He wanders. The hot streets. The narrow corners and back alley ways, the bad neighborhoods and freeway overpasses. The sweltering blacktop lakes of the 7-11 parking lots. He carries cardboard signs, wears rags and cardboard clothes and grime. Layers and layers of filth that may have once been fecal spew or the dust of the earth or blood, they are worn like a coat of oil over the flesh like the ancient warriors by firelight times, he is a deranged and disgusting remnant. Haggard leftover in bipedal form that moves, mutters, sucks down bottles and pipes and congealed food pulled scavenged from the garbage. 

He is so thankful for beer or a dollar. Consciousness is pain. Consciousness is the sorrow and horror of each and every day, each and every moment is a prolonged period experienced in slow motion agony like pure torture. Everything is moved in shopping carts and over shoulder, he has become a beast of labor upon the earth, he must pull the plow of his own life if he ever hopes to get anywhere, anywhere at all but the only destination that seems to be enroute and available is a land of spoiled milk and suffering. He arrives there anyway and does what he can. It's never much. Just collecting cans and detritus that in his derangement he believes will be his fortune and his salvation. It's never much. It's never anything. 

He watches men beat women. He watches women scream and shriek and become the harpies, he watches them conspire and become the weird sisters, he watches needles and the depression of plungers and the streetside milking of human blood in a clouded swirl in the double-wide mouthed gutters. He watches it all and his eyes glaze over as the mind accepts each sight with a sledgehammer blow only the sledgehammer has lost all of its weight, it has lost all of its power. It only thuds and smacks at dead meat within cavernous skull now, it's only meaninglessness and meaningless noise and the constance of the cacophony has deluded and defanged all of its heavy power.

The city is just a dead body now, it doesn't mean anything. This cyclopean and hideous thing that he wanders. Filled with eyes and mouths that drip and water and move and open and stare. They are all of them just as ugly to him as he is to they, they are all of them, repulsive. 

There is no more beauty in this place. 

He tries to find darkness before sunset. Rarely is he ever successful. But this does not surprise him. He is a marked man. 

Like Cain. The man son that first authored murder into the virgin world. 

He unscrews the cap to some rotgut he's so crushingly thankful to have. And he takes a deep and lonely swill. He pulls, deeply. He settles down in the dirt, so lucky and so thankful to have it as well. And he pulls. Over and over the drink that tastes and smells more like disinfectant than anything sold over the counter as a beverage. He doesn't care. He's done it before. Many times. Many times before he's said fuck it and gotten absolutely shitfaced on hand sanitizer, mouthwash, isopropyl. 

He doesn't mind the taste. Not at all. He doesn't mind the taste of anything as long as the flavor is alcohol and it's strong enough to peel away the paint of his thoughts and strip away the fouled and fouling coats of his ailing and addled mind away. Just as long as it's strong enough to put him under and keep the dreams away. 

At least keep the dreams manageable. At least keep them as something he can stomach and bear. Something in the realm of his current devastation and heartbreak and not some new foul border, not some horrific new frontier. 

But neither the Lord nor the little god alcohol hear him. Nor care. 

His mind heavy with drink and thought, totters off. But not into oblivion. Not into peace. 

There are so many things alive in the darkness. 

!Sitra Achra!

He is hurdling towards the merciless face of the earth. His wings are burning. The beauty of his light and gift of flight are aflame, dying in fire. He is screaming a sound and cacophonous war cry rent that will echo forever and contaminate the crumbling ruined corridor of time that he has helped to bleed and slaughter. 

He crashes. Just outside of the Garden. 

And there he gathers and reforms. One of the first times of many. Many many many times will follow down the long line of cruel footfalls forever forward. He gathers and reforms and he is angry and jealous and into the beauty of The Garden, he slithers.

He tempts the woman and the man into disobedience. And he tempts them into forbidden knowledge. 

Forbidden Knowledge. This is his warcraft upon the virgin earth. It will defile. It will burn and torch. It will decimate. It will slaughter. 

It will divide the center. Conquered and fallen apart. 

Several centuries later and he is a pale child outside of Bethlehem. He is disguised and reformed as an adolescent but he is still the adversary. And he is there with the other, his opposite. His more beloved little brother, the son of the virgin and the carpenter. 

