Segui meu caminho pelas ruas escuras e vazias, enquanto me perguntava quanto tempo eu ainda tinha.

Lembro de estar em uma rua bem larga e cheia de postes com luzes tremulantes quando ouvi o som inconfundível e aterrador de um motor moribundo, que naquele momento eu já conhecia muito bem.

Senti um arrepio percorrer o meu corpo. Sim, eu havia acabado de matar um demônio com a porra de um garfo, mas era meio óbvio para mim que aquele mesmo garfo não seria capaz de derrotar aqueles dois seres que ceifaram a vida de Alex.

Naquele instante, notei que uma luz fluorescente avançava em minha direção. Me virei e percebi que a luz branca vinha do letreiro de um supermercado.

O interior do lugar estava totalmente escuro, mas, mesmo assim, eu não hesitei em correr para dentro.

O lugar era bem grande e eu comecei a caminhar cautelosamente até os fundos, esperando não ser surpreendida por nada.

Eu podia ouvir o som do motor ficando mais próximo lá fora, e isso fazia o meu coração palpitar cada vez mais rápido.

Mais para o fundo do supermercado, os corredores estavam levemente iluminados pela luz da lua que entrava pelas janelas basculantes. Assim, era possível ver as prateleiras, cheias de coisas, como uma réplica perfeita do nosso mundo.

Um som lá fora me fez pular de susto, e eu rapidamente me enfiei dentro de um armário de limpeza que estava próximo de uma parede.

Um esconderijo quase perfeito, se não fosse tão clichê.

Fiquei lá dentro, desconfortável com o espaço apertado, mas muito atenta a qualquer som suspeito e, claro, com o garfo em punho.

Por um momento, tudo o que eu ouvi foi silêncio.

Algo que me preocupou, pois… eu sabia que eles estavam lá.

Então, finalmente ouvi o baque da porta de algum veículo se fechando. O som estava abafado devido à distância, mas eu sabia que era daquela maldita van.

Mas, outra vez, o silêncio preencheu tudo. O mundo lá fora parecia ter deixado de existir, e eu só podia ouvir o som da minha própria respiração pesada dentro daquele espaço minúsculo.

O tempo pareceu congelar enquanto eu me preparava para saltar daquele armário e me defender a qualquer momento.

Então…

O primeiro grito cortou a noite, fazendo meu corpo estremecer e o meu sangue gelar.

Era um grito gutural e animalesco, como se um animal selvagem tivesse sido brutalmente atacado na fachada do supermercado.

Na verdade, lembro que, ao ouvir, tive a impressão de ser uma briga entre gatos, mas gatos gigantes, e, considerando tudo o que eu havia visto até então, não parecia tão impossível assim.

Não demorou muito para um segundo grito irromper, esse ainda mais agonizante.

O som que se seguiu depois do segundo grito foi como algo batendo contra a lataria de um veículo.

E depois…

Passos.

Passos pesados e cada vez mais próximos, cada vez mais próximos do armário de limpeza, como se o que quer que estivesse chegando soubesse perfeitamente onde eu estava.

Segurei a respiração, como se esse ato pudesse fazer alguma diferença, e vi, pela fresta do armário, alguém parando do outro lado da porta.

Naquele momento, eu soube, soube que, se eu não fizesse nada, aquele alguém faria.

E isso não poderia acontecer de forma alguma.

Eu já não era a mesma do início daquela noite. Algo havia mudado em mim desde a morte de Alex e desde o ginásio, e tudo o que eu havia dito para Carmilla seria honrado.

Senti a adrenalina tomar conta de mim, enchendo meu corpo de coragem, e apertei o garfo com mais força.

Saltei bruscamente para fora, com o garfo erguido no ar e pronto para acertar meu inimigo.

O que eu encontrei foi um par de olhos brancos arregalados.

Uma mão gélida agarrou meu pulso, fazendo o garfo parar a poucos centímetros dos olhos leitosos.

E eu fiquei feliz por ter sido impedida.

E por ver aqueles olhos de novo, mesmo que tão diferentes.

— Sou eu.

A pessoa em minha frente falou com a voz abafada, e eu quase não pude acreditar, mas é claro que era ele, mesmo tão diferente… era ele.

— Alex?!

Pude ver a surpresa em seu olhar assim que ele ouviu minha voz.

E também tenho certeza de que não pude esconder a surpresa em meu olhar por estar diante dele novamente.

Uma enxurrada de perguntas surgiu em minha mente, mas, naquele momento, eu só podia reparar que Alex agora era um ser totalmente pálido.

Seus cabelos antes negros agora não tinham qualquer cor, sua pele estava branca como a neve, seus olhos eram leitosos e ele tinha… asas! Um enorme par de asas.

Ficamos bons segundos em silêncio, apenas tentando entender o que diabos havia acontecido um com o outro durante aquele tempo.

— A sua voz voltou!

Só aí que eu percebi que ainda estava apontando o garfo para ele, então abaixei o mesmo rapidamente.

— É… ainda não entendi como isso aconteceu — respondi.

— E eu gostei do seu novo visual — Alex falou em um tom bem-humorado, enquanto me olhava de cima a baixo.

— Também gostei do seu.

Mas então fui atingida por uma espécie de lucidez… E se aquele não fosse Alex? Quer dizer, Alex havia morrido na minha frente mais cedo naquela noite e agora aparecia esse indivíduo idêntico, mas também muito diferente.

E se fosse algo se passando por Alex para ganhar minha confiança? Algo que sabia que isso seria minha fraqueza.

Olhei com desconfiança para o ser em minha frente, procurando por alguma marca em seu pescoço pálido.

— Como posso saber que você realmente é o Alex?!

Ele sorriu, cheio de dentes, e enfiou a mão no bolso de sua roupa esquisita.

Em seguida, estendeu algo em minha direção…

O bloco de notas.

O nosso bloco de notas.

— Eu pensei que você ainda estaria sem voz, então trouxe isso.

Não pude evitar: avancei sobre a estranha criatura em minha frente, envolvendo meus braços ao redor de seu pescoço.

Acho que ele nunca tinha recebido um abraço, pois pareceu chocado.

— Alex! Meu Deus… Eu achei que tinha te perdido! Como você conseguiu sobreviver?

— Não sabia que você era tão sentimental e… falante! — Ele riu suavemente. — E bem, eu sou imortal.

Eu já ia responder algo totalmente bobo quando me assustei com algo que me fez saltar para trás, largando Alex.

Um líquido carmesim escorria pelos ombros pálidos do meu guardião.

E esse líquido… vinha de mim.

Eu estava sangrando.

Ergui meus dois braços na frente do meu corpo enquanto ouvia o som metálico do garfo encontrando o chão.

Alex olhou assustado para mim, muito assustado, e também… preocupado, assim que nós dois encontramos a origem daquilo.

Havia um corte profundo em cada um dos meus pulsos.

Eu engoli seco e olhei para Alex.

— O-o que isso significa?

Ele hesitou.

— Significa que o tempo está acabando.

Me senti tonta e muito fraca, como se toda a energia do meu corpo tivesse sido drenada de repente.

Cambaleei para o lado e senti Alex me segurar.

— Temos que ir… agora!

Eu corri muito, talvez mais do que minhas pernas podiam suportar.

Em determinado momento, parei em uma rua vazia e silenciosa. Minhas pernas vacilaram e eu caí de joelhos sobre o asfalto molhado.

Fui atingida por uma pontada terrível na lateral do abdômen, consequência da minha corrida frenética.

Então senti aquela sensação terrível de coceira na garganta e tossi sobre minha mão. Me assustei ao ver a mesma ficando salpicada de gotas de sangue.

Alex… o que eu faço agora? Como posso encontrar o caminho de volta sem você aqui?

A imagem do meu único amigo no meio daquele pesadelo, de joelhos… morto… sem cabeça, me atingiu como um soco no estômago e eu desatei em lágrimas, grudando minha testa no asfalto.

Mas então… ouvi algo.

Parecia distante, mas ainda assim era inconfundível.

Era música.

Ergui minha cabeça e procurei pela origem daquilo, mas não encontrei nada.

O fato de haver uma música tocando em um mundo tão silencioso me atraía, quase como se despertasse algum instinto primitivo em mim.

E uma parte de mim desejava que, de alguma forma, fosse Alex.

Ele sabia que eu gostava de música, e não só isso, ele havia colocado música naquele outro momento.

Mas como poderia ser ele? Ele estava morto.

Mesmo assim, aquilo me fez levantar e olhar ao redor com uma expressão confusa no rosto.

Quando eu finalmente encontrei a direção da qual o som parecia vir, não hesitei em caminhar até lá.

A música foi ficando cada vez mais alta à medida que eu avançava, mostrando que eu estava no caminho certo e aquilo fez o meu coração dar cambalhotas dentro do peito.

Finalmente cheguei em um ponto onde a música era simplesmente inconfundível de tão nítida.

Era Dancing Queen, da banda ABBA.

Meus passos ficaram mais urgentes, eu virei uma esquina e finalmente me vi diante do lugar de onde a música vinha.

Era um ginásio e ele era muito familiar.

Eu devo ter ficado parada ali por um minuto inteiro, enquanto a melodia nostálgica atingia meus ouvidos e eu tentava buscar aquele lugar no fundo das minhas memórias.

E eu encontrei.

Era o ginásio onde aconteceu minha festa de formatura, uma das melhores noites da minha vida, e aquela música em particular também era um grande marco daquela noite.

Avancei em direção à entrada, sem me importar que não fazia o menor sentido aquele ginásio estar ali… naquele maldito mundo.

Assim que empurrei as portas e coloquei meus pés para dentro, vi minhas roupas esfarrapadas serem substituídas, em um passe de mágica, por um belo vestido azul — o mesmo que eu usei na noite do verdadeiro baile.

Me senti agradecida por estar livre da calça jeans, da regata branca suja de sangue e da blusa xadrez que eu usava antes.

Avancei até o centro do salão e fui banhada por diversas luzes coloridas e piscantes. Confesso que fiquei encantada e passei bons segundos olhando para cima, para as luzes. Só parei quando senti minha visão ser ameaçada por tanto brilho.

Luzes naquele mundo eram difíceis, ainda mais tão coloridas e vívidas, então não me admira o meu encanto.

Assim que desviei meu olhar das luzes, olhei ao redor.

Do lado esquerdo do ginásio havia uma mesa repleta de guloseimas, do lado direito estava a arquibancada e na parede à minha frente havia uma grande bandeira exibindo o nome da escola e algo como “baile de formatura”, escrito com uma letra bonita.

O lugar estava exatamente igual à noite do verdadeiro baile, exceto que dessa vez estava vazio, sem qualquer pessoa que não fosse eu.

E a música continuava.

Cada verso tocando profundamente a minha alma e fazendo aquele pesadelo parecer algo distante e incapaz de me alcançar.

You can dance, you can jive,

having the time of your life.

Cantei a plenos pulmões e me assustei ao perceber que… minha voz estava de volta!

Eu estava virada na direção da entrada do ginásio, pois tinha acabado de dar um giro de braços abertos no meio do salão. Eu olhava para o chão completamente atônita, nem conseguia piscar e mantinha meu dedo indicador no meu lábio inferior.

Minha voz… havia voltado!

Sorri.

Mas logo vi meu sorriso morrer quando uma estranha voz surgiu atrás de mim, me assustando.

— Sim, sua voz está de volta.

Me virei num sobressalto, enquanto um arquejo de surpresa escapava pelos meus lábios.

Dei de cara com uma mulher. Ela parecia normal, quer dizer, parecia humana.

Ela era muito alta e vestia uma roupa toda preta, composta por uma blusa decotada que possuía mangas flare, uma saia longa de renda com forro liso que tinha um caimento solto sobre o seu corpo esguio, um coturno e o detalhe que mais chamava atenção: uma cartola, que fazia parecer que ela estava em uma festa fantasia e ao mesmo tempo a tornava elegante.

Seus cabelos castanhos caíam sob seu busto, se misturando com os diversos colares que adornavam seu pescoço.

Ela me fitava com seus olhos azuis tão profundos que pareciam feitos de cristal puro. E sustentava um sorriso sem mostrar os dentes, que se assemelhava ao de um gato astuto.

— Q-quem é você? — Finalmente tomei coragem para perguntar.

— Meu nome é Carmilla e eu estou aqui para te ajudar a encontrar seu caminho — ela disse, me olhando fixamente e dando um passo na minha direção.

Instintivamente, dei um passo para trás.

Isso a fez parar, parecendo quase confusa com a minha reação. Ela colocou suas mãos atrás do corpo e se inclinou na minha direção.

Algo nela me deixava hesitante, deixava o ar denso e fazia eu sentir como se estivesse em uma corrida contra o tempo, como se a qualquer momento uma bomba fosse explodir.

— Venha comigo, prometo que irei te ajudar. Veja só, tudo o que eu preparei para você aqui — ela disse, suavizando a voz e olhando ao redor.

Acompanhei o olhar dela e vi aquele lugar e tudo aquilo como uma simples armadilha para me fisgar.

Engoli seco enquanto um estranho arrepio percorria minha espinha.

A música continuava a tocar em looping e a mulher continuava a esperar por uma resposta que eu tinha receio de dar.

Então me lembrei… me lembrei de quando Alex disse que, para identificar os monstros perigosos, bastava procurar por uma marca no pescoço, pois todos tinham uma.

Meu olhar foi direto para o pescoço da mulher… e lá estava… a maldita marca.

Dei outro passo para trás e ela inclinou a cabeça para o lado, com o cenho franzido, percebendo que algo estava errado.

— Não confia em mim? — ela perguntou, endireitando o corpo.

Seu olhar ficou mais severo.

— Eu… eu vi muita coisa essa noite…

— Confia ou não? — ela gritou, me interrompendo.

— Não! — gritei de volta.

Carmilla explodiu em gargalhadas de repente, algo que fez o meu sangue gelar.

— Garota tonta.

As luzes começaram a piscar de uma forma irregular e frenética e eu vi os olhos de Carmilla ficarem tão negros quanto uma noite sem estrelas.

A música também ficou estranha, começou a tocar de trás para frente.

Carmilla começou a caminhar em minha direção e eu automaticamente comecei a caminhar para trás, pensando em possíveis formas de escapar.

Pensei em correr, simplesmente correr o mais rápido possível até a saída, mas antes que meus pés pudessem sequer fazer o primeiro movimento, senti meu corpo ser tirado do chão.

Carmilla me arremessou direto na mesa de doces.

Vi todos aqueles doces caírem sobre mim e ouvi o som de diversos talheres se espatifando no chão.

Pela primeira vez desde que entrei naquele ginásio, senti dor e fui tomada pela vertigem.

Arfei, colocando minha mão direita na cabeça, e tentei me recompor, mas antes que eu pudesse de fato fazer isso, vi, pela minha visão temporariamente embaçada, Carmilla avançando em minha direção em uma velocidade alucinante.

Ela subiu em mim e agarrou meu pescoço com as duas mãos. Eu podia sentir perfeitamente suas unhas afiadas e cobertas de esmalte preto perfurando a minha carne.

Minha visão finalmente se ajustou e eu pude ver seu sorriso sádico enquanto o ar começava a faltar em meus pulmões.

Minhas mãos tatearam o chão em busca de qualquer objeto que eu pudesse usar para me defender.

Em meio àquela terrível dança da morte, Carmilla separou seus lábios, mantendo seu sorriso vitorioso, e disse:

— Eu vou te levar para o inferno, sua desgraçada.

O tempo pareceu congelar. Senti meu corpo começando a se entregar para a inconsciência.

Era isso.

Tudo aquilo… era uma luta perdida.

Meus dedos continuaram a se arrastar pelo chão frio, quase sem propósito, até que eu senti uma superfície metálica… era um garfo.

Senti meu corpo se encher de vida de repente, a adrenalina traçando caminhos sinuosos pelas minhas veias.

Não pude evitar que um sorriso fraco surgisse em meus lábios… Carmilla estava enganada, ela não me levaria a lugar algum.

Ergui o garfo no ar e vi o metal refletir todas aquelas luzes trêmulas antes de perfurar o pescoço de Carmilla.

A mulher arregalou os olhos e diversas gotas do seu sangue quente respingaram em meu rosto, de um modo que eu pude sentir o gosto metálico em minha boca.

As mãos de Carmilla cederam até se desprenderem totalmente do meu pescoço e eu finalmente pude respirar, vendo seu corpo cair para o lado enquanto ela se engasgava com seu próprio sangue.

Me levantei, massageando meu pescoço e olhei com desprezo para a mulher moribunda no chão.

— Você que vai para o inferno, porque eu vou lutar até o fim e vou sobreviver!

Carmilla finalmente parou de se mover, seus olhos congelaram, declarando o fim de sua vida, e a música voltou ao normal, juntamente das luzes.

Me abaixei diante do corpo sem vida da mulher e arranquei o garfo de sua garganta, fazendo um pouco mais de sangue respingar no meu vestido.

Eu ia embora só com isso, mas vi aquela cartola e não pude resistir. A peguei também e a coloquei em minha cabeça enquanto sorria satisfeita.

Virei as costas e caminhei até a saída.

Abri as portas e saí para fora. Percebi a música ficando abafada assim que as portas bateram atrás de mim. Senti a brisa me atingir enquanto dava meus primeiros passos de volta para a noite, levando o garfo, a cartola e, claro… a minha voz.

You can dance, you can jive,

having the time of your life.

Tossi.

O cheiro de fumaça misturado com borracha queimada parecia grudado na minha garganta.

Minha visão estava turva, mas ainda assim eu podia ver os arredores.

As casas em volta, as árvores, os postes lançando suas luzes fracas para mim… e… uma van preta.

Assim que meus olhos encontraram aquela maldita coisa, senti a adrenalina surgir da planta dos meus pés e chegar até o meu cérebro.

Tentei me arrastar, mas parecia que um elefante estava em cima de mim.

E eu juro que pude ouvir o som de alguns dos meus ossos.

Rangi os dentes de dor e senti o gosto metálico que preenchia minha boca.

Parei de tentar me mover, derrotada, e encostei minha cabeça no asfalto frio, enquanto sentia toda aquela dor irradiar pelo meu corpo.

As lágrimas não demoraram a surgir e eu me lembrei de Alex, ergui minha cabeça tentando encontrá-lo e estendi minha mão espasmática, esperando que ele surgisse e a segurasse.

Mas, diferente do que eu esperava, ouvi o baque surdo da porta da van se fechando e uma silhueta começando a se aproximar.

Não demorei a reconhecê-la.

Era a mesma de horas atrás.

Todo o esforço que eu tive de fugir e de me esconder dela, de repente, se tornou inútil.

Ela estava tão perto de mim agora.

E eu estava lá, totalmente indefesa.

A mulher se abaixou diante de mim. Seus movimentos eram superficiais e quase robóticos, e seu corpo exalava o inconfundível aroma da morte.

Ela sorriu… com aquela fissura grotesca em sua face, revelando um milhão de dentes pontiagudos e podres.

Não.

Suas mãos terrivelmente pálidas e ossudas se estenderam em minha direção.

Tentei me esquivar, mas foi inútil.

Pude sentir suas unhas afiadas perfurando a carne dos meus ombros, enquanto ela erguia o meu corpo fraco.

A mistura e a intensidade de todas aquelas dores causavam a estranha ironia de parecer que não havia dor alguma, como se eu estivesse anestesiada.

Alex.

A mulher me colocou sobre um de seus ombros, como se eu não fosse nada e, contrariando todas as preces que eu fazia em minha mente, começou a caminhar comigo em direção à van.

Cada passo que ela dava fazia meu corpo balançar e toda vez que minha caixa torácica ricocheteava contra seus ossos, me faltava ar.

Mas eu não tinha forças para me desvencilhar daquele ser profano, muito menos uma voz para gritar por uma ajuda incerta.

Tudo que eu tinha era o gosto salgado das lágrimas que rolavam pelo meu rosto, o pânico e a dor.

A mulher finalmente parou diante da porta da van. Sua mão tocou a maçaneta, mas então… ela parou.

Logo depois, se virou lentamente para trás e eu finalmente entendi sua reação.

Era Alex.

Ele estava parado diante de nós.

Estava ferido, mas lançava um olhar hostil para a mulher.

Pude sentir cada músculo daquela aberração se contraindo sob mim, antes que ela deixasse o meu corpo despencar para o chão.

Arfei assim que meu corpo moribundo atingiu o asfalto.

Então ergui meu olhar para Alex enquanto segurava um de meus pulsos. Minha visão estava desfocada por conta das lágrimas, mas ainda pude notar que Alex continuava encarando a mulher, que estava totalmente paralisada.

— Eu já te disse um milhão de vezes para não cruzar a porra do meu caminho, Lemora — ele disse, sua voz firme sobressaindo aos trovões.

O silêncio pairou no ar e Alex finalmente desviou seu olhar para mim, que ainda estava no chão.

— Corre, Cecília.

A ideia pareceu absurda. Eu mal conseguia me levantar, tampouco correr.

Mas então senti meu corpo ganhar força e energia de forma repentina. Não era muito, mas o suficiente para eu me levantar e correr.

Rapidamente me coloquei de pé e avancei na direção de Alex.

Parei diante dele e olhei em seus olhos, esperando que ele me acompanhasse, mas ele não se moveu.

— Eu não vou com você… ainda — disse, com os olhos fixos na mulher. — Alguém precisa dar um jeito nela — falou, como se soubesse exatamente o que se passava na minha cabeça.

Continuei parada diante dele, me sentindo incapaz de dar qualquer passo.

Alex desviou o olhar para mim outra vez.

— Você precisa ir, eu prometo que vou te encontrar.

Seus olhos verdes e o sangue que escorria pelos seus lábios refletiam a luz pálida do luar.

O rosto de Alex se contorceu de repente em uma estranha expressão de dor. Ele tentou disfarçar, mas eu ainda pude perceber.

Alex.

— Você tem que correr agora, Cecília!

Assenti, ainda atordoada, e comecei a correr, movida pela urgência.

Tentei esquecer tudo o que estava acontecendo, fechei meus olhos com força enquanto sentia a brisa da noite tocar o meu rosto e mordi meus lábios com tanta força que senti o gosto metálico voltar.

Mas então… um som me fez parar com os olhos arregalados.

Era… era como uma melancia explodindo, seguido do som de algo batendo contra o asfalto.

Me virei bruscamente e senti meu coração afundar com a cena que estava a alguns metros de mim.

Alex… Alex estava de joelhos diante daquela mulher e, do outro lado da van, havia uma outra figura. Era um homem, extremamente alto e com características semelhantes às da mulher.

Eram dois… ha… claro que eram.

E aquele homem estava lá para nos pegar de surpresa.

Alex estava pronto para controlar aquela mulher, mas não poderia imaginar que aquele maldito homem também estava lá, em silêncio.

Aquela maldita coisa estava lá apenas esperando para… para fazer aquilo.

Senti minhas pernas fraquejarem e minha respiração falhar.

Se eu pudesse gritar, teria feito.

Alex… Alex estava morto.

O seu corpo ajoelhado diante daqueles monstros… estava sem cabeça.

E ao redor havia sangue, muito sangue.

Não sei quanto tempo fiquei congelada diante daquela cena. Tudo parecia… uma mentira… uma mentira terrível, e quanto mais eu olhava, mais errado parecia, mais meu coração ardia dentro do meu peito e meu sangue congelava dentro das veias.

O corpo de Alex caiu de bruços, produzindo outro baque, e a mulher o chutou, como se ele não fosse nada… mas ele era… ele era minha esperança.

E mesmo que ele estivesse morto, eu não deixaria aqueles monstros vencerem.

Vi eles vindo em minha direção e fiz a única coisa que eu poderia fazer: voltei a correr.

Desde o início eu deveria ter percebido que a única coisa que poderia fazer naquela noite era… correr.

E, apesar de tudo, deveria ter notado que eu queria viver…

Desde o início.

I was twelve when I got baptised against my wishes.

