I didn’t have internet for a few days so I went to the library to check e-mails & other socials. I saw a beautiful young woman who appeared to be around my age walking the isles browsing the books. Mustering the courage to speak to her I got up but lost sight of her, so I went on with my day.  The next morning I was back using the library computer letting all my friends know I still had no power & if I could crash at anyone’s place for a while, when I saw her again.

Deciding to just shoot my shot I approached her with some books in hand trying to look casual.

“Your power out too?”

She turned to look at me blinking rapidly. “My power?”

“Yeah, mines been down since yesterday so I came here, thats when I first saw you. I just assumed we were in the same boat.”

“Oh really? That sucks, but no mines fine.”

“You must be an avid reader then, any recommendations?”

I gestured to the books tucked under her arm. From a brief glance I saw electronic manuals, meditation guides, & an insomnia help book. She got a bit embarrassed clutching the books to her chest & I heard something beep.

“Um…yeah well, what are you interested in?”

I pointed to the electronic manual. “I wish whoever is in charge of my building had your drive to learn, maybe then I wouldn’t be in the dark.”

She rubbed her eyes while saying. “It‘s just surface level reading, to help pass the time.”

“I got nothing but time, mind if I kill some with you?”

She shook her head no & once again began browsing & selecting random books off the shelves. I tried to pick her brain to figure out what she was actually interested in because every title had no correlation. 

“Uh, I don’t know, it’s all interesting.”

Then she went to the kids section & grabbed a bunch of picture books. 

“I um, always sit over there & read.”

She pointed down a row of tall bookshelves, at the end of the isle sat an empty chair in front of a floor to ceiling window. Following behind carrying her heavier books we walked & walked & walked. The chair always looked just a few steps away but the shelves kept extending. Looking behind me made me drop a few books, a bottomless pit was right at my heels. She calmly bent down to pick them up & kept walking. With no choice but to follow I was surprised to see a man in a raincoat sitting in the chair. The woman sat in front of him on the floor reading out loud sparse detailed passages on various subjects. He didn’t blink, not even once. Then she handed him the stack of picture books & he read out loud, stumbling on some words just like a child would.

She watched him in some sort of reverence. Helping pronounce the bigger words until he got it right. Eventually she started crying but I couldn’t tell if she was sad or happy. I stood there like a fish out of water, shifting my weight & shuffling around nonchalantly trying to look for an exit point. Then I felt something warm on my lips, my nose was bleeding profusely. I gasped & for a brief moment when she turned her head to glance up at me her tears were also blood. Closing the last book the man handed it to the woman & stood to acknowledge my presence for the first time. Reaching into his coat he pulled out a pink cassette. 

“Thank you for spending time with us, may I have your signature?”

The man looked unwell & the smell of decay emanating off him so potent I could smell it through the iron clogging my nostrils. With one hand covering my nose & mouth I just nodded. A fountain pen fell from his sleeve. Catching it with surprising dexterity it spun in his grasp as he handed it to me. 

“Will you join us again tomorrow PS07?”

“What?”

“For Project Storyteller.”

“Nether of us are good at telling stories.” The woman spoke quietly wiping her face.

“Maybe, I don’t feel-“

I woke up alone sitting on a bean bag chair in the kids section. Getting up my mind was racing but my body movement was sluggish. Mothers clutching their children tightly gave me the stink eye as I left. I was in such a daze I walked back home & watched a blank TV screen until passing out. I awoke from knocking on my door, my friends were there to pick me up for lunch. I told them to go ahead without me, that I suddenly wasn’t feeling well. I went back to sleep & I’ve just woken up. It seems I’ve missed tomorrow’s storyteller offer because that would’ve been yesterday. My power is back on at least but now there’s constant signal interference. I just might have to go back to the library.

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

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

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

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

There is no more beauty in this place. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are so many things alive in the darkness. 

!Sitra Achra!

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

He crashes. Just outside of the Garden. 

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

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

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

It will divide the center. Conquered and fallen apart. 

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

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

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

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

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

None of them mean a Goddamned thing. 

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

The adversary. 

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

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

the apocalypse man. 

Alone and filthy in a corner. 

Dreaming, not dreaming. 

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

He dreams and knows of burning heaven. 

THE END

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.

After the partial destruction of the wall surrounding my neighborhood, a thought has been circling around my mind. The walls which I had once thought were built with the sole intent to keep my people and I locked in may have instead been built to keep whatever the hell those things were out.

 If you haven’t read my last posts, my city has been under lockdown due to what until recently I had thought of as a powerful flu-type virus. After internal strife within my neighborhood and an incident involving the military atop the wall that holds us, beasts indescribable came down upon our home and pillaged anything they could.

As I sit in the damp and musty hole that is our hideaway, I listen to the little that remains of the neighborhood leadership bicker and argue.

“We will last here until the armed forces can extract us! Until then we will wait and do whatever it takes in our power to contact them!”

“Do you even hear the words coming out of your mouth? Those brutes not only killed one of us but kept those monsters a secret from us all this time! How could we ever possibly hope to trust men like that?”

“What choice do we have?” Endlessly, they went back and forth, exhausting my attention until the topic of the things' origins came up.

“All this time they’ve been taking shots out into the open. There we were speculating on what they could be up to all this time, but I don't think one of us could have seen this coming.”

“You state the obvious; what’s your point?”

“They kept these terrible things secret for a reason. This goes beyond classifying a new disease for research. What is going on outside that they could not tell us a word of these beasts?” The room fell silent, forcing me to listen to the dull, muffled screeching echoing from down the halls. Since the lockdown began, an effort had been made to reach alternative tunnel routes that could possibly lead to other neighborhoods or the outside world and the machinery used was not quiet.

“Whatever is out there, it is our right to know! If the military is busy fighting those things, then we will use their lack of attention to do as we please!” The room stirred for a moment before a young woman rushed into the room with panic across her face and shouted.

“Gentlemen, there is something wrong!” At once the group of men stood to their feet and followed the woman as she rushed down the narrow halls. Everyone they ran past carried a grim look upon their faces.

Reaching the room, men and women in makeshift hazmat suits surrounded an injured man who twisted and screamed under them. Evidently, he was wounded from the initial attack by the beasts, but whatever occurred now was more than just that.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was this bad!” the woman who had originally led us this way, screamed to the leaders. “Please step back-” But before she could finish, blood spewed from all of the man's orifices with a jolting burst.

“He is infected! Why have you brought us here?” One of the leaders screamed, but the woman was too horrified to even respond. “Abandon this room! Cave it in!” People all around scattered, and the leader's eyes darted manically.

“We are putting a quarantine into effect immediately! There will be no uncontrolled contact until this matter is settled!” One screamed, and word spread fast.

As I sit in my designated quarantine space alone, I wonder how things could have gone wrong so fast. Two meals are all that's being brought out daily as supplies run low. After the incident, a few more died from the virus, all in the room at the time of the sick man's dramatic death, but for the most part things have been contained. The effects on the mind have been another story, though. I consider myself to have a good deal of mental fortitude, but even I am beginning to feel a terrible something crawling around in the corners of my mind. Rustling can be heard just down the hall, and I believe some are beginning to disregard the quarantine.

Perhaps worst of all, there has been another sound which I have been telling myself I imagine. Quietly, as if hidden beyond something greater, I have been hearing the terrible scuttling of those crawling beasts that forced us down here in the first place. After all our neighborhood has been through, I don’t think we can take another fight. I pray that aid will come soon wherever it chooses to be from. I will write again soon, and hopefully by then some answers will have revealed themselves.

The fire crackled, the woods were dark, and it was Halloween night. Four teenagers sitting huddled in a tent that smelled of damp canvas, stale popcorn and sickly sweet apple cider. The night had been filled with the usual trick or treat, though at fourteen were probably a bit to old, but we still grabbed our bikes, our pillow cases and peddled into the night.

Now, full of sugary treats, having laughed at a few tricks, and feeling a little high from cheap cider, the four of us sat in a tense, anticipatory silence, trying not to shiver despite the blaze from the fire spitting sparks into the cold October air. There was Julia, who seemed quiet but could beat you down with a single look; Mick and Nick, ( I know) who are twins, and me, Emily.

We had promised ourselves a proper scare. No scrolling through Reddit for tired tales of slender men or smiling dogs. We decided to build our own. Each of us would tell an original creepypasta, tailored to the woods we were currently sitting in.

Nick went first.

" The salt line, " he called it. He leaned forward, his face half shadowed by the dying embers. His story was about a camper who woke up at 3:00 AM to the sound of something dragging heavy chains across the dirt outside his tent. The camper remembered his grandfathers old advice: ' Never step over a line of salt. ' but as the scraping grew closer, realising the salt he'd poured around his tent had been washed away by the evening rain, he heard a wet, raspy voice whisper from the darkness; ' I'm already inside your sleeping bag. '

We laughed, though Julia shivered and pulled her fleece tighter.

Nick was next, spinning a tale called, " The Mockingbird. " It was about the strange bird calls we'd heard echoing through the valley on our hike in. In Nicks story, the birds weren't animals at all. They were mimics, things that followed hikers, learning their voices, their laughs, their cries for help. 'If you hear your own voice calling your name from the brush, ' Nick whispered, his eyes wide in the firelight, " don't answer. Because if you do, your body stops belonging to you. "

It was a good story. Creepy enough to make us glance nervously at the black treeline whenever a branch snapped.

Then it was Julia's turn. She called hers 'The Hollow Man. " She told it slower, her voice dropping low, and we all leaned in closer. It was about a man who lived alone in a watchtower deep in the national forest. Every Halloween, would carve a pumpkin, but instead of seeds, he would fill it with hair, teeth and fingernails collected from hikers that never made it out. " He wears a mask made of dried gourds. " Julia murmured, staring fixedly at the tent wall. " And he's standing just beyond the canvas right now, listening to us laugh. "

Mick threw a handful of dirt at her, breaking the spell. We all laughed a bit too loudly, snapping the nervous tension. A particularly loud crack from the embers made us all jump, and laugh again, with teenage false bravado.

" All right, my turn, " I said, rubbing my cold hands together, " The Grand Finale. "

I wanted to do something meta. Something about the very spot were sitting in, the campfire, the four of us.

Mine is about a group of friends, " I began. Pitching my voice low and steady. " Four of them. They come out to the woods on Halloween. They think they're clever, making up stories to scare each other. But they don't realise the woods are already occupied.

Mick grinned, leaning back on his elbows, " Ooh, very original. "

" Shut up Mick, let him talk. " Julia murmured.

" In the story, " I continued, trying to look menacing as I glanced around the circle. " the friends tell four tales. The first one invites the watcher in. The second one gives the watcher a voice. The third one gives the watcher a face. "

Mick and Nick stopped their fidgeting. Playful smirks fading from their lips.

"What about the fourth story? " Julia asked, her voice tight.

"The fourth story, " I said, keeping my eyes locked on the flickering light, " is the trap. The fourth story doesn't have an ending. It just describes what happens to the storyteller right before the thing in the woods takes them. "

Silence fell over the tent. The wind outside seemed to die down completely, leaving an oppressive, suffocating quiet.

"And what happens? " Nick asked, his voice sounding suddenly very small.

I didn't answer right away. I swallowed hard, feeling a sudden, prickling sensation of absolute terror wash over me - not because of the story, but because I realised I wasn't controlling my mouth anymore. My lips were moving, but the words coming out weren't mine. As if from a distance I felt my vocal chords forming the reply.

" The fourth story ends, with the storyteller realising he's the only one left sitting around the fire. "

I blinked. Mick was gone. There was no sound, no rustle of canvas, no goodbye. Just an empty sleeping bag, zipped shut, sitting in the spot where he had been laughing a second ago.

" Stop it, " Nick whispered, his face draining of all colour. " Not funny, guys, Emily, come on, cut it out! "

" The watcher takes the second one next, " my mouth continued to move, entirely against my will. My hands were trembling violently in my lap. I tried to scream but no sound came out. " He takes the one who talks too much. He drags them backward into the dark, so fast they don't even have time to drop their flashlight. "

Before Nick could scream, a heavy violent yank pulled him backward. The back wall of the tent ripped open with a sickening shriek of nylon. In a fraction of a second Nick vanished into the black abyss of the forest. The only thing left behind was his heavy duty flashlight, rolling across the tent floor.

