THE THING IN THE WOODS

By Garry E. McMillan

Part One: The Old Mercer Place

My father had three rules about the woods behind our house.

Never cross the creek after sundown.

Never follow a voice you couldn't put a face to.

And no matter how familiar that voice sounded, never answer it.

I thought the old bastard was crazy. Now I'd give anything to hear him say those words again.

My name's Elias Mercer, but anyone who knows me calls me Eli. I'm thirty-nine. I'd stayed away from that house for twenty years, long enough to convince myself the rules were just one more way for Dad to control me. He had plenty of those. No visiting friends after dark, no camping, no wandering the logging roads. If I broke one, he'd stand in the doorway and wait until I couldn't bear the silence anymore.

Dad died of a heart attack on Tuesday, October 6, 2026. We buried him three days later outside Langley, Arkansas. By sundown that Friday, I was back at his farmhouse with my nine-year-old daughter, June, planning to pack whatever mattered and put the property up for sale.

The house stood on private land surrounded by the Ouachita National Forest. A narrow creek separated the backyard from a stand of timber so thick you could hardly see daylight between the trunks. Dad cleared our side every spring, but beyond the water the ferns stayed green even during a drought.

As a boy, I'd sometimes heard footsteps over there. They always stopped when I did.

In summer, the cicadas shrieked until the air seemed to vibrate. But every so often the noise would end all at once. The dog would creep under the porch, and I'd find myself watching that bank for movement. Nothing came out. That was almost worse.

When I asked Dad why we couldn't cross, he pointed to the water. "That creek ain't there to keep you from getting lost, Eli. It's there to remind you where you belong."

That was Harlan Mercer. A man who could make a conversation feel like punishment.

We'd had our last real argument the day I left home. Dad said I'd come crawling back when the world taught me some sense. I said a few things I haven't forgiven myself for, though at the time I meant every word. We spoke on the phone afterward, on birthdays and at Christmas, but neither of us ever brought up that day. When I found out he was dead, the first thing I felt was anger that we'd left so much unsaid.

•  •  •

The last mile of the driveway was little more than ruts and blackberry vines. June held her stuffed rabbit, Buttons, by his one good ear and watched the pines go past.

"Did Grandpa really live out here alone?"

"Most of the time."

"Wasn't he lonely?"

I used to think he preferred it. Now I wasn't sure.

"I reckon he got used to it."

She pressed against her seat belt. "Then who's that man?"

I eased off the gas. "What man?"

"Behind the trees. He was standing sideways."

I saw nothing but trunks and tangled brush. "Probably a hunter."

"He wasn't holding a gun."

"A deer, then."

She gave me a look. "I know what a deer looks like, Daddy."

She watched the trees until the house appeared.

A bend in the driveway followed the creek for a few hundred yards. I recognized a split boulder beside the water where Dad once caught me trying to build a bridge from fallen boards. He'd grabbed me so hard by the collar that the seam tore. I remembered the bruises more clearly than I remembered him carrying those boards away in the rain.

Inside, the place smelled of damp wood and stale tobacco. Dad had saved everything: bent nails in coffee cans, bills from the nineties, my childhood baseball glove. The webbing had been repaired with the heavy thread he used on his work gloves. I'd never known he'd bothered.

June slipped her hand inside. "Did Grandpa teach you to catch?"

"He tried."

"Like you taught me to ride my bike? You let go too soon."

"I ran right behind you all the way to the mailbox. You just didn't look back."

"Because I was riding," she said, as though that settled it.

I still had a photograph from that day on my phone. June had one foot off the pedal and both arms flung wide, certain she was about to crash. My hand was inches from the seat. I hadn't let her see the picture yet; she liked telling everyone she had done the whole thing herself. I liked letting her.

On the mantel she found a photograph of a young woman with her arm around a little boy.

"That's you. Who's she?"

"Your grandma. Margaret."

"Why didn't I meet her?"

"She died when I was eight."

Dad said my mother had gotten sick while I was staying with an aunt. He never let me ask much more than that.

In the picture, her hand rested on my shoulder. I couldn't recall the weight of it. I did remember her voice, though. She used to sing while washing dishes and, whenever I got into trouble, smooth my hair and say, "Lord have mercy, Elias, what am I gonna do with you?"

I remembered the sound of singing. Not one note of the song.

My memories of my mother were hazier than those of Dad. I knew that was normal. Children forget faces, smells, whole years. But I could remember the tiny scar on her thumb and the way she scraped batter from a bowl for me to eat. It bothered me that the tune had vanished while those useless details remained. I stood there looking at her photograph until June tugged my sleeve and asked whether we could have supper.

•  •  •

We ate canned soup at the kitchen table because the dining room felt colder than the rest of the house. June wanted to know whether Grandpa had liked children. I told her he'd loved me, just wasn't good at saying so. The lie came easily. I hated myself a little for it afterward.

June fell asleep upstairs around eight. I made coffee and opened Dad's desk. Beneath a stack of property records lay a cracked leather notebook, its pages covered in small, uneven handwriting.

March 12, 2004. Three knocks on the north wall. Nothing outside.

April 6. Tracks along the far bank again. Too far apart to be a man's.

May 19, 2018. Heard Margaret calling from the lower pasture. Did not answer.

My mother had been gone since 1995.

A later entry had been pressed so hard into the paper that the letters scored the page.

It knows his name now.

Below it: God forgive me, I answered.

Three taps sounded at the living room window.

The porch light reached only to the grass beyond the glass. Dad had cut down every tree close enough for a branch to touch the house.

I heard a scrape, as though somebody had dragged the heel of a boot across the boards outside. But there was no porch below that window. Just the drop to the yard and a clear stretch of ground before the creek. For a moment, I couldn't make myself look up from the notebook.

"Eli?"

I knew the voice before the second word.

"Eli, boy. Come out here a minute."

My father, right down to the irritation in his Arkansas drawl.

Leaves shifted near the pines. A pale hand rested against a trunk well above a man's head. I counted six fingers before it disappeared.

"Son, you reckon you could come give your old man a hand?"

I wanted to think one of his old lumber-mill friends was playing some rotten joke. Then it said, "Don't you turn your back on me, boy."

Those were the last words Dad had shouted when I left home more than twenty years earlier.

"Dad?"

The word was out before I remembered his rule.

Every insect fell silent. Beyond the creek, something let out a long, wavering breath, like a man trying not to laugh.

Upstairs, June began to cry.

•  •  •

I found her sitting upright, quilt bunched beneath her chin. I sat beside her until she stopped shaking. Then, without thinking, I tapped her shoulder three times.

Three taps meant I love you. We'd done it every night since she was four. She always tapped back.

It began when June was little and afraid of thunderstorms. I used to sit on the edge of her bed, trying not to show that I had no idea how to make thunder less frightening. Somehow we settled on the taps. We'd use them in crowded stores, at school drop-off, anywhere one of us needed to know the other was there. I'd forgotten plenty of things about those five years. That wasn't one of them.

This time she moved away.

"What's that for?"

"Our secret, June Bug."

She frowned. "What secret?"

I tapped again. She watched my fingers, puzzled.

"You never did that before."

I nearly argued. I could have named a hundred nights when she'd answered my taps, even with her eyes closed.

Outside, my dead father called for me again.

This time he was laughing.

Part Two: What the Creek Kept

I stayed beside June until she slept. Outside, Dad's voice called through the trees, sometimes angry, sometimes frightened. Once it coughed. That smoker's cough used to wake me every morning when I was a boy.

It was the cough that came closest to making me answer again.

He'd given up cigarettes twice in my childhood. Both attempts lasted a week. I used to count the days and wait for him to get angry enough to start again. Hearing that cough beyond the creek, I found myself doing the same thing I did at twelve: holding perfectly still until I could tell what kind of mood he was in.

Downstairs, I turned off the living room lamp. The window reflected my face over the porch light and the first row of trees. Beyond the creek, the dark looked solid.

I opened the notebook again.

The earliest entries were from October 1995, the year Mom supposedly died.

October 14. Margaret heard Eli crying across the creek. Boy was upstairs asleep. I checked.

October 16. It cried again. She answered before I could stop her. Eli asked why she quit singing at the sink. She hadn't quit. He couldn't remember the song.

I remembered my mother singing. Not the tune.

I tried to force it back. Hymn? Lullaby? Something from the radio? All I could remember was the clink of dishes and my own bare feet on the kitchen floor. If Dad's entry was true, then I'd been unable to remember the song since the very week it disappeared from our house.

Four pages later:

October 23. Margaret's gone.

Heard the boy calling beyond the creek. Real Eli was asleep beside me on the couch. She kept saying our baby was hurt.

I followed her to the water. Saw something tall and pale bent over behind the trees. It spoke. Margaret answered, then crossed.

Heard her scream once. Never found her.

Dad had told me she'd died in a hospital while I stayed with my aunt. I could remember my aunt holding my hand outside a church, but not a casket or a graveside. The longer I tried to picture them, the less certain I felt they'd ever been there.

I remembered being angry with Dad for not letting me see her one last time. He'd told me she'd already been buried. I screamed at him until he raised his hand, then put it down without touching me. For years that was the part of the story I'd carried around: a frightened little boy sure his father was ashamed to see him cry. Now I wondered what Dad had heard from the woods while I was screaming inside the house.

October 27. Told Eli his mama passed away. He keeps running to the window whenever it calls her. Better he thinks she's dead.

There was a small sound behind me.

Three taps from the hallway wall.

"Son?" Dad said from the kitchen. "I can't find the light."

The kitchen doorway was empty. I knew every loose board between the hall and the sink, yet I hadn't heard anything move across them.

"Just give me a hand, Eli."

I wanted to turn on every light in the house. Instead, I gripped the notebook so hard the cover bent.

The kitchen smelled faintly of tobacco, warm and stale, as if Dad had just finished smoking at the sink. I knew the shape of that room in the dark: the metal edge of the counter, the scar in the floor where he dropped an axe head, the cupboard door that never closed all the way. I couldn't see anybody in it. That didn't make the voice any farther away.

When I didn't answer, the faint smell of cigarettes faded. The voice went with it. I never heard footsteps leave.

I should have taken June and gone then. But there was one more entry I couldn't make myself leave unread.

If I'd been alone, I might have stayed there until morning reading every page. I wanted proof that Dad hadn't lied to me because I was an inconvenience. I wanted to know why a man who could face down anybody in town had spent his life afraid of a few acres of woods.

June 4, 2018. Eli asked why I never took him fishing. We went every Saturday when he was small. His green tackle box is in the shed. I answered Margaret three nights ago.

I'd noticed the tackle box earlier that day. My name was scratched into the lid. I had no memory of holding a fishing pole beside my father.

Across the bottom margin, Dad had written:

The voices get farther than the body. The tracks never come across the water.

And beneath that:

Sometimes I know it ain't her. Sometimes I answer anyway.

Something giggled upstairs.

June.

Then I heard her say, "Okay, Daddy."

The back door opened.

•  •  •

June stood barefoot on the porch in her pink pajamas, Buttons dangling from one hand. She turned when I called her name.

"You said you were going to show me something."

"I didn't. Get inside."

I pulled her through the doorway and locked it. She clutched her rabbit to her chest, and for a horrible second I couldn't remember what she called him. I'd stitched his ear back on twice. I'd bought him for her. But the name was gone.

"What's your rabbit's name?" I asked.

"Buttons." She looked hurt. "Daddy, you know that."

Once she'd said it, the name sounded familiar. Before that, nothing.

I tried to remember the first time she'd carried Buttons out of the store, when she still called every stuffed animal a baby. The scene came back clear enough. His name didn't. That missing word frightened me more than the shape I'd seen among the pines, because I could feel its exact size inside my mind.

June had answered a voice pretending to be me, and I was the one who'd forgotten.

I crouched in front of her. "Something's out there using our voices. Whatever you hear after dark, don't answer it. Not even if it sounds like me."

"Then how do I know it's really you?"

Her question wasn't the question of someone who believed in monsters. It was what any child would ask after a parent told her not to trust his voice. I'd spent her whole life teaching her to come when I called. Now I was telling her that habit could get her killed.

She was nine. I had no answer that would make a nine-year-old feel safe.

She slipped her hand into mine. "Two squeezes," she said. "If it's really you, you can squeeze my hand twice."

I squeezed back. "All right. Two."

A voice came from outside.

"June Bug?"

My voice. The rasp I get when I'm tired, the little upward turn I put on her name.

"Come on, baby. Daddy's right here."

June squeezed my hand twice.

Beyond the creek, something leaned against a pine. It looked almost human until it raised its head. Higher. Still higher. Its shoulder stayed in place while its narrow face emerged above the lowest branches.

One hand curled around the trunk. The fingers bent in places fingers shouldn't.

"June?"

The voice came a fraction before its mouth moved, like a performer missing a cue.

Its body didn't move with any breath. Nothing in the silhouette suggested lungs. For a second, though, it seemed to study my stance. One shoulder dropped. Its head turned at the same angle as mine. I could almost believe it was looking into a mirror and correcting itself.

"Daddy's right here."

Then it laughed with my laugh, that short, embarrassed chuckle I make when a joke falls flat. It held the sound a little too long.

I understood, suddenly, that it wasn't laughing at us.

It was practicing.

•  •  •

I got June inside and shut the curtain. She kept hold of my hand.

"His face didn't fit," she whispered.

"What do you mean?"

"When he stopped, it kept moving."

I took the keys, Dad's notebook, and nothing else. The truck was twenty feet from the front porch.

I carried June across the gravel. As I reached the passenger door, she tightened her grip around my collar.

Twice.

Someone stood in her upstairs window.

A girl in pink pajamas, holding a rabbit with one torn ear. She lifted a hand and waved.

"Daddy? Why'd you leave me?"

The voice was June's. The figure pressed its cheek against the glass. Its skin lagged behind the movement, then settled into place as though pulled by invisible fingers.

The real June shook against me. She couldn't have made that face at the window even if she'd tried. The girl upstairs was smiling, but the muscles around her eyes hadn't been told. I caught myself watching her instead of moving, as if one more second would explain what I was seeing.

It raised one hand and tapped the pane three times.

The secret my daughter had forgotten.

June hid her face against me. I buckled her into the passenger seat, scrambled behind the wheel, and started the engine. I reversed so hard that gravel struck the porch steps.

Three knocks came from the rear window.

In the mirror, something pale crouched in the truck bed. Its fingers hooked over the roof without leaving marks in the dust.

I'd have sworn I felt the suspension dip, though the truck never changed its pitch. Dad's notebook flashed through my mind: no tracks across the water. Whatever sat behind us was a picture made with the same cruel patience as the voices. Knowing it couldn't be solid did nothing for the cold spreading through my chest.

"Lord have mercy, Elias," my mother's voice said behind my head. "What am I gonna do with you?"

June reached for my hand. Two squeezes.

I kept driving.

In the dark windshield, faintly lit by the dashboard, my reflection began to smile.

I wasn't smiling.

Part Three: The Last Answer

The smile stayed in the windshield when I turned back toward the road.

"Daddy!"

A fallen pine limb lay across the next bend. I swerved, clipping it with the passenger-side mirror. The truck skidded sideways in the gravel and stopped with a shudder.

I checked June. The seat belt had caught her shoulder, but she was all right. Buttons lay beneath her feet.

She was trying not to cry. She had that look she gets at the doctor's office, brave until somebody asks whether she's frightened. I wanted to take her home and put on the cartoon she'd been watching before we drove to Langley. I wanted a problem I knew how to fix.

I tried to drive. Something scraped against the front wheel. A fork of the branch had jammed beneath the fender, and each turn of the steering wheel ground it deeper.

Three knocks came from behind my head.

"You're going the wrong way, boy," Dad's voice said. "You'll get that little girl killed."

I found a flashlight in the glove compartment.

"I'm clearing the tire," I told June. "Lock the doors. Don't open them for a voice. Not even mine. I'll come back and squeeze your hand twice."

"What if you fall?"

"I'll get up. Stay here."

She caught my fingers before I got out and squeezed twice.

I went around the hood, set the flashlight where it shone on the wheel, and crouched beside the tire. The pine limb had wedged against it. I hooked both hands under it and pulled. The bark tore at my palms before the branch snapped free.

The cold gravel soaked through the knees of my jeans. A smell of split pine rose from beneath the bumper. I remember both things because I was trying so hard to pay attention to ordinary details. I thought if I could hold on to the tire, the branch, the beam of my flashlight, nothing else could get inside my head.

Behind me, a door latch clicked.

I turned. My flashlight rolled off the hood and struck the gravel.

From somewhere down the slope, my own voice shouted, "June! Help me! I fell!"

The passenger door stood open.

June was gone.

For one second, I stood there listening to the empty cab. The radio was still on low, some late-night preacher talking about salvation. I had told June to keep the doors locked. She must have heard me crying for help and forgotten every warning I'd given her. Or remembered them and opened the door anyway, because I'm her father.

•  •  •

Her bare footprints led through a break in the brush toward the creek. I ran after them, pushing past briers, hearing my own voice farther ahead.

"Honey, I'm hurt. Come down here."

The creek was only a strip of moonlit water when I reached it.

June stood on our bank, clutching Buttons. Across from her, a man in my jacket crouched among the roots. One leg appeared bent beneath him. He had his face buried in his hands.

The bank was slick clay, and the far side rose abruptly beneath the trees. I remembered Dad hauling me backward from those same stones when I was small. He'd been furious. I thought then that he cared more about the rules than whether I was hurt. Standing there with June inches from the water, I understood the look he'd had on his face.

The man lifted his head. He was wearing my face, but the fear arrived late in his eyes, like he'd remembered to put it there only after raising them.

"You have to help me," he told her.

June moved one foot onto a stone at the edge.

"June," I said.

She turned. Relief crossed her face until the other me spoke.

"He's not your daddy. You know what I told you about the bicycle?"

He looked at me and smiled with my mouth.

"I ran right behind you all the way to the mailbox. You just didn't look back."

My own words from earlier that afternoon.

She hesitated. There were two men with her father's face, and one of them was using a memory she knew belonged to us.

June clutched her rabbit so tightly its loose ear twisted around her fist. She wanted to believe me. I could see it. But I had her father's voice, and so did the shape across the creek. Her little signal was the one piece of proof it hadn't stolen yet. I was too far away to use it.

I held out my hand. "I can squeeze twice. You don't have to listen to either voice. Just reach for me."

The thing across the water extended its hand, too.

Then it started humming.

I recognized the tune the way you recognize a place you haven't seen since childhood. My mother used to sing it at the kitchen sink. The notes came back only as the creature sang them, and even then I couldn't have repeated them myself.

The imitation of my face loosened. The skin slipped as if it had been hung over something narrower.

Beneath it was my mother.

She did not rush toward me. She stood among the roots as if she were waiting for me to come home from school. That quiet patience almost worked. I was eight again, aching to bury my face in the front of her dress. I could hear her singing the notes I'd spent thirty-one years trying to remember.

Blue dress. Dark hair. The same face in the photograph on Dad's mantel. She hadn't aged a day since 1995.

"Elias," she whispered. "I heard you crying. I thought my baby needed me."

Behind her, something unfolded among the trees. A long pale limb bent around a pine. Another followed, far above where a person's shoulder should have been. I saw a narrow head turn without the rest of its body moving.

The woman held out her hand to me.

"Answer me, sweetheart. Let me know you're there."

The creek murmured over stones. June glanced from the woman to me. Her bare foot slid on the moss. She dropped to one knee, caught a root on the opposite bank, and clung there above the water.

I lunged but couldn't reach her. The figure wearing my mother's face bent forward. Behind it, six pale fingers tightened around the tree.

Then I remembered what happened when I'd answered at the window.

The footsteps stopped. The woods went silent. The thing had listened so closely that for an instant it stopped pretending to be my father.

I could make it listen again.

When it listened, it stopped reaching. I only needed a second.

I knew what it would cost. I couldn't choose which memory June would lose. I couldn't know whether she'd still recognize me when it finished.

She was pulling on the root. Another few inches and she'd be across.

"I'm here," I said to the woman.

The humming stopped.

I knew that if June survived, I'd have to tell her what I'd done. She might never believe me. She might wake up unable to remember our mornings together, or her birthday, or my face. There was no way to ask that thing for mercy; it had learned the sound of mercy only so it could speak in my mother's voice.

Across the creek, my mother's borrowed face went blank. The towering figure leaned toward me, its pale head tilting as though catching a sound no one else could hear.

June's hand slipped from the root. I seized the back of her pajama shirt and dragged her into my arms.

For an instant the entire forest seemed to hold its breath. Then water and insects and June's sobs rushed back into the world.

My father's voice rose from the far bank.

"You always were a damn fool, boy."

I ran without answering.

•  •  •

When we reached the truck, June touched my cheek.

She had mud smeared up one shin and blood on her knee from the stones. I checked the cut, desperate to have something practical to do. It was shallow. She watched me clean it with the damp corner of my sleeve as if she were trying to decide which questions were safe to ask.

"You were there when I learned to ride my bike, weren't you?"

"Yeah, baby."

"I remember the mailbox." She swallowed. "And falling off the first time. But when I try to remember you running behind me, there's nobody there."

A few hours earlier she'd teased me for letting go too soon. Now she could remember the ride, the scraped knee, the mailbox. Just not her father keeping pace with her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Don't you ever apologize for that."

