CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - 3+ Hours of Chilling Nightmare Fuel Horror Stories for a long night drive

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

CREEPYPASTA STORIES-►0:00 "The Deer I Buried Keeps Coming Back. Dirtier Each Time." Creepypasta►49:35 "I’m a Bird Watcher. But the Thing Watching Me Back in the Trees Wasn’t a Bird." Creepypasta►1:10:51 "My Brother Died at Birth. My Parents Still Made Me Share a Room With Him." Creepypasta►1:40:32 "I'm a Crane Operator on a Remote Tower Build. Something Started Climbing Up After Me" Creepypasta►2:14:27 "I’ve Been a Cop for 20 Years. Nothing Prepared Me For What Happened Last Night" Creepypasta►2:51:01 "I work on the farm my father left me. He had me doing the strangest tasks" CreepypastaCreepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO-SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd...iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS-►"Good Places to Start"-    • "I wasn't careful enough on the deep web" ...  ►"Personal Favourites"-    • "I sold my soul for a used dishwasher, and...  ►"Written by me"-    • "I've been Blind my Whole Life" Creepypasta  ►"Long Stories"-    • Long Stories  FOLLOW ME ON-►Twitter:   / creeps_mcpasta  ►Instagram:   / creepsmcpasta  ►Twitch:   / creepsmcpasta  ►Facebook:   / creepsmcpasta  CREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only

I shot the buck just after dusk beneath a stand of ash trees mottled with rot. The sound of the rifle cracked through the quiet in that empty stretch of forest, and for a second, everything stilled. Then the insects resumed. It wasn't sport, it never was. The thing limped when it moved, back legs swollen at the knee, left antlers split and jagged at the base, eyes already clouding.

From 50 feet away, I could smell the sickness. I've worked enough control jobs to know the signs of chronic wasting disease, CWD for short, before the field tests confirmed it. Wasting is slow. It hollows them out from the inside, leaves them standing in creeks with their mouths open, drinking nothing. The state's mandate was clear. Any deer with visible symptoms was to be put down and reported.

I approached with gloves on, took the usual post-mortem photos, and recorded the GPS coordinates, marked the tag number R-dash-7769, clipped beneath the skinfold near the right shoulder. Standard insert, deep enough that scavengers wouldn't reach it easily. The retrieval team was scheduled to arrive by morning to hold the, the body in for testing and disposal. I stayed long enough to watch the flies settle. Then I hiked back through the thinning trees and drove to the ranger's lot, where I kept my temporary logbook.

Entry made, time recorded. Another task finished. The next morning, I got a call. Nothing there, the guy said through the crackling line. Some bones scattered. No hide, no carcass. I told him I bagged it clean, tagged it myself, gave the coordinates again. Most have been coyotes or a bear. You know how quick they are this time a year.

I also knew what was normal and what wasn't. Predators don't clean up after themselves. There was no fur left, no drag marks, no prints in the soil around the site. They logged it as unrecovered, told me not to worry. These things happen. Still, I wrote a secondary entry in my personal field notes, separate from the agency forms. Mail, estimate, five years, left antler fracture, swollen rear joint. Tracking tag, R-7769 confirmed. No retrieval.

Carcass missing. It wasn't the first time something went off script out here. But this one wouldn't leave me. Something about the way it looked just before I pulled the trigger. Not startled, not wide-eyed. Just still. Later that evening, while transferring photos for filing, I noticed the last one in the series.

A frame taken just before I shouldered the rifle. The bug standing there angled toward me, head tilted. It almost looked like it was waiting. I wasn't even thinking about it. when it showed up again. It was nearly midnight when I sat down with a trail cam footage. We rotate through drives every few days, set up motion-triggered cams across the perimeter

to catch anything sick or staggering through the zone after hours. The forest goes dead quiet at night, but that's when the worst ones move, the late stage wanderers, the ones the diseases already hollowed out. That was my part of the job. track sick deer and called the population to reduce the spread. We had an on-site lap working on possible treatments at the same time.

I clicked through without much focus, just background noise while I compiled sample logs. One camera had flagged motion across the ravine three nights prior. The footage was grainy, black and white, time stamped just after 1 a.m. A deer across from right to left, angling downhill through a dried creek bed, limber but slow. I paused on the third frame. Something about the shape caught me. I zoomed in.

Rear legs slightly raised, the joint bulged. Front left antler crooked backward at the base, not broken off, but warped like the core had splintered. I already knew what I was looking at before the shape got closer to the camera. There was a faint glint behind the shoulder. One of our tracking tags, iridescent under infrared, positioned exactly where I had inserted R-7769. It was the same buck, the one I shot, no mistake.

Same wound, same tag, same stance. I leaned forward, rewound, and let it play again. But this time, I know. as something else. The gate was wrong. The rear leg didn't drag in the twitchy, spasmodic way late-stage CWD sufferers usually moved. It swung, smooth, unbroken, too clean.

There was no tension in the neck either. The head stayed level, even as it walked uneven terrain, as if something else was moving the limbs, but not from within. No bobbing, no tension through the spine. It was as if the body was being pulled forward in segments, carried, not powered. I went cold. I checked the GPS location embedded in the file.

It was within a quarter mile of the same stand of ash where I'd shot it days ago. It has the same elevation and the same forest density. I cross-referenced the tree formations behind the figure. Thin lines of leafless branches, a birch with a same. split trunk and match them to my phone photos from the calling site. Too close, too precise. There's a coincidence. And then there's this. Which meant either the shot had missed somehow or something else was walking around with a dear skin. I didn't sleep much that night. I lay in my cot with my laptop screen still open, paused on the frame of that book, standing still in

the ravine, head low, limbs straight, eyes barely catching the light. It was facing. The camera. The footage kept coming. Each morning brought a new flagged clip. Each time, the same buck, same shattered antler and the same crooked back leg. Always alone, always after midnight, always brushing at the edge of the camera's infrared beam, as if it knew, just how much it could show without being caught full on. At first, I thought I was looking for patterns out of paranoia, but by the third night, I started marking the appearances on a field map. The dots were scattered at first, too scattered to mean much.

But on the fifth entry, I saw it. It was moving in a slow arc. Not a wandering loop, not lost, disoriented pattern. There was structure to it. The deer was following a wide perimeter path around the zone. Not random, not frantic, steady, predictable, as if it was circling something or someone. I checked the camera's placement again, laid out the route and drew the circle.

It wasn't perfect, but it was closing in. The last three appearances had all been a little tighter. I followed the progression and placed a pushpin at the rough centre. It was us, the base camp trailer, which meant either this thing was tracking me or retracing the path of its own death. Maybe both. I packed a small kit and headed out at first light,

telling the team I was following a trail report. That wasn't unusual. I'd done solo follow-ups before, and no one questioned it. I hiked about 40 minutes to reach the spot where I'd put the buck down. The ash trees were still there. Same slope, same wing-carved patch of dead earth, where the undergrowth had never fully returned after the fires a few years back. But there was no blood, no drag marks, not even a disturbed pile of leaves.

What I found instead was a shallow depression in the dirt, ringed with brush and sticks. Not a scrape, not a bedding spot. Something had arranged the space intentionally. In the centre,

a crude pile of gathered debris. Small bones, some snapped bird feathers, the twisted remains of something that looked like a jaw. It was almost organised, It had a rough symmetry, though not in a way a deer should be capable of. They don't build, they don't nest, they don't collect, which meant it was acting on instinct. Something in it, whatever was walking that body, was aware, deliberate, maybe even learning. I took photos, sent them to my field laptop and marked the area for follow-off.

but I didn't send the images to the department. Not yet. I wasn't ready to explain why I was chasing a deer that should have been rotting under six inches of dirt. When I packed up and turned to leave, I swore I heard something shift behind the tree line, not the crash of a startled animal, just the slow, deliberate shift of weight,

as if something waited until I looked away. I didn't turn around. I walked back to camp with the sense that whatever this thing was, it had built something. And it was only the beginning. It was nearly 3 a.m. when something hit the cabin wall, not a scratch or scrape, a thud, heavy and direct. No follow-up, no scurry of retreating hooves,

just one single deliberate impact. The sound jolted me upright. I stayed frozen for a moment, ear straining. Then another noise came, much softer this time. A slight creak of the pine frame settling, or something leaning into it. I grabbed the laptop and flipped through the most recent footage. The cabin cam facing the entry showed nothing, just the unmoving trail of crushed grass and the steel bare box. I clicked over to the rear fee.

one I set up mostly to monitor raccoon activity. That's where I saw it. Not close up, not detailed, but enough. The deer stood just within the infrared glow. Upright, not on all fours. Standing. Its rear legs were locked to the joints, thin but rigid. The rest of the body sagged forward, front limbs dangling like,

dead weight. His chest was bowed, the ribcage compressed. The head hung far too forward before slowly lifting, stiff and unsure. It took one step forward, then another. Every movement was strained, trembling with the effort to balance. It moved like a puppet strung by hands that had never seen a living thing. But it kept its head upright. Even in the poor resolution, I could see it tracking the lens. Its face had changed. The snout was partly caved in, no longer a clean line of bone and fur. Skin slumped over one side, sagging down past the jaw.

It looked heavier than before, swollen or softened. No glint of eyes, just the hollows where they used to sit. It didn't graze, didn't sniff. just stood there watching. This wasn't a scavenger wearing a carcass. It was an instinct. It was tracking something. Me.

I closed the laptop and went to the filing crate under the bunk. I dug out the original kill log, the handwritten one, but not the digital report I filed later. It had blood on the corner from the tagging knife, but everything else was clean. coordinates, time, tag code, a quick field sketch. And then I saw it, scrolled in the side margin, a faint pencil nearly scrubbed away. Burn after disposal.

I hadn't noticed it. The retrieval crew had never shown. There was an instruction left by the lab team I had missed, which meant whatever that thing was, whatever was walking around in the hollowed-out body of deer. I had left it there. I had given it time. I grabbed the heavy lock from the gear chest and bolted the front door, pushed the chair under the handle out of some useless instinct. It wouldn't stop anything with real weight behind it, but it made me feel like I was doing something. Outside, the wind had dropped. No forest movement, no insects ticking against the window glass.

It felt like the woods had emptied out, like the normal rules of wilderness had paused. I didn't sleep. I sat in the corner with a camera feed open, staring at the second angle, waiting for it to return. But it never did. Morning light bled through the closed curtains. The printout still sat on the counter, half crumbled. Burn after disposal. I hadn't shown it to anyone.

Who would I tell? I just kept refreshing the trail cam app and waiting for another ping. Nothing yet. My head was starting to hurt, probably from the stress. My sinuses felt swollen and pressure was mounting. Still, I needed to see it again.

Not through a screen. I needed something to confirm it was just a deer, some rational explanation, something my brain could, had pinned down. I hiked back to the clearing in the late afternoon with the same gear and the same boots. The air felt heavier out there, still but watchful.

I stepped carefully, scanning the brush around the old kill site. No body, of course. That was gone the first time. But something else had been left behind. Near a thicket, I found a patch of fur snagged along a thornbush. Dark, coarse, unmistakable. A few feet beyond that, I spotted a smear of something darker on the flat side of a spilled rock, looked dry and waxy. Not rot exactly, almost preserved.

I pulled the sample with tweezers, wrapped it in foil, and packed it for the walk back. In my cabin, I set up my old field scope. It was an high end, barely better than a biological. student's training model, but it could still read enough at low magnification. I sliced the sliver from the waxy tissue and placed it on a slide with a saline drop. The second I looked through the lens, I felt the back of my neck go cold. There were seams, not cuts, not scars, seam lines, tiny, symmetrical striations crossing in a grid pattern just below the surface. The cells weren't dried out either. They were alive,

more than alive. They were organized, pulsing faintly. Something was knitting them together as if the tissue had been rebuilt rather than preserved, which meant it hadn't died the way I thought, or if it had, it hadn't stayed that way. No deer tissue been. behaves like that, especially not after sitting exposed to weather or scavengers for days. It should have been dust by now. I set up a quick test with what I had, some ammonia-based cleaner and a few protein indicators. Crude, sure, but good enough for basic reactivity. I placed another tissue sliver in a shallow dish, added the cleaning agent, and watched.

The reaction was instant. Violent bubbling, a hiss of vapor, and a reek like scorched air and formaldehyde. The tissue turned black, curling in on itself like it had nerves. The smell was chemical, but sharp enough to sting behind my eyes. I rinsed the dish and flushed the sample. My hands were shaking, but I couldn't stop thinking. I couldn't stop asking myself, What regenerative mechanism could survive that reaction?

What kind of biology could fake life that cleanly? I searched for anything similar. Fungal colonies, synthetic graphs, parasitic worms that repurpose host tissue. But nothing matched. By nightfall, I was just staring at the wall, mind blank. The camera feed pinged. I tapped on the app. The clearing cam had triggered.

There it was again. The deer stood at the tree line, just standing, but something was different this time. I had to squint to see it, but I couldn't unsee it once I noticed it. The left foreleg was gone, not chewed or torn, just missing. The skin along the shoulder was smooth,

pale under the moonlight, stretched tight like clay. but the thing didn't limp. It stood evenly, shifting its weight like the limb had never been there at all. I zoomed in further, as much as the grainy frame would allow. The deer turned toward the camera. I froze. The neck didn't turn smoothly.

It cracked sideways, fast and unnatural, the rest of the body remaining still. A snap in the joint or somewhere deeper. But it didn't recoil, didn't blink. It just stared directly at the lens. And for a moment, I had the horrible impression. It saw me. Not the camera. Me.

Then, it walked off screen. Not limping. Not struggling. Just walking. Purpose. I shut the app and sat there until sunrise. No new alerts came in that night. I stopped sleeping for more than an hour at a time.

The headaches were worse now, full pressure behind the eyes, like something swelling beneath my skull. My nose wouldn't stop bleeding that morning. It was just a thin trickle that ran whenever I tilted forward. I couldn't hold food, couldn't hold a thought. I told work I was sick. I didn't go in. I didn't tell them why.

I just wanted to be alone, to figure it out, to run the test again. I kept telling myself this was chronic wasting disease. I had studied it after all. That's why we were here. But this didn't match the spread pattern. No drooping ears, no emaciation, and the regeneration didn't make sense. The movement. the fact that it stood.

I pulled up the trail cam archive. A new ping two nights ago. Camera 12. The farthest one facing the southern edge where the old logging road ends. At first, I thought it was a poacher. Human shape, movement slow, head tilted too far down.

But the figure was shirtless, stumbling, with hands twitching at his sides, knees stiff. Then he turned slightly toward the lens, and I froze. I recognized him. Not the face, the posture, the build, the way one shoulder hunched slightly from an old break. It was Nathan, one of the seasonal hires who helped with retrieval and sight clean up. He hadn't shown up to base in over a week.

New angle, camera 13, same clearing, 30 seconds long. The deer came through first, from the left, limping, dragging one hind leg. Then it stopped, just stood there. Seconds later, the man entered from the opposite side, crawling, hands and feet in the dirt. He stopped a few feet from the deer. neither reacted. There was no fear, no sound. They simply coexisted, standing and swaying in the same poisoned wind.

That was the last clip. No new alerts came after that. I closed the app. I sat there for hours, waiting for another ping. The room was still, but I couldn't hear birds anymore. No buzz of summer insects outside the cabin. Even the trees looked off. The underbrush is too low, too quiet.

I chicked my nose. Another streak of blood on the back of my hand. I hadn't even felt it. I felt woozy, so I lay down and passed out. The final trail cam clip was still frozen on screen when I woke. I shut the laptop. My nose had started bleeding again, slow and steady, tracing a warm smear down past my upper lip.

