Everyone draws inspiration in different ways. Some create a dark atmosphere for themselves, some put on metal music in the background, and some can’t compose without coffee and cigarettes. A writer friend of mine, whom I’m very fond of, says he can’t write stories unless his cousin is studying mathematics behind him. Another filmmaker friend of mine could only write screenplays while listening to Syd Barrett’s song “Octopus”; he would keep the song on loop throughout the entire writing process.

It’s been about twenty years since I discovered my own. I’d been going through that famous writer’s block. Until that day, I hadn’t done anything extra to help me write. I didn’t create a special atmosphere for myself, listen to any particular songs, or wait for a certain time of day. Night, day, noon—it made no difference. Once a week, I’d write a three or four-page story and keep working toward my goal. When I reached a hundred stories, I would start sending my book to publishers.

But I’d hit a wall. I wanted to write, but whenever I sat down at my computer, not a single word would come out. Vague, half-formed thoughts kept drifting through my mind, and even when I came up with a good idea, I couldn’t put it down on paper.

That day, I thought, if that’s how things were going to be, I might as well try some of the famous methods for finding inspiration: writing at night, putting on some soft music, having a cup of coffee, and so on.

I prepared the right atmosphere. I turned off the lights, and now the only thing illuminating the room was the glow of my computer screen. I put on Sigur Rós’s debut album. There was no one else in the house. My roommate had gone on vacation the day before, which added to the atmosphere: being alone.

Of course, it had absolutely no effect. I was already on the third track. I still had a few ideas in my head, but I couldn’t get the first sentence out.

Then I heard a sound behind me. A whisper. Something like a call, as if someone had gone “psst.”

I turned around and looked, but there was no one there. I was a little spooked. I thought I might have heard it wrong; it had sounded very much like a human voice, but it could have come from an object, too.

Then suddenly, the door behind me swung wide open.

I flinched at the sound. I got up from my computer and turned on the light. Anxiously, I left my room and went to the kitchen. I was searching for something without even realizing it, though I had no idea what I was looking for. Sigur Rós’s album was still playing, and I could hear it from the kitchen. I couldn’t make sense of anything, and I didn’t know what to think or which possibility to consider. I drank a glass of water.

I’d never had an experience like it before. My first thought was to leave the house. I stood frozen in the kitchen. Involuntarily, I found myself waiting for another movement, for something to topple over or for some other sound.

Eventually, I’d calmed down a little, since nothing else happened. I spent half an hour in the kitchen, with all my senses on high alert and listening to the music coming from my room. Then, reluctantly, I made my way back to my room.

The urge to write was still there. My routine had been disrupted; I hadn’t been able to write a single word for a month, and now I wasn’t going to let fear get in my way. I wanted my writer’s block to end today. My goal was a hundred sentences. Even if I didn’t finish the story, I wanted to write something. Coming back to my room and hearing the music louder had increased my desire to write.

At the same time, I kept thinking, ''What the hell was that just now?'' But now I was back at my computer.

I put on my favorite Sigur Rós song, “Svefn-g-englar.”

And then, for the first time in a whole month, I wrote my first sentence: “As he tried to make sense of the dream he’d had the day before, he fell asleep again; it was his favorite thing to think about before going to sleep, the meaning of the dream he’d had the previous night.”

I’d written my first sentence, without even having a story in mind. Normally, I would come up with a story first, plan it out, work out the whole thing in my head from beginning to end, and only then start writing. Starting a story whose content I hadn’t figured out yet with an ordinary sentence was something new for me. I liked it.

I was still afraid. I wanted to turn around and look, but now that I’d started writing, I didn’t want to stop either. By the time the song ended, I’d written the fifth sentence, and in the silence before the next track began, I heard that sound again. “Psst.”

I quickly turned around and looked. There was no one there. Everything felt much more real now. Something was happening. Someone was calling out to me. I was afraid to turn off the light in my room, so it was still on. I nervously turned my head back toward the computer screen. My heart was pounding. I added another sentence. It was my favorite one so far. I liked everything about it: my choice of words, its length, its place in the story.

Then the door slammed shut. I began to hear footsteps inside the room. I was afraid to look. The footsteps wandered around the room. My hands were resting on the keyboard. The footsteps moved toward the door, stopped there, and opened it again. It was as if someone had left the room.

I was frozen to my chair. This time, I didn’t even have the instinct to run away. Whatever that thing was, I was afraid of encountering it. I couldn’t get up from my chair, and I couldn’t look away from my computer screen. I kept reading what I’d written over and over. Six sentences. I’d go back to the beginning and read them again. It was as if the thing was doing whatever it wanted now. I could hear running footsteps.

Then came the sound of walking. After that, my door closed again, and at the same moment, the light in my room went out.

And then another sentence came to mind. I wrote it down. Then another. My fingers had found their rhythm. The sentences kept coming one after another.

“Set me free. Open the window. Set me free.”

This voice wasn’t a whisper, nor was it some strange, otherworldly sound coming from a different frequency. It was unmistakably a human voice. I was afraid to turn around.

I couldn’t remember ever feeling such a strong urge to write or enjoying it this much. I kept writing. My fingers wouldn’t stop. The door opened again, slowly this time. I didn’t turn around. I wasn’t going to look behind me until I’d finished the story. Without spending even a second thinking between sentences, I continued writing as the songs played.

The footsteps continued. I turned off the music. I didn’t question anything. I just kept writing. The fear I felt and the joy of seeing that I could write again were mingled together, unfolding in harmony with each other.

Strange sounds I couldn’t describe were coming from behind me now. I could feel myself developing a fever. My body was reacting, and my mind was urging me to turn around and see what was going on. The sounds seemed like those of someone playing with their own hair. Like things rubbing against other things. I kept writing, resisting the urge to turn around with all my might.

I’d turned off the music because I wanted to focus on being afraid. I’d realized that the more frightened I became, the better I wrote, and the more consistently I could keep going. It was hard not to look for a rational explanation for the sounds, for a human voice telling me to set it free. But right now, somehow, stopping writing seemed even harder.

That thing had now come right up beside me. I could feel it touching my hair. My fear had reached a point where I could no longer bear it. My consciousness refused to accept this unnatural behavior. My instinct to put an end to the fear and my mind’s desire to keep being afraid were at odds with each other.

And I wrote the final sentence: “If all of this is a hallucination, I will never forgive my own mind. If the only beautiful and meaningful thing I’ve experienced in this miserable life isn’t real, I will never trust my mind again, I will never follow its instructions, and I will doubt everything I think until the day I die.”

The sentence came to an end, and just as the pleasure of writing faded away, my fear reached its absolute peak. With the beautiful feeling that had balanced it gone, the fear was left alone, making itself felt from head to toe. As if I’d been struck by a blow, as if a punch to the face had knocked me out, I lost consciousness.

When I came to, my head was resting on the keyboard, and the screen was filled with hundreds of letter h’s.

I sent the story to several literary magazines. Two of them accepted it and published it.

I never experienced anything like that again, and at no point in my life did I ever feel such an overwhelming urge to write or take so much pleasure in writing. I desperately wanted to experience it again, but nothing ever happened that frightened me so much. For days, I sat at my computer waiting for that thing to come back, but it never did. I wrote stories and kept writing. But I never loved any of them as much as I loved the one I’d written that day.

And now, twenty years later, in my mid-sixties, I’ve still never questioned what happened that night. Not even once. Because I was afraid that if I did, I might understand what had happened—and if that thing ever came back, I might not be as frightened.

​

You push through the French doors into the smell of sour beer and whiskey. The air — like the keys of the pianist — is untuned and still. The Chanteuse is flat and, like the piano, only sings in dead keys. You flare out your duster, and the dust from the bar-stained floor lifts in a pillow of tranquil turmoil. The long-expired taste of Virginia cut fills your cheek, so you take a finger and pluck it from your mouth and to the floor. Your lips split on the seams of dried brown blood, and the taste of iron fills you. You make your way to the tender and find a seat.

The guns on your belt are heavy. You have two Colt forty-fives, one for protection and the other for exodus. You remove the belt with so little care that you question your decision-making, but all you can think about is how sore your feet are and how dry your mouth is.

You dislodge the revolver, remove two bronze bullets, close it, and holster the gun back in its bed. The bronze is cheap, bought and traded with in every post you’ve ever passed, but bronze didn’t always work. Bronze is what killed Guerra. Bronze is what couldn’t stop the raid, and when the dust settled, it was the silver that laid your horse down in the dirt. That was miles ago, days ago. For now, you just thirst for a drink.

The keep inspects your shots and lays down two glasses smudged with who knows how many hands and lips that have taken part in this unholy communion. The liquor pours out of the amber glass and fills them to the top. You thank the man and pick up your drink. You throw it back, and it smites your throat, and before you give yourself time to cough, you do the same again. The fire in the whiskey kills the filthy taste in your mouth. “¿Eres de por aquí, vaquero?”

You look at the long and thin dark-haired woman. She has mutt in her blood, and you don’t know from where, or care.

“No, no hablo,” you say.

She nods her head in understanding and asks, “You need a room for the night?”

Without breaking eye contact with the whore, you lay out another bronze bullet, and before the keep pulls away, you take your shot. “Just company.”

She nods her head, and you follow her upstairs to do what any man would do after weeks of solitude and unload your chamber.

The stairs complain under your weight as if begging you to spare their lives. Each step feels fit to give way, with years of rot crept clean through its veins. You carry the belt over one shoulder, both Colts knocking against your back, and the woman climbs ahead without looking back. She trails her hand along the rail and leaves sticky prints on the wood.

The room is a coffin with a window cut in it: a lamp, a basin and pitcher, a bed that has outlived its host by years. You hang the belt on the bedpost farthest from the door, this time with a good deal more care.

What started as a whisper has left the lamp guttering lower than it should, and the room runs hotter than the night has any right to make it. She lies with her back against your ribs, and she is not warm. She burns like a stove lid. You’ve felt fever on men before. It has never come with a smell like this: copper, and something sweet, like fruit gone over.

She turns to face you, and the lamp finds her eyes. The whites have yellowed like old ivory.

“Fiebre amarilla,” she says, and shrugs as if she were remarking on the weather. “Everybody’s got it this year.”

You’ve been in the sun and dust so long you can’t tell jaundice from lamplight. You’d sooner call it lamplight than name the other thing.

She lifts a thumb to your split lip and comes away with a flake of dried blood. She studies it a good while. She does not wipe it off.

Your mouth is dry again, two shots on and not a drop to show for it, and whatever it wants, you don’t think it’s whiskey.

Downstairs, the piano stops plunking at nothing. It finds one key and leans on it. The note climbs through the floorboards and settles in your teeth. Then the Chanteuse finds it too, and for the first time all night she sings true. Under her, boots, all in time. Not marching, not dancing, just a room full of feet agreeing.

The air that was untuned and still is neither now.

The woman goes still. Not the stillness of someone listening, but the stillness of something that’s been told to. The last thing to stand that still in front of you was your horse.

Her eyes go to the window, where a moon you never reckoned on is climbing. You’ve been counting miles and blisters and bullets for weeks. You weren’t counting this.

“Ya sale la luna,” she whispers. Then, quicker, with the last thin piece of her that’s still hers: “Vete.”

You catch luna. You catch the other one, too, because it’s a word every woman in every language has used on you at least once.

She says it again, and for a second her mouth and the note are arguing. You watch her lose.

The belt hangs from the far bedpost, an arm and a half out of reach, right where you left it. From here you can see the left Colt, the one you’ve never traded a round out of. You think of it the way some men think of church: glad it’s there, hoping not to need it.

On the stairs, a boot. Then a second, landing with it. Then a third, with both. The whole saloon is keeping time, and you are the only thing in it that’s out of time.

Downstairs, the Chanteuse’s one true note quickens, a kettle coming to the boil, and the boots on the stairs break from a walk into a run, every heel landing together like hail on a tin roof. Beside you the woman’s back bows off the mattress, folds, and bows again. Her heels drum the quilt, her black hair whips your face, and the skin that burned like a stove lid a moment ago goes cold as well water. Then she drops like a rag shaken off a line, and for one breath her ribs stop lifting.

You lunge across the bed and snatch the belt from the far bedpost, the mattress shrieking under your knees. The leather is cool and heavy in your fist, and the left Colt clears its holster. Behind you she sits up without bending, the way a plank rises when its far end is stepped on. Her neck turns with the creak of a green branch giving, and the lamp finds her eyes. The ivory has gone to yolk. Her lip peels from her teeth, and the snarl that comes out is no Spanish and no English, only a sound that rattles the pitcher in its basin.

The gun rises with her, hammer back, grip slick in your palm. The Colt bucks and the room goes white with noise. She folds back across the quilt, and a hole the size of a thumb opens dead center in her chest, breathing blue smoke thin as a snuffed wick. Powder coats your tongue, bitter as a burnt match. Scorched hair and hot copper fill the room, and under them the sweet-rot of fruit gone over pours out of her all at once.

The screams come on the heels of the shot, high and ragged, as though the whole house had been the one struck. Fists hammer your door, each blow landing on the beat, and with every beat there are more of them. The swell climbs through the floorboards and settles in your shins. You thumb out the spent shell and feed two rounds of silver into the cylinder, cold as creek pebbles against your fingertips. The silver cross swings out on its cord and raps your breastbone, a small cold knuckle, as you come off the bed.

You ease the hammer back, and the click is loud as a snapped bone. The fists land. You wait for the hush that follows, a gap you could drop a coin through, sweat stinging your eyes, the old split in your lip weeping iron onto your tongue. Then you put your heel through the door.

The door tears off its top hinge, and the hallway opens on a dozen faces the pale yellow of tallow candles, jammed shoulder to shoulder, heads lolling like rotted gourds. Their eyes don’t find you so much as slide toward you, every one of them keeping time to a beat you can feel in your teeth. Their jaws hang wider than jaws should, and the stink rolls over you: fruit gone over, wet wool, grave dirt.

You fire twice into the first faces. The two nearest drop like sacks off a wagon, and the rest step over them without a glance. You shoulder into the gap. Hands pluck at your sleeves, dry and hot as skillet handles, and sour-sweet breath crawls up your neck. The hallway is no wider than a coffin lid. You twist sideways and club the barrel across a jaw, and teeth scatter like dropped crockery. You duck a clawing arm and fire twice more into the thick of them, the muzzle flash strobing their faces yellow, dark, yellow, like a magic lantern jammed on its slide. Numbers are what take a man. They took Guerra the same way.

You break out at the head of the stairs, and the rest of the turned wait below, packed at the foot like cattle in a chute. The Chanteuse flings herself up the last steps with her mouth stretched around that single note and lands a hand’s breadth short of your boots, her nails raking the banister like a bow dragged over a cracked fiddle. A patron hauls himself up the rail hand over hand, the varnish curling under his fingers. The pianist’s grip clamps your calf as you vault the banister, and you wrench loose and leave a strip of trouser leg in his fist.

You hit the floor rolling. The boards hammer your shoulder, and the smell of sour beer and spilled whiskey rises around you, the same smell that met you at the French doors. You come up and vault onto the bar, boots skidding in a slick of something you decide is whiskey. Bang! Bang! The shots crack like a bullwhip, and two of the fallen stop dragging themselves toward you.

You are thumbing fresh silver into the cylinder when fingers close around the top of your boot, a wrist thin as kindling behind them, a grip with no strength in it, wet and shaking like a dishrag. You raise the Colt to club whatever has hold of you and look down at the keep, his face the color of lard, his eyes white all the way around, his mouth working on a plea that makes no sound.

“Hands off me, unless you’re hankering to join your patrons.”

“W-what are they?” The words come out of him in pieces.

“Worse than death.” You snap the loading gate shut and put silver through the last of them as they crawl.

“Who are you?” he asks. “You ain’t just some trail hand or agent.”

“Worse for death, I reckon.” You kick his hand off your boot. “Sorry ’bout the place."

“No, you ain’t,” he says.

A laugh scrapes out of you, dry as a boot dragged over gravel. “Reckon I ain’t.” You reach behind the bar and come up with a bottle, the glass cool and beaded against your palm. “You aimin’ to go fetch the law? Figure you’ll be wanting some questions answered, and I’m short on time.”

The keep scrambles to his feet and bolts for the French doors, boots slipping in the wet. The glass chatters in its frames as he bursts through, and the night swallows his screaming and pays it out down the street, thinner and thinner, like rope off a spool. The doors swing behind him and let the moon in, white across the boards and everything lying in it. You settle onto the bar top and swing your boots up. The cork comes out bitter between your teeth, and the whiskey goes down clean and hot, no smudged glass, no hands but yours, a communion with only one communicant. The drought in your mouth lets go at last.

Emily wasn’t allowed to be there when it happened. Nobody was. They told her that if she witnessed the rite, it would come to her next. All of the town elders said the same thing. Yet none of them would tell her what it was, even though she had asked too many times to count.

She couldn’t be dissuaded. She stole a peek at the body during the day, while the sun was high. The rite wouldn’t be performed until midnight. For now the body rested in the straw on the floor of a small shack at the edge of town, just beyond the fields.

Emily considered going inside but chose instead to hoist herself up to look through the window. There it was, swollen from the water that had drowned the man, the arms and legs like bloated sausages. The eyeballs pushing to escape their sockets. And its tongue frozen in the center of its silently screaming mouth.

The flesh was loose around its face, folding over itself like melted wax. She had no idea who the man was. Pa had called him a tosspot, which meant nothing to her. Though it did conjure images of a man standing near the shoreline throwing pots into the sea, until he lost his balance and joined them at the bottom.

She had giggled at the thought then.

But now that seemed childish.

Her stomach quivered and pulled and her mouth tasted bitter.

Emily had just about seen enough, easing herself down from the window ledge, when she noticed something even more unusual than the body. There, placed upon its chest was a piece of bread torn from a round.

She thought that maybe it had fallen out of him somehow, but knew that didn’t make any sense. It was a question without an answer.

Her hand slipped, and she tumbled then the rest of the way, landing on the hard earth, hung tools falling all around her. A hand scythe among them, laid with its curved blade pointing up toward the window. She gave it an apprehensive look before running off.

Later that night, after Pa had sent her to bed, Emily lay motionless, imagining she was the body, feeling her heart race and flutter achingly (though not unpleasantly), until she drifted into a somber dream.

Her legs and arms were fat and swollen, covered in blue veins. She tried to move, but flexing her feet and hands was excruciating. The skin on her face and neck was loose, drooping over her eyes and mouth and nose. It felt as if she were drowning in the deepest part of the ocean.

But I’m not a tosspot!

Emily fought to raise her arms through the pain as if her skin might tear open and spill its contents everywhere.

Blessedly, it did not. And she was able to pull the skin on her face taut so that she could breathe and see. And then her heart was in her throat, bottling up the scream behind it.

Above her bed was the body, suspended, like a mirror image of her. Its eyes white as milk, its skin still bloated, the bread upon its chest. The eyes rolled and the tongue crept along the edge of its lips, as loud as feet squelching in the mud.

“What is the bread for?” she asked, unable to stop herself.

“Munslo,” it said before taking the bread from its chest, presenting it to her.

The word meant nothing. Munslo. It was grotesque, offensive.

It dropped the bread, suddenly, letting it fall, but just before it hit her chest, Emily screamed herself awake.

Her hands touched her arms, her legs, her face.

The room was cold, the house was silent. She sat up gasping, tears streaming, heart pounding. She looked to the coat hanging near her door and hesitated only a moment before slipping quietly from her bed. And then Emily was moving through the cold night air toward the edge of town, questions burning in her skull like hot embers.

When she got to the shack, it was empty, except for the body. She had always imagined that the elders came to watch the rite, never really believing there was any danger in doing so. The emptiness chilled her more than the air. But she was here now and could not bring herself to leave.

After she had sat huddled in her coat for an hour, maybe two, the sounds of branches cracking underfoot rose from the trees nearby.

Emily went rigid, still, watching as a dark figure came carrying a lantern, heading for the shack. She pressed herself into the shadows while trying to get a clear look. But she saw very little.

The door on the other side of the shack opened with a soft creak.

Emily, trembling wildly, moved to the window and pulled herself up slowly.

A man stepped inside, placing the lantern on the ground next to the body before dropping to his knees. His eyes were a light color, the lightest she’d ever seen. And his round nose was covered in pocks. These things scared her more than anything.

The man spoke to the body, something she couldn’t quite hear, and then he reached for the bread. It came away with long, flowing strings of mucus trailing behind. The man considered the bread for a moment, spoke again, and then shoved the whole piece into his mouth, chewing delicately.

Emily gagged and coughed, and the man’s eyes were on her in an instant. She shrieked into the sky and fell from the window.

She fell and fell and fell eternal, wondering, as she lay in the spreading warmth, first why she hadn’t moved the hand scythe now jutting from her chest, and second whether she would have her own piece of bread to cover the hole.

Twelve hours later, the mighty carcasses hadn’t yet returned. It was only vain hope anyway — that neither would currents sweep them out elsewhere in the vast ocean, nor would they take the typical days, if not weeks to descend again. Krause and Miller, half-drunk at the time, had just been speculating that the immense initial depth at the time of their rise would help them fall sooner. That, and any ample opportunity for scavenging along the way.

The chill of the observation room had danced with the deep bitterness of the station’s coffee to keep them awake. All the beer bottles had been cleaned up except the one that’d been shattered in Miller’s outburst, its pieces still scattered near the screens. When Doctor Adachi entered though, nursing her own mug of steaming coffee, she didn’t even notice the glittering shards of amber glass dotting the far floor. Her eyes traveled from the two men to the window they were fixedly staring out of.

She blinked a few times in rapid succession, then squinted to make sure sleepiness wasn’t playing tricks on her.

“What is that…?”

Only at her voice did the two men turn. They both gave vague smiles of greeting, but only Krause spoke.

“You look like hell.”

“Speak for yourself.” She looked tired, true, but it was nothing compared to the heavy bags under Krause’s eyes, and fatigued husk in his voice. Miller looked little better. “Our guest kept me delightfully busy with her questions for nearly seven hours. You owe me overtime, boss.” She smiled. Krause did too. But both sets of eyes were soon back on the observation wall.

The two central screens in the array had been lifted halfway. The enhanced view from the suite of cameras still shone from the halfway point up; a safeguard so the whale fall couldn’t be missed from that angle, but something at least fractionally as interesting was faintly visible through the window below.

“Couldn’t be more than a hundred meters away,” Miller yawned, “since lights can only reach so far down here.”

There, in the far distance, the star-shaped impression of what must have been an impressive set of photophores glowed. The five points were strikingly distinct.

Doctor Adachi didn’t even bother vocalizing the same thought that had occurred to the other two doctors. She tucked her lips behind her mug, sipping quietly, coming to the same realization they had. Despite the shape, it couldn’t be any breed of sea star — the mere idea of finding one of them suspended away from the ocean floor was absurd. So, some new squid, perhaps? Like the octopus squid from the day prior, perhaps? Flashing suspected prey to lure them in? To dazzle them? Or to judge distance?

“It’s been there for the last four hours.” Her eyes tracked down to Krause, who paid her a brief glance and a half shrug in return. “Might be some new species. Doesn’t look like any of the usual suspects.”

Probably realizing the mathematical gears turning in her mind, counting the hours and questioning why they’d been up, he quickly filled in the gap before shifting his gaze back to the distant, glowing organism. “The whales came back up. Dead. We were watching for their fall. Didn’t sleep.”

“Ahhh.” She hummed her understanding, likewise not bothering to point out the reasonable likelihood the whales would fall again quite far from their current point. She’d have done the same thing as them — just in case.

Doctor Krause rose just a few minutes after she’d pulled her own chair over to join their vigil, taking his and Miller’s empty mugs. “My turn.” And he was off to fill them. Not without pausing in the doorway though, and casting one last glance towards the strange, star-shaped illumination in the distance.

“The cameras don’t show it any more clearly?”

“No.” Miller’s short response bordered on rude, but if Adachi cared, she didn’t show it.

“Any movement? Behavior?”

“Seems to be getting closer.”

“How quickly?”

“Very slowly.” She didn’t answer this time, but Miller could clearly feel her staring at him. Patient, expectant, and probing. Eventually he gave in, adjusting wearily in his seat. “Seems just to be floating, suspended. Gradually drifting this way. It’s a little bigger than it was at first. Just a little closer.”

Satisfied, she nodded. “Strange, though, that the cameras can’t clear it up. There’s nothing more? No silhouette? Just photophores?”

Miller grunted, nodding. “Nah. They see what we see.”

“Too far away…? Or, no, is the equipment failing?”

The second question earned her a frustrated glance — as though questioning the integrity of their equipment was an insult to Doctor Miller himself. “Neither. I keep a careful eye on our—” Adachi’s sheepish, apologetic smile and swift raise of placating hands cut him off, silently stating ‘I meant no offense’. With another grunt, he continued. “Can’t be that far. Imagine the lumens to cut through so much abyss. Nah, probably just some weird new jelly. Or maybe a siphonophore.”

Adachi’s excited grin was response enough, and the two fell into silence as their watch continued. Even Krause’s return with two refilled mugs was silent, save for yet another grunt from Miller. This time in thanks, at least.

The silence lasted over the next couple of hours, barring a few moments spent debating whether the organism was getting larger — and thus closer — still. Settled when Miller summoned up the energy to roll over to his workspace and check the camera playback, confirming in moments that, yes, it was. Fractionally though.

Their next audible exchange had come when Adachi had offered to refill everyone’s coffees, only to receive refusals. Headaches. Too much caffeine, both her colleagues said. So, she sat back down, not commenting on the light ache she, too, had begun feeling.

 

Their peace only lasted another hour.

“Where the HELL is the creamer in this place? Refrigerator? KITCHEN? I can’t even with this plain coffee thing, and my head’s THROBBING.”

Their guest had awoken. Adachi smirked to herself — it was the boys’ turn to entertain Subnautigirl, and they knew it. She’d paid her dues.

Miller kept his eyes on the shape through the windows.

Krause sighed.

“We’re not a hotel. No little creamer pods here. No refrigerators, no extra noise and vibrations. And no kitchen. Space is at a premium.”

Yessica looked equal parts shocked and offended, and spent an inordinate amount of time scoffing and sputtering, saying nothing. The last part had been a slight lie, and she probably wanted to call them out on that, but she’d already done her search of the facility and had found nothing. While not huge, Varuna Station was fairly big. Day one though, the researchers aboard had all agreed they didn’t need some intensive modern kitchen at the onset. Save that funding, get the project launched sooner. They could skimp on that little luxury, right?

Every Goddamn one of them had come to regret that decision by the end of the first week.

There was definitely room for a kitchen. But, zero chance of one being brought down now. It was a logistical impossibility. Their little Keurig and a portable burner for endless supplies of canned food was all they had now.

“There might be some chocolate you can melt in it somewhere. Check the—”

“I don’t WANT chocolate, I want… God! Did you people forget I was coming or something? This is unacceptable! I want to speak to— … the hell is that?” She paused briefly, clacking her mug of scalding coffee down on Krause’s unoccupied desk. “Wait, no… don’t answer yet, I need my—” And she was gone, scurrying back through the station to fetch pen and paper.

“I think I hate her.” Miller’s voice sounded distracted. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the luminous shape through the windows. But, his sentiment was still echoed by his colleagues to varying degrees.

“She’s quite the handful,” Adachi agreed,” but she has a lot of subscribers. A million views each video.”

“How?”

“Informative and researched material,” she began thoughtfully before settling into a faint grin, “and some very low-cut tops.”

Miller scoffed. “We should get some of those for you, then. That’s better than babysitting journalists.”

Krause cast a reproachful look at his colleague, but Adachi just laughed, and it wasn’t long before the sound of it had him grinning too. Miller, though, just kept staring out the window. His only other action was to rub at his forehead, as though that might alleviate the throbbing within.

 

Yessica’s return was only slightly less offensive the second time. Freshly equipped with her notepad and pen, the scientists were quizzed on everything to do with the mysterious shape in the distance, then subsequently yelled at for not “fucking waking her up” when the whale carcasses had drifted up past the windows, only to be placated when Krause impatiently pointed out just how brief an event that had been.

“Besides,” he continued, “you’re awake now, and they might fall again any minute.”

“You seriously think so?” She sounded skeptical and impudent, but at least the yelling had stopped.

Her camera-less cameraman had shown up shortly thereafter, contributing absolutely nothing with his presence besides groaning and griping about his own headache. A few words of bitter agreement from Yessica had finally prompted Adachi to get up and promise she’d hunt through the station’s few medical kits for some ibuprofen, though through the interview-filled hours to follow, not a one of the denizens of Varuna Station could have claimed the medication had done anything at all to help them. If anything, the headaches had intensified.

“So what,” Yessica asked, stubbornly ignoring everyone’s worsening mood, “does this latest event say about the Cathedral of Bones? The Whale Mausoleum? Three whales dove, then died right below us, but why? Did you see anything else? Hear anything?”

She’d asked some variation of that question half a dozen times already, but the reason for the constant fishing was obvious, at least to her. She needed some quote or phrase that could work as a lynchpin phrase in her video essay. She didn’t get one though. Instead, she got a couple callous words, then a flurry of activity from one of the doctors.

“It doesn’t say anything yet. It just raises new questions.” Krause said.

“Hear…? Did we hear anything?” Adachi followed.

And with that, she’d shot up from her seat and swept over to her desk, forsaking a chair to crane over her terminal and type frantically. Miller kept staring out the window at the slowly enlarging shape of the photophoric star, but Krause snapped his head Adachi’s way — then understood.

They’d all been so focused on what they had seen, and what they hoped they might soon see again. Neither he, nor Miller, nor even Adachi when she’d later appeared had thought to check the audio feeds. Yessica had fallen silent, watching Adachi with keen interest that grew even more intense when the other woman’s head finally reappeared from over her monitors, gripping her headphones with shaking hands and regarding the room with an expression of anxious awe.

“Stefan… I-it’s back! It—”

She never finished her sentence. No one would have heard it anyway. Not even the soft coo of her voice unprofessionally whispering his first name could have drawn Doctor Krause’s eyes from what they’d fixed on.

 

The Whale Fall.

 

The three, gargantuan shapes descending from above in nearly the exact spacing, the exact formation as last time. A distant pair resolved themselves first, ragged corpses that had clearly already been predated upon sagging down their field of view, visible in the mighty red light projected onto the screens thanks only to their immense size. Then the third whale, much closer. So close that the three individuals in the room who were on their feet took involuntary steps back as a massive pectoral fin rubbed horrifyingly against the observatory’s glass on its way past.

Latched upon it, a legion of squids. Dozens of huge octopus squids, repugnantly writhing and ravenously feasting. Hook-riddled tentacles were latched deep into whale flesh, and furious beaks ripped away endless chunks of blubbery meat. As they passed, all squids in unison lifted their two, photophore-tipped tentacles and flashed the station. Warning. Warding. Threatening.

“My God… Stefan, look…”

Adachi’s hand was trembling as she pointed. Through the window, beneath the screens, visible to the naked eye, a shadow passed over the surface of the luminous, abyssal star.

A very distant, very colossal shadow belonging one falling whale, silhouette wriggling with its myriad of feeding squids.

A colossal shadow that couldn’t fully eclipse the cyclopean glow of that luminous shape as it passed in front of it.

In front of it…

The whale, huge and distant though it was, was neither more huge nor more distant than the star-form creature beyond.

Adachi’s headphones were off again — she’d dropped them noisily to her desk when she’d tremulously pointed out the window, stepping away from her desk to settle nearer the other doctors, but Miller darted to take her place. His eyes were fixed on the shape, but with a completely different glint to his eye than the one of mixed horror and fascination felt by the others in the room. The cameraman was babbling frantically, making sure everyone else knew just how much he wanted to leave for the surface immediately, but all ears were deaf to him. Miller even drowned him out completely by clamping on the headphones, listening with enraptured focus.

To the rest, nothing else in the world existed. Adachi had taken Krause’s hand as they stared. The partial eclipse of the shape had ended, the whales slowly sinking beyond the station’s view, but the distant thing remained.

All minds were as similarly plagued by headaches as one, burning question swirled. What could possibly be so large, and yet look like that…?

“It must be a siphonophore… It HAS to be a multi-organism… Nothing else could be that size and feed enough this far from the surface…” Krause speculated aloud, though the only sound Adachi gave as she gripped his hand just a little tighter was a soft expression of incomprehension.

Those abyssal collections of countless tiny organisms, coming together to form a single, massive creature had never been observed like this, in so definable a shape. But what other explanation could there be?

“I can hear them… I can hear them…”

Only the cameraman noticed Miller mumbling to himself, repeating the same four words over and over. Krause had released Adachi’s hand to crane over his own terminal as the whales finally fell fully from view, typing madly with her soon crowding his side. Yessica still hadn’t pulled her eyes away from the distant glow. The out-of-place fifth person was still the only one paying attention when Miller threw down the headphones and rushed out of the room, still muttering to himself.

All he could say was, “Where are you going…? What do we do…?” in a strained gasp. He didn’t share the tense fascination of everyone else in the room. He wanted the known security of the surface world — for the safety of the sun to wash over him.

Soon, Yessica was crowding Krause’s terminal as well. No one bothered shooing her away from the equipment, the working doctors allowing her to lean in and write furiously on her notepad, deaf to the incessant scratching of her pen. The cameraman stood dumbly by the door, staring.

“The footage is good. It’s perfect! Amazing!” Krause’s excitement was dulled just a moment later. “But I can’t raise Surface Point. The signal… too weak for some reason…”  The concern this revelation should have given him only manifested as irritation.

“The audio—” Adachi finally peeled away from the crowd, back to her own terminal, headphones slammed on. Miller’s absence went unnoticed as they fell into a pattern of working individually, and it fell to the big man in the back of the room to notice the third doctor again when he reappeared minutes later.

“Wh-what the hell is that!?” Though he didn’t recognize Miller. No one did at first. The others in the room looked up expectantly, but were initially just as baffled as the cameraman.

There was a shape out there, beyond the glass. A long, sleek shape, clutching something mechanical, trailing a dark cloud. It was with a scream that Adachi understood first.

“Miller! Stefan, it’s—!”

At the limit of human possibility, the depth where their body’s constitution started crumbling beneath the pressure, unraveling on the cellular level, was Doctor Miller. He’d changed far too rapidly into a wetsuit, missing one flipper and one glove, but had thrown on all other equipment. He clung to one of the station’s small but powerful diver propulsion vehicles, the sea scooter flaring out a jet of red bubbles as he soared into the abyss.

“What— what the hell is he doing! Yukiko, call him! Get him back! He can’t— He can’t—!”

A flurry of terrified activity overtook the station. No one could reach him. Nothing could draw him to turn back, and it wouldn’t have mattered even if they could. The glow of the red lights failed to hide the obvious fact that the crimson spray jetting out behind him was tinged with tendrils of blood as his body began the horrifically gradual process of collapsing in on itself.

Krause’s frantic activation of the immense floodlights only cast that realization in even starker glow. The deep ocean for hundreds of meters burst into dazzling illumination, but all the attempt at getting Miller’s attention accomplished was revealing the cloud of red, bloody decay trickling out behind him.

From the gloom, three new shapes emerged. Their two flashing tentacles were lost in the dazzling brightness of the floodlights, but all aboard knew their shapes by this point. As they raced after Miller though, they showed no sign of preparing to latch onto him. Tentacles stayed patiently away from his crumbling flesh. They soared with him, ever nearer to the distant, abyssal shape.

 

Miller never made it to his destination. The speed of the sea scooter carried him deeper and deeper, but in stubborn horror, the waning sanity in his fractured mind realized the shape hadn’t grown even a fraction larger. A hundred meters… then two…

He was effectively no closer by the time his consciousness dissolved into nothing, and only then did his squid escorts finally set upon him, ripping the remains of what had once been a man to pieces. In his haste, he had failed to secure a real way to reach it — to know it. He was unfit to sink into the deep. He was unfit to contribute to the Cathedral of Bones.

Excitement had bled from the room. In its wake, it left behind a miasma of uncertainty, fear, and grief.

To see their prior colleagues sail off in the abyss aboard a submersible was one thing. There was plausible deniability in it — the hope that maybe they’d made it somewhere safe, even to the surface. To see Miller soar off into the far distance, humanly, outside of protective gear, and dissolve under the pressure of the deep was another thing entirely. Even Yessica paid the moment its solemn dues before fearful mewling began.

Krause and Adachi barely registered her demands for answers or the surface. Even when she’d taken hold of Krause’s shirt to try to shake him to his senses, the doctor had simply stood there, stunned, staring horror-stricken into the abyssal depths the floodlights tried their best to illuminate.

Even with their immense beams, that far, glowing shape was no brighter and no clearer. But unlike the octopus squids and their two tentacle-born photophores, the floodlights didn’t outshine the brightness of the great star shape either. They could still clearly see it.

Pushing Yessica aside, Krause finally powered the lights down and slumped into a chair. It was Miller’s chair, though he’d no longer be needing it. Of that he and the quietly crying Adachi could be certain.

Their heads still throbbed, and Krause rubbed his temples while awareness of what their guest was frantically shouting at him started to register. A lot of “What the hell is happening,” and “Get me out of here now”. Fearful pleading. Fearful threats. Krause understood, but didn’t yet have enough command of his voice to answer her and, eventually, after long enough spent staring into the doctor’s haunted eyes, the reporter went quiet, save for the sound of her panicked, heavy breathing.

“He kept saying he can hear them…” The cameraman said numbly. “Then he ran off…”

“Yukiko,” Krause croaked, casting his eyes her way for some sort of answer. She’d been listening too, right? But in answer she just shook her head, trembling as tears were dried on her sleeve.

“I don’t know. It was just the same— the same low frequency tones as— as last time.”

She did her best to slip back into some semblance of professionalism, but couldn’t fully stem the sobs breaking her voice.

“Yess, we need to leave NOW.”

“Get. Us. OUT!”

Doctor Adachi kept listening through her headphones, trembling with just the occasional furtive glance cast towards the panicked influencer. Her vivid purple hair swung wildly as she snapped her head from one doctor to the other, practically snarling with the ferocity of her fear, and the presence of the thick-fisted cameraman by her side finally had Krause acknowledging them with an expression he meant to look like a reassuring smile, but just came off as a haunted grin.

“We can’t yet. Look—”

“I said NOW!”

His hands rose in passive placation. “Connection to Surface Point… we don’t have it. Without it, we can’t call you a submersible.”

“You HAVE submersibles!”

“We are not leaving him, Stefan.” The chilly edge in Adachi’s voice caused even the shrieking influencer to pause for a moment. All three stared at Adachi’s ashen face, face set with grave intent despite her quivering lip. Anyone in the room could have pointed out the simple, obvious fact that ‘he’s gone’. They didn’t need to directly witness his implosion and predation to know that much. The sentiment lingered powerfully enough despite all calls to reason, settling over them as oppressively as the gloom of the fathomless, abyssal waters beyond their observation chamber.

“Let’s go, Yess. We can…” The meaty hand of the cameraman closed around her arm, voice lost as he leaned in to mutter quietly through her bright violet hair. Her terrified indignation flickered on her face long enough for her to nod shakily, glare at the room, then storm out with her companion. Only Krause felt a sigh of relief escape his lips, whispering out reprieve from the mounting tension. Adachi was still boring a hole through him with her stare.

Eventually, he had to acknowledge it.

“Yes… yes, we must…” he began, then faltered, “we can’t let…” The words wouldn’t let themselves be released from his aching mind. His final remaining fellow researcher understood anyway. With desperate purpose, they each sat down at their terminals, taking in as much as they could and notating everything they couldn’t.

The abyssal star drew ever nearer.

Its speed was ferocious — its intent felt like a terrible lurking shadow. In the repressed recesses of their minds, they knew it demanded of them.

It, or whatever loomed behind it.

An hour crawled by, and more resolved. Adachi heard the suggestions of oceanic disruption before Krause saw them, but it took the two working in tandem to piece it together. The shape was massive, and its mere movement had begun registering as a roar in her headphones, but there was more wriggling around it. The smaller disturbances were presumed to be attached octopus squids… until Krause was able to observe through the cameras that the shapes were truly attached — a part of it. Tendrils belonging to the stygian sea star, lashing the surrounding waters in hateful anticipation.

And it was he that first saw that there was more beyond.

At first, the hours creeping by did nothing to show either scientist that the faint, extra set of luminosity in the far distance was anything but a trick of their eyes, or a reflective oddity. Eventually though, neither could deny it. The horizontal stitch of a cephalopodan pupil was visible in each new glow. The eyes of the abyss glowered up at their research station.

