I always knew my grandmother’s jewelry box was wrong. When she passed away last month, the rest of the family refused to touch it. They claimed it gave them headaches, that the faint smell of copper and formaldehyde clinging to the wood was too offensive. But as her only grandchild, the burden of her estate fell to me, and I brought the heavy mahogany box into my apartment. That was the worst mistake of my life.

The box is an ornate, oppressive piece of Victorian craftsmanship. The wood is stained so dark it looks like coagulated blood, edged with tarnished silver filigree that resembles intertwined thorns. But it’s the ballerina inside that makes your stomach drop.

She isn’t made of plastic or cheap porcelain. Her skin has the yellowish, matte texture of polished, aged bone. When you look closely through a magnifying glass, you can see tiny, microscopic pores—like human skeletal remains. Her eyes are two hollowed-out sockets set with jagged chips of black obsidian that seem to track you across the room. Her tutu isn't silk; it's a stiff, brittle mesh woven from coarse, greying human hair.

When you wind the silver key in the back, the mechanism doesn't just chime. It groans. The internal gears sound like teeth grinding together, forcing the bone figurine to move. Her joints don't spin smoothly; they snap and pop, mimicking a grotesque, agonizingly disjointed arabesque to a warped, agonizingly slow rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.

I placed it on my nightstand. The first night, the nightmare began.

I woke up at 3:14 AM to a wet, rhythmic clicking sound right next to my ear.

Click. Snap. Click.

The room was freezing. I could see my breath pluming in the pale moonlight. I turned my head slowly. The lid of the jewelry box was propped wide open, yawning like a mouth. Inside, the bone ballerina was spinning so violently that her hair-tutu was whistling through the air. But she wasn't on her metal peg anymore. The silver rod was bare. She had grown.

She was now six inches tall, her elongated, skeletal legs stretching out of the box, stepping onto my nightstand.

I tried to scream, but the air caught in my throat. I was entirely paralyzed by a suffocating wave of sleep paralysis. I could only watch in absolute horror as the entity crawled out of the box. Her bone joints popped with the sickening sound of a compound fracture. Crack.

She didn't just dance; she mutated as she moved. With every agonizing spin, her limbs stretched longer, the bone splintering and reforming, growing larger. The music wasn't coming from the box anymore. The distorted Swan Lake melody was chiming directly from inside her ribcage, vibrating out of her hollow chest like a dying music box trapped in a wet throat.

Crack. Snap. Tap.

She hopped off the nightstand and landed on my chest.

The weight was immense—she felt like she weighed fifty pounds, pressing the breath out of my lungs. Up close, I could smell her. She smelled of a freshly opened grave and rancid machine oil. Those jagged obsidian eyes stared directly into mine. Then, her jaw—a tiny, hinged piece of human jawbone—dropped open far wider than anatomically possible.

A thick, black, viscous fluid began to drip from her mouth, splashing onto my face. It was ice cold and tasted like rust.

"The audience must not leave," a voice scraped out of her open throat. It sounded like two rusted iron plates grinding together, layered beneath the frantic, hyper-speed chiming of a broken spring.

With a sudden, violent jerk, she began to pirouette directly on my sternum. The razor-sharp points of her bone toes sliced right through my t-shirt, tearing into my flesh. The pain shattered my paralysis. I let out a blood-curdling shriek, threw my arms up, and violently shoved the growing monstrosity off me.

She hit the hardwood floor with a heavy, wet thud and immediately scrambled backward on all fours like a massive, skeletal spider. Her limbs were now the size of a human infant's, snapping and bending backward as she retreated into the pitch-black shadows beneath my bed.

I bolted. I didn't grab my shoes. I didn't grab my wallet. I tore open my bedroom door, sprinted down the hallway, and locked myself in the bathroom at the end of the hall.

That was two hours ago. The sun still hasn't risen.

The apartment is dead silent, except for the floorboards right outside the bathroom door. They are creaking under immense weight. Whatever is out there isn't six inches tall anymore. It's heavy. It's massive.

And just a second ago, the silver key on the jewelry box back in my bedroom began to wind itself up again, the loud, metallic crank, crank, crank echoing down the hall.

“You still read those dumbass things?”

I jumped a bit when I heard the sudden voice. I turned to see my older brother peeking into my room with a sneer. I didn’t hear him coming.

“It’s not reading,” I said, “there are no words.” I looked back down at the page. 

“Those are for kids.”

“Screw you. They’re fun.” I had already made it through 5 Waldo books, so I figured I could do all the rest. Something about the colors and details of the setting were so interesting to me. I would judge the outfits of the random pedestrians and imagine what their lives were like. Sometimes I even forgot to look for Waldo. “You know, my friend Thomas from England told me it’s called Where’s Wally over there.”

My brother frowned. “What did I tell you about talking to British people?”

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

My brother walked over and looked down at the page. “You know, I saw a weird one of those in the library once.” He sounded serious all of a sudden. I looked up to see his expression had hardened.

“What was weird about it?”

“Well, it was like a year ago, so I don’t remember that well. But I think it had no title, and there was a creepy looking guy. Mr. Carpenter saw me with it and got really mad. He took it away from me. I couldn’t find it in the library after that.”

“You’re lying,” I said. My brother was always pulling pranks on me and trying to mess with my head. Although the image of Mr. Carpenter in my mind did make me feel some doubt. Everyone at school knew to avoid him and his library. There was something off about that man.

“Whatever, loser. I’m gonna go play Xbox.”

For the next couple weeks, I forgot all about that conversation and continued to find and complete every Waldo book I could. When I finished the final one, I felt an unexpected loss. It was like I was saying goodbye to an old friend. As stupid as it sounds, I almost teared up.

I was walking down the school hallway the next day when I came across the library. I suddenly remembered the conversation with my brother. I looked around to check if anyone was nearby, but the hall was empty. It was early in the day, and the only other students were in the cafeteria for breakfast.

I peeked my head into the library and immediately heard a soft rumbling sound. I jerked my neck to the sound and saw Mr. Carpenter asleep at the front desk. He was snoring.

My heart started racing as I entered the room slowly. I had to know if my brother was telling the truth. Pretty quickly, I found the section where the Waldo books were kept. I only found ones that I had already finished. Then I looked back over to Mr. Carpenter and the open door behind him. His office.

I slowly crept behind his desk and into his office, keeping an eye on him as I went. Inside, I turned to see stacks of loose papers and books. I studied the spines of the books, but they were all normal kid’s books. 

Then I noticed one of his drawers was slightly open. I pulled it out. Inside was a book with a blank, black cover. I picked it up. It was chilling to the touch.

Mr. Carpenter stopped snoring. 

I jerked my head to the side to see him shifting. I froze.

After a moment, he started snoring again. I breathed in relief.

I kept the book at my side and slowly made my way back to the door. When I was halfway out the door, I heard Mr. Carpenter’s chair creak.

“Hey you! Stop!” he screeched.

I ran down the hallway at full speed and didn’t look back. I prayed that he didn’t recognize me. 

I was tense for the rest of the day. I couldn’t focus on any of my classes. I just kept imagining Mr. Carpenter charging into the classroom and coming straight for my throat or being called to the principal’s office. But it never happened. Eventually, I was back home in my room. 

I pulled the black book out of my backpack. I opened it up to the first page to see in large red letters, “FIND ME.”

The next page was normal looking. A colorful town square with hundreds of people marching in a parade. It looked exactly like our Christmas parade. I laughed to myself. There was nothing creepy about this.

Then I started to notice. It was little things. Some of the people had unusual proportions. They were too wide, or too tall and skinny. 

The strangest thing was that I couldn’t find the main character at all. I went over the page a hundred times but never saw anyone that obviously stood out. All I did find was a wanted poster on one of the brick walls. An image of a man wearing a prison jumpsuit with black and white stripes. But the poster was folding over at the top and covering the man’s face. Beside the poster was a dark hand reaching around the corner of a shady alleyway.

Still, I could only laugh. This was my brother’s idea of scary? And he always made fun of me for being a wuss. I turned the page.

This time, it was a concert with a massive stage and crowd. My eyes immediately fell on the man in the prison jumpsuit at the center of the page. His black and white outfit stood out among the otherwise colorful concertgoers. The other people near him were looking at him with odd expressions and keeping a bit of distance despite the little room there was. Weirdest of all was that he was facing the opposite direction, so I could only see the back of his head.

The next page was a crowded mall, but there were less people than before. I very quickly found the man because there was another large gap around him and the others on the page. The ones near him had fearful expressions and seemed to be hurrying away from him. He was still facing the other way, but his head was turned ever so slightly toward the page, showing an inch of his pale face.

Now I was starting to feel uneasy.

The next page almost made me drop the book. I immediately spotted the man at the center of a beach. He was turned perfectly sideways, revealing a half of a twisted smile. But what really horrified me was his surroundings. 

They were wounded and bloody bodies all around him. Some seemed to be clinging to life and crawling away. At the edges of the pages, I could see police charging in.

“What the hell?” I said out loud. I had never seen anything this graphic. The hairs on my arms stood on end, and my hand trembled as I turned to the next page. This time, I did drop the book in shock.

The man was all alone in a purely white background, standing far too close to the page. His eyes were wide with glee. I yelped as the book slipped out of my hands.

After a minute of deep breaths, I found myself picking the book back up. I turned to the next page to find it completely blank. The rest of the pages were like that.

I rushed to the game room to find my brother.

“Fucking campers!” he yelled into his headset.

“Nathan! I need your help!” 

“What do you want?” he asked without looking at me.

“Can you come with me to the library tomorrow? I really need to return a book.”

“Do it yourself, dipshit.”

“Please!” I begged. He finally turned to meet my eyes.

“We can’t anyway. Didn’t you hear? Mr. Carpenter has gone missing. He wasn’t at school today.”

“What?!” I asked. But I saw him this morning. “Maybe he’s just sick or something?”

“No, I heard some teachers talking about it. Apparently, his wife called the police. She’s really worried about him.”

I wordlessly turned back and ran into my room where the book laid on the floor. I decided to look back through it one more time. Maybe I was just imagining things.

What I saw this time left me even more confused. The pages looked similar to how they did the first time, but with one crucial difference. The man was nowhere to be found.

I looked in the spots where I saw him before, and at every inch of the page to see if he somehow moved but couldn’t find him anywhere. 

He was just gone, like he was never there.

I turned back to the very first page to find one last horrifying surprise. The title had a little bit extra added to it:

FIND ME

BEFORE I FIND YOU

What makes for a good voodoo doll? Simple, blood and hate, the one not so easy to obtain, the other readily available in abundance. The price of hate is cheap, but blood is costly. Not physical blood, but spiritual blood- the blood of an enemy, the blood of an oppressor, or most often sought, the blood of a lover.

There are novelty dolls which I sell regularly, which have no power, but allows the purchaser a means of venting, a way to stab out their frustrations without hurting anyone, including themselves. Then there are the real dolls, the dolls that do cause harm. The dolls that are connected with real victims. It is a craft said to be fabricated by the Serpent himself, brought out of the Garden and steeped in a tradition of absurdity. Dancing in circles, building bonfires in groves, singing to goats, smoking, eating and drinking horrendous concoctions, and many more rituals men dream of when trying to empower themselves against another human being, but behind it all is one simple ingredient: hate. Hatred of another person, sometimes a hate so deep it manifests as a living entity, a killer, a torturer, a sadistic madman born not of flesh, but of a darkened, unredeemable soul.

I was taught how to make both dolls, the novelty to help put bread on my table, and the authentic harbinger of sorcery to weed out the worst of humanity. Yes, we are the good guys. The truth of the matter is the doll is to punish the buyer, the one seeking to do harm. The more they punish the doll, the quicker they kill themselves. Hate blinds them to their own demise. The victim does indeed suffer but after a time the effects subside, the curse bounces and resides with the perpetrator. There is always a choice. The perpetrator can choose to stop, but rarely does.

Blood is difficult to come by because the perpetrator has to obtain the blood of his victim himself. The blood is mingled with the perpetrator’s blood. It matters not how they get it or how much. It is a test of their resolve and a measure of their depravity. A dab will do from the victim, but the villain must bleed out enough to fill a ceremonial bowl. The things I’ve mixed in that bowl related to the victim are both evil and comical, from tampons to patches of skin. It is here where the decision is made, the decision of whether to make the doll or not.

It is a decision of high consequence for the perpetrator will become the victim and they will most certainly die. Is it murder? My mentor Doctor Evelyn preferred to call it a cleansing, a voluntary removal from existence. They kill themselves. She was adamant that this stage was crucial, that the decision was only reserved for the worst, for those that the clairvoyants would recognize as enemies of humanity. Killing them truly meant saving lives. Killing them made people’s lives exponentially better. There are ten questions we are to ask, devised by the clairvoyants, and if the answer is yes to all of them, then we are to proceed. Those questions I am not at liberty to reveal, as they were taught to me orally, never written down, and with a promised curse upon my existence if I were ever to reveal them. My mentor taught me, her mentor taught her, and his mentor taught him through a long line of well-trained practitioners of the magical arts, a tradition clouded in mystery, taught as secret knowledge taken from the Garden, hidden in the Apple. A dubious claim of course. I highly doubt the genesis of this tradition is enveloped in such a mythological environment, gifted from Lucifer. No, it didn’t take a Devil to teach us hate. As soon as we forged languages and became self-aware, we realized that we loathed certain other apes of our own species.

There was a curious case that made me almost quit the whole endeavor. One snowy evening, a lanky cadaver of a man dressed in a grey trench coat walked through the empty store and carefully placed a mason jar of blood on the counter. It wasn’t a small mason jar and the inside was opaque from bottom to brim, filled with the dark marron elixir of life.

“Can we adjourn to your workshop downstairs?”

My workshop downstairs was reserved for making the authentic dolls.

“What do you need sir?”

“I need a doll,” he replied.

Something felt wrong; something was askew.

“I have my blood. I am ready and willing to pay whatever you ask?”

“Fifty-thousand dollars,” I said in jest.

“So be it. I have a hundred thousand in the trunk of my car.”

“You’re going to pay me a hundred thousand?”

“I thought we settled on fifty thousand,” he said with a smirk.

At that point, I wasn’t willing to risk losing fifty thousand. “Follow me.”

We carefully stumbled down the stairs to the only working light before the doorway of my workshop. I flicked the switch. I had several racks of dyed camel hair fabric in the far corner, a worktable in the middle of the room, and shelves filled with cotton fiberfill. Everything organic, nothing synthetic. Directly across from the doorway near the opposite wall stood a glass case and inside was a green onyx bowl.

I worked for the next hour and a half constructing the doll, always careful to make everything perfect and paying attention to details. I wasn’t a half-ass doll maker. I took pride in my art. I knew the victim was a young woman with blond hair. I fashioned a dress and black shoes. I put a pearl necklace around her neck. I did more than necessary because I enjoyed it. I was allowed to do as much as I wanted or as little as I wanted but never permitted to make a face. The face was always left blank, the idea being that the entire person could never be fully represented. It was considered an affront to the majesty of the temple of the human body, whatever that meant. I guess to be sure, it does seem a waste of time for me to go through all that trouble only to chuck the doll into a bowl of blood and then allow it to be obliterated by a villainous, hateful shit-bag. But these are the trappings of a voodoo priest.

After I had finished making the doll, I opened the case and brought the ceremonial bowl to the worktable. As soon as I had placed the bowl on the table, the man began pouring the blood from his mason jar into the bowl.

“What are you doing?” I roared.

“Sorry. Just excited!”

“You seem to know more than you should.”

“I know someone who has already done it.”

I knew that had to be a lie or something had gone wrong. If that person hadn’t died, then there was a mistake, a failure of some sort. Hesitantly, I proceeded with the ritual.

“Do you have blood from your enemy?”

“Yes, I do. I most certainly do.” He pulled out a white handkerchief speckled with dried pink blood. He tossed it in the bowl.

‘Sir… dammit.”

“What?”

“You should’ve handed it to me.”

“What does it matter?’ It didn’t matter, but it pissed me off that he had the gall to take control of the ritual.

I put the doll in the bowl. It floated and spun in circles. I opened a drawer, grabbed a lead weight and placed it on top of the doll, submerging it to the bottom of the bowl. I brought two black candles and placed them on either side of the bowl and lit them.

“Ok, that’s it. Now we have to wait seven days,” I explained.

“That’s it? No Latin? No chanting?”

“Well, I do have some questions to ask.”

“Shoot.”

I proceeded to ask him the obligatory ten questions plus one of my own. He answered yes to all of them except for the last one pertaining to the promised fifty thousand dollars.

“So, fifty-thousand for the doll, correct?”

“If it works.”

After seven days the man returned holding a briefcase. I took the blood-drenched doll, wrapped it in tissue paper and put it in a cardboard box. As I slid the box over to him, he opened the briefcase. It was more money than I had ever seen in my life.

He picked up a hundred-dollar bill and placed it on the counter.

“What about the other forty-nine thousand and nine hundred dollars?”

“You’ll get the rest when I know it works.”

Months passed without a single trace of the man. I figured he had destroyed the doll and himself by then. One hundred dollars wasn’t a bad pull for a doll but the lure of fifty-thousand had already whetted my appetite. Yet, if the son of a bitch was dead, then that was payback enough. Did I really expect I would get that money? People searching for violent voodoo solutions aren’t normally very trustworthy.

And then one day there he was waiting in his car parked in front of the store. He jumped out of the car and lunged at me as I was trying to get my keys out of my pocket.

“You’re coming with me.” He pulled a pistol from his pocket and pointed it towards me. “Get in the car.”

We drove to the edge of town to an abandoned warehouse. He forced me through a side entrance way and down a long flight of stairs. There in a large, liminal space sat a lonely blonde headed woman on a mattress. Both her wrists were in shackles and chained to the floor. Behind her sigils of various kinds were spraypainted on the cinder block wall, sigils which I knew to represent demons and evil entities with varying levels of power. A circle of candles surrounded an altar nearby with a thick tattered book opened placed on top.

“The Grand Grimoire, with a ritual for becoming a powerful, unstoppable beast. A possession of sorts, but not so much so that you lose your own identity. The deal is you’ve got to eat people but you have eternal life. I guess a vampire without the charm. Not a wimpy blood sipping aristocrat, but a brutish animal purposed to devour the entire person. Only problem, you need a willing sacrifice. Your damn doll isn’t working.”

It was then that I noticed that the doll was lying on the mattress next to the young woman. A large pin was stuck in its chest. The man ripped off his coat and threw it to the ground. He looked emaciated and weak.

“Why isn’t the curse bouncing back to her?”

I was shocked and dumbfounded.

“Yeah, I know what’s supposed to happen but it ain’t happening. I’m getting the worst of it. You did something wrong and now I need you to fix it,” he yelled as he pointed at me.

Just then the woman took the pin out and started stabbing the doll. The man fell to the floor writhing in pain. She cackled and rocked back and forth.

“I feel it. I feel it,” she said. Her voice sounded like several people talking at once, some more sinister than others.

“It’s done.” She lifted both her arms and broke the chains from the floor. A light wind blew through the area extinguishing most of the candles. Her dark figure walked over to the man, lifted him up by his shoulders and sunk her teeth into his neck. She tore away a chunk of flesh or at least I imagined so. It was too dark to see but my mind had filled in the gruesome details based on her sinister movements, motions not indicative of a loving embrace. I couldn’t see the blood but I could hear fluid falling to the floor. She then placed him on the floor and began to do something with his head. I heard the cracking of bones and the snapping of muscles. I realized as she raised it high in the air and a smattering of light hit it just right, that she had just ripped his head off.

She then turned and glided toward me, moving as if without taking steps. Her freakish face was illuminated as she got near. Her brow was protruded and she had hideous yellow eyes. She smiled and laughed. Her teeth were jagged and pointed, caked with flesh and blood.

“He abducted me, but I knew his plan from the start. He talks to himself. He thinks out loud. He was going to use your ritual to help with his ritual, but I switched it up. Hell, if I was going to die anyway, why not sacrifice my soul for revenge. Fear rules the day, but after a while fear is subsumed by hate. I feared him at first but then I started to hate him.”

She paused and stared at me for more than a minute.

“I’m so hungry.”

I started to back away, hoping to make a run for it.

“Don’t even think about it. You don’t have a chance. I’m not going to eat you. I owe you. In a way, you saved my life.”

I still didn’t understand. She must have noticed my puzzled expression because she then elaborated on her whole scheme.

“Silly, the blood in the mason jar was mine. The blood on the handkerchief was his. It doesn’t matter who abuses the doll. It only matters who has the most blood in the bowl. I was the victim in every sense of the word, but he unwillingly became the willing sacrifice. I guess he didn’t need to die, but just suffer enough to please the masters, or maybe they left him alive for me to finish him off.”

 He demonic face had a sudden look of dismay.

“Pity, I really hated destroying that doll. You did a good job. You’re very talented. You best go while you can. I’m not so sure one is going to fill my belly and I’m not feeling so benevolent at the moment.”

I turned and ran up the stairs, out the door, and past the car. Were the keys in it? I don’t know. I wasn’t taking a chance. I think I ran for at least an hour as fast as I could. I ran until I felt a piercing pain in my side and chest. I heaved for air and vomited all over myself. When I got home, I found a crucifix and put around my neck, wondering if that worked, wondering if it was blessed, wondering if being blessed even worked. I hid in the closet and prayed for morning.

I stayed inside for a few weeks, too scared to leave the apartment. Eventually I would have to leave and at least buy some groceries. I was down to the bare essentials, a half a roll of toilet paper and two packs of instant noodles. The news reported on a missing man and woman. The man I knew they would never find; the woman I knew the officials would be better off not finding.

A couple people from home know my main account and I don't want them finding this. This is long, sorry. I'm not a writer, I'm a dispatcher, and I'm typing this on a motel laptop... well, my laptop, motel wifi, which keeps dropping, so if it posts twice that's why. And if I jump around, I'm sorry. I haven't slept right in about two months and I've been up since yesterday morning.

I've been lurking here for years, mostly on my breaks at work. Never thought I'd post. But I need people who aren't from my town to read this, and this is the only place I could think of where people might actually listen instead of just telling me to get some rest.

I need to start with what my dog does, or none of the rest of it is going to make sense.

If you've never seen a cadaver dog work you probably picture a bloodhound in a cartoon, baying and dragging some guy through the woods. It's not like that. A good HRD dog (human remains detection) is quiet. She works a grid with her nose low, back and forth, tail up, and you can actually see her thinking, like a kid doing long division in their head. And when she finds what she's trained to find she doesn't bark and she doesn't dig. She sits.

That's a passive alert. She sits as close to the source as she can get, points her nose at it, and stares. She won't look at you. She won't look at anything else. Rain, snow, swamp up to her chest, she'll stare at a patch of ground or a car trunk or the bottom of a lake until you give the release word and hand over the toy. Some dogs hold an alert twenty minutes. Mine holds it as long as it takes.

Her name's Juno. Belgian Malinois, nine years old, sixty-one pounds, tan with the black mask, and honestly the best thing I've ever done with my life except my son. I've had her since eight weeks. She's certified every year by two separate national organizations, which means every year she gets tested blind: somebody hides real human remains in one of several spots and decoys in the others, and neither me nor the evaluator knows which is which, and she has to find the right one. She's never failed. 226 deployments, for PDs and sheriff's offices and families, four states. She found a drowned boy at the bottom of a reservoir by leaning out over the side of a johnboat and staring at the water. She found a woman in a septic tank. She found ninety-year-old bone fragments in a farmer's field under two feet of plowed dirt.

She has never made a false alert. Not once. Not in training, not in certs, not on a search.

I need yinz to get that before I tell you what she's been doing. Like actually get it.

The one I think about most was four years ago at a reservoir down in West Virginia. Nine-year-old boy went off a dock at a family reunion and didn't come up. Divers had been on it three days in water so silted they couldn't see their own hands. And the family was standing on the bank in a line. Mom, dad, two grandmas, an uncle holding a toddler. Three days they'd been standing there.

We went out in a johnboat, Juno in her orange harness up in the bow, me on the tiller, a deputy with a GPS. Ran slow lines across the cove. She leaned out over the side with her nose maybe an inch off the surface, working the scent that comes up off the water in a column from whatever's below, drifting, breaking up, coming up again. Bottom of that boat was slippy as anything and she never once lost her footing.

About forty minutes in she sat down in the bow.

Boat's still moving, and she sits, and turns her head to keep her nose on one patch of water as we slide past, swiveling around until she's facing straight back over the stern, staring at a spot of brown water that looked exactly like every other spot of brown water in that reservoir. I cut the motor. Deputy dropped a marker buoy. She stared at it for twenty-five minutes while the dive team came out, didn't blink, didn't move, and the second diver went down the buoy line and came back up after four minutes and pulled his mask off and just nodded.

On the bank the mother sat down in the mud.

That's what Juno does. She doesn't guess. She doesn't get excited. She tells you with her whole body, here, and she keeps telling you until somebody listens.

OK. Me. I'm Delia, 46. I live with my son Caleb, he's 16, in a little town in the hills of western PA that I'm not naming, because anybody from there would know it in two seconds. Coal town, or it was. About four thousand people. Main street with a hardware store, two churches, a diner, and a lot of empty storefronts. Closest real grocery store is the Giant Eagle twenty minutes out by the highway, so most people just make do with the IGA. High school whose football team is the only thing anybody talks about August to November. And under all of it, the streets and the houses and the football field, there's mines.

All closed now. Last one shut in 1994. But they're still down there, miles of tunnels, rooms cut out of the seam and propped up with timber and left to fall in in the dark. Every so often somebody's backyard drops a foot overnight. Every so often a basement fills up with water that smells like rotten eggs. The old-timers call it the town under the town.

I'm a dispatcher at the county 911 center. Nights, three on three off. The dog stuff is volunteer, most HRD handlers are. You do it because once you've watched a family get somebody back to bury you can't really not do it. People think it must be depressing. It's the opposite, mostly. It's the one part of my life where I actually get to finish something.

Caleb's dad left when he was four. It's been the two of us and a dog ever since. Before Juno there was Rudy, black Lab, could find a single tooth in a ten-acre field, died at fourteen with his head in my lap. (Still can't talk about Rudy much.) Caleb grew up with cadaver dogs. He's been helping me train since he was eight, hiding sources, laying out grids. He thinks it's totally normal that we've got a locked freezer in the garage with human teeth and placenta and body farm soil in it, all labeled, for training. His buddies think it's the coolest thing about him.

He's a good kid. Funny, kind, terrible at math, plays left tackle. I'm telling you about him now because I need you to know him a little before I get to the end. Sorry. Getting ahead of myself.

Church picnic is the second Sunday in September. Lawn behind First Methodist, under the oaks, folding tables, everybody's casserole dishes lined up, a cooler of lemonade the size of a bathtub, and somebody always brings like nine two-liters of pop that nobody drinks. I bring Juno every year. Kids love her. She's real gentle with kids and she likes a crowd scratching her ears. She's off duty, on leash, blue collar not the orange harness. That matters. A working dog knows the difference.

About one o'clock I'm in line for the potato salad, Juno sitting by my leg, and Pastor Gene comes over to say hi.

Gene Hollis has been pastor at First Methodist twenty-six years. Married half the town and buried the other half. He's 64, big and pink and bald, laugh you can hear across a parking lot. He crouched down to scratch her like he always does and said something like "There's my girl."

And Juno went rigid.

I felt it through the leash before I saw it. Every muscle locked. She got up off my leg, took two steps toward Gene, and sat down right in front of him, maybe eighteen inches from his chest. Nose pointed at the middle of his body. And she stared.

Not at his face. At his sternum. At the space under his shirt between the buttons. That glassy, total, locked-on look I've seen 226 times over lake water and car trunks and plowed dirt.

Gene laughed. "Well hey, somebody likes me."

I said "Juno, leave it." Nothing. That had NEVER happened. She's off duty, blue collar, leave it means leave it. I said it again sharper. She didn't even flick an ear.

I said her release word (it's a goofy made-up word so nobody says it by accident, I'm not putting it here). Nothing. I pulled her tug out of my back pocket and waved it right next to her head. She didn't look at it.

People were noticing now. Couple of the kids giggling. Gene still crouched there smiling, a little unsure. "She okay?"

I had to pick her up. All sixty-one pounds. Arms around her chest, lifted her off the ground, turned her around, and the whole time her head kept swiveling back over my shoulder toward him like a compass needle. Carried her to the truck, put her in the crate, and she lay down with her nose jammed against the wire pointed back at the lawn, at Gene, and stayed like that the whole way home.

So I told myself there was an explanation. There's always an explanation. Cadaver dogs alert on decomp odor, which is a cocktail of chemicals with ugly names, cadaverine, putrescine, a few hundred others, that a body starts putting out within hours of death. It's stubborn stuff. Gets into soil, fabric, wood, carpet, car seats, n'at. A dog can pick it up off a rug where a body lay twenty minutes, years later.

And Gene's a pastor. Pastors are around the dead all the time. They sit with dying people, they put hands on bodies in hospital beds and at the funeral home. So I'm thinking OK, he did a viewing this morning. Or last night. Whatever, he touched somebody, it's on his hands, on his shirt, and Juno's a pro and she's trained to report that smell wherever she finds it, and she reported it, and I'm the one who embarrassed us both.

Monday I called the funeral home, casual, asking about something else. I know the girl who does their books, so it wasn't even weird. Or I told myself it wasn't. Small town, everybody's nebby, nobody thinks twice. No viewing that weekend. Gene hadn't been in.

I ran into Helen Ostrowski at the post office that week. Before she was on the list. Or after? Honestly I don't trust my own dates anymore. She was behind the counter weighing a package and she looked at me over her readers and said something I've thought about every single day since.

"Delia," she said, "do you ever get the feeling you forgot to do something?"

I said sometimes.

"I keep getting it." She put the package on the scale and looked at the number and didn't write it down. "All day. Like I left the stove on. Like there's something I was supposed to do and I just can't think what." She smiled. "I keep wanting to sit down. Isn't that silly? Just sit down someplace quiet and rest. Like I've been on my feet a hundred years."

Then she shook her head and laughed and wrote down the weight and sold me my stamps.

Anyway. I figured it was something with Juno. A bad day, getting older, maybe something off with her nose. I booked her a vet check and a blind proficiency test with a handler buddy two counties over.

She passed both. Perfect on the blind. Found the source in under two minutes, blew right past three decoys.

The next Sunday I took her to church with me on purpose. Sat in the back pew. When it let out and everybody filed past Gene at the door shaking his hand, I walked her past him on a short leash.

She sat down in front of him and stared at his chest.

I need to tell you about Gene. What he was like those weeks.

He was fine. That's the thing. He was totally fine. Cheerful. Preached. Visited the sick. Big laugh across the parking lot. But there were little things, the kind you only catch if you're watching, and by then I was watching.

He'd stopped sweating. It was a hot September, ninety most afternoons, every other man in town had pit stains, and Gene, who has always been a sweater, big pink guy with a hankie permanently in his fist, stood out in the sun after service in a black shirt and his face was dry and pale as paper.

He'd stopped eating. Not obviously. He'd take a plate at the picnic and carry it around and talk, and at the end of the afternoon the plate went in the trash still full.

And the flies. This is the part I keep coming back to. At the picnic, at church, once outside the hardware store, there were flies around him. Not a swarm. Two or three. Big slow metallic-green ones, the kind that find a deer on the side of the road inside an hour. They'd land on his collar, his ear, the back of his hand, and walk around, and he never brushed them off. Didn't seem to know they were there.

I know those flies. Every handler knows those flies. They get to a body before anything else does. Sometimes on a search you look for them before you even cut the dog loose.

Fourth Sunday, Juno alerted on Helen Ostrowski.

Helen runs the post office. She's 71, tiny, sharp as a tack, known me since I was a little girl. Juno sat down in front of her in the church lot and stared at her chest, and Helen laughed and said "Is she doing her job on me, Delia?" and I said something about Juno being a goofball and dragged her off and sat in my truck with my hands shaking.

Next day she alerted on Dale Sorensen, who coaches the football team, outside the diner.

Two days after that, a teller at the bank. Then the Petrakis kid who bags groceries at the IGA, nineteen years old. Then a woman I didn't know walking her own dog down Second Street, a chocolate Lab that was trotting along at the very end of its leash, as far away from her as it could get, head turned away, tail clamped between its legs. I noticed that. You notice that kind of thing when you do what I do.

I quit taking Juno into town. Started walking her at night on the old rail trail away from people. But I live in town, everybody lives in town. She alerted on the guy who reads the gas meters, through my backyard fence. She alerted on two of Caleb's buddies who came by to get him for practice, sat down on the porch boards and stared at the passenger door of their car.

(I'm going to stop listing them all, it doesn't matter, you get it.)

I kept a list. I'm a dispatcher, I keep logs, it's literally what I do. Name, date, time, location. By the middle of October I had twenty-nine names.

By the end of October I had forty-four.

I talked to Bonnie. Bonnie Kreider, she's a nurse practitioner at the clinic on Main and one of maybe three people in town I'd call an actual friend. We went to high school together. I met her at the diner on a Tuesday, back booth, and told her everything, and she didn't laugh. Which honestly scared me more than if she had.

She stirred her coffee a long time.

Then she said, "Gene came in for his annual physical. Three weeks ago."

I waited.

"His temp was ninety-four point one," she said. "I did it three times with two different thermometers. BP was seventy over forty. Resting heart rate thirty-one." She put the spoon down. "Thirty-one, Dee. That's a marathon runner asleep. He's sixty-four and he weighs two-sixty. I told him he had to go to the hospital in the city right now, I was calling an ambulance, and he laughed and said he never felt better in his life. He said he felt peaceful. That was the word." She looked up at me. "He was so calm. He said, 'Bonnie, I'm fine. Really. I'm just tired, I think. I've been tired a long time.'"

"Did he go?"

"No." She turned her cup around and around on the saucer. "I've had six more since. Same thing. Low temp, low pressure, pulse in the thirties. They come in for a cough or some routine thing and I take vitals and nearly fall over. And they're all so calm. Not one of them will go to the hospital." She dropped her voice. "Helen Ostrowski. Last week. I couldn't find a pulse at all. Fingers on her wrist, on her neck, nothing. And she's sitting on the exam table telling me about her grandson's wedding."

We sat there a while.

"Is she on your list?" Bonnie said. "Helen?"

I said yeah. Second name.

Bonnie nodded real slow. She looked out the window at Main Street, people walking by in the October sun, going in the hardware store, coming out of the bank.

"How many on your list?"

"Forty-four."

She closed her eyes.

So then I went to see Walt Bevan.

Walt's 93. Little house at the bottom of Furnace Street, porch leans like a drunk, yard full of rusted mine equipment he won't let anybody haul off. He went down the Number 4 at fourteen and came up for the last time at sixty-one, and he knows more about the town under the town than anybody alive. I brought him a pie, because you don't visit Walt without a pie, and sat on the porch with him and told him about Juno.

He listened with his eyes shut, rocking. When I was done he didn't say anything for a long time.

Then he said, "You know about 'twenty-seven?"

Everybody in town knows about 1927. There's a plaque outside the town hall. November 8, 1927, an explosion in the Number 4, about two miles in and half a mile down. Seventy-one men died. Thirty-eight of them were never recovered, because the fire burned for weeks and the company sealed that section with them still inside.

"Most of the boys that died," Walt said, "didn't die in the blast. They died of the afterdamp."

I didn't know the word. I'm putting it here exactly how he said it.

"After an explosion," Walt said, "the air goes bad. Blast eats up all the good air and leaves the bad behind. Carbon monoxide, mostly. Miners called it afterdamp. Whitedamp. You can't smell it, can't see it. It don't hurt. It just takes you, nice and quiet. You get tired. You get calm. You sit down for a rest and you don't get up."

He rocked a while.

"My grandad was in that mine in 'twenty-seven. One of the ones that walked out. And he told me something I never told nobody, because they'd have thought he was cracked." Walt opened his eyes. Milky blue, real steady. "He said a lot of the boys walked out with him. Come up the slope after the blast, coughing, black all over. Walked home. Sat down to supper with their families. Kissed their kids. Went to work next day, some of 'em. Went to church Sunday."

"And they was dead," Walt said. "Been dead since the afterdamp hit 'em, down there in the dark. They just hadn't noticed yet. Some of 'em kept going a week. Some longer. Walking around. Real calm. Real polite. Didn't eat. Didn't sweat. Then one morning they'd just be sitting in their chair, and they'd stay there."

He looked at me.

"My grandad said you could always tell which ones," he said. "By the dogs."

I know how that sounds. Believe me, I know. I sat in my truck in front of his house for twenty minutes after and didn't start it.

Three nights later I'm at the console at 3:12 a.m. and a call comes in from an address on Sycamore.

Linda Sorensen. Dale's wife. The coach. Juno had alerted on Dale outside the diner six weeks before. He was name number three.

She wasn't screaming. That's what I remember. Twelve years of dispatch, I've taken hundreds of calls where somebody's found a husband or a wife or a parent not breathing, and they scream, or sob, or they're so scared their voice goes up into a squeak. Linda was calm. Kind of puzzled. Like she was calling about a weird noise in the furnace.

"It's my husband," she said. "He's in his chair. He won't wake up. He's been sitting there since dinner, I thought he dozed off watching the game, and I went up to bed. And I came down just now for a glass of water and he's still there, and he's..." Pause. "He's cold. He's real cold. And he's smiling."

I ran the protocol. Asked her to check breathing. Asked her to get him on the floor and start compressions, and I counted them out loud for her, one and two and three and four, like I've done a thousand times. Sent the ambulance. Stayed on till the medics walked in.

I knew it was pointless. I knew before she finished the first sentence.

End of my shift one of the medics, Troy, I've known him forever, came and found me in the break room and sat down across from me and said "Dee, that was weird."

I asked him what was weird.

"Wife says he was talking to her at dinner," Troy said. "Like, normal. Talked about the Blackwood game, asked for the salt. Then sat down in his chair to watch TV." He rubbed his face. "But Dee, the lividity. The blood pooling. That takes a while to set like that. Rigor had already come and gone. That man was dead for days. Maybe a week. Maybe more." He looked at me. "So how'd he ask for the salt?"

Death certificate said cardiac arrest. Dale was sixty. Everybody said what a shame, big healthy guy like that, and the funeral was Saturday and the whole team came in their jerseys and stood in the back of the church, and Gene did the eulogy with his face dry and pale as paper, and there were flies around the casket, and nobody brushed them away.

I watched Gene from the back pew. He said Dale went peacefully, in his own chair, in his own home. Said it was the way we'd all want to go. Said Dale wasn't afraid. He said, "I don't think he even noticed."

And the whole church nodded. Calm and polite.

I didn't sleep after the funeral. I went home and redd up the kitchen table, which I never do, just shoved everything onto the counter, mail and dog stuff and Caleb's practice gear n'at, and got out the county survey maps. We have a set at the 911 center, old ones, from back when they plotted mine subsidence. They show the Number 4 tunnels laid out under town in faded blue ink, like the veins on the back of an old lady's hand.

I put a red pin on every address on my list. Home, work, and wherever Juno alerted on them.

Took about an hour. Then I stood back and looked at it.

They weren't scattered. They made a circle. Rough and ragged, about half a mile across, centered on the east end of Main, on the high school, on the football field. I laid the old mine map over top and the center of the circle was right over the sealed section of the Number 4. Where the explosion was in 1927. Where the thirty-eight men are.

And the first pins, the September ones, Gene and Helen and Dale, were all near the middle. Late October ones were further out. Last week's were right on the edge.

It was spreading. Like a ring from a rock you drop in a pond. Like gas coming up through the ground.

There's been stuff over the years about the mine, for the record. CO in basements. A family got evacuated in 2009 when their alarm went off in the middle of the night. The fire in the Number 4 was supposed to be out by 1928. But there's mine fires in Pennsylvania that have been burning sixty years, look it up. And the company that sealed it went bankrupt in 1952 and nobody's checked that seal since.

So maybe that's all it is. Maybe the old fire never went out and the afterdamp is leaking up through the cracks in the town under the town, into basements and classrooms and the church. Can't see it, can't smell it, quiet. Making people tired. Making people calm.

Or maybe it doesn't matter what it is.

Because Walt's grandad was right. They don't notice.

That night after Caleb was asleep I did something I'd been putting off. I put Juno's orange harness on in the kitchen and told her to search.

I stood still in the middle of the floor. She worked around me in a slow circle, nose at knee height, then waist, then up on her hind legs with her front paws on my hip, sniffing my chest, my collar, my hands. Professional. Thorough. Then she dropped down and looked up at me, tail going, waiting for the next command. No alert.

I took her upstairs and cracked Caleb's door and sent her in. She worked the room in the dark, around the bed, nose to the blanket, up by the pillow where he was breathing slow and deep with his mouth open. Then she came back out and sat in the hall looking at me, wagging.

No alert. Not on either of us.

I sat on the top step with my arms around her neck for a long time. I remember thinking, We're outside the circle. We're six blocks from the edge. We have time. I remember planning to move us to my sister's in Ohio before Christmas. I remember feeling, first time in weeks, something like relief.

That was October 24th. I've checked. It's in my log.

Friday I went to the football game.

I wanted to see. I left Juno in the truck way at the far end of the lot, windows cracked, and walked up to the bleachers by myself with my collar up. Homecoming. Half the town there. Lights on, those huge white stadium lights you can see from three miles off on a fall Friday, band playing, air smelling like popcorn and cut grass and bus diesel. If you grew up around here you know exactly what I mean.

