Creepy - Day 15 - I Love You, My Dear & Drum of Thorns and Bone

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

I Love You, My Dear***Written by: Sean Dermot Lehane***Drum of Thorns and Bone***Written by: Deirdre Coles and Narrated by: Megan McDuffee***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound design by: Pacific Obadiah***Title music by: Alex Aldea Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. listener discretion is advised. It's midnight, it's October, and that means KREP is on the air and ready to guide you through this most magical time of year.

It's day 15 of the 31 days of horror, a time of cool winds, howling like banshees, falling leaves, alibis, and pumpkins. When the veil between what we know and what we will never understand is the thinnest, in the darkness that creeps around the shadows is free to play. You're listening to KREP and I'm your host, The Creep. Kicking things off tonight is an email from a listener who would like to remind you. I love you, my dear.

Sit down here next to me by the fire, my love. I made you your favorite drink. Now that Halloween's finally here and it's cold and raining outside, I'm sure we won't be disturbed. I've been dying to tell you this true ghost story. I'm not quite sure if it's a horror story or a love story. But like any good ghost story, it's likely a bit of both. I'll let you be the judge.

So drink up and sit back as I tell you about Jennifer. It started many autumns ago. I was 15 at the time. My mother and I were still living in that backwood little town of Aldwick. in the rural counties, in my grandparents' old house. Growing up there, it was just my mother and I, and I barely saw her on a cone of her work schedule at the hospital. This may come as a surprise to you, but I wasn't popular or outgoing.

I suppose others would describe me as gangly, quiet, or awkward. All pretty typical. You know how lots of people have stories, about that kid that everyone picked on when they were young. And then as they grew older, they eventually just ignored them completely. And I was that kid, living on the periphery of everyone else's lives and memories. But for me, I would describe it in reverse. I was living in a mental and sensory fog,

slowly shuffling forward, seeing other people when they did cross my path. as little more than figments, walking ghosts, whom I mostly ignored and tried to stay out of their way. I had no strong passions for anything. Food tasted bland. Everything smelled the same. School was overwhelming to the point of being beyond comprehension. I didn't know what I wanted. In fact, I don't remember wanting anything other than for it all to end.

I'd started at the high school in town just over. A small part of me I thought it'd be different. Things would be different. That I would be different. But a weekend, I concluded that it was just bigger, filled with more people who didn't see me, more people I had to dodge as I waved my way aimlessly forward. It was in that first week at the high school that I met Jennifer.

I was leaving the school at the end of the day. and there she was standing on the front steps just staring out into the town beyond calmly surveying the world i thought we were the only ones on the front steps and i had the curious feeling that she had been waiting just for me so i stopped i could describe her to you but most of the description wouldn't really matter. She was small and wore baggy jeans and a dark oversized hooded sweatshirt. In other words, she looked like a young high school girl of the type that would never care how she was described. You know who I'm describing. She asked me if I was going home. I said I was, not that I wanted to as I knew I just sit in my little house mindlessly flipping through the television. But that I didn't

have anywhere else to go. She asked me if I wanted to walk through town or along the country road. I told her the latter, and she nodded. At this point, I'd still only seen her from behind. I still stood on the same spot. After a moment, she spurred to action and took several steps in the direction of the road before pausing and twirling to look back up at me as if to ask if I was ready to go. She looked right into my mind. eyes and I looked into hers. I couldn't remember really having done that before. Certainly not with a complete stranger, but she didn't feel like a stranger at that moment. The sun lit up her face, but it was her eyes that had me transfixed. She had the bluest eyes, the color of the sky on the best

of days. They were so friendly, so inviting. They shone through my fog like a lighthouse. I quickly descended the steps and followed her. We started walking to and from school each and every day. My family's house, as you know, was only about three miles from the school, down that twisting rural back road, and hers apparently just another mile further on, in the woods that encircled the village. So we ended up spending a fair amount of time together each day.

