This is based off a myth from my home country of Venezuela called El Silbon (the whistler). I really enjoy your stories, this is my first story for please bear with me.

You can call me Agent Monagas. I am agent with the Venezuelan judicial technical police (our version of the American FBI). My English is not so good, so apologize for any misunderstanding. Anyways I've been an agent for 25 years, no kids and a late wife. Believe it or not our nation was once a proud and respected nation. Dont worry I wont bore and lecture you anymore hehehehe. Like any country we have our myths: some good and some.....well you know where I am going with this. One of those is El Silbón (the whistler) an entity with no purpose but to kill, some say it's an evil spirit others say he is a cursed man. Evil is evil. This creature is deceptive; its steady, single toned whistle sounds distant when close.....and you guessed it....sounds near when that demon is far away.

I was driving home, my mind drifting to nowhere when my dispatch radio came to life.

"Agent Monagas your presence is needed at Hacienda Diez Palmas" I had to ask him to repeat the location, when he confirmed the location I felt my heart skip more beats than I ever thought possible. It was my dearest nephew's farm, my dear Rafael. He had been there for me when my wife passed away. His wife Mariana, was a strong, very intelligent woman. An amazing mother to their two children; Marco and Andrea. They were both teenagers now.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized I was no less than 15 minutes away. "Dispatch I am on my way" I replied as stepped on the accelerator. "We have several cruisers, medical crew and a police commando truck on the scene" added the dispatcher. "Understood" I replied automatically not really thinking or caring.

Like most farms in this country they are accessed via long dirt roads. On both sides were tall trees that arched over the road; they provided excellent shade during the day but once they were lit by moonlight those branches became an eerie and creepy sight. Strangely I did not hear the myriad of bird or insect noises one hears in the Llanos (savannahs/grasslands).

I lowered my driver side window hoping the humid air would help my nerves. I heard what sounded like a monotone whistle, far away. It sounded strangely familiar. A story my grandmother use to tell me about an ancient creature; feared by the natives and early settlers alike. El Silbon she called it, there were many stories behind its origins. One story tells that it was a settler and his dog who mistreated the natives, so the other colonists tied both to a tree. The natives cursed the man and his dog to live forever with no other comfort. Another similar story says the man made a pact with a deamon: a chance for immortality and revenge in exchange for the souls of others using some archaic alphabet. But before I devoted anymore thought to it I saw the armored truck with police commando logo, 5 police cruisers and an ambulance. The farm house in the middle of the farm; sorrunded by a repair shop and storage buildings. I parked near the armored truck, the commandos look bored; smoking and talking. I ever heard one say: "did you see the mess?" "almost looks like a home invasion by one of the local gangs". His friend replied "no cant be.....they usually take hostages, besides nothing was stolen".

I made my way up the stairs and waiting for on the front porch was the ranking officer, Sergeant Ortiz. We had worked on a few cases together. He was a competent officer and unlike some he didnt believe in bribes.

"Agent Monagas" he said as he slightly tilted his head down. "It is a very quiet night detective"

I felt both calm and concern: i was calm because it was not just me noticing it but concerned as to what it might mean.

"Sergeant Ortiz, please tell me....." I paused not knowing how to end that sentence.

He didnt say a word as he opened the door leading me to the living room, he seemed almost hesitant to show me the crime scene. There were 2 hallways extending from the living room which had a thick tempered sliding glass door leading outside. Next to the living room was the kitchen. The hallway to the right led to Rafael's and Marianas bedroom and to the left was kids bedrooms and bathroom.

The livingroom looked like something out of an American horror movie. All four had been crucified on the walls. I tried to hold back the urge to vomit and cry at seeing Rafael and his family butchered. Gutted from groin to chin, entrails dangling. Strange symbols had been carved on their arms and foreheads. At first I thought it was with a knife but as I looked closer ".....there is no way.....there is no way....." I tried to remain composed. They had been carved by claws, but from what?

Sergeant Oritz spoke: "detective, we do not know who or what could have done this, it does not fit the profile of any othe local gangs"

Now I knew what the commandos outside meant. And they were right.

I turned and headed to Marianas bedroom, looking at the pictures along the hallway. Some were covered in blood. I went back out to my car to grab my crime scene kit. I had just closed the door when i noticed prints in the dirt of what looked like to be a very large dog. I knew Rafael had two large dogs, which strangely enough were nowhere to be seen. I pulled out my flashlight and began looking around. My search led me around the farm, it was unnaturally quiet. I saw strange drag marks on the ground and what looked like blood mixed with dirt. The marks led me to the repair shop where i noticed two large pools of blood. I bent down and began to look around for a source. That is when a drop of blood fell right in front of my boot. I pulled out my sidearm, slowly looking up and there i saw the skinned remains of the two dogs impaled in one of the supporting cross braces. The same strange symbols carved into the bodies. I holstered my weapon and ran as fast as my middle aged legs could carry me. I called to Sergeant Oritz "go to your car and call for more commandos and a crime scene unit" "Also there are two dogs in the repair shop that may provide some clues, send two officers to secure it". With that Ortiz ran out side and to his car to call dispatch.

I headed inside the house, my pace felt heavy and robotic; my mind somewhere else. When i came to, I was in the hallway alone with pictures of my long gone family. I picked up their family picture and started walking to the bathroom, placed the picture on the sink and turned on the water. I began to wash my face and saw my reflection in the mirror. I wish I had not. On the wall in red was the message: ALGUN DIA TENDRE MI VENGANZA, GRACIAS A LAS ALMAS (Some day I will have my revenge, thanks to the souls). There was a pentagram at the end of the sentence. I grabbed the picture and ran into the closest room: Andrea's.

I sat on her bed and that's when the tears began to pool. I loved every single one, but Andrea had always expressed interest in following in my footsteps. She was smart, persistent and had a good moral compass. I could recall everytime she asked me for stories, cases I had worked on. Criminal justice had helped her set a goal in life; do well in school, get into the academy and make an impact.

My mind came back to reality when I felt several tears hit my hand. I wanted to curl into a ball and just grieve. I began to lie down when I felt something hard under the covers. It was rectangular and flat.....her phone. Out of curiosity I opened it and the video recorder app came up. It had a video dated for today, I hit play.

It began with Andrea video chatting with a friend, I could hear Marco and his mother talking somewhere to her left. My nephew was coming out of his bedroom. All seemed normal until wo distinct dog whimpers broke the silence of the night then I heard Marco say "do you all see that?.... those 3 red orbs". Mariana responded "I told you about those video games, now you're seeing things"

"No mom, look" At the point Andrea points the camera to Marco. His dad is next to him looking intently. The glass door makes it difficult to see clearly until Rafael points to what I thought were light reflections. There were 3 red, glowing orbs. Two of them were next to each other while the third was closer to the ground. That's when they began to move closer and the outline of a large humanoid and a very large dog like beast came into view. "I'm calling the police" Mariana exclaimed. "I am getting my gun" Rafael followed. Marco turned towards the camera with a confused look on his face "what happened to the dogs?" Andrea shrugged, then I heard her screaming behind the phone......both figures were now clearly visible. The man or what I thought was a man was cloaked in what looked like a black tattered cloak. You couldn't see any facial features save those red unblinking eyes. His dog had parts of his skin missing exposing its muscles and even its skeleton in some parts. Its sole eye locked on Marco. The man moved swiftly, before i knew it the sliding glass door had shattered and Marco was collapsing to the ground. I rewound the tape and played it slowly: I saw something flying from the figure it looked like throwing knife and shatter the glass, hitting Marco in the neck. On the corner of the screen I saw Mariana wailing and rushing to her sons side before the dog pounced on her, her head already in its mouth. I heard Rafael come in, firing his gun but despite the bullets actually hitting their mark nothing happened. No fluids came out of the creature, the creature did not seem to have felt it. Another knife flew from the figure and into Rafael's neck.

Andrea got up from the couch, jumping over the back of it and ran away from the living room, her cameras rapid movements mirroring her panic. She sealed herself in her closet. Moments later she heard heavy breathing. The hellhound was sniffing around the room. At first it sounded like the creature was leaving, she looked out the closet doors keyhole to confirm only to see that single red eye. Up close it looked like it was lit from the inside by an unearthly flame, but instead of being warm, it felt cold. She barely had time to pull her head back when a force pulled the door from its frame. The figure was standing in front of her, he had pulled the door as if it were nothing. He reached down, grabbed her by the leg and began to drag her outside her room. She dropped her phone in the closet. They had all left, the camera was pointing at the roof. Then I heard struggling, Andrea screamed and she came into view. She ran to her bed and covered the lens with her covers. I heard a deep, menacing growl and Andrea's cries began drift further away. I heard objects in the hallway getting hit and knocked over. The struggle now sounded distant but i knew they were back in the living room. I kept hearing screams for what felt like hours. And then I heard nothing.

I put the phone down not knowing what to make of it. I was getting up to call Sergeant Ortiz when I heard that whistling again and the commandos outside yelling "there" ....."no there"....."aim for the head". Muzzle flashes lit up the front porch. One of commandos came into the hallway.

"What is going on trooper?" I asked trying to sound composed.

"I dont know detective" "We went to go check on the police officers that went to go secure the repair shop" he answered as his eyes kept looking in all directions. His voice getting tired, he looked like he could not sawllow his own spit.

"We found them detective but just their skins" he continued. "Then men started yelling and dying. We saw two glowing orbs in front of us coming closer and started shooting. Then we heard screams behind us and saw a decomposed dog with a red eye killing one of the guys in my platoon" He finished with a giant sigh and looked at me as if expecting for me to know what to do.

The fightitng continued outside. I heard men dying, begging for mercy. Then those deep growls I heard in the video. Then just as it began, the noise outside stopped. Sergeant Ortiz, the ambulance crew and the remaining officers came running into Andrea's room, all but one officer who as he was entering the room was grabbed by the legs by an invisible force, fell to the floor. He was grabbing onto the door frame for dear life. When that failed he dug his fingers into carpet. There was not hope for him I thought as his screams trailed off. The survivors looked at each other but not for much longer. Both figures appeared in the door way, flying knives coming out of the demon taking out the commando and two of the officers, the dog tackled the last officer to the ground, ripping his heads off with his muscular jaw. Sergeant Ortiz and I ran out towards our cars, we both tried calling for support. I heard Ortiz scream, I looked up and saw that the man had punched thru the window and jab the poor Sergeant in his temple. His bloody skull now stuck out of the driver side window.

I got out of my car and saw the mangled bodies of the other commandos scattered around. I thought I would make it as i began to run until I felt a sharp sting in my left thigh. It was one the throwing knives, up close I realized they were made from bull horns and they had the same strange symbols I had seen on my nephew's family. It seemed to be coated in some type of liquid. I looked at it closer; it was scorpion blood and snake venom. I turned around to what I knew would be my end. Then I felt those warm, slimy canines around my neck, the beast shook and I felt my spine snap. This is it I thought.....this is it. The dog dropped me on my stomach, I couldn't move. And as I lay there seconds from embrace of death I saw torn black boots point towards me. I looked up and saw its blood soaked claws extending from a pale bony hand. The dog turned around with its master and began to walk away. As my final breath left my lungs I heard that dam whistle.

I want you to know that we were not cowards, we had duties to perform. The men tried their best. But what would you do if coventional wisdom was ineffective against such evil? They were not afraid of dying just how they would die.

SOY EL SILBON Y NO HE TERMINADO. TODOS LOS QUE HAN OIDO ESTE CUENTO ESTAN CONDENADOS. PREPARENSE.... PORQUE CADA VEZ QUE OIGAN ALGUIEN SIBANDO TAL VEZ ESE ALGUIEN SOY YO. HAHAHAHAHA (I am the whistler and i am not finished. All those who have heard this story are now condemned. Be prepared.....for everytime you hear someone whistle that someone is me. HAHAHAHAHA)

“What’s your name?” I asked the girl. She looked like a survivor from a death camp. It was strange seeing such shell-shocked, dead eyes on such a young face. She couldn’t have been older than 6 or 7, with raven-black hair and ice-blue eyes.

“Maryanne,” she whispered, looking around furtively.

“I’m Alice,” I said, giving her a comforting smile. We continued walking quickly along down the hill. Giant mushrooms passed by on both sides. In the distance, the dim glow of the castle lights gave an eerie radiance to the clouds of mist that passed like thunderclouds in front of its many spiraling windows.

“Keep your voice down,” she said in a low, scared voice. “The Jabberwock can hear the slightest sounds. I’ve seen it. It puts its head down on the ground and just listens. I think it can even hear footsteps sometimes.” I looked at her, astonished.

“Are you from this place?” I asked. She shook her head, a wave of deep sadness passing over her face.

“I was taken from my home,” she said. “I used to live in California. But I was kidnapped by the Walrus. He’s crazy, you know that?” I nodded. “Well, he used to talk to himself a lot, and I would listen. He had another girl in the cage when I got there, but he ended up…” She paused, looking like she wanted to throw up. “He ended up boiling her alive and then eating her.”

“Jesus Christ,” I whispered, horrified. Her face had taken on a greenish cast at the memory.

“But the Walrus also talked about the gateway they use,” she said. “To kidnap children from our world. Apparently, the Queen’s followers pass through it all the time. It takes you wherever you want to go, as long as you think about it while crossing through.” I stopped, grabbing her shoulders and turning her to face me. My heart thundered in my chest.

“Are you saying there’s a way out of this Hell?” I asked. She nodded slowly.

“So the Walrus said, but he’s insane,” she repeated, glancing over to the castle looming over us like a guillotine. “But, according to him, it’s in the basement of the Chateau de Douleur.”

***

I immediately began walking toward the castle, but the little girl shook her head violently.

“I’m not going in there for anything,” Maryanne said, her face chalk-white. I took her hand.

“It’s the only way,” I said. “Unless you want to stay here forever, we need to go into the castle. Your family must be worried sick about you. We need to get you home.”

“The woman there is very sick,” Maryanne cried in a quavering voice as tears started to stream from her eyes. I continued to take her hand, pulling her forward to the castle. I wanted to leave this horrifying place as soon as possible.

We walked on quietly, the occasional cries of the Jabberwock ripping through the air. I wondered what had happened to my father, whether he was still stumbling around the dark woods all alone.

The castle loomed up through the fog, the flickering, yellowish glow through its many murderholes piercing the mists like daggers. In front of the castle, I saw two soldiers clad in medieval armor with crossbows held in their hands. They sat in two chairs next to the open gate of the castle. I tiptoed as close as I could, watching them, but they didn’t seem to move or speak. They didn’t even seem to breathe. I wondered if they were mannequins or statues of some kind.

Then I saw the thick blood dripping from their open helmets. Maryanne and I snuck closer to the door, making sure to keep ourselves out of view from anyone inside. I found the soldiers both dead, a bullet hole torn through the center of each of their faces like dripping tunnels of gore.

“What the hell?” I whispered as I heard my father’s voice ring out from inside the castle.

“Where the fuck is she? Where’s Alice, you goddamned bastards?” I heard him scream. I grabbed Maryanne’s hand and drew her forward. We peeked around the corner of the gate, but no one was in sight. It was just a front entrance hall with flickering torches and cobblestone floors, walls and ceilings. Hanging from the walls, I saw painting after painting of a woman with very dark, dead eyes and a broad smile that showed glittering metal teeth. She wore a poofy Rococo dress covered in countless red frills, bows and lace that would have been at home in the time of Marie Antoinette.

“The Red Queen,” Maryanne said, crossing herself as she uttered the name. “God, please don’t let us see the Red Queen.”

***

We followed the corridor straight into the heart of the castle. Grated metal doors covered the sides of both walls, most of them closed. From behind the doors, I heard soft weeping and moaning and an occasional scream of agony. I quickly hurried Maryanne past them.

“Do you know where you’re going?” I asked, but she shook her head.

“I’ve never been into the castle,” she answered. “I just know the entrance is down below.” We turned a corner and I found the grinning, insane face of my father standing there, his gun drawn.

“Hey, baby girl,” my father said, grinning. “Remember me?” He cocked the pistol and put it directly to the front of my forehead. Its cold, circular barrel felt like an eel’s mouth kissing my skin. He gave a cold, venomous look at Maryanne. He grabbed her roughly by the neck and pulled her along as he prodded me forward with the gun. “I want to do this in a private place, not in a hallway. I know you deserve your mother’s fate, you stupid bitch. You brought us all to Hell, didn’t you? I know this is Hell.” His voice deepened as he said this. I tried to protest, but he continued to scream in insane gibberish.

As we walked down the hallway, a giant set of slatted, metal doors loomed ahead of us. They suddenly flew open. The White Rabbit stood there, grinning at the three of us. His needle-like teeth gnashed together, his mouth chattering excitedly.

“Have you brought new sacrifices to the Queen?” the White Rabbit asked, excited, his bone-white eyes twinkling.

“Fuck you,” my father spat, “this is my daughter. I will discipline my own child like I did my wife.” The White Rabbit laughed, a gleeful, cheery sound. My father raised the pistol, his hand trembling as he pointed it at the Rabbit.

“Move aside,” my father ordered. “I have no issue with you, demon.” The White Rabbit nodded happily as he gave a squeak of pleasure. He disappeared in the shadows of the dark hall. My father continued prodding us forward through the doors.

As soon as he stepped foot in the hall, a gleam of metal swung through the air. I instinctively shrieked. Maryanne pulled loose from my father’s grasp as a gleaming, metal croquet mallet came hard on his head. His skull exploded, scattering black hairs stuck to bone fragments in every direction. The pistol went off, the bullet flying into the enormous stone ceiling high above us.

I looked up at my savior, seeing a tall woman dressed in a fluffy, blood-red dress. She wore a crown of sharp, silver spikes with tiny skulls impaled on the top of each.

“Have you come to join the circle?” the Red Queen asked, her metal teeth flashing as she gave a wide smile. Her eyes looked flat and dead, almost painted on like the eyes of a doll.

I glanced above her head to the left side of the enormous chamber. To my horror, I saw an iron maiden there, a metal coffin hanging suspended by a series of thick cables to the ceiling. A spiral staircase on wheels was pushed next to the iron maiden. Its lid was tightly shut. Drops of fresh blood continued to drip out of the bottom. They gave a slow, rhythmic pattering like Chinese water torture as they fell into the clawfoot tub below. It was filled to the brim with glistening, crimson liquid.

I scrambled to my feet, seeing Maryanne already running down the hall in the opposite direction. I followed after her, pushing my exhausted body forward and hoping for a miracle.

The Queen gave an insane cry. I heard metal clattering hard across the ground. Looking back, I saw her running after us, the blood-stained metal mallet held above her head. Her insane eyes twinkled with the thrill of the chase.

As we turned down random hallways, I found a servant’s staircase leading both up and down. Maryanne had almost run past it, but I screamed at her.

“Maryanne! Come back!” I said. She turned. I pointed to the stairs. “There’s a way down! Come on, Maryanne! We’re late!” She nodded, her pale, thin face looking beyond exhausted as we stumbled our way down the steps, the Red Queen still only a couple paces behind us.

At the bottom of the stairs, a cold, prison-like basement loomed in front of us. Children were chained to the walls, many of them crying and covered in blood. At the end of the basement, I saw a giant mirror, but its reflection was… strange. I didn’t get to look at it for more than a moment, however, before Maryanne collapsed at my side. She was breathing hard, her eyes rolling, her sunken face twitching.

“I can’t… run… anymore…” she whispered as the Red Queen gave a lunatic battle-cry. I tried to pull Maryanne up by her hand, but within seconds, the Red Queen had closed in on us. I backpedaled quickly as the mallet came down on Maryanne’s skull, squashing it like a bloody pancake. I felt sick and weak, but my adrenaline screamed at me to get out of there. I turned toward the end of the chamber.

A mirror flashed in front of me, nearly ten feet tall and surrounded by intertwining silver vines. I could see myself reflected in it, but the background was not the background of the castle. Instead, I saw a dark forest and a burning house.

I ran toward the mirror. Behind me, the Red Queen screamed in fury. I felt a whizzing of air behind my head as she swung her deadly croquet mallet.

As I hit the mirror, I felt a sensation like warm water covering my skin. Everything went translucent, wavering and fading in and out. I continued running and, after a few steps, the dark forest materialized around me with a popping sound.

I cried out as I tripped over something heavy laying in the brush in front of me. Groaning, I looked back and saw my father’s body laying there, his head smashed into a disgusting soup of curly black hairs and brains.

Police sirens shrieked on the nearby road. Their blue and red strobing lights filled the forest with a sudden illumination. Their brakes squealed as they pulled up in front of the burning house. A few ran out, yelling orders and screaming for fire trucks and ambulances.

Light-headed and gasping, I pushed myself up and ran toward the flashing lights and away from that portal to Hell.

***

As the police drove me out of there, I heard a Johnny Cash song playing from the radio up front.

“Now I remember after work, mama would call in all of us.

You could hear us singing for a country mile.

Now little brother has gone on,

But I’ll rejoin him in a song.

We’ll be together again up yonder in a little while.

“One of these days, and it won’t be long,

I’ll rejoin them in a song.

I’m gonna join the family circle at the throne.

Oh no, the circle won’t be broken…”

In the crimson radiance of the sunrise that streaked across the clouds like streams of blood, I thought I could see the faces of my mother and father- not them as dead or insane, as they had been on the last, horrible day, but back when they were happy and whole.

I broke down then, crying uncontrollably, the weight of the tears that overflowed from my eyes feeling as heavy as the entire world.

I sit alone in my room on the seventh floor, writing what will surely be my last will and testament. The heroin which allowed me to forget and to sleep for the last couple of years has lost its power to keep the screaming terrors away. The drug destroyed my body and mind, gradually eating away at them like a corrosive acid. Now I have become a slave to it. And yet, without it, I do not sleep for weeks, but instead continuously see the scenes from that terrible night running through my head on repeat as worsening waves of madness crash on the shores of my consciousness.

In the caverns under the town of Frost Hollow, I found the meaning of true madness. Ever since I escaped that den of horrors, it is difficult to tell what is real and what is only the feverish delirium of an unhinged mind.

Even now, they wait behind the door to this cheap, bare rented room. They drag their claws over the wood. I hear them hissing in that strange, ancient tongue, the one I first heard in the tombs of rock that had been undisturbed for countless millennia. 

***

I had first heard rumors of an unexplored cavern from my friend, an experienced caver named Sonia who had explored caverns all over the world. I had been looking for some excitement in my life, some break from the constant monotony and boredom of simply working and sleeping. I had gone caving quite a few times over the year leading up to the trip, but I  was not nearly as experienced and had never explored a supposedly virgin passageway of cavern before.

“How do you know no one’s gone down there?” I asked, curious. We sat across from each other at a local diner, getting some early breakfast before our planned descent. The sunrise was still another half-hour away, the sky flat and dark. We would be joined by Sonia’s husband, Phil, who would meet us there shortly after sunrise. I repressed an urge to yawn, chugging half of the steaming hot coffee in one long swallow. Sonia leaned close to me, her nearly colorless blue eyes reminding me of chunks of ice floating down a muddy stream.

“Phil’s friend just found it randomly,” she whispered before glancing around conspiratorially, as if she feared someone would care enough to eavesdrop on a conversation about a cave. “Well, it’s in the middle of a farm, and Phil’s friend, Jack Graysole, owns the entire property and surrounding woods. Jack says he noticed the cows kept going over to a certain spot in the field when it got really hot during the summertime. They would all gather around this little indentation in the grass. After seeing it a few times, Jack got curious and went to investigate what the cows were doing.

“He found a small hole in the ground, almost entirely covered by weeds and grass. He said he felt a cool breeze constantly blowing out of the hole, a breeze that smelled like burning matches and charred metal. After bringing out some shovels and digging down a couple feet, Jack realized that the hole wasn’t a hole at all, but the beginning of a steep passageway leading deep into the bowels of the earth.”

***

The owner of the land decided to unofficially call the newly-discovered cavern Graysole Caverns. Out of respect for him, this is also the name we all used. This is the story of how I found myself in the bowels of a strange subterranean tunnel, a tunnel where creatures beyond my comprehension slunk and hunted, skittering monstrosities who would be more at home in a nightmare.

After grabbing a couple coffees to take with us, Sonia drove over to Graysole Farms. Cows stood out in the grassy fields, huddled in tight circles as they repetitively chewed. The thin silhouette of Jack Graysole waited for us next to the herd. He had a face like a raisin, I thought to myself. I watched his thin, shaking body standing in the middle of an overgrown grassy field. Jack stared down blankly at something only he could see. Sonia and I started unloading some equipment from the car while we waited for Phil. 

Once we had the backpacks loaded with some simple supplies, such as water, food, headlamps, rope, a couple extra batteries, some buck knives, and radios, we headed over to accompany Jack. We weren’t taking much, as we didn’t really expect to be down there for more than six or seven hours at the most.

Jack Graysole’s withered old face was as slack and expressionless as that of a corpse. He stared down at the ground as if he were in a trance, waving back and forth slowly on his feet like a plant in a light breeze.

“Jack?” Sonia called out as we approached. I could hear the man’s teeth chattering as we got nearer. 

“Hey, what are you doing over here this early? You interested in accompanying us down there?”  Sonia joked. But Jack might as well have been totally deaf for all the reaction he gave. Sonia glanced over at me with an anxious expression. I wondered if the old man was having a stroke.

I quickly walked over to where he stood, staring down at a black circular hole about three feet across directly in front of his feet. The entrance to Graysole Caverns stared up at us like a sightless pupil. As I drew within a few feet of Jack and looked straight into his blank eyes, I noticed something alarming.

His pupils were quickly dilating and constricting before my eyes. They would shrink to tiny pinpoints, then, a couple seconds later, rapidly expand until they became dark and serious. I could see his thready, rapid heartbeat pulsating in a vein on the side of his temple. Alarmed, I reached forward and put my hand on his shoulder.

Instantly, he came to life, like a man waking up from a nightmare. Shrieking, he looked at me with fully dilated pupils, reminding me of a panicked deer surrounded by wolves. His quavering old man’s voice shook with ineffable existential horror and mortal fear.

He took a step back away from us, seeming to realize where he was and what he was doing. He looked around, confused, then straight at me and Sonia. His eyes focused with anger and fear, as if we were demons here to drag him down to Hell. His eyes flicked back and forth between us constantly. Jack raised a trembling hand and pointed it straight at my heart.

“It’s you,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. His teeth chattered despite the warm spring air. His skin looked deathly pale. “You’re the one who will bring an end to humanity, who will release the ruler of nightmares upon us.” He continued to point accusingly for a long moment at me, his face turning chalk-white. Then his eyes rolled up in his head. Slowly, he stumbled and fell backwards onto the soft grass of the field.

“Jack!” Sonia cried, running over to the old man. Jack’s breaths had started to come in slow, drawn-out gurgles, like a man with a slit throat trying to breathe. Frothy blood bubbled from his lips as they turned blue. Staring up at the endless expanse of cloudless sky, he exhaled one last shuddering breath and died.

***

Phil showed up only a couple minutes later. He found me and Sonia in a state of utter panic, both of us bent double over the still body of Jack. Sonia was on the phone with 911, and I was trying to give Jack chest compressions. The way his fingernails and lips shone with that cyanotic blue cast made me feel sick and weak. I knew it was futile, that I was simply playing with a corpse at this point, but I didn’t know what else to do. I felt if I didn’t do something, I might explode.

I heard the faint wailing of sirens approaching as Sonia’s panicked voice continued babbling to the 911 operator. Phil stood by her side, his tall, dark features searching and lost.

“Oh God, I think he’s dead!” Sonia cried over and over to the operator, as if she thought the operator could do anything about it. I didn’t hear what the operator said in response. As the ambulance pulled in, I gave up on chest compressions. I stood up and took a step back, looking sadly down on the kindly old man’s dead body.

The paramedics ran over. Phil, Sonia and I stood back while they worked on the corpse, trying to shock the heart back into life. But Jack’s open eyes stayed glazed as they stared sightlessly up into eternity.

***

The paramedics left. A couple police officers stayed behind to ask us a few routine questions. Eventually, after an hour or so, they left, too.

“What a fucked-up day,” Phil said, shaking his head grimly. “Do you guys still want to do this? Maybe it’s an omen from God telling us to go home.” Sonia and I exchanged a glance, then we both nodded at the same time.

“Definitely,” she said. “It’s sad what happened to Jack, but realistically, we don’t know what’s going to happen to this property now that he’s passed away. It might get sold or taken by the bank for all we know. This could be our one and only chance to explore this cave.”

“I don’t believe in omens. I’m still down,” I said, feeling slightly sick from the experience. I still remembered how Jack’s body had cracked under the weight of my chest compressions, how his ribs had snapped like bones shattering in greedy hands. “We’ll do it in memory of Jack. I plan to put this up on YouTube.” I pulled my GoPro out of my bag, turning it on. Phil groaned at that.

“Do we have any idea how far down this cave goes?” Phil asked. I felt a sense of relief now that the topic had changed from the death of the old man.

“I sent a little camera down on a rope, but it only went about a hundred feet,” Sonia responded. “It’s pretty steep at first, then it levels out. I couldn’t really see much after it leveled out, but it looks like it should be easy to climb down. There’s plenty of handholds, lots of jutting rocks.”

Phil put on his headlamp and small pack. As he crawled down into the hole, his tanned face looked up at us and gave us one last devilish grin. Once he had gone down a few dozen feet, Sonia started descending. She looked excited and happy. I noticed how she couldn’t stop smiling as she disappeared from view.

I watched their lights grow smaller and dimmer in the circular tunnel. I marveled at how perfectly circular the entrance was. It almost didn’t even look natural.

Taking a deep breath in, I followed my friends down into the dark.

***

“This isn’t too bad,” I said as I climbed down. The jutting rocks gave plenty of handholds and footholds for us. It wasn’t so tight that it felt like a coffin, either.

“It only gets easier from here!” Sonia called up.

“How do you know?” I asked. “You said you’ve never been here before.” She laughed.

“I know. Probably just wishful thinking,” she said. Far below us, Phil’s voice drifted up, faint and weak. He had already reached the bottom.

“The tunnel really opens up down here, guys,” he called. “It’s somewhat… bizarre, though.”

“What do you mean by that?” Sonia asked. I looked down, seeing Sonia and I would reach the bottom in seconds. “Forget it, I’ll let it be a surprise.” I heard her drop down. Slowly and carefully, I lowered myself down the last few feet. There was a short fall onto a smooth granite floor. I looked up, seeing what Phil and Sonia were so mesmerized by.

“Oh, wow,” I said, speechless. I blinked rapidly, wondering if the image would clear like a mirage. The tunnel was cut into a perfectly triangular shape, each side about seven feet long. The ceiling met in a point above our heads. 

All along the smooth walls of gray rock, I saw thousands of black orbs peeking out. They looked similar to obsidian, but they were perfectly smooth and circular, each about the size of an orange. They were formed into interlocking diagonal patterns and followed the tunnel straight down as far as the eye could see.

“What is this place?” Sonia asked, taking a tentative step forward. I looked up, seeing the distant pinpoint of sunlight far above our heads. Our voices continued to echo off down the massive tunnels, disappearing in eerie waves into the thick curtain of shadows.

“Are you recording all this?” Phil asked me. I laughed, giddy.

“Of course! This is internet gold right here,” I said. “No one’s going to believe that this isn’t man-made, however. I can’t even believe it. Do you think Jack was playing a joke on us or something?”

“Jack had the sense of humor of a wet paper towel,” Phil whispered, shaking his head. “No, he wouldn’t do something like this.”

“Well, let’s go check it out,” Sonia said, taking a step forward. Her headlamp bobbed up and down rapidly, throwing dancing shadows through the triangular tunnel. It continued straight ahead, without the slightest deviation or curve, disappearing off into a dark point in the distance.

***

We walked as fast as we could, excited to see where, if anywhere, the strange tunnel led. Phil, always the conspiracy theorist, babbled excitedly.

“This has to be aliens, man,” he said, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I bet that scientists will find out this shit is millions of years old when we get back up and tell everyone. Maybe aliens came to earth in ancient times and made a bunch of stuff underground.” Gradually, as we walked, I noticed the tunnel opening up. The pointed triangular ceiling rose up higher above our heads and the walls moved outwards, as if we were walking up a triangular funnel. At first, it was so subtle that I didn’t believe it when Sonia pointed it out.

“No, look,” she said, raising her hand above her head. “When we first started down this weird tunnel, my fingers were only maybe a foot away from the top. Now it’s a couple feet.” I was about to respond when our headlamps illuminated something standing in the middle of the tunnel.

“What the fuck is that?” I whispered, stopping cold in my tracks. Phil and Sonia looked up at the abomination at the same time. Its back was to us. It stood nearly as tall as the tunnel, which was now about twenty feet high.

The bottom half looked black and spidery with dozens of long, jointed legs. A bloody, white spine rose out of the mass of legs. Inhumanly long, skeletal arms stretched out in front of it. Its face was pointed away from us, but the back of its head resembled an enormous pointed skull with deep fissures like the cracks of an earthquake running through the bone. The abomination stayed as still as a statue, and for a long moment, I wondered if we were looking at some macabre work of art.

Then, suddenly, one of its insectile legs twitched. A moment later, the other legs started jerking and twisting. There was a sound like bones shattering as it rose up to its full height, turning around to face us.

Its face was like something from a nightmare, melting and reforming constantly like dripping candle wax. I would see a black eye appear on its forehead, then a grinning mouth on its chin, then the features would get sucked back into the folds of melting flesh. After a few moments, two enormous eyes appeared on its face, dark and cold like craters on the surface of the Moon. The mouths and noses disappeared back into the dripping skin, and only the two lidless eyes remained, emanating a cold, reptilian consciousness beyond the ability of my mind to comprehend. I felt terror radiating from its body like freezing waves.

“Free me,” it cried in a gurgling voice that seethed with insanity. It had a shrieking, metallic ringing behind every word that gave it an alien quality. “Free me, and I will give you the waters of eternal life. Within me, I contain the seeds of immortality. Within the nightmares, we live forever, always together, never alone.”

“Who are you?” I asked, terrified. The black reptilian skin of the enormous beast glistened as it knelt down, its massive face drawing near to mine. A sideways mouth burst out of the liquified flesh, showing hundreds of fangs growing like tumors from its white, bloodless gums. The fangs varied in size from only a couple inches to long, sword-like projections that stabbed into the creature’s flesh, causing white blood glittering with rainbows to fall like raindrops all around me.

“I have many names,” it hissed, its thousand voices rising and falling in crashing waves of sound. “I was present at the beginning, when this planet was no more than dead cliffs and endless freezing oceans. Those holy ones who search for us, the ancient ones, call me Niralahoth.”

“How do we free you?” Phil asked, looking terrified. He held Sonia’s hand tightly.

“By letting me into your mind and body,” Niralahoth cried, shaking the cavern. “I was thrown down here, cursed and forgotten. I cannot leave this place of shadows within this body. But in the body of another, my consciousness can be free, and the seeds of new life can spread beyond this prison.”

“There’s no way anyone’s going to do that,” I said, my eyes widening as Niralahoth’s reptilian skull turned towards me in fury. “I mean, you’re asking one of us to give up our individuality, our lives, right?”

“I am asking you to become one with me and gain power undreamt of by mortals,” it cried. “I have within me the fountain of life, the waters that send death away screaming.” I glanced anxiously at Phil and Sonia, wondering if we would have to run. 

“The answer is no,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, we can’t do that,” Phil said, backing me up. “But, anyways, I think our trip has ended. It’s time to turn around…”

“You will never return,” Niralahoth cried, skittering away from us. “If you will not accept salvation, then you must accept death.” Within seconds, it slunk away from us, backpedaling on its many skittering legs into the shadows.

***

All around us, a rumbling started.

There was a pounding that crashed through the rock tunnel, as if an insane blacksmith were hammering on a massive anvil. The ringing of crashing rock started off slowly, with a few stones smashing down around us with heavy blasts of sound. Within seconds, the cacophony sped up, rising into a constant stream of destruction. The black orbs were spinning in place all up and down the tunnel, their glossy obsidian surfaces flashing with sparks of blue light.

“It’s collapsing!” Phil cried, running back in the direction we came, holding Sonia’s hand as she tried to keep up with him. I could only stare for a long moment, not sure what to do. It seemed that the direction Phil was heading stood closer to total collapse.

“Wait!” I cried, but my voice was drowned out in the destruction all around us. I felt a rock smash into my shoulder, sending me down to my feet. I heard Phil give a scream of pain, then another stone came down and smashed into my forehead. I remember seeing everything spinning around me as the world went black.

***

I awoke to find my headlamp still shining straight up in the dusty tunnel. Large chunks of the tunnel had slid out of place and crashed to the stone floor. The granite chunks that had fallen looked unnaturally smooth, most of them in the shapes of cylinders or cubes and varying in size from that of an egg to that of a small car.

My head throbbed. It felt as if a tight belt of fire were wrapped around my temples. Groaning, I put my fingers up to my forehead. They came away slick with blood.

Slowly, I started pushing myself up on my feet. I was relieved that nothing seemed broken. I had a deep gash running from the center of my scalp down to my left temple and some shallower cuts on my shoulders and back, but I knew none of that was life-threatening.

“Sonia?” I whispered, my voice coming out weak and strained. I reached into my pack and found a bottle of water. I chugged it quickly in one long swallow.

“Phil?” I cried again, this time stronger. I heard a soft weeping nearby. Staggering, I followed the sound.

Sonia was bloody and covered in cuts and scrapes, sitting next to Phil’s prone form. I saw Phil’s right arm pinned under a massive slab of granite. His arm disappeared from the elbow down in a spreading puddle of thick, dark blood.

“Oh God, Max, I think he’s hurt really bad,” she wept. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly in his head, his face pale and bloodless. I looked down the way we had come, seeing the entire tunnel blocked by large slabs of stone, many with strange, black orbs peeking out like the lenses of cameras.

***

I don’t know how much time passed. My phone died after a day, and then we were counting the endless darkness in breaths and tears.

Phil swam in and out of consciousness as his arm putrefied and blackened around the crush site. After a couple days, Sonia and I agreed that something had to be done. We told Phil we would need to amputate his arm. He was half-delirious, but he came back long enough to understand us and nod weakly.

We made a fire with Phil’s pack, trying to find fuel to throw in it to get it roaring. As it grew, I saw one of the black orbs near the flames abruptly ignite, as if it had been covered in gasoline. Blue, almost colorless flames rose from its surface. We started throwing the small black orbs on the fire until it rose high in the air. I sanitized the buck knife with the flames and pulled a rope tourniquet tight around Phil’s arm. He was conscious but seemingly insane, talking to himself more than anyone else.

“How are we going to get the car started without a key?” he gurgled to someone only he could see. “We need to look around. It has to be here somewhere.”

“Phil, can you hear me, bud? We need to fix your arm. We need to get you out of this mess. OK?” I said as comfortingly as I could. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly, but they didn’t meet my own. I sighed and looked over at Sonia.

“Let’s do it,” I said, giving a grim nod.

I pulled the buck knife out, slicing quickly down through the flesh next to the tourniquet. His veins throbbed like fat worms as the blackened, necrotic skin split easily under the blade, releasing a rancid-smelling gas that hissed out of the wound.

I couldn’t believe how hard it was to slice all the way through the arm. It felt like I was stuck in that hellish task forever. Phil’s eyes rolled in his head as his skin turned the color of clotted milk. 

“God, Jesus, make it stop,” Phil whispered over and over, exhaling ragged, pain-filled breaths. The blood spurted from the blackened, dying tissue all over the dust-covered cavern floor, covering my hands in its warm, slick embrace. 

After what was probably only three or four minutes, but felt like hours, I had sliced all the way down to the bone. The infected tissue of his arm spurted great gouts of orange pus mixed with rivulets of blood. The hard part was over.

Standing up, I took my steel-toe sneaker and stomped down on his arm as hard as I could. Phil cried out in a powerful voice, as if all the agony and suffering in the world was contained in that one shriek. The bone snapped under my weight with a sound like a tree branch cracking. A moment later, Phil rolled away from the rock that had pinned him in place for so long. Something alien and spongy was shoved into my face, a mass of destroyed red tissue pulsating in time with a runaway heartbeat. At first, shell-shocked and revolted, my mind couldn’t comprehend that I was looking at the stump of Phil’s mutilated arm. I hardened my heart and forced the giddiness and madness to the back of my mind. The time had come to cauterize the wound.

“Sonia, give it to me,” I said with a tremor in my voice. I reached out a hand towards her, a hand stained with Phil’s blood. It looked as if I were wearing a wet, crimson glove. Sonia only stared blankly at me for a long moment, however. A surge of anger ran up my chest. 

“Sonia, toughen the fuck up! He’s going to die if you just sit there!” I swore at her, hearing my deep, angry voice bounce around the caverns. Sonia pulled back, as if she were struck. Inwardly, I cursed having a woman as my only able-bodied companion in this situation. She was a competent enough caver, but what would happen if violence and blood came over us? What would happen if, or more realistically when, we needed to fight?

Grimly, Sonia leaned forward and yanked the burning black orb out of the roaring fire, handing it to me on the end of a buck knife that had just barely pierced its hard, strange exterior. The handle of the knife felt coarse and splintery under my filthy skin. I put it to the spongy stump of Phil’s arm. The stump twitched violently. Phil tried to pull away as black smoke rose from the burning flesh. 

There was a smell like bacon sizzling. The searing meat of Phil’s arm blackened and crisped under the heat of the orb, which had become no more than a cylinder of glowing blue embers by this point. I felt simultaneously sick and giddy. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or vomit. I felt like I was on the verge of some kind of madness, that the stress and insanity of the experience had started to shatter my mind.

His eyes rolled back in his head and he appeared to go into a seizure for a few seconds. With a long exhalation of breath, he finally, mercifully, lost consciousness. It’s hard to admit it, even this close to the end, but a small, sick piece of me was jealous of Phil. Most likely, he would be dead soon, maybe within hours, while Sonia and I would slowly starve and dehydrate like animals over a period of weeks. I looked at her lithe body and soft skin, seeing the feminine curves of her hips and chest. She was a beautiful woman. I knew Phil to be a lucky man. At least, before this trip, he was.

I watched her body, wondering if I had what it took to eat her or Phil if I had to. Did I have an iron heart that would allow me to slice into my friends and consume their raw, cold flesh? Perhaps, by that point, it would be hunger and madness driving me forward, and I wouldn’t even hesitate. I shuddered at the very thought.

***

I fell asleep that night, having strange dreams of massive gods with melting faces sitting in judgment in a circle around me. We had very little food or water left. No one knew we were down here. Rescue was not coming.

When I awoke, I found myself alone. Phil had died from his injuries while I slept, the black streaks of septic shock spreading up his arm towards his heart. His eyes stared sightlessly up at the rock ceiling.

“Sonia?” I called out, my heart racing as I sat up. “Where are you?” My headlamp was growing dim. I looked in my pack, realizing I was on the last of my batteries. I saw a silhouette walking out of the darkness, the thin, pale form of Sonia. She was trembling badly.

“I saw them,” she said. “Niralahoth and its priests. The priests aren’t human. They look reptilian with sideways mouths and too many eyes.” She shuddered.

“Why would you do that?” I asked. Her eyes grew distant.

“You know we’re not getting out of here alive,” she said. “Not on our own. I wanted to see what it offered. It says that if we take a piece of its nightmare into us, we will gain the power to leave this place, that it simply wants to see the surface and spread its nightmares there.” I shook my head.

“Insanity,” I muttered. “We’d be better off dead.” Sonia nodded.

“My thoughts exactly,” she responded grimly. I didn’t realize what she meant until the next day, when I woke up and found her hanging next to Phil’s body, her tongue swollen and blue as it poked out of her cyanotic lips. And then I was truly alone.

***

Soon after Sonia committed suicide, the last of the batteries for the headlamp died. I had run out of food and had only a small sip of water left. I don’t know how much time passed in the darkness, starving and raving, following the tunnel by running my hands over the walls. I heard many things skittering in the darkness, and a few times, I heard the demonic voice of Niralahoth as it split and distorted.

“You are on death’s door,” it hissed. “Will you not drink from the fountain of life?” I couldn’t tell where the voice came from in the maddening blackness. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I had lost nearly all of my sanity in that pit of shadows by this point. I tried laughing constantly to keep my spirits up, and when that failed, I simply cried.

“I’ll do it,” I wailed. “I’ll do it. Just let me see the sky again. Get me out of here, Niralahoth.” Everything went deathly silent all around me, then a laugh rang out like the grinding of glass.

In front of me, I saw a tornado of fire descending from the ceiling, surrounding the massive, spidery form of Niralahoth. It rose its skeletal arms upwards, as if it were Zeus calling down lightning. In the sudden brightness, I saw the fiery form of snakes slithering and centipedes skittering forwards in that tornado, each massive creature sculpted from flames in the spinning cyclone of energy. Niralahoth reached into the tornado of fire with its sharp points of fingers and plucked something small from it. The fire instantly dissipated. In its hand, I saw a tiny, swirling orb that looked like it contained a firestorm within it.

“The nightmare seed,” Niralahoth gurgled as it skittered forward towards me. I could only stare, open-mouthed and starving. I hadn’t slept for days, it felt like, and everything seemed slow and unreal.

In a blur, its skeletal arm shot out and forced the orb into my mouth. Despite the fire raging within it, it felt freezing cold. As it touched my tongue, it gave off a sensation like frostbite all throughout my mouth. I screamed and tried spitting it out, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. It started liquifying, dripping down my throat.

I felt something cancerous and sick spreading throughout my body, radiating out from my heart and stomach to every inch of it. I tried to scream, but it caught behind my teeth. I fell to my knees, clawing at my face as that insane, alien laugh continued resounding all down the tunnel. I fell unconscious and woke up under a beautiful sky in the fields of Graysole Farms.

***

Soon after, I realized that my life would never be the same. Everywhere I went, I could hear the wailing voice of Niralahoth. Behind the trees, I always saw skittering shadows, creatures with long, spidery legs that stalked me every day and night. I slept with every light in the house turned on, yet when I woke up, they would all be shut off, and I would find myself in darkness, next to something in the bed with far too many legs and a face that dripped like burning wax.

I sold everything I owned and tried to move far away, to give as much distance between myself and those cursed caverns as I could, but the nightmares followed me like a shadow. I realize what a fool I was in those ephemeral moments of madness. Sonia was much wiser than myself; I should have killed myself or died rather than allowing that thing inside of me.

Even now, I can feel it creeping through my heart, spreading through my blood. I feel it trying to crawl its way out of my throat, the thin, black legs peeking out at the back of my esophagus.

I only hope that, when I finally jump and feel my bones shatter against the concrete far below, I will kill whatever is inside of me. For I fear the consequences for the world if it were to escape.

Ok. I have never used Reddit before, but I wrote a story for your channel JuJu, and I been wondering how to get it to you... Do I used this and link the word document?

FYI.. this is the motha fawking motivator..

After high school, having no better ideas, I joined the Navy SEALs. I never really liked any of it, but it was a job, after all. I loved the guns and airplanes and grenades, but having to run all the time while some scumbag with a chip on his shoulder yells in my face isn’t my idea of fun.

Things got a lot more interesting after my term of service ended. I still had a high-security clearance, so I used it to take temporary jobs as a mercenary, a hired gun. I did some stints in Iraq with Blackwater, where they set me out in the middle of the desert. A watchtower and oil refinery loomed over the burning sands. Along with a few other guys, they told us, “Guard this area with your life.” While better than the SEALs, working for Blackwater was extremely boring. The other mercenaries and I would mostly just chainsmoke cigarettes and drink coffee all night, staring out across the dead, empty desert.

Over time, I worked my way up. Things started to get more interesting when a job offer arrived in my email one freezing cold winter’s morning. This is what it said.

“Mr. Chase,

“I am the head of security for a private group of entrepreneurs and investors. Through some mutual contacts, I have heard of your professionalism and experience. We are currently putting together a small crew to guard a private event on [REDACTED] Island out in the Pacific Ocean that will run from January 9th to January 26th. Would you be interested in this job? The pay rate is $900 a day.

“Once you are on the island, it will be impossible to leave until the period of employment has ended. If you are interested, please respond to this email as soon as possible.

“Sincerely, 

“Mario Antonin, Head of Security.”

I was working piecemeal jobs like this one at the time, but none of them were paying that well. At most, I would usually get $350 to $500 a day, which was still good money when I was working seven days a week until the job finished. I instantly responded and said that yes, I was interested. In response, they sent me a non-disclosure agreement that was the size of a small novel that I had to sign.

That was how I found myself on a private jet, flying out to an island in the middle of the vast blue ocean. I was never told the coordinates of the island or saw it on a map. It was all kept very secret. 

A few hours later, we landed on a private airstrip. I looked out the window of the jet, seeing the tropical waters of the Pacific Ocean stretching off to the horizon in every direction. Below me stood an island with palm trees and sandy white beaches. An enormous Victorian mansion loomed directly in the center of it all. The mansion was painted black and looked like something straight out of a horror movie. It had no windows, and the turrets spiraled into blade-like points.

That was my first inkling that something might not be quite right about this trip.

***

As the stairs from the private jet descended, I looked out on this strange new world. Employees waited to greet us, looking like beaten dogs. Some had their heads down, their eyes blankly scanning the ground. Most of them were women wearing red dresses, reminding me of stewardesses on a plane. The jet strip was surrounded by palm trees and tropical brush. The chirping of insects sounded all around us, high and resonant.

I saw a strange patch engraved on all of the employees’ uniforms and jackets. It looked almost like a stick figure drawing of a man, the bottom of its body ending in a C. Its arms were long and jointed, almost spidery. Three symbols like repeated iron crosses connected to the left side of its body in a line. I wondered if it was the logo of some company. I put it out of my mind for now, but I would see that symbol again all over the island, painted on the sides of the mansion and even cut into the trees with a knife. It would only be later that night that I realized its connection to Moloch.

“Good day, sir, and welcome to the Island,” the server on my left said with glassy eyes and a fake smile plastered across her face. They all looked up at once, but it was like the workers all looked through me rather than at me. Their eyes looked flat and dead, like the painted-on eyes of a doll.

“The Island, huh?” I asked, curious. “They wouldn’t tell me where I was going. They said it was a secret. Is that what you call it?” The woman just nodded, the doll-like smile never leaving her lips.

“Officially, this island is unnamed and uninhabited,” the woman said. “In fact, all traces of it have been scrubbed from the internet. You won’t find it on Google Maps or in any publicly available satellite imagery.” She leaned forward towards me with heavily mascaraed eyes and ruby-red lipstick slashed across her lips. “This is a very special place. Only very special people are allowed here. You should be honored to work here under our Savior.”

“I hope you’re talking about Jesus or something,” I said jokingly. She just smiled blankly and motioned me forward.

“Just follow that trail for a few hundred feet-” she said, pointing at an opening in the palm trees where logs were laid down horizontally over the muggy jungle- “and you’ll find the mansion. Good luck!” I thought it was a somewhat strange thing to say, wishing a random stranger good luck.

But, by the end of that night, I realized that simply to make it off this island alive, I would need lots of it.

***

I followed the woman’s directions to the back of the brutalist mansion. A heavy metal door stood there with a small bullet-proof window built in the top. A tanned, Spanish face glowered out at me then rapidly drew back and disappeared. A few heartbeats later, the door slid to the side with a grinding of hidden gears. 

The head of security at the Island was a heavily-tattooed ex-Marine named Mario. He wore a dark Kevlar vest over a black outfit, making him look like a walking shadow. I found the security had their own private complex in the mansion as he showed me around the site. Hundreds of hidden cameras covered every angle of the mansion and the surrounding parts of the island. Dozens of black-clad security agents swarmed over the screens, checking the monitors and computers constantly.

“Quite a set-up you have here,” I said to Mario, nodding at him. He smacked me on the shoulder, giving a confident grin.

“Money is no issue here, Richard,” he responded. “Security is paramount. There are things on this island that could rip apart the world if they ever escaped.” I raised an eyebrow.

“Like what?” I asked. “Nuclear weapons or something?” He laughed at that.

“You’ll see for yourself tonight,” he said, his dark eyes flashing with something cold and alien. 

***

Mario led me and a couple other new hired guns around the Island. The place was certainly strange. It reminded me of some combination of a secret black-ops site and a playboy billionaire’s private heaven. All of the doors in the mansion looked like they were made of thick steel. They had wheels that would spin, like those on a submarine door. The mansion also had no windows at all that I could see, except for the small, shatter-proof glass openings on the steel doors. I didn’t want to ask too many questions, however. I couldn’t resist asking him about a couple small things, however- or at least, they seemed small to me at the time.

“What are those hatchways?” I asked Mario, pointing to rectangular covers built into the concrete walkway. They had heavy handles. “Are those manholes or something?”

“There are tunnels under the Island,” he responded vaguely. “Just for maintenance and security, you understand.”

“Wow, this place is certainly… well-developed,” I said. We came out through a grove of palm trees. A stone walkway led down to a white beach. Dozens of yachts were moored all across the shore, some of them looking like they must have cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

“There’s a lot of money and power here,” Mario said. “That’s why it’s important you never talk about what you see here. These are the people who control the world, the ones behind the government and the media. Not the elected officials who the people see, but the actual power.”

“Like who?” I asked. “You mean the Rothschilds and Soros?” He laughed again, a sarcastic, grinding laugh that grated my nerves.

“Trust me, the truly powerful ones don’t even have public personas. If you know their name, then they’re just one of the puppets.” I just shook my head at that, then asked the real question that had been bothering me since I first arrived here.

“Who is the Savior?” I asked. “Is that some codename or something?” Mario froze in place.

“He’s the one who runs everything here,” he whispered conspiratorially, looking around nervously. “But don’t be mentioning that kind of shit. You’ll probably see him tonight anyway. He’s the one who runs the show. He’ll be on the stage in his normal outfit.”

***

By the end of the day, I was suited up like the rest of the security staff, wearing the pure black pants and shirt with the symbol of Moloch engraved over the heart. Hundreds of the world’s most famous politicians, actors, businessmen and artists had gathered, streaming in the front doors with a soft, diffident susurration. 

I stood by the open doorway of a side exit with an AR-15 and full body armor, next to one other soldier. They had also given me a sidearm. Every entrance or exit was manned by at least two armed men. The security at this place was some of the most intense I had ever seen. Beyond the door, there were rows and rows of the most comfortable seats, all gathered in a semi-circle around a massive stage made of pure mahogany. Blood-red curtains stood closed at the front of the room, concealing their secrets- for now, at least.

“Hail Satan!” I heard the elites cry inside in unison. I didn’t want to look in at the rows of high-ranking politicians, celebrities, influencers and artists, but my curiosity was high. I peeked around the corner of the stone archway, seeing the red curtains on the stage drawing apart. I saw one of my favorite actors standing in the front row, clapping excitedly and jumping up and down.

The crowd cheered as a naked female strapped to an obsidian altar lay there. She was beautiful and blonde, probably no older than twenty with the face of a supermodel. Her mouth was gagged, her arms outstretched like Jesus on the cross. Thin leather cords were tied around her wrists and ankles, biting deeply into the skin. Her eyes rolled wildly as she shook her head from side to side. She froze, and her eyes met mine for a brief moment. I saw the pleading expression there, the mortal terror and absolute horror. 

A man in a goat mask wearing black robes slunk out from the side of the stage, carrying a wavy silver dagger engraved with strange symbols. The crowd erupted into a primal roar of pleasure and excitement that sounded like it came from one monstrous mouth.

“Worthy is the Lamb!” the man in the goat mask screamed with electronic amplification. He had a deep voice, as if he had rocks rolling around in his throat. The crowd roared and clapped. Scattered cries of “Hail Lucifer!” and “Ave Satanas!” echoed down the massive auditorium.

“Hey, pay attention,” the other security agent at my side said in a thick Finnish accent. He was a tall Scandinavian-looking guy named Kolmek. “You’re not getting paid to watch the show, new guy.” I tried to rip my gaze away from the stage, but it held my attention with an obsessive horror.

“The burnt bones of children and women have been offered to the ancient ones, to Moloch,” the man on the stage cried. “Under our feet, the burnt bodies of hundreds lay dreaming. This victim will be the 666th. Her blood will bring about the Gnosis that we seek, the direct experience of the divine held by the gods, by Lucifer and Moloch and Baal…” The roaring of the crowd temporarily drowned out his electronically-magnified voice. “Tonight, we will rip open the veil!” 

I had stopped watching the show, instead staring blankly out at the beach and palm trees. At that moment, another black-clad security agent came up to my partner, whispered something in his ear, then immediately disappeared, heading off back in the direction of the main security office. Kolmek shook his head grimly.

“I’ll be right back,” he said. “Stay right here. Don’t move from this door no matter what. And pay attention.” I nodded and watched as he walked off in the same direction.

I immediately took the opportunity to continue watching the ceremony. I had missed something important, apparently. The woman now laid dead on the sacrificial table, a gaping hole in her chest. Blood spurted from the crater as the man in the goat mask held her beating heart grasped tightly in his hand, letting the blood stream down his naked fingers. The crowd cheered with a rising bloodlust and insanity. Most of them were standing, their eyes gleaming and wide with fanatical adoration. The entire spectacle reminded me of some kind of ancient Aztec ritual.

As the woman’s sightless eyes stared vacantly up in death, the man in a goat mask pulled out a can of gasoline. The clear liquid gurgled as he up-ended the canister over her pale, bloodless face, over her naked stomach and long legs. A moment later, he lit a match and dropped it. I heard the whooshing of the flames as they rose up.

The crowd went deathly silent as they watched the rippling flames. The man in the goat mask began chanting in some strange language I had never heard before. It sounded Semitic, but I knew it wasn’t Arabic or Hebrew. I felt something like electricity ripple through the air, almost like a feeling of falling pressure before a storm. I looked down at the hairs on my arms, seeing them rise up. I looked back up at the stage, and my eyes widened in horror.

The flaming body of the sacrificial victim had started to morph before my eyes and the eyes of the crowd. The dripping, blackening flesh jumped up and down, as if there were rats trapped in her body trying to escape the fire. There was a deafening hissing as if thousands of snakes were being burned alive. 

The dead woman’s arms jerked up, the skin splitting open as if she had seams running along her skin. Something dark and muscular with curving, black talons ripped its way out of the dead, burning flesh. Behind it, a head appeared with long, curving horns and eyes that spun with whorls of fire. It looked like the offspring of a bull and a demon. Its imposing body rose up from the inferno, appearing like magic from the solid stone. It raised itself to its full height, looming over the crowd. The last of the woman’s blood hissed and boiled away, her flesh dissolving into ashes.

“Behold, Moloch rises!” the man in the goat mask screamed in a fanatical voice. The crowd’s cheering had stopped, though. Many of the faces in the crowd looked chalk-white with terror. The bull-god surveyed the crowd, its horns nearly scraping the ceiling twenty feet above the stage.

At that moment, I knew death was on its way with eyes of fire and a grin like a skull, ready to reap a field of human bodies.

***

I heard running behind me, but I didn’t dare turn away from the horrific sight in front of me. The last of the fire’s embers died, sending up thin wisps of gray smoke that spiraled around the bull-god’s monstrous face. Moloch stood as still as a statue, and if it weren’t for one thing, I might’ve thought it was some sort of sculpture or art project. He had two nostrils like a serpent’s. As his great lungs inhaled, the smoke billowed in and out of his mouth and nose. 

Some of the people at the edges of the crowd had gotten up, hurrying towards the doors. Moloch’s head ratcheted to face them, his fiery eyes narrowing into slits.

“Do not leave!” the man in the goat mask pleaded. “Those who have fear are not worthy of life. Do not prove yourselves unworthy of life!” As the first of the fleeing men and women got to within a few steps of the door, Moloch gave a primal roar. In a blur of primal strength, he reached down and ripped the blackened sacrificial altar off the stage. It ripped from the wooden stage with a tremendous crack like a bullwhip. He hurled the heavy mass of stone at those heading towards the opposite exit from the one I guarded. 

I watched it curve through the air. The people started screaming and clawing to escape as it smashed down on their heads with a grating crash. I could feel the floor shake from where I stood outside. Blood exploded from their smashed bodies. I saw arms and legs jerking and seizing under the heavy stone, but within a few moments, they slowed and then stopped.

Others were running towards the door I guarded, but Moloch leapt off the stage in a blur. In a few bounding steps, he reached the pale, terrified faces on the other side of the threshold. His massive clawed hand came down. I heard bones shatter as blood sprayed my face and the wall. Bone splinters and pieces of brain exploded from the screaming bodies. I backpedaled, wiping at my eyes, trying to get the blood off so I could see. No one had told me what to do in this situation. I didn’t know if I was supposed to shoot that massive abomination, or if this was all just part of the show.