I buckled her in. She squeezed my hand twice, and I squeezed back.

The truck started. I drove until there were streetlights, gas stations, and other people who had no idea what lived in the forest north of Langley.

We found a motel in Hot Springs after one in the morning. June fell asleep with Buttons beneath her chin. His torn ear had come loose again, so I used the motel sewing kit to stitch it back on.

Outside the motel window, cars passed through pools of orange streetlight. Somebody laughed in the parking lot. I could hear a vending machine rattling down the hall. Such stupid, ordinary sounds, and I had never been so grateful for them. June didn't ask whether the thing could follow us there. Neither did I.

When I finished, I kissed her forehead and tapped her shoulder three times.

"What's that mean?" she asked sleepily.

"I love you."

She tapped me back.

"Do it tomorrow, too."

"I will."

•  •  •

It's Thursday, October 15, as I'm writing this. Six days since we buried Dad.

I've kept his notebook. I found a letter folded between the last two pages, addressed to me. Most of it was an apology he should have said while he was alive. There was one sentence I couldn't stop reading:

I kept you away because I was afraid of losing you, and I lost you anyway.

Below it he'd written, I love you, son. I should have told you more often.

He couldn't say those words to me while he was alive. I wish I knew whether it was stubbornness or fear that stopped him. I suppose I'll never know.

The notebook had one last surprise.

I'd seen the entry already:

March 12, 2004. Three knocks on the north wall. Nothing outside.

On the back of that page, beneath a fold, Dad had written:

March 13. Tapped Eli's shoulder at breakfast. Three taps, like when he was little. He asked why I was doing it. I answered Margaret Tuesday night. It took that from him, too.

I'd always thought June and I invented our little ritual together. I don't remember my father tapping my shoulder even once.

But somewhere along the way, my hands remembered what I couldn't.

Tonight June asked me to tell her about learning to ride without training wheels. She knows what happened. She's heard the story enough to repeat every detail, right down to the mailbox.

She still can't remember me running behind her.

Somewhere beyond that creek, something can.

Located in the archives of Skibbereen, Ireland. The Diary of Eileen Burke in 1847.

October 1, 1847

Last year I thought there was nothing crueller than having my husband and I having to bury our son. I’ve just come back from burying my daughter without even the support of my husband. Violence, imprisonment and disease have torn my family apart. I am somehow to provide for myself and Colm. We were struggling enough when Aoife was working. Colm’s not old enough to be left alone, no one’s left who can take care of him while I work. The blight has cut off everything we eat. But of course, anything that we have to sell to our landlords grows just fine. I don’t know what to do, and every day I pray for a solution, I pray for mercy. I can’t keep continuing like this. I haven’t eaten in days. I keep myself going through water, and the leather strings of my husband’s boots.

October 8, 1847

I finally got my answer. I thought the angel would be kind. I thought he’d be gentle. I thought I’d receive mercy. Instead, he appeared to me with short cropped hair, a fancy suit that hasn’t seen a day of struggle, a tophat, and a walking stick embellished with gold. Nothing about this being was soft, not even his smile as he leered down at me. 

"Eileen Burke, you have struggled greatly”, the angel had said to me. My head snapped up from prayer towards the divine being, to find him smiling at me. It was as if he found pleasure in it. I reached for him, gripping at the finely tailored coat as I begged for answers. 

"Please!! Tell me, tell me why you put this curse on my family! What have we done, how can we redeem ourselves?” I sobbed desperately, as he gently took his coat back. I didn’t even have the sense to feel bad for dirtying it. 

"Oh my dear…” he crooned, delicately putting a hand on top of my head, as if I were a child. After another heaving sob, his hand gently moved down my cheek, before grasping my chin, making me look at his face as he lowered himself into a squat. He still towered over me as our eyes met. “This isn’t a curse. It’s punishment for your sins. You and your whole family!” 

"W-what?” My heart broke, hearing that blonde haired gentleman charge me of being sinful. “I-I know we aren’t perfect, we’re human, but- but how are we so sinful to deserve this?? I buried my son, my daughter, my husband’s in prison and I can’t care for my child!”

"Shhh, my child. You see, this is entirely your fault.” he started to explain, fluttering his tailcoats behind him as he sat on my bed. He looked like a king on his throne. His glowing aura lit up the small house, and I couldn’t help but feel ashamed that I was making him gather here. I felt unworthy in front of this angel. “You were a failure of a wife, a failure of a mother. Your husband was a dirty thief, your son was a violent drunk, and your daughter was a whore. We had to strike them down.”

My mouth fell open. I wanted to defend my husband’s thievery, my son’s rage was justified, and my daughter was providing. But it all sounded like excuses in front of the blond being in front of me. I had no idea how to make it seem right, without justifying their sins. 

"You want to know how to make it right? You want to know how to save Colm from the same fate as your other children?” He asked me, as I nodded, desperate to save myself yet another funeral, another damnation to hell. “The only way to save him is to start over. Return him to the womb.”

"How? I don’t know how to do that! That’s impossible!” I protested. He shushed me, placing a hand atop my head. A babe already born cannot be returned to the womb.

"Eat him. Cut him up, and eat him.” He explained it as if I was a child. As if eating my own son is the easiest thing in the world. Before I could express my horror, he raised his hand. “Was Abraham not willing to sacrifice Isaac? Sacrifice his soul. Offer it up to God. You will be saved.” 

 I thought about his proposal as I put Colm to bed. The poor babe has been crying from hunger. I have nothing to give him. 

October 10, 1847 
I’ve decided to do it. I’d ask God for forgiveness, but that angel, who looked so beautiful… he told me God already demanded it. I will sacrifice my innocence to save my son. 

October 11, 1847. 
It is done. Colm is with God now, and his body has returned to mine. I decided to do it while he was asleep. Through the open window I heard the keening of a woman. All Skibbereen ever hears is keening on the winds. I normally don’t register it, but this felt different. It felt like the grief was for myself. As I held the pillow above Colm’s sleeping face, I prayed for an angel to stop me. But as Colm’s weak cries were muffled by the pillow and drowned out by my apologies, no such mercy was given. 

I sobbed as I cut off his beautiful auburn hair. I wailed as I separated his head, his pitiful sunken face, from his shoulders. He was almost a year old. My poor son never had a chance to make it. I pleaded, prayed, and begged for forgiveness as I cubed his small pieces of meat. 

The keening grew louder and louder with each step of the process, a great harmony to my distress. But as I served the bare stew, complete with his bones as broth, my tears ran out. The keening was almost a shriek as I brought the spoon to my lips. 

At the first bite, it all went quiet. I devoured him as my guilt devoured me. Colm tasted tender, soft. After months of chewing leather for some semblance of relief, my son’s body tasted heavenly.  I had to believe this angel, I had to believe that this creature, the most beautiful thing to ever exist, was right. 

I kept thinking about this angel as I ate Colm, as his flesh left me satiated. As the hunger was replaced with nausea from gorging myself on the meager pieces of tender meat, seasoned only with my shame for having failed my family in the first place. 

Once again, he answered my prayer. He was dressed in a brilliant white suit, as if he was attending a party. And when he saw me, he began to laugh, and laugh, and laugh. 

“Eileen Burke! Good job!” He applauded, as his malice-filled laugh filled the room. “The others bet I’d never be able to convince a mother to eat her child, but here we are! One less dirty Irish burdening the pockets of England!” 

“But you told me-” 

“That it was the only way to save him… yes. But clearly, you weren’t discerning enough….” his eyes turned to slits, like that of a snake’s. “Don’t you remember that I was always considered the most beautiful?” 

October 14, 1847. 

Dear Liam,
I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I did to Colm, and what I’m about to do to you. Should you come back after prison, you will find this diary, my body, and the bones of our son. I failed our family. You will be better off marrying again. Marrying a woman who hasn't done something as monstrous as myself. I will burn for what I’ve done. I’ll burn for having my hunger satiated by our poor little dove. 

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you for Reading! The name Eileen came from a codeword for Ireland. All the Irish bands talking about a woman named Eileen are talking about their country. Colm means dove, Liam means protector or shield. Aoife means radiance, joy, beauty.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1J2doEs44ELDo790ze6SES?si=B7SYGHqHSeqGlQGUBAecYA&utm_source=copy-link&pi=iVYzCs9CRzyA7

The AP pod is back and ready to cover some stories about love! We hope you enjoy these wonderful stories.

While I’m here, I’d like to mention that THE OFFERING competition is still live for the rest of this month. Get your stories and drawings in for us to see!

“Is a boring life worth living?”

Robert pondered this question again and again. He often wondered how his life had gotten so stale. On paper, he led a normal life: a respectable, well-paying job, an active group of friends, and the occasional romantic fling. Yet life felt empty, hollow. He yearned to be seen.

His excitement had left him somewhere in his teens, and everything happened behind a thick, dampening curtain. At 36, Rob was stuck in a rut. He wanted to be a part of something greater. 

Only one thing gave him respite: His phone and the endless amount of content he could consume. He paid willingly with his attention.

While Rob was cozily wrapped in a blanket on the couch one evening in Mid-October, an ad intruded on his escapism. A pseudo-female robotic voice read the highlighted text on screen. 

Hey you! Pay attention! Are you bored with life? Would you like to be a part of something greater? I have good news! 

In the background, an obvious AI time-lapse of a majestic tree sprouting could be seen.

“ - the hell?!” he muttered, wondering how his AdBlock could have failed him. He couldn’t even remember the last time he saw an ad. He immediately tried to skip it. 

Skipping is not possible for this interaction. The algorithm has selected you for the “Trick or Treat” extravaganza. Get out of your rut today.

The background showed a burning thistle rolling through an empty street.

Rob frowned. There was no way he’d suffer through this. He put his phone aside to get another beer from the fridge. When he returned, the ad was still on screen. It had autopaused the moment he left.

Your attention is required to proceed. Take part in the Trick or Treat festivity and win a lifetime supply of purpose.

A burning Jack-o’-lantern glared through the crown of a skeleton tree. Dozens of long, winding strips of what Rob assumed to be toilet paper hung from its branches.

“Gotcha, it checks for a face using the front camera. Is this a virus?” Rob thought as he tried to close the app, but it wouldn’t let him.

Do not click off. This is not the season to be feeble. This time is especially special, because ...

The voice continued, but he paid no attention. Robert peered over the top of his phone towards his TV.

Robert, stop looking away.

Panicked, he tried to shut off his phone. But it just vibrated in two quick, violent bursts as if to tell him No. Rob slammed it on the couch table, screen down. 

For a moment, he was worried he might have broken his display. But he could see the light from the screen paint a faint halo around its edges on the table.

He collected himself, grabbed it again, and turned it around.

The voice admonished him in its sales-pitch voice.

Robert, pay attention.

Robert dared not look away this time.

A wild torrent of images and impressions flickered by. Eyes. Crosses. Sludge. A fungus growing into a pacifier and turning into a mushroom cloud. Barcodes. Eyes. Burning forests. 

As a grand finale, a commanding QR Code burned itself into his iris. 

#

In the following days, boredom had fled his life as Robert descended into a Halloween mania. He stockpiled huge amounts of treats, as he was certain he would need them. This Halloween would be huge. His front yard was a wild assortment of Halloween decorations, all the classics were there: pumpkins, skeletons, ghosts, witches, and more and more. He knew he had the chance to create a legacy this time around. The front yard tree became his focal point.

Compelled to collect the old and spare phones of his friends and family, Rob managed to get about 3 dozen phones. He attached duct tape to their backs and hung them over the branches. Each dangled about 2 feet below their anchor point. Their black screens in stark contrast to the white adhesive side of the tape. 

On Halloween, Robert’s doorbell became a constant heartbeat. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Group after group of Trick-or-Treaters rang it after they had noticed his front yard and the strangely decorated tree. 

Despite the windless night, the suspended phones twisted and turned on their tapes. Each searching like the needle of a compass. The obsidian shards cut the air. Hanging flytraps waiting for their victims.

Some mocked the unusual decoration, joking, “Ha, we don’t need to TP that one.” Yet the tree paid them no attention. Many took selfies in front of it. The tree turned into a spectacle. Flashes like on a red carpet at a movie premiere illuminated the night.

After dusk, the whole street was crowded with Trick-or-Treaters loitering around and staring at the weird decoration. They watered the tree with attention, strangely mesmerized by the simplicity of its concept. The tree had become a living art installation, a duct-taped fusion of nature and technology. Their phones became a focal lens of their attention. The tree drank it all up. 

Rob had given up on closing the door, instead, he stood on his front porch and handed out treats to everyone. “Pay attention,” he told everyone who came by. 

At 7:06 pm, the streetlights flickered and went out. The crowd hushed. Anxiety, anticipation, and attention focused on the tree. A chant of “Trick or Treat!” swelled in the crowd, growing ever louder.

“Trick or Treat!” 

The air felt tense. Heavy.

“Trick or Treat!” 

Like moments before a lightning strike.

“Trick or Treat!”

Rob was smiling. Happy. 

The tree just stood there. Obsidian screens blanked out pitch-black pieces of the night. Basking in attention. 

Until it was paid in full.

Screens burst alight. Each showing a different visual. The spasmic dance of light created the impression of a tree burning. The suspended phones started to rotate on their own. Gently at first, but increasing in ferocity until their tapes were about to snap. Their momentum was instantly changing direction. Flipping back and forth like a metronome. 

An uneasiness spread through the crowd. The first people tried to take a step back, only to be swallowed by the eager masses inching to get closer to the spectacle.

All kinds of languages erupted from the screens. English, French, German, Chinese, more, and more. Some languages were long forgotten; others didn’t exist yet. A cacophony haunted the night.

Terrified, children hid behind their parents. Recognizing the voices from beneath their beds or inside their closets. Crying echoed through the street. Parents tried in vain to shield them from the sounds. 

Rob felt his moment of grandeur slipping. He turned towards the tree.

In that instant, all phones rotated on their strings. Three baker’s dozen QR codes stared at him like eyes. The haunting voices stopped, only to be replaced by the rapid clicking of Morse code and the screeching of dial-up Modems.

Rob could see them all. Hear them all. His pupils multiplied into a block of dots to take it all in. 

The Attention was on him.

It started.

A download from Beyond.

It was overwhelming his psyche.

Overwriting his soul.

Something wanted to be born into this world. Transcend the veil. Push through the fabric of reality. Into here. Into him.

He has found his purpose.

Thunder clapped. A lightning strike hit the tree and set it ablaze. Flames immediately licked up the trunk and onto the branches. The smoldering stench of plastic and glue assaulted the noses.

The crowd fled in a primal panic. Still blinded by the flash, they were stampeding away, their attention waning with every step.

On the lowest branches, the flames burned the tapes, and the phones dropped to the floor like meteors. Each trailing a fiery tape as it fell. Screens shattered upon impact. The rest of the tape curled into a death spiral.

There was a huge, welcoming gash in the trunk of the tree.

Afraid of losing connection, Rob stormed towards the burning tree, hugged it, and they became one. Skin and bark fused together. The tree welcomed him into its system. As if controlled remotely, he pushed his aching body into the wound. Tendrils of resin embraced him. Rob’s blood nourished the tree. It offered a warm comfort as it fully encapsulated him. 

They celebrated their union without duct tape, as Binary-infected DNA took root.

#

No one knows exactly what happened to Robert. It is assumed he perished fighting the fire, but he was never found.

However, it is noted that the leaves of the tree on his property show a curious pattern of dots. It is most noticeable during Fall when the pattern of the fallen leaves is almost decipherable.

No one dares to look at the pattern for too long, citing an unnerving eeriness. Rob’s neighbors are always quick to sweep up the leaves.

First part to a story I have been putting together in my head for a while.

I should have been there the first time. Should have stopped her from crossing that street. Then I wouldn't have had to see her bent that way. Her mama wouldn't have had to hold that unicorn rain jacket that'd been painted red. This time I know better. Now that she's back I won't let my baby girl out of my sight.

There she goes though. She doesn't quite walk right but she still moves pretty fast. She walks through the sunflower field just like she used to. Head held high like she expected them to bow to the Queen of the Sunflowers. I still play her knight, lifting her up when we'd walked too long and her little legs gave out. Seems now that happens closer and closer to home. 

Every day though we get back to our routine. She's up, moving as the dawn starts breaking. Shambling half-asleep out through the stalks towards that big old barn she loves. She'll get tired, fall down, fight me so she can keep playing in the dirt. I'll bring her back and clean her up.

We'll sit there at the table. My washcloth rubbing dirt, leaves, and black spots off her. The little pruning shears cutting away the small growths she’s always covered in. It reminds me of that weekend before she left. 

We sat right here at this table. Her hand raw and red, chewed to hell and back from her trying to gnaw a splinter the size of my thumbnail out of her little palm. She fought me when I pulled out the tweezers to get it. Fought me harder when I asked how she got it. Harder still when she admitted she'd been in the barn after I'd told her not to. Wouldn't tell me what she was doing in there, either.

She's still here though. I find her sneaking little handfuls of moss to snack on, her appetite even bigger than before. She's growing too, not a lot, but just enough to be noticeable. The little stretch marks on her tummy when we do bath time look more and more like pink tiger stripes. She laughs when I clean them. It's about the only time I get to hear her voice. 

That's the funny thing though. We never had much use for speaking. Her mama used to tell me I was all twist and no shout. I guess our baby girl took after me. Actions spoke louder than words for either of us. She looks at me when she wants help getting to a window, and tilts her head when that ugly black spit comes out of her mouth so I can clean it.

She's starting to beat the sunrise. I wake up some days and she's closer to that barn than the house. Her little legs are not strong enough to carry with how big she's getting. I find her crawling through the muck exhausted but determined. My little queen usually sleeps while I carry her back and clean her. Doesn't even look at the bowl of little bumps I cut off her. Doesn't flinch when I cut too deep and her dark blood runs sluggishly onto my rag.

Her mama doesn't pick up my calls. Won't come home and be a family with us. Swears I've lost it, that our baby can't come back. That she saw where we put her. That I'm only hurting her, hurting myself. That's fine though. I get to spend more time with her now that she's back than I ever got to before, and I don't mind not having to share that.

It's funny how all those things I was “too busy” for seem to become my favorite things to do. Having these tea parties, reading her stories, painting her nails. Even painting where her nails aren't anymore. 

I can't find her. My heart is slamming in my chest in rhythm with my heavy boots. I'm running through the fields following the footprints until they turn into drag marks. There she is at the door of the barn. The last of her nails left in the wood as she tries to scratch through the door. Thank God I locked it so she can't get hurt inside. 

I take breaks carrying her back. I have to fold her arms in. Seems all the work she did drained her energy. Her wrists are so limp they sit at wrong angles. I'll have to start locking the door to the house. 

This morning she's at least easy to follow. She crawled out of that broken window in the cellar where she'd been sleeping. It seemed to be the only place she wasn't getting too hot at night. I should have known better.

Poor baby, must have cut herself getting out. The trail of black sludge leads out from the mushroom caps and skin stuck in the jagged glass. I don't need the trail though, she's where she seems to always be nowadays, at the door of that barn. I'll have to try a little harder for her.

My plan half worked. I found the bottom part of her at the end of the rope I tied around her waist. Her little legs swollen and bruised, a bunch of crushed caps and broken stems where the rope had pulled too tightly at her stomach. I take my time to tuck her legs back in bed. One foot out of the blanket so she doesn't get overheated. What's left of her tummy resting on a towel to not get the bed dirty.

She's still a smart girl. I can see the barn is open. She must have been so strong knocking over that two by four I'd put under the door handle. Her little arm is still gripping it so tightly.

It's been a while since I've been in here. I'm walking deeper and it's hot and sticky, and every step I take kicks up spores and crushes big black mushrooms. 

There she is though. One eye looks at me. A crown of white caps around her forehead. They leak ink onto her pretty face. As I kneel down I see what she'd been so excited to show me. 

Etched right there in that rust-colored wood, in chicken scratch. “I love you Daddy.”

A woman wakes in a dark cave, her body wrapped in a thick, sticky substance that pins her to the stone wall. The last thing she remembers is a sharp sting in her neck.

A faint beam of daylight spills through the cave entrance, barely illuminating her surroundings. She struggles until she manages to free one hand and reach into her pocket. Her fingers grab a small folding knife. She flicks it open and carefully slices through the cocoon-like strands binding her.

Hands trembling, she switches on a small flashlight.

The beam sweeps across the cavern.

Bodies.

Hundreds of them.

Some are little more than skeletons draped in rotting flesh. Others are fresher, their skin gray and swollen. The smell of decay nearly makes her gasp

She forces herself to keep looking.

The light settles on a shriveled man cocooned against the wall. His neck is covered in infected sores, and his chest barely rises with each shallow breath.

Then she notices the hole in his abdomen.

Something moves inside it.

A pale, bloated grub slowly pushes its head through the opening. It is about the size of a guinea pig, its wet body glistening in the flashlight's beam. Tiny black eyes reflect the light as it tears away another mouthful from inside the man's stomach.

More movement follows.

Several more grubs writhe beneath his skin, gnawing through his organs while he is still alive.

The man's face is blank, almost lifeless.

She shines the flashlight into his eyes.

His pupils follow the beam.