She waited each morning by my mailbox, and that's where I left her to carry on alone each evening. I remember almost every day of that September. When we were together on those walks, the mental fog dissipated, and I opened up to her. We laughed, and we talked about the world we walked through, the real world, as she described it, the natural world. The county road was wide enough for two lanes, but wasn't divided, and was lined by deep drainage ditches in which wildflowers grew. Beyond those were the occasional trees, ashes, oaks, and chestnuts. These provided the borders to the various farms of corn, wheat, soybean, and cattle.

She knew so much more about the countryside and the people who lived there than I did. Not only did she know the names of every weed, and wildflower growing along the road, but also the family histories of each homestead. There was an apple orchard we'd pass that had converted a large plot by the road into a pumpkin patch. She loved Halloween, so was fond of talking about that patch.

She described them as a timepiece of sorts, as each day they'd grow and change colors so much from the day before, all leading to their final day at Halloween, by which time the field should be empty. They would move on and become what they were meant to be, she'd say, half-joking, I thought. In all my years walking those roads, I'd never bothered to think about what I had passed by.

I'd never seen any of this. I'd never been curious. We never talked about school. No. School did not interest either of us. So I never came up in conversation. She asked me about my family and whether I love my mother. I didn't have much to say about my mother,

and I didn't have any other family to speak of. But Jennifer talked a great deal about her sister, her older sister, whom she loved very much, as she was always taking care of Jennifer. I was looking out for her. She was sad for her sister, though. She said she wished she wasn't such a burden. It was just the two of them in her aunt's old house in the woods, she explained.

I couldn't imagine then how much of a burdened Jennifer could possibly be to anyone. Eventually we talked about the future, what we wanted from life. I told her honestly that any time I thought about the future, my heart raced and I couldn't formulate a clear thought. She looked at me again with those piercing blue eyes and told me she had known all along that I was like her trapped, encased in the world. We'd move on soon and become what we're meant to be to, like the pumpkins that would eventually move on to become jack-lanterns or pies, move on to a life where we could be free.

I laughed. She asked me how much I wanted to be free, but I didn't laugh at that and didn't respond. She didn't press me. for a lot of the time we never really spoke at all we just walked strolled really sometimes quickly sometimes slowly from the drudgery of home to the drudgery of school neither of us were ever in a hurry we passed the time or let the time pass by and through us day in day out one day she reached out and gently took my hand Oh, God.

They were so casual and smooth and so natural in action on her part. But the feelings that sparked in me and whirled about in me? I imagined us floating above the world, in the sky, blown on the wind, so warm and comforted, so protected and cherished. I should have told her the truth

that my only hope for the future was to move on with her and spend the rest of my life with her. There came a day in October when she wasn't waiting for me outside to school. Then she wasn't at my mailbox the next morning, nor the day after that. The weather had changed dramatically too. The days were overcast and miserable, threatening to rain at seemingly every moment. I wondered where she'd gone, why she'd left me, what I'd done. I felt terrible. Clearly it had been my fault, whatever it was.

Everything along the road was dead, I remember thinking, which just made me feel worse. Then on Halloween, as my feet crunched and kicked at the soggy brown leaves that lined the road, I saw her. In the distance, she was pacing around my mailbox, her hood pulled up. I took all myself will to resist running up to her. Instead, I walked as quickly and as casually as I could. I asked her where she'd been, but she ignored my question. Made you this, she said.

Put it on. The words racing from her mouth. She handed me a wood and string medallion of sorts, similar and looked to a dream catcher. It was circular and made it twigs and a very fine woven string or thread. I was going to thank her, but she quickly took hold of my hand and tugged me past my mailbox, past my house, and dragged me excitedly towards the woods beyond. Past my house was Crownland.

Originally the founder of Aldwitch lived there on large farms. but their families had almost all died out. The land was converted to forest with trees planted and spaced out and perfect even rows. The road Jennifer lived on was a few hundred yards further long than mine, and to call it a road was being quite generous. It was a path that was easily missed if you weren't looking for it, or already knew it existed. As we weaved along it, through dense foliage of mostly spruce,

Jennifer talked continuously, explaining how the forest was now overgrown and sick, that it should have been harvested years earlier, that as a result of neglect, several blights had come and brought more death. She talked at great length, but I was focused more in remembering what I was seeing in case we got lost or separated. I have no idea how long we walked, nearly ran, actually,

but we eventually arrived at a small wooden stone cottage. The inside was sparse but homey, a little living room with basic furniture around a large stone hearths along the middle wall in which a low fire calmly churned out heat and the only light in the dark space. She sat me on the couch while she scurried off into the back.

