All Dark, All the Time: The Complete Short Fiction of Brian Keene
Author: Brian Keene
Date: 2016-02-16 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Short Stories; Fiction; Zombies
Description: ALL DARK, ALL THE TIME is the second book in a series collecting all of Brian Keene's short fiction. Included in this volume are such critically-acclaimed and fan favorite stories as "The Girl on the Glider", "Fetish", "The Siqqusim Who Stole Christmas", "Scratch", "Lost Canyon of the Dead", and many more. These are stories about darkness. The darkness outside of us, surrounding us, and the darkness inside the human soul. ALL DARK, ALL THE TIME -- and morning is never coming. ALL DARK, ALL THE TIME is the second book in a series collecting all of Brian Keene's short fiction. Included in this v
Publisher: CreateSpace Publishing

ALL DARK, ALL THE TIME

THE COMPLETE SHORT FICTION OF BRIAN KEENE,

VOLUME 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Foreword

The Girl on the Glider

Keepsakes

Fetish

Lost Canyon of the Dead

The White Worm

A Darker Shade of Winter

House Call

Scratch

Midnight at the Body Farm

The Black Wave

Alone

Hunting Season

Hide and Seek

Baby Talk

An Appointment Kept

Something Pretty

The Siqqusim Who Stole Christmas

Musings

About the Author

Also by Brian Keene

Copyright

This one is for Jesus. I miss you every day, brother...

My sincere thanks and appreciation to Robert Swartwood, J.F. Gonzalez, Kealan Patrick Burke, Mark Sylva, Tod Clark, Stephen McDornell, the editors whom originally published these stories in their individual form, my readers, and my sons.

JAIL, COWS, SNAKES, TIMING BELTS AND BIGFOOT: AN INTRODUCTION

There was this time when I bailed Brian Keene out of jail...

I’ve never actually bailed Brian out of jail, but I promised him that I would start the introduction to this volume with that line.

Mission accomplished.

Actually, talking about jail is how Brian and I first came in contact with each other. And I bet he doesn’t even remember this.

Picture this: late 1999, maybe early 2000. I’d been dabbling in writing horror fiction for about a decade by that point and had only then become serious about it (prior to this, I was known as an editor of two horror magazines). Having a number of published short stories under your belt and a first novel publication will do that to you. So, of course, I subscribed to all the pertinent zines of the day—Hellnotes and the HWA Newsletter and some email newsletter called Jobs In Hell. Brian used to edit and publish Jobs in Hell, but I’m pretty confident that my initial correspondence with him came prior to this. No, it wasn’t on the Horrornet chatroom, which he and the rest of the Cabal wax nostalgically about. I had an aversion to Internet chatrooms even back then and didn’t want to be bothered with it. I always wondered how folks like Richard Laymon got any work done due to the time they spent in those places. But I digress.

You see, prior to Jobs in Hell, I recall seeing Brian’s byline in a number of places, most likely in Scavenger’s Newsletter, and some small press magazine appearances. His name popped up so regularly that I started to recognize it, even though I hadn’t read anything he’d written by that point. His name was one of dozens I came across during those days. If you were a prolific writer of short stories and essays in the small press, your name got out there quite a bit. And after a few years, Brian’s byline became pretty recognizable to me.

So when I read an essay he wrote on the prison library system and how prisoners really psychologically benefited from receiving books from writers, it immediately struck a chord with me (I don’t remember where this essay appeared; HWA Newsletter maybe?). A few years prior to this, I had a friend who was serving time on drug charges (a stretch that finally got him clean and on the straight and narrow—unfortunately, a motorcycle accident claimed his life eleven years later). During the year my friend was incarcerated I was a publisher, and as a publisher I was able to send him books and magazines under my imprint. He later told me that inmates crave reading material and that everything I sent eventually made its way to the prison library where it was passed around to those who had an interest in reading horror and suspense.

I shot Brian a quick email telling him I enjoyed his article and I was aware of this already due to my formerly incarcerated friend. He replied back with a quick thank you and appreciation. That started our correspondence via email. I probably became a subscriber to Jobs in Hell shortly after that, which was around the time he started it. And I think at one point Brian said, “Hey, didn’t you co-write Clickers? I loved that! And didn’t you used to edit and publish the magazines Iniquities and Phantasm?”

I met him formally at the 2000 World Horror Convention in Denver, CO. I was sick for most of that convention and remember only images—I remember Harlan Ellison yelling at people at one of the hotel restaurants; I remember watching what appeared to be a porno movie at some party; I remember smuggling booze into a con suite party with John Pelan and a bunch of other folks; I remember the carpet of some room being caught on fire at a another party (fire and pornography...hell, that was a great convention!); I also remember something about goats and swimming pools.

Brian figured in some of these adventures. At least I think he did. Every time I think about that convention and try to associate it with Brian, worms pop into my head for some reason. Remember, I was sick for most of the convention and tried to alleviate whatever death plague I’d picked up (probably from Del Howison, the co-owner of Dark Delicacies Bookstore, who I’d travelled with and was rooming with) by drinking absinthe, which only made it worse.

Brian and I stayed in touch after that, mostly through email. When I relocated to the east coast in early 2001, I reached out to him because I had the vague sense that he didn’t live that far from me. It turned out he was only two hours away, which in my neck of the woods is fairly close (five years later he would move a lot closer to me—now we’re just under an hour or so from each other). He also knew a lot about cows, which I had no experience with. You see, I had moved to a rural community. There’s an actual goddamn farm three houses down from me, and you can see a barn and a vast field from my living room window. During that late spring and early summer as I was acclimating to this strange new environment, the weird noises of the cows from across the road were a constant source of consternation, befuddlement, and, later, dire concern. These are not normal cows. They don’t moo. They wail and screech like demons from the bowels of hell. I am not kidding you. Don’t believe me? Ask author Kelli Owen. Go ahead, find her on Twitter and ask her. She lived with me for a month when she relocated out here; she heard it, too.

One day, shortly after I moved out here, I called Brian and asked him what was up with these cows? Why do they make those weird noises? What was their purpose? He thought I was kidding, but I wasn’t. He still thinks I’m joking about this, but he hasn’t heard these cows. Aside from my family, Kelli Owen is the only other person on the planet who can attest to the fact that the cows that live up the street from me are abnormal. There are no other cows like them on the planet. I thought this would appeal to Brian’s fascination with all things weird and paranormal, but for some reason it hasn’t. Brian would rather be looking for Bigfoot than camping out in my backyard in the hope of seeing aliens beam down on the cow barn to begin another round of whatever experiment they conduct that makes them wail and scream like that. So despite what Kelli and I say about the cows, he remains on his mountain retreat waiting for Bigfoot to show up. Besides, Brian never believes anything Kelli says, and about the cows, this is the only subject he pokes fun at me for. Like he has a lot to talk about, him and his goddamn Bigfoot.

Everything else I tell Brian, however, he believes. He may ignore it, but he believes me. He also believes everything our mutual friend, author Geoff Cooper, tells him too. When Coop told Brian that his car’s timing belt ran the digital clock on his dashboard, Brian believed him. I could never do anything that cruel to him, so when I invited him to co-write Clickers II with me, he thought I was going to reveal that I was putting one over on him the way Coop did with the timing belt. I was serious. I couldn’t think of any other writer who would be perfect for that book. Three books later, we’re contemplating doing more if time allows.

Brian’s sensibility as a writer and his style are very similar to mine. We both came up in the same era: the post-Vietnam 1970’s, and absorbed rock and roll, comic books, and 70’s horror films and novels. We were also both exposed to the classic writers of the genre at a time when this kind of material was all over the place. You can see this in his work, especially the influence of Manly Wade Wellman. The work of Wellman is most noticeable in “House Call”, the lone Levi Stoltzfus story in this volume, but elements creep up in some of the others as well, most notably the novella “Scratch”. The reason? “Scratch” is loosely based on local Pennsylvania folklore, something Wellman was rather an expert in and used extensively in his own stories (folklore in general, not just Pennsylvania folklore), particularly his Silver John stories and his John Thunstone tales, but also his more general horror tales.

(An aside: at some point when I first met him, I probably told Brian that, at one point, I kept a lot of snakes, primarily large boas and pythons. However, by the time I moved to PA I only had two ball pythons, which get no bigger than four feet or so. Yet Brian heard the word “large” and insists to this day that I chased him around my house with a twelve-foot boa constrictor. Actually, if anything, all I did was probably motion toward the room where I keep my snakes and said something to the affect of “my snakes live in there”. See what I have to deal with on a day-to-day basis?)

I am of the mind that Levi Stoltzfus is this generation’s answer to Wellman’s Silver John; Brian needs to write more of them and put them in a collection. I bet if he did, a volume like this would later prove to be as classic a volume as Wellman’s own Who Fears the Devil? Also, I should note here that I have learned more about the Amish from Brian’s Levi Stoltzfus stories than I have seeing them every day in rural Pennsylvania. In fact, I recommend if you are ever going to visit Lancaster County, PA as a tourist, you should educate yourself on the Amish first by reading any of the Levi Stoltzfus works Brian has written.

Also noticeable for influences in these stories are Stephen King, Hunter S. Thompson, Joe R. Lansdale, William Hope Hodgson, M. R. James, Fredric Brown, and Robert Bloch. These are the writers we grew up reading in the late 70’s and early 80’s; maybe not Lansdale so much, since he was just starting out at the time, but I’m sure Brian had to have come across the occasional Lansdale story every now and then back then, just like I did. The other writers though? They were all over the place, figuring pretty prominently in all the reprint anthologies that were being published in that golden era.

These days, reprint anthologies aren’t published the way they were back in the day. That’s a shame.

What I’m trying to say is that the writers who helped shape the field of dark fantasy and horror influenced Brian. Sure, Stephen King and Richard Laymon are probably the primary contemporary influences. But in the early 1980’s, the original incarnation of Weird Tales had only been dead for barely thirty years and a lot of the good material that was published in its pages (and its competitors) was still being reprinted in anthologies that were readily available to those of us who bought every modern horror novel or collection that was published back in the day. Things have changed. The classic Weird Tales school of horror isn’t in vogue with much of today’s scene. The influence on Weird Tales was so big back then, it was still being felt thirty years later in writers like Stephen King, Charles L. Grant, and Karl Edward Wagner, among dozens of others.

While the contemporary horror story formulated by pulp writers like Bloch and Wellman and Matheson and the other Weird Tales writers was hugely influential, by the late 1980’s it was also starting to fall out of favor with a lot of editors in the field. As the years passed, other forms of storytelling and styles took over. Splatterpunk. Cyberpunk. Dark Mystery. Surrealism. New Weird. New Pulp. New Whatever. Brian started placing his early efforts in little magazines by the time contemporary horror had largely fallen out of favor with a lot of publications (Cemetery Dance and the revived Weird Tales still published it, but those were tough markets to crack for beginning writers). Brian persisted though, and some of those early efforts, while clearly showing their influence, also had the spark of not only talent, but evidence of something more: the well-read writer.

Take the opening novella in this collection. “The Girl on the Glider” opens with an epigraph by M. R. James, a man who is probably the greatest writer of ghost stories of the 20th century. And while the ghost in “The Girl on the Glider” is not the typical Jamesian vengeful spirit, Brian utilizes James’s approach and sensibilities in this novella, crafting a ghost story that is unique, original, and completely his. Yet despite the James influence, there’s another influence in this story, too—Hunter S. Thompson.

Thompson’s style, his voice, and especially his gonzo ability of blurring the line between fiction and non-fiction, placing himself firmly within the narrative, are all evident in this tale. Meta-fiction has been around as long as the novel. Its earliest use in the genre of horror was James Hoog’s 1820 novel The Confessions of a Justified Sinner. It’s been used sporadically in horror and dark fantasy ever since, most significantly with Stephen King’s The Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower (volumes 6 and 7 of his Dark Tower series). Brian seamlessly utilizes the meta-fiction approach in this novella, creating a tale that adheres to much of the sensibilities of the ghost story while tapping into his Thompson influenced style of non-fiction, which was most apparent in his Hail Saten blogs of the 2000s (and collected in four volumes). He claims 99% of the novella is true, and I believe him. I remember much of the true parts as they happened.

Much of Brian’s gift as a writer come from the folksy way he has of bringing readers into his world. This is where the King and Lansdale influence shine most strongly (and when he’s using local folklore as a backdrop to his fiction, the Wellman influence too). One influence that doesn’t figure as strongly in this volume is that of the splatterpunk writers of the 1980s (particularly the writing team of John Skipp & Craig Spector). Much of that influence shows up elsewhere in Brian's work, but if you were to lump Joe R. Lansdale in with the splat pack (Lansdale himself disdained the label), then the closest tale in this volume would be “The Siqqusim that Stole Christmas”. The prose immediately puts you in the setting, you immediately know who you’re dealing with in the few opening sentences of dialogue and then we’re off and running into Bizarro territory (if Lansdale doesn’t consider himself a splatterpunk, he surely, if perhaps inadvertently, helped invent the Bizarro sub-genre). “Lost Canyon of the Dead” shows the Lansdale influence very prominently too.

I see that I’ve spent the last three pages doing what I’m supposed to be doing in this Introduction, which is talking about the stories, and the writer, and perhaps putting things into context, whether it’s at a personal level or a critical one. I think I’ve done both here with regards to these stories.

As to the six pages that preceded that where I talked about jail, cows, snakes, timing belts, and Bigfoot, well, that’s usually what you get when you run into Brian and get to talk to him personally. Sure, he’ll talk about his work and his influences, but he’ll also talk about anything under the sun. He has an opinion on everything, even when he’s wrong (which is 50% of the time...or maybe it’s 80% of the time...or 20%, depending on the issue...). With the wrong stuff, he’s so persuasive that he’s right that he’ll get you to thinking his way too, until you’re nodding along, saying, “Well, shit, Brian, we’ve gotta do something about that Chupacabra that’s in your yard”.

That’s part of Brian’s gift as a storyteller—to convince you that there’s dinosaurs lurking beyond that field where there’s a rip into another dimension, or that there really is a giant 300-foot snake that lives in the Susquehanna river in central Pennsylvania, or that there’s a black thing that rides gracefully in the Pacific devouring anything its path; or that an excommunicated Amish man has the gift of healing and magic.

I’m done here. Now it’s time for Brian to do what he does best. Sit back, turn the page, and listen to his voice.

Take it, pal. They’re all yours.

J. F. Gonzalez

Lititz, PA

2014

FOREWORD

This is the second book in a multi-volume series that, when finished, will collect every bit of short fiction I’ve ever written—even the bad stuff (of which I think there are many). The only short stories that won’t eventually be included in these volumes are the ones already collected in The Rising: Selected Scenes From the End of the World and Earthworm Gods: Selected Scenes From the End of the World. Obviously, as those books are still in print, it doesn’t make sense to re-collect them again.

The first volume in this series was called Blood On the Page, and it collected a fair cross-sampling of newer and older stuff. I’ve tried to do the same thing with this new volume. If you have at least a passing interest in my work, some of these stories will probably be familiar to you. Others are ones that you’ve most likely never read before. It is my hope that they will give you the same experience I always hope for you—a few minutes of entertainment, a few hours of escape. That’s what books and stories have always done for me, and although writing as an occupation can be hard (as you’ll learn from the first and last stories in this volume) I can’t think of anything I’d rather do for a living, simply because of the fact that I love giving to others what reading has given to me.

Blood On the Page didn’t really have a theme, other than all of the stories were ones that I bled into, investing a part of myself in their telling. All Dark, All The Time follows suit. There is no structured theme, but subconsciously, these are all very dark tales, and if their endings are happy, then it’s a happiness that is muted by shadows. Like the previous volume, I invested myself in several of these stories, particularly “Scratch”, “Fetish”, “Musings”, and “The Girl on the Glider”. You’ll especially see the personal investment with those last two, as you read them. You’ll probably also notice a thematic similarity in those last two, which is why I chose to have them bookend this collection.

Which is a nice segue into trying to head off some potential grumbling from a certain element of the public. Three of the longer stories in this book—“Alone”, “Scratch”, and “The Girl on the Glider”—are indeed available for individual purchase as e-books. Their only other availability, thus far, has been as very expensive limited edition collectible hardcovers. Many fans and readers who prefer physical books over e-books have asked me to reprint them in paperback. However, as they are slim volumes, it wouldn’t be cost-effective to individually print them in paperback. I can’t justify charging folks seven dollars for a paperback that’s only forty-or-so pages long. Therefore, I’m including them in this collection so that those readers can have access to those stories in printed form. Hopefully, you can dig that.

This book also includes story notes, as did the previous volume. Sometimes, they’ll be at the beginning of the story. Sometimes, especially if they include spoilers, they’ll be at the end of the tale. Story notes are often my favorite part of a short story collection, because they give me deeper insight into the writer and the creative process. Not everyone agrees. If you’re one of those folks who doesn’t like story notes, just skip right past them safe in the knowledge that you didn’t miss anything vitally important.

My thanks to Robert Swartwood for designing this book and to Kealan Patrick Burke who designed the cover.

Thanks as well to my long-time (and long-suffering) brother, friend, and frequent collaborator J.F. Gonzalez for agreeing to write the introduction. He penned it only a few weeks before he was diagnosed with cancer, and unfortunately, he passed away before he ever saw it in print. That is why it has taken so long for this book to see publication (nearly two years after the release of Blood on the Page)—because every time I opened it to revise and edit, there was J.F.’s introduction, like a voice from beyond the grave. Some people take comfort from such things. Maybe one day I will, too.

Lastly, as always, a special thanks to you, my readers, for buying it. I hope you enjoy the book.

Oh, and you might want to bring along a flashlight. It’s about to get very dark in here, and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel...

Brian Keene

Somewhere along the Susquehanna River

December 2015

THE GIRL ON THE GLIDER

“Very nearly all the ghost stories of old times claim to be true narratives of remarkable occurrences.”

M. R. JAMES,

Some Remarks on Ghost Stories

“Everything dies, but not everything has an ending.”

BRIAN KEENE,

City of the Dead

“Chugga chugga, choo choo, spin around. Every letter has a sound ...”

CHILDREN’S TOY

ENTRY 1

I dreamed about her again last night—the girl on the glider. Apparently, I was kicking and thrashing so hard in my sleep that I woke my wife up. She wasn’t very happy about it, either. The baby has been getting up between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. every morning, and Cassi didn’t appreciate me waking her up a few hours before that.

This morning, while we were giving the baby his breakfast, Cassi asked me if I remembered what I was dreaming about. I lied and told her that I didn’t.

Anyway, it’s clear that this shit isn’t going away on its own. If anything, it’s getting worse. I’m not one-hundred percent positive that I know who the girl is, or why she’s hanging out on our porch glider, or why I’m dreaming about her, but I have some ideas. The only problem is that my ideas all point to one solution. One answer.

And the answer is that I’m losing my fucking mind.

That scares me. That scares me in ways I can’t even put into words (which is frustrating for a writer). I mean, at forty-one—or am I forty-two? I can’t remember. Isn’t it funny how you stop keeping track of that shit after a certain age? Let’s see. Dad came back from Vietnam in 1967 and I came along nine months later, so that makes me ... forty-one. I think. Math was never my strong suit. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I’m forty-one, which sucks, but doesn’t suck nearly as bad as being forty-two.

But I digress, new diary. As I was saying, at forty-one, I’ve thought about my own mortality a little bit. I don’t like to, but I really don’t have any choice, do I? After my Dad’s cancer battle and the fact that I’m a father again—it makes a guy think long and hard about things. I’ve led a pretty hardcore lifestyle. That shit takes a toll on you after awhile. Sooner or later, it catches up with you.

In truth, I always figured it would be my past that killed me—the booze or the tobacco or the era of loose sex all seemed to be likely candidates. Or maybe a slick road combined with a high rate of speed and some heavy metal blasting from the speakers. Or maybe I’d go out like Dick Laymon and my Grandma Lena did—a quick and sudden heart attack. Or maybe I’d get gunned down at a book signing by some crazed fan. “Here ya go, zombie guy! Let’s see you come back from the dead!”

Click click, bang. Curtains close, and ... scene. Type ‘The End’.

None of those would be pleasant. Especially cancer. I’m scared to fucking death of cancer. I can’t think of anything more horrifying than dying of cancer. I’d rather drown or burn to death than die of cancer. But losing my mind terrifies me even more than cancer does, because if I lost my mind, I wouldn’t be able to write anymore. Losing my voice wouldn’t impact my writing. Neither would losing my legs or my sight or my hearing. Even if I lost my hands, I’d still be able to write. There’s voice recognition software and other methods I could use. The only part of my body I couldn’t write without is my brain, and apparently, my brain has decided to declare war on me.

That’s why I’ve started writing this manuscript. Diary. Whatever the fuck it is. I’m writing it to help me work out this shit on my own. I mean, let’s be realistic. It’s not like I can blog about it. They make fun of Whitley Strieber for saying he was abducted by grey aliens possessed with a disturbing fascination for his bunghole. Imagine what they’d do to me if I said in public that I was being haunted by a teenaged girl who likes to hang out on my porch and send text messages on her cell phone and talk to my nineteen month old son and occasionally scare the shit out of my dog—even if she’s not probing my ass the way Whitley’s aliens do.

I can’t talk about it online, and I can’t tell my friends about it, either. It’s hard times right now, especially for writers. Tough financial straits. You’d think that people would buy more books during a recession, but apparently, it’s quite the opposite. J. F. (Jesus) Gonzalez and Tim Lebbon and Tom Piccirilli and Jim Moore and everybody else I know are in the same financial situation that I’m in, and I don’t foresee the President or Congress giving us a corporate bailout anytime soon. My peers have problems of their own. They’ve got enough on their minds. They don’t need one of their best writer-friends confiding in them that he might very well be going crazy. And if I told my inner circle—John Urbancik, Geoff “Coop” Cooper, Mike Oliveri and Michael “Mikey” Huyck—I’m pretty sure they would try to set up some kind of intervention for me, and who needs that shit, right? I’m still pissed about the last time they tried to do that to me.

I could tell Cassi, I guess. I mean, she’s my wife. I’m supposed to tell her everything, but for some reason, I haven’t told her about this. To be honest, I think she already suspects. She’s commented a few times over the last couple of weeks that I seem out of it. And she’s right. I am a bit out of it. But I can’t tell her everything yet, because I don’t want to scare her. If I start crying or something—if I break down—it will really frighten her, and right now, with everything else that’s going on, I have to be the strong one. For her. The baby. Our friends and families. All of us.

So I’m telling you.

Dear new manuscript that I’m typing on my laptop:

My name is Brian Keene and I am either losing my mind or I am being haunted.

Or both.

That’s a start. Feels good to type it, though. This can be like my own little private blog. I’ll break the entries up into chapters. Maybe include a few footnotes. It will feel just like any other manuscript. Maybe then I can get at the truth. We’ll call it meta-fiction or gonzo—the blending of fact and fiction, the inserting of the author into the narrative. If it’s good enough for Hunter S. Thompson and Tim Powers and Stephen King (who inserted himself as a character into the Dark Tower series) then I reckon it’s good enough for me, too.

More tomorrow. Got up at 5:30 a.m. this morning. It’s now 11:07 p.m. and I’m frigging exhausted. Been working on that novella for Cemetery Dance all day (the weird western novella that I still don’t have a working title for—I’m considering calling it An Occurrence in Crazy Bear Valley). Joe Lansdale, who is the man I’d most like to be when I grow up, once told me that he writes two to four hours a day. That’s what I aspire to. That’s what I hope I’m doing when I’m his age. But I’m not. And to pay the bills, I put in long hours at the keyboard every fucking day, writing about zombies and ghouls and satyrs and giant carnivorous worms. Anyway, my point is that I’m tired (you can tell, because I have a tendency to ramble when I’m tired). I’m gonna finish this cigar, have a glass of Basil Hayden’s while I walk the dog, and then I’m going to bed.

Hopefully, I won’t dream about her tonight.

ENTRY 2

No dreams last night, at least none that I remember. Cassi didn’t mention that I’d woke her up by having nightmares either. There was one weird thing last night, though. I’d gone to bed after typing that first entry, and I was just starting to drift off—in that weird state where I wasn’t quite asleep but not quite fully awake either—and then I heard an electronic beeping noise, like somebody was typing a text message on a cell phone. It was coming from the bathroom that’s adjacent to our bedroom. Do you know what’s on the other side of that bathroom wall?

The outside of our house. Specifically, our deck and the porch glider.

I’d like to think it was my imagination. I’d like to chalk it up to the fact that I’ve been thinking about all the weird shit too much, and now I’m starting to conjure up strangeness myself when nothing else is happening.

Except that this wasn’t the first time I’ve heard it.

Okay, back to work. Finished this week’s free Internet serial installment of Earthworm Gods II: Deluge but need to spend the rest of the night working on this frigging Bigfoot novella. Damn thing is kicking my ass, which pisses me off, because otherwise, it’s been a lot of fun to write.

ENTRY 3

It’s been a while since I worked on this. Ended up buried in deadlines—finishing the Bigfoot story and working on A Gathering of Crows, a Superman Halloween story script for DC comics, and a bunch of other stuff. Some of it will bring us money, which is good because we could really use it right now. The economy has gotten worse and the apocalypse is now upon us, at least as far as the small press goes. Once-reliable publishers are now either late with the royalty payments or simply ducking my calls and emails (and the calls and emails from others whom they owe). Thank God or Cthulhu that my mass-market checks are still arriving on time and that I’ve got comic book work and my temporary gig as an adjunct professor at York College to round out my income, because I suspect the days of the mid-list, working writer are coming to a close. We are a dying breed.

Dying. Death. Christ, I’m a cheery little fucker, huh? That’s me. I’m Mr. Sunshine. I’m all about shiny happy people holding fucking hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’.

It’s not lost on me that I seem preoccupied with death and dying lately. I don’t know why. Like I said earlier, maybe it’s because of all the recent health scares in my family. But we’ve had health scares before and they didn’t impact me this way. I don’t know. I have to wonder if this is some sort of mid-life crisis type of mind-fuck. Certainly, I’m no stranger to death. I’ve known people who died. One set of grandparents, my great-uncle Hobie, several extended family members, Navy buddies, friends from high school, homeys from my days living on the streets, co-workers, Dick Laymon.

The three babies Cassi and I lost ...

But I wrote about the babies already. I’ve been known to tell reporters that “writing is cheaper than therapy” and I always grin when I say it, to show that I’m just joking around, but the fact is I’m not fucking joking. Let me tell you something. There are many reasons why I identify with the fictional character of Tony Soprano—enough that I could write an entire book about it. One of the reasons is we have similar views on therapy. I’ve been to therapy, and therapy is bullshit. Yes, it works for other people, and I’m not belittling its overall value—but I’m telling you that it doesn’t work for me. What works for me is to write about what’s on my mind. Write about the shit going on in my life. Dark Hollow was me writing about me and Cassi’s loss. Readers don’t know that, but I do. Readers think it was just a fun little book about a satyr in suburbia, but I know that chapter two was the closest fucking thing to an autobiography I’ve ever written. Hell, the whole book was autobiographical. Adam Senft = Brian Keene. His doubts about his manhood and feelings of inadequacy because of his inability to save his loved ones was something I was intimately familiar with at the time. It was a hard novel to write. No, wait. Scratch that. It was an emotionally harrowing and utterly brutalizing novel to write. I went to a very dark place for that book, and I didn’t come out again until I’d dredged up everything and vomited it out onto the page and bared my soul and almost killed myself in the process. Writing books like that—pouring your personal shit into a novel or a short story—that’s like confession and an exorcism and six months of therapy all rolled into one. I don’t need Prozac or Lithium. I have a laptop and a publishing contract.

Shit. Now I’m rambling again. My point is this: I’m no stranger to death. We’re old friends, he and I. At the very least, we’re acquaintances. We recognize each other at the party and perhaps we nod in passing. I’ve watched people die. I’ve held them in my arms and had my hands turn sticky from their blood and felt the warmth drain out of them.