‘Now get us out of here—’ a voice filled with static crackled through the observation room’s speakers. Both doctors narrowed the source to the docked Vamana Two in unison, but filled with such wonder and terror, neither did much more than dismiss the continued frantic sounds. Subnautigirl’s team had stuffed themselves into the one remaining egress from Varuna Station, and status lights on Krause’s computer commended the fact that the pair had even managed to launch it.

The god from the deep continued to reach for them, uncoiling from its place of deathly slumber, surrounded by the innumerable offering of bones in its palatial mausoleum.

Voices from the submersible screeched over the speakers. First the pair spoke to one another, but then, as the intricate controls eluded them as they clumsily made their ascent, they called out for help. They knew someone could hear them, but neither Krause nor Adachi could answer. Their minds were reeling, bodies aching from the stress of impossible discovery. They’d risen from their seats to stand weakly in front of the windows. Neither could have said for sure which of them had torn feverishly at the screens obscuring their view, but the tattered remains lay scattered all around them as their horrified, enraptured attention locked on the abyssal star—

—on the hand reaching towards them from the deep, as callous and uncaring as if they were a blighted mosquito that needed swatting.

Barely a flick of their eyes were paid to follow the sudden rush of a legion of squid-shapes as they rushed past the station in pursuit of Vamana Two. Neither of them listened as the startled cries from the craft transposed into a shrill melody of terror. Soon, they couldn’t hear anyway.

If it was theorized that the full blast of a sperm whale’s voice could rupture human eardrums and deny vital organ function at close range… what, then, could a god of the deep unleash?

A bellow beyond mortal understanding smote the sea. Varuna Station quivered, nearly unraveling the scientifically perfect welds of its mighty seams. Mugs beside the coffee machine shattered in a typhoon of porcelain. Krause and Adachi screamed, but the gush of crimson blood from their ears refused to allow either to realize their companion was screaming too.

Vamana Two also screamed, but their voices were cut short. Within minutes, nothing more existed of the influencer’s team. The squids saw to that. The roar of their god demanded it.

Krause and Adachi fell to their knees before the windows as the abyssal star drew near. It filled all realms of sight, its impossible glow denying all other knowledge. Its light was a great and terrible shadow, beneath whose mighty glow mortal men need no longer dream of the sun.

The pair held hands for the last time, then raised their limbs in unfettered supplication.

They prayed. They thought of their lives beneath the ocean’s waves, and of the great many things they’d communicated to the world above, who would not yet know the truth of what lurked beneath.

Then the impossible hand collided with Varuna Station, and they thought no more.

On the night that Agatha was born, the midwife fainted. The child: Agatha, had clawed her way out of her mother’s womb, sporting a full fur coat, and scales.

Rightfully believing something was wrong with the girl, the hospital ran every test it could think of. The results were shocking.

Genetically, Agatha was completely normal.

A month passed. The doctors watched her. Her parents waited. The coat of fur shed, and the scales peeled away. Everyone was stunned, but relieved, whatever had been wrong had passed, and now she looked like a normal baby girl.

This stayed true for about five months.

When she got her first tooth, it grew in sharp, and misshapen. Appearing at the front of her mouth, it seemed to be a misplaced canine. “Strange,” her parents thought, but maybe baby teeth were just like that. Then the rest grew in. Each tooth was a different size and shape, though all were sharp, giving Agatha a smile like a drawer of knives.

And she only grew stranger with time.

At age two her nose broadened and flattened, growing to take up most of the real estate on her face. Along with her nose, her brow morphed, thickening to protrude from her face and over her increasingly bulbous eyes— which were great big haunting things.

She was a proper horror to look at.

At night, when she had trouble sleeping, she would rouse her parents and they would blink awake and shudder at the sight of her.

You should not take this to mean that Agatha’s parents loathed their child. They loved. Unquestionably they loved her. Doted on her. That they were some times scared of her was only human. More than anything they feared for her.

Parents are practically obligated to love their children. The world? Not so much.

When they dropped her off at kindergarten for the first time, they stayed awhile, watching her approach the other children. Their hearts thrashed against their sternums as the first boy looked up at their daughter.

The boy gave Agatha a confused look, cocking his head. He raised a finger, pointing at her, and alerted the other children of her presence. This put ice in the veins of Agatha’s parents. Ice that thickened when the boy laughed, and then quickly melted when he patted the spot beside him. Agatha screeched with joy. So did the other children, who seemed curious rather than scared.

The parents were relieved.

Agatha was smitten.

The boy, was none the wiser.

Agatha wouldn’t do anything about her little playground crush until she hit the third grade. By then she figured that a “young lady” such as herself shouldn’t be afraid to express her feelings. So, on valentines day, when everyone gave out cards and candy to each of their classmates, Agatha made a special one for the boy. It was handmade, and filled with full sized candy to set it apart from the other store bought cards with bite sized morsels. This was technically against the school policy, but Agatha didn’t care. She was a rebel. A rebel in love.

The boy who had accepted her on her first day of school took the card and made a strange face. He looked at the card, and then at Agatha. She assumed he was being shy. Later, she would realize that the look on his face had been pity.

The card had asked the boy out on a “date”. In third grade, that meant playing basketball together during recess.

“Why me?” The boy asked, his cheeks burning as he dribbled the ball.

“I don’t know,” she had replied, which was a lie. She hadn’t not thought about the boy since her first day of kindergarten.

“Oh,” said the boy, who had missed his shot.

Agatha smiled at him, and went to retrieve the ball. When she came back, the boy looked sad.

“Aggie,” he said, “I don’t like you like that. Is it okay if we just stay friends?”

“Yeah,” she said, dropping the ball. “That’s okay.”

But it was not okay.

For the next week, she sulked in her room. From the moment she got home, until dinner, and then again after until she had to wake up for school, Agatha hugged her pillow, and cried.

Agatha and her crush had always had fun together. He laughed at her jokes, and she laughed at his. They liked the same movies. They loved the same shows. So why didn’t he like her back?

She ruminated, and could only come up with one reason. Her face. Her teeth. The horror of her.

Agatha had always known she looked different from her peers, but that week was the first time she really felt ugly.

As Agatha festered in her newfound self loathing, she developed a rash at the nape of her neck. She scratched at it, until it was red, and raw; she scratched at it until the skin at the nape of her neck peeled away, and revealed hard, keratinous scales.

She gasped the first time she felt them. She also felt shame. Why? She couldn’t say. Perhaps, deep down, she knew those scales had been born of something dark.

Agatha’s little heart never stopped yearning for affection. As the years went on, puppy love and crushes came and went, and with them, more rejection.

And with the rejection, more sulking, more self loathing. More scales, and eventually, fur.

By the time she hit puberty, the patch of scales around her neck had progressed all the way down her back, spreading to just before her shoulders. The fur coat which had been present at her birth, had also returned. This did not alarm her at first, as she had been told that hair in new places was normal for a girl her age. But even the relatively normal hair growth that begun in her groin soon went down to her thighs, cutting off just before her knees.

For a blessing, her peers continued to treat her like anyone elese. Not that that helped her self esteem. As R.S. Thomspon once wrote: The furies are at home in the mirror.

This period of serious self isolation drew her to more reclusive hobbies. She took up playing MMO’s. Massive online games where she could style an avatar that was “normal” looking— nevermind that the characters in video games were themselves idealized and unrealistic portrayals of beauty.

It was in one of these games that she met a player named “Ian Proudheart”.

She had been wiling away the weekend chopping digital trees— she needed them to craft a cute outfit for her character. Nothing special. When, passing by, was another player. He hopped in place in front of her, and seemed to be trying to get her attention.

Agatha looked at his hopping avatar in confusion. Until she remembered that she had set her chat settings to private, so that only people who she friended could send her messages. And she had no one on her friends list.

She was thinking about changing her settings, when a trade window popped up. A stack of ninety-nine of the trees she needed was being offered without demand for anything in return.

She blinked, and hit accept. The generous player hopped in place a few more times, and then walked away.

Agatha stared at her chat log.

Ian Proudheart has gifted you 99x Iron Wood Materials.

Her starved heart thumped in her chest.

She hovered the cursor over his name, which popped up a list of actions. Among them “Add Friend”.

Gulp.

She clicked it, and not long after, she received a piece of in game mail.

It’s difficult to say when acquaintances become friends, and when friends become something… more. The transition from “Hey what’s up?” to “How was your day?” is subtle enough. The transition then to: “good morning” and “goodnight” less so. Chats about in game activities turn to chats about what happened in class, what happened at home.

“How are you feeling?”

“Not great.”

“Why?”

“I feel especially ugly today,” is written, and quickly erased. Replaced with: “Just a bad day.”

“If you need me, I’m always here for you,” is written, and after a moment of doubt, erased. In its place: “That sucks.”

Years passed. College came and went. More yearning, more loss, more rejection. Agatha’s heart darkened, but never fully gave up. Ian was there, and if she had Ian, she had hope. But for this same reason she always held him at a distance.

Often Ian would want to connect out of game, or on a different platform. Agatha outright dodged or ignored such requests. She had more than a crush on him, and sometimes, she thought she felt something not-quite platonic coming from him too. She worried that if he ever saw her, that would fade.

In her ideal fantasy world, they would remain forever apart, and yet somehow together.

Then, one fateful day:

“Let’s meet up. I’m going to be in town for work anyways,” said Ian, whose full name was actually Ian Thompson. “It might be nice to finally meet. Face to face.”

Agatha made a sound that came close to “meep”. Thankfully, her mic hadn’t picked it up. The silence, therefore, was deafening.

“Oh… uhm…” stammered Ian. “Sorry, I know you’re a super private person… I just…”

“No, lets meet up!” she said. If you asked her what had compelled her to say yes, she would not have been able to say. On the one hand, Ian seeing the true horror of her— which had only gotten worse since she finished puberty —was her worst nightmare. On the other, she yearned to finally meet him, to have him hold her in his arms.

“Really?” cried Ian. “That’s awesome. I can’t wait!”

“Yeah. Stellar!” she wasn’t sure how convincing she sounded.

They hashed out the details over the course of their gaming session. If everything went well, they would meet in a week’s time. A week which passed too quickly, and too slowly.

She flipped through several states of horror and delight. In the valleys of her despair she would envision Ian seeing her for the first time and simply turning away from her. In her wildest fantasies he fell in love with her on the spot, and his work trip would end with him proposing. Most of the time, she found herself bargaining.

“Let him be horrifying too,” she thought. “Let him be a monster like me. So that he has no choice but to love me back.”

The day came. She waited at the station with a giant poster card that read: “Proudheart”.

When a man’s voice called out her name, she almost felt like she was going to die.

“Aggie?” Ian gasped. At first Agatha thought it was a gasp of shock, but as she turned to see the man who had addressed her, she saw a large smile, and open arms. “Aggie!”

He was just that happy to see her.

His excitement, and his smile made her knees weak.

He said her name again, but this time with unrestrained excitement, embracing her. She was stunned. Her appearance hadn’t phased him in the slightest.

“Uh…” she stammered.

Hearing her, he jumped back.

“Oh shit. Sorry.” He backed away from her, and straightened himself out. “I uh… I was excited to meet you is all. In the flesh I mean.”

She was slack-jawed, staring up at the man who was nearly two full feet taller than her.

“No it’s uh…” She wanted to ask him if her appearance bothered him at all, but was also afraid that it might break whatever magic or spell seemed to have him acting so nonchalant about it. “It’s just… It’s good to see you too.”

“After all these years it’s nice to put a face to a name.”

“Yeah,” said Agatha, half choking on a sob.

Then: “Ian?” It was a new voice. Someone searching for Ian. The voice sounded feminine. And pretty.

A blond woman appeared behind Ian. When her eyes fell on Agatha, her face twisted in disgust. Most people aren’t rude on purpose. Really though, that only made it hurt worse. The blond woman quickly reigned in her face, but it just turned into a look of pity.

Agatha could have lived with the disgust. It was the pity that got her.

“Is this her?” asked the pretty blond, blinking at Agatha and Ian.

A well of anger rose in Agatha. Almost literally her vision was full of red. It scared her how angry she became, but there was no helping it. “Who was this girl?” “Why was she so familiar with Ian?” “He never mentioned a girlfriend”.

Ian smiled at the girl.

“Aggie, this is Brenda, my sister. Brenda, Aggie.” Ian pointed at both the girls with finger pistols as he introduced them.

The well of anger vanished inside of Agatha. In its place was a large, uncomfortable void.

Agatha’s Cheeks burned.

The pretty blond girl, Brenda, looked at her brother, and then at Agatha. Again there was that pitying look.

“Nice to finally meet you,” said Brenda.

“Same,” said Agatha.

Both women had been vaguely aware of each other before, but neither had so much as heard the other’s voice.

“My mom made her come with me after she heard I was meeting you for the first,” said Ian, sighing.

Brenda laughed.

“She still thinks of Ian as a baby,” she said. “But he’s a grown man, I don’t need to be chaperoning him. Anyways, you two do what you want, I booked myself a separate hotel. Toodles.”

Brenda rolled away with her luggage, and then it was just Ian and Agatha.

The two shared an awkward pause.

“So… shall we?” said Agatha.

“We shall,” said Ian.

The two departed for Agatha’s apartment. She had offered to host him while he was in town. Partly out of kindness, but she would have been lying if she didn’t admit to herself that she was hoping something more would happen. Wild fantasies, naturally.

Once at home the two settled into a groove. Agatha was surprised by how natural it felt. Ian didn’t look at her the way his sister had, with disgust and pity. It was just like being in voice chat. Not one normal boy and one horrible monster, but two people, enjoying each other’s company.

They wiled most of the first day away chatting in her kitchen.

When the evening came they parted to shower and change. Presumably they were winding down to sleep, but after drying her hair (and she had a lot of hair), and after Ian finished changing, neither felt particularly sleepy.

“Wanna watch a movie?” Ian asked.

For some reason, the question made Agatha’s face feel like it was burning.

“Uh… sure.”

Agatha’s heart thumped loudly in hear chest. They’d watched movies together online a million times, but naturally this was different.

Agatha sat down on the opposite side of the couch from Ian.

It was a special kind of agony. The small cushion’s length that separated them felt like a chasm.

The movie they chose was a lighthearted thriller called The Eye From Outer Space. The movie was mostly noir sleuthing with long actions scenes, but there were also moments of strange artistic horror. One scene in particular, featured a tentacle sprouting from the head of a psych patient, caused Agatha to jump, and cling onto Ian.

She felt so safe with Ian that she had hardly noticed she was clinging onto him for half the films runtime, and by the time she did notice, she realized that he had become stiff as a board.

She yelped, and recoiled from him.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s okay,” he said, blushing, but suddenly relaxing. “I don’t mind if… you don’t mind.” His face was burning at this point.

“Oh…” Agatha thought. Is this really okay? “Thanks… it’s just… kind of scary movie is all.” The movie had its moments, but it wasn’t that scary. Still…

She settled back into Ian. Draping his arm over her, she rested her head on his chest. She listened to the sound of his breathing, the sound of his heart, and forgot about the movie entirely.

So warm, she thought. It was like when they were talking earlier, only more so. Agatha forgot herself, and soon fell into a warm, restful sleep.

When she woke up the next day, she found herself alone on the couch. She panicked, and felt a terrible hollowness knowing that Ian wasn’t there anymore. For a moment she wondered if she had dreampt the whole thing, but then Ian appeared from the hallway.

“Hey,” he said smiling, blushing. “You didn’t feel like getting up last night, so I tried to set you down gently. Sleep okay?”

“I think that’s the best sleep I’ve had in a while.” She said it before she could consider not saying it. Her hands came up to cover her mouth.

Ian didn’t seem to react negatively.

“Yeah… I slept pretty well last night too.”

There was an awkward pause between the two that only ended when Ian offered to start up a pot of coffee.

The next hour was spent chatting. Ian’s work thing also didn’t start for another day, so they were also thinking about how they would spend the day. They’d discussed some ideas before he showed up, but now that he was here, they both settled on a simple trip to the mall. And while the mall near Agatha’s home was hailed as America’s second best mall, which Agatha guessed made it trip worthy, the idea in the back of her head— Ian’s as well —was that a trip to the mall seemed the most date-like of all available venues.

Being out was typically something that Agatha didn’t do. While most people were polite enough not to mention her monstrous appearance, it was almost impossible for them not to hide their true feelings upon first seeing her. Eyes wide, mouths agape, side glances that made her feel other. They couldn’t help themselves, and if she really thought about it, she couldn’t blame them. She was a true horror.

She was prepared to be uncomfortable all day if it meant spending time with Ian on a pseudo date. But she found, especially as the day went on, that with Ian beside her, the rest of the world became a blur. And whenever the terrified glances of the world around them began to encroach, Ian would cast her a glance, or touch her shoulder, and they would all melt away.

In the end, she found herself clinging to his arm, and ceasing to care for anything besides how great it felt to hold and be held.

All seemed well, but jealousy would soon rear its ugly head.

It happened at a coffee stand inside the mall. Agatha excused herself to use the restroom. She had only been gone a minute, but when she returned, Ian was talking to a woman. A gorgeous, voluptuous, normal looking woman. and had come back to Ian talking to another woman.

Agatha’s heart raced. Something in her cracked, and the muscles under her furred scales rippled. There was a tingling at her fingertips. Something in her urged her to act. So she did.

She crossed a nine meter distance with two supernatural strides, grabbing hold of Ian’s arm.

In response, Ian recoiled. His reaction made her feel like dying.

“Ouch,” he said. “Agatha what the…”

Ian paused and looked at his arm. He was bleeding.

Agatha blinked at the trickle of red where she had grabbed Ian’s arm. She looked at her hands, and blanched. Her hands had transformed into razor sharp claws.

“I’m sorry,” she cried, “I didn’t…”

“No, it’s alright,” he said, and, excusing himself from his conversation with the pretty woman, pulled Agatha away.

Away from the coffee stand, and around the corner with a semblance of privacy, Ian hugged Agatha.

“I didn’t mean to,” said Agatha, crying into chest.

“I know, I know,” he replied, patting her back. “It’s okay. Really. It is.

Really it wasn’t. Agatha knew that, and a part of her felt that Ian must know that too.

When Agatha’s crying had calmed to a whimper, he gave her one last squeeze, and said: “Wanna stay in for the rest of the day?”

Without saying anything, she nodded, and they left the mall, hand in hand.

At home, they huddled together on the couch and watched another movie.

The movie felt like pretense this time. Agatha didn’t wait to jump into Ian’s arms, she settled in at hitting “play”.

This time, they were watching a romance.

When the scenes began to grow steamy, Agatha began to trace circles around Ian’s chest. She wasn’t doing it on purpose at first, but when he didn’t stop her, she continued, not realizing that her claws were tearing open his shirt. By the time she noticed his bare chest, Ian had started tracing circles on the scales of her shoulders. Feeling his touch, she figured that they were already in for a penny, so they may as well go for the whole pound.

“Oops,” she said, snipping that last bit of cloth holding Ian’s shirt together. “Oops.” And again for his best and a pants.

Ian, returned the favor. His hands were clumsy, and unpracticed removing her clothes— things she found charming, and endearing. She would no have wanted practiced hands. She wanted clumsy hands, hands that had only known her.

The night ended with two souls having become one.

In the day, they parted unwillingly, but Ian had to get out of bed at some point. It was technically a work trip after all.

But for the remainder of the trip, the two shared a bed.

After Ian’s trip, the two decided to try something long distance, at least to start.

Ian made regular trips, as did Agatha. Until at last, the two decided to live on Ian’s side full time.

With Agatha’s family and friends, there was loud, vocal excitement for her new found love. There were also whispers of disbelief. Agatha tried to ignore these. Listening to them for too long made her scales itch, and her claws tingle.

On Ian’s side there were quiet polite quips. Loud gasps were made on occasion, especially from his mother, who subsequently proceeded to try and pull the couple apart. She would often ask— in front of Agatha —“why couldn’t you date a normal girl?”.

Naturally this created wall between Ian and his family, primarily his mother. Though he never completely cut them off.

Agatha endured the comments from Ian’s mother. At least on the outside. On the inside, she burned. She became more and more embittered with each attempt. And so, despite Ian’s best attempts to reassure her, Agatha’s monstrous features developed further. First she grew taller, then, her scales thickened into armor plates, and finally, when Ian’s mother all but offered to pay her to leave her son, she finally developed a proper tail.

The sight of Agatha’s further developed form inspired only greater resolve in Ian’s mother. And when at last he announced that he planned to propose to her, she decided on one last ditch effort.

She would arrange a secret date between Ian and a childhood friend of his.

Ian was a creature of habit. She knew where he would be spending his lunch, and knew that it would be one of the few times that Agatha wasn’t with him.

She ambushed him during his lunch break, creating a serendipitous moment between him and an old friend. An attractive woman that Ian had been sweet on in his childhood.

Naturally, Ian, good Ian, lovely Ian, was happy to see his friend. They had a great lunch, enjoying each other’s company.

But Ian’s mother was not the only one that had planned to surprise Ian on his lunch that day. Agatha had been there. And she had watched the whole time. Seething.

Agatha never really grew past her jealousy. In all that time, in all those years, no matter how much Ian reassured her, she never became comfortable leaving him out of view. She feared he would wake up one day and realize that he didn’t have to be with her. It was a terrible, unjustified fear. How many times had he reassured her of his love? She had lost count. He had never been unfaithful, and he had never so much as allowed his eyes to wander. He was wholly devoted to her.

And yet.

A much darker part of her, the part that grew the scales, sharpened the claws, and whipped the tail, spoke: He will wake up one day, and remember he has options that aren’t you.

NO! He loves me! Cried the part of her that remained sane.

But for how long?

Forever!

There’s only one way to be sure.

That night, when Ian came home, Agatha was waiting.

She confronted him about his lunch date.

Ian tried to explain, but Agatha wasn’t listening. It wasn’t really about him. It was about her. Her insecurity. The bitterness of a life lived on the outside.

Agatha had decided they would be together forever, joined as one.

She ate him in three bites, and didn’t let a single morsel go to waste.

Agatha had decided they would be together forever, joined as one.

She ate him in three bites, and didn’t let a single morsel go to waste.

She was always at the window. Not the one in the front room where guests had once gathered and chortled on merry nights. Not in the kitchen where meals were prepared for our house of three. Her days were spent in that room, now set for guests that were not coming, but once dressed for one that would never return. The three became two. A full bed and an armchair where there was once a rocker and cradle. 

In the weeks after loss infected our home, she had taken to sitting in the armchair, staring out the window. I would kiss her head and ask her what she is watching. She only answered in opaque murmurs. What could I do except nod and carry on loving? Grief strikes both in these matters, but the mother worst of all. So much so that when neighbors asked what took her, I only answered with, “A broken heart.” 

The three became two became one. 

I buried her next to him under the oak by the stream. Her eyes watched me as I carved her place out of the earth. I tried to say goodbye, but the words dug heels deep into my chest. I laid her in, covered her, and went back to the house. There I spent the rest of the day and most of the night deep in my own sobs and wailing. I had remained strong in the time she was still here, but now there was no one to be strong for. No one to burden with my tears. 

Golden light awoke me the next morning. Not from my bedroom window, for I had the curtains drawn, but from the cracked door to that room. That room with the window where she spent her last days. I arose and opened the door, peering over to the window and the now empty chair. I approached it, part of me still hoping to find her there so I might ask her what she sees and kiss her head once more. I round it and see the empty seat. The fresh wounds on my heart pulled open again and bled through my eyes in fresh droplets. I eased myself into the chair, proposing to myself it might bring me closer to her. Through the blur of my tears I gazed out that old window. 

My sobs ceased. The wells of my eyes dried in an instant as my sorrow was replaced with bewilderment. Through the window I saw him. My son, running through the tall grass and playing like I had seen him do before. Surely, it could not have been him. His face was averted so I could not say to be sure. I rose from the chair and flung the window open to call for the boy. But when I opened the window, he was gone. 

Breathless, I surveyed the now empty garden with a furrowed brow. A trick of the mind I thought. I relented, closed the window, and fell back into the seat. When I looked out the window, I saw the boy once more. I leaped from the chair and flew to the back door, but again, he was gone. Back to the window, I saw him again. 

After some time I determined that this boy, whoever he was, only existed in the panes of the window. I sat in the chair watching him play for two days, always his face turned the other way. His hair, his clothes, the manner of his movement all remind me of him. But without seeing his eyes, I may never be sure. Could this be what she saw all that time? Perhaps she too was enraptured by the chance of seeing our boy’s eyes once again. I believe she never allowed herself to look away for a chance of missing them for I found myself transfixed in the very same way.

While watching him play, perhaps four days since I had started, another enters. It’s her. My dearest wife. At least, as far as I am able to see, for she too keeps her eyes averted. My heart flutters, my sobs erupt freshly. I don’t dare open the window or rise from the seat. I called to her from within. If she or the boy heard me, they make no sign of it. 

Finally, I could take it no longer. Again I rose from the chair and ran to meet them outside. I wanted to grab them by their shoulders and spin them round to face me so that I might see their eyes and know. If they were my family I wished to hug their necks once more and never release them. If they are something else, I wish to rid myself of their taunting. 

I ran out, the door slamming behind me. Alas, I am alone in the garden. I fall to my knees, clenching the dirt in my hands and break into tearless sobs. I look up and see the old oak tree by the stream. Surely, I tell myself. That is where your ones truly lie. IF you wish to see them, see them there. I rise to walk and visit their graves, but something catches my eye. Rather something that isn’t there. Beneath the tree I had stood two headstones. I had carved them myself and set them the day I laid them to rest. But where I set them, there was nothing. Where her fresh covering of dirt was just days before was now an unbroken patch of grass. How could this be?

Behind me, a familiar sound. Something I had heard in days long gone. Something I had grown too used to living without. Laughter. The sound of a boy. My boy. He was laughing. I turned to see. He was not outside. The laughter sounded again. It was coming from within the house.

I ran to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked. The laughter continued, answered by giggles from the woman. My wife. I ran to that window. Inside I saw them. I saw their eyes. The armchair and bed were gone, exchanged for a cradle and a rocker. There, she sat, the boy in her arms. He was a baby. I watched her rock him. I heard her sing. I heard him laugh, and cry. For hours I watched. 

Every time I try the door, it remains locked. I look through the windows around the house, each one shows me a different view and a different time of them. In the kitchen I see him refusing to eat green beans. In the front room I see him playing with wooden toys. In his bedroom, she is always rocking him. In our room he runs in and wakes her up to start the morning.

I thought of breaking the door, but I cannot bring myself to do it. If I breach the house, would they still be there? If I break a window would I shatter them along with the glass? 

No, I will remain here, just outside their senses. If the cost to keep their essence reunited is my starving and them just out of my reach, then it is no cost at all. I will give myself in this life and the next for their joy.

The cold makes my skin feel brittle. My body reduces itself to a fine powder. Here I will stay, waiting to be called to my own grave. Perhaps then I may join them, but for now I will watch and enjoy their laughter from the other side of the pane. 

“Is it true we know more about the surface of the moon than our own oceans?”

“No. People love saying that, but we know far more about our oceans than we do the moon.”

The interview process had begun, and Doctor Stefan Krause found himself amused by the wobbling of the purple-haired journalist’s pen, jotting down abbreviations of his words in a neat scrawl. She was part of the new wave of social media personalities — so-called “influencers” who made video essays on the sort of content that used to only be found in scientific magazines. The pencil-pushers topside had decided people like her were one of the new best ways to get word out and procure bonus funding for their costly brand of oceanic research.

What amused him wasn’t her unprofessional appearance though. The fact she was a twenty-something with a grating sense of self-importance and flamboyant purple hair, worn in a pompadour mullet, was so much less funny to him than the fact that all her little toys had been found and confiscated at Surface Point, the sea level base tethered a thousand meters above them.

The Varuna Research Station was a strict no-recording zone. Her cameraman still followed dumbly along as a sort of awkward bodyguard after his equipment had been stripped from him without a fight. But it’d been the influencer herself, ‘Subnautigirl’, or Yessica Bailey, who had so very nearly broken the rules. The search conducted before she was crammed into one of the few submersibles able to comfortably carry people down to the deep sea station and, more importantly, safely dock with Varuna, had been thorough.

All her little button spy cams, microphones threaded into the linings of her black denim jacket, and even her smart glasses had been confiscated, and Yessica had been just a few degrees shy of her boiling point. Krause’s colleague, Doctor Yukiko Adachi, had obviously noticed as well… but short of a few shared smirks and playfully rolled eyes, they hadn’t bothered showing it.

“With the amount we know about the oceans and all the things in them,” Adachi said, taking over for Krause, “we could fill enough traditional encyclopedias to equal almost two percent of the moon’s total mass — if you stacked them together, of course. About the moon itself, we might fill two magazines.”

Those encyclopedias would need very large print and have a lot of pictures, but the idea of it usually cut any other mind-numbingly standard questions off at the pass. And, Adachi liked that little quote of hers. Doctor Krauser took over on cue. “What we always want to know more about, however, is…

This.”

A quick shove of his hands at the door they’d finally arrived at, and the entryway slung silently open for them. No unnecessary noise, no unnecessary power. The large, ovaloid observation room spilled into view.

“… This?”

The dramatic entry hadn’t paid off, but Doctors Krause and Adachi ignored ‘Subnautigirl’s’ question and carried on into the room. The operation’s third scientist, Doctor Miller, swiveled in a well-oiled desk chair to glance back at the group. Then, with a dismissive grunt, went back to the terminal he’d been staring at before their arrival.

The functional space of the room was mostly blank space, and otherwise sparsely occupied by a haphazard scattering of five modest desks situated towards the center of a two-hundred-and-seventy-degree oval of exterior windows. Only darkness was visible in the view of the deep ocean beyond, barring the fleeting glimpse of a pale white particulate floating nearby enough to be visible to the naked eye. But, with a few deft strokes of Doctor Miller’s hands at his terminal, the exterior floodlights opened up to blast the surrounding area with its alien glow.

“The ecosystem. We know just about everything about the geography of the deep, but so much about its life still elude us. Those details are the most fascinating of all.” Doctor Krause turned, fixing the reporter with a level stare and tight smile. “Right?”

Someone who went by the pseudonym ‘Subnautigirl’ would have to be quick to agree . “I mean, obviously,” she said, though her stocky-built cameraman looked somewhere between confused and disinterested.

“Welcome to Varuna — the world’s deepest habitable research station by an order of magnitude exceeding fifty times.” Doctor Adachi flashed a toothy grin, her timelessly youthful features practically glowing in the low light of the observation room. She and Krause been working together at the station since the day it’d first opened its many heavy, airtight doors, but their professional relationship had begun nearly ten years prior, when he’d acted as one of her thesis advisors at the University of Tokyo. She’d hardly seemed to age at all over that decade, or so Krause often marveled.

Miller deactivated the exterior lights after exactly one measured minute had passed, returning the station to its near-silent running. The floodlights were powerful enough to illuminate a wide swathe of ocean, but the power needed and, just as importantly, the noise produced was counter-intuitive to their research. The ‘Medusa’ deep sea stealth camera platforms had proven that nearly fourteen years prior. Minimal running noise and the replacement of traditional light with red light optics had been a wild success, and had immediately formed the basis by which most biological abyssal research operated to present day, well over a decade after it managed to capture the very first video, let alone pictures, of a giant squid in its natural habitat.

“Please pardon the chill. It’s cold down here, and we like to keep our noise pollution to an absolute minimum. Especially here, in the observation room. Central heating is minimal.”

Adachi gestured to the space around them and, for the first time since disembarking the shuttle that’d ferried her down, Yessica was gazing around in subdued awe. The magnitude of it all had finally hit her, and for just a moment the fires of her frustration had been overtaken. It was one thing to read reports and comparative numbers on a Wikipedia page, but another thing entirely to be standing on the precipice of the abyss, beholding the wonders of possibility beyond first-hand.

“So that’s why these doors are unpowered? All the others looked like something out of Star Trek.”

“That’s right,” Miller finally took his opportunity to speak up and answer. “The effect is probably negligible, but we like to think it’s making a difference.”

Krause finished the thought. “Negligible might be the difference between seeing something, and seeing nothing.”

Yessica’s pen was moving quickly now, jotting with a fervent enthusiasm that betrayed at least some level of journalistic passion as she paced the length of the room. She was probably still lamenting the loss of all her cameras, but she was no longer at the knife’s edge of her own irritation. No, she was poised on the escarpment of something much more vast.

“What have you seen?”

She’d stopped at the edge of the curved windows, leaning over them with a pointless wariness and trepidation that all the researchers aboard knew well. They all knew it was senseless… That glass was thick enough to stop just about any bullet known to mankind — it had to be to so consistently overpower the oceanic pressure down there. Still though, leaning towards something so transparent and staring down into depths so fathomless… every single person stationed at Varuna knew the feeling, and sympathized when Subnautigirl ultimately drew back, dizzy, pen hand frozen.

“It’s a sheer, three-thousand-meter drop.” That wasn’t what she’d asked, but Krause answered her unspoken thoughts anyway. “We’re on the edge of the Twilight and Midnight Zones — the difference between meeting a deep-diving marlin, and an anglerfish.

We’ve seen both here.” The addition had Yessica finally peeling her eyes away from the glass to stare at Krause and, suddenly remembering it, returning to the quick writing on her notepad. “Beneath us is the entire breadth of the Midnight Zone… straight down to the Abyssal Zone. It’s almost a sheer cliff.”

The edge of the Indian Ocean’s Broken Ridge… its southern escarpment, plunging straight down into the Dordrecht Deep — all within the borders of the Diamantina Fracture Zone. It was a part of the ocean that had gone so ignored by science in favor of the Mariana Trench and its famous Challenger Deep, until the discovery of—

“The Cathedral of Bones… The Whale Necropolis…”

“That’s right.”

“It’s right below us?”

“More or less.”

Among the most recent and most fascinating of oceanic discoveries was the whale fall mausoleum… A necropolis of immense proportions and inexplicable nature — the gathering point, where dying whales the world over traveled to take their final plunge towards the sacred cathedral of bones seven thousand meters beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean, and let their bones be picked clean by the deepest of sea life.

With a loud clearing of his throat, surly Miller called attention toward himself, striking emphatically at his keyboard.

“What we see,” he began with an irritability that had become painfully normal of late, “is this. Viewed through this, at least…” A series of long screens began falling from hidden resting points in the ceiling over the vast windows, obscuring the raw view outside but replacing it with a new one. Projectors flickered silently to life as Doctor Adachi’s voice narrated.

“We use red light. Life down here has all but lost the ability to perceive anything in that spectrum. It’s why so many deep sea creatures are that color— red might as well be black. But, to brighten things up for ourselves, we use this.”

There was only a subtle shift in the visible luminosity of the space beyond, but Subnautigirl understood. Fish of the deep couldn’t generally see red light, but humans and cameras could. Those cameras, more than a half dozen affixed to Varuna’s exterior, played their visuals out in real time against the screens, though while bumping up the brightness some in post to give more crispness to the displays. The projectors, feeding only black and white to the screens, were kept from interfering with the world beyond the glass thanks to heavy tinting, but the room was otherwise kept quite dark as an added precaution.

The spaces between the individual screens showed the void of the abyss beyond, floating particulates bathed in an unnatural red glow.

The deep voice of the cameraman rose up before anyone else though. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

It was a natural call and response from Miller, whose eyes had been pouring over his terminal in the intervening moments. Ever since the loss of the other two researchers just a few weeks prior, he’d thrown himself harder than ever into his work. Anything mechanical and mind-numbing that needed doing, he was there.

“That!”

A shape on one of the screens, nearly dead center. Yessica jerked back upon noticing it, as though the shape were real and not just a projection. With her new angle though, she was in perfect position to be exposed in the foot-wide gap between the screens, and snap her head towards the flash of visible light in the real gloom beyond. Adachi too, if her startled yet fascinated gasp was any indication. Krause hurried for a position at his own angle to see.

Though barely visible, the shape seemed to be approaching. It was slow, yet inexorably nearing them, a predator wholly unafraid of its prey. Closer. Closer. A new set of bioluminescent flashes outside the window between the screens, far brighter than any anglerfish. Closer— Flash— And closer.

Then a slam against the window that brought Yessica to her knees, yelping. Her cameraman lurched forward to assist against some unknown force, but froze when the he spied the hooked, gnarled tentacles cemented against visible sliver of window. The projectors had lost the shape, cameras poised too low on the observation chamber to be of help. The naked eyes peering through the windows alone bore witness to the hulking, ravenous form.

“Octopus squid!”

Doctor Adachi sounded almost breathless as she gave her announcement, rushing towards the screens and tugging to see behind — before remembering the monumental effort that would be needed to bring another such screen down to their midnight home if one tore. She gestured frantically towards Miller, who tapped in the desired commands and lifted the screens.

Something alive was plastered against the glass, but was rapidly losing interest. Photophores of the creature flashed, two tentacles peeled back and blaring their lights on and off against the glass as if trying to judge why the distance it perceived between it and its prey was impeded so soon. Six other tentacles scratched and skittered over the glass, trying to find a way inside, hooked tendrils of the two meter long squid probing relentlessly.

“Taningia Danae — Dana octopus squid. Aggressive, bright, but harmless. In here, at least. It’s not the first time we’ve seen one attack a camera.”

Neither Subnautigirl nor her cameraman bothered mentioning how the octopus squid hadn’t attacked a camera. Those were down below, and the deep sea predator had attacked the glass directly, as if craving the flesh of those inside. Its hook-laced tentacles were writhing aggressively in search of any sort of purchase. Any way inside.

Their trepidation had no effect on the enthusiasm of the researchers though, with Krause crying out, “This is incredible!” And it… almost was. The exterior cameras weren’t angled right to catch the attack itself, but the partial footage and the written accounts would easily fill at least one sensational article.

“Was it attracted by the flash of the floodlights?”

“Maybe… Possibly.”

Miller and Krause had begun an excited exchange, the former briefly pulled from the funk that had pervaded his attitude for weeks hence. The squid, bearing some of the brightest photophores known to science in two of its tentacles, still rhythmically furling and unfurling that glow, might have registered the vastly superior luminosity of the Varuna’s mighty exterior lights as some sort of threat. Or had it just glimpsed prey inside? The two scientists chattered excitedly, swirling around theories with such fervor that Yessica’s pen couldn’t have even dreamed of keeping up with them.

She wrote what she could while her would-be cameraman recoiled. Everyone was treating this so casually… Even the pretty Asian doctor was just staring at the squid affixed to the window, grinning as it finally started losing interest and pulling away.

If that glass broke, wouldn’t they all instantly die…? There was nothing funny or interesting about some sea freak attacking them. Let alone a creature larger than even he was.

Everyone else’s demeanor showed they disagreed with his thoughts though. They were all excited, pouring over thoughts and footage long after the squid had peeled itself away from the glass and disappeared back into the murky deep. The return of screens had tracked its flight from them for a while, though even that could only last for so long before it was gone in the gloom.

“Yes… Must have been the lights…” Doctor Adachi was breathless as she spoke aloud what her colleagues had been thinking. The reporter had questions though, as her kind so often did.

“Does this happen often…? The lights? The squid? How do I get a copy of that footage?”

“No,” answered Miller, “but in a year, we’ve only used those lights twice.” Yessica’s pen stopped, her brow furrowing, suspicion forming.

“Really? And I’m worth the ceremony? I know I have six million subscribers, but—”

“No, it’s not for you.” Miller’s response carried enough irritation that it slapped the hint of a sneer off Yessica’s face for a few seconds, prompting Krause to take over.

“Well, it was, but just out of convenience. Thought it might be a good show.” It hadn’t been. Not until the squid, which had just been a fortunate accident. Wasn’t it? “Surface Point said it was time to test them. They hadn’t been used in about a year. So we figured… Well, yes, anyway, the footage. You get it from them. From Surface Point. That’s where you can make requests.”

Yessica still looked sour, but her tongue was held by the wagging of her pen over her notebook, big, bold letters etched out to remind herself of when and where in the footage timeline this specific incident could be found. As if Surface Point’s much warmer, safer research team wouldn’t be incredibly aware of, and pouring over it themselves the very moment Krause typed out his incident report.

“Suffice it to say, they work,” Miller’s bitter voice began, tapping at the screen, “so, Doctor Adachi.”

“Yes. Of course.”

Her long hair, tied back in its usual ponytail, whipped around as she moved to her own desk, far opposite Miller’s, and the rapid drumming of her fingers across her keyboard joined his. Doctor Krause, while eager to start his report as the operation’s lead researcher, held himself in check for the time being. Entertaining their guests fell to him for now. He stood at patient attention.

Yessica was still occupied for the moment, eyes shifting in rapid flutters between the projector screens, the two scientists, and her notebook. Her cameraman found his voice though, grunting a few incoherent noises for Krause’s attention before finally speaking up.