Teenage Jesus and teenage Satan are in contest, their hands are bleeding and full of blood and locked together in a twist and struggle. The adversary wishes to murder the savior child, in jealousy and in impudent rage. His hands wish to find his throat or a rock or his eyes, perhaps if he blinds the little brother savior child he will be useless to all of man and their sons and daughters. 

A Philistine sun burns overhead. But the adversary child is not successful. Teenage Satan is a failure once again, and bleeding he must wander and go out, cast out. Exile. Wanderer. 

Petulant. Angst. Eyes so full and wide and full of boiling water. He brings light once again but only in rage, only in his wild anger postfailure. He simmers and tears and burns so brightly out and alone way past the dark. 

Regroup out in the wild. Reform in the oblivion of solitude and pain borne in terrible silence that is only broken by the pathetic sounds of private torment taken slowly. Weeping that he tries to prevent and ignore and pretend has never been actually happening, not ever, not him, he doesn't miss heaven or his Father … none. Nothing. None of them. 

None of them mean a Goddamned thing. 

He always came back. Mighty. Diminished. Unassuming. Something in-between or intangible. He always came back. 

The adversary. 

Even broken and alone and filthy vagrant wandering. Even crystal meth slurping and supercharged because of such for the final abattoir riot of violence and great western societal collapse into shrill shattered glass cacophony and tidal waves of bloodfeast. Into he, his, the vagrant filthy jaws of the adversary. 

The fallen order, the Armageddon one, the end-is-nigh motherfucker …

the apocalypse man. 

Alone and filthy in a corner. 

Dreaming, not dreaming. 

Seeing and knowing only disorder. He hears and knows the call of the 7th Star. 

He dreams and knows of burning heaven. 

THE END

Now we shall expand Dreadnet, and Dreadnet is not just Creepypasta 2.0 but also the 4chan horror version. We will have lots of new stories with great quality, and they can be in any genre of horror and series, and they can have interconnections of stories! I apologize that I haven't helped out, but my novel Elsewhere should help expand the Dreadnet mythology. We will have analog horrors, and also don't forget our main ally, digital horror, since Dreadnet is an internet horror. So Dreadnet is the same as digital horror. But what are we waiting for? Let's goooooo!!!!!!

It does not possess a face, yet every witness reports the overwhelming sensation of being watched

You step into the flooded hallway, tracking the sound of dripping water until your flashlight catches the silhouette at the far end. The pipes overhead aren't just rusting; they are peeling back like old skin to feed into whatever is standing there. Its head is a featureless mass of pale tissue, swaying slightly as if trying to lock onto the rhythm of your breath. You don't realize how loud your own heartbeat is until something in the dark starts mimicking it perfectly. By the time you turn to run, you realize the hallway behind you has already grown completely silent

The entity wanders isolated roads disguised as a normal young boy to trick victims into letting it close. Once inside, the human illusion collapses as its face splits vertically into a jagged, tooth-filled void. The sudden shift shatters the victim's mind into a violent hallucination, plunging the house into a pitch-black void where the walls warp, objects move on their own as if alive, and reality unravels as their static-filled screams are trapped permanently inside the morphing shadows .

Explorers pulled a rusted, decades-old capsule from the ocean and immediately transported it to Space Headquarters for analysis. Inside the sealed viewport sat a corpse, its face twisted into a massive, wide-eyed grin .

As headquarters directors and police gathered around the glass to identify the body, the facility’s power completely cut out .

For five seconds, the sound of heavy, mechanical breathing echoed through the pitch-black laboratory.

When the backup generators kicked back on, the capsule was empty. The latch was still locked tight from the outside, but the interior glass was smeared with wet, fresh handprints .