I sat at the top of the home stands and watched the crowd.

Most of them were just a crowd. On their feet, yelling, stomping the aluminum so the whole thing rang like a drum. Kids running up and down the steps. Old guys with blankets on their knees screaming at the ref.

And scattered in with them, like rocks in a creek, the others.

They sat very still. Didn't stand when everybody stood. Didn't yell. Watched the game with calm, interested faces, like watching fish in a tank, and when there was a touchdown and everybody around them jumped up screaming they turned their heads real slow and smiled at the people screaming. Kindly. Like you'd smile at little kids. I counted thirty-one of them in the home stands. Thirty-one little islands of quiet in all that noise. I knew most of their names. Most of them were on my list.

Over each one, up in the white glare, a few flies turned slow circles.

When I got back to the truck Juno was sitting up in the back with her nose pressed to the gap at the top of the window, pointed at the stands. Not at one person. At all of it. Her head going in little quick jerks, left, right, up, down, like she was trying to alert on everything at once and couldn't pick. She was trembling. Nine years. I'd never once seen her tremble on a scent.

I sat in the cab with my hands on the wheel and listened to the band doing the fight song across the dark lot, and the crowd roaring, and I thought about how many of them were roaring and how many were just sitting there smiling, being polite, waiting for it to be over so they could go home and sit in their chairs.

I went to the county. I called state DEP, the mine safety office, the health department. Told them I'm a 911 dispatcher, which is true, and that we'd had multiple CO alarm calls in the east end, which is not. They sent a guy out with a meter. He walked around the high school and the church and down Main and got nothing. Zero ppm. Said the air was cleaner than in the city.

I called the state police and asked to talk to somebody about a possible public health emergency. I got as far as the word "dog" before the trooper started using the voice. You know the voice. We use it at the center for people who call about the government putting chips in their teeth.

I thought about the paper. I thought about telling Gene. I thought about walking up to Helen at the post office counter and saying, Helen, I think you might be dead.

And then what? What do you even say after that?

November 1st, Juno alerted on Caleb.

I've written and deleted this part like six times. Just going to say it.

He was eating breakfast. Cereal at the counter, standing up like always, practice shorts, hair sticking up. Juno was under the table. I was at the stove.

I heard her get up. Nails on the linoleum, click, click, click. I turned around.

She was sitting at my son's feet staring at his chest.

He laughed. "Hey, Junebug." Scratched her head. "What, you want my Cheerios?"

She didn't move. Didn't look at the Cheerios. She stared at the place under his T-shirt where his heart is, with that total, terrible, locked-on look of a dog who found what she was looking for.

I don't remember the next couple minutes great. I remember dropping the spatula. I remember grabbing his wrist and digging my fingers in, hard, harder, while he laughed and said "Mom what the hell" and tried to pull away. I remember I couldn't find a pulse, and then I thought I could, real faint, real slow, and then I wasn't sure. I remember putting my hand flat on his chest and holding it there and him going still, looking at me, his face changing, the laugh going out of it.

His skin was cool. Not cold. Cool, like somebody who's been sitting in AC all day. And I couldn't feel his heart. I held my hand there a long time and I couldn't feel anything.

"Mom," he said, real quiet. "Mom. You're freaking me out."

He was so calm.

I drove him to the hospital in the city. Fifty-three miles. He griped the whole way, he'd miss practice, he felt fine, I was being crazy. I told him I'd seen some symptoms. Told him there might be a gas leak at the house. Juno rode in her crate in the back.

Around the thirty-mile mark I saw her in the rearview. She'd been sitting up since we left, nose on the wire, staring through the back seat at Caleb. And at thirty miles she just. Stopped. Lay down, head on her paws, went to sleep.

In the ER they took his vitals. 98.4. BP 120 over 76. Heart rate 62, which the triage nurse said was great for an athlete. They checked his blood for CO because I made them. Normal. The doctor was very nice and very tired and asked me, gently, if I was under a lot of stress at work.

I almost laughed in his face. Almost. Then I wanted to cry, because the thing is, part of me wanted him to be right. I wanted so bad for it to be me. Stressed out dispatcher mom loses it, takes a leave, gets on some pills. I would've signed up for that in a heartbeat.

On the way home, about thirty miles out from town, Juno woke up. Sat up in her crate, pressed her nose to the wire, and stared at the back of Caleb's head.

That was a week ago.

I kept him home. Told the school he has mono. He's furious with me. He's in his room all day on his phone texting his friends, and they keep texting back, dude come to practice, coach says you're fine, everyone's asking about you. He says he feels great. Says he's never felt better. Says he feels peaceful, with this little smile, and he has no idea he's using Gene's word.

He quit eating. Takes a plate up to his room and I find it on the landing in the morning, not touched. Hasn't sweated in a week. He sleeps, or looks like he sleeps, with his eyes a little bit open.

Yesterday morning there was a fly on his pillow. Big, slow, green. Walked across the pillowcase onto his cheek and up toward the corner of his eye, and he just lay there smiling a little in his sleep and didn't move.

I killed it with my hand. I smacked my own kid in the face to kill a fly. And he woke up and looked at me and said "Mom?" so gently. Like he was worried about ME.

Juno won't leave him. Sits outside his door all night staring at it. When he comes down she follows him room to room, and every time he stops she sits at his feet and points her nose at his heart. He thinks it's funny. Calls her his bodyguard.

I haven't slept more than an hour at a time since. I sit on the landing. I listen.

And then last night they came to the house.

Not a mob. Nothing like that. Nothing in this town has ever been like that. I heard a car pull up around nine, then another, and when I looked out the front window there were maybe a dozen people standing on my lawn in the dark.

Gene up front. Helen next to him in her good coat. Linda Sorensen in Dale's old letterman jacket. The teller from the bank. The Petrakis kid. Caleb's two buddies. Just standing there on the grass in the porch light, hands in their pockets or folded in front of them. Calm. Polite.

Nobody's breath was fogging. I noticed that. It was thirty-four degrees, I could see my own breath on the inside of the glass, and theirs didn't fog. At all.

Gene came up on the porch and knocked. Real gentle.

I didn't open it. I talked to him through the door.

"Delia, honey, we're just worried about you." Warm. The big pink voice I've known my whole life. "Folks are saying the dog's been upsetting people. Sitting down in front of 'em. Scaring the kids. Helen says she can't hardly go to work without wondering if Juno's going to come at her."

"She doesn't come at anybody," I said. "She sits."

"I know, honey." Pause. "But it upsets folks. Makes 'em feel funny. Like she knows something about 'em they don't." Longer pause. "And Caleb ought to be at practice. He's missing the Blackwood game Friday. The boys say he's never been in better shape."

Juno was in the hall behind me. Not staring at the door. Turning in a slow circle in the middle of the hallway, nose up, sweeping, the way she does at the start of a search when there's so much scent in the air she can't decide where to start.

"Some of the folks think," Gene said, "maybe it's time she retired. She's nine. That's old for a working dog. Maybe let her rest." Quiet a second. "We'd all feel a lot more peaceful, Delia. You would too. I promise. It doesn't hurt. You just get tired. You've been tired a long time, haven't you, honey? We all have."

Upstairs I heard Caleb's door. Feet on the landing. He came halfway down the stairs and stopped.

"Mom?" he said. "Is that Pastor Gene? Can I go out and say hi?"

Juno ran up the steps past me and sat on the step below him, between him and the front door, and stared at his heart.

Anyway. I'm writing this from a motel off the interstate. Not saying which one. A hundred and ninety miles from home. It's four in the morning.

I put Caleb in the truck around midnight after they'd all gone. Told him we were going to his aunt's in Ohio. He didn't argue, which isn't him. Got in the passenger seat, buckled up, looked out the window at town going by, the church, the post office, the high school, and said real quiet, "I like it here, Mom. Everyone's so nice."

Then nothing. Not a word the rest of the drive.

Juno rode in the back seat behind him, not in the crate. Sat up the whole way with her nose a few inches off his headrest. Staring through it at my son.

At thirty miles I was watching her in the mirror. Praying. I'm not religious and I was praying out loud in the truck at quarter after one in the morning, please lie down, please lie down, please.

She didn't lie down.

Not at thirty. Not at fifty-three where the hospital is. Not at a hundred. A hundred and ninety miles she sat behind him and stared. And she's at the end of the motel bed now, in the dark, staring at him. He's on his back on top of the covers. Eyes a little open. Hands folded on his chest.

The way they fold them at the funeral home.

His phone's been buzzing on the nightstand all night. I picked it up an hour ago and read the screen. His friends, the team, numbers I didn't know. Dozens. All the same kind of thing, same gentle, no-hurry way. come home man. everyone misses you. coach says no rush. its so quiet here now its nice. your mom can come too. tell her we're not mad about the dog.

Last one came at 3:51. 3:51 in the morning. From Gene. I didn't know Gene had my son's number.

Whenever you're both ready. We'll leave the porch light on.

I turned the phone off. Caleb didn't stir.

It's not wearing off this time. The city was a reprieve. Whatever came up out of that ground is in him now. All the way in.

OK. Here's the actual reason I'm typing this at four in the morning instead of sitting with my kid.

We stopped for gas around two, truck stop off the interstate, different county, different state, a hundred and sixty miles from home. I let Juno out to pee on the strip of grass by the air pump. Guy filling up a pickup at the next pump. Fifties, hunting jacket. Nobody.

Juno walked over and sat at his feet and stared at his chest.

He laughed and said "Well hey there" and scratched her ears.

I got her back in the truck. And pulling out I saw a woman come out of the store with a coffee, and Juno in the back seat turned her head and tracked her across the lot with her nose. The way she does when she's on a scent she's trained to report. Then the cashier, through the window. Young kid, couldn't have been twenty. Then a guy asleep in the cab of a semi.

All the way down the interstate. Every car that got close. Every light in every little town. Her head kept turning. A man walking a dog. A woman at a bus stop. A family in the next lane at a red light, kids in the back waving at her through the glass.

It's not our town.

It was never just our town. We were just the town with a dog that can't be wrong.

I don't know how far it goes. I don't know if our old fire is the only one or if there's seams burning under every town, every city, the whole country, leaking afterdamp up through the cracks for years, decades, making everybody a little more tired. A little more calm. A little more peaceful. Till they don't notice the moment they stop. I don't know if this is new. Maybe it's always been like this and the dogs always knew and nobody listened.

But I'm asking yinz something. Seriously.

If you've got a dog, and your dog has started sitting down next to somebody and staring, not at their face, at their chest, and won't quit, won't take a treat, won't come when you call: don't laugh it off. Don't drag her away. Don't tell your buddy she's just being a goofball.

Look at the person. Look for the sweat that isn't there. Look at their plate. Look for the flies.

And then ask yourself how long it's been since you felt anything but tired.

It's five now. Caleb hasn't moved. Eyes still a little open. Little smile. Room's cold and getting colder.

Juno's been restless since three.

I heard her nails on the carpet. Heard her walk away from Caleb, along the side of the bed, slow, nose down, sweeping. Like a grid. Heard her stop.

She's standing next to my chair.

Not sitting. Standing. Nose pressed into my side, right under my ribs, breathing in, long and slow. She does that on a search when the source is deep. When the scent's only just starting to come up through the ground and she isn't sure yet. She checks, moves off, comes back, checks again.

This is the fourth time tonight she's come back to me.

She hasn't sat. Not yet.

I'm so tired. I've been tired so long. Since September. Before September. I don't know since when.

I'm going to post this now. Then I'm going to sit here with my hand on her back and watch her, all night if I have to, and see what she does.

She's never been wrong.

Part 1

Viktoria and I stood on a pier in Cape Cod at the end of a long summer together. Life was perfect in a way it hadn’t been in a long, long time.

Her hair was golden like the sunset. Her grey cotton dress hugged her body from head to toe as though she’d just stepped out of the water. I leaned in, taking her face in my hand as her hands wrapped around my back, fingernails sending shockwaves down my skin.

But as her fingernails grazed my skin, the sound was just…wrong.

Like metal scraping something.

I blinked, and the pale light of dawn streamed in under the blinds as I realized I was hearing metal on concrete. Something was being dragged across the pool deck.

How long had I been out? Shit.

I sprang up and threw open the door to the outside as a thousand nightmarish scenarios ran through my head, mostly involving me being shown the door and told to pack my things.

I blinked again as I realized that “something” was the lifeguard stand, which had somehow been ripped from its foundation and was now teetering on the edge of the deep end. There was a small splash as something - presumably whatever had pulled it, and I was more than happy not knowing whatever that might be - slipped back under the surface. I took in my surroundings.

The pool deck was in complete and total disarray. Several chairs and tables were toppled over. An umbrella stuck up out of the pool like it was doing a handstand. I had my work cut out for me, but if there was any upside to this, it was that the pool wasn’t totally in ruins.

I was nearly done getting everything back in order when I heard a voice behind me, not unlike a parent in a teen movie when they get home and see the house wrecked from a party.

“What on earth has happened here?!”

Vitaly. Shit.

I turned toward him as he strode towards me.

“Uhh…storm last night. Kinda messed stuff up.”

“I was at the Boston Red Sox game. Clear sky all night. Do not bullshit me.”

As shit as the Red Sox were that year, that didn’t really seem like whatever administrative tasks he claimed to have had. Still, I also couldn’t call him out either.

“I’m sorry... it was a long day. Church freaked me out a little bit and so I was emotionally exhausted as well.”

I saw a flicker of sympathy across his face, and I had a feeling church had been on his radar but he had forgotten to mention it yesterday. He took one look at the security camera in the foreground, then started wildly gesturing at me while keeping his voice down, as though he was performing for the camera.

“Alright…I let you off the hook this one time since you did volunteer for this and it does appear that I forgot to inform you of the schedule change for church. So that is on me. But this is your only warning. This cannot happen again. You understand?”

Relief flooded through me. “Yes, absolutely…..thank you so much.”

“Yes. Now…help me finish fixing up the rest of the pool, then go home and get some rest. You will not participate in the straw drawing tonight.” That was more than fine with me.

I went home. Slept for about six hours. When I got up, the other three wanted to know everything about the night shift. I just told them it was easy. Nothing much happened. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell them about the church meeting. I myself still wasn’t sure whether I had been hearing things or not and wanted nothing more than to tell them everything. But something kept me from doing so.

We went back earlier in the afternoon for our shift that day. Got there about 20 minutes early to a very pleased Vitaly. He clapped his hands together in satisfaction as he saw us approaching. “Now THAT is more like it!”

The deck looked…normal. As though nothing had happened to it the following night. I mean, it hadn’t been that hard to put everything back. Vitaly had made me wait before hopping in the deep end to get the few chairs and umbrellas that had wound up in there. Wanted to make sure the “cleaning system was off.”

I couldn’t help but notice, though, that the guard stand was right back in its place. Firmly cemented, as though nothing had ripped it out of its foundation the night before. I wanted to ask how they had managed to get it back in that quickly but decided not to. Figured some things were better left unanswered, and the answer would be much simpler than I expected. Assuming he called some guys in as soon as I left, they could have picked it up with some serious effort, put in some quick drying cement, and no one would be the wiser.

Viktoria had the night shift that night, followed by Ricky, then Cody. I noticed a pattern the mornings after - they would arrive home, and the rest of us would want to know all about it. Anything crazy happen? You would see the forced reluctance in their eyes, but they just cheerfully waved it off. I had to give Ricky and Cody a look that second morning, one that said “don’t press it” without actually saying it, and that seemed to do the trick.

Lord knows what happened on Cody’s overnight. He let out the most forced sigh I had ever heard before he even walked in the door. “WOW. Easiest fuckin shift ever!” We knew he was bullshitting us, because he looked like he’d been through a war. We also knew not to ask.

Vitaly took Friday and Saturday night. Saturday was the regularly scheduled church service, he said, and he needed to have a word with Pastor Patterson beforehand. He gave me a look right before saying this, mostly telling me he didn’t entirely trust me to not fall asleep again on the shift, but that was fine with me.

Sunday night was “scheduled maintenance” before the pool would begin normal operating hours since school was now out. The other five guards had orientation that Monday, and would begin working throughout the week, replacing one of us each shift.

They were all fine. But the four of us had already bonded, and we kept gravitating toward each other.

About a month in, maybe mid-June, Ricky and I had a night shift together. The church was having a baptism that night. Ricky had been voluntold for the shift to get back in Vitaly’s good graces after, hungover one Sunday morning, he had grabbed the wrong shirt for work. Viktoria was pissed about something or other, so I jumped at the opportunity.

By this point, I was no stranger to the services, because my night shifts just so happened to land on them half the time. I figured Vitaly thought I was best accustomed to handling them once I had proven I wouldn't fall asleep, and I felt a weird pride in that.

So, once we got our dinner heated up and were situated in the guard office, I propped the front door open, pulled down the front and back blinds, and shut the door to the guard office. I looked over. Ricky was watching me, a mixture of curiosity and confusion on his face.

“Aren’t we supposed to leave the blinds open for night shift?”

“Oh…yeah, but Pastor Patterson likes them closed. Says his parishioners are shy. Something like that.”

I tried to avoid elaborating as much as possible. I’d learned over time that certain things were left…unsaid.

He nodded, though uncertainly. “Gotcha.”

We settled in. I kept a curious eye on Ricky. I wasn’t sure if he’d worked a church night yet, and it was sort of like watching a horror movie with someone, and you knew a jump scare was coming and they didn’t.

As if on cue, the chanting started a few hours later. Slowly, at first. I could never be sure where exactly it started.

Ricky raised an eyebrow slightly. “…you hear that, dude.?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure how, or if I even should react. Didn’t want to gaslight him but also wasn’t sure how he’d react if I validated him. So I played dumb. Tried to look confused. “Hear what?”

“That weird…moaning noise over there. Like over by the clubhouse. But now it’s getting closer?”

The chanting was louder now. Like they were coming outside. I tried to picture a bunch of guys in hooded robes processing through a men’s locker room and it wasn’t nearly as funny as I thought it would be.

“Dude….it’s like, right outside now… what the fuck is going on?!”

Ricky started to get up, almost certainly to try and raise the blinds and get a look. I grabbed his hand and pulled him back down. He no longer looked confused. He now looked genuinely frightened, and I could tell the chanting was already starting to get to him. I remembered that first night. Lord help me if the keening started.

“Dude. You gotta sit down. Please.”

He ripped his hand out of mine. I could see that he was panicking now and trying and failing to hide it.

“Get your hands off me, man! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!” he screamed, and I hoped with everything I had that something outside hadn’t heard us. I could almost hear it in my mind -sudden, unbearable silence. Followed by slow, steadily increasing knocking on the window from the outside. Then the doorknob would shake, as if someone was trying to get in. Slowly, at first. Then the entire door shaking, as if someone was trying to break in.

As if to answer his question, the chanting was replaced by a low hum. Something I hadn’t heard before. It wasn’t from a machine, but nor was it from a human. This was something entirely unnatural. And, while I couldn’t tell specifically, it seemed to be coming straight from the pool.

The baptism.

Ricky began to cry. He looked at me, tears streaming down his face, sobbing.

“Dude…what is going on here… WHY WON'T YOU ANSWER ANY OF MY QUESTIONS?!”

I looked at him, at a loss for what to do.

“I’m sorry man…my guess is as good as yours… I’ve never dealt with this before.”

He grimaced. Scowled at me with puffy, red-rimmed eyes.

“That’s just not fucking good enough.”

With that, he sprang for the blinds.

I’m not sure how close he got to actually pulling them. Or if he ever got a hand on them to begin with. But it seemed to me like he was just about to pull them, exposing us to whatever horrors lay right beyond the glass, when I grabbed him by the waist and pulled him down.

We rolled around on the floor, Ricky trying to get me off him, me trying to hold him down. I think he was ready to fully rip the blinds off the windows at this point, not just pull them up.

I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it until then, but I felt like a total dumbass when I did.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my headphones and phone lying on the office desk. Managed to extract myself, pin Ricky down with my knee and barely, just barely stretch out enough to grab my headphones and shove them onto his head.

The chanting had returned by this point and was nearly overwhelming. It was almost in my head. I grabbed my phone and found the first white noise playlist I could. Some “rain on pavement” thing. Turned my phone to max volume and hit play.

Up until this point, Ricky had been in such a frenzy that I doubt he had been aware of the headphones until now, because a look of confusion filled his face. He put his hands up and touched the headband and earpieces.

The plan had worked. He could no longer hear the chanting. Me, I could still hear it fine. It was awful, don’t get me wrong, but like I said, I had worked a couple services by now and had more or less gotten used to it.

Ricky took a deep breath. Flopped over onto his back. Put his hands on his face and started to silently cry.

I sat down in a chair. Put my feet up on the guard desk. Didn’t close my eyes, but I stared up at the fluorescent ceiling lights until spots appeared in my vision. Tried to mentally drown out the chanting. Did some thinking, about nothing much in particular.

I don’t want to say “when I came to” because I never fell asleep, but you get what I mean. When I popped back to reality, I guess, my phone and headphones were on the desk in front of me. The chanting was gone. I could hear sniffling. Looked behind me to see Ricky sitting in the corner. Knees scrunched in front of him. Eyes red and puffy. Looked like he had been through hell, which he probably had been mentally. Why he wasn’t in the chair was beyond me. Maybe thought I was upset with him.

He looked up at me. Sniffled.

“Man…I’m so sorry… I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s all good buddy. Happens to the best of us.”

He let out a choked laugh. “You tried to tear the windows down because you couldn’t handle a little noise?”

I snorted.

“Well…not quite that.”

“I… thank you for putting the headphones on me. No one’s ever done anything that nice for me before.”

I refrained from telling him that it had felt pretty life or death to me.

“Hey…anytime. Figured you could use a little distraction.”

“Understatement of the fucking century right there.”

We laughed, harder this time.

“I ever tell you about my parents?” he asked, throwing me for a loop.

“I’m sorry?”

“My parents. Why I’m living at the house for the summer when my parents live five minutes away, on the other side of the neighborhood.”

“You’ve mentioned it in passing. Something about how you were held back a year. Parents booted you for the summer.”

“Got it.” He took a deep breath before continuing.

“I never knew my dad. He left when my mom was pregnant with me. Claimed he wasn’t ready to raise a kid. Was just my mom and me for years. She really did try her best, I’ll give her that. But I’ve seen pictures of him. It’s like they took him and hit copy and paste. My mom also didn’t really have a support system. She had moved across the country after a rough childhood herself - she named me after the doctor that delivered me. No, I’m not joking.”

I think he could see I thought he was joking there.

“Anyhow, she tried her best, but there was always some distance between us because my dad had fucked her over so badly. Like, don’t get me wrong. She was a great mom. I had a great childhood. It’s just… sometimes, she would look at me, and I don’t think she realized I was aware, but I think all she could see in those moments were the guy that left her high and dry with a newborn. So it was just us for years. I could tell we were struggling at times, but she did her best to hide it."

"When I was in 8th grade, my football coach had this end of season summer cookout. She came out of her bedroom when it was time to go, and she looked put together in a way I had never seen before. Not that she usually looked frumpy or anything, but she was always tired from working, you know? She had on this long, summery blue dress I had never seen before. Her hair was straightened. She had even thrown some makeup on. The entire cookout I could see his eyes were on her. Thank God he didn’t have a wife or kids, that would have been a scandal.

"But yeah. They both disappeared near the end for like 30 minutes. I was playing kickball with some other kids and at some point, she comes up and is like it’s time to go. Her hair was kinda messy. Makeup is smudged in places. But she was glowing in a way I’d never seen before. He started coming by more and it didn’t take a genius to know what was going on. "

"He proposed at Christmas. No joke. They married 6 months later. He’s been an amazing dad. Don’t get me wrong about that. But they had a baby maybe like a year ago. My mom dotes on that kid in a way she never ever did with me. Bums me out a bit, but again, she was never outright, like, a total bitch growing up, so I can’t complain, you know?”

"Right around the time Benny - that’s my half-brother’s name - turned 1, we moved here because our growing family supposedly needed more space. That was six months ago. Right after that, my dad caught wind that the country club would house lifeguards in the house we’re living in. I guess he coaches Craft’s grandson now."

"Since I was already planning on lifeguarding this summer, and I’ve been pretty independent my whole life on account of having a single mom for 14 years, they asked if I would mind living in the lifeguard house this summer. Give them some more space with the baby, whatever that means. They said they would still come by the pool to see me, check in on me and stuff, and whatnot. They haven’t come by once. Not a peep from them either. Asked my mom if we could call once, just to catch up since, you know, it’s been a fucking month since I last talked to her…said she was tired with the baby, and she’d text when she woke back up. That was a week ago. That… that’s kind of sucked. Not gonna lie.”

He swallowed a lump in his throat. Wiped a hand across his face. I put a hand on his back.

“Jesus, man…. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all good…just life, you know?”

I nodded. Not much else I could do. Then, he looked at me again.

“Do you notice anything?”

“Like…?”

“The blinds are open.”

“Right. They’re supposed to be. The chanting stopped like an hour ago.”

“Right…. but did you open them? Because I didn’t.”

We looked out onto the dark, unlit pool deck. Nothing was out of place. No deck furniture was sticking out of the water. Lifeguard stand was in place. According to my phone it was about 75 degrees outside.

And yet, unbeknownst to us before, a chill suddenly filled the room.

We went about the rest of the early morning as normal. Once it had lightened up a bit outside and we were more at ease, we decided to try and earn some brownie points by getting everything set up for the day ourselves.

Vitaly arrived. Winked at me as he took in the spotless pool deck, and then Ricky’s rather bedraggled appearance.

“Eventful night?”

Ricky couldn’t stop himself.

“Fuck you.”

Where another boss might have been, well, pissed, Vitaly just chuckled.

“I’ll give you that one. I’m sorry. I know from Luke that those... services can be a bit overwhelming the first time. How can I remedy this for you.”

“Never give me a church night again. Please.”

He sighed. “That I cannot promise. But please. Get some rest. Take this and get yourself some breakfast. Get Luke some too. No coffee. You need sleep today.”

He handed Ricky the gold credit card he had handed me the first night.

“Do not tell anyone else about this. I will know if you do.”

He walked off, in the direction of what I assumed was the pump room.

Ricky did not use the card to buy himself breakfast. He left it on the desk, where Vitaly would see it. When we got home, he went into his room and shut the door. He had the day off, which was good, because he did not emerge until dinner almost 12 hours later.

_______________________________________

There was one day in, probably early July, that I remember vividly.

It was just Cody and I that day. Vitaly had planned an outing to that evening’s Red Sox game. Six guards had gone, including Ricky and Viktoria.

I remember it particularly because Viktoria, who I don’t think was familiar with how casual baseball games are, had spent the entire morning and early afternoon shopping for an outfit for the game. She had finally come out in a figure hugging, red and white striped maxi dress. Her hair was down in waves. She looked breathtaking, although I kept this to myself.

Unfortunately for her, what Cody chose not to keep to himself was that she looked more like she was going to a polo match than a baseball game, and that earned him a hearty “fuck you!” and a middle finger that we noticed had a tattoo on it, a swallow, as she flipped her hair and strode out the door.

The day went by uneventfully. Cody had volunteered to cook that night, but then decided he didn’t feel like cooking, so he invited me over for dinner at his parents’ house.

Cody’s house was not what I expected, so let me leave it like this: he had the personality of someone who lived in a picture and signs house, you know? Family pictures everywhere, and “Live, Laugh, Love” signs where there weren’t. Little kids running around. Very relaxed and homely. Cluttered in a way that everything made sense.

What I did not expect was a house that looked like it had been plucked from Architectural Digest. His parents looked like they had strolled out of the L.L. Bean summer catalog. And, not that there’s anything wrong with that whatsoever. I just didn’t expect it.

“Hey there, bud.” His dad.

“Dinner in 30, Code.” His mom.

I nodded at both as we passed - neither really seemed inclined to shake hands.

Instead of heading to his room, we went straight through the back of the house, and out into an enormous, very well-manicured backyard that looked out onto the forests bordering the edge of the neighborhood. Headed to a treehouse in the back.

We climbed up the ladder, and, as we entered, he made for a toy box in the back, pulled out a small package taped under the lid.

Took out a small cigarette, lit it, took a hit.

“Fuck, man. Been waiting all day for one of these. You want a hit?”

“Sure. You good?”

He let out a small cough as he absorbed the smoke into his lungs. Waved off a cloud of smoke and sprayed what looked like a bottle of Febreze in the air.

“More or less.”

He handed me the joint. I got a hit.

Instant warmth, followed by an instant coughing fit. I felt a cloud descend over me. It had been a minute since I’d done this.

“So…remember when I told you Craft had paid my tuition?” “Right.”

“Yeah, so I failed out. Couldn’t cut it. And they’re gonna go to pay for the fall - albeit with Craft’s money - and they’re gonna find out, and I’ll be in deep, deep shit.”

“And you haven’t told them, why?” I knew it was a stupid question before I asked. Luckily, Cody was mellowed out now, so he took it in stride.

“Well, for starters - I am - or I was, now - a third-generation student there. Grandfather went there. Then my parents met there. Both of my brothers went there. So, not sure how well it would be taken if I told them I’d failed out.”

“Can’t you, like, just…take a semester off, get your grades back up, and go back?”

He laughed, a hint of bitterness on his tone.

“Yeah… fat fucking chance of that happening. I hated school, man. Hated it. All I did was party. I’ll be honest, I was that kid in high school that didn’t have to try. Then I went to college. Rudest reality check I’ve ever had.”

“And your parents never checked? Asked about anything?”

“Like I said, I had my shit together enough in high school that they didn’t feel the need to. I avoided that dreaded letter home by the skin of my teeth. I don’t even remember most of the spring semester. They did send a letter home then. I just made sure they didn’t see it.”

“Are you gonna tell them?”

The look he gave me told me he was done with the questions. “Fuck if I know, man. I’m just skating by, one day at a time.”

Dinner - lamb chops and some sort of summer salad - was incredible. As were the homemade Long Island Ice Teas they made us. The family dog, Otto, also seemed to very much like the lamb chops, because he kept climbing onto my lap and trying to get at them.

Tension sucked the air out of the room, though, when Cody’s brother, Austin, made the ill-advised decision to bring up the check from Craft.

Austin worked in private equity-something in Boston and had come for dinner, for which I was beginning to think Cody had invited me to for moral support.

“So…” he said. “This check is a…scholarship?”

“Yes, it is.” said Maureen, Cody’s mom.

“And this is for… what? Having the highest grades out of all the lifeguards? Something like that?”

“It’s for service to the community. Your brother has been lifeguarding since he was 14. You know that.”

“Oh, right. Sorry… wish I’d have known, maybe I’d have…tried a little harder. So that’s all he did.”

“I saved a guard last year. Pulled up to open the pool. Craft was there. One of the foreign guards was lying on the edge of the woods. He’d had a seizure and fallen and messed up his face pretty bad. Not sure if he survived. But I got the award for that. Now, please. Shut the fuck up.”

“CODY BROOKS WARREN!!” his mom.

“… Sorry.” he said, still glowering.

“Sorry, brother.” Austin said, smirking. “Didn’t mean to hit a nerve like that.”

Cody didn’t say anything back.

_______________________________________

Viktoria and Ricky got back late that night from the game - a blowout win for the Red Sox with 8 home runs. Both were exceptionally drunk.

Viktoria was plastered with sweat, the curls gone from her hair.

“Guess who got a date with Vitalyyyyyyy!” she announced in a very singsong voice.

_______________________________________

That night, as I laid in bed, I thought about what Cody had said about the scholarship.

Remembered his joke on the first day.

What was real?

And what wasn’t?

_______________________________________

The day of the date arrived – a Saturday - three weeks later because of a road trip for the Red Sox. Vitaly had scored suite tickets for the first game back, and he wanted to treat Viktoria.

It was gorgeous. Not a cloud in the sky. And, since the four of us all had the morning shift together for the first time in seemingly forever, Cody, Ricky, and I decided to grill that night while Viktoria and Vitaly were out doing their thing.

One of the things I remember most that day was that the pool was…empty. The weather was perfect for the pool. Mid 80s. People were absolutely out and about. The playground next door was popping. Kids were out on their bikes. Being near the end of July, it seemed like you’d want every last bit of pool you could get before it closed in a month. And yet I could have sworn I saw multiple people in bathing suits walk by the pool entrance… and then just walk right past.

We were all sitting on the deck in the deep end, legs in the water, just shooting the shit, when Ricky asked the question that I think had been hanging over us since the beginning of summer.

“So… what the fuck’s up with the deep end?”

You could tell Cody had begun to smoke before he came to work. Not a lot. I think the stress of his college situation had gotten to him more, and he was doing it to relax a bit.

“Alright…y’all didn’t hear this from me… I heard there’s some Lovecraft shit in the deep end. It gets so hazy because sometimes there’s no bottom and they let it out at night. That’s why we have the night watch.”

You’d have thought from Viktoria's reaction that that Cody had insulted her to her face. Because she punched his arm. Hard.

“Don’t say shit like that, Cody! Ever again!”

She glared at him. He looked at her, shocked.

“Alright…Jesus. Sorry Vik. Didn’t mean to hit such a nerve there.”

She looked back at him, face hard, before softening again.

“…it’s okay. And I’m sorry too. I don’t know why I reacted like that. I think I’m just nervous about tonight.”

I think she could tell I was about to say something, because she put a finger up.

“And, no, I can’t just call it off. I’ve been throwing myself at him this entire summer. What do I even say? Sorry! Cold feet?”

We heard a knock in the back just then.

“Helloooo! Anyone there?”

Our first patron of the day. An hour before our shift ended. Go figure.

_______________________________________

As it turned out, Viktoria didn’t need to come up with an excuse to cancel the date, because Vitaly gave her one.

We were in the kitchen getting everything we’d need for the night. Cody was grabbing beers from the cooler. I was grabbing the food from the fridge. Ricky was in the family room getting the speaker, so he had a front row seat to it all.

The front door thundered open with a loud bang that sounded like a bomb going off. I doubt a SWAT team could have opened it with more force than it had been.

Viktoria stood there. Soaked from head to toe. Her hair was slicked down her back, soaking wet. Her dress - the same one she’d worn to the Red Sox game - was also soaked.

I might have noticed how she looked had she not looked ready to commit murder. But I kept that to myself.

Ricky was right there to chime in, though. “What happened here? I’ll grab a towel.”

Followed by Cody. “I’ll grab another burger or two!” I saw the barest of grins crack her face.

_______________________________________

After drying off and opening a drink, she gave us the full story of what happened as we ate dinner in the backyard, seated around a small bonfire:

After getting off, she had gone to the women’s room to get ready for the date. “I love you guys, but that shit is like a 5-star resort.”

After getting dressed, she realized she had forgotten her makeup and decided to walk across the street to grab it.

Instead, she was greeted by screams as she exited the locker room.

Vitaly, who was supposed to be watching the pool, had gone to use the bathroom. That was enough time for a kid to - go figure - find himself struggling in the deep end. Viktoria, not even considering for a moment that she was wearing a floor length dress, had sprinted across the deck and dove headfirst into the pool, making it over to the kid in under 5 seconds. After carrying the kid to the ladder and rolling him onto the deck, she’d gotten out and stormed over to the guard office.

Vitaly had left the bathroom and walked right into Viktoria, who had loudly and profanely told him off right then and there. He’d begged her not to tell Craft. She’d said she would think about it. She had no intention of doing so but wanted to let him sweat.

“And now, I’m here.” she said, midbite. “And, quite frankly, I prefer this.”

“You do?” said Cody. As though she hadn’t spent the entire summer up to that point hanging out with us.

“…yes?” She said, with a raised eyebrow. “Have I… told you guys about my family back home?”

Our faces told her she hadn’t, and that she might have phrased the question in a way that painted her family in a…less than favorable light.

“My family back home is…very traditional. I was never really allowed to do…boy-ish things very much. I’m using this job to help pay for law school back home because my family wouldn’t pay for it. You get the idea”

“Getting to let loose and be one of the boys this summer has been the best experience of my life. I know I’m pretty much the same age as you guys and not like an old maid or anything, but it’s been…an amazing time. And I’m truly going to miss you guys when I go back home in a month.”

She wiped her hand across her face. I resisted the urge to put a hand on her back.

None of us were like, blinking away tears or anything, but I could tell Cody and Ricky were as touched as I was.

“And Cody… I’m sorry again for punching you today. That was a very stupid joke, but it still was not okay for me to do that.”

He nodded. “All good…. but who said I was joking?”

Viktoria laughed and punched him again. “Stop!”

_______________________________________

We spent the rest of the evening outside, long after the sun went down. Drinking, playing games, listening to music.

We went to bed. Cody was in no shape to drive, so he took the couch in the living room. I lay in bed that night, trying in vain to fall asleep, but something was nagging me.

Around, I’d say, 1a.m., as I finally drifted off, I realized what it was.

After Cody denied it being a joke, we all laughed.

Except for Cody.

_______________________________________

I had a nightmare that night.

A horrible one, in which I had laid in bed, unable to breathe or move, as hooded shadows moved throughout the house.

One came into my room. Stood over my bed. At some point, the moonlight shifted just enough to show part of a face.

The face of Craft Dunn.

I woke up around 5am to a splitting headache and knocking on my door.

It was Ricky.

“Yo…did you see Cody leave last night?”

“No... why?”

“He’s not here… but his stuff still is… and his car is still out front.”

We got a text that morning from Vitaly that Cody had fallen ill and would be out for the week. We didn’t believe him at all, but at this point, not asking was second nature.

A week passed. I texted him that Sunday.

“Hey bro - how’s it goin”

“Hey! Still super sick. Not sure when I’ll be back. Sorry!”

I might have believed it. But Cody texted in all lowercase. I had never seen him use punctuation.

This was not something he would ever write.

_______________________________________

Vitaly came by the house three days after I texted him. Asked us to sit down.

“I’ve been asked to inform you all that Cody will not be returning this summer due to a family emergency. He has requested privacy, so please do not reach out to him.”

He looked around.

“Where are Cody’s things? I’ve been asked to retrieve those as well.”

I pointed to the backpack against the wall. Right where he had left it.

“Right there. But I can take it back. No- “

“I will take it back. You will not. You will not contact Cody again. Is that understood?” he snapped.

What. The. Fuck?

“… yes?”

“Good.”

He walked over, picked it up, and quickly walked out without another word.

Right past Cody’s car, which was still parked outside, without so much as acknowledging it.

_______________________________________

The first Saturday of August, I woke up and decided to start my day off with a run. This wasn’t unusual - I ran almost every morning.

What was unusual was that, after about 10 minutes, I found myself standing across the street from Cody’s house. I don’t know if it was subconscious, or something guided me there, but there I was.

There was a giant truck in the driveway, with a moving company’s logo on the side. His mom stood outside on the front stoop.

I figured this was my last chance to maybe get some closure, so I ran over.

“Hey…Mrs. Warren!”

“Oh! Hello! You are…?”

“Luke - the friend from work that Cody brought over that night? Last month?”

“Oh…yes! Did you need something?”

I could tell she wanted nothing more than for me to leave and never come back.

“Yeah…uh… I just…really enjoyed hanging out with Cody this summer. He left…rather abruptly and I wanted to make sure he was okay? We were never told what happened.”

“Oh! Right…. He…. decided to leave for college a little earlier this year. Found a great place close to campus that opened early. Got a job. With him gone…we…just felt the house was a little quieter and decided it was time to downsize to something smaller.”

She had been avoiding eye contact the entire time, but I noticed something. As she had said he was gone, her eyes had gotten a little…moist…..As though filling with tears.

“Well… let him know I wished him luck this year! And that I hope to see him around at some point again!”

“Yes, absolutely dear! Will do!”

At that moment, just as I was turning around to leave, the dog - Otto - chose that moment to turn around and scamper out through the door.

“Otto!” she cried. “Get back here!”

The dog leaped into my arms. I guess it remembered me from a month ago.

As I sat there holding and petting it, a shadow approached us. I looked up.

Craft Dunn. In the flesh.

He was shorter, stockier than I expected. He wore a golf shirt and slacks. Was tan.

He approached Ms. Warren and handed something to her. A check.

“Hi, Maureen. On behalf of Dunn Dwellings, LLC, I would like to thank you and your family for all the memories over the last 20 years. You will be missed by the community.”

She took the check without looking at him or saying anything in response. Silently walked back inside.

I took the opportunity to silently set the puppy back down and walk down the yard, before setting back off on a brisk jog. If Craft noticed me, he didn’t say anything.

A lot of things went through my mind on that 10-minute jog. Mainly Cody’s joke that first day, about Craft and the shotgun. Then his comment at dinner about the award. And then his comment that night around the fire. Tried not to notice how well the two stories fit together.

I thought of the check Craft had handed to his mom. Of her telling me he was back at school… and then him telling me he had failed out.

The way she had seemed on the brink of tears as she described him being “gone”. The way she refused to look at or speak to Craft.

Then, I realized something that nearly stopped me in my tracks in the middle of the road.

Cody had disappeared on a Saturday night.

I never expected to even have a honeymoon until I met Charlie.

I was never a romantic. Ask my ex girlfriends. They'd all tell you that was a major reason, if not the number one reason, things ended between us. I just wasn't a boyfriend guy - I couldn't understand the desire for flowers, the urge to hear sweet nothings, the necessity of chivalry. I found opening car doors demeaning. Long back massages beneath the glow of candle light felt a little creepy.