I wiped it with a sleeve of my hoodie, staring at the wall for a moment as my breath came in shallow poles. The air felt too heavy, or maybe my lungs were slowing down. I tried calling Nathan, the assistant I thought I had seen in the footage. A call rang twice, then cut to voicemail. The backup tablet still had access to the DNR field office network. I logged in and pulled the remote tracker logs.

No check-ins for 36 hours. Not from the monitoring team, field counters, or even the auto-flagged deer cams. Nothing. I pinged the emergency contacts. All three admin names came up offline. In the bathroom mirror, I didn't look right. The skin under my eyes was drawn and waxy, my face pale in a way that light couldn't explain. A red burst had crept into the white of my left eye, capillaries bloomed outward like roots.

When I pressed a knuckle to my cheekbone, the pressure dulled slowly, without edge. I didn't need a blood panel to confirm it. Whatever was in the deer, whatever had kept it moving, was in me now too. And if I was infected, it meant I was on a timer. I didn't bother calling the office again. I didn't report symptoms. There wasn't anyone left to explain it to. If I waited for help, I'd be a walking corpse before anyone arrived.

I packed fast. Cold packs, the preserve sample, trail notes, ammonia strips and field accelerants. Every drive that had footage, a USB with basic microscope imaging software, enough canned food to last a few days if I needed them. The wind outside had gone still. The cabin didn't creak, no birds called, no insects, just the low hum of trees remembering their weight. The main lab was 70 miles north, DNR affiliated but independent. It had a backup generator, cold store. and a sterilization hood.

If I could get there before my symptoms worsened, maybe I could finish what I started, trace the spread, burn out whatever had learned to wear skin. I locked the cabin door behind me, one last glance at the tree line. Nothing moved. But the silence felt, aware.

I got in the truck, started the engine, and drove without checking. the rear view. If I didn't make it in time. No one would. I reached the lab just past dusk. The trees pressed in tight along the road, branches clawing at the truck as I rolled up the gravel path. No signs of field biologists or late shifts. Just the wind and the low hum of the backup generator struggling to keep rhythm. The front doors are unlocked. Inside, the overhand. The overhand. The overhand head fluorescence flickered behind stained plastic covers. A couple balls buzzed in their sockets, casting long, uneven shadows across the tiled floor. The air smelled faintly of bleach and

something else, something deeper, damp, iron, sweet. No voices greeted me, no motion, just the slow, steady beep of a security door stuck half a jar in the back hallway. The reception desk was abandoned. A mug of coffee still steamed faintly, the rim stained with a half-finished sip. A pair of reading glasses sat beside it, folded neatly as if someone meant to return. They hadn't. I moved deeper into the facility. The surveillance room was unlocked, which wasn't protocol. The wall of monitors stuttered with looping footage from around the building, front gate, access hall, generator room, exterior trails. One feed caught my attention. A shape crouched in the tree line behind the lab. Not human. Broad-shouldered, hunched, unmoving. Another monitor showed a figure

walking shirtless down a staff hallway, bare feet, pale skin. He was dragging something behind him, a metal pole clattering against the tile. There wasn't a patient wing in this building, no beds, no IV stands, but I knew what I saw. I killed the feeds, no need to watch more than I had to. The freezer lab was worse. The door stood open a few inches, cold air spilling out. Inside, the stainless steel racks were half empty. Tray overturned, vials cracked across the floor in a fine glitter of broken glass and thawed residue.

The walls glistened with condensation, fingerprints smeared into the frost. I found a catalogue of samples similar to the ones I collected myself. Had they been working on this the whole time? If so, to what end? I checked the surrounding shells for any signs of tampering. One broken violet spilled down the side of the unit. The trails stopped at the floor, but didn't pool.

Instead, it's split, streaks drawn outward by something moving, low and slow. That's when I saw the prints. Not boot treads. Hoof prints. But not natural ones. Each was split, yes, but too long, too narrow. The pressure pattern was wrong, centered toward the toe, as if whatever made them had been balancing, creeping.

They led away from the freezer, across the lab floor, right to the wall vent. I stepped closer. The cover was off, bent to the corners. Inside, the duct was streaked dark, A few long strands of fur clung to the inner rim. Not dear fur, something coarser, almost wire-like. Something had already been here before me, or someone had let it in. I stood there a moment, listening.

Somewhere in the back wing, something metal scraped across tile. Then nothing. I closed the freezer and sealed the remaining sun. samples in my personal cold case. My hands were shaking as I locked the lab door behind me. And now I wasn't sure who or what had ever been running this place. By morning, my hands were shaking. It started small, just the fingers, but I couldn't get a cap of a vial without fumbling.

My vision kept slipping out of focus, not constantly, just in rhythmic flickers. In the mirror above the lab sink, I watched my pupils expand and shrink back and forth like they couldn't decide what they were supposed to do. My gums had started to ache. I tore a sheet from the back of an abandoned chart and pinned it to my jacket. If I lose speech, burn the body, do not touch the skin. Then I made for the biology wing. Only the emergency lights were working. in this part of the lab, casting dim, jittering gold across the tiles.

The carts were overturned, papers had been scattered, trampled, or sewed through from a broken pipe in the ceiling. Breath fogged in the air. It was cold. I pulled the logbook from the wreckage of a desk. Most of the pages were useless. Notes about wildlife counts, nutrition breakdowns, half-finished hypotheses. I flipped to the back.

There, wedge between two damp pages was a loose sheet of paper with sharp handwriting. Secondary host showed accelerated symptoms after exposure to decomposing infected tissue, delayed infection correlated with chemical disruption, ammonia and alcohol treatments. I stopped. My symptoms started after handling the sample, but I had stumbled on using the sample. but I had stumbled on using ammonia while doing rudimentary tests. Whatever concoction I had accidentally breathed in hadn't cured me,

but it delayed what had happened to the seasonal hire I saw skulking with the deer. It bought me time, a buffer. The others, they worked under protocol, sterile, precise, direct exposure. I followed it, the note and slipped it into my jacket.

There wasn't a cure, but at least I now understood why I was still walking. And this inspired my makeshift idea. I found one last working autoclave near the end of the wing. It rumbled to life when I keyed in the override. I scraped together everything I could. What remained of the preserved tissue,

anything I touched, or with gloves, even the container, and loaded it all into the chamber. The inside was coated with black residue, not mould, something else. Maybe someone had already tried this. I set the burn, locked the hatch, and stepped away before the heating cycle could even start.

My legs were slower now, not numb, just heavy. Every step felt delayed, like the signals were moving through sludge. I touched the glass in the hallway. I couldn't feel it. I couldn't feel the chill against my fingers. I left through the back.

The woods were still, grey, the clouds hung low over the canopy. And somewhere behind me, the lab hissed with steam. I didn't know if the sterilisation would do anything, didn't know if it was too late. but I had one more thing to do. I packed everything I needed and worked on the move. Not a cure, just a final step, and started walking where it all began. I didn't follow the trail camroots this time,

the clearing where I shut the book, where the carcass vanished, where I should have burned it. I carried everything with me my pack, an improvised cocktail, cleaning ammonia and accelerants. I cobbled together materials for a makeshift device, powdered rust scraped from the back of hinges of old equipment and aluminium shavings pulled from trail signs. It wasn't a perfect thermite mix,

but it would ignite, enough to burn tissue, enough to destroy whatever was rewriting it. The walk was longer than I remembered. Or maybe, I was slower. My joints ached, my fingers tingled, the fever behind my eyes pulsed in waves, clouding the corners of my vision. But I was still thinking clearly. I could still make decisions. That meant I still had time. I used this time to make improvised devices crude but functional.

The trees changed before the path did. At first, I thought it was just fine. Settling through the branches, but the bark had a sheen, not wet, waxed. A fine spread of pale threads ran between the trunks, and when I brushed past one, it stuck to my jacket. I reached the clearing. It wasn't a nest anymore. It had bloomed. The glade was a full sprawl of organic spires, sinew and fungal bloom, long venous threads. ran between trees and into the undergrowth.

The dirt looked bruised. There were thick nodules the size of fists half buried in the soil throbbing, fungal stalks that had grown into warped, ribbed structures, almost like cages. But I couldn't tell if they were meant to keep something in or out. The smell was worse than any rot I'd encountered, a mix of iron fermentation,

and something vaguely sweet, like ripe fruit gone sour. The wildlife was gone. No birds, no insects. But around the perimeter, the ground was littered with corpses. Rodents, a raccoon, something small and canine, maybe a fox. Some of them were twitching, not breathing, spasming, as if their bodies hadn't caught up with the fact that they were already dead.

One of them, a rabbit, jerked its head upright, jaw twitching open. A sound came out, not a breath, a click, maybe an attempted speech. I didn't stay close enough to listen. This was what it had been doing, not hunting, cultivating. It was rewriting the instructions that told Muslin Bone how to be. in the center of the glade was a mound. Flesh, hair, antler, segments of deer skull fused with what looked like vertebrae, human ribs, tangled legs, some still clothed in remnants of field pants. A name patch peaked out, half fused into the tissue.

I didn't go closer to read it. I already knew. I dropped to my knees, opened my pack. began assembling the ammonia. The heat was rising in me now, internal, pressing. I was sweating hard. My tongue was thick in my mouth. The ammonia stung my nose, but I needed it.

I poured carefully, trying to keep my hands steady. Just a few minutes, just one successful ignition. I heard the footsteps before I saw them. Not hooves, not claws. feet. I turned slowly. The thermite charge half assembled in my lap. Three figures stepped out from behind the edge of the nest.

People, or what it used to be. My field team, Harris, from my old lab rotation, Jenna, the intern who logged samples, and one of the rangers I used to check in with on morning rounds. Their skin looked spongy. water-logged and blotched with grey patches that pulsed beneath the surface. Their veins ran black and branched across their arms and neck. All three of them stared at me through clouded white eyes,

lips parted in slow, shallow breaths that didn't sound like breathing at all. They weren't charging, they didn't groan or howl. They just stepped forward. Their arms stiff, their heads tilting, and their mouths slack, like they were still trying to remember how movement worked. To them, I just looked like another infected returning to the hive. I took a shaky breath, raised a hand without meaning to.

I'm sorry, I said. For a second, something flickered behind Harris's eyes. A twitch in the cheek, his jaw shifted. I saw his lip. tried to form a word, but all that came out was a wet rasp, a throat too soft to carry sound. There was still sympathy, a glimmer of humanity that was rapidly fading. Then came the deer. They had no such feelings.

They emerged slowly, deliberately, and confident from the trees behind the team. The upright one leaned forward with a step, spine trembling with effort, but its limbs moved cleanly now. Behind it crawled another, shoulder twisted, dragging its weight along the patch of exposed roots. The last one moved worst of all. It dragged a fuse limb that wasn't fully dear, part bone, part human muscle, strung together with a wrong tension. They made no noise, their heads cocked with a mechanical curiosity, all eyes locked on me,

and they saw what I was doing. A half puffed out from their nostrils as they redded to charge, hooves bracing to sprint. My hand shook as I reached for the striker. The first scrape gave nothing, the second sparked. On the third, it caught. I lit the smallest flask of ammonia and hurled it at the edge of the neck. It hissed on contact.

The fungal web sizzled, the black-vaney threads pulling back from the chemical burn like they were alive. That did it. The reanimated abomination stumbled forward, not toward me, but toward the patch I'd hit. Twitching, compelled. Pain, instinct, rage. I couldn't tell. But it told me something important. They had a choice.

They didn't lunge at me, not yet. They went for the fire. I didn't give them time to rethink it. I lit the thermite and hurled it toward the center of the nest. The flash was instant and vicious. A column of heat tore through the fungal bed, charring it in a heartbeat. A few deer were caught in the process. The smell made my vision swim.

something between spoiled meat and plastic insulation. Instinct kicked in, and my old crew sprang into action, rushing to save their colony. The mound in the centre shrieked, not with sound, but with pressure. A thick static hum filled the air. My eyes pulsed, my ears rang. Harris screamed. Not a human sound, just a rupture of voice. He collapsed midstep, genitals.

Jenner followed, limbs still jerking on the ground like fish on a dock. The upright deer tried to flee, but collapsed as soon as their connection severed. I lit the final charge, the biggest one, and rolled it into the heart of the nest. It ignited on contact. The second explosion was worse than the first. Trees caught, flames raced up the stalks, the sinew networks snapped and curled in on itself. A line of fungus tried to retreat down the roots, but the fire chased it. But most importantly, all the bodies caught flame, destroying any remnants of this horror.

I stumbled back, coughing into my sleeve. My vision smeared, one eye darkened. I wiped it it, but my hand came back red. Blood. The glade thrashed like a body in seizure. Then it went still. I stood there until the flames reached the ridge until the entire bloom turned black and brittle,

until the heat burned the smell away. Only then did I turn and walk, burned, sick, bleeding from both eyes, but lighter than I'd felt in weeks. Because I'd done something real, because I'd ended it, or at least made sure it wouldn't spread any farther. And if I was wrong, if something crawled out later,

I wouldn't be here to see it. I sat, slumped in the truck, throat raw, eyes blurred. My fingers barely worked. They kept slipping on the recorder's button before I finally managed to press it down. Sample sterilized. The sauce nest burned. Secondary host transmission confirmed. My voice didn't sound like mine anymore.

I waited for a long moment, letting the silence settle before speaking again. My name is Elias Ward, field ID 7-6101-B, contracted wildlife biologist, state assigned. I acted alone. I have destroyed all known infected samples.

The growth site has been neutralized. There are no survivors. I paused, listened. Nothing but the low wind through the ridge. No movement in the trees. No footsteps in the brush. If anyone finds this log, do not come looking for survivors. There is nothing left worth recovering.

I click the recorder off and let it drop into my lap. My head rested against the window. The cold glass felt steady. almost grounding. The woods outside was still, chocked in ash and fog. I took the cassette and sealed it in a weatherproof specimen case,

marked it clearly, left it outside near the truck, but not too close. If anyone did find this place, they'd find the truth first. Then I sat back inside and looked at the keys in my palm. I lied.

I hadn't destroyed all traces, There were still one left. Me. But that would be dealt with shortly. The thermite was rigged, crude but functional, set beneath a seat, tied to the ignition. I checked the fuse three times earlier before my vision went. When the key turned, the reaction would start. Heat, metal, flame.

nothing left to spread. I took a final breath. No last words, no dramatic farewell. I just turned the key. I'd been after that damn thrush for a week. I saw it once skimming low near the canal. It was a nervous thing with a chest like it had been sprinkled with pepper. It was nothing flashy, but that glimpse left me wanting more.

I think it was the fact it wasn't meant to be here. It was definitely off course. It probably caught the wrong gus somewhere south and ended up where it shouldn't have. I hadn't seen one in this area before. Not in all the years I've been coming out here bird watching. So, I kept coming back. Every morning I put boots on before the town woke up, shove my scope in my bag, as well as some snacks and a thermos of tea,

and followed the same muddy tracks through the trees. There's a battered old notice board nailed up near the canal shelter, faded from years of sun and frost. I never meant to make a habit of checking it, but lately I couldn't help myself. It used to be the usual mess of dog walker ads, but now it was littered with missing persons' posters. I often glanced at it on the way in, but on Monday, I spotted Gareth with his uniform jacket, half-buttoned up, and radio clipped to his shoulder, leaning over it with a staple gun. All right, you old sod, Gareth said, glancing sideways without turning fully around. Morning to you too, I said, grinning.

He snorted. Back again. You're trying to court that bird or marry it. If it starts letting back, I'll let you know. I stepped up beside him. Who've we got today? He tapped the edge of the top sheet. It was a woman in a mid-20s.

The printout looked like it had been taken off Facebook. Below her was a boy about eight or nine from the look of him. Both this week, Gareth said. It's been building real slow. One here, one there. Woman and little lads always look similar, but they never related. We're meant to keep it on the hush, but come on. It feels like someone's picking them out on purpose.

