CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - 7 DISTURBING r nosleep Creepypasta Horror Stories to relax to

Episode Date: December 8, 2020

LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO-SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd...iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...CREEPYPASTA STORIES-►0:00 "The Thing in the Elevator Shaft" Creepypasta►44:05 "Has anyone been to Chester's Kidzone?" Creepypasta►57:36 "There Was A Noise Coming From The Back Of The Hearse" Creepypasta►1:40:48 "There's something in the mountains of Afghanistan, and it doesn't want us there" Creepypasta►2:19:35 "My grandpa served in both World Wars. He died dozens of times" Creepypasta►2:59:25 "The thing eating tourists in Bear Mountain State Park is NOT a bear" Creepypasta►3:20:05 "I found a disturbing VHS tape in my attic. I regret watching it" 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. CREEPY THUMBNAIL ART BY►Ching Yeh: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/0D6VKSUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS-►"Good Places to Start"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7YCb...►"Personal Favourites"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEa2R...►"Written by me"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX6RA...►"Long Stories"- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...FOLLOW ME ON-►Twitter: https://twitter.com/Creeps_McPasta►Instagram: https://instagram.com/creepsmcpasta/►Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/creepsmcpasta►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CreepsMcPastaCREEPYPASTA 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-

At the end of a long bartending shift, I caught the concierge standing on a chair inside the elevator, opening the trap door on the ceiling and tossing raw meat through it. He had no idea I was watching. I'd gone to the basement to change a keg inside the big cooler, and I guess he walked right past without noticing. It freaked me out a little, so I ducked back in and waited until I felt he had gone. Was he using poisoned meat to exterminate rats? This old place had been built 100 years ago.

I'd never seen any rats, but maybe this was the reason why. The Hotel Louise, once luxurious, had become run down in recent decades. Its rooms turned into cheap apartments. Hoping Pete the concierge had left, I poked my head out. No sign of him. The closed elevator still sat on the basement floor. I guess Peter decided to take the stairs. Good idea.

I judged the stairs myself to the fifth floor where I rented a room in the 30-story tower. Everything inside my room belonged to the hotel, except what few clothes I had and what little food I kept. Drifting into the city a few months without a plan, and still in shock from my wife's recent death, I took a job bartending at La Bar de Luis on the first floor, at once elegant, now, aging dive of warped pine floors and graffiti scratched stables. The place didn't do much business, and before long, I was the only bartender. The kitchen only had one cook, Rodrigo,

so if you wanted something to eat, he had to be working. Likewise, if you wanted something to drink, I had to be behind the bar, which I usually was. I had nothing else to do. In the morning, I got back in the elevator to head down to open the bar, I was met by my only friend in the building,

Lindsay, a seven-year-old girl who lived across from me. Good day, Mr. Bartender. she said from under an oversized ship captain's hat. What floor will it be? The usual, I replied, and take the long way. She giggled, a running joke between us. She knew I was in no hurry to get to work. Lindsay had short, dark hair that curled to her shoulders,

a pixie face and a fearless, inquisitive personality. She seemed like the only fully alive creature in this dusty old place. She liked to pretend the elevator was a ship and could take her anywhere. No one minded, except of course Pete, the besnickety concierge who chased her off whenever he caught her. She hid behind the control panel

as we reached the ground floor so Pete wouldn't catch her. I glanced up at a large trapdoor on the ceiling. Had I really seen Pete throw raw meat up there? Pete always took stakes from the kitchen at the end of the night, but I'd assumed he cooked them at home

for a late night's supper. Thanks for riding the Lindsay shuttle. The girl whispered as the door opened to the lobby. Hope you enjoy the trip? As always, I replied, slipping a folded dollar bill into a hand. It didn't take long for Pete to spot me. His face screwed with worry over the headaches of running the place, which he did do, concierge being an outdated title for his job.

I worried over whether he'd seen me last night, but if so, he didn't let on. If it's not too much trouble, he sneered, there are customers awaiting your service. I nodded, and good morning to you, Fussy Pants. Pete was in his 50s, not a hair out of place, his clothing as nearly pressed as that of a West Point officer. And, I knew by customers, he meant Mrs. Downing,

an old widow who had about as much life outside this place as me and Pete did. Every morning she waited for me to open. If I started opening at 10 instead of 11, she'd no doubt be waiting at 9.30. instead of 10.30. I poured her a draft, adding a splash of tomato juice and a shot of bourbon in a glass on the side. Halfway through the beer, maybe an hour from now if she was feeling rowdy, she'd down the shot with a grimace. While making small talk with Mrs. Downing, I set up the bar for the day.

Nothing much different ever happened around here. Every day, groundhog day. Until I saw a team of medics hurrying through the lobby. I hurried from the bar to follow. I found Pete slumped over in a chair by the elevator. A couple of residents huddled nervously around him. A short time later they took him out on a stretcher. In some pain, he looked for me, trying to tell me something, finally spitting it out.

On my desk, there's a bag, the old man's medicine. Then they took him away. We learned a while later that his appendix had burst, but that they had gotten. it in time, and he'd only be at the hospital about a week. As much as I couldn't stand up the stuck-up dick, his loss was immediately felt. Now it fell on me to order the liquor, and Rodrigo, whose only English consisted of a handful of curses, had to order the food. Packages for residents immediately began piling up in the lobby,

maids began milling around chatting, and the janitors loitered smoking joints in the alley by the dumpster. A few hours after they'd taken poor Pete, I remembered about the medicine. and found the paper pharmacy bag on his desk. So, I was finally going to meet the old man. The old man occupied the top floor, and no one ever saw or heard from him other than Pete. The old man owned the building, and supposedly never left it, had been up on the presidential suite as long as anyone who could remember,

including Mrs. Downing, who had been here since Kennedy was in the White House. I left Mrs. Downing in charge of the bar, which simply meant if anyone happened to show up, she would tell them I'll be back in ten minutes. While waiting for the elevator, I glanced inside the bag. Inside was a small vial, marked with the word I couldn't pronounce, alongside one I could. Anti-venom. Okay then.

Lindsay again piloted the elevator. Where to, Mr. Bartender? Five, so you can get off. Lindsay's young brain worked fast and seen the pharmacy bag in my hand. She understood. a voice an excited whisper You're going to see the old man I nodded

Can I come Please I want to know what he looks like You know it's not allowed Lindsay Come on I'll stay in the elevator I don't make the rules captain But I promised to tell you everything in the way back down That satisfied her She got off on our floor

Where I knew she would wait Watching the old dial above the elevator door When the elevator began speeding up again my nerves became jittery. The old man. Only Pete knew everything about him, and Pete wasn't much for chatting. The elevator didn't even go to the top floors

unless the old man released it, and Lindsay had sure tried. Of course, I did know one thing about him now. For some reason, he needed antivenom. The elevator stopped on the 29th floor, but the door didn't open. He just sat there for what felt like an interruption. A fernable long time.

Not knowing what else to do, I hit the top floor number on the console again. A frail voice came through the speaker. Pete? No, sir. Pete's in the hospital. I work in the bar. I have your medicine, sir. The elevator started rising again.

Another long moment passed. Then the door opened into a massive room, dimly lit like a forest dripping with blue moonlight. I stepped out into what I now call the silver suite, an ornate palace adorned everywhere with silver, but apparently inhabited by a hoarder. My description won't do it justice. Silver curtains that allowed practically no light from outside, silver chandeliers, antique wooden tables mounted with silver bowls, teapots and vases. Piled on the floor around it all with stacks of newspapers blurting headlines from decades ago. I took a few hesitant steps into the silver suite. My eye soon went to a long silver tub which had steam rising from it.

Adjacent the tub, with its back to it, sat the only chair in the room. My skin crawled. I wanted no part in anything near that tub. Guessing someone might be listening, I cleared my throat and spoke into the empty room. I'll... Just leave this on the floor, sir. I voice cracked over a speaker. Sit, young man.

Sit in the chair. I edged over to that chair beside the tub. In the dim light and under the hot steam, the bath water was dark, but I could see enough to realize nothing was inside it. Sitting down on the chair, my back to the tub, I looked around.

Across the room, I noticed what looked like large, dried skins, the colour of charcoal hanging on silver hooks along the wall. What animal I couldn't tell from here. The lights began to dim even more until the room reached a level of silver twilight right before full night.

Then I heard water steering behind me. Glancing again at the tub, I noticed now that it actually extended through the wall into the adjacent room and someone was now sliding onto the water onto its side. A lump formed in my throat. but I quickly turned straight forward, sensing whoever was entering, presumably the old man, didn't want to be seen.

Shivering, I irrationally worried he might reach out from the water and touch me from behind. A gravely whisper came from behind me. Pete is not well. Appendicitis, I replied, he will be at the hospital for some days. Afraid to look over my shoulder, I sought out reflections in the very very. silver bowls and teapots on the tables and made out, sitting in the tub, a figure so drenched in shadow

that I could see nothing but silhouette. You run the bar, the old voice said. Pete, approve of you. So I wanted to see you for myself. If anything should happen to Pete,

I would need a replacement. I wanted no part of that job. In fact, already, I was thinking of be time to start planning another bus ride, another beginning, maybe Pittsburgh. My skin is very sensitive, the old man said. But you mustn't think of me a monster. I'm just old and peculiar.

Pete, no doubt, felt uncomfortable at first too. Well, I'm not one for prying, sir. Excellent. We might work very well together. Like Pete, you would be richly rewarded. I felt the water staring again. In the reflection on the teapot, I caught sight of a frivolously long,

slender hand emerging from the tub and unfolding by an old victroller record player. Did the teapot distort the image? Those fingers seemed impossibly long, as though they might have four or five joints. It had to be a trick of the reflected light. A moment later, soft jazz came from the record player. A man like me.

he said, It depends on a handful of others, but can trust so few. Are you trustworthy? I thought of my poor wife dying, who I had stayed with to the very end, before I panicked and fled, leaving her to take her last breaths alone.

I tried to be, I told the old man, but I've also failed. A good answer, the old man squealed. None of us are perils. Perfect. Compromises must be made in order to live. Remember that. Next time we shall visit longer. Leave the medicine on the seat. Without hesitation, I hurried to my feet, without turning toward the tub, placed a bag in the chair. I walked back to the elevator on legs like a shaky stool. Have a good day, sir, I said, punching the down button.

But I had to wait for the elevator to return. While I did, I finally turned back to look directly at the tub, but the old man was no longer on this side of the wall. A ding sounded the elevator's opening doors, and I hopped in, pressing the ground floor button about eight times as if it would make it go faster. I didn't start breathing again until the door closed and the elevator was on its way down. Of course, it stopped to the fifth floor first. Lindsay. Jumping on board, she demanded answers. Did you see him?

What was he like? What is the top floor like? Before I could attempt to reply, the elevator ground to a sudden halt between floors. The lights flickering. The car rattled and creaked. Remembering Pete's weird actions last night, I looked up nervously at the unusually large trap door.

Lindsay looked scared at first, then recovered, saying, Don't worry, sir. We'll have this fixed in a jiffy. But her eyes went to the sea, too. A sound came from above, something like pattering feet. Then the elevator started moving again. We both exiled. Well, she asked as the door opened on the lobby. We'll talk later, Captain. Right now I have to find out how to get this elevator checked out. In the meantime,

you stay off it. She crossed her arms defiantly. Don't you know, a captain never abandons her ship. Consider it shore leave, I said, hurrying through the lobby. What's that? Just stay off the elevator. I'd only spoken to a mom a few times, but the situation was very troubled. A single mother, two other kids beside Lindsay, a baby and a toddler. Word was the mom had a monkey on her back, which, I suspected, had something to do with a girl spending so much time hanging around the whole place. I swept into Pete's office for his list of services. plumbing HVAC, electrical, a long list, but nothing for the elevator. I storned off to the bar when naturally only Mrs. Downing waited.

I topped off a beer, asking, I've been looking through Pete's contacts and I can't find anything for elevator repair. Her face went dark. She actually looks frightened. Can't it wait till he comes back? No, I explained. I just got stuck for a few seconds coming down. Trust me, she warned.

You don't want to get them involved if you don't absolutely have to. She made them sound like a secret police or something. Are we talking about the same thing? She leaned over, glancing nervously around as though worried someone might be listening. My advice is don't call them, but if you do, let me know so I won't be around. She stared uncomfortably into her beer as though wishing I'd never brought it up. This is ridiculous, I thought, grabbing the phone book and looking through the yellow pages. But Rodrigo, who at some point had come from the kitchen and stood behind me, shook his head.

What? I asked. You not call them. The look on his face became so grave that I closed the phone book, deciding he could wait. The rest of the day was uneventful. Here and there someone came in for a drink. Once I caught Lindsay playfully poking a head in from the bar's entrance. knowing it was off limits to her. As always, I made a show of chasing her way

and she ran towards the stairs, laughing and pointing to make sure I knew she was avoiding the elevator. Later, I overheard a middle-aged couple whispering something about the elevator, but other than that, no problems. At the end of my shift, late at night and long after I'd seen

or heard anyone go through the lobby, I decided I should ride the elevator, not because I wanted to, but because, I felt some responsibility. When those doors closed, my heart rate increased. And when the elevator started up, I barely breathed. If this thing got stuck now, who would hear the alarm?

My eyes went to the trapdoor above. The cables creaked with a shaft, making the elevator feel like the hold of an old ship's sailing. When the doors opened on my floor, I practically jumped through them. Passing Lindsay's door, I heard a baby crying. and a TV turned up. Life at Hotel Louise remained chaotic without Pete, but mostly things remained routine.

Mrs Downing drank beer and tomato, Rodrigo cursed in at least two languages, and Lindsay adventured on the high seas of the elevator shaft. Hearing of no further problems with it I refrained from having to call the apparently dreaded elevator repair people. It had become Groundhog Day again, until one afternoon a scream echoed through the lobby. Everyone ran to where the screaming resident stood before the open elevator.

Inside the car, a young man who lived in the 11th floor lay butchered. I quickly scanned the lobby for signs of a wild animal. Something had torn through and fillet the mantar rib cage, but there were no signs of an animal, no bloody pawprints on the faded marble floor, and no one had seen anything. The police came and did their thing. They examined the body, questioned those that found it,

and questioned those of us on the ground floor as to whether we had seen anything unusual. They asked if anyone living here might have a wild animal as a pet, but were informed that no pets were allowed. After most of them had left and the body had been removed, Lindsay broke the rule and came to the bar to see me. She was scared. I gave her a Shirley Temple and reassured the cops would catch whatever animal had gotten loose. But she shook her head under the big captain's hat.

It wasn't an animal, she said. I came out from behind the bar and sat down beside her. Her look gravely serious, she said. His girlfriend did it. What do you mean? She slurbed a drink before answering. I was with him until we got to my floor. Lindsay, I said, but cut myself off.

For that moment, a fearsome crew stormed. armed in from the lobby. The elevator repairmen. Eight of them. Wearing blue jeans and work boots, black work gloves, some carrying toolboxes. But they also wore dark polyester jackets,

like something you might see on an FBI response team and tinted glasses like proverbial men in black. And they had tactical radios with ear and mouthpieces. Everything about them looked government, except their jacket said, Elevator Repair.

Don't say a word. whispered to Lindsay. Now, I know what you're thinking. Lindsay had possibly seen the killer, the only clue anyone had, and here I was keeping her quiet. But my reason was simple. I was terrified for her. I sensed these men were a threat and she would be in danger. My original plan was to keep her quiet until they left, then bring her to the police. But something about the way the remaining cops deferred to these elevator repairmen changed that plan too. I told her to hurry home, using the stairs, of course, and stay quiet about everything. The repairmen cleaned the mess in the elevator, of course, but see more focus on looking for witnesses to anything unusual.

They found few people to talk to. Residents and staff steered well clear of them. I noticed that, before leaving, a few of them rode the elevator to the top floor. Were they visiting the old man? Over the next several days, I didn't see anything of Blinsey. I guessed maybe she had told her mother who had made her stay inside during that first night when the building grew deathly quiet

weak cries occasionally echoed to the elevator shaft Mrs Downing just muttered that it was just people on the other floor once someone heard a scream but we argued imaginations were starting to run wild then Pete returned

a bit thinner and greyer but otherwise back to his old self though he did seem quite troubled about what he learned had happened. More days went by, and then things returned to normal. Even Lindsay's mom apparently liberated her, so once again she took command of a ship. She met me with a grin when I hopped on to head for work.

Good morning, Bart- Good morning, Mr. Bartender. Where to? 19. Her mouth half opened in surprise, but she hit the button. We started up. A little sightseeing, she asked.

I thought we could talk. Her expression grew slightly dark. Okay, she said. Did you tell anyone about what you saw? She shook ahead. Good, I said. We arrived at 19, and the door opened to an empty hallway. It always feels weird when the door's open and there's no one there.

Like times seems to slow while you wait. It had to be the girlfriend, Lindsay began when the doors closed. because when I got off on my floor, it was just those two. But there were people waiting in the lobby, I reminded her, and there was no one on it when it arrived, except the victim. So she must have jumped off on two, Lindsay told me, her face suggesting she thought I was dense. Then she took the stairs.

She didn't live here, you know. She was his girlfriend. The cables groaned as we slowly descended. Both shot a nervous glance at the ceiling. What did she look like? I asked. Oh, very pleasant and pretty. I liked her.

She always talked to me, like you. We arrived on one, and she hid behind the console so Pete wouldn't spot her. I took the five spot behind her ear as the door opened, saying softly, let me know later if you remember any more details. Yes, sir. Later that night, I learned that Lindsay had gone missing. The long, interminable day dragged on much the same as most of them did. Mrs. Downing made, back in my day's small talk,

Rodrigo cursed with improving English, and I caught Pete practicing his sneer in a mirror. He sneered at me when I caught him. I was a little surprised, even disappointed, but not once all day did Lindsay make me chase her giggling from the bar entrance. Her smile was the sun-rest way to know this place wasn't entirely infested by zombies, including my own undead self,

But I wasn't actually worried until the elevator took me home at the end of my shift and the door opened to my floor. Instead of the usual empty hallway, I found several elevator repairmen escorting Lindsay's mom from her apartment. She carried the baby and held the hand of a toddler, while some of the men carried overnight bags. Her eyes were red clearly from crying. Right away, I knew something terrible had happened. I tried to grab her arm, but the elevator repairman, Like the Secret Service guarding a president kept me away. Where's Lindsay? I demanded, but they hurried her off toward the elevator.

Was she sick? My instinct told me something truly terrible had happened. I walked in a daze to my room, stood there a long moment with a key. The elevator door closed, leaving me alone in the hallway. No, I had to know more. I hurried back to the elevator and pressed the down button. It remained unmoving on the first floor, so I ran down the stairs. By the time I got down, the lobby was empty.

I ran to the street in time to see the black SUV, emplacing with elevator repair service on the doors, speeding from the curb. Should I call the police? Suspecting that in this case, police would not help, might not even show up. I stood there, helpless, running over useless ideas in my head, determined to do something. The lobby showed no sign of activity. Pete's office was of course empty

Rodrigo had gone home All the lights were off in the bar of course But wait Someone was sitting there in the dark A bottle on the bar in front I charged into the room To find Pete Sitting there distraught

Drinking right from the bottle Whatever happened to Lindsay That asshole knew I spun him around and shoved him against the bar Where is she He didn't even pretend not to know Couldn't bring himself to look at me Where

There's nothing we can do He wrote And Lindsay's seen something about the murder and talked Listen to me, you snivling weasel He finally looked at me Tears forming in his eyes I told her not to ride the head out of Veta He said I told her

What does that have to do with anything? Spit it up, all of it she's in the elevator shaft what she's in the elevator shaft damn it so was the kid's girlfriend but you saw what it did to him it's too late come on

I dragged him into the lobby what he was saying sounded absurd but every single one of us has at some point in our life seen something totally horribly impossible to believe sure you might tricks you into forgetting but take it from me

someday it'll all flood back and you'll wonder if you had just dreamed it. Before we got to the elevator, it dinged. We stopped in our tracks, staring at the door, waiting breathlessly for it to open, wondering who or what might be coming off at this late hour. When it finally opened, Rodrigo spilled out, fury in his eyes. They talk her, he shouted, Lenina! Rumors were probably spreading through the building. No, people.

said, She's still here. He gestured toward the elevator. Rodrigo's face went pale, and he made the sign of a cross. Wait here, Pete told us, and went into the janitor's closet. He returned with a ladder and a tall bag. I was about to pull the emergency stop in the elevator to make sure I didn't move, but Pete stopped me. We don't want to send any alarms.