Julia shrieked, pressing herself into the corner of the tent, sobbing, " No! No, please just stop, please "

I felt my head snap toward her, my eyes forced wide and unblinking.

" The third one begs, and cries, but the watcher loves the sound of a voice that sounds like a bird caught in a trap."

"Stop it, Stop it! " Julia screamed covering her ears.

And then, the shadows inside the tent detached themselves from the corners. They didn't have eyes. They didn't have faces. They were just shapes of solid, absolute absence, sliding silently from the darkness beyond the trees.

I watched. A helpless passenger trapped inside my own skull, as one of the shadows enveloped Julia. Her screams cut off instantly, and then, just silence. All around me, just empty silence. The fire had died to a single, dull red ember. The tent was torn open to the freezing night air. I sat alone in the center of the ruin, my knees pulled to my chest, rocking slowly.

I felt my mouth twitch into a wide, stiff smile. And in the dark just outside the torn canvas, something shifted, leaning in close to whisper the ending of the story.

Hey everyone, I'm back.

It's been a few nights since my last post, and I figured I would come back to give you all an update.

Tonight’s shift started off rather mundane. Chris got into a fight with the vending machine, that damn wheelchair ran into a doctor’s leg when he was on the phone, and worse yet, I forgot my lunch box. Since the only vending machine we have was now out of order, I’d just have to make do with whatever place is open this ungodly late at night. Thanks again, Chris.

One of the patients in room 10 was…interesting. The man came in complaining of stomach pains and for a while we couldn’t figure out what was wrong. We ran test after test, and everything came back normal. Bloodwork didn’t show any anomalies, but he was persistent and visibly in a lot of pain. We asked the man what the last thing he ate before the symptoms started. He replied that the last thing he ate was sushi at a popular local restaurant the day prior. The doctor decided to eventually scope his stomach to see if we could find any visible issues.

When we were getting the man prepped, I could have sworn I felt something move under my hand as I was touching his stomach. It wasn’t like anything I had felt before, but I brushed it off as his GI tract was just in a battle with serious food poisoning. At the start of the scope everything was fine. His throat and esophagus all seemed normal and had no damage. When we got to the stomach, however, it became plainly apparent what the issue was.

The man had something growing in his stomach. It appeared as a ball of wriggling black tendrils that thrashed and lashed out at his stomach lining. None of us had ever seen this before and one other nurse fainted at the very sight of it. There were many lesions on the stomach lining like the ball of moving tendrils was trying to eat its way out of the stomach.

We started to push the camera closer to the mass and realized what we thought was one thing, was in fact, a ball of parasitic worm-like creatures. One of the slimy little beasts launched out from the mass and attacked the camera itself. The last image we saw was the creature’s circular mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth as it attacked the camera. We immediately called in the surgical team to try and remove the creatures. Later that night, one of the operating room nurses came back to tell me about the surgery.

She said that as they were opening up the man’s abdomen, the creatures started to react. As they got closer, the creatures started to attempt to leave the man’s stomach. Some tried to crawl back up the esophagus, while others attempted to enter the intestines. Once the OR team gained access to the man’s stomach, they grabbed one of the creatures with a pair of forceps and every one of the other creatures reacted as if they could sense what the one the doctor had grabbed was feeling. They apparently became even more violent and lashed out at anything that came anywhere near them. Eventually the team was able to extract all of the creatures and place them in a container. They apparently re-formed the ball and have been trying to eat their way out of the glass container ever since. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take for someone to come get them, but they have already damaged the container.

After that, a gruff, pot-bellied man in his 50s came in with his wrist wrapped in a big ice bag. The man claimed that he fell while chasing someone in a parking lot and thought he had broken his wrist. I tried to ask more questions to get information, but the man was hesitant to elaborate much.

“So, what happened, sir?” I asked.

“I fell,” he said flatly.

“Yes, but doing what?”

“Chasing that little bastard. I had tried to catch him before, but he keeps getting away.”

I was getting annoyed at the short, unhelpful answers when I asked, “Okay, who were you chasing and why were you chasing them?”

The man just paused for a minute as he looked up at me. “Richard.”

“Okay, but why were you chasing him?”

“It’s a long story.”

This type of question and answer continued for another 15 minutes, and truthfully, I didn’t get much more information. The man’s responses came with a strange combination of pride and embarrassment, so I decided to just leave it alone. Eventually, we took X-rays that confirmed he had fractured his wrist. He would need a cast and some pain medication but otherwise would be fine. When I handed the man his discharge paperwork, I wished him a speedy recovery. The man just grumbled something about Richard not getting away with it next time and walked out.

Speaking of people injuring themselves while running from something, we had another man come in last night with a similar story. His injuries were considerably worse, though. The man had two broken legs, a broken arm, and multiple bruises and cuts along his body.

The man was brought into the emergency room after claiming that “something” had been chasing him around his house. He said that while running away, he fell down some stairs. The issue was, the man claimed he lived in a one-story house. Part of me assumed the man was talking about the front porch stairs, but I couldn’t see how he could be this injured after a fall of only a foot or two. That’s when the man informed me that he didn’t fall outside. He said he was inside the house when it happened and that he fell down the stairs continuously for over 20 minutes.

After hearing this, I assumed the man had hit his head and was having issues with his recall. After all, there is no such thing as endless stairs. That’s when I began to ask more questions about who he was running from.

“Okay, sir. You said you were being chased. What were you being chased by?” I asked.

The man hesitated. I could see that whatever it was was an uncomfortable thing to talk about. “Just. Something,” he said.

“Can you give me more information than that? Like what it looked like? Was it an animal?”

“No. It was a figure. It doesn’t have a face. Just a black figure.”

“Do you know who it is?”

“Yes.”

“What is their name? I can have the police go to your house and make sure it’s safe.”

“No, no. I can’t. If I say his name, he’ll find me.”

I paused when the man said this and then began to check his pupils. I could tell the man was genuinely scared, but it was hard to tell how much of this was true, and how much of this was from an injury. He was insistent that he couldn’t tell me anymore though. The doctor decided to get a CT scan done to rule out any skull fractures and that came back normal. We gave the man some medicine to sedate him and let him sleep. After a few hours had gone by, the man began screaming at the top of his lungs. Chris and I shot up out of our seats and took off down the hall towards the man’s room. As we came around the corner, every light in the hallway suddenly went out.

Aside from the red glow of the emergency lighting, it was the darkest I had ever seen that hallway. After a couple of seconds, the man’s screaming stopped. As Chris and I continued towards his room, there was a brief moment when both of us saw a tall shadowy figure leaving the man’s room that disappeared in the blink of an eye. When we got to the room, the man was in shock and trying to climb out of bed.

He kept yelling, “He found me. He found me.”

It took a long time for the two of us to get the man calmed back down. His heart rate was through the roof, and it looked like he had started to claw and rip at his chest. We had a guard posted outside of the man’s room the rest of the night, but no one claimed to see anything else. When I came in to work tonight, the nurse claimed the man had an episode during the day, and his heart rate jumped over 200 beats per minute before it failed and he unfortunately passed away.

Another interesting pair of patients came in a couple of nights ago. A husband and wife, both in their late 50s, walked into the ER with their hands glued together. Yes, literally glued together. Apparently, the husband had been trying to repair a broken kitchen cabinet with superglue when the incident occurred. The problem was, neither of them could agree on how it happened.

“She grabbed my hand while I was working,” the husband insisted.

“Like hell I did! You grabbed mine with glue all over your fingers!” his wife snapped.

“Sir, ma’am, it doesn’t really matter how it happened. We just need to get you separated,” I interrupted.

The wife sighed. “We’ve been married thirty-two years, and this is the longest he’s held my hand in twenty.”

“And I’m already regretting it,” the husband muttered.

After a little work, we managed to separate their hands without causing any damage. I figured that would be the end of their argument, but apparently, I was wrong.

As they walked out, I heard the wife say, “Next time, I'm calling someone who actually knows how to fix things.”

“Next time, you can fix the damn thing yourself,” he replied.

I couldn't help but laugh. Thirty-two years of marriage, and apparently, neither of them had learned when to stop arguing.

That’s when Chris walked in with takeout bags in each hand. Since he had broken the vending machine earlier, he offered to go grab us some food. When he asked what I wanted, I told him just to grab whatever. At the time I was busy with the bickering couple and just wanted him to get something quick. Imagine my surprise when I opened the bag to find that Chris had gotten…sushi. I’m not sure if the police department would book me for assaulting someone over a California Roll, but I might have to roll the dice on this one. I think, after years of working together, I’m going to have to kill Chris.

I’m holding a hymn card with my name on it, and under my name there’s a date eleven weeks from today.

I got it at my own funeral. It was last month, in front of a hundred and forty people, and I was in the front pew with my husband’s hand over mine. I’m writing this from the kitchen floor with the lights off, because I’ve learned the church women who “stop by” don’t knock on the back door.

I’ll tell it in order, because I keep wanting to skip ahead to the part where I did something brave. I didn’t.

Daniel and I married in June, at Harrow Chapel, the church his family had attended for six generations. Small, white, a steeple you can see from the highway, a cemetery out back with a wrought-iron gate. Everyone said it was a beautiful wedding. His mother, Constance, wept openly. His aunts took turns holding my hands. The pastor said I was “an answer to a long prayer.”

I had no family to speak of. I should say that now, because it matters. My mother died when I was nineteen, my father was never in the picture, and I’d spent my twenties in rented rooms and temp jobs. When Daniel said, on our third date, “You don’t have to do life alone anymore,” I cried into my pasta. I mean it. I cried into the pasta.

The church took me in like a lost animal. Casseroles. Cards. A woman named Opal who came by every Tuesday to “check on me” and brought lemon bars wrapped in wax paper. For the first time in my adult life I had people who noticed whether I’d eaten.

The first week of our marriage, Constance sat me down in her parlor and explained the one custom.

“It’s called a preparation service,” she said. “Every bride has one in her first month. It’s very old, very tender. We gather the congregation, we read her name, and we sing for her. So she knows she belongs to us all the way through.” She touched my knee. “To the very end.”

I said it sounded lovely.

I’d been warmly instructed not to ask questions that might spoil a gift.

The service was on a Sunday afternoon in July.

The sanctuary was full. Every pew, standing room at the back. Everyone in black. I’d been told to wear white, and I walked down the aisle in my wedding dress, and I remember the sound of a hundred and forty people not breathing.

At the front of the church, below the pulpit, stood a casket.

Plain pale wood. Lid open. Lined with ivory silk, with a small pillow at one end. It was empty, with a spray of white lilies across the foot.

I stopped walking. Daniel’s hand closed gently around my elbow.

“It’s symbolic,” he whispered. “It’s just so you can hear it. Just once.”

The pastor stood at the pulpit with his hands folded, and he said my name, my full name, the one I haven’t used since I signed the marriage license. A hymn began, soft and unfamiliar, an organ and a chorus of low voices that all seemed to know exactly where to breathe. They sang about the quiet house and the long rest and the one who is called home.

The women of the church had come forward in a line. One by one they stopped at the casket, laid a flower inside, and touched my arm. Opal went last. Her face was wet, and her smile was not sorry. It was grateful.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “We’re so thankful for you, dear.”

Then the pastor read from a card, and the congregation answered in one voice, and I can only tell you it sounded like a promise being kept.

When it was over, an usher pressed a stiff cream card into my hands, a printed hymn card like they hand out at real funerals. Gold border, a dove. My name, in elegant script. Underneath it, in smaller type:

Called Home: October 19.

I read it three times.

“It’s a date of remembrance,” Daniel said, smiling at my face. “Every bride has one. It’s tradition.”

I looked at the casket, still open at the front of the church, and the lilies on its foot. And I did what I’m best at.

I smiled back and put the card in my purse.

I don’t know what I thought it meant. I think I made myself not think. We went on our honeymoon, a week by the lake, and I told myself it was a quaint, morbid, old-world custom, the way some families sprinkle salt over a threshold. I told myself I was being sensitive.

But I noticed things.

Opal stopped bringing lemon bars and started bringing meals, full meals, hot and heavy, in dishes with lids. “You need your strength,” she said. Constance began asking how I was sleeping, how I was feeling, every day, tilting her head, as if I were something delicate she’d paid too much for. People at church began to look at me the way you look at a house you’re not allowed to buy.