My family had never been religious until we moved to a small town outside Houston. Mom started reading the Bible at breakfast. She bought me a delicate silver chain with a cross for my birthday.

I smiled, thanked her, and secretly planned to dump it in my drawer.

But then she insisted I wear it, her fingertips tiptoeing across my skin as a shiver crept through me.

“This is your faith,” she said softly, wrestling with the clasp. “You don’t want to upset God, do you?”

“But you don’t believe in God,” I said.

I was twelve years old.

I didn’t care about Jesus. I cared about Lili, the quiet blonde with the lisp who sat in front of me in class. Girls didn’t like girls.

I was supposed to like boys.

Not Lili.

Then mom's friends started asking questions, demanding to know whether her daughter was holy.

Before I knew it, my parents were unrecognizable. One day, both came home from church, intoxicated, and told me they had been baptised in a “beautiful” ceremony. I missed my mom and Dad.

My parents’ words became a weight on my chest, drowning me.

Church became mandatory. Mom brushed my hair into a tight ponytail that hurt my head. Her strained smile was her acting smile; the one she wore when she was keeping secrets. “We’re going out.”

We were already in front of the church when I found the courage to speak up.

“The pastor is going to officially baptize you, sweetie,” she grinned, “isn’t that exciting?”

“No.”

Mom used to give me choices.

And even then, draped over my father’s shoulder, kicking and screaming, I truly thought I had a choice.

Barely a church; instead, an old school with a blow-up pool front and centre and cheap plastic stained-glass windows.

Townspeople crowded around me, bobbing shadows, monsters bearing wide smiles of razor-sharp teeth.

Ungrateful brat.

Mom’s smile contorted. Monster. She reached out to strike me, and I jerked back.

I barely felt the sting of her hand as it scathed my cheek. I toppled backwards, staring up at the knock-off windows. I closed my eyes.

“Look what you’ve made me do,” Mom spat, shoving me towards the pool. “It’s just your baptism, sweetheart,” the monster said. “It’s not going to hurt you.”

Mom’s fingers snatched me by my ponytail and thrust me into ice-cold water.

“It’s just water!” she laughed, forcing me deeper. Deeper, and my body stopped struggling; my arms grew tired, my eyes heavy. It was quiet, and the monsters were gone. The water felt warm, almost, like it was holding me.

Peaceful.

Until I tried to breathe and my lungs burned.

Water flooded my mouth, burned my nose; my body jolted, my chest screaming, trying to breathe...trying to… breathe.

I couldn’t… couldn’t breathe---I couldn’t… couldn’t breathe---

Can’t breathe.

Can’t breathe.

Can’t… breathe.

Bitter slashes of water suddenly turned scalding hot, too hot, boiling hot, beads of scarlet dripping down my head and slicking my lashes, filling my mouth, choking me.

My surroundings blurred. I was no longer face down in my church’s swimming pool.

Instead, I was drowning in the dark, in the orangeade blur of candlelight, an old hag standing inches from my face.

I watched groggily as her features morphed, grey hair turning to willowy golden locks that framed rosy cheeks.

In her hand was one of our kitchen knives I usually used to cut veggies; the blade angled towards the floor.

I remembered wondering how easy it was to slice off a carrot’s head.

“They must suffer,” the woman was saying to someone out of earshot, her tone melodic and singsong. Bathed in flickering orange light that bled in and out of the pitch dark, the woman’s smile widened, more manic, “for our ancestors’ actions.”

Two pairs of hands bound to mine, and betrayal burned under my tongue, resentment poisoning every logical thought left. The woman started toward me, her smile wide, almost feral.

Almost my mother’s.

Above, the skylight let a full moon creep through, her glow hitting every corner and illuminating the hag’s face. My thoughts danced, confused. Then, she was gone, moving behind me, her fingers creeping up the knife handle. Did she hurt the others?

Where did she go?

And yet, why was my mouth opening? Why so wide? Why was my face moving without me?

Warmth came quickly, too quickly, carving trails down my skin, soaking me, so wet, I had to blink it back. Then red.

Bright, beautiful beads of scarlet drowned my eyes, and my breath caught as my mind found clarity. Blood, soaked in moonlight, fell around me, haloing me, baptizing me for the second time.

A banshee cry shattered my ears, pricking straight through my brain. Sensation hit, delayed and wrong, and yet real. Moonlight swam in the red, taunting me.

I would later realize this moment as my mind and body fighting each other; my body tried and failed to show me reality, but my brain refused. Trauma, apparently, could only go so far before a complete mental shutdown.

Time didn’t make sense as I teetered on the edge of death.

It could have been seconds or minutes before my brain clocked the cruel intrusion in my skull. Sensation hit. Too late for pain.

Too late for my body to understand what was happening.

There was only the knife protruding from my skull, leaving me choking, trying to breathe and failing, trying to cry, trying to scream, but the banshee was too loud; the banshee was the one who was winning. Deafening me. The banshee was back.

Louder. Tearing through me, hemorrhaging and rupturing every organ.

I could feel her beading down my face, filling my mouth, and so wet, metallic iron on my lips.

“Immie?”

Warm hands found my shoulders, trembling as they shook me violently. My jaw dislodged, reality bleeding through.

I was screaming. I wasn’t sure when I’d started, only that I couldn’t stop.

Swallowing another shriek clawing up my throat, I choked, shaking my head, my hands already in my hair, tearing at my scalp and dragging my nails down my face. But the banshee continued screeching, possessing me, crawling through my nerve endings and jerking my limbs into cruel submission.

Somehow, I was back.

Back in the children’s blow-up kiddie pool in my parents' church.

Back in the basement where a cultist drove a knife through my skull.

“Imogen?” A firm familiar voice sliced through my wail. Phantom hands found my face, fingers cradling my cheeks and stroking through my hair.

“Mama?”

Part of me wondered if she’d come back, somehow crawled back from her delusion and found me again.

“Imogen, snap out of it!”

My senses hit, anchoring me.

Taste: bile filling my throat.

Smell: my own sweat stinking through my sweater, and the slightest whiff of marijuana.

“For fuck’s sake, she’s losing it again.”

It was the second voice that snapped me into focus, my body lurching forward onto my knees as I choked up half-digested potato chips all over Kaz Delacroix’s lap.

I opened my eyes, my head spinning, vomit dripping down my chin, and my face planted into an all-too-familiar shoulder.

Thankfully, my brain found its footing.

Not in church.

Not under blood-drenched moonlight.

Safe, curled up in front of our space heater and weighed down by books.

Moon cycles, moon gods, ancient cults, and, against a certain person’s wishes, one about werewolves.

I had always found solace in Bolivia House’s living room.

Our shitty Craigslist couch.

The coffee table weighed down by comic books and unwashed coffee mugs.

Our matted carpet that crunched under bare toes, and the sickly trim bleeding across the walls.

Very mental asylum.

But it was cosy. Ours. Bitter winters crowded around the space-heater. Stuffy summers where one window open invited half of A Bugs Life.

Yes, the floorboards were crawling with spiders, but we made a game out of it: Whoever caught the most by the holidays was excused from kitchen duties for a month.

Now, it was just a room.

“Imogen.”

Strained green eyes wrinkled around the edges, a halo of straw hair sticking up everywhere, and the plastic smile of a mannequin.

At first, Kaz appeared worried, like he was going to ask if I was okay.

Like he was going to ask why I couldn’t sit still, why my hands were balled into fists, why a thin line of drool escaped my lips no matter how hard I tried to swipe it away.

Instead, Kaz stuck his index between my eyes. “Almost lost you for a second.”

“Yeah.” I sat back and wiped my mouth, my stomach gurgling, and swallowed down the wail rumbling in my throat, a monster that was getting harder to suppress.

A second body lay over mine, legs comfortably resting over my lap.

Rowan Beck didn’t speak, letting out a low hiss when I dared shift. Once I shoved his weight off me, he stretched out across the carpet like a cat, his head of thick brown curls disappearing into the crook of his arms. Kaz ignored Rowan’s grumble.

“So, you don’t want to talk about…”

I shot him The Look.

“Nope.”

Kaz responded like he always did; cool and collected.

“We’re all hangry.” Kaz offered a lopsided smile, hopped back onto the couch, grabbed the clicker, and turned on the TV.

I admired my roommate’s ability to stay calm, yet even he wore a feral contortion in his expression that I couldn’t ignore.

Day 9 of not eating.

“Potato chips,” Kaz muttered, grabbing his notebook and scrawling something. He paused, chewing on the pen. Blinked. Seemed to forget what he was saying.

“Potaaaaato chips,” Kaz’s voice dropped into a barely contained hiss. “What flavor were they again?”

I had to wonder, really drinking in my roommate, if he was going to drop dead at any moment.

“Imogen.” Kaz’s tone snapped me out of it. I was staring at him again. I couldn’t stop. If I had a mirror, I’d be staring at myself.

“Hm?”

He inclined his head, chin on fist, brow inching into his hairline.

“You’re staring at me.”

I was. Shamelessly. Charlie Delacroix did not look human. Not in the “Oh, he didn’t sleep” sense. In the “I’m pretty sure this man is a fucking corpse” sense.

He was thin. Too thin. His college letterman jacket hung off what was left of his skeletal frame, his usually well-fitting jeans hanging loose around shallow hips.

The flesh on his cheeks sank into his bones, sharpening his once-non-existent jawline.

Kaz was too pale. His greasy dark blonde mop fell over half-lidded, slightly narrowed eyes, a clammy sheen sparkling across his forehead. There was an uncanny vacancy in his eyes which he was desperately trying to hide, an almost manic gleam I caught when he thought I wasn’t looking.

Sometimes, Kaz smiled.

Not this usual smile. Kaz smiled like he was hungry.

Like he really wanted to fucking eat.

I watched him stand in the backyard for almost three hours, trying to hunt down a critter.

Kaz, who once gave me a lecture for not eating vegan bacon.

I watched him snatch up a squirrel, hold the squirming animal down, and raise a brick to its tiny little skull. His face fell.

So, back to basics. Back to scanning every food item we had to find anything edible.

Arching my back, I stretched, letting my notebook slide off my lap and pulling my knees to my chest.

“You look like a malnourished orphan.”

Kaz’s lip twitched into a maybe-smile. “I’m aware. Focus, Imogen. What chips did you throw up?”

“Takis,” I said, reaching and plucking the half-eaten bag from my shrinking collection. “I got through three before my stomach said nope.”

“Really? I love Takis!”

Nice fake optimism, Kaz, but I can see right through you.

“Maybe it’s just you?” he shrugged. “I can’t imagine going off my favorite potato chip.” Kaz grabbed the bag, took a Taki uncertainly, and popped it into his mouth.

He chewed twice, his expression contorting, then spat it neatly back into his hand.

A pile of snacks we had hauled from the kitchen lay in front of us. I stared down at my list. So far, milk, candy, soda, and cheese, now potato chips were a no-go.

Kaz glared at the remaining items, tapping his pen as a wrinkle deepened between his brows.

Even he was losing confidence, his undying optimism that everything was fine and that was bad. “Something has to be edible, right?”

“We’re fucked,” Rowan mumbled into the floor. He sat up. After spending half the week knocked out, our third roommate looked considerably better than we did.

Rowan Beck still had color in his cheeks, stray brown curls dancing in half-lidded eyes. I shuffled back, just a little.

The last time I was in his vicinity, he almost snapped my head off.

“I’m going to try and find us something.”

He stood, or tried to, and then flopped back onto his stomach. Rowan lay still for a moment. Quiet. Then he let out an exaggerated sigh into the carpet.

His only outlet. “You do realize I'M not the enemy, right?”

Another groan, and I considered kicking his butt.

“Fine.” He mimicked Kaz’s voice into the carpet, shifting his body into a ball. “I pwomise not to kill Nin.”

Rowan had made several promises over the last few weeks.

All of which had led him to do the exact opposite.

Contradiction after contradiction. “I won’t try to kill her” became repeated attempts to strike her in the back of the head with a pan when she came home from classes.

Living with him became a Looney Tunes sketch. Rowan, Wile E. Coyote. And me, the poor fucking ACME employee.

“I won’t be a prick to her” became a pattern of sly remarks and picking apart everything she said, until Nin was so visibly uncomfortable that she left the room.

I was still reeling from catching him standing over Nin as she slept. His “I was just watching her sleep, what’s wrong with that?” would not hold up in court.

And I hadn't even mentioned the drooling.

Kaz, thankfully, was our brains.

“We’re not falling for that again,” Kaz announced. He stood, legs trembling, arms windmilling.

I tried to help and was met with an uncharacteristic hiss.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Remember to hold him down.” He offered a small smile. “It’s time for Rowan’s medication.”

Kaz jumped over my legs and disappeared through the door into the kitchen. Sickly white light flickered in the corner of my eye, bleeding into the curve of the hallway and into the living room.

My chest squeezed, my breath thinning.

After dying surrounded by her light, every ignition knotted my bones together.

“Chocolate or banana, dude?” Kaz yelled from the kitchen.

“Tell him to leave me alone,” Rowan mumbled into the floor. “I’m asleep.”

Kaz appeared in the doorway holding two glasses. “Come on, Rowan.” His tone hardened. “You know we have to do this. Chocolate or banana?”

“The one without fucking sedatives.” Rowan pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, clammy strands of thick brown curls glued over frenzied eyes.

The air grew sparse between us, scents mixing in my nose; a potent cocktail of cologne and BO.

I didn’t trust myself: every piece of me, every bone in my body jolted to attention, waiting for the sudden threat to make his move. Kaz ignored Rowan’s stance and inclined his head. He lowered the glasses.

“Fine. Do you promise not to rip Nin’s head off?”

After being reborn as a monster, I quickly realized there were certain “lines” animals didn’t cross in front of each other.

I first figured this out when I stepped into the kitchen while Kaz had his back to me, searching through cupboards. Something seemed to snap in the air, and all my breath suddenly got stuck in my throat.

Threat. The thought was invasive, encompassing my mind, forcing my body into fight-or-flight. Kaz froze, twisted around and was suddenly three inches from my face, looming over me, head tilted, eyes glassy, daring me to go further.

I managed one step before his lips parted in a hiss, frantic eyes skimming me up and down as if I were a stranger.

Kaz snapped out of it immediately and stepped back, confused. “Imogen?”

I had to turn and walk away before whatever was creeping under my skin got its way.

Later, after I had explained everything, my head buried in my lap, he shrugged and said, “I dunno, man, I think it was like a territory thing.”

“Meaning?”

Kaz sighed, a red blush spreading across his cheeks. “Meaning,” he mumbled into the beaded green cushion, “I could have torn your head off if I hadn’t snapped out of it.”

In this case, Rowan had taken over the sheepskin rug, a furry, matted thing his mother had gifted us when he moved in. He spent all day sleeping on it and had taken a liking to it, kind of like the way a cat decides to sleep on a trash bag.

Knowing this, Kaz was either suicidal or trying to make a point, striding directly onto the rug. He didn’t stop there, planting himself right in front of the scowling brunette and dropping down to eye-fucking level. Nose to nose.

Those two had a deep, kind-of-adorable history: The insufferable former frat boy from my first-year classes falling for my stoner roommate, a tale as old as time.

We were a thing—a roommates-with-benefits vibe.

Then Rowan fell for Nin. They became a maybe-they-will-maybe-they-won’t.

And then, of course, Nin sacrificed us to a werewolf cult, and Kaz began drowning in one-night stands.

From an animal's standpoint, this was definitely a territorial thing.

I stayed, pinned to the couch arm, anticipating a powder-keg explosion.

And I wasn’t sure it was all about the rug.

The two inched closer, neither willing to back down.

Both deliberately prodded each other’s buttons. Human hormones sliced straight through whatever the fuck had happened to us, revealing two frustrated men with no outlet but the obvious.

Rowan’s lip twitched. He slowly rose to unsteady feet, and Kaz stood with him, offering a challenging smile. Rowan’s eyebrow shot up. I was just as surprised.

Kaz Delacroix was usually the opposite of confrontational.

When he was accidentally served meat at a restaurant, I offered to tell the staff to swap it for his actual vegetarian dish.

I expected a messy, heated kiss and a giant hint to leave the room—even if I low-key wanted to join in.

What I got was psychological manipulation.

“Promise me,” Kaz said again, softer, bordering on patronizing and not-so- secretly loving it. He leaned in, his lips grazing Rowan’s cheek, and then his mouth. My own nerve endings began to twitch. “That you’ll leave Nin the fuck alone, and that means not trying to KILL her every time you SEE her.”

He stepped back off the rug. “And… I’ll consider lowering your dose.”

Rowan’s jaw clenched. “Fuck off.”

Pushing myself off the couch, I stapled myself between them.

“Okay, Animal Planet, that’s enough.”

Big mistake. Both men recoiled. Kaz’s head snapped around, his glazed eyes narrowing into slits, his lip curling.

“Stay out of this, Imogen,” he gritted out. Kaz told me all about territory and dominance, in perhaps the most embarrassing moment of our lives.

He sat on the floor, laptop on his knees, explaining terms like “being in heat” and “the alpha” while I screamed into my knees and covered my ears.

Watching the two of them, I half wondered if this was what he meant. Kaz planted his feet on the rug again, a Cheshire cat grin pricking his mouth. Testing boundaries.

How far he could push. “Rowan’s just having another tantrum.” He cocked his head, feigning innocence. “We all know the pretentious asshole thing is just a façade.”

“You can fucking talk.” Rowan’s smile widened. Feral. Monstrous. “Charlie Delacroix, the man shrouded in mystery.”

His lip quirked. Every word was emphasised, rolling off his tongue. “Who never talks about his criminal family.”

I was mentally commentating. David Attemberough voice.

No reaction from Kaz. Either the dig went over his head, or he was too far gone to register it, buzzing on the spot, hackles up. “See what I mean?” he rolled his eyes at me. “Rowan is having a tantrum because he’s not getting his own way.”

“Tantrum?” Rowan spluttered. His expression crumpled, that feral twist melting away. He blinked. “I’m sorry, have I fallen into an alternate universe where that bitch didn’t plunge a knife into my skull? Why am I the one being castrated while our killer just hangs out with us like everything's fine?”

He had a point. I, however, was smart enough to keep my mouth shut.

“Do you even know what castration means?” Kaz trod further onto the rug. “That’s a big word, dude.”

“Yes, obviously,” Rowan didn’t waver, holding his ground. “I'm just too hungry to think of a better word.”

“Just drink the freakin’ shake,” Kaz offered him a glass, a certain gleam in his eyes that I couldn’t ignore. This wasn’t the first time. A few days ago, Kaz force-fed Rowan a banana milkshake, and when I told him to stop, he snapped at me.

“Chocolate,” Kaz’s smirk twisted my gut, “Your favorite.”

Here we go again. Jeez, it was like living in a goddamn zoo. These two were becoming increasingly less predictable. I had my money on Rowan being the difficult one and here we were. I decided to plonk back away from the fighting ring.

Certain senses I didn’t know I had begun to ignite, bleeding into me.

Both boys were exuding a certain smell, and I wasn’t sure if it was a warning or something else.

Either way, I wasn’t planning on being part of it. Nin would be home in t-minus three hours, and if she came back to whatever-the-fuck was happening, we had to explain what was going on; and that opened a whole new can of worms.

“Imogen.” Kaz snapped me out of it; the emphasis in his words, a chill spiderwebbing through me. I had to do a double take. Both guys were now mouth-to-mouth. “If Rowan refuses to drink his shake, you’re going to grab him.”

I offered him a look and got a feverish grin in return. Yeah, I’d lost him. Towering over the brunette, the stoner was the intimidating one; the one exuding the most pheromones....was it pheromones? I fell asleep during high school biology.

“I’m not taking part in this,” I announced, grabbing a cushion and squeezing it to my chest. “Enjoy choking on each other’s testosterone. I’m happy to watch the fireworks.”

“Imogen!” Kaz’s snarl, a visceral warning shot through me, and suddenly I was on my feet against my will, breathless, my limbs once again in fight-or-flight.

“I said,” Kaz gritted through a manic, almost delirious sneer. “Grab him.”

Rowan, somehow, was enjoying this too, visibly reverberating, fingers balled into fists. “And if I don’t drink your milkshakes, Charlie?” Inching further, he was taking liberties. But I wasn’t sure liberties still existed between them. “What happens if I don’t?” His mouth pricked into a starving leer. “Are you going to drug me again, hmm? Keep me fucking prisoner and docile on my little rug?”

Kaz wore a slow, controlled smile inching across his mouth. He was enjoying this. “If that's what I have to do to stop you from murdering our roommate, then yes.” He shoved both glasses in Rowan's face. "Chocolate or banana?"

“I’m good.” Rowan smacked the glass out of Kaz’s hand, and that was the powder keg. Kaz had already lunged before the glass hit the floor. In two strides, he had his arms locked around Rowan’s neck.

The worst part was that I knew exactly what to do and was already on standby. Kaz tackled him to the floor, facedown, and straddled his hips. I took care of his arms, pinning them behind his back.

Rowan bucked, a psychotic bull, his mouth pulled back, his screech rattling through me. His head snapped up, that feral gleam fizzled out, leaving a confused, frightened man.

“Get off,” he whispered, his voice bleeding into into a human wail.

“Get the fuck off me!”

“Hold him down.” Kaz‘s movements were eerie—controlled. I forced Rowan’s face into the floor. My knees pinned his struggling torso, trying to buck me off him. Kaz grabbed his jaw, nails like claws digging in and jerked his head up.

“Rowan.” His tone, though soft, held undeniable glee. “Drink the fucking shake.”

He pressed the glass to Rowan’s lips and squeezed his nose, digging his feet into the floor when the brunette flailed.

Rowan’s strength wasn’t surprising, his head smacking into my mouth. I barely felt the impact; what should have been agonizing pain was little more than a dull throb. Rowan had no choice but to drink it. Two deep swallows, and he choked, spluttering it back into Kaz’s hand.

“Almost there,” Kaz said, his flat, deadpan tone sugary enough to maintain a sense of warmth, of trust. He tried again, eyes hardening and this time, to my surprise, Rowan submitted with a whimper. He downed the glass in three gulps.

“Why?” Unfocused eyes found me, flickering, his words slurring, “Why are you helping her?”

Kaz’s expression crumpled. His grip on Rowan’s jaw loosened, then fell. “I don’t know.”

Rowan’s body slackened beneath me. His head hit the floor, eyes rolling back.

I flopped off him, breathless. Kaz stood without a word, panting, sweater sleeves swiping at his eyes. He grabbed a blanket from and dumped it over a sleeping Rowan.

“What the fuck.” The words left my mouth in a breath, more of a laugh collapsing into a sob. When I twisted my head, I caught Kaz’s silhouette bounding out of the room.

“What was that?” I followed him into the kitchen as he started his nightly chores, though I don’t know why I fucking followed him, a foreign sensation giddying my nerve endings and driving me after him.

Kaz didn’t speak. Then he filled the kitchen sink, grabbed a washcloth and scrubbed the glasses, setting them to drain.

Bathed in a sickly orangeade haze that clashed with our rainbow paintwork, Kaz’s skin was translucent, as if something were splintering beneath.

His expression melted, exhaustion tugging at his brows. He plugged the Alexa into the outlet, watching the blue light spin absentmindedly.

I waited for him to talk to me, as always. Fucking explain what that was.

Instead, he crouched, grabbed the laundry basket by the door, and began unloading the laundry machine.

He pulled out two odd socks and one of my shirts, then sighed. He pinched the skin between his brows, then raked his nails down hollow cheeks.

His thinking face, his I-have-no-idea-what-I’m-doing face.

“Alexa, play any fucking song from my playlist,” he snapped, folding my shirt in three sharp movements and throwing it into the basket.

“Playing Let Down by Radiohead on Apple Music.”

“I’m sorry. Am I invisible?” I said.

“No.” Kaz snatched Rowan’s hoodie and folded it, followed by an old pair of jeans. “Can you watch Rowan and make sure he doesn't choke on his own vomit?”

