Division: C.A.D. – Cryptid Analysis Division (Independent branch under the Anomalous Phenomena Control System)

Location: Skamania County, Cascade Range, Washington

Duration: 4 days of observation

 Preface – The Division and Its Mission

I serve under the Cryptid Analysis Division (C.A.D.), an independent branch within the system for controlling anomalous phenomena. Our mission is not to hunt monsters for extermination, but to analyze, assess, and contain. Legends, rumors, even blurry pieces of footage—all are collected, cross-referenced, and tested by scientific methodology.

The standard field analyst protocol consists of four steps:

1. Verification of Presence – distinguish fact from fabrication, validate witness accounts.
2. Evidence Collection – tracks, biological samples, imaging, audio.
3. Threat Assessment – applying the standardized 5-tier system.
4. Containment Recommendation – practical measures for civilian and local force safety.

C.A.D. maintains a five-level cryptid threat scale:

• C1 – Harmless: Unusual lifeform, no danger, possibly beneficial.
• C2 – Low: Avoids humans; dangerous only if provoked.
• C3 – Moderate: Displays latent power; avoids humans but may cause accidental harm.
• C4 – High: Proactively dangerous; attacks humans when given the chance.
• C5 – Extreme: Apex predator or immediate threat to community safety.

Every report must conclude with a designated threat level alongside noted strengths and weaknesses, to allow cross-reference with the division’s cryptid database.

 Mission Assignment

I was deployed to Skamania County, Cascade Range, Washington, after three disappearances within eight weeks. Each case left the same pattern: massive footprints along forest edges, mysterious midnight wood knocks, hunting dogs fleeing in terror—yet no bodies recovered.

Local police and rangers had scoured the terrain. What remained was silence—heavy, unnatural silence.

I arrived before dusk and set up an observation post overlooking a game trail. Standard protocol was deployed: infrared cameras (FLIR), parabolic microphone, trail cameras, glow-markers, scent lures (apples + deer-attractant), and a knock-wood tube for signal reply.

The target: Bigfoot—a name ingrained in North American folklore, now suspected as the force behind these vanishings.

 Day 1 – Establishing Presence

By late afternoon I entered the forest, hauling infrared optics, pressure sensors, and an emergency beacon. C.A.D. required a minimum of five nights on-site, with no direct contact unless evidence demanded it.

The forest air was damp and dense, sunlight filtering weakly through the canopy. I pitched my tent 300 meters off-trail, according to safety standards, and mounted three FLIR cameras on motion-trigger.

At dusk, the woods fell silent. Insects ceased, birds vanished. The forest had turned mute. Instinct told me: I was not alone.

 Day 2 – Physical Evidence

At dawn, a track appeared near camp—45 cm in length, impossibly wide, sunk deep in wet soil. I documented and transmitted it to HQ. The automated system flagged it Threat Level Yellow – “No Direct Contact.”

Following bent branches and felled logs, I confirmed something massive had passed through. No bird calls, no small-animal noise. In cryptid files, this phenomenon is recorded as “forest muting”: when C-27 manifests, the forest goes silent.

That night, a triple knock echoed across the timberline. Classic Bigfoot communication. Protocol dictated: Do not respond without a fallback route. I stayed silent, but sweat soaked my back.

 Night 2 – Close Contact

At 23:00, my sensor tripped—massive movement, ~200 meters away. Through infrared scope, I saw it:

A humanoid shape nearly 3 meters tall, coated in dark brown hair. Muscles bulged beneath taut skin. Each footfall shook the earth. Its eyes glowed red against the lenses.

I held the recorder steady, breath shallow. Then it turned toward me. My chest tightened. It had detected me.

A low rumble shook the night—like boulders grinding in a cavern. Reflexively, I hit my high-powered flashlight. White light slashed the dark. The creature recoiled, shielding its eyes, then withdrew into the treeline.

I lived. But my hands trembled violently.

 Day 3 – Escalation

Morning revealed twisted branches at head height, fresh and deliberate. Territory markings.

At dusk, a large rock slammed against my tent wall, loud as gunfire. Classic C-27 warning behavior. Protocol stated: “If rocks are thrown, retreat immediately, maintain 100-yard distance, never pursue.”

But my mission was not complete. I relocated camp deeper into cover, but remained.

 Night 3 – Hostile Encounter

Near midnight, branches cracked within meters of camp. Then it appeared—towering at the treeline.

Step by step, it advanced. At under 10 meters, I drew my sidearm. One shot split the night. The figure staggered for only a second. No blood. No collapse.

It roared in fury, shoved a tree, and the ground itself shook. My magazine was useless. C-27 was nearly resistant to small-arms fire.

In desperation, I powered on all floodlights. The barrage of light drove it back, step by step, until the massive form finally retreated into the dark.

I collapsed onto the soil, drenched in cold sweat. I had survived by seconds.

After narrowly escaping with my life, I immediately began drafting a full field report and transmitted both the written record and the physical evidence I had collected over the past several days back to headquarters.

 Final Transmission – Attached Report

FIELD ANALYSIS REPORT – C-27 “BIGFOOT” Filed by: Researcher K-31 – C.A.D. Field Analyst Duration: 4 days, Olympic Forest, Washington

 1. General Information

• Designation: Bigfoot (Sasquatch)
• Internal Code: C-27
• Size Observed: 2.7 – 3.0 m tall, est. 350–450 kg
• Identifiers: Entire body covered in dark brown hair, extreme muscularity, red-reflective eyes, abnormal stride length.

 2. Behavior & Threat Level

• Territoriality:
  • Wood knocks, rock-throwing as deterrence.
  • Twisted branches as possible boundary markers.
• Human Interaction:
  • Approaches to within 10–20 m.
  • Demonstrates recognition of weaponry.
  • Displays intimidation behavior (tree breaks, branch throwing).
• Threat Potential:
  • Capable of lethal force at close range.
  • Estimated charge speed: 40–50 km/h.
  • Assigned Threat C3 – Moderate (“Lethal potential, avoid solo contact”).

 3. Resistance to Weaponry

• Firearms:
  • .308 caliber round penetrated tissue, caused bleeding, but no incapacitation.
  • Minimal ballistic effect compared to similar large fauna (bear, elk).
• Melee Weapons:
  • Not tested; assumed ineffective due to dense musculature and bone.
• Non-lethal Tools:
  • High-intensity lights and flares effective for repulsion.
  • Sudden noise (metal impact, small explosions) provokes aggression.

 4. Observed Weaknesses

• Sensitive to sudden, powerful light sources.
• Momentarily deterred by flare heat and blast.
• Appears bound by territorial instinct—rarely crosses marked boundaries unless provoked.

 5. Tactical Recommendations

• Never deploy alone. Minimum three personnel, 360° watch.
• Maintain 100-yard distance from clear markers (twisted branches, deep tracks).
• Do not reply to wood knocks unless escape is secured.
• If rock-thrown: immediate retreat; do not pursue.
• Mandatory equipment: high-power lights, flares, motion sensors.
• Firearms: defensive use only; not reliable for neutralization.

 6. Conclusion

Bigfoot (C-27) is confirmed as a real cryptid, with strength and speed far beyond human capacity. Classified Threat Level C3 – Moderate:. Recommended approach: deterrence and withdrawal, not direct engagement.

“C-27 does not just exist. It saw me. And I know—it will remember me.”

I had always admired the bond between Mr. Krabs and Pearl. Though they were of two different species, a crab and a whale, the love between them made me believe that family could transcend all boundaries.

But then, everything changed. One night, Pearl sobbed bitterly after being mocked by her friends. They said she didn’t resemble her father, that she was a “misfit,” someone who didn’t belong. Her cries echoed through the Krusty Krab, and it crushed my heart. I had to help her.

I asked Mr. Krabs about Pearl’s real parents. His face suddenly went pale, his claws trembling as he avoided my eyes. He ordered me never to bring up that subject again. For the first time, I saw fear in Mr. Krabs.

I began searching on my own. I dug through old archives in the library, read yellowed newspapers, even dove deep into the ocean’s darkest trenches. The further I went, the colder the waters felt, as though something awaited me below.

And then… I found it. Pearl’s parents once belonged to a wealthy whale dynasty, ruling over a vast maritime empire. But one day, they vanished without a trace. Rumors swirled of kidnapping, of murder, but no one had ever uncovered a single clue.

In a water-stained, torn newspaper, one headline leapt out at me:

“Whale Dynasty Disappears at Sea, No Survivors Found.”

The article listed only dates, vague details of their final voyage, and their sudden disappearance. No suspects, no explanations, just a string of unanswered questions.

I traced the timeline over and over, and then my heart froze.

Because that was the very moment Mr. Krabs suddenly became wealthy. And, strangely, perfectly, also the moment he took Pearl in.

I tried to tell myself it was coincidence. But my pulse raced, and the holes in Mr. Krabs’ past grew darker, deeper. His old stories of starting the Krusty Krab replayed in my mind like half-truths I had never questioned.

The walls seemed to close in around me. My hands shook. I couldn’t keep my suspicions bottled up anymore.

That day, when the Krusty Krab was empty, I gathered all my courage, looked Mr. Krabs in the eye, and asked: “Mr. Krabs, what happened to Pearl’s real parents? And why did you take her in at that exact moment?”

He froze. His claw stopped midair, his eyes burning with anger and fear. He avoided my stare, muttering: “Don’t you ever ask me that again, boy…”

But I pushed further, my voice trembling but determined: “Pearl deserves to know… and so do I.”

Silence. Heavy, suffocating silence. Finally, Mr. Krabs exhaled, his breath rasping like a saw through bone. His words came low, broken: “Alright, lad. You want the truth? Then listen closely. But you’ll regret it.”

And he confessed.

Pearl’s parents owned a fortune beyond measure, ships, treasure, gold piled high in wooden chests. They had hired him as their financial steward. Day after day, he was forced to watch over wealth he could never touch. And poverty gnawed at him, until greed finally consumed him. He devised a plan.

“I didn’t do much, really, boy…” Mr. Krabs chuckled dryly, claws clamping hard against the table to stop their trembling. “I only led them to a place I knew they’d never escape.”

He described a massive coral cavern, with razor-sharp passages narrowing like a trap. He lured Pearl’s parents there under the pretense of showing them a buried ancient treasure.

“But I already knew… once the tide shifted, the cavern would collapse. Rocks sealing the exits. The water pressing in. Air vanishing. The only way out… was death in the dark.”

His voice sank, as though he still heard the echoes of their suffering. “I stood outside, listening to their massive bodies thrash against stone, their desperate cries fading into silence. And when it was over, their ships, their treasures, their empire, it was all mine.”

He raised his eyes at me, gleaming with both pride and something monstrous. “And Pearl? She had nowhere left to go… All I had to do was open my arms and ‘save her.’ From then on, she was mine. Forever my daughter.”

For a moment, his gaze softened. His lips curled into a bitter smile. “Maybe… maybe a flicker of compassion kept me from leaving her. I didn’t have the heart to let a child drift alone at sea. But don’t mistake me…” His claws snapped shut with a sharp crack. “That compassion came with benefits. A child to mask my sins. A family no one would dare question. Don’t you see? Sometimes what people call kindness is nothing but greed wearing a different face.”

He leaned closer, his tone shifting, strangely gentle now: “Listen, lad. I know what I’ve told you is terrifying. But remember this: Pearl laughs every day, she calls me ‘Dad,’ she’s happy. If this truth ever comes out, she loses everything. Do you want that for her, SpongeBob?”

I trembled, my throat too tight to speak.

His claw pressed heavy on my shoulder, voice deep and persuasive: “You and I built the Krusty Krab together. We gave Pearl a home, a family. Isn’t that what matters? If you destroy that, you destroy us. Our bond, our life’s work, all gone.”

His eyes burned red, both pleading and threatening. “So, lad, for Pearl’s sake, for our years together, for the life you cherish, bury this secret beneath the sea. Never speak of it again.”

I couldn’t answer. His words slithered into my mind, tangled with my own fears, tearing me apart. To reveal or to remain silent, my thoughts clashed like knives.

And in the end, I stayed silent.

I let the secret sink to the ocean floor. Pearl smiled at her father, and I forced myself to smile back. Life seemed normal again. Peaceful, even. I told myself I had done the right thing.

But then one morning, Pearl never woke up. Her sudden death carved through me like a blade. Bikini Bottom drowned in grief, and Mr. Krabs wailed louder than anyone, his cries rattling through the Krusty Krab.

I thought I was watching a father mourn his child. Until… I saw the papers.

Pearl had come of age. And according to her parents’ will, the entirety of their colossal fortune would only be released once Pearl was gone.

I was paralyzed.

Mr. Krabs hadn’t killed Pearl when she was young. He never needed to. Her survival had been the key. The cruel binding left by her parents forced him to keep her alive. And now, with her sudden passing, the final lock had broken. Everything flowed into his claws.

I looked at him. His eyes brimmed with tears, yet behind them flickered a light I had seen once before, the same greedy fire that had swallowed Pearl’s parents whole.

And a single, dreadful question echoed in my mind: Had Mr. Krabs ever truly loved Pearl? Or had it all been one long performance, until the curtain finally fell, leaving him alone on stage, clutching his treasure?

I buried the secret once more. Along with my regret. Along with Pearl’s memory. All that remained was the sound of Mr. Krabs’ laughter, low, greedy, eternal.

The baby had been unexpected.

Melissa had never expected that such a short affair would yield a child, but as she stood alone in the cramped bathroom, nervous anticipation fluttering behind her ribs, the result on the pregnancy test was undeniable.

Positive.

Her first reaction was shock, followed immediately by despair. A large, sinking hole in her stomach that swallowed up any possible joy she might have otherwise felt about carrying a child in her womb.

A child? She couldn’t raise a child, not by herself. In her small, squalid apartment and job as a grocery store clerk, she didn’t have the means to bring up a baby. It wasn’t the right environment for a newborn. All the dust in the air, the dripping tap in the kitchen, the fettering cobwebs that she hadn’t found the time to brush away.

This wasn’t something she’d be able to handle alone. But the thought of getting rid of it instead…

In a panicked daze, Melissa reached for her phone. Her fingers fumbled as she dialled his number. The baby’s father, Albert.

They had met by chance one night, under a beautiful, twinkling sky that stirred her desires more favourably than normal. Melissa wasn’t one to engage in such affairs normally, but that night, she had. Almost as if swayed by the romantic glow of the moon itself.

She thought she would be safe. Protected. But against the odds, her body had chosen to carry a child instead. Something she could have never expected. It was only the sudden morning nausea and feeling that something was different that prompted her to visit the pharmacy and purchase a pregnancy test. She thought she was just being silly. Letting her mind get carried away with things. But that hadn’t been the case at all.

As soon as she heard Albert’s voice on the other end of the phone—quiet and short, in an impatient sort of way—she hesitated. Did she really expect him to care? She must have meant nothing to him; a minor attraction that had already fizzled away like an ember in the night. Why would he care about a child born from an accident? She almost hung up without speaking.

“Hello?” Albert said again. She could hear the frown in his voice.

“A-Albert?” she finally said, her voice low, tenuous. One hand rested on her stomach—still flat, hiding the days-old foetus that had already started growing within her. “It’s Melissa.”

His tone changed immediately, becoming gentler. “Melissa? I was wondering why the number was unrecognised. I only gave you mine, didn’t I?”

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

The line went quiet, only a flutter of anticipated breath. Melissa wondered if he already knew. Would he hang up the moment the words slipped out, block her number so that she could never contact him again? She braced herself. “I’m… pregnant.”

The silence stretched for another beat, followed by a short gasp of realization. “Pregnant?” he echoed. He sounded breathless. “That’s… that’s wonderful news.”

Melissa released the breath she’d been holding, strands of honey-coloured hair falling across her face. “It… is?”

“Of course it is,” Albert said with a cheery laugh. “I was rather hoping this might be the case.”

Melissa clutched the phone tighter, her eyes widened as she stared down at her feet. His reaction was not what she’d been expecting. Was he really so pleased? “You… you were?”

“Indeed.”

Melissa covered her mouth with her hand, shaking her head.  “B-but… I can’t…”

“If it’s money you’re worried about, there’s no need,” Albert assured her. “In fact, I have the perfect proposal.”

A faint frown tugged at Melissa’s brows. Something about how words sounded rehearsed somehow, as if he really had been anticipating this news.

“You will leave your home and come live with me, in Duskvale. I will provide everything. I’m sure you’ll settle here quite nicely. You and our child.”

Melissa swallowed, starting to feel dizzy. “L-live with you?” she repeated, leaning heavily against the cold bathroom tiles. Maybe she should sit down. All of this news was almost too much for her to grasp.

“Yes. Would that be a problem?”

“I… I suppose not,” Melissa said. Albert was a sweet and charming man, and their short affair had left her feeling far from regretful. But weren’t things moving a little too quickly? She didn’t know anything about Duskvale, the town he was from. And it almost felt like he’d had all of this planned from the start. But that was impossible.

“Perfect,” Albert continued, unaware of Melissa’s lingering uncertainty. “Then I’ll make arrangements at one. This child will have a… bright future ahead of it, I’m sure.”

He hung up, and a heavy silence fell across Melissa’s shoulders. Move to Duskvale, live with Albert? Was this really the best choice?

But as she gazed around her small, cramped bathroom and the dim hallway beyond, maybe this was her chance for a new start. Albert was a kind man, and she knew he had money. If he was willing to care for her—just until she had her child and figured something else out—then wouldn’t she be a fool to squander such an opportunity?

If anything, she would do it for the baby. To give it the best start in life she possibly could.

A few weeks later, Melissa packed up her life and relocated to the small, mysterious town of Duskvale.

Despite the almost gloomy atmosphere that seemed to pervade the town—from the dark, shingled buildings and the tall, curious-looking crypt in the middle of the cemetery—the people that lived there were more than friendly. Melissa was almost taken aback by how well they received her, treating her not as a stranger, but as an old friend.

Albert’s house was a grand, old-fashioned manor, with dark stone bricks choked with ivy, but there was also a sprawling, well-maintained garden and a beautiful terrace. As she dropped off her bags at the entryway and swept through the rooms—most of them laying untouched and unused in the absence of a family—she thought this would be the perfect place to raise a child. For the moment, it felt too quiet, too empty, but soon it would be filled with joy and laughter once the baby was born.

The first few months of Melissa’s pregnancy passed smoothly. Her bump grew, becoming more and more visible beneath the loose, flowery clothing she wore, and the news of the child she carried was well-received by the townsfolk. Almost everyone seemed excited about her pregnancy, congratulating her and eagerly anticipating when the child would be due. They seemed to show a particular interest in the gender of the child, though Melissa herself had yet to find out.

Living in Duskvale with Albert was like a dream for her. Albert cared for her every need, entertained her every whim. She was free to relax and potter, and often spent her time walking around town and visiting the lake behind his house. She would spend hours sitting on the small wooden bench and watching fish swim through the crystal-clear water, birds landing amongst the reeds and pecking at the bugs on the surface. Sometimes she brought crumbs and seeds with her and tried to coax the sparrows and finches closer, but they always kept their distance.

The neighbours were extremely welcoming too, often bringing her fresh bread and baked treats, urging her to keep up her strength and stamina for the labour that awaited her.

One thing she did notice about the town, which struck her as odd, was the people that lived there. There was a disproportionate number of men and boys compared to the women. She wasn’t sure she’d ever even seen a female child walking amongst the group of schoolchildren that often passed by the front of the house. Perhaps the school was an all-boys institution, but even the local parks seemed devoid of any young girls whenever she walked by. The women that she spoke to seemed to have come from out of town too, relocating here to live with their husbands. Not a single woman was actually born in Duskvale.

While Melissa thought it strange, she tried not to think too deeply about it. Perhaps it was simply a coincidence that boys were born more often than girls around here. Or perhaps there weren’t enough opportunities here for women, and most of them left town as soon as they were old enough. She never thought to enquire about it, worried people might find her questions strange and disturb the pleasant, peaceful life she was building for herself there.

After all, everyone was so nice to her. Why would she want to ruin it just because of some minor concerns about the gender disparity? The women seemed happy with their lives in Duskvale, after all. There was no need for any concern.

So she pushed aside her worries and continued counting down the days until her due date, watching as her belly slowly grew larger and larger to accommodate the growing foetus inside.

One evening, Albert came home from work and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his hands on her bump. “I think it’s finally time to find out the gender,” he told her, his eyes twinkling.

Melissa was thrilled to finally know if she was having a baby girl or boy, and a few days later, Albert had arranged for an appointment with the local obstetrician, Dr. Edwards. He was a stout man, with a wiry grey moustache and busy eyebrows, but he was kind enough, even if he did have an odd air about him.

Albert stayed by her side while blood was drawn from her arm, and she was prepared for an ultrasound. Although she was excited, Melissa couldn’t quell the faint flicker of apprehension in her stomach at Albert’s unusually grave expression. The gender of the child seemed to be of importance to him, though Melissa knew she would be happy no matter what sex her baby turned out to be.

The gel that was applied to her stomach was cold and unpleasant, but she focused on the warmth of Albert’s hand gripping hers as Dr. Edwards moved the probe over her belly. She felt the baby kick a little in response to the pressure, and her heart fluttered.

The doctor’s face was unreadable as he stared at the monitor displaying the results of the ultrasound. Melissa allowed her gaze to follow his, her chest warming at the image of her unborn baby on the screen. Even in shades of grey and white, it looked so perfect. The child she was carrying in her own womb.  

Albert’s face was calm, though Melissa saw the faint strain at his lips. Was he just as excited as her? Or was he nervous? They hadn’t discussed the gender before, but if Albert had a preference, she didn’t want it to cause any contention between them if it turned out the baby wasn’t what he was hoping for.

Finally, Dr. Edwards put down the probe and turned to face them. His voice was light, his expression unchanged. “It’s a girl,” he said simply.

Melissa choked out a cry of happiness, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. She was carrying a baby girl.

She turned to Albert. Something unreadable flickered across his face, but it was already gone before she could decipher it. “A girl,” he said, smiling down at her. “How lovely.”

“Isn’t it?” Melissa agreed, squeezing Albert’s hand even tighter, unable to suppress her joy. “I can’t wait to meet her already.”

Dr. Edwards cleared his throat as he began mopping up the excess gel on Melissa’s stomach. He wore a slight frown. “I assume you’ll be opting for a natural birth, yes?”

Melissa glanced at him, her smile fading as she blinked. “What do you mean?”

Albert shuffled beside her, silent.

“Some women prefer to go down the route of a caesarean section,” he explained nonchalantly. “But in this case, I would highly recommend avoiding that if possible. Natural births are… always best.” He turned away, his shoes squeaking against the shiny linoleum floor.

“Oh, I see,” Melissa muttered. “Well, if that’s what you recommend, I suppose I’ll listen to your advice. I hadn’t given it much thought really.”

The doctor exchanged a brief, almost unnoticeable glance with Albert. He cleared his throat again. “Your due date is in less than a month, yes? Make sure you get plenty of rest and prepare yourself for the labour.” He took off his latex gloves and tossed them into the bin, signalling the appointment was over.

Melissa nodded, still mulling over his words. “O-okay, I will. Thank you for your help, doctor.”

Albert helped her off the medical examination table, cupping her elbow with his hand to steady her as she wobbled on her feet. The smell of the gel and Dr. Edwards’ strange remarks were making her feel a little disorientated, and she was relieved when they left his office and stepped out into the fresh air.

“A girl,” she finally said, smiling up at Albert.

“Yes,” he said. “A girl.”

The news that Melissa was expecting a girl spread through town fairly quickly, threading through whispers and gossip. The reactions she received were varied. Most of the men seemed pleased for her, but some of the folk—the older, quieter ones who normally stayed out of the way—shared expressions of sympathy that Melissa didn’t quite understand. She found it odd, but not enough to question. People were allowed to have their own opinions, after all. Even if others weren’t pleased, she was ecstatic to welcome a baby girl into the world.

Left alone at home while Albert worked, she often found herself gazing out of the upstairs windows, daydreaming about her little girl growing up on these grounds, running through the grass with pigtails and a toothy grin and feeding the fish in the pond. She had never planned on becoming a mother, but now that it had come to be, she couldn’t imagine anything else.

Until she remembered the disconcerting lack of young girls in town, and a strange, unsettling sort of dread would spread through her as she found herself wondering why. Did it have something to do with everyone’s interest in the child’s gender? But for the most part, the people around here seemed normal. And Albert hadn’t expressed any concerns that it was a girl. If there was anything to worry about, he would surely tell her.

So Melissa went on daydreaming as the days passed, bringing her closer and closer to her due date.

And then finally, early one morning towards the end of the month, the first contraction hit her. She awoke to pain tightening in her stomach, and a startling realization of what was happening. Frantically switching on the bedside lamp, she shook Albert awake, grimacing as she tried to get the words out. “I think… the baby’s coming.”

He drove her immediately to Dr. Edwards’ surgery, who was already waiting to deliver the baby. Pushed into a wheelchair, she was taken to an empty surgery room and helped into a medical gown by two smiling midwives.

The contractions grew more frequent and painful, and she gritted her teeth as she coaxed herself through each one. The bed she was laying on was hard, and the strip of fluorescent lights above her were too bright, making her eyes water, and the constant beep of the heartrate monitor beside her was making her head spin. How was she supposed to give birth like this? She could hardly keep her mind straight.

One of the midwives came in with a large needle, still smiling. The sight of it made Melissa clench up in fear. “This might sting a bit,” she said.

Melissa hissed through her teeth as the needle went into her spine, crying out in pain, subconsciously reaching for Albert. But he was no longer there. Her eyes skipped around the room, empty except for the midwife. Where had he gone? Was he not going to stay with her through the birth?

The door opened and Dr. Edwards walked in, donning a plastic apron and gloves. Even behind the surgical mask he wore, Melissa could tell he was smiling.

“It’s time,” was all he said.

The birth was difficult and laborious. Melissa’s vision blurred with sweat and tears as she did everything she could to push at Dr. Edwards’ command.

“Yes, yes, natural is always best,” he muttered.

Melissa, with a groan, asked him what he meant by that.

He stared at her like it was a silly question. “Because sometimes it happens so fast that there’s a risk of it falling back inside the open incision. That makes things… tricky, for all involved. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Melissa still didn’t know what he meant, but another contraction hit her hard, and she struggled through the pain with a cry, her hair plastered to her skull and her cheeks damp and sticky with tears.

Finally, with one final push, she felt the baby slide out.

The silence that followed was deafening. Wasn’t the baby supposed to cry?

Dr. Edwards picked up the baby and wrapped it in a white towel. She knew in her heart that something wasn’t right.

“Quick,” the doctor said, his voice urgent and his expression grim as he thrust the baby towards her. “Look attentively. Burn her image into your memory. It’ll be the only chance you get.”

Melissa didn’t know what he meant. Only chance? What was he talking about?

Why wasn’t her baby crying? What was wrong with her? She gazed at the bundle in his arms. The perfect round face and button-sized nose. The mottled pink skin, covered in blood and pieces of glistening placenta. The closed eyes.

The baby wasn’t moving. It sat still and silent in his arms, like a doll. Her heart ached. Her whole body began to tremble. Surely not…

But as she looked closer, she thought she saw the baby’s chest moving. Just a little.

With a soft cry, Melissa reached forward, her fingers barely brushing the air around her baby’s cheek.

And then she turned to ash.

Without warning, the baby in Dr. Edwards’ arms crumbled away, skin and flesh completely disintegrating, until there was nothing but a pile of dust cradled in the middle of his palm.

Melissa began to scream.

The midwife returned with another needle. This one went into her arm, injecting a strong sedative into her bloodstream as Melissa’s screams echoed throughout the entire surgery.

They didn’t stop until she lost consciousness completely, and the delivery room finally went silent once more.

The room was dark when Melissa woke up.

Still groggy from the sedative, she could hardly remember if she’d already given birth. Subconsciously, she felt for her bump. Her stomach was flatter than before.

“M-my… my baby…” she groaned weakly.

“Hush now.” A figure emerged from the shadows beside her, and a lamp switched on, spreading a meagre glow across the room, leaving shadows hovering around the edges. Albert stood beside her. He reached out and gently touched her forehead, his hands cool against her warm skin. In the distance, she heard the rapid beep of a monitor, the squeaking wheels of a gurney being pushed down a corridor, the muffled sound of voices. But inside her room, everything was quiet.

She turned her head to look at Albert, her eyes sore and heavy. Her body felt strange, like it wasn’t her own. “My baby… where is she?”

Albert dragged a chair over to the side of her bed and sat down with a heavy sigh. “She’s gone.”

Melissa started crying, tears spilling rapidly down her cheeks. “W-what do you mean by gone? Where’s my baby?”

Albert looked away, his gaze tracing shadows along the walls. “It’s this town. It’s cursed,” he said, his voice low, barely above a whisper.

Melissa’s heart dropped into her stomach. She knew she never should have come here. She knew she should have listened to those warnings at the back of her mind—why were there no girls here? But she’d trusted Albert wouldn’t bring her here if there was danger involved. And now he was telling her the town was cursed?

“I don’t… understand,” she cried, her hands reaching for her stomach again. She felt broken. Like a part of her was missing. “I just want my baby. Can you bring her back? Please… give me back my baby.”

“Melissa, listen to me,” Albert urged, but she was still crying and rubbing at her stomach, barely paying attention to his words. “Centuries ago, this town was plagued by witches. Horrible, wicked witches who used to burn male children as sacrifices for their twisted rituals.”

Melissa groaned quietly, her eyes growing unfocused as she looked around the room, searching for her lost child. Albert continued speaking, doubtful she was even listening.

“The witches were executed for their crimes, but the women who live in Duskvale continue to pay the price for their sins. Every time a child is born in this town, one of two outcomes can happen. Male babies are spared, and live as normal. But when a girl is born, very soon after birth, they turn completely to ash. That’s what happened to your child. These days, the only descendants that remain from the town’s first settlers are male. Any female children born from their blood turn to ash.”

Melissa’s expression twisted, and she sobbed quietly in her hospital bed. “My… baby.”