He rubbed to the back of his neck. Problem is, the soddle to go off on. I didn't know what to say to that. Instead, I gave a quiet hum and watched him press the paper flat with the side of his hand. I see. You got a busy morning. A few more of these to stick up around town, then back to the station to pretend I know what I'm doing for hours.

Maybe sneak a cup her if the phone stops ringing long enough. "'Living the dream,' I said. "'Garath huffed and laughed through his nose and stepped back. "'He squinted at the board, making sure it all lined up, "'then gave me a serious look. "'If you see anything strange out there, you let me know. "'Just me, but you already knew I was a bit off.' "'He gave a dry laugh, then moved on,

"'and watched them go, then turn back to the trees. The woods out here go on longer than most people reckon. From the main trail, it all looks neat and groomed, with a couple of picnic benches, and the odd wooden sign pointing out butterflies or fungus. But you only have to take a few steps off the path, and it all folds in on itself. It all becomes a slow, thick mess of hawthorn, older, and nettles you can't avoid. Where I'd seen the thrush last was off to the left, well past the last. the cut of the canal and into the sort of tangle that it make most people turn around.

But I'd grown up out here. When I was little, these woods were my patch, way before mobile phones and the estate got bigger. I used to spend hours getting lost on purpose. Me and a couple of mates built a half-rodden den out there once, proper deep where the brambles got thick. We nicked a couple of planks from a skip and a bit of tarp we weren't meant to have. Back then, it felt like a bloody fortress. I don't go in as far these days, but that thrush wasn't going to hang about on the edge trail, not after a week of me stomping through.

If I wanted another lock, I'd have to push deeper. It was just past noon when I took myself low between a couple of twisted hazels and a rotted out log that must have been down for years. Bracken came up to my knees and spot, a nasty invasive plant that looked like it was slowly infecting the entire woodlands. Then, I heard a clink, like metal on metal. It wasn't loud, but it cut clean through the trees,

and I started to ponder what it could be. Maybe someone flytipped out here, though it had take some effort, though I wouldn't put it past a few of the scruffs that live near my end of town. Either way, you don't usually hear that sort of thing that deep in. I stayed crouched and listened. It kept coming. Clink, clink.

Sometimes on its own, sometimes in twos or three. Each one seemed to come from a different spot. First to my right, then behind me, then dead ahead. It gave me a jolt, scared me enough to stiffen me up a bit. I stayed where I was, listening hard. Then it came again. Clink. I slowly lifted myself just enough to see over the log.

It took me a second to find it. But there, perched on a low stump, was a missile thrush. I watched as it tilted its head and opened its beak. to make that same metal clink, perfect and crisp. It threw me a bit. Sure, missile thrushes will copy the odd sound, but they're not known for it like some others. And even if they were, why that noise?

Out here in the thick of the woods, there's nothing metal for miles. I must have learned it nearby, heard it enough to copy it back like that. It shifted once more, then took off, His wings caught the light as it darted between branches and dipped through a narrow line of alder. I followed carefully. The ground here was knotted with roots and soft underfoot, spongy in some places where the moss was thickest. I kept low, stepping where the ferns bent smoothly, moving around the trees.

Brambles caught in my jacket. Occasionally I'd lose sight of the thing, but hear it again. clink clink always just ahead I couldn't help but admire it even with everything else going on it moved with that sharp

nervous grace missile thrushes have the patterning across his chest looked darker in the shade almost oily and its eyes flickered back at me now and then like it knew I was behind it I'd watch the birds my whole life but something about this one held me.

If he had left again, then dropped out of sight. I pressed forward, pushing through a wall of damp brush. And there it was, sat atop of rusted metal roof, wings tucked in, head turning slowly. The building looked more like an old shed. It was narrow, sunken slightly into the slope, edges softened with age and dirt. TARPs have been thrown over the top. and weighed down with camo netting, but they started to rot and curl back.

The thing looked forgotten, as if it hadn't seen proper use in years. The door at the front was heavy-duty, bolted shut, a padlock hung from the frame, rust crusted deep into the mechanism. Then I heard it again. Clink, but the bird didn't move. It stayed still on the roof,

feathers flat, eyes fixed somewhere behind me. The sound hadn't come from it this time. Clink, clink, clink, clink. This time more sporadic. I edged closer, careful not to snap any branches underfoot. A smell, something like bleach hung in the air. The noise persisted. I circled around to the far side,

where one of the lower panels had warped out of the frame. A gap, maybe a foot wide. I dropped to my knees, rushed the bracken aside, and pushed myself through. Inside, it was hotter than I expected. It felt wrong straight away. The air hit the back of my throat in a way

that made me want to spit, and there wasn't much light, so I pulled out my emergency torch. A floor was concrete and slopes, slightly. At the far end were six cages welded straight into the ground, proper thick steel. Each one had been lived in, no question about it. Blankets pressed flat from use, bits of paper and string, trays with hairs in them. Kids' clothes. One had a muslin cloth, baby-sized, another had what It looked like makeup, just the stub of a lipstick and a broken comb.

None of it matched. None of it made sense. The last cage had a little boy in it. He couldn't have been more than seven. He was curled up in the far corner under a blanket, blinking slow like he'd just woken up. His face was gone but clean. He looked looked after, in the way a pet might be. No marks I could see.

Then I noticed the strip of faded cloth pulled tight around the back of his head and knotted hard enough to leave a mark. A gag. Once he got a good look at me, he started moving, quick and panicked, trying to talk through the gag, pointing to the lock, then to the floor. The cage was bolted shut. I rattled it gently, but it didn't budge. I'm going to get you out, all right? I said, trying to keep my voice steady. Just hang on.

I got up and started checking the room. There was a grimy and dented surgical table in the corner, with one leg braced on bricks. On it was a scalpel, a bony knife, thin and stained, tweezers blackened at the tips, and a jar of cloudy liquid that looked like it was meant to clean them, though it hadn't been touched in a while. Most of the metal had what appeared to be tried,

I'd blood crossed it in the grooves. Seeing the tools turn my stomach a bit, I kept looking at them, trying to convince myself they were just old junk and that the blood was rust. But I couldn't. Not with a boy behind me. I stepped over a length of pipe and crossed to the far wall. The freezer chest was low to the ground

and held shut with a thick rubber strap. A mess of jumper cables fed out the back, still hooked into the terminals of a car. car battery. It buzzed faintly when I touched the lid. Inside were plastic tubs stacked tight, about half a freezer full, and each was labelled. The top one read, Shannon, scalp, Benjamin, lower left arm, Shannon, teeth. Even through the frost. I could tell they were real. I slammed the freezer shut and held the lid down for a few. moments. Then I pulled out my phone and started snapping. Flash lit up the space as I took pictures

of the freezer, tools and cages. I felt clumsy doing it. My hands slick with sweat, but it had to be done. I'd make sure to delete them later. I opened maps, dropped a pin where I stood, and fired it straight off to Gareth. Found something in the woods, bad, sent my location, get here quick and don't come alone. I turned, looking for the key, and spotted two mannequins tucked into the shadows near the back wall. One adult-sized, one child. Pinned above them on the wall were diagrams,

polaroids of the same woman and little boy, scrap paper with rough sketches, measurements, and a shopping list of different body parts. Then, I heard a lock shift. At first I thought the boy had been able to free himself, but as I turned, the sudden flush of light flashbanged me. The shape in the doorway stood stiff, its head tilted to its left shoulder,

like they were melted into each other. I squinted to see more, but the light from outside made it difficult. All I could see was the bulk of him, broad through the chest, with one arm hanging longer, than the other. He stepped in, and I raised my torch slightly. You don't want to do this, I said. My voice came out quiet and pathetic. He kept moving. The shape of him came into view.

He was burned, with twisted but healed skin. He was big. He lunged with both weight and power. I stumbled back, caught off guard, and slammed sideways into the metal frame of one of the cages. The torch clattered to the floor, spinning, light strobing around the room. He came at me again, arms wide, trying to grab hold. I duck sideways and shoved my shoulder into his ribs. He grunted and swung one arm to the side of my head. I shoved back, using both hands, pushing him off balance to order the table. He knocked it, sent tools scattering, but stayed upright.

He came at me again, clumsy but fast, leading with his shoulder. I grabbed a bit of pipe or rod and brought it up between us. It slowed him and gave me just enough room to backpedal and breathe. Everything in me wanted to run, but I knew I couldn't leave the boy alone. He charged the gain, faster this time, slamming me back into the table. to the cages. My shoulder cracked the bars and sends a jolt down my arm. I swung the pipe and clipped the side of his head. He roared, voice all torn up and broken. Get away from them. They're mine. My Shannon, my Benji. He grabbed a handful of my jacket and yanked me forward. I twisted,

kicked hard and landed somewhere near his shin. He didn't go down, but he gave me just enough space to wrench free. My ear was still ringing from the earlier blow, a sick throat behind my eye now as something had split. He kept coming. Every breath he took sounded like it hurt, wet and uneven, full of rattling heat. The burns had wrecked his face, but there was still strength in him more than I had. He was desperate, and desperate men don't stop easy. I tripped, trying to dodge his next swing, landed hard on my back, ribs flaring. My grip slipped on the pipe, and it skidded out of reach. He loomed above, mouthworking like he was trying to say more, but all that came out

was a dry, bubbling rasp. His boot pressed into my leg, pinning me. I tried to twist, to roll clear, but his weight kept me pinned. My ear was still ringing, and now. my ribs were burning. I couldn't catch my breath. The pressure on my leg grew sharper, harder. He was trying to crush me. The door slammed open behind him. Down! Get the hell down! The man didn't flinch, he kept going. There was a crack of Gareth's baton slamming down. The figure reeled back a step. I kicked out hard and caught him just above the knee.

He staggered sideways. I said, get on the ground. Gareth didn't stop, got behind him fast and brought the baton down again, this time across the shoulders. The man dropped. It was a grunt, and then Gareth was on him, pinning him, coughing his wrists tight behind his back. The figure flinched but didn't drop. Got him, Gareth barked. You all right?

I nodded, caught my breath, and sweat stung my eyes. I dragged myself upright, ribs aching, and used the cages to hold myself up. We need bolt cutters, I said, voice horse. Now, backup arrived quickly. They helped pin him properly and hauled him out, kicking and spluttering like an animal, while another stayed behind to free the boy. Gareth helps me walk back through the trees, mostly acting as a support over the rough terrain.

Paramedics were waiting near the path. They took me in, sat me down, gave me something for the pain, then carted me off to A&E to check for concussion and whatever else I'd rattled loose. I gave two full statements that day, then another two later in the week. I had to repeat some of it more times than I felt like.

A few days later, Gareth swung by my place with a flask and some imported cigars. We sat in the garden out back, just like we used to when we were younger. Eventually, he said. Ugly bugger, wasn't he? Yeah, I muttered. Gareth nodded, staring into his flask. Didn't even know he was still around, thought he'd left years back. He used to live on the fringe near the old paper.

Mill. His wife and kid died in a house fire. Poor buggers didn't make it out. He did. He always that big, I asked. Gareth huffed. Yeah, he's a big lad. Worked in Salvich, I think. Used to seem down by the skip bins, hauling stuff no one else would touch. After the fire, something just snapped. We thought he moved off. I took a sip of my drink. In that shed, those women and boys, he was storing certain parts. Yeah, Gareth muttered. He wasn't just storing them. He was trying to put them back together, bit by bit.

We both went quiet. After a while, Gareth cleared his throat. It's sick, but in his head, he thought he was fixing something, putting his family right. No fixing that, I said. Not what he did. Gareth gave a slow nod. Nah, there's no coming back from that. Did you find that bird you were looking for?

I came back because someone had to. The house was still in the family's name, but no one else wanted to touch it. My mother had passed away a few weeks prior, quietly in asleep. My father was still alive, technically, but no longer capable. The stroke had taken most of his speech and all of his warmth. He now lived in a small care home three hours south.

We hadn't spoken in years. I told the solicitor I would handle the clearing out, thought it would take a weekend, thought it would feel mechanical. But standing in the entryway now, I could already tell. The house hadn't changed. Not really. It was clean, even dusted in places.

Someone had been tending it, probably my mother, until the very end. I hadn't stayed overnight in years, but instead of sleeping in the guest room, I chose my old bedroom, the nursery, the one we shared. Jamie's crib was still there, up against the far wall. The other one sat beside it, untouched. The blankets tucked in tight, a small stuffed lamb perfectly aligned at the center of the mattress. The mobile above the crib still spun when I opened the door, catching the air just enough to turn. I stood there, watching it rotate in a slow, silent circle.

I found a sealed box in the closet, buried behind old blankets and a yellowed wedding dress. The tape was brittle with age, one side had peeled slightly. Written in black marker, across the lid were five words. Jamie Dash, do not discard. I don't remember the moment I found out I was supposed to be a twin. I think it was always there. just beneath the surface, a truth worn smooth over years of soft retellings. His name was Jamie.

He died the day we were born. That's what the doctor said. A cord around the neck. No heartbeat. Nothing they could do. But my parents never accepted it. They came home with two of everything. Two bassinets, two name plaques for the nursery wall,

hand-painted in soft cursive, one for me, one for Jamie. They told everyone it had been a mistake that both babies were fine, a miracle, and no one questioned it too deeply, not at first. There are pictures in the old photo albums that still unsettle me. In some is just me, red-faced and swaddled. In others, there's clearly been some editing. A second infant clumsily duplicated or drawn in, smudged at the edges. My father wasn't much for computers.

Most of the early ones were done by hand, collage work, tape and scissors. One even had a second blanket with nothing in it next to me. A shape outlined, but empty. James Cribb was always kept pristine. Even after I moved into a proper bed, it was dusted, retucked. The mobile was wound every night until its mechanism grew stiff. The stuffed lamb was moved from head to foot, depending on the week, as if someone had been tending him. My parents said things in passing, casual and habitual. Tom, say goodnight to your brother.

Don't wake him, he's finally asleep. Your brother's already eaten. When I was young, I'd play along. I glance at the empty crib and whisper just in case. But I always knew something was wrong with it, something about the way the air settled over that side of the room. And when I stopped responding to their remarks and stopped pretending, I remember the look on my mother's face. She didn't look confused. She looked hurt, disappointed,

as if I had insulted someone who was standing right behind. me. I was raised to share everything. My room, my clothes, my name, even though Jamie never spoke, never moved, never grew. We had matching shoes by the front door. Mine usually scuffed, his always clean. We had two toothbrushes in the cup by the sink. I wasn't allowed to touch the blue one. I was punished after I tried. I didn't try again. There were rules. I wasn't across the centre seam of the rug in our bedroom. Jameside was to remain undisturbed.

I wasn't to move his toys. If one of them ended up in my bed or under my desk, it had to be placed back exactly where it had been. And when things went wrong, the blame was mine. Tom, don't be cruel to your brother. My mother would say, if the stuffed bear turned up face down. He doesn't like it when he move his things.

At first, I thought she was joking. I thought it was a way to soften the loss, a story. That stopped when things started happening on their own. I go to bed with the closet shut, squeeze my eyes closed, listen to the creek of the house settle into its bones. But around 3 a.m., almost every night, The closet door would slide open, slow, dragging against the carpet, just enough to show the dark. Sometimes the mobile above the crib will be spinning when I woke up, not fast, but turning.

The air always felt colder on that side of the room, stale, even in summer. More than once, I woke up to find my blanket halfway across the floor, not kicked or bunched up of the room. the foot of the bed, pulled, neatly, as if someone had taken it while I slept. Once I left Jamie stuffed lamb on the dresser before bed, I found it tucked under his blanket in the morning. When I mentioned any of it, my father grew distant, my mother got stern, told me not to mock things I didn't understand, told me Jamie had every right to be here too. I stopped talking about it, but I started watching, and the more I watched, the more I was sure.

