CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - 7 SCARY r nosleep Reddit HORROR STORIES to creep into your dreams tonight

Episode Date: June 30, 2020

Here's the last weekly creepypasta compilation of June. What was your favourite story this month?CREEPYPASTA STORIES-►0:00 "My Brother Found a Ten-Legged Spider" Creepypasta►26:31 "Maybe the National Parks Aren't Just There to Preserve Nature" Creepypasta►52:16 "I Helped The Quiet Kid Throw A House Party" Creepypasta►1:26:44 "I used to talk to my reflection until one day it started talking back" Creepypasta►1:48:26 "I got a new dog collar from a reddit user" Creepypasta►2:09:01 "Mr. Stixenstones" Creepypasta►2:43:01 "I took a temp job cleaning ‘neckbeard nests’. It was the worst mistake of my life" CreepypastaCreepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO-SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd...iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...CREEPY THUMBNAIL ART BY►https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...SUGGESTED 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-

He said he found it in the wheat field in our backyard and had taken it to school for show and tell. I picked Max up from his elementary school each day and he was always interesting to see what show and tell item he carried into my car. Today it had been concealed. He cradled a cardboard box in his arms, flaps duct tape shut, several little holes poked into the top with a pencil to allow for airflow. There's no such thing as a ten-legged spider. Max, I said. Yes, there is, he exclaimed.

I counted his legs, and he had ten of them. Mrs. Bakewell didn't know what to make of it. She said spiders are only supposed to have eight legs. She's right, I said. In truth, the only ten-legged animals I could think of were crustaceans, none of which lived in the field behind our house. I'll show you, said Max, struggling with the duct tape on the bar.

box. Don't open that, I said. I swear if you let that thing out in my car, mum is going to ground you for a month. As we pulled into the drive of our quiet farmhouse, I chugged the whole thing up to Max miscounting the limbs. His second-grade counting skills weren't all too refined, and I'd heard some spiders had pettipouts that look like legs but weren't. All things considered, I remained convinced that there was no such thing as ten-legged spiders. By dinner that night, I was no longer thinking about the spider in the box. I had almost forgotten it, until Max brought it up again. I found a spider with twelve legs today. I named him shiny, Max said.

My parents looked at each other from across the dinner table, confused. Clearly, this was another figment of Max's unending imagination. That's very interesting, sweetheart, said Mom, covering her stuffed mouth. But spiders only have eight legs. Haven't they taught you that in school? Not shiny, he has 12. Ronnie Hogan says it's like a four-leaf clover and it means good luck. You said it had ten earlier, I told him.

Quit lying, Max. Nobody's going to believe you found a spider like that. I did, he said. He grew two more legs since earlier, dummy. Max, don't call your brother a dummy. Dad grunted. Admit it, I said. You didn't find a spider like that.

Admit it. You're wrong, bellowed Max. He hopped from his chair and bolted up the stairs. each step a defiant stomp At last there was a muffled door slam And then silence Nobody was eating anymore After a while

I scooted my chair back and said I'll go check on him Upstairs I found Max's bedroom door locked And could hear faint sniffing from inside I knocked and cleared my throat Ah Listen I'm sorry I didn't believe you earlier

I'd love to take a look at your spider mind if I come in the door opened and Max stood there his eyes red nose leaking snot he sniffed again it's not that Ryan he lifted the cardboard box from earlier

but it was no longer a box it had entirely come apart in one of the sides was a hole the size of a dinner plate. It's shiny. He's gone. Right, I said, of course he is.

It's true. Max, I said, bending to his level and inspecting the box. You can't possibly expect me to believe a spider did this. It looks like you tore a hole in it. I expected another outburst from Max,

but instead he shrank back into his room, face screwed into his room. a scowl. You'll see, he said. When shiny gets big enough, he'll kill you, and mom and dad too. He slammed the door in my face. I panned it with my fist, but he wasn't going to open it.

That night I retired to my room and fell asleep, certain that Max was making the whole thing up. But if that was the case, why did I feel a lump forming in the back of my head? throat. I awoke to a jarring shriek from downstairs. I leapt out of bed, tangled in blankets, and danced on one foot while I tried to slip on a pair of jeans. I pulled a shirt over my head and stumbled into the hallway. Just the short ways ahead was a trail of blood leading directly to the staircase. I bolted down the stairs, careful to avoid puddles of the stuff, certain that I was about to come face to face

with a massive 12-legged spider What I found instead was my mother in a nightgown hands over a mouth standing directly over the corpse of our Yorkshire Terrier We called him Yip Yap

Yip Yep layed on the living room rug Inside spayed out for all to see Besides fur and entrails There was a much left to recognise I leaned over and picked up Yip Yip's collar, examining the small metal tag that hung from it. I ran my thumb over it, smearing some sort of black goo.

The trail of blood didn't stop at Yip Yipap. It continued through the living room and into the kitchen, where it disappeared behind the door to the garage. It was slightly ajar. What happened? said my father, rushing down the stairs. He stopped when he saw us, his eyes bulging. How did this happen? He whispered in a hoarse voice.

There was a small gasp from behind us. We turned to see Max, the only person who could have had anything to do with this. Don't look at me, he said. Shiny did it. Shiny isn't real, I shouted at him. I don't know what you did that caused this to happen, but I'm going to find out.

and when I do, you went to the outside of your bedroom for months. Max looked angry at first. Then his bottom lip began to quiver. His eyes welled with glassy tears. Mom and Dad got to work cleaning the corpse and blood. They'd wanted us to help, and I told them I would in a minute. I followed the blood trail to the garage store, a splotch of black goo every few feet or so.

something was moving in the garage I could hear it snuffling around knocking into things it couldn't have been a spider it must have been as large as a raccoon the door was ajar and I slowly pushed it open

the garage was dark even with the light on and I didn't want to alarm the creature a baseball bat had been resting near the doorway and I lifted it to my shoulder as I moved stealthily forward gliding toward the noise.

A wet, chewing noise. No, not chewing. A crinkling sound. Like paper. Just ahead was a shelf of paint buckets and behind them a squirming silhouette. I raised the bat, took aim and practiced a few mock swings.

If I could nail one of the paint buckets in the right spot, It had crushed whatever was behind it. Sure, there'd be a mess, I thought, but this thing had killed my dog. This was for yip-yap. I swallowed a breath and raised the bat high, preparing for one final swing.

Just as I brought it down. Ryan? The noise surprised me, and the bat collided with a paint bucket, but the wrong one. Grey liquid gushed in every direction, onto the wall, onto the shelf, onto me, onto the dodge parked directly beside me. The writhing silhouettes scampered, faster than I've ever seen any animal run, and contorted itself through a break below the splintering garage wall. In less than a moment's time, it was gone.

I swore loudly and turned to see Max standing behind me. I almost had him. I said, You were going to kill him, said Max. Of course I was, I said. He killed Yip Yap. Whatever he is, he doesn't deserve to live in our home. I examined the paint, dripping down the side of the car.

Oh man, how are we going to explain this to Mom and Dad? Uh, Ryan. Max was aiming a finger behind me. The paint bucket I'd been aiming for had been over again. turned in all the chaos, revealing what was behind it. A glistening shape, unmoving. I reached an arm behind the shelf and pinched the object between my thumb and forefinger, winting at the texture, cold and slimy. Holding it up, it was immediately apparent what the thing was, though I honestly couldn't believe it. I was holding the mottled skin of a spider.

The legs curled inward like that thing spiders do when they die. There were eight legs. On each side. Sixteen in total. Uh, Ryan, said Max from somewhere far away. The fear in his voice distinctly palpable. What is that? It's a spider skin, I whispered.

Some animal shed their skin. It's called mold. Why do they do that? Because, I said, dropping the skin and shuddering, they grew bigger. You might expect that things escalated quickly after that moment, but they didn't. It felt a little anticlimactic, but after that day, things went back to normal, almost. Nearly a month later, we buried yip-yap in the backyard, gotten Max a new dog, and I'd paid Dad for the new paint job we'd had done on the car.

Max was back to bring in weird objects to show and tell, and he hadn't mentioned shiny once since the incident in the garage. In fact, that month when nothing happened was punctuated only by the fact that Max sometimes became unaccounted for, disappearing for long amount of time in which I had no clue where he went. I didn't care either. Maybe I didn't want to know.

As far as I was concerned, that thing wasn't coming back any time soon, and even though my nightmares of being attacked by a 16-legged spider were becoming more frequent, my real-life experiences were as good as average. My bliss finally ended

when I looked out my bedroom window one day and saw Max leaving the tool shed at the edge of the field. He closed the door, locked it and strode from view. Was that where he disappeared to all the time? That's tool shed? I reminded myself that I didn't care. As long as Max was home in time for dinner, that was good enough for me. But a minute later, he returned to the shed, carrying one of our full-grown chickens. He produced the shed key, and he produced the shed key, and looked around to make sure no one was watching.

Rightfully so, since Dad would become furious if he found out Max had stolen the key. He was young, and Dad claimed he would hurt himself on the sharp tools if he got inside. Max opened the shed door, just wide enough to slip the chicken in. Then he locked it shut and headed back to the house. I stared out the window for a little while longer,

but Max never returned. I wondered what he could possibly be up to by relocating the chickens to the shed, although it did explain why several had turned up missing over the past few weeks. I chugged it up to a wild animal taking them away and even entertained the theory that shiny returned to our property for a midnight snack every once in a while. Apparently, the culprit was my own brother. At dinner that night, my dad brought up the missing key. He said he couldn't find it, and he'd looked all over for it.

You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Max? I said, giving my brother the classic, I know what you did look. Max shook his head, down the glass of water in one gulp, and left the table. Frank, maybe you should talk to him, Mom said the dad. He's been acting so strange ever since that dog died. my father was visibly uncomfortable probably because it had become a taboo subject in our home to mention Yip Yip's death

it was so disturbing and offensively unexplainable that we'd come to an unspoken agreement not to mention it maybe later said Dad bluntly and he left the table too that night once everyone else was sound asleep I laid awake, my mind reeling with possibilities. Finally, my curiosity got the better of me and I found myself sneaking into Max's room.

The key was easy enough to find. He left it on his nightstand. He stirred when I picked it up, but never woke. Outside, the night was cool and windy. I switched on the flashlight I'd taken from the garage and trudged out to the shed. It stood before me, washed in blue moonlight, still and quiet. It was a peculiar feeling being out here at night, like how I imagine astronauts must feel all tethered to the shuttle, hanging by a thread over an expanse of infinity.

I stood with my ear to it, listening. To no one's surprise, I could hear movement inside. I couldn't hear chickens, but what I could hear chickens, but what I was a little bit of it? I did here was something large, something much bigger than the thing that had scampered out of the garage a month ago. A low, guttural breath drawing in and out, in and out. I moved a shaking hand to the door latch, inserted the key and turned it. My hand stayed there for a long time unmoving. I found that I couldn't well it to move. So, in the Instead, I counted the ten and forced myself to open the door.

My flashlight beam fell directly on the thing inside. Coiled in the shadows was a giant centipede, its antennas twitching in the air, its skinned black and oily. Agitated by the flashlight, its body thrashed and the head surged towards me, two massive pincers lusting for my neck. I managed to snap myself out of a trance and threw my way. against the door, shutting it tight. The creature's head collided with the wood, and the whole building shuddered as the monster screamed

from within. It was the worst sound I'd ever heard, like two steel blades grinding against one another. My trembling hands locked the door, and I tripped away, falling to the ground and crawling backward on my elbows, whimpering. Stop! called a voice from behind. You're scaring him. it was Max.

He ran past me and put a hand to the door, consoling the creature inside. Get away from that, I yelled at him. It's shiny, said Max. He likes me, but only me. He won't hurt me, and he doesn't like light. Your flashlight scared him. The old shed rocked with each blow from the creature.

The structure wouldn't last long, I knew, especially if the creature grew any larger. the whaling was incessant. What is this? I asked, getting to my feet. Why are you feeding him? He's my pet, said Max indignantly. I found him. He's mine. Another blow from the creature made the ground beneath me tremble.

You can't hold onto him any longer, I shouted over the noise. Max, you have to let go. If you say so, Max bent low and picked up the key I had dropped. Before my brain could register what he was doing, he had already unlocked the shed. I felt a horrific scream escaped my throat as Max threw the doors wide open, but the shed was empty. Other than the doors creaking on the hinges, the air was silent.

the far end of the shed was a jagged, gaping hole, and beyond it, the wheat-filled swaying in the wind. I staggered forward on legs made of jelly. We have to go after him, said Max. I gave him a horrified stare, because that was all I could manage. It's the only way, Ryan, said Max. If shiny reaches town, he could hurt people, maybe worse. if I'm with you he won't hurt you I'm the only one he'll listen to

he had a point about innocent people being in danger going after shiny was the last thing I wanted to do but Max had made up his mind and I couldn't let him go alone and then again part of me would be lying to say I didn't want to know how deep this rabbit trail went there was no questioning which direction the creature escaped in A trail of flattened wheat wound its way through the field

where his centipede had snaked his way to freedom. For the next 15 minutes or so, we traded the path side by side, me sweeping the flashlight in front of us, Max calling for the creature through cupped hands. Shiny! Will you cut it out? I finally told him. Maybe he doesn't hurt you,

but calling his name isn't magically going to make him come crawling back. to you. Ryan. Even if he does come back to you, what are you going to do with him? Where is he going to go? You can't keep him anymore. He's too big for that now. Ryan.

I understand that you want to help him, Max, but we don't even know what we're dealing. Ryan, watch out. Max grabbed the back of my shirt as my next step forward landed on nothingness. I looked down to see my right foot dangling over a black chasm and pinwheeled my hair. arms before falling back. The wheat path ended here, a massive black hole in the ground. Shiny had tunneled into the earth. There was no telling where he could be now. How deep do you think it goes? said Max as I shown the flashlight into the abyss. I shook my head. I'm not sure, but... do you hear that? Something big was moving

through a patch of trees to our left. I could hear tree trunks breaking, limbs snapping, a dense thicket tearing apart. The noise was going louder, snowballing. I could see a dark shape moving just within the trees

as the new sound reached my ears. Something mechanical. A machine. I stepped in front of Max and switched off the flashlight, brace myself for a new monstrosity. Moments later, an armored tank emerged, its tracks rolling over the rugged terrain, moving powerfully into the wheat field and continuing ahead of us.

We watched the back of it grow smaller and smaller as it surged toward the horizon. Max said the thing we were both thinking. What just happened? His next words were drowned out by the scream of military jets soaring overhead in the direction of the tank. A distant shriek reverberated through the countryside, the sound of an enraged monster losing a fight against hundreds of gunshots, machine gunfire that popped and cracked sporadically. The sky plumed with orange light and a worm-like beast rose into the air, flaming like a torch as a harpoon speared the creature's middle and pulled it back to earth. One final cry echoed

through the night, and then there was silence. Even in the darkness I could see a hazy billow of smoke floating from the war zone. Goodbye, shiny, said Max, raising a hand in farewell. It was nice knowing you. I put my arm around him and guided him back the way we came. When we got back to the shed, I inspected the damage. Nearly the entire back wall was gone, and the whole structure leaned precariously to one side. Inside, the shed was filled with shiny black slime and something else.

Big, oval-shaped objects were plastered to the floor. There must have been 20 of them, no smaller than three feet in height. I leaned close to one. Through a translucent membrane, I could make out something moving within. A body curling and uncurling amid a gelatinous substance. What are they? said Max, giving one of the objects a small kick. They're eggs, I breathed. Shiny wasn't a boy after all.

I took a gas can from the corner of the shed and began to douse the floor and walls. Then, after Max and I were a good ten feet away, I struck one of my father's spare matches and tossed it into the shed. The whole thing immediately went up in flames, and we squinted against the yellow light, feeling the warmth wash across us. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I thought I could hear the faint squealing within the crackling of the fire, the screams of baby monsters joining their mother in eternity. Max rested his tired head in my arm, and that was how we stood for a long time,

watching the flames lick toward the sky, only dimly aware when our parents rushed to out to meet us as the first signs of dawn broke across the horizon. I don't know much about government cover-ups, but what I do know is that I never heard about that night from anyone else, either on the news or from anyone in the surrounding area. If Max and I hadn't witnessed it, it might never have happened. Things were slow to go back to normal after that, but eventually the event became nothing more to me than a collection of memories and bad dreams I'd probably have for the rest of my life. A month later, it was something that stayed in the back of my mind, not forgotten, but no longer

dominating my conscious thoughts. I still picked Max up from school every day and enjoyed learning about the things he brought for show and tell. As we pulled away from the school, I pointed to a new box he was now carrying in his lap. What do you have today Max? A scorpion. I found him in the parking lot this morning. All my friends thought Brainy was the coolest thing I've brought all year.