Sue me.

She changed all of that.

In the past I'd had long screaming matches on the topic of equality: I would say, don't you feel belittled by all this? Wouldn't you rather just be two people? And my girlfriend would say, my god you are such an asshole, etc.

On our first date, Charlotte brought me a bouquet she'd picked on the way to the restaurant. She pushed it into my hands, a truly jubilant smile making her cheeks scrunched and ruddy in the dim orange lighting.

I snorted instinctively, although I couldn't quite place what was funny about it. Maybe I was just a little misogynistic. Maybe I just thought it was weird to receive a gesture as the man, whatever. She didn't react to my snarky laughter. Didn't give me even an inch.

On our next date, we went to the fair. I won her a stuffed animal.

On our first anniversary, she got me fancy cologne and a box of chocolates. I got her a ring.

It was just easy with her. She made me realize maybe I wasn't anti-romance: maybe I just never felt all that romantic about anyone else. We had fights, and she never pulled her punches with me, but she never said I wasn't enough... because I wasn't not enough. Not making her feel loved became my worst fear. She deserved everything she wanted.

I never thought I'd have a fancy wedding. I pictured myself getting married in the courthouse.

When I said that to her, she laughed and rolled her eyes.

"Your family has so much money, Oli. Not having a wedding is, like, the dumbest idea you've ever had." Then she leaned in, running her fingers through my hair and kissing my cheek. "Just think of it as throwing a huge, expensive party."

And so I did. And we threw a huge party with everyone we knew. And I had a great time. I even cried at the alter, something I'd made fun of countless guys for before.

It just came naturally.

When I told her I also never thought I'd have a honeymoon, she reacted about the same.

"You never wanted one because your whole life is a honeymoon, sweetie."

We compromised.

No Italy. No yachting in Barbados. No bull-running in Spain. Charlie always thought that felt kind of cruel, anyways.

We would go camping.

And after a few hours of research, we found the perfect place.

"Seems a little less private than advertised," I muttered as I pulled my Chevy into our lot, nodding towards a campsite mere feet away from where we had planned to set up.

It was only 1 PM, and they already had a fire going. An older woman sat in front of it in a fold up chair, roasting what looked to be a sausage on a metal poker.

Charlie gave me a light shove, tutting. "Don't be such a grump, boy. It's summer." I saw her grinning from the corner of my eye as I maneuvered the truck, backing in. "Love is in the air..."

Honeymoon Hill was surrounded by trees. We had driven for an hour down winding forest roads to get here, and the meadow was the first expanse of land without thickly packed pines we'd seen since leaving the freeway.

It was beautiful, I had to admit. You could see across the top of some of the woods: the sunset was going to be otherworldly.

There was a loud knocking on the glass next to my face. I jumped, cursing under my breath.

The old woman was standing outside my door, beaming up at me. I fixed my expression quickly, rolling down the window. Charlie snickered at me.

"Hi there!" The woman crooned. Up close I could see she had bright blue eyes, and she had pulled her windbreaker hood down, revealing that her hair was nearly entirely white. She had to at least be in her seventies. "I guess we're your neighbors for the weekend, isn't that nice?"

I nodded, smiling back a little awkwardly. Charlie laughed again, leaning over me to take over.

"We're on our honeymoon!"

"Oh!" The woman's hand flew to her chest, as if clutching at her heart. Her mouth formed a perfect little 'o'. "My goodness! Well, forget me, then, I'd better leave you two alone!"

"No, no, it's okay!" Charlie intercepted, to my mild dismay. She loved people. "What's your name?"

The woman smiled again, pleased. People loved Charlie, too. "Well, it's Beverly, dear."

Charlie placed her hand on my shoulder, which made me feel a little bit like a dog. Like she was settling me down. I couldn't help but pout. I felt plenty settled.

"That's a beautiful name. I'm Charlie, and this is Oli."

Beverly clapped her hands together. "Charlie and Oli! How sweet. Oh, you must meet my husband."

I opened my mouth to protest, to tell her we probably ought to start setting up if we wanted the tent built by dark, but she was already spinning back toward her RV.

It was pretty decked out, I realized. They had a canopy hanging from the side, shading their little outdoor living room area, and when Bev opened the door, I could see that the inside was much larger than it looked. I shifted a little uncomfortably.

"Hey," Charlie purred, finally turning her attention back toward me. "What's wrong?"

I shook my head, unbuckling my seatbelt. "Nothing's wrong."

"Hey," she said again, catching my wrist before I could push open the door and climb out. She smiled at me, her half smile that made her face look rounder, and I felt something inside me soften. "We'll have plenty of alone time. And... I love it here. This is perfect."

She always knew what would make me feel better. Hesitantly, I smiled back. "Really?"

"Yes. Perfect. Thank you for bringing me here."

I leaned over the center console, and I kissed her.

"Well, here are the kids my wife is raving about," came a gruff voice from outside the cabin. He sounded how I might imagine Santa Claus would sound. I pulled away from my wife, resting my forehead against hers and closing my eyes, sighing. She giggled.

John, Beverly's husband, insisted on setting up our tent for us. Charlie and I watched as he grunted over the spokes. I felt a little emasculated, but Charlie wouldn't stop grabbing my arm and chuckling, so that kept me from crossing over the line from mildly annoyed to fully crabby.

By the time everything was all assembled, the light over the trees was beginning to fade, painting the hill in orange light. John and Bev invited us to join them for dinner, but, thank god, Charlie declined politely.

She and I carried a bottle of wine up to the highest point of the hill and sat in the grass. As the sun set, she rested her head on my shoulder. I took her hand, feeling the wedding ring I'd given her between my fingers, imprinting the diamonds into the pad of my thumb.

It was the perfect night.

I woke to the sound of a metallic door banging open.

I blinked, rubbing my eyes and slowly sitting up. It was pitch dark outside, and the crickets were chirping so loudly it felt like they were inside of my head.

I looked down at my wife. She was facing away from me, the blankets wrapped tightly around her like a cocoon, snoring softly. I reached down, pulling a loose sheet up to her neck. She was illuminated slightly by a warm yellow light, I realized, slicing across the back of her head.

I turned toward the other campsite. Where the sound that had woken me must have come from.

Through the thin polyester tent, I could barely make out their camper. Sure enough, the door was hanging open. The glow was coming from within, where the lights had been turned on sometime since I'd fallen asleep.

I frowned, squinting my blurry eyes and leaning closer.

"You aren't happy, are you?"

At the sound of Charlie's voice, I nearly leapt out of my skin. I whipped back around. She was still lying where she had been: she didn't seem to have moved at all, and I could've sworn she'd been snoring half a second before speaking.

Her voice was right there, attached to her body, but it also sounded distant. Like it came from outside.

"What?" I asked, my voice rough with sleep. I shook my head, stretching my arms above my head. "Of course I'm happy, baby. I mean, I guess I wish we weren't sharing our campsite, but-"

"Your whole life's a honeymoon," she said, cutting me off.

I paused. Those were the words she'd said to me before, but this time, they didn't carry the same playfulness. This time they were snide. Cutting. Almost pained.

I lay back down behind her, forgetting about the neighboring campers. I drew my fingers through her long hair, brushing down her back. "What's wrong, Charlie?"

She didn't answer. When I pressed closer to her, burying my face in her neck, I could hear her snoring. Still, or maybe again. Maybe she'd been sleep talking.

When I wrapped my arms around her waist, she pushed back against me, humming happily.

In the morning, when I finally forced myself up and out of the tent to pee, I found Bev sitting in front of their fire pit. I watched as she held a cigarette up to the minuscule flame, lighting it and bringing it up to her mouth.

I hadn't pegged her as a smoker.

"Careful," I called out, trying to make my voice soft and friendly like Charlie would, but it still made her jump in surprise. She clasped her chest. She tended to do that.

"You scared me, my goodness. Forgive me, what's your name again?"

I smiled a little weakly. I was positive she remembered Charlie's name.

"It's Oliver."

"Yes, yes. Oh, that's right." She took a drag of her cigarette, her hand shaking a little, likely from the cold. She was bundled in a puffy jacket, pinning it tightly around herself. "Come sit with me for a moment, Oliver."

I hesitated, looking behind me at the tent where my wife was still sound asleep, then shrugged. I took a seat on the stump beside her camping chair, rubbing my hands together.

She offered me her cigarette. I took it.

"How long have you known Charlie?" She asked me, her eyes trained on the dying fire. I smiled.

"Two years," I said, bringing the cigarette to my mouth. "People say that's not long to know someone-"

"People are silly," she cut in, her voice surprisingly curt. "People don't know."

I nodded, watching her. Something was off about her this morning. "That's what I think, too."

She was quiet for a minute. I handed her back the cigarette. She took it, looking down at it for a while before she spoke again.

"Yesterday was our forty-ninth anniversary." A small, unreadable smile pulled at her wrinkled lips. She finally looked at me. "Isn't that just crazy, Oli? Forty nine years."

"Wow," I offered. "That is crazy. That's a long time."

She nodded at me, her blue eyes searching over my face. "You would think you'd know someone by then." She stubbed out the cigarette on a rock, groaning as she leaned over. I watched the last traces of smoke trickle from the butt before it was extinguished. "But there's always more. There's always more to know. There are all these things that they think about, things they keep up in their head, that they may never tell you. Isn't that just awful? You can never just be one. Isn't that so strange? That you can never be one?"

I didn't know what to say. I tucked my hands into my jacket, nodding slowly.

She waved her hand, dismissing me.

"I'm sorry, listen to me. Babbling on like a fool. Let me not take you from your honeymoon, sweetheart."

She pushed herself to her feet, walking away before I could say anything. She left me there, sitting in front of her fire, my face frozen in surprise.

It took about an hour for Charlie to convince me to go on a hike, but once it was happening, I was glad. The fresh air was amazing compared to our usual city smog, and the sunlight that dodged through the tree branches made our skin warm and illuminated.

The only thing I could do without was how hard it was to keep up with her. She kept disappearing up ahead of me, and with how thin and obstructed by brush the paths were, I found this quickly frustrating.

"Charlie!" I called out after the fifth time, stopping to catch my breath. "Charlie, I'm gonna stop for water, okay?"

I was silent, waiting. No response came: all I heard was the flutter of birds in the trees, and the wind.

I rolled my eyes, a little annoyed. Weren't we supposed to be together on this trip? It felt like things were always pulling her away from me.

I sat down against a tree, reaching for my water bottle. I had just unhooked it from my belt when I heard something.

A rustle, and then a voice.

"Oliver? Oli!"

It was distant, nearly indistinguishable, even though the rustling had felt fairly close. I shot up, peering down the path. It hadn't sounded like it was up in front of me, either.

"Charlie?"

For a moment, nothing. I spun around in a circle, searching the trees, as if that was going to do anything.

"Charlie, are you okay?"

"Help!"

I froze.

Her voice was coming from several angles all at once, like it floated on the wind to reach me. It sounded wrong, I couldn't quite place my finger on why... maybe it was too cheerful, and yet it was too strained at the same time.

"Help! Help!"

Instinct kicked in and I started to run down the path, my water bottle dropping to the ground and rolling into the brush. She couldn't be too far ahead of me, could she? There was no way she was as far as she sounded.

Suddenly, her voice was right in my ear. Right behind me. A whisper. It drowned out the sound of my feet on the path and my heavy breathing.

"It isn't enough."

I slid to a halt, nearly tumbling backwards. I whipped around.

She was there. She was standing at the end of the path behind me, at least the furthest down that I could see... not directly behind me. I could barely make out her face, she was nearly just a sillouette, but I could tell that she was crying now, her body trembling with the sobs wracking through her.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, forgetting to shout it, but she heard it anyways. She shook her head, crying harder.

"You don't love me, Oliver! Why can't you ever show me you love me?"

"I do love you," I breathed, panic pulling sharply at my chest. I began advancing toward her, almost in a daze. "I do love you! How can you say that? I show you I love you all the time!"

"You didn't want to have a wedding. You didn't want to go on a honeymoon." She whimpered, hugging herself like a child as I got closer, turning her face away from me. "And I don't want to be with someone no one likes. You should just go, Oliver. Just leave. I don't want you here. GO!"

I opened my mouth to protest, to tell her I'd never leave her here, to beg her to tell me what was going on, when something sharp hit me on the back. I winced, my strange haze broken, and spun around.

"You asshole!" Charlie shouted at me, crossing her arms and frowning. I looked down. She'd thrown a stick at me. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I..." I trailed off, glancing over my shoulder. 'Charlie' was gone. I blinked, shaking my head. Was I going insane? "I'm sorry..."

"I don't know if you're trying to mess with me or what," Charlie murmured, stepping closer to me. I felt a strange urge to back away. "But it's not funny. You're being so mean."

I frowned, the first real expression I was able to make. "I am?"

"Yes," she hissed. Then her face broke down, her mouth turning in in the corners and her eyes drooping sadly. "Yeah, Oli. You never make fun of me for money stuff. Not even as a joke."

I ground my teeth. I glanced over my shoulder again. Nothing.

I forced myself to snap out of it, stepping toward her and pulling her into my arms. I didn't know what to say. How to explain that I hadn't made fun of her, or at least I didn't remember it. "I'm sorry," I mumbled into her hair, warm from the sunlight.

She sighed, the tension in her body slightly loosening. She hugged me back, hiding her face in my chest. "How did you get back here, anyways?"

"What do you mean?"

She looked up at me, her eyebrows furrowed. "You kept running up ahead of me. I couldn't keep up with you. How did you get back here when you were in front of me that whole time?"

When we got back to the camp, we were both exhausted. So exhausted, in fact, that it took us far too long to notice that our neighbor's camp was entirely packed up.

The RV roared to life, which was what finally what caught my attention. Charlie and I looked at each other, confused.

I followed her as she ran up to the driver's side window, knocking on it like Bev had that first afternoon. Bev rolled it down, her whole body trembling like a leaf.

"You heading out?" Charlie asked, a little sadness tinting her voice. She peered around the cabin. "Where's John?"

Bev started to shake her head. She didn't stop shaking it. She reached out the window, clasping Charlie's hand in her own, squeezing tightly. Her face was alarmingly pale. I took a step forward instinctively.

"Go," she whispered. Her eyes flickered back toward me, locking on mine. I felt a cold chill wash over me. "Go now. It's getting smarter."

She seemed to hear something and her head jolted like a deer, whipping to the rear view mirror. I followed her gaze.

John was sprinting toward us, faster than an old man should be able to, up to the back of the RV from down the hill. Bev let go of Charlie's hand, letting out a little shriek. I grabbed Charlie by her shoulders and pulled her back from the camper before it started moving.

Bev peeled away, kicking up dirt and grass as the tires spun wildly. John kept coming: he didn't call out to her, beg her to stop, nothing. He just ran, chasing until she had picked up too much momentum to catch.

Then he turned back toward us. I held Charlie close to my side, watching in shock as he stumbled toward us.

His face wasn't nearly as kind as it had seemed before. It was too shadowed, too long.

"Are you okay?" I called to him, my voice shaking a little.

He didn't answer me. He just looked for a while, standing in the center of the dirt road, his stance a little crooked.

Then he walked down the hill and disappeared into the woods.

I begged Charlie to leave that night. I need it on record that I truly did. I told her that something was incredibly wrong with that place, that we could have a redo somewhere else, that we should listen to Beverly and go now.

She told me we should stay and leave in the morning. She said this was our chance to have some privacy, we had the hill all to ourselves, and that it would be way too dark to drive even to the closest motel.

I tried to protest. We argued for what had to be at least an hour and a half. But her words from earlier kept flashing into my mind, making me feel desperate to prove her wrong: you didn't want to have a wedding. You didn't want to go on a honeymoon. You should just go, Oliver.

I wasn't leaving without her, and she wasn't leaving.

So we stayed.

We did have a nice evening. I'll give her that. We played cards by the fire, and we listened to music, which helped me forget what had happened a little. It helped me stop glancing toward the trees, wondering when John might emerge again.

But then it was time for bed, and everything came rushing back again.

Charlie fell asleep fairly quickly, but I didn't. I couldn't. I listened to her snore, the sound melding with the hum of the outdoors and the trickle of rain bouncing off the plastic. I stared at the ceiling of the tent, willing my heart to stop racing.

I must have drifted off eventually, though, because I woke up. It was still dark out. I couldn't place what had woken me, but I felt panicked the second I opened my eyes.

I felt around in the dark for my wife, letting out a breath of relief when my fingers landed on her waist. She stirred, rolling toward me.

"Sorry," I breathed. "Sorry, baby. Didn't mean to wake you up."

She hummed in response, pressing close to me. I held her close, reaching for her hand under the covers.

I heard something outside. A voice, from far off. I froze, my fingers half clasped in hers. Charlie froze too.

"What was that?" She hissed, holding onto my arm. "Oli?"

"I don't know," I whispered back. I sat up, slowly rising.

"Wait." Charlie's voice cracked, and she reached for me. "I don't think you should go..."

I chewed on my lip, taking her hand and squeezing it.

"I'm just going to check," I whispered, unzipping the tent.

I fumbled for my phone, turning the flashlight on and shining it toward the sound.

Down the hill, I saw her. I knew what I'd see, but it still came as a shock... it still made my entire body feel like it'd been set ablaze.

My wife stood at the bottom of the hill, facing the thicket of trees. She was talking... shouting, really... to someone in the darkness. Or something.

I looked back into the tent, at my wife, sitting up and hugging the blankets to her chest. I shone my flashlight at her, which made her wince and cover her face with her hands.

I stared at her long, slender fingers, and something cold struck me.

There was no ring.

Charlie never took off her ring unless she was doing the dishes, or cleaning the toilet.

I turned without a word and ran down the hill. I grabbed Charlie from the edge of the trees despite her protests, nearly tossing her over my shoulder in my haste.

We left without the tent. I placed her in the passenger seat and buckled her seatbelt without a word, and we were gone.

I now understand better what we experienced.

I think I understand what those things wanted.

They wanted to trick us. They wanted to drive us apart. They wanted one of us to break, to stray, to leave without the other. They wanted to replace one of us with one of their own, and do whatever they wanted to do to the real one once they were left behind.

Maybe eat them. Maybe worse.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about what that something worse might be lately.

Because I think I've made a horrible mistake.

I've noticed lately that Charlie never has her wedding ring on. And now that I think about it, I don't know if I've seen it on her since we left Honeymoon Hill.

Charlie never took off her ring.

I'm writing this not only as a warning. I'm writing this in case you see it, Charlie. If I'm right... god forbid I'm right... if you're still out there somewhere, if you survived, if I truly left you there with those things...

Please, please come home.

I love you.

White kimono ritual

First, I must say that this ritual is not worth it at all, i was an idiot. This lady will stop you from sleeping and being able to concentrate.

Around December 2025 I found this ritual and I became so interested around the origin of the ritual, apparently its from a Japanese black magic called "Akuma no gishiki" which no one here can find bc its super rare. The ritual has something missing from it that only the book contains.

Also Check out @Yetiforestman experience on three kings, I learnt alot from his comments and posts on how to deal with this.

I was very bored and in my bathroom when I found the incantation, In that moment it didn't scare me so I read it out loud 3 times (You dont have to do the entire ritual to summon her) so i thought it probably wont even work. After I did it I felt immediately regretful and confused on why I had just did that. (This was around 6 30 sometime during February)

I went to sleep around 12 and didn't think anything much so I wasn't stressed, I also didn't have the dream I was supposed too.I heard whispering in my ear (idk time) and woke up without even moving my hand like im supposed and she was bending over my bed towards me, I felt like i was choking and after maybe 2 seconds she slipped back to the corner of my room that overlooked the bed and then vanished when I blinked after a minute. I didn't see her again for the rest of the night or during the day.

I went to bed again around 12 again and I had a nightmare about her chasing me while murming words I couldn't make out. She looked around 8-9 feet tall had the long white kimono the was tourn at the bottom and had no feet.

I woke up again and saw green orbs flying around my room briefly, i didn't see her but I definitely felt a presence and after a while I felt a giant hand cover my face and begin to push me down into my bed, it wasn't a super strong force and it was only one hand but I was too scared to move and it eventually stopped, the same night I felt walking behind me and then someone get on my bed and lay next to me, it was weird and uncomfortable but I eventually fell asleep.

Nothing was happening during the day time at this point but nothing happened apart from me seeing her in dark corners for a while.

Monday April 27th i recorded my sleep after things kept moving by themselves around me the recording is 6 hours long and is from 12:30 to 6:27, to this day I haven't listened to the entire thing because that would take very long but here were a couple things that stood out to me

Here is around 3 am exactly and there is a noise that sounds like there is a tornado in my room and some weird murmuring

2 hours 22 minutes 39 seconds

At this point into the video is hear loud breathing from across my room and I say "Shh!" And it goes quiet.

3hours 55 minutes 55 seconds

There is alot of static noises maybe because my phone was placed next to an outlet but it was switched off, there is also alot of the blinds next to my bed moving which is where she stood over me for the first time.

After listening to the footage I hung up Japanese ornaments and Ofuda in my room and around my house, i was thinking of call a priest but idk what they would do for this thing.

It calmed down after that but I started seeing her outside often just staring at me with disgust but no more nightmares. I heard alot of bashing on my window during this time though.

After this I was chilling the bath one night and randomly from no where I felt the word kimono like run though my body, Kimono. I was doing a face wash thing and had my eyes completely shut but when I put my head underwater and came up to get the soapy stuff off my face, a bottle of mouthwash went flying from the sink to the opposite wall. I said wtf before it could even hit the floor but I ran to my room and grabbed this lanturn thing with patterns and went back to the bath, I was scared so I kept the door open for the rest of the bath. When walking from the shower to my room I saw her at the end of the hall smirking for the first time.

I looked back because my instinct made me walk into my room so I couldn't see her and she was no longer there when I checked. Its been almost a month i haven't seen her since but I think I am fine now, my sleep got much better and I don't randomly hear words or phrases whenever im alone in my house.

I reckon my experience was calm compared to others but please take my advice and play another game, this wasn't fun like I'd thought it would be for some reason. Its bad dont do it, btw this was one of my first rituals, ikr crazy probs because it was so accessible but im chilling now. I kinda want to leave this all behind me and do other rituals now but im happy to answer questions.

Audio

https://www.reddit.com/r/gshsnsbhshshsbhshsjsb/s/YJsIV4Un8V

I didnt have anything on my bed because it was very hot and i have no idea of the thumping or why i was hissing in pain

I arrived on the silo-dotted property as a rosy film of atmosphere cradled the horizon like a hide and was skinned by the gloaming. Its centrepiece was my destination: a run-of-the-mill, tin sheeting-topped barn.

I’d found the classified serendipitously whilst leafing through an old newspaper at the coffee shop. The gig paid handsomely, for next to no work at that. The instructions were to the point: Take Piglet Into Barn, $1000. I was to see myself in. An envelope at its entrance would hold the cash and key.

But first, I had to catch a piglet. They ran and ran with all their might, and I chased them round and round in circles in their pigsty until one tired. This farm only had piglets, bar a pair of mature pigs that looked like they didn’t want to be alive anymore and watched silently from a separate enclosure. The piglet resigned itself to me once I picked it up, its head dropping with a short-lived groan.

I then ventured into the barn.

Buzzing filled the space. I should’ve set the piglet down then and left, but something was wrong. There was a… shape in the middle of the room, barely illuminated by a lone plane of light percolating in through a slit in the barn boards from the main farmhouse’s porch light outside.

The piglet jittered as I crept forward, the movement soon compounded by my own jittering arms.

…It was a porky man lying motionless in a child’s pram, torso marinating in a rainbow-tinged puddle in the carrycot, limp limbs protruding from it like flaccid oars. A purple network of veins pressed up against the translucent skin, streaking it like rain did windows on wistful days.

The buzzing was louder here. It reeked of death.

Both the piglet and I jumped out of our skins as the man yawned before arduously propping himself up on his elbows.

When he finally took notice of us, his eyes lit up like fireworks, and his gargantuan sausage-tongue made its expeditious appearance, carouselling slipperily over his bulbous slug-lips and wetting them to no end.

“PIGGYYYYYYYYYY!” he squealed. His outstretched hands groped the air continuously. His shallow panting accelerated.

Fuck this. I threw piggy into the pram, where it crashed with a squelchous SLAP. It immediately audibly gagged before being engulfed in a bear hug. The pram creaked wildly and I heard something burst. I couldn’t take it. I scrambled back to the door like a possessed rag doll, the taste of bile bubbling up to the surface with the fervour of a geyser on Enceladus. A quick glance over my shoulder I was certain had burned itself into my brain for good: the piglet’s hind legs backpedalling frantically on the beads of condensation lubricating the man’s bloated gut, and the man’s beady eyes gleaming like those of a spoiled brat unwrapping a Christmas present.

Outside, the blood-curdling screams came, then abruptly ceased. I saw the other piglets there, huddled together at the back of their pigsty. They whimpered when I approached.

I unlatched their gate, tears streaming down my face.

I found the dog because he was scratching at the side door.

The storm had been building since late afternoon. By 8:00, the back steps had disappeared beneath the snow, and the wind was pushing enough of it against the windows that I kept hearing little dry taps from the living room. The scratching was different: three quick drags across the door, a pause, then another.

I turned on the outside light. A dog stood on the landing with his nose close to the glass. He was some kind of shepherd mix, maybe 60 pounds, dark across the back with tan legs and a white patch under his chin. Snow had collected along his spine and packed itself between his toes. He squinted when the light came on and lifted one paw.

There was no collar.

"Come on."

He didn't need to be asked twice. As soon as I opened the door, he squeezed past my legs and shook himself hard enough to spray the cabinets. I locked the door again and got an old towel from the laundry room.

He stood on the kitchen mat while I dried him. I expected to find blood somewhere under the snow or at least a paw rubbed raw, but he looked healthy. His ribs weren't showing. His coat was clean beneath the wet outer layer, and he let me handle his legs and check between his toes without pulling away.

"Somebody's looking for you."

His tail knocked once against a cabinet.

My house is about fifteen minutes outside town, on a road with more trees than houses. There are a few places scattered along the first couple of miles, but only one close enough that I can usually see a porch light through the woods. That night the snow had swallowed it.

There wasn't much I could do with the dog until morning. The roads had been getting bad when I'd come home and were buried now. If the plows got through overnight, I'd take him into town and have the vet check for a chip.

I gave him water and half a bowl of the dry food I keep for my sister's dog. He ate, drank, and spent a while sniffing around the kitchen before moving into the living room. He inspected the couch, the coffee table and the stack of firewood beside the stove, then curled up on the rug.

The wind weakened as the evening went on. Snow kept falling, but the house became quiet enough that I could hear it brushing against the windows. I got up to close the curtains and saw someone standing beyond the driveway.

The porch light covered part of the yard. Beyond it, the ground faded into gray and the trees were little more than vertical streaks through the snow. The figure stood where the open part of the property narrowed between them.

I switched off the lamp beside me. Without my reflection in the glass, I could see it better.

It was tall enough that I initially put it farther away than it was. Its arms hung straight down, and its shoulders were narrow. Snow passed in front of it in sheets, hiding its lower body and exposing it again.

I looked back at the dog. "Looks like somebody came looking for you."

His nails clicked across the floor as he came to the window beside me. He stared outside with his ears forward.

I turned on the porch light. The brighter light didn't reach the figure, but it gave me a better sense of the ground between us. The yard was almost flat there. I knew that because I'd mowed it for six years.

The figure's knees were almost level with the ends of its hands.

Everything above the hips was proportioned close enough to a person. Narrow chest. Long arms, but not unusually so. A head that seemed a little small from where I stood. Most of its height was in the legs.

I took out my phone and tried the camera. Zooming only broke the image apart. Snow streaked across the screen, and the figure became a collection of gray blocks surrounding the pale blur of a face.

The dog began to growl.

The figure's legs started running.

Its arms stayed down. Its shoulders remained level while the legs drove through the snow beneath them, each stride throwing white behind its feet. The torso hardly moved. Its head didn't dip with the impacts. It came across the field with its face held toward the house.

I stumbled backward into the coffee table. The dog barked and scrambled away from the window with me. When I looked outside again, the figure had stopped perhaps 120 feet from the house.

Snow drifted through the gouged path behind it. Its arms hung at its sides again, its shoulders level, its head facing the living-room window.

I called 911.

The dispatcher got my address and asked what was happening.

"There's somebody in my yard."

"Do you know who it is?"

"No."

"Can you describe him?"

I looked through the curtain again. "I don't think it's a man."

She asked what I meant, and I gave her what I could: one person, no visible weapon, about 120 feet from the house, not attempting to enter.

She told me a deputy had been dispatched, but crashes and road conditions were delaying responses. I was to lock the doors, stay inside and not approach whoever was in the yard.

"That's not going to be a problem."

I asked how long the delay might be. Her answer broke apart halfway through, followed by two clipped pieces of her voice before the call dropped. The next attempt didn't connect.

I checked the doors and windows, closed the blinds facing the road and pulled the dining-room curtains. The shotgun I kept upstairs hadn't been fired in more than a year, but I loaded it and brought it down with the remaining shells in my pocket.

The dog had returned to the living-room window. The figure hadn't moved.

Snow had begun collecting on its shoulders and along one side of its head. I watched for the rise of its chest and couldn't see one. After a while the dog lost interest in growling. He drank from his bowl, nosed the empty food dish and settled near the couch while I moved between windows trying to keep track of what was outside.

The figure stayed where it was.

I left the phone on the table and went to the kitchen for water.

When I came back, the yard was empty. The tracks still ended where the figure had been standing.

I checked the front porch and driveway from the windows. The dog had stayed in the kitchen, but while I was looking toward the road his head turned toward the side of the house.

A dark shape passed the dining-room window.

I raised the shotgun and waited against the wall. There was no knock, no sound against the siding. When I looked through the edge of the blind, the figure was standing beside the shed.

From there I could finally see the legs without the snowfall hiding them. They had the structure of human legs stretched far beyond human proportions. Bare feet disappeared into the snow. The thighs were long and narrow, with more muscle on them than the rest of the body seemed capable of carrying. Above the hips, the thing looked almost starved. Its arms hung beside a narrow rib cage, the skin gray beneath the outside light.

The dog barked at the window. I caught him by the scruff and pulled him back until he stopped fighting me, then shut the curtain.

There were paw prints in the snow near the figure's feet.

Most had softened around the edges, but I could still follow them from behind the shed toward the house. I looked at the dog standing in the kitchen doorway, then back outside.

The figure ran.

I saw the first stride clearly this time. One bare foot came out of the snow and the knee rose almost to its waist. The other leg drove down, launching the entire body forward without moving the arms at all. It passed the dining-room window, and a pale shape flashed through the narrow pane in the side door.

I brought the shotgun up and stopped several feet away. The dog stood beside me growling at the glass.

One of the figure's shoulders was visible outside, along with the side of its head and an arm hanging straight down. It had reached the landing.

I waited for it to touch the door, but it didn't.

Snow melted against the glass and ran down in thin lines. Minutes passed without a hand reaching for the knob or a shoulder leaning against the door. Eventually the weight of the shotgun began to ache through my arms and I lowered it.

The clock on the stove read 9:17.

The figure had crossed most of my property in three bursts.

By 9:30, it still hadn't touched the door. The dog paced between the kitchen and living room, occasionally coming back to sniff along the bottom of it. When he started nosing the corner of the mat, I pulled him away.

"Get back."

He waited until I released him, then tried to return.

The mat was marked with the mud he'd tracked inside earlier. Outside, the landing had almost disappeared beneath fresh snow, but several shallow depressions remained where he'd stood scratching at the door. Beyond them, his paw prints continued across the open ground beside the house toward the shed.

From the dining-room window, I could pick them out in pieces. The dog's tracks passed the shed and continued toward the back of the property. The creature's deeper prints came from the same direction. Its stride was too long to land precisely over the dog's, but the two trails crossed and separated and crossed again.

I went upstairs for a better view. From the dark bedroom, the dog's route was easier to follow. His tracks wandered in from the trees, changed direction near the shed and continued toward the house. The other trail was made of deep holes separated by long stretches of untouched snow.

It wasn't straight either. Where the dog's path bent, so did the creature's. Both ended at my side door.

The dog barked downstairs.

By the time I returned, the creature was walking away.

It crossed toward the shed with the same rigid upper body it had when standing still. At that speed, its proportions looked no more natural. Each step carried it several feet, but the arms didn't swing and its shoulders barely moved.

It passed the shed and continued toward the back of the property until the snowfall swallowed it. The dog came to stand beside me at the dining-room window.

At 10:05, he started pacing. He went from the living room to the kitchen, stopped at the side door, then came back. A few minutes later he did it again. The third time, he put his nose against the bottom of the door and whined.

"No."

He circled the kitchen table and returned. I wasn't opening the door while I had no idea where the creature had gone.

At 10:16, he squatted beside the cabinets and pissed on the floor.

"Ah, come on."

He moved away with his ears back while urine spread across the tile. I put the shotgun on the counter and cleaned it up. The dog watched from the doorway while I went through half a roll of paper towels and sprayed the floor twice.

"That's my fault."

His tail moved once.

As the next hour passed, the storm began to weaken. I checked the property often enough that I stopped looking at the clock each time. The shed remained empty. So did the tree line.

The dog fell asleep beside the couch. The shotgun stayed within reach while I watched the windows and listened to the house settle around me.

By 11:00, the creature had been gone for more than an hour.

The dog woke and returned to the kitchen.

"No."

He whined.

"You already went."

He stared at me.

"Technically."

He pawed the door.

Another layer of snow had softened the creature's footprints until some were little more than shadows. I checked the yard from downstairs, then from the bedroom window. Nothing stood between the house and the trees.

The dog was still waiting when I came back down. I lasted another ten minutes.

"Right outside."

The moment I cracked the side door, cold air pushed into the kitchen and the dog shoved his nose toward the opening. I held him back long enough to scan the yard before letting him squeeze past.

He stopped on the landing to sniff the snow.

"Go."

I stayed in the doorway with the shotgun while he wandered about ten feet into the yard. He sniffed one patch, moved to another and drifted toward the corner of the house.

"Stay where I can see you."

He ignored me.

A clump of dead grass poked through the snow nearby. He investigated it, moved on, and started toward the shed.

"Hey. No. Come back."

He looked at me and took a few steps in my direction before finding something else worth smelling.

"Seriously?"

A small pine stood near the edge of the yard. He circled it once, went halfway around again, doubled back over his own tracks and buried his nose in the snow.

The tree line remained empty.

When he finally lifted his leg against the pine, I called him back. He started toward me, veered toward the shed one more time, then responded to a sharper "Inside" and trotted up the steps.

I shut and locked the door behind him. The entire trip had taken less than two minutes.

His new tracks were a mess compared with the trail that had brought him to my house. They wandered toward the corner, cut back across the yard, approached the shed, circled the pine and doubled over themselves before returning to the side door.

By 11:18, the dog was back on the rug licking snow from between his toes.

A low growl brought his head up. His ears pointed toward the window.

Something moved between the trees.

The figure stepped into the open farther back than where I'd first seen it, almost beyond the reach of the outside lights. Snow covered its shoulders. It stood facing the house while the dog moved closer to my leg.

One of the figure's feet lifted.

Its legs tore forward.

The first burst carried it across the open ground, but instead of coming toward the house, it cut sideways and stopped where the dog had first lowered his nose after leaving the steps. The next burst took it toward the corner of the house.

It stopped, changed direction and crossed back toward the center of the yard. The dog pressed against my leg.

The figure sprinted toward the shed. It made the same useless turn the dog had made and crossed the same few feet twice. When it reached the small pine, it went around so quickly that one foot slipped sideways and carved a trench through the snow while the torso above it remained upright.

It came around the other side, halfway around again, then back across its own tracks.

I had watched the dog do all of it.

The figure stopped over the patch where the dog had buried his nose. From there it ran to the pine and stood beside the trunk where he'd lifted his leg.

Only one part of the route remained. The tracks between the pine and the side door were almost straight.

The figure turned its face toward the house.

Its legs began to run.

By the time I reached the kitchen, it was standing on the landing again. The dog barked behind me. I kept him back while the pale face settled into the narrow pane of glass.

This time I could see it clearly enough to know there was nothing obviously missing. It had two eyes, a nose and a mouth. The features were narrow and colorless, but arranged the way they should have been.

Its eyes pointed into the kitchen.

I moved to one side. They stayed where they were.

The creature wasn't watching me.

The dog's tracks ended on the other side of the door. He had been inside the entire time the thing ran around the yard. It hadn't cut across the route to reach him.

I thought about the first trail coming out of the woods. The dog had been asleep beside my couch when the creature followed that one to the same door.

I didn't know how it could find the tracks beneath falling snow or why it sometimes stood still for minutes before running again. But it wasn't following the dog.

It was following where the dog had been.

The creature stayed at the door until sometime after midnight. When it left, it walked. It passed the pine without stopping, continued beyond the shed and disappeared into the trees.

For nearly an hour nothing moved outside. The snow dwindled to a few scattered flakes, leaving the trails in the yard exposed instead of slowly burying them. Two routes now ended at the house. One shallow and wandering. The other deep and widely spaced.

The dog eventually came over and pushed his head beneath my hand. I rubbed the fur behind his ears.

"You picked a hell of a house."

He leaned against my leg.

I could wait until morning. That was what I intended to do. The deputy already had my address, the plows would eventually reach my road, and the dog could piss wherever he wanted until then. I moved his water bowl into the living room and sat with him.

Nearly an hour passed before I found myself studying the tracks again.

The newest trail left the side door, wandered around the yard and returned to the same place. The creature had followed it from beginning to end.

If the dog hadn't come back, the trail wouldn't have come back either.

I kept my hand on his neck.

There was another way to make a trail leave the property.

Mine.

My boots were beside the kitchen mat and my coat hung behind the door. I could cross the yard, reach the road and head toward the nearest house. If the creature found my path the way it found the dog's, there would be nothing leading it back here.

I put on my boots. The dog watched from the kitchen doorway while I pulled on my coat. He wagged his tail when I picked up the shotgun.

At the front window, I looked across the yard to the road. The creature had crossed the distance from the trees to the driveway before I'd managed to get away from the living-room window. I pictured that open stretch with no glass between us, then the road beyond it and the woods on the other side.

I didn't know whether it could follow me at all. Every trail I'd seen it follow belonged to the dog.

I stood there until I started getting hot inside the coat, then took it off.

The dog followed me back into the kitchen.

"Don't."

He sat down.

I wasn't sure whether I was talking to him.

I left the coat on the table instead of hanging it back up. The dog had made it through the woods once already. He'd crossed several miles in a snowstorm without an injury I could find. Whatever the creature was doing, it wasn't very good at it. It moved faster than anything I'd ever seen, but it kept stopping. It lost the trail for long stretches. The dog had been in my house for hours before it arrived.

If I sent him out and he kept moving, he could stay ahead of it.

That was what I told myself.

The dog came close enough to rest his chin on my knee.

"You're somebody's dog."

His tail brushed the floor.

There had to be a house on the other side of those woods. Maybe more than one. He hadn't appeared starving or half frozen. He knew people. He knew what a kitchen was and what a food bowl meant. There was a decent chance that if I let him go, he'd do exactly what he'd done before.

He'd find a door.

An old blue nylon collar was buried in the junk drawer beneath batteries, dead pens and takeout menus. It had belonged to my sister's dog before she replaced it. I tightened it several notches and slipped it around the shepherd's neck to check the fit.

He stood patiently between my knees while I wrote my phone number on a strip of white tape and wrapped it around the collar.

When I clipped it around his neck, he leaned forward and licked the side of my hand.

My fingers stayed on the buckle.

"Shit."

He licked me again.

I unclipped it.

The collar sat on the kitchen table while the dog wandered back to the living room and lay down. I stood at the side door looking at the tracks. Nothing appeared in the yard.

I went back to the couch and sat beside him. He rolled partly onto his side when I scratched his chest, one back foot kicking once against the rug.

The house was warm. The doors were locked. The creature had never tried to break a window or turn a handle. Maybe we could sit there until daylight and nothing else would happen.

Maybe I had already seen everything it could do.

Every trail ended at my house.

The dog fell asleep with his head against my foot. I stayed there until the clock passed 1:00.

When he woke, I put the collar back on him.

I chose the front door because none of his earlier tracks began there. The road was visible beyond the yard, a white strip between two darker lines of trees.

The dog stood beside me while I checked outside. I opened the door, and he stepped onto the porch before looking back.

"Go on."

He went down one step and stopped.

"Go."

At the bottom, he turned and looked at me. For a second I reached toward the handle, but the dog turned away before I touched it.

He crossed the yard slowly, stopping once to smell the snow near the driveway. I stayed behind the glass and watched him reach the road.

He looked back at the house.

I didn't open the door.

The snow on the far bank came almost to his belly. He pushed through it, climbed onto higher ground and shook himself. Then he went into the trees.

I watched until the dark between the trunks swallowed him.

The collar had my number on it. If he found a house, somebody would call. If he found his own house, even better. He'd already crossed those woods once and survived.

The kitchen still had his water bowl on the floor.

I left it there.

Sometime before 2:00, the creature returned.

From the upstairs window, I watched it emerge from the trees behind the house. Instead of running, it walked slowly across the back of the yard, stopped, changed direction and walked again.

It reached the side of the house and disappeared from view.

I went downstairs.

