 They put up a tall fence covered with black tarp and topped by barbed wire, surrounding Lake Colette at the center of Juniper Valley so that no one could see what they were doing. Two of the three local cop cars were stationed 24-7 at either end, one to the east and one to the west. This all went on for three days while some unknown official body did what needed to be done. Then overnight the black barbed wire fence was gone, replaced with the normal chain-link variety. A few middle school kids dared Kevin Witter to apply a pair of wire cutters and sneak in. My little half-brother knew Kevin. The kid claimed to have seen unmarked vans and a bevy of sunglasses wearing government agents with automatic weapons surrounding a team of scientists in hazmat suits, dragging the carcass of a monster out of the water. The monster had 10 legs, the skin of an alligator and the body of a squid, or the body of a shark, or matted fur or feathers or teeth. It changed per telling and it was all bullshit. I'm guessing Kevin Witter either chickened out before doing the deed or else was picked up by the cops as soon as he approached the fence. At the end of three days some early risers in Juniper Valley reported seeing three unmarked cars heading east on Skylark Road towards the highway and the Air Force Base and the Palmdale Airport. Whatever government agency was operating behind the blockade, searching the lake, they were gone without a trace by the time the sun came up, and whatever they found they weren't telling. The cops were clueless. All they told us townsfolk was that due to a bacterial infestation we were not to swim in the lake until father noticed. I will never swim in that lake again, and I hope to God they killed them all. I stayed in Juniper Valley during the summer with my father. He and my stepmother loved it there, love the isolation and the small town lifestyle. Though I would hesitate to even call Juniper Valley a town, it's an unincorporated cluster of ranch style homes planted like a pimple among the Sierra Polona Mountains. In the 90s the population of Juniper Valley and the surrounding hills was 800 and change. There was one general store in town, one gas station, one church, and one dirty little inn with a bar restaurant. Anything else one would need could be found in Palmdale, a 45-minute drive east, through miles of gridded power lines in golden flatland, dotted with silos and scrape metal. The town resembles a bowl with Lake Colette at the basin, and streets and houses arranged around the edges along the slopes of the surrounding hills. Calling Lake Colette a lake is also stretching things a little bit. It's a sag pond right on the San Andreas Fault which cuts straight through Juniper Valley. During droughts Lake Colette would drain to a glorified puddle, a mossy marsh of waist high weeds. There were quite a few rainy years during my childhood. Lake Colette would remain a proper body of water then, even in the midst of a hot dry summer. I'd look out my bedroom window at the lake, below the dim circles of light cast by the two street lamps on Skylark Road. Pitch black like a tar pit. On moonless nights it seemed bottomless, and I felt as though it could be a kilometers deep well, a black hole. I grew up. My months in Juniper Valley became skull-crushingly boring. My dad and stepmother worked, my half-siblings attended a summer program at their school, and my friends were 70 miles away. The nearest library was almost as far, and the rabbit-eared TV picked up three channels, local access from Palmdale, the Bible Channel, and assorted infomercials. It was my step-grandmother who told me about the will fell animal sanctuary. She went to church with a lady who ran the place, a retired park ranger named Kathy. The shelter was a non-profit funded solely by donations with an all-volunteer staff. Kathy owned an acre of hillside land off Skylark Road, just west of town, a 15-minute walk from my father's house. I was 13 the first summer I volunteered at will fell, and I went back every summer after. They loved me there. By they I mean the only two staff members. Kathy, an earthly woman in her 60s who functioned as CEO, manager, accountant, and primary caretaker of the animals, and Jacques, a 27-year-old autistic man who cleaned cages and walked dogs as part of a government subsidized program. And I fell in love with the animals. There were about 60 of them, homeless dogs and unwanted cats. There were two huge kennels in Kathy's large backyard built by her sons, one for dogs and one for cats. Farther back, rabbit hutches, and at the far end, against the sturdy fence, a tiny stable that housed an elderly racehorse and a fat little donkey. When pounds in Palmdale and Lancaster received animals they had no room for, they'd give them to Kathy. She'd drive her rickety old windowless van east to the highway, then come back hours later with new furry charges. Sometimes she'd even function as a poor man's dog catcher. Agencies would direct her towards residences from Juniper Valley to Acton, asking her to remove starving, nearly hairless dogs from gardens, and pull emaciated cats out from under cars. These were the highway strays, abandoned on the 14 by individuals who no longer wished to be pet owners. That first summer, I met Jane. Jane was a friend of Kathy's, a retired navy nurse who worked as an at-home caregiver and took in homeless cats. She visited Willfell at least once a week, sometimes bringing large bags of cat food. Jane was a rough lady, tanned, cinnally, wrinkly beyond her years, only ever seen wearing stained wife beaters and baggy fatigues. She never married, had no family I knew of, and seemed to prefer the company of cats to humans. Kathy considered her an asset. She'd take in 20 cats at a time, accepting responsibility when we had no more room. She owned a half acre, a few miles southwest of town, off a shabby two-lane road called Oak Tree Lane. Oak Tree Lane snakes between gray-green hills before dead-ending deep in the Angeles National Forest. Rusting mailboxes stick out of the ground like flags at the head of dirt roads, leading to remote ranches and groves and campgrounds. Jane's cottage was at the end of one of these dirt roads, in a little clearing carpeted with knee-high weeds and prickly shrubs, surrounded on three sides by gently sloping hills. She'd take me there sometimes. There were always cats everywhere, cats inside and out, cats on the sofa, cats sitting atop Jane's washer, cats sunning themselves, stocking field mice and butterflies. I'd spend hours at Jane's house with her cats, helping her clean up and clean litter boxes, cuddling kittens from the occasional litter. Jane liked me, since she obviously felt little need for human companionship. I took this as the highest of compliments. Every summer on the first day I'd see her, Jane would break out into the biggest, brightest smile that Kathy swore she reserved only for me. You're like me, Matthew, Jane would say. As I stared out the window of her 1979 El Camino, you can cut through anyone's bullshit and see their soul. That's why you love animals so much. Your standards for souls are higher than most. The earthquake hit the winter of my junior year. I remember waking in the middle of the night, roused by the thud of my precariously placed math book falling off my desk. The mild shaking lasted about three and a half seconds, then I realized I'd experienced an earthquake. My dad, his family, and Juniper Valley were hit a bit harder. Positioned on the San Andreas Fault and close to the remote epicenter, structural damage was rather extensive. The mess had been cleared up by summer, but I noticed broken sandbag barricades and new violent cracks along Skylark Road. Lake Colette looked more robust than I'd ever seen it, but was surrounded by a chain like fence. The water had taken on a greenish tinge and hosted islands of thick yellowish scum. For now it was closed to the public. Caffe's windowless van still hadn't broken down, but she was tired of driving it all over the valley, so she handed me the keys. I enjoyed it at first, rambling through golden planes until I saw the boxy developments of Palmdale, rescuing filthy, unloved creatures from the clutches of abusive owners or uncaring bureaucracy. Jane had all but disappeared. Her last nursing charge had passed away and she was rarely seen in town. Only at the general store, Caffe told me and very rarely. I think Caffe and I were the only people in Juniper Valley who noticed her absence. I missed Jane. I missed the way her face lit up when she saw me and the warm summer afternoon spent in her backyard. I called her landline once, it had been disconnected. Soon the cats started appearing. My third day back, I was sitting in Caffe's office when I received a phone call from a talkative old lady in town. There was a cat in her backyard. It had been sitting in a lower branch of her oak tree for hours. I think it's someone's pet, she said. It's too chubby to be astray. This in and of itself was not an extraordinary event. Everyone in town knew Caffe ran a shelter and wouldn't frequently call her in lieu of animal control when an unknown animal became a bother. Sometimes said animal would be a neighbor's lost pet. Other times a runaway that had wandered from Palmdale. Caffe always made an effort to find the owner. Rarely a feral abandoned highway stray would make it to Juniper Valley. These poor creatures were always half dead things with matted fur and exposed dotted skin. They usually had to be euthanized or died before the local vet got the chance. At first I assumed the calm, well-groomed, gray and white short hair I found in the old lady's oak tree was the former, a townie's escaped house cat. I tried to coax the thing down with a can of tuna, no dice. It wasn't remotely interested in the food. It just stared. Black, deptless eyes locked on something that wasn't me. I stood, tuna cannon outstretched hand looking like an idiot, for five frustrating minutes before giving up and going to the van to grab Caffe's net. When I got back, the cat was gone. I never saw it again. It bothered me all night. It was like the cat had been messing with me. And it happened again and again. Homeowner after homeowner of Juniper Valley calling Will fell and asking us to remove a cat from the property. Always cats. Always different cats. I don't think I ever saw the same one twice. The homeowner always insisted he or she had never seen the animal before, and they never had collars. They always appeared well fed, if not overfed. Their fur, though not show quality, was thick and intact. It became troubling. Juniper Valley had a population of 842. It was located 45 minutes from the nearest town and surrounded on three sides by hills and forest. Everyone knew everyone else's pets and the sudden appearance of so many unaccounted four cats was mysterious to say the least. And these cats were not like any cats I'd ever seen before. They liked fresh water. I'd find them sitting in fountains and kiddie pools. They didn't seem to like the sun. They'd come out at night or else be found in some shaded dark enclosed space. They were silent. Never hissing or meowing. They were really, really good at getting in and out of places. I found one curled up in the back of a lady's car. Though she admitted she'd left the door unlocked, the physical act of opening and closing the door should have been impossible for a creature with only paws at its disposal. They were smart. Super naturally smart. At times I fell under the disturbing impression the cat was taunting me. I'd be setting up some trap or extending the net. The cat would sit there, calm and cool, watching intently. There'd be a minute in which I'd have some semblance of hope I'd finally catch the thing this time. And then the cat would dart out of my grasp or vanish the moment I turned my back. The weirdest part was, once or twice, the cat stopped before running off and looked at me. I could swear it was laughing. And they all shared the same icy, emotionless black eyes. I wished they didn't remind me so much of the empty eyes staring from the euthanized corpses I saw at Wilfell. Finally I caught one. It was early July. I was quite pleased with my cunning. I bought one of those huge plastic storage tubs from the general store, filled it with water, stuck it in the back of the van and waited for my feline quarry. A large pug-faced tabby this time. After an hour of hiding in the cab, the cat climbed down from the roof where I'd found it and into the waiting reservoir. I raced to the back, slammed the van doors, donned leather gloves and prepared for a hissing, clawing fight. But surprisingly the cat didn't struggle at all. It was fully submerged in the water, curled up on the bottom of the container like a rock. I picked it up, shoved it in a cage, dumped out the water and drove. It wasn't until I was halfway to Wilfell that I noticed the smell. Once my nine-year-old son dropped a fish stick in the back of my car and forgot about it. A humid summer week later, my car smelled just like that cat had. When we got there, the chubby cat put up about as much of a fight as it had in the van. I didn't hold it for long. Years of experience with scared animals taught me that the less time spent with claws inches from my face the better. But the short span of time the cat was in my hands was enough to make me seriously uncomfortable. It was heavy and somehow doughy. My hands sunk into its flesh like silly putty and it was cold. I left the cat in the quarantine cage in Kathy's office. We usually only use the cage for animals that were obviously ill, which the tabby was not. But there was just something wrong with this cat, like it shouldn't be mixed with others of its species. I gave it bowls of kibble and water, then sat down at the desk to fill out an application for a grant. Kathy was gone for the weekend visiting her sister in Bakersfield. Jacques was in the back cleaning out the pony stall. I couldn't concentrate, not with that cat there. I looked over my shoulder every other minute. Each time I'd see the same thing, the flat faced tabby, sitting in its water bowl, staring at me. It never blinked. It never moved. It didn't even appear to breathe. The rotting, fishy odor filled the room. Finally I cracked. I double checked the latch on the cat's cage, locked the office door and pretended to be busy feeding the dogs. I called the vet and asked if he could come by and take a look at the feline, but he said he wouldn't be able to for another week. The next morning I found the office window wide open, the quarantine cage open, and the cat gone. I wasn't disappointed. Not long after that everyone started talking about little Charlie Henderson. Charlie was 12 and had been skateboarding alone shortly before midnight in the parking lot by Lake Colette. The lake was still scum covered and fenced off, and the occupants of the nearest homes have long since packed it in for the night. The way he told it, Charlie had been approached by a cat. He bent over to pet it and the cat danced away, leading him to a grove of trees behind the lake. He followed the cat, then suddenly he was attacked by a small army of cats. They jumped from the trees and emerged from the shadows, latching onto his clothing and limbs and dragging him towards a hole in the fence. If a lost car hadn't pulled into the parking lot and turned around, causing the cats to scatter and giving him time to run away, well who knows what they'd have done with him. No one believed him of course. Everyone assumed he'd been attacked by maybe one feral cat and his imagination had taken over, because cats don't corner people and jump them. That takes organization and planning, intelligence not possessed by house pets. And his story got weird too. He claimed one of the cats had stretched itself like silly putty and grew an opposable thumb. Then Jane came back. It was a cloudy afternoon and I was taking advantage of the slight cool down to deep clean the dog kennel. Kathy was gone again in Riverside watching her granddaughter play softball. I was busy scraping dried dog crap off the concrete when Jock ran out to tell me there was a lady asking for me. I wiped off my hands and went inside to find Jane staring at me from Kathy's living room. Jane had never been obsessive about her appearance, but if I hadn't known her so well, I would have assumed the gaunt, trembling figure and a stained wife beater was a homeless woman. Her hair was a frizzy matted mess of gray. Her arms and chest were striped with lacerations of varying degrees of depth in various stages of healing. And her eyes, which had once seemed to serve as a window to a rational calculating mind, now allowed a glimpse into bloodshot insanity. Jane, I said, are you okay? She didn't smile. Do you have any? She asked. I frowned. Any what? Cats, Matthew, was the curt reply. It's the cats. I need the cats. They've been wondering. I gave her what I hoped was a kind smile. Okay, Jane, I can show you the cats. But Kathy said I'm not allowed to have any of them adopted without her around. That was a lie, but I wasn't about to pass Jane custody of a pet rock, let alone a living, breathing creature. She was obviously not in the physical, emotional, or mental state to care for anything, not even herself. I walked her out to the cat kennel. As expected, a small herd of dogs ran towards Jane to sniff her and beg for attention. Then about three feet from her, the dog stopped. They sniff the air, whined, and ran off in all directions. Not a single one of them got nearer. Jane looked over the cat seriously, then sighed in disappointment. She shook her head, turned around, and paced back to Kathy's house. You haven't caught any? She said. What are you talking about? I asked. She glared, looking through me. She could cut through anyone's bullshit and see their soul. You know what I mean, Matthew. My cats, call me if you catch one. There's so many of them now, and they're getting bigger. With that, she walked out the door. She stopped and turned around. And Matthew? Watch the lake. I spent the rest of the day in a daze. I'd been wondering where the weird cats came from. They didn't belong to anyone in Juniper Valley, and it was hard to believe that they'd all migrated from Palmdale. Jane took in homeless cats. Maybe they were hers. I didn't know why they would have left food, water, and shelter to wander for miles along an isolated road and into a neighborhood. But it was at least a possibility. That night, following a tangled motivation I couldn't put into words, I borrowed my father's car and drove to the parking lot by Lake Colette, where Charlie Henderson had been attacked. I pulled right up to the fence, turned off my car, let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I obeyed Jane. I watched the lake. I hadn't sat for 10 minutes before I saw movement, a black shape creeping out of the shadows and approaching the water's edge. More movement against the clump of trees to my right. Cautiously, quietly, I opened the car door and stepped out. I shut the door gently and tiptoed towards the fence. A large black cat waded in the dirty lake. Its paws were inundated. It kept on going. I came closer until I was grasping the metal links of the fence, and I felt it quiver under my fingers. I looked to my right and saw them. Two more cats. Huge cats. The biggest I'd ever seen. Cats climbing down the fence like monkeys. Head first, completely vertical. One, then the other, jumped gracefully to the ground and stepped into the feeble light bleeding from the two streetlights. One was yellow, the other a tabby. The first cat was almost completely submerged. With the lightest gurgle, it ducked under the scum-covered waterline into the black hole. The light wasn't good at all. It looked as though the second and third cats had had flattened when they hit the ground, like Play-Doh thrown at a wall. And there was something about how they moved. They jiggled. Their legs bent the wrong way. Or maybe it was just the shitty lighting. Where was the black cat? It couldn't still be underwater. Ripples in the lake. Small islands of yellow scum shifted in gentle waves. I didn't feel a breeze. There was something else in there. A cadence of nerves was triggered in my brain, forgotten but immediately recognizable like a song. I was scared of Lake Colette. Scared like I had been as a child. When the black water had seemed from my bedroom window a bottomless well. I ran to my car. I did a donut in the parking lot and sped home. The next morning was hot and bright and under the cloudless sky had all seemed ridiculous. I was letting Charlie Henderson rumors get to me. I walked past Lake Colette on my way to Wilfow. I went right up to the fence. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. No cats in sight. A light breeze ruffled the water. I breathed in and gagged. It smelled like rotting fish mixed with a McDonald's dumpster. It smelled like the pug-faced tabby I'd caught. Cats don't like water. Cats don't swim. I'd spent nearly half a decade surrounded by cats. And the cats I'd been chasing around yards and spying on the night before warned cats. That smell. The way the tabby I'd caught it felt when I held it. Bloated and putty-like. Cold. Those cats didn't purr or meow. They didn't eat. Their intelligence and that stare. Those glassy corpse-like eyes that seemed to take in everything and nothing. And Jane. Her cats, she'd said. They've been wondering. They're getting bigger. Maybe she was going nuts living out there all alone in the wilds. A mile away from her nearest human neighbor, the dogs wouldn't come near her. Her own cats had been attacking her apparently. How else to explain the scratches all over? Yet still, she was desperate to have them back. I had to talk to Jane again. Café was still gone and it was jockstay off, so I planned on heading to Jane's lonely dirt road as soon as I fed the animals. But a couple from Palmdale called unexpectedly, asking if they could come by with their daughter to pick out a pet. By the time they'd selected a corgi mix and made arrangements to have the dog mutored, it was after five. It was fine. It was still light out. I locked up, grabbed the keys to the van, and made my way into the hills. My teenage bravado waned as I traveled farther and farther away from Juniper Valley. There's no defined town line, but when you reach the intersection of Skylark and Oak Tree Lane, you're essentially watching civilization shrink in your rear view mirror. I'd forgotten just how far away Jane's shack was from anything, and just how desolate and lonely the mountain road became. I didn't see a single other car the whole time. Finally, I came to the rusted blue mailbox with Jane's numbers on the side. I turned on the dirt road. When I reached the apex, I saw Jane's shack. Carefully, foot on the brake, I made my way down into the valley. It didn't look like Jane was home. There was no light coming from the windows. I pulled up closer into the driveway past the house to the carport in the back. The back door was wide open, and Jane's El Camino was there. The cats weren't. No cats lounging in piles by the stairs, none prowling around the yard. I pulled behind Jane's car, climbed out of the van, strolled into the backyard. Jane's empty property looked lovely and approaching dusk, beautiful trees reaching for the heavens, majestic furs meeting fluffy white clouds like an old West movie backdrop. She must have been hiding in the house. She must have crept up behind me because I don't remember feeling the blow. I woke up lying in cool moist dirt. I was looking at water, Lake Colette. No, I saw nothing but hills and foliage in the distance. Where the hell was I? I sat up. My head spun. I felt blood in my hair. I was sitting on the bank of a small pond. The water was greenish and thick with algae covered in thick yellow scum. I took a breath and lurched. The smell. Rotting fish. Rotting flesh. Fast food dumpster. Stronger than I'd ever smelled it before. The water moved. Something was emerging a few feet in front of me, swimming to shore. A black cat. Paddling with uncomfortable, almost human strokes. I scrambled backwards, away from the approaching creature. It reached land and pulled itself onto the bank. It stood up. The black cat's weight shifted. Its belly bulged, its lower legs swelled, became shorter and fatter. The effect was the same as squeezing a stress ball. Instead of a creature with a skeleton and tendons and muscles, I was being approached by a thing with the consistency of jelly wearing a furry suit. I screamed and stumbled to my feet. Then I felt icy fingers curl around my neck. I struggled and instinctively horse-kicked my unseen attacker. The hand loosened and I whirled around. I was face to face with Jane. But it wasn't Jane. Her face was round and flat. Boneless. The wrinkles under her eyes had smoothed themselves out and her nose bulged like a mushroom. And her eyes. The maniacal glint was gone from her eyes. So was the consciousness. So was the recognition. So was the vitality. Her pupils were so dilated her irises were no longer visible. And what had been white was now completely red. Her eyes didn't move. They were those of a corpse. Then something in the water grabbed my hand. Something cold and soft and rubber-like, slimy but very, very strong. It pulled me. It was pulling me into the water. Jane stood over me, smiling. She bent down, hands outstretched. Pudgy, bloated hands attached to rope-like arms that jiggled and curled and changed shape. What happened next is a blur. I remember clawing, kicking and screaming at the top of my lungs. And then I was running. Stumbling, lungs burning, stinging, aching, cursing the spongy, weeded ground that gave under my feet. I pushed through dry shrubs and jumped over tree branches, praying I was going in a direction that would lead me to humanity, and that the crinkling of grass behind me was only my imagination. Then I was on top of the hill, looking down at Jane's shack. And then I was in Jane's yard. I saw the van and jumped in the driver's seat, silently thanking the guardian angel that distracted me so I had left my keys in the ignition. I slammed the door. I looked up, out the windshield and into the red and black empty eyes of the thing that had been Jane. It was smiling. She always reserved a special smile for me. I turned the key and gunned it. The van jerked violently. I slammed down the brakes, kicking up dirt-like smoke. I felt a sticky moisture against my cheeks. I took a breath and barely managed to pull open the door before I projectile vomited, even thinking about that acidic, rotting seafood stench induces a nauseous tickle in the back of my throat. I'd crushed Jane under the front right tire. She'd popped. The van still ran. I drove it straight to the police station. In the parking lot I surveyed the damage. The front bumper was dented and the headlight was out. There was no blood. The mangled metal was splattered with glossy, opaque, white goo. I was almost completely honest with the sleepy-eyed desk cop. I said that Jane tried to drown me in the hills behind her home, chased me to the van, and then I ran her over. But I left out the part where her body had taken on the properties of pasta and silly putty. The cop asked, sarcastically, if I'd been doing any drugs, but radioed a car to the site. Over the next week I was questioned multiple times by the police. Their questions became increasingly bizarre, to the point where they were asking about toxic chemicals and lights in the sky, seriously, and whether I was or had ever been involved with a heavy metal band or a cult. This was the late 90s. I was chastised for driving down a lonely back road alone to approach a crazy woman, but I was never charged with a crime. The cops were cagey, but they'd found something. By the next morning, Oak Tree Lane was blocked off by the county sheriffs, and the inhabitants of the hills had been roughly evacuated with no explanation. Then came more sheriffs, then the unmarked cars, then the tall black barbed wire fence around Lake Colette. Jane's death was reported as a freak accident. I tried to forget. I holed up in my room watching happy movies on VHS until my mom came to take me back home. I went back to school. I threw myself into studying and applying for college. When I needed to, I snuck my mom's sleeping pills. Eventually, however, curiosity overwhelmed my fear. I wanted answers, so I elected to spend the following summer, my last before college, in Juniper Valley with my father. Wilfell was no more. Kathy had left the animals with a larger no-kill shelter in Acton, retired and moved to Riverside. There was a large for sale sign in front of what had once been her home, and it had been a dry winter. The chain-link fence, broken and bent, still surrounded Lake Colette, but the lake was little more than a puddle. I got a job waiting tables at a bar restaurant. I spent my nights serving burgers to bored townies, trying to strike up conversations about the strange events of the previous summer, the shadowy agents, the fence, the crazy cat lady. I was offered nothing but rumors, speculation, and good old-fashioned lies. Finally, I met a man named Aaron. He was in his 20s, chubby and socially awkward. He worked as a counselor at a camp for disabled children. He talked about dungeons and dragons a little bit too much, and his uncle was a local cop. It was a slow night. I shot the shit with Aaron for a while. When I asked him if he'd heard about the crazy cat lady who died last year, he played it off like a tabloid headline, but I'd noticed his eyes widen and his hands tremble. I guess I got lucky. Aaron's cop uncle apparently had a weakness for Jack Daniels in a tendency to ignore police confidentiality when drunk, and that weakness must have been genetic, because an hour later Aaron was singing like a canary. The night Jane had tried to kill me, two cops had been dispatched to her home off Oak Tree Lane, expecting to find an empty bottle of Everclear and a discarded bag of shrooms. Instead, they found what had been Jane. Pieces of her were scattered across the ground like debris. They radioed for backup, and a small posse spent the remainder of the night on a scavenger hunt for vital organs. They found skin, plenty of skin. The piece that once covered her back was folded in a torn white tank top. Her bones and organs seemed strangely melted, as though pulled from a vat of acid or digested. It was like one officer had said, Jane had been skinned from the inside, then filled with acidic goo like a water balloon. Everything was coated in a white, translucent jelly substance. The officers had taken a sample to be tested, but by the next morning it had evaporated into a powdery white stain. The big guns were called in. Sheriffs, agents from multiple government divisions, he couldn't say who exactly. The local cops had been pushed out of the investigation by that point. He had heard that upon searching Jane's property, they found an ax, multiple firearms, boxes of ammo, and 10 cat skins buried a foot and a half deep in the backyard, mostly with their heads detached and all coated in the familiar white powder. They scoured the hills behind Jane's property and they found the pond. The small pond that, according to land surveying reports, had not existed before the earthquake and the rains of the previous winter. They drained it. At the bottom they found 24 more cat skins. The insides were all gone, yet the skins were unmarred. At no point had they been cut apart or sewn together. Again, it appeared as if something had eaten or dissolved all the blood, bones, and vital organs. Except for the teeth and the eyeballs. The eyeballs were left intact to stare hauntingly into oblivion. After the discovery, they dragged Lake Colette as well. Erin didn't know what they'd found there. The citizens of Juniper Valley were urged to stay away. It's been nearly 20 years. I'm a veterinarian now. I've done some digging, spent hours and quarters of the internet where I've seen things I can't unsee and made some new friends. But I still don't have answers. I don't know what changed Jane's cats that summer. Were they infected? Possessed? I think it was something in the water. Hyper-intelligent blob-like things that had been dormant for years. Brought to the surface by that earthquake. But this is all conjecture, my opinion. All those years ago, I told Erin, the chubby camp counselor, everything. He listened, eyes widening, but never doubting. The next morning, he and I took his car down Oak Tree Lane to the wrestling blue mailbox and finally the abandoned shack where I'd passed so many summer days. We hiked a mile into the hills, carrying two shovels in my father's rifle. We found the hole that had once been a pond, now a weeded ditch. We got to work. It was hard work. It was dirty work. It took a few trips. But by the end of August, we had leveled the land and completely filled the hole with dirt. I don't know what was down there, but if there's more, they're not getting out. My name is Eric Williams and I work as a political reporter in Washington, D.C. I cover Congress, the President, and whatever happens to be the trending topic of the day. I have a couple of sources that I trust and a few that I don't. But, as like what happened, I have found that my most important source of reliable information turns out to be my dog, Applejacks. Let me back up a little. About three years ago, I was heading out of my apartment building to do a follow-up on a story, when I heard a rustling in the hedges that flanked the wide-stone steps by the entry. I figured that it must be the raccoon who had been getting into the dumpster and I gave it no more thought. On my return trip at around 11 p.m., I was halfway up the stairs when I heard a low whine coming from the bushes, so I backed up and peered into