Brainy? I asked. Why'd you call him that? Because he has two heads. And that's the story of how I got into my first car accident. Big Bend National Park. The sign announced my arrival in the familiar font of all National Park Service communication. The ranger's booth beyond it grew large as I approached. I slowed to halt alongside the squat yellow hut and paused my podcast.

Afternoon, friend, the attending ranger greeted me with a bored smile that reached barely to the corners of a mouth. I nodded my head in response. Entrance fee increased at $30 this year, she intoned. We can take cash or card. I fished my wallet from the backpack on the seat next to me and handed her two-twenties. She returned a ten, but kept a hold of the bill as she handed it through the window.

Be safe out there. We locked eyes, and she fixed me with a meaningful glare but seemed to say that she was more concerned with my behaviour than my safety. And don't talk to the animals. She relinquished the change. I shook my head, marvelling at the strength. strange warning and drove on hitting play on my phone. Indeed, listener, it's best if you don't acknowledge these creatures at all.

The podcaster pronounced this final sentence of the program in a tone that he no doubt imagined to convey solemn gravitors. Cheesy music and a cheap, howling wind sound effect signalled the end of the episode. I fiddled with my phone, tapping it into a playlist I labelled Old News. The eagles crooned back at me. The sound cut out. I wrestled with the auxiliary cord that connected my phone to the car speakers and glanced at the home screen.

No service. I stared at the now useless brick for a moment before turning my attention back to the road in front of me. Without my primary source of entertainment, I scanned through the radio stations hoping to find something other than the breathless preaching that dominated the airwaves outside the state's major population centres.

I found only static. Admitting defeat, I turn my focus from the dashboard to get a proper look of my surroundings. Tall yellow grass grew mysteriously from rocky soil that did not appear capable of supporting life. Crooked trees, all limbs, bent and impossible angles from the terrain. The scrubland, dotted with cacti,

gave way to jagged man. mountains that stretched far into the horizon, and foliage seemed to grow thicker with elevation. Across the alien landscape, tiny roadrunners bolted back and forth, chasing some elusive prey on their impossibly fast little legs. Or, I took it to myself, perhaps they were eluding a dim-witted coyote. My car jolted as if I'd hit a pothole. The explosion of feathers across my windshield, however, indicated that the bump had not been the result of a shortfall in the park's maintenance budget. I cursed aloud.

The view had distracted me. I resolved to focus on the road rather than the environment, figuring there'd be time to appreciate the majesty of nature during my hike. A nearby sign indicated the lost mind's trail, my destination, to be several miles further. After another eerily silent half an hour on the road, I reached the trailhead. A smiling older couple, each wielding two walking sticks,

lumbered off the path as I pulled into a nearby parking space. I collected my phone from the dashboard and my backpack from the seat next to me, along with my boots from the floor. Stepping out of the car, I stretched my legs and pop the trunk. The older gentleman, presumably husband to his hiking partner, walked around behind my car and greeted me with a friendly wave as I sat to change my boots.

Looks like you'll have the trail to yourself this afternoon, pal. He flourished his hand magnanimously at the empty parking spaces around us. He didn't see anyone else up there? I pulled down my dusty brown boots as he shook his head. Nope, just that old boot over there. He gestured toward his wife. I laughed as if his joke had been funny and double-knotted my laces. You have the most beautiful eyes, croaked the old woman, cued by his gesture.

You just don't see that colour blue every day. I chuckled and thanked her. You folks have a good evening now, I said, shouldering on my backpack. I pulled my hat low over my eyes to keep what I now realised to be a blazing afternoon sun off of my face. The blue of the hat's brim now occupied nearly half of my visual front. field, and it obscured the old folks as I waved. You too, young fella. I looked up to see the old man return the wave and stumped back to his wife beside their

Prius. Watching the hunched gentleman labour to cross the mere feet of the parking lot, I marvelled that he'd been able to complete the trail's steep climb. Maybe the couple had kept their walk short. In any event, I set out toward the path. The first mile or so of lost mind. proceeds mostly uphill. Bristley flora framed the entire trail and the low bushes makes it easy to forget that the path winds through the middle of the desert and

not somewhere more hospitable. As the trail switchbacks carve their way up the mountain every few hundred yards a clearing in the foliage reveals a sweeping view of the surrounding landscape. I cover this first stretch in a little less than half an hour, hoping to capture the scenery for a new computer background, I paused in one of these gaps in the foliage and pulled out my phone. The vista proved hard to photograph though, and my efforts resulted in only a single passable shot. I dropped my phone back into my pocket and unscrewed my water bottle from the strap of my backpack.

I dug in the scenery as I drank. A snuffling sound interrupted my commune with nature. My stomach dropped and I spun my head in search of the noise. I'm a big guy but I'm hardly a match for the bears that frequent this part of the park I spotted it to the left

a coyote I froze and watched the creature emerge from the bushes it heard his back to me and its head in one of the prickly bushes off the trail it continued snuffling around the foliage but its rummaging

was bringing it closer to me I slowly screwed the top back onto my water bottle. Coyotes didn't usually attack people, but in an emergency, I could use the mostly full bottle to bludgeon the beast. The coyote raised its head and froze. It sniffed the air. Slowly it turned to face me.

I locked ties with it. The creature looked wrong. It seemed on. almost to have two snouts, one on top of the other. The deformity looked like a video game rendering error, the sort that makes a virtual plant disappear into a wall and come out the other side, like one snout had incorrectly rendered inside the other, and a tiny bit of the duplicate, just a nose, was poking through the coyote's face.

I stared into the creatures wide, dark eyes for what felt like ours. nose twitched, both of them, as it sniffed the air. Easy boy. I muttered the words to the creature in what I hoped to be a slow, calming whisper. Take it easy, the beast stared. I didn't move a muscle. Then the coyote cocked its odd head to the side, and quickly, so quickly that I can still question whether it happened at all.

The coyote winked. Finding nothing, I turned quickly back to the creature, but it was gone. Scared away no doubt by the noise. I was breathing heavily, far more heavily than my brief hike of the trail merited. It took a moment to collect myself. I'd seen deformed animals before, goats with extra legs, deer with stubby little antlers. This coyote was just an accident of birth. the product of a twisted genome that had made it to adulthood.

Surely it hadn't actually winked at me, and, even if it had, it was an animal, so it couldn't have been communicating anything with a minor twitch. I carried on up the trail, but the image of the coyote and his bizarre double snout stayed with me. Around mile 1.5, I reached another clearing. On the left-hand side of the path, this rest stop featured a bench carved from one of the sharp little trees. I paused briefly to tighten the laces of my boots and take a sit from my naljeune.

As I screwed the cat back on, movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention. I spun, half expecting to find the coyote staring back at me. Instead, I found another hiker passing me on the trail. He was descending, heading the opposite direction from me. The man wore brown hiking boots that rose to mid-carve. Gray socks extended from underneath, just a bit further up his calves, ending below olive-green worked shorts the same colour as my own. Unlike mine, however, his shorts lacked the little loop, from which someone using them for manual

labour might hang a hammer. They also lacked the little yellow sea that marked. the brand on the back right pocket. His blue baseball cap was pulled low enough that I didn't get a good look at his face, but I noticed that his grey t-shirt seemed entirely free of sweat.

The man raised a hand as I turned, though didn't say anything. How's that last stretch? I asked as he passed to my right. Easy. He rumbled the word in a deep baritone, not much louder than a whisper. drawing it out into a languid assurance.

He continued down the trail. How's the view? I asked to his back. Easy. I heard again, in the same slow whisper, before the hiker disappeared around the next switch back. I shook my head, not sure I'd heard the guy correctly, as I gathered my belongings and finished lace in my boots. the sun was beginning to sink.

I reached the trail's peak, a little less than a mile later, and was greeted by a sweeping view of the surrounding desert. By then, a brilliant sunset painted the desert, and I marvelled at the view for nearly 20 minutes. As I made my way back down the trail, the temperature dropped with the sun. A cloudy evening obscure the views I'd enjoyed on the way up, and by the time I'd reached hard,

halfway down the trail, I had to use the flashlight on my phone to light up the path in front of me. Hiking at night is always unnerving. This wasn't the first time I'd been caught out on a trail after sundown, and the desert path was much less intimidating than some of the more heavily wooded trails in the other parks I've visited. Still, the normal sounds of wildlife become much more sinister at night. As I descended, my thoughts turned back. to the events of the day. I had woken up at the crack of dawn to make the long drive.

I didn't mind road trips, but the space between Austin and Big Bend was just empty. Not like one little town every couple of miles empty. Completely empty. Bring a spare can of gas and make sure you fill it up every time you see a station empty. I'd really plumb the depths of the podcast universe and even my favourite programmes had run stale by the time I reached the welcome sign. What was it the ranger had said to me? Don't talk to the animals?

I suppose a person has to be a bit odd to become a park ranger anyway, especially one out here in the middle of nowhere. Still, strange thing to say. The memory of the odd warning brought to mind the coyote, with its warped system error snout. I shuddered at the image. A branch snapped to my left. Wind whistled to the bushes.

I sped up. A rock had found its way into one of my boots, and I bent to fish it out. The wind was whistling again. I held my phone in my mouth as I pulled one of my socks higher to make the boot a bit more accessible. The laces had loosened over the course of the day, and I could fit a finger down to the sole.

I found the pebble and worked it out of the shoe with my index finger. I rolled it just past the top lace, near the middle of my calf. It was difficult to see the little grey stone. It matched the colour of my socks nearly exactly, and the low light didn't help. I managed to grab it before it could fall back into my boots though and tossed it into the brush along the side of the path. it made a small click as it landed.

I stood and continued. I didn't get more than a few steps before I felt a tiny impact on the side of my leg. Assuming I'd kicked up a stick as I'd been walking, I carried on. After another few steps though, I felt another pebble in my boot. This one hadn't gotten deep and I didn't need my light to fish it out.

I held it. between my index finger and thumb. This one too matched my socks. I tossed it as I had the other and carried on. A few steps later, I felt another impact, this time at my ear. A bug surely. I paused briefly before speeding up. Crickets buzzed loudly and their nighttime wine seemed to come from every direction at once.

A branch snapped. I was nearly jogging by the time I heard it. Easy. Slow. Deep. Quiet. So quiet,

I couldn't be sure I'd heard it at all. I broke into a run. All around me, the trail seemed to come alive. Branches snapped and the wind whistled and cricket's whined so loudly it was nearly deafening.

My phone's light bounced as I ran, and my backpack jostled uncomfortably on my back. A root caught my foot. I threw my hands out to break my fall. The trail's tiny, sharp rocks, dug painfully into my knees and my palms as I hit the ground. I scrambled to stand, but as I looked up, I found myself eye-level

with a pair of brown hiking boots. Easy. On my hands and knees in the dust of the trail, bleeding into the grid. I froze. Strong hands hoisted me from the ground and I could do nothing but allow myself to be lifted. After an eternity I raised my eyes and found myself face to face with the park ranger. Easy. She spoke in the same careful tone she'd used when selling my admission ticket, not the hiker's creepy whisper.

I caught my breath for a moment before I responded. Thanks. I dusted off my shorts and stepped back. Once I clicked myself, I realized that I had reached the end of the path and the ranger stood at the trailhead. My car was just a few feet away and a light over the parking lot illuminated us.

The ranger was holding a shotgun. She wasn't pointing it at me, precisely. But she certainly wasn't pointing it anywhere else either. If she fired it, she'd probably blow off a few of my toes. Behind her stood the old couple I'd seen on the way up the path. The old man stood straighter now than he had earlier in the afternoon, and he traded his walking stick for a shotgun of his own. His wife too was armed, and the three of them stood.

unmoving between me and my ageing forerunner. None of them looked directly at me. In fact, each seemed to be looking pointedly at a spot where I wasn't. What did I tell you when you first came into the park this afternoon, friend? The ranger asked the question carefully and without much inflection. She still didn't meet my eyes, staring instead at the path behind me. Given her monotone, I could not. tell whether she was scolding me or testing me.

Don't talk to the... I paused. The coyote. Don't talk to the animals. I finished. The ranger and her companions all visibly deflated, as if they've been holding their breath. Each of the three of them finally turned their eyes to me, and the ranger shouldered a firearm.

Friend, you get back. in that car and you head straight out of this park. The old man commanded me with gravity that could not possibly have come from the doddling old fella I'd met earlier in the day. Don't stop, not for anything, the old woman added, or nobody. She fixed me with a steely gaze that matched the gravity of her husbands, not until you're out of the park. I wouldn't worry too much about the speed limit.

it either, friend. The Ranger added, I opened my mouth to ask what in God's name the three of them were talking about, but the Ranger fixed a jaw in such a way as to indicate that the conversation was over. The whole couple wore similar expressions and the three of them turned their full attention to the path, guns aimed to the ground. I followed their instructions. I didn't change my boots, didn't take off my shirt, even though a day's worth of sweat had turned its grey material nearly the same colour black as my car's upholstery. The forerunner came to life with its deep rumble, and I stomped on the gas, peeling out of the parking lot with a squeal. My hands didn't stop shaking until I was nearly three miles from the trailhead. The road in and out of the Big Bend is straight,

then covered several miles between the park entrance and the trails. I'd begun to relax, And I could see the ranger's booth in the distance. When I heard it again. Easy. The same slow whisper, so quiet that my rumbling engine nearly drowned it out. I spun my head in every direction. The sun was all the way down by this point, and I couldn't see much outside the too dim glow of my headlights.

I heard it again. Easy boy The same tone The same whisper Take it easy boy Faster this time Not like a person who talked fast Like a video played at double speed

I continued to look frantically around me Doing my best to keep some attention on the road Motion at the corner of my eye caught my attention At the very edge of the half-circle of road illuminated my headlights, ran an animal. An animal that looked like it had two snouts, one on top of the other. I stomped on the gas. Easy. Loud, deafening, but still soft somehow,

like a recording of a whisper played at full volume through an expensive sound system. The rangers hut grew larger. in the distance. I kept my attention on the road in front of me, but from the corner of my eye I could see that the coyote, the whatever it was, was still right on the edge of my headlights. I'd chance to look at it, only for a moment. The sight still haunts me. On the edge of the road, just outside the light of my headlights, ran the coyote. On its hind legs, his twin snouts phoned. and its mouth yawned open.

As it panted, the creature's chore opened wider than any natural beings ought to, and, row upon row of human-looking teeth, hung nearly to its chest, a chest that seemed to be wearing a grey t-shirt, but not wearing it precisely. Rather, the shirt seemed to almost grow from the creature's body, giving way seamlessly to the patchy fur of its arms and stomach.

It turned its head and looked directly at me, Its eyes no longer the white-brown eyes of an animal, but rather piercing blue eyes, like a human's, like mine. The coyote winked. I tore my gaze from the abomination to spare a glance at my spinometer. I was going 87 miles per hour. I willed the aging SUV to go faster, faster than it had any right to go, faster than whatever was keeping pace with me out my window. I stole another glance of the creature.

As I turned my head, I saw the beast stop, not slow down, stop, completely, as if it had run into a wall. I whizzed past the ranger's hut, and then the welcome sign, and didn't ease up on the gas until both were firmly in my rear view. But

I heard it again Take it Easy I slammed on the brakes And I could smell the rubber Burning under my tyres The eagles crooned From my car speakers

I had service again The song had carried on right where it left off As my phone picked up signal I put the old SUV in park Right there in the middle of the road Tears ran freely down my cheeks, and my hand shook so violently I couldn't have driven the car if I'd tried. I don't know how long I sat there, parked in the middle of the West Texas Highway. Minutes, half an hour, hours.