A horrified gasp escapes her lips. She learns 

He's still conscious and He can't move.

He can only watch.

Suddenly her own skin begins to itch.

Then it burns.

She frantically scratches at her stomach and feels tiny, wriggling bodies beneath her shirt.

Grubs.

She bites down on her sleeve to keep from screaming as she crushes them against her skin with shaking hands. They had already begun chewing through her flesh, trying to burrow into her abdomen.

She stomps the last one into the dirt and freezes.

A scream echoes through the cave.

The man suddenly convulses, jamming his hand into the hole in his stomach as he desperately tries to tear the grubs from his body. Blood pours down the cave floor.

Then another sound interrupts him.

Heavy footsteps.

Slow.

Deliberate.

The same footsteps she heard moments before she was stung.

She dives behind a cluster of boulders just as the creature enters.

She can barely see it but It stands freakishly tall, its body covered in glossy crimson shell, like that of a insect. Its limbs are unnaturally long.

The man spits blood at it.

The humanoid creature doesn't react.

Its jaw slowly opens.

From deep inside its throat, a thin, barbed stinger slides forward, nearly seven inches long.

With terrifying speed, it drives the stinger into the man's neck.

The man thrashes violently for several seconds.

Then...

Nothing.

His body goes limp.

His eyes remain open, staring blankly ahead as his stomach begins to ripple once more.

The grubs resume feeding.

The woman clamps both hands over her mouth, terrified even the sound of her breathing will give her away.

After several endless minutes, the creature finally turns and walks out of the cave.

She waits until the heavy footsteps fade into silence before slipping from behind the rocks.

Keeping her flashlight low, she follows the tunnel toward the exit.

Dozens of fresh cocoons line the walls.

Most contain adults.

Some are children.

She freezes when the light falls across the face of a young boy.

She recognizes him immediately.

A week ago, his disappearance had dominated the news. His mother had pleaded through tears for whoever took her son to bring him home.

The woman stares at the boy's motionless face.

She knows his mother will never see him alive again.

She quietly climbs out of the cave.

Outside, the entire area is surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Weathered warning signs hang from the posts.

She stares in disbelief.

Someone knew.

Someone knew this thing was here.

And all they did was put up a fence.

She climbs anyway.

At the top, her jacket catches on the razor wire. She yanks it free, throwing it over the sharp metal before swinging herself across.

The wire slices a chunk from her left forearm.

She lands hard on the other side, crying out as blood runs down her forearm.

Tearing a strip from her shirt, she wraps the wound as tightly as she can.

Nearby, she notices the remains of a campsite.

The fire is still smoldering.

The tents have been shredded into ribbons.

Whoever camped here has vannished very recently.

Then a scream erupts behind her.

She turns toward the cave. Through the fence she sees, The same man from earlier.

He staggers out of the entrance, dragging himself across the ground with blood-soaked hands.

For one brief moment, she thinks he might make it out the cave entrance.

Then a claw reaches from the darkness.

It clamps around his ankle and claws dig into his flesh.

His terrified screams echo through the forest as the creature drags him back into the cave.

Part V

 

I left everything on the island and snatched the scarf before
heading for the door. Thoughts ran rampant through my mind as I drove.

My phone rang before I’d left my subdivision. I glanced at the
number and knew this was no good. It was a Colorado area code. Where my
company’s headquarters was. We didn’t have a local HR.

It could have been the executive leadership team but I rarely got
called by any of them. My mind returned to yesterday’s meeting and my lack of
being there. For a moment, I felt like I was in free fall. My personal and
professional lives intertwining in disaster. In moments, I could have nothing.
My wife could already be halfway out the door and this was it slamming behind
her.

I didn’t answer. 

It rang until it went to voicemail. I just couldn’t handle
whatever it was they were about to say.

I was still going the same way, but my final destination had
changed. If my life was going down the drain, there was a scarf that needed to
be wrapped around a certain neck that I wanted to grab on my way.

I parked in the lot and headed away from my building. I glanced at
my watch. Had I just surrendered to my fate and gone in, I would have been ten
minutes early.

I entered his building and headed for the elevator. I had no real
plan, just a ball of self-destruction waiting to explode in someone else’s
direction.

I’d been manipulated, molded into this insecure thing and I meant
to share my pain. I shouted down the rational part of me that pondered what I’d
do if my wife were on the business end of my ire. Rationality would have
required examining what I was doing. 

I didn’t want to think. Thinking wasn’t revenge. Thinking wasn’t
balancing the scales. Thinking was what had gotten me to this moment.

The elevator dinged and I stepped off. There was still plenty of
construction going on. A high-pitched drill zipped somewhere around
the corner. I could hear voices that sounded like they were coming out of the
floor but not close enough to understand them.

This was my first time being here during business hours and all
the construction noise was unsettling. I felt like the floor was going to break
underneath me and I’d plummet all the way to the first floor.

Constant hammer strikes echoed from somewhere near. A man hollered
like he was calling out to someone. A machine I didn’t recognize buzzed and I
felt it all the way up into my shins.

I rounded the corner and spotted his door at the end of the hall.
The construction noises coalesced into a sonic hand, shoving me down the hall.
I stopped in front of the door. It looked properly seated in the frame, the
threshold painted a classy-looking black and gold. The knob had been replaced
with an antique-looking one.

I grasped it and turned. The door swung open easily and I stepped
in a completely finished space. The walls had been painted a shade of mint with
cream crown moulding at the top and a darker shade of wainscoting at the
bottom. To my left was a dark couch so fluffy I don’t think I would have had
the will to get out of it if I sat down. There was a small glass end table with
gold legs with a small stack of magazines on it.

The reception desk had been here the last time I’d come and it
looked more completed now, but I couldn’t tell what had been changed. There was
a large square sheet of white paper on the front of it that I at first thought
was blank, but when I took a couple steps closer, saw a hand drawing of what
looked like a logo.

It looked classy in here. Save for the sheet of paper, it seemed
pretty much done. A wall had been erected near the back where the tape had been
mapping out the space. He was planning to stick around.

My shock from how good it looked in here faded and my rage
resurfaced. I had his scarf clutched in hand and I dug in my pocket for my
wallet and fished out three twenties.

“I’ve got my payment right here,” I said. “And your scarf!” I
shook it in the air.

In my rage very little thought had come into mind. I had no real
expectation he was actually here even though I wanted to lay my hands on him.
The part of actually meeting him wasn’t a real concept. I hadn't thought about
that.

So when he answered, “Come on back?” it chilled me.

I realized how much of a doe I was. How much this space was like a
cave. I’d naively walked in here and hadn’t bothered telling anyone where I was
going. There was an expression for this, but it wasn’t coming to my panicked
brain, shifted into a gear meant only for survival.

I took a step back. Into
him.

“Oh,” I said. He poked me in the neck. I slapped a hand in that
spot like a mosquito had bitten me, turning and backing away from him. I fell
to my knees, not understanding what my body was doing.

I tried to speak but whatever was coming out of my mouth was
muffled, like someone had put their hands over my ears. Saying something seemed
like a good idea in those last seconds, but I had no idea what it should have
been.

 

Part VI

 

The procedure room was a lot more intricately finished than the
waiting room had been. There was silver equipment everywhere, things attached
to the wall that looked like they could fold out for some practical use. There
was a lightbox or monitor that was as tall as a man and stretched across most
of the wall it was on. A nest of lights and metal hung over me that looked like
it had traveled across the galaxy just to watch me.

“You’re awake?” he said, looking over his shoulder. I was upside
down and naked. I looked around as best I could, my head was strapped in place.
He had me trussed up like the Vitruvian Man to a metal and glass circular table.

“Whuh-whuh?” I said, my mouth cotton thick. 

“That’s good. That’s good.” He stepped over and put a finger to my
neck and measured against his watch. “Keep talking. Stimulating the brain helps
to expunge the effects of the sedative.”

Tears leaked from my eyes, retreating into my hair. My arms and
legs were slowly returning to my control but returned me to a state of
helplessness as the straps didn’t budge.

“You muhfugg. Lumme go!” My voice was an octave too deep. He
nodded and twirled an index for me to keep going. I hated not being able to
make words, so I just screamed as loud as I could. He smiled and retreated to a
wall and slapped it a couple times with his big palm.

“Soundproof. Can’t have my patients disturbing other tenants.”

I kept screaming even though I absolutely believed him, the rage
bleeding out of me and despair transfusing into the hollow inside me. He folded
his arms and watched me, waiting for me to be done. I continued helplessly, my
despair waning until there was nothing but wild animal clawing to the surface,
until my eyes were boiling and my throat had constricted around a bindle of
knives.

He waited until I was a quaking sack held together loosely in the
shape of a man, my scream the hollow whistle of an empty kettle, the steam all
burnt out of me.

“Ready?” he said.

 

Part VII

 

He stripped to his underwear. There was something wrong down there
but I only had bandwidth to deal with my problems in that moment.

“Please don’t do this.” My throat felt like I’d swallowed a cheese
grater. I was useless but still grasped a desperate strand of hope that I could
appeal to him man-to-man.

“This is for you,” he said. “I’m not some madman in a secret
laboratory. We’re in midtown and I’m going to extend my services to the
public.” He finished doing something with the tray in front of him and took a
step back over to me. I was eye-level with his bare thighs and he kneeled so we
were face-to-face.

“Don’t you love your wife?”

“Wha?” I felt like I’d been slapped by a thousand-pound feather. “Of
course, I do.” My head cannon was that this was going to be an intricate
murder. That the two of them had conspired to “do away” with me. But by
actually applying thought, I realized if murder was the goal, there was a much
simpler way for them to have done it.

“Wait, the surgery is real?” I asked.

His face screwed up in annoyance. “Of course, it is.” He gestured
all around him. “What are you thinking all this is for?”

“I dunno. I guess... I guess you’re some sort of scammer?”

He blinked several times. He reacted as though he’d never been
confronted by such an idea. “What would be the scam?”

I shrugged to the best of my ability and he shook his head. He
returned to the tray and picked up a long needle and inserted it into a vial,
withdrew from it, and placed both back. He looked at me again and saw my eyes
had grown twice as wide.

“Oh, that’s for me. For later. I’ve been ready, I was just waiting
for you to wake up?”

He picked up a scalpel that was tiny in his big hand. Now he
really did look like a cartoon villain. There was a lack of fullness in his
underwear. Like he’d been drawn sexless.

“Wait-wait. Uh, what were you doing in my house?” I was stalling,
still holding out hope that someone would wander in and put a stop to this.

“Oh, that.” His eyes turned upward as if he were watching a replay
of last night on the ceiling. “I watched you for a minute or two, yes. But I
truly needed to take a measurement after.”

“A... measurement?” My loins tingled in an unpleasant manner. He
waved a hand.

“It’s not what you think. I had to take a measurement of your
wife’s vaginal cavity after the two of you had finished. It was all very
clinical. Like a pap smear.”

Anger bubbled up inside me again. I tugged at my binds but I
wasn’t able to move anything more significant than my fingers and toes. He’d examined
my wife. It burned that he’d had access to her as much as her allowing him to
touch her. I squirmed like my skin was about to crawl off my body.

He looked at me, blank faced, and took another step. Once again, I
noted an emptiness to the area around his crotch.  The heat flooding to
the surface of my skin vanished like a big dog confronted by an even bigger dog.

“Suh-so you didn’t sleep with my wife?” I had to swallow hard to
keep my tone rational.

Now he really did look offended. “Sir, I am a professional? And
moreso, I am a married man. I believe I told you that. This picture you have in
mind of me as some sort of ghoul...” He clawed at the air with both hands, the
scalpel coming as close to his throat as it was going to. “You...” he twirled
the fingers of his free hand, searching for the words. “You score my heart. I
would like to think that once you’ve experienced the results, you will buy me
some sort of beer?”

He took another small step. His leg was about a foot away from my
forehead. He could have reached from where he was and began cutting away at any
part of my body he wanted.

“Could I... could I get a drink of water? My mouth is really dry.”

“Sure.” He reached from where he was and pressed a button on the
wall. The machinery beneath me was whisper silent as I was righted and the
excess blood flooded out of my head.

There was a water dispenser next to the tray where he’d been
working. He slipped a cone paper cup from the sleeve, filled it, then brought
it to me.

Cool water soothed my throat in microscopic sips. He must have
realized my delay tactic and upturned the rest of the water into my mouth. 

I swallowed hard and it felt like a bucket of water tossed on
smoldering embers.

“Will there be a scar?”

“Of course there will be a scar,” he said. “That is the point of
the surgery?”

He picked up something from the tray and reached toward my face
with it in his hand. I pinched my lips closed as he moved toward me, holding it
up like a prize. With the other hand he pressed hard at the back of my jaw,
forcing it open against my will. He slid the thing he held into my mouth,
sliding it over my back teeth until he had reached the last few molars, and
seated it there.

I tried biting through it despite knowing better. I was more
likely to dislocate my jaw. 

“That is okay? Not too uncomfortable? Believe it or not, it
actually helps to blunt the screams.” He seemed genuinely interested in my
answer and I grunted at him in anger. There was something wrong in his mouth I
should’ve seen the first time I talked to him, but I hadn’t noticed it until
just then, and it took a moment to process it. My panic leapt as every muscle
in me tensed, pulling with one last meaningless struggle. He waited me out,
stroking my shoulder until I quieted. He broke me like a wild horse. I was very
aware that he could put whatever in my mouth he wanted.

I felt myself surrendering. A calm settling into my bones that
made me want to rage all over again. But I was a car with no gas, my will being
swallowed up in the acceptance of pointlessness. It wasn’t a fight I could even
begin.

He moved his hand away and the table swiveled. In seconds I was
face down, staring at the floor. My tears tapped to the floor as I stepped out
of the cage of my head, my mind perching and spreading its wings as I imagined
my wife at her desk, inclining her head as she thought of me, too.

“H-how did you become an expert? What makes you so good?” My voice
was dreamy and broken, a thousand and one miles away, my words unclear from the
foreign object keeping my mouth open. 

If I’d asked a minute ago, the question would have been a last
effort to delay him from cutting me. But I was honestly curious. 

“I know I told you before. I practiced on me,” he said
quietly, his tone reverential. I imagined a beatific smile on his face as he
looked someplace else entirely.

“It took months. A little cut here, a partial penectomy there.
Each time I ask her, ‘Is it good? Is it better now?’ And each time, she tells
me, ‘Closer. Closer. Closer.’ You understand.”

He had a note of adoration for his wife in his voice that told me
he was standing on a bedrock of absolute sanity.

I felt the heat of him as he millimetered closer to my junk, no
doubt with that scalpel in his hand. I could feel his bare breath on my scrotum
and realized there must have been some sort of divide in the table between my
legs.

“I thought you said your wife’s satisfied. How do you do that
without... y’know?” My jaw ached when I talked.

He laughed. It was a really joyous note, not like he was just
trying to unsettle me. It wasn’t ironic or evil, rather a true, hearty guffaw.
I imagined seeing all the way to his back teeth as he pitched his head back.

He finally got himself back under control and he might have taken
a moment to dab a tear from his eye.

I’d gotten one last look at him before he turned me over. How he’d
looked down there and what he’d told me... I realized he must’ve whittled
himself down to nothing in his undies. That he truly had crafted himself into
what his wife had requested. That the nothing he seemed to have in his drawers
had been the exact mutilation that she’d wanted.

“It’s okay now?” he said suddenly next to me with a pair of blackout
goggles in his hand. He slipped the strap over my head as I moved as much as I
could but with a few deft movements, he had secured them in place. I could feel
my body surrendering against my will and I no longer had the ability to rally. 

“That wasn’t what she desired from me,” he said after he’d
retreated. I flashed on what I’d seen in his mouth again when his face had been
inches from mine. The thing I couldn’t make sense of before but had heard of. A
surgery of another kind.

He’d split his own tongue in half.

“Not a bit of it,” he said. “You understand?”

“But wait!” I was crying again. “If you need to cut me down there…
why do you have me turned around like this?”

“It’s mostly a single cut. Mostly. But your case is a more
particular situation. It will have to be more… intricate.”

I am proud to say that for the last 6 years, I have been the happy dad of a very handsome Black Lab named Alan.

Alan is a good boy, though when he was younger, he absolutely decimated my old wallet and all of its contents. But after I got my cards replaced alongside a brand new Drivers License (with a selfie that doesn’t make me look like a pervert), it’s been pretty smooth sailing.

I was a cat guy for the longest time, so I was a little adverse to getting a dog. Then, that fateful night, my wife Molly carried a tired little lump with fur the color of a new tire, and I was in love.

He’s been my rotten little man ever since.

Due to a few dog training classes me and my wife attended when he was around a year old, Alan has, for the most part, been very well behaved.

He has good manners, doesn't tear things up in the houses, rarely barks at anyone, not even the mail man.

That being said, the turd has his goofier qualities too.

His asshole smells awful when he eats cheese, has a severe aversion to hats, and acts confused when he catches a cicada in his mouth, even though he had been actively trying to catch it in his mouth only moments earlier.

With a personality like his, he fits right in with me, my wife who taps her fingers when she’s nervous, and our cat Wario who screams and argues when he’s mildly inconvenienced by anything.

Between the two of them, it sometimes feels like we live with 2 needy, dramatic freeloaders, but honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Well, that’s actually not true.

The potty situation.

Wario, being a cat, has his own private bathroom that no one but him can use. Alan, on the other hand, needs to go outside.

In our old place, that was no issue. We would simply leave the doggy door open as we left for work, and our fat-headed son could just roam about as he pleased.

He didn't try to escape, didn’t make a ruckus and disrupt the neighbors. He was a model inside/outside dog. Every week or so, I would go out and collect his poops, and the cycle would repeat.

Things are different now though.

Our apartment doesn’t have a backyard, rather, a communal commons area blanketed by bountiful, green grass. A few picnic tables and a firepit sparse throughout rendered the space a prime choice for a cookout, or just a spot for the children to play.

That is, minus the dog shit.

If you’ve ever lived in a neighborhood, apartment complex, or god forbid near a park, you are probably used to the scene.

A beautiful landscape, begging for visitors to make memories within its visage, only to be adorned with a concerningly large pile of foul-smelling nuggets.

Like improper punctuation in a beautifully written poem. You can maneuver around the blunder, but it’s still noticeable and obnoxious.

Why can’t people just pick up after their damn dogs? It’s a question we’ve all had. Just bring a doggy bag, preferably 2, and wait for the thing to finish its business before cleaning it up.

It’s pretty simple, especially with a conveniently placed trash can right off the edge of the path.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, and a week ago, I went thirsty.

“Aw fuck,” I said out loud as I watched Alan begin to arch his back, his spine tensing as he unloaded for the second time onntje same walk.

“Really dude?”

He avoided eye contact as he lifted his left back leg into the air.

I frowned and reached into my pocket. This was a ritual that I had, unfortunately, come to expect.

3, maybe 4 times a week on our morning walk before I was to head to work, Alan would poop once, walk almost all the way back to our front door, and then poop again.

As such, I had become accustomed to bringing more than one bag with me.

Unfortunately, this morning, I found both of my pockets empty.

“Aw jeez,” I grumbled as I remembered we were almost out of bright pink doggy bags.

Alan finished pooping, and I assessed the situation.

I had woken up late, and didn't have any time to come back and pick up this second pile. To top that off, I didn’t know where I could find another doggy bag. Sure there was probably one stuffed in a junk drawer, and we had a bunch of saved grocery bags.

Looking around, I could see it was still dark, no one else around.

I had never left his poop behind before, but so many others just left their dogs shit every day.

Would it really be so bad, just this once?

As I unclipped Alan’s leash from his collar and grabbed my work bag off the counter, I decided that I would find a bag, and pick up Alan’s poop when I got home.

Work was the top priority, dog poop was much further down on that list.

9 hours later, I used a spare dog bag kept in my jacket pocket from a morning I had overestimated how much Alan would poop.

I came back to the spot from earlier, now illuminated by the sun, but to my surprise, the pile was gone. I knew I hadn’t just overlooked the pile, because it had been right beside the sidewalk.

Impossible to miss.

With a shrug, I assumed a good samaritan had just taken it upon themselves to help a stranger out.

I ate dinner with Molly, watched a few episodes of House, and walked Alan before bed. On this trip, I did pick up his (unfortunately watery) poop.

As we approached the front door again, I noticed a small shape that had not been there when we had first come outside only minutes earlier.

A dark green poo bag was set carefully on my welcome mat, top tied into a pretty little bow. Alan sniffed the package, and I picked up a small, handwritten note that had been set beside it.

“Please remember to pick up your pet’s excretions for the foreseeable future. Thank you.”

I scoffed.

It’s not really a kind act when you hand the recipient a bag of shit.

Why would someone do that? Some stranger. Better yet, a neighbor slinking around in the night.

A pair of pajama shorts slipped over my knees as I pondered.

Everyone else in our apartment complex seemed to leave their shit lying about. Why was it only a problem when I did it?

Molly shimmied her hips to move into a little spoon position and I tried to banish the thoughts from my head.

Just a weird, one off experience, I thought.

Nothing to worry about.

For weeks, nothing else happened. I continued to use accumulated grocery bags until one of us found a new roll of poo bags while cleaning under the bed.

It was like a gift from god, further allowing us time to procrastinate before we bought a new pack of dog bag rolls.