the dark undergrowth till I spotted the reflection of two eyes looking back at me. They were a good three feet up from the ground, so I started to back up when I heard the unmistakable low thumping of a slowly wagging tail. Hey there, I said in a calming voice. I moved back and sat down quietly on the bottom step. You hungry, bud? Unzipping my backpack, I fist around at the bottom, but all I could find was an energy drink and an old, single-serving pack of cereal, Applejacks. I opened it and set it down on this step next to me. It took a few minutes, but then he slowly stepped out of the bushes and made his way cautiously towards the food. He was big, but I could tell he was less than a year old. He was real thin and looked like he hadn't eaten in a while. Keeping one eye on me, he gingerly sniffed the Applejacks. Then hunger must have overtaken him and he wolfed down the cereal. He flipped the bag over with his nose, checking to make sure he hadn't missed any. Then he looked up at me. I let him sniff my hand and then slowly gave him a scratch behind the ears. Tail wagging, he climbed onto the same step that I was on. Then he sat down, leaning against me. And that was it. We've been together ever since. I looked online, checked the papers and the local Bolton boards for a few weeks to see if anyone was looking for him. After a while, I stopped checking. Soon we settled into a routine. I took him out in the morning, then he slept for most of the day. In the evening, we went for a long walk in the park. The park we visit is sort of a dividing line between a very rich section of town and the slightly run down section where my apartment is located. It's a huge park that goes on for miles, with a small river running along the length of it. There is plenty of room for him to chase a ball or run around with other dogs, but it quickly became apparent to me that Jax didn't like the company of other dogs. He wasn't aggressive, he just completely ignored them. They would approach him, tail wagging wanting to play, but he kept his eyes on me. Along the river, there were several old stone bridges and he loved to run down them, a million miles an hour, race across, then turn around and run back to me. This ritual would be repeated at every bridge. I would stand there laughing, urgently calling him back, as if it was a life and death situation. Sometimes he was a little late with the breaks and he would plow into me, landing us both on the ground. Then, one particular Tuesday evening at the park, he crossed the bridge and stopped on a far side. He stood there looking into the woods. He glanced back, as if to tell me something. Then he headed straight for the woods. I called, but he kept going. By the time I made it across the bridge, all I could see in the distance was a man kneeling over something on the ground. So I ran. What happened? I called out. As I approached, I saw the man had tears in his eyes. There was a golden retriever on the ground in front of him, and Jax was laying with his head on top of the dog's chest. Did he hurt your dog? I asked. No, the man said. I think he saved him. My dog was having a seizure. They're usually quick to stop if I can calm him down, but this time it wouldn't stop. Not until your dog came and laid down next to him. Seemed to calm him. Will you be able to get him home? I asked. Yes, I'll carry him. We lived just over there. He pointed at a large house up on the hill. Well, I better get him home. Thank you. About a week later, the man with the golden retriever spotted us at the park. He waved and walked over with his dog. It turns out he was looking for us. It turns out his name was Gregory Williams. It turns out he was just elected to the House of Representatives. I am buying Jax a triple cheeseburger on the way home. Maybe two. Since then, Gregory and I met at the park every Tuesday and we've become good friends. The dogs played together while we talk, and once in a while he'll give me a heads up on a story. I'm always careful to keep his name out of it. Months went by and the first Tuesday in December rolled around. We met at the park as usual. While the dogs played, Gregory told me that he was leaving early for Christmas break, taking his family up to a cabin in Colorado. He invited me to come with Jax, of course. I said that sounded great, but I couldn't take that much vacation time. He told me nothing's happening in D.C. until after the holidays. Here. He reached for my phone and entered a number. That's the phone to the cabin. Get away as soon as you can. Drive up to Colorado Springs and call me. I'll direct you to the cabin. Make sure you bring Jax and anyone else you like. I mean it. Please come. My wife and kids are dying to meet the hero that saved our dog. And you. I laughed. Okay, I'll try. He looked at me, paused, then said, if you get there by the 15th of December, I'll give you the story of a lifetime. Then he nodded and walked away. His dog followed behind. I stood there silently watching him go. Back in my apartment, I poured scoops of dog food into Jax Bowl and I heated up some leftovers for myself. I had an interview tomorrow morning with Senator Susan Collins, the chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Committee. So I sat down on my computer to finalize my questions. I turned on the local news as background noise while I weren't. There had been two shootings in a robbery nearby. A 10-year-old had gotten lost and then was found safe at a local Walmart. And sky watchers may have a spectacular show in two weeks when a comet makes its closest approach on the 16th of December. Jax was sound asleep by the time I finished up and went to bed. I awoke in the morning to a soft beep of the message left on my phone. It was the Senator's secretary canceling today's meeting. I called her office to reschedule, but there was only a recorded message saying the Senator's office was closed for the holidays. With the morning off, I took Jax for a leisurely walk. Then I caught the train to the Capitol building. I walked over to the congressional offices to see if I could gather some info on an upcoming vote. The guard checked my press ID and nodded. I walked down the quiet hallway to the elevator. Stepping out on the fourth floor, I turned right and stopped. Ahead of me was a long hallway. There must have been 20 small offices. Every door was closed. Lights off. This was very odd, so I got back in the elevator. Stopping at every floor to check. The entire building was completely empty. This just doesn't happen. There are always congressional staff milling about. On my way out the door, I asked the guard what was going on. He just shrugged and said, no idea. Grabbing a coffee from a nearby street vendor, I sat down at a bench overlooking the main walkway. Taking out my phone, I called my list of political contacts one by one. Either there was no answer or a message was left saying, I'm sorry the office is closed for the holidays. The Congress was slated to work until December 21st. Votes were scheduled for each day. This just doesn't happen. I sat there thinking, vaguely aware of the tourists passing by. A family with two kids sat down on the bench next to mine. The kids were asking their dad, will we be able to see it? Yes, their dad answered. You might not even need a telescope. Suddenly, I got this vision of thousands of people gathering with binoculars, having comet themed parties. All the while, silent doom approached. Tossing my coffee into the garage, I headed for the train. I arrived home, took Jacks out for a quick walk and then sat down at my computer. What should I even look for? Impact? No, too many amateur astronomers out there. The news of a catastrophic impact would get out to the public. I spent the next week and a half achieving little to no results. Nothing in the news but excitement over the easily visible approach and comet. I even checked the conspiracy websites, but found nothing out of the ordinary. It was around 11pm when it finally occurred to me, that I should stop looking in the present and try looking into the past. I typed in the history of comets. Comets shed a lot of debris, pieces of which can slam into earth. Comets can cause an air burst, igniting entire forests. They can also produce a high altitude haze of particles. A comet is linked to the Justinian Plague in 541AD. It was the first recorded instance of the Black Plague in Europe, when cities struggled to clear the streets of the dead. There was the comet of the Black Death in 1347. During the winter of 1664, a bright comet was seen in the London sky. The great plague ravaged England for the next two years. I stopped reading and I realized that if something was coming, Washington was the last place I wanted to be. It was a quarter past midnight, the early morning of December 15th. If I threw my stuff in the car and drove straight through to Colorado Springs, with a little luck, we could make it. I looked over at Jack's. Wanna go for a ride? After uploading a number of horror stories to various places around the internet, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of supportive emails and messages I received. It spurred me on to write more, to take my ambition seriously, and to commit an increasing amount of my time to the pursuit of becoming a published author. Little did I know that this new found acknowledgement of my writing would lead to a series of horrific and abhorrent events. For over a year, I received numerous messages and emails, most very positive and enjoyable, yet every few days I would also find a strange, disconnected, and fragmented piece of correspondence sitting in my inbox. Each email would consist of one random word as a subject heading, with a message itself comprised of a single phrase, normally only two words long. The email address would change each time, but it was clear from the nature of the content that the author was the same. At first, I dismissed them as the idle product of a bored worker on the internet, attempting to amuse themselves with a thought of myself reading garbled, puzzling, yet worryingly cryptic messages. As the days wore on, however, and the emails became gradually more twisted and prophetic, I began to suspect that they were of a far more sinister origin. I had posted and contributed to many websites and forums over the years, and it was not unusual to wake up each morning to 20 or 30 new emails in my inbox. I often spent my lunch break answering them, and I genuinely enjoyed the correspondence. However, the day after posting a story called The Passenger, I followed my usual routine of logging into my email account at noon, only to find one message which stood out most uncomfortably from the others. The subject heading was sufferer, and the email itself contained just two words, baby cries. I sent the message to my trash folder and thought nothing more of it. It had been a long day, and as I had been writing from dawn to dusk, I was tiring rapidly, feeling suitably ready for a good, long overdue sleep. It was around 11.30 pm, just as I started to drift into a dream that I heard a noise. It was not out of place, nor did it cause any real concern to me, coming as it did from my neighbor's house through the wall. It was the type of common sound any resident is familiar with. I smirked to myself thinking baby cries, and drifted back to sleep, sure that the child's mother or father would soon be there to comfort it, as they always were. I woke again, glancing at my mobile phone which cast an unearthly green glow around the room. Seeing that it was after three in the morning, I became agitated knowing that I had a long day out of me. Rest does not come easily on those nights when we know we must rise early. The mere thought of the necessity of a good night's sleep before the next day's work precludes any notion of sleep itself. Lying there, I listened in the darkness, to the infant next door, breaking its heart, inconsolable and distraught. Surely the parents had not let it scream for all those hours, lying there alone in blackness of night, unattended. After trying to block out the child's cries for what seemed like hours, I admitted defeat and moved to the spare room that my family and friends only stayed in, on the rare occasions when they visited. At 7.30 am, my phone alarm sounded, and after fighting the reality of another day, I reluctantly left my bed, walking slowly to the kitchen to make some coffee. From the window, I looked out onto the street below. What I saw horrified me, a police car and two ambulances parked outside of my neighbor's home. Even through my groggy, pre-caffeinated mind, the memory of that helpless child crawling in the night sprung to the floor. Immediately, I stopped what I was doing, threw on some clothes, and ran outside. I was not the only person watching, as the usual nosy residents stood at their doors, with some even out on the street, still wearing their dressing gowns idly gossiping, whipping up any number of scandalous rumors. Asking several onlookers what had happened, I was told a variety of accounts, from a child being abducted to someone having a seizure during the night. A hush fell over the street, as my neighbor's front door finally opened, slowly. Three police officers exited the house somberly, as a collective gasp seeped out from the mouths of the crowd of onlookers. Quickly behind, two men in sterile white clothing carried a stretcher, and on it, a body bag containing the now-deceased remains of one of my former neighbors. A few cries rang out from across the street. Those who knew them wept, while those who did not gossiped. Then another silence, followed by another stretcher, and another body bag. This time no one uttered a sound. The street was void of noise. A tangible tension spread through the air, a hanging sense of dread as all of us waited, hoping beyond hope, for no more death. Heartbreak, the last stretcher supporting a small and insignificant shroud, was carried out solemnly into the morning air, and placed carefully into the back of an ambulance. Tears were wept, and answers were demanded from the police. But I could not cope with the sight. I could not bear it. The sound of that poor infant screaming through the night, screaming for its very life rang out in my ears. The sound of a child now forever silenced. The memory was deafening. How was I supposed to know? The child had cried before as many do. I didn't know. I didn't know. I walked, dazed, back through my garden, and into the now hollow sanctuary of my house. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried, crying knowing that maybe if I had just paid attention or shown more concern than simply getting to sleep, that if I had noticed something was amiss, I could have called the police and then perhaps they would still be alive. Several hours later, two police officers arrived at my door to ask if I had seen or heard anything unusual from the night before. They said that they were not at liberty to tell me what had happened, but that any information I could give them would help immensely with their investigation. When I told them about the email I had received, they looked at each other with an obvious sense of skepticism. When I showed it to them, they asked if they could have my login details in an attempt to trace where the email came from. Of course, I gave it to them and then they left after saying that they would be in touch. As soon as they were gone, I returned to the computer screen to switch it off. I recoiled in horror at the sight of another cryptic email sitting in my inbox. The subject heading said, Fan. And the email again contained only two short words. Two words which drove fear through every part of my being. It simply read, You told. I was utterly unprepared for the events which followed. Grandpa was 97 years old when he passed away. He lived far from where his three children had settled. Grandma died when I was a small child and he ended up remarrying another woman a few years later who demanded that he move out west so that she could be nearer to her sons. She was a piece of work, was Grandma Hester. We all wondered how Grandpa could stand her. It turns out that perhaps he couldn't. We're not precisely sure when he developed dementia but it was probably years before we noticed it. He'd tell us about people he was speaking to or visiting with or a trip he'd taken. Years later, after we learned he was suffering from dementia, we'd learned that conversation, that trip or visit, never actually happened. For all we really knew, any story he told us from the last decade could be a false memory. We would have no way of knowing. Hester rarely communicated with us herself. Probably our first clue that Grandpa wasn't himself anymore happened a few weeks after he came back east to live with my parents. Most of my family had settled in one area. My wife and I lived in the south end of our city as did one set of cousins but my father and his two sisters all lived in the north within driving distance of each other. A few of my aunt's children had moved out of town and my brother had as well but there were still enough of us for Grandpa to visit with. We would often have gatherings at my parents house where Grandpa would either hold court with some story or just go to sleep. One afternoon, my daughter Brienne, who was in her late teens at the time, came in from playing with my cousin's kids and sat down at the table where Grandpa had been napping. He suddenly woke and smiled at her. Well, hello, Claudia, he said brightly. Claudia was my aunt, dad's youngest dad's youngest sister. I'm Brienne, Grandpa, said my daughter. No, said Grandpa. Almost sounding offended. You're my daughter, Claudia. Later that same month, he told my aunts and uncles the story of how he came out east after living with Hester got to be too much. I prayed to the Lord, said Grandpa. And the next thing I knew, Martin was here. Martin was my father. I remembered him driving out to the tiny cold house on a hill in Colorado to get Grandpa. He had not come due to any divine intervention. He had come because Grandpa called him in the night and pleaded with him to come get him. We all loved Grandpa but caring for him was not easy. For one thing, Grandpa had gotten it into his head that he was a young, single man with many years out of him. And the only thing missing was a young woman at his side. If he spoke for any length of time with a younger woman, he began convinced that she was in love with him and that perhaps she should be his new bride. Hester was even still alive at this point. He had forgotten her utterly. The women he made advances on included my mother, two of my cousins, and my own wife. Thankfully he couldn't do much more than talk, so it was just a matter of politely changing the subject. But it got worse when he decided he could do things like take walks on his own or try to drive my father's car. Dad and mom didn't let him go on walks by himself. But that didn't mean he didn't sneak away sometimes when dad was away and mom was in the basement. He had to use a walker to get around and simply couldn't do stairs, but refused to admit this to anyone including himself. This led to a lot of falls. He would also get confused as to where he was or where he lived. At times during his walks, he would attempt to find the old family home that he had raised my father and aunts in, despite it having been long gone since before I was born. Dad picked him up from a police station where he had been taken after some patrol officers saw him wandering around, clearly lost. The time he tried to drive my dad's car was after that. He decided that the reason he had gotten lost is because he had had to walk. He managed to get the emergency break off and rolled right down the fairly steep incline outside my parents house, crashing into a fence. The damage was minimal, but after that incident, my parents realized he needed to be in a full-time care facility. He got worse after that. My father visited him three times a week. I have no idea how often my aunts went or if they even did. I tended to only go when there was a family gathering, and increasingly I began to realize that he had no clue who I was. He'd smile and greet me as though I was someone he just met. He'd tell me about his children, describing them as little kids, and even go as far to invent a friend who was looking after them while he was in his home with all these old people. Grandpa was 93 at the time. He was much older than many of the others who lived there, but somehow they were the old people. He was not. When I say things got worse, I mean he changed. The false memories, the refusal to acknowledge that he was elderly, the attempts to chat up ladies and inability to remember that his children were grown, and that he had grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but he had never been violent before. That changed one night when dad was called to come to the facility quickly. Grandpa had wandered into the wrong room and had come out screaming, raising his walker up in the air and slamming it into the ground. He even took a few swings of people who tried to calm him down. He began accusing the staff of stealing his things. He was bellowing as loud as he could. Give them back! Give them back! I wasn't there for it, and I still have a hard time picturing it. Grandpa barely raised his voice above normal volume during the last decade of his life. When dad got there, they had gotten him into his room, and he was somewhat appeased. Somewhat. He had a can of insurer and a tube sock and almost hit my father in the head with it when he came in. He apologized. Dad was one of the few people he always recognized, and said he had been waiting for the thief to come back. A man who would steal from me would just as soon kill me, he explained. The insurer in a sock was his weapon to fend off the thief. Later that night, he told dad about how much it had scared Florence. He hated that she had to go through that. Florence was my grandmother, the one who died when I was six. He finished by saying that Florence had gone somewhere, and when he went looking for her, they told me she was dead. One day they're gonna come looking for me, and they're gonna find me dead. That was a jolt to my father. Grandpa had never at any point before that acknowledged his mortality, his advanced age, or the fact that he'd probably know more than a handful of years left at best. Aging and death was something that happened to other people. But here he was, accepting that death was near. That wasn't the last night he mentioned the thief. He even gave the thief a name, Charlie Rosen. It was strange that he would invent a whole person, name included. He didn't even name the friend who was looking after his kids. In fact, that person ceased to exist. Charlie Rosen had stolen his kids, had killed Florence, had come to his home in Colorado and routinely taunted him, beat him, and he had even declared that Hester had been sleeping with him. He remembered her now, and was certain that she and Charlie were ganging up on him to make his life a living hell. In the last six months of his life, he would become increasingly agitated. Dad could not have a single visit wherein Grandpa would not mention Charlie, and then the violence started up again. In one visit, Grandpa accused Dad of being Charlie and attacked him. After that, Dad's visits dropped once a week, and he didn't stay long. Once, I went with him. It was the last time I saw my grandfather alive. And I'll never forget it. Charlie was here again today. Grandpa told us as soon as we arrived. He told me I couldn't leave this room anymore. He's trapped me here. Dad, this is where you live, my father tried to explain. See, here's a picture of Mom. Why would Charlie let you keep that? He killed your mother, you know, said Grandpa, murdered her in her sleep. Mother had an aneurysm, said Dad. You and I decided together to unplug the machine. She died in her sleep, but no one killed her. No, no, it was Charlie. Grandpa's voice was not agitated. It was solid, like he knew for a fact what he was saying. He poisoned her, made something go wrong in her head. I didn't know until then, but I realized it later, after he introduced me to Hester, conned me into marrying her. He's my personal demon, that Charlie. Dad finally had enough. There is no Charlie, he said, nearly shouting. You aren't supposed to correct people who have dementia, it just confuses them more and makes them upset. But my father forgot this in that moment. Charlie is someone you made up. Mom died naturally. You met Hester at a coffee shop years after mother died, and while she was not a nice woman, she was not unfaithful to you. So please, stop talking about Charlie. Dear Lord in Heaven, said Grandpa. He got to you. He told you to say those things. You're a part of it too. Uh, Grandpa, I said. Why don't we start a game of checkers? Usually, he loves checkers. I don't want to play any fucking checkers, screamed Grandpa. I couldn't have been more surprised if he'd hit me. Grandpa had never used profanity in his life. By words, he'd called them. We're only used by bad men, as far as he was concerned. Now with you, now with him. Charlie Rosen's pet demons. He comes to me every day. He talks to me about Florence. He taunts me. He reads my mind and he takes thoughts away and puts in new ones. Worse ones. He tells me about how he rapes my little ones. How he and Hester keep them half starved and chained in their basement. I can't stop him. He will go inside my mind. He's controlling me. We left after that without saying goodbye. Driving home, I almost wanted to cry. This kind, loving man was ending his days as a raving, violent lunatic. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. What kind of monster was this Charlie? That thought stopped me cold. For an instant, I had accepted that Charlie was real. Giving my head a shake, I resolved to think about something else. But an image of Charlie had been forming in my mind. Beginning a few months back, when Grandpa had first started talking about him, I only now realized that when Grandpa spoke of this demonic man, I was picturing him in my mind and I could see him clearly. I thought of the last time I visited Grandpa in that tiny house in the mountains of Colorado, when I was a teenager, sitting at that little round table while Hester served us some of her inedible glop. And I would see a man standing in the corner of the kitchen, watching us eat. A tall, gangly man with leathery skin stretched over sharp-looking bone and quoted muscle, shaggy gray hair hanging down, obscuring the upper part of his face, his smile stretching like a knife slash across his jaw. I thought of the wedding. I was 12 years old. I met Hester for the first time and standing a ways behind her was that same man. I remember a family gathering at the facility Grandpa was currently staying in. Didn't we pass that man in the hall once? No, no, of course not. These were just images my mind had cooked up the more Grandpa had talked about this shady character that never existed. The brain can do that. Insert false people in your memory just because you decide subconsciously to remember them. It doesn't mean you're insane. It's just another way for your brain to play tricks on you. Grandpa had invented a person who he talked about with such conviction, as though Charlie was real. So my mind had conjured up a Charlie Rosen. But there was no Charlie Rosen. Grandpa died two months later. I remember the funeral like it was yesterday. I still wake up at night in a cold sweat, remembering. Everything was normal at the start. Our whole family gathered under the same roof for the first time in years. No one was missing. The service was nice as well. The pastor who served the spiritual needs at Grandpa's facility was the officiator. Grandpa looked calm and peaceful. Whole. So unlike what he had been in the last few months of life. I started to feel calm myself. Grandpa was where he belonged now. Where the devils of his own fever decaying brain couldn't get to him anymore. And then we drove to the cemetery. The coffin was lowered. We all sprinkled a handful of dirt on the coffin and began our walk back to the cars. And then the grave digger came out of the shadows to start shoveling the rest of the dirt. I could barely read the embroidered name tag. It looked like C Rose or C Risen or no. It couldn't be. He was a tall, gangly man with leathery skin, sharp looking bones, corded muscle, and long gray hair. And that smile. That smile that haunts my nightmares to this day. I watched as this phantom dumped shovel after shovel of dirt on my grandfather's coffin. He was laughing softly under his breath. And I have never heard such cruel laughter. Today I felt like I had to write all this down. To make sure I remember it all before things get worse. Because today my father called me to complain that Charlie was driving past his house and staring in the windows. My aunt was a con artist and she learned from the best, her father. Grandpa never made it big, but he lived for the game. Staying under the radar was probably what made sure he never got caught. Not once. He was so proud of that. Mom didn't take up the family business. She got religion instead and married a tax accountant. It's so ironic that it sounds like a joke, but it's true. Dad was always the best for helping out with math homework. Mom's more colorful relations were kept at a figurative arms length throughout my childhood, lest they'd corrupt me into following a more interesting life path. Aunt Cassie was the only one who could wiggle her way into my life. She was fully licensed as a psychologist, which made her a smidge more respectable. But Aunt Cassie used her ability to read a person in a whole different way. One probably not intended by the university who issued her degree. Aunt Cassie was a bona fide psychic. She had a shop and everything. Crystals, herbs, candles. Anything you needed to fill the mystic void in your life could be bought for a healthy markup at her little store. There was even a private room in the back that was used for readings and sentences. Because both my folks worked, I would often get dropped off at the shop where I would help Aunt Cassie out with those little shows. Anything from messing with the lights to knocking on walls. Playing with the thermostat was my idea and an effective one. Customers came to get chills down their spine, didn't they? Why not provide? Cassie helped me become the skeptic I am today. Showed me all the behind the scenes sleight of hand stuff. We'd watch daytime talk shows with magicians and mediums and Cassie would explain every step from a basic rundown of cold readings to how to spot an audience plant. After one particularly convincing episode I asked the natural question. Couldn't some of it be real? My aunt's reply was firm. The dead don't talk kiddo. Anyone who claims otherwise is blowing smoke up their ass. It was her conviction more than anything that made me believe her. There was only one client I ever saw my aunt refuse. He was old, bald, and stooped. He took his hat off when he came inside and twisted it in his hands as he talked. Cassie tensed up immediately when she saw him. The man claimed to have worked in the prison systems. Death row. He'd been responsible for carrying out the final punishments of the worst convicted criminals on the planet. In his old age this tormented him. Eight at his soul. He wanted Cassie to contact the souls of the ones he'd killed. So he could apologize and beg forgiveness before he joined them. My aunt threw the most epic fit. I'd never seen her so mad. She hollered and threw things, shouting for him to shut up and get out. I hid under the counter with my hands over my ears until he left. Later I thought her reaction was one of fear because of the man's job. An executioner has to be a con artist's worst fear. Eventually I got found out. I wanted to put on a magic show for my folks and, stupidly, I thought I'd do a medium bit where I pretended to talk to grandpa for mom. Huge mistake. Mom freaked the hell out and banned me from seeing her sister ever again. I'd left some textbooks at the shop though so I got to run in and grab them while mom fumed in the car outside. Aunt Cassie didn't even have to ask what was wrong. She could read my face after all. I gave her a hug and a teary snot filled goodbye. She did tell me one last secret though. You know, there's a curse in this family that gets passed like a torch. I hope to whatever gods might be out there that I don't pass it on to you when I go. We didn't get to talk again for more than nine years. That's when Facebook became popular and no parental ban could help me from trying to reconnect. It was awkward. She'd had a tough go of life. To pay bills she went honest and with her business went all her zest and playful passion for life. One day I got home to a message waiting in my inbox that made my stomach drop to the floor. I love you kiddo. Remember what I told you. I dialed her number, her already crying. No answer. Didn't stop me from dialing again and again and again. And again. I was too much of a mess to tell my mom. The police did that for me though the next day. Car accident. Drug driver. The funeral was a blur. Relatives I'd never seen in the flesh packed the church. I sat between my parents in the front row and wracked my brain trying to figure out what it was my aunt wanted me to remember. We followed the hearse to the cemetery in dead silence. The priest did the last little speech and then I was left alone by her headstone still straining to remember what she had told me. Little bits of my parents' conversation floated in and out of my attention span. My mother said something about how it was a shame it was such a small turnout. Small turnout. That bothered me. The service had practically been stuffed to the rafters. I