V.

She found the photograph at a quarter to one, in the last place she looked.

It was in the 1974 folder, which was one of the thin ones, one of the small years. 1974. BELL REUNION / JULY 4. Inside there was nothing but a single photograph in a clear plastic sleeve, and a yellow legal sheet with one line on it in her father’s cursive, not shaky. The young hand. The 2001 hand.

Got this from S.B.’s housekeeper (retired), who got it from the photographer’s estate sale. Don’t know what it means. Can’t stop looking at it.

She slid the photograph out of the sleeve.

A color print, five-by-seven, with a white border and rounded corners. The colors had gone as seventies prints went, warm and soft, the greens going yellow and the blues going green. A picnic. A big lawn with oak trees, and long tables under the oaks covered with checked cloths, and red-white-and-blue bunting hung from a porch rail in the background. A crowd of people in summer clothes, mid-motion, holding paper plates.

In the foreground, a little to the left of center, two people stood side by side, looking at the camera. The only two in the whole picture who were.

A man. Fifty, maybe. Dark hair going gray at the sides. A white short-sleeved shirt open at the collar, sleeves rolled up past the elbow. A square jaw. He had one hand in his pocket and he was looking straight into the lens with an expression she knew, because she’d seen it on a little girl’s bottom step through a den doorway twenty-five years ago. Something she hadn’t had a word for yet.

Beside him, a woman. Early thirties. Dark hair pulled back hard. A blue cotton dress that didn’t fit her quite right, a borrowed dress, she’d have said, if she’d seen it on somebody else. Her hand was on the man’s arm. Just resting there, light.

And through her left eyebrow, pale against her skin, splitting it in two, ran a thin white scar.

Lena didn’t move.

She didn’t move for so long that Daniel, at the far end of the table with the Evan folder, looked up, and then got up, and came and stood behind her, and looked down at what she was holding.

He didn’t say anything either.

“That’s my father,” Lena said finally. Her voice was steady. “He’s older than he was. He was fifty-one when he left. That’s what he’d have looked like. That’s…” She stopped. “That’s my father.”

“Yes.”

“And that’s my mother.”

Daniel didn’t answer.

“That’s my mother,” Lena said. “When she was young. Before I was born. She looks like me. Everybody always said I looked like her.” She put the photograph down on the butcher paper very carefully. “It’s my mother.”

She took out her phone. It was ten to one in the morning. She called her mother.

Joanne answered on the fourth ring, thick with sleep and then not. “Lena? What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Mom. Did you ever go to Blackwater County with Dad? Before I was born?”

“What? No. Honey, it’s one in the…”

“Did you ever go to a Fourth of July picnic? With him? Anywhere? In the seventies?”

“Lena, I didn’t know your father in the seventies. I was in high school in the seventies. In Gastonia.” Her mother’s voice sharpened. “I met him in 1993. At a cookout at the Lake Norman marina. You know that. You know that story. What is this?”

Lena looked at the photograph. At the woman’s hand on the man’s arm.

“Mom. Did you ever have a scar? On your eyebrow?”

There was a silence on the line.

“No,” Joanne said. “Honey, that’s yours. You got that the summer after he left. You went over the handlebars of your bike on Tenth Street. Eleven stitches. You cried for him the whole time they were sewing it.” A pause. “Lena, are you all right? Where are you?”

“I’m fine,” Lena said. “I’m working. Go back to sleep, Mom. I’m sorry.”

She hung up before her mother could say anything else.

She sat looking at the photograph.

Daniel reached past her and picked it up, by the edges, as you hold a photograph that’s evidence. He turned it over.

On the back, a rubber stamp, blue ink, a little smeared:

BELL FAMILY PORTRAITS · BLACKWATER, N.C.

And under that, written in pencil in a neat old-fashioned hand:

July 4, 1974.

Daniel turned it face up again and set it down in front of her on the butcher paper, between the 1863 folder and the cards in the shoebox. He didn’t say anything about the date. He didn’t have to. She’d been born in 1995.

Lena touched the scar over her left eye. She didn’t know she’d done it until she felt it under her finger.

At two in the morning Daniel unfolded the hand-drawn map.

It had been at the bottom of the box, under the topographic quads, folded in eighths. A sheet of drafting vellum, the semi-transparent kind engineers used, gone the color of weak coffee. Her father had drawn on it in pencil and then gone over the lines in fine black ink, and the ink had bled a little into the vellum so every line had a soft gray shadow, like a road seen through fog.

It wasn’t a map of anything Lena recognized. There was no county line. No highways. No town. Just contour lines, carefully copied, the tight brown whorls of mountains and the long loose ones of valleys, and through the middle of them, winding, a single dashed line.

“A road,” Daniel said.

“There’s no road there.”

“There’s no road on any map made since 1870.” He took the 1951 county map off the wall of the conference room, where it had hung behind glass since before he was sheriff, and laid it on the butcher paper, and slid the vellum over it.

The contour lines matched. Not perfectly. Her father had drawn by hand. But the ridges lined up and the hollows lined up, and the dashed line of the road lay across the printed county like a vein under skin.

It started high, at the head of a hollow above Hale Gap. It wound down along the side of the mountain, under Laurel Knob, across the upper Bell lease. It crossed Shoal Creek. It went on south and east, down through the Raines bottom, and ran off the edge of the vellum at the river.

Lena picked up a pencil.

She went down the line of folders on the butcher paper, one at a time. She read the location from each one. She found it on the county map under the vellum and made a small dot on the vellum in pencil.

1. Laurel Hollow. The head of the road.

2. The timber camp on the upper Bell lease. A dot, an inch down the line.

3. The Caldwell mill. That one was off the line, on the river at the edge of town, and she paused over it. Then she found the note in her father’s hand in the folder: *Workers’ houses (mill village) along Upper Shoal Cr. Rd. 4 of 11 lived within 200 yds of route.* She put the dot on the village.

4. The washed-out access road above Hale Gap. On the line.

5. The Voss landing. On the line.

6. Shoal Creek. The Pritchard bend. On the line.

7. Raines ground. On the line.

8. The end of a logging spur on Bell land below Laurel Knob, where a blue Toyota had sat with the keys in it. Daniel watched her make that dot. He didn’t say anything.

When she was done there were nineteen dots on the vellum. Seventeen of them sat on the dashed line, or so close to it the pencil point touched.

She put the pencil down.

They stood and looked at it. A line of small gray dots strung along a road that wasn’t there, like beads on a string, from the head of a hollow where thirteen men and boys had walked into a snowstorm in 1863 down to a family cemetery in the Raines bottom.

In the lower corner of the vellum, below the legend, her father had written something. She hadn’t noticed it before. It was small and it was in the young hand, the 2001 hand, firm, and he’d underlined it twice.

They aren’t disappearing.

They’re going somewhere.

Daniel read it over her shoulder.

“He didn’t write where,” he said.

“No.”

“He didn’t know.”

“Or he didn’t want to put it on paper.” Lena looked at the underline. Two lines, the second darker than the first, like he’d come back and pressed harder. “He put his doubts in the margins. He put the things he was sure of in the middle of the page.” She touched the corner of the vellum. “This is in the middle.”

They ate breakfast at the Blackwater Grill on Depot Street at seven, because neither of them had slept and there was nothing else to do with the morning until the morning started.

The Grill had eight booths and a counter and a waitress named Pauline who had poured Daniel’s coffee before he sat down. It smelled of bacon grease and bleach. Three men in feed caps at the counter turned on their stools to look at Lena when she came in, and turned back, and one of them said something to the others too low to hear.

She ordered eggs and didn’t eat them.

Her phone had buzzed at 6:52 with a message from the motel front desk, forwarded to her cell by a clerk who had clearly read it first. Mr. Silas Bell would be pleased if Agent Mercer would join him for coffee at the house at eleven. She’d shown it to Daniel across the table without a word.

He read it. He handed the phone back.

“You’re going,” he said.

“I’m going.”

“I figured.”

He drank his coffee. Pauline came and topped it off without asking and went away again. He watched her go.

“Lena,” he said. “When you go up there.”

“Don’t tell me to be careful.”

“I wasn’t going to.” He turned his cup on the saucer. “There’s an old thing they say in this county. My granny said it. Eli says it. Half the old women in Laurel Fork Church would say it to you if you asked. You won’t find it written down anywhere.” He looked out the window at Depot Street, at a woman unlocking the door of the florist across the way. “Don’t give your full name to something that ought not to have it.”

She looked at him.

“That’s a superstition,” she said.

“I know what it is.”

“You’re telling me not to tell Silas Bell my name.”

“He knows your name. Everybody knows your name.” He kept his eyes on the florist. “I’m telling you not to give it to him.”

She thought about a woman on a creek bank in a yellow dress. Lena, honey. She thought about Eli Voss in his doorway. How’s your daddy resting? She thought about how many people in this county had said her name to her in four weeks who she had never once told it to.

“That’s the stupidest thing anyone has ever said to me,” Lena said.

“Probably.”

“I’m a sworn officer of the State of North Carolina.”

“Yes ma’am.”

She picked up her fork and ate a bite of cold eggs, to have something to do with her hands.

“Agent Mercer,” she said. “That’s all he gets.”

Daniel nodded, and picked up the check.

VI.

By nine-fifteen, everyone in Blackwater County who mattered knew that Silas Bell had asked the state girl up to the house.

The house was on Bellwood Ridge, at the end of a private road that ran three miles up from the Bell Road bridge through land that had been in the family since 1871. The road was paved the whole way. Nothing else that long in the county was. The trees on either side had been thinned so you could see out over the valley in glimpses, and at the top the road came out onto a broad lawn with oak trees on it, and long views, and a white house with a deep porch running all the way across the front.

Lena stopped the Charger at the edge of the lawn and sat there.

The oaks, and the porch rail where somebody had hung bunting in 1974.

She had the photograph in an evidence sleeve in her jacket pocket. She’d slept with it on the nightstand at the motel. She’d lain awake looking at the ceiling and thinking about her father at fifty-one, with gray in his hair, standing on this lawn twenty-one years before she was born, with a woman who had her scar.

She got out of the car.

Silas Bell met her on the porch. He was early sixties, trim, in a pale blue oxford shirt with the cuffs turned back once and khakis with a sharp crease. Silver hair, cut close. Reading glasses on a cord. He had a long, intelligent, weathered face, a face that had been handsome and was now something better than handsome, and when he smiled at her the smile went all the way up.

“Agent Mercer,” he said. “Thank you for coming up. I know it’s a long drive.”

“It’s a nice road.”

“My grandfather built it. He was a vain man.” He held the screen door. “Come in. Please.”

They had coffee in a room at the back of the house with windows on three sides and a view of the whole valley, the Blackwater River winding through it silver and far away. The coffee came in a silver pot on a tray, carried in by a woman in her fifties who didn’t say anything. There were cream and sugar in silver too, and a plate of thin lemon cookies nobody ate.

Silas Bell poured. He did it himself.

“I won’t take up your morning,” he said. “I know you’re busy. I wanted to say, first, how glad I am about the Pritchard girl. That was good work. I know June Pritchard a little. Our families go back a long way.” He handed her the cup. “And I wanted to say that if there’s anything I can do for you, while you’re here, I hope you’ll ask.”

“That’s kind.”

“It’s selfish. I like to be useful.” He sat back in his chair with his own cup. “I understand you’re with the Raleigh office.”

“Yes.”

“I have a friend there. In the director’s office. We were at Chapel Hill together, a hundred years ago.” He smiled. “He’s mentioned that they’re building out a new unit. Analytical. Pattern work. Cold cases across jurisdictions. He’s been looking for someone with field experience to help stand it up. Someone who’s methodical.” He sipped his coffee. “Someone who likes paper.”

Lena held her cup.

“That’s two,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Judge Hargrove offered to call the director for me too. Two weeks ago. At lunch.” She set the cup down on its saucer without a sound. “Something with a desk and a window, he said.”

Silas Bell looked at her for a moment. Then he laughed. It was a good laugh, surprised and real.

“Well,” he said. “Lyle and I don’t agree on much. I’m pleased we agree on you.”

“Why does everyone in this county want me behind a desk in Raleigh, Mr. Bell?”

He put his cup down. He looked out the window at the valley. The river. A hawk turning slow circles over the far ridge.

“I’ll be honest with you,” he said, “because I think you’d know if I wasn’t.” He turned back to her. “Blackwater is an old place. A careful place. It has survived a great deal, Agent Mercer, a war and a flood and a fire and the end of everything that ever paid for it, and it has survived by being careful about what it disturbs. There are things in this county that have lain where they were put for a very long time. Some of them are better left there.” He said it gently. “I think your father came to believe that, in the end. I think if he were here, he’d tell you so.”

“You knew my father.”

“I met him.” Silas picked up his cup again. “Once or twice. In 2000. He came up here, as you have, and sat in that chair, and asked a great many questions.” He drank. “He was a good man. I liked him very much.”

“What did you tell him?”

“About the same as I’m telling you.”

“Did he listen?”

Silas Bell looked at her over the rim of the cup.

“No,” he said. “He didn’t.”

They sat there. The hawk over the far ridge had found something and dropped out of sight.

Lena could feel the photograph in her jacket pocket. She could feel the edges of the sleeve through the lining against her ribs. She thought about taking it out and laying it on this table between the silver pot and the lemon cookies. She thought about what his face would do. She had built a career on knowing what faces did.

She didn’t take it out.

She stood. “Thank you for the coffee, Mr. Bell.”

“Thank you for coming.” He stood too, and walked her to the front of the house, down a long hall hung with paintings of horses and old Bells in dark coats.

Near the front door, between a hunting scene and a stern man with side whiskers, there was a smaller portrait. A young woman in a green dress with a narrow waist and a white collar, painted in the slick bright style of the 1950s. Dark hair in soft waves. A pale, composed face, and eyes that looked straight out of the canvas at whoever was passing, like she’d been expecting them.

A brass plate on the frame. MARGARET ELLEN BELL. 1931 –

That was all. The dash, and then nothing. No second date. On every other portrait in the hall the plate had two.

Lena slowed. Silas Bell, a step ahead of her, didn’t. He walked past the portrait without turning his head, like a man passing a door he’d decided not to open, and Lena understood that he’d been walking past it like that his whole life.

On the porch he stopped. The lawn spread out in front of them, green and wide under the oaks.

He was looking at her. Not at the lawn. At her face.

He looked a beat too long. Then another. It was not the look men gave her. She knew that look and this wasn’t it. This was the look Eli Voss had given her on his porch, and Mrs. Hensley from the bottom of her steps. Except it wasn’t quite that either. They had all been looking at her and seeing her father.

Silas Bell was looking at her and seeing her.

“Mr. Bell,” Lena said. “Have we met?”

He smiled. It was a kind smile, and a sad one, and it held a long time.

“I’d remember,” he said.

She didn’t start the car right away.

She sat in the Charger at the edge of the lawn with the engine off and took the photograph out of her pocket in its sleeve and held it up against the windshield.

The oaks were the same oaks. Bigger now, by fifty years, but the same. The third one from the porch had a low limb that went out sideways and then turned up, like an elbow, and in the photograph that limb was there over the picnic tables, thinner, and here it was in front of her, over an empty lawn. The porch rail. The same white posts. She found the spot where she and her father had been standing, eight or ten steps off the porch steps on the left, near where a flagstone path ran out to the drive. She was parked forty yards from it.

She looked at the photograph again. At the left edge, where the frame cut off a dessert table with a striped cloth, there was something she hadn’t seen at one in the morning in the conference room. Half a small arm, cut off by the white border at the shoulder. A boy’s arm, thin and tan, in a striped T-shirt sleeve. And in the hand at the end of it, held up and blurred with motion, a sparkler, throwing a smear of white light across the corner of the picture like a comet.

She looked up at the porch.

Silas Bell was still standing there, at the top of the steps, with one hand on the white post. Watching her car.

She put the photograph back in her pocket and started the engine, and didn’t look at the porch again all the way down the drive.

VII.

When the gray Charger had gone down the drive and out of sight among the trees, Silas Bell went back through the house to his study.

It was a dark room, paneled, at the north corner, with one window that looked out on the side lawn and the oaks. His grandfather’s desk. His grandfather’s chair. Books nobody had read in sixty years, and the smell of them.

He closed the door. He sat down at the desk.

He took a small brass key from his watch pocket, where he had carried it every day since he was nineteen, and unlocked the center drawer.

The drawer was nearly empty. A fountain pen that had been his father’s. And a photograph, lying face up, alone, in the middle of the drawer, where he could see it every time he opened it.

A color print, five-by-seven. White border. Rounded corners. The colors gone warm.

The lawn. The oaks. The bunting on the porch rail. A crowd of people holding paper plates. And in the foreground, a little to the left of center, a man in a white shirt with gray at his temples, and a woman beside him in a borrowed blue dress, with her hand on his arm.

Around the woman’s face, someone had drawn a circle in ink. It had been blue ink once. It had gone brown, the color of tea, the color ink goes after fifty years in a dark drawer.

Silas Bell looked at it a long time.

He had been eleven years old. He had been standing at the very edge of the frame, to the left, by the dessert table, with a sparkler in his hand that he wasn’t supposed to have. And the woman in the blue dress had turned and looked at him, just after the flash went off, and smiled, and asked him his name.

He had told her. He hadn’t known yet that you shouldn’t.

He touched the brown circle with one finger. Then he closed the drawer, and locked it, and put the key back in his watch pocket, and sat in his grandfather’s chair with his hands folded on the desk, looking at the window, where the oak leaves had just begun to turn.

I.

The tape made a sound like something tearing, and Lena liked it.

She was supposed to be asleep. She was six, and it was a school night, and Mama had put her down at eight with the nightlight and the door open a crack. But Daddy had been in the den since supper with the boxes, and the tape kept making the sound, and she’d gotten up and come down the hall in her socks and sat on the bottom stair where she could see through the den door without being in the den.

Daddy was on his knees on the carpet. There was a box in front of him, a white one with a lid, the kind he brought home from work with folders in them. He’d put the lid on. Now he was going around it with the tape gun, around and around, so many times the tape went shiny and thick like a scar on a knee.

He stopped. He sat back on his heels and looked at it.

Then he took a black marker out of his shirt pocket and uncapped it with his teeth, and wrote on the lid, in big square letters, slow, like he wrote on her lunch sack.

THE BLACKWATER PATTERN

He looked at it a while. Then he moved the marker down and wrote again, smaller.

Lena, don’t open until

The marker stopped. He shook it. He tried again, and it made a gray scratch with no ink in it. He shook it harder and pressed down and it squeaked on the cardboard and left nothing at all.

“Shoot,” Daddy said, very quietly.

In the kitchen, the phone rang.

He looked at the kitchen door. He looked at the box. He put the cap back on the dead marker and put it in his pocket and got up, his knees cracking, and went to answer the phone, and on the way past the den door he saw her on the bottom step.

He didn’t fuss. He came over and crouched down so his face was level with hers. He smelled like coffee and the cardboard.

“Hey, bug,” he said. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“What’s in the box?”

“Work stuff.”

“What’s Blackwater?”

The phone rang again in the kitchen. He looked over his shoulder at it. When he looked back his face had something in it she didn’t have a word for yet. She would have one, later. She’d have a lot of words for it.

“It’s a place,” Daddy said. “In the mountains. I have to go there for a while.”

“How long?”

“Not long.” He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Go on up. I’ll come kiss you.”

She went up. He came and kissed her. He left in the morning, before she was awake, and the box stayed on the den floor for six days with *Lena, don’t open until* on it, and on the seventh day her mother carried it up the pull-down ladder into the attic and didn’t bring it down.

Twenty-five years later Lena Mercer climbed the same pull-down ladder in the same house in Hickory with a flashlight in her teeth, and the box was right where it had always been, under the eave by the chimney, behind a Christmas tree in a bag and a crib that had been hers.

She knelt in the insulation dust and put the flashlight on it.

The tape had gone yellow and stiff. It had pulled away from the cardboard at one corner and curled. But it was all still there, all the way around, every layer of it, shiny and thick.

THE BLACKWATER PATTERN.

Lena, don’t open until

Nobody had ever cut it.

II.

“You’re not taking that out of this house,” her mother said.

Joanne Mercer Kimball was sixty-one and had been married to an orthodontist named Dennis for nineteen years, and she had the kitchen of a woman who’d waited a long time for nice things and gotten them. White cabinets and a marble island, and a wall of photographs in matching frames: Lena’s graduation, Lena at the academy, Joanne and Dennis on a cruise ship, Joanne and Dennis with Dennis’s grandchildren at the beach. In none of them was there any man who was not Dennis.

The box sat on the marble between them. Lena had carried it down the ladder without asking.

“It’s mine,” Lena said. “It’s got my name on it.”

“It’s got half a sentence on it.”

“It’s still my name.”

Her mother had a dish towel in her hands. She’d been drying the same glass since Lena came down the ladder. She put the glass in the cabinet and kept holding the towel.

“Is this about the case?” Joanne asked. “The girl. Dennis saw it on the news. She came home.”

“She came home.”

“Then you’re done.”

“I’ve got two weeks.”

“Two weeks for what?” Her mother put the towel down. Picked it up again. “Lena. Honey. Two weeks for what?”

Lena didn’t answer that. She put her hand flat on the lid of the box.

“You kept it,” she said. “Twenty-five years. You moved Dennis into this house and you redid the kitchen and the deck, and you never once threw this out.”

“It wasn’t mine to throw out.”

“You never opened it.”

“No.”

“Why?”

Her mother looked at the box. At the yellow tape. At the square black letters.

“Because I knew what was in it,” Joanne said. “That county. That’s what’s in it. He went up there in 2000 for a case, a few weeks he said, and he came back a different man. He’d sit at that table right there and he wouldn’t hear a word I said to him. He’d sit up till two in the den with his maps. He’d go back up for a weekend and stay a week. And I’d say Frank, what is it, what’s up there, and he’d say I don’t know yet, Jo. I don’t know yet.” She twisted the towel. “He chose it. Over us. Over you. He chose that county over his family, and it took him, and I wasn’t going to let it have you too.”

“Mom.”

“You were six. You’d sit on that bottom step every night waiting for him to come down the hall and kiss you. For a year. Every single night.” Her mother’s voice didn’t break. Lena had never once in her life heard it break. “So no. I didn’t open it. And I’m asking you not to.”

Lena looked at her mother across the marble island. At her good haircut and her reading glasses pushed up on her head and the dish towel twisted around her hand so tight the fingers had gone white at the tips.

“He wrote my name on it,” Lena said. “Not yours.”

Her mother flinched. It was small. Lena saw it and wished she hadn’t said it and knew she’d say it again.

“Fine,” Joanne said. She put the towel down on the counter and smoothed it flat. “Fine. Take it.”

Lena picked up the box. It was heavier than it looked. At the kitchen door she stopped.

“Do you ever think about it?” she asked. “What happened to him?”

Her mother was looking at the wall of photographs. At Lena in her academy uniform.

“Every day,” Joanne said. “I think about it every day. And every day I decide not to.”

She made it to the end of her mother’s street. She made it to the stop sign at the corner of Fourth Avenue, by the Lutheran church with the sign out front that said FALL FESTIVAL OCT 3 ALL WELCOME. She sat at the stop sign with the box in the passenger seat beside her, belted in like a child, and nobody behind her, and the turn signal ticking.

Then she put her forehead on the steering wheel and cried.

It went on a while. She didn’t fight it. She had fought it in her mother’s kitchen and on the ladder and in the attic in the insulation dust, and she was out of fight. She cried like being sick, with her whole body, in the front seat of a state car at a stop sign in Hickory with the turn signal going.

When it was done she sat up. She wiped her face with the heel of her hand. She looked at herself in the rearview mirror and didn’t look long.

The box sat in the passenger seat with the seatbelt across it.

She took her phone out of the cupholder and called Daniel Rusk.

He picked up on the second ring. “Mercer.”

“I’ve got it,” she said. “My father’s file. I’m two hours out.”

He didn’t ask what file. He didn’t ask anything.

“Clear a table,” Lena said, and turned left onto Highway 70, west.

III.

He’d cleared the conference table at the sheriff’s office. He’d done more than clear it. He’d covered it in white butcher paper from the roll they used for homecoming, taped down at the corners, and set out a box of nitrile gloves and two legal pads and a pack of Post-its and four sharpened pencils in a row. He’d put on a pot of coffee. Real coffee, from a bag, not the machine.

Lena stood in the doorway with the box in her arms and looked at it.

“You’ve done this before,” she said.

“Not with this one.”

She set the box down in the middle of the paper. They stood looking at it. Lena, don’t open until. Daniel read the half-sentence and looked at her and didn’t say anything about it. She was grateful.

She took out her pocketknife and cut the tape.

It went slowly. Twenty-five years of tape, around and around. It came away in yellow strips that curled on the butcher paper like peeled bark. When she lifted the lid there was a smell of dust and old paper, and under it a faint sharp chemical smell she couldn’t place until Daniel said, “Mimeograph,” and then she could.

The box was full.

Folders. Dozens of them. Manila and green and red, the old pressboard kind with the metal fasteners, each one labeled on the tab in the same square capitals her father had used on her lunch sack. They were packed in tight, upright, in order. Under them, flat on the bottom, were maps. Topographic quads, folded. A county road map from the 1950s. And a shoebox, a real shoebox, Buster Brown, with the lid held on by a rubber band that had melted into the cardboard.

She put on gloves. She started taking folders out and laying them on the butcher paper in a line, in the order they’d come out of the box.

1863. HOME GUARD / LAUREL HOLLOW.

1891. VOSS-BELL TIMBER CAMP / SPLASH DAM.

1927. CALDWELL MILLS / FIRE.

1959. SEARCH PARTY (7).

1976. W. HALE.

1978. D. PRITCHARD.

1990. M. RAINES.

1996. E. RUSK.

Daniel had stopped moving beside her.

She looked at the last label a while. Then she went on taking out folders, because that was the job, and laid them down, more of them, smaller dates, years she didn’t recognize, 1884, 1902, 1934, 1971, and when the box was empty she counted them and there were thirty-one.

She opened the first one.

REPORT OF CAPT. J. W. RUSK, BLACKWATER COUNTY HOME GUARD, TO THE ADJUTANT, ASHEVILLE. JANUARY 1863. A photostat of a handwritten letter, the ink gone brown and the writing slanting hard. Thirteen prisoners taken in Laurel Hollow, suspected of Union sympathies and of harboring deserters. Prisoners being marched to Asheville under guard. Prisoners escaped in a snowstorm at the head of the hollow. Pursuit made. No prisoners recovered.

Behind it, on a sheet of yellow legal paper, in her father’s hand:

13 men & boys. Youngest 13, oldest 61. “Escaped” in snow. No bodies ever recovered. No graves. Families never heard from them again.

Laurel Hollow appears on county maps 1849, 1855, 1861.

Does not appear on any county map after 1868.

Location on 1861 map corresponds to head of old Bell skid road above present Hale Gap. See topo.

Daniel was reading over her shoulder. She could hear him breathing.

“J. W. Rusk,” Lena said.

“Josiah,” Daniel said. “My great-great-great-granddaddy. He was sheriff after the war.” He didn’t say anything else.

She turned to the next folder. 1891. A newspaper clipping from the *Asheville Citizen*, photostatted gray. A splash dam on a fork of the Blackwater had given way in a June flood and swept away a timber camp. Twenty-two loggers, the cook, and the cook’s daughter. A list of names. Vosses, Hales, Shooks. A Pritchard.

Camp site searched for 3 wks. No bodies. Camp site itself not located after flood. Survivors (2) disagree on where it was.

Survivor 1 (L. Voss, age 16) told family: “We was in the wrong year. I seen my granny that died.”

1. A Caldwell Mills press release, typed. A fire in the carding room on the night of March 9. Prompt action by the night watchman. No loss of life. Production resumed in three weeks.

Payroll records (Caldwell Mills, obtained from Baker family, see letter): 11 card room workers paid through week ending Mar. 5, 1927. None of the 11 paid after. None appear in county death records. None appear in 1930 census.

Mae Baker (b. 1932) says her aunt Nell Baker “went to work and never come home.” Family told she ran off.

Lena laid each folder down open and went to the next. She didn’t stop. She was aware of Daniel beside her, and then not beside her, pouring two cups of coffee, and then beside her again setting one by her elbow where she wouldn’t knock it over, and she didn’t stop to drink it.

1. A carbon copy of a county search report. Seven names she knew now from Daniel. A long typed paragraph about the storm and the washed-out road. Search suspended due to conditions.

2. A Xerox of a three-page sheriff’s report. Juvenile located. No name.

3. A photostat of the Della Pritchard file. Thinner than Daniel’s copy.

She stopped.