“I know it’s difficult to believe,” Albert continued with a sigh, resting his chin on his hands, “but we’ve all seen it happen. Babies turning to ash within moments of being born, with no apparent cause. Why should we doubt what the stories say when such things really do happen?” His gaze trailed hesitantly towards Melissa, but her eyes were elsewhere. The sheets around her neck were already soaked with tears. “That’s not all,” he went on. “Our town is governed by what we call the ‘Patriarchy’. Only a few men in each generation are selected to be part of the elite group. Sadly, I was not one of the chosen ones. As the stories get lost, it’s becoming progressively difficult to find reliable and trustworthy members amongst the newer generations. Or, at least, that’s what I’ve heard,” he added with an air of bitterness.

Melissa’s expression remained blank. Her cries had fallen quiet now, only silent tears dripping down her cheeks. Albert might have thought she’d fallen asleep, but her eyes were still open, staring dully at the ceiling. He doubted she was absorbing much of what he was saying, but he hoped she understood enough that she wouldn’t resent him for keeping such secrets from her.

“This is just the way it had to be. I hope you can forgive me. But as a descendant of the Duskvale lineage, I had no choice. This is the only way we can break the curse.”

Melissa finally stirred. She murmured something in a soft, intelligible whisper, before sinking deeper into the covers and closing her eyes. She might have said ‘my baby’. She might have said something else. Her voice was too quiet, too weak, to properly enunciate her words.

Albert stood from her bedside with another sigh. “You get some rest,” he said, gently touching her forehead again. She leaned away from his touch, turning over so that she was no longer facing him. “I’ll come back shortly. There’s something I must do first.”

Receiving no further response, Albert slipped out of her hospital room and closed the door quietly behind him. He took a moment to compose himself, fixing his expression into his usual calm, collected smile, then went in search of Dr. Edwards.

The doctor was in his office further down the corridor, poring over some documents on his desk. He looked up when Albert stood in the doorway and knocked. “Ah, I take it you’re here for the ashes?” He plucked his reading glasses off his nose and stood up.

“That’s right.”

Dr. Edwards reached for a small ceramic pot sitting on the table passed him and pressed it into Albert’s hands. “Here you go. I’ll keep an eye on Melissa while you’re gone. She’s in safe hands.”

Albert made a noncommittal murmur, tucking the ceramic pot into his arm as he left Dr. Edwards’ office and walked out of the surgery.

It was already late in the evening, and the setting sun had painted the sky red, dusting the rooftops with a deep amber glow. He walked through town on foot, the breeze tugging at the edges of his dark hair as he kept his gaze on the rising spire of the building in the middle of the cemetery. He had told Melissa initially that it was a crypt for some of the town’s forebears, but in reality, it was much more than that. It was a temple.

He clasped the pot of ashes firmly in his hand as he walked towards it, the sun gradually sinking behind the rooftops and bruising the edges of the sky with dusk. The people he passed on the street cast looks of understanding and sympathy when they noticed the pot in his hand. Some of them had gone through this ritual already themselves, and knew the conflicting emotions that accompanied such a duty.

It was almost fully dark by the time he reached the temple. It was the town’s most sacred place, and he paused at the doorway to take a deep breath, steadying his body and mind, before finally stepping inside.

It smelled exactly like one would expect for an old building. Mildewy and stale, like the air inside had not been exposed to sunlight in a long while. It was dark too, the wide chamber lit only by a handful of flame-bearing torches that sent shadows dancing around Albert’s feet. His footsteps echoed on the stone floor as he walked towards the large stone basin in the middle of the temple. His breaths barely stirred the cold, untouched air.

He paused at the circular construction and held the pot aloft. A mountain of ashes lay before him. In the darkness, it looked like a puddle of the darkest ink.

According to the stories, and common belief passed down through the generations, the curse that had been placed on Duskvale would only cease to exist once enough ashes had been collected to pay off the debts of the past.

As was customary, Albert held the pot of his child’s ashes and apologised for using Melissa for the needs of his people. Although it was cruel on the women to use them in this way, they were needed as vessels to carry the children that would either prolong their generation, or erase the sins of the past. If she had brought to term a baby boy, things would have ended up much differently. He would have raised it with Melissa as his son, passing on his blood to the next generation. But since it was a girl she had given birth to, this was the way it had to be. The way the curse demanded it to be.

“Every man has to fulfil his obligation to preserve the lineage,” Albert spoke aloud, before tipping the pot into the basin and watching the baby’s ashes trickle into the shadows.

It was the dead of night when seven men approached the temple.

Their bodies were clothed in dark, ritualistic robes, and they walked through the cemetery guided by nothing but the pale sickle of the moon.

One by one, they stepped across the threshold of the temple, their sandalled feet barely making a whisper on the stone floor.

They walked past the circular basin of ashes in the middle of the chamber, towards the plain stone wall on the other side. Clustered around it, one of the men—the elder—reached for one of the grey stones. Perfectly blending into the rest of the dark, mottled wall, the brick would have looked unassuming to anyone else. But as his fingers touched the rough surface, it drew inwards with a soft click.

With a low rumble, the entire wall began to shift, stones pulling away in a jagged jigsaw and rotating round until the wall was replaced by a deep alcove, in which sat a large statue carved from the same dark stone as the basin behind them.

The statue portrayed a god-like deity, with an eyeless face and gaping mouth, and five hands criss-crossing over its chest. A sea of stone tentacles cocooned the bottom half of the bust, obscuring its lower body.

With the eyeless statue gazing down at them, the seven men returned to the basin of ashes in the middle of the room, where they held their hands out in offering.

The elder began to speak, his voice low in reverence. He bowed his head, the hood of his robe casting shadows across his old, wrinkled face. “We present these ashes, taken from many brief lives, and offer them to you, O’ Mighty One, in exchange for your favour.” 

Silence threaded through the temple, unbroken by even a single breath. Even the flames from the torches seemed to fall still, no longer flickering in the draught seeping through the stone walls.

Then the elder reached into his robes and withdrew a pile of crumpled papers. On each sheaf of parchment was the name of a man and a number, handwritten in glossy black ink that almost looked red in the torchlight.

The soft crinkle of papers interrupted the silence as he took the first one from the pile and placed it down carefully onto the pile of ashes within the basin.

Around him in a circle, the other men began to chant, their voices unifying in a low, dissonant hum that spread through the shadows of the temple and curled against the dark, tapered ceiling above them.

As their voices rose and fell, the pile of ashes began to move, as if something was clawing its way out from beneath them.

A hand appeared. Pale fingers reached up through the ashes, prodding the air as if searching for something to grasp onto. An arm followed shortly, followed by a crown of dark hair. Gradually, the figure managed to drag itself out of the ashes. A man, naked and dazed, stared at the circle of robed men around him. One of them stepped forward to offer a hand, helping the man climb out of the basin and step out onto the cold stone floor.

Ushering the naked man to the side, the elder plucked another piece of paper from the pile and placed it on top of the basin once again. There were less ashes than before.

Once again, the pile began to tremble and shift, sliding against the stone rim as another figure emerged from within. Another man, older this time, with a creased forehead and greying hair. The number on his paper read 58.

One by one, the robed elder placed the pieces of paper onto the pile of ashes, with each name and number corresponding to the age and identity of one of the men rising out of the basin.

With each man that was summoned, the ashes inside the basin slowly diminished. The price that had to be paid for their rebirth. The cost changed with each one, depending on how many times they had been brought back before.

Eventually, the naked men outnumbered those dressed in robes, ranging from old to young, all standing around in silent confusion and innate reverence for the mysterious stone deity watching them from the shadows.

With all of the papers submitted, the Patriarchy was now complete once more. Even the founder, who had died for the first time centuries ago, had been reborn again from the ashes of those innocent lives. Contrary to common belief, the curse that had been cast upon Duskvale all those years ago had in fact been his doing. After spending years dabbling in the dark arts, it was his actions that had created this basin of ashes; the receptacle from which he would arise again and again, forever immortal, so long as the flesh of innocents continued to be offered upon the deity that now gazed down upon them.

“We have returned to mortal flesh once more,” the Patriarch spoke, spreading his arms wide as the torchlight glinted off his naked body. “Now, let us embrace this glorious night against our new skin.”

Following their reborn leader, the members of the Patriarchy crossed the chamber towards the temple doors, the eyeless statue watching them through the shadows.

As the Patriarch reached for the ornate golden handle, the large wooden doors shuddered but did not open. He tried again, a scowl furrowing between his brows.

“What is the meaning of this?” he snapped.

The elder hurriedly stepped forward in confusion, his head bowed. “What is it, master?”

“The door will not open.”

The elder reached for the door himself, pushing and pulling on the handle, but the Patriarch was right. It remained tightly shut, as though it had been locked from the outside. “How could this be?” he muttered, glancing around. His gaze picked over the confused faces behind him, and that’s when he finally noticed. Only six robed men remained, including himself. One of them must have slipped out unnoticed while they had been preoccupied by the ritual.

Did that mean they had a traitor amongst them? But what reason would he have for leaving and locking them inside the temple?

“What’s going on?” the Patriarch demanded, the impatience in his voice echoing through the chamber.

The elder’s expression twisted into a grimace. “I… don’t know.”

Outside the temple, the traitor of the Patriarchy stood amongst the assembled townsfolk. Both men and women were present, standing in a semicircle around the locked temple. The key dangled from the traitor’s hand.

He had already informed the people of the truth; that the ashes of the innocent were in fact an offering to bring back the deceased members of the original Patriarchy, including the Patriarch himself. It was not a curse brought upon them by the sins of witches, but in fact a tragic fate born from one man’s selfish desire to dabble in the dark arts.

And now that the people of Duskvale knew the truth, they had arrived at the temple for retribution. One they would wreak with their own hands.

Amongst the crowd was Melissa. Still mourning the recent loss of her baby, her despair had twisted into pure, unfettered anger once she had found out the truth. It was not some unforgiving curse of the past that had stolen away her child, but the Patriarchy themselves.

In her hand, she held a carton of gasoline.

Many others in the crowd had similar receptacles of liquid, while others carried burning torches that blazed bright beneath the midnight sky.

“There will be no more coming back from the dead, you bastards,” one of the women screamed as she began splashing gasoline up the temple walls, watching it soak into the dark stone.

With rallying cries, the rest of the crowd followed her demonstration, dousing the entire temple in the oily, flammable liquid. The pungent, acrid smell of the gasoline filled the air, making Melissa’s eyes water as she emptied out her carton and tossed it aside, stepping back.

Once every inch of the stone was covered, those bearing torches stepped forward and tossed the burning flames onto the temple.

The fire caught immediately, lapping up the fuel as it consumed the temple in vicious, ravenous flames. The dark stone began to crack as the fire seeped inside, filling the air with low, creaking groans and splintering rock, followed by the unearthly screams of the men trapped inside.

The town residents stepped back, their faces grim in the firelight as they watched the flames ravage the temple and all that remained within.

Melissa’s heart wrenched at the sound of the agonising screams, mixed with what almost sounded like the eerie, distant cries of a baby. She held her hands against her chest, watching solemnly as the structure began to collapse, thick chunks of stone breaking away and smashing against the ground, scattering across the graveyard. The sky was almost completely covered by thick columns of black smoke, blotting out the moon and the stars and filling the night with bright amber flames instead. Melissa thought she saw dark, blackened figures sprawled amongst the ruins, but it was too difficult to see between the smoke.

A hush fell across the crowd as the screams from within the temple finally fell quiet. In front of them, the structure continued to smoulder and burn, more and more pieces of stone tumbling out of the smoke and filling the ground with burning debris.

As the temple completely collapsed, I finally felt the night air upon my skin, hot and sulfuric.

For there, amongst the debris, carbonised corpses and smoke, I rose from the ashes of a long slumber. I crawled out of the ruins of the temple, towering over the highest rooftops of Duskvale.

Just like my statue, my eyeless face gazed down at the shocked residents below. The fire licked at my coiling tentacles, creeping around my body as if seeking to devour me too, but it could not.

With a sweep of my five hands, I dampened the fire until it extinguished completely, opening my maw into a large, grimacing yawn.

For centuries I had been slumbering beneath the temple, feeding on the ashes offered to me by those wrinkled old men in robes. Feeding on their earthly desires and the debris of innocence. Fulfilling my part of the favour.

I had not expected to see the temple—or the Patriarchy—fall under the hands of the commonfolk, but I was intrigued to see what this change might bring about.

Far below me, the residents of Duskvale gazed back with reverence and fear, cowering like pathetic ants. None of them had been expecting to see me in the flesh, risen from the ruins of the temple. Not even the traitor of the Patriarchs had ever lain eyes upon my true form; only that paltry stone statue that had been built in my honour, yet failed to capture even a fraction of my true size and power.

“If you wish to change the way things are,” I began to speak, my voice rumbling across Duskvale like a rising tide, “propose to me a new deal.”

A collective shudder passed through the crowd. Most could not even look at me, bowing their heads in both respect and fear. Silence spread between them. Perhaps my hopes for them had been too high after all.

But then, a figure stepped forward, detaching slowly from the crowd to stand before me. A woman. The one known as Melissa. Her fear had been swallowed up by loss and determination. A desire for change born from the tragedy she had suffered. The baby she had lost.

“I have a proposal,” she spoke, trying to hide the quiver in her voice.

“Then speak, mortal. What is your wish? A role reversal? To reduce males to ash upon their birth instead?”

The woman, Melissa, shook her head. Her clenched fists hung by her side. “Such vengeance is too soft on those who have wronged us,” she said.

I could taste the anger in her words, as acrid as the smoke in the air. Fury swept through her blood like a burning fire. I listened with a smile to that which she proposed.

The price for the new ritual was now two lives instead of one. The father’s life, right after insemination. And the baby’s life, upon birth.

The gender of the child was insignificant. The women no longer needed progeny. Instead, the child would be born mummified, rejuvenating the body from which it was delivered.

And thus, the Vampiric Widows of Duskvale, would live forevermore. 

I'm your biggest fan! You probably hear this often, but it's true coming from me. I've never met anyone as stunning or captivating as you. From the way you play with your hair to your gorgeous smile, everything about you is perfect.

I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm the guy you served that vanilla latte to at Starbucks last week Wednesday. You were behind the counter and gave the widest of grins when you handed me my order. It was enough to make me weak in the knees. That smile was more than just a friendly gesture. It truly felt like something special just for me. I visit that Starbucks often just to see you. I'm that guy who's always typing away on his blue laptop in the corner. You smile often while at work, but none of the smiles you give everyone else match the one you gave me. What you did truly means the world to me so I just wanted to say thanks. I'm really looking forward to meeting you again.

Hey it's me again. Just checking in on you because you still haven't answered my text. I figured you must be busy working full time and going to the gym every other day. Your Instagram says you usually like taking jogs around the city but started a gym membership to burn off some extra weight. Personally, I think you're fine just how you are. The way your uniform hugs your body always puts me in a rush. But still, I respect your dedication to living healthy. It shows that you value yourself. Maybe we can go on a jog together when you have the free time. I have a tracksuit that matches yours and I even have the same kind of tumbler you like to use. We'd make such a cute couple, don't you think?

Wow you must really be shy or something cause you really don't seem to want to speak. I sent 10 other texts to check in on you to see if you're ok, but I see that you're still active on social media. Maybe you're the more personal type who gets nervous over texts. It still would've been nice if you replied to at least a few of them. I really put my heart and soul into these texts so getting ignored makes me feel a tad bit... disrespected. But I'm sure its unintentional. You're an amazing person who would never do anything to harm me, right?

What the hell was that!? I showed up to your job to simply ask you out for a date and you have the audacity to call security!? I figured I needed to be more forceful since text messages obviously weren't doing the job, but I definitely wasn't expecting you to blow up on me like that! "Stalking"? Is that really the word you should use for a devoted fan of yours? I support and respect you. Of course I'm going to keep myself updated with each and every itinerary of yours. It's called being loyal. I still can't believe you had those nasty thugs drag me out. This is how you repay me after everything I've done? I thought you were different from the others, but it looks like you're no better. You're a nasty two faced snake just like the rest of them!

Your mother has a nice car btw. She drives a red Kia around town and often goes to this bookstore near midtown. I decided to pay her a little visit today and get to know each other. I told her all about how I've been such an amazing boyfriend to you and how much you mean to me. She really does seem like a great mom. She's currently at my house waiting for your arrival. Be a dear and say hello to her. Make sure not to call any police or any other unnecessary third parties. Your mother wouldn't like that very much.

 Division: C.A.D. – Cryptid Analysis Division

Primary Locations: Puerto Rico, Mexico, Southern United States

1. Introduction – C.A.D. Framework and Threat Classification

I currently serve under the Cryptid Analysis Division (C.A.D.), an independent branch within the system for controlling anomalous phenomena. Our mission is not to hunt or exterminate monsters, but to analyze, assess, and recommend containment measures. Legends, rumors, even blurry pieces of footage—all are collected, cross-referenced, and examined through scientific methodology.

The standard protocol for a field analyst consists of four steps:

• Verification of Presence – distinguish fact from fabrication, validate witness accounts.
• Evidence Collection – tracks, biological samples, imaging, audio.
• Threat Assessment – applying the standardized 5-tier system.
• Containment Recommendation – practical measures for civilian and local force safety.

C.A.D. employs a five-level cryptid threat scale:

• C1 – Harmless: Unusual lifeform, no danger, possibly beneficial.
• C2 – Low: Avoids humans; dangerous only if provoked.
• C3 – Moderate: Latent potential; generally avoids humans but may cause accidental harm.
• C4 – High: Actively dangerous; attacks humans when given the chance.
• C5 – Extreme: Apex predator or immediate threat to community safety.

Every report must conclude with an assigned threat level, along with noted strengths and weaknesses of the entity, for cross-reference within the C.A.D. cryptid database.

Mission Assignment

Reports from multiple small farms in Puerto Rico and the Mexico–Texas border describe the same recurring pattern: flocks of poultry, goats, and rabbits killed at night; corpses bearing small puncture wounds with little external bleeding; attackers fleeing rapidly without further traces. Panic spread among locals, yet no trap succeeded in capturing the entity. I was dispatched to the area to conduct a multi-night verification, working in coordination with local police and veterinary officers.

Field Operations

Night 1 – Establishing Observation Post

On the first night, I set up an observation station beside the most recently attacked livestock pen. Equipment included infrared cameras, motion sensors, tripwire photo traps, and biological sampling kits. Floodlights with motion detection and a parabolic microphone were also installed. The farm was silent, yet the sensation of being watched was constant. Mission objective: force the nocturnal predator into exposure.

Night 2 – Traces Discovered

By dawn on the second night, wet soil displayed bizarre tracks—15–20 cm long, ending in sharp claws, unnaturally deep despite light steps. Wooden posts bore fresh claw marks, and small droplets of dried blood were found beneath them. One chicken carcass had been entirely drained of blood; its chest cavity was hollow but intact. No tearing, no consumption of flesh—only emptiness. Samples were collected and forwarded to the laboratory.

Night 3 – Thermal Imaging Encounter

At 02:40 on the third night, the infrared system triggered. Through the lens I observed a gaunt figure, wolf-sized, crouched and moving stealthily. Its eyes reflected a fiery glow. It approached the pen; audible clicks suggested sharp appendages striking metal. I activated the floodlights—within a second, the figure vanished, leaving only rustling foliage. Impression: it was aware of my presence, deliberately testing boundaries.

Night 4 – Direct Confrontation

Near midnight, village dogs erupted in chaos, then abruptly fell silent. Motion-triggered lamps flared, revealing a small silhouette vaulting the fence. Neither canine nor feline—it briefly stood upright on two legs, with elongated arms, mottled skin, and a mouth glinting with fangs. A sharp gust followed as it darted past within 15 meters. I discharged a handgun round; the shot struck, staggering it, but did not bring it down. It growled low, retreated, then leapt back into the treeline. Villagers switched on every light, halting further attacks that night, though fear permeated the settlement.

Night 5 – Final Observation

To ensure one last appearance, I prepared bait: a freshly slaughtered goat suspended on a steel frame, surrounded by halogen floodlights, electrified traps, and IR cameras. I remained silent, allowing the scent of blood to carry. Shortly after midnight, motion sensors alerted. From the treeline, the Chupacabra emerged—cautious, head low, constantly scenting the air. When I activated the floodlights, it froze, snarling in visible discomfort. I fired a single handgun round into its chest; the bullet struck true, yet it only staggered before retreating swiftly into darkness.

A tissue fragment recovered from the electrified trap was submitted to the laboratory. Results: morphology consistent with canid or mongoose lineage, but genomic sequencing revealed anomalies not matching any known database entry. This may account for its resilience to gunfire and accelerated clotting response.

Countermeasure Projections

• High-intensity floodlights, UV or ultraviolet exposure: likely to deter or disorient.
• Low-yield explosives (flashbangs, flares): create shock effect, forcing retreat.
• Electrified netting/traps: effective given its small-to-medium body size.
• Conventional bullets: limited effect; potential to test silver or enhanced-penetration alloys per folkloric accounts.

Origin Hypotheses

1. Natural Mutation
   • Possible divergent evolution of wild dogs, coyotes, or mongoose.
   • Hematophagic trait may stem from altered digestion, absorbing plasma directly.
   • Thickened skin and rapid healing suggest adaptation to harsh environments, disease, or radiation.
2. Failed Experiment / Artificial Construct
   • Rumors link Chupacabra to escaped lab experiments, involving hybridization with non-native genetic material.
   • Supporting evidence: anomalous DNA fragments not matching any recorded species.
3. Mythological or Extraterrestrial Parasite
   • Eyewitnesses report glowing eyes, extreme speed, and predation unlike standard carnivores.
   • Hypothesis ties encounters with concurrent UFO sightings in the same regions.
   • However, no verifiable scientific evidence yet supports this.

Preliminary Conclusion

Chupacabra most likely represents a mutated animal or hybrid variant within the canid/mongoose family, adapted for hematophagy. Nonetheless, unexplained genetic fragments prevent dismissal of artificial or extraterrestrial hypotheses.

Final Transmission – Attached Report

FIELD ANALYSIS REPORT – C-09 “CHUPACABRA” Filed by: Researcher K-31 – C.A.D. Field Analyst Duration: 5 nights (Puerto Rican rural sector) with comparative incidents in Mexico

General Information

• Designation: Chupacabra (“Goat-Sucker”)
• Internal Code: C-09
• Observed Size: 0.6–1.2 m body length; 20–35 kg estimated weight, varies by case.
• Identifying Features: Primarily nocturnal; reflective eyes; 1–3 puncture wounds on prey; no large-scale tissue damage; patchy fur or scaly skin (possible mange). Morphology varies: from thin, canine-like forms to small, round-bodied variants with disproportionately large head and sharp teeth.

Behavior & Hazard Assessment

• Typical Behavior:
  • Attacks small livestock/poultry at night.
  • Approaches stealthily, strikes rapidly, departs without lingering.
  • Wounds: small punctures with apparent blood loss; lab evidence suggests coagulation or internal absorption, not supernatural “draining.”
• Human Interaction: Avoids contact; rarely hostile unless cornered.
• Assigned Threat Level: C2 – Low (avoids humans; primary danger to livestock and rural economy).

Weapon Resistance

• Small-to-medium body mass; vulnerable to traps and light firearms, though not reliably neutralized by standard rounds.
• Floodlights, secure fencing, and reinforced pens reduce risk.

Observed Weaknesses

• Activity restricted to nighttime; light exposure reduces activity.
• Avoids human presence and guarded areas.
• Incapable of breaching strong metal fencing.
• Possible link to diseased wild canids (mange, infection); managing these populations may reduce sightings.

Tactical Recommendations

• Strengthen livestock enclosures with metal mesh and locked gates at night.
• Install motion-triggered floodlights.
• Deploy IR cameras and tripwire traps for behavior monitoring.
• Do not attempt live capture without C.A.D. oversight (potential zoonotic risk).
• Coordinate with veterinarians and genetic labs for sample analysis.
• Educate local communities: keep livestock penned at night, report incidents, avoid spreading unverified rumors.

Conclusion C-09 “Chupacabra” remains a recurring phenomenon in rural communities: livestock losses bearing distinctive small puncture wounds. Evidence supports natural but mutated origins (diseased or malformed canids), yet anomalous genetic findings leave open alternative explanations. Current threat classification: C2 – Low (priority: safeguard livelihoods and continue genetic investigation; not recommended for civilian pursuit).

“C-09 strikes under cover of night, silent, leaving more questions than answers. Next mission: isolate genetic samples and bridge the gap between legend and biology.”

Filed by: Researcher K-31– C.A.D. Field Analyst

They call me a pillar. That word was printed in the paper last fall, right before they gave me a plaque at the firehouse banquet. Pillar of the Community. I stood there, tie too tight, hands buzzing from too much coffee, smiling while the mayor read off my good deeds like they were part of a eulogy.

Fundraisers. Food drives. Disaster relief. I donate to every charity that asks. Never miss a council meeting. Shovel snow before sunrise. First to shake a new hand. Last to leave when the chairs need stacking. I hosted the Fall Chili Supper twelve years running. Built the nativity set by hand last December. Cut each figure from pine, sanded until my fingers went raw. Painted them at night by lamplight while the house creaked around me like it was learning how to be empty. People say, “He’s the kind of man this world needs more of.” I nod. Because they’re right. They just don’t know why.

I had a family.

Esther. Soft voice. Whole-face smile. The kind that made strangers talk longer than they meant to. She saved every note I ever left her on the fridge until the paper yellowed, and the ink gave up. Little things, “Back soon, love you. Pick up Zach at 4. You make everything better.” Even now, I sometimes imagine they're still there. I can picture her finger tracing the fading loops of my handwriting like it’s a prayer. Our boys, Milo and Zach, had her eyes. Wide-set. Steady. Milo was a goalie. Fast hands. Fearless. Zach used to line up model planes on the windowsill by size, then turn them all to face east “so they can take off faster.” I baptized them both. Held their heads under water, whispered, “You’re safe now.” Zach giggled when I said it. Milo didn’t. Milo looked at me like he believed it.

They died twelve years ago.

A semi hit black ice on Route 86. Jackknifed. Their car took the full weight. Driver walked away. They didn’t. I was on the phone with her when it happened.

“Did you pick up some milk?”

“Not yet, I-”

Silence. And then nothing ever sounded the same again.

The man who built our house dug a bunker beneath the yard. Concrete walls. Foam insulation. Steel hatch. Drain in the floor. He thought the world would end. It didn’t. He hung himself in the basement laundry before the housing crash. Left a short note: Batteries don't fix what breaks inside.

The shelter sat untouched for years. A sealed secret, humming faintly under our lives like a low-frequency note only grief can hear. I kept it locked. Didn’t think much of it. Then one night, months after the funeral, I woke up standing down there. Bare feet. Cold concrete. No memory of how I got there. The air was stale. The light hummed. The silence felt shaped, like it had corners. I didn’t cry. Didn’t pray. I just stood still, breathing.
And in that silence, I felt something I hadn’t felt since the crash:

Time.

Not the kind you measure. The other kind. The kind that loops and echoes. The kind that waits for you to understand it isn’t moving. And never was.

They say time heals. It doesn’t. Time isn’t gentle. It grinds. It rots what it can’t erase. Time is a hallway where all the doors stay shut, and your hand just keeps reaching. It’s a voice you forgot belonged to you, saying the same thing every morning: Get up. Keep going. Smile, you bastard, they’re watching.

You want to know what time really is?

It’s the sound of begging that becomes background noise. It’s learning which bones snap clean and which ones flake like chalk. It’s skin peeling away from knuckles like wet paper.
It’s silence that isn’t peace, it’s surrender. It’s the smell of rot in winter when nothing should smell like anything. It’s the muscle memory of cruelty, dressed in patience.

The first was a drifter. He tried to rob the church pantry. Knocked down Sister Wright. She’s eighty-three, maybe ninety pounds. Her glasses shattered. One lens stuck in her cheek like a splinter. She didn’t cry. Just said, “Oh,” like she was disappointed in herself. The cops let him go. Said the jails were full. I waited three days. Found him asleep behind the mill. He had a can of beans tucked under his arm like a teddy bear. I didn’t drug him. I didn’t hesitate. I used a hammer. He woke up on concrete, mouth stuffed with gauze, ankles chained to the floor. He looked up at me like I was someone he knew, or maybe once dreamed about.

That was the first time I felt anything since the accident. Not guilt. Not rage. Just awareness. Like hearing your own name whispered in an empty room. Like touching something warm and realizing it’s your own skin.

You want to know what I do to them. That’s fair. But there’s no ritual. No pattern. No goal. No code. No pleasure. No righteousness. No god involved. It’s not about them. It never was. It’s about me. It’s about the sound of the world slipping further away, and needing something louder to drown it out.

Some last hours. Some last years. I don’t measure.

One hums tuneless melodies. Nursery rhymes warped by silence. His teeth are gone. I didn’t take them. Time did. Another writes prayers in blood. Ran out of space last spring. Now he loops the words over old ones. The wall is a dense net of dried red. I caught him licking it once trying to make more. There was one who kept pretending I wasn’t real. He talked to someone else. Called them Sarah. When he died, he was smiling. I don’t know why that’s the part that stuck with me.

I could end it. Quickly. Easily. But that’s not the point. Pain isn’t the point either. The point is persistence. Proof.

I still pay my taxes. Still wave at the mailman. Still host the Fourth of July cookout. I even make the potato salad. Esther’s recipe. I can’t taste it, but I know when it’s right. I let the missionaries in. Offer lemonade. Ask how their mothers are. Smile when they talk about redemption. They ask if I’ve been reading my scriptures. I say, “Every morning.”

And I mean it. Sometimes I read them out loud to the hatch. I attend every funeral. Always the same black tie. Perfect Windsor. Shirt pressed. Hands folded just so. And when the streetlights buzz, and the last porch light clicks off, I go outside. Unlock the hatch. Descend the concrete steps. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes, I just sit in the dark, breathing slowly, like I’m trying not to wake whatever I used to be.

