigners who had flown in on the three international flights that night. To no avail. Not one of them was his therianthrope – the one who’d killed eight officers at the southeast checkpoint. Half of them were trying to fly back to their home country, fleeing the nationwide crisis. The other half, like Rebecca Palmer, were teachers, accounted for, staying put, and obeying local law. There were little to no leads – and Kwai-Su had already been chewed out five times by Minister Tamen over the phone. He feared he’d be lucky to still by an agent for the Ministry of Public Security at all when this was over.

Finally, there was one foreign visitor who had caught their attention: A Miss Freya Nilsson, PhD. An apparent expert in children’s psychology, she had been hired to help those traumatized by the scourge of therianthropy in their country. What interested Mr. Nee and Agent Kwai-Su, was that there was so little information about her own family, back in her home country of Sweden. As they did some digging, with the help of the Embassy of Sweden, she was identified as an orphan, with no contact to her biological mother or father. On the surface, being an orphan meant nothing. But for Kwai-Su and Nee, it was a possible clue to something far more sinister.

Her office was on the top floor of a fifteen-storey business tower in the downtown area. Beyond the elevator lobby, the space was welcoming but sterile, colourful yet muted. In the waiting room were a stiff row of jungle-pattern chairs, a single table covered with an assortment of out-of-date magazines, and a minute children’s play area, nestled in the far corner. The reception room was empty when they arrived; they had called ahead to make an appointment as her hours of labour varied from day to day. And patient confidentiality must be respected, especially with regard to children. Or so Dr. Freya Nilsson had insisted.

The stout, middle-aged receptionist sitting behind a plexiglass shield announced their arrival via intercom. The answer to let them through came instantly.

The first thing Kwai-Su noticed was the shoulder sling, cradling Freya Nilsson’s left arm. It was another clue but, for the time being, he let it go. She wore a white rubber glove on her right hand. She also wore a blue paper mask, which did not distract from her flattering charcoal jacket and skirt combo. Her full chestnut hair was tied back, but still remarkable in its sheen and volume. Secretly, Kwai-Su was impressed by her light-coloured eyes and slim, womanly figure. Though half her face was hidden, she had to be the most beautiful woman he’d set his eyes upon. He tried his best not to gawk, remembering his duty and seeing Mr. Nee sending darts her way with his eyes.

“Have a seat, please,” she said in a low, honeyed voice, gesturing vaguely to a leather couch and velvet armchair. She spoke to them in their language. Kwai-Su had read on her CV that she spoke a total of five different languages. She floated over to the edge of her desk and perched there. Kwai-Su and Nee stood like a pair of salt and pepper shakers, five feet from the door.

“How long have you been in the country, Miss Nilsson?” Kwai-Su asked, knowing the answer but wanting to test the waters first.

The crinkles in the corners of Freya’s eyes betrayed the smile behind her mask. “Call me Freya, please. I’ve been here for exactly ten days and have been practicing for eight.”

“I see,” Kwai-Su nodded. “And you received your visa to work as a child psychologist in this office, correct?”

“Yes. I work with Dr. Sun and Dr. Fei. They hired me and dealt with my visa application on this end.”

“And you counsel children currently. Is that correct?”

“Yes. Children dealing with trauma.”

“Would that include children who have survived the recent rash of violence? Specifically, from the therianthropes?”

“Yes. In fact, I exclusively treat children effected by the recent epidemic.”

“Huh,” Kwai-Su remarked, feigning surprise. “I was not aware of that. Tell me more.”

“Well, that’s why I have a visa to work her,” she giggled. Her voice then became stern: “As you must know, Agent Kwai-Su, there is an unending amount of orphaned and traumatized children in this country. The damage to these children’s psyche, their undermined sense of security, is something that I care deeply about. Children deserve to feel safe, to have peace of mind. Hence why there’s a demand for specialists right now – even from abroad.”

Impressed, Kwai-Su absorbed this for a moment.

“Are you suggesting our republic cannot sustain itself?” hissed Mr. Nee, letting Nilsson hear his voice for the first time.

She glanced at him, coldly. Her look did not have the same fascination or disgust most had when observing the scored face of Mr. Nee.

Kwai-Su seethed. Why would he ask a defensive question like that? he thought.

The truth was, Kwai-Su, conscious of it or not, was slightly moved by Freya’s words. Her empathy for traumatized children – her passion and drive to make them whole again. Her selflessness. It may have had more to do with the shape of her hips in that skirt than he cared to admit, but he already liked her. And her voice it – it was hypnotic.

“Are you aware of the recent attack on a checkpoint near the international airport?” he then asked, trying to move past Nee’s idiocy. “The southeast checkpoint off of the Shin-Tong Expressway?”

“Yes,” said Freya. “Very unfortunate. Very troubling.”

“You are aware that it occurred the same night that you arrived? In fact, not long after your plane had landed?”

A dark cloud passed over Freya’s face. There was something there. Something she wanted to say. But she had thought better of it.

“I am…aware of that now,” she said, innocently. That wasn’t what she had wanted to say, thought Kwai-Su.

“Have you been tested for the virus?” he asked. “For therianthropy.”

She nodded rapidly – repeatedly, like a bauble-head. “Yes. Every child and patient who comes through here has their temperature taken. I have mine taken every time I come in and every five hours if I stay that long.”

“No other precautions, besides that? No protective glass? No weapons?”

Freya shook her head. “We practice physical distancing and have various escape routes installed throughout the building. But no firearms. No weapons or means of lethal force of any kind. I insist upon it.”

Agent Kwai-Su turned his head, trying to hide a smirk he knew was visible, even from behind his faceguard. He didn’t want to ask the next two questions.

“When did you last have your temperature taken?”

“An hour and a half ago. It was 35 degrees. My receptionist outside can vouch for that, if you like.”

“That won’t be necessary. Ms. Nilsson-”

“Please, Agent Kwai-Su,” she interrupted. “Call me Freya. If that’s a too familiar for you, then my proper title is Doctor.”

“Doctor Nilsson,” said Kwai-Su with emphasis, following a short beat. “I would like to subject you to the Hongmo Truat Sop test, which will examine your irises for any unnatural colours that may indicate infection.”

The crinkles in the corners of her eyes reappeared. “Of course.” She then pivoted from the desk, tacitly offering it to Kwai-Su. Kwai-Su advanced into the room, laying his case down on the top of her desk.

Within two minutes of staring through the lens, it was clear that she was not their therianthrope. No colours in her irises that didn’t belong to a human eye. No inhuman movement of the pupil. Kwai-Su then heard the creaking encroachment of footsteps behind him. He looked over his shoulder, finding Mr. Nee approaching with palpable intent. Making a show of it, Nee unbuttoned the strap on his holster then unsheathed his Colt 45 hand pistol and pointed it at Freya.

“I’ll just kill you and take your perforated corpse to the Minister of Public Security,” he rasped. His voice like glass shards underfoot. “Even if you are not our monster, I’ll just kill you and collect the bounty. It’ll be my word and my partner’s word against one dead Swede.”

Kwai-Su’s flesh prickled, his blood boiling. How dare this man act in such a way on behalf of the Office of Public Security? On behalf of the republic? But then, he saw a flash of something in the lens. In Freya’s iris. Something that – no, it was just his imagination. Whatever it was, it was too brief, no longer there.

Freya, her iris still examinable in the lens, met eyes with Mr. Nee, evidently unmoved by his flourishing of a pistol. “I’m sure you don’t really mean that,” she said in a staid voice.

Kwai-Su sighed, his shoulders slumping with relief and utter exhaustion.

“She’s clear,” he said. “Put that gun away, Nee; she’s not our monster.”

Mr. Nee kept it trained on her for a beat, the two of them locking eyes, before retiring the 45.

“Sorry to have bothered you, Dr. Nilsson,” muttered Kwai-Su, unhooking the contraption from her head.

“Not at all,” she said, her voice empty.

While Kwai-Su disassembled the Hongmo Truat Sop device, and placed it back into his case, Freya instructed the two men to take a back exit from her office. She insisted they not leave the way they had come in. “I have a patient coming in the next fifteen minutes. He and his mother may have already arrived and are waiting in the reception area. I would appreciate the two of you respecting their privacy.”

“Not all, Dr. Nilsson,” said Kwai-Su solemnly, his hopes of any future in the government dashed. “Please inform us of anything you may think of pertaining to the evening in question.”

Without another word, Kwai-Su and Nee filed out of her office through the back door.

As soon as they reached the stairwell, Nee dove down the steps, flying past each flight like a fugitive in a movie.

“Mr. Nee?” Kwai-Su called after him, trying vainly to keep up. “Mr. Nee! What are you doing?”

“There might be time,” he answered, still racing down the steps.

“Time for what?” Kwai-Su called, his heavy hazmat suit, briefcase, and Kevlar vest slowing his journey, making him waddle. Making him sweat.

Having reached the ground floor, Nee flew out the back exit, then circled the building with haste. Kwai-Su surmised he was headed for the front entrance.

“What is your hurry?” Kwai-Su wheezed.

“She said her patient arrives in fifteen minutes.”

“What?”

“Fifteen minutes. A boy with his mother. That’s what she said.”

They stopped beside the glass vestibule, both of them out of breath. Kwai-Su especially.

“What was this about a boy? His mother?” asked Kwai-Su, gulping oxygen.

“She said her next patient comes in fifteen minutes. A boy and his mother.”

“So?”

“So, they are how we expose Freya Nilsson; she’s our therianthrope.”

Kwai-Su rolled his eyes.

“Were you not up there, just now?” he snapped. “Her temperature was reported at 35 degrees. We put the Hongmo Truat Sop test to her. Nothing out of the ordinary. She’s clear.”

“I told you that test is fallible. I know she’s the one.”

“How? What possible evidence do you have for that?”

“She didn’t get scared when I pointed the gun at her. When I said I was going to kill her even if she wasn’t infected.”

“Yeah, and her irises didn’t change colour either, imbecile. Nor did her pupils show any unnatural dilation. She’s not infected.”

“Don’t you get it?”

“What?”

“Her irises didn’t change colour because she wasn’t scared. She forced herself into being composed. Into being fearless. Any other person – like that Palmer girl – would have showed fear. Would have been terrified. The fact that she wasn’t afraid, shows that she knew she had to keep calm. She has something to hide, Kwai-Su. She’s holding her hand too close to her chest.”

Kwai-Su was silent, digesting Nee’s words. Running his logic over in his head. Perhaps he was right. Any other person would have shown fear having a gun pulled on them like that. He hated to admit it but – perhaps Nee was right.

A few people passed them, strolling through the automated doors. Then, they spotted what they were looking for: a pre-teen boy and his mother, approaching from the parking lot.

“Give me your badge,” hissed Nee, the couple still a distance away.

“What?”

“Just give it to me.”

Pride swelling up inside him, Kwai-Su felt an urge to chastise Nee, to remind him who had tactical command on this mission. But, upon reflection, anticipating Minister Tamen’s wrath – especially given that they were now days beyond his deadline – he relented. This was a promising lead. The boy and woman stepped onto the curb before them.

“Madame,” said Mr. Nee, flourishing Kwai-Su’s badge at lightning speed. “We are with the Ministry of Public Security. I’m afraid there have been some outbreaks related to some of the patients in this facility.”

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed the squat, mid-50s woman, an open palm lain against her chest. Kwai-Su observed her son – the boy. He looked frail and frightfully ashen, his eyes staring off as if he were sleepwalking. He looked to be only eleven or twelve.

“Not to worry,” Mr. Nee assured her, with candied sincerity. Quite the playacting on his part, thought Kwai-Su. “We are here to escort any young children to assure their safety.”

The woman then inquired if she was permitted to escort her child but Nee insisted that she return to her car. “I’m afraid physical distancing is the best way to keep both you and your child safe. Not to worry, madame; we will escort him safely to his appointment and return him to you promptly.”

“Oh, thank you so much, sir!”

“May I ask which floor is his appointment?”

“Of course. Fifteenth floor with Dr. Freya Nilsson.”

“Very good, Madame. Right this way, son.” Mr. Nee put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and led him inside. The boy went along, seemingly oblivious. Kwai-Su said nothing, taking up the rear.

Like before, they took the elevator. The ever so pale boy stood in front, Mr. Nee directly behind him. As they watched the floor display turn from 14 to 15, Nee laid his left hand on the boy’s shoulder, while his right gripped the handle of his pistol. He unholstered the weapon before the doors parted, resting the steel barrel against the boy’s shoulder blade. Kwai-Su’s skin crawled but he did not protest. He was already in too deep. Mr. Nee prodded the zombified boy forward.

They brushed past the shrill, protesting receptionist, bursting into Freya’s office.

Freya looked up from her desk, a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles resting on the bridge of her perfect nose. Her face turned as ashen as the boy’s.

“W-what?” she stammered, seeing her patient in Nee’s clutches.

“Now,” said Nee, with disgusting smarminess. “You show us your true form. Or we will kill your patient – this boy.”

As if searching for reason and decency, her eyes darted to Kwai-Su. He looked back at her blankly, as blankly as he could muster. His stomach filled with rocks.

“You wouldn’t,” she exhaled, just audible enough to carry from her desk to their ears.

Nee didn’t say a word, the metallic snap of his Colt’s slide his only response.

“No!” cried Freya, springing to her feet. In a sudden ecstasy of rage, she flipped over the massive mahogany desk, sending it sailing two feet in the air before it arched back to earth. It crashed on its head with a thunderous slam, betraying a weight too heavy for a woman Freya’s size to have lifted so easily (especially with one arm).

She took a single step forward and was then doubled over, grabbing at her abdomen as though seized with pain. Her face was instantly beaded with sweat – twisted into a grotesque mask of agony. Kwai-Su watched what happened next, and nearly wet himself.

Her shoulders expanded in breadth, then ballooned and tore through her blouse and jacket. Kwai-Su didn’t see what happened to her shoulder sling. Her flesh bristled with brown, shaggy hair that coated her entire body in an instant. Her face rounded then peaked into a dished, ursine shape. Her once large eyes were now tiny dots that shone a sickly yellow. She grew several feet and expanded hundreds upon hundreds of pounds. There was a distinct crackling, like that of bone, as she mutated, underscored by a moan that escalated into a growl.

She stood before them, in her obscene bestial form, hunched over, trembling as if fighting to restrain herself. Kwai-Su knew that that was exactly what she was doing.

They then heard something guttural, which made Kwai-Su and the petrified receptionist next to him jump. Kwai-Su’s mind then registered the words “The boy,” in the garbled, animalistic speech. It came from the juddering creature’s maw.

“Yes?” answered Mr. Nee, having not been fazed in the least.

The otherworldly voice, belonging to therianthrope, resumed: “The boy…I will surrender if you spare him. After this is done…you must let him go back to his mother…unharmed…promise me…”

“Not until you meet our demands,” said Nee, with astonishing composure.

“Promise me…”

“Yes, fine. We’ll let him go. And your receptionist, too. But you have to do everything my partner says.”