RAINES, MARTHA ANN. W/F. 34. A woman who’d walked out to check on a heifer in a storm in April 1990 and never come back to the house. The Raines farm. The folder had a photograph of a field with a fence line and, at the top of the field, a grove of cedars around a little cemetery.

“I don’t know this one,” Lena said.

“Hollis Raines’s mama,” Daniel said. “Hollis was ten.” He looked at the photograph of the cemetery. “That’s Raines ground. The family plot.”

She laid it down. She picked up the next one.

1996. E. RUSK.

She didn’t open it. She held it out to him.

He looked at it a long time. Then he took off his reading glasses and folded them and put them in his shirt pocket, and took the folder from her, and sat down in a chair at the far end of the table with it, alone, and opened it.

She left him there. She went back to her end of the table and opened the next folder in the line and didn’t look at him again for a long time.

IV.

By eleven o’clock the butcher paper was covered.

Thirty-one folders laid open. Maps unfolded and weighted at the corners with coffee cups. Post-its in her handwriting and in Daniel’s. Lines drawn in pencil on the paper itself, between folders, connecting dates.

And her father’s handwriting everywhere.

It was in every folder. On the yellow legal sheets clipped inside each cover. In the margins of the photostats. On index cards rubber-banded together and tucked into the pockets. The square capitals for labels and the slanted cursive for notes, and Lena, who had not seen her father’s handwriting since she was six years old except on the backs of three birthday cards her mother had kept in a drawer, found that she knew it. She knew it as well as her own. She would have known it anywhere.

It was methodical. It was dry. It was a good investigator’s notes, the kind she’d been trained to keep, the kind she did keep: the facts on the page, in order, sourced, and the doubts in the margins.

The doubts were always in the margins.

She noticed that around nine o’clock and stopped and sat back in her chair.

Every time her father didn’t believe a witness, every time a number didn’t add up, every time an official report said one thing and the payroll records said another, his pen went to the margin. A small notation in the left margin, beside the line. Sometimes a question mark. Sometimes a single word. No. Or Why? Or, once, beside the typed sentence No loss of life in the Caldwell press release, Liar.

Lena did that. She had done that her whole career. Her training officer in Raleigh had teased her about it. Mercer’s marginalia, he called it. She had always thought she’d picked it up at the academy.

She looked at her father’s small square *No* in the margin of a hundred-year-old press release, and sat there with it.

“Lena.”

Daniel had come back up the table. He was holding a sheet of yellow legal paper from the Evan folder. His face had nothing on it that she could read.

“He knew me,” Daniel said.

“What?”

He laid the sheet down in front of her. Her father’s slanted cursive. A list, dated across the top. Nov. 2000.

E. Rusk case. Spoke w/ brother, Dep. D. Rusk, age 24. Kid’s been working it on his own 4 yrs. Has the boy’s files. Better notes than the original investigators. Good instincts. Stubborn as a mule.

And in the margin, beside it, small:

Tell him about the road?

Then, under that, a second time, in different ink, pressed harder:

Not yet. He’s not ready. Neither am I.

Lena read it twice.

“He never told me,” Daniel said. “About any road. We worked together six months. He’d come in and sit at my desk and we’d go through Evan’s boxes, and he’d ask me questions, and he never…” He stopped. He looked at the sheet. “Not yet.”

“He didn’t get to,” Lena said.

“No.”

They stood there with it between them.

“He said I had good instincts,” Daniel said. He laughed, short. “He told me I was a pain in the ass. To my face. More than once.”

“He wrote ‘stubborn.’”

“He did write stubborn.”

She almost smiled. She looked down at the page, at Good instincts, in her father’s hand, about a twenty-four-year-old deputy who’d grown into the man standing next to her, and she felt something she couldn’t name and didn’t try to.

It was in the shoebox that she found the cards.

The Buster Brown box. The rubber band broke when she touched it, all at once, like it had been waiting. Inside were index cards. Hundreds of them, three-by-five, white and ruled, stacked on edge and divided by tabs into years.

She took out the first stack and fanned it.

It was her father’s handwriting. And it wasn’t.

The letters were the same. The square capitals, the slant of the cursive, the way he crossed his sevens and made his g with an open loop. She knew them. But the hand was older. Shakier. The lines wavered. The pressure was uneven, heavy and then light, like the hand of a man with arthritis, or a tremor, or both. The ink on some cards had gone brown.

And the dates were wrong.

Oct. 1979. Mar. 1982. Jun. 1984. Jan. 1987.

Her father had first come to Blackwater County in the fall of 2000. Her mother had said so in the kitchen that morning. Hal Brookshire had said so, in the file Daniel had shown her. Frank Mercer had been twenty-nine in 1979, a patrol trooper in Mecklenburg County. He’d never been west of Morganton.

She looked at the cards.

Jun. 1984. Spoke w/ L. Baker (nurse). Confirms W.H. intake. Has copy of chart. Will hold.

Jan. 1987. E.V. will keep it. He’s the only one I trust. He doesn’t want to.

She stopped on that one. E.V. She had seen those initials in pencil, in the margin of Della Pritchard’s file, beside cf. 1959. She set the card to one side, by itself, and went on.

Mar. 1988. Can’t stop him coming. Tried. Every version I try, he comes anyway.

She put the cards down. She picked them up again. She went through them one at a time, slowly, and the hand got older as she went, the tremor worse, the ink heavier, until by the last tab, 1989, some of the letters were barely letters at all.

The last card in the box had no date. It was in the oldest, worst hand of all. Just a few words in the middle of the card, written large, like a man who couldn’t see well anymore.

Rusk boy. 1996?

Lena sat very still.

“Daniel,” she said.

He came and looked. He read the card. He read it again. She watched him do the arithmetic, the same arithmetic she’d done, and land where she’d landed.

“That’s 1989 or before,” he said. “That card.”

“It’s in the 1989 section.”

“Evan was eleven in 1989.”

“I know.”

“Your father wasn’t here in 1989.”

“I know,” Lena said.

Neither of them said anything for a while. The coffeemaker on the side table clicked and hissed, finishing a pot nobody had asked it for.

“Somebody’s forging his hand,” Lena said. “Somebody who had access to his notes. Made these up to look old. Planted them.”

“In a box taped shut in your mama’s attic since 2001.”

“I know where the box was, Daniel.”

“Then who?”

She didn’t have an answer. She put the card back in the shoebox. She put the shoebox lid on. She put her hands flat on the butcher paper on either side of it and looked at them.

* * *

Continued in Part 2.

Rupert was one of the laziest people known to man. This was a fact that he was either too aware of or too ignorant of, because in the 29 years and 11 months anyone had known him, he never changed and never wanted to change. He was content to do as little with his life as he could, and he was proud of it.
Rupert, without a hint of humor or irony, decided his 30th birthday would also be his retirement party. Retirement from any work whatsoever. His plan, in his words, was to “not have to worry about the usual 9-to-5 lifestyle, seek out options, settle down.” Their father, in his late 60s and still working, scoffed.
“Your whole goddamn life has been settling down. What do you think part 2 has to offer? Honestly, Rupert, when are you going to cut the crap?” After hearing that, Dad was uninvited to the birthday party.

In reality, Rupert didn’t have a 9-to-5 lifestyle. It was more of a 10-to-4 lifestyle. None of his jobs ever lasted more than 2 years, provided he chose to go to work at all. See, Rupert suffered from the three Nesses. Laziness, tardiness, deceitfulness. He would often show up late, take an ungodly amount of time in the bathroom, and add 10 minutes to the start and end of his lunch hour, and those were just his greatest hits. His favorite ways of getting out of work made use of his cat-like reflexes and his ninja-style ability to sneak out of something he dreaded doing.
These were just jobs that he got fired from.

The truth is it wasn’t always entirely his fault. You see, his job life was incredibly unlucky. His first job was at a video rental… before it closed down; his second job, an all-you-can-eat buffet, which also closed down. Photography film store, phased out. Bathroom attendant, replaced by a robot. Professional circus freak, no longer exists.
He was so unlucky with employment that he saw it as a sign from God that 30 years old was time enough to spend golfing and enjoying his “twilight years.”

His only viable source of income was sports betting, something he did modestly well in, but not enough to stay afloat as he foolishly idealized. Even the house he lived in was bought and paid for by his parents on his 21st. They foolishly thought that if they got him a house, it would give him enough independence where he could get a career going without the stress of paying rent and causing him to move back in with them. 9 years later, it had the opposite effect. While he didn’t move back in with his parents, he never really garnered a so-called career to speak of; the job he was currently quitting had been paying him high school teenager rates since he started there. So he wanted to retire from all that and, after all those tiny wins on the bets, he finally decided to spend it on his party.

Gerald was a people-pleaser. Gerald had no problems getting up and commuting, helping his fellow man, bending over backwards to get everything he felt like he’d earned in life. He had a job, a girlfriend, a car, his own house, everything he ever wanted, thanks to good old-fashioned hard work. His only flaw was that he was Rupert’s brother, and Rupert was about to turn 30. Gerald didn’t resent Rupert for his laid-back way of life; in fact, it was almost nonexistent in the eyes of Gerald. See, Gerald spent his whole life pleasing their parents, pleasing his bosses, pleasing everyone; he couldn’t possibly object to anything Rupert asked for. Could he? Not sweet Rupert. Sweet, stupid Rupert.
So when his brother’s birthday came up, Gerald had to get him the perfect present.

“Are your eyes still closed?” Gerald beamed as he nudged his brother through the front doorway of Rupert’s house.
“Yes. Of course.” Rupert replied with his hands covering his eyes.
Gerald continued to shepherd Rupert over to the corner left side of his already gigantic porch. Next to the doorway was a huge thing covered in a sheet.
“Ok open them!” Gerald instructed. As Rupert took his hands away, Gerald pulled the sheet off it. It was an old antique rocking chair; nothing like any rocking chair that Rupert had seen before. The wood resembled bone appendages; its color was somewhere between cream and brown, and there was a cushion with little sloths patterned all over it, which added a shred of comfortability to an already tough sell.
“Oh my god! Gerald, I love this!” Rupert cried. “See, you understand what I was talking about. You get this whole thing I’m going for.”
“I got it from some antique store,” Gerald replied. “The second I saw it, I knew it was very… you.”
“Why, I can face it into the street. Watch people walking past! My own personal theater of live performance.”
“You do like to people-watch.” Gerald stated. Rupert approached it and looked underneath.
“It says Belphegor.” He examined. “I wonder what that means.”
“It’s probably one of those wacky names they give it.” Gerald surmised. “Like that Wayfair company with all those human names.”
Rupert was about to sit on it.
“Do you know anything about who owned it before me?”
“Yeah, the guy before you died in it… apparently.” Gerald laughed. Rupert immediately changed his mind and stood back up.
“Oh god. You did… clean it down before you brought it here, right?”
“…Sure.” Gerald lied.
“I don’t know, I still feel weird about it. Do you know if it was a valued… personal item in the family?”
“They said that the guy never had a joyous moment while he was in that chair.” Gerald stated rather bluntly. Rupert looked it up and down.
“Ah, screw it. It’s mine now. Hey Ron! Come outside and look what Gerald got me! In fact! Let’s bring the cake out here.”

After an hour Rupert finally sat on his present. Everyone followed him out onto the porch and sang happy birthday, including their mother, who was the most ecstatic.
As far as Rupert was concerned, this was the greatest gift he’d ever received.

The next day, Gerald got a rather strange call from his brother.
“Gerald! It’s Rupert… your brother.”
“Oh hey, Rupert. How’d you go with cleaning up last night?”
“Yeah. Yeah good. Listen, man, you’re gonna need to come over. I have a bit of an emergency.”
“Emergency? What is it? Did you lock yourself out of your house again?” Gerald laughed. Silence on the other end.
“Yeah… It’s probably best that you come over. I can’t explain over the phone. And if I could, you probably wouldn’t believe me.”

When he got there, he saw Rupert sitting in the rocking chair with a very sour look on his face.
“I see you’re really utilizing that thing, huh?” He laughed. Rupert didn’t seem to share that sentiment. In fact, Rupert looked very afraid.
“It’s the strangest thing!” He stated. “I can’t seem to get out of this chair. I haven’t been able to since yesterday.”
Gerald cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
“Well, when I sat in it yesterday, for the cake, I just couldn’t get back up. Of course, I thought it might’ve been because I had too many drinks, so I sent everyone home thinking I had dead legs. But now… I don’t know what it is.”
“You’ve been in this chair the whole night?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say. I haven’t been able to get out of it. It feels like there’s some… thing holding me down and preventing me from getting up. Luckily, I had my phone on me. It was on like 2%, so I called you as soon as I could.”
“Ok, umm… just calm down and we’ll get you out of it… somehow.”
Gerald and Rupert then spent the next 20 minutes looking at Rupert’s predicament as if they were trying to lift a couch through a very narrow doorway. Gerald then attempted to lift Rupert out of this infernal prison.
“Wait, stop. You’re bending my spine. Wait… ARRRHGGGH!!!” Rupert screamed.
“What? What do you want me to do?”
“Just… let me go for a second! Let me go,” Rupert cried. Gerald released him from his grip. “There’s got to be an easy way of doing this.”
“Should I get the saw?”
“And accidentally cut my leg? What are you, out of your mind?”
“I don’t know. I…” Gerald trailed off.
“Just get the saw. Get the saw and maybe like a drill or something. Some kind of drill.”
Gerald then sawed his way into the chair. The saw wouldn’t cut through it. He tried the drill; it short-circuited and broke down. He tried the saw again, but the tool just broke apart under its own force.
“I don’t understand. How is this possible?” Gerald pondered.
“I think right now we need to abandon the question of why this is happening, and focus more on how I get out of it.”

Eventually, every single emergency service was called to Rupert’s house. While the police and firefighters needed a little convincing to get over there (Gerald tried to fight through the obvious laughter coming from the other side), the ambulance people were the only ones who took it seriously. Eventually, they all showed up not because they wanted to help Rupert with his problem, but more out of curiosity. They wanted to see this thing for themselves. The firefighters brought out their very sharp axe, causing Rupert to squirm in his seat over fear that one wrong swing and he could very well lose his manhood. After the axe didn’t take, the police tried ‘shooting’ him out, which also didn’t work for obvious reasons.
“Well, it’s certainly not physical.” An onlooking doctor explained. He was looking at the chair as if it were a rare ancient artifact. “He hasn’t fused here; he certainly hasn’t been nailed. In fact, by all accounts there should be no physical reason that he should be confined to this chair.”
“So what is it?” Gerald asked.
“I’m really not sure. Was it something you ate, Rupert? What have you been eating in the last 24 hours?”
“Party food.” Rupert replied bluntly. He was already fed up with his newfound affliction and Gerald could tell.
“What kind of party food. Any drugs?”
“Just party food.”
“Huh.” The doctor stood up.
“What ‘huh’? What are you saying, Doc?”
“I might need to run a few more tests. You mind if I take a saliva and a blood sample from you?”
“Sure, but if you want a urine sample, everyone will need to turn around.” Rupert said, followed by laughter from the crowd.
“When was the last time you ate?”
“Yesterday. In fact, I could go for something right now. Anyone want any pizza?”
Suddenly fifteen hands went up.
“Figures. If I’m going to be subjected to humiliation, I might as well be paying for it. Say, Gerald.”
“Yes, Rupert?” Gerald replied, leaning down by his side.
“Be a dear and order about six pizzas. One of everything.”
“Are you sure you can afford that, brother?”
“Yeah, for sure. While I was waiting for you, I bet on the Scavengers game.”
“Scavengers? They haven’t won a game all season.”
“I know. But something in me told me to bet on them. And since the last time I checked, they were up 15 points!”
A few murmurs rippled through the crowd. Half a dozen people then checked their phones.
“He’s right!” One of the cops claimed. More murmurs.
“The odds on that must’ve been through the roof.” Another said.
“I stand to win two grand. So yeah, Gerald, if you can get that and some garlic bread. Garlic bread, anybody? Yeah, garlic bread, ok.”
Gerald, feeling like he should’ve been doing more, just nodded and got up.
“Sure, brother. I’ll get right onto it.”
“Love you,” Rupert replied flatly.

Later, after the show was over and everyone went home, Gerald brought a few things out for Rupert onto the porch. A side table, a six-pack of beers, a pack of smokes, and a phone charger plugged into an extension cord that led into the house.
“Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in the house?” Gerald asked, handing him a beer. “I don’t know if I like you being out here all night.”
“I was out here last night and was fine,” Rupert smirked. “Besides, it’s still warm out; I think it would be relaxing. I mean it’s not every day where you can just… not do anything, and get away with it.”
“Well, some people don’t have that luxury.” Gerald shrugged.
“Also, I need to write a grocery list of things I need you to get tomorrow.”
“You think you’ll still be here tomorrow?”
“I was this morning. Why wouldn’t I be again?”

Rupert was there the next day, and the day after that and the day after that. Eventually his parents came by. His mother said she was heartbroken that “My Rupert is in such a horrible state.” His father just laughed his ass off, saying it served him right.

Later that week, Gerald went over to Rupert’s with his groceries.
Doctor Johnson, the guy who ran his tests the other day, was there with him.
“Ahh, Gerald, right on time.” Rupert sang.
“I was just talking to the good doctor about this whole… what-have-you. He told me that ‘you might want to sit down for this ’; I was ready to smack him.”
“It’s the strangest thing.” Doctor Johnson shrugged. “His blood work came back fine. He doesn’t appear to have anything broken or dislocated. And he hasn’t been through any traumatic events recently.”
“Other than turning 30.” Rupert joked.
“You think this is all in his mind?” Gerald asked.
“That was my first guess, yes. See, there are certain types of catatonia from trauma. Some people are completely paralyzed; some people only get it from the waist down.”
“Doctor, you don’t understand. Gerald tried lifting me out of that chair, and it physically hurt me. Almost like my legs and spine were being moved in a way they shouldn’t.”
“Yeah, it was like he’s become one with the chair.” Gerald added.
“But that can’t be right. There must be some…” The doctor stroked his chin.
“Doc, I think we need to abandon the question of why this is happening and focus more on how we can get him out of it.” Gerald stated.
“My suggestion? Get a priest, or an exorcist. Have a good day, gentlemen.” Doctor Johnson then left.
“Rupert. What’s going on? I tried calling you about your groceries.”
“I must’ve slept in.”
“It’s 4 o’clock in the afternoon.”
“What do you want me to tell ya? I didn’t get any sleep last night.”
“Was it too cold? Damn it, Rupert. I knew this would happen.”
“No, no. It wasn’t cold. It’s just… you know. My ass hurts. My back hurts. And those DAMN KIDS ARE PLAYING THEIR LOUD MUSIC UP AND DOWN THE STREET!” Rupert yelled that last part, assuming that the kids in the neighborhood could hear him. “It’s that Donovan boy, I swear.”
“I can put you inside.”
“No, no, and watch television all day? I can do that on my phone. It’s not all bad, though.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t know; ever since I got stuck here, I’ve been having nothing but good luck. I’ve won $5000 in betting, I’m having all this fresh air I never thought I’d have, and the mailman hand-delivers my mail.”
“You won 5 grand this week?”
“Every single thing I bet on has won. At first I thought maybe it was just a coincidence. I mean, I’ve had big wins before, but not this consistent. And I used to do it with small stuff, like 1.5-to-1 odds. Now every risk I take pays off huge. I’m not even betting on the safe results anymore. Why do that when I can make more on the long shots?”
“Way to go, Rupert.” Gerald cheered, patting him on the shoulder. “See, if you had put this to good use in high school, you would’ve completed your grade 12.”
“I keep telling you. The school was terrified by my intelligence.”
“Ok buddy.” Gerald laughed. “Then look, I’ll make a few calls to get a priest…”
“Doctors. What do they know?” Rupert scoffed.
“Rupert, if this chair has something to do with this we-“
“The chair is fine. We don’t need some witch doctor-“
“Witch doctor? It’ll be a catholic priest-“
“And we don’t need them coming in and ruining what I have going here.”
Gerald looked at him.
“Oh I see what this is,” Gerald scoffed. “You’re worried that if a priest blesses the chair, then you’re going to lose your winning streak.”
“And so why ruin a good thing?”
“Rupert, you can’t be in a chair forever.”
“If it means winning so much money that I don’t have to work another day in my life, hell yeah I’m gonna stay in this chair.”
“At least let me bring you into the house.”
“Why are you obsessed with me going into the house? I love it out here.”
“You hate it out here.”
“I don’t… mind it out here.” Rupert compromised, trying to save face.
“Have it your way, brother.” Gerald sighed, handing Rupert his grocery bag. “But seriously, keep your phone on at all times. I was worried about you.”
“If I have any issues, I’ll let you know. Thanks for getting my sundries.”
“Anyway, I should really get back; otherwise Nicole is going to be wondering what’s happening.”
“I can’t believe you’re getting married.”
“Yeah, I’m still in awe of it myself.”
“I wonder how you’re going to get me there.” Rupert laughed. Gerald didn’t see the funny side.
“Don’t talk like that; you’ll be fine in no time.”
“No, it’s because I hate weddings. But while we’re on the subject of that. I really don’t see myself getting out of this chair anytime soon.”

Despite his apprehension, Rupert attended Gerald’s wedding, chair and all. Gerald did make one small change, however. He asked Rupert if he was happy to give up being the best man. Rupert agreed, believing that it would be a very odd thing to see, for all those involved, a man in a rocking chair making a toast.
After that, Rupert didn’t see his brother much for the next few weeks; he didn’t need to. He had the fresh air, all the food delivery that he could eat, and more money than he knew what to do with. He even made it on the news.

“We’re standing here live with Rupert Davis!” The female reporter said to her camera. “A man who, up until a few months ago, was able-bodied and penniless. But after sitting in this rocking chair. All that changed for him. Now, he’s a self-made millionaire, and he’s still not getting out of that chair. Now Rupert, tell us. How did this happen?”
“Well, Cynthia,” Rupert said smoothly. “It’s the darnedest thing. Can I say darn?”
“That’s probably the only thing you can say on Channel 6.” She smiled.
“So my brother Gerald. Hi Gerald.” He waved at Gerald in the crowd; Gerald waved back. “My brother, he bought me this rocking chair. And when I sat down, all of a sudden I just won everything. Sporting events, dog races, scratch and wins. I mean, I’d buy a lottery ticket but I feel like that wouldn’t be fair to everyone else.” He laughed; a real natural in front of the camera.
“Do you feel that winning all this money is the reason you haven’t left the chair? Are you worried you’re going to taint your luck should you get out of it?”
“See, I believe the chair is magic. I mean, I literally can’t get out of it, even if I wanted to.”
“Magic, really?” The reporter asked excitedly.
“Oh yeah, Cynthia. Most definitely.”
“So if you could get out of it, would you?”
“Well I talked to Gerald, and we figured that if the chair and the luck are related. If I get out of the chair, I might lose my winning streak. So, not a chance.”
“Fascinating.”
“Would you?” Rupert smiled.
“Probably not. Now I think the big question on everybody’s lips- certainly my lips- is… how do you go to the bathroom?”
Rupert laughed, followed by a moment of blushing.
“Yeah, we have a system for that.”
“Well, there you have it!” The reporter turned back to the camera and beamed. “This is Cynthia Allbright, Channel 6!”

After everyone had left, Gerald cracked open a beer with Rupert.
“You on TV. I never thought I’d see the day.” Gerald laughed.
“It’s exactly how I imagined it.” Rupert smiled. Gerald put the beer down.
“Listen, Rupert. I gotta talk to you. See… now that Nicole and I are married, we gotta figure out what we’re doing.”
“What are you trying to say, brother?” Rupert asked, looking slightly anxious.
“It means it… might not… be that easy to come over as much anymore.”
“What, you’re going to leave me?”
“No, no, I didn’t say that at all. I’m just saying that… perhaps you might want to consider a live-in housekeeper.”
“They’re not gonna understand my needs. They probably won’t even understand why I have the needs that I do.”
“Well, if you pay them enough, I’m sure-”
“I don’t want them; I want you. I want my brother. Tell you what. Why don’t you live here.”
“Yeah right.” Gerald scoffed.
“Why did you scoff? It’s a great idea!”
“No, I couldn’t do that to you.”
“Why not?”
“And use your bedroom? No way.”
“You can use the other bedroom if you like.”
“Ehh, I don’t know.”
“What if I buy you a house? Somewhere close by.”
“I can’t ask that of you.”
“Well, you’re not asking; I’m offering. Look, it’s either you move in here, or I get you a house. God knows I can afford it. Pick one, whatever option that will soothe your poor catholic guilt conscience, because I really don’t care.”
“… How big of a house. And Venetians, can we get Venetians?”
“Of course you pick that one. I’ve always said you were a bastard. But yes, I’m sure we can do that.”

And by late September, Rupert, who had accumulated up to 3 million dollars in bet wins, bought Gerald and Nicole a house that was one street over. He even paid Gerald $10,000 so he didn’t have to worry about making ends meet at work. After all, he had the money for it; so much so that the taxation department began questioning Rupert about how he would correctly file his new windfall. Not to mention the four betting websites accusing him of cheating; their claim was that he must have had some kind of insider information on the teams he bet on. They dropped the accusations when they found out he was a 30-year-old nobody confined to a rocking chair, but they still prohibited him from using their sites anyway. Only one website continued to do business with him and even made him a company sponsor; Rupert didn’t know whether they felt sorry for him or saw it as an excellent marketing strategy. “Luckiest Man on Earth’s official betting site!” As for the dog racing, he simply got his neighbor Harry to go down to the sports bar twice a week.
Things took a dark turn, though, as they so often do.
It was early October when Rupert was enjoying a crisp but not freezing night on his usual spot on the porch. His phone was on 1% battery, and as he reached for his charger, the extension cord snagged on one of the planks of wood on the floor. It jerked out of Rupert’s hand and fell to the ground—a couple of feet out of reach.
“Shit!” He hissed to himself. It wasn’t a great concern, though; he had his dinner and beverages all prepared ahead of time. He figured he could just wait it out until morning and ask the mailman to pass it over.

But then he heard it. A woman screaming her head off down the street. At first, Rupert was curious. Then he saw her limping, in a slow sprint, past his house.
“Come back here bitch!” A male voice, belonging to someone he couldn’t see, came from a distance. Then he saw the perpetrator's face—a dangerous-looking guy holding a hunting knife. Rupert did everything he could not to make a noise. But his stupid automatic porch light came on and shone directly onto the man.
“Who’s that?” He yelled out. Then he walked up to the garden path.
“Is it you, Rocking Chair?!” He screamed.
“No man, I don’t want any trouble. It’s… it’s an automatic light.” Rupert stammered out. The man walked up onto the porch.
“What the hell you looking at? I’ll kill you, close your eyes!” The man roared. Rupert did as he was told. The man leaned down next to Rupert, who, by this point, was shaking.
“What I do… is none of your FUCKING business. You hear me?! I oughta slice your throat right now.” With that, the man brought the blade up to Rupert’s face and lightly held it against his neck.
“Open your eyes.” Rupert didn’t have to; he already knew the blade was there, but he opened them anyway. “Did you hear what I said!”
Rupert nodded vigorously. The man looked at him.
“What are you, some kinda cripple?” He asked. Rupert nodded. The man took his knife away. “Understand something, cripple. Keep the porch light off at night. Because if I see a porch light on and I think you’re trying to incriminate me, I get scared. And if I'm scared, I don’t have to tell you how scared you’ll be.”
He turned and walked away before looking behind him.
“You didn’t see nothing.”

The next day, Gerald got a call from the police who told him about what happened.
“I want you to get me a gun. A big one. Like a shotgun. And security cameras all over the front yard.” Rupert rambled. He was still visibly shaken.
“You really want a gun?” Gerald asked.
“Yes. And we need extension cords longer than this sorry excuse. You know I could’ve died last night!”
“I know I can get a gun; I just… don’t know how I can get one for you specifically.”
“Take me down there; it should be fine. It’s this street, brother. It’s no longer safe outside.”
“So come inside!”
“No! I shouldn’t have to.”
Suddenly, one of the kids passed by the house.
“Hey, Mister Davis!” The kid called out. “You finally giving out candy this Halloween?”
“You go to hell!” Rupert roared.
“Ok so what we’re not going to do is curse at the children,” Gerald said condescendingly. “Especially after you said you wanted a gun.”
“Oh he doesn’t count. That Donovan kid is an asshole; he always says the most annoying things to me, like ‘Oh, how was your day?’ Screw him.”
Eventually, Gerald caved and got Rupert a double-barrel shotgun, right by his side.