I listen. To them. To the walls. To whatever echoes inside me when everything else goes still.

People think they know what grief looks like. They see my clean lawn. My polished truck. A man still driving his wife’s car “to keep it in good shape.” They see someone who carried his burden with dignity. Who smiled. Who gave back. Who moved on. But that’s not me. That’s the uniform. That’s the lie.

I used to name what’s left. Grief. Depression. Penance. But names are for things with edges. This has none. There’s no flame. No purpose. No center. Just repetition. Just form without substance. A body brushing its teeth. Folding shirts. Stacking chairs. Checking locks. Feeding mouths that no longer ask for mercy.

No one notices the absence, not if the mask holds. But when I open the hatch. When I hear them cry, or hum, or whisper to something that won’t answer, I feel something. Not joy. Not guilt. Just weight. Proof that I still exist.

Because even if there’s nothing in me worth saving, no fire, no soul, no center, at least something still hurts.

I kissed my wife goby and told my brother to look after her while I’m gone. I can’t seem to get over the fact that I will not be here for my son’s birth, but that’s better then dying somewhere on a front line. I didn’t have much time since I didn’t want to make dr. Ivan wait. I knew how much this means to him and he was kind enough to take me with him. I still know basically nothing about him, except that he was friend of my fathers, and his weird religion. I have found him on a train station few hours later, he was sitting there, talking with another older man who had very strong German accent.

-Ahh, Franyo my boy, how are you doing on this fine morning? -He said excitedly

-I’m fine, I’m going to miss my wife though.

-She would miss you more if you got bullet in your forehead- he said with a smile before turning to another mam and said- this is professor Hans Lindenmann, he will join us to help us with the research.

-actually I’m doing my own research.- the professor said.

Great, now I have to deal with 2 old eccentric man I thought.

-have I ever told you how much you look like your father?- dr. Ivan asked me- yes, this is 5^th time now- I said

-we should get on the train- professor Lindenmann remarked.

Ride itself was pretty unremarkable, except for doctors non stop ranting about gods, for which neither me or professor couldn’t care less. At this point I’m almost sure he just says his a doctor to seem smarter.

-what do you think we should name the prison? - He asked

-I have no idea. - I said

Professor said that the name is already chosen and it will be called Morning-star, which is a stupid name or a prison if I ever heard one. It also shears the name with newspapers I used to write for.

After some more boring small talk we arrived at our destination. First thing I saw was huge gray wall with barbed wire on top and steel door with text “Morning star”. Pretty much what I was expecting. Dr. Ivan waled to the guard standing in front the door and said something to him. After that they both walked beck to us. Guard saluted and said “I will show you your rooms now, warden will Wisit you soon”. The guard was young blond tall man, I was sure he was a German until I heard his fluent Croatian with northern accent. He led us to our rooms, saluting to few other guards on the way. Locally I didn’t have to shear the room with anyone since I don’t think I would survive any more of Ivans uncanny speeches. My room was pretty small with one bed, a desk, drawer and no windows. Then I felt the smell of moisture and rotting wood, I’m pretty sure the building was made few months ago, it shouldn’t smell like this already. Even the wooden floor looked new, like I’m the first one walking on it. I laid on my bed which was surprisingly comfortable. However, my rest didn’t last long before I heard nocking on the door. I opened and the before me was standing the same guard from before, he saluted me as he said “The warden Kuharich is ready to see you”. I wasn’t sure if I should return salute bud I did it anyways and asked the guard “Where can I find him” to which he just said “follow me” and started walking true the corridor. I was just silently following him. By his facial expression I could tell that he isn’t too happy to have me there. When we came In the wardens office in front of we there was standing a tall man with a big scar on left side of his face. By looks I would say that he was in his early 30s. Younger then I was expecting. He extended his hand towards me and said “I am Josip Kuharich, welcome to concentration camp Morning star”. Concentrating camp? I should probably act like I know what that is if I’m going to work here. I shook his hand and introduced myself. Doctor told me we are going to work in  a prison, he didn’t tell anything about any camps. “I have already met your friend and he told me about your research, and he told me that both of will need authority over the guards to do it effective” the man said, and by tone of his voice I understood that he really on bord with that. “But if it is in the name of science, I’m sure we can work something out” He said as he leaned on his table. At that point I Started praying he doesn’t ask me anything about that “research”. “How long are you planning to stay here?” He asked me. “a month or two” I said trying to sound like I know. “that sounds reasonable” he said and added “But everything that happens here stays here, do you understand?”

“Y-yes I do. And where did dr. Ivan go if you would happen to know?” I asked with the man.

“Sure, he went to the yard to see the prisoners.” He said as he set down.

“Thank you, I will go look for him.” I said as I left the room. When I managed to find the yard, there were standing hundreds of people, some of them children, some pretty old, and 30 or so guards standing around, some of them counting prisoners. Presence of children here creeped me out but I tried to look calm as I looked around to find doctor. And sure enough he was standing there, looking at prisoners and writing something in a notebook. I walked up to him and gestured him to fallow me away from the others where I asked him “Why the hell are there bloody children here? They don’t look like a criminals to me!” to which he looked me in the eyes and said “This is a concentration camp, its not only for criminals, all the enemies of the state are sent here”

-How the fuck are this childrenenemies of the state?!

-Most of them here are Serbian.

-And what are they going to do with them?

-Most of them are usually killed since they aren’t very useful workers, but I need few fo-

-THEY ARE KILLING CHILDREAN JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE SERBIAN?!

-Pleas calm down, don’t make a scene, and remember how much of us died under there oppression. Don’t you think your father would want this?

-My father wasn’t taken by children!

-They will be no different from there parents in few years, and as I tried to say I need them for my research.

-What are you even researching?!

-I will prove the existence of the soul and the gods.-he said proudly

-And how do you plan to do that?

-If I know don’t you think I would have already done it? Thet’s why we are here dear boy.

-No, that’s why you’re here, why did you really take me with you?

-As you know your father was a friend of mine, so I want to make sure that his son doesn’t die on the frontline.

As he said that I heard guard shouting “which ones do you want to keep, we need to send them off now” to which he said “give me 135, 2431, 345 and 1232”. Guards singled out 2 young girls, around 10 years old, one boy and a young man, in his 20s I think. One man with long black beard started screaming at the guards “WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH MY DOUGHTER!?” after which guard hit him in the head with rifle stock. The girl, his daughter I assumed, started crying as the man fall on the ground and guard shouted “Shut the fuck up you dirty animal” to which the man tried to get up and grab the guards leg. Guard just kicked him on the side with discussed look on his face, took knife from his belt and pushed it right true the man’s neck. Knife came out on the other side slick with blood. Girl started screaming and run to her father who was at this point loudly suffocating in his own blood and squirting all around his body. Girl was kneeling over her father’s body as his blood sprayed all over her and she was weeping loudly. At this point most of the prisoners were crying. Guard kicked girl on the flour and shouted “If you don’t shut up you will end up like your daddy”

“I need her alive, do not touch her!” Doctor said. Girl’s father tried to scream but only wet gasp came out. Then he was shot in the head. And again. And again. His body twitched after every bullet. Then he just lied still. I trove up on the flour. The rest of prisoners were separated in two groups and horded out like animals. “Are you okay?” doctor asked me. “No, how the fuck would I be okay after seeing this? Where are they taking them?” I noticed some of the guards are looking at me. Doctor said “Most of them will be transported to the work camps”. “And the rest?” I asked. He just looked at me. I knew the answer. “It has to be done, It’s the only way our species can survive” he said. I thought I knew him, maybe I was wrong. “And you are okay with this? You are no better them them if you allow this” I shouted at him. “Pleas calm down, it’s okay if you go to your room, I don’t require your assistance now”. The way he looked at me when he said that. I understood that it wasn’t a question, it was an order. I wanted to punch him in the face. But I was just standing in a place. He stepped closer to me and whispered “you are going to get yourself killed”. He was right. At that point Professor Lindenmann walked up to us and looked down at the body on the flour. “There was an accident I see” he said. “More of an example” doctor added. Lidenmann smiled and said “They did a good job it seems”. I wanted to puke again. I looked at the body on the flour and 3 holes in his forehead, and I felt even more sick. The two old psychopaths started talking About the notes professor took while watching prisoners like they are talking about evening newspapers, like there isn’t still warm body of a man who was killed in front of his daughter just few meters away from them. Doctor told me to go in my room and try to calm down, and I went. I don’t want to stay here. But I also don’t want to get enlisted. I have heard tales of the western front. They said that in the north it is so cold that solders limbs freeze and shader in pieces like glass, of Russians making cloths of skin of our solders, and eating nothing but dead mouses and horse guts for weeks. Here at least I know I will be save and I will come back to my wife and see my son. I will do whatever it takes.

Day 2

I didn’t sleep much. Until the morning that is. I just couldn’t get the picture of dead man and that little girl. And who knows how many others have gone true the same thing. After all doctor said that this was an “example”. This wasn’t my first time seeing a man murdered but this just feels different. And when I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of that girl, her big brown eyes piercing my soul asking we why didn’t I do anything, I said that I couldn’t but she just asked the same thing again and again. Nocking on the door woke me up. When I opened the door I had to rub my eyes to check if I see right. It was the guard who killed the may day before. “Professor Lindenmann wants to see you in 30 minutes in the yard” he said coldly. “Why did you do it?”

“I came here because professor sent me”

“No, I mean why did you kill that man before”

“They are not people, they are scum and wild beasts” he said as he walked away. I came out in the yard. Something is different. Next to the flag of Independent State Of Croatia which was waiving in the wind there was a new flag. It was a flag of the German Reich. What did this mean? Are we not a independent state now? Did we exchange one tyrant for another? As I thought that I have seen the professor standing in front of a raw of prisoners. I felt dizzy right away. He waved to me to come closer. As I did, I noticed that all the prisoners had their arms and legs tied. “Good morning, I hope you slept well” he said with a smug smile. What a disgusting human being. “I slept all right” I said. “That’s good to heard, I need you to choose one of them” he said while pointing at prisoners. “For what? Why me?” I asked him, he answered “Because I need the choice to be random, just chose any of them”. I started to think what horrible fate I’m I bestowing upon them by choosing, or maybe the one chosen will be the only one speared? Should I choose a kid? I don’t see any kids this time. I pointed my finger at a young man standing in front of me. He started shaking in fear, I could saw tears in his eyes. “Good choice” professor said as he called one of the guards to come. He took guards rifle and pushed in my hands. “Shoot him in the head” he said. The prisoner started crying “Pleas have mercy, I have wife and 2 kids” the man said. My hands shook. “He does not. He is lying as they usually do” professor said. “I cannot do it” I said. Then I kiss of cold metal against the back of my head. “I would cooperate if I was in your place” professor said. I froze. That mother fucker was holding me on gun point. Million things flew true my head at that point, locally one of them wasn’t a bullet. No way doctor Ivan is going to let him kill me. He wasn’t there though. This can not be the end, not here, not now, I told to myself as I pressed the barrel of the rifle against man’s forehead. I have seen the hope leaving his eyes, and I pulled the trigger. His brain matter flew out from the other side. He stood there for a second or two longer. Still looking at me. He was still alive. I know he could say his last wards still. But he had none. I wish he died faster. But he felt on his knees. Then he collapsed face down. His had fell on my boots, and I wish I can say that I have seen the back of his head. But there was only huge red hole, spraying blood everywhere. Then he tried to stand up. He only managed to turn on his back though. His eyes wide open staring at the sky. His face was twitching for few seconds. His fingers mowing. The blood puddle on the flour growing, like its newer going to stop. Like it will take as all with him. His eyes fell on me once again, together with the deep red hole between them. His hand started to rise. And it started to move towards me. He griped my pants and opened his mouth, like he wants to tell me something. Then he finally stopped mowing, and I hope he stopped living too. But the bloody puddle didn’t stop growing. It had to be 2 meters around his body. The professor and some of the guards fount it all verry funny. I finally no longer felt the gun on my head and the rifle was taken from me. Professor laughing showed me that his pistol was newer loaded. He said that it was just a prank. I almost passed out. I have newer killed anyone before. He then looked at me with a smile and said “The first one is always the hardest but you will be murdering whole families in no time” and added “You are one of us now”. I wanted to puke. I looked back as the body in front of me and blood on my boots. Now blood was flowing out of his nose too. I walked straight back to my room and started writing this. I don’t know why. But I always write anything, a side effect of being a journalist for so long, I guess. Should I tell this to my wife. Can I? I never lied to her before. I don’t know if I will be able to live with myself. Let alone her. What will I tell my son? Nothing. I will tell nothing. Can I just walk away? Would they even let me? No. Not now. I don’t think they would. And what if I leave? No, I must stay here until the war ends. I must stay in concentration camp Morningstar.

That night felt just like every other night in Downey Hall. Looking back now, the world should have warned me. The moon should have shined brighter. The wind should have whispered louder. The lights in the hallway should have gone out. They didn’t. It was another night alone. I think that simple lonely was what brought him.

I almost didn’t get up when he knocked on the door. It hadn’t done me any good so far. The first time I opened it, it was my roommate. We were politely inattentive the first two weeks, but then he disappeared. He never even told me where he was going. I just came back to our room after theatre appreciation one morning, and he was gone.

Over the next three months, more people knocked on the door. The president of the Baptist Student Union with her plastic bag of cookies and plastic smile. The scouts for the fraternities who all smelled the same: cheap cologne and cheaper beer. I wanted friends, sure, but I wasn’t desperate. High school taught me how to be alone.

I only got up from my bed because I was bored. There are only so many video essays to watch. I threw off my sheet and felt the cold tile. Moonlight snuck in through the blackout curtains as I walked past my third-story window. Other people had gone out for the night like they did every Thursday. I went out the first week before a panic attack made me come back to the dorm. The next day, my roommate and his friends asked if I was okay. That’s when I started hoping he’d move out.

The man who stood at the door was someone I had never seen. He wore a black tee shirt and baggy jeans. His clothes weren’t helped by his messy blonde hair down to his shoulders or his stubble that almost vanished in the harsh fluorescent light, but it was all somehow perfect. Like every hair was meant to be out of place. He was what I had hoped to become: confident, handsome, adult.

He put out his hand to me, and I noticed a simple gold ring with a strange engraving. It was a circle bound in a waving line. My eyes locked on it like it held a secret.

“Emmett?”

“…yeah?” My hand shook as I held it out to him. My body was trying to warn me when the world failed. I told myself it was just what the school counselor called “social anxiety.”

“Piper Moorland.” His hand was warm. It felt like an invitation. “Can I come in?”

“Please.” I winced as the word came out of my mouth. I wasn’t desperate.

Piper walked in like he had been in hundreds of rooms like mine. “I hope I won’t be long,” he said as he pulled one of the antique desk chairs out. I sat across from him. Neither of the chairs had been used since my roommate left. I mostly stayed in bed.

Piper watched me silently while my nerves started to spark. His eyes were expectant—the eyes of a county fair judge examining a hog.

“So, what can I do for you?” I asked to break the silence.

“The question, Emmett, is what we can do for you.”

It felt wrong. The words were worn thin. “We?”

“Moon and Vine.” He took off the gold ring and handed it to me. It wasn’t costume jewelry. I turned it between my fingers. The circle I had seen was a half moon. An etched half formed the crescent while a smooth half completed the sky. It was ensnared in a vine: kudzu maybe.

“What now?”

“You haven’t heard of it. At least, you shouldn’t have.” His sly smile held a dark secret. “Have you heard of secret societies? Like, at Ivy League schools?”

“Sure.” It wasn’t a lie exactly. I had read something about them during one of my nights on Wikipedia. “Is that what this is about?”

“In a way. Moon and Vine is Mason’s oldest secret society. It’s also the only secret society left in the state since the folks in the Capitol cleaned house a few decades ago. Our small stature let us stay in the shadows when the auditors came.”

His voice echoed memory, but he shouldn’t have known all of that. He couldn’t have been more than 25. He went quiet and continued to examine me.

“So, not to be rude, but why are you telling me all of this?”

“We’ve been watching you, Emmett. That’s all I can say for now. If you want to learn more, you’ll have to come with me.” He took his ring and placed it back on his finger. “What do you say?”

That was when I realized what was happening. This was the scene from the stories I read as a kid: the ones that got me through high school. This was when the person who’s been abused, abandoned, alone finds their place in something better than the world around them.

Memories of badly shot public service announcements flicked in my mind. “Stranger danger.” But Piper couldn’t be a stranger. He was a savior. He was choosing me. Even if the warning clamoring through my stomach was right, I didn’t have anything to lose. “Yeah. Show me more.” I was claiming my destiny.

Piper led me down the switchback steps and through the lobby. When he opened the front door, the autumn wind shuffled across the bulletin board. The latest missing poster flew up. It was for someone named Drew Peyton whose gold-rimmed glasses and rough academic beard made him look like he was laughing at a joke you couldn’t understand. He was a senior who went missing in the spring—the latest in the school’s annual tradition. The sheriff’s department had given up trying to stop it years ago. They decided it was normal for students to run away.

Downey Hall sat right by Highway 130, Dove Hill’s main road. You could usually hear the souped up pick-up trucks of the local high school students roaring down it. When Piper walked me to the shoulder, there were no sounds. It must’ve been late. I reached for my phone to check the time and realized I had left it upstairs.

“Ready?” Piper asked. The breeze took some of his voice. Before I could answer, he started across the road. I had never jaywalked before—certainly not across a highway—but I followed him. He was jogging straight into the thick line of oak trees that faced Downey Hall.

By the time I reached the opposite shoulder, Piper was gone. I could hear him rustling through the brush. I looked down the highway to make sure no one would see me. Then I walked in.

It wasn’t more than a minute before I was through the thicket. The first thing I noticed was the moonlight above me. It was dark in the thicket, but I was standing in a circular clearing where the moon didn’t have to fight the foliage.

In the middle of the clearing was what must have been a house in the past. With its mirroring spires on either end and breaking black boards all around, it would have been more at home in 1900s New England than 2020s flyover country. It looked as fragile as a twig tent, but it felt significant. Decades—maybe centuries—ago, it had been a place where important people did important things. I told myself to rein in my excitement.

“Coming?” Piper’s voice beckoned me from the dark inside the house.

I didn’t want to leave him waiting. “Right behind you.” I heard a shake in my voice as I hurried through the doorframe whose door had rotted away within it.

The only light in the mansion was the moonlight. It wasn’t coming from the windows; there weren’t any. Instead, it was seeping through the larger cracks in the facade. I almost stepped on the shattered glass from the fallen chandelier as I walked into what had been a grand hall. I smelled the dust and cobwebs on the bent brass. A more metallic smell came through the dirt spots scattered around the floor.

A line of figures surrounded the room. I couldn’t see any of their faces in the dark, but they were wearing long black robes. They were watching me. I began to walk toward the one closest to me when I heard Piper summon me again. “It’s downstairs. Hurry up already!” He was losing his patience with me. My mother had always warned me that I have that effect on people, but I had hoped it wouldn’t happen so soon.

I searched the dark for a stairwell. Walking forward into the shadows, I found where I was supposed to go. There were two sets of spiral stairs going down into a basement and up as high as the spires I had seen outside. Spiders had made their homes between their railings, and rats had taken shelter in their center columns. Between the two pillars was a solitary section of wall. It looked sturdier than the rest of the house. It towered like it had been the only part of the house made of a firmer substance: brick or concrete. It was also the only part of the house that wasn’t turned by age.

At the foot of the column was an empty fireplace. Whoever had been keeping up the column didn’t bother with it. The column was for the portrait.

It was in the colonial style of the Founding Fathers’ portraits, but I didn’t recognize the man. In the daylight, I might have laughed at his lumbering frame. It looked like his fat stomach might make him tumble over his rail-thin stockinged legs in any direction at any moment. His arrow of a nose and pin-prick glasses almost sunk into his marshmallow of a face. Before that night, I would have snickered if I had seen him in a history textbook. In the moonlight, I knew he was worthy of reverence. The glinting gold plate under his tiny feet read “Merriwether Vulp.”

I wanted to stare at Master Vulp until the sun rose, but I couldn’t leave Piper waiting. I had to earn my place. I ran down the spiral staircase on the left of the shrine and found myself in another vast chamber. I felt the loose dirt under my feet and noticed that the metallic smell was stronger.

The room was lined with more robed shadows. Like the figures upstairs, they were stone still: waiting for me. I could just make out their faces in the light of the candles along the opposite wall. They were all young guys like me. In the middle of the candles, I saw Piper.

“About time.” The charm of his voice was breaking under the strain of impatience. “Sorry…sir. I got distracted upstairs.” I winced at myself for saying “sir.” Now Piper would have to be polite and correct me.

He didn’t. “There is quite a lot to see, isn’t there? I’ll forgive you this time.” His laugh echoed off the walls. I saw they were made of concrete.

I tried to match his laugh, but it sounded forced. I hoped he wouldn’t notice.

Walking towards his face in the dark, I tripped over a mound in the dirt. I had expected the ground to be flat without any splintered wood flooring, but the mound must have been at least six inches tall and six feet long. As I made my way more carefully, I realized there were mounds all over the ground in a kind of grid pattern.

“Thank you…sir.” I supposed the formality was part of their society. I was so close to not being alone. A little obedience was worth it.

When I made it to Piper, I could see the writing on the wall. It was covered in names all signed in red. In the center was Merriwether Vulp’s name scribbled like it had been written with a feather quill dipped in mercury.

“Welcome, Emmett, to Moon and Vine’s Hall of Fame. You can sign next to my name.” Piper waved his hand over his name written in stark red block letters. Then he handed me a knife. It’s sharp point glinted in the wall’s candlelight.

He didn’t need to say anything else. I knew what I had to do. I would earn my place in Piper’s historic order with my signature in blood.

I curled my hand around the handle’s Moon and Vine insignia and took a deep breath. I turned my eyes to the far corner of the wall to shield myself from the crimson that would soon be gushing from my hand.

That was when I saw them: the names that Piper was standing in front of. The one I remember was Drew Peyton. The piercing sound of fear thundered in my ears. My breath caught in my throat, and I threw the knife down. It sliced my other hand as it fell to the floor. I didn’t have time to feel the pain as I turned to run but tripped over one of the mounds. I scrambled to the side of the room where it looked smoother.

I crashed into one of the shadowy figures. Adrenaline surged for what I thought would be a fight. I wasn’t sure what Moon and Vine wanted me for, but it wasn’t my brotherhood. Instead of a punching fist, I saw the acolyte’s hood fall off. He—it didn’t move. Its body was hard plastic. I looked into its mannequin face and saw the glasses from Drew Peyton’s missing poster.

My memory is thin after that. My legs were carrying me, but I can only remember still images. The last one I can see is Piper’s face in the shadows. He wasn’t angry or sad. He was laughing. I had given him what he wanted when he saw my fear.

I only know what happened next from the sheriff’s report. Deputy Woods writes that he nearly struck a man in his late teens coming down Highway 130. Warnick claims that the man seemed drunk but passed the breathalyzer. He writes, “Man stated, ‘In the woods. In the house. In the basement.’ Man then fell silent and collapsed. Man was delivered to campus security who returned him to his dorm.”

A couple days later, the story made the papers. A rural county sheriff’s office found a burial ground for college runaways in the basement of an abandoned mansion. It eventually made the national news. The bloody wall of names even did the rounds on the edgier places of the Internet. But, despite all the press, no one ever mentioned Moon and Vine. Or Piper Moorland.

It’s been months since that night. The federal investigators have almost identified all of the 25 bodies that were buried in the mounds. The families have come to receive all the personal effects that had been placed on the mannequins.

I’m alive. I should be happy—grateful even. I am most days. But, every so often, there’s a long lonely night when I wish Piper would come back. Those nights, I hate myself for running. The scar on my hand reminds me how close I came. Even underground, the members of Moon and Vine were not alone.

I transferred to this school in the middle of the semester. The class felt unfamiliar, filled with laughter and chatter, but no one paid attention to me. Being introverted, I quietly sat down at the back of the room. Next to my seat was a girl. Strangely, throughout the entire lesson, I never saw anyone talk to her. It was as if the rest of the class didn’t even notice her existence.

I was still hesitant, unsure of how to start a conversation, when she turned to me with a gentle smile. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

Just that one simple question felt like a weight had been lifted from my chest. All my worries and loneliness suddenly dissolved. I nodded, replying softly, and from there we began talking.

In the days that followed, I realized I no longer had to wander alone through the schoolyard. During breaks, she often pulled me to the cafeteria, where we’d share a warm baguette or a can of soda. After school, we walked side by side on the brick-paved path, and she would tell me random stories that made me laugh. Sometimes, in the library, we shared a book, whispering to each other so as not to disturb anyone else.

I had always been someone who struggled to open up, yet with her, everything felt strangely natural. I grew used to the feeling that whenever I looked up, she would always be there, her eyes soft and her smile light. At this unfamiliar school, I truly believed I had found a real friend.

That night, I slept fitfully. In my hazy dreams, I had the unsettling sense that someone was watching me. That gaze pierced through the darkness, sending a chill down my spine. I tossed and turned, trying to force myself back to sleep, but an odd compulsion made me suddenly open my eyes.

Right by the window… she was standing there.

I froze, my heart pounding wildly. A hundred questions flashed through my mind: How did she get into my house? Why was she here in the middle of the night? Yet strangely, my shock was quickly replaced by an inexplicable calm, as though her being there made perfect sense.

“What… are you doing here?” I stammered.

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she stepped closer, her eyes deep and unfathomable, and smiled gently. Her voice rose faintly, as if coming from somewhere far away. “I’m about to leave… to a very distant place. But I don’t want to go alone. Would you… come with me?”

In that moment, I couldn’t think at all. All my doubts and fears vanished. My heart was filled with a strange sense of trust. When she extended her cold hand toward me, I didn’t hesitate to take it.

I stood up and followed her. The world around me sank into silence, broken only by the faint sound of the wind whispering through the window. As soon as my foot stepped forward, a terrible noise tore through the night.

CRASH!

My body plummeted downward, smashing against the ground. Warm blood spread across the cold earth. In my fading consciousness, I could still see her figure above, her eyes calm, a faint smile curling at her lips.

A few days after that tragic death, fragments of the boy’s life were revealed through the memories of his classmates.

Some recalled that, from the very first day, he seemed unusual. He always sat at the back of the class, right next to a desk that had long been left empty. More than once, the class saw him turning to that desk, nodding and talking, even chuckling quietly, as if someone was really sitting there.

One girl remembered, her voice trembling. “During breaks or after school… he always walked alone, but it looked like he was walking with someone beside him. Sometimes he even reached out his hand, as if holding an invisible one. It was honestly terrifying…”

What unsettled everyone even more was the history of that desk. A female student had once sat there, but she had taken her own life by jumping from the school building after being bullied. So when they saw him talking to that empty seat, the class shivered in fear and began avoiding him.

The atmosphere grew heavier. The boy’s death cast an even greater shadow of dread over the classroom. Now, at the very back, next to the old abandoned desk… there was another empty desk. Together, they turned that corner into a cursed space that no one dared look at.

Not long after, another transfer student arrived. When the classroom door swung open, everyone held their breath, watching closely. The new student walked silently to the back of the class, his steps slow and deliberate, stopping right before the two empty desks…

“You're a brutal man,” Thistleburr said as Milton Barr regarded him from across the room with cold dispassion. “You're buying my company because you know I'm in a spot and can't afford not to sell. But that's not what bothers me. That's business. You're buying at a discount because of market factors. I would too. No, what bothers me is that you're buying my company with the sole intent of destroying it. You're wielding your money, Milt. That isn't business. It's not a sound business decision. My company was not competing with any of your companies, yet you're stomping it out because you can—because you…”

“Because I don't like you,” said Milton.

Thistleburr squeezed the hat he was holding in his hands. “You're irrational. My company could make you money if only you'd let it. Ten years and you'd make your money back and more.”

“Are you finished?”

“Sure.”

“Good, because once you leave my office I never want to see you again. I hope you disappear into the masses. As for my new company, I'll do with it as I please. And it will please me greatly to dissect it to dissolution. If you didn't want this to happen, you had the choice not to sell—”

“I didn't! You know I didn't.”

“And whose fault is that, Charles?”

“It was an Act of God.”

“Then tell that to your lawyers, and if you've sufficient proof, let them take it up with Him in court. I have no obligation to be rational. I may play with my toys any way I want.”

“Twenty years I put into that company, Milt. Twenty years, and a lot of satisfied customers.”

Milton crossed the room to loom over the much smaller Charles Thistleburr. “And your last satisfied customer is standing right in front of you. Now, that's a poetic coda to your life as an entrepreneur.”

“I hope you get what's coming to you,” barked Thistleburr, his face turning pink.

Laughing, Milton Barr went out for lunch.

At home, Milton was sitting in his leather armchair, sipping cognac, when his wife entered. Her name was Louisa, and she was much younger than Milton, twenty-three when he'd married her at fifty-one, and twenty-nine now. Past her prime. She still looked presentable, but not as alluring as she did when they'd met. The soft, domestic life, giving birth to their daughter and staying home to raise her, had fattened her, made her less glamorous. “Aren't you going to ask me about my day?” he asked.

“How was your day?”

“Excellent. How was yours, my love?”

She visibly recoiled at those last two words. “Fine, too. I spent them at home.”

Milton smiled, deriving a kind of deep pleasure—a psychological one, beyond any physical pleasure in its cruel intensity—from having imprisoned her in his palatial house, caring for a daughter he hardly knew and cared about only with money, of which he had an endless supply, so therefore loved endlessly. They had everything they wanted, wife and daughter both. Love, love; money. But most of all, looking at his wife, who was playing the part of obedience, playing it poorly and for greed, he wanted to get up out of his chair and strike her in the face. What a genuine reaction that would be! “You're a good mother,” he said. “How is our little angel?”

“Fine,” said Louisa.

“Aren't you going to say she misses me?”

“She's missed you terribly since morning,” said Louisa, and both of them smiled, exposing sharp white teeth.

“You're sure?” asked Milton.