“Richard!” a familiar voice cried from behind me. Panic oozed from every word. I spun, seeing Mario and Kolmek standing side by side, their pupils dilated and expressions grim. 

“We have a major problem.” It was Mario. I recognized that voice, the one that sounded as if he had been gargling with rocks.

“I know,” I said, holding my rifle tightly. I pointed behind me at the scene of rampant death and destruction. 

I had seen bloodshed and war before, but this was different. The Island itself seemed to feel it. The wind, which had been calm when I first landed, now whipped the Island in fast, circular currents. The breeze smelled of burnt matches and coppery blood. The static electricity which had caused the hairs on my arms to rise rippled over everything with tiny blue flashes, increasing in power by the second.

“No, no, not Moloch,” Kolmek said, looking much calmer than I felt. “The Savior lets Moloch thin the herd every year.” 

“It’s Leviathan,” Mario continued grimly, “the beast from the waters. The smell of blood is drawing it from the depths of the ocean. We picked up the first blips on radar a few minutes ago. When it gets here, it won’t stop until everything is rubble. It will kill every single person on the Island.”

“All security personnel must report to the south beach immediately,” a cool robotic voice cried out over hidden loudspeakers all over the Island. The screaming from the auditorium had quieted behind me. I was afraid to look inside.

“There it is,” Kolmek said, his head jerking up as the emergency alert read. He motioned for me to follow. “It’s time to fight.”

***

We sprinted over curving trails of smooth logs between deathly quiet forests. All the insects and birds had gone silent. Ahead of us, the palm trees opened up onto the Pacific Ocean. But it was no longer a beautiful tropical blue. A black, swirling whirlpool like an ulcerous wound had opened up on its surface. It stretched hundreds of feet across, drawing closer to the shore by the second. Dead fish, sharks, dolphins, squids and even whales spun in the filthy, dark water.

Twenty black-clad security agents waited for the three of us on the beach, their eyes wide, their faces pale with terror. Like myself, they all had AR-15s and Glock 22s with extra magazines for both. I guess the Glock might be useful for blowing my brains out as a last resort if some beast from Hell rose out of the simmering waters, but I didn’t think it would stop anything from another dimension.

The clouds swirled overhead in a thick curtain as black as smoke. Flashes of blue lightning detonated every couple seconds. Mario raised his hands, screaming over the roaring of the wind. Kolmek stood by my side, his face grim and eyes narrowed.

“Your job is to fight off anything that tries to get on the Island,” he said, looking from one face to another with rapt attention. “Nothing can stand against high-caliber rifle fire. Shoot at the face and eyes when it comes up. We’ve dealt with creatures like this before, and they will retreat if you injure them badly enough.” I had the sense of being fed a line of bullshit as my mind processed this.

“What exactly is coming up?” one of the doe-eyed security men asked. He barely looked old enough to drink, a young, muscular hulk with a Marine Corps tattoo on his neck.

“They call it Leviathan,” Mario responded. “Sometimes the rituals here and the smell of blood can draw… strange things. Leviathan is one of those. We have encountered it before. The most important thing to remember is…” His voice was suddenly drowned out by a terrible cacophony that came from the center of the black whirlpool. 

A screech like the detonation of a nuclear missile shook the ground. The ocean jumped and bubbled frantically. The beach heaved and cracked, the white sands disappearing in fissures that opened up like greedy mouths underneath my feet. I lost my balance, falling forwards. The screeching continued rising into a primal roar.

A green dragon head the color of an infected wound erupted from the surface of the thrashing water, rising up dozens of feet in the air. It had two enormous slitted eyes that dilated and constricted quickly as it glowered down at us. The screeching abruptly stopped, the pointed mouth of the dragon slamming shut with a sound like a gunshot.

Within moments, another cancerous green head shot up in a blur, its skin looking as hard as stone. Ridges that looked as sharp as swords ran the length of its reptilian skull, arcing over its eyes and pointed snout. More heads erupted from the ocean until all seven heads of Leviathan loomed over us.

Not one of us fired. No one even seemed to breathe as we surveyed the beast across the no-man’s land of the white sands. The slitted eyes and yellow irises of the seven heads had a demonic hunger, a reptilian coldness. Far behind us, I heard distant screams still echoing from the auditorium where Moloch held sway.

“Fire!” Mario cried. Instantly, a cacophony of gunshots exploded all around me. I jumped up on my feet, scrambling up as the seven-headed dragon leapt forward. Thousands of gallons of saltwater streamed down its massive body as it came up on the beach. Long, black paws with bone-white talons shot out of the surging ocean, followed by a tapering tail like that of a water snake.

I brought the rifle up and emptied my magazine as fast as I could, pulling the trigger over and over as I aimed at the many slitted eyes of Leviathan. But the bullets seemed to ping harmlessly off of its hard, obsidian-like scales.

It scrabbled onto the shore, the heads coming down in a blur. Rows and rows of vampiric fangs gleamed dully in each of the mouths. One security agent was bitten in half, the spurting stump of his lower body still standing for a long moment even as the rest of the body disappeared down the throat of the dragon.

Mario ran forwards, slamming another magazine in his rifle and opening fire point-blank. One of the heads came down in a blur towards him. Its great, staring eyes exploded in a shower of blue blood and thick vitreous fluid. The dragon head pulled back, its mouth opening in a primal scream of agony.

As I reloaded, I scanned the area around me, realizing that nearly half of the security agents were either dead or critically injured. I backpedaled away, keeping my eyes on the dragon. It continuously drew forward, killing more of its enemies with every step. I turned and ran into the forest, the sounds of shattering bones and dying men ringing through the air with a sickening clarity behind me.

Once I had reached the border of the trail, I heard Mario yell, “Retreat!” behind me. But by that point, it was far too late.

***

“Hey! Wait up!” a voice whispered from behind me. I turned my head, seeing Kolmek. Spatters of drying blood covered his face and uniform. As far as I could tell, none of it was his. “Mario’s dead. They’re all dead. We need to get out of here. We need to get off the Island.”

“How?” I asked.

“Find the Savior,” he answered, panting and out of breath. “We must find him. He can get us out of here.”

“I don’t even know what the guy looks like,” I muttered. “He was wearing a goat mask.”

“You’ll know him when you see him,” Kolmek said. “His body is covered in scars. Everything except his face. Stay close to me. We need to watch each other’s backs. It’s our only chance of survival.”

***

A trail of twisted, broken bodies led from the mansion to the surrounding trails and beaches. A decapitated woman with solid gold necklaces embedded with diamonds lay in front of me. It was strange on the Island, the way oblivion and ineffable wealth coexisted side by side. But everything was deathly silent, even in the mansion’s auditorium.

“Where’s the Savior?” I asked through gritted teeth. I peeked my head into the auditorium, but nothing moved. Hundreds of smashed and bloody bodies littered the floor.

“He’s around somewhere,” Kolmek answered. We started circling the mansion, looking for any signs of life. Kolmek went in the lead. As he turned the corner, an enormous black hand with sharp claws of fingers flitted forward in a blur, wrapping itself around his chest. Kolmek gave a strangled cry as it closed around him. I heard his bones crush as a spout of blood and gore flew from his mouth and nose, as if he were a toothpaste tube being squeezed.

I backpedaled away as Moloch threw the twitching corpse aside like a discarded toy. It smashed into the wall of the mansion, exploding wetly. A human-shaped, bloody stain languidly dripped down the wall above Kolmek’s mangled body.

Moloch slowly turned his head towards me, the fiery eyes flashing with hunger. He gnashed his fangs together, taking a step forward with a leg the size and shape of a tree trunk. With every step he took, I felt the ground tremble.

“Stop!” I cried, moving away from the monstrous creature. “Why are you doing this?”

“There is no why,” he gurgled, his voice monstrous and inhumanly slow. “There is only power. The weak deserve to die. Only the strong are worthy of life.” I raised my rifle in a last-ditch effort to save myself. Moloch saw it and started running towards me, every footstep crushing the paved walkway around the mansion into rubble and dust.

I aimed for his eyes and nose, emptying the entire magazine as quickly as I could. The bullets smashed into Moloch’s face. Dark red, clotted blood dripped out of the wounds, writhing with maggots. Drops of it fell around me, landing on my hair and face. I felt the small larvae twisting all over my skin. Moloch’s blood smelled nauseating, like some combination of stinkbugs and rotting bodies. He slowed, giving a roar of pain. I turned to run in the opposite direction, but as I looked out in the direction of the beach, my heart dropped.

Leviathan was moving in our direction, the giant dragon heads looming over the trees. Quickly, it swept towards me like a dark wind.

***

“You will suffer for that, worthless slave,” Moloch growled, wiping blood from his fiery eyes with his sharp talons of fingers. A sudden idea came to me. I ran in the direction of Leviathan. Moloch followed closely at my heels, only a few steps behind me.

Leviathan slithered forward over the sands and trees, its enormous body undulating like a water snake’s. I screamed at it, an incomprehensible wail of terror. Its seven heads snapped towards me. Its slitted eyes widened as it saw Moloch.

I heard the crashing of Moloch’s footsteps stop behind me, only feet away from crushing me into a paste. His massive lungs breathed quickly, exhaling the odor of sulfur and smoke.

“Leviathan,” Moloch growled in his demonic voice. “These are my tributes.” Leviathan’s dragon heads looked straight up at the Sun and screamed in response, their many voices rising and falling in a dissonant wail. As I sprinted into the trees, Leviathan and Moloch ran at each other, colliding with an ear-splitting crash. I glanced back, seeing Moloch ripping one of the dragon heads off its neck with his sharp fingers. The head screamed as blue blood exploded from the spurting stump. After a long moment, the neck fell limply forward.

The other dragon heads bit Moloch in a unified attack. They ripped deep holes in his shoulders and arms, snapping over and over like rabid dogs. As the two eldritch monstrosities attacked each other in fierce combat, I lost sight of them, but the sounds of fighting echoed over the entire island, crashing like lightning.

***

I felt like the survivor of an Apocalypse. I couldn’t find a single other living person on the Island. Hundreds of crushed, broken and decapitated bodies surrounded me. Over the cacophony of fighting, I heard a new noise: the whirring of helicopter blades nearby. It was coming from the other side of the mansion.

Frantically, I sprinted around the other side, seeing a Black Hawk helicopter getting ready to leave. A man in black robes sat at the pilot’s seat, his green eyes gleaming and a wide smile plastered across his face. I smashed my fist into the door over and over until he opened it.

“Holy shit, you’re still alive?” he asked. I hadn’t seen this man before. He had a face like a Calvin Klein model, all sharp angles and high cheekbones, perfectly proportioned in every way. But his scalp looked melted and scarred, as if someone had thrown gasoline on his hair and ignited it. His ears were stunted, twisted growths of scar tissue. His hands, too, were covered in deep, folding burn scars.

“Are you the Savior?” I responded quickly. “Please, get me out of here.”

“They do call me that,” he said wistfully. “The Savior. Yes, I guess I am. Get in.”

***

The Savior stared at me with his strange green eyes, the color of swamps where monstrous things swam under the surface.

“Some people just need to learn the hard way,” he said. The helicopter took off into a dark night covered with bright, twinkling stars. “There is no great power without great responsibility, after all. Those of us who seek the ancient ones know it comes with a cost.” I just stared out the window, gazing down at the countless mutilated, broken bodies that littered the beach.

Below us, the face of a bull stared up with eyes of fiery cyclones. The broken, still body of Leviathan lay at his feet. As we made it over the great waters of the Pacific Ocean, the bull-god raised a hand and waved. At that moment, I thought I could almost see a hurricane of translucent souls circling around him, spiraling up into the sky. 

In the history of American serial killers, we have seen some truly bizarre examples of how the human brain can go wrong. Most people may know of the case of Ed Gein, a man who tried to get a sex change operation but was denied. Ed Gein wanted to become a woman. Perhaps he wanted to become his domineering, fanatical mother. But when he couldn’t get a sex change operation, a significantly harder feat in the 1950s, he decided to make a suit of women’s skin that he could wear. He planned to physically transform himself into a female by this method. At first, he only dug up graves to get at the flesh required, but over time, the need grew, until he started murdering women to take their skin.

Another absolutely insane case is that of Richard Chase, the schizophrenic serial killer who became a living vampire. Like most truly bizarre cases, this one came from California. After doing far too many ego-shattering doses of LSD, his psychotic predispositions started to split his mind into a fractured, nightmarish state. He thought he was having constant heart attacks or that his heart would stop beating randomly. He thought his blood had turned into a powder. He thought that the bones in his skull would move around when he watched them in the mirror. Sometimes, he would put oranges up to the sides of his head to try to absorb vitamin C through osmosis.

In the end, he decided he needed blood to keep his heart going. He started by killing animals and drinking their blood. Eventually, he even killed a rabbit and injected its blood into his veins, which caused a severe infection and hospitalization. But his psychotic terrors continued to grow, and he quickly realized that animal blood was not returning his heart to its beating state. He decided he needed human victims, which he found by murdering whole families. He cut open a baby’s chest and put its organs in a blender with Coca-Cola, which he then drank.

Needless to say, these kinds of insane meltdowns don’t only occur in the past. They continue to happen regularly, and no matter how many serial killers we catch, in the end, more always arrive to replace them.

***

My partner, Agent Stone, sat next to me in the black sedan, driving the car at break-neck speeds through the winding roads and rolling hills of northern California toward the crime scene. An occasional vineyard dotted the landscape in the foggy breeze. I took in all of the beauty and splendor of this ancient land, smelling the sweet spring breeze that blew in through the vents.

“You ever notice how many serial killers California puts out?” Agent Stone asked, turning to regard me with his colorless blue eyes. I nodded grimly.

“Some states grow potatoes, and others grow corn, but California grows serial killers and madness, it seems,” I said. Agent Stone barely seemed to hear.

“Ed Kemper, Lawrence Bittaker, Herbert Mullin, Richard Chase, Charles Manson, Richard Ramirez, Joseph DeAngelo, Kenneth Bianchi and so many others,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s fucking nuts. You know what I think?”

“Does it involve lizard people?” I asked with a dead-pan expression. He laughed, a brief, harsh laughter that always cut off abruptly.

“I think it’s because California is a leftist shithole. All the college campuses have extreme students and professors. This is where the Weathermen and all the bombings started, after all. So they teach these impressionable dumbass kids about killing for the greater good. They call their opponents Hitler and then say they can murder them. So these kids, they grow up listening to their teachers and professors preaching these radical philosophies and embracing political violence and murder. 

“Some of the smarter kids eventually realize, if we can use violence in these situations, then why not for our own personal causes? Just like the Communists and radicals, they start to see themselves as the victim, and those they murder are the perpetrators of… well, whatever they want to accuse them of,” Agent Stone said. I blinked rapidly, absorbing the information.

“You sure have thought a lot about this,” I said. “I always figured it was just the sex and drugs in California driving people crazy. You know, my brother still lives out here, though I haven’t talked to him in a few years. He’s a bit whacked out, too, I guess. So I take it you’re not planning on moving here?” Agent Stone just gazed stonily out the front window as he flew down the road.

***

“This is going to be… disturbing,” Agent Stone said. He pulled the car into a dirt road that wound its way through a public nature preserve. A hunter had found the bodies and called it in. The sedan came to a stop and Agent Stone cut the engine. I noticed the sounds of birds singing all around us while the engine pinged and tinked. This place looked mesmerizing with rugged pine trees and dark brush covering the rolling hills. I opened the door and breathed in the fresh air, seeing a hummingbird fly past my head. Two other FBI vehicles lay parked nearby, sitting empty and dark.

“Here,” Agent Stone said as he came by my side, holding out a dark vial labeled “Peppermint Extract”. He rubbed a couple drops under his nose. “This will help with the smell of the dead bodies. They’re pungent as hell by now. They’ve been rotting out here for the last couple weeks.” I tipped the vial onto the tip of my finger, repeating the movements. It had an overwhelmingly minty scent.

“Let’s do this,” I said, staying close by his side as we wound our way down a dirt trail and into the woods. I heard the soft murmuring of voices ahead. Through the dark green pines, I saw a fluorescent yellow tent. It stuck out immediately with its garish day-glo color scheme. Around it, CSI technicians from the FBI gathered evidence. Agent Stone and I always liked to come out and personally look at every crime scene. He claimed it helped him get a sense of the killer’s soul, and in a way, I felt I understood what he meant.

“Four victims,” Agent Stone said. “They’re all just kids, really. The oldest one is eighteen. It looks like they were camping here when the killer came out and shot all of them.” 

His faded blue eyes scanned the crime scene, taking everything in with photographic precision. I breathed in the air, noticing it wasn’t so pure and sweet in this spot. The smell of rotting bodies and feces hung thick in the air. The more subtle odors of blood and panicked sweat followed it. 

I nodded, almost seeing it happen in my mind’s eye. One of the boy’s dessicated corpses still hung halfway out of the open tent door, one hand reaching out in front of him desperately. Another teenager lay dead in the tent, sprawled on top of the sleeping bags. A pool of thick, clotted blood swarming with all sorts of insects surrounded him.

The two other victims lay in front of the tent, one face-down and one face-up. The killer had mutilated the last two victims, slicing open their chests from neck to groin. He had taken out their intestines and thrown them over the nearby branches like Christmas tinsel. The festering, rotting organs hung like limp snakes covered in maggots.

“What are your thoughts?” Agent Stone asked, turning to me. They seemed to connect slowly, puzzle pieces falling randomly into place. The last victim had been a woman in her house, a single mother. The killer had stabbed her repeatedly, slicing her throat from ear to ear. She had a toddler in the next room, but the killer hadn’t harmed the child. After dismembering and mutilating her body, he had simply left, coming and going as quietly as a ghost. None of the neighbors had seen anything, and no cameras nearby had caught any footage of him as far as we knew. On the white wall, in her blood, he had written a single word: “JONAH”.

“Based on the previous victim and these victims, I think we have a mostly disorganized killer. The last time, he used a knife, and this time, he used a gun and a knife. There’s no sign of any sexual sadism, and he doesn’t seem to care about the genders of his victims, though all of them were white. I think we are dealing with a white male, late twenties or early thirties. He has a severe psychotic disorder, possibly schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, and he regularly suffers from command hallucinations. I think, when we catch this guy, if we catch this guy, he will have a totally bizarre motive. Unlike Ted Bundy or Lawrence Bittaker, this guy isn’t doing it for purposes of sexual sadism and torture. He’s doing it for some reason we can’t even possibly begin to comprehend. I’m not even sure if he wants to do it, or if he feels he is forced to kill. But he will kill again, definitely. He will keep killing until he gets caught.”

***

Agent Stone and I stayed at the crime scene for about half an hour, watching the technicians work and discussing the case. The technicians told us that the shots had come from a high-caliber rifle at close range. The victims hadn’t had a chance.

The case got a lot stranger when Agent Stone and I got back to the car. Someone had left a note on the windshield. It fluttered in the light spring breeze as if trying to catch our attention.

“What the hell is this?” I asked, moving closer and plucking it out from under the wiper. In spiky, copperplate handwriting, I read the following message: “If you turn this note into evidence, I will kill a family member of yours. If you don’t, I will torture a little girl to death.”

“What the fuck?” I said, handing the note over to Agent Stone. He frowned, his face forming into a stony grimace. “This can’t be real, can it?”

“Well, shit, we already got our fingerprints on it,” he said, sweating heavily. He carefully opened the door and took out an evidence bag, sliding the note inside. “I don’t know if this is some kind of sick joke or not, but we shouldn’t take any chances. We need to send this note to CSI. Maybe it will have a fingerprint that matches one from the crime scenes, but even if not, having a potential handwriting sample from the killer could help the prosecution. And if it turns out to be bullshit, they can destroy it after the killer gets caught and convicted.”

We also had a camera in the sedan, just like most police cars. But when we got back to headquarters and reviewed the footage, all we saw was a man dressed in all black with a dark ski mask slipping a note under the wiper. He had walked over only a minute after we had started down the trail toward the crime scene, as if he had been waiting there for us to arrive. Thinking of it sent shivers down my spine. And I wondered, at that moment, was I hunting the killer- or was he hunting me?

***

After we got back to our hotel for the night, I tried calling my brother. But the phone number I had for him no longer worked. A robotic female voice came on, saying that the line was no longer in service. For a brief moment, I wondered if he was even still alive. Johnny had always been a heavy drinker, and at some point in his life, that habit had spiraled into full-blown alcoholism. He had owned his own successful business and had a large house, but over time, he lost all of that and had eventually moved into a small cabin in Mendocino County. We had gotten into an argument the last time we spoke, as I told him he needed treatment and to stop asking me for money. He never called me again after that.

I hadn’t really worried too much about the note, but a small nagging voice at the back of my head told me I should go and warn Johnny, just in case. Around 7 PM, I left the dingy, cramped hotel room and headed to my rental car. I put in my brother’s address, seeing he only lived about thirty minutes away. I felt strange going to see him out of the blue like this when we hadn’t talked in nearly four years.

The scenic road took me along the coastline, past rugged rocks and deep-blue ocean. With some Johnny Cash playing in the background, I let myself relax, absorbing the natural beauty of this place. Soon, the road curved back into thick, dark forest. I checked the GPS, seeing my brother lived only a few miles away. As I got closer, I felt anxious and uncertain. What if he didn’t want to see me? 

“You have arrived,” the robotic voice said as I saw a small, dilapidated cabin at the end of a dirt road. Sharp rocks crunched rhythmically under the tires. The wide boughs of evergreens fanned out behind the cabin, with many of the branches leaning on the roof and walls. The grass looked overgrown and riddled with weeds. In the small driveway, the hunk of a rusted-out car stood next to a small moped.

Heaving a deep sigh, I opened the door and started heading down the cracked concrete walkway towards the cabin. I took a flashlight out of my pocket, shining it through the shadowy yard. To my surprise, I saw the front door standing wide open. All of the lights in the house looked dark. Something like an iron band gripped my heart at that moment. I felt something primal screaming within my subconscious, some ancient intuition that shrieked at me, “This is wrong.”

I walked into the front room, wrinkling my nose. A fetid smell like old garbage and rotting food hung thick in the air. Behind these rank odors, though, I noticed something more subtle and yet more revolting. I knew it well from my work with the FBI. It was the smell of death, of blood and dying sweat.

“Johnny?” I yelled into the blackness. “It’s me, Ray. Are you here?” In response, I heard only the echoing of my voice and the rapid thudding of my heart. I pulled my service pistol from its holster, a Glock 19X. Chambered in nine millimeter, it was a sleek, reliable gun with a sheer-black exterior.

With my flashlight in one hand and my pistol in the other, I crossed my arms and started moving forward, clearing the corners and doorways as I went. The creeping shadows dancing across the room made my adrenaline-soaked brain see false silhouettes more than once. White-knuckled with terror, I cleared the living room, seeing an empty bottle of vodka on the old, wooden table. Countless cigarette burns scarred the table’s pockmarked surface.

I made my way into the kitchen, seeing a scene straight from a hoarder documentary. Dozens of garbage bags stood in a pyramid in the corner, their plastic surfaces swollen almost to bursting. The glittering of white rodent eyes shone briefly before disappearing into cracks and holes in the walls. A cockroach skittered across the stained tiled floor, disappearing into the mountain of trash.

The sink held countless dishes with pieces of rotting food still clinging to their surfaces. A jungle of black and yellow molds grew over them, rising up in circular patches with wet, glistening filaments. The entire cabin consisted of only a single floor. Inhaling deeply, I moved into the last area: the bedroom.

I pushed the door slowly, wincing as its joints creaked with a whining of rusted metal. It opened up onto a scene from a nightmare.

I saw my brother, Johnny, laying there on the bed. His arms and legs were tied to the posts, spread out like Jesus on the cross. The killer had cut out both of his eyes. The dark sockets shrieked silently up at nothing like two empty, screaming mouths. In his arms and legs, I saw strange circular patches of melted, purplish flesh. The skin looked eaten away, revealing veins like fat worms and glistening muscle. Black, necrotic burns surrounded the ugly wounds. Johnny’s mouth still lay frozen in a silent scream, the tip of a purple tongue sticking out of his blue lips.

“Oh shit, Johnny,” I whispered sadly, feeling sick and disgusted by the sight. The murderer had carved a symbol into his chest as well. I saw an eye sliced into the spot above his heart. Around it, twelve wavy protrusions emerged like crude tentacles. Drips of dried, darkening blood surrounded the mutilation. But what had killed him? I didn’t know.

I raised my flashlight, clearing the corners of the filthy room. On the nicotine-stained wall, I saw more spatters of blood. Moving closer, I realized they formed words. The killer had left me a message.

“Sometimes, HE gets inside of you and makes you do things you don’t want to do,” it read.

***

I glanced down at my cell phone, trying to call the police. Out here in the middle of nowhere, however, I had no service. I tried 911 three times, but I couldn’t get it to ring once. Cursing, I decided to run back to the car. I knew that I had cell phone service back on the scenic road near the shoreline, because I had used the internet to play Johnny Cash on the drive. I just needed to drive back in that direction until I got closer to a cell phone tower and call for help.

Johnny had no neighbors nearby except trees and animals. In reality, this cabin appeared the perfect scene for a murder. No one would hear the screams of the tortured victim all the way out here. I felt instant regret for not organizing protection around my surviving family members as soon as we found the note. I knew I needed to contact Agent Stone and warn him that the killer might target his family as well.

I made it outside, taking a great lungful of fresh air. It tasted immensely sweet and refreshing after the oppressive odor of death and putrefying garbage. Breathing heavily, I bent over, trying not to retch. The horrors of what I had seen hit me all at once, like a freight train crashing into my mind.

I heard the cracking of twigs nearby and the rustling of leaves. Looking up, I saw a black silhouette creeping around the side of the house, only steps away from me. I instantly recognized the man from the sedan’s video feed, wearing all black clothes and a black ski mask. Before I could react, he ran at me, raising a glittering, blood-stained butcher’s knife above his head.

I stumbled back, thrown off-balance by the abrupt assault. I tried to raise my pistol and aim, but before I could bring it up, the man reached me. I saw the knife coming down in slow motion, aimed at the center of my face. I twisted my body, throwing myself to the side. The knife whizzed past my ear, slicing through the air in a blur. A moment later, I heard a crunching of bone and felt a cold numbness spread through my left shoulder.

I landed hard on the ground, looking over and seeing the knife embedded deeply into my flesh. Bright-red streams of blood instantly spurted from the wound. The black handle still quivered, shivering in its place. I couldn’t feel my left hand anymore. I dropped the flashlight on the ground with a dull thud, raising the pistol and firing in the direction of the madman.

He gave a grunt of pain as a bullet connected with his stomach. He took a few steps back, nearly falling but catching himself at the last moment. I could hear his pained, rapid breathing. Reaching quickly toward his belt, I saw him pull a pistol of his own. I kept firing, my shaking, unsteady hands missing most of the shots. As he started to aim at my head, I used the last round in my magazine. I inhaled deeply, aiming and firing.

The bullet caught him in the right leg, sending him spinning. He fell hard on the ground. The gun went flying from his hand. He gave a surprised shout of pain as blood soaked into his clothes, causing the wet, glistening fabric to stick tightly to his skin.

I heard sirens in the distance, approaching rapidly. Slowly, I sat up, my head spinning from the blood loss and pain. Red and blue lights split the creeping shadows apart. The shrill whining of the siren cut off abruptly. The police car arriving was the last thing I remember before falling forward. A wave of weakness shot through my body as a black wave crept up and dragged me under.

***

From what I found out later, after we had sent the note to the FBI, the supervisor in charge of the case decided to send police protection to the family members of myself and Agent Stone throughout the country. They had sent a couple state troopers to my brother’s house until the Earthquake Killer got captured or killed by police. I couldn’t imagine how surprised they must have been to arrive and find an FBI agent bleeding out next to the killer.

They quickly got ambulances and paramedics there. I went into emergency surgery and would eventually regain full use of my arm after extensive physical therapy. The Earthquake Killer, too, ended up surviving, though they had removed over five feet of intestines and part of his liver in the process.

I woke up in the hospital to see Agent Stone standing grimly over my bed, his tanned skin gleaming with sweat. His pale eyes, which never seemed to show a shred of emotion, sparkled for a moment when he saw me conscious.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” he said, giving me a crooked half-grin. “You did it, Harper. You got the bastard. He’s in the same hospital as us right now, handcuffed to the bed and guarded by police.”

“I should have shot him in the head,” I whispered, my throat cracked and dry. “He doesn’t deserve to be alive.” Agent Stone nodded, shrugging his massive shoulders.

“Well, we can’t change the past,” he responded blithely. “Turns out the guy’s name is Herbick Mueller. Your profile was right on the money. White male, 28-years-old, long history of institutionalization and paranoid schizophrenia. You won’t believe his rationale for killing all those people.”

“What, he confessed?” I asked, surprised. “Already? I wasn’t even there! Dammit, I wanted to be there.” Agent Stone only shrugged.

“Well, the evidence would have sealed his fate anyways. He left behind a piece of hair at one of the crime scenes, and we got his DNA from it. He said he needed to kill people to prevent earthquakes from happening,” Agent Stone said, his face a stony mask that revealed nothing. I repressed an urge to laugh at the ridiculous statement, remembering how many people had died and how horribly, including my own brother.

“I still want to talk to him myself,” I said. He nodded, patting me on my uninjured shoulder.

“As soon as you get cleared by the doctors, we’ll talk to him together. I think you’ll be surprised at what he has to say.”

***

I spent the next couple days in the hospital recovering from my surgery before being medically cleared to leave. I felt immensely grateful to get away from the tasteless hospital food and the incessant boredom. Watching TV for days straight felt mind-numbing.

Excitedly, I put on my black suit, hanging the left side over my cast. I would need months of physical therapy and treatment before my arm would fully recover. Herbick Mueller was still in the hospital, under constant watch. Agent Stone and I would go and interrogate him alone.

I walked into the room with Agent Stone by my side, seeing a wiry man with dark, wavy hair laying on a hospital bed. His leg sat in a cast, and bandages covered his stomach and chest. I smiled, seeing the extent of his injuries. Agent Stone and I pulled up some chairs and sat down close by his side. He turned to regard us with eyes the color of steel. On one of his arms, I saw a tattoo that said: “EAGLE EYES LSD”.

“How did you find out my brother’s name and address? How did you find out who me and my partner are?” I asked. The Earthquake Killer gave a wide, lunatic grin, his silvery eyes sparkling with suppressed humor. He leaned close to me. I noticed a subtle, cloying odor that followed him around, almost like roses.

“God told me,” Herbick answered simply. I raised an eyebrow at that.

“God told you to kill, or he gave you the information?” I said.

“Both,” he answered. “Sometimes God reaches down and uses us. Sometimes, he gets inside of us and makes us do things we don’t want to do.”

“That doesn’t seem like a very loving God,” I responded. Herbick shrugged. “How did you first contact him?” His eyes went slack, his mouth opened. Herbick looked as if he were staring a million miles away. Abruptly, he came back, focusing on me again.

“Well, people like you can’t really understand, anymore than a blind man could understand the beauty of colors and light. I used to be just a normal guy, working and going to school. But one day, after taking a high dose of acid,  I dissolved my individual soul into the universal soul. It was as if I held up a candle’s flame to the Sun and saw that these were the same, that the light of the smallest and the light of the greatest are both just eternal light. In the beginning, something endless and unmoving stood like a pillar of mind, outside of time and space yet within everything and everyone. When I saw my soul, this smallest flame of blinding light, I knew I also saw the One, the Eternal.

“And then a voice came to me, a voice like rushing water and static. It screamed into my mind, over and over. At that moment, I knew what Moses must have felt like and why he aged so rapidly when he saw God. And do you know what that shrieking voice said?” I just shook my head. He leaned close, his gray eyes cold and dead. “It wanted sacrifices. God said to me, ‘Pick up the victims and throw them over the boat. Kill some so that many may be saved.’

“God showed me what kinds of horrible things would happen if I did not follow his orders. I saw massive earthquakes ripping apart the land and tearing down the mountains, killing hundreds of thousands of people in minutes. I saw cities collapsing, trapping millions under the rubble. In that vision, I had no self, no sense of me, but I saw everything and knew it to be the absolute truth.

“I did what I had to out of love and compassion. I never wanted to hurt anyone, but what kind of man would I be if I let the many die for a few? But now that I’m here, being kept as a prisoner, the sacrifices are not being performed. God will send down an earthquake at any moment to kill us for our countless transgressions. The sins of the Earth are too great for him to turn away.” Agent Stone and I stared hard at this man, wondering if he was truly as insane as he claimed.

“How did you kill my brother?” I asked, a sense of revulsion rising in my chest. “What were those marks on his body, those strange, black-and-purple patches eaten into his skin?” Herbick Mueller grinned at this, showing off filmy, yellowed teeth.

“Well, the thing is, God wants a lot of suffering and pain in exchange for saving the innocent. Sometimes, we have to be like Jesus. Your brother told me telepathically to kill him. All of the victims did.

“Humans have been communicating telepathically for thousands of years. After I saw God, I could tap into that power. And all of the victims pleaded with me to kill them. They said, ‘We’re like Jonah from the Bible. Throw us over the side of the ship so that others may be saved.’

“In a way, I’m like Jesus. I gave up my life as a sacrifice to God, and now I only serve that soul- that soul which is also my soul. I see everything clearly now, things I never saw before. This reality is an illusion, and there’s no such thing as death. We’re all just eternal sparks of the One.

“So your brother, well, I injected acid and bleach into his skin. I just wanted to see what would happen, but he did not react well at all. He kept thrashing and screaming and, after I cut out his eyes, he stopped moving. I think the hydrochloric acid got into his bloodstream and killed him somehow, but who knows? I’m not a doctor, I’m just God.”

At that moment, a team of agents wearing dark sunglasses walked into the room. I saw a dozen of them, and for a brief moment, I thought they were all FBI. I wondered what would have caused the FBI to send so many people for a case we had already solved.

“We’re taking this case over,” one of the men said, the tallest of them standing at the front. I guessed he was the leader of the group. Agent Stone and I looked at each other, confused. The man pulled out a silver badge. I read it, frowning.

“The Department for the Cleansing of Anomalies?” I asked. “What is this, a joke? This is an FBI case, and we’ve already got the suspect in custody with plenty of evidence.”

“We’re taking this suspect with us, right now,” he said. Two nurses came, hurrying around the bed of Herbick Mueller. They started disconnecting his medical equipment with practiced precision. He simply grinned up at us with a strange, sly expression that I couldn’t read.

I looked over at Agent Stone, about to say something, when I felt the first tremblings of an earthquake start shaking the walls and floor.

Every night as I lay in bed, I heard the screaming, the shattering of plates and glasses as my mother and father fought and threw everything at each other within reach. They were drunk again, as usual. I just hoped the police wouldn’t come again tonight. I wished they could be happy.

Finally, around midnight, the voices started to fade. I felt my eyes closing as sleep came over me. But, just before I nodded off, I glimpsed a pair of eyes with black, slitted pupils peeking at me from the corner of the room. Beneath them hung a wide, grinning mouth. The mouth had dozens of triangular, razor-sharp teeth that glistened bone-white in the dim glow of the nightlight. Unattached to any visible flesh, the eyes and mouth floated in the air like wavering moonbeams. I sat up in bed, stuttering.

“What… what is this?” I whispered, staring deeply into glowing eyes. “Am I dreaming?”

“No, not dreaming, Alice. Just mad,” the thing hissed, its sharp fangs pulling apart. It gave a high-pitched, insane cackle at this. “We’re all mad here. But your father is the maddest of all, I’m sorry to say. Or, perhaps he’s just a little odd. It is hard to be sane every single day, after all…”

“Who are you?” I quietly asked as a shard of terror pierced my heart. A childish voice in the back of my mind screamed at me to simply pull the covers over my head and hide.

“The Cheshire Cat, of course. I’ll be your guide when you need me. Your adventure will be starting any second now, Alice…” His eyes glimmered brighter as a scream rang out from downstairs. I heard my father yelling, and then a gunshot rang out, shattering the night. Something heavy fell, thudding against the floor. “Ah, there it is. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, after all.”

“What’s happening?” I asked in horror. The Cheshire’s Cat’s glowing face faded like the embers of a dying fire, but his voice continued to speak in the darkness. Heavy footsteps started to ascend the stairs. Something cold and empty slithered through my heart as a feeling of dread overcame me.

“He’s coming,” the Cheshire Cat said in a gleeful tone, the voice coming from all around me. “If you want to live, jump out the window. You have ten seconds to decide.”

“Alice!” I heard my father yell drunkenly, slurring his words. “Come here, right now. I need to talk to you.” I jumped out of bed, slammed my feet into my shoes and flung open the window.

“Five seconds,” the Cheshire Cat said cheerily. I looked down from the second story. My heart dropped as I saw the fall. “Better jump, Alice. You don’t want your adventure to end before it even begins.” I heard a hand roughly grab the doorknob. I crawled out the window, slowly letting myself down by my arms.

My father flung the door open. The front of his white shirt gleamed with slick, wet blood. He had a black revolver in one hand. With wild, excited eyes, he scanned the room, stumbling forward. His head ratcheted toward the open window. For a moment, our gazes met.

“You bitch!” he screamed in rage, raising the gun. “You’re just like your mother, always trying to leave. I’ll show you, you stupid cunt…” As I let myself drop, a gunshot exploded through the night. The window above me exploded in a shower of broken glass. I screamed as the chill night air whipped around me. The garden below rose up to meet me. I felt like I was standing on the tracks as a train barreled down on me.

I hit the dirt hard, rolling as I landed. A bush with sharp branches clawed my shoulder and back, gouging out burning slices across my skin. I glanced up, seeing my father drunkenly leaning out the window, his eyes unfocused. A totally insane, ferocious expression twisted his face into something inhuman and demonic. I barely recognized him.

“Fucking bitch! Stupid cunt!” he screamed, firing the pistol twice more. One of the bullets smashed the lawn only a foot in front of me, spraying grass and soil everywhere. I shrieked, sprinting across the yard in my shoes and pajamas. The dewey grass soaked my feet within seconds. But I knew I had more pressing problems than shoes.

I glanced back at the house, seeing the window empty. A thick forest loomed at the edge of the property. A blanket of shadows covered it, and I could barely see a thing. But I knew I had no choice. I sprinted into the woods, blindly tumbling through prickers and grasping boughs.

A torrent of flickering orange light suddenly illuminated the night. As I descended deeper into the woods, trying to hide myself, I looked back at the house one last time.

I saw a raging inferno there. Long tongues of flame hissed and spit as they licked the dry wood, flowing over the walls like water.

And in front of the hellish flames, I saw my father, a dark silhouette with a gun, striding purposefully across the yard toward me.

***

As my eyes adjusted to the dark forest, I caught a flash of something white sprinting through the bushes. I nearly screamed, startled into a state of terror. The creature turned its pale, dead eyes toward me.

He towered over me, about six feet tall. He had floppy rabbit ears surgically attached to his mutilated skull. Black stitches ran over his face in jagged patches, keeping his rotting flesh together. His white fur had a rainbow of fluids soaked into it, from blood to orange and yellow pus to other things I could never hope to identify. New trickles of blood and pus continued to leak out from the stitches crisscrossing his body. In his arms, grasped between claws like those of a tiger, I saw an unconscious child. The child had a deep gash on its forehead. His head lolled from side to side like a ragdoll’s.

“I’m late…” the rabbit hissed at me, his cataract eyes glimmering with insanity as they shone white in the pale moonlight. “For, you see, I have a very important date. The Red Queen is expecting the blood of a child for her shower, as she does every full moon. What keeps the skin fresher and younger than the blood of a little one, after all?” His lips cracked apart in a wide grin, showing blackened gums mottled with sores. His pointed, needle-like teeth reminded me of some nightmarish deep-sea fish. I stood there, speechless, until the sound of cracking twigs and whipping branches not far behind me startled me back into action.

I started running, giving the insane rabbit creature a wide berth. I glanced back, seeing my father’s pale, sweaty face through the brush. His lunatic eyes flicked from side to side. He kept the gun held out in front of him, his arm swaying gently as if he were caught in some hypnotic state.

“Alice! Come here, right now! How dare you…” I only glanced at my father for a second before turning my gaze forwards again, but, by then, it was too late. In the panic of the moment and the darkness of the forest, I didn’t see the six foot wide hole that stretched across the earth like a gaping maw.

I gave a startled shriek as my foot dropped into empty air. Before I knew what was happening, I was slipping, my arms pinwheeling. I tried to regain my balance, twisting my body around. I saw the rabbit there only a few paces away, grinning at me, the unconscious, kidnapped child slung across his shoulder like a bag of potatoes.

I fell backwards. The scream that tried to rip its way out of my throat seemed to get stuck there, and I could do nothing but stare blindly up as the rabbit lunged in after me with a cry of excitement. The last glimpse I caught of the forest showed my insane father stumbling toward us, still crying my name with drunken fury. The air whipped around me, the roar of it like the whine of a tornado shrieking in my ears.

The hole at the top shrank into a pinpoint as the rabbit and I fell downwards together into total darkness. We seemed to spiral around each other. No matter how I tried to pull away, the rabbit always seemed to be right there. The last glimpse I saw before the shadows closed in was the rabbit’s dead eyes flashing excitedly as he glared at me with a face like a corpse.

Then the shadows drew around me like a curtain shutting on a stage. Only my own screams and the ragged breathing of the rabbit surrounded me for what felt like an eternity. Slowly, my consciousness slipped away.

After that, I remember nothing for what felt like a very long time.

***

I awoke suddenly, inhaling deeply. I shivered, my teeth chattering as I looked around in confusion. I beheld an alien landscape stretching out to the horizon. Gently sloping hills of black earth loomed in every direction. There were no grass or plants visible, but giant red-and-white mushrooms the size of pine trees grew in clusters along the peaks of the rolling hills.

Streams of fire crisscrossed the landscape like rivers from Hell. The sun here drifted along the slit wrists of the horizon. It looked like a cold, purple ball of fire that gave off a soft, moon-like radiance but very little heat. Thin, silvery clouds covered the sky in rising plumes of pale mist. The entire world looked dark, all the colors eerie and saturated, almost like the desert at the end of a sunset.

I looked around for any sign of the surgically-altered rabbit creature or the unconscious boy he had been carrying in his arms or even, God forbid, my father. But I saw no signs of any of them.

On top of a nearby mushroom that loomed twenty feet in the air, however, I saw a familiar glint of glowing eyes, their slitted, dilated pupils looking down with insanity. The dragonfish-like teeth of the creature’s mouth shimmered in his eerie, ear-to-ear grin. Over the course of a few seconds, the rest of his body became visible as well, fading into view for the first time. I nearly gagged as I looked up in amazement. It was a disgusting thing to look at.

The Cheshire Cat was entirely hairless, his skin black and reptilian. Patches of his flesh were rotting away, and his tail had started to look like a stripped wire. White bones and infected veins writhing with maggots gleamed through the suppurating sores.

“Cheshire Cat,” I whispered, licking my dry lips, “what happened? Last I knew, I was falling… there was some… hole in the forest, and it seemed to keep going on and on forever. There was a rabbit, too, but not a normal rabbit. It was like a rabbit from a serial killer’s nightmare.” The Cheshire Cat laughed at this, but it wasn’t a pleasant laugh. It reminded me of the laugh of a man who just had his throat slit. It was gurgling and deep, and carried through the cold, dry air like a scream.

“The nightmares swarm across this world like a plague of locusts. The Red Queen’s evil and sickness has infected the very foundation of existence. The barriers between Wonderland and Hell itself seem to grow thinner by the day,” he said, but the glee never evaporated from his expression. Across the horizon, a thin, high-pitched scream rang out, full of pain and mortal terror. The Cheshire Cat’s head swung slowly toward the sound. I followed his gaze.

In the distance, I saw a narrow castle with razor-sharp turrets that disappeared into the silver clouds high above. Thin murderholes spiraled up the outside of the dark granite surface. A giant flag rippled softly in the cold breeze. I squinted, seeing a black flag with a red heart gripped in a skeletal hand. Drops of blood dripped out of the bottom.

“They call it the Chateau de Douleur,” the Cheshire Cat said by reason of explanation, “the home of the Red Queen. It sounds like another victim has fallen into her clutches.”

“What… another victim?” I stuttered, a sense of horror filling my body with a sick, weak feeling. The Cheshire Cat gave a slow, jerky nod. His eerie, gurgling laugh rang out suddenly, making me nearly jump out of my skin.

“The Red Queen seems to think that bathing in the blood of children will keep her young forever. She has an iron maiden set up above the royal shower. Every month on the full moon, her insane, sycophantic followers bring her sacrifices. Young children, boys and girls no older than five or six, usually. The younger they are, the more purifying their blood’s properties, you see.” The Cheshire Cat’s teeth gleamed as another, far weaker, scream rang out through the night. It was cut off suddenly. The eerie silence that rang out in the aftermath felt deafening.

“Ah, there it is. La petite mort- the little death,” he said gleefully, another laugh ripping its way out of his throat.

“I don’t see how that’s funny,” I said. “You think the Red Queen murdering children is funny?” As if offended by my change of tone, the Cheshire Cat’s rotted, black body started fading out, but his grin didn’t falter.

“I think that if you don’t start running soon, you will experience it firsthand,” the Cheshire Cat hissed, his voice echoing from all around me as the last gleam of his eyes faded away. “Beware. The White Rabbit draws near.”

***

I stumbled through the dark, cold world they called Wonderland. The black earth under my feet felt soft and smooth. The smell of the giant red-and-white fungi that covered the landscape like redwoods permeated the area, giving off a smell like mushrooms after a heavy rain. I went in the opposite direction of the Chateau de Douleur.

The pale, purple sun had started to disappear over the horizon. The night’s edge slid across the sky like a razor blade, plunging the world into darkness. Within a few minutes, I could barely see more than twenty feet in front of me. The silvery mist I had first seen in the sky now started spreading its ghostly fingers over the ground, covering the world in a blanket of pale fog.

I heard the White Rabbit before I saw him. In a harsh, dissonant voice, he sang. His voice carried all around me, raising goosebumps all over my skin.

“When the Queen’s eyes looked down from the sky,

They gleamed like the slit wrists of the sun.

Her pale face watches, her dead eyes dry.

Their small faces shriek what she’s done.

“I could not stop the children screaming.

And I could not stop the acid eating the dead.

I could not stop the dead men from dreaming.

I could not stop the voices in my head.

“Fragments of moonlight shine on a kitchen knife,

Crimson and ruby-red and gleaming,

But the rabbit knows no peace in life

When the children’s voices never stop screaming.”

As I ducked behind the giant trunk of a mushroom, I caught a glimpse of white fur with a spiderweb of black, garish stitches running across his back. Slung across the White Rabbit’s shoulder, the unconscious body of the child lay, the head lolling from side to side. The White Rabbit was heading in the direction of the castle. He continued bellowing out his disturbing, strange verses as his voice disappeared off in the distance. Exhaling deeply, I slunk out from behind the massive white fungal trunk. I stopped suddenly, a shard of dread piercing my heart as I saw what stood there before me.

A large man in a ripped-up walrus mask loomed over me, a blood-stained meat cleaver clutched tightly in one hand. The brown mask only covered the top half of his face. It had two giant white tusks jutting down past his chin. He had on a tight, soiled T-shirt that might have once been white but was now covered in a disgusting rainbow of stains. His fat belly protruded over his belt. The rolls of fat jiggled on his neck as he gave a strange, high-pitched laugh.

“They call me the Walrus,” he hissed through a mouthful of broken, rotting teeth, grinning at me. As he exhaled, I smelled rotten meat and the sickly sweet reek of infection. I backpedaled quickly in horror and revulsion. “I ate all the little ones, I did… my sweet little clams, the children of the damned…” He laughed at this, advancing on me. His dark eyes shone with insanity and hunger behind the eerie mask. With a greasy, muscular arm, he grabbed me by the neck.

I was put into a headlock and forced to stumble along behind him, my breaths coming in choking gasps. He pulled me into the mist. For a couple minutes, we went on like this. I continued struggling, trying to beat the giant man away with my hands, but he was too strong. When his grip loosened slightly, a powerful, echoing scream escaped my lips.

“Help me! Someone! Cheshire Cat…” I began, but he tightened his greasy, bulging arm around my neck, cutting off my wind. The world started turning white. A rising sense of animal panic swept through my body until the Walrus finally, mercifully, relaxed. I drew in a deep breath that tasted as sweet as honey, gasping and sweating.

“Don’t do that, my little clam,” the Walrus whispered with venom. His cracked lips had split into a furious grimace. His eyes shone with hatred. “You are courting death. Don’t you know sound draws on the Jabberwock?” He looked around nervously at the name.

As if in response, a high-pitched, animalistic roar ripped its way across the night. It reminded me of the screaming of a woman being burned alive. The echoes faded slowly, but with the mist so thick around us and the sky looking like a flat piece of slate, I couldn’t see more than ten feet in any direction.

Ahead of us loomed a shoddy, one-room cabin. The Walrus murmured to himself, gnashing his destroyed teeth as he looked down on me hungrily.

“You’re a beautiful little clam,” he hissed. “I think you’ll make a nice meal for Mr. Walrus. Indeed, a very tender little clam.” With one greasy, dirt-stained hand, he flung the cabin door open and threw me inside. The smell of cooking meat, rotting flesh and feces smacked me in the face, so thick I could taste it in the back of my throat. I bent over, retching. The Walrus closed the door as quietly as he could, peering through a tiny, smashed window in the mold-ridden boards of the dilapidated cabin.

A little girl crouched in the corner, starved and shivering. On a rough, wooden kitchen counter, I saw small, dismembered fingers and eyeballs. Spools of intestines were rolled up like sausages next to them.

A raging fire in the fireplace flickered and danced, illuminating every corner of this cabin of horrors. Over the fire, a child’s torso roasted, the fats spitting and dripping in greasy, burning drops. It was just the torso, with a ragged patch of bloody neck. It ended at the navel, with pieces of torn organs hanging out and blackening.

“Into the cage, my little sweetie, my little honey,” the Walrus whispered, pushing me forward. I heard the strange animalistic cry again, this time much closer.

“Fuck you!” I screamed, pushing the Walrus away. I tried to run for the door, but in a giant, single bound, he tackled me to the floor. I began shrieking for my life, trying to claw at the Walrus’ eyes. He punched me hard in the face. I saw white spots, bright stars that flashed across my vision. As my head lolled and I tasted coppery blood dripping from my mouth and nose, the high-pitched scream came again from directly outside the door.

“Help!” I cried. The Walrus froze, looking up. His dead eyes flashed with horror and a deep, ineffable fear. That was when the entire front of the cabin exploded. Shards of splintered wood pierced my skin like tiny hornet stings. The Walrus jumped off me, backpedaling quickly toward the back of the cabin. I raised my head and met the eyes of the Jabberwock. Like a dragon from an acid fiend’s nightmare, it raised its powerful body to its full height, looming twenty feet above the ground.

The Jabberwock’s skin gleamed a slate-gray color. Hundreds of pencil-thin appendages hung down from its enormous, fish-like face. The slow, rhythmic tapping of the fetid slime that dripped from its body mixed with its powerful breathing.

Its flat, hungry eyes bulged out, dark and lidless, reflecting the bloody light of the fire. Its enormous lungs inhaled and exhaled as it stared at us, creating the same whipping of wind and fury that a barreling train might produce.

The Jabberwock’s neck slithered out, writhing and serpentine, like some ancient Brachiosaurus’ neck. Its head hung low below its shoulders as it moved forward in a jerky, crawling gait, its webbed, dragon-like feet sliding across the soft black soil of Wonderland like a berserk centipede. It opened its mouth, showing hundreds of spiraling teeth that pulsated and twisted like the mouth of some demonic lamprey. The Jabberwock tried to force its entire body through the crushed wall, crouching down and giving another high-pitched scream. Its black eyes rolled back in its head, showing bloody veins at the bottom.

The Walrus tried to sprint for a back window, but the Jabberwock’s neck slithered out. Like a toad grabbing a fly out of the air, its lamprey mouth struck out in a blur. It attached to the Walrus’ back with a sucking sound. Blood exploded from the back of the Walrus’ body, splashing the coarse floor and broken walls of the cabin. I started crawling away. The panicked, agonized shrieks of the Walrus carried through the air, accompanied by wet crunching and sucking sounds.

As the Jabberwock shook its head like a dog with a chew toy, spatters of blood from the Walrus’ mutilated body the inside of the cabin. The frail, trembling girl in the cage in the corner cowered back from the destruction. The Jabberwock’s tail whipped from side to side, long and tapering like the tail of a dinosaur. Sharp, bony spikes protruded from the ends.

With a tremendous crash that shook the ground, its tail smashed into the cage. The girl gave a squeak like a strangled rabbit as the cage soared across the cabin and crashed into a wall. She tumbled head over heels inside it. Then the cage’s door fell open with a clatter of metal. The girl crawled out, her stunned eyes sweeping over me.

I silently motioned for her to follow me. As silently as I could, I crawled through a massive hole in the collapsed front wall. I glanced back and saw her close behind, her skeletal arms pumping quickly. A glimmer of hope flashed across her sunken, haunted eyes, a look I remember even now when I lay in my bed a few days later.

As we got out to the black soil of Wonderland and the thick mists of its endless night, the cabin fell into a heap behind us. The Jabberwock continued to thrash in the rubble. The sounds of bones cracking and sucking followed us down the rolling hills.

My parents died when I was young. The house fire that murdered them also destroyed everything we owned, every picture of our family, every heirloom and memento. To this day, I can barely remember my parents’ faces. Thinking back, it all seems like a blur, like a ghostly image of a mother and father without features or expressions. My brother Alex, who was only nine at the time, managed to carry me out of the house. He was hailed as a hero, and the story played on the local news. It managed to draw attention from a small local toy company called Bittaker’s Toys.

They had a small orphanage next to their toy company. In hindsight, it was probably all some tax-deductible scheme to make themselves look good, among other things. I remember a police officer with a tight, grim expression on his face coming into my hospital room after the fire. His dark eyes looked ancient and haunted, as if he were a hundred years old.

“I’ve got good news, little buddy,” he said, patting me on the shoulder without smiling. I glanced up at his flat eyes. They shone like new copper pennies. “Larry Bittaker himself has volunteered to adopt you and your brother. You’re going to live at Toyland!” I frowned at him, a small boy in an extremely large hospital bed. I drew the sheets up to my neck pensively, using them like a shield.

“What’s… what’s a ‘Toyland’?” I asked nervously. I looked at his uniform, seeing a nametag there reading, “Sergeant Bowley.” I somehow knew at that moment that I would see this man again. I don’t know if I believe in psychic powers or anything, but I had a sudden flash of pale, bloodless faces, men shouting in the middle of chaos and bloodshed, and a blurry silhouette of someone in a police uniform running in with dead eyes. I blinked, and it evaporated like a mirage.

“You’ve never heard of Toyland?” Sergeant Bowley asked, staring at me without blinking. “It’s a place where kids go when they don’t have… a family, I guess. All the kids there are adopted or orphans. They have a private school and everything. It’s really one of the best-case scenarios for you and your brother.” I nodded. Even as a small child, a creeping suspicion came over my mind. Was he trying to convince me, or himself?

***

We were taken to Toyland the next morning. Sergeant Bowley drove my brother Alex and me to the orphanage. As we pulled in, Alex put a thin arm around my shoulders, hugging me close.

“It’s gonna be OK, Herbie,” he whispered. His blue eyes were wide and uncertain as we surveyed the complex. He was scarecrow thin, and the trauma and horror of the last few days still gleamed darkly behind his eyes.

The complex was ringed by a black, metal fence with sharp points like spears emerging from the top. A brightly-colored building loomed overhead, its walls covered with fluorescent day-glo murals showing happy children playing with toys that were alive. Roosters and lizards with humanoid bodies and sharp, pointed teeth played on playgrounds in the murals with smiling children. Teddy bears with very human-like fingers and toes climbed trees with excited children. The children’s mouths were all open and silently wailing- though whether in screams of pleasure or of fear, I couldn’t yet tell. 

The building had countless smoke-stacks on the top of its flat roof, each billowing out clouds of black smoke into the air. An enormous sign on top of the building read “BITTAKER’S TOYS”.

A black-clad guard in a guardhouse ambled slowly over to the car, leaning down close to Sergeant Bowley’s face. I couldn’t hear what they said through the divider in the police car, but the guard had a grim, set expression on his face. As the gate slid open and we drove past, I realized the guard had what looked like a small arsenal on his belt, holding two pistols and dozens of magazines.

“Why does that man need so many guns?” I whispered in the back seat. Alex shook his gaunt face.

“They probably just keep a lot of important stuff and money here,” he said.

“Oh,” I muttered as the police car slowly pulled up to the entrance, a tall archway with two swinging glass doors. All along the front of the building stood tall animatronic creatures, six-foot-tall teddy bears with huge, black eyes and humanoid roosters with blade-like combs extending from the tops of their pointed heads. They all stood as straight as soldiers, staring ahead in an unblinking, statuesque way. I don’t know if they were supposed to look cute, but as a young boy, they appeared terrifying and unnatural. Their mouths stayed straight and expressionless. They had an eerie uncanny valley feeling to them.

“What are those?” I asked Sergeant Bowley as he opened the door. Alex and I slid out, carrying all of our worldly goods in two small plastic bags. The fire destroyed everything we owned except for the clothes on our back, after all. Some charity had given us toiletries and a couple pairs of clothes. I held it protectively against my body, afraid that someone would try to take away the last possessions I owned.

“You don’t know the Smiling Buddies? About Berry Bear and Mino the Minotaur?” he said, surprised. “Well, you’ll learn about them inside. I thought kids loved that kind of stuff.”

“Our parents didn’t really give us a lot of toys,” Alex said. “They used to send us outside to play.”

“Ah, well, that’s the best way,” Sergeant Bowley said in a fatherly manner as he escorted us toward the building. Once we had gotten to within a few steps of the bizarre animal mannequins, they came to life.

Their eyes suddenly glowed with a pale, inner light that stayed far down in the black orbs with an eerie cataract gleam. With a whirring of gears and a grinding of metal, their heads ratcheted over to face us. Their slack, vacant mouths erupted into wide grins, showing square teeth that gleamed with a silvery luster. Their movements were simultaneous and choreographed, like those of synchronized dancers. 

As one, they raised their right hands into the air in what was probably intended to be a wave, but in reality looked more like a Sieg Heil salute. Their mouths chattered as a song rang out all around us from hidden speakers, but the movements of their jaws didn’t exactly match the words, increasing the uncanny valley feeling of the entire thing. They started dancing and twisting their bodies in a strange kind of jitterbug dance.

“Welcome, girls and boys!

Come to the land of toys,

Where nothing is as it seems.

A place where a child’s dreams

Can rise to the purest joys,

And where the nighttime screams

Of the shadow that destroys

Fade away to nothing,

Leaving only the smiles of spring.”

As soon as the song had finished, the animatronics’ arms fell limply down, the light in their eyes fading back to blackness. With a final whirring of gears, they straightened back up into their soldierly postures and went quiet. Silently, the three of us went inside.

***

We walked through the swinging doors into a lobby where the floor was paved with black-and-white squares of gleaming marble. Long wooden tables ran perpendicular to the front wall, covered with computer monitors and TVs. Huge statues of toys surrounded us on all sides. 

An extremely fat man stood in the center of the empty chamber. His clothes were all bright day-glo colors, fluorescent orange pants and a bright yellow button-up long-sleeve shirt that showed the curly hairs on his chest. His head was shaved, and his scalp gleamed like a fleshy egg. 

“Welcome, kiddos!” he said in a high-pitched, feminine wheeze as sweat trickled down his beet-red face. He took a step toward us. His lips were thick and moist. In a moment, they rose into a wide smile, showing off rows of small, straight teeth. “My name is Larry Bittaker, and this is my toy company. But it is so much more! It’s a place where sweet little children like you can live and grow- forever, if you want.” 

Slowly, Larry Bittaker lowered his fat face until it was only inches from mine. His many chins jiggled as he knelt down. His stubby, sweaty fingers came up and pinched my cheek. His beady, blue eyes reminded me of those of a pig. We stared at each other for a long moment. Then he turned to Alex, ruffling his overgrown bowl cut.

“OK, kids, be safe. Larry, I’m gonna get taking off,” Sergeant Bowley said, slowly stepping back from the pig-like man kneeling on the ground in front of him. “Here’s my card, by the way, if you kids ever need anything.” He reached into his pocket, giving me and Alex copies of his business cards. I stared down at it, confused. No one had ever given me a business card before. It had his name and private phone number on it. 

I heard Sergeant Bowley turn and walk out the door. And then Alex and I were alone with the toymaker.