We let the doors close, us inside. He then reached into the bag, pulled out a hammer and handed it to me. My weapon. He gave Rodrigo a long screwdriver, adding an apologetic shrug, reducing a round of multilingual cursing. He took out a hatchet for himself. I made him trade it for my hammer. Lastly, he pulled out a pair of heavy electrical gloves. Give me one of those.

I put one of the gloves on. Pete inserted a key into the control panel, and the trapdoor on the ceiling opened with a whoosh of pneumatic air. The door was almost as big as the whole ceiling. He placed the ladder and led us up. There was no lights inside the shaft, so we opened flash apps on our phones. On the roof, we stopped to scan the walls with our beams.

Jesus, what a horror. Everything in the shaft, as far as our light could reach, was covered with spider webs. The cinder block walls, the guiding rails, the pulling chains, The electrical cables, however, this was not normal spider web. I grabbed a fistful. It looked to be made of pure, finely spun silver.

This whole place, Pete explained. All of these places were built on silver wealth. All of them? Pete stepped on a huge button and the trapdoor closed with another whoosh. While he examined the rooftop control console, brushing web off it, I spotted something on the floor. Lindsay's captain hat. Myodios, Rodrigo whispered in horror at this.

My voice trembling with anger, I ordered Pete to get this thing moving up. Up we went, but slowly. The rooftop console operates the car at reduced speed. I white-knuckled the hatchet, exploring the shaft of my beam, all of it covered with silver webs. Pete had to stay crouched with his finger on the up button. where the walls were visible beneath the web It looked like nothing I'd ever seen

Built of honeycombed concrete blocks And strangely deep cracks between them Stop, I commanded An area between the floors Where the web stuff was extra thick caught my attention I cleared it with a hatchet Revealing an opening wide enough for someone to crawl through The beam from my phone revealed a dark tunnel

covered in silver web What the hell is this? I asked An air vent? I don't think so, Pete replied. This building was built for her. Her? I asked, turning to him. He just nodded gravely.

He looked empty, so I said, Bring us up. The elevator car lifted slowly into the dark shaft. A couple weeks ago, I saw you throw a meat up on the elevator roof. Pete closed his eyes for a moment. Been doing it for years, he said. I hoped it would be enough. Coming to another horizontal passageway,

we again stopped so we could clear the web and expect inside. God, the idea of having to crawl into one of those was enough to bring me to the edge of panic. Again, I probed its length with my beam of light, but it came nowhere near reaching the end, and she could be deep inside, beyond the reach of my light. Then a muffled sound of crying came from higher up. Shh.

We stopped. and listened. Nothing. I signal Pete to bring us up. Agonizingly slow, foot by foot, nervously looking around for any sign of something moving, we ascended. Then I spotted something coming down towards us. My heart thundered and my lungs locked.

I tried to hit it with my light. What's that? I shouted. Just a counterweight, Pete explained. And I'd noticed it was moving down at the same speed we were moving. of course the counterweight part of the elevator system i went back to shine in my light on the shaft walls but as the counterweight was about to pass us luckily pete hit it with his phone beam just as a spider the size of a human uncurled from behind it and leaped onto rodrigo he had time only to gasp as the ungodly thing shot its mouth into his shoulder injecting poison with his fangs i swung at its

black body with a hatchet feeling some of its eight eyes on me My hand stinging as the hatchet struck solid mass, barely penetrating its shell like armor. The elevator had stopped rising when Pete jumped away from the console. I raised the hatchet to strike again, but the spider jumped back onto the counterweight. Rodrigo slumped, convulsing to the roof. Pete returned to the console and started lowering us, raising the counterweight and the spider higher, but I yanked his hand off the console to stop our descent. Are you crazy? he screamed.

Keeping an eye on the spider, which had black liquid oozing from where, I'd hit it, I examined Rodrigo. Let's get him inside. We rolled him toward the wall so we could open the trap door. I kicked the button and the hydraulic door opened. The ladder laid fallen inside. Holding Rodrigo by the arms, we lowered him as far as we could before dropping him to the elevator floor.

Drell steamed down his face. He had become essentially paralyzed. I shut the trap door and faced a spider, showing the hatchet and hoping it understood. I held a finger for Pete to be called. quiet. We listened. Again, barely audible, came crying from high above. Take it up, I whispered. We slowly ascended, keeping a wary eye on the spider as the counterweight passed us. I leaned over the edge of the roof and kept my light on the thing, which made it shrivel into a

depensive posture. The counterweight descended beyond the reach of my light, and the spider remained perched on it as far as I could watch it. We went back to scanning the walls above. It was hard to shake the feeling that somehow that thing had screwed back up and might attack from beneath the elevator car. There, Peter whispered hoarsely. Right there. He shined his flash at a spot on the wall where the web was long and thick, and, as we lifted towards it, we could see it wrapped tightly around something. My heart raced and my blood ran cold.

I couldn't stand the thought of that thing doing this to her. Before Peter even stopped the elevator, I started to the elevator. they'd fearishly brushing the silver web from her. Pete joined me, and while he began clearing a body, I frantically rub the stuff from her face. As I pulled the threads from her mouth, then her nose,

I cleared the eyes, and almost screamed. Empty sockets. Pete kept pulling on the silver threads on her stomach and chest. So horrified and terrified was I that only now did I realize this was not a seven-year-old girl.

We had found a dead young woman, Lindsay had seen on the elevator that day when the young man who had lived in the building was butchered. Blood still trailed from her eyes down her face. She had not been dead long. Pete, perhaps still not understanding, kept reflexively clearing

the web from a body. Come on, I said, but he gave her one last sweep of the hand and it opened a hole in her stomach. He jumped back. Damn! I hit the hole with a light and saw baby spiders the size of tarantulas scarring out,

already jumping to the roof of the elevator. Damn it, damn it! We stunted them like Irish river dancers. One of them jumped from the dead girl onto my arm. I flung it off, but then another landed my shoulder and bit me. Damn it! I swiped it off, moving away from the nest as much as I could. We kept stomping, spiders still jumping onto the car

while I hit the up button on the console. Slowly we lifted past the body. I felt the whole shaft began to spin. my legs growing rubbery as the poison hit my system. My brain still digested in what I had learned. That huge button for the trapdoor, I struggled to say. Pete kept searching the walls above us with his beam. I told you, this whole thing was built for her.

I stood there fighting the cobwebs, losing all sense of time, aware only that we were ascending, unable to direct the light from my phone, unsure how many floors up we were, whether we were nearing the old man's floor. I worried my wobbly legs would fail me and I'd fall into the shaft. Pete remained silent.

After what felt like a long time, my head started to clear. I was able to move my flash beam around those dark walls covered in threads of pure silver. And then my beam hit it. A little wrapped body, wrapped hanging on the wall. A muffled cry came from within.

As soon as we reached her, I ripped the threads from her face. pulling them from her mouth. She gasped for air. I was clearing her eyes. When the mother spider climbed back under the elevator roof from below. Lindsay screamed.

Pete screamed. I broke away from the girl to swing my hatchet of the thing. Pete went back to freeing her. I swiped at the spider, but it was so fast and it now understood the weapon in my hand. I couldn't get close to his body with any of my swings. It paired me with its legs, jabbing and blocking.

A spider leg thrust forward and pulled Pete's leg out from under him, and he fell clinging to the roof, his legs hanging off it. Lindsay screamed. I reached down and pulled Pete back up. I picked up the hammer which Peter dropped, and right as the spider dived towards me, I threw the hammer at its face. The claw lodged into one of its eight eyes. It hissed in anger, trying to shake it out. I finished freeing Lindsay, pulling her into my arms a moment before handing her to Pete so I could focus on the spider, now trying to pull at a lodged hammer with its legs.

My first thought was the throw of the hatchet, but if I didn't kill it, we would be left defenseless. Then, a crazy idea. I switched the hatchet to my left hand, the one with a rubber glove and hacked at the power cable running along the wall, showing us with electrical sparks. One more strike severed it. Holding the cable in one hand, I reached to the console,

but the spider jabbed at my hand. I pulled away, tried again. managed to hit the down button. We slowly descended. The power cable pulled free of the wall little by little as I held it. When I had enough slack, I held it forward toward the spider.

It snapped at the cable with its jaws, closing around the end, and, drawing a huge charge of current, which jolted it right off the roof. I hurried over to Lindsay, who Pete was still holding, and brushed more web off, inspecting her up and down.

You came, she said, choking tears. I held her close. Let's get her inside, I said. Nodding, Pete started for the trap door, when suddenly the elevator shot downward. I dropped to my knees, hugging Lindsay protectively. I panicked thought, that thing had severed the cables. Pete hugged the roof, the elevator fell, each floor zipping by.

But at some point, my mind was able to recognize that the acceleration had stopped and the descent was even, and then it hit me. Rodrigo. I risked a glance down over into the shaft, aiming my phone while holding Lindsay. The bottom was rapidly coming towards us. But we were not falling. The elevator slowed as we approached the lower levels. Then I saw three black spiked legs clinging to the bottom of the elevator.

Somehow she held on underneath. As the elevator stopped, Pete opened the trap door and waited while I jumped through with Lindsay in my arms. I landed with a safety roll, keeping you. a shielded. Pete dropped down right after me. Rodrigo was sitting on the floor by the console, completely out of it. The G button lit up. In his confusion,

he had sent us down. The door opened into the lobby. I scooted to my feet, still holding the girl, punched the B button and bolted out the door. Pete helped Rodrigo out. We stood there a few feet away as the door closed and the elevator

went down to the basement. The ungodly screeched of a wounded creature reached us through the elevator. Then an alarm went off, and the bee light started blinking. I suspected the elevator repairmen would be on the way. Quickly now, Pete ordered us. We dashed out the door to the street. Rodrigo leaning on Pete like a man just awoken from anesthesia.

He took a moment for Pete to hail a cab. We helped Rodrigo into it on one side, while I climbed in with Lindsay on the other. But Pete did not get in. Her mother is at the Marriott, he said, his assertive self-returning. Take him to the hospital first. I nodded, exhausted. What will you do?

There are no cameras in the building, for obvious reasons. I can clean most of this up before they get here. He pulled out his wallet and handed me all the cash he had, $700. After you drop off the girl, just go anywhere. He started to pull away from the door and stopped to make sure I understood. Don't ever say anything to anyone, he said, don't think you can do something, you can't. There are buildings like this all over, hundreds of them, maybe thousands,

hospitals, office towers, any place. Somewhere inside each is an old man, or maybe an old woman, who's been there an impossibly long time, who trusts very few people, could be a doctor, a broker, anything. There's a lot of power, and they know how to protect it. Forget about what you saw, convince yourself it was a bad dream. and who would believe it anyway.

With that, he shut the door and ran back inside. I took Rodrigo to the hospital, his mind slowly coming out of its fog. He'd be okay. At first, my plan was to have the doctors check out Lindsay too, but I decided against it. She too seemed okay, asking me where a mom was. In a perfect world, I'd have the doctors clearer,

but there would be questions. the police would get involved and remembering what Pete said, they have a lot of power and they know how to protect it. I didn't trust the system would protect her. So I took her to the Marriott. We visited the desk, then after making sure there were no elevator repairmen lurking around and knocked on the door, holding Lindsay by the hand.

Her mother, I still rubbed red, opened the door and clutched the daughter with indiscernible relief. I didn't stay with them more than a few minutes. Her mother didn't ask me anything And I didn't offer much When it was time to leave I took out the cash Peter given me

And tried to press it into the mother's hands But she refused it I understood That the elevator repairman Had paid her off with a large sum With much sadness I left them What kind of life would Lindsay have

With a mother Who had allowed herself to be bought off But then I guess she had made a rational choice To save her other children Who knew what she'd have been told Hopefully the whole thing would have the effect of helping her get a priorities right

An hour later I was on a bus out of town running again I guess and convincing myself I wasn't Pete was right I needed to trick myself into thinking it was all a nightmare something cooked up by a tired and distraught mind

I suspected I would eventually succeed but one thing I knew if I was ever again in a tall building I would be sure To take the stairs When I was a kid My dad would leave me alone in various places

While he went off the drink The most frequent of these Was a laundromat That happened to be across the street From his favourite local bar Sometimes he would take me to do the laundry with him Before telling me he had to step out for a few minutes Dad would give me some quarters

For the arcade machine in the back of the laundromat One of those racing games with an attached steering wheel To be honest I kind of liked being left at the laundromat. I didn't have video games at home and the arcade machine was a nice escape. Anyway, this story isn't about the laundromat. But the fact that I liked that game so damn much

might explain why dad thought that Chester's Kid Zone looked like a perfect place to leave me while he drowned his sorrows. I believe I was eight at the time. I was stuck running errands with my father on a hot summer day and he drove out to a hardware store located in a strip mall off the highway. The Stripmore consisted of two long run-down buildings

which faced each other at a right angle. Among the various businesses these buildings contained, all of which had seen better days, was the dive bar at the end of the strip. After we left the store, Dad looked longingly at the bar. He wanted to go in, but he didn't know what to do with me. I watched him reluctantly fight off temptation as we walked to the car. Dad was putting the keys in the ignition when he paused.

looking at something in the distance. At the end of one of the buildings, tucked into an easy-to-miss corner of a strip mall, was a set of double doors underneath cartoon font signage. Jester's Kid Zone. Dad pulled the keys out of the ignition and retrieved his wallet. Here, he said, handing me three dollar bills. Go play some games in that arcade.

I'll come get you in an hour. I'd been to Chucky Cheese a few times, and I was sure three bucks wouldn't buy enough tokens to play for an hour. I also knew better than to challenge Dad. I walked cheapishly through the double doors as he headed to the far end of the strip mall. I don't remember everything about Chester's kid's tone, so I won't try fill in the blanks, but I do remember a few things vividly. The first thing I noticed was that there were no adults in sight, just a handful of other kids. There was a snack counter, but no employees behind it. Kids would wander up to

the glass and retrieve prepackaged snacks and candy before running back out to the kids. to the arcade floor. I took a pretzel myself, but it was stale. Tocons were dispensed by a machine that took dollar bills. To my surprise, the three dollars I brought were more than enough. After I fed it the first dollar, tokens began pouring out. The receptacle where the tokens landed overflowed with gold coins. I stuffed my pockets until they couldn't hold anymore. As I walked away to check out the arcade floor, I heard the clinking of tokens still dropping out. To my my eight-year-old eyes, the arcade floor seemed huge, much larger than the building looked from the outside. Unoccupied game machines crisscrossed the floor in a maze-like fashion,

kids occasionally scampering between them before disappearing again. The interior of Chester's Kid Zone was bathed in a dark shade of purple. I recall the souls of my sneakers stick into the carpets as I walked across the arcade. They hadn't been cleaned recently, if ever. In fact, the whole place was dingy. Once or twice I saw a mouse skitter across the floor. Long cracks ran up the walls, which were bare, except for a few haphazardly hung photos of Chester, the establishment's mascot.

I didn't recognise most of the arcade machines. Those I was familiar with had handwritten out-of-water signs taped to their screens. I tried my hand at some of the others, but found most of them strange and difficult to play. In one game I have a fussy memory of, I used the joystick to guide a player, character through a never-ending array of hallways. Wolf-like creatures lurk the hallways,

tracing the player character. There was no way to fight them off. The machine didn't even have any buttons aside from the joystick. The player character just ran to the virtual hallways until the wolf things caught up and tore him limb from limb, computer-generated blood, eventually splatching the screen, so I couldn't see anything anymore. I've since scoured websites that catalog old arcade games from the era,

but I can't seem to find anything about this one. on. The other children struck me as a bit off. They mostly kept themselves playing alone, and I was painfully aware of what the other kids were wearing. From oversized stained t-shirts to torn jeans, the kids at Chester's wore clothing even more ragged than the hand-me-downs I got teased for at school. I bumped into one of the other kids as he darted out from behind a row of gaming machines, a boy about my age, sporting a bowl cut which had grown slightly too long. He seemed nervous. I could tell that behind the mop of hair obscuring his eyes, he was looking at his feet.

I'm Ricky, he said shyly. When I play? I was just glad to have made a friend in the odd place. Ricky and I spent more time playing arcade games than talking. When I asked how long he'd been there, he just shrugged. We'd been playing games for a while when a sound like a tornadoes iron emanated from the far wall, where an elevated stage sat behind a set of purple curtains. That means it's showtime, Ricky said.

We have to go watch. Ricky and I, along with every other kid at Chester's, took seats at the set of tables in front of the stage. The curtains opened to reveal a tall animatronic figure I recognised as Chester. Chester was an anthropomorphic animal like a badger or weasel. At least, I think that's what it was supposed to be. It had various points of articulation,

able to rotate its head and body, raise its arms up and down, and move its eyes in various directions. It wore a mechanic's jumpsuit, complete with a name tag, dark smears that looked like oil stains, covered the outfit. The Chester Animatronic went on to perform a show,

most of which was unremarkable. I only distinctly recall two things. One is a song and dance in which the animatronic shimmied unnaturally, its mouth flapping open and shut, as a speaker somewhere inside playing an off-key jingle. Fun, fun, fun, fun, and Chester's Kid Tone, here is your place to escape.

Laugh and play at Chester's Kid Tone, you can stay here every day. The second thing is the end of the performance. After completing its routine, the animatronic clumsily clapped his hands together. It's time to pick the special guest. The animatronics head swiveled slowly, as if scanning the crowd.

Some of the other kids squirmed. Chester's head stopped mid-swivel before the animatronic raised its left arm, and it was pointing to a boy who sat alone at a table a few dozen feet from Ricky and I. You're today's special guest, Chester exclaimed. Come on up. Me? the boy whimpered. Come on up, the animatronic repeated, his voice suddenly almost deafening. The boy stood up and walked on to the stage.

The animatronic raised his arm awkwardly. The boy winced, and he saw that the animatronic was gripping him by the back of the neck, the way you grab a dog bite scruff. That's all for today. See you tomorrow, Chester said pleasantly. The curtains began to draw. The boy on stage was trembling. Just before the drapes closed fully, a dark stain spread across his pant leg. What's going on? I asked Ricky.

I felt uneasy. Just part of the show, he replied, I want to go play in the tubes. Ricky gestured towards the structure across the building, a massive elevated jungle gym, an interconnected set of plastic tubes that snaked across the ceiling.

Kids could enter and exit the tubes via networks of four towers with walls made of netting intended to be climbed, enclosed slides and even a fire pole. Sure, I said. As I followed Ricky towards the tubes, he turned. Just watch out, he said. There's a weird girl in there sometimes.

Ricky and I climbed up and began to crawl through the plastic tubes together. Through portal-like windows, we could see the arcade floor below. The tubes had an unpleasant smell. As I followed Ricky throughout its twists and turns, he got stronger. By the time we approached the sharp curve, the stench was overpowering. Ricky crawled far enough to peek around the curve and started to backpedal. He made a full turn so he was now facing me. She's here, he whispered.

I'm going back, use the fire pole. She can't slide down. Ricky squeezed past me, crawling in the direction we came from. I wondered what bothered Ricky about this girl? I needed to see for myself. I continued crawling, making sure not. to breathe through my nose as I got closer. Finally, I reached the other side of the curve.

The plastic tube reached its end in a circular chamber several yards ahead. In the chamber was a girl several years older than me. She was filthy. Her matted hair pulled on the floor of the tube around a dress so tattered, it barely clung to a body. More disturbing, she lacked a single limb. What should have been each arm or leg ended in a rough stump. The fact that she was even able to remain upright was her feet.

She hunched low to the ground, chewing frantically on something small and furry trapped between her arm stumps. Beside her was a pewter pile of what looked like fur and guts. The stack of neatly separated pink tails confirmed that the girl had been eating rats. She didn't know I was there. I began to crawl in reverse, trying to make each knee fall as soft as possible. I'd almost gotten back around the curve when the squeak of my sneaker against plastic echoed through the tube. The girl snapped her head upwards, fixing a wild gaze on me.

Red liquid dribbled down her chin. She snarled. I frantically turned my body to crawl in the other direction. Sensing that I was leaving, she dropped the rat and began to scramble towards me. I crawled madly back through the tubes. I looked back and saw her advancing in a prone position much faster than anyone without a single limb should ever be able to crawl. I kept going, navigating bends and forks in the tubes,

not knowing if they'd trapped me in another dead-end chamber. The whole time I had thumping behind me as the girl propelled herself through the tubes. Finally, I came across the tube with a hole in the floor and a metal bar extending through it. I gripped the firepole and wrapped my legs around it. Angry, hyper-shrieking came from above as I slid down to ground level. Back on the arcade floor, I looked up at the tubes. The limless girl glared at me from one of the portal windows, her eyes burning with rage. I fled, making my way to the front of the establishment and pushing through the double doors.