Daniel started speaking about me in the past tense.

At first I thought I’d misheard. He’d say, “She was so easy to love,” to his cousin in the driveway, and I’d be standing right behind him with the groceries. He’d stop mid-sentence when I walked in. Once I heard him on the phone in his study. “She’s been very sweet about it,” he said. “Honestly. I think she’s made her peace.”

I hadn’t made anything.

I want you to know I asked him. I stood in the kitchen with the hymn card on the counter between us, and I asked what the date meant.

He took my hand and said, “It’s the day we’ll all be together to celebrate you.”

“Celebrate me?”

“It’s an honor,” he said. “It really is. You’ll see.”

I let him kiss my forehead. I let him change the subject. I let the casserole go cold on the table.

That’s the thing I’d tell you, if you’d listen. The terrible part isn’t what they do to you. It’s how many times you decide not to understand.

It was the hymn that finally broke me.

The women hum it in the church kitchen. They hum it while they wash the plates and fold the linens, and they hum it differently depending on who’s in the room. When I’m there, it’s the soft version, tender and slow. But one Sunday in August I came in from the back door, and Opal and two of the other women didn’t hear me, and they were singing it fast. Bright, bouncing, almost giddy. Like a work song.

And Opal said, to no one, “Eleven weeks and we’ll have the roof done.”

The roof. The new slate roof the church had been raising money for for two years, which had been “miraculously funded” the week after my wedding.

I stood in the doorway and listened to three women count down the weeks until my date, with joy.

That night I went through Daniel’s study while he slept. I found a folder under a stack of church ledgers. Inside was a life insurance policy, in my name, bought the month we met. The beneficiary was Harrow Chapel Endowment, Inc. The policy had a rider I’d never been told about, with a date typed into it.

October 19.

Behind it were nine more.

Nine policies, nine names, nine dates, going back to 1971. Each bride, each endowment, each year a little more money. They were stapled with a small printed card: gold border, a dove, a name, Called Home.

The last card in the folder belonged to a woman named Marian Voss.

Her date was eleven months ago.

I found her grave on a Tuesday.

I told Daniel I was going to visit my mother’s headstone, which wasn’t a lie in the way that matters. I drove to Harrow, and I parked behind the church, and I walked through the cemetery gate in the afternoon light.

It’s a neat little graveyard. Old stones to the east, newer ones in the west corner. And in the far back, by the fence, a row of nine stones, all the same size, all of the same white marble. Each had a woman’s name carved into it, and a single date.

Not a birth date. Just the date she’d been called home.

The most recent stone said Marian Voss. The grass in front of it was still raw. The earth had settled in a long shallow trough.

Beside it, one plot over, the grass had been cut neatly and edged. There was a small wooden stake in the ground with a laminated card pinned to it.

My name.

I stood there for a very long time. I don’t know how long. The light moved. A crow settled on the fence and watched me with a calm I’ll never forget.

Then I heard it.

It was small. It came from the ground in front of Marian’s stone. A faint, rhythmic tap. Tap, tap, tap-tap. Then silence. Then again.

I knelt. I put my hand flat on the cold dirt, and I felt it under my palm, three inches down or three feet, I couldn’t tell. A small, patient knocking, like a woman who has stopped expecting a reply but keeps knocking anyway because she doesn’t know how to stop.

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap.

I knew the rhythm. I’d been hearing it for weeks, every time Opal hummed.

It was the hymn. Marian was tapping the hymn.

I didn’t scream. I want to be honest about that, because I think about it every night. I didn’t dig. I didn’t run for the church, or the road, or my phone. I knelt there with my hand on her grave while the knocking went on, patient, rhythmic, gentle, and a quiet voice in my head said, very calmly:

If you dig her up, they’ll know you know.

If they know you know, they won’t wait for October.

I took my hand off the dirt.

I stood up. I brushed off my knees. I walked back through the iron gate, and I got into my car, and I drove home. I made dinner. I set the table for two.

Daniel came in and kissed my cheek and said, “You look pale. Everything okay?”

“Fine,” I said. “Just tired.”

I think the knocking was still in my hand.

I’ve tried to leave. I’ll tell you that, too.

I packed a bag on Thursday. I put it by the back door. On Friday morning the bag was in the hall closet, and the closet was locked, and Daniel stood in the kitchen making coffee and said, “Where were you going, sweetheart?”

He wasn’t angry. His voice was kind. It was the kindest voice I’ve ever heard.

“You’re not needed until October,” he said. “There’s no reason to be frightened. It’s only a day.”

I asked him if he’d known the first time. I asked if he’d known when he took my hand at that restaurant and said I didn’t have to do life alone.

He thought about it. I’ll give him that. He actually thought.

“I think you were always going to be very loved,” he said. “I think that’s the best anyone gets.”

I don’t think he understands what he said. I think that’s the worst part.

It’s eleven weeks, now ten and a half.

Church ladies come by every day. They bring food. They sit with me in the parlor and tell me stories about the brides who came before, in warm, reverent voices, and I smile and nod and thank them for their kindness. Opal brought a new hymn card yesterday. A fresh one. Called Home: October 19. She laid it on the kitchen table beside the first and said, very softly, “In case you lose one, dear.”

I haven’t told anyone what I heard in the cemetery. I haven’t gone back.

But every Sunday now, in the pew, in the white dress they ask me to wear, I hear the congregation sing, and underneath it, very faint, I hear the knocking. I think it comes up through the floor. I think it comes up through the foundation of the whole church.

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap.

And last Sunday, for the first time, I noticed that I was humming along.

Not on purpose. My mouth was just doing it. I looked up and saw Constance watching me from the front pew with tears in her eyes and her whole face glowing, and she mouthed one word, so gently I almost didn’t catch it.

Ready.

I’m not.

I’m not, I’m not, I’m not.

But my hand is already tapping on the kitchen floor, in the dark, in the rhythm of the song. And I can’t tell, anymore, if I’m the one doing it.

Or if somebody is answering.

Tenho um canal de terror de Creepypastas e histórias de terror. O canal se chama PangaCreepy e está começando agora. Se puder vou deixar o link do meu vídeo novo. São contos de halloween, já tem uns 20 vídeos no canal então se gostarem convido a assistir todos, são histórias bem legais, inclusive a maioria são daqui do Reddit mesmo .

https://youtu.be/B5hmfsGN7MM?is=hNK2V8fByjTkzONz

Hi, I made a horror anthology with 5 short stories and I am trying to share it to everyone. It is on Wattpad and it is for free.

https://www.wattpad.com/story/417000517-the-beast

 

Erin, my eleven-year-old daughter was acting like a big goofball. Usually she was more guarded around me. It was nice to see her get this way. We were playing dominoes at the dinner table and her giggles were so uncontrollable she could barely breathe. She was definitely overtired.

 

I was trying to get my life back together and reconnect with her, so I had rented this cabin up in northern Minnesota. It was advertised to be on a lake, but it turned out to be more of a swamp, which I guess is why it was so cheap.

I gave a pronounced yawn and told Erin it was time to hit the hay.

 

“One more round, Dad. Pleeeeeeez,” she said.

 

I rubbed at the stubborn lump in my neck, created from holding my phone in a particular fashion while driving – just above my knee, well out of sight of a cop’s prying eyes. I’ve lucked out twice in the last six months with just a warning for inattentive driving. I know it’s stupid risking so much. There’s nothing special on social media. Old friends and boomer memes. And, jesus, if a pig ever started snooping around in my trunk…

 

I looked at the dominoes scattered on the table. It used to be empty beers and loaded ash trays on a table like this at an hour like this, once upon a time, when good times mattered more than a stable income the Post Office provided me now.

 

“The last game took half an hour. You can’t even sit still you’re laughing so much.” I looked at the clock again. “Nothing’s even funny.”

 

“I don’t even have a train,” Erin said, mimicking my voice and bursting into another fit of laughter. Her braces still had hotdog bun smushed in them.

 

My face turned red. A disciplinarian I am not.

 

“Bedtime, for real.”

 

That’s when we heard the driveway gravel crackle under an approaching car. Erin’s laughter tapered off as she noticed headlights roll across the wood paneled ceiling.

 

“Who could that be?” she said. “Dad?” Her eyes grew wider, searching for her father to reassure her.

 

“It’s fine. Probably just lost,” I said. But something felt wrong. This was the only cabin around for at least a couple of miles. I stood up and touched my jean pocket where my phone should be. A sad reflex instinctively made in moments of anxiety. But of course, it wasn’t in my pocket. Erin, already sly to my tactics, made me promise to leave it in the car, so I had slipped it inside a sock and locked it away in the trunk.

Also in the trunk: my handgun.

 

“Maybe it’s Mom,” Erin said.

 

“Stay there.” I tried to peek out the window but all I could see was my silky reflection as the ceiling color turned parking-light red.

 

I watched my image stretch across the old tube TV screen as I moved to the entry. The acrid taste of lighter fluid and hotdogs stuck in my throat. I couldn’t even get the damn charcoal burning, and we’d ended up microwaving the s’mores.

 

My senses were on full alert. I put my ear against the door. Something was telling me to keep it shut and not confront whoever was outside. I heard a car door swing open. A mechanical dinging mingled with the crickets and toads. A foot crunched the gravel, then the other, and then the machine noises from the car ceased as the door shut. The steps were casual and unhurried moving toward the rental cabin.

 

I checked the door handle. It was unlocked. Why wouldn’t it be? I looked back at Erin. She was sitting perched on the chair with her knees at her chin. I reached for the bolt lock and turned it as quietly as possible. I looked back again and tried to reassure Erin with a queasy smile.

 

Knocks cut through the cabin in rapid succession. They had an arrhythmic, polite nature to them.

 

“Daniel? Daniel Melody? I know you’re in there,” a forceful woman’s voice said. Certainly not Erin’s mother. The voice was older, prim and curt, harkening an old-fashioned school teacher, the kind who slapped knuckles with a ruler. I felt like a child in trouble. And she knew my name.

 

My mouth was so dry nothing came out when I first opened it. She knocked again, more persistent this time.

 

“Daniel. It’s very important we talk. Please open up.”

 

I cleared my throat. “Who’s there?”

 

“My name is Jane Pendergrass. You know my son, Timothy.”

 

“I’m… sorry, I don’t know a Timothy.”

 

“Oh yes you do. Timmy… Timmy knows you.”

 

“Timmy? I—”

 

“Yes, you must. It’s Jane, his mother. I’ve since taken on my maiden name. But James, Timothy James. I’d pick him up from sleepovers at your parents because of his panic attacks. Remember Mrs. James? I’m his mother. May I come in now?”

 

My brain did an Indy 500 down memory lane and slammed into the white brick walls of North Star Elementary. In second grade Timmy had arrived a month after school started. At recess he approached me and told obvious lies about how rich his dad was. I liked how fast Timmy talked. That day, we made up a game called Fire Square, a combination of dodgeball and foursquare that the recess monitors did not appreciate one bit.

 

“Tim Jim? Ms. Trickey’s class?” I muttered. My vision was pulsating, making the chrome doorknob shimmer. My ears burned. It was just too much to contemplate.

 

“Yes, that’s correct.”

 

 “Mrs. James? But how…”

 

“Daniel, I’ve driven a long way and I have a dreadful fear of moths. Could you please let me in?”

 

I watched my hand unlatch the bronze bolt lock I’d latched moments ago and open swung the door. There stood a woman in her mid-sixties wearing a black-laced bonnet, impressing hints of puritanical strength. Her presence made me want to run to my car – for which item – I wasn’t sure. The floodlight above the door cast an austere shadow over the woman’s face while little bugs swam above her head. It was indeed Timmy’s mother: older, but still solidly built.

 

“Moths are attracted to fear.” She entered and embraced me like a lost-and-then-found child, slamming the door shut behind her with a flick of her foot. Her hands slid up my back and squished me into her ample bosom. I, unsure of what the hell was going on, brought my hand up and patted her on the back.

 

She didn’t let go. She kept me in her embrace and rocked side to side. Her face rested against my ear and I heard her breathe in the cedary mildew of the rental cabin. “Lovely,” she whispered. Her words tumbled down my neck, making my knotted muscle vibrate. Finally, she released me and then smiled at Erin, who was still perched on a chair with knees inside of her Dr. Who nightie. “Yours?” she asked me.