Once I pulled myself together, I called the Martha Hotel, where I'd intended to spend the night and cancelled my reservation. I drove straight home through the night and into the morning I stopped only for gas and hardly took a breath until I reached my Austin apartment I double-locked the door pulled the blinds closed

and collapsed exhausted into my bed I'm still not sure just what the hell I saw out there in the desert but the next morning I had the thought for the first time but certainly

not for the last, that maybe the national parks aren't just there to preserve natural beauty. I'm not a good person. I'm not evil or malicious, but I believe people ought to look after themselves and making stupid decisions hurt is God's way of keeping us smart. I have had time to think of myself as a good or bad guy, and I guess that somewhere along the line I realized I'm not a good guy. and on the heels of that one revelation came another I don't really care people in my situation

tend to grow up quickly you think my dad cared about my maths homework when he was coaxing me through the open window of a farmer's house so I could open the door for him and his friends to rob it my little sister's moved on now living with an aunt up north but for a long time

it was on me a kid myself to keep her fed It's weird There'd be kids talking smack about me Because my hair was too long Or I was rude to a girl who liked me Or I tackled someone a little too hard in football And the whole time I'd be wondering

If I'd go home and find my dad Lying Half Dead in the Tub again Like he was the night before Over time I started getting the kick Out of pulling one over on the kids in my school You buy drugs off me that didn't do Jack? Not my problem

You take up my offer of cheap car repair and find out six months later it's been chopped up senseless and half the parts replaced with knockoffs not my problem you give me your phone to jailbreak and it comes back with a key logger trust me to buy tickets

to find I flogged them on eBay break about your dad's shiny new cigar collection only to find it missing the next day none of it was my fault at least as far as I was concerned it's funny though I had this huge chip on my shoulder about all these idiots who didn't appreciate what they had and I didn't even think twice when James approached me asking for help.

I just saw it as another opportunity to fleece a dumbass for some cash, some trusting loser without enough common sense to know better than to trust me. James was, to quote, a few girls in his class, a total creep. He never crossed any lines, but he had a way of looking at people, that made them feel like a petri dish under a microscope. He had a thick, heavy brow, a bean-shaped head, and keen eyes that probed your face and body as he listened to you. He'd do things like eat frozen pizza for lunch,

drink protein shake without ever working out, and cut his own hair in the toilets with a clipper he brought from home. Oh, and of course, he stank like hell, and often boasted of the fact he would only shower once a month. I'd never once spoken to him one on one or ever given him any meaningful attention in my whole life and yet he came to me on the day of his father's death I mean I didn't know back then

he just turned up with a bunch of credit cards and a dying need to have fun make friends and quote get ready for college Specifically James wanted to throw a house party and I was the only way he could think of to make it happen. Everyone else had politics, he said. No one else would hang with a loser like him, or even help him. But only I would offer an honest service in exchange for money. His dad had left town for a month, he said.

I had to get as many kids from our school year as I could to his house, spend whatever I needed to buy the booze and drugs necessary to keep him happy. And, in exchange, he'd pay me a grandingly. cash. Another person might have asked where James had got the cash or why he was so desperate for a big blowout, but I never saw it as my responsibility to look after someone else's stuff. If he wanted to give me the money, I sure as hell wasn't going to stop him. So I took the cards, emptied them out across a good few ATMs and spent the following day buying all the pot and booze I could lay my hands on. I can't say exactly why I actually. I actually

decided to go ahead and throw the kid his party. I was 17 at this point and seriously tempted to just ditch town with the cash I had but I decided that there was no good reason not to give him the party he wanted. I really went all out on the booze pot and invites the first two being the most important motivators for people and by the time I rocked up to his place on Friday I remember genuinely thinking that there was a 50-50 chance James would be dead come Monday. The thought filled me with a kind of perverse pride. But man, there was nothing right about James' place.

He had this big, stately home with loads of cool stuff, but it was harder to get people up there than you might think. A few teenagers went missing up in those mountains when we were just toddlers, and they were found in a pretty gruesome state. It was a bit before my time, and apparently there's other stories about the woods. stories going back a long time but most people won't talk

I know every town has a place like this but at the time I didn't know an inkling of what was really going on that whole damn mountain is messed up back then all I knew was that it was riddled with these old derelict buildings half buried under dense thickets of roots and tree tops they formed these nasty little trenches

hidden along the windswept mountain that made great cover for anyone who wants to drink or smoke in peace. At least they would if anyone went there regularly. One time I went up there when I was 14 and looking for a place to get high, gleefully ignoring the warnings from older kids to stay away. I found three of those buildings with bricked up doorways. The occasional loose stone were feeling black stairs descending deeper into the darkness. Some were just fragments of old house. houses that looked like they'd been real homes once. Others were these brutalest concrete bunkers that made you think of illegal government experiments. The whole place made you feel

like you were enduring an awkward silence. But I ignored the trembling anxiety in my stomach and trekked deeper until I came across a crumbling grey wall hallowed by the black roots of a fallen tree. It was pouring with rain, so I couldn't see much of it. But, I approached, wondering if the tree bellied a downdrop to one of those trenches that offer cover. When I saw bright red letters graffeted over the wall, their colour bordline fluorescent amidst the gloom. Alice Landlin was attacked right here. It read, with a crude arrow pointing at a large hollow just below, a space that was just about big enough for a person to lie in.

It felt genuine. I guess I'd say. It felt mocking. The letters, appearing almost cruel in the grey dismal light, and even though I had no reason to, I believed the words. It was enough to break me. I left, ran even, ran all the way home, gripped in a terror, an instinctive belief that if I lingered there too long,

something terrible would wake and come for me. In a way, I was right. spent so long stealing and being a little ass in school that I started to think of myself as a bit of a wolf amidst sheep, as the smartest person in every room. All I thought about was how easy it was going to be to milk James for cash. The night I arrived, the sun was setting and spring had already started dragging the sunset further back into the night, so that it was a mild, pleasant evening with the trees cast in a warm amber glow. I found James on the front Lawn, quietly listening to a group of girls' talk.

He looked out of his depth, so I sat down beside him and waited for a lull in the conversation to compliment James's house. The comments brought out a flurry of similar cries from everyone, and within minutes the conversation turned from the house to James himself, where everyone told funny and occasional awkward anecdotes about the poor kid. But it got him involved at least, and after a few drinks, he started hitting back with his own stories and jokes about the others. It felt like a small step in the right direction,

and I was happy with it. And yet, despite that, I didn't feel like actually joining in with the fun. At the time, I couldn't figure out why, but I felt a terrible knot in my stomach, just being up in the mountains. So I hung around outside for most of the night, smoking and chatting,

while one by one people went off and joined the fun indoors. I couldn't blame them. Everyone was there. Easily over 150 kids with more than enough room to contain them. James's house had a pool, cinema, tennis courts, trampoline, and even a damn quad bike for anyone stupid enough to ride one. They drank, got high, screamed, shouted, cried, through things, smashed glasses, and I heard all of it sitting in my stoop with night.

nothing but a quarter-ounce in my thoughts. I was left alone like this, until James came stumbling out of the door behind me, laughter braying recklessly into the night. There were two girls with him, and one was giggling, while the other quietly flicked through the pages of a strange book. Hey, man, hey,

James hissed, drunkly slurring his words through his bottom teeth. Hey, hey, hey, we're going to go into the woods, Want to come and do some black magic? His eyes flashed wide on the last word so that I was left with a lasting image of white irises like headlights in the dark. The girl beside him added,

He reckons he can show us something real, says the words are really haunted. The other girl, who I knew as Ellen, was fixated on the book and muttering. This book is nuts. It looks like the real thing. All right, I said. flicking a roach into the bushes.

But then I'm going to shoot off, okay? I didn't much like it up there. And I had a sneaking suspicion that if any cops came, James had dropped me in it all too readily. He made a few plaintive efforts to keep me around, but he was too drunk to make much of an argument, and I set off into the woods with the others, impatient to get it over with.

Even just a few meters into the trees, and I didn't like it. It seemed to my ears that the only sound as we walked was the crunching of my footsteps. But from up ahead came the fleeting drunken laughter of the others that occasionally distracted me. The moon was out in full, covering the floor with an undulating silvery light, and yet it was still uncomfortably dark. And when James turned on a flashlight, I finally cried out, James, man, how down far are we going to go?

He muttered something I didn't hear, but stopped anyway, and let me catch up with him. When asked again, he replied, There's a spot by here, that will do. For someone who was drunk, he walked with surprising ease across the uneven mulch, carrying us away from the path in a perpendicular direction for a few hundred yards. Remember, he cried out as we emerged into a small opening. You picked this one. He winked at me and a knot formed in my stomach.

One by one we filed into the small space like a herd, and as I took the details in, I suddenly felt as if I'd been dropped into a surreal dream. Jesus Christ, one girl cried. That's a messed up thing to write. Beside me, I watched the girl with a book momentarily look up and mouth the words, I so clearly recognized from my last trip to the mountains.

She paused, reflected on them for a brief second, and then cried out, Bloody hell. Some dark places in these woods, James said, sitting cross-legged, without a care in the world on a small hill near the hollow. This is just one of them, but is an ideal spot nonetheless.

Quietly, we joined him on the floor. There was an awkward pause, leaving enough time for me to look over my shoulder and suppress a shiver in the darkness between the trees. It seemed at once, both still and endlessly changing, and the forest air felt home to an unseen, threatening presence. Is this real? Ellen asked, holding the book open for us all to see. Oh no, James replied, that book is a total fraud. The girl paused, taken aback by his answer. You said it'd be the real deal?

It will be real, he said, but the book is just a prop. We can read from it if you like. It is here to give things an authentic feel. For like ghosts? The other girl said. To bring them out? No, he replied, eyeing us darkly. It's for you.

Why would we need a prop? One by one, James looked at us, and I felt a chill pass over me as if his glare was leeching my soul. All of a sudden, alarms long since buried deep within my lizard brain flared. Get out, they cried. Run now, leave, nothing else matters, flee. How else was I going to lure you out here?

He replied. And just like you, that, Ellen disappeared from my eye-line, crumpled to the floor with a hideous crack. Her head had been seized by a strange arm reaching out of the darkness. Its heavy, inky palms so large it could have held her skull like an egg. The muscled forearm was pallid, quivering, and so close to my face I could smell the ranted heat of its earthy sweat. Ellen wasn't even making any sound.

She'd been killed instantly. and broken like a twig in a single motion. Slowly I craned my head over and saw nothing but a wall of arms that rolled like waves in the darkness. I could have sworn I was dreaming, right up until one of the hands reached out and grabbed the edge of my jacket. I started screaming and kicking as it dragged me away, only free myself from the jacket at the last moment.

I looked up to see it pulled back into the wall where it had torn to pieces, and following close came the longest arm that carried the swaying, broken corpse of Elin. Every hand groped for her, and within seconds she had disappeared from sight, pulled into the impossible depths that defied all logic. I sat there, paralysed, dimly aware of the sounds of footsteps as the other girl sprinted into the open woods, only to be shocked awake by her hysterical screams as she was snatched in her into the Ingey shadows. Finally, I pulled myself to my feet, switched on the light and marvelled

at how it banished the shadows and the arms, dismissing them from reality like those strange illusions that flipped between one image and another. I took the chance the light offered and fled, catching a fleeing glimpse of the girl's head trapped in the shadow, her skull being crushed like an apple by a grossly oversized paw. The next thing I can remember was clearing the trees to reach James's house. The base he could off and he had died down, but I could still hear people screaming and crying. They were desperate howls of terror and pain, and I ran straight to my car, ignoring any thoughts about warning the others. But I was left in despair when I shoved my hand into my pocket and felt nothing there.

You didn't disappoint, James cried, and I turned to see him, still. standing by the open front door while jingling a set of car keys. You would have let me have them all, wouldn't you? But I'm afraid you, of all people, won't be getting off the hook that easy. He disappeared into the house, and I was forced to follow. The house was quiet. All the lights had been cut, and the darkness was so heavy, it turned my torch into a strangled pale misty beam.

I slowly began making my way down. down the hall and stopped briefly to look at the dining room, the Grand Oak table running nearly its whole length while chairs lay scattered around the room. It looked bled of colour in the torch's light, all except for the startling bright red display of a blooded shoe alone on the tabletop. From further down the hallway a scream rang out and I followed it to the nearby utility room. A guy around my age was hanging out of the washing machine. Callas, sutt-covered hands grabbed and pulled at his body, but he had two arms braced on either side of

the hole, and I could see that it was all that kept him alive. He was shaking from the exertion and looked at me with panicked eyes. Help, he whimpered, and as if on cue, he was yanked through the opening and into the shadow. I ran forward and shone the light in, but there was nothing but a gory tumbler rotating to a slow stop, stalactites of blood and gristle dripping from top to bottom.

I was in a nightmare. As my torch moved from side to side, desperate arms would reach out of the darkness only to recede once more. In a fugue state, I carried on through the house. feeling detached and isolated from the bizarre things I saw. Lone eyes hanging in unbroken light bulbs,

people screaming for help from behind glassy reflections, fingers probing desperately from within empty beer cans, their owners pleading to be let out. There were other survivors. Glassy-eyed teenagers huddled around what few sources of light still worked, their faces soaked in the blue light of malfunctioning televisions and computer screens. One girl I found beneath the stairs, her hands clutching an iPad to her head, as those demonic hands stroked and caressed her cheeks and hair in an almost playful, sickening way.

I can't put it down, I can't put it down, I can't put it down. She was hyperventilating and I went to help, but she snatched the iPad away and kicked out at me. Mine, she screamed. She poured the iPad back close to her head and I watched as the thing. throne of arms enclosed around her even further until only her face was visible amidst the undulating dark. There were stranger things still on the upper floors. I found rooms with barricades, strange tallies counted up on the walls, beds made of clothes and rubbish. I found a live, desperate man, no one I recognised, and he was easily in his mid-twenties. But at the sight of me, he lunged

out of the darkness, laughing and crying in hysterical joy. You found me, he sobbed, just before his own torch faltered, and something awful ripped him between the slats of the floorboards. It's been so long, were his final words, wrenched painfully out of his lips, before he was practically liquefied by the force of his death. Once again, I was left stunned before a bubbling pile of gore, but, he was, and he was, It wasn't done. Yet another arm rose out of the filth, but this one was different.

It looked real, raw, twitching muscle wrapped in newly birthed skin. Unlike the wretched hands that writhed in the confusing shadows, this hand looked fresh, glistening and meaty. For a few seconds it fumbled against the floorboards until it found purchase. It started to pull more and more of itself out of the quivering flesh of its victim, and I realised the arm was being re-knitted from the mishmash of whatever gristle and bone was near. By the time I saw the second-handed merge, it dawned me that my flashlight did nothing to hurt the arm, and that it just kept on heaving and pulling until a bold, screaming head started

to emerge from the impossible space. It was like watching an adult being born whole, and eventually inside me clicked, and I ran away in terror before I could see the face. Yum, yum, it cried out after me, it's a voice like a talking beehive. Yum yum. I was halfway to the next floor when I turned and saw the misshapen torso tear itself free with a pain grunt. It was little more than a gaunt set of ribs hanging.

a redistended, malnourished belly. The strange arms so long now that their elbows knocked the broken light fixture and framed the wretched monster the way a spider's legs frame its body. It saw me, staring, its face nothing but a featureless stretch of broken, whole riddled skin. It looked like bisected bone and the thousands of strange openings whistled, blaring spit all over the floor as it spoke those words. once more. Yum, yum.

It thundered toward me, and I didn't wait to see any more. I ran at the stairs and reached the upper floor, just in time to see a hairy knuckled arm slapped down on the bottom step. I turned to flee only to run straight into a guy I recognized from the party. He was in shell shock.

Most of his hair had been torn out and his scalp was bleeding. His face was battered and bruised. One eye, so swollen, he shouldn't even see out of it. In the light of my torch, his skin looked like the colour of a yellow bruise, and the sleek patina of sweat across his face made him look ill and feverish. It keeps coming, he mumbled, before vomiting all over me. I might have wretched or cried out, but I could just make out movement in my periphery,

and I pushed him aside and ran. We're dark inside. The guy cried out just in time for me to notice that the stringy bile that dripped down from my hair was slick with blood, fingernails and human hair. It was shocking enough to cause me to fumble, tripping up over a shadow hand that was there one second and gone the next. We're all dark inside, the guy sobbed before throwing up once more. And this time I noticed strange probing fingers gripping either side of the mouth to hold it

open as a torrent of teeth and other human effluent poured out of him onto the floor. And then, just like Ellen, he was crushed with an effortless blow from above. That thing from the floorboards had climbed the stairs, looming over the broken body of the spewing boy and looking down at the splintered remains of head and chest like a child eyeing up a toy. Its gorilla hands nudged the mess as the face continued to whine and whistle like a thousand blue bottle flies trapped in a dumpster. It had no legs for the oddly human abdomen terminated in a thousand shredded strips that twitched like writhing cilia, and I noticed them curling and writhing like the tentacles of a sea

anemone. Without any further hesitation, it planted its face into the pulped remains of the boy and began heaving, slurping the liquefied gore into its head. I couldn't bear to watch it feel. and I ran without looking back until I stumbled onto a ladder. Seeing an opportunity, I climbed it, opened the trap door above, and then pulled the ladder up and sealed the opening as quickly as I could. I didn't know if that thing had seen me, but I felt it was the best I could hope for.