I was not alone in that room. I wanted to believe I was normal, that this was typical of a family, but school ruined that illusion. Other kids asked questions I didn't know how to answer. When they came over, their faces shifted in that quiet way children do when something doesn't sit right. Not fear, not yet. Just discomfort. A feeling that the air wasn't moving right in the hallway, that the second crib didn't belong.

One girl, I think her name was Rachel, asked who the other bed was for. I told her the truth. at least my mother's version. It's for Jamie. He's my brother. But he's not here. He is, I said. He's just quiet. She looked at the crib, then back at me,

and something in her eyes went cold. I never saw her again after that. Her mom called to say she didn't want Rachel coming over anymore. no reason was given. Another time I tried to have a sleepover, Matthew from down the road. We played video games until late, then got into our sleeping bags on the floor. He kept glancing at the crib, said it was weird that it was still up. In the middle of the night, I woke up to him shaking me.

He looked pale and sweaty. I heard someone whispering. he said, Right in my ear. I told him it was probably a bad dream. The usual reason my parents told me when I had the same thing happened to me. But he was already stuffing his things into his backpack.

He left before sunrise. His parents never let him visit again. I tried to ask my mom if Jamie could be quieter or if we could put some of his things away. She just smiled and said, Don't be rude to your brother. He doesn't have much. When I said, very carefully, that Jamie wasn't real.

Her hand tightened to my arm. Don't ever say that, she said. Do you understand? Never. That kind of talk hurts him. She looked over at my shoulder and then towards the nursery. not at me. Her face changed, softened,

as if she was waiting for a sound or listening for one. I never said it again. At school, I stopped inviting people. I ate lunch alone. I didn't tell stories about home. At home, I spoke carefully, stepped lightly.

I never crossed the seam in the rug. I didn't understand. the rules, only that they mattered, and breaking them, made the house worse. I wasn't supposed to go in the hallway closet. It was one of the few rules that stuck. That door always stayed shut. The key hung from a small brass hook above the frame, just out of reach for most of my childhood. When I finally got tall enough, I waited for the right day. It was summer. My parents were downstairs, arguing quietly in the kitchen. I stood on a chair, slid the key from the hook, and opened the door. It wasn't anything exciting, just coats and

cardboard boxes, musty wool and an old vacuum. I remember being disappointed, until I reached into the sleeve of a raincoat stuffed to the back. My hand brushed plastic. something zipped and crinkly. A freezer bag. Inside, a pale blue notebook with a frayed corner and fading silver stars on the cover. There was no name on the front, but I knew it was my mother's the moment I opened it.

Her handwriting was neat at first, curved letters, tidy margins. It looked like any baby book, milestones and feeding. charts, first steps, favourite lullabies. But the dates didn't match my memories. The entries continued well past my first birthday, past my second, past the point Jamie had ever existed, if he'd existed at all. And they weren't just about me. At first it was framed sweetly. Jamie slept curled up next to his brother. He's calm when Tom sings. They're so bonded already. Then the tone changed.

He won't eat unless they're in the room. He cries when Tom leaves. He only sleeps when they're together. I caught Tom staring at the mirror again. He said he saw a hand. I told him not to lie. One page was half torn out. The bottom edge looked scorched as if it had been pressed too close to a Peter. The entries after that was shorter, slanted, letters leaning into each other as if she'd written them quickly. The night terrors are back. I hear him at the door. I think Jamie blames me. That was the last thing she ever wrote. No signature, no date. I sat on the closet floor, reading it over and over until the hallway went dark. The argument downstairs had stopped.

I hadn't realised how long I'd been sitting there. I put the journal back in the bag, tucked it into the coat sleeve again, and shut the door, hung the key back on the hook. I didn't tell anyone what I'd found, but from that night on, I started facing away from Jamie's crib when I slept. Just in case Jamie wanted to talk. I was 11 the night I climbed into Jamie's crib. It wasn't a dare. No one told me to do it. It was just me in the dark, stewing in the quiet rules I wasn't allowed to question.

Two toothbrushes, two chairs at the little table. One name whispered with mine every bedtime. Good night, Jamie. That night, I sat in my bed, staring across the room at his crib. The bars had been repainted twice, but still splintered slightly at the base. The mattress was thin and yellowing under the fitted sheet. A stuffed elephant sat in the corner, perfectly upright. I told myself it was just furniture.

Then I got up and stepped over. The mobile turned slowly when I brushed past it. The little animals cast long, thin shadows across the ceiling. I climbed in, lay flat, crossed my arms like I thought a dead kid might. For a moment, nothing happened. Then I blinked. The light was gone, the air was tight, something hard pressed into my spine. I was in the clinked.

closet, cramped between winter coats and a broken vacuum hose, curled at the bottom like it had been stuffed there. The door was latched from the outside. I sat up fast and slammed my shoulder against it. Once, twice. My throat burned. It opened on the third hit. My mother came in, not surprised, not angry, just... Tired. Her eyes moved from mine to my lap, then back again. I looked down. A baby one-sey lay folded across my knees. Not one of mine.

Pale yellow, with a little embroidered bear over the heart. It smelled faintly of fabric softener and something else, something older, damp wood, closed rooms. I hadn't taken anything into the crib. I knew that. But there it was. My mother said nothing for a long time. Then finally, she spoke. Her voice quiet and even.

You disrespected his space. Then she turned and walked away. I didn't answer. I didn't follow. I sat there for a long time, staring at the folds in the onesie, and the scratch marks carved in the wandsy. into the inside of the closet door, some shallow, some deep, some trailing all the way down. I found the tape while clearing out the attic, which behind an old box of Moth-eaten photo albums

and Christmas ornaments that hadn't been touched in years. It was tucked inside a shoebox with a cassette player, half covered in lint and crumbling insulation. The tape was labeled in my mother's writing, just one word. Bedtime. I took it downstairs, sat cross-legged on the nursery carpet, and set the player between the cribs. The machine groaned a little when I pressed play. Then, her voice came through, softer than I remembered, calmer. She was reading the Velveteen Rabbit.

That part I recognised. Her tone was warm, almost musical, like she was reading to a child. Then, her second voice joined. Higher-pitched, not a baby's voice, but definitely a child. I know how I used to sound. The child interrupted the story, whispered phrases that didn't match the text. Is it real if it hurts? I want to know what it tastes like.

Tell the round. habit to leave. Her reading never paused. She just kept going, steady and unbroken, as if she didn't hear him. Near the end of the tape,

she stopped reading. The room on the recording fell quiet, except for the faint creek of bedsprings and the rustle of fabric. Then she whispered, Say goodnight to your brother.

There was a pause. Then the child's voice replied Good night, Tom. The tape clicked to a stop. I didn't breathe for a few seconds. I rewound it, hands shaking and listened again. Every syllable landed colder than the last. The voice wasn't scared.

It wasn't sleepy. It sounded amused. I left the tape in the player and backed out of the room one step at a time until I was out in the hall. The mobile above Jamie's crib was spinning again. I hadn't touched it. I left the house at 18.

No dramatic goodbye, no big scene. Just a quiet drive to university with a backseat full of boxes and a silence between me and my father that neither of us had the vocabulary to fill. I chose a school six hours away. No one questioned the distance. No one offered to help me unpack.

At first night in the dorm, I slept straight through. No blankets pulled off, no creaking doors, no footsteps around my bed. I remember waking up in the morning, light leaking through the blinds, and realizing how long it had been since I felt rested. No Jamie, no closet dreams, no nursery whispers. Just, quiet. I started telling myself the story a different way. That my childhood had been shaped by grief, not ghosts.

That what I remembered was trauma echoing in strange places. Ritual turned into obsession, an obsession into fear. And it almost worked. until the phone call started Not often, once every few months Always from my mother He's quieter since you left She'd say as if we were talking about a real boy

He only plays in your room now Then a few years later She called me distressed He won't stop crying It's every day Please play with him I didn't answer when she called after that. Whatever lived in that house, whether it was grief or something else, I'd left it behind.

Or maybe, it just stayed with her. I didn't go back after I left. Not for holidays, not for birthdays, not even when dad called, asking if I'd stop by when I was in town. Though I never was. I almost went back when my father had his stroke and left him in need of care which my mother took on herself but each time I was ready to go

I didn't I just stopped to the front door held the handle then quietly unpacked telling myself it was a bad time I told myself I needed the distance that it was healthier not to look back For a while, it was true.

I slept better, I worked hard. I let the past become something vague and far away. Then, the call came. It happened fast. A blood clot, they said. She was gone before they reached the hospital. Not much was said on the phone. Just that someone needed to handle the house.

My father was being moved into assisted living. permanent this time. I hadn't seen it in years, not since I left for university. The drive back felt longer than I remembered. When I unlocked the door, the air inside was stale, but still held that faint antiseptic scent I couldn't place. Everything was as I left it. Furniture frozen in place, family photos untouched, no signs of a life winding down, Only a life paused. I made my way to the nursery. It was too clean.

The crib stood exactly where it always had. The same folded blanket, the same mobile above, faintly trembling when I opened the door. No dust, no neglect, not a thread out of place. She'd been maintaining it, even after all this time. A small envelope waited on the desk, yellowed slightly at the edges, but sealed neatly. My name on the front, written in her hand. Beneath it, five words in faded ink.

For when you come home. I opened the envelope with a strange sense of calm. Maybe I already knew what was inside. Maybe I didn't want to admit it until I held the paper in my hands. It was a torn page from the old baby journal, the same handwriting I remembered from years ago. But it had changed. The neat script had grown unsteady, heavier toward the end, like the pen had been pressed too hard into the paper. I tried to separate you.

I tried to tell myself it was never real. But I heard you both, even when you weren't speaking. He cries when you leave. He never cries for me. He only settles when you're near. He needs a brother, and I can't give him another one. Only you. A second page was tucked behind it.

A glossy photograph curled slightly at the corners. I didn't recognize it at first. A hospital room, a bassinet. Two newborns. One red-faced and howling. The other was lying still, too still, eyes closed, lips parted just enough to show the faintest shadow of gums. At the bottom was a timestamp, five hours after Jamie's official time of death. I didn't remember this photo.

I shouldn't. I was in it, but I wasn't alone. As soon as I put the letter down, a sound burst from the far room. crying, loud and shrill. I didn't jump to any theories. I knew exactly who it was, Jamie. I crept over, easing towards the bedroom I'd avoided for well over a decade. And as I approached, the sound softened, hicks between the loud sobs, as if listening to my approaching footsteps.

As soon as my hand braced the doorknob, the sobbing all but vanished. And when I opened the door and looked inside, I was greeted by pure silence. Some of the toys had moved from when I first looked in the room. The blanket that was previously neatly placed was thrown aside, like from a child throwing a tantrum. But my mother was right. When I was around, he stopped crying. I made the bed in the nursery before it got dark. I sat in the chair by the window, wrapped in one of the old blankets from the closet,

the kind that still smelled faintly of powder and time. Around midnight, the mobile above the second crib began to spin. No music, just a slow, creaking turn. The temperature in the room dropped. Not a breeze, just a still, sinking cold, the kind that settles behind your eyes. I walked to the crib. It was empty, but the sheets were warm. The closet door, the same one I once woke up inside all those years ago,

eased open with a soft groan. No rush, just the quiet. insistence of a door used to being open from the inside. A small hand, pale and steady, reached out around the frame. I didn't flinch, didn't scream. I just looked down at the hand and said, Okay, I sat down carefully and just held his little hand for a while. His skin was ice cold.

That was all he needed. The next morning, the nursery was still. No footprints, no open doors. Just a maid bed and dust dancing in the light. The house was silent. I think she was right. He does just need her brother. I always brought two drinks up the tower crane with me.

One thermos for coffee. and a bottle for the strongest stuff. I kept it tucked deep in my rucksack, half wrapped in an old flannel to keep it from clinking. I sipped it slowly, just enough to keep the shake out of my hands as the moon rose. And up there, above the trees, no one could see.

The shakes had gotten worse since I came out here. I wasn't proud of it, but you sit up in a steel box, 140 metres off the ground with nothing but wind and birds for company. Eventually, you'd need something to pass the time.

I had a book my daughter Ellie gave me on my lap. A stiff little paperback called Field Guide to North American Cryptids in bright red lettering. It was clearly a kid's book. She'd handed it to me during my last visit

back in Truro and said it was the keep me company. I laughed and told her she was nuts, but she just rolled her eyes and said, You'll read it when you're bored. She was right. When I first opened it, there was a yellow sticky note in a handwriting stuck on the front page. It read, Don't get eaten, Dad.

You're too grumpy for that. Her mom doesn't let me see her much, not since the hearing last year. I missed a couple of pickups while working out west and couldn't get back into it. time, and she used that to file for full custody. She's not wrong to want stability for Ellie. I get that. But I'm trying. I really am. I take these jobs so I can pay what I owe for child support and legal payments and maybe show the court that I'm not some deadbeat in a hard hat. The best paying ones mean coming all the way out here and sleeping in a trailer six nights a week. but it's worth it if I can pick Ellie up with something new in the back seat

and take her for ice cream without checking my balance first the past few nights have been colder than expected I pulled the bottle from my pack and took a swig the whiskey did the trick and settled in warm under my ribs we were ahead of schedule I leaned back thumbed the edge of the book and looked out the glass the radio mumbled in the room and out. Tighten that corner. Where's that extra bracket gone? Rob, check the clearance by Tower 3.

Same old stuff. I didn't listen to most of it. I only kept my ear open for anything meant for me. Then, a new voice cut in. Hang on, there's something down by the tree line. Another voice crackled back. What do you mean? I sat up, frowning. Lights near the equipment trailers were still on, stretching long shadows into the brush. It could have been a moose, maybe a black bear, but the voices on the radio didn't sound calm. Movement by Tower 4. You guys seeing that? Then came static.

Jeez, what is that? It cut off. Panic bled through. There's something. out there, something's moving. Mark, pull back, now, I said pull. I stood so fast the book slipped off my lap and hit the floor. I leaned over the controls, fingers smudging the glass, breath fogging the inside. I wiped it with my sleeve and squinted hard, too far to see faces, but I saw movement. People were running. One figure took off past the prefab stack,

then something else broke out of the dark behind him. Low to the ground, fast. It tackled him, limbs flying. I couldn't see much, but the thing looked nothing like the workers. Someone else came running into help. The thing intercepted, lifted the guy clean off his feet, and slammed him into the floodlight tower. It collapsed with a clang, smashed into the fuel cage.

Then there was fire, bright and fast. Flames jumped from top to tire, tired to trailer. The crew scattered, the thing followed. It tore through the camp, and even from up high, I could tell it wasn't just chasing. It was hunting. More screams crackled over the radio. One was just the name, over and over. another came through crying for help,

then a wet, cracking noise, and silence. Then I saw it stop, just for a second. The thing was crouched near the last standing fulrum, half lit by the flames, and it lit it up. Elbow joints too high.

There were no clothes or gear I could make out. It looked like it had huge antlers. It stayed low, almost coiled, but when the fire crept closer, it reared upright, took one step back and crawled forward again on all fours. As the fire surrounded my tower, that thing backed up to my ladders and was so far below me, I couldn't see it anymore. I stepped back from the glass, heart pounding, then moved to the rear door, the one that covered the ladder access. I flipped the lock and pushed it open a crack. There, way, way down the steel spine of the tower. There was something moving.

It climbed, slow but steady, hooking each limb over wrung after rung. Smoke hit me in the face. It was thick and full of heat. I double back, coughing. My eyes watered and slammed the door shut. My hand slipped on the latch, and I locked it again. I wiped my mouth and searched the cabin.