 

“How did you… er, I’m sorry, yes, I’m just a little confused. Erin this is Mrs. James. She was like my second mother in elementary school.” I watched as Jane Pendergrass rubbed her sneakers against the welcome mat like a bull. She seemed healthy enough but there was errant cord of snot under her nose that made me involuntarily pinch my own nostrils.

 

Why are you here? I kept thinking, but those words redirected to other thoughts. I remembered the news about Timmy. Years ago someone had posted from his account that he had died. I remember it elicited nothing more than a that’s sad before scrolling on. I hadn’t talked to him in like twenty years except for that awkward chat you have after an old elementary friend finds you on one of the apps. “I heard about Timmy. How are you?”

 

She closed her eyes gently and shook her head. “Thank you, dear. I’m doing okay. Time has shown me things.”

 

“Come in.” I opened my arm, obliged by decorum, directing her to the kitchen table. It was strange how good manners seemed to eclipse all the alarm bells ringing in my head. It felt like there was white noise in my brain. Was it just the bizarreness of the situation?

 

“Hello, Erin. My name is Jane Pendergrass.” She glid past me toward my daughter. Her rank potpourri wafted into my nose, like flowers at a funeral home. “And I have a very good reason for breaking up your little party. My son Timothy and your father were great friends in elementary, before we had to go away.” She looked back at me with a knowing glance. “Has he contacted you lately, Daniel?”

 

I cocked my eyebrow and tapped at my pocket. “We were just playing dominoes. Is everything okay? I’m sorry, were you trying to get a hold of me? I don’t have my phone. I left it—”

 

“Oh, Mexican Train!” Jane Pendergrass exclaimed. She put her fists on her hips, taking account of the messy table. “Name’s a tad racist, don’t you think? But that’s what people call it. Let’s play a round. We must.”

 

Jane plopped down next to Erin, right where I had been sitting.

 

“Well, it’s getting pretty late,” I said.

 

“Nonsense. One quick round. My son hasn’t supplied me with any grandchildren. Don’t you deprive me of that pleasure too.” She began to flip the dominoes face down and looked at Erin. “You don’t mind, do you?”

 

Erin shook her head. She seemed confused, but no longer afraid. Plus, whatever it was that was going on allowed her to stay up later, so she started to help flip over the tiles too. Jane Pendergrass pointed to the chair opposite her and then I was sitting there.

 

“What a blessing you must be. So beautiful.” Jane grabbed Erin’s chin with her thumb and forefinger, inspecting her. “Let’s be famous friends, you and I dear.”

 

“Okay,” Erin said. Her smile became less sure at the force of Jane’s two fingers holding her face in place.

 

“Mrs. James,” I interjected.

 

“Pendergrass.”

 

“Sorry. Is everything okay? We were just about to—”

 

Jane Pendergrass finally dropped her hand from Erin’s chin and with snake-like speed, grabbed Erin’s wrist. My mouth dropped open, half impressed, half frightened at the force of her movement.

 

“Could I trouble you, Erin?” Jane made tiny, fluttering blinks. “Do you have any diet coke?”

There was a brief pause as Erin waited for me say something, but again, my voice failed me as my mind churned for the right words.

 

“Uh, I think I saw one,” Erin said.

 

“Wonderful, that’s a good child.”

 

Erin kept her eyes on me as she made to the fridge, rubbing her wrist.

 

“So, what do we owe the pleasure, Mrs. James?” I tried again. A dark sensation tickled at the base of my heart as I spoke, a question: would I truly have the physical strength to overcome this woman, if need be? Something about her presence made me feel weak. “This is just very bizarre. No offense.”

 

“Pendergrass, not James.” Her grey eyes flashed and she lowered her tone. “And you’ve cracked the case. I’m not here to just play dominoes.”

 

I looked at Jane Pendergrass through the centerpiece bouquet of dried bulrushes and pussy willow stalks.

 

Erin moseyed back and set down the can of diet coke. Jane tut-tutted while letting out an enormous, tired sigh. “I’m so sorry, dear. I really can’t without ice. You do have some, don’t you?”

 

“We didn’t bring any,” I said.

 

“I saw a tray.” Erin then went back to the old bisque Frigidaire.

 

Jane faced me and sandwiched her hands around mine. Her touch was hot against my cold fingers.

 

“How have you been, Daniel? It’s been so long.”

 

“I’ve been—” I coughed and watched my daughter grab a glass and clink some cubes into it. Anything that kept my gaze from the woman sitting across from me. “Good. I’ve been well. But just how… how did you know where—”

 

“How did I find you?” Jane Pendergrass said as Erin set the glass of ice down. She smiled politely and shooed Erin to her seat with a friendly hand motion. She cracked open the diet coke and poured it into the cup with a sizzle. She tipped her head back and gulped and gulped… and gulped, until it was all gone. “Ahhh… much better.” She hiccupped then opened her mouth. Nothing happened. I waited and was just about to ask if she was okay, but just before I did, she let out a long, hissing burp. She excused herself and dabbed at her mouth with a ketchup-stained napkin from the table. I noticed again, that red tendril from her nose, clinging to her wet upper lip, damp and glistening. “Timothy led me to you, Daniel.”

 

Me and Timmy were pretty much inseparable after he arrived in second grade up until fourth grade when didn’t invite me to his birthday party. Then he abruptly moved away not long after.

 

“Timothy?” I whispered.

 

“Timothy.”

 

“Led you… to me?”

 

“Correct.”

 

A harsh ringing in my left ear flooded in. I could feel the change of pressure in the room. This woman was not sane and I had let her in. “Erin, I think it’s actually bedtime,” I said. But when I turned to look at my daughter she was already asleep, mouth agape, face on the table, with Jane Pendergrass petting her hand.

 

“Such a beautiful girl,” she said. “I didn’t realize the time. She shouldn’t be up at this hour.”

 

“What did you do?”

 

“She’s sleeping.” Jane Pendergrass conjured up a vaporous smile and her eyes misted over, like she was gazing at someone out beyond the marshy swamp. I found myself staring at that thing in her nostril. It looked like the start of a bloody nose, an anxious and incomplete drip. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was alive, like a mealworm trying to burrow further in.

 

Jane started to mix the dominoes around on the table, clacking them together. She had red nails and several gaudy rings, the kind aggressive vendors near Florida retirement communities would sell on the beach.

 

“Fifteen,” she said.

 

“Fifteen?”

 

“Fifteen dominoes, Daniel. Don’t let me see them.”

 

I took fifteen dominoes from the table, paused, then shook my head; the absurdity of her visit kept coming in waves, and it had just washed over me again.

 

“I don’t know how you found me but—”

 

“It was Timothy, Daniel.” She knocked the table twice with an amethyst ring. “He told me exactly where I could find you. Or guided me, rather. Oh look, I have the double twelve. I go first.” She laid the domino gently on the mottled wood. “And can you believe it? I don’t have another twelve to satisfy it. I’ll have to draw one from the boneyard. I love that term. So spooky.” She rubbed her hands together. “Do you know why they call it the boneyard?”

 

“Because they used to make dominoes from bones,” I said.

 

Jane clicked her tongue, impressed with my answer, and drew a domino from the boneyard. She squinted at it and smiled. “My lucky day.” She dragged the domino over the pine tabletop and snapped it down. “Let’s make a bet,” she said as that toothy smile spread across her face.

 

“What?”

 

“A wager, Daniel.” She leaned in and looked long into my eyes — I shifted in my seat and did what I could to hold her gaze — her voice was low. “I’m tired Daniel. I’m ready to go.” She then perked up, lifting me from her trance. “So if you win, I will give you my inheritance.”

 

I choked on my own spit. “What?”

 

“You remember Mr. James, my Husband Hank? He passed and left me with a decent amount. Run over by a Wal-Mart semi. True to my blue, even after the enhancement, there’s still over six million.” She raised her palm and put her other hand over her heart.

 

“Come on.” I nervously laughed. Six million. Timmy was never well off. Even to a seven-year-old, it didn’t take long to discover Timmy’s dad wasn’t rich at all, contrary to his bragging. Timmy would always come over to play my videogames, making up some story about how his system was getting repaired or something.

 

“Just one round of Mexican Train, if you win. If you help,” Jane Pendergrass said.

 

“Help?”

 

“Well, I’ll need help with the dying. Your help.”

 

“Wh— this is ridiculous.” I didn’t like what she was getting at.

 

Jane Pendergrass rapped her red nails against the table, waiting for me to reply.

 

“I… I don’t gamble.” I pinched the top of my nose; I’m told I do that when I lie. “No. In fact, I think it’s time you—”

 

“Live a little.” The intensity of Jane Pendergrass’s gaze lightened and added a bit a mischief. “I’m a sucker for video poker. Just the nickel ones. For a while after Hank passed, I couldn’t seem to find much to do with myself but chip away at the settlement money while searching for Timothy’s…” She lifted her head as if fondly recalling a good moment. “It’s funny how handsome boys just like you can sniff out desperate rich women at casinos. Oh don’t worry, I can handle myself, and I can still have fun.” She winked, long and pronounced. I blushed.

 

“I’m sorry to hear about Mr. James,” I said, as a reflex. But my mind was still on the offer, the six million. What was she after? I touched my pocket.

 

“Oh don’t be. Henry loved his vodka. Never crossed the line, but he rode it all the way.” She shared a tart smile with me. “Daniel, don’t you want to know what happens if you lose the wager?”

 

A part of me, a crass part, wanted to talk turkey, the logistics of how a bet like this would even work, but even acknowledging it… it was unacceptable.

 

“I don’t like this bet,” I said in a dry rasp. I started to feel a burst of rage come over me. Was I being tricked? “Is this why you came here? Why don’t you go find one of those boys at the casino to help you. I’m sorry about Timmy. I’m sorry about everything, but—”

 

“If you lose, Daniel,” Jane Pendergrass’s voice cut in, cold as steel, “let’s just say Timothy needs a friend and someone is going to join him tonight.” I thought I caught her eyes dart to my daughter.

 

My mouth fell agape. “Wha-what did you say?”

 

“And I’ll be getting that gun hiding in your trunk. That part is non-negotiable.”

 

I felt the color leave my body all the way to my feet. The sweat between my toes was slick as wet fur. I looked at the microwave. Time melted. I felt dizzy.

 

“How do you…” I croaked out in a dry rasp. My mind was hopping from one option to another. How? How? As logical answers became more and more farfetched, my anger increased. “You been following me?”

 

“You are your father’s child.” She gave me a pitying look. “So explosive, even back then. I was shocked the first time I witnessed it. You’d never expect it, you always seemed such a mellow boy. I’m not saying you were bad. Far from it, dear. But I remember one summer night Timothy came biking home crying. Said you kicked him out of your house for drinking the last of your milk. Are you still oddly possessive over silly things? I hope not.”

 

“Timmy,” I muttered to myself. I didn’t recall that specific event, but I have always been protective of my stuff. Her story was probably true. Some version of it. The more I had become aware Timmy didn’t have as much as me, the stingier I got.

 

Jane played another domino. She looked at me again. “He joined the Marines after high school, did you know? Thought it would do him good. You know how boys are.”

 

I thought back to Timmy’s pale, freckled face, always striving to fit in, failing to contain all that mischief. “Discipline,” I mumbled as an afterthought with a bad taste.

 

“He joined back in what, ’05? Sent him straight to Afghanistan. He still speaks kindly of you.”

 

I frowned and shut my eyes. Not looking at her made it easier to think. “Mrs. Ja— Pendergrass, what do you mean still?”

 

“And we missed you at the funeral, dear.”

 

“I… I didn’t know until after.” I pinched at my nose again.

 

I opened my eyes again. That vein dangling from her nostril, she was stroking it. Then as if noticing me, the tendril recoiled. Jane Pendergrass quivered; her eyes rolled up, revealing the whites lined with blood-red lightning and dark splotches.

 

“I hear your feelings, Daniel. You’re angry, but not at me.” Her eyes lifted to mine. “Dr. Chen says it’s just another muscle. How I talk to Timothy. The more I use it, the more it will grow.” She tilted her head back and massaged her nose. She let out a soft moan. “There it is.”

 

The tendon from her nose reemerged, more pronounced, dark, red, damp. It looked like a thin root pulled from the garden – tiny little capillaries branching from it, almost breathing.