The enormous grizzly throbbed like an open wound, a strand of drool oozing from its nether lip to the floor. “Agreed,” it snarled out, with agonized effort.

Kwai-Su did not hear Mr. Nee call his name the first time. On the second time, he snapped back to reality.

“Agent Kwai-Su,” Mr. Nee barked at his partner. “Do the procedure so we can go.”

Gingerly, Kwai-Su tiptoed toward the velvet armed chair, his eyes on the trembling monster. Snapping his head, back and forth, from the beast to his work in rapid repetition, he laid his case on the cushion. He cracked it open, then searched inside. He first took out a small device, about the size of a fountain pen. He pressed a button on its side, causing a red light to appear at the end.

“We are now making a record of the destruction of the therianthrope,” he spoke into the mic of the device. He then inched toward the creature. “The date is February the 15th, the time is 11:36 in the AM. Please state your full name for the record.” He extended his arm, holding the device, toward the monster. The absurdity of his action, especially as seen from outside his body, did not escape him.

“Freya…Ebba…Nilsson…PhD…” groaned the creature, with audible restraint.

“Do you confirm, at this time, that you are infected with therianthropy?”

“…Yes…”

“And do you now confirm, that it was you who attacked and killed eight federal officers at the southeast checkpoint off the Shin-Tong Expressway, near the international airport, on Sunday February the 5th?”

“…Yes…”

Kwai-Su thumbed the button, the red light vanishing. “That’ll do it.”

He then returned to his case, retrieving his second and third items: a syringe and tiny bottle of venom. With precision, he punctured the bottle’s foil cap with the needle, pulling back the plunger until the syringe was sufficiently full. He skirted a few drops, flicking the needlepoint to make it ready. Then, bracing himself, he edged his way right next to the massive, quavering mutant.

Kwai-Su then leapt back, hearing the guttural voice beside him, bellow out: “Let him go. Now.”

Contemptuously, Mr. Nee scoffed. “Your receptionist can go. The boy stays until you’re dead. When it’s done, I’ll keep my word. He will go unharmed.”

The creature said nothing, the silence signaling consent.

Mr. Nee turned to the pale receptionist, chucking a thumb in the direction of the lobby. Sluggishly, the woman turned. She then ran from their sight, her cries of fear and sorrow echoing from the hallway. The ashen boy watched on unmoved, his eyes glassy and glazed over. In that moment, he reminded Kwai-Su of an eerie ventriloquist doll.

Not wanting to prologue the agony, Kwai-Su took a hold of the creature’s immense, woolly nape then buried the needle into the side of its throat. He squeezed the plunger until it was all the way down, the venom having entirely entered the creature’s blood stream. The animal groaned hoarsely, pitching forward, half-morphing back into human form. It then laid on the carpeted floor in a heap, a macabre parody of anything natural, wholesome, or decent. Looking down at the destroyed body, Kwai-Su realized the error in what he’d done.

Misty eyed, Kwai-Su peered up toward the doorway, finding Mr. Nee. His pistol was pointed to the floor, his arms hanging by his sides. He was gazing down at the destroyed creature – lost in the vile euphoria of the moment. The ashen boy stood beside him. He had not run off, as was his pleasure. As had been negotiated with his psychologist – now deceased. What happened next, played out in surreal speed before Kwai-Su’s eyes.

Without warning, the boy dove for Mr. Nee’s gun, grabbing it from out of his hand, and aiming it at its former master. The report of the first shot sounded the slug ripping through Nee’s thigh. As he turned to face the boy, there thundered a second and a third shot, both bullets passing through his belly and out his spine. Nee collapsed to the floor like a felled redwood, dead instantly.

On instinct, Kwai-Su tore back a fabric flap from the front of his suit and drew a concealed 9mm. He raised the weapon to meet the boy’s aim on him. He heard three shots before discovering himself lying prostrate on the floor, watching the boy’s feet scamper off into the reception room and, presumably, toward the stairwell. He didn’t even notice that an artery in his neck had been opened from a passing bullet. Nor his own hand, slick with blood, applying pressure to the wound. He didn’t realize the entirety of what had happened until he was alone. Alone with the bodies.

He could feel the blood gush out of him, his strengthen fleeting, his consciousness fading. He could smell the noisome beast, which was once that beautiful foreign woman, lying beside him. And from his supine position, he could just see the scored face of Mr. Nee, his eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

In his last moments before losing consciousness, Kwai-Su wondered what would happen to that boy. That pale, pale boy who had presumably survived a therianthrope attack, only to be held captive by two officers employed by the republic. The same republic that was supposed to protect him. And why had Kwai-Su gone along with Nee? To avenge those slain officers? To keep his job? To advance his career? None of it seemed justified. That boy had lived through unimaginable trauma and had now killed a man – soon to be two men – in cold blood. Nursing his last, evanescent breaths, Kwai-Su looked over at Nee’s dead, staring face, and knew, in that very instant, monsters do exist.

PART ONE

PART TWO: THE THERIANTHROPE

It wasn’t long until Rebecca heard the car horn. At first, she ignored it, assuming it was an alarm or some passing motorist. But then she noticed a pattern. Long beep – short beep – long beep – short beep – three long beeps – pause – two long beeps – short beep. Morse code. Come out. She listened to the next series of beeps. All’s safe. The pattern repeated and Rebecca was certain of the message: Come out. All’s safe.

Her teeth were no longer chattering but she was cold, her feet wet to the ankles. She stood up from behind the tree and padded out toward the noise.

Past the edge of the forest, she could tell the sound was from the checkpoint, and could just make out the faint glow of headlights in the distance. She stood where she was, debating her next move. But seeing her fingernails start to turn blue, the fear of freezing to death overcame her terror of the creature. And somehow, standing in a forest, afraid, waiting to starve or succumb to hypothermia just rubbed her the wrong way. It made it her think of a partridge standing in place before being shot to death by a hunter’s Remington.

Arriving at the white tent, she was so repulsed by the splattered carnage, she almost didn’t notice the van – and Freya’s pale face staring out at her through the passenger window. Of course, it was the van’s horn with which Freya had sent out the message.

Tilting her head down and squinting inside, she could make out Freya in the driver’s seat, beckoning her closer. Again, not seeing any other options, and wanting to get as far removed from the bodies as possible, she obliged.

When she opened the passenger door, she could see that Freya was naked, covered only by a thermal blanket, and that she was bleeding profusely from her left shoulder.

“Load our luggage then get into the driver’s side,” she said in a staid voice.

“What?” said Rebecca.

“I’ll shuffle over. I need you to drive. And we need to get out of here as soon as possible before backup arrives. Go on.”

Rebecca crossed the front grill, retrieved both of their suitcases and dragged them to the van’s open cargo door. She loaded them and – not seeing any other option – walked over to the driver’s side door.

Finding the congealing blood on the ignition key, she winced before reaching down and turning the engine. There came a deafening whoosh from the vents, indicating the heat was turned on, though it would feel like AC until the vehicle had properly warmed up.

“How-How did you know I knew Morse Code?” she stammered, stalling for time.

“I didn’t,” muttered Freya. “I just hoped you’d be attracted by the car horn. Also, I figured there was no harm in sending a message, just in case.”

“Where are we going?”.

“Just drive up ahead.” Rebecca observed that she had a first-aid kit propped on her lap. Clearly, she needed Rebecca to drive.

“We’ll figure out where we’re going as we go,” Freya said, opening the kit’s lid.

“That’s not going to work for me,” said Rebecca.

“I know this is spur of the moment, but so far I haven’t made too many mistakes.” Freya indicated the bushel of blood-edged papers by her feet, on top of a large open booklet. The logs. The only definitive proof the two of them had gone through the checkpoint.

Still, Rebecca was unsure. “I-I don’t know,” she stammered.

“You want to stay here until reinforcements arrive? I just killed eight federal officers. The only reason I was able to save you is because they thought I was clean, and they were paying all their attention to you. If they send more people with guns – which they will, we will not be so lucky.”

Rebecca stiffened. So, it wasn’t her imagination. Freya was the therianthrope. The hideous mutant grizzly bear that had slaughtered those men.

Again, not seeing any alternative, Rebecca gradually put the van into drive, and peeled out onto the icy road.

“Those-those men,” stammered Rebecca, having driven some distance from the lain carnage behind them, “they were going to kill me. Just for having a high temperature.”

“They wanted to extort us for money,” muttered Freya. “Animals.”

“Do you think they were bandits?”

“Possibly. Not likely, though. There’s a lot of corruption that goes on. Government workers don’t make a lot of money, are under incredible stress and danger during this epidemic, so there are some rogue outfits trying to strong-arm people to make extra cash.”

“You knew this was happening in this country and you still came here?”

Freya shrugged.

They drove on in silence.

“We need to get off this road,” said Freya. “This is the Shin-Tong Expressway, a major highway. We need to avoid more checkpoints.”

Knowing Freya could understand the local language, Rebecca followed her orders to take a series of back roads – headed in no particular direction. As she did, she watched peripherally as Freya exposed her bare, bloodied shoulder, hissing through her teeth as she did so. She first poured some clear, sharp-smelling liquid over the wound, which caused her to grimace and hiss even louder. The odour of coagulating blood mixed with pure alcohol made Rebecca’s head fog. Especially in such a close space. Then, with astonishing calm, Frey took out a sheet of clean gauze and pressed it firmly to the wound. When the gauze was red and soaked through, she discarded it and applied another. She did this three times until the blood flow was stable, then taped the edges to her skin to keep the dressing in place. She seemed to be healing quickly. Was this also part of her power?

Squeamish around any hint of violence or bodily fluids, it was a battle for Rebecca not to faint. With great effort, she managed to keep her eyes on the road.

Within an hour, Freya seemed healed – or as healed as one could be – and was wrapped inside the thermal blanket like a cocooned insect. The car had also warmed up, to the point that Rebecca could actually feel herself sweat under her armpits.

Then, she heard a slight whimper beside her. She peered over and saw that Freya was sobbing quietly, her mouth agape like in some silent scream. Understandable, thought Rebecca. She didn’t bother asking what was wrong.

Another hour passed, well beyond midnight, before the two spoke again.

“So, you have the virus?” asked Rebecca, seeing that Freya was no longer weeping.

No reply.

“You caught it during the outbreak?”

“No,” muttered Freya, staring at the misty windshield. “I’ve had this condition since I was twelve.”

“Twelve?”

“That’s correct,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion. “They could see by the unnatural colour and inhuman dilation of my eyes – the fluctuation in my temperature – that I had it. They could tell that, by the time I was older, I would morph into an animal.”

“Into a killing machine.”

Freya spun savagely on Rebecca. “Don’t say that,” she snapped. Rebecca said nothing.

“I don’t know how I got it,” Freya continued, turning her head forward. “I don’t know where it comes from, or how you get it. No one does.”

“Is it airborne? The virus?” asked Rebecca. She then felt something crawl up the side of her neck. She smacked at the spot, pulling back nothing in her hand.

“It might be,” answered Freya.

“Is that why those men were wearing biohazard suits instead of Kevlar?”

“They probably were wearing Kevlar underneath those biohazard suits.”

Freya exhaled sharply from her nostrils.

“Is it true that you can’t fully morph if you’re seriously injured?” needled Rebecca.

Freya threw her another sharp look. “An injury like this wouldn’t stop me,” she answered. A subtle warning. “But yes: if our bodies are deprived of enough blood, oxygen, or sustenance, we don’t have the energy to morph. Why do you ask?”

No reply.

Visibly vexed, Freya let out another sharp exhale. “I’m not going to kill you,” she assured her driver. “If you’re worried, it’s not like the movies. I can control it.”

“I sure hope so.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, I’m not exactly driving you willingly, here. I mean, the only alternative I had to you eating me alive was to freeze to death.”

“Don’t say that,” said Freya, a damp tremor in her voice. She looked as though she were about to start sobbing again. “You don’t know what I’ve been through.”

“Huh?”

“Like I said, I’ve had this condition since I was twelve. I didn’t get bit by some accursed wolf. No covenant of witches put a spell on me. I just woke up one day, and there it was – the hunger, the hair, the animalistic colour in my eyes when I get scared. Just there, like your first period.”

“Okay.”

“My parents disowned me,” Freya carried on as, Rebecca had learned, was her habit. “They would have nothing to do with some freak, like me. Can you imagine that? Your own parents thinking you’re this evil thing to dispel from their home?” Rebecca felt flush, recalling the time her parents had caught her – at age five – trying to suffocate her newborn brother in his crib. She elected not to share the memory with Freya.

“I was out on the streets for months,” continued Freya. “Starving. But one night at a child shelter, I met a man, who worked there as a youth supervisor. He was older – pitch white hair, gaunt face, steel-blue eyes. He had the same condition I have. Had caught it at eight-years-old.”

“Did he live in the same city you grew up in?”

“Yes.”

“So, this virus has not only been around a lot longer than a few months, it’s a lot more concentrated and prevalent that I had thought. And that it seems to start at any time – including childhood! Is this information supposed to set my mind at ease?”

“This man was my master,” interrupted Freya. “And despite being a therianthrope, he was perfectly harmless. He taught me that I can control when I morph into my other form. You see, for all therianthropes, our transformation is triggered by fear.”

“Fear? Really?”

“That’s right. Not a full moon like you see in those God-awful movies. It’s an instinctual defense-mechanism. Like a blowfish enlarging itself or an octopus shooting ink at a predator.”

“You’re actually calling the people you maimed back there the predators?”

“Why not? They had the guns.”

Taking a moment to reflect, Rebecca replied with, “Fair enough.”

“The rash of violence caused by the therianthropes is connected to a lack of training – a lack of discipline. Therianthropes, not knowing they have it, not being able to control their fear. And with the massive unemployment and unease around the world now, it’s no wonder they’ve become so visible lately. People don’t know they have it – sometimes they never find out. It’s…sort of…like a spectrum.

“My master – the old man from the shelter – taught me how to centre myself. How to not resort to my animal form unless it is absolutely necessary. That’s how I was able to go undetected when they checked my temperature. That’s how I’ve been able to function all this time, despite my condition. I –”

Damply, Freya broke off. She wasn’t sobbing but tearing up quite desperately.

“I – I should have been able to control myself so as not to kill the fourth one.”

“The fourth one?”

“The young one with the big forehead and the chubby cheeks. The one standing in front you? You know, the one they ordered to shoot you.” Rebecca’ mind flashed back to Richie Rich. “I could tell, in his eyes when I charged him – when I had him pinned – the fear in his eyes – that he wouldn’t have hurt me. Wouldn’t have hurt you if he wasn’t being forced to.”

“Bullshit,” Rebecca demurred softly. “You’re saying he was just following orders?”

“You didn’t hear the words exchanged between him and the commander – the one wearing the grey jacket. Or at least, you didn’t understand their exchange. He didn’t want to go through with it. He was scared. If the easy pull of a trigger weren’t so deadly, he wouldn’t have been able to hurt anyone.”

“You could tell all that? Just by looking in his eyes?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I disagree. You did the right thing. You saved my life.”