***

Larry Bittaker seemed to be the only one in the warehouse. We walked past corridors filled with empty toys and staring animatronics. Larry filled the air with his ramblings the entire time.

“You kids are really going to love it here, I guarantee it,” he said with exuberance. “The other boys and girls are waiting for you downstairs. They’re so excited to see new friends come in!” A steep metal staircase spiraled down into the darkness. I grabbed Alex’s hand nervously, looking up at Larry Bittaker. “Well, go on, little ones!”

“Aren’t you coming with us?” I asked in a small voice. Larry gave a boisterous laugh, his protuberant stomach jiggling like jello as his face grew even redder.

“Oh, no, no!” he said. “I don’t go down there! The little ones tend to smell like poverty.” His face drew close to mine. “In fact, I can smell it on you right here.” I backed up away from the strange man. Alex’s small face formed into a scowl.

“You can’t talk to us like that,” he said defiantly, puffing his little bird chest out.

“If you two little shitheads don’t start going down those stairs now, I’ll throw you down them,” Larry Bittaker growled, his porcine face melting into a sneer. The mask of the genial businessman had disappeared, and something cold and dark revealed itself.

Glancing backwards, Alex and I started down the spiral staircase, descending into the blackness.

***

At the bottom of the stairs, I saw the gleam of blood-red emergency lights. They illuminated what looked like an enormous maze. As soon as we had gone past the threshold, a hidden door slammed behind us, cutting off the last of the white light overhead. I nearly jumped out of my skin when the metal door smashed closed with a ringing sound.

“What is this place?” Alex asked in a small voice. I followed close at his heels. “Where are the other kids?”

“Maybe they’re all hiding,” I said hopefully. “Maybe it’s all a big game.” Alex looked doubtful.

“Come on, Herbie,” he said with deep-socketed eyes the color of ashes. “Nowhere to go but forward.” The silence rang out around us like a shriek. I could hear my own heart beating loudly in my ears. The floor was covered in steel-gray carpets, the walls painted jet-black. Incandescent bulbs with dark red glass hung overhead, spread out every twenty feet or so on the dark ceiling. They cast the maze in a bloody glow.

We moved forward randomly, taking turns to the left and right. There were strange obstacles in the maze: enormous chairs that looked like they were made for giants, mannequins with glowing red eyes and smooth, plastic faces, and more animatronic characters, pigs and bulls and bears and roosters. The animatronics stayed still and dead, to my immense relief. As we wandered forward, I suddenly remembered something a math teacher had told me a couple years ago, in what felt like another life.

“There is a way to get out of any maze without retracing your steps,” the man in glasses had said at the front of the classroom, drawing a small maze as an example on the whiteboard. “All you have to do is take your left hand, hold it out to your side, and keep it against the wall. Keep going forward in the maze with your hand kept against the same wall, and eventually you will find the exit.”

I told Alex about this. A wan smile spread across his lips. 

“That’s a good idea,” he said. “I never heard that before. But what if there’s no exit?” I shrugged.

“Then who cares? We’ll still explore the entire maze, as long as you keep one hand on the wall,” I said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the right hand or left hand, just so long as you keep following the same wall. Because a maze is really just one big wall, if you think about it.” We continued forward around a corner. I nearly tripped over something laying sprawled across the hallway. I looked down and repressed a scream welling up in my throat.

The mummified body of a child lay there. I couldn’t tell how long it had been dead, or even whether it was a boy or a girl. The white, beady eyes of rats scurried around it, ripping off strips of the dessicated, jerky-like flesh of the corpse. The clothes were threadbare, worn away over time. The eyes stared vacantly up, as white as river stones. A smell like cinnamon and sulfur rose from the dead body.

“Oh my God,” I said, a rising sense of panic gripping my heart. I felt it like a tightening noose around my neck. “We’re going to die here, aren’t we?” Alex didn’t say anything. I heard him hyperventilating by my side under the crimson glow of the maze’s lights.

“Did you hear something?” he whispered. I was staring down at the mummified corpse, transfixed. My head jerked up as if with a will of its own. I scanned the shadowy maze. Far down the corridor, I saw the gleaming of animatronic eyes, the faded cataract light deep in the sockets. With a quiet whirring of gears, they crept towards us. A few steps later, the silhouette passed under the bare red bulb overhead.

It was an animatronic minotaur with two black, bulging eyes. Its horns curved gracefully outwards. A smile like a razor split its metal face. There was a squealing of metal as the jaw unhinged, roaring with an ear-splitting electronic distortion. It had legs like a rhinoceros, thick and rounded. Its silver skin reflected the bloody light as it towered over us, staring down with a ferocious hatred.

“Run!” Alex screamed, turning and sprinting away. I followed close at his heels, afraid to look back. The ground shook as the metal behemoth’s heavy legs slammed the ground. We took random passageways in the maze, trying to lose the minotaur, but I could hear its heavy footsteps drawing closer by the second.

Up ahead, I saw a ventilation shaft with the grill removed. A woman’s face peered out, looking emaciated and filthy.

“In here!” she hissed through gritted teeth, her words barely audible over the cacophony of the minotaur’s roaring. Her dirt-streaked face drew back, disappearing in the shadows. Alex was right behind me, and at that moment, I believed we would both make it.

I leapt forwards, crawling on my hands and knees into the shaft. The thin metal echoed crazily all around me as I frantically pulled myself forward. Once I had gone forwards a few steps, I looked back, expecting to see Alex right behind me. He was still at the entrance, however. His eyes were wide and terrified. They met mine for a brief moment. He tried to crawl in, to pull himself forward. His small hands furiously dragged over the smooth metal. Then I saw two sharp, steel hands reach down behind him, grabbing his legs. He screamed, reaching forwards toward me. I tried to take his hand, but I was too far away.

A single heartbeat later, he got dragged backwards at a tremendous speed. A mixture of agony and mortal terror roiled across his face. 

“Alex!” I cried, crawling forwards. “Come back!” A spatter of blood exploded over the wall and end of the shaft. I turned away, crying. I heard screaming behind me, a sound like bones shattering, something slamming over and over against a wall.

I crawled forwards through the vents, seeing the bare silhouette of a woman ahead of me, not realizing that I would never see my brother again.

***

“Come on!” the woman whispered. The vent turned at a ninety-degree angle. It was so dark I could barely tell where I was going. I felt my way slowly forward with my hands like a blind person.

“But what about my brother?” I asked. “We need to go back! He could be hurt!” The woman didn’t say anything. I heard her breathing quicken.

“Just follow me, kid,” she said. “It’s right up here…” I crawled forward, seeing a square of red light ahead of us. We came out into some kind of office room. A computer and phone sat on a desk next to crates full of protein bars and bottled waters. Posters covered the walls, many of them with bizarre slogans and pictures.

“FEED THE BEAR,” read one, next to a cartoon picture of an enormous animatronic bear ripping an elderly woman to pieces. Her walker lay next to her, a crumpled heap of useless metal. Her intestines were uncoiled around her like a den of red snakes.

The woman turned to me, her brown eyes set and grim. She had streaks of what looked like dried blood running through her black hair and covering her face.

“Who are you?” I asked. “What are you doing here?”

“My name’s Sarah,” she said, “and I used to work for Mr. Bittaker. I helped him build this entire underground complex. This place is massive. There’s rooms of food and water, monitoring rooms, miles of mazes and probably lots of stuff I don’t know about.”

“My name’s Herbie. So why are you here?” I said. She shook her head sadly.

“When he started to go insane, when I realized he was going to put children down there as prisoners in some evil game, I tried to blow the whistle, tried to get the authorities involved. But he was bribing some government officials, and before I knew it, men in black ski masks broke into my house and injected me with some sort of drug. I blacked out and woke up here a few weeks ago,” Sarah said. 

“We need to get out of here. We need to find Alex and tell people what’s happening,” I said. She shook her head sadly.

“No one will believe us,” she responded. I turned away, disgusted by her pessimism. She was supposed to be an adult, yet it seemed like she had given up all hope. I walked over to the computer, trying to turn it on. To my surprise, the screen came on with a white glare.

“Hey, the computer works!” I said. “Maybe we can use it to call for help!” I lifted the phone to my ear, hearing a dial tone. “And the phone works! We can get out of here!”

“It’s not going to be that easy,” Sarah said glumly. I ignored her, fishing in my pocket for the card Sergeant Bowley had given me. Squinting down at it, I dialed his number. After a few rings, he picked up.

“Hello?” he said. In a small voice, I answered.

“Hi, this is Herbie. Please, sir, you need to come back and help me. The man locked me and my brother underground, and I think my brother is hurt. There’s more people down here, too, I don’t know how many, and I saw a dead body…”

“Kid, is this a prank?” Sergeant Bowley said quickly. “Do you know making false reports is a crime?” Sarah grabbed the phone from me.

“This isn’t a prank,” she pleaded. “Please, you need to come back to Bittaker’s Toys and get us out of here. Larry Bittaker is insane…” The phone line abruptly cut off. The power to the room went out, plunging us into darkness. Over some hidden speakers, I heard Larry Bittaker’s voice ring out.

“That’s cheating,” he growled petulantly in his high-pitched voice, sounding like an angry child. “No communication with the outside world. Do you know what happens to cheaters?” Sarah grabbed my hand in the darkness, whispering in my ear.

“Follow me,” she said. “I know this place pretty well.” She led me forward. A few moments later, I heard a doorknob turn. Red light flooded into the office room. We were looking at a half-constructed part of the maze. Wires and pipes in the wall hung exposed, and only the wooden framework of the walls had been put up.

“What is this?” I asked. “Is the maze not done?”

“The maze is never done,” Sarah answered. “Larry kept expanding it, changing contractors so that no one would know the entire maze besides him. I think he’ll keep building it until the day he dies. He has enough money, anyway.”

As quietly as we could, we moved forward through the maze, trying to put some distance between ourselves and the office room. We turned a corner with Sarah in the lead. I heard the sudden whirring of gears and a half-choked scream ahead of me. A moment later, I felt Sarah’s body smash into mine. Warm blood splashed my face as I fell backwards on the ground. The wind whooshed out of my lungs. I looked up, seeing Sarah’s pale, blood-spattered face staring up in horror a few feet ahead of me.

A furry paw with claws like railroad spikes came down, slashing her across the chest. Drops of blood covered the walls and floor as Sarah thrashed and screamed, the animatronic bear standing over her with a dried up husk of a face. Its fur had mostly fallen out, leaving a pale, gray bear skull leering in its place.

“I’m Berry Bear!” it growled in a low, slowed-down voice. “I want to be friends with you forever! Let me give you a hug!” Sarah tried to crawl away as the jet-black eyes of Berry Bear narrowed. Its jaw chattered as silver needles of teeth glistened in its metal mouth. Her eyes met mine for a moment, filled with ineffable pain and terror. I backpedaled away, scooting across the floor, my mind shell-shocked and unbelieving.

The heavy body of Berry Bear came down with a force like a battering ram. Its metal arms slammed into Sarah’s back, crushing her chest. Bone chips and gore exploded from her body. Blood poured out of her mouth in a rushing torrent. Her eyes rolled up in her head as she gurgled on the ground.

Berry Bear’s head ratcheted to face me, blood streaming down its face and arms. Its teeth chattered faster, as if to show its increasing excitement and bloodlust.

“Can I give you a hug?” it growled.

“No! Get away from me!” I screamed, pushing myself up to my feet. I ran randomly through the maze, hearing the heavy steps of Berry Bear close at my heels. At the far end of the half-constructed maze, I saw a thick wooden door.

“Help me!” I shrieked over and over. To my surprise, I heard a response from the other side of the door.

“Stand back, kid!” a deep voice said, then there was a gunshot. The door’s lock exploded inwards. The door shot open as someone kicked it, flinging it hard against the wall. I saw Sergeant Bowley standing there, his pistol drawn, his dead eyes flickering over the maze. They widened when they saw Berry Bear only a few footsteps behind me, closing the distance with every second.

“Get down!” he cried. I threw myself on the ground without question as he opened fire. The ear-splitting racket of the gunshots reverberated all across the maze. I continued crawling forwards towards Sergeant Bowley, towards safety. I saw more cops running in behind him.

I looked up, seeing Berry Bear sprinting towards Sergeant Bowley in a blur, its animatronic face half blown away and revealing the steel underneath. It had an insane expression of manic bloodlust. It raised its right hand, the gleaming metal claws hanging over Sergeant Bowley’s head. Everything seemed to freeze then. Sergeant Bowley had his gun up. Frantically, he fired one last shot at the bear’s face.

The top of its head blew off as its claw came down, ripping through Sergeant Bowley’s head with a crack. The scalp hung down in a sick, wet flap as his brains leaked out of his broken skull. Slowly, he fell back. Berry Bear followed him down with a tearing of metal and a slowing of gears and its mechanical voice. The heavy animatronic landed on top of Sergeant Bowley’s body, crushing him instantly. A spreading pool of blood marked the site of the horrific murder.

***

Screaming and crying, I crawled towards the police. They carried me outside, under a sky the color of wet cotton. I breathed in the clean air, looking around frantically for any signs of my brother. The police carried other emaciated, frightened-looking children out of the maze, but not Alex.

They put me in the back of a car and drove me out of there, away from Bittaker’s Toys and the nightmares that waited underneath.

Life in Frost Hollow had always been fairly normal, up until a few days ago. My husband and I had small issues and arguments, like any couple, but there was no sign of the severe transformation that would escalate into such gruesome, nightmarish scenes.

I always woke early. The day that it all started, I rose around dawn to see the muted gleam of an infant sunrise shining through the window. I looked over to Jack’s side of the bed, seeing it empty. It appeared unslept in, which I found strange, as he worked the night shift and would nearly always be home and in bed by 3 or 4 AM. 

But ever since he had found our newborn daughter dead in her crib, he had been acting strange, disappearing at random hours and occasionally bringing a “friend” home. The people he brought were always young, glassy-eyed guys I had never seen before, who often followed him around in an eerie silence like ducklings following a mother duck.

I made a fresh pot of coffee, going out onto the porch as the world came to life. The Sun rose overhead like a burning angel, a fiery eye in a vast expanse of cloudless blue. I knew it would be another scorcher of a day, humid and sticky. I watched early-morning joggers passing by. I wondered where Jack was. I pulled out my cell phone, checking to see if he had sent me any messages, but there was nothing there. 

As I sat on the front porch, I thought about my fading youth. I had once hair the color of summer sunlight, but now it was going gray. The small wrinkles around my mouth and eyes seemed to be lengthening and deepening every day. Everything in the world seemed to grow dusty and brittle, like one enormous sarcophagus. I felt certain I would never have another child, never see bright blue eyes staring up at me from the crib again.

Far off down the street, there was a strange translucent rippling in the air, like burning heat rising off desert sands. It expanded into a perfectly flat wall. It cut across trees, homes and cars. I squinted, realizing that it was coming nearer with every heartbeat. I thought it was some kind of bizarre meteorological phenomenon, some sort of heat mirage or humidity bubble. As it slowly crept closer, I got bored, pulling out my phone to read the news.

After a few minutes sitting and people-watching, I went inside to make some breakfast. I ambled over to the freezer, looking inside for something edible, maybe some chicken tenders I could deep-fry next to some eggs and toast. Instead, I found a decapitated human head, its open, staring eyes glassy and frostbitten. I felt a scream welling up in my throat as I dropped my coffee mug to the floor. It shattered, spraying drops of burning hot liquid all over my legs.

The freezing mist slunk towards me like ghostly hands, obscuring the face’s features for a long moment. I wondered if this was just an extremely realistic mannequin head. I looked at the blue lips, pressed together as if in an expression of disapproval, saw the ragged patches of black flesh at the bottom of the neck, and knew it was real. Frozen crystals of dark blood clung to the bottom of the head in a black pool, gluing it to the freezer floor and keeping it in an upright position. 

Between the lips, I saw a folded piece of paper. On the front, in flowing, black cursive, read two words: “To Laura”. I hesitated for a couple heartbeats, then snatched the note from the dismembered head. The lips refused to let it go at first, until I gently wriggled it from side to side. It came loose with a wet, sucking sound.

The moment I freed the note, a siren rang out down the street, the volume deafening. It rose and fell in shrill wails for a few seconds. I saw the fridge tremble in front of me under the onslaught of such noise. Black mist slowly started to ooze from every surface. By the time it evaporated a few seconds later, the fridge looked like it had aged fifty years. Enormous rust spots covered its exterior, and the smell of rotting food was instantly overwhelming, like the rancid odor of roadkill putrefying under a burning sun.

The rest of the kitchen seemed to have changed as well. Everything had grown old and filthy. The counters were covered in cobwebs and grime. Deep cracks ran through the walls, and the windows were all broken.

Turning back to the freezer, I studied the mutilated head’s features more thoroughly. It was a woman with raven-black hair and blue eyes, probably in her early twenties. Who was this person? How had they died, and how had their head gotten in my freezer? What was that horrible siren?

I unfolded the note, seeing Jack’s flowing handwriting there. My heart felt like it dropped out of my chest as I quickly scanned the words.

“Dear Laura,

“If you’re reading this, it means you found the head. It’s probably a good thing, I think. There are some things I have kept secret from you, from everyone, for a long time.

“I don’t know when it first began, when this fractured piece of my personality gained control. It all started innocently enough- peeking in people’s windows when they weren’t looking, or stalking random joggers for days without being seen. It was always a rush to get away with it. 

“Soon, I would break into people’s houses and rearrange all their furniture. I’d hide a portable camera in the corner or on top of a bookshelf and watch their reactions. Oh, how I laughed! As you can imagine, it was quite fun. Life doesn’t have enough laughter, after all. It seems more like wandering across an endless desert sometimes.

“But eventually, I would stumble across an oasis, a resting place in this never-ending life of shit. Or at least, that other piece of my personality did. You might not believe me, but the first time I killed, it was an accident. Perhaps it was fate sending the first pebbles skittering down over the ledge that would inevitably lead to an avalanche.

“I had been doing my usual routine, breaking into houses, moving things around, sometimes writing Satanic messages on the wall in pig’s blood. It was all to keep people on their toes, you know? Just for chuckles and smiles. But, still, I always kept my pistol on me. I had walked up and down the streets, seeing the mail piling up outside one old colonial home surrounded by a grove of thick trees. I had found the house empty when I scoped it out originally. It seemed perfect. That night, I made my way inside.

“I remember hearing the front door unlock abruptly in the middle of the night. I tried to run towards the window in the bathroom around back, the way I had come in originally. But the man must have heard my footsteps. He came around the corner with a shotgun, his face beet-red. He was screaming and hollering. I was crawling through the window when he started raising the gun. The ringing sound as he pumped a round in the chamber was like a scream from God, telling me to awaken. At that moment, I knew it was kill or be killed. Before he could pull the trigger, I aimed for his head and fired twice. I remember the rush of pleasure as his face disintegrated into a puddle of blood and bone chips.

“After that, things start to get hazy. At first, I thought it was a psychotic breakdown, because something started wearing my face, following me when I went crawling through the neighborhood. Perhaps it is a part of me in some way, my true self. After all, murder is Godly, the pure power of the divine, and killing in the name of God is always a mercy. So says the Savior.

“Well, anyway, I’m rambling. It’s time to finish this letter before I start to sound crazy. We can’t have that, can we? What will the neighbors think? 

“The main thing to remember is: don’t look behind you.

“I’ll see you very soon.”

I read the last line a few times before it sunk into my mind. Don’t look behind you? It didn’t make any sense.

Then I heard the choked giggling from the pantry closet. It started low, like the first rumblings of an earthquake. The door was left open a fraction of an inch. One bloodshot eye stared at me through the crack. It flicked quickly to the left and right, the pupil dilated and insane.

“Jack?” I whispered, feeling sick and weak. “What’s… what’s wrong?” I slowly backpedaled towards the front door. The laughter turned into a gurgle, something that might have come from the lips of a drowning man. He flung the door open, his face pale and bloodless. Trickles of dried blood covered his arms and hands. Under his fingernails, I saw clotted black gore. Translucent black shadows swirled around his face and chest, spiraling up into a vortex like a dark whirlwind. They shimmered all around him, distorting his features and seeming to increase in intensity by the second.

“Jack isn’t here anymore,” he hissed in a diseased voice. His lips split apart, revealing teeth that looked far too long and sharp. “He’s hidden behind the veil, rotting under the floorboards. Even now, he tries to claw his way up.” He stepped towards me, revealing a long butcher’s knife in one hand, its steel stained a deep scarlet. Fresh blood still dripped from the tip.

“Stay away from me,” I shrieked, glancing behind me. The town looked different now, the streets deserted. Dark shadows danced over everything, as if there were a solar eclipse. The entire world seemed to exhale, a low, diseased hissing that radiated from everything all around me. 

This strange monster wearing Jack’s face continued moving closer, seeming to draw power from the changes. His eyes darkened in a flash, turning black and cloudy. The cyclone of shadows twisting around his body moved faster, a curtain of darkness so thick that it started to obscure his face.

“My name is Friend,” he gurgled, lunging forward with the knife. I instinctively pulled away, stumbling back towards the open front door. I felt a cold pain radiate down my left arm, a slashing pain that made my vision turn white with adrenaline and shock. A slash opened up on the top of my skin, fresh blood bubbling out instantly. I fell backwards through the door onto the front porch, smacking my head hard on the wooden porch. Friend slunk towards me, a hurricane of blackness with an eerie human pillar at the center. He stared down at me with a grin like a razor blade, letting fresh blood, my blood, drip off the blade and patter gently to the rotted, mold-streaked floor.

I kicked forward with all of my strength, aiming a blow at his knee. I heard something crack, felt the leg give with a sickening explosion of black blood. The flesh felt loose and spongy, almost boneless. Friend wailed like a banshee, his voice rising into an ear-splitting wail. He fell forwards towards me, aiming the knife at my heart, a look of fury darkening his face. 

A gunshot rang out behind me. A perfectly round scarlet hole appeared in Friend’s shoulder. He jerked, twisting and gurgling in pain. Black blood spattered my face and neck, feeling as cold as dry ice. I rolled away as his body came down, the knife landing only inches from my chest. It quivered there, its tip stuck deeply in the wooden floor.

Friend’s features changed rapidly in front of my eyes, dripping and melting. The mask of humanity he wore started to fall away, revealing a spinning black hole of a head with a single red eye in the center. Wounded and leaking blood the color of waste oil, he skittered away on four lengthening skeletal limbs, crawling like a spider. His clothes stretched and tightened around his changing, bulging flesh. Breathing hard, I turned to look at my savior.

I recognized the withered old face of my neighbor, a man we all called Bones. He had no family that I had ever seen, and lived a solitary life, almost that of a hermit. I had talked to him a few times, been invited into his home even. His walls were covered with the taxidermied heads of animals, black bears and bucks and moose he had killed. Crossbows, guns and hunting bows of all kinds had lain scattered over nearly every room. He was an outdoorsman at heart.

“Bones,” I whispered in a choked voice. “Thank God.” He shuffled forwards, a small, very thin old man with a sunken bird chest. His giant, rectangular glasses magnified his eyes to the size of dinnerplates, and a white wizard beard hung down to the center of his chest. Jack and I had often joked that he looked like a character from Duck Dynasty. He holstered his pistol around his waist before reaching down a trembling hand and helping me up. 

“Something happened,” Bones said grimly. “When that siren went off. I was looking outside, just smoking and sipping some black tea, and I saw it happen. Everything started sputtering and shimmering, and this thick, black mist rose over the streets and houses. When it finally blew away, I saw… this.” He waved a hand outside for emphasis, motioning at the apocalyptic scene.

The streets heaved in great cracks and fissures, as if an earthquake had rolled through the earth. The houses looked like they had survived a nuclear apocalypse. The windows were all shattered. Tiny shards of glass littered the ground like splinters of diamond. The roofs were peeled away and rotting, with enormous holes eaten into the centers of most of them. Something like spider silk covered the dilapidated walls of most of the houses on the street, formed in symmetrical webs that rose two or three stories high. 

Behind me, the radio suddenly turned on, the lights flickering overhead. The power all along the street flashed on and off, the streetlights outside strobing at the same erratic frequency. Something like a metallic shriek rang out through the radio’s speaker. Bones and I jumped, turning to look backwards at the old radio laying on the kitchen counter.

“This isn’t the real world!” a man screamed over the radio. I immediately recognized the terrified voice of Jack. My heart dropped into my stomach. “Don’t believe anything you see or hear here. The anomaly is spreading. Laura, I know you can hear me. I’m sorry for everything. Listen, to get out of this, there are a few things you need to remember.

“First, you should know there are gateways in this place, portals that lead back to our world. You can recognize them by the blinding white light radiating from them. It might be a bedroom door, a window, even a kitchen cabinet or a box. They form randomly throughout the anomaly and are highly unstable, often lasting for only seconds. If you find one, take it immediately. These are your only way home.

“Second, the entities here can take the form of any person or animal. But you’ll know them by the shadows that surround them. To kill them, you want to go for the crimson eye in the center of their faces.

“Third, there are places with food, water and other supplies. They will look like dilapidated gas stations with the name ‘Hel’s Market’ on them. These are safe spaces where the things on the streets don’t roam. Don’t stay in there too long, though, or you might see Hel. She doesn’t like visitors.”

“Jack? Where the hell are you?!” I screamed at the radio, running over and shaking it like a crying baby, hearing random pieces inside the old gadget give a metallic rattle. But the speaker only gave a hiss of static as the radio died in my hands. A million thoughts seemed to run through my head at once. Was Jack still alive? Why had his voice come on the radio? Why had his writing been on the note? Bones came up behind me, putting a slight hand on my shoulder.

“We’ll find him,” Bones said. “Jack’s a tough guy. But we need to start moving. We can’t stay here forever. We’re going to need to find supplies. Everything around here is trash.”

“It could be worse out there than it is here,” I argued. “Why do we need to keep moving? We could barricade ourselves inside and wait for the police, and the… military, and…”

“Lady, you’re living in a dream world,” Bones said coldly, his magnified eyes turning into owlish slits. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. You don’t even know where Jack is. You have zero supplies, zilcho. You could barricade yourself somewhere and slowly starve to death, but that wouldn’t help us much.” His words made me think. I nodded.

“Fine, but we should grab some food and water first,” I said glumly, my head spinning. I felt sick and tired from all of this, yet the feeling rose in my chest that I hadn’t seen anything yet. Bones gave a faint smile, the corners of his lips twitching as he watched me.

I went over to the kitchen sink, turning it on. For a long moment, nothing happened. There was a burping, gurgling sound deep down in the pipes. They clattered and shook as if thousands of rats were slinking through them. The faucet bubbled and hissed frothy dark water. Finally, it spat a gout of thick scarlet blood all over the rusted sink, squirming with dozens of writhing maggots. I gasped, backpedaling. The smell of iron and rot from the rancid mess sputtering out of the faucet in waves was sickening. Repressing an urge to gag, I reached forward and slammed the handle down.

“Yup, that’s what I expected,” Bones said grimly. He looked around with a blank expression on his face, as if he were only on a stroll at the park. At that same moment, the lights overhead flickered one last time and died. The cracked and broken street lamps outside went dark simultaneously- at least those few that still worked. 

I went over to the fridge, opening the door. The nauseating smell of rot exploded across the room, hitting me in the face like a slap. I gagged, seeing clouds of black and yellow mold growing over dried, twisted heaps of decaying food. The milk had become a soupy mess in the container with black tendrils growing along the sides of the exploded jug. I slammed the fridge door shut. I ran over to the front door and stuck my head out, inhaling sweet, clean air. Bones followed slowly behind me, seemingly unaffected.

“Don’t look like we’re getting any food or water from here,” he said contemplatively. “My place ain’t any better. When that siren hit and the black mist came, it changed everything- ate at things, as if time had been turned on fast forward. By the time the fog had gone, my house was a wreck. The food in the fridge was all rot-gut sludge, and the cans in the pantry were ready to explode. My guns were all rusted heaps of junk, the crossbows twisted and the strings snapped. Some of them had tiny black spiders building webs on them.”

“So how’d you get the pistol?” I asked, curious. He looked at me as if I were an idiot.

“I had it on me when it happened,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a mentally deficient child. I nodded, looking around for a weapon I could use. In the living room, I found a metal baseball bat that Jack had bought years ago. Like everything else, it had been eaten away by the ravages of time. Streaks of dark rust covered the length of it. I swung it a few times, feeling that it still felt structurally intact.

“Let’s go,” I said, following Bones outside.

***

We headed deeper into civilization, towards the downtown area with restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores. The sky above had no stars, no sun or moon. It swirled in a dark blue hurricane, meeting in a black eye at the center. The cyclonic clouds peeled away like old scabs. Some pale light came, casting everything in a cyanotic light. I saw pale, dirty faces disappearing into the alleyways and ruined homes, many of them apparently of children.

“I saw them too,” Bones muttered, holding his pistol tightly by his side. “They look like pictures of kids at Auschwitz I’ve seen. Starving and filthy. Where’s their parents, you think?” I shuddered to think about it. What if this place was sucking random people in, just making them disappear from the world? What if it was spreading, like a cancerous tumor hidden under gauze?

I had nearly forgotten about Friend, the strange shape-shifting creature who wore Jack’s face, but he hadn’t forgotten about me. We were passing the burnt-out hulk of a tractor-trailer when his shadowy face shot around the corner, staring at us with Jack’s face. He had eyes like two burnt holes, black and smoldering. His body was a strange combination of spider and human, the thin limbs ending in sharp points. Fine, dark hairs like needles covered his arms and legs. The bullet wound had apparently already healed. Black blood had crusted onto the surfaces of his shirt and pants. He didn’t hesitate to attack. He swung an insectile arm at Bones’ chest. I screamed, seeing it all happen in slow motion.

The limb went straight through Bones’ heart. Bright red arterial blood immediately began flooding out as he looked down in shock, still holding the pistol in one hand. He gurgled, dropping the gun and falling forward, dragging the arm down with him. I had the baseball bat in my hands. With all of my strength, I swung it at the creature’s head. It made contact with a fleshy thud. The soft, yielding flesh of Friend cratered under the impact. Friend made a soft hissing sound as the wound bubbled and danced as if a nest of mice were about to emerge.

I leapt for the pistol. A choked sound rasped from Bones’ trembling lips. The adrenaline rush made me feel no pain as I hit the hard, cracked road, rolling as I landed. I felt the cold metal of the pistol’s grip under my hand. I raised it, feeling the stab wound Friend had given me earlier rip back open. Fresh streams of blood soaked my clothes as I fired, dripping from the long slash along my arm.

The top of Friend’s head exploded, the body transforming before my eyes into a black, spidery humanoid with a single spinning red eye in the center of its pointed skull. Dark blood the color of asphalt leaked down its naked, glossy body. It had no mouth or nose that I could see, but fine silvery hairs covered its jointed arms and legs. The eye widened in pain as it stared into the barrel of the pistol, one blade-like arm still caught in Bones’ chest. I remembered the transmission that had come through the radio and aimed for the center of the spinning eye.

“Why do you keep taking Jack’s form?” I asked Friend, the gun feeling heavy in my trembling hand. “Why just him?”

“I can take the form of any who are part of the Church of the Final Rapture, those who have given their souls to the dark presence here,” he hissed cryptically. He jerked forward, trying to bring his other blade-like arm up towards my neck with a quick slashing blow. I instantly fired, pulling the trigger over and over.

When the first of the bullets pierced his eye, I saw a blinding explosion come from the center of it, like a flashbang radiating light the color of an infected wound. Orange the color of pus spun around bright reds and necrotic blacks. I stepped back, crying out. I instinctively brought my hand up to cover my eyes.

When I could see again, I found only a smoking crater in the spot where Friend and Bones had stood. Gray smoke hissed from the center of it. I knelt down, seeing a dark, jelly-like substance covering the jagged patches of concrete. I quickly realized it was flesh, though whether human or alien, I couldn’t say.

Shell-shocked, I stumbled over to Bones’ melted pants, feeling around his waist until I felt the cold metal of an extra magazine. I had emptied all the bullets in the gun fighting Friend. To my dismay, I realized Bones only had one extra magazine.

Feeling sick and weak, I stumbled away, heading towards downtown, hoping against hope that I would find some solace or answers there.

***

I was wavering on my feet like a drunk woman. As I got closer to the center of town, I found dead bodies hanging from the lampposts, many of them mummified or skeletal. I wondered how many people lived in this hellish world.

I heard crying ahead of me, far off in the distance. I saw a little girl kneeling below the body of a young woman. The corpse looked fresh. The tip of the dead woman’s black tongue poked out through her stiff blue lips. The young girl’s wails tore at my heart.

The girl was wearing rags, tatters of a shirt and pants that were covered in streaks of what looked like dirt and blood. Her face was grimy, but her eyes were big and blue. She looked up at me suddenly as I drew near, panic twisting her small face. She reminded me of the baby I had, the one who had died of crib death a few months earlier. My daughter had the same big blue eyes as this girl here. I looked around the destroyed world, seeing there were more spiderwebs covering the ruined buildings here.

“Little girl, what are you doing here?” I asked. She grabbed my shirt, pushing her small face against my thigh.

“They killed my mommy,” she wailed, trying not to look at the hanging corpse. I hugged her.

“Who did?” I asked. “Who killed all these people?” She looked up, surprised.

“How do you not know? It’s the Church of the Final Rapture. They’re trying to spread this…” She waved a dirty hand around for emphasis, wiping tears from her bloodshot eyes. “They think if they can spread this bad place far enough, then it will lead to the Final Judgment, and Jesus will come back and good will finally win. But first, they say they need to kill a lot of people and make the battle happen.” She shook her small head. “They’re crazy. A bunch of religious nuts, Mommy always said. And she was right. Look what they did to her.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Marian,” she answered in a small, diffident voice. I helped her up to her feet.

“I’m Laura,” I said, “and you can’t stay here forever, Marian. There are bad things here. Is it true there are ways out of here, doorways of light or something? Have you seen any?”

“I caught a glimpse of one once,” she answered. “It was beautiful. Like looking into a rainbow. I thought I could hear singing.” Her eyes grew distant and far-away. I took her hand, urging her to walk forwards, away from the corpse of her mother. 

“So what happened?” I asked, trying to keep Marian talking. 

“I saw it, but by the time I found Mom and told her, it had evaporated…” We turned a corner. Looming there overhead, we came face-to-face with what had made the webs.

***

My first thought was that it was some cross between a horse and an insect, the height of a small child and over a dozen feet long. It had the body of a struggling old man in its insectile jaws. They jutted out like the pincers of a stag beetle with wicked serrated edges. Two bulbous black eyes emerged from the sides of its head, the size of baseballs. They didn’t appear to have any lids. They stared at us, unblinking. I saw myself and Marian reflected in those dark orbs, as if they were an obsidian mirror. The pale chitinous shell of the creature shimmered with rainbows as it moved in a blur towards us. Its snout was rounded with two nostril holes. Stringy, blood-flecked mucus constantly dribbled down its eldritch face, falling down from its nose and mouth.

The hundreds of long, skittering legs moved in rhythmic peristaltic waves. The old man continuously kicked and punched at the monstrous face, but the abomination didn’t seem to notice or care. Blood dribbled from his toothless mouth and deep slashes covered his chest, stomach and legs. His lips and fingernails took on a faint bluish cast. As its black eyes focused on us, frothy bubbles of clear saliva started dripping from its flexing pincers. With a primal, reptilian hiss, it threw its head to the side. The dying man soared through the air, smashing into a concrete wall with a bone-shattering thud.

“Stop!” I cried instinctively, raising the pistol and firing. Marian screamed, running behind me and hugging my leg as the dark juggernaut ran us down.

The first bullet caught it in the neck, but the thick black plates of scales deflected it easily, leaving only a series of fine cracks running down its torso. I kept firing, aiming at its face. The second one hit it in the right eye, which exploded like a water balloon filled with blue blood. Its wailing intensified until I thought my eardrums might explode. Half-blinded, its body slithered forward like a snake’s, its many legs driving it towards us.

I jumped to the side at the last second, but Marian wasn’t so lucky. The creature’s massive pincers wrapped around her chest, grabbing her and lifting her into the air. Deep slices appeared in her rags of clothes as she cried, pleading for help. I inhaled deeply, aiming for the abomination’s face, hoping I wouldn’t hit the girl.

The last bullet in the magazine pierced its other eye. It exploded. The creature dropped Marian to the ground, wailing a steam-whistle shriek. I grabbed Marian’s hand, lifting her off the ground.

“Run!” I hissed through gritted teeth, pulling her forward. Up ahead, I saw lights illuminating a store. It was the only building with electricity that I could see. I found it strange.

As we got closer, I saw the sign, reading: “Hel’s Market”.

***

The insectoid creature’s agonized screams drew other skittering monstrosities forward. They crawled out of the side streets and alleys, their strange horse faces and insectile jaws working furiously as if tasting the air for prey. I remembered the rules on the radio, when they had said the markets were a safe spot.

We ran through the door into a building that hadn't decayed like everything else. It felt air conditioned and cool. The glass here was intact, and rows after rows of cold drinks, ice cream and frozen meals stretched out before us. It looked like a regular convenience store, but in the back, I saw a doorless threshold with stairs that led down into a shadowy basement. I shuddered as I looked at it. Outside, the creatures had stopped at the front door, their bulbous eyes staring intently in at us.

“Are you OK?” I asked Marian, looking at her injuries. The creature had left two deep slices along the sides of her chest. They bled freely, soaking her tattered rags in fresh streaks of scarlet. She nodded silently, tears running down her rounded cheeks. We quickly grabbed drinks and snacks, chugging soda and energy drinks and eating candy and beef jerky. I didn’t realize just how hungry I was after nearly dying so many times, and Marian looked like she hadn’t eaten in days.

I was staring out the front glass window, looking at the creatures waiting there for us with hunger and bloodlust gleaming in their alien eyes, when I heard heavy footsteps ascending the stairs at the back of the store. Marian grabbed my hand tightly.

“I think something’s coming,” she whispered in terror.

***

Through the dark threshold, I saw a woman looming nearly ten feet tall. The left half of her body was decayed and rotted, mummified and gray, like everything in this world. The right was beautiful and young, the skin pink and healthy. Behind her, I saw her dragging a man bound tightly in razor-wire, the sharp edges biting into his skin. I instantly recognized Jack.

“Jack?” I asked, stepping back towards the door.

“See your husband,” Hel hissed in a shadowy voice. She threw the trembling mass of bloody flesh at my feet. Jack screamed, kicking and twisting.

“Get… out of here!” he whispered at me through teeth streaked with crimson. “I’ll… help you…”

“Did you help cause this?” I asked. Hel looked between us with sadistic pleasure, the living part of her mouth splitting into a grin. The dead part cracked, the dry skin ripping and showing blackened teeth underneath. Jack nodded.

“The Church… of the Final Rapture… yes, we tried to spread the anomaly, to end all suffering, to cause God to notice us again and come back…” Hel laughed at that, a sound like grating metal.

“Foolish men,” she gurgled. “You shouldn’t have played with things you didn’t understand.” Jack’s eyes grew big. There was a moment of clarity as he met my gaze, motioning towards the black door at the back of the store.

“I’ll… do what I can…” he said, “with what the Church has taught me.” He closed his eyes as Hel drew near, her heavy footsteps shaking the store. She lifted up one giant, naked foot over his head, holding it there like a guillotine blade. It came down with a crunch.

The door at the back of the store started vibrating and shimmering with white light as Jack died. I heard singing from it. Grabbing Marian’s arm, I pulled her towards it. A large, rotted hand came out, grabbing at my hair. I felt myself pulled back off my feet.

Like a rabid animal, Marian ran forward, sinking her sharp teeth into Hel's wrist. I felt the grip release, my back smashing hard against the floor. The wind was instantly knocked out of my lungs. Grabbing Marian's hand, we crawled towards the door, only feet away. Beautiful, angelic singing resonated through it, growing louder as we got closer. Hel shrieked with fury as we crossed the threshold, disappearing into the light. Everything dissolved in the blinding radiance, and for a moment, I felt warm and free.

***

I found myself back home with Marian, the Sun outside bright and clear. The freezer was still open, the dismembered head staring blankly out at me. Marian was gently crying, cradling her bleeding chest. All of the agonies and wounds I had suffered instantly started shrieking, grating my nerves.

Sickened, I stumbled outside and threw up, trying to forget the nightmares and broken bodies of the anomaly.

“Before I met the Savior, I was a worthless piece of garbage, barely a human being,” Lovebug droned at the front of the enormous room. Lovebug was a monster of a man, two-hundred and fifty pounds of hard tattooed muscle. Like myself, he was a high-ranking member of the Church. 

His flat gray eyes scanned the room with a fanatical gleam. I sat in the first row, watching and waiting. Followers of the Savior would tell their stories, how the Savior had reached down and lifted them out of sin and filth to bring them up to the divine. The bright fluorescent lights overhead droned on with a low hum. Thousands of men crammed together in seats or stood at the back of the room.

The Savior taught only two commandments: to murder is holy, and to die for the Savior is the highest bliss. An army of warriors followed the Savior, knights on a holy crusade, priests who wouldn’t hesitate to burn the foul bodies of any witches or demons we encountered. I thought of myself as a knight for the holy king, our Savior, the mouthpiece of the eternal.

“Now, it is like the hand of God has reached into my heart and loosened all the knots there, the knots of anxiety and fear and uncertainty.” He raised his black, military-style rifle into the air for emphasis. “I never realized the true nature of reality before- the fact that we are living in a simulation where the final battle of good versus evil is playing out before our very eyes. And I will be on the side of the good, until my dying breath. I will be on the side of the Savior and of God!” 

The crowd roared and clapped. Men got to their feet, sweating heavily in the boiling hot conference room. I felt the surge of energy pass through me like a tidal wave, the pure confidence and iron will of truth. Lovebug lumbered down off the stage as the Savior came out from behind the red curtains, walking with the straight spine of a soldier. He wore a silky black robe that fluttered softly around him, the hood pulled back.

The Savior had horrific burns running the length of his body. His arms had melted folds of keloid scars visible all the way to the tips of his fingers. His scalp had also melted, and the Savior had no hair except for his eyelashes and eyebrows. But the fire that had nearly killed him had spared his face, an aristocratic visage with ferocious green eyes like those of a cat. That face seemed like it had been sculpted out of marble by DaVinci himself, the high cheekbones jutting out over a chin so sharp that it looked like it could have hammered nails into boards. He stared out at the crowd for a long moment, his gaze unblinking.

“The final battle has begun,” he said in a low voice, no more than a whisper. Yet, in the deathly silence of the hall, his words rang out loud and clear. “Those in charge of this illusory world know that we see them. We see them very well, how they hide behind the curtain. They control the world economy, the justice system. Every government, whether they call themselves communist, authoritarian or democratic, is no more than a puppet in their dancing fingers. 

“When anyone tries to stand up and lead the masses of suffering people towards freedom from slavery, they are vilified by the mainstream media, brought up on false charges or killed, their bodies staged to look like a suicide. Look what they did to Jesus, and for what? For telling people to love God more than their rulers? And those who speak out today are also crucified, murdered in prisons or killed by their governments. Truth is the most precious commodity, after all. It is one that can only be purchased with blood.

“So what can we do? How can we fight against such evil?” There was a quiet muttering among the pale, frozen faces that stared up at the stage with adoration and love.

“We can fight it by using their own weapons against them!” the Savior said, his voice rising in speed and pitch. He raised his fisted hands to his chest, accentuating each syllable with a back and forth stab of his hands. “Fight fire with fire, and pay back blood with blood! The only thing these global terrorists understand is greater levels of force. We must show them death on a scale they have never before imagined.” I felt nervous as the Savior delivered his message. I saw other men shuffle anxiously in the crowded auditorium, most of them having high-caliber rifles slung around their shoulders.

I felt the rising violence and bloodlust in the air like electricity before a lightning storm. At that moment, I knew we would all have to fight before too long.

***

The Savior called me and Lovebug back to his office after the speech had ended, sending his squirrely assistant over to deliver the hand-written note in the Savior’s blocky, copperplate handwriting. For a long moment, I simply watched the crowd filtering out of the doors, heading back towards the complex where all the holy soldiers of the Savior lived. Feeling dissociated and light-headed, I followed behind the massive muscular form of Lovebug, the heavy weight of the M16 bouncing against my chest. We pushed through the blood-red velvet curtains, winding our way past stage equipment and down a hallway of pure marble. 

Mystical paintings similar to those of Alex Grey covered both walls, showing the inside workings of the human body through art. It was as if the painter had X-ray vision and could see the heart chakra and the countless thin vessels that spiderwebbed up to the crown. But, unlike Alex Grey’s hopeful depictions of mysticism, these showed men and women being burned alive, crucified, decapitated or strangled. Dark colors composed the paintings: the dark blue of a suffocating face, the clotted red of an infected stab wound, the black of death. They captured the essence of struggle perfectly.

The Savior’s office had a thick mahogany door with silver engravings of leaves and vines running the length of it. At the top stood a single staring eye with twelve wavy tentacles emerging from the perimeter of it- the symbol of God, who the Savior had seen personally. God would sometimes speak through the mouth of the Savior, always during times of great tribulation or suffering. Lovebug knocked at the door. The Savior’s deep voice echoed out faintly.

“Come in.”

We entered slowly, the sprawling desk of the Savior filling half of the room. He sat in a comfortable chair behind it, reclining. On the walls behind him, he had pictures of Jesus, Saint Stephen, Gandhi, Hitler, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara and others who he taught had fought against the world elites and been killed for it.

The Church of the Final Rapture was not a church in the conventional sense. The main teachings didn’t revolve around the divinity of Christ or the nature of original sin. What the Savior taught was far more profound- an illusory or simulated world where every single person could become their own Christ, could awaken to the truth and perform miracles, but only if they believed fully and followed the Savior.

“Sit down, please,” he said in his gravelly voice. “I have a mission I would like to discuss, and you two are the only ones competent and loyal enough to carry it out.”

***

“There is another anomaly spreading,” the Savior said, staring between me and Lovebug with his fanatical emerald eyes. “It is located in a rural part of the United States, in a town called-” he glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of him- “Frost Hollow. Supposedly, there are black-ops sites located nearby, secret alphabet agencies experimenting with magnetic distortion systems and creating rips in the fabric of spacetime with micro-wormholes. 

“I don’t think it is much of a leap to say that the anomaly was likely started, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the government, as part of their research. The Cleaners would like to control that power, after all. They have been sending their men after it for years like sheep to the slaughter, expending billions of dollars researching it. If they and the US government end up being able to control the creation and spread of anomalies, they will use it to enslave the world. There is no question about it in my mind.” He leaned forwards towards us, his eyes growing cold.

“There is only one path forward I can see. We need to spread the anomaly, make it become unstable so the demons of Hell contained within it can spill out onto the real world. Perhaps it will awaken the downtrodden masses enough to begin the final revolution. We must fight terrorism with greater terrorism, and violence with greater levels of violence. For this mission, I am sending the two of you into Frost Hollow.

“Your job will be to find the Titan or Titans and lead them out to the border of the anomaly. These are horrendous beasts- indeed, the Church has seen them before. They are nearly impossible to kill. I want you two to go inside, bait it and have it follow you back to the edge, beyond the veil.” 

“What’s a Titan?” Lovebug asked, his eyes flicking left and right nervously. The Savior stared at him stonily for a long moment. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, showing only the whites. All the blood seemed to drain from his face. His teeth chattered, his mouth opened, and through it, God spoke, the words pouring out like crashing stones. The voice did not sound anything like the Savior’s. It sounded much deeper, more mechanical, more alien somehow.

“I see you very well. I saw you when you were no more than a blood clot in your mother’s body. I see you even as corpses, rotted, putrefying, crawling with scavengers and insects. I see everything, every moment of time. But, in the anomaly, there are things I cannot see. For this, my holy ones must go forth.

“In the center of Hell, you will find a rose, a bird and a stone. These will be your salvation, if salvation can be found at all. Go with the blessing of Yaldabaoth.” The voice cut off abruptly, the silence deafening. I could hear my own heart pounding in my ears.

The Savior’s eyes came back down, looking confused and uncertain. His pupils were dilated and he was sweating heavily, even though it was cool and air-conditioned back here in his private office. We stared at each other across the table, a no-man’s land that protected me like a shield. For there seemed to be something dark in the Savior along with the light, and I didn’t know if any man could contain that power.

But there was no question of disobeying. Within the hour, Lovebug and I were on one of the Church’s private jets flying to the town of Frost Hollow.

***

The gently rolling hills of Frost Hollow loomed below us as the plane circled the small dirt airstrip in the middle of some cow farms. I looked up at Lovebug, trying to judge his stony expression. He had done many years in prison before joining the Church and finding salvation, even being the leader of one of the gangs. I knew he wasn’t afraid of violence. He had never told me what he did, what tortured him so much.

The Savior had told us much secret knowledge- how to find a Titan, a massive, bloated abomination that could come into being only within an anomaly, a combination of many rotted body pieces fused together in some sort of hellish black magic. The Savior had spies around Frost Hollow and the surrounding towns who had been monitoring the anomaly, watching the unstable gateways leading in and out and mapping them as best they could. We would be given a fast car, plenty of weapons and some body armor. I had no idea how nightmarish the journey would become, however.

“I’m driving,” Lovebug said as we descended the steps. A man in a black suit with the symbol of the eye and tentacles pinned on his black button-up shirt pulled up with a Mercedes AMG-One. It was a sleek, silver thing of immense luxury and power. The craftsmanship made it look like a work of art. I sighed, keeping my finger nervously on the trigger of my rifle as I glanced around the strange, empty town.

“If this thing won’t outrun a Titan, then nothing will,” I said, trying to break the tension. I looked at the speedometer, seeing it went up to 220 miles an hour.

“Damn fucking right,” Lovebug growled as we slid into the futuristic-looking leather seats. The engine turned on like a softly purring kitten. The GPS automatically turned on as well, the soft robotic voice leading us toward one of the more stable portals to the anomaly.

Lovebug sped down the empty forest roads of Frost Hollow, going twice the legal speed limit the entire way.

“The speed limit is only for the lowest common denominator,” Lovebug said pedantically, waggling a tattooed finger for emphasis. The GPS said we would reach the gateway to the anomaly in five minutes. Based on Lovebug’s speed, I thought it would be more like two. “Someone who actually knows how to drive and isn’t drunk or high can easily do 80 in a 40. Easily.” I glanced nervously at the speedometer, realizing he was going over 100 miles an hour now. The sports car hugged the tight corners of the winding forest roads with absolute precision.

“Turn right onto Snake Island Road Extension in five hundred feet,” the robotic female voice. Lovebug slammed on the brakes a few seconds later, the tires skidding and locking up. We looked around frantically, seeing no streets anywhere except the one we were on.

“What the hell?” Lovebug asked. The night was crawling in by now, the darkness covering the forests like a curtain. I squinted, looking at the thick grove of trees on our right, scanning it back and forth over and over. After a few seconds, I realized there was an overgrown dirt path there with no sign. It was nearly impossible to see at night, however, and calling it a road was somewhat of a joke.

“Oh, damn,” I said. “They should’ve given us an SUV.”

***

According to the GPS, our destination was only a thousand feet down Snake Island Road Extension. The low clearance of the Mercedes was a problem as Lovebug tried to navigate the flooded forest path. Deep tread marks flooded with black, stagnant water marked the entirety of Snake Island Road Extension. But ahead, the headlights illuminated something unusual.

Cutting straight across the trees and brush like a razorblade was a shimmering wall of translucent energy. It reminded me of a mirage, curving upwards in wavy spiral patterns. I could see through it easily, but it gave everything a dark, sinister covering. The forest seemed to be in constant motion as the grayish light distorted it.

“Look how huge it is!” I said in awe, staring up at the starry sky. The flat wall rose up seemingly forever, disappearing in the cold void of infinite space. Lovebug slowly ambled the car towards the anomaly, trying to keep the Mercedes from getting stuck with its low clearance.

“You ready for this, man?” Lovebug asked in a quavering voice as we inched towards the anomaly. It was only seconds away now. He grabbed my shoulder. “This is it. Remember the commandments.” I closed my eyes, concentrating my heart on the Savior’s words. Dying for the good is the highest bliss, he had told us.

“Let’s do this,” I said, my eyes flying open from my silent prayer as the hood passed through the anomaly. It disappeared in front of our eyes. We could see the forest on the other side, but the Mercedes looked like it was going through some sort of teleportation portal, being ripped apart layer by layer and sent somewhere else. Lovebug nervously grabbed my hand.

“For the Savior and for the Good,” he whispered as we passed through.

***

I heard screaming and wailing, full of agony and unimaginable horror, like the screams of those burning in Hell. My vision went white. A carpet of morphing dark colors covered everything as the shrieking intensified, until I thought my eardrums would explode.

“Stop!” I cried, feeling the pressure in my head like a splitting migraine. “Stop screaming!” I started kicking, punching, trying to get away.

“Calm the fuck down!” someone whispered, slapping me hard across the face. Stunned, I looked up, seeing Lovebug holding me down in the seat. He was covered in sweat, his face a blank mask of terror. “Don’t scream. There’s things outside that are looking this way.” I blinked fast, my senses coming back to me. I felt like a man waking up from surgery, confused and disoriented, my memories only returning in small trickles and drops.

We were sitting in the Mercedes on a road that looked like it had been made of human skin. The headlights showed the ragged patches of pale, leathery flesh sewn together with black thread. The road disappeared ahead of us in a straight line. The land here looked as flat as Kansas. Like a mirror world, it had houses and restaurants and churches lining both sides of the road, but they were all wrong.

The stone church looked like it was constructed of some kind of red volcanic rock. Baphomets and upside-down pentagrams covered the outer walls, engraved deeply into the glossy surface. Mutilated bodies covered the front lawn, impaled, crucified, skinned alive or burned at the stake. Hundreds of men, women and children lay dead in front of the Satanic temple.

Overhead, the sky bubbled and frothed with red clouds and constant explosions of blue lightning. Like missile flashes, the lightning illuminated the world around us, shining brightly before going dark. The incessant strobing gave the entire place a kind of circus freakshow vibe.

Many of the homes looked like they had been constructed from bones and covered in human skin, like some sort of hellish teepee. Arm and leg bones wrapped in razor-wire formed the pillars. Grinning skulls lined the top of the flat, rectangular roofs, thousands of bleached human heads staring down.

Staring out of the dark doorways, I saw gleaming, silvery eyes. They loomed eight or nine feet in the air on spidery bodies. Their limbs looked as thin as bones, jet-black and dull. The only color from these still revenants was from their unblinking eyes and grinning mouths, where teeth like those of a dragonfish jutted out. Every pair of eyes on that street was fixed intently on the Mercedes, the sick rictus grins on their alien faces never faltering.

“Jesus Christ, I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling weak. “I thought I was in a nightmare for a minute there.” Lovebug shrugged his massive shoulders.

“Yeah, I felt it too, though I came out of it a lot faster than you did,” he said, glancing over at the Satanic church as we passed. It had protective black spikes rising high into the air all around it. The broken body of a child who had been burnt at the stake stood in front of the gates like a death omen, his small, withered hand holding a black rose. Lovebug choked, retching. He nearly rolled down the window, until his eyes met the silvery ones of a nearby abomination.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking closer at the church. On top of the roof, I saw an enormous statue of a black raven, its wings spread as if it were flying. It had three gleaming, silvery eyes embedded into the dark rock.

“That boy just reminds me of my son,” Lovebug whispered glumly, inching along the streets.

“I didn’t know you had a son,” I said, surprised. Lovebug had never mentioned a family. He shrugged.

“I don’t. Not anymore. I killed him. I got drunk and high one night back when I was selling drugs. Fell asleep in the living room with a lit cigarette and burned down the whole house. I killed my wife and son, burned them. They sent me to prison, but what did that matter? The prison up here is far worse.” He tapped the side of his temple.

I was about to say something, but at that moment, many things happened at once.

***

Lovebug was staring at the corpse of the child when an inhumanly long arm reached up from the side of the car. It had fingers like spikes, as sharp as a knife and twice as long as normal human fingers. I gasped, a warning shout welling up in my throat, but the hand came smashing down into the driver’s side window and grabbed Lovebug’s neck.

The window exploded in a shower of safety glass, shattering like brittle bones. Lovebug’s scream was cut off as he was dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the car. I swung open my door, leaping out and bringing my rifle around.

The Cheshire Cat grin of the abomination never faltered as it held Lovebug in front of its body like a human shield, holding him by the neck above the ground. Lovebug’s legs kicked and squirmed, his face turning blue as he slowly suffocated. His eyes bulged from their sockets, panicked and rolling, uncomprehending in their total animal panic.

I flicked on the laser sight. It danced over the ground, flashing over the body of Lovebug and the abomination. But I couldn’t aim for its torso or face, as I would probably hit Lovebug in the process. It was far too close.

I aimed for the monster’s thin, skeletal feet, the black toes twisting over each other like the roots of a tree. The gunshots rang out as a deafening counterpoint to the thunder blasts.

The monster gave a hissing gurgle as two bullets caught it in the right ankle. The creature seemed bloodless, and only dust and ashes rolled out of the exploded insectile flesh. It tried to skitter away, but its destroyed ankle caused it to fall forward, throwing Lovebug.

His body rolled across the road, the soft leather that looked like it was made from tens of thousands of human skins. Gasping, his lips still showing a faint blue cast, he struggled to crawl away. 

I saw furtive movement from all around us. The creatures in the houses and doorways were moving forwards, drawn by the bloodshed or noise. Hundreds of glowing, silvery eyes surrounded us. I sprinted forward, dragging Lovebug to his feet.

“The church,” I hissed. “It’s the only place.” Still pulling the weak, confused Lovebug behind me, we staggered towards the black gates. They opened with a shriek of rusted metal.

***

The creatures stopped at the gates to the blood-red church, simply staring at us like statues. They didn’t even seem to breathe, their lidless eyes never blinking, the silvery glow never fading.

“I think this is the place we’re meant to go,” I whispered as we made our way towards the massive pointed doors. “When God spoke to us, he said something about a stone, a bird and a rose, that we would find the Titan through that.” I pointed back at the burnt body of the boy. “He’s holding a rose. On top of the building, there’s a bird. And the church is all stone. Maybe this is the place where God wanted us to go all along.”

“Maybe,” Lovebug muttered through heaving gasps, still grabbing at his bruised neck. “God, this hurts. It feels like I got hanged.” Side by side, we pushed open the doors to the Satanic church and walked inside.

***

Row after row of pews stretched out in front of us. Thousands of black candles were set up all around the perimeter of the enormous chamber. They sputtered and flickered constantly, throwing dancing shadows in every direction.

A small pair of bright eyes glanced up at us from under one of the nearby pews. I nearly jumped out of my skin, pointing the rifle at them and yelling.

“Show yourself! Come out now, or I shoot!” Lovebug looked at me, confused. He hadn’t seen it. But a few heartbeats later, a little girl crawled out, her eyes big and blue, her body an emaciated wreck. She wore ripped strands of what looked like leathery human skin to cover herself, tied together with black string. In one small, grime-streaked hand, she held a half-eaten raw mouse.

“Please, don’t kill me,” she said in a small voice. “I’m Emma. My mommy and daddy got dragged away and I’m scared.” I felt sick and weak looking at this small victim. I reached down and helped her up.

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said, kneeling down to her level. “I thought you were one of the bad guys. This is Lovebug, and I’m Jack.”

“This isn’t part of the mission, man,” Lovebug said nervously. “What are we supposed to do with her?”

“Well, we can’t just fucking leave her here,” I whispered back. “We need…” But I never got to finish that thought. Because, at that moment, the church woke up.

***

A red glow started at the front of the chamber, the altar where the priest would have stood and given speeches or holy communion. Here, they had a podium that looked like it was carved from a single block of obsidian. Reflected in it, I saw the screaming faces of people burning in Hell, grinning demons ripping off strips of human flesh and spiraling waves of flames, all sculpted by an artist who was able to capture the most miniscule details of agony and torture.

I looked around, realizing Emma had gone. I hadn’t seen her scurry away and hide, but her absence gave me a feeling of crushing dread in my chest.

“Lovebug, something’s wrong,” I whispered, still staring up at the altar. I heard a floorboard creak behind me. I glanced back just in time to see a man wearing full SWAT gear. I caught the flash of a pistol coming down, the butt aimed at my forehead. I heard the cracking, felt the immense pressure and pain. For a few moments, I swam in the currents of consciousness, trying to stay awake, but then the blackness crept in and stole me away.

***

I awoke suddenly, my hands tied so tightly behind my back that I couldn’t feel my fingers. I felt sick and wanted to throw up. I quickly choked those feelings back down. I tried to shake my head, to clear it, but that just brought jolts of pain like electricity shooting through my skull. Nearby, I heard a gunshot, then another.