So why is it bothering me now? Why, after all this time, am I dwelling on it?

Anyway, enough about that.

My son, who is nineteen months old, looks at the top of our driveway and waves to somebody who isn’t there. He always greets them with “Hi.” Then he smiles. Occasionally, he giggles—the same little laugh he does when Cassi and I make faces at him. When I turn to look at who he’s talking to, the driveway is empty.

I am not crazy.

ENTRY 4

I guess I should start at the beginning. That’s the only way I’ll make any sense of this. I went back and re-read the previous entries again tonight, after I was finished looking for a short story I could let Stephen Jones reprint for an anthology he’s putting together, and what I’ve written so far is nothing more than the incoherent, self-indulgent babblings of a madman. That won’t do, especially since I’m trying to prove to myself that I’m not insane.

So ...

In the beginning, I started making enough money as a writer that my wife and I were able to move out of our small home on Main Street in Shrewsbury, and buy a place out in the country instead. I like our home very much. It reminds me of the type of area I grew up in, and those kinds of places aren’t very easy to find anymore. Everything is suburbs now—suburbs marking the distance between the next cluster of Home Depots and Wal-Marts and Burger Kings. Everything is sidewalks and homeowners’ associations and McMansions and housing developments with names like Whispering Pines that don’t have a single fucking pine tree, whispering or otherwise.

Our place isn’t like that at all. It is distinctly old school. We have three acres of rural land. There are lots of tall, old-growth sycamore trees growing in our yard, and at the far end of our property, there is a swift, cold trout stream about twelve feet across and knee-deep in most places. In the spring, the creek often floods. We’ve got a neighbor on one side of our property. We share a driveway with him (the driveway is important and we’ll come back to it in a minute). The other side of our property borders a vast marsh. Beyond the swamp is four miles of state-owned game land—a lush, thick wilderness that, by law, can never be developed or forested. Beyond these woods lies the Susquehanna River, which our trout stream also feeds into. There’s an old logging road that runs from the edge of our property and through the woods, all the way to the river. Once, when Tim Lebbon was visiting, I took him for a walk back through there. He proclaimed it one of the most beautiful places on earth.

And it is.

A brief aside. I just cheated. It’s late and I want to shut this laptop off and go to sleep, so I took a shortcut. I copied and pasted the description of the house from my novella Scratch into this document, and then changed the tense and a few other things. That’s because the house in Scratch is this house, and their landscapes are the same. Both are beautiful, and I love this place as much as the character of Evan in Scratch loved his. That’s why it concerns me that Cassi has recently floated the idea of buying a house somewhere else. I’m not sure what has prompted this desire. It makes no sense, certainly not in this economy. I have to wonder if she’s seeing some of the same things I’ve been seeing. I know that in at least one case she has, but I wonder if there’s more. Perhaps she’s keeping secrets from me, just as I’m keeping them from her. Maybe she’s seen and heard more than she’s letting on. Maybe I’m not crazy. Or maybe she’s just as crazy as I am.

Anyway ... the driveway. The driveway is an important part of this story, so let’s talk about that. As I said before, it’s a shared driveway, meaning me and Cassi and our neighbor and his wife all use it. It’s all uphill, and a real bitch to shovel in the winter. It empties out onto a winding, two-lane back road that is frequented all day and night by speeding dump trucks, speeding tractor trailers, speeding teenagers, and speeding commuters trying to find a shortcut on their way to their jobs in Baltimore, Lancaster, Harrisburg and York. The posted speed limit is forty-five miles per hour, but I’ve never seen anybody go slower than sixty-five. Since we’re right on the township line, we’re not an ideal area for speed traps. By the time a cop on our side of the line pulled out in pursuit of a speeding car, the violator would already be in the next township.

We’ve lived here five years, and in that time there have been over twenty serious accidents (that I know of) within two miles of our driveway, plus countless fender-benders and other vehicular mishaps. Indeed, our first winter at the house, an ice storm turned York County’s roads into slip-n-slides and our road was wall-to-wall fender-benders that morning. Automobiles were smashing into each other like bumper cars and lining up in front of our house. I stood out there and directed traffic and brought folks coffee until the fire department arrived.

I know of four fatalities that have occurred in the time we’ve lived here. I personally witnessed one of them. A couple on a motorcycle rear-ended a pickup truck that was making a left turn. Both riders were ejected from the bike. The woman’s head cracked like an egg inside her helmet. There wasn’t much the truck driver, my neighbor, or myself could do for her. She was dead before the paramedics arrived. I never found out what happened to the guy that was on the bike with her, but I remember that his chest looked like raw hamburger.

One of the other fatalities happened about a mile from our house. A machine operator from the Harley Davidson plant was coming home after second shift and hit a tree. The tree won. Speculation is that the driver fell asleep at the wheel. The third fatal accident happened fifty yards from our driveway. A lone driver ran down an embankment at three in the morning. The accident was quiet enough that both my neighbors and myself slept through it. We didn’t know anything was amiss until we heard the sirens outside. By then it was too late, although, judging by the condition of the car and the body, it would have been too late long before they arrived.

The fourth fatality occurred at the top of our driveway.

And that was how I met the girl on the glider. And that is where our story really begins.

ENTRY 5

I wasn’t home when it happened. It was mid-January, and I was a Guest of Honor at a convention in Missouri called VisionCon. After Saturday’s book signing and Q&A were over with, I spent the evening hanging out in the hotel bar with Mike Oliveri, Cullen Bunn, Val Botchlet (who used to moderate my old message board forum), my friend Richard Christy’s cousin Adam, playwright Roy C. Booth, and the guys from Skullvines Press. I was pleased to note that the hotel bar, upon learning that I would be back in town that weekend, had Basil Hayden’s and Knob Creek on hand (the year before, they’d only had Jack Daniels and Jim Beam available, which are like the Coors and Budweiser of bourbon). Needless to say, we had a good time, and I didn’t get to bed until after 3 a.m.

When I woke up the next morning, I called home to talk to Cassi. She sounded tired and I soon found out why. She hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. She told me there had been another accident. Four kids, all of them between the ages of eighteen and twenty, had wrecked their car right at the top of our driveway. Three walked away from the accident. One did not. The accident happened just after midnight. Emergency vehicles, firemen and paramedics had been on hand until well after dawn. Had Cassi experienced some kind of crisis, and had to leave our home, she would have been unable to get out of our driveway. The emergency crews had it blocked off, along with the road. I asked her if she knew the details and found out that she didn’t. All she knew was what one of the paramedics had told her—the wreck, the number and ages of the people in the car, and that one of them had died. I asked her if Coop had been on the scene, since he works as an EMT and our road is along his ambulance route. It turned out he hadn’t. While all of this was going on, Coop and the rest of his ambulance crew had been down at the river, fishing a suicide out of the half-frozen water near the Columbia-Marietta Bridge.

My flight home from Missouri was delayed until Monday night due to inclement weather. I didn’t land in Baltimore until nearly midnight, and didn’t get home until after 2 a.m. Tuesday morning. I didn’t bother to look for damage from the accident or markings on the road. It was dark and foggy outside, and I was focused solely on giving my wife, my son and my dog all a big hug. I didn’t see anything that night, supernatural or otherwise.

I wonder now, looking back, if I might have seen something then had I been looking for it—and if I had seen something, would I have known what it was?

The next morning, after I woke up and unpacked and told my wife about my trip, I remembered the accident and decided to walk up to the top of the driveway and survey the damage. Yes, I’m one of those people who slow down to gawk at accidents on the highway. I’ll stand and watch a burning building. I’m fascinated by such things. To be fair, though, I’d like to think that I’m also the type of person who will stop along that highway and offer assistance, or run inside that burning building and pull people out until the firemen arrive. This is what I tell myself, at least.

I walked up the driveway and was out of breath by the time I reached the top. This happens a lot—more and more these last few years. When I was a kid, I could ride my BMX Mongoose all over York County, pedaling down to Spring Grove to buy comic books at the newsstand, and not get winded. In the Navy, I could swim a mile and not be out of breath. I used to run cross country in high school (the only organized sport I ever played, and I did it just to make my old man happy). But now, at forty-one? Forget about it. I gasp for breath after walking a mile through the woods and vigorous sex sometimes leaves me winded and on the verge of passing out. There are times when I lay there on the bed, wheezing and panting and waiting for the room to stop spinning. I told Cassi she should consider my breathlessness a compliment, but she doesn’t see it that way. It concerned Cassi enough that she made me go to the doctor. I hate doctors. I could cut my arm off in a horrific threshing machine accident and I still wouldn’t go to the doctor. But I went for her. The doc said there wasn’t anything wrong with me. No heart trouble (at least, not yet). No lung trouble. In plain terms, I was out of fucking shape. I asked him how this could be. He asked me what I did for a living. I told him I sat around in my underwear and made up scary stories all day long. He frowned, as if to say, “Well, there’s your answer.”

I was never the athletic type. Sure, I can hold my own in a fight (and I am mean enough to win), but I’m not much for playing sports or exercising or things like that. Under orders to get in shape, I went to the one person whose advice I trust in such a situation—Wrath James White, former World Champion kick-boxer, UFC trainer and fighter, horror novelist, and one of my best friends. He told me to run every day. He said I should start out running, and when I felt like I couldn’t go on, that instead of stopping, I should walk. Then, after a little bit of walking, I should start running again. Wrath told me to do this every day, and I’d be in shape in no time. I did it once and it almost killed me.

I’m certain this was Wrath’s idea of a practical joke.

Anyway, I stood at the top of the driveway and looked around while I caught my breath. It was easy to tell what had happened. The car had been coming north and heading southwest when, for whatever reason, the driver lost control. It had swerved up the embankment on the far side of the road, missing our mailbox by inches. Then it had flipped over onto its roof, slid back across the road, and slammed into the guardrail next to our driveway. There was debris and markings everywhere. The tires had gouged huge trenches in the embankment, and a piece of the muffler had come off on a chunk of granite sticking up out of the dirt. The pavement was scratched and scuffed, and covered with fragments of windshield glass and shards of plastic from the headlights, taillights and elsewhere. There were a bunch of other tiny parts. I don’t know shit about cars, but I bet Coop could have identified them easily enough. (Coop once took it upon himself to teach me how to fix a car. Within an hour, he’d grown annoyed enough to tell me that the timing belt ran the digital clock on my dashboard. I believed him. It was my wife who eventually set me straight.)

Some of the junk was lying in our driveway. I’d probably driven right over it the night before. I wondered why the cops hadn’t done a better job of cleaning up after the accident. Maybe it was because there were just so many crashes on this road, and they knew they’d have to do it all over again soon enough. There was more debris scattered around the crumpled guardrail, along with bent and broken saplings and vegetation.

There were black and brown stains on the road. The heaviest concentration of them seemed to be about ten feet away from the guardrail. The black stuff was oil. The brown stains were blood. Around these, the State Police investigators had spray-painted arrows, circles and numbers. Number one corresponded with the embankment. Number four corresponded with the largest of the bloodstains. These modern day hieroglyphics told me a story. Someone had been ejected from the car when it flipped over onto its roof. That person was thrown farther down the road while the car and the other three occupants slid toward the guardrail. I wondered who came to a stop first. I was pretty sure, judging by the visual evidence, that the person who’d been ejected was the one who had died.

I walked back down to the house, went out into the garage, and got a broom and a snow shovel. Then I trekked back up to the top of the hill and swept the debris out of our driveway. When I was finished, I went out to my office and settled in to do some work. Nothing relaxes me more than sitting in my office after I’ve been out on the road, and this was my first chance to enjoy it since coming home from VisionCon. I started writing, and didn’t think about the accident again until the next day, when the cross showed up.

ENTRY 6

The only newspaper I read is USA Today, and the only time I read it is when I’m traveling. I’ve tried twice to subscribe to it, but each time I was told that we lived too far out in the country for them to deliver it. We don’t subscribe to either of the local papers. It’s nothing personal. I have good friends at both the York Daily Record and the York Dispatch. Indeed, before I went full-time as a novelist, I used to supplement my income as a freelance writer for the York Dispatch/York Sunday News. Both papers have given me reasonably fair coverage over the years (other than the time they mistakenly reported that I was quitting horror to write a Civil War novel). I have nothing against either publication, but I don’t subscribe to either. I read the news online when I wake up in the morning. By the time the local paper would arrive, I’d already be working, so it doesn’t make sense for me to subscribe.

Both papers had, in fact, reported on the accident, but I missed the coverage.

I also don’t watch the local news. Unlike the local newspapers, our two local television stations—WGAL 8 and WPMT Fox 43—are both run by monkeys. At least, that’s the way it seems to me. Channel 8 spends fifty-five minutes of every news hour extolling the benefits of their Super Doppler Weather Radar. The remaining five minutes are usually devoted to a special feature regarding whichever advertiser paid them the most money that week. I’m not kidding about this. Fox 43 isn’t much better. To their credit, they do attempt to report the news, but their idea of reporting involves sending pretty female news anchors out to the local dairy farm or Cub Scout meeting for some ‘slice of life’ events. If Iran does eventually build a nuclear bomb, you won’t hear about it on either station, because Channel 8 will have local weatherman Doug Allen jerking off over the goddamn Super Doppler Radar and Fox 43 will be reporting live from some craft fair in fucking Hanover.

I don’t know if either of them reported on the accident. I somehow doubt it, but if they did, I missed the report.

And don’t even get me started on the sorry state of our local radio stations ...

In truth, even though it was only twenty-four hours since I’d swept up the debris, I’d already forgotten all about the crash. After all, it had happened while I was gone, and none of the victims were anyone that I knew, and our property hadn’t been damaged, and the wreckage was gone, so it didn’t really impact me that much. It was something that had happened, a momentary distraction, but there were other things to focus on, important things like writing and trying to figure out if it was possible to add yet another novel to my list of deadlines in order to pay for the baby’s daycare.

Perhaps that sounds callous. Someone had lost their life. Perhaps I should have been a little more concerned. Caring. Sympathetic. But I wasn’t. I don’t think that makes me a bad person. I think it just makes me what I am—a flawed human, just like everybody else.

Around noon, I walked up to the top of the driveway to get the mail, and I noticed a rustic, white picket cross and a beautiful floral arrangement mounted on the smashed guardrail. I’ve driven by these crosses countless times. You see them dotting our roads and interstates. Sometimes, they seem almost as abundant as McDonalds, Exxon and other highway staples. I’d never actually seen one up close, though. Up until that moment, I’d only experienced them as a passing glance through the windshield, there but for the blink of an eye and then gone as the next mile marker rolled past.

Curious, I quickly pulled the mail out of our mailbox and then hurried over to the cross for a closer look. The flowers were fresh and professionally arranged. There was no tag or any indication of which local florist had put them together. Nor was there a name on the cross. Not even the old standard ‘R.I.P.’ It was just plain white—two thin slats nailed together in the middle.

I turned away and started back downhill. The mailman had brought no royalty or advance checks. Instead, there were only bills, catalogs, and my monthly issues of National Geographic, Soldier of Fortune and The Fortean Times (all of which, for some inexplicable reason, seem to arrive on the same day each month). I was flipping through the bills, wondering how the hell we were going to stay caught up on them, when the wind began to blow. I heard a rustling sound behind me.

Figuring it was my pet cat, Max (who lives outdoors and was the source of inspiration for Hannibal from my short story, “Halves”), I turned around and then stopped.

Ever see the wind pick up a bunch of leaves and spin them in a mini-cyclone? It’s common, of course. That’s what was happening. The leaves around the cross were spinning fast, reaching a height of about five and a half feet off the ground. Then, as quickly as it had started, the breeze died off and the leaves floated back down to the ground.

That was the first thing that happened. I didn’t think much about it at the time, and even now, I’m almost willing to chalk it up to nothing more than a natural occurrence—except for everything that’s happened since then.

In hindsight, there was nothing about it that was natural ...

ENTRY 7

The second thing that happened is also somewhat dubious, but when considered in the greater context, it makes me wonder, especially given her recent expressed desire to move.

Cassi is a smoker. Ever since the baby came along, she only smokes outside, and then, only after he’s gone to bed. There’s an ashtray out on the deck, along with a table, four chairs and the glider. Oh yes, we can’t forget about the porch glider. It’s the central part of our story.

The glider is a family heirloom. It belonged to Cassi’s grandmother and was given to us after she passed away. Cassi has fond memories of sitting on it when she was a little girl. It’s very comfortable, but the cushions are a garish, green floral print and when it rains, they soak up the moisture. Sit on them after a storm and your ass will get wet.

Within two days of the accident, Cassi stopped smoking out on the deck. Instead, she began smoking in our bathroom with the door closed and the exhaust fan running full blast. At first, I didn’t think anything of it. Keep in mind, it was winter. I just assumed that it was too cold outside to smoke. But as months passed and the nights grew warmer, she still avoided smoking out on the deck. When I asked her why, she said she got spooked out there at night. Neither our flashlight nor the big dusk-to-dawn light that’s installed on the side of the garage helped. She said it was still too dark out there, and sometimes, she felt like someone was watching her. Despite those lights, the top of our driveway remains pitch black at night. If you shine the flashlight up the hill, the beam gets lost in the darkness, almost as if the shadows were swallowing it. The only thing that dispels the darkness are the headlights of approaching cars, and then, only for an instant.

I asked her when she’d started feeling this way, and she said it was after the accident.

My wife is not given to flights of fancy. She’s firmly grounded in reality. She’s the Agent Scully to my Agent Mulder, to put it in terms of The X-Files. The only spiritual or supernatural activity she even remotely engages in is occasionally attending Catholic or Episcopalian church services. She doesn’t believe in aliens or Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster or ghosts. Despite this, being out on our deck and staring up at the driveway at night has made her uncomfortable enough to start smoking inside. As I write this, many months later, that is still her practice. Let’s call that occurrence number two, and catalogue it accordingly.

ENTRY 8

If this were a horror novel, I’d plot it like one, but it’s not a horror novel. It’s simply a diary, notating a random collection of occurrences, all of which have happened since the accident. I’m jumping around here. One minute, I’m in the present. The next, I’m back to the beginning again. There is no linear narrative. There is no slow build of suspense and dread. There is only me, trying to make sense of it all.

I can’t remember who said it, but there’s a great quote regarding The Amityville Horror, Poltergeist, and similar haunted house stories. The quote (and I’m paraphrasing here) goes something like this: ‘If this stuff really happened, if the house was really haunted, then why did the people stay? Why didn’t they move the fuck out as soon as they heard the voices/saw the ghost/the dog started levitating? Because that’s what would happen in real life.’

Except that’s not true. I know, because this is real life. This is real fucking life and we can’t move. We can’t move because we can’t afford to move. We can’t afford to buy another house. Cassi’s been talking about it again—talking about finding a place with sidewalks and fenced-in backyards where the baby can play. A year ago, she was fine with him growing up playing in our big backyard with its trees and trout stream and wild outdoors. Now she’s craving suburbia, and I think I know why. I don’t think it has anything to do with sidewalks. It has to do with some of the things that have happened here.

That should make me happy, because if it’s true, then it means that I’m not crazy. If she’s experiencing things too—enough that she suddenly wants to move—then that’s proof right there that I’m not losing my mind. Right? If so, then I should be ecstatic. But I’m not. I’m not because this is my family we’re talking about, and we probably should move and I can’t afford to do it. I’m supposed to take care of them and provide for them and protect them, and in this case, the best way to do those things is to buy another house and get the hell away from here.

I wish sometimes that I still had a real job, a job where I operated a machine or moved boxes around, and got a paycheck every week for my efforts. A job with health insurance and a 401K would be nice, too. It would be awesome to have a job where people didn’t email me at the end of the day, after I busted my ass for eight hours, and said, “Your last book sucked. When are you gonna write another zombie novel?” But I’d even put up with that, as long as the job gave me a steady enough income that I could buy us a new home.

Earlier this week, I tried to get a job like that. I went back to two of my former employers—the foundry and the loading docks. Neither one of them was hiring, on account of the economy. The Human Resources Director at the foundry said, “You must be a millionaire from all those books. Why would you want to come back to work here?”

Life is nothing more than a series of lyric snippets from Bruce Springsteen songs.

This is good whiskey. Woodford Reserve. Big fucking bottle. I believe I will have some more. I believe, in fact, that I will drink this bottle dry tonight.

The people in those stories don’t move out because they can’t. They’re trapped.

So am I.

ENTRY 9

The third bit of strangeness occurred around the end of March. In truth, I’d again forgotten all about the accident. Oh, sure, I thought of it for a second when I went up to get the mail or pulled in or out of my driveway. The cross was kind of hard to miss. The floral arrangements had since withered and died, but the marker was still there. So while I did occasionally think of the accident, such thoughts were fleeting. They weren’t even fully-formed thoughts. If anything, they were just echoes.

I’d even forgotten about the mini-cyclone the leaves had formed. Cassi had taken to smoking inside, but as I said earlier, I hadn’t put two and two together at that point, and didn’t know why she’d changed her routine. I thought it was because of the cold weather.

The third occurrence was an incredibly vivid and detailed dream. I know that I dream all night. I’ve been told by Cassi, ex-girlfriends, my ex-wife, one-night stands, cellmates, my old Navy buddies and anyone else who has ever slept beside me that I’m restless at night. I kick and twitch and talk in my sleep. Not mumbling. Not whispering. No, I have loud, boisterous and elaborate dream conversations. Sadly, I never remember them. It’s rare that I remember any of my dreams. But I remembered this one. It happened in March. Here we are, months later, and I still remember every detail.

In the dream, I was sitting out on our deck after dark, smoking a cigar and looking up at the stars twinkling down through the tree limbs. I do this quite a bit in the waking world, so the dream was pleasant enough. Max was sprawled in my lap, and I was petting him with one hand and holding my cigar in the other. My dog, Sam (who was the inspiration for Big Steve in my novel Dark Hollow, as well as many other things), was sprawled at my feet. There was a glass of bourbon on the table in front of me. Crickets and spring peepers were chirping over in the swamp, and in the distance, I could hear the soft, muted roar of the trout stream. Eventually, I became aware that Max and I weren’t alone. I heard the glider rails squeak, as if someone was slowly rocking back and forth. I turned around and there was a girl sitting on the glider. As soon as I saw her, Max jumped down off my lap and ran away, hissing.

The girl was young, maybe eighteen or nineteen years old. She had long, shoulder length blond hair, combed straight. She was thin but not skinny. Pretty. She wore denim jeans, sneakers and a white t-shirt. She clutched a black cell phone in one hand, and held it at her side, as if waiting for it to ring. When she raised her head and looked at me, her expression was one of profound sadness.

She said something, but I couldn’t hear her. Her lips moved silently.

And then I woke up. I lay there for a while, thinking about the dream and wondering what it meant. Did I know the girl? She seemed vaguely familiar, but I didn’t know why. I was left with a sense—a certainty—that I should know her, and yet I didn’t. Who was she? Could she have been a fan I’d met at a book signing, perhaps? Or maybe someone I’d encountered briefly at some point in my life, but had since forgotten—an old coworker or one-night stand?

I didn’t know, and the harder I thought about it, the more important it seemed.

Unable to sleep, I slipped out of bed, pissed, and then put on my robe. I went out to my office, made a pot of coffee and worked until five o’clock in the morning, at which point I came in and waited for the baby to wake up. When he did, I got him out of the crib, changed his diaper and made him breakfast. When Cassi finally woke up, she was grateful for the opportunity to sleep in. She asked me what time I’d gotten up, and I told her. Then I told her about the dream. She agreed that it was odd.

A new day began, but unlike the leaf cyclone or the accident itself, I didn’t forget about the dream. I jotted it down in my commonplace book (a notebook that many authors use to write down story ideas, scraps of dialogue, plot devices, sketches, or anything else that occurs to them when they are away from their writing instruments) with the intent of cannibalizing it for a story at some point in the future. There was something about the dream. Something unsettling. I wanted to capture every detail. I needed to make sure that I would remember her face.

What I didn’t know at the time was that remembering her face wouldn’t be a problem for me, because I would see her again.

ENTRY 10

About two weeks after that, I was sitting out on the deck with Sam and Max. It was early April, and quite a warm evening for the season. Much like in the dream, I was smoking a cigar, drinking bourbon and watching the stars. I even remember what brands the cigar and bourbon were—Partagas 1845 Black Label and Knob Creek with just a little bit of ice. Max was sprawled in my lap, all twenty pounds of him, purring and stretching and acting not at all like the badass outdoor tomcat he likes to portray himself as when others are around. Sam was lying at my feet, leash-free, but to keep him on the porch, I’d strategically placed two baby gates at each of the deck’s exits. Had I not done this, Sam would have waited until I was distracted and then dashed off into the woods. He is a mutt—mostly a mix of Rottweiler and Beagle, the latter of which comes out in him whenever he catches a scent. We walk quite often through the woods and whenever he sniffs a rabbit or a fox or any other creature, he strains at the leash hard enough to choke himself. On the few occasions where he’s actually slipped his collar, he runs off without thought of consequence, totally focused and consumed on tracking his quarry. Usually, he ends up lost and exhausted to the point of collapse, and I have to hunt him down and carry him back home. The baby gates prevented that, and allowed me to enjoy my cigar and whiskey in peace. Cassi was inside, talking on the phone to J. F. “Jesus” Gonzalez’s wife. The baby was asleep. All was right with the world.

I was sitting there smoking and thinking about literary estates. Jesus and I had both been wanting to create literary estates for our families. I was pretty sure that was what Cassi and her friend were discussing, as well, because in addition to the literary estates, we wanted to legally draft an agreement wherein if either Cassi and myself or Jesus and his wife died unexpectedly, we would gain legal guardianship over the other’s children. Cassi was of a mind that we didn’t need to worry about things like that yet, but I wasn’t so sure. Both of our parents are too old to care full-time for a child, and my oldest son, who was eighteen at the time, had his whole life ahead of him. It didn’t seem right to burden him with the possibility of having to care for his younger half-brother should something happen to us.

Creating a literary estate took money, something that neither Jesus nor myself had much of. I’d gotten a sample draft from a link Neil Gaiman had posted, and was weighing the possibilities of finding something similar on Legal Zoom.com or another website. I wondered if such a document would still be considered legal. This was important to me. I didn’t want to die and have the rights to my work fall into the hands of one of my publishers. The money, what little there was, should go to my sons.

This was what I was thinking about when Sam started growling. I glanced down at him. He was staring at the top of the driveway. His ears were flattened and his haunches were raised. His tail was between his legs and he stood stiff as a board. When I reached for him, he growled again. His eyes never left the spot at the top of the hill.

I looked around, thinking he’d seen an animal, but the driveway was deserted. Annoyed, I picked up Max, sat him down and then took Sam inside. When I came back out, Max had run off to the garage, and was standing outside the door, meowing to be let in. Although he is an outdoor cat, Max sleeps in the garage at night. It provides him safety from the cold in the winter and protection from nocturnal predators like coyotes and foxes and owls in the warmer months. I opened the door and let him in. Then I closed it behind me and returned to my cigar.

As I sat down again, the porch glider began to move. The rocking was slow, but noticeable. Back and forth. Back and forth. The aluminum struts squeaked. Max began howling inside the garage. In the house, I heard Sam start growling again. He barked once, loud and powerful. Then Cassi hollered at him to shut up. Her voice was muted, almost lost beneath the forcefulness of his bark. Through it all, the glider kept rocking. There was no wind. I glanced up at the treetops to confirm this. No wind, not even a slight breeze. Sometimes, when a dump truck or tractor trailer goes barreling down the road, they’ll vibrate our deck, but the road was clear. There were no vibrations, no disturbance.

And yet the glider was moving.

I said, “What the fuck?”

The glider’s rails squeaked in response as it continued rocking. Cigar clenched between my teeth, I walked over to it. It stopped moving when I was halfway across the deck.