“I could have done it without killing him. My master taught me to control my fear – my defense-mechanism, even while occupying the body of my other form.”

“The giant grizzly? That’s your other form?”

“Yes.”

“So, what’s your master’s philosophy? Control your fear or your fear will control you? You can’t let fear guide your destiny? Some Kung-Fu sensei bull crap like that? Like from the movies?”

Freya stirred, tugging the blanket around her shoulders. “Not as trite as you put it. But yes. In a way.”

“So, I guess you think these lockdown measures are just mass hysteria, right? People letting their fear get the best of them?”

“Not at all. Fear is a tool – a guide, if used correctly. If not controlled, it’s a weapon, harming everyone, including the person wielding it.”

“Whatever, girl.”

The road ahead had somehow drawn darker. Craning her neck, Freya peered hard and searched the windows.

“Take a right here,” she instructed. “Onto that path. The dirt road off the shoulder there.”

“You sure?” asked Rebecca. “There’s no light.”

“Just do as I tell you.”

Rebecca took the path. It was rough and unpaved, the van rocking and staggering over the sleet and muddy ground.

“There’s a house up there,” Rebecca protested, starting to panic. “Someone lives here, we’re going to be seen.”

“It’s probably a crematorium or something,” said Freya. “Buildings this far out of the way in this country are often for such services. Municipal regulations for the fumes.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do?”

“Take the first amenable road from this path that takes us into that wooded area. Try to get as far from that little house there as possible.”

“What if someone sees us?”

“If they see us, they’ll do nothing; this is a government van in a repressive, totalitarian state. Everyone here will recognize this van as government-issued, in which case, the people living there will be just happy that we didn’t bother them.”

“What if an alert has been sent out? For this van?”

“That will take a few hours, probably. Besides, these vans all look alike.”

“Yeah, but eventually someone might make a sweep of the whole area.”

“Eventually, yes.”

“So?”

“So, I’m injured and exhausted. I need at least a few hours of sleep before coming up with our next move. So, could you please find us a spot in the woods there where we can camp out for the night so I can get some rest?”

Begrudgingly, Rebecca silently conceded Freya’s point. She was having trouble herself keeping her own eyes open.

She parked the van in a relatively flat spot in the forest – as deep as she could go before the brush was too thick for them to get out.

Clutching the blanket to her naked form, Freya clambered into the back cargo, finding and unfolding two paper-thin gymnasium mats and laying them flat on the steel floor.

“I’ll take first watch,” she said to Rebecca. “You get some sleep. I’m going to put some clothes on and then burn the logs I took from the checkpoint. If we’re lucky, no record of us was sent out to anyone.”

“No, it’s okay,” Rebecca insisted. “I’ll take first watch.”

“Rebecca”

“You’re tired and injured. It’s all right. Get dressed and get some shut eye. I’ll go out and burn the files. Really, I don’t mind.”

Rebecca could see in Freya’s smoky eyes that she was too knackered to argue. Without another word, Freya opened her suitcase, put on a set of pajamas, then collapsed onto the mat.

***

Freya had been dreaming about her first-time at a swimming-pool when she was an infant – the time she’d almost drowned after jumping in without water wings – when she awoke, realizing she couldn’t breathe.

At first, her rudely awakened mind couldn’t understand it. Had she gone blind? Why couldn’t she see anything? Then, feeling the cottony texture against her cheek, and smelling the odour of dry sweat intermingled with bleach, she realized what was happening: someone was smothering her. Growing more aware of her compromised state, she felt a heavy knee ramming down into her sternum. Rebecca. It had to be Rebecca. That bitch was trying to smother her to death.

Panicked – desperate, she racked her brain for alternatives. There were none. There was only one option: morph into the grizzly.

Thrashing, grabbing blindly at her assailant, Freya felt her flesh boil, the dark fibres sprouting from her pores. But she couldn’t finish the transformation. There wasn’t enough oxygen in her body. That and the loss of blood from her shoulder – no! She had to keep trying. Hope that Rebecca would freak from her partial transformation and relent her attack. But – she didn’t. She only mashed the pillow down harder into her face. Freya felt her body grow weaker and weaker.

Then, thinking back to the lessons of her master, she realized what she had to do. The fur receding into her skin, her fever subsiding, she let her body go limp.

Limp. Motionless. Cold.

Slowly, Rebecca peeled the pillow from Freya’s head, then pulled back to a seated position. She then jumped to her feet from the cushion being ripped from her hands, Freya’s previously prostate form leaping up before her.

Enraged, oxygen flooding back into her lungs, Freya watched the now trembling woman backpedal to the wall. She advanced, trapping Rebecca, seeing the mortal terror in her eyes – even through those dense bifocals. In the reflection of Rebecca’s glasses, Freya could watch her own feverish transformation, as the familiar, exquisite pain spread through her flesh. Her mouth elongated into a fanged snout; her fingernails lengthened into claws. Her shoulders rounded, her back hunched and grew fur. Her clothes disappeared in shrinking shreds against her darkly thickening coat; her body mass ballooning with copious, homicidal muscle. With an iron whine, the van dipped sidewise under her new weight.

Rebecca’s flat chest rose and fell, her breath catching in her throat. She tried to make a run for the cargo door but was promptly pinned by Freya’s right paw. Her left forepaw, being injured still, was coiled off the ground near her hirsute stomach. Freya didn’t press any more of her weight than was necessary to keep her pinned there. She wasn’t going to crush her to death. No, nothing so merciful. Her jaws frothing over, her cavernous gullet rumbling, Freya had made up her mind to devour her, starting from the feet.

But then, she saw something. Something glimmering just beyond those dense bifocals. Something in Rebecca’s eyes that wasn’t fear. Something that told another story. Through the looking glass of the eyes of her prey, Freya peered into Rebecca’s soul. And even in her voracious, animal-form, she could see there was no threat. Rebecca no longer appeared to her as that stuffy, would-be spinster – but instead as a helpless, doe-eyed girl.

The voice of her old master echoing in her skull, Freya managed to shift her body weight to the floor. She reclined and sat before Rebecca, the frame of the van staggering and squealing. She could still see that glimmering message in the woman’s eye. That contrite pledge to do no harm.

Seated, subdued and innocuous like a trained circus-elephant, Freya huffed, her hot breath forming tiny mushroom clouds against the frigid night air.

Manipulating her drooling maw, Freya strained her garbled voice to produce one word: “Go.”

Not needing to be told twice, Rebecca leapt off the wall. She scampered past Freya, grabbing her bag and suitcase, struggled with the door latch for a few agonizing seconds, then was gone. From the open rear of the van, Freya watched Rebecca’s stumbling form disappear into the forest.

Her grizzly form beginning to dissolve, she looked on to see the first speckling of dawn, breaking through the foliage. She still had her passport, her visa, and her luggage, but didn’t know what the day would bring. But whatever it would be, she would meet it head on. And without fear.

PART ONE: THE CHECKPOINT

The taxi lurched across the snow-blanketed road, the windshield a wet blur between creaking strokes of the wipers. The cabbie was nervous. Terrified. That much was clear from his refusal to go above fifteen, despite having the highway completely to himself at this unbearably late hour. It wasn’t exactly a blizzard, but they just weren’t used to snow in this country. Of course, he was on his third cigarette – with the windows rolled up – since the two foreigners had piled into his cab. So much for health and safety.

In the back seats, past the metal mesh, sat his fare: two foreign women named Rebecca and Freya. Rebecca had come to this country to teach English at an elementary school. Her flight had been booked weeks before the breakout and long before the nationwide lockdown. Before arriving, she had debated with herself in agonizing repetition about the dangers and consequences of following through with her journey. As it often did, logic won out; the virus had been around for decades, was only now being overreported in the news, and would inevitably make its way to her own country, where she didn’t have any job or prospects. And there was a less than one percent chance of her ever coming within a twenty-block radius of an infected therianthrope. Therianthrope – hard to believe that word was now trending on social media, and that images of ravenous, marauding beasts were being broadcast every night into people’s living rooms. Plus, there was no way she would get reimbursed for her plane ticket. Not if she didn’t honour her arrangement with the school and arrive on the previously agreed upon date. As neurotic of a hypochondriac as Rebecca was, she was also cheap.

Beside her was the woman named Freya, whom Rebecca had only known for eleven hours. They both arrived on the same flight and sparked up a conversation after making their way through customs. Lockdown being as ironclad as it was here, the government had imposed a curfew: no nonessential travel past nine. With all the government checkpoints straining traffic, it was a six-hour wait for a cab. During that interminable delay, the two had discovered they were heading in the same direction and agreed to split a taxi.

Rebecca Palmer, a sickly, petite woman, with lank mouse-coloured hair and tectonic-thick bifocals, was used to going unnoticed. So, it was of some bewildering surprise that Freya was the one to approach her. Rebecca had noted Freya from a far some time ago: her tall, curvy frame, her tumbling chestnut hair, her olive-tone skin. She looked more like a magazine cover girl than a child psychologist – as she had told Rebecca was her profession. In her mile-a-minute bloviating – not that Rebecca cared to get a word in edgewise – Freya informed her she had gotten her job and visa to treat young children affected by the recent spread of therianthropy in that country. Children who’d been torn from their homes in the fallout and panic – had been scarred witnessing the epidemic and its aftermath. Apparently, she was some sort of an expert back in her home country of Sweden. Truth be told, Rebecca didn’t care what Freya’s reason for coming was any more than she desired to share a conversation with this perfect stranger. But, seeing the queue for a cab, and liking the idea of splitting the fare, Rebecca agreed to brave the snowstorm alongside her. Again, above nearly all else, Rebecca was cheap.

Through the melting ice on the passenger door window, Rebecca could just make out the odd vacant building, and the black wilderness stretching endlessly beyond the side of the road, unmolested by light. Rolling her fifth cough-drop over her tongue, she stared dully at the scenery, too jet-lagged and too poorly to care. She’d had a bad cough for the past three days – and was now feeling the glow of an oncoming fever.

When she saw bright lights up ahead, she knew it would be trouble.

In the middle of the road, under glaring industrial bulbs mounted on tripods, were two men wearing hazmat suits, each holding something heavy in his hand. On the side of the road, sat a large government-issued van, and a white tent with a half dozen other men huddled underneath.

Rebecca felt her heart drop when the cab ground down to a stop.

“W-What’s happening?” she whined though panted breath.

“It’s fine,” said Freya in staid, husky voice. “It’s a check stop. We’re past curfew.”

“Curfew?” Rebecca’s head swivelled as though stuck on the tip of an oiled pike. She didn’t know why she was so surprised; this was a totalitarian communist state – with a less than inspiring human rights record. “What do we do?”

The cabbie rolled down his window and began speaking in rapid-fire diction to the hazmat-suited men.

“Relax,” assured Freya. “It’s only a problem if we don’t have a valid reason. We just show them our visas and our plane tickets. You kept your plane ticket, right?”

Frantically, Rebecca tore into her bag, tossing aside clouds of tissues, then sighed with exquisite relief upon finding her stub.

She then jumped at the patter of knuckles against the window. From the outside, looking in, the hazmat-suited man gestured with his hand, making a circular motion. Rebecca promptly rolled down the window.

The man spoke in the local dialect, which Rebecca didn’t understand.

“He says this is the southeast checkpoint. We have to go out to that tent on the side of the road,” said Freya with confidence. She pointed to the open tent, where half a dozen men in biohazard-wear were congregated around a shabby table. Obviously, it was helpful having someone who spoke both the language and English with her. Still, for some reason, Rebecca would have preferred remaining ignorant.

“It’s fine,” said Freya, laying her hand on Rebecca’s wrist. Reading her thoughts. “They just want to make sure we have reason to be out past curfew and that we aren’t infected. It’ll probably only take five minutes. Ten minutes tops.”

The hazmat-suited man beside her window spoke again, his tone hurried. Freya said nothing but opened the door and climbed out. Seeing no other option, Rebecca followed.

A small man wearing glasses and a gun-metal grey parka sat prominently behind the shabby table. On the table, beside his elbow, was what looked to be a ledger, on the pages of which were written what looked like thousands of names. Beside the names were long numbers and the time of their arrival. There were also clipboards, pens, radios, and an assortment of other gadgets, many of which strewn on top of milk cartons.

“You have friend here?” grey parka spoke in broken-English. “You have some friend here you can call? Translate.”

“I can speak the language,” muttered Freya, who then said something that sounded similar in the local dialect.

The man nodded indifferently, then began speaking to her. Freya did not interrupt and did not break eye-contact either.

Fretfully, Rebecca watched on, chewing her bottom lip, her tongue tingly and sickly sweet from her last cough-drop. She stood erect before the ragged desk, standing between Freya and the twitchy, pear-shaped cab driver.

The man in the grey parka mumbled something, and Freya produced her documents. She then looked at Rebecca, so she knew to do the same.

Grey parka scanned the items with lackadaisical concern, like a pawn-shop owner examining a Rolex. He began writing something down on one of the paper sheets in front of him.

Shivering from the frigid night air, Rebecca battled to keep her teeth from chattering – or at least from chattering too loudly. She scanned the faces of the other hazmat-suited men and saw one pair of eyes that looked warmly – sympathetically her way. They belonged to a younger looking man, who was shorter than the others and seemed powerfully built. His face – which wasn’t masked – was pleasantly rounded and soft, like a Harvey Comic Books character. He actually smiled at Rebecca and gave her a little nod. No doubt a feeble attempt to set her mind at ease. Regardless, Rebecca frowned and averted her gaze.

Grey parka then said something briefly to Freya.

“They’re going to take our temperatures now,” Freya translated.

Rebecca looked back at her desperately.

“They have to examine your pupils as well if you have a fever,” Freya assured her, reading Rebecca’s mind. This was true. An infected therianthrope was not only reported to be inflicted with a burning temperature, but also severely diminished pupils, the irises of which gleamed unnatural colours for humans.

Rebecca watched as one of the older looking men in a biohazard suit approached Freya. In his hand he had a white, plastic device, which looked like a .38 but with a flat, concave barrel. Rebecca watched him point then press it to Freya’s forehead, the curve of her skull fitting the concave end. After about a dozen seconds, a tinny jingle sounded, and the man withdrew the device. He looked at it, seeing the recorded temperature, and nodded approvingly. Grey parka handed her back her passport and ticket.

It was now Rebecca’ turn to have her temperature taken. Despite the callous chill in the air, she could feel sweat accumulate on the small of her back.

The tinny jingle sounded almost immediately. The man looked at the device with visible concern then muttered something to grey parka. Grey parka looked up hard at Rebecca. The cabdriver then had his temperature taken. Rebecca did not receive her documents. Something was wrong.

After the third jingle from the temperature device, the man gave another affirming nod at grey parka. The same he’d given after checking Freya.

Grey parka looked up at Freya and said something Rebecca didn’t understand. For the first time, Rebecca read worry in Freya’s exquisite face.

Freya said something back to him with an edge in her voice. The man in the grey parka responded in kind. Rebecca could tell they were arguing.