turned around to say something and finally understood. Behind my parents there was a whole host of people all standing and staring dead ahead. My parents weren't paying them the slightest attention. The priest muttered some soothing condolences and excuse himself. Walking right through the thick of the crowd without disturbing a single soul. At the head of the group looking just like the day I'd seen her last was Cassie. All the rest in peace sentiment in the world wouldn't have done her any good. Her mouth was wide wide open. And just like that I knew. I know what the family curses. I know why the dead don't talk. They're too busy screaming. Never wondered if things can just be born evil. In this enlightened age of ours concepts like good and evil are often painted as outmoded. Archaic even. According to modern thought people animals too obviously are simple products of their environment and no more responsible for their actions than a twig in a stream. But I know better. Some things are just born bad. About 10 years ago we had a German shepherd named Duchess that had a litter of puppies. Seven in all. Six look like any other shepherd you've ever seen. The seventh was a snowy white. Not a true albino. Just white furred with a black nose and blue eyes. There was never any doubt about which one we were keeping out of that litter. We named her Princess. Before the end of six months any plans we had about giving away or selling the others became a moot point. As all of the others were dead. We'd just find them at a rate of about one a month. Not mangled or anything. Just dead as if they died in their sleep. At first we thought maybe their mother. It being her first litter in all was accidentally crushing or smothering them. Later we had no doubt as to what had killed them. Within a year she came to dominate her mother. Her father. Tough old alpha that he was. And to a degree. Us too. Her parents shat away from her. When we put out their food she ate to her heart's content. Unchallenged by the other two. Once I tried to shoot her away and let the other two eat. She snarled at me. Bearing those perfect white fangs to her black gums. And losing a growl so deep. That I felt it in my guts more than hurt it. After that. I left her alone too. I've often wondered if the parents of serial killers know that they have a monster in the making. I mean sure some of them are to blame for how their kids turn out. Products of messed up households with systematic abuse of all possible flavors. But then there are the ones that seem to be true aberrations. It's those families I'm curious about. Do they smile and laugh and pretend that everything's fine. I know that we sure did. We downplay the weirdness around princess. Tried to rationalize her behavior. The bizarre thing she'd do. Like killing rabbits and leaving them hung up in the bushes behind our home. Some dogs do that to show they love you. Cats too. My father would say. To them it's just bringing you food. To me it's like she was haunting us. Just like the puppies years earlier. Not one of those rabbits ever had a mark on them. Princess just like her mom and dad. Was well looked after and never heard for a meal. So it wasn't as if she was hunting for food. Her innumerable kills were always untouched. No the only thing I ever saw her eat was a kitten. We had some feral cats in the woods around our house and one mama cat had a litter in our tool shed. I returned home from school one day and headed around back to look in on them. The door to the shed was open and inside I found princess. Her jaws pink from her feast. As she devoured that last kitten. Her beautiful blue eyes never left mine. The mama we found displayed on what I'd come to think of as the rabbit bush. The tipping point came that same year when we found her sire dead. He was the best dog we ever had. That we ever will have. We woke one Saturday morning to find him in the backyard lying dead without a mark like so many rabbits before him. I can count the number of times I ever saw my father cry on one hand. That was one of them. That was also when we found out how she killed so cleanly. She strangled her prey like a jaguar. The fur at her father's neck was still wet with her saliva. We spent that morning burying that good old faithful dog and then he sent me and my mom away on some pretense. No words were spoken but there was no doubt about what he intended to do. I'm sure that there are some of you reading this that will find the notion of putting an animal down to be abominable but what other options did he have really? Take her to an animal shelter. Give her to some other family. Who could do that and go to sleep with a clear conscience? As it turned out we weren't getting any sleep that night regardless of our decision. We spent that afternoon in my uncle's house. Once when I came in from playing to get a glass of water I overheard my mom telling my uncle that she sometimes wondered if the dog was possessed or something. I had sometimes wondered the same thing. Later that evening not long before sunset we got a call from dad. Apparently the deed was done. By the time we arrived home he'd already washed up and changed clothes but there was little he could have done to hide his wounds. Even less to hide the haunted look in his eyes. Both his arms and one leg were bandaged and that was bad enough but what stuck with me all these years later was just how terrified he looked. It wasn't until I'd actually been through combat that I recognized that expression. It's how men look after they've stared death straight in the face. My father never talked about it but he drafted a friend from up the street to come help and it's from him that I get this part of the story. Princess was many things. Bloodthirsty and evil chief among them but stupid wasn't among them. In that if nothing else she took after her father. Her dad Rocky was famous for letting himself into the house if it was storming out. He'd figured out how to paw open the sliding glass door out to the patio. What was really astounding is that he also had the presence of mind to close it behind him. Not being stupid she knew something was up and made herself scarce. Disappearing into the woods dad not wanting to put this off and being in full on revenge called his friend from down the road and filled him in. So off on the hunt the two of them went. In his own words she was laying for us. If it sounds absurd to say that princess lay in ambush then I've failed at conveying just how wrong everything about her truly was. She led them on a chase through those woods barking whenever it seemed the stupid humans had lost her again. Then she laid up beneath an overhang on the creek bank just where the path crossed it and she waited. She was on my father the instant he stepped down into the creek grabbing his leg and making him fall head first into the water. Then she went straight for his throat. My dad had already lost his rifle at this point and he grabbed her with both hands to try to fend her off wrestling with 115 pounds of teeth claws and muscle in a foot and a half of water princess savaging his arms all the while at some point he managed to work his legs up between him and the dog and kick her away from him providing his friend with a clean shot which he took catching princess through the chest. He put a second round through her head he then helped my dad back home and to the emergency room telling him he'd go back to see after princess once they got home. She can rod where she is was all my dad had to say on the subject. After they got back from the hospital our neighbor went back on his ATV to pick up princess for burial. He was a dog lover like us and it just didn't seem right to him to leave her if he'd spent as much time tiptoeing around as we had he might have felt differently. She flat wasn't there he said no blood trail nothing. He also said that after he'd been there poking around for a few minutes he noticed something else strange no birds it was dead quiet the way the woods sometimes get right before a bad storm blows in wisely he got right the hell out of there there was a storm coming all right that night duchess came pawing at the back door wanting in something she'd never once done in all the time she'd been with us and I had a dream in my dream I was playing football in the backyard with some buddies and ran over to where a bat throw had landed near rocky's grave as I reached for it princess's head shoved up out of the ground to grab my hand I woke up with a jolt and was promptly scared out of roughly 10 more years of my life by the silhouette of a German shepherd in the hallway it was duchess of course she was sitting in the hallway whining and wagging her tail nervously she was looking back towards the front of the house I walked over to her and placed my hand on her big doggy head and said what is it girl that's when I heard the distinctive sound of claws on glass something was pawing at the patio door thoroughly terrified I grabbed duchess by the collar and dragged her along with me to my parents room shutting the door behind me I was 14 I was terrified but even in that terror retreating to my parents room wasn't just for the security of mommy and daddy that's where the guns were I woke them up and told them what I'd heard dad got up and locked the bedroom door and said y'all lock yourselves in the bathroom I heard the patio door slide open if any of the rest of us had any doubts about what had just come into the house duchess sure didn't the only thing she'd ever feared in this world was her own pup a deep rumble of a growl vibrated in the floor beneath our bare feet and duchess's bladder let go as if on cue mine wasn't far from doing the same what followed was a six hour exercise in pure terror punctuated by snarling attacks on the bedroom door crashes through the rest of the house as princess found more things to break whispered prayers from my mother and litanies of curses from my father as another of his attempted forays out of the bedroom was throated we were without a phone the one on my parents nightstand was dead we'd later find the phone line to have been ripped out at the main box my mom suggested that we try to make it to the car and above and beyond everything else it was my father's response to the idea that really scared me of the three of us he was supposed to be the rational thinker but what we got instead was honey I think that's what it wants us to do as the world through the windows turned from black to gray a quiet fell over the house mom and I watched through the windows craning our heads in an attempt to get an eye on the patio door but try as we might the best we can manage was a view of most of the patio more than enough concealment for a dog to slink in or out even a big one like princess after an hour of silence my dad quietly opened the bedroom door I remember thinking what a useless gesture any attempted stealth was dog senses are so much more acute than ours that we might as well have fired a 21 gun salute dad stopped in the hallway and shoot me back to the bedroom don't come out until I say carefully he made his way through the house to the patio door we heard him shut it before he shouted back to us to stay in the bedroom till he told us to come out through the door I could hear him moving around and what seemed to be him dropping things into a garbage bag after about 30 minutes he gave us the all clear what greeted us was a disaster ripped up cushions and pillows destroyed furniture shredded papers and books all over the floor but most terrible were the smears of gore all over everything my mother wondered allowed at what she drug into the house grim faced my father didn't answer he simply turned and headed out the back to bury rocky for a second time we cleaned up as best we could while dad drove down to our neighbor's house to make all the appropriate calls after all these years I still wonder what portion of homeowners insurance covers attack by undead demon ghost dog unspoken we all wondered what the night would bring as it turned out we never got a repeat but duchess never left the house again time rolled on occasionally we'd find a new present on the rabbit bush just a friendly reminder another token of princesses abiding love about two years into college my dad called to tell me that our neighbor had passed away heart attack in his sleep the corner says said my dad but what we were both thinking was not a mark there are plenty of nights where I wonder what the last thing was to pass before that old bachelor's eyes I can guarantee you it stared right back I've seen firsthand how it feeds not long after that my folks put the house up for sale I sort of acted as go between on that deal about a week after the new owners moved in I received a call from the man of the house he wanted to know if we'd left any pets behind when we moved already fearing the answer I asked him why he asked oh me and the kids keep seeing this white shepherd in the woods pretty pretty we have been sending deliberate signals out into space since 1974 many people including some scientists like Stephen Hawking have wondered if this might be a grave mistake in an interview with the Times astronomer Martin Dominic said some say alien contact is the greatest thing we should do some think we should be very quiet and this is the last thing we should do and it may indeed be the last thing we do the dark forest theory states that if the universe is teeming with life the reason for all these years of radio silence is self-preservation that hungry hostile conquering forces glide silently past always listening and if we want to survive we need to be just another quiet little blue dot in the vastness of space Olivia and I grew up in Magdalena New Mexico it's a very small town the last census had us at 912 full-time residents we have a few restaurants and cafes and every year for a few weeks of winter tumbleweeds take over the town they can be found here and there along almost every road and sometimes if the wind is just right they will completely cover the sidewalks and colorful storefronts along the east side of main street the houses here are small and a bit rundown but the people are friendly and kind we're located in the high desert on land that is as flat as a pancake there aren't many trees to be found it's mostly low-growing desert scrub with a few pines but often the distance you can see the surrounding mountains the one thing that sets us apart is that we're just a stone's throw from the vla the very large array is a radio astronomy observatory it's a huge bank of radio telescopes set out in a gigantic y-shape in the desert the vla receives signals coming from space it listens Olivia and I have worked at the observatory every summer since we turned 15 her mom would drop us off or we'd ride our bikes we did everything from running the gift shop to sweeping the public walkways it was interesting and it was fun because we were together I've always lived here with my Aunt Vera on the outskirts of Magdalena until I went away to college last year I still come back on holidays and summer break this year in particular I've been looking forward to spending the summer working at the observatory and spending time with Olivia I have an important question to ask her and I don't mind telling you I'm a bit nervous she's going on a trip to visit family in New York with her sister Irene she's planning on leaving two days after I arrive it's just for two weeks so I'll wait until she gets back to ask her I was in my dorm room packing up my belongings and checking to see I hadn't missed anything when I got the call my aunt was in the hospital she'd had a heart attack and was stable for the moment she was the only family I had left I threw my stuff in the car and took off I can barely remember the ride Olivia was waiting for me outside the hospital and we went in together my aunt was conscious and able to talk quietly she looked very frail lying there in that cold metallic bed but we were told she would make a full recovery we stayed at the hospital until visiting hours were over then picked up some takeout and drove back to my aunt's house Olivia talked about canceling her trip but I told her not to worry I told her I could handle things here she'd been planning that visit for months I told her to go looking back now it's the thing I most regret we spent a last quiet evening together sitting and talking on the front porch and looking out across the desert at the star-filled sky the next morning I drove Olivia and her sister to the airport we said our goodbyes and I drove back to the hospital there I was surprised to find Aunt Vera sitting up by the window laughing with her best friend Lucy Meyerson I stayed for an hour then excused myself to go check in at the observatory there was little traffic and in no time I was pulling into the parking lot a plume of red dust trailing behind me I could see Leon the head maintenance man wrestling with a large terracotta planner so I rushed over to lend a hand David it's good to see you how's Vera doing he asked getting better every day they're sending her home in a week I replied with a sigh of relief that's really good to hear Leon smiled clapping me on the shoulder and I sure I'm glad you're here I could use the help Leon and I spent the afternoon digging out a couple of small dead trees and replacing them with an olive tree and some native grasses it was too hot to talk much while we were digging and hauling but on our lunch break he filled me in with the local goings on Leon told me that over the course of the last six weeks the staff had been reduced to a skeleton crew at first he thought that some of our funding had been cut so he asked Karen the office manager she said no that there hadn't been any recent cutbacks but there had been a lot of closed door meetings and phone calls back and forth between other observatories and also to Washington all of the temporary help and then sent home and after tomorrow Karen would also be working from home something's up Leon said but I don't know what maybe we found something out there I said looking upwards or maybe something's found us Leon shook his head continuing it's the damnedest idea I ever heard of sending out signals into space we don't know what's out there it's like dropping yourself in the middle of the ocean and sending out a trail of chum sharks can smell blood from a mile away and just like whatever's up there we won't hear him coming that evening I drove back to my aunt's house with Leon's words going round in my head there's something about the desert that makes you realize how small and insignificant we are after a while I got up to bring my dishes inside and down the street I could hear a soft metallic topping it was Miss Perez ringing the dinner bell for her stray cats the next day was busy I stopped at the hospital first thing in the morning then headed into work Leon in fear of losing his last extra hand kept us working hard at one project after another at home that night while warming up some leftovers I heard the creaking of the front porch steps it was Miss Perez after asking about Aunt Vera she smiled at the good news and handed me a plate of still warm chocolate chip cookies we talked for a few minutes then turning to go she asked if I had seen her cats she'd put out food for them last night but the dishes were left untouched I told her I'd keep an eye out I ate my supper on the porch as the final rays of light followed the sun below the horizon a cool breeze picked up and I must have dozed off in my chair because I woke to the pattern of quiet rain a thick layer of clouds blocked half the sky but in the distance I could still see the full moon over the mountains a quick flash of movement to my right caused me to rise from my chair and walk to the top of the steps I counted eight deer moving quickly in single file they ran across the road and headed for the mountains trailing along behind them were two dogs and a cat the following day at work I told Leon about the strange caravan I asked if he'd ever seen anything like it he paused thinking well I did hear about a study that said a lot of missing house pets can signal that something's coming that the animals can sense things like earthquakes and such ahead of time you know so they can get out of dodge later that evening sitting on the porch I listened for the usual sounds of neighborhood dogs barking but there was only silence I had a hard time falling asleep that night eventually though I dozed off I bolted full awake at 3 a.m with a feeling of abject dread my heart was pounding and it felt like the ceiling above me was pushing down with incredible weight knowing full well that I'd never get back to sleep I got up to check the house flicking the switch to the main room resulted in nothing checking the kitchen I found the light was out there too the curtains to the window over the sink were opened and I could see a dim flickering light reflecting off of the chain link fence it was coming from the street and my first thought was fire I grabbed my phone and headed out onto the porch immediately I saw sparks trailing down from the utility pole directly in front of the house thanks to the recent rain there was little chance of fire then I noticed the other utility poles were the same lined up all down the street like a row of gigantic sparklers several houses down I saw Miss Perez run down her steps and across the front lawn towards there was something laying in the street it looked like a person my first thought was a down wire no stop I yelled to her I went to step off the porch when something some kind of intuition stopped me in my tracks it was then that I noticed a low mechanical hum the air was filled with static electricity but it wasn't coming from the power lines I looked up in the distance the night sky was clear but there was a massive bank of low clouds directly overhead the clouds were dense but I thought I could see a dim pulsing of lights above them I heard Miss Perez begin to scream then the humming rose in tone and a wide swath of light swept down to the ground as soon as I touched her she dropped to the ground like a rag doll that's when I saw them skittering along in the shadows six or seven of them at least they were fast and they were coming this way backing into the house I closed the door quietly then went to the front window with no lights on I would remain unseen but I kept to the side and move slowly just in case through the half closed blinds I could see across the street to about six or seven houses down this was when I got my first clear look at them I think I stopped breathing their legs were elongated thin but muscular they moved with impressive speed on all fours but they would often pause to stand and look around their angular heads tilting like a dog looking up at its master three of them approached a house in running full force they hit the front door and it exploded inward with a crash one moved around to a side window and another moved easily up onto the rooftop perching there its head darting quickly in all directions I caught a glimpse between the houses of two people running through the darkness they must have run out their back door in a panic the thing on the roof screeched and lept down after them I heard two gunshots and then a scream and then nothing the creatures returned to their methodical siege of the next house in line and I realized then that they were most likely coming down both sides of the street that would mean that they were almost here I started moving then quietly locking the deadbolt on the front door and moving through the rooms both checking that the windows were locked and looking for a place to hide the house had no basement and only three closets both my and Aunt Vera's closets were packed to the brim so I decided to try the small closet in the living room Aunt Vera used that for guests so it was half empty I grabbed a large knife from the kitchen and moved to the closet there were a few long coats that I pulled in front of me as I moved to the back my knee struck something hard feeling around in the darkness I recognized a little wooden step ladder that's when I remembered the crawl space above the closet I felt a tiny ray of hope until I heard a hard crash at the front door they were inside slowly and carefully I slid the coats back and opened up the ladder it only had three steps so after quietly lifting the wood panel in the ceiling I pulled myself up into the dusty space above and silently put the panel back in place I didn't move then I tried to listen but I couldn't hear much above the pounding of my heart so I tried to slow my breathing I heard glass breaking and loud crashes as they tore through the house a minute later I thought I heard the scrabbling of claws on the floor of the porch then it was quiet I didn't move for 10 minutes then as silently as possible I crawled over to a small vent and looked out from there I could see a car on fire in the street the door was open and a charred human figure lay on the ground I watched the houses across the street for any faces in the windows with the slightest movement of the curtains but there was nothing and I wondered then if everyone was dead I took out my phone and tried to call Olivia there was no signal I noticed that the loud buzzing hum was moving away now it grew softer and the air was less filled with static electricity about 10 minutes later though it started moving back this way I listened to the pattern repeat three more times until exhausted I rested my head on the attic floor and slipped into unconsciousness I heard the slow familiar creaking of the rocking chair Aunt Vera sat smiling on the porch she looks so young I'm fine now she said I'm with your Uncle Jack I haven't seen him in such long time with tears in her eyes now she said I'll miss you my boy but you need to go David go now my eyes snapped open and it took me a moment to get my bearings when I came fully awake I was absolutely certain of two things my Aunt Vera was gone and I had to get out of here now lowering myself quietly down to the closet floor I did a quick check of the house empty heading for my room I grabbed two backpacks and a duffel bag I threw in clothes my camping gear flashlight a small radio and all the batteries I could find in the kitchen I got canned goods some lighters and two large knives then I set an unopened five gallon water jug next to the front door raiding the medicine cabinet I found aspirin bandages and some leftover antibiotics closing up my packs I looked around sprinting back to my room I grabbed the picture of Olivia and me that I kept in a frame on my dresser an old arrowhead sat next to it I took that as well I did one last thing too then I cinched up the packs grabbed the water jug and headed outside watchfully I moved across the street and through my neighbor's backyard then out into the low scrub towards the mountains staying low I moved as quickly as I could until I felt the air begin to charge with electricity then I hid in the bushes until I heard it once again moving away after a few hours of this I thought that I was far enough away to just keep walking whatever was above the clouds seemed to stay over the town I wondered if the same thing was happening over every city my mind kept returning to thoughts of Olivia I tried to stay positive she was smart and there were lots of hiding places in New York maybe she had just taken an early flight to surprise me maybe she was headed for home right now as the sun began to set I adjusted my bearings so I wouldn't overshoot my destination I knew where I was going I reached a small rock outcropping at the first light of dawn resting there I drank some water and then buried most of my supplies in the sand a few miles west of here was a small valley tucked away into that wall of the valley was a cliff dwelling Olivia and I had found it once when we were camping I wanted to make sure that it was empty before I carried in my supplies it took me a couple hours to find it then I stayed hidden listening after a while I climbed up the rocky ledge and looked inside it was empty there were three levels empty and silent retrieving my buried supplies I returned and set up camp inside the highest level exhausted I slept I dreamt of our camping trip 20 minutes from here we had found two very old arrowheads we'd each kept one and I dreamt of the message I'd written in black marker on the wall across from the front door Olivia when I left they were sweeping the town every 10 minutes wait until they're moving away then head for where we found on the arrowheads I'll watch for you there every day I love you David is that no I must be imagining it I mean what the hell is that anyway having just finished washing my face before bed I headed out of the bathroom and caught a glimpse of something out of place about 10 or maybe 15 feet outside my back window was a thin shape that stood out from the colorful bed of flowers to its left and the two or three acres of woods behind it at first my brain identified it as a shovel someone had dug into the ground and left upright yet there were a few problems with this that came to mind the first was that my backyard was entirely gated and I'd never had problems with trespassers before due to the height of the fence and the remote location where my property sat the second was that though there was not a soul or animal in sight my motion sensor light had been triggered near the odd objects location if someone had snuck onto my property and dug the shovel into the ground they couldn't have done it just now there would have been nowhere for them to run and lastly it wasn't just a long piece of wood that resembled a shovel not exactly at least there was a black top hat that sat curiously at the very top of the wood as I stared wide-eyed at the slant of the shovel like object and the tilt of the black hat at the very top I felt a visceral urge to vomit I barely managed to contain it have you ever spoken to a dog before and seen its head slightly tilt to the side in I assume an attempt to figure out just what the hell it is you're saying that's the feeling I got as I peered out the window and that black hat seemed to stare back and then there was darkness as the outside motion sensor light turned off and the backyard was no longer in sight okay that's enough Don I said to myself remembering to breathe and turning back to the kitchen can you guess what happened next no probably not unless you've encountered the same thing I did but then again I assume you wouldn't be able to read this if you had as I turned my back to the darkness the motion sensor light came back on at that very second and I stopped breathing again as I turned the object came into view again but this time it was a few feet closer and it was different instead of just the hat it wore something patchy and gray on its chest as well though it was almost certainly a dream I decided to call the police anyway but as I did I made another mistake I turned my back on the thing yet again reaching for the cell phone I heard the glass window shatter onto the floor I fell back against the wall immediately and turned to see the creature now inside my home standing in the circle of sharp debris this can't be happening I whispered to myself as I scanned the thing which was now only 20 or so feet away it wore a black top hat that tattered gray clothing and now two bone thin arms had seemed to sprout inside I dialed 911 and the last thing I remember was passing out later on I was able to hear a recording and my voice saying it's in the house I can't tell you much about what happened after because I don't really remember but I can tell you where I am now I call it the overlook but I'm sure it's real name something else probably some nice title that does it share to conceal just what type of lunatics it contains inside crazies like me you see I'm allowed to write one letter a week supervised of course and this time I've decided to share my life story with a lot of you well I suppose it's less my story than it's it is still here with me it watches me from the corner of my room it scurries up the walls and hangs from the ceiling it sometimes just stands there tilting its head towards me maybe it's deciding just when exactly to finish me off there's not much left for it to devour however seeing how I haven't slept in weeks and continue to lose my touch on what's left of my reality the doctors here weren't thrilled when I cut my eyelids off three or was it four days ago it was a hell of a mess but what else could I do they don't understand that every time I close my eyes it gets closer at least this way I bought myself some time at least this way you'll have some warning if he comes for you next I call him the stick man and if you see him don't look away a year before he died my grandfather told me a story he was in the way that old soldiers often are a no-nonsense upright man a few words it was the morning following my 20th birthday and he telephoned me at 9 30 on the dot requesting my presence at his home on the outskirts of Salcom approximately half an hour's drive I arrived nursing a hangover from the previous night and he offered me a cigarette when I hesitated he just laughed and told me that he knew I smoked and that he wouldn't tell my father we sat together on his porch and smoked in silence watching the waves crash against the Devonshire coast eventually he stubbed out the butt of the silk cut and produced a shoebox which he handed to me I want to tell you about the war he said his speech slow and slurred from a minor stroke he had suffered two years prior knowing how he felt on the matter he had not even congratulated me on my successful application to join the army several weeks prior I said grandpa you don't have to I need to he said open the box I obliged inside was a beret wrapped