The creature came around the corner at a walk and stopped near the front steps. The dog's newest tracks began a few feet away.

For several minutes, it stood between the porch and the driveway.

Then one leg moved.

The creature crossed the yard in a burst and stopped near the driveway, exactly where the dog had paused to smell the snow. The next sprint carried it across the road to the far bank.

Beyond it, the dog's tracks continued between the trees.

The creature ran into the woods.

It didn't come back.

The deputy reached my house sometime after 3:00. By then there was nothing to show him except the tracks. He walked partway into the yard, shined his flashlight over the deeper impressions and took my statement from the porch. Whatever he thought of it, he kept to himself.

I didn't sleep after he left.

Daylight turned the woods gray. A plow came through shortly after 7:00, throwing dirty snow across the end of my driveway. My phone had three bars again.

There was no dog in the yard.

By 9:00, I had started thinking he wasn't coming back.

My phone rang.

I didn't recognize the number.

"Hello?"

"Hi. This is going to sound weird, but did you have my dog last night?"

"Shepherd mix?"

"Yeah. Black and tan."

"Blue collar?"

"That's him. Your number's taped to it."

The man laughed, the exhausted kind that comes after you've spent hours expecting something bad.

"He's been gone since yesterday afternoon. We thought he was dead out there. I don't know how the hell he got that far."

"Where are you?"

He named a road several miles away, on the other side of the woods behind my property.

"Did he come back on his own?"

"About ten minutes ago. Scared the hell out of my wife. Something started scratching at the back door and there he was."

I went to the window.

"He's inside?"

"Yeah."

"Lock the door."

The man went quiet.

"What?"

"Lock your door."

"Why?"

Beyond the shed, the woods were still.

"Don't let him back out."

"He's standing right here."

"Good."

I hung up.

The body of REDACTED Singh was found skeletonized by back country hikers in the northern woods of Wisconsin. The sheriffs had been notified and then requested help from state police. I was a ten-year veteran at the time, and was sent up from Madison with my partner, John REDACTED, to assist with the recovery of the body in the deep woods. We were led by one of the hikers, a gaunt redneck by the name of Hershberger, to what was left of Singh.

The bones lay embedded in the moss of the forest floor, as if they were slowly sinking beneath the rippling green waves. The polyester blue t-shirt had become like a spider’s web of threads just barely holding on to one another, letting you see the gaping cavern of the chest cavity through the holes in the ribcage. The jeans were covered in a jungle of mold and lichen, as if they were the surface of some alien world. The legs were bound together with orange nylon cord at the ankles, and from the way the arms were beneath the body, we could guess the hands were bound in the same fashion. The skull sat, vacant sockets staring to the blue sky and treetops as if looking at something beyond. The belt buckle sat like a lighthouse through the fog, the chrome sparkling as if it was polished that very morning. A solitary star and the words U.S. ARMY emblazoned on the metal disk.

After taking a nauseating number of photos, the remains were carefully transferred to bags and removed from the woods. During the long drive back south past rolling hills of corn and soybean, John and I tossed theories back and forth.

“Seems like an awful long way to go to dispose of a corpse Bruce” John said.

“I think it was a more local killing, some old farmer dispute maybe” I said, eyes fixed on the road.

“Not much in the way of missing people in that area that match the description, I’ve checked, not much in the way of people up there anyway. If that army belt buckle’s anything to go off, we should get a hit on the dental record”

John was right, a thin packet was waiting on my keyboard the next morning. The deceased was one REDACTED Singh of Cresskill, New Jersey, aged 37. Singh was a native of the garden state and had been in the army for a decade as a military policeman. After earning an honorable discharge, he got licensed and became a PI in Jersey, and a respected one at that. His parents were both deceased, he had no siblings, and the only inquiry into his whereabouts was by his secretary, who had reported him missing after a month of absence. That was filed close to a year ago.

I made my way over to the forensics lab; there I found Schwarz hunched over his desk. A spindly, pale man with short, yet unkempt blonde hair. The walls by his desk were decorated haphazardly with family portraits, Christian Iconography, and fast-food coupons. A coffee pot that looked like it hadn’t rested since the great recession hissed away.

“We got a cause of death yet Schwartz?”

“It’s interesting you ask that, the bones and clothing show little sign of gashes or breaks, he might have died of a heart attack for all we know, but considering the rope, I would say something like suffocation. I would give the time of death as 10 months, give or take a month, given the advanced bleaching and seasons. So, Octoberish of last year.

“Interesting, anything else of note?” I replied

“It’s hard to say” Schwartz replied with his flat voice, “I am surprised it is in as good of shape as it is. It is quite common for animals to scatter remains in remote areas like this. I wonder if there was something keeping them away”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Oh, any number of things, the cadaver could have been dumped already in a state of advanced decay, if it was originally stored outside, I might not be able to tell. It could have been contaminated in some way with some chemical or the like.” His good-natured smile clashed with the morbid subject matter, “You know in some cultures they believe the remains of a human sacrifice won’t be touched by even the flies to respect the god it was offered too”

“Maybe leave that last one off the report, thanks for getting it back to me so quickly”

I did not like spending time in the forensic lab. The smells of cleaning chemicals and decay clashing made me nauseous, and being so close to dead bodies made me uneasy. I found John sitting at his desk, tooling on his phone waiting for his computer to turn on, a brightly colored energy drink can close beside him

“Mornin' John, Schwartz got us a type up of the forensic analysis”

“Morning Bruce” John began flipping through the report and sipping his beverage, a puzzled look spread across his wide face, his hand rubbing his bald head, “Schwartz put ‘avoidance of cadaver by wildlife could be result of demonic activity’ in his write up, didn’t we talk to him about putting that kind of stuff in official reports?”

“I don’t know, Webber seems to have stopped caring” I replied as I took a sip of my coffee.

“I have yet to meet a forensics expert who was not at least a bit eccentric” a voice behind me said, startling me ever so slightly.

Chief Webber was a tall, imposing man. While age had certainly taken a toll on him, you could still see the strength of the old man, his bald head glistening under the light, the dark skin of his face wrinkled and his eyes deep set. The beginnings of a beard crossed his chin, flecked with white.

“Not many people want to spend their days poking through dead bodies, all things considered he is a well-adjusted man for that field.” He turned his head to look at me

“Check your email Dieter, someone called in saying they knew this Singh guy”

“Already?” I replied, “We haven’t even had the notice of death out for more than an hour!”

“Someone must have been looking for him” Webber said, walking away.

Later that day John and I were sitting in the late summer sun outside a fast-food restaurant on the Illinois border, waiting for our lead. A well maintained, but aging car pulled into the lot and out stepped a man in a white shirt and orange stripped tie. His hair was a dark blond, well combed but graying, and a thin mustache sat neatly on his upper lip. He saw us and came over, a wide yet polite smile on his face

“You must be officers John and Bruce, I’m Mr. Williams.”

“Pleased to met you” I said, hand outstretched. John tipped his red fry container to the man

“Oh no I’ll get lunch when this is over, thank you for meeting me here, I understand it’s a bit out of your way”

“Where is it you work again?” John asked

“Osbrem and associates, attorney” Williams said as he took a large 3 ring binder out of his briefcase. “Singh and I where old army pals, both MPs at Fort Riley back in the day. I believe I am the only one he kept in contact with after he left the service. We would talk about once, oh, every month or so. I had been concerned after he hadn’t been responding to me since last September.” He gazed away, gathering his thoughts, “I feared the worst, you know with his line of work and all, He wasn’t one of those PIs who just chase after cheating husbands, he did a lot of missing persons and cold case work for families, and that can get dicey. I called his secretary, she filed a report with the police but all she cared about was that her checks stopped coming in. So, I went to his office and collected his files. This was his last case. I got in contact as soon as I heard he’d been found”

He pushed the folder across the stone table to us, rubbing his forehead “God, I still don’t believe it, I was still holding onto delusion that he was OK, that he was under deep cover or something and one evening would still give me a call, just like we always did. You never get to an age where the death of a friend is easy, hell, I think I’m the only family he had” Tears where welling in his eyes while he ran his fingers through his hair. “Fuck he probably listed me as his next of kin, God knows he his blood family didn’t care for him.”

“Thank you for bringing this to us Mr. Williams, we promise you we will hold the proper people accountable.” John stood, putting his hand on the distraught man’s shoulder. “Now let me get you some lunch, lawman to lawman”

As we got back into the car I began flipping through the file, John carefully balanced an ice cream cone in one hand as he drove.

“No Shit John, he was working on the REDACTED Al Awadhi case”

Al Awadhi was a college student who had gone missing two years ago in Madison. She had come from a rich and well-connected family in the Gulf states, and they had pulled out all the stops to try to find her. Rewards were offered, buses had her face on them, even a few TV ads played during football games. Briefly, Madison had become the center of a national crime sensation. Every social media sleuth had an opinion; theories of political intrigue, jealous lovers, and powerful coverups rocked the university.

John briefly glanced down at his shirt, now speckled with vanilla ice cream, “Him and every other PI from here to New York.”

Any progress made by law enforcement had been derailed by the media circus that had ensued. Her boyfriend, who had been cleared of suspicion in hours, was harassed so much by every two-bit PI and amateur internet sleuth he had to go into hiding in everything but name. Rumors had spread like gospel, and the quagmire of fact and fiction had slowed the case to a halt.

Flipping through his notes I found a confusing mess of arrows, sketches, and abbreviations. Most was in English, and some not. Entire news stories were printed out and placed in between pages and then covered in marks. Like gold in quartz, there was something in there, but it was going to take a lot of work to get it out.

After we got back to the station, I made a digital copy of the notes to look over during the weekend. John had to leave early to pick up his kids, and by the time I left the sun was setting in the late summer sky. I lived in a cramped apartment outside of town alone. It was supposed to be temporary lodgings originally, but after my engagement fell apart, it had become very much permanent. It lacked any real furniture and my walls were bare, save a Conan the Barbarian Poster, but I had grown used to it. I sat outside, sipped cheap coffee and chipped away at the notes. A few times I took a break to relax but soon found my thoughts drifting back to the vacant eyes of a man who died violently and alone. I thought of the pain his friends, as few as they might be, were living through. I owed it to him to make things right.

I got to the office early on Monday, made myself a cup of coffee, and sat at my desk. As I waited for my computer to boot, I savored the smell of my coffee, waiting for it to cool. As I was scanning my email John poked his head over the cubicle.

“Morning Bruce, how was your weekend?” he yawned.

“Productive, got a good amount of those notes deciphered, still can’t make much out of them though.” I replied, “Looks like we got something back on his credit card history, last used it at a gas station up in Clarksford.”

“He was nowhere near Clarksford” John said, brow furrowed.

“A lead’s a lead, you drive and I’ll keep chipping at the notes” I said as I poured the rest of my coffee into my thermos.

The drive was peaceful. I was watched the gentle rolling fields of corn and soybeans as I kept working on the notes. Trees standing like soldiers at attention. As we drove further north the trees became more and more numerous, till the fields faded away entirely and around us was a sea of wood. John pulled us off the main highway and brought us on the winding narrow road to Clarksford.

The town was small and had definitely seen better days. Two streets ran parallel to each other on different sides of the small river that ran through town, with a small bridge in the middle. There were two churches, a warehouse, a gas station, about three dozen houses, and four bars. We pulled into the gas station and stepped out of the car, stretching.

We went inside and began asking questions to the cashier. We didn’t expect too much, and we were not surprised when we found nothing. Security footage was only saved for a few weeks, and no one would remember a seemingly random customer coming in. When we asked about his car, however, a man in a bright Hawaiian shirt browsing the shelves spoke up.

“You’re looking for a red corolla with Jersey plates?” he said.

“Yeah, a red 2011 corolla, bought gas here October of last year, did you see it?” I replied.

“A car just like that has been parked outside Skip’s for months now, maybe that’s your car”

The man led us to an old, closed down restaurant on the edge of town. Sure, enough, the car sitting there matched our description. Checking the plates, it was Singh’s.

“Well shoot, I’ve seen this car every day driving for work” The man, who had introduced himself as Isaac, said “What’s the story, why’d too state police like yourselves be doing all the way up here chasing an abandoned car?”

As he asked that a sheriff’s deputy pulled in alongside us. We had called them on the way up. Out steeped a woman in her 30s, bearing remarkably similar features to Isaac.

“Isaac what are you doing here?” she said.

“They were asking about a car like this, looks like they found it” he replied.

“This is my cousin, sorry” she said to us, introducing herself as Deputy Sarah.

“Your cousin was a great help” John said, “Anyway Isaac, this car is tied to the disappearance of one…”

He clapped his hands together, an idea coming into full swing “The camp Orion people got him ooh I knew it!” he fished into the pocket of his shirt as Sarah rolled her eyes.

“Oh, shut up Isaac” she said, “First you and Hank talk all our ears off at the family reunions now you start wasting the time of these gentlemen”

“I’m sorry, what’s going on?” I asked.

“Isaac and his brother both drive delivery trucks, there are plenty of farms or summer camps, the like, around, and there is an old astronomy camp they are infatuated with” Sarah began “they’ve always been huge conspiracy nuts, talking my ear off at family get together on everything from reptilians to JFK.”

“Oh, come on Sarah, even you gotta admit this one has some merit” Isaac interrupted.

“No Isaac, no more than the governor is from mars” she replied in a harsh tone.

Isaac raised an eyebrow then shrugged at us. “Hank gets lunch in a half hour, meet us at Curly’s and well give you the whole spiel” he said as he began texting on his phone hastily and walking away.

“I’m sorry about him, him and his brother are nice, decent, hardworking people” Helman said, “But when they get on conspiracies, they have a one track mind.”

We began combing through the car, but nothing besides some old coupons and maintenance logs were inside. Feeling like we had no reason not to, we headed over to Curly’s, much to Deputy Sarah's chagrin.

Isaac smiled as we walked into the dim bar and waved us over to his booth. Inside sat his brother, Hank. He had the same black hair as his brother, but unlike his brother’s strait hair his sat in a curly mop on his head. His beard went down to the heavy metal logo on his T shirt, opposed to his brother’s neat mustache and stubble.

“Whatcha got for us boys” I said sitting down in the booth.

“Camp Orion is a former astronomy camp, went under a long time ago” Hank began, wasting no time, “four years ago the place started receiving deliveries again. At first, we thought the place was renovating or something, but the quantities kept increasing and stuff got weird.”

“I deliver food mostly” Isaac said, sliding an open notebook onto the table, “Hank is mostly construction stuff. They make us drop stuff off on the outskirts of the camp.”

“Neither of us have ever seen someone there.” Hank broke in “No contractors have ever been in there either; despite all the construction stuff they keep buying.”

“They buy enough food for a hundred people” Isaac said, “We’ve started keeping tabs on the entrance and only a few times a month does anyone leave.” He flipped to a picture in his notebook “This van is the only thing to go in or out.”

“You have a camera watching the entrance?” I said, concern in my voice.

“Yeah, just a trail cam” Isaac replied, oblivious to our legal concerns “we got some pictures from above to.”

“What?” John said, surprised.

“We got a friend of ours with a pilot’s license to fly us over, you have to see these” Isaac said.

The blurry pictures where hard to make out. From what we could gather there was an old building at the end of the driveway, and then a small trail leading further into the camp. Two long buildings flanked the trail. Further along the trail there were a few dozen square, tan buildings in a grid layout. In the middle stood a large, square structure. It was made of the same tan material as the smaller buildings around it and seemed to tower above them. It was terraced, with three layers and steps running up the middle of each side. The top seemed to have something on it, but the image was too low quality to make out.

“What is that” I said.

“We don’t know, it looks like a pyramid of some kind.” Hank replied, “We can’t figure out what they are doing in there and why it has to be so secret. We would go there ourselves, but I think they’d shoot us or something.”

As I was flipping through the notes John kept asking questions.

“Anyone else in town talking about this.” He said.

“No, no one ever listens to us about stuff, we were actually planning to make a YouTube video and see if anyone would listen to that.”

“Wait John, look at this” I said, “REDACTED McIlroy is listed as a part-owner of the property, she is in Singh’s notes!”

McIlroy was one of the standout features of the PI’s notes. A former professor of ancient history at the University of Vancouver, she had been all over the world giving lectures and going to archaeological digs. Then one day she vanished from the public eye entirely. I had yet to figure out why Singh thought she was connected, but a coincidence like this is usually not a coincidence.

“Well, we should go check out Orion then,” John replied “Maybe Ms. McIlroy is there and can answer us some questions.”

The brothers faces lit up with delight. They handed us copies of all their notes and wished us luck.

“We’ll keep quite now for the time being” Isaac said as we got into our cruiser, “but once the media is up here, we’re gonna get full credit right.”

“Yeah yeah don’t worry” John said as he began backing up the car.

The drive to camp Orion was short, easily within walking or biking distance should Singh have made his way from his car to it. The entrance was an unkempt gravel driveway peaking out between the dense trees. As we went down, we saw a shed with a sign noting it for deliveries, with a barrier in the road not far after. We exited the vehicle and began walking down the driveway.

The welcome center was just like the photos we’d been shown. The squat, long building had seen better days, with an overgrown lawn surrounding it like a house on the Iowa prairie. An old van rusting at the wheel wells sat parked next to the front door. As we approached two figures emerged and walked up to us.

“Wisconsin State police, I am Officer Bruce and this is my partner John” I said, pulling out my badge, “We have some questions for a REDACTED McIlroy who is listed as a part-owner of this property.”

The two women, both in their late 20s early 30s, stopped in their tracks and exchanged concerned glances. They whore identical black cargo pants and dark gray crew necks. I quickly glanced at John and he nodded back to me. If they had any weapons on their belts, we would have no idea. The tense few seconds were agonizingly long. I stood with my hands on my hips, trying to betray my heart beating out of my chest.

“Yes she is here, I can go get her for you, wait here” one said and retreated back into the building. The other women stood just as still as before, looking like she was trying not to scowl at us.

“So what do you guys do here” John said trying to break the silence. No response came.

After a few more tense minutes, the whir of a small engine could be heard. A golf cart with the woman who left and a new figure came around the corner. The new women was average in height, olive in complexion with strait black hair falling to her shoulders. She looked to be in her mid-40s.

“Hello Gentlemen, I understand you are here to see me?”

“A man by the name of REDACTED Singh went missing here about a year ago, would you know anything about that?” I said.

McIlroy was taken aback by the remark, and looked back at us with squinted eyes, “Are you insinuating I had something to do with it?”

“let’s not get ahead of ourselves ma’am” John replied “Singh seemed to have an interest in you and this place, then went missing. This could all be purely coincidental, but even so we would like to poke around.”

McIlroy’s expression softened, slightly. “Well come, I can show you around.”

She brought us inside, the two women still flanking us. The whiplash of the run down exterior to the hospital like, sterile interior was jarring. Glass displays housed pottery, suits of armor, and swords. Dioramas of battles sat on low tables; the small soldiers painted with the care of a surgeon.

“We are a work in progress museum.” She said “These are our artifacts, all pertaining to ancient Mesopotamia. We have a particular focus on the Sumerian period, but there are some displays from subsequent periods. While we do have a few replicas, most of our displays are authentic artifacts. If you would please follow me, I can show you some of our full-sized replicas outside.”

We went out the back door of the building and began walking down the trail through the trees. Two more people, a man and a woman, dressed like the first two, came up to us and began walking silently with us. While McIlroy continued her tour guide speech, John and I exchanged nervous glances. If anything were to happen to us the department would know this was our last known location, and they’d rain hell down on this place. We just had to hope the uniformed people flanking us knew that.

We passed the low, long buildings that flanked the trail that we had seen on Isaac and Hank’s photos. McIlroy told us they were employee housing. We saw a few more uniformed people, and they were ushering women in long, colorful dresses with shawls and men in brown tunics into the buildings.

I made eye contact with one of the women and my blood ran cold. Staring back at me was Al Awadhi. Her eyes went wide when she realized I recognized her, and she quickly began whispering to the nearest uniformed man. I was forced to keep going, but I could hear the noise of their whispering as I went passed.

The woods peeled away on either side of us, and in the middle of the clearing sat a number of low, single room houses made of mud-brick. In the middle of them sat a three-tiered pyramid, like the ziggurats modeled in the welcome center.

“This is the crown jewel of our facility,” McIlroy said, wide grin on her face, “A replica of a Sumerian town during the reign of Sargon the Great, complete with a temple complex.”

I nodded along as she explained the intricacies of the replica houses, my mouth dry. My mind raced with an excuse to get the hell out of here. The eyes of the guards burrowed into the back of my head. My training was the only thing standing in the way of me spiraling into a panic. Like a sailor in a storm, I had to stay calm, my life and John’s depended on it.

We began to climb the steps of the pyramid as McIlroy explained how they built it. “This is a 1:1 recreation of a temple I helped excavate near the Tigris River in Iraq.” We made it to the top, the entire camp, or more accurately compound, stretched out all around us. “The alter and idol here are authentic, I dug them up myself. The Idol is of Hanbi, the Sumerian deity of the north sky.”

The Idol was bronze, with the body of a man and the head of a bull. Its hands where outstretched as if waiting for you to give it something. The alter was smooth and black, made from volcanic glass.

John was on edge too, I could tell from the glances he was shooting at me. He pulled out his phone and pretended to look at a notification “Well, thank you for the tour, ma’am, unfortunately we’re gonna have to cut it short, some other business has come up.”

We were escorted all the way back to our car. The eyes of the guards never left us as we pulled out. A word was not spoken until we were on the highway.

“I thought they where about to hold us down on that alter and cut our throats open!” John gasped “there had to be 30 people in those uniforms, all staring us down with just, hatred!”

“Al Awadhi was there” I said, my breathing still heavy from adrenaline

“WHAT!?” John about veered the car off the road “Fuck they must have hog tied Singh and bleed him like a pig, what are these people even doing?”

That was still up in the air. Antiquity smuggling stuck out first and foremost. There was a lot of money in it, and it was a major source of income for some of the less savory groups in the Middle East. That would not explain why Al Awadhi was there, however.

We got back to headquarters just as dusk began to fall. This quickly became an all hands on deck event, with everyone pouring over the footage from our body-cams. Others in the shots were IDed as other missing persons, not only from the US, but as far away as São Paulo and Tokyo. The office was abuzz with calls and the chatter of plans being made. A raid was coming together.

In the corner of the room, I found Schwartz poring over the footage of the temple.

“Find anything?” I asked

“That is not the Sumerian god of the north sky” he replied flatly “That would be Enlil, and this is clearly not him”

“So, they misnamed the idol? Weird this history expert would do that” I replied

“Maybe not, Hanbi is the king of the demons in the Mesopotamian pantheon. I did a study in collage of the religions in the ancient world, specifically Canaan but we talked a lot about Mesopotamia too. I referenced my old textbook, there was never any endorsed worship of Hanbi, if that Idol is what they say it is, we could have some devil-worshipers on our hands.”

I nodded and looked over at the screen. The bull-headed idol stared back at me, it’s open hands seemed to be beckoning me. Schwartz was one to go on odd tangents, but this one stuck with me.

“You think it’s a cult?” I asked

“Seems like an awful lot of theatrics for a smuggling ring” He replied “I brought it up with Webber, but he said they’ll worry about that after the raid.”

The plan was set; a team would go in under cover of darkness, detain McIlroy and allow for a mass of law enforcement to fall upon the place. John and I were selected to lead this team, as we had seen the facility itself. The eight man team was cloaked in black, the only light in the back of the van was the dim glow of a red bulb. We had gone over the plan a hundred times, so we sat in tense silence as we approached the entry site.

The night was black, moonless. We all climbed out into the inky dark and watched as the van sped away. Scores of law enforcement sat somewhere, tense, ready to crash down, but to us they might as well have been invisible. We moved wordlessly into the tree line, our night vision making the world a ghastly gray. A faint mist hung in the air, like the vapor off of a witch’s cauldron. Even breathing felt like shouting. Scurrying animals would make noise like thunder, staring back at you with glowing, reflective eyes.

As we approached the edge of the wood, the chatter of voices pierced through the silence. As we broke into the clearing, the glow of fires could be seen dancing on the sides of the mud brick homes. The pyramid was bathed red, dancing in the firelight.

We came to the edge of the mock town, hugging the sides of the buildings. Looking at the pyramid, a great mass of robed figures stood on the steps, their voices unified in a chant of some harsh, guttural language, unrecognizable to the modern ear. On the alter lay a woman, crying in pain. A fire was lit under the idol, and the bronze glowed red.

A lead figure stood, arms raised, and the chanting ceased. In the eerie quite only the screaming of the woman on the alter could be heard. A new voice joined in the crying, the shrill voice of a newborn. An attendant handed the babe to the lead figure, who then showed the masses. The chanting started again, this time louder. Mesmerized, we all watched as the shrieking infant was placed in the hands of the idol and burst into flame.

The thunder of gunshots woke us from the trance; the leaders’ head exploded into a red mist.

“POLICE, EVERYONE ON THE GROUND NOW!” John yelled, gun smoking.

Chaos ensued, a number of cultists produced weapons from under their robes and began firing at us. We traded shots from behind cover, except for John. He stood tall and advanced, beating a number of them to the draw before falling to the ground riddled with bullets. The unarmed cultists ran in every which way, many falling in the exchange. Over the gunshots the sound of engines could be heard winning from the perimeter, the cavalry coming to finish the job.

I was trading shots with a cultist behind cover when one jumped on top of me from nowhere, curved knife clutched in his hand, panting like a wild animal. We rolled about on the ground till I was able to wrestle my sidearm from my belt, putting him down with a single shot. As I stood back up another one jumped out from cover, and I found myself on the ground clutching my guts. I had taken a shotgun blast to the lower torso.

The rest of the night was a blur, and the next coherent thought I had was at the hospital, days later being told I would never walk again.

The psychiatrist told me writing this all out would help me come to terms with it. I think I could live a thousand lifetimes and not. I have nothing, No friends, no family, and not even my work anymore. I only ask one thing, that you see the last few days of my life. For while I still breath, I died that cold, black night in the woods of Wisconsin.

I really have no words for what I've seen as of lately, because its something I've been carrying from a long time ago, and its something I never thought I would ever have to talk about again, but, I guess I just need to write this down...

I'm in my mid 20's, and this experience has brought back many emotions, which I thought I already knew how to handle, but, turns out I was wrong all along, and it feels like I really didn't learn anything from it, back to square one.

Last week, I was doing my usual tasks in my workplace.

I work for the local soda company, what I usually do, alongside Satō, a good friend of mine who's some years older than me, is taking our products to the local restaurants, stores, refill vending machines, check and organise inventories and see what's in stock in each of them, as well as replace old products and items.

In short, our company is in charge of distributing soda and cola.

Last month, Satō and I were in the truck heading towards our last stop in the middle of the night, a very warm night to be more precise. An old yet beautiful ramen place owned by a man older than the place itslef, his name is Koichi. He waved at us when he saw the truck, then we went to the backdoor leading to the kitchen, carrying all the merchandise in four heavily loaded dollys. One in each hand for both of us.

Mr. Koichi opened the door to let us in, and I could smell the udon boiling, the fried pork meat and a warm wave of broth coming from the kitchen. Going all around town, all day long with Satō to load and unload afterwards was really exhausting, specially that day. I thought of grabbing some ramen before going back to the plant, however I knew that wouldn't be possible because our boss is pretty strict with punctuality, and I understand, it was a friday night, no one wants to stay there when you could be home early and rest.

Then, Satō unloaded his dollys inside the fridges while I unloaded mine in the kitchen for display.

Afterwards, Mr. Koichi helped us out by putting our dollys back into the trunk. Satō bought some soda from the restaurant. He got in the truck and started the engine.

I looked one last time at the restaurant's kitchen, knowing I wouldn't be able to have some delicious ramen that night, particularly Mr. Koichi's ramen, its so good after a long day of hard work.

Man! Are you coming or not? You know how pissed Mr. Rio is gonna get, come here and get in already!

I knew Satō was right so I got inside the truck.

— I'm sorry Satō-san, I was just thinking about the ramen, you know?

— I don't blame you man, but if Mr. Rio decides to scold us for being late, I won't even have an apetite for the rest of the weekend, you know how his face becomes really weird with all those wrinkles when he gets angry, not to mention the smell of his breath...

We both laughed, knowing Mr. Rio's temper and his bad breath.

I kept seeing many trees and lights along the highway, Satō wanted to listen to some music on the truck's radio, however it was to no avail because it couldn't catch any station or anything like that, so we could only listen to the sound of a few cars passing.

A few minutes passed and I saw some water drops hitting the front window, it was a dew.

Despite the plant not being too close to the city, we still made it just in time.

We parked the car and we got inside the employee's room, and Mr. Rio was already there, he talked to us in a neutral tone.

Hey guys, you made it in time, Satō, gimme your delivery vauchers, I'll sort them out, both of you, go change your clothes, good job.

I was pretty relieved by the fact that Mr. Rio would take care of the paperwork that was left, it didn't take him too long to get it all done anyways.

After we changed back into our casual clothes, Mr. Rio turned off the lights and began to close everything.

I was concerned because I thought the rain had become heavier while we where inside, but once we got out to the parking lot, I saw it had already stopped.

We weren't the only ones leaving already, there were at least another 30 employees getting ready to go. Mr. Rio grabbed his car keys and spoke to us for the final time.

Good job guys, I'll see you on monday, take care and rest, good luck.

After saying those words he drove away.

Satō and I said goodbye, he went with other guys because one of them had a truck and offered them to take them home safely.

I took my bike and rode along the highway, it was pretty quiet, I thought I would head straight home and forget about everything else. On my way home I saw a small shrine, very close to the road.

"It's been a while since the last time I went to one of these..."

I stopped for a bit, just to check out the place. It was all really quiet, and it looked like nobody had been there for quite some time. Before going home I made a short prayer for good luck and left to get my bike.

All I had in my mind was about getting home as soon as I could and have something to eat, but something was going on with my bike.

It started doing some weird noises until it stopped and wouldn't move anymore. It had stopped in a place of the highway where there was almost no artificial light, only moonlight. There were no trees around that part so I could actually watch my step.

I took off my helmet, and took a deep breath, then I pushed my bike to the side of the road, where it wouldn't be an obstacle for anyone driving.

I pulled out my phone to see if I had signal, in case I had to call someone to tow my bike and give me a ride home.

I checked the bike and it seemed alright, there wasn't really anything causing a malfunction, and I just couldn't understand why it even had happened in the first place.

I felt a breeze, gentle and fresh, and I figured out I could stay there for a few minutes to see the place I was standing on, after all, even with all the trips I made with Satō back and forth from the plant to the town, I never payed much attention to the surroundings. I saw some rice fields, a few hills, and some trees. Although it wasn't much or something too impressive, I felt like a tourist in a place I had passed by so many times but never bothered to explore it.

From all the things I saw, there was a small clearing not too far away from a rice field. I decided to see that spot and began walking.

When I got there, I sat down on the grass. It was all really quiet, except for the distant sound of some crickets.

Just for a brief moment I lied down on the grass, and it was pretty comfortable.

I heard a faint noise that resembled a the one of a creek, it wasn't too far away so I followed the sound.

I walked next to some trees and stones, and suddenly the air around me became cooler.

I figured out it would have something to do with the wind, humidity, it was nightime anyways. After a few meters a found the creek, it wasn't too big or deep, but it gave me an eerie feeling.

It was pretty dark by this point, but I steel could make out the edges of the creek.

It was between two pieces of land, there were trees everywhere, rocks, I even saw some fireflies, but then, I saw a kid.

He didn't seem to notice me, standing there, at least 10 meters away from him, and he looked confused

It looked as if he was looking for something in the creek. His feet were in the water but it didn't seem like he was cold at all, just staring at the water.

I wasn't sure about asking or even saying anything at all because I had a strange feeling about the whole thing. Why would a child be here? Is he alone? and overall, What is he even doing here?

I walked around for a bit to see if there was anyone else, anyone that would know anything about the child, but it didn't take me too long to figure out he was totally on his own.

I came back to see the kid, he was still doing his thing and again, he didn't notice me.

I shouted to get his attention.

Oi! Oi!

For a second, the kid stopped doing whatever he was doing, then he turned his head, almost as if he had heard my voice, but didn't know where it came from, he was looking everywhere, until he stopped, I looked away for a moment to check if there really wasn't anyone else around until I suddenly heard his voice.

— Are you perhaps lost, mister? - He inquired

His sudden question spooked me, I really wasn't prepared for it, specially after it seemed like he couldn't figure out where I was.

— Uh, no? I was just wondering, where's your parents at? - I replied.

— Oh, they're at home, but don't worry mister, I'm not alone, I came here with my friend!

— Your friend, you say? Where is he? - I said as I looked around to see if his friend was anywhere to be seen.

— Yes, we're looking for stones for the fish pond at my home!

— You sure are, but I don't see your friend anywhere around...

— I think he wen't back home, I heard him say something about getting help...

— And just how long ago did he leave?

— What? Hmmm, about three minutes ago or so, I think.

— Three minutes, huh?

The whole place became quiet, I had no idea if this kid's friend would return soon. And, what about his parents? They've gotta be worried sick about their child being outside so late in this cold.

— So, how old are you? - I asked.

— Hm? I'm 9 years old, mister.

Suddenly I realized I didn't even tell him who I was, which made me feel a bit ashamed.

— My apologies, I haven't introduced myself. My name is Oda, Takeshi Oda, its a pleasure.

— Oh! My name is Josuiji, Josuiji Hayato, its my pleasure.

Just as he finished introducing himself, he looked at the water as he began searching for more stones.

"That's odd", I thought, he didn't seem distraught by the fact that he's all alone, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, in the middle of the cold stream.

The silence of the whole place was oddly unnerving, I could feel my skin shiver and the cold of my clothes almost made me jump everytime they touched my body because of the wind.

I knew this kid could contract a disease if he didn't get out of the water in time, or worse, he could get a hypothermia and die.

— Hey, Hayato, I know you're busy with your rocks, I get it, but its pretty late already, I bet your parents are worried about you!

— It's not that late, mister! Besides, my friend shouldn't take that long...

I interrupted him mid sentence — Ha- Hayato, you said earlier that your friend went away to get help, right?

He looked a bit mad that I had interrupted him, but nodded in response.

— Alright, what kind of help did you guys need? - I asked

Hayato looked a bit puzzled, then he stared at me for a brief moment.

— He said I was hurt, I think I fell, but I feel okay, I promise! - He replied in a frustrated tone

— I see, so you fell, where did you hit yourself?

— Mister, I promise! I didn't hurt myself! - He sounded angrier than before

I thought of asking more questions until I saw the kid looking at me angrily, he stared at me that way before turning around to search for more stones.

A little ray of moonlight that passed through the trees lit his head, but when I looked at it, I noticed part of his hair was wet, but the liquid on his hair didn't look like water, the moonlight showed it was red.

I panicked for a bit, but I made a decision.

— Oi! Hayato! Can you come here, please? - I said while I moved my hand in signal that I needed him to come close.

— Hm? Yeah? - He said as he walked to where I was standing.

Once he got there, I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight to take a closer look at his head, but even before doing so, I spotted see a bruise on his head.

— Oh boy, Hayato, I think your friend might have been right after all, you might have a little bruise... - I said in a way that he wouldn't get too scared but would understand that he wasn't really okay as he thought he was.

Hayato's hair was in the way, so I decided to move it in case his bruise was worse than I had thought

— Alright, Hayato. — I said — I'm gonna have to move your hair just a bit...

Right when my hand touched his head, Hayato fell to the ground.

I gasped before yelling: — Oi! Hayato! Come on, hang on! What's wrong?

However, Hayato rolled all the way into the stream; I hurried up and ran there to see if he hadn't hit his head again and stop him from potentially drowning.

I yelled again: — Hayato! Hayato! Hang on! - I got there as fast as I could, then, I lifted him above the water, he looked unconcious, his skin was cold and he wasn't breathing.

I took another look at his head, but he didn't have more bruises.

I looked away for a second, but when I looked at him again, his eyes were already open, Hayato was staring at me. I was a bit surprised but figured out he would be alright.

Right as I was about put my hand on the side of his head, his body suddenly felt lighter. When I looked down, I couldn't see Hayato's body anymore, then I looked back up too see I was now holding a small human skull facing me.

I yelled and dropped the skull into the stream, where it just dissapeared as soon as it touched the water.

I yelled again, thinking I was just imagining stuff. — Hayato! Hayato!

I looked around, thinking Hayato would be somewhere. I was breathing heavily, and suddenly I felt as if the force of the stream was about to drag my feet.

My heart was racing and the cold water made it real hard for me to move, I felt as if something was wrapping my chest, and I woke up.

I was laying at the small clearing, not too far away from the rice fields, I couldn't understand it. I stood up and ran back to the stream, hoping I would see Hayato somewhere. I saw the same trees and rocks that I saw the first time I met Hayato.

I yelled: — Hayato! Oi! Hayato! Where are you!? - But there was no response, only the most unnerving kind of silence anyone could imagine.

My heart was still racing, I was very tired from running as fast as I could to see if Hayato was there, and I was just so confused, I thought that maybe something had happened to him, maybe his friend had come back and they went back home?

There were so many questions in my head, but none of them made sense, I felt like I was going crazy, I couldn't breathe properly and I couldn't shake the feeling that something was very wrong.

I walked back to my bike, I tried starting it and it was working again. I put my helmet back on and I took a deep breath before riding off back home.

I suddenly felt very hungry and decided to go for a change of plan, instead of heading straight home I would stop by Mr. Koichi's restaurant.

Soon I had arrived, but by then I was feeling a little bit less spooked or so I thought, I took of my helmet and parked my bike next to the restaurant.

As soon as I stepped into the restaurant, Mr. Koichi saw me from the counter.

— Welcome! Eh? Oi, Mr. Oda, you look really pale, did you see a ghost or something? - He said as he laughed.

I was a bit shook, it took me a second to respond; — Wha- Oh! No, no, ha ha. Nothing like that.

I quickly noticed the place was empty, so I would be eating in silence that night.

I ate some ramen, after all, a large and warm ramen bowl was all I needed to feel better, although I was still wondering what that had been all about, but I figured out it was just a weird nightmare.

After finishing my bowl I walked up to the counter to pay for my meal, but something caught my attention.

On the counter there were some photographs, in one of them there was a kid.

My heart began racing again as I realized that kid looked a lot like Hayato.

Mr. Koichi, noticed me looking at the picture.

His face suddenly changed, he looked nostalgic and a bit melancholic.

He let out a sigh before speaking; — That was my son, Hayato, he was my first son, he died in a stream. We never knew what he was doing out there, he had many bruises on his head and his neck was broken. Sometimes I think about him.

I felt as if a cold wind surrounded my body, I stood in silence before speaking again. — I- I'm sorry to hear that, I had no idea...

— Its alright. — He said with a barely noticeable smile on his face — It was a very long time ago, I've moved on and always try to be a better father to the rest of my children, even if they rarely come by to visit, they've all moved to the big city a while ago...

After that, I walked out of the restaurant, the street was in complete silence and only a few street lights were working then, I couldn't even hear any cars passing by, maybe because it was already pretty late, it all felt very lonely, no different from that place where I had been earlier.

Suddenly a soft, yet, cold and dry breeze made it clear for me.

It was time for me to go home.

"Come in, Dan," Emma said.

"Hi Emma, what can I do for you?"

"As you might know, I recently got promoted to a branch manager, which came with this beautiful office."

"It is really nice."

"Thank you. But it means the basement office is empty. Management would like to move you there. It's not bad. I've actually enjoyed working there."

"But I really like my office, Emma, and the basement…"

"It's non-negotiable."

I rubbed my face.

"Sorry, my hands are tied. Please have it done by the end of the day." She glanced at the clock. "Also, keep the back room closed."

I got up and slowly walked to my office. It wasn't as pretty as Emma's, but it still had windows and sunlight, and it was mine, but what could I do? I packed up my things and headed down.

The basement was cold concrete, with bright fluorescent lights. A long hall led to the office. My steps echoed in the silence. A water cooler stood in the hall, but there was no coffee machine. I sighed and unlocked the door. 

The lights flickered. They seemed even brighter inside. The room was in the back. I put my stuff down and turned on my computer. A loud whoosh sounded from the back room like a bunch of computers turning on at once. We kept old servers in rooms like these, but why would they turn on now? 

I knew Emma had told me not to open it, but who cared? She moved me to this shithole. I walked to it and opened the door. The room was dark, but in the back, blue electric current glowed. I turned on the light. 

On the ground lay a strange gray blob, buzzing with blue electricity. Its whole body seemed to move with each volt, as if it breathed through it. The zaps got louder. They sounded like someone saying my name. I grabbed the door frame tightly. The thing expanded and deflated, and a blue wave of electricity ran along the ground, shocking me.

"Fuck!" I yelled. 

The thing moved around again, ready to fire. I turned and bolted to Emma's office.

She took a deep breath as she saw my frightened face.

"There's a, there's a thing."

"Did you open the door?"

"No. Yes. I…"

Her face went blank. She glanced at the clock.

"Dan, calm down."

"We need to call someone."

"No." She furrowed her brows. "There will be no calling."

"But it zapped me, it…"

"Listen to yourself. You're being ridiculous. Come, I'll go with you and show you it's nothing."

"No, I'm not going back there."

"Do you want to lose your job?"

"What?"

"You're getting fired if you don't listen."

"But I need this job."

"Then just come down, Dan. I'll show you it's okay. If it's not, we'll call someone."