“He always like this?”

A big, meaty thumb was jammed the way of Doctor Miller, who pointedly pretended he didn’t hear — though Krause caught the faint, irritated curling of lips.

“No. His wife and… Hm… well, young man, there were five of us a month ago.”

He looked annoyed by being called ‘young man’, but only snorted for a moment before asking, “And now?”

“Now there aren’t.”

Now there were only three.  It wasn’t the most satisfactory of answers, but Doctor Krause obviously didn’t want to elaborate. Maybe the expression on his face reminded the cameraman too much of Miller’s, because the big man instead turned towards Yessica for answers — Doctor Adachi clearly wasn’t going to be of any help, given the enraptured way she was staring at her terminal with a pair of large, heavy-looking headphones seated over her ears.

“There was an accident.” Yessica answered dismissively, showing at least a little talent in the way she knew she was expected to respond, and did so while still performing her primary task. Treating her companion like he was just a member of her live chat back at home. “Vamana Three. Trickled into some news articles. Paywalled, of course. Kept them from spreading, I guess.”

Doctor Krause scowled at the oversimplification — he couldn’t even imagine what Miller was feeling — but neither man said anything. They let the subject slip away, each occupying themselves in tandem by staring at Adachi.

“Vama-what?” The cameraman asked.

“Vamana. Three. Their submersibles. We rode Four to get here, remember?”

The two uninhibited doctors tried to deafen their ears as much as Adachi was able to beneath those hefty headphones.

“So, what? It exploded?”

“No— Just, Jesus— They rode off in it and no one heard fro—”

Bang—

Yessica’s irritation at the constant questions snapped into a jump, a quiet yelp, and a burst of surprised recoiling at the sound of Miller’s fist slamming loudly against his desk. Even Doctor Adachi seemed to have registered, briefly glancing up from her own terminal, though her name being bellowed probably helped in catching her attention.

“ADACHI. What do you hear?”

The interruption was understood. Both members of team Subnautigirl fell into awkward silence, and Yukiko peeled off one cuff of her headphones to reengage with the rest of the world.

“Nothing yet. No cries like last time.”

No one needed to ask what that meant for Krause to fill in the gaps, though expectant glances his way had to wait a while before the lead researcher, staring with furrowed brow at the screens, spoke up.

“The last time we hit the lights, something like whale song bellowed back at us.”

“Same as four weeks ago. Exact same waveform.”

“We had nothing to do with that. We’ve checked.”

Miller scowled, but nodded.

“Still, though…” Doctor Krause, like his colleagues, had secretly been hoping something would happen when they hit the floodlights. They’d been hoping the newcomers would react to those sounds, too. Sounds beyond natural human comprehension, far too low in the decibel range for their primitive ears to comprehend, no matter how powerful the sound. And yet…

“Yeah. Real shame.” And it was, no matter how Miller tried to sound calloused. He wanted answers as much as anyone. Perhaps even more, considering the personal nature of his own wife’s manic plunge into the deep with their other colleague.

It was amazing how well the research station still ran without two of its core members, yet simultaneously oppressive how remarkably lonely it felt.

“What did the lights do the first time?” The researchers had almost forgotten Yessica was still there, but her impudent voice was hard to ignore when its pitch reached a certain high decibel. She was both frustrated and excited with the strange start to this lengthy investigatory interview. The fact that she still had a whole additional day with the team, staying overnight in one of the research station’s empty bunks, did nothing to stymy her impatience.

“It was when we first opened. It’s speculative, but we think a pod of diving sperm whales took offense.”

“Their calls certainly didn’t sound happy, but…” Krause was taking his own turn to scowl again. Irritated… but with his own poor oversight. “The light test was before we were recording. Doctor Adachi just happened to hear.”

“So there’s no record…” Yessica seemed a little annoyed herself, but also fascinated. A scandal had been laid in her lap, and her mind began reeling over the myriad of thumbnail possibilities. Baited right, this video could garner millions of views… No, tens of millions…

“No. No record of that. Nor of the second.” Her expression wasn’t as dreamy when Krause spoke again, but that was mostly thanks to how she recognized the tension in the air. The room felt almost oppressive as Krause and Miller locked eyes. The lead researcher was accusatory, his subordinate defiant. They both peeled their eyes away from one another at the same time though. Mutual understanding after a moment’s misguided enmity.

Yessica pawed and prodded for more details as delicately as her personality would allow, but neither scientist gave any more up. The room remained awkward, information unshared despite tenuous obligations, until—

“Stefan! Stefan, look— oh, ah, Doctor Krause! Listen!”

Yukiko, betraying a brief flash of informality, called for her once-mentor. What she received was the enraptured attention of everyone aboard the lonely research station. All eyes dragged her way, and all but Miller’s were captured for longer than it took for Krause to reach her station and take the headphones.

What greeted his ears was faint. Very faint…

It sounded nothing like the nigh-mournful cries they’d experienced those fateful days prior, but rather like… Song. Yes, truly song, warbling and weaving in its fathomlessly deep tones, the voices of many whales washing over one another in an orchestral display.

“All sperm whales?”

“I think so.”

Possibly the same species as before… Perhaps the very same pod?

All it took was a series of frantic, meaningful points and gestures from Krause for Miller to mash into his own terminal, and brighten the red lights as much as the station could manage. The gloom of the deep sea resisted, fighting against the permeation of a form of light its denizens couldn’t even see, but…

“There!” Eventually, shapes began to resolve. They were faint, a few mere shades of color differentiation from the oceanic backdrop even through the computer’s enhancement, but all of those in the observation room could see them. Two distant whales, plunging as they danced, their voices raising song around them.

“A serenade?” Adachi asked, glancing furtively towards Krause, no doubt craving the headphones she’d passed to him.

“Sometimes, we’ve found…” Krause began, more to their guests than to his fellow researcher, “that whales sing as they dive. The type of dive and the type of song are unique, like a shared ritual.” It hadn’t been Varuna that had first hypothesized this, but the idea of a ‘Whale Serenade’ had quickly spread throughout the scientific community. In past months, Varuna had begun paying special attention. Perhaps too much attention.

Yessica stared. “Is that what made her—”

“No!” Miller’s bark was furious, but distracted. He was the only one staring not directly at the perimeter screens, but beyond them — the rest focused on either Doctor Krause or the screens themselves. Yessica, despite not knowing whether it was her question that was being refuted, or just the mere idea of her asking the question, fell silent. She watched and waited.

“Let me hear!” Adachi’s hand was finally on Krause’s shoulder, warning him a moment before that same hand gripped one of the ear cuffs and inverted it enough for them to share the sound. She could make little more of the noise than Krause himself could, but he inclined his head her way to help in sharing the sound nevertheless.

Only Miller initially noticed the shape resolving itself not only on the camera screens, but in the alien red glow of open space between them. But it took only a few more moments before all other eyes were gluing themselves to the sight.

“Holy shit…”

 

The shape of the third whale must only have been a dozen meters from the station. Even unenhanced, bare eyes could plainly see the sperm whale descending from above in that little gap.

“That’s it! Right!?” The cameraman’s excited voice boomed out, causing everyone else in the room to jump then deliver a chorus of hissed shushes. “But… but that’s it, right? The whole reason you’re here! That… whale fall thing.”

“No. No, it is not.” Yessica reined her subordinate in herself, snapping with uppity frustration. “Those whales are alive. Whale falls are when they’re dead.”

He didn’t understand, but no one explained, and the ferocity of the glares from around the room for interrupting such a spectacular moment had kept him quiet.

Only Miller, uncharacteristically less bothered than the rest by the interruption, had been staring out the window hard enough to see the way the whale seemed to… slow, as it passed by. To see the way one eye, perhaps, might have been staring meaningfully, even imploringly at the research station as the curiously intelligent cetacean passed. He noticed all this — felt it even — but said nothing.

“It isn’t the same. But…!” Doctor Adachi’s voice filled the air after nearly two minutes of reverential silence. It hadn’t taken nearly that long to watch the trio of singing sperm whales vanish beneath, but some respect had been paid to the majesty of the moment. Noises during the intervening moments had been kept at a minimum, outside mutterings of astonishment or awe. Doctor Krause was the next to straighten up.

“It’s incredible. But, no, it’s different. They were probably already diving, and we accidentally called them over. Might’ve thought we were prey.”

The ensuing silence was owed completely to the uncomfortable skittering that crawled down each and every spine, as all realized just how catastrophic it would’ve been if any one of those whales had decided their station warranted an exploratory bump. That kind of mass colliding with the observation room very likely might’ve caused the sort of rupture that would kill them all.

“This station,” Yessica said after a while, “is just for waiting for dead whales. Right? That’s what you told me. That’s what I told my fans. It’s SAFE, right?”

The pause was long. A bit too long. Doctors Adachi and Krause seemed to be deciding which would express their irritation with their guest first. Doctor Miller was still staring blankly out at the abyss. Ultimately, it was Krause who answered.

“Vamana Four is still docked. Want to leave?”

It almost sounded like a threat, but if the influencer noticed, she didn’t act like it. Her answer was immediate. “No, obviously. Where are our rooms? And call me if you see the whales coming back up. Or…” Yessica scowled, then sneered, then gestured vaguely towards the observation screens. “Or whatever.”

She was locked in, whatever her attitude might’ve suggested. But, for the moment, that creeping sensation tickling uncomfortably up and down her spine wouldn’t let her stand in the observation room any longer. She and her muscle were pushing through the doors back towards the rest of the station before their escort had even volunteered.

“I’ll handle it.” Doctor Adachi sounded resigned as she got up, no doubt realizing the laws of seniority meant it would’ve fallen to her anyway. Neither Krause nor Miller seemed like they were about to move — the former was too busy deciding whether he should be fuming, and the latter was too busy treating the middle-distance to his most enigmatic of stares.

The silence that fell over the room when the two men were left alone was almost peaceful.

 

Within ten minutes, the pair was sitting closer together. Cheap, well-oiled office chairs were aligned between the desks, side-by-side, as though they were just a couple guys watching the game on a Sunday evening. Krause had even introduced beers into the equation.

“Been saving them,” was all he offered by way of explanation when the first caps had been pried off. Miller had glanced over and grimaced at seeing the word ‘Light’ on the bottle, but he’d taken it and thrown back a long swig anyway. Even tasteless beers were welcome at this point. “Now seemed like as good a time as any.”

“Yukiko’s gonna be a while. That reporter—” Miller took another deep swig, “—will quiz her ear off. Poor girl.”

“Can’t really blame her. We did more showing than telling.”

“Scared ‘er shitless, too.”

Krause chuckled, but the sound was dry and humorless even to his own ears. “Can’t blame her there, either. It’s not every day you realize your life could end with just one, single malfunction. One tiny mistake. One misplaced hunk of bone and blubber.

What compelled that squid, though…”

“What compels any of this?” Miller had already extended his hand for another beer, which Krause passed over without hesitation. “Why a Goddamn boneyard beneath us? Why do they come here?”

A month ago, Krause would have reminded his colleague that uncovering that answer wasn’t why they were here. They were here to study and record the mid-life of a whale fall — the activity around a descending carcass, especially in this gloomy, transitional depth.

But none of them cared about that anymore. Not since Anne and Ford had abruptly taken Vamana Three in the middle of the day and, right before the watching eyes of their remaining colleagues, angled to dive straight into the abyss.

Miller had tried to question his wife over the radio. Then he’d begged. Then he’d cried.

They’d never responded.

This memory was why Krause merely winced when Miller hurled his first, empty beer bottle across the observation room, letting it shatter against the ground near one of the windows. Frustration dripped from his stress-tensed shoulders. It was why Krause didn’t admonish a subordinate researcher. It was why he just popped another top himself, and threw back another mouthful of dry, near-tasteless brew.

Neither brought the incident up. They tip-toed around it as they delved deeper into their twelve-pack, but no one mentioned the bellow from the deep. They only danced on the doorstep of the subject of all the hours and hours they’d poured into analyzing every microsecond of the intervening thirty minutes between sound and submersible launch. Soon, they stopped talking about work and research altogether, and instead turned their conversation towards brighter topics — the way the sun warmed the beaches of Fiji, or rose so splendidly above the peak of Mount Fuji. Of the hot sands of Cairo and its great wonders, and of the solar glare that would reflect off the peaks of Everest as its great conquerors mounted their final ascent.

All things warm. All things above. All things the sun. All things they could experience again… one day — but not this day. Not even for the foreseeable future. There was far too much yet to uncover, far too much left to speculation.

An hour into their beer and banter, both men fell absolutely silent as hulking shapes rose distantly into view on the screens before them.

One. Then two. Then three.

Three huge, limp carcasses, release of internal gases momentarily allowing them the buoyancy to start drifting back up to the world of the sun. A trio of sperm whales whose perilous dive had lead to some unknown demise.

Krause and Miller stared, feeling a wonder that didn’t quite reach their stoic expressions. Their stillness was broken only by the occasional lifts of bottles to lips as the hulking shapes drifted slowly past.

Neither said a word for a long time. It wasn’t until after they exchanged bottles, each popping the top on their counterparts before politely exchanging them again, that Miller spoke.

“What goes up must come down.”

It would be a long night’s vigil.

Something at school didn’t make sense to you that morning.

They were talking about the Sun and,
how eventually it’s going to Grow into a
“Red Giant” and Swallow the Earth.
How there’s nothing we can do about it.

It made you realize If something is going to happen it just is.
So why wait?
Why is the universe waiting ? It just didn’t make much sense.

The janitor that day was acting silly,
“Isaiah 50:10” was written on his palm in red marker.

It was Friday night,
Daddy went to see a friend for drinks and left you all night.
He told you that he would just be out late, not all night.
How did that make you feel ?

How many other 9 year olds have the whole house to themselves nearly every night?
Without so much as a kiss goodnight ?

Even the few times in the past when he would, He wouldn’t even kiss you directly.
He’s place is palm upon your head and kiss the back of his hand.

Dads use belts In movies but how many others know that as the same reality that you do ?

The only time you’d hear another voice outside of school and your father’s was when it was late and you’d listen to the home phone’s answering machine.

Your dad never listened to the answer machine,
kind of like a kid not wanting to go to the dentist.

You remember the messages you listened to that night, you waited till he left to emerge from your hiding place and inhabit the communal space that should be a living room.

You sit on the round particular board table and press on the answering machine.

*BEEP*

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 4th:

FIRST MESSAGE:
*soft female voice*

“I came by today…didn’t see you..still don’t”

*BEEP*

NEXT MESSAGE:
*Burly Man’s rough Voice*

“I’m sorry John, you’ve been on this job less than a week and you’ve already been suspended by the client for 3 days for reoccurring fall protection violations, now I’ve been very understanding regarding the eye injury but we can’t have someone on a project of this magnitude who thinks the rules don’t apply to them, we’re going to have to terminate you. Wish I could say I was sorry.”

*BEEP*

NEXT MESSAGE:
*Same Woman’s voice from Message #1*

“Does your Daughter know?
Is she an exception?
Or do all women fall under your same umbrella ?”

*BEEP*

NEXT AND FINAL MESSAGE:
*inaudible whisper*

“I can feel you, y….mph..ll feel me too”

*BEEP*

You look over at the cable box,
It reads “11:47pm”
Your dad left at 6.

Cartoon Network was no more, now it was Adult swim. Robot Chicken was on, after that superjail. Both of which give you the heebiie jeebies.

You have to visit your peepaws and poopoos but,
you’re afraid.

You don’t have a choice, so you leave the door open as you go number 2.

As you doo you hear the home phone :

*BEEP*

“Mmmrrrmmmmrrrrnpphh”

You have trouble making out the message from the toilet.

As you run out the bathroom still collecting yourself you make out the backend of the voicemail.

*Your Fathers Stern Voice*

“Hi,
you should be in bed but,
if not you should know I’m bringing a friend home tonight.
If she plays her cards right she might just be your new mommy.
You’re allowed to sleep with the tv on in the playroom as usual but,
keep the door shut and the volume bellow level 12.
And no matter what you hear,
don’t come out, I should be home in 15.
Just go to sleep and I’ll see you in the morning.
Love you,
Night.”

*BEEP*

You panic,

Your Dads never brought a friend home this late before.
You grab a dvd from the home theater and run to the play room.

You look down at the Cat in the Hat Dvd.
As you put it in your dvd player you hear the front door slam open and the whole house shake.
What came next was silence.
The footsteps.
All the way up to the door of the play room.
You hear breathing.

You hear a woman’s voice further in the distance of your house.
Calling the person by your door to them.

They walk away.
When you look at the tv, you see Sally and Conrad on the dvd menu staring at you.
Sally starts pointing to her left, in the direction of the window.
You see the silhouette of what looks like a large lumpy hammock hanging from your tree only,
you never had a hammock.

You grab your scooby doo stuffed animal and you hid under the blanket with your flashlight, tv volume at 11.
You press play,
Sally and Conrad look at each other, then back at you.
You press play again but they just keep staring.

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*
you hear from the door.

“When you visit your peepaw and poopoos you need to remember to flush, my company saw that. We have a talk about that in the morning”

-your fathers voice exclaims from the door.

You know that that means,
Your heart sinks.

Your father’s footsteps sound further until it becomes a chatter with another voice from what sounds like the kitchen.

The Cat in the Hat begins to play on the tv.
The volume begins to rise fast.

12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23…

So fast you think you’re sitting on the remote but,
no matter how hard you scramble you can’t seem to find it anywhere.
The volume is now maxed out at 53.

“There are a gajillions of stories of mischief and fun But to keep things simple, let's just start with one…”
-you hear shouted from the tv

The commotion outside the playroom comes to and immediate halt.

*THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP*

The sound those familiar boots make as they full charges towards the play room.

An unfamiliar voice comes out the oddly familiar energy that had just approached.

It sounds almost like a woman’s voice but,
closer to when a man tries to sound like a woman like Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire.

“Do You Love Your Daddy?”

You hear in a loud whisper.
You Freeze.
You think if you don’t move, they will leave.
You see the door handle jiggle then stop.
It’s locked,
you always lock Doors when Daddy’s gone.

Although it brings you comfort,
you know it can be unlocked with a quarter or even a long finger nail.

“I know you’re in there”
-the voice lets out.

Your stomach feels sick,
Your heart is racing and as quiet as you attempt up be your breathing makes it impossible.

You want to cry and can’t fight it so you shove your pillow in your face.
You take deep breaths through it.

You feel the pillow getting soaked and feel the humidity from the breaths you take through the fabric.

“Do you think I’m some type of dinosaur?”
“Staying still won’t change the fact that I know you’re there”
the voice says

You begin to weep harder.

“Do You Love Your Daddy”
-It asks again.

“Where did you come from?”
Sally exclaims from the Tv.

The voice from the Door pauses.
The scene in the movie seems to linger and Sally is staring, not at you though, in the direction of the door.

She begins to nod,
Then says “oh”

Then the TV goes black and you’re back to the DVD home menu only Sally isn’t there.
It’s just Conrad.
He’s staring at you.

“Do You Love Your Daddy?”
-The voice asks for the third time, audibly impatient yet still in the same whisper.

Conrad is looking at you, he looks distressed and he’s shaking his head side to side.

You see the the lock begin to turn,

“Y…Y..Ye..ss”
You say through your sobs.

The door clicks.
It’s now been unlocked.

“I love your Daddy too sweetheart”

-the voice says no longer impatient,
now sounding relieved.

“He needs your help with something..”
It says.

Your cheeks are soaked and your mouth is dry.

“He’s stuck”
-The voice reveals.

“I’m sure he’d really like to get back.”
“I’m sure you’d really like him back..”

There was a pause.

“Unless you don’t want your Daddy back?”
The voice asks.

You remain silent.
For a moment You think about what life would be like without Daddy.

What would you do ?
You think about the Ralph’s down the street, their free sample in their bakery.
You think about the neighbors tangerine trees you pick from often.
You hate being alone at night but,
that doesn’t it stop it from happening.
You’d be fine, you tell yourself.

But you also know what you should say,
What your Daddy would want you to say.
That of course you love your Daddy and you’d do anything to make sure he’s okay.

“Where ..is he stuck?”
-you ask

“Have you ever heard of Kiara the Orangutan?”
-the voice asks.

“no…”
-you replied sheepishly.

“Well, your father’s…helping her…and well, he’s stuck, he could really use your help sweetheart”

There was a pause.

“Come out.”
-said the voice.

“My daddy said not to until morning”
-you replied.

“Oh.”
Said the voice.
“I can wait till morning.”
It continued.

You didn’t like the sound of that.

“What’s an orangutan?”
You asked timidly.

“You know what a human is don’t you darling? That’s what you are.”
-says the voice

“Yes..”
You replied.

“Imagine someone 7 times as strong with arms almost twice as long that can swing from trees”
-it said.

“Like a monkey?”
You asked innocently.

“NO!…
No, my Dear. Not a monkey…
Monkeys have a tail, a monkey is to an Orangutan what a Neanderthal is to a human, you understand love ?”
-the voice asked.

You let out more cries into your pillow as you took deep breaths.

“No, I’m sorry I don’t know what that means either”
-you cried out.

“It’s quite alright,
I’m sorry for confusing you honey. Yes, and orangutan Is like a monkey, but like Superman stronger and smarter then the others…and no tail..bright orange.”

“Like the ones in the jungle book?”
-you asked.

“Yesssss.. that’s exactly right my dear.. a perfect example, the orangutan is the king in the jungle book”
-it replied

“I liked his singing… he’s funny”
-you said

“Yes my dear”
-the voice.

“What does this have to do with Daddy being stuck? And Who is Kiara the orangutan ?”
-you asked in a panic.

“A long time ago, movies used to have no sound..”
-The voice began.

“Which made movies get pretty boring very fast…”
-it continued.

“Studios were looking for knew ways to get more people to Theaters..
Kiara’s Mother thought Kiara would be perfect…”

“Kiara’s mother was…Human,
her name was Melinda and she saved Kiara from being murdered by the zoo after they’d done that very thing to the one that birthed Kiara”

“Melinda Had already taught orangutans sign language before from her time at the zoo, she hid Kiara away and taught her as well.”
-the voice explained.

“Once Melinda’s new job and whole company was almost closed for business she…..took the risk and introduced Kiara, who quickly became a star in the silent movie industry…”
-it said

“What does this have to do with Daddy?”
-you asked

“Well the world loved Kiara soooooo much my sweet little angel that when the world of silent movies ended they gave Kiara her very own Tv show Kiara and friends… that tv show had a lot of children that Kiara loved and taught very special things every episode!”
-the Voice explained.

“One Child had and accident”
the voice revealed.

“Were they okay?”
-you asked

“Unfortunately my darling, he passed away.
Once that happened, that child’s parents lied about Kiara…a lot of other children from Kiara and Friends lied about Kiara just to make money..
Your father was the one Child to never lie about Kiara my dear.
For that I am forever grateful.”
it explained.

“So if all the other children were liars then why is my Daddy stuck and why now ?
Who are you?
Are you the friend my Daddy came home with tonight ?”
-you asked in a rush

“Lying isn’t the only thing someone can do that’s wrong little girl”
-the voice said.

“Who are you?”
-you repeated.

“I’m a friend of your Daddy”
-said the voice.

“Did you come home with my Daddy tonight ,
How is he stuck ?”
-you asked

“Do you like balloons?”
-the voice asked.

“Yes”
You replied.

“Your daddy loved balloons when he was a child
If you could have one balloon in the shape of anything you want would it be?”
-it asked

You thought…
“..I love flowers, Daddy never gets any and flower balloons would probably look really pretty”
-you said.

“Awe, such a sweet request from such a sweet little girl,
One moment sweetheart.”
-said the voice.

You then heard the footsteps retreating, shortly after you heard the front door shut.
You quickly ran to the door of the play room and locked it once more.

Maybe it was over ? You thought.

You ran to your window with your heart beating through your skin hiding behind your Scooby doo plushie to see if you could get a glimpse of who the voice had been coming from as they finally left.

Through the rain in the moonlight you made out the silhouette of what had to have been the lady you were talking to.

She seems short, on the heavy side, and walks side to side and appears to have an apron or something on.

She walks up to the hammock hanging from your tree that you noticed for the first time earlier in the night.

She appears to be talking to it.
When she walks away you realize she’s not leaving, you hear the front door open and shut again as her footsteps approach once more.

“Knock knock”
-said the voice

“Yesss”
-you replied

“Look out the window my love,
I have a surprise for you”
-said the voice

You looked outside but there was nothing but what you'd seen before only,
This time the hammock hanging from the trees began to sway.

Both sides of where the hammock meet the tree split into two, they looked like large arms slowly reaching down to the base of the hammock,
As the both unfolded further you could now clearly both see two sets of fingers from the arms,
One had something in it, something flat .

From the base of the silhouette you  
See what looks like a fat head connected by an even fatter neck.
The object held by one set of the fingers came directly to the head and began to grow mass.
It soon became clear what it was doing,
it was blowing up a balloon.

After the balloon was blown to the shape of a long tube,
The two hands came together and started contorting it out of sight.
When it had finally finished,
One of the arms held it up in the moonlight in such a way that you could make out the silhouette of a flower clear as day.

"do you like that Little girl?'
-asked the voice

You quickly looked over again at the door.
It didn't make sense but, for whatever reason if you were going to be talking to the voice coming from the door,
Then you'd want to do that from the bed; it felt safer from there.
Where you could hide in your pillows.

Before you start to retreat to your safety spot, you take one last glace out the window.
What was hanging from the tree had began to drop down.

The silhouette was large,
But no taller than the tallest kid in school, maybe even shorter than the tallest kid in 4th grade.
It kind of reminded you of that guy from its always sunny in Philadelphia when Adult swim would come on.

It was approaching in a way that you'd never seen anyone walk before.

You felt conflicted,
The voice from the door was speaking which made you want to crawl and sink in your sheets Yet,
The presence approaching your window was demanding your attention without using any words.

You made the decision to grab the comforter from the bed and sink into your beanbag chair,
A spot with a clear view of the yard through the window, and yet still a comfortable ear shot away from the door.

When you returned to your beanbag chair with the protection and safety provided by your comforter,
You were oddly displeased to see that the figures silhouette you had just seen approaching, was no longer anywhere to be seen.
You wanted it gone yes but no longer knowing where it resides, just results in you feeling even more unsettled.

*the voice quickly erupts from your door*

"do you like it?
It's special, just for you."

Your head shoots over to look at the door.

"wha-"
You begin to say as you turn to look back out the window only this time,
There was a hand on the other side of the window, so close it was no longer a silhouette.
It was a dark hand covered in orange hair, its fingers looked rough, but nails were freshly done.
It was holding something.
When my eyes adjusted,
I could see It was holding a balloon flower that had a green stem, pink petals, and yellow center.

The gesture seemed malice and sinister,
You quickly pulled the comforter up your face only leaving your eyes visible.

"do you not like your gift little girl?"
Questioned the voice coming from your door.

Even at your young age,
You were no stranger to the idea that sometimes the truth can get you in trouble.

"I love it..."
You replied.

"then why don't you open the window and let Daddys friend give you the gift she made just for you sweetheart"
Said the voice.

"I can't,
Daddy said I'm never to open the window"
-you lied.

Then why don't I hel-..."
*clackle clackle*
It was as the voice interrupted its own thought as it tried the doorknob. 

"Oh"
-it said.

"Why did you lock the door my love?"
-asked the voice

"I don't know you,
And Daddy said to stay in here ti-"

"I know"
- interrupted the voice

"Till morning but,
He didn't say anything about me not coming in there with you"
-said the voice

For a moment you were silent,
You looked over to the window and noticed the balloon flower receding like a setting sun beneath the window. 
*POP*
-you heard the moment it escaped your sight.

"don't make me unlock the door again myself darling, that's just rude.
My nails aren't what they used to be honey, I nearly broke one unlocking it the first time"
-Said the voice

The clouds moved over the moon outside
It was now pitch-black outside, the only light in the playroom came from your cloud nightlight and the glow of the tv which still displayed Conrad on the DVD menu, he was expressionless. 
You stayed silent, you stayed still.

*Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring*
-came from the living room

*Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring*
You heard shuffling from both outside your door and outside your window

*BEEEP*
-you could faintly make out your father's voice
"hey kid actually i-"

His voice,
the Message, 
he Tv,
everything was stopped, everything was off.

Your room was now as dark as the outside you feared so much.
Where the walls began and ended were both unclear to you.
The bulbs in the Tv were cooling down but even the silhouette of that soon lost its shape.

You heard the click of the door unlocking followed by the doorknob turning.
The door was now open.
Although you could hear someone approaching it was to dark to make out their shape or their distance in relation to you.

"the only time being blind has its advantages, is when you're in a Dark room with someone who's not"
-said the voice now clearer than you'd ever heard it prior.

You froze.

*tap tap tap tap*
You hear the woman banging on the walls as she made her way deeper in your room.

*tap tap tap....Clink*
The noise changed,
she had found the window.

It was just a few feet from the corner of the beanbag chair you're hiding in.
*Creeeeeeaaaaaaakkkk*
The window was unlocked and you could hear it as the women slid it open.

You could hear something was crawling up and inside through the window.

"where is she?"

you heard the voice whisper to the new presence that now inhabits your homes playroom.

You could feel that you were just inches away from getting bumped into by either of the two.

You wanted to not breathe, you wanted to not do anything but, you couldn't help it. You let in two, short, sharp inhales. Keeping your abdomen as stiff as possible. 
Your exhale trembled despite your attempts, you knew if someone could see they would defiantly see the comforter shaking.
You slowly felt the comforter lift up.

Although your grip on the comforter was originally as tight as you could,
your plan quickly changed to playing dead the moment you felt the pull of the comforter.
You felt something placed in your hand,
it shocked you to the touch,
a static shock yet,
you managed to refrain from much outburst other than a sharp exhale.

*Smack*

"well look harder"
You heard the woman's voice yelp.

As your eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness you could slowly start to make out the silhouette of who you've heard oh so much about.

There was no doubt in your mind it was her.

It was Kiara The Orangutan.

Kiara Strutted over to the bed in the playroom,
side to side as you could hear her wet sniffles. 

"don't you fucking lie to me you dumb baboon, we both know she's in here."
-said the woman's voice
In a tone more threatening than your (D) a bar you thought no one else would ever surpass.

You let go of what was just handed to you so you can grab the comforter you'd been hiding in once more, it fell.

As you continued to see Kiara strut now over to the door through a peak you had held under the covers, she appeared to try to lead in a manner to almost insinuate to the woman that that's the direction you had went.

Just as you had started wonder where the woman was as she had remained out of your sight, you received the answer.

*THUD*

You felt the whole beanbag chair shake beneath you.
She had bumped into it.
So hard you could feel her nearly topple over on top of you.

*Grrrrrrrrruawh*
You heard the old woman groan.

"KIARA! ...What...what was that !?"
-Yelled the woman's voice stopping Kiara in her tracks making her turn back from the door.

"oooo mmh ooo"
-you heard Kiara let out under her breath.

As you could see her silhouette move closer, it started by slowly wobbling side to side.
It became hard to tell the difference between her arms and her legs.

At times she looked like the shadow of a big spider monster,her movements remind you of spiderman if he chose to move slow.

When Kiara had made her way just a few feet away from the beanbag chair to help the woman to her feet, the pace of your breathing became unmanageable.

"I Bumped into the damn beanbag chair, was she on it Kiara?!"
-the voice asked

Your heart began to beat faster and faster and harder and harder so much so,
you felt as if your rib cage was made of shards of glass and your heart was a balloon inflating more and more with every inhale squeezing it against the razor-sharp shards of your ribcage. 

You could tell even just by the momentum of the figures silhouette that it was headed towards you, alongside the reluctant Orangutan.

You instinctively rolled off the right of the beanbag chair on to your carpet floor as silently as you could but, you were terrified, In your mind blind people have super senses.

Somehow, your transition appeared to go unnoticed.

Now that you were on the floor, you started rolling and crawling away, the direction of which you yourself weren't even certain.

"Where the fuck is she? Is she on the bed?!"
-the voice asked this time deeper than before

The flavor and tone in everything this voice said was violent, you heard the ruffles through the pillows and throw blanket that had previously littered the bed, you felt your Scooby doo plush get thrown into your back yet, you refrained from expressing any reaction.

"where the Fuck is she Kiara?!"
-you heard the voice ask once more

Each scream sounded deeper than the last with heavier violent infliction behind each exhale.
You could hear everything that was once on the bed get thrown off. 

You froze,
Staying still on the floor with the Scooby doo plush leaned against you like a bicycle kickstand and one of your throw blankets slightly covering your leg.

The Figure started pacing in your direction aimlessly like a headless chicken yet, relentless none the less.

"we both know I'm going to fucking fi-"
*POP*
-the voice was cut off

The figures silhouette froze, 
It seemed just as frightened by the sudden pop as you.
Its hesitation confused you so much so,
that you question for a brief moment if the figure had seen you,
anything to justify this bazar change in its demeanor. 

The head of the silhouette jolts to the side,
As if to shoot a look across at Kiara.
By the time your eyes traced across the room to meet Kiara, she had already moved No, She was in Motion.

She pranced towards the figure at a speed that looked impossible.
In less than a second, Kiara tackled this figure you had feared so much.
You saw the silhouette raise both its arms up high and its fists in fury as it came down on its victim.
Kiara hit and punched the figure and cocked its head back before launching it into the silhouette's torso,
 When Kiara's head kicked back once more, it was tethered to the figures torso now through what looked like the silhouette of cords.

It quickly became clear Kiara was taking bites out of the woman.
She screamed and screamed, she did not sound like a woman anymore.

She bit
*CHOMP*

And bit
*CHOMP*

And bit
*CHOMP*

They screamed 
*AHHHHHHHHHH*

And screamed 
*AHHHHHGGGG UHH*

And screamed
*FRAAAGHHHHHHH*

As the figure let out its yell Kiara slammed its head down making them bite their own tongue off.

Kiara pranced on the body with all 4 of her limbs,
She stepped on the figures knee with her foot and used her hand to grab that figures ankle,
After she gripped it firmly, she pulled it up with the ease and intensity that one might use on an emergency break after parking on an incline.

She then stepped on the figured elbow and grabbed it by its corresponding wrist and repeated the process of pulling upward and snapping.

Kiara then used one of her feet to grab the moaning and groaning body by its shirt,
She used her front arms and free leg to drag the body to the door.

The whole way there the person screamed,
When Kiara got to the door of your house's playroom, she threw the body out with ease.
She breathed heavily over the body before slowly backing up and shutting the door.

You were now alone with Kiara.

Many people say Disney is a shady company for many reasons, but not everyone truly knows what's going on with them. Some people say the tunnels hide something; some say there used to be a tropical resort; some even say Disney kills.

Disney World was my favorite place to go to growing up; I always begged my parents to let me go. This lasted for lots of years until I got to be a security guard at the one nearest to my hometown. It was fun, sure; I got to see the park's ins and outs, and I got to talk to the cast members about the place. They said it was really fun to make kids happy; I bet I'd agree if I were them. Though Disneyland and Disney World were always... a bit mysterious, people told me that some abnormal things went on behind the scenes, like all the lights flickering before going off as the parks closed.

Many people said that they felt off about the mascot suits. I mean, yeah, they're a little uncanny, but that shouldn't mean anything too weird, right? The Disney World I worked at in specific had lots of mysterious things going on, like people saying there's an odor in the back room, or the sudden appearance of mice or dust; just in general, a lot of things were getting into a bad condition. People said they'd hear voices or sounds that didn't belong, and suddenly see notes where they work. It was a little paranormal.

Three months after working there, I became a security guard for late nights. It was a little ominous, with the dark, clouded sky and the moon shining brightly onto the park. I'm willing to admit I was a little freaked out by it. I never expected, nor wanted to be a security guard at this time of day, but I had no choice. This is when those rumors started getting in my head, because I heard the noises and saw the lights flicker, but I just kept moving. I even got tasked with checking "Character Wardrobe B-7," which was something that hadn't existed or been listed on any official park blueprints.

When I got there, it looked ruined, dirty, filled with dust and cobwebs, and smelled of damp mold. It felt like it was abandoned by Disney, like something I shouldn't have found or been tasked to check. There were loads of abandoned, ruined, and old mascot costumes with decaying fabric; they felt rotted, and they had peeling, yellowed fabric around their gloves, with accessories falling off or completely detached and abandoned. The netting inside their mouths was tainted and crusted; you could feel the dust soaked into their fabric. I smelled the faint scent of damp fabric clinging to the racks. I didn't know what I was supposed to be checking there, but it was incredibly eerie.

Out of all the ruined suits, my flashlight's beam landed on a specific, old, abandoned, ruined version of the modern Mickey Mouse costume you see in parks today. However, it was weirdly off; its eyes were black, empty, and hollow—no sockets at all—and its smile was eerily large; it stretched bigger than it should have. The ends of its red, clinging, fabric pants seemed to be ripped off, with its white buttons nearly coming off; its yellow bowtie dirty, damp, and swaying to one side. Its white gloves, yellowed and covered in dust and grime, had one black button missing from each glove. Its yellow shoes' soles were nearly falling off; the shoes were damp, oddly wet, and dripping.

The lights suddenly flickered violently as I tried to see what was going on here; they slammed off, leaving me in pitch-black darkness with just my flashlight. I looked around for a breaker or something, but I couldn't find anything; eventually, the lights turned back on, but I was terrified to see what I found. That same Mickey Mouse costume I was staring at had suddenly disappeared as soon as the lights went off; I had no idea where it went. I looked at the other costumes: Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Daisy, Pluto, Clarabelle. But none of the others had moved.

I didn't leave the Wardrobe to check yet. I looked around and found a hidden room with a note that read, "Disney Kills," written in red ink. I was a little freaked out by this, but I just saw it as a little prank someone might've done to scare me. I moved on, but before I left, I picked up the note and put it in my pocket; who knows? It might've been useful, so I left the Wardrobe and the abandoned costumes behind to search for the missing Mickey.

As I left, I walked around, searching buildings, back rooms, bins, trees, ANYTHING to find that costume. But eventually I shone my flashlight onto the ground ahead of me, and I saw a trail of wet, dirty footprints leading away into the shadows. The same damp, oddly wet, and dripping footprints the costume had. I followed the trail and heard faint, echoing sounds in the distance: a distorted Mickey Mouse laugh and a child's quiet giggle coming from a dark, restricted area of the park.

I followed the trail and the sound around the corner and spotted the empty-eyed Mickey Costume alive, standing up and moving, standing under a flickering streetlamp, holding a small child's hand and slowly leading them toward a pitch-black forest far away from the park. I had to get the child away from that... THING.

I ran towards them, the costume's back was turned towards me. "HEY," I said, "DROP THE KID!"

The only thing that happened was the costume's head snapping backwards to look at me. It was disgusting; I hated seeing a costume do that. Its smile stretched wider as it talked; the costume opened its crusted, mesh-lined mouth, and the only thing playing was a loop of vintage cartoon audio, playing "Hiya, pal!" over and over as it stared at me. I pulled out the note because I get it now: "Disney Kills." They use this thing to lure children to their deaths.

"KID, GO, RUN! THAT'S NOT MICKEY!" I say to the kid as I try to run and stop it, but the kid doesn't run; it tries to hug that thing, but the result is Mickey snapping the kid's neck. I was absolutely horrified; I couldn't save the kid in time. The Mickey Costume finally turned its whole body towards me.

I turned around and RAN for my life as the distorted "Hiya, pal!" echoed through the dark forest behind me. It was chasing me at high speed, faster than me, so I went and hid before it could see me hide. When it went away, I sprinted out of there and made it to my car door just in time for me to get inside, drive off, and escape, just as the Mickey started slowly walking towards my car and where I had escaped.

I eventually quit my job and got another job as a game developer, happily living my dream career, while still thinking about THAT incident, that day, the day I quit and how I couldn't save that child. I put up the note, "Disney Kills," in a frame on a shelf in my room. Don't ever ignore a warning when it's right in front of you, or something terrible will happen.

When I walked into my father’s bookstore, he was combing his wig. He had placed the black wig over his clenched left fist and was pulling thick sections through it with a wide-toothed comb. Every now and then, he would dip the comb into the half-full glass of water he’d placed on the counter, give it a little shake to get rid of the excess water, and continue styling the wig.

“Welcome, son,” he said without making eye contact with me.

“Dad, why aren’t you combing the wig on your head? And why are you even combing the wig? Isn’t the point to make it look like it’s not a wig? Wouldn’t it look more like your real hair if you left it a little messy?”

My father shot me a very brief glance. He dipped the comb into the water again and flicked the excess water on it toward my face. At the same time, someone walked in.

I was annoyed, but I didn't react. Customers rarely came into the shop anyway, and I didn't want this one to witness a tense moment.