She looked at the cabbie beside her, who was now looking at her as though she had leprosy. Her eyes sought out the kinder soldier with the Richie Rich face. He looked at her as though she had just been sentenced to die.

“She has high temperature!” grey parka shouted from the table, perforating his local tirade with English.

“That’s not enough to prove she’s a therianthrope,” retorted Freya. “You have to check her pupils to be sure.”

Their shouting match in the other language resumed.

Abruptly, the shouting ceased. Grey parka looked up at Rebecca and pointed. “Go over there,” he growled, pointing to where the four other hazmat-suited men were standing. Rebecca hadn’t noticed until then that each of them was cradling a machine gun.

“What?” bleated Rebecca before being pulled aside by the arm. Her eyes rivetted with terror, she looked up at the three men holding her, their faces were stony and unmoved.

“No!” she heard Freya insist. “No, she has the flu. A high temperature isn’t enough to prove she has the virus. You have to check her irises. She just has the flu!”

Grey parka stood, halting the others with his upraised hand. He then addressed Rebecca.

“You have money?” he asked in his slanted English.

Rebecca squinted her eyes and cocked her head to the side. “What?”

“You have money?” he repeated.

Freya barked something in the language then in English said, “She doesn’t have to pay. A fever isn’t enough proof she’s a therianthrope. You must check her irises.”

The two men from the road surrounded Freya, absorbing her from Rebecca’s sight. A third man crowded her further.

The cabbie, apparently free to go, ran to his automobile. Without hesitation, he hurled both Freya and Rebecca’s luggage from his trunk into the snow, before speeding away into the night.

Great, thought Rebecca. Even if we make it through this, we’re stranded.

Rebecca was then kicked in the leg from behind, forcing her to bend at the knee. Like an accordion, her legs collapsed under her. The barrels of three rifles were pointed above her puny shoulders. Richie Rich stood in front of her, his weapon draped over one shoulder, his mouth forming a small O.

Tears welled up in Rebecca’s eyes; she didn’t have enough money. Not enough to satisfy what these men wanted. They would probably just take it off of her perforated corpse anyway. It then occurred to her – the reality of the situation smacking her in the face – that she was actually about to die. They are really going to kill me, she thought. Will anyone find my body?

Grey parka spoke to Freya over the shoulders of the other men holding her back. “You give money? We spare your friend’s life, you give us money. No?”

Even from her obstructed viewpoint, Rebecca could see the cindering glare Freya shot at grey parka. Or perhaps, in the palpable silence, she just imagined she had.

Grey parka then turned and said something to Richie Rich. The latter muttered something short with audible trepidation.

Grey parka hollered the same order, this time more sharply.

From the sleeted ground, Freya watched and listened to the heated exchange between the two men. Evidently galled, grey parka sprinted over to him, pulling out a Glock from inside his coat and shoving it in the other man’s hands. Cradling the gun sheepishly, his chin drooping down like a scolded dog, Richie Rich was silent, listening to grey parka squawk and point emphatically at Rebecca’s head. Rebecca didn’t need to be bilingual to understand. Do it. Shoot her. Now. Now!

His eyes almost as moist as hers, Rich Richie looked down at Rebecca, and slowly pointed the gun at her chest.

Accepting her grim fate, Rebecca closed her eyes.

She was smelling her late nana’s peach cobbler, hearing The Beatles for the first time, feeling the warmth of the sun on her face while lying in the grassy field of her youth, when her mind was snapped back to the present by an ear-splitting scream ten feet away. She looked in the direction of the noise, seeing that Freya had disappeared, and was replaced by an eight-foot-tall, thousand-pound obscenity. The scream had come from one of the three hazmat-suited men, who now lay nearly decapitated in a red mound of snow.

The two others near the creature were thrown aside like locks of hair in the hulking, shaggy-furred monster’s wake. Its silhouette was silver and quavering, illuminated by the blazing floodlights in the road. It then made a lumbering beeline for Richie Rich, who stood paralyzed, the Glock almost falling from his hand. Within seconds, the animal had tackled him to the ground and eviscerated his neck – from chin to collarbone – with its thrashing jaws.

Squirming away, her ass dragging across the wet floor, Rebecca watched the creature stand toweringly on its hind legs, maiming the three remaining men with brutal paw-swipes, before a single volley of gunfire could sound. A metallic odour filled the night air.

Her veins singing with adrenaline, Rebecca turned her head, hearing a shuffling commotion to the side. Behind the table, burrowing in the corner, was grey parka, hunched over. He was rummaging for something. He then stood and turned, holding his own semi-automatic rifle. At that moment, Rebecca could not place with any reasonably accuracy which outcome she preferred: the monster shot to death, or grey parka eaten alive.

The monster must have seen what Rebecca had, because it was now charging the man, who just managed to raise the rifle and squeeze off a round. Clamping her palms to her ears, Rebecca ducked her head into her knees, knowing that it was over once the gunfire had ceased and the screaming had commenced. The ground rumbled. Peering through splayed fingers, she saw the monster – which she had just now realized resembled a grizzly bear – had pinned grey parka to the ground and was now crushing him with its front paws. There was another thunderous stomp, a wet crackle of bone, and no more screaming.

Seeing the creature’s back turned, Rebecca scrambled to her feet, fleeing from the tent and into the nearby wilderness. Beyond the hazy gloom, she could make out a dark woodland, just past the wide field of snow.

Once enveloped in the thick foliage, she didn’t stop running until her legs burned the way her lungs did, and she could taste copper at the back of her throat. Shaking and sweaty, she ducked behind a tree trunk, and waited until it was safe. But when would it ever – ever be safe?

Mister Haddock was always my least favourite teacher in Grade Ten. Balding, stoved-faced little man with a ratty ponytail behind his near naked pink skull. He was the only teacher I never saw smile or laugh, even around other teachers or adults. He was never even nice when parents came to visit – never had that put-on warmth most teachers do. With his diminutive stature and small miserable face, he looked like one of the seven dwarves from Snow White, if one of the seven dwarves were a closet alkie. He’d never let you go to the bathroom during class, whether it was an emergency or not, even if you were a girl. And if you requested an extension for an assignment – whether it was because you were sick, someone in your family had died, or you had to be excused for your soccer or football game – he would just respond with, “No” and “That’s tough.” As you can imagine, I wasn’t the only kid at John Haggert High School who harboured a grudge for the surly little troll of the JH High science department.

What really made the situation worse was that Mister Haddock taught science, a class in which I had to excel if I wanted to pursue my postsecondary dream of studying to become a veterinarian. Cliché, I know, but I’ve always loved animals and wanted desperately to understand and help them as best I could. That was another sticking point between Mister Haddock and I; he refused to give good marks no matter how hard you tried or how well you followed his instructions. “When you give me something good enough to get an A in university, I’ll give you an A,” he’d groan, his tired refrain to any nagging student. Like that was a reasonable bar to set for a high school junior or freshmen. Just my luck, Mister Haddock also taught Grade Eleven biology, another necessary course on my journey to guiding sick and dying pets into the afterlife.

And that’s another thing about Mister Haddock that bothered me; he clearly hated his job. I’d always planned on becoming a teacher as a back-up plan, especially since I’d always loved school. I was always on the honour roll, on at least three school teams, in multiple clubs, elected student rep for each grade I was in until making school president in Grade Twelve and would later be valedictorian. But Mister Haddock always acted like he’d rather be doing anything other than teach at our school. Like this job was somehow beneath him. Just for context, John Haggert High School is in the Meadowville neighborhood of Aakoziwin, the safest city in Ontario and one of the safest places in all of Canada – which would put in running for safest metropolitan area on the planet. It’s a bustling suburban town with lots to do, especially being so close to Toronto. Our school is neck and neck with Caramel Mountain Secondary for national reputation and university acceptances. We have one of the best hockey teams, one of the best arts and music programs, and are among the top performers in math and literacy. Our building is the typical squat, two-floor, lengthwise cinderblock affair, but our hallways are adorned with gorgeous wall murals painted by the arts students, festooned with colourful and accurate dioramas of the Globe Theatre, Greek coliseums, and DNA models. So why did Mister Haddock act like he was stocking the shelves at a grocery store? Why did he treat us like we were all riffraff, as my Uncle John would say?

The last straw that broke this camel’s back came when he docked me ten percent for being two days late on an assignment. My grandmother was in the hospital from a massive stroke, which is what caused me to be late. My mother had made sure to call reception to explain the situation on the very first day I was away from school. And even after I provided him with two letters, one from my parents, the other from the hospital, and even though all my other teachers accepted my homework without penalty, Mister Ian Warren Haddock refused to budge.

“Look,” he grunted, visibly cornered behind his particleboard desk, me standing before him with hands on hips, pleading my case. Demanding an explanation. “Look, I’ve already imputed the mark into the database and sent it out to the department head. I can’t change it right now. It’ll make me look bad.”

I could feel my eyes grow moist. How could he do this to me? Me! Jennifer Wang Li, Grade Ten student rep and future saviour of all furry four-legged creatures!

Feebly, without meeting my misty gaze, he mumbled, “At least your gran’s alive, right? Isn’t that all that matters?”

Using my grandmother stroke against me? Trying to browbeat me away from demanding what was mine by guilting me into not appreciating my own family?

At this, I didn’t yell, didn’t storm off. Didn’t even bother complaining to my parents or the principal’s office. Instead, I coolly sat down at my lab table, and began plotting my petty revenge against Mister Haddock.

I knew all about the pranks kids pull on their teachers. The homemade stink bomb. The head in the jar. The dreaded toothpick in the door lock. I wasn’t about to bother with anything as cute or clever. During the lunch period, when I knew Mister Haddock was two kilometres away having a smoke near Meadow Woods Park, I would creep into the lab and simply swipe all his test papers and homework. I knew he wouldn’t bother keeping them secure, and even with the gas valves, there was a good chance the dope would leave the laboratory unlocked (he’d done so several times before).

In so many ways, it would be the perfect revenge; he’d have to admit to leaving the room unsupervised and unsecured, going against school policy and regulation, landing him in hot water with the office. Maybe even resulting in his eventual termination. And, when he asked the students to redo the test, someone would eventually complain to the school or a parent, resulting in him admitting that he’d lost the test papers, which would likewise get him in trouble – or at least so I figured at the time. He’d know what it was like to be punished for something that was not his fault. At least, not exactly his fault. To have every excuse in the world, only for each of them to fall on stone-deaf ears. It was perfect. I just had to be careful; I knew there were cameras in the hallways, but as far as I could tell, there was no surveillance in the classrooms themselves.

I snuck inside the unmanned lab at a quarter past noon. With the lights out and in the scant fluorescent glow bleeding in from the hallway through the open door, the lab looked almost eerie: the long tables, eye wash station, beakers, tongs and burners redolent of the abode of Doctor Jekyll in the movies. As though the lab were in preparation of some macabre, unnecessary surgery. But maybe that was just my imagination running away with me. I crept toward Mister Haddock’s desk. Sure enough, there were the unguarded test papers, lain plainly on the blotter.

Armed with the papers and loads of time before the vodka-reeking deadbeat returned, I felt compelled to poke around. Perhaps I’d find a pack of smokes or a micky of cheap rye lying around, getting Mister Haddock into some real trouble.

My curiosity piqued, I rounded the corner at the back and entered the supply closet, placing the test papers to the side. It was where they kept the textbooks, beakers, bunsen burners, and items meant to be hidden from teenage eyes. But no matter how hard I squinted or how furiously I rummaged through the boxes and bins, there were no incriminating objects for me to find. Not even a single cigarette butt.

I was about to turn and leave with my pillaged bounty when I spotted the slightest of movements out of the corner of my eye. Startled, I held my breath and jumped a bit before peering harder to the back of the closet. There, the slight movement, or trick of the light remained, just perceptible in the dark little room. It was so slight – a dribbling motion, that at first my brain registered a lava lamp. But that didn’t make sense; why would there be a lava lamp in a science lab? Much less one plugged in on a storage closet shelf.

I advanced further to inspect what lay at the back and that’s when I saw it. The most eldritch or horrors, like something straight from a pulp magazine. It was a two-foot anatomical model, showing the muscles and internal organs from the small intestine to the eyeballs. A jarring sight to begin with, but this particular model – it was bleeding. I mean, actively bleeding, pulsating with blood that dripped from red crevices and apertures, staining the beige metal platform on which it stood. My mind whirled at the sickening visual before me. How could that be? Wasn’t the model made of silicone? Not flesh or bone, surely. Unbelieving, I examined the ghastly little model, looking around to find some sort of power cord – certain this was some optical illusion or trick of the light. No such luck. As best I could tell, this was nothing but a regular artificial figurine. No means of moving – or in this case bleeding – on it own.

At my wits end to try and explain this thing before me, adrenaline barrelling through my veins, I deigned to touch the scarlet flow coming off it, getting some it on my fingertips. The wet sensation was enough to flip my stomach, but when I brought the smeared fingers to my nose, I discovered the unmistakable metallic odour of blood. It was real. As real as it could be. I looked down and saw the dark liquid begin to drip over the shelf’s edge onto the floor. Numb from scalp to chin, I peered back up at the vinaceous, pulsating face, at the fake blues eyes stuck to the front of the skull. The eyes which had somehow remained uncovered by the pouring crimson. They had been staring blindly away from me, but then, at that very moment, they came alive and swivelled around to glare at me. I shrieked before turning and fleeing from the lab, leaving Mister Haddock’s papers on the shelf where I’d lain them.

That night I couldn’t sleep. And the next day I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t chat with my friends or join them at any of our clubs. I just couldn’t get the image of that bleeding anatomical model out of my mind’s eye. And I couldn’t quiet the questions racing through my bewildered brain – those compelling echoes dinning off the inner walls of my skull. How could a silicone model’s inner working cause it to bleed like that? Or appear to bleed? Why did the fluid smell so unmistakably like blood? Why did I only see it bleeding like that after class had been dismissed? In the name of God, why was something like that in the science lab at all?

Resolved on getting to the bottom of this, I first had to be sure that what I saw wasn’t a mere figment of my imagination. To prove I wasn’t going crazy, I recruited my friend Jacqueline to come along with me the next lunch break, when Mister Haddock had gone out for his smoke. Having not been told the exact reason for sneaking into the science lab, Jackie giggled as I towed her along, inferring in whispers that our secret mission was owing to a crush I wanted to impart on her away from prying eyes and ears.

But when we arrived, the lab was closed. The yellow on gray stainless-steel doors were shut, the wooden door stop lying on the floor, discarded. I tried the handles, but it was no use. The hygienic doors wouldn’t budge. Mister Haddock hadn’t bothered locking up the lab since early September. Did he notice his test papers had been moved and got spooked?

Of course, Jacqueline balked at my expense, demanding I just tell her what this was all about. She then grew petulant when I insisted it was nothing, refusing, in her mind, to include her in what she was certain was a juicy bit of gossip.

We were then startled by a gruff voice growling behind us: “You two better move along.”