It wasn't a dog at all, it was something else

Final Recovered Audio Log
Recording Source: Detective Marcus Hale
Date: Unknown
Status: Subject Missing
⸻
[BEGIN AUDIO TRANSCRIPT]
Click.
My name was Marcus Hale.
Not anymore.
Marcus Hale is gone.
I’m only The Detective now.
Long silence.
The cult.
The Proxies.
They’re the only things standing in my way.
Everyone else…
I got rid of them.
The police kept following me.
Watching me.
Whispering when I walked past.
Some of them were spies.
I know they were.
I had to stop them.
Pause.
Maybe they weren’t.
I don’t know anymore.
Static.
It doesn’t matter.
The police are useless.
I left my badge on my desk this morning.
I don’t deserve it anymore.
Not after everything I’ve done.
Not after what I’ve become.
Heavy breathing.
I destroyed my own life trying to stop Rose.
I lost my family.
I lost my friends.
I lost my job.
I lost myself.
And for what?
He’s still out there.
Still smiling.
Silence.
So this is it.
My final police audio log.
If anyone finds these tapes, then you’ll know what happened in these woods.
You’ll know my story.
You’ll know theirs.
And maybe…
You’ll understand.
Sounds of equipment being picked up.
I’m taking my service revolver.
My machete.
And enough ammunition to finish this.
One way or another.
Rose dies tonight.
Or I do.
Recording cuts briefly.
⸻
[ADDITIONAL NOTES]
The remainder of the recording contains approximately three hours of distorted audio.
Much of the tape is corrupted by static.
The following segments were successfully recovered.
⸻
[RECOVERED SEGMENT]
Footsteps on leaves.
Heavy breathing.
I’ve been walking for hours.
The woods don’t look right.
I should’ve reached the river by now.
I keep ending up in the same place.
I swear I’ve passed this tree six times.
Pause.
Something’s watching me.
I know it is.
Distant laughter.
Rose?
No response.
⸻
[RECOVERED SEGMENT]
I found something.
A house.
No.
Not a house.
A mansion.
Hidden deep within the woods.
How the hell did nobody find this place?
Long silence.
There’s a symbol carved into the front door.
A circle.
An X running through the middle.
I’ve seen it before.
In the Toby Rogers file.
The Proxy symbol.
Heavy breathing.
This isn’t Rose’s cult.
This is something else.
Something older.
Wood creaks in distance.
The place looks abandoned.
But I know I’m not alone.
I can feel eyes on me.
Watching.
Waiting.
Long pause.
There’s static.
I don’t know where it’s coming from.
There aren’t any power lines out here.
No radios.
Nothing.
But I can hear it.
Static intensifies.
I think…
I think I know what this place is.
Silence.
If these recordings are found…
Do not come looking for me.
Do not enter these woods.
And whatever you do…
Don’t go inside the mansion.
Door slowly creaks open.
End of recording.
[END TRANSCRIPT]
Final Note:
Detective Marcus Hale was never seen again.
Search teams recovered his abandoned vehicle near the edge of the forest three weeks later.
No trace of Detective Hale was ever found.
The case was officially closed in 2015.
However, reports persist of a lone man wandering the woods at night carrying a flashlight and a revolver.
Locals simply refer to him as:
“The Detective.”

Eighteen-year-old Michael was filming a video on the empty highway overpass when a pale, white shape zipped past and disappeared into a dark drainage tunnel. Drawn by curiosity, he climbed down to the concrete opening, only to find a frozen, screaming face staring back at him from the blackness. As his camera focused, an intense, sickening stench of rot and copper flooded the tunnel, accompanied by the distinct sound of bone-snapping contortions as its limbs began to unnaturally shift. The video cuts to static mid-scream, leaving behind only the sound of heavy, wet thumping sprinting out from the pipe

Not too long ago over a month I had came across some photos that I had taken and found awhile back.

Shortly due to the belonging to the finding of these series of photos that I had found showcasing one thing and mainly specifically.

Each photo having a visual of a inhumanely tall pale skinned faceless entity in a black press suit and tie.

I will go into detail explaining each one being a total of 13 photos I had found.

1/13:

Showing a part section of a neighborhood showcasing a foggy backdrop and in the distance there is the figure standing there in the fog.

2/13:

This one showing the same figure standing amongst a crowd of people in a town during the 1950s Jim Crow era. Standing there beside the lamppost.

3/13:

In this one I had almost had missed it if it wasn't for it's pale faceless head I would've easily missed it standing there in the background in the far left.

4/13:

Visiting a friend and I taken it while looking outside of the inner square of the inside of the complex. It just stood there behind a tree.