The cottage smelled strongly of pine and wood smoke, but there's a peculiar, pungent odor underneath it. Sweat or mold, perhaps. I glanced around the space. There's an old television in the corner and a long table along the wall I imagine served as both a dining table and a desk

as it was piled in dirty dishes, cups, glasses, and in books, papers, and an old laptop. Appearing more closely, I noticed several medicine bottles, pill bottles of different sizes. I was standing up to investigate further when she returned, her hands filled by a notebook, a large piece of chalk, and what looked like a long, thick, and metallic sewing needle. She set all these on the table and waved for me to move back.

In one smooth motion, she pushed the couch back several feet and immediately fell to her knees to roll up a large floor rug I hadn't even noticed. As she rolled, my attention turned back to the table. the notebook in particular. It was thick and looked well used, but was just an ordinary spiral notebook. I began to reach out for it when Jennifer snapped at me. Embarrassed and ashamed, I turned back to her and saw the floor she had revealed. A large circle with lines and various little markings along the edge, not dissimilar to a clock face, have been drawn on the floor and had been hidden by the rug. I began to ask her what it was, but she told me she needed my help and started off down the hall again.

So again, as always, I followed her. She led me to an open door. I gasped. A woman, a young woman, maybe in her 20s, was laying on top of the bed, dressed in an oversized t-shirt. Her hands flailed out, went above her. head and one hanging over the edge touching the floor. She didn't look to be asleep. She looked unconscious or worse. Jennifer glided to the side of the bed and held the woman's wrist for a few seconds before dropping it, apparently satisfied. Jennifer muttered something as she moved at the foot

of the bed, nodding at me to go to the other end. I didn't question. I wrapped my hands under the woman's shoulders and after some effort we managed to turn the girl and carried her out to the living room. I thought we were taking her to the couch to give her some of the medicine out there to take care of her, but no. Jennifer led us to the circle on the floor. I was more gentle than she had been as I lowered her down. I saw her shirt had bunched up around her waist, revealing her underwear, which I instinctively wanted to cover for, but Jennifer hadn't noticed or cared as she went next to the desk and began flipping back and forth through the book.

I stood there looking down at Jennifer's sister and finally wondered what her name was. Jennifer peeled off her hoodie and tossed it carelessly behind her. She wore a simple white t-shirt underneath that clearly needed a wash. I could see now that Jennifer hadn't bathed in some time. There were smudges of dirt on her arms and face, and her hair, which was usually straight, stood out in every direction, chalk in hand and with frenetic energy. She proceeded to dart around, consulting her book before bending over now and then

to make specific marks along the edges of the circle. The wind suddenly rattled the wind. windows, which startled me. It had grown very dark outside and the dense trees coupled with the low glow from the fire made it appear to be night, though I could make out the branches as some of them swayed frantically. I remember the medicine bottles on the table, thinking that they would reveal her sister's name. She was in the middle of doing whatever it was she was doing, so she didn't notice me pick one up. Then another. and then a third.

They were all in Jennifer's name, which surprised me as I'd never thought Jennifer was in any way sick. Glancing over at her again, I saw how pale and thin her bare arms and neck were. She was much skinnier than I'd presumed, not much more than a skin-covered skeleton. In the cabin, she barely resembled a confident, wise girl I'd grown so fond of.

It was all happening so quickly, but I can say that it was at this time that I finally started to grow nervous. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew enough to know that it was wrong. Can you be in shock in advance? My fight or flight instincts weren't working at all. I just stood there, dumb, like I was in my fog again. Only I couldn't be, because Jennifer was there with me. But she wasn't a guiding light for me in those moments. I think I was even afraid of her.