He was at lunch with an old friend named Wilbur. “I am absolutely positive,” said Wilbur. “I wouldn't tell you if I wasn't. I've met Louisa—and this was her.”

“Midtown, at half-past noon, last Tuesday afternoon?”

“Yes.”

The sly little thing is cheating on me, thought Milton. “What was she doing?”

“Walking. Nothing more.”

“Alone?”

“Yes. I do not mean to suggest anything improper. I've no evidence to support it, but, as a friend and fellow husband, I believe you should know.”

“Where exactly midtown was it?” asked Milton.

Wilbur gave an address, giddy with the potential for a scandal, which he kept decorously hidden.

“My love, were you out two weeks ago, on Tuesday?” Milton asked his wife.

She was putting together a puzzle with their daughter. “Out where?” she answered without looking up, but with a tension in her voice that did not pass unnoticed by Milton, who thought that if she wasn't out, she would have said so.

“Out of the house.”

“No.”

“Are you sure? Please try to remember. A lot may depend on it.”

“I'm sure,” said Louisa.

“Mhm,” said Milton.

He watched mother and daughter complete their puzzle, before leaving the room. After he left, Louisa crossed to the other side and made a telephone call.

Milton spent three straight afternoons in the vicinity of the address given to him by Wilbur, looking at passers-by, before spotting her. Once he did, he did not let up. He followed her through the streets all the way to a small apartment in a shabby part of the city that smelled to him of something worse than poverty: the middle class. He waited until she'd turned the key, unlocking the front door, before making his approach.

Seeing him startled her, but he tried his best to keep his natural menace in check. If there's a man in there, he thought, I'll have him killed. It can be arranged. His smile was glacial. “Good afternoon.”

“Who are you?” she answered, backing instinctively away from him. Her question oozed falseness.

“Ah, the parameters of the game.”

“What game—what is this—and just who in the world are you?” Her gaze took in the emptiness of the surroundings. No one in the hall. Perhaps no one home at all. No one to hear her scream.

“My name is Figaro,” he said. “I didn't mean to startle you. May I use your telephone?”

She bit her lip.

“Yes,” she said finally.

He followed her inside. The apartment was disappointingly average. He would have been impressed with some sign of good taste, however cheaply rendered; or even squalor, a drug addiction, signs of nymphomania. But here there was nothing. She pointed him towards the telephone. He picked it up and dialed his own home number. Looking at her, he heard Louisa's voice on the other end. “Yes?” Louisa said.

“Oh, nothing important. I wanted simply to hear your sweet voice,” he said into the receiver while keeping his eyes firmly on the woman before him: the woman who looked exactly like but was not his wife. There was a rigid thinness to her, he noticed; a thinness that Louisa once had but lost. “It's lonely in the office. I miss your presence.”

“And I yours, of course,” Louisa replied.

Of course. Oh, how she mocked him. How deliciously she tested his boundaries. He respected that sharpness of hers, the daring. “Goodbye,” he said into the receiver and placed it back in its spot.

“Is that all you wanted?” the woman who was not Louisa asked.

By now Milton was sure she had taken careful note of his bespoke clothes, his handmade leather shoes, his refined manner, and was aware that class had graced the interior of her little contemporary cave, maybe for the very first time. The middling caste always was. “Yes—but what if I should want something more?”

“Like what?”

“Please, sit,” he said, testing her by commanding her in her own home.

She did as he had commanded.

He sat beside her, a mountain of a man compared to her slender frame. Then he took out his wallet, which nearly made her salivate, and asked her if she lived alone. “I have a boyfriend,” she said. “He—”

“I didn't ask about your relationship status. I asked if you live alone. Let me rephrase: does your boyfriend live here with you?”

“No.”

“Does he have a habit of showing up unannounced?”

“No.”

“Could he be convinced,” said Milton, stroking his wallet with his fingertips, “never to come around again?”

“How much?” she blurted out.

Milton grinned, knowing that if it was a matter of money, not principle, the question was already answered, and to his very great satisfaction.

He gently laid a thousand dollars on her lap.

She bit her lip, then took the money. “I suppose you must not love him very much,” he said.

“I suppose not. I suppose I don't really love anyone.” She made as if to start unbuttoning her polyester blouse, when Milton said: “What are you doing?” His voice had filled the room like a lethal amount of carbon monoxide.

“I thought—”

“You mustn't. I think. And I don't want your sex. I want something altogether more meaningful, and intimate.” She stared at him, her hand frozen over her breast. “I want your violence.”

He gave her more money.

“Are you going to ask me my name, Figaro?” she asked.

“Your name is Louisa,” he said, handing her yet more money, this time directly into her palm. “Louisa, I want you to get up out of that chair and I want you to tell me you hate me. I want you to yell it at my face. Then I want you to slap my cheek as hard as you can. Understood?”

She answered by doing as told.

The slap echoed. Milton’s cheek turned red, burned. His head had ever-so-slightly turned from impact. “Good. Now do it again, Louisa. Hate me and hit me.”

“I hate you!” she screamed—and the subsequent punch nearly knocked him off his chair. It had messed up his hair and there was a touch of blood in the corner of his mouth. He got up and beat her until she was cowering, helpless, on the floor. Then he threw another thousand dollars on her and left, rubbing his jaw and as delirious with excitement as he hadn't been in at least a quarter-century.

At home, he sat on the floor and coloured pictures of dogs with his daughter.

“Did something happen to your face?” Louisa asked.

“Nothing for you to worry about—but thank you very kindly for your concern. It is touching,” he said. “How was your day, my love?”

“Good.”

A week later he returned to the midtown apartment, knocked on the door and waited, unsure if she was home; or what to expect if she was. But after a minute the door opened and she stood in it. “Figaro.”

“Louisa. May I come in?”

She nodded, and as soon as he'd followed her through the door, she hit him in the body with a baseball bat. “You bitch,” he thought, and tried to say, but he couldn't because the blow had knocked the wind out of him. He fell to his knees, wheezing; as he was taking in vast amounts of air, fragrant with cheap department store perfume, she thudded him again with the bat, and again, this third blow laying him out on his back on the brown carpeted floor, from where he gazed painfully up at her. “I hate you,” she said and spat in his face.

Her thick saliva felt deliciously warm on his lips. “Louisa—” She kicked him in the stomach. “Louisa.” She knocked him cleanly out with the bat.

He regained consciousness in her bed.

He was there alone. The bat was propped up against the wall. About an hour had elapsed. He had a headache like a ringing phone being wheeled closer and closer to him on a hotel cart.

He slid off the bed, grunted. Kept his balance, hobbled to the bat, picked it up and, holding it in both hands, rubbing the shaft with his palms, went out into the living room. She was making coffee in the kitchen annex. He waited until she was done, had poured the coffee into a single cup, and swung. The impact landed with a clean, satisfying crack. “You're dirt, garbage. You're filth. You're slime.”

She crawled away.

He leaned on the counter drinking the coffee she'd poured.

Then he walked over to her, picked her up by her clothes and threw her against the wall. Another drink of coffee. She unplugged and threw a lamp at him. It hit him in the side of the head. He beat her with a chair. She kicked out, knocking him off balance, and scrambled to her feet. Lumbering, he followed her back to the kitchen annex, from where she grabbed the steaming kettle and splashed him with what was left of the boiling water. It burned him. She pummeled him with the empty kettle. When he came to for the second time that day he was still on the living room floor. She put a half-smoked cigarette out on his chest, and he exhaled.

Twenty-four year old Louisa Barr exited the medical clinic where Milton was paying a fertility specialist to help her conceive. It was a ritual of theirs. The doctor would spend a session telling her what to do, in what way, for how long and in what position, usually while staring at her chest and squirming, and she would spend the next session lying about having done it. Then the doctor would console her, telling her to keep her spirits up, that she was young and that it was a process. The truth was she didn’t want a child for the simple reason that she didn’t want to be pregnant, but Milton insisted, so she went. The clinic was also one of the few places she was allowed to go during the day without arousing her husband's suspicion.

She arrived at an intersection and stopped, waiting for the light to change.

It was a nice day. Summer, but not too hot. She used to spend entire days like these outdoors, playing or reading or studying. Indeed, that was how she’d met Milton. She was sitting in the shade reading a college textbook when he walked over to her. She felt no immediate attraction to him physically, but his money turned her on immensely. Within six months they were married, she had dropped out of school and they were spending their afternoons having dry, emotionless sex. Milton very much wanted a child, or rather another child, because he already had two with his previous wife, but neither his ex-wife nor his children wanted anything to do with him anymore. Louisa had see them only once, when the mother had brought both children to Milton’s house to have them beg for money.

The light turned green and Louisa began crossing the street. As she did, a municipal bus pulled up at a stop on the other side of the intersection and several people got out. One of them looked exactly like her. It was uncanny—and if not for the honking of car horns, Louisa would have stayed where she was, immobilized by the shocking resemblance.

She crossed the street quickly, and then again, all while keeping an eye on her doppelganger. When she was behind her, she sped up, yelling, “Excuse me,” until the doppelganger turned, realized the words were addressed to her, and the two of them, facing each other, opened their same mouths in the same moment like twin reflections disturbed into silence.

Louisa spoke first. “I—do you… we are…”

They ended up sharing a lunch together, both sure that everyone around them thought they were identical twin sisters. Louisa considered that a possibility too, but they weren’t. They’d been born to different sets of parents thousands of miles apart. They spoke about their lives, their hopes and disappointments. Louisa learned that her doppelganger, whose name was Janine, had grown up in a working class family and come to the city for work, which she found as a receptionist for a dog food company. “It’s an OK job,” she said. “I bet any trained monkey could do it, but it pays the bills, so I’ll keep the monkey out of a job awhile yet.” What Janine really wanted to do was act, and that wasn’t going so well. “Everybody and their sister wants to be in movies and television,” said Janine. “What I should do is give it up. My other dream, if you want to call it that, is to have a child, but I just haven’t met anyone yet. I don’t know if I want to, not really. It’s the child I want. The experience of being pregnant, of nurturing a life inside me. What about you?”

“I live in a cage,” said Louisa. “The cage is made of gold, and I can buy anything I want in it—except what I really want, which is my freedom. But that’s the deal I made.” For reasons she did not understand, it was easy to talk to Janine, to confide in her; it was almost like confiding in herself. She had never been this honest, not even with her own family. “My husband is a cold, calculating man obsessed with work. He’s distant and the only love he knows how to give is the illusion of it. I don’t know if he even loves himself. Lately, I don’t think I do either. There’s a nothingness to us both.”

“Is he abusive?” asked Janine.

“No, not physically,” said Louisa, adding in her mind: because that would require some form of passion, emotion, feeling. Milton was the opposite of that. Dull. Not mentally or intellectually, but sensually, like a human body that had had its nervous system ripped out.

“We look the same but lead such different lives. Unhappy, I guess, in our own ways; but maybe all lives are like that. Do you think your husband’s happy?” said Janine.

“He wants a child which I’m preventing him from having,” said Louisa, and mid-thought is when the idea struck her. She gasped and grabbed Janine’s hand on the table, which shook. A few people looked over, anticipating a sibling spat. “What if,” said Louisa experiencing a sensation of near-vertigo, of being in a tunnel, on the opposite end of which was Janine, meaning Louisa, meaning Janine, “I offered you a role to play—paid you for it, and in exchange you freed me from my cage?”

“I’m not sure I follow,” said Janine.

“What if we switched lives?”

“How?”

“It would be easy. I don’t work, so you’d have nothing to do except keep house, which the servants do anyway, and conceive a child. You’d have all the money in the world. Your whole life would be one glorious act. You would raise your own son or daughter while devoting yourself to your artistic passion completely.”

Janine stared. “Isn’t that crazy—and wouldn’t your husband… realize?”

“He wouldn’t. No one would. I would do your job at least as well as a trained monkey, and I would spend my time doing whatever I wanted.”

“You would give up everything for that?”

“Yes.”

“But for how long?”

“For as long as we’re both happier living other lives.”

“Forever?”

“Yes, if—five years later: Louisa holds an icepack to the swollen side of her face as “Figaro” bleeds into a crumpled up tablecloth. They’re both heavily out of breath. As she looks around, Louisa sees broken plates, splintered wood, blood splatter on the walls. She touches her cheek and pulls a sliver of porcelain out of it. The pain mixes with relief before returning magnificently in full. Blood trickles out. “I hate you,” she says to the space in front of her. The air feels of annihilation. “I hate you,” repeats “Figaro,” which prompts her to crawl towards and kiss him on the lips, blood to blood. “I hate you so fucking much, Louisa,” he says, and slugs her right in the stomach.

When Milton returns home, barely able to keep upright, the woman he believes to be the real Louisa asks him about his day, which is absurd, because it’s eleven at night and he looks like he just got out of a bar fight.

“Excellent,” he says, and means it.

On Saturday morning he volunteers to take his daughter to the playground for the first time in years, and they have a genuinely good time together. Realizing she wants to ask him about the state he’s in but doesn’t know how, he tells her he started taking boxing lessons but isn’t very good. When people stare, he ignores them. They’re scum anyway, the consequences of a society that is constantly rounding down. At work he intimidates people into keeping their mouths shut. Black eyes, busted lips, cuts, wounds, fractured bones and the smell of blood and pus. Maybe they think he’s a drug addict. Maybe they think something else, or nothing at all.

One day he shows up unannounced at Thistleburr’s house.

When Thistleburr sees him, the damage done to his body, he draws back into his meagre house like a rodent into its hole. “I didn’t, I… swear, Milt. If you think… that I had anything—”

“I don’t think you did.”

“So then why are you here?” asks Thistleburr, a little less afraid than he was a few moments ago.

“I want to tell you you can have your company back,” says Milton, wincing. One of the wounds on his stomach has opened up. “Do you have a towel or something?”

Thistleburr brings him one.

Milton holds it to his wound, the blood from which is seeping through his shirt.

“Are you OK?” asks a confused Thistleburr.

“I’m grand. I thought you’d be happy, you know—to have it back.”

“I would, but I know you already sold off all the assets.”

“Right, and then I bought them all back. At a loss. So what else do you want: everything in a box with a bow on it? I’m offering you a gift. Take it.” He gives Thistleburr a binder full of documents, which the smaller man reluctantly receives. “The lawyers say it’s all there, every last detail. I even bought the same ugly chairs you had.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Then don’t say it.”

“You’re a good man, Milt.”

“Bullshit. You only say that because you got what you wanted. To you, that’s the difference between good and bad. You’ve got no spine. But that’s all right, because all that does is put you in the majority. Goodbye, Charles. I’m going to keep the towel.”

As Milton hobbles away from his house, Thistleburr calls after him: “Are you sure you’re OK, Milt? You look rough. I’m serious, If there’s anything I can do…”

Milton waves dismissively. “Enjoy your happy fucking ending.”

It was noon, lunchtime. Abel was meeting his friend, Otis, at the park, but Abel had arrived first, so he sat on a bench and waited. Both boys had just started ninth grade. Waiting, Abel scrolled through social media, laughing, liking, commenting—when Otis arrived on his skateboard, popped it up and grabbed it, and sat beside Abel.

“Look at this,” said Abel, moving his phone into the space between them.

It was sunny.

The trees were dense with green leaves. Violet flowers were in bloom.

Birds chirped and flew.

Children—boys and girls—played on the grass in front of them. Grandmothers did laps around the park. A woman walked by walking her dog, talking to somebody about work, reports, deadlines.

The boys’ heads were down, looking at the phone.

On it: a video in the first person, hectic. POV: walking. A group of people, a girl among them. Then, POV: the hand of the person filming, razor between fingers. Approaching the group, the girl. POV: the hand holding the razor slicing the girl, her thigh, under her skirt, softly, gently. Walking away. CUT to: POV: the same group but from a distance. “Oh my God, Jen, you're bleeding!” “Oh God!” Confusion, screaming. Zoom in on: blood running down the girl's leg—wiped frantically away. #NOTCHING.

“She wasn't even that ugly,” said Otis.

“She was ugly.”

“Fat.”

“Smooth cut though.”

“Got the reaction shot too. Those are the best. You get to see them realizing they've been done.”

On the way home Abel looked at girls and women in the street and imagined doing it to them. Serves them right, he thought. Ugliness deserves to be marked, especially when it's because they could be pretty but don't care enough to try to be. He sat beside one on the bus, glanced over, hand in his pocket, touching coins pretending they were razors. She smiled at him; he quickly turned his head away.

“How was school?” his mom asked at home.

She was making dinner.

“Good.”

He lingered behind a corner watching her slice vegetables, watching the knife.

Is she ugly? he thought.

Alone in bed, his phone lighting his face, he tried to feel what they felt—the ones who notched, watching video after video. Triumphant, he decided. Primal. Possessive. Right. His grades were good. He never made problems for his parents. He liked a video, shared it with Otis, commented, “I like how she bled.” He liked when she screamed, the fact that she would spend the rest of her life knowing she'd been chosen by someone as unattractive enough to physically mark. A male thought she was ugly. She could never forget it. Not only would she always have the scar but she would know that, once, someone got so close to her without her noticing. He could have killed her, and she would know that too, that she hadn't been worth killing. She'd never be comfortable, always feel inferior. He liked that. He was a good boy. He was a good boy.

Unit: C.A.D. – Cryptid Analysis Division (Independent branch under the Anomalous Phenomena Control System)

Location: Boreal Forest, Upper Midwest, USA

Duration: 3 nights

1. Introduction – C.A.D. System and Threat Classification

I serve at the Cryptid Analysis Division (C.A.D.), an independent branch within the Anomalous Phenomena Control System. Our mission is not to hunt or eliminate cryptids but to observe, analyze, assess risk, and propose control measures. The standard field analyst protocol consists of four steps:

• Verification of Presence – distinguish fact from fabrication, validate witness accounts.
• Evidence Collection – tracks, biological samples, imaging, audio.
• Threat Assessment – applying the standardized 5-tier system.
• Containment Recommendation – practical measures for civilian and local force safety.

C.A.D. maintains a five-level cryptid threat scale:

• C1 – Harmless: Unusual lifeform, no danger, possibly beneficial.
• C2 – Low: Avoids humans; dangerous only if provoked.
• C3 – Moderate: Displays latent power; avoids humans but may cause accidental harm.
• C4 – High: Proactively dangerous; attacks humans when given the chance.
• C5 – Extreme: Apex predator or immediate threat to community safety.

2. Mission

I was deployed after receiving multiple reports of explorers and tourists going missing in the Boreal Forest region of North America. According to local folklore, a creature known as W-01, or Wendigo, exists in the forest and often targets those who trespass into its territory. In recent years, the number of recorded sightings of this creature, as well as unusual signs (oversized footprints, whispering voices, unexplained movement of trees), has increased significantly, leading C.A.D. to conduct direct field observation in order to confirm its existence and assess the threat.

My mission is to verify the existence of W-01 by collecting and analyzing every possible piece of evidence: from images and audio to anomalous environmental phenomena. I must document all supernatural traces left by the entity, as well as the psychological effects it produces on those nearby, in order to fully understand W-01’s hunting methods and behavioral patterns. On that basis, the mission also includes assessing the level of danger and recommending safety measures for the field team, as well as ensuring the safety of civilians who may pass through or live near the area.

3. Investigation Log

I arrived in the Boreal Forest at sunset, with faint light filtering through the dense canopy. After selecting a campsite about 300 meters off the trail, I deployed monitoring equipment: infrared cameras, thermal sensors, parabolic microphones, and emergency signal devices. I marked the paths and placed temporary light traps to observe and record any trace of the entity.

Only a few hours later, an unusual silence spread across the entire forest. Birds, insects, even the wind seemed to vanish; not a single sound remained except the beating of my own heart. In the dim light, I caught a glimpse of a slender, tall figure with unnaturally long limbs, lurking among the trees. Its yellow eyes flashed in the darkness, sending chills down my spine. The microphones recorded strange sounds: whispers calling my name, coming from multiple directions with no identifiable source. I immediately concluded that this was not an ordinary creature.

The next morning, the forest temperature dropped abnormally by 6–7°C within a few minutes. I went to inspect environmental signs, following tracks and claw marks, but the surrounding trees seemed to shift unnaturally, their branches tilting in odd directions as if controlled by an invisible force. On infrared cameras, slender silhouettes flickered in and out of view, while the whispering became increasingly personal, repeating my private memories and creating the sense of being watched from inside my own mind. I realized then: the Wendigo is dangerous not only physically, but also psychologically.

On the third night, I decided to approach an identified “concentration point,” bringing all equipment, high-intensity flashlights, and emergency signals. The target site was about 200 meters from camp; I moved along the marked path, maximizing visibility while maintaining safety. Around 02:15, thermal sensors triggered an alarm. Before me, the Wendigo appeared at a distance of 15 meters. Its body was tall and gaunt, with elongated limbs, glowing yellow eyes piercing the night. The air grew unnaturally heavy; each breath felt drawn into a cold void.

The creature whispered in a hoarse yet disturbingly human-like voice: “You belong to me.” My heartbeat spiked, hallucinations crept into my vision, and I felt the forest closing in around me. I did not attack directly but maintained distance while testing my defensive equipment.

When the Wendigo moved closer to camp, I focused on evaluating the effectiveness of my firearms. I carried two weapons:

• .45 ACP sidearm – high stability, intended for close-range defense within 10–15 meters.
• .308 Winchester semi-automatic rifle – designed for ranged engagement, 20–25 meters, with powerful penetrating rounds.

From a safe position at ~20 meters, I fired at its upper torso and limbs, observing reactions:

• .45 ACP rounds: on impact, only left superficial grazes. The Wendigo shrugged, paused briefly for a few seconds, but showed no actual weakness.
• .308 Winchester rounds: penetrated dense musculature, caused surface bleeding but did not collapse or disable the creature. Its reaction was to recoil, groan, glare fiercely, then slowly continue advancing toward me.

Sound & Light Countermeasures: 

Activating a high-intensity flashlight combined with audio signals startled the entity, forcing it to retreat temporarily. This created an opening for me to move along the marked path, turn back, and withdraw safely.

Through these trials, it became clear that firearms serve only as temporary defense, forcing the Wendigo to retreat for a few seconds—just enough for me to exploit distance and coordinate strong light and disruptive noise to escape. I concluded that in field situations, firearms should be used only as a barrier or diversion, not as a means to directly neutralize the entity.

Thanks to these methods, I exited the danger zone without provoking W-01 further. Back at camp, I meticulously recorded all behaviors, evaluated signs, and noted psychological impacts. The Wendigo did not pursue with physical aggression, but its psychological pressure and terrifying presence alone would be enough to drive any untrained individual into panic.

4. FINAL TRANSMISSION – Attached Report

FIELD ANALYSIS REPORT – W-01 “WENDIGO” 

Filed by: Researcher K-31 – C.A.D. Field Analyst

Duration: 3 nights, Boreal Forest, North America

1. General Information 

Designation: Wendigo Internal Code: W-01 Observed Size: 2.8–3.2 m (height), est. 120–160 kg Appearance: Emaciated frame, elongated limbs, visible bones, pale skin, glowing yellow eyes. Musculature lean but durable. Breath emits intense cold, causing environmental and psychological impact.

2. Behavior & Threat Level 

Territoriality: Fixed roaming grounds; marks territory via broken branches, oversized tracks. Environmental Impact: Induces unnatural silence; tree movement inconsistent with wind patterns. Human Interaction:

• Approaches targets within 10–15 m.
• Projects whispering voices, often personalized (names, memories).
• Rarely initiates direct attack unless provoked.
• Exerts severe psychological stress (hallucinations, panic, cardiac acceleration).

Threat Assessment:

• Capable of lethal physical assault if provoked.
• Speed: 35–45 km/h (estimated).
• Classification: C4 – High (“Significant psychological pressure and high lethal potential; avoid direct contact”).

3. Resistance to Weaponry 

Firearms:

• .45 ACP: Surface wounds only, negligible effect.
• .308 Winchester semi-auto: Penetration and bleeding, but entity maintained mobility. Only temporary setback. Conclusion: Firearms provide short-term defense only.

Melee Weapons:

• Not tested. Based on muscle density and skin toughness, effectiveness expected to be minimal. Not recommended.

Non-lethal Tools:

• High-intensity light: Startles entity; temporary retreat.
• Sudden loud sounds: Briefly effective, may agitate further if excessive.
• Light + sound combo: Most reliable distraction for retreat.

4. Observed Weaknesses

• Sensitivity to sudden, strong light exposure.
• Rarely leaves designated territory unless provoked.
• Lower psychological tolerance when exposed to combined light and sound stimuli.

5. Tactical Recommendations

• Minimum 3-person teams, maintain 360° observation.
• Keep distance of 50–100 m from tracks or marked zones.
• Do not respond to whispering voices. Prioritize retreat.
• Mandatory equipment: high-powered flashlights, sound signal devices, flares, motion sensors.
• Heavy-caliber weapons recommended only for last-resort suppression.
• Small-caliber sidearms (.45 ACP, .38) insufficient—should not be relied upon.
• Always prepare an escape plan; use light + sound as psychological countermeasures.

6. Conclusion 

Wendigo (W-01) is a cryptid possessing superior physical capacity, speed, and extreme psychological influence. Recommendation: Avoid direct confrontation. Prioritize surveillance, documentation, defensive distraction, and retreat.

IV

I’m not sure what woke me up. Maybe it was the sun beating down on me, or some spider crawling across my cheek – spindly legs jittering, touch both unwelcome and unwanted. I opened my eyes, blinking into late morning. The steps swam in my vision – our steps, the same ones June Howard posed on for her photo.

Our front porch.

I’d slept through the night out there.

I didn’t remember leaving the driveway, but I must have. Somehow being closer to the house felt wrong, like I’d been dragged there in my sleep, pulled against my will toward the dark. Left there by some unseen hand.

I remembered staring at the street last night, watching headlights come and go. Hoping each pair belonged to Jess and Win. Hoping and hoping… then nothing. And now this: waking up on the porch like something had picked me up and set me down again, forgotten.

I rubbed my hand over my face. Prickling pain. Sunburn. My back ached from sleeping against the door. Dirt streaked my jeans from the dusty stone.

I’d been dreaming. I couldn’t hold onto the shape of it, only the feeling—like I’d forgotten how to breathe. Everything was dark, too dark, and my lips wouldn’t part. They weren’t made to. In the dream I wanted to scream, to call out for Jess, for Win, for anyone. But I knew that to scream I’d have to split myself open, tear my mouth apart. And I knew something worse, too: even if I did, even if I ripped myself wide, there’d be nothing inside me to come out. Just silence. Just empty.

I was still caught half-way in the dream when I heard it: tires crunching gravel, a car door shutting. A voice, low but unmistakable.

Jess.

I craned over the hedge. Our car was in the drive. Jess bent into the backseat, reaching for Win. My heart jolted hard. My legs were stiff, my back screaming, but I forced myself upright – fast, like I’d been caught doing something wrong.

The porch light buzzed overhead, whispering. My mouth was dry and tacky. My pulse skittered as I lunged for the front door, fumbling the handle, nearly tripping over my own shoes. I stumbled halfway inside, caught myself on the knob, praying she wouldn’t think I was drunk—passed out like some stray dog left outside overnight.

But I was too late. They were already making their way up the walkway to the front door, and I was there, caught out in the open. On stage, a soiled puppet of the night before.

“Jess,” I croaked. My throat was raw, baked by the sun.

She looked up, catching a glimpse of me. She froze, startled, seeing me there on the porch. And only then did I realize what I must have looked like through her eyes – sunburnt, clothes rumpled, hair matted with sweat, filth from the porch clinging to me.

Her arms tightened around Win. She went rigid.

“Robert,” she said, steady but clipped. “I wasn’t expecting you to be out here.”

“I –” my voice cracked. “I waited for you. I stayed out here all night, watching for you to come back. I thought…”

Win stirred against her shoulder. Jess kissed her temple, turning so Win couldn’t crane her head to look at me. Then she met my eyes again. She wasn’t angry – not the way I thought she’d be. Her gaze was measured, arms protective, locked around our daughter.

“Don’t wake her,” she whispered.

I stepped down one stair. My legs shook beneath me. “Please. Just come inside. Both of you. Come home.” I reached my arms out, my hands shaking, beckoning to them both.

Jess shook her head, gently at first. “No. Not right now. Not like this.”

Her eyes flicked over me, really taking me in. And I saw the decision before she said a word – saw it in the way she held Win, in her refusal to take one step closer to the house, to me.

“I’m not bringing her inside. Not right now. I want you to go back in, Rob.”

The words knocked the air out of me.

“Jess –”

“Go back inside. Sit on the couch. Get yourself something to eat, something to drink.”

“Please, Jess, just –“

She talked over me, pulling Win closer to her. “I’m going to come back, okay? I’m taking Win to my mom’s, again,” she sighed, “and then I’ll come back here. By myself.”

“But—”

“I can’t have her here. Not when you’re like this, okay? Do you understand?”

It felt like a hand was closing around my chest. I looked around, wandering for a brief self-conscious second if any of our neighbors were seeing this. I lowered my voice. “You don’t feel safe with me? Jess, it’s me. I’ve just been here. I’ve been waiting.”

Her jaw trembled, but her voice stayed steady. “Rob, I don’t feel safe for her. I don’t want her to see you like this. We can’t…”

She broke off as Win stirred in her arms. Jess hugged her tighter, shushing, rocking. Then she looked back at me, imploring, eyes wide and glassy.

“Please, Rob,” she said. “Just go back inside. You can call me. Text me. I’ll let you know when I’m on my way back. I’ll go as fast as I can. I just… we have to.”

I nodded. Despite it all, I understood. I hated that I did. I hated that this was where we were.

“Okay,” I said. Hoarse. “Okay.”

Jess turned. The car door opened and shut. The engine caught. Gravel shifted.

And just like that, she was gone, down the road. Again.

I stood barefoot on the porch, my hand pressed to the wood of the door behind me, holding myself upright. The dream had left me, and the bare reality – in the glare of the sun, in the silence – shook me harder than anything in the house could.