When I finally took stock of my surroundings, I realized I was trapped in a spire that peaked out over the treetops, offering clear sight of a bruised and closed, and closed. colorful night sky. Do you like it? He said, gesturing to the lurid stars. Behind him was a corpse, dangling from the rafters. The face bloated and grotesque. It was a man, and after a second or two, I recognized the distorted face.

That's how you got the money, I said. That's your father. He did what I think many people would do in this situation. James replied Stuck up here with these things Scuttling around in the dark An awful what So you can run around stealing cars

And selling pirated DVDs So some dick can kick a ball Really far and get laid for it So our teachers can spend their time Celebrating the mediocre and the stupid It's just so Boring And you

He laughed I mean the others They're at least at peace with their own BS but you honestly genuinely think you're better than everyone else, but you're just, you're just another moron whose life consists of jerk enough in getting high. What the hell is going on? I cried. This is what our sacrifices for, he screamed, startling me.

My family has been up here for 400 years, reading dusty bucks and painting stupid signals on intersecting laylines. And why? so your losers can post TikTok videos? I mean, it was one thing when it was all about keeping the army of miners and lagers safe. But now it's just, it's just momentum or inertia that keeps us up here.

Some stupid tradition. And for what? And one little slip-up, a few dead kids, and no one will forget about it, about our failure as a family, when it's us who are putting ourselves on the line. I watched my father go mad over those missing kids.

And now. The energy drained from James, his long, winding rant coming to a sudden halt. He looked at his father with grief and resignation. He couldn't live with a guilt, but I don't think he ever had anything to feel guilty over. He didn't make this place evil. He just helped keep it in check. It's always been waiting, ready to burst. It's so, it's so eager.

You just put flesh in the right place and, Boom, it all just comes tumbling out. Well, you saw what happened. No words of power, no cursed runes, just two girls in the right place and and my intent to feed them to the darkness. James, I said, I don't know what the hell you're on about,

but if you're saying there's a way, some rituals or magic we can do to reverse this, just tell me what to do. There's a library on the third floor. he said you can read up on the rituals there you'll have the time what i cried what do you mean hasn't it occurred to you why you haven't died yet he said his face screwing up into a condescending smirk are you for real he burst out laughing jesus you really are something special oh man i'm glad i picked you remember that when the the survivor's guilt kicks in. The trapdoor behind me flew open as if struck from below. I cried out and began to back away. My heart beating so hard it felt like it was going to stutter and fail and I would fall to my knees gasping for air in life. One of those disgusting arms

reached up through the opening and with little hesitation or messing around the monstrous meat thing dragged itself up. James was laughing. His demeanor borderline hysterical. A lot of worlds intersect here. He cried out as one of those hands grouts my ankle and pulled me to the ground with a single gesture. I started screaming and found myself unable to tear my gaze away from the monster that pull me closer to its face. But James was still there, taunting and laughing.

I've got a lot of places to pick from, a lot of worlds to see. Maybe one day we'll speak again. The good news. and as he said this he crouched over me so that I could not escape his glare is that I know exactly where to find you don't forget to chlorinate the pool by the way oh and try to keep the overlapping realities separate this one isn't even that bad you just have to be patient

but some of the others I mean well you saw the message on that tree stump isn't even the half of it After that he left with a little ceremony, although I'm still not sure where or how he got out of the spire. He just abandoned me with that thing, that desperate, heaving, whining thing that pulled me close until it towered over me and I finally came to terms with the fact that I would die. With terrible slowness it lowered its enormous head down to within an inch of my own and I saw the gill-like openings on its face quiver and vibrate as spit dripped down onto my nose and cheeks.

It inched forward once more and pressed the broken skin against my entire face and I felt those strange holes puckered and twitch. Suddenly it took me up into its arms and hugged me its oversized arms trapping me like steel bars against a pink, sweaty chest. It held me there, quivering,

giggling, crying, and muttering to itself for hours. The whole goddamn night. I nearly went insane, kicking and crying to be let go. But it held me like some twisted mother until finally morning came, and it just disappeared into nothingness like the shadows once had. Since then, I found myself surprisingly alone. This town pretends that this place isn't real. and that extends to whatever poor soul is left up here.

When I tried walking out to here, the cops picked me up and brought me right back. Sometimes, an older man will answer my calls when I tried to ring my family. He doesn't answer my questions. He just tells me to do my job. I think I was set up from the start. I think James told them about his plans

to stick the job on me, long before he bugged off. Although, I don't think anyone knew it was his plan to send half the town's teenagers to a slaughterhouse. Then again, I can't be sure. No one will speak to me anymore. First night after the party, and those hands came back. But like James implied, they just left me alone.

Still, it wasn't exactly fun, so I did what he suggested and hit the library. It took weeks to find some of the stuff he was on about. But sure enough, a couple words and a few symbols in the right place, and they went away. Of course, every day after that was a lesson in some new perverse horror. It's been a year or two since then, and I don't think I've touched the surface on what the hell is going on here.

This isn't the life-calling I had in mind, at least the father had detailed notes that helped speed things up. They were these quick guides on things to write or somethings. say, and they help keep it quiet, or quietish at least. I think what I hate the most is that over time, I've started to sympathise with James, despicable monster that he is. He may have put me here, but it's that town that won't let me leave. They're the ones that made this arrangement, but for some reason, I'm the one who has to pay.

I wasn't born deaf. In fact, my hearing might have actually been rather good as a child. I remember struggling to sleep in those early years and hearing my parents whispered arguments rising up through the air vents and into my room. As I got older, it became increasingly difficult to piece together what they were saying from so far away until one night.

I couldn't hear them at all. That first night, I convinced myself that they simply had nothing to argue about, but I knew something was wrong when I found the same silence the following night. It was at that point that I began to realize that something was happening to me.

Everything around me was beginning to feel quieter. My parents had to start repeating everything they said to me and I was falling behind in classes where I sat in the back row and was unable to make out what my teachers were saying. I woke up one.

one morning at the age of 12 and realised I couldn't hear very much of anything. Suddenly, every sound around me was muffled. My parents were very career-driven and as such they were reluctant to bring me to the hospital lest they miss a day of work. It wasn't until I started to cry that they began to take me seriously. That day we discovered I was born with a genetic illness, one that was causing my eardrums to fill with fluid. Hearing aids would be of little use

and the problem was only going to get worse as I got older. My parents immediately pulled me from our small town school where they didn't have the resources to help me and sent me up with a private tutor from home to teach me sign language. They did their best to learn as well but they were already incredibly busy before this had happened and weren't quick to pick up more than the basics. I could still communicate to them vocally,

but they didn't have enough signs memorized to properly respond. Our interactions devolved into them miming basic instructions at me to do chores or brush my teeth. The only person in my life who really took the time to learn sign language was my friend Jonathan. Before I lost my hearing, Jonathan would come over just about every day after school to play video games and get into trouble.

Once I went deaf, he would come over and spend hours having me teach him everything my tutor had taught me. It wasn't long until we were having full-fledged conversations with our hands. Summer came as it inevitably does and Jonathan and I were able to spend

even more time together, running around the neighbourhood, getting into all sorts of mischief with our secret hand signals that no one else seemed to know. Our friendship felt stronger than ever through this, but my relationship with the rest of the world continued to deteriorate.

I didn't need sign language to express myself to others, but I couldn't understand what they were saying without it. My parents searched for any options they could to have me return to school in the fall, but nothing ever fell into place. I could get private schooling from home, But my parents didn't like the idea of me missing out on a formal education, let alone being home all day with just one teacher to socialise with.

That was the reasoning they gave me at least. But deep down, I knew the issue was that they were struggling to communicate with me. Without a proper way to talk, our relationship was strained, and I just became a nuisance that shared the same space as them. One night my parents sat me down and informed me with a printed letter that they had made arrangements for me to attend a boarding school for the deaf once summer ended. I was devastated when I found out, as was Jonathan when I told him the next day. Suddenly there was this wall between us, but I believed we'd move past it to enjoy what was left for summer together. When he didn't come over the following day,

I choked it up to him needing a bit more time to process what was happening. That was, until I saw him playing in the street with the other neighbourhood boys. I was in my room at the time playing video games when I noticed the ball fly by my window. I ran over to see if a game had started without me. I was shocked to see Jonathan there playing with several boys that he had never really seemed to like before. It was painful to watch.

the reality of what was happening play out before me. I had no doubt Jonathan was hurt by my leaving, but he had apparently decided I was a lost cause because of it, that any time spent with me now would just be a waste since I was going to leave at the end of summer. It seemed he had decided to start making new friends, friends that would be around in three months, friends that he could have real conversation with. In that moment, I simply wanted to leave. It was only the beginning of summer, but I felt so sick standing there and watching him have fun

without me. I wanted it to be September already, so I could go off and start my new life instead of sitting here and watching him start his. Then Jonathan seemed to notice me. He stopped in place when he saw me standing at my window, his fun expression replaced with one of guilt. I'm sorry, he signed. I simply closed the blinds.

As much as it hurt that he had left me alone like this, I knew that I didn't want to lose my childhood friend, much less the rest of my life there in my hometown. Instead, I decided I was going to get good at lip reading so that I wouldn't need to go to this school. So good that I would be able to continue living my life as if I could still hear him. The next day, after my parents went to work, leaving me to do whatever they believed a deaf child would do while home alone all day, I snuck into my parents' room and sat in front of my mother's vanity mirror.

It felt a little weird, sitting on such a girly chair, surrounded by makeup and looking into a mirror with such an ornate frame, but it was more comfortable than standing in the bathroom all day. I began talking. I first started at my typical speed and then later, more slowly, as to get a real look and how my mouth was shaped,

how it moved, how it extended and contracted and curled with every sound that I made. I spent the entire day staring in the mirror getting lost in the sight of my own lips moving, so much so that I didn't realize my parents had returned home until I felt my mother

putting a hand on my shoulder. She wasn't happy that I was in a bedroom, something that was generally forbidden for me, but she didn't have the proper sign language memorized to express her annoyance. Instead, she just swatted me lightly on the back and sent me out while she changed. That night, I sat between my mother and father at the dinner table and watched as they discussed their day with one another. It had only been about a month since my hearing became essentially non-existent, but already they had moved under talking as if I wasn't even there. It wasn't easy to tell what they were saying,

but I was beginning to recognise some words, particularly my name. The next day I continued this practice of sitting in front of the mirror, but stopped after a few hours to go watch the 24-hour news channel. There, I could see the close-ups of the anchors talking, but just enough context from the scrolling text to people, together certain words. This became my routine for the next few months, with weekends being my time off.

I didn't want my parents to know just how much work I was putting into this. The goal was to convince them that it was natural, that I was beginning to read lips with so much ease that it would be silly to send me off to a boarding school. I needed them to believe that even if I wasn't perfect at reading lips, that it was only a matter of time before I was. Some days were discouraging, of course, especially at first. I grew tired of seeing myself frown as I tried to memorize every word that the movement of my mouth translated to.

Over time, however, I saw my frown fading. Even on days where I was sad, my reflection seemed to show a version of me that was smiling underneath it all and encouraged me to keep going. By the end of summer, I seemed to have gotten my way. There were a lot of fights, a lot of mean words, a lot of me shouting about how they just wanted to get rid of me. But by the time school started, my parents had given in. I was reading lips well enough that as long as I was in the front row and teachers were generally facing the class, I would be able to understand what was happening.

On the first day of school, I ran into Jonathan, He spotted me as I hopped off my bus and I could see several emotions passed through his face. There was shock, of course, as he certainly hadn't been expecting me to return, as well as guilt and shame. But none of them were as prominent as the clear joy he was feeling had seen me there. I saw him shout my name as he pushed past several other students to wrap his arms around me in a big hug. I wasn't happy with how Jonathan had given up on me, but I was happy to forgive him.

After he realised all the work I had done to stay in his life, Jonathan returned the favour in full. He pushed for the school to give us the same schedule so that he could explain anything I may have missed, as well as help me with my homework each day. That year was difficult, but we got through it. His commitment to helping me never wavered, but I never let my guard down either. Anytime not spent with Jonathan or on schoolwork was generally spent in front of a mirror

practising my lip reading because, no matter how easy it seemed to become, I couldn't afford to go back on a single inch of the progress I had made. As the years went by, the burden I had on others slowly started to fade. I was always going to be slowing the people around me down

in one way or another, but as long as I kept talking to myself in the mirror, I was able to minimise it. I continued the practice into my adult years, at which point Jonathan and I had moved together into a small apartment in the city. He worked a part-time job, but I was being floated by my parents as well as a decent-sized disability check from the government, so I had plenty of time each day to practice in front of the mirror. At some point, I began to have fun with it, using it as a chance to really talk to myself.

I would vocally reminisce about sounds I enjoyed before I lost my hearing or express my concerns that Jonathan may leave me behind one day to pursue married life with a woman. I would often act out silly scenarios as well, asking myself questions I wanted to answer as if it was a full-blown conversation

between two people. Sometimes I would even ask my reflection questions about him and wait as if he would answer. That was when things started to change. I began to notice that with every passing day, I looked a little worse in the mirror. My face began to sag in ways that I wasn't familiar with, ways that made me look sad and scared. I began to ask myself questions about these changes.

Why did I look so different? Why did I look so sad? Was this just part of growing up? Was this what aging does to you? No matter how much I smiled, it looked insincere, with a sad expression seemingly hiding beneath it in my reflection. One day, I woke up feeling more chipper than usual, but what I saw in the mirror didn't match how I felt.

Instead, the face staring back at me looked terrified. I brought my hand up, tracing the frown I saw in the glass, the shape feeling different at my skin than it looked at my reflection. Everything felt just barely out of sync. What's going on? I asked aloud, just as I did with any question that passed through my mind in the privacy of my bathroom. And to my surprise, my reflection answered. I had not been looking at my reflection's lips when they had seemingly moved, only catching it thanks to my peripheral vision.

So I wasn't quite sure what they might have said. needless to say I was shocked my heart was pounding but I managed to keep my body still waiting for whatever had tricked me to become apparent I continued to stare

my lips just barely hovering open with awe as I stared at their reflection in the mirror my own lips were still but the reflections moved once again it was subtle his mouth barely

making motions, but I was able to see it, and I was able to read what it was saying. Please stop, it asked, or at least that's what I thought it said. I looked up to the eyes and once again saw them expressing a different emotion than I was. I felt confused, but what I saw in my reflection was fear and concern. I stared into those eyes, slowly leaning in, looking for any other sign that something here was out of the ordinary. Then the eyes of my reflection darted to the left for a split second. My own eyes widened with shock, but my reflections widened with worry, worry that I had noticed him doing something that I had not.

I moved in closer, my eyes darting between his eyes and lips, trying to catch any differences in our actions. Can you hear me? I asked, afraid of getting an answer. My reflection's eyes widened as I said this, his gaze darting to the left again to look at something that was just barely out of sight. His lips began moving at a rapid pace,

but I was only able to catch the latter half of what he was saying. Please stop, they are watching. They think I've been talking to you, they think... But that was all he got the chance to say. The mirror suddenly cracked as a quick blur flew at my reflection. I instinctively jumped, trying to avoid whatever it was from hitting me. But there was something in the room with me. Whatever it was, it only existed in the mirror, and only for an instant.

In the next, there was nothing left but the broken glass of the mirror, reflecting everything my bathroom. Everything, except me. Jonathan? I yelled. Jonathan. I raced out to the bathroom, hoping to hell him back

that I was able to catch him before he ran off to work. What was that? He mouthed. It seemed he had heard the mirror shattering. I didn't take the time to try and explain. Instead, I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the restroom with me.