Finally she stopped, dead in her tracks on the edge of the circle. She took a long, deep breath and put the chalk down and picked up the needle, running her hands along the edge. She took one full step into the circle. Turning to me, she eyed me expectantly, so I stepped into the circle too. mimicking her movements. She smiled, a cold, unfeeling smile. She knelt down and referred to her book again, carefully reading aloud while offering the needle above her sister's head with both hands.

I have no idea what she was saying as only some of the words were English. When I glanced at the book to try to follow along, all I could see were lines of scribbled writing. When she was she was When she was finished reading, she rummaged around the woman's chest. I knelt down too, not really knowing what else I could do. Not too long until she found what she was looking for. The woman wore a small, similarly handcrafted medallion to the one I'd been given. Instinctively, I clutched it beneath my shirt. And then it hit me.

The medallion and the circle on the floor were the same design. The woman began to moan as her lean. whims twitched. Jennifer leaned over her face and shushed her with small kisses. I didn't see that while she did this, she'd been fumbling to position the sewing needle in the center of the medallion, which she held in position atop the woman's breast. Jennifer flashed me one more wild smile, a cold smile. Like always, I couldn't turn away, but I was afraid to keep looking. With both her small hands, she started to push the needle down into her sister, through the medallion, into her chest.

Jennifer strained and the woman didn't seem to react at first, but sure enough, blood began to seep up into her shirt, in and around the wood of the necklace. Something in me flipped when I saw this. I don't know why, but I put my hands out and wrapped them around Jennifer's. The fire roaring to life behind me, sending up cinders to rain down on the three of us. Together we pushed down, and after a few moments more of resistance, the needle pushed through into the soft flesh, and was quickly buried all the way through her to the floor beneath.

The girl coughed and choked as her eyes fluttered open. I was caught off guard by the same bright blue eyes. They darted back and forth Between pleading with her sister to stop And begging me a stranger to do something to help Her head fell limp to one side Her radiant blue eyes slowly fading in lustre While blood softly dripped from her slack mouth onto the floor

Jennifer cried in excitement Took the girl's skull in both her hands and kissed her Holding there in a long embrace I looked over the woman, Jennifer's dead sister. She was beautiful, an older version of Jennifer herself, a glimpse of what Jennifer could become. And then my love, Jennifer looked at me, and I saw her like I had never seen her before. The blood on and around her lips glistened and her eyes bigger than before. The sky blew of her eyes were filling with dancing flames.

Ecstasy. I couldn't resist, and then we were locked in our own kiss. I had never kissed any girl before, and I've never felt anything like it since. Present company included. I closed my eyes and witnessed the fires all around. The heat. Right there in that cabin, the flames grew up. brighter. The blood seeped darker. And it was the greatest moment of my entire life.

Truly, I've never felt joy like that, but it wasn't to last. It ended when I felt Jennifer's hands probing my chest, seeking out the medallion I wore. When her hand finally grasped it, I blinked. I hesitated. I broke the spell. A thwart. A third A thousand thoughts appeared in my mind all at once. I looked at her again and I can't explain it. But the fire I saw in her eyes now, well, it clearly wasn't from inside her. It was nothing more than a reflection from the out-of-control fire in the earth.

It was the heat from the fire that I was feeling. What was inside her? What did shine out? ironically, was darkness, emptiness, longing. Jennifer was cold. I pushed her away from my chest as I collapsed backwards. She said nothing, but her face flinched, contorted. She was surprised, maybe even hurt.

I just couldn't let her do to me what she'd done to her sister. couldn't be a part of her desperate need to escape, not anymore. She lowered her hands and surveyed the work she'd done. Her dead sister's white shirt was nearly entirely crimson now, and her blood continued to drain out from under her as well. I was sweating from the overgrown fire's heat, so I began to get up. I was overcome with a desperate desire to save Jennifer, to get us out. to run away from that cabin together.