Halloween came around. Although Rupert wasn’t prepared to blast away at kids (more so in case that crazy guy came back), he had foolishly assumed that having the shotgun by his side indicated that he was not handing out candy and that he meant it. This did little to deter the kids, since they thought it was part of whatever horror theme he was going for.
“Trick ‘r’ Treat.” A group of kids said in unison with their father in the background.
“No, I’m not doing Halloween, kids.” Rupert said bluntly. They all looked a little let down. A few of them walked away sadly.
“Yeah, nice going, Davis!” The father scowled.
“Get lost, Grant!” Rupert replied. “What, you think because I’m out here that I’m going to, just, give in? My condition is not your Halloween costume, pal!”
“What?” The dad asked.
“Oh just go away, alright?!”
Once most of the children cleared his porch there was another trick ‘r’ treater still standing on the steps and staring at Rupert intently. This one didn’t look like a kid. In fact, it didn’t look human at all. It was slouching and had what looked like a witch’s mask on: a long pointed nose, an ugly face, and great horns coming from its head.
“Nice costume,” Rupert said, admiring the realism. “Anyway, as I told the others, I’m not doing it.”
The figure just stared at him.
“You heard me! Get out of here! Get!” The figure walked away slowly and silently.

Later, Rupert wrote a sign that said, “No Trick ‘r’ Treaters. Please!” Naturally, a few kids wanted to defy the warning. Rupert learned this when a few 10-year-olds rolled up with no parental supervision.
“Trick ‘r’ Treat.” The head kid demanded, holding out his bag.
“Can’t you read?” Rupert sighed. “I’m not going to be tricking OR treating!”
“That’s not fair!” The kid stamped his foot.
“Fair? Who said life was fair?! I’ve been in this chair for months! Where’s my fairness?”
“You have to give us candy.” One of the other kids demanded, clearly unmoved by Rupert’s statement.
“I don’t have to give you shitttt. Where are your parents?” As Rupert looked out for any grown-ups that might’ve been standing from a distance behind them - as they usually do - these kids were quickly turning into an angry mob.
“That’s part of the rules!” The head honcho cried. “That’s the rules of Halloween! Now trick ‘r’ treat!”
“Rules? Look, some of you aren’t even wearing costumes! There is zero effort here!”
“That’s the rules of Halloween!” The kid repeated. “Now trick ‘r’ treat!”
“No trick ‘r’ treat!”
“TRICK ‘R’ TREAT!”
“NO TRICK ‘R’ TREAT!”
“Alright!” The head kid stepped back. “You asked for it, buddy. Men! Take position!”
“What are you doing?” Rupert asked, suddenly alarmed.
“Aim!” The kids pulled out eggs. “Fire!”
Dozens of eggs were catapulted in Rupert’s direction.
“Ah the shell cut me! Ow ow!” Rupert screamed as he was completely covered in broken shells and yolk.
“Trick ‘r’ treat, JERK!” The head kid scowled.
“Why you little…”
Rupert leaped out of his chair and tried to run after them, only for his legs to give out on him. He face-planted his garden path, while the kids laughed, threw him the finger, and ran away. Rupert turned around to look at the empty rocking chair, sitting vacantly on his porch. He was out of his chair. After months, he was no longer confined! He was free.
“How the-“ he began before stopping himself short; there was no time to ponder over the particulars at that moment. He had to go to Gerald’s house. He struggled to get up, legs stiff and back like jelly. As he straightened up, he moved his legs forward, left foot, right foot. He shuffled down the garden path and out into the street. He turned to walk down the busy suburban neighborhood, shifting past passing truck ‘r’ treaters who turned and either murmured to each other in disbelief or pointed and laughed.
“Got to get to Gerald. I’ve got to…” he muttered to himself.
“Cool Frankenstein walk, Mr. Davis.” The Donovan boy called out as he passed.
“Eat shit, Donovan!” Rupert hissed.
Rupert then turned the corner of the street. He was about to walk down it when he saw the crazy man who had attacked him weeks ago. Half a dozen police officers were holding the man down; one of them was tasing him over and over, doing little to deter him and only making him visibly angrier.

Rupert turned around and decided to go to the other corner of the street to get to Gerald’s house. Every nerve in his body gave him that fuzzy, electrical feeling inside him. Full-body pins and needles screamed out in every direction. He passed his house again before reaching the other corner. Everything in him told him to sit down and take it easy, but he had spent months sitting down and taking it easy. The time was now to move before whatever demonic thing in the world changed its mind. He moved down a couple houses, all the while thinking, “just another block, just another block.”

“Hey, look. He’s finally out of his chair. The guy who didn’t want to trick ‘r’ treat.” A voice came from one of the alleys. Out came the head trick ‘r’ treater that launched an egg attack on him. Only he didn’t have just four or five friends with him. Now there were almost a dozen kids behind him, all dressed in various Halloween costumes.
“He’s gonna tell on us.” One of them called out. Another one had a foam bat that, to a regular adult, wouldn’t pack a great wallop; but with Rupert’s condition, it could probably do more damage.
“Get him!” The ringleader ordered with a smirk. Suddenly, the kids ran after him, causing Rupert to turn back the way he came. His limping and shuffling turned into a kind of quick-paced hobble as he made his way back to his house. Angry children started gaining on him as the gap between them began closing. Then he tripped and fell, and they pounced on him; witches, vampires, ghosts and pirates all started kicking him and bringing the foam bat down onto his shaking body. He was only two houses away from his porch, so he began crawling away.
“Pick him up!” One of them cried. Four or five of them did their best to lift him like he was some unmanned island’s sacrificial animal ready to be put onto a spit roast. They brought him to his porch.
“Tie him to the chair!” The ringleader commanded with venom.
“No! No! Stop!!” Rupert cried out but was too exhausted to fight it. One of the kids dealt him a surprisingly powerful slug to the face.
“This will teach you.” Scowled the one who dealt the hit.
Suddenly, ropes surrounded him, wrapping around him and the rocking chair.
“Next time, be prepared.” The ringleader hissed. They all then ran off, leaving only the trace of a couple of distant giggles to signify they were there.
Luckily, these kids were no Boy Scouts, and their rope didn’t affect his ability to get his phone from his pocket. He found Gerald’s number and put it on speaker. It reached his voicemail.
“Gerald, they tied me up—these little shits in the neighborhood. But the most incredible thing happened. Come quick!”

Gerald had an early night, so he couldn’t get to his phone until the next day. When he heard the message, he rushed over to Rupert’s house.
“I smell like egg.” Rupert sulked.
“Jesus, what happened?” Gerald exclaimed, loosening the rope from Rupert’s chair.
“I got beat up by school children. I don’t want to talk about it. Listen, something happened last night. I got out!”
Gerald stopped untying the rope and leaned down beside Rupert.
“What are you saying, Rupert?”
“I got out!” He repeated, excitedly. “I actually got out of the chair! I… I don’t know how, I don’t know why. But I got up! I tried walking to your house, but I ran into the kids, and they brought me back and tied me up.”
“Rupert, that doesn’t make any sense. Why last night?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was because it was Halloween.”
“Oh yeah, I heard about something like this.” Gerald replied. He pulled out his phone and searched for a video. He pulled up the video.
“All Hallow’s Eve, or Halloween as it’s known these days, grants any trapped spirit to freely roam the earth for just one night,” The narrator explained, followed by an animated graphic. “Not for long, though. Once the night is over, the spirit must return to its place of confinement.”
“That’s it!” Gerald exclaimed. “Obviously whatever is holding you captive just… left its post, and freed you from it.”
“I saw a funny-looking guy staring at me last night. Didn’t look human. Maybe that was it.” He tried moving out of the chair to no avail.
“Guess it came back.”
“Does that mean I’m going to have to wait a year to get out again?”
“You’re actually going to try to get out? What about all the money?”
“Gerald, what good is money when I can’t enjoy it because I’m stuck here? I miss doing things. Anything. I miss going out and seeing people. I miss sleeping in a bed. You see that soccer field there?”
Rupert pointed at the one directly across the street from his house.
“Yeah?”
“As long as I’ve been living here, I’ve never been on that field. I've seen a game or two. Since being in this chair, I’ve watched every game, just hoping one day I could walk across the street and enjoy it. Enjoy… life… I guess. I need to get out of this chair. Even if it takes a year.”
“We’re going to make this work, ok?” Gerald patted him on the shoulder.
“Take me inside. I’m going to be spending a lot more time there, I think.”
So Gerald got Harry, the neighbor, to help him lift the chair in. They put Rupert in the bath, hosed him down, dried him off, and placed him next to the window inside.

The months went by. Rupert started getting fat, lethargic, and slow. When he wasn’t watching the television from his window, he was getting Gerald to turn him around to look out the window… at the soccer field. It took Rupert a while to find a delivery driver willing to enter his house to deliver his food. Many were understandably worried for their safety, since it was a very unusual request. Gerald’s wife made him food until he finally found a regular delivery driver he could rely on. He even had a small birthday celebration with their parents, Gerald and Nicole. But he urged them to celebrate only his birthday, not the one-year anniversary of the incident.

8 months had passed since the last time Rupert had been out on the porch; he stayed in for Spring, but when it hit Summer, he knew he couldn’t spend those three months inside. It felt odd to be back in his usual spot after such a long absence.

Finally, Halloween approached, and Rupert was prepared. So much so that he would even casually point his shotgun at the punks who harassed him last year, with intent to fire, all the while he waited for Gerald, who promised he’d be there. He waited, and waited, and waited. Hours went by and still no sign of him. Eventually, Rupert decided he couldn’t wait any longer, so he held onto the arms of the chair and rocked it back so hard that it launched him out of the chair and onto the garden path. Because he’d been seated longer than the last Halloween, he couldn’t stand at all. This didn’t deter Rupert; even though he landed on the concrete pretty hard, he dead-crawled down the garden path anyway.
“Nice zombie crawl, Mister Davis!”
“Donovan, I swear to god.” He snapped.
Finally, he got out onto the curb. If he had waited for a passerby, then maybe someone could’ve called an ambulance. But he kept on crawling until he was in the middle of the road, ready to flag down an oncoming car. Suddenly, a car came out of nowhere and hit the brakes to a screech. A man got out.
“My God, what happened to you?” The man leaned down.
“Get an ambulance.” Rupert croaked as he attempted to get up
“Hold on there, let’s get you sitting down. Is this your house? It’s probably safer to get you in there, I think
The man then lifted him and brought him to the front porch.
“It’s locked.” The man said. “Do you have a key?”
“Pocket.”
“Hold on, let’s put you down on this chair.”
“Nooo!” Rupert cried out. It was too late. The ambulance arrived, and so did Gerald. But too much time had passed, and once again Rupert was trapped.

“Where were you?!” Rupert yelled.
“I’m sorry, brother. I had to finish work,” Gerald explained, shrugging. “What with the baby and all. It’s hard to juggle everything.”
“Then what good are you.” Rupert waved his hand.
“What did you just say?” Gerald demanded.
“You heard me!”
“Ok, that’s it!” Gerald yelled. “For the last year I’ve been running around, tending to your every whim, and this is the thanks I get?”
“I got you a house, Gerald.”
“You got me a house, not out of the kindness of your heart, but because you needed me. Out of your own selfishness.”
“How dare you say that to me, ‘this is the thanks I get.’ You live comfortably, don’t you? You’re not like me. Some kinda circus freak to marvel at on the news.”
“Well, why should I devote my life to taking care of my brother every second of the day? It was like this before the chair, and it’s definitely like it now.”
“BECAUSE IT’S YOUR FAULT I’M IN THIS CHAIR!”
“… No. You don’t-”
“It’s true. You got me this gift. You insisted that I sit in it. It was your idea.”
“That’s not fair,” Gerald said softly, shaking his head. “You can’t possibly blame me for this. You told me you liked it! Neither of us knew this was going to happen!“
“And yet, it did. And now I’m stuck here for another year. Thanks to you!”
“Well, if that’s the way you want to be, then fine, I’ll go.”
“Good, go!”
“Goodbye, Rupert.” Gerald walked away.
“Fine! See if I care. Matter fact! I hope I never get out of this chair! I hope I stay in this chair till the day I die! How about that!” The only response Rupert got was the sound of the cicadas.

And that’s exactly what he did. Seasons went by. Halloween had been and gone. Rupert’s spite had outgrown his muscle strength, so he got a live-in housekeeper to get him up and around every Halloween before eventually getting tired of it. Year after passing year, he remained seated. Rupert sat in his chair for Christmases, family holidays, his 35th birthday, his father’s funeral. Gerald decided that, to stop this friction, he would be the first to talk. He was flat-out ignored. The last time Rupert saw him was at his mother’s funeral. By then, Gerald had two kids going into kindergarten and a third on the way, but Rupert still ignored him. That was the last time they saw each other.

Years turned into decades, decades turned into forgotten memories. And by that point Rupert had forgotten what his life was like before the rocking chair. He watched all the kids in the neighborhood move out and start their own families. He watched houses change, and the soccer field he once revered was bulldozed, with an apartment building built on top of it. He didn’t live life; he existed in one. Now, in his early eighties, he was still sitting there… with a blanket wrapped around him. A couple of kids on bikes rode past his house and heard him shouting something.
“Gerald.” He bellowed out. “Gerald?! Where’s Gerald!”

Gerald had been dead for the last ten years.

It was a minute past midnight and the moon outside the castle was deliciously bright and round. I stood admiring it at the window, the fire crackling in the hearth behind me, shadows dancing along the flagstones. Though none were cast at my own feet.

Beyond the castle, the black cliffs crumbled away into a deep ravine, where dark trees bundled together like matchsticks, and a gushing river swelled between the rocks like a silverbacked serpent. The wind whistled through the broken casement of the window, chilling the air and threatening to extinguish the fire.

There was a whisper of movement on my left and one of the sisters appeared beside me, bowing her head. Her dress was a deep red, the same colour as her eyes.

“It’s a pleasant night,” I mused, raising the collar of my black coat against the chill as the moonlight dusted the windows. Her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders as she raised her head.

“Yes Master,” she said in a subdued tone. “However, I fear I shall ruin it with my tidings.”

I turned to her fully, examining the grave expression on her face. Her lips were pinched. “Why is that? What tidings do you bring?”

Her red eyes glowed in the firelight. A long shadow was drawn across her features. “A peasant house is in the midst of construction beside the castle.”

I stared at her for a moment. The fire crackled sharply. “A… peasant house?” I finally repeated, scoffing at her words. Surely she was mistaken. The area around my castle was a perfectly barren wasteland; the peasants in the settlements knew better than to encroach on my land without permission, never mind erect a building on my grounds. “What is this trickery?”

“No trickery, Master. Come see for yourself.”

The vampire sister turned and strode towards the opposite side of the tower, her long red gown trailing behind her like a pair of folded wings. Curious, I followed her, our footsteps silent on the stone floor. I assumed I had misunderstood her, for nobody would be foolish enough to even approach my castle. Unless they were naive or ignorant of my nature.

But as we paused by the window, and she lifted a hand to point outside, I stood aghast at what I saw. A short distance away from the front gates of my castle, visible through the fog, there was indeed a house being built. Beneath the cold glow of the moon, I saw piles of stone and wood, the loose structure of rafters and foundations already laid. What sort of fool would dare build a house so close to my castle? Who would dare to become my neighbour without first consulting the master of this tower?

I was furious and intrigued at the same time. Only the dumbest, and perhaps bravest, of men would do such a thing. And I found myself feeling very much inclined to meet him.

“The house seems deserted now,” the vampire sister observed, resting her hand against her cheek. “Perhaps they have given up?”

“Or perhaps they only build during the day, knowing the weakness the sunlight inflicts upon us creatures of the night,” I said with a harrumph.

“You are wise, Master,” she said. “Shall I take my sisters over there and tear it down? It is a stain upon your grand castle.”

I pondered her offer. “No. I should like to meet the fool first,” I decided, extending my fangs below my lips. “Perhaps he would see fit to grace my castle with his… delicious presence.”

The sister covered her mouth with a low chuckle. “I understand, Master. You would see it fit to make a meal of him?”

I nodded. “Leave the peasant house for now,” I told her, turning away from the window with a flourish of my coat. “I wish to see how far he dares to go.”

The following night, as I rose from my coffin at the heart of midnight, my first thought was of the house being built by the castle. Had more progress been made, or had the owner seen the measure of his own foolishness and deserted? It would be a shame if he had fled before a meal could be made of him.

It had been a while since I had anything to amuse me on these long nights, just as long as it had been since fresh blood had passed these lips. The peasants in the surrounding settlements had grown wise to my nature and seen fit to ward their houses, stringing garlic and crosses upon the threshold. I was only able to feed when an unwitting traveller passed by, or a fool decided to build a house directly beside my castle.

The tower was quiet as I made my way to the top, winding through the warren of rooms and climbing the narrow, crumbling stairways. The sisters were nowhere to be seen; perhaps frolicking outside in the moonlight as they so often did. I reached the highest point of the castle and strode to the window that overlooked the barren grounds. From this height, I could even glimpse the closest settlement in the far distance; a small cluster of thatched houses and burning torches that lit the foggy hills like burning eyes.

But my concern was much closer. Lowering my gaze to the land right outside the gates, I saw that the house had changed. There were more walls than yesterday, denser foundations, the first signs of carpentry. The fool really had continued building the house. Had he not been warned of the dark Count that occupied the castle? Had he not heard the rumours of the blood-feasting creatures that stalked these lands once the sun went down? Why else would he choose to dwell in my vicinity, if not for ignorance?

I shook my head, almost pitying the poor halfwit for what he had brought upon himself. But I should delight in showing him the truth soon enough; that he had elected himself a willing sacrifice for me and my hungry brides.

It was a shame that he vacated the house during the night, for I would have to wait longer to lay my eyes upon him. Would he not show himself before the house was finished?

“I see the building is progressing,” a voice whispered behind me. I’d been too lost in my thoughts to hear them approach. I turned, seeing two of the sisters behind me. They too were observing the house through the window. Their wild, windswept hair and bright eyes confirmed my suspicions that they had been dancing outside.

“Yes,” I muttered. “It would seem so.”

“What a blight upon the castle,” the other sister said, her fair skin glittering in the moonlight. “I hope the trouble is worth the meal.”

“It will be,” I said, casually flicking my hand towards the half-built dwelling, “if only the fool would hurry up and be done with it.”

The next night, more progress had been made on the building, but the owner had still not shown himself. I grew more agitated that I was allowing this to happen, but reminded myself that I would soon enough be able to quench my thirst.

So night after night, as the moon began to wane, the house’s shadow grew bigger, and my hunger grew stronger. The fool always fled before night fell, leaving the evidence of his daytime activities for me to observe. The dwelling had taken on the same shape of the peasant houses in the surrounding settlements; white stone and timber, with a long thatched roof. He had even tilled the soil into a small garden, erecting a wooden fence around the plot in front of the building. But compared to my grand castle, with its dark crumbling bricks, spiralling towers and winding, labyrinthine rooms, it was a blight. And I wanted it gone.

Finally, more than a week after the house was little more than a pile of stone and timber, one of the sisters woke me with news that the structure was finished.

I rose from my coffin, sluggish and weary from slumber, and fastened my coat about my neck. The sisters had already lit the fire, but the air was chilled.

I followed her to the window and set my gaze upon the house. A single candle sat in the windowsill, guttering in a draught. A lit candle. Did that mean the house was occupied? The fool had not fled this night.

“It’s time,” I announced, “to show this fool once and for all what happens when you anger the Count.” The other sisters joined us, and I turned towards them with a slow smile. “I hope you are hungry.”

The three sisters screeched in delight, grasping each other’s hands and dancing in circles, their gowns fluttering around their legs. The fire roared in the hearth.

But as I began to cross the room, one of the sisters stopped me with a gasp.

“Master, wait. There’s someone at the gate.” She was pointing out of the window. I peered down at the large wrought-iron gate that fronted the castle, my eyes narrowing. A figure stood by the fence, carrying a lantern. His face glowed in the flickering light, revealing a sharp, sloping nose and dark eyes.

“Who would be foolish enough to call upon me at this hour?” I snarled, my black coat twisting around me as I turned from the window.

“Perhaps your new neighbour,” one of the sisters answered, “has come to hasten our feast.”

“Perhaps,” I said, already striding towards the doorway.

The sisters swept after me, whispering amongst themselves. Flames guttered as we passed lit candles, stirring the dust at our feet and disturbing billowing cobwebs. There was a haste to our movements as we descended the tower. It had certainly been a while since we’d had prey wander into our arms like this.

Crossing the foyer, the long red carpet spilling out like blood, I threw open the doors and stepped out into the chilled night, the three sisters stepping in my wake. The moon was a pale sickle, its silvery glow dancing around my shadowless feet as the stranger at the gates called out to me.

“Hello there!”

Struck by his brazenness, I almost flew at him in anger, but restrained myself. Ignorant minds really were unfathomable. With a flick of my wrist, the gates began to creak open. The man remained at the threshold, holding his lantern aloft as he stared back at me. He was of medium build, with stocky shoulders and a mop of thick tousled hair. His clothes were poorly made, covered in dirt and patches. He had the audacity to smile at me as I glared in return.

“What business have you here at my castle?” I demanded, wanting to sate my curiosity before I sated my hunger.

The man cleared his throat, raising his lantern to the crude house sitting barely thirty metres behind him. So this was indeed the proprietor of the building; what a brave, albeit dimwitted, man he was to present himself before me like this. “I’ve just this morning finished constructing my house,” he said, not seeming to notice the displeasure on my face, “and a slight issue has come to my attention.”

“An… issue?” I repeated, my brows arching sharply.

“Yes. During the day, the leftmost tower of your castle casts a shadow over my garden,” the man said regretfully. “I hoped that you might be amicable enough to remove it. Or at the very least relocate the tower, so that it does no harm the roses I am trying to grow. All life needs sunlight, after all.”

I stared at him, completely aghast. Behind me, even the sisters had been stunned into silence. The audacity of this imbecile, to ask me to change my own castle for his benefit. The man was not right in the head, surely.

“How dare you–” I began to seethe, but the man interrupted me, lifting a finger as if hushing a child.

“I do understand it is a large undertaking I’m asking of you, but my gratitude would be immense,” he added.

“You think I care about your gratitude?” I sneered at him, clenching my fists beneath my coat. The gall of this man. Who did he think he was? “Do you know who I am?”

The man stared at me, the lanternlight dancing over his blank expression. “You are the owner of this castle, I had presumed?”

“Precisely. And what makes you think that I, as the Count of this castle, would do the bidding of a mere peasant?”

The man scowled at me, a shadow encroaching upon his face. “I shall ask you again, and I do hope you will be quite civil this time. Will you remove the tower from your castle so that my roses might see the light?”

“I don’t give a damn about your roses,” I snapped.

“Now, there’s no need to be rude,” the man said, his voice turning bristly. The shadows deepened around his eyes as he narrowed them. “I’m asking for a simple favour–”

I scoffed in his face, my rage burning beneath my skin. It took a lot to make a vampire’s blood burn hot. I almost couldn’t believe what he was saying. This fool considered the reconstruction of my ancient castle a mere favour? Asking me to tear down part of my fortress so that he might grow some roses.

I took a measured step towards him, lifting my shoulders to appear taller. My fangs were itching to taste his blood. For all the disrespect he had shown me, there was no escape. I would suck this man dry by the night’s end, leaving nothing but a fleshless husk.

“Once again, I implore you to consider my–”

I was no longer in the mood to listen to his insane ramblings. He had agitated me far too much to go back from this. I would show him, and anyone else who might learn of tonight, what happens to those who cross me.

Baring my fangs, I lunged forward, ready to sink my teeth into his neck.

In one swift motion, the man pulled his hand back into a fist and threw it towards me. Blinded partially by the lanternlight, I did not see the attack until his knuckles met my face.

Pain exploded through my jaw, and there was a terrible snap as my left fang bore the brunt of his punch, splitting completely in half. The hit landed with enough force to send me staggering backwards and, incredulous and in shock, I fell to the ground.

Dirt bit into my eyes as I landed face-down, my broken fang scraping against my lower lip. Sputtering, I raised my head, just as the man lifted his light and calmly made his way back to his house.

Behind me, the sisters watched him leave in a choked silence, before hastening to help me back to my feet.

To say I had been dealt a great humiliation was an understatement. How did a mortal man possess such strength? Enough to break one of my precious fangs and completely overpower me.

With a bruised face, and an even more bruised ego, I hobbled back into my castle, the three sisters trailing silently after me.

By the following night, the leftmost tower had been partially disassembled, leaving a gaping wound in the side of the castle. Wind gusted through like howling wraiths, immediately extinguishing any fire I tried to light, leaving a heavy chill in the air. The sisters, at least, seemed to delight in the pool of moonlight that was cast upon the open ground.

Workers had been swarming the castle all day, interrupting my sleep with their banging hammers and chiselling tools as they took the tower apart brick by brick, but I had little choice. The man had made his demands, proven his strength, and forced my hand. Now I had to destroy my own magnificent tower so that the fool might grow his roses. And I hadn’t been able to harvest even a drop of blood either.

This was a defeat, and a humiliation, that would take centuries to heal.

I didn’t really know what to expect from my first summer job. Some of my friends had been working part-time through the school year, but it never really appealed to me. That changed when I realized it was probably my only chance of having a car by my senior year.

I walked into the building on my first day, trying not to tug at the ugly white polo they gave me for my uniform. I hated the way it felt tucked into the black slacks I was required to wear.

The rich kids at school spent their summers by the pool wearing designer brands. I spent mine wearing a shirt that read SILVER SPRINGS RETREAT and preparing to cater to those same wealthy families.

My dad spent the entire drive reminding me how lucky I was to get hired there. According to him, it beat working at the water treatment plant.

I wasn’t so sure.

Still, at least I wouldn’t come home smelling like sewage. Or whatever it was that kept ending up on his boots.

Silver Springs Retreat had its own collection of weird smells, I realized right as I looked around the lobby area for someone to give me some guidance. A potent odor assaulted my nose immediately. A combination of sandalwood, vanilla, bleach, and something familiar that I couldn’t quite identify right away.

Shouldn’t someone be manning the front desk? I thought. Maybe that was going to be my job? Surely they didn’t want me to go back there yet. Did they?

“Hello?” I called out, feeling a little more nervous than I expected.

No answer.

“Hello?” A little louder this time.

Still no response.

I’d better be getting paid for this, I thought.

I considered taking a seat at one of the chairs lining the walls on either side of the front desk. Would that seem unprofessional?

Instead, I wandered the small room, trying to look interested in the zen posters on the walls. The soft warm lighting from the half moon sconces on the walls made them seem even more peaceful.

I noticed a large, almost wall-sized map behind the front desk. As I approached it, I realized it was a map of the entire retreat.

I hesitated to go behind the desk to check it out. But I remembered my dad telling me something about acting like I owned the place, and how that looked good to potential employers. Besides, I’ve always been terrible at minding my own business.

If the map could be believed, the compound was much bigger than I would have thought and reminded me of if a summer camp had a baby with a yoga center. I never realized how hard reading a map could be. But, after some time, I pieced together a general layout of the spa locations, the swimming areas, and most of the cabins.

My finger drifted along the surface of the map as I imagined walking the grounds, mouthing the names of cabins A through N on the west side. I stopped when my finger reached the top of the map.

THE NORTH WOODS

“Excuse me,” came a polite-sounding voice from behind me.

I jumped in shock, which gave way to embarrassment as I turned around to see a woman about my mom’s age wearing the same uniform as me.

“Oh, I—” I stammered. “I—I’m here for my—it’s my first day. I’m the—”

“Here,” she said to me with a small laugh as she handed me a clipboard with a white name tag that read CANDACE resting on top of it. “I’m Val. I’ll be showing you around. Welcome to the retreat.”

I stared down at the clipboard in my hands. I knew I should say something about the misspelling of my name. But I didn’t want to cause a scene on my first day.

“Candice,” I said to her after what felt like way too long of a delay. “I’m sorry, I was just looking around and—”

Val’s eyes flashed to the map behind me, then back to me.

“That’s okay,” she said with a gentle smile. “First days can be very exciting. But don’t worry. I’ll give you the grand tour.”

The pin stuck me a bit when I attached the name tag to my polo, but I don’t think I showed the pain on my face.

I followed Val through the halls of the retreat as she gave me a quick tour of the administration building. This was, admittedly, the most boring part of the whole place. Mostly just extra storage and more paperwork than I could ever imagine anyone filling out. But it was where the staff break room was located. That was worth finding out.

“Here we are,” Val said as we reached the end of a long hallway. “This is what we call the dungeon.”

Val laughed a little to herself as she opened the door to a small room with wood paneling designed to look like the inside of a cabin. It was fairly small, with no windows to let in natural light. The room was furnished only with a few chairs and an old tube TV on a cart. “What’s that?” I asked pointing at a machine under the TV.

“That,” Val said approaching the machine and inserting a black box into what looked like a mail slot. “Is our own little piece of the past.”