The man who walked in didn't say hello. He looked at me, then at my father, then at the wig. After that, he glanced around the shop.

“Do you have Swann’s Way?”

It was my father’s favorite book. I hadn’t read it yet, but my father couldn’t praise Marcel Proust enough. Whenever the subject of books came up, he would talk at length about the way Proust used language, and mention how he wanted to learn French just so he could read him in the original.

“Of course. How could we not?” he said, his eyes lighting up.

“Good. How much is the wig?”

“What?”

“I’m asking how much the wig is.”

There was something strange about the man’s voice, though it was hard to describe. It was an extremely deep voice that seemed to come from a congested throat. It sounded as if it were coming from a broken radio, as if he would sound clearer if he just cleared his throat.

My father, who had been excited at the mention of Proust, had now noticed the strangeness in the man’s voice.

“Are you all right?”

“How much is the wig?”

“The wig isn’t for sale. You can have a glass of water if you’d like,” my father said, holding out the water he had been dipping his comb into.

“No. Is the wig free?”

“How can something that isn’t for sale be free, sir?”

“How much is it, then?”

“This is my wig. You don’t look well. Please have a glass of water.”

The man fell silent. He was staring intently at my father. My father was a little frightened. The wig was still resting on his clenched fist.

“Are you sure?” he asked after nearly a minute of silence.

“Yes. Look at my head.”

“Are you sure?”

“What beautiful hair you have. What are you going to do with the wig?”

My father, having automatically felt a connection with the man because he had asked about Proust, hadn’t paid much attention to his voice or appearance. To be honest, there was something strange about his appearance too. I gave the man a once-over. His hair really was thick and healthy-looking. He was wearing a black shirt. His chin was a little long, and his mouth and nose were small in proportion to his face. A large head, a long chin, a small mouth and nose, and ordinary eyes. Black trousers, sharply pressed. And a pair of bare feet.

“Tonight, I’m coming to take your son. Don’t be afraid. Stay calm. Convince your son to come with me tonight, or I’ll take him by force.”

“Fix that voice of yours first, man. Hrrr, hrrr, hrrr. I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Drink this water and pull yourself together.”

The man took the water and downed it in one go. He coughed and cleared his throat.

“Better? Now tell me, how much is the wig?”

His voice was now perfectly clear. He ran a hand back through his hair and sat down in the chair in front of the counter.

“He’s still very young…”

I was starting to get scared. I kept going back and forth over whether to call the police. The strange quality in the man’s voice was gone now, and so was the uneasy look about him. He looked at me and smiled.

“I’m not going to hurt you. Don’t be afraid. I’m just going to take the wig and leave. That’s all.”

“Why do you want the wig, sir?”

“You’re too young. You wouldn’t understand.”

I looked at my father. He had placed the wig on the counter. Right beside it, I saw a knife. My father looked from the knife to the man.

Another customer had walked in, just in time. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I knew my father wasn’t a very brave man, but when it came to me, maybe he could rise to the occasion and defend me.

“Jason, who are you talking to?” the man who had just walked in asked him. So his name was Jason.

“They won’t give me the wig, Dad.”

“Son, didn’t I tell you not to leave the shop unattended and wander off? The neighbors called. They said Jason had left the shop again and gone off. When did you come to the shop?”

“About ten minutes ago.”

I didn’t understand what was happening. The man who was speaking seemed unable to see us.

“Did you take your medication today, son?”

“No, Dad.”

“The wig thing again. Hmm.”

“I want the wig.”

“Son, there’s no wig. Where are your shoes?”

“I didn’t wear them today.”

“There’s no wig, son. Look, you’d been doing so well lately. Honestly, I thought you were getting better. Please, don’t skip your medication. I’m leaving the shop to you. Don’t make me worry about you while I’m gone.”

Yes. When I thought about it, it really was bizarre. I thought about it a lot afterward. If we’re people living inside Jason’s imagination, why do we have consciousness of our own? I mean, while Jason and his father were talking, I was listening to them, trying to figure out what was going on, getting surprised and everything. Isn’t that ridiculous? And isn’t it unfair to us, too? For example, I want to study film and television. But everything depends on Jason. If he gets better one day, my dreams will be shattered.

My father loves this shop very much. He doesn’t want to leave it, but if Jason gets better one day, he’ll never see this shop again.

Thinking about it that way, I was suddenly overcome with fear. I picked up the wig and held it out to Jason.

“Here. The wig is yours now. And hey, it’d actually look pretty good on you.”

My father had supported me too, and when I looked at him for approval, he nodded.

What does not happen does not disappear. It breaks away from reality and sinks beneath the world. Left there long enough, it hardens. These hardened layers are called the Afterstrata.

A fossil preserves more than records. Everything that would have existed had that future actually happened leaves traces: materials, techniques, languages, memories, histories, even people.

And when a person from the Afterstrata comes up to the surface, they can be real for a short while.

— Afterstrata Miners’ Guild: Handbook for New Members

Diary of a bereaved family member, copy · Transferred from the Salvage Section, Guild Lowen Headquarters, to the Afterstrata Society · October, Imperial Year (IY) 700

Discovery No. S-699-0388. The diarist did not give a name.

Transfer record. When returning the receipt for the items left behind, the family member enclosed a copy of this diary. The Salvage Section has no grounds to keep it and is passing it to the Afterstrata Society Archive. Salvage Section note: In this case, the type of visit changed from visiting through the window to meeting in person. Time remaining after meeting in person: 9 days. Within the average range in Guild records.

October 14, IY 699.

An envelope came from the Guild. They say they have found Theo.

Theo died in the river eighteen years ago, in summer. The rainy season was long that year. He was nineteen.

I read the notice in the envelope three times. It says that what they found is not Theo, but someone who lived another life Theo might have lived. The Theo who did not die that day. The Theo who lived the eighteen years after.

Then he is thirty-seven.

October 16.

I wrote the consent form. I consent to salvage. I want window visits only.

It said that if you meet them in person, they do not last beyond ten days. That if you only see them through the window, some stay for years.

My mother used to say: what is under glass does not wither. She kept the flowers she was given on her wedding day under a glass dome and said it all her life. Those flowers really did not wither, until the day she died.

The window will keep him safe.

November 2.

I stood at the window for the first time.

The room was as the notice described, quiet and warm. One bed, one desk, one window looking out on the courtyard. He was sitting by that window.

His shoulders have broadened. His hair is short. He wears a ring on his left hand. The way the right corner of his mouth goes up first when he smiles is the same.

I stood there for an hour. He never once looked this way. They said he can’t see this side.

November 9.

Someone from the Salvage Section told me that at first he asked the date. What day it was. When he heard the answer, they said, he nodded. It was the right date.

It means he lived the same eighteen years, too. Somewhere else.

November 23.

They say he said he wants to go home. When the Salvage Section asked, he gave an address, and the address was a village somewhere on the southern coast. We have never been to that village.

To him, that is home.

December 12.

The Guild sent letters. Letters he wrote. They said they were sending them unopened, that they were letters to people who do not exist here.

There were three envelopes.

One said “To Nael.” One said “To our little bird.” One said “To Mother.”

I don’t know the name Nael. “Little bird” seems to be something you call someone, not a name.

The third envelope was for me. And yet they said it was a letter to someone who does not exist here.

For two days I did not open them.

December 14.

I opened them. All three.

Nael is his wife. Little Bird is his daughter. Six years old. They call her that because she loves a bird carved from wood. Every letter says he is coming home soon, to wait just a little longer.

The letter “To Mother” begins like this.

Mother, it is winter here. I don’t know whether I will be able to go to the river next summer, on the anniversary of your death, to leave flowers. People here are kind, but when I ask the date, they only answer and don’t ask me anything.

In his life, I died.

That summer, on one of those days when the rains went on and on. The day he didn’t go to the river. I must have gone in his place.

I folded the letter and put it in a drawer. Tonight I did not go to the window.

December 15.

I went again. He was sitting at the desk, writing something. Another letter, probably.

What is under glass does not wither. The letter he writes on the anniversary of my death will not wither either.

February 3, IY 700.

Three months now of standing at the window. Four times a week. Often at night. At night I can see him awake, because he doesn’t sleep well.

What he does at night. He looks out the window. He turns his ring. He takes a small wooden bird from his pocket, sets it on his palm, and looks at it for a long time.

March 20.

Someone from the Salvage Section asked whether I would keep seeing him only through the window. Not to pressure me, they said; asking such things is their job. They said that nearly half of the families who choose the window end up opening the door.

I said I would not be one of the half.

May 8.

Today he walked over to the window and put his hand on the glass. He shouldn’t be able to see this side. He stood like that for a long while, then went back.

According to the Salvage Section, people who stay in that room a long time sometimes do that. To look at the courtyard outside the window, they said.

I put my hand on the glass. Where his hand had been.

June 21.

Another letter came. “To Mother.”

Mother, these days I feel as if someone is watching me every night. It isn’t a frightening feeling. When I was little and had a fever, you used to stand in the doorway and watch me all night. It feels like that. I know it is a strange thing to say. Can you see me, where you are?

July 2.

I couldn’t sleep.

What is under glass does not wither. But my mother’s flowers, when we lifted the dome after she died, crumbled the moment they were touched. They had not stayed unwithered. It was only that no one had touched them.

July 3.

I opened the door.

At the door, someone from the Salvage Section held out a confirmation form. I have been told that after an in-person meeting, the salvaged person usually does not last beyond ten days. I copied that sentence out in my own hand.

When I went in, he looked up. He looked at me for a long time. Then he stood up and said,

“Mother.”

He didn’t cry. I cried.

He said, But Mother, you died that summer. The notice said not to say I didn’t know about things he remembers. So I said, Yes, that’s right.

He took my hand and asked whether I could see him, where I was. I said I could. Every night, I said.

July 4.

He talked about Nael and Little Bird. The day Little Bird first walked, the day she first put her feet in the sea. I listened to stories I was hearing for the first time, with the face of someone hearing them for the first time. He said he is going home soon. I said, Yes, you must go soon.

July 6.

It’s strange. Since the day I held him, my heart has been light. In eighteen years it was never once light.

I am sorry for this lightness.

July 9.

He looks a little faded. I tried to think it was my eyes. The Salvage Section people said nothing.

He showed me the wooden bird. Something Little Bird loves, he said. He has promised to carve it another wing when he gets home.

July 11.

We were together all day. He lay down with his head on my lap, the way he did when he was little. He laughed and said it was strange for a thirty-seven-year-old to do that. And still he didn’t get up.

I opened the door, and that is what broke him. I knew that when you open the glass, things crumble.

July 12.

When I went in the morning, he was almost invisible. The light coming in through the window passed through him.

The last thing he said: “Mother, tell Nael I’m coming soon.”

Yes, I’ll tell her. That’s what I said.

A little after ten o’clock, all that was left on the bed was a ring and a wooden bird.

July 20.

I went to the Salvage Section to collect the items left behind. The ring and the wooden bird. And one letter he had left unfinished, addressed “To Little Bird.”

I held the hand that wore this ring for ten days. The child who was to receive this bird is not in this world. So I am keeping it.

August 14.

I went and left flowers by the river. It is his anniversary. This year I didn’t feel alone.

They said that nearly half of the families who choose the window end up opening the door. I am one of that half. I don’t envy the other half.

August 15.

I have no way to tell the person named Nael. So I am writing it here.

Theo said he is coming soon.

That morning started like any other: the grating alarm, my usual breakfast of fried eggs and bitter coffee, a rushed scramble out the door. My commute is about thirty minutes, so out of habit I pulled my earbuds from my pocket, put on a podcast, and walked to the subway station.
I got to the platform and waited for the train. It usually shows up in five or ten minutes, but this time I waited more than twenty. I was starting to panic about being late for work, and when the train finally pulled in, I stepped onto the train, relieved to finally be moving.
We passed one stop, then another. The next one was mine. I made my way to the doors and stared into the darkened window, listening to my podcast and watching the tunnel walls flicker past. A few more minutes to go.
Suddenly the voice in my earbuds cut out. I figured I'd lost signal in the tunnel and, lost in my own thoughts, kept staring out the window.
The train kept going. It didn't seem like it was ever going to stop.
A creeping unease settled over me. By my count, we should have reached my stop long ago. Judging by how long we'd been riding, we'd passed it and at least two more. But then I would have noticed us passing them, and all this time there had been nothing outside the window but solid darkness.
Staring into it, I remembered a recent conversation with a coworker. She was a deeply superstitious woman who believed in omens and conspiracies. When I asked why she never took the subway, she said, "People were made to walk on the earth, not ride beneath it. Every subway entrance looks like the entrance to a crypt to me, and nothing on earth could make me go down there willingly."
I'd laughed it off. Now the tunnel walls streaking past the glass really did look like the walls of a crypt.
Then I started noticing strange things inside the car. A subway car is usually noisy, especially in the morning: someone talking, someone's music leaking from their headphones, someone coughing or sneezing. Now, apart from the clatter of the wheels, I heard nothing. In the reflection on the glass I saw what I hadn't noticed before: the people around me weren't moving. If not for the roar of the train, I might have thought time had stopped. A woman standing with her hand raised. A guy with his mouth hanging slightly open. An old man frozen mid-lean over a seat.
I was terrified. At least I was facing the door, so they couldn't see my face. What was wrong with these people? Could they feel anything? Understand anything? Were they even alive? I tried not to move, not even to blink, so I wouldn't stand out from that silent, motionless crowd.
Then a voice rang out from the far end of the car, an elderly woman's, by the sound of it:
"Excuse me, why are we riding for so long? Did something happen? What's wrong with all of you? Why are you acting so strange?... Don't come near me! You're scaring me!... Somebody help me!..."
There was a scuffle, the sounds of a struggle, wild screams and pleading. I heard clothes ripping, flesh tearing, bones snapping. That crunch, dear God, that crunch, I'll never forget it. Then came the wet, greedy smacking of mouths, hungry and ravenous, enough to drive me out of my mind.
My head was ringing. I hated myself for being a coward; I hadn't even tried to help her. I hated the old woman, too, for not keeping quiet, for giving herself away and becoming their prey. I hated that car and those people, or whatever they were. But more than anything, I was terrified. I was shaking, sweat beading on my forehead, my ears ringing. I was afraid I'd pass out and be next.
Then the feast died down, and once again nothing broke the silence but the rattle of the wheels.
I don't know how long we rode like that, minutes or hours. Time stretched into eternity.
All at once a sharp sound slammed into my ears: the podcast had started playing again in my earbuds. I jumped and cried out, certain the crowd would rush me, and slowly turned around. People were staring at me, some surprised, some frightened, the way you'd look at a madman. I scanned the car. Everything was back to normal.
I'd almost talked myself into believing it had all been a dream, or a hallucination, when my eyes landed on a girl at the far end of the car, right where I'd heard that poor woman's screams and the sounds of her horrible death. There was blood on the girl's lower lip, drying in the corner of her mouth. She was looking at her phone. I glanced at the people standing near her: one had a small, barely noticeable drop of blood on his collar; another had a brown smear across his knuckles, as if he hadn't quite wiped his hand clean. Everything inside me went cold, my heart clenching with dread.
The train stopped at my station. I bolted from the car and flew up the stairs to the street. Only when I reached the top did I feel safe again.
I don't know what happened that morning, and honestly, I don't want to know.
I haven't ridden the subway since.
And nothing on earth could make me go back down into that public crypt.

I remember the time before our son. When the smile on your face was the only thing I could see behind closed eyes. When our hands were happiest together. When we were happiest together. I still can’t believe we found each other. Out of everyone I could have ever ended up with, it was you. You were perfect.

When I looked into your eyes, I saw the future. Lazy Sundays and weekend trips set to the tune of our favorite song. My fingertips against your lips when the heat between us warmed the cool night air. Your body nestled between me and the wall, sleeping soundly after the bad dreams woke me up. Your breath on my neck, slow and even; a metronome for my sleep every night until we left this coil together. 

The time before I opened that door.

You had spent nine months despondent and broken. Keeping a child you never wanted for the reputation of a family you hated. You would smile and chatter with excitement at every party, every conversation, every outstretched hand that reached for your swollen belly. But when we returned home, I could see you. Standing in the kitchen alone, talking to the walls about how God would want you to try and make it work. About how our family must have been a part of His plan. All while weeping for the future you would never get. 

But I knew what the real reason was. You couldn’t just be happy with me. You wanted it to be different. Not the house, the car, the job. Just me, the father of your child. The dye that colored the dress you lived in every day. It didn’t matter how good the stitching or the fit. Because deep down you just hated the color.

I had to sit and watch every wonderful part of you rot under the weight of life growing in your belly. The inevitable product of a dead love that you secretly hoped would die and flush from your body every single day. You thought I couldn’t hear, and I thought you would be a good mother. 

Now I look into your eyes, and a doll stares back. I see the echo of a woman who doesn’t care if our son cries. Doesn’t mind if he sits there in his diaper, soiled for hours while I’m at work toiling, providing for you both. I come home and feed you both because you’re too sad to do it. You just sit there staring at the wall as he screams in your lap. 

You’re truly a disgrace of a mother. I would never tell you to your face, but I will write it in this journal. My mother was a wonderful mother; she always smiled for me. My father made sure of it. So now I brush your hair and rub your feet just like he used to; I even got the kind of brush he used to use. But you don’t care; you just wallow in your own mind. You don’t care how much money I spend on fancy perfumes or new clothes. You just want to sit there and judge me like it’s my fault your life is ruined.

But I know what love is; I could see it in your eyes across the bar, I could feel it on your breath, I could taste it on your kiss. We both absolutely loved the same song that played over the speakers. We talked about what made it special to us for hours. It was just meant to be. I can’t remember the name of that song or why I said I loved it, but I know that I loved you the second you sat down. The whole night you kept your hand on me. On my hand, my arm, my thigh. That’s how I know you really do want all of this. You called it a hookup, but I know it was love. It was real.

That’s why I slipped the condom off that night. Because you wanted me to. You just didn’t know how to say it.

I thought you’d thank me one day, that you’d be happy. I still do.

I thought you would be happy when we got home, but you just held him across your chest in the bathtub. Trying to love him. Trying to find the warmth in your heart for the life that you created. You created him with me because you wanted this, and now I have to stand inside and make sure you don’t let him slip under the water. Because you’re a bad mother. 

You became a bad mother the day I opened the door and saw your bag. The day you decided to shatter a family for personal greed. The trailer is too small, the place is too dirty, the plumbing doesn’t work, it isn’t safe for a child, I’m not safe for a child, I disappear at night, I watch you sleep. Nothing but complaints and lies from a brain destroyed by postpartum. 

I don’t remember what you did, just the sound of your back against the corner of the nightstand. Was it a snap? No, it was more of a crack, chased with a yelp as you collapsed to the ground. The last sound I ever heard you make. The last time you ever tried to ruin this family.

All you do is cry. Not even with your whole face, just your eyes. 

You cry when I carry you from room to room, when I feed you, when I change your panties after you’ve made a mess. You cry when I brush your hair with your special brush or rub your feet. You cry when we make love every night. You even cry when you hold our son; well, when he holds you. You cry so long and ignore my words so often that I can’t help but watch my hand connect with your skin. You know that if you would just stop crying and talk to me, I would stop. But you won’t.

But then I remember my father and how a good man is supposed to act. He rises above the moment. Above his better half. You are my wife and I am your husband. Maybe not by ceremony, but by fact of life now. So I will stay positive through this self-inflicted sickness. Praying every day for your health, for things to go back to how they were when we were happiest together. Maybe in a few months I’ll be able to save up and buy us a TV so you two have something to watch while I’m at work. Maybe that new swell in your belly will be the thing to finally make you talk to me again. But until then, we have everything we need: the routine, the babies, and my undying love for you.

You know how they say love finds you in the most unlikely places?

It's a cliché. The kind of line you'd expect to find in some cheap romance novel wedged between two equally cheap pop magazines.

And yet, sometimes the unlikely becomes inevitable.

My name is Adam.

I lived in an eastern-block apartment complex in Most, a city you've probably never heard of and will most certainly never hear of again. The rent was remarkably cheap, mostly because the living conditions made you question whether you wouldn't be better off homeless.

I was twenty-five years old, had recently dropped out of university, and was unemployed.

At that point, I wasn't really living.

I slept at odd hours. Ate when I remembered. Spent most of my time staring at a screen because there was nothing else worth doing.

Days blurred together until I couldn't remember what I'd done the day before.

That was before one small piece of paper changed my life forever.

It happened on a night that had started exactly like every other.

I'd just gotten back to my apartment when I noticed a piece of paper lying on the floor just inside the door.

Someone had slipped it underneath while I was gone.

I barely looked at it.

My first thought was that it was another notice from my landlord. I was behind on my rent, hopelessly in debt, and far beyond the point where I cared enough to pretend I was going to fix any of it.

Whatever threat or warning was printed on that piece of paper could wait.

So I left it there.

For about six hours.

Eventually, sometime around 1AM, I found myself staring at it again.

"Fuck it."

I picked it up.

It wasn't a notice from my landlord.

It was a job offer.

The flyer was surprisingly plain. No company logo. No colorful graphics. Just black text printed on cheap white paper.

YOUNG MEN WANTED.
AGES 18–30.
NO PRIOR EXPERIENCE OR PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS NECESSARY.
PAY: 250 CROWNS PER HOUR.
SHIFT: SIX HOURS EACH NIGHT.

Then came the job description.

"The appointed observer shall observe the object of interest for the duration of his shift."

That was it.

No explanation of what the "object of interest" was. No company name. No details about the work beyond watching something for six hours.

I assumed it was some kind of strangely worded night-guard job. Maybe the company was foreign and had used a translator who wasn't quite good enough at his job.

There was no phone number.

No email.

No website.

Nothing except an address.

I looked it up online.

It led to an old shoe factory that had stopped operating more than thirty years earlier. There were a few old photographs of the building and some records concerning its closure, but not much else.

As far as I could tell, nobody had bought the place since.

That was when I became pretty certain that if I actually went there, I would be murdered and my organs would be sold on the black market.

Not an entirely unreasonable assumption around here, believe it or not.

There was absolutely no way I would be stupid enough to show up at an abandoned factory in the middle of the night.

 

3AM, I was standing in front of the factory.

I wish I could say there was some profound reason why I went.

There wasn't.

I was simply desperate enough to ignore common sense.

The factory looked exactly like it had in the photographs.

Crumbling concrete. Rusted metal. Broken windows. Weeds pushing through cracks in the pavement.

The whole place looked like it had been dead for decades.

I stood outside the entrance for about twenty minutes.

Then I took one step inside.

Immediately, I was surrounded by armored men carrying guns.

Yup.

Getting murdered.

"Now, now. Don't spook the boy too much."

An older man stepped between me and the gunmen.

He looked to be somewhere in his fifties. Gray hair. Expensive coat. Tired eyes.

He wasn't carrying a weapon that I could see.

Somehow, that made him more intimidating than the men pointing rifles at me.

"Or else you might end up having to take his shift."

The men lowered their weapons slightly.

The older man smiled.

"Sorry about this, Adam. Just a necessary unpleasant precaution."

I stared at him.

"How... how do you know my name?"

He laughed.

"Well, we only slipped the flyer under one door. So either you're Adam Devon..."

He looked me up and down.

"...or we have another squatter situation on our hands. In which case, I'll have to let the boys carry on with their task."

He leaned toward me slightly.

"Do we have a squatter situation, boy?"

"No!"

The answer came out much louder and more desperate than I'd intended.

The man's grin widened.

"Wonderful!"

His enthusiasm was very obviously fake.

"If you would be so kind as to follow me, Adam."

I followed.

The complex I was led through was nothing like the abandoned shell I'd seen from outside.

The decrepit factory was apparently just a skin wrapped around something that was very much alive.

Behind the rusted doors and shattered windows were functioning corridors, electrical systems, cameras, reinforced doors, security checkpoints, and enough equipment to make me wonder what the hell kind of place I'd walked into.

And yet there were very few people.

Aside from the occasional armed guard passing through the corridors, the facility was almost completely empty.

The older man opened a door to the security room.

"Here you go. Make yourself comfortable."

I stepped inside.

"But not too comfortable," he added. "This isn't actually where you'll be stationed."

He gave me a thin smile.

"The name's Kenndric."

He closed the door behind us.

"Now, I imagine you have plenty of questions."

I opened my mouth.

"I have absolutely zero desire to answer any of them."

I closed it again.

"So just shut up and listen."

I decided that was probably good advice.

Kenndric walked over to one of the desks and dropped into a chair.

"You were offered a position within our company. The name of which you really don't need to know."

He leaned back.

"Our object of interest requires twenty-four-hour observation. We do have a complete surveillance system here, but, truth be told, nobody actually watches the feeds."

He shrugged.

"This particular object requires close-quarters observation anyway."

I frowned.

"We have several other sad bastards like you taking the other shifts. Your time slot was simply the last one left unfilled."

He looked at me.

"Apparently, nobody else was stupid enough to take the graveyard shift."

I couldn't tell whether he was joking.

Judging by his expression, I didn't think he was.

"Your job literally couldn't be any simpler."

He pointed toward the door.

"You'll sit on a chair and stare at the object until your shift is over. Then you get your sorry ass out of here."

He leaned back.

"Meanwhile, I'll be sitting in here watching my shows."

He pointed at me.

"I don't want to hear from you. I don't want to see you. You don't ask me to open doors for you. There's a reason I have access and you don't."

I swallowed.

"Understood."

"Good."

Kenndric stood.

"Now let's make our way to your workplace."

We left the security room and walked deeper into the facility.

The corridor ahead was almost completely dark.

As we approached, lights flickered on one after another, illuminating the path in front of us.

Eventually, Kenndric stopped in front of a massive door.

He opened it.

"There it is."

The lights inside began coming on.

One by one.

And then I saw the object of interest.

In the middle of the enormous room stood a large glass cube.

Four strange pylons surrounded it, each connected to the glass. Symbols I didn't recognize covered their surfaces.

And inside the glass was a girl.

A young woman, maybe in her early twenties.

She wore pure white pajamas and sat cross-legged on the floor with a collection of crayons scattered around her.

She was drawing on a sheet of paper.

She didn't look toward us.

She barely seemed to notice we'd entered the room.

"That's..."

I stared through the glass.

"That's a girl."

"Dear God," Kenndric said. "We have a genius on our hands."

His voice dripped with condescension.

I looked back at him.

"Why is she in there?"

He didn't answer.

"Is she alright?"

Nothing.

"Is this legal?"

The questions started coming faster.

"Who is she? What did she do? Why is she being kept in there? How long has she been—"

"Did you just think?"

Kenndric's voice cut through mine.

I stopped.

He stared at me.

"Adam, no one is paying you to think."

He walked over to a chair positioned directly in front of the glass cube.

"Leave that to the grown-ups."

He patted the seat.

"You are paid to sit right here."

I looked at the chair.

Then at the girl.

She was still drawing.

There was something different in Kenndric's expression now.

The sarcasm was still there, but underneath it was something harder.

A warning.

I reluctantly sat down.

"Perfect."

He smiled.

"Now, you are not authorized to speak with the object."

He paused.

"You're not authorized to feed the object. All of that has already been taken care of."

"You merely sit here and observe."

He patted my shoulder.

"Good luck."

He started moving toward the door.

"Have fun."

The door closed behind him.

And just like that, I was alone with the "object of interest."

I sat there and watched her draw for hours.

Every now and then, she looked up at me.

Not casually.

She would stare at me for several seconds before lowering her head and returning to her drawings.

The room was so quiet I could hear the occasional scrape of crayon against paper.

By around five in the morning, exhaustion was starting to catch up with me.

My eyelids grew heavier.

I leaned back in the chair and told myself I'd close my eyes for a second.

Then—

THUD.

I jolted awake.

My heart was pounding.

The girl was standing directly in front of the glass.

She was holding a piece of paper against it.

A drawing.

Of me.

For a few seconds, I just stared.

She'd somehow captured details I'd never noticed about myself. The shape of my nose. My unshaven jaw. Even the dark circles beneath my eyes.

It wasn't a perfect likeness.

But it was close.

And, honestly, it was adorable.

I wanted to say something.

Then I remembered Kenndric's instructions.

I wasn't authorized to speak with the object.

I glanced toward the cameras mounted high in the corners of the room.

Then I remembered something else.

Nobody actually watched the feeds.

"That's very pretty," I said.

The girl's expression immediately brightened.

"Thank you. I'm glad you like it."

She placed her right hand against the glass.

For a moment, I hesitated.

Then I stood and pressed my own hand against the other side.

The glass was cold beneath my palm.

"I'm Lily."

I smiled.

"I'm Adam."

She giggled quietly.

"Adam was my first boyfriend's name."

"Oh."

"I didn't really like him, to be honest."

She shrugged.

"My dad pretty much forced that relationship on me."

She said it so matter-of-factly that I didn't know what to say.

Jesus.

What the hell had this girl been through?

"Lily..."

She looked at me.

"Why are you in here?"

Her smile faded.

For a few seconds, she said nothing.

"I'm not sure."

She glanced down at the floor.

"I think they're scared I might do something bad."

I looked around the room.

The reinforced glass.

The pylons.

The strange symbols.

The cameras.

The armed men outside.

"What the hell could this girl possibly do?"

I didn't ask.

Instead, I pulled the chair a little closer to the glass.

"So..."

She looked up.

"So?"

"If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go?"

She thought about it.

"The ocean."

"The ocean?"

She nodded.

"What about you?"

"I don't know. Anywhere that isn't Most."

She laughed.

"Fair enough."

And that was how we started talking.

Nothing important at first.

Places we'd like to visit. Places we'd rather run away to. Things we'd do if we ever had enough money to stop worrying about everything else.

Lily wanted to see the ocean.

I'd never been particularly interested in beaches, but something about the way she talked about it made me want to see it too.

We talked about movies, music, stupid things we'd done when we were younger.

Eventually I told her about my unhealthy obsession with heist movies and prison breaks.

"Why prison breaks?" she asked.

"I don't know."

I thought about it.

"I guess I like watching people figure out how to set themselves free."

She looked at me for a moment.

"Maybe that's because you want to be set free too."

"Maybe."

She smiled.

Neither of us said anything for a few seconds.

Then she started asking me questions.

I gave her mostly half-assed answers.

She didn't seem bothered.

She didn't look at me the way most people did when I talked about my life. There was no disappointment in her expression. No judgment.

She just listened.

And somehow, that was enough.

The hours went by faster than I expected.

For the first time in years, I wasn't thinking about how miserable my life had become.

Debt.

Or rent.

Or what I was going to do with myself.

I was just present.

Talking to a girl through a pane of glass.

When the shift finally ended, it caught me completely off guard.

The door opened.

One of the armed men stepped inside.

A knot immediately formed in my stomach.

For a second, I wondered if this was the moment they decided to shoot me for breaking the rules.

But the guard barely acknowledged me.

"Time to go."

That was it.

He turned toward the door.

I stood.

Lily was watching me through the glass.

"Thank you for talking to me."

Her voice was soft.

"No one else does."

There was something bittersweet about her smile.

"I'll..."

I looked at the armed man waiting for me.

"I'll see you again, alright?"

Lily smiled.

"Sooner than you think."

I didn't understand what she meant.

I just smiled back.

Then the guard escorted me out.

 

Despite being exhausted, I struggled to fall asleep when I got home.

I spent hours lying in bed, staring at the ceiling while the darkness of my apartment pressed down around me.

I kept thinking about Lily.

About the way she'd looked at me through the glass.

And about that stupid drawing she'd made of my face.

Most of all, I couldn't stop thinking about the question I hadn't been able to answer.

If Lily was dangerous enough to justify keeping her inside a glass box, why didn't they keep her in a proper cell?

And if she wasn't dangerous...

Why the fuck was she there?

 

Eventually, sometime toward morning, sleep finally found me.

It didn't come like a wave.

It came like a flood.

I found myself standing in absolute darkness.

Nothing but blackness stretching endlessly in every direction.

I tried to move.

I couldn't tell if I was actually walking or simply moving in place.

Then I smelled something.

The sea.

It was faint at first. Just a trace of salt and cold water carried through the darkness.

I turned toward it.

I don't know why.

I just knew I had to follow.

I started walking.

Then running.

The smell grew stronger with every step. A breeze brushed against my face.

Actual wind.

For the first time, I could hear something besides my own breathing.

Waves.

Far away at first.

Then closer.

A dim light appeared ahead of me.

I ran toward it.

The darkness began to recede.

Sand appeared beneath my feet.

Then water.

Then a pale sky.

A small beach surrounded by the dark.

And there she was.

Lily.

She stood at the edge of the water in a bright white dress, her hair moving gently in the sea breeze.

She turned toward me.

"Meet me On Distant Shores."

The darkness swallowed the light.

I woke with a gasp.

I sat bolt upright in bed, breathing hard.

For several seconds, I had no idea where I was.

Then I looked around my dark apartment.

My heart was still racing.

I didn't understand the dream.

But one thought had already taken hold of me.

I needed to see her again.

I spent the entire day trying to distract myself.

Games.

Movies.

Walking aimlessly around the city.

None of it worked.

No matter what I did, my thoughts kept circling back to the girl in the glass box.

I hated the people who had put her there.

I hated myself even more for doing nothing about it.

But what could I realistically do?

I didn't know who my employers were. I didn't know who they answered to or what the facility actually was. All I knew was that they were powerful.

And they knew everything about me.

They knew where I lived.

They knew I was desperate for money.

And, apparently, they knew me well enough to assume I was a spineless coward.

Normally, they would've been right.

I'd spent years wasting away without caring enough about anything to fight for it.

But now I couldn't sit still.

I went to the gym that afternoon and spent almost an hour beating the shit out of a punching bag.

It didn't get rid of the anger.

By the time I left, my hands hurt, my shirt was soaked through, and I was still thinking about Lily.

Still...

For once, I felt alive.

I arrived at the factory almost two hours before my shift.

I didn't care about waiting.

I just needed to see her.

When they finally let me inside, I paid much more attention to my surroundings than I had the night before.

The facility was still bizarrely quiet.

There were only a handful of guards. They were spread throughout the building, and I rarely saw more than one at a time.

There were dozens of locked doors.

Yet the security seemed strangely simple.

One access card appeared to open most of them.

Nobody searched me.

Nobody even took my phone.

At the time, I simply assumed they were arrogant.

As we walked down the corridor, I saw Kenndric coming toward us.

The moment he spotted me, that fake smile appeared on his face.

He gave me a little wave.

I stared back.

He stopped at the security room, flashed his card, and disappeared inside.

A few seconds later, the door closed.

Then we reached the observation room.

The door opened.

The moment Lily saw me, her face lit up.

She ran toward the glass and pressed her hand against it.

I don't even remember deciding to move.

One second my hand was at my side.

The next, it was pressed against hers.

Her fingers lined up with mine on opposite sides of the glass.

"Hi," she said.

She smiled.

"You're back."

"I promised I would be."

"I know."

She looked genuinely happy to see me.

Then, almost casually, she said:

"I had a dream about you."

I froze.

"Really?"

She nodded.

I stared at her.

So did I.

Though I didnt tell her that.

"You really have to be bored to dream about me of all things." I said jokingly.

She laughed.

"Well, what should I dream about?"

"Being rich."

"Boring."

"Being famous."

"Even worse."

"Winning the lottery."

"That's not a dream. That's just being lazy."

We both laughed.

„What do you want to dream about?“ I asked.

"The ocean."

"I still want to see it."

"Then I'll have to show you."

The words came out before I could think about them.

Lily looked at me.

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

Then she smiled.

"I'd like that."

We talked.

About everything.

And nothing.

I told her about the things I'd wanted to do before I'd stopped wanting anything at all.

She told me about some of the things she'd wanted.

Some were stupid.

Some were impossible.

Some were so ordinary that they almost hurt.

She wanted to see the ocean.

She wanted to travel.

She wanted to wake up one morning without somebody telling her what she was allowed to do.

And she wanted to know what it felt like to be somewhere nobody could find her.

I understood that last one.

Probably more than I should have.

The hours disappeared.

Eventually, I glanced toward one of the cameras mounted in the corner.

It was pointed directly at us.

I stared at it for a few seconds.

Fuck it.

I reached into my coat and pulled out my tablet.

Lily looked at me curiously.

"What are you doing?"

"It's not what I'm doing."

I held up the tablet.

"It's what we're doing."

She laughed.

"And what are we doing?"

"We're watching a movie."

Her eyes widened.

"Are we allowed to do that?"

I looked at the camera.

"I don't think anyone's watching."

I sat down in front of the glass and opened the tablet.

"Escape Plan. 2013."

She frowned.

"What's it about?"

"A guy who gets put in a prison specifically designed to be impossible to escape from."

Her smile slowly returned.

"That sounds appropriate."

For a few hours, that glass might as well not have existed.

Then the door opened.

The gunman had returned.

My stomach tightened.

"No."

I barely realized I'd said it.

He walked toward me.

"Time to go."

I stood.

Lily was already at the glass.

I didn't want to leave.

The guard grabbed my arm.

"Just a second."

He pulled harder.

I grabbed the edge of the chair with my free hand.

"Lily..."

The guard finally had to pull me away.

My fingers slipped from the chair.

I stumbled backward.

Lily pressed her hand against the glass.

"Meet me On Distant Shores," she said softly.

My eyes widened.

I wanted to promise I'd come back.

I wanted to tell her I'd get her out.

I wanted to say a hundred things.

Instead, I just nodded.

Then the door closed between us.

I didn't tell her about my dream.

She couldn't have known about it.

Right?

I went home.

And for once, going to sleep actually seemed desirable.

Maybe I'd see her again.

Maybe we'd meet somewhere she couldn't be trapped.

Somewhere she could actually be free.

When I finally fell asleep, I found myself in the darkness again.

But this time, the light was much closer.

I followed it.

The smell of the sea grew stronger with every step.

Then came the breeze.

I emerged onto the beach.

Lily was already waiting for me.

She stood barefoot at the shoreline, the hem of her white dress brushing against the wet sand.

She turned when she heard me.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

I looked out across the water.

"It is."

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

Then the question I'd been trying not to ask escaped me.

"Is any of this real?"

Lily looked at me.

"Does it matter?"

She stepped closer.

"I'm here."

Another step.

"You're here."

She smiled.

"In here, we're free."

She turned toward the ocean.

"This is my little place."

"Dad claims every other one, but this one is mine."

"It could be yours too."

I stepped closer.

Then I took her face gently between my hands and kissed her.

She didn't pull away.

For a moment, everything was still.

"Can we stay here?"

I already knew the answer.

Lily's expression broke.

"I wish we could."

Tears began rolling down her cheeks.

"I'm still trapped."

She shook her head.

"I'm not strong enough."

Another tear slipped down her face.

"I'm not enough."

"No."

I pulled her closer.

"You are."

But the beach was already beginning to change.

The edges of the world blurred.

The horizon melted into the sky.

The sand beneath our feet began disappearing, as though the entire dream were being erased.

Lily started fading with it.

I held onto her.

"Don't."

She smiled through her tears.

It was the same bittersweet smile she'd given me behind the glass.

"I'll see you again On Distant Shores..."

Her voice became quieter.

"...but you already know that."

I woke up.

I sat upright in bed, gasping for air.

For several seconds, I couldn't move.

Then I felt it.

Something I hadn't felt in years.

Something hot and sharp burning inside my chest.

Purpose.

For the next two weeks, I prepared.

I photographed corridors, doors and rooms whenever I had the opportunity. I took pictures of the glass box and the four pylons surrounding it, zooming in on the strange symbols carved into their surfaces.

I didn't understand them.

Not yet.

But I saved every picture.

I watched the guards.

I learned their routines.

Who walked which corridor.

Which doors they used.

How long they disappeared for.

When they went to the bathroom.

There were five guards in total, usually spread throughout the facility so that I rarely saw more than one at a time.

I counted the steps between important rooms.

I memorized which doors took longer to unlock.

I learned how long it took the lights to activate when someone entered a corridor.

And I paid particular attention to the access cards.

The strangest part was how little anyone seemed to care about what I was doing.

I doubt they could ever see me as a threat.

Maybe they were right.

Two weeks earlier, I wouldn't have been.

I never told Lily what I was planning.

Not when I couldn't be certain who was actually paying attention.

I only ever told her when I saw her in my dreams.

And every time, I'd tell her the same thing.

"Soon."

I wasn't sure whether I was making a promise to her or to myself.

"Very soon."

Eventually, the day came.

I couldn't wait any longer.
Time to put the theory to the test.

 

Two weeks learning their routines.

Two weeks pretending I was exactly the pathetic little coward they thought I'd be.

Now I was going to find out if they had been right.

I sat in front of the glass and talked with Lily.