5/13:

Walking along the street and I stopped in front of a random house, snapped a picture and found it standing there behind the house on the left, nearly towering over the porch roof.

6/13:

Photo of when I was a kid and me and parents along with my brother (short haired kid on the left) had went on a camping trip, my father had snapped the picture capturing the entity standing behind the family RV.

7/13:

Taken a photo of my highschool buddies back in my highschool years sitting around the fire during the day light. Found it standing behind the tree.

8/13:

Found this one actually. A Facebook post a bit glitchy but you still make out the group college friends sitting around the fire. The entity standing behind the cabin on the far right.

9/13:

Back in 2015 this photo was taken on a dashcam in a car traveling down the road to which it had been standing on the side of the road.

10/13:

A husband took the photo back in 2010, a mother standing holding a baby they had. The damn thing stood out in the open behind a car across the street. Strange is this was taken before the baby was taken from the crib and the parents were both found dead.

11/13:

A trio of photos compacted into one showing a group of teenage girls standing outside with the entity standing there in the background.

12/13:

A father snapped a photo of this in the grocery store checkout lanes as the mother held her baby. The entity stood outside in the window.

13/13:

The final one being where the father had snapped a picture showing a mother trying to get her child back to her who was standing at the end of the isle shelf. Standing behind it partly was the entity itself. The parents were found dead in that store and the child gone. The store had shut down 6 days later after.

Not sure what this entity is but I'm sure hoping to figure it out. Can't look at these photos anymore than less of a second because every time I do, I begin to feel a tad bit uncomfortable and creeped out by just looking at them and seeing that entity standing in the background of each photo.

Honestly I don't know what to think of it really. Hard to say to be fair. What do you guys think?

creature found in the woods behind a local motel, photographed on a cheap digital camera. It stands completely frozen in the dark, watching your window from the edge of the tree line. The static noise on your phone gets louder the closer it gets to your porch. It makes absolutely no sound, and when you look directly at it, you suddenly realize you cannot remember how to breathe until you turn away .

It comes when fog envelops the forest.

Four friends were driving down a pitch-black country road at night when a tall figure appeared on the side of the road. Thinking it was just an ordinary pedestrian, they ignored him and continued on their way.

A few minutes later, the exact same figure appeared on the opposite side of the road, and they passed him again. When he kept appearing every few miles, one of the friends noticed the eerie pattern and realized they had seen him several times before.

After exactly 45 minutes of driving, their car engine suddenly broke down, forcing them to pull over. The friends got out of the vehicle and crowded around the open hood to see what the problem was.

As they inspected the engine, a wet, horrifying sound echoed from the darkness right behind them—like a cracking, broken body shifting its bones. They whipped around and found the towering creature standing in the road.

Suddenly, the entity unfolded its massive, skin-colored sickle-arm and attacked. Panicking, the friends dropped their tools and ran for their lives into the dark, completely abandoning their car on the empty highway. They managed to safely escape on foot, leaving the vehicle behind .

Restricted Case File — Subject: Slender Man
Archive Reference: SM-1999
Reviewed By: Detective Marcus Hale
Classification: HIGHLY DANGEROUS
⸻
[ENTITY FILE]
Known Names:
Slender Man

The Man of Static

The Tall Man

The Operator

Physical Description:
Extremely tall.

Unnaturally thin.

Completely faceless.

Pale skin.

Black suit.

Red tie.

Four black tentacles extending from the back.

Multiple witness reports describe the entity’s body as appearing to be made entirely of television static.
Its face, hands, and exposed skin reportedly flicker and distort like an old broken television screen.
Witnesses claim its outline constantly shifts, making it difficult to focus on directly.
Photographs taken during alleged sightings often display severe distortion, static interference, or complete corruption.
⸻
[WARNING]
Individuals encountering the entity are advised:
Do not use electronic devices.

Do not follow the entity.

Leave the area immediately.

Failure to comply may result in severe psychological trauma, disappearance, or death.
Subject is considered highly dangerous.
⸻
[BEHAVIORAL REPORT]
While reviewing archived witness statements and psychiatric evaluations connected to proxy-related incidents, several recurring patterns were identified.
Subjects exposed to Slender Man reportedly experienced worsening emotional instability over time.
Common symptoms included:
Obsessive thoughts.