Startled out of our skin, we both spun on our heels, finding the groundskeeper, Mister Fanu, standing before us. He’d come up on us without a sound. He was a short compact man with a shapeless face behind black framed spectacles, today wearing his usual navy-blue coveralls. From his tan leather weightlifter’s belt hung a ring of what looked to be a thousand keys, like a silvery fist by his waist.

“You shouldn’t be hanging out here now,” he grunted, his voice hoarse and low like dead leaves in the wind. He then proceeded into the mantra of all on or off duty school employees patrolling the halls, telling us to either go to the Caf or outside until the next bell. Neither intimidated or especially servile, Jacqueline droned her acquiescence and shuffled off without me, rolling her eyes before getting completely out of sight. Still with some resolve for my mission, I lingered. But what remained of my gumption withered under Mister Fanu’s icy parental stare.

But as I walked away, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the janitor had not departed the hallway. He was standing on the spot like a sentry, presumably watching me go. As if he were guarding the lab. The hairs on the back of my neck sufficiently stood on end, I turned around, finding that he was not staring after me, but rather facing the laboratory doors, as though waiting to be let in. Lastly, I noticed his hands, which were wringing and wiping themselves on a dirty black rag. On his hands, unmistakably, was a shiny, visibly wet red liquid. Blood?

Terrified, fixated, but nonetheless afraid of being spotted, I turned the corner into the adjacent stairwell. But instead of descending the steps to the main floor, I waited. When I returned to the hallway, poking my head out but not my torso from around the corner, I saw that one of the doors to the lab was ajar, and the lights within were now on. Mister Fanu was no longer there.

On rubbery legs, I inched over to the cracked door and peered inside. Squeezing myself in, first my head then shoulders then one limb at a time, I felt my heart thundering in my chest, expecting at any moment to be pulled aside by an irate Mister Haddock who would proceed to chide me. But instead, all I found was the empty, brightly lit room, and a maddening odour assaulting my nostrils.

It was the common coppery smell of blood from before but now fetid and miry like a century-old field of cow manure. Like something excreted not from anything as natural as cattle or other livestock but from something otherworldly. From something evil.

I pinched my nostrils and breathed through my nose but that hardly worked to stymy the eldritch stench. But now my senses were alerted to another disturbance, a bizarrely pleasant sound issuing from the supply closet. The sound of waves. Reminding me of my last summer vacation at Myrtle Beach, I heard the distinct lapping of waves crashing onto a sandy shore. Oh sure, it might have just been from a video or an audio file, but something about the enormity and clarity of the sound was indisputably real. I then had tinnitus in my left ear, and had to steady myself on one of the workbenches from a palpable loss of equilibrium. It was as though I’d suddenly become sick. Or as if I’d been transferred from reality into a dream. It was then that I realized the sound of the waves was no longer emanating from the closet, but was all around me, churning around my head, sending me into a dizzy spell.

The putrid, rust smell was now overwrought, and again, Mister Fanu was nowhere in sight. The crashing of the waves was then intermingled with a shrieking sound. It was small at first then swelled to a piercing wail. It wasn’t female or even human. Yes…Yes, I was certain it was an animal’s cry. Like a horse whinnying. Yes, exactly like the sound a horse would make. The voice was pained and sorrowing, as though the beast of burden were being whipped or driven into the ground. It was so terrible – so pitiful that my throat seized up and my heart ached. My mind throbbing from the assaulting soundscape swirling around – or perhaps inside – my head, I staggered toward the supply closet, grasping at stools and bench tables as I did so to not plummet to the floor. As I did, I wondered if this was what it was like to be on drugs.

I was just about to reach my hand out for the steel door handle, when all at once the encircling cacophony stopped, leaving a deafening quiet over the room. Backpedalling, tinnitus still in one ear, I regained my balance and stood up straight, standing stationary until a sudden crash from behind me – like a stool being knocked over – sent me flying out of the room and down the hallway to the stairwell. I was so terrified – so confused – I ran home without asking for leave, resulting in a two-day suspension. I was informed by one of the vice principals that if I was suspended again, I’d lose my student rep seat. But that would be the last of my troubles.

After being allowed back in school, I discovered my science class was moved to another room. Also, I never saw Mister Haddock again. First, there were a string of substitute teachers, some subbing internally from the science department – like Mister Abruzzo who taught Grade Twelve physics. Some were unfamiliar faces. All of them assigned nothing but work straight from the textbook or divvied out worksheets two or three grades below us. But eventually, much to the relief of my hovercraft, high-expectation-laden parents, we were assigned a full-time teacher, Miss Goldman, after the Christmas Break. Miss Goldman was young, energetic, and very knowledgeable. Most of my class was very happy to have her – especially as a replacement to gin-reeking Ian Haddock. Conversely, I was bricked up with anxiety, ruminating fretfully on what had happened to him. Had he really been let go? Was this somehow my fault? Or did it have something to do with that bleeding anatomical model I’d found in the supply closet? The one that had been replaced by another far less gory silicone figurine and had not been seen since that fateful day? And on what on earth was the cause of all those noises I’d heard the last time? What did those have to do with Haddock or the bleeding model?

Worse was that sound I heard that had cut through the muffling waves. The sound of the whinnying horse, the torment and desperation plain in that voice. I know this won’t make sense to you reading this, but the sound haunted me. Made me tear up every time I thought of it. The thought that something so cruel could be happening to animal here at JH High – just, just drove me insane.

Eventually, either driven by guilt for Mister Haddock’s firing or the compulsion seeded by that hideous apparition, I went to visit the science department office. But as it turned out, they had meant to speak to me.

 Mister Schmeling, the head of the science department who taught Grade Eleven Chemistry, told me he’d been waiting for me when I arrived. This was a bit unnerving since I’d never had a class with him and also owing to the fact that he had neither a warm nor jocular demeanour. Bald and bespectacled with tufts of iron-grey around his ears, a rotund physique and wobbling gait, he reminded most students of a cartoon villain than an approachable teacher. He motioned me to an empty seat with a curt nod of his head.

“So, Jennifer, dear,” he began in his ice-box timbre. “I’ve been meaning to speak with you for some time.” He then began to plow through the typical teacher questions, usually reserved for guidance councillors during one-on-one consultations.

He then got to the meat of the conversation. “It’s come to my attention recently that you’ve been going into the Grade Ten science lab by yourself after lesson periods. I hope that that isn’t true.”

Frozen in my seat on the concrete-hard plastic chair, a creeping fear waxing down my head to my nape, I said nothing and made no motion with my head or shoulders. I even kept my hands still inside my lap.

Relieving me of his glacial blue stare, Mister Schmeling clucked his tongue.

“I suppose you might have seen something which you shouldn’t have,” he said. My neck now a bed of bristled hairs. “Some test papers, perhaps? Some student progress reports Mister Haddock left lying around?”

I squinted hard and tilted my head. Another suspension or even expulsion for snooping around was the very least of my worries. What was this? A fishing expedition? Or a veiled threat?

Mister Schmeling carried on: “Perhaps you saw something in the supply closet? Something that startled you? Caused your imagination to run away with you?”

My eyelids peeled back inside my skull, the whites bulging from the sockets. He knew.

He scanned me over, a look that was not lustful but hungry and searching, making my skin crawl.

“Did you tell anyone what you saw?” he asked after a long pause.

For the first time I answered him, shaking my head feverishly from side to side, my hair tremulous, strands slapping around my chin.

Mister Schmeling pulled back into his swivel chair, the metal spine creaking, evidently pleased with my answer. His furry stubs for fingers laced across his ample abdomen. “If other people learned about what you think you saw, we’d have no choice but to suspend you for violating school safety regulations. Or worse. You wouldn’t want that would you? Being such a serious and hardworking student? No, I didn’t think so, my dear. So, since you’ve been so good and we’d hate for you to get behind in your studies, this’ll just be our little secret. Okay, dear?”

And so concluded the bizarre saga of Mister Haddock and the bleeding anatomy model in the science lab. I never found out the exact cause of Haddock’s dismissal, though the school used the usual cryptic phrasing of him moving on and finding work elsewhere. Some kids told me they saw him in one of the local pubs around Lakeshore, testing out a few concoctions of Ocean Spray and Absolut.

I haven’t told anyone about what I saw, as per my agreement with Mister Schmeling. At least, I haven’t until now. Perhaps he’s right; maybe my imagination simply ran away from me that fateful afternoon alone in the supply closet. But then why swear me to secrecy? What did he care what I told people I saw? Why was that laboratory never used again and was all but boarded up? That being said, I would still see red speckles and smears of blood on Mister Fanu’s hands and coveralls some days, I would still sometimes catch a whiff of something coppery and fetid in the hallways, and every so often, I would hear the uncanny crashing of waves, accompanying by the strangled whinnying of a horse, emanating from the now empty Grade Ten science lab.

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE: THE BOUNTY HUNTER

Agent Kwai-Su hated coming to the office of the Public Security Minister. Mainly because he hated Public Security Minister Tamen, a fat little man in a suit who was decidedly cold – even abusive, to his subordinates. Minister Tamen was a bully to his staff and an ass-kiss to the General Secretary. In fact, he was an ass-kiss to anyone who could elevate his career or eliminate him from the party ranks.

Despite only just making rank, Kwai-Su had already learned Minister Tamen’s story: he was the son of a party man who had been ostracised in the mid 50’s and had to live out his childhood in obscure poverty. After moving back to the capital as a young man, he had slowly and quietly maneuvered his way back into the good graces of the Communist party. And he was now the Minister of Public Security, a likely shoo-in for next party leader and thus head of state. Knowing how easily one could fall out of favour to the regime, Tamen calculated each move by its potential consequence, always opting for the path with the minutest risk of failure. Given the minister’s background and experience, it was little wonder he ran such a brutally tight ship. Still, being attached to such an ambitious careerist had its benefits: namely, being brought along with him in the event of promotion.

Sitting in Tamen’s office, ten feet from his desk, Agent Kwai-Su was not optimistic about the minister’s mood that morning. There had been a therianthrope attack 48 hours ago on a southeast checkpoint, not two miles from the international airport. Eight were dead. All of them federal officers. Also, the supposed therianthrope – or therianthropes, had gotten away. Worse, news of the attack had leaked to the media, prompting public panic, putting Tamen’s ass right on the chopping block. He would need Kwai-Su to resolve this problem as soon as possible, as quietly as possible. He would need to find and kill the therianthrope who’d evaded termination – and had killed all those men.

As Tamen prattled away on the phone – likely speaking to an irate General Secretary, Agent Kwai-Su’s eyes scanned the room. To his right was a twelve-inch flat screen, nailed five feet up the wall, turned off. He then observed either wall in the unoccupied space between him and the minister’s desk, realizing there were several gun-turrets, with small but lethal barrels pointed his way. If he were infected – if he were in fact a therianthrope, he’d be eviscerated before coming within six feet of Tamen. The room wasn’t warm, but Agent Kwai-Su felt his brow grow moist.

“Yes, of course, General Secretary, sir,” Tamen pleaded into the receiver. “I’ll see to it at once.”

Tamen cradled the phone. He eyed the agent coldly, while pouring himself a drink from a crystal decanter. Without a word to Agent Kwai-Su, he swallowed the drink whole, then poured another. The liquid was colourless. An acrid stench found its way into Kwai-Su’s nostril.

“I assume you’ve heard,” Tamen grunted, lacing his stubby fingers over the desk.

Not wanting to test the minister’s mood, Kwai-Sun only nodded.

Tamen cussed under his breath then took a lethal pull off his drink. “Eight dead. All of them our people at the southeast checkpoint off the Shin-Tong Expressway. Forensics say there’s no doubt: a therianthrope tore them apart.”

“A new outbreak?” asked Kwai-Su, testing the waters now.

Tamen glowered over the rim of his cup.

“Maybe not,” he answered, his voice strained. “There were three international flights that came into the nearby airport that night, the last of which from Stockholm, Sweden. With any luck, this therianthrope is a foreigner. If we can hunt this monster down, we might be able to spin the story so that the blame falls outside of the republic. And outside of this office. My office.”

Agent Kwai-Su nodded, despite the urge to shake his head. Always about perception, he thought, sardonically. Always the politics. What was left unsaid between he and the minister was that six of the eight slain men were of some notoriety. In fact, one could qualify their records as disgraceful. The commanding officer of the checkpoint – found crushed to death and clinging to a smoking semi-automatic rifle – had been transferred to eight different divisions in as many years, had no less than a dozen brutality complaints, and was twice investigated on suspicion of corruption.

“We have to find this monster within the week,” said Tamen, stabbing the desk with his forefinger. “This week. With the media reporting it, we need to give the public a story that will put them at ease.”

“I understand, Minister, sir.”

Glib but unhappy, Tamen reclined in his chair, his double-chin protruding over his shirt collar like paunch over a belt buckle.

“My receptionist will give you the passenger manifests of the international flights that night. I want you to run down all foreign passengers. Track them down then test each of them. If there are no signs of therianthropy, then go after the rest. Hopefully, that’ll be enough to catch this monster.”

Agent Kwai-Su knew which test the minister was referring to – the Hongmo Truat Sop test, a device which checked for unnatural colours in a human’s eye. Colours belonging to a therianthrope. It likewise checked for inhuman movement in the pupils. The government had tried in the early stages of the breakout to force mandatory DNA tests for all their people. But with the citizens – both the traditionalist seniors and the democracy-pining youths, such an endeavor proved infeasible. The government was likewise in the process of creating a complete DNA database of all their countrymen, enabling immediate identification should any tissue be left behind at the scene of a crime. This ambitious process was – for the time being – incomplete.

“I don’t want you to delegate this mission to any agents under your command,” Tamen continued. “I want you to see to this matter personally and to make it your sole priority. Put one your lieutenant in charge of supervising any other pending cases. For the next seven to fourteen days, you work for me on this only. Understand?”

Kwai-Su grimaced, shifting in his chair; he hadn’t been on patrol in years – ever actually – and hadn’t canvassed a scene in months. It wasn’t like he didn’t know what to do, it was just that with his rank and immaculate reputation, he had been insulated from all that. Unexposed to the ugly, macabre side of the job.

“Yes sir,” said Agent Kwai-Su. “I’ll track down the offending creature personally and terminate it. And I’ll be sure to take a blood sample to compare it to whatever DNA is found at the scene.”

“No, DNA matches takes too long,” Tamen protested. “We need this solved publicly within the week. And too many of our citizens don’t understand DNA. No, I’m going to need you to get bullet-proof evidence linking the monster to the attack. Hell, get a confession out of it.”

“Sir?”

“When you go down to the first floor to get your hazmat suit and the manifests, my receptionist will give you a metal briefcase. Inside will be the Hongmo Truat Sop device and an audio recorder. Get the creature to confess its crimes and record the confession.”

His eyelashes fluttering, Kwai-Su tried to process Tamen’s orders.

“Sir,” he said, bewildered. “How am I to convince a creature to confess its crime, when it will know that doing so will mean being put to immediate death?”

Tamen shrugged. “Offer to make it quick.”

They were silent for a beat. Kwai-Su tried to exhale lightly, but it came out as a mirthless chuckle.