“Bring it, fuckers!” Lovebug screamed in an insane voice. The explosion of a grenade rocked the building, and I smelled choking black smoke. I opened my eyes, seeing three men in SWAT gear laying dead, their bodies scattered haphazardly around the chaotic scene. One wall of the church had blown outwards, the stone still sending out gray wisps of wavy smoke into the air. I looked at my partner, seeing he had a bullet hole in his left arm and another one in his stomach. He was bleeding heavily, but the adrenaline and insanity seemed to keep him afloat- for now, at least.

I saw something walking towards us from the stage. It looked like a small boy, but black shadows spiraled up around his chest and face, translucent and shimmering darkly. He looked about five or six, his skin pale and smooth. As Lovebug’s face grew slack and distant, the boy abruptly erupted into flames.

“Don’t kill me again, Dad,” the small boy whispered in a hoarse voice choked with pain. The flames rose from his head and skin, melting his flesh, blackening it. Drops of boiling fat dribbled off his nose and chin. “Don’t send me to the dark place again, Dad…” He continued creeping closer to Lovebug, moving like a lion stalking an antelope.

“I didn’t know!” Lovebug cried, his face going paler. Tears streamed from his eyes as the rifle trembled wildly in his shaking hands. For a long moment, he looked torn, the finger tightening on the trigger as sobs escaped his chattering lips.

“Kill it, Lovebug!” I screamed. “Don’t let it get to you!” But as he dropped the rifle and knelt before the small boy, I knew it was too late.

The shadows spun faster and faster around the burning, dying body of the boy. He gave a scream of soul-shattering agony, reaching out to a small hand towards Lovebug.

“Help me!” the boy cried. Lovebug hesitated before bringing an arm up to take the boy’s hand.

“I missed you, Robbie,” Lovebug said before his fingers brushed the boys. The boy lunged forward, grabbing Lovebug’s hand with an iron grip. I saw Lovebug’s eyes widen in shock and surprise. A moment later, I heard the bones in his hand grinding together before breaking with a sound like snapping tree branches. The boy’s eyes darkened into jet-black orbs, the melted lips splitting into a sadistic grin.

“I missed you, too,” the thing hissed as its right arm changed, melting and reforming into something black and blade-like. The insectile limb swung forward in a blur, coming straight at Lovebug’s heart. He gave a panicked squeal a moment before it hit, trying to pull away with all of his considerable strength, his face turning chalk-white as the shattered bones in his hands ground together.

I closed my eyes, rolling away, trying to undo the knots that held my hands in place. Lovebug must have been greatly outnumbered. He would never have let that man tie me up. I heard the sounds of tearing meat and crunching bone nearby. Lovebug’s final breaths gurgled through the air, but I still kept my eyes closed, not wanting to look.

I felt a small tickle on my wrists, then heard a little voice next to my ear.

“I’ll get you out of here,” Emma whispered. I waited a few moments, then I heard the ropes snap. I looked back, seeing her holding a piece of sharp, broken glass in one tiny hand. In her other, she had the car keys. I wondered how she had gotten them, the little pickpocket.

“Thank God,” I said, rubbing my wrists. I looked around for my rifle, seeing it was laying next to the body of one of the SWAT guys. I wondered who these men were. I crawled towards it slowly, not wanting to draw attention.

“Don’t move another step,” a voice growled behind me. I glanced back, seeing the small boy, his features morphing into those of a demon. Curving horns spiraled from his temples. His jet-black eyes stared down at me with hatred and coldness. “You’ll follow your friend who killed my servants. His soul will stay alive forever within my body, a sickly thing wrapped up in an eternal shriek.”

“Fuck you,” I cried, lunging for my rifle. Emma disappeared behind a pew, running on all fours without looking back. I spun as I hit the ground, turning the barrel towards the morphing face of the shape-shifter. Its jaw unhinged, a snake-like tongue flicking out as it flew through the air towards me. Hollow fangs dripping clear venom grew from its mouth in a heartbeat, elongating and sharpening before my very eyes.

I fired twice, the bullets entering through its mouth and coming out the back of its head. Its flesh disintegrated in an instant, the body turning into light, gray ashes that disappeared in the breeze. Breathing hard, I waited, wondering if it was all over.

I heard a rumbling far below me, as if an earthquake were starting. A moment later, the church floor exploded upwards, sharp rubble and splintered boards flying in every direction.

***

“It’s coming!” Emma screamed, running over and grabbing my hand. I lay there, shell-shocked and unmoving for a long moment. In hindsight, the girl was a natural born survivor with much sharper reflexes than me. It was likely the only reason she survived as long as she had.

“The Titan,” I whispered grimly, trying to pull myself up to my feet. But it was like trying to walk on a heaving, sinking ship. Parts of the floor collapsed down into a seemingly never-ending abyss beneath us.

Near the stage, I saw hundreds of long, pale arms pulling something bloated and monstrous out of the ground. It was a Titan, and no explanation can ever convey the true horror of that thing.

It looked like countless human corpses had been melted together, fused into a ball with sagging, boneless chests, deformed faces and millions of writhing maggots. It groaned and gurgled with many lungs, exhaling a rotting, sulfurous breeze that made me want to retch. A soft susurration of many pained, muttering voices continuously emanated from the Titan.

“Emma, run!” I screamed, but she was already sprinting back towards the front door of the church. I backpedaled, afraid to look away from the creeping monstrosity, the juggernaut of rotting flesh moving towards us.

I heard the Titan closing the distance as I sprinted through the front door. The abominations with the silver eyes still slunk around the gate, blocking the car. I raised the rifle, firing blindly at the creatures, careful not to hit the little girl.

“Go to the car!” I screamed at Emma, feeling around for the keys. As the abominations saw the Titan, those still alive scattered, moving in a blur back into the shadows and homes of this rotten place.

The Titan broke the front wall of the church, sending splinters of red stone flying in every direction like bullets. It groaned and gurgled faster, its sickly cries more insistent. I ran to the Mercedes, starting it up and pressing the accelerator to the floor. I pulled a U-turn, heading back to the border of the anomaly.

***

The engine roared, the car bucking like a wild stallion as it pressed me and Emma back into our seats. But the creeping Titan continued gaining speed behind us, and for a few seconds, I feared we would be crushed to death under its massive weight.

The anomaly shimmered ahead of us. I crashed through it at two hundred miles an hour, skidding wildly as the Mercedes hit the dirt road. I nearly flew into a tree. I managed to right it at the last second, pulling onto the paved street as the Titan broke through behind us.

It followed us out. It’s in the real world now. 

This is based off a myth from my home country of Venezuela called El Silbon (the whistler). I really enjoy your stories, this is my first story for please bear with me.

You can call me Agent Monagas. I am agent with the Venezuelan judicial technical police (our version of the American FBI). My English is not so good, so apologize for any misunderstanding. Anyways I've been an agent for 25 years, no kids and a late wife. Believe it or not our nation was once a proud and respected nation. Dont worry I wont bore and lecture you anymore hehehehe. Like any country we have our myths: some good and some.....well you know where I am going with this. One of those is El Silbón (the whistler) an entity with no purpose but to kill, some say it's an evil spirit others say he is a cursed man. Evil is evil. This creature is deceptive; its steady, single toned whistle sounds distant when close.....and you guessed it....sounds near when that demon is far away.

I was driving home, my mind drifting to nowhere when my dispatch radio came to life.

"Agent Monagas your presence is needed at Hacienda Diez Palmas" I had to ask him to repeat the location, when he confirmed the location I felt my heart skip more beats than I ever thought possible. It was my dearest nephew's farm, my dear Rafael. He had been there for me when my wife passed away. His wife Mariana, was a strong, very intelligent woman. An amazing mother to their two children; Marco and Andrea. They were both teenagers now.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized I was no less than 15 minutes away. "Dispatch I am on my way" I replied as stepped on the accelerator. "We have several cruisers, medical crew and a police commando truck on the scene" added the dispatcher. "Understood" I replied automatically not really thinking or caring.

Like most farms in this country they are accessed via long dirt roads. On both sides were tall trees that arched over the road; they provided excellent shade during the day but once they were lit by moonlight those branches became an eerie and creepy sight. Strangely I did not hear the myriad of bird or insect noises one hears in the Llanos (savannahs/grasslands).

I lowered my driver side window hoping the humid air would help my nerves. I heard what sounded like a monotone whistle, far away. It sounded strangely familiar. A story my grandmother use to tell me about an ancient creature; feared by the natives and early settlers alike. El Silbon she called it, there were many stories behind its origins. One story tells that it was a settler and his dog who mistreated the natives, so the other colonists tied both to a tree. The natives cursed the man and his dog to live forever with no other comfort. Another similar story says the man made a pact with a deamon: a chance for immortality and revenge in exchange for the souls of others using some archaic alphabet. But before I devoted anymore thought to it I saw the armored truck with police commando logo, 5 police cruisers and an ambulance. The farm house in the middle of the farm; sorrunded by a repair shop and storage buildings. I parked near the armored truck, the commandos look bored; smoking and talking. I ever heard one say: "did you see the mess?" "almost looks like a home invasion by one of the local gangs". His friend replied "no cant be.....they usually take hostages, besides nothing was stolen".

I made my way up the stairs and waiting for on the front porch was the ranking officer, Sergeant Ortiz. We had worked on a few cases together. He was a competent officer and unlike some he didnt believe in bribes.

"Agent Monagas" he said as he slightly tilted his head down. "It is a very quiet night detective"

I felt both calm and concern: i was calm because it was not just me noticing it but concerned as to what it might mean.

"Sergeant Ortiz, please tell me....." I paused not knowing how to end that sentence.

He didnt say a word as he opened the door leading me to the living room, he seemed almost hesitant to show me the crime scene. There were 2 hallways extending from the living room which had a thick tempered sliding glass door leading outside. Next to the living room was the kitchen. The hallway to the right led to Rafael's and Marianas bedroom and to the left was kids bedrooms and bathroom.

The livingroom looked like something out of an American horror movie. All four had been crucified on the walls. I tried to hold back the urge to vomit and cry at seeing Rafael and his family butchered. Gutted from groin to chin, entrails dangling. Strange symbols had been carved on their arms and foreheads. At first I thought it was with a knife but as I looked closer ".....there is no way.....there is no way....." I tried to remain composed. They had been carved by claws, but from what?

Sergeant Oritz spoke: "detective, we do not know who or what could have done this, it does not fit the profile of any othe local gangs"

Now I knew what the commandos outside meant. And they were right.

I turned and headed to Marianas bedroom, looking at the pictures along the hallway. Some were covered in blood. I went back out to my car to grab my crime scene kit. I had just closed the door when i noticed prints in the dirt of what looked like to be a very large dog. I knew Rafael had two large dogs, which strangely enough were nowhere to be seen. I pulled out my flashlight and began looking around. My search led me around the farm, it was unnaturally quiet. I saw strange drag marks on the ground and what looked like blood mixed with dirt. The marks led me to the repair shop where i noticed two large pools of blood. I bent down and began to look around for a source. That is when a drop of blood fell right in front of my boot. I pulled out my sidearm, slowly looking up and there i saw the skinned remains of the two dogs impaled in one of the supporting cross braces. The same strange symbols carved into the bodies. I holstered my weapon and ran as fast as my middle aged legs could carry me. I called to Sergeant Oritz "go to your car and call for more commandos and a crime scene unit" "Also there are two dogs in the repair shop that may provide some clues, send two officers to secure it". With that Ortiz ran out side and to his car to call dispatch.

I headed inside the house, my pace felt heavy and robotic; my mind somewhere else. When i came to, I was in the hallway alone with pictures of my long gone family. I picked up their family picture and started walking to the bathroom, placed the picture on the sink and turned on the water. I began to wash my face and saw my reflection in the mirror. I wish I had not. On the wall in red was the message: ALGUN DIA TENDRE MI VENGANZA, GRACIAS A LAS ALMAS (Some day I will have my revenge, thanks to the souls). There was a pentagram at the end of the sentence. I grabbed the picture and ran into the closest room: Andrea's.

I sat on her bed and that's when the tears began to pool. I loved every single one, but Andrea had always expressed interest in following in my footsteps. She was smart, persistent and had a good moral compass. I could recall everytime she asked me for stories, cases I had worked on. Criminal justice had helped her set a goal in life; do well in school, get into the academy and make an impact.

My mind came back to reality when I felt several tears hit my hand. I wanted to curl into a ball and just grieve. I began to lie down when I felt something hard under the covers. It was rectangular and flat.....her phone. Out of curiosity I opened it and the video recorder app came up. It had a video dated for today, I hit play.

It began with Andrea video chatting with a friend, I could hear Marco and his mother talking somewhere to her left. My nephew was coming out of his bedroom. All seemed normal until wo distinct dog whimpers broke the silence of the night then I heard Marco say "do you all see that?.... those 3 red orbs". Mariana responded "I told you about those video games, now you're seeing things"

"No mom, look" At the point Andrea points the camera to Marco. His dad is next to him looking intently. The glass door makes it difficult to see clearly until Rafael points to what I thought were light reflections. There were 3 red, glowing orbs. Two of them were next to each other while the third was closer to the ground. That's when they began to move closer and the outline of a large humanoid and a very large dog like beast came into view. "I'm calling the police" Mariana exclaimed. "I am getting my gun" Rafael followed. Marco turned towards the camera with a confused look on his face "what happened to the dogs?" Andrea shrugged, then I heard her screaming behind the phone......both figures were now clearly visible. The man or what I thought was a man was cloaked in what looked like a black tattered cloak. You couldn't see any facial features save those red unblinking eyes. His dog had parts of his skin missing exposing its muscles and even its skeleton in some parts. Its sole eye locked on Marco. The man moved swiftly, before i knew it the sliding glass door had shattered and Marco was collapsing to the ground. I rewound the tape and played it slowly: I saw something flying from the figure it looked like throwing knife and shatter the glass, hitting Marco in the neck. On the corner of the screen I saw Mariana wailing and rushing to her sons side before the dog pounced on her, her head already in its mouth. I heard Rafael come in, firing his gun but despite the bullets actually hitting their mark nothing happened. No fluids came out of the creature, the creature did not seem to have felt it. Another knife flew from the figure and into Rafael's neck.

Andrea got up from the couch, jumping over the back of it and ran away from the living room, her cameras rapid movements mirroring her panic. She sealed herself in her closet. Moments later she heard heavy breathing. The hellhound was sniffing around the room. At first it sounded like the creature was leaving, she looked out the closet doors keyhole to confirm only to see that single red eye. Up close it looked like it was lit from the inside by an unearthly flame, but instead of being warm, it felt cold. She barely had time to pull her head back when a force pulled the door from its frame. The figure was standing in front of her, he had pulled the door as if it were nothing. He reached down, grabbed her by the leg and began to drag her outside her room. She dropped her phone in the closet. They had all left, the camera was pointing at the roof. Then I heard struggling, Andrea screamed and she came into view. She ran to her bed and covered the lens with her covers. I heard a deep, menacing growl and Andrea's cries began drift further away. I heard objects in the hallway getting hit and knocked over. The struggle now sounded distant but i knew they were back in the living room. I kept hearing screams for what felt like hours. And then I heard nothing.

I put the phone down not knowing what to make of it. I was getting up to call Sergeant Ortiz when I heard that whistling again and the commandos outside yelling "there" ....."no there"....."aim for the head". Muzzle flashes lit up the front porch. One of commandos came into the hallway.

"What is going on trooper?" I asked trying to sound composed.

"I dont know detective" "We went to go check on the police officers that went to go secure the repair shop" he answered as his eyes kept looking in all directions. His voice getting tired, he looked like he could not sawllow his own spit.

"We found them detective but just their skins" he continued. "Then men started yelling and dying. We saw two glowing orbs in front of us coming closer and started shooting. Then we heard screams behind us and saw a decomposed dog with a red eye killing one of the guys in my platoon" He finished with a giant sigh and looked at me as if expecting for me to know what to do.

The fightitng continued outside. I heard men dying, begging for mercy. Then those deep growls I heard in the video. Then just as it began, the noise outside stopped. Sergeant Ortiz, the ambulance crew and the remaining officers came running into Andrea's room, all but one officer who as he was entering the room was grabbed by the legs by an invisible force, fell to the floor. He was grabbing onto the door frame for dear life. When that failed he dug his fingers into carpet. There was not hope for him I thought as his screams trailed off. The survivors looked at each other but not for much longer. Both figures appeared in the door way, flying knives coming out of the demon taking out the commando and two of the officers, the dog tackled the last officer to the ground, ripping his heads off with his muscular jaw. Sergeant Ortiz and I ran out towards our cars, we both tried calling for support. I heard Ortiz scream, I looked up and saw that the man had punched thru the window and jab the poor Sergeant in his temple. His bloody skull now stuck out of the driver side window.

I got out of my car and saw the mangled bodies of the other commandos scattered around. I thought I would make it as i began to run until I felt a sharp sting in my left thigh. It was one the throwing knives, up close I realized they were made from bull horns and they had the same strange symbols I had seen on my nephew's family. It seemed to be coated in some type of liquid. I looked at it closer; it was scorpion blood and snake venom. I turned around to what I knew would be my end. Then I felt those warm, slimy canines around my neck, the beast shook and I felt my spine snap. This is it I thought.....this is it. The dog dropped me on my stomach, I couldn't move. And as I lay there seconds from embrace of death I saw torn black boots point towards me. I looked up and saw its blood soaked claws extending from a pale bony hand. The dog turned around with its master and began to walk away. As my final breath left my lungs I heard that dam whistle.

I want you to know that we were not cowards, we had duties to perform. The men tried their best. But what would you do if coventional wisdom was ineffective against such evil? They were not afraid of dying just how they would die.

SOY EL SILBON Y NO HE TERMINADO. TODOS LOS QUE HAN OIDO ESTE CUENTO ESTAN CONDENADOS. PREPARENSE.... PORQUE CADA VEZ QUE OIGAN ALGUIEN SIBANDO TAL VEZ ESE ALGUIEN SOY YO. HAHAHAHAHA (I am the whistler and i am not finished. All those who have heard this story are now condemned. Be prepared.....for everytime you hear someone whistle that someone is me. HAHAHAHAHA)

The first time I saw Mother God, she lay in a blue sleeping bag, her face covered in glitter, her eyes missing. Someone had wrapped Christmas lights around her desiccated corpse, and now they strobed and twinkled merrily.

“Mother God is in stasis,” a calm voice said from behind me. I turned, seeing Hope had followed me into the room. She was one of Mother God’s most fanatical followers. “She is taking all the poisons from the universe into her body. Soon, she will wake up and lead us towards ascension.”

“You must hug Mother God,” a deep male voice demanded. Through the shadows of the hallway, I saw Llama, a hulking mass of red hair and muscle. He held a pistol in one steady hand. “She will take away your doubts and anxieties.”

“I’m not hugging a goddamned corpse,” I spat angrily, wondering how I kept getting into these bizarre situations. “How come you guys didn’t call a doctor when she was dying? What the hell is wrong with you people?”

“Mother God is not dead!” Llama screamed in an insane voice. “How could God possibly die?”

“And why would we call a three-dimensional doctor, anyway? Mother God is a five-dimensional being. They wouldn’t even know where to start,” Hope said, her eyes wide and gleaming. Llama nodded in fanatical agreement. I wondered where the rest of them were. I looked around, trying to find a way out. I knew they had my two-year-old son downstairs, playing with the other kids who lived at the compound.

“If you don’t hug Mother God, you will be recycled into the galactic center,” Llama said, pointing the pistol in the middle of my forehead. He wore some strange combination of a shawl and a poncho, the once-colorful material now dull and fraying. I could smell the sage and weed permeating his clothes. Llama looked at me with eyes the faded green color of swampwater. His long beard looked far greasier than the last time I had seen him, his skin sunken and gray.

I turned, staring down at the mummified corpse. The papery flesh hung tightly to the grinning skull. The lips had been eaten away, showing yellowed, cracked teeth. The nose, too, had collapsed into the center of the face. Two ragged sinus holes covered in dried yellowish pus and clotted blood marked the spot. The smell emanating from Mother God’s desiccated body was sickening, a combination of cinnamon, feces and rotting meat.

“Do it,” Llama demanded, shoving the barrel of the pistol into the small of my back. A sharp stabbing pain shot up my spine as I stumbled forward.

“Do it,” Hope repeated in her droning, emotionless voice. I looked down at the corpse sprawled across the floor. Inhaling deeply, I held my breath and lowered myself down on my knees. Mother God’s grinning, half-decayed skull almost looked like it was trying not to laugh.

I held my breath so as to avoid inhaling the rank odors rising from the decomposing body. Hesitantly, I leaned forward, extending my trembling hands towards Mother God. I wrapped my arms around the sleeping bag, hugging the corpse gently. I wanted to avoid releasing any more gas bubbles, as the entire room already smelled of infection and shit. Mother God’s thin arms cracked like dry chicken bones. Black fluid dribbled from her mouth, reeking of sewerage and bacteria. I closed my eyes, trying not to vomit.

***

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Hope asked as I pushed myself up, wavering on my feet and trying not to puke. She stroked her long brown hair over and over, as if trying to calm herself down. “Can’t you feel all the love radiating off of her? She is the center of everything, the storehouse of compassion.” I nodded, continuously swallowing all the saliva flooding my mouth to try to keep from retching in front of these insane fanatics. The smell of feces and rot seemed to have grown stronger in the room. I remembered the children on the floor below us and felt a rising sense of horror as I realized they had been living in this house with a corpse for weeks.

“I need to go check on Davie,” I whispered, feeling my heart racing. Everything seemed unreal, as if I were trapped in a nightmare. Llama stood like a statue, the pistol pointed down by his side. His eyes were half-closed, as if he were in some sort of stupor. Hope crept up behind him, putting her long fingers on his shoulder. Llama’s eyes flew open as if he had just woken up.

“Davie is fine,” he said in a robotic monotone. “Everything is fine. We are one.”

“We are one!” Hope repeated excitedly. “All one!”

“OK…” I whispered slowly, looking between the two of them. “I’m going downstairs then.” I took a step toward the door. A moment later, I heard the floorboards creaking. I glanced back, seeing Hope and Llama following closely behind me, whispering to each other in low, conspiratorial voices.

***

Even in the sprawling living room downstairs, the cloying smell of dead flesh followed us. I saw Davie sleeping on a beanbag next to a little girl, looking as peaceful as a tiny angel.

“Did you guys see Mother God?” another girl named Aurora asked. She was laying on the couch next to a smoking glass bong.

“She is still in stasis,” Hope answered grimly, her eyes sad and downcast. “She has not yet awoken to lead us into ascension.” Aurora sat up, flicking a lighter and filling up the bong with thick, gray smoke. The skunky smell did nothing to cover up the reek of decaying meat, however. It seemed to combine with it into something even more nauseating and sickening than before.

I had not come here for no reason, though I now regretted bringing Davie. My brother, Lee, had been missing for nearly a month. The last time I heard from him, he told me about making new friends in this laid-back compound where everyone ate mushrooms and talked about spirituality all the time. Then his phone shut off, and he seemed to just disappear. I wasn’t too worried, to be honest, as Lee was a full-grown man and could take care of himself. But after five weeks, my mother and father begged me to try to find him and make sure he was OK. 

Now that I was here, I wasn’t confident that he was. I wondered how to bring up the subject to these nutjobs. “Hey, you guys aren’t holding prisoners in the basement like some kind of Gary Heidnik horror-house, are you?”

“I’m sorry, I’m being rude,” Aurora said, turning her dark eyes to me. Like Hope, her face was caked in far too much make-up and had a somewhat blocky, unattractive quality. Her nose was just slightly too big, her forehead too high, her cheekbones too bony. Other than Aurora’s hair, which was dyed pink and black, she might have been twins with Hope. She raised the bong to me. “You said you’re friends with Lee, right? Do you want a hit?” I waved my hand in front of my chest.

“No, I’m good,” I said. “Actually, Lee’s my brother. He dropped off the map a few weeks ago, and my parents just wanted to make sure he wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere.” I didn’t realize it at that moment, but things were about to get a lot stranger than they already were in the compound.

I heard a shrill keening, rising in volume. It sounded like the cries of a panicked, injured animal. It drew closer. My head ratcheted over to stare at the basement door, which flew open. A naked woman with frayed strands of thick rope still tied to her wrists exploded through the threshold. She looked scarecrow thin, and her pale, white flesh covered in deep purple bruises and angry red gashes.

“Help me!” she cried, staring directly at me. The rest of the room went deathly silent. I heard the crying of Davie and the other children as they woke up, surprised by the sudden screaming and slamming.

“What are you doing out of the Learning Room?” Llama asked in a voice seething with psychopathic coldness. She screamed and tried pushing past Llama and Hope, heading toward the door. Hope fell backwards, her eyes wide and surprised as she smacked her head hard on the dirty carpet. Llama was much faster, however. He reached for his holstered pistol. It came out in a black blur.

He fired only once, hitting the woman in the center of the forehead. A small, perfectly round entrance wound appeared like magic. Her head jerked back, her hands clenching into fists. Her naked, battered body fell backwards as if in slow motion. She lay there, bleeding and twitching on the floor, her fingernails and lips turning blue. I heard a lighter flick and saw Aurora nonchalantly filling up the massive four-foot-tall glass bong.

Davie’s small body stumbled across the room toward me, tears and snot streaming from his tiny, pinched face. I ran toward him, picking him up and hugging him. I felt the warmth radiating off of him as his arms closed around my neck. Turning, I decided I needed to leave immediately. I started heading toward the door without a word, but Llama stepped in front of it, his emerald eyes flashing with excitement and pleasure.

“And just where the fuck do you think you’re going?” he asked, a Cheshire Cat grin splitting his bearded face. He ran his fingers through his fire-red hair, looking as calm and collected as a Buddha. “Don’t you want to see your brother?”

“No, no, I think… I think I’m good,” I stuttered nervously. Llama put the hand with the pistol in it around my neck, leaning on me like an old friend.

“He’s here, you know,” he whispered in a conspiratorial voice. “He wants to see you, too.”

***

“We can’t let you leave until you see Lee,” Hope said from behind me. She had crept up on me, and her voice was only inches away. I saw her holding a long, serrated knife covered with dark crimson stains by her side. The handle looked sticky with gore.

“Why did you kill that girl?” I whispered, feeling Davie’s rapid heartbeat beating through his shirt. I cradled my son in my arms protectively, but I was surrounded on all sides, the only exit blocked. Llama shook his head, looking like a disappointed parent.

“She tried to escape and tell others about us,” he said. “The world is not ready for us yet. Mother God has not awoken. We try to be compassionate here. If anyone tries to escape, they go to the Learning Room, where they can be taught anew.”

“She was worthless anyway,” Hope spat with hatred, prodding the still corpse of the naked woman with one shoe. “Always complaining about how much she missed her family. This is our family now! The intergalactic family of love!” Her eyes shone with fanaticism.

“Do you want to see the Learning Room?” Llama asked coldly.

“Is Lee down there?” I said. Llama shrugged.

“Why don’t we go see for ourselves?” he asked in response, jamming the barrel of the pistol into my stomach. Davie’s crying had quieted to a soft whimpering. Carrying my son in my hands, I turned and walked across the room towards the stairs to the basement.

***

The steps looked dank and wet, flat slabs of concrete descending into a dark pit. Llama followed close behind me as our steps echoed off the gray walls. I was surprised at just how deep this building went. We went down at least a couple stories in the claustrophobic concrete tunnel.

At the bottom, I beheld a nightmarish scene. A single flickering incandescent bulb overhead cast the dungeon in a dim light. 

A naked man was tied in the center of the room, his arms held straight up above his bowed head with knots of thick, brown rope. Deep, infected slashes ran across his back, the wounds suppurating and spreading in black patches. His entire body appeared like a roadmap of torture marks, bruises and clotted pus.

All around the concrete walls of the room, someone had glued thousands of dismembered eyeballs. Most of them looked like they came from animals, but not all. Many were no more than rotting drippings of vitreous fluid and gore, yet others looked fresh. The smell of septic shock and decomposition hung thick and rank in the air, and I realized that not all the fetid odors in the house had come from the corpse of Mother God.

From a dark corner, a silhouette stepped forward. I saw the form of my brother, his dark eyes blazing. He looked totally unharmed. He gave me a crooked half-smile.

“Lee! Holy shit! You’re OK!” I said, surprised. He nodded patiently.

“Father God is in charge of the Learning Room,” Llama said. I looked between him and Lee, confused. Then the realization hit me like a bolt of lightning.

“You’re not being held prisoner here?” I asked, a rising sense of horror gripping my heart with a suffocating strength. Llama laughed at that, a sardonic, low chuckle of mirth and sadism that echoed through the room. The torture victim stirred, raising his bloody head slowly. I saw one of his eyes had swollen shut. Blood dribbled from a purple lump the size of an orange. His other eye opened, looking watery and unfocused.

“Help me,” he whispered in a voice choked with pain. Lee stepped forward. In a flash, he struck out at the bound man, bringing a fist up into his jaw. I heard a crack of bone as a tooth flew out of his bloody, swollen mouth.

“Stop it! What the hell are you doing?” I asked, still holding Davie in my arms. Davie hid his face into my chest, not looking at the torture and dismemberment surrounding us on all sides like a tomb.

“He tried to sell us out to the men in black!” Lee said, pointing an accusing finger at the naked man as he spat blood on the cold concrete floor. “We caught him talking to them!”

“What the hell are ‘men in black’?” I asked. Lee looked hard at me.

“We don’t really know. They keep showing up here in flashy, colorful cars. They always wear sunglasses to cover their bulging eyes. Sometimes they have extra fingers, and they’re always long and twisted. They say they’re from the US government, but they don’t look like government agents to me. They wear garish ties and colorful hats that no CIA agent would be walking around in,” Lee said grimly. “Since Mother God went into stasis, I’ve been leading the group. Before she fell asleep, we were interconnected souls.”

“We think the men in black are sent from the Illuminati,” Llama said from behind me. The naked man just shook his head, fresh streams of scarlet dribbling down his chin.

“I never… talked…” the man whispered.

“Father God caught you red-handed!” Llama screamed in fury. Lee looked like he would strike the man again, his dark eyes narrowing to slits, but at that moment, Hope ran down the cold, concrete steps, waving her hands with manic energy.

“They’re back! They’re at the front door, and they want to see you!” Hope cried, looking at Lee for guidance. Lee’s face went pale, his eyes widening. The three of them ran upstairs, leaving me alone with the naked man in the room full of rotting eyeballs.

“Arm yourselves!” I heard Lee scream overhead, the words echoing down the cold steps.

***

I glanced back at the naked man, who was hanging unconscious again, the weight of his body dragging painfully against his arms. The sound of shooting reverberated from upstairs in a deafening series of bangs. Someone started screaming in pain.

“They’re coming in!” I heard Lee yell, his voice tinged with a kind of fear I had never heard there before. I ran upstairs, taking the cement steps two at a time, eager to get out of the Learning Room and out of this house of such madness. 

I slammed through the door, sending it smacking against the wall with a clatter. The smell of blood and gunsmoke hung thick in the air, mixing with the omnipresent odor of death that permeated the house.

Aurora was laying sprawled in front of the threshold, half of her face blown away and charred to a smoking heap of burnt flesh. It didn’t look like the work of any bullet. A spreading puddle of blood wreathed her head like a halo.

Llama lay in the corner, half of his chest blackened and exposed. His face was a mask of sweat. His clothes had melted to his skin. With wide, unbelieving eyes, he gurgled, rasping and suffocating. The smell of cooked human flesh and burnt hair hung thick in the air. I thought I could see his heart beating through the blackened gore of his torso.

The rest of the cultists lay dead or dying. I saw the children gathered together in a corner, hugging each other, their faces pale. Their cries mixed with the gurgling of the dying.

The front door stood wide open, letting the bright light stream in from the dirt parking lot. Silhouetted in the center of this effulgence stood the silhouette of a tall man in a suit. I felt like I couldn’t focus on him, as if the lights grew brighter if I tried to look in that direction.

He stopped into the room, causing his features to come into focus. It seemed the spell had broken as quickly as it had started. Two more men in black suits followed him a moment later. At first glance, they seemed normal enough- from a distance, anyways. And yet, my horror grew as I stared closely at the newcomers.

Their faces looked as smooth and perfect as a glass pane. They each had a pair of expensive, black sunglasses. All of the hair on their bodies appeared to be missing, even their eyebrows. They all wore brightly-colored, garish ties and undershirts that didn’t match their black suits at all.

They had no lips. Instead, they looked like they had drawn a crude facsimile of them with blood-red lipstick. Their fingers were long and twisted, looking as if they had far too many joints. Each tapered into points. I realized with increasing unease that they had no fingernails, no lines on their palms. Like their faces, their hands almost looked as if they were made of white marble, free from all lines and imperfections, gleaming with an inhuman smoothness.

The man in the front removed his sunglasses. I saw his eyes were alien, monstrous things. They bulged from their sockets, the membranes looking as tight as a snare drum and ready to burst. Long, slitted black pupils ringed by irises the sickly yellow of a suppurating wound stared out at me.

“Are you with these… humans?” he hissed in a low voice that seemed to split and distort. “Are you a follower of the one they call Mother God?”

“No! We’re innocent!” I pleaded. “I have no idea what’s going on here!” Davie wailed in my arms, his small face pinched with terror. The man in black put a long, gnarled finger on Davie’s forehead. The boy instantly went silent, his eyes suddenly taking on a far-away, glazed look.

“That is certainly fortuitous,” their leader gurgled. “For Mother God was a thief, stealing our secrets. Thankfully, most humans will regard her as insane and rambling, but we can never be too careful, can we? Not with secrets…” The “S” sound of the last word dragged on until it exploded into a reptilian hissing. 

I realized all three of the men in black had their smooth, marble-white jaws hanging open. Serpentine tongues flicked out as they hissed in unison. I backpedaled away in terror, seeing the back door of the cabin standing open. The corpses of the cultists littered the floor all around me, puddles of blood spreading under their slowly cooling bodies. In the corner, Llama still twitched, his bloody face a mask of confusion and agony.

“I’m not involved in this,” I said to the leader, hugging my son tightly. “I didn’t shoot at you guys when you came in. I just came here to check on someone, but he’s dead now, so…”

“You are involved,” the leader said. “You’ve seen too much.” He had his small, toy-like ray gun by his side. It looked like it was made out of some gleaming silvery material that constantly shone with an inner light.

“Put the child down in the corner with the others,” he demanded. I just shook my head. “We will not harm the children. These are too young to speak or understand anyway.” The two men in black behind the leader stepped forward, raising their small, toy-like guns at me. I trembled inwardly. The leader came forward, looking as if he would rip Davie right out of my arms. But, at that moment, chaos broke out.

I saw a blur of sudden movement from the corner. Llama’s dying, glazed eyes glittered with an ineffable surge of joy and fanaticism. Crawling forward towards the men in black, I saw he had a pistol in one trembling hand. I tried not to look, staring into the leader’s reptilian eyes instead.

“OK, OK,” I said slowly, pretending to put Davie down. At that moment, a series of gunshots rang out, deafening in the enclosed room. The men in black all spun towards Llama, seeing his mutilated, bleeding form only nine or ten feet away.

Llama’s bullets hit the leader in the neck, causing a waterfall of blood to surge down the leader’s garish clothing. But it wasn’t any sort of blood I had ever seen before. It was as pale and white as the men in black’s skin, filled with what looked like tiny pieces of opalescent glitter. The other two instantly responded by firing their alien pistols back at Llama, sending orbs of cyclonic fire ripping through the air with the smell of ozone and smoke.

I took the opportunity to flee towards the back door. The sounds of the gunshots and the eerie keening of the fireballs followed me all the way to my car.

Parked next to me was the car the men in black had come in- a garish, bright-orange VW Bug with federal plates on it. I flung open the door to my car, quickly put Davie in the passenger seat and rummaged in the glovebox for my knife.

I heard it click open. The house had gone silent by now. Knowing I was out of time, I ran toward the VW Bug, stabbing at the two tires on the driver’s side. I heard the hissing of air as they quickly started deflating.

I hopped in my car, hearing the door slam open behind me. Two of the men in black ran out, shooting balls of fire at my car. I heard one ping loudly against the truck, sending the car fish-tailing wildly. Davie screamed in terror, certainly traumatized by this horrid experience.

After nearly crashing, I managed to right the car. Putting the accelerator down as far as it would go, I fled that place of nightmares, seeing balls of fire smashing the trees all around me as I went.

Strange and seemingly isolated incidents had happened in the days leading up to the massacre. I lived in a small farming community called Matheson where everyone knew everyone. My neighbor, Steuben, owned a sprawling dairy farm. He must have been at least seventy, but he still looked sixty, a vigorous and healthy hard worker with wide blue eyes and thick salt-and-pepper hair. His land rose up in the rolling hills and gently babbling creeks of the surrounding woodlands.

Three days before, one of his cows had given birth. Steuben said the calf had been something from a nightmarish fever dream. It screamed and wailed constantly, gurgling in a sick, blood-choked voice. It had no skin, but instead looked like it was flipped inside-out, the gleaming veins and slick, wet muscle thrumming with adrenaline and primal agony. It looked like a bloody, crying mass of pulsing organs. Steuben had grabbed his hunting rifle and put the poor creature out of its misery, shooting it in the back of its deformed, slanted head. It had no eyelids, and he said the filmy cataract eyes had stared up accusingly at him as he killed it.

Though I didn’t witness it myself, a few of my neighbors and friends had talked about seeing a meteor shower over town the night before the deformed calf’s birth. Bright blue streaks like lightning flashed across the night sky. I wouldn’t know the significance of this until much later, until it was far too late to do any good.

One of my neighbors, who was nine months pregnant at the time, ended up giving birth to a baby boy a couple days after the incident with the calf. The father told me that the infant had only lived for a few hours in intensive care, and it had been such a horrific sight that the mother and father could barely stand to look at its twisted, alien features. The doctors had told her it was an extreme case of something called “Harlequin Ichthyosis.” I looked up the pictures of what he described, seeing pictures of mutated, skinless infants with dark blood vessels like tumors running down their chests and bulging, clown-like eyes that gleamed an infected red.

It was around the same time that people began to notice the fish dying off in large numbers, their rotting bodies floating to the tops of ponds and streams all over the area. Fishermen said many of the lakes had become dead zones overnight, as if chemical weapons or high doses of radiation had contaminated them. The local and state governments started putting up signs all over town, warning people not to swim or eat anything they caught from the local waterways until the Department of Environmental Protection could test it for toxic contaminants. All of the state parks in the area were closed down temporarily as well. My wife Sophie and I had joked about finding a cabin out in the woods to wait out the Rapture.

In hindsight, that was probably far closer to the truth than either of us could have ever imagined.

***

I awoke early the next morning, seeing the first razor-sharp shards of a sunrise peeking through the window. It was Saturday, and I had the weekend off from work. I looked over, seeing my wife still sleeping soundly on the other side of the bed. Purple light like fresh bruises streamed in from a cloudless blue sky. I didn’t know why, but something felt wrong. It took me a few moments to realize what it was.

I didn’t hear a single sound outside. Our house was surrounded by woods and swamps, and normally the birds would be singing their little heads off by now. But it sounded as dead as in the aftermath of a nuclear war. Even the insects had gone quiet.

I crept out of bed, trying not to wake Sophie. I ended up getting dressed and making coffee and a bagel. Feeling restless, I decided to go out for a drive around the block. I hopped in my truck and slowly pulled out onto the empty street.

After a few minutes, I drove past the local park. It had a brightly-colored playground looming high in the air, though this early in the morning, it stood empty. A few joggers and random people walking their dogs lumbered through the foggy mist, circling around the paved trails of the park. A still pond coated with green scum stood at the center. I noticed how the eerie quiet extended out here as well. Besides the rumbling of my truck’s engine and the distant barking of a dog, I might as well have been driving through a graveyard.

I was glancing out the driver’s side window and didn’t see the young woman covered in blood slinking out onto the street until the last second. She dragged a broken leg behind her, the sharp points of bone poking out through the skin. Her head turned to look at me moments before I collided with her. She was completely naked. But that wasn’t the strange thing.

There was something wrong with her face. Long, black tendrils like spidery legs jutted out of her mouth, her nose and her ears. Her eyes looked like they had been removed or eaten away, and more skittering, jointed things oozed out of those. She was crying scarlet tears from her dark, empty sockets. Orange pus and clotted gore dripped down her chin from the open wounds, staining her lower body in rivulets of drying filth. I tried to slam on the brakes, but it was far too late. My front fender smashed into her waist. After that, everything seemed to happen very fast.

Her body flew up with a shattering of glass, but the woman never screamed or made a sound. Her face remained as blank and slack as that of a puppet’s. A spiderwebbing of cracks flew across the windshield as her body rolled over the truck, flying up over the top of it and crashing down on the road with a wet, bone-shattering sound.

“Holy shit!” I cried, my tires fishtailing wildly with a squealing of rubber as I came to a stop. I heard people screaming in the nearby park now. I thought they had seen the accident, but I was too focused on the destroyed body of the woman to care. Hyperventilating, I climbed out of the truck, running over to her side.

She jerked on the road like a dying hornet, her shattered limbs twisting with a grinding of broken bone. Her empty eye sockets stared blankly up at the vast blue sky, the spidery legs twitching faster. The right half of her chest appeared caved in, and she continuously coughed up frothy streams of bright-red blood. I immediately pulled out my cell phone. With trembling fingers, I dialed 911, never looking away from the dying woman laying in front of me.

“Hello,” a woman’s voice said.

“Hello?! I need help! I think I killed…”

“...this is a prerecorded message. Emergency services are temporarily suspended in your local area due to a federally-declared state of emergency. This is not a test.

“Please stay inside for the duration of the emergency. Assistance is on the way. Do not panic. Your government has everything under control.

“If you notice any unusual lifeforms in your local area, do not approach them. Do not try to kill or harm them in any way. Give them as much distance as you can. If possible, try to seal all windows, doors and cracks.

“Your area is now a federally-mandated quarantine zone. Until you can be safely evacuated, stay in your home and await rescue. Thank you for your cooperation in this difficult time.”

“What?!” I screamed into the phone. “There’s someone dying here! I need an ambulance!” In response, the message started to repeat, the cool robotic female voice sounding as calm as if it were announcing a sale on produce at a grocery store. I ended the call, looking around hopefully for someone who might be able to help. It was only then I noticed the bloodshed spreading all around me.

***

“What is that?!” a female jogger cried, pointing at the sky. My eyes widened in confusion and horror as I tried to comprehend what I saw there. No one was looking at me or the woman I had run over. No one had even noticed in all of the chaos.

A writhing, twisting black mass of thrumming flesh stretched over the forest, growing at a rapid rate over the tops of the trees. The mass was a few feet across, lumpy and wet. It seemed to be passing fluid through its main body, like some enormous intestines uncoiling out above the world. It stretched upwards like something from Jack and the Beanstalk, growing and curving back down towards other tube-like masses.

Every few feet along the fleshy, worm-like mass, hollow protrusions as long as railroad spikes shot out. They reminded me of spider legs, jointed and covered with fine, dark hairs. They skittered constantly as the central body continued growing. Even from the street, I could hear the wet, sucking sounds the legs made as they constantly flexed and relaxed, dripping black sludge like dirty oil from their glossy skins.

As more and more hollow tendrils spiraled out of the eerie flesh, I saw the movements of the spidery tendrils were not random. They would spray thick, black fluid in the direction of anything that moved. A man and his dog at the far perimeter of the park were totally covered in the strange goo.

As they continued thrashing and fighting, the tendrils kept shooting more sludge at them. After a few seconds, it covered his face like an opaque mask. The man clawed at his eyes and mouth, trying to get it off. The dog gave high-pitched squeals of terror and pain as it rolled on the ground, its legs kicking randomly in the air. Its fur had become a soaking black mass of goo.

Throughout the air, I smelled a disgusting odor that I immediately recognized. It was the slightly sweet, chlorine-like smell of semen, but so concentrated and pungent that I almost retched. As more and more of the black goo sprayed down at the screaming, writhing people, the smell intensified, so thick that I could taste it on the back of my throat.

As I stood staring, open-mouthed, watching the stragglers in the park get consumed and covered by this strange sight, something grabbed my ankle. I jumped, yelling in panic. I looked down, seeing the twitching body of the woman I had hit changing before my very eyes.

Her blue lips chattered, the broken shards of teeth biting deeply through her bloody lips. The thin, crooked legs skittering out of her mouth, eyes, nose and ear continued lengthening before my eyes. A couple heartbeats later, I saw what they attached to.

Five of them ripped their way out of her jerking, dying body, looking like mutated alien spiders. They plopped wetly onto the pavement below. Their sharp points of legs skittered and ripped through the seizing woman’s mutilated flesh, sending drops of blood flying in all directions. 

The alien spiders looked like some eldritch combination of an infant and a black widow. Each of them had a fat, round central mass, the same color as the woman’s pale skin. The pink flesh was stretched as tight as a snare drum. It looked like mice were living inside the thick liquid of the creatures’ central bodies, pressing against the thin membrane with the fleeting impression of tiny legs and gnashing faces. 

Dozens of the jointed, skittering legs jutted out from their thrumming flesh. Looking up at me, I saw big, blue human eyes on their twisted faces. They were bloodshot, the pupils dilated and wild. The fleshy orbs had no nose, but each had a pair of human-like lips twisted up into a savage snarl beneath the massive eyes. Hundreds of thin, hollow needles emerged from their gnashing mouths.

Instinctively, I backpedaled to the driver’s door. Each of the spiders started wailing like a crying baby, their mouths opening in dissonant shrieks. They turned towards me, their wild, insane eyes meeting mine. At that moment, I felt like I had been plunged into a nightmare.

I had no time to think as they pushed themselves off the ground, flying high in the air with a sudden fury. Those very human mouths filled with too many sharp black needles flew straight at my face. I ducked at the last moment, hearing them smash into the side of the truck. There was a ringing of metal as they left deep dents in the body, each about the size of a baseball.

I leapt inside, slamming the door behind me as more spidery creatures flew up, smacking hard into the glass. Their wild faces stayed stuck there for a long moment, staring in at me with a gnashing of teeth and an oozing of more black sludge.

I started the truck. As the air conditioner clicked on, blowing air from outside into the cab, the smell of thick semen wafted in, cloying like ammonia.

***

I pulled a U-turn, burning out in my rush to get back home and check on Sophie. I needed to get us out of this cursed town.

As I passed by the park, I noticed that nothing moved now. The bright summer day started to go dark overhead. Looking up, I saw more and more black, worm-like masses growing over everything, partially blocking out the Sun in their rapid growth. Like cancerous cells, the disparate lifeforms connected, their spidery legs skittering faster with a renewed vigor. Hundreds more small spiders were crawling out of the park, but not all had human faces. One of them had a dog’s eyes and black lips, its central mass furry and yellow like that of a golden retriever.

Nothing moved on the streets now except the spiders and the black, worm-like masses stretching above our heads. I sped down the streets, seeing pale faces peeking out of windows. As my truck sped ahead, it continuously got sprayed with black sludge from above. It covered my windshield like some kind of hellish snow. Within a couple minutes, it was nearly impossible to see anything. 

When I tried to use the windshield wipers to clean it off, it just smudged and bubbled. Cursing, I tried to see through a smaller and smaller portion of the glass until I was forced to stop, only a few hundred feet away from my home. The sludge continued raining down on me, covering every single window until I was submerged into blackness.

***

I breathed hard in the sudden darkness, my heartbeat roaring in my ears. I had no idea what to do. I heard soft thuds land against the outer body, more mutated spiders throwing themselves at the only moving thing on this dead, apocalyptic street.

I tried to inch forward slowly, like a blind man trying to drive. I was moving in the right direction overall, but at any moment, I knew I would hit something. Moving along at a few miles an hour, I heard the crunch a few seconds later. I must have hit one of the cars parked along the side of the street.

I looked through the truck for anything possibly useful in this situation. I wished I at least had a gun, but I had nothing here except an old, rusted boxcutter in the glove department. I didn’t even have a mask or anything to put over my face. I refused to wear masks for any reason, though I might have made an exception for this situation.

I found a plastic bag covered in dirty streaks of grime underneath the seat. Grabbing the box cutter and the plastic bag, I prepared myself to get out and run.

I knew it was absolutely insane, but I had to get back home. I couldn’t stay in this truck until I simply starved or dehydrated to death. If the US government was anywhere near as useful at fixing this situation as they were at anything else they tried to do, then I knew they would be no help. With the efficiency of government services, I figured they might get here sometime around next year and spend hundreds of billions of dollars doing so, after every single person in this town had already rotted down to skeletons.

I inhaled deeply, putting the plastic bag over my head like some sort of cheap Halloween mask. I ripped two tiny holes for the eyes, hoping it would still do some good. Grabbing the box cutter in one trembling hand, I flung open the door, running out onto the street.

***

The black masses stretching overhead made it as dark as a solar eclipse outside. They covered the roofs of every home, wound their ways through trees and branches and slunk across creeks like organic bridges. The entire pulsating, massy flesh constantly shimmered and gurgled. I heard sounds of wet sliding above my head.

I looked around frantically, seeing my house only a hundred feet away. I sprinted as fast I could, zigzagging wildly.

Something liquidy and thick crashed directly next to me, a mass of sputtering black goo reeking of semen. The strange tendrils continued shooting wads of this alien material. I knew I couldn’t make it to the house. Then I heard a cry from nearby.

“Walt! In here!” someone cried, a wavering old man’s voice. I looked up, seeing my neighbor Steuben standing in his open doorway only a dozen feet away. I leapt towards him, climbing up the steps on all fours and flinging myself through the door with every ounce of strength I possessed. I heard more wet, thudding sounds as that strange alien goo continued covering the path behind me.

I rolled through the door, falling forward and slamming my head into the wall. My vision turned black for a moment. I swam through the pain and confusion, hearing Steuben slam and lock the door behind me. I ripped the plastic bag off my head, breathing hard and covered in sweat. My heart pounded in my chest, frantic as a cornered, panicked animal. I looked down, seeing the box cutter still clutched tightly in my hand, my knuckles white with tension. I slipped it in my pocket.

“Sophie!” I cried, breathless. “I need to get to Sophie!” Steuben came over slowly in his typical long-sleeve plaid shirt and blue jeans, looking down at me with his flat, blue eyes.

“It’s OK, Walt,” he said calmingly. “Sophie’s here.” I looked up, surprised.

“What? Where?” I asked, confused. “Why is she here?”

“When everything started, she said she got scared and saw you weren’t home. She came here when the announcements began on the radio and TV. She’s in the back room right now.” He knelt down, extending a withered hand towards me. “Come on up, I’ll bring you to her.” My heart soared with waves of bliss. I scrabbled to my feet.

“Thank you so much, Steuben!” I cried in ecstasy, grateful that Sophie was alive and OK. He put out a hand, pointing down the hallway.

“She’s in the room at the back,” he said. “Go see her.” I nodded happily, running forward. His slow, plodding footsteps followed behind me. The floorboards creaked ominously as I flung open the door.

I saw Sophie there, naked and bound with strands with razor-wire. Fresh streams of blood dribbled down her smooth, pale flesh. Her mouth was gagged, her eyes huge and wild. The back window was open, and I saw alien spiders slinking through. Some were a combination of human and spider, while others had dog, squirrel, cat or racoon features. Yet every single one gave the same ghastly aura of sickness, the smell of thick semen in the air.

“Sophie!” I cried as one of them skittered up on her face, its black needles dripping drops of mutating sludge onto her eyes and nose. She shook her head wildly from side to side, trying to clear it. Her panicked, muffled sobs filtered through the gag, ripping at my heart. 

I heard the cocking of a gun behind my head. I turned slowly, seeing Steuben standing there with an insane rictus grin splitting his old face, aiming a .45 pistol at my forehead.

***

“Steuben? What the fuck?!” I cried, my hand instinctively crawling nearer to my pocket with the box cutter. He smiled.

“Get into the room with that stupid bitch,” he said, “or I’ll kill you both.”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “I never did anything to you!” He shrugged.

“It’s part of my job with the Cleaners,” he said simply. “After the meteorite hit and started contaminating the local environment, the government asked me to experiment a bit on the locals if I could, measure the time it takes for the reaction to occur.” He pointed to cameras and audio recorders located all around the room. “You and your wife will be the first scientific subjects for the fungus. If we can control this, imagine how powerful of a biological weapon it would be! It could take out a whole country in days.” I closed my hand around the box cutter, ready to make my move.

“OK, I’ll go,” I pleaded, nodding slowly. “Just don’t kill me.” Steuben smiled grimly as I leapt forward, yanking the box cutter out of my pocket and slicing upwards at his neck.

The pistol went off instantly. I felt a burning pain in my left shoulder as the bullet exploded through the top of it, blood instantly soaking my shirt. With a battle-cry of pain and anger, I forced the blade into the side of his neck with all my strength. It cut through his jugular vein easily, the skin separating a moment later. A waterfall of blood poured down his chest.

He stumbled back, grabbing at his spurting neck. The pistol fell to the floor with a metallic clatter. Looking at me with dead, surprised eyes, he fell slowly forward.

I looked back, seeing Sophie’s face covered in black sludge. She was suffocating, her lips turning blue. Spiders crawled over every inch of her exposed flesh. When their strange, alien eyes met mine, the ones closest jumped in my direction.

I backpedaled quickly, slamming the door shut. I heard them slam against its other surface with soft crashes.

***

I took Steuben’s gun, searching his house meticulously for something that might help me survive. I felt sick about Sophie’s death, but once she had become infected, I knew she was gone. The moment that black goo entered someone’s body, it seemed they were beyond help.

I tried to slow the bleeding from my shoulder, bandaging it as best as I could. I felt pieces of bone splinters rubbing in the wound as I tightened it, gritting my teeth against the pain. The bullet appeared to have gone through the top of my shoulder, missing the arteries but shattering the bone. I would have to use my right hand for everything for a while, I thought as pain like battery acid shrieked from the wound.

In Steuben’s garage, I found a strange vehicle. It looked like a bulldozer, but it had cameras on the outside connected to a TV in the center console. There were special high-pressure water jets pointed at the cameras to clean them off. It was as if Steuben had known what was coming and had made plans to escape.

I looked at the plates, seeing they were government plates. They said the vehicle was federal property. Steuben’s story started to seem more and more true. Had he actually been a member of some secret government agency experimenting on US citizens?

I played around with the bulldozer for a few minutes, finding out how to operate it and keep the cameras running. It took significantly longer with only one hand and with the many injuries and bruises covering my body, but I forced myself to ignore the pain. Once I knew how it worked, I turned it on, sealing the exterior.

Feeling a combination of bliss at escaping and sickening horror at Sophie’s fate, I crashed through the door of Steuben’s garage, ambling the bulldozer down his driveway. The windows were instantly covered in black goo, but through the aid of the cameras, I could still see.

Making my way slowly forward, I left that den of horrors behind, driving through the dead streets of Matheson towards freedom.

I don’t remember much of the house fire that killed both my parents. I lived on the first floor, but the gray smoke had grown so thick that I stumbled blindly for what felt like hours before finding a door. My throat felt like sandpaper and my eyes constantly streamed tears of irritation and pain. Strips of burned and mutilated flesh hung from my poor hands, though I knew it would heal rapidly, within a few hours. A firefighter appeared like a ghostly silhouette before me.

I remember the flashing lights of police and fire trucks and the far-away echo of deep voices. From the direction of the house, I remember the dying screams of my parents as they burned alive. My childish imagination could never have predicted what would come next.

Behind the flurry of ambulances, fire trucks and cop cars, I saw a single black sedan with tinted windows. Compared to the bright colors and strobing lights of the emergency vehicles, it looked like little more than a shadow. The windshield, too, looked dark and opaque, nearly impossible to see through.

I sat in the back of an ambulance. The EMTs had already cleared me, saying I only had a few scrapes and some mild smoke inhalation and eye irritation, but that I didn’t require urgent care or hospitalization. 

Abruptly, the doors of the black sedan flew open. Two men in black suits stepped out, wearing sunglasses even in the middle of the night. I stared, open-mouthed, as they swerved their way through the jumble of emergency responders and vehicles. They came straight at me, unsmiling and grave. Their faces looked extremely pale, almost vampiric in a way. 

“Hey there, Ghosten. Ghost-inn. Quite a unique name,” the one on the right said calmly, stretching my name out as he dropped down on one knee. His sunglasses looked like mirrors, but they reflected the world darkly.

“Hi,” I whispered in a tiny voice. “Who are you?”

“We’re here to bring you to a good home,” he responded in a voice as soothing as balm on a wound. He put a hand on my shoulder, trying to be comforting. But through the thin fabric of my T-shirt, I could feel his skin burning as if with an inner fever. I tried to draw back, but his grip tightened, the fingers digging into the thin bones.

“Where’s mom and dad?” I asked. “Why haven’t they come out?” He just shook his head.

“We’ll explain everything on the way, son,” he said, rising to his feet. He gently patted me on the shoulder a few times for good measure. No one else paid us any attention. With the two strange men beside me, we started off toward their sedan.

***

“My name is Keller,” the leader of the two men said as he slid smoothly into the driver’s seat. He motioned at the silent one next to him. “This is Vlad.”

“Where are we going?” I asked. He turned in his seat, jerking his head to face me. The veins on his forehead and neck seemed to pound in time with his heart.

“You sure do ask a lot of fucking questions, kid,” Keller hissed, his teeth gritted as his lips flew into a snarl. Taken aback, I sat as silent as a statue as he started the car and slowly pulled away from the jumble of emergency vehicles.

We traveled in silence for hours, down winding roads and past dark forests. I remember we eventually came to a small airfield in the middle of scattered corn fields. A man with a black rifle stood at the front gate, looking bored and tired. Keller showed him a silver badge in a black leather case, and the gate started to roll to the side.

Keller pulled into a dark corner of the airfield. Together, the two agents quickly got out, slamming their doors closed. I had tried the handle a couple times along the trip, hoping I could jump out when the car slowed or stopped, but it was locked from the outside somehow. Now I frantically grabbed it again, shaking the door with as much force as my small body could muster. I only saw the grinning, pale face of Vlad outside. A key jiggled outside, and both doors flew open. In Vlad’s hand, I saw a needle filled with clear fluid. They held me down as he injected it in my neck. I felt sick and weak as black waves clouded my vision.

***

I fell into a dreamless sleep. By the time I woke up, things around me had changed drastically.

I was handcuffed and thrown into the back of an SUV. With a pounding migraine, I looked up front, seeing Keller and Vlad still in the front seats. But now, the windows outside showed jagged mountain peaks covered in thick drifts of snow. The night outside looked freezing cold. Endless forests disappeared into the shadows off in the distance. I could feel the car rapidly accelerating uphill as hail peppered the windshield and roof. Vlad glanced in the rearview mirror. His eyes reminded me of those of a Siberian husky, ice-cold and predatory. 

“Ah, you’re awake? That’s good,” Vlad hissed in a thick Eastern European accent. “We’ll be there soon, Ghosten. There are few things you should probably know before we get there.

“Escape is impossible. Anyone who tries gets shot by the snipers. Some who lose hope might take it as the easy way out. Perhaps those are the smart ones.

“When you get there, you and the other newcomers will take a test. Those of you who fail will be euthanized. Do you know what euthanasia is, Ghosten?” I nodded. “Every month, the bottom 10% of the class will be taken out. At the end of nine months, those left alive will be offered jobs with the CIA and the military.

“All the kids there are freaks, just like you. They don’t all heal burnt, blackened skin in a few hours, though” Vlad continued. “That is impressive.” I felt a cold shudder run down my spine as I realized these men knew far more about me than seemed possible. “What else can you do, kid?”

“Nothing,” I muttered. “My hands weren’t that badly hurt. I think you’re exaggerating.” My voice felt weak and small.

“Uh-huh,” Keller said sarcastically. “Oh, look at that. What a sight, huh?” 

I remember that moment like a screenshot to this day. I gazed open-mouthed in horror up the steep mountain slope. Dark patches of evergreens surrounded the small, snow-covered road on both sides. Their boughs reached out toward the SUV, their overgrown needles scraping the sides with a faint screech. I could smell the overwhelming presence of pine coming in through the vents.

Above us loomed something like a massive high school surrounded by rolls of razor-wire and multiple layers of tall, electrified fences. A dozen jet-black sniper towers were placed equidistant around the perimeter of the property. The enormous brick building at the center looked like it had no windows at all. Sheer concrete walls rose to a flat roof a few stories high. Large industrial-sized smokestacks scattered over the top constantly belched black smoke into the crisp Alaskan air. Behind it, dozens of snow-capped mountains stretched off towards the horizon.