The chill times stayed chill until one night when Alan nuzzled at my feet, signaling that he needed a late night potty session.

Groggily, I swung my feet out of bed, slipped on a pair of Shrek house slippers, and grabbed a doggy bag on our way out the door.

My sweet idiot pissed, walked a little further up the path, pooped, and I bent over to grab the pile.

Just out of my periphery, I saw Alan scrunch up, and I knew what he was doing.

I sighed.

Exhausted, I knew I was gonna have to be up for work in a few hours. I did not have the energy to walk in, grab another bag, and walk all the way back out here.

I would pretend I hadn’t seen a thing, and when I took him out in the morning, I would bring an extra bag to clean up this bonus poo pile.

It would only be my second time in over a week, after all.

After surveying my surroundings to make absolutely sure I wasn’t being watched, I just threw away my full bag and walked Alan back into the house.

The next morning, when I opened my front door, a pile of shit sat directly where I was about to take my first step.

I stumbled, nearly tripping into the greenish molehill of filth.

“Ew!” I exclaimed.

I stared down at the pile as Alan stood in between my legs, confused.

After a moment of studying the turds, I could see finger marks where somebody had firmly grasped the clump, theoretically to carry it from the grass to my front door.

Carefully, I picked up the mess with a doggy bag, only to discover a message under it, adorned with a green smear upon its white visage.

It read, “I know you saw Alan leave this. Why didn’t you come back?”

I was thoroughly shook by now.

Not enough to voice my concerns to Molly, but enough that she could tell I was concerned. She asked what was up, but I assured her I was fine, it was just something from work.

“You sure?” She asked at the kitchen counter, pouring creamer into my coffee mug.

“Yeah baby, it’s just… something to do with the new job, that's all.”

Her fingernails tapped the countertop as she gave me a worried look.

“Okay Chet, I believe you. Please have a good day, I love you very much.”

With a kiss, I was out the door.

As I drove to the job site that morning, a series of questions flashed across my mind:

“How did they know it was me?”

“How did they know which door was ours?”

“How did they know Alan’s name?”

I considered the possibility of a ring camera, or just a creep watching us through their window.

But why would they have been up so early? Or so late, if you’d rather.

Why did me and Alan matter so much more than all the others that made it a point to never pick up after their dogs?

I made sure to diligently pick up after Alan every time after that. Morning, afternoon, night, it didn’t matter the setting, it didn’t matter the occasion.

If Alan was pooping, I was picking it up.

Weeks went by, then months. I got a promotion at work, Molly changed shifts so she worked a little later than me, Alan’s birthday came and went, and Wario got his testicles stolen by the vet, much to his astonishment.

I became a machine, a beast. A poop picking savant.

I made a chore look like a ranked sport, and baby, I was #1.

Then, a week ago, during Christmas break, Molly gave me a drunken confession.

“Chett, you know how I started taking poop duty in the morning after I started working later?”

I looked at her and smirked, “heh, you said ‘poop doody.’”

“Chett,” she giggled, her face turning red, “c’mon, I’m serious.”

I took another sip of wine, spreading my toes in front of our little space heater as I tried to ground myself, “yeah, I remember, you told me it was so I could wake up later instead of taking Alan out before work.”

Molly swished her wine around in its glass.

“Look, I know you pick on me because I never wanna put my shopping cart up-” she slurred.

“Yeah,” I interrupted, trying not to sound too harsh, “I mean, it’s not the worst thing in the world to leave your shopping cart out, but it’s like, the one thing that everyone socially shames everyone else into doing, because there’s not a really a reason not to do it unless it’s an emergency.”

I took another sip of my wine, “it’s kinda like wiping the toilet seat after using it.”

Molly snorted, “aw c’mon, it’s not like wiping the toilet seat down, no one can see you do that. Everyone can see you if you leave your cart behind!”

“Even more the reason to do it,” I finished with a smirk.

She rolled her eyes, “look Chet, the point is…” she bit her lip and looked down at her fidgeting hands.

The sound of her finger tapping the rim sobered me up.

“What’s wrong Molly?”

“I… uh, well. There were a few days where, um, I forgot to pick up the poop.”

Stomach acid began bubbling up my throat.

“What?” I asked, my tone suddenly hard.

Molly heard it, and became more reserved.

“Sorry baby, I’m just…” I rubbed her knee. She was clearly spooked, but I couldn’t tell if it was by me or something else.

“I just wanna make sure you’re okay, what happened?”

Molly’s eyes met mine.

“I didn’t mean to. Well, I guess I kind of did. It’s just that, usually you walk the dog, and you’re so good at it, but I get impatient and I have things to do, so there were a few days where…”

Alan slid his wet nose under her hand, instantly sending waves of comfort through her body that met my hand on her knee. Instantly I felt her intense.

“How many?” I asked.

“What?”

“How many days did you forget to bring in his poop?”

Molly pondered for a second, “I think 4 days over the course of 2 weeks.”

She looked back at me, “yeah, that sounds about right, 4 times.”

I leaned back.

“And they ended up on our porch, didn’t they?”

When those words left my mouth, she just looked at me, confused.

“What? No, I… the porch?” Molly asked, clearly thrown off by my statement.

“Oh?” I asked, equally as confused, “then what happened, why are you so freaked out?”

She composed herself a little before she continued, “well, I’d leave the poop, and since it’s winter, they don't really do any landscaping, so the maintenance guys don't pick up the poop, so the individual piles-”

At this, she motioned 4 different spots spread out from each other, “just kind of sat there and dried out in the sun.”

“And you never picked them up?”

“No,” she admitted, “the drier they got, the grosser they got, so I just left them. Then, one day, I came out, and they were just gone.”

“Gone?” My voice had gone from hard to perplexed.

“Yeah,” she nodded, “but just Alan’s poop, not anyone else’s.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah,” her fingers resumed tapping, “real weird. What was weirder though, was…”

Molly seemed to get even more agitated, her demeanor no longer tipsy, rather sullen. She looked like she was on the verge of tears.

“Molly?” I hazarded.

“Sorry, it’s just,” she chuckled humorlessly, “it’s so ridiculous, I don’t even really know why I’m scared. I guess it’s just… uh, the implication?”

She shook her head and set down her wine glass.

“Okay, where all Alan’s poop piles had been, they were replaced with 4 little notes. Each note had a message on both sides.”

“Oh,” I grimaced, “the notes. Okay. What did they say?”

Molly’s eyes seemed both deeply fearful and equally confused, “uh, they all said the same thing. One side said, ‘I warned you’ and the other said, ‘the poop man will see you soon’ followed by our address.”

I stood up so quickly that my chair exclaimed its disapproval

“Our address?!” I hollered.

“Yes Chet, our address,” Molly cried.

“Baby, that’s serious!” I couldn’t contain my nervousness, I began pacing, “we should have gone to the police!”

“Well baby, I didn’t-” Molly began to retort, but cut herself short, “I mean, I knew it was serious, but poop man? What cop would actually listen to me?”

I cupped my face in my hands. She was right, the odds of someone actually doing something was low, and to be fair, of course the culprit knew our address.

“Fuck Molly, do you at least have the notes?”

She shook her head, “no, they were gone by the time I got back outside. Whoever put them there watched me read them, which freaked me out even worse.”

We embraced, her crying, me trying to calm us both down.

“I mean, what the fuck? Who does something like that?” She reasoned.

“I know, it’s weirdo shit,” I whispered, rubbing her back, “fucking weird. I’m sorry Molly.”

“No,” Molly sniffled, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

Just as we were about to embrace again, Alan shot up with a growl, the hair on his back standing on edge. Both me and Molly snapped our necks to look at him.

“Alan? What’s wrong boy?” Molly asked.

No sooner did the words leave her lips when our front door knock.

Molly yipped in surprise as 6 distinct knocks rang out across our house.

We looked at each other, eyes wide. I glanced at the clock.

11:47 PM. Who could be visiting at this hour?

“Hello?” I shouted.

Silence met my demand.

“Hello?! Who’s there?”

Still, nothing.

We all waited a beat. Our house was silent, aside from Alan’s guttural protests.

“What’s going on?” Molly mouthed to me.

When I parted my lips to speak, an explosion like a battering ram rattled the house.

Something was on my porch, and it had just smashed into my front door.

I ran towards the source of the noise.

“Slam!”

Another tremble like an earthquake. I felt it resound through the floorboards. Whoever had done that, they were big and heavy.

“I have I gun!” I lied, approaching the deadlocked entrance, “And I will shoot you through this door!”

My legs shook and my voice broke. I couldn’t have sounded less threatening if I tried.

After 2 more good slams, I heard the sound of lumbering footsteps as something shuffled off.

I waited, cowering, by the door for an eternal 2 minutes. Every heartbeat felt as though my arteries would force my heart into my throat, every breath felt labored and shaky.

I was terrified that this was some sort of trick. That it was still standing there, just waiting for me to open the door.

After those 2 minutes, I finally stood to my full height. Intruder or not, I was gonna open that door, armed with nothing more than a heavy curtain rod.

The wooden door creaked open.

The smell hit me first. Like a jug of ammonia and death. Sickness distilled down to its purest form. Rot.

My entire front door was smeared in shit. The welcome mat was covered in a thick layer of brown sludge that threatened to harden in the cold night air.

Our wreath looked like a brown glazed doughnut with bits of tinsel poking out.

The steps leading up the the door looked as though someone had projectile diarrhea’d all the way up them.

“Chet? Baby, who was it?”

I was taken aback, utterly speechless. I didn’t want to comprehend what I was looking at. It was beyond upsetting, I was furiously distraught, such that my arms and legs were shaking.

From fear or fury, I couldn’t tell which.

“Oh my god, Chet, what is that smell?” Molly gagged from the living room.

And you know what, the poop wasn’t even the worst part.

See, I could see shapes smeared in it. Defined outlines and suggestions. A frowning face with tiny teeth and defined gums, arms with too many fingers and tiny little palms, legs with joints in places I’d never seen before. No clothes.

Like a septic tank snow angel in the nude..

The smell, the sight, it was all so overwhelming, I couldn’t have thrown up if I wanted to. All of my orifices wanted to close, hell, I wanted them to as well.

Just as I took it all in, I glanced at my feet. Right in the middle of my ruined welcome mat was a note.

“this is your last warning”

A tear fell onto it from my eye. The ink was still so fresh that my teardrop warped the “i” in “warning”.

I stepped back, closed my door, and called 9-1-1.

The cops arrived, but by the time they did, the note was gone. They took a look at the mess and gave us the numbers of a few crime scene cleanup businesses in our area, and took our statements.

We told them everything we knew, but since we had so little actual evidence to go off of, all they could really do was keep an eye out.

The silhouette left behind by the culprit in the mural stumped the cops too, but they chalked it up to inaccurate smears that didn’t accurately reflect the artist.

The welcome mat went straight in the dumpster, and within a week, the front porch was spotless again. Good as new, except for the lingering afterscent.

Me and Molly both notice it, but neither of us wants to mention it. I think if we do, it’ll be harder to forget about.

Instead, we just leave candles and febreeze near our front door.

Neither of us have missed a poop since. We notice the other tennants who leave theirs, but fuck those guys, not my problem.

I don’t wanna consider the mechanics, I don’t wanna remember the details, I know the rules, and that’s that.

I just wanna go back to when I was blissful and ignorant. Back when I was someone who could say that they’d always picked up their dog’s shit.

Alan is almost back to normal, but I think he remembers. I think he knows just as much as we do.

“Poop man” is never a set of words that should ever be used beside each other in any regard. They should be kinda cringe at most, completely absurd at least.

The only reason I'm even typing my experience here, is so you don't have to go through what I did.

Don’t leave your poo out. Bring a bag, pick it up, throw it away.

Or don’t. Clearly, this thing don’t visit everyone.

If you’re someone who actually contributes to society and cleans up after their pets, pat yourself on the back and keep it up. You’re doing God's work.

Whatever you do, don’t slip up. Don’t listen to that voice that says, “ugh, my arms are tired. I’ll just leave it this one time.”

The risk is not worth it. Believe me.

No one wants a visit from the poop man.

Hello, this is Captain Elijah Pinewood of the Valicity interstellar spacecraft. I am certain that this will be the last message. I fear that our mission has been compromised and none of us will ever see our families again. To my two beautiful daughters, Gwen and Ana. You have made me so proud, my biggest regret in life is that I will be unable to see you grow up. To my wife Judy, I am so sorry that I accepted the offer to lead this mission. 

It was my final attempt to gain some personal glory, motivated by my hunger to know what exists within the vastness of space beyond our galaxy. A desire that I deeply wish I would have left unsatisfied. I have been such a damn fool. I had dedicated my entire life to finding a new world. It seems that in my ambition I had become blind to the fact I had already found my entire world years ago. She was home, lying next to me in bed at night.

I am aware that my final words to my family are of little interest to whichever member of the control room staff reads this message. But that is not the only purpose of my message. I have some deeply troubling news regarding the planet we were sent to explore.  

We found it. 

We were roughly eight weeks into our journey. It seemed as if our navigation system was leading us to absolutely nothing. The crew was beginning to lose hope that we would even find the planet at all. There was talk of turning back and returning home to earth but I managed to keep our mission on track. I now know that my refusal to go home empty handed has cost the lives of the men who were unlucky enough to be under my command. For that I will never forgive myself. 

I soon considered returning home myself until I heard that voice. That damn voice. It was the most perfect voice I had ever heard in my life. It was as if every syllable that it graced my ears with was a masterfully written song. I couldn’t possibly fathom the perfection that must have been the creature possessing that voice. It felt as if each word tickled my skull and tenderly massaged the pleasure center of my brain. 

I would have thought myself crazy had I been alone. But the entire crew heard the same as I had. That voice soon became our guide. We turned the navigation system off entirely and used the symphony of words to lead the way to our destination. Our path was so clear now, as I steered the ship I couldn’t help but laugh. I couldn’t believe that we were so hopelessly unable to find our way before when now it couldn’t be more clear unless there was a literal trail in front of our eyes. 

By the time the planet came into our view two of my crewmates had already begun planning a life based around never leaving whatever beautiful creature this voice belonged to. I hate to admit it but I understood their fantasies. The guilt overwhelms me now but by the time the ship finally landed on the planet's surface I couldn’t even remember my wife’s name, no matter how hard I tried. I didn’t need to though, I had the voice. 

The door to the Valicity opened and we all walked off of the ship without even putting on our helmets. We strangely knew that we had no need for them here. 

Upon stepping off the ship we were greeted by fields of vibrant green grass and tall trees abundant with unfamiliar fruits. My second in command, Scott had ventured over to a pile of smooth teal boulders with bright green vines cascaded over top of them. He picked an orange berry from the vine and immediately took a bite. 

We all watched as he suddenly fell to his knees. Tears ran down his face as we all ran over to him. As we got closer we realized he was not in pain, but actually his body was overcome with pure ecstasy. As we helped him back to his feet he told us that we must all try the fruits of the vine. Upon his recommendation we did. The second the fruit touched my lips it was like nothing I had ever felt before. The juice ran down our faces as we desperately picked every last fruit from the vines. 

Soon the vines were barren but we needed more. We soon turned our attention to the tall trees covered in hanging fruit. We were ravenous, our hunger unmatched as we desperately climbed with no concern of falling. We were logical men, but that felt like a lifetime ago now. At that moment none of us could even recall why we were on another planet, it did not matter to us anymore.

The trees did unfortunately prove to be fatal for our navigator. TJ became inpatient and decided to take a bite of the fruits of his tree instead of waiting until after he climbed down like we had. In his desperation to devour the fruit he accidentally let go of the tree and fell at least twenty feet to the ground. The soft grass did him no favors as his head collided with the hard ground underneath. I’m ashamed to admit that we were too busy with our own pursuits of the fruit and not a single one of us even acknowledged his gruesome demise.  

It seemed as if our self control melted away, it could no longer stop us until this entire planet was consumed. Soon I found that I could no longer stand on my own two feet. I stumbled drunken with delight across the field until I no longer could. That was when I fell face first into a river of crystal clear water. As I landed the water had filled my mouth, my nose. It tasted sweet like honey and it was strangely warm as if heated to exactly the same temperature of my body. 

I almost didn’t surface, I didn’t want to. In my mind there was nothing that would be better than staying submerged in the river until the day I died. Nothing, except for the fruit. 

By the time I had pulled myself up and returned to my crew though, the fruit was all gone. As I made my way closer I noticed that the youngest member of our team, Rudy was lying in the soft field. The other two members of the crew, Scott and Benjamin knelt over him. 

As I got closer I realized that they were not just kneeling over him but Scott was cutting into his stomach with a pocket knife. “What are you doing?” I screamed as Rudy screamed in pain. Scott turned to look at him and sounded hysterical. “W-w-we ran out of fruit, captain. We ran out of fruit” he muttered back like he had suffered a great tragedy. He turned back at Rudy’s body and said “We needed more, Rudy ate the most”. He said with an obsessed smile plastered upon his face. Benjamin licked his lips as he eagerly looked at Rudy. “We need more, boss. I won’t live without ever tasting it again, I’d rather die” he pleaded to me. 

I was horrified, but I agreed with him. In my mind I knew we were wrong, the acts we were committing were unnatural, but my mind no longer had any say in my actions. Soon I found myself knelt over Rudy as well. We were all savagely fighting over what fruit we could salvage from our fallen teammate. As we finished we stood up and based on the unsettling looks we exchanged I could tell we were all thinking the same thing. “Who’s next”. It was never ending, the more we consumed the more we needed. Every bite of fruit made us feel more alive than we’ve ever been before but the effects soon wore off and left us as empty husks of ourselves. We needed more. If we had to choose between taking a breath and consuming more I know that we would all gladly suffocate. 

I think we were all looking each other up and down trying to decide who would be the easiest to overpower. We all knew it was Scott, he was by far the oldest member of our crew. Benjamin and I were both younger and relatively in shape, it would have been so easy. It was a horrible thought to have, I had known Scott for thirty years. He was like a second father to me and I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not yet at least. Within moments Benjamin was on the ground, he put up a struggle but it was not enough to save him. 

By the time we had finished Scott and I would not take our eyes off of each other. When I looked into his eyes, I knew that he wanted to kill me. I had momentarily feelings of sadness at this fact but I could not blame him for this desire. In fact, I wanted to do the exact same thing to him. 

It never came to that though. Before either of us could make any move towards the other we heard it again. That sweet sweet voice was back once again to give us guidance. Scott dropped his knife on the grass but I knew that I still had mine in case he tried anything on the walk down the river bank. It wasn’t until the voice returned that I had realized how much I missed it. I was addicted to the sweet sounds of it calling us to it. 

As we got closer to its source I was overcome with conflicting emotions. I love this voice so much more than I could ever fathom loving anything else and yet the voice also filled me with rage because of how long it waited to reveal itself to us. I could make out a figure in front of us now. Our walk soon became a desperate sprint to meet it. 

We stopped about ten feet from the figure as it continued serenading us with its sweet angelic voice. We both stood in absolute silence for what felt like years simply taking in the beauty of the otherworldly creature that stands before us. 

It was absolutely breathtaking, the figure before us resembled a woman with pale purple skin except that it was far more perfect than any human could ever be. Its entire body was surrounded by a bright glow that nearly blinded us. The figure which stood at least a head taller than either of us and as it turned towards me. I couldn't help but study every detail of it. Its smooth, unblemished face. Its full lips, which were such a deep shade of purple that they appeared black until closer inspection. Its soulful eyes which were entirely black except for its light pink pupils gave us a sincere and welcoming look. 

I was completely motionless as it approached us. Our mission, our dead crewmates, hell, even my own name was completely meaningless to me at that moment. It all felt fake, but the figure in front of us, it was real. Just being in the presence of such a flawless creature was enough to fill me with more joy than I could ever hope to experience in ten lifetimes on earth. 

As it got within reach of us the figure turned towards Scott and laid a kiss upon his lips. Once  the figure finally pulled its face away Scott began to sob, begging it to return to him. The creature gave him a soft smile as it wrapped its delicate hands around his shoulders.

The entrancing song that the figure was gracing our ears with was now at its climax as it laid its own forehead against Scott’s. He could barely even speak but he managed to get out the words “I am yours”. 

I couldn’t look away as the figure's grip on Scott’s shoulders seemed to no longer be the loving embrace that it was before. No, the grip was getting tighter, and tighter, and tighter, until I could hear the laboured gasps of air as Scott attempted to take a desperate breath. It was like watching a boa constrictor squeeze the life out of its prey. 

The song was now joined by the sounds of Scott’s ribs shattering and his agonizing screams as he now attempts to break free from his captor. I can only stand by and watch as Scott’s life was taken from his body. I don’t think that I could’ve moved even if I wanted to. I was so captivated by the figure that the thought of trying to help Scott never entered my head. 

Scott’s hands finally went limp, his final attempt at self preservation has proven to be futile. By now the once beautiful hum that had been emitting from the figure was now so deafeningly loud that it caused me great pain just to listen to it. Even with the immense pain I still never once took my eyes off of the being that stood before me. How could I? This figure is my life now, my heart beats for the soul purpose of keeping me alive so that I may gaze upon it. 