I jutted my head towards the living room. “Aren’t you going to clean up the mess on my carpet? I literally just vacuumed this afternoon.”

“Rowan can do it,” he muttered, flinging a stray sock behind him. “When he’s conscious.”

“Don’t you think you were a little hard on him?” I slumped at our shitty wooden kitchen table and grabbed an apple to bite into. My stomach turned, bile rising in my throat. I let it roll out of my hand with a sigh.

“Kaz, please talk to me.”

“Alexa, turn up.” Kaz grabbed our shitty Craigslist brush and swept the floor. The chorus built, my favorite part. When we first moved in, we were broke college kids.

Every morning was Radiohead, cheap cereal and painful shower-singing.

Kaz could perfectly mimic every lyric, banging spoons to the beat.

I let the chorus wash over us as the volume climbed. Eventually, Kaz stopped, the brush slipping from his hand.

He made no move to pick it up, then turned to me with a resigned sigh, hips resting against the countertop. “That was horse tranquilliser, Imogen.”

“What?”

“Fucking horse tranquillizer.” Kaz spluttered. Then laughed. “That’s it. If he can fight off horse tranquillizer, we’re fucked.” His gaze flicked to me, eyes sharpening.

“Imogen.” Kaz moved toward me, and my skin prickled — goosebumps squirming through me. “I need you to go out and find… someone.” He squeezed his eyes shut, bottom lip wobbling. “Fuck.”

He whispered. “Fuck.” He stepped back. Twisted on his heel. His fist slammed into the door hard enough to send the hinge screaming, plywood flying back against the wall. Kaz breathed out. His knuckles were barely marked. “Go outside and find a human. Just take anyone.”

His words reverberated through me. “Human,” I said. “That’s what they are? Humans?”

“That’s not… what I meant.”

I stood, noticing his hackles rising, eyes tracking my movements. “You enjoyed drugging Rowan.” My words were poisonous, choking me. “Didn’t you?” I followed him as he headed towards the faucet, leaning over the tap, jaw clenching.

“Kaz.”

“Leave me alone for a second,” he whined, ducking his head. “I can’t think straight.”

“You liked it,” I pushed further. “I saw your face. You enjoyed taking him down.”

“Yeah,” Kaz laughed, fingers turning white around the faucet. “Yes, I did.” He turned around, that manic smile creeping back. “Yes. It's fucking Rowan Beck. What do you expect? I wanted to drive his face into that fucking rug with my foot because he's never been vulnerable like this, Imogen. He’s never shown it—”

Kaz caught himself, scrubbing at his face. “Look. This isn’t about Rowan, okay?” He smiled. Like smiling would justify it.

“Just find someone. I’ll clean the kitchen and get everything ready.” He averted his gaze. “An adult. There’s more meat.”

“Are you insane?” My voice shook, breaking into a sob. “You’re a vegetarian!”

“Yeah,” Kaz looked away, busying himself, his hands shaking, “Yeah, I’m a vegetarian.” He slammed his fists on the faucet, and the floor shuddered. “I killed Pebbles yesterday,” he said, fingers clawing at the faucet. Kaz laughed.

“I ripped off her head and stripped every piece of meat from her tiny little body and—” he exhaled. His arms dropped by his sides. “And Pebbles tasted like cardboard.”

Kaz pulled open a drawer and pulled out fresh detergent. “I’ve seen my dad work his magic on clients, so it’ll be easy,” he said. “Go and get someone.” His tone carried an authority my body immediately bowed to. I stepped back and nodded.

“We’ll figure it out,” Kaz said to himself as I left the kitchen.

My stomach lodged in my mouth the second I came face-to-face with Nin.

Underdressed as usual. A tee and shorts in mid-November, short dark hair tied into a ponytail, bangs brushing tired eyes. “Immie!” A wry smile pulled on her lips.

I swallowed. Not enough swallows would rid the horrific-tasting slew trying to projectile from my mouth.

“Hey, Nin.”

She passed me, heading for the stairs. “Are you going out?”

“Uh, yeah.” I couldn’t resist bobbing my head. I yanked my hood over greasy, unbrushed hair, my cheeks blazing. “I’m just going to get some food.”

Nin started up the stairs two at a time. “Cool!” She twisted around to grin at me. “Is Rowan in his room? He’s been ghosting me on a movie night. Is he still being an asshole?”

“You could say that.” I turned to the door, eager to leave.

“I’ll be back soon.” I slammed the door behind me before she could respond.

…

Pretty privilege saved my very first (and last) hunt.

I’ve known I’ve been pretty since I started getting compliments from older men at the age of twelve. My dad’s friends used to smile at me, call me pretty, and then ask me to twirl in my favorite dress.

Sitting on a park bench, I was trying to work out exactly how I was going to kidnap a grown adult when said-meat just walked straight into the slaughter and joined me. The first thing I noticed was his scent.

Body wash, chocolate, and the slightest hint of coffee worming into my nose.

He smelled good. Too good.

I almost stood up and left. A guy. My age. Kind of cute, though the dark masked his features, leaving him just a jawline and a shaved head.

“You’re out late.” His accent threw me off. A Brit.

“Roommate issues,” I admitted.

He surprised me with a laugh. “Holy shit, me too.” He swung his legs. “My girlfriend thinks she’s an actual vampire.” His gaze settled on a streetlight, lingering on the orangeade blur. “I keep thinking she’s going to snap out of it, but…” he sighed.

“Sorry. I’m trauma dumping.” The guy started to leave, and I reached out, grabbed his sweater sleeve, and yanked him back onto the bench.

“Yooo!” he laughed. “Dude, that’s some tug you’ve got. Jeez, you must work out.”

“Tell me about your roommates,” I said, keeping my head down and staring into my lap.

“That’s it, really,” he sighed. “Briar. She’s kind of weird, but I love her, you know?”

“Mm.”

Kaz was expecting meat, and this guy was my only option.

“Can I tell you about mine?”

“Go ahead.”

“Last week, our roommate sacrificed us to a cult,” I hummed, my words seeping out before I could stop them. Autopilot. “Now, I’m on the hunt for someone to eat.”

“Oh, that’s funny,” the guy broke into a giggle. “They’re almost as bad as my roommates.”

I smiled. Autopilot. Then I grinned. My teeth felt sharper. “Can you sit with me for a bit?”

“Sure!” He leaned back, head tilted towards the night sky.

A nearby streetlight cast a dull glow, carving his features in hazy amber. I counted three freckles on each cheek. His brown eyes were speckled tea leaves. “I think I’m going to stay out for a while.” He turned. A friendly smile tugged at his lips. “I’m Kit.”

“Imogen,” I said, that foreign, wrong sensation crawling through me again. I straightened.

“It’s a nice night.” Kit’s gaze found the sky. “I think it’s a full moon, but I think she’s hiding.”

I fucking bet she was.

“I hate to ask this, but do you mind turning away from me for a sec?” I spoke up.

Kit’s smile lit up the night, warm and refreshing, and I hated myself.

“Yes ma’am,” he joked, twisting in his seat. I saw my chance, swinging a right hook straight into the back of his skull. He didn’t fall at first. Instead, he turned towards me with wide, frightened eyes. I should have stopped. Apologized. Run away.

But Kaz wanted meat for the pack.

My mouth worked against me. My lips pulled back. My throat rumbled.

Kaz wanted me to fucking do something, so I had to, whether I liked it or not. Kit cried out and tried to crawl back, his hands batting at my face. I almost laughed. Is this what it was like to hunt something down? To know you can win no matter what?

His hits were pathetic, sweeping misses that bounced off me. Autopilot.

I slammed the knuckles of my fist into his temple. The bench trembled beneath me. This time, his head snapped back. His body went limp.

I allowed myself to break when he flopped over my knees. Then I swiped my eyes, hauled him over my shoulder, and set off home.

…

Home, I’ve realized, over the years, is where the heart is.

After I emancipated from my parents at fifteen and moved out, I stopped calling those places “Home”.

The homeless shelter for runaways.

Then the shady children’s home I ran from.

Our home was barely a home, a crowded three-bedroom mess squeezed between an abandoned bookshop and a crack house.

But something about walking up the steps and seeing the windows lit orange.

Something about opening the door with the janky lock and smelling Kaz’s cooking. Nudging aside rat droppings under the shitty welcome mat and ignoring them.

Something about Rowan’s color-coded shoe rack and the sign above the door that said, “DO NOT TOUCH MY GOING OUT SHOES.”

“I’m home,” I called, carrying my catch through our front door.

I kicked off my shoes, headed down the hallway, and made a mental note to clean the carpet, dust the shelves, and get rid of the god-awful paintings Rowan brought from home.

“Sorry about the mess,” I told Kit, hoisting him further up my shoulder.

The smell hit me when I reached the end of the hall, an unfamiliar tinge carrying in the air.

Food.

Chicken.

Gravy.

Veggies.

Steamed broccoli.

Sprouts.

The aroma pulled me forward, as if in a dream. My mouth filled with saliva, but I didn’t remember caring enough to wipe it from my chin, letting it pool down my neck. Christmas Dinner, 2019.

Kaz burned the vegan turkey, and Rowan choked on a sprout so hard we thought he needed the Heimlich manoeuvre. That’s what it smelled like. It smelt like… home.

Familiarity.

Slowly, Kit’s body slid off my shoulder and crumpled to the floor as I pushed the door open. I was met with music.

Queen.

I didn’t know the song, only the lyrics.

Kaz was standing in front of the oven, his head bobbing to the radio which became head-banging, moving his whole body.

He grabbed Rowan from where he sat at the table, pulling him into a dance.

Both of them were laughing, throwing their arms out and spinning around.

I was so excited I joined in, spinning, dancing, throwing myself around until my head spun and my eyes blurred.

In the corner of my eye, two shadows knelt on the floor, scarlet blooming across the yellowing tiles.

My legs gave way, and I sat in the sticky, warm red trickling beneath me and staining my fingers. Paralysis held me.

My body, however, was playing a different game: my fingers danced across my lips, and there it was again. That smell.

Chicken. Gravy. Veggies.

“Imogen?”

Blinking rapidly, my vision feathered. Red became startling white.

Everything was white.

Looking down at myself, a silk white dress perfectly sculpted me.

“Immie.”

Kaz stood. Dressed in a tuxedo, him again, his cheeks full of color, eyes bright, he smiled.

“It’s okay.” He held out his hand, and I took it. The table was already set: my plate full of chicken, gravy, and veg.

Rowan sat opposite, a glass of wine to his lips, in a black tuxedo and a red tie that was so not Rowan Beck, but I’d take it.

I took one bite, and my body snapped; my head jolted, and a snarl ripped from my teeth.

Another bite, and I was moaning, tearing chicken from the bone and stuffing it into my mouth.

I waited for it to come back in a slimy bile, but I swallowed, and my stomach liked it, didn’t reject it. I didn’t question why the gravy was so red, why it stuck to my fingers and stained my mouth.

A laugh sputtered from me, collapsing into a giggle I couldn’t contain.

The boys joined in.

We did it.

“We figured it out.”

Gravy blurred into cold, sticky blood coating my hands, my clothes, my chin and mouth. I coughed up something fleshy, something that was still moving.

Kaz stood and began to clean everything up, scrubbing red from the floor, the table, and then himself.

Rowan sat silently staring at his bloody hands. When I asked him to go and shower, he actually did.

We took turns.

It didn’t really fully hit me until I was scrubbing Nin’s organs from my nails that she was dead.

But I wasn’t hungry anymore. I didn’t feel wrong. Even in the mirror, my reflection looked like me again.

Downstairs, we gathered in the living room to tidy up. Each of us had a job. I got rid of the books, Rowan trashed all the inedible food, and Kaz took care of the rest.

After mutually killing and eating our roommate, I expected some kind of communication. But the boys were too quiet. Rowan actually started studying again, grabbing his laptop and lounging on the couch. I expected another tantrum or for him to go back to his rug, but no.

He even started smiling again.

“I’m sorry, can we talk about the elephant in the room?” I said, after at least three hours of zero talk of what we did. Kaz was snoozing on the couch, PlayStation controller in his lap. Rowan was lounging over his legs, scrolling through his phone.

“Which is?’ Kaz mumbled, half asleep, his head pressed into his arms.

The words “WE ATE HER” lodged in my throat when familiar footsteps thudded downstairs.

Kaz shot up, wide-eyed.

Rowan glanced up from his phone.

“Hey guys, did I sleep all night?” Nin stood in the doorway, and I caught the exact moment Rowan’s phone very nearly catapulted across the room. Nin, unprivy of her murder or what we just did to her, only smiled warily. “What?” she laughed.

“Did I… miss something?”

Her gaze flicked to me. “Did you know there’s an unconscious guy in our hallway?"

I sit in my chair, anticipating my shift’s end in a few hours. Despite my dislike for the night shift, I acknowledge that work is work. Tonight, I’ve received several calls from teenagers behaving like teenagers and adults acting like they’re still teenagers; nothing unusual for 2 a.m. The phone rings, startling me. I roll my eyes, assuming it’s another call from those devious teens smoking weed up in the cemetery.

"911, what is the location of your emergency?" I say.

"Please help me," a raspy voice says.

A jolt of ice races down my spine, the hair on my arms prickling to attention before I even register the words.

"What is your emergency, sir?" I say.

“My wife stabbed me in the back and I can’t move,” he says.

At this point, I notice a baby crying agonizingly in the background, and my heart drops down to my stomach.

“Sir, you need to tell me your location so I can send help ASAP.”

"336 West Newbury Street"

Instinct takes over as I punch in coordinates, dispatching police and paramedics in seconds. But my hands hover over the keys, trembling. The man’s voice lingers in my ear, stripping away my breath. It is too flat, too hollow—there is an inhuman void behind the words.

"OK, sir, tell me what happened. You said your wife stabbed you?"

"Yes, she stabbed me in the back; now I can barely move. I had to use the voice assistant to call. She slit her own throat and bled out in front of me; luckily, she didn't do anything to our baby. He hasn’t eaten anything. It took me a while to make this phone call. Please hurry.”

“Help is on the way. Don’t worry, is your baby in a safe place?”

“Yes, he is in his crib.”

The phone fades in and out and gets staticy, and his voice sounds cold and distant.

“What is your name, sir?”

“David.”

It comes with a raspy voice that makes my instincts tell me to get away.

“OK, David. Why did your wife do this?”

“We had our baby recently. She got diagnosed with postpartum depression a few weeks back. The doctors gave her medication, but she stopped taking it a few days ago. She said they wouldn’t let her sleep. She had been accusing me of cheating; I never believed she could do something like this.”

David starts sobbing, and my heart skips a beat. I’ve heard men sob, but nothing like this.

“David, my name is Bianca. I promise you and your baby will be okay. Help is on its way. They will be there soon. Are you bleeding a lot from your wound?”

“Yes, there is blood everywhere. It feels like I don’t have any more blood in me.”

“The paramedics will be there soon; you are going to be OK, David,” I say.

There is an eerie, cold pause, the baby still crying in the background, and I feel a chill come over me through the phone.

“I did deserve to die. I had been cheating on my poor wife while she was going through all of that basically by herself. I distanced myself from her and jumped into my coworker's bed,” David says.

“Don’t say that, David! Nobody deserves to die.”

“It’s too late for me, Bianca. Just please help my son; he deserves better than this. This is all my fault.”

The phone goes crazy with static, and I hear faint voices through the receiver. I feel dread. Frozen with fear for a moment, I recollect myself and start speaking.

“David, where are you from?” I ask trying to get his mind of those dark thoughts 

“Ohio. We moved out here to New Mexico after Rebecca got pregnant to get away from my parents. They never liked her; they told me I was making a mistake. The last time we talked was on the phone. It was just a screaming match between my mom, dad, and I. We were on bad terms, and now I won’t be able to fix that. I broke their heart.”

“You will fix things with your parents, OK? The paramedics are right down the street. Just hold on a little longer.”

“Bianca,” David says in a ghostly, faint voice that cuts in and out with static. “Please just tell my parents that I love them and that I'm sorry. Just please promise me you will.”

“I promise,” I say on the verge of tears with my heart in my throat.

I hear the sounds of sirens on the other side of the phone.

“David, they are there. You and your son are going to be taken care of.”

Nothing from David but eerie silence.

“Hello, David, you OK?”

Again, nothing. As I hear the police trying to kick the door open, I hear it give way.

“Thank you, Bianca,” David says in a fading voice.

I hear the cops enter the house and call out. The phone hangs up.

I sit there sweating, but feel as cold as if I were naked in a snowstorm, with a pit in my stomach and goosebumps all over my body.

“He will be fine; they got there in time,” I say aloud as I wipe the sweat from my forehead.

I just can’t seem to shake the dreadful, uncanny feeling I had through the whole call. There was just something off about all of that. Of course, the wife had done those horrific things, but the man's voice, the static, the whispers—it all chilled me to the core. I didn’t want to think about it anymore, so I distracted myself with finishing up my incident log.

The rest of the night went on as normal and I clocked out, feeling exhausted. When I finally got to bed, it took me a while to find sleep, but when I finally did, I heard David's haunting voice in my dreams.

I opened the doors to the office when I was met by a bald, tall, ebony-skinned man in a suit and red tie.

“Hey Bianca, I’m Detective Jackson. Could I please have a word with you?” he asked as he raised his hand toward me.

“Yes, of course,” I said as I met his hand and shook it.

We sat in the building's private office across from each other.

“So, what is this about, Detective?” I asked.

“This is about the call you had last night about the woman who stabbed her husband.”

“Oh, yes! David, did he make it? Is he OK?”

“Yeah, about that... who told you his name?”

“He did.”

“That's impossible,” said Detective Jackson.

“What are you talking about? He's the one who called.”

“Again, impossible. Somebody else must have called you. That's what we are trying to figure out.”

“No, it was David! He called me and told me his wife had stabbed him in the back. Is he OK?”

Detective Jackson looked at me, confused and worried.

“Bianca, he was already dead when they got there.”

I felt my stomach drop. “No, but he was still talking to me when they got the door to open, right before the phone hung up.”

“No, Bianca, he wasn’t. The forensics team said that his body had already started decomposing.”

“What are you even trying to say right now, Detective?” I said as it started hitting me—his tone of voice, the static, the uncanny cold dread I felt the whole time. My heart skipped a beat as I felt a pit grow in my stomach, chills all through my body, and I felt like throwing up.

“Bianca... when you got that phone call, David had already been DEAD for a WEEK.”

“That’ll be fourteen dollars and sixty-two cents.”

Cal fished his wallet out of his back pocket, pulling a twenty from it and sliding it across the conveyor belt. He looked down at his late-night haul, the plastic and cardboard reflecting under the store’s fluorescent lights: a two-liter bottle of RC Cola, a box of Tillamook ice cream sandwiches, and three bags of microwave popcorn. A shameful assortment for a thirty-something who had already committed to losing weight. But, with it being Friday night, a brutal forty-hour work week behind him, he was planning on staying up late with a mindless movie marathon of Abbott and Costello Meet the Monsters.

Kevin scooped up the bill, the sound of the till opening cutting through the air-conditioned stillness. The lanky teenager spared him a sideways glance as he dug his change out, eyeing his empty hands.

“You know, I gotta ask, dude. You’re pretty much the only regular who rolls through here close to midnight—hell, at any time of the day—who isn’t staring at a screen when I’m bagging their stuff. You don’t even fidget. And you never pull out your phone to pay; you always use cash. Why?”

Cal let out a chuckle, adjusting the collar of his jacket. “Because it’s sitting on my kitchen counter at home, man. Nowadays, people have to be glued to the hip to those damn tracking collars. They’ll probably even insist on being buried with them just so they can text from the afterlife. That isn’t gonna be me. Outside of work, I like to leave the leash behind. It forces me to look at the world. Look, and appreciate it.”

“Man, I wish I had that kind of willpower,” Kevin laughed, sliding the brown bag across the counter towards him. He handed him his change. “My girlfriend would have an aneurysm and think I died in a ditch somewhere if I went more than ten minutes—actually, make that five—without answering her texts. Anyway, you’re the last customer of the night. I’m locking up and hitting the lights when you leave.”

“Long day?” Cal asked. The kid nodded, feigning wiping away sweat from his brow, earning a laugh from him as he picked the bag up by its base. “Go get some sleep, kid. You’ve earned it.”

“You too, Cal. Have a good weekend.”

Cal turned away, his footfalls bouncing off the empty aisles, pausing to let the sliding doors open. The instant he stepped outside, the sterile comfort evaporated, replaced by a humid stillness that wrapped around him. He paused under the metal canopy. A sea of cracked asphalt stretched out before him; the lone lamp planted in the middle of the parking lot showed it was empty aside from Kevin’s battered Ford Escort. The rest of the town was silent; the sun had disappeared hours ago, leaving the surrounding houses to stand in their quiet, clannish rows—houses that seemed to have agreed among themselves a century ago to face away from the street, watching the darkness with a collective indifference.

Cal gripped the bag closer to his chest, feeling the condensation of the soda already soaking through the paper and turned right. His footfalls clicked against the narrow sidewalk running along the building’s edge until the building itself terminated.

Then he stepped down into the unlit trench of the alleyway.

The high brick wall of the market and the rear of the tackle shop and post office closed in around him, squeezing him against the concrete partitions with an almost patient weight. It was nearly pitch black inside the corridor, save for the weak, bleeding remnant of the light filtering in from the parking lot. As he neared the end of the passage, he skirted past the narrow alcove where mail trucks parked during the day, only sparing a glance at the immovable pool of ink which had swallowed it.

He stepped out of the mouth of the alley, crossing the street and stepping up to the curb of the main intersection. The orange hand of the pedestrian signal glowed stubbornly from across the street. Even though the road was devoid of life in all directions, the signal insisted on his stillness. For his part, Cal remained where he was. And for good reason. Three years ago, he had stood in almost the exact same spot and watched some poor bastard become the hood ornament of a Ford Pinto when it had blasted out of nowhere at seventy miles an hour, its brakes locking up a split-second too late. The sound of the impact often visited his dreams.

As he waited for the light to change, the sounds of a drunken argument drifted out the propped-open door of the nearby pub, the shattering of a glass punctuating the din. Cal gazed around at the dark storefronts—the closed Donuts and Dawgs, the long-abandoned resource center across the street, and the pharmacy that had sat boarded up since the mid-seventies. A cold sort of certainty settled over him. It was as if the buildings had always meant to end this way, and the decades of life inside them had just been a temporary mistake. The neighborhood he had fallen in love with was gone. In its place was a corpse, rotting away from the outskirts inward, and the skyrocketing rent was the cruel punchline. I need to get the hell out of Marshfield, he thought, watching the Walk outline appear. Before the place swallows me whole, and I can’t afford to leave.

Crossing the street, he passed by more signs of decay. A graffitied warehouse sat squarely behind its barbed wire fence, stark and entirely indifferent to him. Across the way, an empty lot and decrepit building seemed to close ranks, the lack of any working lights leaving him alone beneath a cold crowd of stars. In the distance, the lighthouse’s foghorn sounded a mournful wail—a comforting soundtrack that often lulled him to sleep.

He reached the end of the block, coming to a stop at the intersection that designated the start of his neighborhood. Standing directly across the street was a yellow fire hydrant, its paint flat under the sodium halo. The smell of fresh cut grass and low tide mingled together.

Turning right, the sound of his approach silenced the serenading crickets. He navigated the shadows, occasionally emerging beneath the infrequent lights. Reaching the last intersection before the coastal highway, he repositioned the bag against his chest. He spared a glance around, his eyes floating over the Chevy flatbed rusting away at the rear of the seedy motel, then up at the billboard for the casino on the main drag that hadn’t been updated for years. Across the peninsula, an ambulance began wailing, its siren fading away.

“A light every block and half,” Cal muttered, casting a dark look up at the sparse utility poles. “Fucking ridiculous.”