Strapped to the side panel was a fire extinguisher. One of the heavy steel canisters dented at the top. I thought if I could get a clean hit from this height, it might cave the thing's skull in. The fire would die down eventually, or help would come. I could wait it out, climb down once the smoke cleared. I snapped the clips and pulled it loose, cracked the hatch again and leaned out. I lined up with where it was on the right side, aimed for that spot, and dropped it. I snapped the hat shut, stopping the smoke from pouring in and watched through the glass

as the red cylinder fell briefly before it ricocheted off one of the support bars and spun once in the air. Then it clattered like a coin down a drain and tumbled somewhere out of sight. Near the bottom, the creature was frozen. One long limb hooked on the ladder rail, the other hanging loose at its side. I could see its head tilt slowly, until it was looking up. Its face, if you could call it that, was bone. From the colour, I could tell it. had no skin, no muscle.

The shape was too long and narrowed to be anything human, and it appeared more like a deer skull, but longer, with black sockets I couldn't see from here. The antlers weren't wide like a buck. They clawed back, thin and spun like charred branches. Even with the smoke and distance between us, I knew it had only just noticed me. I stumbled back.

My shoulder cracked into the wall. I searched the cabin for anything heavy like my rucksack, the radio box, even the goddamn swivel chair if I could get it loose. But there was nothing here that would hold against something like that. My hands shook as I snatched the radio and clicked the receiver, already backing toward the front window. Anyone copy? I swallowed hard.

This is Marcus up in Tower One. Is anyone there? Only static came back, and there was a slow clicking of hiss. I tried again. Anyone alive down there. Someone answer me. Someone, no, something is climbing the goddamn tower. I turned and looked down again, hoping, just hoping for some movement,

some sign of life among the smoking flames. But there was nothing. Then Kyle came to mind. Three days ago, we'd been eating the lunch out behind the trailer, sitting on the edge of a pite stack with our boots in the dirt. He was younger than me by decades, with fresh boots and fresh gloves,

and still called the foreman sir, like it was his first camp. He nudged me with his elbow while I was halfway through a sandwich. You ever see teeth in the soil before? He asked. I glanced at him. Like an animal's? He shook his head and pulled a crumpled napkin out of his jacket pocket, hesitant.

He unwrapped it and held it out. Inside was a yellow tooth. It was sharp on one end. Christ, man, I said. Is that real? He nodded. Founded by the West Tree line under some roots. Kept this one, figured no one would believe me otherwise.

I took a closer look. Looks human. That's what I thought. There were a bunch of them in the same spot. You report it? Yeah, he said. Radioed it in as soon as we uncovered the first view. They told me it was probably old dental waste,

said there used to be a field hospital up here during the war. That doesn't explain some of the weird bones I found out here. I remember squinting past him out toward the tree line. The company had his clearing a stretch near the back boundary of the site Apparently the land had been untouched for decades Some investors out east picked it up cheap And wanted the foundations for condos before ski season

The last real record was from the fire crew in the 70s And even they didn't go far Too steep they said We sat quietly for a minute after that He wrapped the tooth back up and slipped it into his jacket again, looking like he wasn't sure if telling me had been the right idea.

That morning, Ellie called just as I was ready to sleep. See anything cool today? She asked. I smiled. You mean besides frostbite and rusted steel? She groaned. No, like cool, cool. Animals or anything.

This place is full of wildlife, right? Actually, I said, one of the guys found some old bones, teeth actually, out by the tree line. There was a pause, then a voice got a little sharper. Wait, really? What kind? I didn't want to spook her. Probably a coyote. Could be a fox. We get a lot of weird stuff out here. She hummed. That's kind of gross, but also cool.

Can you keep one for me? Not sure your mom would love that. She doesn't have to know. Just hide it like I do with that frog school. We'll see, I laughed. Might be a while before I'm back. That's okay. Just don't get eaten, all right?

Wouldn't dream of it. Good, she said, cheerful again. I promised I'd call the next morning. Then I stayed sitting there long after the line went dead. I chaked down the ladder again. The thing had made a lot of progress. It was maybe a quarter of the way up now. I wiped my damp hands and my jeans and reached for my pocket,

finger shaking as I pulled out my phone. One bar, then none. I held it higher, angle toward the window. Then I unlocked the screen, thumbed 9-1-1, and hit call. There was a crackle and some words in between. Emergency, hello? My stomach flipped. Yes, yes, I'm here.

My name's Marcus Holt. I'm at a tower site off range 6. There's something down here. People are dead. It's coming up the crane. I need help. Location. Say again.

in your... Alberta, north of Jasper. It's a lease site, tower install. You need to get someone out here now. There's a fire, and something is climbing. The line fractured. There was a low pulse of static. There's nothing but random words.

You repeat? Climbing? I press the phone tighter to my ear. Yes, it's climbing. I'm at the top. I'm trapped. You have to... Hello? Can you hear me? Hello?

I stared at the screen, and after a few moments of silence, I hung up and tried again. This time, I couldn't hear anything. I lowered myself onto my chair, let the phone drop in my lap, and stared at it. My chest was tight, and I couldn't seem to breathe right. My hand trembled as I reached for the bottle again and took a small. sip. It didn't help much. Everything was shaking now. The glass, my legs, the whole damn cab felt like it was trembling under me. I slumped back in the chair, letting it turn slightly on its swivel. The cab creaked, faint and hollow. I stared past the glass to where the fire

had started, trying to find shapes in the dark. My boot knocked something and I glanced down. The book It had landed face down in the corner The edges were bent And some pages had fanned open underneath I reached down Picked it up slowly And brush the cover off with my sleeve

The page was still dogged from earlier That little yellow sticky note stuck out I'd been using it as a bookmark Don't get eaten Dad You're too grumpy for that I ran my thumb across the handwriting. She'd use one of those thick purple pens she liked, the ones that always seemed to bleed through paper and made her notes look messy.

It hit me harder than I expected. I thought about the last time I saw her. She'd asked me to take her skating, but I didn't have enough gas money. I'd promise the next time I'd take her up to the big rink and let her rent the flashy white skates, the ones that made a look like a figure skater. Now, I didn't know if I get to keep that promise. I stared down at the book and my eyes blurred. I wiped them with a heel of my hand, sniffed, and let the book fully fold open.

Through the tears, I noticed a hand-drawn illustration, rough, like something copied from an old woodcut. It was tall, thin, crawling on all fours with a skull face and sharp antlers that twisted like burnt branches. I stared at the drawing and my body ran cold. That skull looked exactly like what I saw on the ladder. It was in the book with a page titled The Windigo. I read the paragraph under the name. It talked about the creature being born of winter starvation and cannibal

It could never be full. It only stretched thinner the more it fed. I traced my finger across every word. It said it brought the cold with it and left a rot smell that never faded. My hands tensed. I remembered. We had a stench following us all week. The first day, I thought maybe someone hit a buried fuel drum or septic leak. We even talked about it over a cigarette. it. God, that stinks. I think we had a sewer line, Kyle asked, pulling his collar over his nose. Hell of a sewer system for the middle of nowhere, I shot back. But the smell never left. It was sour and meat sweet,

like wet hide in a hot trunk. No matter where we dug, it came with. We never found a pipe. Now, I know why. and the cold. Jeez, the cold. I remember checking the weather on my phone a day before getting here. When I climbed up the first night, it was supposed to be mild, sweat or weather. Ten, maybe 15 degrees, a little breeze coming off the ridge. I left my thick gloves in the trailer and zipped my coat only halfway.

By the time I hit the cab, my fingers was stiff, and I had to rub them together. to grip the throttle. I thought maybe the height was doing it, or that I was just run down. But even in the cab, with all that glass trapping heat from the floodlights, I stayed cold to my bones.

I peaked back down the hatch, nervous. It was closer now. Its hunger seemed to have fed its speed. The shape of it came through clearer now, just like the picture. It was more bone than skin, skin, all joints and angles, limbs that bent in ways that made me feel sick just watching.

Its spine stuck out like a ridge of knuckles, and its ribs strained under something thin and gray that might have once been flesh. Its head would tilt unnaturally to the side every few rungs, like it was sniffing me out. My body went soft all over. My hands were wet with sweat, but still freezing cold. I pictured the thing making it to the top, but I quickly got that idea out of my head. I had something to do. I reached for the book, and I frantically scanned through the pages.

Come on, I muttered. Come on, come on. My eyes dropped to the next paragraph. My fingers gripped the page tight, almost tearing it. I was desperate for anything that might stop it. Folklore varies by region, it read, but many accounts agree the creature has an aversion to fire and can be stopped by burning it to death and or carving out its icy heart. I blinked, reading it twice.

I'd watched it tear through those men like paper, wild and frenzied. But then it stopped, just for a second, right when the flames roared and so. surrounded my crane. It hadn't just turned away. No, it had recoiled from the heat, and now looking back. God, it hadn't been climbing the crane for me. I've had the sick pull in my gut. The fire had been closing in fast, licking through the trailers, pushing smoke through the treetops and circling the base of the tower. It didn't charge straight for the ladder, until after the flames got too close. It had gone up the crane because it had nowhere else to go.

I stood there, book in one hand, mouth dry, and suddenly wanted to put my fist through the glass. If I hadn't dropped the goddamn extinguisher, if I just stayed quiet, maybe it would have climbed halfway up, then waited it out. Maybe it would have crawled back down once the flames died. There was a chance it never would have known,

I was up here. I stared down at the hatch door, my chest rising too fast, my breath catching every time it hit the back of my throat. I kept looking for something, anything I could use. The extinguisher was gone. The radio was useless. The fire outside had started to smother itself in smoke, but it still burned hot along the south edge just below.

Maybe I could time it. wait until the thing was close enough and then shove something heavy down knock it off the ladder it had fall a long way bounce off every steel bar on the way down maybe the fire would finish the job but what the hell did I have to use

the chair wouldn't fit through the hatch and even if it did I wasn't strong enough to swing it without the thing grabbing me first my rugsack was too soft and the toolbox was bolted to the floor floor. I had nothing solid enough, nothing sharp enough, nothing that wouldn't guarantee it tore through me before I got the chance to lift it. The truth hit me then, real and raw.

There was no fighting this thing head on. I raised my bottle again, hands trembling, and took a swig in hopes it would calm my nerves. But the second the liquor hit my tongue, I stopped. My jaw clenched. I spat it back into the bottle and coughed hard, then stared at the bottle in my hand. There was still at least half left, and for the first time,

I really looked at it. It was flammable. I held the glass tighter. Could I? Would that work? I'd seen Molotops in movies threw broken-up riots on the news. I remember seeing dumb kids and balaclavas

throwing them at squad cars. It was just alcohol, right? Something strong with a rag and a flame? Was it that simple to make one? Would it explode? Just burn? Could I even get it lit fast enough before I blew up?

I pulled a lighter from my pocket. I'd swiped it from Kyle earlier in the week when he left it on the trailer step. It had a scratched-up image of a girl in bikini, all glossy-lipped. I hadn't meant to keep it, but it reminded me of the old lighters from the early 2000s, and I had lost mine earlier. For the first time since this all started, a plan began to form. Not a good one, but it was something.

Okay, I whispered to myself. I pulled the flannel from my rugsack, and dug a knife from the side pocket of my bag. I hacked a strip from the tail of it and jammed it into the mouth of the bottle, pushing it down far enough to soak up the whiskey. I tilted the bottle, watching the liquor run down the cloth,

watching it darken and cling. I heard it get closer. It screaming got louder and louder as it pulled itself up. I would have to work quickly. I fumbled with the lighter. my fingers were too wet and shaky to keep it a light long enough. I'd rub it on my pants that get dry enough to catch.

Small but steady, the flame bloomed, and I turned to the hatch. I flung it open and leaned out, nearly gagging from the heat and smoke that rolled back in. I looked down and saw it very close. It would be up in minutes. My hands moved before I could think. I held the lighter to the soaked cloth. The flame caught fast, rushing up the rag. Come on, I whispered.

I raised the bottle, aimed, and threw. It fell for maybe two seconds. That was all. Then it exploded against the side of the creature's skull. The glass shattered and flames surged. A whiskey caught and ran down its neck and shoulders in rivulets, clinging to the skin like oil, and the fire soon followed it. The Wendigo screamed a high, gurgling howl that punched up and bounced off my cab's walls,

bursting my eardrums. I watched, terrified, as it slipped, caught itself again and clung tight. But the fire didn't starve. The flames crawled over its back, igniting it all over. It shrieked again, and I held the edge of the hatch with both hands, knuckles white, praying it would let go. It looked like it might climb through the fire, like nothing could stop it. For a second, it just hung there, limbs twitching, and every tendon stretched and screaming. One hand lost this grip first, then the other.

the leg slid off the rail and then like something snapping loose in its mind it dropped I watched it fall its limbs caught the steel on the way down bouncing spinning ribs snapping loud enough to hear through the wind

it cartwheeled end over end trailing smoke and sparks where the fire still clung to it until it disappeared out of sight Below, the fire still surrounded the steel of my crane, slower now, choking itself in its own smoke. I could hear pops from the tires going off in the equipment yard, one after another, like dull firecrackers. Then, just the wind, the creek of metal cooling, the low, distant wine of something electrical shorting out. I close the hatch, lean back with my head against the cold.

wall and let myself shake. Every inch of me felt wrung out, like I'd been running a fever for hours, and finally crashed. My hands smelled like burnt cotton and cheap whiskey. My mouth was dry enough to crack, and somewhere in the back of my mind was the thought I couldn't push down.

That thing might not be dead. I sat there trying to slow my breathing, listening for even the smallest noise. A clang, a footfall, anything. Nothing came. I don't know how long I sat like that. It could have been five minutes.

It could have been 50. Time didn't matter much, after what I just lived through. My thoughts started to drift again to Ellie. Don't get eaten, Dad. God. What would she think if she knew? how close I came. Maybe I'd win some father of the year award.

The glow had shifted from violent to tired. A dark smoke column stretched into the sky like a signal flare. Anyone within 20 miles would see it. Maybe someone already had. A ranger, another sight. Hell, one of the workers' families might have called in when they didn't check in. Emergency crews had to be on their way. They had to be.

I just had to wait, just had to stay awake. I pulled my coat tighter and curled into the corner of the cab, watching the hatch, until my eyes burned. The sky was beginning to lighten when I heard the first sirens. It was faint at first, just to rise and fall on the wind, but enough to jolt me upright. My back cracked from being hunched too long. I crawled to the window and press my forehead against the cold glass

flashing lights cut through the trees below bouncing off smoke and debris a few figures in Haver's jackets moved through the wreckage with flashlights and radios I could see a fire crew trying to smother the remaining flames and someone pointing toward the base of the crane but none of them looked up once I was sure it was safe I grabbed the hatch handle and stared down.

The steel rungs dropped away beneath me. Some slick with dew and ash. The whole ladder felt smaller now. The first few rungs were agony. My knees were jelly. My palms slipped twice. And each time I froze and clung tight, breathing so fast I felt like I might pass out. I forced myself to count.

Ten rungs, pause, ten more. When I was maybe halfway down, one of the responders looked up. Hey, we got someone on the tower. Voices multiplied. Lights turned upward, suddenly blinding. A paramedic ran to the base, radio in hand, calling for a backboard. Another firefighter moved beneath me, arms raised like he could catch me if I slipped. I kept going.