around three items a key a tubular bundle of tissue paper and something heavy an oil cloth I put the box down and picked up the key admiring the intricate brass work and unusually complex blade the only other person that knew this story was your grandma and she's gone now I won't be around forever either you know it's important people know we were silent for a couple minutes it sounds selfish but I hate when old people talk so fatalistically that said my curiosity was peaked by the grim show and tell atmosphere he lit another cigarette letting the flame of his match linger just long enough that the wood about its head had begun to curl and blacken then he check it out I joined the war too late he said all through school my friend Nick and I just wanted to be heroes when the time finally came and we were gearing up to fight the Nazis in France our damn unit was diverted where were you sent I asked he took a deep drag on the smoke Channel Islands the only part of the British Isles to be occupied by the Germans coinciding with the liberation of France we were preparing to attack the Isle of Jersey when the Jerry surrendered just a few hundred of them hold up and their rat warrants in the cliffs he paused and tapped the cigarette with a forefinger so that glowing ashes tumbled from it and were snuffed out by the wind like miniature dying stars the night after the surrender Nick and I were sitting in the pub being bought drinks by the locals when a woman burst in from the rain crying and shouting for help naturally we asked her what was wrong and she told us that her children had been taken hostage a bastard by the name of Patar Sahar he was some kind of priest that the Nazis had brought with them when they landed or so she said Nick asked where he'd taken the cans and she said that he'd stolen a robot and was on his way to a little offshoot island called Babel Rock she was sure that he was going to kill him Nick and I ran to our superiors but as soon as we mentioned Babel Rock they wanted to call for a help from the Americans and wait until light they took our rifles away and told us to forget the whole thing but I would sooner have been court-martialed than let some American GI have the glory this was our fight our war and no matter how small it was how insignificant and grand scheme of things we would fight it this was our home you know we stole a boat of our own and set out into the storm I wish I'd stopped to think about things for a second but I was young and stupid we both were grandpa put down the cigarette and unwrapped the oil cloth inside it was a large old-fashioned looking pistol with faded wooden grips Jesus Krampa I said are you allowed to have that he winked what they don't know won't hurt him was true then it's true now I wanted in cards from a yank back in London before we set out for the islands nobody knew I had it so they couldn't take it away he sat down the gun and stuck the smoke back in his mouth exhaling blue fumes of the dying sun that was slipping beneath the horizon long story short we land alone on this bleak old rock right in the middle of a storm black as the devil's eyes and so sharp and craggy that it sliced one of my boots right open along the soul there was one building on the island a wooden shack overlooking the beach it was dark not just because of the time of day you couldn't see more than five feet in front of you I remember looking up at the sky and seeing the clouds all lit up by lightning flashes from the inside like big stone lanterns the clouds were coiling around above Babel Rock and there was a hole in the very center above the house not just a hole in the clouds but in the sky itself there were no stars just like a black empty space sucking in the storm clouds as we were heading up the beach with nothing but the lightning to show us the way I swear to God it looked like the rain was falling up into that hole in the sky grandpa paused and sucked on his cigarette the tip glowed brightly and illuminated his face with a faint orange hue then he continued I booted open the door of the house waving the gun around like some madman but it was deserted we poked around and eventually came across a trapdoor under a carpet beneath the shack were stone steps coiling downwards into a handful of rooms carved into the rock itself not rooms for people though the dimensions were all wrong the corridors were really tall about nine feet high but so narrow we had to turn sideways to get through them everything was covered in weird scratchings too in the walls and on the ceiling roman numerals I think everything was quiet except for the storm outside and we were just starting to regret ever going there heroism or no when we rounded a corner and found the children he needed his brow that's a bloody sight I won't ever forget they were stood in a ring in this big oval shaped room their eyes were all rolled back so you couldn't see the pupils and they were each reading from a little book like a bible but I couldn't understand a word of what they were saying it wasn't german or latin or any language I know before I could say anything or do anything I heard a voice behind me horrible deep resounding it said halt and I turned around and there's patar this fat jerry bastard in priest roams and he's gotten a little pistol to nick's head told me to drop my gun and kick it over to him and I mean of course I did this was nick he lived two doors down from me my entire life he was my best friend being a hero is nothing when it cost you everything grandpa paused and I saw his leathery cheeks glistening wet from tears then he blew nick's brains out just like that shot him in the side of the head I lunged for him trying to grab the gun and he shot me too shattered my kneecap that's why I need this he tapped the heavy stick that he'd hobbled around on as long as I knew him then he flicked away the end of his cigarette and reopened the pack with trembling fingers it was empty I handed him my half smoked one and he nodded his thanks I passed out he said his face now lost to the rush of night when I came to his face was inches away from mine and I could feel his breath on my cheek he stank over rotting meat there was something wrong with his eyes too black black as that hole in the sky he spoke to me then he asked me in broken English if I believed in God I could barely speak the pain was too much but I nodded and he asked me if I would like to meet him I thought then that he was just threatening to kill me to send me to meet my maker so I shook my head and I think that surprised him he stood up walked away from me to the opposite wall and that's when I saw the door for the first time it was massive almost touching the ceiling about four feet wide and it was made of some kind of black rock it had carved on it an apple tree and there was a snake coiling down the trunk the snake had its head turned side onto you and instead of an eye there was a weird jagged keyhole he went to the kids chanting throughout all this and picked up a key this key off the pedestal they were gathered around grandpa gestured at the key its brass swastika head glinting beneath the glow of his cigarette patar said that he'd spent 11 years of his life secretly visiting babel rock measuring the keyhole and designing a key to fit I asked him whether he put the door there and he gave me an odd look and told me it had been there before men even walked the earth then he unlocked the door and stepped backwards speaking words in German I couldn't understand and then something started to push the door open from the other side as it opened just a crack all the candles in the room went out and we were in darkness the only light was coming from a lantern in the next room and it was just me patar and whatever was opening that door and all the while the kids were chanting and singing it opened a few inches more and a hand came through all charred and calloused but it wasn't a human hand it was small with long hooked fingertips and it coiled around the edge of the door as though it were cautious of entering the room as it did the air began to taste of seawater and sulfur and I was more scared than than I've been in my entire life I tore my eyes away dragged myself over to my 45 and turned around and shot patar in the back he mined a pistol with his hand his blood splashed across the door and wall but it also landed on that hand as soon as it came into contact with that blood it went crazy the hand tightened its grip on the door and started pushing this was solid stone about a foot thick and this thing was just shoving it open I forgot my pain then fear was giving me strength and I limped across the room and slammed my shoulder against the door I must have surprised him because I felt it give way and I heaved with every ounce of strength in my body God I was tough as a lad he sucked on the smoke the tip flaring up against the night I almost had it the door was almost closed but that hand that blasted monster of a hand still there reaching rounded me I pulled out my boot knife and I hacked one of its fingers off it howled or maybe that was just the storm above us but the hand retreated and I slammed the door closed then to my horror the door shuttered and opened a crack it was throwing its weight against it desperate to get into our world I pushed back and then I noticed the key sticking out beside my hand I forced the door closed one last time then I turned that key and threw it away from me across the room the second the key left the door the banging stopped everything was silent the kids all kind of jolted awake like sleep walkers and started crying all of us were covered in Nick's blood and guitars that finger I hacked off flared up caught fire and in seconds it was nothing but bone I went to Nick but he was long gone so I picked up the gun and went to petar instead he looked up at me and he said something in German words that echo around in my head every night I shot him again and again until there were no bullets left in my gun and he was unrecognizable and then the pain hit me again and blacked out grandpa took a final drag on his cigarette then he grounded into the ashtray we sat unmoving and unspeaking in his garden our silhouettes picked out white edged by the stars like marble statue seated in eternal vigil for the men that had sailed across the sea and never returned I gazed at him and in that half light he could almost be the fit powerfully built young man in the photographs that had adorned the walls of his house before grandma had passed away I had no idea what to think or to feel or how much of his story was true but I was enthralled by his words what happened then grandpa as he replied the clouds began to shift over the stars like curtains being drawn over a stage so that his words seemed to come from some unspecified point in the darkness and I were speaking to a ghost when I came to I heard shouting from far above commands being given boots on the stairs English voices I was sure I grabbed the gun and shoved it into my jacket I knew that if my superiors knew about it I'd be in even deeper shit than I already was then I saw nick lying there on the ground and I knew that I had to get something some proof so that other people would know that his death hadn't been in vain I grabbed the key and put it in my pocket but then I figured it's just a key could be for anything then I saw the finger the one I'd hacked off the hand of God or whatever the hell that thing was it was just a charred bone by now but it was intact so I grabbed that too as I stuck it into my pocket men burst into the room dressed like paratroopers with camo paint smeared over their faces no symbols or insignias on their uniforms either next thing I know someone's sticking a gun in my face and yelling at me to identify myself naturally I did and they talked amongst themselves for a few minutes they dragged me out of the room and onto the island itself the storm had blown itself out one of them sat with me I tried talking to him but he just straight out blanked me I guess they must have been special forces of some sort on strict orders not to talk to prisoners I think I heard gunfire from the tunnels below but I was so far above them I couldn't be sure as far as I could recall the only living things down there with a speck of boys and those kids so what they could have been shooting at I have no idea eventually a rescue boat shows up and a medic sees to my leg while some big brass guy lectures me on the importance of subtlety before I was allowed on the boat though he straight up told me that if I breathed a word of what I saw on Babel Rock to anyone my friends the townspeople anyone they'd shoot me then when I got back to Jersey my commanding officer sat me down in his office and told me that I would be retired due to my injuries and that if I kept my mouth shut I'd get a war pension from the government and I'd be comfortable for the rest of my life I asked about Nick then the man went all quiet then he told me that his next of kin would be looked after I think they got the newspapers to report him dying a hero fighting Jerry commandos or something I never read past the first few lines of that article I just kept seeing him in that cave gun to his head and eyes bleeding for me to save him so you never told anyone I asked who would you have me tell nobody would believe me with that they just think I was insulting Nick's memory trying to steal the glory from him I loved him like a brother too much to take his story away from him I'm sorry grandpa I didn't mean he laid a hand on my shoulder it's okay he struck a match and unwrapped the tissue paper inside long and angular there lay a skeletal humanoid finger far too long to be from a man and with bone hardened and pointed at the tip like a claw I gazed at it in awe in horror before whispering I'm so sorry grandpa he smiled and patted me on the shoulder then he blew out the match and I heard him gathering the three items he had showed me back into their box it was as I was unlocking my car that I heard him call to me again he was standing in the doorway lit from behind in an otherwise featureless darkness well done on getting the job be careful over there in Afghanistan I mean always rely on your judgment no matter what they tell you he closed the door I sat in my car in the dark for nearly an hour thinking about what he'd said when I got home my father was already in bed and I lay awake gazing at the dark ceiling I imagined it to be the voidest center of that storm my grandfather had seen all those years ago he left me the house in his will I retired from the army after being shot in the hip during an ambush and cabal and I was looking forward to the piece that granddad's old place on the coast would surely bring when I was moving some of his things in the attic I stumbled across the shoebox again and it was all there the gun the key the finger like the realization of some strange dream the memories of that night flooded back and I sat down and cried for the first time since his funeral I took a ferry to jersey recently and then hired a local fisherman to take me to babel rock under the sun with nothing but the laughter of seabirds in my ears and the taste of saltwater in the air it was actually a relatively peaceful place the eye of a storm there was no shack though I suppose it was probably destroyed shortly after the events of my grandfather's story I found a heavy iron hatch under which was a stairwell but that ended in a square brick room scrawled with graffiti and full of empty crisp packets when the sunset was at its apex licking at the ocean with a long orange tongue I wrapped the three items in his beret and hurled them off the cliff where the hungry frothing jaws of the sea snapped them up then I sat with a thermos of tea and imagined grandpa and Nick sitting together on a boat destined for London full of stories of heroism perhaps he believed the story best forgotten that he wasn't a hero but I believed it from me I heard the bells jingle on the door and looked up for my sweeping to say we were just getting ready to close up shop I was the only one working but my boss insisted I always use we I suppose he thought it was safer that way the old Boston neighborhood sometimes got a little dicey at night the gentleman smiled politely and nodded I'll be quick at least I'll try he said tipping his silver topped cane he was young looked to be in his late 30s well dressed with a long black leather coat he walked favoring his left leg as he perused the aisles filled with bouquets of lilies daisies incarnations he made his way towards our largest display roses of every color imaginable I was in no hurry it was Valentine's Day and my work part-time at the flower shop over the last three years had taught me that going above and beyond on this particular day could yield some extremely nice tips between the fact that my car payment was due on the 15th and after making said payment I would be left with exactly $172 in my bank account I had told my boss that I would be happy to keep the flower shop open late as a guy I knew that Valentine's Day could kind of sneak up on you and as I was not in a relationship at the moment the least I could do was assist my fellow travelers in their romantic endeavors are you looking for something particular I asked searching he paused then smiled I'll take two dozen of these he pointed towards a vase filled with dark red roses named eternity they were so dark in color that they were almost a velvety black and I would like one single white rose at the center very nice choice would you like them in a gift box or a vase I asked walking up to the counter he paused as he looked directly at me I could see a hint of sadness in his eyes the thing is I have a rather unusual request I need them delivered tonight and to my exact specifications I looked up at the clock on the wall it was just past 10 when I looked back at him he was pulling an envelope from his coat pocket there's $2,000 cash inside you can keep it for yourself off the books so to speak I glanced at the packet as he said it on the counter hesitated then asked what exactly would I be delivering he chuckled and shook his head just the flowers that's all it's the location that you may have a problem with allow me to explain many years ago I met my one true love true love I won't go into detail but for me there will be no other it became our tradition if you will on every Valentine's Day and exactly midnight I would present her with a single white rose surrounded by dark red roses pausing his voice turned grim as he continued a few years ago she was taken from me I wasn't there I would have stopped it but he paused to gather himself then went on since then every year in exactly midnight I place the flowers on her grave she is buried at the forest hills cemetery it's not far from here the main gates are locked by 11 but there is a small iron gate that is left open I always do it myself but this year he lifted the cane so will you make the delivery I was silent for a long moment I thought about my car payment and I thought about how long it would take me to earn $2,000 okay I said I'll do it but he nodded and handed me another envelope these are the instructions follow them explicitly turning away he moved slowly towards the door the bells jangled again I watched through the window as he walked across the darkened street and disappeared around a corner I busied myself closing up the shop all the while thinking about my bizarre assignment I considered letting my boss know but I wanted to keep the cash for myself so I put on my jacket pocketed both envelopes picked out the two dozen red roses plus one white and headed for my car it was cold so as I waited for my car to warm up I opened the set of instructions nothing too strange just directions to the cemetery and the location of her grave with a little hand-drawn map I was to place the roses exactly at midnight and light a candle entering forest hills cemetery into my phone I pulled out of the parking lot 20 minutes later I was parked along the street adjacent to the cemetery it was 1130 I found the small gate unlocked and walked through it opened onto a path that meandered and branched out to several other paths I referred to the hand-drawn map included with the instructions to keep from getting lost the place was vast and surrounded by woods there was a light breeze that kept the clouds moving slowly across a near full moon as I walked I thought ironically what a perfect night for a walk through an eerie cemetery after about 15 minutes I arrived at the final turnoff the marker said coves rest and it looked to be in the oldest section the stones were large and worn some had statues of angels and huge marble crosses the path the dead ended at her grave which turned out not to be a grave but a small mausoleum a little stone house with four pillars and a door with a small window a few feet in front of the door was a bench facing a stone circle with a large gray marble vase at the center sitting the flowers down on the bench I checked my phone 1155 the second I laid my eyes on the little stone house which by the way looked absolutely ancient I began to feel on edge I started to think about the nameless gentleman who paid in cash and the thought occurred to me that he was the only person on earth who knew where I was 1158 two minutes to go I could wait two minutes looking back at the mausoleum I noticed a small ledge just under the window it held a candle presumably the one I was supposed to light and what looked to be a box of matches one minute left I gathered the flowers put the white rose hastily in the center and stood at the ready because when my phone clicked over to midnight I was getting the hell out of there the wind picked up even so I thought that I heard something scurry inside the little stone house probably just rats the final second ticked by it was midnight I practically threw the roses into the urn then half ran the few steps to the door of the mausoleum with shaking hands I opened the matchbook the first one didn't light swearing now I tried another it burst into flame protecting it from the wind I let the candle the sunlight from the match had temporarily blinded me so I didn't see the woman's hand reach out from the window I felt it close like a vice around my wrist I screamed and tried to pull away but she held on her grip was like steel and it was as cold as ice the grip tightened until I felt the bones in my wrist stressed to the breaking point and I was pulled forward I was being slowly forced into the crypt first my fingers then my wrist disappeared through the window into darkness and in that black darkness I thought I saw two cold blue eyes looking back at me wildly desperate now I reached for my pocket knife snapped it open and stabbed at her hand I must have hit something because she loosened her grip pulling back with all my strength I heard a snapping sound then I landed hard on the cold ground I was up and running in a millisecond and I never stopped even when I lost the path I just kept running till I found a section of fence then I practically threw myself up and over the top it took me quite a while to find my car but I finally made it home some time has passed now and I try not to think too much about it not if I want to sleep at night but on some cold winter nights I wonder I wonder about the other people he sent as a gift on Valentine's Day's past and I wonder about the inscription above the door of the little stone house love eternal having difficulty staying awake there trying to study for some big exam finish some last minute assignment that you put off all weekend and it's now three in the morning and you are absolutely exhausted or perhaps you were in a similar state recently and are looking for help on what to do well friend I have just the prescription to ease your weary mind all you need to do is win a game setting up the game is relatively simple all you need is an hourglass a candle and a marker let me make one thing specifically clear you need an hourglass not one of those rinky dink 30 second pieces of crap you get out of a cereal box or board game before playing the game test your hourglass to make sure that it takes an hour or slightly longer to drain all of the sand from one section to the other having it take slightly longer will help but too long or too short and you'll run into complications during the game you must also be completely alone in the room while playing when you are ready to play choose any room that can be sealed simply meaning that all doorways and windows can be closed any other form of timekeeping device or alarm must be taken out of the room prior or the game will not begin the hourglass will be your only time tracking tool hence why having an accurate hourglass is important anything with an electronic display should also be removed this includes TVs cell phones computer monitors anything leaving them in the room during the game will put you at a massive disadvantage you may begin the game at 8 p.m make sure the room is sealed drawing the curtains to block any outside light then draw a simplistic hourglass shape on the back of one of your hands make sure to remember well which hand it was since you'll mostly be in the dark for this game take the candle and light it then turn off the lines and sit down on the floor with the three previously mentioned objects close together and flip the hourglass so the sand begins to fall into an empty half the only source of light should be your candle now yell something along the lines of i'm not tired and i refuse to go to sleep close your eyes to the count of 10 and open them again you won't be entirely sure but somewhere in the room you'll think you can see the shadowy outline of a man you have now begun the game and your opponent is none other than the master of sleep himself the sandman do not provoke him and don't speak to him either you've challenged him and in a way insulted him about his profession so he's not in the best of moods to say the least now comes the game your task is to stay awake as long as possible to a maximum of eight hours which will take you to four a.m every hour you must flip the hourglass to reset it and keep the game going each time you flip the hourglass you may take the marker and draw a tally mark on your arm the specifics of which arm you mark will be explained later and don't think you can just flip the hourglass eight times really quickly or just draw eight lines on your arm the hour needs to pass in order for the magic to work if you fail to flip the hourglass before the very last grain of sand falls or should you succumb to sleep you will lose during this time the sandman will be deploying as many tricks as possible to get you to fall asleep or give in see the bottom half of your hourglass at any time represents his power the more sand in it the stronger his influence will be almost immediately upon starting you'll begin to feel drowsy this is merely his presence if you can't last against this stop playing immediately during the first hour he won't do a lot he may walk around the room but he won't touch you or speak to you even if you try to talk to the being which is something you should really avoid doing there will be no response also don't move from your spot to approach him the closer you get the more drowsy you will become and if you're not near your candle he may put it out so you can go to sleep do not distract yourself during this you may easily lose track of time and forget to flip the hourglass as needed the sand man can also skew your perception of how much time has passed but he cannot affect the hourglass so keeping your focus on that is your best chance of winning side note if you try to leave the room you will find that the doors are all locked and the windows reveal nothing but an unyielding darkness as far as the eye can see me after you pass the first hour the sand man may scoff but will continue to stay in the room now he will begin to pull more from his bag of tricks he's seen that you're going to be a hard one to put down the sounds of music boxes and harps may be heard at first from a distance but will slowly grow to a level that would be audible and comforting resist the urge to close your eyes and listen your body will grow wary as you approach hour two or three depending on how the sand man is feeling that night around this point he will begin speaking to you in many voices the soft voice of a young girl the wise cackling laugh of a grandparent or perhaps even the ever-loving recognizable words of your own mother they will try to congratulate you on surviving for so long with the sand man for braving sleepless days and nights to win this game whispers of lullabies and nursery rhymes will fill your head but you know better say nothing and ignore the voices no matter how real they may seem don't listen to them do not go to sleep if you manage to make it to the halfway point and now have four marks on your arm you'll be nothing less than exhausted and the sand man will be nothing less than enraged he will begin to manipulate your environment even more and start using new tactics to get you to sleep instead of trying to lull you to sleep he will attack you hallucinations will occur you'll see horrifying images of the dead hanging from the ceiling flashed by a spotlight of unknown origin the room may start to close in and then stretch out and close in again and stretch back out a whisper in your ear will turn into shouting in your face from an invisible source already weakened and sleep deprived your remaining energy will be drained in burst from his terrors you may have sudden adrenaline rushes sure but the sand man is clever he'll time them so that you can't just survive the next hour by simply being anxious he'll wait until your emotional state has fallen just another level lower and then bam two rotted feet dangling in front of your face you can scream all you want you can beg for him to stop but this will only use up more of your ability to function at the six hour mark the hallucinations will shift between horror and comfort while the sand man will begin to pick your brain and find what nightmares caused you to come to a cold sweat many a night others will coax you towards slumber claiming that you've put up with enough and that you deserve your rest a warm bed to tuck yourself into a pillow made from the softest of furs and feathers the harps and music boxes will start to overload your sense of hearing in your state you may welcome the chance to sleep but snap out of it have you been watching the hourglass make sure his terrors aren't distracting you you this is why you don't talk to the sand man for every tiny detail about yourself you give him he will use against you here this is also the point where electronic displays can become a massive problem they will turn on regardless of whether they are powered or not and should you gaze upon their mystifying image for too long your eyelids will droop and your body will collapse onto the floor if you had just turned the screens away the sand man might use some muscle and turn it back towards you so you can get a better view the curtains may open to a brilliant dawn or a clear blue sky but the only truths in this room are your arm and the hour glass unless you have eight marks this gain is not over use any ounce of strength you have to flip that hourglass now an immense chore from the sand man's influence scroll a line down your arm with a marker even if it looks like you're taking a knife and slashing your own arm open during the final hour the sand man will begin to address you directly asking you questions that appear to be simple but as you are you can't even remember what two plus two equals a question is the hardest thing to get out of your head so don't let it get in cover your ears and just watch the hour glass keep those eyes open don't fall asleep if the question gets in your head you'll start to think about it adding more stress and draining you of what little mental will you have left it might become hard to breathe as if something is squeezing your lungs or the air is dense and hard to take the sand man will also get physical grabbing you and throwing you across the room leaving you to crawl back to the hourglass before time is up if you catch a glimpse of his face it may be enough of a nightmare to haunt you and keep your eyes from shutting there will be no distinguishable facial features save two bloody eyes the lids torn from the sockets endlessly staring if you can't take it anymore at any point before the eighth hour is completed take the hourglass and break it with all your might both sections must be broken for the game to end for your sake i hope it was made of glass anyone who has made it to the seventh hour mark has never had the strength to successfully break it and either carried on or surrendered to their dreams you will not receive a reward for ending the game this way save the mercy of avoiding the sand man's wrath if you do make it to the end of the eighth hour without falling asleep you will not need to flip the hourglass again simply make the eighth mark on your arm and close your eyes though you ended the game you cannot sleep just yet there's one final task remaining all you must do is wait for the sand man to collect the hourglass and say you're all grown up now sleep when you wish open your eyes and find that the hourglass is gone and the candle put out now you may collapse in slumber a 12 hour slumber to be precise the game puts a heavy strain on your mind and body so recovery is necessary but it's the last time you'll ever need or at least to that length because once you fully recovered you'll be able to stay awake for an extra hour for each tally on your marked arm depending on your normal sleep schedule this may mean you only need a small nap maybe an hour or two at