It wasn’t long before my second in command’s body dropped into the grass. A look of horror was permanently plastered on his face and his skin was pale as if all of his blood was drained from his body. Only now does the figure turn to me. It brushes its blood splattered hair out of its face and rubs its hands across its body as if to soak up every last drop of blood before licking the red off its fingers. 

The song finally stopped. Silence now filled the air as I could do nothing but watch as the creature continued to lick its arms and fingers. I cannot make myself look away but now my trance was due to fear instead of infatuation. It seemed the creature no longer cared to deceive me as it began to reveal its true form. 

Its hair fell off of its scalp in clumps while its neck seemed to disappear as its head sunk into its shoulders. Rough bumps appear over the entire surface of the creature's skin and begin to secrete a white pus as they swell and burst. Its body melts into a grotesque shape that only grows more sickening the longer I watch. 

As the illusion wore off I could no longer comprehend what stood before me. The figure standing in front of me was now entirely unrecognizable, its once feminine features completely gone. Replaced by an amalgamation of flesh, eyes, and fangs that seemed to take no form in particular. 

This being had no legs to walk on yet its appendages worked in perfect harmony to move its body closer towards me. Its long tentacles lifted the mass off the ground as its thin arms dragged its body forward leaving a trail of sticky pus behind as it advanced. 

Finally I look back to see our ship roughly sixty feet away. The once green fields around it were now an ocean of wilted black weeds that crumbled under the weight of my feet. The fruit trees were completely devoid of life. I now see this damned planet for what it is for the first time since we arrived. What a fool I have been to fall for this ruse, but I had no time to dwell on that now. I have one focus and one focus only now. Escape. 

I kept my hand in the pocket of my spacesuit and ran my fingers across the handle of my knife. The disgusting creature closed the distance between us and as soon as it came within arms reach I knew this was my only chance. I quickly pulled out the knife and drove it into the creature's eye so deep that my hand rubbed against its hideous face. It let out a pained shriek as it desperately flailed its body around while digging into its own face attempting to remove the blade. 

I turned around and ran quicker than I thought was possible towards the ship. I made it about halfway when I heard the creature behind me gaining speed. It was unsettling to see something so unnatural propelling itself towards me with such speed. By the time I made it through the door of the ship the hideous figure was already on the other side of the door trying to force its way inside. 

As I type this message I can hear the metal of the ship bend and the glass windows slowly cracking. It has wrapped its body around the ship and is now beginning to squeeze. I know that I don’t have much time left until it crushes me in a paste inside my own ship. I pray that I can get my message to the team back home before my gruesome demise. 

Please for the love of god do not send a recovery team for our bodies. If you do, you will accomplish nothing except delivering a meal to this creature. If it were up to me I would never authorize a mission outside of our galaxy ever again. Alas I know that it is not. I know we will not be the last crew to explore this far into space but I beg you to heed my warning. 

No matter what you hear, no matter how enticing  they may sound, you must not allow the sweet siren songs of planet BH-592X to be your guide. 

Now's the time to get on board if you haven't been reading. The last 3 parts will go live tomorrow afternoon. You can either start here or pick up from the last part here.

I’m closing up for the night when I get the call: Aunt Cynthia’s been in a car accident, a bad one.  Her back’s broken.  Uncle Dan’s disabled too, so he’s reluctantly asking everyone in the family to come out and help if they can.

I can.  The next day I cash in my vacation time, load up my head-turning 2009 Chevy Impala, and hit the road on a cross-country trip from New Hampshire to Uncle Dan’s place out near Vegas.  I don’t like flying.

The four guys in the black Nissan corner me at a rest stop just outside Iowa City. 

I’m heading back from the bathroom and focusing mostly on how good it feels to move my legs around, so I don’t really notice anything untoward about the black Rogue parked next to my Impala.  As I cross in front of their windshield, all four doors open and a quartet of young guys about my age step out.

“Hey, man,” says the driver, who’s looking sharp in a leather hat and a T-shirt that says MY ISSUES HAVE ISSUES.  He nods at the Impala.  “You got the V-8 in that?”

His friends on the passenger side both slam their doors shut and peer through the Impala’s windows, like they might see the engine in there if they look hard enough.  Neither one seems interested in getting out of my way. 

“Uh, nope.”  The hair on the back of my neck is starting to stand up.  “Just the six, I’m afraid.”

The leader grins and slams his door shut, too.  His right hand is hidden in his pocket.  “Well, hey,” he says.  “Gotta make do, right?  I’m guessing it gets pretty good gas mileage, huh, boys?”

“Oh, yeah,” says the guy looking into my driver’s window.  “Bet you could drive this baby all night.”

I glance around.  The parking lot is empty except for us.  The traffic on the highway seems far, far away.  “It’s great to meet you,” I lie.  “But I got a long drive ahead.  If you’ll excuse me – ”

The leader grins wider.  “I hear ya, man.  But, you know, it might not be as long as you think.  Life’s funny like that, right, boys?”

“Oh, yeah,” says the guy behind him.  “Sometimes I just laugh and laugh.”

“You gotta,” the leader agrees.  “You gotta.  What I’m saying, man, is – ”

A battleship-gray Tahoe bearing the black-on-yellow shield of the Iowa State Patrol shoots down the exit ramp and pulls into one of the nearby spaces, and I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in all my life.  The leader clocks it and whistles through his teeth.  His friends back up a step. 

I walk around to the passenger side of the Impala, unlock the door, and slide across the bench seat.  By the time I have the engine running, the four guys are ambling off in the direction of the men’s room while a blonde lady officer in mirror shades steps out of the Tahoe and watches them go. 

Once I’m on the entrance ramp I hit the gas hard, change lanes, and get myself lost in the westbound traffic as fast as I can.  Then I remember to breathe.

It’s done, I tell myself.  They’re behind me now.  And that’s exactly where I want them.

---

I stop for the night a couple of hours later, well past Des Moines.  There’s a truck stop and diner across the street from the hotel, and I stretch my legs with a quick walk over for dinner. 

The place is middlin’ busy, and it’s nice to hear the murmur of conversation as I take a seat at the counter next to a grizzled old guy with a gray handlebar moustache.  The counterman pours coffee, and the Iowa City guys recede even further into the rearview mirror.  I sip and listen, and the tension of the day starts to drain out of my muscles.

A massive guy in cowboy boots and a battered Orioles cap bellies up to the counter on my right.  “Hey, Big Al!” says the counterman.  “Lemme get that for ya.”  He pours coffee.  “How’s life on the trail?” 

Big Al takes his cap off and works the bill between his hands.  I don’t know the guy, but I can see something’s not right.  He looks like I probably looked just before that ISP lady pulled up.  The counterman notices this too, and he peers closer.  “Hey!  You okay there, buddy?”

Big Al rubs his chin.  “I dunno.  I mean, yeah.  I saw something kinda funny, that’s all.  Can’t seem to shake it, I guess.”  He shrugs.  “Probably nothing.”

The counterman shakes his head.  “Buddy.  You can’t wind me up like that and then say it’s probably nothing.  Spit it out and the coffee’s on the house.”

Big Al mangles his cap a bit more, then shrugs and sets it on the counter.  I get the feeling he’s looking for an excuse to get whatever this is off his chest, and here’s one as good as any.  “Okay, Ray,” he says.  “I’ll hold you to it.” 

He blows out air and thinks for a minute.  “So I’m stopped for dinner just outside Omaha.  Jerry’s Joint.  You know it?”  Ray shakes his head.  “Doesn’t matter,” says Big Al.  “Good place, good people.  Never had any trouble before.  So tonight I’m having my coffee and this kid busts in.”  He takes a sip.  “You ever read any Mark Twain, Ray?  Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, any of those?”

“Uh, sure,” says Ray.  “Rafting down the mighty Mississip and all that, right?”

“Yeah, exactly.  So this kid’s dressed like he stepped right outta one of those books. Straw hat, no shoes, dirty clothes that look like they came outta a museum or something. His feet are all covered in mud.  And he heads straight for my table.”

At this point I’ve given up on politely pretending not to listen, and so has the handlebar moustache guy on my left.  We’re both hanging on every word, and the moustache guy’s eyes are narrowed as if he doesn’t like what he’s hearing.  Big Al hesitates, and Ray gives him an encouraging nod.

“He looks me straight in the eye,” says Big Al.  “And he starts to talk.  ‘Something’s hootin’ out there, mister!’”  Big Al sort of does the accent: an exaggerated down-home Mississippi drawl.  “’You gotta come see!  I think it might be an owl or somethin’, mister!  C’mon, mister, you gotta see the hootin’!’”

Ray tries to repress a snort and fails.  “Seriously?”

“Honest to God,” says Big Al.  “And so now I’m thinking, maybe this kid’s got special needs or something, and I gotta be real gentle with him.  But he don’t feel like that.”  I feel a chill at that, and even Ray’s face turns serious.  “I don’t know why.  Something about his eyes, maybe.  I’m not sure.  But the folks at the other tables are looking over at us like they feel it too, so I know it ain’t just me.  And I decide I ain’t gonna go.”

Big Al picks up his cup, but his hand shakes and he puts it down again.  “And while I’m deciding, he’s still talking: ‘C’mon, mister, you’re gonna miss the hootin’!  I think it’s an owl or somethin’, mister, honest I do!  You gotta see this hootin’, mister!’  But when I open my mouth to tell him no, he just stops.  All of a sudden.  And now he’s just looking at me, seeing what I’m gonna say.  And I can’t make the words come out.”

He clears his throat.  “Luckily Janice comes over then.  The waitress.  Good lady.  She asks where his mom and dad are, and the kid just books it.  Runs down the aisle and out the doors to the parking lot without another word.  Slams the door open as he goes, and everyone jumps.  Only here’s the thing.”  Big Al tries another sip of coffee, and this time he makes it.  “I’m sitting next to the window, and I look out there as he goes.  And I don’t see him out in the parking lot.”

He drains the rest of his coffee, and Ray pours him more without saying a word.  “So I get up to look,” says Big Al.  “I go to the doors and I poke my head out.  I still don’t see the kid.  But there’s something else out there I didn’t see through the window.”

This time there’s a long, long pause.  “What was it?” asks the handlebar moustache guy.  His voice is low and smooth, like tobacco smoke, and as he speaks I get a funny feeling: he already knows.

“There was this truck,” Big Al says at last.  He looks out at the darkening sky.  “Rusty old thing.  Looked at least seventy, maybe eighty years old.  Both the headlights punched out, and the sockets just dead and black and empty.  Wasn’t lit up, not at all.” 

In the back, someone drops a plate, and we all flinch.  “It’s pulling this diseased-looking trailer, and it’s all covered with graffiti.  I remember one of the tags says “We got MR STENCH here!”, and it’s got an arrow pointing down, like MR STENCH is hiding under the trailer.  And it’s just pulling out of the parking lot.  Something seems wrong about it, and it takes me a minute to figure it out: no engine noise.  None at all.  Just the wind and the tires crunching on the gravel.” 

He puts his cap back on.  “And then when I poke my head out it stops, and it starts to back up.  It backs under one of the lights, and it looks to me like the wheels ain’t turning right.  You know on TV, when it looks like they’re spinning backwards?  It looks like that.”

He sits for a long time, and we sit with him.  At last he drinks more coffee.  “So I duck right back inside.  I wait for an hour, and then I go.  Don’t see the truck again.  And so now I’m here drinking your coffee instead of Jerry’s.” 

There’s a beat, and then Ray busts out laughing.  “You sly old dog!” he yells.  “You had me going there, you really did.  Go on, drink up.”  He fills Big Al’s coffee to the brim.  “I guess you earned it.  You sly old dog.”  He walks off shaking his head.

Big Al slumps in his seat.  He looks at his coffee and he shakes his head.

The handlebar moustache guy leans over and claps Big Al on the shoulder.  Big Al looks at him, startled. 

“I believe you,” the guy says.  He sticks out a hand.  “Ben.”

Big Al blinks, then takes the hand and shakes.  “Al.  You mean you…” he trails off.

Ben nods. “I mean I think you made a real good choice.  And I think maybe you want to keep driving tonight.  Just for a bit.”  He thinks for a moment.  “You know the Court Jester?  Just past Des Moines?  They’ll fix you up a great steak.  Tell ‘em Ben sent you.”  He glances over his shoulder; Ray is taking a customer’s order at the far end of the bar.  “But you don’t wanna eat here.  Not tonight.”

Big Al thinks for a minute.  Then he gets up, tosses a couple bills on the counter, and shakes hands again.  “Thanks, Ben. Your coffee’s on me.  Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“I hope so,” says Ben.  Big Al nods and heads for the door.

Ben takes charge of the bills and lays them neatly on the counter beside his coffee cup.  Ray comes back, and Ben orders a steak.  I say I need a minute. 

When Ray’s gone, I turn to Ben.  “Should, uh, should we be leaving too?”  I want to ask more, but I’m not sure how to put it.

Ben smiles and shakes his head.  “Nah.  It’s a good place.  Even Ray’s a decent enough guy, really.  Bad listener, but what can you do?”  He sips.  “I been out here a long time, though, and I thought Al might be more comfortable somewhere else tonight. That’s all.  You’ll be fine.  Just – ”  He stops and shrugs. “You’ll be fine.”

I think about that.  “I’m Tim,” I say at last.  “And it’s none of my business, but – ”

“Good to meet you, Tim.”  Ben’s handshake is firm and confident.  “No, you got a right to ask, after listening to all that.  Order up and we’ll talk.”  I catch Ray’s eye and put in an order for a delightful breakfast-dinner.  Meanwhile Ben is glancing around the bar, and his gaze lingers on a man sitting alone in a corner booth. 

The guy is fiftyish, graying, dressed like a trucker – or almost like a trucker.  Something’s off, and after squinting for a moment I decide it’s that his clothes are too new.  His Caterpillar cap is stiff and shiny, and the bill is too straight for his head.  He looks like a guy who got drafted to play a trucker in some sort of theater production, and ran out of time to put the finishing touches on his costume.

“That’s Walter.”  Ben pitches his voice low.  “He’s waiting to meet someone.” 

“Oh, yeah?”  I don’t want to pry.

“Yeah.  Guy from the dark web.  Said he’d sell Walter an untraceable poison.”

I start in my seat and give Walter another look.  He’s fidgeting and pushing the food around on his plate.  A cup of coffee grows cold on the table in front of him. 

Ben grips my arm.  “Okay, easy now.  Don’t want to make him nervous.  He’s got a lot on his mind.”  We turn back to our coffees, and with impeccable timing Ray drops two steaming plates on the counter in front of us.   

I pick up my bacon and look at it.  “What’s, uh, what’s he want an untraceable poison for?”

“Murder his wife.”  Ben salts his steak and digs into it.  “He’s tried it twice already.  Last time she was in bed for a week.  Thought it was food poisoning.”  He takes a bite.  “Oh, that’s good.” 

It’s a funny thing.  My bacon’s gone, and I don’t remember tasting it.  I fill the gap with more coffee.  “Um.  Are you a police officer, then, Ben?”

Ben chuckles, but it seems a bit humorless.  “Nope.  Gotta be real clear about that.  Just a guy.”  He looks out the window.  It’s getting dark for real, now; beyond the parking lot are mostly fields, and only the hotel shows a few glowing lights against the gloom. 

“You stay on these roads long enough,” says Ben, “and you’ll start to see ‘em.  Not a lot of ‘em, not really.  But enough.”

“Uh, a lot of who?”  I can’t figure out if he means would-be murderers like Walter, or what.  Maybe Ben is one of those guys who catches criminals on the Internet?  He doesn’t look the part, somehow.

“Well, take that kid, for instance.  The Huck Finn kid who wanted to show Big Al all the hootin’.  You won’t see him again, I don’t think – that story of his didn’t work out for him – but you’ll see others.  They’ll come in with a story, too.” 

Ben pauses for steak.  “I been driving across this great nation of ours for more than thirty years now, and I’ve had my own rig for about twenty of that.  I’ve seen ‘em fifty, maybe sixty times – always at night, always in places like this that cater to folks far from home.  The, uh, quality varies.  But the goal stays the same.”  He points his knife at me.  “They want you to leave with them.  Just you.  No one else.”

I’m definitely cold now.  I shiver and gulp some more coffee.  It helps, sort of.  Ray stops by with a refill, and I watch as the steaming liquid gurgles into the cup.  Behind me, the bell on the door jingles as a customer departs into the night. 

I’m not sure I really want the answer to my next question, but I ask it anyway.  “Why?  What happens if you go?”

Ben shrugs.  “Not sure, exactly.  But I can tell you two things.  That truck Al saw is always waiting outside when it happens.  And the ones who go never come back.”

“And all that stuff with the silent running and the wheels spinning backwards – you think Al was right about all that?”

“I know he was.” 

We sit in silence for a moment.  I’m not sure what to think.  Ben doesn’t come off as if he’s trying to impress me, not at all.  His voice is quiet and a little bit tired.  I get the impression that he’d rather not be talking about this at all, but he really thinks I have a right to know if I’m willing to listen. 

And I decide I want to take him up on that.  Even if he’s wrong, or even a bit crazy, something about these people and their truck scared Big Al badly, and Ben treated him in that moment with dignity and respect.  I’ve had my own narrow escape today, and so I appreciate that even more than I usually would.

“Well, let me ask this,” I say at last.  “It sounds like it might be a kidnapping ring or something – one of the gang gets the victim to come outside, and then they stuff him in the back of the truck, maybe?  I don’t understand the thing with the wheels, but let’s forget that for a second.  What I want to know is, how come these guys can’t come up with a better story?  Who’s gonna follow a stranger into the dark to hear an owl?”

Beneath his steel-gray moustache, Ben smiles – and it’s a real smile, tired but warm.  “Well,” he says.  “It’s funny you should ask that.  You ever heard of the scammers from Mars, Tim?”

I blink.  “Uh, David Bowie, right?”

Ben chuckles.  “Close.  It’s actually something my nephew told me about.  You know those scam emails you get, where the guy claims to be a Nigerian prince or whatever, and he needs you to put millions of dollars in your bank account for him?”  I nod; I have, in fact, at least a dozen of those emails sitting in my inbox at this very moment. 

“Sure you do,” says Ben.  “Well, you don’t think the scammers typed all that up by hand just for you, right?  They got these scripts they use, and they send ‘em out to lots of people all at once, rinse and repeat.  Well, few years back there was a good Samaritan who was trying to figure a way to protect people from getting scammed.  And what he realized was that the scammers were lazy, and they weren’t writing or even reading the scripts they were sending out.  Mostly they just stole them from other scammers.” 

Ben chuckles again and drinks coffee.  “No honor among thieves, I guess.  So this Sam, he writes his own script.  It says he’s a lawyer on Mars who wants to help one lucky citizen claim a prize of ten million Galactic credits.  And he emails it out to lots of known scammers.  And the scammers, being scammers, they steal it and they send it onto their own victims without reading it too carefully.”

He signals for a refill.  “Pretty soon, lots of Grandmas and Grandpas are getting emails from lawyers on Mars.  And it’s ridiculous, so no one bites – except for the Sam and his friends.  They engage the scammers and they make it look like this Mars story is hot stuff.  Guaranteed to pull the suckers in.”

“So the scammers keep sending it.  And Grandma and Grandpa are a bit safer, because now the lies don’t look true.”  He pushes his plate back.  “You want dessert, Tim?  I’m buying.  You’re a good listener and I appreciate your company.”

Before I can answer, the bell above the door jingles.  And the Iowa City guys walk in.

---

The leader spots me before the door swings shut.  He grins like a shark.  “Impala man!”  His friends whistle and clap as he saunters over and seats himself on Big Al’s stool.  He chucks his leather hat onto the counter and grins again.  “Man, it really is a small world, ain’t it?”

I ease my phone out of my pocket.  Ben is watching carefully, his expression blank.  I look the leader in the eyes.  “Excuse me.  I’m eating.”  I take a bite of eggs to prove it.

The leader nods sagely.  “I get ya, man.  Gotta feed the machine.  And speakin’ of…” he leans forward and speaks in low, confidential tones.  “I notice you parked that Impala of yours in a handicapped spot, my man.”  He holds out a palm.  “So me and the boys, we figured we might go ahead and move it for you.  Kind of payin’ it forward, like.  You toss me the keys, man, we’ll get it done.”  He smiles wider.  “Might save you some trouble later, you know?”  Behind him, his friends chuckle and smirk.

“No, thanks.”  I glance over at Ben.  His face appears to be carved out of granite, and the leader’s gaze flicks to him.

“Howdy, pops.”  The leader plasters on a sunny smile and jerks a thumb in my direction.  “You know this guy?”

Ben considers this, then shrugs.  “Who among us can know a man?” he asks.  He turns away, pulls a battered smartphone out of his pocket, and starts typing on it.

The leader throws back his head and laughs.  “Hey, that’s real deep, pops.  I can tell you and me are gonna get along just like a house on fire.”  He leans back, signals Ray, and tips me a wink.  “No offense taken, man.  None at all.  We’re hungry anyway, ain’t we, boys?”

“Starving,” one of his friends says.

“I could eat a horse,” says another.  The three of them saunter over to an empty booth. 

“That’s a fact, man,” says the leader.  “We’ll all have us a good old meal, just like mama used to make.  And then maybe we’ll see about that parking job later, am I right?”  Ray arrives, order pad at the ready, and the leader turns the grin on him.  “You got any vegan options here, bud?”