If this was fiction, this would be the part of the story where the protagonist starts to put two and two together—the dream of the girl on the glider (so eerily similar in setting to what was now occurring in real life), the glider moving on its own while the protagonist watches. But this isn’t fiction, and I didn’t put those two events together. Not then.

That came after my son started saying “Hi” to something I couldn’t see.

ENTRY 11

Been a few days since I worked on this. Real life intruded. To paraphrase Bob Segar, deadlines and commitments, what to leave in and what to leave out. I finished the extra material for Darkness On the Edge of Town tonight. It’s a little after 3 a.m. and I’m sitting here wondering how “Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll” by Vaughan Mason and Crew ended up in my iTunes library. I’ve got about ten-thousand songs on iTunes, the culmination of a lifelong music collection, and when I write, I put them on random shuffle. It makes for eclectic and inspiring background music. I never know what will pop up next. Jerry Reed and then Anthrax, followed by The Alan Parsons Project and then Marvin Gaye and then Public Enemy and then Johnny Cash or Guns N’ Roses or Neil Diamond or Iron Maiden or Alice In Chains or Dr. Dre. But I don’t remember ever owning this disco tune, and here it is, blasting from my computer’s speakers and subwoofer.

I don’t have a lot in life. Material wealth has not accompanied my success, and these days, I seem to have more hangers-on and acquaintances than I do real friends, but the one thing I’ve got going for me is a kick-ass collection of tunes. And an awesome fucking library. This is what I leave behind for my sons—a metric fuck-ton of books, comics and music.

Anyway, I went back through this tonight, reading what I wrote, and I noticed something. Even in this, my secret diary, I avoid mentioning the baby’s name. When he was born, Cassi and I made a decision to guard his privacy as much as possible. We’ve never posted a picture of him online. Indeed, when I do talk about him in public, I refer to him as ‘Turtle,’ rather than his real name. Maybe we’re just being paranoid, but I don’t care. I’ve got enough crazies out there, and have gotten enough death threats that I’m not taking any chances. Like I said at the beginning, I genuinely half-expect to get done in by some crazed ‘fan’ one of these days. What’s to stop the guy who said he wanted to, (quote) “shoot me in the head with a cross-bow because I psychically stole his story ideas” (end quote) from hopping on a Greyhound and coming to York County and tracking down my kid at school? These are the thoughts that keep a horror writer awake at night. So we guard his identity, and I did it even here, in this Word document, and I wasn’t even aware I was doing it until now.

I would do anything for my sons. I would murder others to keep them safe. My oldest son, David, is now an adult and can fend for himself. He’s as big of a genre geek as I am, and he likes telling goth girls who his Dad is, in the hopes of getting laid. And it works, too. He gets more game at sci-fi and horror conventions than Coop and I ever did back in the day. I don’t have to worry about him as much anymore. He’s a smart kid ... hell, he’s not even a kid. He’s a man, now. But I still have to worry about my youngest son. The world is a scary place and he has no fear. When he attempts to climb out of his crib, he isn’t aware that he might fall. When he clambers up onto the couch and rolls around, he doesn’t realize that he could tumble off. He is not afraid of the electrical outlets or the neighbor’s dog or the swift, deep and powerful stream running through our property. He has no fear of strangers. He greets everyone he meets by waving his little hand in the air, smiling broadly until his dimples overshadow the rest of his face, and then shouting “Hi.”

Which is what he did the morning after I saw the glider moving by itself.

My mother was watching him for the day, and I had just brought him out of the house to take him over to her place. I was walking across the deck, juggling the baby and the diaper bag and a travel mug full of coffee and my car keys, when the baby suddenly whipped his head around, waved at the glider and shouted an enthusiastic greeting.

“Hi!”

Little hand waving back and forth just as fast as it could go. Big smile showing off those baby teeth. Eyes sparkling. My kid is a charmer, but there was nobody there to charm—at least that I could see.

“Hi,” he said again, as if he was speaking to someone he knew. When I turned toward the glider, I saw that it was moving. It stopped as I gave it my full attention, as if it had been rocking back and forth unnoticed, and the person doing it had gotten up when I focused my attention on it. That was when I started to get creeped the fuck out.

I carried the baby down to the car, and as I opened the back door and bent over to strap him into his car seat, he looked over my shoulder, waved again and shouted “Hi” a third time. He was staring at the top of the driveway.

Inside the house, Sam howled.

My hands and fingers felt numb, and I fumbled with the straps on the car seat. Once the baby was safely inside, I started the car. Howard Stern came on, but I didn’t pay any attention to him. I was too busy putting it all together in my head. The car wreck. The leaf cyclone at the top of the driveway. Cassi getting spooked out on our deck. The weird dream I’d had. The porch glider moving on its own. And now this.

I drove slowly to the top of the driveway. I stopped, looking both ways for oncoming traffic before pulling out. The makeshift monument was still there. The flowers were dead and gone, but the cross remained—a lone reminder of what had occurred there. I bit my lip, waiting for the baby to wave at the cross and say hi, but he didn’t. He was busy playing with a pacifier. In hindsight, I’m glad he didn’t.

If he had, I think I might have screamed.

*    *    *

I dropped him off at my Mom’s, and then stopped in to see Bill Wahl and Ned Senft (some old friends of mine who are the proprietors of Comix Connection, a Central-Pennsylvanian chain of comic book stores). It turned out that Bill and Ned weren’t in that day. Manager Jared Wolf was working the counter. He was his usual friendly, gregarious self, but I found it hard to talk. My mind wasn’t on comic books. It was on what had just happened. It must have been obvious because before I left the store, Jared asked me if I was feeling okay.

When I got home, I considered ripping that stupid cross out of the ground and tossing it over the bridge and into the creek. I imagined it floating along on the current until it ended up in the Susquehanna River, and then bobbed along until ultimately landing in the chemical stew that is the Chesapeake Bay, and from there into the Atlantic Ocean. Or maybe taking it down and smashing it in the road. Or driving over it. Or setting it on fire. Or using it for target practice.

But I did none of these things. I put it out of my mind. There was weirdness afoot, and it seemed to me that the best thing to do was to ignore it. I told myself these were nothing more than a string of coincidences, and the only reason I suspected something more sinister was because of what I did for a living.

I got out of the car and went to work. At the end of the day, I drove back to my mother’s house and picked up the baby. When we got home, and I got him out of the car, he glanced at the top of the driveway, now half-hidden in the encroaching evening gloom, and said, “Hi.” When he waved, I peered into the shadows, wondering if something was waving back at him.

*    *    *

He’s done that ever since—every single day. Every time we bring him outside, he waves at the top of the driveway and says, “Hi.” One night, when he woke at 3 a.m. and absolutely refused to go back to sleep, I took him out to the car. Sometimes, driving him around will make him sleep when nothing else will. It was pitch black outside. There was no moon. No stars. No light of any kind. We literally couldn’t see five feet in front of us, let alone the top of the driveway. That was the only time he didn’t do it.

Cassi says he’s talking to the passing trucks, or our neighbor’s goat, or a variety of other things, none of which are supernatural. I’ve never told her who I suspect the baby is saying hi to.

ENTRY 12

Things went on like that for a while. There were no more leaf cyclones and the glider didn’t move, but the baby still waved and said hello every morning, and I still had weird dreams some nights. They were always the same—the girl sitting on the glider, staring at her cell phone with a sad expression.

I didn’t do anything about it. I mean, stop and think about it for a minute. What could I do? Call an exorcist? That shit only works in the movies. In real life, I wouldn’t know where to start. I couldn’t very well call up the Vatican and say, “Hi, this is mid-list horror novelist Brian Keene. I’d like to hire an exorcist to come chase a ghost away from my house.” And although I know some occultists and ghost hunters, I couldn’t ask them for advice either. Mason Winfield and Bob Freeman would have probably been happy to come check it out, but Mason is near Buffalo and Bob lives out in Indiana, and I couldn’t afford their travel and lodging expenses. It would have been embarrassing to ask them for help and then tell them it would have to be on their own dime. Vince Harper, former head of Bereshith Publishing and Shadowlands Press, was closer, and as far as I knew he was still involved in the OTO, but I had no idea how to get in touch with him. He’d sort of fallen off the grid after leaving his publishing gig in the horror genre. I still miss him. Vince was a good guy, and these days, good guys are in short supply in this business.

The main reason I didn’t act, however, was because I just didn’t believe it. It’s one thing to write fictional stories about ghosts. It’s something very different to actually believe those things are occurring to you in real life. That’s the appeal of horror fiction. In real life, the monsters are the ones abducting and killing children or flying hijacked airplanes into skyscrapers or looting our treasury and sending our kids off to fight a bullshit war just so they can line their own pockets and the pockets of their corporate buddies or eradicating our Bill of Rights in the name of national security. Those are the real monsters. Watch an hour of that shit on CNN or MSNBC or FOX and you’re more than ready to curl up with a fictional monster. Zombies, werewolves, vampires and ghosts are an escape from the real world because they don’t exist in the real world.

Except that I was apparently being confronted with proof of a ghost’s existence, and since that was impossible, the only other option was to question my sanity—which was no option at all. No way could I be going crazy. I had too many fucking books to finish. Insanity is not conducive to meeting deadlines, nor does it provide for one’s family.

So I forced myself to ignore all of it. The dreams were just that—dreams. And Cassi was right. The baby was just saying hi to the neighbor’s goat and the trucks racing by. These are the things I told myself, and they worked, for the most part ...

... until I heard the cell phone.

It was a Wednesday night. The baby was asleep. Cassi and I were curled up on the couch, watching the final season of The Shield. I’d seen all of the episodes already, but she could never stay awake late enough to watch them on their original air-dates, so I’d bought the whole season on DVD when it came out. I love The Shield. I genuinely believe that it, along with The Sopranos and The Wire, is the best series ever on television. Vic Mackey is a perfect example of how to write a sympathetic character. He’s an absolutely loathsome individual, and yet we, the viewers, root for him every week. That is great writing.

But I digress. Anyway, we were watching The Shield. Vic was busy stabbing Ronnie in the back when I got up and went into the kitchen to get a bottle of water. Since I’d seen the episode already, I didn’t pause the DVD. I opened the refrigerator door, reached inside for a bottle, and that was when I heard the beeping. At first, I ignored it. A lifetime of heavy metal concerts, military service, and shooting guns on the weekend with Coop and Jesus, as well as hereditary hearing loss, has left me with all kinds of weird little sounds in my ears. Usually, it’s a ringing noise. It comes and goes. It seems at its worst when I’m tired or drunk.

The sound I heard now was different. I stood there, cool mist swirling out of the open refrigerator, and listened. The baby has a toy cell phone that beeps and rings when you push the buttons. I thought that perhaps Smokey (my wife’s indoor cat) was playing with it. She’s not yet a year old and still has a lot of kitten in her, and she likes to play with the baby’s toys. Turn your back for one second and she’s wandering off with his Curious George doll or batting a block around on the floor. After a few seconds, it occurred to me that I couldn’t be hearing the baby’s toy phone, because we’d picked up all his toys before he went to bed—a nightly ritual we make sure to engage him in. I sing the “Clean Up” song from Barney while we do it. I use a Barney voice because it makes the baby laugh.

That wasn’t what was happening this time, but there was no way to tell her that. I walked up to the window and looked out into the darkness. Our porch light, which is motion sensitive and comes on even when something as small as a squirrel runs by, was dark. The beeping continued, and it wasn’t my imagination. The sound was coming from the glider.

“Do you want me to pause this?”

I jumped, startled. Cassi was standing between the kitchen and the living room. When I turned around, I saw that her expression was puzzled.

“What are you doing?”

I shrugged. “I thought I heard something.”

“What?”

“It sounded like ... a cell phone. You know, like when someone is dialing or texting? The little beeps that the keys make?”

She paused, frowning. “I don’t hear it.”

That’s what I’m afraid of, I thought to myself.

“You want to go outside and check it out?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “It was probably nothing.”

*    *    *

One week later, I was hauling the trash cans up to the road so that the garbage men could pick them up the next morning. It was dark out, and I had a flashlight in one hand so that speeding cars wouldn’t plow into me.

At the top of the driveway, I heard the beeping sound again.

I’ve written about characters feeling “an icy finger running up their spine” but until that moment, I’d never experienced it in real life. Indeed, I didn’t think it was something you actually could experience in real life. I’d always thought it was just one of those standard euphemisms that are occasionally required in horror fiction.

I shined the flashlight around, but there was nobody there. It was just me, the trees, our mailbox, our neighbor’s mailbox and trash cans, and that wooden cross, now looking much more weather-beaten and worse for the wear.

The beeping stopped.

I leaned the trash cans against the guardrail and the beeping recommenced. Headlights pinpointed me, and I heard a pickup truck come around the corner. It zipped past me fast enough to ruffle my jacket. After it had passed, and the darkness returned, the road was silent.

“There’s nothing there,” I said out loud.

I started down the driveway and the beeping rang out behind me.

I ran all the way to the deck. I was out of breath when I got inside. Cassi asked me what was wrong. I smiled and waved a hand, indicating that I’d answer her as soon as I’d stopped hyperventilating. When I could talk again, I lied, and told her that I ran down the driveway to get some exercise.

ENTRY 13

The dreams continued sporadically throughout the spring and into the summer. With them came more glider rocking and phantom texting during my waking hours. If they had happened every day, I really do think I would have lost my shit, but they didn’t. There was no rhyme or reason. No way of predicting when it would occur. Weeks would go by without a single nightmare and then I’d have four in a row. A month would pass without the glider moving on its own or those haunting, disembodied beeps, and then there would be a flurry of activity that lasted several days.

There were little things, too—occasional, one-time occurrences that didn’t seem connected to all of this at the time, but certainly do now, in hindsight.

Example 1: The baby has this toy locomotive. It’s big. He can push it along and walk behind it, or sit atop it and scoot along with his feet. It has all kinds of buttons and little animal figures that pop out of the side. Every time it moved or you pressed a button, the train would sing (loudly) “Chugga chugga, choo choo, spin around. Every letter has a sound.” Annoying, yes. Thank God it only plays the song once. If the baby wants to hear it again, he has to push it or press another button.

One afternoon, while the baby was at his grandparent’s house, Cassi and I went grocery shopping. When we came home, the locomotive was playing the song, over and over and over again. There was nobody home at the time. The dog was cowering on the couch, staring at it, and the cat was hiding in the bedroom. We had to take the batteries out of it to get it to stop. I didn’t chalk it up to the girl on the glider. I attributed it to “the dog or the cat must have bumped it and the song got stuck and just kept repeating.” When we put new batteries in it, the locomotive operated normally again.

“Chugga chugga, choo choo, spin around. Every letter has a sound.”

I can’t stand that fucking train.

Example 2: In late May, I was working late out in my office one night. I can’t remember if I mentioned this before or not (and I’m too lazy to go back and check) but my office is separate from the house. If someone were to walk down my driveway, they would pass by my office before they reached the house. Anyway, I’m sitting there writing something (I can’t remember what) and Max, who was curled up on my lap, suddenly jumps down, runs over to the wall, arches his back and hisses. Had someone been on the other side of that wall, they would have been standing in my driveway. Max hissed again and when I went to him, I found that he was inconsolable. I grabbed my Taurus .357 and hurried outside, expecting to find a coyote or another stray cat or maybe some crazed fan standing in my driveway.

But there was nothing.

There are a lot more of these examples, but it’s late and I’m tired and I don’t have time tonight to put them all down on paper. Suffice to say, it was a weird few months.

Was I scared? Well, of course I was fucking scared. You would be, too. Either our house was haunted or I was losing my goddamn mind, and since I wasn’t the type to believe in ghosts, and since Cassi or my friends or my neighbor hadn’t reported hearing anything weird or seeing anything unusual, option number two was looking more and more likely every day.

In early-June, I decided that I’d been hallucinating all this time. I became convinced that I had a brain tumor, and that was what was causing the hallucinations. It seemed plausible enough. Tumors had popped up elsewhere on my body that summer. If Spring is the growing season, then my body had a bumper crop. There were a total of nineteen, all of which had quite literally sprung up in just a couple of weeks. They were scattered throughout my body—arms, chest, abdomen, thighs, and elsewhere. The smallest was about the size of a marble. The biggest was like a ping pong ball.

Needless to say, I was scared—scared in ways that a self-rocking glider and phantom cell phone tones couldn’t begin to touch. Obviously, I had cancer. I mean, what else could the tumors be? I wondered how I’d gotten them. My Dad’s exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam, perhaps? Or maybe it was the fact that I’ve used tobacco since I was twelve and I drink like a fucking fish? Eventually, I decided it didn’t really matter how I’d gotten cancer. The how wasn’t important. What mattered was what happened next.

It was a strange summer. I felt like I’d become one of my own characters. I was Tommy O’Brien from Terminal or Harold Newton from “Marriage Causes Cancer In Rats.” I was meant to be working on novels and novellas and short stories and comic books for a variety of small press and mainstream publishers who would dick around with my paycheck, my rights, and everything else. Instead, I found myself facing mortality and, for the first time, considering—I mean really considering—my own eventual death. I made sure all my shit was in order. Talked with Nate Southard and Mike Oliveri and brought them up to speed on where everything was (because if I did die, they’d be best suited to finish any uncompleted manuscripts). Checked into my life insurance policy and made sure it was up to date.

And then I went to the doctor. He was less than comforting. He said it could be cancer, or it could be something called lipoma—a benign tumor composed of fatty tissue. I asked him if he could be any more specific, if perhaps he could narrow it down to one or the other. He said that he couldn’t, but that a specialist could. So I went to see the specialist. He said it was most certainly lipoma and that normally that wouldn’t be a concern, but in my case, several of the tumors were growing towards major organs, including my heart, liver and kidneys. So he sent me to see a surgeon. It turned out that the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, and one of the girls who ran the office were all fans of my work. On the day of my surgery, the three of them brought books for me to sign. I did. Then they knocked me out and I went under the knife. They removed ten of the nineteen growths, including a particularly nasty fucker that had, according to the surgeon, grown its own circulatory system and was sending tendrils toward my heart.

And then we were done.

It’s human nature to go back to doing what one was doing before, but I didn’t. Instead, I became preoccupied with death. What happens after this, you know? Is there really an afterlife? Does our consciousness—our spirit or soul—continue after it leaves our body, or do we just become worm food? Is there a God, Allah, Krishna, Cthulhu, etc.? Is there a Heaven or a Hell, and if so, where would I go? I don’t know which scares me more—that there is an afterlife and I might end up in the bad part of town, or that there’s nothing after this and that all of life’s struggles are ultimately pointless. What if everything we know, every person we’ve loved, every kiss we’ve shared, every tear we’ve shed, fight we’ve had, breath we’ve taken, every laugh and shout and orgasm and idea and everything else that constitutes life just doesn’t fucking matter the moment our heart stops beating and our brainwaves go flat? Which is it? Where is the proof? I’ve thought about this all year, and I’m no closer to an answer. All I know is that I don’t want to die. I think I might have developed a death phobia. I’m terrified of dying.

There’s one more occurrence to write about. One more example of the weirdness that has infected my home and my life. The incident with the baby monitor. That’s the biggie, and once I’ve written about it, we’ll be all up to date.

But I still have no idea what it all means. It turned out I didn’t have a brain tumor after all, so if these things are hallucinations, then they’re being caused by something else. In truth, I suspect they aren’t hallucinations, which takes us back to the beginning—and means that I’m either being haunted, or I’m crazy.

Before we tackle that, though, I should write about the baby monitor.

Tomorrow. Sleep now. Tired. Mid-life crisis, maybe? Feel old. Feel older every goddamn day. Creeping toward an ultimate end.

A sense of finality seems to hang over everything I do.

ENTRY 14

Haven’t worked on this in quite some time. Caught in the perfect storm of deadlines and a cash crunch, I fucked off to the wilderness and got some things done before I snapped and started shooting motherfuckers. Cassi was the one who suggested that I do this. It was a week before Thanksgiving, and I was under a lot of stress. A Gathering of Crows was three months overdue, and although my editor, Don D’Auria, was being incredibly gracious and understanding in regards to the missed deadline, I felt like I was letting him down. Don is one of the few editors who has always been straight with me, and it bothers me to think I might disappoint him in any way (and I’m sure it bothers him that his superiors owe me a bunch of money for previous novels—novels for which the deadline wasn’t missed).

But it wasn’t just one missed deadline. I’d have been able to cope with that. In addition to A Gathering of Crows, I owed Maurice Broaddus a story for an anthology called Dark Faith, a novel synopsis to Bantam, two issues of The Last Zombie to the guys at Antarctic Press, a television treatment that I knew wasn’t going to go anywhere, two comic book pitches that I also suspected would go nowhere, and assorted other things. Gak was waiting on me to finish The Wanderer. I owed Full Moon Press a novella of some sort that I couldn’t even remember signing a contract for. Wrath, Bev Vincent, Steven Shrewsbury, Tim Lebbon, Bryan Smith and Jim Moore were all waiting on me to finish my collaboration with Nick Mamatas so that I could work on the collaborations I’d promised that I’d eventually do with them. Plus, there were signature sheets to be signed, introductions to write even though I keep telling people I don’t have time to write introductions, three months worth of email to answer, a message board to keep up with, weekly installments of Earthworm Gods II: Deluge (lest people bitch about it not being updated), and somewhere in-between all of this, trying to be a father to my sons, a friend to my friends, and a husband to my wife. It had also been six months since anybody had paid me. Oh, they all wanted their manuscripts on time, but when it came time to send me my fucking check, that was a different fucking story.

I’d also become distinctly aware that a number of people who I’d thought were my friends were my friends only because of who I am and not because of who I am. There is a distinction there, and I bet Stephen King, Dean Koontz, or Richard Laymon would have commiserated. But I wasn’t going to ask King and Koontz for advice on shit like that, simply because I know how overwhelming it is when people do it to me. And Dick Laymon wasn’t around to ask anymore. I considered trying to contact him via a Ouija board or a medium. Ask him for advice on how to deal with all of the users and abusers and hangers-on in my life, and “Hey, Dick, while we’re at it, what can you tell me about the afterlife? Because I’ve got to tell you, my old mentor—I’m fucking scared of dying.”

Oh, did I mention there were more tumors that needed to be removed?

I was stressed. That’s an understatement. In truth, I’d reached the breaking point. Cassi caught me applying for a part-time job at Wal-Mart, and she sat me down and said, “You are going to the family cabin in West Virginia and you’re not coming back until you clear your head.”

“I can’t,” I told her. “It’s almost Thanksgiving.”

“I don’t care. All we’re doing for Thanksgiving is going to my parents’ house, and they make you uncomfortable anyway. I’d much rather you went off to the cabin and got some writing done and felt better about life.”

So I did. I took the dog down to our cabin in West Virginia and I stayed there for ten days and all I did was write and eat and sleep.

When I returned home, I was a different man. No, scratch that. The Brian Keene who had gone to the cabin was a different man. When I came home, I was me again. Reborn. Refreshed. Rejuvenated.

But there was still one thing left unfinished.

The baby monitor story.

*    *    *

Here is an example of how I cannibalize real life for use in my fiction. I’ve said in interviews that everything is fodder for my muse, and I’m not kidding when I say that.

The following scene is from A Gathering of Crows. I wrote it after the real-life incident with the baby monitor:

Artie Prater slept, which was exactly what he’d been afraid of. His wife of five years, Laura, was out of town. She worked for the bank in Roncefort, and once a year, all of the bank’s employees went on a mandatory week-long retreat. This year, they were in Utah, enjoying steak dinners and attending seminars about things like team-building and synergy. Artie liked to tease Laura about these things, but only because he was secretly jealous. He’d been unable to find work for over a year, and it bothered him that he couldn’t provide for his wife or their new son, Artie Junior. The upside was that while she was at work every day, he’d been able to stay home and take care of Little Artie. Laura reciprocated by getting up with the baby at night, which relieved Artie to no end.

Artie had always been a deep sleeper. His mother had once said that he could sleep through a nuclear war, and that wasn’t far from the truth. He’d slept through 9/11, waking up in his college dorm room later that night and wondering why everyone was staring at the television and crying. Since becoming a father, Artie’s biggest fear was that the baby would wake up crying, perhaps hungry or in need of a diaper change or shaking from a nightmare, and he’d sleep through it. That’s why he was grateful when Laura was there to get up with Artie Junior at night, and that’s why he dreaded these rare times when she wasn’t home.

They had a baby monitor in the house. A small camera was mounted above Little Artie’s crib. It broadcast a signal to the monitor, which was plugged into the bedroom’s television. With Laura out of town, Artie had turned the volume on the television all the way up, filling the room with white noise and the soft sounds of his son’s breathing. Then, bathed in the glow from the screen, he’d sat back in bed with his laptop and played a video game. It was early—too early to sleep, but Little Artie had been tired and cranky, and Artie knew from experience that he should rest when the baby rested. He promised himself that if and when he got tired of the game, he’d sleep lightly.

Except that he hadn’t. He fell asleep playing the game, barely having the presence of mind to sit the laptop aside before passing out. He slept through the power outage, and did not wake when both the laptop and the television shut off, as well as the baby monitor. He slept through the howling dogs and the terrified screams and the numerous gunshots. He slept through the explosion. He slept as his neighbors were murdered in their homes and out on the street. He slept, drooling on his pillow and snoring softly, as two shadowy figures entered his home. He slept, unaware that in Artie Junior’s nursery, a large, black crow had perched on the edge of his son’s crib. He slept as the crow changed shape. He remained asleep as the bedroom door opened and a shadow fell across him, as well.

He didn’t wake up until the baby screamed, and by then it was too late.

The last thing he saw was the figure in the room with him. The baby’s screams turned to high-pitched, terrified shrieks. Artie bolted upright and flung the sheets off his legs, but before he could get out of bed, the intruder rushed to the bedside and loomed over him. The man’s face was concealed in darkness. It shoved his chest with one cold hand and forced him back down on the bed. In the nursery, the baby’s screams abruptly ceased.

“W-who...?”

“Scream,” the shadow told Artie. “It’s better when you scream.”

Here is the real-life version of events:

Brian Keene slept, which was exactly what he’d been afraid of. His wife of seven years, Cassi, was out of town. She worked as a corporate trainer for a large commercial real estate company (because her husband’s income was unreliable), and once a year, all of the company’s employees went on a mandatory week-long retreat. This year, they were in Utah, enjoying steak dinners and attending seminars about things like team-building and synergy. Brian liked to tease Cassi about these things, but only because he was secretly jealous. He hadn’t been paid by his publishers in over six months, and it bothered him that he couldn’t provide for his wife or their new son.

Brian had always been a deep sleeper. His mother had once said that he could sleep through a nuclear war, and that wasn’t far from the truth. Since becoming a father for the second time around, Brian’s biggest fear was that the baby would wake up crying, perhaps hungry or in need of a diaper change or shaking from a nightmare, and he’d sleep through it. That’s why he was grateful when Cassi was there to get up with the baby at night, and that’s why he dreaded these rare times when she wasn’t home.

They had a baby monitor in the house. A small camera was mounted above the baby’s crib. It broadcast a signal to the monitor, which was plugged into the bedroom’s television. With Cassi out of town, Brian had turned the volume on the television all the way up, filling the room with white noise and the soft sounds of his son’s breathing. Then, bathed in the glow from the screen, he’d sat back in bed with his laptop and worked on a television treatment for a show that he was pretty sure would never get off the ground. The production company for a very popular sitcom actor had asked Brian to write a treatment for a post-apocalyptic zombie sitcom, and even though Brian thought that was the stupidest fucking idea he’d heard in quite some time, he did it because his family needed the money. It was early—too early to sleep, but the baby had been tired and cranky, and Brian knew from experience that he should rest when the baby rested. He promised himself that if and when he got tired of working on this stupid TV pilot, he’d sleep lightly.

Except that he hadn’t. He fell asleep writing, barely having the presence of mind to sit the laptop aside before passing out. He slept, drooling on his pillow and snoring softly—until voices began coming from the television speakers.