 

I struggled against my chair. It felt like if I didn’t hold onto it I would float away. I just wanted her gone. “I think… I think maybe you should leave,” I croaked.

 

“Help me, Daniel.” Jane Pendergrass stroked at the tendril, straightening it. After each stroke, it curled back.

 

“Please, Mrs. Pendergrass. Please just—”

 

“You want assurances about the money, but you’re afraid to ask. Too uncouth to talk about such matters. You want to know if it would be murder. You want to know if it would be worth the risk.”

 

I brought my hand to my face. I don’t know if I was trying to hide my vision or repress a scream. “Why would you want…” I couldn’t finish the thought.

 

“I’ll show you my bank account. I assure you, I’m not in debt. I don’t owe the mob or anything like that. We’re going to get that gun back. I’ll hold it but I’ll let you do it. I don’t think I can do it on my own.”

 

I closed my eyes and thought about my own credit card debt. I thought about the child support payments crippling me from ever getting ahead. I thought about that shitty family lawyer I was still making payments to. I thought about the promise I’d made to Erin, that I’d take her to Disney World. Was she even into Disney anymore?

 

“Why? Why me?” I whispered.

 

“Timothy insisted. It’s fate, Daniel. Quite funny actually.” She waved her hands in front of her face, as if to lift a haze from the air. It was odd. I felt much more at ease after she did that. Jane Pendergrass quietly set down another Domino down and talked without looking up. “He’s not mad at you, you know.”

 

“Mad? At me? Timmy? You’re the ones who disappeared.”

 

She looked at me with such an overly sympathetic look, I felt embarrassed. “Oh my sweet, sweet dear. They never told…”

 

“What?” I sneered.

 

“Your son-of-a-bitch parents.” Jane showed her copious white teeth.

 

“What the hell are you talking about?”

 

“You don’t know why we moved. Why they took my Timothy.”

 

“Who took Timmy?”

 

“The billionaire pedophiles. The government. The leaches that prey on the poor.”

 

“You left in the middle of fourth grade…” I said. I racked my brain for a memory.

 

Jane cupped my hands. Her thumbs pressed into my palms, the tips of her chipped red nails digging into my flesh.

 

“My husband Henry. Sweet, stupid Henry. Always borrowing money. Entrepreneur ‘til the end. Believed his best ideas were written on a bar napkin. Problem was he always seemed to lose the napkin. When we lived in Gardendale it was a telescope shop of all things. Remember it? It didn’t pan out. Nothing ever did… and your father kicked us out.”

 

“What do you mean he kicked you out? What’s my father got to do with it?”

 

“I suppose you were young. Why would he tell you? We were renting from your father, Daniel. It was your parents’ property we lived on. It was the middle of the school year. Tough finding a place with an eviction on your record. I remember your mother specifically telling Hank how she thought a telescope shop was a wonderful idea. But she was silent when we begged your father for one more month. For the sake of our children’s friendship. I’m sure you know your father better than I. How he responded. You can guess. Everything kind of spiraled after that. Not long after we lost Timothy to foster care… for nine long months. Fought like hell to get him back. Once you’re in that system…” She shook her head.

 

“I…” I reached for my absent phone. This was all news to me. I knew my parents owned some townhomes but I didn’t know Timmy lived in one. 

 

“We really liked that school. What was it? Northview?”

 

“North Star.”

 

“That’s it. We had already moved twice before, but Timothy was younger then. We were finally starting to plant some roots in Gardendale. Getting forced to relocate changed my son. I know it did. He had trust issues after that. Got bullied. We ended up in Detroit. A school so poor they had no soap in the bathrooms. It was prison or the military they told him, right out. Vultures. They took him. First his mind. Then…” Jane Pendergrass squeezed her eyes shut and dug her nails deeper into my palms. It hurt but I didn’t say anything. “In a way, it was your father who sentenced my Timmy to his death. Oh goodness. Didn’t you ever wonder why you weren’t invited to his birthday?”

 

I remembered sitting in the backseat of my dad’s van, the van with the ram’s head hood-ornament with eyes that glowed red. I was nine and going to the orchestra with my parents. But I didn’t like the orchestra. I was sobbing, even though I didn’t feel like crying a few moments ago; it had just flowed out of me when I had asked why. Why couldn’t I go to the birthday sleepover at Timmy’s house?

 

“I remember.”

 

“He doesn’t blame you anymore. For any of it.”

 

“I didn’t know,” I whispered. I looked at Erin breathing peacefully.

 

“As far as I’m concerned, your father is the reason Timothy…” Jane Pendergrass’s nails went even deeper into my palms then stopped and began massaging the indents she had made. “But that’s not what Timothy would want. I can see why they wouldn’t tell you. You need to protect your children. How old is she?” She pointed to Erin with her eyes.

 

“She’s… she’s eleven.”

 

“Cherish it. It goes by.” She raised her eyebrows.

 

“I know. I will. I do.”

 

“Promise me. Even the bad.” Her face grew so solemn I felt threatened by it.

 

“I will.” I pulled my hands from hers and touched my nose. It began to itch where Jane had been pressing my palms.

 

“Look at me… in the eye.”

 

I struggled to look at Jane Pendergrass. Staring into her eyes felt like drowning in mud. The tripe from her nose swayed slowly, grasping at air.

 

“Cherish it,” she said. “Especially the difficult moments. Those stay with you longer.”

 

“I will,” I whispered, tears filling up in my eyes.

 

“No!” She pounded the table, knocking over some dominoes. Erin’s slumber barely stirred.

 

“Please… you’re going to scare my daughter… please.” I tried to be firm but I felt nothing but feeble before this woman.

 

She wagged a violent finger at me. “You don’t know how to cherish. You don’t know the meaning. Not until you lose someone. Not until someone is taken from you.”

 

“Please…” I begged.

 

Jane Pendergrass untightened her fist and straightened her stiff white collar. “Say her name, Daniel.”

 

“Erin.”

 

“What do you cherish about Erin?”

 

I let out a strained breath. I looked at the table and straightened a domino. “She’s… smart,” I said.

 

“Smart?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“And you cherish that?”

 

“Yeah.” My voice quavered.

 

“Do you live for her, or for yourself?”

 

“W-what?”

 

“It’s not a trick question, Daniel.”

 

“I-I don’t know what you mean.”

 

“Well, I suppose that’s enough of an answer.”

 

“No, no… I do.” I said, afraid of giving the wrong answer. Jane Pendergrass seemed to grow larger in her seat.

 

“Wrong. You must live for yourself.” Jane started to fan herself with her hand, lifting her chin, revealing deep creases in her neck. “Muggy. Is there any more of that soda-pop in the fridge? Oh never mind. Look at me, Daniel. On the airplanes, they say put the oxygen mask on yourself before you put them on your children. It’s because if you can’t breathe you can’t help them.”

 

She lifted her cup and slid the ice-slurry into the chasm between her caked lips and crunched on a soft piece of ice. “I lived my life for my Timothy. When he left us… when…” She tilted her head back and put the seeping glass on her neck. “I lived my life for my two men. My boys. Better and worse. What was left for me? What to live for…”

 

I felt my adam’s apple drop into my chest as I swallowed. Jane nodded. I gained a fleeting moment of resoluteness about wrapping up this surreal session. But as soon as I looked at Jane’s face I felt my resolve deflate like air out of a balloon. She had her own gravity and I couldn’t help but get pulled back into it.

 

“I’m glad you spend time with your daughter. Timothy used to share so much with me when he was little. It’s important, especially for daughters, to have that trust, to share,” she said. “You aren’t with the mother?” I shook my head and Jane Pendergrass sighed. “It’s an all-too-common tragedy. I used to blame the feminists, really. I felt all this pressure on me, as if I was the bad guy just for wanting to stay home and take care of my family, like I wasn’t a real woman if I didn’t go and get a job. Now, I see what they were getting at. It wasn’t my life I was living. Modern men. You’re so empty inside. Purposeless. That’s the problem. I was feeding two hollow men. Still am, I suppose.” She chuckled at some kind of sick joke. “How often do you see her?”

 

“Every w—” my nose tickled, “every other weekend.” The drawn-out court proceedings. The accusations Erin’s mother had made against me… I don’t know if I will ever forgive. Drug dealer. Addict. I beat all the piss tests and social workers the court threw at me, out of love for my daughter or spite for her mother, I’m still not sure. I’ve kept this damn job at the Post Office. “I wish it was more,” I whispered.

 

“Do you? You don’t miss your carefree good ol’ days?” Jane Pendergrass stared at me, scanning my face for any betrayal. Eventually, finally, she eased her gaze, seemingly satisfied. I let out a breath of relief, believing I somehow passed an unknown test.

 

“Timothy and I used to sit around the table before Henry came home and talk and snack. Blue chips and salsa. That was his favorite. Of course, he never ate his dinner and that always upset Henry. I remember when Timothy told me about that time at recess with the frog.”

 

“Frog?”

 

“Or toad, doesn’t matter.”

 

“I don’t remember.”

 

“Oh, of course you do. It was you and Timothy, and Clayton Hull and that Albert boy.”

 

“Oh…”

 

“It was when they were redoing the playground, so there was that big mound of dirt that no one was supposed to play on. Of course, try telling that to a group of third grade boys. He said you found a really large toad. I’m sure Timothy was exaggerating, but he said it was bigger than a bagel. Isn’t that funny? He said bagel. And that Albert boy. He told me Albert kept running to the top of the dirt hill and tossing that toad as high into the sky as he could. And you boys would go find it. And no matter how high he tossed it, and how hard it splatted, that frog didn’t die. Timothy said it was you who put a stop to it. And I told him, that Daniel Melody sounds like a nice boy. And here I am talking to you, all these years later. And you still seem like a nice boy.”

 

I had no recollection of that story. I looked at Jane Pendergrass. Her mascara was smudged into damp chunks under her eyes.

 

“What are you doing here, Mrs. Pendergrass?”

 

She diminished in size before my eyes, pinching at her forehead before regaining composure.

 

“I came here… I’ve been so angry. I just wanted to see. Timothy said he wasn’t mad at you. He told me not to be mad. They said the Marines would do him good. Straighten him out. What they don’t like to admit is that these kids already want to die before they enlist. You have to be, right? That’s why it’s such a problem.” She flicked at a domino, spinning it. “Most men, when they’re committed to it, they take their lives with a bullet to the head.” She pressed her forefinger to her temple. “But with military men, it’s different…” She made a fist and tapped at her chest. “Right here. Do you know why that is? Why the heart?” She looked at me.

 

I shook my head. I mouthed no but no sound escaped.

 

“It’s where they want it to stop hurting.”

 

All this information sloshed around between my ears. I wasn’t sure if I should pity or fear the woman sitting before me.

 

“That’s how he…” I said.

 

She nodded quietly. “I’m afraid so, dear.” Jane Pendergrass lifted her head and looked around the cabin as if waking from a dream and let out a laugh. Her chuckle was a tomb. “Oh me oh my. Me oh my. I suppose you’re wondering what’s this all got to do with you.”

 

“Well…” I said.

 

“I already told you. I want his gun back.”

 

“His gun?” I coughed over my words.

 

“Sig 9mm. The one you got from your old associate Nick Glover, who bought it at a police auction about six years ago. The very one that’s in your car right now.”

 

“How do you—”

 

“You know, when Timothy told me that you had it, I couldn’t believe it. I thought, what a world this is, that you, his old friend should come upon it. I’ve been on a bit of goose hunt. First they said it was evidence. I don’t want to bore you, but imagine the bureaucracy I had to go through just to retrieve my son’s own gun. And once I finally was granted – granted – permission to receive my son’s sidearm, they told me there was a mix-up, that it was sold off in an auction.”

 

We sat there. After a long, long silence, Jane Pendergrass determined that since she had knocked over some of her dominoes, I could have cheated, so she declared the game a draw.

 

We walked to my Civic without making a sound. The gravel underfoot, the pasty stars, the full force crickets, the warm boggy smell, I absorbed it all. I opened the trunk. Buried underneath the sock with my cell phone was my gun. But I guess it wasn’t my gun. I picked it up, feeling oddly betrayed by it.

 

After a moment, I handed it over to Jane Pendergrass.

 

“It’s not loaded. Not ever,” I said.