We walked down the stairs. I still couldn't believe we were doing this. Emma seemed worried too. She kept looking over her shoulder and checking her phone. I thought we'd turn around, but she kept walking until we stood before the basement office.

She grabbed the door handle, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

"See? Nothing is going on."

She stopped and looked at the open back room.

"You opened it. It wasn't supposed to be awake yet. Not until..."

A loud electric zap sounded. The whole room turned blue for a second. I put my hand in front of my face. Emma's body lay on the ground, face down. The gray smudge moved across the floor, leaving a slime trail. As it rose and fell, its crackling formed into words, Emma's words. It climbed onto her, and a wet tearing echoed through the room.

I shut the door, ran out of the building, and called the police. They arrived shortly after. I took them to the basement, but I couldn't make myself open the door. One of the police officers had to do it. 

My heart beat against my ribs as he grabbed the handle, but the room inside was spotless. Only a faint smell of burnt meat hung in the air. The back room door was closed, and Emma sat at the table, fiddling with her hair.

"What seems to be the problem, officers?"

My fingers went numb.

"We're sorry, Ma'am. We received a distress call from your employee, but it seems everything's okay."

"We're awfully sorry. Dan has been under a lot of stress. Take the day off, Dan. If there are any costs for your troubles, officers, just invoice the company."

"No problem, Ma'am."

That day I went home feeling like a shell of myself. I couldn't remember driving home, and I didn't even change my clothes before bed. 

The next day I woke up in a haze. I didn't know whether to believe what I'd seen, and I still needed the money. I got back in my car and drove to work.

My heart pounded as I opened the building's door, but everything seemed the same. My breathing eased as I passed the office halls, but then I heard it – Emma.

"Come in, Dan," her voice crackled with static.

My ex and I dated for a little over two years.

The relationship wasn’t horrible, but the breakup definitely was.

She wanted to stay together. I didn’t.

For the first few weeks afterward, she texted me constantly. Sometimes she’d apologize, sometimes she’d get angry, and sometimes she’d act like we hadn’t broken up at all.

Eventually, I blocked her.

A couple weeks later, I got a message from a new number.
It was her.

I blocked that one too.

Then she started emailing me.

That went on for maybe a month before everything suddenly stopped.

I thought she’d finally moved on.

Then one night, I went out with a couple friends to this small bar about twenty minutes from my apartment.

The next morning, I had an email from her.

All it said was, “Hope you had fun last night.”

That bothered me, but we still had mutual friends. I figured somebody had mentioned seeing me.

A few weeks later, I drove out of town to visit my brother.

While I was there, I got another email.

“Tell your brother I said hi.”

That one freaked me out.

My brother lived almost two hours away, and I hadn’t posted anything about visiting him.

I asked everyone I could think of if they’d spoken to her.

Nobody had.

So I started going through everything.

I changed my passwords. I checked Snapchat, Google, Find My, basically anything that could possibly be sharing my location.

Nothing.

I even checked my car because one of my friends convinced me she might have put an AirTag on it.

We didn’t find anything.

Then it stopped again.

For almost two months, I didn’t hear from her.

During that time, I started seeing someone else.

We weren’t officially dating yet. We’d only gone out maybe four or five times.

One Friday night, we went to a restaurant downtown.
We ate, had a couple drinks, and then I drove her home.
The next morning, she called me.

She sounded uncomfortable and asked if I’d given her Instagram to anybody.

I said no.

Then she sent me a screenshot.

Some blank account with no profile picture had messaged her.

There was no text.

Just a picture.

It was us sitting inside the restaurant.

The photo had been taken from outside, across the street.

You could see me through the window, and you could see the girl I was with sitting across from me.

I knew immediately who sent it.

I called my ex.

She denied everything.

She actually got angry at me for accusing her and said I was obsessed with making her look crazy.

So I hung up.

Then I drove back to the restaurant.

Across the street was a small parking lot.

From where the picture had been taken, whoever took it would’ve been sitting almost directly across from our table.

That meant they hadn’t randomly walked by and seen us.
They had parked there.

I filed a police report after that.

There wasn’t enough to prove she’d taken the picture, but at least there was documentation.

I also told basically everyone in my life what was happening.

And strangely enough, once I did that, it stopped.
Completely.

No emails. No messages. Nothing.

It’s been over a year now.

As far as I know, she’s moved on.

I have too.

But there’s one thing I never figured out.

The restaurant wasn’t somewhere I normally went.

The girl I was seeing picked it.

We decided to go there less than an hour before we arrived.

Neither of us posted about it.

So either my ex somehow still had access to my location…
or she had been following me long enough to see where we went.

I honestly don’t know which explanation I prefer…

My grandmother had a lot of strange superstitions when I was growing up. She believed you shouldn't whistle inside the house, leave empty bottles on the table, or look into mirrors after midnight. That last one was something she took particularly seriously. Whenever I stayed at her house, she'd cover the mirror in the guest bedroom before going to sleep. I used to laugh about it and ask what she thought was going to happen. She never really explained. She'd just tell me that some things were better left alone.

A few years ago, I was home alone watching a TV series. I'd gotten so caught up in it that I hadn't noticed how late it was. It must have been around 2 or 3 in the morning when something suddenly got into my eye. Probably an eyelash or a tiny piece of dust. I rubbed it a few times, but it only made things worse. My eye started watering, and I couldn't concentrate on the screen anymore. I had a small handheld mirror on the table, so I picked it up to see if I could get whatever was irritating my eye out.

I was sitting on my bed with the mirror held close to my face, trying to find the eyelash. The only light in the room was coming from the television and a small lamp beside my bed. I finally managed to spot it and carefully pulled it out. I was about to put the mirror down when I noticed something in the reflection. At first, I wasn't even looking directly at it. It was just something dark in the corner of the room, behind me. I thought it was a shadow from the furniture, until I noticed two tiny red lights in the middle of it.

I froze. I don't know how else to describe what I saw. It looked like a tall, completely black shape standing in the corner, with two red points where its eyes should have been. I immediately turned my head to look behind me. There was nothing there. Just the wall, a chair, and some clothes I'd left hanging over it. I actually felt relieved for a second because I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. But when I looked back toward the mirror, I could still see it in my peripheral vision. The same dark shape. The same two red lights.

I was too frightened to look directly at the reflection again. I just placed the mirror facedown on the bedside table, pulled the blanket over my head, and stayed completely still. I know that sounds ridiculous, especially coming from an adult, but I genuinely couldn't make myself move. I kept thinking about my grandmother and all those times she'd warned me about mirrors at night. I don't remember how long I stayed under the blanket or when I eventually fell asleep.

The next morning, everything seemed normal. Sunlight was coming through the curtains, and the room looked exactly as it always did. I almost convinced myself that I'd imagined the whole thing because I was tired. Then I remembered the mirror. It was still lying facedown where I'd left it. I picked it up, intending to put it back in the drawer.

There was a crack running across the glass.

It hadn't been cracked the night before. I'd been holding it inches from my face, so I'm certain I would have noticed. I hadn't dropped it or hit it against anything. I'd simply placed it on the table.

I threw that mirror away the same morning. I still don't know what I saw, and maybe there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of it. But I haven't looked into a mirror in a dark room since.

And I finally understand why my grandmother always covered hers.

 ‎  ‎ 
 ‎ 
​​
‎ 
[Translation: Hello. I am speaking to you in mime. My transformation is complete! I passed the test in case you were wondering. And I expect to be seeing you all when I play at Radio City this summer. They’ll fold soon. Anyway that’s all I’ve got. This here is the last letter. Read it. And after that I'm sure you'll want to read letter one and two and three and four and five too.]

Judge,

It’s snowing now. Is it snowing where you are? Well I guess even if it is it could have stopped by the time you get this. Because I’m writing you a letter. It started last night I think. Or possibly two nights ago. It doesn’t matter exactly really. It’s snowing still. It hasn’t stopped since. Now everything is blanketed in this thick layer of soft white. It looks like there are little flecks of glitter in it when the sun shines upon it and it almost hurts to look at. 

My house is chilly now. I’m  really quite cold. The door situation doesn’t help one bit.

Have you ever let the snow dig into your bare skin? It’s an awful feeling. You put it in your palms and it melts and your hands get numb until they sting. The same thing happens if your socks aren’t long enough. You get the sensation in a ring around your ankle. I seldom go out when it’s snowing outside because of it. 

You think it would stop them from running out in the street. Some of them are barefoot. Their feet must be pulsing by now. They’re rampaging. It might be everyone in the neighborhood. They’re all very scared. They’re breaking windows and they’re crawling out with TVs and microwaves and toasters. I’m not sure how any of it helps.

They collected in the street earlier. When they were all together it was sort of like a parade. It wasn’t a bad show. They’ve broken up now.

Do you wanna know why they’re doing all this? It’s because of the headline in today’s paper:

GOVERNMENT COMPUTERS DETECT MORE THAN 2,000 SOVIET NUKES HEADED TOWARDS AMERICA

This is only the headline. It seems no one had bothered to read the whole thing. This actually happened two days ago. It was a glitch in computers that lasted for six minutes only. And they’re still going. They’re still outside. I can hear them shuffling through the snow.

I only hope I can make it out of this safe. It’s taking great effort to steady my hand enough to write as I sit here curled under my desk.

Anyway  don’t believe I finished telling you about the night I killed the bear with my last letter. I think you could tell it stretched on longer than that. I thought stopping it there would make for a mighty fine cliff hanger. I’m sure I got you!

Oh and by the way I’m sorry if my handwriting is still a bit messy. I haven’t gone to the doctor for the rib or the arm. Here you go now:

As you’ll remember I was standing over the bear with its head broken open and I was looking down at bits of brain matter floating up in its skull. I was a bit shocked that I had actually killed it then. I really hadn’t planned. I guess from there the rest of the night was just a big scramble to finish up. 

Admittedly I had frozen for a minute there in the river. There was so much stuff I’d planned on smoothing out later but with the bear dead there was no time. I had to conduct it all immediately.

You should know already that I’ve planned to stuff the bear. But in order to do that I’d first have to secure and transport its corpse. In the little research I had time to conduct I settled for a utility trailer since I wasn’t strong enough to carry it all on my own. But I never had the time to secure the trailer or a car.

I crawled out of the forest. It was quite the struggle given my newly broken rib but I had to act fast or I’d never have the bear stuffed. 

Fortunately I know right where the river is. I walk over it quite often so I wasn’t lost. I knew there was a bridge just down the stream. It actually wound up being much closer than I thought it would be. So when I crawled up I wasn’t lost fortunately. Though I still had some distance to travel.

When I came round the street it was all still. I could hardly see in front of me. The streetlights on the side of the road did seldom to help. All was dark around me. And I heard through the dark this little noise. Like a little staccato crunch. It sounded rhythmically and there was metallic rumbling in between each time.

I found the source of the noise before long. Down the street and in front of their house my neighbor’s twins were kicking a can through the street. They noticed me.

“Hey mister,” one of them said.

“What are you two doing out so late?” I asked.

“Is it late? I didn’t think it was that late.”

“Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“No. Do you?”

“Well. No.”

“How do you know it’s late then?”

“Yeah,” the other one piped up. “You know how early it gets late out in the winter?”

“It’s summer,” his brother said.

“Oh.”

“Uh. Never mind all that,” I continued. “What exactly are you doing?”

“We’re playing kick the can mister.”

“Kick the can?”

“Yeah. Wanna know how to play? We can tell you.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Alright. You gotta get two people. Then you got a can. Like this one right here. And then you kick it. Kick it back and forth.”

“Is there more?” I asked.

“No,” said the other boy. “That’s it.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a lot of fun if you’re able to get it right. Wanna play?”

“No thanks,” I said. 

“Alright. Good night.”

I began to walk away. I was a little irritated with those boys for waiting my time. But just before I left the sight I realized something. I turned around.

“I do have the question though.”

“Hm?” said the boy who told me how early it gets dark in the winter.

The boy’s brother came up and elbowed him.

“Come on Jackson. Mom says we’re not allowed to talk to strangers.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“No no,” I said. “I’m not trying to give you anything. It's just a question about your parents.”

“What is it?” said the other boy.

“Well. I just wanted to know. Does you dad–or your mom–do either of them have a utility trailer in the garage? Or attached to the back of their car.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh. You know. You attach it to the back. It’s real big and flat. It’s got it’s own set of wheels. And you put stuff on it.”

“Does it have walls?”

“Some do I guess.”

“I think you’re asking about a wagon sir. It’s red and it says radio fly on its side.”

“No no no. Not that. It’s bigger. It’s like an adult wagon. You attach it to the back of a car. An adult car”

“We attach our radio fly to dad’s car all the time,” said Jackson.

“You’re not supposed to.”

“Oh.”

“Now.” I turned to his brother. I believe his name may have been Jonah. “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“I think so. It says radio fly on the side. Dad always keeps one of them on the back of his car. Look.” He pointed to the driveway. “He’s got it on there right now.”

I looked up. It was a utility trailer attached to the back of their dads car. A crudely attached metal plate had the words “Radio Fly” scratched into it. It wasn’t red though.

“Is that it?” Jonah asked.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s it.”

I required some help so as I was retrieving the utility trailer I asked them to come along. They were the nearest and potentially only option and they obliged for some reason. I promised I would bring them home afterwards. I held to that promise in case you were wondering.

Amongst the junk their dad had left in the trailer was a rope. I tied it to that little hook thingy that connects the trailer to the car and used that to the trailer and I left the rest of the stuff in their lawn and put it back in the trailer later. It was pretty heavy(not that I was having much issue). I brought them to the river and parked it and Jonah asked me:

“What are we out here for? It’s late anyway.”

“You’re gonna help me put something on the trailer. It’s quite heavy so I’m going to need your help.”

“Then we can go home?”

“Yes.”

Jackson said: “What are we moving?”

“I’ll show you two. Follow me. It’s just past these trees.”

I parsed a branch and we all went through with the trailer dragging behind us. It trampled a few shrubs and weaker trees but I’m sure their replacements will go back soon. In a few moments the bear came into view with its brain still open and a few flies buzzing around it already.

“Woah,” they both said as I swatted the flies away. “Is that a bear?”

“Yeah. I need your help moving it to the street.”

“Wait…” began Jonah. “How come we have to move him? Why don’t we just ask him nicely?”

“Because he’s dead. Are you done?”

“Yeah.”

“So we’re gonna have to pick up a bear?” said Jackson.

“I just said that.”

“Bears are pretty heavy. My dad can lift pretty much everything but I’ve never seen him carry a bear.”

“Well. I’m sure together we can lift more than your dad.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

“Is that all?” I paused. It was all. “Alright. Follow me.”

Fortunately by bringing the trailer I’d vastly shortened the distance we’d have to carry the bear ourselves. That didn’t make it any less difficult to pick it up but it did help.

So we all gathered round the bear. The two boys were at the front and I was going to hold up the back. I counted down from three and we all lifted. My whole body was shaking as we made the few steps from the river to the trailer. I could especially feel it near my ribs. One of them is most definitely broken. It was also quite apparent that the boys were hardly putting any effort in and that didn’t help at all.

We plopped the bear onto the trailer(it was mostly me doing the pushing) and I had take a moment to handle the pain in my chest. The trailer was much heavier now but dragging the bear behind me was much easier than carrying it.  So the boys followed me as I pulled it up to the street and then I let them go on home.

You already know this but before returning the bear to my home and going to bed I decided I ought to to go put in my order for the taxidermy shop and then once that was done I lugged the bear into my home and put the utility trailer back on just as the sun rose and fell into my bed finally and slept peacefully until it rose again the next day.

That was all months ago now. The taxidermy store never contacted me the whole time. I actually went ahead and canceled the order last night. Now that should lead me to today but in the months since then I’ve racked up quite the count of grievances (especially with this bear’s corpse) that I really feel the need to air out right now.

It really stinks. I guess that ought to be expected though. It really knocked me out the first day but I would’ve been prepared for it had I not been in such a daze. It’s also quite cumbersome. There’s just this big lump on my floor. Right before my back door. And it’s too heavy to move.

Those things aren’t real issues. I mean they still tick me a little but I can live with them and I have been anyway. I have two real issues with it.

The first might just be how it looks. I guess it’s face. I thought maybe I’d get used to it but I never did. The bowl that became of its skull never dried up. The juice is still there. It’s sort of pink. It ripples often whenever my floor vibrates which happens to be quite often. And the bits of brain still float up in it. They’ve gone stale now. Sort of shriveled up like raisins of meat. They bob up and down when the juice ripples. 

It was so unappealing in fact that I tried sticking a football in the hole once. I figured it ought to patch it up and it ought to fit in there just right. It was the same color as the bear's fur. The holes in its head seemed big enough too. I acquired one which the neighbor's kids tossed into my back yard and left there. The idea actually sprung once I’d seen it still there the fourth night and the row and realized they probably wouldn’t have minded if I took it.

Anyway I stood over the bear and just kind of shoved it in there. It didn’t go as I expected. The juice splattered everywhere. It got all over the bear’s face. It got all over my face. It drenched my clothes. It was cold. My shirt was stained with a plink splotch which remains to this day. It has since gone stale.

And once I had made room from the juice I went ahead and kept shoving the football in there. I imagined it would slide in easily but it really wasn’t budging. It was making this wet farting noise each time I pushed and I was really starting to get irritated.

I brought the football out of the bear’s head. It was dripping and shriveled bits of brainmatter were sticking to it. A few peeled off and fell down in the puddle of brain juices that was already forming on my floor. I realized looking in that I had made contact with the bear's complete brain. Or what was left of it anyway. I was aware I had taken out a frontal chunk but I was not aware just how much was intact up until that moment. I had squished it with the football. It was so flat like a pink little pancake in the bottom of its cranial hole. 

Anyway I wedged it in there tight and it wasn’t any easier than it was before. I made sure the part with the white stitch was showing. I thought it was cute. Like a frankenbear. Only it was still dead.

I got it in as deep as it could go. I guess it was a bit big for what I’d expected. It sort of pokes out of the bear’s head where I’d expected it to blend in but oh well. I can’t get it out now.

It didn’t help anyway. It still looked ugly as ever. There was this pink and squishy rim around the hole where the ball protruded now which you could see over it anyway. And the hole had adopted the shape of the ball. Now it really looked like a vagina. So I just covered it with a towel. Now I don’t have to look at his face anymore.

But that’s not even the true worst of it. I still hear it at night. I still hear the bear. And I know you’d tell me based on that alone that there are in fact multiple bears and I am well aware of that but I know for a fact this isn’t a different bear. The noise doesn’t come from my garden. I hear it in my living room.

Yes. It treats my house like it treated my garden. It treats it like the woods. It sniffs around and lugs its massive body about the place without a care. And of course it still scratches wood. Each morning when I wake up I find new strikes through these walls. Oftentimes I can make out legible messages. Frequently it lobs accusations at me. I’d rather not repeat them.

It was like this just last night. I couldn’t sleep. I haven’t been able to since that night I brought it in. And this morning when it was time to get out of bed my entire living room was in disarray. Scathing messages scratched into my walls. At my feet as I stood in the bedroom doorway there was a little smashed VHS with the black tape sprawled all over my rug.

Judge I have to admit something now. I’ve been going back to the grocery store a lot more lately and heading to the back and meeting up with that sleazy man and watching his tapes in that dark room. I swore I’d never return and yet I found myself so easily doing so. Isn’t it funny how that works? 

It's become a nightly habit of mine. Sometimes I run over there in the morning. The selection of videos has remained the same. This includes the one I told you about. The one with Popeye. The man still leaves it there though he told me he’d remove it. I don’t even mind all that much anymore when it comes on.

I try to keep all our interactions highly impersonal and usually he obliges but one time he just insisted on speaking to me.

“You know I used to run a movie theater,” he said. “You know.”

“I actually didn’t know that.”

“Well you do now.”

“...”

“It used to be pretty popular. And we showed the same stuff I’ve got back here. One day people just stopped showing up. I had to relocate.”

“...”

“Turns out letting people view this stuff alone makes them come around more often. I actually recognize some of the guys who come by often from when they used to show up with their buddies. They come alone now.”

“You get other customers?”

“Of course I do. You think you’re the only one?”

That conversation sort of rubbed me the wrong way so the next time I went by I pocketed one of his tapes before I left and brought it home. And Judge when I was going home after that I noticed something odd. You know the streets that lead me to the store are just by the forest. I’m sure you’ve been around a forest. They’re always humming with sounds of life. Always the crunch of leaves or the buzz of some bugs. But on that day I heard nothing. Real and pure silence so quiet I could hear my own saliva dripping down my throat. And there was no other sound.

I’m actually not too miffed this tape was destroyed. I don’t own a TV anyway though I’d certainly like to. When this fact forced me to head back I watched them all and realized which one I’d taken. Really I’m more offended the bear dug through my home so intrusively like this.

Well all that leads me to today I guess. You already know half of it. The whole time I’ve been writing this people have still been doing as I told you. I’ve been under this desk a while longer than it takes for two thousand nukes to make contact and you’d think they’d have realized this by now but they’re still going.

In fact some of them were in my backyard just earlier. They had this conversation:

Voice 1: “Wait a minute. This guy's still in his house.”

Voice 2: “He's not scared of the bomb?”

Voice 1: “No. Doesn't seem like it.”

Voice 2: “Maybe he planned it.”

Voice 3: “You mean he's Stalin?”

Voice 2: "Stalin's dead. The reds have a new guy.”

Voice 3: “Oh.”

Voice 1: “Well. I guess I mean he helped plan it. I think he's working with them. He's working with the communists.”

Voice 2: “That makes sense.”

Voice 3: “Yeah. Come to think of it I don't even see him around much.”

Voice 2: “Then he has to be a communist.”

Voice 3: “We oughta do something about this. Let's charge ‘im.”

Voice 1: “Wait. We don't know what machines he's got. We need to prepare.”

Voice 2: “Good idea.”

Voice 3: “Yeah.”

And so they all scampered off through the snow. I could see them through the window. Even through the snow I could tell they were trampling my bushes. I could recognize one of their voices as my neighbor’s. The one with the fake lawn. And all three of them were waiting for the bomb’s arrival out in the open.

I think I ought to tell you now Judge that this is the last letter I will ever write you. You’ll never get another one from me. No one will. I've made the decision just recently. This is actually the reason I’ve cancelled my taxidermy order.

I'm giving up Judge. I'm giving up on people. It feels so good to say that. Or to write it. It feels good to leave it all behind finally.

You remember where we met Judge. I'm sure you do. I’m talking about the plane but I guess we met far before that. We were part of the same squad but I never introduced myself. You and I were the only survivors of our poor squad. One of those boys–I can't even recall his name–put out a radio signal without encoding it. I’m sure you’ll recall. A lot of it from there is a blur and I can only assume that it’s for a good reason. I woke up hours later in a body bag in a morgue.

We didn't talk until the plane though when the war was over and we were all going home. You were the only familiar face around and even though I'd never got your name I sat next to you. You turned to me as we lifted off and said:

“You heard about John Kerry?”

“Who?”

“Kerry. John Kerry.”

“No. Who is he.”

“Soldier. He won three purple hearts.”

“What's that?”

“Come on. You know what a purple heart is.”

“I don’t.”

“Oh. Well. Basically you get one for being injured. It’s just a little ribbon I guess.”

“Oh. That must've hurt. Wouldn't wanna be like him.”

“If you get three you go home. He went home before us.”

“Then we should've got injured before.”

“Damn right.”

“Did you get any purple hearts?”

“One.”

“Did I?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Would they tell me if I did?”

“Yeah. I think they would,” you answered.

“Oh.”

“...”

“...”

“So who do you got waiting for you? Who are you excited to see back home?”

“Uh. Parents I guess. A friend or to from back in school if they still care.”

“Girlfriend?”

“No. I don’t have one.”

“Oh. Well I’ve got one. Man am I glad to see her again. She’s great. Got a brother too. Can’t wait to see that little punk.”

“Sounds like she is.”

“You’ve never even heard about her.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

And we talked like that the whole flight home.

I know of many men from the military who shut out people completely after their return. I knew it back then. Even from the wars of old. I'd thought they were insane my whole life. But I realize now that they’d always been right. Only now have I stopped denying.

One of the men on our plane they wheeled out in a chair. He was quite injured. You and I were just behind him as they brought him home. I’d expected it to look all pretty but the spot where we landed looked just like where we’d just left from. There was a crowd of people before us watching us come out the plane. He raised his hand and he smiled and he gave them a peace sign. In response the entire crowd raised their own fists in the air and uncurled their middle fingers. They held it as we all walked out the plane. Until the very last man had come home.

In the years since I last saw you I've been fighting against this thing in me. I tried very hard to get along with everyone here but I don’t think it’s possible. I don't know why. I don't know who the problem is. I feel like a tourist in my home town. I can’t speak my own language without being bombarded. But I’ve been here my whole life.

I'm really just so tired of it all. It never changes. I realize that now. I’ve only remained here under the pretense that it may someday change and I’ve got no reason to abide by this now.

So I’ve taken the liberty to cut the bear open myself. Not to have her stuffed. I’m going to crawl inside her. 

That’s another thing. I realize now it was a lady bear. I checked her genitals. And as I was cutting her open I cut into her teats. Milk sprinkled on my cheek then. I think now that perhaps I was a bit too harsh. She was only doing what comes natural.

So anyway I’ve carved out this nice big cavity for me to fit in. I’ve even patched up her head good as new. My arms control her arms and my legs control her legs. My cheeks touch right up against her tonsils. I can see and eat through her mouth. I feel comfortable inside. The meat is nice and warm inside. It presses up against my rib and hurts terribly but that’s not so bad. It’s simple to ignore.

In a moment Judge I will climb in the bear and sow it shut from the inside and say goodbye to the human world. In a moment you will never hear from me again. I can hear now pairs of feeting climbing through the snow towards my house. In a moment they'll see me. I doubt they’ll even be able to see me fully before they die. They never could. And so it shall be their end.

You might hear a bear coming round your own home. He may scratch against your trees and sniff your beehives. That bear will be me. I am the bear now. I only hope you understand Judge that I mean no harm. I’m only visiting.

“Is it safe?”

“It’s safe…ish,” Brad said, trying (and failing) to stop himself from laughing. My subsequent frown finally granted him the ability to call off his chuckles. “Would I put you in any real danger, Bella?”

“Well, there was the white-water rafting disaster, exploring the creepy closed mall, the lion encounter….”

“Okay, okay, sure. Those weren’t great,” he said, cutting me off. “But this is different, babe. It’s just camping.”

“In the wilderness. Alone. Away from help if anything bad happens.”

“Wrong mindset,” he said, tapping his temple. “We’ve talked about that.”

I rolled my eyes so hard they would’ve picked up a 7-10 split. “Save me the growth mindset lecture, please.”

He nodded. “You’re right. Sorry. We’ve talked about that. This is a reset trip - no old baggage.”

This was a reset trip…and a much needed one. We’d been dating for just over a year, but what had started as smooth sailing had suddenly run aground on the rocky shoals of disagreement. No single leviathan-level fight brought us here, but a series of smaller, nagging arguments sent our ship to the wrong coordinates. Still, we cared for each other immensely, and neither wanted this relationship to wreck.

I mean, have you been on the apps recently? Yeesh.

“Why do we need to be out in the wilderness when there is a perfectly safe and remote campsite down the road?”

“But that’s not pioneer camping, babe. That’s glamping.”

“We’re not pioneers. I have no desire to worry about rattlesnakes or eating hardtack.”

“Pretty sure pioneers more likely ate beans. I think hardtack was reserved for sailors,” he said with a grin.

I gave him a stare that would’ve melted cobalt before breaking kayfabe and holding up my fist and shaking it. “Would you rather eat a knuckle sandwich?”

“I’m full thanks,” he said, kissing my knuckles. “All I ask is that you go into all of this with an open mind. We’re gonna be reconnecting with the Earth. One with nature and all that. Not to mention, zero light pollution for the meteor shower tonight. Think of how many stars we’re gonna see!”

“That’s true,” I admitted…against my own better judgment.

“Plus, we get to free ourselves from all the modern bullshit - no phones, no electricity, no drama.”

“No way of reaching out for help if predators attack,” I said, hoisting my camping backpack out of the Jeep. “Aren’t there bears and cougars out here?”

Brad put on his backpack and clicked the front strap across his chest. “Yes, but we’ll have Rudy with us. He’s an avid outdoors man.” Rudy was Brad’s high school friend who was set to join us for this trip. They’d been close in school but drifted over the years. They’d recently reconnected and picked up where they left off. Truthfully, it’s bolstered his mood. Brad’s more happy, which makes me happy.

I was ambivalent about Rudy, bordering on hostile, but Brad kept assuring me I just didn’t know him well enough. There was something about him that rubbed me the wrong way. We had two different vibes and it was odd how Brad could vacillate between them. Still, I loved Brad and was willing to give ‘not hating Rudy’ the ol’ college try. It was my hope that Rudy would meet me halfway, though.

Truthfully, Rudy wasn’t going to come with us at first, but then Brad told him the plans, and he insisted. He’s supposed to bring some girl we’ve never met with him, which kinda undercuts the rekindling trip, but it wasn’t worth the fight. “Plus, he knows how to handle bears and cougars.”

“Yes, he never shuts up about his dating conquests,” I deadpanned. Rudy being on the apps told me just how hellish being single was right now. I had no desire to find out firsthand.

“He talks a lot, is all.”

“Taking Rudy out of it,” I said, “you know what I mean, Brad. Those animals could kill us.”

Brad rubbed my shoulders and stared deeply into my eyes. “I promise we’ll be okay. Would I put us in a deadly situation?”

“Do I need to bring up the hang-gliding affair?”

“Okay, maybe in the past I was a bit extreme. But this is the reset. I’m resetting, too.”

I stared back at him, wanting to believe him. We’d been through so much already, but a nagging feeling about this trip wouldn’t stop bothering me. It was probably a mixture of nerves.

“I bet the campsite down the road has some available sites. I could book one just in case it goes sideways,” I said, trying to steer us into friendly waters. “It wouldn’t be a perfect one-to-one, but we’d still be out in nature like our ancestors; only it’d be coupled with the ability to take showers and not get lost in the hundred-acre woods.”

“We won’t get lost. Rudy is an expert tracker.”

“What does that mean?!” I said, throwing my hands up. “How did he become a tracker? He’s lived in the suburbs his whole life.”

“He comes from a family of trackers.”

“His dad is an accountant.”

“And a tracker,” he said, sighing. “If you want to bail, that’s fine. But I thought this was a chance to….”

“No, no,” I said. “I trust you.” And I did. Brad is a lot of things, but he loves me. He wants to live life at 200%. That passion is something I love about him. His wanting to include me is such a green flag, but sometimes he forgets I’m not as “peppery” as he is. An evening on the couch in pajamas is good too. We don’t need to make every date a low-rent action movie.

A rusted red pickup Henry Ford would’ve thought was old pulled up behind us. It was blasting some random nu-metal song so loud I worried the remaining rivets holding this ramshackle jalopy together would come loose. Rudy had arrived. Alone. I sighed, but hid it from Brad. At least I wouldn’t have to make small talk with whatever floozy Rudy had convinced to join him.

The engine shut off, and the entire truck shuddered. Rudy kicked open the door and howled like a wolf. Brad started howling too. I kept my lupine calls to myself as the boys slapped hands and welcomed one another.

“Where’s your girl?”

“Bro, we got into it last night. She dipped this morning. Can’t trust anyone, man,” he said, shaking his head. “She was a freak, too. Pour one out for mind-melting ‘gasms.”

He mimed pouring a beer out and started laughing. Brad followed suit. I gave them a warm smile and debated my decision to go forward with this trip. “Sounds like a charmer, Rudy.”

“Eh, she was okay. Shit happens, ya know,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Didn’t want to cancel on your fine folks last minute, so I’m here. We ready to do the damn thing??”

They both howled again, and I was suddenly glad we weren’t at the campsite surrounded by people. Rudy reached into his truck bed and pulled out his backpack. It was smaller than ours. I nodded at it. “Packing light?”

“Everything I need is in this bag,” he said, clicking the strap across his chest. “I do have a sixer of Bud heavies for tonight. Just gotta find a stream to cool them in.”

Brad sensed I had more to say, so he cut me off. “We should head out. We wanna give ourselves enough time to set up camp.”

“Roger that. Come on, there’s a secret trailhead we have to take that leads to the open forest. From there, we’re in God’s hands, baby!”

Rudy took a beer off the plastic and cracked it open and took a drink. He passed it to Brad, who gulped down the warm brew. He offered it to me, but I passed. Brad shrugged, handed it back to Rudy.

“More for me,” he said. He drained the can in one long gulp. Afterwards, he screamed, burped, and flattened the can with his boot. He tossed the puck into his truck bed and headed for the hidden trail.

I glanced at Brad and raised an eyebrow. “Expert tracker.”

Brad rubbed my shoulders and kissed my forehead. “I promise we’ll be safe.”

We left our cars tucked away on the side of the road near the wash. The trail was no wider than a rat tail overgrown with bushes, but we tromped through, crushing plants as we hiked into the forest.

After hours of hiking, my whole body ached. We’d arrived at the trailhead around noon, and the sun was beginning its descent as we stopped in the middle of nowhere. A nearby stream fed into a small pond. Skyscraper pines ringed the shore, providing a shady spot along the glittering beach. Bushes and overgrown tufts of tall grass wavered in the breeze. A stone’s throw away, a rocky outcropping jutted into the sky just above the trees. The perfect place to see the meteor shower later.

“Wow,” I said and meant it.

“Told you the hike was worth it,” Brad said. “Breathe in Mother Nature, Bella!”

I took a deep breath, and it was calming. “Smells like Pine-Sol.”

“Because it’s cleaning out our filthy city lungs,” Brad said. I rolled my eyes. “What, not funny?”

“It was cute.”

“You didn’t laugh.”

“I don’t have to laugh to find something amusing.”

Rudy dropped the remaining two beer cans into the stream to cool and nodded at the rocks. “When it gets dark, we can shimmy up there and get a full view of the night sky. Gonna be glorious.”

“You think it’s smart to climb up the rocks at night?”

“It’s just a little jaunt. Shouldn’t be too hard even in the dark. If anything happens, though, I have a first-aid kit in my bag. I’ll take care of you. We’d be okay until morning.”

“That view is going to be amazing,” Brad said.

“I’ll set up a fire pit if you two will clear a spot for the tents,” Rudy said, pulling a collapsible shovel from his bag. “There are some decent rocks out on the beach that I can use to ring the pit. Sound good?”

It was. We went about our tasks. I begrudgingly had to hand it to Rudy. Outside of drinking warm Budweisers, he was better at this than I’d assumed. When he pulled out the shovel and I nodded in approval, Brad lightly elbowed me in the ribs. As soon as his buddy was out of earshot, he grinned. “Told you he knows what he’s doing.”

“He’s been a pleasant surprise,” I admitted.

“He’s a good dude.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“He’s rough around the edges, but don’t judge a book by its cover, huh?”

“Okay, okay, cut me some slack,” I said with a smirk. “I saw your face when he ripped open that second can of beer. You were a little nervous, too.”

He laughed. “I trust my tracker.”

“If he’s anything like his dad, he’ll have a thriving career as an accountant.”

We started clearing a space. Brad and I brought a small two-person tent that left little room for anything except our bodies and dreams. Rudy said not to bother setting up his tent because he was going to make it from a tarp and some paracord he'd brought with him. I didn’t argue. I came out here to clear my head, not to solve some camping conundrum.

We had just finagled the poles through the nylon fabric of our micro-tent when Rudy started screaming from the beach. Brad dropped the pole and ran toward the yelling before I’d even processed what was happening. Not wanting to be left alone for something to munch on my bones, I joined him.

When I broke through the woods, I found Rudy at the water’s edge pointing at the ground and jumping in place. Brad’s eyes were wide, and he knelt in the shimmering sand, placing his hand near whatever they were looking at. Rudy waved me over.

When I got there, I understood all the hubbub. A footprint lay in the sand, unlike anything I’d ever seen. The foot was about five inches long and, at most, four inches across. Three equal sized toes were dotted with small impressions in the sand. The tip of a claw.

“What the hell is this?” I asked, nervously laughing.

“I dunno,” Brad said, his voice dreamy. “Weird, huh?”

“Not exactly what I wanted to hear.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this in all the years I’ve been tracking,” Rudy added.

Not helping with my discomfort about the trip, I thought. I had several other, more profanity-laden responses in my mind, but I settled on, “Maybe we should head back?”

Rudy laughed. “We’d never make it before it got dark. If you thought the hike in was intense, that’d be damn near impossible. Every predator out here has adapted to see in the dark. You’d be a walking turkey leg to these things.”

“What should we do?” Brad asked.

“Set up two fires and take shifts staying up tonight. Someone to feed the fire and keep an eye on the campsite,” he said. “The light and smoke will most likely keep these things at bay.”

Wonderful, I thought. Now I get the privilege of manning the crow’s nest in stormy waters…just what I wanted to do on this trip.

“Copy that,” Brad said, agreeing to the plan without even a glance my way. “What do you think these things are?”

Rudy shrugged. “Beats me, but they’ll stay away if the fires are burnin’. Every living thing fears fire. It’s ingrained in their brains,” he said, extending his arms like Frankenstein. “Fire hot. Fire burn.”

Brad stood back up. “I think we’ll be okay. We’ve got bear mace if anything bad happens.”

Still, the print itself was concerning. “Could it be a bird?”

“Maybe,” Rudy said. “It’d be a big one, but they do have big birds up here.”

“Shaggy elephants, too,” Brad said, smiling. “I hear they work together.”

Rudy cackled and slapped Brad on the back. I was just confused. “What?”

“Sesame Street,” Brad said. “Big Bird…Snuffy….”

“Ah,” I said.

“Seriously though, I didn’t find any other impressions. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was nothing more than a bird landing here to drink. The water may have washed away the other prints. I’m not worried, though. I think we’re safe.”

“Unless the Count is hiding with a bunch of bats nearby,” I said, “then we’ve gotta worry about vampires.”

The joke landed with a deafening thud. I was surprised it didn’t make an imprint in the sand. Rudy shook his head. “Let’s finish setting up and get a fire going before it gets too dark.”

He left to gather more rocks for the fire ring. I glanced at Brad, who shrugged. “I was just trying to join in.”

Brad patted my back. “I thought it was funny.”

“Why didn’t you laugh?”

“I don’t have to laugh to find something amusing,” he said, mocking me.

I rolled my eyes. “Let’s go finish getting the tent up.”

We did just that. Rudy had gathered the stones for the two fire rings, dug the holes, gathered the sticks, and started the the blaze. Brad and I tended the fires as Rudy constructed his lean-to tarp tent. It took him a minute, and at every turn I doubted it would work, but by the time he finished, it was sturdy.

“Looks good,” I said, nodding at the tent.

“Thanks. My dad showed me how to build it. He’s as soft as shit paper now, but the man has earned his Charmin status. He was a bear in his youth. Once took down a charging twelve-point buck with a single arrow shot to the dome. Thing would’ve gored him.”

“Damn. I thought you weren’t supposed to try headshots with a bow.”

“You’re not. But Dad is Dad. Dude has ice in his veins. Didn’t flinch. I inherited that shit.” He flexed and preened to underline his pride.

“Do you still hunt?” I asked.

He stood, fished the remaining beers from the river, and tossed one to Brad. “I do, but it’s been a minute since I did. Lately, the only thing I’ve been hunting for is a good time with someone special.”

“It’s hard out there,” I said, reaching for Brad’s hand and squeezing it. He squeezed back. “I don’t envy you.”

Brad pulled his hand back and opened his beer can. “Bow or gun?” he asked, taking a big swig.

“Dating world? Neither. Boys and girls get weirded out when you talk about your stockpile. But hunting animals, though, I’ll use both,” he said, cracking the beer. “Bow is more sporting, though. I like to keep the playing field level, ya know?”

“I couldn’t kill a deer,” I said. “They look so innocent.”

“But they breed like rabbits and are dumb as duck shit. Ask anyone that lives near a bunch of them, and they’ll tell you they’re a menace.”

“My uncle upstate hates them,” Brad said. “They’re constantly eating his garden.”

“Sometimes, you gotta thin the herd, you know what I mean?” Rudy asked, mimicking shooting a rifle. “Ain’t pretty, but sometimes has to be done.”

Wanting to pivot away from killing things, I glanced up through the gaps in the pines. The stars were already twinkling. No showers yet, but it was still early. “Man, it really gets pitch-black out here, huh? I get why people are afraid of the dark.”

“You should be,” Rudy said. “Everyone should be. Especially around here.”

“Rudy,” Brad said, pleading.

“What does that mean?”

Rudy took a sip of his beer. “Nah, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“You can’t do that,” I joked. Well, a joking tone, anyway. I was as far from joking as possible.

“I can do whatever I want, Bella. That’s what being out in the wilderness is all about - freedom.”

“Rudy, don’t be a tease,” Brad said.

“Never been accused of being a tease,” he said, smirking. He drained the rest of his can, smashed it under his boot, and burped. “But I’ll indulge. If you wanna hear, that is.”

“I do,” I insisted.

“Okay, but don’t go blaming me if you get spooked. We’re stuck here for at least tonight.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said, doubting the words as they escaped my mouth. I didn’t want to let on that I was a little spooked.