most but for some you'll never have to lie down again sure you will have the ability to do so if you want to you can still even dream but there will never be any wariness following you just think of how productive you can be but it's not all sugar plums and gumdrops if you mark any tallies on the arm that were not marked by the hourglass you will instead require more sleep one hour for each tally on the blank arm to be precise you will require more rest to be able to even function throughout your day now these marks can cancel with the ones on your marked arm but if that's not the case you may have just gone through all of that suffering only to come out worse than before and what with your delirious state throughout the game it's unlikely for the average individual to come out with all their tallies on the marked arm there are also the circumstances of losing if you fail to flip the hourglass then the sand man will gain full power and with a snap of his fingers you will collapse to the ground regardless of how you fall asleep be it by failure of the hourglass or succumbing to your own tiredness you will also sleep for 12 hours to recover but it will be the worst sleep you will ever have and the sand man will make damn sure that that's the case the worst nightmares will flood your mind leaving you unable to escape or wake up in a relief filled cold sweat all you can do is endure the torture of a dream that feels like years in length and when you finally come to consciousness the next morning there you will be lying on the floor of the room the mark still on your arm and blood flowing from where your eyelids once rested you said you refused to close your eyes and go to sleep the sand man has simply granted that wish during the summer of 2003 events in the northeastern united states involving a strange human like creature sparked brief local media interest before an apparent blackout was enacted little or no information was left intact as most online and written accounts of the creature were mysteriously destroyed primarily focused in rural new york state and once found in Idaho self-proclaimed witnesses told stories of their encounters with a creature of unknown origin emotions ranged from extremely traumatic levels of fright and discomfort to an almost childlike sense of playfulness and curiosity while their published versions are no longer on record the memories remained powerful several of the involved parties began looking for answers that year in early 2006 the collaboration had accumulated nearly two dozen documents dating between the 12th century and present day spanning four continents in almost all cases the stories were identical i've been in contact with a member of this group and was able to get some excerpts from their upcoming book a suicide note 1964 as i prepare to take my life i feel it necessary to assuage any guilt or pain i have introduced through this act it is not the fault of anyone other than him for once i awoke and felt his presence and once i awoke and saw his form and looked into his eyes i cannot sleep without fear of what i might next awake to experience i cannot ever wake goodbye found in the same wooden box were two empty envelopes addressed to william and rose and one loose personal letter with no envelope dearest linnie i have prayed for you he spoke your name a journal entry translated from spanish 1880 i have experienced the greatest terror i see his eyes when i close mine they are hollow black they saw me and pierced me his wet hand i will not sleep a mariner's log 1691 he came to me in my sleep from the foot of my bed i felt a sensation he took everything we must return to england we shall not return here again at the request of the rake from a witness 2006 three years ago i had just returned from a trip to niagara falls with my family for the fourth of july we were all very exhausted after a long day of driving so my husband and i put the kids right to bed and called it a night at about four a.m i woke up thinking my husband had gotten up to use the restroom i used the moment to steal back the sheets only to wake him in the process i apologized and told him i thought he got out of bed when he turned to face me he gasped and pulled his feet up from the end of the bed so quickly his knee almost knocked me out he then grabbed me and said nothing after adjusting to the dark for a half second i was able to see what caused the strange reaction at the foot of the bed sitting and facing away from us there was what appeared to be a naked man or a large hairless dog of some sort its body position was disturbing and unnatural as if it had been hit by a car or something for some reason i was not instantly frightened by it but more concerned as to its condition at this point i was somewhat under the assumption that we were supposed to help him my husband was peering over his arm and knee tucked in the fetal position occasionally glancing at me before returning to the creature in a flurry of motion the creature scrambled around the side of the bed and then crawled quickly in a flailing sort of way right along the bed until it was less than a foot from my husband's face the creature was completely silent for maybe 30 seconds or maybe it was just four or five it seemed like a long time just looking at my husband the creature then placed its hand on his knee and ran into the hallway leading to the kids rooms i screamed and ran for the light switch planning to stop him before he hurt my children when i got to the hallway the light from the bedroom was enough to see it crouching and hunched about 20 feet away he turned around and looked directly at me covered in blood i flipped the switch on the wall and saw my daughter clara the creature ran down the stairs while my husband and i rushed to help our daughter she was very badly injured and spoke only once more in her short life she said he is the rake my husband drove his car into a lake that night while rushing our daughter to the hospital they didn't survive being a small town news got around pretty quickly the police were helpful at first and the local newspaper took a lot of interest as well however the story was never published and the local television news never followed up either for several months my son justin and i stayed in a hotel near my parents house after we decided to return home i began looking for answers myself i eventually located a man in the next town over who had a similar story we got in contact and began talking about our experiences he knew of two other people in new york who had seen the creature we now referred to as the rake it took the four of us about two solid years of hunting on the internet and writing letters to come up with a small collection of what we believe to be accounts of the rake none of them gave any details history or follow-up one journal had an entry involving the creature in its first three pages and never mentioned it again a ship's log explained nothing of the encounter saying only that they were told to leave by the rake that was the last entry in the log there were however many instances where the creature's visit was one of a series of visits with the same person multiple people also mentioned being spoken to my daughter included this led us to wonder if the rake had visited any of us before our last encounter i set up a digital recorder near my bed and left it running all night every night for two weeks i would tediously scan through the sounds of me rolling around in my bed each day when i woke up by the end of the second week i was quite used to the occasional sound of sleep while blurring through the recording at eight times the normal speed on the first day of the third week i thought i heard something different what i found was a shrill voice it was the rake i can't listen to a long enough to even begin to transcribe it i haven't let anyone listen to it yet all i know is that i've heard it before and i now believe that it spoke when it was sitting in front of my husband i don't remember hearing anything at the time but for some reason the voice on the recorder immediately brings me back to that moment the thoughts that must have gone through my daughter's head still haunt me to this day i have not seen the rake since he has ruined my life but i know that he has been with me in my room while i slept i know and i fear that one night i'll wake up and i'll see him staring right back pray for devils have no reason satan waits to curse your ways have you seen it in his eyes in the sunset have you wondered if he's laughing when he plays kansas the devil game this is a set of instructions for how to speak with the devil which is those of you with any sort of brains at all might know is a patently moronic proposition on the face of it one likely to culminate in any number of thoroughly unpleasant fates honestly it would probably be smarter to publish your credit card number on facebook or take up a career in crocodile wrestling but then that isn't going to stop you as in not if you're sincerely interested at least technically if you do everything just right there's a fair chance you'll walk away scott free and that seems to be reason enough for some people to decide that it's a good idea especially if you're the fate tempting thrill seeking scared junkie type or the desperate type which brings me to a point of clarification i ought to make this is not a manual for making any kind of faustian bargain you know the whole sell your soul type of deal although if you happen to bring it up in conversation he certainly wouldn't be one to refuse following through with such a foolhardy bargain however would necessitate removing some of the protections which you will put in place for your conversation and i don't think i need to spell out for you why that would be a bad idea if you're really mathematically impaired enough to want to trade something that will last an infinite number of years for something that might last about 90 tops there are plenty of other rituals out there for you to follow this one if performed correctly should only allow the two of you to talk this perhaps begs the question of why exactly you would want to speak with the devil in the first place maybe some of you just like the idea of making small talk with extremely dangerous occult entities but for the sake of the human race i hope most of you aren't quite that stupid short answer is he knows things things that some of you might have a deep vested interest in finding out i mean he's not omniscient or anything much as he might like to pretend otherwise he's not god but he's definitely got a supernatural advantage over the kind of knowledge any human would be able to obtain for example he probably wouldn't be able to predict when the next world war will happen or tell you the cure for cancer but he could very well be able to predict the winning numbers of tomorrow's 500 million dollar powerball drawing or tell you what deadly undiagnosed condition might be afflicting one of your loved ones of course the prince of darkness doesn't just go around giving out winning lottery numbers to anybody who asks entrusting any sort of information obtained from a being commonly described as the father of all lies is liable to land you in a worse situation than you were in when you started however if you're really dead set on finding something out and you've exhausted all other options there is a way to try to get accurate information out of the guy you see like so many of the more urbane villains in popular culture the devil has a bit of a penchant for games and gambling of course the reason he likes them so much is that he almost always wins unless you happen to be a fiddler named johnny or are being represented by daniel wepster you're probably going to get your ass handed to you but if you are determined if you're determined enough to want to face the risks and the long odds there's a certain game the two of you could play to try to win the information you need first things first though we'll start off with a description of the summoning process then get into the rules of the game some tips for how to play and finally of course the inevitable litany of arcane shit that might go horribly wrong in order to contact your conversational partner you'll need to go to a church at midnight it doesn't matter what kind of church large or small old or new liberal or conservative just as long as you're sure it will be empty the last thing you want is for some preacher to walk in on you while you're in the middle of this for the sake of the preacher's well-being as much as your own the process will probably work best if you try it on a new moon or a full moon or friday the 13th or halloween the actual day is less important than the psychological effect it has on you as long as you don't try it on christmas eve or something stupid like that you should be fine the time is important though you don't have to start or end your ritual at exactly 12 o'clock green witch atomic time or anything but as a general rule of thumb you ought to show up a bit before midnight and have everything set up by no later than 10 or 15 after show up a lot before midnight if you don't know how you're going to get in shockingly enough most houses of god do tend to lock their doors at night at least of no one's there to watch over them and remember we want empty there are of course certain things you need to bring and certain things you can't bring for this ritual you will need a full can of salt you won't need to use all of it but it's always better to have more than you need than to have less seven candles red or white being preferable something to light the candles with you would be shocked how often people forget this a called ritual or not they aren't going to magically light themselves are they a length of red string rope yarn or thread a full length floor or wall mirror ideally you'll want to find one of these already present in the church they're a bit unwieldy to be lugging around with you during a break in however if there really aren't any there you'll have to bring your own you might also find it useful to bring some markers pencils paper a flashlight and any sort of tools that might be necessary to secure your entrance into the church you will not be permitted to bring in any electronic or timekeeping devices this includes all cell phones smartphones tablets e-readers mp3 players pda's calculators wristwatches pocket watches kitchen timers hour glasses etc etc etc seriously it's worse than the sat if you're one of those people that has your smartphone practically wired into your brain don't worry you can bring those things with you to the church as long as you leave them outside the room in which you will be doing the ritual if you brought a flashlight helpful for finding your way around without attracting unwanted attention leave that outside too also don't bring in any sort of religious paraphernalia to protect you especially if it pertains to the Abrahamic religions and yes if those gothy black cross earrings you're wearing are hanging right side up they count if you have any kind of holy symbols like that with you the devil will simply refuse to show up but don't worry you're not going in totally unprotected in fact most of the supplies with you are not for any sort of devil summoning ritual but for your own protection old superstitions and folk magic remedies to guard oneself from evil from what i know of it the effects are mostly based on the power of belief so there are probably numerous other objects artifacts and procedures that would work just as well if you'd like to risk being left helpless at the mercy of the devil in order to test that theory feel free to experiment however for anyone without a psychotic death wish i'd recommend sticking to the ritual as follows once you're sure you have all the right supplies with you make your way into the church and find someplace to set up it can be anywhere from the main sanctuary where services are held to a sunday school classroom to a walk-in supply closet as long as you have a sufficient amount of open floor space and are certain not to be disturbed set up your mirror first this is where the devil will appear when you summon him as such you mustn't complete the summoning until you've laid down certain wards around it first surround the mirror with an unbroken circle of salt if the mirror is hanging on a wall or door lay down a semi circle around it instead making sure that the salt touches the wall at both ends then wrap your red string around the mirror several times the color red especially red string is symbolic of protection in the folklore of many cultures and religions this is also why red candles are a good idea set them up around the outside of your circle or semi circle of salt spaced at relatively even intervals no you don't have to get out measuring tape and make sure it's exactly perfect but do at least try to make it look as though it was set up by someone old enough to be trusted with matches light the candles in a clockwise fashion being careful not to disturb the salt if you break the circle you'll have to start all over again once all the candles are lit and burning strongly your protective wards are complete you are now ready to proceed to the actual summoning to do so you first must get the devil's attention and demonstrate your resolve by performing some sort of sacrilegious act in the holy space turning a crucifix or cross upside down is fairly conventional but it's not the only option for example i know of a kid who once fulfilled this requirement by scribbling obnoxious graffiti all over a painting of jesus hanging in his sunday school classroom the nice thing about turning a cross upside down is that once you finished your encounter assuming you've survived it in one piece you can just flip it right side up again and no one's the wiser side stepping the relatively minor but still irritating risk of having your sunday school turn into a reenactment of the spanish inquisition for the next month and a half after you finish doing whatever offensive thing you decide on shut all doors to the room and turn off the lights so that the space is lit only by the candles face the mirror and stare deeply into it concentrating on your desired outcome there are no incantations no arcane strings of latin you have to recite just look into the mirror and wish as hard as you can for the devil to appear there after a few moments of this when you feel ready close your eyes and count to 10 then open them if all has gone correctly you will no longer see your own reflection you will be looking at the devil or at least looking at the way that devil has chosen to appear to you chances are he won't look like your conventional red horn demon with goat legs in a pitchfork nor any other sort of terrible apparition no point in scaring you off better to lure you in and make you feel safe to that end he generally takes on the appearance of a fairly average nondescript human being if anything he's prone to vanity and will lean towards the more attractive end of the spectrum the only really frightening part of him will be his eyes no matter how hard he tries he can't hide the sinister gleam smoldering deep within them the malevolent amusement and hunger like the eyes of a spider contemplating a fly struggling in its web they're supremely confident those eyes confident and without pity don't look into them too deeply or you'll begin to feel helpless and paralyzed with dread losing your hope and your will to fight since you'll probably be just standing there staring at him in shock for a few moments having on some level expected for the ritual to fail he'll initiate the conversation by asking you what it is you desire from him if you can gather your wits enough to string together a coherent sentence you should respond with something like I wish to challenge you in a game of question and response even if you don't get the words exactly right he'll know what you mean and he'll accept your request with a wide predatory grin of anticipation he's been playing this game for a long time you see and he's very good at it most humans on the other hand are very bad at it this gives him a chance to at the very least thoroughly mess with your mind and at most well we'll save that for the litany of shit that could go wrong you'll have to play it very smart to avoid justifying his expectations the general rules to the game are very simple with a few caveats that can make things more complicated he'll begin by asking you a question he always initiates the game it can be anything from a piece of obscure trivia to a riddle to an extremely personal inquiry but don't worry you won't be immediately plunged into hell if you give the wrong answer or anything like that as a matter of fact he won't even tell you whether you got the answer right or wrong after you've answered his question you get to ask him one in return now here's where the consequences of your response come in if you answered his last question correctly he will respond to your question as honestly and accurately as he is able however if you answered it incorrectly he is free to lie to you as he sees fit perhaps if you've asked him something you're better off not knowing he'll tell you the truth about it anyway but more likely he'll feed you the most insidious damning lie he can come up with either way after he's responded he'll ask you another question and the process will repeat over and over again until you decide to call it quits now you may be sitting there thinking that it sounds fairly easy to get the information you need all you have to do is wait for a question you can answer correctly and then take that opportunity to ask him what you really want to know ignoring everything else he said well it's not that simple the devil will never give you an easy question one that you can be completely sure of the answer to he may instead give you questions that you have some vague knowledge of that you think maybe you know the answer to but aren't really confident thus forcing you to endlessly second guess yourself obsessing over whether or not you can trust the information that he gave you next perhaps you'll think that what he said was a lie wish it was a lie but be eternally consumed by doubt unable to fully convince yourself that you were wrong or perhaps you'll have to make a huge choice based on the information that he gave you and be tormented by fear and indecisiveness as you realize that your fate and perhaps that of others as well rest entirely upon whether or not you were able to correctly recall some arcane piece of trivia that you don't even remember now you'll never remember the exact questions the devil asked you by the way that would make it too easy for you to go back and check on your responses or maybe instead of testing your knowledge he'll ask you something personal something you even lie to yourself about you'll answer back to him thinking you've gotten the question correct no i i don't resent my sister yes i would turn the money into the police but he'll know better he'll know better than you do that you're lying and he'll lie to you in return and you'll believe him you'll believe him until you are no longer able to deceive yourself and by then it might be too late or maybe maybe he won't even give you a chance to get an accurate response at all maybe he'll just ask you endless strings of completely impossible questions making you more and more frustrated and disheartened as you realize you'll never be able to force him to tell you the truth questions like what was the exact height of Mount Everest in centimeters in the year 1666 there are a couple of ways to short circuit this particular strategy however additional rules and courses of action that make the game more interesting and prevent you from being stonewalled completely although in all honesty he probably wants for you to try one of these options anyway the first option is to ask him a riddle instead of a question if you somehow manage to stump him and he answers the riddle wrong or gives up he'll be obligated to give you a truthful response to your next question if he answers the riddle correctly once again don't worry he won't pounce on you like a sphinx or drag you into hell what will happen is that he will get a pass allowing him to lie in response to one question he would otherwise be obligated to answer truthfully honestly if he gets a pass you might as well just give up and quit the game right there it's nearly impossible to determine when he's telling you the truth under the best of conditions adding another layer of complexity by constantly trying to figure out when and if he's used his pass it's about enough to make any normal person's brain explode there's no way just forget it the second option is for you to take a dare from him if you accept it and vow to follow through then once again he'll have to answer your next question truthfully if you choose instead to reject it he'll get another pass now before you freak out and reject that whole idea completely you should know that he won't ask you to do anything overly dramatic or unspeakably evil like blow up a hospital or murder somebody as a rule of thumb most dares won't involve direct loss of life or any major felonies however they certainly won't be easy inflicting severe pain on yourself doing something that terrifies the shit out of you cutting off a treasured relationship publicly humiliating yourself or someone you love all of these things and more things you might not even be able to imagine are completely on the table if you're willing to go that far to put yourself in that kind of position you'll get your answer however if he manages to come up with the one thing you know you simply can't or won't do well then once again you might as well just quit one last thing don't think you can tell him you're going to do something and then just not do it if you accept a dare and then don't follow through with it well let's just say there will be consequences just suck it up and keep your promise no matter what it was trust me you're better off that way finally when you've either gotten the information you wanted or given up on it completely you may end the ritual by simply thanking the devil for accepting your request bowing politely at the waist and bidding him farewell the surface of the mirror will seem to swim and flicker for a moment and then you will be looking at your own reflection again only when you're absolutely certain that you're looking into your own two eyes again may you turn away from the mirror flick the lights back on and begin dismantling your protections now and this is important even if you haven't gotten the information that you wanted you must end the ritual in this manner before 66 minutes have elapsed well i suppose that technically you have 66 minutes and six seconds subtle right but if you're seriously going to try to cut it that close without any kind of timekeeping device you're probably screwed anyway i cannot emphasize enough how important it is that you keep to this time limit i'll save the reason behind that for the end but don't skip ahead i've still got a few important tips on how to play one be very careful what sort of personal information you give out try not to talk about yourself especially your emotions and problems any more than absolutely necessary this guy knows human psychology like the back of his hand and he will get inside of your head it's like talking to Hannibal Lecter give him enough to work with even if you don't believe a single word he says he will still find ways to mess with your mind like nobody's business if anything he asks makes you even remotely uncomfortable do not hesitate to lie through your teeth there will be plenty of other questions two on a similar note try to keep the game on track and moving briskly unstructured interactions of any kind are to be avoided chances are that at some point you will try to draw you off on a tangent discussing something that fascinates you analyzing a response you've given him or finding some other excuse to speak at length without moving the game forward this is not only a waste of valuable time but also another excellent opportunity to mess with your mind three if you choose to give him a riddle use one you've made up yourself if your riddle has ever been written down anywhere at all from the pages of the hobbit to some long lost tomb of ancient magic he will already know the answer that said it still has to be a legitimate riddle with an answer that makes logical sense from some angle you can't just ask something like what's green has 10 legs and hops then claim for some inexplicable reason that the answer was marshmallows nor can you ask him a straight question like what have i got in my pocket he probably knows that anyway there are no hard and fast rules to determine whether a riddle makes sense or not but you're a reasonable human being your ancestors ate from the tree of knowledge please for the love of crap use common sense for if you choose to take a dare there is a slight chance that the devil will ask you to do something seemingly easy deliver a letter for instance or scribble a 10 digit number in a public restroom stall if he does ask you for something like this and you have even a shred of common decency in you do not accept chances are that he's using you to farther some sinister plot one liable to ruin a lot of lives and harm a lot of people who knows maybe you're the type of person who doesn't really mind throwing an unknown number of total strangers under a bus to find out what you want to know but at least be aware that that is what you're doing 5 last but not least be very aware of the time it might be helpful to do some practicing beforehand and get a feel for how long an hour is without a watch the devil will probably put off discussing the things you're most keen to find out for as long as he can and as you near the 66 minute deadline he'll start trying harder and harder to distract you captivate you and otherwise keep you playing until it's too late he'll string you along feed you little glimmers of false hope keep you thinking just a few more minutes I'm almost there don't fall for it don't go over the time limit no matter what now you might be thinking that this game really doesn't sound all that dangerous so far threats of psychological damage rarely seem to carry the same weight as threats of physical damage even though their costs are often just as great hate to burst your bubble but the game is far from safe there are plenty of ways for you to seriously screw yourself over both physically and mentally not to mention spiritually and it is with these that I will conclude in the vain hope that they may make some sort of impression first while you were speaking with the devil do not let him out of your sight keep staring into the mirror no matter what happens he will undoubtedly try various tricks to make you look away you will hear noises behind you feel eyes on the back of your neck see shadowy phantoms writhing in the depths of the mirror a cold breath will blow upon you from behind smelling like the crypt a deep silence will settle only to be interrupted by a loud smack directly behind your head giving you about the worst jump scare you've ever had hell the devil may even abandon a measure of his own dignified facade and give you a sudden jump of faint shock shouting loudly and pointing behind you with a very convincing look of terror on his face whatever he might test you with you must not look away from him if you look away if you lose sight of him completely even for a second you will look back at the mirror to find him gone well not gone out of the mirror in the room with you exactly how much of your body the police will find the next morning and what state it's in will depend entirely on the sort of mood he's in the same thing goes if you break any of the protections you laid down before beginning the ritual interrupting the circle of salt letting the red string unwind knocking over a candle or letting one go out any of these things will free him from the mirror and then well you're all a bunch of creative horror junkies i'm sure you can fill in the blanks on a different topic you may reach a point in the game probably after a long series of impossible questions where the devil asks you the deceptively simple question what is your full name you must not give it to him names can be things of great power although the devil will of course already know your name telling it to him yourself is akin to inviting a vampire into your home your name is deeply synonymous with your own inner self thus giving him your name is powerfully symbolic of giving him yourself if you are foolish enough to make this mistake all of your protections will be for naught and he will seize upon your unwitting offer with malicious glee stealing away your soul and dragging it back with him into hell at least this way the police will find a complete identifiable body as a matter of fact your vacant shell will be totally unblemished seemingly having dropped dead of sheer terror last but certainly not least there's the matter of what happens if you go over the time limit this is arguably the worst thing you can do you won't think so at first the devil will give you no indication that you have in fact exceeded the time limit perhaps as the devil's image in the mirror trembles and gives way you'll see a very nasty triumphant smirk flash across his face but this will be easily dismissed as your imagination you'll turn the lights back on gather your belongings and go to leave the room but when you open the door you will see nothing that's right nothing just a flat white void extending infinitely in all directions only the room which was reflected in the mirror will now exist incidentally if you turn back around to face the mirror again you may catch a last glimpse of your own