I ran all the way down to the other end of the strip mall and right into the bar my father was in. I knew I'd get a beating for that later, but that was better in spending another second in Chester's Kid Zone. I never heard a thing about Chester's kid's son from anyone again. I passed by this trip mall a few years later, and all that remained was an empty retail space. Until now, I've only thought of Chester's some brief flashes. I guess I don't like to think about it. The memory makes me feel dirty like Chester's was,

and trapped, like I'm still in the tubes, scrambling to find the exit, the limless girl thumping just around the bend. But recently, I decided, I want to know more about Chester's. If nothing else, I want to confirm that it was real, and not just a childhood fever dream I convinced myself was true. I asked my father about the day he dropped me off at Chester's kids' own, but he didn't know what I was talking about.

Not surprising. Dad's lost this memory the same place he lost everything else, at the bottom of a bottle. I searched online to find any information I go about Chester's, but I had no luck with either current or historical business. listings. I eventually came across a thread in an obscure forum where a couple of posters vaguely referred to Chester's. The locations they mentioned, several of them were nowhere near me, but the general descriptions were accurate. When I pulled up the website again this morning,

the thread was gone. The link I saved redirected to a 404 page. And that's how I ended up here. At this point, I just want to know that I'm not crazy. To anyone listening to the to this. Have you ever been to Chester's Kid Zone? Even in the glow of neon lights, I could tell he was a funeral director. His dapper suit, slick hair, a manly tone, was in deep contrast to the lushes who frequented Mandi's pub every Friday night. When he slid into the booth beside me, there was an air of superiority to him. I didn't mind, of course, as I was on my fourth old fashion and the numbers he told me the day before tumble through my head like shoes in a dryer. 10,000. 10,000. 1,000,000. Cash is good, I thought. Cash means alimony free. It was enough to finish my

year's rent, enough to feed me until next Christmas, enough to replace my closet of old rags and stained jeans with something fashionable enough to attract a lady. Enough for a decent use truck that wouldn't wind a life like the one parked out back of Mandy's parking lot. However, I didn't think of any of these expenditures when the funeral director told me the payment would be in cash. Instead, I thought of my 17-year-old daughter, Ali. I could gift her the $10,000 by paying for her tuition interstate. Maybe the act would change her mind about not attaining college.

She would go if it were cheaper, I told myself. Ali was prudent about finance and had saved up every penny of birthday and Christmas money she had received throughout life. I'd seen the wad of cash tucked in the jewelry box and was proud. That's why I envisioned a CPA license in a future. She could do something great with her life,

unlike her old man, and unlike that cow mother of hers. A mere 20-minute drive could change my life, I thought. And... I was correct. Back in the bar, I watched across the table of empty whiskey glasses

as the man who had offered me the job fumbled for the words to say. He was nervous out of his element. He was the director of a family-owned funeral home located in a small community, and he, if the rumors were to be true, was in a bind. I was familiar with his business. Westwood Funeral Home.

We used them when my grandmother passed away. They'd been in business that long. Over the years, I'd also attended the visitations of a few friends there as well. Nice place, very accommodating. Why'd you call me? I asked across the table. I heard you are ex-military. That's true, but still not an answer.

Tori in Iraq, right? Two, I mumbled and took a sip. How'd you get my number? We have many gold-star families that use our facilities, and I, in a roundabout way, was given your cell number. So, can you do it? Why can't you do it? I'll be accompanying you.

This situation, well, requires a particular person that can handle tension. From what my contact told me, you're quite level-headed under pressure. Nothing is more pressurized than war, am I right? I don't talk about my time in the Middle East. Fair enough. Can you do it? Can you be the driver? The director withdrew a large envelope from his jacket pocket. Half now, half after service is rendered, correct? He nodded, and I rolled the ice around my head.

my drink, the clicking overpowering the soft home of classic rock from the bar speakers. I'll do it, I said, but I want you to answer one question first. What's that? Is it true? Everyone at your funeral home quit last week. The director's lips pursed and his eyes studied the table. Yes, everyone except me and one new manager. My family wants no part in this. They want no part in what That question might be better suited for a pastor or priest I then tilted my head back and drained the glass The director pro offered the envelope and I took it

I'll see you tomorrow As instructed I arrived at Westwood Funeral home The following morning before the sun rose The director was there waiting under the loading dock The faint awning light casting his shadow back to the rows of pines in the rear of the property. He'd already situated the hearse to the proper position. Trunk open, a gurney kissed to the rear bumper of the vehicle.

The gurney was burdened by a casket. I parked, then approached the scene, tossing my spent cigarette into some loose grave and patting my jeans to double-check my essentials, phone, wallet, keys, and Bessie. My approach startled the director, but when he spotted me, he immediately called me over. "'Grab the handle here.

"'No, here. "'Then hoist it into the trunk. "'Don't these things weigh a ton? "'Let's go, damn it. "'I'm not pulling a muscle because you're irritated. "'Ten grand or not. "'Go get that fella that still works for you to help us. "'The...

"'The manager. "'He didn't have anything to say. "'His expression gave it away. "'It was then that I noticed how similarly dressed we were. "'There was no longer a suit or pair of polished doxwards. "'He donned a tuesday. shirt, dark stains in the front, and some slacks that were probably as old as the hearse. His hair was unkempt and sweat matted his bangs above his brow.

Before me, he was no longer the dabber director from our bar meeting, but an overwrought man on the edge of a breakdown. The manager quit too? I asked. Yeah, he said coldly. His departure changes our agreement. How so? I asked, letting go of the casket handle.

I'll need your assistance after we arrive at the cemetery. He pointed into the open hearse to a set of shovels. I didn't sign up for that. What kind of scam is? I'll double it, he said. $20,000, cash. I grabbed the handle again. The rollers in the back of the hearse made the heavy casket easier to push in place. The director fastened the beer-bin plates so the unit wouldn't budge during transport.

Then he unsinched the window drapes so they fell over the length of the length of the of the glass. Wouldn't want anyone spotting what's inside at a red traffic light. He did this with an uneasy rapidity, like he was in a race or was being timed for our efforts. He grabbed a duffel bag and hefted it into the back, near the locked casket. Oddly, my request to pee in the funeral home's bathroom was denied, so when he dodged inside a lock up, as he said,

iron zipped and went near a small popular tree. Weird, furtive little man, I thought. I didn't care. I was ready for my $20,000 After the director joined me in the cab I turned the ignition key and the hearse purred to life The V8 roared as we sped down Fair Avenue Then took the unramp to the highway

The director's cell phone blared loudly in its instructions Toward our destination A cemetery on the other side of the county Just follow the GPS instructions He told me I know that part of the county pretty well A lot of back roads just follow the instructions.

I lived in the county my whole life, apart from my time in Baghdad, Fallujah and Tickrit, and I never known a cemetery to be in the general area the GPS was leading us. Maybe Google knew more about my hometown than I did. Still, the sun started to rise over the hills of pines and the road was clear of any traffic, so I gunned it, getting the hearse up to 80. The director didn't seem to mind.

Maybe we are being timed. for our efforts, I thought. Of course, the hearse was no workhorse like the home-piece we had in the wall. Those beasts were of a different breed, a warm-arm green type, redded to reverse desert, as well as swamps, and were often equipped with turret guns and armour. The only weapon the director brought appeared to be a rosary, which was curled tightly around his wrist. The rear-view mirror suddenly flashed with light and pulled me from my reverie. The sky was blood-red, and growing lighter by the second, with the striving lights from behind. dwarfed all illumination from the tree line.

The spitometer was pushing 90 when the director noticed and turned around. This isn't good, he said, keep going, don't slow down. It's a cop. It doesn't matter. Maybe not to you. Damn, I'm not getting arrested. Don't, he said, then grab the wheel against my tilt onto the road shoulder. The hearse swerved madly.

What the hell are you doing? I screamed and pushed him. His rosary looped around my fingers. and were momentarily caught in a holy finger trap. I'm pulling over. Keep going. Our mission is more important. He tried again, and I ripped my arm back, releasing the rosary snare.

Beads scattered on the floorboard, and the director grew sullen. Upset. The remaining cross, wood carved and rubbed smooth, was still in my palm, so I slung it behind my seat. I gave him a hostile stare. Don't touch the wheel. I won't get paid if we're both in jail. He tried it again, so I pulled from the back of my jeans, someone I wanted him to meet.

This is Bessie, I said, and the Colt 1911 gleaned in the early sunlight. She doesn't like trouble, understand? His expression changed. Once I knew he was back in his seat for good, I returned Bessie and pulled to the road's shoulder. The gravel chirped and cracked against the undercarriage until we crawled to a halt. Look was on my side that day. The man in uniform who woke up to the window was a friend of mine. We played cards once a month at a mutual friend's house.

Drink whiskey, talk smack about a boss's, all that. Since he was an officer of the law, he would always tell the best stories about dumbass criminals. When he sauntered up to the window and noticed the operator of the swerving hearse was a buddy, he took his hand off his pistol holster. Chuck? I flashed a sly smile. morning William Officer William

gave an incredulous laugh I'll be damned you in the funeral business now all those stories you told over cards got me thinking since you're a first responder I figured I'd join the last responders William propped an elbow on the window ledge and got a good look in my passenger

the director had his head bowed and was whispering a prayer William looked at the casket little late for that reverend don't you think He is not a man of the cloth. He's the director at Westwood's funeral home. This is his hearse.

Okay, well, keep it on the 70 truck. I doubt the guy in the back is in any rush. Then, something stirred. It's a rare moment when three people simultaneously learn something. At that moment, I learned that the passenger next me was some kind of psycho-pervert and it invited me to participate in what could land me in the slammer for life. the director learned that I would never look at him the same way again and had the officer not been there I would have gladly sent him into the grave myself

Officer William learned that he was no longer speaking to a drinking body but due to the pounding and calls for help coming from inside the casket had pulled over two full-fledged maniacs about to bury a woman alive the elbow that had been resting on the window ledge was now hinged forward aiming at clock 19 to my head out, William shouted, out of the vehicle, Chuck. William's urgent command took me back to one particular hot day in Fallujah. Our team was tasked to set up on the roof of a four-story hotel about a quarter mile down the road.

It was an advantageous spot to gather reconnaissance, but the route there had plenty of obstacles. Hidden bombs, armed insurgents in spider holes, and blockades troubled our path, but we got there without a casualty. When we arrived at the hotel, we were met with a full, flock of elementary-aged children who had been using the building as a makeshift sleep quarters during the war fallout. They tossed rocks, shouting foreign obscenities to us soldiers who had invaded their land. We read all the propaganda garbage their government had been putting out how we were evil, how we were nothing but murderous invade us. Us proud servicemen were more annoyed than anything else, having three dozen kids tossing rocks

gets old fast after 15 minutes. After 15 minutes. So we gathered the little ones together to teach a lesson. We lined them up and made like we were about to participate in a firing squad. Obviously, no weapons fired. It was a scare tactic. We were soldiers, after all, not monsters. But I'll never forget their faces. Veils of terror, fear so absolute that tears were unable to form. Lesson learned. That's the type of fear I saw in the director's face as he dropped beside me, my knees crunching into the gravel beside the highway. From inside the hearse, the woman shrieks had intensified in urgency. Although the sound was mused by the casket walls and padding,

the voice was clearly female and was overcome with emotion. The casket rattled as the interior beatings became more powerful. Had Officer William not at his gun trained on me, I would have punched the director for inserting me into his own wicked revenge plot. The woman pleaded, There's no oxygen in here. I'm about to pass out. William oscillated between me, the director and the closed trunk of the hearse. The streets from inside continue to beg between coughs.

Please help. My head is going numb. No oxygen. Open. William pointed to us. Don't move, he said. Then walk to the driver's side and unlock the trunk door. The director and I turned, scooting on knees in the pebbles to get a view of what my now ex-friend was about to uncover.

From this angle, the director was slightly behind me, but I could hear his faint sobs. He'd been caught. Once the trunk was flatped open, William called back to us. How'd you get the casket open? An instrument beside the casket, the director said. Yes, right there. It fits into a hole on the side. Yeah, right.

Now crank it. It unlocks the lid. William hadn't finished one rotation before I was pushed into the gravel. by the director. Something was different when I tried to regain my balance. Something about my waistline. It loosened. Three ear-shreading reports went out over the highway and the surrounding Pashtaland.

Williams slumped against the hearse, grabbing for something not there before falling face-first to the ground. Amazed at what happened, I grabbed for Bessie, but she was gone. The director pointed my own weapon at my chest and forced me to my feet. The spent casing sparkled beside his feet. This is Bessie, he said. She doesn't like trouble, understand. The trunk was closed and the seatbelts were fastened. Then we're off toward the cemetery to bury the woman alive.

The blue lights of Williams Cruiser flashed in the side mirror until we crested the next hill. Rosary beads shuffled under my feet. When my daughter, Ali, was in elementary school, she came home one day with a portrait of our family. Our trio was scribbled in crayon and showed us standing between her house. Next was a sprawling green oak tree

that our little Picasso had, for whatever reason, decorated with pink stars. Beside the tree was me. I was more of a circle, really, with eyebrows arched at a furious angle. Next was my ex-wife who had in her hands a stylized white carrot.

Of course, I knew that this carrot was all his best effort and drawing her mother's favourite wine glass. Then there was Ali, squished under the speech balloons that sprang forth from my ex-wife in I's mouth and filled with exes and exclamation points. The image was a catalyst for a parent-teacher conference that ended up in a shouting match for my wife

to end an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. She refused. We divorced the next year. Ali didn't deserve the hateful atmosphere she was raised in. She was too good, too pure. I hoped that once I finished the director's task, he'd pay the additional money. It wasn't greed. No, but quite the opposite.

Ali would take a step up in the world after she enrolled in college. For Ali, I told myself earlier. Do this for Ali. But how was I to help Ali if I ended up like Officer William? I kept the hearse to a solid 55 miles per hour. Speed slow enough to buy time, but fast enough to not alert the gunwielding maniac to my side, who'd not stop mouthing prayers to himself since our continuation of his mission.

Miles behind us lay a friend of mine with three bullet wounds in his chest who'd undoubtedly be found within minutes by a curious traveller or truck driver. Dash cam footage would be watched and our hearse was not the type of vehicle that blends in with the crowd. Time was running out for all three people inside the hearse.

All that money for me isn't useful if I'm serving life. I was ignored. Look you damn psycho. I'll swerve into a damn road time before I let you bury this woman alive. I'm not a monster. The director whipped around and howled. Stop, stop, please shut up.

I demanded the name of God Almighty that you remain silent. This didn't scare me. I'd been around plenty of men that would gut you as easily as shake your hand. People that had ended life and people that had almost gotten their life ended, usually on multiple occasions, without showing the least bit of fear. No, the director saying this didn't scare me. What scared me was that after he screamed this demand, I realized he wasn't speaking to me, but behind me.

I peered into the rearview. Yep, still a casket, and the woman inside hadn't said a word since the William incident. That's when I knew this funeral director had more problems than avengeal spirit. He was hallucinatory, schizophrenic. Put Bessie down and let me get out. I won't call the cops, I swear. His eyes finally registered me as if he'd forgotten I was there. Sweat had beaded his forehead and soaked the collar of his t-shirt.

He was crying. He mumbled. Just follow the GPS instructions. I'm not helping you dig when we arrive. I refuse to kill a person. That's not a person, he whispered. His rage had obviously sailed to such a number. extreme that his wife or girlfriend or whoever was in that box no longer registered to him as human,

just an object, something to get rid of like trash. Enough, I won't kill anyone. Else, he added, yet his voice was much deeper and seemed to surround the cabin of the vehicle. What did you say? He stared incredulously behind my seat. A grimace overcame his face. You shut the hell up, he shouted to the rear. I was in high school.

I didn't know that she was drunk. You shut the hell up. The director faced forward and wept in his cupped hands until his phone told me to turn off the highway into a thin country road. By this time I was rattled. In battle there were contingency plans. Even teammates could help force an insertion response into retreat.

But now I was alone, weaponless, unable to understand why this mentally ill man had conned me into a twisted exercise. I thought about slowing the hurt. to 20 miles an hour and jumping out, rolling to the best of my ability over the hotter-braided asphalt to avoid significant injury, then bolting toward the rise, where I could lose him amongst the bramble. Or I envisioned a quick tap of the brakes, which made jumpstart the siege of the director where I wrestled Bessie away from him and regain power. While we rocked back and forth

over the uneven road, I steeled myself for what lay ahead, and did my best to strategize a plan to save not only my life, but the woman trapped in a padded tomb. Nothing. materialized. Please, the director whispered to no one, now sobbing uncontrollably. I just wanted to end. I don't know how drunk. I had a crush on her. Please, stop.

I can stop, yes. I almost smiled at his change of heart. Let me pull over and, no, he screamed at me, not you. Keep going. Follow the instructions. You're a sick man. I need to pull over. He gave one cursory look to the back.

Then his eyes fell on me. his clammy hand grabbed my forearm and I couldn't help but return a glance. The duffel bag, he said. Once you get to the cemetery, look in the duffel bag. I can't. We don't have to do this, I begged, the shaking my voice now audible. You don't have to do this. I don't know what's in that head of yours, but I do know this.

Everyone forgives and forgets, you know. Not everyone, he whispered. Then inserted Bessie into his mouth. and pulled the trigger. Late one evening in Volusia, we were riding back to base from a low-intensity conflict zone where we briefly gave suppressive fire, then mulled around for the next eight hours bored out of our minds. The descent of the sun gave the plumes of smoke rising from bomb-impacted buildings and eerie

glow, like red obelisks that had sprouted in erratic fashion throughout the sand. Burning rubble was the chosen perfume of the day, and my team was ready to wash the grit from our bodies. The land was flat and devoid of people at the time, and an easy calm. We were still on our guard, but, after so much time of the heat, our senses had dulled. We had just come around the corner of a retaining wall when the Humvee in front of us rolled over an IED. Most took the defensive positions, while a few of us checked on the wreckage, me included. The IED had tore the Humvee apart in ways that were unimaginable.

Tires were absent. The turret was lodged in the kitchen of the dwelling. The metal chassis was warped, mangled like taffy, but inside was the true horror. If the explosion did that to a military vehicle, it doesn't take a creative person to understand what it can do to the human body. The inside of the hearse reminded me of what I saw. A spear of light penetrated to the bullet's exit hole in the roof. The director leaned limply against a red-soaked seat.

His head lulled sideways when I pulled to the side of the road. Then, when I apply the brake, swept back to face me. The roof of the hearse was still dripping when I jumped out to compose myself. The morning heat had already risen to a stifling level. Sweat beaded from my body as I opened the back door and began twisting the mechanism to open the casket. Apart from the smell of blood, I picked up a tinge of something burning, but couldn't trace it.

I was surrounded by pastureland, so perhaps a farmer was burning off some tree bush. I'm getting you out, ma'am. Thank you, Chuck, thank you, the woman called. Had I known someone was in there, I would have called the police. You're a saint, a true saint. I wouldn't say I'm a saint, I said, and began unwinding the lid lock. I've seen plenty.

Nonsense, soldiers at war can't be at fault for their actions. Maybe, sometimes a soldier. I stopped turning the crank and backed away. Chuck? Hello? It took a moment for me to replay the last hour in my head. How did you know I saw? served. I heard you talking earlier. Please, let me out. The burning smell had grown more fierce. A thin ribbon of smoke drifted through the hearse's cabin, so I followed its source. The wooden cross of

the rosary, the one I broke and tossed into the backseat, had landed on top of the casket. It was smouldering and charred, the smoke still trailing off as if it was on a hot grill. I touched the top of the casket, but it was cold. Chuck, let me out. The director and I didn't discuss my service on the ride. How did you know? Let me out, the woman said in a more harsh tone. Do I know you? Then there was a sniffle.

Daddy? I sprinted to the box and placed my palms on the cold surface. Ali, honey? Is that you? Daddy, please, get me out of here. That crazy man abducted me. Oh my God, hang on. I regrouped the handle, but,

paused before I turned the crank. It was hard to explain. Every fibre in my body pulled toward the circular motion. Just turn the crank, release your daughter, then call the authorities. So easy. But something in my gut denied the use of my arms.

I had to be sure. I walked away from the hearse and fished my phone from my pocket, then selected the contact. It rang twice. Hey, Daddy, what's up? Ali? Yeah?

Can you hear me? Are you okay? Yeah, I just got back from the gym, about to eat some yoghurt. Why? Nothing, honey, I said. Then stared at the casket that did not contain my daughter. Just checking up on you. I got to go, but I'll call you later.