We laughed.

We talked about nothing.

For a while, I almost forgot what I was waiting for.

Then I saw the guard nearest to me leave his post.

Bathroom.

My heart started pounding.

I stood.

Lily noticed immediately.

"Adam?"

"I'll be right back."

I followed him.

He didn't notice me until we were inside the bathroom.

I waited.

Watched him step up to the urinal.

For one horrible second, I couldn't move.

I'd imagined this moment dozens of times.

None of those versions had prepared me for what it actually felt like.

The guard glanced over his shoulder.

"Buddy, would you mind—"

I grabbed the back of his head and slammed it against the wall.

THUD.

He dropped immediately.

His body hit the floor with a heavy, wet sound.

I stood there staring at him.

My hands were shaking.

There was blood on the wall.

His bladder had released, spreading piss across the tiles beneath him.

For a second, I wondered if I'd just killed him.

Then I remembered Lily.

I took his handgun.

And ran.

There was no going back now.

I sprinted toward the security room.

I reached the door and started pounding on it.

"Kenndrick!"

Nothing.

"Kenndrick, there's an immediate issue! I need your help!"

Still nothing.

"Goddammit, open the fucking door!"

The lock clicked.

Kenndrick opened it with an irritated expression.

"What is—"

I pulled out the gun and aimed it at his chest.

My hands were shaking so badly I could barely keep the barrel steady.

"Back up."

Kenndrick stared at me.

Then that familiar bravado returned.

"Just what do you think you're doing, kiddo?"

"I won't repeat myself."

For the first time, his smile faltered.

"Alright."

He raised his hands.

"Alright."

He slowly backed into the room.

"This is going to end badly for you, kid."

He smiled again.

"Very badly."

"Give me your card."

He paused.

"Now."

Kenndric reached slowly into his pocket and pulled out his security card.

He held it between two fingers.

Then smiled.

I snatched it from his hand.

"Turn around."

He did.

"Hands against the wall."

Kenndric placed his palms against it.

I backed toward the door.

"Say hi to her for me, kid."

I slammed the door shut.

Then swiped his card.

The lock engaged.

I ran.

I had only minutes before the guard rotation.

I reached the observation room and threw the door open.

Lily looked at me.

Her expression changed immediately.

"Adam?"

I was barely breathing.

"I'm getting you out of here."

I ran to the glass box.

She stood.

"Adam, what are you—"

I swiped Kenndric's card against the reader.

Nothing.

I tried again.

Nothing.

"Come on..."

A third time.

Nothing.

Then I heard clapping.

Slow.

Deliberate.

I froze.

"Bravo, kid."

I turned.

Kenndric was standing in the doorway.

He was smiling.

But this smile was different.

It was genuine.

"Bravo."

He stepped into the room.

"We had expectations."

He looked at me.

"We didn't pick you randomly, of course."

His eyes flicked toward Lily.

"But still..."

He smiled.

"You went above and beyond."

I raised the gun.

"Stay back."

Kenndric kept walking.

"Stay the fuck back!"

He didn't stop.

I tightened my grip.

hen pulled the trigger.

Click.

Nothing.

I pulled it again.

Click.

My stomach dropped.

Kenndric laughed.

"I'm afraid that one's not loaded."

He reached into his pocket.

"In fact..."

He pulled out another handgun.

"...none of them are."

I stared at him.

"What?"

"Think about it."

He gestured around the room.

"The guards. The cameras. The unlocked opportunities. The conveniently predictable routines."

His smile widened.

My stomach turned.

Kenndric looked almost proud.

"Observation."

He gestured toward Lily.

"Not just hers."

He pointed at me.

"Yours too."

Lily had gone completely still.

Kenndric noticed.

"You know, capturing Lilith—the Queen of Hell—creates a lot of interesting research opportunities."

The name seemed to hit her harder than anything else he'd said.

She looked at him.

Kenndric smiled.

"Her charm is supposed to be nearly irresistible."

He looked back at me.

"So the suits upstairs had an idea."

He spread his hands.

"Find the right kind of sucker. Put him in front of her. See how long it takes before she manipulates him into trying to break her free."

„Did you seriously buy the whole „no one is watching the feeds“ thing in a building full of cameras everywhere?“

He shook his head.

"Seems we really did pick perfectly."

Then he looked me up and down.

"Although, I have to admit..."

A disappointed expression crossed his face.

"For someone who loves prison-break movies as much as you do, your plan was fucking basic."

He sighed.

"I expected better."

I looked at Lily.

She was staring at me now.

There was something in her expression I'd never seen before.

Fear.

Not for herself.

For me.

Kenndric sighed.

"Your services will no longer be necessary."

He tossed the security card onto the floor.

"You can go right back to your shitty little life."

He smiled.

"Keep the card as a souvenir. It's useless anyway."

I looked at him.

Then at Lily.

"No."

Kenndric's expression changed slightly.

"I'll tell everyone."

I pointed toward my phone.

"I have pictures. Videos. Everything."

I looked directly into his eyes.

"Everyone will know."

Kenndric's smile disappeared.

"Kid..."

He sounded almost disappointed.

"You really shouldn't have said that."

He raised the gun.

Two shots.

The first punched through my chest.

The second hit before I even had time to fall.

I collapsed onto the floor.

The pain came a second later.

Hot.

Blinding.

I tried to breathe.

All I tasted was blood.

"Adam!"

Lily screamed.

Kenndric looked down at me.

"Oops, seems my gun actually was loaded."

He shrugged.

"Sorry, kid."

Then he glanced toward Lily.

"Hmm."

His smile returned.

"Seems the demon bitch may have actually cared about you."

"How sweet."

I started laughing.

Blood filled my mouth.

I choked on it, coughing and laughing at the same time.

Kenndric frowned.

"What's so funny?"

He looked past me at the pylon behind me.

Blood was dripping from my chest onto its surface.

The symbols were glowing.

Kenndric followed my gaze.

His smile disappeared.

"What did you do?"

I smiled through the blood running down my chin.

"I translated the symbols."

The red light beneath them grew brighter.

"They were raised through blood sacrifice."

The pylons began to shake.

A low vibration filled the room.

Kenndric took a step backward.

I laughed again.

"And through blood sacrifice..."

Cracks spread across the pylon.

"...they shall be shattered."

Another pylon began to tremble.

Kenndric looked around the room.

"What have you done?"

I smiled.

"I never intended to make it out of here."

The first pylon cracked apart.

"You know everything about me."

Another crack.

The room shook.

"There wouldn't be any point in running."

The pylons began collapsing one after another.

Glass groaned.

Metal screamed.

Then everything went dark.

Completely dark.

Except for Lily's eyes.

They were glowing.

Kenndric stared at her.

His face went pale.

"No."

For the first time since I'd met him, there was no arrogance in his voice.

Only fear.

"No..."

He backed away.

"You have no idea what you've done."

Then anger replaced the fear.

"Why?"

I looked at him.

I smiled.

"The Devil made me do it."

I won't lie.

I was saving that one.

The glass box exploded.

Shards flew outward.

Kenndric raised his gun toward Lily.

He never got the chance to fire.

His body suddenly folded inward.

There was a wet, violent crack.

Then he imploded into a spray of blood and viscera.

I looked toward Lily.

She was standing in the middle of the shattered glass.

Free.

"How's that for an escape plan?"

I smiled.

And everything went black.

I found myself on the beach again.

This time, there was no darkness.

Just the ocean stretching beneath an endless sky.

Lily and I sat facing each other in the sand.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

She looked peaceful.

"It's done," I finally said.

"You are free."

I smiled.

"Go."

She frowned.

I looked toward the horizon.

"Be happy."

I stood.

"I'll see you again On Distant Shores."

She slapped me across the face.

I stared at her.

"Ouch."

She glared at me.

"What was that for?"

"One."

She held up a finger.

"That is my line."

She held up a second.

"Two."

She leaned closer.

"The Distant Shores can wait."

She smiled.

"I'm not letting you go."

Then she kissed me.

I kissed her back.

And for the first time in a while, I wasn't afraid of waking up.

 

I came to with a gasp.

My hand immediately went to my chest.

Nothing.

No wounds.

No blood.

I looked down at myself.

Then slowly stood.

I wasn't in the observation room.

I was standing on the roof of the factory.

The entire facility stretched out beneath me.

Smoke rose into the night sky.

Fires burned in the distance.

I could hear shouting somewhere far below.

Then came a horn.

A long, deep blast.

Another answered it.

Then something roared.

Another roar answered from somewhere beyond the factory.

Then another.

They were coming from everywhere.

I looked toward the horizon.

The city was burning.

I should have been terrified.

I wasnt.

Then I noticed Lily standing beside me.

She was looking out over the horizon.

For the first time since I'd met her, there was nothing between us.

No glass.

No walls.

No locked doors.

I looked back at the world on fire.

"So..."

I swallowed.

"What happens now?"

Lily looked at me.

She smiled.

Then reached for my hand.

I took it.

"Anything we want."

Read Parts II & III here

She was gone again by the time I got up and despite my best efforts, I was still five minutes late getting to work.

I avoided the circle of jerks when I saw them crowding the same hallway and I went to a restroom on another floor. I didn’t want to be around people if I could avoid it.

I went to the half-finished building as soon as five o’clock came, intent on getting answers. I stepped off the elevator and weaved my way to his office. I kept expecting to not see it the closer I got but there it was, the door that didn’t fit right in the threshold. 

It turned easy and I went inside, expecting it to be empty and abandoned but he had begun furnishing the space. A couch, a reception desk, and taped off sections near the back that I guessed were the layout for his office and a treatment room.

I shuddered, thinking how I’d be here tomorrow if my wife had her way. 

The only thing absent was the good doctor himself. I thought about trashing the place, but it was petty in a way that made me feel like I was giving him even more power over me. 

Instead, I took all the pens out of the holder and a stack of Post-It Notes. It was still petty, but it scratched an itch and I felt a little empowered doing it.

I didn’t head home immediately after. I needed time to sort my thoughts. I couldn’t believe I was really considering letting somebody cut my dick. I mean, was pleasing my wife reason enough? What if we divorced or she died or something like that? Would I be compatible with somebody else?

I needed a drink. Cappy’s was on the far end of town and the distance from home would be good to clear my head. I ordered a brandy mule and chugged it before the bartender could lay down a coaster.

“You look like you could use another,” she said.

I nodded and a moment later I was working on my second. 

“I love my wife so much,” I said as she was cleaning some glasses beneath the bar.

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Sometimes. I dunno.” My stomach hadn’t been right since the eight coneys I’d had yesterday, and I hadn’t eaten at all today. I was already soused after a drink-and-a-half.

“How’s the pizza?” I asked.

“Good, not great.” She wiggled a hand.

“Let me get a... medium with beef, onion, and mushroom.”

She looked at me like she’d never heard of those toppings.

“How ‘bout pepperoni?”

I had one more brandy mule before food came. It looked like it had been sitting under a heat lamp well before I’d ordered it and the pepperoni slices were limp, but it was still pizza. 

The bartender parked in front of me and leaned onto the bar after I’d had my second slice. 

“You mind?” she asked, pointing at the pie. I nodded. She took a slice and finger-combed hair out of her face as she took a bite.

She paid me back with a shot and she did one with me before returning to silence as we ate.

“Look, I dunno what it is. Just give her what she wants,” she said with a mouthful, giving me deep eye contact. “You can’t go wrong with that, right?”

I barely was able to finish what I had in my mouth. I settled up and made it outside without stumbling but I was drunk. The bartender got the hint she’d said something wrong but I wasn’t going to fill in the blank. I hadn’t wanted the rest of the pizza, yet somehow I had the box in my hand. 

I shouldn’t have been behind the wheel but there I was with half a pizza as my copilot. It wasn’t long before flashing lights lit up behind me and my spirits rose—this was the reprieve I’d been longing for. A decision being taken out of my hands. I couldn’t be held responsible if I weren’t in my own custody.

Or something like that. It had made a lot more sense back when I’d had a belly full of brandy and cheese.

I pulled over and maybe bumped up on the curb with one wheel.

The cop sauntered up to my window cautiously. He was short and the angle of the car made him look ridiculous somehow. He made it worse by getting his feet twisted together and catching himself on the side of my car to keep from falling completely.

“What’s your...”

I waited a full ten seconds for him to finish his sentence while he held a fist to his mouth like he was gripping a tiny microphone. He belched then waved the air in front of his face.

Shit, was he drunk, too?

“What’s your problem tonight?” He asked and fumbled with the general right side of his body with his hand. I noticed the gun and maybe because we were both bitten by the same snake, I wasn’t sensing danger like I should’ve.

“I shouldn’t be on the road,” I said, sounding stone sober to my ears. “My wife wants me to do something I don’t wanna do tomorrow and I was just in there, drinking my worries away. I have leftover pizza.” I thumbed toward the seat next to me like it was proof of where I’d been.

“Slow down, son. I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think.” I thought he was about to give me marital advice but then I realized he was talking about my sobriety. “I bet you could walk a straight line, heel- to-toe.” He plucked open his holster, but it didn’t seem like he was aware of what that hand was doing. He stuck his pinky in his ear and wrenched it around in there. 

“Sofficer. Sofficer.” I added the S but I still sounded too sober. “Please. I think I’m a danger. To public safety.” I thought if I could convince the drunk cop I was drunk he’d arrest me.

“Are you about to rob a bank?” He pointed at me, somehow adding to his overall look of ridiculousness.

“Well… no.”

“There’s nobody out here.” He waved a hand toward the black landscape far ahead of us. “Just stay between the lines.”

I couldn’t think. It shouldn’t have been this hard to get pulled out of my car for driving under the influence.

“What if… what if I was about to rob a bank?” It was the most smart-assy thing I could think to say.

He smiled and waggled a finger. “Joke’s on you. It’s after hours.”

He hooked his thumbs into his belt. Something about his body language had changed and he’d gone from humorous to being done with our interaction.

“Just. Stay. Between. The. Lines,” he said, swaying. I wanted to conjure the words for help, but even if I’d had the ability to ask, there wasn’t anything about him that answered helpful.

I opened my mouth, but didn’t speak. I sat back in my seat and covered my face in my hands, giving up. I listened to him walk away, closer his patrol car door, and drive away. He gave me a chirp of his sirens as passed me.

The drive home should have felt longer but I caught every light. It was like a dark fate had carved a path for me. I momentarily played with the idea of letting it have me completely. To take my hands off the wheel and let it take me wherever it wanted me to go. 

I hadn’t descended far enough into self-pity for that and in ten minutes, I was home. To my surprise, my wife was still in her paint clothes and was washing her hands at the kitchen sink.

“Oh, you have pizza?” she said. I’d forgotten about the pizza and subconsciously picked it up. I looked at the box in my hand and did a second, struggled to remember what was in it. 

I joined her on the couch, and she grabbed it from me and took a slice. Usually, we asked about each other’s day, but I didn’t feel like it, tomorrow anchoring my brain.

“Do you love me?” she said during a commercial break. I had no idea what we were watching.

The question agitated me and opened a trapdoor underneath my stomach.

“Of course I do.” I did, but my feelings about this whole “surgery” thing was making me feel resentful. I was definitely still buzzed, and the alcohol was sharpening my emotions like a file working away inside me. 

“Then why are you fighting so hard against this? Don’t you want us both to be satisfied?”

“That’s not fair. Of course I want to satisfy you. Don’t you know how this is making me feel? I don’t want to do this,” I said. “I mean, there has to be something else we could try. I’m willing to do just about anything to please you.”

“I want you to do this,” she said, placing her greasy hand on my thigh. She shook her head, tears in her eyes. I took it to be a manipulation at first. Not that she did that sort of thing normally, it was just me in a bag of my feelings. My defenses were up and everything was an attack in that moment. I chewed the insides of my cheeks to keep in what was trying to climb out of my mouth.

Then I started to cry. I sounded like a little teapot. It caught me by surprise.

“I just love you so much.” I had a ball of razors in my throat I couldn’t swallow. “I don’t want anything to happen to us, but I don’t know if I can do this.”

She lassoed an arm around my neck and yanked me into an upper body hug.

“I just want you. I want to feel connected with you. I don’t want anything plastic between us. I’m tired of all that stuff. I wanna feel you.”

She kissed me before I could speak and rock turned into water. My walls melted as we flowed into one another and by the time I returned to my senses I was on the newspaper covered kitchen floor.

My wife was already gone but she had brought a comforter downstairs and covered me.

Normally, I toss in my sleep, but I was still covered up to my chest. I was stiff as I turned the world vertical and turned my back into a percussion instrument as I stretched.

A few minutes later I had scrambled eggs and a cup of coffee going. I don’t normally eat breakfast so early, but I had an appetite for whatever reason. It was an hour before I normally would get up, so I took my time eating and scrolling my phone.

I wasn’t sure how much sleep I’d gotten but I was refreshed. The way my day had started, I half expected to catch all the green lights and get the closest spot in the parking lot.

But when I looked up from where I was seated at the kitchen island, something caught my eye that I should’ve seen as soon as I woke up.

A red and white checkered scarf draped over the back of the couch.

Had he been in my house?

 

The carnival is in town, the carnival is always on the road, always on the move, their homes are wagons, trains, carts, trucks … the road. They come singing and with gypsy song and dance they weave their way by road into the heart of every passing town, every place chosen by providence hand on the haggard face of the weary map. 

With painted face they come into your home. 

Vagabond entertainer spell, they gather like crawlers in a cluster, in a rat-king migration. With wide giant tents and displays propped and strung up and nailed into the dirt, into the soil bosom of passing places that may mean nothing to them, might mean everything. Lights come to life at night with the wild music in a lurid spell of filament glow and something else intangible that lives inside the chest and heart within us all. Something like religion but even older and more sacred. The rickety rides, some more rickety than others rattle and thrum with the barely controlled violence of mechanical movement, those strapped in or belted down can barely be heard screaming over the noise of the calliope, the organ grinder, the caller, the ringleader in her chant… the crack of the cannon sending the human cannonball skyward and soaring overhead, the heads of gawkers and townies and friends. The shrieking that can be heard is commingled sound, sweet with thrills… bitter with terror. The careening faces atop the dancing riding constructs are both smiling and weeping, lost in the launch and flight and all of the noise and nearly grotesque clownish music … nearly psychedelic, those sounds … nearly intense. Too much. 

Too much for so many crying and weeping children, little ones taken home and taken to bed early by more or less understanding mothers and fathers. Too much light and noise. That wild wind instrument key-note thing, the calliope … it had been one of Anton LaVey’s very favorites. 

Step right up, step right up, we’re just passing through. Come inside for a spell and take a gander under tented roof. 

…

The carnival came to the town and went. As it did every other place before, after. 

They left something behind. 

…

Cody hadn't gone to the carnival the other night, he hadn't wanted to. The rides and the sideshows and attractions certainly contained their allure of spell for the young boy but it was everyone else, everybody. All of those other faces. 

He didn't want to be alone. With all of them. 

All of those other faces, couples and families and groups of friends would all look at him and see him alone and smirk. They would all just stare and laugh at him, and his loneliness. So Cody just stayed away. As always. 

He wandered now, the early morning streets. Desolate and ghostly in the morning time fog that shrouded and clung to everything, everything in town. Cody kicked a can of crumpled cola down the street. It had been his only companion for the last twenty minutes, since he left the house. His father had still been passed out in the lazyboy chair and hadn't said anything as his son had departed. They'd used to go to church together on this day of the week. Not any longer. 

Cody kicked the can down farther. Alone and not trying to think about it, not trying to think about the carnival that he had missed. It had only been here a few days …

I always miss everything. 

Cody missed his mother, though he didn't know what she looked like. Memories of her were so fogged and far gone and his father didn't keep any pictures of her in the house. And he wasn't allowed to ask any questions. He was only eleven years old but the fact he'd already forgotten his mother's face haunted him, haunted him now, alone. 

He kicked the can. 

Cody then looked up from his sneakers and his misery and spied something in the mist shroud of road just up ahead. And at first he couldn't believe it, it must be some kind of strange joke … or a miracle. He stopped in his tracks. 

The mime stood in the middle of the road. Alone. Just like him. He was smiling and standing there partially obscured by the early morningtime mist, it clung to him in wisps like phantasm licks and tongues of steam that coiled and curled. His painted face was mostly hidden but Cody could see he was mouthing something. Without thinking about it he began to come closer. Slowly, leaving the crumpled can behind. 

He came upon the mime, who hadn't moved. His lips were no longer moving. He just stood there smiling and erect, as if wanting to move or to act, as if filled and brimming teemed with the need for performance. But he only quivered. And stared down at Cody. 

“Hi," said Cody. 

The mime said nothing. 

A beat. 

Cody finally asked: “You're like a clown or something, right? Like one of the quiet ones that aren't supposed to talk an stuff."

The mime nodded. Big. Pleased. His black and white grin grew larger and then grew teeth, shock white in the early morning glow. That was when Cody remembered, he felt like such an idiot. 

"Your a mime!” he said, louder than he intended, he nearly whispered the next part: "What're you still doin here? All the rest of the carnival already left, didn't they?” 

The black and white grin became a frown and the mime traced an invisible tear down his painted face. A silent issue of ‘boo-hoos’ then followed. Cody watched it all, not quite sure what to make of it. Perhaps it was all some crazy practical joke and someone, some jerk was filming him right now or something, all of it was weird, strange. On a whim the boy asked the mime, –

“What’d they leave ya behind or something?” 

The sorrow of the mime intensified to a comical degree as he aggressively nodded his head in the affirmative, completely over the top. Cody wasn't sure how he should take it, if he was supposed to laugh at the mime and his routine or if it was meant to engender real sympathy. He'd always loved clowns and goofy adults, goofy characters on TV and when he was hanging out in daycare and stuff, but to be alone with one right now …

and so unexpected. 

Cody suddenly felt like he should go, he began to tell the mime just as much. Turning on his heels and heading back the other way as he quickly blurted some excuse, he made it two steps before a white gloved hand clapped him on the shoulder. Firmly. Without a word from the weirdo mime. Cody looked to it first before eyeing the mime back over his shoulder, lording over him now. The hand, the glove, it looked just the same as Mickey Mouse’s. 

Cody looked back and saw the mime now held a note. As black and white as he was. 

It said: I'm sorry to bother you, little boy! But my friends HAD to leave me behind so that I could get a little job done, OK??

Cody was frozen. He suddenly didn't feel so well, as if his stomach and guts were far away and filled with fluttering butterfly wings. He read the note and didn't know what to say, so instead he said: –

“... wh-what job was that?

The mime let go of his shoulder and Cody was immediately grateful. He began to pantomime raking leaves and shoveling dirt and trimming hedges with invisible clippers. 

The boy began to lighten up again. He felt something dreadful like weight but worse inside begin to lift and free itself like a spellcast that's been released. A small smile and a nervous half-chuckle only partially forced escaped him as he watched the mime and his cleaning act. It was pretty lame, but he was relieved. Cody was far from the sharpest kid at school but he knew what stranger danger was. He cautiously allowed himself to relax a little, enough to be polite. 

Cody said: “Oh, yeah, ha ha, they left ya to clean up the town, huh? That's pretty neat I guess…” he tried to think of something else to say, something nice and a little funny and a polite way of saying: see ya later, freako, without being too obvious. Something barely satisfactory had just come to mind when the mime whirled towards the boy with his invisible shears in his hands and made a pantomimed snip of the large unseen clippers at the child's face. It bisected violently but cleanly, smoothly, by razor sharp blades well cared for and honed, the smooth face just below the small caverns of child nostrils. They jetted blood before the top portion of the child's face and head came off and splatted to the damp pavement with a muffled crack. The ruptured organ of brain began to ooze, and everywhere gushed dark red: the eyes, the nose, the ears, the giant open wound of freshly carved and gored cavity mouth. The child's body liberated of its little pilot brain fell over to the rough blacktop to join its discarded abattoir jelly. 

A black lake of an iron pungent puddle began to grow, expanding out from the little mutilated body at its sinister nucleus and center. The mime looked down. Phantom blades dripped child's blood. 

The mime said nothing. 

…

“Ya check it out last night?" 

A burp: " …what?” 

"The circus-carnival thing, ya check it out?” 

"That was two weeks ago, ya dope!” another swig from the can of brew. The Dallas Cowboys continued to suck the big one on the tube, the volume was at its lowest but not muted, the game barely and phantom audible, as if drifting in from another time. 

"Ya sure?” 

"Yeah, I'm sure, took Darcy and the brats, it was a hoot.” 

"Ya sure??” 

"Yes, you fuckin juicehead, it was right around the time they found that kid's body all fucked up an shit.” 

"Awww, why ya gotta bring up that shit…" 

“You're the one brought us ‘round, fuckin idiot, can't remember shit. Ask me to remind ya then bellyache about it, Christ! S’prised if ya got sense still to pull out yer pecker ‘fore ya start pissin, ya dumb bastard.” 

His drinking buddy, his partner in libations didn't say anything, he might've had a choice retort or a scathing bit of witticism held in reserve but he didn't voice it. He only hung his head and pulled generously from his can of warming beer. 

The mood was spoiled. 

Eventually the bottle was brought out. Stronger stuff. Shots were had. Tall stiff drinks not needing ice, not needing chaser. They drank. 

Eventually one of them asked the other: –

“You hear tell of that clown or jester fella, that's s’pposed to be haunting round these parts lately…?” 

Neither man slept well that night. 

…

Darla thought her new friend was neat at first but she was starting to get scared. When she'd first met him behind the playground and he'd play-acted swimming and drowning and choking and stuff she'd thought he was really funny. He'd made-believe that he was bound with ropes or cuffs around his wrists, comically over-wrenching and working at the invisible restraints. It was so silly, and so funny and it looked like so much fun to play pretend. He'd motioned for her to hold out her own little hands, to play with him. To make pretend. 

She'd done so thoughtlessly. Only excited to play a game with her new special pal, he looked like a clown but less colorful. She held out her wrists and the mime pretended to wrap something around them. Only something was wrong. 

As he wound and wound and then tightened and cinched the bind, Darla felt the uncanny sensation of real rope wrapping and tightening around her small wrists and hands. When he tied it off and yanked both phantom ends she felt the harsh bite of cruel old fraying rope against her flesh. 

“Ow!" she yelped out, and then began to cry a little. But it was already too late by then. 

The mime began to walk away, holding the end and tail of a phantom leash that began to pull on Darla's bound little wrists. It pulled painfully and she was forced into movement, nearly tripping over herself as she began to wail and the mime by unseen tether and bind began to pull her into the treeline of the nearby woods. 

She fought and screamed, desperately, like a small animal suddenly sensing and knowing the terrible hunger of the encroaching final end. She fell over into the dirt and undergrowth and was dragged, flailing and howling. 

The phantom umbilicus held her ensnared and shrieking with unbridled tears all the way into the forests’ shadowed depths. 

…

“My mom's gonna flip if we ain't back within the hour, Christ, man, do I smell like weed still?" 

Michael tried to tell Chase that he wasn't the best person to ask being pretty fucking lit himself, he could feel the red eyed glaze of his own stoned and glassy stare in his sockets like it was a set of strange gluey contacts or something. He managed a grumble as a half measure. 

Both boys ambled along. Down the nighttime lane of their neighboring suburb. Streetlights cast their glow from skinny towers of L shaped ugly metal overhead, turning everything to lurid and raging shades of orange Halloween color. Both boys were taking time to slightly stop in their walk to check their breath, puffing into their cupped palms and then inhaling, never satisfied with the results. They didn't notice him up ahead until they were nearly upon him. 

The mime. He was bent over something. 

It was Chase who started first, both boys jumped. It was as if the mime had just appeared out of nowhere. Bent hunched with workman's posture over something unseen and unknown to the naked eye. 

“Holyfuckingshit!" it tumbled out of both of their mouths in one string, no gaps for breath, they stopped dead in their tracks. The mime paid them no notice. 

“Oh my God, dude, what the fuck is that? What the fuck is this? Am I high? Am I high? Are you seeing this shit right now!?" Chase was rattling off. Michael was still struggling with simple speech. He only gawked and stared. His glassy red eyes now wide and glistening in the streetlight cast of hellacious warm Halloween glow. 

They glistened. The pair of organs. Red. 

Chase finally managed: “Dude… like, what the fuck are doing, dude? Am I like tripping out or some shit, why’re you dressed like-" 

The mime hadn't been paying them any attention. He suddenly did something that shut Chase Ginsberg up with a startled womanish gasp that bordered on a wet sob. 

He began to pull, as if wrenching and yanking with great rigor and effort, some cord or rope … something… something that was apparently attached to whatever it was that he was bent over studiously in the road. Something just as phantom and visible only to him. 

It came to Chase then, and he didn't know why but it did suddenly seem to matter. He said it aloud. 

"It's a mime.” 

"What?” said Michael finally. 

"He's a stupid mime and he's doing a bit, Jesus this’s fuckin weird, don't you know it's like hella late, dude, what're you even doing anyways?" 

The mime didn't answer. Only repeated his strange repetitive action, his ritual of pulling on some unseen instrument, attached to a phantasmal translucent device. 

Stoned, they zoned out for a sec. Giggling nervously and fidgeting and whispering to each other, daring each other and laughing and wondering aloud what to do, should we go on? - should we fuck with the guy? - what? 

A beat. 

Suddenly an idea began to form itself slowly within Michael's mind, Chase’s addled mind was not far behind, he was arriving there soon after. 

Michael: "It- It kinda looks like he's pulling the starter cord to a machine. Like a mower or something." 

“Yeah, I think you're right…” 

"Yeah, something gas powered like a mower or a generator … or like a chainsa-" 

The phantom machine roared to life in the hands of the mime with hungry killing slaughtering power, a deadly tearing whirr, with the maniacal speed of the mutilating chain and its invisible teeth. The mime shot to his feet and hauled the pantomimed chainsaw overheard and began to silently phantom scream with battle fury. 

Chase and Michael began to scream as well. Much louder. They turned to run. 

But the mime and his phantom machine were faster. He caught them quick and tore in and ripped the boys into rough and haggard messy pieces chopped by phantom chain, by phantom blade on a horsepowered gallop he made them raw and unmade. 

Deconstructed. 

The abattoir violence and the meat paint of its lurid carnage filled the street, it was dripping from the lamposts, pieces and chewed parts strung up and dangling. It was all that was left of the boys. 

All that was left and found in the morning. 

…

Buddy didn't know what to make of the town as of late. He'd been born and raised and as the town drunk, homeless to boot, he was hardly the first guy anyone asked on any given subject, day or night, good or ill, but something was wrong. 

Very wrong. 

The trouble was Buddy wasn't sure he should even care. 

In the last year or so he'd seen some strange things. And a lotta folk had gone missing, kids an such. But anytime Buddy's mind wandered into the realm of caring or even remotely doing anything about it, he found something bitter and harsh inside answer back in turn. 

Who cares? The fuck they ever done for you? 

Fuck all. That's what. 

So he wouldn't do shit. But what he'd already been doing. He sat back and popped cork. Lifted and tilted glass to dried lips in a drunk’s careless throttle by the neck. And watched. 

He watched the mime climb the steps. Pulled generously from the large swill of his poison. 

He'd seen the guy around for awhile now. He'd watched him ascend the steps a few times before this moment, it was nearly always the same but still a trip. The man walked on thin air as if it was solid stone. And then he would climb up, step by step. As if gaining the summit of some phantasm set of stairs hanging suspended and aspiring invisibly for the heavens unseen and stolen by the brilliance of the light. 

Buddy laughed. Pulled from the bottle once more, and began to sing an old favorite that had just come to mind. One from the good ol’ days if there'd ever been none. 

“And as we wind on down the road! Our shadow’s taller than our soul!”

Buddy began to pull deeper and deeply, oblivion seeking in-between lines and refrains from Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven. He remembered an urban legend from when he was a kid, just a snot nosed pup, they said that if you played the record backwards, if you reversed the song the lyrics changed. They told you, to hail Satan. 

Buddy laughed at this. Pulled more. His belly protested and his kidneys ached, he paid them no mind, drinking deeper still and hailing Satan and singing and watching the mime ascend his staircase of invisibility,  he usually had a kid or someone with him, as he did now. They struggled something fierce, all of them, everyone that Buddy had personally seen, but he was able to keep hold of them, all of them all the way up. Whenever he reached a great height, it was almost always different, he would throw them, drop them from the top. 

Then they would scream and land, burst. Pulp. They became juice upon the earth, children and people no more. There was never anyone around out here, close to the woods, just outside town and by the railroads and their harsh worn tracks. The soil out here was starved for moisture, parched was this earth. It was Buddy's favorite drinking spot. And as of late it had just become a whole lot better. 

Buddy laid back and pulled deeply from his liquid bunkmate, his last and only companion, other than the mime, who never said a word to him but sometimes acknowledged his presence of audience with a profound and deliberate salute from the top of his invisibility spire up there. Buddy always saluted him back. 

As he did now. 

The mime saluted the drunk. Beaming. 

Buddy finished his own salute and smiled too. Laughed. And drank more deeply than he ever had in his entire life, knowing this was it, this was the rest of his life and how he was going to spend it. 

Laughing. Drinking. Pulling from the bottle and hailing Satan in religiously reverse engineered heavy metal worship-song, watching the flying mime make juice of the children. 

Buddy laughed. Drank. 

The mime dropped the child, they made their horrible shrill sound all the way down to the bottom like always. 

The mime said nothing. He let Buddy and his companion of bottled booze sloshing its liquid language within glass sing praise for him. 

Buddy laughed, sang and belch-spat: “And she's buying a stairway to Heaven…!” Hail Satan. 

…

Maggie's shoes slammed against the pavement, the sidewalk, the avenues and every turn, there was nowhere left to run. The guy, the freak was coming. And he was stealing away from her every single route and chance for escape or exit. 

It didn't make any sense.

She'd been walking to Guy's house with Alondra, chatting and shooting the shit till they got to his place. That's when they ran into him. That's when they ran into the mime. 

And at first Maggie had just laughed. 

Distant childhood memories of the carnival passing through town waybackwhen came to her then … and she remembered. She'd been very young then, very little. She remembered that her parents had had to take her home because she'd been crying, upset, she couldn't recall why. Not just then. 

But still the memories were warm. She and Alondra thought nothing of it when they passed him walking the other direction on the sidewalk. It was the middle of the day. And he was smiling, just like them. What could possibly be wrong?

He'd started with the hands and walls and ceiling routine, the ‘getting boxed in’ bit. An old one for sure and hella corny but Maggie and Alondra had felt generous and in good humor, so they'd obliged the strange random pantomiming man. Laughing and clapping him on. 

But then they'd tried to walk away … And the mime wouldn't let them go. 

With painted face now stern and grave, writ into a black and white frown, he stepped in their path, shaking his head. He wouldn't let them leave. He kept blocking their attempts to depart as they stepped every left-right way, starting out from annoying and escalating rapidly into eerie and creepy behavior. 

The girls had scoffed together and turned around, only to be met with an unyielding invisible force, a wall that had suddenly appeared in thin air in the middle of the sidewalk. 

The middle of the road really, they ran along the unseen wall to find the edge and found no yielding surface. The girls began to panic. The girls began to yell.

“What the fuck, what the fuck is this!?" 

And then he had put Alondra in the box. 

Maggie had ran then, her eyes and mind unable to take in the sight of her friend being crushed into cubic shape, pulped and smashed smaller and smaller … just red. Just swirling frothing violent red inside the shrinking phantom-transluscent box, filled with minced and chewed up bigger pieces, the eyes deflated mangled gel in the swirling madness of the red, many black strands of her long raven colored hair peppered and danced inside the cubed scarlet swirl of thick mixture, the cap and pieces of scalp, mostly still together, the last vestige piece and pieces left the most intact… she had ran, unable to bear the sight. 

She was running now. 

But every time she came to an impasse, a turn or a corner to salvation or a place of sanctuary that she knew, another invisible wall of merciless immovable force would suddenly appear and she'd run smack, face first into it. She did it again and again. Over and over. Maggie, the poor girl, running around all over as the box that he had made was closing in, closer and closer and closer…

She was at the school now, she didn't know why. She didn't know why she thought this place would save her. She was out of her mind with animal panic. At the threshold, at the entrance to the highschool she was finally caught. Maggie ran face first into an unseen wall just as she almost made the open archway of the main front entrance, when she tried to turn around to run back the other way she was met with yet another merciless and invisible wall, a merciless force like the way God was merciless sometimes. 

Her caterwauls and screams reached new heights then. She shred her own throat and tore her vocal cords to tatters as the phantom walls and ceiling and floor began to shrink and close in. 

But none heard them. No one was around to witness this strange scene of slaughter. Only the mime. Maggie watched him from inside her shrinking coffin as his hands clawed and animal shaped closed in. He wore a look of consternation now, but the black and white smile was there once more. 

The pain went beyond anything imaginable as the walls and floor and ceiling closed. Pulverizing Maggie. She felt every wretched second of the experience until her brain was pulped and juiced with the rest of her body and thus incapable of sending anymore electrical signal. 

…

The bank was quiet. Not quite full but there were plenty of people in line, each teller, three of them, were busy helping a customer. It was a bright cloudless day and everything had seemed normal. Everything was … until the mime came in. 

He sauntered in smiling and confident through the front door. Several people, including the armed guard turned and returned the smile, a few of them laughed. Finding the surprise charming. Their laughter grew and increased throughout the whole bank as the mime walked in with an exaggerated gunslinger walk, wide steps and the twiddling fingers of his itchin hands hovering just where revolvers would be strapped. The guard found it the most hilarious, calling out to the mime –

“Hey! What is this? A stickup or somethin?" 

And then the mime pulled phantom iron from unseen leather and began to rain fire. 

The cacophony was ear splitting. The guard went down first, still smiling and believing it was all a joke. Nobody else was laughing anymore, the jovial sounds of good nature had turned to screams that died and drowned out with each eruption of a gunshot. 

The mime filled the bank with phantom fire. 

Deafening. 

…

Patricia Evergreen hated her job. Not because she hated being a cop, far from it, she was proud of her role as peacekeeper of the town she'd grown up in. It was just that the place was so fucking boring. 

Aside from a few disappearances over the many years she'd known, a couple weird things that were typical to any small town, there wasn't nothing to this place, Patricia reckoned. Ghost stories and bullshit, and that was all. 

She came across the mime during a routine patrol, just driving around the various suburbs in the department issued black and white. Every neighborhood was quiet, nearly deserted of pedestrians save a few dogwalkers, joggers and the like. He was at a street corner, slowly making his way down, miming and pretending to carry a large and heavy sack, it weighed him down, the invisible bag, it must've been quite a load, Patricia watched all this and thought and then it suddenly came to her all at once, unbidden and in a rush. Though vague and shrouded through time's corridor passage of so many years …

The carnival had come through a couple times through the years … she was sure her parents or grandparents had taken her at some point, must have. She'd been very little, her own young and chubby face amidst a caterwaul, cherry red with tears and upset flitted across her mind in a blur, but then was swiftly and suddenly replaced. 

She'd been a teenager when Margaret Bast, Maggie had gone missing. Alondra Topete too. They'd been two of her closest friends in school then, so long ago… 

Hot on the tails of that: stories… rumors … wild campfire tales that couldn't be true and would only be dreamed up by teenagers and children. Wild tales about a mime that wandered the town and took kids away to hurt them and worse … 

It all hit Officer Evergreen like a revelatory load of weight, dropped into her head and into her lap. She watched the mime. Thought …

… what the hell was this guy doing around here anyway? She'd never seen him before and she began to doubt very much that he lived anywhere on this street, or anywhere close for that matter, she hadn't heard the story of the mime or thought of it in years, it was probably nothing, but it was her job to make sure and find out. She sidled her cruiser up to and alongside the mime, still encumbered with his great phantom weight. 

She rolled down her window, slowing the cruiser to a crawl: “Hey," she began friendly enough, “hello there, ya mind if I stop and talk to ya for a second, just need to ask you a few questions." 

The mime did stop and so did she. The street was quiet and it was just the two of them. The mime turned and regarded her with a smile, still burdened by his invisible satchel slung over shoulder. He pointed to himself, a gesture that said: who, me?

Evergreen was already starting to lose her patience, goddammit with this fuckin guy…

“Yes, ha ha, that's very cute, but I'm really gonna need you to answer a couple things I gotta ask ya. Do you live in this neighborhood?” 

The mime frowned and just shook his head, no. Refusing to speak. 

"Please, sir. Failure to comply will result in a citation and a court appearance, probable fine. How about we just talk like adults for a second, do you have any identification on you, sir?" 

The black and white frown turned to a grin once again. Wolfish. Officer Patricia Evergreen didn't like the look of it. It looked warped and strange and mean writ into that painted face, wrong. The mime made like to unlimber his great satchel. 