There we found the broken mirror just as I left it, but my reflection had returned. Damn, what did you do? He mouthed, running his hand over the broken mirror. I'll call the landlord when I get to work, but I'm running late. I wanted to stop him, to grab him by the hand again, and explain everything that had just happened. But what exactly had happened? I had no idea how to do that. how to express what I had just witnessed, so I let him go.

As he turned to leave, I looked at his reflection and noticed that it too had a different expression than the one the real Jonathan wore. Just like mine before, his seemed concerned. I turned to stare at my own reflection, trying to find answers. Despite my now sad and concerned face, my reflection seemed happier, more. confident than before. Gone with the wrinkles and the frown lines, replaced now with a pebbly smile that underlined any emotion I showed with my own face. I refused to believe that I was misunderstanding the situation. This new reflection was able to match me perfectly, but I wasn't

going to let it fool me. I know you can hear me, I said, challenging him to move. And for a second he did. But then I saw his eyes move. They moved to his left the same way my previous reflections did, but I knew better than to turn my attention in that direction this time, and instead let my gaze drift down to his lips where I saw my frown twist into his syrupy, sweet smile. Hey there, he mouthed. I looked back to his eyes and saw in his expression that he knew I was reading his lips. He raised an eyebrow in an attempt to be friendly, but it only served to unsettle me more.

This wasn't the same reflection I had before. This was someone else who looked just like him, someone who looked just like me. It's okay, you can talk to me. He continued, his toothy grin, seeming like a clownish parody of my own. What were you and that other guy?

talking about before? I stood there, silently, not sure how to answer, and questioning if I should. You can tell me, he pressed, his smile widening. You weren't getting trouble. Just tell me, come on. He kept talking, his lip movement so distinct I could almost hear him when I closed my eyes. He kept mouthing about how he could help me. how he could tell me more secrets if I just explained what my first reflection had told him.

I left the bathroom, but everywhere I looked there seemed to be more reflections. Door knobs, countertops, windows, anything that showed even just a blurry image of me, suddenly felt unsafe. I spent the day in my bedroom with every reflective surface I could find covered by some spare article of clothing, just waiting for Jonathan to come home. Over the next few days, I began to feel a little better around reflective services, and eventually life went back to almost normal. I made sure never to look directly at my reflection in the mirror again, however, instead opting to use the camera on my phone as a way of fixing my hair in the mornings. When I am out and about though, I sometimes catch my reflection in my peripheral vision.

Sometimes it's in the windows of a building Or sometimes in a puddle on the sidewalk But it's impossible to not notice I do my best not to look at it directly But my reflection knows that I am avoiding him When no one else is paying attention I can see that his lips are moving out of the corner of my eye Still mouthing his empty promises

Telling me that it's okay to talk to him that he just wants to know what my previous reflection had told me, that he can share even more cool secrets if I can be honest with him. Sometimes I am tempted to answer, but I hold myself back. After all, whatever their secrets are, they are willing to kill one of their own to not have it get out. I could only imagine what they do to a real human

if I gave them the chance. It started innocently enough. What's wrong with the dog? What do you mean? He was sitting by my legs and he looked fine enough to me. I mean, he hasn't stopped scratching himself all day. Marnie scrunched up a nose. It's driving me crazy.

He's fine, aren't you, buddy? Jasper stared up at me with his big brown eyes, healthy as a clam. Just so you know, if I see a single tick on that dog, I'm driving him straight to a shelter. Very funny. It was a bit of an inside joke we had. When I pitched the idea of getting a dog, Marnie was absolutely against it. But the second we saw Jasper, she fell in love with his little beagle face.

Now she loves him as much as I do. I scratched his head absentmindedly, and that was that. or so I thought A couple days later I heard Marnie call me from the garden She looked up at me triumphantly I told you on the floor next to Jasper's paw

Was a single brown tick It wriggled on its back Its fat belly swollen with blood I looked at it with a mixture of disgust And morbid fascination Do you think he has more Marnie shrugged, I guess, tics rarely live alone, don't you think? Nonchalantly, she squished it with a boot.

Dark blood oozed out of the tick with a steady trickle. Poor Jass. I rubbed to the back of his ears. I'll stop by the pharmacy later today and see if they have anything for it. You do that. Marnie leaned her head against mine, her deep red hair glowing in the warm, summer sun. Anyway, I was thinking of planting some sunflowers near the patio. What do you think? I think it'll turn out amazing. The garden, my wedding present for Marnie, was her pride and joy.

I kissed her on the forehead. I'll pick up some seeds then too. I could feel Marnie's smile against my shoulder. I really looked out with you, huh? You did, I murmured into her hair. You certainly did. For two weeks, the tics refused to back down. We tried everything. Tick powder, tick baths, even anti-tick pills, whatever those were. No matter what, we would find Jasper furiously scratching himself day after day. Finally, I decided to turn to the place that always had answers for me.

Reddit. I posted on a few dog subs I follow, asking if they had any solution. for Jasper. As the reply started trickling in, I felt my heart sinking. I had tried pretty much everything everyone suggested. Then, about a week after I had posted, I got a reply that piqued my interest. It was by a user called Joseph Bluey. He wrote, selling a tick collar will work 100% guaranteed, DM me for more details. I was pretty sure it was an ad. But at that point, I was getting desperate. Anyway, I thought to myself, what's the worst that could happen? I messaged. Hey, I saw you come into my post and was interested.

Is your tick collar still for sale? Yes, selling it for $15 plus shipping. Oh, great. Um, what exactly does the collar do? Uses electronic pulses to paralyze all ticks within a day. They drop off for easy clean-up, keep it on for five days and eggs will drop too. At this point, I was calling BS. At best, it seemed like a worthless gimmick. At worst, it could seriously hurt my dog. I decided to show it to Marnie and see what she thought. To my surprise, she seemed into it.

It's only 15 bucks after all. If it doesn't work, we can just throw it out. Well, I pointed out, 15 bucks plus shipping. She rolled her eyes. Lewis, I just want Jass to get well soon. I feel weird cuddling him, knowing I'm cuddling his parasites too.

As disturbing as that is, I agree. So, should I ask him to send it over? Oh, hell no. I'm not letting some stranger know our address. She frowned for a moment. Then, thumb to the dining table. Ooh, why don't you have it sent over to my office? Like a thousand people work there. There's no way he can track us down. Sounds good to me,

my paranoid little wife. Marnie leaned over the table and fed Jasper a piece of a casserole. You're getting all your ticks off soon, baby. Aren't you excited? He thumped his tail in agreement. The colour looked nothing like what I was expecting. It was made of hard black metal, thin blue lines outlining it, positioned to rest right at the the nape of the dog's neck. It almost seemed to glow. Though Marnie claimed to feel nothing, I could swear it was warm to the touch. I put it on Jasper, honestly expecting to throw it away within a couple days. As I latched it around his neck, Jasb bucked under my arms, whining petulantly. As soon as it was fastened though, he immediately quieted down. I rubbed his belly.

I better not find you dead tomorrow, you hear me. I absolutely could not believe my eyes. I was used to finding one or two dead ticks on Jasper's bed every other day, but the morning after we put the collar on him, we were greeted with dozens, if not hundreds, of beady little bodies. Each one of them was on their back, tiny legs up in the air. I cautiously pressed my pinky into one, though it could not have dropped more than a couple hours ago

it was rock hard as if it had been dead for days Marnie kissed Jasper's head Ah was my little Jasby covered in that many Poor baby I was stunned Marnie don't you think something fishy is going on here

Fishing how Like how do you think the collar works How could it do all this in one night She shrugged. Well, whatever it did, it worked, didn't it? I don't know. Something about this gives me the creeps. I'm taking the collar off for now.

She laughed. Oh, come on now, you big sissy. Jasper's fine, isn't he? The guy said keep it on for a week, and I really don't want to have to deal with any more ticks. In the end, I relented. Just four more days, I told myself. Day 1

Hey sweetie, when's the last time you clean the garden porch? Marnie raised an eyebrow. Oh, does the men at the house think I'm not a good enough housewife? I ignore the jab. Just look at all these dead flies. They couldn't be this many unless the porch hasn't been cleaned for at least a couple weeks. Well, since you're such a genius, why is there no dirt on the porch? Did the flies lick it away, do you think?

Huh? I said I'm sorry for being mad You're forgiven I would never let Jasper's favourite in that place go and cleaned anyway And though I said nothing to her I worried Day two Hey Lewis get a load of this

I looked towards where Shane was pointing And instinctively lurched back Ugh Shane crouched down It's dead stiff Must have been dead for a couple weeks now by the looks of it. I cautiously bent over.

That's a tarantula, isn't it? I've never seen one so big. Me neither, man. It's a real beauty for sure. He nudged me with his beer bottle. Hey, you should put it up in a nice glass box. Chicks totally dig that. Yeah, I said, I'm sure Marnie would be thrilled to hear that. Still, man, he insisted.

Think I was sick at a look hanging in your dog. den, you won't find another one like this out in the wild, I can tell you that for sure. I scooped it up and put it in a Tupperware, more to shut Shane up than because I actually wanted it. Shane sat back down on his lawn chair. So, do we ever go for Anderman? I took a seat next to him. Oh, I don't know. Dude, Shane leaned forward. This is Anderman we're talking about. You will probably like a bit of context here. Shane and I make a living by building vacation homes in exotic locations, built for people who made more money in a month than I'll see in my entire life.

It's not the most well-paying job, sure, but it definitely beats slaving behind a desk. Anderman, an island off the coast of India, was our dream job. I'd wanted it forever, but something I couldn't quite put into words was holding me. back. Shane could sense my discomfort. Think of this, a month in Anderman with the team. We can build ten houses easy. It's easy money and it's the place we've wanted to go since we were teens. You in or you're out? I took a deep breath. I'm in. Day three. Hanging out of the crew

was one of my favourite parts of the job. There were eight of us in total, most of whom had left the well-paying 9 to 5s to take a chance on our startup. I felt proud knowing that we had done them good. I spent the day with them, laying the finishing touches on our prep work and drinking a few too many beers. Around 7 in the morning, I called it a day and got into the car.

I was driving down the interstate, feeling the familiar warm tingle of a good post-drinking buzz when my phone beeped in my pocket. It was Marnie. Don't forget to pick up Jasper. Damn it! Marnie's little niece, Maru, had been begging for a dog for years now.

Finally, Mara's mom, Robin, gave in. She promised Maru that if she could take care of Jas for a day, they would think about getting a puppy. I turned the car around, heading to Robin's house. Robin entered the door, with tear-stained eyes. What happened? I asked, concerned, and more than a little bit worse. worried. Are you all right? I guess, sniffed Robin. It's just, Snuffles died a couple hours ago.

He was playing with Jasper, right as rain, and then when I go give them the dinners, I find him. He was stone cold. When I told Marnie the news later that evening, she shook her head, sadly. Oh, poor Robin, I'll call her tomorrow. But don't you think something's going on here? Isn't it suspicious that it happened the very day Jasper goes over? Oh, you and your theories, Marnie said dismissively. Snuffles was 12 years old, Lewis. Cats die. And she would hear no more of it.

Day four. It was Sunday morning and I felt too lazy to get out of bed. Marnie, who had the energy of a teenager, though she was well into her thirties, was up and about before I was completely awake. I let myself drift away, enjoying the warmth of the sun, drifting through the curtains and the familiar weight of Jasper snoring on my belly. A couple minutes later, Marnie shook me out of my reverie. Time to get up, lazy bones. Dinner's getting cold. You're hilarious, Marn. Give me a sec. I'll come give you a hand with breakfast.

Marnie gave me a funny look. Lewis, it's 8 p.m. Are you feeling okay? I jolted up. All feelings of sleepiness gone. How's that possible? He couldn't have been more than ten minutes since Marley left the bed, yet the skies outside were dark. I looked over at Jasper. The collar around him seemed to glow brighter, mocking me. Two months later. I entered the airport, full of excitement. The crew and I had spent the most glorious month in India, living in Paradise was an experience I would never forget. The only con was that Marnie wasn't there with me.

Our construction site was on an area with absolutely no internet or phone service, and living without any contact with my wife was torture. She had promised to leave a phone message every single day, and I couldn't wait to hear her voice. I switched on my phone for the first time in a month. You have nine new messages. Huh? I'd been gone for over a month

and I'd been expecting quite a few more messages than that. Maybe Marnie got lazy, I told myself, as I played the messages in chronological order. Didn't seem quite like her though. Beep! Hey there, lover, you must be at the airport by now. I miss you already. Kisses from Jasper and me.

I smiled to myself. I miss them more. than I realized. Beep! Day two. Jasper started sleeping on my neck through the night. Guess he loves me more than you now. I really should be more productive with my time.

Maybe make a pure gold statue of you. Thoughts? Beep! Can one month pass any slower? I'm literally going crazy here. Making fun of the neighbours just isn't the same without you. Love you forever, babe. Beep!

Guess who's wearing your purple silk boxes? And nothing else. If only you were here to see it in person, hmm? Beep! It's the weekend. If I look at a single line of code for the next two days, I will actually vomit. Oh, by the way, remember Jasper's tick collar?

He seemed to be getting itchy around the neck again, so I put it back on him. Remember how paranoid you were over it? Oh, the good old days. my heart ran cold I had stowed the collar away in the farthest reaches of a cupboard vowing never to set eyes on it again

with worry I played the next message Beep Guess what The sunflowers finally bloomed Oh they're absolutely gorgeous I can't wait for you to see them Bebe

Another uneventful day I had a bit of a headache this morning So I popped a few ad-dove I miss you. Beep! I didn't go to work today. I just can't pull myself together enough to get up. I really hope I can get out of this funk soon.

Beep! Are you ever coming back home, baby? I've already forgotten what your face looks like. I think I'm going to take a nap now. I'm just tired. So tired. Why do my bones feel so heavy? It was a heart attack, they told me.

I'd called the police the second I played the last message. The plane ride was the worst 20 hours of my entire life. Everyone dismissed my stories of the collar as the craze ramblings of a grieving husband. It was just a freak coincidence, everyone told me. Her body was found on the bed, stiff as a board, her eyes wide open. I buried her in the garden she loved so very much. People thought I was crazy keeping my dead wife so close to me

but I liked having a nearby As for the collar I cut it to pieces and threw it into a landfill I vowed that no one should ever face it again I scoured the internet for Joseph Blewey the seller of the collar But he seemed to have disappeared completely In a way

I was glad That part of my life was over One month after the funeral How are you, man, really? I'm getting better, I said truthfully Things will never be the same, obviously But the pain isn't as raw That's great

Shane clapped me on the shoulder You had us all worried Not to rush you, but Do you think you'll be up for a construction job In the near future? I'm getting there, I told him, maybe in a while. He nodded silently. I got up.

Give me a sec. I went to the bathroom. Not really because I needed to use it, but more for a break from Shane. After the seemingly infinite stretch of memorials and services and vigils, I found it nearly impossible to be around people for more than a few minutes at a time. I closed my eyes, focus and. on my breathing. Then, from the den,

What the hell? Shane was staring at something on the wall, mouth hanging open. Jasper was going absolutely crazy next to him. As I got closer, I realized what they were looking at. It was the tarantula. It was wriggling around in its box,

thudding its head on its confines with a steady rhythm. Then, with more power than its body could hold, it broke free of the box with an almighty thwack. Its round torso, previously a shiny black, was now the dull green of rotting flesh. Its bright red eyes fixed on me with human-like hate. It reared on its hind legs, ready to attack. But before it could leap forward, I saw a blur in my periphery. It was Shane, holding the decorative samurai sword that hurt.

hung in my den. With a yell, he brought it down on the spider, again and again and again. As deep purple blood oozed out of its mangled corpse, Shane looked up at me. What the hell, man? And then, everything clicked. The message on Reddit.