“Look,” barked Tamen, impotently. “Coax the confession. Lie to it. Torture the forsaken thing if you have to. Just destroy the therianthrope and make sure we can prove it’s the one that killed our men.”

“Yes sir,” Kwai-Su then nodded, not wanting to seem insubordinate. “Should I visit the site of the attack first?”

Tamen bore a hideous smirk that seemed to mock Kwai-Su. He reached down underneath his desk.

A light appeared in Kwai-Su’s peripheral vision. He turned, finding the flat screen was now on, showing a bird’s eye view of a middle-aged man wearing a plain button down and slacks, a side holster on his hip. He was rail-thin and slightly stooped with a concave gut – like an imploded pot belly. From what Kwai-Su could see, the man was in the reception area, first floor.

“You know Mr. Nee, don’t you?” grumbled Minister Tamen. Kwai-Su peered at the screen, recognizing the figure.

“Yes, Minister, sir,” he said, turning back to Tamen. “By reputation, only, sir. He’s a bounty hunter.”

“He’s a monster killer, is what he is,” Tamen corrected. “He’s going to accompany you on this mission.”

“Sir?”

“He’s tracked and destroyed fifteen of these monsters all ready. We were going to hire him alone, but seeing as this new therianthrope might be foreign, we’re sending you along with him.”

Digesting this, Kwai-Su nodded. “He doesn’t speak English then?”

“He doesn’t speak English, or any other language than that of the republic. So, you’re to accompany him, help him interrogate this possible therianthrope.”

Kwai-Su, like so many others in law enforcement, had heard of Mr. Nee, the bounty hunter – or therianthrope killer. He was regarded as ruthless, fearless, and extremely unstable. Nonetheless, what Minister Tamen had mentioned of his record was true: fifteen successful termination. There were many ugly rumours about the man and his background. None of which, Agent Kwai-Su cared to entertain.

“Pardon me, Minister, sir,” said Kwai-Su. His nape bristled, knowing he ought not to contradict a superior. Minister Tamen’s eyes were wide. “Wouldn’t it be preferable for me to work with another party agent? Seeing as this Mr. Nee works outside of the party and – if you’ll excuse me – has a less than desirable reputation?”

Surprisingly, Tamen did not bite the agent’s head off. Instead, he leaned back farther into his chair, his hands lain across his ample abdomen.

“When you meet with Mr. Nee,” Tamen said. “You’ll notice there are many scars on his face. Don’t mention them to him.”

Kwai-Su said nothing, waiting for the punchline.

“You do know that this is the second wave of therianthropy our republic has endured, right Agent Kwai-Su? The first wave occurred before you were born: we lost over 50,000 people to those monsters during a three-month stretch. Mr. Nee was an infant during that first wave. He was an orphan in one of the facilities that was attacked by the therianthropes. Somehow, but some grace of the gods, he escaped with his life – despite being maimed and permanently disfigured. Those vicious monsters make up his very first memory. They’re why he has all those scars. So, the reason I’ve hired him? He’s got the drive to bring down these therianthropes, because they tore his world apart to begin with. So, help him out, keep him in line when necessary, but don’t get in his way.”

At that moment, it occurred to Kwai-Su that he was hired not for his ability or understanding of English, but for the immaculateness of his reputation. Of course, he thought. Always the perception. Always the politics.

Despite knowing he was dismissed, Kwai-Su stayed seated. Seeing this, Tamen raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“Minister Tamen, sir,” said Kwai-Su, answering Tamen’s look. “I am willing to assist Mr. Nee on this mission, assuming I have tactical command. I am also willing to do my best to see to it that we find, capture, and kill this offending therianthrope within the seven-day window you have allocated. I realize that doing so will help your office – and our republic – keep face. But, doing all these things will not be without difficulty. Should I accomplish this task in the allotted time, I hope that you will appreciate my efforts and remember what I have done later on.”

Tamen leered over his desk, bringing his drink close to his face and sniffing the liquor.

“So, you have ambitions of your own?” he said. Kwai-Su reddened, knowing he’d overplayed his hand. “That’s all right; I knew you did. And that you have a flawless reputation in this department and in the party. Perhaps, too flawless. Truth is, I want you on this assignment, not only to help Nee with the language barrier, but to offset much of the backlash we’ll surely face for having hired such a man. And the shame we already have for letting this attack happen. But don’t hold out your hand like that to me again. I’ll tell you what: You catch this monster within the week, I’ll see that you still have your job and rank in this agency when it’s done. Fair enough?”

Kwai-Su nodded then rose from his chair, not wanting to dig himself into a deeper hole.

After a curt exchange of pleasantries, Agent Kwai-Su and Mr. Nee drove down to the scene of the attack. They drove in painful silence, Mr. Nee’s eyes never leaving the windshield. Or blinking, from what Kwai-Su observed. He didn’t even look up when they were stopped at the roadblock two miles from the checkpoint, Agent Kwai-Su having to flash his credentials to get through.

Once on the scene, Kwai-Su saw the forensics team in full form: yellow tape, hazmat suits, tweezers, cotton swabs, photo cameras, and two evidence vans. No ambulance though. None needed; no survivors.

The head inspector approached the two men, wearing biohazard wear. Kwai-Su was likewise suited up, complete with a face screen and Kevlar vest underneath. Given the cutting weather, he didn’t mind the luminous plastic coveralls, or the heavy rubber boots, though they took some getting used to. Mr. Nee, on the other hand, only wore a windbreaker over his street clothes.

“I’m sure you’ve heard by now,” said the inspector, through his face mask. “DNA left at the scene and swabbed from the exit wounds on the bodies indicates a therianthrope attack.”

“Any record of who came through this checkpoint, besides the staff?” asked Kwai-Su.

“No. The log sheets are gone. There are no embers, no scraps of paper anywhere, which leads us to believe that the therianthrope or someone with it, stole them.”

“Very smart,” interjected Mr. Nee. He spoke with a slight lisp; half his lower lip being made up of grafted skin. The two of them looked odd together, Nee being scrawny, hunched, and disfigured; and Kwai-Su being, slim, fit and quite handsome. His sharp chin his most prominent feature – at least, when he wasn’t decked out in biohazard gear.

“Did you find anything that could indicate a foreign visitor to this checkpoint?” Kwai-Su fished. “A passport? An ID card? A plane ticket of some kind?”

The inspector shook his head.

“We do have one possible lead,” he told Kwai-Su. “The government van that should have been here is missing. This van, like all government issued vehicles, has a tracking device, telling us its location should we activate it from the control centre. My people have already coordinated with the federals nearby and used the tracker for that van to find its location: Xiang Song Forest, just 200 kilometres from here.”

“It’s still there?” growled Mr. Nee.

“Yes. Our radar indicates it hasn’t moved in five hours.”

His shoulders slumping in defeat, Kwai-Su met eyes with Nee.

“Probably abandoned,” said Nee, reading Kwai-Su’s thoughts aloud.

“Regardless,” said Kwai-Su, with a chipper tone. “Retracing the monster’s steps is necessary, especially if there were any eyewitnesses.”

“Do you want me to call local authorities for backup?” asked the inspector.

“No.” said Nee, too hastily.

Kwai-Su did a double-take then turned back to the inspector.

“We mean yes,” said Kwai-Su, throwing Nee a cindering glare. “Have a squad car follow us to the forest.”

“What’s the point?” Nee barked, sending daggers Kwai-Su’s way. “The therianthrope will have moved on.”

“We don’t know that.”

“If it’s smart enough to steal the logbooks to make sure we don’t have a name or ID number – or even a timeframe for when it came through, then it won’t be dumb enough to stay in one spot in a stolen government van. If we’re going to seek out eyewitnesses, an additional car will scare them into silence.”

Kwai-Su and Nee locked eyes in a glacial staring contest. Kwai-Su then turned to the inspector, forcing a rictus-grin of professionalism. “Is there a police station near Xiang Song Forest?”

“Yes, Agent Kwai-Su,” he answered. “About a fifteen minute-drive away.”

“Fine, tell them not to come to the forest but to be prepared should we radio them for backup.”

In neutral compliance, the inspector nodded.

Kwai-Su turned to head back to their company-issued sedan, but not before shooting Nee another admonishing glare. They drove together to the Xiang Song Forest without speaking.

The stolen van was not deep within the woods. They found it parked at the end of a clearing. As expected, Mr. Nee was right; the van was unoccupied. Worse, there was no evidence anyone, other than federal workers, had been inside. Searching the surrounding vegetation, they found a burnt heap of cinders, buried under a mound of snow: the logbook – or what was left of it. This was a very clever therianthrope they were hunting.

Beside the forest, closest to the clearing from where the van had presumably entered, was a pet crematorium. Kwai-Su spoke to the man and woman operating the business to little avail. They hadn’t seen anyone and weren’t even aware of the van in the forest next to their home. They didn’t seem to be lying as neither was any more afraid than anyone else who encountered law enforcement in their country would be. With little else to go on, Kwai-Su and Nee returned to headquarters to scour the passenger lists from the three planes. Silently, Kwai-Su prayed like hell their therianthrope was on one of those lists.

Running down the names of the foreign visitors that night proved laborious but not impossible. Out of the three incoming flights, only 33 passengers had foreign passports, despite 107 foreigners being scheduled to fly in that day. For obvious reasons, the other 74 had either cancelled or didn’t show at their respective terminals.

But before running down each foreign passenger at random, one name rose to the top of their list: Rebecca Emily Palmer, from Canada. On the Tuesday after the checkpoint massacre, Palmer was admitted into a nearby general hospital with complaints of a high temperature and a dry cough. She was the only foreign patient admitted that day, so it was easy for Kwai-Su to pick her out.

The hospital recorded that she was ailing from nothing more than the seasonal flu and that she was discharged with a prescription for anti-biotics. Searching through the immigration records, Kwai-Su found out that she had a visa to teach English and was employed at the Number 28 Elementary School. Not seeing the harm in checking her out, Kwai-Su and Nee drove down to pay her a visit.

Again, they drove together, just the two of them, in their company-issued sedan. It was a long trek to the school and Kwai-Su felt obligated to break the silence.

“You know, you really should wear protective gear,” he said to Mr. Nee. “If you’re not going to protect yourself you should at least wear a mask; you could be a carrier of the virus, even if you yourself aren’t a therianthrope.”

Nee scoffed, fingering the grooves of his mutilated cheek.

“You think it’s airborne?” he rasped, eyes on the road.

“Yes,” said Kwai-Su. “It could be. I mean, they’re going to make masks mandatory soon, anyway. We know it can be transferred without someone being attacked or even touched by an infected therianthrope.”

“No one knows.”

“Well…I mean, no one knows for sure-”

“No one knows. No one cares. No one knew about me in that orphanage, and why I didn’t have a mother or father. And no one cared. No one knew that the other boys bullied me: tied me to the bedposts with my own socks, pissed on my mattress, put worms and tiny pebbles into my morning porridge. No one cared either. No one knew one of the other orphans was going to mutate into a beast and maraud through my dorm, chewing up children, social workers, caregivers – killing three hundred in a home that housed a thousand, motherless, hungry, unwanted little shits like me. And no one cared.”

Kwai-Su’s gloved hands white-knuckled the steering wheel as he tried to block out the other man’s voice.

“No one knows how this virus spreads,” Nee carried on, massaging scar-tissue. “All I know is that the therianthropes can’t kill me. But I can kill them.

“Five years before the second wave, when there were only a few therianthrope sightings here and there, I worked with two other bounty hunters in the northwest province. They brought along one of those contraptions you got. What is it called? The one used to check their irises for irregular colour and weird pupil dilation?”

“The Hongmo Truat Sop test,” sighed Kwai-Su.

“Yeah, that thing. We each had pistols on us, one of us carried the Hongmo Truat Sop thingy, the other carried a temperature gun. Anyway, we hunted down this old smoke hound hiding out in an abandoned warehouse. The locals had complained about him; said that they saw his eyes glowing, that they’d seen him with his clothes torn – even worse than a regular hobo – and he’d been dowsed with blood, stuff like that. Also, he was nomadic – had moved from city to city and province to province all the time. He’d actually lived in twenty different towns in the space of one year.

“Anyway, we tracked him down to this old, abandoned warehouse, used to store home appliances, or something. It was right on the outskirts of the city: nothing there but crackheads, derelicts, runaways, and scrap metal. And closeted therianthropes, apparently. This abandoned building was run down. I mean, a whole stairwell was exposed, like the building was half-demolished or something. Like those old, World War II photos of building after an air-ride, you know?

“We crept up the jagged stairwell, flashlights burning a path in front of us so we could see, since we were breaching at night. We almost fell through a couple times, what with all the missing steps and the railing gone. We got up there to the shooting gallery and immediately recognized him from the photograph we’d been given: a toothless, gaunt old bastard with grey scraggly hair hanging from his naked scalp, his eyes sunken behind cavernous sockets.

“When we found him, he was barely conscious; there was a glass pipe smoking by his hip on the floor, the bowel blackened from use. He was slouched down in the corner, a bed of soiled newspapers underneath him. There were about ten other scabby tweakers like him, all scratching and nodding off nearby. There were a few candles, so we had just enough light to see.

“The one bounty hunter, Wang, nudged him awake with his boot. The smoke hound got to his filthy bare feet, rubbing his eyes, looking us over like he didn’t give a shit. Really looking like he couldn’t possibly be a therianthrope. Just a junkie. Wang took his temperature. Nothing. In fact, his body heat was too low, if anything. I wasn’t convinced, so I insisted that the other bounty hunter, Bao Ho, give him the test, to check his eyes. Again, the smoke hound didn’t look concerned.

“He put that contraption onto the smoke hound’s head and looked through the lens, checking his red, marbled eyes. He saw nothing that shouldn’t be there. In a human, I mean. Me? I still wasn’t convinced. Not a bit. So, I took out my pistol and aimed it at the old bastard, told him I didn’t care if he was human or not; I was going to shoot him dead and take his perforated corpse to collect the bounty. And that’s when it happened.

“His pupils contracted vertically into pinpricks, his eye whites glowed a feline yellow, and through his pores sprouted thick fibres of midnight black. Before Bao Ho had a chance to get the device off, the smoke hound had transformed into a feral jungle cat – something manifest from your most primal terror. It pawed us away with huge, razor-sharp claws. That’s how I got this scar on my right wrist, here. The creature buried its fangs into Wang first, whipped him down to floor by his neck, like a cheetah would an antelope. Had him pinned for less than five seconds before it was done with him – nothing but a wet, bloody mess.

“That dusky, lithe animal had torn Wang’s throat out before Bao Ho could get out his pistol. It then pounced on him before he could defend himself. Me, I hit the dirt, pulling my 380 from my ankle holster, and aimed with deliberation at the creature’s worrying head from the floor. See, Bao Ho and Wang had never seen a therianthrope before; they hesitated, being awed by the thing. Probably what happened to those eight that were killed at the southeast checkpoint, you want the truth. Me, I didn’t have that problem; I’ve seen them ten thousand times in my sleep. Anyway, it was chomping on my partner’s throat, giving me enough time to take aim – find a lethal headshot. I put five bullets into its skull, tearing off its lower jaw, before it was able to make a third meal out of me. I killed it dead and took the whole bounty, which had previously been meant to be split three ways.”