Increased aggression.

Severe paranoia.

Violent impulses.

Emotional fixation on trauma.

Hallucinations.

Sleep deprivation.

Early investigators developed a theory.
Slender Man does not create thoughts.
He amplifies them.
Fear becomes terror.
Anger becomes rage.
Sadness becomes despair.
Grief becomes obsession.
The entity appears to strengthen negative emotions until they consume the victim entirely.
⸻
[TOBY ROGERS CONNECTION]
Several reports involving Tobias Rogers suggest this phenomenon may have contributed to his psychological decline.
Prior to the murders, witnesses described Toby as troubled but functional.
Following repeated sightings of the alleged entity, his behavior reportedly became increasingly unstable.
Investigators theorized that Slender Man did not force Toby to kill his father.
Instead, he amplified thoughts already present until Toby lost control.
Shortly after murdering his father, Toby burned down his family home, killing his mother inside.
He then disappeared into the woods.
Numerous unconfirmed reports claim Toby later became one of the Proxies.
Case remains unresolved.
⸻
[THE PAGES]
One detail repeatedly appears throughout every major Slender Man investigation.
Pages.
Handwritten pages found scattered throughout the woods.
No confirmed author.
No confirmed purpose.
Every witness who reported collecting the pages experienced similar symptoms.
Headaches.

Memory loss.

Paranoia.

Compulsive behavior.

The feeling of constantly being watched.

Many victims became obsessed with finding more pages.
Several disappeared shortly afterward.
No explanation has ever been found.
⸻
[INCIDENT REPORTS]
Over the past several decades, numerous disappearances have been connected to the forests surrounding the town.
Many victims were later found deceased.
Others were never located.
Witnesses frequently reported:
Static noises.

Headaches.

Memory loss.

Hallucinations.

Sightings of a tall faceless figure among the trees.

Several reports mention individuals later identified as Proxies operating within the same area.
Connections remain unconfirmed.
Official status:
UNSOLVED.
⸻
[PERSONAL NOTES — DETECTIVE MARCUS HALE]
The deeper I dig into these files, the worse everything becomes.
Every case leads back to the same place.
The woods.
Rose disappeared there.
Toby Rogers disappeared there.
The Proxies operate there.
And now every file involving Slender Man points there too.
Maybe it’s all connected.
Maybe I’ve been chasing the wrong monster this entire time.
The other officers think I’m losing my mind.
Maybe they’re right.
I haven’t slept in days.
I barely eat.
Every time I close my eyes, I see my family’s faces.
I hear Nina laughing.
I hear her telling me it was already too late.
And now…
I keep thinking about those pages.
I checked the evidence archives yesterday.
I found several recovered copies.
I read them.
I don’t even know why.
Since then, I can’t stop thinking about the woods.
I can’t stop thinking about Rose.
Every day I feel angrier.
Every day I feel more violent.
Every day I want to find Rose and make him suffer for what he did.
If these files are right…
If Slender Man really amplifies negative thoughts…
Then maybe Toby never stood a chance.
And maybe neither do I.
Long pause.
No.
I’m done waiting.
Tomorrow, I’m going into those woods.
I don’t care what’s hiding there.
I don’t care if it’s Rose.
I don’t care if it’s Slender Man.
I don’t care if every Proxy in existence is waiting for me.
This ends tomorrow.
When I leave those woods, Rose will be dead.
Or I will.
— Detective Marcus Hale
[END FILE]

Elena dropped her coffee when the surveillance camera feed began to flicker.She thought it was just a stray dog hiding in the dark basement corridor, but then she saw the bones begin to snap on screen. The thing stood up backwards, its head twisting completely upside down to stare directly into her monitor with glowing eyes.The Inverted Wolf was too massive to fit inside the air vents, but it didn't need them. Elena watched in horror as its giant, spindly limbs easily smashed right through the heavy security doors .

The child watched TV. It was his only friend, being so young and isolated, the father didn't want him, spent all of his hours at work or in his room, the basement. The mother is long gone. 