I glance at Ben again as Ray answers, but he’s still turned mostly away, and it looks like he’s totally engrossed in his phone and his coffee.  I don’t have any right to feel shocked and saddened by this, I realize – Ben doesn’t really owe me anything, and he doesn’t know the Iowa City guys like I do anyway – but I can’t help it.  He seemed, somehow, like exactly the guy you’d want to have next to you when things go south.  And yet there he sits – and it looks like I’m alone.

I hold my coffee cup in front of my face to hide my expression, and I’m trying to run through my options – leave now? Call the police?  And tell them what? – when the bell jingles again.  And a young lady bursts in.

She is tall, dark-haired, statuesque.  Her luxuriant curls are styled in the fashion of a bygone age, and they bounce back and forth as she looks wildly around at the diners.  “Oh, please!” she says, in a breathless gasp that is almost a scream.  “You’ve got to come quickly – someone, please!  It’s a scandal!”

Ray drops his order pad and makes like he’s going to approach her, and Ben reaches out and grabs his arm.  Ray looks at him, startled, and Ben shakes his head so minutely that, even with my nerves keyed up as they are, I nearly miss it.  I examine the lady a bit more closely, and as she looks from one face to another I realize that her clothes are from another time, too: she’s wearing a luxuriant dress of royal purple velvet, the sort of thing a Disney princess might wear to a formal ball. 

“That truck out there!” she whisper-shrieks.  “It’s completely nude!  Not a stitch on it!  Oh, the scandal, the scandal – won’t someone please come and help?”  No one does; the faces of the other diners range from puzzled to annoyed to wary, but no one rushes to her aid.  In their booth, the other three Iowa City guys are starting to snicker.

Ben sighs and rolls his eyes in the leader’s direction.  “Aw, not this again,” he says.  “How does she have any money left to waste on this?”  He has not let go of Ray’s arm.

The leader rubs his chin and looks in the woman’s direction.  She has renewed her appeal but is still finding no takers.  “What money’s that, pops?”

Ben shakes his head again.  “That’s Clara Smart.  Inherited about half the county from her old dad.  Now she goes around roping people into these stupid theatre skits.  She’s a nut, of course.”   He shrugs.  “Last time it was two dragons fightin’.  This time it’s nude trucks, I guess.  Nice work if you can get it, maybe, but I ain’t takin’ money from a sick woman.”

“You don’t say.”  The leader is sitting up very straight now.  “How much money we talkin’ here?”

“Well.”  Ben sips coffee.  “Last time it was a thousand bucks.  Guy pretended to fight the dragons and she paid him cash on the spot.  Sad, really.”  He grimaces as Clara launches into her spiel again.

“Oh, yeah.”  The leader stands up and claps his leather hat back onto his head.  “I’m cryin’ on the inside, that’s for sure.  Thanks, pops.”  He gestures to his team.  “C’mon, boys, you heard the lady.  Let’s give her a hand with this nude truck problem.”

His team breaks into raucous laughter and follows him up the aisle.  Clara fixes her eyes on him as he approaches, and she wrings her hands together.  “Oh, please, sir,” she begs.  “Can’t you help?  That truck out there, sir – it’s completely nude!”

The leader favors her with a smile and a bow.  “My lady,” he says, “I am at your service.  You want me to hold onto that purse of yours till it’s safe out there?”

“Oh, thank you, sir – thank you!” Clara cries.  The leader opens the door for her; she backs through, still thanking him and wringing her hands, and his three friends follow her out like hyenas stalking a wounded gazelle.

The leader pauses in the door and looks at me.  “Don’t go nowhere, Impala man,” he says.  “We’ll be right back.”

He turns.  The bell jingles.  And he is gone.

Ben lets go of Ray’s arm.  He exhales, and I realize that I have been holding in my breath as well.  I let it out, and Ben claps me on the shoulder.  “How about that dessert, Tim?  I’m still buyin’.”

I glance over at the door, but night has fallen and I see only the reflection of the diners in the darkened glass.  “Uh, maybe I should go.  In case they come back.”

“They won’t.”  Ben relaxes in his seat and picks up a menu.  “Clara, now, she’ll come back another night.  Got what she wanted, after all.  But they won’t.”

And they don’t.

Ben and I each enjoy a slice of Ray’s homemade peach pie, and Ben tells me a few well-chosen tales of his travels across the continent.  When we’re maybe halfway through, Walter gets up from his booth and fast-walks past us with his hands in his pockets and his Caterpillar cap pulled low over his eyes.  “Hey,” I whisper as the doorbell jingles to his departure.  “Didn’t you want to – ”

Ben smiles and taps the smartphone in his shirt pocket.  “Well, it’s a funny thing, Tim.  Round about the time those hard boys walked in, Walter got an email from his untraceable poison guy.  Turns out this meet was being watched by a rival gang, or something.  He had to reschedule.”  He forks in another peach.  “Don’t worry.  Walter’ll be around when he’s needed.  Which’ll be in about – ”  He checks his watch.  “Oh, shoot.  Is that the time?”  He stands and raises an arm.  “Ray!  Check, please!”

---

We shake hands in the parking lot.  Ben starts to climb up into the cab of a shiny blue big rig with a sunrise painted on the door.  “Well, it’s sure been a pleasure, Tim.  You stay safe and take good care of your aunt, all right?”

“I will.”  I can’t decide how much more to add.  I think I’ve figured out more about Ben and his work than he’s actually said, but most of it sounds crazy in my own head, and I can’t figure out a natural way to bring it up.  “The, uh, stories,” I say at last.  “They used to be better, didn’t they?”

“They did, yeah.”  Ben stares off down the highway.  “Some good people got caught up.  Some still do, I’m sure.”

“But not as many.”

“Not as many, nope.  And most nights I can sit with that.”

I think about that for a minute.  “How long have you been doing this?” 

He looks into the distance again.  “Longer than I’d like.  If I thought there was someone to hand it off to…”

He stops and shakes his head, then grins as he hoists himself up into the cab.  “Well.  It’s like the man said, Tim.  You show me civilization, I’ll show you a guy on a wall who’s seen more than he wants to.  Maybe I’m meant to be up here a little while longer, and that’s okay, I guess.” 

He checks his watch again and waves as he keys the truck’s engine.  “Gotta go.  Wouldn’t want to disappoint Walter a second time.  You text me when you get in, all right?  I like to know my friends are safe.” 

---

Aunt Cynthia’s operation goes well, and by the time I leave three weeks later she’s doing a lot better.  The trip back is uneventful, I’m relieved to say, although every time I stop to eat I find myself glancing a bit too often at the door. 

No one ever comes in but honest folk in search of a hot meal and a friendly face, and as I make my way home I am grateful: for my family, for the man on the wall, and most of all for the scammers from Mars.

[CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT — UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE]
JOINT RESEARCH PROGRAM: OSSEOUS
FACILITY: █████████████████
DATE OF INITIAL RECORD: 04/17/1987
CURRENT STATUS: TERMINATED

NOTICE: The following material was recovered from a research facility abandoned on October 14, 2009. The facility's original purpose was listed as nutritional research. Of the 43 personnel assigned to the project, only one was recovered alive.

The following is a reconstruction of the available records.

RESEARCH LOG — 04/17/1987

The first six subjects have been admitted and placed under observation. All subjects are healthy adults between the ages of twenty-one and forty-one. Bloodwork, bone density, and organ function are within acceptable parameters.

The experimental compound is a concentrated calcium supplement derived from several commercially available dairy sources. The dosage administered to each subject is approximately four times the recommended daily intake.

No adverse effects have been observed.

NOTE FROM DR. HARRIS: Subjects report that the supplement tastes like powdered milk.

RESEARCH LOG — 05/02/1987

Subject 3 has developed unusually high bone density.

X-rays indicate an increase of approximately 8.2% since admission.

This is considered statistically impossible given the timeframe.

Subject 3 reports no pain.

RESEARCH LOG — 05/19/1987

All six subjects are now showing abnormal bone growth.

Subject 1 has developed additional bone density along the left forearm. Subject 4 has developed calcium deposits around both knees. Subject 6 has experienced severe stiffness in the fingers.

Dr. Harris believes the compound may be stimulating osteoblast activity beyond normal biological limits.

The project has been approved for continuation.

RESEARCH LOG — 06/03/1987

Subject 6's condition has progressed significantly.

The fingers of both hands have become visibly enlarged. The subject reports that his hands feel "full."

During examination, Subject 6 complained of severe pain in his right index finger. At 14:17, the distal phalanx ruptured through the skin. The attending physician initially believed this to be a compound fracture.

It was not.

The exposed bone continued growing for approximately nine seconds after emerging from the wound. The growth stopped at a length of 4.7 centimeters.

Subject 6 lost consciousness.

NOTE: The bone did not appear to be fractured. It was new growth.

RESEARCH LOG — 06/04/1987

Subject 6 is dead.

Cause of death: Hemorrhagic Shock.

There were no signs of infection.

Postmortem examination revealed extensive abnormal bone growth throughout the body. Both forearms contained multiple overlapping layers of newly formed bone. The ribs had begun to fuse together. Several vertebrae showed evidence of secondary growth.

The most unusual finding was the presence of additional bone structures surrounding the heart.

Dr. Harris has requested permission to terminate the experiment.

Permission denied.

INTERNAL MEMORANDUM — 06/11/1987

Dr. Harris has raised concerns regarding the ethical implications of continuing Project Osseous.

His concerns have been noted. He has been reminded that this research is not intended for publication. He has also been reminded that the project predates his employment by approximately nineteen years.

RESEARCH LOG — 06/28/1987

We found the earlier records.

Project Calcium did not begin in 1987. The original trials began in 1968.

There were twelve subjects. All twelve diseased.

The earliest records describe the condition as "progressive skeletal hyperplasia." Later documents use a different term. Osteogenic conversion.

The researchers in 1968 believed they had discovered a method for dramatically increasing bone density.

They were wrong.

The compound does not strengthen bone. It teaches the body to make more of it.

RESEARCH LOG — 07/02/1987

I have spent the entire day reading the archived documents.

There are records from 1974.

Different facilities. Different researchers. Different subjects. Same result.

Every trial ended the same way. The skeleton eventually begins growing independently of the body's requirements. It grows wherever it can. Through muscle. Through organs. Through skin.

The body does not seem to recognize when it has enough.

There is no enough. There is only growth.

RESEARCH LOG — 07/15/1987

We have discovered the reason for the dietary studies.

The compound was never intended to remain confined to the laboratory. The original research objective was to determine whether increased calcium consumption could accelerate the process without producing immediate symptoms.

The answer is yes.

Low exposure produces no visible effects. Long-term exposure produces gradual skeletal changes. Higher exposure causes rapid conversion.

The research team spent years determining the minimum effective dosage. Then they began monitoring the general population.

ARCHIVED MARKETING DOCUMENT — 1979

NATIONAL DAIRY CONSUMPTION INITIATIVE

Objective: Increase household consumption of dairy products.

Proposed messaging should emphasize strength, growth, nutrition, and healthy bones.

Suggested campaign concepts:

"Milk. It Does a Body Good."

"Got Milk?"

RESEARCH LOG — 07/18/1987

I asked Harris why the public campaign was necessary.

He wouldn't answer.

I asked him whether people were being exposed deliberately. He told me to stop asking questions.

I asked him how many people had been exposed.

He left the room.

RESEARCH LOG — 07/21/1987

We have obtained the population estimates.

Current projected exposure is 61%.

That number is considered conservative.

I asked what happens if the threshold is reached. Dr. Harris told me there would be no way to stop it. I asked what "it" meant.

He said:

"The bones."

MEDICAL TRANSCRIPT — SUBJECT 11

DOCTOR: Can you tell me where it hurts?

SUBJECT: Everywhere.

DOCTOR: Your arm?

SUBJECT: My arm.

DOCTOR: Your legs?

SUBJECT: My legs.

DOCTOR: Your chest?

SUBJECT: My bones are moving.

DOCTOR: Bones don't move.

SUBJECT: Then why can I hear them?

[Subject begins crying.]

[Audible cracking is recorded.]

DOCTOR: Hold him down.

SUBJECT: Please.

DOCTOR: Hold him down!

SUBJECT: Please don't let them grow.

[Recording terminates.]

RESEARCH LOG — 08/01/1987

There are now only four living subjects.

Subject 2 has lost the ability to walk.

Subject 4 has developed bone growth along the jaw and throat.

Subject 5's spine has begun producing secondary vertebrae.

Subject 6 was euthanized.

Subject 1 is no longer recognizable.

We have stopped calling them subjects.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/03/1987

Something happened today that I cannot explain.

Subject 4 was restrained to the examination table. His right arm was secured.

At 09:16, the bone growth began.

The bone growth began at the wrist. It emerged from beneath the skin of his wrist, splitting the flesh apart as it continued to lengthen. Unlike Subject 6, however, the growth did not stop.

It continued through the forearm. Through the elbow. Through the upper arm.

The newly formed bone was irregular and ridged, branching in several directions before eventually hardening into a jagged structure extending nearly thirty centimeters from the limb.

Subject 4 made no attempt to resist. He simply watched it grow.

When the restraints were removed, he stood. His eyes had changed. The irises were gone. The pupils were gone. Both eyes had become completely white.

He looked directly at Dr. Harris. Then at me. Then at the skeleton displayed on the examination monitor.

For several seconds, he said nothing.

He raised one hand and pressed his fingers against my chest.

SUBJECT 4: "Flesh hides the treasure within."

Dr. Harris asked him what he meant.

Subject 4 tilted his head. His eyes never left the skeleton on the monitor.

SUBJECT 4: "You cover it."

A pause.

SUBJECT 4: "You bury it."

Another pause.

Then, quietly:

SUBJECT 4: "Why?"

Subject 4 began pulling against the restraints again.

Not to escape. To reach the other subjects. He kept repeating the same phrase.

"There is so much of it."

We terminated the observation at 09:31.

No further examination was permitted.

At 10:04, Subject 4 began screaming.

At 10:07, Subject 2 began screaming.

At 10:09, Subject 5 began screaming.

None of them had been in the same room.

ADDENDUM — 08/03/1987

The subjects are no longer responding to questions. They only respond when another subject is brought into the room. They become agitated.

They stare at the newly created bone. They trace their gaze beneath the skin. And when one of them begins to bleed from ripping apart flesh off the newly created limb, they begin a harmonious laughter.

SECURITY REPORT — 08/04/1987

Subject 4 escaped containment.

Security personnel were dispatched. Three casualties. All sustained penetrating injuries consistent with abnormal bone structures.

Subject remains at large within the facility.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/05/1987

There are sounds in the ventilation system.

Scratching. Constantly.

We have sealed the laboratory doors. Total lockdown.

No one is leaving.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/06/1987

I found the final report from 1968.

It contains one sentence that was removed from every subsequent copy.

I don't know why I'm writing this down. Maybe because someone needs to know.

The original researchers discovered that the condition was not caused by the supplement. The supplement only accelerated it. The genetic marker was already present in the population. The researchers believed it was dormant.

They were wrong. It is not dormant.

It is waiting.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/07/1987

Harris is dead.

Something came through his chest. There was no warning.

One moment he was standing beside me. The next, his sternum split open. Bone came through his skin like a spear. He was still alive afterward. He kept asking me to help him.

I couldn't. There wasn't anything left to help.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/07/1987 — 11:42 PM

There are people outside.

Not researchers. Security. They are changing. I can see them through the observation windows.

One of them fell. His arm started moving. His sleeve tore. Something white came through.

Then another. Then another.

There are hundreds of them.

FINAL RECORDING — 08/08/1987

[Heavy breathing.]

If anyone finds this, listen to me.

The campaign worked. It worked better than anyone expected. They didn't need to infect anyone. They didn't need to inject anyone. They just had to convince people to consume it willingly.

For decades.

Milk. Cheese. Everything they could put it in.

We thought we were studying the first generation.

We're not.

We're studying the first generation we noticed.

[Cracking sound.]

Oh God.

It's happenin—

[Subject screams.]

[Sound of bone breaking.]

No.

No, no, no—

[Subject begins laughing.]

[Long silence.]

VOICE: How much milk did you drink?

[Recording terminates.]

[END OF RECOVERED MATERIAL]

PUBLIC HEALTH NOTICE — ORIGIN UNKNOWN

If you are experiencing unexplained stiffness, swelling, joint pain, abnormal growths beneath the skin, or spontaneous fractures, contact your physician immediately.

Do not attempt to remove exposed bone. Do not consume additional calcium.

Do not—[DOCUMENT CORRUPTED]

ADDENDUM

A handwritten note was discovered on the reverse side of the final document. It contained only four words:

Got milk?

Got bones?

A local news reporter speaks during a live broadcast.

“Police detectives are at the scene of a blood bath.  A family was butchered in their own home. The scene suggests that the father was tied up and forced to watch before his throat was cut.  His wife and son were gutted alive in front of him like cattle. Investigators say they believe a box cutter was used and a bloody Halloween mask was found in the son's arms.  His final act was ripping it off the killer during a struggle for his life.”

The reporter holds up a mask identical to the one the killer wore before continuing.

“These masks are sold everywhere around Halloween, making it nearly impossible to track  the person responsible down. Police are advising everyone to lock their doors. This is the third family to be murdered in just two weeks.”

Michone turns off the television before waking her two children, Andrew and Sydney, to get ready for school. They have overslept and missed the bus.

After changing into their school clothes and eating breakfast, Michone waits for them in her car.

Just before turning into the school entrance, Michone gets cut off by a beat-up old car. She lays on her horn and flips the driver off. The car suddenly brake-checks her, nearly causing a collision, before speeding away.

Michone manages to avoid hitting anything, but the incident startles her children.

“Are you two alright?” she asks Sydney and Andrew.

They both say yes, although they're obviously a little shaken by the incident.

Michone apologizes and promises to make their favorite dinner that evening: macaroni and cheese with chicken nuggets.

Both children become excited at the thought of their favorite meal, shaking the ordeal off their minds.

Michone drops them off at school and tells them to have a good day

Later that afternoon, Andrew and Sydney get off the school bus and walk into their home.

Michone greets them while cooking and asks how their day went?

“Great!” Andrew replies. “I talked with my friends about video games all day.”

Sydney has something  to tell her mother.

“A strange man walked up to me during recess and said he needed your phone number, Momma.”

Michone pauses before nervously asking, “Was he a teacher? And did you give him my number?”

“Yes, I gave it to him. He said he was a teacher, but I'd never seen him before.”

Michone looks concerned.

“Where was your teacher?”

“Mrs. Wells had to use the bathroom when he came over. He was gone before she got back.”

Feeling a little unnerved, Michone tells Sydney not to give her mother's number to anyone else again and not to talk to strangers. The man might not have been a real teacher.

Sydney agrees and apologizes.

A few minutes later, Michone's phone rings.

The number has the same area code as hers, but she doesn't recognize it.

She answers.

Michone: “Hello?”

No one responds.

After a few seconds of silence, Michone hangs up.

A few minutes later, a different number with the same area code calls.

Michone answers again, but there is no response.

She angrily hangs up.

A few hours later, Michone and the children have just finished dinner when someone knocks on the front door.

Michone answers it and finds a police officer standing outside.

“I need to ask you a few questions,” the officer says. “My name is Officer Murphy.”

“Okay,” Michone replies, looking confused.

The officer explains that detectives have been investigating the phone records of the families recently murdered. They just discovered that calls from a couple of the victims'  phones were made to her number recently.

Now frightened, Michone tells the officer about the incident that morning and the strange man who approached her daughter at school to ask for her phone number.

Officer Murphy listens carefully before asking, “Is there any chance this man knows where you live?”

“I don't think so,” Michone replies.

“Just to be safe, make sure all your doors are locked tonight. Keep something nearby that you can use to defend yourself if necessary. I'll tell my chief about the playground incident, and we'll get a warrant to review the school's security footage. This might be our best lead to catching this man.”

With that, the officer heads back to the police station immediately.

Michone locks all the doors and tells her children not to let anyone inside. She grabs a baseball bat and has everyone sleep in her bedroom.

In the middle of the night, Michone hears glass shattering, it's her window.

She calls 911, keeping her baseball bat firmly in hand.

“911. What's your emergency?” the dispatcher asks.

Michone is frantically saying someone broke in.

The dispatcher asks for her address.

Michone says

“I spoke to a officer earlier tonight,” she explains.

“Can you tell me the officer's name?” the dispatcher asks.

Michone frantically replies, “Officer Murphy!”

The dispatcher audibly gasps before telling her, “Ma'am, Officer Murphy got murdered in his house this morning, and his police car stolen ”

Suddenly, a loud bang echoes from Michone's bedroom door.

Then she hears the same voice that had claimed to belong to Officer Murphy earlier that evening.

“Michone…”

Michone frantically tries to describe the man to the dispatcher.

“White male, brown hair, around five-foot-ten—”

Before she can finish, her bedroom door bursts open.

Michone sees the masked man staring at her.

The 911 dispatcher hears screaming through the phone. Michone begging the man not to hurt her children, followed by a sudden thud.

The call is ended.

Thirty minutes later,

police officers arrive at the house.

The window is shattered.