The TV came to life with a low electronic droning sound, then lit up blue with the word PLAY appearing in the center of screen.

“Everyone has to watch this orientation tape before we can really get started on training,” Val explained. “The heat and air both work overtime in here for some reason so it gets pretty cold days like today. Sorry about that. But the video isn’t very long. So your sentence will be short.”

She motioned to the waiting room style chairs and I took a seat.

“When you’re ready,” she went on, “just press play on the VCR and come find me after. I’ll be working the front desk where we met up. It’s good to have you here Candice.”

Once the door closed behind Val, I found myself immediately feeling bored in this plain wood paneled room. With nothing else to look at, I hit the PLAY button on the black machine, and sat down to let the low quality audio and persistent hum of the VHS tape teach me about Silver Springs Retreat.

“Hello,” came an overly enthusiastic male voice through the static, accompanied by the sound of generic dated music that sounded like it was recorded through a soup can. “And welcome to your first day at Ash Creek’s Silver Springs Retreat.”

The name of the retreat showed on screen as the narrator said it aloud.

“In this video you will be learning about the facility, your job responsibilities, your guests, safety and security protocols, and privacy guidelines.”

I shifted in my seat, trying to find a comfortable way to get through this. The video mostly showed static footage of the grounds and hallways as of the 1990s, with the occasional smiling staff member to head it up a bit.

“Silver Springs Retreat employs many seasonal and permanent employees making it a boon for Ash Creek, as well as the surrounding cities. The retreat has helped countless guests through difficult times in their lives over the years and we look forward to helping many more as time goes on.”

“Each guest’s stay is tailored to their individual needs. As a result, accommodations and restrictions may vary significantly between guests. Take note of the colored wristbands for each guest. The different colors represent the guests membership tier levels, accommodation needs, and permission levels.”

I sat up a little straighter to try to listen better. “Green wristbands belong to our most senior guests. The people who have been returning for their monthly visits to Silver Springs for the longest. Many of these guests have been here longer than a lot of our staff. Green status guests have nearly full roam of the facility, and can make priority appointments for any of the spa treatments. The only places a green status guest in would not be permitted are restricted access areas, such as staff only sectors and the North Woods.”

“Yellow wristbands are for our guests that have been to Silver Springs before, but have not yet earned green status. These guests may need a little more guidance with booking treatments and might not be as familiar with all protocols as our green status guests. Generally, a yellow status guest will be asked to remain on the eastern grounds where the Yellow Cabins are located, but are permitted to enter and exit the main facility building for spa treatments and special events.”

“Finally, red wristbands are for our first time guests. These guests have never paid a visit to Silver Springs Retreat or any other recognized facility like ours. Red status guests will need the most help during the daytime and will likely take up most of your time as a new hire. Red status guests are treated to a more organized and scheduled regimen of spa treatments than the returning guests, to help reduce confusion and ambiguity. Red status guests are asked to remain in the western grounds of the retreat where treatments will be provided for them. Guests with red status will require additional privacy during the night time hours. Because of this, only tenured staff is allowed into the west grounds after dark.”

I tried to take this all in. I wished I had brought a notebook with me. I considered taking notes on my phone but I didn’t want Val to think I was texting my friends instead of listening.

“Only tenured staff allowed on the western grounds after dark,” I mouthed to myself, trying to commit it to memory.

That part didn’t surprise me much. I’d known what kind of retreat Silver Springs was before I ever applied. Still, the place seemed to have a lot more rules than I’d expected.

“As a new member of our team,” the TV voice droned on, “you’ll be expected to understand and manage schedules. Even a minor miscalculation shift changes or guest changes can result in catastrophic loss of time, property, physical health, and trust from our guests, staff, and shareholders.”

Shareholders?

That part caught me off guard.

Silver Springs was one of the oldest businesses in Ash Creek. I’d always pictured it being run by some old married couple who spent their days drinking coffee on a porch somewhere and cashing checks. Looking back, that was probably naive.

Corporate America gets its claws into everything eventually.

“Your personal time is valuable,” the TV informed me. “Please do not perform work related activities while you are not on the clock. If you are asked to perform work duties without pay, you should contact person resources immediately.”

“Jewelry of any kind, is prohibited within the facility. All metals must be approved by the Silver Springs security team prior to entering guest areas. Including, but not limited to, flatware, medical equipment, construction materials, and vehicular access.”

“Silver Springs Retreat helps our guests through some of the most difficult transitional periods of their lives. By signing on to work with us, you are choosing to make a difference in your community.”

Either I zoned out and missed the rest of the video, or it ended abruptly soon after. I caught my focus again to see the camera was slowly zooming out on a forest scene with sunset lighting. Gentle acoustic guitar music played while credits rolled.

Once I was sure the video had ended and realized Val was not coming to collect me, I got up from my seat to go find her. But first, I figured I’d earned at least five minutes of uninterrupted snooping. The staff hall was pretty plain. They probably saved the decorations for the guest areas. The speaker systems didn’t play any kind of music, but I could hear a subtle hiss as though they were still making a sound I couldn’t quite hear. Probably old wiring.

I did take some interest in the row of portraits on the wall. A whole line of former retreat directors, from the past hundred years or so. All old white guys, of course, posing in front of the main structure of the facility. It was fun to see how the buildings changed around them as I traveled back in time, one portrait at a time.

The oldest portrait looked significantly different from the others. The facility behind the director was little more than a log cabin, surrounded by forest instead of manicured trails and guest lodges. The plaque beneath the frame had long since faded, but judging by the date, the retreat had existed before Ash Creek was even called Ash Creek.

After a while, I went back to the main lobby to look for Val. There was an older couple checking into the retreat, when I arrived.

“Okay, Mr. and Mrs. Simmons,” Val said cheerfully, “I’ve got you all checked in.” She handed them each a green wristband and helped them fasten them on. “I assume you remember where your cabin is?”

Mr. Simmons smiled warmly. A glint caught my eye on one of his unusually sharp canines. Dentures have always weirded me out.

“Cabin 6, dear” Mrs. Simmons replied in a very polite tone. “Just like every month before. I really do appreciate you keeping everything in order for us, Valery.” She reached for her bag

“No no no, Mrs. Simmons” Val stopped her. “You know we won’t make you carry your own things, here.” She caught my eye as I stepped closer into the room.

“Candice,” She called to me in a professional tone, “Will you help me carry Mr. and Mrs. Simmons’ bags to the eastern grounds?”

“Of course,” I said to her with a smile, then turned to the guests and repeated myself. “Of course.”

I grabbed the larger bag, belonging to Mr. Simmons and Val grabbed the smaller bag belonging to his wife. The bag was quite a bit heavier than I expected. That old man must be in pretty good shape to be lugging this thing around. Val went back to her desk to grab a clipboard while the two guests walked ahead of us. Before too long, the older couple had disappeared through the east side door.

Val and I had to move quickly to try to catch up to the couple. We headed out the side door, where I got to see the eastern grounds for the first time. I’m not sure why, but I was expecting a grand reveal with towers and Art Deco buildings. But all I saw were trees, fire pits, and a few posts for guests to play horseshoes. I was underwhelmed, but didn’t have much time to react before Val was pulling ahead of me.

“Come on Candice,” she said. “Take in the sights as you move.”

I did as I was told.

As we moved through the eastern grounds I was surprised to see the cabins weren’t actually made of logs like I imagined when I saw the ads for Silver Springs on TV. Instead, they were concrete buildings with half logs, made of vinyl, added to the sides for aesthetics.

We passed some other guests wearing green and yellow wristbands while we tried to catch up to the Simmons couple.

“Up ahead is Jerry,” Val told me while nodding forward to a man in a white uniform. “He’s the head of maintenance for the east grounds.”

“Jerry,” she called out to him as we approached. She didn’t show any signs of slowing down. “This is Candice. Today is her first day with us.”

I started to say hello, as we passed by him quickly but was cut when Val interrupted by pointing to our right, past my face.

“You still haven’t fixed that?!” She exclaimed sounding frustrated. I followed her finger to a cabin door lying flat on the ground. Its sturdy metal hinges still clung to the wall, but the frame itself had splintered through the concrete, allowing the door to be thrown outward. A large number 9 was painted on the fake log siding.

“The big event is in two nights, Jerry” Val continued before he could defend himself. Val shook her head in disbelief and continued on.

I tried to get a look into the cabin as we rushed past, but I didn’t catch too much. I thought I noticed the edge of a wooden chair, and maybe a set of bracelets on the ground. They looked thick and chunky. Maybe someone was going through a rockstar phase. I wondered what kind of special guest gets to ignore the ‘no jewelry’ rule. But the answer was obvious to me.

A rich one

It occurred to me that I should be asking more questions. My dad said I needed to do stuff like that to show an interest in the job.

As soon as I had this thought, Val stopped walking abruptly.

We had arrived at Cabin 6. The Simmons’ cabin.

The cabin looked exactly like cabin 9, except it was still in one piece.

I curled my fist and reached up to knock on the cabin door but Val stopped me. “Just leave them here,” she said, meaning the space on their small front porch. “They will come get them when they’re ready.” She began walking again. I followed.

“Is the event really such a big deal, still?” I asked trying again to keep up with her. “I mean, I know it is. But, like, wasn’t it way bigger news in the old days?”

“The event,” Val started to explain in her cheery and professional voice, “is the only reason Silver Springs Retreat exists.”

I looked over my shoulder toward where we last saw Jerry. He was in the middle of a call on an old style walk-talkie radio, but otherwise unmoved.

“Which is why you and I have jobs,” she concluded.

“I guess that makes sense,” I admitted.

“Speaking of jobs,” she pivoted, “yours is relatively simple. You just have to remain on call to help bring guests the things they need. I’ll give you a radio and an ear piece, and whenever a guests needs anything, one of your supervisors will call on you to do it.”

We moved to the large centralized structure that I recognized from the map in the lobby as the wellness treatment center.

Designed much like the cabins, with the vinyl log facade, the large concrete building doubled as a divider between the eastern and western grounds. Inside, is where the therapists would issue the wellness treatments for the guests.

“So, what? Do I just sit around all day waiting to hear from someone?” I realized how rude I sounded as soon as the words left my lips.

“Walk around the facility,” Val explained, opening the door to the wellness center and holding it open for me. “Get to know the place, but don’t disturb any guests. You have level one security access. Do you know what that means?”

The inside of the wellness center looked like if a hospital could double as a lake house. Long hallways made to look like polished wood, illuminated by unforgiving fluorescent bulbs, spread in all four directions from the centralized hub ahead of us. I noticed a door with LEVEL ONE printed on the side.

“It means I’m allowed through those doors?” I said, proud of myself for solving the riddle.

“Right!” Val said, either genuinely impressed or still performing her customer service voice. “And other sections like that. Basically, you can go anywhere as long as it doesn’t require level two permissions.

A look of embarrassment flashed across her face as she lowered her voice.

“We’re in the east hall,” she whispered, with the same cheerful tone. “Try to be quiet here. It’s where guests have their sleep recovery sessions. It’s not very popular now, but it will be in a couple of days.”

She kept moving quickly, and I stayed close behind her. My three years of cross country was coming in handy that day. When we got the the central hub, Val motioned down the hallway running north of here.

“Talk treatments are to the north,” she explained. “Mostly just group sessions and one on one talks with our therapists. It really seems to help with the guests who are worried about the transition.”

She motioned down the south hallway.

“Physical treatments are down the south hall,” she said. “Deep tissue massages, joint mobility treatments, sensory deprivation therapy, hydrotherapy pools. Things like that.”

We continued through the last hallway. The western hall looked largely like the eastern hall but reversed. The only key difference I could spot was that the security door on this end of the building was printed with LEVEL TWO. I wondered immediately about what was behind that door.

“The west hall,” Val went on, “is mostly storage and security. Sometimes they’ll repurpose a room for additional therapy sessions. But, for you, it’s mostly a place to pick up towels and toiletries.” We exited the building together and entered the West Grounds. I expected a mirror swapped version of the East Grounds, like how the west hall was just like the east hall. I was surprised, yet again, to see this area simultaneously looked newer and older than surrounding areas.

The trees seemed more sparse than the east grounds. But the ones that were present looked to be ancient, with huge trunks and roots that made the area harder to traverse without tripping. Several of the trees looked like they had the bark stripped off the bottom portion. I felt like I could always touch the top of the damage marks, if I really tried.

The cabins in the West Grounds were different too. They still had the fake log siding, but the concrete walls underneath were visibly thicker. The doors were made of solid metal. Steel, I assumed by the intense shininess. These cabins were spaced out further from each other than their counterparts on the East Grounds.

“Our newer guests stay on this side of the facility,” Val said leading me deeper into the grounds. “You probably won’t be called over here as much. They generally have senior staff members handling it. But you might have to bring some supplies sometimes. Just-“

“Don’t come here after dark,” I interrupted, hoping it would seem like I was paying attention during that boring video earlier. “Only senior staff allowed.” It occurred to me that I didn’t see any guests on the West Grounds. Maybe it was a slow month. I didn’t know how many new guests a place like this could have.

I did notice a few concrete poles scattered throughout the grounds. At the top of each pole was another large speaker system. They reminded me of the tornado sirens I’d see around when we’d go visit my grandparents out of state. But Ash Creek didn’t have those anywhere else. At least, not that I knew of.

“You got it,” She said with a wink. “Let’s get you set up with a radio and I’ll show you to where you’ll be sleeping.”

“What about the North Woods?” I asked, glancing in that direction.

“Oh,” she said, “you really have done your research, Candice. I’m impressed.”

“I just saw the map in the lobby,” I tried to sound humble instead of embarrassed. “It showed North Woods at the top.”

“The North Woods isn’t part of the guest facility anymore,” she explained as we reentered the wellness facility. “I think it got too expensive to maintain, so they cut back. There’s nothing for us there, anymore.”

Val took me to the employee rooms, located in a small transitional corridor beyond the south hall. “If you keep going down this hall,” she explained as we entered. “You’ll make it back the staff area we started in, today.”

I was a little nervous to sleep at the facility. It seemed like a nice enough place, but my understanding was that most jobs don’t keep you overnight.

But the pay was pretty good for someone my age, and it would only be a couple of nights. They didn’t want me here for the event. Which I was totally not complaining about. Who doesn’t want three days off in the middle of the week? Then I get to report back for the cleanup.

I found a room with a temporary plaque reading CANDACE outside the door. This would be my home away from home for the next couple of days.

The room was small, but comfortable. A loft style bed was suspended over a small wooden desk. I wondered if the radio on the dresser worked. I wondered if I even knew how to use a radio.

I climbed into the bed and pulled out my phone for a much-needed doom scrolling session. This place was kind of weird. I hoped a new car would be worth it.

In all my years living in Ash Creek, I had met a few werewolves before. They weren’t bloodthirsty monsters like how they are portrayed on TV. Most of them are just normal people living with a chronic condition. I drifted off to sleep, reminding myself that I was doing something good by working at Silver Springs. Helping people through a hard transition.

I assumed I would fall asleep quickly after the way Val had me running all around the facility, but the new place and the new noises proved me wrong. Instead, I just laid there staring up at the popcorn ceiling two feet above my face.

Every time I started to drift off, a pop from the speaker system, or a supply cart wheeling by my door would cause my eyes to shoot open again. I never liked sleeping away from home.

Eventually, I let the low ambient mechanical droning from outside lull me to a gentle slumber.

Everyone in the house was asleep. I'd taken the batteries out of the wall clock in my room to get rid of the ticking. Now there was complete silence, and I could try again to do something I'd already managed to do successfully.

A week ago, I'd turned over a piece of paper lying on my desk, with a poem I'd written in primary school on it. It was my first success after years of practice. Six days ago, I'd unscrewed the cap of a juice bottle that hadn't been closed all the way. Five days ago, I'd moved one of the cigarettes in an open pack slightly outward, out of the pack. Three days ago, I'd peeled off one of the pieces of tape holding up poster on my wall.

And tonight, my target was a much larger object. I was confident in my abilities now, and after this final attempt, I would be able to reveal my talent to my family and those around me. I had made exactly four attempts in the past week, and I'd succeeded every single time. I had complete faith in myself.

For years, I'd tried countless times and gone through a lot along the way; I'd lost hope, taken a long break from my attempts, then started believing I could do it again and after trying over and over, I'd come to think telekinesis was nothing but a lie and taken another break but then one day, I happened to see a pack of wet wipes fall to the floor all by itself, which rekindled my interest and got me started on my attempts again, and so on.

And now, finally, in the middle of the night, when complete silence had been achieved, I went to the kitchen. I took a steak knife from the drawer where we kept the cutlery and returned to my room.

I gently pulled my desk chair back and sat down. I didn't want to lose my focus, so I was being quiet. The faint sound of the knife touching the desk as I set it down, the soft sounds of my footsteps as I walked, the barely audible scraping of the chair as I pulled it back had an ASMR effect on me. These little sounds, too quiet to disturb the silence, made me feel thoroughly prepared.

Without wasting any time, I focused on the knife. I positioned my hands around it and gathered all my concentration. I slowed my breathing. The only thing in my mind was a knife slowly and calmly spinning around its own axis. I focused, and focused... I concentrated as if someone were hypnotizing me, as though I were following a pocket watch swinging from side to side without ever taking my eyes off it.

Minutes passed. Seconds, minutes, maybe an hour... There wasn't the slightest movement. The knife couldn't care less about me; it was ignoring my efforts, stubbornly refusing to budge.

Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore and gave up. I was getting more and more bored, and as time went by, I lost my focus. I had to go to work at noon the next day, and earlier that day, before I left work, my boss had pointed out that I'd left my fly undone. I'd started thinking about that. Who says something like that in front of everyone? You pull someone aside and tell them in private. Anyway, I took the knife back to the kitchen.

After I lay down in bed, I thought about the knife until I fell asleep. I'd lost my confidence in my abilities. If I told someone I could move objects through telekinesis, they might ask me to prove it, and I might fail and make a fool of myself.

I couldn't get the knife out of my mind. I felt as though it were a person who had shattered all my trust in them, betrayed me by revealing a secret I'd shared with it to anyone who would listen. I was angry. The image of the knife standing perfectly still in that spot, like a tree that had sunk its roots deep into the ground, wouldn't leave my mind. I fell asleep in a fit of anger.

I woke up to the sound of my phone alarm. I turned it off, tossed the duvet to my left, and rolled onto my right side to get up. Just as I was about to stretch, I saw it and jolted in place: the knife was suspended in midair beside my bed, standing upright.

I clapped a hand over my mouth. I was about to scream; every instinct in my body was telling me to. I bit my tongue to suppress it.

I took a deep breath. I tried to calm myself down. Then I took another deep breath. My heart was racing.

I reached out toward the knife, but immediately changed my mind. I didn't know what to do. I'd never experienced my thoughts speeding up and getting tangled together so intensely in a moment of panic. Within a few seconds, I'd made and abandoned a dozen decisions, gone back and forth between asking for help and not asking for help, imagined the knife stabbing itself into my body, then dismissed the thought as irrational. My thoughts were racing back and forth at lightning speed. I needed to calm down.

I got out of bed, poured half a glass of water from the pitcher on my desk, and drank it.

I turned around to check if the knife was still there. It was closer to me now. I no longer cared about staying quiet. I yanked the door open and rushed out of the room.

I started walking briskly toward the kitchen. I wanted to grab any drink I could find and gulp it down. I needed to interact with something somehow, to calm myself down. I opened the fridge, took out the milk, and chugged it. I put the milk back, closed the fridge, and turned around to go back to my room.

And the knife was right behind me.

It was a meter away from me, just standing there. It was as if it were staring at me, judging me. It didn't move at all. It always maintained the same position and stayed at the same height above the floor, level with my bed, right around the height of my shinbones.

I started walking backward toward the kitchen doorway, wanting to see how it was following me, how it was coming after me. Without changing its position, it glided toward me as if it were moving across a perfectly smooth surface. It always maintained the same distance. When I stopped, it stopped a metre away from me. When I walked, it followed.

I cautiously made my way back to my room, walking backward. I sat on my bed. The knife and I were facing each other. I tried to think of what I could do. I was afraid to touch it. I was worried things might get out of hand. I'd done this. That much was obvious. Now that I'd calmed down a little, my panic had shifted in a different direction. Someone might see us. I had to sever my connection with the knife before I got caught. I might be able to accept this as normal, but I didn't think my mother and father would be able to handle a knife following me around.

Yes, it was probably because I'd concentrated so intensely on the knife all this time that the bond between us had grown stronger. I'd probably never concentrated on a knife so intensely in my entire life. I needed to reverse the process. I relaxed a little. I tried to think about other things, to take my mind off the knife.

I thought about the wristwatch my father had bought me for my birthday last year. It was a terrible watch, but I hadn't let on because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. Then one day, while wearing it, I'd deliberately gone swimming in a pool. The watch had stopped working, and that was how I'd gotten rid of it.

The knife was still in the same place.

I thought about the eggplant soup my mother had made yesterday. It was my favorite soup. I'd tipped the bowl back and gulped down the last few mouthfuls, and my father had given me a stern look.

The knife hadn't moved at all. It was standing there, a meter away.

My mother knocked on the door and called out.

"Breakfast is ready, Albert."

I had no other choice. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I reached out toward the knife. My arm couldn't reach it, though. I walked toward it. As I moved closer, it moved farther away, until it had backed all the way up against the wall. It had nowhere left to go. It was pressed against the wall, stuck there. I approached it and grabbed the handle.

My heart was pounding at full speed. I closed my eyes. As a final attempt, I thought about the baseball bat I'd lost before I became interested in telekinesis. I'd searched everywhere for it. Such a large object, yet it was nowhere to be found. I'd checked the baseball field, my grandmother's house, the streets I'd walked along, and I'd even contacted the lost property office in case I'd somehow left it on a bus. It was gone.

Yes, good. I could feel a long chain of thoughts forming and my focus weakening considerably.

The knife was loosening, letting go. I could feel it. But I still didn't have complete control over it.

I needed to think about something else. But I couldn't think of anything. I heard my mother's footsteps approaching my room. She was getting closer to the door.

"Come on, son. Are we supposed to wait for you?" she said from outside, then opened the door and walked in.

I pulled the knife with all my might, and just like when you yank something hard that's stuck somewhere and it suddenly comes loose, I went flying toward my bed.

With the knife still in my hand, I hit my head against the bed frame. And passed out.

When I opened my eyes, I was lying in a hospital bed with an IV drip in my arm. My father was sitting beside me. I felt exhausted. I'd received three stitches in my head, and it ached a little.

"Son, why were you holding a knife? What were you doing with it?"

"What knife, Dad?"

"You were clutching a knife in your hand. What do you mean, what knife? What are you up to?"

I couldn't remember anything. That was good. I hoped it wasn't temporary memory loss, because I didn't want to attempt telekinesis again.

Damn, it's hot this summer. I can't keep the house cool on the sunny side. The skeeters are bad, too. I have so many bites that I feel like a big, walking bug bite.

I haven't seen my cat, Hades, in three days since she went walking into the woods behind the house. She usually comes back before long, purring and pleased with herself for whatever she was doing out there.

I have decided that I'm going to go into the woods and look for her after it cools down some this evening. I taught her to come when she's called when she was a kitten by giving her treats when she came to me.

Hades is hard to see in the shadows with that black fur, but it's just too damn hot to look for her right now. I would risk having heat stroke if I tried.

There's a rumor that people who go too far into the woods will not come back out. I wonder if that goes for cats as well. I miss that bratty cat. I've had her since she was born. I spoiled her too much when she was a kitten, but I couldn't help myself.

Hang on. What's that messed up critter walking out of the woods? "Hades, is that you?" I have to go see. If it's her, she didn't react like she normally does.

"You crazy furball. What happened to you? I'm going to have to see if you're hurt." I reach down to pick her up, but stop short. It's definitely Hades, but something feels wrong.

"Ouch! What the heck? You scratched my face! No, young lady. Do not scratch me again. Get the fuck off! Aaaarrgggg..."

The Moderator

Nothing gets across this wall, not as long as my lungs still draw breath. The robot demons are coming for us, for our children and virgin women. And here I stand, a statue in the face of those that would play silly games in our faces, armed with my duel HK MP5’s, Dragunov sniper rifle and other firearms. I never asked for this, but sometimes heroism is thrust upon those of us filled with a deep, dark soul. A stomach filled with acid and wrath. The fem-bot hell spawn took out all of my regiment but me, the single lone wolf willing to put his childish, physical desires aside in the name of salvation for what’s left of the human race.

POP!

One more notch on my belt, one more Satanic automaton felled before it could even think about finding a chink in our armor. I feel no pleasure in killing the naked, jiggling red flesh covered abominations. It’s just what I have to do, and I’m the best at what I do.

“Sorry, babe. But I’m saving myself for a real woman”

I cooley mutter under my breath while blowing the smoke away from the barrel of my hand crafted, acid etched 1911. It was made by the sensual hands of our lady gunsmith just for me. It’s handle glistening with an exact copy of her sweaty, shimmering bosom. Of course she’s begged for me to take her to my bed, but I don’t fuck with menial laborers. The heart of my groin will only be spilled in the cavern of purest wet. I can’t go wasting my first time on some harlot that’s seen more dilly dallies than a Burbon Street night walker after all. Besides, the sheer girth of my manhood would probably split her intwine.

Baby’s arm holding an apple? More like Shaquille O’Neal holding a black panther.

I call out for my replacement, not that he’ll do much good, because even assess as bad as mine need to eat and sleep, arms and legs wrapped tight around their Hatsune Miku pillow.

“Oh sweet! Dino nuggies! You spoil me, Sora”

“Maybe you could spoil me after your supper, Magnum San”

“Sorry, babe. But I only bang to marry, and you’re not the marrying type. Maybe in some other life, in some other world, we could be together, but right here and now, I’ll be keeping my first shot of true love’s lava to myself until the right Queen comes along. Maybe I’ll be alone for the rest of my life, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay for pure, high-end poon. I can still to this day remember when my Sensay taught me the ways of holy self-denial. ‘Magnum’ he said ‘You are the greatest student I have ever had the honor of teaching. A total dragon in the form of man that has surpassed even my own eternal power and wisdom. If I had a son, I would have thrown him from a mountain top for not being you. Do not waste your seed on any random piece of trim. It is far too valuable and precious for anything less than the vajeen of a princess’. Then he bowed to me as master to master and committed seppuku, for nothing else could give his life meaning once I had left his school. Suck’s though. Kickass eggrolls for a blind kung-fu master”

“Oh, Magnum. My loins thirst for your sausage of manliness. Couldn’t I tempt you with my back door? Dirt roading doesn’t count you know”

If I had a nickel for the amount of back doors I’ve knocked upon, well, shit, I could retire from this whole calling of awesomeness to buy my own private pleasure world. I keep her soaking thong as a trophy, throwing it on the pile of similar tokens in the corner of my room once I get back to my room, then fall into my bunk like a sack of pure testicular manliness and fall asleep to the memories of all of my charitable dark cherry thrusting’s.

Butt stuff doesn’t count, and I’ve done a lot of butt stuff. Way more than my cousin, Terry.

My nightmares are the typical stuff of blood splattered memories. Me, punching my fist clean through the torso of a writhing tentacle woman. Their goddess practically gagging for a throw in my ball pit of manhood only to be rejected then putting a bullet in her own head at the loss of such pleasures. The big chested cheetah women of Zevenofnine purring and pawing at my chest while my manhood splintered it’s steel hard sheath of torment into slivers, the greatest and strongest such apparatus their constantly naked smiths had ever fashioned.

So many bloody triumphs in so few years. Not to mention the amount of hot babes I’ve made out with. An alarm wakes me from my warrior’s slumber and I dash from my bed and out of my chambers with lightening fast reflexes, tripping a few of the lesser soldiers with my gargantuan flop monster as I head at full speed, naked as the day I was born from a Valkyrie’s black, unbeating heart.

“They’re all over us! Help! We can’t…”

One poor bastard screams out just before being smothered by a pair of mammaries, each one the size of recliner. I put a merciful bullet in what little can be seen of his head then kick the half meat half metal totally naked demon droid right in her beautiful face. No quarter of gentlemanly honor can be given to these lust monsters. She rebounds quicker than I anticipated and is soon hunched in front of me, arms spread wide, claws and nether’s dripping with the juices of less fortunate men, just like Wolverine does. And I have to admit that its pretty badass and sexy, but even as she moans like a whore at the sight of my prehensile womb wrecker, I still have no problem taking her head from her shoulders with a totally sweet and decimating round house kick.

“Looks like you won’t be giving anyone head for a while”

I jape at her spasming, sweaty body as its nipples harden with the sudden devastation I had thrust upon it. These robo-hell sluts, always moistening at the briefest sensation of my touch.