Before she left she named him Jack. After a boy in highschool that had been incredibly nice to her, during that rough and strange time of her life. The father doesn't like it but had offered no suggestion, so Felicia got her way and the name was put. 

Jack misses his mother but doesn't know it. He misses his father too but doesn't realize this either because the emotion is eclipsed by the more immediate fear, the terror his father puts into him. His voice. His angry eyes that almost seemed to smoke and smolder beneath a caveman's furrowed livid brow. His fists. Jack swore his father had fists the size of phonebooks. The size of cinderblocks. The size of planets. The child does what he can to not bother his father, and stay out of his way. 

This is where the television comes in. 

This is where the apple comes in. 

Jack watched many shows on TV. But his favorite was the one with the apple. The one that talked and danced and had been made by a wise wizard of the woods named Faster Haster who puffed a pipe and wandered enchanted forests. The Apple had a name too, and a jaunty green cap, like the one Robin Hood or Peter Pan would wear, red feather and all, he was always smiling. The apple was always happy and his name was Happy Adam. 

There was one day, one afternoon after school alone with the television set, one episode of Happy Adam & Friends of the Garden that changed young Jack and his life forever. Changed everything. 

He was watching the set, the scene unfold: …

The smiling fruit and his aged wizard friend were visiting a friend of theirs in the magical hospital of the fairytale wood. A brave knight called Thrustelot who'd taken a bad fall during one of his bouts and had fallen on his sword. The robed one, the hooded mage who was nurse to the fallen knight was grave and shook their hidden head and face, the news was bad. The knight was dead. 

Happy Adam turned to the camera and audience to address them with an aside of advice. 

Happy Adam: Remember, kids! Always be extra careful when handling something sharp, it's very dangerous. Don't move too fast or run when holding sharp objects like Sir Thrustelot’s sword, or a pair of scissors. Or a knife. 

The camera went in closer, cutting into an extreme close-up of the wide shine of the unblinking Apple's eyes. 

Happy Adam: Remember that, children. Remember. Okay…?

Jack answered back, he always loved talking to his favorite characters through the TV set. And Happy Adam was the absolute best. He acted like he was talking to you and talking back. It was great fun and sometimes it really really seemed like Adam was talking to him through the glass glow of the television screen. It was like magic. Happy Adam was magical, he could do anything. He would do anything he said. 

“Ok, Happy Adam!" 

Adam and the old wizard continued on their merry trek, their way and journey through the forest. They came upon some more friends that were having a picnic on a blanket amongst the living trees. 

The eversmiling apple and the old one sat down to join the kids in eating their nice meal on the dark purple blanket, it was covered in crosses and stars and wide alive eyes staring forever. Jack thought it was neat and the color was alluring and attractive next to the old wizard’s bright yellow robes as he sat down upon it. Next to the smiling wide eyed red amongst the living sorcery realm of woodland brown and green. The sun and the moon were out at the same time and looking down on them all, the scene with ravenous interest and open drooling mouths. Jack thought they looked goofy and silly, he thought they were hilarious. 

The screen flickered, the image was disturbed and Jack thought he saw something else staring at him in its stead. But before he really knew it the picnic scene returned to normal and the boy felt at ease once more. The children sitting on the purple blanket of fun symbols opened their picnic basket and began to pass out the food. 

The beautiful flowers spoke then to the children. They had no faces but open floral mouths, pink and glistening … dripping with dew that was said to be filled with sorcery and dreams. Surrounding the picnic blanket of eyes and stars, they whispered and sing-song spoke to the kids through their gaping wide open pink flower petal mouths, dripping and salivating wet…

 … Feed him … feed them…

The open mouths surrounding the shroud the color of night repeated the words in a litany, a chant, a prayer. 

Jack munched on his own snacks of peanut butter and crackers and gummy bears. He felt like he was taking part in the fun too, eating and picnicking with Happy Adam and his wonderful friends. He sipped his cup of Shasta and belched. 

Happy Adam: Mind your manners! Remember you have to pass out the food according to the hierarchy, do you remember, children?

The kids cried back in a unified chant, some species of group monotone, Yes, Happy Adam…!

Happy Adam: So who gets the first serving? 

The kids: Haster! cuz he made you!