Ten. Then five. then three, and finally, boots on solid ground. The second I touched down, my legs went out. They caught me before I fell completely, but I hit my knees anyway, coughing and trembling. I remember someone shouting for oxygen, a hand to my shoulder and a warm blanket, but all I could do was look past them toward the base of the ladder. It was there.

crumbled in the gravel and steel debris, a blackened body, long, twisted and curled. The antlers had shattered against the lower bar. One leg was missing entirely. The flesh had gone waxy and grey, fused to the bone. It wasn't moving. It would never move again. One of the crew stepped into my line of sight,

blocking the thing from view. We didn't know anyone. was still up there, he said gently, crouching. Real lucky. I shook my head, voice horse. Not luck, I said. Just fire. He didn't get it. That was fine. I let them lift me onto the stretcher and wheel me toward the waiting rig. I got a good look at the damage the fire had caused and they loaded me up and reached into my jacket and felt the edge of the book still tucked there, and I rubbed the lucky yellow sticky note between my fingers. License and registration.

The driver flinched, blinked a few times, and scrambled for the glove box. He panicked, missed a latch. When he finally opened it, paper spilled out, and he sat there frozen before scooping them up. I've been a police officer for two decades. Night shifts out in the country usually meant nothing more than drunk drivers, runaways from one of the nearby shelters, or coyotes calls from ranchers with loose fencing. It was rare for anything to linger in my mind after a shift ended.

Most of it was the same monotony repeated again and again, but that night was different. That one etched itself in slow, vivid pieces, I still haven't managed to fully pull apart. The moon had been high and full, casting a silver wash over everything. I was parked off Country Road 8, half asleep, when a car zoomed past me, going at least two times the speed limit. I sighed and figured it was just another guy out too late, probably drinking.

I flipped my lights on and found them pulled over near the bend without much resistance. I walked up to the driver's side. The car was an old Toyota, probably early 2000s, primer patches on the fender, muffler rattling. Both men inside looked wrecked. The driver was gripping the wheel hard enough that I could see the tension pushing veins through the skin. His hair was flattened with sweat.

The guy in the passenger seat stared forward, not blinking, hands in his lap. That's where it all began. The driver handed me his license with both hands finally. His voice cracked when he spoke. Can you give us a fine? Anything, please. We really...

We just need to go. I ignore their nagging, and instead asked what I always ask. Have you two been drinking? They both answered, but not together. They looked at each other first. silently, like they were trying to argue how much to admit. Then the driver said no, passenger echoed it, his voice low and scratchy. I looked them both over again.

All right, I'm going to run your information. Turn the vehicle off for me. The driver hesitated, but ultimately killed the ignition. I returned to my cruiser and ran the plate and drive. name. Nothing suspicious. Nothing at all, actually. The owner of the vehicle matched the driver. Everything came back clean. When I returned to their window, they had gotten significantly worse. The driver's head was twitching toward his shoulder every few seconds, like a muscle spasm. The passenger was in a similar condition. When the driver spoke again, his voice had a strain that

sounded close to breaking. You don't understand. We have to go. We're out of time, sir. Can we just go now? That's when I started getting angry. Everyone always had somewhere to go. It gets old.

I told him to keep his hands in the wheel and to relax. This doesn't have to be a big thing. You listen, I listen. You're making this worse by acting jumpy. I'm going to need you to perform. a field sobriety test for me. The driver's eyes darted to the mirror, and

then to the trees ahead. His leg was bouncing now, heel thumping against the floorboard. We don't have time. Please. I took a deep breath, stepped back, and started a circle toward the back of the vehicle to get them out.

That was when the engine roared to life again. Tires screamed against the dirt shoulder as they shot forward, fish tailing back onto the road and vanishing around the bend. I stood there for a second, blinking. My first thought was, what the hell are you running from? I sprinted to the cruiser, through the door open, and called it in.

This is Unit 18. We got a 1080, fleeing vehicle, Silver Toyota, heading eastbound on Country Road 8. Two occupants, I'm in pursuit. The tires spat gravel as I pulled out onto the road behind them. The moon followed us both, glaring and wide. The car struggled to hold a line. It swerved out of his lane every time the tires gripped, overcorrected and skidded. The taillights bounced in and out of view ahead of me. Ahead of us was a wooden sign.

Camp winding pines, youth retreat. The trees thinned ahead and the gravel turned to soft earth. My headlights caught the rear of the car as it fished out sideways, back tires chewing up dust and pine needles. The engine revved again but lost traction entirely. I saw the nose of the Toyota swing off the road and the whole car vanished through the tree line. A split second later, there was the sound of branches snapping and a hollow metallic thirtless. I hid the brakes and threw the cruiser into park. My boot hit the dirt before I'd finished radioing the update.

Vehicles crashed east perimeter of winding pines, approaching scene now. My blood was hot. My thoughts weren't entirely rational, because all I could focus on was the fact that they'd gone from a routine stop to endangering everyone at that camp and themselves too. I pulled the flashlight and unsnapped my pistol. holster just in case. People typically get dangerous when cornered, and this is about as cornered as you can be. They had to have a reason for speeding away like that. The car had come

to a stop against a thick pine, the front end crushed in but not folded. Steam hissed from the hood. A branch had punctured through the back window and scattered glass across the back seat. Put your hands where I can see them, I shouted. No movement. I approached the driver's side, light cutting through the cabin. The driver's airbag had gone off. He was slumped against it, head back, mouth open. A thin line of blood ran from his eyebrow to his cheek.

He was breathing. I swung the beam to the passenger side. The guy in the passenger seat had. and survived. His arms were bent under him and his legs were angled against the passenger side seat in a way I didn't think was even possible. The neck hung off his collarbone, head tipped unnaturally with a jaw slack and lopsided. It was a grotesque scene. That's when the driver gasped awake. He fought with a seatbelt for a second and shoved the door open, landing on all fours in the dirt.

I stepped up fast and pointed the flashlight at him. What the hell do you think you were doing? You ran from a stop and killed your friend. Over what? He didn't answer. He didn't even look at me. He rolled onto his back, eyes skyward, then suddenly turned over again and started scrambling to his feet.

I grabbed for his wrist, but he tore away, stumbling once before crashing into the tree. line. God damn it, I snarled and ran after him. Low branches clawed at my shirt, pine needles filled my boots. The sound of him moving ahead wasn't fast or steady. He was desperate and clumsy. I caught up to him near a slope where the tree cover thickened. He was crouched with one hand pressed to the dirt and the other to his chest, trying to breathe. Sweat poured off him in waves,

soaking through the color of his shirt and streaking down his arms. His pupils were huge, swallowing almost all the color. I grabbed him by the elbow and pinned him against the pine trunk. Hey, are you on something? You high!

I held my grip and looked him over again. His pulse was racing under my thumb. You need Narcan? Tell me now. He didn't answer right away, and people that need Narcan usually never do. His mouth open and close a few times before anything came out. What did make it out? Didn't make sense. Listen, you, if you just, if you hide now, maybe I won't know you are nearby.

I'd seen overdoses before, plenty of them. Some twitch and mutter. Others go still and drop. This looked like the textbook interpretation of a situation when Narcan was to be administered asap. I told him to stay with me and started guiding him back the way we came. He walked with me, barely.

It almost seemed like he was trying to fight my grip, but he was too weak. He dragged his feet and his breath scraped through his throat, eyes darting wildly. We made it to the tree line, and I got him to the cruiser. The back seat was clean. I helped him in, close the door, and stepped back. I reached for the radio on my shoulder.

Dispatch, this is Unit 18. I've got one fatality of the crash site and one possible overdose. Suspect is incoherent, requesting EMS priority. I went around to the front of the cruiser and opened the glove box. Pulled the Narcan kit free, check the spray and turned back. The shouting coming from the back of the vehicle stopped me. It was a low, thick, clicking sound, almost like retching, but wetter. I stepped around and aimed the flashlight at the rear window.

He was shaking. His whole body was moving with these wild spasms, his limbs flailing against the seat, and his jaw snapping open and show. He started to break apart. It began at the arms, skin pulling apart in long, wet lines, muscles swelled underneath it, raw and coiled, growing outward. Thick strands of fur pushed through the seams. His shirt tore open at the chest, then peeled away as his shoulders expended, bones cracked and reset themselves. I heard them go one at a time, snapping like twigs under foot.

His mouth opened in a silent scream, and a second row of fangs pushed out of his gums while the original teeth dropped into his lap. His face stretched forward as the skull reshaped, eye socket shifting as they sat further apart. A snout forced its way forward, the cartilage crunching as it grew. The cruiser exploded outward as it launched itself through the window. The back half of the car ripped open, metal screamed and plastic shattered. I staggered back and drew my sidearm, took aim and fired. One, two, three. The shots hit.

They had to have. I saw dark bursts bloom through the fur. But it didn't drop. It didn't even flinch. Then it stopped moving. its nose twitched, turning toward the direction of the camp. There was a noise off in the distance, somewhere far beyond the trees. It sounded like a bell or something similar.

It heard it, and it started running toward the youth camp. Its whole body dropped low, and it moved on all fours, fast and lopping. Each stride pushed it deeper into the woods, until I couldn't see it in. I stood in front of the scene I just witnessed with my gun still up, frozen in time. I raised the radio to my mouth with a hand that wouldn't stay still. My finger hesitated on the transmit button because I didn't know what to say. My head was still ringing, but that wasn't why my voice came out unsteady. This is Unit 18.

I paused and tried again. Someone is heading toward camp winding pines. I'm big, heavily armed, I think. My vehicle is destroyed, and he ran off toward the camp. I need backup now. Emergency priority. The reply didn't take long. Copy that, unit 18.

The nearest support is 60 minutes out. Drop a support is unavailable. Do you need medical? I stared at the ruined back of my cruiser. I didn't waste time trying to. to rationalize what I'd seen. If I stood there thinking about it, I wasn't going to move.

I keyed the mic again. Negative unmed, I'm going in. I let the radio fall back to my shoulder, then turned toward the trunk. It took some force to pry it open. The frame had twisted when the back exploded out. I grabbed the shotgun from inside, wrecked it to make sure it was live,

and check the sling for rounds I kept clipped in a side pouch. I jogged up the trail, following the dirt where its weight had torn into the soil. They were wide at the front and dragged behind, deep enough to catch a boot heel and trip someone if they weren't careful. Up ahead, tucked behind a split rail fence with a cheap floodlight flickering against the roof, I went up and knocked hard against the window. A man inside jolted awake and nearly spilled a styrofoam cup from the desk.

I raised my badge before he had any chance to say anything. Police, Officer Dunley, something's loose in the camp. I need you with me. Are you armed? He blinked at me, still halfway out of sleep, and nodded. Yeah, what's going on? There's something in the camp. I don't know what, but the kids aren't safe.

He stared at me a second longer, and I could see the disbelief behind his eyes. But a moment later, he opened the drawer and pulled out a pistol, tucked it into a hip holster, and locked the door behind him. We started toward the center of the camp. He finally spoke behind me. Are you going to tell me what we're looking for? I didn't stop walking.

You wouldn't believe me. I just saw a police officer walk out the woods looking manic. You might be surprised what I'll believe tonight. I didn't answer. He picked up his pace to match mine. The kids, they're all inside right now, I asked. Yeah, we just got here today. I drove the kids here.

Most are probably asleep. Staffed as lights out around 10. It's a full week retreat. They get the run of the place during the day. Bonfires, archery, swimming, all that. A night, disposed the staying cabins. What's out here? I didn't have answers.

Every question he asked was something I had already tried to ask myself and come up short. After a while, I raised the hand and told him to stop asking so many questions I didn't know. We cleared the brush line and the tree cover opened. Ahead of us was the centre trail, wide enough to fit a vehicle. On the left, two cabins faced each other across a patch of lawn, and at the end of the trail, angled slightly toward the turn loop, was a boss. As we approached the cabins, I slowed and lowered the barrel of the shotgun. The guard caught up beside me, still scanning the dark.

Tell me how this place is laid out, I said. He glanced around and started pointing. There are six cabins in total, all lined up in two rows, three on each side, Staff buildings over there past the main trail, near the mess hall. We've got a generator shared behind that, and the first aid hut closer to the lake. No perimeter fencing, but we've never needed it. And inside, I asked. Each cabin's got two rooms, one for the kids and one for the staff assigned to them.

Usually a counsellor or a teacher sleeps in the same space or the next room. How many in each? This group is light. maybe six or seven per right now. We stopped outside the nearest door. The building was quiet. A single bulb over the entryway flickered but stayed on. I looked through the window.

Nothing but the outline of bunks in the dark. Here's what we're doing, I said. We go in quiet, wake the adult first. You help them get the kids up. No screaming, no explaining. Tell them to head for the bar. Stay low, stay quiet. Once they're there, they crouch behind it and wait.

He swallowed hard, then nodded. I pushed the door open. It led out a creek, but not enough to wake anyone. The air inside was stale, heavy with the warmth of sleeping bodies. I moved toward the back, where I could make out a single adult figure in the bed along the far wall. I leaned in close and shook their shoulder once. They stirred and squinted at me.

Police, stay quiet, I whispered, flashing my badge. Wake the kids, get them dressed enough to move. Tell them as a drill if you need to. Lead them to the bus and crouch behind it. The teacher nodded and sat up fast, already calling out in a low voice to the bunk nearest to her. The kids began to stir. The next few minutes passed without a sound louder than soft,

shuffling and half-whispers, the children dressed in silence. The teacher guiding them out one by one, leading the group with a hand pressed to the wall. I stood at the threshold and watched until the last pair ducked into the dark, headed toward the bus. The guard moved beside me, his hand on his weapon, breathing unevenly. One down, I said. We didn't linger. We moved onto the second location. We eased in, flashlight low, barely tracing the floor.

Bunk beds lined both walls. The kids and them were out cold, limbs tangled and thin sheets. Some had toys on their pillows, shoes beside the frame, and old paperback books slipped beneath mattresses. I stepped between two of the beds, careful not to let my boots squeak on the waxed floor. No movement, no sounds except snoring, and the soft click of the bed.

cabin window panes shifting against the breeze. This cabin was bigger. We woke the teacher up, gave them the same commands, and got underway to the next room. In the third room, it was the same drill. On the fourth one, however, the door's base had visible claw marks on it. I motioned to the guard, and we took our positions on either side. I opened it slowly. I could feel it before he even stepped inside.

A drop in the air pressure. My flashlight scanned the bunks. Kids were asleep and I kept scanning the room looking for anything. The security behind me let out an audible gulp and touched my shoulder. I turned to look at him, but he didn't speak. He pointed up. Above us, pressed against the beam. between the rafters.

It was watching. Its claws were buried in the wood. Six of them spread outward to anchor its weight. The arms were stretched long and sinewy, joints bowed out in unnatural angles. Its stomach rose and fell with short breaths. Mucous hung from its mouth in strands. Its chest was still wet from the transformation. Patches of fur matted to bear, swollen muscles.

It stared at the smallest bed in the room. The girl in it had a face turned up, breathing through a mouth, one arm hanging over the edge of the mattress. I raised the shotgun and fired. The blast lit the room in one flash. The slug tore through its shoulder, ripping a chunk of its back out. It roared. No, it screamed. Something deeper than anything I'd ever heard.

to this day. Kids woke up instantly, and chaos erupted. I pumped the shotgun and fired again. This time the thing moved. It came down fast, not a fall, but a lunge that ripped it free of the ceiling and sent pieces of beam flying with it. I tried to shoot once more as it hit the floor, but before I could even so much as take another step,

it slammed its arm into my weapon and shattered it clean and, and half. The guard shouted behind me, the monster rammed into him and knocked him against the back wall. Then it disappeared through the open door in a blur of limbs. I stood there, holding the ruined half of my shotgun, my arm shaking, lungs heaving. Get the kids to the bus, I shouted, turning toward the guard. Now, move! He stumbled up, paled and wide-eyed. But he nodded. We hanged open the rest of the doors and started dragging everyone awake. Anyone who asked what was going on got told to move on.