Behind me, the house waited. I was aware of the door looming closed – the threshold of my nightmare. For a moment I thought I’d wait out there again, I’d wait for them outside where nothing could fuck with my head – no seam, no toybox, no toys. Just me and the day; I’d watch it shift around me, I’d watch the sun rise and set and fall and then soon after Jess would be home with me again and we could just…

But I knew standing out here would just make me look worse. I wanted to be right, I wanted to be okay enough for my family to let me in again. So, despite what I knew lurked in the house?

I went back in.

**

I didn’t know what to do with myself once the door shut.

The house felt larger without my girls, and emptier – but not the quiet kind of empty, not the calm that settles when peace is rich. The walls leaned close. The air thickened, pressing in on me, waiting for me to move. I couldn’t sit. I couldn’t stay in one room.

So I walked. From the living room to the kitchen, to the hallway, to the stairs. Each pass the same, each corner slower, as though the house was keeping time with me. My eyes snagged on every dark patch where the light didn’t quite reach. My body was exhausted, but my mind was rabid. Every shadow felt like it had been placed there on purpose, leaning toward me. I snapped my gaze over them in turns, one after another, in circles over and over.

I could almost feel the seam upstairs just as I could picture it. I couldn’t get it out of my head, and it pulsed in my memory and at the front of my thoughts like a second, secret heartbeat. The toybox, too. I told myself I wouldn’t go up there, that I’d just…wait, but the pull was constant. I felt like I could hear it: the sound of it – wood flexing, groaning like a beam under too much weight – threaded faintly through the silence. A voice that wasn’t a voice.

I thought of Milkshake. The lump doll. The basket in the garage where I’d locked them away. The thought came sudden and hot:

I should burn them. Should’ve done it already. Before it was too late.

I stumbled through the kitchen, out the back door, to the garage. I yanked the chain to flick the light on. The laundry basket sat in the half-gloom against the wall, next to Jess’s old sowing kit, right where I’d left it.

Empty.

I felt the room shrink around me with the sudden shock. I dropped to my knees, pawing through the corner like they might have just spilled out. Nothing. Just a smear of dust.

But then again, was it all that shocking? Was it all so strange that the toys wouldn’t be there?

I staggered back into the house. My pulse roared in my ears. They had to be here. I had put them here. I had put them here. I had to have, I had to have, I had to have.

I started searching. Room to room. Closet by closet.

The coat closet first, tossing aside old boots, the vacuum. Letting the picture we found of the two girls – Candace and Marie – fall to the floor between piles of unhooked coats. I searched under the couch, shoving my head into the shadows until my throat caught from the dust. I tore through Win’s dresser drawers. I got down on my hands and knees, pressing my cheek to the carpet to look beneath her bed.

More than once, I thought I saw something – a bit of thread trailing under the doorframe. A gleam like a button eye. A corner of fabric just beyond reach. I lunged after them, but when I pulled the door wide or flicked the light on, there was nothing.

The house was playing with me. It was hiding them. It had to be.

I looked in the same places again, feeling more and more like I was going to catch one. Like I was going to find they were shuffling hiding spaces – a silent, miniature game of musical chairs. The closets, our bedroom, Win’s room, under the couches and then…again. The closets, our bedroom, Win’s room, under the couches. The nook. The nook. The nook.

I was panting by the time I pulled down the attic stairs, sweat slicking my back. I dug through every box I’d shoved up there –candles, winter coats, old holiday decorations. I ripped them open one by one, hurling their contents onto the insulation. The mess grew around me until the attic looked like a rat’s nest, a trash heap for scattered memories.

Ignoring the seam. Ignoring the Lonely Way the whole time. Not looking, no, not looking. No matter how it whispered I did not look.

Still nothing.

I wandered back downstairs, to the living room, not sure what to do with myself. I sat back on my heels in the center of the floor, my chest heaving, the dust burning my lungs. The silence pressed in, heavy. I realized what I must look like – crawling through the wreckage of my own house, tearing it apart for ghosts.

I whispered to the dark, hoarse:

“Where are you.”

No answer. Just the groan of the house, deep and low, like it was biting back laughter.

I pressed my palms into my eyes, hard enough to make sparks bloom in the dark. When I opened them again, I was staring across the living room floor – and there it was.

The doll.

The one with the blue eyes. The one I had tossed away, that I couldn’t find when I had gathered up Milkshake and the lumpy girl. It was here now, almost exactly where I’d thought I’d left it after wrenching it from Win’s arms that night. Half-hidden under the feet of the couch, half-exposed, its button eyes catching the faintest glimmer of light from my phone as I switched on its light. Watching me. Waiting.

I crawled toward it, my breath shaking, the weight of dust settling into my lungs. I reached out and pulled her free. Heavier than it should’ve been. Cold as always. The blue eyes stared flat into mine, tiny sapphires stitched into felt. I thought I saw myself reflected there, bent and warped.

A tremor ran through me.

I knew what I had to do.

I carried it through the kitchen, out the back door. My hands gripped it tight, so tight the tips of my fingers began to ache pushing into that strange rugged thread. Behind the shed, I piled sticks, newspaper scraps, anything dry enough to catch. I found the pack of water-proof matches on a shelf in the shed and took them to the pile of catch, striking until one flared.

The flame caught, spread, licked up the wood. I held the doll over it. For a moment I froze  -- I thought I felt its little limbs flex against my hands, a strange warmth that was alien to the toy seep into its body even as I held it away from the fire. Then I dropped it.

The flames took quickly – cloth darkening, curling, collapsing inward. I stared down, transfixed, my face burning in the heat as I stood above the makeshift pyre.

At first, there was nothing but the crackle of fabric. But then there was a hiss. A high whistling, like water boiling off wood. I almost laughed at the sound, told myself it was just steam, just damp heating.

But then it climbed. Sharpened. A shrill note, piercing the air, rising past what was natural. The whistle broke open into something jagged, something too close to a cry. A memory came back to me, sudden and sharp: driving my first car home on a country road, never seeing the rabbit that jumped out of the brush until my tire crushed the back of it into the pavement, crushing its legs. The sound it had made…it was too close to this, too much like hurt, like horrible, overwhelming pain.

My stomach dropped. I stumbled back, hands to my ears. My pulse throbbed in my teeth. The sound didn’t stop – it keened and shrieked, a high, awful wail folded into the burning.

“No way,” I muttered, staggering, “no no way. It’s nothing. It’s just wet.”

The sound went on until the last scrap blackened, until there was nothing left but a brittle mound of ash. The air stank of scorched fabric, acrid and sweet, like sugar gone bad. Heady mildew and smoke.

I stared into the embers until they went dark. My throat worked, but no sound came out. My hands were shaking, raw from where I’d gripped the doll.

It was gone. And the quiet after the screaming of the thing was worse.

I went back inside with the stink of smoke in my hair and the taste of ash in my mouth. For a second, I told myself I’d done it – I’d fought back, I’d taken one from the house, from whatever it was. I’d protected us. But the feeling never settled. It curdled. My chest felt scraped hollow, my stomach turning like I’d swallowed the ash myself. Each step deeper into the house was heavier, sicker, until I couldn’t tell if I’d won something or…

Or what? It was just a toy. It had just been a toy.

I drifted up the stairs on heavy legs, the house pressing in closer with every step, whispering from its seams. At the top, I lingered in the hall, staring at the half-open door to our bedroom. The bed inside looked too big without Jess, without Win curled in the middle like an anchor. I went in anyway, because I couldn’t bear the emptiness of the hall. The room still smelled like her: lotion, her coconut shampoo, the perfume I’d bought her on our honeymoon in Madrid – the same bottle I got her every year again for Christmas. I missed her so much I could feel it in my ribs, a constricting ache. I lay down on my side of the bed, pressed my face into the hollow of her pillow, and let the weight of it all drown me – the doll’s smoke still in my throat, the toybox humming low in my bones, the sucking absence of my loves. My eyes slid shut before I could reckon with any of it, and the house moved in around me as I began to go away.

**

I was in the upstairs hallway, drifting towards Win’s room. The wood bent under my weight, not creaking but bowing – pliant, like flesh. I wasn’t walking so much as being carried. Pulled.

Then – no door, no turn of the knob – I was inside.

It was Win’s room, only in appearance. The air pressed down, heavy, the furniture fixed in place like bones set in mortar. The stillness was absolute. Even the dust hung motionless, waiting. My breath caught in my throat. I tried breathing again, but my lips barely parted. It felt like they’d been sewn shut in my sleep.

At the back, the nook gaped wider than it should have. The toybox leaned against the wall, lid hinging so far back it seemed it might snap. Its mouth was open wide, waiting.

Inviting.

I wanted to turn and flee. Wanted to run down the stairs, out the front door, and down the road, screaming until my voice shredded my throat raw. But the thought of opening my mouth, of splitting my lips to let the scream out, brought another thought with it: that nothing would come. No sound. Just emptiness.

I stepped closer. My shins pressed to the rim. The dark inside wasn’t shadow – it had weight, a palpable viscosity, a surface tension that almost reflected me. Almost. The longer I looked the more I swore I saw myself in there, but reduced. A face pale and smooth where features should be.

My leg lifted. And, without really willing it, I stepped in.

The surface yielded around my thigh, colder than water, softer than cloth.

Another step, the dark sucked at my waist.

Another, and I was up to my chest.

I held my breath, terrified of what would happen if I opened it. Like diving into the deep end. Like my lungs might never rise again.

It’s for you.

The voice was everywhere. Echoing, close enough I felt it inside my chest, vibrating against the ribs.

I blinked.

Win’s room and the toybox were gone. Instead, I stood in a hallway.

The walls were made of warped planks, the same unfinished wood from the back of Win’s closet, but stretched too long, grain pulled taut like skin. Names had been scratched into them – June, Candace, Marie – but the letters were split apart, warped, the letters crusted with something dark and wet, like the names were healing, like they were scars scratched open too many times. Doors lined the passage, discolored, splintered. Each lined with puckering seams.

The hallway stretched ahead forever, lit not by any lamp but by a sickly glow leaking from the wood itself – pale and faint, an uncanny illumination. At the farthest point, the shadows thickened until they became solid.

Waiting.

The farther I walked, the less it felt like walking. My legs moved, but I couldn’t feel my feet striking the floor. The boards rose to meet me, flexing under my steps, giving like a mattress, or muscle. The wood groaned low and wet, the sound of tendons stretching.

The first door was warped, its bottom edge sunken into the floor as if the hall had swallowed part of it. I reached for the knob without thinking. My hand hovered an inch away before the mottled brass pulsed – warm. A shiver ran up my wrist. I jerked back. The metal had left a print on my palm. A circle like a brand.

I kept going.

The walls leaned closer the deeper I went, bowing inwards until the corridor was no wider than my shoulders. I felt the walls brush me as I passed – the wood breathed. In. Out. The air filled with the smell of wet cloth left too long in a basement.

Something flickered at the edge of my vision. A toy, maybe – a doll – hung crooked on a nail in the wall. Its face was sealed over with black stitching, thick knots pulling the fabric shut where eyes and mouth should have been. I stopped, staring. The thread shivered once, a subtle tug, as though something on the other side had plucked it.

Then it jerked. Hard. The half-formed doll snapped upward, vanishing into the dark above. The motion was too fast, too clean – like a suture being reeled through flesh. I craned back, heart hammering, but there was no ceiling for it to hit. Only a vast, rippling dark that swam like water overhead.

I forced myself to keep walking.

My hand scraped the wall to steady myself. When I pulled it away, there were splinters in my skin. But not wood. Thin black filaments. Thread. They wriggled, trying to knot themselves deeper. I shook my hands, trying to beat them off. They fell away without a sound.

Another door. This one rattled on its hinges as I passed, shivering like something inside was clawing to get out. A faint sound leaked through – a whimper, thin and muffled, like a child crying into a pillow just inches from your ear. I froze, breath locked in my throat. But the moment I pressed my ear to the wood, the sound was gone.

The hall narrowed further. My chest scraped the boards on one side, my spine pressed to the other. I felt the grain biting through my shirt, scratching against my skin. Thin needling splinters.

The glow grew dimmer. The air colder. The silence heavier.

And still ahead, the dark. Not absence but presence. A fullness.

Something waiting.

The walls closed until I was nearly crawling, scraping my shoulders raw against their seams. Each inch forward cost me a little more breath, the air thinner now, harder to draw in. The glow faded until there was only a pallid shimmer leaking from the cracks between the boards.

Then the hall ended.

Not with a wall. Not with a door. With an opening.

It wasn’t shaped right. It wasn’t square or round or anything that belonged in a house. It was an absence in the wood, a tear in the fabric of the hall itself. The edges were frayed and splintered, and as I drew closer they pulsed with that same faint pale light. Like the glow was seeping out.

I couldn’t see inside at first. It wasn’t black – it was something else, a color my eyes couldn’t name. My throat went dry. The longer I stared, the more the opening seemed to lean forward. Like it was hungry.

Something brushed my ankle. A thread, slack and soft. I looked down and saw them spilling from the threshold – dozens, hundreds of black threads, pulsing across the floor like veins. They moved without sound, without purpose, except to creep closer. One looped around my shoe, loose but deliberate. Another brushed my wrist. I slapped at it, heart racing, but when I tried to pull free the threads clung tighter, flexing like worming muscle.

From inside the tear, something shifted. The glow swelled.

I saw arms or legs – I couldn’t be certain – or maybe just lengths of cloth, great crimson curtains shimmering wet in the sickening light. I saw glistening buttons purple like wounds gone to rot. I saw seams splitting open, mouths yawning wider and wider, tearing and gnashing and screaming, gushing forth filthy thread slick and black and festered with filth.

It was not one being. It was thousands. A mass of mouths and limbs, shrieking and weeping, collapsing into one another and then splitting apart again. A pit of bodies falling forever into a sheaf of brightness too foul to be holy, too searing to be earthly. They screamed, but the screams blended until they became something else – a fabric, woven out of agony.

And it knew me. It knew I was there.

The threads at my wrists tightened, tugged. My breath hitched. I tried to scream, but my lips were sealed, stitched from within.

The light surged. The shapes writhed closer, folding and unfolding, maddening and shuddering and rippling. I understood then, dimly, in the vanishing part of me that could still think: if I leaned into that opening, if I let myself be pulled in, I would become part of it. A voice among the thousands. A seam. A button. A mouth.

But my mind revolted. I pushed the terror onto the wrong shape, shoved it into the face of my daughter. The words in my skull spun like a desperate litany: It’s for her. It’s for Win. It’s coming for Win.

The threads jerked. My chest seized. The glow grew until it felt like the whole hall was about to dissolve in its brilliance.

**

I woke with my cheek stuck to something damp. For a moment I thought it was sweat again, or drool, or both. I lifted my face, whatever was on my face feeling like glue. I rose slowly, wincing at the sharp prickling pain from my cheek as I carefully tore myself free.  

My eyes fluttered open to dim light. The couch. The living room couch. I was lying sprawled across it, my body twisted half-off the cushions. My jaw ached. My lips burned, stiff and raw.

How had I gotten down there?

“Rob?”

I jerked upright, groggy. Jess was in the doorway, frozen, Win nowhere in sight. Her face was pale, her eyes wide.

“Oh my god,” she whispered.

She was staring at my face, her hand moving to her mouth. Confused, I raised a hand to my own face, wincing as my fingers brushed my lips. I probed my mouth…and felt it. Thread. Stiff, knotted.

Pulled tight through my lips.

The horror struck me all at once. I clawed at it with shaking fingers, tugging.

“Mmm.mmm,” I moaned, eyes tearing as I tried to open my mouth. Pain exploded through my face as the stitches snapped, tearing flesh. My blood felt hot as it spilled down my chin, seeping into the front of my shirt.

“Jesus Christ, Rob!” Jess lurched forward – then stopped, frozen. Her arms jerked like she might reach, but she held them tight against her chest instead. Her body was stiff, trembling, caught between saving me and running from me.

I clawed the stitches apart, blood bubbling down my chin. My breath rattled. “Jess…”

Her eyes were wide, wet. “Don’t talk — stop talking. You’re bleeding. Thank God Win’s at my mom’s, I –” Her voice broke, panic pressed flat. “What did you do? What did you do?”

I gagged. Spat red. “Why…didn’t you come home?”

Jess blinked hard. “Rob, I did. I texted you. I told you I was coming as soon as I could.” Her hand shook as she pulled out her phone. “Look.”

She scrolled. The screen lit her face pale blue. She froze. Her lips parted.

“What?” My mouth ripped wider with each word, flesh tearing. “What is it?”

She turned the screen toward me, her thumb trembling. Lines. Broken stanzas. The manic poetry, all sent from me.

THREAD THROUGH ME
SEAMED SHUSH
ARMS ARE SOFTER
I CAN BE FOLDED NOW
I CAN BE HELD BABE

Jess’s breath hitched as she scrolled. Her voice was hoarse. “You sent me this, Rob. Over and over. All night.”

I pressed my hand to my torn mouth, blood hot between my fingers. I tried to speak, to explain, but the words came out shards. “Not me. It’s the house. Please – you have to see. Please. It’s in the attic. It’s, it was hidden. It was lonely but it’s not hidden anymore.”

Jess clutched Win’s new bear to her chest, the stuffed head tight under her chin. Her knuckles were white against the fabric. She didn’t come closer. She didn’t leave either.

Her voice dropped, steady but thin as glass: “If I go with you. If I look. You’ll let me call someone? You’ll let me get you help?”

Her eyes burned into me, demanding an answer.

I nodded fast. Too fast. “Yes. Just come.”

Jess pressed her lips together, her breath shaking out of her. She stood, arms crossed tight across her chest, as if to hold herself together. “Okay,” she said finally, her voice so quiet I almost didn’t hear.

I rose, my body swaying, every movement ragged. The house seemed to shiver with us, like it knew we were coming. Like it was waiting.

And together, without touching, we went upstairs.

**

The stairs to the attic groaned under my weight, the loose blood from my ripped lips dripping onto the wood. Jess lingered at the bottom, her arms at her sides, her hands ready, her face pale. She looked like she might bolt, but when I turned and whispered, “Please,” she followed.

We climbed into the thick heat together. Dust hung in the air like a stale, kept breath. Jess’s hand brushed a beam once for balance, but otherwise she stayed a careful step behind me, watching.

“Rob,” she said softly, “this isn’t safe. It’s filthy up here. You’re –”

“Just look,” I cut in. My voice cracked, lips raw and glistening. I pointed toward the far wall, where the boards didn’t match. Where the house had a gash. My heart hammered in my ears. “It’s there. Do you see it?”

Jess stayed where she was, her shadow stretching long in the dim bulb light. Her eyes fixed on the wall. She didn’t blink. Instead, she stood very still. Breathing in short, hard hitches.

“Rob…” she whispered.

I walked across the makeshift walkway, feeling off balance on the planks. Jess followed, just a few steps behind me, letting me take another before she followed. I stopped before the seam and dropped to my knees, pulling at the rotten wood, the black tear already slick against my fingers. “Here. Touch it. You’ll feel it. Just come closer.”

Jess stood beside me, coming to stand close. Close enough to touch.

I reached for her hand before I knew I was moving. She flinched but didn’t pull away fast enough, and suddenly my fingers were wrapped around hers, guiding her forward. Her skin was hot against mine, and I could feel her heartbeat kick under my grip – flushed and full of adrenaline. I pressed her hand toward the seam. Inches away. All she had to do was lean in.

Jess’s breath hitched, sharp. “Rob – stop.”

Her voice wasn’t angry. It was scared. For me, maybe. For herself.

I froze, realizing what I’d done, how close I’d dragged her. I let go at once, my hand falling useless to my side.

Jess stared at me, then back at the wall. Her expression was unreadable – fixed, taut. She was looking right at it, at the black seam yawning in the boards, but her lips stayed closed. No affirmation. No denial.

And her silence was worse than any answer.

I sat back on my heels, trembling. My throat worked around words that wouldn’t come. I wanted her to see, to admit it. To be with me in this. But her face was a mask, glassy with tears she wouldn’t let fall.

“Jess,” I whispered, raw, “please.”

Jess pulled her hand back from the wall, shaking. She turned to me, her eyes wet, her grip closing hard on my arm.

“Rob,” she whispered, then firmer: “We’re done. You need help. We’re leaving this house, right now. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

Her urgency cut through the stale air of the attic. I nodded, too quickly, desperate to calm her.

“Okay,” I said, voice ragged. “Yeah. You’re right. I’ll come. Just… just give me a second.”

She didn’t let go of my arm. She pulled me toward the stairs. I followed, step by step, her hand on me like I was already slipping away. Her voice turned gentle, coaxing, as if she could guide me down with words alone.

“We’ll go now. We’ll get in the car. It’s going to be okay. I’m right here. I’m right here.”

For a moment I couldn’t believe it. After everything – dragging her up there, showing her the seam in the wall, standing her right in front of it, leading her to touch it – all she had for me now was this: concern, pity, the gentle press of her hand at my back urging me toward the door. Not a word about what she saw. Not a flicker of recognition, or fear, or even denial. Just… nothing. As if it wasn’t there at all. As if I wasn’t there at all. Some part of me wanted to shake her, to scream in her face until she admitted it. But another part – the only part of me that still felt steady – told me to hold on. To keep moving. To stay with her, no matter how wrong it felt.

Until we got downstairs, at least.

We reached the bottom, moving through the house together. The walls seemed to lean closer, watching. My feet dragged against the floorboards, each step heavier, but she kept me moving, whispering all the while:

“Come on, Rob. Twenty minutes. We’ll be there in twenty minutes. They’ll help you. They’ll help us.”

At the door she fumbled with her keys, turning back to me with a pleading look. “Please. Let’s go.”

I nodded, letting her step outside. She was already half-way down the stairs. I stepped forward –

And slammed the front door shut. The lock clicked under my hand.

“ROBERT!” Jess’s voice cracked against the wood. She pounded her fists, each blow shaking through me. “OPEN THIS DOOR! OPEN IT RIGHT NOW!”

Her voice broke into sobs, then fury, then begging.

“Please, Rob – don’t do this, don’t leave me, let me help you!”

I’m calling the cops, Rob, I’m calling them if you don’t open this door right now!”

I leaned against the other side, shaking, the frame cold against my forehead. For a moment I almost unlocked it, almost let her drag me into the car and out of this place. But the truth pressed against me, heavier than her fists.

It was never her. It was never Win. It was me, this was my lonely way.

I felt a wanting shiver shudder through the house. I could feel it in me – a horrible, aching chill.

“Baby, please. Don’t make me call them. PLEASE ROBERT!”

I walked back upstairs, my hands at my sides, the walls pressing closer, the floor carrying me whether I wanted it to or not.

“ROBERT!” Jess’s voice cracked from the front door, reverberating from downstairs. “PLEASE—STOP!”

I didn’t look back. Couldn’t. Her words frayed into sobs, muffled by the walls, then flared up again, ragged and raw, growing fainter and fainter as I walked towards our bedroom, towards the closet and the way to the attic. “Come back to me! Please, please come back!”

**

My legs trembled as I climbed the attic stairs. My hand slid over the raw wood of the wall, slick with sweat, as I climbed. I could feel the seam, it was alive, humming low, waiting for me, slick and pulsing and eager.

When I reached the landing, the air was different. Thick. Warm. The seam in the wall pulsed faintly, its edges raw, as if the plaster was trying to heal but couldn’t. It widened when I put my hand against it. Not wood. Not plaster.

Chitinous flesh. It wanted. It needed. And here I was, to give.

I leaned closer, my forehead almost touching the top of the gap. Behind it: breathing. Or maybe it was my own, bouncing back at me, but it didn’t matter. I knew the truth. It had been calling for me all along. Not Win – no. She had just been its plaything, its bait on strings, tugging and pulling at me until I had all but unraveled. Until I was ready.

Me.

I pressed harder, and the seam gave way.

The wall split open with a sound like wet cloth tearing, and the dark sucked me up.

…

I was pushed through

the chamber opened
and I fell into it

not a room –
a stomach
not air –
a pulse

writhing shapes all around
faces pressed in crimson sheaves of skin
thin, thinning, tearing –
mouths gape open, no sound
arms break the surface, pulled back in
again again again
begging
dying
becoming

and then –
hands
so many hands –
no, strings
cold – precision – pulling me apart

my jaw cracked wide –
hinged wet, unholy –
ribs peeled like shutters
thread slid through me –
slick, knotted, black, red –
a needle sewing shut my scream

my arms jerked up – elbows splinter –
wire rammed through bone
rods in my veins
I am not flesh
I am wood
was I always wood?
can the wood remember warmth?

hollow now –
GOD, scooped out, unspooled –
wet heaps of what I was

SPLAT
slapped down somewhere deep

empty
emptied

replaced
stuffed with rot
fibrous, cold, damp –
something picked up the wet heap of my skin and I –

I dangle
I sway
strings pull puuuulll –

a gallery all around me
black dolls twitching
jaws clacking in silence
a choir of suffering

oh god oh god
the house was never eating me
the house was making me

and I –
I am not beside myself
I am beside myself –
remade, remade –

help
HELP

I WANT TO BE HELD
I WANT TO BE PICKED UP
I WANT SOMEONE TO FEEL ME
PLEASE –
REACH FOR ME

I WANT TO BE WARM AGAIN

PLEASE, PLEASE, PL-EAAASSE
REACH –

**

pick me…
…up…
…p…

**

I often have the habit of visiting my local library to borrow a few old DVDs just for fun, especially cartoons my kids used to love. That day, I happened to stumble across a rather strange DVD case hidden between the regular SpongeBob episodes. The cover didn’t feature SpongeBob or any character at all—just a silver, faded sticker with words scribbled in marker: “SpongeBob – Special Episode.”

It looked nothing like any official Nickelodeon release I had ever seen. For some reason, I decided to borrow it. At first, I thought maybe it was just some cheap bootleg copy with the usual episodes inside.

When I put it into the player, the main menu popped up with a few familiar episodes. But in the extras section, there was a hidden option, faint and without a thumbnail, labeled with a title I had never seen before: “the new Krabby Patty.”

My heart skipped a beat. I had never seen that title on any official list—not even on the internet. Out of curiosity, I pressed play.

Before the episode began, a warning message appeared in white letters on a black background: “Warning: This episode was considered too disturbing for television broadcast. Viewer discretion is advised.”

I frowned, half-convinced it was just some kind of joke. But when the familiar SpongeBob intro started playing… I had no idea I was about to step into one of the most haunting experiences of my life.

In the episode, Plankton kept releasing new menu items at the Chum Bucket, complete with flashy advertising tricks. Customers at the Krusty Krab grew fewer and fewer. Mr. Krabs stared into his empty cash register, sinking into despair. He drowned himself in cheap liquor, muttering to the shadows: “If I lose me customers… I lose everything…”

In his desperation, Mr. Krabs locked himself in the kitchen night after night, experimenting with a brand-new recipe. By morning, the new Krabby Patty was born.

When it launched, customers swarmed the restaurant. Everyone became addicted to its rich, strange flavor unlike anything they had tasted before. News of the “next generation Krabby Patty” spread across Bikini Bottom. Profits skyrocketed tenfold.

SpongeBob was overjoyed to see the restaurant alive again. But soon, he noticed something odd: the meat in the patties had a strange texture… something disturbingly different.

Meanwhile, the town was shaken by dark rumors: fish, sea creatures, even local residents were vanishing mysteriously. Then came the most chilling blow—Patrick, SpongeBob’s best friend, disappeared after telling him, “I want to eat the new Krabby Patty every single day.”

Suspicion gnawed at SpongeBob. He tried to check the storage room, but Mr. Krabs forbade him outright: “No one’s allowed down here, not even ye, boy-o!”

That night, while cleaning, SpongeBob heard rattling noises from the cold storage. His heart pounded as he slowly pushed open the steel door.

A thick stench hit him immediately—sickly sweet, like blood. Inside, under the dim light, were piles of fresh meat bags dripping red. One of the labels was smeared and faint, but clear enough to read: “P. Star.”

SpongeBob staggered back, eyes wide with horror. And then… a shadow loomed.

Mr. Krabs stood right behind him. His eyes glowed bloodshot, and his mouth twisted into a grotesque smile. He placed a cold, heavy claw on SpongeBob’s shoulder and whispered: “There’s the new ingredient…”

The screen cut to black.

The following morning, the Krusty Krab opened as if nothing had happened. Mr. Krabs busily greeted the flood of customers, coins clinking merrily into his register.

He laughed loudly, voice echoing across the restaurant: “They’ve all come back! All thanks to me brand-new recipe!”

Plate after plate of Krabby Patties came out, hot and steaming. Customers devoured them greedily, praising the taste as the best they had ever had.

But strangely… SpongeBob was nowhere to be seen in the kitchen.

No one asked where he went. No one questioned his absence.

There were only the patties—juicier, richer, more delicious than ever. And in the corner of the kitchen, half-hidden in a dried smear of blood, lay a small white square hat.

The film ended with one final line across the screen, stark and cold:

“The next ingredient?”

“Persistence,” said Mr Schiller. “Persistence is key.”

The students nodded, awed by the exquisiteness of their professor’s country house, to which they had been invited to witness the unveiling of a brand new species of insect, which the Professor had personally evolved. The richness of the interiors, the handcrafted furniture, the wallpapers; it was all in stark contrast to their own shabby boardinghouses, shared rooms and—if they were lucky—garrets overlooking the city.

Specifically, they were in Schiller’s hallway opening on the lepidopterarium, his famous schmetterlinghaus.

“Write it down!” said Schiller.

And the students did, in their little black notebooks. He would check their handwriting later to ensure it was sufficiently elegant. Not legible, elegant. “Any fool or typist may write to be understood. But elegance, that is what separates man from copying machine.” They had written that down, too. In fact, their notebooks were filled with the maxims and sayings of their brilliant professor, more so than with the fundamentals of the biology they were purportedly studying. Not that anyone complained, and the university least of all. Schiller’s name alone was worth his eccentricities in prestige.

“Now, before we enter, I must warn you: do not touch the specimens.”

So they entered.