A musical cue, a sting, happy, jubilant, great job, you'll have so much success…

Happy Adam: That's right, kids! And then me and then the rest of you, cuz I'm his favorite son and first begotten creation, I existed before all of this, this whole kingdom and the whole enchanted forest … did you know that, kids?

The kids: æhïbdëø¡

Happy Adam: That's right!

The kids passed food to the wizard first. Haster accepted it without a word but a deep nod that conveyed the sought after gratitude of an elder. 

Then they passed the food to Adam. Who insisted on eating fruit with the rest of them. The apples, he said. The apples are what I want best. 

The kids: But Adam, you can't eat apples!

Happy Adam: Why not!?!?

The kids: because you ARE an apple, Happy Adam! 

And then they all laughed. Laughed and giggled. Even Adam. Even Haster. 

Then Adam said: It's ok, kids. Sometimes it's alright to try things that seem a little weird or wrong, it's called ‘taboo’ and I'm sure lots of your mommies and daddies know exactly what I'm talking about. Your brothers and sisters too, your teachers and everyone, everybody… It's called forbidden fruit! And sometimes, kids, you just gotta have a little taste …

The children laughed harder. The wizard too, laughing harder. Slapping knee. Hysterical. Jack felt like joining them. His eyes were glued to the screen. Crackers held slack in fingers that felt faraway, forgotten. 

Happy Adam: Now why don't one of you beautiful children come over here and feed me some that forbidden fruit? How bout it, kiddos?

The kids: Ok, Happy Adam! 

Jack watched as the children crowded round the happy apple, each vying for favor and the privilege to feed him. Each had a glistening fresh dripping slice of apple wedge in hand. Ready to serve. Ready to feed. Jack couldn't take his eyes from the screen. He wanted to be… 

Jack wanted to join them. He wanted to be with them. He wanted to be one of the children crowded around Happy Adam, if there was only some way …

Jack watched wide eyed as the apple became strange. His mouth. As the children came in with their hands in multitudes, that seemed to grow and sprout anew like the petals and stalks of some strange heavy flower, all around the hungry happy apple his mouth began to change, transform. Transmogrify. 

The comfy and fuzzy gentle nature of felt puppet material was suddenly mammalian and malleable flesh all around the mouth and lips. They looked warm and living now, rippling and stretching and contriving into wide open wet stretched and wriggling flesh and organ, the teeth were glistening and shining and stringy with tendrils of saliva and drool. The tongue now an organ alive and pink, danced within the newly birthed orifice on the face of the happy apple muppet.

The organ and teeth danced for one thing, feed, fill us. Fill our new wet and magic home. 

The hands of the children began to come in and they came in a crowd, a wreck, a mob – grubby child mitts wielding the glistening flesh and meat of dissected and dismembered fruit. They shoved the slices and wedges in the wide open salivating maw, the cavernous wriggling fresh wound of a mouth, the wound began to munch and chew and ravenously devour the many pieces and wedged slices of juicy fresh apple, freshly cut, freshly prepared just like the mouth itself they now plowed into. Adam moaned between chomping bites with deep relish and sweet satisfaction. The children laughed and so did Haster. 

And so did Jack. Though he thought it was more beautiful than it was funny. Really. 

Really really beautiful. 

He watched the beauty onscreen unfold and pulp and chew and decorate itself with bits and slimy pieces of half-eaten pulped and juicy bits of apple, fruit meat and flesh becoming mush, becoming sauce between newly forged pearly white teeth.

One of the child's voices came in with a query in a playful and sing-song tone: Adam, why do you like eating apples? I mean, you're an apple, isn't it bad?

Happy Adam, between ravenous bites and chewing and swallowing: That's a very good question, boys and girls. I eat my own because it makes me stronger, it gives me power. Just like when you eat the flesh of crawling beasts, children, when you eat the flesh that crawls and labors, you gain its power. You've conquered it. Completely. And now it must live inside you. So now the lives of other lesser apples must now live inside me for all time, for forever, and after that and behind the wall of sleep. And even after that. All the way to the true and final end, the ballroom floor of eternityscape that is black. Isn't that neat! Don't you think so, children? What about you, Jack? 