The first thing he became aware of was a burst of static. This was followed by a soft, feminine voice. The woman was speaking, forming distinct syllables and words, but he couldn’t tell what they were. She paused, and his son, not quite two years old, answered her with baby talk. As he woke fully, it simultaneously occurred to Brian that a) this wasn’t a dream, and b) the voice was originating from his son’s bedroom.

Brian bolted upright, flung the sheets off his legs, and stared at the television screen. There was his son’s room. The baby was awake, and standing up in his crib. He wasn’t crying. Wasn’t scared. He was babbling, as if his mother or father were in the room with him. Except that that was impossible, because his mother was in Utah and his father was watching from bed.

“Hi,” the baby said. “Hi! Hi! Hi!”

The baby jumped up and down in the crib, grinning happily as he repeated it over and over. Each joyful exclamation was punctuated with a wave of his little hand.

Brian started to get out of bed when he saw something that ...

Well, okay. Enough of that third person nonsense. You get the idea. That’s a nice example of merging real life with fiction. Here’s what happened next.

I started to get out of bed, but then I saw something on the screen that absolutely stunned me. It was an orb, about the size of a softball. It seemed to be composed of solid light, and it was hovering next to my son’s crib. The baby was standing up and waving at it. The ball hung there for a moment, as if suspended from a string. Then it zipped out of the camera’s eye and vanished from my sight. I knew it was still in the room, however, because the baby was still watching it. He turned his head, following its movements.

I got out of bed and ran across the house, yelling—I don’t know what I was hollering. It was just nonsense-words. Panic-speak. The language of fear.

As I ran down the hall, I spotted Sam. He was sitting outside of the baby’s room, unable to get through the door because of the security-gate we have placed in front of it. His back was arched and his ears and tail were flat. He wasn’t barking or growling. Instead, he was whining—a fearful, pitiful sound that scared me even more. This wasn’t a fucking hallucination, because the dog and the baby were all experiencing it, too.

I opened the gate and Sam pushed past me and barreled into the room. I was right behind him. The baby looked at us, smiled and then clapped his hands.

“Hi, Da-Da! Hi, Dog-Dog! Hi!”

The room was empty and dark, save for the night light glowing on the dresser. There were no orbs of light, hovering or otherwise. I shivered, and then realized that I was cold. No, it wasn’t just me. It was the room. My son reached for me, and I bent over and picked him up. He snuggled up against me, lovingly, trying to burrow into my chest. Normally, that’s one of the most wonderful and sweet feelings in the world, but this time, it barely registered with me. Sam nosed around the crib, sniffing furiously, his Beagle-genetics working overtime to catch a scent. Holding the baby tight, I checked the little thermometer hanging above the changing table. Sam began sniffing the rest of the room. According to the thermometer, it was fifty degrees in the baby’s room. That couldn’t be right. I had the heater set to seventy-three throughout the house. As if to confirm this, it kicked on while I stood there staring dumbly at the wall. Warm air blew out of the floor vent, bathing my bare feet. I carried the baby (who was now wide-awake) out of the room and checked the thermostat in the living room. According to it, the house was at seventy-three degrees.

We walked back down the hall, and I shut the door to the baby’s room. Then I sat him down on the floor in the kitchen to play while I got some things together. I grabbed his diaper bag and changed his diaper there on the floor. Then I got dressed and rounded up the baby and the dog and took them both out to the car. I strapped the baby into his car seat. The dog sat next to him, tongue lolling, his ears back up, his eyes wide with excitement. Sam loves to ride in the car, but a midnight ride with the baby in tow was something new for him. I started the car and left the engine running so that it would warm up inside. Then I went back into the house.

When I walked through the door, I gasped. The baby’s train was singing “Chugga chugga, choo choo, spin around. Every letter has a sound.”

Next to it, the baby’s Elmo doll was chattering in that all-too-recognizable-to-all-parents high-pitched voice, asking me for a hug. And beneath the sound of both, I heard that phantom cell phone beeping in my son’s room.

“What do you want?” I shouted, staring around the living room. “What the fuck do you want from us?”

“Can you give me a hug, please?” Elmo asked.

“Chugga Chugga, choo choo, spin around. Every letter has a sound.”

My hands curled into fists at my sides. “You leave my fucking son alone! Do you hear me? Get the fuck out of here and leave us alone!”

Everything stopped.

Somehow, that was even more frightening.

I grabbed the cat (she was hiding beneath the coffee table and when I picked her up, I felt her little heart hammering against my palm). Then I carried her outside, put her in the car with the dog and the baby, and we drove around for the rest of the night. The baby fell asleep. The dog and the cat rode in silence. I listened to Coast-to-Coast AM with George Noory and a Howard Stern re-play and tried to keep my hands from shaking.

Near dawn, I pulled into my parents’ driveway. It was their day to watch the baby, but normally, I don’t bring him to their house until 8 a.m. It wasn’t even six yet. When Mom asked why we were there so early, I told her that he’d had trouble sleeping and I’d resorted to driving him around all night. It was as close to the truth as I wanted to get.

I crashed in my old room in a bed that no longer fits me, and when I woke up later, I asked my parents if they’d enjoy it if the baby and I spent the night. They said they would.

I didn’t go back home until Cassi returned three days later.

ENTRY 15

That takes us back up to the present. Or at least a close proximity of the present. After the baby monitor incident, things quieted down again. I still heard the occasional beeping sound. The baby still looked at the top of the driveway and waved hello. I still had the dreams once in a while, and Cassi was still uncomfortable smoking on the deck at night. But the glider didn’t rock anymore, at least, not that I’d seen. There were no floating orbs. No “Chugga Chugga, choo choo, spin around. Every letter has a sound.” No Elmo asking me for a hug.

I didn’t tell anyone about what happened. I didn’t want them to think I was crazy.

And here we are. When I started writing this diary, I was forty-one, and as I finish it, I’ve been forty-two for a few months. Other than that, not much has changed.

It is December 19, 2009, and as I type this, the Mid-Atlantic is in the midst of one mean motherfucker of a snowstorm. Earlier, I took a yardstick outside of my office and measured the accumulation. In the non-drift areas, we have twelve inches of snow. The National Weather Service is predicting we could have a lot more. I think they’re right, since the snow shows no signs of abating. On Twitter, Dave Thomas (my sometimes assistant, better known to the world as Meteornotes) called this DEATH STORM 2009. I think that’s a good name for it. I think it’s fine and proper and has a beautiful ring to it.

But then again, I’m on a death trip.

My neighbor and I have been taking turns plowing the driveway with his snow-blower. On my last trip up to the top of the driveway, I noticed that the cross was no longer there. I know it was there yesterday, because I see it every time I go up for the mail. But some time early this morning, a snowplow hit it, along with the guardrail. There are a few little pieces of wood scattered amongst the snow drifts on the side of the road, but the rest of the cross is gone. I wonder if, when the snow melts and winter passes, will the victim’s family return and put up a new memorial to remember her by? Or do they remember her in other ways? Or is her memory beginning to fade?

Yesterday, after poking around online again and coming up empty (Google can tell me the average annual rainfall for Botswana, but it can’t tell me who died at the top of my driveway), I decided that it was time to get serious about this whole thing. One of the benefits of having freelanced for the York Dispatch in the past is that I still have access to their clippings library and archives. I once featured that archival room in a novel, Ghost Walk. In real life, it’s pretty much like I described it in the book. There is row upon row of massive filing cabinets, filled with clippings from the paper. They are arranged by alphabetical category and span decades of history—going back all the way to the paper’s inception. The really old stuff is on microfilm, rather than paper, and there’s some talk of digitizing the whole collection, but that costs money and newspapers are making about as much money as mid-list horror writers these days.

I drove to the newspaper’s office, which is located in downtown York City, told the girl at the door who I was, and then went downstairs to the archives. Things hadn’t changed since my previous visit (I’d last been there about a year and a half ago, doing research for an aborted non-fiction book on powwow magic). A few staffers recognized me, and I exchanged pleasantries and made small talk. Then I got to work.

It took me about twenty minutes to find what I was looking for. I pulled out a file, flipped through the clippings till I found the date, and there she was.

The girl on the glider.

Staring up at me from the past.

Her family had provided the newspaper with her senior photo. In it, she was smiling. I wondered what she was thinking about when it was taken. All of those possibilities that lay ahead on the road of life? The future must have seemed wide open. Little had she known, when the picture was snapped, that the road of life detoured into an embankment at the top of my driveway just a year later, and that none of those dreams or possibilities would ever come to pass.

We go through the days thinking we have our whole lives ahead of us. We put off things until tomorrow. We spend time consumed with work and obsessed with making enough money to provide for our loved ones, but in that pursuit, we sacrifice spending time with the very people we’re working to support. I spend all of my days writing. That’s all I fucking do. From eight in the morning until five or six at night. Write. Write. Write. Hope someone sends a check on time. Write. Write. Write some more. And at what cost? Sure, my family has a roof over their heads, but if I found out tomorrow that these tumors are no longer benign, and I only had a week to live, would it have been worth it? Would I then contact Mike and Nate and tell them that, instead of finishing whatever stupid novel is left on my computer, they spend time playing with my son instead, because I didn’t have time to finish doing that either? Would I ask them to pay more attention to my wife for me, because I’d been unable to do so?

There are things I want to do in life. I want to have hobbies again. I want to become a backyard astronomer and take up amateur photography and fish in my trout stream more often. I want to ask my kids how their day was and rub my wife’s feet every night and take the dog for a long walk each and every day, rain or shine. I want to spend more time with my parents, and tell them that I appreciate them and that they are loved. I want to do all of these things, but I never do. I put them off until tomorrow, so sure that I’ll get them done ... eventually.

But eventually doesn’t always happen. The girl on the glider had dreams, too. She had things she wanted to do. I stood there, flipping through the file. There were three articles about the accident. The first simply recounted the accident details, including statements from the State Police and the County Coroner. The second was the follow-up article that I was reading. The third was her obituary. I read them all, and got to know her. I learned about her dreams and wishes and desires. She’d put them all off for whatever reason, figuring they’d happen eventually ... and then she died unexpectedly at the top of my driveway.

After I’d finished, I put the file away and left the building and came back home. The sky was overcast and gray. Death Storm 2009 was approaching. I wondered what I should do next. I couldn’t very well go to her parents, could I? Just show up and knock on their door and say, “Hi, I’m Brian Keene. The guy who writes those books? I’m sorry to bother you, but your daughter has been haunting my house this past year, and I was wondering if you could ask her to stop? I think she might not know that she’s dead. She seems to be trying to contact someone. Have you received any weird text messages lately?” They’d have me arrested. Or shoot me. Or both.

I decided to do a little magic. I’ve written enough about it that I know the basics. The most important part of magic, regardless of which discipline you’re practicing, is the act of naming. Names are power. If you know something’s true name, it gives you power over it.

I walked to the top of the driveway. The sun had just gone down and the road was extremely dark. There was very little traffic, on account of the impending snowstorm. I stood there, shivering, hands in my pockets, and stared at the spot where the accident had occurred. Without really knowing what I was going to say, I began to speak out loud.

“Hi. My name is Brian. Now you know my name. I know your name, too. I found it today. Your name is ___________. I’m really sorry for what happened to you. I’ve got this theory that maybe you’re feeling a little lost. Maybe a little lonely? Maybe you’re not sure where your friends went? Maybe you keep texting them, but nobody is calling you back.”

I paused. The wind rustled the trees.

“Did you ever watch The X-Files? I don’t know, maybe that was before your time. Maybe your parents dug it, though. I was a big fan of the show There was this one episode where Agent Mulder is hiding out on an Indian reservation, and one of the characters quotes an old Native American saying: ‘Something lives only as long as the last person who remembers it.’ I’m not sure how that applies to this situation, but I’m certain that your parents and your friends remember you.”

I paused again, glancing around to make sure that no one was listening. I didn’t need one of my neighbors going, “Oh, look. Keene is standing at the top of the driveway talking to imaginary people.”

When I was sure we were alone, I continued.

“I think you were sent here to teach me something. I think maybe that’s why you can’t pass on. See, I’m an agnostic when it comes to all of this spiritual stuff. I’ve tried Christianity and Buddhism and every other kind of ‘anity’ and ‘ism’ but at the end of the day, I lack faith—and faith is what is required of any belief system. I want to believe that there’s something after this. I want very badly to believe in an afterlife, but I haven’t been able to. Until now. I don’t know what you are. You might be a ghost or a spirit. You might be conscious. You might just be an echo of time—a psychic after-effect. Or maybe you’re just in my head. I don’t know. But I know that I now believe. So I want to thank you for that. You’ve shown me that a part of us—some vital part of what makes us who we truly are—lives on after our death. I don’t have to rely on a literary legacy of books for people to remember me after I’m gone. I don’t have to bust my ass cranking out one pulp novel after another just to insure that I live on. Something lives only as long as the last person who remembers it. If I get my shit together and change my ways, I’ll live on in the memory of my kids and my grandkids and those whose lives I’ve touched in some way.”

I reached up and wiped a tear away. I hadn’t realized I was crying until just then.

“I’m forty-two. I used to think, ‘Well, I’m only in my early forties. I’ve still got plenty of time.’ But I bet you thought that, too, right. And you were only nineteen. You were only nineteen and then suddenly, it was over before it had ever even really started.”

I ran out of words. My last sentence seemed to hang there in the cold air, just like my breath was doing.

“I’m not sure what happens next. I’m going to go back down to the house and start living. Try to save my marriage. Try to be a better father. Maybe you should look around for a light or something. They say there’s supposed to be one on that side. I don’t know. If you can’t find one, I guess you’re welcome to stay here. Anyway, thanks again.”

My shoulders slumped. I suddenly felt very silly. I walked back down to the house, went out to my office, and turned off my computer. My Blackberry was flashing at me, informing me that I had voicemail and unanswered text messages. I turned it off without reading or listening to them. I stayed long enough to pat Max on the head and show him a little extra attention. Then I went inside the house.

Cassi and the baby were in the living room. The dog and cat were lying on the couch. The baby was playing with his train. He looked up, saw me, and smiled.

“Hi, Da-da!”

“Hi, buddy. How are you? What are you doing?”

“Choo-choo train. Da-da push!”

So I did. I pushed him all around the living room, and sang along with the toy as I did.

“Chugga chugga, choo choo, spin around. Every letter has a sound.”

ENTRY 16

There was over a foot of snow in the driveway this morning, and when I went outside, I saw footprints in the snow. They started at the top of the driveway, came down to our house, circled both our cars, came up onto the porch, and then went back up the driveway again.

My neighbor told me later that he saw what made them. It was a stray dog. A Husky, with a collar on. We’re going to try to catch it later, and find it a home.

Just a dog. Nothing more.

No dreams last night, and no work today.

I’ve got more important things to do.

I’ll work when I’m dead.

STORY NOTE: The Girl on the Glider was originally published as a limited edition hardcover from Cemetery Dance Publications. It also appeared in my collection A Conspiracy of One. Both books are long out of print. My plan was to let it stay that way—simply because of the very personal emotional connotations the story holds for me—but so many readers lamented not being able to read it, so I finally decided to re-release it in digital form, and then include it in this collection (for more on that, read the Foreword).

I think it fair to say that this is my twist on the traditional ghost story—a meta-fictional mash-up of M.R. James and Hunter S. Thompson. Although I don’t usually care for my work after I’ve finished writing it, I’m proud of this one. I honestly think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written. But it’s also the saddest. I wrote this as a last ditch effort to save my troubled marriage—a marriage that had been mostly good up until the pressures of writing for a living began to impact it. Those pressures, slow to build but oh-so-fucking-heavy, are detailed here.

Since its initial publication, people have often asked me which parts of The Girl On The Glider were true, and which parts were fiction. Honestly, ninety-nine point nine percent of this was true. All of the behind-the-scenes angst and drama and fuckery that was going on—I didn’t make that shit up. That’s exactly what it’s like to make your living as a mid-list horror novelist. There is no 401K. There is no health insurance. And publishers never pay you on time. The other stuff was true, too—everything from Coop fishing a dead body out of the river to the image I saw on my son’s baby monitor. A girl really did die at the top of my driveway, and she really did teach me an important lesson.

Sadly, the lesson came too late. I said above that ninety-nine point nine percent of this story was true. The part I made up... the part that was fiction? Well, that was the happy ending. In real life, the story didn’t end so well. I finished writing this novella in December of 2009. Three weeks later, in January of 2010, my wife of eight years, a woman who I’d been with for sixteen years, asked me for a separation...and eventually a divorce. And she was right to do so. She was absolutely right to do so. The lessons that the girl on the glider taught me came too late. I didn’t realize that then, but I do now. At the time, I blamed everyone around us. But the blame lay elsewhere...

Several years have passed, and my ex-wife and I remain best friends. Indeed, I think we get along better now than we ever did during those past sixteen years. We’ve both grown a lot. So has our son. Our son is healthy and happy and has two parents who love him. And I still don’t blame her. Not one bit. Nobody should have to live with the guy in this novella, the guy who is chained to such an unforgiving and unhealthy job, but can’t do anything else. A guy who is trapped by his muse, trapped by who he is, trapped by what he is...a guy who will never escape those things. A guy who is a writer.

When things go bad in life, it’s easy to blame others. We blame our employers, our teachers, our spouses, our friends, our neighbors, our churches, our political leaders, our police, and our enemies. We blame God and Krishna and Buddha and Allah. We tend to believe that there must be a conspiracy against us. But the only conspiracy is what we do to ourselves. In the end, the blame is a singular thing, best viewed in the mirror.

KEEPSAKES

Cole put down the action figures and eyed the stuffed purple dragon. “Who’s that?”

“Binky?” Emery frowned. “Everybody knows him. Haven’t you ever seen the Binky show?”

“No.” Cole lowered his head. “We never had TV.”

“We’ve got one,” Emery said. “Mom and Dad let me watch it once a week. Any more than that and we’d run the generator down. But since you and your dad are here, maybe they’ll make an exception.”

They were in Emery’s room, one of four such rooms in the bunker. The sounds of adult conversation drifted under the door. Cole heard his father telling Emery’s parents about what they’d gone through outside. His dad mentioned Cole’s mother, and began to whisper. Cole wished he wouldn’t do that. He didn’t remember his mother, other than an old photograph that Dad carried in his pocket. Dad rarely talked about her. Cole wished he knew more.

“How does it work?” he asked. “The TV?”

Emery shrugged. “You pick a movie, put it in, and watch. I’ve got a bunch of them. But let’s not watch Binky. He’s for little kids.”

The boys sat quietly for a moment. Neither was used to having a playmate.

“What’s it like out there, anyway?” Emery asked. “I’ve never been outside. Dad says I can’t help him scrounge until I’m older. What are the other people like?”

“Hungry,” Cole said. “Dirty. Sad.”

“Where did you live?”

“Underground.”

“Like this?”

Cole shook his head. “No. It was smaller. Dad said it used to be a maintenance shop for the subway. I’m not sure what that means, though.”

“You guys lived in the subway tunnels?”

Cole nodded. “Until they flooded. Then we had to leave. And then some people were hunting us. You know, for food?”

“Sick!”

“We killed a few but then more came, so we ran. Slept in an old car for a few weeks until it got cold. Eventually we met your Dad, and he invited us back here.”

“That surprised me,” Emery admitted. “We’ve never let anybody in before. I hope we don’t run out of food.”

Cole fell silent, and picked up another action figure.

“Not that one,” Emery said, reaching for the toy. “It’s my favorite. I don’t want you to break it.”

Cole slowly looked around the room. He’d never seen so many toys. Action figures, trucks, blocks, puzzles, a wooden train set, games—Emery’s room was filled with them. The only toys Cole had ever had were a small metal car with chipped paint and a plastic figurine that his father had told him was a character from something called a video game.

But it wasn’t just the toys. Emery’s clothes were clean and didn’t have holes in them. His hair was washed and cut. He had food, and water to drink. Clean water, no less. Cole hadn’t heard Emery’s stomach grumble once since they’d arrived. His room was dry and warm, and there were soft pillows to lay on, rather than cold, hard concrete. There weren’t any spiders dropping down on him while he slept or rats squeaking in the corners and rushing out to bite and nip. He had television and movies and medicine and electric light. He even had a mother.

He especially had a mother.

Cole moved quickly, listening to the adults talking in the other room while he choked Emery to death. When at last he removed his hands from around the other boy’s throat, he had everything he’d ever wanted.

Almost.

He’d just have to kill Emery’s father next.

STORY NOTE: The idea for this story came to me out of nowhere, and appeared pretty much intact in my head. I wrote it longhand during a blizzard, while I was snowed-in at my ex-wife’s house, and then typed up a revised draft when I finally made it back home to my computer. It was made available to backers of a Kickstarter campaign for an omnibus edition of my zombie comic book series, The Last Zombie.

FETISH

After you were gone, I cleaned the house. Maybe it was desperation on my part. Desperation to do something—anything—other than just sitting there feeling sorry for myself and drinking whiskey and crying until my eyes burned and I couldn’t breathe. Maybe it was desperation to stifle the thoughts inside my head, to focus on something else for a while other than the absence of you. Maybe it was a desperate need to escape your gravity, the pull of which I could still feel, like a black hole in our bed and on the couch and at the little kitchen nook where you used to sit and drink your tea. Maybe it was desperation in the form of a ritual. An exorcism, of sorts. You were gone from my life, gone from our home, but your stuff was still here, taking the form of a thousand different ghosts, all haunting the place. Everywhere I looked, in every room of this three-story farmhouse we’d once shared together, I saw reminders of you. Maybe I was just desperate to rid myself of those memories.

So I cleaned. No, that’s not right. I didn’t just clean. Anyone can clean. I deep cleaned. I took an entire weekend and engaged in some heavy duty spring cleaning, even though it was the middle of winter. On Friday night, I boxed up your books and your movies. I emptied the closet of the clothes and shoes you’d left behind (how a woman could own so many pair of shoes is beyond me, and I swear I never saw you wear half of these in the three years we were together). The refrigerator and cupboards were full of things you liked—butternut squash soup and organic bean sprouts and other stuff I’d never eat. I swept tubes of make-up, nail polish, lipstick, and hair care products from the top of the dresser, and packed up your jewelry box, too. In the bathroom, I boxed up your hair dryer, curling iron, body lotions, bubble bath, scented votive candles, toothbrush, hair clips, and all the tampons and other feminine care products you’d left behind. I got rid of your ceramic tea kettle and that little sushi set you bought on our first vacation and the unicorn statue I bought you for our first Valentine’s Day. Our walls were full of empty nails after I took down all the pictures of you. In the attic, I found a box of cards and letters you’d given me over the last three years. They had to go, too. It wasn’t enough that they were hidden from sight. Just knowing they were here in the house was too painful to contemplate.

On Saturday morning, after grabbing a few hours of sleep, I rented a moving van and a storage unit and moved all your stuff into that, because I wasn’t sure what you’d want done with it. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out, but I couldn’t live amongst it either. I was tired of hurting. Tired of the constant pain—pain that was supposed to have stopped with your departure, but still lingered, festering like a wound that just won’t heal. Every time I saw your stuff, it was like picking the scab off again.

Moving your stuff into storage took most of the day. When I got home Saturday evening, after returning the truck and getting my deposit back, I walked into the house and I could still smell you—your body lotion and perfume and shampoo. So I cleaned some more until the house smelled like lemon furniture polish and lilac toilet bowl disinfectant. I vacuumed the carpets and swept the wooden floors, and in doing so, found a thousand more little reminders of you.

Your hair.

The first time we met, I saw your hair before I saw you. My previous girlfriend had short, brown hair. But not you. There you were, sitting on a stool by the pool table at the bar, with your back turned to me. You and your friends laughed, which caught my attention—but it was your hair that kept it. Black as a raven’s feathers, thick and luxurious, and reaching all the way to the small of your back; it was the kind of hair men (and perhaps women, as well) longed to feel between their fingers and brushing across their bare skin. And I did. Oh God, I did. I’ll never forget how your hair felt that first time we made love—and every time we made love after that. Even later, when our relationship started to sour, and we lost our emotional connection and grew distant from each other, and our lovemaking gave way to just having sex more often than not, I was still enthralled by your hair. I loved how it felt on my chest, and running my hands through it, and giving it those playful pulls, and especially how it smelled.

That smell was probably the most powerful ghost of all.

That night, as I was vacuuming the bedroom carpet, the aromas of lemon furniture polish and lilac cleaner were soon overpowered by something else—the stench of burned rubber. The little belt inside the vacuum cleaner had burned out. Sighing, I unplugged the vacuum from the wall and flipped it over. Sure enough, strands of your hair had gotten wrapped around the rollers, choking them until they wouldn’t turn anymore. I grabbed a pair of scissors and started cutting, remembering something your Dad had once told me, that I wouldn’t have believed how many vacuum cleaners he’d gone through when you were growing up. But I did believe it. This was my third, in three years of being with you. Small price to pay for being able to enjoy your hair.

You were gone now, but your hair remained.

I cut the tangle free from the rollers, and stuck it in my pocket, intent on throwing it away when I went back downstairs. Then I plugged the vacuum back into the outlet, and crossed my fingers, hoping it would still work. It did, though the burning smell soon returned as your hair clogged the rollers up again. I spent more time cutting that clump free, and added it to the tangle in my pocket. When I tried the vacuum a third time, the belt was shot. The motor got hot and there was no suction power left.

I went downstairs, grabbed the broom and dustpan, and began to sweep the kitchen floor. There amongst the detritus of fallen cereal flakes and bread crumbs, stray fingernail clippings, lint, dust bunnies, dead stinkbugs, and twist-ties, was more of your hair. After sweeping the pile into the dust pan, I paused, hovering over the garbage can. Then, without really thinking about it, I rescued your hairs from the dirt and emptied the dust pan into the garbage. Then I added those hairs to the clump from my pocket.

As I’m sure you’d remember, on the mantle in the living room is a beer stein from Germany, circa World War Two—an heirloom passed down to me by my great-grandfather. After a moment’s consideration, I decided that the stein seemed an appropriate place to keep your hair. I’ve had that mug since I was a kid, and it holds many treasures from both childhood and my adult life—a seashell from my first trip to the beach, an arcade token, a baseball card, an empty brass bullet casing, ticket stubs from concerts long past, my grandmother’s Saint Christopher medal, fur clippings from my dog (passed on six years now)—each one with a special meaning and memory attached.

I rolled your hair between my fingers for a moment, and then reluctantly dropped it inside the stein. Then I took a shower and went to bed. It was the first time I’d lain in our bed since you’d gone, and I couldn’t sleep. It felt empty, without you there. The sheets still held your impression on your side of the bed, and when I put my face to your pillow and nuzzled it, I smelled you. I smelled your hair.

I blinked away tears and there they were—three long, black hairs on the white pillowcase.

I shuffled downstairs and added them to the rest. Then I went to sleep on the couch, television playing in the background. I don’t know what channel it was on, because I didn’t watch it. I just needed the background noise. I needed something to trick me into believing that I wasn’t alone.

Life went on like that for a while. Although I don’t know that you could actually call it a life. In truth, I was just going through the motions. Moving on because that’s what you’re supposed to do after something like this. Move on. Get over it. So I tried. I went to work every day. Came home. Watched TV. Slept on the couch. Then I got up the next morning and did it all over again. I didn’t date. I didn’t want to. I’d never had that much of a social life even before I met you, and as for the few friends I’d had over the years—I lost touch with them after you and I started dating. I spent my time with you, rather than them. They’d drifted away. Or maybe it was me who had drifted. I don’t know, but I do know that I didn’t really miss them. I only missed you.

Sometimes at night, when the loneliness and oppression became too much, I’d get your hair out and hold it. It still smelled like you, even as months went by. I’d stroke it and fondle it and put it against my cheek. Some nights, I whispered to it, and told it that I loved you.