It said, Within a day, they'll get paralysed. Not dead. Paralyzed. Not dare faintly, oh so faintly, I could hear digging coming from my garden. Sticks and stones may break my bones if these words deign to haunt me. That twisted little rhyme has lurked in this town for as long as anyone can remember. Most say it's just the twisted ramblings of a previous generation of small-town folk with poor memory,

warping the words of Kingfort or Redford. But the old-timers, those gnarled old geeseers and hags that sit on their porch rockers waiting for death, swear on God that those are the real words. The original verse is stolen from the law of this sleepy antique town. The children on the battered playground equipment outside the dilapidated schoolhouse gleefully shout the words as they run through their games, just as their parents did, just as their grandparents did before. Just as I did, barely more than that they did.

than a decade ago. Averyville is an old and forgotten place, originally founded in 1826, and on the decline ever since as the thick forest around it were drained of their bounties and the hills mine dry of silver and oil. The ragged town is far past the point where such a place can be called quaint. More apt descriptors such as rundown and depressing are more often used. No one not born here stays in. in Averyville for long. Travelers passing through might stop by the gas station or convenience

store, neither of which have seen any kind of upgrade since the 1950s, but they're soon speeding back towards the interstate. I've never seen anyone stay more than one night at the decrepit old motel, and certainly never more than one car in the guest lot at a time. Though I was born here, delivered in the doctor's office's single medical suite, I was one the lucky few who escaped the apathetic hold of Aviville. Solid schooling and interest beyond the day-to-day monotony that plagued my fellow classmates earned me a college scholarship, a rare ticket out of the isolated and sleepy town which I quickly accepted. I had broken free, pursuing a higher education and heights beyond anything my peers

back home could ever hope to accomplish. I earned a degree, a career, and home in a lively city far away. But Averyville has its way to drag me back. I had received a call from Dr. Friedman only a handful of weeks ago. The shaky voice of the man who had delivered me into this world greeting me over the phone. Static hissed through our entire conversation. Averyville's ancient telephone wires apparently just as decrepit as when I had grown up there. The kind old doctor had given those faithful words. It's your mother, Alex. She's taken a turn. He had sighed.

It won't be long now. She needs you here. And so I took a leave of absence from the firm, dropped my cat off at the home of a most willing acquaintance, and, with my affairs in order, I had made the pilgrimage back to my hometown, the pit of missed potential and apathetic misery that had swallowed my friends and family.

I've been living with and caring for my dying mother for just under a month now, the new head of the home I had once grown up in. My mother was never a particularly lively woman, but now she had grown to look positively wasted. She was dreadfully thin, the smallest movements causing her gaunt limbs to shake with the effort. Her hair was thin and patchy, the translucent and spotted skin of her scalp visible under the wisps of white.

Her glassy and wet eyes always stared blankly forward at the television I had brought into a room. The ravages of dementia had robbed her of nearly all understanding. The doctor was right. It was only a matter of time. We had never been particularly close, my mother and I. But this experience had strained what little care I had for her. Honestly, I began to fear that, perhaps I hated her. The next door neighbour, a kind middle-aged woman named Mrs. Peterson would occasionally take my place in the home to allow me at least a few hours of respite from the work of caring for my mother.

This was one such time, a brief chance to escape the dismal life of caring for a dying parent too far gone to even appreciate what you're doing for them. I found myself in the town's only diner, lounging in a battered booth. across the greasy table from me sat Chris Vettas, one of the best friends I made in high school. Unlike me, he had never been able to escape this place. When I had called him up from my mother's house, he was ecstatic to hear I was back in town. We had met at the diner a couple times over the month I'd been here. I stared in dull amazement as he ate, finishing his burger in barely three bites. Jesus, you know I've been watching you eat since we were ath.

13 and I still can't believe you haven't choked a death on a chicken bone or something. Chris snorted through a mouth full of fries. Hey man, gonna take a lot more than a burger to take me down. I let out a derisive chuckle. I mean, you say that, but how many heart attacks is your old man on now? Six? Chris swallowed his food before laughing, pointing a ketchup splotched finger my way. Whoa, sticks and stones, man. Sticks and stones.

Memories washed back over me. It was the first time I had been reminded of the old playground rhyme since I had left town all those years ago, probably longer. The cold and distant dread I had felt as a child, hearing those words, tingled somewhere deep in my gut. Chris noticed the twitch of dark expression as it flashed across my face. Oh, damn, that's right. He never did like that old rhyme. Uh, I don't know.

It's not that I don't like it. I just never quite understood it. Seems like the old-time is superstitious crap to me. Chris leaned back in the cracked red leather of the booth. Fair enough, but those golden oldies certainly cling to it. I don't know anyone in town who wasn't taught the rhyme by their grandparents. He paused, mid-thought, to take a swig of flat coke from his glass. And, I mean, you can't forget about Janney and what they say happened to her.

I felt my face flush with a spark of angry annoyance. It was senior year, man. Why the hell do all you people still talk about Janney like that? I leaned into my words. Have you ever met her piece of crap dad, her deadbeat mom? Janie ran and got the hell out of this town, just like me. Chris's mood visibly darkened. Look, Alex, think what you want,

but most everyone around here knows the story. And what the hell do you mean, you people? You were born here too, you know. I sighed. Hey, you're right. I'm sorry. I have no right to be an ass. Taking care of Mom has just been crushing, you know. I swear she's killing me just as much as the sickness is killing her.

Chris tilted his head and gave a sympathetic half-smile. He had always been understanding. It just always rubbed to me the wrong way when people talked about Janie like that. That something came for her. She bailed, man. ran for a better life, you know. I hear you. The people in this town are so convinced, though,

always talking about the old stories. People have always trusted, too, not just the seen-or-not cases. I mean, damn, Sheriff Dougal, Principal Green, and Mrs. Hayden all say they saw what came for journey that night, and I don't think the three of them

have ever told a lie in their lives. I frowned again, upset that my burger was cooling into the concealed ball of grease as the conversation took this dark turn. Whatever man, not convincing. The whole town was in a panic after journey disappeared. Group hysteria does crazy things to people's brains.

Mrs Hayden didn't step forward with a story until the sheriff's report was published. She'd probably just convinced herself she had seen something that night. And the old times have been shoving stories down her throat since we were born. Of course her head start to manufacture stuff like this. I get where you're coming from. I really do. Chris retorted,

but every old story is rooted in something, something true. He shrugged and finished off his coke, almost choking as the ice jammed to the bottom of his glass slid free. I laughed, shaking my head. You really believe that? You really think that words can choose to be haunted? That Johnny chewed out of dirtbag parents

and something heard her, came for her? B.S. Man. That's fairy tale crap. Stories to keep kids from backtalking. their parents. Hey, I just know what people say. Chris quietly responded, eyeing my untouched burger. Without a word, I pushed the plate across to him. God, you're the best, he said with a grin. Sticks and stones will find your home, not trees or seas will hide you. It had been six scrawling days since the meal at the diner, six days of brutal work alone in my childhood home.

last six days of my mother's life. When the big drop came, it came fast. She couldn't eat, couldn't drink. I had to spoon what little thin soup I could into a drooling, slack-jawed mouth. The smell was awful, though I bathed her every single day, hoisting her tiny and decrepit form into the shallow tub, where there was a constant stench of sickness and bodily waste. It was as if the pall of death Was oozing from a pause

The reek of her sickness clung to everything No matter how much I cleaned Her mind had left her as well The woman I cared for in the house Those final days was no longer my mother As dementia and fever Boiled in her head She grew cruel

Like a cornered animal Too weak to strike out She spent what little energy she had Slowing vicious insults in my direction her bloodshot eyes tinged with cold malice. Don't you touch me, you cretine. Get your father, he has a belt. Why were you born, useless child?

Who are you? Tell me who you are, you stupid piece of... God damn you to hell! For six days, I endured such abuse. My mother and I had never been particularly close. Her cold and distant demeanour ensured I hadn't become particularly attached, but her words cut deep in.

anyway. More than once I had to lurch from her bedside to slump in the hallway, unable to hold back the tears any longer. On the sixth and final day, my mother truly unleashed her animal hate. You're killing me, you little... God, you always were an evil little ass! The tears came too fast to leave the room today. She continued to spit her ranted words as the air around us grew thick. with the smell of death. I should have smothered you in the crib, never wanted you anyway. I couldn't stand it any longer.

I jolted to my feet, bringing an accusatory finger mere inches from my dying mother's face. Don't say another goddamn word, Mom. The title tasted like acid on my tongue as my hate for her swelled. I'm tired of this. Just die already. Her face went slack then. the malice and colour draining away in an instant. She turned her glassy eyes to stare directly into my gaze as my hand started to quiver.

She spoke in a gentle, quiet way, almost reflective. I said what I said, you said what you said. Sticks and stones may break my bones if these words deign to haunt me. And then she fell silent. eyes blank and unseeing. She slumped down into the bed. Her tiny and disease ravaged frame

like a broken doll or puppet with its strings cut. Her throat rattled one final, weak exhalation. She... was gone. Dr. Friedman and Sheriff Dugal arrived about half an hour after I called them. Two men who I had considered old even as a child. They stood on the porch

as I entered the door, hats clasped and gnarled hands out of respect for the dead. The rickety old van they used as an ambulance waited in the drive, engine thrumming in the darkness that had fallen. We exchanged quiet words of grief and sympathy, and they took my mother away. I sat in the living room late into the night. The world around me choked by silence. What did she mean?

Why would she say that damn wrong? rhyme. Questions pounded inside my skull as I stared out the window into the wind-warked pines beyond the yard, the dark shapes dancing in the night. Avaryville was always different after nightfall, the outskirts of town hemmed in by black walls of forest and the buzzing chatter of the nocturnal world. The streets themselves were shade labyrinths lit by dim yellow street lights, dully glowing glass-topped antiquities that flickered in the wind. Narrow homes loomed pale in the night. Decrepid architecture of generations past like hazy ghosts on the edge of the light.

Sighing with growing exhaustion, I rose to my feet and walked to the front door. With a twist I locked the deadbolt and moved to the large landscape window across the room that looked out from the living room and into the yard and street beyond. I reached up and began to yank at the drapes, preparing to close out the night. My heart stopped in my chest and my blood ran cold as ice. The hairs on the back of my neck rose, an incessant itch of mortal danger. Something was walking down the street towards downtown. I only caught the briefest glimpse, movement in the dim light of a solitary street lamp.

Surely I hadn't actually seen anything. A pale limb, a leg perhaps, swinging out of the light. It had been so long and thin, like a stroke of a white pen. But I had seen it, bending and stepping out along the street. No, no way. I stepped back from the window, shaking the sleep from my head. Get a grip, Alex. You just had a hell of a day.

Your mother passed away. You're exhausted. Take it easy, all right? Yeah, exhausted and seeing things. That's what it had to be. Shakily, I finished closing the drapes and collapsed onto the couch. Sleep overtook me, plagued with dreams of thin limbs, chalky skin, and the impassive stare of an apex predator.

Sticks and stones will take a prize. No hurried flight can save you. I awoke with a sudden jolt, sunlight breaching the thin gap between the drapes. The horrid wrapping upon the door sounded again, stealing the last of the drowsiness from my mind. I opened the door to the time-weathered face of Sheriff Dougal, a grimace of concern under his bushy white mustache. He took his cap in his hand as he started to speak. Alex, may I step inside? It's about your mother.

We sat across the dining room table from one another, separated by a vase of wilted flowers and some ragged old doilies. Finally, I broke the silence. What do you mean she's gone? Like you guys moved her to the morgue in Braxton? The sheriff shook her head. What I mean is she's gone, Alex. I don't know what to say.

We took her to the morgue in the basement of the doctor's office last night, and when he and the mortician opened up the door this morning, she wasn't there anymore. Just furnished. All do respect, Dugel. but what the hell do you mean? Someone stole my dead mother? That she got up and walked away?

Huh, Sheriff? I couldn't contain my frustration. Sheriff Dugall drawled in his slow manner of speech. I don't know, Alex. You'd know I wouldn't be lying to you. You've known me too long for that. He sighed defeatedly. No signs of a breaking,

nothing else stolen or broken. Just your mother gone missing. Doors were still locked when Doc Freeman got back this morning. I dropped my head into my hands, nearly shaking with anger and confusion. It didn't make any sense. How was she acting before she passed? Was she angry? The sheriff's sudden question made my stomach twist in knots.

Excuse me? Your mother, was she acting like herself before she passed away? What does this have to do with anything? Sometimes people change at the end. Say things. Did she say things, Alex? My face flushed red as I instinctively bared my teeth. Jesus, you too, her?

You're talking about the rhyme? Like what happened with... Janie Moore? Yeah. Dougal sighed as he leaned back into his chair. A lot like that case, Alex. No way. Janie bailed out of this hellhole,

one of the few people around. her smart enough to get out what they still could. If I hear one more damn story about her, did you say things back to your mother? What? When she changed in the end, did you say things back to her? What does that have to do with anything?

So you did. What kind of question is that? I see heathed across the table. The sheriff's face, impassive, under thinking eyes. So you did, all right. He said, standing from his chair, and collecting his cap from the table beside him. I'll let you know if any more information comes out about your mother.

Yeah, sure. Get out of here into your job, doggle. I spat as I followed him to the door. As he stepped out onto the porch, he turned back to me. I don't mean to be insensitive, but I just hope that this is some weirdo with a key to the morgue, for your sake, as he turned and walked towards him.

his squad car, I rolled my eyes, a petulant and juvenile act of impotent defiance. I shoved the door closed, catching the sheriff from muttering a short burst under his breath. I couldn't hear the words, but I didn't need to. I slumped back onto the couch, mind contorting to contend with all that had transpired. Sticks and stones, a spiteful foe. He takes more if you flee him. Chris came by my house later in the day, having snatched a bag of takeout from the diner on his way over after work. I called him not too long after the sheriff had left and he was more than willing to come keep me company after a shift at the run-down old mill.

We hadn't talked much, sitting in tent silence as evening came and passed. As the sun began to dip behind the pines, I turned to my friend. I don't get it, man. Why is this happening? Who would do something like that? Steal a corpse. Chris sniffed, pausing for a moment before responding. There are a lot of freaks out in the world.

Bad people. It's just... He trailed off again. It's just what? It's Avryville. People talk, you know. Talk about the old stories. Talk about what happens to Janie.

What happened to your mom? He saw the tired, exasperated look fall across. cross my face. Not that they mean anything by it. It's just talk. Just the old time is talking. I let slip a frustrated sigh, too tired to be angry anymore. Damn, man, should have known. We had always moved quick in this town. Chris raised his eyebrow in a rye agreement. So, what are they saying? I finally asked, already knowing what he was going to say. He stooped forward in the couch, fidgeting his half-empty beer bottle, obviously uncomfortable. Just, you know, it came and took her.

Uh, sticks and stones, like the rhyme. I snorted in Derison. Yeah, what a load of crap. Mr. Daring down at the diners swears he saw something last night. Mrs. Bormand swear she saw it walking down the street towards town. weird stuff man my chest gripped tight as he said that the memory of a thin white limb

just out of view brought screaming back to the front of my mind what what did she say about it ah you know just something walking down the street I mean she's old probably just half remembering what Principal Green described

back when Jenny went missing you know I could tell he was holding back how he really felt being tender around my beliefs about Averyville's old law. I could tell, he was scared. And truth to be told, so was I. I didn't know what I had seen, what I really believed. We sat in contemplative silence for a few long minutes.

Both of us struggling against what we held as truth and the strangeness that had seeped into our lives. Night had fallen in earnest at this point, The window is only lit by the dim lamp post across the street, its bending L-curve standing alone on the sidewalk. The rest of the world was swallowed by the blackness of a starless night and the bows of the pines. Chris quietly nursed down the rest of his beer as I stared towards the big front window, lost deep in thought. The wind washed through the trees, whistling down the street and causing the street light to gently rock back and forth, almost hypnotic. A narrow, pale face peaked out from behind the street lamp at the end of the L curve.

My scream caught to my throat, strangled by shock and disbelief as to what I was seeing. Something behind the post stood up, knowing it had been spotted. It straightened up from its previous position, matching the silhouette of the streetlight, rising to a standing height taller than the utility post it hit behind. Unnaturally thin, impossibly so. A thing, two stories tall, thin enough to hide behind a light pole. It stepped out from its hiding place on stick-thin legs. A human form stretched beyond the creative vision of any sane god.