“This area wasn’t always uninhabited. Long time ago, like, in covered-wagon, pioneer times, a bunch of settlers arrived from back East. Thought they’d start a town away from the Injuns or whatever.”

“Lovely.”

“Hell, makes sense,” Rudy said. “There’s plenty of fresh water, shade, a lot of timber. They cobbled together some small homes. Rumor has it the ruins are somewhere near here, but nature clawed them back.”

He reached into his bag and pulled out a weed vape. He took a long pull and blew out a massive cloud that mingled with the fire smoke until the two became one.

I was stunned. “Are you going to be good for your shift on guard tonight?”

“Oh fuck, did we agree to do that?”

“Bro,” Brad said. “It was your idea!”

“I’ll be good. This is sativa, anyway. It’ll keep me focused. You want some?” he said, offering the vape to Brad. He reached for it, but I cleared my throat. He dropped his hand.

“I’d rather not be the only sober one in wildcat country.”

“Maybe next time.”

Rudy shrugged and took another pull. “Anyway, the pioneers started hearing shit at night, ya know? Just outside their campfires. Things moving in the shadows. Watching. Waiting. Assumed it was a bear, but bears don’t stalk like that. Them bitches are so big, they just intrude, ya’know what I mean?” He started laughing.

The breeze picked up, and the trees shifted. Its roar reminded me of ocean waves crashing along a beach. Pine needles rained on us. A pair spiraled down until it landed standing straight up in Brad’s hair. I let out a small laugh, reached over and plucked it out. He smiled and kissed my cheek. It gave me a charge. Reminded me of why we were together.

Maybe our voyage was salvageable?

Rudy looked up and slowed his laughter. After he caught his breath, he continued. “But one by one, some people started going missing. First was a little girl named Joyce….”

“A pioneer woman named Joyce?” I said.

“I dunno the names, just the legend. It was probably something like Isabella, but I didn’t want to spook you out of respect to Brad. So, like I was saying, the little girl went missing. Happened in broad daylight. Mama said she was on the side of the house one minute; next, she was gone. No noise. No struggle. Nothing but a set of tiny footprints. Like baby footprints.” He paused and shook his head. “You sure you wanna hear this?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I warned you,” he said, taking a breath. “They found the girl’s body later hanging from a tree. She’d been gutted and field dressed. Odd thing was, not a drop of blood anywhere. The rest of the kids followed. One by one, they were taken, killed, and left hanging in the trees. Only thing they found were little, teeny, tiny baby footprints on the ground.”

“This is bullshit,” I said.

“No,” Brad piped in. “I’ve heard about this. It’s not…not the Bone Tree Massacre, is it?”

Rudy smiled. “Yes, sir.”

“You’re lying,” I said, my whole body tensing.

“I swear I’m not,” Rudy said.

Brad’s face was ashen as if he’d seen a ghost. “Dude, why didn’t you tell me?”

Rudy shrugged. “I know how delicate you can be. Besides, I told you it was safe.”

I went blind with rage. I scrunched my toes and balled my fingers into a fist. Why the fuck would Brad take this goof’s advice on anything other than which flavor of dip to try? Still, I kept it inside. “What were the footprints?”

“They didn’t know, but the townspeople kept their kids close. A boy named Joshua wandered off from his mother when she went to gather water. He started screaming, and she ran into the tall grass to find him. Three little snarling monsters about a foot tall had fishhooks in her son’s back and were dragging him away. She stomped on one, kicked another, and the third ran away. She grabbed her son and ran back to the camp.”

“God, how horrible,” I said. “What happened?”

“The men found any weapon available and went to the tall grass. They burned it down and waited for these things to come running out. Legend said they chased and killed a hundred of these things. Called them imps from hell. The townspeople gathered their bodies and drove stakes through the remains at the edge of the settlement as a message.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“What happened to the settlement?”

Rudy took another pull from his vape. “That night, the townspeople celebrated, thinking they had stopped these things. Better future ahead and all that shit. But as they slept, more of these things came out of the woodwork. They snuck into their homes and slaughtered the pioneers. Vicious shit - I’ve seen woodcuttings about it.”

“Were there survivors?”

“Just the young boy who’d nearly been taken earlier. He stumbled through the woods until he ran into a local farmer. The dude gathered a posse, and they went to where the boy told him he’d come from. They found the houses, but couldn’t find the people,” he paused and shook his head. “Until they looked up into the trees. All of their bodies, split wide open, drained of blood and organs, hanging from the branches. Loose skin flapping in the breeze like Old Glory.”

“Where did the blood and organs go?”

He shrugged. “Those creatures probably ate and drank it.”

“What did they look like? The imps,” I asked.

“She told the men that…oh, fuck…man, I forgot this part until now. She said they had clawed feet with three toes.”

“Dude,” Brad said.

“Wait, what?”

Rudy ran his hand through his sweat-slicked mullet and collected his thoughts. He should have spent a few more seconds searching, because he blurted out, “For the record, that was a bird foot on the beach.”

“You said you’d never seen anything like that before!” I said, my voice rising despite my attempts to play it cool.

“To be honest, I'm pretty sure I have. Those hiking beers got on me more than I let on. I’m about eighty percent sure it was a bird track.”

“Eighty percent?! I thought you were an expert tracker?”

Brad reached over and put a hand on my shoulder to calm me down. I shook his grip loose and stared at him. If I had laser eyes, there’d be a hole clean through his hypothalamus. His brain meat must’ve started warming, because he kept his hand off me.

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Rudy said. “But don’t worry, it’s a bird. The real threat is bears this time of year, anyway.”

“Are you a hundred percent sure or eighty?”

Rudy started to respond when a flutter of movement stirred the surrounding bushes. My already churning adrenaline made me jump up. My body trembled. Brad and Rudy remained seated, unfazed by the rustling nearby.

“What the fuck is that?” I whispered.

“Probably nothing, but I’ll go look,” Rudy said. “I gotta piss anyway.”

He pried himself off the stump and disappeared into the dark. Brad turned to me, but his face was unreadable. It was a cross between concern and….

“Holy hell!” Rudy yelled before letting out a blood-curdling scream.

“Rudy?” Brad yelled back, jumping to his feet. He was about to rush out into the bushes when something came running towards us.

It was Rudy. Totally fine and doubled over in laughter. I glanced over at Brad, and he smirked. My brain went fuzzy. The trembling in my body shifted from fear to anger.

“Ooh, boy, did we get you good!” Rudy said between laughs. “I didn’t think you’d go along with it, Bella! You’re usually pretty savvy, but man am I good at yarn spinnin’!”

“What. The. Fuck?!”

“That was just a squirrel out there. Little fella has perfect timin’ though.”

“It was a joke,” Brad said, softening his tone. “To lighten the mood.”

“A joke?” I spat. “Are you fucking serious?”

“It’s camping, Bella,” Rudy said, catching his breath. “Ghost stories are part of the fun.”

“Do I look like I’m having fun, Rudy? I don’t even know why the fuck you’re here! This was supposed to be a weekend for Brad and me!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Relax, girl. I didn’t think you’d get this mad,” Rudy said, flattening his tone. “It was just a joke.”

“Maybe it went a little too far,” Brad offered.

“Ya think?!”

Brad reached over, but I shifted away. The idea of his fingers on me made me sick to my stomach. It took every ounce of willpower not to sock him in the eye.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “I’m sorry. Rudy, apologize.”

“I don’t want either of your fuckin’ apologies! I want you to leave me the fuck alone.”

Rudy raised his hands and backpedaled to his stump and sat. He took another hit on his vape, and I prayed he’d choke on the smoke. He tossed another piece of wood on the fire and pretended not to watch Brad and me.

Brad stepped closer, and I backed away. I wished I had fur that’d stand on end or a shaking rattle to warn him off. He took another step, and I did the same, keeping our distance. He stopped and sighed. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Well, you fucking failed in that regard!” I said, tears forming in my eyes. “What would even possess you to do anything like that? You knew how I felt, and you just went along with it, anyway? Did you want to hurt me?”

“Babe, no. I swear. I didn’t know he was going to tie it into the footprint from earlier….”

“Again, pretty sure that was just a bird print,” Rudy yelled.

I turned back to Brad, rage burning in my eyes. “If he says another word to me, they’re gonna find him gutted and hanging from a fucking tree.”

“Okay, I get that. I’ll talk to him.”

“He’s the only one you’ll be talking to because I’m fucking done. This trip was a mistake.”

“Don’t say that.” He tried to rub my arm, but I pulled it back.

“No. You can go sleep under his shitty tarp because if you come inside that tent with me, I’m going to unleash hell on you.” I turned to head to the tent. “You two can stay up on watch together and fuck off as far as I’m concerned. I’m going to bed.”

“Babe,” he started.

“Don’t babe me. We’re beyond that.”

“You’re gonna miss the meteor shower? Because of a bad joke? Why don’t you take ten minutes and collect yourself and….”

“Why don’t you take ten minutes and jump in that goddamn lake.”

“More of a pond,” Rudy offered. Brad turned to him and threw his arms up.

“Fuck you, Rudy.”

I stormed over to the tent, unzipped it, and hopped inside. Seconds later, Brad’s bag came flying out. There’s no cool, dramatic way of slamming a tent flap, so I zipped hard and got it stuck in the fabric. I tried to free it, but it wasn’t worth the hassle. I was vibrating with rage, and my hands weren’t cooperating. I left it alone.

Brad stood there for a moment before dejectedly walking back to the fire. As soon as he was out of earshot, I put my head in my hands and cried silently. What a fucking nightmare this had been. Jesus, I thought Brad was different. We had our rough patches, but I never doubted his affection for me. But he knew I was afraid of taking this trip. For him to pull something this hurtful with a person I barely tolerated on our ‘restart’? Inexcusable.

I should’ve never come.

Worse, I was fucking stuck here. I couldn’t leave if I wanted to… not without risking running into a bear. Rudy was a dick, but he’d proven himself to be knowledgeable about this area. I didn’t want to become a walking turkey leg. I’d have to wait until morning and hike for hours in silence with these two ass hats before I could escape into the single life.

They had started talking and passing the vape back and forth. So much for staying alert and sober on watch. They spoke softly, so I could only catch snatches of the conversation.

“She’ll be better in the mornin’, man. You know how women can be,” Rudy said. It floated to me on the breeze. I pictured kicking him in the balls so hard they’d roll out of his shorts, and it made me smile.

“I dunno,” Brad said. “Why did you have to bring up the footprints, man?”

“Shits and giggles,” he said, taking a puff. “She’s a wet blanket, bro. Campin’ is supposed to be a hoot. ”

“Well, tomorrow’s plans are ruined,” Brad said. “I don’t imagine she’s gonna be game for anything fun.”

Anything fun? I wasn’t sure what these jokers had planned for tomorrow, but I didn’t want to find out. Brad was right that those plans were ruined. The thought of hanging out with these two made me physically sick.

My body ached. A brutal tension headache rippled through my sinuses and temples. With the weight of the evening’s events, the night's pure darkness, and adrenaline draining out of my body, my eyelids grew heavy. If I slept, at least then I’d be a few hours closer to this whole fucking ordeal being over.

Now that my hands were steady, I went back to the tent flap and unstuck the zipper from the fabric, sealing me in. I curled into a ball and closed my eyes. Eventually, even with their murmurs, I drifted off to sleep. Maybe if I were lucky, those imps would make quick work of them.

Something hard dragging against the tent woke me up later.

At first, my sleep-addled brain thought I was still dreaming, but when my half-open eyes caught a hand pushing against the fabric near my face, I snapped awake. I shuffled back, swore, and searched for anything to defend myself.

My whispered curses must’ve been louder than I’d intended, because guttural chirping answered my voice. I stayed quiet, but somewhere out in the bushes, something else answered the chirps. More responses came from the opposite direction, and it became clear that, whatever these things were, they had surrounded the tent.

Fear made me consider the impossible: were these the imps? But that made no sense. Rudy had made it up. Had he based his stupid fucking story on a real legend?

I grabbed the zipper and slowly pulled it down tooth by tooth. The small noises were sonic booms in the dark. Once there was a hole just large enough to peer through, I glanced over to where the campfires should be roaring. Instead, only a faint trail of smoke rose from dying embers. Both fires had gone cold. Worse, Rudy and Brad were gone.

“Fuck,” I mumbled.

Maybe this was another prank. Brad had driven our boat into the rocky shoals, shattering the prow. All was lost. Maybe he wanted to rub it in my face? Nails slowly dragged against the nylon behind me. Several hands pushed against the tent, their little fingers feeling for flesh and a way in.

This wasn’t a prank. This was legitimate. I had to get out of here and find those two, or else I’d end up in a tree with my blood and guts missing.

The boat was taking on water. It was time to go overboard.

I quietly slid on my shoes, tied my hair back into a ponytail, and gripped the zipper hard between my fingers. I counted down from three and ripped it down quickly. In my panic, though, the tent fabric caught again, and my exit hole was barely big enough to squeeze through.

The zipper had roused the imps, and they started to chatter more. Grumbles, squeaks, and grunts. More aggressive. More angry. A free meal was on the other side of the nylon, and more of them pressed against the tent. Looking for the elusive rear entry.

One of them found it.

A sharp object poked a small hole in the nylon. I glanced back just as a beady red eyeball pressed against the opening. Once the monster confirmed I was in there, two small hands replaced the eye, and they started tearing the hole wider.

That was my cue to leave. I pushed through the opening and got my shoulders through, but my hips got stuck, and I fell flat on the ground. My arms gave out, and my nose hit the dirt with a crunch. Blood gushed from my nostrils. The coppery tang sent the little guys into a frenzy.

One of them strayed from the melee at the back of the tent and rushed around. We locked eyes. It was holding a small pitchfork made from discarded camping gear. The tines hewed to a fine point. It jabbed my elbow and a searing pain rippled up my arm. It pulled the fork out, yelled for others, and stabbed me again.

I snapped. I wiggled out of the hole like a fish struggling on a line and damn near tore the stakes out of the ground. Once I was free, I stomped on the little bitch that stabbed me and ran over to Rudy’s stupid-ass tarp. They weren’t there, either.

Above me, a burst of white lit the sky, and a shooting star streaked high above the canopy. The meteor shower. These fools were probably up on the rocks.

I scampered over to the rock formation as dozens of the imps poured into the tent, searching for a Sunday meal that had become fast food. Before they understood their feast was gone, I reached the rocks and started my ascent.

I wasn’t trying to be quiet, but as soon as I reached the summit, I froze. Rudy and Brad were up here together. Rudy’s words stopped me cold.

“It was never gonna work with Bella. She doesn’t understand us. What we have.”

I peered over the ledge. They were close together. Their hands clasped under the stars streaking across the sky. Brad and Rudy. Had it not been for the murder imps, this would one hundred percent be the most shocking development of this trip.

“She might be open to sharing.”

“Bro, that’s not going to happen. And if you propose that and she rejects it, she’ll tell everyone about us. How we are. Ruin both of our reputations.”

“She wouldn’t. Bella’s not a bad person,” Brad said.

“She’s a woman scorned, dude. Honestly, you’re miserable, right?”

“It’s been rough lately.”

“Then listen to me. It’s better to do what I said earlier. Alpine divorce. Nobody will blame us because nobody will find her out here. I’m a hunter…I can make it quick.” He mimed slitting a throat.

My mouth went dry. Swallowing became a pipe dream. This trip was never intended to be a restart. This was an ending - either as a couple or as a living person. The chorus of imps grew louder. Their calls finally reached these two. Curiosity finally got the best of them, and they both turned toward the campsite, only to find me peering over the ledge. My eyes went wide, and I ducked down.

“Bella!” Brad said, pulling his hand away from Rudy. “What are….”

I didn’t stick around to find out what he was asking. I had to get away from everything. I scrambled back down, lost my footing, and fell five feet, landing on my back. My body hit the ground with a thud that knocked the air from my lungs. I sucked in as I rolled onto my hands and knees, struggling to stand.

“It was a joke, Bella! Rudy was kidding!”

Oxygen finally met my lungs and color returned to my face. I glanced over at our tent as a wave of imps came rushing toward me. Death gleamed in their glowing eyes. A roiling wave of murder minions crashing toward me.

“I’m coming down. Let’s talk about it!”

This unholy combination got me moving. I pushed off the ground and ran towards Rudy’s tent, putting distance between myself and the imps. If Rudy and Brad wanted to get to me, they’d have to get through them. Considering they wanted to kill me and leave me for bear chow, I was fine with that arrangement.

I grabbed Rudy’s backpack, and something firm cartwheeled out of it. A knife. The large, throat-slitting kind. I placed it back in the bag, ran to the water’s edge, and hurled it into the pond. The placid mirror reflecting the streaking stars above shattered into ripples as the bag hit the water and sank.

“No!” Rudy screamed. “That was my dad’s knife, you bitch!”

“Go fish, motherfucker!”

Brad had climbed down the rocks and finally noticed the imps. He’d been focused on me sprinting away from him and carrying his reputation with me. When he finally spied the actual threat, he let out an ear-piercing scream. Real fear laced throughout the holler.

The imps quickly moved on from me to him and Rudy, who’d just skidded down next to Brad. The stars reflected off the pitchforks and knives the imps held, disappearing as the blades entered their flesh.

I found the stream we’d followed and ran into the dark woods. If there were bears out here, I was willing to risk it. I had to put distance between us on the off chance they survived the murder imp encounter.

Eventually, the meteor shower ended and dark returned to the woods. Still, I kept moving forward, following the stream and praying it kicked us out near the wash where we’d hidden our car. Brad or Rudy never came crashing through the brush behind me. They must have started screaming at some point, but I didn’t turn back to check. Leave that to the professionals.

After hours of running, then walking, then damn near crawling, I found the road. I hate to admit it, but I kissed the asphalt. It was gross, and I instantly regretted it, but it meant I’d survived Brad’s latest “adventure”.

Another hour later, I tracked down the cars, liberated my cellphone from the locked jeep by smashing the window with a rock, and called the cops. Another hour passed before the red and blue lights came screaming to my location. I told them we’d been off the grid camping and there was an animal attack. I didn’t think admitting that murderous, baby-sized monsters were the real culprits would help my case.

I was questioned and whisked away in an ambulance. Once inside, I finally broke down. A flood of competing emotions hit my brain, and the only way not to go crazy was to cry it out.

A week later, search teams found their remains and I was officially cleared as a suspect. Their bodies were high in a tree, splayed out on the top branches. All their innards gone. No blood on the scene. Mountain lion - they’d seen them around here. Searchers blamed the rain and animals for cleaning the site. I didn’t dissuade them from that conclusion.

It was dumb luck the searchers found them at all. A ranger happened to look up. Rudy’s nearly skinned face hung on by a thread and waved in the breeze. Their bodies had started to decompose, and flies swarmed them. Reporters wrote that the Rangers claimed it had been years since he’d seen something so brutal in these woods.

I’m better now. I’ve sworn off dating for a full calendar year to recalibrate myself. All I know is that, when I’m ready to put myself back out there, I’m looking for dudes who are homebodies. PJ night watching a bad movie never led to murder imps stabbing me with forks.

Ok everyone listen used to like waking up early.

I’d make coffee, sit by the window, and enjoy the twenty quiet minutes before the day started. That was my ritual. It felt like the one part of my life that still belonged only to me.

Then the changes started.

The first one was small. I woke up and the dishes were already done. I live alone. I had left a plate and a mug in the sink the night before. I remembered doing it. But in the morning the sink was empty and the dish rack was full. Everything was dry. Everything was in the exact places I would have put them.

I told myself I must have cleaned up half-asleep and forgotten. It happens.

Two days later I woke up to a made bed. I never make the bed. I hate the feeling of tight sheets. But the corners were perfect, military-neat, the way my mother used to do it when I was a kid. There was even a slight crease down the middle of the duvet, something I have never once done in my adult life.

That morning I stood in the doorway of my bedroom for a long time, staring at the bed like it had betrayed me.

Then the notes began.

Not the dramatic kind. Just short, practical ones left on the kitchen counter in my own handwriting.

Coffee’s already ground. Use the darker roast today.

Your blue shirt is cleaner than the gray one. Wear that.

You should text Sarah back. She’s been waiting.

I don’t have a friend named Sarah. I checked my phone. There was a conversation thread with someone named Sarah that went back six weeks. Friendly, warm, slightly flirtatious on her end. I had apparently replied to every message in a tone that sounded like me but a little smoother, a little more confident. The last message from her was from the night before: “Can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

I had never seen this woman in my life.

I called my sister. She answered on the second ring and immediately said, “Hey, did you and Sarah finally meet up? She seems really good for you.”

I told her I didn’t know any Sarah. There was a long pause.

“Okay… you’ve been talking about her for almost two months. You showed me pictures. You said she has that little scar above her left eyebrow and she makes you laugh more than anyone has in years. Are you feeling okay?”

I hung up.

That night I stayed awake as long as I could. I made a mess on purpose. Left clothes on the floor. Left the bed unmade. Left a half-eaten sandwich on the counter. I sat in the living room with every light on and watched the clock.

I must have dozed off around 3 a.m.

When I opened my eyes it was 6:12. The clothes were folded and put away. The bed was made. The sandwich was gone. There was a new note on the counter.

You need rest. I cleaned up so you wouldn’t stress. Also, Sarah is coming over at 7. Be nice. She’s nervous.

I spent the entire day in a kind of cold panic. I deleted the Sarah conversation. It reappeared an hour later with three new messages I had supposedly sent that morning while I was in the shower. The messages were charming. Thoughtful. Better than anything I would have written.

At 7 p.m. the doorbell rang.

She was real. Pretty in a quiet way. Scar above the left eyebrow, exactly as my sister had described. She hugged me like we already knew each other. She brought takeout from a place I “always order from.” She talked about things we had supposedly done together— a long walk in the park last month, a bad movie we’d both hated, the night I walked her home because she was scared of the dark.

I sat there and nodded and smiled and felt like I was watching someone else wear my face.

When she left she kissed me on the cheek and said, “I like this version of you better when you’re not so tired. Get some sleep, okay?”

I locked the door behind her and stood in the hallway for a long time.

That night I tried again. I stayed up. I drank coffee. I kept the lights on. I even set alarms every twenty minutes.

I still fell asleep.

In the morning the apartment was cleaner than I had left it. There was a new note.

You’re fighting too hard. It’s starting to show. People notice when you’re not yourself.

I looked in the mirror. Something about my face was slightly off. Not dramatically. Just… smoother. The tired lines around my eyes were softer. My posture looked better. I looked like a version of myself that had been getting more sleep and making better choices.

I looked like someone people would prefer.

Over the next week it accelerated.

My coworkers started commenting on how much more focused I’d become. My sister told me she was proud of me for “finally getting my life together.” Old friends I hadn’t spoken to in years reached out, referencing conversations I had never had. My bank account had a few hundred dollars more in it than it should have. A project at work that I had been behind on was suddenly finished and well-received. My name was on the email chain as the person who had stayed late to complete it.

I checked the timestamps. The work had been done between 2:14 a.m. and 4:47 a.m. while I was unconscious.

Last night I tried something different. I wrote a note of my own and left it on the counter before I forced myself to sleep.

Stop. This is my life. Stay out of it.

This morning the note was gone. In its place was a longer one, still in my handwriting, but neater.

You’re exhausted. You’re lonely. You’re not doing a very good job of living this life. I’m just helping. The more you fight, the more people will notice something is wrong with you. And eventually they’ll stop preferring the old version. They already almost have.

I looked around the apartment. Everything was perfect. The kind of perfect that feels like a hotel room staged for a photograph. There was a second coffee mug in the sink, still warm. The blue shirt was laid out on the bed. My phone had a calendar reminder for dinner with Sarah tonight.

I am writing this from the bathroom floor because it’s the only place that still feels like it belongs to me. I can hear the apartment settling the way it does when someone else is moving around in it, even though I am alone.

I am terrified of falling asleep again.

Because every morning I wake up a little less like the person who went to bed, and a little more like the person everyone else already likes better.

And I’m starting to forget which one of us is supposed to be writing this.

By the time I found Caleb, we'd been looking for him for 37 hours.

He'd been missing longer than that. His truck was found Friday afternoon at the north trailhead with his wallet in the center console and an empty Gatorade bottle under the driver's seat. The last person known to have seen him was a cashier at a gas station 12 miles away. He bought two bottles of water, beef jerky, and a pack of cigarettes Thursday morning. He wasn't supposed to be gone overnight.

By Saturday, the sheriff's office had opened the search to volunteers. By Sunday morning, they'd divided the woods into grids and started sending us through anything that hadn't already been covered twice.

It had rained most of Friday night, and the woods still held it. The ground smelled of wet leaves and black soil, and water dropped from the bare branches whenever the wind moved through them. The rain helped in some ways. Mud held tracks better than dry ground, and the wet leaves made it easier to spot places where someone had passed through.

I'd done volunteer searches before. There was a routine to them that kept you occupied: a direction, a partner and a piece of ground you were responsible for. You moved slowly enough to notice things you'd normally walk past—broken branches, scraps of paper, impressions in mud.

I was working with a man named Curtis when I found the first cigarette butt.

It was caught between two rocks beside a creek, swollen from the rain. Curtis almost stepped on it before I stopped him. I crouched beside it without touching it. The paper had gone brown, but the filter was still recognizable.

"Could've been there a month," Curtis said.

He was right. We'd been told Caleb smoked Marlboro Reds, but that didn't mean much. Half the men I'd worked construction with smoked Marlboro Reds. I marked the location and called it in anyway.

The creek wasn't part of Caleb's expected route. He'd parked north of us and, according to his brother, intended to hike out to an overlook and back. The established trail never came within half a mile of where Curtis and I were standing.

But people who aren't lost generally don't need to be searched for.

We followed the creek.

The banks grew steeper as we went, forcing us onto the slope above it. Ferns had collapsed under the cold and lay flat against the ground. Mountain laurel crowded some sections so tightly that we had to turn sideways to push through. Every few minutes one of us stopped to look behind a log or down an embankment. We called Caleb's name, waited, then moved on.

Sometimes another searcher answered from far enough away that the voice had lost its words by the time it reached us.

Mostly there was the creek.

It wasn't particularly large, but the rain had given it enough water to fill the spaces between rocks. The sound followed us continuously, rising when we came close and softening whenever the terrain carried us away.

About 40 minutes after the cigarette, I found a strip of blue fabric snagged on a thorn.

Caleb had been wearing a blue rain shell.

Curtis radioed our team lead. We were told to hold our position until another pair could work toward us from the east. About ten minutes later, I noticed a boot print down in the creek bed, pressed into a patch of mud between stones. Once I'd seen it, another stood out farther ahead.

I told Curtis I'd check the next bend while he stayed where he could guide the second team in. I wasn't trying to be a hero. The creek curved sharply about 200 feet ahead, and I wasn't going farther than that.

I'd covered maybe 150 feet when I smelled cigarette smoke.

It was startling because the woods had smelled the same for hours: water, leaves, dirt, occasional pine. Cigarette smoke belonged somewhere else.

"Caleb?"

Something moved uphill to my left.

A man was sitting beneath a fallen tree about 100 feet above the creek. I couldn't understand how I'd missed him. He wasn't particularly concealed. The tree had come down with its roots attached, tearing a pocket out of the hillside, and he'd wedged himself into the dry space underneath.

He had a blue jacket.

"Caleb?"

He stood, and the relief hit me hard enough that I laughed.

You spend enough hours searching for someone and the person stops feeling entirely real. They become a photograph you've been shown too many times: height, weight, jacket color, boot brand, medical history. Seeing him stand up turned him back into a man.

"I found him," I said into the radio. "Curtis, I've got Caleb."

Caleb started down the hill but stopped halfway.

"Who'd you tell?"

"You're all right. Stay there."

"Who'd you tell?"

"Curtis. We've got another team coming in."

His face was hollow beneath several days of beard, and mud covered his jeans nearly to the knees. One sleeve of the rain shell was torn from wrist to elbow. He wasn't looking at any of that. He was looking past me toward the creek.

"How many people?"

"There's a whole team out here looking for you."

He closed his eyes. "Jesus Christ."

I started uphill, assuming he was injured or confused, but he backed away and told me not to come any closer. When I asked if he was hurt, he said no.

"We need to get you checked out."

"I'm not going with you."

Behind me, my radio crackled. Curtis asked if I had visual confirmation. Caleb watched me answer and give our approximate position.

"Tell them you lost me."

"What?"

"Tell them I ran. Tell them I pulled a knife. Whatever you have to tell them."

He wasn't shouting. That made it harder to dismiss as panic. He seemed exhausted more than anything else, but there was a concentration in the way he watched me that didn't fit with someone who had spent three nights wandering aimlessly through the woods.

I told him he wasn't staying out there.

"You don't understand."

"Then explain it."

Caleb looked over his shoulder. It wasn't the nervous glance of someone who thought he had heard something. He looked at one particular place.

"There's something following me."

I followed his gaze.

The hillside behind him was darker than the creek bottom. Hemlocks and white pines had held their needles while most of the hardwoods around them were bare, and their branches broke the afternoon light into narrow gray columns. Laurel filled the spaces underneath.

One of those spaces changed shape.

Something was standing among the trees about 300 feet beyond Caleb.

Gray-brown. Low to the ground.

My eyes kept trying to assemble it into familiar things. A fallen stump. A deer with its head lowered. A bear partially obscured by brush.

It walked between two trees.

Its body was about the length of a large deer, but heavier through the middle. Coarse hair hung from it unevenly, long in some places and absent in others, exposing skin the dull gray of old dishwater. Its front end tapered without forming any neck I could see. Where I expected a head there was only a blunt continuation of the body, slightly narrower than the shoulders.

It had four legs. I was sure of that.

The front pair were thin but unusually long, each bending once beneath the body and again farther down. That second joint made the legs fold outward rather than underneath it. The rear legs were thicker and similarly jointed. It should have stood chest-high on me if those limbs had straightened. Instead its belly hung less than two feet above the ground.

It took three deliberate steps without a limp or hesitation and stopped.

I couldn't find its eyes.

That didn't mean it didn't have any. At that distance, through the branches, there were plenty of things I couldn't see.

But I could see where its face should have been.

There wasn't one.

"How long has that been following you?"

"Since Friday morning."

"You've been watching that for two days?"

"I've been trying not to bring it anywhere."

The thing hadn't moved again. I asked whether it had attacked him, touched him, done anything to hurt him. No to all of it.

That was difficult to reconcile with the man in front of me. Caleb looked more frightened of being rescued than of the thing standing behind him.

"Because it follows," he said.

"So?"

"Other things follow too."

Curtis called my name from below.

Caleb shot to his feet and told me to send him back, but Curtis was already coming through the trees with Renee from the second team behind him. His face opened into a smile when he saw Caleb, the automatic expression you give somebody after spending two days expecting that, if you found him at all, he might not be standing.

"There he is."

Caleb backed uphill and warned them not to come closer. Curtis slowed while Renee stayed near the creek to report our location over the radio.

"Stop calling people," Caleb said.

Curtis tried to calm him down and mentioned that his brother was waiting at the command post. That was the first thing that seemed to get through. Caleb asked if his brother was really there. When Curtis said yes, Caleb looked down at the ground.

When he checked the woods behind him, the thing was closer.

I hadn't seen it move.

It stood about 180 feet away now, half obscured behind a pine.

Curtis followed my stare. "What the hell is that?"

Renee lowered her radio.

We watched it.

Nothing about the woods had actually changed. The creek still moved over the same stones. Water still dropped from the branches. Somewhere downhill a woodpecker struck a trunk in short hollow bursts.

But those sounds didn't feel empty anymore.

Every rustle in the laurel now had a possible source. Every gap between the trunks seemed deep enough to contain something. The woods that had felt open and quiet while Curtis and I searched them suddenly seemed crowded with places where I couldn't see.

I became aware of how far we were from the road.

Renee whispered, "Is that a bear?"

Caleb laughed once. It wasn't loud, but something about the sound made me wish he hadn't done it.

Renee told us command wanted us to hold position until medical reached us. Caleb started backing uphill again. Curtis moved toward him, and Caleb snatched a branch off the ground and held it across his body.

"Stay away from me."

Curtis raised his hands. "Nobody's going to hurt you."

"If you make me go back, you're taking it with you."

He told us he'd already tried to leave.

On Friday he'd found an old logging road west of where we were standing. He'd heard trucks somewhere beyond it and followed the sound until he could see pavement through the trees.

"I thought I was out. I could see the road. I could see the fucking road."

He walked toward it and looked back.

The thing had followed him to the tree line.

Behind it were two deer.

Caleb hadn't thought much of that. Deer had been moving through the woods around him since Thursday. But behind them was a fox, and farther back was another deer.

They were all facing him.

When he moved toward the road, they moved. When he stopped, they stopped. A truck appeared around the bend, and Caleb went back into the woods.

Everything followed.

Curtis asked why a few deer had been enough to send him back. Caleb told him there were seven or eight by then, and they stayed behind him for the rest of the day.

"One of the deer fell around dark. It kept trying to get up whenever I moved. Front legs first. Then the back ones. It couldn't do it anymore."

Nobody interrupted him.

"I left it there. The fox made it longer."

Renee asked what happened to the fox.

"I don't know. I didn't go back."

Now that I'd seen the creature clearly once, I couldn't make it become a stump again. Wet strands of hair hung beneath its body. A patch of bare skin along one flank contracted faintly when it breathed. One front foot was planted against the leaves.

Not a paw.

The end of the limb widened directly against the ground into several pale, blunt projections. They weren't toes exactly. There were too many, and none appeared to have claws.

It shifted its weight, compressing the leaves beneath it with a wet crunch.

That sound did more to convince me it was real than seeing it had.

Caleb watched our faces. "You see it."

No one answered.

"Good. Now leave."

Curtis shook his head. "We're not leaving you out here."

Caleb tried to explain that bringing more people only made things worse, but Curtis was already talking about wildlife officers and deputies. Their argument began circling until Caleb's voice rose over his.

"That's the problem. Everybody keeps coming."

The creek continued behind me. Water dripped from the trees. Nobody spoke.

Caleb lowered the branch.

"Please. Just leave me here."

We didn't.

I still think about that decision, but there wasn't much of a decision to make at the time. We had a missing man who had spent three nights outdoors with little food, probably dehydrated, possibly injured, and clearly not thinking normally. We had also seen an animal none of us could identify.

Those two facts did not add up to abandoning him.

Renee stayed behind to guide medical personnel toward our position while Curtis and I started Caleb toward the logging road. He didn't come willingly, but we didn't have to drag him. Fighting us would only bring more people in, and that frightened him enough to cooperate.

For the first half mile, nothing happened.

That was almost enough to make the whole thing feel foolish.

The creek faded as we worked downhill. The terrain leveled into long runs of bare oak and poplar where 150 or 200 feet opened between some of the trunks. A breeze moved through the canopy, shaking loose water in scattered drops, and without the constant rush of the creek I could hear our boots pressing into leaves, Curtis's pack shifting against his coat, Caleb's uneven breathing.

And, every so often, something behind us.

I checked often enough that I stopped having to search for it. Brush hid it completely in places, but sooner or later that gray body passed through another opening between the trees, holding roughly the same 120 or 150 feet no matter how the terrain changed.

It wasn't creeping from cover to cover. It made no attempt to conceal itself. Across an open patch of leaves I finally saw its gait without branches interfering. The strange construction of its legs made the body roll gently from side to side, one flank rising while the opposite pair folded beneath it. The narrow front swung only inches above the ground.

When it stepped over a fallen branch, something along its underside opened.

A dark vertical slit began several inches behind the blunt end of the body and continued farther back than I could follow. The movement of the leg stretched it open enough to expose a wet interior and something pale within, smooth and briefly visible before the edges drew together again.

My pace faltered.

Caleb glanced over. "Keep moving."

After that, the woods no longer seemed quiet.

They seemed occupied.

I knew the distinction existed mostly in my head. The trees hadn't moved closer. The smells were still wet soil, leaves and pine. Yet every sound I'd ignored that morning now suggested a location. A branch snapping behind us established distance. Leaves dragging across leaves meant something had displaced them. Even the breeze bothered me because it set too much of the forest moving at once.

I wanted stillness so I could tell what belonged to the woods and what didn't.

We reached the logging road shortly after noon.

Caleb stopped with one boot on the gravel.

Medical was coming from the east. Another mile, maybe less, and there would be people waiting for us. Curtis reminded him of that, but Caleb was staring into the trees behind us.

The creature had reached the edge of the woods.

Without brush hiding it, the proportions looked worse. Its body was longer than I'd thought and sagged slightly between the shoulders and hips. Rain had flattened the hair along its back into dark ropes, while the nearly bare underside showed skin with a faint bluish cast beneath the gray. Its front narrowed to that same blunt end with no eyes or mouth where either belonged.

The slit underneath loosened.

Something pale shifted inside.

Caleb eased his foot off the gravel. One of the creature's front legs folded forward.

Both stopped.

Nobody tried to persuade Caleb now.

The road ran south around a bend. Somewhere beyond it were EMTs, deputies, volunteers and Caleb's brother. More people would arrive throughout the afternoon. Cars already lined both shoulders near the command post.

Nothing we'd seen proved Caleb's story about the animals. The thing hadn't attacked us. It hadn't shown any interest in Curtis or me. It hadn't done anything except follow.

Abandoning Caleb because of that was absurd.

Taking him another mile suddenly felt worse.

Movement behind the creature drew our attention.

A doe stepped between the trees.

She was thin, with mud darkening her legs almost to the knees, but otherwise there was nothing remarkable about her. She stood about 45 feet behind the creature, ears twitching toward sounds I couldn't hear.

Caleb stared at her.

"That one's new."

Curtis asked how he could possibly know. Caleb said he hadn't seen a deer since the previous day.

The doe lowered its head.

Caleb stood at the edge of the road, the creature just inside the trees, the deer farther back. None moved.

Curtis broke away and started south by himself. About 60 feet down the road, he turned and found the rest of us still standing where he'd left us.

"Come on."

There wasn't enough evidence.

There would never have been enough evidence.

If Caleb was wrong, we were leaving an exhausted man in the woods because he'd frightened us. If he was right, the only way to prove it was to bring him back to everyone.

Caleb looked toward the bend in the road.

"I got lost," he said. "That's all I did."

His voice had gone quiet again.

"I just got lost."

There wasn't a trespass he'd committed or a rule he'd broken. No place he'd knowingly gone where he shouldn't have. He'd missed a trail sometime Thursday afternoon and spent the next three days trying to undo that mistake.

I asked what he was going to do.

"Go back."

"For how long?"

He looked into the woods.

That was answer enough.

Curtis came back, and we argued over what obligation meant when none of us understood what we were looking at. He was right that we couldn't simply leave Caleb. I was right that we didn't know what we were bringing out with him, or at least I believed I might be. We circled those same facts until Caleb stopped listening.

He stepped off the road.

The creature turned with him.

The doe raised its head.

Caleb walked uphill through the trees. The thing followed at its usual distance, rolling slowly over the wet leaves.

The doe remained at the roadside until Caleb passed between two trees.

Then it followed.

Curtis stopped arguing.

The woods broke the procession apart as it climbed: Caleb's legs vanished first, then the creature's gray body, then the doe moving lightly behind it.

The last thing I saw was Caleb's blue jacket.

We did not follow him.

The official search continued for four more days.

Renee met us on the logging road with two EMTs. We told them Caleb had become agitated and fled when we attempted to bring him out. That wasn't entirely a lie. Curtis and I gave statements separately, and neither of us mentioned the creature or the deer.

I don't know what Curtis told himself afterward.

I told myself we'd made a temporary decision. Caleb knew where the logging road was now. He knew where people were. If he changed his mind, he could come out.

That explanation worked better during the day.

At night I thought about the way the thing's legs folded beneath it and the opening along its underside. I thought about the pale movement inside.

Mostly I thought about the deer.

Caleb's family kept searching after the county stopped. His brother organized volunteers online. Hunters checked game cameras. People walked the logging roads well into December.

Nobody found him.

I didn't participate.

Winter came early that year. By January there was enough snow in the higher elevations that even his brother stopped organizing regular searches.

There were other disappearances that winter. I didn't connect them to Caleb at the time. People go missing in the mountains every year, and once you've participated in a search, you start noticing the notices in gas-station windows and the photographs people share online.

One of them was a man named Thomas.

I remembered his face because his family used the same photograph everywhere. He was 41, with a brown beard going gray at the chin and an orange knit cap. He'd gone out alone on a trail about 20 miles west of where we'd searched for Caleb and hadn't returned to his car. That was in January.

They never found him.

In March, Caleb's brother called me.

A couple driving home late on one of the county roads had reported seeing a man walking along the shoulder. No coat. No flashlight. They slowed because they thought he might need help.

The man stepped off the road before they reached him.

Caleb's brother had spoken to the couple himself after hearing about the report. The description of the first man wasn't good enough to identify anyone, but the location was close enough to the search area that he thought it might have been Caleb.

The couple had seen something behind him.

They couldn't agree on what it was. The husband thought it was a sick deer. His wife thought it was a large dog. Their headlights caught it only briefly before it crossed the ditch.

Behind it came a deer.

Then another.

The second deer was limping badly. One rear leg barely touched the pavement, but whenever it fell behind it lurched forward again.

Behind the animals walked another man.

Orange knit cap.

Brown beard.

The couple stopped.

The husband rolled down his window and asked if he needed help.

The man kept walking.

By then the first man had reached the trees. The strange animal crossed the ditch after him, followed by the deer. The man in the orange cap came last.