“Magnum! To the wall! We need you!”

A chorus of frightened voices call to me, letting me know that the night’s action isn’t even close to over with. I run to my men, evading and punching and murdering the swarm of devil sex machines that stand between me and them, kicking a few in the clit as necessary. Heh, some of the sloven grunts don’t even know where the clit is, but I do. I’ve seen tons of them.

As I reach the outer wall, the ground starts to rumble and quake like my tummy when I’ve had too much milk, my comrades turn their heads and gasp in disbelief. But not me, I’m cooler than one of those long green thing’s mom keeps in the fridge. No idea what they are, but I find myself thinking about them sometimes during long showers.

“It’s a Whore-gantua!

Danny, my young apprentice, the ward of my stately Wayne manor, the Dick of my Greyson, screams out. I spin in his direction, my still unsheathed serpent of fornication whip cracking in the air, its hallmark supersonic call alerting my fellow guardsmen that salvation has arrived.

“Harken to me my good men! Give me an axe, a dagger and a longsword for my third leg, and I will send this vag-bomination back to the sex pits where it came from!”

“But, Magnum, wouldn’t you rather ‘Old Painless’ to deal with this buxom nightmare?!”

“No! Foul temptresses such as this are unworthy of my totally awesome self-taught gun kata technique. Raw dogged rampage is the only thing this beast of breasts will understand. To me my weapons! We have a harlot to tame!”

I won’t bore you with the details, but I did a rad af flip off of the railing, right into the mouth of the seven story tall firedrake of the red pits, my dagger slicing it’s uvula in half, the axe shattering all twenty of its fangs while the golden longsword of Masturgodula stabbed into the sex starved beats brain matter with a little help from my big friend.

The thing spasmed and shook, fire bellowing from its throat in an effort to send me running from its full lipped mouth. Unfortunately for the Whore-gantua, I only run towards danger, never away from it. Like a girl.

My chest hair took the brunt of the heat while my pubes absorbed the rest and I was easily able to grab onto one of the monsters plump, succulent lips, back flipping onto its half angelic half demonic half robotic face. Things from the depths can have many halves. Even though I was forced to drop my axe and dagger to complete the completely rad parkore move that lesser men would have failed at pulling off, I still had my long schlong sword, and it took very little effort to plunge the holy relic into the wild bitch’s left eye, causing her to bellow out a plea of mercy along with promises of physical depravity that would melt the minds of most men. I’m not most men. I’m a Moderator. And I’ve edged longer than most of my fellow soldiers have been alive.

“Please!”

It begged.

“Before I die, let me know the touch of your loins! You can stick it anywhere you want! Even in my fifth hole!”

“Nah”

I replied.

“I’m good. I’ve seen what happens to your lovers and I don’t feel like regrowing my Jack Nicholson right now. Cause that’s something I can totally do. Tell Satan she’ll never defeat Fort Vin Diesel and that I’ll never call her back. Her’s was one of the dirtiest roads I’ve ever been down, and I’m not into that amount of mudpie”

“Curse you, Magnum! Curse you for the spankings and lashings I shall receive at my mistresses hand for failing to seduce you! Curse you for not giving me what I desire most and curse you for being so handsome and rad!”

“Save your curses for church, cause I’m all outta bibles. Later, slut. See you in the next life”

Then she splattered into a mess of tits and metal and vaginas, covering me and the outer wall with her female ejaculations of failure. I trudged back to the wall then free soloed it up its thousand foot face and was soon greeted with a Vahala’s welcome. High fives and fist bumps were had by all those lucky enough to still be alive and witness one of my easier vanquishing’s.

Finally, the party had ended and I was left alone, to stare out into the abyss and call it a pussy. Just as I thought life couldn’t get any better, my apprentice tapped my shoulder and embraced me as kin once I had turned to face him.

No homo.

“I can’t believe you took down that giant twelve boobed dragon by yourself!”

“Just another day in paradise, Danny”

“How do you do it, Magnum? How do you keep pushing yourself so hard?”

“I’m a Moderator. There aren’t many of us left, but we have a sacred duty to uphold, It’s just what we do”

“Wow. Do you think I could be a Moderator some day?”

“Only if you have the song of a vicious, hardcore demigod in your heart. Do you have that song, Danny? Can you hear it calling you to things greater than yourself? Because that’s what it takes to be a Moderator. It’s not just about bravery beyond compare, a true Moderator’s veins flow with molten steel and liquid fire. Our blood is the stuff of legend and our actions the pure essence of will and strength”

“I… I’m not sure, Magnum. I’m not sure I can hear anything, but I want it so bad. More than a hundred concubines, I want to be the terror that flaps in the night. The shadow that crushes it’s enemies and defiles their temples. I want to, no, I will be a hammer of god. A lightning bolt that totally explodes the heart of anyone foolish enough to bring war to my people. I Will be a Moderator one day, or I will die trying!”

“That’s the spirit, Danny! You’ve certainly got the truck nuts for it. Now, someone call the helper females, I’m in the mood for some butt stuff”

The End.

Awesome double guitar solo over the credits!

Magnum San    Magnum San

Writer    Magnum San

Director    Magnum San

Producer    Magnum San

Key Grip    Magnum San

Light Guy    Magnum San

Catering    Magnum San

Regular Grip    Magnum San

Kunk Fu Grip    Magnum San

Stunt Coordinator    Magnum San

Foley Artest    Magnum San

Folly Artest    NOT Magnum San

Gun Supplier Guy    Magnum San

Intimacy Coordinator    Magnum San’s Ball’s

FX Nerds    Also NOT Magnum San

Adorable Cat That Wandered Onto The Set From The Street    Magnum San’s Pubic Hair

Vegeta    Magnum San

Coffee Girl    Totally Banged By Magnum San

Local Prostitute    Your Mom

Other Actors    Not Magnum San so who cares

They Eat    The Puh Poo

This has been a production of my alcoholism. All characters and whatever are totally real just like all the butt stuff I’ve did

The skeleton on the corner.
So to preface this, you should know that I leave for work between 3:30 and 4:30 in the morning.
For the past week there has been a skeleton on the corner that, up until this point, I’ve just assumed was a scarily well placed Halloween decoration.
Every morning it seems to appear out of the corner of my eye as I take the turn, almost running me off the road.
I already found this kind of odd and honestly a little terrifying. My street is well lit and has good visibility. I can see the corner from my driveway, and yet I never notice the skeleton until I’m right up on it.
It’s nearly always in a different pose too.
One morning it looked like it was sitting. Another morning it was sort of hunched forward. A couple days ago it looked like one arm was raised like it was waving.
I figured whoever put it there was just moving it around every day to mess with people.
As of yesterday morning though, it was pointing in the direction of my house.
I don’t really know what else to assume it was pointing at.
There’s not much else behind me when I take that turn. My house is pretty much directly down the street from that corner.
Still, I really didn’t think much of it. It’s Halloween. People put up creepy decorations. Whoever did this one just happened to be really good at placing it somewhere you don’t notice until you’re practically beside it.
That is until yesterday evening.
I passed the corner on my way home and noticed it wasn’t there.
That alone isn’t all that strange. Maybe whoever owns it only puts it out at night or really early in the morning. Maybe they don’t want somebody stealing it. I don’t know.
What was more odd was when I started asking around.
I mentioned it to my mum. I live at home, and she gets up between 5:30 and 6 every morning.
She had no idea what I was talking about.
She said she’s never seen a skeleton on the corner.
I actually thought she was messing with me at first because it’s not exactly subtle once you notice it, but she was completely serious.
I could still explain that away. Maybe the neighbors get up around 5 and bring it inside before she leaves.
Then I asked my dad.
He hasn’t seen it either.
My dad leaves for work at around 3 AM.
Earlier than I do.
That was the first part that really bothered me.
If somebody is putting this thing out early enough for me to see it but late enough that my dad misses it, that’s already a weirdly specific window of time.
This morning when I left for work, I was actually looking for it.
I slowed down a little before the corner because I wanted to see if I could spot it before getting right up beside it for once.
It wasn’t there.
I almost felt relieved.
I remember thinking okay, good, somebody finally took the stupid thing down and I’ve just been freaking myself out.
Then as I made the turn I glanced back down the street toward my house.
I could have sworn it was standing in my yard.
Not near the road either.
Closer to the house.
I didn’t stop to check.
I actually considered turning around, but something about the idea of driving back toward it made me feel ridiculous and terrified at the same time, so I just kept going.
When I got to work I texted my mum asking if there was anything in the yard.
She said no.
Maybe I’m being paranoid. Maybe somebody in the neighborhood is messing with me and I’m just the only one noticing it.
I don’t know.
I just find the whole thing incredibly unusual.
Maybe it’s a prank?

“Of all the urban legends across America, he had to be the one that was real. Of all the awful things that could exist, he had to be the worst… His name is ManFace.”

“That name is so fucking stupid.” That was the first thing I told my friend Josh when he began the story. He had lured me out to the woods at such a late hour with the promise of a scary campfire tale. One so spooky, it would help break me out of my seemingly interminable writer’s block.

Josh said that he would only tell me this story once we hiked deep into the woods after dark. When I asked why, he said, “Most people don’t like to be out in these parts after dark. We’ll be completely alone that way.”

“Why do we need to be alone?” I asked again.

“So no one else will be around to hear the story when I tell it to you.” Josh answered. He was really adamant about us being alone in those woods. I know how that sounds, but I’ve been friends with Josh since kindergarten. If he was gonna murder me out in the woods, he would have done it a long time ago. So, without fear or worry, I accepted his strange invitation.

Depression and poor life choices had ensured that I really had nothing better to do on a Friday night, and well, I missed my old buddy. I don’t care if he wants to tell me a scary story in the forest after dark. I’m friends with Josh because he likes doing weird shit like that.

So, when he told me the story centered around a being called “ManFace,” I thought he was having a laugh at my expense. He knew how much I loved a good urban legend, and also, how much I wanted to have one of my own to share with the world. I just couldn’t think of something scary enough to catch on.

“Trust me, this one you’re gonna want to share, whether it catches on with people or not, this is DEFINITELY going to be one you’ll want to share.”

Josh was rarely this intense of a guy. I thought at the time, he was playing up his fear to really sell the story before it even began. A risky maneuver on his part. I already found the name of this entity kinda stupid, so I was going into this story a bit jaded from the onset.

“How am I ever going to fear something called ManFace?” I asked Josh.

“I thought the same thing at first.” He replied, “So I'm gonna tell you what our scoutmaster told us.” Josh turned and looked me dead in the eyes, “You can laugh at him all you want. ManFace will still get you.” I waited for him to give me a smile or a chuckle - something to let me know everything was actually ok, but instead, he just took a seat on a tree stump and continued on with the story.

So, ten year old Josh was out on a camping trip with his boy scout troop when all of a sudden one night, his scoutmaster wanted to tell a scary story. This wasn’t entirely unusual as it is a boy scout tradition to tell spooky stories after dark. It wasn’t the fact that he wanted to tell a scary story that was strange, it was how he was going about telling this scary story that really stuck with Josh.

“Scoutmaster Scott was soft-spoken and kind. So, when he told everyone to shut the fuck up and gather around for a story, I was scared. Not of the story… but of him.”

Josh said Scoutmaster Scott had been acting odd that entire weekend of the camping trip. He had been constantly bad mouthing the other scoutmaster and was really trying to make things competitive between the two troops hiking up the same mountain.

“We have to beat the others to the top of Mt. Man. We have to beat them. If we don’t, then that means Glenn Ford is a better scoutmaster than me, and if Glenn Ford is a better scoutmaster than me, then I’m going to throw myself right off a fucking cliff.” Josh remembers some kids laughing at Scoutmaster Scott’s joke. The thing is, Scoutmaster Scott wasn’t joking. He screamed at the entire troop for over fifteen minutes, asking them if they wanted to see him kill himself. Any time a kid slowed down or asked if they could take a break, he asked them if they wanted to kill him right now to just, “Get things over with since you little fuckers hate me so much.”

Josh reiterated that they were all ten years old, so nobody really knew how to deal with this behavior from a trusted adult. The boys all quietly decided amongst themselves to stop asking for breaks and just forge on ahead so they could be the first troop to get to the mountain top. That way, Scoutmaster Scott wouldn’t kill himself. Win-win I guess.

The thing is, the hike up Mt. Man was supposed to be done over the course of three days. Scoutmaster Scott made these kids do it over the course of two. They reached the top of the mountain long before any other troop would get there.

“We were exhausted. So, when Scoutmaster Scott suggested we start a fire at the summit and roast hotdogs and marshmallows, we couldn’t have been happier.” Josh thought at the time that the whole suicidal drill instructor routine was just a bit of misguided tough love from Scoutmaster Scott that had thankfully now come to an end.

As Josh was explaining this, his focus snapped behind me in an instant. He had been peering over his shoulder from time to time, but this was the first instance where he kept his gaze fixed on something moving around in the brush.

“It’s just an animal Josh… Probably a deer.” I said, trying to snap him out of his trance. “Now, look…” I paused to choose my words carefully, “You can tell me about whatever happened with Scoutmaster Scott. I’m here to listen.” I had a feeling that Josh was ashamed that he was even telling me this story in the first place. I was starting to worry that Josh's memory of this camping trip was hiding much darker secrets than just some half-baked creepypasta monster.

“He told us about ManFace.” Josh continued. “His name… what he is… he told us everything.”

“What is ManFace?” I asked. I was getting tired of beating around the bush on this one.

“He could be anything.” Josh said, answering my question with an infuriatingly vague, but retrospectively accurate, description of the being. “But…” He added, “It always bears the face of a man, thus the name.”

Josh looked me in the eyes intently when he said that last part. If I weren’t such a good friend, I might have laughed at how shooken up this had gotten him. ManFace had yet to instill fear in me to say the least. Josh’s enigmatic description had only emboldened my skepticism.

“So, like, ManFace could be a couch? ManFace could be a wall? He could be any inanimate object? What are the rules here and where the hell even is his face on the thing he is? Like, if he were a sign on a road, would his face appear on the sign itself or would it be impaled into the pole? That would be pretty wicked looking, I won’t lie. Also, is there a WomanFace?”

“Sam!” Josh had said my name with such fury that I had suddenly found the fear of ManFace inside me. “I need you to just listen from here on out. No more interrupting!” Up to that point, I mostly thought Josh’s behavior was a performance he was putting on for the sake of the story. After that outburst, I wasn’t so sure anymore.

Josh continued his tale in a hushed voice, “Scoutmaster Scott told the story with the same opening line. He insisted if we ever tell the story to someone else, we have to begin with the line.” Josh repeated that strange introduction from before, “Of all the urban legends across America, he had to be the one that was real. Of all the awful things that could exist, he had to be the worst… His name is ManFace and he feeds off your fear.” That last part was new and Josh went on to explain how ManFace truly works, “He is always hungry and never settles for scraps. He will bleed you dry of every ounce of fear within your heart and then when that is not enough for his unending appetite, he will devour you in mind, body, and soul.”

“So he kills you?” I had broken my silent promise to not interrupt.

“He does.” Josh answered immediately and forwardly. “But…” He continued, “ManFace will not feed on your body if you keep the fear of him alive. Not just in you, but in others as well. It protects us. It keeps him fed.”

“I see. You’re supposed to want to be afraid of him.”

“Exactly!” Josh shouted. “Eight tired kids in the woods after dark. We were full of fear, but not of ManFace. We were more afraid of Scoutmaster Scott than we were of that stupid name. When he made us go around the fire and say the scariest thing ManFace would be for each of us, it turned into a game.”

It all started with Jeff as most jokes often did in the troop. He had shouted, “The scariest thing to see ManFace as... is a toilet!” After that, they couldn’t be stopped. The band of pre-pubescent boys would suggest almost anything for ManFace to become. Almost anything that is, but something that actually scared them.

“No!” another boy yelled, “It would be a pillow. That way, he can kiss you good night.”

“Or a tree, because no matter where you pee, ManFace will be watching.”

“If ManFace is on a butt, does that make him ButtFace?” I’ll admit, that one got a slight chuckle out of me. I can only imagine how a bunch of ten year old boys took it.

“Scoutmaster Scott lost his shit.” Josh said. “He went berserk. He turned into a raving lunatic.”

According to Josh, he started yelling over and over again, “Only fear can protect us! Only fear can protect us! Stop your laughing children! Stop fucking laughing dammit!”

Maybe it was the physical and mental exhaustion. Maybe it was hearing Scoutmaster Scott repeatedly saying the f-word. Maybe, it was a group-wide nervous reaction to a trusted adult absolutely losing their shit in front of them. But Josh said, once Scoutmaster Scott began his yelling “The laughter only got worse.”

“Some of you had to be scared?” I said in disbelief.

“Yeah, I was one of them… and yet I laughed all the same.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because everyone else was.” He answered. Josh had made it sound like a trance had befallen him and the others. No matter how crazy Scoutmaster Scott got, they only laughed harder.

“If you don’t stop I’ll jump off this cliff.” Scott had threatened his life again and by the reaction of the boys, they seemed to think it was just that, a threat.

“He went up to the nearest cliff and stood at the ledge ready to jump.”

“And you all kept laughing.”

“Like it was the funniest shit in the world.”

“So he…” I trailed off and let Josh finish my sentence for me.

“He didn’t jump.” Josh corrected my assumption. “He just cried at the ledge while we laughed. It felt like an hour had passed by the time he came back to the campfire.”

“So kids…” Scoutmaster Scott spoke again after the laughter had finally died down. “Tell me… did my story about ManFace scare you?”

Josh remembered how forced that question had sounded. It was almost like he was making himself say it. Like Scoutmaster Scott HAD to end the story with this question or else something bad was about to happen and judging by the look on Josh’s face as he told the story, something did.

“ButtFace scared me.” Jeff was the one that finally answered the scoutmaster’s question. The laughing fit resumed for all of them. All of them except Josh.

He felt pity instead of amusement. He saw someone he looked up to in pain and I had no idea how to help. So, he asked him, “What would be the scariest thing to see ManFace as for you, scoutmaster?” In Josh’s mind, this was an innocuous question. He just wanted to make Scoutmaster Scott feel better. If he said what scared him so much out loud, then maybe the others would take ManFace seriously.

“Oh me…” Scoutmaster Scott looked up from the fire. His gaze had been frozen on it since his return from the ledge. “I thought it was the abyss. The endless darkness with but a single face to greet me. That single face, my own reflection… my own doom. ManFace. Me. The void… we all become one.” It seems Josh’s question didn’t help. Scoutmaster Scott repeated the phrase, “we all become one” before plunging himself face first into the campfire.

“You're kidding!” I was incredulous. I had grown more skeptical of the story after the whole trance bit. At that moment, I thought I had figured it out.

Josh held firm nonetheless, “He laid there burning in the flames while the rest of us all laughed, cried, and pissed our pants in terror.”

“You didn’t try to help?”

“The trance was at its strongest. It caused us to act strange. Some kids even threw more firewood in.”

“You’re shitting me! What did you do?” I asked.

“Nothing… I just froze up and watched.” Josh’s gaze once again swiveled about our surroundings. He was looking out for something… or someone.

“Did he die?” My forwardness came from my lack of faith in the story’s validity.

“He did. We watched his entire face burn off. We didn’t even move from our seats afterward. Once Scoutmaster Scott drew his final breath, every one of us went quiet and still. We didn’t wake up until long after the other troop had showed up. When I snapped back to reality, there were cops all around me. They said Scoutmaster Scott hurt himself in front of us, but we were safe now. I told the cops that he didn’t hurt himself. ManFace did and some of the other kids helped. Of course, they didn’t believe me…” Josh trailed off, “I didn’t believe myself. After all these years, I thought I was right to. There were lawsuits, court settlements, and NDAs. I didn’t understand any of it at the time. I was only 10. My family took the money and a good chunk of it went to my therapy. That was that. I didn’t think about ManFace again until I got a message on Reddit.” The scariest part of the story so far. “Let me show you.” Josh pulled out his phone to show me the dm.

I almost laughed. Did he really think something off of Reddit was going to convince me of ManFace’s existence? “So the others - the other kids I mean, they can corroborate this story?” At the time, I was more concerned about proving Josh wrong. I don’t really know why.

“No, they’re all dead.” Josh answered as he frantically scrolled through his phone.

“That’s convenient.” I remember muttering under my breath. Josh didn’t notice. Finding that message was all that mattered to him at that moment. “How did they all die?” I asked, trying to get his attention.

“Jeff was found dead a year ago in a public toilet with his head on the wrong way. Kevin died seven years ago at a conversion camp by impaling himself through a tree branch. Peter three years ago laid face down on a pillow and suffocated himself. I could keep going, but all that really matters is that they all died by the thing they said ManFace would scare them most as.” Josh didn’t bother to look up from his phone as he described the strange deaths.

Before he could continue, I interrupted, “How does your head end up on the wrong way?” Josh’s specific and strange wording intrigued me.

“Internal decapitation.” He explained, “For Kevin, ManFace must have made him think a tree was his boyfriend by how they found him with the branch going down his throat.” I winced at Josh’s rough description of what sounded like a poor gay kid offing himself.

“You sure that wasn’t a suicide?”

“No. Even the cops knew it was murder.” Josh answered matter of factly, “Peter death’s however was ruled a suicide, but all the vomit and tears on his pillow would have suggested he didn’t want to go. The others can also be explained away. Ford was run over by a punch buggy. Tim was killed when a tv fell on him. I can go on. I can find you obituaries too. All seven of my former boy scout troop members and the scoutmaster are all dead. If only this damn message would load!”

Josh showed me the app. He was hovering over a convo between him and “OldFriendFrankie.” The message wouldn’t load, but a glitched out picture did and, hoh boy, let me tell you, looking at this AI slop photo was the first jolt of fear I had felt since entering those woods. Before I could comment on it, Josh put his phone away.

“I have no connection here I guess. It’s ok.” Josh looked around one last time, “It’s about time we go.”

“Wait? That’s it?” I was a bit bewildered.

“The story is over. Well actually…” Josh trailed off, “there are a couple last things I have to do if I am going to do this right.” He stood up from the tree stump and smiled, “Tell me Sam, did my story about ManFace scare you?”

“No.” I honestly answered. I was, however, a bit creeped out by Josh’s latest and most radical shift in demeanor.

“Really? Are you sure?” He asked again, this time with a little more sugar on top.

“Yeah.” I didn’t want to lie to Josh. In fact, I had a whole lot of constructive criticism I was ready to give him when he spoke again.

“Here, how about you tell me what ManFace could be to scare you the most. That way you can go scare yourself.” Josh let out a forced laugh and my unease grew with each drawn out gasp. It sounded like he was in pain.

“Josh, are you-”

“Answer the fucking question Sam!” He interrupted.

“Uhh-”

“Answer the fucking question!”

“Everything!” I answered.

“What?” Josh still sounded angry.

“You know, everything Josh! If ManFace can be anything, then he can be everything. That would be the scariest thing he could become to me. There’s no escaping that.”

Josh looked me in the eyes with a level of intensity that had once again made me reconsider his mental state. He then smiled and nodded, “I believe you.” I wonder what would have happened if he didn’t.

“Are you scared now?” He asked.

“I mean, you’re acting really weird dude. It’s freaking me out just a little, I can’t lie.”

“Well, I’m sorry for my behavior. It’s just that I could die any second.” Josh paused as if he realized some other step he had forgotten to perform, “And now you can too. If you feel your fear of ManFace waver, then spread it to another, ideally, someone you care about like a friend or family member. That way, even if they don’t believe you, you can be afraid for them. It’s so much easier to be afraid for someone you care about than just your lonely old self, don’t you agree Sam?”

I don’t know if it was how earnest Josh sounded or his weird infomercial delivery, but something about the way he said that sucked any fear I had right out of me.

“What?” I let out that one word before suddenly breaking into a fit of laughter.

“So you’re not afraid anymore huh? Even when a friend tells you his life is in danger?” The betrayal in Josh’s voice sounded so real and yet I couldn’t stop laughing.

“No...” I choked out. “No, I-I don’t know what’s happening to me. I can’t…” The laughter overwhelmed me.

“It’s ok. That happens to those who don’t believe.” Josh took his phone back out and turned on his flashlight. He pointed it out into the darkness while saying, “You know what the scariest thing ManFace would be for me?” Even if I wanted to ask what it was, my body refused to let me do anything but laugh. “When they asked me back then, my answer wasn’t some childish joke. I didn’t try to be funny. I told them the truth.”

I squinted, forcing my eyes to follow the trembling beam of Josh’s flashlight. At the edge of its reach, something enormous began to take shape. a hulking silhouette on four legs, motionless, framed in silver light only thirteen feet away. My laughter died in my throat. Every muscle in my body went rigid as fear washed over me. I staggered backward, breath hitching, ready to bolt, but as I was about to, Josh’s hand shot out and caught me by the collar before I could run.

“Don’t run.” He said calmly.

“Is that a bear?” I whispered back to Josh.

“Yes, and my answer to the question.”

“What the fuck that does that mean?” I was one hundred percent done with Josh’s bullshit at that point.

“What the scariest thing ManFace would be for me. A bear is my answer. I was going to say a deer to try and be funny I guess, but I saw how bad Scoutmaster Scott was feeling, so I thought I’d say something that we can actually bump into deep in the woods. I didn’t think ManFace was real either, but I wanted people to be afraid. Who isn’t afraid of a bear?”

Josh started to shine his light toward the bear’s face, but I stopped him before he could center it.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You’re only gonna piss it off!” I could hear the loud rumble of a growl beginning to emanate from the darkness.

“I want to show you his face? If you see his face, then you’ll believe me. Then, you’ll be afraid.” The growling was growing louder.

“I am afraid, Josh. I really am. Can’t you fucking tell?”

“Are you really afraid?” He asked.

“Yes.” I wanted to scream at Josh, but I really don’t need to tell you why I didn’t.

“Really?” He asked again, sounding as incredulous as I did earlier.

“Are you mocking me?” I could hear the slow and heavy thumping of the bear’s massive feet as it skulked toward us.

“I’m merely returning the concern you showed me when I showed you my fear.” Josh pulled his hand away from mine and pointed the light right at my face. “Show me your fear Sam.” He repeated the phrase, getting louder and louder with each repetition. “Show me your fear Sam!”

“Josh-” the bear looked to be right behind him. Its shadow blotted out what little moonlight was breaking through the canopy.

“Show me your fear Sam!”

“Josh, shut the fuck up.”

“Not until you show me your fear Sam!”

“Alright, fine Josh! Here it is! I’m afraid! I’m afraid of dying alone! I’m afraid of dying right now! I’m scared Josh! I am so fucking scared all the time! I have nothing to live for! My dreams are dead and I can’t hold a job! I-I just wish we could pretend everything is ok like we usually do. I wish we weren’t in these woods! Why are we in these woods Josh? Why is this happening? Do you hate me? Please, don’t hate me Josh! You’re the only friend I have left!” I was yelling, all while a bear was only a hop and a quick mauling away. But, something in me came out at that moment. My emotions were compromised and things I would usually leave unsaid started to pour out.

Josh put his hand on my shoulder, “Thank you Sam.” It was at that moment I realized the growling had stopped… The bear was gone.

“Where did-”

Before I could finish Josh said, “It doesn’t matter. It worked. Now, let’s go.” I didn’t argue with the man.

I followed Josh back the way we came and got into his car. He had been a ride my out here and after what just went down, I wasn’t sure how happy I was that he was my only ride back.

I asked him, while we were cruising down the freeway, “Why me Josh? Why did you tell the story to me if you believe it's true?”

He didn’t hesitate to answer, “You’re my only friend too Sam. I care about you. But I know that you're poisoned by skepticism. You could never believe in yourself, let alone anyone else. I think it’s why you’re so certain you can’t achieve your dreams. I think you could Sam. I believe in you. I know you don’t believe in ManFace and I know you don’t believe in yourself Sam, but that’s ok. I can do that for the both of us.”

Josh turned to give me a smile and wink. Right as he did, something leapt out in front of the car. It was too fast for me to see what it was, but Josh’s face seemed to indicate he knew what was coming. The airbags deployed and when I came too, Josh’s head was impaled on a deer crossing sign that we had somehow crashed into. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. All I did was laugh. I laughed as my only friend died right in front of me.

I don’t know how this ManFace works. I wasn’t sure if he was real, but after all I’ve seen now, I’d be a fool to still have doubt. Ever since that fateful night, I’ve been losing hours of my time to bouts of amnesia. The doctors say the memory gaps are because of the crash, but I know better. It’s too… specific.

He gets rid of certain memories, but not others. He manipulates your own behavior. I had begun this very story without remembering how it had ended or why I was even beginning it in the first place. I wouldn’t have started it if I had known. I would have stayed in that snarky, skeptical bliss that I enjoyed so much. But I can never truly forget my only friend Josh. ManFace won’t let me.