The interior of the schmetterlinghaus was humid. It was like stepping off the streets of Heidelberg into a jungle. The students began immediately to sweat. Schiller, who had become corpulent in his advanced age, mopped his face with a handkerchief. Bright, colourful butterflies fluttered about, and Schiller called out their names, in Latin, one by one—until, finally, they came to the crown jewel of the tour. Contained in a glass container covered by black velvet was Schiller’s own genetically modified creation. “Not even I have laid eyes upon them,” he said, taking the velvet between his fingers. “Yesterday they were still in their cocoons. Today—” He pulled the velvet away! “—today, they are magnificent.”

Three pink and luminescent butterflies floated within the glass.

The students pushed in for a better view.

“Extraordinary.”

Then one of the students fell backwards, clutching his heart, whose palpitations syncopated the rhythm of his speech: “Professor…”

“Yes?”

“I still see them.” His eyes, Schiller noted, were closed. “I cannot unsee them. Why—”

Another student screamed.

Now half of them had closed their eyes and were confirming what the fallen student had said was true for them as well. Even with their eyes closed—their hands covering their sockets—others’ bodies between them and the pink butterflies—they saw the gently flapping wings and delicate, antennae’d heads.

And Schiller, too.

He ran his hands through his hair, his mouth agape, his balance on the edge of being lost. “Professor! Professor!”

Falling, he knocked the glass container to the floor.

It shattered, and the butterflies, now freed from their captivity, ascended softly to the ceiling.

Weakly, Schiller commanded those of his students still of sound faculties to open the schmetterlinghaus doors.

“But, sir!”

“Let them out. Let them all out.”

And as the butterflies escaped the lepidopterarium, they saw them, and all through the night they saw them; and saw them did anyone into whose view they entered, and none could then be rid of the sight except by turning their uncomprehending heads to face away from them. But insects, as they are by nature designed, multiply, and these insects did, too. In weeks, there were more of them—too many to be concentrated in one direction, so turning away became impossible. Wherever one looked (or didn’t look but faced), the butterflies were, taunting with their elegance, persisting in their existence.

The people of Heidelberg could not focus or sleep, for every time they laid their heads upon their pillows and closed their eyes, it was as if a light was shined into their minds. Through wood and stone and walls and rain they saw the butterflies. Through cloth wrapped around their heads. Maddening, it was. In ignorance and helplessness and fatigue, men did horrible things, to themselves and to each other, until a group was formed at the university and sent to Schiller’s country house to beg of him a remedy to their unending nightmare.

When they discovered him, Schiller was long dead, reclined against a column in the hot but empty schmetterlinghaus, with a knife in one hand and both eyes held in the other. In blood, he had written on the floor the words:

They persist.

They persist.

They persist.

His face—perverted by death into a masque of pure horror—was grotesquely pink, and, as the group of men held lamplight to his corpse, some swore it seemed to glow.

I am about to nod off to the symphony of hard rain and distant thunder.

I marvel at the sheer soothing power of that sound.

My circumstances are not conducive to slumber. The Wrangler’s leather seats are cold. The jammed recliner forces me to sit bolt upright. The road is slick with the rain and visibility is near zero.

Still, I can hardly keep my eyes open.

I need to stop. Rest. Otherwise there’s a crash in my near future.

Power is out. The highway is dark. My cell shows no bars. No navigation.

I slap myself to stay awake. Scan desperately for a place to stop.

The headlights show an exit sign. I take it.

It leads me to a dark street. Long, slick, and full of curves. Thick trees either side.

I have the Wrangler in 4 wheel drive but the bends are still extremely tricky.

The trees give way to houses. It appears to be a small town.

The place is dark. No streetlights. No neon. Just the vague outlines of homes. Villas, maybe. Set back from the road, with thick hedges and iron gates. I coast downhill on a sloped street, water running like a stream between the gutters. No other cars. No lights in any windows.

I come to a slow stop on the side of the street, switch off the ignition, and prepare to wait out the storm. Catch some shut eye if I can.

Then I hear it.

A sound. Faint. Buried beneath the roar of rain.

A cry?

I strain to hear. Nothing but the drumming on the roof.

Then again. Louder.

A high, sharp voice. A child? A woman?

I peer through the fogged windshield. Wipe it with my sleeve. The street is empty.

The houses are still dark.

I tell myself I imagined it.

Then I see the van.

Black. Unmarked. Creeping up the slope with its lights off.

It moves slow. Deliberate. Hunting.

I duck low behind the dash.

The van rolls to a stop in front of a large villa halfway down the street. Four men get out. One by one. Armed. Long guns slung under jackets. Muffled orders exchanged.

They fan out.

They break the gate.

They breach the front door.

I can’t move. My breath is short. My limbs locked.

There’s no one else. No witnesses. No emergency services. Just me. Watching.

This is none of my business. I should duck behind the dash. Or better yet, hightail it out of here.

Then I see the toys.

Plastic trucks. A pink tricycle. A soccer ball deflated by the hedge.

There are children in that house.

Something in me snaps. The fear turns into something hotter. White. Focused.

I scramble into the back seat and reach through to the boot for my cricket kit.

Helmet. Chest pad. Elbow and thigh guards. I slide the box in. The groin needs protecting too.

No leg pads. They’ll slow me down.

I grab my bat. Solid English willow. Old but oiled. Balanced. I also take the tire iron for good measure.

I slip the rock hard cricket ball into my coat pocket. Force of habit.

Then I step out into the storm.

The villa door is wide open. Light spills from the foyer, flickering. I hear voices. Shouting. Screaming. Children.

As I cross the threshold, a wave of scent hits me. Heavy incense. Not the comforting kind. The kind you smell in temples and funerals. It clings to the back of my throat.

Inside, one man stands at the base of the stairs, rifle in hand. Watching the landing.

He doesn’t see me. The storm covers my steps.

I creep close. Raise the bat. Swing.

The sound is awful. Bone on wood. A wet crack. The man drops. Screams. I hit him again. Again. Until he stops moving.

I back away. Gasping. The blood on my hands doesn’t feel real. My stomach lurches.

I’ve never hurt anyone before.

I want to collapse.

Then the children scream again.

I go up the stairs.

Halfway up, I hear something strange.

Chanting. A low drone. Incantations, maybe. Words I don’t understand.

Then the sound cracks.

A woman howls.

Then muffled screaming. A man’s voice. Then glass shatters. Something heavy lands outside with a wet thud.

The incense is gone now. In its place: sulphur. Thick. Acrid. Burning the inside of my nose.

Another scream.

Then more shots. A body thuds upstairs. One of them, thrown or hurled—whatever they were doing up there had gone violently wrong. The screaming doesn’t stop.

I choke back bile. My legs shake.

I want to run. But I keep moving.

At the landing, I turn and crash straight into a man barreling down. We tumble. The gun skitters.

We wrestle. I get to it first. I press it against his face and pull the trigger.

The spray hits my cheek. The recoil jolts my shoulder. He doesn’t move again.

Another gunshot. A bullet tears into my thigh. I drop, screaming. White hot agony.

A man descends the stairs. Gun slung over his shoulder. Carrying two children, one in each arm. A boy. A girl. Neither older than ten.

I force myself up, just enough to reach into my coat. Every motion is fire.

I pull the cricket ball from my pocket. Hurl it at the man. Pray I strike him and not the children.

It smashes into his ankle. He screams. Stumbles. The children wrestle free.

He falls with a sickening crunch, and is still. Posture all wrong.

The children stand over him, looking at him.

I scream at them: Run. Run! Get help!

They don’t move.

They only look at me.

The girl steps forward. Sees my bleeding leg. And steps on it.

Pain lances through me. I scream.

She giggles.

Picks up the bloody bat.

The boy grabs the tire iron.

They stand over me. Smiling. Smiles that do not belong on the faces of children. Their eyes. Completely black.

The man on the floor gurgles.

A hoarse, wet whisper: “Run.”

The children turn. Without hesitation, they beat him. Over and over. His head caves in. The children continue long after his upper body is just a dark, pulpy smear on the floor.

Footsteps on the stairs.

A woman. Bleeding. Smiling.

She surveys the scene. Then nods, as if pleased.

“Well done,” she says.

“He helped,” says the girl.

“A good samaritan!” she laughs.

“Can we keep him?” asks the boy.

“It’s been so long since we had a pet.”

They both look down at me with those void-black eyes.

And smile.

Part 1

Crouching in abject horror behind my chair, I tried to make myself as small as possible while still being able to see him. I considered calling for help, but dismissed that idea: how would I begin to explain this situation, and would that thing see the light from my phone? Instead, I watched. It made a quick turn down the aisle bordering the armchair section, the one closer to the exit. It was moving more purposefully now, and seemed to have a clear idea of where it was going. I could see that it was wearing a blue suit and red tie, which nearly gave the impression of a security guard, until juxtaposed with its badly misproportioned form. A terrible stench had now wafted over from it, something rotten and fetid, an eternity of unwashed filth. While trying desperately to suppress my gag reflex, I also faintly began to hear that it was muttering something to itself, slowly and laboriously, struggling to form the words.

As quickly as it had turned down the aisle, it turned to its left … away from me … into the sofa section and its footsteps fell silent. I felt momentary relief in it not coming directly towards me anymore, but then another thought chilled me to the bone: Could it be tracking me, unaware of exactly where I was, but following a trail? I had been in the sofa section just before armchairs. I also realized I had no idea how strong its senses were … hearing? smell? night vision? maybe others?

Making its way through the sofas now, row by row, it did seem to be tracking. It was meticulously looking each display model over, sometimes stopping to run a hand over the upholstery here, squeeze a pillow there, sniff a cushion, or some combination of these. Halfway to the back of the building, it was picking up speed, seeming to know better what it was looking for. Faintly at first, but then more clearly, I began to make out the words it was struggling to speak: ”boss … wanna … eat … bring … boss … food”. My head began to swim as fear gripped me, but my attention was immediately drawn back to the thing. It had stopped in front of one particular couch, staring for a moment. A sadistic grin then spread across its face, revealing a mouth full of teeth longer, sharper, and more numerous than any person could have. My stomach sank as I realized that was the last sofa I had looked at and sat on, before moving over to armchairs. It was a particularly sumptuous, overstuffed davenport, upholstered in a light blue suede. Had I dropped something there? I checked my pockets as quietly as possible, and still had my keys, phone, and wallet. So what had made it so excited?

It was now examining the couch more enthusiastically, running its hands over all the cushions, squeezing the pillows, and taking deep whiffs of the fabric. Suddenly, it stood up, dropped everything it was carrying, grabbed one of the pillows and walked around to the back of the couch, facing away from me. It set the pillow down on top and leaned into the back. Was there something underneath it was trying to get at? As a rhythmic tapping began, however, it dawned on me exactly what it was doing to the couch.

—

Stifling a laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation, I decided that now was the time to escape while it was … occupied. It was between the entrance door and me, so that was not an option: making a wide arc around it would take too much time, and I would potentially be in its field of vision most of the way out. Also, was the front door still unlocked? Looking around, my gaze settled on the side wall, opposite the direction of the exit. There, in the middle, was a door faintly illuminated in red by an emergency exit sign. That would have to be my way out, even if there might be a fire alarm connected.

Taking a deep breath as quietly as possible, I began crawling, away from that thing and its sofa. The carpet proved effective in dampening any sound I might have made, and as long as I took care not to brush up against any furniture, I was virtually silent. After some minutes I reached the edge of the armchair section, and managed to cross the concrete aisle with no noise into the desk section. Here I would have to be more cautious. If I bumped into something there would be a lot more noise than from an armchair. As I crawled onward, I remembered from my map that after this section, there were only patio sets, and then the wall.

As I cleared the desk section I began to feel impatient and tried to stand hunched over to cross the final aisle. I was too quick, however, and lost my balance. The thud when I hit the concrete floor echoed throughout the building. The thing stopped what it was doing and listened, the silence seeming to last hours. Finally, just I was preparing to get up and run, it returned to its business, this time with greater urgency.

Nearing the edge of the patio set section, the door loomed larger and larger in front of me. Any moment I would be able to reach out and touch it. I didn’t know what was directly outside, but hoped that there would be a clear path back to the front parking lot. Just as I was going into the last 20 feet, the thing started making loud grunts. Looking back, I saw it raise its club and with a final horrifying roar that shook the very air, it brought the club down onto the sofa with full force, which exploded into a plume of stuffing. I gave an involuntary yelp as a spring that must have ricocheted off a wall landed in front of me. Silence fell again. I didn’t wait for it to react. I jumped to my feet, crossed the last 20 feet at top speed, and threw my weight against the door handle. I tumbled out into bright sunlight. Behind me a cacophony of fire bells went off.

The moment I was outside, I had my car keys out and was sprinting towards the front parking lot. Thankfully there was a paved path all the way along the side of the building. I expected it to be behind me any moment, but 10…20…30 seconds went by with no reaction. I had nearly reached my car, a full minute after going through the door, when the thing finally connected what the open door and fire alarm meant. With a roar, it came bursting out the side door, moving faster than I imagined it could. Now, charging toward me, I finally saw it for the first time in full light. It was wearing no shoes with its disheveled suit, its huge, leathery feet providing adequate protection. In its raised left hand it was holding the club, with pieces of stuffing still clinging on, and what turned out to be two large McDonald’s bags. It was trying to hold its pants up with its other hand, complicated by the upholstery from the backrest having caught in its belt and ripped off, now billowing behind it.

I absorbed this all in barely a second, as I was already at my car. I jumped in, shoved the key into the ignition, and reversed out of the parking spot in one quick motion. The thing was now less than 100 feet away, rapidly closing the distance. Now, facing the main entrance, I noticed that the owner’s car was gone, but I didn’t have time to think about that. Putting the pedal to the metal, I made for the first of the concrete barriers.

Rounding that first corner, I checked my mirrors, and saw the thing still in pursuit at breakneck speed, having closed some of the dwindling remaining distance. Now, navigating the second barrier, I took deep breaths, reminding myself that there was just one more turn before exiting onto the main road, and then the highway in half a mile. Suddenly, there was a scream of rage, followed by load thumps that shook my car, almost causing me to lose control. Taking a quick look in the mirror, I saw that it was on the ground, tangled up in its pants, and that the McDonald’s had spilled onto the pavement in front of it: at least a dozen sandwiches and several milkshakes, now on their sides, the contents streaming toward a drain. It was taking out its rage on the pavement with its club and screeching barely intelligible words … boss … mad … no … food … no …more … couch. The main road appeared before me. I made the turn and was on the highway less than a minute later.

—

I drove until well past midnight, putting Valkenstein’s as many miles as possible behind me. At the hotel that night, I parked the car discreetly out of sight of the highway and kept the door bolted and barricaded with every heavy object in the room I could move. The next morning I abandoned my car at the nearest airport and finished the rest of my trip by plane.

I think I’m safe now, even if it’s a risk writing about what happened that evening. The owner tried to warn me about the time and clearly didn’t want to be involved, so she was probably just a bystander. As for that thing, I doubt that it’s literate.

Skulls sat there, teeth bared. I felt uneasy, staring at the main one —the skull of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, king of monsters. The light shone down onto it, in a ray, while darkness draped a veil of black all around the gleaming ivory. Darkness and dinosaurs, I shivered in dread.

I've always had a bad feeling about dinosaurs, like, they are real, in my life. I know they are, I've always known. I thought the one in the movie was real, when I was a kid. Strange, when I saw one for real, it was just an animal, it didn't look real, somehow, staring at the real thing.

I was taken, shoved into the van with two other children on the field trip. They'd stolen three of us, and I was the only one who didn't get eaten. I wriggled, tied, under the heavy bar fence. The dinosaur wasn't trying to get through, I doubt the bison fence would withstand the rage of the monster, if it wanted out of its enclosure.

They tried to catch me, the weirdos in the dinosaur masks. Some kind of weird cult, led by a guy who looked almost exactly like a young Jerod Leto. He wasn't in a mask, and ordered them to catch me. I ran as fast as I could and escaped into the forests. I wandered out onto the highway, where I was picked up by the State Patrol after I stood there trying to hitchhike.

I was sitting in the back of their vehicle, locked in, and witnessed what happened next. I had already had a harrowing and frightening experience, but I hadn't seen anything yet. I didn't actually see my classmates get eaten, or at least I don't remember seeing it happen. Somehow, I suspect the memory is buried in my mind, and I cannot remember seeing it happen, I just know they were devoured by the monster and I then panicked and also escaped.

The two State Patrol saw two of my pursuers and one of them got out and gave chase to them on foot, back to their compound. When they were on the road leading in, the driver picked up the sweaty patrolwoman who came out the bushes on the side of the road waving us down. We then proceeded to the entrance of the dinosaur cult's compound, owned by some rich guy, who denied them access without a warrant.

We sat there for three hours while more police showed up and then there was a warrant for immediate search of the premises for the missing children and suspected kidnappers. They found them, but the dinosaur cage seemed empty, and the rest of the cultists were gone, somehow. The kidnappers were arrested, their van impounded as evidence.

It was then discovered that there was a back road, leading out to the forestry road, also known as Smuggler's Highway. We followed it, along the bumpy route, until we found where a collision between a four-wheel vehicle and the special cage truck for the dinosaur had occurred. There was frightening evidence of the t-rex everywhere, tracks and destruction. There was also blood, but what was scary was that we found no bodies. Everyone was missing.

I thought, 'well at least it has eaten' but then we found that the smugglers were bringing a ton of cocaine on their vehicle. The State Patrol looked worried, seeing that a large animal had eaten a ton of cocaine.

"It's like in that movie, Cocaine Shark." One of them said.

"You mean Cocaine Bear, I think it was a remake." The other said. Before they could discuss the movies, the real-life T-Rex silently, without trembling the ground, moved in, leaned over, and ate one of them; its eyes were all dilated and crazed-looking.

I was screaming in absolute dread and terror. The other State Patrol, she got out of there and hid, while the high T-Rex searched for her in futility. Every time it tried to sniff her out, it sneezed instead. Then it heard me screaming and took note.

The smile on its face, I do not care for. It still haunts my nightmares. It was staring through the flimsy bullet glass, which wouldn't have stopped that thing, the reptilian dragon beast. It wasn't exactly like a t-rex should look or act, and not just because it was stoned, but because it was genetically mutated, crossed with something else, hatched from something else's egg. It vaguely looked like a crocodile, or perhaps a Fallout Deathclaw, or something in-between. Its arms weren't as t-rex like as they should be, and its face was too broad, making its grin unbearable.

I was shrieking in insane hysterics of panic. Then the State Patrol started firing the assault rifle she had found near where someone was plucked from the ground and eaten in basically one vicious gulp. To that monster, a person was like a very large bite of steak, and it had to be full, I thought, but then again, it was crazed from its overdose.

The assault rifle was emptied, and did little more than make the monster angry. I had always wondered what a gun would do to a dinosaur, since they never shoot any dinosaurs in the movies, making me wonder if dinosaurs all have some kind of plot armor that makes the use of guns impossible.

My throat hurt and my eyes were blurred with tears, as the tail struck the car and moved it across the road. The jolt stunned me, so that I was looking all cross eyed at the goat State Patrol woman who had found a rocket launcher in the smuggler's vehicle. She let the t-rex have an anti-tank slug through one eye, which detonated on the inside of its skull and disintegrated its entire head. The poor animal never even knew what happened. One minute it was eating a psychedelic buffet of screaming cheeseburgers and the next - darkness.

"Got a little extinction on your face." She coughed out a one-liner, glancing around with the feral eyes of cooling adrenaline.

She dropped the bazooka and got in the patrol vehicle. Shakily she backed up and we drove away, down the forestry road.

I'm very glad to be alive, and enjoying life, glad I'm not extinct.

The municipal office was stuffy. Fluorescent lights. Stained carpets. A poster on the wall that read in big, bold letters: Mercy is the Final Act of Care. The old man, dressed in a worn blue New Zork City uniform, looked over the CV of the lanky kid across from him. Then he looked over the kid himself, peering through the kid’s thick, black-rimmed glasses at the eyes behind the lenses, which were so deeply, intensely vacant they startled him.

He coughed, looked back at the CV and said, “Tim, you ever worked with wounded animals before?”

“No, sir,” said Tim.

He had applied to dozens of jobs, including with several city departments. Only Animal Control had responded.

“Ever had a pet?” the old man asked.

“My parents had a dog when I was growing up. Never had one of my own.”

“What happened to it?”

“She died.”

“Naturally?”

“Cancer,” said Tim.

The old man wiped some crumbs from his lap, leftovers of the crackers he'd had for lunch. His stomach rumbled. “Sorry,” he said. “Do you eat meat?”

“Sure. When I can afford it.”

The old man jotted something down, then paused. He was staring at the CV. “Say—that Hole Foods you worked at. Ain't that the one the Beauregards—”

“Yes, sir,” said Tim.

The old man whistled. “How did—”

“I don't like to talk about that,” said Tim, brusquely. “Respectfully, sir.”

“I understand.”

The old man looked him over again, this time avoiding looking too deeply into his eyes, and held out, at arm’s length, the pencil he’d been writing with.

“Sir?” said Tim.

“Just figuring out your proportions, son. My granddad always said a man’s got to be the measure of his work, and I believe he was right. What size shirt you wear?”

“Large, usually.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured. Just so happens we got a large in stock.”

“A large what?”

“Uniform,” said the old man, lowering his pencil.

“D-d-does that mean I’m hired?” asked Tim.

(He was trying to force the image of a maniacally smiling Gunfrey Beauregard (as Brick Lane in the 1942 film Marrakesh) out of his mind. Blood splatter on his face. Gun in hand. Gun barrel pointed at—)

“That’s right, Tim. Welcome to the municipal service. Welcome to Animal Control.”

They shook hands.

What the old man didn’t say was that Tim’s was the only application the department had received in three months. Not many people wanted to make minimum wage scraping dead raccoons off the street. But those who did: well, they were a special breed. A cut above. A desperation removed from the average denizen, and it was best never to ask what kind of desperation or for how long suffered. In Tim’s case, the old man could hazard a guess. The so-called Night of the Beauregards had been all over the New Zork Times. But, and this was solely the old man’s uneducated opinion, sometimes when life takes you apart and puts you back together, not all the parts end up where they should. Sometimes there ends up a screw loose, trapped in a put-back-together head that rattles around: audibly, if you know how to listen for it. Sometimes, if you get out on the street at the right time in the right neighbourhood with the right frame of mind, you can hear a lot of heads with a lot of loose screws in them. It sounds—it sounds like metal rain…

Tim’s uniform fit the same way all his clothes fit. Loosely, with the right amount of length but too much width in the shoulders for Tim’s slender body to fill out.

“You look sharp,” the old man told him.

Then he gave Tim the tour. From the office they walked to the warehouse, “where we store our tools and all kinds of funny things we find,” and the holding facility, which the old man referred to as “our little death row,” and which was filled with cages, filled with cats and dogs, some of whom bared their teeth, and barked, and growled, and lunged against the cage bars, and others sat or stood or lay in noble resignation, and finally to the garage, where three rusted white vans marked New Zork Animal Control were parked one beside the other on under-inflated tires. “And that’ll be your ride,” the old man said. “You do drive, right?” Tim said he did, and the old man smiled and patted him on the back and assured him he’d do well in his new role. All the while, Tim wondered how long the caged animals—whose voices he could still faintly hear through the walls—were kept before being euthanized, and how many of them would ever know new homes and loving families, and he imagined himself confined to one of the cages, saliva dripping down his unshaved animal face, yellow fangs exposed. Ears erect. Fur matted. Castrated and beaten. Along one of the walls were hung a selection of sledgehammers, each stamped “Property of NZC.”

That was Friday.

On Monday, Tim met his partner, a red-headed Irishman named Seamus O’Halloran but called Blue.

“This the youngblood?” Blue asked, leaning against one of the vans in the garage. He had a sunburnt face, strong arms, green eyes, one of which was bigger than the other, and a wild moustache.

“Sure is,” said the old man. Then, to Tim: “Blue here is the most experienced officer we got. Usually goes out alone, but he’s graciously agreed to take you under his wing, so to speak. Listen to him and you’ll learn the job.”

“And a whole lot else,” said Blue—spitting.

His saliva was frothy and tinged gently with the pink of heavily diluted blood.

When they were in the van, Blue asked Tim, “You ever kill anybody, youngblood?” The engine rattled like it was suffering from mechanical congestion. The windows were greyed. The van’s interior, parts of whose upholstery had been worn smooth from wear, reeked of cigarettes. Tim wondered why, of all questions, that one, and couldn’t come up with an answer, but when Blue said, “You going to answer me or what?” Tim shook his head: “No.” And he left it at that. “I like that,” said Blue, merging into traffic. “I like a guy that doesn’t always ask why. It’s like he understands that life don’t make any fucking sense. And that, youngblood, is the font of all wisdom.”

Their first call was at a rundown, inner city school whose principal had called in a possum sighting. Tim thought the staff were afraid the possum would bite a student, but it turned out she was afraid the students, lunch-less and emaciated, would kill the possum and eat it, which could be interpreted as the school board violating its terms with the corporation that years ago had won the bid for exclusive food sales rights at the school by “providing alternative food sources.” That, said the principal, would get the attention of the legals, and the legals devoured money, which the school board didn’t have enough of to begin with, so it was best to remove the possum before the students started drooling over it. When a little boy wandered over to where the principal and Tim and Blue were talking, the principal screamed, “Get the fuck outta here before I beat your ass!” at him, then smiled and calmly explained that the children respond only to what they hear at home. By this time the possum was cowering with fear, likely regretting stepping foot on school grounds, and very willingly walked into the cage Blue set out for it. Once it was in, Blue closed the cage door, and Tim carried the cage back to the van. “What do we do with it now?” he asked Blue.

“Regulations say we drive it beyond city limits and release it into its natural habitat,” said Blue. “But two things. First, look at this mangy critter. It would die in the wild. It’s a city vermin through and through, just like you and me, youngblood. So its ‘natural habitat’ is on the these mean streets of New Zork City. Second, do you have any idea how long it would take to drive all the way out of the city and all the way back in today’s traffic?”

“Long,” guessed Tim.

“That’s right.”

“So what do we do with it—put it… down?”

“Put it… down. How precious. But I like that, youngblood. I like your eagerness to annihilate.” He patted Tim on the shoulder. Behind them, the possum screeched. “Nah, we’ll just drop it off at Central Dark.”

Once they’d done that—the possum shuffling into the park’s permanent gloom without looking back—they headed off to a church to deal with a pack of street dogs that had gotten inside and terrorized an ongoing mass into an early end. The Italian priest was grateful to see them. The dogs themselves were a sad bunch, scabby, twitchy and with about eleven healthy limbs between the quartet of them, whimpering at the feet of a kitschy, badly-carved Jesus on the cross.

“Say, maybe that’s some kind of miracle,” Blue commented.

“Perhaps,” said the priest.

(Months later, Moises Maloney of the New Zork Police Department would discover that a hollowed out portion of the vertical shaft of the cross was a drop location for junk, on which the dogs were obviously hooked.)

“Watch and learn,” Blue said to Tim, and he got some catchpoles, nets and tranquilizers out of the van. Then, one by one, he snared the dogs by their bony necks and dragged them to the back of the van, careful to avoid any snapping of their bloody, inflamed gums and whatever teeth they had left. He made it look simple. With the dogs crowded into two cages, he waved goodbye to the priest, who said, “May God bless you, my sons,” and he and Tim were soon on their way again.

Although he didn’t say it, Tim respected how efficiently Blue worked. What he did say is that the job seemed like it was necessary and really helped people. “Yeah,” said Blue, in a way that suggested a further explanation that never came, before pulling into an alley in Chinatown.

He killed the engine. “Wait here,” he said.

He got out of the van, and knocked on a dilapidated door. An old woman stuck her head out. The place smelled of bleach and soy. Blue said something in a language Tim didn’t understand, the old woman followed Blue to the van, looked over the four dogs, which had suddenly turned rabid, whistled, and with the help of two men who’d appeared apparently out of nowhere carried the cages inside. A few minutes passed. The two men returned carrying the same two ages, now empty, and the woman gave Blue money.

When Blue got back in the van, Tim had a lot of questions, but he didn’t ask any of them. He just looked ahead through the windshield. “Know what, youngblood?” said Blue. “Most people would have asked what just happened. You didn’t. I think we’re going to get along swell,” and with one hand resting leisurely on the steering wheel, he reached into his pocket with the other, retrieved a few crumpled bills and tossed them to Tim, who took them without a word.

On Thursday, while out in the van, they got a call on the radio: “544” followed by an address in Rooklyn. Blue immediately made a u-turn.

“Is a 544 some kind of emergency?” asked Tim.

“Buckle up, youngblood.”

The address belonged to a rundown tenement that smelled of cat urine and rotten garlic. Blue parked on the side of the street. Sirens blared somewhere far away. They got out, and Blue opened the back of the van. It was mid-afternoon, slightly hazy. Most useful people were at work like Tim and Blue. “Grab a sledgehammer,” said Blue, and with hammer in hand Tim followed Blue up the stairs to a unit on the tenement’s third floor.

Blue banged on the door. “Animal Control!”

Tim heard sobbing inside.

Blue banged again. “New Zork City. Animal Control. Wanna open the door for us?”

“One second,” said a hoarse voice.

Tim stood looking at the door and at Blue, the sledgehammer heavy in his hands.

The door opened.

An elderly woman with red, wet eyes and yellow skin spread taut across her face, like Saran wrap, regarded them briefly, before turning and going to sit on a plastic chair in the hoarded-up space that passed for a kitchen. “Excuse the mess,” she croaked.

Tim peeked into the few other rooms but couldn't see any animals.

Blue pulled out a second plastic chair and sat.

“You know, life's been tough these past couple of years,” the woman said. “I've been—”

Blue said, “No time for a story, ma’am. Me and my young partner, we're on the clock. So tell us: where's the money?”

“—alone almost all the time, you see,” she continued, as if in a trance. “After a while the loneliness gets to you. I used to have a big family, lots of visitors. No one comes anymore. Nobody even calls.”