Every week, I cleaned, and every time I found more hair. It didn’t matter how many times I swept the floor or shampooed and vacuumed the carpets—there was always a little bit of you left behind. Each time I found a strand, my emotions were conflicted—pangs of heartache and regret, followed by a bittersweet happiness that at least a part of you still remained. And so, I added to my collection—my shrine to the memory of you. The hair went from the size of a golf ball to a softball. Within a few months, my great-grandfather’s old beer stein wasn’t big enough to hold it all, so I had to find another place to keep it. That was when I finally started sleeping in our bed again, with the ball of your hair tucked beneath my pillow. By then, it was bigger than a football.

After that, the house didn’t seem so haunted—or empty—anymore, and I didn’t feel so alone.

I began to hold your hair to my chest at night, tucking it in the crook of my arms as one might do with a stuffed animal or pillow. I’d fall asleep breathing you in. Occasionally, when the need grew too strong, I’d turn the lights off and lay there in the darkness, caressing myself with the remnants of you, stroking my chest and face and legs with your softness, before stroking other, more urgent parts of myself, as well. I was always careful to pull your hair away before I came. The last thing I wanted was to taint all that remained of you. I needed to keep your essence as pure as possible.

Then I started to worry that sleeping with your hair under my pillow might be detrimental to insuring that overall quality. Your scent was beginning to fade, and the hair itself had lost some of its luster. So I re-shaped it into a ball again, and laid it on your pillow. In the dark, I could almost imagine that it was your head, lying there.

Which led me to search for more of you. I vacuumed and swept daily, desperate to retain every strand. When that didn’t produce enough, I checked the shower drain. I’d cleaned the tub since your departure, of course, but only the surface. No, to find you, I pulled up the grate and checked down inside the drain itself. Sure enough, there you were, mixed in with bits of myself. This hair retained none of your texture or smell. It was cold and wet and slimy with residue soap scum, but I put some tissue paper on the sink and spread the hair out on it to dry. When it had, I was able to separate us both from the filth, and then separate you from myself. It was easy enough to do. My hairs were short and coarse. Yours were long and beautiful.

I added those hairs to the ones in the bed, and that night, with the lights off and a sliver of moonlight shining in through the window, I could almost believe that you were there. It looked quite like the profile of your head, neck, and shoulders. I slipped an arm around you, and snuggled close. Your hair tickled my nose. I breathed you in and gave you a goodnight kiss and told you how much I loved you and missed you. I told you then that I’d been wrong, that I’d made a mistake. That it hadn’t been you. It was me. I begged you to come back, but I knew you wouldn’t.

Your hair grew wet with my tears.

It still wasn’t enough. I needed more of you. All of you. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any more left. Every remaining trace of you is either packed up in that storage unit or laying there in our bed.

I think about that lovely head of hair. I bet it’s still growing, longer than ever before. They say that happens, you know. That the hair and the fingernails keep growing.

Tonight, I’ll take a drive out to the woods, and hike in to the place where I buried you, and I’ll find out.

And then, I promise that I’ll bring you back home.

STORY NOTE: Not much I can say about this one that I didn’t already say in the story. My girlfriend (author Mary SanGiovanni) and I broke up, and I drew on that pain and channeled it right onto the page. This tale was the result. Before it was published, I decided to test the story out on a live audience. My friend and occasional co-writer Nick Mamatas and I were slated to give a reading at the legendary KGB Bar in New York City. After I’d been introduced to the standing-room-only crowd, I took to the podium and read this. Afterward, many of those in the crowd said they were going home to kill themselves. I hope that means they liked it. Mary and I got back together about seven months after. And we’re still together now, as I write this, so there’s a happy ending for you.

LOST CANYON OF THE DEAD

The desert smelled like dead folks.

The sun hung over our heads, fat and swollen like that Polish whore back in Red Creek. It made me sweat, just like she had. The air was so thick, it felt like we were breathing soup. The heat made the stench worse. Our dirty handkerchiefs, crusted with sand and blood, were useless. They stank almost as bad as the desert. Course, it wasn’t the desert that stank. It was the things chasing us.

We’d been fleeing through the desert for days. None of us had a clue where we were. Leppo knew the terrain and had acted as our guide, but he died of heatstroke on the second day, and we shot him in the head before he got back up again. We weren’t sure if the disease affected folks who’d died of natural causes, but we figured it was better to be safe than sorry. Since then, we’d been following the sun, searching the horizons for something other than sand or dead things. Our canteens were empty. So were our bellies. We baked during daylight and froze at night.

All things considered, I’d have rather been in Santa Fe. I knew folks there. Had friends. A girl. From what we’d heard, the disease hadn’t made it that far yet.

Riding behind me and Deke, Jorge muttered something in Spanish. I’ve never been able to get the hang of that language, so I’m not sure what he said. Sounded like, ‘There’s goats in the swimming hole’ but it probably wasn’t.

I slumped forward in the saddle while my horse plodded along. My tongue felt like sandpaper. My lips were cracked and swollen. I kept trying to lick them, but couldn’t work up any spit.

“They still back there?” I was too tired to turn around and check for myself.

“Still there, Hogan,” Deke grunted. “Reckon they don’t need to rest. Don’t need water. Slower we go, the closer they get.”

I wiped sweat from my eyes. “We push these horses any harder and they’re gonna drop right out from under us. Then we’ll be fucked.”

Behind us, Janelle gasped at my language. I didn’t care. According to the Reverend, it was the end of the world. I figured rough language was the least of her worries now.

“The good Lord will deliver us,” the Reverend said. “Even you, Mr. Hogan.”

“Appreciate that, Reverend. Give Him my thanks the next time you two talk.”

Deke rolled his eyes. I grinned, even though it hurt my lips.

We were an odd bunch, to be sure. Deke and I had come to Red Creek just a month ago. We’d bought ourselves a stand of timber there, and were intent on clearing it. Jorge had worked at the livery. The Reverend was just that—had himself a tent on the edge of town and gave services every Sunday. Terry was just a kid. Couldn’t have been a day over fourteen. No hair on his chin yet. But he shot like a man, and I was pretty sure that he was sweet on Janelle. It was easy to see why. Women like her were hard to find in the west. Janelle was from Philadelphia. Come to Red Creek after marrying a dandy twice her age. Don’t know if she really loved him or not, but she’d certainly carried on when those corpses tore the old boy apart in front of the apothecary like a pack of starved coyotes.

Red Creek wasn’t a big town, but it was large enough that none of us had known each other until we fled together. Except for me and Deke, we were strangers, thrown together by circumstance. That made for an uneasy ride.

The first any of us heard of the disease was when a man stumbled into town one night, feverish and moaning. There was a nasty bite on his arm, and a chunk of flesh missing from his thigh. The doc took care of him as best he could, but the poor bastard died just the same. Before he did, he told the doc and his helpers about Hamelin’s Revenge. That’s what folks back east were calling it, on account of some story about a piper and some rats. They say that the disease started with rats. They overran an Indian reservation back east, which wasn’t a surprise, as far as I was concerned. I’d seen the conditions on those reservations, and figured those people would be better off sleeping at the bottom of an outhouse. It was a terrible way to live. The thing is, these weren’t no ordinary rats. They were dead. Guts hanging out. Maggots clinging to their bodies. But they still moved. And bit. And whatever they bit got sick and died. Mostly, they bit the Indians. The Indians took ill and died off, and the government didn’t seem to care—until the Indians came back and started eating white folks. But by then, it was too late.

The man told the doc about this, and then died. Doc got some of the town bigwigs together, and while they were having a meeting about it, the dead fella got back up and ate the doc’s helpers. Then they came back and started eating folks, too.

Hamelin’s Revenge spread fast, hopping from person to person. Other species caught it, too. Before we hightailed it out of Red Creek, I saw dead horses, dogs, and coyotes attacking townspeople in the streets. And lots of dead people, of course. By then, there were more corpses stumbling around than there were live folks. Lucky for us, the dead moved slowly. Otherwise, we’d have never escaped. Even then, it wasn’t easy. They swarmed, trapping us inside the saloon. We had to fight our way out, and we burned most of Red Creek down in the process.

How do you kill something that’s already dead? Shooting them in the head seems to work. So does smacking them in the head with a hammer or a pick-axe or a length of kindling. You can fire six shots into their chest and they’ll keep on coming. You can chop off their arms and legs and they’ll keep wriggling like a worm on a hook. But get them in the head, and they drop like a sack of grain.

I glanced up at the sky, squinting. The sun hadn’t moved. It felt like we hadn’t, either. Our horses shuffled through the sand, wobbling unsteadily. Janelle coughed. I turned around to see if she was okay. She fanned her hand in front of her nose. When she saw me looking at her, she frowned.

“They’re getting closer, Mr. Hogan, judging by the stench.”

“I know.”

“Well, what do you intend to do about it?”

I looked past her, studying the horizon. There were hundreds of black dots in the distance. Each dot was a dead thing—the population of Red Creek, and then some. Every infected animal had joined in the pursuit, too. I’ll give the dead one thing—they’re determined sons of bitches.

“I intend to keep moving,” I told her. “Stay ahead of them. We don’t have enough bullets to kill them all, and even if we did, I reckon they’re out of range. Ain’t none of us gunslingers. Even if we were, nobody’s that good of a shot—not even your boyfriend there.” I nodded in Terry’s direction. The boy blushed.

Scowling, Janelle stuck her nose into the air. I turned around again, trying to hide my grin. Deke chuckled beside me.

“She’s taken a shine to you,” he whispered.

I shrugged. It took a lot of effort to do so. I was trying to work up enough energy to respond, when something ahead of us caught my eye. The flat landscape was broken by a smattering of low hills. It looked like God had just dropped them right there in the middle of the desert. Jorge must have seen it too, because he jabbered and pointed.

“Look there.” Deke patted his horse’s flank. “We could hole up atop one of them hills. Make a stand. Shoot them as they climb up.”

“Until we run out of bullets,” I reminded him. “Then we’d be surrounded.”

“We could drop boulders on them.”

“Don’t know about that, but I reckon we’ll make for those hills, anyway. Maybe if those things lose sight of us, they’ll give up. Or maybe there’s something on the other side.”

“Water?” Terry’s tone was hopeful.

Before I could answer him, the sky got dark. We glanced upward. Janelle screamed. Jorge made a kind of choking sound. Deke and Terry gasped. The Reverend muttered a prayer. I just stared in shock.

The sky was full of dead birds. They moved like they were still alive, circling and careening as one, but slow. Parts of them kept falling off. They stank. The flock headed right for us, dropping down like hail.

“Ride!” I dug my heels into my horse’s sides, hoping she had more energy than I did. Apparently she had some reserves, because she took off like lightening, stirring up clouds of dust beneath her hooves. Deke’s mare did the same, keeping pace with us. The others rumbled along behind us. I looked around for some cover, but there wasn’t any.

“Head for them hills,” I shouted. “Might be some trees or a cave.”

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure that Jorge understood the plan, and what I saw stopped me cold. Janelle sat motionless, face upturned, gaping at the flock of dead birds. Her horse danced nervously beneath her. Terry held onto her horse’s reins and kept his own mount in check. He was urging Janelle to flee, but if she heard him, she gave no sign.

As I rode up to them, Terry fumbled with his shotgun. His hands were shaking and he was having one hell of a time freeing it. I grabbed his arm. He looked up at me and I saw the fear in his eyes. It echoed my own.

“Don’t bother,” I said. “All you’ll do is waste ammunition. Skin on out of here.”

He glanced at Janelle. “But Miss Perkins—”

“I’ve got her. You go on and ride.”

He stared at me, clearly reluctant to leave Janelle’s side. I reckon he had visions of coming to her rescue and then she’d repay him by sharing his bedroll if we ever found a safe place to make camp, but I went ahead and crushed those dreams. We didn’t have time for nonsense.

“Go on, now.” I slapped his horse on its rear. “Get!”

It took off after the others, and I turned to Janelle. I seized her horse’s bridle and gave it a tug. The mare whinnied, baring her teeth. Janelle did the same thing. I hollered at them both as the birds drew closer. I don’t reckon Janelle heard me over the terrible racket the dead birds were making.

Frustrated, I turned my horse around and kept a grip on Janelle’s mount, too. My other hand clutched my Colt. I knew it was pointless as a defense against the birds, but having it in my hand made me feel better. I squeezed my mount with my legs and prodded her on, hoping Janelle’s mare would keep up with us.

She did—for about the first two hundred yards. Then fatigue, heat, and thirst took their toll. She stumbled, snorted, and then sagged to the ground. She didn’t fall. If she had, that might have been it for Janelle and I both. Instead, the horse sort of eased down. I snatched Janelle from the saddle and plopped her down behind me. She slapped my shoulders, pulled my hair, and insisted we go back for her horse. I ignored her. Gritting my teeth, I spurred my mount on even harder.

I only looked back once. What I saw made me glad and sad at the same time. Screeching and squawking, the dead birds fed on Janelle’s horse, covering it from head to toe, pecking at its eyes and flesh. But they weren’t chasing us anymore, now that they had easier pickings.

Deke and the others waited for us. I shouted at them to go on. Wasn’t any sense in wasting our momentary advantage. The birds would strip that carcass soon enough. Then they—and whatever was left of Janelle’s horse—would be back after us again, along with all those other dead things loping along behind us.

We caught up with them and I found myself in the lead again. Deke and Jorge flanked me. Terry and the Reverend rode along behind. I kept my eyes on the foothills and said nothing, but I noticed the wounded, hurt look that Terry gave Janelle and me.

The day grew hotter. I wished it would rain.

•    •    •

We lost Jorge’s horse before we reached the hills. The rest of our mounts were stumbling badly, the last of their strength spent. Jorge wept as he took a hatchet to the poor animal. I wondered how he managed the tears. I was so dry, I couldn’t spit, let alone cry. We all dismounted, leading our horses the rest of the way. I didn’t much cotton to the idea, but it was either that or let them keep dropping out from underneath us. Janelle complained about having to walk, but none of us paid her any mind, except for Terry, who offered to carry her. He blushed, withering under her scornful glare while the rest of us chuckled at the image of Janelle riding piggyback on his shoulders across the desert.

The terrain changed, becoming rockier. Soon enough, we reached the foothills. Deke stopped us, shading his eyes with his hands.

“Ya’ll see what I see?”

We looked where he was pointing, and I whistled.

“I’ll be damned.”

There was a narrow canyon entrance wedged between two of the hills. The landscape seemed to arch over it, and for a moment, it almost looked like a door. Then I wiped the sweat from my eyes and looked again. Nope. No door. Just sloping canyon walls, shadowed and probably a lot cooler than where we were standing.

“Let’s make for that,” I said. “At the very least, it’ll get us out of the sun for a spell, and give us a place to hide. Might even be a stream or a pool.”

The others seemed to brighten at this. They picked up their pace. Even the horses seemed to sense that our luck was changing. They trudged forward with renewed strength. I looked back the way we’d come. There were a few birds circling in the haze. From that distance, I couldn’t tell if they were dead or not, but they weren’t heading in our direction. There were, however, three small objects limping across the desert. Judging by their size and movements, I figured them for dead dogs or coyotes. They were too far away to be any real danger, but I figured we should put some distance between them and us.

We made our way into the canyon mouth, and again, I was reminded of a door. We went single file—Deke and me in the lead, and Jorge and Terry bringing up the rear. A cool breeze dried the sweat on my forehead. I smiled. Despite everything we’d been through, I suddenly felt better than I had in days. Underneath those sloping cliff walls, the sun couldn’t touch us. With luck, the dead wouldn’t either.

The passage narrowed. There was a slight but noticeable downward descent. It went on like that for a while. Then the walls pressed closer. I was just starting to doubt that we’d be able to squeeze the horses through it when the canyon rounded a corner and opened wide.

I stood there gaping, half-convinced that what I was seeing was a mirage, until Deke cleared his throat behind me.

“Get a move on, Hogan. What’s the hold up?”

“See for yourself.”

I moved my mount aside so that they could come through. One by one, they walked out of the narrow fissure and stopped, sharing my reaction.

“This sure ain’t on no map I’ve seen,” Deke whispered.

“No,” I agreed. “I don’t reckon it is.”

Spread out before us, from one horizon to the other, was the biggest damned valley I’ve ever seen. It was filled with all kinds of trees and plants—things that had no business growing in the desert. The lush, green foliage was quite a shock after the barren wasteland we’d just crossed. A broad, clear stream ran through the center of the valley—not quite a river, but too big to be a creek. The air in the valley was different. It smelled just like the aftermath of a thunderstorm, and it was more humid, but not as hot as the desert had been. Although we couldn’t see any, the trees and bushes echoed with the sounds of wildlife—deep-throated rumblings and shrill bird-calls like nothing I’d ever heard before. Understand, this wasn’t just some desert oasis. This was an entire hidden valley, nestled between the surrounding canyon hills. The terrain was unlike the rest of the desert. I couldn’t figure out how such a thing could be.

The Reverend must have been thinking the same thing, because he said, “If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was back home.”

“Why’s that?” Terry asked.

“Because it reminds me of the forests back in Virginia. But that can’t be right.”

“It’s an oasis,” Deke said. “Has to be.”

“Too big for that,” I told him. “It’s a whole valley.”

Janelle stared at the treetops, swaying in the breeze. “How is this possible? Wouldn’t someone in Red Creek have known about this?”

“Does it matter?” Deke shrugged. “Whether they knew about it or not, we’re here now. I reckon the Reverend ought to thank God for us, cause as far as I’m concerned, our prayers have been answered. We’ve got shelter, shade, food, and water. These trees will hide us from those dead birds.”

We led the horses down to the stream. The thick undergrowth slapped our legs and brushed against our faces. Clouds of mosquitoes and gnats buzzed around our eyes and ears, but we didn’t pay them any mind. Unlike the dead, the bugs only ate a little bit.

The horses drank eagerly. We did the same, laughing and splashing. The water was cold and clear, which struck me as odd. There’d been no snow atop the hills. Running in from the desert, the stream shouldn’t have been so frigid. Drinking it made my teeth hurt, but I didn’t care. I gulped it down until my stomach cramped. Then I threw up and drank some more, splashing water across my face.

Whooping, Deke plunged into the stream and waded out until the water was up to his waist. Terry, Jorge and I stripped off our gear and followed him. I turned back to Janelle and the Reverend, who were watching us from the bank.

“Come on in,” I said through chattering teeth. “The water’s fine.”

“I doubt that.” Janelle smiled. “Your skin is turning blue.”

“Hell,” Deke laughed. “My damn balls are shriveling up.”

We all chuckled at that, even Janelle. Terry and Jorge splashed each other. Deke ducked below the surface and came up sputtering. I motioned to Janelle and the Reverend.

“Seriously, ya’ll should come in.”

“I’m fine here,” Janelle said. “It wouldn’t be ladylike.”

The Reverend shook his head. “I’m afraid that I can’t swim, Mr. Hogan.”

“It ain’t that deep,” Deke told him.

Before the Reverend could respond, Jorge interrupted.

“What’s he saying?” Deke asked.

Jorge put one finger to his lips and cupped his ear with his other hand.

“I don’t hear nothing,” Terry said.

The bushes along the stream bank rustled. The horses whinnied and glanced around, stomping their feet. I reached for my pistol, realizing too late that I’d left it on the shore with the rest of my gear. Then the undergrowth parted and Janelle and the Reverend both screamed.

I was expecting another dead thing—maybe a horse or a person—but what charged out of the bushes was no corpse. It was the biggest damn lizard I’d ever seen—and it was alive. It stood on its hind legs, towering over the horses, about fifteen feet long from head to tail and probably weighing a ton. Despite its size, the thing moved fast. Arms outstretched, it ran on two legs towards Janelle and the Reverend. Each hand had three fingers. The middle fingers were equipped with claws the size and shape of a grain sickle. It had a big head and an even bigger mouth full of arrowhead-sized teeth. Its tongue flicked the air as it made a hissing, throaty sort of roar.

Shrieking, Janelle dove into the stream. The Reverend ran after her. I noticed that he’d pissed his pants. He paused, glancing back and forth from the water to the lizard, as if trying to decide which one he feared the most.

The creature slashed the throat of Terry’s mount. Spraying blood, the poor horse took two faltering steps and then fell over. The other horses scattered. As they did, three more giant lizards emerged from the bushes and attacked them. The cries the horses made as they were slaughtered was one of the worst sounds I’ve ever heard.

We hurried to the far side of the stream while the lizards busied themselves with their kills, tearing and ripping, sticking their snouts into the horses’ abdomens and rooting around. I glanced back and noticed that the Reverend had waded into the water up to his knees. He stood there trembling, watching in horror as the lizards feasted.

“Come on,” I shouted. “While they’re distracted!”

He shook his head.

“Somebody has to help him,” Janelle said. “One of you get back over there.”

“The hell with that,” Deke said, wading onto the shore. “I ain’t even going back for my gear. You think I’d go back for him?”

Janelle gasped. “He is a man of God.”

“Then I reckon God will keep him safe,” Deke replied. “Either that, or he’ll meet God real soon.”

“I’ll get him.” Terry splashed into the stream.

Cursing, I jumped in after him.

“Hogan,” Deke yelled. “Where the hell are you going? Get back here!”

“Our guns are over there,” I told him. “We’re going to need them.”

That was my excuse, anyway. Deep down inside, I wondered if I was doing it for Janelle, instead. I waded after Terry. We made it about halfway across the stream before pausing. The lizards were still eating. So far, they’d ignored the Reverend. He stood there, glancing back and forth between them and us. His chin quivered and his legs shook.

“Come on, Reverend.” I waved at him, trying to keep my voice low. The movement attracted the attention of one of the lizards. It raised its bloody snout and snorted, cocking its head sideways and studying Terry and me. I’d been charged by a bull once, while crossing a pasture. The lizard had the same look in its eyes as the bull right before it charged.

“Terry,” I whispered, “don’t move. Just stay still.”

He nodded. The color drained from his face.

“Reverend,” I said, keeping my voice calm and steady. “You need to get in this creek right now. It don’t matter if you can’t swim. Terry and I will carry you. But get your ass over here.”

Nodding, he inched forward. The water rippled around his knees. His lips moved in silent prayer. His eyes were closed.

“That’s it,” I whispered. “Easy now. Nice and slow.”

I glanced at the lizards. All four of them watched us now. They stood stiff and tense, ready to spring. One of them was missing an eye. The left side of its face was a mass of scar tissue leftover from some long-ago fight.

“Giants in the Earth,” the Reverend muttered. “Leviathan.”

It was hard to hear him over the churning water. “What?”

“It’s a Bible verse, Mr. Hogan. There were giants in the Earth in those days.”

“Only verse I know is ‘Jesus saves’. Reckon I’ll take your word for it.”

He stopped, gasping as the water reached his crotch. One of the lizards crept towards the stream.

“C-cold,” the Reverend stammered. “It’s so cold.”

“That’s okay. We’ve got you. Terry, give him a hand.”

“Hogan,” Deke called.

“Little busy right now,” I said.

The lizard on the bank lowered its head and sniffed the spot where the Reverend had been standing. The other three turned away from us and stared into the forest. I followed their gaze and saw why. The three dead coyotes I’d noticed earlier had followed us into the canyon. Now they stood under the tree line, watching us with blank, lifeless eyes. One of them was missing an ear. Another’s broken ribs were sticking through its fur. They didn’t pant. Didn’t growl. They just stared. Flies hovered around them in clouds.

“Oh hell,” Terry said.

The Reverend’s eyes grew wider. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

He started to turn around, but I stopped him.

“Never you mind. Just give Terry your hand. Let’s get out of here before they decide to have us for dessert.”

As Terry reached for the Reverend’s trembling hand, the lizard on the bank leaped into the stream, splashing water over our heads. At the same time, the dead coyotes lumbered into the clearing. The other three lizards went for them. The one with the missing eye seized a coyote in its massive jaws and shook the corpse back and forth.

The Reverend and Terry both slipped, sinking below the surface. They came up sputtering and flailing. The Reverend clung to Terry’s shoulders, almost dragging him back down again. The lizard surged forward, squealing. I splashed water at it in an attempt to scare it off, but all I did was make it swim faster.

“Let go,” Terry choked. “Can’t breathe...”

Sobbing, the Reverend clutched him tighter. They both went down again, and then the lizard was on them, close enough that I could feel its breath on my face. It smelled like rotten meat. Its jaws closed around Terry’s head and lifted him out of the water. His legs and arms jittered, and I could hear him screaming inside its mouth. The creature gutted him from groin to neck with one of those sickle-shaped claws, while holding the Reverend beneath the surface with its hind legs. Terry’s guts splattered into the water.

On the far shore, Janelle, Deke and Jorge screamed. I backpedaled, unable to take my eyes off the slaughter. The lizard was busy with Terry and the Reverend, and paid me no mind. Neither did the other three. They feasted on the horses and coyotes.

I stumbled out of the stream and shouted at the others to run. Without looking back, we plunged into the forest, panicked and terrified. Soon, the greenery swallowed us.

•    •    •

We made camp inside of a hollowed out tree. I’d never seen anything like it before, though I’d heard tell of some big trees out in California, and reckoned this might be like them. It was large enough for the four of us to sit inside comfortably. The top had snapped off at some point, but the trunk was still standing. We were able to fashion a crude roof using leaves and branches. There were bugs inside—beetles and ants and such—bigger than any I’d ever seen, but harmless. Janelle was afraid of them, but she was more afraid of what might be lurking outside.

All we had was what had been in our pockets—a bit of paper and a pencil, Deke’s compass, a pouch of chewing tobacco, Janelle’s frilly lace handkerchief, some money, and other odds and ends. It got cold after the sun went down. We had no matches or flint. We huddled together for warmth. Janelle fell asleep with her cheek resting on my shoulder. When she breathed, her breasts rubbed against my arm, soft and warm. That made everything we’d been through almost worth it.

A few lizards passed by, close enough for us to see them. None of them were like the ones from the creek. One was the size of a cow, with a long neck and even longer tail. It sniffed around the base of the tree, but was more interested in eating leaves than it was in us. Another one, a baby judging by its size, had a bill like a duck. One of the creatures shook the ground as it lumbered by. Trees snapped, crashing to the earth. We saw its legs and hind end, but not the rest of it. Some of the lizards had feathers. Most didn’t. Right before sundown, the forest got real dark as something flew overhead. I poked my head out and looked up. Through the branches, I caught a glimpse of a flying creature with a fifteen-foot wingspan. It reminded me more of a bat than a bird.

We stayed there all night. We didn’t talk much. When we did, it was in short, hushed whispers so we wouldn’t attract attention. Janelle and Deke slept. Jorge shut his eyes, but opened them every time there was a noise from the forest. Deke cried in his sleep, but I didn’t mention it to him. After all, I cried, too. Only difference was my eyes were open.

•    •    •

“What are they?” Janelle asked the next morning.

“Big damn lizards,” Deke told her.

“I know that. But where did they come from?”

“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “Ya’ll know about these big bones in the rocks that folks dig up out of the ground, right?”

“Sure,” Deke replied. “There’s rich people who collect them.”

Janelle nodded. “They’re called fossils—all that remains of the dinosaurs.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s the word. I reckon these lizards are living versions of those fossils. They’re dinosaurs.”

“The Reverend might have disagreed with you on that,” Deke said. “He seemed to think they were something out of the Bible. I don’t remember any dinosaurs in the good book.”

“Well, the Reverend’s dead. I don’t reckon he’ll be any more help.”

Janelle frowned. “You should be more respectful of the dead, Mr. Hogan.”

“I usually am. But our recent experiences with the dead have soured me a bit. It’s hard to be respectful of something when it’s trying to eat you.”

“But the Reverend wasn’t like those dead.”

“No, he wasn’t. I reckon he was one of the lucky ones.”

“You’re forgetting one thing,” Deke said. “I thought dinosaurs were supposed to be extinct.”

“Somebody forgot to tell them that.”

Jorge glanced at each of us as we talked, clearly trying to follow the conversation. His expression was desperate. I smiled at him. He smiled back and then pointed outside.