There’s one thing about ManFace I can tell you that Josh didn’t know. When he comes to kill you, the face he bears is that of his last victim. I only know this because there are countless faces of my best friend reflecting behind me on my computer screen as I type this now. I just had to answer everything, didn’t I?

It doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve done my part. If this story scares enough of you, I live. If it doesn’t, I die. But ManFace made one mistake in making me his next victim. I have no one left to fear for now… not even myself.

My nightmare started about four months ago when my dad passed away from a sudden heart attack. His death completely derailed my life so I took an extended leave from my corporate job and moved back into my childhood home to take care of my elderly mother. She was completely devastated by the loss and she seemed to age ten years overnight. I spent the first few weeks just organizing my dad's paperwork and figuring out the mortgage payments, and once the finances were settled I decided to clean out the attic so we could start downsizing the house.

The attic was incredibly dusty and packed floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes. I assumed the boxes were just filled with old holiday decorations or winter clothes but I was completely wrong. I opened the first box and found it stuffed with dozens of random ceramic figurines, tarnished watches, and mismatched silverware. I opened the second box and found a pile of expensive silk scarves with the price tags still attached, so I spent the next three hours tearing through every single box in the attic and I realized I was looking at a massive hoard of stolen merchandise. There were gardening tools, expensive electronics, loose jewelry, and even personalized mail belonging to our neighbors.

I carried a box of stolen watches down the stairs and set it on the kitchen table where my mother was drinking tea. She looked at the box and her face instantly went pale.

"Where did you find that?" my mother asked while her hands started trembling around her mug.

"I found it in the attic along with about forty other boxes filled with stolen goods," I said and I sat down across from her. "Why do we have the neighbor's mail and a bunch of jewelry with the security tags still on them?"

My mother started crying and buried her face in her hands. She confessed everything to me right there at the kitchen table. She told me she suffered from a severe compulsion to steal and she had been fighting it for decades. She explained that she never wanted the items she took but her brain would completely overwhelm her with anxiety until she slipped something into her purse. She told me my dad had secretly managed her condition for their entire marriage. Whenever she stole something from a local shop my dad would quietly drive back the next day and pay the owner in cash to keep them from calling the cops. If she took something from a neighbor my dad would wait until the middle of the night and silently leave the item on their front porch. He spent his entire life supervising her and running interference so she would never face criminal charges.

"I do not know how to stop doing it," my mother sobbed while wiping her eyes with a napkin. "Your dad was my light and he kept me grounded when the urges got too strong. I do not know how to fight my own brain without him."

"We will figure it out," I told her and I reached across the table to hold her hand. "I am here now so I will help you manage it."

I thought I could easily handle the situation but I completely underestimated how aggressive a true compulsion can be without supervision. I had to return to my demanding career a few weeks later so I started working from my laptop in the living room to keep an eye on her. My job requires endless conference calls and I could not watch her every single second of the day. Without my dad there to shadow her every movement she started wandering out of the house whenever I was distracted by work.

The situation escalated incredibly fast. I was in the middle of a video presentation for a major client when I heard furious pounding on our front door. I muted my microphone and rushed to the entryway to find our next-door neighbor standing on the porch. Her face was bright red with anger and she was pointing a finger directly at my chest.

"You need to control your mother right now," the neighbor shouted and she pushed past me into our hallway. "I just watched her walk into my open garage and walk out with my expensive power drill. This is the third time this week she has trespassed on my property."

"I am so incredibly sorry," I pleaded and I tried to block her from walking further into the house. "She is grieving and her mind is not in the right place. I will pay for the drill and whatever else went missing."

"I do not want your money," the neighbor snapped while crossing her arms. "I want her to stop taking my belongings. If I catch her in my garage one more time I am calling the police and pressing charges for burglary."

I managed to calm the neighbor down and retrieve the drill from my mother's bedroom closet but the stress of the encounter left me entirely exhausted. I sat my mother down and begged her to stop wandering outside but she just stared at the floor and told me the urges were screaming in her head. The very next afternoon my phone rang and the caller ID showed the local bakery downtown. I answered the call and the store owner immediately started yelling at me.

"Your mother is sitting in my back office because I caught her stuffing six bags of expensive coffee beans into her purse," the shop owner yelled over the phone. "I am sick and tired of dealing with this. Your dad used to pay for her mistakes but he is gone and I cannot run a charity here. I have the police on standby."

I dropped everything I was doing and drove frantically to the bakery. I practically begged the owner not to involve law enforcement and I handed him three hundred dollars in cash to cover the stolen items and his trouble. He reluctantly let us go but he banned my mother from his store for life. I drove us home in complete silence because I was too overwhelmed to speak. I was failing at my job because I was constantly leaving to put out fires and I knew my mother was going to end up in jail if I did not find a medical solution.

I scheduled an appointment with a conventional therapist the following week. We sat in the office while the therapist asked my mother endless questions about her childhood and her grief. The therapist prescribed a cocktail of anti-anxiety medications and suggested cognitive behavioral therapy exercises. We spent a month following the doctor's orders but the pills did nothing except make my mother terribly drowsy. She still managed to steal the mail carrier's thermos off the front porch while sleepwalking, so the conventional methods were completely failing and I was losing my mind from the constant vigilance.

I went into my company office a few days later to catch up on paperwork and I must have looked like a walking corpse. I was pouring my fourth cup of coffee in the breakroom when a coworker walked in and noticed my exhausted expression.

"You look like you have not slept in a month," my coworker said and he leaned against the counter. "Is the situation with your mom getting worse?"

I sighed and rubbed my temples because my head was throbbing. "She is going to get arrested and I cannot stop her. The regular therapists just throw pills at her and nothing is actually fixing the compulsion. I cannot watch her twenty-four hours a day."

My coworker looked out into the hallway to make sure nobody was listening before he turned back to me. "I know this sounds strange but you should look into a different kind of doctor. My wife had severe obsessive-compulsive issues that almost ruined our marriage. We went to a private psychologist on the edge of town and he completely cured her in one session using unconventional hypnotherapy. He does not take insurance but the man works absolute miracles."

I was desperate enough to try anything so I wrote down the doctor's contact information and called his clinic from the parking lot. The receptionist squeezed us in for a consultation that same evening. I drove my mother to the clinic and we found it tucked away in a quiet residential neighborhood. The office was dimly lit and filled with strange abstract art but the doctor greeted us with an incredibly warm and calming demeanor. He invited us into his back office and poured us both a glass of water before sitting behind his desk.

"My assistant explained a bit of your situation to me," the doctor said while folding his hands together on his large oak desk. "Kleptomania is a fascinating condition because it is rarely about the stolen objects, so we have to look much deeper. It is actually about a fractured ego trying to fill a sudden void within the subconscious mind."

"But can you actually fix it?" I asked and I leaned forward in my chair. "The regular medication is completely failing, and she is going to end up in prison if she keeps walking into our neighbors' homes."

"Conventional medicine just tries to suppress the ego," the doctor explained smoothly while looking directly at my mother. "I do not suppress the ego because a suppressed ego always fights back and finds a new way to act out. I remove it entirely using a specialized technique called The Angel Soul treatment.”

“And what exactly does a weird name like that mean?” I asked, feeling a bit of my own skepticism creeping in. “Is this a complicated medical procedure, and how much time does something like this even take?”

“It takes less than two hours and it is completely non-invasive,” the doctor replied calmly. “Through extremely deep hypnotherapy, I can empty your mother's fractured ego and create a complete psychological vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum, so the empty space will immediately draw in a pure and angelic soul to take its place. The compulsion will vanish entirely because the damaged ego that demanded the stealing will no longer exist to control her."

My mother shifted uncomfortably in her chair and crossed her arms tightly over her chest. "That sounds absolutely terrifying and I do not want anyone emptying my mind," she said, her voice shaking slightly with genuine fear. "You are talking about erasing who I am, and I do not even know what do you mean by what you just said, or what kind of soul you are planning to pull inside my head. I would much rather just try a different medication or maybe a higher dose of the pills I already have."

"You will still be yourself," the doctor assured her with a very warm and gentle smile. "You will just be free of the exhausting burden that forces you to take things that do not belong to you."

"Please do this for me," I begged my mother and I reached across the armrest to grab her hand. "I am drowning trying to keep you out of jail, and I am going to lose my career if I keep leaving in the middle of the day to apologize to angry store owners. You have to try this because we are completely out of other options, and I cannot supervise you forever."

My mother looked at the exhaustion in my eyes and tears welled up in her own. She finally nodded and agreed to undergo the procedure. The doctor instructed me to wait in the front reception area while he took my mother into a specialized hypnotherapy room. I sat in the quiet waiting room for almost two hours while listening to the faint sound of a ticking clock. The clinic was completely silent and I could not hear any voices coming from the back room. The door eventually clicked open and the doctor walked out with my mother following closely behind him.

I stood up immediately and searched her face for any signs of distress. She looked entirely different. The deep wrinkles of worry on her forehead were completely smoothed out and her shoulders were relaxed. She looked perfectly serene and almost glowing with a strange internal peace.

"The vacuum was successfully created and filled," the doctor said with a satisfied smile. "You will notice a profound difference in her behavior immediately. Keep a close eye on her and call me if you have any concerns."

I paid the exorbitant fee in cash and drove my mother home. I expected her to complain about a headache or act groggy from the hypnosis but she just stared out the passenger window with a soft smile on her face. The change in her behavior over the next few days was nothing short of miraculous because the stealing stopped entirely. I purposely left a stack of twenty-dollar bills on the kitchen counter and she walked right past them without even a glance. I took her to a crowded grocery store and she did not try to slip a single item into her purse. The compulsion was completely eradicated and I finally felt like I could breathe again.

The relief only lasted about a week before the uncanny valley set in and I started noticing terrifying changes in her personality.

I woke up on a Saturday morning and found her dragging huge trash bags full of her own expensive clothes and jewelry out to the curb. I ran outside and asked her what she was doing but she just looked at me with wide and unblinking eyes.

"Possessions are but chains binding us to the dirt," my mother said and her voice sounded strangely hollow. "It is unjust to hoard the harvest when the earth is shared by all who walk upon it."

I froze because she never spoke with that kind of archaic phrasing before. I tried to pull the bags back toward the house but she gripped my wrist with surprising strength and stared deeply into my eyes. She did not blink once during the entire exchange.

"Let the excess be cleansed," she whispered and she calmly walked back inside to grab more items.

Her obsession with cleansing escalated rapidly over the next few weeks. She started waking up at three in the morning to scrub the pavement on our driveway with a small wire brush. I would find her standing in the middle of the street picking up tiny pieces of gravel and arranging them in perfect geometric patterns along the curb. She stopped watching television and she stopped reading books. She just sat in the living room chair for hours staring directly at the blank wall without moving a single muscle.

I tried to talk to her about dad or ask about her childhood memories but she would just tilt her head and look at me like I was speaking a foreign language.

I decided to confront the doctor and demand he reverse the hypnosis, so I called his clinic from my office all afternoon, but nobody ever answered the phone. When I finally finished work around eight o'clock in the evening, I drove straight to the clinic instead of going home first. I pulled up to the building and noticed the parking lot was completely empty. The interior lights were turned off, but I walked up to the front entrance and turned the brass handle anyway. The door clicked open, and I stepped into the dark reception area.

"Hello?" I called out into the empty clinic. "I know it is after hours but I need to speak with the doctor."

Nobody answered my call but I heard a strange noise coming from the back office down the hallway. It sounded like a wet tearing noise mixed with the heavy sliding of furniture. I slowly walked down the dark corridor and the metallic smell of copper hit my nose and made my stomach churn. I approached the open doorway of the doctor's private office and peeked around the doorframe.

The office was illuminated by a single desk lamp lying knocked over on the floor. The doctor was lying flat on his back in the center of the rug and his white shirt was completely soaked in dark crimson blood.

My mother was standing directly over him.

I slapped my hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming and I ducked behind a large metal filing cabinet near the doorway. I peered around the edge of the cabinet and watched the horrific scene unfold.

My mother was holding a pair of large gardening shears she must have taken from our garage. She knelt down beside the doctor's lifeless body and calmly positioned the steel blades around his right wrist. She leaned her weight onto the handles and a sickening crunch echoed through the room as the blades severed the bone and tissue. She tossed the severed hand into a black plastic trash bag and repeated the exact same process on his left wrist.

She did not look angry or frantic while she butchered the man. She looked completely serene and her face held the same peaceful expression she wore while arranging gravel on our street.

"To steal a mind is the ultimate theft and the penalty is absolute," my mother whispered to the corpse and her hollow voice sent ice water running through my veins. "The thief must be separated from his tools so the earth may remain pure."

I could not move my legs because the sheer terror completely paralyzed me. I watched her grab the doctor by his ankles and easily drag his heavy body across the bloody rug toward the back exit of the office. The clinic had an incinerator in the alleyway. My mother hoisted the doctor's body into the metal chute with unnatural strength and threw the bag of severed hands in right behind him. She ignited the incinerator and stood perfectly still while the roaring flames consumed the evidence of her crime. She waited until the body was reduced to ash before she quietly walked away into the night.

I waited there for almost an hour before I finally found the courage to run back to my car. I drove home in a state of shock and found my mother sitting on the living room couch staring at the blank wall exactly as she always did. I locked myself in my bedroom and shoved a dresser against the door.

I knew I had to keep a close eye on her so I started secretly following her when she left the house for her nightly walks. Two nights ago I trailed her from a safe distance as she walked down our street toward the small corner grocery store in our neighborhood. The store is owned by an older man who has a nasty reputation for intentionally shortchanging his customers and ringing up phantom items on the cash register to steal a few extra dollars from unsuspecting neighbors.

I hid behind a row of community fire pits across the street and watched my mother walk through the front doors of the grocer's shop just as he was locking up for the night. I could not hear what was said inside the store but I saw the grocer start waving his arms angrily at her through the front window. The argument ended abruptly when my mother reached across the counter and grabbed the man by his throat.

She lifted the struggling grocer entirely off the ground with one arm and dragged him out the front doors into the street. The man was kicking his legs and clawing at her arm but she did not even flinch. She dragged him directly toward the community fire pits where I was hiding so I scrambled backward into the bushes and held my breath.

"You manipulate the scales to hoard the harvest," my mother said to the gasping grocer while holding him suspended over the embers of the fire pit. "You siphon from the innocent and the penalty is absolute."

She tightened her grip around his throat until a loud snap echoed through the quiet street and the grocer went completely limp in her grasp. She tossed his lifeless body directly into the large fire pit and calmly arranged the surrounding logs to ensure the flames would completely consume him. She stood there staring unblinking into the fire until the smell of burning meat filled the air and then she turned around and walked back toward our house.

I am currently locked in my bedroom and my mother is sitting in the living room staring at the wall. I cannot go to the police because they will arrest her and put her on trial for multiple murders. She is not a murderer and she has no control over the thing piloting her body right now. I need to find a professional who knows how to reverse deep hypnotherapy or someone who knows how to expel whatever the doctor accidentally invited into her empty ego.

If anyone reading this knows how to fix here, please contact me immediately. I have locked all the doors and hidden every sharp tool in the house but she just started pacing the hallway outside my bedroom. I can hear her bare feet pressing against the floorboards and she is muttering about how I stole the tools she needs to cleanse the earth. I do not know how much longer the locked door will hold her back.

I want to put something on the record, I’m no supporter of the President. I've been against him and his policies since day one of his administration. He was always a fascist in sheep's clothing and I’m tired of being gaslit by the people around me to think otherwise. When he signed the executive order, I thought that be it, the moment everyone would realize the kind of monster we made into the most powerful man on earth, but instead his sheepshit supporters cheered it on like they do every awful thing that he does.

In case anyone reading this has somehow managed to avoid it and it seems a lot of you here don’t follow politics, in March, the President signed an executive order. The official title is something like the Correctional Burden and Public Accountability Order, but everyone just calls it the Battle Royale Order. It lets the federal government "reassign" certain inmates, the worst ones, the ones serving life with no chance of parole, to what the order called a "public accountability program."

Nobody knew what that meant until he went on TV and explained it. He was smiling. There was a little laugh in his voice, like he was announcing a new national holiday. 

There were lawsuits, obviously. Two dozen states and about every civil liberties group you've heard of sued. A federal judge in Oregon blocked it for nine days. Then an appeals court unblocked it, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the emergency application. Six to three, no written opinion. That was two weeks ago.

So tonight it's happening. Every network is carrying it because the media has always been complicit  and I'm sure the FCC threatened them too. 

Nobody knows who's in it. The roster has been sealed "to preserve the integrity of the competition." That is a real sentence that a real press secretary said out loud at a podium. All we've been told is that it's fifty federal inmates, one from each state, all serving life without parole, all convicted of "violent crimes against the American public."

I keep thinking about Ancient Rome and the gladiator fights they had. We were supposed to be way past that sort of savagery and yet here we are. Whatever those men did, however bad, the government dropping them in a pit to kill each other and asking the rest of us to watch is something even worse.

My daughter Nora would have hated this. She was the kind of kid who carried spiders outside in a cup instead of squashing them. She's been gone nine years this December.

There was no music or logo once the broadcast had started. The screen just cut suddenly to a room.

There were concrete walls, hard white lights, and a large circle of men in orange jumpsuits chained to posts by bulky metal collars. Each was slumped over asleep and in the center of the room were lots of mannequins in full tactical gear. They had helmets, bulletproof vests, rifles clamped in their hands, and grenades hanging off them like fruit.

The first thing I notice is how young the men were. Most of them look like they were barely in their twenties. Most weren’t even very intimidating looking for so-called hardened criminals. They were skinny with patchy looking beards, sunken, tired eyes and pretty much all of them were white. I don't know what I expected, but these little boys were not it.

One of them stirred and groaned as his collar lit up green and chirped a bright happy little sound, like a phone connecting to a bluetooth speaker.

"Player 1 online."

He lifted his head and looked around in confusion, "What the f---k?"

The network actually bleeped the F word. That pissed me off more than it should.  Televised   bloodsports were fine, but profanity was somehow a bridge too far. 

They all began waking up, one after another, with each collar counting them off. 

"Player 9 online. Player 10 online. Player 11 online. Player 12 online." It takes almost a full minute to get to fifty. One guy keeps yanking at his chain, screaming "Where am I? Where am I?" over and over, like the answer will come if he's loud enough.

At fifty, the counting stops, and the President's face lights up across the wall behind them.

The men have to twist around and crane their necks to look up at him. He doesn't look at them. He looks straight past them, right into the camera.

Right into my living room.

"My fellow Americans."

I've heard him give maybe a hundred speeches, but I’ve never heard him give one quite like this.

“Today, I stand before you with a heavy heart and a solemn duty. We find ourselves in unprecedented times, facing challenges that test not only our resolve as a nation but also our humanity. As your President, it is my duty to lead this great country with courage and conviction, even in its darkest of hours…”

The men are screaming at him. Cursing and jeering at his massive visage. One of them even yells, "Hey, I voted for you! Let me out!" I almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity.

The President continued, “We stand on the brink of a battle unlike any other. A battle that will test not only physical strength but also inner resolve. In the arena before you lies a lesson…and several students in desperate need of it.”

The inmates began to look around frantically as the President’s expression turned from solemn to sinister.

“Let me be clear: while you may be criminals, you are still Americans. You are still citizens of this great nation, and you still deserve to be treated with dignity. That is why, despite the circumstances that have brought us here today, I stand before you not as your warden, but as your Commander-in-Chief.”

“F--k You!” More inmates cussed out the projection like it made any difference.

The President grimaced, almost as if he could hear them, “I know that many of you may feel fear, uncertainty, and perhaps even anger at the situation you find yourselves in. And I understand that. But I urge you to channel those emotions into something greater. Into courage. Into determination. Into the unyielding spirit of the American people.” 

I wanted to vomit at the President’s words, which isn’t unusual for me, but tonight was the first time it wasn’t just me being hyperbolic.

“For in this arena, you are not just fighting for yourselves. You are fighting for your fellow Americans who hate you. You are fighting for the families you have taken from and you are fighting for the country that is tired of feeding and housing you despite knowing exactly what you are. So, as you step into that arena, remember who you are. Remember what you stand for. And remember that no matter what happens, you are not alone. The counter over my head indicates just how many hostiles are left. The doors of the bunker you are all in will not open until the counter hits zero. You people know what to do…”

The President leaned forward and so did I.

“What you do best.”

Then the chains were released. All fifty at once in a single metallic clack.

"We are with you," The President said with a self-satisfied smile, “The entire nation is with you. And together, we will sit back and watch as we commence the first ever All-Real Battle Royale. May God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America." The first shot went off before he was even finished.

I didn't see who fired first. There was just a flash at the edge of the frame and a spray of red across the President's projected face, and then everybody was running.

The camera pulled back, way back, like it was on some sort of ceiling rig or something, and for the first time I could see the whole arena they were put in.

It wasn’t just a room. They built an entire building inside that bunker.

There were food courts, kiosks selling sunglasses, and plenty of empty store fronts. I’d say they were supposed to be in a mall, but past that, there were long hallways lined with lockers, glass trophy cases, and a hand-painted banner for a pep rally. The school arena would then give way to a grocery store with a row of checkout lanes, a corral of shopping carts, and a produce section full of fake fruits.

The arena was a mall, a school, and a grocery store all stitched together into something out of a nightmare.

I understand what these men were in for prison about half a second before my body did. 

“What you do best, huh?” I repeated to myself as the bloodbath began.

They were mass shooters. All fifty of them. Every man in that bunker walked into a place like that with a gun and started firing at innocent people. And the government built them arenas just like those places for what? So the bastards would feel more at home.

I stood up. I really was going to turn it off, but then I thought about Nora.

I'm going to be honest about the next part, because nobody will ever know if I'm not. For a second, I stood there scanning the faces running across my TV. Looking for him…

I had seen his picture only once, the day after he had done it. It was a school photo of the boy. He was in front of a drab blue backdrop wearing a collared shirt his mother probably made him put on. I looked at it for maybe two seconds and then never again. My wife, now ex-wife, told me I should look. She said it would take away his power. I told her he didn't get to have a name or a face as he wasn't human anymore.

All I really remember is that he looked like nobody and that was the worst part. He looked like any other kid in that school. The only clue of what he was capable of were in his cold, dead eyes…

As much as I wanted to see him among them, there have been so many school shootings since the odds that he's in there were basically nothing. But even the smallest chance he was there caused me to sit back down and continue to watch. 

The counter over the doors said 47…Then 46… Then 33 all in the span of a few seconds. They were dropping like flies.

What surprises me is how calm they were at first. The ones who got rifles move like they've practiced for this very moment and maybe they did. Maybe some of them spent years practicing before they did it. Maybe the government trained them so they’d put on more of a show.

It's when they get close to each other that the killer facade fell apart.

Two of them crashed into each other by the lockers and both their guns went skittering across the floor. Without them, they fought like third graders. Hair pulling, groin kicks, biting, there was no technique. With the guns gone, they stopped being physical threats.

It was pathetic. That's the word that comes to mind, and I didn't expect it. I thought watching men die would be horrific and some of it certainly was, but my contempt for them made me immune to their misery.

Two others come around the same corner at the same moment and freeze, rifles pointed at each other's faces. There was a long pause as the camera zoomed in slowly.

"Truce?" one of them said.

The other one nodded. "Truce."

They then both fired at the exact same instant and killed each other. No one in that arena could be trusted and they all knew it. 

There was a kid running through the school section, he couldn’t have been older than twenty-two, grinning ear to ear, as he shot at everything that moved. "Get some, motherf----s! Yeah! You little b-----s can't kill me! I'm unkillable!"

Then someone hit him. It was either in the shoulder or side, I couldn’t tell. He ran and the camera followed him, because of course it did. He made it maybe forty feet before his legs just stopped working and he folded onto the floor of a fake classroom, under a poster that mockingly said, ‘Kindness Is Cool.’

And his face changed. It was like he finally realized that this was real.

"No, no, no. Oh god. Oh god, oh god. I can't. I can't, I can't, I can't. Stop. Stop. I'll make it stop."

The camera held on him. The whole time, it held on him as he put the barrel under his chin.

I looked away and when I looked back, the counter now said 25.

"You patriots are halfway there. Keep it up." The President’s voice chimed in like he was a fucking game show host.

The President's projection was then riddled with bullet holes. The maniacs all stopped shooting at each other and shot at him the second he appeared. 

My phone kept buzzing. It was my brother trying to check up on me. I ignored his calls and continued to watch.

There was a man on the floor of the cereal aisle, holding his stomach, blood pooling out from under him. Another man was standing over him with a pistol at his head.

"Please?" the one on the floor screamed. "Don’t do it!"

The one with the pistol just laughed. Not a big, hearty laugh, but a small snicker, like somebody told him a mediocre joke.

"Please!"

I remember thinking, this is the part where I'm supposed to feel sorry for the one on the floor, but I didn’t. All I could think about was how he now knows what it's like to beg someone for your life who had already decided on taking it. Karma’s a just bitch.

The feed cut away, and when it came back, both of those men were dead, and so were a lot of others.

The hallways were full of bodies now. Tables were flipped over in the food court. The misters in the produce section were still running on their timers, spraying fine, cheerful fog over the fake food and deadmen.

The counter was in single digits now. There were only 4 left.

The screen split into four boxes, like a security monitor.

In the first box, a guy is wedged into the corner of the grocery store's back stockroom, knees pulled to his chest, rifle pointed at the doorway. He was shaking like a leaf on a tree.

In the second box, a guy was lying among the bodies in the food court, playing dead. Except he kept adjusting himself. One second his arm was over his face. Then the next it was under his body. Then finally he flung out to the side. It was like he couldn't figure out what the most comfortable way to play dead was, so he was trying out different positions. In any other context, it would have been funny.

In the third box, a guy is walking slowly down the school hallway, checking every doorway. He was calm and methodical. 

In the fourth box, a guy was standing in the main entrance with his rifle hanging from its strap, staring up at the counter over the doors. It said 4.

He stared at it for a long time and I watched him count something on his fingers.

"Wait," he says. "That doesn't make sense."

I leaned forward, because I don't get it either, not yet, and then the guy from the hallway shot him from forty feet away.

The counter dropped to 3.

The President then appeared. "Three players left. We're in the homestretch now, America."

All three remaining collars start beeping. Loud and even, like a smoke detector with a dying battery.

The guy playing dead in the food court was outed immediately. The methodical one shot him from across the food court without breaking stride.

2 now left. 

The methodical one headed towards the stockroom where the other one was camped out.

The screen collapsed to two boxes. The hunter's and the camper's, and as the hunter got closer the two’s collars chirping began to overlap. The guy in the corner was now shaking so hard his rifle rattled against the shelving. He's whispering something to himself that I couldn’'t make out.

The hunter stopped just outside the door.

"Come on, man. I know you're there. Come out."

"F--k you!"

"Don't be a p---y. Come out."

"F--k you! Make me!"

"Okay."

The hunter pulled a grenade off his vest and tossed it through the doorway. 

I watched a dark stain spread down the leg of the camper's orange jumpsuit one second before the screen flashed white.

The hunter walked back to the main entrance with his rifle over his head, screaming and whooping, and firing into the ceiling. He was acting like he had just won the Super Bowl. 

He got to the bunker doors and stood there, waiting.

But they wouldn’t open.

The counter above still had 1 hostile detected.

I watched him look up at it and try to figure out who he missed.

"What the hell? Who's left? I killed them all! Who's f--king left? I'll find them and I'll kill them! Who's left?"

He shot at the counter and cracked it, but the number still didn't change.

"WHO'S LEFT?"

Then he just came apart. He fired into the bodies. Into the mannequins. He emptied a magazine into a dead man's back, reloaded, emptied another into the checkout lanes, the sunglasses kiosk, the trophy case, he shot until the gun clicked empty and he threw it and pulled another one off a corpse and kept going. 

It took a long time. The broadcast didn't cut away. There were no commercials. Just an hour, maybe more, of this guy losing his shit. 

Eventually he ran out of bullets. He slid down and sat on the floor under the doors, back against the wall, a pistol resting loose in his lap, staring up at the number. A shutter in the bunker door suddenly slid open and a single bullet was tossed inside the arena by an unseen hand. They slammed the shutter hard and you could hear a locking mechanism engage. They weren’t opening it back up again. This was it.

The camera started pushing in slowly. They were waiting for this moment.

His face filled my whole TV. He looked.. familiar. He was in mid-twenties, maybe, with a thin face, buzzed hair, and a scar running through one of his eyebrows.

His dead eyes were how I finally recognized him. 