Inside the bedroom, they find Michone's body tied up next to both of her children . Their bodies have been gutted, and their eyes still wide open next to a bloody box cutter.

As Kiara stood at the door of the playroom on the blood stained carpet, you could still hear the figure yelling on the other side, with less volume and less life than the last. 
She turned around for a moment, and locked the door.
she turned back and just started breathing heavily,
you were panicking so much you began to lose track of the difference between Kiara’s breathing and your own.

You had no idea what time it was,
You had no idea how much time had passed but,
Kiara remained...breathing.

At some point the power had gone back on and Just like that the tv turned back on.
The DVD menu for The Cat in The Hat appeared once more and to my surprise, sally was back alongside Conrad.

Kiara was not nearly as spooked by the flashing light of the tv as she was of the loud pop from earlier,
She simply let out a 

"mmmmmm" 

And waltzed about one foot in front of the tv and leaned in so her head was touching the screen.
Despite all your efforts to refrain,  you let out one brief sharp exhale in what can only be described as pure fear.

*AGMP*
-escaped your mouth while you swallowed your salty tears as they ran down your face.

Your cheeks were soaked,
Your mouth felt dry,
The air was still.

Kiaras head slowly turned,
it was in no rush,
as if it had always known you were there.
You dragged the throw blanket closer to your body using your leg but before you could pull the blanket over yourself,
you made Direct eye contact with Kiara in the Moonlight reflection provided by the Tv.

Kiara was wearing makeup.
She had a base of foundation that's flesh tone was reminiscent of the Queen of England.
She had bright blue eye shadow with the faintest hint of glitter and,
She had bright red lipstick.

She came over to you at a moderate speed,
When she was at your feet, she grabbed your blanket and pulled it off.
She slowly brought her face to yours you both being so far from the tv now that it proved impossible to make out any details of her face,

You felt her breath on your face, it was warm, as warm as a grill.
You began to feel something approach your face, it was warm and wet, it was Kiaras tongue.

She licked your nose .
And as your eyes erupted more tears,
she licked those too.

One by one off your cheeks as she smelled you,
This continued till your cheeks were dry and your eyes were sore.
She then slowly raised her hand to your head and brushed her hand through your bangs, tucking them behind your ear.

She grabbed you by your wrist and tugged at you,
You initially resisted but soon discovered it was not a suggestion.
It hurts to feel the weight of your whole body be pulled by a steel grip upon your wrist.

She dragged you to the beanbag chair Infront of the Tv,
She sat upon it and placed you in her lap.

She began to point at the Tv bringing her mouth to your ear, For a moment,
you wondered if she was going to speak.
She didn't.

Her breaths began to sound deeper and more agitated,
It was clear she wanted something and what she wanted was on the Tv.  
You scanned the room for the remote the best you could, you spotted it, it was on the floor by the DVD player.

You pointed to it but noticed no change in Kiaras demeanor, she was still angry.
As you tried to crawl out of her lap in the direction of the remote Kiaras grip did not budge.

She wanted you in her lap,
She was wanted the movie to play,
and she wanted it now.
Just as her grip began to tighten,
you both were interrupted by a noise from your kitchen.

*BEEP\*

"Hey Hun heard there were some power outages in the neighborhood...

I haven't been able to get a hold of you,
but the lines ringing so I'm going to just come home...Daddy is going to be with a friend..

If you get this message go in the playroom and don't come out until morning and don't answer the door for anyone even if I ask you to..."

*END OF MESSAGE\*
*BEEP\*

Kiaras grip slowly loosened,
She looked up in awe,
Her mouth slowly opened as her jaw dropped and no teeth showed.
 Even in the moonlight reflection of the tv you could see tears run down Kiaras foundation.
Everything down to the way she was breathing changed.

For some reason you began to feel angry, 
Daddy’s voice was also disarming to you yes, but in a hopeless non consensual way.
The way in which Kiara appeared to be disarmed felt like it was intentional vulnerability, 
Something you'd never offer 'D' yourself.

You took this moment to lean forward and grab the tv remote,
When Kiara snapped back into reality and looked back at you pulling you back to her lap,
You pressed play.

The movie played and you stayed still,
It began to rain hard outside almost louder than the movie,
the window was still open,
and the room was freezing.

It was almost as though Kiara could tell your discomfort,
she grabbed the throw blanket,
threw it over your legs,
and held you tight in her arms, warming you with her coat.

When the babysitter in the Cat In The Hat fell asleep Kiara laughed,
You imagined whoever did the babysitters' makeup looked as though they also did Kiaras.

 The movie continued, and continued, and continued.
You had feared what was going to happen when it ended,
You imagined You'd probably be forced to press play again.

However,
When the movie ended, it was as if Kiara Understood.
She didn't seem displeased with Mike Myers' performance...
Or she had just had enough.

Kiara smiled and laughed and clapped and then,
She turned you, her face beaming in the blue light of the Tv,
You froze, 
Her face began to contort,
and it was clear to you that she was displeased with your reaction.

You're no stranger to fake emotions.
You smile and you clapped, tears in your eyes, lump in your throat.
When Kiara was finally pleased with your performance, she slowly pushed you off like you would push off a sleeping cat and began to walk around the room.

As she pranced around and rummaged through your things,
she found herself at your pay box.
She lifted up the castle shaped lid and began to pull out your Bratz dolls,
she seemed disinterested...
until she saw something that made her eyes light up...
she began to jump and scream..

She pulled out your blue Cinderella dress,
As she slid into it, you could audibly hear it tear.
You wanted to cry, it was your favorite.

She slid her arms through the straps.
It was so poorly on her that her whole back was exposed with the Velcro straps hanging not having enough to fasten around her even if she tried.

When she had it "on' she leaned back into your play box and pulled out your favorite tiara,
She placed it on her head.
She then leaned in once more and grabbed your old broken faded tiara and handed it to you.
She let out sharp exhales and smiled.
You put it on.

She walked up the your lava lamp and pressed the switch on the cord and turned it on,
A green hue now lite your room, the wax still solid not yet fluid.
She stared at it for a moment,
before turning and walking to the closet.

She slid the closet barn doors open from right to left,
She started going through your stuffed animals throwing them out one by one.
When she got to the back of the closet, she had found the suitcases and umbrella's.

She emerged from the closet using the umbrella as a cane,
tucking a floral tapestry luggage bag under her left arm.

She moved her arms,
Then her legs,
and she began to dance.

She shot you a look and it was clear,
She wanted you to dance too.

As you began to timidly comply,
Your socks started to get soaked.

 You looked down and in the green lighting of the lava lamp you could see dark black goo seeping from beneath the door.
It felt sticky, much thicker than water.
You could faintly still hear breathing from the other side.

You quickly danced away from the door...
You started in the direction that would put the bed between Kiara and yourself.
With each step Kiara followed, waving her umbrella in the air all the while.
No matter how hard you tried to maintain it, your artificial smile began to fade...

You questioned how long this nightmare would continue.
Much like your smile, your legs have grown tired...

Kiara, however, did not appear to get tired,
not of dancing.

You started to cry as the reality that your legs were going to give out became clear,
You knew the strength and angry she was capable of and did not want to upset Kiara.
You slowly tried to rest one of your legs but as you began,
both your knees buckled.

As you fell to the floor, Kiara sprinted over on all fours.

You curled into the fetal position,
holding your legs to your stomach and squeezing your eyes shut as tight as possible.

You heard the rapid thumps of Kiara before it abruptly stopped in front of you,
and you could hear her fast concerned breaths right above you.
You could feel the heat of every exhale on your forearm.
You then felt a stiff poke on your side.

When you opened your eyes,
you could see it was Kiara poking you with the umbrella,
when she saw the tears in your eye, she took 3 steps back.

Behind her you could see the wax in the lava lamp was now fluid.
Your eyes and cheeks were sore,
How long had it been?

She picked you up with one arm with ease, she coddled you and carried you to the bed.
Once you were there you kept your eyes shut tight,
but you could still feel her tucking the edges of the blanket under your body as she pressed the pillow beneath your head.
She then put her hand on your head and kissed the back of her hand with it still on you.
You exhaled trembling.

When she was done,
She wobbled over to your Daddys rocking chair, tiara cockeyed.
When she got there, she climbed upon the chair criss cross applesauce,
and grabbed a book from your cubbies.
It was too dark to see which one,
The cover was blue with a tired dog and a bird upon its head.

She began to slowly rock back and forth,
The sight of her silhouette sent a cold rush of dry ice through your blood. 
You heard something.

"mrrrmmmmmmhhmmmmrrrreeeeeeeemmme"
-you heard through excited cheery exhales.

It was clear you had been staring too long when Kiara turned slowly looking at you in the devilish green glow of the lava lamp.

You quickly shut your eyes.

Behind the dark abyss of your eyelids, you could hear Kiara shut the book.
When you opened your eyes,
Kiara was gone and the chair was still.

The sun was beaming through a break in the overcast clouds exposing your soaked carpet,
and it was clear,
It was morning.
You were now allowed to leave the playroom,
with the reassurance that there's no way Daddy will be mad at you now.

You scanned the room again, and again, and again before moving a muscle,
you had to be sure.

As you descended from your bed pressing your feet against the carpet,
you could feel your socks crinkle and crunch. It felt sticky and hard between your toes.
When you looked down,
what was once dark black was now dark red.
Your legs were still fatigued as you walked to the door like a baby deer on sticks of butter.

Although you were terrified, 
You could feel you were physically out of tears.
On the way to the door, you tumbled over the blanket you had previously hid in,
there was something in it.

When you lifted the blanket, you could see,
it was a balloon flower with the stem deflated. 
You picked it up and carried on, scanning the room all the while.
You hoped Kiara had gone out the window.

As you approached,
the carpet under the door was as red and crunchy as your socks, still wet in some places.
You turned the handle slowly, you could hear the familiar breathing on the other side.

On the other side was Daddy,
and Daddy was dressed like a woman.

Daddys arm was bent the wrong way,
Daddys knees looked backwards,
And Daddy had no tongue.

Daddys tears were blood,
Daddys skin was blood,
Even Daddys clothes... were blood.

Daddys eyes were closed but his tummy was moving.
His hand on his only straight arm was moving too,
Every few seconds, daddy made a fist.

You stared at him,
You began to dry heave, and you wanted to puke.
When you looked up, you could see Kiara staring at you from beneath the bed, tiara still on.
You could now see her more clearly than you ever had before,
Her mouth was open, and her teeth were showing.

Her look made your heart sink,
You looked down at Daddy,
You placed the core of the balloon flower in Daddys palm and headed for the front door in terror.
Just as you placed your hand on the Knob -

*POP* 
And Kiaras screams were once more,
Daddy was silent.

You sprinted faster than you ever have in your life and contrary to previous belief,
You were in fact not out of tears.

When you got to your neighbor's house down the street in the center of the cul-de-sac you froze at the door.
It was early, but you rang the doorbell regardless.
It took less than half a second for you to ring the door two more times, then three.

When Mrs. Thombs answered the door,
you blacked almost all the conversation.
You tried to tell her everything as fast as possible, but it was hard.
Collecting your words, remembering what was real as it all felt like a nightmare.

"somethings killing Daddy"
-you remembered saying,  tears running down your face.

She looked down at your stained socks and quickly pulled you inside.
She sat you down with milk and a bowl of banana cream pudding as she called the police.
You were starving.
A lot of police cars showed up.

The next few days were fuzzy.
You went to the hospital, talked to this strange, nice woman,
and were told you could stay with Mrs. Thombs for a while,
while they find a permanent place for you.

A few days later you went to this room with a lot of cool toys, the nice lady that visits you and Mrs. Thombs was there too.
The nice lady had a friend,and they wanted to play this game.

"I'm going to say some things, and if I say something that's wrong,
I want you to tell me, if you don't know something that's okay.
Just tell us, you're not in trouble honey.
Does that make sense?"
-asked the nice lady's Friend. 

"yesss..."
-you responded sheepishly as you continued chewing your bacon whopper with cheese

"are you 9 years old?"
-the friend asked

"yes"
-you responded

"Are you eating a burrito right now?"
-asked the Friend

"no..."
-you replied.

"very good...
Was your daddy home Friday night?
-asked the Friend

"no..I don't think so"
-you replied.

"oh...
that's okay honey that's perfectly okay,
When was the last time you saw daddy?"
-asked the Friend.

"Saturday...when he was dressed funny and ...all..bloody...on the floor"
-you said
Tears filling your eyes.

"when was the last time you saw daddy before that sweetheart?...
I'm sorry I know this is hard."
-said the Friend

"When he dropped me off at home from school Friday and went out."
-you replied

"did your Daddy say where he was going?"
-asked the Friend

"no...Daddy goes out a lot...
But Daddy left me some voice mails that confused me..."
-you replied.

"What message confused you?"
-asked the Friend

"he said he was staying out late...
And then said he had to come come with a friend...
And to stay in the play room till morning...no matter what..."
-you said

"and did Daddy ever come home with that friend?"
-asked the Friend. 

"no...but someone did...
I didn't come out till morning like Daddy said...
but someone came up to the door...I thought it was a friend of Daddys...
She broke in the room eventually but she was blind and couldn't find me...
She wanted help from..."
-you stopped

"it's okay honey you're doing great...
Was the woman with the animal?"
-asked the friend.

Your heart sank,
thinking about Kiara tore opened fresh anxiety wound deep beneath your throat.

"kind of..."
-you replied

"Has Daddy ever talked about owning a monkey?"
-asked the friend

"no..."
-you replied perplexed 

"Has Daddy ever talked to you about the show he was on as a kid?"
-asked the friend.

"no..."
-you responded
Even more confused than before.

"Oh..."
-The Friend said surprised...

"Has Daddy ever dressed like a girl before?"
-the friend asked

"no..."
As you answered more and more questions, you began to feel less and less in trouble...
The room you were in felt safe,
The world you were in felt a little safer.

And one of the last questions you were asked was the easiest of all to answer,

you were safe,

and you could be honest.

"Do you Love Your Daddy?"
-the nice ladies friend asked.

"No."
You responded with clear air filling your sinuses.

You wouldn’t see Kiara again after that,
for another 20 years.

It is complete. My life’s work, my greatest achievement. I have finished constructing the first known Perdition Cittern since Queen Tacita herself! There are few artisans who still know the proper way to fuse the bone and cure the sinew, and even fewer who believe it can be done at all, but now I have made history. My name will live forever, and after tonight I will, too.

For now, I must wash the blood from my hands and wipe the bits of muscle and tendon from my brow. I must prepare to meet the Bone Queen by moonlight.

The polished sheen of carved bone and the tight, translucent weave of harvested sinew adorning my masterpiece illicit an unholy, shimmering beauty. The dance of the dying candlelight flickers and flits as it gently caresses my pale creation. It is finally complete.

----

Every detractor ultimately came to the same reactive retort:

“Even if you were to get away with it and create one, no one today knows the Bone Queen’s Fugue.”

A malformed thought for the malformed mind. The Bone Queen's Fugue exists in a space between the silent and the sombral, adorning the walls of a place where walls do not exist.

Upon every swing of my cleaver, every muscle ripped from bone, every death knell moaned by each suitable participant, a note revealed itself to me. Until upon completion of the dark apparatus, the entire movement had been placed firmly into my very being, as if taught to me by Tacita herself.

Poor Oliver locked in the cage in my cellar, how scared he must have been this whole time. And to think, I don't need the poor boy after all! Aside from the knuckles, he should be returned to his parents in one piece.

Then again, there's no telling when it will need a restringing, nevermind the occasional necessary repairs and replacements. His family has too many children to feasibly take care of in the first place. They should be thanking me. His contribution will not go unrewarded.

Tonight, we will both gain favor with the Silent in the glory of the Bone Queen.

-----

Candlelight flickers and tallow drips as the hour of the Silent closes in. As I prepare to play the movement, the tales I’ve heard since childhood reawaken within me:

“Strike the opening chord and the sky bends low to listen. Sound the third inversion and the veil thins like ailing flesh. The crown descends; the throne appears. Power pours from fingers supple enough to draw her forward. The mantle of forbidden knowledge awaits the one brave enough to strum her waking call.”

The first note rings out dry and sharp as a breaking jaw. I begin the movement, plucking the opening chord, and each note strummed sounds not like vibrating strings against a hollow body, but like the eternal torment of the ones who went into the instrument’s creation.

The notes all at once sound perfectly pitched and disastrously cacophonous. The tones do not resonate from the Perdition Cittern, they scream in eternal pain. A blunt edge over an open nerve.

The Bone Queen plays her fugue through me, weeping in quarter-note arpeggios and bleeding in minor inversions. The memory and dread of everyone I used to forge the cursed lute leaking into my own like a toxic sieve, dripping in time with the staccato of the music’s final measures.

I am filled with their last moments; their confusion, their hate, their terror at my frenzied-eyed, slack-mawed gaze. I am filled with their unachieved ambitions, their half-beliefs and hidden truths. I am filled with everything they ever were afraid of…

And then it was done. The final note did not resonate but abruptly ceased after its initial screech, replaced with a dense silence hanging like smoke in the chamber.

The hour of the Silent was finally here. Now, all of the pain and blood and tendon and flesh…now it would all be actualized. Finally, a reward for my zealous dedication.

The silence dispersed and the shadows opened and she began to step through the umbral plane. Her figure drifting between the silent and the dark, black edges cutting through a quiet, flickering light. A whisper formed as her body transposed and reconnected like memories of a dream upon waking.

And then another.

And another.

And again, and again, and again…

This was not the Queen of Silence that was promised. This is a legion of despair.

The air in the room became bleak with dread, and as slowly as the spectral entities seemed to appear and dissolve upon their arrival, they suddenly manifested at once, fully formed, standing all around me.

The Bone Queen’s Fugue did not summon Tacita for eternal glory. Standing before me instead is a perverted, rot-laden misremembering of every soul that went into creating this putrid machine.

Ahnli, the baker’s wife, whose broad bones made the hollow body and pale neck. Edgar, the cowherd who leant his teeth to pin the frets. The children whose knuckles and fingers and toes made the perfect pegs.

They were all apparating before me like the harbingers of some tainted retribution. Pus-sacs line their skin and foul horns protrude from every part of their body. Hollow gloam replaces their eyes, and their voices crowd the room though they have no mouths to speak.

They have come seeking absolution, and my body is the payment for their penitence. Each offering now turned their crepuscular blades on me, fine and sharp and frostbitten. The Bone Queen laughs as the fog of rot fills my lungs, perdition my only eternal fate.

The necrotic bell tolls once more in the land of umbral screams.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*BEEP*

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 4th:

FIRST MESSAGE:
*soft female voice*

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

*BEEP*

NEXT MESSAGE:
*Burly Man’s rough Voice*

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

*BEEP*

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

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

*BEEP*

NEXT AND FINAL MESSAGE:
*inaudible whisper*

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

*BEEP*

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

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

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

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

As you doo you hear the home phone :

*BEEP*

“Mmmrrrmmmmrrrrnpphh”

You have trouble making out the message from the toilet.

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

*Your Fathers Stern Voice*

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

*BEEP*

You panic,

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

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

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

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

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

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*
you hear from the door.

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

-your fathers voice exclaims from the door.

You know that that means,
Your heart sinks.

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

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

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

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

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

The commotion outside the playroom comes to and immediate halt.

*THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP*

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

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

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

“Do You Love Your Daddy?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You begin to weep harder.

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

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

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

She begins to nod,
Then says “oh”

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

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

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

You see the the lock begin to turn,

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

The door clicks.
It’s now been unlocked.

“I love your Daddy too sweetheart”

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

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

Your cheeks are soaked and your mouth is dry.

“He’s stuck”
-The voice reveals.

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

There was a pause.

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

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

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

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

“Where ..is he stuck?”
-you ask

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

“no…”
-you replied sheepishly.

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

There was a pause.

“Come out.”
-said the voice.

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

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

You didn’t like the sound of that.

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

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

“Yes..”
You replied.

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

“Like a monkey?”
You asked innocently.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes my dear”
-the voice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“One Child had and accident”
the voice revealed.

“Were they okay?”
-you asked

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

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

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

“Who are you?”
-you repeated.

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

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

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

“Yes”
You replied.

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

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

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

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

Maybe it was over ? You thought.

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

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

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

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

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

“Knock knock”
-said the voice

“Yesss”
-you replied

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*the voice quickly erupts from your door*

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

Your head shoots over to look at the door.

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

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

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

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

"I love it..."
You replied.

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

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

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

"Oh"
-it said.

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

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

"I know"
- interrupted the voice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You froze.

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

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

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

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

"where is she?"

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

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

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

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

*Smack*

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

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

There was no doubt in your mind it was her.

It was Kiara The Orangutan.

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

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

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

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

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

*THUD*

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

*Grrrrrrrrruawh*
You heard the old woman groan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Somehow, your transition appeared to go unnoticed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She bit
*CHOMP*

And bit
*CHOMP*

And bit
*CHOMP*

They screamed 
*AHHHHHHHHHH*

And screamed 
*AHHHHHGGGG UHH*

And screamed
*FRAAAGHHHHHHH*

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

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

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

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

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

You were now alone with Kiara.