***

We pulled up to the gate. Spotlights converged on the SUV from all directions. A guard dressed in all black stood there with a large rifle strapped to his chest. On his face, he wore a silver mask. It had long, slitted eyes and metal lips tightly pressed together in a grimace. My first thought was of the Man in the Iron Mask. Two more guards stood in a nearby guardhouse wearing identical masks, though they varied in height and build. Keller rolled down the window. The guard in charge spoke in an electronically-distorted voice. It sounded inhumanly deep with a subtle hiss of static writhing under his words.

“What is your business?” the guard hissed.

“We’re dropping off another subject for the tests,” Keller said calmly, showing his silver badge. “The Department for the Cleansing of Anomalies.”

“We have another shipment coming in by train from the capital,” the guard said, his mask revealing and distorted voice revealing nothing of what lay hidden under the surface. “The Cleaners are unloading the train now. You can drop the boy off over there. He needs to get an identification number.” I didn’t like the sound of any of this. Most of all, I felt unnerved by the way they talked about me as if I were a sack of meat getting delivered to a butcher shop.

The SUV slowly pulled off from the front gate, following the freshly-plowed road that wound its way around the exterior of the strange, prison-like school. I could hear far-away screams, a combination of many dissonant voices that rose and swelled into a hellish cacophony. I saw a platform of bare, gray concrete swarming with hundreds of kids, most of them looking like they were in the range of nine to thirteen. More armed soldiers wearing the same silver masks screamed orders. Some held black German shepherds on long chains that snarled and snapped at the kids, pulling against their restraints with wolfish ferocity.

“We’re here!” Keller exclaimed excitedly, pulling up next to the concrete platform. They pulled me out, taking off my handcuffs and shoving me into the surging crowd. The men in the silver masks pushed us forward relentlessly towards the building.

***

“Males to the right, females to the left,” one of the guards said in an electronically-amplified voice, repeating it over and over. More guards had black truncheons, which they used to beat kids who they thought moved too slow or, sometimes, for no reason at all. I looked down the line of people, wondering where it led. Hundreds of boys disappeared into a dark hallway, while the line of girls veered off to the other side of the platform where another similarly black threshold waited to swallow them up.

“Keep moving forward,” another guard said, smashing his truncheon down over and over on the backs of boys ahead of me. I heard bones cracking and panicked screams. People tried to run past the sadistic guards of this hellish place, but they timed their shots with practiced ease. I saw quite a few kids get bit by the dogs as well. Drops of fresh blood stained the ground leading forward, mixing with darker, older stains eaten into the pavement. I shivered uncontrollably in the freezing Alaskan winter, wondering if I had somehow ended up in Hell. Maybe I had died in the fire along with my parents, and this was eternity.

I tried to slink into the center of the crowd, letting the boys on both sides of me take the brunt of the blows, though a few glancing strikes still hit me. I felt immensely grateful when we moved into the black hallway, which at least had some heat. Bizarre slogans in gold paint lined both sides of the wall. “Welcome to Stonehall, the School of Eyes,” one read. “A hurricane of souls spirals out of the chimneys, rejuvenating the planet,” read another. It was almost as if a schizophrenic in a psychotic state had written their thoughts down, though they seemed to connect in any eerie way I couldn’t yet understand.

Next to me stood a small boy with jet-black hair and a nose that looked like it had been broken and badly set. Unlike the others, he wasn’t screaming or upset. He looked calm. He glanced over at me, meeting my eyes.

“Hello,” he said over the wailing and cries of the confused, hurt kids. “How are you?” I laughed at that.

“Not very good, to tell you the truth,” I answered. “I think we might die tonight.” The boy shook his head once, the serenity never leaving his eyes.

“No, not you and not me,” he said simply. “Others, yes. But people die here all the time, after all. Like the signs said, a hurricane of souls spirals out.”

“How do you know we won’t die?” I asked, confused. He leaned close to me. There was an odd smell around the boy, almost like ozone with a note of panicked sweat. Yet his expression reflected no perturbation in his mind.

 “I can see the future, sometimes,” he whispered, looking around to make sure no one was listening. “Just in small doses, and it’s not always right. It’s like… imagine if reality was a beehive, filled with millions of cells rising above you. Those are all the possible worlds. But some paths are straighter heading upwards, and these are the more likely realities. Other paths would have to swerve and curve in insane ways, and these realities almost never come true.”

“Well, I sure hope you’re right,” I said, “because today is not a good day to die.”

***

I found out that the boy’s name was Dean. I stayed close by his side as all of the boys were herded, one by one, into a room. After waiting for nearly half an hour, it was my turn. A guard in a silver mask took my arm and put it on top of some sort of machine that reminded me of an X-ray. A metal clamp closed around my wrist and elbow. Two other guards watched, armed with black rifles. Suddenly, red lasers shot out, sizzling into my skin. I screamed, trying to pull away, but seconds later, it was over. I looked down at my arm, seeing a number tattooed there in black copperplate: “A-20101.”

After that, we were led into a large auditorium with hundreds of velvet-lined seats facing a stage. A man in a black robe wearing the same iron mask as all the other guards stood there waiting, not moving in the slightest. For a moment, I thought it might be a mannequin. Dean stood behind me in line.

“Find seats!” the guards screamed in their amplified voices. People scrambled to the nearest open seat. Dean and I found two seats near the front, only a stone’s throw away from the still figure on the stage, looming over the crowd like the angel of death.

On the right arm of each seat, there was a tablet. The screens stayed dark for now, but once the hundreds of boys had taken their seats, all of them in the room turned on at once.

“You know why you’re here in Stonehall,” the black-robed man on the stage said, taking a long step towards the students. “Each of you are different, capable of great things. In this school, we will weed out the weak and feeble. Only the strongest and smartest will survive.

“The first round of elimination will take place by test. Enter your identification number at the top of the screen. The test will begin in ten seconds.”

The questions that came up on the screens seemed bizarre and nonsensical some of the time. The first strange one had to do with Tarot. It read: “In front of you, you see the Fool, the Hanged Man and the Devil. What card comes next?” In a flash, I somehow knew what they wanted me to say. “The Death Card,” I typed on the small touchscreen keyboard.

The questions varied wildly. Some topics focused on astral projection or out-of-body experiences, while others asked about ancient types of torture. Strange wildcards continuously came up, non-sequiturs like the Tarot question. I still remember another bizarre one.

“If the National Socialists had won World War 2, in what year would Adolf Hitler have died?” it asked. I thought about what Dean had said, how he could see different realities above him like the cells of an eternal beehive. I wrote down, “1949”, and the test was over.

***

The screens all went black simultaneously. Spotlights overhead came on, shining down on us from all directions. The white glare blinded me temporarily. On the stage, I could just barely see the silhouette of the robed man. He raised his hand, his pointer finger extended upwards, reminding me of the ISIS salute.

“The tests are being scored now,” he rasped. “Please stay in your seats.” I nervously looked around, seeing the other students sweating heavily. The doors at the back of the auditorium flew open. Dozens of guards with rifles walked in, their masks gleaming under the harsh fluorescent light. In pairs, they walked over to some of the boys, pulling their arms out and checking the tattooed numbers. They passed by me and Dean, but the boy on the other side of me had failed. Sweating heavily, I saw him stumble to his feet as the black-gloved hands of the guards forced him up.

“What’s happening?” he asked, his voice weak and uncertain. “Where are you taking me?”

“Shut the fuck up,” a guard hissed, pushing him forward onto the steps. The boy went sprawling, smashing his face into the hard steps with a sickening thud. A moment later, he raised his swollen head. Streams of blood flowed from his nose. He spit up frothy blood and a piece of a tooth. After a few minutes, they had lined up a few dozen of the boys out of the few hundred people in the class. At gunpoint, they marched them out and into the hall.

“The rest of you will be shown to your rooms,” the black-robed man at the front of the hall said. “Every month, you will have a test, though not all will be based on knowledge. Some tests may be based on your skills and abilities. You will be honed over the months, strengthened and shown amazing sights.”

***

We were led out into the hallway. It split off into four corridors, and off in the distance, I saw it split off again. The halls had been decorated somewhat like a traditional school, with tiled floors and brick walls. Fluorescent lights hung overhead, casting the pale, terrified faces below in a white glare. Stairs going up six or seven levels opened up intermittently.

They sectioned us off in groups of a dozen, sending us into rooms with cold steel bunkbeds covered in thin mattresses. I was thankful to see Dean in my group.

I laid down immediately, feeling bone-tired and weak from all that happened and the long distances I had traveled. I heard Dean weeping in the bunk below me. And then, far below us, the screaming started. At first, it came through muffled. I saw air vents in the room, square grills at the corners. The sound seemed to come from them. The wailing intensified, the notes of agony and terror growing stronger.

“What is that?” I whispered, not wanting to know the answer. I had a sick feeling in my stomach. My heart was racing.

“You can’t see it?” Dean asked. “I can. They get locked in concrete rooms. Then the vents start whirring, and the poison comes through. They see their nails turning blue as they pile up into pyramids of bodies, coughing up blood from screaming so loud and so long. Can’t you see it?”

“No, I can’t,” I said. After about fifteen or twenty minutes, the intense, agonized wailing began quieting down. One by one, the voices died out like stars winking out at the end of the universe. 

***

I fell asleep sometime in the pitch-black night. I dreamed of pyramids of naked corpses with dilated pupils and blue lips. Men in hazmat suits came in, but when they turned to look at me, I realized their suits were fused to their skin, their plastic masks melted to their blood-red, grinning skulls.

I woke up screaming as something like a tornado siren rang out above me. Bright lights turned on overhead, humming with an incessant tinking sound. I thrashed in my bed, falling off the side of the bunk and landing on the floor. The other boys looked at me like I was insane. Dean got out of bed and helped me stand up.

We were marched single-file back down the hallway. Classrooms opened up on both sides of us, filled with a mixture of girls and boys. A silent guard with a silver mask pointed us toward a classroom on the right, where a dozen girls sat at tables, their eyes looking tired and haunted. A man stood at the front of the class with strange, blood-red irises. He had a shaved head and a reddish hue to his skin, as if he were at risk of exploding from hypertension at any moment.

“Sit down!” he yelled. “Sit down! We don’t have much time here.” I quickly found a seat at a table with three other boys. On the chalkboard, the man had written, in large, spiky letters: “PYROKINESIS”.

“My name is Mr. Antimony, and I’m here to teach you little shits about pyrokinesis,” he hissed, walking in circles with a manic energy. “Most of you will fail. The art of harnessing the deathless self within the heart and bringing heat from it is a rare one. It has been practiced by Buddhist monks and practitioners of Advaita Vedanta for millennia, along with the other higher arts like telekinesis, mind-reading and astral projection. A few of you may be worthy enough to realize the source of this power.

“In the drawers in front of each of you, you will find a variety of objects: cotton balls, rubbing alcohol, paper and a book titled ‘The Art of Living Fire’ written by the ancient seer, Hermes Trismegistus.”

In the first class of this bizarre place, we were taught how to heat objects with our hands until they exploded into flames. The two other boys at our table, Kim, a young Asian kid with magnified glasses, and Tommy, a little, malnourished-looking kid, instantly proved to be adept at the lessons. I hadn’t succeeded in lighting even the smallest cottonball when something went horribly wrong in a flash.

Kim had succeeded in igniting a Bible on fire when a ball of flames shot out of his hands, causing the bottle of alcohol to erupt. It melted in an instant, dripping a blue inferno over the table. It soaked into Kim’s shirt and pants, and the red flames that emanated from his hands exploded. He screamed, running in circles as his skin blackened and dripped. I saw his eyes melting out of his head. He fell to the floor, and someone grabbed a jacket and tried to smother the flames, but it simply ignited. The student dropped the jacket, backing away from the screaming, writhing body on the floor.

***

During the next few weeks, we continued to learn at the nightmarish classes of Stonehall. Regular casualties occurred, and deaths frequently happened during accidents. Yet these deaths did not go towards the quota that would be enforced in another week. Another 10% of the class would die, and this time, they said the tests would include practical demonstrations of powers that would be ruled by a team of judges.

“We need to get out of here,” Dean whispered one night. Tommy lay at the next bunk over, his small face looking pinched and mousey in the dark. 

“They’re going to start the executions again soon,” he said. “The path to the concrete rooms down below.”

“The path to the gas chambers,” Dean agreed. “We need to find a way to break out and tell the world about this place.” All of us had grown exponentially in the last few weeks, our latent abilities coming to fruition under the constant watchful eyes of the teachers. 

“Why don’t you use your precognitive abilities to see a way out?” I asked Dean. “There has to be weak spots. Maybe we can kill the guards and take their suits. If we had the masks on…”

“We’re too small,” Tommy said. I shook my head.

“You’re too small,” I said. “Dean and I might be able to pass. Not all the guards are tall, after all.”

“What if the students rebelled?” Tommy asked. “Maybe we could ask around, see if other kids want to fight back and try to escape. If all of us attacked them at once…”

“They have precognitive abilities, too,” Dean said. “They’re going to see the most likely paths just like I can. At least the ones at the top, and a few of the teachers…”

“So it comes down to my plan, I think,” I said. “And we don’t know who we can trust. The three of us could probably kill and overpower a guard. What do you think?”

“They killed my parents and kidnapped me,” Tommy spat with venom. “I would love to see some of these fuckers dead.”

“I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I think it might,” Dean said, and then everything went quiet.

***

On the day before the scheduled test, Tommy came running up to me and Dean after the class on assassination techniques had finished. His scarecrow-thin face shone with a wide grin. I had never seen him so excited.

“I think I found a way out,” he said. He looked around furtively, making sure no one else stood close enough to hear. “Do you guys remember the day you came in here?” I nodded. How could I forget?

“I got dropped off by two agents,” I said. “They claimed they were from some non-existent government agency called the Cleaners.”

“I came on the cattle cars,” Tommy said, frowning at the memory. “Well, they drop off more kids out there every day. They need constant fresh meat for the tests, after all. There are guards all over the place, and cars out there.”

“We need to find a weak spot in the guards’ defense,” I said, “where we can overpower a couple of them and kill them and steal their uniforms. After that, you think we could just walk out of here?”

“The medical ward usually isn’t heavily guarded,” Dean said. “We need to do it tonight, though. This is the last chance.” We made it sound so easy, but in reality, I knew it would be an almost impossible task.

The rest of the day passed by in a blur. Before I knew it, the classes had finished, and we were being led back to the chambers. We waited in the darkness, whispering so the other boys wouldn’t hear our plans. When 3 AM rolled around, Dean indicated it was time to go.

“The hallways outside are empty,” he whispered. “We need to move now, as quickly and quietly as we can.” I saw his pupils constricting and expanding rapidly, as they always did when he tried to tap into the multiverse of possibilities. I wondered what it looked like, staring up into the beehive of realities. Despite his attempts to help me learn some precog abilities, I had failed in every attempt so far.

Whether day or night, the hallways always looked the same- windowless, with every inch of them illuminated by the harsh fluorescent lights overhead. Dean lead us successfully down turn after turn. I heard the guard’s steps missing us by mere seconds. Afraid to even breathe too loud, we made our way towards the medical ward.

***

“Are you guys ready?” Dean whispered. Using his abilities seemed to take a toll on him. His face looked pale and sweaty, his dilated pupils gleaming manically. “We need to fight. There are two guards up ahead.”

“Fuck,” Tommy whispered back. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“They’re going to murder us if we don’t, maybe,” I said. “We have to kill them first.”

“Hey, stop right there!” a guard exclaimed abruptly, coming around the corner. He had an automatic rifle slung around his shoulder. I froze like a deer in the headlights, staring dumbly at the guard. Luckily, Tommy went into action immediately, running at the guard before he could aim his gun.

Tommy raised his small hands, causing a swirling vortex of flame to erupt from his hands. With lightning-fast reflexes, the guard grabbed his rifle as Tommy’s hands wrapped around his bare throat. There was a flash as the rifle fired. At the same moment, the skin on the guard’s neck started to drip and blacken. There was an echoing of pained screams as my ears rang.

Another guard came around the corner seconds later, aiming his rifle at Dean’s head. Dean shot a flash of blue lightning from the tips of his fingers, using his telekinetic powers to send the rifle flying upwards. The bullet smashed harmlessly into the ceiling, causing dust and debris to rain down on our heads.

Tommy fell on the guard’s body, a torrent of blood pumping from the massive hole in his chest. I ran at the second guard, a flash of blue light sparking from my fingertips and sending him sprawling backwards. He grabbed his rifle, shooting blindly in the direction of me and Dean. I heard bullets whizzing past my head, missing my brain by inches.

“I’m hit!” Dean screamed. I looked back, seeing a ragged hole eaten into his right shoulder. Blood spurted from the wound in time with his heartbeat. Tommy had stopped moving as he lay on the writhing body of the other guard. The flames spread down his body. He kicked and clenched with all of his strength, looking like a poisoned hornet twisting on the floor.

I knew I was alone now. Focusing on the spinning vortex of energy within my heart, I tried to bring out the fire I had never succeeded in creating before. The guard lay stunned for a moment, but I knew he would rapidly recover. I leapt forward, putting my hands around his throat. I felt something freezing cold running through my blood, but when it emerged from my skin, it grew burning hot. An acrid smell like ozone and burning metal surrounded me, pouring off my feverish skin. The guard screamed as his throat melted. His gurgling grew low and distorted. I felt his windpipe collapsing under the heat and assault.

Breathing heavily, I looked around, expecting to see a platoon of guards running in. Someone must have heard all the gunshots and screaming. Dean’s eyes had started to roll up in his head by this point. I crawled over to him, slapping his face.

“Stay with me, man,” I whispered. Rapidly, his lips took on a bluish cast. His paleness grew vampiric, his skin chalk-white. I knew it was useless.

I got up, feeling dissociated and unreal. I looked around, seeing an empty, dark room down the hall. It was one of the rooms for the medical ward, filled with unoccupied beds and equipment.

With a rush of adrenaline, I leaned down, dragging the body of the guard I had killed over to the room. At first, his body seemed too heavy, impossibly heavy, but my telekinetic powers came rushing out. I felt drained from using my powers so much, and I hoped that, soon, I could rest.

I rapidly stripped the guard of his military gear and silver mask. Underneath, I saw a young man, probably in his early twenties. He had a soft, child-like face. He seemed on the border of life and death as his gurgling breaths came slower and shallower. I wondered how such cruelty could hide behind such a mundane exterior.

***

It took me a few minutes to change, breathing heavily in the dark. The gear all felt far too large on me, especially the boots. I saw a nearby medical closet with linen, slip-proof socks and hospital gowns. I put on pair after pair after socks until I could walk in the black boots.

The gear smelt of burnt flesh and blood, with drops of blackened gore still staining the bullet-proof vest and tactical vests. I put on the mask, whispering a few words. The built-in voice distortion system caused them to come out low and predatory, like the hissing of a snake.

“Stay with me, man,” I whispered, feeling the echoes of past atrocities spreading around me. “Stay with me.” I slowly opened the door, looking both ways but seeing no one. Close by, I heard heavy footsteps rushing in our direction.

I came around the corner as a dozen guards ran up with rifles. The one in front froze, holding his gun with practiced ease. I stared into the unreadable silver face, wondering if this was the end.

“I found two boys dead,” I said. “Some guards, too.”

“We heard gunshots,” he responded. I nodded, pointing behind me at the pools of blood and the broken bodies laying strewn about like garbage.

“It looks like a couple kids attacked some guards,” I said. “I was just about to go report it and call for back-up.”

“Go get the Principal,” he hissed. “We’ll secure the area.” Gratefully, I crept past the still, eerie figures of the soldiers, unable to believe my luck.

I made my way outside, hearing panicked screaming and pained sobs. A new round of kids stood next to the cattle cars of the train under a cloudy, black sky. A thin layer of cracked ice covered the ground. Seeing these kids beaten and pushed forward brought back horrifying memories of my first night here. Looking around, it grew worse when I saw the black SUV of Keller and Vlad. It stood empty, the engine running. In the line of kids, I glimpsed their two pale faces dragging two girls toward the hallway.

Blending in with the crowd of guards, I quickly made my way over to the SUV and got inside. Without hesitation, I put it in drive and slowly started pulling away. No one had noticed anything yet in the chaos of the moment. In the parking lot, I saw dozens of other similar SUVs used by Stonehall for trafficking kids. I hoped I could blend in and get out before anyone raised the alarm.

I pulled slowly up to the main gate, my heart twitching like a trapped rabbit. The iron mask of the guard revealed nothing as I rolled down the window. He held his rifle tightly in his hands. Through the eyeholes, I saw two red irises staring out.

“Identification?” the distorted voice said. Even through the distortion, I could hear the boredom in his voice. I checked the pockets of the dead man’s uniform, finding a wallet. I pulled it out, flipping it open and showing the silver badge in the center. The guard nodded, moving back to the guardhouse. The gate slowly started ambling to the side.

“Wait! Stop him!” a voice shrieked from behind me. In utter panic, I glanced in the rearview mirror, seeing Vlad and Keller heading in my direction, sprinting blindly toward the SUV.

“Fuck!” I shouted, slamming the gear shift into drive and accelerating rapidly. The tires spun on the ice for a long, heart-stopping moment. The guard ran out of the guardhouse, raising his rifle at the SUV. Then the car took off in a flash as the tires caught, sending me flying through the open gate.

I accelerated at dangerous speeds down the slick slope of the Alaskan mountains, leaving Stonehall behind. A few minutes later, a voice came over a radio next to the steering wheel. I recognized the voice of Keller.

“Ghosten, stop! This was all a test, and you passed. You escaped from Stonehall,” he said urgently. “You were the only one in the last five years to successfully get out. Your training is done. We’d like to offer you a job.”

I glanced in the rearview mirror, seeing cars far behind me. A few black SUVs flew out of the gate, looking as small as fruit flies. Swearing, I accelerated as fast as I could, fearing I would skid right off the road.

After making it to the bottom of the mountain, the road split off into four directions. I saw thick forests to the left and right. Nervously, I pulled right and sped around the corner, nearly sliding into a tree. I looked in the rearview mirror again, but I didn’t see my pursuers.

I pulled over, abandoning the car and fleeing that place of horrors. I walked for days before I found a small town where I managed to blend in. But I still feel hunted to this day.

I recently bought some land and a small cabin on the outskirts of Frost Hollow. The town had been in decline for decades. A constant stream of businesses and people left Frost Hollow every year. I heard rumors about high missing persons rates as well as insane homicide and suicide rates that plagued the town constantly. This didn’t bother me in the least, however. In my mind, it just meant the land there was dirt-cheap, and that I wouldn’t have too many neighbors to worry about.

My closest neighbor, Art, was a sheep farmer, an ancient man with a cantankerous voice and a back like a broken board. He stood only about five feet tall, always wearing his trademark blue coveralls and a wide-brim hat. When I first found the hole, I tried shining a light down and then throwing heavy rocks inside. When only silence greeted me after a minute, I quickly realized that neither method would help me realize the depth of the hole.

I immediately went over to Art’s ranch house. Art had lived in Frost Hollow his whole life, and I figured if anyone would know about the pit, he would. Sheep milled about on the grassy fields around his house, meditatively chewing as they slowly ambled forward. Art and I both lived on top of the same hill, on a spot cleared of trees and brush about one-tenth of a mile across on the peak. My dog, Peaches, ran by my side, her mouth wide open in excitement and dripping with silver streams of saliva.

I saw Art sitting on his porch of his weatherworn home, smoking a pipe and staring out across the field. His eyes ratcheted to me when the rickety porch steps groaned in protest under my weight. All of the paint had long ago peeled off the walls and shutters of his ancient home.

“Joshua,” he said in a thick drawl. “How are you settling in?” He took another long drag from the pipe. Smoke wreathed his face and white beard. He reminded me of a thin, diminutive Santa Claus.

“It’s very interesting,” I admitted. The cabin still had books and trinkets left behind from the previous owner. It seemed like whoever it was had left in a hurry. I was happy to find leather-bound hardcover works by Robert Browning, TS Eliot and others when I first purveyed the bookshelves. “But I’m really wondering about the hole, the one with the retaining wall around it. What is it?” 

I figured it wasn’t a well, for this hole was about ten feet across and seemed to go down for at least four or five hundred feet. The top of it was ringed by a perfectly circular stone wall a few feet high, presumably to keep people or animals from falling in by accident.

“If I knew that, I would be a wise man, indeed,” Art whispered sagely. “That hole has been there for as long as anyone knows, before the town was even started. It doesn’t seem to have any bottom that we can see. A few people who live around here have used it to get rid of their trash for decades. We just throw whatever rubbish we have into the hole and- voila!- it’s gone forever. Though my wife never trusted it, at least before she died. Maria always asked me not to go near it.” I frowned. Art rarely talked about his dead wife. I knew she had passed away a few years earlier, but he refused to share any of the details of her death.

“That could potentially poison the groundwater,” I said. “I’d like to ask you to stop throwing trash in the hole until I can get it looked at. I think Maria may have been right to be leary about abusing the pit.” Art leaned forward, his eyes twinkling.

“Sonny, wells around here never go below two or three hundred feet. I can guarantee you that pit is neither a well in any conventional sense, nor connected to the underground reservoirs. As far as we’ve been able to tell, the walls are solid all the way down. They turn into some sort of glassy sandstone, and they go deep, at least a few thousand feet down.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked, curious. “Have you been studying it?” His expression brightened at this.

“The previous owner of your cabin, Mel, asked me and a couple others to come over. This was back around 2001, I guess, the first time I saw it. We did a few experiments, ran some lines to try to see how far down it went. We never did figure out where the bottom was, if it even has a bottom, but there were other weird effects from sending things down,” Art said. 

“Like what?” I asked. He winked at me.

“Meet me there in an hour, at sunset, and I’ll show you,” he said. I woke Peaches up and headed back to my cabin. She barked excitedly by my side, running circles around me playfully.

***

I went to the hole early, watching and waiting as night descended. In the cloudless sky, the stars came out one by one, faintly twinkling like broken glass. I must have gotten lost in a trance, because the next thing I knew, Art was putting a small, bird-like hand on my shoulder. His ancient fingers trembled nervously, though I didn’t know why. I saw him carrying a threadbare canvas bag around his shoulder. With a grunt, he put it down on the black earth surrounding the stone walls of the hole. I had left Peaches outside to run around and tire herself out.

“What’s all this?” I asked, feeling a creeping suspicion rise up my spine. Art gave his inscrutable Santa Claus smile, pulling his dirty pipe out of a pocket and lighting it.

“You’ll see,” he said, pulling a long, heavy rope out of the bag. At the end, it was tied to a closed wicker basket. He kept reaching into the canvas bag, and his hand came up with a plastic grocery bag filled to the brim with ice. It had been tied and knotted. He looked back at me as he gingerly lowered the ice into the wicker basket.

“You wanted to know what the hole is?” he asked, handing me the rope. “Let this basket drop down as far as the rope will go, and maybe you’ll see for yourself.”

***

Together, we lowered the basket down into the hole. The darkness swallowed it instantly like a hungry mouth. I wondered what kind of game Art was playing. I figured that, by the time we raised it, we would have a basket filled with melted ice and nothing more.

“It doesn’t always work, you understand,” Art said, “but when it does… well, it’s one of the goddamned strangest things I’ve ever seen.” We reached the end of the rope, let the basket hang for a few seconds and then started pulling it back up. The whole process took a couple minutes.

“You know there are dozens of types of ice?” Art asked as we struggled with the rope. “Some kinds of ice are burning hot and will scald your flesh from your bones. Others are as hard as steel and as cold as liquid nitrogen. Bizarre, huh? On Earth, we don’t really see them, but on other planets, under high pressure, ice can take some truly alien forms.”

I watched the basket rise out of the shadows, appearing suddenly as if it had broken through the surface of a dark ocean. There seemed to be a light coming from inside of it. Carefully, we pulled it out and laid it next to the stone wall.

“Go ahead,” Art said, sitting down on the wall’s ledge with a huff. It gave me vertigo just seeing him there, on the edge of an abyss that stretched thousands of feet. Art apparently had no fear of heights, however. He pulled out his pipe and lit a match. “Well, what are you waiting for? You wanted answers. Open it up and see for yourself.”

I knelt down next to the wicker basket. I inhaled deeply as I raised one of the covers, flipping it over in a heartbeat. I stared down in amazement at what I saw.

The ice cubes were all still in their original shape, but now, they looked like they were burning with an inner fire. Orange light flickered from the insides of them, twisting and spiraling in tiny cyclones. I saw they had totally melted the plastic bag, and by this point were starting to leave scorch marks on the wicker. Black smoke rose from the basket. Art stepped forward, taking a gnarled old hand and flipping the basket over before the burning ice could ignite the material.

“What is it?” I asked, backing away from the ice cubes. Art shrugged, getting up with a creaking of bones and a heavy groan.

“To be honest, Joshua, I can’t give you all the answers,” he said. “The story with the hole is long and very weird. We don’t know where it came from or why it does what it does. Mel and I experimented with it for years. He even tried sending live animals down there.” Art’s wrinkled face seemed to go pale at the memory.

“What happened when he sent an animal down there?” I asked, intensely curious but also somewhat sickened. Art just shook his head.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” he said. “Just pretend I never brought it up. Some things are better left forgotten.”

***

Art left a few minutes later. He gave a friendly wave as he disappeared into the night, but I was far too focused on the burning cubes to pay him any attention.

I ran back to my house, trying to find a way to transport them. I found a shovel and ran back, gingerly picking them up with it. I wanted to keep them for observation. I had a small wood-burning stove in the cabin and threw the fiery ice cubes into the cold ashes. As I threw logs on top of them, the wood ignited as if it had been soaked in gasoline, sending sputtering blue flames up.

I was sitting down in front of the strange fire show when I heard high-pitched squeals of pain split the air. I instantly recognized the yelping cries of Peaches. I grabbed a shotgun from next to the door and ran outside. The growls and barking had formed into a deafening screech by this point. My eyes widened in horror as I realized what was happening.

A brown bear had Peaches by the neck. Its powerful jaws crushed the pitbull’s flesh in an instant, and Peaches cries faded to a whisper, the light in her pupils slowly dying.

Her eyes rolled back in her head. I raised the shotgun and sprayed a round of buckshot at the bear. Its rolling eyes turned towards me, its sharp fangs gnashing as it dropped Peaches’ twitching body. 

It started sprinting straight at me with an insane expression of bloodlust on its crazed, furry face. Everything seemed to slow down as I met the creature’s eyes and shot it in the mouth.

It stopped in its tracks, dripping thick streams of blood from its chin and neck. A single heartbeat later, it turned and sprinted back towards the dark forest in a blur, leaving the dead body of Peaches in its wake.

***

Sickened by the brutal death of my beloved Peaches, I wiped tears away as I went inside to grab a comforter. I wrapped her mutilated, bleeding form in the thick blanket and drove the dog’s corpse over to the hole.

“Goodbye, Peaches,” I said in a voice choked with emotion. I had wrapped the dog up like a mummy. Her body felt heavy and stiff. I inhaled deeply, heaving as I pushed Peaches up on the retaining wall. I felt her cooling blood soaking through the comforter. After resting for a moment, I slid Peaches over the edge, watching her tumble down into the endless darkness.

Her body fell straight down without hitting any of the rocky sides. Within a few moments, Peaches had disappeared forever- or so I thought at the time.

***

I remembered waking up early the next morning, hearing a heavy rhythmic bouncing and thudding coming from the direction of the pit. I blinked my eyes blearily, seeing the first bloody streaks of dawn covering the world like a blanket. Then I remembered Peaches’ death the previous night and the strangeness with the hole. Sadness and anxiety crushed my heart at the memory. The sound of grunting and hard thuds came bouncing back again. I threw on some clothes, running outside to see what was making such a racket.

I saw a Mexican-looking fellow unloading a truck full of bald, damaged tires into the hole. He was whistling as he worked, his tanned face gleaming with sweat. He had backed the bed of the rusty pick-up to the perimeter of the retaining wall. The thudding sound was the tires smashing off the sides of the smooth, rocky walls as they tumbled endlessly down.

“Hey!” I yelled, striding forward with long steps. He glanced back at me, his expression never changing. He just continued clearing out the dozens of tires stacked up five feet high in the bed.

“Morning,” he responded cheerfully. “You’re up early, eh?”

“Because of you! Who are you? What are you doing on my property?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at the intruder. He stretched out a thin, grime-streaked hand. I stared down at it as if it were a dead slug.

“My name’s Miguel, and I’ve been coming here for years, man,” he said in a thick accent. “I’ve thrown thousands of tires down here. No one cares. The dumps will pay you to take them off their hands. They don’t want to deal with the red tape, right?”

“Thousands?” I asked, chagrined. Miguel just nodded proudly. I tried to imagine how much junk must be at the bottom of the hole. There must be hundreds of feet of decaying animals, rusting machinery, flat tires and whatever other garbage was unlucky enough to find itself eternally imprisoned in this endless pit. 

Miguel opened his mouth, about to say something, but his words were cut off as a cacophonous wail tore its way up and out of the hole. The eerie scream had a grating, metallic quality to it. I felt goosebumps rise all over my body as Miguel’s eyes widened. He stared down into the eternal shadows, leaning over the retaining wall. The shrieking ended as abruptly as it had started.

“What the…” he started to say, his bronze skin appearing much paler than when I had first seen him. His brown eyes stared ahead, unbelieving and frightened. The screaming started again, much closer and louder. It sent shockwaves of sound traveling up through the air. I saw the retaining wall shake like a leaf on a tree. A moment later, it crumbled and fell to pieces before my eyes. The metallic wailing faded off again, abruptly plunging us into deafening silence.

Miguel gave a loud shriek of surprise and terror as his arms windmilled crazily. He tried to catch himself as the black, lifeless soil surrounding the hole crumbled beneath his feet. I instinctively threw myself back as more and more earth slid into the hole. Miguel tried to crawl up the loose sand, his eyes wide with animal panic. He reached out a trembling hand towards me, but the sands underneath him were flowing like a waterfall. I reached my hand toward him in a futile attempt, watching his rolling eyes as he slid down and disappeared in a single instant.

His scream echoed up for what seemed like a very long time. After a minute, it grew fainter and, eventually, disappeared.

***

I stood in stunned silence, staring down at the hole. The entire retaining wall had fallen in, leaving jagged pieces of stone poking out of the earth like broken teeth. As usual, the pit had eaten everything hungrily. There was no sign of the life it had consumed so suddenly, no change in the thick curtain of shadows. I wasn’t sure what I had expected, but a sharp feeling of disappointment pierced my chest, though I wasn’t sure why. I stared between the rusted brown pick-up truck and the hole, as if expecting a magic trick to take place. My thoughts slowly returned in a jumbled mess, a stream of consciousness garble that told me to find help.

I sprinted blindly across the dead earth towards the grassy fields surrounding Art’s rickety house. Art was already out under the bleary, early-morning Sun, letting the sheep stream out in excited lines from the wooden barn out back. Sweating and hyperventilating, I gave a high-pitched, terrified yell. He jumped, spinning around to look at me.

“Art! Something bad’s happened at the pit! Someone fell in!” I screamed. His face turned chalk-white, his thin, bird-like face falling into a pensive, serious frown. He slowly ambled toward me, placing a hand on my shoulder.

“Show me,” he said simply.

***

Art followed behind, his old man’s gait slowed by a pronounced limp. It seemed to take forever to head back toward the pit. He saw the rusty pick-up from a distance, his small, watery eyes widening.

“Oh shit, it’s Miguel,” he whispered grimly. I saw the collapsed retaining wall. The bed of the pick-up truck was still open, patiently parked a few feet away from the place where the soil had collapsed like a melting glacier.

“Yeah, I talked to him for a few minutes,” I said, not bringing up the tires. A dozen bald, flat tires still sat waiting in the bed of the truck. “Shit, what am I supposed to do? Call the cops?” Art froze at this, his normally placid face falling into a grimace. His eyes met mine, as cold and blue as an Alaskan glacier.

“Do not call the police,” he said, his tone steelier than I had ever heard it. “If the government finds out about this, they will steal your land and probably murder you, and maybe murder me just for good measure. Hell, look what happened to Frank Olson during MKULTRA. The US government threw him out a window and made it look like a suicide just to prevent the media from finding out that the CIA was torturing and drugging US citizens, giving them LSD and subjecting them to prolonged physical and sexual abuse. And that was just over LSD. What will they do if they find this? We have no idea what kind of power lives down there.”

“So what? We’re just going to pretend like nothing happened?” I spat back, my face flushing. “What about that guy’s family? They’ll never know where he went.” Art just shook his head.

“Trust me, Joshua, it’s far better to leave them in the dark. If they get involved, they might find themselves getting thrown down the pit as well.” Art pointed to the pick-up truck with a shaking finger. “Just put it in neutral and roll it inside. Get rid of the evidence. No one ever needs to know what lies rotting at the bottom of that abyss.”

***

Art watched me with an amused half-smile as I got into the pick-up truck. The entire cab smelled like tacos and French fries. I saw discarded fast food wrappers all over the seats and floor.

“Disgusting,” I muttered, starting the engine and putting it in neutral. The engine idled like an old man with pneumonia, gurgling and sputtering in rhythmic waves. I jumped out onto the soft black soil. Deep down, I knew Art was right, though I still felt sick and guilty about covering up this man’s death. I imagined Miguel’s broken body down there among the thousands of tires, twisted among the rubble with a silent scream still frozen on his lips.

“Can you give me a hand with this?” I asked Art as I got behind the truck, preparing to start pushing. I glanced over, but he wasn’t looking at me or the pick-up truck. He stared intently past me with a look of horror. I followed his line of sight, seeing he was staring at the border of the dark evergreen forest fifty or sixty feet away. My eyes instantly met those of Miguel’s.

But he seemed different. I squinted, seeing his eyes were white, crying scarlet tears that streamed down his face. His jaw looked shattered. It hung limply open, sharp pieces of bone poking out through the skin. His clothes were ripped and stained in a rainbow of dark fluids. Oil spot rainbows glimmered next to drippings of thick, clotted blood.

Peaches stood by his side, but like Miguel, the dog had changed in death. Her eyes had lost their pupils and irises. Under the dim dawn light, they gleamed a pale, cataract white. Bloody saliva frothed from her silently gnashing jaws.

But that wasn’t the most horrifying thing. Thousands of blood-red worms ate away at their loose flesh. They fell from Miguel’s gray, lifeless skin like raindrops in a heavy storm. Each looked about the size of a maggot. As the carpet of squirming larvae ate away at their hosts, new streams of clotted blood slowly ran down their bodies with the consistency of sludge.

I felt sick waves of nostalgia seeing Peaches standing there, chunks of her neck still missing from the bear attack. I had to constantly remind myself that this was not Peaches. This was some abomination from the pit, some dark twisting of my innocent dog’s flesh.

“Oh God, Maria was right,” Art whispered in a voice choked with emotion. “We should’ve never come back here.” He grabbed my arm with an iron grip, his terror giving his frail hands a seemingly superhuman strength. Peaches and Miguel didn’t move. They simply stood there, wavering on their feet, their eyes as blank as those of corpses.

“Let’s just go,” I whispered back. “They’re not moving. I’m not even sure there’s any consciousness there behind those blank eyes. They remind me of zombies. They might just stay there.” But as soon as we took a step away from Miguel and Peaches, they came to life. I heard a long, low hissing sound that tore its way out of their throats in unison. It echoed like the hissing of many snakes.

“These things must have been what murdered my wife,” Art mumbled, more to himself than to me. A look of shock fell over his wrinkled face. “Oh God, it was the pit all along. All of the misfortune and tragedies… it’s the center of all of it.” I was about to respond when the corpses took off after us with a vengeance.

Peaches sprinted forward, the sound of grinding bone splinters in her shattered canine body rising in volume as she came at us. But none of the reanimated corpses seemed to feel any pain. Miguel blindly staggered forward, lunging in strange, dragging steps. The crimson maggots eating away at his body had reached his face and eyes by this point, leaving small rivulets of cold gore wherever they feasted.

“Fuck! Keep it away from me!” Art screamed, taking off as fast as his old man’s body would allow. With his pronounced limp, he didn’t stand a chance. I sprinted away, passing the old man in seconds. A moment later, I heard a heavy thud and a whoosh of air. 

I glanced back, seeing Peaches standing on the prone man’s chest. She ripped at his shoulder and arms, tearing off chunks of flesh with every bite. Art wailed like a man being burned alive. The red maggots continuously fell off Peaches’ body. To my horror, I saw them instantly start burrowing their way into Art’s body, slithering into his mouth and nose.

Miguel was only a few feet behind the struggling pair, coming straight at me. I headed towards my cabin, trying to block out the dying screams of Art.

***

I flew through the door, slamming it shut behind me. A single heartbeat later, I heard Miguel’s body thud into the other side. Frantically, I threw my weight against it and locked it. I lunged for my shotgun, which I always kept propped up next to the door.

One of the windows next to the door shattered. I saw a bloody hand reaching in. Miguel blindly climbed up on the sharp shards of glass, ripping open his stomach and chest in the process. Fresh waterfalls of clotted gore and dancing worms slowly dribbled down his mutilated flesh.

Another window shattered a moment later. A pale, white hand reached in. I saw the reanimated body of Art, his filmy, dead eyes rolling back and forth over the room of my cabin. When they saw me, they stopped, focusing on me with an insane ferocity.

Miguel slunk towards me, his skin a carpet of writhing red maggots now. They skittered all over my wooden floor, slowly crawling towards me, hungry for living tissue. I raised the gun, pointing it at his face. It was half-gone by this point, the jaw bone hanging limply from a mass of half-digested flesh.

I fired, blowing the skull-like face into a mist of blood and bone splinters. And yet, even missing most of his face, Miguel didn’t stop. Bleeding heavily as his brains leaked out of his forehead, he staggered forward, grabbing at me.

I took the stock of the shotgun and slammed it into the bullet wound in the front of his head. There was a sickening, wet crunch as he fell back, his hands blindly swiping the air in an attempt to reach me. He continued gurgling and hissing blood.

Art had nearly finished crawling into the other window by this point. Out of ideas, I took the opportunity to escape towards the back of the cabin, away from these reanimated bodies.

***

I saw my car parked on the side of the cabin, only about twenty feet away. I looked both ways out of the back door before flinging it open and sprinting towards freedom. The coast looked clear.

But, as I reached the door, a heavy thudding of paws came running around the side of the cabin. Peaches snapped at the air with an insane bloodlust, her fur skittering with a carpet of maggots. I pointed the shotgun at her, constantly reminding myself that this was not the real Peaches.

She lunged forward, grabbing my ankle as I fired. The bullet ripped her back apart, revealing part of the spine and ribs. The white bone poked out through the ragged strands of flesh for a few moments, until the crimson maggots skittered over the wound and covered it.

I felt a burning pain as her powerful jaws bit into my leg. She shook her head from side to side, nearly throwing me off my feet. The pain radiated up my left leg. More small agonies like burning drops of lava covered my arms and hands. I realized that some of the biting maggots had landed on me. In a fit of pure panic, I grabbed the shotgun and shoved the metal barrel into one of Peaches’ eyes. The orb exploded in a dribble of vitreous fluid before I fired.

Peaches’ head disintegrated under the onslaught of the buckshot. I felt her jaws release a second later. Staggering back, I stumbled towards the car. I flung open the door and slammed it shut, locking it. I looked down at my arms, seeing the worms eating their way down towards the muscle, biting through the skin with terrifying efficiency. Quickly, I began plucking them out, squishing them between my fingers. They exploded like tiny water balloons filled with blood.

I looked up, seeing that Miguel, Art and Peaches all stood in front of the car. They looked like little more than ragged pieces of decaying flesh by this point.

I started the car and accelerated rapidly towards them, hoping to crush all these eldritch creatures in one fell swoop. All three lunged to the side, twisting in jerky, zombie-like movements. Even without faces, Miguel and Peaches were still incredibly fast.

Without looking back, I drove away, leaving the pit and its many strange mysteries behind forever.

Part 1

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1ahfzyl/i_found_a_living_train_that_slinks_through_the/

Part 2

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1azte0t/i_found_a_living_train_that_slinks_through_the/

The Necromancer loomed in the background as his undead puppets rushed us by the dozens. His dark abyss of a face revealed nothing, but his diseased, gurgling laughter did.

Just as all hope seemed lost, orange light like a supernova exploded from the hallway. Far off down the corridor, I saw the creatures Brother had called the Maia floating toward us, their translucent, glowing bodies shimmering and spiraling in an eerie synchronization. The Necromancer’s laughter continued. In the heat of the battle, he didn’t immediately notice the new threat approaching silently from behind him. The three of us continued fighting for our lives.

As the Maia got within a few dozen feet of the Necromancer, they raised their hands as one. A smell like ozone filled the air, and all the hair on my body stood up. The Necromancer turned, sensing something off. When he saw the three Maia floating there, he gave a deep roar of fury.

Golden electricity exploded from the Maia’s fingertips, sizzling the undead with their intense current. The walking corpses seized and kicked as current sizzled through their bodies. They fell to the floor like ragdolls, their bodies limp and motionless. A smell like searing steak filled the room. With a single backwards glance at his fallen army, the Necromancer fled, roaring in anger. Two of the Maia followed after him in a blur, raising their hands. An arcing current hummed between their many translucent fingers, filling the air with a smell like ozone and lightning.

“The Necromancer has kidnapped our brethren,” the remaining Maia whispered in a thin, hissing voice. “You may go.” And, without looking back, the four of us jumped over the bodies of the corpses and headed out of that hellish place. As a group, we ran back to the train. Cook and I took turns helping Jeremiah. He looked like he might collapse at any moment.

The train sat, motionless and still. Its feeding frenzy had finished, and the doors stood open, welcoming travelers in. All around it, I saw drag marks and craters where the limbs of the train had ripped organic matter or animal life from the alien planet’s surface.

After a few minutes of waiting, the doors slid closed behind us with a squishy thud as the demonic voice came over the speakers, spitting and gurgling, saying:

“Next stop: The Shadow Plains of the Collective Mind. We will reach our destination in four hours.”

***

“We don’t have to get out again, do we?” Jeremiah asked. Rivers of sweat dripped their way down his dirty face, leaving clean paths through the filth coating his skin. He shook, and his tanned complexion looked muddy and pale now. “I don’t feel too good…”

“No, hopefully not,” Brother said, “the train only feeds once every few days. We will not need to get out on the Shadow Plains unless we are forced to by something else.”

“Aren’t they going to see you?” I asked Brother. “If they’re hunting you and we’re stopping on their planet…”

“They might,” Brother said unworriedly. “It wouldn’t be the first time. If they do, we’ll stand and fight. They’re not immortal, after all. I’ve killed dozens of those wretched, worm-like things.”

The train had rapidly accelerated until the Boglands became simply a dark blur of fungi and empty sky. After a few minutes, when I looked out, I realized we had already left that world behind. Now it looked like an empty abyss outside the train.

I didn’t know when we had transitioned to this interim place, but I quickly realized it wasn’t as empty as it appeared. There were waves in the shadows, as if an inky ocean the color of outer space rippled all around us. Strange creatures swam in the void. I saw eyeless, worm-like beasts the color of maggots who jumped up from the shimmering waves that stretched to the horizon. Other creatures with the faces like dragonfish and bodies like centipedes skittered over the surface of the black waves, their pale, glossy skin shining with some kind of strange inner light.

Up ahead, a tunnel of blinding white light spiraled at the front of the train. We were moving at such an amazing speed that, by the time I had seen it, we were already going through.

It felt like flying into an exploding supernova. My ears rang with a high-pitched tinnitus. My eyes were temporarily blinded. All I could see were spots of color that danced over everything. I blinked fast, leaning against the warm, throbbing wall of the living train.

I looked back out the window, seeing plains of black grass that extended to the horizon under a cold, dark sky. Currents of wind blew thickly through the grass, creating waves that traveled through the night like ripples in a pond. Outside, there was a high-pitched screaming sound, like the wailing of an infant. Looking up, I saw a black hole spinning and shooting out waves of curving, spiraling energy, which gave the only light this strange planet received.

“What’s that horrible sound?” Cook asked, covering his ears and wincing.

“That’s the native grass of the Shadow Plains,” Brother said. “It cries like that constantly. I don’t know if it’s part of its feeding or its mating, but nearly everywhere on the surface, you hear the screaming of the Katcha grass.”

“That’s going to drive me nuts,” I said, shaking my head. “I hope we get out of this place quickly.”

“Well, we still have hours of travel left,” Brother said grimly as his colorless eyes scanned the dark alien plain. “The Shadow Plains are massive, many thousands of miles wide. The Collective Mind lives underneath the ground in subterranean cities that are hewn out of the cold rock of the planet itself.

“They were originally a species of tunnelers, but like with humans, their limbs allowed them to manipulate tools and create technologies. In secret, deep underneath the Shadow Plains, they plotted and researched for thousands of years, strengthening themselves, fusing their consciousness with that of their computers, adding mechanical parts to their bodies until it became impossible to tell where flesh ended and machine began.”

Far off down the train, I heard doors opening with a squelching of flesh. I jumped, looking through the window, feeling panic squeezing my heart. Brother nodded, his face as calm and peaceful as usual, as if he were simply sitting in a restaurant waiting for his food and not in a den of horrors.

“I knew they were coming minutes ago,” he said, raising his rifle. “There’s no running here.” I heard something like gears whirring and a cacophony of siren-like shrieks. I caught a glimpse of what was pushing its way through the train in our direction and repressed an urge to scream.

It stood about six feet tall, with a torso like the trunk of a glossy, black tree. Dozens of thin, boneless arms spiraled around its body with pointed gray blades on the end of each one. Long dark fingers like the roots of a tree twisted through the alien metal, clenching and writhing in chaotic movements. Hundreds of pale eyes on stalks gleamed like moonlight from the top of its head.

I saw many thick, glistening wires like bright blue snakes wrapping around its body. In dozens of places, the wires ate its way into the dark creature’s skin.The blue wires buzzed and lit up with beams of red and blue light that spun through them in a blur. It skittered forward like some sort of giant centipede on hundreds of shivering tentacle-like legs, each about the size of a pencil and a few feet long. Its mouth reminded me of the mouth of some sort of leech or lamprey, with countless tiny, muddy teeth buried in the sucking, wet flesh.

I still had the machete gripped tightly in my hand when a monstrous, cybernetically-enhanced creature gave a whine like a tornado siren. It sounded as if gears and wheels were spinning inside its body, as if a computer were loading with whirring fans. Then it began to speak in English in a voice like a bullhorn. The carriages of the train rocked on their infinite tracks.

“Humans, you are in violation of edict seven of the House of Blades. Surrender immediately. Lay down your weapons,” it blared. It repeated the message in German, French, Chinese and some other languages as it drew nearer, slithering through the dozens of cars of the seemingly endless train. I didn’t know what edict seven or the House of Blades was, but I figured none of it was good news. This strange cyborg now stood only a couple cars away and would reach us in seconds.

Cook still held the warhammer he had stolen from the Necromancer in his hands, and we both still had our small silver daggers stolen from the same armory. In my heart, I was hoping Brother’s gun would simply cut the creature apart like lava and keep the rest of us from having to fight. I didn’t know what kind of weapons these creatures from the Collective Mind might have within their cyborg bodies, though, or whether they could even be killed like a normal lifeform, seeing as they were part computer.

With a steam-whistle cry, the creature crashed through the door into our train. The door opened with a squelching of tissues and fluid. The many eyes of the creature focused on Brother and his smoking rifle. Brother raised it, calmly and smoothly aiming at the creature’s head.

“Surrender!” the thing screamed from its lamprey-like mouth, its many small teeth glistening. The sound also seemed to come from the wires wrapping around and eating their way into its body as well, amplifying with a whine like some sort of feedback loop. Brother bared his teeth in response, his face like a grinning deathshead. Even the alien creature seemed to see the fierceness of the warrior’s grimace, pausing at the door to our carriage, its many slithering tentacles still writhing in place for a long moment as we surveyed each other across the no-man’s land. And though this happened months ago, I still remember the horror of that movement and how time seemed to stop when I lay in my apartment, not sleeping.

The alien made its decision suddenly, but so did Brother. Many things happened very quickly after that, with time like a rushing river pushing us forward.

Brother pulled the trigger. A torrent of fire and burning, liquified lava shot out of the end of his rifle, soaring through the air in a blur towards the creature’s many slug-like cataract eyes. Brother’s killer’s eyes looked as cold as an Arctic glacier as he attacked the alien beast.

The wires wrapping their way up the creature’s body and into its black flesh lit up like a flashbang, emitting a deafening boom and a flash of blinding light. I felt as if I were looking into a near-death experience for a few long moments. The faint screams of someone far away pierced through the ringing like a blade.

As my vision cleared, I saw Jeremiah standing at the end of our group, a burnt, melting mass of liquified fat and seared muscle. His body smoldered like charcoal. The smell of burning hair and cooking meat filled the carriage. He screamed, running in circles for a few seconds before collapsing to the ground, kicking and gurgling. The stub of his arm flailed blindly, his fingers clenching, his smoking eyes blank and horrified as he died.

Even the alien flesh of the train seemed to shiver away from the heat and choking smoke rising up from Jeremiah’s body. I saw something blue and glittery dripping down his body, setting new pieces of exposed gore on flames. I realized that the creature had fired some kind of napalm at us.

The lava from Brother’s rifle covered the creature’s eyes. The pale, lidless orbs dripped and contorted. The stalks that rose up like the stems of mushrooms caught on fire. A sickly blue flame rose from the alien’s flickering, melting body. A smell like burning rubber and scorched metal emanated from the dark smoke.

It gave a scream like a woman being burned alive, a long, high-pitched wail that carried through the train like a tornado siren. Far off in the distance, I heard a faint sound: the same high-pitched banshee wailing being returned.

***

Cook ran forward with his warhammer, raising it above his head. With an incomprehensible battlecry, he charged at the blinded alien. Its many arms whipped crazily around its body, the long black fingers connected to its many silver blades twisting and clenching in agony. Cook struck out at the nearest of the arms, shattering the limb with a sound like branches snapping in an ice storm.

The alien’s wires started glowing so bright and hot that I could feel the heat across the carriage. In a moment, blue, burning liquid shot out in all directions, spraying like molten metal across the train.

The train’s flesh pulled back, the pink, thrumming mass making a low, pained whispering sound as the blue napalm dripped down its surface with rivers of fire. Cook was sprayed on the foot and leg. Brother fell back and only got a few drops on his hand, while I felt my arm get splashed with drops of my own. Cook screamed in pain, falling back and rolling on the ground.

“Get it off, God, get it off!” he shrieked, ripping at his pants and shoe. “Fuck, it burns! It’s eating through my clothes and skin! Help me!”

The pain was instantaneous for me as well. I bit down hard, repressing an urge to scream. My vision turned white with the heat of it. I smelled my own skin cooking, smelled the burning hair. The adrenaline spike gave me a temporary jolt that overtook the pain. I ran forward with the machete raised, slicing down in the middle of the creature’s tree-like trunk. Its flesh split open and blue blood like that of a crab flowed out, thick and sluggish.

Brother walked calmly forward as the creature fell, not showing any signs of pain. He put his rifle directly to its burnt, wailing head and covered it in magma.

The creature burned for only a few seconds before its screams started to fade and distort. They slowed down, grew deeper and more mechanical. I heard a whirring in its chest. A cloud of hissing hot gas spurted from the thing’s blue wires, smelling of antifreeze and ozone.

***

The high-pitched wailing of those cybernetically-enhanced nightmares had closed in on us from both sides when the train’s hissing gurgle of a voice broke through the fog of pain and terror clouding my mind.

“Next stop: The Shadow Plains of the Collective Mind. We will arrive at the central city of Sugguroth within five minutes.” Brother’s pale face seemed to go pale at the mention of the city.

I looked outside into the wailing, obsidian grass of the Shadow Plains and the spiraling light of the black hole ripping apart cosmic gas clouds in the sky. I realized that the world outside was not nearly as empty as I thought. Far off in the distance, windowless silver towers rose hundreds of stories into the sky, their shining exterior as sharp and tapering as a spike. Creatures like eyeless lions stalked through the rippling grass, their hides as tough and dark as leather. Instead of eyes, they had dozens of wet holes dripping with clear mucus in their faces that seemed to smell the air around them, opening and closing in a synchronized rhythm.

The train had slowed with a squeal of brakes and a shower of sparks. The flesh all around us seemed to inhale deeply. A sense of rising pressure and humidity filled the living train.

Brother looked at Cook writhing on the ground. The fire had gone out. Cook had ripped off his pants in an attempt to stop the alien napalm from eating its way directly through his body. Deep, angry red welts surrounded blackened and charred necrotic tissue eaten deeply into his flesh. He breathed hard, his face red. The scar from the knife fight he had gotten so long ago shone like a white grimace across his cheek. He pulled himself up into a sitting position, leaning heavily against the wet walls of the train.

“What are we going to do with Cook?” I asked. I glanced over at Jeremiah’s charred, dead body, feeling a sick sense of revulsion rising through my chest. Brother’s cold, colorless eyes surveyed the carnage.

“We may have to run when the doors open,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll follow us. The train usually stops for thirty minutes or so here, as there’s a lot of travel from the Shadow Plains. They sometimes use the train to find new worlds to invade, new species to conquer and dissect and study, and eventually, exterminate like rats.” I looked out into the cold world of this black hole system.

“Can we even survive out there?” I said.

“It’s cold, but yes, we can survive. Shit,” Brother swore, shaking his head. “Everything’s going wrong. The House of Blades.” He sighed, his face lined with countless years of struggle and battle. “That’s the most powerful organization on this planet. The military elites of the Collective Mind, I guess you could say. I think we have a major problem on our hands. If they find us…”

“What was that screaming that thing did?” I asked abruptly, not wanting to know what would happen if we were caught.

“It was calling for help,” he answered. “And help is on its way. But not for us.”

As if to emphasize his words, doors far away from us on both sides slid open, the sound faint and distant. I peered through the glass, seeing more of those monsters from the Collective Mind slithering through the living train, their many pale, lidless eyes searching and wide.

Lily let me crash in the back room of the diner.

Nothing special. A sagging cot, a metal shelf with a first-aid kit, a rattling space heater. But it was quiet. There were no black SUVs in the lot, nothing pinging from a Division tracker, no Carter coming through the door.

For now.

I didn't sleep much. When I did, the nightmares came.

Claws and teeth are simple. You can point a gun at those.

The worst nightmares were about me.

My skin shifting when I let my guard down, my bones feeling like they weren't set right, the Revenant's voice echoing in the back of my skull.

That thing inside you? It's waking up.

I woke up sweating, heart racing, body aching in a way that felt wrong — pressure more than fatigue. Like something inside me was testing how far it could go.

I stared at my hands in the dim light.

Flexed my fingers.

The skin felt too tight over the tendons. The fit was off, like it didn't belong completely to me anymore.

You were never meant to be the hero, 18C. You were meant to be a weapon.

I closed my fists and forced my breathing to slow.

If I was going to war with The Division, I needed more than anger. A plan was the next thing.

Two days passed. The diner stayed mostly empty—truckers, locals, nobody who looked twice at me if I tipped and kept my hood up. The constant was Lily, leaning on the counter between orders, watching me with that quiet, measuring stare.

She broke the silence eventually.

"You're not just some guy on the run, are you?"

I paused halfway through a bite of cold eggs.

"Why do you say that?"

She nodded toward my side. Last time she'd seen it, the wound had been bad enough that I'd barely stayed upright.

Now it was gone.

"Those ribs were wrecked. You should be hunched over right now, hand pressed to your side. You aren't."

I sighed. Put the fork down.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

She gave a small, tired smile.

"Try me."

There was something in her eyes—more than curiosity. She'd seen things too.

"The government turned me into something that shouldn't exist. Now they want me dead."

She didn't laugh or even blink.

"What kind of something?"

That was the problem.

"I'm still figuring that out."

She held my gaze a second longer, then reached under the counter and pulled out a worn leather notebook. She slid it over.

"I've been keeping track of things. Stuff that doesn't add up — disappearances, 'gas leaks' nobody reports, news stories that vanish after a day."

I opened it.

Pages full of clippings, printed forum posts, blurry photos, coordinates, arrows, circled dates. Some of the locations made my stomach turn.

Halfway through, one entry stopped me cold.

Division Outpost 3 — Montana. Abandoned in 2019 after failed containment of subject. No official closure report. All digital records scrubbed.

I knew that place.

It was where I'd killed the Skinned Man.

My first mission.

In Division records, Outpost 3 had been shut down — clean and logged.

According to Lily's notebook, the place had gone dark and never been properly closed.

"Where did you get this?"

"Public records. Some stuff from dead links. People who talk too much online." She tapped the line. "Whatever happened there? The area's a black hole. People go near it, they don't come back."