But she only looked up at me, sadly, as she lifted the needle to her own chest. I swear I lunged down at her to stop her from doing it, but I can't be certain I didn't drive the needle into her as much as I pulled it out. In the end, it doesn't matter. The needle did its work on Jennifer's heart as it had done to her sisters. and in an instant I held the twice-blooded instrument in my hand. Kiss me, she whispered, half-pleading, half-commanding,

blood and saliva oozing out from the sides of her mouth and down her chin. I stumbled out of the cottage, coughing furiously. Fire had taken hold of every wall and was crushing the ancient wood cabin in its grip. I ran as fast as I could. praying that I was on some path, any path, toward an exit from the dead woods. That night the forest burned. I heard the fire trucks from my bedroom where I sat crying in the dark. There was never a thorough investigation.

The paper reported that the sisters who lived in the cabin in the woods had died of smoke inhalation, trying to flee. I overheard my mother talking on the phone in the days after it happened, describing the remains that were brought into the hospital as nothing more than charred skeletons locked in embrace. Of course, I was the only one who knew the truth. Until now, my love. That night as I sat alone in my room, alone in my house,

and alone in my life again, I couldn't let go of the needle that had done so much damage. I learned later that the town had had an uneasy relationship with that family in the woods. The town more immediately embraced the idea that the sisters were witches and that they burned for their sins. I couldn't bring myself to get rid of the needle, or even to clean their blood from it. I wrapped it in wax paper in a shoebox and hid it away in my closet.

My life changed. The fog I'd lived in the first portion my life under dissipated. I started driving. Gone were the walks to and from school. I developed an interest in academics, sports, university, career, success, family. I've been very fortunate. But it all started that night. Did I make a deal with a devil? Unknowingly or not? Is that what Jennifer was doing with her bizarre ritual? Was it all in her head? The result was that? of some mental illness. I gave up asking questions.

The fact is, I helped murder a woman. In fact, maybe two women. And I've been running from it ever since. You're probably wondering why I'm telling you all this now, after all these years. Something else changed in me that Halloween night. I started to see her. That night she appeared while I slept.

She appeared in all my dreams from then on, first in my nightmares and then, eventually, in my fantasies. There's not long before I started to see her in my waking life, too. It was terrifying and unbearable trying to pretend she wasn't always around me. On the first anniversary of the deaths, young girls at school dressed up as their now beloved town's witch who was just misunderstood. while the older girls dressed to slutterier versions of her covered in the blood of the innocent. Needless to say,

Halloween was ruined for me. Oh, I've tried medications, therapy, even just alcohol and drugs. Anything I thought that would cut me off, blot her out. She appears most vividly at this time of year, and especially her own death. Do you remember when my mother was dying in hospice a few years ago?

I went to see her and she asked me then if I remember Jennifer. I was shocked by her asking because I'd never spoken of her. But according to my mother, she and I had gone to elementary school together. In fact, we had been friends. I guess she was that kid to me all along. I was so ashamed to hear this. We really were more similar than I had ever thought possible. That night I held my mother's hand as she died.

But I was holding Jennifer's. My mother's eyes were Jennifer's. The fire, the heat and liveliness of the fire, danced in her eyes as they had in the cottage all those years before as my mother passed away. Jennifer has been with me every moment since that night in the hospital. hospital. She looks like the girl I fell in love with, the girl with the bright blue eyes, but also with the fire. She needs me to finally be fully free. I want to finally follow her, but I desperately want to run from her too. But I'm so much older now, so worn down.

Sometimes I've not been able to resist. Some nights, my love, I come down into our basement here and I make a fire, and I pull out the needle, the cruel stiletto from the locked drawer in my office. And I sit with her, here, on this couch. I sit with my beloved Jennifer. We talk as I run my fingers along the needles,

blood-encrusted length. This instrument had ended two lives in urines to finish its work, to complete its purpose, to become what it was always meant to be. We make plans. She tells me so many wonderful things, and I feel how beautiful it is my love. I want it. I want it so much. I see her in you, my love.

Ever since I met you, I knew subconsciously that this day would come. Your eyes are almost as blue as hers. Your touch almost as warm. Your kiss almost as sweet. She sacrificed everything she loved. And now I need to do the same. God, I hope you're enough to bring me to my sweet Jennifer.