The husband got out of the car and called after him. He made it as far as the ditch before his wife started shouting for him to come back.

The couple waited beside the road for nearly 20 minutes, but nobody came back out.

Caleb's brother asked me if the orange cap meant anything.

It did, but I didn't have the heart to tell him.

I still had Thomas' missing-person notice saved on my phone. The description matched exactly what we'd been given.

I asked for the road name.

It ran along the western edge of the search area, less than two miles from the logging road where we'd let Caleb go.

His brother asked what I thought had happened.

I told him I didn't know.

That part was true.

There was one thing I did know.

Caleb hadn't been hiding from whatever he found in those woods.

He'd been keeping it there.

it was 5pm on a cool autumn evening, I was siting on a couch enjoying a cup of black coffee when I suddenly heard tapping on the window. I put my coffee aside and got up, there was a little boy tapping, I waved and pointed towards to the door to ask him what was wrong why he'd called to me.

I opened my front door, where I was greeted by a boy wearing an oversized wool sweater with white and red stripes. His name was Mike and he wanted a glass of water. I went back inside to get him one but apparently I took too long because when I returned, he was gone. I looked around but there was no sign of him. I closed to door and went back to my comfy couch but now my coffee was cold and stale. I got up to brew a fresh batch. By the time I was done, it was 7pm. I was supposed to have a couple of friends over, to play board games and have some fun. Jakey was in charge of dinner which he conveniently decided on pizza, Steve was our game master for the night and Alice, my girlfriend, brought some wine.

I waited around a bit and when no one showed up I started calling them one by one. Steve and Jakey didn't pick up, Alice went straight to voicemail, my text all undelivered. I saw my front door neighbor, colonel, in his nighttime robes holding his phone up so I went out and it turned out there is a service disruption in the area. I was bummed, so I invited him for some black coffee or something, my favorite drink in the world. It turns out he has work in the morning so we ditched coffee for whiskey like the real men we are.

As we were talking about life and work, I heard gentle taps coming from upstairs. Wood panels creaking, maybe someone walking. I asked if he heard anything and he said yes he did. So I went upstairs to check. I walked up slowing not to alert whomever was there and as my head peeked over before my body I saw two glowing eyes in the dark. like cat eyes but bigger. I noped the f out and went down right away. I went back acting as if I wasn't horrified. Colonel with his usual calm and cold tone asked me what it was. I said it's my girlfriend's cat, a really really cute Persian. He said he had never seen one before and he was curious and I said well by all means, he should go upstairs just don't wake him up.

15 minutes passed in complete silence and there was no sign of the colonel. Now I knew for sure that it wasn't an animal or my mind acting up. I got up, grabbed my keys and decided to spend the night at Jakey's or Steve or whoever would have me. Id check everything out in the morning. Just before reaching the door, I heard someone call my name, I turned around.

It was the colonel. I sighed and acted like I was just about to grab a beer from the fridge so I grabbed two and he was furious because there was no cat upstairs. My mind raced to make something up, and I just offhandedly said that maybe the damn cat got out the window and my girlfriend's gonna kill me but it's okay because I hate cats anyway. Then we talked about my job and hard it was and then he told me some of his thrilling war stories, like how he was stranded in east Asia roaming the jungles and surviving off stolen chicken from enemy villages before hiding in cargo or how he once killed a bison with his bare hands in the west of the Rocky Mountains.

When it was around 11pm we were both pretty tired and decided to call it a night, he got up and we shook hands, I walked him to my front door, and then watched him walk to his. As he was opening his door, he turned around and waved at me. I started to wave back and as I was waving I saw something that shook me to my core. His eyes were glinting in the dark.

Cold sweat started to run down my face. I grabbed my keys as fast as I could, to just get away but my front door wouldn't budge. Nor the windows or the backdoor. I was locked in. Then I saw the whole neighborhood lose power. Nothing but darkness. Darkness and my phone's flashlight, still out of service. Did my friends somehow know about this? is this why they didn't show up? I grabbed a knife and sat in the corner of my living room, two walls covering me and my eyes forward, constantly scanning. I turned the flashlight off but it was probably no use since if the eyes are truly like an animal it probably can see in the dark. I somehow knew that I need to finish this before the morning. In daylight there wont be glistening eyes to guide me, there would only be people. The colonel. I called him the colonel but I didn't really knew what he did nowadays. What if he has access to nuclear codes? no. That's impossible. But there has to be more to it. As I was thinking I saw a pair of eyes moving down the stairs.

I couldn't make it out in the dark. If I could see it, it could probably see me. I held the knife closer. And it got closer. I started to see shapes on its body. lines. stripes? Mike...?

"That's not gonna help you." it said in a deep and mature voice.

"Mike? is that you?"

I saw a smile under the white reflective eyes, made out a bit of teeth in the dark. Two white dots and a smile.

"Have a seat"

I was too horrified to disobey. Now that I was closer and my eyes had fully adjusted to the dark I saw that it indeed was the same kid, Mike, in his oversized striped sweater. The only thing different about him was his eyes, which reflected light like a cat, and his voice, which was now really mature and masculine.

"What do you make of me?" He asked.

"Skinwalker? Secret invasion? Alien? An angel of the lord?"

he started to laugh really hard "An angel of the lord?????" and some.

"I don't know, you tell me."

"Look at my eyes. You know how much my eyes alone can tell you? Im a creature of the night. That's what I'm evolved for. evolved. that's a funny word."

"Funny how?"

"Why are you so calm about this? Aren't you frightened to death? come on, drop the act, I can smell the fear in your swear. Your pheromones, that's another fun evolutionary fact for you." he smiled.

He was right, I was horrified, but one thing I had learned in life, was that in some situations you really need to hide how you feel. It's like a breakup, even if it's killing you, you can't let the other person know. So I didn't fold. I kept myself together.

"I learned that in school. Im a child after all. just a kid."

"..."

"A kid who wants to live. Just like you."

"..."

"do you want to live? do you want to live, as yourself?"

"Yes"

"Then you'll understand what I'm about to do."

As soon as I heard this, I didn't not plead, I did not beg, I did not run, I raised my knife and plunged it as hard as I could but as my knife started to land suddenly everything started to shake and then, it was morning and I was all alone, my knife not in my hand but in the kitchen. I checked my phone and I saw a couple of texts from Jakey and Steve apologizing for last night and a missed call from my girlfriend. I brewed some coffee, enjoyed the sweet taste of it and dressed up, ready to leave for work. As I was locking the door I saw the colonel doing the same. He waved good morning and I waved back. I sat in my car, looked at Mike through my rearview mirror and told him he wont be late for school this time.

“No. Dude.” I rubbed my forehead in disbelief - or maybe disappointment. Whichever of the two was the largest, and that wasn’t an easy question to answer. “C’mon, you’ve gotta do better than that. We’re just gonna get the door slammed on us.”

I didn’t think I was wrong. This was supposed to our last hurrah, the last time the three of us hit the pavement on Halloween night before we resigned ourselves to a long, drawn-out lifetime of handing out the candy at the door instead. Fifteen was already pushing it, arguably over the line - but if our costumes were good enough, that wouldn’t be a concern. It was about the passion, not the age. It was about our love for the holiday, showing people that we weren’t just in it for the candy.

I mean, we were. Kind of. But the idea was that we wouldn’t make that very obvious.

Marc just shrugged, leaning against the bottom of the basement railing in a Ghostface mask, a t-shirt, and blue jeans. “I’m Scream,” he said, he voice muffled through the mask. “That’s a costume.”

Lori raised an arm to point at him from her spot on the couch a few feet away from me, the dangling, shredded fabric and faux-chains of her admittedly immaculate ghost bride outfit dragging against the coffee table glass. I snatched the remote out of the way, before it got swiped onto the floor and lost beneath the couch forevermore.

“He’s right, that sucks,” she rolled her eyes. “And his name is Ghostface. Scream is the name of the movie. Have you even... seen it?” Marc shook his head.

“Okay, okay.” I held up my own hands, taking a step between the two of them. I should’ve expected some kind of disconnect here - Marc was never as big into Halloween as we were - he’d stopped trick-or-treating a couple years ago, and he wasn’t even a big horror guy back then. Usually, he’d be a pirate. But, though it was becoming increasingly less true as time passed and we slowly integrated ourselves into different ways of life, he was our friend and we still wanted to include him. That’s why I invited him. Frankly, I didn’t expect him to show up at all, but I supposed the call of free candy is stronger than I thought. “Look. I think we can make this work still.” I nodded my head, the beak of my plague doctor mask bobbing up and down. “I think we have like, a black curtain upstairs. You can throw that on like a cloak and that’s… close enough to Scream.”

“Ghostface,” Lori corrected.

“I meant the mov- okay fine. Ghostface. Are you good with that?”

Marc peeled off the mask, his shock of brown hair erupting from the neck-hole. He sighed, running his hand through the mess atop his head. “Whatever dude. No one’s gonna care, it’s almost nine. There’s not gonna be any kids, and what are people gonna do, throw the candy out?. We’ll go out, get their leftovers, and beat it. We don’t have to pretend to be twelve.”

“I never said we did! I just think we have look like we give a shit. Man, just put on the curtain.”

Despite his half-assed protests, he stayed mostly still while I ran up to fish out the old black curtain from the linen closet. Tied around his neck, he still didn’t look like a very good Ghostface - but it was better than nothing.

Lori nodded in agreement, her plastic chains rattling affirmatively.

It was go time.

---

We started in my neighborhood and branched out from there. House by house, street by street, passing blacked-out houses without the barest attempt to throw up a decoration or two, houses whose denizens had long since given up the hopes of being visited, and the occasional Halloween party - lights and music booming away into the night, oblivious to the outside world. Despite his initial lack of enthusiasm, Marc wasn’t wrong about the candy. Of the few houses that kept their lights on at this hour, most were just eager to get rid of the stuff. They cared… not at all about our age or how we carried ourselves, most people were just happy to see anyone out at all these days - or they were desperate to unload the remnants of their bowls into our pillowcases.

That was the thing. It was quiet. Empty. I remembered when I was a kid - like, actually a kid. I remembered streets crowded with kids up until practically midnight, regardless of whether or not it was a school night. Nearly every house decked out - or close to, anyway - with morbid decorations. Every now again, we passed a small group of older kids, or a family of night owls pounding the pavement, but… it was almost sad, in a way.

It was the first realization I’d had that night. It wasn’t something that I’d ever noticed before, but now that it was almost over for us, I thought about how there’d be one less group of kids out there knocking on doors, yelling “Trick or treat!” at adults who probably just wanted to go to bed and being rewarded for their efforts.

The second thing was, Marc was right about something else, even if he probably… didn’t intend to be. We didn’t have to pretend to be twelve. That feeling just came naturally with the season. We might not’ve gotten the best haul, and it might not’ve been the busiest or most enthusiastic Halloween of our lives, but over the course of that night, things softened. In spite of the darkened streets, everything seemed a little brighter. Any and all conflict over the costume situation died as we started to reminisce,- and Marc stopped gazing longingly at the roaring parties we passed by when we brought up the year my mom made me dress up like a pumpkin.

I was eleven. I wanted to be, ironically enough, Ghostface.

That made him laugh, and from there, everything just fell into place. Clicked like it should. We joked about the few kids we saw in embarrassing costumes, we pointed out cool houses and tried the doors, even if the lights were long extinguished. Lori’s eyeliner got smudged, and it looked like someone’d went and decked her in the face. We laughed about that too, and slowly, over time, our pillowcases only grew in size. It was getting late now, late enough that most of the straggler houses had put out their lights. It was bittersweet, the whole thing. I was glad we did this, glad we had one last hurrah, but I knew now that we’d probably never get another shot. This, as far as I was concerned, was the end of Hallowe-

“Hey,” Marc startled me out of my thoughts, “What about that one?” With this question, he pointed down the street. I blinked, wiping the condensation from the my mask’s lenses, then saw what he was pointing to. A house sat at the end of the street, unassuming in nearly every way save for a thick layer of grime in the folds of the siding and a largely-unmaintained lawn that crept its way between the pavement stones.

Despite the lack of porch light, there was… something else I noticed immediately. A single candy bowl innocently sitting on the patio, nearly full. The sign sticking from the bowl’s edge repeated an age old mantra - a major tenet of the Halloween Code.

TAKE ONE

Lori shook her head. “No way. Nah. We don’t go there.” She beat me to it. Marc didn’t grow up in this neighborhood like we did - he lived halfway across town. When we used to go out together, we’d have one of our parents drop us off in one of the wealthier areas more likely to go hard on the decorations and pass out full-size bars. Or we’d take the bus.

In any case, Marc didn’t know the stories.

“Yeah,” I added. “That’s the Shallow House.”

“The Shallow…” I could imagine his face scrunching up under the mask, “What the hell is a Shallow House? What does that even mean?”

“It doesn’t have a basement, its the only one in the neighborhood like that.”

Lori nodded, her veil swishing in the breeze. “If you’re stupid enough to get close enough to look into the window wells, there’s just concrete behind the glass. They filled it in back in the 90s.”

“Okay, but why? What’s the deal with it? The bowl’s just sitting there. Who lives there?”

“Fuck the bowl,” Lori shook her head. “Anyway, I don’t know who lives there. It’s like eight blocks away, and it’s not like I have a reason to hang out there.”

“So what’s the problem? Let’s just grab it.”

“The problem is that you don’t know the story. Back in the 90s, this family lived there. They were pretty average, as far as I’ve heard, but their daughter was into some weird shit.” Lori thought for a moment. “I don’t remember her name, just that she had her room in the basement and she did… things down there.”

“Things?”

Lori shrugged, the ragged folds of her dress undulating. “Dunno. Some people say she was into occult shit. Her parents would travel a lot, bring back things from around the world. People would look into the windows and see her doing all sorts of shit. Staring at some of these things for hours on end, talking on IRC in servers that didn’t exist, talking to herself in the corner. She’d crawl out of the window at night and just walk around. Nothing else, just walking and walking until the police brought her home.”

“And her parents? What, they just said fuck it and left her be?”

“Hey, I wasn’t even born then. Don’t ask me. One Halloween though, she just disappeared. She never came back Left a note saying that she 'took the stairs down' - but that note was in the basement. It didn’t make any sense. Thing is, after that, her mom started doing the same thing, going down into the basement at night and talking to nothing. Standing in the corner in the dark. Scared the hell out of the dad, and he had the basement filled in. Hence the Shallow House.”

“What?”, I made a face, “No, that’s not the story I heard. I thought the whole deal was that kids used to go missing around the house on Halloween. Just random kids, no pattern. They arrested the guy who owned it, held him in jail for a while, but it kept happening - so they let him out. Then, it really got weird.”

From his body language alone, I could tell Marc wasn’t impressed. I continued anyway.

“From the basement floor, slowly the missing kids started to rise up as statues, concrete and frozen. First the tops of their heads, and then their faces and torsos. They’d move too, slowly every night as they seemed to crawl out of the floor. Anyway, he got freaked out and just filled in the basement altogether to stop it. Or maybe he sold it, and the people after did that. In any case-“

“Where the hell did you get that from?” Lori cut me off.

“Where the hell did you get your version from? Some chick in the basement who disappeared? What does that have do do with anything?”

“I just heard it somewhere, I don’t remember. I was like ten. What about yours? Kids vanishing, turning up as concrete… floor things? Wouldn’t that be in the news?”

“I mean, same. I dunno, that’s just what I heard. I think Nick might’ve told me,” I answered her. I turned back in Marc’s direction, deciding this wasn’t worth arguing about anymore. “The point is, there’s lots of bad stories about this house - so we’ve never really bothered coming here.“

“Well, I heard that you two are weenies. You guys are being stupid. None of these stories make any sense, and they’re totally different. I’m not a baby. It’s a house.” He broke away from us, walking along the cracked, overgrown path to the house, long grass catching against my robe like grasping, paper-thin fingers.

I hadn’t ever been this close to the Shallow House before, close enough to see through the windows set into the depressed wells. It was true, I could see it behind the glass. Solid concrete, poured to the very top of the window frame, and maybe even further to the base of the first floor. I shuddered, imagining the events of… well, either of our stories really, taking place beneath the immense slab. Marc reached the step first, it creaked beneath his feet. One step, then another. He was standing on the patio then, reaching down into the bowl - and then he stopped, his hand deep beneath the ocean of candy.

It only took a moment before his face began to shift, his confident smirk falling away into an ungodly scream as he reached a second hand down, clutching the first as he fell to his knees, arm still in the bowl. Lori froze, I took a step backwards - and then he started to laugh.

“You guys are so dumb,” he snickered, pulling a massive handful of candy from the bowl and stuffing it into his bag - and then another.”

Lori exhaled with a sharp puff, crossing her arms. “Seriously, not cool - and put that back, can’t you read?”

“What?”

“The sign, dude,” I added, “It says ‘TAKE ONE’. It’s a dick move.”

Marc took another handful, more slowly and deliberately this time. “Don’t be a pussy. Do you see any kids around? I don’t. It’s late, they probably just forgot the bowl out. Fair game, if you ask me.”

“Well,” I retorted, “What if you put candy out and forgot about it? How’d you like it if someone rolled up and took all your candy? Maybe you wanted leftovers. Maybe you wanted to use it for next year?”

“Maybe you’re a pussy.”

“Just put it back. It's a Halloween rule.” Lori exhaled again, something between a grunt and a sigh.

“Jesus, what is wrong with you guys? It’s a bowl of candy, who cares?” He leaned down again and picked up the bowl, coming down the steps towards us. Grinning, he reached inside and stuffed the last two handfuls directly into our pillowcases. “See? Wow, look at all the candy. Almost doubled our haul. You’re welcome.” He tossed the now-empty bowl to the side. It landed in the grass with a thud, the paper sign gently fluttering to the ground nearby.

Marc turned and walked past us, back towards the road. “What is wrong with you?” Lori shouted after him. “What gives?”

“What gives?” He answered, looking back. “What gives is that I don’t care about any of this Halloween crap. It’s for kids. I just thought it’d be fun to hang out and get some free stuff. Guess not, because I apparently didn’t notice the sticks you had up your asses.” He reached upwards, pulling the mask from his face and dangling it mid-air. “This?”, he said, shacking the pale mask, “I don’t give a *shit* about this. I could’ve been at a party or something.”

“Then why’d you even bother to show up?”

“Because I thought we’d have fun. I didn’t think I’d get lectured like you’re my mom. First it was the costume, now this shit. Go figure - I was wrong.”

“Yeah… fun.” Lori said quietly, her eyes cast downwards towards the sidewalk. “I guess I was wrong too.”

---

The walk home was awkward, to say the least. None of us talked. We mostly kept our heads low, stared at the ground. Our bags were full, sure, swaying and heavy - but there was dirty candy in there. Didn’t feel right. By the time we got home, Marc seemed like he’d cooled off a bit, but I could tell Lori was pissed. Would barely look at him.

The original plan was that we’d have a sleepover. Make some pizza, hell maybe we’d watch Scream - but any notion of a fun hangout was dashed. Lori just grabbed her stuff and walked home, but Marc didn’t have that luxury. His parents were long asleep, which meant we were stuck. There was no pizza, there was no movie, just silence - save for the occasional nod, grunt, or other noncommital form of acknowledgment. I wasn’t that mad at him, and I doubted he was that mad at me, but I could tell he probably thought he made an ass out of himself.

He was right, but it was fine. I didn’t care. I gave him space anyway. We set up on the couches, and that was that. We went to sleep.

…

I woke up maybe an hour or two later. My mouth felt like sandpaper, and I was too stupid to fill up a glass beforehand, so I slid off the couch and went to grab a drink from the bathroom tap. Degenerate, but… whatever. It was water, it was cold.

It was when I came back that I noticed. Marc was gone.

His blanket was on the floor, and I figured he just went off to use the bathroom or something. I waited five, ten minutes, but he never showed. Never heard a flush, or the tap or anything. Maybe he was uncomfortable with the whole sleepover thing now, that’s what I thought - so I looked around the house. Checked to see if he relocated to the living room, my bedroom, but nothing. Did he somehow manage to get his parents to take him home? Well, that didn’t make any sense, because all his stuff was still here.

So, what gives? In a last ditch effort, I took out my phone and shot him a text.

Me - 01:46

Hey, you good man?

Its cool if you went home, no beef we’re good

You forgot your stuff though

I waited a couple minutes. I really didn’t want to have to call him, but I was thinking I didn’t have much of a choice - then, he responded, my phone buzzing on the coffee table. I picked it up, checking the notification.

Marc - 01:46

going home

Me - 01:46

Yeah, but you forgot your stuff.

Do you want me to bring it to school on monday or

Marc - 01:47

dont need it im going home

Me - 01:48

What do you mean? Your mom come and pick you up? You didn’t just leave the candy, you’ve got like clothes and stuff. And your 3DS.

Marc - 01:48

walking not far

down

I almost couldn’t believe it. Walking? He lived on the other side of town, that’d take him all night - and it was dark as hell out there. He was typing really... weird too. I scrolled up a few, and yeah, just like I thought, from earlier that night he was using capitalization and punctuation and the like. Quickly I shot Lori a couple messages too.

Me - 01:48

Hey, you up?

You heard from Marc?

Lori - 01:49

no, fuck marc

dude sucks lol

Me - 01:49

Yeah, I know but he just disappeared and he’s acting weird when I’m texting him

Lori - 01:50

weird how?

like hes not being a fucking dick or what

Me - 01:50

Just weird. He told me he was going home.

Lori - 01:50

good for him

Me - 01:50

No, I mean like he’s walking

Lori - 01:51

thats like a four hour walk, wtf

doesnt he have to cut through the ravine to walk back

hes gonna die lol

Me - 01:51

I know he’s a dick but I think I’m gonna go look for him

Lori - 01:51

wtf why

Me - 01:52

Dunno, he was an asshole but I don’t want him to get hurt

He left like 15 mins ago I think, I was in the bathroom

I can probably catch up to him

Lori - 01:52

w/e

good luck

or not

sleeping now

Helpful, I thought. I switched back to Marc.

Me - 01:53

Hey, dude can you just wait?

Like, stay where you are

I’m sorry the night was shit, I dont have any hard feelings

I get it if you’re mad at me but c’mon

It’s dangerous.

Marc - 01:54

getting closer

going

down

soon

Fuck. Alright, that was it. I didn’t know what the fuck he was even talking about. Was he sleepwalking? Just crashing out? Whatever. I headed upstairs, got my shoes on, threw on my coat, and hit the pavement on my bike. Fifteen minutes - that’s not far. I doubted he was running, and even on the best of days, he wasn’t exactly an Olympic-level sprinter. It had gotten colder since earlier in the night, the wind biting at my skin as I pedaled.

I knew the direction he’d have to go to get home, at least, so I followed the trail I knew, through the various neighborhoods. Left, and right and… there was no sign of him. Not that I could see.Did he manage to reach the ravine already? That would’ve been impossible, even on a bike I’d have to ride for half an hour at least. Where the hell did he go?

I got my answer when I passed the road that ended with the Shallow House.

I squeezed my brakes, the sudden stop almost throwing me over the handlebars. “Marc!” I yelled, “What are you doing?” He was standing on the patio, right about where the candy bowl was. Standing there, his back to me, doing… nothing. “Fuck,” I whispered under my breath, leaning my bike against the nearest streetlight and scrambling towards the house. “Hey! Dude! C’mon! Like I said, I’m not mad at you! Just come back, maybe I can get my mom to take you home, I know it’s late but…”

I trailed off as I walked closer, as I noticed something. The door was open. I’d never seen that door open, I’d never seen anyone come or go, I’ve never seen anyone live there.

“Hey… Dude, just… come on.” My breath was ragged and my nerves were firing on all cylinders. “Get away from there, man.” I reached out a hand, and froze as he turned to look back at me. His eyes weren’t right. His pupils were huge, like after you go to the eye doctor - and his expression just… wasn’t. It wasn’t a neutral expression, like a blank face. It looked like the kind of face you make when you’re in a staring contest and trying not to laugh - but he didn’t look like he was going to laugh. He looked like he wanted to cry, like his eyes were really hurting.

“Home,” he said in a raspy, breathless voice - before he walked straight in.

“Marc!” I called out, catapulting over myself as I ran up the walkway. My body, my brain, and whatever constitutes a human soul were all screaming at me to back off, that this was the Shallow House, that this place was bad news. That something was very, very wrong. The stairs creaked beneath my feet. One step, then another. I was standing on the patio then - and I could see inside. It was dusty, unmaintained with rotting hardwood and. No one had lived here, not for years at least. It was just an empty, abandoned house - but the dread I felt cut through my nerve endings like a knife.

I saw Marc there, his hand on a doorknob in the hallway only a few feet from the door. “Marc!” I called again from the patio. “Okay, yeah you got me. You’re right I’m a pussy, you freaked me out. Now please just, get the fuck out of the-“

I didn’t have time to finish. With one more of those strange, imperceptible looks backwards, he turned the doorknob and opened the door. Red light spilled out from the frame, a sickly, pulsating color that lit up his face in such a horrible way. It was no color I’d seen before. No color I’d seen since. Seconds inched by like eons, and he spoke - the last word I’d ever hear him say.

“One.”

He took a step, and descended the stairs.

My own terror be damned, the adrenaline finally did its work. I bursted through the Shallow House’s doorframe like a heat-seeking missle, hurtling towards that hallway door - but my feet met only concrete beyond its frame. There was no light, there were no stairs. There was just me, a shitty old house, and an inaccessible basement, filled up to the floorboards above with cement.

I turned around, and I went home. What else was there to do?

No one ever believed me about Marc. About the Shallow House - except for Lori, but even then I could tell that as the years went by, she started to believe the story that everyone else did. Marc left in the middle of the night to walk home after an argument, and he was never seen again. Maybe he got abducted, maybe he fell down the ravine and the animals got him. Maybe he just ran away.

Sure enough, we never did Halloween again, at least not trick-or-treating. I’d stay home and hand out candy, maybe put on a horror movie in the background - but no matter what, I’d make sure to go out for a walk past that house every year. Just to see, to check if the bowl’s there. It always is, and sometimes I see kids with their parents walk up to that bowl and take a single piece - just like you’re supposed to. Sometimes I see older kids mostly, grabbing handfuls at a time. Sometimes I wonder about them, about what happens to them later.

I think, if I’m ever a parent, I’ll raise my kids like the former group. I’ll teach my kids the rules of trick-or-treating, rules so old and central to the world that even the Shallow House itself seemed to respect that age old mantra displayed on every sign in every bowl left standing on a patio. I don’t know what’s in that house, in that basement. I don’t know what puts the bowl out - and not for lack of trying to catch a glimpse each October.

Whatever it was though, it knew the rules, and it followed them- just like you should. See, Lori, Marc and I… No matter how we obtained it, willingly or not, we all walked home with the candy from that bowl.

But the Shallow House? Well... it only took one. Thank god for that.

[Part 1]

[Part 2]

[Part 3]

[Part 4]

[Part 5]

The day after CATALOGUE left, nothing happened in my house. For weeks there'd been talking radios, moving reflections, and new things on my workbench. Now there were forty-one objects gone. The dresser, the tank, and the portrait were still waiting on a transport crew. I checked the wardrobe repeatedly that night, listening for creaks or voices. 

I had a lot of time to think this week, and I want to be honest that I hated it.

I hadn't touched a drink in days. Not since that night with the radio. I still thought about Alicia's voice coming from it and how I'd sounded answering her. I'd spent so long telling myself our arguments had gone differently that hearing them again felt like being caught in a lie. Maybe the radio had invented some of it. But I remembered enough to know it hadn't invented everything.

I wanted a drink more than once that week.

On Wednesday, I finally met with the family lawyer I'd been talking to for months. After depositing CATALOGUE's money, I called from the bank parking lot. For once, I could afford to retain him.

We spent an hour going through my situation. He didn't sugarcoat anything. My visitation record was poor, and asking for full custody would get me nowhere. But he said there was room to negotiate, provided I could demonstrate that I was taking things seriously.

He helped me put together a proposal for Saturday's mediation. More time with Toby, a gradual move away from supervised visits, and a review further down the line. Nothing guaranteed, but it was a start.

I walked out with a folder under my arm and, for once, something resembling a plan.

On Thursday I went to see Henry.

Since the sale, we'd only spoken by phone. I blamed his rehab appointments, but that was a lie. I stayed away because I was afraid of looking him in the eye. 

I found him in the last room of the rehabilitation ward trying to open a pack of crackers.

He was using his right hand, and you could see him trying to fight it. I didn't step into the room immediately. He had the packet pinched between his thumb and fingers, trying to yank the corner open. His hand curled partway, slipped, and dropped the corner. He muttered something nasty and passed it over to his left. My heart sank. His left hand had never been much use for delicate work.

Then he got the corner between his teeth and pulled hard. The packet split down the side. Crackers went everywhere, into his lap and onto the floor.

“Shit,” Henry said, with real feeling, and looked up.

I was waiting for him to get embarrassed or hide his hand, but he just gave me this crooked grin, the same look he used to give when he won twenty bucks on a game. 

“Should’ve told the nurse I needed help with the bag,” he said. “I keep forgetting my hands don't work like they used to.” 

“Let me help.”

“No.”

“Henry.”

“I mean it, Ian.” He started picking crackers out of his lap with his left hand. “If you start opening my stuff now, I’ll be asking you to do it every time you come over. Sit down. You're making me nervous standing there.” 

I sat on the edge of the bed. The room was small and clean, and an orange dolly strap was hanging off the bed rail. I looked at it for a while.

Henry used to take the heavy end of everything. I'd once watched him carry an oak wardrobe up three flights without stopping. Now he couldn't open a packet of crackers. 

“Stop doing that,” he said.

“Doing what?”

“Spinning out in your own head. Give it a rest.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“I know that look. You did the same thing while they were loading me into the ambulance.” He swallowed a piece of cracker. 

“So how’re you actually doing?” I asked.

“Me? I’m golden. Physio says I’m making progress. Give it another couple of weeks, and I'll be carrying your sorry ass up the stairs again.”

“Henry, you can barely open a pack of crackers.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not planning on opening crackers for a living.” He tried to flex his right arm, but the elbow barely hitched before his face went tight. He sucked air through his teeth and let it drop.

“Jesus, take it easy,” I said. “You’re going to rip something.”

“I’m fine.” He leaned back into the pillow, a shade paler, but still grinning. “They’ve got me on the stairs now. Six lousy steps and I felt like I climbed Everest.”

He could barely manage six steps. We spent half our days carrying furniture up stairwells, sometimes four floors at a time. Even if his back healed, there was still his arm. I wondered if he'd ever work again.

Worse, I wondered if he'd started asking himself the same question.

“Anyway,” he said, brushing a cracker crumb off his chest. “How’s the garage holding up without me?”

So I told him everything that had happened in his absence.

Henry had this half-smile on his face the whole time, waiting for me to say I was pulling his leg. When I didn't, the smile faded. 

“Jesus.” He put the cracker down. “So it’s real real. It’s not us.”

He was quiet for a second. 

“I had myself convinced it was just us,” he said. “Two dumbasses who bought the wrong storage unit. You can make sense of that. This other shit? This is something else.” 

I told him about the lawn chair photograph, and he looked at the window for a while and didn’t say anything.

“So can they still hurt anyone?” he said finally. “The things you’ve got left.”

“They’re contained.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“The wardrobe’s wrapped. The dresser and the tank and the painting are waiting for a crew. Henry, they sprayed everything. It was like…” I didn’t know how to describe it. “Like watching them put down a dog.”

“And you’re still staying in the house.”

“It’s my house.”

“Ian.” He leaned toward me. “When we got the chair, what did you think?”

“What?”

“When you saw it, the first time. You thought it was your chair, the one that went missing. And then I sat in it.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I’m not trying to get at you,” Henry said. “I’m just telling you as the guy who found out the hard way how fast things go wrong in that room. If the crew isn't coming till the weekend, stay somewhere else. Grab a cheap room, or take our couch. Rachael’s been waiting for an excuse to reach out to you anyway, even if she won't admit it.” 

“I’m pretty sure she hates me.”

“She’s scared of you, but she’ll come around eventually.” He picked up another cracker, then set it back down. “Tell me about Toby. How's he holding up?”

I’d been dreading the conversation since I got off the elevator. I told him what I’d told Marshall, blurting it out in a rush. 

Henry took a long time to answer.

“I don’t know, man,” he said. “I’m not calling you a liar. That missing scar is weird as hell. But Ian, I’ve known that boy since he was in diapers. He used to come down to the depot and sit in the cab of my truck for hours, pretending he was driving. He even made me a stupid little card with a crayon dinosaur on it; I’ve still got it framed on my desk at home.” He dragged his left hand down his face, looking exhausted.

“Has he done anything?” He finally asked.

“What?”

“I’m asking whether he’s done anything. Has he said anything unusual? Has he hurt anyone?”

“During my supervised visit, he asked about the closet,” I said. “He wanted to know if it opened.”

“Why would a kid ask that?”

“Maybe it had something to do with the wardrobe.”

“Right,” Henry said, staring down at the bedsheets. “Maybe he's just spooked, Ian. I mean, wouldn't you be?”

I felt the old heat rise in me, the defensiveness I’d been catching in the half second. I let it pass.

“You’re so focused on figuring out what he is,” Henry said, his voice quiet. “Look, I get it. I’d be losing my mind too. But did you ever stop and think about what Toby went through? He got trapped in the dark, and when he came out, you were screaming at him like he was a monster. That’s terrifying for a little kid, Ian. That doesn't mean he’s not your kid anymore. You just scared the hell out of him.” 

“Alicia thanked me for apologizing to him,” I said.

“Good,” Henry said. “You should have.”

“I didn't, Henry. I was in my garage.”

Henry went quiet for a second, then shook his head. “Then Alicia said it for you. She saw you were losing your mind, and she told him you were sorry to calm him down. That’s what parents do.”

“That’s not what she said.”

“What do you mean?”

“She didn’t say I told him you were sorry. She said Toby says we talked. That you told him you were sorry.” I heard how steady my voice was, and it scared me a little. “Toby told his mother that he and I had a conversation I wasn’t part of.”

Henry didn’t answer right away. I watched him searching for an explanation. He was good at that. He’d been finding the angle his whole life.

“That’s weird. But it’s not enough, Ian.” He didn’t sound sure anymore. “It’s not enough to decide who or what he is. Ask him when it’s safe.”

Henry wanted me to be wrong. He had enough to deal with without worrying about me losing my mind. 

I exhaled.

“Maybe you’re right,” I muttered. “Maybe I’m just seeing ghosts where there aren’t any.”

Henry let his shoulders drop, visibly relieved to hear me say it. “I’m usually right when it’s about you. You’re exhausted, Ian. Stop acting like an investigator and get some proper sleep.”

I said it so he’d let it go, but the second the words left my mouth, I felt like a liar. He could rationalize Alicia’s text all he wanted. But you don't just sleep off a missing scar. 

“I want to put some money toward the rehab,” I said. “The payment was more than I’d expected. It covers my lawyer, and there’s enough left.”

“No.”

“Henry, come on.”

“I’m the one who chose to sit in the chair, Ian. If you hadn't pulled me out, things could've been a hell of a lot worse.” He held up his left hand. “I’m not taking money from you because you feel bad.”

“I want you to be able to afford your physical therapist. You’re my friend, and you need help. That’s the reason.”

He studied me for a while.

“Okay,” he breathed out. “But don’t spend all of it. I mean it. Don’t go giving away the whole envelope and eating canned beans because you’re making amends.”

“Deal.”

I left half an hour later. At the door he called my name, and when I turned, he held up a cracker in his left hand like a toast.

“They’re good crackers,” he said. “Don’t let them tell you otherwise.”

Alicia called that evening. 

We'd exchanged texts earlier about Saturday's mediation, and I took the opportunity to mention the investigators from CATALOGUE who'd visited my garage. We weren't on good terms, just too exhausted to fight. 

“I need to ask you something,” she said.

“Okay. What's up?”

“Toby’s been in his room a lot.”

“Is he sleeping?”

“He’s fine.” The phone rustled. “It’s about the toy chest. Do you remember the wooden one? The one I bought off that woman in the next suburb, when he was two?”

I remembered the faded blue pine box. I'd carried it upstairs myself.

“He’s suddenly become obsessed with it,” she said. “After the weekend, he started going in there every single day, dragging things out, piling things back in. I actually thought it was a good sign. He was so quiet and withdrawn when he first got back from your place. I just thought, thank God, he’s finally playing again.”

She paused.

“There’s stuff in there I never bought him,” she said.

I slumped down right on the kitchen floor, my back against the cabinets.

“An orange plastic toy truck,” she whispered. “I think I’d remember buying something that ugly. And that little yellow giraffe he broke months ago. Ian, I threw that out in May. I know I did.” 

Her breath caught. 

“I asked him where he got them. He said a friend gave them to him. I asked who, thinking it was some kid at school. He just looked at me and said, ‘He likes making things.’”

“Did he tell you his name?”

“No. That's the problem. Every time I ask, he just says it's his friend. I've asked him whether it's someone from school or even someone he's met online. He won't tell me.”

She went quiet for a moment.

“Ian, I've been thinking about calling the police.”

“The police?”

“What am I supposed to think? He's six years old. He's suddenly getting toys I didn't buy him from someone he won't tell me about. I've checked the locks and asked his teacher if anyone's been hanging around school.”

“Why didn't you tell me sooner?”

“Because I thought he was making it up. An imaginary friend or something. I didn't want to make a big deal out of nothing, especially after everything that happened at your place.” I heard her swallow. “But the toys keep showing up, Ian. I don't know what else to think.”

“Alicia, listen to me. I don't think this is somebody giving him toys.”

“Then where are they coming from?”

I thought about the things that had appeared on my workbench. The chair that had replaced my own. The wardrobe and the pale thing I'd seen crawling out of it.

“I think it might be happening again.”

“You mean the things in your garage?”

“Yes.”

We went quiet.

“Those CATALOGUE people want to run tests on Toby. I told them no, not without your say-so. But let me go through that box first. I just want to see what's in there.” 

There was a long pause.

“I’m not putting him through another investigation,” she said, her voice tightening. “He’s finally settling down, Ian. I am not letting some stranger sit him down in a room to grill him about what happened. He’s six years old. He’s had enough.”

My breath hitched, and the line fell silent. 

“I’m not asking you to take my word for it,” I said. “I’ve got the videos and the emails. I’ll print every damn thing out and hand it to you. If you read it and think I’ve lost my head, I’ll walk out the door and never bring it up again. Just let me look in the box, Alicia. Please.” 

Alicia sighed. I thought she'd tell me to stay away. 

“Tomorrow after lunch,” she said, flatly. “You can come over and look at it. That’s it.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Her voice dropped into that sharper tone she used when she meant business. “Don’t scare Toby, and don’t go tearing the place apart.”

“I won’t, Alicia. I promise.”

“I don’t care about your promises, Ian. Last time you had him, he came home frightened and barely himself.”

"I didn't mean for any of that to happen."

Alicia laughed bitterly over the phone. “You never do. I’m doing this against my better judgment. Don’t make me regret it.”

My tongue felt like sandpaper. “I won’t.”

“You’d better not,” she said, and hung up before I could answer.

I hadn’t been inside the old house since the day I moved out.

I stood on the porch the next afternoon feeling like a trespasser. There was a new potted plant beside the step. Life was moving on here without me. 

Alicia opened the door before I knocked.

Toby’s sneakers sat by the mat, laces untied. There was a row of his drawings along the refrigerator. I was drawn to the picture of three stick figures labeled MOM and ME and DAD, with DAD a little apart from the others and the biggest of the three.

I stared until Alicia said, “He made it last month.”

“It’s good.”

She didn’t reply. Just turned around and walked back toward the kitchen. The table was covered in unopened mail and a half-eaten bowl of cereal. My place didn't have clutter. I’d spent weeks telling myself I was staying tidy. Looking at her table, I realized it was really just empty. 

“I read your emails,” she said, without looking at me. “The ones you forwarded to me.”

“And?”

“And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with them.” She sat. “Show me the video.”

I played the recording. She watched for ten seconds, then frowned.

“What am I looking at?”

“Just keep watching.”

The thing unfolded from the wardrobe, its long, pale limbs bending in ways they shouldn't have. Alicia stared at the screen, then looked up at me.

“Ian, is this some kind of joke?”

“No.”

“Because if you've edited this—”

“I haven't touched it, Alicia. Just watch.”

She looked back down. Her thumb hovered over the screen. Then the thing reached for the toy, and her expression changed.

“Wait.”

She dragged the recording back a few seconds and watched it again.

“That's Toby's dinosaur.”

I nodded.

She stared at the screen a moment longer, then slowly raised her free hand to her mouth. Her eyes drifted toward the hallway, up the staircase to where Toby was playing.

“That thing was in the house?”

“Yes.”

“With him?”

“I don't know what it did or if it even did anything at all. He was in the wardrobe for maybe half a minute. When the door opened, he seemed fine. That's all I know.”

“Jesus Christ.” Her voice sounded hollow, like all the air had been knocked out of her. “Do you think it did something to him?”

“I don't know, Alicia.”

She looked down at the frozen image, then handed the phone back to me. Her fingers were trembling.

“Okay,” she said quietly. She swallowed. “Okay. Let's go see the chest.”

I saw Toby first.

I’d asked for ten minutes. Alicia took a long look at me, then went to make tea, and Toby came tearing down the stairs the moment he heard my voice. I caught him around the middle and nearly lost it.