Is everything okay? It is now. Have a good day, honey. Bye. I was no longer in the mood for conversation. Whoever was in that box knew me. knew I served, knew what my daughter's voice sounded like. This was someone I wanted out of my possession.

I made the decision to drive to the sheriff's office and spill my guts. Tell them everything and let them deal with the one in the box. After I slammed the back door closed, I hopped into the driver's seat, but my attempt at a U-turn was truncated by a harsh voice from behind. Ali is a whore. You know that, right? What the hell did you just say? So many men, some as old as you. I shoved the shifter in park.

Maybe I'll let you out of the box so I can put you right back inside it. The men have a nickname for her. Ali always, because she always goes out. Shut the hell up. I was outside, ripping up in the back door and fumbling with the lever. I was astonished to find I'd picked up Bessie. I'll shoot through the box if you don't. Don't what?

Don't sympathize with your silly dreams of always Ali, going to college. She got an A in science because she slept with a high school teacher. Shut. the whole basketball team enjoy that one party the all the lies she told you over and over again hell she'll be a boozer just like a mother up

I put finger pressure on the trigger brace for the recoil I wanted to empty the magazine into the box to stop the lies they were lies right they had to be but that's not what happened a grumbling mechanical noise

blasted from behind and over the hill came a man on a John Deer tractor I refit Bessie under the hemorrh my jeans and offered a friendly wave in the hopes he would pass. He slowed the equipment down and parked behind me. Damn. He climbed down from the cab and approached. He was in his 70s or 60s.

A life in the sun had tanned and wrinkled his skin to a breathtaking amount. A baseball cap created a shadow under his green eyes. A what of tobacco bulged his lower lip. Engine trouble? He asked. No, sir, just a little lost. I have kind of a little. an odd situation. I looked back at the urban hearse and the farmer got a peak as well.

Damn, just a funeral possession? Kind of. Who died? God, I hope it's not anyone I know. What do folks die when they get my age? My attempt at a laugh was pathetic. I don't need any assistance. You can get back into your tractor. There's no problem. The farmer gazed helplessly at the casket and tranced really. In a burst of energy that took me by surprise, He sprinted to the back of the hearse and started patting their casket. He placed a cheek to a corner and struck the box like it was a precious heirloom. Lizzie?

The farmer screamed. Sweet Lord God, Lizzie, I'm coming. The man attempted to pry the lid off with his hands, but the lock was still engaged. I ran to him before he could figure it out. Why the hell do you have my Lizzie in here? What is this? Some kind of shakedown? He lowered into a brawling position. He showed his fist.

Open this damn thing. Open it now. That's not your Lizzie. Like hell it ain't. I can hear her. Only, I couldn't hear anything. The box was silent, voiceless. Then everything made sense. I had been asking the wrong question the whole time. It's not who was in the casket.

But what? Before the farmer could make more of a stir, I took out Bessie. He stopped talking, but the rage in his eyes gave away plenty. call Lizzie, I demanded. You'll find out that she isn't in the box. Call her. I kept my distance and closed the back door. My aim was trained on the farmer as I re-enter the driver's seat.

Call her. Call Lizzie, and you'll find out the truth. I can't. I started rolling down the road toward the GPS instructions. Why not? I called out from the window and pulled the gun back inside. Lizzie's... Being dead for ten years.

Just a few miles, then the cemetery. I exceeded what was the cautious speed down the thin country road, trying to remember what had to the director's mouth before it was hollowed out. The shovels, the duffel bag, the damp thing in the box. The phone bled out instructions, and soon I made a hard right onto a dirt drive that led into the woods. Undergrowth hid potholes and lumbered my progression. I thought of the money.

At least I had five grand. I thought of Ali My sweet Alley I thought of Haifa Selby Mother of two picked him of one The voice in the back hissed

Who Baghdad March 29th 2003 My throat began to tighten I heard a screams Chuck While you were ripping off

A Charter I heard a screams Shut up I blink to my tears You don't speak Arabic Chuck But screams are a universal language A turbulent yell echoed through the hearse's cabin. It was a perfect imitation.

It was a yell I'd heard before. A yell I'd spent years in countless whiskey bottles trying to forget. My tears fogged my view worse than the collapsing foliage that had erased most of the pitted path. She housed terrorists, I mumbled over my quivering lips. You don't believe that. She was a slave to the Iraqi combatants, a pawn. You can't lie to me, Chuck. was there, I know the only weapon

you wanted a fire was in your pants. A disordant hollow laugh followed. You were there? Who are you? I'm the one who is always there. When you release that tension on Hi Fisabi when you traumatise those children of Luzia when you hit your ex-wife

are drinking too much. I slid my fist on the steering wheel. How the hell do you know all this? I was also there when you found that what of cash in Alice jewelry box? Poor stupid chuck. thinking your daughter saved money from the time she could walk. Ali is a good liar.

She gets that talent from you. Sunlight burst through the windshield. The foliage had opened into a glade. The small opening in the woods had a short, rusted fence that linked into an oval directly in the centre. Inside the fence were a sprinkling of headstones. Others merely wooden crosses now rotted into spikes. Poor stupid chuck.

Ali is a good liar, but not as good as she is at spreading a little. legs. Where do you think that what of money came from? From men, many men, some as old as you. I turned and slammed my fist in the casket. Another word and I'll burn you alive instead of burying you. I spun the vehicle around and backed up to the fence until the fender graced the rusted metal. I hopped out and whipped open the back door, then began unpacking the duffel bag. Stacks of cash fell out in my hasty fumbling of it. I guess the director was good on his promise. The only of the contents of the bag were a cluster of rosaries, one of which I grabbed and slid in the front pocket of my jeans.

The director's wrote behaviour didn't seem so insignificant anymore. Also inside the bag was a handwritten note. The note said, It passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. Under that, it gave instructions. At least six feet of earth must separate it from the sky. Burry in an abandoned cemetery to avoid suspicion.

Leave the grave unmarked. Do not believe its lies. Do not concentrate on his truths. And it is an ancient one, adroit in the ways of lowering madness. The thing in the box spoke. It was the voice of my ex-wife. Chucky. I remove one of the shovels and remain silent.

I forgive you, babe. You didn't mean. to hit me. It was the PTSD. I know I should have stopped drinking years ago. You and Ali were right. My head felt numb. Be quiet. You're not her. I've given it up, babe. Honest this time, I'm ready to be the mother I should be. The wife I should be. Just let me out and we can fix this. As much as I resented her, I would have given everything I owned to hear my ex-wife say that. And it knew. Whatever was in that damn box knew. No, you're not getting out.

I took the handwritten note in my back pocket. I guess that's expected, babe. Before you go, can I tell you something? Was it about to say it? No way. Unfathomable. No way you could know what I wanted my ex-wife to truthfully tell me. Why I started drinking, I'll tell you.

The shovel felt heavy in my hands. I stayed in myself against the telllight, eager, yet uneager. to listen. Chucky, my sweet brave soldier, I started drinking because I was anxious. Anxious? I asked, unable to stop myself.

Yes, anxious that you would eventually find out the truth. Allie isn't yours. I slammed the back door shut and re-gripped the shovel. The rusted vents had bent on one side from a fallen tree and lay flat under a carpet of deadfall. That's where I gained entrance. I took out the paper and re-read it.

Six feet. Got it. The soil was fertile and loose, which made digging easier than expected. Still, the process took hours. From the first spade to the last, the thing in the box emitted an eruption of creating laughter, and although it was muffled from the containment of the hearse, it still provoked me into a consideration. Was it laughing because it lied about Ali, or because it had told the truth?

A casket is a pain to move by yourself. Carrying it was out of the question, and it wasn't like I was trying to prevent the damn thing from damage, so I wedged it out of the hearse and it landed with a harsh thud. My legs and back was sore from digging, but not too sore to pull the diseased being over the fallen fence and into the cemetery, where I propped it precariously against the edge of the hole I dug,

the depths of which was seven feet, I estimated. One more foot, just to be sure. To avoid a calamity of the lid breaking upon impact, I tied some vines along with my shirt and pants to the bars across one side. I had to pull the box at a flat angle into the hole, so there would be no rotation in its venture down. Hoisting the heavy object below was out of the question. Three quick jerk should do it,

and maybe one quick prayer. Don't, Chucky, don't. The voice of my ex-wife called out as I wrapped my hands around the cords of the cotton threads and vine. I can give you what you want. I gave a good jerk and one corner jotted over the edge. Daddy, please, Ali called. It's me. Just open the lid and I can explain everything.

Jerk too. The acidic voice returned. Chuck, you wife, Peter, wife Peter. I've seen your future. After this, you'll turn to the bottle worse than your ex-wife. The one who lied to you about Ali. Do you want to know who a true father is? Open and I'll...

Jerk three. The obscenities that spewed from the long... casket, as I spent the next few hours covering it with soil, were grotesque to say the least, promises of pain to not only myself, but everyone whom I'm close with, prognostications of violent ends, depravities that will be had my sweet alley unless I opened the box. The faster my hands went, the quieter the voice became, until the only sounds with the chirping of a nearby cricket and the soft songs of a sparrow. The only thing more sore than my body was my mind. In my numb state of mind

I could only think to return to the vehicle and take my cash and most certainly inhale a few cigarettes from the pack in my truck back in the funeral home's parking lot all legal hassles could wait the cabin had a rancid stench because of the director's body in the passenger seat but I rolled the windows down to diffuse it

the return drive was much shorter than the outgoing one more peaceful at least until I turned into the parking lot of Westwood funeral home to find a pair of black Cadillacs parked beside my truck. Unmarked police cars, FBI? I didn't care. My thought process was running on an empty tank and my body was too exhausted to run. Goodbye to the money, goodbye to freedom, goodbye to Ali. What I expected was a miniature army to pounce out of the pine forest, guns drawn, demands shouted. What I got was a handful of sharply dressed men who waved me down after I parked

the hearse. One opened the hearse door for me and helped me out. They delivered a perfunctory inspection of the dead director, but left his body where it sat. One man jumped into the driver's seat and drove out to sight, with him with a duffel bag of money. Damn. Another man took me aside, offered me a cigarette from my own pack and shook my hand. You don't have to worry about anything, sir. The director shot a cop. It's all taken care of. brain felt like jelly. What do you mean? Keep living your life. Talk with friends. Enjoy your family. Go to work. Think of today as a dream, a lucid dream. Nothing more than a short, bad memory. Another pair of suited men exited the funeral home. They pushed a gurney with a body on it.

The sheet draped over was mottled with red. The manager? I asked. Afraid so. He was an associate of ours. given the responsibility of helping with the mission. He was instructed to guard the casket last night until the director arrived, then take control of the situation. However, it got to him like it got to the director. Who are you guys?

Let's just say we are the guys who are not normally late, but we were today. For your troubles, we gave you something. It's in your truck. I advise you go get in your truck and leave all this behind you. There was no room for argument

in his voice, nor did I have the energy for it. I was good at compartmentalizing, something I would most certainly have to do with my most recent actions. But it was over, finally over. I left and returned home, stopped in my driveway. I felt under the seat and found a small canvas stack. Inside was $50,000, cash. $50,000, $50,000.

I entered my home and collapsed on the couch. Twelve hours later, I awoke to the sound of a buzzing noise. Ali was calling. Hey, Daddy. My sniffles gave away my crying fit. Hey, honey. God, it's so good to hear your voice. Your real voice.

My real voice? Nothing. Sorry, I just woke up from a nap. I'm still groggy. Anyways, I called to tell you the good news. "'Mom's in rehab. "'She's taking it so serious this time. "'I've been crying all day because I'm so happy.'

"'I sat up on the couch and felt an odd pinch of my thigh. "'Honey, that's wonderful news. "'I was thinking, if she completes rehab, "'that maybe we could all be together for my birthday.' "'Ally said, as I battled my quivering lip, "'I know you both don't see eye to eye, "'but it would be nice to see both of you at the same time.' "'Another pinch of my thigh.'

"'I crept my hand in to my hip. my pocket. Honey, that sounds like the best idea I've heard in a long time. Honestly, it'd be nice to see your mother. Despite the bad, there are a lot of good memories between us. Oh, and I have a great birthday present for you, I said, looking at the sack of money. You better keep it a surprise until then. I will. The three of us together, on your birthday, who'd have thought? She sighed. I've told you a million times, Daddy. I've been praying a about this for years. Sure, there's plenty of bad in the world, but that means there's plenty of good too. Prayers work. Yeah, maybe it does. I said, as I pulled a rosary from my front pocket,

maybe it does. I don't know how long this will stay up for. Three-letter agency spooks are usually pretty good at finding these sorts of things and shutting them down before it can spread too far. But hopefully, I've left out just enough trigger words to keep their automatic software from picking this up immediately, but that probably won't be enough in the end. They'll find this, and me, and that'll be the end of that. You should also know that I've changed the names I've everyone involved here, as well as some other details for the sake of security and privacy, at least for as long as I still have it. Some of these guys had family, and I don't want any of them stumbling across this. It's always difficult to decide where to begin this story.

No matter how many times I've written this draft with the story. hitting Submit, but I suppose that everything really kicked off in early 2015 when my unit was deployed to Afghanistan. We'd been rotating in and out of country for going on three years by that point. Despite what the Torgon heads in DC said about drawdowns and sending troops home, there were more active operations in that part of the world than most people would imagine. They'd just gone under the radar. More clandestine activity, less open warfare than before, secret squirrel stuff, as well as

As our CEO like to put it. I won't say exactly who we were. Comes with the nature of our job, you know. But to keep things broad, our unit fell under the purview of the United States Joint Special Operations Command, or JCOC, a catch-all command structure for certain special forces units in the American military. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps. Hell, I'm pretty sure there were even a few Coast Guard guys floating around in there somewhere. We weren't the kind of guys that just walk around patrolling.

villages or sweeping for IDs, that wasn't in our job description. I still remember what one of my instructors said to me. We do bad things to bad people. You didn't get into the special forces because you wanted to win hearts and minds. Most of our missions were pretty cut and dry, at least as cut and dry as clandestine operations can be, rage, HVD capture slash killstuff, and lots of intelligence gathering. I lost count how many hours we wasted, sitting on some frozen mountainside, staring through a spotting scope,

counting how many times some potential insurgent went out to feed his goats. But in January of that year, we all got thrown for a loop when some CIA Grand Branch agents showed up at our forward-operating base, F.O.B., seemingly out of nowhere, telling us that we were tasked with the most critical mission of the past 50 years, even more so than the Bin Laden raid. I'll admit that not many of us believed him at first, but as he showed us recon photos, phone transcripts, surveillance footage, all the pieces fell into place and we all nearly crapped a brick.

According to him, the CIA had been tracking a terrorist cell operating out of Afghanistan who were trying to get their hands on nuclear material, either to make a dirty bomb or a proper nuke it didn't matter. Now, this wasn't news to us. Al-Qaeda had been trying to obtain a nuclear bomb for decades at this point, but this group, simply known as the Brotherhood, had actually succeeded. Based on CIA intelligence,

they got in touch with the former Soviet general who had access to a non-drivel amount of nuclear material, specifically weapon-grade's plutonium. They'd gone into Tajikistan, done the deal, and were now on the way back to Afghanistan. CIA and other assets had tracked them as far as the Afghan border, and then they disappeared into the mountains, seemingly without a trace. And that's where we came in.

Operation Condor All in all, it wasn't a terribly complex mission. Find the bad guys, kill the rouses and secure the plutonium. But simple didn't mean easy. The area was god-off all mountain terrain, with almost zero-friendly forces in the immediate vicinity and with a strong enemy presence. We bounce ideas back and forth for a good few hours

until settling on a plan. One team of ten guys inserted via helicopter near the last known location of the target. They would hike in, engage the enemy, secure the asset, and then extract. It was tempting to send in every warm body we had for the extra firepower,

but more men on the ground met more prominent signature for the enemy. It's much easier to sneak ten dudes into a spot rather than 40. I didn't hesitate to volunteer. It wasn't out of bravado, or wanting the glory or hunting for their next adrenaline search or anything like that. I'd just gotten bored of doing nothing but tedious recommissions for weeks on end.

Plus, I'd attended some extra training for dealing with CPR and threats, so it made sense for me to tag along. After the team was picked, we spent most of the night harming out the details, trying to think of every possible contingency and how to plan for it. But we all knew there were going to be things you just can't see coming in advance. In the words of the great Mike Tyson Everyone has a plan Until they get punched in the mouth

The moon was full in the next night As we got our gear together And boarded the helicopters Thankfully the snow had stopped Though it was still bitterly cold I tried to bundle up as best I could In the back of the Chinook As it rumbled to life

The scream of the rotas soon drowning out the podcast I've been blaring through my headset Some guys just sat Others talking over the communication system on board but I just tried to sleep. You never knew when those extra few minutes of shut-eye would come in handy later on. Joey, our team lead, woke me

when we were ten minutes out from the landing zone. I checked my equipment one last time and pulled the night vision goggles down over my eyes, flicking them on and blinking as my vision was filled with a pale green light. The airframe shook under us as the helicopter dipped below the mountain summits, winds buffeting the aircraft and shaking it like a tin cannon in a hurricane.

but to his credit the pilot did his job and we touched down a few moments later rushing out into the frigid night air as the rotor wash kicked up a flurry of snow and ice as soon as the last man cleared the ramp the chinook lifted off blasting the squad with one last torrent of wind before disappearing into the night sky

and as the sound of the rotors faded to nothing more than a faint rumble in the distance we were left in nearly total silence save for the low moaning of the wind through the mountain pass The snow was up to my ankles, a light powder that seemed to vanish as soon as the wind caught it. We started moving right away, making our way up the side of the mountain with only our night vision to see. It was just after three in the morning when we reached our first checkpoint, a rocky crag jutting out from the side of the mountain.

Carlos, our radio guy, stopped to get the message back to command as we all took a knee and tried to catch our breath. I grew up in the mountains of Colorado I was no stranger to hoofing at long distances but the altitude here was another beast entirely I was still panting as he gave us the thumbs up and relayed the return message from command No new intel, stay on mission The sky to the east began to lighten

as we made it to the next checkpoint a few hours later Almost three hours of hiking And we'd covered less than two miles Already we were tired and sore, but everyone put their discomfort aside to focus on the task at hand. Descending into a long drawer that led down towards the last known target location, the terrain began to change around us. Baron Snow and Rock gave way to thin forests of pine and shrub, offering us some concealment from any hostile eyes that may be watching. But, if anything, we were growing more anxious by the moment. Daylight was when the insurgents came out to play, especially around.

dawn. Joey called us together an hour later and we took a knee talking in hushed voices. All right, he said, lancing between each of us. We've got two options here. Either we keep going now and risk getting caught out in the daylight or wait until dark, but it's going to be a pain trying to find anything once the sun goes down, even with NODs. Thoughts? I pursed my lips for a moment. On paper, Joey was the one in charge and it was entirely his decision to make. But we operated under a slightly more informal set of rules than standard group troops.

It might be his call in the end, but Joey wasn't one to ignore input from his team. Our medic, Andy, spoke up first. I say we keep going. Trying to navigate this terrain is tough enough as is. Doing it in the dark is just suicidal. I nodded in agreement. While our night vision made it possible to see in the dark,

they also completely ruined any sense of depth perception. It would be all too easy to take a wrong step and tumble off the side of the mountain. Carlos seemed to share the same opinion. I'm with Andy and Dave. That mess was bad enough when we came in. I don't want to be looking for some nuke

when we're stumbling around out there. In the end, we all reach the same conclusion. Push on and try to complete the mission, even if that meant doing it in daylight. Joey nodded. All right, let's get a move on then. Dave, you're on. point. He gestured to me. The landscape glowed with a faint gold tint as the sun

finely crested over the horizon, taking advantage of the long shadows cast by the trees around us. We moved through the forest while surveying the slopes on either side, searching for anything that seemed out of place. Easier said than done. Al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups were experts at hiding camps and gun emplacements in these mountains, invisible until it was too late. Short of thermal optics from drones or planes overhead, they could be nearly impossible to spot, and the going was getting rougher. Loose shell rocks crumbled underfoot, making each step treacherous. It didn't take long for my own luck to run dry. I took a step and felt the rocks slipping out from under my boot, shooting my arm out to reach for a tree branch, but there was

nothing there, just empty space. I cursed under my breath and tried regaining my footing to no avail. One foot slipped, then the other, and then I was skidding down the slope. I tumbled once, thankfully landing on my pack with an oof as the air was driven from my lungs, frantically trying to find some way to stop my descent. And finally I found it. My arms wrapped around a thin pine sapling, and I dug my heels in, grimacing as the spindly tree bent and bowed, but thankfully held. Taking a few deep breaths, I finally hoisted myself back up onto my knees, checking. my body and equipment for any damage. Aside from some minor scrapes,

everything appeared in order. Damn, you good dude, Joey suddenly appeared to my side, reaching out to grab my hand. But as I sat with the take it, he froze, eyes wide and mouth hanging open, staring at something over my shoulder.