Some listened, some hesitated. I shoved them forward. Screaming started in the distance. Not children. Adults. Someone farther in the camp in a separate spot. I turned toward it but didn't move. I couldn't go.

If I left now, even to try and stop it, the kids would be put in danger. Keep them moving, I told the guard. Get them to the damn bus. I'll follow. Go. I stayed behind them, waiting for it to show again. The only thing I had now was my 9mm. Nothing worth using, but I had to try. The bus came to life, cutting through the noise of crying children and panicked adults.

The last few teachers climbed on, pushing kids down the aisle. I looked out toward the woods once more. The trees were quiet, and somehow that was worse. I boarded last, and the door slammed shut behind me. The guard sat in the driver's seat, white knuckled on the wheel,

eyes flicking between the road and the mirrors. I walked the aisle, gun drawn, scanning every window. The bus groaned as it moved forward. I felt each shift in the tires, every bump of dirt and gravel. We got back on the road and kept moving at a steady pace. I was near the back of the bus facing the left side, and suddenly, through the trees, there was movement. It was running, keeping up with the bus.

Its gate was off, one arm hung limp at his side. Still dragging, the arm I'd hit with a shotgun. The other clawed forward with each leap, digging through brush, flinging it behind. Its face was set forward, mouth open, eyes locked onto the vehicle. I shouted toward the front. Faster, go, don't slow down. The trees gave way to the slope that led down toward the bridge.

I could feel the edge of it coming. It jumped. The impact shook the entire frame. The roof bowed inward and metal popped near the rear. Kid screamed in every direction. The bus tilted for a moment before rocking back into balance. Something's on the roof. Is something on the roof?

The guard shouted. He slammed the brakes for a second, but the whole chassis veered, wheels catching the edge of the bridge. We can't swerve, I barked. Keep it straight and we're never going over. The bus started to shake again. The weight shifted from front to back as the creature moved. You could hear the metal strain with every step it took across the roof.

In a split second, a massive claw tore through the ceiling above the driver's seat, ripping down clean through the thin steel. The guard didn't even have time to scream. The strike came fast and his head separated from his shoulders in a clean, diagonal motion. His body twitched once, then slumped sideways, arm locked against the wheel. The bus tilted hard to the right, then it flipped. Metal tore against pavement, screams drowned everything. The lights inside cut out and my body slammed into the back seat in front of me.

I remember the sound of window shattering, the screech of steel folding, and the wet thump of bodies hitting the walls. We slid to a stop. Smoke seeped in from somewhere behind me. I was on my side, face mashed against the wall, and my vision blurred. I heard screaming, but not from inside. Through the cracked windshield and side panels, I could see it. Its arms had wrapped through part of the roof's metal lattice, caught in the bend.

Its legs thrashed against the air, claws tearing through. Horse tearing through the breeze, searching for traction. It was still attached to the bus with its arm. Its other useless arm was dangling in the air outside. Its weight was pulling the whole vehicle forward. The bus had stopped on the slope near the drop. The concrete barry outside was cracked and sunken. If it tipped, we'd go over.

The monster screamed again, voice roar and furious. spit raining down through the cracks. Every time it flailed, the nose of the bus dipped a little further down toward the edge. I pushed myself up, head swimming. If it kept pulling, the bus was going into the river, and we'd go with it. I grabbed my pistol from beside me and moved toward the front.

Every inch I crawled made the bus shift. The people around me were mostly unconscious, but we're slowly stirring awake, causing the bus to list even more. I pressed my shoulder to the wall and use the seats that guide myself forward. The smoke inside the cabin had thickened. I raised the piss lop at an angle

from the side of one of the cracked windows, aimed centre mass, and pulled the trigger until the slide locked back. Countless rounds punched through. It screamed, head snapping back once, but didn't fall. It was completely stuck. I dropped the gun.

It was useless now. I looked around for anything I could do or use. The shattered plastic and hanging wire offered nothing. I looked at the front panel by the windshield. There was a fire axe mounted. The bus was old, so old that it still had a fire axe. The glass over the case had already been cracked. from the impact. I slammed my elbow into it and broke through. My fingers wrapped around the handle

and I yanked it free. The blade looked older than me, but it was solid. I didn't have time to second guess it. I crawl the last few feet, pushing through snap seat supports and shattered glass. The closer I got, the more it thrashed. Its body was angled down now, and it had made progress in its thrashing, but I needed to send it down for good. I brought the axe down. The first strike sank into the muscle above its wrist. It screamed and flailed maniacly, enough to tear across my forearm. Warm blood poured from the cut.

I didn't stop. I raised the axe again and brought it down where the elbow had bent backward into the metal. The joint cracked. It loosened. I hit again and again. The tendon finally snapped. The rest of the body fell free, but the mangled arm stayed stuck. The monster dropped away screaming, claws raking empty air,

then vanished into the dark gorge below. The scream echoed for a few seconds, then cut off. The bus groaned again and shifted. We needed to get out of there fast. For a moment, no one moved. A teacher near the middle broke the silence and began yelling for everyone to stay calm and get out as soon as possible.

I limped back along the floor, holding the cut across my arm with my palm to stop the bleeding. I helped the nearest ones get out first, guided them through the back panel as it opened. Other adults took over from there, ushering the kids onto the kids, the road and away from the bus. Smoke still clung

to everything. My vision blurred from the blood loss and the ringing in my ears. I could barely feel my legs. Once everyone was off, I lowered myself down from the rear of the bus. I remember stepping onto the pavement,

still carrying the axe, and standing there without saying anything while the kids huddled together behind me. Everyone was covered in ash in blood and smoke. But... We were alive.

The bus led out a low-grown. Something inside popped. The weight had shifted again. Its front tilted toward the edge, the left side pulling down first. I yelled for everyone to back up. The whole thing tipped off the edge and slid forward. Tires scraped once against the concrete.

And it dropped. Red lights flickered between the trees as the first cruiser appeared from the main road. Then two more. Ambulance headlights swept the edge of the woods. They finally came. A blur of boots and flashlights closed in, radios buzzing. Paramedics pulled out stretches, officers fanned out. I watched all of it as if I were stuck in a tunnel.

One of them called out my name. Jesus Donnelly, what the hell happened? It was Jameson, someone I knew. He took one look at me, then grabbed my shoulder and started leading me back toward the perimeter. Come on, sit down, you're bleeding, you're out on your feet. I didn't argue. I followed him to the back of a cruiser where a paramedic opened a kit and started cleaning the cuts across my arm. Everything stung, but it didn't matter.

The paramedic asked something, but I didn't answer. Then another medic approached with a clipboard. We need to know where the first body is, the one you radioed in at the original crash. You said one fatality. I nodded. Where? Jameson touched my arm. You said there was a wrecked car.

Yeah, I said. said, my throat was dry, in the forest back on the shoulder near the main trail. It's not too far out. They helped me into the cruiser and drove me down. We passed the broken fence and came up to where the Toyota had hit the tree. Two medics got out and moved toward the rear of the vehicle. I stayed behind, leaning on the open door. Then one of them turned back and called to me.

There's no one back here. I stood up straighter. What? He motioned again. There's blood, but there's no body. We walked toward them, looked through the window myself. The back seat was soaked. You could still see the pattern where the blood had dried, pulled down to the floor mat.

The seatbelt was stained red and stiff. But the body wasn't there. Not a single bone, not a piece of fabric, not a trace. I stepped back, blinking. Jameson stood next to me. Was he dead when you saw him? Yeah, I said. Could he have moved?

No. I locked past the car, into the trees behind the clearing. A question rang in my head at that moment. was it not the only one the ground out past the willow pulsed I remember how the moss peeled back to show what looked to be a grey pink

vainy pit which was slick like raw flesh I was just a boy maybe seven chasing a rabbit through the wet grass it wasn't mine or at least I don't remember having one the rabbit ran ahead

and before I could call it back It slipped on the moss and tumbled forward. There was a wet tearing sound and it disappeared down into the pulsing pit. I remember the way the moss fell back over the hole like closing lips and I ran back to the house screaming. For years I'd wake up in the middle of the night sweating through my sheets, that same nightmare keeping me from a good night's sleep. When I called Ruth, I was sitting in the server room, watching the reflection of the fluorescent lights pulse in my coffee.

I let the phone buzz out on the desk. She was my nearest neighbor growing up. She lived half a mile down the track and always brought casseroles over when mum passed. I remember that she kept an eye on me when Dad got too rough. I'd been ignoring calls from home for years. I'd blocked my dad after I'd answered to him yelling about leaving him with a broken tractor

and no one to fix it. I've been dodging her calls lately too. Credit card bills were doubling before I could pay them back. My rent kept jumping each year, and I didn't have it in me to lie and say I was fine. I didn't want to hear the worry in her voice. I never missed the farm. Each day before school,

Dad used to wake me up before dawn to haul feed sacks almost bigger than me. He'd call me useless and slapped me hard. across the back of my head when I dropped one or spilled grain across the barn floor. I hated smelling like a farm at school. The other kids would wrinkle their noses and call me pig boy. They'd shove me in the halls too. And when I told Dad, he said, maybe if I wasn't so soft like Mom, they wouldn't.

I remember once I asked him why he never came to my school assemblies, and he just looked at me and said, What for? before walking away. Another time, when I was about 12, I spilled a bucket of pig slop on the feedroom floor, and he dragged me outside by the collar, slammed me up against the grain silo so hard I saw stars,

and left me there in the frost till Ruth spotted me during one of a walks. I spent years saving up what little I could from doing odd jobs around the village. I'd help old Mr. Keen's split wood and mock out Ruth's chicken sheds for a fiver here and there. But I never managed to save up enough money. As soon as I was old enough, I took out a credit card, packed my clothes in a bin bag,

and called the first coach to the city. I got myself a job stocking shelves at a supermarket. I never touched the computer back home, but at the supermarket they put me in their tills for a while and I picked up how to fix the barcode scanner when it jammed or reset the till when they crashed. One of the supervisors noticed I was quick with it and showed me how to do basic troubleshooting on the back office computer.

I realized I was good at it. For the first time, I felt like maybe I wasn't useless after all, like maybe Dad was wrong about me. Ruth left a voicemail. Her voice was soft but tight, like she'd been crying. She said my dad was sick, worse than before, and he couldn't keep up with the livestock or the fencing repairs. She didn't ask me to come home, but she said he needed help, and there wasn't anyone who liked him enough to do it. I sat there, listening to it play out, feeling that old fear crawl up in my chest.

I was a grown man now, twice as strong as I'd been back then, but part of me still felt small, just hearing his name. I remembered one morning when I was eight or nine, crying in the kitchen because Dad had called me useless again. Mom crouched down in front of me, her hands still smelling of dish soap, and she said, Your dad's a hard worker, love.

It's tiring him out. Sometimes we help people, even when they don't deserve it. That's what makes you better than them. It didn't make sense to me when I was younger. But even though I understood it in my adulthood, it didn't mean I believed it. Mom's death left a gap in the house I was never allowed to speak about. The last memory I have of her was that morning.

Her hair was tied back with a red ribbon, and she handed me toast as I pulled my boots on for school. She kissed the top of my head and told me to listen to the teachers and come straight home. When I got back, Dad said she fell from the hayloft or chicken for owl nests and broke her neck on the old feed bin. He didn't wait for me and buried her himself on the opposite side of the land from the barns near the Poplar Grove. He put up a small wooden cross with a name burned into it. I used to go out there after school, sit with my back against the tree trunk and tell her about my day. Thinking about going back made my stomach twist.

The resentment was there, thick as ever, thinking of all those beatings, how he only ever got meaner after Mom died. But guilt pressed in too. If I didn't go, who else would help him? Ruth was right. There wasn't anyone else who he hadn't burned bridges with. I took my old hatchback I bought a Facebook marketplace for cheap. and packed it with my belongings and a flask of instant coffee for the drive. As I got closer to home, the road narrowed, hedgerows overgrown and clawing at the paintwork.

The village sign was rusted through at the bottom, leaning sideways into thistle clumps. My past shuttered shop fronts with blinds yellowed from the inside out. The grain silo streaked red-brown with rust. The old farmhouse at the junction boarded up with a warped ply that flapped in the It all felt smaller than I remembered. The drive had been long. My back was sore from the sagging seat, and I spent half the time thinking

about how I'd pay off the credit cards. Now I didn't have an income. I kept wondering what the place would look like now I was grown, if the barns would seem small too. Part of me hoped Dad kept mum's old boxes in the attic, even just a box or a Sunday clothes. something left that still smelled like a soap and wood smoke. My chest felt tight, thinking about stepping back into that kitchen,

and seeing him there. When I pulled up, Dad was out by the porch, sitting on the old paint-flake chair with his flask tucked tight in both hands. He frowned when he saw me step out of the hatchback, lines deep around his mouth. What are you doing here? He shouted. squinting at me like he wasn't sure I was real.

His voice was thinner than I remembered, rough like gravel. He set the flask down on the portrail, his hands shaking a little as he did. I told him Ruth called me, and he snorted, spat into the dirt, said he didn't need any charity from City Boys with soft hands. His eyes flickered over me. My jeans, my trainers, the creases and my shirt from the drive. and he curled his lip like it all offended him. I couldn't help noticing how his shoulders had shrunk into his frame,

how grey his skin looked under the old cap. There were sunspots across his cheeks in the ridge of his nose and a smear of dried blood under one nostril like he'd been wiping at it. I thought about how this was the man who used to lift me one-handed off the ground when he was angry. Now he looked like a strong wind could knocky him sideways. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes flicking away from mine.

Well, he muttered, voice quieter. Don't just stand there gauping. Your bags won't carry themselves in. He pushed himself up to a stand, hobbled down the porch steps, and reached for the boot to grab one of my duffel bags. His fingers trembled on the strap, and he nearly lost balance, catching himself against the car with a grunt. For a moment, I felt sorry for him, seeing how old and thin he'd gone, but the memory of him dragging me across the yard by the collar,

flared up sharp, burning the pity right out of me. I cleared my throat. You're right there, I asked, trying to keep my voice flat. He grunted and didn't look at me, still bracing himself against the door. Don't fuss. Grab your crap and get inside before the flies do.

The way his voice shook under the words made something twist low in my gut. But I didn't say anything else as I reached for the rest of my bags. In the days that followed, mornings came slow, the cold seeping through the thin windows. Each day blended into the next and it was over the course of a week

that these small changes built between us. The first morning I caught him in the kitchen, hunched over his mug, fighting with his shirt buttons, knuckles swollen and spotted with age. I reached over without saying anything and fastened the last button for him. He grunted like it annoyed him,

but he didn't pull away. He muttered. City Boys got soft hands but close. other fingers, and it almost sounded like affection. By the fourth and fifth day, we spent mornings along the Ryefield fence. He showed me how to wedge the crowbar under the rotted post without splitting it, his wrinkled hands guiding mine, and for a moment I felt like a kid again, looking up to him before everything went bad. I found myself wondering why he'd been so cool back then. Was it the stress of losing mom, the endless debt and failing crops? Or was that just

who he was? And now age made him softer. When the tractor engine backfired, he flinched so hard he dropped the spanner and then he barked out a warm laugh. It was the first time I'd heard that sound from him since I was very young. I laughed too. And for a second, I saw him the way I'd wanted too as a boy. Just my dad, not the man who bruised my ribs when I spilled pig feed. That evening, as the day settled in, he walked down the line of the new posts I tamped in, testing each one with his booth. Good job, he said, quiet, almost embarrassed. Didn't think you get them line proper. His words settled into my chest, heavy and warm.

something close to pride curling low in my gut. As the sun bled down past the barn roof, he stared out towards the hollow, squinting at the shadows, pooling at its edge. You're stronger than I thought. His voice cracked a little. The next week rolled on the same,

each day aching more than the last. I learned how to split fence rails without wasting half the splinters, had to pull a stubborn car from a cramped pen without getting kicked. My hands blistered in the first two days, and by day three, the skin peeled off in strips. Every morning I woke with my back stiff and my arms throbbing. But I kept going, feeling something heavy and guilty settled in my chest. I thought about how Dad must have been doing all this alone for years after I left,

and it made my stomach groan with shame. The work was harder than I ever imagined, and each time I caught him watching me, his eyes clouded but proud, it made me want to do more. I started picking up extra chores without him asking, fixing a jammed water pump, and oiling the barn hinges before they squealed themselves off the nails.