I've seen them before, for two seconds, nine years ago. Over a collared shirt, against a blue school-photo backdrop. I never could have told you what his face looked like. But I remembered those eyes. 

I say her name. Out loud, to the TV. "Nora." I don't know why.

I'm on my feet. I'm standing maybe two feet from the screen. And what I feel isn't horror. It isn't grief. It's just two words, over and over, so loud in my head I think I might be saying them too.

Do it

He lifted the pistol and this time, I didn't look away.

The counter hit zero, and the whole arena lit up. Colored lights sweep across the ceiling. The bunker doors grind open onto nothing, just darkness. A spotlight drops straight down onto him where he's slumped against the wall.

The President's face fills the screen above him, bullet holes and all, a streak of someone's blood across his chin.

"We have a winner, America! Player 9, the perpetrator of the Clark High School massacre, is the victor of the very first All-Real Battle Royale!"

Canned applause began to play along with cheering. It goes on and on as the camera holds on his body.

The feeling I had in my chest was like getting that phone call all over again, except this time it didn't knock me down. This time I'm the one standing.

"Aren't we happy for him, folks?" the President cheered. "Aren't we happy for them all? What a great game. What a great first game. And we've got more coming."

The camera drifts away from the spotlight and down the school hallway. Lockers. Bodies. His voice echoes over all of it.

"America's got plenty of criminals like these ones, so we'll have plenty of use for games like these. Thank you for watching the first ever All-Real Battle Royale, and God bless America."

I turned it off.

It's almost two in the morning now. I've been sitting here in the dark for a couple of hours.

Nora was sixteen. She was in the band room when he came in through the east doors. She wanted to be a vet. She carried spiders outside in a cup.

For nine years there's been something in my chest like a fist that never unclenched. The trial didn't touch it. The sentence didn't touch it. Life without parole. Everyone told me that was justice. The prosecutor shook my hand on the courthouse steps and it didn't touch it at all.

It's not gone now. But it's open. I can breathe all the way down to the bottom of my lungs for the first time since that December.

And it wasn't the gun that did it. It was watching him slowly understand that he was never getting out, that it had all been for nothing, and watching him sit there under that number with nowhere to go. I needed to see that. I didn't know I needed it until I saw it.

When I finally turned my phone back on, every news app had sent the same push alert. The second All-Real Battle Royale is scheduled for November, just before election day. The roster is sealed.

There were forty-nine other men in there tonight. Forty-nine other names. Somewhere out there, there are forty-nine other families who sat in the dark like I did. I wonder how many of them turned it off. I wonder how many of them didn't.

None of the men in November will be the ones who took my daughter from me, but I'm still gonna watch. 

It’s family tradition for the eldest female member of to use the accounts book. My mother used to tell me when I was young how it came to be, she said that her great grandmother had been married off as a business deal. The newly weds quarrelled often, sharing no common ground or interest beyond the husband’s carnal desires. It was at Christmas and the couple had gone through a rather rough argument which led to my great-great-grandmother being battered and locking herself in the bathroom. Whilst sitting on the cold porcelain she looked out the semi opaque window and prayed to any higher power to give her some way to keep her family under her control. She became pregnant soon after, and her husband was never heard of again.

Ever since then this yellow sun-stained accounts book has been passed along the string of Materfamilias, I never got to see its contents. My grandmother told me it was a boring formality to save face and avoid embarrassment in case somebody investigated our family history. When my grandmother died my mother assured me that it was precisely as my grandmother had said, still every day I saw her etching away, apparently there is some sort of score system. Three strikes and you are out.

My mother recently called me to tell me that I needed to come over urgently. I had since moved away about four years ago to study percussion in Africa, however the tone of her voice and the sniffles of her dripping nose made crystal clear that this was a matter of grave importance. I made my way back on plane and landed to two missed calls from my mother telling me that I urgently needed to come over.

I rang the doorbell and heard muffled slow shuffling of old legs clashing with a mind that far overestimates its shell. Then the door came open and my mother’s face greeted me, it gave me a reality check this person who had raised me, had become the spitting image of the person who raised her. Her familiar flaps of excess skin and wrinkles gave me dejavu.

She called me into her living room which had now been converted to a multi tool, encompassing her bedroom in one corner, her dining room and entertainment centre as a reclining chair and her bathroom commode standing haphazardly on its metal frame. She fell into her chair coughed and took a drink, then she started, “where have you been you told me you’d come around often, is it too much effort to spend time with your poor mother. Lisa from across the road goes to her mother every day and manages to help me take out my bins too”. This instant provocation left me in awe, I had told her I’d be away for a while and called her often enough, I hadn’t visited her since I was studying music in the city college and living in my flat. I asked her if she was alright, and told her that she knew I was in Africa and couldn’t visit. She looked perplexed as though she was one detail away from filling in the gaps.

That night I decided to take her to a doctor. He said that results would take three days to come through and to sit tight in the meantime. And so I made myself at home in my mothers old bedroom upstairs, it was a big ordeal when her arthritis left her bound to the first floor, no company was willing to put in a stairlift as the stairs were slightly too narrow. So that left the top floor to become completely coated in a thick layer of dust, when I was dusting her former room i found her old photos, jewellery and the accounts book.

I brought her stuff down including the accounts book although I thought I knew she wouldn’t be able to take scores with her hands as arthritis ridden as they were. She put on her old silver necklaces and warmly thanked me, I often would pass the living room hearing the tv speakers loudly play twenty four hour movies and look in just to see her holding a photo and smiling.

The results came in and it was dementia in its late stages. I was floored, dementia would mean full time care in one of those miserable soulless old person homes, reeking of shit and sterilising products. I decided that knowing her condition a new, confusing, depressing environment would be like a stab to the heart so I decided to take a part time job and stay with her for a while to put off the inevitable.

Every night when I got home I’d see my mother asleep sprawled head back mouth agape on her recliner, her tv loudly vibrating the walls.
One night I opened the door, hearing the tv blaring and an undertone of a wheezing moan, there was my mother crumpled on the floor in a puddle of her own urine on top of the now broken commode. In the hospital after a long and liminal walk I was told by a doctor with a thick accent that my mother was in critical condition, her paper thin skin caused by excessive blood thinners from a fat-full life, had been pierced during the fall, and urine had caused an infection to take root. He recommended me to make her as comfortable as possible in her last days.

I brought her things framing her bed with pictures, flowers and useless get well soon cards. She faded in and out of consciousness due to all the medicines and painkillers. During the brief lapses the nurses told me she would take the account book go the most recent page and write down a jumble of characters then a large cross next to my name.

That was when I knew what I had to do. I waited till she was peacefully asleep and using a needle I snagged I gently pierced her drip and watched the clear pearl of air flow into her vein.

Now I am the account keeper for my family.

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.

I'll kiss your lips with an aching tooth in my mouth
I'll place my freshly pulled tooth on your ring
I'll mix Apranax in your drink
so that you think
your toothache is gone because you met me
I'll describe the paint color I want for our bedroom
to the ironmonger as tooth yellow.

I'm fifty-one years old, and this is the only poem I've ever written, which I wrote ten years ago.

I don't really like writing poetry, because I'm not good at it. I especially enjoy the sound of poems with rhyming lines; they sound like music to my ears. But I've tried a few times and failed miserably. I couldn't write a good poem. I'd written this poem for my dentist, who knew I was a writer and with whom I had a good relationship. I mean, I hadn't written the poem for her. I'd simply wanted to write a poem about teeth.

She was a very beautiful woman. I had no feelings for her, but she'd misunderstood the poem I'd written and thought I was making a move on her. She'd given me a pretty harsh telling-off. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get her to understand that the poem wasn't written for anyone in particular, and that it hadn't been inspired by any feelings I had for someone.

Anyway, my publisher was telling me that sales of my latest novel were terrible. He kept calling me and bringing me down.

“Maybe you should stop writing horror novels and start writing detective fiction instead. You know me, even two sentences from you are enough to move me. I can't sleep at night. But this latest novel of yours was an absolute fiasco. I seriously regret publishing it.”

I was tired of his calls and him repeating the same things in different ways for two months. He was almost going to ask me to compensate him for his losses. He wanted me to write and finish something else as soon as possible and make up for the losses I'd caused him. He didn't want to wait.

But I'd been overcome by the fear of not being able to write well. I'd been deeply affected by public opinion. Albert, the successful writer of many years, can no longer write... The story's opening is too rushed... The ending doesn't come together properly... Even an elementary school kid could come up with these descriptions... We're sick of ghosts that appear at night... And so on.

If he called today, I wasn't going to answer. He called every other day to ask, “Have you started the new book yet?” Whenever I said no, it was the same old stuff, the same complaints. For the past month, I'd been sitting down at my computer almost every day, but nothing came of it.

As I sat at my computer, waiting for something to come to mind, my phone rang, of course. I didn't even need to check who was calling. I tensely raised my hand to my head and began running my fingers through my hair. I looked around the objects in my room, as if I might find inspiration in one of them. The bed, the couch, an oil painting my sister had made... Nothing came of it. I pinched a lock of my hair between my fingers and pulled. I looked at my hand. There was a clump of hair between my index and middle fingers. I hadn't realized I was losing so much hair.

It was as if an electric current had passed through my head. Then, in one go, I wrote the following:

''In my 1+1 apartment on the second floor
I was drinking Americano by the balcony door
Suddenly I saw a wig falling down below
with bangs and in the color of dark yellow

I thought one of the neighbors upstairs must have dropped it while leaning over the balcony.
I lunged for it on instinct, trying to catch it. And I caught it, everything happened so quickly.

And the wig was now in my hands
I even caught it by the bangs

I waited for a while,
still in the position to catch it,
holding the wig in my hand,
waiting for someone to call.
But there was no sound at all.

Considering the possibilities,
I thought I should look up first.
But someone could have been down there,
waiting for the wig to fall.

While I was looking around upstairs,
someone called out from below:
“Throw it down already.
What are you looking at like an idiot?”
She was tall like a door
She was as tall as a first floor
I downed my Americano
And calmly threw the wig toward her
She jumped and
caught the wig with her head
and suddenly disappeared.''

I had no idea how it had happened. It was as if I hadn't been the one who wrote it. It was frightening. The way the sentences came to me, the way they lined up in my mind—I had never experienced anything like it. Everything was finished in one go, without any planning whatsoever.

My publisher called. I sent him to voicemail. I read the poem from beginning to end. It was as if I were reading it for the first time, as if I were discovering the poem all over again. It wasn't the kind of poem I could have written anyway, not in terms of its subject matter. I wouldn't describe ghosts or entities like this; I would leave them shrouded in mystery. In this poem, the ghost was very concrete.

My publisher called again. I answered this time. I was going to tell him I had an idea or something. I was such an idiot, always telling him the truth: inspiration wasn't coming, I couldn't write, my mind felt frozen, and so on. I picked up the phone, planning to ask him to give me a month and tell him I'd deliver a novel of at least two hundred pages.

“So, Albert, any progress? How many pages have you written?”

Suddenly, my mouth had locked up. I couldn't speak. The words I wanted to say were only passing through my mind; they wouldn't come out. All I could manage were sounds like “mmmh.”

“Albert? Hello?”

I started reciting the poem I'd just written. I read it from beginning to end. My mouth wasn't under my brain's control.

“What is this? What’s going on?”

''Hello?''

''Albert, what's going on?''

I could speak again now. It would have been ridiculous to say that something had taken control of my mouth and fingers. I had to say something, but I was too frightened to think. My mind was in turmoil. I hung up.

My publisher called again. I don’t remember that moment very clearly, but I mumbled something along these lines.

“What was that thing you were telling me about? So now you’re hanging up on me, too. Is this what we’ve come to, Albert? After all these years of working togeth—”

“It’s me, John. Did you like my poem? Jason, I was going to ca— If you want, I can write a few more poems like this... Jason, I can’t spea—I could even write five hundred poems in the same style, if you like. Do you publish po— Jason, my mouth is going numb. I don’t feel well. I’ll call you back in a bi— Listen, I wrote this three hundred years ago.”

I hung up. I jumped to my feet. I licked and bit my lips. I took a deep breath, and as I exhaled, the following words spilled out of my mouth:

''He figured out how to pass through
Walls within a year or two
But he still can't pass through wood
The ghost in my lover's neighborhood.''

My publisher kept calling insistently. His calls felt like a voice reminding me of my connection to this world. I'd set my phone's ringtone to Radiohead's “Weird Fishes.” The song played throughout each call. I couldn't move; my body was locked up, but hearing the song comforted me. When the song ended, I'd try to take a step, but I couldn't. I'd try to speak, but I couldn't move my mouth. It was as if I'd had a stroke. Then the song would start again. Yes, I'd tell myself, “I'm still alive. The world still makes sense.”

The song had stopped playing, too. My connection to the world had been severed.

I came to my senses again for a brief moment. I sat down at my computer. The screen was covered in dust. I noticed a cloth right next to the monitor. I couldn't remember when I'd put it there. I wiped the monitor clean. The poem looked better now.

I think you've realized that I wasn't the one writing all this story.

IV.

Lena unfolded the paper at the conference table in the sheriff’s office with gloves on, at nine-fifteen, with Daniel standing behind her shoulder.

OPTION TO PURCHASE REAL PROPERTY. Three pages, stapled. Blackwater Land Holdings, LLC, by its agent Hargrove Land and Title, Inc., Optionee. June Elizabeth Pritchard, Optionor. Forty-two acres, more or less, on both banks of Shoal Creek, Blackwater County, as described in Deed Book 211, Page 66. Option term: five years. Option consideration: five thousand dollars, receipt of which is hereby acknowledged. Purchase price upon exercise: to be determined by independent appraisal at the time of exercise, but in no event less than…

Lena read the number out loud and then didn’t say anything.

On the third page, on the line marked OPTIONOR, was a signature. June E. Pritchard. In blue ink, upright and careful, like a schoolchild copying out a word.

Under it, a notary block. Sworn and subscribed before me this 3rd day of August. A notary stamp, the embossed kind that raised the paper. DONNA R. SAWYER. NOTARY PUBLIC. BLACKWATER COUNTY.

“Sawyer,” Daniel said.

“Brent Sawyer’s wife,” Lena said. “I checked last week. She works the front desk at Hargrove Land and Title.”

“Is that June’s signature?”

Lena didn’t answer. She took a second document out of the Pritchard file, a photocopy of June’s driver’s license, expired 2009, and a copy of the 1978 missing-person report on Della, which had a statement signed by June on the last page. She laid them side by side with the option.

The signature on the 1978 statement was a big looping hand, fast and slanted, the J in June like a fishhook. The signature on the driver’s license was smaller and shakier but the same hand, the same fishhook.

The signature on the option was upright and careful and slow. Like a schoolchild copying out a word.

“June Pritchard has had rheumatoid arthritis in both hands since 2015,” Lena said. “Renee told me. She can’t hold a pen. She signs everything with an X now, and Renee witnesses it.”

Daniel looked at the careful blue letters.

“Travis,” he said.

“Travis.” Lena sat back. “He finds a land agent who’ll pay five grand for an option on property that’s going to be worth a great deal more once the state shows up with a reservoir. He forges an eighty-eight-year-old woman’s name. He gets it notarized by somebody who doesn’t look too hard. He cashes the check.” She tapped the page. “And then his stepdaughter goes digging in his truck for her phone charger and finds it.”

“And hides it.”

“In the well house. In the can.” Lena looked up at him. “We thought Travis emptied that can. He didn’t. She did. Thursday. She took it out to show somebody.”

“Her mama.”

“Her mama. Or June.” Lena stood up. “I need to talk to her again. Now. Before anybody else does.”

She broke it in twenty minutes.

Daniel watched from the corner of the quiet room, and later he’d think that she’d been holding back all morning, letting Jessie get her feet under her, eat her pancakes, tell her one-night story to the sheriff. Now Lena sat down in the chair and laid the option on the tray table, in its evidence sleeve, unfolded so the signature showed, and didn’t say anything at all.

Jessie looked at it. Her face went white.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said.

“I know you didn’t.”

“He did it. He did that.” Jessie pointed at the paper without touching it. “That’s not Granny’s. Granny can’t write. Granny does an X.”

“I know.”

“I found it in the glove box. Under the registration. In an envelope from the bank.” Jessie’s voice was going up. “I knew what it was. I’m not stupid. We did contracts in Civics. I took pictures of it on my phone and I put it in the can in the well house. And I was gonna tell Mama. But I didn’t know how. Because she’d…” Jessie stopped.

“She’d what?”

“She’d believe him. She always believes him.”

“Jessie,” Lena said. “What happened Thursday?”

Jessie looked at Daniel in the corner. He didn’t move. He kept his face still. He’d learned that much from Lena.

“I took it out of the can,” Jessie said. “Thursday after work. I was gonna show Granny June. Granny’d know what to do. And I was going up the back steps with it and he was right there. Travis. At the top of the steps. He’d come home early.” She swallowed. “And he saw what I had.”

“What did he do?”

“He grabbed my arm.” Jessie touched her left arm, up high, above the elbow. Daniel looked. There was no mark. “He grabbed me so hard. He said give it here. He said you don’t know what you’re messing with. He said if I told Mama he’d… He twisted it. My arm. Like this.” She made a motion. “Like he was wringing out a rag. And I scratched him. I scratched him as hard as I could and he let go and I ran.”

“Where did you run?”

“Down the field,” Jessie said. “To the creek. He’d never come down there. He won’t go near the creek. None of them will. I knew he wouldn’t follow me there.” She looked at Lena. “I didn’t plan to cross. I was just gonna sit there till he left for the bar. And then she was there. On the other side. And she said it’s not deep.”

Lena laid her hand flat on the tray table, next to Jessie’s. Not touching. Just there.

“Has he hurt you before, Jessie?”

Jessie didn’t answer.

“Has he hurt Owen?”

Jessie’s chin started to go. She bit down on her lip to stop it and it didn’t stop.

“Owen didn’t fall off the trampoline,” she said.

Renee confirmed it at eleven, in the family room down the hall, with Owen in the cafeteria with a nurse’s aide and a chocolate milk.

She didn’t cry this time. She sat on the vinyl couch with her hands in her lap and told it plain, like a grocery list. Owen’s arm in March. A broken radius, the ER doctor said; they set it and cast it and Travis stood right there and told the doctor about the trampoline. Her own wrist, three weeks ago, the Wednesday before Jessie went, when she’d asked him where the money came from for the new bass boat. He’d held it on the kitchen counter and leaned on it.

She pushed up her sleeve and showed them. The bruise had faded nearly to nothing. A yellow shadow around the bone.

“I saw that,” Daniel said. “The first week. In your kitchen.”

Renee looked at him.

“I saw it and I didn’t say anything,” he said.

“Well.” She pulled the sleeve down. “Nobody ever does.”

They arrested Travis Cobb at twelve-forty in the parking lot of the Southern States co-op in Bryson Gap, loading feed into the bed of his Silverado. Daniel did it himself. Lena stood at his shoulder. Travis saw them coming across the lot and set down a fifty-pound sack of layer pellets very carefully on the tailgate, and turned around, and put his hands up before anybody asked.

“I heard she’s back,” he said.

“She’s back.”

“She all right?”

“She’s fine,” Daniel said. “Turn around, Travis.”

He turned around. Daniel cuffed him. He read him his rights in the same voice he’d read them in for twenty-nine years, slow and plain, so nobody could say later they hadn’t heard. Travis listened to all of it with his cheek against the warm side of the truck.

“I never hurt her,” Travis said. “I never laid a hand on that girl.”

“You can tell your lawyer that,” Lena said.

“She ran off. She ran off down to that creek. I didn’t make her go over there.” He twisted his head around to look at them. “You can’t put that on me. I never went near that creek.”

“I know you didn’t,” Daniel said. “Nobody’s saying you did.”

He put a hand on top of Travis’s head and guided him into the back of the Tahoe. Before he shut the door, Travis looked up at him.

“Is it true she was over there?” he asked. “Three weeks?”

Daniel looked at him. Travis’s face had changed. The meanness had gone out of it, for the moment, and what was left looked a lot like fear.

Daniel shut the door.

Travis waived. Daniel hadn’t expected him to. He sat in the interview room in the courthouse annex at one-thirty with his hands flat on the table and the cuffs off, in the same chair he’d sat in three weeks ago in a clean shirt with his hair wet-combed, and he looked smaller in it.

Lena laid the canceled check in front of him. The back of it. June E. Pritchard. For deposit only. His account number.

He looked at it a long time.

“She’d have said yes,” Travis said. “If anybody’d asked her. She’d have signed it herself if she could hold a pen.”

“Did you ask her?”

“You can’t ask June Pritchard nothing. She just looks at you.” He turned the photocopy a quarter turn with one finger, and Daniel thought of Renee at her kitchen table turning the cordless phone. “That land’s going under water anyway. Everybody knows it. Sawyer said the state’s coming whether we like it or not, and the ones that sign early get the money and the ones that hold out get condemned. I was looking after the family.”

“With a forged signature.”

“With a signature.” He pushed the check back. “Five thousand dollars. You know what five thousand dollars is to people like us? You know what that place costs to keep up? The roof. The well pump. The taxes on forty acres of creek bottom nobody can farm because half of it’s on the wrong side of the water.” He looked at Daniel. “You know what it costs, Sheriff. You grew up out here.”

“You bought a bass boat,” Daniel said.

Travis didn’t answer that.

Lena let it sit. Then she took out a second sheet and laid it beside the check. An emergency room record from March, Blackwater County Hospital. Pritchard, Owen. Age 9. Closed fracture L radius. Hx: fall from trampoline per stepfather.

Travis looked at it. Something in his jaw tightened and let go.

“Tell me about the trampoline,” Lena said.

“I want a lawyer,” Travis said.

“All right.”

“I’m done talking. I want a lawyer.”

“That’s your right.” Lena didn’t move to pick up the papers. She sat there across from him with her hands folded on the table, and Daniel, in the corner, watched her not move, and watched Travis wait for her to get up and leave, and watched it not happen.

The clock on the wall ran.

“I went down there,” Travis said.

Nobody had asked him. Lena didn’t say anything. Daniel didn’t either.

“That night. After the Quik Stop.” Travis was looking at the table. “I drove around a while looking for her like I said. Bryson Gap. The Shook place. Then I come back about three. And the kitchen light was still on and Renee was sitting at the table. And I thought, I’ll go get her. She’s down there at that creek being stubborn. I’ll go down and bring her back up and that’ll be the end of it.”

He stopped.

“I got the big flashlight out of the truck,” he said. “The Maglite. And I went down the field. I’d never been down there at night. Four years and I never once went down to that water at night. Renee’s people won’t. I thought that was hillbilly foolishness.” He looked up at Daniel. “I’m from Newport, Tennessee. We got creeks.”

“What happened?” Daniel asked.

“I got down to the sycamore. And I put the light across the water. And there was a woman standing over there.”

The air conditioner ticked.

“In a dress,” Travis said. “Yellow. Barefoot on the rocks. In the middle of the night. And I thought it was Renee’s cousin or some crazy woman from up the road, and I said, *Hey,* and she looked at me.” He swallowed. “And she said my name.”

“Your name.”

“Travis Lee. My middle name. Nobody calls me that but my mama, and she’s been dead twelve years.” He was gripping the edge of the table now. “And she said it just like my mama. Just exactly like it. Like when I was little and I’d done something. Travis Lee, you come here.” His voice cracked. “And I dropped that Maglite in the creek and run back up that field so fast I lost a shoe. And I never told nobody. And I never went back down there. And I sat in that kitchen for three weeks with Renee crying and that woman saying my name every time I shut my eyes.”

He stopped. He was breathing hard.

Lena gathered up the check and the ER record. She squared them against the table and put them in the folder.

“You asked for a lawyer, Mr. Cobb,” she said. “I’ll make sure you get one.”

She stood. At the door she stopped, with her hand on the knob, and didn’t turn around.

“Did you find the shoe?” she asked.

Travis stared at her back.

“No,” he said.

She went out. Daniel stayed a moment longer in the corner. Travis Cobb sat at the table with his big hands spread flat on it, looking at nothing, a man from Newport, Tennessee, who had creeks.

Brent Sawyer, of Hargrove Land and Title, Inc., came to the sheriff’s office at three o’clock with a lawyer from Asheville and a copy of the option and a look of grave concern.

He had never met June Pritchard. He had never been to the Pritchard property. The option had been brought to the office already signed by Mr. Travis Cobb, who had represented himself as acting with the family’s knowledge and on behalf of his wife’s elderly grandmother, who was unable to travel. Mrs. Sawyer had notarized it in good faith on the strength of Mr. Cobb’s representations and a photocopy of Mrs. Pritchard’s identification. It was a regrettable lapse in procedure. Mrs. Sawyer had already been counseled. Hargrove Land and Title would of course void the option immediately and cooperate fully.

“And the five thousand dollars?” Lena asked.

“Written to June Pritchard,” the lawyer said. “Endorsed and deposited. We have the canceled check.” He slid a photocopy across. The back of it said June E. Pritchard in careful upright blue letters, and under that, for deposit only, and an account number at the Bank of Blackwater that Lena would find, by five o’clock, belonged to Travis L. Cobb.

“Who’s Blackwater Land Holdings?” Daniel asked.

“A client,” Sawyer said.

“Whose?”

“I’m afraid that’s privileged,” said the lawyer from Asheville, and smiled, and stood up.

Daniel drove the Pritchards home at six, Renee in front and Jessie and Owen in the back, Owen asleep against his sister before they were out of the hospital lot. He carried the boy in. He stood in the kitchen a minute while the church women came in behind him with their dishes, and then he went out the back door and down the field.

The light was going. The surveyors’ stakes stood up out of the grass with their pink tape hanging limp. He stepped over the line of them and went on down to the sycamore and stood at the edge of the water.

It was low and clear. He could see every stone.

He walked downstream along the bank, slowly, looking. Twenty yards below the sycamore the creek bent and slowed over a gravel bar, and the current had piled up drift against a fallen limb there, leaves and sticks and a Styrofoam cup. And wedged in the gravel at the head of the drift, half buried, was a long black flashlight.

He knelt and worked it loose. A four-cell Maglite, the big kind deputies carried before they went to the little LED ones. Heavy as a nightstick. The lens was cracked across. When he turned it over, creek water ran out of the head and down his wrist, and in the black anodized barrel, scratched with a knife point, were two letters. T.C.

He stood up with it in his hand.

He looked across the water at the far bank. The flat rock. The dark wall of the rhododendron going black in the dusk. Nothing there. A wren going in and out of the laurel.

He thought about a man from Newport, Tennessee, coming down this field at three in the morning with this light in his hand, sure of himself, and putting the beam across the water. He thought about what it would take to make that man drop it.

Up at the house the back porch light came on.

He didn’t bag the Maglite. He should have. He wrapped it in an old towel and put it on the floor of the Tahoe behind the driver’s seat, and told himself he’d log it in the morning.

V.

Granny June was in the front room in her wheelchair with the TV on and the sound off, and she didn’t look away from the TV when Jessie came in.

It was after dark. Mama had brought her home at six. There’d been a lot of people at the house, Mama’s cousins and ladies from church with casseroles, and everybody had hugged her and touched her hair, and Owen had hung on her waist and wouldn’t let go for twenty minutes. Travis’s truck was gone from in front of the steps. There was an oil stain where it used to be, and the dome-light glow of it was gone from the yard at night, and Jessie kept looking out the window at the empty place.

Now the people were gone. Mama was in the kitchen doing dishes that were already clean. Owen was asleep on the couch with his arm thrown up over his head, the arm that had been in a cast all spring.

Jessie went and sat on the floor by Granny’s wheelchair, like she used to when she was little, with her back against the wheel.

On the TV a man was selling a mop.

“Granny,” Jessie said.

June didn’t answer. Her hands were in her lap, curled up like they were now, the knuckles big and shiny. She was watching the mop.

“I saw her,” Jessie said. “Granny. I saw Della.”

Nothing.

“I went over the creek. I know you said not to. I know. I’m sorry.” Jessie leaned her head back against the wheel. “She made supper. In the old house. She had the radio on. She was dancing. She did your voice. She did it just like you.”

The man on the TV demonstrated the mop on a stain shaped like a heart.

“She told me to tell you something,” Jessie said. “Before I left. She hugged me and she said it in my ear. She made me promise.”

June’s hands moved in her lap. Just a little.

“She said tell Mama I’m not cold,” Jessie said.

For a while nothing happened. The mop man finished. A weather lady came on in a red dress and pointed at a map of the mountains.

Then Granny June started to cry.

Jessie had never heard Granny cry. Not at Papaw’s funeral. Not when the doctor told her about her hands. Not ever. It wasn’t loud. It was a thin high sound, like the wind through the gap under the back door, and it went on and on, and Granny’s whole body shook with it in the chair, and her curled hands came up off her lap and couldn’t do anything and went back down.