I turned and very nearly lost my footing again, heart leaping into my throat and adrenaline shooting through my veins like ice. lying beneath a small rock outcropping not five feet from where I stopped was a man clad in traditional Afghan dress and very obviously dead blood spatter coated the rocks around him from what I could only assume were the wounds he had suffered leading to his death the left side of his skull had been caved in the eyeball hanging loosely and dangling against his cheek his jaw was twisted and snapped in an unnatural

angle, and three of his ribs jotted through the fabric of his winter jacket, soaking the beige fabric in crimson. I winceded the sight and took a step back, suddenly realized I'd race my rifle and had it trained on his forehead. I lowered it and let out a breath. Christ. Andy moved up, poking the corpse a few times to ensure the man was well and truly dead. It doesn't look like he was shot, he mumbled, turning the body over and holding up an AK-47

that had been pinned underneath it. Pulling out the magazine, he scowled. Empty. Who's walking around out here with an empty rifle? Nobody's smart. One of our machine gunners, Thomas piped up. Think you fell dark? Maybe busted himself up hitting all these trees and rocks and stuff.

And he began rummaging through the man's pockets, finding nothing more than a canteen. Maybe. It would make sense, given the injuries. I've seen it before. I swam in my nerve and leaned forward, pointing. If he fell, I asked, then what the hell did that? Turning the body over onto its side, and he swore at the sight of a gaping wound on the side of the man's neck.

A ragged hole almost the size of a baseball that went all the way down to his spine. He paused for a moment, letting the corpse slump back into place. Could have been a coyote or a big cat or something that found him after he fell, decided they wanted a snack. Stay focused, guys. It doesn't matter whatever took a chunk out of him. We've still got a job to do. Joey brought us all back to the moment.

Let's move. We set off again, taking more careful steps this time. But some small part of my mind wouldn't stay quiet, even as I tried focusing on the mission. I knew predators. If they found that corpse, they wouldn't have just taken a single bite. The body would have been ravaged. And there hadn't been any other obvious bite marks.

I forced his thoughts aside and got myself back into the game. The mountains beginning to wake with a chirping of bert and the soft howl of the wind. Much to my relief, the terrain began to level out slightly as we moved into a ridge running around the mountain, though it was still rough going. Using the trees to pull ourselves along and steady our pace, we had to pause more than once as the altitude and strenuous marching punched our lungs and legs. It was almost nine in the morning as Joey called for us to stop for another five. I found a spot to conceal myself in between two bushes, drinking deep from one of my canteens.

And that was when the first shots broke the morning quiet. They were fairly distant, just muffled pops and cracks, but we all reached for our rifles and hurried into a perimeter peaking out to the forest. No one spoke as the gunfire continued in the distance, fading from a constant roar to just a few scattered shots here and there in the span of 30 seconds. and then silence. For another minute, we simply laid there, waiting for more, wondering if the next ones would rip over our heads.

But none came. Carlos reached up to Keyes Radio. T.O.C. Viper 3. We've got gunfire near our position. Do you have any air assets in the area that might be able to take a look? The reply came a few moments later. Viber 3. T.O.C. as a negative on air. They're all tied off. Are you in contact? Joey grumbled before keying up again.

Negative TOC sounded like he was about a click away, not in our direction. Copy that Viber 3. Stay safe. TOC out. Well, a lot of help that was, Carlos grimmed. Damn Air Force kind of inspired one of their fancy drones to help us see what we were walking into. What, like you're surprised? Joey offered him a rare grin, clapping the larger man on his shoulder as he stood. Come on, let's get moving. eyes up. The next hour passed, much like the last few had. Quiet and still, savour the occasional

gust of biting wind or the chattering of forest animals. We didn't hear any more shots, though we kept our weapons at the ready and paused every few moments to stop and listen for any signs of danger that might be coming our way. We began to ascend the ridge, turned into a long sloping valley leading up towards the side of the mountain, ending a few hundred feet below the summit. I tried not to let out an audible groan at the thoughts of climbing a of that monster of a hill, but that complaint vanished as Joey suddenly held up his fist, taking a knee. "'See that?' he said, pointing up toward the top of the valley.

I squinted, reaching into my vest for a small set of binoculars and putting them to my eyes. There, clear as day, was the entrance to a cave. It was small, a little more than a black speck against the rocks and snow, but there nonetheless. But that wasn't what made my heart skip a beat. nestled between two large boulders near it sat the sandbagged machine gun nest barrel pointed towards the sky I frantically scanned the surrounding rocks and trees

for any sign of enemy fighters there was nothing Joey took the binoculars to look for himself now that's weird he murmured glaring up at the cave entrance these guys aren't the sort to leave a machine-gump post exposed like that and unmanned too any other day we would have been getting lit up by now

I nodded Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters were experts in camouflage and often new scouts the signal when we were coming within range of their guns to find a machine gun completely unmanned and exposed

was definitely not in the norm so what's the game plan I asked scanning the hillside for a moment Joey sat in silence glaring back at the rest of the squad before standing up let's at least go check it out

if nothing's there we can always mark this place with the flyboys to drop a mum later, make sure they can't use it again. We began the arduous task of ascending this steep valley up towards the precipice, coughing for each breath and nearly having to crawl on hands and knees at some point. It was slow, painful going, all of us hoping to reach the top before we passed out from exhaustion. The entire squad froze as Joey halted and lifted his hand, before pointing off to a stand of trees about 50 yards ahead,

and topped of fabric sticking out from between the tree trunks, something wet coating the ground underneath it. I swallowed, lifting my rifle and starting to advance along with him. We closed the distance, and, a few moments later, the squad was kneeling in a semicircle pattern around the object with looks of grim fascination. Another body, even more disfigured than the last. One of the men's arms had been ripped or sheared off of the shoulder, his abdomen torn open as though he'd lost an argument with an angry lawnmower. meat and bone lay exposed to the cold mountain air, blood coating the rocks around him in white swaths.

I tried to block out the look of object terror frozen on his face as I leaned down to pick up the rifle at his feet. The barrel bent almost 90 degrees like it had been twisted in a vice. Empty, I murmured, holding up the magazine. Okay, what the hell? Thomas cursed, hefting his M240. Something went right here. This is weird. Joey and I exchanged glances, and for the first time since I'd known him, I saw something strange in his eyes. It wasn't fear, it wasn't hesitation.

It was confusion. Like he just couldn't put the pieces together and figure out what was going on. He took a few slow, deep breaths before stepping back from the corpse. Let's keep moving, he said, voice barely above a whisper. We found more bodies the higher we ascended, scattered among the trees and rows. rocks. Some looked as though they'd been in a car wreck, twisted and mangled in unnatural ways. Others were almost ripped apart, long slashes carved through their flesh or missing limbs. We found one implanted on a tree branch nearly 20 feet off the ground. His blood was still dripping

as we passed underneath. For the first time, I began to hear the tinkling of shell casings underneath my feet, hundreds of them littering the ground near empty rifles and machine guns. Some of the weapons had been almost totally destroyed. I'd face death plenty of times. Friends had bled to death in my arms. I'd watched men be vaporized in IED blasts. I'd seen the life drain from men's faces after I'd shot them

and seeing what was left after the bombs fell on their heads. I'd felt fear, of course, when bullets snapped by my ear or a mortar landed just a bit too close. But this was different. There, in that valley, I felt terror. Something deep down in my most basic of instincts was screaming at me to turn and run and never look back. This was a place of death and I didn't belong.

But I forced those thoughts aside. The rest of the team was counting on me to do my job and I expected the same from them. He finally reached the machine gun nest having passed at least a dozen disfigured bodies on the way up. I found the gunner himself. At least what was left of him sprawled out in the snow behind the sandbags.

He'd been torn almost completely in two. I suppressed the urge of the gag and spun around as a voice called out. Joey, we got a live one. Andy was gesturing frantically as he disappeared behind an improvised hut, nothing more than some tin propped up against a large boulder. We all rushed over to find him kneeling next to a man, whimpering and crying, blood dripping down his chin while he tried to hold in his guts, which had spilled into his lap from a massive hole in his abdomen.

Aaron! Joey waved his hand, taking a knee next to the dying man. Aaron was a translator, and a good one. All the dialects in this area differed, but he had figured it out. Jogging up to the scene, Aaron took a moment to gather himself before shuffling forward. He spoke softly, resting a hand on the man's shoulder. They talked in hushed tones, the insurgent occasionally raising a shaking arm, to point to the cave entrance.

I could see the light starting to leave his eyes. I'd seen it plenty of times before. His words became softer and softer as his eyes shut, melting into incoherent murmurs before he slumped over, letting out one final breath. What did he say? Did you ask him about the plutonium? Joey asked, eyes heard a stone.

Aaron stood slowly. He was from Texas with a bright smile and a seemingly perpetual tan. But, at that moment, he was as white as the snow around us. Blinking a few times and shaking his head to clear it. He... He cleared his throat, suddenly staring intently at the cave entrance,

just a few paces away. It was no bigger than the door and a conventional refrigerator, but the inky blackness inside might as well have been a portal into another dimension. He said that... They brought the plutonium here to make a bomb. We all bristled, visibly tensing. But he said it wasn't to use on us. What?

That doesn't make any damn sense. Thomas glanced down at the dead man, eyes wide. Aaron continued. He said that the tribal elders warned everyone about this place to stay away, but his commander didn't listen. They wanted this mountain as a scouting position and decided to set up camp here. They were going to use the caves to hide from us. And that's when...

He said that's when they... ...woke it. It? What's it? Joey scowled, breath fogging in the cold air. He said... Okay, here's the thing. Some of these tribes up here, they've been around a long time.

Like, a really long time. We're talking people for Alexander the Great, and they've got stories that go all the way back to before religion, before written language, before all of that. And some of these people believe that these mountains are sacred, and that there's something in them that wants a keeper that way. And when these guys showed up to set up camp, Aaron gestured to the scene of carnage around us.

It got angry. Though it only lasted a few seconds, the silence that fell seemed to last for hours. It was Joey who spoke first. We have still got a mission. There's a crap load of plutonium inside that cave somewhere. He pointed at the gap in the rocks, and we've got to find it. So we're just going to ignore the whole thing about some mountain spirit messing up these guys and go in there anyway?

Thomas asked, gesturing to the dead man at our feet. I mean this, with all the kindness to my heart, Joey, but that sounds like a stupid idea. Look, we can't save a certain what killed these guys, Joey growled. For all we know, they ran into some opposing force, got ambushed, whatever. And frankly, I'm not going to stake this entire mission and a potential nuclear threat. attack on the ramblings of a guy who was knocking on death store. You all know as well as I do that some of these people are superstitious as hell. We've got a job to do and we're going to do it. I need four guys with me, the rest of you pull security. In the end, there were no more arguments. Aaron, Andy, Carlos and myself volunteered to go in. I checked my rifle one more time, making certain that there was a round in the pipe before flipping my NODs down and following Joey into the cave. My heart pounded like a jackhammer And the sweat felt like a cold hand on the back of my neck

As we walked into the darkness Using the infrared illuminators on our rifles In conjunction with the night vision to light our way Whereas outside the wind and cool air Helped the dampen the scent of death Inside the cave It was almost overpowering I almost gagged trying to breathe through my mouth

But the cloying odour forced its way to my nose And throat regardless I moved in single file down the narrow path, deeper and deeper, walking at a half-crowch to stop from banging our heads on the low ceiling. Our beams of infrared light, only visible to the night vision goggles,

lit up the path ahead. It didn't take long to find the first bodies, at least what was left of them. Most just scraps of cloth and streaks of gore standing the walls. Occasionally, we found parts of a torso, or a head, maybe some arms and legs. More than once, I almost slipped in a pile of viscera

and had to catch myself, taking in long falls of the damp, putrid air. The corridor slowly began to widen until we were standing in a circular cavern with two more pathways forking off to either side. My heart sank with the thought of having to split the team, very much aware of the horror movie trope that we were walking into. That was, until Joey took my shoulder, shining his eye-ar beam and a wooden crate took behind one wall.

Even with a grainy view of my night vision goggles, it's hard to miss a giant radiation warning symbol painted in bright yellow. I cautiously approached the box, slinging my rifle and taking off my pack. I could hear Joey and Carlos starting to set demolition charges to blow the space once we were finished. The hinges on the box creaked as I slowly opened it and winced of the sound, staring at the contents inside. A metallic sphere, maybe as large as a grapefruit, nestled snugly inside a bed of foam. Despite its uses,

plutonium is actually perfectly safe to handle, even with your bare hands. The particles it admits won't even penetrate your skin. It only becomes truly dangerous if you inhale or ingest the material, or, you know, put it inside a nuclear bomb. But that didn't mean I was just going to throw it in my pocket and call it a day. Fishing around inside my pack, I produced a finely woven cloth bag to keep any potential dust or particulate contained, slipping it inside the pouch and then stuffing the whole thing into my power.

I stood and turned, suddenly feeling as though my feet had been nailed to the floor. I had seen a lot of arguably terrible things during my time in their teams. Men blown to pieces, soldiers screaming for their mothers as they died, an enemy combatant charging at me with a bayonet intending to ram it into my stomach. You never get used to it, but some parts of your brain starts learning how to handle that sensation of overwhelming fear and terror, how to push it aside and keep going in the moment, leaving that as yet another suitcase of emotional baggage to handle later on.

But, and of all the things I witnessed, there wasn't anything that could have prepared me for what meant my gaze. My brain just short-circuited, refusing to accept what I was seeing as reality. I blinked once, then twice. That thing was still there. And that's the only way I can think to describe it. A thing. Not a man, not a beast,

but something in between. Shaggy, matted fur, hung from its hunched shoulders as it crouched on all fours, unnaturally long limbs bent at our angles. I could just barely make out the glint of foot-long, hooked claws, clattering softly against the stone every time it shifted its weight. Had it stood on all fours, it would have been at least ten feet tall, though it sat hunched with all four of its freakishly long arms and legs. Some distant part of my brain realized that it wasn't breathing.

whenever it stopped, it stood perfectly still, not even the subtle rise and fall of breath, but all of that paled in comparison to the thing's face. There was nothing there, just an empty black void in the vague shape of a skull, or maybe a beak, or some awful creation of hellish sort. But there was one thing I could see for certain, row after row of teeth, glistening in the dark,

dripping something onto the floor below it. I don't know how long I stood there, but finally something snapped me out of my mind-searing reverie. It was Joey hissing under his breath at me, one hand holding up his rifle to keep it leveled at the thing, the other clutching the detonation switch for the explosives they'd already laid. He dared not move, only flicking his eyes towards the corridor from where he came. I wanted to scream at him. Are you insane? But that seemed like a terrible idea, considering the circumstances.

However, it seemed like a errone option. And so I took a single step, my boots squelching on what I could only assume to have once been part of someone's digestive tract, now just a smear of gore on the rock. The reaction was instantaneous. The creature braced itself against the wall with a series of jerky, snapping motions, and let out a sound that will haunt me forever. It was the sound of a thousand men dying at once, a shriek that reverberated and echoed through the small chamber,

in wave after wave of pure hatred and contempt. I screamed in return, terror floating through my veins like shards of ice. We were all screaming, but our voices may as well have been flecks of sand in a hurricane, drowned into nothingness by that roar. I'm still not sure who shot first. I think Joey did, but it's hard to say. In a space that small, the gunfire should have been simply overwhelming, but I never heard it.

I saw the flash from his muzzle spewing fire, soon joined by the other three, lighting up the cavern like a flashbang. And yet that thing seemed as if it were made of living shadow, closed in darkness, save for its savage teeth. Carlos was yelling at me to run, to get out, reaching over to grab my arm. He was snatched out of the air as his fingers touched my sleeve. I never saw that creature move, but suddenly there it was, one set of claws hoisting him up by the throat,

and the other speared him through the abdomen, under his vest and coming through the back with a sort of. spray of blood. Carlos let out a low-keening noise, shaking and squirming and trying to bring up his rifle as the thing lifting him off the floor. He never got the chance. He was ripped in two,

his legs slamming against one wall as the rest of him hit the other side with a wet slap. I had just enough sanity left to flip the selector switch to fully automatic, bringing up my rifle and letting off a long burst as that creature lunged forward, swinging one of its appendages in a long sweeping arc.

Aaron never started chance, collapsing to the floor as his head tumbled away. Andy only caught a glancing blow, but that was more than enough. One of those whistling claws caught him in the throat, the momentum from the impact, hurling him into the wall with a sickening crunch of bones, shattering. Whatever coherent thought I had left evaporated. I was screaming, emptying the last of my magazine, and starting to reach for another. The thing turned to face Joey and I, teeth gnashing, and bloody claws scraping the floor.

Once again it pounced Right as I signed the magazine home And hit the bolt release I burst in my round Hit it right in the face Or at least where its face should have been Sparks flew as bullets Ritch shade of his teeth

Closing in right on top of me I was expecting the burning agony of claws Sinking into my stomach Or a sudden lightheaded sensation As my head was separated from my shoulders But instead I was knocked back off my feet Something heavy crashing into my chest

I skidded backwards, blinking away the sweat and blood stinging my eyes. Joey was lying crumbled against the wall, his vest torn away to reveal the four ragged holds in his abdomen where his ribs were peeking through. He gasped and spotted for breath, blood forming a fine mist every time he coughed. The beast had turned on him and circled around for yet another strike. It locked between both of us, teeth clicking like iron nails on granite. Joey locked up from the ruin that was his torso. Head bobbing back and forth.

He still clutch his rifle in one hand, trying to bring it to bear. Our eyes met, only a few feet apart. Weezing and gurgling, he lifted his left hand. The detonator was still in his grasp, and he flicked off the safety catch. He couldn't speak, his throat filling with blood, but he managed to mouth one word. Go. I wasn't even aware that I'd begun to run until I was halfway down the corridor. the sound of gunfire roaring in my ears

as Joey emptied the last of his magazine in one long burst. There was a second of deafening silence, louder than anything I could have imagined, and then a noise like a clap of thunder inside my own head. It was all around me, inside me, pushing and pulling on every fibre of my body.

Something was shoving me out of the cave and towards daylight. Yet again, some distant corner of my mind realized it was the pressure away from the blast and it might very well kill me. but I couldn't process that. All I could feel was Joey's hand in my back, pushing me forward, screaming, go, go, go.

Whatever it was threw me at least a few feet out of the cave and into the searing light of day, landing with a thud and rolling the last few feet. Rocks and debris rained down on my head, and all I could do was curl into a ball and wait for it to end, choking on long pools of dust and sand.

Pain had become my master in that moment. Everything hurt, I could barely breathe. My head was screaming. All I knew was the searing ache shooting through every nerve ending in my body. Time slowed down. Or sped up. I'm not really sure. Adrenaline and shock are funny like that. But eventually, reality began to take shape again, like I was crawling my way out of the mud and back into dry land. Only when I felt something grabbing me did I truly come back all the way, kicking and punching and yelling, frantically reaching for my pistol on my belt. I was going to die with an empty magazine and blood on my hands. Thomas slapped me. Hard. Hard enough to make my vision blur and my whole body go numb for a few seconds. Hard enough to finally pull me out to my stupor,

blinking away the dust in my eyes and seeing his face staring at me from above. Eyes wide and mouth agape. He was saying something, but I couldn't hear him, only the pounding on my heart and the rush of blood through my veins. He pointed frantically towards the cave and managed to run. roll onto my side, fully expecting to see that thing crawling out and come kill us all.

Instead, I was met with a beautiful and terrible sight. A pile of rubble now stood where the entrance had once been, clouds of dust and smoke still rising between the stones. Forcing myself to my knees, I stared, slack chored and wide-eyed, simply

unable to process the sight, and I stayed like that for what fell like ours, simply kneeling in the shattered rocks and trying to understand. He was only when Thomas grabbed my shoulder and shook me that I found enough cognizance to scrape myself together. We're getting out, he was saying, extraction is on the way.

The first sound I heard, as my hearing returned, was the distant thrum of helicopter blades as we made our way out of the canyon. I was joined by the ever-present, never-ending moaning of the wind, carrying the sounds of dead men along the mountaintops. You will probably never read the official debris, on Operation Condor.