reflection perhaps it will even turn and favor you with a smirk and a cheeky wave before sweeping out of the door into the perfectly normal church hallway outside as you may have already figured out you yourself are no longer in the church your soul is now trapped in the mirror and the devil has taken the liberty of possessing your body now that you're no longer using it pound on the glass and scream all you like you'll never get out on your own and no exorcist can help you but don't worry it's not like you're in hell right at least not necessarily what you have to understand see is that a human soul stripped bear of its flesh is a deeply volatile and vulnerable thing especially when trapped in the land of the living you are now an entity of purely mental properties and as such the barriers between what is real to you and what is imaginary have been completely dissolved as you fill that reflected room with your anger your sorrow your fear at being trapped these emotions will begin to coalesce giving form by your mind if you're not particularly imaginative these creatures may not be too terrible may not be able to inflict too much horror and pain with time you may even be able to teach yourself to get rid of them if however yours is a mind haunted by monsters a mind that is vibrantly creative and imaginative and more than usually twisted well there's no telling what horrors might come clawing their way out tasting sweet release from the confines of your own subconscious hungering for your terror and suffering they will refuse to be banished dragging you kicking and screaming into an endless positive feedback loop of pain and fear needless to say if you're a regular patron of places like this one you're probably pretty well screwed there's only one way to find release from the mirror and the world that you've created therein they say that if you call to the devil once more and ask him to free you from the mirror he'll be willing to take you out for the usual fee of course who knows maybe if your imagination is twisted and powerful enough to create a personal hell that leaves you begging for the real thing those talents might be put to good use there are over seven billion people in the world after all even the devil himself can't be messing with all their minds at once talented help is always appreciated of course the corollary to your being trapped inside the mirror is that the devil now gets to do whatever he wants in your body until sunrise at around that time your body will mercifully drop dead from the strain of the possession autopsy will probably identify the cause is some sort of coronary event don't get too relieved though he's perfectly capable of stirring up plenty of trouble in those few hours for instance he may decide to do something big and dramatic like purchase a large meat cleaver and go on a murder spree starting with the names in your address book and working his way out to complete strangers if he has time or perhaps he'll focus on only one person someone who trusts you completely using your persona to get him or her alone and vulnerable and then well no need to describe it here once again i'm sure you can think of a few things starting to see why i called this the worst outcome yet of course there's also a chance he won't lay a finger on any of your loved ones instead deciding to do something a little more subtle more insidious like drop off a few nondescript unmarked packages on certain doorsteps in the dangerous part of town or locate a particular dusty age yellowed text in the storeroom of your local library and intentionally miss file it in the young adult literature section or whisper seven very choice words into the ear of a distracted looking young redhead waiting for the 3am subway train or maybe he'll decide that in this age of waning superstition not enough people are getting interested in his games maybe he'll decide he needs to get the word out a bit more do a bit of networking attract some new suckers um challengers maybe he'll take a quick peek at your browser history see where the impressionable curious minds are hanging out these days maybe he'll even write a quick tutorial in modern parlance rather than some inscrutable obsolete demonological text posted on the internet and see how many bites he gets maybe i really shouldn't have gone there but if you've made it this far without shying a little twist at the end isn't going to put you off is it i'm sure there are plenty of intrepid adventurers among you with burning questions you'd like answered and you're all a smart bunch you know the pitfalls you know the conventions you live and breathe this sort of thing do you not there's no way you'd fall into any of the obvious traps right you're not some dick or jane off the street after all you'd be bringing a whole new level of competition you would oh excuse me just a moment i think i hear someone calling for me what you want out that badly already must be one hell of an imagination you've got open wide i nodded nervously though i was a little doozy from the nova cane if that's what it's called i realized as i was starting to lose consciousness how odd that request was open wide i already had the obstructive steel mechanism holding my jaw open and it was now in total control of my ability to open or close it i suppose all dentists are taught to say that but where am i going confused i looked around awkwardly as dr willey began to push me down a long tunnel that seemed to go down another trick of the mind we were on the 10th floor of the building there were no tunnels still it seemed i was being pushed down into the earth perhaps you can imagine how my fears escalated as well when dr willey began to whistle as he strapped my arms around the cold frame of the wheelchair was this normal was i dreaming nope the wheelchair suddenly stopped the tall man stared down at me a grin spreading wide across his face but don't worry you know what they always say quick and painless he paused for a moment crouching down to my eye level well mostly he winked again before walking behind to push me farther down the black hallway and resuming his whistling he turned the hand crank that attached to the metal tool controlling my jaw and i would have screamed in pain if i could have though i couldn't yet feel my face due to the drugs i knew that some damage had already been done my heart began to beat faster as the dark corridor came more clearly into view i doubt anyone reading this will believe what i'm going to tell you next but i remember it clear as day the walls around us weren't made from wood or concrete nothing like that the walls were made of teeth small teeth i know what you're thinking and the answer to your question is yes his voice echoed off the walls around us seeming to come from everywhere and then we stopped we stopped in a small room at the very end of the tunnel dr willey put the brakes on the chair and walked over to a shiny steel table that was pushed back against the far corner of the room the small amount of light illuminating the room flickered off and i'm not sure how much time passed when it came back on dr willey was standing and holding what looked like some type of saw yet that wasn't the worst part he had transformed into something inhuman a tall thin creature in a perfectly tailored pink dress he had no eyes anymore and that's when i finally put the whole picture together he was the tooth fairy or should i say a tooth fairy there are many of us he had said as he spun closer still holding the saw and taking great joy and watching the tears begin to stream down my face i couldn't tell you if it were from the drugs terror or both but i passed out when i awoke my mother was standing over me i'm so sorry how are you feeling the novocaine must have still been in effect because opening my jaw to try and speak was incredibly painful only a mumbled nonsense came forth don't try and speak she said and that's when i noticed that we weren't alone in the room there was a doctor standing beside her but it wasn't dr willey it was someone else he rested his hand on my mom's shoulder and whispered just loudly enough into her ear that i could still hear him we'll have to tell him i began to cry again desperately trying to ask what it was that they were hiding from me it was my mother's turn to cry then as she buried her head into my chest your teeth they're all gone those words hit me harder than anything ever had that disgusting creature perhaps even the tooth fairy had taken every last one while i sat passed out from the drugs what the hell was i supposed to do now dentures the doctor said as if reading my mind dentures are going to be the best option for no i didn't say the word as i was unable to but a shake of my head and the look in my eyes told them all they needed to know i wasn't wearing any dentures i was going to get my own teeth back i gestured for a pad of paper my mother taking a moment or two to understand after she did i was handed the paper as well as a black inked pen i wrote quickly i wrote furiously i want my teeth back honey i'm afraid that's just not possible the building has no record of any dr willey and even if someone were to find him i slammed the pad of paper down and stared off through the rainy window watching the car speed by on the street below tears began to come easily just 14 years old and something precious had already been taken away they offered me a mirror i couldn't bear to look that night when we arrived home i was given a warm bowl of soup the worst soup of my life i might add i wasn't able to chew even the smallest vegetable and survive that night on warm chicken broth and gatorade my mom kept insisting i settle on dentures but i had something else planned before i go on you have to understand something i was terrified of seeing that creature again but after i awoke from the trauma there was another feeling as well hatred i hated the thing that had done this to me i hated that he had taken something so precious and most of all i hated that he had done this to so many children before somehow i knew what to do after my mom and dad went to sleep i was going to sneak out of the house and head back to the scene of the crime something told me that the creature that had tormented me would be there waiting but i had a surprise for him this time or so i thought checking my parents room i quietly headed back down to my own bedroom and climbed down the gutter drain i jumped the last few feet down onto the driveway and began to jog down the center of the empty street towards the tall building though my parents had been under the impression that i had taken the large dose of pain medication prescribed to me by my newest doctor i had opted to bury it under my mattress instead the pain i felt while running down the dark street was intense and sharp but i wanted to be sharp myself and the acute throbbing of my jaw was like gasoline on the fire of hatred that was pushing down through my entire body when i reached the corner of elm street the first wave of fear finally took hold staring up at the office building i saw that there was a single light switched on i counted the floors six seven eight of course it was the eighth floor still that was why i came here wasn't it taking a deep breath i walked towards the entrance of the building i hadn't planned far enough ahead to think about just how i would get into the building at night as it turned out that was a problem i needed not solve the door was wide open i slowly stepped inside and it closed and locked behind me there was no turning back now there were two different sets of elevators though one looked to be out of commission there were two orange cones sitting in front tied together easily with an overzealous amount of yellow caution tape pressing the up button to the other i listened in the darkness to the faint hum of the machine as it glided down towards me the door opened and i let out an audible sigh of relief as i noted the elevator was indeed empty jesus how was i going to fight this thing when i was so afraid the door closed in front of me and i hesitated for a moment before i could even gather the courage to press the button the number eight lit up like a christmas tree and the elevator began to rise as it rose i got as ready as i could be i summoned whatever courage i had left telling myself that if i didn't stand up to this creature and try to kill it who would the door opened to the eighth floor but instead of being greeted to the usual lobby or waiting room i stepped out instead into a hallway the hallway in fact where i had been pushed against my will the hallway of teeth this time instead of being strapped down and wheeled along the cold floor i went willingly farther into the tunnel that yet again seemed to go down deep into the earth each step brought more fear than the next and then i heard the voice welcome back it said seeming to hold back a soft laughter whatever had been lighting the path before me ceased immediately but i was prepared i quickly pulled out a flashlight and pointed it in the direction of dr willy's voice you you came prepared he added this time not holding back a coarse laughter i came to kill you i finally replied the words jumbled and blurred together in my current condition i tried my best not to stammer and fear there was silence for a moment it did nothing to ease my terror before i could think of my plan of attack a tall figure in a pink dress came twirling forward out of the darkness i fell back in fear and the flashlight slid across the smooth floor towards the creature it danced towards me faster and faster i ran and though the increased distance from the flashlight made it harder and harder to see the dancing creature that approached me i could hear the soft pattern of its feet as it drew closer without thinking i stopped in place closing my eyes and putting my full trust into a different sense i listened i listened as the creature drew closer and i pulled out the gun i had taken for my father's closet please god don't let me miss right before the creature reached me i pulled the trigger and then i pulled it again and again i pulled it until the clip was empty and then i collapsed onto the floor and waited for any sign of movement or even worse laughter but there was nothing and a short time later i walked back down towards the flashlight i left behind scanning the hall carefully i saw no sign of the creature that had pursued me i hadn't killed it after all i reloaded the gun quickly though my cell phone still works i can't seem to find my way out of the tunnels of teeth they seem to go only in one direction down farther and farther into the earth and i only have three bullets left i hadn't managed to kill the creature but i was still alive and i still had a shot but how the hell was i going to escape the tunnels perhaps i wasn't perhaps i was meant to die down here as the creature had said but maybe just maybe i could take that evil dentist son of a bitch with me three bullets that would have to be enough but there was something else too how long would the batteries in my flashlight last i guess three or four hours max and if i wasn't able to kill the creature and escape by then i suppose i'd be as good as dead but if i could find him while the light still shone brightly if i could find him while the meandering passages of children's teeth could be seen maybe i could aim truer this time maybe i could kill it walking slowly around each corner i turned the flashlight ever so cautiously hoping i was ready for the creature to appear hours passed by quickly until my watch finally froze at you guessed it midnight maybe it was my imagination but it seemed that just as my watch hit that time the angle of the tunnel seemed to slant even more downwards no not my imagination at all i realized it was as if the whole world i was in rotated on an axis right at that time the path i was on now becoming almost vertical i threw the flashlight into my bag and grabbed onto the teeth around me as strongly as i could though i couldn't see without the aid of a flashlight i could feel a bottomless space below please god let it keep turning though i had tried rock climbing a few times and had done fairly well i could feel my hand start to tighten up and weaken i wouldn't be able to hold on much longer and i would soon fall a million thoughts rushed through my mind then everything from my parents reaction to losing their only son to the curious question of would my body ever even be found down here the muscles in my arms finally gave out completely and i fell i fell downwards into endless darkness i hit the icy water hard and for a few seconds i was sure that i was dead but i was alive it seemed the liquid breaking my fall though still painful from the acute pain on my left side it was clear i had broken a rib or two and from how difficult breathing had become it wasn't altogether impossible that the fractured bone hadn't pierced my lung coughing as i tried desperately to stay afloat i wondered if the warm sensation around my mouth was from the pool i swam in or produced from my own damaged lungs i felt the sand below my feet then and a feeling of relief as i collapsed onto the murky shore around the body of water lying there until i could breathe steadily again i began to rise to my feet and survey the new environment the damp air pushed down into my lungs and though i wanted to breathe in deeply i knew i needed to work hard to slow my breathing closing my eyes i tried to picture i tried to picture being anywhere but where i was only one picture kept flashing again and again in my mind the pink dressed creature i had met only a day earlier i dug my hand deep into my skin to try and dull the pain and then i headed towards the faint light emanating from a few yards away when i reached it i began to understand what this place was a tomb of sorts or a gallery the burning fireplace directly ahead of me illuminating the vast walls and ceilings around there were teeth as there had been in the hallways where i had fallen from but there were bones here as well the bones of children bones and teeth were woven together in murals each one a more disturbing and terrifying scene than the next you made it easy on me the voice called out from behind i quickly turned but it was too late the familiar prick of a needle piercing the flesh of my neck before i could grab my father's gun i felt my legs and arms turn into jelly and i collapsed onto the damp sand below i was losing consciousness quickly but the voice still continued normally i have to carry them down here there was a faint laughter as the creature began to dance and joy my eyes were seeing double but i remember the creature's arm gesturing out slowly towards a blank space on the wall this will be your exhibit it's beautiful isn't it i'm thinking of putting your left arm where your head is now and then stitching your teeth beautifully around your ears the pattern will be lovely don't you think you you did all those i asked weekly the creature stopped twirling then and cocked its head towards me as if it were a dog i did some of this remember what i told you there are many of us it paused for a moment time to die but don't worry you'll live forever in a way for the first time since it had stolen my teeth i did something i hadn't i smiled i smiled wide and with my smile came a rising laughter i pulled out the gun aiming it at the creature which i now saw three of as whatever medication it had injected me with found its way deeper into my system three bullets three of you i whispered before pulling the trigger the creature's look was more surprised than anger as the third bullet finally struck true it fell through its knees and did something unexpected it pulled out the teeth it had taken for me and extended its arm out in my direction here you've earned them getting up weekly i reached out and took hold of what was mine i gave one last look at the creature before beginning my journey out of the strange labyrinth my vision was still failing and my steps wobbly but i remember its last words clearly remember to floss are your grandparents still alive if they died today would you miss them my own grandfather died four days ago it most likely being the biggest surprise in my life yes people die but i hadn't even known of his existence until that monday evening phone call john walker yeah i'm afraid i have some bad news the caller my grandfather's lawyer went on to inform me of multiple family details i had known first i had a grandfather named william second he had died by suicide a self-inflicted gunshot wound and third i was to be the sole beneficiary in his will contingent on only one fulfillment which is i asked there was a slight hesitation on the other end before she continued it would be better if i explained in person could you come by tomorrow i hung up the phone and tried to get some rest before my drive through the mountains the strange new information swirling around in my mind like glitter in a snow globe before finally falling gently to the ground below having been adopted as a child i had never known any of my real family maybe it's better that way despite finding out about the life and death of a man i had never known i slept well that night the next morning after checking the weather forecast i quickly replaced the front windshield wipers and headed north while he had lived surprisingly close all things considered the drive would still take nearly six hours and the upper part of the state was due for the first snowstorm of the year part of me was looking forward to seeing the area again my last experience with a white substance being 15 or more years ago growing up with a family that had taken me in the drive started with rain at first a slow plop for five or so minutes and then a steady plastering of the windshield two hours or so later after that the snow began to fall by the time i reached the lawyer's office there was nearly six inches on the ground already and i was in a bit of a rush to try and make it back downstate before getting snowed in completely hello you must be john i'm cindy she would have been stunningly beautiful under any other circumstance her dark hair falling perfectly across her face in a pair of the darkest green eyes i had ever seen staring back at me as she extended her hand forward hello cindy i used the phrase under any other circumstance because well not only did the untimely death of a family member if you could call him that spoiled the moment the woman seemed completely devoid of any emotion almost like a doll it's hard to describe and i fear i cannot do cindy justice perhaps all you need to know is that there was something not quite right about my grandfather's lawyer she was too perfect if there is such a thing after going over the finer details of his estate cindy quickly got to the caveat it is all to be yours the mansion in granghills his collection of old automobiles valued at half a million and a large property in upstate new york it is all to be yours based on one condition the woman paused for a moment pretending to sort through a small stack of papers while she eyed me over you have to send his ashes into space uh can you repeat that yes he wished for you to release his remains into space don't worry the details have been meticulously arranged the woman smiled for the first time a painfully transparent act physically her smile should have been beautiful yet that same words seemed to jump up in my mind unnatural we discussed the meticulous details for a few minutes at the end of which she handed me a single key it unlocks every door in his home save for one she said curious now i asked which door doesn't it unlock her eyes met mine and then drifted down towards the expensive tile underneath our feet all but one she repeated did i think that was odd yes but part of me just wanted to get this whole thing over with i didn't give a damn about the grandfather i never knew the man that hadn't cared enough to ever contact me while he was alive and i was planning on selling the property in possessions as quickly as possible the subsequent drive was an hour or so north through a mix of country roads mountains and forests as far as the eye could see it was evening when i finally passed over the bridge a small sign to the right of it graying hills at the bridge's end the road began to slants deeply upwards so much so in fact that i could see the very tip of a mountain that stood in the very center of town as i worked my way around the twisting rows the snow began to fall thicker than it had been before the weather was odd in itself and i couldn't remember ever seeing snow fade for a few moments and then become a violent storm the next it was almost as if graying hills was its own world apart from the one i'd known but that was silly surely the odd series of twisting roads and foreboding hills were to blame for the rare weather conditions that forced their way against me as i drove upwards jesus how long does it take to reach the top i noted the time on the dash 11 27 almost midnight what happened next was unlike me to say the least that as i finally reached the top of the mountain and noted that the clock read exactly midnight i felt a feeling of dread i was not religious i was not superstitious yet the feeling had been unmistakable midnight i turned the ignition off with a click open the door and set my feet onto the cold ground it felt almost familiar but that was impossible it was hard to see anything in such darkness but the top of the mountain seemed far larger than it had looked from afar a mile in diameter maybe more i would explore in the morning for now i just wanted to get some rest walking up to the old two-story home i found the old key my grandfather's lawyer had given me and turned it clockwise until hearing a click the door opened easily creaking softly and showing nothing at first glance i flicked on the phone's flashlight and stepped into the entryway a chandelier hung far above me as i scanned the home it seemed pristine almost untouched there was a large stairway leading upwards where i had been informed there were two guest bedrooms and directly ahead of me sat a long hallway to which i seemed unable to see its ending i placed my hand on the banister and climbed upwards for the last time that evening opening the blue and gold door handle to the first room i was pleased to find a comfortable enough looking bed the room connected to an old antique bathroom as well with an artfully tiled floor and a cast iron bathtub that looked as if it could survive a nuclear blast i was too tired to explore any farther i slept i'm not sure how much time passed when something warm brushed up against the side of my face i let out a scream that could have woken the dead luckily for me it didn't the dead stayed that way for now at least whatever the hell it was i swatted it quickly away from my face and jumped out the opposite side of the bed fumbling desperately to find the switch to the lamp i finally flicked it on and saw to my surprise and relief a jovial orange cat jesus you scared the shit out of me the cat's soft green eyes stared back into mine as if to say that scared you you ain't seen nothing yet walking over i gently stroked the top of his head to which a soft purr was my reply after that i got back into bed and tried to drift back to sleep i did finally do just that and this time i dreamt i dreamt of a lake so still and calm that it seemed you could almost walk across it i dreamt of the orange cat and the balloon my grandfather had demanded i do my part in sending into space in the dream i walked past the water and towards the bright object in the dream the balloon wasn't red or blue or green it didn't have the normal happy enough design you might expect on such an object my hand reached out towards a single silver post the balloon had been attached to by a rope without thinking i untied it i untied it without hesitation the object floated happily up towards a sky filled with clouds it was then that i finally realized what had been painted on the outside of the thing but it wasn't painted exactly was it there was a face of an old man his bright blue eyes staring across the distance between us the man grinned widely as if pleased as the balloon lifted farther and farther into the sky a soft melody began to play in my mind and then i awoke this time to sunlight it was morning a beam of light passing through the foggy window on onto my face looking around the room groggily the cat that had scared the life out of me earlier was nowhere to be seen checking the alarm clock on my phone i was relieved to see there was still plenty of time i got dressed brushed my teeth and headed downstairs part of me wanted to explore the house farther but the directions had been specific at exactly 10 o'clock i was to untie the balloon heading out the front door i was surprised to see the vast body of water before me it was strikingly similar to what i had seen in the dream a chill went through me as i walked around its edges i saw it then from a distance the bright red balloon she had spoken of i was relieved to see that it at least was different from the dream heading closer i saw that it was already floating at eye level the only thing stopping its ascension being a white rope that was tied neatly to a stake below it suddenly struck me just how odd of a request this in fact was a man i had never known dying by suicide and then leaving me his entire fortune which seemed formidable in trade for doing one small favor after his death releasing what i imagined was a very expensive red balloon that would carry his ashes up into the ether and perhaps beyond and how odd also that his investment was held so haphazardly to the ground below i figured that even only a moderate amount of wind would have caused the state to pull free from the ground and the balloon would have been released far before i had the chance to do it myself and why was it so important that i be the one to release his ashes anyway i guess it didn't matter people were crazy and if one odd job was all i need to in return for such a fortune then i would do it the balloon itself was secured only a few feet from the rocky lake as i placed my hand on its smooth edges a cool breeze fell across water and it began to snow for the first time that morning light snowflakes filled the air around me their company seeming to silence the water and top of the mountain i knelt down untied the rope that it only contained a single knot and felt the balloons wait in my hand for the first time it was really heavy how could it be so heavy it wasn't large by any means and only contained my grandfather's ashes for god's sake oh god the clock i forgot to check the time i realized is the balloon pulled up violently towards the sky above shit shit and why is the pull of this thing so fucking strong i tried to force it back down using my body weight acting like a dog or cat that suddenly became dead weight to avoid a bath or visit to the vet but it was no use a gust of wind struck the thing again and i fell forwards into the water just ahead i watched the red colors float quickly up through the falling snow higher and higher checking my watch i saw that the time was 944 close enough it was just about the time of me losing sight of the balloon that i noticed a drop of blood on my left hand i must have cut it on the rope and then there was a drop on my right hand and then one on my forearm plop plop i looked back up towards the sky plop plop plop at first i thought no i was sure that i was dreaming or my eyes were just playing tricks on me they were telling me that what was once only moments ago a fog of white falling gently from the sky was now replaced by a steady drip of dark red it covered my arms now completely and my vision seemed to be quickly becoming a mix of that color this way a familiar voice said as i pulled my eyes from what i was sure was blood covering my entire body and up towards her voice it was the woman from yesterday her once dark hair now transformed into a flowing sea of red without saying a word i followed her around the home and threw an iron gate behind patente booze she whispered the gate opened slowly before her yes i was shortly dreaming the woman i followed through the gate was now completely cloaked in red the sight of her was magical and terrifying all at once yet there was something else that drew my attention away we were in a graveyard i realized yet that was not what pulled me so it was the names on the graves stephen a walker born september 3rd 1840 died february 6th 1907 linda j walker born january 9th 1781 died december 21st 1809 they're all here the woman added pausing for a moment and looking back the entire family i had never met was buried on this mountain we walked for a few moments more before coming to the first fresh grave i had seen sure enough william f walker my grandfather what the hell is going on the beautiful woman replied nothing only turning to the grave and speaking one word she knelt lower and kissed the tombstone sweetly i watched in horror as the red liquid of which i was sure was blood began to fall more rapidly from the sky though terrified i wasn't even all that surprised by that point when a strong hand reached out from the stained grave and towards the sky above and then another hand the red woman extended her arms downwards and towards them no i shouted stop but it was too late the cold hands clutching on and pulling strongly she braced her feet against the tombstone as not to be dragged downwards into the earth herself and that's when i saw him for the first time william f walker his stained red face popping out of the ground first and then his torso and then his legs when he finally stepped up onto the ground before me i watched as he took a deep breath and stared up at the sky you've done well he said paying no attention to the woman and