“I’m with him,” Deke said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“We need to find our way back to the desert,” I agreed.

“But the dead are still out there,” Janelle said.

“They’re here in the valley, too,” I reminded her. “But there aren’t any dinosaurs in the desert. Given a choice, I’d rather take my chances with just the dead, rather than worrying about them both.”

Deke rubbed the whiskers on his chin. “You remember how to get back to the canyon entrance?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I got all turned around when we ran. I was hoping one of you knew the way.”

Neither Deke or Janelle remembered, and when we tried asking Jorge, he just stared at us in confusion and pointed outside again.

“Try your compass,” I told Deke. “Let’s get a bearing on where we are, and which direction we’ll need to go.”

He pulled it out, wiped condensation from the lens, and then stared at it.

“What’s wrong?” Janelle asked.

“Damned thing ain’t working,” Deke muttered. “It’s just spinning round and round, like it can’t find north.”

“Let me see.” I tried it for myself. Sure enough, the needle just kept spinning in a circle. I handed it back to him. “How much did you pay for that?”

“Five cents.”

“That was five cents too much.”

“It worked in the desert.”

“Well, it ain’t working now.”

Jorge pointed outside again.

“We can’t just go stumbling around through this valley,” Deke said. “We’ll get eaten.”

“That might be so,” I agreed, “but we can’t stay here, either.”

“Then what do you propose, Hogan?”

“I say we head for high ground. The valley is ringed by those hills. I say we get to the top of one of them, and then work our way back down to the desert. Should be easy without the horses.”

“That’s another problem,” Deke said. “With no mounts, how do we stay ahead of the dead once we make it out of here?”

I shrugged. “They’re slow. And judging by the shape those coyotes were in yesterday, I’d say the desert has been harder on them than it was on us. Long as we keep moving, we should be able to outpace them. With any luck, they’ll fall apart before too much longer.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Janelle asked.

I didn’t have an answer for her. None of us did.

•    •    •

Soon as it was light, we crept outside and held our breath. When nothing charged out of the undergrowth, we relaxed. I shimmied up a tree and got a fix on our location. The hills were there on the horizon, ringing the valley. Pale clouds floated above them, almost touching their tips. I saw a few dinosaurs—long-necked, soft-eyed things with square, blunt teeth, chewing on the treetops. They reminded me of cows. Just a lot larger. I shuddered, watching them warily. Big as they were, they could have reached me in no time. Luckily, they paid me no attention.

We set off on our trek through the valley. I took the lead, followed by Deke and Janelle. Jorge brought up the rear. We went slowly, communicating with each other through hand gestures. The forest was full of animal noises, but they weren’t sounds that I recognized. There were croaking, raspy grunts and long hisses and chirps that sounded almost, but not quite, like bird-songs.

The first sound we recognized was a tree snapping—a loud crack, like a schoolmarm’s paddle smacking someone’s behind. We couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from. Then we heard it crash to the ground. The forest floor vibrated with the impact. Another tree snapped. We caught a glimpse of the thing— a tail as long as a stagecoach and hind legs taller than a barn. It was walking away from us. We hurried straight ahead, not wanting to attract its attention. We moved so fast that we didn’t see the dead dinosaur until it lurched out of the undergrowth.

Janelle’s shriek echoed through the valley. Deke and I dove to the side. Jorge stood there gaping as it towered over him, staring down at him with one good eye. I recognized the lizard right away. It was the same one we’d encountered the day before. The missing eye and the scars on its face were unmistakable. When we’d last seen it, the dinosaur was still alive. Apparently, the dead coyote it had eaten hadn’t agreed with it, because now it was dead—infected with Hamelin’s Revenge. It already stank. A swarm of flies hovered around it. Its movements were sluggish, but it was still quick enough to catch Jorge. He tried to run, but it swiped at his back, plunging its talons into his skin and lifting him off the ground. Jorge jerked and jittered like a drunk at a square dance. He opened his mouth to scream and vomited blood instead. The lizard’s claws burst through his chest. Then the dinosaur ripped him in half.

I grabbed Janelle’s hand and forced her to run with me. Deke was at my side, breathing heavily. His cheeks were flushed. I wanted to ask him if he was all right, but couldn’t spare the breath. We plunged through the greenery, heedless of where we were going or what was around us. One-Eye lumbered after us. We couldn’t see him, but his steady, thudding footfalls kept pace.

The ground started to slope upward. The trees tilted forward, then thinned out. Janelle stumbled and fell, but I scooped her up in my arms and continued on. Deke’s face turned beet red. He was drenched with sweat.

“Not much further,” I panted. “Just keep climbing.”

They nodded. Janelle tapped my shoulder, indicating that she wanted down. She was wobbly when she first tried to stand, but soon regained her footing. We scrabbled upward. The vegetation thinned to scrub, and the soil turned rocky. Huge boulders thrust from the earth. I glanced back down into the forest and saw treetops swaying back and forth as One-Eye passed beneath them. Then he lurched into sight. Without pausing, he started up the hill, thundering toward us.

“It’s no use,” Deke sobbed, mopping his brow with his shirt-tail. “That thing’s dead. It won’t tire. It’ll just keep coming until we tucker out, and then get us.”

“I ain’t gonna let that happen,” I said.

“Well, how do you reckon you can stop it?” Deke glanced back down at the dinosaur, creeping closer but still a long way off. “We ain’t got any weapons.”

“Sure we do.” I smiled, patting the boulder next to me.

“Hogan, you’ve lost your damned mind.” Deke stumbled to his feet. “What are you gonna do? Spit at it?”

“No. When it gets closer, I’m gonna drop this rock on its head. That was your idea yesterday, remember?”

“Will that work?” Janelle asked.

I shrugged. “I reckon that depends on whether I hit him or not.”

We waited for it to get closer. Janelle got nervous, but I calmed her down, assuring her that my plan would work. And it did. When the dinosaur was right below us, close enough that we could smell it again and hear the insects buzzing around its corpse, Deke and I rolled the boulder out over the ledge and dropped it right on the lizard’s head. There was a loud crack, like the sounds the snapping tree trunks had made. One-Eye sank to the ground. The boulder tumbled down the hillside. After a moment, the twice-dead dinosaur did the same.

Cheering, Janelle and Deke both hugged me. Then, before I even realized what was happening, Janelle kissed me. Her lips were blistered and cracked from the sun, but I didn’t mind. I pulled her to me and kissed her back. We didn’t stop until Deke cleared his throat.

“We ought to get going,” he said. “I reckon there will be more like him coming along shortly.”

“You’re probably right,” I agreed. “Let’s go. I’ll race you both to the top.”

We scrabbled to the summit, laughing and talking about our good fortune. It occurred to me that we should feel bad about Jorge and the others, and I did, of course. But at that moment, I was just happy to be alive, and even happier about that kiss. I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Hope.

That sensation crumbled when we reached the summit. We stood there, unable to speak. Janelle began to cry. Instead of desert, spread out before us was more forest—an endless sea of green treetops swaying as things passed beneath them.

“No,” Deke whispered. “This can’t be right. This ain’t on any of the maps.”

I put my arm around Janelle. “I don’t think we’re on the maps anymore, Deke.”

Deep in the valley below, something roared. I glanced over my shoulder. Another dinosaur emerged from the forest. Its head was as big as a full-grown buffalo and its teeth were the size of tent pegs. It was obviously dead. It might have escaped extinction, but it couldn’t escape Hamelin’s Revenge. Death is funny that way. In the end, it gets us all.

As we ran, I wondered if one day, folks would dig our bones out of the ground like they had the dinosaurs, and if so, which kind of dead we’d be.

STORY NOTE: This tale first came about after Joe R. Lansdale asked me to write a story for an anthology he was editing. He wanted something “fun and retro-pulpy.” I wrote him this. Unfortunately, the story was too long, and there wasn’t room for it in the book. Joe and the publisher were nice enough to recommend the story to John Joseph Adams, who was editing an anthology of zombie stories called The Living Dead 2. John contacted me and the story found a home there, under the original title “Lost Canyon of the Damned”. It has since been adapted into a comic book, as well.

Although this story takes place in the Old West (or, at least, it does until they step through that dimensional doorway and end up in a world of dinosaurs), the virus that causes the zombie outbreak is the same as the one from my novels Dead Sea and Entombed. Consider it an alternate reality where the zombie apocalypse happened during the days of the Old West.

THE WHITE WORM

STORY NOTE: This note actually applies to the next two stories that follow—“The White Worm” and “A Darker Shade of Winter”.

Very early in my career, (late-1999, to be specific) a Canadian publishing company contracted me to develop a short horror novel for children, and to also write a short story (roughly 400 words long); both of which were supposed to be skewed toward a nine or ten-year old child’s reading level. These books were being produced in French for children living in Quebec. The way it worked was like this—I would write the short story in English, then they would hire a writer to adapt my story into a full-length, French-language short novel. My byline would appear on the short story, and I’d share credit on the novel in the form of ‘based on a story by Brian Keene’.

So, basically, all I had to do was write a short story for kids, agree to let someone else turn it into a French-language novel, and I’d get paid a handsome sum of $100. All of which I agreed to, because at that point in my career, I didn’t have a career. I’d sold a handful of short stories to a handful of fanzines, most of which had paid me in copies. The only real money I’d made was for a dozen newspaper articles I’d written, and one short story which I’d sold for pro-rates. I was living in Buffalo, and working two jobs (neither of which involved writing), and $100 was money I could use.

I wrote and submitted “The White Worm”. I received and signed a contract, got paid, and the check didn’t bounce so I used it to pay my car insurance bill. Then the publisher told me that they’d decided not to publish short stories, and instead, simply adapt them into the kid’s novels. I saw a cover design for the novel, and then I never heard from the company again, nor have I ever been able to find a record of the book actually being published. This was in the prehistoric days of the Internet, when your web-hosting service was in danger of getting eaten by a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and things like Google were just a twinkle in the New World Order’s eye. Years later, when Google was finally invented, I searched for the publishing company and discovered that they’d turned into an industrial supply business (same name, same owners, but a different product).

Writing is a strange gig.

I never bothered submitting “The White Worm” anywhere else, because (at the time) there weren’t many places I could sell it to. Boy’s Life was the only market I could think of, but they weren’t publishing horror stories. The following year, I instead adapted it into a much longer story for adults, called “A Darker Shade of Winter”. And I now present both stories here, side-by-side. You’ll see their common ground, but I think you’ll also agree that they are very different tales. I should also caution you that they are the work of a younger writer who was still struggling to find his voice, so (to my eyes, at least) they read pretty rough. Maybe you’ll feel differently. Maybe you won’t. But I can’t call this series of books The Complete Short Fiction of Brian Keene if I don’t actually include everything—even the ones that are rough around the edges.

It should also be noted that when these stories were written, the Internet was still new, and just starting to spread into most households. The second story’s references to modems and news reports about websites might seem more than a bit dated now, but I’ve resisted the urge to update the text.

Eric sniffled, blinking back tears as their laughter surrounded him. Ever since his family had moved here, Luke, Ron and Willie constantly teased him. Today, they’d chased him home from school, demanding his lunch money, ripping his backpack from his shoulders, tossing his books around, and pushing him down face first in the frozen mud.

“Look, the new kid is gonna cry.” Luke sneered, towering over him. “Crybaby!”

“Leave me alone,” Eric shouted, getting to his feet. He shoved past them, and bent to pick up his books. Willie, who was smaller than Eric, but had the others to hide behind, kicked Eric’s science textbook out into the street.

“We’re not done with you,” Ron called.

Wiping the tears off his muddy face, Eric ran home.

“Eric,” his mother shouted. “How many times have I told you not to slam the door?”

Eric slunk into the kitchen. His mother was busy feeding Janice, his baby sister. His father had his head buried in the newspaper.

“Look at you,” she scolded. “You’re a mess!”

“But...”

“No excuses, young man. Go to your room this second!”

“But Mom...”

“Eric, you heard your mother!” His father’s voice was stern.

Sadly, Eric went upstairs and switched on his computer. He’d asked for a dog for his birthday and got a computer instead. He didn’t mind. His parents paid attention to Janice. The computer paid attention to him. The computer didn’t beat him up or make fun of him.

Eric went online, looking for peace and quiet.

Two hours later, he found it. Magic words. A charm to summon ‘The White Worm,’ an ancient Norse creature that, according to a website, symbolized peace and quiet. Before he went to bed, Eric repeated the words on the site.

Outside, it began to snow.

•    •    •

“School is cancelled,” his mother said the next morning. “It snowed last night.”

Eric looked out the window. A blanket of white covered everything. But there was something else. Luke, Ron and Willie were hiding behind the bushes across the street.

“I’ve got to drop your sister at daycare and then your father and I have to work. Promise me that you’ll keep out of trouble.”

Eric promised that he would.

“The roads are slick and I’m late,” she said. “I’ll be home at three.”

After she left, the bullies shouted for him to come outside. Eric went to the window. They grinned as the snow continued to fall.

Then, something moved behind Ron. Something big and white, that tunneled beneath the snow like a gopher. Eric watched it approach the three. It slid up next to Ron. Luke and Willie were throwing snowballs at the house, and didn’t see him turn completely white, while the thing in the snow turned pink. Soon, more things burrowed toward them under the snow. Eric closed the curtain as Luke and Willie screamed.

The TV talked about the strange blizzard, until the power went out. The phone lines followed. His parents never came home.

That night, Eric sat in perfect silence, listening to the slithering sounds outside.

A DARKER SHADE OF WINTER

The dead homeless man lay next to a dead pigeon underneath the railroad bridge. Eric stepped over both, noticing in revulsion that the pigeon had been gnawed on. Suddenly, the dead man reached out and clutched Eric’s ankle.

“Watch where yer’ goin’ boy,” the man rasped, his voice like sandpaper. “People’s tryin’ to sleep here.”

“Leave me alone,” Eric shouted, trying hard to conceal his fright. “Let go of me or I’ll scream for five-oh!”

He jerked his leg backward, sprawling into the road. His Magic: The Gathering cards spilled onto the cracked pavement, scattering as the November wind barreled through the underpass. Eric glanced at the traffic light, two blocks away, just turning green. A string of headlights crept toward him. In the distance, a train whistle echoed mournfully, drawing closer.

The vagrant cackled with laughter as Eric scrabbled desperately to retrieve his cards. He’d owned them for exactly ten minutes, after trading some elementary kids for Pokemon cards at the comic book store. His hands, raw from the cold, scraped painfully on the rough surface of the road. He heard the cars drawing closer. Then the bridge began to hum overhead as the train bore down on them.

“Better git’ home, boy,” the old man warned. “Feels like snow is on the way.”

“Just leave me alone.”

He rescued the last card just as it floated toward a half-frozen puddle. The cars were upon them now and Eric leaped onto the sidewalk, carefully avoiding the reach of the crazy old man and his half-eaten pigeon dinner. The cars didn’t even slow as they hurried by.

“Yep,” the old man continued, oblivious to the traffic that sped by. “It’s gonna snow. I can feel it. You better hurry, kid. They’ll be coming.”

Despite his anger and fright, Eric paused. “Who, the police? If you don’t leave me alone they will be!”

The man howled at this, holding his sides until the laughter subsided. The railroad bridge throbbed, a rhythmic vibration that Eric felt deep inside his body.

“Not the fuzz, kid. The worms!”

“Worms?”

“You heard me. The worms.”

The old man plucked the dead bird from the ground with one bony hand. He held it aloft and Eric saw a ragged hole in the carcass’s chest. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like it had been chewed out from the inside.

“Jes’ like the one that was inside my friend here,” the old man said. “Except bigger. Lots bigger. And you can’t see ‘em. They come with the snow. All you have to do is call them. They...”

The rest of his rambling was drowned out as the freight train bulleted above them, roaring down the tracks. The old man screamed something as Eric turned and ran.

Three blocks later, he stopped, hands on his knees as he gasped in a lungful of frigid air. He heard a woman laughing nearby, and wondered if it was directed at him.

If so, he was used to it.

Shoving his hands back into his pockets, Eric leaned into the bitter wind and continued trudging toward home. They had moved to Buffalo three months ago, and he hated it here. He hated how rude the people were and how cold it was. Eric really hadn’t liked any place they’d lived before that, either. His stepfather was a disc jockey. He moved from station to station, and as a result, this was the sixth time the family had relocated. Eric’s mother was all for it and his little sister, Megan, was too young to care.

Eric’s parents had divorced when he was only three-months old. His real dad had always been there for him when he was little, but with high child support payments and a lack of steady employment, he’d switched apartments every few months. Just as Eric would get used to one place, he would visit the next weekend and his father would be living in another. The friends he’d made next door were suddenly gone and he’d have to repeat the process all over again.

When Eric was halfway through first grade, his mom met his step-dad, Brett. At first, Eric had really liked Brett. He didn’t think of him as his stepfather, but rather, his “other dad.” Within a few months, the two married. A month after that, they moved from Florida to New Jersey. Eric’s real father had tried to fight it, but he couldn’t afford a lawyer. When the dust settled, Eric’s time with his real father was whittled down to four weeks every summer. His dad called him every Wednesday night and on Saturday mornings they would sometimes watch cartoons together over the telephone. He sent him comic books every month and wrote him emails, but it wasn’t the same. His mother and Brett tried to accommodate Eric, and for a while they succeeded. But in second grade came another move and another school—this time in Connecticut—and patterns set in that would control every relationship Eric dared to establish. The birth of Megan had just made things worse. Now, Eric was lucky if his parents even had time to check his report card.

Eric hesitated to make friends, knowing deep down inside that he would lose them eventually. As a result, he became the target of every bully in every town that they had ever lived in. Tall and slight, Eric wasn’t built for fighting. Brett had tried to teach him how, and his real dad had tried to console him over the phone, but it had done no good. Bloody noses and torn book bags followed him from school to school.

He sighed, shivering as the wind crept through his jacket. At age eleven, Eric Carter felt like he was forty. Sometimes, he just wanted to die. Other times, he wanted everyone else to die.

He shuffled towards his house, trying to stay out of the sight of Tony and his crew. Tony was the latest bully. An abandoned parking lot faced the corner next to Eric’s
home. The lot was where Tony and his friends lurked. Eric didn’t blame them. They weren’t the types to hang out at the library or the comic book store, and there wasn’t much else to do in town. The mall wasn’t within walking distance and the Boys & Girls Club closed at six o’clock.

Eric heard them before he saw them. The heavy bass tracks of Master P thudded from a boom box, punctuated by the sound of muffled curses and laughter. Milling around in the sickly yellow glow of the lone spotlight, the group turned as Eric slinked by.

“Hey,” jeered Tony, “if it isn’t Eric Farter!”

This was greeted by raucous laughter from the other six, as if it was the funniest thing in the world. Eric had heard this variation on his name since he was in first grade, and he still winced each time it was used against him.

“Why don’t you come up with something original?” he shouted. “You freaking moron.”

“What’d you call me, punk?” Tony turned to his two main cronies, Jack and Vince. “Did you hear what he called me? I think Farter is looking for a beat down.”

Without another word, they dashed across the street. Their clamoring shouts and footfalls echoed in the darkness. Eric ran for the porch, yanked the door open, and then slammed it on their taunts.

“I’m home,” he called out from the foyer, struggling to unlace his boots with his numb fingers.

“Hush,” his mother admonished from the living room. “You’ll wake up your sister. I just got her to go to sleep.”

Eric wandered into the living room, and stood in front of the television. Brett looked up at him.

“It’s hard to see through you, Eric.”

Eric stepped out of the way, as a news reporter droned on from the television.

“Just as it did for hate groups and cults, the Internet has become a haven for websites promoting black magic and witchcraft...”

“Did you have fun at the comic store?” His mother’s gaze never left the television.

“Yeah,” Eric answered, excited. “I traded a kid for a first edition Serra Angel card! I finally got one.”

“That’s nice,” she grunted, still not looking up.

Brett fingered the remote and the television’s volume increased.

“This website for example, Elder Gods dot com, boasts a collection of ancient summoning spells that it claims are translated from a Sumerian text.”

“Brett, you’ll wake up Megan!”

“Well, I can’t hear it, honey!”

“I’m sorry that I’m home late,” Eric said.

“Oh?” His mother appeared puzzled. She glanced at the clock. “Oh yes—you are. We’ve talked about that Eric. You’ve got school tomorrow so you better get to bed now. Brush your teeth first.”

His heart sunk. He’d purposefully come home late and they hadn’t even noticed.

He gave his mother a kiss goodnight, noting that she never looked up from the television. Then, he retreated to his room. There, nothing mattered. He didn’t need friends. Didn’t need his family. He had his computer. Eric had wanted a dog for his
twelfth birthday, but Brett was allergic to animals. They’d given him the computer instead.

Black magic, he thought. That might be kind of cool to check out.

The modem sang him a lullaby and Eric lost himself in the comforting glow of his monitor.

•    •    •

Still blinking the sleep from his eyes, Eric shut his locker door and fell in love.

She stood right next to him and when their shoulders brushed, chills ran up his arm and his stomach fluttered away.

“Hi,” she said simply, and to Eric, her voice was like a song.

“Erm...” he replied.

She was the most beautiful girl Eric had ever seen. She had long, raven black hair that flowed down the back of her sweater. Elegant lashes surrounded deep green eyes that sparkled as she smiled at him. When she breathed in, her budding chest rose and Eric swooned. He felt short of breath.

“Um,” he said, following up his first reply.

“My name’s Rain. I’m new here.”

“Rain,” he repeated, marveling at the way it rolled off the tongue.

“You don’t have much practice talking, do you?”

“I’m sorry,” he stammered, heart pounding wildly in his chest. “I’m Eric. Eric Carter.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Eric Carter. Look’s like we’re neighbors.”

“Huh?”

“Our lockers,” she explained patiently. “We’re neighbors.”

“Oh, yeah,” he replied, the fact that this wonderful creature was actually talking to him starting to creep into his consciousness.

The spell was broken a second later.

“Hey Farter!” Tony’s shout echoed down the hall. “I wanna talk to you!”

“It was nice meeting you,” he mumbled, and slunk off to his homeroom.

“Rain...” he whispered it again as he took his seat and began another day of hell. This day, however, it didn’t seem as bad.

During the next week, Eric ignored the taunts of his classmates. He also forgot his teachers, his parents and everything else. His mind was occupied solely with the new girl. Rain was in both his Social Studies and his English class. Although they hadn’t spoken since their brief encounter, she never left his mind. He found himself staring at her from across the classroom, the teacher a distant buzz in the back of his mind. Eric would stare at her for so long that it was hard to breathe. Occasionally, she would catch him staring, and smile hesitantly at him before turning away. It was in these moments that Eric thought his heart would explode.

His parents were wrapped up in Megan’s world, watching her hesitant baby steps, glowing proudly over each coo and gurgle that Brett swore sounded like “Daddy”. Even Tony and his boys pretty much ignored him, preferring to play football in back of the school rather than hanging out in the parking lot. He only suffered their cruelty during lunch period now, and he was always careful to stay out of situations where Rain would witness it.

Eric was happy and miserable at the same time. He wanted so badly to think of something clever to say to Rain, something that would make her laugh. His knees turned to Jell-O when he considered asking her to the homecoming dance. He typed her a letter every night, clicking “delete” before he printed them out. She made him feel good but at the same time, his loneliness was amplified.

The only time Eric didn’t think about Rain was when he was online.

Elder Gods.Com turned out to be even cooler than he expected and was now on his list of favorites. For his last birthday, his real dad gave him a book by a guy named H.P. Lovecraft. Although some of it was a little tough to understand, Eric enjoyed it. The book had stories dealing with a race of monstrous beings that had come to earth thousands of years before the dinosaurs. Eric had expected these “Elder Gods” to be the same ones at the website. He’d been pleasantly surprised to find himself wrong.

The site was loaded with real magic spells that had been translated into English. The spells supposedly came from a book called DAEMONOLATERIA. There were spells to summon demons and incantations to banish them. Creatures with names like Meeble and Kat, Purturabo and Shtar. Eric searched long and hard for a spell to make a girl like you, but the closest thing he could find was a chant that was supposed to bring “icy peace and white quiet.”

—peace and quiet—

That sounded good to him. He filed it away in the back of his brain, and then collapsed on the bed. Images of Rain swirled through his mind as he fell asleep, dreaming of peace and quiet.

His dreams were white.

•    •    •

The wind blasted his face like frigid sandpaper as he walked home from the comic store again. The bum was in his usual spot, but this time he remained asleep as Eric crept by him. Just as he breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to continue home, the old man stirred.

“Hey, boy!” he hollered. “Whatch’u been messin’ with?”

Resolving not to turn around, Eric walked away. From behind him, he heard the homeless man totter to his feet. Eric spun around. The old man was limping unsteadily toward him.

“Leave me alone, you fucker!”

“I can smell it,” the old man rasped, sniffing the night air. “They comin’ soon. Maybe tonight! Leave it alone boy!”

“I mean it,” Eric said, taking another step backward. “Go away!”

The old man lunged for him. Eric ran.

“They’ll suck your juices out! The snow worms are coming!”

Eric ran until the bridge was out of sight and he was almost home. As he drew closer, he stopped. Wu-Tang reverberated from the playground, and he heard familiar voices above the music.

“Yo!” Vince shouted. “Tony, check it out, man.”

Eric cringed, preparing to run. There was somebody standing behind Tony, a girl. Her arms were wrapped around his bull-like neck. She placed another kiss on his cheek as Tony grinned.

“Oh no,” Eric gasped.

“He’s the little weirdo that keeps staring at me in class,” Rain told Tony.

“Is that so?” Tony’s sneer cleaved the air like a knife. He reached into his Buffalo Bills jacket. “You been messing with my girl, Farter?”

Bitter tears coursed down Eric’s face as the bottom dropped out of his world. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. It felt like someone had kicked him in the stomach. His head ached. His lips were throbbing. He’d never told her, but she had betrayed him anyway.

Tony pulled out the pistol.

Shock and disbelief gave way to fear as Eric found himself staring down the barrel of the gun. Tony thrust it against his nose, the cold metal sticking to his flesh. Eric began to sob.

“That’s a warning, Farter. I catch you staring at my girl again and I’ll bust a cap...”

A car turned onto the street, impaling them all in its headlights.

Eric ran, and didn’t stop until he reached his bedroom.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” his mother called up the stairs. “Are you okay?”

“Leave me alone!” he shouted into his pillow. As usual, she did.

An hour later, Eric turned on the computer and repeated the words on the screen.

After another hour, nothing happened. Eric collapsed into a dreamless sleep.

Outside, it began to snow.

•    •    •

His pillow was still wet when he awoke, and his mother was hovering over him.

“I don’t want to go to school today,” he pleaded. “I’m sick.”

She smiled, brushing his forehead with her hand. “Good news, honey. You don’t have to go to school today because there is no school. It snowed last night.”

“It did?”

“Yep. It’s still coming down. You don’t feel like you have a fever.”

“My stomach hurts, but I’ll be okay.”

She paused, staring into his eyes. “Eric, I know things have been rough on you lately and I’m sorry. It hasn’t been easy on any of us, but especially for you. How about I rent some movies on my way home tonight and we’ll watch them after dinner. You can pick anything you want.”

“The Matrix and Spider-Man,” he said without hesitation.

His mother grinned.

“I’ve got to get your sister to daycare or I’ll be late for work. Thank God the office gives us onsite childcare. All the other daycare centers are closed today. Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be alright. Maybe I’ll play video games.”

“Okay. I’ve got to go. Your father will be home around four-thirty and I’ll be home soon after that.”

She headed for the door.

“I love you, Mom.”

But she had already disappeared down the hallway to his sister’s room.

That was the last time Eric Carter ever saw his mother.

•    •    •

Eric hadn’t been fine. He’d collapsed, shivering uncontrollably after his mother had left. Going downstairs to turn up the heat, he fought back tears.

“Rain...”

He turned on the radio in the kitchen, searching for Howard Stern, something he was forbidden to listen to, which meant he did every chance he got. All he could find was the news. It was on every channel, the snow being the topic of the morning.