It's classified, and probably will be for the next 20 years. Of course, the military put out a press release which was even more watered down. It would tell you that Aaron, Andy, Carlos and Joey died during the gunfight in a Taliban cave system

in northeast Afghanistan. They were all posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. We were all sworn to secrecy, of course. Most of the guys were happy to agree. They all wanted to forget. I did.

too. But I can't. They know something happened in that cave, something horrific, but they don't know the truth, and I don't want them to. Nobody else needs that burden. I left the military as soon as my contract was up, and that's why I'm telling this story now. Those government spooks and secret agents are going to do whatever it is they do to keep this under wraps, but somebody has to tell this story. And it may as well be me. because the truth has to come out. There's a lot of things to be afraid of in Afghanistan,

but one of them is unlike anything we've ever seen. When I was a kid, I never really knew my grandfather Carl. Not only was he an ocean away, living in his home country while I grew up in America, he had died a few years before I was born, nixing any chance of a meetup. Grandma kept his house and things locked away for a long while, until she too finally kicked the bucket about six years ago. We managed to get a little money that they had set aside, but more important than that was all the old stuff collected over the years.

You see, Grandpa was a fighter through and through. He'd spent a good portion of his adult life as a soldier in both World War I and two, fighting for Germany, collecting a few medals to his name. My mom told me he never liked to talk about it, though, said he always had this vacant, deprecant, depressing, look in his eyes, even when she was a little girl. There was more than one time she would get up in the middle of the night for a cup of water, only to see him sprawled on the living room couch, a bottle in one hand, and a weeping face

cradled by the other. I could only imagine what he went through. Until now. Like millions of other people in the current circumstances, I found myself stuck at home without a whole lot to do, waiting for college to reopen and life to get back on track. With so many people comparing the current pandemic to past ones, the Spanish flu getting name dropped the most, it got me wondering how my grandfather dealt with it.

So, I went up into the attic to go through some of his old things for some kind of clue, not really expecting to find anything. Pouring through old files and documents, I came across a battered envelope, unmarked. Opening it up, revealed a handwritten note. I still retain enough German from my mother in school lessons to read some of it, so I started without asking for help. The contents of the note were far different from anything I expected.

When I finished it, I didn't know if I should have got someone to make sure I had read it right. Queasily, I took it upon myself to be the sole translator, for I do not know how others would feel, and would not like to be publicly associated with its contents. Thus, I share it here with you folks, in the hopes that someone can make sense of this insanity, and perhaps someone else out there could tell you, me whether or not they've heard of something like this before.

It read, the first time I remember dying was in the fields of Flanders in September of 1917. But I'm getting ahead of myself. My life was unremarkable before my time in the army. My family used to own a little farm out in the countryside where we grew wheat and potatoes, toiling for hours a day to scrape by. When I was about nine, our father sold the farm

and we moved into an apartment in the city where we took at work in snarling, pollution-ridden factories, melting steel or making textiles. Back in those days, even the small children were expected to work, so I went too. Sometimes I would have vivid, agonizing nightmares of heavy machinery, searing my flesh to the bone, or crushing my skull to a bloody pulp,

instilling a terror to do my best and make no mistakes. Maybe that's where all this started. I don't know. When the war first broke out, I was 15 years old. In those days, there were few alive who had seen what war really meant. Most people only had vague notions of our crushing victory over France decades prior or of insurgencies in the African colonies.

Quick, easy victories. When things stalled out, we were assured that the stored situation was only a set back, even as this dragged on for years and as foodstuffs became more scarce from British pockades. I got called up from service a little after my 18th birthday. in August of 1917. Training was expedited, and in September, I was shipped to the front of Flanders.

Our train stopped at some French or Belgian town. We were shaken awake, and then marched off to the front. We were sent in under the cover of darkness, as artillery strikes in the daylight made things too risky. Immediately I wanted to go back home. Within the first few hours, my ears were ringing painfully from all the artillery shells.

Every time a flare shot into the night sky, I and the other new guys could see the long lines of dead and wounded getting carried out from behind the front line trenches. Each time I got a peek, I wanted to vomit. In some way, though, the darkness was worse, because all you could hear were screaming agonized whales and unheard pleased the god. Arceo sends us to our different positions.

I entered my signed dugout with three or four others, where by dim candlelight, we were first. face to face with aged veterans. One older man, thin and wrinkly, with jowls hanging down his cheeks, stared at us the same way a normal person would stare at a flea-ridden rat. So these are the newbies? He said to us. A few hesitant affirmations, and the man averted his gaze and took a swig from his cup.

These kids are just dead weight. A stocky man, white-shouldered and tall, with a big black beard hugging his face, stood up and said, Don't mind Rudolph, he's been in since the very beginning. I'm Max. He shook all of our hands and gave us a quick rundown on what to expect out there. He was a kind, funny man, and we could tune out the drone of shells blowing chunks out of the landscape while he told us about how he used the box.

I think he knew we weren't going to be able to get any sleep that night, even if some of us tried. We were all on edge, sitting around, waiting for something to happen. In the afternoon, the shelling suddenly stopped in our area. Moving further behind the lines and giving our battered ears some respite, Max and the other veterans jerked their heads upwards, listening intently, the piercing sound of a simple order filling all of us with dread. It's an attack, assumed defensive formation. We rushed out of our dugout and filed into our firing positions.

I didn't think I had any adrenaline left to expend at that point, yet my racing pulse informed me otherwise. Some mortars were still going off all around us where we could see British troops, bug size at our distance, steaming towards us. Thousands of rifles all went off at once, and machine guns rattled away. If my hearing wasn't damaged before,

it certainly was now. Despite the firepower we could muster, the British advanced further on, which shook me to the core. I didn't think it would be possible to live through a barrage so deadly. What before appeared as cockroaches slowly crawling along the ground, now looked like men, and they were starting to shoot back.

I heard a couple people cry out in pain as bullets hit them, and, under the corner of my eyes, I saw a man collapse, dead. Frantically, I fired, worked at the bolt, inside in more clips. The more I fired, the more I felt like I was doing something, even if I wasn't aiming near half the time. In a split second, I saw one of them toss something, and it landed right behind me. I spun around recklessly, seeing it only seconds, before a white-hot flash enveloped me.

Just enough time for my brain to think... Grenade. And then I felt myself getting shaken awake again, back on the train. Startled, I jolted upright, blurting out, Where am I? What kind of hospital? I promptly shut up, taking in all my surroundings. It was the train car, all right, and everyone I had disembarked with. The asylum's further down the tracks, buddy.

Someone joked, prompting some cruel chuckles. I had no idea what was happening. Touching my face and the rest of my body, I couldn't feel any wounds, so I reason the blast must have knocked me out somehow, but my head didn't hurt either. Had I been comatose? I pushed the whirlwind of confusion down into the back of my mind, and dumbly proceeded as our CEO has told us. We marched again, went down the same trench again,

and went to the same exact dugout. Rudolph was waiting for us just as before and recited word for word what he had said to us the first time So these are the new kids He said Even though he was older and a veteran I was still mad How could it be so stupid as to not recognise me

What are you talking about I was with you just yesterday I think nobody told me what happened I spotted Max and pointed at him Max you remember me right The farm boy you told me about your days as a boxer. I stopped because everyone was looking at me

with wide open eyes or cocked eyebrows. Max had practically turned white. He visibly swallowed, like there was something stuck in his throat. And he asked me, How do you know all this? Nervous energy sending waves of static through my body. I told him plainly.

You told me all this before the attack in the afternoon. What the hell is this? What the hell is this? are you trying to pull on us? Rudolph shouted, frantic movement sloshing the beer around his cup. Screw this, I'm getting out of here before you bring bad luck to me. He pushed his way past all of us, muttering about witchcraft and dark magic. Stunned, I slumped into a corner while everyone else just stared, like I was a filthy beggar trembling into a noble ballroom. All of us spent the night in relative silence. Just as before, we were ordered to take our positions in the

afternoon. Everyone was spooked, especially me. Why was everything the exact same way? I couldn't dwell on such matters for long as the British came forward. I hammered away, once again, spraying lead into the air with reckless abandon. As before, I caught a split-second glimpse of a soldier tossing a grenade at my position. Having more awareness of the initial threat, I tossed myself to the side, but regrettably it wasn't enough. After a deafening boom, I was thrown hard to the ground, rendered into bloody mulch scattered across the trench walls. Disoriented, I could also feel a stinging pain in my right arm and my stomach. Shrapnel aggressively lodged in.

As the chaotic sound of battle raged around me, I could only moan in pain, hoping that someone would take me out of my misery. I do not know how long I had laid there, my perception of time and space getting hazy from blood loss and agony, until mercifully the darkness impelled me. And I ended up right back where I started, at the train again. If I hadn't been disturbed before, I certainly was now. When they shook me awake, I came up screaming and grabbed my rifle.

Calm down, boy, calm, you're not at the front yet, an officer said. With shaky hands, I lowered my rifle and slung it over my shoulder. I'm sorry, I said. I just had a nightmare, that's all. The officer walked away, shaking his head. No doubt they all thought I was crazy. It certainly felt like it, the more I went on, going down the same exact path to the same dugout I'd been to twice now

to meet the same people I had already met. So, these are the new kids? Rudolph said. This time I get my mouth shut while the other new guys nodded their heads. He took a drink from his cup and said, These kids are just dead weight. Right on cue, Max got up, saying, Don't mind Rudolph.

He's been in since the very beginning. I'm... Max, I finished. You're Max, and you used to box back in Cherbourg. I know. I felt everyone's eyes on me again, but no longer cared. Frustrated, after having such a horrible death, I turned towards Rudolph and angrily told him,

I'm not a damn witch, you odd prune, so I don't even think about pulling that with me again. While everyone else was visibly shocked, Rudolph's face turned beet red and his grip over the cup tightened. You don't get to talk to me that way, he shouted, getting out of his chair and spilling his beer in the process. He made a beeline towards me, but was stopped just in time by Max. The larger man held the skinnier one back while the former tried to temper the latter's rage.

I just stared right back into Rudolph's mean, peedy brown eyes with silent contempt. Eventually he settled down and Max turned to me, a bit angry himself. Listen, he said to me, I don't know what's going on here, but whatever it is, you've got no right mouthing off like that. Max pulled up a chair and crossed his meaty arms. Tell us what the problem is, he said. I obliged. I went through everything as best I could, try not to miss any important details while Max stared me down, stoic. The others, Sans Rudolph, who sulked with a new cup of beer, staring in wide-eyed wonder.

When I finished, Max led out a long sigh and asked, So, why is this happening to you? I don't know, I said, exasperated. I've never gone through anything like this before. It only started after I came to the front. God damn gypsy curse, I tell you, Rudolph sneered. Those boggars collect grudges the same way little kids collect bottle caps or tin men. I bet you or yours did something to tick one of them off, and now you're screwed.

He finished his cop, then got up to leave. Well, Mack said, can you think of any strangers you might have aggrieved, or has anyone in your family done something? I can't think of anything, I said, deflated. Oh God, I don't want to keep going through this. I don't want to get my legs ripped off again. My legs trembled at the thought,

and I struggled to keep my breathing under control. Max stood up and grabbed my shoulders with his huge hands. Hey now, don't think like that, he said, continuing with, the more panic you get, the more likely to be. the more likely you are to make mistakes, and the more likely you are to die. And so, he told me a few things he'd already taught before my first death, about taking cover and taking carefully play shots.

I listened as intently as I could, mentally went over it until it was all I could think of. The other new guys listened to him too, and a couple of the older guys there supplied their own knowledge. By the afternoon's attack, I took everything he said to heart. With newfound resolve, I found my nerves cooled, my aim steady. Everything I touched felt more real The air smelled sharper The sounds of the dead

Injured explosives and gunfire Just background noise Despite my second wind The British managed to reach our trench anyway A man to my right was crouched over About to jump in When without skipping a beat I shot him in the hip

He half groaned half screamed When he fell in ungracefully Without thinking I ran over to him And slammed the business end of my boot Into his face And he'll always satisfied he'd been subdued Unfortunately, my victory was short-lived

As another Brit had climbed in behind me in the melee And I felt a bullet painfully tear its way from my back to my chest I fell against the trench wall in pain Just in time for a second bullet to hit me And so went a third life on that day But when I returned to this earth again I didn't lose my composure or my resolve As I had before

This time I knew for a fact That the course of events could be changed that even if by some cosmic force of nature I didn't understand had stacked the deck against me, there was still a potential way out, and I was determined to find it. This time, upon entering the dugout, I chose not to reveal my secret,

and instead presented an affable facade that had the rest of them convinced that there wasn't anything troubling or unusual about me. I even decided to hold up my hand for that cantangorous asshole Rudolph, which, he reluctantly shook. Events proceeded along the same lines as they had, before. I successfully picked off several of them before they started a stream in like usual.

One of them had pounced on a young man, Lars, who had come here with me off the train. The Brit was older and sturdier than the skinny Lars, the latter bleeding from a cut on his head or the former punched the kid's face over and over. In a split second, I got off one shot of the Brit, hitting him on the side of the face and eviscerating his head in a slurry of brain matter. Lars looked at me in appreciation, only for his eyes to widen with shock and for him to quickly point off to my side. I twisted my head around and saw another Brit who had jumped in, readying his rifle against me, but determined not to keep reliving the same day forever and slammed the butt of my cavier right into the other man's face, hitting him at least twice

more before eyeing the top of the trench again, anticipating another one coming in. Instead, a half-dazed, walking wounded Brit stumbled in from another part of our trench and jabbed his knife into my left arm. Crying out in agony, I battered the enemy on the head with my rifle stock, which he grabbed. Withdrawing the knife from my arm, the red-black inner liquid dripped down the blade and onto my uniform as the Brit shoved me against the wall

and directed the knife towards my face. Before the man could fillet me, Lars shot him in the back. I threw the Brit to the ground where he simply laid there, breathing laboured, then turned and nodded to Lars. Just then, the reserve unit

started to pour into the trench, providing us with reinforcements. Near immediately, the British Red collapsed in our sector. An officer took one look at us and told us to go get some medical treatment behind the lines. While the two of us waited in the procession of screaming, blooded men, Lars spoke up. I want to say thank you for saving me back there. I should have been more careful.

Don't mention it, I told him. You're... We're new here. I think we should just be grateful to still be alive. As soon as that last part slipped out, I had a smile from ear to ear. I had made it. My fate was not inevitable after all. Do you drink Lars?

I asked. Still a bit lightheaded with jubilence. He shook his head, no. And I said, Well, you do now. Where's Max? I'm going to buy everyone a drink tonight to commemorate our survival.

From here and out, we enjoy every moment like it's our last. Lars's face turned pale and he opened his mouth but closed it quickly, biting down on his lower lip. What? What's the matter?

I asked. A sinking feeling rolled around in my gut, and my prior joy was fully torpedoed when Lars spoke next. Max is dead, he said. When I just stood there, glued to the ground in horror, he went on. Some British guy threw a grenade into our section. He got killed. Some of the shrapnel gave me a head wound. Chewing on his bottom lip again, he offered a small apology while my mind just stayed blank.

Our wounds weren't serious, computer. bear to so many others, so we got stitched and bandaged and sent back the same day. Sitting in the corner of a dugout, I stared at the ground in uncomprehension. The man who had done more to keep me alive than anything else was gone, and I was on my own. I got up to grab some rations to eat when my cavier fell to the ground. I'd accidentally dropped it. I stared at that rifle for a good few minutes. I could go back, I thought to myself.

I could save him. I grabbed the rifle in both hands, remove the bayonet from the top, and placed the barrel against my forehead. It was just then that Lars came back from getting his own food. He shouted, No, don't! Which caused the others inside who hadn't noticed what I was doing to look over.

They grabbed me just before I could reach the trigger. Wait, you don't understand, I pleaded. I have to go back. For hours they sat there, restraining me, and all I could do is weep. They did let me go eventually, to rest, and I was only allowed my weapon back after repeated assurances that it wasn't going to try anything like that again.

I lied, of course, and when I found a much more suitable spot to die alone, I took the opportunity. But rather than finding myself back in the train car where my journey had started, I rewoke back in the area I'd slept last and a mattress in our dugout, watched over by one of our guys who had volunteered to watch me.

That put an end to my suicidal inclinations, at least for the time being. But the idea that I could make sure things go their proper course was too alluring to be disregarded. Whenever we went on an offensive or counter-offensive, I'd purposely die several times in a row in order to get a proper feel for the layout, then charge a course of progress that went through the path of least resistance. I was always the one to find the thinnest section of wire, the least-guided section of the enemy's trench. I could tell where all the snipers and machine-gunnest were in perfect accuracy. The defensive operations were different.

The trick that took me a long while to learn was to always let events proceed in a very specific way If I changed my behaviour too much Then the enemy soldiers would change their behaviour in turn However, if I stuck to a rigid pattern And retrace my steps exactly Then the enemy would never deviate too much With time and patience

I got good at leading them into ambushes Like chess pieces Every time I saved a man from a sniper's bullet Or perfectly predicted when artillery or mortar shell would land people took notice. Rumors were whispered in the nights that I had an angel watching over me, and by extension the rest of them. Men who I had seen die or get maimed in one of my prior lives

would come up to me and jokingly ask if they were going to make it. Try as a might though. Casualties were inevitable, and despite my best efforts, I could not save everyone. It was haunting. At some point or another, someone in the higher-ups must have noticed my actions on the battlefield, because once the worst of the fighting around Ypres had stopped, I was selected to become a stern

trodben. It was a mixed blessing, as, while I could more readily utilize my ability in their ranks, I'd have to go through even more lives and expose myself to greater danger than ever before. It was easier to forget how much I'd endured when fighting was happening, because I could disconnect from it, feeling perfectly hollow and empty. In the spring of 2019, the trepidation I held within me was finally real. realized. We were to go on the offensive, with our stern trodp and naturally taking the lead. My unit, still stationed in Flanders, took to offensive operations in April. At first we did stunningly well. I hadn't even needed to throw many lives away in the first few days,

maybe only two or three in total, and only to perfect our already good margin of victory. It felt like we could take the whole world. But the more the offensive continued, the more I realized something was going wrong. We kept outrunning our supply lines, having to wait for the rest of the army to catch up with us. The British kept regrouping every time we had to go through a delay, and it was starting to show. Resistance to our attacks only increased more and more,

and Osterndrippen were the ones who had to deal with it. One day, my friend at the time, Walker, prided me awake. Carl, he said, we've got the order to move up again, grab everything. I'd only managed to get a couple hours worth of sleep, having decided to take a nap in between assaults. So, upon getting up, I was still exhausted. My limbs felt heavy. My mind was foggy and scattershot.

My eyes were dried out and stung. With all this weighing me down more than my equipment, I advanced. Immediately, things went bad. Running straight through the battlefield, as I usually did, in order to cover as much ground as I could, and memorize the layout quicker, failed, as each and every time I was riddled, with bullets. I decided to take a more measured approach in subsequent attempts. My comrades and I had to approach at a snail's pace and keep our heads down every step of the way. It felt like the bridges were throwing all they could at us. Even crawling around like a rat had its difficulties

though. I noticed that no matter how far I managed to crawl, I would still get shot. The first couple times I thought I was the victim of an unlucky ricochet, but I kept getting killed even after some slight changes to my advance, so I deduced that my adversary was a sniper. Reasoning that I was never going to get ahead without rat hunting us every step of the way, I subjected myself through multiple deaths in order to find his position. It was no wonder he kept getting us. His nest was hundreds of meters away in a half-destroyed brick house, flanking her entire company. I sprayed bullets in his general direction with my Bergman MP 18, but it was certainly no long-range tool, even in the best of times. and with my body weak and my mind impatient and on edge,

it was certainly not the best of times. After about three deaths, foolishly focusing on taking out the sniper, I settled for an occasional burst of gunfire in his general direction to keep him suppressed, but that still left the wall of British guns firing at us. My exhausted mind couldn't focus on the sniper and the front line trench at the same time, and I died multiple times to both. Impatience was giving way to rage, and I ended up stupidly getting myself killed many times,

after trying to rustings. In one death, I had screamed curses at our adversaries and wildly shooting in their general direction, then took a bullet to the spine and fell face first into a puddle instead of a shellhole. Unable to move my limbs, my lungs filled with muddy water, burning in incredible pain before I died. When I came to again, my anger broke and gave way to pure fear. I started to wonder if I would ever be able to escape this madness,

or I would be doomed to cycle through lives endlessly. Halfway into my next attempt, I hid inside of a shell hole and found myself unable to move. The fear had paralysed me utterly. Volker arrived at my side and tried to snap me out of what looked like the onset of shell shock. Carl, come on, he said, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me. We're getting shredded out there. We need you now more than ever. With real desperation in his voice, he said softly, You can't break down now.