Jessie got up on her knees and put her arms around her.

“Granny. Granny, it’s okay.”

“It was ice,” June said.

“What?”

“The night she went.” Granny’s voice came out in pieces. “Ice storm. Half an inch. The power was out four days. The trees was breaking all night like gunshots. I sat in the kitchen in the dark with the gas stove on for heat. And I thought about her out there. Over there. In that thin dress. In that coat. In the ice.” She shook. “Forty-eight years. Every winter. Every time it’s cold. Every time I get in the bed and the sheets is cold. I think, she’s out there. She’s out there in it. And I can’t get to her.”

Jessie held her.

“She’s not cold, Granny,” Jessie said. “She’s not. It was warm. The kitchen was so warm. She had the oven going and she was barefoot.”

Granny June put her face against Jessie’s shoulder. Her hair smelled like Jergens and the bobby pins she’d been wearing since 1960.

From the kitchen doorway, Mama watched them. She had a dish towel in her hands. She didn’t come in. After a while she put the dish towel over her shoulder and went out the back door, and Jessie heard her on the porch, and heard the saucer go down on the rail, and the screen door bang.

VI.

Lena’s phone rang at 7:10 that night in the sheriff’s office parking lot. She looked at the screen, and Daniel saw her decide whether to answer, and decide yes.

“Dana.”

Daniel was leaning on the Tahoe. He could have walked away. He didn’t. He looked at the courthouse clock instead, which was four minutes slow and always had been, and listened to one half of a conversation.

“Yes. This morning.” A pause. “Healthy. No injuries. She’s home with her mother.” A pause. “Yes. Felony forgery, obtaining property by false pretenses, two counts of child abuse. Misdemeanor assault on a female, pending the wife’s statement.” A long pause. “I know it is.”

She turned away from him a little. Not far.

“Dana, there are related matters,” Lena said. “Loose ends. The land agent’s client. The notary. There’s an LLC I can’t get the principals on. I’d like to stay on until…” She listened. “Two weeks would be fine.” She listened. “No. I understand. Thank you.”

She lowered the phone. She looked at it a while.

“Two weeks,” she said.

“I heard.”

“Then I’m back in Raleigh.”

“I heard that too.”

She put the phone in her jacket. She leaned on the Tahoe beside him, not close. A pickup went by on Depot Street with its windows down and a radio playing something with a fiddle in it, and faded.

“She said the case is closed,” Lena said. “She’s right. The girl’s home. The stepfather’s in custody. That’s a closed case.”

“It is.”

“There’s no reason for me to be here.”

“No.”

“Loose ends.” She laughed, once. “The LLC. Like the SBI’s going to give me two weeks to run down a shell company on a voided land option.”

“She did give you two weeks.”

“Because Dana plays tennis with my boyfriend’s sister and she thinks I’m having a…” Lena stopped. She looked at the courthouse. “She’s being kind.”

Daniel waited.

The clock on the courthouse tower clicked over to 7:08, which meant 7:12.

“I asked for it,” Lena said.

He didn’t say anything.

“This case. I asked for it. I told my supervisor I wanted the next juvenile case in the western district, and I watched the intake board every day for four months, and when a sixteen-year-old went missing in Blackwater County, I was in Asheville on a training I didn’t need to be at, and I called Dana within the hour.” She was looking at the clock. Not at him. “I told myself it was to find the girl. I told Adrian it was to find the girl. I told myself that in the car all the way out here.”

“And it was.”

“It was.” She turned and looked at him. “And it was because he’s here. My father. Whatever happened to him happened here. I’ve known that since I was six years old and I have never once set foot in this county until three weeks ago. I’ve driven around it. I took a job in Raleigh to be four hours away from it.” Her voice didn’t change. “I wanted to see it. That’s all. I wanted to stand in it.”

The clock clicked.

“Now you’ve stood in it,” Daniel said.

“Now I have.”

“How is it?”

She thought about it a while. Then she pushed off the Tahoe and took her keys out of her pocket.

“Cold,” she said. “The water’s cold.”

VII.

He stayed late.

The office was empty by nine. Bev had gone home and the night dispatcher, a boy named Tyler Shook, was in the radio room with his feet up and a Mountain Dew watching a ballgame on his phone. Daniel sat at the conference table with the Pritchard case file open in front of him, writing up the arrest. He wrote it as he wrote everything, plain, in order, with the times.

When he was done he turned to the evidence log and checked off the items one by one. The option. The canceled check. The diary. Jessie’s phone. Her shoes, which had come back from the lab with nothing on them but Jessie’s prints and creek water.

The Polaroid had gone to Raleigh with Lena’s evidence courier at four. The lab had wanted it. Lena had wanted them to have it. All he had left was the photograph of it, the eight-by-ten color print the evidence tech had taken against a gray card with a ruler along the bottom.

He picked it up.

Jessie and Della on the porch steps of a house that burned down in 1981. Jessie barefoot. Della laughing, her arm around Jessie’s shoulders. Me & J. Mar. ’78. The colors gone warm and orange.

He’d looked at it all day. He’d looked at the two girls on the steps and the house behind them, and at the ribbon in Della’s hair, yellow with little orange daisies, until he could have drawn it. He looked at it now, one more time, under the lamp.

At the far end of the porch, half out of the frame, the Polaroid’s bad focus had smeared something tall against the rail where the light from the bay window fell across the boards. He’d taken it all day for a porch post and a shadow. A post with a slope to it, like shoulders. A shadow gone blue where the light caught it, the faded blue of denim, with something pale above it turned away toward the left edge of the picture. Toward the creek.

He was tired. It had been a long day. He set the photograph face up on the table, under the jean-blue smear and the girls laughing on the steps, and turned off the lamp.

December 16th. I remember the date because it was my mother's birthday.

It's a day that started just as normal as all the others. I woke up 5:29am, a minute before my alarm would go off. I laid in bed for 5 minutes, trying to break out of the "just call in sick!" mutter my brain would yell at me, before getting up and hitting the shower. I showered for 10 minutes, brushed my teeth, and prepared myself my usual breakfast - one piece of buttered toast on white bread, and the same but on brown bread. I put the TV on for a few minutes before I had to go - it was too early for the local morning news, so I had to make do with the end of some strange film from the 50s. I don't remember anything about the film other than it being a Western. Not my thing.

I left the house around 7am and, because it was winter, it was still dark. It's not the dark that makes me feel uncomfortable, it's the quietness. Luckily, however, I recently got my driving licence, so instead of having to walk to work in eery silence, I could put on my music and distract myself with driving.

Usually, it takes me only 10 minutes to drive to work, but today, I had a doctor's appointment. My appointment was at 8am on the dot, and the office was about an hour away, so I headed straight there. The appointment was for nothing important - I had tore my ACL a year before, and so I had a check-up to make sure it was healing okay.

I made it to the office at around 8:10pm, worrying that they would tell me that, because I wasn't there on the dot, the doctor couldn't see me. The doctor did however, and everything went okay with the appointment. My foot was healing fine, and I was to no longer use the medication they had prescribed me for the pain. They told me I shouldn't have been taking them after 6 months anyway, but I wanted to be sure. They worked great. I left the office, and made my way to work.

I arrived at work at 9:30am. The traffic was terrible, and I was nervous my boss would be furious with me - he was new, clearly didn't like me, and I knew he would for sure hate me less because I came in a half-hour after he expected me. I pulled into my building's car park, and saw my boss outside. My instant reaction was one of anxiety - he's come out to tell me off, surely, right? I exited my car and made my way inside. My boss wouldn't look at me, though - he was just staring into the sky, looking almost worried. I didn't question what he was doing, however, as I was just happy he didn't give me flack. I walked right past him and made my way into the office. Most of the desks were empty, which I found strange. I thought maybe people were having the same traffic issues - or maybe there was a meeting I missed. I put my bag down by my desk and logged into the computer. I opened what I usually do - various different Microsoft applications, and then the internet browser. The browser, however, didn't work. My computer wasn't connected to the internet. I checked in the settings, and there was no networks found at all. I restarted my computer, but the same problem arose. I wheeled myself to the computer next to me, and logged in on there. Weird. Same problem.

I got up to make myself to the kitchen, where all my coworkers were. They were surrounded by the window, just straring, exactly like my boss was. I told them the internet was out, and they said they knew. I went on my phone, and I wasn't connected to the internet on there, either. My data wouldn't work, and I had no bars.

My first thought was that a cell tower had broken in the city - I knew it rained the night before, and so I made peace with that thought and sat back down to my computer, and did what I could with my work offline. People returned to their desks, some looking worried, some looking pale. Something was up - but for some reason, I didn't know what it was. I'm a shy person, and for some reason, I thought that asking what was the problem would make them angry at me.

I worked for about two hours, checking if the internet was working every 20 minutes or so, to no avail. I went to lunch at around 11:30am, before remembering I forgot to pack food for the day. I thought that, with such a strange morning, I should treat myself to some food in a cafe I've wanted to check out just a few minutes away from my work, so I left the building. I left the building and that's when it hit me - it was still dark. Not dark like a winter day can be dark - it looked like it was night time, like 3am. You could still see the stars in the sky. This revelation gave me a chill - I know in some countries, it can be dark or light all day sometimes, but I live in England - this has never happened. It made me anxious, of course, but I just chalked it up to some weird science that my brain is too tiny to understand, and went about my walk.

While walking to the cafe, I saw dozens of people just staring into the sky. I had to constantly remind myself that it wasn't the middle of the night and that it was, in fact, noon. I entered the cafe, and the staff were by the window, staring into the sky. I asked for a cheese toastie, and also for their Wifi password. They told me their Wifi was out, and made me a half-arsed toastie.

I ate in silence, and just stared into the night - what could this be? Was it just my town that was experiencing this, or was it something else? I had no idea, but again, I tried to remain hopeful that it was just something I didn't understand. I left the cafe and headed back to work.

As I approached the building, I could see everybody in my building just staring at the window. I didn't want to go back in - it just gave me this uneasy feeling. I wrote a quick note saying I was leaving for the day and left it by the reception and drove home. As I drove home, I noticed the lack of traffic. It was just empty roads, filled with people on the curb just staring at the sky.

I entered my home and instantly turned on all of the lights. I turned the TV on, and to my surprise, the same Western was on. I switched channels to the local news where I instantly saw a reporter not far from my house, standing outside in the dark with the caption "WHERE HAS THE SUN GONE?". I thought it was such a strange way of putting it that I laughed a little. The reporter wasn't helping - basically echoing everything that had been said already.

I switched to other news channels, but nothing. BBC were talking about politics, Sky were talking about a recent actor who had died, Channel 4 were doing a story about a doctor who had been prescribing his patients fake medication. The only thing I could find on what was happening was my local station. I thought about asking the neighbours about what was happening, but I wasn't feeling up for it. I didn't let myself worry about it too much - I put on a movie, ate some snacks, and fell asleep on the couch pretty early.

I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet, where I checked the time - it was 4am. It was still dark, of course. I went back to sleep, taking a pill beforehand, and woke up around 10am. I overslept, and I went to call my boss, before realising the phones and internet were still down. I turned on the television, and that same damn Western was playing on TV. I changed channels to the local news - the same reporter, the same tagline... "Where has the sun gone?".

It's been some time now since this has happened, and every day plays similarly to that one. I wake up, check the TV, see that Western, see that reporter, see that tagline. I look at the sky, see nothing but blackness, and still see neighbours gazing into the sky. So I write this, to ask all of you:

Where has the sun gone?

I.

The road was right where she’d left it, which Jessie figured was something.

She came up out of the hayfield onto Creek Road with the wet grass slapping at her jeans and the sky going gray over Frog Mountain, and she stood on the white line and looked both ways. No cars. The Hensley place up the hill had a light on in the kitchen. Somebody’s rooster was going. It smelled like morning, like cut hay and the creek, and she was so hungry her stomach had folded in half.

She’d missed supper. She remembered that. Granny June’s biscuits on the rail and Owen hollering from the porch, and her not going up, and now it was morning and Mama was going to kill her.

She looked down at her feet. Socks. Wet socks, black on the bottoms. She’d left her shoes on the rock.

“Crap,” Jessie said, out loud, to Creek Road.

She thought about going back for them. She looked over her shoulder down the field toward the water, and the sycamore, and the dark line of the trees on the far side, and she did not go back for them. She didn’t know why. Her legs just didn’t.

Headlights came around the curve from the Bell Road end.

Big ones, high up and yellow, with the row of little orange lights across the top. The school bus. Mr. Ledbetter’s bus, number 14, which picked up at the end of their drive at 6:40 every morning, and which she was supposed to be on with her backpack and her lunch and her face washed.

She stood in the road and waved both arms.

The brakes squealed. The bus came down on its nose and stopped twenty feet from her with its lights in her eyes, and the door folded open with a hiss, and Mr. Ledbetter was standing up out of the driver’s seat with his mouth open, a big bald man in a Carhartt jacket she had never once seen move fast.

“Am I late?” Jessie said. “For first period?” She hitched her thumbs under the straps of the backpack that wasn’t on her back. “I don’t have my stuff. I can go get it. Can you wait like two minutes? Mama’s gonna…”

Mr. Ledbetter came down the bus steps. He didn’t say anything. He was looking at her like she was a deer that had walked into the road and stood up on its hind legs and asked him the time.

“Jessie Pritchard,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Honey,” Mr. Ledbetter said. He had his phone out. His hands were shaking so bad he dropped it on the asphalt and had to pick it up. “Honey, you sit down on the step right there. Right there. You sit.”

“Why?”

“Where you been, honey?”

“I was at the creek,” Jessie said. “Last night. I was just at the creek.”

He was dialing. Behind him, through the bus windows, a row of faces was pressed to the glass. The Hensley twins. Macy Shook, her best friend, with her hands over her mouth.

“It’s Tuesday,” Mr. Ledbetter said, with the phone at his ear. “Honey, it’s Tuesday, September the fifteenth. You been gone three weeks.”

II.

The county hospital had forty beds now, and the one they put Jessie Pritchard in was at the end of the hall, in the room the nurses still called the quiet room though nobody could remember why.

Daniel got there at 6:58. Carrie was standing outside the door with a chart.

She was at the tail end of a twelve. He could see it in her. Her hair was coming down out of its clip and there was a coffee stain on her scrub top, and she looked up when he came down the hall and her face did the thing it had been doing for a year, a quick shuttering, like a store pulling down the gate at closing.

“She’s fine,” Carrie said.

“Fine how?”

“Fine fine.” She held the chart against her chest. “Vitals are perfect. Blood pressure one-fourteen over seventy. Pulse sixty-eight. Temp normal. Pupils equal and reactive. Hydration’s good. Skin turgor’s good. No cuts, no bites, no ticks, no poison ivy.” She looked at him. “Daniel, there’s not a mark on her. She’s sixteen and she’s been outside for three weeks in August and there is not a tick on her.”

“Weight?”

“One hundred eighteen pounds.” Carrie turned the chart so he could see it. “Same as her sports physical in July. To the pound.”

He looked at the number.

“She asked for pancakes,” Carrie said. “She asked if it was too late to get to school by second period. She asked where her phone was. Three times.” Carrie lowered the chart. “She thinks she was gone one night. She’s not confused about it, she’s not foggy. She’s sure. She thinks we’re all playing a trick on her.”

“Is Lena here?”

“In with her. Since six-thirty.” Carrie said the name evenly, like a drug off a label. “She got here before you did.”

“Bev called her first.”

“I’m sure.” Carrie handed him a plastic evidence bag. “These were in her back pocket. I had the presence of mind not to let anybody touch them but me. You’re welcome.”

There were two things in the bag.

A Polaroid photograph. The old square kind with the white border, the colors gone warm and orange with age. Two girls on a front porch, side by side on the steps, squinting at the sun. One of them was Jessie Pritchard in a black T-shirt and jeans, barefoot, with her hair pulled back. The other was a young woman in a yellow housedress with small brown flowers on it, her dark hair pinned up, laughing, one arm around Jessie’s shoulders. In the margin at the bottom, in blue ballpoint, somebody had written Me & J. Mar. ’78.

The porch was the porch of a two-story farmhouse with white clapboard and a bay window and a big rhododendron by the steps. Daniel knew that house. Every deputy in Blackwater County knew that house, because it had burned to the foundation in February 1981 with an electrical short behind the refrigerator, and the volunteer fire department had stood in the yard and watched it go, because they couldn’t get the truck across the creek.

It was the old Pritchard homeplace. On the east bank.

The other thing in the bag was a sheet of legal paper, folded in fourths. White and crisp. Not a crease in it but the folds. He could see typing through the plastic, and the edge of a signature.

“Daniel,” Carrie said.

He looked up.

“Her shoes were on that rock for three weeks,” his wife said. “I heard. Everybody’s heard. Through two weeks of rain.” She looked at the bag in his hand and then at the door to the quiet room. “That piece of paper’s been in her back pocket the whole time. Where was she that it didn’t get wet?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have one.

Carrie looked at him a moment longer. Then she tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear and went down the hall to give report to the day shift.

Through the narrow window in the quiet room door he could see Lena in the visitor’s chair pulled up close to the bed, with her notebook on her knee, and Jessie sitting up against the pillows in a hospital gown with a tray table across her lap and a stack of pancakes on it, eating like somebody was going to take them away.

He went in. Lena didn’t look up.

“…about the truck,” Lena was saying. “Thursday. The day you went to the creek.”

“I told you.” Jessie talked with her mouth full. “I was in it for my charger.”

“Did Travis see you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“He’s always saying something.” Jessie stabbed a piece of pancake. “He said stay out of his truck. He always says stay out of his truck.”

“Did he touch you, Jessie?”

Jessie chewed. She swallowed. She looked at Lena with gray eyes that didn’t blink, and Daniel saw the same look he’d seen on the school picture on the Pritchards’ refrigerator, the look of a girl who’d been told to smile and decided against it.

“No,” Jessie said.

Lena wrote something down. Her face didn’t change. But Daniel had watched her work for three weeks, and he knew where her pen went when she didn’t believe somebody. It went to the margin. It went there now.

“Who’re you?” Jessie asked him.

“Daniel Rusk. I’m the sheriff.”

“Oh.” She looked at his uniform. “Are you gonna arrest me? For being out all night?”

“No.”

“Mama’s gonna kill me.”

“Your mama’s on her way,” Daniel said. “She’s coming as fast as she can.”

“Is Travis coming?”

Lena’s pen stopped.

“I don’t know,” Daniel said.

Jessie looked down at the pancakes. She cut a careful square out of the middle of the stack. She didn’t eat it. She moved it to the side of the plate, and lined it up with the edge.

“Okay,” she said.

III.

They kept asking her the same questions in different orders. Jessie had seen that on TV. She knew what it was for.

The state lady went out after a while to make a phone call, and the sheriff stayed. He pulled the visitor’s chair back from the bed a little bit, not close like the state lady had it, and he sat down in it sideways with one arm on the back, and he didn’t take out a notebook. He just sat there.

“How’re the pancakes?” he asked.

“They’re from a box.”

“Hospital.”

“Granny’s are better.”

“Granny June make pancakes?”

“Not anymore. Her hands.” Jessie pushed the tray table away. “She used to.”

He nodded. He looked out the window. It was full light now, and the parking lot was filling up, and there was a man in a hospital gown out by the front doors smoking a cigarette with his IV pole beside him.

“Mr. Ledbetter said it’s Tuesday,” Jessie said.

“It is.”

“September.”

“September the fifteenth.”

“He said three weeks.”

“Yes.”

She looked at her hands. They looked like her hands. Her fingernails had the same chipped purple polish she’d put on before the Dairy Bar shift Thursday. Thursday. She looked at them and tried to make the polish be three weeks old, and it wasn’t. It was two days chipped. She knew her own fingernails.

“It was one night,” she said.

“Okay.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“She doesn’t believe me.” Jessie jerked her chin at the door. “The state lady. She thinks I’m lying. She thinks I was at Cole Ledford’s or something.” She made a face. “I would not be at Cole Ledford’s for three weeks. I would not be at Cole Ledford’s for three minutes.”

The sheriff almost smiled. She saw it.

“Tell me about the one night,” he said. “Whatever you want. I won’t write it down.”

So she told him.

She told him about the lady. About the summer and the lady across the creek in the yellow dress, who knew her name and called her honey. She told him about going down Thursday after the thing with the truck, which she didn’t say what it was, and he didn’t ask. She told him about taking her shoes off and sitting on the sycamore root and hearing Owen holler from the porch.

She told him about the water. How cold it was.

“Like the cooler at the Dairy Bar,” she said. “Like when you stick your arm in the ice bin for a scoop. It went up my legs. I thought I was gonna fall over. But it wasn’t deep. She was right. It wasn’t even to my knees.”

She told him about climbing out on the far side and the lady being there, close up. Her face. Young. Not old like a ghost in a movie. Just a girl, a few years older than Jessie, with a wide mouth and a gap in her front teeth when she smiled and freckles everywhere, and a ribbon in her hair, yellow with little orange daisies.

The sheriff moved a little in his chair when she said the ribbon. Just a little.

“She took my hand,” Jessie said. “Her hand was warm. I thought it’d be cold. It was warm, like a regular hand.” She stopped. “She said, *Come on up to the house, I’ve got supper on.* And we went up through the trees. And there was a house.”

“What house?”

“Granny’s house. The old one. The one that burned.” Jessie looked at him. “I’ve seen pictures. Granny’s got one in the hall. It was that house. White, with the big window in front. And the porch. There was smoke coming out of the chimney and the lights were on and it smelled like… like food.” She swallowed. “It smelled like Granny’s kitchen when I was little. Before her hands.”

“Was anybody else there?”

“Just her.”

“What’d you do?”

“Sat in the kitchen.” Jessie pulled her knees up under the blanket. “She was cooking. Pork chops and gravy and biscuits and green beans. And she had the radio on, one of those big wood ones on the counter, and it was playing old music. Like disco. And she was singing along and dancing a little at the stove.” She smiled without meaning to. “She was funny. She did voices. She did a voice like Granny that was just like Granny. She asked me about school and about Owen and Mama. She knew everything already but she asked anyway, like she wanted to hear me say it.”

“What was the kitchen like?”

Jessie thought.

“Old,” she said. “The refrigerator was this green. Like, green-green. Avocado, she called it. There was linoleum with yellow squares. There was a calendar on the wall by the back door from the co-op. With a picture of a tractor.” She stopped.

“What year?”

“1978,” Jessie said. “I looked at it. I thought it was a joke. Like a vintage thing. Like people put up at Cracker Barrel.” She pressed her knees together under the blanket. “I said is that a real calendar? And she said what do you mean is it real. And she laughed. And I didn’t ask again.”

The man by the front doors had finished his cigarette and was going back in, pushing his IV pole ahead of him.

“Then what?” the sheriff asked.

“We took a picture.” She looked at the bag on the tray by the window. “She had one of those old cameras. Polaroid. She said let’s get one of us on the steps before supper, because the light’s good. And we sat on the steps and she held it out and took it. And the picture came out the front of the camera, and she shook it, and it came up, and she wrote on it and put it in my pocket.” Jessie stopped. “I forgot it was there.”

“Then?”

“Then she put supper on the table.”

Jessie looked at the window. She didn’t want to tell this part. She didn’t know why she didn’t want to tell it. She’d been fine telling the rest. Her throat went tight.

“There was a knock,” she said. “At the back door. And she went real still. At the stove. With the spoon in her hand. And she didn’t go answer it.” Jessie twisted the edge of the blanket. “And then he just came in.”

“Who?”

“A guy.”

The sheriff waited.

“Young,” Jessie said. “Like, college. Or right out of high school. Long hair to here.” She touched her own jaw. “He had on a jean jacket. Too big for him. Like it was somebody else’s. And he came in, and he looked at me, and he looked at the table with all the food on it, and his face…” She stopped. “He looked so scared. For me. Like I was standing in the road and a truck was coming.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, Have you eaten anything?”

The room was very quiet.

“I said no. Not yet. And he shut his eyes for a second. And then he said, Good. Don’t. You need to come with me right now. And she said…” Jessie’s voice did something. “She said, Let her have her supper, she came all this way. And he said, Della. That’s all. Just her name. Della. Like they’d had this fight a hundred times.”

Jessie stopped. She hadn’t meant to say the name. She hadn’t known she knew it. She sat there with it in her mouth.

The sheriff didn’t move.

“And she put the spoon down,” Jessie said. “And she came over and she hugged me. Real hard. And she said in my ear, *Tell Mama I’m not cold. And then she let go and went back to the stove and didn’t turn around.”

“Then?”

“Then he walked me out. Fast. Down through the trees. It was dark. He had a flashlight. He kept his hand on my back. He kept saying keep going, keep going, don’t stop. When we got to the creek he said…” She shut her eyes. “He said, Go on home. Walk straight across and up the field and don’t you look back. Not once. Not for anything.”

“Did you?”

“No.” She opened her eyes. “I wanted to. I could hear him standing there behind me. I could hear the creek. I didn’t.”

“What did he look like?” the sheriff asked. “His face.”

Jessie looked at him. She looked at him for a while. At his face, which was a regular cop face, older, tired, with lines by the eyes and a mustache he should probably shave off. And his eyes, which were green-brown and set deep under his brows, like a dog’s eyes, like they were watching from inside a house.

“He had eyes like yours,” Jessie said.

The door opened. The state lady came in with her phone in her hand.

She stopped just inside. She looked at Jessie, and at the sheriff, and Jessie could see her decide something.

“Sheriff,” she said. “A word?”

They went out in the hall. They didn’t shut the door all the way. Jessie sat in the bed with the blanket around her knees and listened, because they were grownups and they always thought you couldn’t hear.

“…classic dissociative presentation,” the state lady was saying, low. “Trauma, flight, a fugue state. She fills the gap with a story. It comes from her family history. The aunt, the creek, the old house. She’s heard about it her whole life. It’s in the pictures on her grandmother’s wall.”

“And the Polaroid?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“The paper in her pocket that’s dry?”

“I don’t know yet, Sheriff.” The state lady’s voice went flat. “But I know a sixteen-year-old who just spent three weeks God knows where, protecting a stepfather with an assault record, is a sixteen-year-old who needs a forensic interview and a trauma specialist. Not someone sitting by her bed asking her what the calendar said.”

Jessie pulled the blanket up to her chin.

Out in the hall the sheriff didn’t say anything for a long time.

“He had eyes like mine,” he said. Not to the state lady. To himself. Jessie heard it anyway.

* * *

Continued in Part 2.

The night air in Miami was hot and sticky around Reyes & Sons Auto Repair.
Cole Vance stood inside the dimly lit garage, holding a heavy iron wrench.
Sweat ran down his face as he looked at the beat-up, gray sedan on the lift.
From the outside, the car looked completely worthless and rusted out.
But under the hood sat a massive, twin-turbo engine that could fly past any supercar.
Suddenly, loud tires screeched over the gravel drive outside.
A beat-up pickup truck blocked the front shutter, and two large men stepped out.
It was Hector, a local street bully, looking for quick trouble.
"Where's old man Reyes?" Hector yelled, slamming his hand against the shop wall. "He owes us protection money!"
Cole stepped out from under the car, his face completely calm.
"Shop's closed," Cole said. "And Reyes isn't here tonight."
Hector walked right up to Cole and shoved his shoulder hard.
"Listen to me, grease monkey," Hector sneered. "If we don't get our cash, we burn this place down and smash your ugly car."
Cole didn't flinch or fight back.
Instead, he reached through the car window, flipped the ignition switch, and slammed his foot on the gas.
The engine roared to life with a deafening boom.
A giant wave of blue fire shot out of the exhaust pipe, blasting right past Hector’s legs.
The loud noise shook the whole room, blowing dust off the ceiling.
Hector stumbled back in total terror, holding his ears, and ran back to his truck.
The enforcers sped away into the dark, leaving the garage quiet again.
Cole locked the heavy front door, walked back to his tool chest, and unlocked a hidden bottom drawer.
He pulled out a silver FBI badge and an encrypted satellite phone.
Cole wasn't just a drifter mechanic who knew how to fix cars.
He was Special Agent Cole Vance, working deep undercover for Task Force 9.
His mission was to hunt down a high-speed criminal syndicate hijacking freight trucks on the highway.
His phone buzzed with a secret message from his federal handler.
"Syndicate drivers are moving tonight near the docks. Stay safe, Vance."
Cole put the badge back, tucked the phone into his jacket, and grabbed his keys.
A police radio scanner on his bench suddenly crackled to life.
Dispatch reported a huge illegal street race gathering down at the Port of Miami.
Cole smiled, strapped himself tightly into his sleeper sedan, and fired up the twin-turbo V8.
It was time to hit the streets and start his mission.

End Of Chapter 1