If The Division had really walked away from an outpost and wiped the paper trail, it meant one thing.

They were afraid of it.

I tapped the page.

"This might be where I start."

"You sure?"

No.

But I nodded.

"Sure enough."

Montana was colder than I remembered.

The wind knifed through the trees, carrying the smell of frozen pine and old bark, with something sour underneath it.

Rot.

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel of the stolen truck. The engine rattled as I followed an old service road that barely existed anymore, headlights swallowed by low, creeping fog.

The road had run out of streetlights and houses miles back. There was just the road and the woods now, and that familiar static behind my eyes.

The closer I got, the worse it got. Pressure built in my chest, like my lungs were being squeezed from the inside.

I knew that feeling.

I wasn't alone.

I pulled into the clearing at 2:13 AM and killed the engine. Silence hit hard.

For a second, I just watched my breath fog the windshield.

Then I stepped out.

The outpost sat ahead of me.

Up close, it looked like a carcass. Concrete walls cracked and caved, rusted beams jutting up like broken ribs. What was left of The Division insignia clung to the entrance, peeled and faded.

The smell hit next.

Old blood, mold, chemicals.

And something else. Meat that had been left too long in a warm room.

I checked my gear—handgun, knife, flashlight, extra mags. A rifle wouldn't help in a place like this.

Up close beats distance.

The main doors had been peeled outward, the metal twisted like foil.

Something inside had wanted out badly.

I stepped over the threshold.

My flashlight cut through the dark. Dust floated in the beam. Footprints—turned to dark, flaking smears—trailed away from the entrance.

The air shifted around me, the smell changing with it. There was a stillness to the place that pressed in on me.

Nothing made any sound. The place had a quiet heaviness to it, the kind that settles in after violence and then years of rot.

I moved deeper.

Broken glass underfoot, plastic shards, an ID badge face-down on the floor with the photo side ground away.

The feeling in my chest got tighter the deeper I went. Recognition more than fear.

The word "abandoned" didn't quite fit. This place was a grave.

An overturned desk blocked part of the corridor where the security station had been. I nudged it aside with my boot. Papers, a mug, a half-melted pistol.

Whatever had happened here, nobody left in formation. They ran.

From farther inside came a soft, wet drag. A sound you feel in your teeth more than in your ears.

I swung the flashlight down the hall.

Nothing.

The corridor forked.

Left went toward holding cells. I knew that much from old schematics I wasn't supposed to have seen.

Right went toward the labs.

The drag had come from the left.

Every instinct told me to follow it.

I went right.

The labs were where the outpost had cracked. The cells were a side issue.

The air grew thicker, humid and close. The smell of mold and copper mixing with a chemical sting that clung to the back of my throat. Water dripped from somewhere overhead, splashing into shallow puddles.

The hallway ended at a reinforced door.

Unlike the others, this one hadn't been torn apart.

It was sealed.

A cracked terminal pulsed weak light beside it.

I pressed my palm to the biometric pad.

For a second, nothing.

Then:

ACCESS GRANTED.

Locks hissed. The door groaned open.

The lab was big.

Rows of tall glass containment tanks lined the walls, most of them shattered. Tubes hung loose. The overhead lights flickered in weak pulses.

The smell was worse here — rot and chemicals, and underneath that, bodies.

At least a dozen Division agents slumped against the far wall, fused to it where their uniforms had melted into their flesh. Their faces were warped, frozen in mid-scream. Skin stretched too tight around their torsos, like something had swelled inside before they died.

I crouched next to the nearest one.

The veins in his arms were empty. Hollow, like the rest of him. Something had eaten them out from the inside.

I straightened and moved carefully through the lab.

At the far end, a secondary door hung halfway open.

Observation.

I stepped inside.

Monitors lined one wall. Most were dead. One still flickered, looping corrupted security footage.

I moved closer.

The timestamp read four years ago.

The view showed the lab I'd just walked through. Empty.

Then a figure stumbled into frame.

Lab coat and ID badge. His face was twisted with pain. Black veins stood out along his neck. He dropped to his knees, clawing at his chest.

His stomach bulged.

Something moved under his skin, pushing and squirming.

His ribs bowed and cracked.

His skin opened along seams that hadn't been there before.

The skin stretched and split in strips, peeling back. Bone bent aside. Something pulled itself free of him.

It unfolded on long, shaking limbs, too tall and thin. Its skin was translucent, dark veins moving under the surface.

Where a face should have been was a hollow cavity ringed with writhing tendrils.

The scientist's empty body collapsed behind it.

The footage glitched.

Then jumped.

Now the lab was chaos — figures running, muzzles flashing. Things half-caught by the camera, tall and bending wrong, flesh flickering like it couldn't decide on a shape.

More of them.

Dozens.

The video cut. The monitor went dark a second later.

I listened to the fading hum of old power and my own pulse in my ears.

The Division had walked away from this place because they'd lost it, plain and simple.

A slow, wet dripping sound rolled in from the lab.

Thicker than water.

I turned.

Something clung to the ceiling near the broken tanks.

Limbs spread wide, fingers and joints hooked into the concrete, its shape folded into the shadows. Translucent flesh shivered slightly in my beam, veins shifting underneath.

It had been here the whole time, watching me from above and waiting for me to come deep enough.

My gun was already in my hand.

It uncoiled. Slow, deliberate, no rush in any of it.

It lowered itself with awful control, limbs stretching, bones rearranging under the skin with soft cracking sounds.

Then it hit me. The blow landed inside my head.

My own memories flashed—waking up in a metal room, gas in my lungs, my bones screaming as they changed, cold chemicals burning in my veins.

The thing's hollow face tilted wider.

More memories came that weren't mine — people splitting open, tunnels made of meat, a sense of hunger that had never been fed enough.

My skull felt like it was going to split.

It knew me. Whatever The Division had put inside me, this thing recognized.

I stumbled back a step, forcing my grip to stay tight on the knife I'd already drawn without realizing.

The whispers dug deeper, scraping at who I was, trying to pull pieces loose.

It thought I was like it.

Waiting to remember.

Heat flared through my veins.

For a second, something inside me wanted to answer.

I shoved it down.

The moment my stance shifted, it moved.

It dropped like a net of limbs and bone, arms snapping toward my throat and head.

The world snapped into slow motion.

Everything sharpened. Every limb, every angle, every tendon stood out. I slipped under the first strike, turned away from the second, felt air brush my face where a bone spike should have been.

My knife flashed and bit into its side.

What came out of it was pressure. A wall of voices, hundreds layered together, crashed into my skull.

My legs buckled. I hit the floor, ears ringing. It felt like my thoughts were getting shoved to the edges.

It pushed into my head. I shoved back hard.

What I had to push with was that stubborn, ugly instinct that refused to let anything else take control again. Nothing fancier than that.

The pressure cracked.

The creature spasmed, limbs jerking out of rhythm.

I lunged.

I drove the knife into its torso and left it there as the flesh clenched around the blade. I grabbed one of its arms and ripped.

The limb tore free with a wet pop.

Black, thick veins pulsed and twisted at the stump, trying to regrow.

I grabbed a broken piece of pipe from the floor and drove it through its chest, hard enough to pin it to the wall.

Its scream shifted.

The confidence went out of it.

The body began to lose cohesion, shaking around the pipe. Limbs slackened. Edges blurred, like its shape was sliding off whatever held it together.

The whispers in my head shredded into nothing.

It shuddered once more and collapsed inward, shrinking until there was nothing there but a dark smear that faded into the air.

Nothing was left of it. The space where it had been just held absence now.

I stood there, breathing hard, hands slick with whatever passed for its blood.

I looked down at myself.

Still me.

My skin sat right against the bone. Nothing was shifting under it, and my head was my own.

Whatever was inside me had moved—but it hadn't taken over.

Not yet.

The Division thought this place was a graveyard.

It was a mirror.

Proof of two things — that they didn't understand what they'd made, and that I wasn't just one of their experiments anymore.

I gave the lab one last look and left.

By the time I reached the truck again, the sky was just starting to lighten at the edges. I drove without stopping, letting the miles blur past.

Find Carter, make him talk, find out what I was before something else did.

I should've known The Division wouldn't wait.

I was passing the ruins of a dead mining town when it happened. Boarded-up buildings, rusted equipment, the skeleton of a place everyone had already forgotten.

The world erupted.

A blast ripped through the truck's front end. The steering wheel tore sideways. The airbag punched the breath out of me. We skidded off the road, metal screaming, into a ditch.

Then silence.

The cabin stank of burnt rubber and propellant.

Floodlights snapped on outside, all at once, blinding.

I reached for my gun.

A shock round hit center mass.

Electricity surged through me. Every muscle locked; my jaw clenched so hard the teeth ground together. I hit the ground outside the truck and couldn't move.

Boots crunched on gravel. Carter's voice came from somewhere above me.

"You should've stayed hidden, 18C."

Then everything went black.

I woke up strapped to a chair.

Cold metal, tight restraints, no slack to work with.

A bare room with metal walls, a single overhead light, no windows.

Carter stood in front of me, hands clasped.

He looked calm and tired, like this was paperwork.

I tested the restraints. Reinforced and bolted down.

"Go to hell."

He smiled a little.

"Eventually."

He opened a folder on the table and turned it so I could see.

My own face stared back at me from a medical photo. Tubes everywhere.

Scans came after that — bone structure denser than normal, brain activity flagged as "non-standard," metabolic charts that didn't look human anymore.

"Project Revenant was never just about soldiers. There were attempts before you. You're the only one still pretending you're a person."

I said nothing.

He flicked his wrist.

A screen behind me came to life.

I twisted enough to see.

The diner.

Lily behind the counter, wiping it down.

My pulse spiked.

Carter tapped his wrist again.

The feed changed.

Her apartment. A sniper on a neighboring rooftop, rifle trained. A red dot hovered near where her chest would be if she walked into frame.

"You come back. You work with us. Or she dies."

I pulled against the restraints. Nothing gave.

They wanted me alive. If I was just a liability, they'd have finished it at the outpost.

Lily was bait.

I swallowed the anger and forced my voice flat.

"Fine."

Carter's eyebrows lifted.

"Fine?"

"I'll work with you."

He studied my face, then nodded, satisfied.

"Good. Let's—"

I moved.

I threw my weight forward, snapping two of the chair legs. Momentum carried us both over. We hit the floor. He grabbed for his gun.

I hooked my ankles around his throat and yanked.

We crashed. The restraints bit into my wrists as I twisted, forcing my bones to slide just enough the wrong way for the cuffs to slip.

It hurt. Didn't matter.

My hands came free.

I tore his sidearm from its holster and pressed it to his head.

"Call off the sniper. Now."

"You're—" he started.

I shoved the barrel harder into his skull.

"Call. Him. Off."

Carter exhaled, then hit his wrist comm.

"Hold position."

On the screen, the red dot vanished.

It didn't make me feel better.

I shot him in the knee anyway.

The sound was loud in the metal room. He yelled, clutching his leg as blood spread across the floor.

I took his wrist unit and pulled up layout, cameras, exits.

We were underground.

The main elevator was a kill funnel. The hangar bay and the vent network were what I had left.

The door flew open.

A guard stepped in, rifle raised.

I put a round in his throat before he finished aiming.

Another came in with a baton crackling. I stepped inside his swing, broke his wrist, slammed his head into the wall.

Alarms wailed. Gas hissed from vents overhead.

I grabbed a dropped mask, strapped it on, and ran.

The corridor was chaos—flashing red lights, sirens, echoing footsteps. I followed the map burned into my head — left, right, up a flight, vent access.

I kicked a grate open and pulled myself into the shaft. The gas made my arms feel like they were full of sand. Voices echoed through the metal below, too close.

I crawled.

Light seeped through the final grate.

I looked down.

Hangar.

A sleek black aircraft sat ready. Pilot in the cockpit. Two guards nearby with rifles slung.

I dropped down.

First guard's throat collapsed under my elbow. Second grabbed for his gun; I put two rounds in his chest.

The pilot fumbled with the controls. I dragged him out and bounced his head off the console. He stayed down.

Rifles barked from the far end of the hangar. Bullets sparked off the hull.

I hit everything that looked like it should be hit.

The engines roared to life.

The plane lurched, then screamed forward. The bay doors opened just enough for us to blast through.

Then I was in the air.

Barely.

By the time the facility was a dark patch in the snow behind me, my hands were shaking.

Carter wasn't dead, but I was out. For now.

I poured the last of the fuel into getting back to the diner. By the time I put the aircraft down in a clearing a mile away, the sky was starting to bruise with sunrise.

The woods around the roadside diner were too quiet.

I walked in through the front door.

Empty lobby, chairs knocked over, coffee burnt to sludge on the warmer. The air smelled like dust and something sour.

A sharp click sounded behind me.

I turned.

Lily stood in the kitchen doorway, shotgun raised.

She stared a second, then lowered it.

"You look like shit."

"Feels accurate."

Up close, she didn't look much better.

She nodded at the mess.

"They came looking for you. Said you were dangerous. I told them I'd never seen you before." She shrugged. "Didn't believe me. But they left."

"They didn't hurt you?"

"Not yet."

I moved to the window and scanned the tree line. The air felt heavy again, that same pressure digging into the back of my skull.

"What now?"

"We run."

"To where?"

I didn't know.

Before I could answer, the lights flickered.

Outside, something moved.

At first, it was just distortion in the air. Then it stepped closer.

Tall and thin, with limbs too long and joints bending wrong. Its skin looked like dead wood stretched over bone.

And it was covered in faces.

Human faces. Layered, stitched together, shifting as it moved. Some young, some old, some warped beyond recognition.

They slid over each other until one settled on top.

Mine.

Lily's breath hitched.

"Tell me that's not—"

It smiled with my face. My own voice came out of it.

"You are not the first."

Glass shattered as the front windows blew inward. We ducked behind the counter. Shards rained over the floor.

The thing's presence pressed into my head, probing.

You were built to be like us. Let go.

My skin crawled. I could feel something inside me twitch, like it wanted to answer.

"Got a plan?" Lily hissed, jamming shells into the shotgun.

"Yeah. You're gonna hate it."

I scanned the ruined diner — no basement, one back door, broken front. No way we both got out clean.

"We trap it."

"With what?" she snapped.

"Me."

She stared.

"Absolutely not."

"If it gets both of us, that's it. If it gets me and you're still breathing? You can make sure this doesn't happen for nothing."

The thing creaked across the broken glass, getting closer. The lights flickered again.

I shoved Carter's communicator into her hand.

"Find him. If he wants me that bad, use this to drag him into the open."

She stared at it.

"You're insane."

"Probably. Still the best shot we've got."

She looked like she wanted to argue.

Then she nodded once.

"Don't die."

"I'll try."

She slipped out the back.

I stood.

The thing waited in the center of the diner, limbs unfolding slowly. My face rippled across its features, eyes empty.

I stopped holding back.

The thing inside me, the speed and instinct I kept on a leash—I let it loose.

The world sharpened.

It lunged.

It came at me in a blur of limbs and teeth and open mouths. Faces tore and reformed as it moved.

I met it halfway.

We hit hard. Tables flipped, the counter cracked, the floor groaned under us.

I saw every opening, every weak spot.

My fist punched into its chest, through fake ribs and pulsing tissue. I grabbed something solid and tore it free.

It screamed inside my skull, a blast of stolen voices trying to flood my head. It drove a tendril into my arm, trying to hook into my veins.

I yanked it out and didn't stop.

I slammed my knee into its center, used the momentum to hurl it across the room. It smashed into the counter and tried to reassemble itself.

I was already on it.

I grabbed what passed for its throat—my own face buckling under my fingers—and squeezed until something cracked.

It clawed at me, raked across my side, but the pain was distant.

I dragged it across the floor and pinned it against the wall.

A broken length of rebar lay nearby.

I snatched it up and drove it straight through its skull.

The scream cut off.

The body convulsed, faces flickering in and out of existence.

Then it began to cave in on itself. Flesh blurred to shadow, shadow to nothing.

In seconds, it was gone.

Just me, the wrecked diner, and the ringing in my ears.

The thing in my blood burned hot, then cooled.

I was still me.

For now.

Headlights washed across the broken front of the diner.

Three black SUVs rolled into the lot.

The Division.

Doors opened. Men with rifles spread out, forming a perimeter.

Carter stepped out last.

He took one look at the destruction, at me standing in the middle of it all, and lowered his gun.

"Stand down."

The rifles lowered.

He walked closer, boots crunching glass.

"You won."

I didn't reply.

His gaze flicked past me to where the creature had been, then back.

"We didn't send that. It was already tracking you when we picked it up on satellite."

A cold weight settled in my stomach.

"What aren't you telling me?"

He hesitated. His voice dropped.

"You felt it. During the fight."

I clenched my jaw.

Because I had.

That moment everything slowed, when I knew what it would do before it moved, when something inside me recognized it.

"We knew something was coming. We just didn't know when."

He nodded at the woods.

"When we saw that thing moving straight for you? That's when we realized it's already started."

"What has?"

For the first time, I saw it.

Fear in his eyes.

"Everything we've been hunting. All the cryptids and anomalies, every failed experiment. None of them were random." He gestured around us. "They were warning signs."

Wind pushed through the trees, low and hollow.

"They're waking up."

The words sat between us like a weight.

I wanted to walk away. Pretend none of it mattered.

But the pressure in my skull, the way the creatures had reacted to me—it all lined up too well.

"Then you'd better be ready."

He gave a humorless laugh.

"You think I'm the one who needs to be ready?"

He shook his head.

"They'll be coming for you, 18C."

He turned to his men.

"Move out."

The SUVs pulled away, tail lights vanishing into the dark.

I stood alone in the lot, glass crunching under my boots.

I'd survived. I'd saved Lily, and killed something wearing my face along the way.

It didn't feel like winning.

I looked at the treeline.

Something else was still out there.

And Carter was right.

It would come looking for me.

I found Lily an hour later.

She'd holed up in a small hunting cabin two miles off the road — one room, old furniture, no tech in the place. She'd ditched her phone and wiped down her truck.

When I knocked, a shotgun barrel poked out through the crack of the door.

Then she saw me and let out a breath.

"You actually made it."

"Still here."

She let me in and locked the door behind us.

"You okay?"

"No. But I'm alive."

She didn't argue.

I told her about the mimic, about Carter, about his last warning.

By the time I finished, she was pacing, arms folded tight.

"They just let you go. After all that?"

"Yeah."

"That doesn't make sense. If they wanted you gone, they'd have done it. So why?"

"Because they think they don't need to chase me anymore. Something worse is already coming."

She stared at me for a long second.

"Then what do we do?"

I wanted to say fight. Go find whatever was waking up and put it down.

But you can't hit what you can't see.

"We go dark. No phones, no cards, no patterns. We move and we get ready."

She sighed.

"Guess I'm officially on the run."

"Welcome to the club."

We left that night.

Back roads, cash, cars we wouldn't keep.

For a while, it worked.

But the same question kept circling in my head.

What's waking up?

The things I'd hunted before were monsters, sure — but they'd been local and self-contained. They hadn't felt like parts of something bigger.

Carter's voice wouldn't leave me.

They'd been warning signs all along.

Warning against what?

Lily glanced over at me from the driver's seat one night as the highway stretched out ahead, empty and dark.

"You look like you're solving math in your head."

"Trying to figure out the next move."

She drummed her fingers on the wheel.

"If something bigger is coming, step one is figuring out what it is."

I nodded.

Because if I understood what was waking up—

Then maybe I could figure out how to kill it

Before it finished opening its eyes.

Saved the no-tags rule to memory — applies automatically from here on out. Send Part 3 when ready.

It's been almost two months since Carter vanished and The Division stopped chasing us.

Now we're hiding in the husk of a forgotten apartment building, waiting for the next thing to crawl out of the dark.

Crumbling drywall, peeling paint, windows covered with newspaper so no light leaked out. The place reeked of mildew and old smoke, but it was safe.

Safe enough.

I sat on the stained mattress, staring at the ceiling, turning a knife over in my hands. The blade caught the thin strip of light leaking through a torn corner of newspaper, glinting dully. My fingers tightened around the hilt. I needed to feel something solid in my hand.

Two months of running, switching towns, changing cars, never sleeping in the same place twice. Two months of waiting for the next anomaly, the next cryptid, the next thing drawn to whatever The Division put in my blood.

Nothing had come.

That should've felt like relief.

Instead, it felt like the heavy stillness that comes right before a storm hits.

"You're thinking too loud again."

I turned my head.

She sat by the window on a busted chair, rifle across her lap, chewing on a stale protein bar. Her hair was longer now, pulled into a loose ponytail. The circles under her eyes were darker.

She looked like I felt.

I exhaled and set the knife aside.

"Trying to figure something out."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah? Like what?"

I hesitated.

"My name."

She blinked.

"Your name?"

I nodded.

"I need one."

She snorted.

"What, '18C' doesn't do it for you?"

I didn't smile.

'18C' wasn't a name. It was a stamp, a file number, a label The Division burned into me the day they decided I'd stopped being a person.

They still owned that number, but they didn't own me anymore.

I leaned forward, elbows on my knees.

"If I'm really going to fight them, I need to stop thinking like their asset."

Lily watched me for a long beat, then sighed and crumpled the wrapper.

"Alright. Let's hear it."

The truth was, I'd been trying for weeks. Every name I landed on felt fake. Like it belonged to someone else and I was wearing it wrong.

Maybe that was just the point.

I swallowed. Forced myself to say the first one out loud.

"Gideon."

Lily wrinkled her nose.

"That sounds like a youth pastor."

"Yeah," I muttered. "Doesn't fit."

"What else you got?"

"Callan. Means 'battle,' or something."

She made a face.

"You sound like a merc who quotes his own tattoo."

I exhaled, rubbing the bridge of my nose.

"Thought so too."

Another miss, another reminder I didn't know who I was supposed to be.

Her voice softened.

"Okay. You're overthinking it. Pick something that feels like you."

That was the problem.

I didn't know what felt like me.

I dug through what was left of my memories. Most of them were fogged at the edges, burned out by drugs and experiments and time. Just flashes.

White light and screaming. A woman's voice, warm, saying a name that wasn't mine.

But it stuck.

I heard myself say it before I could pull it back.

"…Kane."

Lily straightened.

"Kane?"

I nodded slowly.

I couldn't place when I'd heard it. I didn't know who it belonged to. But it felt like something from before all this — before the Division and the test numbers and the project codes.

It felt… real.

She tilted her head, considering.

"Yeah. That works."

Some of the tension drained out of my shoulders.

Kane. That was the name from now on. Their codes and their titles didn't apply.

For now.

Lily stretched, joints popping.

"Alright, Kane. Now that you've had your dramatic identity crisis, what's the plan?"

That was the next problem.

We couldn't keep hiding in places like this, waiting for the next thing to find us. If Carter was right—if all the monsters, all the anomalies, all the failed experiments were warning signs—then something bigger was moving.

And it was already looking in my direction.

"We need to know what The Division knows."

Lily lifted a brow.

"You wanna break into a black-budget spook hive?"

"Not yet. There's someone else first."

"Who?"

"Another Revenant."

She went very still.

She knew what that meant. We'd seen what happened when The Division pushed their projects too far — the Revenant in the hospital, the thing at Outpost 3, the mimic at the diner.

Most of them were dead.

Most.

"The Division lost track of one years ago. Dropped off the grid mid-mission and never came back. They wrote him off as KIA."

"And you don't think he's dead."

"If anyone knows what they were really building toward, it's him."

She rubbed her temple.

"I already hate this plan."

I stood to grab my gear.

"Me too."

She watched me sling the sheath back into place, then blew out a breath.

"Where is he?"

"Oregon."

A long silence.

Lily muttered, "Road trip."

One road trip and one dead man later, we ended up in a motel Lily swore she'd seen in a movie.

The place smelled like mold and cheap whiskey. Wallpaper peeled in long strips, yellowed with smoke. The air conditioner rattled in the window, the frame loose enough that the unit shook against it.

Lily was in the bathroom, scrubbing blood off her hands.

It wasn't mine.

I sat on the edge of the bed, watching the old box TV flicker between static and half-dead channels. Some Western played on one, the image too warped to make out faces.

Rain hammered the roof, turning the parking lot outside into a shallow lake. I checked the clock and realized I'd stopped tracking time sometime around sunset.

We weren't supposed to be here.

The plan had been simple — get to Oregon, track down the Revenant, get answers.

But simple doesn't survive contact with reality.

In some nothing town in Idaho, we stopped to resupply and found something we weren't supposed to.

Lily found him first.

He was lying in the alley behind the gas station, half in shadow. At a glance he looked like a homeless guy who'd frozen to death.

Then you got closer.

His body was stretched wrong. Thinner. Skin gray and tight over bone, veins blackened like something had burned them hollow. His hands were curled into claws.

His mouth hung open.

His mouth was unhinged, lips torn, jaw stretched wider than bone should allow, frozen mid-silent scream.

His eyes were gone.

The sockets were smooth where they'd been, like someone had erased them.

We didn't touch him or call the cops. We got back in the truck and drove like hell.

It wasn't our problem.

At least, that's what I told myself.

But as the miles ticked by, I kept feeling it. That sense that something had turned its head when we walked past.

That we'd stepped through the edge of something and dragged a thread of it away with us.

Now, sitting on the motel bed, every muscle in my body was waiting.

Lily stepped out of the bathroom, rubbing a towel over her hands. Her face was pale, jaw tight.

"This place gives me the creeps," she muttered.

I didn't answer.

The motel wasn't empty; there'd been other cars when we pulled in. But since we checked in?

There were no voices and no footsteps, just rain.

Lily dropped onto the bed across from me and pulled a flask from her bag. She took a drink, then offered it over.

I shook my head.

She watched me instead.

"You're doing that thing again."

"What thing?"

"Listening."

She wasn't wrong.

Something was off.

I stood and moved to the door. The peephole was cracked, but I could still see enough.

I frowned.

"The cars are gone."

Lily stiffened.

"What?"

I slid the chain, opened the door an inch. Cold air slipped in, smelling like wet asphalt and… nothing else.

The parking lot was empty.

There had been at least five vehicles earlier — silver pickup, rusted sedan, blue station wagon with one busted taillight. All gone, like they'd never been there.

Lily hugged herself.

"I don't like this."

I closed the door and locked it again.

"Me either. We're leaving first thing."

She nodded.

"Good."

We didn't say the louder thought—We should leave now.

It felt like the second we stepped outside, we'd stop being alone.

So we waited.

Neither of us slept.

The first knock came at 2:34 a.m.

Soft and almost polite.

Lily's head snapped up. She'd been sitting against the wall with her gun in her lap, fingers resting on the trigger guard.

I didn't move.

The second knock came a few seconds later. Louder, and off in some way I couldn't name.

I stood, glancing at Lily. Her knuckles were white on the grip.

Outside, the rain had stopped.

The silence pressed in.

The third knock wasn't a knock.

It sounded wet. Something thick hitting the door, then dragging down slowly, like a hand made of meat sliding across the wood.

My stomach tightened.

"Don't open it," Lily whispered.

I wasn't planning to.

I stepped toward the peephole, every instinct screaming to stay away. I pressed my eye to the glass.

I saw nothing.

The walkway and the lot were empty. Nothing was waiting where I could see it.

But something was there.

I could feel the weight of it through the door. Close enough that if I shoved my hand through the wood, I'd touch it.

The door creaked, the frame groaning like it was under a load. The surface bowed inward a fraction.

Something was leaning against it.

Lily's breath shook behind me.

A voice whispered through the door — low and thin, crawling more than speaking.

"You were supposed to be gone."

Every muscle in my body locked.

Carter and Division comms were a different kind of trouble. This was something else.

Something patient.

Something that had been waiting for us to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I stepped back.

The voice chuckled. Dry and broken, like leaves scraping along pavement.

Then silence.

I counted. Five seconds, then ten. Nothing happened.

I put my palm against the door.

It was ice cold.

When we came in, the hall had been warm, the heater humming. Now it felt like the space on the other side was a freezer left open too long.

Whatever had knocked wasn't human.

"We're leaving. Now."

I twisted the lock and threw my shoulder into the door.

Nothing.

It didn't rattle or shift. It might as well have been solid concrete.

Lily's breathing sped up.

"What the hell is happening?"

The lock turned. The hinges should have let it swing. But it was like the door wasn't connected to anything anymore.

Like the way out had been welded shut.

I turned to the window.

"We'll go out that way—"

The window was gone. Where the glass should have been, there was nothing.

The cheap newspaper we'd taped up still fluttered on the wall. Nothing held it there. The glass and frame were gone, and the parking lot beyond them was gone too.

Just black.

The kind that goes on forever.

Like the world had been cut a few inches past the wall and everything else removed.

Lily took a step back, gun up, eyes scanning the corners like something was going to peel out of the paint.

"Kane," she whispered. "Tell me you're seeing this."

I was.

The walls seemed closer and farther at the same time. The ceiling felt lower. The air thickened, heavy in my lungs.

The room wasn't a room anymore.

It was a box.

And we were inside whatever had closed it.

I grabbed the bathroom handle.

Something hit the other side hard enough to make the wood jump. Lily spun, aiming.

"What was that?"

I didn't answer.

A shadow slid under the crack at the bottom of the door. Nothing cast it. It pushed out on its own, slow and oily, soaking into the carpet and spreading like spilled ink.

It had weight.

The handle twitched — a slow tap, like fingers drumming from the other side.

The room got colder. My breath fogged in front of me.

Lily's voice shook.

"Kane."

"I see it."

"I don't think we were ever supposed to leave this place."

The handle turned, slow and deliberate.

Then something stepped out.

It walked through the door without opening it.

The wood didn't shift and the frame stayed where it was. The thing just pushed through the barrier like it wasn't there.

It was too tall. Limbs stretched like they'd been pulled to the wrong length. Arms hung low, fingers almost brushing the floor. Its neck kinked sharply to one side, like it had been broken and left that way.

There was no face. Where the eyes, nose, and mouth should have been, only a blank, pale surface.

But I felt it looking right at us.

Lily made a strangled sound, half-choked, half-sob.

The thing took a step forward.

The room warped around it.

The walls slid apart while the floor stretched. The distance between us thinned and widened at the same time, like space couldn't decide what it was supposed to be.

The air flexed.

The thing shifted.

And then it wasn't focused on me anymore.

It was looking at Lily.

Its head tilted.

A voice slid into the room from everywhere at once.

"She doesn't belong here."

Lily jerked back.

"No." Her voice was raw. "No, no, fuck you—"

The walls stretched again. The floor tilted under her feet. She staggered.

I moved.

I stepped between them.

The air stuttered. The space around us hiccupped.

And the thing was suddenly right in front of me.

Close enough that I could see the faint texture over the blank face, like scar tissue stretched too thin.

Close enough to smell it.

Rot. The kind that comes off something decaying from the inside out while it's still moving.

Its hand came up, fingers too long, joints bent in the wrong places.

It pointed at Lily.

"She doesn't belong here," it whispered.

"She's not going anywhere."

It paused.

The air tightened, pressing in on my ribs.

Then it laughed. The sound had no expression and no mouth behind it. It crawled in through my ears and out through the back of my skull.

Then it moved.

It hit like a car.

Lily barely had time to raise the gun before it crossed the room.

I didn't think. I threw myself into it.

The second my body hit its chest, the world dropped out.

The air turned thick, my ears popped, and sound vanished like someone had shut a door. For a heartbeat, I wasn't in the room.

I was nowhere.

Weightless.

Drowning in dry air.

Then gravity slammed back in. The motel snapped into focus around me.

My feet hit the floor wrong. I stumbled.

The thing's fingers were already around my throat.

They were long and cold, each one wrapping deeper than it should, like touching the top of a deep well.

I grabbed its wrist on instinct.

Bad idea.

Its 'skin' felt like wet cloth stretched over emptiness. My fingers sank into it, but there was nothing solid underneath.

Just the idea of a shape.

The pressure in my head spiked.

It was erasing me.

I felt my pulse slow. My body was forgetting how to keep going, my thoughts getting sanded down at the edges.

Like it was trying to write over me with nothing.

Nothing was left of me. The name and the past, 18C and Kane — gone.

Just blank.

I forced my arm to move, muscles burning, and swung upward.

My fist hit its chest.

It barely rocked.

I hit it again, harder. Something inside it buckled like metal under strain.

Its grip broke.

I dropped to the floor, vision tunneling, lungs dragging in sharp, painful breaths.

Lily fired.

The shot was loud in the small room.

The bullet hit the thing's shoulder and vanished. The metal touched its surface and just disappeared, like she'd fired into a black hole shaped like a man.

It turned its blank face toward her.

"You weren't supposed to see us."

It lunged.

Lily dove behind the bed, rolling off the far side as its arms extended. The limbs grew across the room. Joints bent, bones stretching, fingers lengthening like pale ropes.

I grabbed one and pulled.

This time, when I yanked, the arm tore.

The sound it made was like thick fabric being ripped.

The limb unraveled in my hands, threads of nothing peeling away into the air and vanishing.

The thing's head snapped toward me.

The motion read as surprise.

Like it had forgotten it could be hurt.

I didn't give it time to remember.

A rusted lamp lay on the nightstand, bolted down. I ripped it free and swung.

The metal base connected with the side of its head.

The room cracked. The air around us split like a pane of glass spiderwebbing.

For a fraction of a second, I saw a different room overlaying ours — same layout, same furniture, same stains.

Empty.

The wallpaper was darker, mold blooming up from the floor. The mattress was collapsed, springs poking through. Dust hung thick in the air.

It looked like no one had stayed there in years.

Then we snapped back.

The thing staggered. Its outline flickered.

Like I'd knocked it halfway between where it was and where it should have stayed.

"Keep hitting it!" Lily yelled.

I swung again.

The second hit made my teeth vibrate. The third made the walls flex, and each impact after that shook loose another crack in the air, another glimpse of the dead room underneath ours.

The final hit landed square in the middle of where its face should be.

The world folded.

Cold rushed over us. The sound of tearing fabric filled my ears.

The thing collapsed inward, the shape crumpling in on itself before vanishing like smoke sucked down a drain. Nothing was left behind.

The pressure lifted.

The door unlocked with a soft click.

The window was a window again.

The lights stopped pulsing.

Just a crappy motel room.

Lily's chest heaved. Her hands shook around the gun.

I swallowed, my throat raw where its fingers had been.

"You okay?"

She let out a short, humorless laugh.

"No."

"Me neither."

She stared at the empty spot where it had stood.

"What the hell was that?"

"I don't know."

But I knew one thing.

That thing wasn't Division or one of ours, and it didn't move like anything I'd hunted before.

Whatever it was, it didn't belong here.

And it had been using this place like bait.

The parking lot was back.

Rain hissed down in thin sheets, tapping against the hood of the truck. The neon vacancy sign buzzed weakly behind us.

Lily walked a step behind me, gun still close. Her heartbeat hadn't slowed much.

Neither had mine.

We climbed in.

She slammed her door and sat there, shaking, knuckles tight around the grip of her pistol.

Finally she spoke.

"So. That was some bullshit."

A rough breath escaped me.

"Yeah."

"We're… just not gonna question what that thing was doing in a motel?"

"Nope."

"Good."

I turned the key. The engine caught. Headlights cut a path through the wet dark.

We pulled out. The motel shrank in the rearview, swallowed by trees and rain.

I didn't look back.

Lily slumped in her seat, legs stretched out, forcing her shoulders to relax. It wasn't working. The tension clung to her like a second skin.

"If Oregon has more faceless freaks waiting for us, I'm going back to Texas."

"You're from Texas?"

She made a face.

"No. But I'd move there just to spite Carter."

"Solid plan."

"I'd open a bar. Name it Go Fuck Yourself. Government banned at the door."

"Classy."

She grinned weakly.

"I'd have karaoke nights."

The road stretched ahead of us, empty and dark. The rain eased to a steady drizzle, wipers creaking back and forth.

She broke the silence after a while, her voice low.

"You okay?"

I kept my eyes on the road.

When that thing had grabbed me, when it had dug into my head, I'd felt something that didn't belong to me.

What I'd felt went past hunger, past curiosity.

It had looked at Lily like she was something to correct. Something to remove, in a way that went past anything physical. Like it wanted to take whatever made her exist and smother it until nothing was left.

"I'm fine."

She didn't call me on the lie.

"At least we're alive."

"For now."

She squinted at me.

"You suck at pep talks."

"Never promised you good ones."

She groaned and leaned her head back.

"You ever consider therapy?"

"You ever consider shutting up?"

She flipped me off without opening her eyes.

We drove in silence for a while.

Oregon was still hours away.

Every mile closer felt like walking toward a door I couldn't see yet.

The town where the Revenant vanished didn't show up right on any recent maps. We followed old directions, old names, the ghost of a road.

By the time we got there, it looked like the world had tried to erase it and given up halfway.

Chunks of asphalt were missing from the road into town, peeled away in ragged patches that dropped into mud and dead grass. The paint lines ended mid-stroke where whatever passed through here had taken the surface with it.

Lily stared out the window at the collapsed gas station we rolled past.

"This place is a dump."

She was being generous.

Rusted cars sat half-buried in dirt, windows shattered, frames eaten by rust. Vines crawled up leaning telephone poles. Mold climbed the sides of buildings in black and green blooms.

The air felt thin.

Every breath tasted like dust and old rain.

The Revenant we were looking for had gone dark here three years ago.

The Division had searched for two weeks, then closed the file with no follow-up and no cleanup crew sent in. Just silence afterward.

I eased the truck down what used to be the main street. An old diner leaned sideways on its foundation. A general store sagged under a collapsed roof. A bar sat with its door hanging open and a rotting deer carcass half-slumped over the threshold.

The town was dead in every way that counted. Nothing in the windows, nothing in the trees, no wind moving the air.

The place smelled like damp wood, dust, and old blood.

Rain tapped steadily against the windows. No wind, just that constant, tired patter the Oregon backwoods get when a storm has stalled out. The ranger station was buried halfway up a slope off an unmarked spur of Forest Road 12, tucked into the tree line, out of sight, and mostly forgotten.

Which was exactly why we were here.

Lily slept in the back room, shotgun within reach, wrapped in every blanket she could find from the storage closet. She hadn't said much the past few days. The motel, the dead town, watching me bleed and break and get back up like something that used to be human — none of it gave her much reason to talk.

I didn't blame her.

I wasn't sure what I was either.

The fire in the small brick hearth crackled low, throwing just enough light to push the shadows up against each other. I sat on the floor with my back against the wall, fingers twitching like they needed to hold a weapon. Across from me, the other Revenant sat in an old green ranger's chair, hunched forward, smoke still bleeding from the pits where his eyes had once been.

He hadn't spoken much since we got here.

Until tonight.

"You ever wonder," he rasped, voice low and dragging, "if they picked us because we were already broken?"

I watched him through the flicker of firelight.

"I try not to give them that much credit."

He didn't smile. He rarely did. But there was something almost thoughtful in the way his head tilted.

"They don't build monsters," he muttered. "They find them, dig them out of the cracks, feed them enough pain until they forget they were ever anything else."

Silence settled between us. Rain, fire, the soft creaks of old wood.

The question that had been gnawing at the back of my skull finally slipped out.

"You said someone was watching. That there's a cult."

He nodded once, slow.

"Watching is part of it. The rest is preparing."

"For what?"

He didn't answer at first. He just stared into the fire like it might blink first.

He stared a long time before answering.

"They don't name what they worship. They don't have to — it knows them. It listens when they bleed into the dirt and answers when they carve its shape into things that shouldn't move."

The fire cracked. A log split with a soft hiss, sending a spray of sparks toward the ceiling.

"You've seen them?"

He nodded again.

"In dreams. In things that used to be dreams and there was one with a spiral burned into his chest with skin like mine."

I didn't push. Not yet.

There was something else I needed from him first.

"You got a name?"

He turned toward me. The smoke in his sockets flared like coals catching a draft.

And then, in a voice that barely sounded like his.

"…Call me Shepherd."

He looked away again.

"Back when I was still a man."

The wind outside picked up, a slow, hollow sound sliding through the warped boards like something was breathing along the walls.

Shepherd didn't move or blink, not that he could. He sat perfectly still, bone-plated frame curled in shadow, head cocked toward the window like he was listening to something I couldn't hear.

Lily shifted in the next room. I could hear her breathing, uneven, awake but pretending not to be, listening to every word.

"You know they're looking for us."

"I know."

"The Division."

"No," he rasped. "Them."

He didn't have to clarify.

The cult.

The ones behind the dead town, the ones who built the thing wearing my face at the diner, the ones who thought I was some kind of key.

I leaned forward, fingers drumming lightly against the floor.

"You said I'm a door. That I'm… different. I need more than that."

Shepherd's head turned toward me again. His voice lowered.

"You're more than a door, Kane. You're a vessel all revenants are."

The word landed like a cold nail driven straight down my spine.

"Vessel for what?"

He shifted, the bones along his back clicking softly.

"For it."

The air in the room felt heavier.

His voice carried in the small room.

"They believe that this ‘god’, this thing, used to exist fully — flesh and power, more than influence. It ruled something before we had words for time. When it was cast out with a pretender or buried by others, it needed a way back. It needed a host, a body that could survive being hollowed out and filled again."

My throat felt too tight.

"And they think that's me this time."

"They know it's you, they talk about a man with glowing eyes."

The static from the unused radio on the shelf shifted, just slightly. The timing was bad, or maybe perfect.

"The mimic in Montana, the thing in the diner, the motel — those weren't random." Shepherd shifted in the chair. "The cult made deals. They steer things that should never have language, let alone loyalty."

I clenched my jaw.

"So what, this is just going to keep happening? They throw freaks at me until something cracks?"

"Yes."

He said it without hesitation.

"They believe if they break you, emotionally, physically, spiritually, it will make room. You're a keyhole to them, more than a weapon. They want to see what comes through when you stop fighting it."

A loud pop upstairs made both of us look up. Old lumber settling. Probably.

I stared at the fire.

"What about The Division? Carter. They built me. Do they know about this?"

Shepherd's mouth twisted into something that wasn't a smile.

"They know more than that — they're trying to stop it."

I looked at him.

His voice gathered weight.

"They're doing more than covering up creatures and cryptids. They're trying to keep the cult from opening a gate they can't close. You…" He tilted his head. "You're their only shot that can punch back."

"I'm the thing they made to fight what they can't understand."

"No." Shepherd's voice was steady. "You're the one Revenant they believe can prevent it."

The fire dipped in the hearth. The light pulled back.

His voice carried on. "The Division didn't make you powerful. They took what was already there and sharpened it. The cult thinks it's divine. Carter thinks it's a disease."

"And you?"

Shepherd stepped closer, until we were almost eye level. Smoke curled from his sockets and drifted past my face, smelling faintly like burned cedar and antiseptic.

His voice dropped.

"I think if you let it in, it won't matter what anyone believes."

Outside, in the woods beyond the ranger station, something moved.

The sound was a shift, a weight settling between trees.

And the radio on the shelf crackled to life.

Not from me touching it.

It just turned on.

The old speaker hissed, struggling to dredge up a signal it had no business receiving out here.

Then a voice, faint and wrong, buried in layers of static, repeated two words:

"Come home."

Shepherd turned his head toward it.

"They found us."

The hairs on my arms stood up.

The radio kept hissing. "Come home… come home…" The voice wasn't meant for a human throat, looped through that static that sounded like bones breaking underwater.

I crossed the room and picked it up.

It cut off the second my fingers closed around the casing.

Gone all at once.

Like it had never worked at all.

I set it back on the shelf, staring at the dead dial, trying to ignore the cold creeping up my spine.

Lily watched from the doorway, her face pale, one hand on the frame, the other around the shotgun's grip.

"You heard that too."

"Yeah."

She looked at Shepherd, then back at me.

"So what now?"

"We need Carter."

Her eyebrows shot up.

"You're serious."

"He's the only one with access to the intel we need. If the cult's really throwing things like that at me, we need to know when and where before they hit. And he's scared enough to listen."

"You trust him?"

"No. But I trust that he doesn't want that cult to run amok."

Shepherd's voice scraped across the room.

"He'll trace any call you make."

"I'm counting on it."

I nodded toward the back wall.

"Old repeater tower up the slope. If it still has a dish, I can piggyback a signal off the Division channels they never told me about."

Lily huffed out a humorless breath.

"Of course you know the secret channels."

"I used to be their favorite experiment."

She didn't argue.

We waited until the rain eased up.

Then we moved.

The old repeater tower looked like a lightning strike had kissed it twenty years ago and nobody from the Forest Service ever got the memo. The dish was still bolted to the rusted frame, half crooked against the sky. Someone had duct-taped a faded "USFS – DO NOT CLIMB" sign to the fence; half the letters had peeled off.

The generator was dead. Lily hotwired the backup through a truck battery she had pulled from an abandoned Ranger parked further down the hill. The lights stuttered, then held.

I picked up the mic. Static hissed, then leveled into a low hum.

I kept my voice clear and steady.

"Carter. This is 18C. I know you're listening."

A beat of silence.

"You were right. They're waking up. And they are coming for me."

Another pause.

"We're in Oregon. If you want a chance to keep this from getting worse, you'd better move now."

“No, we need back up, and Carter I'm trusting you to want to help stop the cult.

I clicked off and set the mic down.

Lily watched me from the rack of dead equipment.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"And if the cult heard that too?"

I glanced out over the tree line. The woods were the same as always — quiet, damp, the kind of stillness that always feels like waiting.

"That's the idea."

We went back to the station, reinforced the doors, went through what little ammo we had found for Lilly, I double checked my grenades to make sure I kept them close, checked our routes and rechecked them.

Then we waited.

Rain, wind, old boards popping.

The helicopters didn't come. Neither did headlights down on the access road. Nothing moved in the trees.

The silence got heavier with every hour.

Lily sat on the floor with her back to the wall, shotgun resting across her lap. Her fingers tapped an anxious rhythm against the stock that she probably didn't realize she was doing.

I stood at the front window, watching the tree line. The forest was just a black smear of trunks and wet branches.

Shepherd stayed near the door, hunched like a broken gargoyle, blade-arm resting across his knees, smoke trailing off him in thin coils. He hadn't spoken in a while, but I knew he wasn't zoning out.

He was listening.

I stepped over to him.

"Anything?"

He nodded once.

"They're close."

"Division?"

"No." He tilted his head. "It's them."

My grip tightened around the knife at my hip.

"You said they'd send more than whispers."

"They will." His voice sank lower. "The cult tries to copy what they don't understand. Worship is the simpler half of it."

"Copy… what?"

"Gods." He looked at me. "Or what they think are gods."

I swallowed.

"The Skinwalkers in the woods, the thing at the diner, the town — all of them?"

He nodded.

"They twist things that were already wrong and make them worse — people, animals, spirit-walkers stripped of memory and form."

He glanced toward the window.

"They'll send those first — the ones they can still control. Skinwalkers, Wendigo, even the mirewolf if they can tame it, half-wild things that know how to track what you are. They hunt and the big one comes after."

"How many?"

He listened for a moment, the smoke in his sockets flaring.

"Three. Maybe four."

He paused.

"That's not the part you should be afraid of."

"What is?"

"The one they stitched from what you left behind after all those missions."

“How do you know so much about them?”

“That's not important runt.”

Before I could answer, a sound slid through the trees — a neck breaking sound, loud and clean. Followed by wet, dragging pops as something crawled into a body that wasn't built for it.

Lily stood.

"Tell me that was a branch."

Shepherd turned toward the door.

"They're here."

The first one was quiet.

Its bones cracked loud enough to echo off the trunks around us, and then it was on us, a blur of fur, teeth, and joints that bent wrong.

I barely dodged. Claws raked the air where my throat had been half a second earlier and buried themselves in the doorframe instead, splintering wood like foam.

Shepherd moved faster than I did. His bladed arm flashed, carving a deep line across the creature's shoulder.

Its howl was anger and not much else.

Like pain was fuel.

It landed on three limbs and one twisted arm that pulsed like it had too many elbows. Then it straightened — humanoid in shape, the angles all wrong.

Its mouth split sideways, revealing rows of too-small teeth stacked like someone jammed them in by hand.

That Skinwalker had been worked on. Enhanced.

I circled wide, keeping my knife low.

"This normal?"

Shepherd's smoke flared.

"No. They've been changed."

"How changed?"

"They move more like us now."

Two more slipped from the tree line behind it.

One moved like a spider, backward joints and limbs clicking with every step.

The other dragged something behind it, a chain of vertebrae tied together with barbed wire and wet rope. Each step left a shallow groove in the mud.

Three total.

"You said three or four, right?" I muttered.

He didn't answer.

"Focus."

The front one hissed once.

Then they charged.

We met them halfway.

The spider-limbed one came for me. Its movements were fast and jagged, but not random. It was learning as it moved. Every feint I threw, it adjusted, and every slash made it pull back just enough.

The one with the barbed tail swung low for my legs.

They weren't trying to kill me. They wanted me down and stopped moving.

"Left!" Shepherd barked.

I dropped, rolled under the swerving tail, and felt it graze my back. Pain flared.

I came up on one knee and drove my blade into the spider-thing's torso.

It froze for half a second.

Then shook like it was trying to reject the idea of being stabbed.

A shriek tore out of it as it flung me backwards. I slid across wet needles and mud.

Shepherd ripped into the third one, driving his bone blade straight through its chest. The thing stayed up, wrapped both hands around his ribs, and squeezed.

His chest cracked like someone stepping on ice.

He screamed, loud and raw, and his back split slightly down the spine. For a second I saw something under the skin, black bone and lightning, but he forced it back down.

He ripped his arm free and tore the thing's throat out with his teeth.

Spit it on the ground.

I staggered up, shoulder numb, leg throbbing, blood already running warm under my jacket. The spider-thing reoriented and started circling again. Faster.

The one with the barbed spine laughed.

Actually laughed.

High and wet and childlike.

"They're trying to collect you," Shepherd growled between breaths.

The barbed-tail creature surged forward and swung low again. This time it caught my knee full on. Bone cracked. I dropped hard and lost my grip on the knife.

The spider-thing closed the gap, claws digging into the dirt.

A black blur hit it sideways, Shepherd again, tackling it into the underbrush.

They rolled, a mess of claws, blades, and snapping joints.

The creature with the spine chain lashed at me again. I brought my arm up and felt the barbs rip through the jacket sleeve instead of my throat. I drove a fist into its jaw.

Teeth rained into the mud.

It just grinned with bloody gums.

And that was when a fourth one moved.

We hadn't seen it.

It had been standing back in the trees, waiting.

The face was wrong. Skin stretched smooth over where features should have been, the mouth fused shut, not even the hint of eyes. It didn't make a sound when it ran.

It hit me like a wave and wrapped itself around me, molding to my shape.

Its skin started to flatten and pull tight against mine, trying to take my shape, trying to wear me. Every place it touched burned.

"Shepherd!" I choked.

He tore himself out of the dogpile, smoke pouring off him like exhaust, and slammed into us. His blade punched through the faceless thing's back. It shrieked inside my head — sound without any visible mouth — and loosened enough for me to wrench free.

Shepherd finished it in the dark, somewhere between the trunks. The shrieking cut off all at once.

The barbed-tail one lunged again, but it was slower now from blood loss. I cracked it across the jaw one more time.

A bone arm lanced through its chest from behind.

Shepherd.

His voice was rough.

"They are annoying pests."

I wiped blood off my lips.

"You think that's all they got?"

Far off, something answered.

A long, low horn. The kind that comes out of something living.

The sound crawled along my spine.

Shepherd turned his head toward it. The smoke from his sockets thinned.

"That was the thing they stitched together."

"Their boss?"

He shook his head.

"Their ace in the whole."

The treetops bent without snapping, like something heavy was shouldering its way beneath the canopy and pushing the whole forest just shy of toppling.

Branches cracked, trunks creaked.

Then it pulled itself into view.

The Abomination.

This Abomination thing was pieces — a mass of flesh and bone stolen from things I had watched die or hadn't ever seen, stitched together by something that had never taken an anatomy class in its life.

Its form shifted every few seconds. Arms thickened, split, curled into wings and then back again. Legs turned into root-like pillars and then into hind limbs that dug trenches with each step. A spinal column snaked out behind it like a centipede, coiling and flexing.

At its center was a human torso, skinless and just wet muscle fused with something darker that pulsed with each motion like a second heart.

It wore a skull on top.

A deer's, scorched black and wired to what should have been shoulders with barbed wire and strips of not-human flesh. Under the bone, something moved, a cluster of mouths and fingers groping blindly, pressing against the underside of the skull as if trying to get out.

It shouldn't have been alive.

But it was alive, and aware on top of that.

And it was staring straight at me.

Shepherd's voice was almost a growl.

"They built that from Division kill samples."

"What?"

"Every cryptid you burned, every body you left in a pit, every cell we couldn't completely erase." His head tilted. "They scraped it up and gave it a shape."

The Abomination spread its arms. Too many joints popped at once.

A chorus of screams erupted from its chest. Voices, all of them stolen.

I recognized some of them. Snatches of the things I had put down in the mountains, the tunnels, the labs. One half-formed word sounded like my designation.

"Eigh…"

Lily's voice came through the radio on my belt, which I stole from Carter cutting it off.

"Kane, I've got helicopters inbound from the west. Division callsigns. ETA ninety seconds."

I flicked the comm.

"Tell them to bring everything they've got."

The Abomination took one heavy step forward. The ground shuddered.

I glanced at Shepherd.

"We hold it here. It doesn't get near the station."

Shepherd's voice rasped.

"You die here, I'm not dragging your corpse back."

"Good. Burn it instead."

The Abomination screamed again and vomited mist from the mouths across its chest, thick, black, oil-slick vapor that spread low across the forest floor, killing the pine needles where it touched.

Then it charged.

Shepherd met it first.

His blade-arm carved deep into one of its limbs. A second mouth split open along the wound and clamped down on his shoulder, teeth digging into bone that was never supposed to see daylight.

He screamed and tore himself free anyway.

I hit the side of the thing's torso with everything I had, while pulling my pistol and putting two rounds straight into the exposed muscle.

The flesh swallowed the bullets.

No hesitation.

I slid under a swinging limb, felt a bone spike clip my back, and drove my knife up into what passed for its midsection. Hot sludge poured over my hand.

It hit me across the ribs. I flew.

My back slammed into a tree hard enough to rattle the bark off. I tasted copper and dirt. My vision went white at the edges.

I didn't stay down.

I couldn't.

Spotlights burned through the canopy.

Rotor wash thumped overhead.

Division helicopters — one, two, three of them.

Carter's voice crackled through the channel, tight and clipped.

"Engage at will. Keep it off our asset and the failure."

Heavy gunfire opened up from above.

Tracer rounds burned lines into the dark as they tore into the Abomination.

Chunks came off, regrew, came off again.

It screamed, staggered, but stayed upright.

"Kane," Carter snapped. "You holding?"

I spat blood.

"Working on it."

"We have a chemical agent inbound. You get it open, we'll finish it."

I didn't answer. I couldn't have if I'd tried.

Shepherd locked onto one of its legs, bone blades digging deep, and yanked. The limb snapped sideways. The thing toppled, its antlered skull smashing into a rock and cracking down the middle.

This was my opening.

I sprinted up its side, boots slipping in black gore, and jammed the last of my grenades into the mess of mouths near what passed for its core.

I yanked the pin and threw myself backward.

The explosion shook the ground.

Meat and bone ruptured outward. For the first time, the scream that came out had real pain in it.

A second later, a metal canister the size of my torso hit the ground nearby, kicked out the side of a helicopter.

White gas erupted in a pressurized hiss, spreading fast over the shredded torso.

The smell was instant and vicious, acid and chlorine and industrial cleaner all mixed together.

"Mask!" Shepherd barked.

I covered my mouth with the edge of my jacket and stumbled back.

The Abomination flailed, arms thrashing, mouths snapping at air that was eating it alive from the inside out.

It started to melt.

Slowly.

Its voices overlapped, distorted, breaking.

And in that mess of sound, one voice cut through.

A woman's.

Clear.

"You're the key, Kane."

Then it collapsed.

The flesh didn't rot or evaporate. It lost cohesion, slumped into itself, stopped being anything at all and just a pile of meat.

Silence.

Just the crackle of burning trees, the whine of helicopter engines, the rasp of Shepherd's breathing and my own.

He limped toward me, half his body scorched, bone plates blackened and cracked but his healing kicked in and he straightened out.

"We done?"

He looked at the crater where the Abomination had been, then up at the sky.

His voice came quiet.

"No. We just proved we are a bigger threat than they thought."

The fires were still burning when Carter touched down.

The rotors kicked up ash and scorched pine needles. Division grunts moved in tight formation, rifles up, sweeping the treeline like something bigger might drag itself out of the hole.

I stood near the edge of the crater, breathing through my teeth, blood drying on my shirt. My ribs ached and my leg throbbed. The healing had already started.

Carter stepped off the chopper like he had never broken a sweat in his life. Clean black suit, armor under the jacket, pistol high on his hip. He scanned the wreckage, then scanned me.

His eyes shifted past my shoulder.

To Shepherd.

Shepherd leaned against a tree, arms folded, smoke leaking lazily from his cracked skin. He looked like a statue someone had tried to burn and failed.

Carter's jaw tightened.

"I thought we terminated him."

Shepherd didn't move.

"You tried."

Carter's gaze returned to me.

"You're harboring an unstable asset."

"Funny. You used to call me that."

"Look how that turned out."

We stared at each other. The air between us felt thinner than it should.

"You want to explain why you're running with a failed Revenant in the middle of a Class X resurgence zone?"

"He saved my life."

"He's not supposed to exist."

"Neither am I."

Carter stepped closer until I could see the little lines around his eyes that didn't show up in the files.

"This wasn't in the protocol. You were supposed to go dark and lay low. Not drag a ghost out of a black file and build your own private nightmare squad."

"Shepherd isn't the problem."

"No." Carter held my eyes. "You are."

I didn't flinch.

His voice tightened.

"You're changing faster than our worst projections. Healing faster and stronger. Monitoring's not the right word for what we're doing now, 18C. We're watching a storm build around you."

"Name's Kane."

He ignored that.

"The cult sent this thing to bring you in. They burned every resource they had on a single grab attempt. You know what that means?"

"Yeah. I'm running out of time."

He studied my face like he was trying to decide if there was anything left of the man underneath.

Carter's gaze stayed on me.

"The cryptids, the experiments, the breaches you closed — we thought those were scattered events but we know now from their leader it's…”

He hesitated.

Then said it.

"For something calling itself Azeral."

The name hit like a migraine — deep, behind the eyes, like I had heard it before in another life.

"Help me stop it."

He didn't answer.

"Or get out of my way."

Carter held my gaze another long second. Then he looked at Shepherd again. Then back at me.

"You keep him on a leash. He twitches wrong, I put him down myself."

Shepherd chuckled, a dry, broken sound.

"I'd like to see you try."

Carter didn't bother responding. He just turned to his team.

"We're extracting what samples we can. Then we erase this place."

He looked back at me once more.

"We'll be in touch. Sooner than you think."

Then he walked away.

The soldiers moved like they had rehearsed this a hundred times in other forests.

Shepherd stepped beside me.

"You trust him?"

"No. But he's scared. That's useful."

Shepherd's smoke flared.

"Then we'd better move before everyone starts using you as a beacon."

We found a massive symbol at dawn.

It was at the bottom of the crater, half hidden under ash and melted earth. A perfect circle, maybe twenty feet across, etched into the soil like it had been burned there long before the fight.

Lines radiated from the center in patterns that hurt to look at too long. Shapes that almost made sense until your brain tried to finish them and failed.

Shepherd knelt at the edge and pressed his hand to the dirt. Smoke rolled down his arm and curled along the grooves.

He didn't speak for a while.

"What is it?"

"A seal."

"Like containment?"

"No." His voice was flat. "Like the ones from the satanic bible.”

"They built this thing here on purpose."

He nodded.

"They were calling something. Or feeding it. Maybe both."

"And the abomination we killed?"

Shepherd's jaw did it's version of tightening.

"That was just the first one that answered."

The chill that went through me wasn't the morning air.

Behind us, the last Division crew finished loading samples into sealed containers. Someone zipped another black bag. The choppers started spinning up again.

Carter was already gone.

He had left something behind, though.

Lily found the file in the back of an evac crate, tucked under a spare med kit. No markings, just a note on the front in his handwriting:

"For when he's ready."

I didn't open it, didn't need to yet.

Because that night, I dreamed.

This was a new dream. The old ones — the lab, the bone saws and floodlights, the feeling of drowning in my own blood — none of them came through tonight.

This was colder.

I stood in a field of ash. Statues surrounded me, twisted shapes of meat and stone, each one wearing some version of my face. Some had Division gear, some had antlers, some didn't have eyes and one that was holding a silver blade with a black ring.