Please, Carl. That's about when the mortars started hitting us. I hadn't experienced them until now, as I had died too soon in each case. One went off close enough to catch us both. My vision went blank, and I felt waves of pure agony rolling over me. When I did not come back to the spot of my nap and the pain did not subdue, I came to the horrified conclusion that my face had been blown off by the bomb. Indeed, I found that I couldn't work my mouth anymore.

Instead, feeling pain like thousands of glass shards were stuck in me while my tongue tasted the sickening copper taste of blood. I could feel that my right arm still worked, so I retrieved a grenade from my pouch to kill myself with. My left arm was horribly mangled and my fingers wouldn't work, so I held the grenade down with my left arm while the right pulled a string. After successfully killing myself this way, I threw up the minute I woke up. Volker was concerned, asking, I'm sure you're good to keep going. Yes, I assured, I just ate something bad. It'll pass. I'm good to go. Come on. Sighing, the older man pressed his hand against my head to make sure I wasn't feverish, and upon confirming that I wasn't, we rejoined the others and prepared for our assault.

Shamefully, I abandoned my unit when the mortars came down around us again. As I dashed back into our own lines, and the perceived safety it would bring, a mortar tossed me into the air. I fell on my arms, which produced an unholy crunching sound, indicating a friend. fracture. As I pushed myself up to continue running, I felt a pulse of pain jolt through my right leg. A piece of shrapnel had got stuck in there below the knee. I limped the way back and collapsed in front of fellow Germans or paying for help. When I came to next, grogly, I noticed I was in an actual bed, and to my sides were others in mutilated conditions occupying beds of their own. I was in the hospital. I breathed a sigh of both relief and sorrow.

I had failed my friends and abandoned my duty, but at least I would be able to live. I later learned from one of the nurses that out of 67 of us, only 14, all wounded, survived the failed assault. Volker had died too, and I grieved for him all damning my own cowardice. Indeed, failure hung over the air in a dusty cloud. While I loved around, listening to the whales of those less fortunate than I, I learned how to walk with the crutches. my leg wound would never fully heal. We heard story after story about offensives stalling out, then getting pushed back. Correspondence with my family turned sour as well when I learned my youngest brother, Edmund,

and my father had both died from an outbreak of influenza. My oldest brother, Fritz, was working tirelessly every day in the factories to support our aging mother, and I could do nothing from my hospital bed. When the war ended in our bitter defeat, and I was discharged from the hospital, I left for home right away and started looking for work. But with everyone else demobilizing and our country in political and economic chaos, it was not easy. For my part, I took to drinking heavily. There were times where I would wake up after a night of slamming back as many whiskers as I could take,

only to realize that it was still yesterday and I died from choking my own vomit. Out of intense self-loathing, there were times where I stuck my head in a self-made noose and died, forlornly hoping that one day I'd stop coming back from death. One day during the early twenties, when I was busy trying to kill my liver at the local tavern and a couple of red stormed in. Comrats, they shouted, we are looking for revolutionary volunteers for the KPD.

They went around passing out flies for the Communist Party and repeating far left phrases to anyone willing to listen. Finally, they came over to me, and one of them tried to slip a flyer under my elbow. Work as literature, comrade. I remember him saying, I grabbed the flyer and crumbled it into a ball, tossing it behind me. The Red took offense to the gesture and said,

If you are a reactionary type, then maybe it's best you get out of town. We don't need another boot heel over the necks of the workers. Rage cooked my body into an inferno, and impulsively I said to him, maybe it's you who should get out of town. If it wasn't for lazy, entitled dicks like you, maybe we would have won the war. I gave my money to the tavern keeper for the liquors I had drunk, and shoved past the reds disgusted. Hey, they shouted at me.

I was halfway down the street before one of them grabbed me by the shoulder. Before I could tell them off again, I felt a brick slamming to my cheek. I felt teeth come loose and blood run down my throat. I was assailed with clubs, fists, kicks when I fell to the floor.

After my head was bludgeoned a few more times, I came too in my bed. My rage from before had turned to pure wrath, To murder me over something as petty as politics, it defied belief. I wanted revenge. Instead of drinking myself into a stupor, I waited in an alley outside the tavern and waited with a knife in hand. When I saw the two reds coming down, I pounced.

I stuck the first one in the stomach and sliced him open. He had just enough time to look at me in wide-eyed shock before he spluttered to the ground, before he spluttered to the ground, clutching his intestines. His partner turned and ran, but I followed. Even though my leg protested vehemently at the strain, I caught up to him, tackling him to the ground and pressing my knees into his back. I slammed the knife into his neck over and over again. He died gurgling on the crimson tides that flowed from his injury. When I stood up, I looked around, dazed.

It's not every day that one commits murder in broad daylight. I looked at my left to see a grinning man on the sidewalk. He came up to me, gently took the knife from my hands, and just as gently pressed a flyer of his own. into my hands. Get out of here before someone sees you, he said. And just like that, he walked away. Fearing prosecution for the murder of two reds, I ran away, fast as I could back home. Hours later, after frantically trying to wash off all the bloodstains from my clothes,

I took a look at the flyer the bystander had handed me. It contained a picture of a blonde-haired man, clad in a brown shirt uniform, holding up a red flag, with a white circle in the middle that held a black shape. Not long after that, I started going to the rallies instead of drinking myself stupid. Fritz and I drifted apart. All I wanted was a confirmation of the torturous deaths I went through and the comrades I failed to save along the way, despite my gift or curse, were not for nothing. And when they started winning elections and annexing neighbours without a shot fired, I felt vindicated.

I was part of the Uzzatir, Reserve Army when the Second War began, training others and carrying out administrative tasks on the home front. As things dragged on and millions were swallowed up in the fighting, we all wondered which of us would be next. When I received orders to go to Italy, I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. I was stationed in what was supposed to be a quiet sector, leading a small company of men in an Italian backwater hamlet.

We were third-rate replacements for people sent to more pressing fronts, and I knew it. locals stared at us with daggers in their eyes and hating their hearts discipline among the men was poor everyone knew the war would be ending soon so many took the drinking oogling women and what have you it was under these conditions that a private went missing after a fifteen minute search we found his body covered in bruises and stabbed dozens of times dumped in a ditch like garbage

after i heard the news i excuse myself found a quiet spot from prying eyes and blew my brains out. When I came to again, I frantically shouted to the men to do a headcount. They didn't understand my urgency until they noticed the missing man. Just as frantically, I had them run to the spot where I found him last.

Unfortunately, he was still dead. I cauldron of anger bubbled inside me. I was done losing people needlessly. As was standard procedure back then, we took hostages, 23 and all, and demanded that the partisans who killed our man revealed themselves. When none came out, we felt the screaming, crying, begging hostages with lead.

When it was all over and I had the chance of the calm, my throat tasted bitter, and I felt self-contempt. I ramped of security and instilled a sense of discipline into the men under my command. The tip-for-tat were the local partisans continued, and so did our hostage taken. We must have killed well over a hundred from our reprisals. My insights felt like they were churning knives, so I started taking to the bottle again.

I had to dull the pain. Things were getting terrible going to 1945. The partisans had become bolder than ever, and the skies were dominated by American planes. One night I couldn't sleep well and decided to get through some paperwork via candlelight. An hour and a half later, I heard fronites shouting and gunfire.

Grabbing my coat and sidearm, I dashed out there, asking anyone who could hear what was happening. Partisans, I was told, there must be dozens of them. I tried my best to lead a proper defence, but events were chaotic in the darkness. A bullet hit me in the stomach, and I dropped to the ground in agony, a familiar dance. Returning to this mortal coil, I remembered which direction the partisans struck us from. Accordingly, I had a platoon set up well-hidden firing positions and booby traps.

When the wannabe freedom fighters came into the killbox, they didn't know what hit him. Some were killed running into our traps, but most were simply shot. They were rooted without a single casualty in our side. When it was over and we inspected the battlefield, we counted 12 bodies and 8 prisoners, five of whom were injured. Darkly energized by victory, I had all the prisoners stripped naked. The wounded ones, those two crippled to walk, were doused with water and we left them to freeze. That left 6. We took them to the cellar of some farm's house and we interrogated the,

them. We wanted names, locations, everything. They spat in our faces and called us names, fascist pigs, butchers, sons of whores. We unleashed our hatred upon those young men, whipping them raw, burning their skin with hot iron pokers, and gave out old-fashioned beatings with fists, clubs and boots. We had them executed the next morning, hung to death. God, it makes me sick now, thinking about it. The last partisan attack I went through, a sniper shot me right in the rib cage. I ended up having to go to an actual hospital to get the bullet out.

When I was sent back, the war was in its last months. The company I led was a shadow of its former strength, at only 44 men, and we were getting put near the front. Artillery hit us everywhere. There were no German cannons left to contest them.

Likewise, American planes flew unimpeded, bombing and strafing whenever they liked. Under these conditions, one of our soldiers tried to desert, We captured in, though, and the men asked me what should be done. At this stage, desertion could be punishable by summary execution, and after having put myself through hell to make sure everyone got back home safely, this man's attempted desertion felt like a slap to the face.

Despite my anger, I couldn't bring myself to punish him. I knew all too well what it was like to lose one's cool under fire, and showed mercy to the poor man. Had my more fanatical superiors found out, it could have meant my job, but I was prepared to take the risk. I felt as though that moment made me realize that there was a way of making sure those under my command could come home. When Americans advanced in opposition and demanded our surrender, I had the men disarm. Not long after the war ended and we slowly got repatriated back to Germany.

There was occupation, rebuilding, restructuring. The post-war years for me felt unreal at first. I feared, constantly, though the next war was right around the corner, that I'd relive yet more deaths again, and when West Berlin was blockaded and the Korean War broke out, I felt like I was counting down the seconds. But it never came.

In 54, when things looked calmer, I decided that I could not live in fear forever. I married, had a child, raised a family, and though I always had fear of a new conflict, I didn't let it dominate my life. I do often think about my gift, or curse, or whatever you want to call it. Looking back in my life, I wonder if perhaps there was some higher purpose that I was supposed to fulfill that I did not, or if it was supposed to function as penance of a sort.

I researched precognition to the interwar years and after, but records of anyone with quite the same experiences as me are scarce, much less a meaning to it all. here at age 92 with a Germany now reunited I have hope for peace in future generations and while I can't say for certain I have a feeling that the next death will be my last I'm here about the bear I told the woman in the ranger station

she didn't react her eyes not even leaving the computer monitor she was working at I was about to ask again a bit louder when she slowly turned a servile chair in my direction. She looked at me for the first time. You're here about the bear? She asked, looking unconvinced. Yeah, I said, I'm press.

She perked up at that, sitting straight and nodding like if something she'd been expecting. Her demeanour became distinctly more professional. You're late, she said. Just wait there, they'll be with you in a second. I'm going to be honest. I work for one of those spooky tabloid sites. The name of it is something along the lines of The Dark Herald, and my work mostly involves driving long distances in a terrible car

to interview lunatics who claim to have seen the mothman, provided those lunatics have at least a tangential relationship to the New York City metropolitan area. I was sure that no one from my publication had been called ahead, but I wasn't above profiling and misunderstanding, so I sat down in one of the cracked plastic chairs and waited. The walls of the waiting room were covered in posters, A colourful one told me what to do if I encountered a black bear.

Another advertised Haitian Lake is a place where Franklin Roosevelt got polio. Another had a picture of a man in a baseball cap who had been missing for three months. I found the reason I was here, smiling out at me from a sheet of freshly printed computer paper. A young woman, Mary Santorelli, had vanished without a trace only a few weeks back. There had reportedly been a tagged bear in the area where she had last been seen. so I was meant to drive out, take some videos and ask questions exploring the bear attack angle. It wasn't a distinctly supernatural occurrence,

but for a killer bear, the herald was apparently winning to bend genres. I didn't wait long before the door creaked open and two park rangers walked out, a man and a woman in matching uniforms with white-brimmed hats and forest green backpacks. When they saw me, their faces lit up and I felt a little bad. They probably thought I was from the time.

times or something. They were definitely going to be disappointed. Welcome to Bear Mountain, the man said. I'm Luke, and I'm Amy, the woman finished. They laughed, stupid grins on both their faces. I shook their hands. Tom Mills, I introduced myself, trying not to volunteer any unnecessary information. Amy gave me an assessing look. Oh, hon, she said, that's not going to be nearly warm enough once it gets dark out there. I looked down in my jeans and light coat and had to agree. In my defence, I previously had no plans to be out there at all,

especially not after it had gotten dark. I honestly just walked in to ask a couple questions. Sorry, I said, trying to come up with an excuse that wouldn't show my hand, but fell back on silence. It's no problem, Luke said, still smiling. We have plenty of extra gear you can go ahead and borrow. Just wait right there. He disappeared.

into the back again, and Amy started gathering up a stack of papers from the desk. I took some time to get some footage of the walls. I'd taken establishing shots of the station before coming inside, and the backdrop of missing persons' flies would be great B-roll. My eyes trailed across the posters again, coming to rest on the face of Mary Santorelli. Sad, huh, Amy said, catching my gaze. I don't know how much I buy into this bear attack business. She said Bear Attack

Like it was as unlikely as an alien abduction Which was funny for a ranger who worked on Bear Mountain A lot of folks just get lost out here They come from the city thinking they don't need to know anything about the woods And then, well, they find out they were wrong The callous way she said it made me wonder If Amy wasn't the one attacking tourists I asked her if she would mind repeating the statement on camera

She didn't My editor was going to love this. Luke returned shortly with a coat that looked suspiciously like something he'd found in the lost and found. This should do it, he said. Thanks, I said. I hope it isn't too much of a... It's no problem.

He cut me off, joking. Just make sure you get my good side. They were being very nice, and it was making me uncomfortable. I had more than enough for what I came for, and this was my last chance to come clean, without the deception being obviously intentional. You guys know I'm from the Dark Herald, right?

They looked at me, then at each other. The... what? Amy asked, as Luke said. I thought you were from the Post. I shook my head, trying to seem more apologetic than guilty. Oh, he frowned and looked at the clock. The reporter from the Post was supposed to be here hours ago. He didn't seem angry.

All let down. Amy patted his shoulder. It's fine. You've gone this long without your 15 minutes. You'll survive a little more waiting, she said. I wanted to frame the story and give it to my grams. He lamented. But I bet they don't even do print.

We can definitely do a print version of this story, I said, trying to be helpful. It doesn't get much circulation, but if you want, we can make you front page. The print news department of the Dark Herald was basically just one ancient printing press and a formatter named Gary. I was pretty sure he'd oblige. Luke was doubtful. Really? Yeah, I said.

I couldn't even write something up. I grabbed a pen and a piece of notebook paper from the desk and wrote out, All rights to the story of Bear Attacks on Bear Mountain are contingent on a picture of Luke... What's your last name? I asked. Jameson, Luke said. Are contingent on a picture of Luke Jameson and Amy? No, I don't want my...

picture on there, Amy interrupted. A picture of Luke Jameson and Amy being featured in the front cover of the print edition. Good? I asked. He read over the words again carefully and nodded. I wrote on behalf of the Dark Herald

and signed my name at the bottom before handing the paper to Luke. He wrote, on behalf of Luke Jameson and signed his own name, I figured that would work. We were out in the car before I realized I had no idea where we were going. I informed them of this.

We're going to get the bear, Amy said. I must have looked as shocked as I felt, because she laughed. Don't worry, one of the traps was triggered, up near where the attack supposedly happened, but Teddy's GPS is acting wacky, so it's probably not even him we caught. Teddy, I asked. It's what she named the killer bear, Luke explained.

You know how rare fatal black bear attacks are? she said to him. There have been way more disappearances this year than normal. You really think Teddy's killed over half a dozen people? There's definitely something else going on. Luke was silent at that, and it sunk in that I had very abruptly become part of a bear hunt. I made sure to keep the camera rolling.

What do you think it could be? I asked Amy. She glanced back from the passenger side. Now, I can't be sure, she said, looking into the camera seriously. But I think the evidence points to a serial killer. No way, Luke scoffed. They would have found something by now if someone was up here killing people.

Amy glad. Oh yeah, because it's much more reasonable to believe that they've been all devoured by bears. How many people have gone missing? I asked. Ten people, just this year, she said, the most anyone's ever heard of. I felt a pit in my stomach. That was a lot of people. And they haven't found anything? She shook her head.

Teddy must be damn hungry, because he isn't even leaving clothes behind. The rest of the drive passed in relative silence, down a narrow road that wound to the forest like it had been drawn by a six-year-old crayon. They explained that while the trap wasn't even ten miles out, getting their truck there was a hassle. I didn't mind the drive.

I got some shot to the trees out the window. It was getting late in the day, and the way the shadows played across the truck was almost sinister. We were driving slow on something that could barely be called a road at all, and the vehicle jerked and started wobbling. Luke cursed. It felt like we'd just gotten a flat. He was trying to pull off the road when we saw it.

Tangled in the plants a couple yards ahead of us was something I can only describe as a metal scrap heap. Pieces of it were scattered across the road. one of them had probably been the thing to pop our tire. Oh my God. Oh, damn, Luke said. He stopped the car, jumping out to get a better look. I followed with the camera.

What is it? I asked. Whatever it was, it looked like it had been crushed like tinfoil. It's the bear trap, Luke said, but it looks like whatever got caught in it wanted out real bad. I was surprised. Can bears normally break out of bear traps? He hesitated.

It's not unheard of, he said. For polar bears? Amy exclaimed. No way a black bear could have done a thing like this. No way. I started getting close-ups of the wreckage. It was incredible. In some places, the metal sheets were squashed, torn apart like tissue paper. Oh, so what?

Do we catch a serial killer that can go hold? and break out of bear cages. I noticed something about the curvature of the metal. It looked like it had been punched in. Guys, I said, I don't think anything broke out of the cage. It was hard to see in the dimming light and tall grass, but the ground around it was coated in something black.

I think something got Teddy. They stopped fighting to look at me like I was crazy. But then something moved. I can't describe the sound exactly. Or maybe it wasn't even a sound, but a vibration in the ground. The instinctual sense that something very large and alive was nearby. We all froze, going silent. Maybe it was because there were park rangers and I had some experience with the supernatural,

but nobody screamed. No one cried out in disbelief. We all just coward. Our eyes snapping in the direction of the thing and back at each other with the animalistic dread of prey. We were ballet dancers, silently prancing backwards on the balls of our feet, gracefully moving as if our fear made the air surreply thick. We all made it to the truck.

My hand was about to land at the door handle when Luke unlatched his own. The thing in the woods noticed. I couldn't see it. Not really. But as it stalked the forest around us, I can make out its size. Lither than a bear, but several times bigger. The dance ended. The thing came at us as Luke started the engine.

There was definitely screaming then. Metal crunched as the tailgate was ripped clear off the truck. Go faster, Amy cried. Luke cursed. The tire's flat. I go any faster, this thing stops going at all. You go any slower, we're all dead, she yelled. She was messing around on a phone, I assume trying to give reception.

the cab isn't going to keep that thing out, I said. How far can we make it? I couldn't see where it was, but I knew it wasn't gone. Amy was taking deep breaths. Not far enough to be useful, she said. There's a turn right here. It'll take us to doodletown. Doodle town?

I repeated. She had to be joking. It's just some old foundations, she cut off. Her voice almost a sob. But I can't think of anything else. There's reception there. We can call for help. Luke was very focused on driving the crippled truck, but declared,

We can make it to Doodle Town. Like his wheelchair alone could keep the tires spinning. He made a hard left, I assumed, towards Doodle Town. Ahead of us, the forest exploded. The creature dove from the cover of the trees impossibly fast, landing hard enough that I could feel its weight. If we had continued straight, it would have been on top of us. I got a glimpse of sleek black fur and cold legs as it slunk back into the trees.

We all screamed again, plunging down the dirt road. I don't know how much time passed before we blew past the doodle town sign, leaving a trail of chaos and the smell of burning rubber. I saw it moving. Stop, I screamed, lunging forward and grabbing the wheel. Luke hit the brakes and my panic twisting the wheel somehow led the back to drift forward. The creature sunk its claws in. appearing from nowhere and tearing the truck apart in a rage.