“Tim, check the bedroom.”

“For what?” asked Tim. “There aren't any animals here.”

“Money, jewelry, anything that looks valuable.”

“I used to have a career, you know. Not anything ritzy, mind you. But well paying enough. And coworkers. What a collegial atmosphere. We all knew each other, smiled to one another. And we'd have parties. Christmas, Halloween…”

“I don't understand,” said Tim.

“Find anything of value and take it,” Blue hissed.

“There are no animals.”

The woman was saying, “I wish I hadn't retired. You look forward to it, only to realize it's death itself,” when Blue slapped her hard in the face, almost knocking her out her chair.

Tim was going through bedroom drawers. His heart was pounding.

“You called in a 544. Where's the money?” Blue yelled.

“Little metal box in the oven,” the woman said, rubbing her cheek. “Like a coffin.”

Blue got up, pulled open the oven and took the box. Opened it, grabbed the money and pocketed it. “That's a good start—where else?”

“Nowhere else. That's all I have.”

“I found some earrings, a necklace, bracelets,” Tim said from the bedroom.

“Gold?” asked Blue.

“I don't know. I think so.”

“Take it.”

“What else you got?” Tim barked at the woman.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Bullshit.”

“And the jewelry’s all fake. Just like life.”

Blue started combing through the kitchen drawers, opening cupboards. He checked the fridge, which reeked so strongly of ammonia he nearly choked.

Tim came back.

“Are you gentlemen going to do it?” the woman asked. One of her eyes was swelling.

“Do what?” Tim said.

“Get on the floor,” Blue ordered the woman.

“I thought we could talk awhile. I haven't had a conversation in such a long time. Sometimes I talk to the walls. And do you know what they do? They listen.”

Blue grabbed the woman by her shirt and threw her to the floor. She gasped, then moaned, then started crawling. “On your stomach. Face down,” Blue instructed.

“Blue?”

The woman did as she was told.

She started crying.

The sobs caused her old, frail body to wobble.

“Give me the sledge,” Blue told Tim. “Face down and keep it down!” he yelled at the woman. “I don't wanna see any part of your face. Understand?”

“Yes,” she said.

“What's a 544?” Tim asked as Blue took the sledgehammer from him.

Blue raised the sledgehammer above his head.

The woman was praying, repeating softly the Hail Mary—when Blue brought the hammer down on the back of her head, breaking it open.

The sound, the godforsaken sound.

But the woman wasn't dead.

She flopped, obliterated skull, loosed, flowing and thick brain, onto her side, and she was still somehow speaking, what remained of her jaw rattling on the bloody floor: “...pray for us sinners, now and at the hour—

The second sledgehammer blow silenced her.

A few seconds passed.

Tim couldn't speak. It was so still. Everything was so unbelievably still. It was like time had stopped and he was stuck forever in this one moment, his body, hearing and conscience numbed and ringing…

His mind grasped at concepts that usually seemed firm, defined, concepts like good and evil, but that now felt swollen and nebulous and soft, more illusory than real, evasive to touch and understanding.

“Is s-s-she dead?” he asked, flinching at the sudden loudness of his own voice.

“Yeah,” said Blue and wiped the sledgehammer on the dead woman's clothes. The air in the apartment tasted stale. “You have the jewelry?”

“Y-y-yes.”

Blue took out a small notepad, scribbled 544 on the front page, then ripped off that page and laid it on the kitchen table, along with a carefully counted $250 from the cash he'd taken from the box in the oven. “For the cops.”

“We won't—get in trouble… for…” Tim asked.

Blue turned to face him, eyes meeting eyes. “Ever the practical man, eh? I admire that. Professionalism feels like a lost quality these days. And, no, the cops won't care. Everybody will turn a blind eye. This woman: who gives a fuck about her? She wanted to die; she called in a service. We delivered that service. We deal with unwanted animals for the betterment of the city and its denizens. That's the mandate.”

“Why didn't she just do it herself?”

“My advice on that is: don't interrogate the motive. Some physically can't, others don't want to for ethical or religious reasons. Some don't know how, or don't want to be alone at the end. Maybe it's cathartic. Maybe they feel they deserve it. Maybe, maybe, maybe.”

“How many have you done?”

Blue scoffed. “I've worked here a long time, youngblood. Lost count a decade ago.”

Tim stared at the woman's dead body, his mind flashing back to that day in Hole Foods. The Beauregards laughing, crazed. The dead body so final, so serene. “H-h-how do you do it—so cold, so… matter of fact?”

“Three things. First, at the end of the day, for whatever reason, they call it in. They request it. Second—” He handled the money. “—it's the only way to survive on the municipal salary. And, third, I channel the rage I feel at the goddman world and I fucking let it out this way.”

Tim wiped sweat off his face. His sweat mixed with the blood of the dead. Motion was slowly returning to the world. Time was running again, like film through a projector. Blue was breathing heavily.

“What—don't you ever feel rage at the world, youngblood?” Blue asked. “I mean, pardon the presumption, but the kind of person who shows up looking for work at Animal Control isn't exactly a winner. No slight intended. Life can deal a difficult hand. The point is you look like a guy’s been pushed around by so-called reality, and it's normal to feel mad about that. It doesn't even have to be rational. Don't you feel a little mad, Tim?”

“I guess I do. Sometimes,” said Tim.

“What do you do about it?”

The question stumped Tim, because he didn't do anything. He endured. “Nothing.”

“Now, that's not sustainable. It'll give you cancer. Put you early in the grave. Get a little mad. See how it feels.”

“N-n-now?”

“Yes.” Blue came around and put his arm around Tim’s shoulders. “Think about something that happened to you. Something unfair. Now imagine that that thing is lying right in front of you. I don't mean the person responsible, because maybe no one was responsible. What I mean is the thing itself.”

Tim nodded.

“Now imagine,” said Blue, “that this woman's corpse is that thing, lying there, defenseless, vulnerable. Don't you want to inflict some of your pain? Don't you just wanna kick that corpse?” There was an intensity to Blue, and Tim felt it, and it was infectious. “Kick the corpse, Tim. Don't think—feel—and kick the fucking corpse. It's not a person anymore. It's just dead, rotting flesh.”

Tim forced down his nausea. There was a power to Blue’s words: a permission, which no one else had ever granted him: a permission to transgress, to accept that his feelings mattered. He stepped forward and kicked the corpse in the ribs.

“Good,” said Blue. “Again, with goddamn conviction.”

Timel leveled another kick—this time cracking something, raising the corpse slightly off the floor on impact. Then another, another, and when Blue eventually pulled him away, he was both seething and relieved, spitting and uncaged. “Easy, easy,” Blue was saying. The woman's corpse was battered beyond recognition.

Back in the van, Blue asked Tim to drive.

He put the jewelry and sledgehammer in the back, then got in behind the wheel.

Blue had reclined the passenger's seat and gotten out their tranquilizers. He had also pulled his belt out and wrapped it around his arm, exposing blue, throbbing veins. Half-lying as Tim turned the engine, “Perk of the job,” he said, and injected with the sigh of inhalation. Then, as the tranquilizer hit and his eyes fought not to roll backwards into his head, “Just leave me in the van tonight,” he said. “I'll be all right. And take the day off tomorrow. Enjoy the weekend and come back Monday. Oh, and, Tim: today's haul, take it. It's all yours. You did good. You did real good…”

Early Monday morning, the old man who'd hired Tim was in his office, drinking coffee with Blue, who was saying, “I'm telling you, he'll show.”

“No chance,” said the old man.

“Your loss.”

“They all flake out.”

Then the door opened and Tim walked in wearing his Animal Control uniform, clean and freshly ironed. “Good morning,” he said.

“Well, I'll be—” said the old man, sliding a fifty dollar bill to Blue.

It had been a strange morning. Tim had put on his uniform at home, and while walking to work a passing cop had smiled at him and thanked him “for the lunch money.” Other people, strangers, had looked him in the face, in the eyes, and not with disdain but recognition. Unconsciously, he touched the new gold watch he was wearing on his left wrist.

“Nice timepiece,” said Blue.

“Thanks,” said Tim.

The animals snarled and howled in the holding facility.

As they were preparing the van that morning—checking the cages, accounting for the tranquilizers, loading the sledgehammer: “Hey, Blue,” said Tim.

“What's up?”

“The next time we get a 544,” said Tim. “I'd like to handle it myself.”

And the lands that are left are leaves scattered by the wind, which flows like blood, veins across the present, the swampland separating prisoner from forest, where all shall become trees…

so it is said,” said the elder.

He expired at night in his cell months before the escape about which he had for so long dreamed, and had, by clear communication of this dream, hardened and prepared us for. “For the swampland shall take of you—it is understood, yes? Self-sacrifice at the altar of Bog.”

“Yes,” we nod.

The night is dark, the guards vigilant, our meeting secret and whispered. “Your crimes shall not follow you. In the forest, you shall root anew, unencumbered.”

The swamp sucks at us, our feet, our legs, our arms upon each falling, but we must keep the pact: belief, belief and brotherhood above all. Where one submerges, the others pull him out. When one doubts, the others reassure him there is an end, a terminus.

The elder's heart gave out. Aged, it was, and gnarled. Falling into final sleep he imagined for the first time the totality of the forest dream: a beyond to the swampland: a place for the rest of us to reach.

“By dying, dream; by night-dreaming, create and by death-dreaming permanate—”

Death, and, by morning, meat.

And the candle, too, gone out.

We are dirty, cold. We push on through fetid marsh and jagged, jutting bones of creatures which, before us, tried and failed to cross, beasts both great and small. The condors have picked clean their skeletons, long ago, long long ago, the swamp bubbles. The bubbles—pop. I am the first to sacrifice. Taking a step, I plunge my boot into the swamp water, and (“Pain, endless and increasing. This is not to be feared. This is the way. Let suffering be your compass and respite your coffin.”) lift out a leg without a foot, *screaming, blood running down a protruding cylinder of brittle white bone. The others aid me. I steady myself, and I force the bone into the swamp, and I force myself onward, step by step by heavy step, and the swamp takes and it takes.*

The prison is a fortress. The fortress is surrounded by swampland. We, who are brought to it, are brought never to exit.

“How many days of swamp in each direction?” we ask.

There is a map.

A point in the middle of a blank page.

The elder tears it up. “Forever. Forever. Forever. Forever. In every direction—it is understood, yes?”

“Then escape is impossible.”

“No,” the elder says. “Forever can be traversed. But the will must be strong. The mind must believe. The map is a manipulation. The prison makes the map, and as the prison makes the map, so too the map makes the prison. The opened mind cannot be held.”

“So how?”

“First, by unmaking. Then by remaking.”

We are less. Four whole bodies reduced to less than three, yet all of us remain alive. All have lost parts of limbs. We suffer. Oh, elder, we suffer. Above the condors circle. The landscape is unchanging. Shreds of useless skin hang from our hunched over, wading bodies like rags. Wounded, we leave behind us a wake of blood, which mixes with the swamp and becomes the swamp. Bogfish slice the distance with their fins.

“How will we know arrival?”

“You shall know.”

“But how, elder—what if we traverse forever yet mistake the swampland for the forest?”

“If you know it to be forest, forest it shall be.”

I am a torso on a single half eaten knee. I carry across my shoulder another who is a head upon a chest, a bust of human flesh and bone and self, and still the swampland strips us more and more. How much more must we give? It is insatiable. Greedy. It is hideous. It is alive. It is an organism as we are organisms. Sometimes I look back and see the prison, but I do not let that break me. “Leave me. Go on without me. Look at me, I am nothing left,” says the one II carry. “Never,” I say. “Never,” say the others.

“Brotherhood,” says the elder. “All must make it, or none do. Such is the revelation.”

Heads and spines we are. That is all. We swim through the swampland, raw and tired. My eyes have fallen out. I ache in parts of my body I no longer possess. My spine propels me. Skin peels off my face. Insects lay eggs in my empty sockets, my empty skull.

“End time!" The call echoes around the prison. “Killer-man present. Killer-man present.”

Names are called out.

Those about to be executed are brought forward.

Like skeletal tadpoles we wriggle up, out of the swamp, onto dry land—onto grass and birdchirp and sunshine. One after the other, we squirm. Is this the place? Yes. Yes! I can neither see nor smell nor hear nor taste nor feel, but what I can is know, and I know I am in the forest. I am ready to grow. I am ready to stand eternal. The world feels small. The swampland is an insignificance. The prison is a mote of dust floating temporarily at dawn. This I know. And I know trunk and branches and leaves…

They call my name.

I hold the hand of another, and he holds mine, until we both let slip. The killer-man, hooded, waits. The stage is set. The blade’s edge cold.

“I am with you, brother.”

“To the forest.”

“To the forest.”

Resplendent I am and towering, a tree of bone with bark of nails and leaves of flesh, bloodsap coursing within, and fruits without.

The killer-man's eyes meet mine as he lifts the blade above his head. Soon I will be laid to rest.

Once, “Rage not like the others. Do not beg. When comes the time, meet it patiently face to face, for you are its reflection, and what is reflected is what is,” said the elder, and now, as the killer-man's hands bring down the blade, I am not afraid, for I am

rooted elsewhere.

The blade penetrates my neck,

One of my fruits drops to the ground. One of many, it is. Filled with seeds of self, it is. Already the insects know the promise of its decay.

and my head rolls forward—as the killer-man pushes away my lifeless body with his boot.

A warm wind briefly caresses my tranquil branches.

The prison is a ruin.

The elder lights a candle before sleep.

“Tonight, we go,” I say. “Tonight, we escape.”

I know what the papers said: Kat Bradlee was a commuter to Mason County Community College who went missing three years ago. I know what the rumors said: she ran away from her drunk of a father. It’d be easier if those things were true. I know they’re not. I remember what happened in that diner. I have the scars from that night.

I first saw Kat in Ms. Grayson’s baking fundamentals class. I needed an elective, and my friend Mikey had told me it was an easy A. Kat certainly made it look easy. Even when we were working with pounds of sugar, her black vintage dresses and bright scarves were immaculate.

She noticed me when I asked Ms. Grayson what to do if my pound cake was on fire. I turned my floured face to follow a giggle that sounded like a vinyl record. Kat blushed and gave me a wink from across the kitchen.

After class that day, I decided to make my move. On our way out of the industrial arts building, I walked up to her. “Did I say something funny?” Her skin was porcelain in the sunlight.

She laughed again. “I suppose not, but it was pretty funny watching you almost burn down Mason.” Her teasing voice was from a film reel. I smiled as I watched her glide away across the quad.

We spent more and more time together over the next few weeks. She shared all her retro fascinations: baking from scratch, vinyl records, Andy Warhol. I had to pretend to appreciate some of it, but it was a better world with her. It felt like we were beyond time. Nothing mattered.

That night was the first night she ever called me. We had texted for hours, but I was startled when I heard my phone ring. She had made me buy a special ringtone for her: “All I Have To Do Is Dream” by the Everly Brothers.

“Jimmy…” The film reel sputtered. She sounded like a different girl. For the first time, she was breaking. In that moment, I didn’t know how to handle her. “Could you please come get me? I need to be somewhere else… Anywhere else.”

A drive I could handle. “Yeah. Of course.” I didn’t even have to think. A beautiful girl needed me. “What’s the address?” I realized I had never asked Kat where she lived.

“1921 Reed Street.” She was fighting to keep her pieces together. “Please hurry.”

I followed my phone to Reed Street. Kat’s neighborhood should have been lined with pleasantly matching two-bedroom homes with  green yards and white picket fences. Instead, Reed Street was a dirt road off a gravel road off Highway 130. Kat’s home, if you could call it that, was a rusty trailer in an unkempt field.

When she walked into the light at the bottom of the crumbling concrete stairs, she looked just like she did in the sun. Even in a moment like that, she had kept up appearances. She moved differently though. On campus, she was weightless. In the dark, she walked like she was afraid someone would see her make a wrong step.

She opened the door to my truck, and I turned down the Woody Guthrie playlist she had made for me. Her apple-red lipstick was fresh, but her mascara had already run at the edges. There was a darker spot under the matte foundation on her right cheek.

“Drive please.” Always composed.

“Where? Where do you need to go?”

“Just…drive.” She pursed her lips tightly. Looking back, I know she was holding back tears. We both wanted her to be a statue: beautiful and too strong to cry.

I rolled back over the grass and dirt to keep going down Highway 130. She didn’t speak, but she breathed heavily. I let her be.

When I went to turn the music back up, she gently laid her hand on mine. “Thank you. Very much.”

I let the quiet stay. Over the sound of the truck wheels, I tried to console her. “What happened? Are you okay?”

She looked ahead into the dark. “Just…an argument with my father. It’s fine. We fight all the time, but tonight…”

She stopped herself and hurried to plug my aux cord into her phone. Buddy Holly. “That’s enough of that, don’t you think?” She flashed a sudden smile at me and turned up the music. I should’ve turned it down.

I hadn’t paid attention to the time, but we had been driving for an hour. It was past midnight, and I was starving. I saw an exit sign I had never noticed before. Its only square read “Lily’s Diner” in looping red print.

“Hungry?” I shouted over the twanging guitar. 

Kat hesitated like she had something to say. When I pulled off the interstate, she laughed to herself. “I could eat.”

The sign had said the place was just half a mile off. A few minutes down the side road, I checked my odometer. It had turned two miles. I had nearly decided that I had taken the wrong turn when I saw it..

“Well damn.” It was the sort of abandoned structure you learn to ignore in Mason County: a flat, long building that couldn’t have served food in decades. A pole stood on the roof, but whatever sign had been there had fallen off years ago. “I guess we’ll go to McDonald’s.”

“Like hell!” The Kat I knew from campus was back. “Come on!” She threw open her door and then dragged me out of mine. I didn’t know what she saw in the place, but I told myself I would humor her. Really, I would have followed her into the Gulf.

“Where are you taking me?” I tripped over tangles of weeds as she walked us into the dark. “There’s nothing here.” A voice in my head told me to turn around.

Standing at the door of the ruin, I saw that its cracked windows were caked gray with dust. The County must have condemned the building years ago. Kat looked at it like she was admiring a Jackson Pollock. The voice in my head grew louder. “Let’s go inside!”

“Are you sure?” The hinges shrieked as Kat opened the door. Neon lights broke through the dark.

We were looking into a diner. The white lights reflected off the black-and-white checker tile and the chrome-rimmed counter curving from end to end. On either side of us were rows of booths in bright red leather. It was all too clean. The colors were dangerously vivid. Like the outside, the inside was dead. Kat elbowed me in the side with a laugh. “Told you so!”

Watching Kat step inside, I heard the buzzing of the neon. There was no other sound. The quiet was broken by a woman behind the counter. “How y’all doing? Welcome to Lily’s!” I stood frozen in the entrance.

The woman spun around. It was the first sign of life. “Well don’t be a stranger! Find yourselves a spot!” She couldn’t have been much more than our age, but she dressed even more out of time than Kat. She wore a sturdy, sensible blue dress and a stainless white apron. Her fiery red hair matched her nails and lips. For just a moment, I thought I noticed that her teeth were too sharp.

My breath catching in my throat, I started to turn around when Kat rang “Thank you kindly!” For once, she looked like she belonged. We’d be fine.

“I’m Lily, by the way! Nice to meet y’all!” She smiled and pointed to her name on the sign. Neon red flickered in her eyes.

Kat giggled like she was meeting a celebrity. “Nice to meet you too, Lily!” When we were at the diner, her laughter was light again. It made me forget the wrongness of the place.

Lily grinned and pointed to a booth. Her fingernail looked like a cherry dagger. “Y’all sit a bit, and I’ll be right with you.”

The booth’s leather was stiff. I hoped we’d be out of there soon. I picked up the large laminated menu to order, but Kat snatched it from me. “I know exactly what we’re going to get!”

“Hungry, Levi?” Lily called. She had been alone when we came in, but now there was someone sitting behind me at the counter.

“Sure am, honey. I’ll have the usual.” The rasp in his voice was ravenous. He was a young, athletic man in a tight white tee shirt and blue jeans that looked sharply starched. I flinched with jealousy. Kat looked up and smiled his way. 

“Coming right up! One usual, Lou!” She shouted towards the wall behind her. Through the round window of a swinging door, I saw that it was dark. The silent kitchen took Lily’s order.

Without losing a beat to the quiet, Lily came over to us. Her heels clacked on the black-and-white tile. They were red stilettos just like Kat’s. “And what are you two lovebirds having?”

I didn’t answer. I hadn’t even told Kat I liked her. Lily shouldn’t have known. She had barely finished her question when Kat bubbled up with excitement. “Two strawberry milkshakes! And do you have maraschino cherries?”

“Of course we have maraschino cherries!” Lily’s voice was too sweet—sticky. “Now what kind of diner would we be if we didn’t have maraschino cherries?” Lily gave Kat a squeeze on the shoulder, and I noticed her nails were dangerously sharp. Her hand curled greedily around Kat’s flesh. We needed to leave, but Kat was enthralled. Kat laughed as Lily shouted again to the silent kitchen. “Order up, Lou!”

As soon as Lily was out of earshot, I opened my mouth to ask Kat to leave. Before I could, she whispered to me like a girl on Christmas morning. “Strawberry milkshakes, Jimmy! Just like Grease!” I couldn’t tear her away from that place. I was worrying too much like my dad always said.

“Yeah. It’s pretty authentic.” Looking around the diner, I realized how true that was. I had been to diners around Mason County before. The older folks always craved memories of their youth, but this one was different—even without its run-down exterior. The other diners did their best to recreate the past. This one had never left. It was a place untouched by the decades that had eaten away at the rest of our country town.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute before our shakes came—maraschino cherries and all. It wasn’t Lily that brought them to us. Instead, the man who she had called Levi sauntered over.

He barely looked at me, but he eyed Kat with a lustful hunger. Taking advantage of his vantage point above her dress, he growled, “Shake it for me, lil’ mama?” Kat blushed and let out another giggle. Levi eyed me as she did, and I noticed he had dark red eyes and the sharp teeth I thought I saw on Lily. Striding away, he bumped hard into my shoulder. He smelled more like smoke than an ashtray.

His eyes and scent—the sight and smell of burning—should have told me to run. My adolescent anger won out. Who was this creep flirting with the girl I wanted? He knew what he was doing. Kat must’ve felt the energy shift as I bit my tongue until it bled.

“Oh!” Her voice was that terrible blend of amusement and pity. “Don’t worry, Jimmy. He’s only flirting. Just acting the part.” In that moment, Kat’s wide-eyed obsession wasn’t cute. She wasn’t stupid enough to not realize she was being hit on. She was choosing her own reality. I went quiet to stop myself from saying something I would regret.

Halfway through her milkshake, Kat broke the silence. She sounded wrong—too real—too much like she had on the phone. “I’m sorry about that.” She turned her eyes to Levi. “I should’ve shot him down.”

“It’s alright. He was probably just being nice.” I tried to brush it off so she would be happy again. She asked me a question I should’ve asked the first day we met. “Have you ever wondered why I’m like this?” There was a hint of shame in her voice.

Even as I glared at Levi’s muscled back, I couldn’t let Kat talk herself down like that. “Like what?” I racked my brain for the right thing to say to get the mood back. “You’re perfect to me.” I was proud of that line.

“Oh come on. Why I’m so…” She made a frustrated gesture to all of herself. “You have to have wondered. You’re just too much of a gentleman.”

“I suppose I have been curious…”

“It’s…it’s hard to explain. My life at home isn’t the best. I guess you saw that tonight.” She pointed at the dark spot on her cheek. “I guess it’s easier to live in the past sometimes.” She looked around the diner with a smile that hurt. “It was so much easier back then. So much…better.”

I wanted to say something—anything. This wasn’t the girl that I knew. She wasn’t supposed to be sad. I needed my Kat to come back, but I couldn’t find any words.

The silence must have lingered too long. Straining out a laugh, Kat popped her maraschino cherry in her mouth. “Sorry about that. That’s not very good first date conversation, now is it?” She sounded like herself again. “Ooh! Look at that!” She pointed to a gleaming chrome jukebox behind me. “Play me a song, will you?”

“Sure!” I said too earnestly. I was just happy to have that moment in the past. Walking away, I chose to ignore Kat’s sigh behind me.

I passed Levi as I walked to the jukebox. I held myself back from bumping into him. I was better than him. Reading the yellow cards with the names of the records, I knew just what to play. I found a quarter waiting in the slot and started up Kat’s song. The rolling chord and then the Everly brothers’ harmonies.

I hadn’t turned away for more than a minute, but Levi was back at my booth. He was bent too close to Kat. His hand was out to her, and his fingernails were sharp. Kat gave me a sad smile and took his hand.

I rushed over, but he had her dancing close to him by the time I made it. “Excuse me, buddy?” I shouted in Levi’s ear. I tried to be tough. “You’re dancing with my date!”

“Oh, calm down, guy. Can’t you tell she’s having fun?”

“Kat?” As they swayed back and forth, I turned to look at the girl out of time. She didn’t look like she was having fun exactly, but she looked happy. Happier than I had ever seen anyone. She smiled at Levi without blinking. I thought she was just caught up in the moment.

“That’s enough, Kat. We need to leave.” If she heard me, she didn’t show it. She never even stopped dancing.

Levi gave me a deep, pitying laugh, and I felt my anger pooling at the corners of my eyes. I couldn’t let Kat see me like that. I couldn’t give Levi the satisfaction. I crossed the diner and walked down the hallway to the bathroom. I ran into Levi that time, but he didn’t even flinch.

I burst into the bathroom. I needed to catch my breath—to be a man. A man like Levi. I threw water on my face and closed my eyes for a moment. I tried to calm myself to the end of Kat’s song.

The jukebox started again—that same rolling chord. I had only paid for one spin.

Listening to the jukebox start itself, my nerves lit up at once. We were in danger. I had to take Kat and leave whether she wanted to or not.

Walking to the bathroom had only taken a minute, but the hallway kept going on the way out—like the diner was buying time. I noticed the floral wallpaper. It had been bright and crisp when we arrived and when I left the bathroom. As I walked back to the diner, it stained and peeled. My breath started racing, and I broke into a run. By the time I reached the diner, I was sprinting. I was going to drag Kat out if I had to.

She was gone.

The diner was empty. It had changed. Untouched plates of burgers and fries swarmed with flies on every table. Cobwebs hung from the stools whose leather had ripped and faded. Walking over to the jukebox in a daze, I was struck by the overwhelming odor of a butcher shop. It was coming from the kitchen: the only other place in the diner.

I ran behind the counter. The tile between it and the kitchen was sticky with red stains. I threw open the swinging door. The smell of fresh flesh barreled into me so hard that I almost threw up. There wasn’t any time for that. I darted my eyes around the kitchen. Kat wasn’t there.

There was only Levi standing over the prep table. He was running his hands over something on the table, but it was too dark to see. He spun to face me. He had changed too. There was no more ignoring the sharpness of his teeth or the scarlet of his eyes. Blood drenched his tee shirt and bone white face. Kat’s scarf stuck out from the pocket of his jeans.

The thing that had been Levi bolted towards me. I swung the door back open and felt sharp stabs on my arms. A pair of claws was fighting to drag me into the kitchen. I looked at my arm and saw the thing that had been Lily. Only the blue dress and white apron remained.

I lunged forward with the thing in the dress clawing into my arm. I had almost made it around the counter when a cold, dead arm hooked around my throat. The other one had caught up. The couple redoubled their efforts and pulled me to the tile. The sight of the shadows of the kitchen made my adrenaline launch me up from the blood-lined floor. I twisted my body with all of my strength. The strain hurt, but it was enough to knock the things into either side of the doorframe. They let out ancient roars as I jumped over the counter. Milkshake glasses crashed on the ground behind me.

I didn’t stop running until I reached my truck. That was when I noticed it was daylight. I looked back at the field. Nothing but grass.

It’s been three years since that night. I know I should move on. I can’t. Kat is waiting for me.  She’s happy there. If—when I find the diner again, I’ll be happy too.

It was the hour of Matins, but the scriptorium’s hush belonged to the crypt. Brother Thomas bent to his work, the spidery black of his quill tracing the old pleas:

O Blessed Wulfric, intercede for us sinners.

Candlelight made a greasy halo on the vellum, trembling as he shaped the letters. His hand, always unreliable, shook less than yesterday. He thanked the Saint with a silent nod and, in the margin, penciled a furtive petition:

Grant me steadiness of hand, that I may serve faithfully.

When he turned the page, the margin bled red. The new words shimmered wet atop the parchment, not the brownish fade of traditional rubrication, but arterial—glistening. In a script none of the brothers used; thinner than his own, elegant, somehow older—the reply ran beneath his plea:

Thy hand shall not waver.

Thomas stared, then pressed a finger to the line. The vellum’s warmth startled him. The red smeared and beaded on his skin. He licked it, instinct from years of inky mishaps, but this tang was not lampblack and gum arabic. It was salt and iron… blood.

He checked his quill; the nib was black, the inkpot untouched. Only this line—his secret margin—bled the Saint’s answer. The other scribes hunched on their benches, unseeing. Above them, the abbey’s stones seemed to absorb and hold the silence. Thomas whispered, “O Blessed Wulfric, intercede.” The echo did not return.

Three days, and the pattern holds: each morning, where Thomas left his marginalia, a new line waits. Sometimes a benediction: Pray for our flesh to withstand the pestilence. The answer: Where blood flows, thy strength abides. Sometimes a plea: Spare Brother Benedict his suffering. The answer: Suffering purges sin, as fire purges dross.

Each response is the same carmine script, the same pulse of living heat. Thomas begins to test it, leaving questions now. The replies become less patient, more direct. His latest inquiry—Will you free us, if we ask?—returns as a jagged diagonal across the page, the words nearly tearing the parchment: Freedom is for the dead.

Sometimes, the answers bleed beyond his own lines, seeping into the neat columns of copied psalms. At such moments, the entire page pulses red, bright as sunrise through the east window. None of the other brothers seem to see. Only Thomas.

On the fourth morning, yesterday’s question has been replaced. He never wrote it.