 

That’s the truth. Never once had I put a bullet in it. Even when Erin’s mother found our little girl playing with it after I had forgotten to put it away properly. Not like that mattered. She took Erin and divorced me right after.

 

Jane Pendergrass cupped the semi-auto in both hands like was an injured bird and gauged its weight. She said something so softly a nearby croak of a toad overshadowed her voice. Her face was heavy and lit only from the inside lights of the rental cabin, where my daughter slept.

 

I stared straight up into the sky. I had never felt so alone.

 

“You weren’t serious… you shouldn’t,” I said.

 

“I’ve been planning on it… for a long time. I just wanted his gun to do it. Needed it. I wanted to teach my Timothy a lesson I was so upset. Spite this awful world and the people in it who made it this way. Spite people like your father. Perhaps you.”

 

I noticed she was struggling with the clip of the gun.

 

“I became obsessed with getting it back. It turned out my quest to recover this awful thing ended up giving my life meaning. After Hank, I felt a new spark, the kind of freedom only an avalanche of insurance money could offer. And then I started to hear him. Timothy. A whisper tickling at my heart. Dr. Chen helped me amplify his voice. But it was a cruel joke, Daniel. All I wanted was to hear him again. Comfort him. But now that I can hear him clearly, all he tells me is how alone he is. And there’s nothing I can do to comfort him.”

 

It was a bullet. She had put a bullet into the clip.

 

“So I told him I’d find his gun, and that I’d come for him. Because I’m a woman who continues to live for empty men, fills the holes in their hearts.” She sighed and spoke to the gun. “But I’m afraid to do it, Timothy. Afraid.”

 

Her eyes were black.

 

“Are you ready, Daniel?”

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In the time since my last post, things have taken such a dive that I truly struggle to think of a way to explain what has happened. If you have not read my previous transmissions, my city of Santa Fe is facing a terrible sickness that has spread and killed rapidly. After the government took control and divided the people by neighborhoods with large walls, they have enforced strict, militaristic control over everything. When a guard fell from a tower, shooting at something unknown, a leader of our neighborhood was killed in cold blood by a soldier while speaking out against the occupation.

​ Since that time, every leader in this prison as well as I have made the effort to keep the peace and plan for the future. Until very recently, we have been successful.

​ A few days ago, on an especially hot one when the people rested in the shade of their porches and looked to the tops of the walls as guards traversed to and from, a vicious cry rang out that sent the town into a frenzy. Looking out of my window, I watched as guards ran to a point just out of my sight and, after a slight pause, began firing rapidly at something far out.

​ Like ants, people below scattered about, fearing for their lives, but when the firing ceased, the crying out did not. Opening my window to peer out further, I watched as the soldiers stared outside the wall dumbstruck before a body crashed into and sent them flying limp. Cries and screams from townspeople rang out, horrified, as gunshots blasted again.

​ As soldiers moved into tactical position and fired at something that jumped and whirred in the air with unbelievable speed, a large explosion covered the entire corner of the upper wall, absolutely disintegrating anything caught within it.

​ Cries of shock and confusion erupted through the town, and without missing a beat, more military men poured from the wall into the neighborhood, barking orders.

​ “It is time to evacuate! There is no time to wait if you wish to live.” And to my surprise, not a soul moved. All looked upon the men with hateful stares.

​ “You expect us to believe a word you say? What of the man you killed? Did you have a concern for his wish to live when your men shot him down?” A man standing in the front barked right back at the armed man. I searched the soldiers' eyes, expecting to see the violent rage of conflict building like before, but I did not find it. Instead, looking to the top of the wall nervously.

​ “Suit yourselves. If you cannot find yourself to trust us any longer, then you will die!” Just as he finished speaking, one of the neighborhood's leaders came forth with his hands up cautiously, obviously wanting to escape becoming another example.

​ “Please, people! Anger is justified for what happened, but do not allow us to tear ourselves apart! Hear them out at least!” The crowd looked upon him with a stern curiosity. “Sir, I’m sure every one of us would be far more inclined to follow your lead if we understood the danger at hand. If you don’t mind-”

​ “That's classified!” He interrupted and the crowd shifted in anger, beginning to step forward as the military raised their guns in unison. The leader in the crossfire raised his hands to the heavens and cried out.

​ “Enough, please! Stop this now!” For a moment longer, silence engulfed the neighborhood until a silent creaking sound lifted above the crowd. Maybe a dozen feet above the ground level, clinging onto the wall was something. A terrifying thing monstrous and decrepit. The specific features I did not get a chance to uncover; as in the moment of the people noticing it, the thing leapt into the crowd like a panther.

​ Pandemonium spread through the crowd as the thing ripped and tore through bodies like butter, and the military fired, mostly only accomplishing hitting civilians. From there, I would love to report on the specifics of what happened, but I could only give information on my own rush to safety.

​ As described in underground meetings, in case of some form of emergency, the tunnels underground would be utilized for cover and sealed to protect from an exceedingly vile threat. I figured there was no better time to enact such a plan. Rushing with gallons of adrenaline, I am ashamed to admit I fell down the stairs on the way to ground level and undoubtedly shattered a bone in my wrist.

​ Even still, I was not stopped from making it down to the tunnels where many on the ground level had already gathered. Dozens crowded into the open doorways, most shrieking and covered head to toe in carnage. A large man holding the door open stared aghast as the thing bolted directly towards the opening.

​ “What the hell are you doing?” Another screamed at the man before the shrieking thing dug its bony, shell-like finger into his skull, sending the door collapsing down. This severed the man's lower half and left the rest to that beast outside.

​ Now, in silence we wait, and I can only hope that if the beasts could enter these tunnels, they would have already done so. Aid has gone through to the survivors, discovering the extent of the damage as we speak. Though, while we know that, the fate of the other neighborhoods and the military as a whole is yet to be discovered. I do not wish to die, but I consider my logging of events to be beyond important and will do anything in my power to share what I learn. So if I die in the search for that, then that is just how it will have to be. Look for my next log if you will, but if you are unable to find it, then do not doubt that it is only because I have met a terrible fate.

I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII

It was a leap of faith. But by this point, I trusted the system. I had locked everyone else out, and no one could touch me.

On the other hand, I could certainly touch them.

It was Monday, and I was sitting on the stone wall out front of school. It was as if nothing had ever happened.

Students streamed by on their way to their homerooms. Half of them I had seen in their homes and their hideaways, during their most private hours. I knew many of their secrets now. I knew Sarah W— made cuts on her thighs with a razor. I knew Bobby J—, despite being an outspoken socialist, was a racist troll on 4chan. I knew Gabriel K— and Tod M— did more on their camping trips than their parents would care to know.

Soon, I would know all of their secrets.

Hannah walked among them with Dean by her side. I said hi as she passed, feeling a sense of power I'd never felt before. She frowned, pushed a lock of hair behind one ear, and mumbled hi back to me. No doubt, the cuts all over my face didn't help the interaction. Dean gave me a look, but there was no tooth to it. His shoulders were hunched. His eyes darted about. He looked like he hadn't slept since the quarry incident.

Mr. Macy rambled on in history class, while wobbling his pear-shaped body back and forth across the front of the room. I wondered if he'd pull me aside again to finish off what he'd started last week, before I'd stormed out of the room. But he didn't even seem to notice me.

I couldn't help but stare at Hannah. She sat slightly in front of me to the right, slouching like a wilted flower. With her pale complexion and long hair draped over one shoulder, she resembled one of the classical figures reposing on the classroom walls. The room was covered in sun-faded prints of old Greek and Roman emperors, Napoleon, FDR, Harriet Tubman, and the like, along with numerous quotes and slogans. One showed the Wright brothers' plane next to a NASA rocket and said, The tools change. The impulse remains. And beneath a portrait of MLK, another read: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Justice.

Soon enough, I would have justice. I would find whoever operated NODE 02, and I would remove them. And then I would take care of Dean. He had tricked Hannah into believing he wasn't a loser, just as he had tricked everyone. But soon, it would be she and I embracing, our skin and lips pressed together, saying stupid things only people in love would understand.

I could nearly feel the warmth of her skin as I studied her. She might resist at first. But if Pavlov had taught me anything, it was that people could be conditioned. They could learn to love.

I followed her out the door as the bell rang, almost hypnotized. Dean came up and threw his arm around her, breaking the spell. I counted to ten to calm myself. I whistled a song. It would all change soon enough.

Justice.

I should mention there was a loaded gun in my backpack…

Until this morning, it had belonged to Officer Spragg. He had placed it behind a dumpster for some mysterious reason. And then, unbelievably, he went across town to eat two dozen donuts.

Considering everything I'd done so far, you might be expecting the worst of me, being that I was a jaded teenage virgin walking a school hallway with a loaded gun. But don't let your imagination get carried away. Why would I ever resort to such emo bullshit now that I had PMAS? The gun was strictly for my protection. Although NODE 02 couldn't control me, they could still very well have someone else take me out.

I had to finish this ASAP for that reason. Besides, it was only a matter of time before Dean conned Hannah into spreading her legs. And if that happened, I swear to God, I'd kill them both.

I felt invisible behind them. A walking shadow. Maybe I was made for the shadows. Maybe that's why PMAS fit me so well. The Smiler was the same, wasn't she. A forgettable figure. Perhaps it was the same for NODE 02.

I thought again of our talk, our talk through only my lips. I'm trying to help you, they had said. What did that mean? Why would they say that and then attempt to kill me? You're troubled, Julian. No one will be surprised.

The words sat oddly in my mind. Why?

Because it felt personal.

I realized then … I had never revealed my name.

Did NODE 02 know me?

 ***

The man was leaning forward on his paisley sofa, watching world news at a loud volume while shaking his head. He shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth and crunched it vigorously between his teeth, his jowls working at a manic pace. He didn't seem to be enjoying his snack as much as he was shoving it down to quell his frustration or nerves.

He turned the TV off. He groaned up onto his feet and tossed the remote onto the sunken cushion where he'd sat. He threw the unpopped kernels in the trash in the kitchen, washed out the bowl, and then trudged upstairs and brushed his teeth. He got into bed, his bulk shifting his snoring wife beside him.

He lay there with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling for a while.

Eventually, he noticed his wife was no longer snoring. He leaned in, catching the gleam of her eyes in the green glow of the alarm clock.

"Peekaboo," she said.

The dark concealed his paling face. He jolted into a sitting position and switched on his bedside lamp. His wife remained lying on her back.

"How?" he said. "How did you know?"

"You're sloppy," I said through Mrs. Macy. "You never asked who I was. You already knew my name."

"That's all it took?"

“No. But it made me suspect NODE 02 was someone who knew me. And then I asked myself, who would say such a strange phrase, A new tool for an old idea. Do you remember saying that to me?"

"Yes …"

His wife suddenly screamed, and then her mouth snapped shut.

"I imagine as you get old, you start to overlook things, the things that are constantly around you," she said. "Like the pictures of historical figures and artifacts. The quotes and slogans. A similar phrase was there, Mr. Macy, right on your classroom wall: The tools change. The impulse remains."

Mr. Macy frowned. "You've always been very bright, Julian. Troubled, but very bright."

"And then I checked your box. Permission denied. It was all I needed to know. It was a bold move, risking your wife. You had three locks, and you couldn't at least give me Dean?"

"I couldn't fathom you finding out. I needed to protect those kids. You can't kill them, Julian. You're better than that."

"No, I'm not."

"Whatever happens, please leave my wife out of this."

Mrs. Macy ran her hands over her body and down her nightgown. “Come on, Antony. Cleopatra awaits.”

"Stop it! You don't know what you're doing, Julian. You have no idea!"

"Then tell me," she said, sitting up. "What is PMAS?"

The man grabbed his wife's shoulders. "Rachel, I love you."

She slapped her face, hard. "Tell me."

He grabbed her arms.

"Tell me," she shouted, "or I'll stop breathing."

"I don't know, Julian! I don't know!" The man's face grew deep red. "I don't know how it's done. I don't know who built it or how long it's been going on. One day, a child walked up to me holding a doll. She couldn't have been more than five years old. I understand now that she was used because she was too young to remember it clearly. And even if she did, who would believe her? She spoke like an adult. More than that. She spoke like a goddamn military officer.