I was weightless, pitched through the air, sea belt still attached like some kind of morbid carnival ride. I landed almost 10 feet away and barely registered how bad I messed up my arm. I'd like to say I ran back to help the others without even considered doing so. But at this point, something else took over, something inside me that didn't care about anything other than survival. I bolted into the foundation graveyard that I guessed made up to do.

doodle town. I tripped through the overgrown stone buildings, listening for the sound of the creature behind me, trying desperately to find somewhere to hide. I found it behind a warning, structurally on sound sign at the opening of an old stone basement. I dove down the steps, only then realizing I should call for help. I took out my phone and realized the problem. I was in a basement. Then I thought about Amy and Luke for the first time. And God, did I feel awful? I needed to do something. I needed to see if they were still alive. Creeping back of the stairs, I stuck my head out past the sign and saw something horrible.

Amy was about 20 yards off, something sticking out of her side. She was sitting against an old crumbling wall, and the creature was on the other side. I could hear the wet sounds of ripping flesh. It was eating. She wouldn't last long. Hell, I probably wouldn't either. but I had reception. I called 911,

but I don't know what they said because I muted the call. Doodle Town, I whispered as I crept away from the basement. Send help to Doodle Town. I muted it for just the second to make sure the person was on the line. Sir, can you hear me?

The voice said, and I muted it again. I'm Tom Mills. I'm in Doodle Town, in Bear Mountain Park, with a park ranger named Amy and Luke Jameson. He's dead. I didn't listen. into a response. I hung up the phone and threw it as far as I could manage, hoping that my auto box was worth it. I gripped towards Amy. She was still sitting against the wall, her face

bloodless and her eyes glazed over. There was an empty look on her face, and she listened to it tearing pieces out of her partner. The thing sticking out of her side was a long piece of shrapnel. When she saw me, she opened a mouth like she was going to say something, but she cut off when I frantically held a finger to my lips. She seemed to pale even further. As quietly as I could, I whispered. Can I borrow your phone? She looked at me like she could barely process the request,

but then nodded to the pocket of a jacket. I need you to get ready to move, I said. I can't, she gasped, looking at her legs. I'll help you, but you need to move, I said. She nodded. hard look in her eye. I dialed my number and from across the foundations the iPhone opening ringtone blared out, seeming as loud as a fog-horn. The creature froze, bloody Morse snapping shut, unable to completely hide the rows of its jagged teeth. It turned towards the ringing phone

slinging off to investigate. I hoisted Amie's arm around my shoulder and together we hobbled towards the basement. Halfway there, almost. The thing roared, an awful and strangely high-pitched noise, and when I looked towards it, I met its eye. It came at us then. It's almost felt like body, no longer keeping up the pretense of stalking prey. This was an outright attack. Go, go, go! I chanted at the ridiculously slow Amy.

Jesus, how she was so damn slow. We got into the basement, just as the creature reached us. its claws came in first, grasping at us and clattering together like bones. It retracted, then began to ram its body through the opening. Again and again, the building began to rumble with a sound of shifting stone. I thought that was it. I was about to die in a hole in the ground in a place called Doodle Town. I would never find proof of the Jersey Devil.

I would never see Mothman. The building collapsed. The last thing I remember was the look on Amie's face. then darkness I came too to the sound of frantic yelling and flashing lights I was dazed something was lifting me from beneath the stone

I was on a stretcher I glanced towards the basement and saw it was completely destroyed someone else I said to the floating heads above me Amy they seemed to understand the next time I woke up

it was to the steady beat of a heart monitor Still, a little panicked, I tried to sit up, which started off a louder alarm that made me a little more panicked. A nurse rushed in, saying stuff in a nice nurse voice, and eventually I calmed down enough to ask what the hell was going on. You have to understand that it took some time for all these memories to come back. At first, it was just flashes of primal terror and falling rocks. You were in an accident, she explained. The way the night was explained to me went like this. I went out in a truck, and somehow the driver lost control of the vehicle,

then took shelter in the basement to await help, only to become trapped and sustain a traumatic brain injury when a minor localized earthquake caused the structure to collapse. What? I said. The nurse shrugged, up to my drugs and left. The next time I woke up, Amy was there. She was sitting in a wheelchair, looking terrible. When she saw that I was awake, she wheeled towards me.

You need to tell them what happened, she yelled too loud. I think I'm crazy. You need to tell them about the monster. I was stunned, too high to comprehend exactly what she was saying. At this point, her yelling attracted the attention of a nurse, who, when she walked in on Amy waving her hand in my face and snapping, promptly wheeled her out of the room. I didn't see Amy again. not for a long time. When I called my work,

they were more disappointed that I lost my camera than worried about my absence and hospitalisation. Just hurry back, they said, some guy in great kills saw a cracken. The memories returned slowly, but all I can say is this. Whatever got those tourists, it wasn't natural.

And with the amount of cryptid sightings that had been rolling into our newsroom, Maybe now It isn't a great time To go camping The reason I'm writing this today Is that I need to warn as many people as I can I wouldn't be able to forgive myself

If I didn't at least try I can feel it The more powerfully he gets The more powerless I feel I won't be able to stop him But maybe I can slow him down My name is Mike

I'm 24 And the thing that happened to me Defies the laws of physics I have tried to rationalise to tell myself I was just going crazy but I cannot bury my head in the sand forever let me tell you how it all started

when I was in elementary school I had a group of friends with whom I spent all my time we were all close except for maybe Boris we liked him but he was annoying the only thing he would talk about was that old cartoon that his mother brought him from a garage sale

we listened to him for the first few times and rapidly got bored after that. The cartoon sounded weird, and to be honest, we were more interested in exchanging Pokemon cards and playing marbles. A few weeks into his obsession for the cartoon, Boris came to school looking extremely pale.

We asked him if he was sick, but he just sat there in silence, with a weird grin on his face, looking around the room, his eyes wide open. The class began, and we were all focused on some calculus when Boris started a whistle.

The teacher asked him to stop immediately, but he just wouldn't stop. After a few minutes, the teacher lost patience and grabbed Boris's hand to take him to the principal's office. Of course, the classroom filled with laughter and chatter as soon as the teacher left of them, but I was genuinely scared for my friend, and I kept staring at his desk. That's when I noticed it. On his chair, there was a VHS tape. I stood up and went to grab it. I was very curious.

The tape seemed in good condition, and on the side I read, the whistle guy. I bet it was that cartoon that he kept talking about. I only remembered a vague description of it. It was about a character with a large balloon head and a top hat who went about his day whistling and holding an axe. Like I said, nothing to be excited about. But I don't know why. I knew I had to look at it.

I knew it would explain my friend's behaviour. I put the tape in my bag. When the teacher came back, she explained that Boris wasn't feeling right and that his parents came to pick him up. I spent the whole day waiting to go home and watch the cartoon. After school got out, I quickly said goodbye to my friends

and rode my bike so fast that it took me half the time it usually did to get home. I said hello to my parents and ran upstairs to my room. I took the tape out of my bag and looked at it. I didn't notice earlier that the title was really, written in a regular carved fashion.

I was going to put the tape in the VCR when I heard Mom calling me from downstairs. She seemed in distress. I threw the tape into my old toy box and ran to her. Mom and Dad was standing in the living room. Their eyes were filled with tears. Her voice was shaking, but Mom managed to speak. Mike, it's Boris.

He had an accident. He's... I'm sorry. He's dead. I fell into arms and cried like I had never cried before. It was the first time I'd lost someone, and I didn't handle it well. I missed school for two weeks after that. I was depressed to the point where my parents had to take me to a psychologist.

After years of therapy, I was finally able to grieve. I still thought about it, of course, but the pain wasn't so unbearable anymore. Fast forward to a few years ago. I was going through old stuff when I found an old picture of me and my classmates. Boris was there, smiling happily like the rest of us. The events came back to my mind, and I decided to finally check how he died. My parents and the school always kept it a big secret, and we were forbidden to talk about it. I did my own investigation, and what I found was worse than I ever imagined.

According to the local papers, Boris was found dead in his room. He was hanging from a rope that he tied to the top of his bunk bed. But that was not even the most disturbing part. It was written that his eyes were wide open and he had a terrifying wide grin on his face. I decided to leave it all alone. That was too disturbing and I didn't want to spend another year going through therapy. Time went by and I kept pushing the memory away. He was getting easier and easier as I had lost all contact with my childhood friends

and my parents had moved out of our little town. I now lived with my girlfriend, and a few days ago, we decided to have a garage sale. While going through the cellar, I found a box with all my childhood stuff. I didn't even remember when I brought all of that to my house. It was full of pictures, toys, my action man. But what caught my attention was an old VHS tape.

It was at the bottom of the box. Strangely, the tape seemed in a good condition, as if the years going by didn't affect it. It was also the only thing in the box that didn't have dust on it. What went through my mind gave me the chills. I could see flashes of Boris, hanging from the cord, swinging left and right as he looked deep into my eyes, smiling. And all of a sudden, his face moved, and he started to whistle.

The sick noise was coupled with the sound of the rope against the wooden bunk bed. I shook my head to clear those terrible images from my mind. It had been years since I thought about the tape. My therapist did such a good job that it was as if he never existed. But now, I wanted to see it and finally lift the mystery from it. I knew I had a VCR somewhere, so I looked for it for a good hour and finally found it. I heard my girlfriend calling me for dinner, and I left all my findings in the floor. I was going to wait until she fell asleep to go back to watch the car.

cartoon. I didn't want her to be disturbed by the story. The moment finally came and I took the VCR and the tape down to the living room and plugged everything in. I have to admit that I was surprised that the old VCR was still working. I put the tape in and the familiar noise on the tape entering the VCR gave me the chills. Weirdly, the tape didn't start right away and stayed a few minutes on a black screen. Then suddenly, it started. It was an old cartoon from the 30s. I could hear a metallic sound coupled with cartoonish music. It sounded like typical music from this era. The cartoon was in black and white and had a yellowish tint to it. The first scene was set in what seemed to be an old garage or a shack filled with tools.

There was a character standing with his back to me. He was holding a hammer and tapping on something. It looked like he was building something. He grabbed more tools and while doing so he kept whistling the same melody. I was getting more and more uncomfortable. That sound terrified me. I knew I had heard it somewhere. The character turned slowly and what he was building

finally came into sight. It was a hatchet that he was waving with pride. The character was strange. He had a huge balloon-looking head. He was wearing a tie tight so tight that anyone else would have suffocated from. His eyes were really dark and his top-out was tiny.

It was him, the whistle guy. He started to walk toward the house in a typical 30s animation style, his eyes sparkling with excitation. In the garden, there was a tree that seemed way too big for him to go by. A little bubble popped up at the top of his head, and inside you could see the tree plus a hatchet equals a pile of wooden logs. I finally understood that he was making the hatchet to cut down the large tree. For a second, I asked myself how it was possible to be. to build a hatchet with a few tools of so amuse, but hey, it was a cartoon after all.

The whistle guy started the whistle once more and had juggled with a hatchet, making it fly in the air and grabbing it before he touched the ground. He did that a few times before the hatchet flew one last time and got stuck in one of the tree branches. The whistle guy seemed sad

and started to jump in the hope of grabbing the hatchet back, but it didn't work. And then suddenly, a light bulb appeared above his head. He visibly had an idea He approached the base of the tree And started to shake it So the hatchet would fall

Surprisingly It worked The hatchet fell and got stuck In the whistle guy's head The music stopped the moment the hatchet struck his head And a very realistic bone-breaking sound could be heard The whistle guy was expressionless

His eyes were completely empty The scene was particularly disturbing and unexpected I was just waiting for him to pull it out as if nothing happened. It was a cartoon after all, and the characters never get hurt for real. But instead, a stream of blood started from the top of his skull where the hatchet was. I was shaking with fear. It always seemed so unbelievable.

The character was still not moving, only gazing into the blue. The blood quickly covered his whole face. Then he started to smile. The large grin on his face made him even more terrifying than he was already. After a few seconds, he finally moved. He grabbed the hatchet with his hand and yanked it out. The sound it made was horrible.

The music started again as soon as the hatchet was out, but the music was different. It was dark. The whistle guy didn't seem to care about the tree anymore and was staring at the hatchet he was holding. The more he stared at it, the wider. his grin became. He started to walk, and more blood started to pour from the top of his head. His smile and his eyes were terrifying. A little whirlwind had appeared in his eyes, and was whirling

faster and faster, and the blood on his teeth made it nearly unbearable to look at. Again, he started to whistle the same melody. Not far from him, I could now see another character. He seemed a little off. He came toward the whistle guy, smiling. The whistle guy just lifted his hand with a hatchet above his head and struck the other character on the shoulder. The other character started to scream in a macabre way, but the whistle guy didn't flinch and continued to strike the body again and again until only a pile of flesh and bone was left. He left the other character on the floor and started to walk again. Another character, a woman this time, came across the whistle guy, and as soon as she saw the pile of flesh, she started to run in the other direction.

The whistle guy didn't try to chase her. He simply threw his hatchet with all this strength and he struck the lady in the back. She fell screaming for someone to help, but it was in vain. The whistle guy grabbed his hatchet back and then struck the lady multiple times, just as he did the previous character. The whistle guy went on for minutes, killing everyone he came across. when he was not whistling that disturbing grin was on his face he looked completely deranged and then

he suddenly stopped all I could see was his back he was completely still slowly he started to turn his head toward the screen and with every inch a terrible bone-cracking sound

could be heard as if he was breaking his neck in the process little by little his face became more visible It was as if he was staring right through me The little whirlwinds in his eyes turning at incredible speed He was smiling at me too

Then he put his finger in his lips still looking straight at me And said after that everything went black No more sound no more images The video was over The tape came out of the VCR by itself I just sat there for ten long minutes I didn't know what to do I was petrified

and in total disbelief. What just happened? It felt like the whistle guy could see me behind the screen and that what he gave me was just a warning. I couldn't think straight, but I was tired, so I took the tape and hid it in the cupboard that was nearby. Then I lay in the couch and fell asleep instantly. During my short sleep, I had weird nightmares.

I could see him, the whistle guy, watching me sleep. In the nightmare I couldn't move. It was like sleep paralysis. His body was hunched over me, his head above mine, the same grin he had in the video still on his face. His hatchet was also back in his skull, and drops of blood were falling on me. He was so close I could see my reflection in his eyes.

He then grabbed the handle of the hatchet and started to take it out very slowly. The sound it made gave me goosebumps, but I still couldn't move. I was now covered in his blood. Then he finally took it out. He lifted it above his head. And, at the moment, I should have received the fatal stroke.

He smiled wider and put his finger on his lips and said, Shhh, panting and sweating, and my heart raced in my chest. I sat down on the couch, wondering if all of it was true. But there was no blood around me, no whistle guy. I was alone, and it was still dark in my house. I checked my watch and it was only 6am I looked at the VCR and remembered I hit the tape in the cupboard

I grabbed it and went upstairs and threw it in the attic I've never been back up there since in the days following that incident everything got worse and worse I had vivid hallucinations that gave me nausea and vertigo at least I like to think it was only hallucinations I could see the whistle guy everywhere

while I was watching TV, but he only appeared in cartoons. The first time I saw him, he was in an episode of The Simpsons. He was in the opening credits, waiting in front of the family house, holding his hatchet, ready to strike Homer as soon as he got out of the car. I blinked for one second, and he wasn't there anymore. The next time was during a family guy episode, again during the opening credits. He was at the top of the stairs with the family dances. He was also dancing, the hatchet buried in his head.

He stayed visible for longer than before. And worse, he was still staring right at me. Every time he seemed a little closer. After a while, I resigned myself to not watch cartoons anymore because he was indeed getting closer and closer. And now all I could see were his whirlwind eyes looking through my soul. I was tempted to show the video to other people, just to verify that I was not going completely crazy.

Isn't that what Boris was trying to do? but I don't know. I had the feeling I shouldn't. I started to ask myself questions. Why did Boris bring the tape to school? Why was he talking about it so much? Was he trying to infect us with the whistle guy too? And if that was the case, why would he do that?

The days kept getting worse and worse. Now, when I was going for a walk in broad daylight, I could hear the whistle behind me. My nights were filled with gruesome nightmares, and when I woke up, I could hear him hushing me from under the bed. I never dared to try and look under. I just knew he was there, waiting for me.

I went online to find information on him, but I couldn't find anything. I was expecting that result. It was like, apart from Boris and I, nobody had heard of him. I was at a loss. I just accepted my situation. I just felt that talking about it would make it worse,

so I decided to bet. all of it by myself. One night I was getting back from work in my car. I heard a quiet whistling sound coming from the backseat. I didn't dare look in the rearview mirror immediately. But after a few minutes, curiosity won over my fear. I checked, but there was nothing. Nothing at the back seat.

He was on the passenger side. I slammed on the brakes as he reached for me with his hands. And I left the car as he opened his mouth. mouth and led out a deafening scream. I felt backwards in the middle of the street and I saw the passenger door open. He was whistling. He appeared slowly and came my way, happily whistling, the hatchet visible in his hand. The headlights of my car shown on his face.

The same terrifying face I'd seen so many times. Then he stopped. I pushed myself backwards, the surface of the road catching my clothes and his throat started make the same sound as in the cartoon. His eyes stared into mine. His mouth was deformed in a horrible grin, and his body was still. Actually, we were both still. After several minutes, it seemed like an eternity.

His head started to inflate more and more until it reached an inordinate size, going way above the top of the car. It sounded like thousands of balloons being inflated at the same time. Under the pressure, his eyes popped out of the sockets, the wound on his head never poured that much blood. He was squirting everywhere. The headlights were covered in it,

given a gloomy reddish light. And because of that, the scene was even more disturbing. Without warning, he ran towards me with impressive speed. Just before his body touched mine, his head exploded in a deafening roar. I felt pieces of his skull touching my face and body. I panicked, got up and scoured to the car.

I was so stressed that I could not get I had hold of the keys still on the ignition to start the engine. I wanted to leave as soon as possible. I had blood in my eyes. I could barely see what was happening in front of me. I was finally able to find the keys and turn them quickly to start the car. Just before pressing the accelerator, I could see the whistle guy still standing, axe in hand. His head was slowly inflating again.

But before he could do anything else, I sped off, crushing the accelerator pedal and drove as fast as possible to my house. The blood had completely disappeared. It was as if none of it had happened. I could not sleep that night because it was there again. I could hear him whistling outside in the garden. I did not tell you much about my girlfriend, but you have to know that I did not tell her anything.

She found my behaviour very strange that week, even though I had to hide my emotions as much as possible. Sleeping the couch did not help. I was afraid to tell her about it because she never heard him whistling. She didn't see it when he appeared in the cartoons. I was afraid that if I told her about it, she too would end up seeing him

and be tortured by his presence. I heard it again and saw it a few times after that. But that's not the worst of it. The worst is what I am becoming little by little. Just like him, I whistle without even realising it.

I hear him more and more often. nearly every day. Sometimes I seem staring out the window, when I go home, on the road, or when I take a shower. I know I am doomed, but what I'm sure of is that I shouldn't share this tape. That's why, one morning,

I went up to the attic to get it and destroy it, but it was no longer there. I was sure that I threw it there. I immediately questioned my girlfriend to see if she had seen it, and the pretext that it was a very event. video of me as a child that I had found while clearing the attic, but nothing came of it. She assured me that she had not touched it. I knew why it disappeared.

I knew the whistle guy was keeping it with him. He had given it to Boris because he was on the verge of death, and the fact that he shared it would have been beneficial to the whistle guy. But before anyone could watch the video, he hanged himself. It was too late. But the whistle guy is now at my place. this monster had succeeded and he knows that I would never

ever share this video with others I suppose it only postponed the inevitable like in the movie The Ring but I would still prefer to die first than to do that to others Here I am today A smile frozen in my face

That I cannot remove the muscles of my cheeks I saw But I had to tell you all of that Before I left I wrote a farewell letter to my family my friends, without mentioning the Whistle Guy once, I do not want them to start looking for this tape.

This post that I write up as a purpose, it is necessary that a maximum number of people out there of my peer group are warned. The tape has disappeared, but I'm sure the Whistle Guy dropped it off somewhere else. If one day you see a tape called Whistle Guy's Day, do not touch it, even if you want to destroy it,

and, under no circumstances, should you try to watch it, otherwise the whistle guy will be chasing you. As I write this, I feel his breath in my neck. I know he's behind me. My lips keeps stretching and a horrible grin. I know why the whistle guy was asking me to shut up now, telling me to, shush. On the one hand, it allowed him to torture me as he pleased, but on the other, if I had talked about it, he would. have started all over again with someone else.

But he'll have to wait a long time now, because when I tie the rope that is next to me around my neck, he won't be able to act for a long time. Once more, I beg you, if you find this tape, never, ever watch it, because the whistle guy can be everywhere. This tape can fall into anyone's hands. I was able to hold it for a while, but it will eventually come out of the shadows again. and if that is the case if you find it it will catch you too and you will live forever in the nightmare of this cursed cartoon