With a jointless, awkward gait, it stepped from where it stood, pale flesh disappearing into the blackness beyond the dim lamp. Shocked, I slowly turned back to Chris. He was frozen next to me on the couch His eyes locked on the window He muttered a name under his breath A dull, groaning creek pressed in from somewhere in the old house

A testing pressure on an external wall Chris and I jolted upward Catching each other's terrified glances The slow creaking sounded again From somewhere else outside the building Then the house felt silent. Chris and I stood, stock still, holding our breath as the quiet coiled in around us. From upstairs, we heard it. A faint, rusted rattle as one of

the antique window clasps ground open. We got to go, man, Chris hissed, barely moving as he listened to the quiet clamoring above us. No, no, this isn't real. It's not. It's not. I snatched up an empty beer bottle from the table in front of me. Screw this, screw this! I took off towards the staircase, brandishing my chosen weapon, dashing up the stairs three at a time. I heard Chris's shouted protest, but I had already made up my mind.

I skidded to a halt at the top of the stairs, eyes straining against the darkness of the hallway that stretched beyond me. Ahead to my right was the door to my childhood. bedroom shut tight. To my left, the narrow alcove that held the home's tiny washer and dryer, and straight ahead the open door to my parents' room, the room in which my mother had died, the door to that room sat open. Beyond the frame, I could see the window, open, and with the white curtains on either side of it billowing in the wind like manic spectres. Beyond the whistle of wind, The hall was silent as death.

I held the bottle above my head, preparing to smash it over the head of anything I encountered. I crept slowly forward, eyes locked on the open doorway before me. My bare feet caused the old house's floorboards to creak with an odd protest as I made my way, silently cursing the groaning noise.

After an agonizingly slow advance, I reached the doorway, steadying myself on the frame with my free hand, Every step I took felt as if it would be my last, as if whatever I'd seen outside would lash out from the darkness to strike me down. God, was it even real? It had been so quick, so ethereal. Group hysteria, right? Chris and I were just seeing things.

I couldn't tell anymore. The wind gusted, sending the curtains billowing towards me in waves of undulating fabric and shocking me. and shocking me from my thoughts. Heart racing and eyes wide, I slowly realized there was nothing in the room. No ghosts, no ghouls, no nothing from an old schoolyard rhyme. Sighing with relief,

I turned back to face the hall in time to see Chris cresting the stairs, joining me on the second floor. He spoke as he made his way towards me. Damn man, is there anything back there? His voice was shaky, with barely concealed terror. No, nothing, and replied as he continued down the hall. Nothing at all.

Damn, man, damn, can we just get out of here? It doesn't feel right. Feels like the night Janney disappeared. It feels like he never got to finish his sentence. With jerking movements, fast and silent, a spasming flesh. Something emerged from the partially ajar hatch. on the dryer. It unfurled narrow, lashing limbs and its pale, gaunt body from within the tiny space, looping outward jointly like a filling hose or spilled in it. A leg emerged, then a shoulder,

an arm, a hand, its white worm-like meat spilling out into the hall. It was so, so very thin, absurdly so, it's so tall that as it emerged from its hiding place, its wiring, form filled the hall like scrolling lines. So tall, my mind arched with the task of comprehending how it had contorted itself into such a tiny opening. Only the limbs of the thing gave any indication that this twisted mass of unfolding something was in any way humanoid. Arms and legs alike ended in hands, bearing fingers, as long as my legs that spasmed and twitched like the limbs of a fly-trap in web. Its head emerged, turning to face me with a blank, predatory stare. Its mouth was a wide, lipless slit held tightly shut.

Its eyes were black, glassy orbs, white set in its wormy visage, wet with mucus and rolling in its skull. It opened his mouth as it saw me, revealing a yawning black moor, surrounded by blacken gums, from which jotted jagged nub-like teeth. The thing lurched out into the hallway, faster than either of us could have imagined such a thing could ever move, unfurling and unfolding into a mess of bent limbs and white flesh between Chris and I. I let out a shocked scream, terror and adrenaline overtaking all rational thought. Chris stood stock still and gagging on his breath, shocked into an action. Instinct overtook me and I turned towards the room behind me, dashing for the open window.

I heard the thing slithering one of its bizarre limbs snaking towards me, pale meat creaking and stretching out to take me into its clutches. I burst through the open window, tender-like fingers caressing the back of my neck as I narrowly dodged what would have been certain death. As I rolled and bounced along the roof of the porch, I caught a glimpse back through the window. As the thing turned away from me as I escaped it,

and it fixed its stare back down the hall towards Chris. One last hard bounce and I was plummeting over the edge, my weight crashing into the rusted gutter and tearing it free. I hit the ground heavily, landing hard on my back and ripping the air from my lungs. Just as blackness overtook me, I heard Chris start to scream. I was only out for a few minutes at most, drifting from traumatic, unconsored, consciousness to dizzy awareness as my body urged itself back into action. As I came to, I found myself where I had fallen, lying in my back among the grass of the

front yard. I watched through hazy eyes, blurred by tears and pain, as the thing walked past me towards the street. It towered above me, lurching forward on thin limbs. As it passed, it looked down at me with its passive, staring face in little more than a disinterested glance. Then, I saw its stomach no longer narrow and pale like the rest of its body, but instead distended and deep red like an overfed tick. From within came an awful, slow grinding noise

like the shifting of wet gravel in a slow motion blender, the sound of what could have only been, shredding flesh and splintering bone. Occasionally a shape would press weakly out against the translucent crimson skin. The desperate, broken limbs and contorted face of my dying friend as the thing's innards took him apart.

The thing stepped beyond me, long legs like pale cable, carrying its stride far out into the dimly lit street. Sticks and stones looked away from me as it went. disappearing into the darkness beyond the street light. As the dead weight of silence pressed in all around me, oppressive on my aching and fallen body, I succumbed once again to the blackness.

If you asked me five years ago what I'd be doing with my life, it wouldn't have been this. Now, don't get me wrong, after the crisis hit and I got that red notice, I was happy to get any kind of income flowing in that I could. After all, the bills didn't give a damn about social distancing. But now, as I sit here, typing in the dark, because I'm bone-wide terrified of what I may see when the lights come on, there's nothing I could wish for more than to go back in time. Just three weeks, so I would have

the better mind to delete that damn email before I opened it, and maybe sit the laptop on fire just to be on the safe side. I don't know why I'm writing this. Think of it as the last memoirs of a man who's quickly losing his grip on reality. I'm being dramatic. I always wanted to be a writer. Let me start over. I was desperate for work after I got laid off five months ago. Downsizing, they said, and six dedicated years of my life were made irrelevant with one letter.

Can you believe it? A letter. My boss didn't even have the balls that tell me. me to my face. It may be hard to imagine, but the job market for mechanic, but only with printers and air conditioners, wasn't really booming when everyone was out of the office, and it was midwinter New England January, so I had to suffer through the worst of it. It wasn't that bad, honestly, even without comparing it to the hell I'm living in now. I was a poor college student, broker them most, and got by on thrift store clothes and being

beans and rice just fine. Even the two years after that, back when I was a drifter, I scrounged by with our jobs and soup kitchens. I used to struggle. But there was something about it all that just made me feel so desperate. Like this was the end for me, like I was drowning, and just waiting for that floating ring of life to appear so I could grasp at it. On second thought, I might have been having a panic attack. That ring came in the form of an email in my inbox one morning, crammed right between an alert for the latest Starbucks drink, and some spammy advert about singles in my area. It looked like spam even. I remember hovering my mouse over it, wondering what type of crap software Yahoo used for all this junk to slip through the caps of my filter before I pressed click.

I don't even think I did it on purpose. It was like an accident. I can't remember consciously telling my brain to send the signal to my fingers. It was like some force decided for me, an invisible hand pushing and pushing until it was done. The actual ad was less suspicious from what I can remember, a decently professional email offering a part-time gig cleaning places, not the usual junk like hotels or banks, but the gritty stuff. For closed houses, evicted apartments, places where the private,

occupants most likely weren't pristine beacons of humanity. None of the usual red flags were there. The pay was decent, but not ridiculous. The hours were on the long side, but they made it clear we would only be called in three times a week or so. All I had to do was fill out a quick application on their website, leave my phone number, and they'd get back to me in about a week. It took all of 15 seconds for me to decide to click the link and fill it out.

There was no real risk. The questions were generic enough, no real possibility of them using it against me. I sent it in, closed my laptop and sighed. It was then I realised that, in my weeks of wallowing, in my own despair, I'd never signed up to any job websites. My resume wasn't even online anywhere. How did they even get my contact information? Like the idiot I am, I acknowledge.

It's here now, almost in the room with me. I can't see it, but I can smell it. Hold on. Okay, where was I? Oh, the phone call. I got the call two days later, after I had already forgotten about the whole thing. On the other side came the drawing, odd voice of who I assumed was the boss's son. The kid sounded young, no older than 13.

14 at the most. He spouted some rehearsed script about how thankful they were that I applied, and my experience made me a perfect candidate, and if I could go into work the next day. I don't have a uniform, I said to him. Uh, you got any jeans? Professional. After assuring that, yes, I did have a pair of Levi's rolling around.

The kid rattled off some address. I told him to slow. down, that I needed to write it down, but he told me not to worry. They just text it to me. When I got the message, I knew I was in for some trouble. The place was smack dab in one of the worst parts of town, a two-bedroom apartment on the north side that needed cleaning after the sole occupant got kicked out for non-payment. If you couldn't afford the rent in that area, then you had to have been in a real tough place. I wasn't looking at. forward to it. Not at all. But I was on my last can of ravioli, and the towels I stuffed around

the window panes weren't keeping the cold out anymore. I was there, bright and early at 8 in the morning. I don't have a car, so I had to call an Uber, and pressing pay on those precious few dollars was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do my life. The ride over was depressing. I never knew how quick the transition from an okay neighbourhood to a bad way. one was. I knew that I would be checking over my shoulder the whole time I was here. We pulled up to a deceptively nice apartment building, not too tall, maybe five or six stories, painted in a welcoming amber that crashed with a muddy graze of all the buildings next to it. My driver was quick to speed off the second I got out of the car. Maybe that should

have been a warning. There were no bad vibes. None of that. Who? who do nonsense. It was a normal apartment in a terrible neighbourhood and standing at the front of it gave me a misguided hope that, just maybe, this job wouldn't have been as bad as I thought. Some ten minutes later, I heard a struggling pickup pull up behind me, blasting old-time jazz tunes. Oh right. The kid told me that I'd be working with a partner, some business veteran who would show me the ropes. The man who hopped out of the janky. decrepit pickup, it wasn't exactly who I had in mind. He was a chubby, balding giant, with a ring of long white hair, encircling the centre of a

shiny scalp in some poor man's imitation of a mullet. And if you're too poor to pull off a mullet, well, that's saying something. Oh, damn, he cried when he saw me, pulling lips into a toothy grin. You must be the new kid. I felt a pang of aggravation at the name. honestly, the guy looked younger than me, at least in the face. He was nearly wrinkle-free, still glowing with the optimism only a mid-20-something could have. If it weren't for the hair, the sloppy overalls he wore, he wouldn't have looked out of place on a college campus.

On the other hand, he made my jeans and sweater look overdressed. Nice to meet you. I introduced myself with a fake smile, and he ambled over to pull me into an energy. handshake. His hands were soot, and he smelled like lemon pledge and tobacco. The stench combined in the most unappealing way, and I tried to hide the way my nose flared. He noticed. You'll get ready soon enough for these kind of jobs, he juggled. Just wait and see. I'm Louie. The kid at the office said that Louis would be bringing our supplies. Supplies, apparently being six boxes of industrial-sized trash bags, a buckets of cleaning stuff, a few bundles of masks and gloves,

and a vacuum. Between the two of us, it only took one trip to haul everything into the lobby. Louis took the opportunity to babble endlessly, going through the rungs of his life story, even though I poignantly did not ask. Within the span of 10 minutes, I learned what town he was from, how his dad would beat his mom, how many times he got arrested, and the last time he managed to hoodwink some girl into actually sleeping with him. The guy was exhausting. The inside of the place looked as demure as the outside. Tan walls and manageable clean floors

with a plastic plant perched in the corner for decoration. There was no one there besides us. Don't worry, the office gave me a key yesterday, Louie had said. So we looked all our stuff to the elevator and took it up to the fifth floor, second to last. The hallways were innocent enough as well, except for one thing. It was totally silent.

Once the groan of the ancient elevators stopped upon our exit, everything fell to a still quiet. It was like a library, except even a library at the sounds of pages turning and pencil scribbling. Not a lot of occupants, huh? I turned to Louie to ask. The sound shocked me. even though it was my own voice. It broke through the air and shattered it, like a baseball through a window,

like it was something that didn't belong. It made me feel uneasy. I don't have the foggiest idea what you mean. He smiled. The sarcasm made me grimace. We made our way down the silent hall, a stretch of brown carpet and flickering ceiling lights that seemed to go on forever.

This place was, Bigger on the inside than it had seemed when I was standing out front. After what had to have been at least eight minutes, we reached our destination. Apartment 528. It seemed normal enough, at least from the outside. The door was the same brown oak as all the rest, not exceptional in anything. The guy who lived here got away with dodging his rent for three years. Can you believe it?

Louis took the opportunity to fill the silence with his chatter as he searched through his personal things for the key some computer engineer guy that worked from home so you know he had some money took the way used to live it with his mom but she passed down near a decade ago he finally found it at the bottom of one of his bags pulling out the shiny silver like it was a prize he winked at me and tapped it against his temple

before pushing the key into the lock. He turned, grabbed the doorknob, then moved to enter before he stopped dead in his tracks. He turned to look at me, and I can remember his uncharacteristically serious face sending a sudden chill down my spine. Now, listen. He drawled carefully, slowly.

This is your first day in the job. I'm not going to fault you for that, but you have to. and listen to what I say, all right. This job can be... complex. I wanted the scoff, but I remained quiet. Jeez, the dude was acting like we were the local bomb squad. Instead, I gathered all my self-control and settled on one, grim nod. He searched my face for a bit, then must have been satisfied with whatever he saw, because he pushed open the door and we walked in.

My God, even now, even if I mustered up every ounce of creativity, I wouldn't be able to describe the smell. I'll damn sure try. It was as if Louis opened the gates to hell. Outside, the hallway had been a chilly temperature, but a wall of sweltering heat hit us the second we walked in. Sweat, beaded on my brow almost immediately, and I regretted wearing the long sleeve. Right behind it was the smell. And even now, the memory of it makes me gag. I did, actually, throw up at the moment.

Bile had shut up my throat like a natural response. But I had the mind to swallow it down before I made this mess worse. Imagine the smell of a rotten potato, when it degrades into that disgusting brown goop whose smell reminds you of fish and garbage. Now, multiply that by ten. Then mixing the stench of intense body over, stagnant water, and something rotten. Jesus Christ, I gagged. Louis let out a low whistle.

The apartment itself was in no better shape. It was almost pitch black and my eyes took a second to readjust. Once they did, it was easy for me to see why. Blankets had been nailed across the windows, as if the occupant were trying his best to keep. any trace of sunlight from entering. The light from the hallway made it easier to see, and suddenly, I wished we were in pitch black.

The place was a mess. No, that's an understatement. The place was a total wreck. The floor was carpet, and at least it used to be. I could only see flex of it peeking out from the mile-high heaps of garbage that littered the ground. Loose papers, mail, old pizza boxes, decorated with various fast food bags.

The trash covered almost every surface, at least from where I could see. It was baffling to think that one man could make this much of a mess in only a few years. This looked like decades worth of effort. I took a step in, I dried out chicken bone snapped underneath my foot. From my next, I carefully aimed at the nearest piece of bare carpet and made a jump for it. When my foot landed, it sank, the sound of something wet, squishing from underneath it. It brought another fume of putrid with it, and I gagged anew. There were bottles, too, two litres, mountain two of course.

There were so many of them stacked neatly wherever they could fit. I counted 30 of them before I gave up. They were the only things arranged in some sort of order in the whole place. "'Pee bottles,' Louis said confidently, and I felt my breakfast coming up. He shook his head casually, as if this wasn't the worst thing he had ever laid eyes on. "'These types always have them,' he tisked, pulling on a pair of gloves. "'The bathroom's right there, but they never seemed to make it. "'I knew what type he was talking about.

"'All my time spent trawling the internet has made me privy to some terminology. I believe the term was neckbeard. Oversized man-children and neglected their hygiene and humanity in favour for the pleasures of video games and other similar affairs. Our modern-day hedonists and dredges of society.

Come on, kid. He threw another pair over to me, jutting his chin out to the mountain of trash before us. We got a job to do. Once the initial shock wore off, apprehension was close behind it. I wasn't sure how the company expected only two men to get through this in one day. At least, I assumed it was one day.