I know I've confessed all these days. terrible things to you tonight. Don't worry. Neither of us will ever think about them again. It's time for me to finish the ritual. Don't bother trying to stand. I see that the drugs and alcohol have done their work. Here, let me put this medallion around your neck. Do you like it? I made it just for you. I've been collecting strands of your hair all these years. to weave the binding together. I'm sorry. I'm just too tired now.

I can't run any longer. I realize now that I could never escape those woods. I love you, my dear. Goodbye. I'm coming, my dear. I love you. My dear, Jennifer. And now a word from our sponsors.

After two weeks of trying, our technicians of Finally let me know that there's only one remaining phone line. Not that the other lines don't work. They just literally disappeared. Some rumors around the Holy Water Cooler claim to have heard the phone cords crying before fading from existence before their eyes. Let's hope for the best, shall we? Caller, you're on the air with K-R-E-P and The Creep.

Okay, so I'm not the only one who hears the crying? I think you're cutting out there, listener. Maybe turn down your radio. What's a radio? So, what's going on, caller? I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but I have a story about a drum of thorns and bone. Eric Miller was the worst of the erics,

and I thought I understood how he worked, but I never guessed just how badly things could go wrong. In shitty, small towns with nothing for tea, teenagers to do, teenagers come up with a lot of bad ideas. One of our stupid traditions was the big Halloween bonfire in Shakers' woods. With no parties or bars or events to go to, pretty much everybody from White Ridge High School put on a costume and gathered around a gigantic blaze that must have violated about a thousand laws and safety regulations. It wasn't much different from our typical school cafeteria lunches, except with a lot of

lot more alcohol, a lot more toxic masculinity, and an exponentially greater chance of fistfights on the flimsyest of pretexts. Not exactly my scene, but I went every year, because, like I said, there was literally nothing else to do on Halloween. The Erics were three of the biggest, dumbest jocks at our school. They played football together every fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring, and they shared the same stupid name, which made them inseparable since first grade. They held court on the uphill side of the bonfire, and wouldn't share their premium bug juice with anybody. As was the custom at just about every White Ridge social gathering, girls would stumble over to the Erics and ask for a drink. The Erics would tell them to go get their own booze,

but they had permission to come back when they were drunk enough to be slutty. The girls giggled and pretended to think the erics were joking. The really gross thing was that some of the girls generally did go back later. The fact that the erics had their own private stash made it easy for me. Almost too easy. No matter how drunk they got, they kept a sharp eye out for anyone trying to take their stuff, but not on anybody who wanted to slip something in. Me, for example.

For Halloween, I was a generic phantom, dressed in all black, boring, but good for blending in with the night and being unobtrusive about my mission. After I made my delivery, I wandered around. My heart was racing. I looked around for a group I could join, but I mostly hated most of the people in my high school right now, and I wasn't sure I could fake my way through Smoltock. I kept turning to look back into the leaping flames of the bonfire. It seemed wilder and more precarious this year than ever before. Burn it all down, I thought. Burn them all down. But before anyone could notice my weird behavior, Jeremy made his grand entrance,

and everybody stopped to look. Jeremy had been dropping hints about how awesome his costume was for weeks now, and I had to admit, he, or more likely, his hovering helicopter mom, had actually done a pretty good job with it. He was a brilliantly colored piñata, with what must have been thousands of strips and shreds of paper and yellow, red, and purple. With his tall donkey ears, he towered over everyone. Before the bonfire, Jeremy would only say smugly that his costume had to do with the Aztec war god Witsilopochtli. He said that his costume was perfect for the bonfire because Witsilopochtli was the god

of sacrifice, son, and war, and his main weapon was the fire serpent. Wittzi Lopochli was the youngest of four brothers. The oldest brother, in typical oldest brother fashion, was the most famous, Ketzelkoato, the feathered serpent. Then there was the second brother, the lord of the smoking mirror, the third, the flayed god, and Huizilipochtli, the baby of the family. Jeremy, to be clear, was awful. He hated women just as much as the erics, but in the faux, nice guy way, the ultimate, toxic comic book fan. But at White Ridge High School, most of the cafeteria conversations that fall revolved around reality shows and how slutty Amanda Diaz was for sleeping with two of the erics in the same night.