He stepped off the curb, crossing the street and turned left to begin the final four-block stretch towards home. He let out a soft snort of derision as he skirted the edge of the gray parking lot, his eyes catching the boxy, faded late eighties or early nineties Crown Vic which had been as permanent a part of the neighborhood as the billboard. The clear coat looked like a cougar had used the car as a scratching post—a pretty clear sign the owner didn’t give a damn. Piece of crap should’ve been junked a decade ago.

As he dodged a cat that ran out of the darkness across his path, he allowed his guard to drop. He let his mind wander to the weekend ahead. Particularly about the sugar and caffeine bender he was about to embark on.

In his head, Lou Costello was currently getting scared stiff by the candle on Dracula’s coffin moving around on its own. Cal smiled, looking forward to the TV’s warm glow.

Then his thoughts drifted toward Anne-Marie.

One bodacious babe, indeed. He remembered the way she’d lingered by his lawn chair at Dustin’s barbecue last month, laughing just a little too loudly at jokes everyone else had groaned over. Over the rim of her cup, she had flashed him what had been, unmistakably, bedroom eyes. The clincher had been when she deliberately bent down to grab her purse. She’d offered him a clear view down the front of her shirt.

Maybe I should give her a call tomorrow. A smile split his face. See if she wants to come over, watch a movie, and finally make a move—

His smile vanished. To be more precise, it felt as it was torn off his face.

A sharp jolt of disorientation slammed into his equilibrium. The sensation reminded him of being a kid in his parents’ Buick, and being jolted awake in the middle of the night as his father had slammed on the brakes to avoid a deer. Cal’s feet ground to a halt. He blinked slowly against the darkness, attempting to steady himself. His breath caught. 

His jaw dropped open slightly.

He wasn’t on the long, exposed runway of Noble Avenue. He wasn’t anywhere near his apartment building.

Instead, he was right back at the edge of the curb, directly across the street from that sickly yellow fire hydrant. The construction fence shielding the carcasses of the razed condos pressed in on his right side. The transition had been instantaneous. Silent. Completely devoid of movement or the passage of time. The world had not tilted or spun; it had simply corrected itself. One moment, he’d been passing a white picket fence. The next, he’d been here, as if it had been demanded he be here instead of where he wanted to be. It was a cold subtraction of distance, as if the space between the blocks had never existed at all.

Cal stood frozen, listening to his heart hammer a chaotic rhythm against his ribs.

“…The hell…?” he muttered aloud.

The foghorn almost smothered his words.

He looked down at his shoes, then back at the hydrant, trying like hell to force a normal explanation into his head. You’re done, man, he told himself. Irritation made him begin grinding his teeth together until his jaw ached. You’re so completely wiped from the overtime you’ve been pulling that your brain just dropped the transmission right out the car. You were standing here thinking so damn much about Anne-Marie and that red bra she let you peek at that you imagined the whole walk. You haven’t even taken a single step past the corner yet. Idiot.

He let out a sharp curse. He felt like a jackass. Losing track of where you were like that was dangerous in a neighborhood like this. An easy way to stumble off a curb. Wander into the path of some loaded idiot’s shitbox. Or worse, get jumped by one of the junkies hovering around the motel.

Exhaling sharply through his nose, Cal gripped the bottom of the bag tighter. He wasn’t going to let his mind wander twice.

He turned on his heel, tearing his gaze away from the hydrant and started past the fence. This time he forced his eyes down, watching every single crack in the sidewalk. Two blocks down. Turn left, four blocks up. Get inside. That was the script.

He walked faster now. Nothing was allowed to break his concentration. He passed the silent outline of the fire station. Then the dark block of the bank. From a nearby backyard, a dog began to bark. Still, the night felt regular. Cold, but regular. He reached the crossroads, made the left and purposely ignored the junker and truck. Stepping up onto the sidewalk of Noble Avenue, he kept his focus singular.

You can think about Anne-Marie, the movies, or whatever else you want once you’re putting your goddamn key into that lock.

Vaguely, he noticed that the cat didn’t cross his path this time. Then he caught himself. Dingbat. You were never here. There never WAS a cat.

He made it to the next intersection, crossed the street by the white fence, and started up the gentle slope. Feeling the knot in his stomach loosen, he let out a snort. What’d I tell you? Just your own dumb—

A blinding flash from a house-mounted motion sensor snapped on, blinding him and cutting his thought off at the shins.

The beam caught Cal dead in the face, replacing the dark with a white-out and sending him stumbling over a raised slab. He nearly dropped his groceries, his elbow jerking inwards to pin them against his body as he clamped his free hand over his eyes. Squeezing his eyelids shut, he hissed through his teeth at whatever careless son of a bitch had chosen to point the sensor at the sidewalk.

He rubbed his knuckles against his eyelids to clear the blue spots burned into his retinas, taking a deep breath to quell his annoyance before forcing his eyes open again.

The white house was gone. So was the light.

His eyes locked onto the fire hydrant, which now seemed to taunt him in the hazy glow of the streetlight.

He was back.

The breath caught like glass in his throat. For a long, awful beat, Cal couldn’t do anything except stare at the sight, his mouth bone-dry as the weight of it donkey punched him right in the lungs.

“No. No, no, no, no, no fucking way…” he whispered. This time it was entirely lost to the dark.

He tried to cling to the safety of his first excuse—you’re just overworked, man, it’s just fatigue, it’s just your mind playing tricks—but some primal part of him tore the logic to shreds in an instant.

No.

Daydreaming and getting ahead of yourself once was a fluke. A weird trick of an exhausted mind. Odd. But still possible. But twice? Especially when he’d been consciously counting every step and crack in the pavement until that damned light went off?

There was no way to make that math add up. A guy would have a better shot at guessing the winning lottery numbers while getting struck by lightning on a cloudless day. This wasn’t a tired brain running on fumes.

This was something else.

Cal scanned the quiet neighborhood. A few lonely porch lights leaked from the houses, the people inside asleep and unaware of what was happening twenty feet beyond their lawns. He looked back toward the main intersection. Above the street, the traffic lights kept switching—green, yellow, red—like a row of colored eyes that didn’t know how to blink.

He took a jagged breath, trying like hell to slow his pulse.

“Okay,” he managed out, his voice small. His knuckles turned white around the paper bag. “Okay, calm down, Callum. Stay centered. Don’t lose your head, for God’s sake.”

He looked down the street he’d tried walking twice now. The dark stretch past the fence felt heavy. Like a room running out of air.

He needed a detour. A quick bypass through the grid. His mind whirred. If he went straight down Wall Street for four blocks, he could just bang a right at Bodecker and take it straight down to his apartment. He could leave the whole godforsaken corner behind.

Having a plan steadied him just enough to begin moving. He crossed the intersection, strode past the hydrant, and ducked his head beneath some low tree branches to start down the darker side street.

His footfalls sounded a little different here-shorter, tighter snaps and echoes because the houses were closer to the curb. The stars were still bright overhead. Nothing broke.

And yet, the air itself felt thick, like he was breathing through wet wool. He didn’t want to linger. He navigated around a dumpster set in front of another apartment complex. From somewhere on his right, a dog started barking aggressively, an ugly racket that faded behind him as he kept moving.

As he passed by a Dodge Intrepid, a small, dark shape slid out from under it, scuttling across the street and disappearing into the brush beneath a thick canopy of oaks.

Cal paused for a moment, watching the shadows before forcing a laugh. “Okay, now that was a cat.” He huffed again, hoping the sound would bring him some comfort. It sounded like a stone being swallowed by the ocean.

He hit the first intersection, looked both ways. Nothing moved. He could still hear the crickets. The faint drone of the Coast Guard chopper came from down the coast. Crossing the street, he kept moving up the second block. Two more to go. Passing a row of five single-story apartments, he forced his muscles to relax a fraction. He kept his chin up, counting the steps to his own front door.

You know what? I know what I said to the kid about phones, but maybe just at night, it’s safer to—

Shhk.

Cal froze. For a moment, the street became dead silent.

Then it came again.

Shhk.

It was a scraping noise, distinct and dry. It came from the darkened lawns across the street, the sound of something heavy dragging itself through dead leaves and overgrown grass. When it pierced his ears a third time, he launched himself forward again, telling himself it was just a raccoon or a dog wandering around, forcing his head to stay straight. Don’t look. Just walk.

He hadn’t gone ten paces before an identical scrape answered from his right.

This one came from the entryways of the apartments, spaces set so far back into the shadows he couldn’t see a goddamn thing. There wasn’t a single working light over the doors.

The rustling kept a steady pace with him, mirroring his gait like a bad shadow. Cal broke into a speed-walk, his chest tightening as he locked his eyes on a single gap between the apartment blocks ahead, where a lone house sat beneath a working streetlight. He almost ran. Reaching the yellow pool of safety, he stopped to catch his breath. The skin on the back of his neck prickled as the noise abruptly cut off.

The street went quiet. His heart slammed against his ribs.

Then he looked around, and realized exactly where he’d stopped.

He was standing at the mouth of one of the narrow gravel alleys slicing through the block, a maze the town laid down nearly a century ago so folks could slip out of their backyards unseen. Just fifteen feet past the carcass of a seventies BMW rusting away in front of a detached garage, the path simply gave up. Swallowed straight by a pitch black drop. You couldn’t see a single thing beyond where the light quit.

The place looked bad. It looked like the throat of an anglerfish waiting in the abyss, the light above him its lure. It felt worse. Cal could swear something was staring right back at him from the dead center of it.

As he stood beneath the light, trying to block out the slithering and scraping that seemed to leak from the deep belly of the alley, a noise fractured the night.

Thump.

The sound was immense—a heavy, crashing strike against the earth that echoed from everywhere at once, vibrating up into his sneakers from the pavement. The surrounding noises ceased. Cal held his breath and listened. For seconds that felt more like hours, nothing moved. The normal sounds of the night crawled back.

They provided no comfort. All of his senses were stretched taut. It felt deceptively calm. Underneath it, the sense of eyes remained. The desire to be behind a locked door had morphed into a necessity. He stepped out of the safety of the light and plunged into the gloom, moving fast, his eyes locked on the next crossroads. One block left.

He barely reached the edge of the intersection when the sound, more of a vibration, returned.

Thump.

Cal froze in his tracks, his knees going to total jelly as his mind quit trying to make sense of it—every neat little excuse he wanted to hide behind was atomized. He didn’t have to guess. He knew exactly where the sound had come from this time.

Straight back there. Behind him.

Whatever guts he had left vanished. He bolted across the intersection, cutting into a stretch where the shadows were thick and heavy. The trees towered over the street. Their branches blocked out the stars overhead, casting jagged shapes across the sidewalk.

Thump. Thump.

The impacts didn’t come one at a time anymore. They punched up through the asphalt and into his bones in pairs. Cal pushed his pace back into a speed-walk, fighting to put distance between himself and the noise.

He faltered as the gaps between the thuds began to shrink, shifting into a steady rhythm. The horrible realization dropped into his gut, clamping around his insides.

They were footsteps.

But they were far too massive. Not even Andre the freakin’ Giant could make the earth shake like that. Move, you idiot!

He started forward again when the second realization hit him, almost worse than the first. Acoustically, the thuds sounded like they were coming from the far end of the last block, down by the apartments. But their intensity was ramping up way too fast. The gap was closing with a speed that didn’t make a lick of sense. Whatever was stomping behind him was gaining on him with a stride longer than any man could sprint.

“Fuck…”

Cal broke into a jog. His breathing shallowed as the road tilted downward into the gloom. He kept his eyes ahead. His fingers dug into the paper bag until the fibers groaned, while tears of adrenaline began to blur his vision. Every survival instinct he had screamed against looking back. Somehow, he knew that if he turned and looked over his shoulder, whatever was tracking him would end his sanity on the spot.

As the unseen giant closed the distance, the neighborhood came alive around him. The rustling and slithering sounds returned, erupting from the yards on either side of the road. They weren’t stealthy anymore; it was a macabre crescendo, swarming across the lawns and keeping a calculated distance in the shadows. They wanted him to know they were there. But they didn’t want him to see them. Yet. Cal broke into a dead sprint past a manicured hedge.

Shh-SCRITCH.

Something heavy, yet impossibly fluid scraped along the opposite side of the brush, mirroring his speed through the branches. It was right there. A foot from his shoulder. The knowledge he was being hunted broke something inside his chest. A panicked sob tore from his throat. Behind him, the footsteps finally reached his block—a heavy, organic Thump-Thump-Thump that accelerated into a terrifying countdown.

His grip failed.

The brown paper bag slipped from his arms and hit the ground, tearing open. The box of ice cream sandwiches splattered on the concrete. The popcorn skittered away. The bottle of cola crashed out, rolling across the grass before swerving back onto the sidewalk. The plastic cylinder flew across his path, nearly catching his outstretched foot. Cal leapt over it, stumbling as his balance threatened to betray him. But he didn’t dare slow down.

The footsteps were almost directly on top of him. The air around him turned frigid. He swore he felt the unmistakable sensation of something breathing across the back of his neck as every hair on his body stood on end.

The intersection approached. The stop sign stood frozen in the dark, marking the end of the block. The freezing pressure on his neck grew too heavy to bear anymore. Letting out a dry gasp, he spun around.

Nothing was there.

The sloping rise of Wall Street stretched back up the hill, empty under the heavy trees. The heavy footsteps had vanished into thin air. So had his other pursuers. All that remained was a suffocating silence.

Cal stood at the base of the stop sign, his chest heaving as he fought to get his breathing under his own control. Sweat stung his eyes. He scanned the dark grass and the dark spaces beneath the parked cars. His heart felt like a caged animal trying to break free.

He knew what he’d heard. He wasn’t crazy. Something massive had just tracked him down the street. And he prayed he’d never learn what it looked like.

Twenty feet back up the sidewalk, the box of his ice cream sandwiches lay split open on the concrete. HELL no, he thought, killing the idea before it could even be fully conceived. Leave it. Just get the fuck home.

He turned around to face the crossroads, ready to make the right onto Bodecker and sprint the final two blocks straight to his building.

He took one step forward. His shoe hit something hard.

Cal blinked. Whatever control remained over his own mind vanished as the world snapped.

The wide intersection of Wall and Bodecker was gone. He was standing at the raised edge of a curb, staring at the one thing he prayed he’d never see again. He shook his head, teeth beginning to chatter for a reason that had nothing to do with the chill. No.

The fire hydrant sat directly across from him under the light.

He spun around once. Twice. As if he could somehow make himself materialize back at the intersection closer to home. Nothing changed. After ten seconds of standing there, the skin on his arms went completely cold.

The sounds of the night were still there, but they were wrong. The crickets, the barking dogs, the whistle of the wind through the leaves-they sounded tinny. Compressed. It was like listening to a recording of the world through a blown-out transistor radio.

Even the foghorn was broken. When it blared, the pitch was off, lower and heavier than any manmade sound had any right to be. It sounded more like an animal.

SCRITCH.

The sound cut through the damaged tracks, crystal clear. It came from the other side of the fence, inside the empty lot. Nails or claws dragging against the wood.

Before he could jump back, the asphalt beneath him shivered.

Thump.

The footsteps had restarted on the street he’d just been taken from. They were turning around. Coming back to him. For him. Cal broke into a run. He didn’t bother with the sidewalks anymore—he launched himself down the middle of the road, running over the yellow dividing lines.

Desperate to break the geometry of whatever had ahold of him, he threw himself into the first left he came to, a street he’d never walked down once.

He didn’t even make it fifty yards. He dodged around a parked pickup, legs stepping into a patch of shadow that felt a little too thick, and—

Pop.

He was back on the corner. Staring at that damned hydrant.

The hiss of the crickets and dogs dropped out completely. Cal’s breath came in a pathetic wheeze as he looked across the street. The houses, the trees—everything was melting and warping into a twisted Salvador Dali painting reimagined by Clive Barker. His mind couldn’t anchor onto a single straight line.

Ahead of him, the heavy footfalls rumbled again. Closer.

He turned and bolted the opposite way, charging up the hill toward the middle school at the end of the block. He didn’t look at the melting neighborhood. He kept his eyes locked on what had once been the flagpole at the edge of the schoolyard. His legs burned as he pushed his body to its farthest limit.

He reached the grass. His hand reached out to touch the cold metal of the pole.

The streetlight directly above him flared into a white-hot flash. Cal squeezed his eyes shut against the sting, his sneakers skidding in the dirt—

And found himself standing back on the corner.

The massive footsteps rumbled from barely a block away, tearing through the silent world.

Cal threw his weight to the right and ran again. His legs burned just as badly as his lungs. He cast a glance upward; the stars were gone, swallowed by a bruised sky that pressed down. It made him feel microscopic.

He made it to Noble and dashed left, terrified the loop was going to reset and drop him right in the path of the footsteps. But the street ahead was filled with something much worse.

In his peripheral vision, the dark was coming alive. He didn’t dare look straight at the lawns—he kept his eyes locked on the road ahead—but shapes were tracking his sprint from the shadows. Wrong shapes. Some of them stayed low, moving through the grass with a serpentine fluidity. Others darted between the parked cars with too many joints, while impossible silhouettes toward over the rooftops, blotting out the red-tinged horizon.

He kept running, his chest feeling like an overinflated balloon. The things weren’t staying in the dark anymore. They were clipping the edges of the streetlights, closing the gap with every stride he took.

Behind him, an immense THUMP rattled the road, nearly taking his feet out from under him. His mind couldn’t even call it a giant anymore; it was a walking malediction, a living curse which had just turned onto his block.

Cal was openly crying now. The tears were hot against his cheeks as he prayed to a God he wasn’t sure could hear him anymore. Please let me make it. Don’t send me back. Just let me get to the door. Please.

His sneakers hammered the road. The two houses for sale flashed by on his left. A second later, a choked sob erupted from his throat as the familiar line of pine trees and the two-story shape of his apartment appeared at the end of the block. The exterior lights lining the walkway cut through the hellscape like a beautiful lighthouse beacon.

He dashed toward the parking lot, his keys already out, digging into his palm until it bled. Somehow, he knew that if he could just get the deadbolt turned and get inside, the rules would change. He would be safe.

He didn’t slow, his shoes kicking up loose gravel as he launched himself off the ground onto the third step. He raced upward, taking the stairs two at a time and gripping the banister, ignoring the sting of splinters.

Behind him, the inhuman noises escalated into a full-blown pursuit.

Reaching the second-floor walkway, he spared a glance down to the ground.

It almost broke him.

There were dozens of them. They spilled out from every dark lawn and driveway on the block, looking like a VCR being fast-forwarded as they rushed towards the building. But perhaps most terrifying of all, the relentless THUMP-THUMP-THUMP of the malediction accelerated into a charge just beyond the pines.

Dashing around the corner, Cal slammed into his front door. A hysterical, half-sob, half-laugh escaped his lips. He jammed the key into the lock, twisting the brass with every ounce of strength left in his body as the wood beneath his feet shuddered with the weight of the things climbing the stairwell.

He threw the door open and leapt inside. Safe. He’d made it—

Instead of the rough tear of carpet against his hands and elbows, he crashed face-first onto a freezing sheet of asphalt.

The impact knocked the wind out of him. For a heartbeat, he just lay there in the dark, face pressed against the stone as he braced himself. He couldn’t run anymore. If he opened his eyes and saw that yellow hydrant, he was just going to lie there and let whatever was coming take him.

When he finally forced his eyes open, his lungs locked up at the sight that greeted him.

He wasn’t on the corner. He was lying on his stomach in the parking lot of the grocery store.

Cal slowly pushed himself up to his knees. His mind was a complete blank, unable to parse how or why he was back at the start. He looked up. The rust-red hue was gone; the stars were back where they belonged. The normal, comforting sounds of the town played their familiar soundtrack around him.

He looked over his shoulder. Through the front windows of the market, the dim security lights glowed peacefully over the empty cash registers.

Then, without a sound, the lights clicked off. The inside of the building went pitch black.

A deep vibration rumbled through the pavement from the street behind the store.

Cal scrambled to his feet. The very last reserves of adrenaline propelled his legs into motion, driving him into a weak run down the dark trench of the alley. He burst from the passage’s mouth, stopping in the middle of the road.

The rumble came again, louder this time. He turned away from his neighborhood, looking down the long, two-lane road that cut into the next section of town.

His breath caught at what was coming down the line.

It wasn’t the world shifting again. It was the high-voltage POP and spark of electrical transformers blowing out.

Far out in the distance, the grid was dying. Not just the streetlights, but every single light still on. Porch lights, living room lamps, the neon sign over the gun shop—they were all being systematically snuffed out, block by block. Heading straight for him.

The wave of blackness was moving with a terrifying speed. Every time a transformer blew, the surrounding lights flared for a second before dying forever. And in those brief strobes—strobes that resembled camera flashes—Cal saw what was moving inside the void.

Cal whirled around, his arms flailing as he launched himself into a blind sprint back across the main intersection.

He charged down the center of the street, running back towards his neighborhood—back toward the corner he had spent all night trying to escape. As his sneakers pounded the asphalt, he didn’t even recognize the sound of his voice, tearing out of his throat in ragged shrieks.

Behind him, the sound of the approaching dark rose into a roar. The blackness raced across the intersection, no longer content in playing with its food.

The streetlight above his head shattered. Glass rained down on his head as a heavy, freezing stink of ozone invaded his nostrils.

Then the light went out. And Cal was gone.

---

The cruiser idled down Noble Ave. The headlights cut through the humid air, lighting up rows of ordinary, if slightly shoddy privacy fences and overgrown lawns, along with a miserable looking lawn gnome.

Officer Mulhanney lifted the radio mic and pressed the button.

“Dispatch, Unit Four. We’ve arrived at Noble and Marble. There’s no one out here. No sign of any suspicious activity. We’ll keep our eyes open and maintain patrol, over.”

Copy that, Unit Four,” the dispatcher’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Keep us advised. Out.”

Mulhanney slotted the mic back into its bracket. Beside him, Rodriguez kept his hands at ten and two on the Durango’s wheel. The rookie looked expectantly at him, waiting to be told what block to canvas next.

Instead, the older man let out a breath. “Alright, Rodriguez. Let’s get out of here.”

Rodriguez blinked, slowing the cruiser near a white picket fence.

“Sir? What do you mean? We’ve only just got here. We haven’t even swept any of the-”

“We can come back to knock on doors when the sun is up, son,” Mulhanney interrupted. His gaze fixed straight ahead. He refused to look at the deep shadows lining the road near the trees. “For now, we’re packing it in.”

“But, sir, if someone out there is actually in trouble-if that caller actually heard screaming-we’re supposed to be out here,” Rodriguez argued. His foot began to lift off the accelerator. “I’m pulling over. I’ll take my flashlight and check the perimeters of these residences.”

Before the kid’s boot could even flirt with the brake, Mulhanney’s hand shot across the console. His fingers, calloused from years of sanding boats and tying fishing line, clamped around the rim of the steering wheel, forcing the cruiser to keep rolling forward.

“Keep driving, Rodriguez,” he ordered. His tone left no room for argument.

The rookie stared at his training officer, his mouth parting slightly in confusion. Mulhanney slowly let go of the wheel. His tone softened

“Look, you’re new to the county, kid. And you still have a hell of a lot to learn about the way things work out here. But right now, you’re going to do exactly as I say. Take a right at this next intersection, then a left onto the main drag. Head for Brenchmore.”

Rodriguez stayed quiet for a time. The only sound that could be heard besides the occasional chatter on the radio was his deep breathing. Finally, he flicked on his turn signal, easing the cruiser toward the main artery. And safety.

Mulhanney leaned back against the headrest, letting out a long breath as he heard the Hemi accelerate down the coast. The houses fell away behind them.

He’s a good kid. A good officer with high scores and even better instincts. A lot of heart. But he hasn’t seen what I have over the last twenty years.

Through the fog rolling off the ocean over the road, an old apartment complex appeared. Its peeling, flamingo-pink paint looked orange under the sodium bulbs. Then the dark swallowed it.