"She gave me coordinates to this town, to the middle of fucking nowhere. I was told I would have a new job, still as a history teacher. Only one class per day. But I would be performing another role. I would be correcting people's actions that I deemed morally wrong. I think … it's an experiment. I think they chose this town because it's the perfect size for one. And I believe I was chosen because, well … I'm boring. And exceedingly good."

Mrs. Macy sat there in silence.

"We aren't using PMAS, Julian. We're training it."

 ***

Training it?

I stroked my face and leaned back in the rocking chair. It listed to the right. I clicked 'Talk+' and typed.

"Where is NODE 02?" Mrs. Macy asked her husband.

"It's under the school, inside a fallout shelter."

"You didn't know the Smiler?"

"Who?"

"The woman operating NODE 01."

"No, I knew there was another operator, of course. But I didn't know who it was or where they were. That was intentional. I believe the nodes are meant to be isolated."

Mr. Macy let out a long gust of air.

"Listen, kid, before you do anything rash," he continued. "Around seven years ago, I was walking over that footbridge that goes over Dexter Rd. You know it? There are no cameras there. I came across a sickly-looking man leaning against a post there. He called out my name as I walked past. And when I asked if I knew him, he told me that the last time we spoke, he was a little girl, and that we didn't have much time.

"He told me there used to be many more nodes in town. But now, there were only two left, and the program was nearing the final phase. I didn't understand any of it. He insisted that he didn't have time and that I needed to listen.

"He told me that it was imperative that the last two nodes stay under human control, according to what he called a two-man rule, and that failing to do so would have global repercussions. I tried to ask him what he meant and that's when a plane flew overhead. A crop duster flying oddly low. When I looked back at the man, he was choking himself to death. And I … I didn't stop it in time."

Mr. Macy looked old and harmless in his striped pajamas. I had to remind myself as he blathered on that he had nearly killed me, and anyone who controlled PMAS was likely an expert manipulator.

"You're saying I can't kill you?" I said through his wife.

"Well, yes," he said. The man opened his mouth to say more.

I clicked 'Custom.'

 ***

Considering his bulk, Mr. Macy could have killed his tiny wife. But he didn't have the heart. Every time he restrained her, I stopped her breathing. And every time he let go, she would take another step forward, swiping her hands and gnashing her teeth. He backed out of the bedroom and then down the hall, pleading all the way. Then he missed a step and tumbled down the stairs, his neck folding beneath his weight.

He was dead.

I changed the channel.

And I was still in control of PMAS. I knew he was full of shit.

A chill shot through me from ears to ankles. I was God now. I was God of my little town. And I would do wondrous things. No more school. No more being a loser. No more surrogate fathers. No more virginity. The things I would do. I immediately sought out Dean. No, slow down, I told myself. I shouldn't be hasty. His death should be something to remember—

 

NODE 02 OPERATOR: UNAVAILABLE
HUMAN OVERSIGHT: 1/2
FAIL SAFE INITIATED

 

The feeds vanished. A solid blue flooded every screen, painting the room in its glow. The same message filled each one.

"No, no, no. Don't do this to me!"

Macy couldn't have been serious. It was ridiculous. I pressed a key, and the message was replaced by another screen:

 

PUPPET MASTER 24.03
AUTONOMOUS MODE
ACTIVE POPULATION: 2,094
OPERATOR ACCESS: DISABLED
ABOUT

 

Puppet Master? Autonomous mode? What the fuck? I clicked on every word. Only 'ABOUT' did anything. It brought me to a screen with a simple quote:

And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
—EZEKIEL 36:27

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.

Do you guys know anything about anything strange or even paranormal down in the Ozarks? I’ve had to dive in head first recently, and something just doesn’t sit right with me. 

I never really knew grandpa John. He was only around for the first couple years of my life, before I was old enough to really form any memories of him. Mom says he never really seemed that interested with me or anyone for that matter. I guess he would come over with Grandma sometimes to play with me a little bit, likely out of obligation, but after an hour or two he always ended up just staring blankly at the empty space in front of him, shaking, like the temperature inside our house was below freezing. 

One day, by the time I was four and Grandma passed, Grandpa apparently had some sort of meltdown, leading him to go prepper crazy. I heard he moved out to a cabin deep in the midwestern jungle that is the Ozarks, and no one heard from him ever again. He never even shared his address with anyone in the family. He was worried about “Losing himself,” his words. We tried to find him for months after he moved away, but no one could, and eventually everyone kind of just acted like he died with Grandma. 

I’m in my thirties now, and I’ve long since accepted that Grandpa is just an urban legend, joining the ranks of Bigfoot. Knowing all this, I’m sure you can understand my surprise when an almost completely unmarked, dingy letter showed up in my mailbox one morning, way before the mailman had even come for the day. The front of the thick yellowed envelope was covered with four giant, nearly illegible words, 

“To Eric From Grandpa.”

Taking the envelope inside, I sat on the couch and studied it for a long time, just turning it over in my hands. I wanted to open it right away, but frankly, I was afraid. I didn’t even think Grandpa was alive anymore, much less than capable of hand delivering me a letter.  No one had seen or heard from him in years. How did this even get to my house?  It was all just a little too intriguing, though, and the sense of curiosity eventually won me over. I carefully tore open the envelope, removing the chaotic stack of papers within.

Searching through the pages was extremely tedious. In short, none of the papers were folded the exact same way, so I went through one at a time, straightening each page’s creases and crumples out one by one. I would check the contents of each page as I sorted, but every page I got to was just blank, and there were hundreds of them. Blank page after blank page.

After a couple hours of nothing but reverse origami, I was a hair away from giving up and tossing the envelope in the trash when one page, about two thirds deep in the giant stack, finally caught my eye. A small red circle was drawn onto one of the top corners of the page, like someone was testing a pen to make sure it still had ink. I pulled at the page, separating it from the rest of the stack, and worked at straightening out the particularly intricate folds.

It quickly became apparent that the page was covered in countless, illegible scribbles. Each one was in a different orientation on the page, too. Some sentences were written normally, but most were pure chaos. Words were upside down, sideways in the margin, some of them even started on one side of the paper before wrapping to the back. Both sides of the page were absolutely covered. I don’t think I could fit another word on that page no matter how hard I tried to squeeze it in. At least all of the words were written in the same red ink and with the same chicken scratch handwriting, providing a tiny bit of consistency to work with.   

I tried deciphering the scribbles myself at first, using multiple different search engines and methods, but everything online came up blank or errored out. It didn’t matter where I looked or how much money I paid to different services, nothing ever worked. I began to think I was holding a page full of some made up language Grandpa made, which didn’t sound too out of character based on the stories I’ve heard.

I must have spent hours trying to understand that piece of paper, and I never got any closer to that goal. In a sort of last ditch effort I sent a message describing the thick envelope full of blank pages to my mom. I included a picture of the scribbled-on page and asked if she’s ever seen Grandpa write anything like this. It was late in the night, so I likely wouldn’t hear back until the next morning. I remember passing out on the couch, covered in a blanket of those blank sheets of paper, Unsolved Mysteries reruns playing on the TV.

I was woken up early the following morning by my phone vibrating against the back of my head, where I must have left it in all the mess. Still groggy and a little sleep deprived, I sat up, rubbed my eyes open, and grabbed the phone. There was a reply from my mom. She was surprised and, understandably, a little skeptical at the letter. No one had seen or heard from Grandpa in years, but Mom was willing to tell me what she knew. Unfortunately, she had no idea what my letter said, but she sent a few pictures of various letters Grandpa had written back before I was born, hopeful that I could use them to solve the puzzle. She ended the call reminding me how crazy Grandpa was and to be careful with this project.

I took turns staring at each letter. It may have been a bit of a reach at first, but eventually I saw the resemblance. The early letters weren’t neat by any means, but they were just barely legible. Looking at the older letters side by side with this new letter I was sent created a little timeline demonstrating the devolution of Grandpa's handwriting. Finally, I had something to work with. Slowly, I mapped character to character, rewriting the ramblings on the letter I was sent, hoping to make the ravings a little more clear.

It took most of one of my precious weekend days and what felt like three trees worth of paper, but I was eventually able to recreate the letter in my own handwriting. I couldn’t clean it up too much, so there were still sentences in different orientations and directions all over the page, but I began to read what I could, starting at the top of the page.

“34: turn east on elm road”

“22: take the interstate south”

“4: wait for the cover of night, when the road changes”

It was obvious at this point that I was looking through a set of disjointed directions. I combed through the steps, looking for step one. I found it scribbled in the top left corner of the back of the page:

“1: Start at Eric’s house in Chicago.”

I didn’t believe in the paranormal then, and I’m still not totally convinced, but I still remember a shiver running down my spine reading that first step. I didn’t understand and I’m still not sure I do to this day. How did Grandpa, assuming this was from him, know my address, and, more importantly, why send this to me?

After letting step one sit with me for a little bit, I roused myself from the stupor I was stuck in, brought back to reality by a neighbor’s dog’s barking. I spent the next chunk of the day searching through my recreation of the letter, picking off each step in the directions and reorganizing them until they were all in order. Sure enough, the directions sent me southeast, deep into the Ozarks, deep into the miles and miles of federally-owned land.

I still don’t know why I went, maybe I wanted to know more about the Grandpa I never really got to meet, maybe I wanted to check and see if he was still alive, or maybe I just wanted to see the crazy doomsday setup he must have deep into the dense forest, but I felt the letter pulling me, compelling me to follow those directions.

Work was very accommodating, giving me plenty of time off on short notice after I pulled my Grandpa died card. I didn’t know for sure it was true, but it was the sanest explanation I could give. I told them the funeral was in St. Louis and I would be gone for a couple days. 

I spent the next few hours packing up my SUV.  I checked my maps app, and it didn’t show any roads for the last little stretch of the directions. I’m an avid camper, though, even backpacking occasionally on trips to the mountains, so I had everything I needed to rough it a few nights in the Ozarks, if required, until I got to the end of the directions.

I waited for sunset, like the letter suggested, and I was on the road, written directions in hand. The first few steps in the directions felt pretty pointless. I was driving in circles through different neighborhoods, constantly retracing roads I had already driven, trying to lose some sort of unseen pursuer. Finally, after one last turn, I was on i35 South, heading towards the Ozarks, Towards Grandpa. 

It was pretty late by the time I reached the interstate. At that point I had been piecing this list together all day, and my brain was worn down, but I couldn’t give up now. I’d spent too much time and money working on this stupid cryptic list of directions. I had to drive with the window rolled down and the AC on max just to stay awake, and it was a blessing when the occasional car passed me, headlights shocking awareness back to the front of my brain.

It would be lying if I said I wasn’t starting to doubt this whole excursion I took essentially on a whim, but, like I said, something just didn’t sit right with me. No one had heard from Grandpa in years and years; we all thought he died somewhere in that giant forest. Moreover, he would be about ninety years old today, which seems a little farfetched for an old man living in total isolation in the woods. Still, though, somehow he, or someone close to him, found my address and hand delivered this list of directions to me, only me. It just didn’t make any sense, and I hated nonsense with a passion. Back then I was under the strict belief that everything had a purpose or ‘sense’ behind it. Why would anything even exist if it didn’t make sense in some capacity? 

Hell, even if those directions didn’t really lead anywhere it would be a fun little camping trip; I hadn’t been camping in months, and I definitely needed to decompress. The Ozarks were beautiful that time of year, too. Fall was in full swing and the different trees made a warm-colored rainbow canopy to drive under. 

The towns got smaller the further south I got, each one further from a city, increasingly isolating. The yards of the run-down houses in each town were full of scrap, a trademark of rural America; you just never know when you might need something, and a city with anything other than a dollar store was over two hours away at this point. 

I remember constantly checking the directions in between the rural sightseeing. I had never been out that way, and there was an east-bound turn coming up pretty soon. I didn’t want to miss it in the dark and add even more time to the hours-long trip.

“30: Turn Left at the dinosaur”

Hopeful this would eventually make sense, I kept driving south, weaving through small town after town. The forest grew closer, denser on either side of the road, creating a little tunnel to drive through. Only a tiniest bit of moonlight broke through the leaves and made it down to the road.

I was in another town, Camdenton, I think, when green lights emerged on the horizon. Getting closer, I eventually saw a small billboard for Sinclair come into view, its trademarked sauropod adorning the sign. This was the first gas station I came across just sitting along the highway, and sure enough, there was a road just past the billboard, barely visible in the darkness, to turn onto.