The kitchen smelt of booze. Like it always did. Jack was slumped over the table, snoring. His hair matted with his own sick. A halo of empty bottles around his head. I grabbed a glass and slowly poured the water so not to make a sound. Then, I crept out of the room and onto the veranda, picking only the silent floorboards.

I held the cold glass to my lip and winced in pain. He’d got pretty good at hitting me hard enough to break the skin without cracking a tooth. I don’t think he truly wanted to hurt me, rather stop me showing my face in town. Anything to keep our secrets on the farm.

Sucking in a deep breath, I stared out over our land. Corn stems and roots withered and knotted like dead spiders beneath the iron sky. Fields ploughed without design, looking more like rows of churned up graves.

Oh, how the harvest had turned. For years, the land had yielded gold. Because we had been loyal. Then, after one final demand, everything was gone. The wilted crops, a testament that we’d prayed to the wrong gods. The gods of the long grass.

###

I spent the afternoon hiding. Waiting for him to sober. I crawled through the long grass, retracing my path from their last visit. My eyes were fixed on every speck of dirt, looking for a glimmer of hope, a sign that perhaps I’d dreamt up that night.

“You won’t find her,” Jack’s voice croaked out over the wind. “She’s long gone.”

I rose up. “She’s just lost that’s all.”

“Myra,” he said like a warning, “she wasn’t a set of fucking car keys. They took her. And they took her ‘cos…”—he cleared his throat—“we gave her to them.”

I went to move past him and he caught me by the arm. “Get off me.”

His grip grew tight. “Where you going?”

“It’s none of your business.” I shrugged him off and headed toward the house.

“You can pray to them all you like, Myra!” He called out. “They got what they wanted and they ain’t answering anymore.”

###

The shrine was in the basement of our house. We used to keep the room pristine, yet, in the weeks since Kayla had been taken, a thin film of dust coated everything.

A singular lightbulb hung in the darkness. A cone of weak yellow light. At the light’s edge, a dark shape stood in the shadows.

Stepping closer, the shrine came into view. A marble altar rose up, waist high and atop it stood a moulded clay figurine of a man without a head and a face crudely shaped into its torso. Large offset eyes and a snarled mouth.

I stared at the statuette. Motes of dust flashed in the light. I took in a deep breath and settled my racing heart.

Jack was wrong. Of course, the gods would answer. I just had to offer up something worthy of their interest that’s all.

Reaching up, I grabbed the light cord and pulled.

The room clicked out of view.

Darkness.

Suddenly, floorboards creaked overhead, dust dislodged and sprinkled down. Jack must’ve returned from the fields in search for more beer. Then, after the house had settled, I was engulfed by a thick silence.

Moments passed while I listened to my own stifled breathing. Then, with a trembling voice, I spoke to the darkness.

“I wish to trade.”

Silence. My words swallowed by the darkness. I inched closer to the altar. Steadied my breathing and spoke again.

“I wish for you to return ou—my baby. I know that you were not the gods we once prayed to. Imposters. And yet, you answered our call...”

A strange sense of dread overcame me. The sudden feeling that I was no longer alone in the room. I spun around; my eyes strained, though I couldn’t make out any shapes in the dark.

I swallowed and tried to recompose myself. “You’re listening. You’re interested. You still want from us.”

Two clumsy footsteps padded across the floor behind me. I turned and reached out with my hands. Nothing.

Then, something. Tiny pinpricks brushed against my fingertips. Though I did not recoil. A sensation all too familiar. The gentle caress of the long grass against my skin.

“Please,” I pleaded, wheeling around and addressing every shadow, “a life for a life. A fair trade, no?”

Four more footsteps. This time like the slap of bare skin on concrete. I turned to face the direction of the sound. Only darkness. Though, while I couldn’t see it, I felt a presence. Something now occupied the space right in front of me. And I could feel it, the hot wetness of its breath.

I stood there shaking. My eyes fixed on the darkness. All the while, I knew that if I reached out a hand, even a few inches, I would touch the beast’s face.

Too afraid to move, I repeated my request with a whimper. “A life for a life?”

After a beat of silence, the darkness spoke back. “Bring it to the long grass and bury it in the midnight soil.”

And then, as soon as the words had hissed into existence, they were gone. So too was the presence. Once more, I stood alone in the suffocating dark. Once more, a hellish burden press against my heart.

###

Over the next few days, I played Jack’s game. I danced around his moods, only spoke when he was smiling, let him grope clumsily and then fuck me like I wasn’t there.

Then, in those safe morning hours when he was still passed out, I dug that motherfucker’s grave. Way out in the long grass where he wouldn’t find it unless he was looking.

###

I stood at the kitchen sink, cleaning the same plate for hours. I watched the long grass move with the wind and wondered how cold the night air would be on Kayla’s skin. Perhaps they’d return her wearing the blanket we’d bundled her in.

Tonight. I nodded. Enough waiting. His grave was deep enough.

The fridge door rattled open and I picked out two beers. After glancing over at Jack and seeing that he was still snoring facedown on the table, I crushed two zoplicone and mixed it into each bottle. I screwed the tops back on and then placed them behind the first row. He usually hit his fifth and sixth by midnight. Not that he needed much encouragement to sleep.

I blinked. Then suddenly I was outside and wading through the long grass. My hands gently brushing at its tips. The house seemed so far away. A dark, hunched giant against a bruising sky. Every window swollen with the night.

Except one. Off to the side, a column of yellow light rose up from the small basement window. It created strange shadows across the nearby trees. Beings stretched and warped by the light. Limbs long and twisted severe. Bodies crouched low to the ground. Horrors, half-remembered.

A distant cry from a baby. I wheeled around and ran in pursuit of the sound. The grass whipped at my waist, grabbed at me like fingers. But I shrugged it off and pressed on, screaming for her, screaming for Kayla.

“What are you doing?” A voice like dirt croaked out from behind me.

I turned to see Jack closing the fridge, with two beers in his hand. His eyes narrowed and fixed on me as he returned to the kitchen table.

I shook my head and sighed. “Nothing. I—I just…”

Looking away, I stared out the window again to see the night had rolled in. The long grass was now a rippling shadow against the purple sky.
And yet, something else could be seen.

Out in the middle of the field, amongst the swaying grass, a large sharp shape stood. Then, before I could take another breath, the thing slowly dropped into the grass, hidden.

###

Jack passed out around eleven. He’d been sat out on the veranda and cracked open his fifth beer when I suggested I grab him another and get changed into the silk pyjamas that he liked. Instead, I waited on the stairs until I heard him fall out of his chair.

It took longer than I thought to drag him to the grave. Jack is by no means a big man, but this girl wasn’t made to shift a hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight. I’d fallen as we passed the combine harvester and twisted my ankle pretty bad. Then I nearly passed out into the grave with him. Instead, I crumpled to the floor and cried into the dirt.

He’d been a good man for so long. He—we hadn’t always been like this.

Rolling on my back, I laid panting and staring at the ghastly moon. The grass danced all around me.

It had to be midnight by now. No?

I could feel myself drifting off. My eyes grew heavy as my racing heart settled.

*No.* I shook my head and sat up. *Not now. Sleep later. We got work to do.*

Standing up, I brushed the dirt off my clothes and stretched out the aches. I scanned the surrounding dark.

Nothing. Just the grass tips gently moving with the breeze.

Then, a sound.

A low, guttural groan. Right behind me.

I spun around and saw movement.

*Shit.*

Jack stirred at bottom of the pit. He coughed up a ball of phlegm and then wiped at the dirt in his eyes.

“What…is thi—“

“Don’t you move, Jack!” My voice trembled, yet I still had the strength to pick up and point the shovel down at him. “Don’t you dare move!”

He sat up and spat out the dirt in his mouth. Shook his head out. “You fuckin’ bitch!” He screamed out from the pit. “What have you d—“

A sound. Off in the distance. Sharp and metallic . Like a detuned radio. Strange, yet familiar. We’d heard it that night. The night we lost Kayla.

“You called them!?” Jack lunged up to grab at me. He missed and fell back on his ass. “Oh, you’re dumber than I thought, Myra. You know they ain’t no good.”

“No! This needs to happen!”

I jabbed at him with the shovel. He caught it and pulled. I slipped.

Suddenly, I was in the grave with him. Dirt in my eyes, in my mouth. Scrambling blindly, a great weight pushed me down. Then, pain lanced across my back as Jack hit me with the shovel handle.

I writhed in the mud, trying to catch a breath that didn’t come. I wanted to scream, cry out, but couldn’t only mustered a deep gurgle.

Blinking away the dirt, I saw Jack climb out of the pit. He rose up and looked down at me. Madness in his eyes.

Oh, how well he wore his grief. It had twisted him into something unrecognisable.

“Please,” I shouted, “help me! I must meet with the gods!”

He shook his head. “No. Because I intend to kill them.”

Jack disappeared. All I could see was the night sky above.

What was that? My ears pricked at a sound. Was that…a baby’s cry?

“Kayla? Baby is that—Jack! Please, they’ve delivered her! Please they’ve brought back our ba—“

Another sound. Thick with dread. Like thunder rolling in over the farm. The steady metallic chug of an engine.

The crazy bastard has started up the combine harvester!

“Jack! Please! Don’t! They have her! They have Kayla!”

And a final sound. Haunting and sickening. Like a wound upon my soul. A high pitched screech and then a rattling, crunching noise. Like a car reversing over a tree branch.

And rain. Gentle, aimless rain. Falling down upon me, down into the pit in a red mist.

The engine to the combine harvester cut out. I don’t know what was worse. Jack’s endless wet screams or the silence, so thick with the knowing, moments before.

A young man named George walks into his apartment late at night after a long day of work. The apartment room is dark. He takes off his work jacket and notices that his closet is slightly cracked open. He closes it.

He throws some leftovers from the fridge into the microwave. A moment later, he gets a text message from his girlfriend, Angela.

He opens it and reads:

“How was work?”

He responds:

“It was a long day.”

Angela sends him a picture of herself with a blank face and her eyes wide open. Her text under it reads:

“I’ve been thinking of you for days:) "

George sends a selfie back, making a kissing face.

His microwave beeps, and he grabs his food. A moment later, Angela texts him again.

“Who's that behind you?”

George texts back:

“What? I don’t see anything.”

Angela responds with another message, this time with a red circle drawn around something in his picture.

George looks closely.

There appears to be a shadowy face barely visible behind him.

He turns on all the lights and checks around his apartment, but he finds nothing. He convinces himself that it’s just the shadows in his dark apartment before texting her back.

“I think it’s just the shadows. I just checked. No one is here.”

Angela responds:

“LOL. It just looked so creepy, you should lock your doors.”

George sarcastically texts back:

“I always lock my doors and you're the one to talk, you know how many times I've came over and your front door has been unlocked? Lol”

Angela playfully responds:

“If you’re scared, just say so, I’ll gladly come over.”

She lives on the floor above his apartment.

George texts back:

“Not tonight. I’m really tired.”

George watches as the typing indicator appears on his phone for several minutes before disappearing.

Then she texts back:

"Come on, I haven't seen you in days"

George starts texting back before he Is interrupted by another text from her

“Too late. I’m already here.”

George playfully walks to his front door and enthusiastically opens it.

No one is there.

He looks around for a few seconds before going back inside and locking the door.

He texts her:

“What do you mean? Where are you?”

After a few minutes, he gets a response.

“Just keep looking.”

He thinks she’s just messing with him. She has a key to his apartment, after all.

George texts back:

“Give me a hint, I've looked everywhere.”

She responds:

“No. Just keep looking.”

George checks his bathroom and looks behind the shower curtain. He checks his bedroom and even looks under the kitchen table.

He can’t find her.

Then he remembers that the closet wasn’t fully closed when he got home.

He texts:

“Are you in the closet?”

She responds:

“She is.”

A second text quickly follows, seemingly correcting the first.

“I am.”

George quickly opens his closet door.

He freezes at the sight.

Angela’s corpse is nailed against the wall inside the closet, her eyes wide open.

George freaks out and starts shouting her name.

He reaches out and touches her.

She is very cold, almost completly Frozen.

Like she has been in a deep freezer for days.

George slowly realizes what that means.

He pulls out his phone and looks at the picture Angela sent him earlier.

The hair on his neck stood up and his complexion now pale.

The picture wasn’t taken at her apartment.

It was taken from inside his closet.

Then Angela’s phone number sends him one last text: “You didn’t check under your bed either.”

ACCESSING ADA DATABASE.

RETRIEVING FILE, INCIDENT 005.

DECEMBER 15, 1958

The team that we sent out last night came across someone or something last night approximately around 10:30pm. While exploring areas of the city that we have not yet covered, they reported hearing the sounds of screaming to the next few streets over. When the team went to Investigate where the noise was coming from, there were no signs of anyone there. The only thing that they stumbled upon around medium sized puddles of blood, a gas mask, and teeth scattered everywhere.

Despite our best efforts to find any potential survivors, the group stated that they were unable to track down anything. Later in the evening, REDACTED stated that they heard the sounds of rattling for brief periods of time, coming from either on the rooftops or the alleyways. Most of the group had already communicated with us that they were being followed by someone in the area, presumably the same individual that was responsible for the deaths. Despite their best efforts to investigate, the noise would suddenly stop momentarily, only for it to start again minutes later.

The group would later discover the individuals they heard earlier hanging off the side of a building. All of the bodies were found to have their jaws ripped off, and their eyeballs ripped from the ocular nerve. When asking for further details. the team had described the scene as a perverse art exhibit." During an interview with REDACTED, they speculated that the perpetrator had planned out the horrific scene for them to discover. It is currently unknown how this individual was aware of our assets entering the contaminated city, much less on how they were able to survive the radiation without a gas mask.

Our team would come across the individual responsible for the corpse moments later. From what we were able to gather from the team at that time, the suspect didn't show any signs of hostility towards any of them, despite being responsible for the corpses earlier. When the team asked for further instructions, all communications with them were suddenly cut off. All of us back at base were completely confused on what was happening, and we were scrambling trying to fix whatever caused the interference. We wouldn't hear from the team until approximately 12:38am, when they finally returned.

Security immediately rushed over towards the group, and were shocked at what they saw. Majority of the team was missing, with the exceptions of REDACTED and REDACTED. When medical staff rushed over, REDACTED was incoherently screaming over and over, while the other was visibly shaken and in slight hysteria. Many of us in the room were speechless. The only piece of evidence as to what happened was a picture of the individual that we managed to recover. We have yet to inform every individual's families until further notice. As of now, REDACTED is currently being hospitalized, while the other is giving a report of the events that occurred. As for the individual, every single one of our members has been notified not to interact with them, until further reevaluation of the situation.

Above the file is the picture that our team took.

1950s Louisiana

A young Southern woman with dark hair and covered in a bloodstained dress, is crying on a dock out in the bayou. She recently had a child out of wedlock, and her parents have threatened to cut her out of the family if she keeps the baby.

She wants to keep him. But she knows she has nowhere to go. She is too young for a real job and hasn't even graduated high school.

She looks down at the baby and sees his beautiful smile before he lets out a quick yawn. A tear rolls down her face and falls onto the baby.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

She looks out at a large alligator lurking in the water. A large scar dragged across its eye.

The baby begins crying.

Then, there is a loud splash.

70 Years Later

A young woman named Mary is strolling through town with a baby bump. She has a gorgeous face and beatiful black hair that was soft to the touch. She is grocery shopping for dinner that night. Her husband, Henry, said he wanted fried okra and fried catfish.

After filling her shopping cart, Mary checks out. She calls her mother, Clare, and tells her about their plans for dinner.

Her mother asks when her grandson is going to be born.

Mary happily tells her, "Any day now."

Later that evening, Henry gets off work and walks through the front door as Mary is finishing dinner. He kisses her and rubs her baby bump.

She fixes him a plate of okra, catfish, and rice, which he enthusiastically carries to the table. Mary makes a plate of her own and sits next to him.

She tells Henry about her day as he nods and shovels food into his mouth.

Mary is almost finished eating when she suddenly feels something strange.

Mary: "Oh my God."

Henry answers with food still in his mouth.

Henry: "What?"

Mary: "My water broke."

Henry drives Mary to a nearby hospital. He's driving fast while Mary screams in pain. She is having painful contractions and begins bleeding.

Henry dodges traffic and makes it to the emergency room, where doctors rush Mary into a room. They give her medication to keep her comfortable without harming the baby.

A few hours later, Mary is holding the baby in her arms, humming softly.

She gives the baby to Henry.

Henry raises the baby to his chest and smiles.

"I'll never let anything happen to you."

He then offers to get Mary anything she wants.

She tells him she just wants to go home with him and the baby.

Henry signs the birth certificate and reads the name out loud.

"McKenzie Ray Farris."

He smiles at Mary.

A couple of days later, Henry checks both Mary and the baby out of the hospital and brings them home.

He kisses Mary and holds McKenzie in his arms.

That night, Mary and Henry try to get some sleep, but the baby keeps waking up and crying.

Mary finally yells at Henry that she just wants to sleep.

Henry understandingly agrees and gets up throughout the night to take care of McKenzie.

By morning, Henry is exhausted.

While Mary is trying to get him to do things around the house, he tries telling her that he's tired. But she insists on having his attention.

He begrudgingly gives it to her, but eventually falls asleep, which annoys Mary.

A couple of days later, Mary is already aggravated and sick of the baby. She forces Henry to take care of McKenzie more, but she becomes jealous of the time Henry spends with the baby.

Mary had loved the attention she received while she was pregnant, but now that the baby had arrived, everyone was giving McKenzie more attention than her—including her own mother and husband.

One day, while Henry is at work, Mary walks around the backyard with the baby in her arms, trying to calm her down.

McKenzie looks mesmerized by the yard, especially the large pond in the back.

The baby smiles at everything she sees.

Little McKenzie watches beautiful birds flying over the pond, trying to catch fish. She looks around at the beautiful, lush greenery surrounding the yard.

Mary puts the baby down and allows her to explore the backyard while keeping a safe distance from the water.

For a few minutes, the two bond, and Mary feels like a mother again.

Mary laughs and takes pictures as McKenzie plays with the flowers in the backyard.

Then Mary and McKenzie watch a beautiful buck drinking from the pond.

For a few seconds, everything is peaceful.

Then a large American alligator suddenly grabs the deer near the water's edge and drags it into the pond. The deer whimpers but the sound is muffled as the alligator disappears with the deer just as quickly as it appeared.

McKenzie begins slowly crawling toward the water, curious about what she just saw.

Mary quickly scoops the baby up and brings her inside.

The alligator makes her wary of having her baby outside near the pond.

Mary fills a bottle for the baby and begins cooking dinner for Henry.

When Henry gets home, he walks into the living room and kisses Mary before picking up McKenzie.

Henry notices the baby's diaper.

"Her diaper is full."

Mary tells him she was going to let him handle it.

Henry looks at her.

"It's really full. Why did you let her sit that long without changing her?"

Mary assures him that McKenzie had just eaten a big lunch.

Henry cleans McKenzie up and puts a fresh diaper on her.

After dinner, Henry begins playing with the baby, making her laugh as he plays peekaboo.

Mary interrupts him and starts talking about her day.

She quickly becomes jealous again as she watches Henry spend more time with the baby.

For the next couple of months, Mary tries everything she can to get more attention from Henry.

But Henry is focused on work and baby McKenzie.

Mary tries to get Henry's attention, offering him intimacy and trying to give him whatever he wants, but he turns her down every time.

He tells her he's too tired from working and taking care of the baby.

Mary begins having frightening thoughts about hurting McKenzie. She knows she shouldn't act on them, and she fears what would happen if anyone found out.

What she fears most is getting caught.

She just wants her man and her old life back.

Nobody seems to care about her anymore now that the baby is here.

Then one day, Henry is working long hours and won't be home until late.

Mary begins destroying the house in a fit of pent-up anger.

She cries and screams as her anger takes over.

The noise wakes the baby.

McKenzie begins crying.

Mary becomes furious.

"Wah, wah, wah! You've been ruining my life since the day you came home!"

She shakes McKenzie and continues yelling obscenities  at her.

Mary suddenly begins thinking of all the different ways she could hurt the baby.

Then she thinks of something even more awful.

She remembers the alligator in the backyard.

She picks up the crying McKenzie and carries her toward the water's edge.

The baby squirms in her arms, as if she senses that something is wrong.

An alligator's head slowly pokes above the surface.

Mary looks down at her baby with disgust. Before she starts singing.

" hush little baby, don't you cry"  before she tries throwing her daughter into the pond. But

McKenzie desperately grabs onto her mother's hand. McKenzie said her first word " momma"  while trying to hold on for life

But it wasn't enough.

Henry finally gets home.

He finds the house completely destroyed.

He frantically searches the house for his wife and child.

He's terrified.

He sees furniture smashed apart and blood smeared across the wall.

Then he finds Mary standing at the edge of the pond, staring into the water.

Henry runs toward her.

"Mary! Are you alright?"

Mary slowly turns toward him.

She gives him a creepy smirk and begins to laugh.

Henry looks around frantically.

"Where's McKenzie?"

Mary points toward the pond.

Then she looks back at him.

"You made me do it."

Henry horrified looks into the water. He didn't see it at first as only the moon light illuminated the night. He saw the large scar on the aligator's eye and then he saw his daughters eyes looking at him from the beast's mouth. And quickly she was devoured. Swallowed whole, while barely still alive