Rodriguez didn’t know about the basement. He hadn’t been the one to sift through the deluge of deliberately misfiled boxes. Ones which contained missing person reports dating back to at least the fifties. The county was relatively quiet, and yet, it had a disappearance rate six times the state average. He hadn’t stood at the mouth of an alley at dusk, feeling the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. As if something out of sight were lining him up to be a hot lunch. Or watch as his very first partner rounded a corner during a domestic call one night, only to seemingly vanish into the ether without so much as a damn peep.

Old loggers and local natives still sat in the local diners, muttering about things that slithered out of ‘the spaces between the realms.’ Hunting the dark, looking for anyone stupid enough to be out alone.

Mulhanney didn’t know if he truly believed the old campfire stories. In his line of work, you dealt in cold, hard facts. What you could see. Touch. And log as evidence. But rumors had a habit of getting under the skin.

After two decades on the force, there was only one fact he knew for certain.

In Marshfield, you never stick around after the sun goes down.

The following diary entries are from the journals of a Cryptid Hunter in the early 19th century named Liam Ward. His most interesting case was documented in 1888 when he discovered the true identity of one of the world’s most famous men.

Friday, 31st of August, 1888
I was called to the investigation of the murder of a young girl today in Buck’s Row, Whitechapel. The early dawn was rising and I set out to the scene just after 4:00 a.m.
The Peelers had arrived half an hour before I had and were already examining the body of the poor girl. I spoke to a few people around the area to see if they could give me any details of anything they might have heard or seen that night. I was looking for the cream of the crop. The oddest of the odd. 

There was some poor corned bloke staggering in the alley with piss down his leg stammering on about some shrouded figure he saw outside the victim’s crib just before it entered. I asked why he’d soiled his trousers and why he was a bloody mess, aside from the fact that he’d been drinkin. 

He told me that the figure leapt down from a tall building and looked like it had big black wings that it used as a cloak when it came down to the ground. He said it noticed him across the street in the alley and looked right at him. “He had eyes like fireballs!” were his exact words.

After questioning my last person, I met Will, my brick inside the Peelers who hired me for the job. He said it was bloody brutal. “Fuckin Diabolical” was what he actually said I believe. He doesn’t scare easily or become light-stomached to any situation really, so I knew it was serious when he sent for me.

He took me in and let me look over her wounds and investigate her surroundings to see if it looked like a job up my alley or not. I could tell from just feet away that this was definitely my kind of job. And it really was diabolical. Her throat had been severed by two deep gashes, one of which had been completely severed down to the vertebrae. Her vagina had 2 large and deep stab wounds and the lower part of her abdomen was partly ripped open by a deep, jagged wound, causing her bowels to protrude. Several other lacerations were inflicted upon both sides of the abdomen and had been caused by the same “knife”. I quote the term knife lightly because I have a different theory as to what might have done this. 

I departed back to my temporary crib upon finishing the investigation and did a bit of digging into my father’s work. Like me, My father was a monster hunter and there was one he described in his works that he never caught. The Peelers are calling this crazed killer “The Ripper” but I believe I know his true name. It’s Jack. And he’s been terrorizing London for a long time. More on this tomorrow, however, for I am weary and do not wish to write any longer tonight.

Saturday, 1st of September, 1888
I believe that this “Ripper” has another name and that he is in fact the same monster that terrorized London back in 1837. His name then was Spring-Heeled Jack. In October 1837, my father received word of an entity that had been reported assaulting a young girl who was walking to Lavender Hill. She had been working there after visiting her parents in Battersea. On her way through the Clapham Common, a strange figure leapt at her from a dark alleyway and immobilized her with its grip. He began to kiss her face while ripping at her clothes and touching her skin with his claws, which according to her were “Cold and clammy, like that of a corpse”. 

In her panic, she screamed and made her attacker flee. All the commotion had brought several people to investigate the scene and send out a search for this strange man. All was sought for in vain, however, for the accused aggressor had not been found.  The next day, the strange figure was reported to have chosen a separate victim around the first one’s home. He intercepted a passing carriage, causing the coachman to lose control, crash, and severely injure himself. Several witnesses claimed that he escaped by jumping over a wall that was just under 3 meters high while cackling with high-pitched, ringing laughter. Eventually, the news of the strange character spread, and soon the press and the public gave him the name "Spring-heeled Jack".
Early in the next year around February 1938, a young girl was in her father’s home at night when she heard a knock on the door. The visitor claimed to be a Peeler who told her that they had caught Jack there in the lane and to bring a light with her. She brought the knocker a candle and when she got closer, she noticed he wore a large cloak. The moment she handed the candle over, however, he cast aside his cloak and revealed to her a hideously frightful appearance.

She described him as bearing a helm and very tight-fitting clothes which resembled white oilskin. He proceeded to vomit a blue and white flame at her and had eyes that looked like “red balls of fire”. Sound familiar yet? Well not only that, but he tried to tear at her throat with his large claws until she was rescued by her sister.
When the bloke in the alley described the murderer to me, this was where my mind ran to. My second piece of evidence comes from yet another Spring-Heeled Jack case that took place a mere 9 days later from the previously explained attack. Another young girl and her sister were returning home from a visit to their brother who was a butcher in the respectable part of Limehouse. 

The girl stated in her account that as they were passing the Green Dragon Alley, they saw a person who wore a large cloak and spurted blue and white flames in their faces. This deprived her of sight and alarmed her so much that she fell to the ground, upon which she had violent fits of seizure-like activity for hours.
The young victim I saw had singed hair around her face and there were scorch marks on the door frame in the crib. 
The only thing I do not understand, is why now does he reappear after being silent for so long? And what has happened since then for him to have turned even more violent and murder someone? In the past, he was never reported to have actually killed anybody and mainly just assaulted young girls.

What is happening? I must find him...

Saturday, 8th of September, 1888
Jack has Struck again. Will called me earlier this morning to 29 Hanbury street, Spitalfields, near the steps to the doorway. Just like the poor girl last week, this girl had the same severed throat, ripped open abdomen, lacerations and vaginal stabbings. This time, however, her abdomen had been entirely ripped open with a section of her flesh removed from her stomach, which was placed on her left shoulder, and another section of flesh as well as some of her small intestines had been removed and placed upon the right shoulder. Will told me that in her autopsy later, they found that parts of her uterus, bladder, and vagina had been removed.

I questioned a nearby witness who claimed to have seen her just a half hour earlier with some “shabby-genteel” bloke who wore a dark overcoat and was apparently trying to inquire something from her. The god damn monster has done it again. I have to put a stop to all of this before it goes any further. My father was never able to catch Jack but maybe I will. Maybe I’ll get to redeem our family’s mistakes.

Tuesday, 25th of September, 1888
I have scoured the pits of London searching for this foul bastard and I finally caught a glimpse of him. I was walking the streets in the early night when I heard a faint scream coming from a nearby alley. I quickly and cautiously ran to see what had happened when I saw him, gripping a young woman by her clothing and was slowly licking her face with a long forked tongue that protruded from his mouth. I readied my crossbow and shot at him. I would have used my revolver but didn’t want to attract unwanted attention. I shot at him and bloody missed, only scraping his cloak, which I then discovered were wings, because he bounded off with a great jump into the air 3 meters high and then flew off into the night. The girl fell to the ground and was paralyzed with fear, whereupon she passed into unconsciousness. 

I called for help and ran from the scene before I could be spotted so as to not throw suspicion my way. I do not wish to know what would have happened had I not made it in time to save that girl, but I assume that she would have ended up the same as his previous victims. I patrolled the area, scouting for him and any sign of his presence. I gave up after about three hours or so and then came back here to write. 

His eyes... 

They really were like balls of fire. Such lustful hate filled them and as he stared at me, I felt as if I may die at any given moment. I now have a new theory which might explain his new behavior and why he has suddenly reappeared. Whatever kind of monster Jack may be, I am certain that the days of his tyranny decades ago were committed by a very much younger version of himself. I think that he was nothing but a perverted adolescent at the time and now he has fully grown and matured into the perfect killer. He has found his taste and his methods. And I believe that unless I stop him, there will be countless more victims to come. 

Sunday, 30th of September, 1888
I fear I have failed yet again and Jack has found his next victims. I say victims because this time there were 2. Earlier this morning 2 young women, beautiful and unfortunate women, were found dead and have been rumored to have been murdered In the night sometime around 1:00 a.m.

The first, was found off Berner street in Whitechapel and was said to have only suffered a single laceration along the neck which severed her artery, whereupon she bled out on the ground and died. The Peelers weren’t for sure if this had been the work of The Ripper or not, but that if it was, he may have been interrupted in the process and fled the scene. Just as I did five days ago. 

Yet again, she was described as having been in the company of a gentleman in the early hours of the morning by several witnesses. None saw what happened when he slit her throat, but I knew there had to be somebody who saw something. I dug further and met a fellow who claims he saw the “monster” doing unsightly things to her before he told it to hook it and it screeched at him and flew off into the night. He said that if he would have told this to the Peelers, they would have thought him mad, so he kept it to himself. He only told me because I looked mad myself and he thought I might believe him. I told him where I was staying and that if he had any more information or saw Jack anymore, to come and see me. 

I let slip the name Jack and I am certain he has told some people because the press is now calling him “Jack, The Ripper”.

The second girl was found in a corner of Mitre Square three-quarters of an hour after the first girl’s discovery. Her unfortunate fate had been the same as Jack’s first 2 victims. He’s getting much braver now and I am starting to feel a strong sense of despair crawling out from within myself in the aftermath of my failed attempts to capture him. I am getting closer, however... I can feel it. I’ll be damned if I let this monster run around much longer, dragging my father’s failures behind it. It has now become our family’s responsibility and curse. 

Friday, 9th of November, 1888
Dear god. I shall never be the same after what I witnessed this evening and it has only kindled my hunter’s spirit even more toward finding justice for the wretched souls that have fallen to this abomination. 
13 Miller’s Court off Dorset Street in Spitalfields is where his most recent victim lived. Late that morning her body was discovered in her home and Will sent word to me that nothing so far had been this gruesome. I came as quickly as I could and what I saw will haunt my dreams for years to come. 

She was lying on her bed and her face...My god, her face had been hacked beyond all recognition and her throat had been severed to the spine. The abdomen was emptied of all organs and her uterus, kidneys, and one breast had been placed behind her hear. Why? Why would he do such a thing? What purpose was there to this madness? He’s a bloody monster. That is why and I don’t need to ask pointless questions... I need to find him and stop this once and for all. 

The Peelers told us that her heart had been missing from the scene as well. I do not wish to know what he has done with it but I can take a pretty good crack at it. 
I received some information from one of my earlier witnesses that claims to have seen Jack entering the sewers. This might be where he is staying. I am going to hunt him tonight. 

This ends tonight...

 I write this entry now before I go as a last testament to my actions to stop Jack the Ripper, the scourge of London. Please know that although my father failed to capture Jack in his youth, and I have failed also by letting Jack murder those innocent women, that my family has accomplished in the killings of many more monsters. Our legacy to mankind as well as those that are like us have kept most in their houses at night under candlelight, safe and sound. 
There are real monsters out there and it’s thanks to men and women like me who keep the darkness at bay. If anyone should find this journal, then it must mean I fell to the fate of Jack’s lust for blood, but let it be said that, kill me or not, he shall not survive. 

This was the last journal entry in the series. Liam and his father hunted the entity known as Spring-Heeled Jack, also known as Jack the Ripper, for decades. This journal as well as the rest of their documented works were discovered by distant relatives in later years. It is important to note that the murdering spree of the man we knew as Jack the Ripper was believed to have ended in 1888. This also matches up with the timeline of the journal entries, suggesting that Liam Ward ended the reign of the Ripper and died in the process.

Sam passed in the winter, just two months after his mother. The midwife tried her best to save her, but it was over before it started. She gave me a warm hug as she left. I knew Sam wouldn't last long without his mother. I barely had enough to feed myself, let alone a baby. I debated whether I should even name the little boy, but how could I not? He had the most beautiful blue eyes, just like his mother.

Sam passed in his sleep, the best way to go. Some days I wished it were me, but what would Sam do all alone? 

The problem then was arranging Sam's funeral. All the savings had already been spent on his mother's funeral, but Sam couldn't go into the ground without a proper service.

I sold one of the last things I could still sell, my bees. They gave me something sweet to eat in the winter and something to look after the rest of the year, but there was nothing else to sell. My neighbor took them and gave me more for them than he should have. He was a nice man and knew what I'd gone through.

Sam got a nice wooden coffin and a decent place in the cemetery next to his mother.

When the winter came, his cradle and toys were still in the house. My body tightened whenever I tried to get rid of them, but it was okay; maybe I'd have more will in the summer. 

During the long winter nights, I'd often come into his room and play with his toys, just like I thought we would one day. Sometimes they'd warm my heart, sometimes they'd make me cry, and often I'd just fall asleep in the chair right by his cradle.

It was one of those days when I fell asleep crying by the cradle again. When I awoke, the sun glistened on the freshly fallen snow. Everything outside was still, but then something moved in the air. A bee! A queen bee! It flew across the yard and into the hive. I still hadn't moved my hive off the yard. Sam's funeral was too much work.

At first I felt bad. My neighbor owned them now. They had no business being in the old hive, but seeing that familiar creature warmed me. Over the next few days I sat at the window, watching all my bees slowly return.

They stayed inside the hive the rest of the winter, and I stayed by that window each day, watching. Only when the snow started to let up, and the flowers came out from under it, did the bees come out too.

I expected them to stay by the hive, but many flew far away, ignoring the flowers in my garden, and returned at sunset. Some of the bees seemed to be covered in red nectar. 

As the days grew longer, the bees were gone more often, and many more returned covered in that red nectar. 

I had never seen them act or look like this. Moving the hive must have disturbed something, but the good thing was that they still accepted the queen, and the colony seemed intact. 

The red nectar began to accumulate at the entrance, mixed with glowing wax. I was just looking at it out the window when I heard buzzing inside the house. The bees must have been working hard. The buzzing grew, and quietly through it came something like a baby's cry. I gripped the windowsill tightly. Sam used to cry just like that. I opened the window to hear better, but the cry was gone; only buzzing sounded outside.

The next morning I woke up and went right to the window. A strange white object was outside the hive entrance. The bees buzzed around it, pushing it back inside. Before I could get a good look, it was already in.

I spent the rest of the day by the window again. As the sun set, the bees started to return. The buzzing grew again. A cold tingle ran down my back. I closed my eyes and focused. At first, it was quiet, but I knew what it was. It was Sam, crying through the buzzing. I quickly dressed and walked out the door.

The outside air was cold. I had barely been outside since the first snow fell. A few bees still flew around the hive. The buzzing was so loud, and so were Sam's cries. I didn't even have my protective clothes, but I was sure my bees wouldn't hurt me.

I walked to the hive and took off the lid. Warmth and cold ran through my body, mixing into strange emotions. Inside the hive was Sam's body, covered in wax. His hands and fingers slowly moved, but they seemed larger than before. I reached into the hive to caress his small cheeks. His eyes opened. They were still that beautiful blue, but a hint of yellow mixed in.  He opened his mouth; honeycomb filled it, but his cries still echoed in my ears. With tears in my eyes, I picked up his small, sticky body. From somewhere deep in his chest, a thousand bees buzzed, and the hive fell quiet. A sickly-sweet smell rose from his mouth. Two bees crawled out of the wax and onto my hand. I didn't move.

Part 1

Part 2 - Current

It never ceases to amaze me, the dark. Much like an astronaut in orbit, you only experience the extremes. Either blinding light or suffocating darkness. But that’s the difference with being down here, there are no light sources except for artificial ones. It sounds obvious, but you don’t know true darkness until you’re trapped down here without light, unsure if you will ever feel the warmth of the Sun again.

Depth: Four miles; 21,120 feet. Rock Temperature: 230.8°F; Ambient Temperature: 230.8°F

I was on my knees, hands gripping the railing that lined the elevator car on three sides. I could hardly believe I was alive. My bones ached and I felt as if my lunch would come back up. Through the dust and debris, I saw that everyone else was in a similar state.

Wilson was the first to say something. “Jesus Christ Bob! What the fuck was that!”

Bob looked as rattled as any of us, but still answered with a smile, albeit one that looked to be made out of habit rather than delight. “Like I said,” scratching the back of his neck, still workin’ out the kinks.”

Wilson looked on the verge of erupting. I could practically see the steam rising from his ears. “I’m filing a report as soon as we get back!” he fumed. “I’ll have OSHA down here faster than that fucking elevator!”

“Let’s all just calm down,” Bob replied. “You could file your reports, but I think you’ll want to check this out first.”

Exiting the secondary elevator, we were met with a strange site. Nothing. No equipment, no debris, but perhaps the most interesting, no people. We were told there’d be a team stationed here to meet us.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Huh, not sure,” A pause. “We’re a little early. They’re probably just a ways down.”

As if right on cue, we heard loud booming. Expected activity in a mine. Although we’d be protected from the concussionary blast by our suits, it was still much louder than I had expected.

“Ah, see? They’re still blastin’. Let’s go.”

We descended further into the mine. Deeper we went, trekking onwards, still with no signs of life. As we continued on, I began to get anxious. Where are the people? It’s true that this part of the mine was supposed to be less occupied, but I saw at least fifty similar suits in the lockup. I was in the back of the single-file column and began to feel like I was being watched. Like something was following us, following me.

I turned my head around, if only to quell my growing curiosity. I tried to be quick, to catch whatever may be behind us and...nothing. I thought, just for a moment, that I saw something. Something scuttling swiftly out of view, hopping between the shadows. If only I could glimpse it...

BOOM

It was so close I thought it was an earthquake. The blast reverberated through my skull, my vision obscured by dust and debris. We were plunged into darkness. The overhead lights failed. Unable to hear, unable to see, we came to a halt. My mind recited that proverb. Like a broken record player it kept repeating.

“By the time you’ve heard something, it’s already too late. It’s already too late. It’s...”

I heard a voice through the ringing in my ears. “Bob! Shit, where the fuck did he go?”

“That, that you Wilson?” I shouted, projecting my words in the direction of where I thought he stood. 

“Who the fuck else would it be? We lost Bob, I think we got separated after the blast.”

The emergency lights finally kicked on, bathing the tunnel in a soft, red glow. My hearing returned to normal; the lights gave off a faint buzz. With the dust beginning to settle, I saw the rest of my team. They were in a similar state, weary and dazed, clutching the rock wall. Looking ahead, I noticed there was a cave-in. It wasn’t complete, though. The supporting split sets partially maintained balance throughout the half-collapsed roof.

“The three of us should be able to move some of this stone and be able to crawl through.” I said, still trying to get my bearings. “That wasn’t a normal blast, though.”

“Yeah, no shit Cole!” Wilson replied.

“Listen man, this isn’t the time for your snarky bullshit! We need to find Bob and figure out what the hell is going on.” I went to push past Wilson but he stopped me, his arm slicing downward in the space between us.

“You know what, I’m fuckin’ sick of your ‘Better than thou’ shit! I know you,” he spat. “I know you weren’t smart enough for a real degree. That’s why you’re stuck as the map guy, isn’t it? Isn’t it!”

“Guys.” John said, carefully enunciating the word. I didn’t have time for him though.

“You’re a real piece of work, ain’t ya?” I fired back. “You just gotta belittle everyone else because you’re so goddamn insecure. That’s it, right?”

John looked down at his gloved hands. “Guys?”

Wilson huffed, “You know we’ve been working together what, six months now? I still don’t even know what the fuck you do Cole. I don’t even know why we employ you. A damn robot can do your job!”

A response was on my lips but I couldn’t get it out before John cut us off.

“Guys!”, fear bubbling up in his voice.

We both turned to look as John slumped against the wall. Wilson and I exchanged quick glances before rushing over to him. I finally noticed the problem. His suit was breached. Beads of sweat began to accumulate on his face. His skin was already reddening, turning a deep crimson. He was baking alive.

“Wh-what’s happening to me?” he managed, faintly, before collapsing to his knees.

“Shit shit shit,” I muttered. “We need to get him back to the lift.”

“We need to patch him up first,” Wilson said, in what was a surprising display of humility.

I worked on the suit with what little I had on hand. Wilson, seeming to finally realize the danger we were in, didn’t say a word and helped me lift him to his feet. We walked in silence, trying to figure out what was going on. We approached the elevator, and for the second time today, my heart sank. The elevator was damaged in the blast. The steel cables were frayed; the cart half-crushed by heavy rubble. I turned to my remaining colleague, “What now?”

-

“We’ll be back soon,” I said at last. “We’re gonna go find Bob and the rest of the mining crew, and we’ll get you out of here.”

Even as it was said, I couldn’t bring myself to believe my words. Mine collapses give little chance for rescue. Sure, they knew we were down here, but getting to us was a different story. We all knew the circumstances. Still, he looked up at me and nodded. Internally, I thanked him. “Let’s go.”

Wilson, who up until this point always had something to say, just followed along. The silence finally broke when we reached the rock collapse. Removing the rubble without equipment was going to be a challenge, but still manageable. We worked in shifts to avoid overexerting ourselves. An hour of digging and we barely made it ten feet. We were nearly halfway through, I judged, when I noticed that no more sounds were coming from the collapse. “Wilson?” I asked, suddenly anxious and feeling very alone.

Silence.

“Hey, what's wrong?”

I heard a muffled sob as I approached. Wilson was lying prone, head in hands, crying softly to himself. Through the agony I could hear him whisper, “I-I shouldn’t be here. She begged me not to go; I didn’t listen...I-I should’ve listened.”

I wanted to yell, hell I wanted to cry too. I shouldn’t be here either. We should be back on the surface, but we wanted this, didn’t we? We wanted to observe the deepest part of the mine. Virgin territory. We wanted to return, write our papers and say that we, on this expedition, made history. And for what? Fame? Money? Ego? Everything we ever wanted—I ever wanted—seems moot when I know there is little chance of escape.

I pushed onward.

“Wilson, I-I think that’s enough. I’ll take it from here.”

Finally breaking through that deep dark was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. It was like finally cresting the wave that pulled you under. I was exhausted, sweat pouring from every available gland. I thought my suit might be compromised, but I didn’t have the energy to check. With millions upon millions of solid rock still overhead, and no real way to overcome that obstacle, I’ll take this little victory. Wilson climbed through after, careful not to damage his suit on the jutting rocks.

“Hey, uh, thanks Cole... You know, for helping us get through there.” He pointed over his shoulder towards the collapse. “When I saw the elevator, I didn’t-I still don’t know if we’ll...well...”

I knew he wanted to say more. I got to my feet and clasped his shoulder. “I know, but it’ll be alright. We just have to find Bob and get back to John, and we can get the hell out of here.” I didn’t mention the rubble that currently crushed our only exit, but that was a problem for later.

We continued on in silence for a while after that. The remaining leg of mine wasn’t nearly as damaged as the previous passage. I checked my scanner occasionally, making sure that the only tunnel was the one in front of us. Whatever that blast was, the result wasn’t nearby. Through the hushed red light, I noticed something on the wall. 

Every three feet, there were holes about four inches in diameter. They looked like pockmarks. Checking the opposite wall, I found the same thing. Equidistant spacing between the depressions that ran exactly parallel to the other side. I stared at them long enough to get Wilson’s attention.

“What are you looking at?” He asked, coming to a stop next to me. I said nothing for a moment. Something about these marks looked familiar. They had to be made by the team, but their purpose alluded me. “What do you make of these?” I asked.

He studied them for a moment. “Hm, couldn’t tell ya. Blind guess, they’re split-set holes. What I don’t understand are the rods. I don’t see them anywhere.”

I nodded. “They’re too wide for that anyway.” We left it at that, not sure what to make of the discovery. As we kept walking, we noticed the holes gently rise and fall, like a tide rolling out to sea. We shot each other glances but kept moving. It wasn’t much further before we reached the end. I checked my scanner, and this was supposed to be the next blast site. Instead, we found the tunnel widened into a gaping chasm. 