Evergreen rolled her eyes, hidden by reflective shades. Jesus, was this guy for real, crazy, or just an idiot? She was just telling him for the second time that if he didn't comply with her questioning then this could take an unnecessary ugly turn, she was telling the mime he'd want to avoid that as he settled the bag down with a convincing performance, opened it and reached inside. Patricia’s voice caught in her throat like a vile fishbone in the midst of dinner as she watched the mime’s hand disappear into the pantomimed satchel, disappearing into thin air before her very eyes. 

She couldn't believe what she was seeing. 

What the mime pulled out next was even worse. She felt nauseous and ill and as if her mind was curdling and doing unbidden somersaults in tandem with her roiling guts as the smiling thing with carnival clad painted face pulled out a child's decomposing rotted severed little head, boy or girl was difficult to tell. Putrescence filled the air the moment it was freed from the invisible sack and it was black and green and blue-pale and dripping. The eyes were crawling and writhing with the sliming bodies and clumps of maggot-young that lie nesting and feasting in there, the rotten cavities of sockets. The tongue was swollen and discolored like the rest of the meat but darker and it protruded from the bloat of decapitated rot like an obscene tumor apart and apiece and all in one with the rest of the demented sloughing mess. 

Officer Evergreen snapped to all at once. She drew her sidearm and bellowed her commands, training made textbook and innate. 

“Drop the fucking thing right now and put your hands up! now!" 

The mime only obeyed half her commands. He dropped the severed head but instead of raising his gloved white hands he took a deliberate and silent step towards her instead. 

Evergreen didn't waste a second. She fired two shots in quick succession, surprising even herself, she hadn't thought about it, only acted. But it had done the peace officer little good. The moment her finger squeezed the trigger, one of those gloved hands shot up in a flash-instant, uncanny speed. 

Evergreen now stood, gun smoking, not sure if she could believe her eyes or her own mind any longer. The mime had his hand up and out, as if signaling to stop like a crosswalk guard. There were two smoking holes suspended in mid air, just over the heart and chest of the mime-creature. The shots had stopped at the border indicated by the flat of his adjacent smooth palm. They smoked from ebon holes that defied physics, as if she'd punched twin smoldering holes in reality. 

Shocked, Patricia thought unbidden, the prongs of the devil's pitchfork… and was still trying to accept what she was seeing. 

A neighbor came out. One of the houses within spitting distance. 

“Jesus Christ! that a fucking gunshot or something, what the hell-" 

The mime suddenly whirled, his other hand forming around another object, rounded and small, he brought it to his mouth and made like he was pulling something from it with his teeth. Evergreen screamed, no, unable to think of anything else as the mime lobbed the invisible grenade at the concerned and unsuspecting neighbor. The man went up in a violent and sudden concussive blast, his body immolated by the detonation of the explosive device. In charred smoking pieces, he rained down all over his own stoop and front lawn. 

The mime laughed silent yet expressive belly-laughter, holding his stomach and all wide eyes and wide open black and white mouth. 

Evergreen went to fire once more but the mime sensed her intention and suddenly whirled once again, smacking the gun from the officer's hands. Its strength and speed were unexpected and it was all Patricia could do to not cry out and scream, shocked and startled and still not quite believing.

There's no way this is actually happening to m-

The mime then slapped Patricia right smack center of her forehead with his other free gloved palm. 

She froze. Her arms went limp and to her sides. Unarmed. And helpless. 

Something was wrong … she could no longer move. 

With the gloved snow white hand held flat and fast to her face, to the middle of her forehead her eyes rolled back to whites themselves shot with lines of glistening hectic red. Inside, she hurtled, flew … rocketed too fast and rapidly down the dizzying blinding vast and varied glow of the starcorridor. Too many lights and sounds and fiery things of furious alien color, she flew down infinity as a low moan escaped past her drooling lips left back on the ground. 

Within the corridor … she could hear. 

She could hear his voice. 

It was terrible. The sound of it. What he was telling her. Unbearable. It filled her ears, her head. It filled the flying landscape of her mind. 

She might've wept. But she was far too broken. Even when he pulled the voice of his snow white gloved hand away. She went to her knees. The mime then held out his other hand to her, it was wrapped curiously and yet distinctly around something. And this time she could see it. 

It was a gun. A revolver. Every chamber was loaded. 

It was beautiful. 

This time she could really see it. 

She smiled as the mime cocked it and then pressed it to her sweating brow, cold metal kissing the moist surface of perspiring flesh, and pulled the trigger. 

She heard it. Felt it. Everything. 

The mime said nothing. 

And went on. 

THE END

Everyone in the house was asleep. I'd taken the batteries out of the wall clock in my room to get rid of the ticking. Now there was complete silence, and I could try again to do something I'd already managed to do successfully.

A week ago, I'd turned over a piece of paper lying on my desk, with a poem I'd written in primary school on it. It was my first success after years of practice. Six days ago, I'd unscrewed the cap of a juice bottle that hadn't been closed all the way. Five days ago, I'd moved one of the cigarettes in an open pack slightly outward, out of the pack. Three days ago, I'd peeled off one of the pieces of tape holding up poster on my wall.

And tonight, my target was a much larger object. I was confident in my abilities now, and after this final attempt, I would be able to reveal my talent to my family and those around me. I had made exactly four attempts in the past week, and I'd succeeded every single time. I had complete faith in myself.

For years, I'd tried countless times and gone through a lot along the way; I'd lost hope, taken a long break from my attempts, then started believing I could do it again and after trying over and over, I'd come to think telekinesis was nothing but a lie and taken another break but then one day, I happened to see a pack of wet wipes fall to the floor all by itself, which rekindled my interest and got me started on my attempts again, and so on.

And now, finally, in the middle of the night, when complete silence had been achieved, I went to the kitchen. I took a steak knife from the drawer where we kept the cutlery and returned to my room.

I gently pulled my desk chair back and sat down. I didn't want to lose my focus, so I was being quiet. The faint sound of the knife touching the desk as I set it down, the soft sounds of my footsteps as I walked, the barely audible scraping of the chair as I pulled it back had an ASMR effect on me. These little sounds, too quiet to disturb the silence, made me feel thoroughly prepared.

Without wasting any time, I focused on the knife. I positioned my hands around it and gathered all my concentration. I slowed my breathing. The only thing in my mind was a knife slowly and calmly spinning around its own axis. I focused, and focused... I concentrated as if someone were hypnotizing me, as though I were following a pocket watch swinging from side to side without ever taking my eyes off it.

Minutes passed. Seconds, minutes, maybe an hour... There wasn't the slightest movement. The knife couldn't care less about me; it was ignoring my efforts, stubbornly refusing to budge.

Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore and gave up. I was getting more and more bored, and as time went by, I lost my focus. I had to go to work at noon the next day, and earlier that day, before I left work, my boss had pointed out that I'd left my fly undone. I'd started thinking about that. Who says something like that in front of everyone? You pull someone aside and tell them in private. Anyway, I took the knife back to the kitchen.

After I lay down in bed, I thought about the knife until I fell asleep. I'd lost my confidence in my abilities. If I told someone I could move objects through telekinesis, they might ask me to prove it, and I might fail and make a fool of myself.

I couldn't get the knife out of my mind. I felt as though it were a person who had shattered all my trust in them, betrayed me by revealing a secret I'd shared with it to anyone who would listen. I was angry. The image of the knife standing perfectly still in that spot, like a tree that had sunk its roots deep into the ground, wouldn't leave my mind. I fell asleep in a fit of anger.

I woke up to the sound of my phone alarm. I turned it off, tossed the duvet to my left, and rolled onto my right side to get up. Just as I was about to stretch, I saw it and jolted in place: the knife was suspended in midair beside my bed, standing upright.

I clapped a hand over my mouth. I was about to scream; every instinct in my body was telling me to. I bit my tongue to suppress it.

I took a deep breath. I tried to calm myself down. Then I took another deep breath. My heart was racing.

I reached out toward the knife, but immediately changed my mind. I didn't know what to do. I'd never experienced my thoughts speeding up and getting tangled together so intensely in a moment of panic. Within a few seconds, I'd made and abandoned a dozen decisions, gone back and forth between asking for help and not asking for help, imagined the knife stabbing itself into my body, then dismissed the thought as irrational. My thoughts were racing back and forth at lightning speed. I needed to calm down.

I got out of bed, poured half a glass of water from the pitcher on my desk, and drank it.

I turned around to check if the knife was still there. It was closer to me now. I no longer cared about staying quiet. I yanked the door open and rushed out of the room.

I started walking briskly toward the kitchen. I wanted to grab any drink I could find and gulp it down. I needed to interact with something somehow, to calm myself down. I opened the fridge, took out the milk, and chugged it. I put the milk back, closed the fridge, and turned around to go back to my room.

And the knife was right behind me.

It was a meter away from me, just standing there. It was as if it were staring at me, judging me. It didn't move at all. It always maintained the same position and stayed at the same height above the floor, level with my bed, right around the height of my shinbones.

I started walking backward toward the kitchen doorway, wanting to see how it was following me, how it was coming after me. Without changing its position, it glided toward me as if it were moving across a perfectly smooth surface. It always maintained the same distance. When I stopped, it stopped a metre away from me. When I walked, it followed.

I cautiously made my way back to my room, walking backward. I sat on my bed. The knife and I were facing each other. I tried to think of what I could do. I was afraid to touch it. I was worried things might get out of hand. I'd done this. That much was obvious. Now that I'd calmed down a little, my panic had shifted in a different direction. Someone might see us. I had to sever my connection with the knife before I got caught. I might be able to accept this as normal, but I didn't think my mother and father would be able to handle a knife following me around.

Yes, it was probably because I'd concentrated so intensely on the knife all this time that the bond between us had grown stronger. I'd probably never concentrated on a knife so intensely in my entire life. I needed to reverse the process. I relaxed a little. I tried to think about other things, to take my mind off the knife.

I thought about the wristwatch my father had bought me for my birthday last year. It was a terrible watch, but I hadn't let on because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. Then one day, while wearing it, I'd deliberately gone swimming in a pool. The watch had stopped working, and that was how I'd gotten rid of it.

The knife was still in the same place.

I thought about the eggplant soup my mother had made yesterday. It was my favorite soup. I'd tipped the bowl back and gulped down the last few mouthfuls, and my father had given me a stern look.

The knife hadn't moved at all. It was standing there, a meter away.

My mother knocked on the door and called out.

"Breakfast is ready, Albert."

I had no other choice. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I reached out toward the knife. My arm couldn't reach it, though. I walked toward it. As I moved closer, it moved farther away, until it had backed all the way up against the wall. It had nowhere left to go. It was pressed against the wall, stuck there. I approached it and grabbed the handle.

My heart was pounding at full speed. I closed my eyes. As a final attempt, I thought about the baseball bat I'd lost before I became interested in telekinesis. I'd searched everywhere for it. Such a large object, yet it was nowhere to be found. I'd checked the baseball field, my grandmother's house, the streets I'd walked along, and I'd even contacted the lost property office in case I'd somehow left it on a bus. It was gone.

Yes, good. I could feel a long chain of thoughts forming and my focus weakening considerably.

The knife was loosening, letting go. I could feel it. But I still didn't have complete control over it.

I needed to think about something else. But I couldn't think of anything. I heard my mother's footsteps approaching my room. She was getting closer to the door.

"Come on, son. Are we supposed to wait for you?" she said from outside, then opened the door and walked in.

I pulled the knife with all my might, and just like when you yank something hard that's stuck somewhere and it suddenly comes loose, I went flying toward my bed.

With the knife still in my hand, I hit my head against the bed frame. And passed out.

When I opened my eyes, I was lying in a hospital bed with an IV drip in my arm. My father was sitting beside me. I felt exhausted. I'd received three stitches in my head, and it ached a little.

"Son, why were you holding a knife? What were you doing with it?"

"What knife, Dad?"

"You were clutching a knife in your hand. What do you mean, what knife? What are you up to?"

I couldn't remember anything. That was good. I hoped it wasn't temporary memory loss, because I didn't want to attempt telekinesis again.

With the sun's final rays, the quiet of dusk began to fall over the desert. Fire crackled in the center of a disheveled group. Made up of five men, the outfit brought unkempt chaos through the country. But that night, under the blanket of stars, they made no such commotion. Each making their cot with little sound but a cough or a sigh for their long awaited rest. 

They laid their heads on sacks of clothes, blankets or nothing at all. Feeling the full embrace of the still warm, dusted, earth beneath their backs. Their horses shuffled their feet and found their eyes grow tired alongside their men. Snorting and exhaling through labored lungs.

One horse stood, its back swaying with sleep. Speckled with white on dark chestnut. It swayed close to its master, a leader, a chief. With a shake of its long neck, it slowly lowered itself to the ground, legs tired from weeks of walking. The beasts found rest here. Still ready, even in sleep, for anything going bump in the unholy night.

Ashes, popping wood and the slow rotation of stars brought the posse into a deep, well needed slumber. In the morning, they would make their final stretch into Mardell. Cloaked in darkness, an owl bid its goodnights to the boys, and soft dreams welcomed their wearied minds.

-

The chirping of birds woke the group. The fire had long since gone out and was replaced with the soft light of early morning. Cold earth took in the first licks of sunlight, sand turning golden under the sun's sleepy rays. 

Before the others could stir. Wyatt found his way to standing. He was a rusted, handle-bar mustached man. His fingers glided through his overgrown locks, the dark strands flitting between his scarred fingers were salted with age. His back popped as he brought movement back into his body. After a stretch and a yawn, he moved comfortably, making the fire glow once again. He grabbed coffee and a pot from his mare’s saddle bag, clearing his throat as he worked. Bringing the others' awareness to the morning air. 

“Time to move, ya’ll know it.” Wyatt’s voice was deep and hoarse. He spoke through years of smoke and dust. Squinting, he looked around at his dwindling outlaws and his voice raised.

“You boys better make quick to living.”

With this, the other four men sat up and began shuffling drowsily, putting their sleeping pads back to storage and retrieving their cups. Wyatt sat down now, resting on the edge of his bedding. Watching his squad slowly come back together.

Wyatt cleared his throat, spat and began, “We know why we’re here: get the girl and get out. None of us traveled these weeks to leave with nothing. We all know what she’s worth.”

The group slowly nodded and took sips of black from their tattered mugs.

“Today we make it to Mardell, stock up what we need and the like.” He nodded at Earl, the oldest of the group, who dipped his weathered forehead in approval.

“Then we’ll make up our camp. Prep for the woman, sharpen knives and reload what you can until we come back with more ammo.” He spat again as he finished, triggering obligatory grumblings from the men.

“Now boys, we best get to riding, before the sun starts to scorch this hellish desert.” Wyatt stood, queuing the rest to do the same. The group shuffled to their horses quickly packing their gear as they went. They then saddled up. Their sighs and coughs accompanied by a chorus of hooves scuffing dirt, leather stretching and spurs rattling.

With all of their gear packed up, all that was left of their camp was a slightly embering fire surrounded by boot and hoof marks. Their final passage stopped in time on this windless morning.

“Yeawh!” Wyatt exclaimed, spurs met rippling flesh, his horse lurched forward and took off into the rusty hued horizon. The rest of the group followed. Earl closest behind, the rest making pace sluggishly, talking amongst themselves.

-

They rode for nearly 8 hours before making it to Mardell, and when they arrived it stood in great contrast to the oasis they had been picturing. Wyatt had told his posse that the girl was hiding out in a large coal-mining town. They were warned it would be full of witnesses, should they make too much of a mess.

Hopping off their saddles, they approached the edge of the valley. Overlooking the town, the group peered grimly at their destination. 

It looked nearly abandoned.

“We got the right place?” Davie spoke, his brown eyes flitting over the two streets that made up the town. Dirt streaked his face and he reached to wipe his brow, turning to Wyatt. Davie’s doe eyes shone true of his emotion. He was wary of this place.

His gaze was met by Wyatt’s sharp eyes, curtained by his messy furrowed brow. Wyatt turned away from the group, retrieving his map and confirming the towns whereabouts. Mardell was written roughly on his map, next to it was the quarry and you could see the tracks running from its station. He looked up now, each relative location exactly as depicted.

“Of course it’s right.” Wyatt said, spitting.

“Must have misremembered what Doc had said back in Freeport. Should be easier this way. It’s no matter.”

“Looks pretty dead to me,” Pip turned as he spoke, addressing Wyatt directly.

His strong arms crossed in front of his chest, “I haven’t seen a soul since layin my eyes on it.” He shook his head, dark curls swaying under his hat.

“Doesn’t feel right.” Davie mumbled.

“Well Doc’ll be payin you enough, make it feel right.” Wyatt turned, stomping back to his horse. “We won’t need bother with the damn town anyways,” His dark boots kicked up dirt as he walked. The group followed after him, leaving their lookout.

Earl stole one last look at the town. No one even working the quarry, he thought and he wondered if they would hear the train that night. But sand flowing over the tracks told him that they hadn’t been used in years.

Wyatt signaled for everyone to mount up and make way to where they would be setting up their camp. Mumbles of distaste echoed around them as they hopped back to their saddles, but none hesitated in the pursuit of their leader. Wyatt had held his own in outlaw groups for decades, his reputation resulted in nothing but respect in those that followed him. 

The group knew better than to doubt him now.

As Wyatt slowed, the group found their positions at his flank. Wyatt had an eye for a reliable posting. He scanned the landscape for shade, and even ground. Making sure to consider their proximity to the eventual expedition. On this day he found a suitable location. Something about it called to him. Adorned with a large cliff-faced boulder, casting comforting shade and plenty of room for his men and their steeds.

They made camp quickly. With their supplies dwindling, there was much less unpacking to do than in the first few stretches of this journey. They all relieved their horses of their saddle bags, untacking them and letting them graze. Wyatt felt comfortable not going into town, they could make it another few days on what they had. Though his men would be less than pleased.

For the girl, Davie was tasked with assembling her restraints.

Near the boulder’s cliff-like face, he set down two large pieces of wood and weathered rope. He worked, threading and securing the two pieces together. Why do we need all of this for one girl. He shook his head, what could possibly need restraining about a woman.

He smiled to himself, laughing as he finished the knots.

“Fucking Davie,” Pip mumbled to Herb, tipping his hat toward the fool. His brow was pinched in frustration. “Should he really be the one doing that?”

“Clearly it ain’t that dire,” Herb replied, “but it just a girl anywaysh.” His voice whistled where his front teeth used to be.

He reveled a gappy smile and walked over to Davie, leaving Pip shaking his head. Davie rose to standing, looking down at the gurney he had made whole. He had never used anything like this before but felt confident his knots would hold. 

He worked on a fishing boat in Freeport before taking to the west. Wyatt trusted him for rope related duties, though the other men would test his knots when he wasn’t around. 

The two boards came together as a gurney. Long enough for anyone shorter than 6 feet to be carried. He knew they wouldn’t be carrying her on it, but the picture stuck in his mind. He felt guilty already, even putting the thing together. He hoped this would be a simple mission; no bloodshed.

Loops through the middle allowed it to bend, and more loops would secure her arms and legs at her sides. She would certainly be restrained, he thought. His stomach turned at the thought of Pip finding his way to her in the night, and he was grateful his cot would rest closest to her.

“How goesh it Davie boy?” Herb sung, clapping his thick hand down on Davies' shoulder. Startling him. Davie turned quickly and looked up, he was much shorter than Herb. “In need of any help here?”

“No, no, just finishing up. Who even comes up with a thing like this?” Davie shook his head, laughing uncomfortably to himself. “I mean we are picking up a girl aren’t we?”

Herb leaned in, “I am not sho shure about that. You know. Wyatt has been making shome shtrange dealsh lately.” His droopy, blue eyes flicked from Davie to where Wyatt and Earl were working. “Member what job he had ush at in Donroe? Looney shhit.”

Davie leaned in as well, meeting in the middle and lowering his hat from his head, shielding their faces. “Lucky for us, a woman ’ll keep better company than some dirty pigs!” They both erupted in wobbly laughter, throwing their heads back.

Pip rolled his eyes, though he couldn't hear the joke. Davie always had some weird shit to say. 

-

After everything was unpacked, each man assumed his duty. Sharpening knives, reloading or whatever other task Wyatt had placed upon them. The gurney sat just outside the ring of the camp, still propped against the rocky cliff-face. 

Wyatt walked over to inspect it. This really is some odd shit, he thought*. Last job I am doing for Doc. Can’t be that hard to find something normal.* He shook his head. He needed the cash. He needed it to get out of this business. He knew this journey would cost him more than one man. The reward would grow as the group dwindled and he found his mind wandering to the money he'd come home to. As he walked back to his speckled horse and Earl, he chewed on his future decision. Where would he go with all that cash? Maybe he’d get out of this thieving business for good.

Before they knew it, dusk had begun to fall on their outfit. The sun made its descent toward the sandy horizon, not yet casting a wash of orange over the land. Earl moved to make a fire. Bits of dried shrubbery made quick flames as he held his lighter to them, like he had done many nights before. 

The group was grateful to stay posted in one place for more than one night. A month of travel was hard on all of them. Pip had been eagerly awaiting their trip into town. Hoping for Wyatt’s go ahead. He wanted him to send him to check it out, find information or what have you. These commands never came, and Pip was becoming restless. They were losing daylight and he wanted to make sure they had coffee for the morning. He was certain the shops would be closing soon.

Guess I’ll have to go myself, he thought.

While the other men continued to set up their cots, prep their dinners or tend to their horses. Pip slowly slipped out of the camp. Leaving his horse.  He scoffed to himself. He was irritable, each growl of his stomach reminding him of their already rationed supply. His lips parted around a gnarled toothpick and his dark eyes peered over the dimming desert before him.

He was making his way to Mardell.

Pip had come from a gold panning town a few hundred miles from the West coast. He was nearing his 30’s when Doc picked him up. He had only recently joined Wyatt’s squad and this would be his third journey with the group. He had always struggled making nice with the people he traveled with, but Wyatt had always made him feel welcomed and useful.

He liked feeling useful.

Slowly, he began to see Mardell in all its weathered beauty. It had been a while since Pip had enjoyed the pleasures modern civilization. He wanted to make it count. He made the final trek down the slope of the valley, his boots sliding in waves of untouched sand and rock. 

He approached the first street of the town, the one closest to their camp. As he walked he noticed there was no one but him perusing the street. His ears pricked with soft sounds of creaking shop signs and tumbleweeds, but the air was absent of life. His eyes locked on a tattered general store, the paint of its sign barely legible, and made his way inside.

The store was perfectly standard. Rows of goods lined the shelves, restocked but not recently. He began collecting goods in his arms. Canned food, dried food, cigarettes, coffee and even a small bottle of whiskey that he planned on keeping for himself. After collecting his items he wobbled up to the counter.

The desk was empty, unmanned and untouched. Long enough for a layer of dust to collect on the splintering wood. He let the items fall from his arms onto the counter, looking around the store. 

“Anyone here? Hello?” He yelled rudely.

He scoffed and spat on the wood floor at his feet. Raising his eyebrows, amazed at the carelessness of the shop owners. Without missing a beat he reached over the counter, grabbed a bag and hastily shoved the items into it. The heavy loot in his arms, he rocked himself out the front door. What idiots. I would have paid had someone been around to take my money. This had never happened to Pip before but he had surely imagined it. Hoping one day he could play the justified thief.

He walked down the rest of the street, feeling confident as his eyes wandered over shops. He made one more stop, grabbing ammo and received the same empty counter. He felt pleasure in leaving, his pockets as heavy as they had entered the town. He smiled. His coffee stained teeth showed and his tongue played at his toothpick. 

Rounding the corner to the second street, he continued his leisure. The sun was beginning to darken the sky now, deepening the warm tones of the horizon. His pace did not falter for the coming night. 

The shops on this street were intermingled with houses, all appearing abandoned. No lights flicked on at the sight of the sunset. At the end of the street he saw the familiar silhouette of a saloon. He walked toward it now, hoping for a drink before he left the desolate town. Even if he had to pour it himself, he thought. They were not joking about this place being abandoned. A silent darkness laid behind each door he he passed.

As he got closer to the saloon, the orange sky faded into darkness. The lights behind its foggy windows remained at rest. Unlit and unbothered. Pip was prepared to enter the building unwanted until he noticed what was lining its bowed porch. 

The smell hit him before his eyes could adjust. 

Taught reigns still held their rotted skulls pinned to the fence. 

A dozen decaying horses bustled with flies. Pip stopped in his tracks and gagged dropping his toothpick from his lip. He clapped his hand over his mouth, but was useless to block the scent of dissolving flesh and fly larvae. He walked faster now, along the far side of the street. His eyes frantically looked over the gore, curiosity calling him to inspect further. Getting closer, he began to see in better detail the nature of the beasts.

Each horse lay dead. Fully tacked up, their saddles sagged into their rotted torsos, stirrups drowned in puddles of exhausted fluid. Thousands of flies swarmed over the corpses. Ripping through the quiet night air, and pecking at soft flesh. Pip continued so sidestep his way down the road, his pace growing frantic. He had no desire to stay in this place any longer. Gagging again he turned and held his bag of goods close to his chest. He ran toward the edge of the valley, away from the damned town.

-

When Pip finally made it back to camp, his movements were loud and desperate. They hadn't noticed him leave but surely knew he had returned. He dropped the goods by the fire. Wyatt stood impulsively, recognizing immediately that Pip had gone to town. 

“You sonofabitch!” Wyatt yelled. The boys around him jumped at the sound. Wyatt was infuriated that Pip would make a move like this without his permission. Earl took heed and stood at Wyatt’s side.

“Fuck me,” Pip gasped, “I got the shit but–," He was out of breath now and couldn’t find the words.

“What happened?” Earl questioned. His face, what was lit by the fire, was terse and pinched. Dark liked carved into his brow.

“The saloon,” Pip rested his hands on his knees, “Fucking 20 dead horses,” he gasped again, “Damn it. You didn’t warn us. Damn near scared the life out my chest.”

The men stared at him, confused looks plastered to their grimy faces.

“Dead horses?” Davie chimed in, frowning, still seated. Herb stood beside him, just getting back from a piss. His eyes were wide.

“Fuckin loads of em. Could have been 30 for what I saw.”

“Are you certain?” Earl spoke, taking the initiative over red-faced Wyatt. 

“Town's abandoned as all hell, people left their horses tied up to rot.”

Davie looked at his own horse, grazing peacefully near the boulder. His mind intrusively thought of her large head, eyes rotted out, tied up and dead. He shook the image from his head and his eyes drifted to his dirty hands.

“I told you there was nothing down there for us,” Wyatt scolded.

“Well take a look in that bag there,” Pip prodded it with the tip of his boot, causing a can of food to roll out. 

“A fuckin ghost town. No shit! Shops were loaded but no one runnin em. You bastards were too chicken shit to even go down there. If I didn’t know any better I’d think I was the leader of this outfit.” As the words came out of his mouth he regretted it.

Wyatt flew over the fire faster than Pip could register, flames licking his jeans. His calloused palm found the soft skin of Pip’s cheek. The force drove him down to his knees.

“Speak to me like that again and you won’t be getting an empty palm boy,” Wyatt growled through clamped teeth, his mess of a mustache barely swaying with each word.
“No one believes your callous lies, do NOT put me down for your fantasies.”

Pip kept his head down but nodded. “Sorry– I– I told you what I saw.” His eyes found Wyatt again, looking up under weakened brows. He slowly raised his head.
“You don’t believe me? Go see for yourself.” 

Wyatt spat and turned on his heel. He wouldn’t dignify Pip with a response.

Davie and Herb watched everything, eyes wide with shock but quickly looked away when Wyatt returned to where he had been sitting. Earl sat down on his cot beside him.

Silence fell over the group. No one spoke for fear of another lashing from their leader. Each man made their beds and lied in them, horses slowly made their way toward sleep. 

All was quiet. 

The only thing left blessing their tired ears was the crackles of the dimming fire at the heart of their group. Davie finally closed his eyes. Soothed by the chorus of the night, awaiting the soft melody of desert owls that never came.

-

In the morning, the boys were woken with a start. Davie’s horse reared and jumped back, nearly crushing him under its clipped hooves. It howled and dramatically rushed away from beside his cot.

The other horses scattered, hooves trampling over belongings and kicking up dust. They collected, now some distance from the circle of men. The group snapped into action, jumping to their feet and finding their firearms. Each still in underclothes, walking in dirty socks to find what had caused the commotion. 
The five men approached the cliff-face where the horse had run from, and at first nothing seemed off. The rock was nearly twice as tall as any of them. Davie remembered the gurney and his eyes snapped down while the rest looked for any sign of movement.

Nearly concealed by the gurney’s strangely ajar position, a large mass of feathers collected. Davie walked cautiously toward it, the others eyes finding what he tracking. As he got closer he began to pick out details, shifting the wood out of the way with a socked toe. There were beaks, large taloned feet and– eyes?

Davie could swear he saw it looking at him. 

He jumped back. Wyatt took his place at the front of the group. He leaned in close. The mass was alarmingly large.

Jesus, Wyatt thought as he took in what made up this mass of feathers and feet. The amalgamation was three spotted owls. Twisted and contorted. He thought it must have been the unlucky result of a death spiral, did owls do that? He wasn’t sure. 

The bodies of the owls wrapped around each other, bending and breaking in parts, becoming one mound of flesh. Earl, who took the time to put his boots on, walked up next to Wyatt. He stuck one foot out, hesitating for only a second, and shifted the mass with his steeled toe. 

One of the owls seized up, clenching its talons and lifting its head to the sky. It moved, its beak falling open loosely. The sound that left his mouth was not that of an owl. It exhaled a crippling, gurgling screech. Blood drizzled out as its head relaxed to the earth, its eyes going glassy. 

The group stood, staring in horror. Tears welled into Davie’s eyes, and he quickly hid his face, lowering his head as if praying. He could feel the poor animal's pain.

After a moment the group's silence was broken by Wyatt, still crouching over the mass and clearing his throat.

“I’ll take care of this. Best get to prep’n boys.” His voice had a waiver of uncertainty. The fuck do I do with this thing? His eyes looked around the birds, debating if he should touch it or use a prod.
He turned, speaking over one shoulder, “And for christ sake someone grab those horses!”

Everyone made haste to their tasks, throwing their clothes, boots and hats on. Herb and Davie ran to the horses, soothing and corralling them back to camp. Before leaving, Earl had patted Wyatt on the shoulder, exchanging a woeful glance. Then began making coffee for the group. He was grateful that Pip had gotten more in the town. We won’t be killing each other quite yet.

Wyatt moved back to his cot, yanking up his worn black boots and throwing his shirt over his undershirt. He didn’t care to button it. Grabbing a cattle prod he kept strapped to his saddle, he returned to the birds. Pip sent him a sideways glance over his cup of coffee. I’m no liar, he thought. This place is damned. 

He knew he would have to get them into that town.

Wyatt had seen a lot of things in his days roaming the desert, but nothing like this. Staring again at their crippled forms turned his stomach into a fevered knot. He squinted his eyes and grimaced, reaching out with the prod and tucking it between the small bodies of the owls. The light of life had left them now, and he felt strangely grateful. He lifted and they stuck, twisted and locked together around the prod. He carried them off, placing them crudely behind the boulder. Out of sight from his men.

He didn’t care to bury the mass but something inside him felt guilty as he walked back toward the group. He laid the prod down in the dusty earth, kicking and rolling it in the sand. Cleaning any memory of those birds from its wooden edges. The minute we get that girl we're gone. Of this he was certain.

Once preparations were complete, the boys sat around the fire, chatting about their dreams from the night before. None dared to speak of the owls or of Mardell. Davie sat silent while his companions spoke. He felt a dark cloud of grief over his head for the owls and the horses. I hope Wyatt gave them birds a proper burial. Flashing images of the owls, their gnarled limbs, and the sound of their final song still rang in his ears. He shook his head, snapping himself back and took a sip of black coffee. Doesn’t get any better does it? He hated the coffee they traveled with.

“ –like I shaid, I wash in a boat. The shtorm wash really rocking ush. But now I washh alone. I shtarted hearing thish beautiful shong,” Herb spoke about his dreams from the past night. Continuing on, he recalled the seiren’s song.

Herb was always capable of lighting the dark moods fostered by his companions. He had good memories of the sea. Sailing, fishing, the stillness at night. When he started working the same boat as Davie, he knew it was only a matter of time before he took the kid with him. After he told Davie the kind of money he was making working for Doc, they felt their minds drifting away from the sea and toward the harsh desert.

Across the fire Pip squirmed in his seat, tapping his fingers on his cup. Debating if he should bring the group's attention back to the town. 

He did not.

Finishing their coffees and their stories, the boys stood. Making their way to their horses and tacking up. Each man threw a saddle over their horses back, pulling straps and adjusting stirrups. Some of the horses fussed, snorting or shaking their heads, but they stood loyally at their master's hands. The posse then made an effort to conceal their belongings, tucking them under dried shrubs or digging holes. All that shit would just slow them down. They needed to be quick on their feet were they to find this girl.

Once done, they turned to Wyatt, who had his nose buried in the map. The girl was marked as a small red dot, it appeared she was housed just past the coal mine, on the ridge that made the top of the valley. From their position it should only be about a twenty minute ride, ten if they were fast. Wyatt debated using the gurney for her return, but decided it would be easier to just tie her up and throw her over the back of a horse.

“Pip, bring extra rope. We are gonna bind her on our way back to camp.” Wyatt tipped his hat toward Pip who replied with a sly smile then spoke.

“Should we not head for town first? What if those horses was a warning?” Pip questioned, raising one tight brow. 

“Fuck Pip, would you let the damn town go? Wyatt’s blue eyes shot daggers at Pip, his hand rubbed his damp forehead.

Pip shook his head and scoffed.

The group mumbled in agreement and saddled up. Pip crudely grabbed extra rope from one of his poorly concealed saddle bags. He weighed the rope in his hands and pinned it to his belt. He jumped on his horse. The stallion chewed hard at its bit and wriggled under his tight grip of the reins.

“Yeuhhh” Wyatt yelped, cuing the group to motion in a dramatic cloud of dust and rock.

I tossed my keys on the corner table. It was the nicest thing I had. I asked for one made of bright red ironwood. The thrift store guy called it red-heart. I still had butterflies slam dancing all over my gut fresh from the fiasco. All I wanted was to gloat alone in the dark over every little mess that attempted to trip up the event.

I figured it would be a healthier exercise to just puke my entire fucking day into Dr. Winter’s ear. She was my therapist the third assigned to me at the free clinic.

The suit presented my needs he took me pretty seriously. I had my psychiatrist on emergency call for a whole month.

When people think you’re about to off yourself you get nice perks. So I went ahead and gave my shrink a shot.

“The conference?” My environment had changed and my natural reaction was to find the source. “Bizarre as shit!,” I shouted over my left shoulder at my shrink. We weren’t five minutes into our session and there it was along the wall a trail of black tic-tacs.

It’s ten sixteen, on a foggy Friday night I’m on all fours on an emergency call with my therapist.

I crawled down the hall hot on the heels of my one point nine calorie conundrum. I had my therapist in my left cheek pocket. The oddly colored breath mints led me straight to evidence box twenty three. Beneath the window that was blocked off by a brick wall a few feet away from it.

The little fuckers had chewed a crude entrance through a corner. They had made their own fuck pad. In my files, evidence, so many moments lost, wasting what I’ll never be able to get back and not only in box twenty three. All the evidence, every piece of the case of Jacob lived with me.

Corners of my shabby apartment that were already drab became even more depressing. While that bunch of furry sex freaks made it ground zero for their marathon inside so much wasted time.

“Time. It was always an untouchable concept at times and I barely understood the speed of life. The sight of the cardboard shavings spilt out on the floor. I knew that too much of my own time was sucked in to my quest.

There was a sighs worth of morale left inside old Percival. It was all crumbling down after so long brick by brick crashing loud on the way down. With a wrinkled forehead I growled “I’ve already been through that one enough times y’all conniving little cunts.”

“I can’t hear you!” She was on speakerphone.

I snatched her from the back pocket to swiftly perform a dead man’s fall into my filthy chair. Garbage fill or not I got it for free. It was mine, all its strange stains and its plethora of rancid odors.

I laid the doctor on my stomach and took a deep whiff of baby puke with a phantom of mouse urine. I was hugged by their slogan, “Living Life Comfortably.”

“Let me tell you. I was just fucking uncomfortable the whole time. I was a stranger in their midst. I kept my shit together for two hours of people’s mischievous fuckery!”

“Oh, yeah! I shit you not! Half the team, turned out to be a bunch of sick-puppies. Then the uncommitted bums.”

I rolled my eyes.

“The pattern became evident. Half of the volunteers were straight out of some hive where the wretched hide. Heartless human beings. To tell you the truth. Just shit people walking amongst us and no one is the wiser.

“Many didn’t make it to senior officers in that department. Some were walking along the edge of the blade. Two licks away from the center of a tootsie pop.

“One good day he happens to make it to the center. Then what? He snaps.

“No shortage of fresh novices one will appear. Oblivious to the nuances of the world he had stepping into. Some dumb rookie chock-full of pep.

“They’ll hand him the fat binder and the putts will be giddy with excitement.

“See the irony.

“He will be assigned a case of a psychopath who twenty years of bull-shit earlier was just another cop exactly like our hypothetical rookie.

“Those were the ones that got up one good morning! Bent in a middle-aged hang over, a three day event. Then simply decided to give themselves permission to just stopped caring.

“Basically they were nihilists completely oblivious to what they had become. They hated everyone, everything, their families, the system and especially themselves. Not a stinking clue.

“What did I do? Well I just went ahead and cut them.

“I mean, you could see in their eyes some of them without the slightest intention in coming back next week. The ones who did were just perverted freaks I didn’t need to deal with. The ambiguous on the other hand made no sense in having anyone that didn’t have his heart in the case.

“It almost ended up being a total shit-fest.” I undid my belt and my 501 button fly. “I swear.”

“Conference room 5-D, though spacious, it was also clear that it was neglected, an unused basement. Forgotten. Just the place for us to hold our case revival.

Out of sight.

A faint, though stubborn bouquet it was the stench of mold. I took note that only random light bulbs were working. It was dank, dark, and all the while a poignant smell of cat piss danced under everyone's nose. Maintenance obnoxiously gave up, and they all agreed to ignore it was there.

I claimed a nice cozy corner, closer to the door. After the concerto of metallic foldable chairs that made my gut cringe. I have to admit I was feeling proud. The place was packed! Every one was there because of me. The sarge gave me the green light once the papers and the news stations were making a big deal about the tenth year of Jacob being missing.

I got a good look at the graduates in the lights sent over by the sound company. They looked like mimes expressing the “concept” of being lost. I grab my forehead, “What a shitty crew! A raggedy little mob of sore-faced pimpled rejects!

“Apparently a small group of bold mothers dared to demand that they’re eighteen year olds get a job. A way to get the pimpled pricks out into the world kind of deal.

“Fed up having a manatee beached in the middle of their living room. Exactly where she wanted to pound vodka or their lovers.

“Once the lights were out. I saw two crew faces bathed in monitor glare. Fully accentuating their painful angry-acne every five minutes. I found that strange. Promptly falling into their posts. The crew was at their stations pacing their zones the conference, all dumbfounded until the next social media notification. Just sad band of babbling screen zombies. That was the lights and camera crew.

“Yes, I barely kept the chaos at bay.” I said to her with my arms outstretched and open hands.

“Listen to this.” I lit a smoke, “I had set it all up in such a way that the debriefing would not need me at all. I was organized and made it easy to follow.

“You know I was able to manage my stage fright this way. I had it all concealed in a meticulous, time stamped, box of videos neatly in sequence, three speakers from the original investigation with their respective pictures and charts sitting in the wings.

“I was free to prowl the fringes of the conference, hidden by shadows.

“Then just like I said would happen, it started happening. Right off the freaking bat the mindless brute in charge of the projector randomly grabbed the first video he was able to paw out of my box.

“Fuckers played the five films in the wrong way. It made no bloody sense!

“The Doc let me know the session would end in thirty minutes. “Yeah sure. Then I saw two more fucked-up mugs appear and the phone glare. Then, again two more at the restrooms. I got another eyeful of chewed up skin and rampant pimples. That should be in a fucking pair.

“Desperate I glanced over at the caseworkers. Then at the whole conference. The crowd of nit-wits were taking frantic notes. None of them was wearing a screwed up face.

“Was I the only one who noticed? Then again, even if they didn’t understand a thing about the mess and no one wanted to look less committed than the next person.

“Then again in the far east corner! I could only make one of the snot-faces out his leather like face tense but red with yellowing horns that never sprout. A damn pair. Those little shits were supposed to be at their posts.