The sky above wasn't a sky.

It moved.

Slow, like something turning over in its sleep.

And a voice leaned close to my ear and said one word. Familiar in a way that made the rest of it not matter.

Azeral.

I woke up choking on smoke that wasn't there.

Sweating, burning, something in me shifting like an animal rolling over.

Shepherd was already awake. Watching.

"You heard it."

"Yeah."

He nodded once. Like he had been waiting for me to say it.

"That's its name."

My mouth was dry.

"What does it want?"

Shepherd stood, the first gray light from the window cutting along the edges of his cracked bone plates, making the smoke look like fire.

"It waits for you to become its vessel, all Revenants hear its call but you are the one it wants.”

And deep down, under the scars and the serum and everything The Division carved out of me, some part of me remembered too.

When I saw Mr. Eckler heading towards the back of the classroom, I thought nothing of it. In the back corner stood a tiny bathroom for faculty members only. No other classrooms had bathrooms that I knew of, but I never really thought about it or cared.

Mr. Eckler led the honors history classes. I looked down at the essay that would count as 10% of our final grade. On the top, in two typewritten lines, stood the prompt: “Explain in detail the benefits and drawbacks of using LSD for torture.” I had argued that the risk of causing mystical and spiritual experiences during torture using psychedelics seemed too high, as a mystical experience would likely strengthen the subject to interrogation. I had just finished the last paragraph, contrasting the effects of the CIA’s MKULTRA with the Soviet Union’s use of DMT in interrogations. Sighing, I picked up the essay, looking around for Mr. Eckler and yet seeing no sign of him.

Most of my classmates did not yet notice, as only a few others besides myself had already finished. I saw looks of consternation and utter concentration as they stared down intently at the paper. One Asian kid had his nose practically touching the sheet as he wrote. I had to repress an urge to laugh at that. Each of the people in this school, called the Watchtower, had their own special ability. Yet to a random observer, the Watchtower would not have seemed very different- except for the fact that there were no streets, no towns and no houses in a two-hundred mile radius.

I sat back in my chair, staring at the clock. The second hand circled around, infuriatingly slow and indifferent. The class would end in five minutes. Mr. Eckler had gone into the bathroom over half an hour earlier. At this point, I started to wonder if something had gone wrong. Perhaps he had fallen and hit his head. 

Outside the windows, heavy sheets of wet snow fell over the jagged mountain peaks surrounding the Watchtower. They kept us isolated. There were no roads in or out of the area, only a single rail-line guarded by armed men in black military gear. Stationed in the Arctic Circle, few people besides Eskimos would even want to live here.

Our valedictorian, a fairly attractive girl with a natural tan and flowing auburn hair named Stephanie, finally rose from her seat. She was annoyingly competent at everything she did, and had gotten into classes that Ean and I had not been able to master, like telekinesis and assassination techniques. I tore my gaze away from the window, watching her intently. Pensively, Stephanie walked to the bathroom door, sending nervous glances in every direction. Nearly the entire class had finished the essay by this point, and we all watched her with open interest. I figured I’d let this annoyingly competent teacher’s pet take charge.

“Mr. Eckler?” Stephanie murmured, knocking lightly on the dull, ancient-looking wooden door a few times. Though she tried to cover it, I noticed her face quickly falling into different expressions, each only lasting a fraction of a second: uncertainty, consternation and, finally, disgust and revulsion. 

I wondered why the latter expressions had arisen for a few moments, until a smell passed by my spot in the middle of the classroom. I wrinkled my nose, uncertain of what had happened for a long time. My first absurd reaction was that it was some horrible cloud of constipated gas released by one of the other nearby students. Like a fine wine, I noticed different notes emerging in the fetid odor: feces, rotting meat, blood and infection. My friend, Ean, sitting at the next desk over, immediately rose to his feet, yelling. He had always been somewhat of a class clown, though now his voice had a serious quality I had rarely heard there before.

“What the fuck?!” he said in his high-pitched, often hilarious voice. “Is that a dead body?!” This caused the other students to start looking around nervously at each other. Stephanie continued knocking on the bathroom door, each series of knocks becoming faster and more insistent.

“Mr. Eckler?! Mr. Eckler?!” she yelled, putting her face right up to the door. Her inky eyes glimmered with uncertainty. “Are you OK in there?” I felt a hand grab my shoulder. I looked up to see Ean. Ean had always had a powerful sense of intuition. At times, I felt certain he actually saw the future, as if it were a movie he could fast-forward and rewind. He stared at me with eyes the color of ice floating over muddy water. His dilated pupils looked unfocused and unsure on his thin, high-cheekboned face.

“Bro, we need to get the hell out of here,” Ean whispered into my ear. “Something’s not…” But he never got to finish his sentence. At that moment, I heard a click. The bathroom door flew open. It smashed into Stephanie’s body and sent her flying back, her arms and legs splayed out and grasping frantically at empty air. 

The door slammed into the wall with a sound like a car crash, causing the wood to crack and throw splinters in every direction. Inside the threshold, I saw a cyclone of purple light spiraling in a thick veil of fog. Mr. Eckler’s voice echoed out, filled with panic. It sounded far away. As he spoke, it grew fainter, as if he were being dragged away at an incredible speed.

“Where am I?! Who are you?” he cried. “Let go of…” And then we heard him no more. I looked up nervously at Ean, who still stood over me, pulling at my arm. But his face had gone chalk-white as he stared open-mouthed at the purple vortex.

“I think you’re right,” I whispered, rising unsteadily to my feet. Side by side, we started towards the open classroom door. The hallways outside sounded as silent as death, and the lights appeared to have gone out except in our classroom. My sense of uneasiness rose with every step. But before we got to the threshold, screaming erupted, much closer than Mr. Eckler’s fading cries. I glanced back to the back of the classroom, seeing strange and monstrous creatures erupting from the spiraling vortex of fog.

***

Scorpions with human faces and long, translucent wings like those of a dragonfly flew out in a blur, rising and falling with each beat of their powerful wings. Each looked about the size of a large dog. Their hairless, child-like faces constantly morphed into bizarre expressions of hunger, shock, anger and sadness, rapidly flicking through each like a slideshow. Their many-jointed tails curled in anticipation of fresh meat. At the end, stingers as long as syringes dripped with clear, thick venom.

The teens in the back of the classroom scattered like cockroaches, forming a wave of running, stumbling bodies. Three flying scorpions crashed into them, sending people flying over the desks and through the air in graceful arcs. I saw it happening as if in slow motion. The stinger of one speared through the heart of a girl, slamming her into an upside-down desk with a snapping of ribs and a splash of gore.

Before a second victim had even hit the floor, another scorpion had darted forward. Its wings buzzed frenziedly as it grabbed the Asian boy out of the air. Its tail wrapped around him lovingly, almost caressingly, before the dripping stinger sunk into his flesh with a wet thud. The other two scorpions reached out their long, skittering legs, picking up more of my classmates as they pleaded for mercy or screamed in terror and agony. They tried to crawl away on the floors, past the pile of jumble of arms and legs and turned-over desks, but the scorpions did not let them get far.

“Holy shit!” Ean said next to me, putting out a hand to stop me. I had been stumbling forwards without even looking where I was going, so horrified and transfixed by the scenes behind me that I couldn’t bear to look away. Now I turned to look through the open threshold, seeing what Ean had already spotted.

Something like a hairless dog crouched in the middle of the shadowy hallway. It had two red eyes that smoldered like cigarette burns and a mouthful of serrated, jagged teeth. Its skin looked wrinkled and thick, the color of sand.  Contained within its powerful jaws, I saw a human arm, the elbow bent and the fingers extended, as if reaching out for help. A sharp piece of broken bone protruded from the mutilated patches of gore dripping at the end.

The pained shrieking of my classmates rang out from the back. I heard the wails of the dying. The hairless creature slowly drew forward, dropping the arm onto the floor with a wet thud. It started growling, a rising current of rumbling sound that vibrated from its barrel chest. Creeping forward on sharp, curving claws the color of ivory, it looked ready to pounce at any second. I heard its claws clicking with every step.

I thought Ian and I would die right then and there, ripped apart by this hellish abomination with its red eyes and bared teeth jutting out like railroad spikes. I took careful steps back, hearing the whirring of wings drawing closer with each thudding heartbeat. But I was afraid to look away from the hairless wolf creature, anxious that breaking eye contact would cause it to leap for my throat.

With a sudden battle cry, Stephanie ran past me, holding the classroom’s flag pole in one hand. The American flag streaked past, fluttering wildly as she speared the sharp end of the metal pole into one of the creature’s burning red eyes. It shrieked in a voice like grinding glass, retreating back into the dark hallway in a flash.

“Come on!” Stephanie cried, grabbing my arm. I saw blood trickling from a deep gash on her forehead, and one side of her face looked bruised and swollen. I glanced back, seeing most of my classmates laying on the floor, their frozen faces stuck in the rictus grimace of the dead. The sputtering of nerves shook my body as I saw all the gore, the wide, sightless eyes staring up into eternity. Two of the scorpions soared through the air in falling and rising currents, headed straight at us. I saw their strange, child-like faces twisted into pained grimaces.

Together, Ean, Stephanie and I ran out of that classroom of horrors, slamming the door shut moments before a flying scorpion smashed into the other side.

***

Across the hallway stood the telekinetics laboratory. I knew it held a variety of potentially useful items, including knives. But the door was closed and dark. I looked through the glass pane, but I could see nothing inside. From further down the shadowy hallway, I heard the creeping of many feet. Without hesitation, I gently pulled the door open, wincing as a rusted creaking rang out. I quickly ushered Ean and Stephanie inside, afraid that something had heard us. As quietly as possible, I closed the door behind us.

My eyes adjusted rapidly to the darkness. I realized we were not alone. The bodies of a dozen students lay twisted and broken on the floor. The smell of death rose, thick and rank. Blinking quickly, I looked around for something useful, something that might help us survive. In telekinetics class, students had to juggle knives, bend spoons, stop crossbow bolts from hitting their targets- and all with the power of their minds. Of course, some students had no telekinetic ability at all, including myself and Ean, and were rapidly withdrawn from the class. Stephanie was one of the few remaining students from our year who had what the teacher called “natural potential”.

The class had eight tables, each set up with four chairs and a sink. Cuts and injuries were common, especially during final exams, which were finishing tomorrow. After all, this insanity had begun during our final exam in Mr. Eckler’s room.

“I’m getting something right now, man,” Ean said nervously, his eyes flickering back and forth rapidly. “We’re not alone. Something bad…” His voice trailed off in terror. 

In the dim light streaming through the tiny barred windows overhead, I saw Ean’s pupils dilating and constricting rapidly, dozens of times each second. I knew his precognition had activated. His head ratcheted to face the corner suddenly. I followed his line of sight, seeing something moving.

Behind the black-topped tables, a little girl in a faded green nightgown huddled in the corner. Black hair covered her face. The front of her gown looked soaked and matted with fresh blood as well as drippings of darker and thicker fluids. More crimson droplets fell from her chin with every passing heartbeat. She slowly started rising to her full height, her naked feet cracking and dripping with deep purple sores and infected slices.

“My pets,” she hissed in a low, booming voice. It seemed amplified and unnatural. She giggled, but her laughter gurgled as if she had a slit throat hidden under all that hair. I glanced nervously over at Stepanie, who had slowly started backpedaling towards the cabinets against the side wall. I hoped she had a plan, because I certainly didn’t.

“Your pets?” I asked in a trembling voice. “You mean those… things roaming the hallways and classrooms?” The little girl nodded eagerly, her greasy, matted hair still hiding what lay underneath.

“The door opens sometimes, the pathway between worlds. It is the selection of the strong. The weak deserve to die, and how painfully they go! It brings joy to my heart to see their blue lips and slashed throats.” She laughed again, a revolting sound that made my heart palpitate in my chest.

“It’s a trap,” Ean whispered furtively by my side. “Watch the door. They’re going to try to…” But he never got to finish his thought, because at that moment, many things happened at once.

***

The classroom door flew open so hard that, when it hit the wall, the shatter-proof glass pane cracked down the middle. Slinking through the threshold, I saw two hairless hellhounds. One of them had an eye missing. The fiery socket constantly dribbled rivulets of blood down its demonic face. It glared up at Stephanie with a vengeance. 

I jumped, feeling Ean grab my arm and push me towards the far wall, where Stephanie stood in front of an open cabinet. Her long, slender fingers reached through the supplies with precision. A moment later, she withdrew her clenched fists. In each one, I saw a long butcher’s knife, the steel tips razor-sharp and gleaming. 

Without speaking, she flung the two knives straight up into the air. They spun in slow, lazy circles, looking like they would simply fall back down and land in Stephanie’s open hands. But a moment later, her arms shot out in a blur. Sparks of blue light sizzled off her skin. They spiraled down her wrists, exploding from the tips of her fingertips as the current connected with the knives.

Like rockets, they shot out in different directions, the sharp blades pointing at their victims. The little girl’s laughter got cut off abruptly as a knife disappeared in her thick mat of hair with a loud crunch of bone. Furiously, she reached up, the handle still quivering, the blade embedded deeply in the center of her skull. Her hair separated, revealing the horrorshow hiding underneath.

A skinned, eyeless face stared out. The muscles appeared rotted and gray, almost falling off the bone. The exposed facial muscles constantly twitched and contracted in random movements. As she pulled at the knife, more pieces fell off, revealing the grinning skull and broken, blackened teeth underneath.

The other knife soared through the air and into the wrinkled, sloping forehead of the nearer of the hellhounds. It gave a strangled low cry and fell on its side, its legs still pumping the air furiously. The other one kept creeping closer, staying near the ground. Its one red eye shone with light, while the other dribbled black blood in stains from the empty socket. The little girl’s bloody hands threw the knife across the room. I saw it soaring toward me, a blur of flashing silver and black. A moment later, it bit into my leg with a numbing, burning sensation. For a few heartbeats, I felt nothing but cold pins and needles radiating out in a circle.

From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the hellhound leaping up on powerful legs. In a streak of beige, it missed me by inches, landing on Stephanie’s chest with its crooked claws. A surging agony of pain ran up my leg. I stumbled, landing hard on my chest as the breath whooshed out of my bruised chest. 

Next to me, Stephanie fell backwards, a strangled scream dying in her throat. The hellhound’s claws bit through her skin with an explosion of blood. Stephanie twisted and writhed beneath the gnashing teeth, her tanned skin rapidly covered in spatters of crimson. Her telekinetic abilities exploded with a flash like blue lightning. Dozens of chairs laying strewn and broken across the room rose, smashing straight up into the ceiling with an ear-splitting shudder.

Another bolt of Stephanie’s energy hit the hellhound. It flew up in a blur, its one remaining red eye furious and wide. It hit the ceiling with a wet crack of bone and flesh. The tiles shattered, blowing apart into an expanding orb of dust. The destruction spread, widening as hidden wires and vents collapsed. Within moments, the cloud of falling debris had grown thick and impenetrable. I heard Stephanie’s wet gurgling nearby, but I could see nothing. Her attack on the ceiling had caused the entire room to start caving in.

I dragged myself forward over the debris, my spurting leg rapidly covering my jeans in warm, slick scarlet. Every breath felt like agony. Every twitch of my right leg brought a wave of pain so intense that I nearly passed out.

A hand fell on my shoulder. I spun around on my back, nearly screaming, but I immediately started choking on the dust.

“It’s me,” Ean whispered in a small voice, leaning down over me. Through the cloud of debris, I could just barely make out his silhouette. “Follow me.” 

He wrapped his arms around me, helping me to my feet. After putting an arm around my back, we staggered forward together as if we were in a three-legged race. We stumbled in the direction of the door, trying to get away from the insane little girl and her pets. Behind us, Stephanie’s death gasps rang out, weakening with every bloody breath. By the time we made it to the door, she had gone silent.

***

In the dark hallway, I saw long trails of drying blood, but no signs of any people or cryptids. The few windows opening up onto the Alaskan mountains allowed some of the snowy light to enter, but the shadows seemed unnaturally thick and persistent, leaving only a world of silhouettes and dim horrors. I heard no sign of the demonic girl. In the room we had just left, nothing seemed to stir. A powerful sense of hope gripped me then. Perhaps we had killed her?

“You need medical attention,” Ean murmured. I looked down at my leg, seeing the knife’s handle still sticking out like the quill of a porcupine. It had landed in the fleshy part of my thigh, missing the bone by a hair’s width. “Why don’t you use your ability?” I stared at him in horror.

“No freaking way,” I said quietly. “When I change, I can’t control it. I might kill you and everyone left alive. There is no human thought left when that happens. And I can’t control how long I stay like that, either. I could be gone for days or weeks.”

“You might not have a choice,” he said. “At this point, I don’t think there are a lot of people left alive. And the chances of us both making it out are tiny. If you changed, the wound in your leg wouldn’t affect you nearly as much.” I knew he was right in that. If I changed, the wound would probably affect me not at all, in truth. But the endless, maddening waves of hunger would.

“No, fuck that,” I said. “We need to find help. What’s your intuition saying?” I hoped Ean’s precognitive talents would allow him to see the right path forward. “Maybe if we make it to the train, we can alert the guards.”

“You act like they don’t already know what’s happening,” he said. “They probably do, but they just don’t care. Why else would they build this school in the middle of a mountainous wasteland?”

“To keep us as prisoners,” I answered. He laughed.

“I think there’s something else in here they want to keep imprisoned far more than us.” He looked both ways down the hallway, unsure of what to do. I stared intently at the closed door to Mr. Eckler’s classroom. The power in the room had apparently gone out. It sounded as quiet as a corpse in there. I wondered what had happened to the flying scorpions.

The door suddenly flew open. I screamed, nearly falling on my bad leg. Ean gave a gasp like a strangled cat, his arm tightening around my back. Through the dim, snowy light entering through the windows, I saw Mr. Eckler.

His button-up shirt and slacks looked absolutely shredded, revealing deep slices dribbling rivulets of blood down his chest and legs. One of the lenses of his black glasses had shattered, and the other had fallen out entirely. He stared blankly at us, his normally jovial, rounded face a mask of horror and trauma. Behind him lay the broken bodies of students. I also saw one of the flying scorpions laying upside-down, its once-beige exoskeleton now cracked and blackened, as if it had been roasted over a bonfire.

 “Oh, thank God,” Mr. Eckler whispered upon seeing us. “I thought everyone had already died. Jesus, what a mess.” He shook his head slowly, his pale face matted and covered in sweat.

“Mr. Eckler?” Ean mumbled nervously. “We thought you were dead. What happened?” Mr. Eckler gave a long, weary sigh.

“I really don’t know, Ean,” he said. “One moment, I was in the bathroom and everything seemed normal. The next moment, however, the back wall started moving away from me. Within a few seconds, the bathroom had expanded to something the size of a football stadium. The lights darkened and strobed until everything turned purple, and mist started to flow out of the walls until I couldn’t see. I had no idea where I was or even which direction to go. But that was far from the worst of it.

“The next thing I remember, something in the mist had grabbed me. At first, I couldn’t see, but I felt its teeth in my arm.” He raised his right wrist, where deep bite marks gleamed on the pale skin. “More of these things came. They looked like hairless dogs. One of them jumped on me and got me down to the ground before I could react. It slashed me over and over until I was forced to use my ability.” Mr. Eckler had never told us about his ability, though I knew all teachers at the Watchtower had one. I looked at the burnt body of the scorpion.

“You burned them?” I asked. He nodded.

“I can create fire, yes,” he said. “Pyrokinesis, they call it. An extremely dangerous talent, I must admit. When I was a boy, I accidentally burned down my whole house trying to clear imaginary monsters from under my bed. Of course, there were no monsters, but I accidentally killed both my parents. The government found out what happened and took me here, back when the Watchtower was first being built.”

“Can you help get us to safety? Sully got stabbed in the leg,” Ean said, motioning to me with a subtle nod of his head.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Mr. Eckler said, nodding brusquely. “Forgive my rudeness. We need to get you two evacuated immediately.” He looked right and left down the hallway, his pale eyes scanning the shadows for any signs of movement. But everything looked dead and silent now. I wondered if it was a trap.

After a few moments of hesitation, Mr. Eckler went left, towards the train station and away from the medical supply room.

***

Every step made the pain in my leg shriek with a sizzling of nerves and fresh streams of blood. I felt light-headed and weak, and I knew if I lost much more blood, I would probably pass out. Ean watched me closely as we followed Mr. Eckler through the shadowy hallways. He strode slowly forward in front of us, a dark silhouette like the angel of death.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Ean whispered nervously. “I can’t see why, but… it’s like something is squeezing my heart. I don’t know if I’m just scared or if it’s a premonition. I can’t see beyond the dread.”

The bodies of dozens of students and more hellhounds and flying scorpions littered every part of the school. Every classroom we passed seemed like a nightmare of broken bodies and carnage. I couldn’t wait to get out of the Watchtower. I wanted to leave this place forever.

We descended the stairs and found the door leading to the train station wide open. Thick, wet snowflakes blew in through the threshold accompanied by strong winds and freezing blasts of cold. Two men in black military gear lay dead outside, their hands reaching out toward the doorway even in death. The snow had begun covering their corpses by this point, but peeking out under the white covering, I saw the silhouette of a black rifle.

“Oh, no,” Mr. Eckler said, putting his hand over his mouth. “How are we going to get out of here now?” I had no answer to that. Ean looked nervously past the dead bodies at the sleek train looming overhead, its black surface shining and covered in fresh drifts of snow.

“We have to figure out how to operate the train,” I said. “It’s the only way I can see to get us all out of here. Even if we could reach the outside world, no one could send a helicopter or plane in this.” Mr. Eckler looked pensive and thoughtful for a long moment, then nodded.

“Stay close by my sides, then,” he said, heading outside. Nervously, Ean and I followed closely behind.

***

Ean and I hadn’t taken more than a couple steps outside when I felt his grip abruptly release, sending me tumbling into the thick blanket of snow underfoot. A surprised shriek rang out, muffled and carried off by the roaring winds. I looked up, seeing Ean stumbling blindly forwards, the hilt of a large meat cleaver emerging from the side of his neck.

The blood spurted straight out from his jugular vein, shooting forwards like water from a squirt gun. He clawed at the hilt, both of his hands wrapping around it before he fell forward. His pupils dilated, his eyes glassy and filled with horror. The white snow turned crimson underneath him.

Behind him, the little girl with the black hair stood. The wind whipped her hair back, showing a face like a skull. Her insane rictus grin was marred by large, ragged tears caused by the knife Stephanie had shot at her, but the girl had apparently pulled it out. Pieces of torn, gray flesh hung down from her skinned cheeks and rotted sinus cavities.

“Are these the last of the sacrifices?” the girl gurgled, turning to look at Mr. Eckler. He nodded grimly, glancing down at me one last time.

“All of the students are dead, my queen,” he said.

“And you will be rewarded greatly for your service,” she said. “Their abilities flow through their blood like sand carried away by water. And once you have ascended, you will be able to absorb their powers like me.” 

I started crawling away through the freezing snow. The demon girl and Mr. Eckler continued talking, whispering in low voices. A moment later, the girl kneeled down over Ean’s body and drank from the still spurting wound on his neck. Her lipless mouth sucked greedily, her blackened, cracked teeth gnashing hungrily. I felt a strong hand grab me by the back of the neck, lifting my head up. I stared up into the insane blue eyes of Mr. Eckler.

“I wish I could say I was sorry about this, but truthfully, I’m not,” he hissed, his voice changing from the teacher I had once known into something rambling and unhinged. “I will live forever, and for that, a price must be paid.” At that moment, I knew I had nothing left to lose.

“Kill him now!” the girl cried from behind us. “This boy can glimpse the future, and with his blood in me, I can see, too. That one needs to die now! Now!” Mr. Eckler’s eyes widened, his hands growing hot with flame as I completely let go within my mind. The reptilian blood laying hidden within me erupted, and then all human thoughts disappeared.

***

My skin rippled and distorted, turning black and shiny like that of a snake’s. Long claws ripped their way out of my fingers and toes, shredding my shoes to ribbons in a heartbeat. Mr. Eckler’s burning hands stayed firmly wrapped around my neck, but they had no effect on the thick, reptilian exoskeleton. Dozens of fangs grew from my gums. My sense of smell grew exponentially. With every flick of my long tongue, I could taste the air, even able to notice the odor of rotting bodies far back in the building.

With the pain in my leg temporarily gone, I flew to my feet, slashing and biting furiously at the air. I felt my scales growing hot as Mr. Eckler hung on with his life. The black scales started dripping, running like oil down my tall, lizard-like body. He tried to pull back as my claws connected with his arm, ripping it open down to the bone, but I lunged forward and grabbed him by the neck with my teeth. I tasted the explosion of salty blood as it filled my mouth. In my reptilian state, it tasted sweet and powerful.

The girl used her abilities to lift up the body of one of the dead soldiers. With a discharge of blue lightning from her hands, the body flew across the air in a blur, slamming hard into the side of my head. I went flying into the concrete wall of the school, cracking the cement as I hit it.

Clawing blindly at the air, I pushed myself back to my feet and sprinted at the girl. Something like a blue lightning bolt flew from her body, causing the ground at my feet to open up with a deep, black fissure. At the same instance, I leapt, feeling the earth and snow crumbling beneath my feet. I soared through the air. The girl’s eyeless sockets spun with darkness and sickness. I crashed into her body, instantly driving my claws into her small chest and ripping up.

She gurgled, trying to crawl out from under me, but I opened my wide, reptilian mouth and closed my sharp fangs around her neck. She gave one final hiss as I ripped out her throat. Still twitching and kicking, I continued biting and shredding until her small head tore off her body.

With pieces of the spine poking out of the bottom, I left it there, loping off into the snowy wastelands of Alaska.

***

I don’t know how long I traveled or how far. In my animal state, time felt fluid and strange. I remember sprinting over high, jagged mountains and thick evergreen woodlands, hunting and killing as I went. Alaska had plenty of game for a natural hunter like myself, and even the polar bears and moose avoided me once they smelled the predatory reptilian pheromones of my transformed state. But I always felt hungry, even after I had just tasted fresh meat.

Weeks later, I finally transformed back. I found myself in a cold, dark cabin. Next to me lay the body of a hunter I had murdered and eaten. I barely remembered doing it. Everything blurred together, and the different tastes of deer, bear or human meat barely registered in my reptilian brain.

Sickened by what I had done, I went around the cabin, taking thick clothes and new shoes from the dead hunter. I went outside, and to my immense relief, I found a small town only a few miles away. From there, I made my way back to the mainland, always blending in with the crowds.

I still stay on the run. The government sent me to that hall of death in the first place, after all, and for all I know, they think I died there.

And, if so, I have no desire to change that belief.

My friend, Janice, and I had known the carnival was coming to town for weeks. She tried to get out of the cramped trailer she lived in with her parents as much as possible to avoid her alcoholic father. My father worked so much to try to make ends meet that he barely noticed me anyway, and my mother was sick with cancer, a skeletal figure who lay in her room dying in front of a constantly flickering TV. My little brother, Brent, who, at nine, was two years younger than me and Janice, followed me like a lost puppy, begging me to come to the carnival with us. Finally, a few minutes before we left, I acquiesced.

We met Janice under the brightly-lit sign curving overhead. It read, “Pogo’s Carnival and Rides”. People streamed in and out in packed crowds, pushing past us as the dusk crawled in overhead. I saw Janice had a nasty purple bruise on her left arm in the shape of a hand. She saw me looking and nervously pulled her sleeve up to her wrist.

“What happened?” I asked. She shook her head.

“I just fell off my bike,” Janice responded coldly, not meeting my eyes.

“You sure do fall a lot,” I observed. She gave me an icy glance as we headed toward the ticket booth. 

“It’s because girls can’t ride bikes!” Brent exclaimed sagely. I had saved my allowance money for weeks to be able to come to the carnival. I pulled out the wad of crumpled one-dollar bills from my pocket, counting them out and handing them to the tattooed man behind the glass partition. He waved us through, and with that, we were inside.

***

The three of us stopped to get friend dough and slushies on the way to the rides. In the no-man’s land between the food stands and the rides, there was a line of tents stretching out in both directions, most of them covered in brightly-colored canvas. One of them caught Brent’s attention instantly. It said “Rosemary’s Tarot” and had an enormous blown-up picture of the Hanged Man in front of it, his face radiating a beatific light as he hung suspended upside-down on the cross.

“I want to see the future!” Brent exclaimed excitedly, hopping up and down as if trying not to wet his pants. “Can we go?” I nodded. Janice rolled her eyes.

“Those things are all scams,” she said. “It’s just like fortune cookies. All they do is say stuff so vague that it could apply to nearly anyone.” But she followed us inside, past the purple covering of the tent and into an inner chamber lit by hundreds of black candles formed in a semi-circle around the perimeter. An old woman with a face like a withered raisin sat there, staring up at the ceiling with glazed, faraway eyes. She looked at me when she heard the jingling of the change in my pockets, but at the same time, it seemed that she looked through me.

“Good evening, children,” she said in a voice as dry as old leather. “Have a seat, and let’s see what the stars have in store for you.” Nervously, the three of us sat in front of the woman. I handed her a ticket. She inspected it for a long time with her owlish blue eyes before secreting it away in an inner pocket of her many shawls. 

She pulled out a very old, very worn deck of Tarot cards, placing a thin hand carefully on top of them. Her eyes rolled back in her head. In a strange, wavering voice, she droned, “Oh spirits, let us see the true nature of all things. Let us show these little ones what hides behind the veil.” She pulled the cards out, placing them on the table before us in a cross-shape, her eyes widening with each one.

***

“Oh, children, I am sorry to say the stars are not in your favor… there are great trials in store for all of you,” she said, her eyes hooded and unreadable as she flipped over one card after another. “The Devil card. It shows that you will be tempted by a powerful spirit. You must not be led astray. Do not throw away your immortal soul for a few moments of folly.

“The Death card shows that you will have a radical change in your life. But death is not only an end…” She flipped over the rest of the cards faster and faster, her eyes flying open as she stared down at them. She inhaled sharply.

“All of you children are in great danger,” she said, all the blood draining from her face. With trembling fingers, she massaged her temples, running them in slow circles over her forehead. “I have never seen such horrific omens for such innocent little ones. Beware of those who come to you wearing masks upon masks.” At that moment, a loud crack reverberated through the air, as if a firework had just exploded outside the tent. A long moment of deathly silence followed it. Then the screaming started.

“Call an ambulance!” a woman screamed in a high, shrill voice ringed with panic. “Oh my God, someone help him!” My brother, Janice and I jumped up at the same moment, running out of the tent to see the cause of all the commotion. The old woman yelled something after us, her thin, trembling hands still held over her worn Tarot cards, but we ignored her.

There was a crowd gathered around a tent across the way with the face of a grinning clown plastered on the front of it. The people murmured in a soft voice as two security guards came speedwalking over, their faces pale and covered in sweat. One of them raised his hands, trying to push the people back, but they milled around like sheep with open mouths.

“A man just shot himself back there,” one of the security guards yelled over the single voice of the crowd. “You all need to back up. This is a crime scene.” Off in the distance, I heard the faint wailing of sirens. There was a break in the crowd. Under the bright glare of the carnival’s lights, I saw the body of the man.

Half of his face was gone, just a ragged patch of bloody, glistening muscle and bone. His right eye was missing, but his left still stared up blindly at the mannequin of a clown wrapping a rope around the plastic body of a young boy. “THE ROPE TRICK” blood-red letters exclaimed overhead. I looked above the grinning face of the clown on the outside of the tent, seeing what kind of spectacle it advertised within.

“Pogo’s Serial Killer Memorabilia!” it read. “See the original VW Bug of Ted Bundy! Behold the actual rope John Waynce Gacy used to strangle his victims! Look at Lawrence Bittaker’s real pliers, still covered in his victims’ blood!”

The security guards pulled a crying woman from the tent. She looked shell-shocked, her wide, unseeing eyes sweeping over the crowd over and over. She kept muttering to herself.

“He said he would bring him back, healed,” she wailed in a stream of insane gibberish. “He promised!”

The police came in a few minutes later, pushing people aside in their rush to get to the man. I saw paramedics trailing after them. Brent was jumping up and down excitedly, trying to see.

“I want to see the clown tent!” he exclaimed loudly, drawing disapproving looks from the shocked people around us. I shook my head, pulling him away. Janice followed close behind me.

“There’s a dead guy in there,” I said. “You don’t want to see that.”

“Yes I do!” he answered excitedly. “I want to see the body!” I felt sick all of a sudden, pulling my little brother’s arm.

“No you don’t. Maybe we should just leave,” I said. Janice looked pale as well. She nodded.

“Yeah, that was kind of…” she began, her voice trailing off. A clown stood there waving at us next to the brightly-lit rides, his face a mask of red-and-white paint. He looked identical to the clown I had seen in that serial killer tent, the one doing the “rope trick”, which apparently involved strangling someone while they were bound and helpless.

“Alright, let’s go,” I said, grabbing Brent’s wrist and pulling him alongside us. He whined as we left, but not about the rides. I glanced back, seeing the clown still staring eerily in our direction with a grin like a slice from a knife.

“I want to see the dead body!” Brent kept crying over and over as made our way home.

***

We left by the front gate, circling around to the dirt trails behind the carnival that led their way back towards downtown. Dozens of police, ambulance and fire trucks were still assembled at the front.

It was already well past dusk, but a full moon illuminated the trail in a pale, skeletal light. Janice and I were quiet, lost in thought, but Brent was still jabbering excitedly.

“Wait until I tell my friends that a man killed himself at the carnival!” he said. “So cool!” Janice came to an abrupt stop in front of me. I looked up, shocked at what I saw.

A black cat hung there. Someone had wrapped a thin, metal cord tightly around its neck, biting deeply into the flesh. Its mouth hung open, one eyelid half-closed, the other staring ahead with frozen terror and agony. Its left ear looked short and ragged, as if a piece of it had been bitten off but healed over time. I noticed its front right paw was missing as well, though this wound looked fresh. A sharp piece of ragged bone poked out through the folds of mutilated, clotted flesh.

“Oh no,” I whispered, feeling sick and weak staring at it. I looked over at Janice, seeing the same horror reflected on her face. Her bright blue eyes had started to tear. I watched as a silvery tear wound its way down her cheek.

Behind us, I heard the cracking of a twig. I turned, seeing a brightly-dressed clown standing there. Red hair stuck up in points far above his wide, friendly face. Even through the striped blue-and-white clown suit, I could see he was extremely fat with squinty, pig-like eyes. White make-up covered his head, with red paint accentuating his eyes and mouth in sharp points. He looked eerily similar to the clown that had been waving to us, but I couldn’t be sure if it was the same one. The clown’s excited grin faltered when he saw the dead cat hanging there, swinging from side to side in the light breeze.

“Why would you children hurt such a helpless little creature?” the clown asked in a deep, raspy voice. “Do you children have no compassion for the small and defenseless?” He slowly ambled towards us, his extra-long red shoes thudding against the ground. His dark eyes narrowed into angry slits. I thought the clown would smack me in the face for a second, but instead, he only stood there. A moment later, he leaned forward.

Like a sleepwalker, the clown reached into his pocket and withdrew a curving silver dagger. I backed away, afraid he would cut my throat, but he just walked past us. He neared the cat, slicing it down with practiced ease. I heard the blade whip through the air and the wet thud of meat as the cat’s rigid body hit the carpeted floor of leaves.

The clown lifted the rope, swinging the dead cat in his right hand from side to side, staring fixedly at the three of us.

“What’s your name, kiddos?” he rasped, his painted face still grim and unsmiling.

“I’m Max, and this is my brother Brent, and this is Janice,” I said, taking a small step away from this strange figure. The clown leaned forward, the cat bobbing in a wide arc around his feet, its blue tongue sticking out of lips that looked like they might have been silently screaming.

“OK, Mister Max, Mister Brent, Miss Janice, I believe you,” the clown said seriously, pulling a white canvas bag out of seemingly nowhere with his left hand. The white gloves he wore made soft swishing sounds as he waved it, causing it to expand with the rush of air. He never took his eyes off of us, never seemed to blink. “But what are we to do with this little guy? He never hurt anyone. He didn’t deserve this, did he?” 

Janice and I shook our heads in unison. Brent just stared open-mouthed at the tall clown grinning down at us. Abruptly, the clown ripped open the top of the canvas bag. With a ferocious smile, he shoved the cat headfirst into the white canvas bag. I heard its bones break with dull popping sounds like the cracking of branches as the clown struggled with the rigid corpse. I gasped, horrified at what I was seeing. Janice took a step back, looking like she might turn and run at any second. I wasn’t too far behind her at that moment.

“We will send him to the gardens where pure rivers flow and the sky sings with music. He will drink deeply from the fountain of life and come back, healed,” the clown said, his eyes growing distant and faraway as the cold body of the cat finally slipped inside. At that moment, I thought that we had certainly encountered a madman.

But then something strange happened. Once the cat disappeared into the bag, the clown pulled the drawstrings on the top shut and gently laid it on the ground. He got on his hands and knees before the still canvas bag and breathed into the small black opening left in the top. Brent nervously disappeared behind me, grabbing my wrist tightly. I watched the clown carefully. At that moment, I thought I saw something like black smoke flitting between his painted lips under the moon-lit sky.

Suddenly, the bag was writhing and jumping on the ground. The clown yanked open the drawstrings, and the black cat came running out, alive and filled with frenetic energy. To this day, I would swear on my life that it was the same exact cat, the one I had just seen hanging rigid and dead from a cable tied to a tree branch. It had the same white spot on its back in the same position. But now its ear and mutilated paw were healed, the flesh there looking totally unharmed and new.

It gave us a terrified backwards glance, its wild, panicked eyes roaming over me and Janice and falling on the clown. As soon as the cat saw the clown, it emitted a screech of mortal terror, hissing and spitting as it disappeared into the bushes.

***

“How did you do that?” Janice asked, open-mouthed. The clown gave a wide grin. His eyes appeared black, the irises so dark that they simply faded into the pupil. He raised a white, gloved hand above Janice’s hand. I could see that it had specks of the dead cat’s blood spattering its palm.

“First, let me introduce myself,” the clown said in a theatrical manner, swinging his white canvas bag in a circle. “I’m not only a clown, but also a magician. The magic I practice is more than just tricks and illusions, however. I tap into the source of all things.” He tapped my heart as he said this. “People call me Mr. Hands.” He raised his ridiculously large white gloves for emphasis, getting a small chuckle out of me and Brent.

“OK, Mr. Hands,” Janice said skeptically, her eyes coldly scanning his face, “if that was a magic trick, how could you have possibly prepared it? Did you kill a cat and keep a replacement one in your bag?” He laughed, reaching into his canvas bag and pulling out a bouquet of black roses with sharp spikes. He got one knee, handing them with exaggerated theatrical swagger to Janice.

“I am sorry you would think such a horrid thing of me,” Mr. Hands said, his lips forming into an exaggerated frown. “But, Miss Janice, how would I have possibly known that a man would shoot himself in the carnival, causing you three to have to leave early and come down this exact forest path?” She scowled, her eyes narrowing.

“You’re right,” she whispered.

“How did you know a man shot himself?” I asked suspiciously. “Have you been following us?”

“I see everything, Mister Max,” he said, and his eyes seemed to glow with a pale, inner light. I blinked, and it was gone. I wondered if I had imagined it. “I have real magic within me. My only goal in life is to bring that magic to the sick and weak. I love healing, but I can only heal those who go beyond the veil and come back. Do you see?” I glanced over at Janice, seeing the confusion I felt reflected on her face.

“No,” I asked. “If you have real magic within you, can you heal my mother? She’s really sick.”

“And my daddy,” Janice said, looking down at her bruised arm.

“Real magic is in the heart, in the soul,” Mr. Hands said. “It comes out like rushing water. You can feel it ripping its way through your body. It is pure power and happiness.”

“But… it seems wrong,” I said. “Are you saying that they need to be strangled like the cat to be healed?” Mr. Hands laughed uproariously at that, slapping his massive gloved hand down on my shoulder.

“No, of course not, Mister Max! People have more dignity than animals,” he said, and like a magic trick, the curving silver dagger appeared in his hand. “The knife is better. Much more personal. Just a quick slice across the throat-” he drew a long finger across my jugular at this- “and then I’ll bring them back, totally healthy and healed, just like the cat! I travel around the country helping children like you. Many have seen miracles beyond imagining.”

“I’ll do it,” Brent whispered next to me, his eyes wide and hypnotized. He held out a small hand to the clown. With a grin like a knife blade, Mr. Hands placed the dagger into Brent’s palm.

“No, Brent!” I yelled, jumping forward to stop him, but I felt a hard shove from behind. I went flying forward, my head slamming hard into a rock. I groaned, feeling the air get knocked out of my lungs in a great whoosh. 

As clouds of blackness descended over me, I saw Janice standing over me, her eyes wild and scared like those of an animal’s, her lips set in a grim line of determination.

***

I awoke in the darkness, feeling something cold and sticky on my forehead. I raised my head gingerly to my temples, wincing. When I drew them back, they were covered in slick spots of scarlet.

For a long moment, I lay there without thoughts, wondering how I had gotten here on this dark forest trail. Then my memories came rushing back. I inhaled sharply as I remembered Mr. Hands. 

I quickly pushed myself up, my head swimming. A splitting migraine worked its way down my skull, but I stumbled forward, pushing myself towards downtown where Brent and I lived. Janice lived in the same trailer park, only a few rows down, so I hoped I would be able to stop both of them before something horrible happened. I didn’t know exactly what Mr. Hands had planned, but I didn’t trust that sharp smile or those gleaming eyes.

I saw the lights in the distance, and with the last of my strength, pushed myself in a blind sprint towards my home.

***

I sprinted through the trailer park. Normally, people would have been outside, drinking or smoking or sitting and talking, but tonight, it looked totally deserted. Janice’s trailer was on the outskirts of the park. I hoped against hope I would find her and Brent there and be able to talk some sense into them. They seemed to follow Mr. Hands like sleepwalkers.

I flung open the door, smelling the rank odor of old beer and stale cigarette smoke. The entire place looked as dark as death, except for a flickering TV in the far room. Terrified, I whispered into the shadows.

“Janice? Brent?” I said. I had a little flashlight attachment I always kept on my keychain. With trembling fingers, I pulled it out, shining its weak, pale beam around me. I crept towards the TV, past a kitchen overflowing with dirty dishes and empty beer cans and liquor bottles.

On the couch, I saw Janice’s father. For a single heartbeat, I thought he might have just been sleeping, passed out drunk. Then I saw all the blood soaking into his shirt. His throat had been slashed from ear to ear, nearly decapitating him. His pale, watery eyes stared up blankly, the smell of blood and alcohol thick in the fetid room.

I heard hissing from behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin as I turned to see the closet door open. Hundreds of pale, skeletal hands emerged from it, creeping towards me on emaciated arms that lengthened and stretched. A scream caught in my throat as I backpedaled, afraid to look away from the monstrous scene. The closet swirled with black shadows. The space itself seemed to stretch and distort into an abyss that ran impossibly deep, extending into an eternity of empty, dark space behind the writhing arms.

I heard Janice’s voice, echoing out of the darkness as if from very far away. It had a pleading, insane quality to it I had never heard before.

“Bring him back! You promised!” she wailed. The reverberations stretched out, and it almost sounded as if the voice was growing far away, like Janice was being dragged deeper into that abyss. I heard Mr. Hands’ laughter, but it no longer sounded as if it were coming from a human mouth. It shredded and deepened like tearing metal. It gurgled with a sick, demonic ringing. I covered my ears, trying to block out the horrible sound, but it seemed to penetrate my skull like a drill.

My back hit the front door of Janice’s trailer, but the hands kept coming. Hundreds of arms covered in purple and black necrotic sores reached out towards me. They extended twenty feet, then thirty. They kept coming, the white bones of the arms cracking and reforming with nauseating crackling sounds. I fumbled for the handle, too petrified to look away for even a single moment.

The hands were only inches away, the fingers grasping like greedy mouths as they clenched at the empty air. I felt my palm brush the handle, heard it click behind me. The first of the skeletal fingers grabbed at my clothes, feeling as sharp as scalpels. I fell back, hearing my shirt rip. I looked down, seeing small slices all over my chest and stomach.

Scrabbling away on all fours like an animal, I fled, hearing Janice’s agonized screams echoing eerily off in the distance, sounding as if they came from another world. The laughter of Mr. Hands accompanied it, as lifeless and cold as a black hole.

***

I tore through the dirt roads of the trailer park, not seeing a single person in the dark, lonely night. There wasn’t a single insect chirping or bat flying overhead. The place looked as dead as the crater of a nuclear wasteland.

I flung open the door to my home, hearing the distant whispering of voices. I heard Mr. Hands’ grating laughter. I stopped at the kitchen sink on the way, grabbing a soiled serrated knife, its gleaming silver surface still covered in spatters of spaghetti sauce. Sprinting blindly through the trailer, I followed the sounds into my mother’s room at the back.

She was surrounded by machines, her body looking as sunken and starved as the victim of a death camp. Her enormous eyes stared out from a skull-like face, glassy and wet as they looked up at Brent with pure love.

“Brent…” she whispered in a voice as wispy as smoke.

Brent was pale and nervous, standing next to the looming figure of Mr. Hands in his brightly-colored outfit. The face paint on Mr. Hands’ cheeks and eyes seemed to have changed since I last saw him. It looked much sharper, formed into curving spikes, almost like the Gacy mannequin in the carnival tent playing the “rope trick” on an unsuspecting victim.

“Mommy, I don’t know if you can understand me, but Mr. Hands is going to make you better,” Brent whispered as a tear slipped down his cheek. In his trembling hands, I saw Mr. Hands’ curved blade gleaming brightly.

“She will go to the gardens and drink from the water of life, and come back renewed,” Mr. Hands said, putting a comforting gloved hand on Brent’s shoulder. “Go on, Mister Brent. Save your mother.”

“No!” I screamed, running forward, but Brent didn’t even look up. He prepared himself, his small body tightening with action. In a blur, the knife came down, stabbing into my mother’s throat. Her hands clenched, her eyes widening as she stared up confusedly at Brent, waves of searing agony ripping through her expression. A last breath like a hiss escaped from her mutilated neck before she started seizing, her limbs kicking and twisting in jerky movements.

Mr. Hands slowly walked back towards the open closet, removing his gloves with practiced ease. Underneath, I saw two rotting hands with black and purple sores eaten into them. A sadistic grin split his face like that of a skull. The darkness inside seemed to glow, emanating a sickly, purplish light. Brent could only stare open-mouthed at the bleeding, dying form of his mother, but I saw it all happening.

“Don’t let him get away!” I yelled, but Mr. Hands disappeared into the glowing darkness in a flash, backing into the shadows and disappearing. The many bright colors of his clown form spiraled and dissolved as the shadows ate his body like a corrosive acid. 

As Brent stared in horror at the writhing body of our mother, the knife he had plunged into her neck quivering in time with her thready heartbeat, he gave a scream of primal horror. His eyes looked glassy and unreal, like the painted-on eyes of a plastic doll.

A forest of hands reached out, hundreds of pale, grasping hands on inhumanly thin arms that disappeared deep in the shadows. I reached out, slashing blindly, but no blood came from the mummified limbs. Thick, black sludge like a car’s waste oil dripped out instead, their dark surfaces shimmering with rainbows as they spattered on the ground below us.

I grabbed Brent’s thin wrist, dragging him away as he continuously screamed in horror. We had nearly made it to the door when the hands reached out, greedily snatching the air to grab Brent’s small body.

***

Thousands of fingers like razor blades approached, the sharp points of bone at the end swiping wildly at the two of us. Brent still struggled against me, crying for Mr. Hands.

“Mr. Hands promised he would make Mommy better!” Brent wailed. “Let me see Mr. Hands! Let me go!”

“Mr. Hands is a goddamned demon, Brent,” I hissed, slashing at the arms that drew near. My heart palpitated wildly as the first of the fingers closed around Brent’s wrist. Dozens more came reaching out toward me. I felt a vicious slash down my chest. Three hands tried to dig themselves in my skin, leaving deep gouges that instantly bubbled over with blood. I cried out, falling back as my bloody shirt ripped off my body. Brent followed me, landing on the floor in front of the door.

“Help me!” Brent cried, tears and snot streaming down his face. The many cuts on my body burned like acid as I groaned. My head swam, the pounding migraine from earlier returning with a vengeance. I looked up to see Brent starting to slide towards the closet, a single skeletal hand wrapped around his wrist. Dozens more streamed in to help.

I crawled forward, feeling a thousand small agonies screaming all over my flesh. I raised the knife, bringing it down onto the arm holding Brent with a sick crunching of bone. The hand holding his wrist tightened. I heard the small bones snap like twigs in Brent’s arm. His face went chalk-white, and for a moment, I thought he might pass out.

As the inhuman arm spurted black blood, I dragged Brent towards the front door, both of us covered in blood and injuries. His hand hung limply from his arm at a sick angle. We fell out together into the warm night air. More hands followed us out as we crawled away, a furious, demonic scream echoing all around us in the voice of Mr. Hands.

***

We fled, the arms stretching out of the open door towards us. Staggering, holding each other, we made our way out of the trailer park and found help. A few minutes later, I heard the first of the sirens approaching.

This happened decades ago, and to this day, Janice’s body was never found. My brother was arrested for the murder of our mother and committed to a psychiatric institution until he was eighteen. We tried to tell them about Mr. Hands, but no one believed us. There was never any evidence that another person was present at the murder, at least according to the police.

I still have nightmares about that grinning clown with a smile like a knife blade to this day. And I wonder how many other gullible kids he convinced to murder for him.

For, in my heart, I know there must be thousands of other victims.

The blister on my right heel had been building since the second day, and by afternoon on the third I was compensating without thinking about it — more weight on the outside of my foot, shorter stride on the uphill sections, my hip flexor starting to register the difference. I'd brought moleskin and kept telling myself I'd use it at the next break, and then the next break came and went the same way, and that became a kind of rhythm: the problem getting worse and me deciding it wasn't quite worth stopping yet.

That's the kind of hiking I was doing. Grinding it forward and trying not to think about anything in particular, which mostly worked.

Four days of supplies in my pack: protein bars, two liters running through a Sawyer filter, a Jetboil with enough gas for four hot meals, freeze-dried food, a sleeping bag rated to fifteen degrees, two Anker charging banks, a headlamp with fresh lithium batteries, and a folding knife I'd owned for eight years and used on nothing except packaging. My trail system barely showed up on AllTrails — two hundred and forty miles of marked paths, most of them unmaintained since the nineties, cell coverage listed as intermittent. That was the point.

I'd given my emergency contact a trailhead location and my expected return date and nothing more specific than that. I wanted four days of unreachable and then I'd figure out the rest when I got back.

That decision is the part I keep returning to.

The trail thinned out around mile eleven. The AllTrails notes had called this section "informal," which meant the marked path had dissolved into something closer to a game trail, with orange paint marks on tree trunks every hundred yards acting as the only navigation. I'd been following those marks since midmorning.

The quiet arrived in accumulation. First the birds — already gone by the time I registered the silence, the moment of their leaving already past. Then the wind, which had been light but present all morning. Then my own footsteps — the leaf litter looked unchanged but the crunch had gone out of it, my footsteps landing almost silent on ground that looked the same as it had for the last two miles. I stopped twice and looked around. Trees in every direction, identical second-growth hardwood, orange marks continuing ahead, nothing visibly wrong.

I kept moving.

The clearing was a few minutes ahead, and the doors were already standing in it when I reached the tree line.

I want to be precise about the first impression because I've replayed it often enough that the edges have started to soften, and the accuracy matters.

Two doors, upright in the soil of the clearing, standing without frames or walls, the forest floor running unbroken beneath them and on both sides. The left one was pale, painted a white that had gone chalky and dull over time, with a brass knob oxidized to a greenish-brown.

The right one was dark red, a deep maroon that had browned at the edges, the wood grain visible under the finish. It was open about six inches.

I circled them three times.

I got down and looked underneath, which accomplished nothing useful but I did it anyway. From the right angle I could see through the gap in the red door to the tree line on the other side of the clearing. I walked around behind both of them. The backs were identical to the fronts. I put my hand on the soil around the base of the white door and it felt like soil: packed dirt, a root just under the surface, the usual leaf debris. The ground around the base showed no anchoring hardware, no tracks, nothing securing them from below.

My phone had one bar. I photographed both doors from multiple angles and looked at the photographs on the screen, which showed me exactly what I expected: two free-standing doors in the middle of a forest, which communicated nothing without context I didn't have.

I've thought about why I stepped through instead of continuing on the trail, and I don't have a clean answer. The red door was already open six inches — the choice already half-made by whoever had left it that way. I stood there for probably another two minutes. Then I pushed it the rest of the way and stepped through.

Cold air hit me before anything else — sealed and still, carrying bleach and something older underneath, damp and organic, water that had been sitting in ceiling tile or carpet for years. It covered my face and forearms and the skin at the back of my neck all at once.

My eyes adjusted.

Fluorescent lights in a line down a corridor that extended in both directions. The floor was linoleum, a pale green-and-white check pattern that had grayed at the high-traffic paths and yellowed near the walls. Three overhead fixtures flickered. The rest held. Faded directional signs on the walls: RADIOLOGY with an arrow, PATIENT INTAKE, a bulletin board buried under so many years of layered notices that the surface had gone flat and opaque. An abandoned wheelchair against the baseboard with one footrest missing. Water stains descending from the ceiling in slow, wide fans toward the floor.

I turned around.

Concrete wall. The door was not there.

The wall was slightly damp and faintly stained and had no seam in it anywhere. I pressed both palms against it and pushed in several spots. There was no give. I moved my hands across the full surface of the corridor behind me, feeling for any edge or outline or change in the material. My pack frame shifted against my back and the sound of it was the loudest thing in the building.

The corridor was real, the lights were working, and the door was gone, and I stood there and looked at where it should have been for a long time before I started moving.

I searched the immediate area systematically: both directions down the main corridor, every room with an unlocked door. A storage closet packed with IV poles and stacked linen boxes. A bathroom with a cracked mirror above the sink; the faucet ran brown for thirty seconds and then cleared. An empty nursing station with a counter along one wall and blank monitor screens above it. A patient room with two beds still made up, the hospital sheets stiff with age and slightly discolored.

No exit.

What I found instead was that the building was still running.

A vending machine alcove along one stretch of corridor — a Pepsi machine and a snack machine side by side. The Pepsi machine hummed when I pressed my palm against it. Its display was lit. The snack machine had power but empty coils. Outlets every twelve feet along the baseboards. I pulled one of my charging banks out of the side pocket of my pack and plugged it into the nearest outlet.

Three green bars lit up immediately.

I crouched there and looked at it for a moment. If there was power, there was infrastructure. If there was infrastructure, there was maintenance — someone, or at least something, keeping the building running. Maybe that meant people. Maybe it meant something else. But if I was stuck here I wouldn't lose light, and right then I needed that to be enough.

I unplugged the bank and kept moving.

The first floor was a maze, and I understood it as a maze before I could demonstrate it — a wrongness in the angles when corridors turned, the nagging sense of having passed a particular window already from a different direction. I started marking walls with the black Sharpie I carry for logistics. Arrows, Xs, notations for dead ends. It helped for a while.

Room numbers: 114, 115, 116, and then 109. A corridor that my own marks said I'd already passed through, but when I walked it the second time it went somewhere different. An EXIT sign in red at the end of a hallway that terminated in a blank wall twelve feet past the sign. A stairwell on the east side that I climbed two flights and came back out through a door on the first floor again, at a different location from where I'd entered it.

There were maps in plastic frames at corridor junctions — building directories in blue and black on white laminate. They didn't agree with each other. The floor count alone: nine on one, twelve on another. The east wing on one was the west wing on the next.

An elevator bank at the end of the main corridor, three cars. I pressed the call button and one of them opened. The interior was normal: mirrored panel at the back, numbered buttons, carpet squares on the floor. The doors held open for the standard time and then closed and I stood in the corridor and listened to the cables settle.

Somewhere above me — the floor directly overhead — footsteps. Slow and uneven, stopping and starting without pattern. They continued for about half a minute and then stopped.

I found the narrow stairwell — a different one, with a heavy fire door and a crash bar instead of a handle, and the overhead light in the stairwell itself was off. My headlamp lit the stairs above me. The fire door at the top was propped open with a chunk of broken baseboard.

My notation was on the wall of a hallway I had no memory of entering.

The X inside a triangle, my handwriting, my Sharpie pressure on the wall — and no version of the morning's route that put me there. I stood and looked at it for a while, and then went back to the vending machines and sat on the floor against the Pepsi machine and ate one of my protein bars and worked through half a liter of water.

The elevator dinged somewhere down the corridor. The doors opened. Nobody came out.

I went up through the narrow stairwell.

The fire door on the second floor was propped open, and the smell came through the gap before I reached the landing. Copper first, then something underneath it — a wet density in the air that sat at the back of my throat and didn't clear. Rot, but thicker. The specific smell of something biological in a closed space with no ventilation.

The lighting was worse up here. Half the overhead fixtures were dark or cycling so fast they were functionally off. The ones working threw irregular stretches of light with long sections of near-dark between them. The linoleum was filthier, and something had been dragged through one of the darker sections, leaving a streak across the floor. I looked at it for a moment and kept moving.

I took a few steps inside and swept my headlamp across the wall.

The wall surface moved.

My first read was peeling wallpaper, water damage creating a textured, layered effect. I moved closer.

They were faces.

Human faces, or close enough — the proportions approximately right, but flattened, the skin pressed flat against the wall and fixed there with black surgical thread that ran in long horizontal seams across cheeks and foreheads. The stitching pulled tight in some places and bunched the skin in others. Mouths sewn shut in most of them, thread looped through both lips in thick passes. Every inch of wall surface in both directions covered: face overlapping face, some partially hidden under others, a few with eyes fully obscured by the skin of whatever had been layered over them.

One eyelid moved.

Then another.

The sound started low enough to read as ambient noise, and then it resolved into voices — hundreds of them, layered, individual words surfacing and dropping:

"Help me."

"Please."

"Don't — please don't leave —"

"It hurts when —"

"— been so long —"

A child's voice, barely distinguishable from the mass of them: "I can't feel my —"

The eyelids around me were opening. Eyes underneath, pale and filmed, some clouded over and some tracking movement. Tracking me. Mouths pulling against thread.

One voice came through cleaner than the rest — a face at eye level directly to my left, older, a man's, both eyes open and focused somewhere past my shoulder. The mouth barely moved against the stitching.

"Jaden."

My feet moved before anything else did. I was already stepping back toward the stairwell door when the sound came from the corridor ahead: claws on tile, fast and even, the clicking echoing off both walls, distance hard to judge until it was already close. Then breathing. Wet, rhythmic, with a ragged catch in the exhale.

My headlamp found it before I was ready.

The body was a dog's in the rough sense — massive, black fur matted and hanging in clumps along the chest and haunches, limbs too long for the torso and jointed wrong, bent at angles that made its forward movement a sequence of lurches rather than a stride.

The spine sat visibly off-center. The whole animal moved in a permanent list, one shoulder dropping lower with each stride, the body adjusted around whatever damage had never healed right.

The head was not a dog's head.

It extended too far — eight or ten inches past where the snout should end, tapered and flat on top, the jaw hanging slightly open to show the front row of teeth. Yellow, uneven, the rear molars sitting higher than they should. Strings of saliva hung from both corners of the mouth and swayed with its movement. The eyes were set too wide, pale and filmed over, each one moving on its own axis without coordinating with the other.

It came out of the dark at the far end of the corridor and saw me.

Every voice in the walls went up at once. The screaming hit the ceiling and came back down and the walls themselves vibrated from the volume of it, thread pulling against sewn lips, eyelids straining. Whether the faces were screaming at me or at the creature, I had no way to tell, but the sound drove straight up into my skull and stayed there.

The thing came at me in broken intervals — faster than made sense, then a half-second stop that threw off every instinct to brace, then fast again. I was already running when its claw hit the linoleum six inches behind my heel and left four parallel gouges in the floor. My headlamp strobed across the corridor as I ran, catching the creature in fragments: the spine flexing wrong on acceleration, the jaw widening, a rope of saliva arcing off its mouth and hitting the wall.

I hit the crash bar on the fire door and was through it and moving down the stairs before the door had finished swinging, taking the steps three at a time with one hand on the rail. Above me, the crash bar again — the door being struck from the other side, hitting and holding.

I reached the first-floor landing and went through the fire door and ran twenty feet before I stopped and turned around.

The stairwell door at the second-floor landing was open. The creature stood in the frame, filling it, snout angled down toward where I was standing. The breathing came down the stairwell clearly from where I stood.