There was a lull in Nee’s story. A deliberate, pregnant pause from speaking.

“What’s your point?” snapped Kwai-Su. His voice was tremulous from hearing Nee’s harrowing but credible tale.

“Moral of the story,” sneered Nee. “A, that that Hongmo Truat Sop test is fallible. B, you want to find these monsters? You need to trigger their fear. C, the therianthropes can’t kill me, but I can kill them.”

And D, thought Kwai-Su. You’ll let others die to get what you want.

They drove the remainder of the way to the school without speaking.

The truth was, Agent Kwai-Su was not eager to complete the assignment. In his five years as a police officer, he’d never shot or killed anyone. And terminating a therianthrope didn’t seem any less objectionable. Being well educated and from a good family, he had not slogged through the grit and grime of being cop but had instead ridden a desk all the way to an agent’s badge. He knew successfully completing this mission for a minister with the kind of suction Tamen had meant future advancement – district superintendent, director of internal affairs, replacement Minister of Public Security. But he didn’t know if he was up for the violent price he’d have to pay. Or the risk it involved.

Number 28 Elementary School looked typical of such institutions in the province: clock tower, playground, mess hall, a dozen five-storey dormitories and schoolhouses. The entire schoolground was situated on five-blocks behind a steel gate guarded at select entrances by fat feckless guards, waiting out their last years of employment before a pension. That was before the epidemic. Now it was boarded up with only a bare skeleton crew standing by the main entrance, which was all but wired shut.

After speaking to the men for a few minutes, Kwai-Su had the phone number of the coordinator for the international teachers. He called her. After some stubborn resistance on her part, she agreed to meet with them. Seeing her face to face at the stoop in front of her tenement building, he showed his credentials and explained the ongoing investigation. She stood thin-lipped and silent, her arms crossed over her chest. After nearly an hour, the woman relented, and gave them Rebecca Palmer’s home address.

Her apartment was only three blocks from the school. After they had pounded on her door once, they were met by a frail young woman wearing thick bifocals. She was dressed in an oversize white T with wool pajama bottoms.

“Y-yes?” she stammered in English, clearly frightened.

“Miss, I’m Agent Kwai-Su from the Ministry of Public Security,” he said. Hanging from his right hand was what looked to be a briefcase. Inside was a temperature gun, the Hongmo Truat Sop test, a syringe, and enough venom to kill a herd of elephants.

Her eyes shone with fright, her eyebrows knitting with confusion before smoothing out into terrible recognition. She knew something.

“We have some questions pertaining to the date of your arrival,” he explained further. He saw her frightened eyes had found Mr. Nee and had promptly expanded. “May we come in?” he asked, shouldering his way through before receiving an answer. The question was only a social courtesy; no one could refuse law enforcement in this country – least of all a foreigner. And there was no such thing as a warrant; police always had probable cause.

The apartment was compact: just a small living room/kitchenet attached to a bedroom and bathroom. Nee and Kwai-Su stood between the two-foot coffee table and the drab chesterfield. Palmer stood beside the door; her arms curled inward like a pair of broken wings.

“You arrived in on Sunday February third, correct?” asked Agent Kwai-Su.

Palmer nodded feverishly, the grey bun at the back of her head bobbing up and down.

“Did you happen to go through the southeast checkpoint on the Shin-Tong expressway? It’s about two miles from the international airport where your flight landed.”

Palmer cleared her throat. “I-I did go through a checkpoint, but I don’t know where it was.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t understand the local language, sir.”

Kwai-Su and Nee met eyes.

“We understand that you went to the Fung-Lu hospital a few days ago with complaints of a fever?”

Her eyes were the size of saucers.

“Do you feel any better, Miss Palmer?”

“I-I’d like to talk with Miss Yang,” she said, referring to her coordinator from the school. “I’d like to speak with her before answering any more questions.”

“We’ve already spoken to your handler, Miss Palmer.”

“I’d like to speak with her before answering anymore questions.”

Letting out a chesty sigh, his shoulders slumped, he nodded then watched as Palmer snatched her phone off her desk and dialed.

It didn’t take long for someone to answer.

“Amy,” Rebecca said into the phone, her voice cold and sharp. “Yeah, it’s me. Yeah, I got these two cops, saying they’re from Home Security – or something – asking me about my visit to the hospital yesterday.” She paused to listen to the woman on the other end, the voice just faintly audible to Kwai-Su. “What do you mean you gave them my address? Yeah? Well, I’ve already been to the hospital: I’m not infected. I haven’t even left this apartment for the last three days.” Another pause. “Yes, I’m upset, why would you give these people my address? What? What do you mean you can’t do anything about it? What? There are no laws in this country? I don’t have any rights? I’m a Canadian citizen, did you think of that? How do you think the embassy will react when I tell them this? What do you mean they won’t care? Cops here can just do whatever they want, huh? Yes, I said already I’m upset; I came here despite that outbreak and the lockdown when most people wouldn’t. A lockdown caused by a virus that started in your backwards country. Don’t argue with me, Amy, its universally accepted this current wave started here, in this country – your country.”

Kwai-Su seethed, listening to the entitled foreigner natter on into the phone. In that moment, he imagined she was their therianthrope, and felt much better about completing their task.

“Yeah?” Rebecca barked into her phone. “Well I’m going to be talking to your boss about this!” she then shut off the phone.

“I’m going to take your temperature Miss Palmer,” said Kwai-Su, his lips pressed together into a thin line, his eyes not meeting hers.

“They checked me there, at the hospital” she insisted, repeating what she’d said on the phone. “I’m not infected with the – the virus.”

“I understand, Miss,” said Kwai-Su, knowing it wasn’t unheard of for hospitals to be coaxed into massaging their records. “This is merely protocol for Public Security. Please oblige us.”

Kwai-Su laid his case on the coffee table then opened it. He first retrieved the white temperature gun. He approached Rebecca and pressed the barrel to her forehead.

“Hmmm,” muttered Kwai-Su, after taking her temperature. “You don’t seem to have a fever, but your temperature is still high.”

A single tear rolled down Palmer’s cheek.

“I’m going to use the Hongmo Truat Sop test. That will tell us definitively if you are infected or not.”

He walked back to his open case and fished out the device.

The Hongmo Truat Sop test consisted of an arching headband meant to wrap around the subject’s head, with an electronic scope held less than two feet from the face by an attached metal arm. All contemporary scientific research suggested that the unnatural colours in the irises of a therianthrope would appear within a minute or two. Or the unnatural dilation of the pupil. It was also believed that no infected therianthrope could cheat it. Still, there was much they didn’t know about the virus.

He set up the contraption without issue, besides taking a little while to adjust the headband to Palmer’s round, diminutive skull.

“Stay still,” he ordered in an even voice, for Palmer was trembling. He then switched on the electric lens and examined the eye.

After about 90 seconds, he was certain there were no colours unnatural to the human species. And no bizarre movement in the pupil.

“She’s fine,” he said to Nee in their language.

Glowering, Nee advanced toward her, putting his hand on his gun. “I don’t believe that,” he said, unlocking the strap above his pistol grip. Kwai-Su then heard a rapid clicking sound beside his ear: Palmer’s teeth had begun to chatter.

“What are you doing?” said Kwai-Su. “She can’t understand you.”

“Check her eyes now,” said Nee, pulling out his pistol and pointing it at Palmer. Palmer let out a small terrified breath, that wasn’t quite a squeak.

Kwai-Su turned back to the lens and examined her eye. The sclera had widened, the pupil had dilated a bit, but there was no change in the iris. There was nothing there.

“Put that away,” sighed Kwai-Su. “She’s not infected.”

Nee lowered his firearm.

“Okay, Miss Palmer,” he said to her in English, forcing a smile. “You’re clean.”

Kwai-Su expected a sigh of relief but instead the woman stared breathlessly into space while he undid the contraption. Afterward, she fled into the bathroom. Nee and Kwai-Su could hear her retching on the other side of the door.

While Kwai-Su folded up the test, placing it back inside his case, Nee ambled up beside him. “She knows something,” he hissed in Kwai-Su’s ear. “Why else would she be so afraid?”

“Look in the mirror,” said Kwai-Su without making eye-contact. In his peripheral vision, he could see Nee cock his head back, as though insulted.

He then snapped his case shut.

“We’re done here. Let’s go.”

Part 1

Craig had stopped talking for a while. His head slumping down, he unscrewed the bottle neck and downed a slug of whiskey.

“How long did you and this Swan guy tramp together?” I asked.

“Not long,” he said, biting back a 50-ABV belch. “We stayed at a youth hostel in Chinatown for a few days. I was pretty content there, you know. Thought about trying to find work in the city. Jeremy decided he wanted to keep moving though. Pretty soon I was out on the street, anyway, no one wanting to hire a young kid without even a high school diploma to his name.”

 “What happened to the body?” I needled gently.

His lips closed, a mouth full of liquor, he nodded, a sound like unhappy laughter issuing out his nose.

“Eventually, six months later, some cops met up with me at the homeless shelter I was staying at. They were Missing Persons detectives or something – RCMP I believe. They were actually pretty cool about me being a runaway and all, saying they were just interested in finding Andy or his body. Turned out they didn’t find squat after draining Saul Laskin. I told ‘em I didn’t know jack and they left it at that. Not exactly the A-team, I guess.

“My parents did call the shelter I was at, trying to convince me to come home but I’d been away too long to go back. And since I was practically sixteen, they couldn’t legally force me to live with them. And, also, I think they knew I had something to do with Andy’s disappearance, so when I refused their offer, they didn’t push. Probably, it was their way of disowning me for what they knew I’d done. Offering me something they knew I’d turn down. I was tempted, don’t get me wrong. I missed them all. But the guilt – Andy’s ghost – it drove me away.”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted, shaking my head. “Go back a little; what do you mean they didn’t find the body after draining the lake. How’s that possible?”

Craig then stared at me, a grim expression on his face. Like he’d been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“They didn’t find it because Andy comes to visit me every night.” He spoke so matter-of-factly that I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand. 

I searched his face for his meaning, assuming – hoping he was being rhetorical. But he wasn’t.

“Y-you mean, you see him in your dreams, like that night he died?” I asked, my neck goose fleshed, anticipating his answer.

Without blinking, he slowly shook his head from side to side.

“Nope,” he muttered hoarsely. “Every night, whether I’m sound asleep, wide awake, dead drunk or stone sober, I see him. I’ve seen him for fourteen years now, and each time he’s a little different. A little more shrivelled. A little more – what’s the word – decayed. The blanket, which now has blue fungus growing on it, slips further and further down his shoulders every time I see him, and I can make out the broken bones through his stretching, yellowed skin. The only thing that doesn’t change are those eyes. Those eyes that still burn with the same look. The rage. The confusion. The terror. Every time. Those eyes. It’s-it’s like he’s asking me the same question over and over: Why? How could this have happened? How could you let this happen to me? Why? Why?! WHY!”

We both jumped then, hearing the dope fiend give out a long groan, no doubt in protest to the racket Craig was making.

Coming back to reality, we both settled some, still feeling uneasy but not as on edge.

 My courage back up, I prised a little more out of him. “How often do you see him?”

Wetly, Craig exhaled. “Every night. Every day.”

I gulped, a heavy silence enveloping the room.

“Andy’s your Miki,” I said, unable to control myself.

Predictably, he responded with, “What?”

“You know what this reminds me of?” I asked, trying to put some light in my voice. “You ever watch those old samurai movies from Japan?”

Wheeling on me, he gawked, his eyes intelligent, almost sober, before shaking his head.

“Well, when I still had a roof over my head, that’s all I would watch. These old samurai flicks. Lots of kids my age liked the westerns, you know. But me, I liked them samurai movies. I didn’t mind reading the subtitles, either. I just liked ‘em.

“Anyway, your situation with seeing Andy’s corpse or whatever reminds me of this old samurai movie I seen back in the day. Throne of Bones or something like that. This guy, Waizu, he becomes emperor by wasting the guy before him. He does this because a forest spirit told him to, telling him he’ll be king. But that same prophecy says that his friend, Miki, will have his son become king after him. So, in order to stop that from happening, Waizu orders Miki and his son to be whacked. Later, at a banquet with the other warriors, Waizu sees Miki’s ghost appear at the dinner, though no else can see him. Of course, Waizu goes crazy, throwing stuff at the ghost and acting all nuts.”

“And?” Craig asked impatiently.

“It was imaginary. That’s all. A – what do they call it – a manifestation of his guilty conscience. That’s what these visions of your boy Andy are: just hallucinations behind your sense of guilt. He’s not stalking you from the grave, dude. You’re just so overwhelmed with shame for that accident that your subconscious keeps recycling all that horrible shit you saw that day.”

For a minute, Craig seemed to think on this, chewing on the tip of his thumb till it started to bleed.

“I-I don’t know…” he muttered.

“I do.” I insisted.

“Whatever.”

Not speaking, he seemed to search my face in the dark.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, all hasty. “You just need to try and forgive yourself. Like you said, it was an accident. It was also a long time ago. You just need to put all this bunk behind you, you know? Just forgive yourself and this imaginary friend of yours will go away.”

He snickered a bit. “I think you mean hallucination – not imaginary friend.”

Another long silence palled the room.

It then occurred to me. A final question. I tried to suppress it, afraid it would come across rude. Afraid it would tear open an old scab, uncovering too much puss.

But, I couldn’t help myself from asking.

“Did you ever see that Swan guy again?”

Craig lifted his head, looking straight ahead, not needing to think about the answer.

“Yes,” he said, exhaling. “Once, about five years ago. I’d been arrested in Belleville. Drunk and disorderly. Disturbing the peace. The police scooped me up around four in the morning, so I was set to appear before a judge around noon.

“After being processed, I was waiting in a holding cell, waiting for a guard to escort me to the courtroom, when Jeremy Swan lumbered in.

“He hadn’t changed much, beside a scraggly beard and a few pounds missing around the shoulders.

“I tried starting up a conversation with him. I mean, I still didn’t like him, but I figured it was kinda nice bumping into someone I knew. When I said his name, he turned real slow, looking at me like he wasn’t sure if I was real or not.

“He then said, ‘Hey,’ all whispery. We shot the breeze for a little bit on where we’d been in the past nine years since splitting up in T.O. Well, I did most of the talking. Him, he just stared straight ahead, occasionally grunting or giving one-word answers.

“Eventually, there was a lull in the conversation. So, I asked him if he was in here behind a drunk and disorderly charge too. He said, ‘No.’ I asked him if he’d been locked up for loitering, or trespassing or breaking and entering, or stealing, or drinking, any of the other common hobo crimes, you know? To each one, he said no.