So, no matter how pretentious Jeremy was, what he was saying was at least kind of interesting. And I couldn't help, but listen. Aztec blood sacrifice worked a little differently than I thought. Every day, the Aztecs performed ritual bloodletting on themselves with Magwaythorns to feed and sustain Witsilopocily. But the God wanted bigger meals, too. and that was when his priests

stretched a victim across a sacrificial stone and cut out their still beating heart. The rest of the body was sometimes eaten in ritual cannibalism. The surprising part was that many volunteered to be sacrificed, considering it an honor. The tradition of the pinata

was a kinder, gentler ritual for the god of sacrifice. A clay pot, covered in feathers, was smashed open and the little trinkets inside fell at the feet of a statue of Witsi de Pochley. The tradition has evolved since then, to the bats and blindfolds candy grab

of grade school birthday parties, but the core idea is the same. Now, Jeremy pranced around the bonfire, bright bits of paper fluttering like the bonfire flames. His costume was far and away the best one of the night, and he knew it, and he was getting a lot of attention. And the erics didn't like that. at all.

At about that time, what I put in their drinks started to take effect. Because here's the thing, about Amanda Diaz sleeping with two of the Erics in the same night. That wasn't her choice. Eric Miller, the worst of the Erics, had asked Amanda to the Homecoming Dance. He made it sound like a proper date. Amanda was excited. She said maybe he was growing up. Maybe he really liked her.

maybe she could reform him. I disagreed, but I pretended to be supportive, because here's the thing. Amanda had been my best friend since fourth grade, but lately the feelings I had about her started to change. I knew better than to let her know, to let anybody know anything about who I really was, as long as I lived in White Ridge. I wasn't worried about people making fun of me. I was worried about my literal, physical survival.

I stuffed my real self down deep and planned to keep it that way for as long as I was stuck in this town. I even wore dresses sometimes. For some people, costumes aren't just for Halloween. Stupidly, I started to doubt myself. Maybe I saw things more clearly than Amanda did. Or maybe I was just jealous. So I didn't object as much.

as I should have when she told me about the homecoming dance. So I was horrified, but maybe not completely surprised when I heard what had happened. The number one rumor was that Amanda hooked up with two of the Erics that night. The number two rumor was that they had given her something, and she was pretty much unconscious when it happened. What everybody but me seemed to agree on was that either way, it was pretty much all her fault. Amanda hadn't been back to school since homecoming in early October. She wouldn't talk to anyone, not even me. Her parents told the school she had COVID,

and the school pretended to believe them because it was easier. I decided to give the Erics a literal taste of their own medicine. That's the other thing about shitty small towns with nothing to do. It's incredibly easy for anyone, even a nerd like me, to get a hold of any kind of drugs you might want. and what I had given the Erics was meant to make them sloppy and stupid to lower their already low inhibitions even further to incite them to make asses of themselves. But now they had another ass to focus on. As Jeremy got closer to their side of the bonfire, Eric Miller stepped forward.

Hey, Jackass, if we smashed you open, you got candy inside? I started to feel uneasy when I saw he had picked a little. up a log from a pile of firewood, and I was smacking it casually into the palm of his opposite hand in that classic baseball player move. Jeremy turned to look, but then decided to ignore Eric and turn his back on him. Now Eric Miller was really mad. He took a swing. The log cracked into the shredded paper covering on Jeremy's side. Incredibly, a few candies fell out. That traditional crappy candy usually saw inside a pinocet. little taffies and gum drops. Jeremy, or more likely Jeremy's mom, really had gone all out.

Eric Miller gave an incredulous laugh. He wound back to swing again. How many licks to get to the candy that doesn't suck, he said. Eric Hopple had grabbed a log too. He hit Jeremy from the front, driving him backward. Jeremy reeled and more candy spilled out. Eric Duncan followed along with the other two, as he always did. He hit Jeremy with another stick. A light tap, really, but his participation was enough to fully unleash the others. Eric Miller's next blow was so hard I could hear more than the paper machet crack. Jeremy was surrounded.