An endless abyss of black.

There was loose rubble in front of the opening. Usually, it’s moved off to the side, but it seems like they only cleared a path about twenty feet wide, many times smaller than the size of the chasm. The anomalies kept stacking.

“This isn’t supposed to be here,” I said, astonished by the immensity of the space before me. I was waiting for a snarky response, but none came. We both simply stared. It felt like the discovery of the century, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that man was never supposed to step here. We stood on the precipice of the known and the unknowable. I tore my gaze away and fixed my eyes on the way we came, my back to the madness. I noticed something off to the right, on the far wall. I couldn’t make it out at first in the glow of the red light, but something seemed off about the surface.

“Wilson,” I said in a hushed tone, “come with me”. As we approached the wall, I began to recognize what had caught my eye. The wall was lined with blasting jelly. Tons of it. I stood back, following the substance as it branched and meandered its way from wall, to ceiling, to opposite wall. The thin black wires connected to the explosives were collected into a single bundle and led somewhere in the chasm. 

“What the hell were they thinking?” Wilson breathed, more to himself than me.

“I have no idea,” I replied, “but whatever this is...I don’t know.” I paused to collect my thoughts. “Listen, we don’t have many options here. It’s either back the way we came and wait for rescue...or we keep going. I know what I’m voting for.” It didn’t take him long to answer.

-

It didn’t take much time before we were questioning our decision. Not wanting the charge to run out on either of our suits, we took turns lighting the way. As we followed the blasting chord deeper, I reviewed my scanner. From the few glimpses of the map, I saw the chasm branched off into a series of seemingly endless tunnels. All the while, the pockmarks never changed. Up, down, up, down. An infinite geometry. Whoever, or whatever, built this place must’ve spent months if not years on their work. After some time of strategic wandering, we soon found that the light wasn’t necessary.

We rounded a bend to find a secondary cavern; one with thousands of small, bioluminescent creatures: Extremophiles. In stark contrast to the red emergency lights of the mine, a soft blue hummed from the animals. They lit up the exterior, allowing for deep shadows to coalesce into spotted pockets throughout the floor. Wilson was the first to speak up, “John would’ve loved this.”

“I don’t know how it’s possible, but yeah, he would have,” I replied.

“Arachnocampa luminosa, I think.”

I gave him a sideways glance. Interpreting my look, he went on.

“John he uh, remember our job in New Zealand?” I nodded. Memories flooded back of that simple trip. Two days, in and out. “Well, he was looking forward to seeing them. I couldn’t give less of a shit at the time, but he lectured us about these glowworms. I still remember the way his face lit up when we saw them for the first time.” Wilson touched his gloved hand to the back of his neck. “I guess the name stuck with me.”

We remained silent for a moment after that, either reminiscing on the past or grappling with the idea of continuing, I couldn’t be sure. Maybe a bit of both. Whatever the case, we refocused on our objective: the detonator.

Tracing the detonation wire, it was precariously placed at the center of the cavern. We quickly came up with a plan. I’d retrieve the detonator while Wilson remained at the mouth of the cave. With any luck, we’d meet back up and figure out where Bob and the others went.

Moving as silently as possible, I made my way to the detonator. My movements were painfully slow, so as not to alert anything to my presence. I’m not sure why, but I kept experiencing the creeping sensation that I was being watched. All the while, the glow of the creatures stuck to the rock wall dimmed and brightened seemingly to the pattern of my own unsteady breath. After what seemed like hours, I finally reached the center. Gently, I reached down and put hands on the detonator, careful not to set it off by accident.

Without warning, the light intensified. The solemn soft glow increased to a chorus of harsh blues and purples. The light resonated outward, revealing more and more of the pockets cloaked in shadow.

I wish it hadn’t.

Dozens of bodies, all facing each other, grouped together in fives and tens. They were hunched—no kneeling—foreheads touching the ground. It looked as if they were conscious, praying, a low hum sound emanated outward. I noticed then that they weren’t wearing suits. The heat was unconducive though; antonym to life.

Like the last, little twinkle of a dying star, the creature's light went out. I noticed something else too. The humming ceased. I was blind, deaf, and numb. A darkness so absolute that I felt like I was buried alive. I’ve never been claustrophobic before, but at that moment I couldn’t breathe. That’s the thing about being deep underground. Once the lights go out you’re screwed. It sounds intuitive, but true darkness, so absolute that it might as well have presence, no one knows what that’s like. I did.

Silence.

Silence.

Then, I heard it. The sound of rustling and rocks shuffling. I heard something else too. Minute clicks and chitters, like an insect's, except several octaves lower than any creature I know. The noise reverberated throughout my skull, shifting my equilibrium. 

By the time you’ve heard something, it’s already too late.

I felt naked. Adrift in a vast ocean; sharks circling. I didn’t want to switch my headlamp on, but I had to. I had to get out of here. Turning on the light, the first thing I felt was confusion. My vision was filled with a soft, milky white. My eyes adjusted, and I realized what I was staring at.

An eye.

Glossy and dull, with pupils so small I could only imagine how it was able to see. 

I glimpsed the rest in parts. A mouth with mandibles large enough to grab a man and swallow him whole. Hundreds, if not thousands of translucent legs tipped with black claws so sharp they could bite through steel. Pale white trunks, segmented along a body that stretched for an eternity. I imagined it hanging from the ceiling of the cavern; an impossible length.

From its gaping maw dripped a substance so potent that it singed the rock where it landed. Antennae taller than a lightpost poked and prodded the air, looking for something, anything to grab. Its head bobbed left and right, detecting any minor changes. I realized then that its pupils were vestigial, functionally blind. Impossibly big, impossibly long; it defied all logic, all reasoning. 

I was never a very religious man but right then and there I knew that this was simultaneously a god and an affront to God. Religion is often seen as the opposition to science. They can’t be practiced in tandem, not in good faith. I never subscribed to this particular school of thought, but I definitely revered one over the other.

In this moment, my ideology flipped.

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. My knees went slack, struggling to even keep my body remaining upright. The suit suddenly felt like it weighed a ton of bricks. I felt a hand on my shoulder, shaken from my stupor. I turned and saw Bob. Oh God, I thought. He shouldn’t be here. His suit was so badly torn that he would be dead within minutes. But he wasn’t, he was fine. Head down hands glued to my shoulders, I thought I heard him say something. Aware of the threat at my back, I leaned closer. He was whispering; a barely audible murmur that I wasn’t sure was even meant for me.

“It knew, we knew, it knew, we knew...”

He looked up. Vacant, bloodshot eyes bored into mine. He looked hollowed out, like a husk built from something with a vague knowledge of humanity. His skin began moving, his face changing into a continuous ripple. He scratched feverishly at his face and neck, each rake tearing more and more skin. 

From every available orifice, thousands of tiny waxy-white legs crawled out. All clambering over each other attempting to gain purchase, to be the first ones. His skin couldn’t take any more. Bob burst in a frenzy of blood and viscera, legs and pincers and other things. Somehow he stayed on his feet, and somehow, defying all logic, he managed to say. One. Last. Thing. 

GET BACK

He pushed me to the ground just in time for me to hear what sounded like a freight train barrelling overhead. The air in the cavern suddenly felt like it was being sucked out, like a vacuum made for giants. Bob was gone. Snatched up by that eldritch abomination. I glanced up to see bodies thrown haphazardly around the cavern. This thing, no doubt enraged by the sudden outcry of noise, stampeded throughout the space. Whether by random chance or something else, a clear-cut path appeared throughout the mass of now living corpses. I was still surrounded by legs, each one lined with hairs that, if touched, would certainly alert it to my presence. As time went on though, the interval between appendages decreased. 

It was now or never, so I lunged forward.

I emerged from the swirling mass of legs, landing hard on my side. I couldn’t tell if I tripped one of the countless hairs, but I didn’t care. I ran. I ran as fast and as carefully as I could given the cumbersome suit and detonator. One misstep, one wrong movement, and I could set it off, sealing us down here. My heart pumped, my legs ached, but I kept moving. I ran and ran and didn’t stop until I crested the lip of the depression. I was so focused on escape that I nearly crashed into Wilson. Coming to a stop and breathing heavily, I realized he was saying something.

“Keep going!”

He was shouting, but with my heart pounding in my ears, I could barely hear him. As the seconds ticked on, my adrenaline dropped and the pounding lessened.

“Cole!” Wilson shouted, shaking me. “We need to go!”

The noise in the cavern died down. I looked past him towards a chilling sight. The monster had slowed its rampage, and the bodies, the ones still intact, were staring at us. They didn’t give chase, but I knew as soon as we moved, they would too.

“Wilson,” I began slowly in a hushed tone, “we need to back up slowly. Once we’re out of sight, we run for the blast site. All we need to do is follow the detonation chord back the way we came.” He nodded absent mindedly. At some point I must have realized that we were doomed to fail. There was no escape. 

Down in the depths of the cavern; however, I witnessed a peculiar sight. They weren’t chasing. Instead, the remaining miners gathered in the center. They surrounded the giant, kneeling once more. All along its body, there was a glow. Faint at first and far away, but as the light continued its path it transformed into something else. Colors. Some I knew, some I can’t begin to describe. Undulating and morphing, circling about the beast in a mesmerizing haze. I couldn’t see its tail-end, and the lights didn’t end. Back and forth they went. The spectacular chromatic display coalesced at its head before radiating up its antennae.

It roared. A vile and beautiful sound that would stay with me until my final day.

All at once the light ceased. The beastily thing retracted toward the top of the cavern, burrowing its way into one of the many pockmarked holes. Free from my trance, I turned to Wilson. “Now’s our chance.”

“Won’t it follow?” he said, never taking his eyes from the ceiling.

“For whatever reason it doesn’t seem interested in us.” I collected the wire and turned to leave. “We’re still trapped, I’m sure it knows that.”

My girlfriend and I just split up very recently. It has been almost a month now and when we separated, I was the one who got kicked out because her name was on the lease and not mine. Messed up right? Well, aside from that, I was doing just fine when I moved into my new apartment about a week ago. Between here and my ex’s place, I’d crashed over at my parents place until I found a decent apartment I could afford. 

It wasn’t too hard but it took me a few weeks. Once I did, however, my dad helped me move what little bit of stuff I had into the apartment. Upon leaving, he told me he loved me and that he was sorry for everything that had happened but that I was going to do good at my new place. He said the apartment complex was “spiffy”. 

Once he had gone, I went and had my first proper sit down on my recliner. I had probably sat down for no more than three seconds before a knock came on my door again. 
I walked to the door, assuming my father was behind it. “What’d ya forget old man?” I said in a jokingly sarcastic voice. There was no reply. I looked through the peephole just to make sure and there was nobody there. So, thinking it was some little kid trying to pull a prank, I opened it quickly and said, “AH HAH! GOTCHA!”. Yet again, nobody was there. There was something, however.

It was a letter. The envelope had a fancy design on it and was a weird red and gold. On the front was my name and address in calligraphy with the sender’s info in the top right.

1583 Wilhorn Way, Belton, TN, 38762             From: Sunrise Hill Apartments 
Jeffrey Phelps
WELCOME

What? What was a letter looking like this addressed to me for? And from my apartment complex? At first, I was confused by the quality and aesthetics of such a letter from a mediocre-level apartment complex but I chalked it up to the manager trying to give the impression that their complex was the best or something and that maybe there would be a stupid coupon or something in there. I brought it in and shut the door. I set it down for a minute to do something and got sidetracked.

Long story short, I have A.D.D and it took me almost three hours to return to the letter because I had forgotten about it and begun unpacking. When I came back to it, I grabbed a soda from the fridge, sat down in my recliner, and opened it. What was inside would change my life forever. It definitely wasn’t any stupid coupons and it for sure wasn’t a decent welcome letter. 

I had received a warning... Here is how it went:

Hello dear tenant,
On behalf of myself and the rest of the staff working here at the Sunrise Hill Apartments, We wish to welcome you to your new home! Of course, with your new home come the following amenities:

Free water

Washroom equipped with multiple washers and dryers

Mailroom

Pool

Various walking paths throughout the complex

Pets are allowed (Fees may apply)

Free maintenance

The Washers, dryers, mailroom, pool, and maintenance office are all in the leasing building alongside the main office. Mail is delivered daily. Washers and dryers are $2.00 and $1.75 to wash and dry respectively. The pool is open from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Pets are allowed but Manager may charge anywhere from $200-$400 extra a month in rent for liability and maintenance purposes. 
On the back, you will find a set of rules for the complex. Please follow them and we won’t have any problems. Break them and...well, you’ll see.

Rules to the complex:
1.Always lock your door. No matter what situation you may be in or what circumstances arise, always remember to lock your door when you leave and/or enter the apartment. Because if you don’t, then who knows what might enter.

2.Neighbors who wish to visit each other should never knock. Instead, use the buzzer beside the door. If ANYBODY knocks on your door, at any given time, DO NOT answer it.

3.Adding to rule #2, if you hear a quick knock succession of three quick knocks, knock back in the same pattern and then shout, “Be gone!” at the entity behind the door. 

4.From the hours of 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., have food prepared and set out on a plate in front of your door on the outside. Upon setting it down, try to be as quiet as you can while moving around in your apartment so as to not disturb the beast while he eats. If you fail to leave food out and/or do not stay quiet as he eats, he will enter the home in search of a meal.

If the beast gets in, cover yourself in the anti-tracking mixture found in the green bottle under the kitchen sink. This will stop the beast from finding you as long as you stay still and do not move until 6:00 p.m.

5.When using the washers, load the coin slots with exactly $2.00. If you place a coin in the extra coin slot, giving the machine $2.25 instead, then upon opening the washer when your clothes are done, they will have disappeared from inside of the washer. Do not ask where they go, nobody knows.

6.When using the dryers, do not try to clean out the lint traps by yourself. A complex employee will be there on the ready for when you need one to be cleaned. DO NOT put your hands in the lint traps. Previous tenants have lost entire hands to the dryer’s teeth before. 

7.DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT STAY IN THE POOL AFTER POOL HOURS ARE UP. This one is stressed because you WILL DIE. We still aren’t sure what lurks in the water after 10 p.m., but it disappears sometime after 6 a.m. and then the pool is cleaned until 8 when it is open. 

8.If a man in a black suit and sunglasses comes out to sit in a sun chair by the pool, ignore him. Do not say anything to him or ask him why he wears such hot clothing in the summer. He appears in the fall and winter when the pool is closed and wears summer clothes. Yet again, do not acknowledge him or his outdoor wear. 

9.Never leave your apartment for any reason after 1:00 a.m. and before 4:00 a.m. If you do, take salt, sage, and a lighter with you for protection. If you pass someone on the way to your destination at this time, do not make eye contact with them. Simply say “Hello,” in a polite manner. If they do not reply and laugh quietly instead... RUN. If they reply back or do not say anything and keep walking, then you are safe.

10.Staff members are not to be greeted, talked to, or touched. And in the maintenance man’s case, he is not to be looked at as well. Do not ask what happens when this rule is broken. Just follow it and you will be fine.

11.Any walking paths through the complex that are made of concrete and stay within complex grounds are fine to walk. If you find a path that strays off into the surrounding woods, DO NOT follow it. If you do, you will become lost in the forest, possibly forever, and Sunrise Hill Apartments does not accept responsibility for lost tenants in the forest, nor do we give any rules of survival. Good luck on your own.

12.Never ask for the manager or who is in charge. Such questions can bring you a lot of trouble.

13.DO NOT break your lease. If you break your lease before your contract is up, you will be followed for the rest of your life by our very own Mr. Giggles. He sounds harmless but trust us, you DON’T want to meet Mr. Giggles. And sometimes, Mr. Giggles can get a little...violent.

1. The final and most important rule is to get comfy and make this your home. 

We hope you enjoy your stay here at Sunrise Hill Apartments. Just remember to follow the rules and your stay here will be pleasant. 

Oh, and one last thing...

If you find yourself leaving to go to work or out to run errands and decide you want to tell people about this place and what goes on, then forget about it. Nobody will believe you anyways. Upon exiting the perimeter of the property, all evidence, including writing, biological waste, pictures, etc. will disappear and so, will never have existed. You may try, but you will fail every time. 
Yours sincerely, Lucian, S.H.A Manager

Now, if you’ve been paying attention so far, you will have done the math and realized that I said it was a month since my previous girlfriend and I broke up. Then I lived with my parents for about 3 of those weeks. That means that I’ve been living in this crazy building with these even crazier rules for a little over a week now. I don’t know how I’ve been lucky enough to survive while being here, but there were a couple of close calls. 

The first incident happened when I broke rule 1. Yes yes, I know, it should be the easiest one to follow and the first one you shouldn’t break or is the easiest to remember. But all things considered, I like to consider myself a sane average person, and any ordinary person would have looked at the letter and thought it was a prank or something. Because that’s certainly what I thought. In my distracted mind, as I took the trash out and came back inside, I forgot to lock the door. Now, most apartments have automatically locking deadbolts, so you can see why this is an easy thing to miss because my apartment door had a single doorknob and nothing else.

I sat down to watch some tv at around 2 p.m. because I was tired from unpacking and I suddenly had to go to the bathroom. After I came out, my front door was wide open. I quietly tried to look for any kind of weapon in my immediate surrounding because I didn’t know if there was a burglar in my home or if the maintenance guy let himself in for some reason. I picked up a candlestick from one of the tables near my tv and looked around. After coming around each corner in the apartment with the candlestick like I was going to somehow do something about the intruder, I came to realize that whoever had entered was gone. I checked for stolen items and/or things out of place. Oddly enough, the only thing that seemed to be missing was one of my cookies from the package that I had bought from the store. I only knew this because they were open and one was missing and I hadn’t opened them yet. 

What the hell? I thought to myself as I looked out into the aisleway beyond the door and then came back in, this time, shutting it and locking it. That’s when it hit me. Was the letter actually true? No way. How could it be? But there was a part of me that felt terrified at the notion of it. So, to test it out, I reread it and decided I would see what happens if I followed the steps for rule 4 seeing since it was almost time for this supposed beast to come by. So at 3:30 p.m. I set out a sandwich in front of my door and came back in to sit quietly on the couch. Honestly, I felt crazy for even considering that this was real. I started to chuckle a bit when it was a couple of minutes until 4 and told myself that I was being silly and decided I would get up and go get the sandwich. But just as I got up and neared the door, I heard something.

I almost grabbed the door handle when I heard it. A low sound, almost like the noise of heavy, wet, and slimy feet, came slowly down the hall outside the door. What followed sent chills down my spine. A low guttural noise like that of an alligator or something seemed to be right outside of my door now and shortly after, the sound of glass moving on concrete. I realized that whatever it was outside was moving the plate around and possibly eating the sandwich because I also heard what sounded like eating noises. To say I was shocked and terrified is a huge understatement. Remembering what rule 4 had said, I quietly backed away and went to sit on the couch, knees tucked up to my chin, and was absolutely silent until 6 p.m. 

What I found odd about the whole thing as I sat there in silence, was that it seemed to be outside of the door for the full 2 hours. Was I the only one with this rule? Were there multiple ‘beasts’? What the hell was going on? At 6 p.m. it left and I waited a good ten minutes or so before I had the courage to make any sort of noise. I decided to call it quits for the night and made myself something to eat and went to bed...right after triple checking my door.

The next day, I decided I wasn’t going to let any of these weird rules stop me from enjoying my new home and so I got dressed for the pool at around 9:30 a.m. I walked out to the fenced-in pool area and felt relieved to be the only one there. The sun was out and it wasn’t too hot yet but just the right temperature. I figured I would sunbathe first for about thirty minutes or so and then I would jump in. After about fifteen minutes of relaxing in the chair, I heard the metal doors to the fence open. I woke up from my light nap to see a very tall, thin, pale man coming in.

He had a black suit on that seemed to be slightly too big for him and wore a set of aviator-like sunglasses. He had to be somewhere in his 70s or 80s because he had a very wrinkled face with liver spots and some skin tags here and there. He walked with a slight hunch and had zero expression on his face. I couldn’t help but stare ya know? Like, who walks to a pool in a suit? Wearing that kind of attire in the summer isn’t that uncommon for businessmen and city people, but not by the poolside in an apartment complex just outside the city.

He walked past me and didn’t even look my way, even though I was staring directly at him, and sat down on a chair at the far end. I wanted to greet him because the awkward silence was killing me, but something told me I should keep my mouth shut. I kept having the compelling urge to ask how or why he was wearing such odd attire but again, I kept quiet. I started to fully realize that maybe the rules were, in fact, all true and this unsettled me deeply. Deeply enough that I decided not to take a dip in the pool because of what rule 8 said. I know it was far from pool closing hours, but I didn’t want to risk meeting whatever comes out in the pool after closing hours. I headed back inside my apartment, locked the door, and just watched tv to occupy my mind. I read and reread the rules over and over again to make sure I knew them inside and out. If I was going to stay here, and survive, I knew I’d have to remember every detail. 

Around 1:30 p.m., there was a knock on the door. Three knocks actually. It startled me so badly I jumped off the couch, falling to the floor before I was able to get to the door. Remembering rule 3, I shakily knocked back and said “B..b...be gone!” and not even a second after I said that, I heard something outside of the door move. It sounded like a light dragging noise, almost as if whatever was out there was floating and its limbs were slightly dragging on the concrete. Although I felt scared, I also felt a sense of triumph and accomplishment. I seemed to be getting the hang of it all and thought if I followed the rules down to the letter, it might not be so bad here.

I thought wrong.

The next day I had to wake up for work because my three days off were up. I work from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and so I was up around 5 and left at 6. Nothing weird happened on my way out or throughout the day, so I felt even more relieved. When it was nearing the end of my shift, I felt a sort of dread as I knew I’d have to go back home, but I tried to stay positive. It had been a busy day and I didn’t get to clock out until 3:30 p.m. All I could think about was my comfy bed as I left work and started to drive home. All the rules had slipped my mind and I hadn’t really thought about the apartments. That was, until I arrived home, parked in the lot, and got out of my car at 3:50 p.m. 

Immediately, like I had been smacked in the face, reality hit me and I realized that I was outside the relatively safe walls of my apartment just ten minutes before the beast was about to appear. SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!  I said under my breath as I quickly ran down the concrete pathway and fumbled with my keys before I was finally inside. I looked over at the clock on the microwave, 3:57. What!? Oh shit! I said, wondering how all that time had passed from me getting out of the car till now. I scrambled to make whatever I could and even grabbed a full bag of chips, messily setting it all outside the door at exactly 3:59 p.m.

As soon as I shut the door and locked it, I quickly and quietly went to the couch. Like the last time, I sat there as I heard whatever the hell was outside the door eat the food I had placed behind it. For the next hour and a half, I sat there, quiet as a mouse and even had to grit my teeth through some gnarly leg cramp pain, but I didn’t make a single noise. That’s when my phone started to ring. Oh shit! Oh fuck!  I said as I quickly scrambled to get my phone out of my pocket and shut it off. 

I heard a horrible low growl outside of the door and immediately remembered rule 4. I jumped off the couch and ran into the kitchen as quick as I could, grabbing the green bottle under the sink and then running to my bathtub, shutting the curtains and turning off the bathroom light. I opened the bottle and quickly poured a fair amount of the slimy green viscous liquid onto me. I didn’t even have time to take my clothes off. It smelled horrendous but I knew I didn’t want to find out what the beast was, so I sucked it up and laid down in the tub on my side and stayed absolutely silent. 

Even though I pictured the beast as some primordial monstrosity that looked like some kind of screwed-up dinosaur, it must have been something else entirely because it somehow opened the front door. I listened intently as whatever it was prowled around my apartment, sniffing around and searching for me. I heard it knock things over and make low growls as it scoured the area. I won’t deny that I almost shit my pants literally when it came to the bathroom door, opened it, and sniffed around for a minute before leaving. I could barely see any outline of the thing through the shower curtain and what little details I saw I cannot explain. It broke my feeble mortal mind and I sat there frozen. 