instead staring at me i fell backwards in fear my body trembling now and my mind coming dangerously close to snapping the red rain fell so hard now that i began to sink down into the earth myself i began to scream as the ghastly figure walked closer and knelt down beside me it had to be a walker he said his head drifting up towards the sky and his mouth opening wide to drink the last thing i remember was seeing my dead family claw their way up and out of the now red mud and my grandfather's hand reaching down and taking mine his eyes glowed a bright yellow that filled my heart with fear yet i was mesmerized i stared back into them as he spoke five words a good human is a human who does not neglect the food bowl reflected poppy and until quite recently the old woman had been a quite good human indeed in the previous months however she changed and daily feedings became weekly feedings which in turn became sporadic occasions with no rhyme or reason that the cat could decipher today fortunately the old woman filled the bowl with old beef and rice and poppy purred and rubbed against her leg to show his contentment perhaps if she understood his appreciation she would not wait so long until next time poppy supposed he could survive without her help any good cat possesses many ways to find food of course but since he had lived alone with a woman for so many years he felt a sort of renewed companionship with every meal she periodically gave him more importantly he preferred fresh human food to the stale meat he scattered on his own he watched the old woman putter around the table aimlessly and wondered what a human thought about on they noticed a cup on the table rose frowned about half filled with water the cup sat near the table's corner and she could not recall placing it there michael had doubtlessly left it out he always forgot his things around the house she picked up the cup and placed it in the sink she lifted the oil lamp to guide her way in the dark and she slowly paced down the hallway her hip gave her a throbbing pain today and she wished she could see a doctor about it as she powered through her discomfort she nearly stepped on the cat and chewed him away with the side of her foot he scurried off into the shadows eventually she found the pantry she sought out and grabbed a can of beans from the upper shelf one of the few cans remaining carrying the can in one hand and the lamp in the other she returned to the kitchen rose noticed some water on the table as she set the lamp down with her sleeve she wiped up the moisture figuring it resulted from the moved cups condensation but after she found a can opener to open the beans a droplet plopped down onto the table the woman looked up realizing the ceiling must have sprung ah left a cup on the table rose moved the mostly filled glass over to the sink michael must have forgotten about it at breakfast time that was like michael to forget his drink out on the table the oil lamp dimmed in her grasp so she hobbled over to the closet to search for some more fuel to fill the lamp she missed the days when the bunker's electric lights worked properly but something must have happened to the generator rose would ask michael to look at it later maybe he would be able to do something about the food supply too as she began to grow concerned over the diminishing stocks no use worrying about it she told herself and carefully poured fresh oil into the lamp the sole source of light down beneath the ground one day clara and rose had laid out in the sunshine having a picnic out in the grass rose had made a pair of sandwiches she had filled her own with tuna and clara's with turkey since the young girl had never liked tuna munch and they had brought along a bag of fresh strawberries from the farmer's market clara set a strawberry in the dirt and watched the ants come to tear off morsels they could carry back to the colony rose missed feeling sun on her skin down underground she stepped away from the closet passing a jagged corner of the metal wall upon which she had duct taped a blanket to soften the sharp edge returning to the kitchen she noticed water dripping onto the table she looked up towards the ceiling and not seeing anything slowly climbed onto the table to claim a better view holding up the lamp and keeping her frail body balanced on the table she examined the ceiling not finding any crack or flaw the water could have escaped from frowning she fetched the glass from the sink and set it below the drip to catch the water better than damaging the table she thought michael can look at that too next time he's around or maybe he would be left a cup out she picked the glass up which looked mostly full of cola michael probably left it out after lunchtime that was like michael to forget his drink out on the table she dumped the contents down the drain and left the glass face down in the sink poppy meowed rose almost jumped not expecting to see the skinny black cat watching her from the darkness his eyes glowed golden in the lamp light and he looked a bit like maxine had when rose brought maxine to the bunker so long ago she had no idea of the litter of kittens that would soon follow cut off from the outside world maxine's descendants had grown inbred and sickly and only poppy remained he meowed again i just fed you this morning don't be pushy looking bitter the cat prowled off disappearing into one of the thin vents clara would play with the cats in the vents squeezing through the narrow spaces but the vents had a pretty bad smell now when clara came over next time she probably wouldn't like to play there even if poppy didn't seem to mind the odor rose would ask michael to take a look once he had time once her cat had smelled terrible and michael found a family of mice that had settled in the ventilation system with a secret supply of cat food they had stolen he took care of it generally michael could fix most anything although he never got the bunker clock ticking again in the early years of their marriage he would hide out in the garage working on engines and small appliances for some extra money he treated her poorly in those days generally neglecting her and disappearing for days on end still young and clueless rose thought all husbands behave that way but his behavior eventually wore her down all the same she called her sister one night packed her things and left for the bus station on the bus ride to school rose sat in the back seat with the other school children as the vehicle rattled down the dirt road a girl named paulina made fun of her but rose couldn't remember what she looked like embarrassed rose tried to ignore the bully she drew in her notebook sketching a castle and wonderful colors poppy meowed once more i just fed you don't go trying to trick me like that returning to the kitchen she noticed a thin pool of a dark liquid on the table dripping down from the ceiling rose climbed up on the table and noticed a layer of mildew that leaked steadily after digging around for a towel she scaled the table again despite her aged hip and doing there she moved the cup of cold coffee off the table rose frowned vaguely remembering michael telling her that they had run out of coffee years ago he must have found some more silly man leaving his drink out after breakfast as she moved the cup to the sink she scrunched up her nose what stank rose went downstairs to the lower level of the bunker stopping by the patch of soft dirt in the corner of the room originally michael had planned to dig out through that soft patch and it spent weeks tearing up the concrete floor with a metal length of pipe he said he could have made short work of it with a sledgehammer rose wondered how he planned to dig his way out without a shovel but that day never came many ways michael rarely planned far ahead when they had westley he lost his job for missing work because he hadn't thought to tell his employers at the garage he would be out for the day before westley could speak he used to spend all day coloring and drawing and rose could hardly call herself surprised when he earned a spot in art school he turned down the scholarship and became an architect instead on michael's behest although rose always thought their boy would have lived happier as an artist westley seemed pleased with his decision however and met a beautiful girl at university they had a daughter of their own not too long after clara every tuesday and thursday rose and michael watched clara during the summer while her parents worked one day was today rose hoped clara would come by tomorrow the analog clock read a quarter past two as it had for an unknowable stretch of time with no way of discerning day from night rose simply slept when she grew tired and ate when hungry and she had long since lost track of the calendar michael had initially scratched tallies down in a notebook somewhere but eventually that grew more disheartening than helpful they gave the pages to clara so she could sketch to entertain herself holding her lamp ahead she strolled to the bathroom she passed by the sharp corner of the wall that she had taped a blanket over to cushion the pipes rattled when she flushed the toilet and the water had a rusty red tinge to it ignoring the sight she washed her hands in the small sink the sound of running water echoing through the spacious bunker living like this for however many years came with an indescribable loneliness but rose rarely remembered she was alone anyways so it didn't matter much a moment of clarity came to her then and she stared into the dark emptiness of the bunker the stale air stirred gently from the vents she could hear the fans buzzing that sounded wrong so she would have to remind herself to ask michael to take a look at the ventilation later generally michael could fix most anything she turned the lamp off and returned to the kitchen in the dark hearing the gentle tap of dripping water she flicked the lamp back to life spying a dark liquid settling into a pool on the table fearing damage to the wooden surface rose hurried to find a towel and wiped out a mess before setting out a cup to collect the leaking water looking at the towel she found it stained a black with the slightest tinge of red she examined the ceiling to find it covered in black mold the liquid dripped from the mass of fungus how could she clean that up maybe some there it looked filled to the brim with ink she dumped the cup out in the toilet not wanting to stain the sink why would michael have left a cup of ink out claire must have done some painting earlier and used the glass to clean her brushes unlike her to forget her art supplies on the counter though westley would have chided her for such forgetful behavior poppy sniffed at the oil lamp cuddling up against its warmth rose missed the days where she didn't have to rely on the lamp where she could just flip up the switch and expect the bulbs to light up the bunker one day they stopped working and no matter how long michael toyed with the generator the electricity refused to flow light became another resource to conserve and they spent the days in darkness absolutely necessary now rose realized the remaining fuel would likely outlive her so she began to burn freely the light reminded her of the gas stove in the house and she recalled making a turkey supper for thanksgiving when michael's family came over rose had never baked a turkey before and dried it out to a crisp so michael's mother had thrown her portion away not even making it to the pumpkin pie rose excused herself to cry in the bathroom the cat licked itself in the lamp's flickering glow throughout the day she would clean up after the cat whenever it decided to relieve itself rose had nothing to use as litter down in the bunker so there didn't seem much of an alternative the woman missed the fresh air and smell of their home on the surface michael and rose looked at the house only once before they made an offer the widow who owned the place told them about her husband who had returned shell shocked from the war and put together a fallout shelter beneath the hillside they hadn't understood the amount of work the veteran had put into assembling the bunker huge enough to house his entire family and definitely an event of crisis as long as needed rose remembered michael checking out the bunker after they moved in and how he returned to her awestruck by the scale of the underground shelter despite its size the bunker began to feel small by the second day below ground at times it became terrifyingly cramped and with rose michael clara and maxine all shut away they constantly found themselves stepping on each other's toes the smell of human odor overtook the small space still clara smiled and she retained her positivity right up until the end rose shuttered to think when clara's cut festered and the infection grew the girl contorted as the muscle spasms worsened she would wail in pain and neither rose nor michael could do anything for her the veteran who built the bunker must have put antibiotics somewhere and rose and her husband scoured the place day and night they found nothing clara's fever overtook her and michael buried her in the soft patch of soil in the lowest level of the bunker wordlessly they set a crucifix into the dirt held each other tied and sobbed the first time he held her had been in the dance hall where they met rose's parents set her up with a day and she refused to go until her dad bribed her with a new dress she wanted with four years between them michael seemed a proper adult he made rose feel childish but he clearly fancied her anyways nobody had ever paid attention to her before she felt so safe when he wrapped his arm around her rose had known so little then when christmas came to the fallout shelter back when they still kept track of the days and couldn't have marked more than a few dozen the family gathered around the table and ate the same rations as usual but rose encouraged them to sing a few carols her husband hated to sing but clara convinced him to join in black liquid settled on the table beside the cat who showed no recognition of it rose frowned at the league and quickly set out a cup to collect the drip how didn't poppy notice it observing how quickly the cup filled she thought better of it and replace the cup with a bowl she would need to get her husband to look at it she couldn't seem to retrieve his name funny that it should was that a bowl of black slime sat out on the table and rose turned her nose up at it grease maybe she scraped it out into the trash where did michael go she hadn't seen him for days now he must have gone to visit his mother she placed the bowl back and it collected fluid that dripped from the ceiling worrying that the liquid might ruin the bowl she replaced it with some cheap Tupperware rose noticed some greasy stains on the wood beneath the bowl and decided to move the whole table to avoid damaging it her hip hurt but she managed to push the table out of the way anyways she placed the Tupperware on the floor to collect the table gone rose noticed the table pushed to the other side of the kitchen and frowned why would michael have moved the table she almost tripped on the Tupperware container in the center of the floor and she set down the lamp to see its pitch black contents michael rose and clara all stared at the emergency announcement that had interrupted their show clara began to cry and michael said they needed to grab essentials civil alert sirens blared in the distance as clara collected the toys and clothes she deemed vital michael raided the pantry for fresh food and rose herded maxine into a box and grabbed his cat food they raced down the hill to the bunker while rose looked upwards half expecting to see the sky crashing down don't complain maxine rose said to poppy as he meowed at her and she glanced at the thin black cat but it looked very different now for the last few days the cat would moan at the vents like it wanted to alert rose to something there it stopped without reason after they entered the bunker the ground shook and the door refused to open rose sat at the bus station prepared to leave her marriage for good but a car came roaring up she didn't know what to say when michael tumbled out from the driver's seat entirely out of breath and he knelt before her and begged for forgiveness many times before he had apologized and promised to change rose told him she had to go told him that she hadn't understood what marrying him meant and she boarded the bus she stayed with her sister and every day michael called her sister kept telling her to ignore him because nobody ever really changed but after four months of waiting by the phone for their daily chat she finally returned he dotted on her he listened to her he defended her from his mother when she snipped rose had never been happier clara ran into the sharp edge a few months after they moved into the bunker the cut didn't look so bad and michael and rose washed it out and wrapped the whole area in gauze it didn't seem like a big deal just to be safe rose duct taped a blanket over the sharp edge to prevent another accident rose looked at the ceiling and saw black fluid pouring down from a lump the concrete bulged and warped as though under incredible pressure it dropped down soaked black ready to burst and around the bunker rose hadn't realized where the oil on the floor had come from the food had run out that morning westley she found a mop and tried to clean grime seemed to pour from the walls dripping down from above rose wanted to turn on the lamp to assess the damage but michael says they need to conserve oil since they might be down in the shelter for a while the sound of the dripping came from the kitchen where she supposed clara hadn't fully shut off the faucet rose knew better than to waste water so she followed the noise a stench nearly knocked her off her feet she quickly grabbed the lamp but couldn't find a match until she had dug through every shelf of the closet when she actually found one her shaky fingers struggled to hold it but she managed to clutch the match tight enough to ignite it by gripping it between her middle and pointer finger finally lit the lamp cast off a dim glow rose held the light source and lumbered back to the kitchen her hip began to hurt a vaguely humanoid shape hung upside down from above stretching from the concrete ceiling and dripping sludge to the floor rose could barely see it in the thin light and she noticed poppy sitting in the corner of the kitchen the cat showed no reaction to the thing poppy couldn't see it at all not surprising since the figure had come for her rose came closer and the growth shifted towards her it wore someone's face she knew the face belonged to someone important but she couldn't recognize it at all a limb extended from the mass and it caressed her leaning close she could feel its wet breath against her features and everything came apart at the poppy licked water from a pipe in the corner of the lowest level he had spotted a mouse once many weeks back but he hadn't seen any vermin for some time worse yet the rest of his food had spoiled beyond usage as hunger gnawed at the cat poppy visited the human he stopped by occasionally to check up on her but she just sat in the corner of the kitchen entirely immobile he rubbed up against her leg but she refused to acknowledge him typical hopping up on her lap he pressed into her missing the days she would make light he tried biting her but she still wouldn't react poppy wondered what had happened to the good human who used to feed him so diligently the cat licked itself no matter he could still find use for her i've been in the mood to read something that truly scares me that's pretty rare i'm not a person who scares easily it's possible that some modern writers are told to dial it back when they write scary books because who knows a kid could be reading them i don't know but i do know that i've been feeling the lack of genuine scares lately so i went to my local used bookstore and browse the shelves in their horror section i like used bookstores because they usually have much larger horror sections than a chain store might and they definitely have a lot of older stuff there stuff you will never see on bookshelves in modern bookstores anywhere ever again i happened upon this book almost by mistake it was one of the last ones on the shelf and it was shoved behind some others almost like the store wanted to hide it one look at it and i knew it was old quite possibly a first edition the book was clearly first published long ago and this one had been well loved its pages were yellowed dog-eared all over the place the cover was peeling up and near to falling off actually the cover was what caused me to pick it up there was a precious little description on it other than its title and the author's name the front contained no information and on the book cover there was simply a yates quote the darkness drops again but now i know that 20 centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle and what rough beast its hours come round at last slouches towards Bethlehem to be born that poem always gives me the shivers and i was impressed by the decision to put it on the back the first page had an excerpt and it seemed to be about a farmer and his haunted scarecrow that's really didn't sound too horrifying but if the cover made me pick it up the quote is what made me take it to the cashier at worst i would have wasted five bucks at best i might have a genuine undiscovered classic on my hands the cover of the book made it feel both ancient and timeless it was very simplistic but it evoked something in me some primal feeling that i found impossible to ignore i might be making too much out of it but i got a sense of foreboding looking at that cover modern novels tend to go all out and create an image of a monster that might be found in a special effects laden big budget horror slog fest designed to do little more than get teenagers in the seats this cover was far more minimalist but conveyed more of a sense of unease in me than a million killer scarecrow movies ever could so i picked it up and i brought it home i'm only a few pages in but already starting to feel like i've made a mistake i've never heard of our scabery before but from the first few pages he doesn't strike me as much of a writer he goes pretty light on the scares and when he does try and scare you he uses a torrent of cliches that i doubt would scare a five-year-old i'm being a little more forgiving though because the book isn't very long and it's not unlikely that these cliches weren't cliches at all when scabery was writing them hell he might have intended some of them the story believe it or not spends surprisingly little time out on the farm or anywhere near the titular scarecrow it's actually strangely political mostly about this 50-ish farmer named fenton mccall and his tireless efforts to throw the local farmers union rep out of the town because he doesn't feel that they'll be fair to the workers at least that's mainly what it's about in the first three chapters the only time the scarecrow itself makes an appearance is at the end of chapter one wherein mccall has just finished setting it up and thinks to himself that it's a mighty fine scarecrow that's literally all the scarecrow action we've gotten thus far there was one scene that was slightly unsettling wherein mccall who has been depicted as a stern but loving husband snaps at his wife when she asks about the assembly meeting he's just come home from just that one part that's all that's gotten under my skin and even then it was less about the out of character behavior and more just a sense that scene gave me that not all is well update as it turns out i was right about the scene being meant as unsettling it's becoming clear as i read that fenton mccall is slowly losing his mind that's kind of more like a horror story but still not particularly frightening what does it have to do with the scarecrow you ask well as mccall's madness grows he begins to imagine the scarecrow talking to him and following him as he does his work on the farm it whispers horrific ideas or at least ideas that scabrie clearly hopes you'll find horrific in his mind about murdering his nagging wife and burning down the town assembly hall at the next meeting however there was one thing i wasn't prepared for the book is illustrated i'm not kidding i don't know how i miss that when i flip through the book at the store but there it is the art is something special not at all in tune with the rather boring book i flipped to the incredibly sparse credits page and could not find mention of an artist except the one for the cover image and he clearly is in the guy who made the illustrations on the inside his style is very vivid even if it's also simplistic his drawings look almost like photographs except blurry or with eyes shown as glowing holes i've scanned in the first image which i trust you will agree is rather strange looking that's literally supposed to be mccall and his wife yeah i don't get it either there's nothing scary about this scene in the book they're just walking home from church and discussing the union leader but this is how our illustrator chooses to convey that scene if the book itself were one tenth as frightening as that picture i'd probably give it a much more favorable review than i have so far i know that some of you might think the image is cheesy looking okay i'll grant you that even looking at it here on my computer it looks way less intense but there's something about looking at it from the page itself that i can't even begin to describe a feeling like they're looking at me maybe i just stayed up too late reading update taking a break from reading this damn book today it's starting to get to me not skybury's writing it still sucks but just the i can't really explain it there's more pictures in the book than i realized i'm not going to upload any more of them for now because i'm having a hard time bringing myself to look at them it's not so much what's in them is what feels like is there behind them whatever it is i don't like it it i'll say this the story has taken a strange turn it's still barely talked about but scabery at one point has the scare pro while talking to mccall make mention of they as if he has someone he's reporting to behind the scenes i don't want to dig out that passage right now because when i read it it gave me a chill there was a picture on the next page and somehow i knew that they whoever they are were in the picture it only showed two young girls but i could sense them in the picture just the same that's enough of that i sound paranoid or something it's really not as bad as i'm making it sound not really i decided to google our scabery today see if there's anything else he's written literally only three hits came up i'm pretty sure i would get more hits if i googled my own name the first hit was a used book site that had once been selling scarecrow but it was out of stock and the site looked like it hadn't been updated in years the second hit was a dead link which was too bad because it looked like it might contain the most actual info about the book maybe it would even tell me who did the artwork within the book the final hit was a pure black page and the weight circle kept spinning in the center as if it were loading a video or something i waited for nearly 10 minutes and while no video loaded i could swear i heard whispers coming out of my speakers they were low and i could never make out what they were saying but i could hear them even as the circle kept spinning now here's where things get weird i went back to the search page later on because i was going to try and let that page sit there as long as it took to load but the hit wasn't there anymore the first two useless links still were but not the last one which was the only one that i seemed to get any kind of result from even one so unsatisfactory as a blank page attempting to load a video so instead i googled the name of the publishing house that printed the book margrave press i got tons of hits but when i put the name in quotes only two pages of hits loaded and only one hit seemed to have anything to do with a publishing company it makes a brief mention of a guy named tom harky who worked as a copy editor at margrave press for a short while in the 60s before leaving for bantam when margrave went under i googled tom harky who has his own page with contact info and so i sent him a short email it went like this dear mr harky i recently picked up an older used book that was published by a now defunct publishing house that you worked at until it closed do you remember much about your time at margrave press if you do i hope you can give me some information about a writer named r scabery who wrote the book i'm reading it's a horror novel called scare crow specifically i'd like to know who it was who contributed the in book artwork for the book as it's very well done but i can't seem to find the name of the artist and online info doesn't seem to help either any help you can offer on this would be greatly appreciated i also decided to google westley childs the artist who did the work for the front cover he also has a website but nowhere on it did i see the simple yet evocative picture he had done for scare crow in fact nothing he had up on his website looked much like that we'll see if i ever hear back from either of them update well i am almost halfway through the book now i decided to keep reading despite any misgivings i felt the other day scabery skills with pros and dialogue haven't improved but the story has taken a much darker turn i guess i understand a little better why yates the second coming was used as a quote now as mccall's madness grows the more he starts speaking in poetic gloom and doom language like the poem he even quotes it a few times at one point he screams at the man leading the town assembly meeting that the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity he turns murderous later and finally kills a fellow farmer one that was the most outspoken that the union should be formed and just before slitting his throat kisses at him that things fall apart the center cannot hold my first reaction to this usage of the poem is to say bullshit because honestly it's like scabery just like the poem and thought it sounded scary so he decided his murderous farmer would start spouting passages of it there's no clue elsewhere that he's the kind of man who would even read yates however there is an apocalyptic tone to the poem and the scarecrow has an apocalyptic tone when he speaks to mccall he warns him that the tide is turning and soon all innocence will be drowned which also comes from the second coming somehow scabery's able to make the lines sound like the scarecrow came up with them maybe he's not as bad a writer as a thought also those pictures keep appearing i swear earlier today i flipped ahead five or six pages to see when this chapter would be over and there weren't any pictures just now i flipped to the third page and i was greeted by this i mean what the hell is that it has nothing literally nothing to do with the story and i could swear wasn't there earlier today much like the others those eyes man i wanted to be just my imagination but i swear they're looking at me and seeing me writing it down like that it feels stupid but all i can say is read this damn thing for yourself and tell me it doesn't creep you out update heard back from wesley childs today he says he only barely remembers making that drawing the dude is something like 80 now and he was commissioned for that piece in the early 60s he said he's never read the book himself and that he only remembers the painting when i emailed him he seemed surprised that anyone is reading this book in the modern age because according to him they only printed a handful of copies he wasn't sure how many he was not aware that anyone was hired to do in book artwork or even that there was any that inspired me to try and get a hold of tom harky again i decided it had been long enough that i should have at least gotten a formal response so i sent a quick email to him asking if he'd had time to consider my request almost immediately and i mean like five minutes after i hit send i received this from what i guess is one of his staffers do not attempt to contact us again we're blocking your email and your ip address further attempts at contact will be considered harassment and will be dealt with by the proper authorities whoa i wasn't expecting that i mean i waited a week between emails and i was pretty polite both times i'm trying not to read too much into that i went back to the book today still not sure if i had the constitution to keep reading it i don't want to see those pictures again i don't want to feel them looking at me the scarecrow is not actually speaking to macaw but it's clear that something is every time there's a mention of them the next page has a photo of those strange silhouetted people and i have to believe it's just the way the artist had with his work that makes me sure that something is watching me from behind those pictures update okay i'm sorry for the tone my reviews i go read has taken i am trying very hard not to let my concerns show in my posts but it's slipping through i haven't had the strength to pick up the book since the last time i wrote i got worse after receiving a second email from wesley childs he apologized for lying to me and told me that the reason he didn't remember the scarecrow painting is that he had purposely tried to forget it according to him as he was painting it he kept hearing whispering and once it was completed he could swear it was coming to life and talking to him through his dreams he mailed it as soon as he could and spent days after that trying to get rid of the feeling of being watched or believing that he heard