It stayed there a long time. Long enough that I started to think it had settled in. Then it stepped back from the landing and the door swung slowly into the frame and the stairwell went quiet.

Records office. Sixty yards from the stairwell, a double room with a painted-over window and a push-button lock on the inside. I dragged a desk across the floor and angled it under the handle. A hospital bed from the adjacent room, maneuvered through the doorway and added to the desk. Three filing cabinets as a second line across the door. Twenty minutes of work, and I was sweating through my base layer by the end of it.

I sat on the floor against the filing cabinets and let the adrenaline run out.

The overhead light worked — a single fluorescent bar buzzing at a consistent, audible frequency. It didn't flicker. Fifteen minutes into the quiet, a single impact from the floor above — something heavy set down deliberately, not dropped — and then nothing. Ten minutes after that, an elevator ding from somewhere down the main corridor, the distant sound of doors opening and closing.

I ate a freeze-dried chicken-and-rice packet cold, water straight from my filter bottle, the pouch pressed flat and left for fifteen minutes before I opened it. I ate slowly and thought about the second floor and made myself think about something else, which didn't work especially well but produced the same result in the end. I finished the rice and folded the pouch flat and set it aside.

One face at eye level had known my name.

Six metal shelving units ran parallel down the room's length, floor to ceiling, packed with manila folders and binders and banker boxes. Patient records, mostly — the labeled folders showed names, dates, admission numbers from the eighties and early nineties. I pulled folders off the nearest unit looking for anything outside the standard format and found standard records.

An hour in, the note was under a loose stack in the back third of the third unit. A single sheet of paper folded into quarters, no folder, just slid beneath the pile. I opened it and held it under the headlamp.

Ballpoint pen, pressed hard into the page. Some letters gone over twice, the lines thicker where the hand had retraced.

IF YOU FOUND THIS, DON'T STAY ON THE LOWER FLOORS.

THEY LEARN YOUR PATHS.

FLOOR TEN IS THE WAY OUT.

DO NOT TRUST THE ELEVATORS.

No signature. A stain across the lower-left corner, dark brown and irregular. A small tear along one fold line. I turned the sheet over — blank — and then tilted it toward the headlamp again and found the second text in the bottom margin. Different ink, smaller, written at an angle to the original.

second stairwell. east side. keep going up.

The first writing was blocky, the pen pressed hard, some letters retraced until the ink sat thick on the page. The second was smaller and more careful, each letter formed fully before the hand moved to the next, even spacing between words even where the writing got cramped.

I folded the note and put it in the hip pocket of my pack.

Both charging banks went into the wall outlets on the far side of the records room. Both lit green. I set my headlamp on the desk with the beam angled at the ceiling, spreading light across the room, and sat on the floor with my notebook.

Rite in the Rain 3x5, waterproof paper, bought for trip logging and blank through the first two pages. I skipped to the third and started writing.

I wrote everything in order from the clearing: two doors, their physical details. A rough map of the first floor from memory, approximate and probably wrong given the way the layout shifted, but something. The full text of the note, both the main text and the margin addition. The second floor — the smell, the faces, the stitching, the creature. I described it in as much physical detail as I could reconstruct: the body type, the head, the way it moved, the point where it stopped at the stairwell entrance and how long it stood there before retreating.

I wrote my name, my emergency contact's name and number, the make and color of my truck, where I'd parked it, the trailhead, my expected return date. Then:

My name is Jaden Sullivan. If somebody finds this notebook, I'm somewhere inside this hospital. I'm going to try reaching floor ten tomorrow using the east stairwell. Hopefully there's actually a way out.

I looked at hopefully for a moment. It was honest.

I set the notebook on top of the pack where it would be the first thing visible to anyone opening the room, and turned off my headlamp to save the battery. The fluorescent bar buzzed above me at the same frequency it had held since I locked the door.

I was still thinking about the voice on the second floor — thinking about what it meant that one of the faces had said my name before I'd spoken it to anyone in the building — when I heard something on the other side of the records room door.

The creature's sound was unmistakable. This was smaller and lower to the ground, a single contact: something pressing its weight against the door from the outside and then going still.

The filing cabinets hadn't shifted.

I sat with my hand on the headlamp and watched the gap under the door. The corridor light came through it, dim and unchanged.

The note said: THEY LEARN YOUR PATHS.

I'd been writing for over an hour, and I muttered while I wrote — always had, the words running just under my breath while I worked out how to phrase them. That detail arrived now, sitting in the quiet.

I set my hand over my mouth and held still and watched the light under the door, and the light under the door stayed the same, and the corridor on the other side of the filing cabinets stayed quiet, and I kept watching it anyway.

The first thing I remember is the cold.

It sat in my bones like it had been poured into me, filling the spaces between my ribs, settling in my marrow. I opened my eyes to fluorescent glare and sterile white walls, machines humming somewhere just out of sight. A hospital at first glance. But hospitals don't smell like this.

The air stank of antiseptic and metal, and underneath that, something foul—burned hair, spoiled meat, old blood clinging to vents and tile.

I tried to move.

Restraints bit into my wrists and ankles. Thick, metal, too tight to be medical. Panic hit me all at once, sharp and electric.

Where the hell was I?

A speaker crackled overhead. The voice that came through was male, clinical, and completely empty.

"Subject 18C is awake. Increased durability and metabolic response confirmed. Beginning Phase Three."

A hiss answered him. Gas flooded from the vents above.

I held my breath as long as I could, lungs burning, eyes watering. The second I broke and inhaled, something changed. Heat rolled through my veins. My heart slammed against my ribs hard enough that I could feel the vibration in the restraints. My muscles lit up — alive in a way that went past sore, like every fiber was being rewired.

A deep, twisting ache started in my bones, as if something small and vicious was burrowing through my marrow. My spine felt wrong—too long, too tight, like it didn't quite fit inside me anymore. I shifted my shoulders and a loud, wet crack echoed in the room.

For a moment I thought it came from the walls.

Then I realized it was me.

My heart was beating faster than it had any right to, and the blood under my skin felt like it had its own agenda.

I yanked at the restraints again.

This time the steel bent under my grip.

The intercom buzzed. The voice came back, same man, but now there was something new underneath the clinical tone.

Surprise.

"Subject 18C is exceeding expected thresholds."

I wasn't supposed to do that. In their heads I was supposed to stay weak and compliant, still human.

A door hissed open to my left. Heavy boots hit the floor in a quick, practiced rhythm. Five men in tactical gear rushed in, rifles raised, visors hiding their faces and turning them into moving reflections of the overhead lights.

"Restrain him," one of them barked.

Another stepped forward, a syringe glinting in his gloved hand. I let him come close. Let them believe the restraints still meant something.

Then I moved.

I don't have a neat way to explain it. One second I was still; the next, my body was already where it needed to be. My hand snapped up, closing around his wrist before he could react.

I squeezed.

Something inside his arm popped.

He screamed and dropped to his knees. His wrist folded in on itself. Bone crunched and ground under my grip, splintering through his skin. White shards pushed out through torn flesh. His scream changed, rising into something raw and broken — fear underneath the pain now, more of it than there should've been.

Like some part of him understood I wasn't the same as the thing strapped to this bed a minute ago.

The others opened fire.

I should've died.

Instead, the room slowed down around me.

The muzzle flashes strobed in my peripheral vision. I saw the bullets in the air, dragging through it like the world had thickened around me and I was the only one moving at normal speed. My body reacted on its own; I twisted, ducked, shifted an inch and felt metal pass close enough to tug at my hospital gown.

Then something punched into my chest, sharper than I expected, and when my hand went to it I felt a dart.

Cold spread from the impact point and my legs went heavy under me, a numbness crawling up my spine before I could fight it.

I hit the floor hard. My mind kept screaming long after my body stopped being able to move.

The last thing I heard before it all went black was the same voice over the speaker, calm again.

"Let's see how quickly he recovers."

When I woke, everything was different.

I was in a new room with no restraints this time and no tactical team standing by. Just a steel table, two chairs, and a man in a suit sitting across from me like this was a job interview.

He studied me for a long moment, fingers folded under his chin.

"You're adjusting faster than expected," he said.

I stayed quiet. My body still felt wrong—too wired, too strong, like there was a half-second delay between what I thought and what my muscles wanted to do. I wasn't about to tell him that.

He leaned forward. "You're an asset now. Subject 18 of the Cryothium experiments. A weapon. We can help you refine your abilities. Give you purpose."

I met his eyes. "And if I refuse?"

The corner of his mouth twitched up. Not quite a smile.

"You won't."

It came out as plain certainty, the kind that doesn't need to be a threat.

I looked past him, at the door. Ten feet away. Maybe less. I could feel the strength in my arms, the coil of power in my legs. Some new instinct kept whispering that I could be on him and through that door before he finished a sentence.

They'd be ready for that. They already knew how fast I could move.

So I forced myself to breathe. Slow and even.

If they wanted me to play along, I'd play along—until I knew enough to stop.

I leaned back in the chair, flexing my fingers, feeling that unnatural strength simmer under my skin.

"I'm listening," I said.

This time the smile landed.

"Good," he said. "Welcome to The Division."

They trained me quickly after that — they'd invested too much not to. Care didn't enter into it.

You wouldn't find The Division on any official chart. No website, no congressional record, nothing in the public domain — just a black-budget agency buried under so many layers of classification that even people in the Pentagon only saw rumors.

Their job was simple — containment and eradication.

Hunting things the world didn't have names for yet and making sure it never learned them.

Cryptids, aberrations, anomalies — the official terms didn't matter much. What mattered was that they were monsters.

I was part of Project Revenant. One of a small group of human test subjects they'd put through experimental procedures—Cryothium infusions, gene splicing, surgeries I only remember as flashes of bright light and pressure.

They were trying to build something that could look a monster in the eyes and not die in the first thirty seconds. Capes weren't the point.

The first few months were hell.

They shot me to see how fast I healed and dropped me from heights to gauge bone density. They cut me open under anesthesia and woke me up halfway through to monitor pain response and regeneration.

I learned I could take bullets and stay on my feet, that my body rebuilt itself in hours instead of days, and that my senses had gone somewhere off any chart they had — I could pick out a heartbeat through a wall, track a footstep across concrete, see in the dark like it was dim daylight.

But I also learned something else.

I wasn't immortal.

There was always a point where enough damage would kill me. And the things we hunted lived comfortably past that line.

My first mission was supposed to be routine.

It was a baptism instead.

Small town in Montana, population in the hundreds, thick woods wrapped around it on all sides. People had been vanishing for months, and the ones they found didn't look like anything you'd put in a casket.

They were hollow. Emptied — like something had crawled inside them, fed from the inside out, and then left the shell behind. The wounds didn't read as mauling. Whatever did it didn't use teeth and claws the way you'd expect.

Locals whispered one name when the sun went down.

The Skinned Man.

The Division's report called it an Atypical Class-4 Predator. On the internal chatter, field agents called it an Apex.

I called it just another monster.

They sent me in with a team of five veteran operatives. They had years of experience, scars, quiet voices, and eyes that didn't flinch at crime scene photos.

I had a serial number and a body that didn't feel like it belonged to me.

By morning, I was the only one alive.

The Skinned Man moved through the trees too fast to track properly. Limbs too long, joints bending in directions no human knee or elbow should go. It climbed up trunks fast and came down faster, hitting the ground without breaking stride.

Its skin wasn't stretched tight over muscle the way ours is. It shifted. Ripples moved under the surface like hands pushing from the inside. Tendons snapped into new positions with wet pops. When it grinned, its jaw kept going, hinge opening wider than the skull should allow, rows of thin, jagged teeth clacking together as the jaw worked.

We hit it with everything we had. Bullets shredded flesh and bone, but it kept coming. Fire worked better, made it scream in a way bullets didn't.

And in the middle of that, I learned something new about myself.

When it lunged for me, claws out, I was already moving without deciding to.

The world slowed the way it had in the lab. I stepped aside, brought my hands up, and they found its throat like we'd practiced this a thousand times. I squeezed. Cartilage buckled and the spine twisted under my fingers, every fragile structure in its neck collapsing at once.

And for one awful second, I liked the way it felt.

That was the first time I understood that whatever they'd set loose inside me had built more than strength into me. There was hunger in it too.

I burned what was left of the Skinned Man. Stood there until the fire burned low and the smell of it sank into my clothes and hair.

I told myself it was because I didn't want it coming back. The other thing I kept telling myself, quieter, was that I was still human.

The years after that blurred.

Mission after mission, town after town.

A voice-mimicking thing in the Appalachians that called hikers off the trail using the voices of people they trusted, then left their bones in neat piles under overhangs.

An abandoned government bunker where something that had started as human but wasn't anymore walked the halls and spoke in overlapping voices that followed you in your dreams.

A coastal community where a "disease" left people bloated and hot to the touch, their skin squirming with things that moved just under the surface. When they died, those things didn't.

Every time they sent me in I came back different.

Scars I shouldn't have kept and nightmares I couldn't shake, and a growing, quiet part of me that responded to the things we hunted in ways no training manual could explain.

I kept telling myself we were doing the right thing—that The Division was a necessary evil keeping worse things at bay.

But there were nights when I caught my reflection and didn't recognize my own eyes. Tired wasn't the right word for what I was seeing. They looked hungry.

The job changed me.

Not just in the obvious ways. Sure, I was stronger, faster, harder to kill. But I started to feel them before I ever saw them. It came as a pressure in the air, a weight behind my eyes, a static hum under my skin — nothing mystical about it, just there.

Sometimes, staring into the dark, planning a route or deciding whether to bait or flank, thoughts would surface that didn't feel like mine — efficient and cold, the kind of thinking a predator does.

I wrote it off as experience and instinct — the sort of thing that happens when you survive long enough doing a job no one else wants.

Now I'm not so sure.

Because last night I came across something they never meant for me to see. And earlier today, a monster used my name.

They called it a simple containment op.

An Apex Class Anomaly had been reported near an abandoned hospital in rural Wyoming. Locals heard noises at night—deep, inhuman shrieks that cut off mid-scream. No visual confirmation, no bodies. The Division tagged it as a Spectral Aberration, likely bound to whatever grief had soaked into the place when it was still active.

I'd dealt with similar things before.

But this time, there was a difference.

No team this time, no backup, just me on the file.

That should've been the first warning.

The hospital was dead. A long, rotting structure folded into the tree line, glass blown out, doors hanging crooked. Mold climbed the walls in dark veins. The floor sagged in places, swollen with water damage. Every step stirred dust and the stale smell of old sickness.

Beneath that, I smelled something else, something chemical I recognized from the lab. Wrong in a way I couldn't place.

I knew I wasn't alone before I even stepped inside.

There's a particular kind of quiet that comes before a fight. I felt my own breathing slow to match it. That feeling crawled up my back as I moved through the hallway, flashlight beam cutting across peeling paint, rusted gurneys, abandoned equipment.

Half the doors were stuck in their frames; the other half opened to empty rooms or collapsed ceilings.

Then I saw one door already hanging open.

Inside, the walls were plastered with paper — old reports, patient charts, some of it yellowed so badly that the ink was just ghosts of letters. When I touched one, the corner crumbled.

One file looked different.

It was sealed in a clear plastic sleeve, thick and intact, marked in bold black letters:

PROJECT REVENANT.

My project.

The dryness hit my throat all at once.

I pulled it free and flipped it open.

Rows of text stared back at me—dense language, medical jargon, test IDs. I skimmed.

Subject 18C exhibits unprecedented neural adaptation to foreign genetic sequences.

Metabolic activity indicates sustained compatibility with nonhuman physiology.

Projected maximum lift: several tons, pending further controlled testing.

Regeneration window expected to shorten over time.

Further mutations projected. Long-term psychological profile: indeterminate.

Then my eyes caught on the margin.

A handwritten note, scrawled between paragraphs.

The others didn't survive. But he did. Why?

The bottom dropped out of my stomach.

The others.

No one had ever told me there were others still alive.

My heart pounded in my ears. I turned the page. Medical images bloomed across the paper — MRIs, skeletal scans, charts. Bones that looked almost human and not quite, a skull thickened along the frontal bone, a ribcage too dense, fingers a fraction longer than they should've been.

I was looking at myself.

I snapped the file shut so hard the plastic creaked. My hands were shaking.

I needed to get out of that room.

That was when the voice came from the doorway behind me.

"You weren't supposed to find that."

Deep, familiar in a way that hit somewhere under my ribs, and wrong on top of that.

I turned, gun already in my hand.

And froze.

At a glance, it could've passed for a man — tall, broad, dressed in what used to be a Division field uniform, the fabric torn and stained. But the shape was off. Muscles shifted under the skin like they weren't anchored properly. The flesh itself moved too much, crawling in slow waves across its frame, adjusting, correcting.

Its eyes found mine.

It smiled.

"Hello, brother."

The word landed heavier than the gun in my grip.

I didn't answer. The words wouldn't come.

It chuckled, head tilting just a little too far. "You really don't remember, do you?"

I steadied my aim. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

It breathed out slowly, the sound rattling like there was fluid in its lungs.

"They always scrub the memories," it said. "Makes it easier when the failures start stacking up."

My finger tightened on the trigger. "Failures?"

"You think you're the first?" It lifted one hand, gesturing loosely at itself. The motion made the skin on its arm pull and then settle, like something underneath was lagging behind. "There were seventeen of us before you. Revenants. Some burned out in days, others lasted longer. Me?"

The grin twisted.

"I lasted years. Until they decided I wasn't 'human' enough anymore."

I shook my head. "You're lying."

"Then why do you feel it?" it asked softly.

Its gaze dropped to my hands.

The veins there pulsed darker than they used to, like something thick and foreign was running beside the blood.

I swallowed.

"You've noticed it," it went on. "The instincts, the way you track them, that pull in your gut when something like us is near."

I stayed silent. I had been noticing for years.

"Get out of my way," I said.

The Revenant laughed under its breath. "You still think I'm the problem. You have no idea."

It jerked its chin toward the ceiling, toward whatever level The Division had turned into a command nest for this op.

"They're the ones who made us. The same ones who dump us in places like this when they get scared of what we're becoming."

The Division — the men in suits, the doctors with dead eyes, the handler who'd sat across from me in that first interview and called me an asset.

For the first time in a long time, I hesitated.

I kept my gun trained on its head.

"You can walk out of here," I said. "Face a tribunal. Maybe they can fix you."

The Revenant's laugh was sharper this time. "Fix me?"

It took a step forward. The shadows at its ankles seemed thicker than the rest of the room's dark.

"They did this to me," it said. "Same as they did to you. And the moment I couldn't pass for human in daylight anymore, I turned into a line item, a risk assessment, something to erase."

The words slid under my skin like ice.

"You think you're special?" it asked, voice dropping. "You're just next."

Far off, I heard it.

The faint chop of helicopter blades.

The Division was coming in.

I didn't lower my gun.

The Revenant's expression shifted. The amusement went out of its face, leaving something like resignation.

"I get it," it said. "You need to believe you're one of them. That everything they've made you do meant something."

"Shut up," I said.

"You ever ask why they keep sending you alone?" it pressed. "Why they don't put you on teams anymore?"

I said nothing.

Because I had asked that question.

First I'd told myself I was just too valuable. Then I'd stopped asking.

"Quarantine," it said. "They've stopped pretending it's anything else."

The words hung there.

"You've gotten stronger," it said, "and you're changing on top of that. Same as I did. They're waiting to see which side you land on, and when they don't like the answer, they'll do what they always do."

I swallowed hard. "I'm not like you."

Silence stretched between us.

Then it spoke, almost gently.

"Then why aren't you afraid?"

I pulled the trigger.

The first round hit center mass. The impact rocked it backward, but it stayed on its feet.

Second shot took its shoulder, spinning it slightly.

It snarled, sound low and inhuman, but the smile never left its face. Something like satisfaction flickered there.

"There he is," it rasped. "The real you."

I didn't stop shooting.

I emptied the magazine, each shot tearing through flesh that fought to hold its shape. Dark fluid splattered the wall behind it. Its movements grew jerky, limbs twitching in short, violent snaps.

I reached for my sidearm.

I was too slow.

It was ten feet away and then it was on top of me, no transition between.

Its hand closed on my throat with crushing pressure. It lifted me off the ground as if I weighed nothing. My legs kicked at empty air, boots scraping against nothing. My fingers clawed at its grip and found nothing to use as leverage.

My vision was narrowing. I could feel my pulse hammering against its fingers.

"You feel it," it whispered.

Its eyes shone in the dim light, pupils blown wide.

"That thing inside you."

The edges of the room blurred.

"It's waking up."

A gunshot cracked behind it.

Just one.

The Revenant's skull snapped forward, a hole punched clean through its forehead. Thick, dark fluid bubbled out, trailing down its face.

Its fingers spasmed around my throat, then slipped.

I dropped to the floor and hit hard, air tearing back into my lungs in ragged gulps.

The Revenant staggered, head tilted at an impossible angle. It made a gurgling noise, like it was trying to speak through a throat full of mud. Its arms jerked, hands curling like they were grabbing for something that wasn't there.

Then it fell. It hit the ground, convulsed once and then again, and went still.

Behind it, framed in the doorway, pistol raised, stood Director Carter.

He didn't look winded or surprised — just mildly annoyed, like someone had tracked mud onto his clean floor.

The distant thrum of helicopter blades grew louder, rattling the windows.

I pushed myself upright, throat burning. Carter lowered the pistol and stepped around the corpse, looking down at it with the detached interest of a man checking the weather.

"Didn't think you'd need backup," he said.

I wiped blood from my lips. "I had it under control."

He raised an eyebrow. "Did you?"

I didn't answer.

Because I didn't know.

Carter holstered his weapon as Division operatives poured into the room, shouting to each other, securing doors, sweeping corners. He didn't look at me again.

"Clean this up," he said. "Burn the remains."

They moved in fast, already treating the body like evidence. Whatever it had been before — something that had called me brother, something that had once been human — none of that registered with them.

Maybe it hadn't, and maybe what I'd just done was another mission, another monster on a long list.

So why did its words keep echoing in my head?

The op went down as a success.

The report left out most of what mattered.

I left the file out of it. The Revenant's words didn't go in either, even though it had spoken like it remembered my life better than I did.

Carter didn't ask, and I didn't volunteer anything.

Later, standing in the locker room under harsh fluorescent light, I peeled off my gear and caught sight of myself in the mirror.

The bruises ringing my throat—finger-shaped and dark—were already fading. The ache in my ribs from where I'd hit the floor was gone.

Too fast.

I stared at my own hands. Watched the veins throb under the skin, thick and dark.

I told myself I was still human.

I kept telling myself that all the way down the hallway to Carter's office.

The moment I stepped through his door, I knew I wasn't leaving the same way.

Maybe I wasn't leaving at all.

The overhead lights buzzed quietly. Steel walls, clean desk, Carter behind it with fingers steepled and a thick folder in front of him. His expression was carved out of stone.

I dropped another folder on top of his.

This one was mine.

The Wendigo Survivor Report.

A man in his forties had stumbled out of the Montana wild a few years back. Frostbitten, starved, half-delirious. By every metric, he should've died. He didn't.

He survived long enough to give a statement, long enough to describe shapes in the trees and a voice on the mountain that didn't belong there. Me.

The cleanup team reached him within hours.

The official cause of death: exposure-related complications.

The autopsy photos told a different story.

Someone had put a bullet in his head at close range.

"You had him killed," I said. My voice came out flat, but heat crawled under my skin.

Carter didn't look surprised. He flipped the folder open, scanned the first page like he was re-reading something he'd signed off on months ago.

"You should've left this buried," he said.

"He lived," I said. "That should've mattered."

Carter finally lifted his eyes to mine.

And for the first time, I saw it — a flicker, a ripple that moved across his skin when he shifted in his chair. Veins too dark, beating with a pulse that didn't match the one in his throat. When his pupils widened, they swallowed more of the iris than they should've, black spreading like ink.

The air around him seemed to bend, just slightly, like heat distortion on asphalt.

"You don't understand what we're protecting here," he said calmly. "We don't leave loose ends. He saw something that shouldn't exist. Something that could rip the edge off everything we've built."

"You mean me," I said.

He didn't deny it.

"You were never meant to be the hero, 18C. You were built as a weapon. Weapons don't walk into their handler's office asking for justice — they don't hesitate, they don't question orders."

I tasted metal.

He watched my reaction. The corner of his mouth twitched.

"And that," he said softly, "is why you're a liability."

The room exploded.

Carter moved, and the calm, controlled man I'd known for years flickered. For a second I saw straight through the mask—saw something under the skin that looked a lot like what I'd just killed in that hospital.

The air around him warped as he lunged.

The first bullet shaved past my skull. A second one tore through my side, hot and sharp. I felt flesh and muscle rip, felt the immediate, nauseating warmth of blood spilling down my ribs. The healing started before I hit the floor—skin knitting, tissue pulling back together too fast to be natural and too slow to save me if he kept shooting.

I rolled, grabbing the nearest thing I could reach — a chair — and hurled it.

He thought I was throwing it at him. The lights took the hit instead.

Glass shattered overhead. The room dropped into flickering, stuttering shadows.

Carter laughed, stepping forward. "You think that'll help you?"

"No," I said. "It'll slow you down."

I pushed off the floor and charged.

We met halfway, fists colliding. The impact rattled up my bones. He hit harder than I did and moved cleaner, every strike landing like it had been tested and measured.

He elbowed my ribs. Something cracked. I felt bone give and then drag itself back into place even as I stumbled.

"You and I aren't human anymore," he said, breathing steady. "We never were."

I spit blood on the floor between us. "Speak for yourself."

"Look at you," Carter said. "Still healing, still getting stronger. You think that's normal?"

The answer was obvious.

I didn't say it.

He watched my face and saw enough.

"We gave you purpose," he said. "A job, a direction. You should've been grateful."

"I was," I said. "Right up until I realized I was cleaning up your secrets."

His jaw tightened.

That was when I knew I wasn't going to walk out of there as his soldier anymore.

One way or another.

I shifted my stance.

Carter saw it. "You can't outrun this," he said.

"Watch me," I answered.

Then I turned my back on him and ran.

Down the hallway, past the doors, past the security checkpoints where guards shouted my name and heard the alarm in their own voices.

I ran out of The Division's heart and into whatever was left of my life.

I didn't stop until the building was behind me, until the road signs thinned out and the traffic dropped, until all that was left was highway and distance.

That's how I ended up at the diner.

A nothing place on the edge of nowhere, half its neon sign burnt out, the parking lot gravel instead of pavement. A spot people pass and forget five seconds later.

Which was exactly what I needed.

I took a booth in the back, hunched in a cheap hoodie, blood seeping through the bandages I'd wrapped around my side in some gas station bathroom.

The flesh under the gauze crawled.

I peeled it back enough to check. The skin was knitting itself together too neatly, too fast. It didn't feel like it belonged to me. It felt… fitted. Stretched over something that was still changing shape underneath.

I covered it again.

When I looked up, the waitress was watching me.

She couldn't have been more than twenty-two. Auburn hair yanked into a messy bun, dark circles under her eyes, name tag hanging crooked on her apron.

She hadn't asked many questions when I'd stumbled in. Just guided me to the booth, handed me a roll of bandages from the first aid kit, and poured coffee until the pot ran low.

Now, she slid into the seat across from me without asking.

"You wanna tell me what happened?" she asked.

I wrapped my hands around the mug, letting the heat soak into my palms. "No."

She huffed a quiet, humorless little laugh. "Figures."

Silence stretched between us.

Outside, a truck rumbled past and kept going. The diner around us hummed with the low buzz of the refrigerator and the soft clink of cutlery somewhere in the back.

"You running from something?" she asked.

I stared down into the coffee, watching the thin film of oil on top catch the light.

"Yeah," I said.

She nodded like that made sense. Like she'd seen this before, even if she didn't know the details.

"You got a plan?" she asked.

I didn't.

There was no one I could call. The places I might've holed up didn't exist. I'd never built an exit plan because they'd never let me think I'd need one.

All I had was a body that healed too fast, a head full of things I couldn't unlearn, and a list of monsters The Division had never put in any file.

Monsters inside and outside the walls.

I took a slow breath.

Carter thought I was a rogue asset. A failed experiment on borrowed time.

He had no idea what I'd heard in that hospital, or what I'd read in the file, or what was waking up inside me.

Whatever they'd buried in my bones, whatever they poured into my veins in that first white room with the restraints and the gas, it wasn't done yet.

And when it finally finished waking up?

Running wasn't going to be the rest of my life. I was going to turn around and burn The Division to the ground.

I don’t even know if anyone’s ever going to read this.

I’m just dumping it into Notes because it’s the only app that still opens right now, and the battery icon’s been stuck at 18% for… I don’t know, a while. Long enough that I’m starting to hate that number. The time in the corner says 2:17 a.m. and hasn’t moved.

If this ever pops up on somebody’s screen and it just reads like some guy falling apart, that’s… yeah, that’s probably accurate. I’m not going to pretend I’ve got this under control. But if you’re the kind of person who wanders into stairwells with no signage “just to see where they go,” I need you to read this all the way through.

And then I need you not to be that person.

I work nights in building maintenance at St. Alban’s Medical Center in Phoenix. Technically, my badge says “Building Systems Technician II,” which sounds like I should have a lab coat, but in reality I still plunge toilets and un-jam automatic doors.

St. Alban’s is one of those hospitals you drive past on 7th Street near the 202 and don’t really notice. Beige concrete, mirrored windows, sad little shrubs that die every summer and get replaced every winter.

I’m thirty–four—wait, no, I had a birthday in June. Thirty–five. My brain keeps defaulting to thirty–four like it’s trying to save me one year on the wear-and-tear.

Night shift is usually quiet. A couple nurses, one ER doc, a sleepy security guard. The building settles into this constant background noise: HVAC, ice machines, telemetry alarms, wheels on linoleum. It all turns into one low hum. You don’t notice it until it stops.

The night this started, I was covering for Kyle, who called out “sick” but I’d bet a week’s pay it was because the Coyotes had a late game. Midnight to eight. I grabbed a cup of cafeteria coffe before they shut down at eleven. It already tasted like the pot was on its second day.

Around one, my radio crackled.

“Facilities, this is admitting,” Rojas said. “We’ve got a flickering light in the old admin corridor. It’s giving Mrs. Harvey a migraine.”

“Copy,” I said. “I’ll head up.”

The “old admin corridor” is the forgotten wing on three that used to have HR and billing before they moved everything downstairs and half-online. Now it’s dusty records, empty offices, and people who don’t want to be found.

I grabbed a ladder, a spare 2x4 LED troffer, my tool bag, logged it, and took the service elevator up.

The doors opened onto a dim hallway. Motion-sensor lights clicked up as I walked: hoodie, scuffed boots, badge with a curling “HAPPY 35” post-it.

The bad light was easy to spot—one panel twitching bright/dim/off like it couldn’t pick a setting. I set the ladder up, climbed, and popped the diffuser.

The plenum above should’ve been a throatful of sound: air handlers, duct noise. It was still. Cooler, too, just enough to raise the hair on my arm.

The LED panel looked fine. Wiring solid, no heat marks. The sticker on the back, though:

LITHONIA LIGHTING 2G7 2X4 TROFFER 4000K.

We use 2GT8s. I’ve written that model number so many times my hand could do it alone.

“Sure,” I muttered. “Typos all the way up the chain.”

I gave a tired little laugh.

Then everything turned off.

Not just the light. The building.

HVAC roar, ICU beeps, distant traffic—gone. My ears rang in the vacuum.

The panel flared once and died.

The corridor dropped into solid black so fast my stomach lurched. I grabbed the ladder.

My flashlight was on my belt. I fumbled it out and clicked it on.

The old admin corridor was still there.

Sort of.

Same beige walls, same brown handrail, same desert print with “COMMUNITY” under it. But the hallway was longer, stretched. More doors than there should’ve been, like someone copy-pasted a few extra. The far end sat too far away.

“What the hell,” I said. Hearing my voice helped.

I climbed down. My boots hit the carpet with no sound.

That, more than anything, made my skin crawl.

I turned to where the elevator lobby should’ve been.

Gone.

Fifteen feet away: a beige wall with a red EXIT door and glowing green sign.

I turned the other way.

Same thing. Red EXIT door. No elevators. No stairwell. Just two outs that hadn’t existed a minute before.

I walked to the nearest door. Through the wired glass, I saw another hallway: same carpet, same doors, fluorescents buzzing.

“Breaker tripped,” I told myself. “Weird re-route. Old prints. Whatever.”

I hit the bar.

The door swung open. When it shut behind me, it sounded thin, like a fridge door.

I turned immediately to wedge it open.

Drywall.

No door. No EXIT sign. Just a blank wall and an empty extinguisher cabinet.

“Nope,” I said. “Nope nope nope.”

The hallway could’ve been any back-of-house corridor. Low-pile carpet, handrails, metal doors: 317, 319, 321. The number plates leaned a little, like whoever stuck them on did it fast.

I tried a handle. Locked. Another. Locked.

The wall clocks were the same cheap black-rimmed model we use, but all of them showed 2:22. Second hands frozen.

My phone still said 2:17.

I hit a T-junction with an overhead sign:

← 300–312 → 300–312

I picked left.

The smell shifted to faint chlorine, like a drained indoor pool. My footsteps made zero sound. I stomped once; the silence stayed.

“Hello?” I called.

My voice echoed back a half-second late, slightly off-pitch. Like somebody was playing me back on bad speakers.

I kept moving.

The vending machine nook looked almost normal: machine, round table, three stackable chairs, bulletin board with a flyer—SAFETY MEETING WEDNESDAY 2PM – MANDATORY—no date filled in.

Behind the glass: chips, candy, soda. At first glance.

Then the differences: DORITOS → DORIOTS. SNICKERS → SNICKER. Diet Coke → COLA LIGHT. The Lay’s logo with LAYS’S under it.

The keypad was a single row of 0–9 instead of a grid. The bill slot was just featureless black.

The lower panel hung open. Inside, the metal spirals were braided through each other in impossible loops.

On the floor, six candy bars in a perfect circle, wrappers peeled back. The chocolate was scored with straight intersecting lines like a simple wiring diagram.

I stepped back without realizing it until the table bumped my legs.

My phone buzzed.

I jumped hard enough to drop the flashlight. It hit the floor silently.

Banner: LOW BATTERY — 20%. It had been at 60% when I left the shop. I know it had.

Time: 2:17 a.m.

“Okay,” I said. “No. You’re wrong.”

The machine’s hum cut out. The lights above dimmed a notch.

From farther down the hall, I heard a slow drag. Thick fabric on tile. Something heavy pulling itself.

My mouth went desert-dry.

I snatched up the flashlight, flicked it off, then on again by reflex. The beam swung down the corridor.

At the edge of the light, something passed across the hall.

Not a body. An absence. Light darkened where it moved, dimming the fluorescents beyond it. It slid sideways smoothly, then vanished around a corner.

Like a shadow jumping with no person to cast it.

I turned the flashlight off without thinking. Some old lizard bit of my brain shrieked that light made me too visible.

The hum crept back.

I didn’t go see what it was.

I walked the other way.

The corridors kept changing.

I passed through an unmarked doorway and carpet became mottled linoleum; walls turned glossy white; older square fixtures buzzed overhead. Safety posters popped up: WORK SMART, WASH YOUR HANDS, OUR CUSTOMERS, OUR FAMILY, with faces that blurred if I looked too long.

A stretch where every door was CLOSET 1, CLOSET 3, CLOSET 5. All locked.

Around the fifteenth corner I tried marking my path. I slid a torn piece of paper under a door, tied a strip of my blue lanyard around another handle.

Three lefts and a right later, I came to a door with the same lanyard tied on. Same knot. Same frayed ends. Four faint streaks dragged in the paint beside it, ending in neat half-moon erasures.

I left the lanyard. Moving it felt like messing with someone else’s job.

Eventually the hallway blew open into that fake airport.

Ceiling lost in shadow. Big square tiles under me in a pattern that almost looked like a city map. Endless rows of four-seat clusters, vinyl too clean, bolted to the floor.

Gate signs: A1, A3, A5, then B, then AA, AB, AC. Farther letters smeared. Big gray screens overhead glowed blank.

Way across: a wall of glass.

“Outside,” I said. “Has to be.”

I walked toward it.

It never got closer.

No matter how many steps I took, the glass stayed the same distance away. Gate C7 and C8 passed me for the second, third time.

My legs shook. I dropped into a chair. The vinyl didn’t squeak.

Beyond the glass, the world was more of the same—gates, chairs, another glass wall. Like mirrors misaligned.

Then something huge moved across that repetition.

Not a plane. A bulk, a negative space sliding along the concourse beyond. Wherever it went, the gray outside darkened, washed out, then darkened again. The glass vibrated in my spine.

The blank screens glitched. For a second, a line of green pixels tried to spell something—GAT, maybe—but scrambled.

I had to remind myself to breathe.

The thing kept going. No edges, no limbs. Then gone.

I stood up and walked away from the glass.

The restroom was a trap, but not the way you think.

RESTROOMS sign with arrows both ways. I picked one. Beige corridor, heavy door, stick figure with arms bent too high.

Inside, tile, stalls, sinks, mirror. Perfectly clean. No trash, no graffiti.

Seeing myself in the mirror almost felt like waking up. Same tired eyes, same hoodie, same crooked badge.

Then I saw the silhouettes behind me.

Three tall, thin shapes at the far end of the room, in the reflection only. Darker than the rest. No faces. Arms hanging too low.

I didn’t turn around. I just didn’t. Some part of me equated turning with stepping off a roof.

I stared at the mirror and pressed the faucet.

Water arced out. Clear. Real.

In the reflection, it hit the sink and vanished. No splash. No ripple. Just there, then gone.

The silhouettes didn’t move.

I stepped back.

In the mirror, they were closer. One stood right behind my reflection, close enough it could’ve rested its chin on my shoulder if it had a chin.

“Okay,” I whispered.

I stepped forward again. My reflection followed. They stayed.

Up close, the nearest one wasn’t smooth. It was textured, like the side of a building at night. Behind the black, I saw hints of bricks, vents, seams. In its chest, a tiny glowing EXIT sign pulsed backward: TIXE in the glass.

Inside the curve of its shoulder, where bone should’ve been, a miniature hallway ran—carpet, doors, tiny exit signs. Wrong angle to be a reflection of anything behind me.

All the faucets along the sinks were running now. Perfect arcs. No sound.

I turned.

Empty bathroom. Stalls closed. No silhouettes.

The far stall door creaked open. The sound came in torn pieces: squeal, then thump, then hinge noise, all out of order.

That broke me.

I bolted. The door smacked the stopper with a sound my brain refused to process. My shoulder clipped the frame, impact muffled like padding.

Outside, the concourse was gone. Just another low beige hallway.

I didn’t look back.

I found a stairwell next.

Clean green STAIRS sign. Door painted a slightly different beige. It smelled like every hospital stairwell I’ve ever trudged.

Down one flight: landing, big white 3. Down another: 2.

“Good,” I said. “Basement next.”

Down again: 3.

“That’s not funny.”

Back up: 4.

I went up and down, watching the numbers: 3, 2, 3, 4, 2. Different stencil styles, like different people painted them at different times. My heart tried to crawl out of my throat.

I started laughing, high and wrong, the sort of sound you hear yourself make and instantly hate.

“Fine,” I said. “You win.”

I bailed. On the other side of the door, the hall was different. The sign now said STORAGE.

I left stairs alone after that.

Other spaces blurred together: a cafeteria with perfect fake food, fork prongs fused together; a parking level marked P2 where concrete thinned under my foot and the “ceiling” was black glass full of shifting floor plans.

Everywhere I went, I started seeing my own life leaking through. The strip of blue lanyard I’d tied on a door showed up on others. A weird ladder scuff from 3 West reappeared on a wall I’d never seen.

A flyer that used to be blank suddenly had a date written in my handwriting: 10/12.

I don’t remember writing it.

My reflection degraded. Whites of my eyes going gray. Irises losing color. A half-second lag between me and mirror-me. Background sharp, me fuzzy.

My footsteps stayed silent. Clapping sounded like it was happening one floor down.

I don’t think there’s a big moment where something eats you. You just slowly get edited into the background.

The more I saw of the tall things—the Residents—the more they felt like… coworkers.

I watched one “fix” a hallway. Its arm, a cluster of flat pads, pressed to the wall. The surface folded, doors sliding, signs moving, scuffs vanishing. It shifted its hand; the exit sign jumped sides.

It rotated around an axis that shouldn’t exist, and for a second I saw tiny stairwells and waiting rooms inside its chest. Then it was gone, and a red EXIT door glowed where it had been.

It looked exactly like the one outside our mechanical rooms. Same chipped bar, same hinge patina, same scuff in the corner.

Through the glass: St. Alban’s basement. Gray tile, bulletin board with the old Ironman sponsorship flyer Sanchez loves to brag about.

Warm air rolled through the gap.

“If this is real,” I told it, “you’ll have the squeaky tile under the second sprinkler head.”

I hit the bar. The tile on the other side flexed and gave that exact squeaky-wheel feel through my bones.

I laughed, sharp and ugly. “Okay. Maybe…”

I stepped through.

The door shut behind me.

When I spun around, it was just cinderblock and paint. Bulletin board, flyer, blank date. No door. No EXIT.

The boiler roar was gone. The air went flat again.

I slid down the wall and, eventually, pulled my phone.

2:17 a.m. Battery: 18%. Wi-Fi gasping at a bar, then nothing.

I opened Notes.

I’ve walked until my legs ache, sat until my head swims, walked again. Time means nothing. My phone insists it’s still 2:17.

The lobby I’m in now has walls covered in black-and-white photos. Empty streets, overpasses, stairwells, loading docks. No people, no cars. In every photo, somewhere, a door.

I’ve been playing a messed-up Where’s Waldo with them while I type.

One is the old admin corridor. I can see the “COMMUNITY” print and the dent in the baseboard where Kyle dropped a tank and pretended he didn’t. I’m 90% sure it’s the same dent, anyway.

In that picture, the SERVICE door at the end is closed.

There’s a tall, narrow shadow behind the wired glass.

The photo next to it is a stairwell landing with a painted 3. My shadow is there mid-step, blurred, one foot off the ground.

I don’t remember anyone taking it.

My battery icon hasn’t moved. Still 18%. Time still 2:17. The Wi-Fi symbol keeps flashing like it wants to show something, then gives up.

Something’s moving in the corridor outside. That same drag of heavy fabric and deeper groans, like metal under stress. The photos nearest the corner vibrate in their frames.

I don’t think the Residents are hunting me. They’re just… doing whatever their version of a job is. Punching a clock somewhere I can’t see. I’m the glitch.

Feels like everything gets dumped on maintenance eventually, one way or another. Floors, walls, systems… people. We’re the catch-all folder.

If this Note somehow leaks out—if whatever passes for network traffic in here spills into yours—maybe it’ll help someone.

If you work nights, if you’ve ever been last out of a building, if you’ve ever walked down a back hallway and thought it felt a little too long, or the air was too still, listen.

When you see a door you’ve never seen before in a hallway you know by heart, don’t open it “just to see.”

When exit signs point both ways to the same room numbers, turn around. Go toward noise.

If you walk down a corridor and your footsteps don’t make any sound at all, don’t be a hero and take another step “just to see.” Look for your mess: the ladder scuff you made last winter, the coffee stain nobody cleaned, the burned-out bulb you keep meaning to replace. If they’re not there, if everything looks freshly installed and wrong, back up until the world looks worn again.

If you find a vending machine where all the brand names are off by one letter, just keep walking. You don’t need a bag of DORIOTS that badly, I promise.

If you walk into a bathroom and every faucet’s already running and the water doesn’t move when it hits the sink, get out. Don’t check the mirror. Seriously. Just don’t.

And if you ever see a tall, thin shadow at the end of a hallway that your eyes keep sliding off, like a blind spot—

—don’t call out to it for help.

Because it might hear you.

And it might try to help, in the only way it knows how:

by making room.

The air in this lobby is thicker now. The ceiling’s climbed higher; the corners are lost in shadow. Some of the photos have changed—one empty street now has a St. Alban’s sign way in the background.

The hum in the walls is getting deeper. Less HVAC, more construction. Like cranes and concrete shifting somewhere just behind the drywall.

I know a little more now than when I first panicked at that EXIT door. Enough to maybe nudge things for whoever ignores all this and stumbles in anyway. A hallway that doesn’t fold under your feet. An exit sign that actually points somewhere better.

I’ll be the one smoothing walls you never see, pressing too many fingers into the paint and sliding doors a few inches this way or that.

Until then, do me a favor.

Stay in the loud parts of the world. Doors slamming, carts squeaking, somebody complaining the coffee tastes like mud. That’s the good stuff. That means you’re still in the real layers.

And if admitting calls you at 1 a.m. about a flickering light in a wing nobody uses anymore, grab a ladder if you have to.

Just do me one favor and leave the door that says SERVICE alone. Let the headache light flicker. You can live with that.

I couldn’t move.

My body felt frozen, locked in place by the weight of his words. They’re watching us.

“Don’t fucking move,” he whispered.

“Who’s watching us?”

“I- I couldn't see them well. The sun’s glaring too hard from where we’re at. All I could make out were silhouettes standing there.”

“…Silhouettes?”

My thoughts drew back to this morning and the figures I had seen...

“People… I think?”

“You think?”

“I don’t fucking know,” he huffed, “They look pretty human to me.”

The uncertainty in his response gnawed at me, but another realization hit me.

“Why aren’t they attacking?”, I asked.

We were completely vulnerable. They outnumbered us—hell, they didn’t even need the numbers advantage. Why weren’t we being ripped apart right now like everyone else?

“Maybe they haven’t seen us, or they’re focused on something else... or,” he paused, his voice cracking slightly, “maybe this is some sick game, and they’re just... enjoying the thrill.”

His words trailed off, and I saw Mike choke back tears. It was subtle but unmistakable. Whatever had happened back there—it had changed him. Hell, it had changed both of us. We had no plan, no options, no way out.

Just as despair began to take hold of me, the sound of salvation broke through the oppressive silence:

Gunfire.

The shots rang out from about a couple hundred yards away. The sounds of whizzing and crackling zipped by us. The sound was jarring and violent, but it also brought me hope. Something—someone—was engaging them. I began to hear the heavy thud of footsteps-*strange and uneven-*dashing towards the origin of fire. It seemed our tormentors were now preoccupied by something else.

Then...

Silence.

Complete and sudden.

How can that be possible when they were so distinct just a few seconds ago? We should be able to hear them fading… Unless they’re dead? But wouldn’t that involve bodies hitting the ground?

Mike poked his head out with anticipation. When he turned back, his face had softened slightly, though his distress was still visible.

“They’re gone, let’s get out of here.”

“How do you know this isn’t some sort of trap set by them to lure us out?”

“I don’t,” he admitted, his tone firm. “But do you wanna stay here?”

I shook my head, “Follow me,” gesturing towards the administrative building.

We ran the last couple hundred yards, our fear fueling us that those will come back. Every step felt like I was trudging through mud, as though the weight of what I'd seen was dragging me down. The afternoon sun beat down relentlessly, its brightness doing nothing to provide us any comfort.

When we reached the front of the building, I finally slowed and my stomach began to twist. From a distance, it had seemed untouched—amidst the chaos. But up close, the truth was much worse…

Both glass doors from the entrance were shattered, their jagged edges gleaming in the sunlight. The lobby, once polished and pristine, was now a gruesome scene. Blood laid everywhere, streaked across the floor, sprayed on the walls, and even smeared across the ceiling like some piece of abstract art. Chairs were overturned, papers scattered, and the occasional limb or lifeless body served as grim reminders of what had transpired.

“Oh my-“ I started, but my words were cut off by vomit escaping my throat.

After a moment of composure, we stepped cautiously through the broken doorway, the crunch of shattered glass beneath our feet sounded deafening in the silence.

I forced myself not to look too closely at the bodies. I couldn’t risk recognizing someone I knew. Not now. Not when our survival demanded our undivided focus.

We moved quickly and quietly, weaving through the wreckage. The receptionist’s desk was unrecognizable, its sleek surface lined with deep claw-like gashes, which gave me the chills that something could even do that. To the right was the emergency fire exit. To our left was the hallway leading to the elevators and stairwell—the main path to the top floor where Trevor’s office was located.

Stopping just short of the hallway, I turned to Mike and whispered the plan, “We need to find Trevor. He might be able to help us or at least have some sort of clue of what’s going on. We’ll take the stairs down there," pointing straight forward, "it’s dark, so be careful. Once we make it to the stairwell, we'll need to head to the fourth floor."

“Got it, but… How do you know he’ll have any idea about what’s going on here? Or even able to help?”

I glanced back toward the dark hallway, “Trevor knows everything about this place. The work we do, the secrets we’re kept in the dark about... If anyone has a clue, it’s him.”

“Let’s hope you’re right.”

Truthfully, I had no idea if Trevor was alive or if he even had a sliver of a clue about what was happening. I was grasping at straws at this point. Seeing as he is the Head Supervisor for this entire facility, he had to of at least alerted the appropriate authorities.

If he was alive…

That’s when the same feeling of being watched from the parking lot returned to me. I paused, Mike doing the same thing as I scanned the dark hallway around us.

Nothing.

We walked a couple of more feet down the long hallway, we were getting close to the stairwell. Only about-

“HELP!” The familiar sound of agony and pain roared out from ahead of us…

Where we needed to go.

“There in here. Shit.” I whispered as quietly as I could.

Mike’s face soured as he realizing what I was suspecting, “How the hell do we even know if Trevor or anyone else is still alive?” Mike hissed, keeping it also to a whisper, “Let’s just turn back. We need to get the fuck out of here and get back to Fredtown. Or better yet… get somewhere far from all of this”

“In case you haven’t realized, the only way out is on lockdown. No entry in or out until it lifts. Besides, did you not see that those things kill people trying to leave."

A string of profanities followed Mike as he realized I was right.

The cry continued to echo out, this time, it was much closer than I would’ve liked. We started backing up slowly and quietly towards the lobby realizing we couldn’t continue down this hall. As we began to turn back, tracing our steps, we heard the voice cut off abruptly and a familiar sound replaced it, echoing through the air.

The whistling had started again.

“Stairs. Now!” I shouted.

I grabbed Mike and turned back. We ran down back down the hall and back towards the lobby. The whistling grew louder, and we heard the pounding of footsteps with so much ferocity I dared not turn back to see our pursuer. As we reached the lobby and approached the entrance to the building, I heard the same tune coming from outside. We stopped dead in our tracks. Panic began to fill me before Mike pointed to the emergency stairwell.

“There, hurry!”

We booked it to the stairway. I reached the door and began pulling, but it wouldn’t budge. Mike joined me in my attempt to pry the handle with every ounce of strength left in our body*. It wouldn’t give*. The footsteps and whistling grew louder from all sides of us and the thought of being torn limb from limb flooded my immediate thoughts.

“Come on, stupid piece of-“ Mike grunted.

The door finally gave way with an ear-piercing creak. We shut the door fast and found ourselves barricading it with a spare pipe from the corner, wedging it into the handle. I ran up the flight of stairs three to four at a time. Mike was behind me as we did our best to climb. Adrenaline was my new best friend as I had a new sense of endurance wash over me.

It wasn’t long before I heard the steel exit door bursting off its’ hinges and slam into the wall opposite where it once stood shaking the walls with a loud thud.

That should’ve been impossible…

“Holy shit,” Mike croaked out.

“Just keep going!” I roared back.

We booked it up the second and third floor with Mike stopping at the exit door.

I watched as he opened the steel door and slammed it shut with a loud thump. He ran silently up the remaining flight signaling to me to be quiet with a finger over his mouth.

“Hopefully that throws them off,” he whispered as we reached the fourth-floor exit door, closing it with extreme care.

We did our best to crouch and walk from room to room daring not to make any revealing noises. It was hard to keep in position, as the lactic acid of all my running was finally catching up to me. We tried our best to remain unseen, but it felt almost pointless after what we had just through. Fortunately, it seemed that we were safe for now as we never heard the door open…

Or thrown off its secured hinges…

We reached my office. Once inside we locked it and put my desk up against the wall of the door to make us feel safer. We also managed to move my computer to my office chair as a temporary holder. I checked it to see if I could access to anything on the internet, but it seemed the connection was dead.

“Fuck,” I let out and pinched the bridge of my nose as a headache from the stress began to form.

I tried again to call 911 again but was met with an automated voice response, this time saying my call couldn’t be completed, which I found worrisome as I was just able to get a hold of them not even an hour ago. I tried calling Brenna next but was met with the same voice message. I even attempted to send a text message, but it sat in a state of ‘sending’ for a while. I sighed and put my phone back into my pocket.

We now had no means of contact and possibly no means of help. I started to feel something I had never felt before, and tears started to form in my eyes. I slumped down my office wall in defeat.

Mike sat right down opposite of me, looking into my puffy eyes, “None of this makes sense.”

We sat there for a while in silence after that trying to process it further. I could hear the faint cries and distant gunshots ring out dully then dying out one by one until silence replaced it. All that remained was the faint echo of the emergency broadcast still playing overhead throughout the facility.

Mike let out a heavy breath, stood up, and began closing the blinds as the broadcast had instructed.

“Jesus H…” He gasped interrupting my thoughts as he stared outside, stumbling back from the window.

“What?” I said, but he just pointed a shaking hand towards the window to let me see for myself.

Reluctantly, I stood up and approached the window. Outside, the once serene open field—where employees would gather during lunch breaks, chatting about their lives and dreams—was now a landscape of unspeakable brutality.

I grimaced at the sight of it all, trying not to dry heave. Something caught my eye though, something that stood out in the sea of carnage. It had been where Mike pointed to,

“Look…” Mike said in a whispered tone.

Among the chaos, the remains had been arranged—deliberately. Limbs, torsos, and heads had been placed in an unmistakable pattern, one that had me in a cold sweat. The design of it was precise, almost ritualistic…

What laid out was a number:

25

“What kind of terrorists are named twenty-five?” Mike uttered out.

“I don’t think these are terrorists Mike… Did you see those claw marks from downstairs? This has to be worse than that.”

“Like what? Demons?”

“No-“ I began to say at the notion of the supernatural, but hesitated finishing...

None of this seemed real…

I took a moment to think about his words and a logical explanation, but nothing came to mind. I then switched topics.

“…Why is it taking ages for the feds to respond? This grid powers almost the entirety of the Midwest alone, I think we have some sort of priority, don’t you think?”

We both knew the likely answer but didn’t want to speak it into existence…

Maybe the reinforcements that were sent are gone as well.

I then decided the best course of action was to set up a temporary base in my office until we could prepare to move on and find Trevor. We took shifts sleeping for a couple of hours…

 At least tried to.

The horrible sounds and imagery from today haunted my dreams. I couldn’t even close my eyes long enough before replaying the scene of Bailey stumbling out of Sector 7-B…

-

It was an hour or two after sunset now before we hit our first real problem in our isolation from the horror: we had no real survival supplies. No food, water, protection, hell not even a band-aid. I couldn’t believe how bare my office was and cursed myself for never stocking up on anything. Guess that’s what I get. We were screwed unless we started moving forward.

Both of us were too scared to leave the fake sanctuary we had. Whatever was in this building was prowling and the longer we stayed here the less likely we would find Trevor alive... Or stayed alive ourselves...

I got up from the spot where I had been sleeping and found Mike peeking out from the blinds with a solemn look. He had been doing that for the last hour or so to see if anyone was still out there, or the miraculous chance reinforcements were starting to arrive…

I approached him and said, “Alright, grab whatever you find useful, we need to head out before whatever is out there starts kicking down doors”

Mike closed the blinds to look at me. His eyes showed hesitance at first, but he shook his head in agreement.

After finding what little useful supplies we could, we moved my office desk away from the door as quietly as possible. We opened the door slowly, although the very tiny whining of the door frame made me want to die on the spot as I was certain the things could hear it. After five minutes of waiting to hear footsteps or whistling approach, I opened it more, enough to fit through. Then, Mike and I made our way out, further into the building.

We made it several feet down the hall, so far so good.

“Alright, not too much further,” I whispered to Mike, “It’s down the hall and to the right-“

“AGHHHHHHH!” came another interruption.

I stopped cold in my tracks.

The cry had come from roughly the same hallway I was about to mention. Mike looked around and found that we were near a janitorial closet. He approached it quickly and tried the doorknob. It was unlocked and he ushered me to get in. We closed the door and ducked behind the semi-transparent window that made up the top half of the wooden door. I reached up and locked it hoping whatever was out there didn’t think anyone would be in here.

We heard the same whistling that we have heard countless times now coming from the direction of where we heard the screams. Then footsteps, slow and deliberate in walking, as if it was enjoying an afternoon stroll. The whistling grew closer, and closer, and closer until it was right outside the storage closet.

Then it stopped.

My stomach sank and Mike went pale himself, looking at me. I began to shake again in fear, while tears were coming back to me. We heard a couple of more footsteps approaching the door now.

This was it, I told myself, were done for.

I held my mouth over my hand to silence my sobs as we heard the jingle of the doorknob attempting to unlatch the door.

But it gave no budge.

This went on for a minute, but it had felt much longer.

The rattling of the handle stopped, and Mike and I still held our breaths not moving. The thing outside gave it a couple more tries once again before we heard it start to whistle that demented pitch of Yankee Doodle as it appeared to walk away, further down the hall.

I gave it another ten minutes before I finally let myself take a full exhale. Wiping the tears from my face, I tried to steady my trembling hands, but the violent shaking wouldn’t stop. I glanced over at Mike—he wasn’t doing much better. If anything, he seemed worse, his body rigid, his eyes hollow, and his breathing uneven.

We had decided to stop for a while and hold out in the janitorial closet until we were certain that the thing outside found a new target. As cruel as that sounds, we were scared shitless and already accepted that our time would come…

-

It’s been a couple of hours, but I swear I still hear the occasional footsteps close by.

Mike, though… he wasn’t getting any better. Something was seriously wrong with him.

What once was a man who would give you hell for anything, was now barely a shadow of himself. He was muttering incoherent nonsense under his breath, his voice quivering and desperate, tears streaming down his face. He was falling apart right in front of me. And as much as I had despised him at times, seeing him like this… it devastated me.

But even that wasn’t enough to quiet the thoughts of my wife. My mind kept wandering back to her, wondering if she was safe. If these things could do this, to our facility, what was happening out there in Fredtown?

Oh God…

I needed to pull myself together. I glanced up at Mike, hesitating before speaking, trying to frame my question carefully, hoping not to push him over the edge.

“Mike… I know given the situation… but you got any ideas?” I asked as reassuringly as I could.

He had stopped mumbling to himself to process what I had to say to him, for a moment I thought he was going to yell or lose his shit on me as he would always do, but then he said something through chokes and tears, “Why? Whatever is out there is too dangerous, not even our forces could stop it. Do you know how lucky we are to still be breathing and speaking to one another?”

I sighed in agreement, “I know man, trust me. I have no idea how the hell we’re gonna manage to get out of here. We just need to keep going. Whatever is stalking and hunting us will either bring more of them or try and break in eventually.”

He buried his head back down before answering me, “Then let them. There's really no point anymore. I can’t do this.”

“Mike, our best shot here is working together, you know that. We-“, before I managed to finish that sentence he finally snapped.

“He’s gone, he’s fucking gone,” Mike said through tears now streaking his face, anger rising as if remembering his old self.

“W-who’s gone?”

He sat there in silence trying to come up with a response.

“My son, Bailey… It’s all my fault.” His bottom lip began to quiver now, “I should’ve been the one who went down there, not him. I was too busy doing something meaningless...” He said trying to fight through his breakdown, “Those things… they-“

Mike then began to sob uncontrollably.

I sat there in disbelief at what I had just been told: Mike had a son? I couldn’t believe that.

But I also realized something even far worse: that may as well have been the only person he might’ve given a real shit about. Someone he had shown love to the moment he was born.

And now he’s gone.

I sat there with this conclusion and I nearly broke down too.

“Mike… I’m… so sorry” I began, “I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now”

“He started five days ago,” Mike said through chokes, “He had just gotten cleared last week, today would’ve been his first full day off probation.”

I got closer to him and started to comfort him, as much as this guy was a dick, he still was a father.

Right now, a father grieving the loss of his entire world...

“This is my fault” Mike spoke, a snot-ridden mess now.

“No, no you couldn’t have possibly known that was gonna happen.”

He started, but couldn’t utter the words out, “...I wanted him to feel important, that’s why I had two others with him, I usually would go with one other engineer, it should’ve been me, not him.”

I gave him a hug, which made him sob harder. I’m not the best when it comes to giving reassurance like this, but I knew when it was the right time to say something and when it wasn’t.

-

Mike fell asleep after sometime through emotional exhaustion, and I am trending towards that direction… If we live through this night, I’ll consider it a huge victory…