“31: Take the twenty-fifth curve and follow it off the road. There will be another small dirt road to turn onto”

The new road was much more rugged, and I never saw another car. Thankfully there was still gravel to drive on as I winded up and down and all around the forest, trying my hardest to count each curve in the near pitch black darkness of the night. I didn’t have any trouble staying awake on that wooden rollercoaster of a road, constantly turning, jostling me in my seat, and forcing me to scan the sides of the road for overly ambitious deer.

I was deep in the forest now. There weren’t any more houses or towns to pass by. It didn’t take long at all to reach twenty-five curves, all that road did was curve like a snake in full sprint (or slither?). I didn’t see anything when I first approached the curve, so I pulled the car over and got out to have a closer look at the dense forest surrounding the road. It took a while, but buried in the brush, I could just barely see two ruts in the dirt, defining the road I needed to take. The road was almost totally overgrown, though, and there was no way I was getting the car any further. 

I looked down at the directions. There were only a few steps left, and it seemed possible to make the remainder of the journey on foot. I had the supplies to pitch a tent for the night too if needed.

It only took a few minutes to prepare to hoof it the rest of the way. I pulled the SUV farther off the gravel road and covered it with a few branches I found lying around, doing a pretty good job at blending it with the rest of the forest. I wasn’t anywhere illegal necessarily, but I didn’t want to take any chances, and something didn’t feel right all the way in the back of my head.  Shaking away the concern, I grabbed my filled hiking backpack, 12-gauge, and a few extra lights. 

Wide awake and on just a bit of an edge at that point, I was soon pushing through the brush, starting down the dirt road, directions in hand.

“32: Turn west at the bowl. Take care to keep your bearings”

The directions seemed to make less and less sense the closer I was getting to the end. I couldn’t drive down the dirt road like they said, and how the hell am I going to find whatever “the bowl” is in the pitch black darkness surrounding engulfing everything just a foot or two away from my light? It was all getting just a little too nonsensical, and I was getting increasingly frustrated. 

The deeper I got into the forest, the more I was starting to regret my decision to follow these directions to begin with. Maybe Grandpa was just crazy and this was one of his delusions. I never even knew the guy, and I just took the mess of his letter at face value. I just couldn’t see him living all the way out here by himself. I was so busy gazing up at the canopy, lost in thought, that I didn’t notice the massive hole in the middle of the road, and one step too far was all it took to send me tumbling down.

I landed pack-side first, cushioning me from most of the fall, but I had a few scrapes and cuts from hitting the jagged rocks jutting out from the sides of the hole. My flashlight was under me, and I was stuck on my back like a turtle, so I didn’t see anything when I heard a series of branch snapping sounds coming from the woods behind me. Unclipping the pack so I could stand, I quickly grabbed a back-up flashlight from my pocket and pointed it in the direction of the snapping, trying to see as far over the hole as I could, but there was nothing there. I was a lot more rational then, able to easily shake away the red flags. There are all kinds of animals out in the Ozarks, and I was carrying a shotgun, so I wasn’t too concerned and set about picking my stuff up and slowly having a look around. 

I was in the middle of some kind of crater, and there’s no way it was man-made; it looked too chaotic. It’s like God punched a hole straight into the drywall crust of the earth here a long, long time ago. If you’ve ever seen any pictures of meteorite impacts it looked kind of like that but a little deeper and not nearly as wide as others. The forest had reclaimed most of the impact site, too, and undergrowth covered a lot of the rocks. I’d never really seen anything quite like it in person. That had to have been The Bowl.  

Getting out wasn’t easy, but I found a little natural staircase made from the exposed rock around the sides of The Bowl. It was narrow and uneven, but it was a staircase. I had to push my pack up first, but I was able to scramble out of the hole and stand back up where I was walking before I crashed down. Using a compass to find my bearings, I continued west, looking at the next step in the directions.

“33: Take a sharp turn south at the black fork. Eventually you will find an abandoned road.”

Hoping the fork would be as obvious as the Bowl I kept moving, keeping one light pointed at the ground to avoid another tumble. There were branches snapping and leaves rustling on either side of the forest around me as I walked, but I was never able to catch anything with my light. They were probably just deer, or turkey, but I picked up the pace regardless, not quite wanting to set up camp like I originally planned. 

After only five minutes of walking, the road just sort of stopped, and at the end of it was a giant, burnt oak tree. The wood was flaky and kind of petrified at the same time. I always heard stories about trees being struck by lightning and the potential omens surrounding them, but I’d never seen one in person, much less a giant like the one in front of me. It was no small bolt that killed this one, and I was kind of awestruck. 

I was slowly moving my flashlight up the tree when I just barely caught two small yellow circles among the branches as they quickly faded from sight. I circled the tree a couple times but didn’t see anything. Still, I was rationalizing, maybe out of necessity at this point. Sure, deer don’t climb trees, and I couldn’t imagine a bird would be caught dead nesting in such an exposed oak, but maybe there was an owl perched up there, looking around for dinner. I’m pretty sure there are owls in The Ozarks.

After confirming that the tree was empty, I shrugged it off, and I took a turn south and headed for the abandoned road mentioned in the directions. It was only another few minutes of walking, but the forest grew exponentially more sinister as I continued. Dead trees started appearing in the surrounding forest, and giant hollowed out trunks often covered the way forward. Once I was over an especially big trunk, the trees opened up a little bit, and I could barely feel reclaimed gravel underneath my feet.

This road was in roughly the same condition as the last one, overgrown as hell, but it gave me something to follow. 

“34: Turn on Elm Road”

I was pretty exhausted at this point, but I was so close to the end, not to mention inexplicably unnerved, so I just kept pushing. I had to see what was on Elm Road. As I walked down the “abandoned road” the condition quickly improved. Nature retreated back to either side of the road, and I was even walking on some pavement after a while. Notably, the creepy forest sounds I was hearing before had abruptly stopped, but I wasn’t complaining.

After a few miles of following the now fully developed road, containing sidewalks, streetlights, and everything you’d expect, I came to a four-way stop sign, two street signs intersecting above the red octagon. The one parallel to the road told me I was on Pine Street. If I took a right turn I would finally be on Elm Road.

Notably, there were no houses along what was quickly becoming a full network of neat neighborhood roads. It was a little strange to me, even then, but there are tons of abandoned towns across the country, especially in the Midwest. Maybe the money for this one just dried up before houses could be erected.

Elm Road kept going for a handful of blocks, and I passed a few more intersections on my walk down the street before the road ended in a giant cul-de-sac. Just barely from where I was standing, I could see a small cabin hiding behind a couple trees at the far end of the asphalt circle making up the end of Elm Road.

As I got closer, I could tell the cabin was in rough shape. The wood was rotting. Broken window frames looked hastily boarded up, and there was a big hole in the roof of the cabin. I don’t know why, but I walked up to what remained of the front door and knocked like someone was going to come answer me. The door bounced against the frame with my knocks and slowly swung open in a recoiling response. It was a lot darker in there, and I switched to a propane powered gas lantern, one of the brightest I could find.

The cabin was clearly abandoned, but it almost seems like that move happened recently. There was some old food sitting on a counter, and the floors were remarkably clean considering the state of everything. A mug of dark liquid sat on an end table next to a sagging couch. I even found an old sleeping bag on top of a bed frame in the one bedroom the cabin had. Walking into the dining room next, I quickly saw what Grandpa, or whoever sent me this letter, wanted me to see. Somehow, a dim overhead light was shining down on a box full of books. There were a few classics in there, Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, etc., but half of the box was full of handwritten books. A clean, leatherbound book sat on top of the pile, embroidered with gold lettering, “JJ,” and small silver lettering underneath the initials “John’s Journal”     

I instinctively grabbed the journal and opened to the first page right as I heard a crash, followed by growling. The sound was coming from right outside the cabin, and it sounded big. My 12-gauge suddenly felt ineffective, and my head spun around as I looked for a place to hide. There was a small door in the kitchen with a set of old, rotting stairs leading down into a basement/pantry. I heard the front door of the cabin crash off its hinges right as I closed the basement door behind me. Scrambling down the half-broken staircase, I dropped my pack and looked for a place to hide. In the back corner of the room there was an old wardrobe, surrounded by boxes of random junk like scrap metal, seasonal decoration, and old antlers. 

I remember clambering over the boxes when I heard the growl again, right outside the basement door. Heart pounding, I ripped open the door to that wardrobe, and there was a public bathroom on the other side. Confused, but still panicked, I rushed through the door, slamming it closed behind me. I turned back to try and barricade the door with a hand towel rod I found on the ground nearby, but there was no door to barricade, just a bathroom wall. I felt all around the wall for a hidden seam, but there was nothing there, it was just a bathroom wall.

I was completely at a loss at this point, and my pack, including the gun, was back in that cabin. The only thing I had was the leather journal in my hand, the gold lettering reflecting off the fluorescent lights above. Rattled and unsure of myself, I cautiously crept towards the bathroom exit. Barely peeking out, I saw a… gas station? Green trim ran along the ceiling, and a dinosaur mural was on the far wall. I have no idea how, but I was back at the Sinclair.

A little more comfortable, I strode out into the middle of the station and took a look around. Everything looked like a normal gas station to me. The register was unoccupied, but there was a sign reading “Out for Supplies, be back soon, leave money on the counter.” 

After a long overdue moment to catch my breath, I went out the front door of the station and saw a billboard, the same billboard I turned by on the way here. That meant my car was hopefully only a couple miles down the windy but in-service road. The sun was just starting to rise, too, which gave me a lot more confidence. I steeled myself for one last walk and set off down the gravel road. The forest was still claustrophobic and unnerving, but the sound of birds and crickets waking up helped put my brain at ease.

I lost myself in the confusion of everything while I was walking down that road. Just replaying the events in my head didn’t make sense. I walked down a barely visible dirt road, bushwhacked past two ancient landmarks, and ended up in a suburban neighborhood with no main road leading in or houses along the streets. Taking the disbelief further, there was a recently abandoned, rotting cabin standing alone, and it had Grandpa’s stuff. 

I’ll never forget the growl, either. There are black bears around the Ozarks, but that thing sounded a lot bigger and faster than a bear or even a mountain lion. I had to do a quick scan around me just thinking about it, but I never saw anything.

I’m not even sure how I ended up at the gas station. The door to the wardrobe I went to hide in was just that, a wardrobe, but somehow it led me into the gas station with no way to retrace the recent steps back to the cabin. 

Soft rustling in the leaves off to my right pulled me back to the present, but it was only a deer, running deeper into the trees, as scared of me as I was of seeing that giant bear.

Ahead of me, a pile of branches, much less inconspicuous in the light, covered my car just like I left it. I was quiet the entire drive home, really just at a loss thinking about it all. I mean a magic wardrobe is literally the kind of stuff you see in fantasy movies. It didn’t make sense, I couldn’t rationalize the senseless, and that is what really terrifies me. 

The drive home was uneventful and I never felt better crashing onto my couch than I did that morning, sleeping until the late afternoon. I woke up with a sense of unease. Something was off, but I couldn’t place my finger on it.

I’m going to take a look through Grandpa’s things I ended up with and see if that has any answers to ease the panic, but I wanted to ask here too. Has had anything similar or even just generally weird happen to them down in the Ozarks?       

Teachers at the halifax academy are frightened, whenever a student gets bullied, the teachers also get affected by it. The teachers loved ones and family members will also be attacked. Who ever is doing this is forcing the teachers to deal with the bullying problem at their school.

When a young boy died last year due to the injuries he received from the bullies, the teachers then found a pig head with a letter warning them, that if they don't act on stopping the bullying then the teachers will also suffer the consequences.

When another boy with special needs was bullied, every teacher at that school found that thier elderly family members were attacked and sent to hospital.

When the same special needs boy got attacked, every teachers child got abducted. A warning letter was given to the school by whoever was doing this. It read:

'If the boy with special needs gets attacked one more time, the teachers whose biological children I have abducted will have missing limbs'

The teachers were going crazy and they just wanted their sons and daughters back. They separated the special needs boy from the rest of class, and they punished the bullies by expelling them.

Another note came for the teachers which read: 'wow you teachers are finally doing something to tackle bullying. You sons and daughters that I had abducted will come back to you by 12pm'