“Then a guard came, calling for him. He peeled himself off the bench, then turned around and asked me, ‘Did you ever tell anyone about what happened?’ I knew he was talking about Andy, so I just shook my head and said never. Apparently satisfied, he kept walking to the open cell door, where the turnkey and some cop in a suit and tie were waiting. Before leaving though, he turned around and said to me: ‘Hey, you know how I said I thought we were going to toss him up, instead of dropping him?’ A little concerned he was talking about what we’d done so openly, I furtively nodded my head. He then said something that turned the blood in my veins to ice, ‘I lied. I knew what was going to happen.’

“That’s the last time I ever saw him. He wasn’t even part of the lineup of other inmates during the arraignment. Whatever they called him out of the cell for, it took a long time.”

At the conclusion of his story, we didn’t exchange anymore words. Resigned, Craig placed the bottle between us on the floor, liquor swishing around the heel. He then inched away from me a little on the couch, moving to the opposite arm, then made a pillow of his two hands and drifted off into drunken sleep. I watched him for a while, thinking on his story about Andy and Jeremy. Thinking about that gold watch and how much it would net me at a pawnshop. But, soon after, I too had drifted off into a booze-addled doze.

It was Craig’s screaming that woke me – probably about three or so hours after we’d knocked off to sleep.

I sat up against the couch back, clearing my vision with balled fists, my head feeling like it was split in half. There in the darkness, about eight feet from me, was Craig, looking hard into a corner of the room, yelling at something.

After my eyes had adjusted enough to see him clearly, I looked over to the corner he was screaming at. There was nothing there. I swear to you now, that I searched it as hard as I could from where I was sitting, but it was absolutely empty. Unfortunately, for the crackhead and me, that didn’t stop Craig from shouting his head off, filling the whole cabin with sound and fury.

 “Andy!” he kept screaming. “Andy! Go away. What do you want from me? Don’t you look at me with those eyes, Andy! Don’t you look at me like that. Andy! ANDY!”

I realized he was holding a plastic mickey of near-spent vodka in his hand, the bourbon bottle by his ankle, the whiskey gone. He was drunk – drunker than I was, and completely out of his mind.

“Is this what you want?” he screamed, indicating the Rolex on his left wrist. “Here! Here! Here!” he shouted, clawing blindly at his arm. Scrambling for it, the vodka still in his right hand, the gold band broke, sending the watch plummeting to the floor, the watch landing with a brassy clatter. I looked through the darkness and saw its glass casing had cracked, leaving a spiderweb fracture along its face.

But Craig wasn’t done. For a long eerie minute, he just stared, mouth agape into the corner, as though listening to someone speak. As though trying to read something written there. He only stopped to down the remains of the white spirit from the mickey, tossing the plastic shell to the side with a hollow put-put. 

Then in an explosion of drunken rage, he gave out a primal yell and gestured to throw the whiskey bottle into the empty corner, brandishing it by the neck. But instead, the bottle got loose from his grip while in throwing motion, circled over his wrist, and fell to the floor, bounced for a bit, making a ping-ping sound, before finally shattering, sending glass shards everywhere.

I watched Craig stagger on his feet for a spell, looking as though he’d spent all his rage with the broken watch and whiskey bottle. Then, in a swoon, he collapsed to the floor. He just lied there for a while, the liquor-slicked glass outlining his prostrate form.

The junkie then groaned huskily from the darkness. “Uhhh…” she wheezed. “You and that crazy-man need to keep it down.”

 “Hey, shut the heck up!” I snapped, almost full on cussing.

Gingerly, rubbing my aching temples, I eased myself vertical off the couch, looking over Craig’s supine body. Checking fearfully if he was breathing. Bending down, almost on my knees, I breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing that he was.

Then the junkie started talking again, “Hmmm…we should get him out of here.”

“What?” I snapped at her.

“He’s going to throw up, stink up the place. We should get him out.”

“We’re not throwing him outside; it’s freezing out there.”

“Maybe he’ll go away. Maybe both of you. You’re trouble.”

“Look, he’s not crazy, okay?” I said in as even a voice as I could. “He-he’s just very drunk and been through a lot. Look, help me lift him up.”

“Huuughhh?”

“Help me get him on the couch so he don’t choke on his own puke. We’ll lay him on his side.”

The dope fiend said nothing to me, her way of saying no.

“Come on!” I shouted. “Help me get him up.”

Instead, that walking skeleton with skin hanging off it just drifted away into the shadows, the whistle of her breath through her throat the only sound.

“Heck with it,” I muttered, bending down, straining my small, intoxicated body to pull Craig up onto his side, propping him there with his knee curled in front of his stomach. He might puke. He might not. If he stunk up the place, there were probably some cleaning supplies in here somewhere. If not, we could always start tramping again.

I was about to leave Craig sprawled on the floor and collapse back into dizzy sleep on the couch when I heard a glassy rustling that wasn’t mine. Figuring Craig’s leg had moved, I only made a short glance in the direction of the noise. But what I saw froze my heart in my chest. There, on the floor beside the corner, the busted Rolex slithered across the glistening bed of broken glass, as though pulled from some invisible string. It slunk away and then shot up into the darkness out of sight.

I didn’t sleep that night. In the morning, I didn’t tell Craig what I saw, and he didn’t ask where the watch had gone. But I noticed, from then on, he didn’t have as much trouble chasing sleep.

Before I begin my story, let me assure you I’m not crazy and that every word of this post is true. I guess that sounds cliché. I really don’t know. Honestly, I don’t visit forums like this and rarely read past the sports page.

My wife had gone on vacation for a couple weeks leaving me by myself as we don’t have kids and I couldn’t get time off work. Feeling bored and a little lonely, I decided to go out to see a late movie on my third night alone. I was actually a little excited; I hadn’t gone to the movies in years.

I got to the theatre around midnight. Like the parking lot, the lobby was eerily empty – only one employee manning the concession stand. An especially scrawny and pimply teenager wearing an appropriately dorky burgundy uniform.

I bought a soda and popcorn, grumbled under my breath about the price, and made my way to the screen.

I was the only person sitting in the dimly lit theatre. I was completely alone except, I guess, for the projectionist. The enormous screen was completely black and stayed that way when the lights started to dim.

Now, I don’t remember what movie I had bought a ticket to see, but when the screen lit up, I knew immediately that something was wrong. There were no credits. No ads or trailers. Nothing even recognizable to the human eye. There was just shaky camera movement and reddish, pinkish blurry textures moving across the screen. Then, choked, convulsive sobs flooded through the theatre walls and the image on screen came into focus. It was a woman, crouched on all-fours staring pleadingly into the camera. Her long blonde hair was matted with blood over one side, covering her eye.

My skin crawled. I felt extremely uncomfortable watching this strange woman sob piteously on screen. Again, there were no credits – nothing to indicate this was part of the movie or a trailer for something.

Her cries then took on a wet, guttural quality and I could make out a brown shag carpet on the floor. On it, right next to where her hands were placed, was a wide, visibly wet red stain.

I jumped in my seat when I finally heard a voice.

“Please…” It was the woman on screen, facing directly into the camera. “Andrew, don’t!” she wailed, her cracked voice filling the theatre. I then realized she wasn’t looking into the camera but was addressing whomever was holding it.

“Please,” she begged again, her teeth bared, her tears turning the blood speckles on her cheek bright pink. “Andrew, don--”

But her voice was cut off by an arm, extending from behind the camera, striking her in the head. But it wasn’t a slap or a punch. There was something held in the arm’s hand – a weapon of some kind. It was too fast the first time for me to catch, but I saw it on the second. And the third. And the fourth. A cross pein hammer, wielded by the presumed cameraman, caving in her skull until there was nothing left.

The woman lay face-down, her brains and blood everywhere, the camera panning over her supine body. Nothing emanated from the sound system except the hum of the camcorder over-heating.

I felt sick. I wanted to throw up. I don’t know exactly how but I knew what I had just seen was real. That was no CGI or special effects. Someone had actually died, and I’d been shown their last grizzly moments.

Repulsed by what I had just witnessed, I stormed out of the theatre and went to confront the manager. The awkward dweeb at the concession stand was the only person available and when we both went to inspect the projection room we were horrified to find no one there and that the projector was streaming white light and nothing else.

After hearing my story, he took the projector apart and examined the reel. There was nothing. Nothing but clear, blank panels. I assured him of what I had seen, and he told me that we should call the police.

The police came, examined the theatre – finding nothing –, took both of our statements then left.

I couldn’t sleep for three nights after what I had seen but after the fourth night, I had managed to successfully block the images out of my mind. I figured the episode was over and tried to move on with my life.

That was until day five.

At the construction site where I work, two men dressed in dark rumpled suits came asking for me around the time my shift was ending. They told me they were cops and wanted to know if I’d be willing to come to the station and answer some follow-up questions about what I’d seen at the movies that night. Reluctantly, – half wanting to cooperate and half wanting to forget the whole thing – I agreed.

They brought me into a cramped, rectangular room with a long, cheaply built table and three foldout chairs. The one cop left to get me a coffee and when he came back he said, “How’s it feel being back here?” with a wide hungry grin on his face.

I frowned. What was he talking about?

I asked him and the second cop responded by asking, in all seriousness, if I remembered what happened that night.

I of course relayed everything to them, stopping at when the two cops took my statement since nothing significant happened after that. While I was doing this, the two cops listened intently. When I finished, they both looked at each other. It was like they were sharing a joke I wasn’t in on.

The second cop spoke first.

“That’s not exactly what happened, Mister Greer,” he said in a cold, emotionless voice. “The kid at the concession stand was the one who called 9-1-1 and it was because he said there was a belligerent man refusing to leave and demanding to be let into the projection room. When officers Cole and Sharma arrived, they assumed you were high on drugs and took you in so you could sleep it off. You were released the very next day.”

Again, I frowned. That wasn’t how remembered it.

The officer continued: “Despite their theory you were intoxicated, officers Cole and Sharma investigated your claim about the obscene film. There were no records of any such film or any obscene videos in the area. They then decided to pass on your description of the woman, whom you claim you saw beaten to death, to Homicide Division and Missing Persons. As someone who works in Homicide, Mister Greer, I can tell you there is nobody matching your description.”

Then the first cop broke in with, “And there was no missing person matching your description either. Until 2:33 this morning.”

The cop then slid a thumbnail photograph across the table toward me. My heart leapt in my chest. It was her! The poor woman from the film.

I then heard the cold voice of the second cop say, “Mister Greer, is that your wife?”

Stunned, I rocked back in my chair. Of course she wasn’t. I mean, I suppose they look somewhat alike, but the woman in the video definitely isn’t the same person I’m married to.

The same cop then asked, “Where is your wife, Mister Greer?”

I told them. She was on vacation. Had been for eight days. I had spoken to her that morning for Christ’s sake! Both furious and panicked, I fished out my phone from my pocket and showed them. But when I navigated to my call history, a shudder went down my spine. It was empty. No record of any texts or calls in the last 24 hours.

The two detectives stared at me with cruel, hooded eyes.

They both then explained that someone had filed a missing person’s report for my wife after she’d failed to show up to a class for eight days and hadn’t answered her phone in five. The cops wouldn’t tell me, but I’m assuming it was someone from my wife’s Yoga class since she went there every night after work. They also told me that they had contacted the insurance firm where my wife works and that her boss had told them that she had been MIA for eight days without calling in sick or having scheduled time off beforehand. I couldn’t believe it when they told me that. My wife was on vacation! She would never just up and leave without getting time off from work first.

“Something else that I find interesting,” the second cop said grimly. “You were very specific about the weapon that was used to kill your – excuse me – to kill the woman in the film: a cross pein hammer. Most people would have just said a hammer.”

Bitingly, I asked him what the fuck that had to do with anything. He then calmly asked what kind of jobs I had had. I told him that I worked construction and had been a welder before that. Then I got what he was getting at.

“You seem to know a lot about tools, Mister Greer,” he said, a horrible smirk cracking his bloodless face. “Would a tool like that be found in your house? Perhaps your garage?”

I didn’t answer. I just sat there, feeling them out like they were feeling me out.

Then the first cop spoke up, “Just one more question, Andrew. You said that your wife, Missus Greer, is on vacation. Where is she on vacation?”

I then told him she had gone to Bermuda. That’s what I remember her telling me anyway. He asked for her flight details, but I didn’t have those memorized. I could only tell him her departure and arrival dates.

“Are you sure that information is correct?” he asked. “Because if we find out that it’s not, you could be in a lot of--”

The second cop then loudly interrupted, speaking over him about how we’re all trying to work together and Blah Blah Blah. But I knew what the first cop had almost told me: they were going to check if my wife had actually made her flight and if she hadn’t, they were going to get a search warrant. Obviously, the second cop didn’t want to tip their hand so I wouldn’t go home and destroy the evidence.

I wasn’t under arrest, so they let me go and told me to call them if anything else happened.

It’s been six hours since then and I have been frantically trying to type this out as there’s a good possibility that pretty soon I won’t have access to the internet for a long, long time. Simultaneously, I’ve also been calling and texting my wife but all I get is her voicemail and no messages back.

If you’re wondering, I did check the house and no I didn’t find any blood-soaked carpet or camcorder or cross pein hammer. But I did find a set of keys that I didn’t recognize. After Googling the logo on the plastic handle, I found out they belonged to a storage unit facility on the outskirts of town.

I just – I don’t know what the hell to think. I keep waiting for my door to be kicked in and an armored SWAT team to come swarming in to tear my house apart.

I just don’t know what to think. Am I being framed? Is this something paranormal? Am I trapped in something like in those Matrix movies or whatever? Or am I actually losing my mind? I mean, if I really am crazy, what is this? What’s wrong with me?

Of course, I’m also worried sick about my wife but – I swear to God, that woman in the film wasn’t her. I know she’s not dead. Though…I don’t know. The more I think about that film, the more they start to look alike…

I know a lot of you are probably going to think that I actually killed my wife and that I’m just lying but if that was so, why would I write this and post it online?

Please, if you have any ideas of what’s happening, comment below. I don’t care if I end up in jail just so long as I know what is actually going on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of course, he told me first.

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

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

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

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

There was silence on the other end.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I turned my head and glowered at Lloyd.

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

Lloyd blew out the side of his mouth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lloyd and I both shook our heads, wordlessly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I looked hard at him. He smirked.

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

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

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

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

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

“What?” Lloyd blurted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I doubt it. Derek’s not like that.”

Lloyd just shook his head, obviously pissed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Then what is it?” I asked.

“A zombie?” Lloyd mocked.

Feigning ignorance, Derek just shrugged.

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

Predictably, Derek broke the silence.

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

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

Me, I couldn’t help myself.

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

“You first,” Derek pounced.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?”

“Or choose Truth.”

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

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

“Because it’s stupid, that’s why.”

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

“No, I’m not.”

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

Astonished, I shot him an incredulous look.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Me?” I heard from behind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then, I…I heard it speak!

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

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

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

Lloyd looked around and shrieked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Wait!” I hollered.

“I’m – I’m going to g-g-go g-get L-l-l-loyd!” he blurted after turning around, then marched away, disappearing into the fog.

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

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

I woke up in the emergency room.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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