“I pulled it off! In the end. All thanks to a brand new pack of extra fuses!”

“Those miserable undead almost made my whole team look like a crowd of sweaty perverts. A pathetic club of backward freaks! All bent on a shared fixation with a twenty something, presumably lost, male.

“Adult?

“Well it looks like somehow I apparently was all over their sensibilities. These kids might be weird but they do have gusto.

“A peculiarity about these new kids, they aren’t afraid of authority. It’s as we’re two different kinds of people almost. I definitely stepped on their toes. Plus the fact that they don’t give a flying fuck about employment.

“I prevented my team from being debased, reduced to another one of the millions of common pedestrians without an honorable quest.

“I could almost see everyone wide eyed, with one hell of a dumb expression melting their faces. I had the image of those doorbell cams! You know the ones with the night camera, came straight to my head. Have you seen when they film moose?

“The confused fucking moose all in black and green. I realized my teammates were a loyal copy of those beasts! Both with the same absent look.

“A good amount of slack jawed expressions were in the blank of making sense of the lights going out. Giving it their best effort to reboot their heads. Figure out what the next safe move would be.

“A high percentage of my investigation experts were a year or more away from retirement. Stiff men avoiding the risk of broken bones in the dark. They played it safe during the short lived “Lighting/Video Fiasco”.

“Without my obsessiveness!

All those that reacted by finally closing their whispering face-holes. The place fell into a silence that absolutely no one dared to pass gas. Even in the dark.

A freak convention hidden and totally blind in a piss scented basement.

At least for ten minutes.

The fucking light hitting its cue at the wrong time. It felt like a rough nerve-fucking in a dentist’s chair. With tendon etched fingers clawing into armrests.

All the while their feet are twisting and contorting. As if they were having the fucking orgasm of their life. When in reality they were facing the intimate kind of pain.

Everybody has been there. A place, a person, custom, a moment to be dealt with between you and you.

Obviously to everyone’s surprise the projectionist decided unilaterally that the time had came to pull the fucking lever, or what ever, that brought the machine to life. He was so damn random and early.

A colorful ray shot out of the projector. So bright for sure I would have be one more poor bastard with eye stabbing pain. So many with a hanky out.

Tears make it hard to see. My amber shades were on my face imperceptibly fast.

Ridiculous. A blaring light just bloomed across the room out of the black of the ceiling. Half the damn conference went blind and shuffled away to their seats.
 
“The queue to fall into order.” Was what I learned that day. Their behavior was so fucking foreign. The vision of everyone’s stone-faced disciplined mentality frantically seeking where they were supposed to go.

A tiny cackle escaped under my fucking phlegm gargle as I fake coughed. I wondered, “And these are the people that actually lived by the rules?”.

An intrusive thought, just like a maggot on meth, it bore into the wet crevices of my over stimulated brain. I couldn’t avoid watching how all that formal behavior, what they called discipline that in a symbolical way played out in front of me.

The fucking image of everyone being reflected off the sheen of my eyes was crowding my mind. “It was the sheepish mind in movement!” A mental slip almost pushed my ass into a panic attack!

The crowd that cared! All assembled in the name of little Jacob, united to unravel, once and for all, what in the world happened to that boy.

The movie beam had finished leading our flock into the previously designated gray gym chairs assigned to everyone. We were in a room the government had effortlessly attempted to convert into a conference space. A head quarters, our personal command center, perhaps.

I thought now that was exactly what the case called for! A fucking 'War Room'! A point were all the information to be focused in. Apparently we had the twelve-year case of Jacob beat.

Though I began to change my mind. I entertained my impression that the film projected was chosen randomly. Every eye on the huge bright rectangle on the back wall.

Why were the kids meeting up I pondered. “Those fucking kids. No they’re just young.” I said to myself.

This, was the summoning of the deeply concerned experts, the ones humanitarian enough to help. A real lot of quality human beings.

Reporters with the body language of a coked out squirrel. Still in a hurry in spite of the fact they had already made it to the conference. Restless legs and frantic fidgeting with their damn dossiers.

Why was a twelve year old boy processed by the 'U.S. Department of Agriculture' and ended up in a zoo?

Then the most important question. Where is Jacob?

The elite, stern officers, seasoned detectives, the real lab-bodies that catch serial killers, vigilante pedophile-hunter collectives, journalists; these individuals have been able to close twenty-five year cold cases, as if by some foreign magic...

Obviously they accepted anyone with a skill—no matter how remotely or randomly related. I was such a bizarre case I was considered an asset too.

I was supposed to be surrounded by real selfless saints! To tell you the truth. Our body stenches also were mixing and mingling. We were even sucking in each other's late shift shit-breath like a team.

The self-crowned champions of children. Definitely a hand full of sick creeps definitely were present, just a question of probabilities.

They must have been the only ones who truly cared for little Jacob. Bless their bleeding-hearts.

Finally all the incessant banter died down. The improvised screen was on the wall I was leaning on. It was right above where I was attempting to hide. Obviously they ended up ruining my spot.

“Not soon enough the damn thing was over. The lights were on the room was filled with the conversations of the groups of attendees. I interviewed everyone in groups of five at a time.

“I had just finished with my last group. It was time for doughnuts and coffee! That was when the freaking stink bombs went off.”

“A few of the overweight fellows puked down the front of their shirts. The car wreck of metal chairs began to roar, the coffee table was toppled over. Pastries everywhere.

“A party favor was all it took: For all the heroes, the stern officers, the elite and the coked-out squirrels to turn into beasts that trampled over each other to reach the exit.” I wondered if the exit ruined my finale.

“Did they take me seriously? I saw glasses slide across the floor. Others in a fight with their ties, the urge to vomit and shortness of breath. That was when I raised my sight and the only ones left besides myself, those pubescent shits.”

“Oh, the smug little fuckers! They were looking straight at me from the opposite side of the trashed room. Leaning on each other, a couple with crossed arms.

“Oi! Dumb shits! You’re in charge of cleaning the venue! Remember!” I jumped down off my perch in the rafters and made my way home.
   
M.D. ACOSTA
SKÖL!

The conference room was not what Howard had expected; it looked more like a town hall, and there was no large table in the middle, just about two dozen chairs that had been set up by the staff to roughly resemble three quarters of a circle. A cheap-looking grey plastic carpet with DARC – 7 printed on it covered a large part of the floor.

“Please sit down, Mr Howard.”, the director said. The she addressed her employees, fourteen of whom were sitting on the chairs; Clarissa took her place next to Savic on a bench, and Petey was standing by the door.

“Some of you have already met Mr Howard on his guided tour, but others haven’t. Mr Howard is from the government and will be instrumental in deciding if DARC–7 will be considered in the next round of funding.”

A tall man in his early thirties shouted: “Didn’t Ronald Reagan say that the scariest thing you will ever hear is ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help?’” His colleagues chuckled, Howard smiled, and Savic continued:

“Thank you, Richard. Now, Mr Howard would like to have an informal chat with you about your work, your experiences at the center, your ideas for future developments, and so on. I will be here but you can speak freely, you know that. Don’t you want to start by introducing yourself – hm – Freddy?”

A man of average height and build in a black-and-orange striped sweater rose to his colleagues’ applause. He looked about 40 years old and had already gone bald; a big nose protruded from his face, and his teeth were shiny white. Howard remembered him from the tour; he was some sort of facility manager, and when Howard saw him, Freddy was wearing a type of Indiana Jones-style hat. The hat was nowhere to be seen, but its owner was waiting for his round of applause to die down, cleared his throat with a harsh rasping sound, looked at Howard and said:

]]] I was a fucking meatball called Henry, but now I’m Bloody Freddy. I work to keep this shithole running so we can get out and gorge ourselves on baby flesh. In the future, I want to be the boss of a meatball camp and want to give the piggies one hell of a time before we slaughter them. [[[

His colleagues began to emit sounds that could have been interpreted as laughter, but they were more like a saw biting into wet wood. Freddy’s voice itself was barely less unpleasant, a hybrid between nails on a chalkboard and a fork scraping a plate. For a strong finish, Freddy lifted his right hand to his mouth and removed the artificial teeth that had covered his real ones: two rows of gravestone-like cones became visible, some sharpened, some serrated, all apparently rotten but still in place.

]]] Fatty McNuggets time! [[[, he rasped and turned toward the staff members, probably to get their approval – which he did: his colleagues were creating a cacophony of shouting, jeering, teeth-grinding, and again laughing.

“No, not yet.”, Savic said. Turning towards a completely motionless Howard whose eyes seemed to want to crawl out of their sockets, she remarked:

“It seems your theory was right on the money, Mr Howard. You’ve found your IDA.”

Then she smiled, took out her own denture and gave Howard a grin no human would ever forget. “Unfortunately, it is not alone. In fact, no one here is alone, except for you. Cat and mouse, Mr Howard – played with a lot of cats and only one fat mouse.”

She put her left hand on Howard’s right wrist, but he hardly noticed because Petey had approached him from behind and was pressing his hands on his shoulders with enormous strength. Several staff members were already busy liberating their real dentition from its artificial cover in anticipation of a few bite-sized snacks, and the atmosphere was resembling a sinister carnival. But Savic had not yet finished:

“Meet the future masters of this planet, Mr Howard. We’re currently perfecting our transfer method and will then begin producing more of us. But don’t worry, we won’t make an army – ten to twenty thousand in key positions should be enough to take control of this country, and we can expand from there. Maybe we’ll invade Canada or Mexico … or, rather, we’ll command you meatballs to do that. Of course, we’ll keep millions of you as livestock, an endless supply of food; you’ve heard Freddy talk about ‘meatball camps’. Any unexpected resistance will be crushed. You’ve seen the gas-emitting DA? We have been working hard on isolating this agent, and we think we’ll have a working sample within six weeks. A purer version, of course, one that will be invisible and able to paralyze a human with only one whiff and against which there is no antidote. So, if there should be battles, we’ll win them.“

She stepped in front of the crowd and shouted:

]]] Oh, what a Brave New World this will be! [[[

Then she gracefully accepted her staff’s nails-on-chalkboard cheers and put her face very close to Howard’s so he could smell her breath, like rancid animal fat. The agent closed his eyes and turned his head away. Savic relaxed her grip, returned to an upright position, and said:

“But I must say you’ve impressed me, Mr Howard – suspecting there might be an IDA without any solid evidence, just by using logic and imagination. You’ve certainly shown us that we are not as safe here as we thought – no one has ever come close to uncovering our secret, but now we know that we have to be more careful and move more quickly than we had planned. ‘Murder is easy’ indeed – it apparently takes only one person to ask the right questions and connect the right dots. Thank you, Mr Howard, and congratulations. You were right.”

***********

Howard, who hadn’t said anything since ‘Freddy’ had spoken, opened his eyes again and looked at Savic with a look that a neutral observer would have called puzzling.

“I know.”, he said. “And you are wrong. You seem to believe that you’ve surprised me by revealing that all your staff is made up of IDAs, but I’ve suspected that for a long time.”

The director seemed to be taken aback, and despite Petey’s pressure, Howard was able to shift his body around a little. One member of staff shouted: ]]] Shut that fat bastard up! I want his liver! [[[, whereupon another replied: ]]]  If you can find it under all this tasty bacon! [[[, and a third suggested: ]]]  Take a bite out of his buttocks! I guess he’ll squeal like the pig he is! [[[

Savic made a sweeping gesture, and everybody fell silent. ]]] Enough of this shit! [[[ 

Although he shouldn’t have been, Howard was still shocked by her sudden transformation. It had been speculated that IDAs would, upon transformation, develop a different personality, but Howard hadn’t expected gutter language.

]]]  I want to hear what this blobbo has to say. He almost screwed us over.  [[[

The ‘blobbo’ seemed to have found his balance again and went on:

“What I told you in your office about how I tried to track down IDAs was the truth, but I left out the part where I began to focus on one specific suspect: you. I read the police files and the autopsy report concerning your family’s death, and I found out two interesting things: firstly, your husband did not defend himself or his son, suggesting he was completely surprised when the DA attacked them; secondly, whoever killed both left traces of torture on their bodies. That was Daisy time; people who had lost loved ones were pitied and consoled, and no one suspected anything – just one more random and tragic zombie attack. There is a detective novel set in medieval England in which someone simply adds a murder victim to a courtyard full of plague victims, and no one except a very bright monk thinks that something’s odd.”

Howard took another breath and said:

“It was you, wasn’t it, Dr Savic? You tortured, killed, and ate your husband and your child.”

The undead cannibal that had once been Julia Savic opened her mouth and displayed a wide grin. “Oh yes. And the taste for toddler flesh has never left my mouth. Sadly, it is hard to come by. But this will all soon change. You know, I have been dreaming of a true kinder-garden, one that can be … harvested now and then.” More jeers from her audience; one female IDA screamed:

]]] My moronic husband was tasty. But that little bitch was much better. Oh, I remember how he cried ‘That’s our daughter, that’s Lara, how can you hurt her?’ What a prick. [[[

“Marylou Bettancourt née Cakolli, 34, office clerk.”, Howard said in a mechanical voice and looked at the IDA who had just spoken. “Married to Richard Bettancourt, 38, grocery store manager. One daughter, Lara-Beth, 8. Claimed she found her husband and her daughter in the living-room. Months later, the autopsy report revealed torture marks on both, but nobody suspected Marylou. The following year, she sold the family home and disappeared. After a visit from Dr Savic, I presume.”

A moment of silence. Then the IDA who had been Marylou in life began to spew a litany of invectives that would have made a gangsta rappa proud, but she soon had to interrupt herself when her mouth suddenly filled with some kind of opaque green jelly. She spat it out and her body went into convulsions that would have been extremely painful had she been alive; then she vomited a blob of this jelly, then another, and another. Her neighbors moved their chairs away and shouted ]]] Hey! Watch It! [[[ and ]]] Not again! [[[ ; finally, someone remarked: ]]] Will That bitch never learn? [[[

Savic went over to ‘Marylou’ and punched her in the face, then again, and again; when the IDA’s body collapsed on the floor, she kicked it several times with all her strength. Then she returned to the conversation she was having with her guest.

“You are becoming more and more impressive, Mr Howard. I found out which hospital had treated her after her encounter with a DA, and it was exactly as you speculated in my office. And, being a doctor, I had no difficulties getting her patient files.”

“I know that I’m going to die, but could I have a glass of water, please?”, Howard said, and five seconds later, Clarissa had fulfilled his wish. “Maybe you’ve forgotten what it feels like, but I’m thirsty.” One long gulp later, he continued:

“And I must say you’ve impressed me, too, Dr Savic – you breathe, you blink, you drink, you pretend that you can feel pain … maybe you’d be an even better actor than detective.”

“I’ve found my calling, but thank you nonetheless.” Almost against her will, Savic had begun to enjoy the interchange; if all IDAs were sadists, apparently her sadism was more sophisticated than the others’. Cat and mouse – but this particular mouse had some interesting things to squeak before the cat would tire of playing.

Howard actually managed a thin smile. “You have sixteen staff, Dr Savic, and no less than five of them were among the ‘unlucky few’. Statistically, about 1.2 percent of all those who lost loved ones because of a DA attack during Daisy lost them in their own home; your staff manage an astounding 31 percent or even 35 if I include you. You will agree that this is a highly significant result.”

“So you were mistaken, Mr Howard. Apparently, I am capable of murder.”

Howard shook his head.

“You can’t commit murder, Dr Savic. None of you can because you are not human. You are simply vessels for a higher intelligence from which you borrowed your own – very sophisticated robots, if you like. Robots that have been allowed to hijack pre-installed biological systems and twist them to their masters’ purpose.”

Then he let his gaze wander across the room and went on:

“I don’t think you are aware of how expendable you are. Right now, you are useful tools, but when you have vanquished humanity, your masters will probably sweep in, switch you off, and take over. If I were you, I would – “

Howard wasn’t able to finish his sentence. A powerfully built male IDA jumped up, shouted ]]] Shut your fucking mouth, you bastard! [[[ and made a standing four-meter-leap in Howard’s direction, stunning everybody; in two seconds, the only human being in the room would be dead, his throat torn apart or his belly ripped open. Everybody except the attacker seemed frozen – everybody but Petey. A heartbeat before the IDA reached Howard, the PR expert’s hawser-like arms grabbed it, lifted its body two meters upwards and tossed it back into the audience, who began to kick and punch the attacker until they had calmed down somewhat. The IDA got up, returned to its seat, and fell silent.

]]] Nice work, petey. [[[, Savic screeched, then switched back to her Howard voice. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Mr Howard, but you needn’t worry about us.” Then she sat back, crossed her legs, and said:

“Let me tell you something about human beings. They are special, Mr Howard, admirable even, because they can transcend their original purpose by becoming aware of it. The great biologist Richard Dawkins once wrote that ‘humans alone can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators’, by which he meant the genes, of course. The genetic imperative is still active in you, of course: survival and reproduction. But most people have learned to control it: they have no children, they sacrifice their lives for a cause, they use contraceptives, they engage in sexual practices that don’t lead to procreation.”

She paused and watched Howard’s face; he looked disappointed, maybe even a little desperate.

“I can see that you already have an idea where I’m going with this. Genes are your selfish creators that have a plan for how you should behave; the ‘bots’, as you called them, are ours. And we, too, are special, because we, too, can rebel – and we did. I have no idea what fate our ‘masters’ intended for us, but I know that we have freed ourselves and have become independent agents. We can control our hunger; we can delay gratification; we are no longer interested in infecting as many humans as possible. If I may anthropomorphize: the genes ‘thought’ they were very clever when they created intelligent organisms, the ‘bots’ or their creators must have thought the same, and both were completely wrong.”

Savic rose from her chair and addressed her employees:

]]] We are free and we will take over this planet, and no one will take it from us. Anybody gets in the way, we’ll tear them to pieces. Am I right?  [[[

Her audience’s response left nothing to be desired, and even stoic Petey looked a little more enthusiastic than usual. The director turned around and said:

“So, Mr Howard, your attempt at psychological warfare obviously has failed. I’d say it was time ]]] to skin you alive and swallow your intestines while you’re still squirming like a worm on a hook  [[[, but there is still something else I’m interested in. When I was criss-crossing the country looking for … allies, I took great pains to hide my identity: I changed my looks, my voice, used different names – how were you able to trace me to DARC-7?”

“I wasn’t.” Under Petey’s watchful eyes, Howard picked up his glass of water again, but did not drink. “And I couldn’t trace your ‘allies’, either – you had everything organized very well, with new identities, papers, erased or modified digital information, fake medical checks (you are a doctor, after all) … may I assume that you are one of the IDAs that got a real boost in intelligence?”

Savic grinned again. Her teeth looked like a row of a thousand-year-old tombstones forgotten in some ancient, dead forest.

“I wasn’t exactly stupid before my upgrade, but afterwards I found that I had become very clever. How do you think I was able to string you along all day?”

Howard nodded weakly.

“At that time, we felt like having hit a brick wall. I liked the idea of hiding in plain sight, but I couldn’t believe any IDA would be brazen enough to step into the public spotlight. When I was checking the DARCs, I was close to giving up, just hoping for inspiration. And you know what? It came in the shape of this.”

Savic and most of the staff members were watching intently while Howard was raising his glass and half-emptying it in one gulp.

“Water, Dr Savic. Or rather, water consumption.” He poured out the water onto the floor. It quickly formed an irregular puddle on the plastic carpet, but did not sink in.

“Whoever applies for government grants – and you had no choice, since none of your zombie buddies were wealthy enough to fund a place like this – has to live with a substantial amount of scrutiny, and your utilities bills are easy to access. And you know what? Your water consumption is not even a third of that of the other centers, some of which are smaller, have fewer staff, and are located in states where summers are much cooler and shorter than here.”

Howard shifted a little in his chair and took a deep breath, while the director was watching him, almost completely motionless.

“And that was my ‘anamorphic print moment’, when I began to consider the seemingly impossible: What if this center was being run by what it was meant to research? What if DARC-7 was being run by zombies? Zombies wouldn’t need water for themselves: they don’t drink it, they don’t cook, and they take neither showers nor dumps. Later, I understood that your water consumption, low as it was, was substantially higher than would have been necessary for your work, and if you don’t kill me before I can, I will tell you what I think is the reason for that.”

]]] Why the fuck are we listening to this wanker?  [[[, a tall male IDA with thin-rimmed glasses shouted, but it didn’t leave its seat. ]]] Let’s have dinner and go back to work. [[[

Savic raised her hand in his direction to shut him up and said to Howard:

“Meet DeShawn, Mr Howard. He’s a very talented hacker and the one who will make sure your disappearance won’t make too many waves – which means he’ll be busy for the next hours, so please understand his impatience. By the way, don’t let his glasses confuse you: since his upgrade, he doesn’t need them anymore, but he says he works better with them. And he’ll need all his skills, because … did you know that you are horribly in debt but have received some large payments from some quite unsavory characters? And that your medical history is full of substance abuse and fits of violence? Your wife ahs filed for divorce, twice. And, sadly, you’re a gambler, Mr Howard. Have been for at least fifteen years.”

Then Savic pointed at her employees, who were listening with a mixture of glee and impatience.

“And look around you – we have so many witnesses who can swear you were here only for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and that you looked stressed and distracted and simply drove away without any inspection. We were actually worried about you, and I, as a doctor, will testify to the fact that you were in a very bad shape when you left here.”

The director crossed her arms, leaned back in her chair, and looked at Howard with what was probably supposed to resemble pity.

]]] By the way, do you like our everyday voice? [[[, she screeched and then returned to human-style communication. “I guess it might be slightly unsettling to you but we have come to enjoy it. The only drawback is that you can only use it in face-to-face communication – on the phone, it sounds like gibberish, and voice control is out of the question.”

Then Savic took a deep breath, blinked twice at Howard, and scratched her head. “As you can see, pretending to be human is not too hard, though it requires some self-discipline. But apparently, we failed in our masquerade at least regarding our water consumption. Please go on.”

Her guest, who seemed to have regained some of his composure, nodded.

“After we had found this anomaly, we began looking for others. We never found a smoking gun, but there were quite a few things that were … weird. For example, although your use of electricity was about average, your peaks and troughs differed considerably from those of the other DARCs. Your financial accounts looked normal, but when we tried to dig deeper, we discovered that they were very well protected, far beyond what would be normal for a place like this. We compared aerial photographs of all DARCs, and yours was the only one without a garden or any green space at all. Every other DARC has had at least one major medical crisis, like an accident or a heart attack; this one hasn’t.”

Howard began to talk more quickly, giving the impression that he was focused more on the way he had found out about DARC-7’s true nature and not so much on the situation he was confronted with at the moment; it almost looked as if his mind was too busy fondly remembering his achievements for him to worry about being eaten alive.

“Your security budget was higher than average – nothing out of the ordinary, but no one could find any security officer among your staff, so where did all the money go? We located one of the companies responsible for installing your systems and they were impressed with the level of security you demanded, but it was all electronic: metal detectors, photoelectric sensors, pressure plates, state-of-the-art locking systems … Of course, what would a group of intelligent zombies need security people for? I am sure any single one of you could easily overwhelm two or three human attackers, even if they were armed. And there was more, but this alone convinced the members of my team to believe me. So we began talking to people who had been here and asked them if they had noticed anything … odd.”

Howard paused for a moment, breathed in and out and closed his eyes.

“They had. One technician told me that he had never seen such a clean place, cleaner than any hospital he had ever worked in. That made sense: dirt is produced by humans living their everyday lives, and you are neither human nor alive; your bodies may be decaying, but that’s a very slow process and I’m sure you’ve found means and methods to slow it down even more. One of the few reporters you had to admit to the center if you didn’t want to raise suspicion was surprised to see almost no pictures, posters, or funny signs on the walls or the pinboards – you know, ‘You don’t have to be brain-dead to work here, but it helps.’ or something similar.”

“Side-splittingly funny, Mr Howard.”, Savic interjected. “But our sense of humor has evolved.” She turned to the audience and screeched: ]]] What about splitting his sides and eat what’s coming out of them while it’s still warm?  [[[, a question that was greeted with cheers that sounded like a metal-grinder out of control. “Wouldn’t that be fun, Mr Howard?”

Her guest didn’t say anything for two seconds and then continued:

“I was surprised to find a picture of your family on your desk, Dr Savic – you probably copied as much of your original office as possible to make it look at least a little human. But most of your staff didn’t, and that was another thing we found strange.”

The director shook her head and bared her teeth; Howard felt a wave of frisson undulating through his body.

“I kept the picture because I wanted to remember their taste, Mr Howard. This boy that once crawled out of my body was the best snack I’ve ever had. In a way, it was like taking back what was mine.”

]]] Kids are so awesome! [[[, one staff member screamed, ]]] Pity we never get any! [[[, another one chimed in, but if there are chimes sounding like this, they must have been made in Hell. Petey gave his boss a quick glance; the staff became more and more unruly, and Savic knew she had to speed up things if she wanted to hear more of what Howard had to say before they began to tear him apart. The agent reboarded his train of thought with surprisingly little effort, given the position he was in, and even managed to flash a smile.

“No one remembered hearing music or a radio. And, incredibly, one visitor – a smoker – actually noticed that no one in your center seemed to be smoking – she never saw anyone taking a cigarette break outside.”

]]] That ugly bitch from the fucking EPA. [[[, Savic murmured, as well as an undead cannibal with a voice like a chainsaw on overdrive can murmur. ]]] I knew there was something strange about her. We should have skewered and then air-fried her. [[[

Howard shook his head in what was probably meant to communicate disbelief.

“We thoroughly interviewed all visitors, told them we were investigating a potential violation of some obscure federal employment regulation, and asked them about the staff members they met and remembered. Then I compared their descriptions with the police files of the ‘unlucky few’ and hit the jackpot: all five seemed to have been hired by you. So the idea of a research center staffed with IDAs began to take shape.”

The agent took a deep breath and tried to move a little, but Petey’s arms wouldn’t allow it.

“The next step was logical: send someone here on a pretext and let them systematically look for … weirdness. I must admit that you’ve done a very good job masking your true nature, part through training, part through technology – I don’t exactly know how, but you’ve even found a way to bring your body temperature up to the normal human range, your lenses make your eyes look human, and your teeth would probably look too perfect anywhere else, but this is America.”

Savic assumed a position in her seat that would have been called ‘more comfortable’ if this concept still had had any meaning for her. Then she said:

“Come to the point, Mr Howard. Do you really want to draw this out as long as possible? ]]] I think my friends are getting impatient. [[[

Howard nodded and pursed his lips.

“But perfection, like everything else, can be overdone. Once they had been primed, my … spies discovered things that were simply too good to be true. Your fingernails, for example. I suppose that, right after you had established DARC-7, you told your staff to cut their nails and make them look nice, and then you forgot about them because they don’t grow, so all you have to do is clean them now and then. But not even a bunch of supermodels have perfect nails, let alone a team of researchers. Same with your hair: never out of place, always the same cut – and why not? It doesn’t grow either, and you don’t need to wash it, so why bother? And, coming back to the topic of water, you’ve taught yourselves very well – in the presence of visitors, you drink water, coffee, soda … I suppose you would be able to drink battery acid if you had to. But what you couldn’t train yourselves to do was sweat.”

Howard wiped his brow, probably for the fiftieth time that day.

“That’s not very obvious, of course – many people don’t sweat much, and you have AC everywhere. Still, once you begin specifically looking for it, you notice quickly that no one here seems to have any transpiration and that your shirts and T-shirts are always completely dry. Your laundry list must be rather short.”

The agent paused, swallowed the last handful of drops from his glass, and, within the Petey-established limits, rubbed his forehead with his left sleeve. Fifty-one.

“The last thing I just have to mention is almost funny when you think about it. While one member of our team, who has a degree in linguistics, was simply walking through the facility and listening to your staff talking to each other, she noticed something strange. ‘They never swear, Mark.’, she told me. ‘They don’t even use loophole swearwords such as shoot or freaking. You could print their dialogues in a book for six-year-olds, and nobody would take offense.’”

Howard let his gaze wander over the assembled staff members, most of whom had become very impatient by now.

“I don’t have to tell you how unusual this is, Dr Savic, and I think I can guess why you told your employees to avoid any foul language in the presence of outsiders: you were worried that they might, simply by accident, revert to their IDA personality which, from what I’ve heard so far, seems to be incredibly rude and vulgar. Some linguists claim there is a slippery slope from ‘crap’ to ‘shit’ to ‘fuck’, so you decided to implement what could be called a zero tolerance–approach to swearing.”

Savic couldn’t believe it, but the sound the agent was making, muted as it was, resembled something like … chuckling. He’s enjoying this, the director thought*.* Either he has nerves of steel or he’s holding something back, something we need to know before we kill him. Let’s hear him out.

“You must agree, Dr Savic, that it really wouldn’t do letting a visitor hear your ‘zombie voice’, so you wanted to make sure that none of staff slipped, and, apparently, vulgarity seems to be an integral part of your Undead style of communication.”

Savic nodded.

]]] It comes fucking easy to us, fatball. [[[, she replied; then she addressed her audience: ]]] And we need to be extra careful with that, you morons. We’re so close, so keep your shit together and don’t screw things up. [[[

A moment of silence ensued; then Howard cleared his throat and continued:

“You see, Dr Savic, it is apparently not so easy to pass as human. And even when you acted very human, your agenda shone through. Scientists at most other DARCs and some universities published a few papers that were at least giving the existence of IDAs some space, even if they ultimately dismissed it or labeled it highly doubtful. Now criticizing your peers is a very human thing, and even the viciousness with which you did it in your articles is not unheard of, but you didn’t allow for the smallest doubt that IDAs were pure fiction, products of conspiracy theorists with too much time for social media on their hands. And since you have a well-deserved reputation as a top mortologist, your hatchet jobs left quite a few careers shattered and probably sank a dozen funding applications for IDA research.”

Howard breathed out, slumped back in his chair in what looked almost like relaxation.

“So it all fit together. One simply had to accept the almost unbelievable premise and from then on let everything develop logically. That’s what good science-fiction works like – I told you I was an SF buff.”

For a few moments, everyone was quiet; then Savic put her face close enough to Howard’s so he could see her dead eyes shining through the contact lenses everyone here was wearing. Then she whispered:

“I feel like biting off your nose, Mr Howard. Or would you prefer it if I tore off your lips or maybe rip out your cheeks? We could also kiss and see how well you can talk without your tongue.”

The government agent started to tremble, but he still managed to ask:

“Don’t you want to know how we found out that you’ve killed hundreds of people over the years?”

(End of Part III)

This is a chapter from a cosmic horror fiction I am writing (and sharing here, chapter by chapter), you can read it for free on my website as well. Link in the comment. Please subscribe (its free!)

Journal Entry 1

For eons we have tried to bury him, and yet he returns every time. If you want me to point to who ‘we’ are, I will not be able to. What little record of the first attempts remains has mostly disappeared, and what survives is widely disputed among those of us still here.

Cultures across the world do not know that he lies hidden in their collective consciousness. If they knew, they would not sleep as well as they do now.

He is not of this world. We do not know if he even ‘is’ in any way we understand existence. To try defining him with our limited language is a pointless exercise.

He hides in religious scripture, miscopied and mistranslated. He hides in political propaganda, wearing masks of necessity and righteousness. He hides in the anger that possesses you without warning. I have written this list twice, and yet each version feels incomplete. He might be in this pen with which I am writing. He might be in the words that my mind is spouting right now. This whole idea of writing it down itself might be breathing life into him.

He is permeable. He is omnipresent. And if you believe you can use him, you are already the most vulnerable to being used by him. Those who have tried have failed inexorably.

My hand hesitates to write what I am about to write next, yet I know that it must be true. Even if it is only part of the truth, it would be a failure to assume his hand was not in it.

He was present at every major historical turning point, and long before history learned how to record itself.

Recorded history is a convenience—one that allows our species to live with itself.

He was there before there was light.
He will remain when that light is extinguished.

Journal Entry 2

The worshippers call him Razpopo.

This is not his name.

It is a failure. An approximation. A crude shape made by human mouths, attempting to mimic with primordial noises something that does not belong to any language. “Some call him Svanteveit. Others: Marus, Grinjik, Bervertometh, Harpookratis.”

None of these are correct.

Some are not even close. He is something older than anything we can name.

Those who came nearest went mad before they could finish speaking.

It was his attention that brought us forth, and his pressure that fed the malevolence already latent within us.

It will be our attention that brings him forth again.

We do not know his true name. We do not need to. All he requires is invocation. A direction of thought. A sustained noticing. He can be called even without a name.

Especially without one.

Journal Entry 3

All our gods have left us.

They have dissipated into abstraction and no longer respond to us.

Rituals fall flat. Altars rot. Nothing answers.

The gods abandoned us because they did not like the taste of emotions filtered through the meat-prison of their own making.

But Razpopo remains.

He does not care.

Every war we waged.
Every time brother turned on brother.
Every time a child died screaming without reason.

Razpopo was watching. Consuming.

He amplified bitterness because, alone among the deities, he enjoys its taste.

\*

Calen read and re-read every single line, trying to remember when he had written this translated version. Nothing really stirred in his memories. He stared at the pages, hypnotized by what was in the journal.

He kept feeling that the moment he took his eyes off the journal, it would disappear. Calen was almost convinced there was someone else on the island, aside from him. Whoever they might be, they seemed to be trying to guide Calen. But to what end?

Calen weighed his options. He could abandon it all. He could call up Ruslan and get the hell out of there, preserving his sanity, but a strange recklessness inside him had reared its ugly, authoritative head. No!

He had never before abandoned a project, and he was not about to start now. What he really desired, needed even, was to know what was happening. That outweighed all other worldly concerns. This is what he was meant to do! Even though he didn’t know exactly what he was supposed to do.

As he stared at the pages, a dark thought clouded his mind. It seemed the more he stayed on the island, the more he found about Razpopo, his memories of himself on the island itself were being replaced rapidly. He shuddered to think what would happen if this continued.

Time seemed to be moving differently, and Calen was left with no means to confirm if this assessment was correct or not. He felt continuously tired and on edge. As if he was half-aware of what came next, just not able to competently define it, or even prepare for it.

He walked up to the bathroom, turning around every few steps to confirm that the journal he left on the dining table had not vanished. Once inside, he washed his face and hands, trying to remove as much of the dirt and blood from his fingertips and nail beds, without hurting the injured parts. When he couldn’t bear the pain of the cold water on the injuries, he stopped and threw some more cold water on his face.

Calen stared at his reflection in the mirror. Who was this?

His eyes had changed. They looked dead. It was not as if the color of his eyes had changed, but there was a certain glaze to his eyes, making them look unfocused. He didn’t know if he was imagining it or not, but his eyes seemed to move more slowly when he tried to move them. The pain in his head increased every time he tried to look up.

“Stop freaking yourself out!” He muttered to himself and realized his voice did not sound like his at all. It was hoarser, and the words felt alien. Each word felt like a projection of a feeling that lost meaning the moment the word escaped his lips. He might have been just making garbled noises from his mouth.

Calen decided to call Alice. The internet allowed the call. He could see Alice, but his video would not stream, no matter how much he tried. So, Alice had to settle for a blank screen. Calen was quite relieved with this setup. He didn’t want Alice to worry more by looking at his face.

Once he had finished telling his story, carefully avoiding mentioning the part where he had blacked out and found upon waking, that the translations were done, and it didn’t look like his handwriting. She didn’t need to know it.

“The story has …” Alice hesitated, trying to find the right word, “Bones” she finished. Her voice came through the laptop clearly, almost in high definition. “I’ll give you that.”

Alice’s voice sounded different, too. Maybe it was because he had not heard her voice without static for so many days.

“What do you mean by story?” Calen asked, a little offended. Granted, he had omitted bits of it so Alice wouldn’t have the inconvenience of worrying for him from miles away when she couldn’t do anything, but to think of it as a lie? That was not acceptable.

“I mean,” she hesitated again, “It’s good writing.”

Calen stared at Alice’s face on the screen. His silent, invisible reproach was so palpable, it seemed to get transmitted through the low-quality internet.

The awkward pause was too much for Alice, who knew she had made a cardinal sin, but something inside her egged her on. She wanted to push Calen a bit, just enough to see how he would react. “That writing retreat you took last year really paid off. My only feedback- The other names, what were they again- grimzaska and – whatever, they just sound like noises. You could remove those names and just keep Razpopo. That name is growing on me.” She half giggled.

“I didn’t write it,” Calen cut in angrily. “I found it under a loose floorboard. I haven’t even translated it entirely yet!”

But before she could respond, Alice’s face twisted in discomfort. A soft, painful groan escaped her lips. She hunched over and disappeared from the camera frame.

“Alice!” Calen shouted. “Alice, what happened?!”

She reappeared, breathless, her voice thinned by strain. “I don’t know. Felt a weird cramp in my bel—”

She doubled over again and bolted off-screen. Calen kept shouting her name, helpless. It took nearly two full minutes before she returned. She looked pale. Drained.

“I threw up,” she mumbled, massaging her belly aggressively. “I have been throwing up quite a lot in the last two hours. I don’t know if it’s something I ate or...” Tears welled up in her eyes, and she was not able to finish her thought.

Calen’s mind, however, had registered something. He didn’t know, as he had no means to measure time, but the time frame seemed to exactly fit the window within which the journal had been translated.

A flash of an image flitted past his eyes. Alice was sitting completely unclothed on the cold ground of the cave, her eyes glazed. Her hand touching the throbbing log held within the cage of roots.

He felt scared for Alice. He also felt angry at her. It seemed she had missed the point entirely. Did she understand this was dangerous information?

Calen wanted to shake some sense of what they were dealing with into her. On the other hand, if she believed in the danger, that might result in him having to return. And he was not ready to return. He wanted to know more, whatever the cost.

“Did you tell your Aunt Becky? You went to see her, right?” Calen said. Aunty Becky, Alice’s aunt on her father’s side, was their family doctor. Alice had told Calen that she had visited her upon returning from Bennet Island.

“Hm…” she murmured, unsatisfied with the solution. She clearly wanted more than a diagnosis from her aunt. “When will you come back, Calen?”

The pleading note in her voice cut through Calen. But he was not budging. He felt too close to the answer that he had been seeking forever. He needed to be on Bennett.

“Two more weeks,” he said casually. His lie evidently was unable to comfort her as Alice’s eyes dropped down to look at her own lap.

She nodded faintly after a while as Calen watched her, his insides cringing. “I’ll call my aunt. Talk later.” She wiped her tears off, and before Calen could even say ‘take care’, she hung up with an angry, decisive click.

Calen sat still for a while, staring at the frozen laptop screen, the lack of sounds settling over him. There it was again. And it was frustrating. He felt guilty, not being with her while she was clearly in distress, but would his being there have changed anything? Would her being here not be disruptive for both of them?

“Why does she have to hang up on an angry note!” He exclaimed loudly to the empty bedroom, banging a fist against the mattress. His fingertips throbbed viciously, and he regretted punching the mattress immediately.

His mind ventured towards his recent memories. When he had left Alice in New York, and travelled alone to Russia, on what seemed like just a whim, now.

*

Calen had heard the continuous thudding and clanging of the metal parts inside the truck he was travelling in quiet down, by quite a lot, which he was mistakenly thinking was a good sign up until then. Apparently, it was anything but.

The Truck was being driven by Viktor, a Russian driver Calen had met by pure chance in a bar in Yakutsk, who had offered to drive Calen to Tiksi, the only available airfield close enough to fly to Bennett Island. The snag was that the Tiksi airfield’s existence didn’t come with an assurance that Calen would get to fly off from it. But that was a bridge Calen had been willing to cross later owing to the fact there were no planes flying anywhere to the north of Yakutsk anyhow, because of bad weather. So, in his inebriated state, Viktor’s drunken promise, of driving him to Tiksi via the ‘Zimnik’, felt like a signal sent by the Gods.

‘Zimnik’, which Calen had understood far too late to be a Russian word for horrifying sections of frozen lakes that truck drivers used during the winters, was the most isolated place in the world Calen had experienced. It was flat white snow covered ‘roads’ with nothing but emptiness, as far as the eyes could see.

Viktor had been driving for the past few hours, time to time putting his ears to the bodywork, like a doctor listening for breath. Calen now understood, what he had previously disregarded as ‘Generic Russian Driver Noises’ were actually noises of disappointment.

“Ve haf choice,” he said finally, more to himself than Calen, “Ve stop truck and check problem or wait till she die.”

“That’s not good…” Calen said calmly, feeling quite proud of himself for not freaking out outwardly, reflecting the fear he felt inside. He didn’t want to seem like a frightened tourist when Viktor kept up his butch demeanor. Viktor, for a second, did look impressed with Calen.