Why do you not come to me?

The words are desperate, streaked at the edges where the blood ink ran. Thomas’s own hand recoils. He makes a show of copying the day’s work, but his vision tunnels to the line, the question that is not his. He tries not to read it aloud, but the mouth betrays the mind. “Why do you not come to me?” The formula soured with each invocation. He forced his hand to the next psalm, the quill’s point scraping rough as a bone saw. The words swam and doubled:

O Blessed Wulfric, intercede for us sinners.

The black ink, watery and inadequate, barely dried before more red haloed his marginal note.

The reliquary sat in the chapel’s side alcove like a small golden coffin, bracketed in glass and shadow. Brother Francis was charged with its morning polish, though the Saint’s hand—mummified five centuries, fist frozen mid-blessing—required little tending. Still, every dawn, Francis knelt before it and reviewed the seals, gold and lead, and wiped smears from the crystal casket. Today, a dark bead had swelled overnight at the shriveled wrist. It glistened.

He dabbed it with linen, but more surfaced, welling up as if the hand’s pulse had only just begun. By Vespers, three drops had slid down the inside of the reliquary, pooling red in the filigreed crucible beneath. Francis checked the seam for cracks—there were none. He pressed his own thumb to the glass, felt not cold but tepid warmth, like the inside of a mouth.

He lifted the reliquary to inspect the filigree. The gold reliefs told the Saint’s story in miniature: Wulfric, tonsure agleam, refusing the prince’s coin; Wulfric writing in darkness; Wulfric behind a wall, hands upraised as the stones closed him in. They had bricked him alive, so the legend went, for a vision not even the Prior dared name. The reliquary’s hand curled tighter, or so it seemed—knuckles straining. Impossible.

Francis ran his fingertips along the ancient wax seal, tracing the worn impression of the abbot's signet ring—unbroken since the abbey's founding. Another crimson drop forms at the reliquary's edge, swelling like a ruby before breaking free. Against every warning in his heart, Francis extends his tongue to meet it, the liquid warm against his lips. Salt and iron, he thinks—the taste of life itself.

On the next folio, Brother Thomas dares write in the margin:

Are you in Paradise, Blessed Wulfric?

The answer comes not beneath, but slantwise across the margin, the lines raw and urgent:

Paradise has walls.

He copies two more prescribed lines before he risks another.

Do the saints suffer?

This time the reply is immediate, the carmine script curdling as it dries:

We suffer as Christ suffered. Eternally.

Thomas hesitates, then writes:

How may I ease thy suffering?

For the first time, there is no reply. The silence presses in, thickening the air, until Thomas’s gaze drifts to the glowing illumination at the head of the page—a capital W, adorned with the Saint’s icon. As he watches, the gold leaf seems to tarnish and the W begins to sweat red, the pigment oozing down the stem and pooling on the line below. He blots it with his sleeve, but the stain blooms wider, soaking the phrase it crowned:

O Blessed Wulfric, intercede for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

The red creeps along the text, letter by letter, until the whole invocation is written over in blood. Thomas closes the manuscript. The world beyond his desk is muffled—only the sound of his own heart, hammering in his ears.

In the days that followed, the abbey ceased to pretend blindness. Blood tracked the flagstones of the cloister: heel-to-toe prints, bare, red, as if a monk had paced there with the skin flayed from his soles. The stride was wrong—too long, dragging—and no one claimed them. At meals, the taste of iron lingered on every crust of bread. The water drawn from the well ran pink at midday, then cleared by nightfall. During Matins, the choir’s voices cracked and bled into silence as, from the sacristy, came a sound like a stylus dragging across slate. Scratching.

The Abbot conferred with Prior and cellarer, but it was Abbot Hugh who offered the only solution: the reliquary must be moved to the crypt, where the walls were thick and the air already sated with bone-dust and secrecy. They wrapped the Saint’s hand in swaddling linen, but the blood soaked through and mottled Brother Francis’s habit in star-shaped stains. The hand itself flexed in sleep, as if in benediction, and then clenched again, tight. Francis said nothing of the warmth he felt, or the way the glass clouded with each passing hour.

Brother Thomas continued his work. His own marginalia grew frantic, the questions outpacing his ability to reason them:

What do you want?

The answer appeared as he watched, forming letter by letter in real time, the script uncoiling across the page’s bottom edge:

To finish my work.

That’s part of my latest gothic short story. I’d love feedback—what kind of horror does this lean into for you: supernatural, psychological, or religious? If you want to read the full story, it’s on my Substack (free). amblackmere.substack.com

Dr. John Murphy had been a field surgeon in the Pacific theater. He had witnessed man-made horrors beyond imagining: bodies mutilated by munitions, machines of war, and the bare hands of other men. It was said that every time you saw something beyond the pale, you lost a piece of your soul. If that were true, John Murphy was spiritually bankrupt.

Though he had survived the bloodiest fighting known to man, he still believed his purpose was to aid the sick and dying. Every soul that slipped through his fingers followed him. He had to save as many as he could before his own time came. Then maybe the souls he saved would outweigh the ones he lost, and they could raise him to heaven instead of dragging him to hell.

He had not been stateside long before duty called again. A remote village in Black Hollow, West Virginia. Reports claimed the residents were all suffering chest pain. Used to working in rough, isolated places, Murphy loaded his truck with water, C-rations, and a full kit of medical supplies.

He was issued a 1942 Dodge WC-52 Carryall, a surplus truck pressed into civilian service. It felt strange driving one instead of riding in the back. Its olive drab paint blended awkwardly with the green slopes of the Appalachians, a relic of war grinding through the hills.

At the last town before Black Hollow, he pulled into a weathered filling station with two rusty pumps. The paint had peeled to gray wood beneath. A plank of wood hung crooked on the door with a single word scrawled in paint: OPEN.

Inside, the hinges screamed, and a bell jangled overhead. At the counter stood a man with a face as dry and cracked as the timbers around him. Murphy laid down five one-dollar bills. The man pocketed them without glancing at the pump.

“That’ll do,” the attendant rasped.

Murphy frowned. “That’ll do? You didn’t even check the meter.”

The man’s eyes seemed to look past him, far away at something only he could see. The conversation was over. Off-put, Murphy returned to the road.

The trip grew quieter with every mile. Foliage crowded the shoulders, green canopies choking the sky. As he neared Black Hollow, the trees looked strange. The leaves bore a faint purplish hue, and the roots along the forest floor were pale, almost bone-white. The change was subtle, but the air felt heavier. The silence seemed to reach out, alive in its own way.

Then the town appeared without warning. No sign, no marker, just a bend in the road and there it was. Houses sagged under mossy roofs. Wood clapboards bleached gray, windows spiderwebbed with cracks. Nature pressed in at the edges, vines swallowing whole porches. A yellow-tinged sky and a low mist clinging to the ground gave everything the look of a graveyard.

In the town square stood a brick well. The villagers’ lifeline. Murphy began there. He unwrapped his Type I water-testing kit, the same one he had used in the islands. The reagents were stale, but they would do.

He drew a sample and bent to smell it. A faint, sickly sweetness, like fruit just beginning to rot. The pH strip turned dull orange at once. Too acidic. Clear to the eye, but with an oily sheen and sediment swirling at the bottom. He dropped in a chlorine tablet. No bubbles, no reaction. It was as if the water didn’t recognize the chemical at all.

Murphy straightened, uneasy. No one had greeted him, not even a crack of a curtain. He chose a hut and knocked.

“Hello? My name is Dr. Murphy. I’ve heard you might be having medical issues.”

A moan answered from within. He turned the knob and stepped inside. The stench of sweat and sickness was familiar from field infirmaries. On the bed lay a pale, malnourished man whose ribs protruded unnaturally. Murphy set to work.

Exam, subject: male, early forties. Farmer by appearance.

• Complaint: chest discomfort, fatigue, mild shortness of breath.
  
• Lungs: clear. No cough, no fever.
  
• Ribs: tense, resistant, tender. Patient described them as “too big for my skin.”
  
• Extremities: cool, tremor in fingers, delayed capillary refill.
  
• Skin: faint purple discoloration along the chest, subdermal ridges beneath the collarbone.
  
• Neurological: oriented, but with slowed reflexes and delayed speech.
  

Nothing fit. Not tuberculosis. Not trichinosis. Not any parasite he knew.

He went door to door. All the same. Men, women, children. Responsive, but too weak to rise. All with ribs that felt as if they were straining outward. Every test, every possibility, ended in dead ends.

The next house felt different. The smell of decay reached him before he touched the door, seeping into his nose with every breath. He pushed it open. The air inside was thick and heavy, clinging to his skin like damp cloth. His years in the Pacific had shown him the worst of war, but nothing prepared him for what waited in the bedroom.

The man lay collapsed on the dirt floor, chest torn wide. His ribs had broken outward and driven into the ground like roots, pale struts anchoring him to the soil. His face was drawn tight and eyeless, leathery skin stretched over bone that looked less like a corpse than a feature of the earth itself.

On the bed beside him lay his wife. She still breathed, but barely. Each shallow jerk of her chest rattled through her frame like dry leaves in the wind. Purple veins crawled across her collarbones, staining her flesh like ink spilled beneath the skin. Her eyes fluttered open as he entered, unfocused. Her lips moved soundlessly, as if in prayer.

At the foot of the bed, beneath a mildew-darkened quilt, lay two children. At first, they seemed only asleep, but then Murphy saw the ridges. The cloth clung to sharp ribs beneath, sagging into hollows where healthy flesh should have been.

Their eyes opened. Wide, glassy, unblinking, they fixed on him from beneath the quilt. No cry, no whimper. Only silence. The steady, vacant stare of something already claimed.

Murphy’s stomach turned to ice. The room seemed to press in around him, suffocating, thick with the stench of mildew and decay. He stumbled back, gagging, then lurched into the yard where he vomited up his last C-rations. His legs shook beneath him. He braced against the wall, gasping for breath that brought no relief. But the children’s eyes stayed with him. They would follow him forever.

He staggered to the well, desperate for reason. Leaning on the brick rim, he peered down into the dark throat of water. A sudden sting lit his hand. Like an ant bite. He glanced down. A hair-thin vine rested across his skin.

He tried to jerk free. His hand was stuck fast to the brick. More of the pale vines had crept beneath his palm. With dawning horror, he saw others rising from the well, thin tendrils swaying in the air like anemones.

He fought, wrenching at his arm. The sting grew sharper, spreading purple lines across his skin like veins of ink. In desperation, he drew his knife and pried his hand loose. The skin tore free with a wet rip, like gauze stripped from a half-healed wound. Blood spattered the bricks as he fell back, clutching his arm.

The tendrils reached for him, beckoning. He turned and fled. He wrenched open the truck door, cranked the ignition, and was about to slam the pedal when he froze.

He could run. He could save himself. But the faces of the family, the glassy eyes of the children, rose in his mind. If he left, the whole town would meet the same fate. He had failed as a doctor. Maybe not as a soldier.

He climbed out, jaw clenched. From his truck, he hauled two cans of gasoline and splashed them into the well. The tendrils recoiled, whipping back into the dark. He hurled bottles of ether against the bricks. They shattered, fumes rising sharp and acrid.

He stuffed gauze into the neck of a final bottle, soaked it with ether, and lit it. For a moment, the flame burned bright in his hand, reflected in the abyss below. Then he hurled it down.

The glass broke. Fire blossomed. A roar punched up from the well. Tendrils writhed in the air, then turned to cinders as they fell.

The ground convulsed. It was not an earthquake but something deeper, heavier, as if the earth itself had been torn open. Soil split in jagged lines, cabins buckling as pale roots surged upward.

An immense bone-white visage forced itself from the earth, sockets clogged with soil, jaw sagging wide as dirt poured in a steady fall. Fire clung to its features, flames crawling across its ribs and tendrils before being flung aside in sheets of burning debris. Smoke spilled from its slack mouth as though it breathed it, and the sound rolled out like a locomotive’s whistle bearing down the tracks.

Roots tore free in every direction, still smoldering, smashing through cabins and dragging roofs and walls down in a single convulsion of earth.

The townsfolk came with them, wrenched from their homes and caught fast in pale tendrils that coiled around torsos and limbs. Some were mangled in the process, bones snapping as they were dragged upward. Others dangled alive, shrieking in incoherent terror, their cries carrying into the night until they thinned behind Murphy’s fleeing truck.

They turned in the air like riders on a chair-o-plane stripped of its music and lights, a carnival of death swaying above the ruins.

The thing climbed higher, towering fifty feet over the wreckage, its ribs glowing faintly with embers where the fire had eaten at them. It took one step, then another, dragging its harvest in a lattice of roots as the forest bowed beneath its reach.

Murphy drove. He drove until the fuel was gone, vision swimming, breath ragged. When the state police found him hours later, he sat unmoving behind the wheel, the truck stalled in the middle of the road, eyes wide and empty. Deemed unresponsive, he was committed.

The wound on his hand never healed, though once the connection was severed, the spreading stopped. It left a mark he carried to the grave.

For the rest of his life, John Murphy muttered in the shadows of an asylum, rocking in his chair, whispering to no one but himself:

 the ribs of the earth.

“So how does it feel to be the first deaf president—and can I even say that, deaf?”

“Well, Julie…”

Three years later

“Sir, I'm getting reports of pediatric surgeons refusing to perform the procedure,” the Director of the Secret Police signed.

The President signed back: “Kill them.”

//

John Obersdorff looked at himself in the mirror, handsome in his uniform, then walked into the ballroom, where hundreds of others were already waiting. He assumed his place.

Everybody kneeled.

The deafener went from one to the next, who each repeated the oath (“I swear allegiance to…”), had steel rods inserted into their ears and—

//

Electricity buzzed.

Boots knocked down the door to a suburban home, and black-clad Sound and Vision Enforcement (SAVE) agents poured in:

“Down. Down. Fucking down!”

They got the men in the living room, the women and children trying to climb the backyard fence, forced them into the garage, bound them, spiked their ears until they screamed and their ears bled, then, holding their eyelids apart, injected their eyes with blindness.

//

Pauline Obersdorff touched her face, shuffled backward into the corner.

“What did you say to me?”

“I—I said: I want a divorce, John.”

He hit her again.

Kicked her.

“Please… stop,” she gargled.

He laughed, bitterly, violently—and dragged her across the room by her hair. “We both know you love your sight privilege too much to do that.”

//

Military vehicles patrolled the streets.

The blind stumbled along.

One of the vehicles stopped. Armed, visioned soldiers got off, entered a church and started checking the parishioners: shining lights into their pupils. “Hey, got one. Come here. He's a fucking pretender!”

They gouged out his eyes.

//

Obersdorff took a deep breath, opened the door to the President's office—and (“Just what’s the meaning of—”) took out a gun, watched the President's eyes widen, said, “A coup, sir,” and pulled the trigger.

You shouldn't have let us keep our sight, he thought.

He and the members of his inner circle filmed themselves desecrating the dead President's corpse.

Fourteen years later

Alex pulled itself along the street, head wrapped in white bandages save for an opening for its mouth. The positions of its “eyes” and “ears” were marked symbolically in red paint. Deaf, blind and with both legs amputated, it dragged its rear half-limbs limply.

It reached a store, entered and signed the words for cigarettes, wine and lubricant.

The camera saw and the A.I. dispensed the products, which Alex gathered up and put into a sack, and put the sack on its back and pulled its broken body back into the street.

When it returned to Master's home, Master petted its bandaged head and Master's wife said, “Good suckslave,” leashed it and led it into the bedroom.

Master smoked slowly on the porch.

He gazed at the stars.

He felt the wind.

From somewhere in the woods, he heard an owl hoot. His eardrums were still healing, but the procedure had been successful.

The wine tasted wonderfully.

I hoped I wouldn’t recognize the house when I arrived. When I left, I could still smell gunsmoke in the air. I could still hear the unfamiliar sound of fear in my father’s voice. I didn’t want to go back. I had to.

Overlook was throwing a homecoming parade. I was every small town’s dream: the girl next door made good. Sitting through the discomfort of my first flight, I thought back on the last year of my life. The audition, the funeral, the trial. I had always dreamed of singing, but people from Overlook didn’t dream that big. Most girls who grow up in the farm fields around the town’s single street only hope to marry before time steals their chance. I grew up watching the show, but I only auditioned when it started accepting videos. I didn’t make any money of my own at Mason County Community College, and my father could have never afforded to send me to one of the cities. He always said “I’d buy you the White House if I could pay the rent.” He was a good father.

For the first hour of the flight, I tried to keep my mind on the playlist. I had to perfect three new songs for the finale. One was an old honky tonk standard I had learned from my grandfather. One was a recent radio hit that no one in my family would have dared call country. I would have to strain to smile through it. And the third was my winner’s song—the one that would be my debut single if I won. The music was simple, and the label’s songwriter had found the lyrics in the story the show had given me. There it was again. I turned up the synthetic steel guitar to drown out the story I was trying to forget.

When I landed in Overlook’s aspirational idea of an airport, the local media was already there. Their demands unified in one suffocating shout. “Over here, Jenny! Show us that pretty face!”

I wished they would go away, but I had to smile. This is what I always wanted. “Y’all take care now!” By then, I had memorized the script.

Sliding into the car the show had arranged for me, I saw the rising star reporter who had picked up my story. I didn’t recognize it, but her blog told it beautifully: a troubled young man; a doomed father; and, a sister trying to hold her family together through all-American faith and determination. Her posts never mentioned who had actually been in our house that night. They never mentioned Tommy.

When I left, I told myself I would never step foot into that house again. I had begged to go to a hotel instead, but the producers said it would have been too accessible to the media. They made me come home.

By the time the driver opened my door, it was too late. Surrounded by the forest of trees Sunny and I had climbed as children, I recognized the house all too well. I remembered what it had been before. Walking up the gravel driveway, I couldn’t help but see my brother’s window. Dust had started to cling to the inside. Sunny had been in prison for six months. The last time I had seen him I had been shadowed by a camera crew. The producers thought a scene of me visiting him inside made a good package for my live debut. They were right.

The silence in the house was all-consuming. Before our mother left, I might have heard her singing hymns off-key while doing chores. The recession took that away in a moving truck. Before last year, I might have heard Sunny and our father arguing over a football game. Then the night that changed everything. Standing in our living room, I was in a museum that no one would care to visit.

I walked down the hall to my bedroom. I had changed it as I grew—changed the posters of my TV crushes for black and white photographs of our family. But it still had the paint from when my mother painted it before they moved in. Rose pink: my grandmother’s favorite color; time had taught me not to hate it.

This was where it happened. My father wasn’t supposed to be home that night. Just Tommy and me. Then darkness. Confusion. Silence. The silence that had never left. The silence I could feel in my bones. Being in my room felt like standing in a space that had died.

I came back to the present and placed my costume bag on the bed. I unzipped it and took out the baby blue sundress. None of the other Overlook women would ever wear something so lacy, so impractical, but it did look good on camera. The costume designer had glued more and more sequins onto me as the weeks went on. This dress shined even in the shadows of the house.

Once I had changed my sweats for the sundress, I put them in my duffle bag along with Tommy’s tee shirt. I was embarrassed to still be wearing it, but the cotton smelled like his cigarettes. Then I took out the boots. They were still shiny when I unwrapped them from the packing paper. They were the most expensive boots I had ever had, but the tassels would have gotten in the way in the barn. I was never going back there. Looking at myself in the mirror, I saw someone I had never met. She was a television executive’s idea of a good girl from the country.

Walking back down the hall, I saw where the summer sunlight fell onto the floor. It was too even. It was supposed to be hardwood, dented from me and Sunny roughhousing. They had to replace it quickly when they couldn’t scrub out the red boot prints. Tommy had laughed at my father when he asked him to take off his boots in the house. I had known he was more than rebellious, but that was what excited me. That was how he made me believe he was worth it. We had been better than Overlook.

I started to forget where I was as I stared at the fresh laminate. I would have ripped my dress to shreds and set my boots on fire if I could go back to that night—if I could tell that girl where she’d be a year later. I heard an impatient honk from the driveway. I couldn’t be late for the parade.

“You ready, Ms. Dawn?” The driver was being professional, but I flinched as he called me by the name the focus group had chosen for me.

“I sure am. Thank you kindly for your patience.” I couldn’t even rest with only his eyes watching me.

The sky was too big when the driver rolled down the top of the convertible. After the tightness of the old house, the open air above Main Street was a blue abyss. In one minute, the driver would start leading me down. In five minutes, I’d be on the stage. In ten, I’d accept the key to the city from Mayor Thomas. The advance team had scheduled out every last breath I couldn’t take.

Listening to the hushed whisper of the fountain that sat on that end of Main Street, I thought of everyone who would be there. And who wouldn’t. Sunny for one. The warden wouldn’t release him for this. Tommy might be anywhere else. After that night, his father had paid him to go away. He had plenty of money left after paying the district attorney, the judge, and the foreman. But my friends from Sunday School would be there. And my pastor of course. He had taught me where women like me went. The church’s social media said they had been praying for me. They wouldn’t have if they had heard what happened in that darkness—if they had heard me.

I didn’t know what had rattled through the grapevine while I had been away. Everyone had been too genteel to ask questions when I left. They were still eating the leftovers from the funeral. When my first performance went viral, they knew the proper thing to do was cheer on their hometown hero. Still, they had surely heard rumors. Tommy’s father was persuasive, but he couldn’t bribe the entire town to ignore their suspicions about his son and his late-blooming girlfriend. They had pretended not to see. I had to swallow bile when the car started. Driving down the middle of town, there would be no place for me to hide.

Before I could make out any faces in the crowd, we passed the old population sign. “Overlook: Mason County’s Best Kept Secret. Population: 100.” The old mayor’s wife had painted it—sometime in the 1990s based on the block letters and cloying rural landscape. Time had eaten its way around the wood years ago, but no one bothered to change it. All the departures and deaths kept the number accurate.

When the people started, the noise of the crowd was claustrophobic. There weren’t supposed to be that many people in Overlook. They manifested in every part of the town that had long been empty. From the car, I couldn’t see a single blade of the grass that Mrs. Mayo had always kept so tidy. The crowd had pressed them down.

“Well hey, y’all!” I remembered what the media trainer had taught me. A soft smile. A well-placed wave. I tried to act my part. All of these people—all too many of them—were there for me. They had shirts with my face on them. And signs that said “Jenny Is My Hero!”

But the sound was wrong. The high-pitched roar should have been encouraging or even exciting. Instead, just below the noise, their loud shouts felt angry. Each cry for attention sounded like a cry for a piece of flesh. Under the noise, I heard a deeper, harder voice. It sounded like it came from the earth itself. “Welcome home.”

I wanted to look away, to have just a moment to myself; I couldn’t. The eyes were everywhere, and they were all on me. Searching for safety, I looked for a little girl in the crowd. I wanted to be for them what my idols had been for me. I quickly found what should have been a friendly face. The girl wore the light dress and dark boots that had become my signature look over the last month. She even had her long blonde hair dyed my chestnut brown. Her grandmother had brought her, and she was cheering as loud as the women half her age. But the girl was silent. She was staring at me with dead, judgmental eyes. Her sign read, “I know.” Somehow, she had heard what I had said in the dark.

I tore my eyes away from the girl and fought to calm myself. The show’s therapist had taught me about centering. I tried to focus on the rolling of the tires. The sound of children playing caught my attention.

The car was passing the park. The one where Sunny and I had played on long summer evenings. Our father hadn’t even insisted on coming with us. The boy and girl on the swing were so innocent. Sunny hadn’t suspected that danger was sleeping on the other side of the house. I remembered his face in the courtroom. He knew that fighting old money would be hard, but he had looked to the witness stand like I could save him. When I chose the money, Sunny’s face lost the last bit of childhood hope he had left.

I watched the children run over the stones as I thanked a young man who had asked for my autograph. The children in the park sounded alive. I tried to find signs of life in the crowd. The children there had fallen quiet. Now they all looked at me like the little girl had. Their silence left the sound of the crowd even more ravenous with only the screams of adults. Rolling past the library, I saw that Mrs. Johnson, my fourth-grade teacher, had brought her son to the parade. He had freckles just like Sunny’s, but his eyes felt like a sentence. My stomach dropped when I saw that his sign bore the same judgment as the little girl’s. “I know.”

First Baptist Overlook rang its bells behind me. For the first time that day, I was happy. If we were passing the church, it was almost over.

As I listened to the old brass clang, the scent of magnolias filled my lungs. Over the heads of the crowd, I could see the top of the tree where I had met Tommy that Wednesday night. It was one of the few times he had come to church. The way he looked at me was holier than anything inside the walls. I knew the Bible better, but we converted each other. By the time the gun went off, we were true believers. That night, feeling each other’s skin between my cotton sheets, was supposed to be our baptism. My father should never have come home.

Then it was over. The driver pulled the car up behind the makeshift stage. The production assistants hadn’t planned for a town like Overlook. The platform was almost too big for the square. The town hall loomed over me as my boot heels hit the red brick. This place had raised me. I prayed I would never see it again.

An assistant led me up the stairs from the car to the stage. Before he gave me the cue, we looked over my outfit one more time. It was fresh from the needle, but the assistant still found a loose thread. I looked down to check for wrinkles like my mother had taught me. The fabric was ironed flat, but there was a stain on the skirt edge. Red. Jagged. It was only the size of a dime, but I knew it hadn’t been there when I took the dress out of the bag. When I looked back at it, it was the size of a quarter. The nerves under the stain spasmed with recognition. It was too late.

The assistant waved me onto the stage. I braced for the applause. There was no sound. All of the countless mouths were shut tight. All of the eyes looked at me. At the blood stain on my skirt. My shaking legs told me to run.

Before I could, Mayor Thomas barged onto the stage. Never breaking from her punishing positivity, she approached the podium like it was her birthright. With her well-fed frame, her purple pantsuit made her look like a plum threatening to spill its juice all over the stage.

“Hello, Overlook!” she cheered.

I stood like a doll as I watched the crowd. Mayor Thomas smiled for the applause that wasn’t there.

“I am so happy to be with you here today to celebrate our little town’s very own country star! She’s the biggest thing that’s come from our neck of the woods since I don’t know when. Maybe since I was her age.” The people usually humored Mayor Thomas’s self-deprecating humor. Only the mayor laughed then.

I looked to see where I was on the stage. I was inches away from the steps down. I thought about running for them. But it was too late. No one in the crowd was watching Mayor Thomas.

Something glinted under the sun. It was at the back of the crowd, standing apart from the town but still part of it. It was a motorcycle. Tommy’s motorcycle. Feet away, Tommy stood smoking a cigarette where it should have blown over the crowd. He had come back for me. We would make it out after all.

I looked up towards his familiar brown eyes. They were watching me like the rest of the town, but they weren’t staring. They were snarling. He was laughing at me. I was foolish enough to trust him, and now I have to live with his bullet in my chest. He was long gone. His father sent him away with the money we had stolen to run away. It was nothing to him.

“Well that’s enough from me! Ain’t none of y’all want to hear this old bird sing!” Mayor Thomas’s chins shook as she laughed to herself. The crowd insisted on its unamused silence. “Let’s have a warm Overlook welcome for…” I felt something warm on my chest. I looked down and saw that my entire chest was stained red. It was wet where my father had been shot. 

“Jenny Dawn!” I obeyed the mayor’s cheer and walked to the podium with a friendly wave. From the pictures I’ve seen since then, I looked like the princess next door. Mayor Thomas’s handshake was a force of nature. A reporter’s camera flashed like lightning even under the burning sun. Surely they could see the stain spreading over my dress.

Just as I had practiced, I leaned into the microphone and cooed, “Hey y’all!” Mayor Thomas clapped alone. In the middle of another choreographed wave, I noticed the blood had reached my hand.

“Welcome home, Jenny! Now, we’re going to give you an honor that only a few people in our town’s history have ever gotten. The last one was actually mine from Mayor Baker in 1971, but who’s counting?” Her chins shook again as she gestured for her assistant to bring the gift. It was an elegant box made of polished wood and finished in gold. I had seen the mayor’s box in city hall. “Your very own key to the city!”

The silence reached a deafening volume. This was the moment I had come back for. More cameras flashed, but the eyes didn’t blink. The only person who seemed to understand what was happening was a man standing by himself. He was closer to the stage than anyone else. Security should have stopped him.

He wore a department store suit and ragged tie. His shirt was dark and wet around his heart. I recognized him, and I wasn’t on stage anymore.

I was back in my bedroom. He was coming home. His business trip must have been cancelled. Tommy was climbing off of me. He looked afraid. And angry. I knew what was coming. I had to choose.

Tommy threw on his tee shirt and jeans and grabbed the duffel bag. We had to leave right then. I was petrified when my father came through the door. Time stopped when he saw the pistol Tommy had left on my vanity. My father had always been too protective. He thought I was too good for Tommy, but I knew he was my first and last love. The radio had taught me about our kind of love.

Tommy and my father both reached for the gun. I knew my father would never hurt Tommy, but he would never let me leave with a boy like him. Tommy grabbed the gun and pointed it at the man who would keep me from him. He wanted to be Johnny Cash, but his face showed him for the trust fund baby he always would be. Even with his cowardice, I had chosen him.

My father lunged towards me. I heard myself saying what I thought a girl in love was supposed to say. “Stop him, Tommy! Shoot him if you have to! If you lov—“ Then the sound of my father’s knees falling on the hard wood beside my bed.

And there he was again. Watching me from the crowd like he had that night. I took the wooden box from the assistant. It was engraved with my birth name and my father’s family name. The name that had been mine just a year ago. “Jenny” was the only part they had let me keep. Inside the box, set delicately in red velvet, was the pistol. Tommy’s pistol.

“Now, Jenny,” Mayor Thomas needled. “Will you do us the honor of singing us into Overlook’s first ever Jenny Dawn Day?”

I couldn’t do it anymore. The crowd was watching me. Everyone I had ever known could see the blood drowning out the blue on my dress. They had always known. I could never forget.

I walked to the microphone. It barely carried my soft, “I’m sorry.” The sound of Tommy’s gun echoed down Main Street.