The three of them, even Eric Duncan, started swinging at him in earnest. Cracked pieces of Jeremy's costume were falling off. and there were splashes of blood, black in the firelight. It all happened so fast, and the rest of us, the entire student body, stood there frozen, just watching. Hopple knocked the donkey's ears backward off the Paniata's head, and then Eric Miller swung directly into Jeremy's forehead. Jeremy was screaming, but it didn't sound like only Jeremy screaming.

I thought I could hear the echoes of many voices. shrieking, bouncing off dripping, reeking, stone temple walls. Maybe because the blows had changed the shape of his head, his vocal cords, his screams broke down into a harsh, desperate braying like the donkey he was pretending to be. We could all hear the horrible candelope sound of Jeremy's skull-breaking and see his misshapen, dented silhouette against the backdrop of the flames. So I think, I hope Jeremy was dead or close to it by the time he fell over into the bonfire. Pieces of his paper-machie costume had fallen off, but there was enough of it left that he went up like a torch. That's when the people around me finally started screaming themselves.

It was much too late to stop the erics or to save Jeremy. A few people stumbled a few steps toward the bonfire, but they were the same. The heat drove them back. Eric Miller stepped forward and said that if anybody had a problem, or if anybody decided they felt like talking about this later, there was plenty more room in the bonfire. And that there were always fires in Shakers' woods any night of the year. He held up his blood-caked log

and theatrically dragged his tongue down the length of splintery wood. I stood there just as frozen as everybody else. They couldn't be me who would denounce the erics. I was already weird and unpopular, and even our incompetent police force wouldn't have any trouble uncovering my recent drug purchase. But I thought other people would be taking off, running away, running straight to their parents. Instead, we all seemed to be rooted there. The bonfire burned until Jeremy's body looked just like another log, and then burned down to glowing embers and ash. everybody trickled away in absolute silence once i got home i took a very long shower but even after i put on clean fleece pajamas i could still smell smoke and something else a roast pork smell that i'd never encountered in real life but somehow recognized on a core level i wrapped myself in my comforter and sat up in my bed shivering unblinking all night

night. You would think that the disappearance of a student, especially one with overprotective parents, would cause a frenzy. Police questioning students, searching the woods, pictures on milk cartons, the whole bit. But the reaction to Jeremy's vanishing was bizarrely subdued. Adults were strangely and curious about it all, referring to Jeremy as that kid who ran away. Nobody so much has looked at the remains of the bonfire, where the remains of Jeremy presumably still were, and apparently none of the students who had been at the bonfire told anyone what had really happened. I couldn't understand it until something very strange happened. Basketball season started, and White Ridge couldn't lose. All three Erics made every shot they took. Here's the thing.

when you make a sacrifice to very old gods, even if you don't realize that's what you're doing, sometimes those gods respond. Nobody hates everyone the way Jeremy hated everyone without also hating themselves. Jeremy, on some level, had been a willing victim, and Jeremy had his mind fixed on Huitsil-Lapuchedly in the time before his death, and it happened on Halloween. surely a meaningful day on those intricate Aztec calendar wheels, falling exactly between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. We had sacrificed Jeremy to Huizzi Lepochtli, and Huizzi

Lepochtli had responded, protecting Jeremy's murderers from discovery, and now granting them victory after victory. The Erex got away with it, not only away with it, but were rewarded for it. But that wasn't the worst part. I remembered what Jeremy had said about how Huizzi Lepochli needed nourishment every day. How his worshippers would bleed themselves with thorns to keep him fed and made thousands of human sacrifices every year. If we had called Huizzi Lepocily to ourselves after so many miles and so many years, chances were that he came hungry. And after having Jeremy as an appetizer, he'd be eager for more to consume. And soon.

Like Eric Miller said, there are always fires and shakers as woods. You call her? Looks like those rumors might have a little more substance than any of us were hoping for. That's all from us tonight.

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