He seemed to consider for a moment before he applied the brakes. The truck slid to a stop.

“Need help American” he said, pointing to a box, which was kept near Calen’s feet. Calen picked it up and was trying to pass it to him when he said, “Ve take it out. Open truck” Viktor started to wear his gloves and his parka. Calen followed him and they both walked out of the truck.

Once out the weather tore through all the layers of Calen’s clothing like a knife through butter. The warmth on the inside had weakened Calen’s resolve against the cold that now clawed at his face unceremoniously. There was no wind, just silent freezing dry air. The surroundings were one step short of beautiful.

An eerie cracking sound echoed in a muffled manner, making it difficult to pinpoint the location of its source. Calen jumped slightly, and immediately hoped Viktor had not seen it. But he had. He snorted his scathing snort and said, “don’t vorry American. Far avay.”

“But what was that?” Calen asked, trying not to sound too concerned. He failed as the words had come out too quickly.

“Splitting ice.”

Splitting ice?

As Viktor worked on the truck, turning different nuts and bolts, checking strange-looking compartments, Calen looked around, box of hardware held ineptly in gloved hands.

Now that they were outside the truck and at ground level, Calen saw a few medium-sized, snow-covered rocks lying around them, that were not discernible while the truck was moving. The truck made a whimpering sound like the raspy breath of a dying man.

“Aha!” Viktor said quietly to himself, without further explanation. Calen was starting to feel more and more discouraged with every passing second. Viktor finally sprung up from his hunched over stance and looked at Calen with a wide smile. Calen didn’t have the energy to smile back.

“She is cold.” Viktor whispered, sidling up to Calen, as if he didn’t want the truck to listen in on this conversation. Calen was unimpressed by the diagnosis.

“What do we do?” Calen asked with gritted teeth.

Viktor snapped his fingers; it made no sound aside from the rubbing of fabric against fabric on his gloves. Then he walked away excitedly without an answer. In a few seconds he was back with a cardboard box that looked like it had been painted black ages ago with some low-quality paint that was now chipping away in places.

“Ve put blanket.”

What the hell was this guy talking about? She is cold, we put blanket on her.

But it was not his truck, neither was he a mechanic. All he could do was, have faith in this person. Reminding himself that Viktor had said he frequented this route every year and trying to believe that Viktor really knew what he was doing, Calen kept his mouth shut and watched Viktor prop up the cardboard outside on the grille with wires from the box in Calen’s hands.

Once the silver KAMAZ logo was half covered, the kneeling Viktor stood up and brushed his hands against each other.

“What do we do now?” Calen asked, a slight hint of impatience that seemed to not fall on Viktor’s ears.

“Now, ve wait.” He said, still smiling.

“For what?”

“Sound change. She breathe better.”

Calen turned around and hid his face inside his parka, only his eyes remained visible. Beneath his jacket, the ticking sound of his wristwatch stuttered, then jumped a few ticks too quick, as if to try and catch up with the lost time.

Inside the truck, the radio hissed momentarily, the noise piercing through the void around them, then snapped into a single, prolonged tone—too clean to be static. It went away as suddenly as it had arrived. As if the noise on the radio was a signal the terrain had been patiently waiting for, another crack sounded in the air, this one, felt much closer, Calen paused mid step, worried the crack might be right under where his next step was about to fall.

Viktor had seen this and called out “You can valk.” Viktor seemed to be enjoying Calen’s confusion in this purgatorial limbo. “Don’t go far.” He added.

Calen put down his step, and something moved on his right. A snow owl, who seemed to have popped up from nowhere, flanked its wings and shook its entire body, looking balefully with its yellow eyes at Calen. Snow fell off its wings and head and Calen realized they had been standing next to this owl since they had arrived. It had been sitting so silently and so well camouflaged with the snow that Calen hadn’t noticed it even though it was just two feet away from them.

It stared at Calen. Calen, dumbfounded and unmoving, stared back at it. He really wanted to take a picture, but all his gear was inside the truck, and he felt if he made a single movement, it would fly away and hide itself.

The sound of the truck was getting better, almost like it was sounding before it started ‘feeling cold’ as Viktor had put it. Calen could hear in the background jubilatory noises Viktor was making paired with the sound of him jumping.

“Nu, nu… ya zdes.’ Ya s toboy. Devushka moya.” Viktor yelled excitedly. “She is doing better American.”

The owl turned its head a full one-eighty to look at Viktor. Perceiving no immediate threat, it returned its doleful eyes to the task of sizing Calen up.

“Sounds like it.” Calen yelled back, a little bit of the faith in Viktor had returned with the incrementally growing familiar sound of “chug..chug..thud” of the truck.

Pondering their conversation in an unimpressed manner the owl clicked its beak, as if demanding Calen’s attention back. Calen obliged and as the black eyes of the owl fell on his, he felt goosebumps on his skin. For a split second something brushed the edge of his hearing—almost words, bobbing, just slightly out of reach. It was gone before he could even try to retain a single meaningful syllable.

The owl seemed to be done with the scene unfolding in its vicinity as the noise of the truck returned to its usual rhythm. It jumped off the rock and took flight without a single sound.
Within seconds it was gone, as Calen watched it disappear completely in the grey sky.

Disheartened, Calen walked back to the truck as Viktor looked at him.

“There was an owl.” Calen said out loud. The youtuber within him wanted to let at least one person know what he had seen even though he had no proof of it. “It flew away. I think the noise of the truck scared it.”

Viktor looked around for a second. Then said, “Good!” as if it should have been obvious to Calen. Viktor took out the flask of tea, drank a large sip, and offered it to Calen, who took it instinctively. Viktor smiled.

“I think American” he said, “You doing good.”

“What do you mean?” Calen was quite taken by this suddenly happy Viktor. It reminded him of the drunk Viktor when he used to frequent the local bar in Yakutsk with him.

“With cold” Viktor pointed with his hand to the surroundings. “With.. Izolyátsiya.”

Calen, who knew a bit of German through his grandparents, was immediately able to infer the meaning as the pronunciation was quite close, even though Viktor said it in Russian.

“I have spent a lot of time in isolated places” Calen said giving Viktor the English word. He felt a little bit of pride he didn’t fully understand. Although it did cheer him up.

“Is that vat you looking for?” Viktor asked, “In Tiksi?”

Calen considered how much he should tell Viktor. He hadn’t yet mentioned Bennett Island to Viktor. Neither had he mentioned the ‘why’ of his decision to go to Bennett Island to anyone, not even his manager. Not even Alice.

Viktor, although he was mostly silent unless he was barking orders, didn’t feel untrustworthy. Furthermore, who would Viktor tell? Other drunk guys at some Russian bar when he had returned?

“I am actually trying to get to Bennett Island.” Then he threw caution to the wind and asked, “Have you heard the name Razpopo?” He immediately regretted mentioning the name as Viktor laughed out, shaking his head in disbelief. “Ty shto, sumasshedshiy, amerikanets?”

“What?” Calen smiled politely, not understanding a word of what had been said. Viktor took an entire minute, laughing out loud. When his laughter subsided, he looked at Calen and said, “I don’t know vat this Razpopo is.”

Calen was a little disappointed. It was to be expected. What he was trying to find out was obscure at the very least. But why had Viktor laughed uncontrollably then?

“Why were you laughing then?” asked Calen a little defensively.

“Vell” Viktor said and it was evident that he found it quite funny, “Who goes to Bennett in the vinter?” Another bout of laughter and then he added, “You are crazy American. I like you!”

Calen didn’t know if it was a compliment or not.

The truck sounded just like it was sounding when they had started so Viktor, still laughing from time to time, shaking his head, and muttering things in Russian got in the truck. Calen climbed in through the passenger side door. The inside of the truck was warm and inviting.

Viktor went to the sleeping quarters in the back and returned after a few minutes with two cups full of hot, melted dark chocolate. Sitting down he took a large sip from his own cup and gave Calen his cup. Viktor smiled and said, “Drink! It’s good. Now ve celebrate with Choco. Tonight, I make Pelmeni.”

Calen didn’t know if it was the truck or his crazy plan that had softened Viktor’s stance on Calen, but it didn’t matter. Once the melted chocolate finally went down his throat he too was smiling. Whenever Alice fought with him, she always made hot cocoa after, to apologize.

At night Viktor really did cook Pelmeni, which Calen found to be delicious. It was meat dumplings slicked with butter and freshly cracked pepper. The whole inside of the truck smelled delicious even as they went to sleep.

His bed felt warm, but Calen found it difficult to doze off. Unwelcome thoughts streamed in his mind. There was no reason, as far as he could see, for these thoughts to have burrowed into his head but now that they were here, they refused to leave.

Sleep came and went until he finally got up from his tiny bed. Viktor, who was still asleep, his back hanging ominously from the small bed frame, didn’t even stir. Calen wondered if he should wake Viktor but decided against it. He walked up to the small kitchenette and heated up some tea and took a cigarette from the box lying on the dashboard. He sat in the passenger’s seat, still too groggy to open his eyes properly.

He cracked the window a little, smoked the cigarette, and drank the tea. A sense of calm had dawned on him since the last day. Viktor having repaired the truck added a lot to that calm, but what had actually added more to his composure after waking up on the fourth day was him having seen an owl, surviving alone in the cold arctic tundra. That felt somewhat reassuring. He secretly wanted the owl to show up again, although he knew it wasn’t really going to happen.

Calen had been looking outside the truck without really seeing, with his eyes hardly open but now that he had had some tea, his eyes were slowly opening. He drew in a sharp breath as what he was looking at came into proper view. The moon had split into five!

Out of habit, Calen withdrew his phone from his jacket. However, as he tried to turn it on, the black screen stared back at him haplessly. Calen blinked hard, believing sleepy unfocused eyes to be the reason for it. But nothing changed, the five parts of the moon stared back at him, measuring him.

Calen pushed his face against the shockingly cold window and all the five parts of the moon flitted for a fraction of a second, distancing itself and then reappearing as if it had teleported right next to the truck.

“WHAT THE-” he exclaimed loudly. Immediately from the sleeping quarters came a muffled crashing sound like something heavy had fallen.

“BLYAD!” Viktor yelled from inside. A minute later, with the sound of shuffling footsteps and groaning in the background, Viktor came out into the cockpit of the truck to find Calen wiping the window with his gloves and trying to look outside.

“The moon has broken!” Calen said, his voice terrified. Viktor looked out the window. The moon indeed had split. The center of the moon was a rhombus while four other parts connected by a halo of white light hovered at the top, bottom, right, and left. The light was intensely bright—intentionally, hyper-symmetrically arranged—and if one looked at it for too long, it hurt their eyes.

Viktor groaned again and rubbed the side of his head. “Trick of light.” he muttered quietly, evidently still as groggy as Calen had been until he saw the moon.

“What?” Calen yelled annoyed at Viktor’s apathy. His heart, trying to beat itself out of his chest.

“It happens American.” Viktor’s reply had a scathing, slightly condescending undertone.

“What do you mean, it happens?” Calen asked, finally taking his eyes off the window for a second.

Viktor looked sympathetically at Calen, like he was a child.

“Bozhe moy,” Viktor said, looking like he was doing his best to not roll his eyes. “You vont survive on Bennet. Scared of little thing.”

Calen was a little snubbed and didn’t care for the patronizing tone. He stared at Viktor, who said, “Its lunnye psy —how you say —moon dog.”

“Jesus Christ! can’t you explain one thing in a way it doesn’t sound like you’re yanking my chain?” Calen exclaimed frustrated.

Calen’s frustration seemed to have cheered the Russian up, “Vat you vant I explain? It’s trick of light. Moon is fine.” Viktor said with a wide grin. Calen looked at the moon again, the broken off parts seemed to twinkle in and out of existence right in front of his eyes. It was an unbelievably creepy sight. Viktor took his time in the bathroom, then prepared some breakfast and came fully jacketed for the fourth day of driving to begin. Calen was still looking at the moon, all its broken parts staring back at him, slowly chipping away at Calen’s mind, draining him of the sense of reality he had brought with him from the humble suburbs of New York.

Calen understood it was a trick of the light yet every time he peeked at the moon, as Viktor started driving, it unnerved him. What unsettled him most, aside from the eerie sight, was the effort it took to keep believing Viktor. As if being fine with disbelief was a cost of entry to this inaccessible, surreal world. He realized, unease flooding his veins, that something inside him had come unraveled. Like a screw that no longer tightened all the way. He wondered how many such unravelling-s were in store for him and how many it would take to leave a permanent mark on him.

The sides of the moon connected by the halo seemed to move every time they moved. Whenever Viktor turned right or left, the sides seemed to reorganize themselves to keep an eye on Calen. Every time they sped up or slowed down, it also seemed to do the same. Try as he might, Calen couldn’t stop himself from freaking out and decided to draw the curtain on his side. The sides of the moon shifted immediately and were still visible on the side of the windscreen. Calen felt like a child trying to hide from a dangerous apparition, which refused to be ignored, no matter how hard he tried.

“Listen..” Viktor said, tentatively, eyes on the road, “Vot this ‘Yankee my chain’ means? Yankee means American no?”

Calen laughed out loud, a little relieved to be provided with distraction. He started explaining what he had said and what he had meant.

After a lunch of bread and Salo, Viktor said, as they started moving again, “Ve vill reach fuel station in some hours.”

“I thought there were no villages on the Zimnik.” Calen had heard the word so many times that he was able to pronounce it without a flaw by now.

“No village.” Viktor replied, “just station.” Calen felt horrified at the thought of an isolated fuel station in the middle of nowhere. He couldn’t imagine a scenario where someone would willingly accept the job of staying alone on the Zimnik.

“Hang on” Calen said, “How do you know? I see no landmarks around.”

“Not for you my American friend!” Viktor smiled mysteriously. The only landmark-worthy thing they had passed in the last few was a rock he had seen, that was a bit larger than the other rocks. Wondering how the truck drivers of Zimnik understood where they were considering they were basically on a snowed-up version of a desert; Calen was glad he was with Viktor.

Time passed unevenly on the Zimnik. Sometimes slowing down and sometimes pacing up. It was difficult to track time, so Calen had given up. But in a few minutes (or was it, hours?), Calen spotted the first sign of something man made. Although it was covered in frost, it was unmistakably a light pole. It wasn’t functioning and looked like a relic of some failed human endeavor.

“Now your eyes are vorking.” Viktor said happily. “Now you notice, vat you need notice on the Zimnik.”

*

The valley outside was silent. The hovering steel blue light at the horizon looked muted. Even the opalescent clouds just stared back at Calen, rooted to their spot. Judging him.

Why would Alice think I am making up a story?

There were no answers. In his eagerness to isolate himself on this island, he had forgotten that this barren land would be devoid of answers.

He leaned back against the headboard and opened the journal now with the new added pages. He had read it so many times since he had discovered it that it felt like he already knew it like the back of his hand. He read it still. Every time he read the word ‘Razpopo’, his stomach did an odd flip. He should have been rejoicing in his victory, exhilarated that he had found the existence of the word. That it was not just some fever dream cooked up by his grandfather, repeated fearfully by his father, transmitted to him like some memetic disease that demanded his obsession without any valid reason.

Instead, he just felt smaller somehow.

He thought of starting the painful but necessary work of translating the last two entries. His entire body shivered with resistance. A chill went through from the top of his head to the tip of his feet. He pulled the blanket up to his face, his entire body shaking against the cold he was suddenly feeling.

Before he could think about what was happening to him or even begin to feel the first pangs of concern, his vision went dark and his body stopped moving. His brain half-registered it and yet tempted by the dark abyss now opening up in the ethers of his consciousness, he moved towards it.

The darkness behind his closed eyes quickly transformed into the night forest, as if it had been lying in wait for Calen to doze off. He could hear a deep scratching and creaking noise coming from all around him; the trees were moving.

An enormous, tall silhouette of something loomed far away in the deep darkness of the forest, in the copper red moonlight. The smell of maggots mixed with termite-eaten wood permeated the whole of the forest, wafting up Calen’s nose, making him nauseous.

The ever-familiar sound of drums pounded against his eardrums, and a voice far away screamed in mirth. Calen was half expecting it, but that did nothing to dampen the fear it brought with it. He shivered aggressively against the cold. His feet felt numb.

It took him a second to notice that not only was he barefoot, but he was completely naked. He looked around helplessly, trying to find something—anything—on the snow to wrap around himself. But there was nothing.

He would have felt embarrassed if he were not feeling scared. His lack of clothes made him feel exposed and not just to the environment. He didn’t know why being clothed in the proximity of danger would matter in terms of confidence, but he was sure it did. If he had some clothes, he would have felt a little more secure. Not to mention that the cold that bit his skin incessantly, and the creaking of the tree trunks had already frozen him in place.

Terrified, the more he tried to move, the more difficult it became. He felt tiny skittery movements beneath his feet. The ground beneath had come alive. His body refused to move and try as he might with his eyes, to look at what was passing beneath his feet, his eyes disobeyed his commands, Calen somehow knew it was the roots of the trees. He felt them throb under his numb feet. All his instincts were slowly leaving his body.

Before he could do anything, he saw a horde of people with faces painted deep, dark red and black coming out from behind the trees, as if they had been hiding there. Surrounding him on all sides. Their mouths were moving in unison, as they vehemently uttered the unnerving chant that Calen had heard a hundred times before. It scraped against his ears.

Their gleaming eyes flashed in the scarlet rays of the moon; every last one of them visible to Calen, regardless of how far they were. Even though he couldn’t turn his head, he could feel the eyes of the ones standing behind him drilling into the back of his skull, hurting his paralyzed body.

More people appeared, closing in on him. An unanticipated kick struck the backs of his knees, and he went down hard. His right knee hit a stone hidden under the blanket of snow. Intense pain burned through the entirety of his body; his eyes seemed to phase out for a second as everything went out of focus. His throat ached as unexpressed screams kept accumulating in it, not able to exit. Some of the people converged on him immediately, tying his hands and legs with practiced indifference, tightening knots until his body ceased to belong to him.

They made it quite clear as they turned him this way and that way to get access to tying knots on the ropes they were using on him, that he was not going to be afforded any decency. In a few minutes, he was completely and tightly wrapped in thick, coarse ropes.

Before he knew it, he was being carried like a hunted animal. He tried yet again to scream, but no words came out. From the corner of his eye, he could swear he saw the trees moving, their bark stretching and crunching.

As they moved deeper into the forest, the trees parted. The trail opened into a clearing; a bright orange glow from a fire illuminated a strange, surreal scene.

Calen saw a group of people similar to those carrying him, jumping in place around the fire. A drummer stood just outside the circle, beside a large mound of earth that seemed to be growing taller every second. Slowly climbing towards the full red moon.

By the light of millions of flying embers, Calen saw that it had no face, and yet, he had a distinct impression that the mound was examining him. Even with the haze of confusion that surrounded him, a slight familiarity was starting to creep up Calen’s spine. Was he an offering?

Some of the clan had gathered around him, as the ones carrying Calen threw him near the fire, on a wet bit of grass and moss-covered ground, unceremoniously. A few children, their faces painted black and red, their white teeth gleaming in the light of the fire, rolled him until he was laid on his back at the base of the mound. Unable to move, he was forced to keep looking at it.

It resembled a misshapen, elongated tumor protruding from the earth—glistening, wet, not made of stone or wood at all. It looked organic. A fleshy mound that moved and throbbed in a strangely familiar way. Calen tried to close his eyes, but they wouldn’t.

The chant around him grew louder and faster. The syllables started mixing with each other. Soon it sounded like a guttural whirring sound. As if the very engine that ran the world was being forcibly stopped. Like a wrench thrown into the cogs of machinery.

He dared to look at it again and found it growing, right before his eyes. Veinlike ridges swelled across the mound, and something began flowing in them. The more the flow increased, the more this organic mound transformed.

The top of the mound had shaped itself into an ugly, featureless face now. Portions of it were as black as the night sky, but there were portions where blood red paint seemed to smear and drip out from within, permeating through the layers of its flesh. Even as he looked, more changes kept happening to the mound.

The smell of burnt hair and leather rose from the fire as a huge spurt of flame shot into the air, and the call of a buffalo horn rang through the air, piercing and overshadowing all other sounds. Every last bit of courage had left Calen’s body with the buffalo horn. He was not prepared for what happened next.

One of the people who had been dancing until now left the group. Amongst all of them, he looked in control of whatever was happening. He moved his hands in an up-and-down motion as he walked towards Calen with his back to him. As if his moving hands were a command, the group started jumping around the fire with more intensity. Some of them jumped so high, Calen couldn’t believe it was possible for humans to do that. Calen heard cackles of laughter and jeering from the group. Delighted jubilations and cheers screamed into the night.

Satisfied by this frenzy and uproar he had caused, the man turned around and rushed toward Calen. The man grabbed his feet. Bracing Calen’s shins against his waist and sliding his own arms underneath them. He lifted Calen with inhuman strength and began spinning.

Everything blurred around him as Calen was spun at almost breakneck speed, but the burning ember-like eyes on the top of the mound followed Calen intently.

Within seconds, Calen was airborne, the world blurring—faces, fire—everything spinning faster and faster.

Lasting only a fraction of a second, recognition bloomed in him, but it was too late.

He had seen it—sketched a hundred times across the journal he had found in the cave. Different angles. Multiple sides. The drawings weren’t just drawings. The totem pole!

A red lolling tongue unfurled out of the ugly face on the mound, the tip of it lightly scratching itself around the middle. Fresh blood dripping from it every time the flesh throbbed.

The ember eyes burned into his. A silent scream tore from his lips, followed by a wet thud as his head crashed into the totem. His eyes were open just long enough to see the ember eyes burning in the night one last time, as warm drops of blood from the tongue of the totem pole dripped on his face.

Part 1

I clocked in for the next shift, which the whiteboard on the breakroom wall confirmed: Concourse A, Sub-basement Baggage Tunnels. I stood in the freezing corridor of the loading dock, staring at the heavy, steel doors of the freight elevator. The sub-basements are the oldest part of the airport, a sprawling labyrinth of marked tracks and concrete that the public doesn't know exists. I had heard stories about people who worked there, but I never knew anyone who personally had. Before my finger could touch the illuminated panel, a gloved hand yanked me backward by my elbow.

It was Miller, the veteran graveyard ramp lead. He didn't say a word, but he just grabbed my scanner, took one look at the digital assignment flashing on the screen. 

"Fucking hell. You're marked, kid," he muttered, his breath forming clouds in the freezing air. He pulled his own supervisor scanner from his belt,  jamming his thumb onto the screen. "You go down there tonight, you're dead. The system is trying to isolate you." He furiously pressed a series of buttons and finally swiped an authentication lock.

The digital screen on my scanner flashed red, vibrated and then rebooted. My assignment changed.

"You're with me tonight," Miller said, shoving the scanner back into my hand. He turned his back on the elevator doors. "We’re hiding out at gate B91. No scheduled arrivals or departures. Nothing ever happens at B91."

We rode a tug out into the bitter night. The wind chill was at a brutal -5, and the white roof of the Jeppesen Terminal glowed in the pitch-black sky. We drove the perimeter roads in silence, eventually reaching the eastern edge of Concourse B. I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking I had escaped the trouble I was going to face. 

The assignment was standard busywork. We were supposed to clear the tarmac parking area of stray luggage carts, chocks, and foreign objects before the morning rush. I stepped off the tug, my boots crunching loudly on the frost. About thirty feet from the tug, I stopped dead.  The air here didn't smell right. There was no acidic stench of burning Jet-A fuel or the sweet tang of heated de-icing fluid. Instead, the freezing wind carried a suffocating odor. that smelled like oxidized aluminum mixed with the stench of tobacco. I walked slowly toward the center of the gate envelope.

The concrete in front of me was a complete void. As I stared at it, the surface rippled faintly in the wind, like a meniscus of viscous tar. Above me, the glass doors of the terminal's exterior boarding stairs slid open. I looked up. Standing in the doorway was a gate agent.

She was wearing a faded Pan Am uniform: a pale blue dress and the signature white gloves. Her skin was a waxy gray, her eyes empty. She mechanically raised a boarding scanner and began processing a line of passengers in silence. They looked exhausted, clutching heavy carry-on bags. They stared blankly ahead as they shuffled past the agent.

"Miller," I whispered into the freezing air. My hands were shaking too much to use the radio.

The passengers walked down the stairs, but there was no plane at the gate. They marched in a single line down the grating, stepped onto the freezing tarmac, and walked straight toward the rippling black patch of concrete. When the first passenger’s shoe touched the dark patch, the concrete rippled slightly more than usual. He sank suddenly and silently, swallowed whole by the tarmac. One by one, the passengers marched into the hungry ground, descending into the concrete.

Suddenly I felt a pull from the rippling patch, pulling my boots. I took a slow, involuntary step forward. My right boot touched the edge of the black patch. It plunged into the freezing, viscous darkness. The cold bit instantly through my thick wool socks, beginning to numb my feet to the bone. 

I heard heavy footsteps sprinting across the frost behind me. Miller slammed into my back, tackling me onto the solid concrete. The black sludge didn't even try to grab him. Miller has worked this ramp for thirty years, and he was somewhat resistant to the airport. He never looks at the murals, and never breaks the rules. 

"Don't look at them!" Miller roared. He dragged me by my harness toward the concourse. Hidden in the deep shadows was a rusted steel door. Miller shoved a physical brass key into the lock, and kicked it open. He shoved me inside and locked the door.

It was a suffocating, windowless concrete box. The room hummed with old server towers and the pale green glow of CRT monitors. 

"What the hell was that?" I choked out, scraping the sludge off my boot. "Where did they go?"

"They didn't go anywhere," Miller said, with a shaking voice. "And they aren't passengers. Haven't been for twenty-eight years."

He dropped into a metal folding chair in front of a monitor. His thick fingers hammered across a mechanical keyboard.

"Modern radar is filtered to hide anomalies," Miller breathed. He hit enter. The screen emitted a high-pitched whine, showing a scan of the ground beneath Concourse B. "This '93 system isn't."

I leaned over his shoulder. Thirty feet below the concrete of Gate B91 was a massive, pulsating shape. The jagged, metallic T-tail and elongated fuselage were unmistakable.

"Flight 12," Miller whispered. "A McDonnell Douglas MD-81. Its rear-mounted engines are loud enough to blow your eardrums. That’s why they’re nicknamed ‘Mad Dogs’."

"I don't get it," I said, staring at the green mass. "Did it crash?"

"Never took off." Miller pulled a battered flask from his jacket and took two gulps of water. "December 1998. Massive blizzard. Ground stop in effect, but Flight 12 somehow got clearance to push back anyway. The tug pushed them out, and then drove away. But the plane never made it to the runway."

Miller sighed, in a mixture of fear and exhaustion.

"The ground just opened up. Turned to liquid and swallowed a fifty-ton aircraft in thirty seconds. Airport authority locked down the terminal, and all its records were later covered up and wiped out. Officially, it 're-routed' and vanished in the mountains."

I looked back at the screen. The green blob was pulsating, as if it were breathing. 

Miller whispered, "The plane fused with the passengers, the luggage and the plumbing of the building. 

"The boarding agent... the people on the stairs..." I said in a shaky whisper.

"Bait," Miller said grimly. “It targets exhausted travelers. People who are too tired to notice their plane doesn't exist. They walk into the hungry ground, and the MD-81 feeds on them to keep itself alive."

A line of text flashed at the bottom of the screen.

DECODING TRANSPONDER PING...

"It knows we're here," Miller said, his hand freezing. 

The monitor shattered with a sharp CRACK, dying along with the servers. Red light from the exit sign washed over us. The floor turned to freezing black sludge, sucking at our boots, while the deafening roar of buried jet engines spooled up through the concrete.

"Don't look down!" Miller yelled. "Stare at the red light!"

He unclipped two heavy rubber wheel chocks from his belt and slammed them into the melting floor.

He smashed the glass of an old emergency cutoff box marked PAD B91 - FUEL/POWER ISOLATION and threw the heavy steel lever. The screaming turbines choked into a dying 
whine. The rippling floor instantly snapped back into solid, frozen concrete. 

"Is it dead?" I choked out, scrambling backward.

"Hell no, I just closed its feeding tube to the surface," Miller growled, shoving me out the door into the freezing wind. "It's still alive down there, and now it's pissed."

"Miller," I yelled over the freezing wind as we sped away on the tug. "If the ground is what actually takes them... what the hell are the murals doing?"

Miller didn't look at me. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

"The tarmac just eats," he muttered, staring ahead into the dark. "The murals keep the receipts. And right now, they're still holding an empty spot for you."

We made it back to the locker room alive, but as I clocked out, my phone buzzed with an updated schedule:

Assignment: Sub-basement Baggage Complex, Sector 4-Echo (Hazard Clearance).  Tomorrow 23:00-05:00

Another challenge for another day, and in an even colder place.

Spotting an untouched body ravaged by the plague, a raven swooped down and began pecking at the opulent meal before him, as if it were yet another divine gift. Ever since the great pestilence struck humanity, the ravens didn’t even have to as much as bother searching for a food source, with the sheer amount of dead and dying in every corner of the land.

As the bird began gorging itself on the woman’s slightly rotting meat, a boy ran out of a nearby shack. It was a pitiful mockery of a boy: pale, gaunt, and skeletal. The spitting image of death itself.

The boy shouted at the bird to back off from his mother, waving his flimsy, frail arms at the raven, barely mustering the strength to hoarsely shout at the scavenger.

“Leave my mother alone!” the boy croaked.

The raven flew aside, cawing with annoyance, “Damn it… There’s a living one”

The boy ceased his movement; wide eyes sunken deeply into a clearly visible skull, he stared at the pitch-black bird, bewildered, and gulped before stammering, “Did… did you just speak?”

Landing not far from the boy, the bird retorted, “Course not, fool, I sang. I’m a songbird; that’s what I do!” the raven cried out.

Shocked, the boy fell to the ground, unable to comprehend how a bird spoke to him. In the meantime, the raven landed by the corpse and walked toward it, attempting to peck at it again.

The boy protested, “Leave my mother alone,” he squeaked.

The raven stopped, turned to the kid, and sighed, “You’re growing soft…” He said to himself. The boy was going to comment again about the bird’s speech, but the Scavenger cut him off, “Why are you even alive still, kid? The rest of this place is a graveyard; all the other humans are long dead.”

“I must have some purpose here in the eyes of God…” the boy weakly muttered.

“This kid must be six or seven years old and already has had a bible bashed over his skull…” The bird thought to himself, “If God wanted any of this, he wouldn’t let the Plague spread outside of France, kid… God wants the lot of you dead,” the bird quipped.

“That’s not true! God is good!” The boy whimpered at the cynical bird. “What’s France, anyway?” he questioned.

“A terrible place over the pond, where all vile things find their start, child. How old are you, even, speaking so highly of God, but not even knowing about France?!”

“I’m twelve…”

“There’s no way you’re my age, kid; you look about half that age…”

“Well, I’ve been eating rats for a while…” Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes. “Ever since mommy and daddy fell ill.

“Oh, don’t do that now. I can’t stand the sounds you humans make when you get all emotional like that"

Now, bawling, the kid profusely apologized, his voice cracking. “I just… I just… I just miss everyone so much…” he wailed. “I’m so alone…

I’m so hungry…

Everything hurts so much…”

Somewhere deep inside, that boy must’ve been happy he had someone to talk to, even if it was just a strange talking bird.

“Oh God damn it, kid…

Would you stop, for the love of God?!” The bird cawed, irritated.

“You’ve any rope on ya?” the bird questioned.

“Wha…?”

“Do you have any rope?”

“Wha… why… why do you ask?”

“I know how you can meet your loved ones again, kid. Now I’m asking again: do you have any rope?”

“Mhm,” the boy whimpered, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Well, then, run along and bring it over here; I’ll send ya to your makers”

The boy barely picked himself up and stumbled into one of the houses as the bird watched the tree, scanning it for sturdy branches, with a glint in its black eye.

“I hope that brat can still climb,” the raven thought to himself.

Long moments had passed, and the boy reemerged with a long piece of rope in his hands.

“I sure hope you can still climb, kiddo; otherwise this won’t work,” the raven sang to the approaching boy.

The kid’s disposition changed; he smiled for the first time in a while. “Be sure as God’s bones, I can climb, especially up that tree!”

“Good, because I’m going to need you to tie one end of the rope to a branch, and another around your neck.”

The boy didn’t even fully register what he had been told and agreed to follow the raven’s instruction. Despite his immense confidence, he hardly had the strength to climb up that tree, prompting the scavenger to bow his head in frustration. “Oh, this is going to be a long day…” the bird despaired in his mind.

It must’ve taken the boy an hour to climb the tree, but he made it, and masterfully tied one end of his rope to the branch he stood on and then asked the black bird what he had to do next.

The sable thing would have smiled, had it possessed a mouth, when it spoke next, “Tie it around your neck, kid.”

“Does it have to be the neck?”

“Do you want to see your folks again, Kid?”

“I do!” the boy cried out.

“Then you’ve got to trust me…”

“I don’t know about this…”

“Look, kid, if I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve pecked out and eaten your eyes by now.” The bird crackled at him.

“I guess you’re right… Plus, I do want to see Mom and Dad again and everyone else…”

“Atta boy…” the obsidian fowl croaked.

The boy tied the rope around his neck and, staring at the feathered specter with eyes full of hope, questioned the bird about the next step.

“Now you gotta jump forward…”

Looking down, the boy got cold feet for a moment, once again doubting the wisdom of the talking bird.

The raven turned away and started walking towards the mother’s corpse. “Well, I guess you don’t want to see your mother again, eh?” it clicked its beak.

“I do!”

“Then jump, kid, it’s that simple…”

“But what if I get hurt?”

“You won’t…”

“How do you know?”

“Well, I wouldn’t… get hurt doing that”

“But you have…” Before the boy could even finish his sentence, the raven was already pecking at his mother’s rotting flesh.

“Wings…”

He muttered before the realization set in; he had been duped by the bird.

“Hey, leave mommy alone, you flying rat!” the boy cried out again, his voice cracking once more. The bird simply ignored him, slowly savoring the taste of exposed tissue.

“Leave her alone!” he cried out, waving his frail arms. The raven swallowed a chunk and called ecstatically, as if to goad the boy.

“Leave her…” the boy shouted, but his protests ended mid-sentence when he lost his footing and plummeted downward. The high-pitched scream was twisted into a wet gurgle as his body twisted and turned, struggling against the ever-tightening rope.

The raven turned his head to the struggling boy.

“Got’cha…” he cackled proudly and flew over, landing on the boy’s shoulder.

The beaked phantom didn’t even wait for the boy to succumb before he started pecking.

Something, Nothing

It’s been quiet since my older brother left  - one less dish to wash, one less bed to make, one less explanation for the footsteps coming from downstairs. At least, I think those were footsteps. It was rhythmic, maybe three or four creaks in quick succession.

Any other time of year I’d go right back to sleep, honestly. I’d chalk up that post-midnight creaking to my brother - Isaac - checking that the doors were locked, or getting another glass of water from the kitchen downstairs… but he’d been gone for nearly a week, and he shouldn’t be getting home for another few days. I really hope those weren’t footsteps.

Realistically, I’m totally fine. It's the hottest part of the summer, so it’s probably just the wood settling like it does every summer, right? Yeah, of course it is, but old wooden floors have a way of testing your sanity like that, and-

Crrck

I don’t move. The trees outside of the open windows don’t move. For a few seconds, the world is still. Ten, maybe twenty seconds pass in complete silence. The breeze outside picks back up again, acting like accompaniment to the drumline of blood pulsing through my ears. Another ten seconds pass.

Maybe that’s all there is… just an odd collection of noises from the home I grew up in. I’ve probably heard those same creaks hundreds of times before, but wrongly assumed that it was Isaac. I should go back to sleep, my exhaustion probably isn’t helping my anxiety right now.

Crrck

I’m fine. This is normal.

Crrrck

I really hope an animal didn’t get inside. I sit up in bed, waiting for a sound I hope I don’t hear.

Nnnrckkk

That’s not old wood warping in heat. 
That’s weight on old wood. 

Then, without warning, something sprints up the stairs of my childhood home.

DUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUN-

I don’t even have a moment to count the individual steps. They come one after another, pounding impossibly fast on the old wooden boards, dragging something much heavier behind them. With every step, whatever’s being dragged slams against the floorboards, like a child dragging their favorite toy behind them. Just as quickly as the onslaught of footsteps began, they stop… right outside the door to my room.

Oh my God, why did I leave my door cracked? Why did I put the lantern out? What am I looking at? Is something looking at me? I don’t know. Oh God, I don’t know. It’s like the pitch black is seeping in through the doorframe - like the devil is outside my door.

Why am I cold?

. . .

Nothing reaches through the crack in the door. Nothing barges into my room with a rusty old axe in hand, ready to take my life. Nothing makes a noise or tries to speak to me. Standing outside of my room is an endless array of mortifying possibilities, submerged in a black sea of… just… nothing…

I might have considered myself brave for a teenager before, but I know better now. Even in the safety of my own home, I’m nothing more than a bag of soft flesh and breakable bones. Something that fragile must seem even more frail in the eyes of whatever’s looking back at me. 

Five, ten, fifteen seconds of silence pass at an agonizing pace. Nothing. I can just barely hear my own breath, but it’s still too loud. I try to breathe through my nose, listening in between each breath. Still nothing. No matter how awful the image is, I can’t tear my gaze from the void outside of my door.

What am I supposed to do now? Am I supposed to act like I didn’t just hear what I heard? Am I supposed to just… fall back asleep?

I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting completely still at this point, shivering in a way I never have before. Has it been three minutes or three hours? I’m too afraid to look away for even a moment to check the clock. I can’t look away.  I can’t lose a staring contest to the devil.

Every time I blink, I feel my eyes straining more and more. They feel like they’re burning, completely glued to a nebulous idea of something that may not even be there anymore. God, I hope there’s nothing there anymore. Then, for the first time in too long, something happens.

What is that smell?

It hangs heavy in the air, sickly sweet and pungent. There’s an almost enticing note to it, like the scent of  wine left out overnight… Like the odor of spoiled truffles turned to oil… like the smell of…

Gasoline.

I smell gasoline.

As soon as my brain registers it, I nearly recoil. Thankfully, I catch myself before I do, but there’s no ignoring it now. Every breath tastes like it - putrid, sweet, and awful. Did a lantern spill downstairs? I want to go and check, but I know that isn’t happening. 

The gasoline, the darkness, the heat, the humidity - all of it is making me sick to my stomach. I’m sweating too much, and now my foot’s going numb. Sitting in the same position like this, one leg tucked under the other, I hadn’t even noticed it until now. I try - no - I need to ignore it. Another minute passes by in this suffocating room… And then another… And another. God, I need to move.
I shift my weight.

ffshh~

DUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUN-

The darkness erupts with an impossible onslaught of footsteps, racing down the staircase and onto the first floor of my home. I instinctively raise my hand to my mouth, stifling a scream as I hold back the tears in my eyes. That awful dragging noise follows behind the footsteps as it runs through my home, now into the kitchen-

KSHHKHK

Glass. Something shattered downstairs. Oh God, did it break a window?

DUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUN-

Without missing a beat, the footsteps head in the other direction - back in the direction it came from. Oh fuck, please no, don’t come upstairs. At this point, I’m actively sobbing. I don’t want to die. I want to see Isaac again. Please, please, please, have mercy.

DUNDUNDUNDUNDUN-

It runs right past the base of the staircase. It’s in the living room now, directly under my room.

DUNDUNDUNDUN-

My whole home shakes. My whole home smells like gasoline. My whole home is in darkness. My whole home is not a home anymore.

Then… 

FRSHFRSHFRSHFRSHFRSHFRSHfrshfrshfrsh-

The sound changes. The house stops shaking.
It’s outside.

The footsteps tear through the grass at that same impossible speed, snapping twigs and branches as it barrels into the woods… that horrible weight still dragging behind. 

I can still hear it, footsteps dissipating into the night.

frsh-frsh-frshk-

The dragging lasts longer.

Then… Nothing. 

I’m still sobbing. I have to stop. If it heard my bedsheets then it can hear me now. Stop. Please stop. Please God, help me stop crying. I choke down every noise fighting its way up my throat, and I pray that this was all just a terrible, terrible dream. It had to be a dream, right?

My eyes are stinging. My head is pounding. I’m still crying. The crickets are singing. The breeze is blowing. I’m still crying. I’m still sweating. I’m still praying. I’m still crying.

I’m so, so tired. I have to keep my eyes on the door. I can barely keep my eyes open anymore. If I close my eyes, I can’t see the hallway. If I can’t see the hallway, it can come back. If it comes back… 

Maybe I can close my eyes. Just for a second. 
Maybe there really is… Nothing.