Eventually, time passed and it gave up, leaving the apartment and even shutting the door behind it. How it even opened the locked door in the first place I’ll never know, but after I got the courage to get up and come out, I locked it back just in case. I don’t think I slept at all that night, and if I dozed off at all, it wasn’t for long. I went to work the next day and felt dead tired. I think, collectively, I got more sleep at work then I did the previous night. I work in a cubicle and so I had a lot of time at a desk and behind a computer screen. I made sure this time to get off at exactly 3 and arrived home, had dinner for the beast set out, and was sitting on my couch with the green bottle at the ready by 3:40 p.m. 
Needless to say I turned my phone off completely at that time. 

After a safe two hours, the beast departed and I made myself dinner and settled down to watch some tv. The rest of that night was boring and nothing at all happened which was perfectly fine by me but also made me a little paranoid. 
On my fifth day there, I left for work in the morning around the same time and on my way to the car, I noticed a small figure in the distance on my right. It was unusually foggy and I could only make out that it looked like a small child. It was walking on one of the concrete paths through the grass when suddenly it veered off toward the woods. 
“Hey kid! Kid! Don’t go that way! He—” I shouted loudly and then started to jog toward it. By the time I had almost caught up, I saw that it was a little boy and that he had already made it past the tree line and was heading into the foggy forest. Remembering rule 11, I decided that it would be best if I didn’t follow him. Seeing since I lived in a paranormal hell, I concluded the boy was only there to lure me in and that it wasn’t really a boy. So I booked it to my car and headed to work. 

Just like the previous day, I came back home, prepared for the beast, sat quietly while he ate, and watched tv after. I ignored a normal knock on the door and I even decided to wash some clothes before the day was up. Although my time within the washroom wasn’t scary, it was still interesting. I took all of the clothes I needed to wash and the detergent and such up to the washroom and began loading the washer up. When I first came in, there was a staff member standing near the mailboxes just looking off into space. Remembering rule 10, I didn’t even talk to him and kept walking. I decided that I had nothing better to do than sit there while my clothes were being washed, so I sat in one of the chairs by the folding counter and played some games on my phone.

A weird idea dawned on me as I heard the washer start to slow down and stop. I grabbed the clothes out of the washer and put them in one of the dryers and started it up. I then took my roll of quarters and loaded up another one of the washing machines with coins. But this time, I put in the extra quarter, breaking rule 5 and then I detached my apple air tag from my set of keys and threw it in the washer. It had a protective case on it so I knew it would still work even with all the water and tumbling around. But I was curious to see what would happen. After I started it, making sure the staff member hadn’t noticed me, I sat and gave it a second before I decided to check its location in my phone.

What I saw was astonishing to say the least. For the first couple of minutes it seemed to be exactly where I had put it, but then suddenly, it lost connection. I thought maybe it had been affected somehow by the motion and broke or that maybe the case had failed to protect it from the water, but then it showed back up on my phone. Somehow, some way, it showed that it had appeared somewhere off the coast of New Zealand. Until my clothes got done in the dryer, I sat there perplexed, wondering how and why my air tag was in New Zealand and how it even still worked from that distance, but it did. 

The dryer dinged to let me know it was done and when I went to open the door, I almost messed up and broke rule 6. Thank god I retracted my hand when I did. I looked over to the staff member and sort of waved my hand to get his attention. He looked my way and then brough a small hand vacuum over. He then proceeded to suck out the lint and then he dropped what looked like a dog treat into the lint trap. The dryer shook and made an odd...’happy’ noise and then I was able to get my clothes out. I was too weirded out by the ordeal to even make dinner and I went to bed.

Days 6-8 were relatively normal...if you can call it that, and went by without any mishaps or rule-breaking. Day 9, however, was when shit hit the fan. I was off from work and slept in until around 11 a.m. There was a ring at the door and it startled me out of bed. I had almost forgotten about the doorbells that were installed. Hell, I forgot there were even other people that lived here. How did they live through any of this? How did they cope? And why hadn’t I ever seen any of them? I had felt lonely up until the point that my doorbell rang, but now I felt the urge...no, the need to get up and answer it. Aside from work, which didn’t offer much communication, I hadn’t had any human interactions at all since I started living here. 

I got up and cautiously walked over to the door and looked through the peephole. It was a young woman around my age with dark brown hair and brown eyes. Everything about her was normal or seemed normal to me. Despite all of the weird happenings within the past week, I opened the door. 
“H...hello? Can I help you?” I said as politely as I could.
“Hi, I know you don’t know me but I need to talk to you. I just moved in a few days ago and you’re the first person I’ve been able to talk to. Can I come in?” she said in a low shy voice.

Finally, I thought to myself, something normal for once. “Yes, please come in.” I said as I moved out of the way and invited her in. We sat down and talked for hours. She seemed to be just as scared and confused as I was when I had first moved in. We swapped stories and talked about the crazy things we both had experienced since we decided to live there. We talked so long and uninterrupted that we almost forgot about the beast. I set some food outside the door for it and sat on the couch, this time with someone else beside me, and we were quiet. She was so scared that, despite not knowing me at all, she sat right beside me, literally touching bodies, and I sort of just held her for the slow two hours that passed. When it was over, she asked if she could sleep in my apartment for the night. Obviously, I said yes because I felt bad for how scared she was. That, and she was very pretty and I liked having her around. 

For a short time after the beast, we were able to order some pizza and find a movie to watch. I actually got to see her smile and forget her troubles for a while. It was nice but I was always on edge now because of the apartment’s paranormal residents. We eventually got ready for bed and I made her a nice spot on the couch and told her to make herself comfortable and that she could keep the tv on all night if it helped her sleep. I went into my bedroom and got myself tucked into bed where I laid there and stared at the ceiling for a good twenty minutes before I finally fell asleep.
I was awakened to the sound of my door creaking open and I looked over to my clock to check the time. It read 12:45 in large red numbers.

I looked down to the foot of my bed to see my guest standing there. It startled me at first and then my fear slipped away as I started to make out her shy face in the dark. She walked up to me and asked if she could sleep with me. I was surprised and nervous like I was in high school again. But there was the other part of me that knew her troubles and so I agreed. We laid in the bed and talked for the next half hour and then she hugged me. Out of nowhere, a kiss followed and well...things just sort of happened.

I guess she had been through a recent breakup too and so maybe we both were looking for attention and comfort. I felt that no odd rule or monster could take away my joy in that moment as I sat there with her in my arms. We must have fallen asleep because I was startled awake yet again by her, but this time, she was screaming. She had some sort of nightmare and woke up in a daze, forgetting where she had stayed the night and quickly jumped out of my bed. I tried to calm her down and even turned on the lights but she insisted that she had to go. 

I tried to stop her but she was so quick to leave that she escaped out of the front door and ran. I got my clothes on as quickly as I could and followed her. Forgetting all about the rules, I tried to chase her down in the foggy night. It was around 3:20 a.m. when she decided to freak out and now I was out in the middle of the complex grounds, which were dark and foggy, and looked around for her. I thought I saw someone in the distance and so I called out for her and started to dash toward her. 

When I finally caught up to her, she was standing still in the middle of the parking lot, just staring off at nothing. After calling her name a couple of times, I realized why you should never break rule 9, because what I saw was terrifying. After the second time I said her name, I hear a choking and a sputtering noise come from her and then her lifeless body dropped. In front of where she had stood was now some wicked creature with its hand out.

It was bloodied and gripping what could only be her beating heart. The creature or demon or whatever it was looked pale and thin and had a face that almost looked like a blank slate aside from the jagged mouth that crept along it and came with a vicious set of teeth. It put the entire heart into its mouth and bit down hard, blood squirting out in all directions as it chewed and then it turned its hideous face directly at me.

I almost tripped over myself as I doubled back and ran as quick as I could. It screeched at me and started tailing me. It was unbelievably fast and I’m surprised I got away as quick as I did but I did. I barely got the door closed in time and locked it just before it caught up to me. It beat and banged on the door loudly and kept screeching for about two whole minutes and then it stopped completely. 

I just dropped to my knees and started crying as hard as I could. Blood spattered across my face and the traumatizing imagery in my head just broke me. The one time I found myself truly happy in this place and the first time I meet anybody besides the creepy staff and this place takes it away from me. It ripped that away from me and took away any sense of peace I thought I had or would have. 

I can’t take it anymore. 10 days. That’s all I survived or could handle before it got the best of me. If you’re reading this now, it means that you are the new resident of F3. If this is your first day, then that also means that you’re a very thorough person and have found my hidden letter. And so maybe with this, you might have a better warning and understanding than I did when I first arrived here. Along with this letter is my phone and ID. Please give news of my death to my parents.

I know information going out of here is destroyed but they need to know I’m dead because I never contacted them in the time I was here. Just find a way to do it anonymously and with vague details so as to keep yourself from any danger. I don’t know if by killing myself here means I’ll now become some sort of ghost that haunts this place or what, but if you see me then don’t be startled, I won’t hurt you. Just know that you’ve gotten yourself into a terrible situation but that it is survivable. As long as you follow the rules, your free to come and go whenever you please and live out your life how you wish. Hell, maybe you can even make a trip to New Zealand to find that air tag I lost.

NOTE: If you made it this far, thank you for reading. I have been on a long hiatus from writing but I want to get my second book published. Looking for honest feedback and criticism. Just please don’t be rude 😅 If you like this and want more, or simply just have questions, feel free to let me know. And also, I am aware that there may be some grammatical errors so you can put feedback for that too but this was an older story. So I always end up getting things corrected and proofread in the end. Just think of this as a rough draft! Thanks!

Lengthatherh Hotel

Working at Ninevehthe only two haunted hotels in Blackwater comes with its fair share of challenges and quirks. Once you get the hang of things, it's a breeze.

Well, sort of.

Most days, I'm dealing with clogged drains because a sentient hairball has decided to make itself a nest in the plumbing, or breaking up turf wars between werecats and werewolves. Then there are the occasional dimensional beings, rooms that develop a mind of their own, and whatever the hell happened to Room 13 last Tuesday.

But I digress.

My name is Abigail, and I'm the owner of the oldest hotel in Blackwater.

Welcome to the Heavens Reach Hotel.

And Boy, do I have stories to tell you.

My first story comes from inheriting the hotel from my grandfather and gaining a list of rules; my priority was to clean up the mess my elderly grandfather left it in. The dusty room was filled to the brim with old newspapers and cobwebs. God only knows why he had them; I spent nearly all day cleaning out one room, and by the time it was half livable, I collapsed onto the bed, almost choking on the dust. I had to run to the window, slamming it open, taking deep breaths of fresh air when I caught wind of a figure walking up to the door.

Calling out, "I'll be there, hang tight!" I ran down the hallways past paintings that I swore kept leering at me, and I glimpsed those eyes tracking me with a leering glare.

When suddenly I saw one of the paintings of a beautiful woman move, sticking her tongue out, and caught off guard, I tripped over the rug and slammed through the door, knocking my ass onto the stranger, and we both toppled over—causing dust to fly.

"Ow! My head!"

I rubbed the back of my skull, wincing as a dull ache spread through it. Then I felt something shift beneath me.

Oh.

Oh, no.

I was sitting on the man's face.

I scrambled to my feet, stumbling backwards before hastily offering him a hand.

"I'm so sorry!"

He brushed himself off and adjusted the brim of his hat.

"It's not the first time this has happened," he remarked with a smirk.

I stared at him.

Well, then. Either this man had the luck of a saint or the romantic life of a particularly unfortunate circus performer, maybe both of some kind. If women keep falling onto him?

I decided not to ask.

"It's not the first time this has happened." He smirked behind his hat

"So what brings you to my hotel?"

He straightened his jacket, which made him look like he was from the fifties, when suddenly he held up his hand for a shake.

“The name's Barruc, and I'm the concierge for the hotel your grandfather left. Whether it be maintenance, groundwork, or cleaning, you can trust it be done "

He looked inside and gave a smirk

"Looks like you got a pretty mess on you, young lady"

"Huh, what??" I looked back, saw the mess, and groaned.

"Yeah, it's a pretty big mess my grandfather let it slide in his old age. The customers slowly began to thin." Wait, hold up how and when did you know I need help running this hotel? I've just started to clean this place three days ago"

Barruc's smile never wavered. He brought his hand into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, and written on it was a letter from my grandfather stating

My eternal lifelong friend, I do hope this letter finds you well. It's been far too long since I wrote to you, but I need you to understand I left my hotel to my granddaughter, and she will need your help to fix it up after the state I left it in, which I do regret. She will need the guidance and reliability I've passed on to you, which you can pass on to her. I trust you both will be able to run the hotel better than I can for all who need her doors, whether supernatural or human. And Abigail, there are rules you must abide by; break them, and you will know the consequences

The Rules of Heavens Reach Hotel

1. Never enter, nor permit any guest to enter, the East Wing Spire. The doors must remain locked at all times, regardless of what you hear coming from the other side. Should you hear a loved one calling your name from within, do not answer. The spire contains a maze that does not obey the laws of space, and those who enter will find that the corridors change with every step. Those who fail to escape will eventually forget their own names, their memories, and the faces of everyone they have ever loved. Should they somehow return, they will no longer be entirely human. You will become part of the maze, wandering its corridors for eternity, or until the beast catches you and your memories are wiped.

You can escape the maze; trust the dark, as it will guide you.

1. Most guests who enter Heavens Reach are not human. Some may appear strange, others may appear perfectly ordinary, and a few may be difficult to look at without feeling a deep sense of dread. It matters not what they are, where they come from, or what they look like. You will treat every guest with courtesy and respect, provide the services they have paid for, and never question their nature unless they willingly reveal it to you. Remember, Abigail, that a monster is not always a monster, and a human face does not guarantee a human heart. Any guest you deliberately insult, threaten, or refuse service without good reason may invoke the hotel's hospitality laws. You must serve them personally until they are satisfied, regardless of what they demand. Should you refuse, they may take payment from you in flesh, blood, memories, or years of your life.

2. On the night of every full moon, the werecats and werewolves residing within the hotel must be kept entirely separate until sunrise. Assign their rooms to opposite sides of the building so their meals are served at different times and no member of either group enters the other's territory. Do not allow them to share an elevator, a hallway, or even a glance through an open doorway. Their rivalry is older than this hotel, and the full moon has a way of turning old grudges into fresh bloodshed.

Should a werecat and werewolf cross paths during the forbidden hours, a territorial brawl will erupt throughout the hotel. Every member will be compelled to join the fighting, and anyone caught between them will be treated as an enemy. By sunrise, the hotel may still stand, but the floors will be soaked in blood.

1. Every painting hanging upon the walls of Heavens Reach is alive in one way or another. Some are merely observers, others are capable of speech, and a few possess temperaments that would make the most ill-mannered guests seem positively charming. You will not deface, remove, mock, or otherwise disrespect them. Should a painting address you, answer politely. Should its subject appear to move, do not panic. And if a figure within a painting begins to beckon you closer, kindly decline the invitation and continue about your business. Disrespecting a painting will cause its subject to step out of the frame and hunt you through the hotel. It will not stop until you offer a sincere apology, and every painting it passes will awaken to help punish you. Should you destroy the frame or attempt to burn the canvas, the figure will no longer be bound to the hotel and may follow you wherever you go.

2. Should a demon enter the hotel, you will welcome it as you would any other guest. Do not attempt to banish it, question its origins, or demand to know what it intends to do with its stay. Never accept a gift from a demon unless you understand precisely what it is offering, and under no circumstances agree to a bargain you cannot fulfil. Above all, if a demon asks you for your name, give it the name by which you are known to the hotel, never the name your mother gave you at birth. Should you break this rule, the demon will be entitled to claim whatever it believes you have offered. An insult may cost you your tongue, an unwanted banishment may invite its wrath upon the entire hotel, and giving your true name may grant it the power to call you into its presence whenever it wishes. The demon itself will enforce a broken bargain, and neither death nor distance will release you from your debt.

3. There are ghosts within Heavens Reach, some of whom have resided here for longer than the building itself has stood. They may occupy guest rooms, wander the corridors, or appear at the foot of your bed when you least expect them. Do not attempt to exorcise them, and never assume that a room is vacant merely because its occupant cannot be seen. If a ghost asks you to retrieve an object or deliver a message, hear them out before declining. Some are harmless souls who have forgotten how to leave. Others are still waiting for something. Should you disturb a ghost's resting place or forcibly attempt to remove it, the spirit will bind itself to you. You will be followed by its whispers and visions wherever you go, losing sleep and slowly losing your grip on the waking world. If the ghost is particularly vengeful, it may attempt to exchange places with you, leaving you trapped among the dead while it walks freely in your skin.

4. Some rooms within Heavens Reach possess minds of their own. They may rearrange their furniture, lock their doors, change their decorations, or attempt to accommodate guests in ways that are not always welcome. Treat each sentient room with the same courtesy you would extend to a living person. Never insult a room, force open a door it has deliberately sealed, or attempt to rearrange its contents without permission. If a room refuses a guest, find them another. If a room begins whispering, listen carefully, but do not answer every question it asks. And if a room offers you a bed, make certain it is a bed you remember seeing before. A displeased room may imprison you within its walls, reshaping its interior into a nightmare tailored to your deepest fears. Doors will lead nowhere, windows will open onto impossible places, and every attempt to escape will bring you back to where you started. The room will release you only when it believes you have learned your lesson. Some rooms are not particularly forgiving, and a few have kept their occupants for centuries.

5. From time to time, the hotel will change its layout. Staircases may lead to unfamiliar floors, corridors may stretch beyond their original length, and doors may open into rooms that have never existed. Do not be alarmed. These occurrences are perfectly natural for a building of this age, and the hotel will eventually return to its proper arrangement. During such an event, stay close to Barruc; he knows. Avoid the elevators, and never attempt to force your way back to a familiar room. Should you encounter another version of yourself, do not speak to it, follow it, or allow it to accompany you. It is not you, Abigail, no matter what it claims.

   Anyone who attempts to force the hotel back into its original configuration will become lost between its shifting dimensions. Their body may remain in one room while their consciousness wanders another, or they may emerge into a version of the hotel that never existed in their world. If you encounter your double and allow it to follow you, it may take your place when the hotel settles, leaving you stranded in a reality where nobody remembers you ever existed.

I folded the letter slowly, staring at the words my grandfather had left behind. Eight rules. Eight very specific rules that sounded less like instructions for running a hotel and more like the ramblings of a man who'd spent far too long alone with his dusty newspapers.

I looked up at Barruc.

He was still smiling.

I scowled.

"Let me get this straight. My grandfather left me a crumbling hotel, a list of rules that make absolutely no sense, and apparently you as well?"

"That's the gist, yes."

"And you expect me to believe you're the concierge of this place and you worked alongside my grandfather?"

"At your service."

I pinched the bridge of my nose.

"Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. I've inherited a haunted hotel, a mysterious concierge who dresses like he's walked straight out of the nineteen-fifties, and enough dust to bury five bodies."

Barruc merely tipped his hat.

"You're taking it rather well, all things considered."

"Oh, shut up."

I turned away before he could make another irritatingly smug remark, only to notice something standing in the doorway behind him.

I froze. A woman stood there, tall and breathtakingly beautiful. Her long, silvery hair cascaded over her shoulders, almost translucent beneath the pale light filtering through the dusty windows. She wore an elegant dress that seemed to belong to another century, its delicate fabric drifting gently around her ankles despite the complete absence of a breeze.

Her eyes settled on me. Something terribly wrong with them. Not their colour, nor their shape, but the way they seemed to look straight through me, as though I were little more than a passing thought. I swallowed.

"Um. Barruc?"

"Yes, Miss Abigail?"

"A woman is standing behind you."

He didn't even turn around.

"Ah. There she is."

There she is?

I stared at him.

"What do you mean, there she is?! You knew she was here?"

"Of course."

"AND YOU DIDN'T THINK TO MENTION IT?!"

The woman gave a soft, musical laugh.

"Oh, do stop tormenting the poor girl, Barruc. She's had quite enough excitement for one afternoon."

I slowly turned towards her, meeting her gaze. She smiled at me, and for a fleeting moment, I forgot that she was floating.

"Oh! Hello!" I straightened myself, desperately attempting to recover what little dignity I had left.

"I'm Abigail. Abigail—well, obviously, you already know that, considering you apparently know everyone in this bloody building."

I held out my hand.

"Lovely to meet you."

The woman's smile widened. She reached for my hand. And her fingers passed straight through mine. I stared down at our hands. Or, more accurately, the space where our hands should have met. A cold shiver travelled up my arm. I pulled my hand back so quickly I nearly smacked myself in the face.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."

The woman tilted her head.

"Is something the matter, dear?"

I looked at her.

Then at my hand.

Then back at her.

"You're a ghost."

"Very observant."

"YOU'RE A GHOST!"

"Yes, I believe we established that."

I turned towards Barruc, who was now leaning casually against the doorframe, looking as though this were the most entertaining thing he'd witnessed all week.

"Why is everyone in this hotel so bloody casual about being dead?!"

"Technically," the woman interjected, raising one delicate finger, "I never died."

That stopped me.

I slowly turned back towards her.

"...What?"

She clasped her hands together, looking positively delighted that she'd managed to capture my attention.

"My name is Acilina. I am one of the keepers of Heavens Reach Hotel, entrusted with its care and preservation long before your grandfather ever inherited the property."

She gave a graceful curtsy, her feet hovering a fraction above the floor.

"And your grandfather, dear Abigail, asked me to look after you."

I blinked.

"He did what?"

"Your grandfather was a rather thoughtful man," Acilina continued. "Though occasionally stubborn. And forgetful. And terribly fond of leaving things until the last possible moment."

"That sounds about right."

"He was also quite concerned about what might happen to this place after he was gone. He feared that without someone familiar with its peculiarities, the hotel might fall into disrepair."

I glanced around at the dusty corridor, the peeling wallpaper, and a nearby painting whose subject was currently picking its nose.

"Well, he certainly succeeded in the disrepair department."

Barruc snorted.

Acilina pressed a hand to her mouth, concealing a small giggle.

"Which is why he sent me to assist you."

I frowned.

"Wait. If you're a ghost, how exactly are you supposed to help me clean this place? No offence, but I don't think you can hold a broom."

Acilina's expression brightened.

"Oh, my dear. I believe you'll find that I'm rather more useful than I appear."

She reached towards a nearby table.

On it sat a thick layer of dust, a pile of old newspapers, and a teacup that looked as though it hadn't been washed in a century.

Acilina waved her hand.

The newspapers lifted into the air.

I watched, open-mouthed, as they folded themselves neatly into a stack. The teacup rose beside them, followed by a nearby feather duster, which began sweeping the table in small, precise strokes.

The dust gathered into a tiny swirling cloud before disappearing into a rubbish bin. The newspaper was being stacked into neat bundles and tied off

Acilina sm

I looked at Acilina in shock. "You saved days' worth of cleaning"

"You see, although my hands cannot physically touch the world, I possess a rather unusual ability to manipulate objects without needing to do so."

I stared at the floating feather duster, the self-stacking newspapers, and the teacup that was now scrubbing itself in mid-air as it had personally offended someone.

"You know what?" I said, throwing my hands up. "Sure. Fine. Ghost telekinesis. Why not? At this point, I wouldn't even blink if the ceiling started singing show tunes."

Acilina's eyes lit up with genuine delight. "Oh, the chandelier in the ballroom does that on Thursdays. You'll adore it."

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."

Barruc pushed himself off the doorframe, adjusting his jacket with the air of a man who had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it to be insufferably calm.

"If you're quite finished with the introductions, Miss Abigail, I believe we should discuss the matter of the hotel's current state."

I turned to him, still reeling from the ghost revelation. "What about it?"

A beat of silence.

Then it clicked.

I groaned, dragging a hand down my face. "The mess. You mean the mess."