There had been no mention of coming back to this place later that week, and thank God for small miracles. There was like a... A smog about the place. A my asthma, I think the word is, like the air was more sludge than gas, grabbing up all the oxygen in our lungs and replacing it with a bitter stank that curled my nose hairs.

I've used that phrase before. Something so horrible it makes your nose hairs curl. But I must have been the first person in the world to take that literally. No, really, the first person. Louis was fine. In fact, he had taken to using the dustpan as a shovel, heaping mounds of garbage into trash bags with haste. He was whistling too.

Some light ditty with a lit cigarette hanging from his lip. The smoke billowed straight up. mixing with the miasma to create an entirely new scent that ticked me off just as much as it disgusted me. Do you mind? I hissed. He laughed me off, not even bothering to look at me. I grabbed the extra dustpan and decided to mimic his movements. It seemed like the most productive way to cut through the mess. He all learned one day that the Ziggs help, he said off-handedly.

Help with what? The stench? They helped. Could you believe that? I couldn't. The smell of those canter sticks was always number one on the list of things I hated them most. Sure, they got knocked down a few pegs after today, but the distaste was still there. He took the chance to segue into more useless tales of his life, with no input from me, of course.

His high school life, how he was a bully turned student advocate after some life-changing scare, his college years, his endless search for jobs that somehow led him here. It's tough work, he gruffed out between scoops of green-tinged McDonald's bags. But it's honest work, once you know how to manage it. You'll learn all the tricks, all the warnings. The pay isn't half bad either. Warnings. That part made me curious.

The pay's not bad, huh? I asked instead. Louis whistled again. "'Hell yeah, brother. You see that beauty outside?' He pointed his thumb in what I assume was the direction of the rust and wheels he called the truck. Brought her in straight cash, just four weeks after I started here. "'Impressive,' I muttered sarcastically. "'I didn't see your car parked out front,' he said.

I shrugged, busying myself with our work. He laughed then, that grateingly annoying choking. sound. Don't have one, huh? Listen here, how about I give you a ride home after all this is through? There was almost nothing that sounded worse than me than spending 15 minutes trapped in a moving vehicle with his smell and his voice, except, of course, paying the $23 for the same 15-minute ride. So, instead, I nodded, and he laughed, and then we went back to the mess. It took at least three hours to clear the living room. By the end of it, We had filled six bags to the maximums.

And let me remind you, these wines your usual grocery store affairs. These bad boys were the type you bought in hardware stores. They were big. Even with the floor clear, I knew the room was a total loss. A purpleish grey that hung heavy with the weight of something liquid. They were thick brown stains, almost black every few feet, crossed it around its edges. It smelled marginally better,

which let us know that the bulk of the smell must have been coming from somewhere else. This is a two-bedroom, you said. I sighed, already exhausted. Louis nodded, slapped me on the back, then tossed me another trash bag. Lunchtime ain't here yet, brother. The bathroom and the first bedroom were,

unsurprisingly, in a similar state to the first. The garbage mountains that cleared at least two inches above my own frame, suspicious soda bottles filled to the brim with dark amber liquid and discarded food containers were all that awaited us. I still couldn't fathom how one man could do all this by himself. Even stranger, other than food and pee, there were almost no signs that anyone had ever lived here.

No signs of a personal touch, no posters or silverware, there wasn't even a sheet on the mattress, leaving it bare and as stained as the rest of the place. I brought it up to live. to see if he had any ideas. It's not unusual, he shrugged. People who do this kind of thing take to fleeing in the middle of the night when no one can see them. They pack up their clothes and things and just run.

They leave whatever they can't carry. It made enough sense at the time. Then we found someone else in the bathroom. A she actually, with shiny skin and red lips pursed in an eternal pout. internal pout, winking seductively. Her chest were cones that jutted out dangerously as she was tossed on top of a mound of burger boxes and used napkins in a bathtub, upside down,

and legs spread eagle. Looks like our tenant was enjoying himself. Louis chortled, a tear running to his eye, pushing the doll to the side with the end of his broom. Leave it, he gasped in between breaths. We'll pop it later, then put it with the rest of the junk. It was nearing three when we cleared through the rest of the apartment. It was hell work, I thought.

No way I'd ever do this again. Just block the company number and go back to destitution. But I have to admit, it was satisfying. Looking back over the place when it was all said and done, seeing how I took that den of degeneracy and turned it into something almost decent, it down near brought a tear to my eye too. except that smell It was still there

Damn it almost had gotten worse Sure those rows of trash bags we had lined by the front door Weren't no field of roses either But this was something entirely else It was like all that garbage was just padding to cover up a stench That was even worse Where is that coming from I looked around

And then my eyes landed on the door It was the door to the second bedroom, the one we had forgotten about. Damn, I was crushed. We weren't done after all. I wasn't looking forward to tackling that beast, but the sooner we got it over with, the sooner I could go home. I reached for the doorknob, and Louie yanked me back. He damn near popped my elbow out of the socket.

It's done like hell. Christ, man, I shouted. his hand was still on me, crushing my skin under his fingers in a vice-like grip. The man was stronger than he looked. He was still smiling, but it wasn't really there.

His eyes weren't smiling. They were the same cold steel from back in the hallway that had a place seriousness that wasn't becoming of him. You just leave that one well alone, he murmured in that low and slow tone.

I wrenched my shoulder from his grip. but he snatched me back as fast as lightning. You can't be serious, I argued. We've got to go in there. Something's rotting, man. He just shook his head. It's our job. That, he pointed to the door.

It's not our job. Out here was our job, and we did it. Now come on. He started to pull me to the exit, but I managed to slip from his grasp. I gestured to all the trash bags we had accumulated. We can't just leave these here. We're not.

He tapped the face of his watch. It's lunchtime. We'll go eat and swing back and toss him out. An idea came to my mind. I'm not hungry, I said after a moment. He quirked his brow and I shook my head, looking back at the room. You can't expect me to eat after all this, can you? I can't even be around food right now.

I'll puke. So, what do you want to do then? You go on lunch, I affirmed. I'll stick behind and throw out these bags. Maybe sweep a little. Maybe make the place look a bit nicer. Then by the time you get back, everything will be done and we can go home. That's awfully nice of you, he said, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

Think of it as thanks for the ride. I don't like owing people. He took a long moment to consider me, staring me up and down, sizing me up. He didn't trust me. I put on my most earnest face and waited it out. It took minutes, but eventually he seemed satisfied with whatever he saw. He nodded at me, then went out the door. After a beat, I tiptoed over and placed my ear against the wood.

He was still there. I could hear him. He was breathing deep and hard, like he was holding something back. The scent of artificial lemons and smoke still tickled my nose. He stood there for a long time, and so did I,

before I finally heard the sounds of his footsteps moving back down the hall. A moment, and then the archaic groan of the elevator, before he stepped on, and it continued its journey downwards. I waited longer still, until the sound of what I could convince myself was his truck puffed down the street. Screw that guy.

I wasn't going to let some meth-ed-ed-with-chained-smoking problem compromise my paycheck. There's nowhere the company wouldn't fork over full-wage if we left an entire room filled with junk, no matter what, Louis said. If I had to be the one to clean it all by myself, then so be it. I won't lie. I hesitated before I opened the door. The stench was definitely coming from whatever was in that room. Ten jewels of the scent smoked out from underneath the crack like a warning.

I should have listened to it. If whatever was in there smelled worse than everything that was out here, I wasn't eager to find out what work I had waiting for me. I opened the door and gasped. God Almighty, the place. was spotless. And someone lived in there? Or they had, at least, at some point.

It was entirely different from the rest of the apartment, like someone took a saw and cut a chunk out of the house somewhere else, then just dropped it here. The walls were panelled in a light pink, and the floor was a sturdy wood. There was a small medical bed in the corner, dressed completely and layered with a red quilt. Next to it was a side table

with a small fern and a bulgey wood. lay cover-side down. Portraits were hung up on the walls. Nothing insidious. Still lives of fruit and waterfalls. From where I was, I could just barely see into the closet. A few sweaters was suspended up on the racks next to folded fabrics, pants no doubt. And the smell there was gone. It smelled fine, a little peachy even. What the hell? I had muttered, taking a tentative step in. The door closed behind me, but I paid it no mind. All of the doors in that place were like that.

They were waited strangely. There was no signs of the stench anywhere in here. I took my time looking around the room, taking curious peaks into dresser drawers for any spare garbage. Maybe a dead rat had snuck into air for its room. final moments, or maybe 20, but there was nothing my eyes could perceive. It appeared to be a perfectly normal bedroom. I don't know when I made my way over to the bedside, but I did. The drawers in it were completely empty, spotless.

I dragged a finger over the wooden surface and brought it up to my face for inspection. No dust. I frowned and wiped my finger off on my shirt anyway. There wasn't anything here. Louis must have been right when he said to leave it. The guy might not have been so crazy after all. I went to leave and something caught my eye. The book.

It was innocent enough. The back, a light velvet and the spine firm. Our tenant didn't seem the type to enjoy a good book, so it made me curious. I turned it over. It was a Bible, though someone had crossed out the second B with a needle. Angry screeches were embedded on the velvet, criss-crossed over and over, until the letter was barely visible. It was only the light from the window that even allowed me to read it.

I was never a religious man, but it chilled something in me. I don't know why, but I flipped it open. It read, Genesis 1 In the beginning God created blank And it was without form and void

And darkness I frowned That's not how it was supposed to go Words in the passage have been blacked out Entire sections I turned to the next page And the breath left out of me The entire page was blacked out

Corner to corner I started to flip through them even faster. Blank, blank, blank. Who would do this? I whispered to myself. In my haste, my finger slipped from where it cradled the edge of the book.

My index finger brushed the sea of dark and came up wet. Sludge. It was black sludge smeared across the pages, the very same that now clung to my finger and dripped down my skin. It wasn't just wet.

It was fresh. Wait a minute. I looked up and met bare wall. I turned to one side, then the other. Walls. Nothing but walls and the door behind me. There were no windows here. I hadn't hit a switch when I walked in.

Where was this light coming from? My blood ran cold and I dropped the book. Why was it so bright in here? The rest of the apartment was near pitch black, even with a light from the hallway. I started panicking, breath quickening in my chest as my eyes frantically raced around. Something was wrong here.

I looked back down to the side table at the glossy wood and the fern plant. I reached out to touch it. This plant wasn't fake. It was real and it was alive. That plant had been here for six weeks. Someone's still here, I whispered. I was wrong.

Earlier when I said that there were no bad vibes. That's all I could feel right then. An oppressive darkness that weighed down on me, pushing the air out of my lungs and crushing them. No, not crushing them. Filling them up with sludge until I was choking on it. The stench was back, I realized, full force. It seemed to emanate from everywhere.

pulsing out in waves and stinging my eyes. A rancid, heavy rot, there was nothing but heat. Sweat poured down my face in a second, falling into my vision and blurring them. Tears rolled down in response, unabashed, and a noise started to sound. It was... Me. I was crying. Wretched sobs pulled out from me.

My body was reacting. A visceral alarm to something my eyes couldn't see. see, but my soul could feel. There was a darkness in here. It took everything in me to turn from that room, and once I started, I didn't stop. I sped through the apartment and out the door, bypassing the elevator to take the stairs. I couldn't risk stopping while I was inside. It was like something was chasing me, right on the edge of my heels. I couldn't afford to slow down. That energy carried me from the apartment building, and halfway down the blood, It was the most exercise I'd done in years, and the toll it took my body didn't hit until then.

I collapsed onto the sidewalk, gulping in mouthfuls of clean air, feeling the sun pricked my skin awake. It was like I died in there, and the fresh breeze of life was resurrecting me. Louis found me there, about an hour later, sat on the sidewalk with my head dangling dejectedly. He slowed to a stop, rolled down the window, and shook his head. You don't take kindly to following directions, oh kid. I didn't respond, instead, moving to the open car door. Fast as a whip, he locked it, leaving me outside. You said you'd give me a ride, I protested.

He laughed, a bitter sting that made my ears redden. You ain't bringing that around me, boy. He juggled, I told you so. He sped off down the street, leaving me alone in the fast approaching nightfall. The 15-minute drive home was a three-hour walk. I walked those three hours. I could have bit the bullet and called an Uber, but something in me didn't want to be stagnant in the dark.

If I kept moving, I would be fine. Fine from what, I don't know. What the eyes can't see, remember? When I got home I dressed in the hallway quickly before anyone could see me I left my clothes there in front of my door because they reeked

I went to the shower turned the water as hot as it could go and scrubbed I don't know how long I was in there but it was long past when the water turned cold and I ran through my entirely monthly supply of body wash and shampoo

I scrubbed until my skin turned raw and red and until I couldn't smell anything but cheap dollar store peppermint. I wished desperately for the sud to strip me of that scent, for the stench to swirl along with it right down the drain. I sighed, then sniffed. Clean.

I was finally clean. All the lights in my apartment went on soon after that. Light bill be damned. It would be hard to sleep, but so be it. There's no amount of money in the world, or no loss of slumber I couldn't handle to never have to feel what I felt in that place ever again. But I did try to sleep after that,

tossing and turning under the overhead light until I fell into the void of empty dreams. The smell woke me at 2 a.m. It curled the hairs of my nose and beaded my forehead with sweat. That sickening smell. The smell of rot, snaking its way into my home.

My eyes shut open and I froze, dread coursing through my veins. Something's here, and it's outside. Something was moving around in my living room, something with slow, dragging movements that squished as it ambled. My voice caught in my throat, but I couldn't let loose. I didn't dare to. Louis' last words hung in my head. I brought it home with me.

I laid there, frozen to my mattress, as it searched around my apartment. I could hear it fumbling through drawers, climbing over furniture, knocking things to the ground. The stench grew stronger with every passing moment, the ranted miasma, making my head swim. It moved towards my room. I had the floorboard to the hallway creek, just the way they did when I walked on them. The sound was sending me into a frenzy, my chest pounding. The smell grew stronger. From underneath the door, I could see a shadow roll by.

It paused and turned. I panicked. My head shot out and clicked the light of my lamp. I don't know why, but it did. I felt I needed to do something. In an instant, my room was shrouded in darkness. I had no windows in here, just a bare wall. The shadow halted as well, ceasing its movement once the light fell.

It pulsed there for a moment, and I kept my eyes trained on its dark form. I didn't blink. After an eternity, it moved, slithering down the hallway towards the bathroom. At the scene, a terrible relief washed through me, as I realized something. It likes the light. Those blankets against the window suddenly makes sense I've been trapped here for these three weeks

Did you know that how long a human can survive without food Water not so much But I thank God at least 30 times That I was lazy enough to leave a few half-empty bottles of water strewn across my room No food though I've starved before back in college But this was something different

I finally have a few half a few flat stomach now at least. I still don't know why I'm writing this. I've been brainstorming, you see. My phone works, but I don't have anyone to call. No family, no friends. I thought about calling the police, but the idea that some poor schmuck could get stuck with this thing. No, I couldn't do it. Believe it or not, I'm not a horrible guy. But I do have an idea. If I wait long enough, then the light bulbs in the hallway will die. Then the place will be dark, just like it needs to be. I think I know what that tenant was trying to do.

If I'm smart about it, maybe I could trap this thing. Damn, I just made a noise now when I moved. I crushed some of the trash beneath me. That's another thing I realized. Back when the smell was driving me to the brink, I had a can of air freshener in here. Dam near emptied the entire thing and it didn't make a dent in it. It wasn't strong enough.

Then I hide my trash can. It was packed to the brim with papers and wrappers, a few rotten banana peals. I took it and emptied it out over the floor. It stank, but God did it help. The smell of the garbage was foul enough to push that putridness back to cloud it. It wasn't pleasant, but it sure was preferable to whatever that thing was. Thing. I know what it is.

It damn near told me. It's nothing. It's the void, the darkness. That little bit of nothing God created so that he could put something in it. Something opposite of it. Life. Maybe he forgot to trash it when he was done. I don't know.

but he left it there and it hid and it waited because it wanted it wanted that light he filled everything with that's why it smells rotten because it is rotten

it's rot and it's death and it's been peaking itself under my door for the last few minutes damn I think you can smell the light from my laptop I turned down the brightness as far as it could go but it's still

Hold on