He smelled like crayons and cereal, and he said, “Dad, Dad, you want to see?” and dragged me toward the stairs. His room was small, with a bed covered in dinosaur sheets. The toy chest was against the far wall. He’d laid out his toys on the carpet in two rows: a fleet of cars, a menagerie of rubber animals, and a plastic knight with a missing arm.

“These are the new ones,” he said, pointing.

I got down on the floor. 

“They’re great. Where’d you get them?”

“My friend made them.”

“Your friend. Which friend?”

“The one who makes things.” He held up a toy car.

 “That one’s pretty good. Some of them aren’t. He gets them wrong sometimes.”

“Wrong, how?”

Toby laughed. It was a real laugh, and my chest hurt. “There was a truck with the wheels on backwards. And a dinosaur that couldn’t stand because his legs bent the wrong way, like this.” He folded his arm at the elbow and then back the other way. “He fell over every time.”

“How do you know they’re wrong?”

“Because I know how they go.” He gave me a look of deep disappointment.

“Dad. I show him. I roll the truck on the floor. Like this, see?” He pushed the red car across the carpet with two fingers, wheels turning. “And the dinosaur stands up. So he can see how they work.”

“Where do you show him?”

“Do I have to explain everything?” He slumped back onto the carpet. “It’s obvious.”

I nodded, trying to keep my breath even. 

“Where did you meet him, bud?”

Toby fiddled with the toy car. “When we played hide and seek.”

My stomach dropped like a lead weight, and my fingers pressed into my palm hard enough to hurt. 

I’d been pounding on that wardrobe door, screaming his name. I still remembered how raw my throat felt. I remembered the door swinging open all by itself and Toby just sitting there cross-legged in the pitch black, blinking at the light. 

“In the game?” I didn’t even recognize my own voice. “When we played at my house?”

“Yeah.”

“Was he...in the wardrobe with you?”

“Toby!” Alicia was at the door with the tea tray. “Dad’s here to look at the chest, remember? Let’s not make him wait.”

Toby jumped up, losing interest in the conversation, and ran to the foot of the bed to fetch a stuffed rabbit. I stayed on the carpet, hearing my own heart thumping. Alicia looked at me, and I shook my head. Not now.

He'd met his friend inside the wardrobe. But Toby had been missing for less than a minute, and he'd claimed he'd been waiting for me for ages. How long had he really been in there? What had happened to him?

I pushed the questions aside. Something from that wardrobe might now be in my son's bedroom, and I needed to know whether it was dangerous.

I recognised the toy chest, blue painted pine with scuff marks where Toby had dragged it. We'd bought it for him years ago, though he'd long since outgrown most of the things he used to keep in it. Last I'd heard, Alicia had been planning to get rid of it. Apparently, he'd taken an interest in it again.

Alicia stood beside it with her arms folded. I knelt, examining the brass hinge.

I remembered repairing that hinge myself, back when Toby was three. The lid had started sagging, so I'd bought a little packet of brass screws and tightened the whole thing up. I even remembered stripping one of the heads and swearing about it while Toby watched from the doorway.

The hinge was still there. But the screws weren't. Where the heads should have been, the metal didn't end. It was a seamless transition from brass to pine, as though the two materials had grown together. I ran a thumbnail along it. The surface was smooth and faintly warm.

“Did anyone else repair this?” I asked.

“No, nobody’s touched it. The most I’ve done is clean it up a little.”

“There was a scratch on the lid, along the left side. It’s gone.”

Alicia crouched beside me. We both looked at the lid, painted so fresh it seemed wet. “I’d have noticed that,” she said, in a small voice.

“It’s what the other objects were like in my garage,” I breathed out. “Neglected things. They come back...newer.”

“It’s not sitting around forgotten,” she said. “He uses it.”

“Maybe not lately,” I said. “It sat in the corner for months, Alicia. Before the weekend. Before—” The words died in my throat.

I opened the chest. Toby’s old things, and among them were things that weren’t his. I lifted out the first one, and it was a teddy bear.

I say a teddy bear because the shape was bear-like. It had two round ears, button eyes, and a little black nose, but everything underneath was grotesque. Its torso was too long, with a second belly bulging beneath the first, and its arms had too many joints. One of them bent backward when I picked it up. The fur was soft and clean, but the thing had an unpleasant weight to it, as though the stuffing was wet.

I squeezed its middle. Something pulsed under my fingers, and a low, wet gurgle came out of its mouth. It went on for several seconds after I'd let go.

I dropped it.

“What is that?” Alicia whispered.

“Looks like a stuffed toy,” I said. I barked a short, nervous laugh. “If Cronenberg made it.”

I picked up the others, careful not to press too hard. Some were total butcher jobs. Others were so clean I had to check twice. A yellow rubber duck had a seamless, molded-shut beak and mismatched eyes. I was turning it over when Toby appeared in the doorway.

“He’s working on that one,” he said, pointing at the duck in my hand. “That’s an improved one. Do you like it?”

“It’s nice,” I said. “It’s very nice.”

He came in and sat cross-legged by the chest. He pulled out the jack-in-the-box.

It was the kind you’d see in any toy store. He turned the handle. The tune was almost “Pop Goes the Weasel.” 

Then the face came up.

Rather than popping out, it rose slowly out of the box. The face had no features, only a smooth, grinning curve in the shape of a smile. It stopped at the top of its stem and swayed.

Toby clapped. “That’s a good one.”

Then he dragged something out of the corner of the chest. A long string of white segments, linked end to end, and he held it up by the string so it swung. I'd mistaken it for a toy caterpillar. As Toby walked it along the floor, the segments clicked softly. I looked at it a moment longer and realized that the segments were the exact size and shape of vertebrae.

“Put it down,” Alicia said stiffly.

“But Mom, it’s one of the good ones.”

I made myself ask the question gently. “Toby. Does your friend come into your room?”

He frowned, puzzled. “I don’t see him in here.”

“Then how…” 

“I put something in the chest, and I close the lid, and when I open it, there’s something different.” He shrugged. “Like a swap. It’s a game.”

“What do you put in?”

“My broken stuff, or things I don’t want.” He hesitated. “Or sometimes I put in a drawing.”

Alicia looked at me, and I could see the worry on her face. She glanced at the door, then at Toby. Was she thinking what I was? How many times had she walked past this room while he was playing, without knowing what he was playing with? 

“That’s enough,” she said. “No more. Not until we understand this. You don’t open that chest again, Toby. Do you hear me?”

“But he’s not finished!” His face crumpled. “He’s still working on some. He gets sad if we take them before they’re done.”

“Bud, I need you to wait in the hall for a bit, okay? Just while Mom and I look.”

“I want to stay.”

“I know. Just a few minutes.”

He went, slowly, dragging his feet, and left the door half open. I could hear him on the other side trying to listen.

I felt the edges and knocked on the bottom panel.

The timber was solid. There was no wear on the hinges or scuffs in the paint. But when I leaned over and looked down at the toys, the bottom of the box seemed to stretch farther than the outside frame allowed.

“It’s just a trick of the light,” I said, but my hands were shaking. 

“Is it?” said Alicia.

She was leaning over my shoulder, looking at something buried near the bottom of the chest.

“That’s the pony,” she said.

“What?”

“The plastic one with the pink mane. He broke it in the spring, and I put it in the bag for the bin.” She reached. “If it’s the original...”

“Alicia, don’t.”

But she’d already put her arm in.

She leaned into the chest from the shoulder, her fingers closing toward the pink plastic, and her hand went past where the bottom panel should have been. Her wrist disappeared, then her forearm.

She made a small, surprised sound.

“I can’t see the bottom.” Her voice sounded strange. “There’s...Ian, it just keeps going.”

I looked. Past her shoulder, where the bottom of the chest had been, there was only darkness, full of objects packed tight with junk: chair legs, a rusted lamp, a pram wheel, all wedged at impossible angles. 

Alicia tried to withdraw her hand, but it was stuck fast.

“My sleeve’s caught on something,” she said, panic edging into her voice. She pulled again. “Ian, I can’t...”

Then she cried out.

Her whole body jerked toward the chest, and her knees hit the edge of it. Something inside had taken hold of her. I saw her wrist tighten under the cuff of her sweater, as if invisible fingers had closed around it.

I got both hands around her upper arm and pulled.

It was like trying to haul her out of deep water. I pulled her backward, but her arm kept traveling deeper into the wood. The box itself didn't move an inch; it was the space inside that was collapsing, the whole interior tightening down on her arm like a throat swallowing down food. 

“Hold on!” I shouted, which was a stupid thing to say given the circumstances.

The lid began to fall.

It came down slowly as though someone were lowering it by hand. I caught the edge and held it open and felt my muscles shake. Alicia got her free hand on the rim, bracing, and her arm was pulled in nearly to the shoulder.

Henry.

It was all I could think. The chair snapping shut, the sound he made. I had no way to get my fingers into it, because everything I knew about furniture was useless in that moment. I looked for a seam, a joint, a place to pry. There wasn’t one. The whole chest was one continuous surface, and the lid kept coming down.

“Alicia, look at me.”

“It’s pulling—”

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Deep in the dark, something moved. A piece of the clutter shifted, and from underneath it came a hand.

It was pale and long, bending in places that made my own fingers ache. The fingers uncurled one at a time and reached, not for Alicia, but past her, toward the plastic pony.

It didn’t look like it was trying to hurt her. That’s what made my blood run cold. It was just reaching for that toy like a kid reaching for a dropped spoon. 

Alicia saw it.

She recoiled, and the whole space convulsed. The pressure around her wrist increased. I heard something crack, and she screamed in pain.

“Get off her!”

I yelled straight into the dark. The fingers jerked away for a second, startled by the noise. Then the space contracted again. It wasn't giving up. 

I remembered the garage. It had shrieked when I looked at it and hid behind its hands.

If I frighten it, it just holds on tighter.

“Toby,” Alicia gasped. “Toby, no...”

He was in the doorway.

He'd come at her scream and stood pale-faced, staring at her arm disappearing into the wood.

“Go,” she said. “Toby. Go. Please go.”

He didn’t move. His mouth hung open.

I tried to steady my voice. “Bud. Stay back. It’s okay.”

It wasn’t. The lid pressed against Alicia’s shoulder now. I wedged my forearm underneath it and felt the whole weight come onto me. I thought about the hammer I’d swung at the wardrobe and how the wood hadn’t even splintered. I didn’t know what to do.

“Stop it,” Toby said.

His voice was small, then suddenly booming. He ran into the room, and I tried to catch him and missed, and he planted himself at the edge of the chest and shouted into the dark with everything he had.

“Stop it! Stop it! You’re hurting my mom! Stop it, stop it, that’s NOT how you play!”

I don’t know how else to say it. The pressure didn’t ease, but it held like bated breath. The hand in the dark went still. I couldn’t tell whether it had recognized his voice or had only been startled by the noise.

“Please,” Toby said, and his voice broke. “Please. She’s my mom.”

The hand withdrew slowly, dragging two of the malformed toys with it into the dark. Then a violent scraping sound came from somewhere beyond the chest, and I felt the box shudder.

The interior collapsed to its ordinary size all at once, and Alicia’s arm came free so fast that she flew backward into me. We hit the carpet together, her elbow in my ribs, my head slamming against the bed frame. Toys tumbled out of the chest, and the lid slammed shut with a sound like a gunshot, hard enough to splinter a strip of the surrounding wood.

The room was silent.

I rolled onto my knees. “Alicia. Alicia, look at me.”

She was curled around her right arm. Her wrist was already swelling; the skin beneath her sweater was a dark, shiny red, and a lump had risen under it. When I touched her hand, she hissed in pain, and her fingers didn’t move. She was struggling to breathe, and her left hand pressed against her ribs where she’d struck the edge.

“Don’t move,” I said. “Don’t move it.”

“I’m okay,” she said, through clenched teeth. “I’m fine. I’m...” She started to cry.

Toby stood a few feet away with both fists pressed against his mouth, eyes wide.

“He wasn’t trying to hurt her,” he said, through his hands. “He wasn’t. He didn’t know.”

A wave of heat rushed right up my neck. He was defending it. My wife was clutching a broken wrist on the carpet, and my kid was standing there covering for the thing that did it, treating it like a friend who didn't mean any harm. 

I opened my mouth.

I looked at Toby.

His face was wet and blotched, and there was snot on his lip. 

I closed my mouth. The anger dissipated.

“I know, bud,” I said. “I know. It’s okay.”

I took out my phone and called emergency services. Then I sat on the floor with Alicia’s head against my shoulder and my other hand on Toby’s back, and the three of us stayed that way until the sirens came.

The paramedics asked me what had happened, and I told them that Alicia had gotten her arm caught in the toy box. The younger woman with the ponytail looked at me warily, and I knew she was wondering whether I’d done it. 

“He’s telling the truth.”

I looked over to Alicia. She was strapped to a stretcher, a splint on her wrist.

“Her wrist’s fractured,” the paramedic told me. “Probably her ribs, too. We’re taking her in.”

On the way out, Alicia caught my sleeve.

“Why was it in my house?” she said, low and hoarse, so only I could hear. “Ian. Why was it in my house? And why did Toby recognize it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You said they took everything. You said it was over.”

“I thought it was.” I swallowed. “I’m sorry. I was wrong about the whole thing.”

She stared at me for a long second, and I knew she wasn’t forgiving me. But something had shifted between us. For the first time, Alicia didn't have to take my word for it. I wished she still did. 

“I’m not done with you,” she said. And I knew she meant it.

Alicia's younger sister Rebecca arrived twenty minutes after the ambulance left. Alicia had asked her to stay with Toby instead of going to the hospital.

She wasn't thrilled to find me there. She'd supervised a few of my visits before, and we weren't particularly close. But Alicia had apparently told her I was staying, so she didn't argue.

She went into the kitchen to call the hospital, leaving me sitting in the hallway with Toby. The mediation was tomorrow, and now Alicia was in hospital with a broken wrist. I'd have to make some calls. For now, I couldn't bring myself to care.

Toby sat on the bottom stair with a stuffed rabbit in his lap and one of the malformed toys in his other hand, a plastic horse or a cow. I thought about taking it from him. I thought about how it’d play out: his face, the yell, the whole ugly mess. I didn’t want another scene. I sat down on the stair beside him and said nothing for a minute.

“Are you scared?” I said at last.

He shook his head. 

“I didn’t think he’d hurt anybody,” he said.

“Has he ever scared you? Before today?”

“No.” A long pause. “He gets things wrong sometimes. That’s all. And I show him how. I show him, and then it’s better.” He looked up at me, and his eyes were enormous. “Why did it hurt Mom? It’s the same game.”

“It wasn’t the same.”

“But it was.”

I searched for the right words.

“Sometimes people don’t mean to hurt someone,” I said. “But they do anyway, because they don’t understand what they’re doing. That doesn’t mean they’re bad. It just means you have to be really careful around them. Even if they’re your friend. Especially if they’re your friend.”

He considered this. For a minute neither of us moved, and the whole world felt very small.

“Is Mom going to be okay?”

“She’s going to be fine. She’s got a broken wrist, that’s all. They’ll fix it.”

“Promise?”

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to tell him she'd be home tomorrow, that everything would be back to normal, and that there wasn't anything left to be frightened of. But I'd made enough promises I couldn't keep. 

“I promise we'll do everything we can to help her,” I said. “And I'm staying right here with you until we know she's okay.” 

He leaned against me, and I put my arm around his shoulders. 

I'd spent months trying to get more time with him. I'd paid a lawyer, sat through meetings, and rehearsed what I'd say on Saturday. And now here I was, sitting beside my son in the house I'd once called home, while his mother was in the hospital because of something I'd brought into our lives.

I would have given anything for him to be somewhere else. Somewhere safe.

I didn’t push him. None of it mattered right then. There’d be time later to ask the questions burning in the back of my mind. I just sat there on the hall stairs next to my boy. 

Hours later, I called Priest from the porch. Rebecca was inside with Toby, watching cartoons. My hands shook so badly I misdialed the number Marshall had given me.

She picked up on the second ring.

“It’s Ian from the garage.” My voice cracked. “I need to report something.”

“Go ahead.”

I described the altered chest, Alicia's trapped arm, the pale hand, and how it retreated when Toby shouted.

“Stop a moment,” she said. “When you say the interior was deeper than the exterior. Are you certain you weren’t looking at a Return with a manufacturing flaw? Some of the later ones have false depth.”

“It took her arm.”

“Yes, but...”

“It pulled her down into the wood, Priest. It had a hand, the same one from the video.” 

A pause.

“Understood,” she said, and her voice had changed. “I’m writing that down. Go on.”

I told her about Toby's friend, the hide-and-seek, and swapping drawings through the chest. She stopped writing.

“He’s been exchanging items with whatever’s inside?”

“That’s what he says.”

“Has he seen it?”

“He says he doesn’t. He says it’s...a friend that likes making things.”

“And the Ephemera he's been receiving. Are they all toys?”

“The what?”

“The objects he's been receiving. Are they all toys?”

“Wait. What did you call them just now?”

“Ephemera,” she said. “It's our general term for them.”

“That's a new one. Marshall never mentioned it during our conversation.”

“No, I suppose he wouldn't have.”

Something about the way she said that bothered me.

“What's it mean?”

“It's a reference to their transient nature. They appear, disappear, and turn up in places they shouldn't. The name stuck.”

“Right.” I shifted the phone against my ear. “And that's all?”

There was a pause, just long enough for me to notice.

“It's a classification, Ian. Nothing more.”

She sounded irritated, though she'd happily explained every other strange term.

“Okay,” I said. “Yeah, they're mostly toys.”

A silence on the line. I could hear a keyboard faintly clacking away in the background. Then Priest said, very evenly, “Ian, I need you to keep him away from that chest. Don’t let him open it, don’t let anyone else open it, and don’t move it. We’ll send a team as soon as we can.”

“Is it the same one?” I asked. “The creature from my garage. Did it follow him?”

“I can’t say that.”

“You can’t say that, or you don’t know?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “And I won't speculate just so you can turn my guess into a certainty. There may be other reasons it’s here, reasons that have nothing to do with it tracking you from the site.” 

“The chest was abandoned for months. And the toys only started after Toby went back to it. That doesn’t fit what you told me. You said it was related to neglect, the things nobody used.”

“I noticed that discrepancy too. I’m not dismissing it.” There was a faint creak, as though she’d leaned back in a chair. “We don’t have every answer, Ian. You’ve been told that already.”

A week ago, I'd have accused her of hiding something. Now I wondered if thirty years of studying these things had only shown CATALOGUE how much it didn't know. Still, I couldn't shake the way Priest had reacted when I asked about Ephemera. 

“If you take the chest away,” I said, “will it be safe? Will her house be safe?”

“I can’t promise that.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’d need to establish whether the chest has become an Interface itself, or whether it’s a Return connected to an existing manifestation.” She hesitated. “Removing a Return doesn’t remove whatever produced it. If your chest is a door, then closing it only closes that door.”

For weeks I’d been so sure that the danger was in my garage, in the wardrobe under its grey sheet, and that if I could just get it all out, the thing would lose its hold. But I couldn't get how the creature had clutched that toy to its chest like a terrified child, saying I didn’t mean it. And how it stopped the second Toby opened his mouth.

I don’t know if it sees Toby as a person. I don’t know if it’s hunting him or if Toby’s the one pulling it closer. 

What I do know is the wardrobe had never been in Alicia's house.

The only thing connecting those two places was Toby.

And through the window, I could see him sitting on the couch, talking to something that wasn't there.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

I knew it was an insane question, but I couldn’t stop asking it.

Could I save Nina?

Quintana was still playing solitaire, and I slipped into the chair across from her.  She knew how to play cards, to make tea, to be a good host.  Her mind was still working, even if it was confused.

“You said I needed to stop Nina from pulling the trigger.”

Quintana looked up at me, uncertain.

“Earlier, you said if I stopped Nina from pulling the trigger, I could save her.”

“If you say so,” Quintana answered, dismissive.

“If I play the game… if I play the game and I’m shown my daughter’s suicide, can I stop her from killing herself?  If I’m strong enough to defy the curse?  If I beat the gun and stop the trigger from being pulled?”

The idea formed in my mind as I said it, each word falling on top of the one before it.

“Is that what Angelo was trying to do?  Save his brother?”

“You don’t know anything,” Quintana snapped, as clear as anything she had said to me since opening the door.

The oxygen drained from my lungs.

Maybe I was fooling myself.

Maybe I should’ve burned the whole place down.

But that wouldn’t have brought Nina back.

“Now your tea is getting cold, dear,” Quintana finally said.

I was done with this woman and this house.

I called the police from her rotary phone, took the gun from Angelo’s hand, and walked out.

I don’t remember the drive home.

I stepped into Nina’s bedroom.  I hadn’t been in her room since she died.  I’d been too afraid.

Sitting at the edge of the bed, I called my sister.

Lauren’s concern for me bordered on panic.  She wanted to help.  She said she’d do anything for me.  But looking after my son a little longer was all the help I needed.

“Hey, buddy,” I said when Lauren finally passed the phone to Max.

“Hey, Dad.  Do you still miss me?”  

I laughed.  It was better than crying.  “Yeah.  Still miss you.  Big time.”

I told Max I’d see him soon.  That we’d play Mario Kart 8 together.  That we’d be a family again.

Then I waited for Max to hang up and tucked my phone away.

My eyes came to rest on the framed picture on Nina’s nightstand.  It was a photo of the two of us, both smiling – a snapshot of our relationship.  Not what it was in its entirety, far from it.  But what it was at its best.

What I wouldn’t have given to go back and live that moment again – and everything that came after.  To be a better father.  A better man.

But this wasn’t the time for sentimentality.

It was time for the game.

I braced myself.

I pulled the Lefaucheux revolver into my lap and placed my thumb on the hammer.  I returned my gaze to the photo.  Nina smiling.  So full of life.

I took a breath in.  I promised myself I wouldn’t look away.  I promised I wouldn’t breathe again, not fully, until this was over.

And then...

I pressed my thumb hard against the hammer and cocked it back.

Click.  Click-click-click-clickclickclickclickclick!

That’s the sound that echoed in my ears as an electric shock of terror-fueled adrenaline ripped through my veins.

A split second later, my eyes popped open and a rush of air was forced into my lungs.

I hadn’t realized I’d closed my eyes.  I hadn’t realized a heaviness had left my body.  But it had.  And now it was rapidly returning.

I found myself standing on a dusty street in a remote town.  Somewhere out West would’ve been my guess.

There was reddish dirt.  Vintage cars.  A Thomas E. Dewey for President sign in the shop window.

WTF?

No, seriously.  I couldn’t make sense of it – any of it.  What the actual fuck?

I glanced down at my hand.  I was still holding the Lefaucheux, but my hand wasn’t mine.  It looked like a hand that had worked for a living, stained and weathered by the sun.

And this is the thing I noticed immediately – felt immediately – that scared me.  I wasn’t in control.

Angelo had said that.  And it was true.  This man was in charge.  And whoever he was, there wasn’t an ounce of hesitation in his body.  I was in his skin, but I was just along for the ride, whether I wanted to be or not.

I desperately wanted this to be over.  This wasn’t what I was looking for.  The sooner this was over, the sooner I could play again, and maybe – just maybe – I could save Nina.

I reached the end of the block.  Or rather, this guy did.  He stopped in front of the First National Bank of Rock River.

That’s when I caught his reflection in the window – an old-timer in a shabby brown suit.

The man stepped inside the bank, and I went with him.

He clocked the young security guard dozing at his post by the door as he moved toward the counter.  He was pointing the gun at the teller before we even reached her.

A shot rang out.

I could hear the bullet whiz by.  I could feel its wind on the old-timer’s cheek.

I kept thinking: When will this be over?  Please, God, let this end.

We swung around.

The shot came from the security guard, who was awake now and scared, the gun unsteady in his hand.

He fired a second time, but he was clearly untrained, and the bullet missed again, shattering the glass partition.

I was as scared as he was.

But the old-timer wasn’t.  He was still sure of what he was doing, and he quickly aimed the Lefaucheux and pulled the trigger, blasting a hole in the young guard’s chest.

Bang.  Click.  Whoosh.

My eyes were still open, but everything suddenly became static.

A moment later, I started to feel Nina’s bedroom gather in around me.  To feel its comfort.

And then, like that, I was back.  Sitting on the bed, staring at the photo of the two of us.  Father and daughter at our best.

I didn’t want to do that again.  Once was enough.  Once was too much.

But I knew it was probably only the beginning.

I tried not to think about it.  I didn’t want to despair.  I had to keep going.

If I were going to save my daughter, I had to keep playing the game.

I cocked the hammer again.

Click.  Click-click-click-clickclickclickclickclick!

I was suddenly running through thick woods.  Branches snapped at me in the dark.

The hand that gripped the Lefaucheux was black.  And it was shaking.

Again, I wasn’t in control.  This wasn’t my body.  These weren’t my reactions.  Or my decisions.  It was happening to someone else, and I was simply trapped inside their terror.

The guy tripped and fell.  He tried to scramble to his feet, but he’d twisted an ankle, and the pain forced him to the ground again.

He jerked his body around, startled by a roar of voices.

I could see torches illuminating the woods.  I could see the angry mob charging toward us.

The guy lifted the Lefaucheux in defense.  His hand wouldn’t stop shaking.

The mob was almost on top of us.  There were too many of them – the guy knew that – but it was all he could think of to do.

We pulled the trigger.

The explosion cracked like lightning.

Bang.  Click.  Whoosh.

I was back in Nina’s bedroom, the gun’s hammer sprung forward again.

My eyes were still flickering with darkness.  I could feel the light slowly pushing its way back in.

I struggled to catch my breath.  I needed a moment.  But I knew if I waited – if I hesitated too long – it would only be harder.

I cocked the hammer.

Click.  Click-click-click-clickclickclickclickclick!

I was standing in the doorway of a mobile home, arguing with a redheaded woman.  My hand flailed in front of me, a finger jabbing at her aggressively.

My hand was female.

The nails were polished blue.

The redheaded woman suddenly spat in my face.  She spun around and rushed toward her car, a beat-up Buick.

I raced after her.  That’s when I noticed the Lefaucheux.  It was gripped in my other hand.

The redheaded woman reached the Buick and slid behind the wheel.  I could see her turning the key, but the car wouldn’t start.

I yanked open the door, thrust the gun inside, and pulled the trigger.

Bang.  Click.  Whoosh.

I was back in Nina’s room, the gun’s hammer sprang forward.

My eyes found the photo on the nightstand.  I was looking for strength in Nina’s smile.

I cocked the hammer.

Click.  Click-click-click-clickclickclickclickclick!

I was trapped under something heavy, gasping for air.

I pushed it away.

It was a body.

I was in a muddy trench on a battlefield.  Dead soldiers were everywhere.

Suddenly, an enemy soldier dropped into the trench, rifle braced in front of him.

I raised the Lefaucheux and pulled the trigger.

Click.  Click-click-click-clickclickclickclickclick!

A man pleaded for his life, down on his knees, the Lefaucheux shoved in his face.

I didn’t want to do what I was about to do.  But it wasn’t up to me.

I pulled the trigger.

Click.  Click-click-click-clickclickclickclickclick!

A frightening banging at the door. 

The door busted open.

A monster of a man charged in.

I lifted the Lefaucheux and fired.

Click-click-click-clickclickclickclickclick!

Click-click-click-clickclickclickclickclick!

Click-click-click-clickclickclickclickclick!

Click-click-click-clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick!

I vomited.

I couldn’t stop.

When it finally passed, I collapsed on the bathroom floor.

This next part gets a little… well, nightmarish.

I’m just going to tell it like it happened.

You can believe me or not.

Lying there on the floor, I tried to swallow, but I couldn’t.  My mouth was bone dry.

I pulled myself to the sink and put my mouth to the faucet.  I was desperate for water.

I caught my reflection in the mirror.  I looked haunted.

I was haunted.

Suddenly, standing behind me was the security guard from First National Bank of Rock River, a hole blasted through his chest.

“Fuck!”

I recoiled.

But he was gone.  Only my haunted reflection stared back at me.

I looked away.

I stumbled into the hallway, surprised to find it dark.  I flipped the switch.

Nothing happened.

The hallway seemed wrong.  Too long and narrow.  It extended into blackness.

Someone was there.  I could just make out the outline of their body.  They hadn’t moved.  They were standing, perfectly still, at the far end of the hall.

“Lauren?”

I squinted to see, but the person was shrouded in shadows.

What was this person doing in my house?

“What do you want?”

The person started moving toward me.

They started running at me.

I suddenly saw who it was.  It was the redheaded woman who had been shot in her stalled car, one side of her face completely missing.

She kept coming toward me, closing the distance between us with terrifying speed.

I stumbled backward, hurried into Nina’s bedroom, and slammed the door.

My breathing came in short, sharp gasps.

I tried to steady it, but I could barely draw a breath.

Then I heard something.

I put my ear to the door.

Someone was scratching at it.

Louder.

More desperate.

Bam!

Someone slammed into the door.

Bam!

Someone – or something – wanted in.

I pressed my body against the door, desperate to keep it closed.

Bam!

Bam!

I felt a cold breath on my shoulder and spun around.

Nothing.

BAM!

I spun back.

I was no longer in Nina’s bedroom.  I was in Uncle Ray’s room, standing at his bedside.

His hand shot up and grabbed me by the throat.

I struggled against his grip until I finally broke free.  I bolted from the room.

The hallway was eerily empty.

The fluorescent light overhead flickered.  Then it went out, plunging me into darkness.

I fumbled for the phone in my pocket and switched on the flashlight.

BAM!

I was no longer alone.

The hallway was crowded with the dead – all the people I’d watched die playing the game.  Their bodies broken.  Their faces bloody and twisted in agony.

They surged toward me.

I turned and ran, but my legs wouldn’t move fast enough.

I managed to reach the open elevator, but the dead were right behind me.  They piled in, trapping me inside a metal coffin.

Their hands clawed at me as if trying to tear me apart.

I fought them, writhing in pain, screaming.

My body jerked violently.

I came to on the bathroom floor, my cheek pressed hard against the cool tile.

I managed to sit up.

I let my weight fall against the wall.

That’s when I noticed the Lefaucheux.

It was still clutched in my hand, my knuckles white from the force of my grip.  It felt as if the gun had fused to me – become a part of me.

I would’ve tried to let go.  I would’ve tried to pry it from my hand.  But I wasn’t finished.  I couldn’t give up now.

I jammed my thumb against the hammer.

“Fuck you.”

And cocked it back.

Click.

I found myself in Nina’s bedroom again, sitting at the edge of the bed.

Was it over?  Was I back?

Why couldn’t I remember the last play of the game?

I didn’t need to remember.  I just needed to keep playing.

I went to cock the hammer.

But it was already cocked.

I stared at it, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

That’s when I noticed my hand.

It wasn’t mine.

My eyes raced to the vanity mirror across the room.  I think I knew what I’d see even before I caught the reflection.

It was my daughter’s face.

Nina’s eyes were glassy.

She was playing the game.

The sight stabbed at my heart.

But this was what I’d been waiting for.

This was what I’d been playing for.

“Nina!” a voice shouted.

It was Willow.  She was there in the room with us.

Nina began to raise the gun to her head.  I could feel her struggle.

I had to help her.  I had to win.

I had to save Nina.  Even if I lost.

This was my only chance.

But the fucking gun was in charge.  It possessed us both, and it wouldn’t stop making us do what it wanted.

The barrel slid into Nina’s mouth.

Oh, my God, no.

I kept fighting.

I kept raging.

Willow was crying now, begging Nina to come back.

Maybe Nina heard her, because the gun suddenly pulled away from her mouth.

Or maybe it was me.  Maybe I was beating the gun.

Maybe this was over.

I wanted this to be over.

But I didn’t trust the gun.

I could feel the tears on Nina’s cheeks.

Her fear.  Her regret.

Her eyes closed.

The darkness terrified me.

The gun was still heavy in my hand.  I kept pushing against the unseen force that had invaded both of our bodies.

The barrel slammed against Nina’s temple.

I knew it.  This wasn’t over.

I could feel Nina’s love.

Her love for me.

Her eyes fluttered open.

But now it was my reflection in the mirror.

I could see how hard I was fighting.

Still, it wasn’t enough.

My finger was on the trigger.

Twitch, twitch.

The veins in my temples throbbed.

Tears pooled in my eyes.

Fuck you, gun.  Fuck you.

Twitch, twitch.

Suddenly, my left hand was on the gun.  Somehow, I managed to grab it.  I don’t know how.

Sheer will.

I tried to wrench it away from my head.

From Nina’s head.

But it wouldn’t budge.

Twitch, twitch.

I bore down on the gun with all the strength I could summon.  I wanted to crush it.  To destroy it.

The hammer dug into my palm.

The metal cut into my flesh.

I kept squeezing.

Blood seeped from my clenched fist.

Then poured.

Twitch, twitch.

It was as if the gun itself was bleeding now.

Hemorrhaging.

And still...

I kept fighting.

Twitch, twitch, twitch, twi--

I can’t explain what happened next.

It was over.  That’s all that mattered.

I saved my daughter’s life.

Or maybe she saved mine.

That first morning after playing the game, I watched Max sketching in his notebook at the kitchen table.

He finally stopped and took a deep breath, pleased with himself.

This had been harder to draw than the gun, but worth it.  Three people holding hands: a father and his children – a boy and a teenage girl.

Nina suddenly hugged him from behind.

“I love the way you see me.”

Her eyes twinkled with life.  Max had gotten those eyes right.

“I left out the zit on your chin,” he said.

Nina laughed.  “Thanks, kiddo.”

A horn honked outside.  The school bus was early.  Max stuffed his sketchbook in his knapsack and hurried toward the door.

“Don’t I get a hug?”  I said.

Max rushed at me, our bodies colliding in a tangled embrace. 

“Can I get in on that?” Nina asked.

I reached for her and pulled her in.

I could’ve stayed like that forever.

But we all had more life to live.

A second honk sent Max squirming free and rushing out.

I wanted to say something to Nina before she was gone, but the words didn’t come.

She seemed okay with that.  Just the fact that we were standing there was enough.

She grabbed her bag, then turned back at the door.

“I love you, Daddy.”

She didn’t wait for me to say it back.  She didn’t need me to, I guess.

She knew how I felt.

She knew everything now.

As for the Lefaucheux revolver, I’d broken off its hammer fighting to save Nina.  The game was impossible to play now.

But that wasn’t enough for me.

I found a steel mill and delivered the damaged weapon myself.

I watched them drop it into a cauldron of molten steel heated to nearly 3,000 degrees.

The steel swallowed it whole.

I smiled.

I closed my eyes.

I exhaled.

Click.

At 11:43 last Tuesday night, the pedestrian crossing outside my workplace announced that three people were waiting to cross.

I was standing there alone.

I work the closing shift at a pharmacy. There's a four-lane road between the building and the bus stop I use to get home, with one of those talking pedestrian signals for visually impaired people.

Normally, when you press the button, a woman's recorded voice says, "Wait to cross Bell Street."

I've heard it hundreds of times.

Last Tuesday, it said something different.

"Three pedestrians waiting. Wait to cross Bell Street."

I looked around. Nobody on either side of the road.

It had been raining, and the street was practically empty. I figured they'd installed some new pedestrian-counting system and it was malfunctioning.

I didn't give it much thought until Thursday.

That night, I was standing at the same crossing with a man from the takeaway place next door. He had a bicycle and a big paper bag of food balanced on the handlebars.

I pressed the button.

"Four pedestrians waiting."

The guy looked up.

"Four?" he said.

I laughed and told him it had been doing that lately.

He shrugged. The signal changed, and we crossed.

But halfway across, I heard footsteps behind us.

Not unusual, except that the road was wet enough that I could hear each shoe slap against the asphalt.

There were three distinct sets of footsteps.

I turned around.

Nobody.

The guy with the bicycle was already ahead of me. He didn't seem to notice anything.

The footsteps stopped when I stopped.

I got on my bus and went home.

Friday was when I started getting genuinely frightened.

I'd finished work late because our card reader kept freezing. It was almost midnight by the time I got outside.

The crossing was empty.

I pressed the button.

"Five pedestrians waiting."

I actually said, "Oh, fuck off," out loud.

Then I noticed something in the window of the closed dry cleaner's beside me.

The glass reflects the pavement, especially at night when the shop is dark.

In the reflection, there were four people standing behind me.

An older woman in a pale coat. A man wearing what looked like a work uniform. Someone shorter, possibly a teenager, with a hood pulled up.

And a fourth person standing so close behind me that I could only see part of their shoulder.

I spun around.

Empty pavement.

When I turned back to the window, all four were still there.

They weren't looking at me.

They were looking across the road.

I tried moving sideways.

My reflection moved.

Theirs didn't.

Then the woman in the pale coat raised her right arm.

I watched her reach toward the pedestrian button.

The actual button, beside my elbow, clicked.

Nobody was touching it.

The speaker repeated, "Five pedestrians waiting."

I backed away so quickly I nearly tripped over the kerb.

Something brushed against my coat.

I felt it clearly. Fingers, right between my shoulder blades, pressing through the fabric.

I ran back to the pharmacy.

Our manager hadn't left yet. I told him somebody had been following me, which was technically the truth as far as I understood it.

He walked me to my car, which I'd left in the staff parking lot that day because I'd planned to take the bus and collect it the following morning.

I drove home instead.

Over the weekend I reported the crossing through the city's maintenance website. I described the announcement and the button apparently activating without being pressed.

I left out the people in the window.

Monday afternoon I got an email saying a technician had inspected the equipment and found no faults.

He also wrote that the signal didn't have pedestrian-detection capabilities. The recorded announcements were standard messages programmed into the unit.

It wasn't designed to count anyone.

I forwarded the email to my manager. He told me to stop worrying about a broken speaker.

I wish I had listened to him.

Last night I finished at 11:30.

I'd parked on the opposite side of the road specifically so I wouldn't have to use the crossing, but when I reached my car, I realized I'd left my bag in the staff room.

I considered driving around the block.

Instead, I walked back toward the crossing.

The speaker was silent. The little red hand was illuminated.

I didn't touch the button.

"One pedestrian waiting," it said.

My stomach dropped.

I stood completely still.

After a few seconds, it repeated itself.

"One pedestrian waiting."

I started to back away.

"Two pedestrians waiting."

There was a soft scraping sound behind me. Like a shoe being dragged over concrete.

I looked at the dark window of a furniture shop across the road.

In its reflection, the woman in the pale coat was standing beside me.

Closer than she'd been on Friday.

Her head was tilted toward my shoulder.

I could make out her face this time.

Her eyes were closed. Her mouth hung slightly open, and something dark had dried around her lips.

I couldn't see her in the street itself.

Only in the glass.

"Three pedestrians waiting."

The man in the work uniform appeared behind her.

I ran.

I made it maybe fifteen feet before something caught my left wrist.

It was a hand. There is no other way to describe it.

Five cold fingers wrapped around my wrist, squeezing hard enough to hurt.

I looked down.

There was nothing there.

But the skin above my watch was being pushed inward, and my hand was turning white.

I screamed and pulled.

It didn't let go.

Then the crossing announced, very calmly, "Walk sign is on to cross Bell Street."

My arm jerked backward.

Not toward the pavement.

Toward the road.

My shoes scraped across the concrete as something pulled me off the kerb. I tried grabbing the signal pole with my free hand but missed.

I remember seeing the headlights of a delivery van coming toward me.

Then there was a horn, a terrible screeching noise, and I fell.

The van stopped a few feet from where I landed.

The driver got out shouting. I was on my hands and knees in the road, crying so hard I couldn't explain what had happened.

He helped me onto the pavement.

I kept looking behind him.

In the shop window, all four figures were standing in the road.

The woman in the pale coat was closest.

Her arm was still extended.

Then the pedestrian countdown reached zero.

Every figure in the reflection turned toward me.

All at once.

The crossing announced, "Wait to cross Bell Street."

The figures disappeared.

The driver wanted to call an ambulance. I asked him to take me back to the pharmacy instead. I couldn't stand the idea of being left alone beside that road.

He did.

Before I got out, he asked me something.

"Who was the woman?"

I froze.

He said he'd seen a woman standing just behind me as he approached the crossing. He thought she'd pushed me into the road.

When he braked, he lost sight of her.

He hadn't seen anyone else.

I asked what she looked like.

He said she was wearing a light-coloured coat.

My manager drove me home. I've taken two days off work.

My wrist is badly bruised. There are five distinct marks around it, including one just below my watch where a thumb would have been.

I haven't told the police about the reflections. I've given them the driver's information and explained that someone grabbed me, but I never saw the person directly.

I don't know what else I can reasonably tell them.

This morning I was looking at pictures of the crossing on Google Street View, trying to work out whether there might be a hidden camera or something reflected in the shop windows.

One thing bothered me enough that I called the city's traffic department again.

In the pictures, the crossing has two pedestrian buttons, one on either side of Bell Street.

Both are identical.

Both have small speakers mounted underneath.

I realized something I hadn't thought about before.

Every time I heard the announcement, I was standing on the pharmacy side of the road.

But last night, I was on the opposite side.

And the speaker said, "One pedestrian waiting."

It didn't say two until I started backing away.

There was already someone standing there when I arrived.

I just couldn't see her.

I've been thinking about that all morning.

Because on Friday, the signal counted five.

And I only saw four people in the window.