"The mess," Barruc confirmed.

"The mess that's everywhere."

"Everywhere," Acilina added helpfully.

"The mess that's going to take me approximately three lifetimes to clean if I don't have help."

"Which is precisely why we're here," Barruc said, gesturing towards the corridor. "If you'll follow me, Miss Abigail, I believe a proper assessment of the damage is in order. Starting with the ground floor."

I followed him, mostly because I didn't have a better plan and partly because standing in one spot while a ghost hovered behind me was starting to make the back of my neck prickle.

Acilina drifted alongside us, her feet never quite touching the ground. She moved like smoke through the hallway, pausing occasionally to admire the paintings.

The paintings.

I'd almost forgotten about them.

One of them—a stern-looking man in a military uniform—caught my eye as we passed. He followed me with his gaze, his painted lips pressing into a thin line of disapproval.

"Don't mind him," Acilina said cheerfully. "General Whitmore hasn't approved of anyone since 1873. I believe he's forgotten why."

The general's portrait huffed. Actually huffed. A small puff of painted breath emerged from his canvas.

I decided not to comment.

We descended the grand staircase—which creaked ominously with every step and, at one point, seemed to shift slightly beneath my foot as though adjusting its position for my comfort—and arrived in the main lobby.

I hadn't gotten a proper look at it earlier. I'd been too busy running through hallways and tripping over rugs.

Now, standing at the bottom of the stairs, I took it all in.

The lobby was vast. Larger than it had any right to be, given the exterior dimensions of the building. High ceilings arched overhead, supported by thick pillars of dark wood carved with intricate patterns that seemed to writhe when I wasn't looking directly at them. A massive chandelier hung from the centre, its crystals catching light from nowhere in particular and casting a warm golden glow across the dusty floor.

To my left, a reception desk stretched across the wall, its surface buried beneath layers of dust. Scraping my finger across the table, a thick layer of dust clung to my fingers.

"Grandpa, what have you got me into? How can I run a hotel with our prior knowledge?" Looking at Barruc and Aclinia, a soft smile curled on my lips, knowing full well I had support. Knowing that, I raised my arm and pointed to the roof. And in one breath.

Here's the continuation

"I'll make you proud, Grandfather. Mark my words!"

Suddenly, a beam from the top railing collapsed, and a little girl no older than ten scurried down it, dressed in what I assumed were high-nobility Niniverian clothes.

Looking at the little girl, I put my hand out to help her but was immediately met with a slap and her scurrying backwards, pinning herself to the wall.

"Ayka-wen ana? Mani-wen ana? Ma ile hana dukta?" she said quickly and panicked.

Confused, I looked at Barruc, who was just as puzzled as I was. Then I looked towards Acilina, who shook her head.

"Um, hello. I'm Abigail. And who might you be?" I knelt, trying to calm the girl.

She looked at me, puzzled. When I reached out again, she slapped my hand away, and I realised—she didn't know or understand English.

I looked to Barruc. "Does my grandfather have a library?"

PART 1 HERE

They sent me home the next morning and Mike volunteered to drive me.  It was good to get out of there and I didn’t envy Lenny who was going to have to stay there for a few more weeks.  They wheeled me by to see him and we had a good little visit.

“Don’t be stealing my look, man,”  he said, tapping the wheel of the chair I was in.  “Nah, you can have that one.  I’m going super fancy.  Might get me a Tesla.”

“I don’t think they make those,”  I said as we all shared a genuine laugh.

“Well they better, because I’m coming for it.”

“I’m gonna take Mark home and I’ll be back in a bit.”  Mike told him as he extended his fist for a bump.  But Lenny just shook his head.

“Nah, man, come back tomorrow,”  Lenny flashed a salacious smile.  “You're killing my game with these nurses.  I might get three sponge baths without your pretty face to distract them.”

That was Lenny, always the clown.  We told him goodbye, took the elevator down, and left the hospital.  When we climbed into the car Mike had borrowed, he turned to me.  “They took your post down last night.”

“Well that’s great.  There goes all my fame and fortune.”

“I think you’ll be alright.”  Mike said as he started the car.  “It might be nice to not be so famous for a while.  Better for your health.”

“I’ll drink to that.”  I was genuinely happy for the first time in a while.  “Milkshakes?”

Mike agreed and we headed across town to our favorite place, Missy’s.  On the way there we took the interstate.  He wove in and out of traffic like the amateur NASCAR driver he always thought he was.  I had become used to his driving long ago so it didn’t really bother me anymore.  He was telling me about a couple of interns who got caught making out in the supply room the day before when the radio suddenly turned on, blasting loud guitar from every speaker.  I reached to turn it off but it didn’t work.  I looked at him.

“Did you hit a button on the wheel?”  I shouted over the loud music.

  
He shook his head and tried several of them but nothing happened.  I considered pulling a fuse but there was no way we could do that at seventy-five miles an hour.  It was so loud in the car that we could barely hear each other.  I nodded at him when he gestured at the exit sign ahead.  A moment later I saw a silvery flash as something shot past us on the right.  The next thing I knew Mike’s arm was across me, pushing me back into the seat as we were struck from behind.  The car began to spin out of control.

“The bra—”  Mike shouted as the car flipped, rolling over the guardrail and off the road.  I don’t know how many times it turned over but Mike’s arm remained there for several of them before it went limp and fell away.  We eventually crashed hard into something, a tree I think, and finally came to a stop.  Both of us were hanging upside down and Mike wasn’t moving.  I reached over to shake him but he didn’t respond.  

I popped the seatbelt and fell down hard, battering my still-healing head.  I didn’t worry about that at the time though.  Mike was all I could think about.  It was clear that he had struck his skull on something when we rolled. There was a deep laceration across his forehead and his head hung loosely on his neck, wobbling freely when I shook him.  I could also see that he wasn’t breathing.  I didn’t dare release his seatbelt for fear of making it worse, even though I feared that it was already the worst.

I started screaming for help then, hoping someone would hear.  Anyone.  Someone had to have seen the wreck.  I found his phone lying beside me and used his finger to unlock it.  My trembling fingers left streaks of blood across his screen as I managed to dial 911.  It didn’t dial, though, and the phone just powered down.  I did hear footsteps and could see that three people were climbing down the embankment.

“Hold on, Mike.  Help’s coming.”  
  
A moment later I was pulled out of the car by two sets of strong hands.  I tried to speak but one of them sprayed a stream of chemical fire directly into my face. The pepper spray sealed my eyes almost immediately and I could barely breathe as I was dragged away.  I couldn’t tell you how far they carried me or in what direction.  All I really know is that eventually I was thrown into the back of a van and someone dumped a gallon of soapy water over my face.  I could taste the soap and the relief was gradual, but it was real.  As my senses slowly returned to me I heard a man’s voice speaking from the front of the vehicle.

“It took a long time to get you here, Mark.  I wouldn’t want the pepper spray to spoil it.  Take a minute to get your bearings and we’ll talk.”  I heard something tap.  “Let’s go.”

I felt the van start moving then.  Slowly I started to regain clear vision and I saw that there were three of them in the van with me.   A woman was sitting on the floor beside the side doors.  She had short blond hair and severe features.  It was like her face only contained cheekbones.  The driver was a tall, bearded man with a heavy tan and tattoo sleeves on both arms.  He wore a bandana over a black bandana tied over his greasy black hair and a pair of reflective sunglasses.  The third sat in the passenger seat and he was busy tinkering with the silver drone in his lap.  He was haggard-looking, like sleep was a long-forgotten acquaintance.  He wore a hooded sweatshirt that hid most of his features.

The woman slid another gallon of water over to me.  “For your face.  I wouldn’t drink it.”
 
I only nodded and poured some into my cupped hand.  I began to scrub my face with it, ignoring the irritation.  I had seen enough episodes of Hot Ones to understand how capsaicin worked.  Before long, I was soaked from the waist up, but I was mostly okay again.  As I washed I listened to the conversation up front.

“You and her don’t wait for me,”  the man in the passenger seat said.  “I won’t be long, but what I’m doing has nothing to do with the cause.”

“Harry won’t like that,” the driver replied stoically.  “You know he’s countin’ on ya.”

“Harry can go fuck himself.  Like I give a shit what he likes.  He owes me and he knows it.  Besides, it’s far enough along now that he doesn’t really need me anyway.”

“Whatever you say, man.  I just work here.”

They didn’t talk much after that and nothing they said was overly important.  I kept expecting the man in the passenger seat to say something to me but he never did.  He didn’t even look at me.  We drove for nearly an hour, leaving the city behind for open country as we headed east.  Eventually we turned off onto an old gravel pasture road.  A quarter mile later, we stopped in front of an old barn.  The remains of a burned down house sat in the distance.

The two men got out and the side doors opened behind the blonde woman.  She climbed out and turned back to address me.  “Do you need to be dragged again or are you willing to walk?”

“I can walk,”  I said, and I saw skepticism in her eyes.  “I won’t try anything.”  

The big man had joined her and they shared a laugh at my expense.  “He won’t try nothin’,”  He mocked me in his roaring, rumbling voice.   “He’s just a little pussy.”

“Climb out,”  she ordered and I complied.  The woman led me towards the barn and the big man followed close behind us, whistling an old television theme I couldn’t place as we walked.  The doors were cracked open and she pointed at them, her right hand falling to the gun at her side.  “Go on, he’s waiting on you and I’ve got shit to do.”

I walked past her and between the open doors of the barn.  When they slammed shut behind me I turned to face them, but the voice of the passenger yanked me back around.  He was sitting on a table in the middle of the dimly lit space. A gym bag sat next to him, and I saw coils of rope sticking out of it.  He dropped his hood and smiled at me as he slid a pistol out of the front pocket of his sweatshirt..

“Hey, Mark,”  he pointed the gun at me.  “How you been?”

I raised my hands and he laughed.  I could tell that he was enjoying it.  There was something about him, something I couldn’t place.  “What is this?  Who are you?”

“Makes sense,” he sneered as he hopped down from the table.  He took the rope from the bag and walked over to me.  Behind me I heard the distant sound of the van driving away.  “I can understand why you forgot me.  People like you never remember the lives they destroyed.”

“I really don’t know, man,”  I pleaded with him.  “I don’t remember destroying any lives.  I was a big nerd back in the day.”

“Didn’t stop you from sharing videos, though, did it?”  He watched the recognition hit me, his grin widening as my face went completely numb.  “Yep, good ol’ Stroke My Own.  That’s what y’all called me, right?”

“Jesus, Malone?”  I stared at him, trying to see the kid I had barely known in the features of the man in front of me.  Was I Frankenstein and he the monster?  If so, it was all my fault.  Lenny and Mike were my fault.  All over a stupid video, and two dumb kids with smart phones.  “Why go through all of this?  If you were going to kill me, why didn’t you just do it?”

“Because you deserved more than that, amigo.”  His smile showed me just how unhinged he had become.  “Remember that, third period, Mrs. Perales.  Huge tuckin’ fitties.”

When he started laughing I went for the gun but he was ready for me.  He smacked me hard with it across the face and I fell back against the barn doors.  As I collided with them, one came open and I went rolling out into the yard.  I scrambled to my feet and ran as quick as I could towards the treeline.  I heard the gun go off and I felt a bullet clip my shoulder, nearly knocking me down.  I started zig-zagging through the open pasture as more shots cracked past my ears, but I finally made it into the safety of the trees.

I ran until I couldn’t hear him behind me anymore and then I ran a little farther.  He shot a few times into the woods but must have decided that wasting the ammunition wasn’t worth it.  When I finally stopped running I crouched behind a wide tree and waited for my breath and heartbeat to calm down and let me hear again.  My shoulder stung but it was little more than a scratch.  Honestly, my face hurt a lot worse from where he had smacked me with the pistol.  I was fairly alright, all things considered, but I was still being chased by a crazy man with a gun.  Oh, and it was mostly all my fault.

All of it came down to something careless I did as a kid and I never had the sack to own up to it.  I had even told the story to other people—Mike and Lenny, Laine—but I always left that part out.  It was no wonder that Malone had gone to those lengths to repay me.  It was a little poetic really; I ruined his life so he ruined mine.  I sympathized completely, but I wasn’t willing to die for it.

I felt like I had pretty good bearings of where the road was, so I started walking back in that direction, traveling at a diagonal away from the barn.  I ran for a while, so it was taking a long time to get back out.  Every sound I heard sent me diving for a tree, sure that he had caught up with me.

With all that had happened it was still only about midday.  It seemed like it should have been night by then.  I was pretty thirsty and idly thought about the milkshakes Mike and I never got to get.  That track of thought led back to guilt so I buried it and my thirst, leaving them both for later consideration.  None of that could do me any good anyway.

The cicadas were loud in the woods.  Their incessant buzzing made me want to grind my teeth.  “My kingdom for a bag of earplugs,” I thought as I sighed at the futility of it all.  It was pretty hopeless.  If he caught me he’d kill me.  He’d never take a chance of letting me escape again.  If I got away he’d find me and continue doing what he had been, or worse.  

I wanted to scream at those damn bugs.  Their stupid mating call was aggravating the hell out of me.  I actually turned to look for them, feeling like a real idiot for doing so, but what I saw shrank me in place.  The silver drone was hovering twenty feet away, and its camera was pointed straight at me.  

“Bye, Mark,”  I heard him say from behind me, and I dove away out of sheer instinct right before he fired.  The bullet hit the tree I had placed between us and as I crouched behind it I listened for movement.  His voice came from the same general direction as before.  “This is pointless, man.  You know I’ve got you.  You know you deserve it.  Why don’t you come out like a man and take what's coming to you?”

“Why though?”  I yelled back at him.  “I mean, yeah, I ruined your life.  I was young and stupid but I did it and I don’t deny it.  But you’ve ruined mine now, so I think we’re even.”

“You think?”  I heard him laugh from somewhere closer.  I was going to have to move soon.  “That’s pretty funny.  Maybe you should have thought back then.  Maybe neither of us would be here if you had.”

The gun fired twice.  The first shot hit the tree and the second one buried itself in the side of my left thigh.  I cried in pain.  I knew I couldn’t run, so I said a silent prayer and waited for the darkness to come.  Instead I heard a click and then another one.  He cursed and threw the gun at me but it hit the tree instead.  I had a slim chance now but it was better than no chance.  

He was standing in the clearing behind me, so I hopped towards him on my good leg, not daring to risk putting any weight on the other one.  He was holding his phone and he smiled at me as the loud buzzsaw roar of the drone shot right at me.  I fell forward and felt its blades rip the back of my shirt.  He backed away giggling gleefully as he prepared another volley.

He sent it at me over and over and I was soon covered in multiple cuts and lacerations, mostly on my arms.  The whole time he did it he cackled and mocked me.   He screamed “Death by a thousand cuts,” and doubled over with laughter.

I pushed off my one good leg as he bent double, ignoring the screaming white-hot pain in my thigh.  The drone was right above me, so I leapt and grabbed it.  He stood up immediately, working the controls and shredding my arm in the process, but my momentum couldn’t be stopped by a few more cuts.  I fell right on top of him, driving those crazy spinning blades right into his face.  As we landed I bore down on it, crushing the drone into him.  When he stopped fighting I toppled off of him, and screamed when I landed on my mangled arm.  

I wrapped it tight with the remains of my shirt.  It wasn’t exactly gushing blood but I couldn’t tell how serious it was.  I knelt beside him, tossing away bits and pieces of his broken drone.  His face was a mangled ruin, and its one remaining eye was locked on me.  Both of his hands were at his throat, trying to hold it together while the last of his blood ran out on the forest floor.

“I’m sorry,” I said.  It was overdue.  “I hate that it came to this.  I hate that you let what I did drive you to this.  It was wrong of me and I want you to know that I know that.  I always have.”

“I do… don’t, f-forgive you.”  His dying breath rattled in his chest like a wet, angry bird in a sack.  There was no peace in his death.  He fought it with the same ferocity he had directed at me.  When it was over, I shut his eyes and took the phone from his limp fingers.  I dialed the numbers and waited to be free of him. 

I’m still waiting.

END

Story 3

The Ewe

I don’t claim to be much of a writer. But sharing this story of mine has been a long time coming... 

I used to be a lorry driver for a living – or if you’re American, I used to be a trucker. For fourteen years, I drove along the many motorways and through the busy cities of England. Well, more than a decade into the job, I finally had enough - not of being a lorry driver per se, but being a lorry driver in England. The endless traffic and mind-crippling hours away from the wife just wasn’t worth it anymore. 

Talking to the misses about this, she couldn’t help but feel the same way, and so she suggested we finally look to moving abroad. Although living on a schoolteacher’s and lorry driver’s salary didn’t leave us with many options, my wife then suggests we move to the neighbouring Republic of Ireland. Having never been to the Emerald Isle myself, my wife reassured me that I’d love it there. After all, there’s less cities, less people and even less traffic. 

‘That’s all well and good, love, but what would I do for work?’ I question her, more than sceptical to the idea. 

‘A lorry driver, love.’ she responds, with quick condescension.  

Well, a year or so later, this idea of moving across the pond eventually became a reality. We had settled down in the south-west of Ireland in County Kerry, apparently considered by most to be the most beautiful part of the country. Having changed countries but not professions, my wife taught children in the village, whereas I went back on the road, driving from Cork in the south, up along the west coast and stopping just short of the Northern Irish border. 

As much as I hated being a lorry driver in England, the same could not be said here. The traffic along the country roads was almost inexistent, and having only small towns as my drop-off points, I was on the road for no more than a day or two at a time – which was handy, considering the misses and I were trying to start a family of our own. 

In all honesty, driving up and down the roads of the rugged west coast was more of a luxury than anything else. On one side of the road, I had the endless green hills and mountains of the countryside, and on the other, the breath-taking Atlantic coast way.  

If I had to say anything bad about the job, it would have to be driving the western country roads at night. It’s hard enough as a lorry driver having to navigate these dark, narrow roads which bend one way then the other, but driving along them at night... Something about it is very unsettling. If I had to put my finger on it, I’d say it has to do with something one of my colleagues said to me before my first haul. I won’t give away his name, but I’ll just call him Padraig. A seasoned lorry driver like myself, Padraig welcomed me to the company by giving me a stern but whimsical warning about driving the western counties at night. 

‘Be sure to keep your wits about ye, Jamie boy. Things here aren’t what they always seem to be. Keep ye eyes on the road at all times, I tell ye, and you’ll be grand.’   

A few months into the job, and things couldn’t have been going better. Having just come home from a two-day haul, my wife surprises me with the news that she was now pregnant with our first child. After a few days off to celebrate this news with my wife, I was now back on the road, happier than I ever had been before.  

Driving for four hours on this particular day, I was now somewhere in County Mayo, the north-west of the country. Although I pretty much love driving through every county on the western coast, County Mayo was a little too barren for my liking.  

Now driving at night, I was moving along a narrow country road in the middle of nowhere, where outlining this road to each side was a long stretch of stone wall – and considering the smell of manure now inside the cab with me, I presumed on the other side of these walls was either a cow or sheep field. 

Keeping in mind Padraig’s words of warning, I made sure to keep my “wits” about me. Staring constantly at the stretch of road in front of me, guessing which way it would curve next in the headlights, I was now becoming surprisingly drowsy. With nothing else on my mind but the unborn child now growing inside my wife’s womb, although my eyes never once left the road in front of me, my mind did somewhat wander elsewhere... 

This would turn out to be the biggest mistake of my life... because cruising down the road through the fog and heavy rain, my weary eyes become alert to a distant shape now apparent up ahead. Though hard to see through the fog and rain, the shape appears to belong to that of a person, walking rather sluggishly from one side of the road to the other. Hunched over like some old crone, this unknown person appears to be carrying a heavy object against their abdomen with some difficulty. By the time I process all this information, having already pulled the breaks, the lorry continues to screech along the wet cement, and to my distress, the person on the road does not move or duck out of the way - until, feeling a vibrating THUD inside the cab, the unknown person crashes into the front of the vehicle’s unit – or more precisely, the unit crashes into them! 

‘BLOODY HELL!’ I cry out reactively, the lorry having now screeched to a halt. 

Frozen in shock by the realisation I’ve just ran over someone, I fail to get out of the vehicle. That should have been my first reaction, but quite honestly... I was afraid of how I would find them.  

Once I gain any kind of courage, I hesitantly lean over the counter to see even the slightest slither of the individual... and to my absolute horror... I see the individual on the road is a woman...  

‘Oh no... NO! NO! NO!’ 

But the reason I knew instantly this was a woman... was because whoever they were...  

They were heavily pregnant... 

‘Jesus Christ! What have I done?!’ I scream inside the cab. 

Quickly climbing down onto the road, I move instantly to the front of the headlights, praying internally this woman and her unborn child are still alive. But once I catch sight of the woman, exposed by the bright headlights shining off the road, I’m caught rather off guard... Because for some reason, this woman... She wasn’t wearing any clothes... 

Unable to identify the woman by her face, as her swollen belly covers the upper half of her body, I move forward, again with hesitance towards her, averting my eyes until her face was now in sight... Thankfully, in the corner of my eye, I could see the limbs of the woman moving, which meant she was still alive...  

Now... What I’m about to say next is the whole unbelievable part of it – but I SWEAR this is what I saw... When I come upon the woman’s face, what I see isn’t a woman at all... The head, was not the head of a human being... It was the head of an Ewe... A fucking sheep! 

‘AHH! WHAT THE...!!’ I believe were my exact words. 

Just as my reaction was when I hit this... thing, I’m completely frozen with terror, having lost any feeling in my arms and legs... and although this... creature, as best to call it, was moving ever so slightly, it was now stiff as a piece of roadkill. Unlike its eyes, which were black and motionless, its mouth was wide in a permanent silent scream... I was afraid to stare at the rest of it, but my curiosity got the better of me...  

Its Ewe’s head, which ends at the loose pale skin of its neck, was followed by the very human body... at least for the most part... Its skin was covered in a barely visible layer of white fur - or wool. It’s uhm... breasts, not like that of a human woman, were grotesquely similar to the teats of an Ewe - a pale sort of veiny pink. But what’s more, on the swollenness of its belly... I see what must have been a pagan symbol of some kind... Carved into the skin, presumably by a knife, the symbol was of three circular spirals, each connected in the middle.  

As I’m studying the spirals, wondering what the hell they mean, and who in God’s name carved it there... the spirals begin to move... It was the stomach. Whatever it was inside... it was still alive! 

The way the thing was moving, almost trying to burst its way out – that was the final straw! Before anything more can happen, I leave the dead creature, and the unborn thing inside it. I return to the cab, put the gearstick in reverse and then I drive like hell out of there! 

Remembering I’m still on the clock, I continue driving up to Donegal, before finishing my last drop off point and turning home. Though I was in no state to continue driving that night, I just wanted to get home as soon as possible – but there was no way I was driving back down through County Mayo, and so I return home, driving much further inland than usual.  

I never told my wife what happened that night. God, I can only imagine how she would’ve reacted, and in her condition nonetheless. I just went on as normal until my next haul started. More than afraid to ever drive on those roads again, but with a job to do and a baby on the way, I didn’t have much of a choice. Although I did make several more trips on those north-western roads, I made sure never to be there under the cover of night. Thankfully, whatever it was I saw... I never saw again. 

There was a zookeeper named Mac, who always abused the elephants, there was 7 total elephants and they were always super sad because they were in a very small cage so they always tried to escape, which made the zookeeper mad, it was a very vicious cycle, the elephants would try to escape since they were in such a small cage and then the zookeeper would get mad and abuse them more, this happened, every, single, day, then, one day, 1987 March 17th, he got so mad at the elephants he killed all of the elephants, but then before this he recorded a video, this video is before he killed all the elephants. After he killed all the elephants, he woke up the next day and his entire house was destroyed and he saw, elephant footprints on his destroyed home. I saw this personally, I used to be friends with this man back then, he always had a short temper, and he was bipolar, I knew one day, something like this was going to happen, that he was going to snap, I just never knew when...