“Meteorologists are expressing complete surprise at the freak blizzard that blanketed Western New York with up to five feet of snow in some areas. The storm seemed to, quote, ‘come from thin air’, say’s National Weather Service spokesperson James Sager. The blizzard is now making its way down the East Coast with no end in sight.”

“Hey Farter!”

Eric winced. Cautiously, he peered out the window. The dazzling brilliance of the sun glinted off the fresh snow, blinding him for a moment. It was everywhere; huge mounds of fluffy white that covered everything and made the familiar landscape seem alien. Tony, Rain and the others were standing outside the house.

“Come on down, bitch!” Vince hollered.

“Yeah, come on out and play!”

“Leave me alone,” Eric whispered, and then he saw it.

Across the street, where the ebony asphalt had been replaced with ivory powder, something was moving toward them.

Something under the snow.

Eric was reminded of a cartoon gopher, burrowing beneath the ground and leaving a funnel of dirt on top. The snow parted in an impossibly long line as the thing silently bore down on them.

Tony was in the rear of the group and only Eric saw it as it happened. While the others jeered at Eric, Tony froze, a look of mild shock crossing his sloping brow. He turned pale, then chalky, then alabaster as the color drained from his face.

Jack turned to investigate why his leader wasn’t joining in on the fun and screamed. The snow around Tony’s feet was splattered with crimson. There was another quick movement from beneath the snow and then Vince shrieked in horror as he was jerked off his feet. As he went down, Eric caught a glimpse of a twisting coil, pink veins spider-webbing through its white length.

More of the things were converging on them now and Eric quickly shut the curtain. He thrust his fingers into his ears as Rain began to scream.

Across town, a fire siren began to wail.

The snow continued to fall, covering the red stains.

When Eric tried to call 911, he got a busy signal. After twenty minutes of trying, he gave up.

His family never came home that night.

The television, radio and internet were alive with reports of the snow worms, until the power went off shortly after five in the afternoon.

Darkness came and all was peaceful and quiet. The only sounds were that of the snow, softly hitting the windowpanes. And the slithering sound beneath it.

Eric opened the door and stepped outside.

HOUSE CALL

STORY NOTE: The following tale features Levi Stoltzfus, a recurring character in a series of novels I’ve written. If you’ve never read those novels, that’s okay. All you need to know is that Levi was excommunicated from the Amish community and now acts as an occult detective, healing the sick and protecting mankind from the supernatural. He is adept at many different forms of magic, particularly the folk art of powwow.

The knock at the front door came just as Levi Stoltzfus was sitting down to a simple and meager dinner of cornbread, kidney beans and milk. The sound surprised him, simply because he hadn’t anticipated it. Whoever the caller was, they’d somehow made it past his various circles of protection, wards and other alert mechanisms and methods of intruder prevention. At the very least, Crowley, his faithful hound, should have barked from his doghouse in the backyard, alerting Levi to the visitor’s presence. But Crowley was silent.

Not so the guardian just inside Levi’s foyer. He got up from the dining room table and moved into the living room. The guardian was there, unseen but felt, a coiled length of darkness hidden amongst the shadows where the wall met the ceiling. Had anyone entered the home with the intent of doing Levi harm, the guardian would act.

The rapping sound came again, patient but insistent. Levi wiped his mouth with a napkin and stroked his beard thoughtfully as he crossed the living room. Cornbread crumbs fell to the floor. He muttered a simple, short prayer as he reached for the knob. Then he opened the door.

A little girl stood there, staring up at him with dark, mournful eyes. Levi guessed that she was about six or seven years old. She looked vaguely familiar, and he thought it might be possible he’d seen her before. She wore a pair of faded denim shorts, a pink shirt, and scuffed sneakers. Her blond hair was done in pigtails. Levi noted these things remotely, for what interested him most was the girl’s aura.

She didn’t have one.

Every person had an aura. Since birth, Levi had been able to see them. Once they were aware of his ability, his father and his grandfather had taught him how to read people’s auras. The most important thing was the aura’s color, which varied greatly, encompassing the entire spectrum, except for black. Levi could determine if a person was healthy or ill, happy or sad, just by noting the color of their aura.

“Hello,” she said.

Levi nodded. “Hello, yourself. How can I help you?”

“Are you the doctor? My Mommy is sick.”

“Yes,” Levi said. And although he wasn’t a doctor in the traditional sense or in the eyes of the medical establishment, he was indeed a healer. Levi practiced a form of shamanism called Powwow, as his father and his father before him had done. He cured people using magic and methods from a book called The Long Lost Friend, as well as several other esoteric texts. Patients, mostly the elderly or the poor, came to him seeking treatments for various ailments and maladies. Sometimes they did this because they had no health insurance. Other times, it was because they didn’t trust the modern medical establishment. In his time, he’d dealt with everything from the common cold to arthritis to diarrhea. Occasionally, he was called upon for more serious matters; stopping bleeding or mending a broken bone. Despite his knowledge, Levi’s abilities had limits. There were no herbs or ingredients to combat cancer or other fatal diseases, for example. Only prayer could cure those things. Levi wasn’t always successful, either. He had experienced failures, and each one haunted him. But so far, his successes had far outweighed his failures.

“What is wrong with your mother?” Levi remained in the doorway. He did not invite the child inside.

“She’s sick,” the girl repeated. “She put something in a needle that she thought was medicine, but it’s really poison.”

Heroin, Levi thought. Or something just as despicable?

“Is she still conscious? Is she awake?”

“Yes.” The girl nodded. “But barely.”

“And where is she now?”

The girl pointed into the darkness. “At our house. It’s not far.”

“Give me one moment, and I will help you.”

Levi gathered his things—a brown leather kit bag and his beaten-up copy of The Long Lost Friend—and locked up the house. The girl waited patiently on the doorstep until he was finished. Then he led her out to the garage, half of which had been converted into a stable for his horse, Dee. The horse whinnied softly when she saw the girl, but Levi calmed her. Then he hooked her up to the buggy on the other side of the garage and motioned to the girl to climb aboard. She did so, and Levi reached out a hand to help her. When she placed her hand in his, her touch was cold.

“After I have helped your mother, would you like me to help you? Do you know how to get to where it is you should be?”

“Yes. But I don’t want to go there. My Mommy needs me.”

After that, they rode in silence. The girl spoke only to give him directions. The road was nearly empty of traffic, and the wind was chilly and damp. Despite this, neither Levi or the girl shivered. Dee’s hooves beat out a steady rhythm on the pavement.

Ten minutes later, they arrived at a trailer park on the outskirts of town. It sat nestled in a strip of woodland between the highway and the banks of the Susquehanna River. Most of the trailers were in various states of disrepair, and a few had notices from County officials posted on their doors listing them as condemned. Derelict cars and trucks sat in front of many of them, and the yards were full of junk and ceramic lawn ornaments.

The girl directed him to a trailer near the rear of the park. Its brown vinyl siding was dented and faded, and there were two holes in the roof that had been crudely patched with tin sheeting. A headless lawn gnome sat next to the cracked cement steps at the front door. One of the windows had been broken and was covered with a plastic trash bag that fluttered in the breeze. There were no lights on inside, nor any other signs of life.

“Can you help my Mommy?”

“I will certainly try my best.” Levi climbed down from the buggy and grabbed his bag. “Will you come inside with me?”

The girl shook her head, but didn’t respond. She stared straight ahead at the river, a glittering strip of blackness flowing through the night.

Levi went to the screen door and knocked. There was no answer. He counted to five and then knocked again. When there was still no response, he tried the knob. The screen door was unlocked, as was the main door. He opened them both and stepped inside.

Levi did his best not to gasp at the squalor. The living room was filthy and packed with debris—stacks of old newspapers and magazines, empty pizza cartons and Chinese take-out containers, crushed soda cans and plastic bottles, ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts—all of it sitting atop a layer of dirt. It was impossible to tell what the carpet’s original color had been. The furniture was mismatched and threadbare. Something that sounded like a rat rustled beneath the recliner. The only clean spot was atop the entertainment center, where a framed photo of a young woman and her daughter sat. The photo had obviously been dusted and cared for. In it, the two were smiling. Judging by the background, it had been taken in a park. Levi could see swings and a sliding board behind them. He recognized both of them. The little girl was the same one who had requested his help.

And the woman was currently passed out on the sofa, her mouth open, her eyes rolled back in her head, a needle jutting from her arm. Whispering a prayer, he went to the woman and knelt by her side. He gingerly removed the syringe, and after verifying that she hadn’t done any damage to the vein and wouldn’t bleed to death, he checked her vitals. The woman had a pulse, but it was very faint. Her breathing was shallow and erratic.

He grabbed her arm, placing his hands on both sides of the tiny puncture where the needle had been, and squeezed.

“By the blood of the lamb,” he said, “I wash you. May his blood enter you and wash the poison away. May his blood cleanse you. May his blood heal you. May it cover you both inside and out. May his blood become your blood. Ashti ento nemo. Ashti ento tamara. Ho-ti. Ensat!”

It was as if a surge of electricity had shot through his arms. The woman jerked in his grip and sat up so suddenly that Levi’s hands slipped from her arm. Coughing, she opened her eyes, saw him, and screamed.

“It’s okay,” Levi said. “I’m not here to hurt you. Calm down. I’m here to help.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“You may call me Levi Stoltzfus.”

“How the hell did you get in here? What’s going on?”

“The door was unlocked, so I entered freely. As for why I’m here, I only want to help.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You overdosed. I cured you.”

“Are you a doctor?”

He smiled. “Of sorts.”

“You look Amish.”

His smile faded. “I was... once. Now I’m something else.”

The woman sat up the rest of the way and glanced down at her arm. An ugly, purple bruise now marked the spot where the syringe had been. She turned her head, scanning the floor until she found the needle.

“You don’t want that,” Levi said.

“You’re right. I don’t.” Her tone was one of surprise. “What did you do to me?”

“I helped. But we’re not done. Not quite yet.”

He walked into the kitchen and searched through the pile of dirty dishes in the sink until he found a relatively clean coffee mug. Then he rinsed it out, filled it with water, and opened up his bag. He took out a small plastic bag filled with dried, green leaves and crushed a few into the water. Then he placed the mug in the microwave and pressed the button.

“What’s that?”

“Something that will make you feel better. Don’t worry. It’s all organic. Very healthy. What’s your name?”

“Olivia.”

“Do you live here alone?”

“No. I mean, I do now. I didn’t used to. My daughter... she...”

“Is that her in that picture on the entertainment center?”

Olivia nodded, wiping tears from her eyes. Her sobs were low and mournful.

The microwave beeped. Levi opened the door, retrieved the hot mug, and brought it to her.

“Careful,” he warned. “It’s hot. Don’t drink it. Just inhale the vapors.”

Wiping her eyes, Olivia did as she was told. Within seconds, her color began to return, and she looked healthier.

“Feel better?” Levi asked.

“I do.” Her eyes widened. “I haven’t felt this good in a long time. Not since...”

“What happened to your daughter, Olivia? If you don’t mind me asking?”

She bowed her head and stared at the mug, cupping it with both hands. When she spoke again, Levi had to strain to hear her.

“Her name was Cindy. We moved here after her father left us. Son of a bitch ran off with another man, if you can believe that. I wasn’t always like this, you know. I didn’t start using until after Cindy... until she...”

“It’s okay,” Levi soothed. “Go on.”

“We were here a year. I was working two shifts at the Danskin factory, and the neighbor, Mrs. Eldridge, babysat Cindy for me. But Mrs. Eldridge was old, and she used to fall asleep here on the couch. One night, while she was out, somebody snatched Cindy from the yard.”

As Olivia talked, Levi realized where he’d recognized the girl from. When she’d first appeared at his door, he’d thought she looked familiar. Now it all came back to him—a news report from a year ago. A young local girl, abducted, abused and then murdered down by the riverside. Her attacker had never been caught.

He turned his attention back to Olivia.

“I’m glad Cindy can’t see me like this. It would break my heart if she knew what I’ve turned into.”

Levi stayed with her for another hour. He checked her vitals and made sure she was feeling better, but mostly, he just listened. Confession was good for the soul, and it was Olivia’s soul that needed healing the most.

When he left, Cindy was gone.

He rode home alone.

SCRATCH

For Ed Gorman

There is an old adage that says April showers bring May flowers. I guess this is true, but with global warming, who really knows? Things are definitely different from how they were when I was younger. The last few years, I’ve seen deer ticks clinging to my dog in December, and fruit trees budding and blossoming in late February. When I was a kid, we had maybe six or seven snow days a year. I always looked forward to those—a day off school spent sledding down the big hill behind my parent’s house, staying out until my fingers, ears and nose were numb, and then coming back inside to find a mug of hot chocolate waiting for me, complete with little marshmallows.

These days, my son, Dylan, is lucky if he gets one full day off school due to inclement weather. Last year, they just had a few two-hour delays, and there was never enough snow for him to play in. You can’t make a snowman with powder and you can’t build a snow fort out of slush. The brand new sled I bought him at Wal-Mart sat in our garage all winter long, shiny and unused.

The weathermen and politicians argue about the cause, just like they do every year. Some say it’s global warming. Others say it’s El Nino. And still others say that it’s just part of a cycle—that these things happen every so often.

Perhaps that is true. Perhaps some things appear and disappear in cycles.

Regardless of your political or spiritual beliefs, I think there’s one thing that we can all agree on—Mother Nature is changing, and not for the better. There’s another old adage that we often hear—the more things change, the more they stay the same. But that wasn’t true last spring.

Last spring, everything changed and nothing’s been the same since.

A few nights before it happened, Dylan crawled up on my lap with one of those little paperback joke books, and asked, “Daddy, if April showers bring May flowers, then what do Mayflowers bring?”

I pretended that I’d never heard the joke before. “I don’t know. What?”

“Pilgrims!”

Then we laughed and played some video games together before I tucked him into bed.

That was the final good memory I have from last spring. After that, things were forever altered. Our backyard. The creek. My heart and mind. My beliefs. All of it just washed away.

Last year, the April showers brought the flood and destruction and death and permanent, irrevocable change.

And Old Scratch.

And when it was all over, the May flowers growing in our backyard seemed to pale in comparison to him.

•    •    •

My name is Evan Fisher. If you read comic books—or graphic novels, as they’re called today—then you’ve probably heard of me. I’m an illustrator and inker. Or, as my father used to put it before a long, ugly battle with lung cancer took him from us three years ago, I draw ‘funny books’ for a living. I’d always explain to my father that there wasn’t much ‘fun’ going on in modern comics—that they were dark and bleak and full of adult situations and characters, but I don’t think he ever quite believed me. It took me a long time to convince him that illustrating comics was a serious job. My Dad worked for the foundry in Hanover all his life, and it gave him a certain mentality common to his generation of working Americans. Unless you were earning a living with your hands, he didn’t view it as work. But eventually, I showed him that I was working with my hands—and furthermore, that I was able to earn a pretty decent living by doing it. Sure, my wife, Marlena, still had to work, but show me a middle class married couple that doesn’t have both spouses working these days. So we weren’t rich—so what? We weren’t unhappy. We did okay. We weren’t poor and we didn’t have much debt. In the end, I won my father over. Before Dad died, he told me that he was proud of me.

But he never stopped calling them funny books.

Before last spring, life was pretty good. I’d been nominated for my second Eisner Award, along with my co-creator, Timothy Graco, for our work on United Hero Federation. I’d just picked up a regular gig doing the pencils for The Electric Skull. Dark Horse and Antarctic Press were throwing more work at me than I could handle, and both Marvel and DC were trying to convince me to sign exclusivity deals with them. All of this without an agent.

With the money I was earning, Marlena and I were able to buy a house near Craley, one of the more rural parts of York County, Pennsylvania. We had three acres of land—enough room for Dylan to do all the things that boys do at his age. There were lots of tall, old-growth trees jutting from the yard, and at the far end of our property, there was a swift, cold trout stream. It was about twelve feet across and knee-deep in most places. I fished there every weekend for a few months until the novelty wore off. We bought a dog for Dylan—a friendly, playful mutt that he named Sanchez. The two of them ran around in the backyard together.

We only had two neighbors. A retired couple named Jeff and Anna-Marie Price had three acres bordering the east of our property. A single mother named Thena lived on the far side of the trout stream, along with her kids, Derrick and Josie. They were a bit older than Dylan, but seemed nice enough. The other side of our property bordered a vast marsh, and past that lay four miles of state-owned game land—a lush, thick wilderness that could never be developed or forested. Beyond the woods was the Susquehanna River, which our stream also fed into. Many times that first year, the four of us—me, Marlena, Dylan and Sanchez, would hike along the creek bank all the way to the river, where we’d have a picnic lunch before trekking home again. Usually, Dylan’s legs gave out halfway back, and I’d end up giving him a piggyback ride the rest of the way.

We’d bought the house in early summer. We landscaped the yard, filling it with shrubs and fruit trees and a multitude of seasonal flowers. I spent most of that first autumn setting up my office. We had a cement block two-car garage next to the house, and I converted half of it into a workspace. Even after I’d finished, the office still looked like it was under construction. Marlena called it “organized chaos”, and I guess that’s a pretty apt description. There were three work tables. One was a drawing table with an architect lamp attached to it. Another housed my computer and both of my printers. The third held my scanner, along with sketch paper, an automatic pencil sharpener, jars full of pens and markers, my light-box, rulers, t-squares, a watercolor tray, tubes of paint, pastel boxes, charcoal, a matte cutter, and razor blades. Atop all of this lay scripts for whatever I was currently working on. There were three bookshelves stuffed full of reference material, and binders with my sketches and notes. On top of the bookshelves was an army of action figures and other toys—everything from Judge Dredd to The Herculoids. Next to the shelves, an oversized nine-drawer filing cabinet stood with more toys lying on top of it. I’d covered the windows with drywall—I didn’t want the distraction. There was a bulletin board on the wall, and a mirror for making faces in (that way I could copy the expressions). A framed picture of Marlena, Dylan, and me hung next to that. We’d had it taken at Sears a year before. There were no paintings or art—especially mine. I found stuff like that to be distracting, just like windows. The only other artwork on the walls were the various crayon drawings that Dylan had made for me over the years: Godzilla fighting some stick figure soldiers. The Hulk eating a bowl of beans. Dylan often said that when he grew up, he wanted to be an artist like Daddy. Or an astronaut.

Personally, I was hoping he’d lean towards astronaut. Maybe that was just my subconscious desire to live vicariously through him. I’d wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up, but life didn’t work out that way. Sometimes, I still dream about it.

Marlena worked from home, too, which was really nice. She had to keep regular hours (her bosses could tell if she was logged in or not) but I made my own schedule. As a result, we didn’t have to put Dylan in daycare. It wasn’t unusual for an entire week to go by without us leaving the house. Marlena’s work was sent via email, and I sent mine as FTP files. I used Globe Package Services for shipping actual art, and they picked it up right at our front door.

It was a comfortable, happy, safe environment until Old Scratch came.

After that, I never felt safe again.

Here is what happened. Only a few other people know the whole story, and none of them are talking, either.

You won’t believe it at first, but that’s okay.

Neither did I, until it was too late.

•    •    •

When the storm began, I was in my office, trying to beat a deadline. My MP3 player was cranking out some old school Anthrax—“Be All, End All”—so when the thunder started, I mistook it for Frank Bello’s bass-playing at first. I sang along, oblivious. It wasn’t until the rumbling grew loud enough to drown out the music that I realized what it was.

We rarely watch television, and we don’t get the newspaper, so I had no idea if the local forecast was calling for thunderstorms or not. It didn’t matter in any case. I had just been out-side a few minutes before to sign for a delivery, and the sky had been a clear, pale blue with baby powder clouds. The storm had come on suddenly. I turned down the music and listened as another blast rolled overhead. It was followed by the patter of raindrops hitting the roof. They fell slowly at first, but their speed quickly increased. It sounded like someone was throwing coins at my office.

I was just about to get up and go have a look when the power went out. Without the benefit of windows, my office was instantly dark. I couldn’t even see the desk in front of me. The printer beeped and fell silent. The monitors blinked and then faded to black. Anthrax stopped playing. The only sound was the rain drumming steadily on the roof, growing louder with each passing moment, and more grumbles of thunder.

Moving carefully, I slid my chair back from the table and got to my feet. Holding my hands out in front of me, I tried navigating my office from memory, stumbling to the door. I banged into a table, knocking some action figures and a mug full of pens to the floor. I cursed, then cringed. I’d been making a concerted effort to watch my language around Dylan, and even though he wasn’t out there with me, I still felt guilty.

The situation was actually sort of scary. My office was usually my castle. I felt at peace there. Comforted. Inside those four walls, nothing else mattered. Not bills or car repairs or doctor’s appointments. Not the price of gas or the war or which politician had lied today. Not requests from my editors or negative reviews or what some basement-dwelling fan boy said about me on a message board. My office was free from all of that. I looked forward to going out to it every morning. But now that the lights were off, that same comforting space became strange and sinister and filled with darkness. My breathing sounded very loud, and my ears began to ring.

When my fingertips brushed against the wall, I stopped and fumbled around until I found the door. With a small sigh of relief, I flung it open only to find more darkness waiting for me. The sun was gone, replaced by black, roiling clouds that blanketed the sky. They looked almost solid, as if a new continent was floating above the house. Cold, fat raindrops stung my face and arms. I ducked back inside again, leaving the door hanging open. Seconds later, a gust of wind slammed it shut. Cursing, I forced it open and plunged outside.

The rain fell in sheets and I could barely see the house, even though it was only about twenty feet away from me. I caught a glimpse of movement at the kitchen window—Marlena or Dylan looking outside. Something crackled overhead. I glanced up at the ominous sky as a bolt of blue-white lightning flashed across it. I motioned for whoever was at the window to get away from it. By the time I’d reached the front porch, hail had begun to fall with the rain. Each ball was about the size of my thumbnail. They hammered our cars, the house, and the trees in the yard. The noise was terrible. It even drowned out the thunder.

Marlena held the door open and I stumbled inside, dripping water all over the floor. It streamed from my chin and nose and fingers, and when I shook my head, droplets splattered against the wall. She slammed the door behind me. I noticed that she was holding a flashlight. As she shined the beam in my face, I shook off some more.

“Stop it,” Marlena scolded. “You’re worse than Sanchez. Stay here while I get you a towel.”

As she turned away, I grabbed her waist and spun her around. Before she could protest, I squeezed her to me, soaking her clothes.

“Evan! Stop ...”

By the way she clung to me, I could tell that she didn’t really mean it. She softened against me and I gave her a kiss. Her lips felt warm. The moment was broken only by Sanchez barking and Dylan giggling. They stood side-by-side in the kitchen, watching us with obvious delight. Despite their expressions, though, it was easy to see that both of them were nervous. Sanchez had his tail firmly between his legs. His ears were down and he was panting heavily. Dylan chewed on his index finger—something he’d done since he was a baby every time he was upset or scared. In his other hand, he clutched his Spider-Man flashlight. It had come with a gift set—nightlight, flashlight, toothbrush and cup. The beam was dim. I reminded myself to change the batteries for him.

More lightning crackled outside. Dylan and Sanchez both jumped. I flicked water at them and Dylan giggled again, momentarily distracted. Marlena went to the hall closet to get me a towel. Then another clap of thunder shook the house, and Sanchez fled for the safety of the bathroom, where he jumped into the tub and hid, cowering against the porcelain. Dylan’s bottom lip trembled at this desertion.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s just a thunderstorm. Nothing to worry about.”

“But it went all dark and the TV is off.”

“It’ll come back on in a bit. Meanwhile, we’ll have some fun. You’re not scared, are you?”

He was hesitant. “No. But Sanchez is.”

“Well, then you have to be brave for Sanchez. Okay?”

“What’s that noise outside? It sounds like someone’s throwing rocks at our house.”

“That’s hail.”

He gasped. “Daddy, you said a bad word.”

“Hail,” I repeated, annunciating the syllables. “Not H-E-double toothpicks.”

His smile returned. “What’s hail?”

“Big balls of ice that fall out of the sky.”

“But it’s not wintertime.”

“No,” I agreed. “It isn’t.”

Before I could explain further, Marlena returned with some towels. I dried off and tossed them right into the washing machine. Then I ducked into the bedroom, changed my clothes, and threw the wet stuff on top of the towels, pausing only to go in the bathroom and give the dog a quick pat on the head, reassuring him that everything would be okay. I don’t know if it made him feel any better, but I sure did.

Marlena had acted quickly when the power went out. She already had candles burning in each of the rooms, and if it hadn’t been for the noise outside, the house would have almost felt cozy. Instead, the atmosphere was almost sinister. Hail drummed against the skylights and roof, rain rushed through the gutters and streamed down the side of the house, and every time it thundered, Sanchez whined in the bathroom. We tried to coax him out of the bathtub with a rawhide bone, and then with a can of food, but he refused to budge.

I changed the batteries in Dylan’s flashlight. Then Dylan, Marlena and I huddled together on the couch and waited for the storm to pass. It didn’t. Instead, it grew worse. Each time I thought it had peaked, the storm reached a new and frightening crescendo. I told them both to stay away from the windows and the skylights. It wasn’t like they could see much anyway. Visibility was down to almost nothing. We could see as far as the first few trees in the yard, watching as they swayed back and forth, leaning closer and closer to the house. Beyond them, the world had been swallowed by a wall of black. Rain and hail fell in torrential sheets, almost like a waterfall. The noise of it hitting the vinyl siding and shingles was so loud that we had to shout to hear each other. Lightning crackled overhead, followed by a loud boom as it struck something nearby. Dylan whimpered. Marlena and I both put our arms around him and told him it would be alright. Then we glanced at each other. I felt nervous and apprehensive, and I saw those same emotions mirrored in Marlena’s eyes.

With all the noise, talking became futile, and each of us retreated into our own thoughts. My mind wandered. I despaired when I thought about the fruit trees and crown vetch I’d planted along the creek bank just a few weeks before, during the first warm day in March. Chances were they’d be washed away now, especially the crown vetch seed. I thought about some of the bigger trees in the yard, and wondered if they’d hit the house should they fall. Then I tried to remember if I had gas in the chainsaw or not, in case they did fall. It used that stupid oil and gasoline mixture, and no matter how many times I tried, I always mixed it wrong, and the chainsaw would belch out blue clouds of noxious smoke. I thought about the creek and how close the rushing waters could get to us if it breached its banks. I didn’t know if we had flood insurance or not. Marlena was better at handling stuff like that, so I always let her. I considered asking her, but decided that if she wasn’t thinking about it, then there was no reason to worry her even more.

Lightning crashed again, and something fell nearby.

I stared at my wife and child. Dylan clung to her, his face partially buried beneath her breasts, his eyes wide and fearful. Marlena stroked his hair and leaned close and whispered something that I couldn’t hear. Whatever it was, the words seemed to calm him. I suddenly felt a wave of love for them both so strong that its intensity surprised me. Don’t get me wrong. I love them all the time. But we don’t really go through our lives thinking about it every minute, now do we?

At that moment, I was.

Eventually, there was a lull in the storm. The rain slowed to a steady patter, and the rumbles of thunder grew brief, almost as an afterthought. Sanchez slunk out of the bathroom and hopped up on the couch with us. His tail was still between his legs and his ears hung low. His expression was comical. He looked embarrassed. I scratched his ears and told him that he was a brave dog.

Dylan looked up from his mother’s chest and blinked.

“Is it over, Daddy?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think it is, almost.”

Then the thunder roared again, making a liar out of me.

•    •    •

The storm stuck around for another few hours, and even after the worst of it had passed, the rain continued, slowing to a drizzle. Marlena and Dylan had fallen asleep. Sanchez slept, too, with his head resting on my leg. Occasionally he stirred, looking up at me with big, mournful eyes, pleading (in that telepathic way that only dogs and cats can), for me to make the thunderstorm go away.