Jack didn't quite believe it at first. He gazed zombie eyed into the glowing pulse of the electrical and mechanical pineal gland growth, its lurid electric extension…

But the mammalian patch of apple flesh that now more resembled skin as red as the devil's ass stretched wider and grew rictus. Apple bits and pieces in the gleaming white teeth and the juice running out of the corners of the fleshy mouth and dribbling down in a pulpy drool of mush. 

The apple began to speak again. All else was quiet and still now as he spoke. 

Happy Adam: Yes, Jack, yes, it's real. I'm really talking to you. How are you, Jack?

A beat. A child's breath was held. 

Released. 

“I'm-I’m ok, Happy Adam." 

Happy Adam: ohhhh…. I dunno. You don't look or sound ok to me little buddy, you look terrible. I always see you here with us, watching us, and you always look so alone and so scared, and you know what …? … I think I know why, Jack. 

Jack said nothing. Only watched the television. Eyes wide open and drinking in every single flicker. 

Happy Adam: I think it's because you have a crawling beast, a beast of labor in your home, Jack. You have a beast of bad work that lives in the basement when he isn't sleeping off the hooch in his bed. And that's not all, Jack. There's also yourself. You need to take better care of yourself, you need to treat yourself better and make yourself stronger. Like me. 

A beat. 

Happy Adam: Do you know what I mean, Jack? Do I understand what I'm trying to tell you? It's very important. It's for you after all, it's for your best interest. It's what's best for you that we all care for and here in the forest, consider. Do you understand, Jack? Do you? 

Once again Jack didn't say anything. 

A beat. 

But then he slowly began to nod his head. Yes. 

Yes. 

Yes, Happy Adam. Yes. 

Rictus red face on screen, filling the frame: Good, Jack. That's really really good of you. I'm so proud and happy. And I'll be prouder and happier still, you know the best way to start treating yourself better and making yourself stronger, right? We've talked about it before, on one of my many episodes … one of my many lessons. 

Jack spoke this time. He told the red face of the television set the right answer. He told the red face what it wanted to hear. 

Nutrition. 

Happy Adam: That's right, Jack! We have to start eating better! That's it! Waytogo, cowboy!

The child sat and listened to every word the television said. Absorbing every detail of information and instruction. 

…

The booze his father always poured into himself did the job. The pills he'd been told to slip did the rest. Russel Wimberly, Jack's father was completely drugged and under. Then the work laid before the child could really begin. As he'd been instructed. He wasn't nervous. He felt nothing in fact. Hadn't felt anything since that afternoon with the television. It was well past into the postmidnight black. 

The mountain lug of man had managed to make it to his bed before finally collapsing under the drug and alcohol induced spell of slumber. He was in a sweaty snoring heap when the door opened to his bedroom and the child crept in. He did not blink or falter. 

He did not tremble or whimper or shake. His father might've been proud, before tonight he'd always thought of the boy as a wimp, a limpwrist, a pussy. The worst type of boy a father could have, Russel and his own old man had always thought. 

The snoring heap of man did not stir until the blade came down in a two-handed plunge and pierced where it had been guided and instructed. The fang of the blade bit in and came in easily through bone and flesh. Russel came to life with a choking gurgled gasp that quickly died a wet death in his throat. 

He couldn't move. He couldn't budge from the bed. The ropes and binds held tight and taut and rippled in the nighttime bedroom silence with strain and desperate effort. Blood began to pour from his mouth and nose. He began to choke. Wide eyed he helplessly gazed up and into the face of his killer. 

Some species of … laughter? …scream? …sound tried to escape him, but the boy and his blade had done their good. 

They'd done their job. Their great work. 

Now he just had to get to the living beating apple of warm dripping red that lived in his father's chest. He just had to dig it out, cut it out with the kitchen knife and take it unto himself. 

This way he would get better. This way he would get stronger. He'd be rid of the beast and filled with power. All in one. 

Just like Adam said. 

His glistening darkling little fist found the forbidden apple buried in his father's chest. He seized it. 

And ripped it out. By blade, by hand, by biting knife.

And took it into himself, right there. Raw and fresh. Just as the red face of Adam had commanded.  

THE END