Each chore made my back ache and my palms roar, but also gave me a sense of purpose I hadn't felt in years. I found myself wanting to prove to him I wasn't useless. Some mornings, as we ate breakfast in silence, I'd catch him glancing at me from under his brow, and I thought maybe he was starting to see me as more than a boy who ran away. But that old nightmare started coming back too.

I got used to sleeping right through the night when I moved away, Maybe it was been back in my old room and the smell of haydust and old varnish seeping from the floorboards that let it crawl back in. Now, every couple of nights, I'd wake up gasping, hard hammering and the sheets clammy with sweat. In the dream, I was small again, feet sinking into wet grass, watching the ground past the willow ripple and pulse like a throat. The mask peeled back to show that grey pink flesh underneath, feigned and slick, twitching with a life of its own. I see the rabbit skitter forward, hear its yelps before it slipped and fell in, followed by their wet tearing sound that still makes my stomach cleanse just thinking of it. I couldn't help but wonder why the dream came back.

As time passed, I noticed that every other day my dad would hobble out to the pens and tire of rope around a goat's neck, and he'd lead it quiet and bleating past the rife field toward the marshland. He'd come back alone, wiping his hands on his jeans, his face pale, and eyes distant. The first time I asked where he went, he snapped at me, sharp. Not you business. But then he sighed, and his shoulders slumped. It's just old farmwork you wouldn't understand. He said, his voice tired, almost kind. Let your old man take care of the land.

There was something in his eyes that warned me off. I thought maybe he was calling them or selling to some neighbour I didn't know. But the way he shut down any question made me not want to know. It was easier not to know. I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe my nightmare wasn't just a nightmare at all. Maybe it was something I saw once And my mind buried it Because thinking about it too long

Made me feel sick The next time he went to fetch a goat I saw how his hands shook It was so bad the rope nearly slipped through his grip His face was grey Lips dry and cracked And sweat clung to the wisps of hair at his temple I put down the spanner

I was using to fix the tractor panel And said here let me take it out for you today he paused shoulders trembling as he caught his breath and his eyes flicked up at me dull and wet like he was fighting something inside no he said voice low but shaking you go fix that southgate hinge instead leave this to me he tried to stand up straighter but winced gripping the rope so tight his knuckles went white. For a second, I thought he might collapse right there. I watched him shuffle off across the field, the goat trailing behind him. But I listened, and once I finished bolting the tractor panel, I headed for the south gate.

The hinge wasn't even loose, just a bit rusted, so I oiled it and kicked it shut to check. As I turned to walk back, I saw the goats wandering free near the fence line, rope still hanging from its neck. It lifted its head to bleed at me, but I was already sprinting past it, boots thudding on the dirt, the ground getting softer as I reached the marsh edge. The grass there felt spongy underfoot, damp moss pulling at my souls as I scanned the land frantically. I spotted him, crumpled. pulled in the mud near the cat tails.

His shirt pulled half out of his jeans like he'd fallen hard. His chest rose and fell in short, shallow jerks, eyes half open. His body felt so light when I lifted him, like picking up a sack of feet too long left out to dry. His skin was clammy, his breath rattled against my neck as I carried him back towards the house. I felt sorry for him then. truly sorry and hated myself for it. He felt so small in my arms.

I laid him down on the old brown armchair by the window, the one with a stuffing coming out of the armrest and pressed the damp cloth to his forehead. It took nearly 20 minutes for his eyes to focus properly. He gripped my wrist weakly, his palm cold and thin-skinned and muttered for water. After he drank, His head sank back against the worn cushion.

My time is nearly over, boy. He rasped, staring past me at the ceiling. It's time you knew about the land. He swallowed, his throat clicking dryly. Back when you were little, before your mum. His eyes drifted shut, and for a moment I thought he'd fallen asleep. But then he drew a shuddering breath. The land started failing.

Crops rotted in the rows. Couldn't keep the feed barley from mould. Even the hens stopped laying. Your mum and I. We fought a lot then. Money. God, everything. He coughed weakly and his lip trembled.

I tried everything, boy. Fertilizers, burning off topsoil, preying. Nothing took. Then one day, you came in screaming about the rabbit. You were white as milk, couldn't get the words outright. You said the earth swallowed him up. I thought you were lying. But later that evening, I went out there, past the willow.

I saw it. The moss all peeled back. The flesh underneath, feigned, pulsing, like something alive. He paused, staring through me. After it ate the rabbit, the cell field came up green again, peas like fists. I didn't think much of it until a week later, when the leaves yellowed overnight. And I thought, maybe it needed feeding again. So I took an old billy goat, slit its throat right over that hole, and threw it in.

His voice cracked, apathetic. thin sound. The next day, the wheat stood tall, barley heads thick. The land came back to life. And that's how it's been. The land feeds us. We feed it. Your mom.

She didn't understand. His fingers loosened around my wrist as his breathing eased the shallow rattles, eyes closing, mouth slack. He stayed quiet for a long minute. minute, eyes half shut. Then his brow pinched. I tried other things, you know, he muttered, voice horse. Roadkill, rotted hard carcasses, dead crows I found in the yard,

thought if it wanted meat, it wouldn't matter. But every time I fed it something old, the land turned sour. Crops came up yellow, the barley rotted in the head. It needs fresh blood boy Warm, just killed or still kicking The first time I realised that Was when a calf was born twisted with its guts half out I didn't want it to suffer

So I slit his throat out by the marsh and threw it in The next day the cloverfield came up thick as wool That's how I knew It isn't just any meat It's got to be alive or near enough. That's how it works. His eyes rolled back, and his chest fluttered like a trapped bird under his ribs.

I sat there watching him, that awful pulse of pity and disgust throbbing under my ribs. He swallowed again, eyes flicking open just enough to meet mine. You'll need to keep it fed now, he whispered. Hearing him say it like that made my mouth go dry. All those years thinking it was just a nightmare. But it wasn't. I really did have a rabbit. I could see its scruffy ears in my mind,

the way it used to roll on his back so I'd scratch its belly. It wasn't just some blur from sleep. It was real. And he died, swallowed up by some sort of flesh pit. My chest hurt, thinking. thinking about it, thinking about how I'd suffered from the horrific nightmare over and over again, and my dad never said a word, just told me to stop sniveling over nightmares, tears burned in my eyes. He coughed, wet and shallow, and swallowed hard.

It's your job now, he said, voice rasping like gravel. His eyes flick to mine and softened for a moment. like there was still a father in there somewhere. You're ready. I wouldn't ask if you weren't. He closed his eyes again, his head rolling to the side, but his chest kept rising and falling,

each breath thin and ragged. I sat there for a while, taking it all in, feeling my chest tight and my hands numb before I stood up. I grabbed my coat from the peg and stepped outside, the evening air cool against my face. The fields were quiet, a few crows picking at old straw bales.

I spotted the goat wandering near the rife fence line, rope trailing behind it through the mud. It lifted its head when it saw me coming, bleated low and tried to step away, but his legs sank in the churned up soil. My hand shook as I untangled the rope from around its hocks. as I started walking it toward the marshland. When I reached the edge of the marsh,

I could smell the pit before I could see it. The goat snorted and pulled back against the rope, hooves skidding in the moss, ears flicking back at the stink. But I yanked it closer. It was in grey pink like I remembered. It was darker now, streaked with the deep red-brown, folds of flesh ridged like the inside of the inside of the... of a gut.

Thick yellowish slime wept from its seams, pooling into the mud below. The centre of it dipped inward, twitching with slow pulses. The smell hit me so hard, I gagged. I stood there with the goat shifting nervously beside me, the rope rough in my grip. I thought about Dad's eyes when he told me I was ready.

That stupid flicker of pride in my chest burned through the fear. My hands were trembling so hard I could barely loosen the rope. I slipped it off and grabbed the goat by its back legs, feeling its weight strained my arms. It bleated, and I didn't have it in me to slit his throat. I couldn't. So I just heaved it forward,

flinching as his head struck the fleshy rim. The whole pit convulsed, folds rippling outwards as it subtly, goat down in one twitching gulp, leaving nothing behind but the stench of blood and bile curling up into the evening air. I watched the ripple settle and felt my knees go weak. I turned away, wiping my mouth of the back of my sleeve, chewing the nausea away. But I could still hear that wet sucking sound as the goat slipped down and was swallowed.

By morning, the rice stood taller, dark green and heavy hair. headed. The calves were born with bright eyes and strong legs, the clover thick under their hooves. Dad noticed it too. He relaxed more, letting me take over the work. Unfortunately, he only got sicker, and he started sleeping longer. My arms thickened, and my back grew stronger under the strain. Each night, as I washed the dirt off in the cracked basin, I saw someone I almost respected looking back at me. Dad often watched me work from his chair on the porch, his eyes soft now, his voice calmer when he spoke. Some nights he'd tell me about the farm when I was small, like how I used to fall asleep in the hayloft with a book propped on my chest, and he'd smile a little when he said it, like he

actually loved me back then. As I settled him in with his mug of warm milk, he'd reached out and squeezed my wrist, and I could almost believe this was how it was always meant to be. In the weeks after, I kept feeding at things like chickens that stopped laying, lambs born too weak to stand, one damp morning, while hauling a freshly dead hue across the slick ground. My foot slid out from under me, and I toppled forward. My hands slapped down hard on the flesh rim, slick and hot, and I gagged at the texture. I pushed myself up fast, but something half buried in the slime caught my eye, matted down under a thick yellow smear. It was a scrap of cloth.

I reached out with shaking fingers and pulled it free. When I rubbed away the slime with my thumb, I saw the red shine through. My chest went tight, my body recognizing the material before my brain had a chance to. It was a piece of the bow mum wore in her hair the morning I last saw her. For a moment the smell of rot faded, and all I could hear was a laugh echoing in my memory, before it twisted into that pulsing, sucking sound beneath me, and the world tilted sideways under me. My hands shook as I clenched the ribbon in my fist,

the anger bubbled up sharp in my chest, but under it was dread, confusion, grief all twisted together. I thought about the grave by the poplar grove the little cross he had carved the name into. My throat felt tight. I stumbled back to the toolshed, grabbed the shovel of its rusted hook, and trudged out past the fence lines to a grave. The ground was hard from weeks of sun, but I dug anyway, sweat dripping into my eyes, dirt, caking my arms. I dug until the shovel hit nothing but dry earth below. There were no bones or coffin. The anger built up heart behind my eyes, and I've had my teeth clenched so tight, my jaw ached.

All those years of being called useless, all those bruises and the fear and the small kindnesses that never made up for it. I felt the rage burn up through my chest, molten and unstoppable. He murdered her. He murdered my mum. The bow was warm in my grip from my sweaty, shaking hands as I stormed back to the house. The door slammed open against the peeling wall. He was in his chair, the old TV flickering shadows across his face, eyes glazed and distant. He looked up slow, blinking at me like I'd woken him from a dream.

I held the soiled ribbon out, my voice trembling with fury. I know what you did, I boomed. I know you killed her. Why? Why the hell would you do that? He looked at the bow in my hand, then back up at me, eyes tired and hollow. He led out a long, ragged sigh and slumped deeper into the chair. We were running out, he rasped.

His voice like dry gravel. No cows left, barely any sheep. Your mom, she wouldn't let me take the horses. She kept praying, thinking God would fix it. But the crops were rotting. The bank was calling every week. We were finished. I stared at him, heart pounding so hard it hurt.

She didn't understand, he wrote, eyes going glassy. She said we'd leave, sell the place. For this land, it's in my blood, my fathers, his fathers before him. I couldn't just let it die. She said I was losing my mind, that it was just rot, just bad weather, nothing to do with the land wanting blood. She said she was taking you and leaving. She said she'd call the police if I tried to stop her. His breathing grew shallow, rattling in his chest.

I didn't plan it, he whispered. I couldn't, I couldn't let her take everything. I pushed her. She was standing near the loft opening, yelling at me. She stumbled back, slipped right through, fell down onto the feed bin, broke her neck. I thought if the pit took her, maybe it would fix the barley, the mold, the animals starving in their pens. So, I dragged her out there. He blinked, tears streaking down his stubble cheeks.

She would have forgiven me, he muttered. She always forgave me. Something inside me snapped. My vision went hot and dark. I took a step forward, my breath ragged. No, I spat, voice sharp enough to cut glass. That's a lot of. He flinched.

You don't understand, he said, voice-cracking, as if he was arguing with himself just as much as me. This farm was all I had left. This land has always been my life. If I lost it, what was left for me? Nothing. The anger in me boiled over then, furious and cruel. I grabbed his wrist, pulling him upright despite his protests. feeling how frail and light it'd become.

You murdered her. You murdered everything good that was left. I grabbed his wrist. His skin felt thin. He gasped as I yanked him upright. His legs buckled, nearly dropping him back into the chair. But I held him up, feeling how light it'd become. And now you want me to keep feeling this nightmare, like it's some family duty?

My voice rose. Sharp with disgust. Fine. Let's feed it. He shook his head weakly, tears dripping from his chin. Don't do this, lad, he weezed. I began pulling him towards the door. There was a slight resistance, but nothing I couldn't overpower.

He stumbled, legs barely holding him up. And when we reached the porch steps, he lost his footing, collapsing hard onto the rough wood. I dragged him down the stairs, skin scraping against splintered planks. He groaned in pain while gasping to catch his breath. But I kept going, dragging him through the mud, his worn shoes leaving smears in the soil as he tried to push against the ground and free himself from my grip.

He twisted and strained, a broken thing fighting a losing battle. but I had no mercy. A cold marsh air bit to my face as we neared the pit, and I could feel his ragged breaths hitched with panic. His eyes met mine, pleading and wild, but the fury that fueled me was a tide too strong to hold back. Why? I shouted as I dragged him forward. Why did you hate me so much after she was gone? Was it guilt or just the land? and telling you what to do.

His eyes flicked up to me, wide and glistening with tears. I don't know, he whispered, voice-breaking like snap twigs. I don't know. We reached the pit, the ground soggy beneath my boots, soft and slippy. The pit waited there, that sick pull steady beneath the surface. He leaned on me, fragile and worn. I hold him upright one last time. He trembled in my grasp, his body weak and brittle.

His skin was pale and clammy, veins standing out like dark cords beneath the thin flesh of his hands. He gasped, struggling for breath, a rattling wheeze that tore through the stillness. His eyes flickered, wild and pleading, filled with a desperate, fading life. I shook, muscles tight with fuel. fury. Please, he whispered, trembling in my grip and voice ragged.

I'm your father, I looked him in the eye, voice cold and hard. And what did Mom say? Did she beg you too? Did he give her any mercy? He tried to look away, but I tightened my grip, forcing him to meet my eyes. Tears willed, mixing with snot as his shoulders heaved in silent soft. No, he sputtered. The word was so small, so final, she deserved so much more. I shoved him forward. He stumbled, caught for half a second on the fleshy rim, then slipped into the pit.

It clung to him, dragging him down inch by inch. His arms flailed, nails scraping uselessly at the veined walls as the pit swallowed him whole. with a wet, sucking sound. The folds quivered, then sealed over in silence, and it was at that moment I realised I was more like my father than I ever thought.