whispers he says he's never made a painting like that before and never has been able to again it was the first and last work he did for margrave press he also told me that he met our scabri but only once and that it was just a pen name unfortunately he doesn't remember what the man's real name was he said scabri was a small man who seemed nervous all the time i wrote back and asked him why he thinks tom harky would wish to block me and threaten me with the authorities just for asking about this book he replied just a few minutes ago to tell me that harky has been asked a couple of times before during q and a sessions about his time at margrave and anytime he is asked he immediately concludes the session and walks out he won't talk to anyone about margrave child himself once tried to reach any other contacts that commissioned him for the cover art but he found none it's as if margrave press never existed other than its tenuous connection to one man update it's been another week woke up this morning to an email from tom harky in my inbox it wasn't the website address it looked more like an account for personal use it said only this if you have that goddamn book in your house burn it i haven't burned it it's on my coffee table right now i can barely bring myself to look at it whatever is seeing me through the book can now see me even when it's closed i have a feeling it's the rough beast moving its slow thighs slouching towards bethlehem maybe that beast inspired the great poet william butler yates to write about it and just over 40 years later inspired a hack writer who called himself our scabery to do the same i don't know i don't care anymore i just wanted to stop talking to me update i tried to burn it i did i used kitchen tongs and took it out to my backyard i dropped it in an old steel bucket and struck a match then i held it there i waited i couldn't drop the match something was going to make sure that if i burned the book i would feel every flame the book did tenfold i put the match out and left the book in the bucket i'm not going back for it update i've nearly finished the book there have been no pictures for the last several pages there don't need to be any they tell me what has already been happening they tell me what is going to happen they see me through the words i read this story is a retelling of something that happened to me when i was just seven years old as the years have gone by and i've grown up i've realized that the story cannot possibly be true yet i can't shake the feeling that it is it happened in tokyo in the subway station i was standing with my father when i saw the demon a monstrously tall and furry creature with leathery black wings and a snout like an anteater i must have stared at him for close to 10 minutes before he finally spoke in a soft mutter that was clearly intended for his ears only this human is creeping me out it almost seems like he's looking right at me i am looking right at you i said the demon nearly jumped out of his skin you you can see me yes can't everybody not unless they're in the fifth dimension am i in the fifth dimension i asked your mind must have slipped over here by mistake what were you thinking about before you saw me i thought for a moment and then grinned trains oh well trains are the link between our dimensions i guess your mind must have just wandered over here either that or you're going crazy i hope i'm not going crazy i said being crazy is a good thing in the fifth dimension the demon replied i laughed do you have subway lines in the fifth dimension i asked of course how else would we get to work you've got wings i said yes but who wants to fly taking the train is so much faster and if i fly to work i'm all sweaty when i get there so what do you use your wings for i asked i put them over my head when it rains can i see sure the demon said my hair blew back as he swooped his enormous wings over his head i laughed again you're funny i said the demon laughed too but then his expression changed are are you okay i asked you seem sad yes yes the demon replied not looking at me but it's something behind me say would you like to see a magic trick okay the demon reached up and tugged a big rainbow handkerchief out of his snout he must have pulled out 20 feet before he ran out that's funny i laughed but i stopped when i realized i wasn't holding my dad's hand anymore i looked around and saw the subway station had disappeared replaced by flowing green meadows that were full of old trains i can't see the subway station anymore i said that's okay sometimes it's better to see what isn't there instead of what is what do you mean sometimes when i'm bored of sad my mind slips off to the third dimension and i see people like you can you go to other dimensions too but the demon didn't answer he was looking up at the sky and started to rain he said whooshing his wings up over his head warm droplets of rain hit my face can i get under your wings with you i asked not now he replied you've got to go home the world began to shimmer and flow together like different shades of green and golden paint spinning around faster and faster in circles i started to feel a little sick and i closed my eyes the world stopped spinning but warm droplets of water still fell on my face i opened my eyes and saw my mom crying over me but i didn't see my dad where's dad i asked her did he bring me home yes darling she said although she couldn't look at me when she said it he brought you home and then he had to go away oh when will he be back i don't know she said my dad never did come back and it was years before i found out the truth he had killed himself that day that morning he had written a note to my mother explaining that he intended to bring me along and step in front of the train with me my mother found it when she got home from work and called the police but it was too late to stop my father the witnesses say that just before he jumped i pulled away from his hand and ran off fainting right after but one of the witnesses a little boy around my age said that he saw something take my hand and lead me away from the speeding train he said it was a monstrously tall and furry creature with leathery black wings and an anteater snout they were cheering when he jumped but he did not come up again turnpike troubadours before the devil and those were dead i remember one time growing up when my best friend david asked if my grandparents were still living his own grandmother had passed away a few days earlier and i think he was just looking for someone to talk to about it do you still have your grandparents around david asked from the sidewalk pausing for a moment and looking over at me yes i said leaving it at that of course they were around everyone was but i could never tell that's what mom and dad and said no one in my family has died for quite some time at least not in the traditional sense sure they will become sick and maybe for a few hours they will even leave this world but they always come back take my uncle carl for instance he had developed bone cancer in his late 70s and day by day it wore down his body until by the end he could nearly pass for a skeleton one day as he lie in bed with his family circled around his heart finally gave in and stopped fighting he took one last breath held his necklace tightly in his right hand and then he was gone my mother held me close and watched as i stared over at his vacant body it's okay dear he'll be back tomorrow and he was sure enough the next morning uncle carl was the first one at the table for breakfast and what's more he was young again uncle carl i yelled happily running over into his arms hey there sport i miss you he said ruffling my hair is it gone it's gone buddy he replied warmly i didn't ask and i'm not sure that even he knew the exact age he now was but he appeared to be in his early 30s it's different every time i like to think that maybe you come back at the age you were most happy but that's just speculation really none of us know why you come back the age you do all we know is that you always come back that is until recently my great grandfather isaac was the strongest of us he had been a coal miner and had seemingly come back in his best physical condition his shoulders were broad and wide and his arms thick and muscular he still wore the same dusty pants and cloudy gray jacket that no doubt came from the old days he would even wake up wearing a cracked mining helmet that looked to be over a hundred years old i could hear him swearing every morning son of a sore neck again and his cursive thing he would yell through the house throwing his helmet angrily against the wall on the other side of mine i always chuckled that was one of the peculiarities with the family once you died and came back you always woke up every morning wearing the same set of clothes it seemed to be chosen at random as far as we could tell i was particularly embarrassed one day when upon entering my great aunt natalie's room i found her wearing a bright red negligee and a black top hat needless to say i left the room immediately i'm not gonna ask about that one but i digress and back to the main story i'm 18 years old now and was due to leave for college this week when grandpa isaac went missing maybe more accurately still he never showed up that morning when our family sat around at the breakfast table i noticed his seat was empty i wouldn't have thought much of it had it not been for the surprised look of fear from my remaining family i'll go his wife had said quickly rising from her chair and leading three or four family members upstairs to his room he wasn't there either we held the funeral three days later i had never been to one before his wife my grandma gave the eulogy and i wish i could remember more of what she said but i was too shaken up i had never experienced death before and as she stood up in front of us i only recall her saying one thing death seems to have found us again after it was all over she took my hand come with me she said softly leading me up the old creaky stairs that led to the attic she unlocked a dark wooden chest i had never seen before and pulled out something small that was wrapped tightly you need to know that night i walked with her from door to door and window to window at each she would recite a set of words i'm still learning latin but upon asking she told me the approximate translation death is not welcome here the chest had contained an ancient vial of liquid sky blues forest greens and taxicab yellows seemed to swirl endlessly and with purpose and i held my breath and wonder as i walked behind her through our home she would recite the words and then close her eyes dip her index finger into the old vial and use a small portion of the liquid to draw a small symbol the liquid seemed to glow more brightly upon contact with her skin and when the symbol was drawn completely it would shine as well we double check that every door on window was covered they were upon our completion the rest of the family was then in charge of taping up the windows with dense black paper that made it impossible to see through to the outside that night as the last of the sunlight began to fall over the mountains we locked the front door and checked it twice my grandmother sat down next to me there's one more thing what is it grandma she looked towards the closest window and then back at me whatever happens tonight whatever you hear never look outside it's better you don't think of such things just promise me i looked back at her i promise good she smiled it's gonna be all right dear that evening as my family and i stayed up to keep watch the night seemed to pass like any other we played cards and made poor temps at joking trying our best to keep our minds off the current situation and then the knocking started first there were three knocks at the front door my family grew silent then there were three more on the kitchen window close by and then suddenly there was a rapid more powerful knocking that seemed to strike every window and doorway in the house at once something wanted desperately to get inside after a time it stopped there was quiet again a minute or two passed and the calm was interrupted by a great howling our heads looked up almost in unison towards the ceiling as we strained to hear the distant noise it came from directly above us far off in the sky the howl could be heard echoing throughout the house and seemed to shake the very foundation and then as quickly as it had started it was over it was like none of it had ever happened and a sense of relief came over my family we had survived but there was a problem later that night i woke to the sight of two blue eyes staring down onto me it was my nephew ewen you scared the hell out of me i whispered angrily over at him and then he began to sob first softly and then uncontrollably i know i shouldn't have i know i shouldn't have he cried bearing his head into my chest it's okay i said warmly it's gone now the crying stopped for a moment as he looked up at me innocently when the thing knocked on my window the paper must have not been taped on good enough and my heart filled with dread as he continued and i saw its face looking back what's gonna happen now he asked i looked into the bright blue eyes that belonged to my eight-year-old nephew ewen and i answered him truthfully part two may we all get to heaven before the devil knows we're dead turnpike troubadours what's going to happen now he asked i looked into the bright blue eyes that belonged to my eight-year-old nephew ewen i don't know i answered truthfully and i didn't know how could i know what was going to happen next why the hell would you i suddenly saw the fear in his eyes and came to my senses instead of yelling i hugged him it'll be okay buddy we'll ask grandma for help i said trying to calm him you won't let anything bad happen to me will you steven i forced a smile i won't let anything bad happen to you checking the alarm clock on the old antique bedside table next to us i saw it was nearly two hours past midnight now come on let's go wake her up i said padding him on the back he smiled genuinely and as he did an ominous feeling seemed to pass across me i suddenly knew that none of this could end well for a brief moment i understood that when ewen had looked at whatever ghastly figure had been on the other side of the window it had sealed the fate of himself myself and possibly even that of our entire family but perhaps it wasn't entirely his fault this had started with the death of our grandfather isek something dark had finally found us maybe whatever it was could sense the happiness and innocence of a family that had lived without a fear of death that had lived without that inevitability hanging over it that inevitability my mind repeated death can't be cheated and your family has cheated me for too long stop it steven i told myself angrily pushing those thoughts back into a deeper recess of my mind i took a breath and opened the door to the hallway it seemed darker than usual and a certain musty smell hung in the air almost like the smell of stop it we walked quickly down into the darkness and towards my grandmother's room ignoring the thick silence when we got there the door was already wide open stay close to me ewen i said before realizing he couldn't have been any closer if we had been tied together he was terrified grandma i said trying to muster a courage that wouldn't come this felt wrong everything felt wrong as i stepped slowly into her room i saw that a small lamp was flicked on near her bedside the bed was empty grandma i called out again this time with even less courage i somehow knew she was gone i could feel it she's not here i said looking down at ewen come on we knocked on the door to uncle Carl's room which was a short ways down the hallway uncle Carl i called out through the door nothing opening the door quietly i saw that his bed was empty as well where is everyone ewen asked looking up at me i don't know the noise that came next almost brought on a heart attack even though i was only 18 i could feel my heart tense and then my breathing stopped a great howling boomed against the walls around us but this time it wasn't coming from outside the thick brick walls of the house acting as a barrier between us it was coming from inside the house it was even louder the next time and it held a power within it with each howl items in the house around us would shake and then fall weakly under the floor below first a mirror shattered far too close to ewen somehow he was unharmed then the old grandfather clock that stood at the end of the hallway began to shake violently before crumbling like an old statue we have to go i whispered holding my nephew's hand more tightly and rushing towards the back stairway on the second floor and away from the cries of the monster at least i thought it was away while the howling did fill up the entire house it had seemed stronger at the front of it near the kitchen we rushed down the stairway trying to stay as silent as possible when we reached the bottom i headed for the door and felt ewen's hand slip out of mine no it didn't slip he pulled away ewen what are you looking back i saw it a moment later than he had on the other side of the back room stood a dark figure the room was unlit but judging from the height of its eyes it seemed to stand nine feet tall or higher it's eyes it's yellow eyes that seemed to call out to you seemed to beckon for you ewen was lost inside of them and so was i the thing floated closer slowly and the two of us were helpless to move maybe we didn't want to i'm not sure what would have happened next if not for the strong hand that clasped onto my shoulder and the bright light that seemed to blind the monster for a moment it howled wickedly as if wounded and its eyes looked away when it did the spell was broken and the two of us could move again we looked up into the eyes of our great grandfather isek he was alive boys what do you say we get the hell out of here he said pulling the two of us through the doorway and into the cold air of the night the thing recovered and howled once more as it made its way towards us but isek shut the door quickly embraced his back against it his eyes were wide as he called out the vile and suddenly i realized that there was a small container of liquid lying on the ground in front of us the door seemed to crack and bend as the thing slammed into it again and again desperate to reach us get the vile he screamed out again his eyes even more desperate an unexpected feeling of understanding came over me then and i knew what to do picking up the vile i opened it and dipped my index finger inside as it touched my skin there was a cooling feeling that came over my entire body maybe it was courage i thought as a determined look passed across my face and i reached out for the door i drew the symbol just as my grandmother had and it glowed back brightly as if pleased then the slamming stopped and the howling started up again it was even worse than before i realized watching as isek's back slid down the doorway and he sat on the ground he hadn't been injured but looked as if he'd been in a brawl his thick muscles seemed worn and tired but he stood up anyway i realized then with the light that had blinded the monster had been the light on his old coal mining helmet it's trapped in there he said but it won't hold for long his hands reached out as he placed them firmly on our shoulders and stared down at us we have to go now not another word was said as the three of us ran towards the thick forest behind our home each step we took away from the house seemed to enrage the thing farther and its screams followed us far into the darkness well i'm 28 years old now i was born in 84 and i've been free as i can be and i won't ask for any more turnpike troubadours we entered the cover of the forest at a full on run grandpa isaac's headlamp lit the path through a distance of about 15 feet everything outside of that thin beam of light was blanketed in pure inky blackness what's the plan i shouted get us far away from that thing as we can before it breaks free my grandfather said back as if on cue we heard the sound of splintering wood coming from the house a thundering howl echoed through the night air it got out grandpa said perhaps more to himself as he slowed to a fast walk we need to be quiet now we need to hide and with that he motioned towards a small clearing one side overgrown with huge brambles of wild blackberries he switched off the headlamp and we made our way silently into the heavy underbrush we paid no notice to the sharp thorns catching on our clothes and bare skin listening intently we heard it crash through the trees and onto the trail behind the house my grandfather was right next to me but it was too dark to see his face i heard him turn toward us and whisper don't move now quiet your breathing and try to keep perfectly still we could hear the thing move clumsily through the forest fallen branches cracking under its weight it stopped at a fork in the path and i swear i heard it sniff the air then silence i held my breath for what seemed like an eternity craning my head forward to listen seconds tick by and then i felt a small current of air move across the back of my neck a dawning dread flooded over me turning to warn him i heard a startled surprise as talon sunk into both of his shoulders and isek was lifted straight up off the ground he fought hard and he must have done some damage because it dropped him from about 20 feet he landed flush on his back and i could see he was in a great deal of pain by the time he was able to speak you and i were by his side take the vile he said weakly placing it into the palm of my hand as i closed my fingers around the small glass bottle the creature hit me full force in the chest and i was thrown back onto the forest floor it stood staring intently at me and then it screamed the sound was so loud that it shook the ground around us bits of leaves and branches flew past my head and i felt as though i was in the eye of a hurricane it looked to be over eight feet tall with huge leathery wings and the face of something out of a nightmare then it screamed again and turned back to my grandfather picking him up by the throat it pulled him close until its face was only inches away from his their eyes locked and with what appeared to be anticipation a kind of savoring the creature opened its maw and slowly inhaled the life force of my grandfather his cheerful blue eyes dimmed his skin became pale and then turned in ashen gray i watched helplessly as grandpa isaac began to disintegrate in front of my eyes starting with the tips of his fingers then moving up his arms and legs until there was nothing but a small heap of ashes on the ground the creature took great pleasure in using its talons to mix the ashes with dirt scratching wildly it scattered the remains in all directions the sound of ewen softly crying forced me back into reality struggling to stand i could feel the cool glass vial still clutched in my right hand ewen ran to me locking his arms around my waist i gently unwrapped them we don't have much time but kneeling down i uncapped the vial and tipped it to my finger nothing desperately holding the bottle upside down i felt one single drop of liquid touch my skin trying to remember what my grandmother had written over the doors and windows i traced the symbols and letters onto ewen's forehead i hoped it would be enough the creature paused for a moment and then screamed at the sight pushing ewen behind me i picked up a sturdy branch and broke the tip off at a sharp angle coming straightforward it closed the distance between us in a millisecond using the branch to stab for an eye i missed but tore a hole in one of its leathery wings it screeched more in outrage than pain then it snapped my weapon and two grabbed me by the throat and lifted me from the ground eye to eye it widened its maw and began to extract my life but it didn't work surprise then enraged it raised one razor sharp talon and tore deep into my chest my body dropped to the ground the world began to fade it's hard to describe the feeling that followed i must have looked dead to ewen but somehow i was still in my body and i was still aware but i couldn't speak or move and worse i couldn't help him ewen screamed my name it cocked its head perhaps just now remembering that ewen had been its primary target as the thing lumbered towards him the symbols on ewen's forehead began to glow brighter and brighter until the creature was forced to stop in its tracks they seemed to create some type of barrier now that even it couldn't cross it screamed and flew into a rage flinging branches and ripping small trees right out of the ground but it couldn't touch him finally barely opening its wings it shot straight upward like a missile and disappeared into the night sky ewen ran crying and fell on the ground next to my body i couldn't comfort him and i was filled with an overwhelming sense of sadness eventually exhaustion overtook him and he fell asleep tightly grasping my hand as dawn broke he was startled awake by the sound of someone calling his name it was great grandma hester and ewen ran to her crying grandpa isaac and steven are dead it killed them holding the boy tightly hester looked over at where i lie on the ground and then she glanced upward to the sky it took a while to calm him but eventually she settled ewen under the shade of an oak tree and set about tending to my body reaching into her coat pocket she pulled out a thick glass bottle brimming with a colorful swirling liquid carefully tipping it to her finger she gently drew symbols on my forehead the two of them made their way back to the house in silence once they arrived she sent him upstairs to clean up while grandma hester prepared a quick supper there was too much empty space a reminder of their loss at the long oak table in the kitchen they decided to carry their plates to a small round table on the front porch why did we have to leave steven out there ewen asked sadly because that's the way it's done she replied you must lie where you fall will everyone come back again like before ewen said hopefully she looked down at him sadly no my dearest not this time grandma forced a smile there is more i will tell you for this next part you must be very brave still let's leave the world laughing when our ewegees are red may we all get to heaven for the devil knows we're dead ewen watched his grandmother intently she paused for a moment and then continued this is the story of your great-grandpa isaac he grew up here in this very house with his mother and father aunts uncles and grandparents just like us they did not worry about death isaac had three brothers and a sister you didn't know that did you he didn't much like to talk about them the time before when he was nine years old his own great-grandfather disappeared and the family knew that death had found them so they painted symbols over the doors and windows sealed up the house and waited hours passed and boredom must have gotten the better of isaac he went up to his room just like you and just like you he forgot to be afraid isaac peeked out of his own window that night there was something out there and it stared right back the next morning when isaac woke up everyone was gone he was alone what did he do you were asked breathlessly what could he do she replied he was just a little boy all alone and terrified he moved some pillows in a blanket into the little pantry off the kitchen and that's where he slept crying himself to sleep most nights he blamed himself and he missed his family terribly you and sat deep and thought it's hard to imagine grandpa isaac crying he's never been afraid of anything that made hester smile but pain came with remembering as well for a moment she thought of her husband and the life they had shared together pushing her own sadness aside she continued hoping he hadn't noticed the tears beginning to form you and needed to be strong now well she said how do you think he got to be so brave the strongest steel is forged from the hottest fire those hardest of times that's what made him so strong climbing onto his grandma's lab he went said i'm so glad you're here with me she looks sadly into his eyes well that's the hardest thing my dearest i won't be able to stay just this night to get you settled i'll be gone by first light what you and pennant no you can't go please i don't want to be alone i'm afraid i have no choice my love she said holding him close as time passed and quietly humming a song that she used to sing to him as a baby you and didn't understand why she had to go i suppose no little boy can really be prepared for something like that his grandma was here now but by the morning she would be gone she took his chin into her hand and smiled once more now i'm going to dish us out two big bowls of ice cream but after we finish we've got some work to do they ate the rocky road ice cream while grandma hester shared stories from her childhood she even got a couple of smiles out of you and when they finished the great tour of the house began first they visited the little nail in the closet where she kept the key to the old trunk in the attic the books and drawings were inside explaining how to make the markings over every door and window the fresh vial of thick glass was carefully filled to the brim with swirling liquid wrapped and tucked into a pocket of the trunk also included were the handwritten instructions on how to make more she even gave him a business card for the family accountant he pays all the bills every month no questions asked once a month he leaves an envelope with a little cash in the mailbox if you need anything if any problems arise call him lastly they walked into great grandpa isaac's room grandma hester went to the top drawer of his dresser and pulled out something wrapped in old newspaper it was a journal grandpa isaac had written as a boy to help get through the solitude and loneliness it also detailed some of the fixes to ordinary problems around the house by the time they were finished going over things it was nearing three o'clock in the morning despite his worry eun's eyes began to drift closed and his head began to nod gently it's time for you to get some sleep grandma said warmly walking with eun up to his room and pulling a rocking chair to the very edge of his bed he drifted slowly off as grandma sang him to sleep from her rocker watching over him and holding his hand for the last time sometime passed and eun's eyes opened quickly at the sound of rapid knocking on his bedroom window dread fell over him like a wet blanket wrapping his entire body with a sense of inevitability the rocking chair next to the bed still swayed gently back and forth but grandma hester wasn't there anymore the room was empty now and darkness hung much heavier than before three more knocks eun didn't want to get up he wanted to hide underneath the thick wool blankets and wait for it all to be over but he found himself standing and walking slowly towards the window anyway with each step towards the foggy glass his mind desperately tried to turn away to run back to safety three knocks louder than before hungrier than before eun watched his own hand disobey and reach out slowly to open the window he wanted to scream but his body wouldn't listen then the nightmare ended for now at least he woke to heavy rays of sunlight pouring in through the bedroom window as reality dawned he bolted straight up and flung his head to the right and reached towards the rocker but it was empty the thought of this big abandoned house gripped his chest like a huge weight pressing down on him laying his head back down on the pillow he stared up at the ceiling and tried not to cry minutes passed and suddenly eun started to imagine the smell of bacon frying it seemed almost as real as the nightmare had been then he heard a sound clear as a bell and coming from downstairs it was whistling eun jumped up and ran down the back stairway to the kitchen he took the last four steps at a leap and landed squarely on the black and white tiles of the kitchen floor steven he shouted i turned away from the stove just in time to catch my nephew mid leap he was laughing through his tears when suddenly he paused and pulled back to look me in the eyes will you stay he asked you can't get rid of me that easily i answered but how he asked bewildered it was great grandma hester i said she didn't tell you because she wasn't sure it would work setting you in down i grabbed two plates from the cupboard and filled them with bacon and scoops of scrambled eggs placing them down on the huge oak table their solitude made the loss of our family feel almost palpable suddenly i thought better of it and we took our plates out to the front porch talking as we ate i told eun that things would be different for a while but we would adjust eventually one or both of us would marry and have kids someday maybe even grandkids perhaps one day the house would be filled once again with laughter and family for now though it was just the two of us i asked him if that was okay he smiled back two is so much better than one still i knew how empty the house was going to feel with the loss of our family i have an idea that i'd like to run past you i said last week before all this started i noticed a sign three streets over it said they were giving away free puppies to a good home i think they were a mix of for real you and interrupted i smiled and finished a mix of labrador and golden retriever we can really get a dog he said again with a funny amount of disbelief for a boy that had seen what he had well grandma hester did leave you in charge it's really up to you yes you and shouted happily and with that we finished our breakfast talking together about the past but hopeful as well for the future