“I wish I could, buddy,” I whispered. “I wish I could.”

It’s a funny thing, love. With it comes responsibility. I’d thought I was responsible until I met Marlena, and then I set out to prove to her just how responsible and mature I could be, because I wanted her to marry me. A year later, I’d impressed her, her parents, my own family and friends, and even myself. Especially myself. The new Evan Fisher was an improvement on the old. We got married and I promised all the things you vow to do on your wedding day—and I meant them. But that responsibility had paled in comparison to the duty I felt once I became a father. Dylan and Marlena and Sanchez were everything to me. It sounds trite to say that you’d die for someone. The phrase has been overused in pop culture, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Fact was, I would die for my family, without a moment’s thought. It was my job—my primal instinct—to protect them from harm, no matter what the cost. For the most part, I did. I made sure we were provided for. Made sure we ate. Made sure we had health care and a roof over our heads. I drove safely. Made Dylan wear his seatbelt. Taught him not to play with matches or talk to strangers. All the things we do to keep our kids safe.

I felt frustrated and afraid. There was no way to protect them from what was raging outside our home. Mother Nature is the fiercest predator of all, and you can’t stop her with your wits or a gun or the law. If she wants your loved ones, she can take them any time she wants them, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.

So I sat there, and I waited.

•    •    •

It did end, eventually, as all storms do. The power was still out, and the house was quiet, except for Sanchez’s snoring. I gently disentangled myself and stood up. My legs tingled. I rubbed them to get the circulation flowing again. Then I snuffed out the candles and went to the window. Fragrant candle smoke drifted up behind me. It was still murky and dull outside, but at least it was no longer black. Faint sunlight peeked out from be-hind the clouds. A thick layer of fog covered the ground, and I could only see about ten feet—but that was enough to tell that things were a mess. The grass was littered with fallen branches, tree limbs, and leaves. Living as close as we did to the stream, our drainage had never been good. Now, pools of water filled the low spots in the yard.

Sanchez stirred behind me. He sat up and shook his head, his ears flapping back and forth. Dylan always called that his ‘helicopter impression’. The sound woke up Marlena and Dylan, and after a few yawns and stretches, they joined me at the window. Marlena gasped, but it was Dylan who summed things up perfectly.

“Oh Hell.”

“Dylan!” Marlena’s tone was shocked and stern. “You don’t say things like that.”

“I didn’t curse,” he insisted. “I said H-A-Y-L, not H-E-double toothpicks. Daddy said it earlier.”

Marlena gave me a dirty look. Grinning, I shrugged.

“He’s right, though,” I said. “It looks pretty bad out there.”

“Do you think we’re flooding?”

“It’s hard to say. Probably. I can’t see the stream from here. Maybe I should go out and check on things. Survey the damage—see if there are power lines down or anything.”

“Can I go with you, Daddy?”

“No,” I said. “You need to stay inside with Mommy, bud.”

Dylan tried out his well-practiced pout, which worked on me about fifty percent of the time.

“But I want to go outside.”

“Not yet, Dylan. Let me go see how bad things are. You can go out later. Besides, Mommy is still a little worried, and I need you to stay here and make her feel better. Okay?”

He sighed, shoulders slumping. “Okay.”

Sanchez trotted over to join us, and cast a longing glance at the door.

“He probably needs to pee,” Marlena said. “I’m surprised he didn’t go all over the house, like he did last time there was thunder.”

“I’ll take him.”

With the prospect of going outside already forgotten, Dylan busied himself with his toys. He sat cross-legged on the floor, playing with his Thomas the Tank Engine set, making little choo-choo sounds. He laid his Spider-man flashlight on the carpet next to him, illuminating the scene.

I put on my jacket and boots. When Sanchez saw that, he knew it was his cue. He ran to the door and stood there, wagging his tail impatiently. Marlena kissed my cheek and told me to be careful. I promised her that I would.

Then we stepped out into the aftermath.

Cold, wet mist clung to my face and hair. Shivering, I zipped my jacket up tighter. My glasses fogged over, and I had to wipe them off with my shirt. Sanchez padded along beside me, sniffing the ground, head swiveling from side-to-side. The first thing I did was examine the house, making sure the gutters were still in place, and checking the windows and the siding. Luckily, none of the windows were broken, but three of them were cracked. The siding on one side of the house had taken the worst of the damage. It looked like someone had peppered it with a machine gun. The gutters were dented, but seemed sound enough. There were a few roof tiles in the yard, but that would be an easy enough fix. No major damage, and the siding and windows would be easy enough to replace.

Satisfied, we checked out the rest of the property. The mist had a strange, dampening effect on noise. I heard a lone bird chirping, but otherwise, the only sound was the stream. It was roaring. I couldn’t see it, but I knew what that sound meant.

The water was high.

We came across the first downed tree about fifty feet from the house—one of the old pines that had been there long before we moved in. Lightning had shattered the top half, and there was debris everywhere. The trunk’s remains looked sturdy enough, but I’d have to take it down before the rest fell over. That meant struggling with my chainsaw. I groaned aloud at the prospect.

Sanchez and I continued exploring, winding our way around fallen limbs and puddles. The sound of rushing water grew louder. He paused and lapped at a pool of rainwater while I turned around and looked behind us. The house was gone now, concealed in the fog. I’d hoped to see Marlena and Dylan watching me from the window, and their absence made my breath hitch, though I didn’t know why. I chalked it up to a case of post-storm nerves.

Sanchez lifted his leg and pissed on a pile of leaves. After a moment, I joined him. Steam rose from our urine. I glanced towards the marsh. It was covered with standing water, and the hailstones had flattened the reeds and other vegetation. The marsh was usually full of frogs and ducks and snakes. I wondered what kind of damage they’d incurred.

Finished peeing, we continued on. The mist parted as we neared the trout stream, and I groaned again. The creek had breached its banks. The rhododendron bush that Marlena and I had planted when we moved in was completely underwater, and a nearby elm sapling was partially submerged. As I’d suspected, my fruit trees and crown vetch were all gone, along with much of the grass and soil along the bank. I could only imagine how bad the erosion would be once the waters receded.

I edged forward, cautious. The churning rapids kept Sanchez cowed, and he remained where he was. Brown water, the color of caramel, rushed by. The constant roar was incredible—louder and more awe-inspiring than the thunderstorm that had preceded it. Foot high waves, topped with white, bubbling foam lapped at the yard. A constant barrage of debris rushed by—branches, plastic bottles, a Styrofoam cooler, leaves, a fishing rod, a dead deer, old tires, scraps of cloth and plastic sheeting, chicken wire, aluminum cans, siding, roof shingles, a tangle of barbed wire, lumber, a wooden crate, shattered planks from someone’s footbridge, fence posts, a telephone pole with the wires still attached and grasping at the banks like tentacles, and a massive whole tree, roots and all, barreling down the creek like a hundred-foot long battering ram. It slammed into the far bank, shearing off a huge chunk of topsoil and revealing the red clay beneath.

The water was so loud that I didn’t realize Sanchez was growling until he barked.

Startled, I spun around and glanced at him. The dog stood stiffly, haunches up, tail low to the ground, ears flattened against his head. He stared at the creek. One lip was frozen in a sneer. For a moment, he looked like a canine version of Billy Idol.

“What’s wrong, buddy?”

He bared his teeth and growled again. His hackles were raised. I’d never seen him like this. He barked when a delivery truck pulled into our driveway, or when someone came to the door, but otherwise, Sanchez was usually pretty serene.

I followed his gaze, and then I saw it. The problem was, I didn’t know what it actually was. At first, I thought it was just another tree or log, partially submerged beneath the foam. About three feet of it jutted above the surface. The rest was below the water. It was solid black, about five feet thick, and appeared smooth and slick. Convinced that he couldn’t be barking at a tree, I was about to look elsewhere ...

... when the object moved.

It curved, like a hump, and then slid beneath the churning waters. Sanchez’s barking grew more frenzied. Beneath the surface, I caught a glimpse of a long, shadowy form. It glided towards the far bank and then, as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone.

“What the hell?”

Sanchez looked up at me, his ears flattened to the sides of his head, and whined.

I turned back to the creek and glanced across the way. The thing—whatever it had been—hadn’t surfaced again. The flooding was worse on the far side. The mist wasn’t as thick along the banks, and I saw Thena’s house clearly. It sat only thirty feet from the shoreline, and now, waves lapped at her front porch. Thena’s Jeep was parked in the driveway, and the water had crept above the tires. She’d had a rabbit hutch in the front yard, and it was gone, swept away in the flood.

She must have been inside the house, watching. Or maybe she’d heard Sanchez barking. Whatever the case, the front door opened and Thena stepped out onto the porch, wearing sweat pants and a baggy t-shirt. She cast a pensive glance at the rising water and then looked at me. I waved, and she waved back. She hollered something, but I couldn’t hear her. The raging torrent drowned out all other noise.

She pointed at the water, and I nodded.

“Just stay inside,” I yelled. “Go upstairs and stay put.”

She frowned, trying to understand me.

I pointed at her Jeep, and then at the water, trying to convey that the creek was already too high and attempting to drive out wasn’t a good idea. I don’t know if she understood me or not, but she raised her hand to her ear and mimed making a phone call.

I shook my head. “The phones are out!”

Her shoulders slumped. Thena stared at me, her eyes imploring. Then she glanced back down at the water again. She went back inside, closing the door behind her.

My thoughts returned to the thing in the water, trying to figure out what it had been? A car tire, maybe? Or a catfish, taking advantage of the floodwaters to swim upstream from the river?

“Come on, boy.”

Sanchez trotted along beside me as I cut across the yard, heading for Jeff and Anna-Marie’s house. The flooding was just as bad along their portion of the creek. Being retired, Jeff entertained himself as a gentleman farmer. He had a small contingent of chickens, along with two goats and a beehive. The hive was already gone, claimed by the flood, and the waters crept perilously close to the chicken coop. If they didn’t recede soon, my guess was that they wouldn’t stop there. His goat pen would be next. Jeff must have realized that, too, because as we drew nearer and the fog parted, we caught sight of him standing next to the goat pen. He raised his hand in greeting and Sanchez ran to him, wagging his tail and sniffing the ground at Jeff’s feet. My neighbor bent over and scratched behind the dog’s ears. I hurried to catch up with them, but the wet ground didn’t cooperate. My boots squelched with each step.

“Heya, Evan!”

I nodded, out of breath. “Hi, Jeff. This is pretty bad, huh?”

He shrugged. “It’s bad, but I’ve seen worse. Second year after Anna-Marie and I moved in here, the water got all the way up to the house.”

“Really?”

“But that was a long time ago,” he conceded. “This is the worst I’ve seen it since then.”

“I’m sorry about your beehive.”

“Don’t be. It’s my fault. Shouldn’t have put them so close to the creek. I just hope it lets up soon.”

“Do you think it will?”

“No.”

The wind picked up, dissipating some of the fog.

“I saw Thena.” I pointed towards her house, and noticed that in the brief time it had taken me to walk from the creek bank to Jeff’s house, the water had risen even higher on that side. Now, the waves were breaking over her porch.

“Her and the kids okay?”

“I’m not sure. I guess so. We couldn’t hear each other, because of the noise. It looked like she was thinking about making a break for it.”

“Hope not. That water will wash that Jeep of hers right down the stream. She’ll end up in the Susquehanna.”

“We should do something.”

“Don’t know about you, but our phones are out. Cell phones, too. No coverage, what with this storm.”

In truth, cell phone coverage was spotty in our valley even on clear days. I don’t know all the technical aspects, but it had something to do with line of sight between us and the nearest tower. I didn’t think it would help to bring that up, though.

“What about your bass boat?” I suggested. “Maybe we could bring her and the kids over to this side, until the waters recede?”

Jeff shook his head. “Can’t. The current’s too strong. That little motor would never cut it. We’d get swept downstream just like everything else. End up in the damn river.”

He quit petting Sanchez and stood up, wiping his hands on his pants and leaving behind tufts of wet dog fur. I was about to ask if he had any other suggestions when we heard a loud crash from the stream. We both looked in time to see a sprawling old oak tree that had been jutting out over the creek bank topple into the waters. It floated there, bobbing atop the brown waves, and then slowly started to disengage from the bank and float away.

“How did that happen?”

“Wet ground,” Jeff said. “It’s all clay along that bank. Reaches a certain point where the roots just can’t hold on anymore. I’m surprised it lasted this long. I thought for sure it would fall a few summers ago.”

Sanchez started growling again, staring at Thena’s house. We followed his gaze but the fog had descended again, and we couldn’t see anything through the mist.

“What’s wrong, buddy?” Jeff reached down and scratched his ears. Sanchez barely noticed. His attention was focused elsewhere.

“He did this earlier, too,” I said. “I don’t know what he’s barking at. We saw something, but I couldn’t tell what it was.”

“Well, let’s go have a look.”

We waded back across the yard. Sanchez trotted along beside us. He moved stiffly, his body tensed. His growls increased as we neared the swollen creek. We stopped along the bank, not daring to go further in case it gave way and we fell in. The fog parted, and we caught sight of Thena’s house again. The Jeep was still parked in the driveway, but now the water was over the tires and lapping at the underside. It had also crept over the porch. Tiny waves buffeted the stoop beneath the front door.

Sanchez erupted, barking furiously. At the same time, he backed away from the stream.

“See anything?” Jeff asked.

I wiped the moisture off my glasses again and tried to catch sight of Thena or her kids in one of the second-story windows.

Instead, I saw something else.

My brain didn’t process it at first. I mean, I saw it, but what I was seeing didn’t register. It was so unexpected, so unreal, that my gaze only lingered on it for a moment. I looked elsewhere, then paused and brought my attention back to it again.

A long, thick form jutted from one of the downstairs windows. I’d never been inside Thena’s house, so I didn’t know which room it was. The thing—whatever it was—looked like a giant black tentacle. It wriggled slowly from side to side, as if agitated. At its thickest point, I’d guess it measured close to five feet in circumference. The tapered end was much thinner—maybe a foot round. I couldn’t see a head. Just that thrashing, elongated form, coiling and uncoiling.

Jeff reached out and grabbed my shoulder. He squeezed hard, his fingers grating against my bone, but I barely felt it. Sanchez kept barking.

“My God,” Jeff gasped, swaying back and forth. “Do you see it?”

Speechless, I nodded.

The thing continued wiggling, oblivious to our presence. Maybe it couldn’t hear us over the noise of the flood, or maybe it just didn’t care.

“What is it?”

Jeff didn’t answer me. I turned to him. His face was ashen, his eyes wide. His mouth hung open so wide that I could see his fillings.

“Jeff? What the hell is it?”

He muttered something but with Sanchez’s racket and the roaring creek, I couldn’t hear him.

“What?”

“Old Scratch. It has to be!”

I started to respond, but he pointed at the house. His finger trembled.

“Look!”

I glanced back at Thena’s. The thing had wriggled farther into the home. Now, only the tip was visible, hanging over the windowsill. It smacked against the side of the house, denting the aluminum siding. There was still no sign of Thena or her kids.

Jeff pulled my arm. “Come on.”

“But what about—”

“Now!”

Sanchez yipped in agreement. I allowed the two of them to lead me away from the creek. I glanced over my shoulder once, and the thing had vanished into Thena’s house.

Then the mist closed around us and I saw no more.

If Thena and her children were screaming, I wouldn’t have been able to tell.

•    •    •

Jeff led me back towards my house. He walked quickly, splashing heedlessly through the puddles, and I had to hurry to keep up with him. Sanchez ran ahead of us, apparently happy to be away from the creek. Despite my protests, Jeff didn’t speak until we were standing in my driveway, and then, he answered my questions with one of his own.

“You own a gun?”

“What?”

“Do you own a gun?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve got a little .357, and my father’s old deer rifle. But what—”

“Get them.”

“Jeff, tell me what’s going on. What the hell was that thing? I mean, I know what it looked like, but it couldn’t have been.”

“It was. Get your guns. Try the phone. If it’s working, call 911.”

“And tell them ... what?”

“That Thena’s house is flooding and they need to do a water rescue. That the ghost of Osama bin Laden is shacked up there with the spirit of Saddam Hussein. I don’t know. Tell them anything that will get them here. Then meet me back here right away.”

Without another word, he ran for home. I’d never seen him move so fast. His arthritis usually bothered him after the most menial of tasks—taking the trash up to the road or trimming with his weed whacker. It was especially bad on rainy days. If it was troubling him now, Jeff gave no sign. I yelled after him but he didn’t answer.

Marlena opened the door and called to me. Dylan peered out from behind her.

“I want to go outside.”

“Not now, Dylan. Quiet.” She must have seen the expression on my face because her tone was concerned. “What’s wrong?”

I started to speak, but wasn’t sure how to verbalize what I’d just seen or how it made me feel. “Try calling 911,” I said. “Thena’s place is flooding. The water’s up to her front door and they can’t get out.”

“Oh my God. Are the kids okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“I want to see,” Dylan insisted. “Please, Mommy? Let me go see.”

Marlena and I both told him no at the same time. She shooed Dylan away from the door. Pouting, he plopped down in the living room and returned to his trains. Marlena ran off to try the phone, while I shrugged out of my wet coat and shoes and toweled Sanchez dry. He shook, spraying the kitchen with water, and then trotted off to check his food dish. Now that he was inside, he seemed no longer concerned with the thing we’d seen near the creek.

I wished that I could shrug it off just as easily.

I hurried into the bedroom and felt around on the top shelf of the closet until I found the handgun. I kept it locked in a box, and I had the only key. You can’t be too sure these days. It wouldn’t do for Dylan to get his hands on it. The only other items in the lockbox were the owner’s manual, a cleaning cloth, and a small container of bullets. The Taurus held five shots. I loaded it with trembling fingers and clicked the cylinder back into place. Instead of a manual safety, it had a special key that unlocked the activation pin. I turned the key and then stuffed the revolver into my back pocket. Even though it was small, it felt big and bulky back there. I put the lockbox back on the shelf. I didn’t bother with my father’s rifle because I had no bullets for it. I hadn’t been hunting since I was fourteen, and I kept the weapon strictly out of sentimentality. It was an heirloom. My father had loved that gun, and had shot many deer with it over the years.

Marlena walked into the bedroom as I was closing the closet door. I quickly pulled my shirttail over my pants, hoping she wouldn’t see the gun and start asking questions. I don’t know why I wanted to hide the truth from her, but I did. Maybe it was because I didn’t know what the truth was. Maybe because I’d just been confronted by something that shattered my illusions of protecting her and Dylan—just like the storm that had preceded it. I wanted them to think I could keep them safe, and if they found out what was going on, they’d know I couldn’t.

“The phones are still down,” she said. “And there’s only one bar on the cell phone.”

“Keep trying. I’ve got to go.”

“Where?”

“Jeff and I are going to try to help Thena.”

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

She didn’t try to talk me out of it. Sometimes, I wish she had. If she’d tried, maybe I’d feel differently about things now. If I’d stayed inside with her and Dylan, instead of returning to the creek, maybe the world wouldn’t have intruded upon us.

But I didn’t stay inside. Instead, I got back into my wet raingear. A car horn blared as I slipped my boots on, and I glanced out the window. Jeff’s Dodge truck sat idling in our driveway. As I walked to the door, Dylan and Sanchez clamored to go with me, but I made them both stay inside. I gave Dylan and Marlena a quick kiss, told Sanchez to sit, and then stepped out onto the porch.

“Be careful,” Marlena repeated.

“I will,” I promised her again, sounding anything but confident.

She shut the door behind me. It sounded very loud—and final.

I hurried over to the truck and climbed up into the passenger seat. Warm air blew across my feet, and my glasses fogged up again. Waylon Jennings played softly, singing about how this outlaw bit had done got out of hand. I asked Jeff why he didn’t have the local radio station on, instead.

“Damn WSBA is off the air. I’m betting lightning hit their tower. And that station out of Hanover only plays rap music. I don’t need to hear that crap. Especially now. My nerves are already shot.”

Jeff struggled with the gearshift and the transmission made a grinding noise. We lurched forward. Wet gravel crunched beneath the tires. Jeff turned on the wipers to clear away the mist.

“Where’s the rifle?” he asked.

“I don’t have any bullets for it, but I brought this.” I pulled out the .357 and showed it to him.

“It’ll have to do, I guess. I’ve got the 30.06 in the back.”

I turned around and sure enough, the rifle rack, which was mounted behind the seat, held a gun. He’d wrapped the stock with camouflage tape. A box of shells sat on the seat between us.

“I want to know what’s going on,” I said, as we reached the top of the driveway. “What the hell was that thing?”

“I thought you said you knew what it looked like?”

“Yeah, I did. It looked like a big fucking tentacle.”

He made a left out of our driveway. No other vehicles passed us. The road was a mess—full of fallen branches and limbs. Muddy water streamed along the sides. I noticed with dismay that my mailbox had fallen over. The embankment around the post had eroded from all the rain.

“It wasn’t a tentacle, Evan. It was a tail.”

“A tail? The tail to what?”

He paused. “You ever hear of Old Scratch?”

“Sure. That was a nickname for the Devil, back in medieval times. You mentioned it earlier, too.”

“It’s also the name for a Central Pennsylvanian legend. Old Scratch is a giant water snake. He’s supposed to live in the Susquehanna River, between Wrightsville and Walnut Island. You don’t hear much about him these days. He was sort of like our Loch Ness Monster. People used to see him all the time, up until the Thirties, when they built the Holtwood and Safe Harbor dams. After that, sightings were less frequent—but he still popped up from time to time.”

“A giant water snake ...”

Frowning, Jeff slowed down as we neared the bridge. The waters churned and crashed beneath it. More debris floated by.

“Looks sturdy,” he muttered, and then rolled across the bridge. “Yeah, a giant snake. I’m surprised you never heard about it, what with you drawing funny books and all.”

“They’re not ...”

“I’ll tell you something else,” he interrupted. “Old Scratch isn’t the only giant snake in the State. From the early 1900’s up until last year, there’s been sightings of a forty-foot long snake on Big Top Mountain up north. And Lake Raystown supposedly has one swimming around in it, too. They call him Raystown Ray. I know, it’s kind of a stupid name. I think the chamber of commerce came up with it so they could sell t-shirts. But people have seen it. You and Marlena ever take Dylan to Gettysburg?”

I stared at him, unblinking.

“You know Devil’s Den?” He continued, oblivious to my silence. “That big jumble of rocks and boulders where the soldiers hid? It had that name before the Civil War. Supposedly, there was a giant snake named Devil that lived inside one of the crevices. Devil’s Den—get it? All the farmers said he was real. He used to eat people’s livestock. The Indians have legends about giant snakes, too. They knew all about this stuff. They carved petroglyphs of Old Scratch on rocks along the Susquehanna.”

I wanted to protest. I wanted to tell him that there was no such thing as giant snakes in Pennsylvania—unless somebody’s pet boa constrictor escaped or something like that. But even then, a boa constrictor couldn’t reach the size of the thing we’d seen. I didn’t tell him any of this. I didn’t speak at all, because I knew better. I had to believe because I’d seen it with my own eyes. So had Sanchez. What Jeff was saying—bizarre as it sounded—was true. I wouldn’t have believed it the day before, would have chuckled at the story and then sent Tim Graco an email, telling him I had an idea for our next comic book.

But it was real—and that reality made my stomach churn and my ears thrum and my breath catch in my throat.

We reached the end of the bridge, and Jeff took the next left, turning onto a dirt road that looped around back to Thena’s house. It had washed out in places, and we bounced over the ruts and puddles. My head smacked against the rifle rack.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Wincing, I rubbed the back of my head. “So, you said they’ve been spotting this thing—this Scratch—since the Thirties?”

Jeff nodded.

“Well, then how is it still alive? Is it supposed to be immortal or something?”

“Ain’t nothing immortal in this world.” He shrugged. “Snakes can live a long time, I guess. Or maybe this is a descendant of the original Old Scratch. But whatever the reason, it’s real. We saw it. Ain’t no denying that.”

“Jesus ...”

“Look, I know how you feel, Evan. I never really believed it myself. I mean, I’ve seen some weird things. Me and some buddies pulled an eight-foot catfish out of the river up near the Pennsylvania Power and Light company dam about ten years ago. It was pure white, and when we touched it, the skin sloughed off in our hands like slime. That was strange, to say the least.”

“Pollution?”

“Maybe. Who knows? All I know is it was weird. Like I said, I’ve seen some weird things, but I always figured Old Scratch was just a legend, like the Goat Man of LeHorn’s Hollow, or Gravity Hill, or the seven gates of Hell. That’s how I knew about it. I like all that local folklore stuff. But now I know better.”

“But you said he lives in the river.”

“So?”

“Well, if that’s true, then what’s he doing in our creek?”

“Hell, Evan. We’re only three miles from the Susquehanna. Our creek flows right into it.”

“Yeah, but the creek is awfully shallow in some places. For a thing ...” I paused. My mind refused to think of it as a snake. That hadn’t actually hit home yet. “For something that big, you’d think it would stick to the deeper waters, where it’s safer.”

“He probably does,” he agreed. “Except in rare instances like now, when it’s flooding.”

Jeff slowed down as we approached the spot where the creek had jumped its banks and flooded out the road.

“Looks like this is as far as we go,” he said. “We’ll have to walk in.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“I hope they’re okay.”

“Me, too. If they managed to get upstairs, they should be all right. I’ve been in her house, and that stairway is pretty narrow. Maybe Old Scratch can’t fit up there.”

Jeff’s voice had a plaintive, almost pleading tone. It was obvious to me that he didn’t believe a word of what he was saying. I wondered if he was trying to convince me, or convince himself.

We got out of the truck. Jeff loaded his rifle and motioned me forward. I followed along behind him, clutching the handgun. Soon, the road disappeared beneath our feet, and cold water rushed into my boots. The floodwaters were halfway up my shins, and still rising. The current pulled at me, and I had to struggle to keep my balance. It was like walking through fast-flowing cement. The roar of the water was deafening.

“This isn’t going to work,” Jeff yelled above the din. “We’ll have to go around. This way!”

He led us up the hill and into the woods. I wondered if he should be shouting like that, but decided that if Old Scratch heard us, maybe we’d get lucky and frighten it off before it could hurt Thena or her kids. Then again, maybe we’d attract its attention instead. I wondered if we’d even be on time. I wasn’t sure how many minutes had passed since we’d spotted the creature. It seemed like forever.

The forest was a mess. Even though the rain was finished, water still dripped from above. Droplets rolled off the leaves and kept splattering my glasses. Although the mist had dissipated somewhat, thick wisps of tenacious fog still floated at ground level, obscuring everything below our knees. Between that and all of the fallen branches, our progress was slow and treacherous. Both of us stumbled several times.

“Maybe we should unload the guns until we get there,” I suggested, fearing an accident if either one of us fell.

Jeff shook his head. “We need to be ready. What if it rushes us? I’m sure as hell not facing down that thing with an empty rifle.”

I took a deep breath and tried not to puke.

When Dylan was six months old, he got sick one night. It was the weirdest thing. He’d been fine all day, happy and cooing. Then, night came and he started throwing up. His fever spiked, refusing to go down. We’d rushed him to the emergency room and watched, helpless, while the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong. Marlena sobbed. I felt numb—stunned, like someone had smacked me in the head with a hammer. In the end, everything turned out okay. He’d caught a bad case of the flu. They got some liquids in him and arrested his fever and we took him home. A few days later, he was back to normal. But I’ve never forgotten it. I remember that time well, because I’d never been more scared in my life.

Until now.

We reached the top of the hill, and the mist cleared. Thena’s shed was just a few paces away from us, right on the edge of the woods where her backyard ended. Beyond the shed, on a slight downhill slope, sat her house. It was silent, and there was no sign of the snake—or anyone else. I glanced across the swollen creek and caught a glimpse of my own home. It seemed very far away at that moment. I glanced up at the sky and wished the clouds would part and the sun would come out in full and burn the rest of the fog and the gloom away, but it didn’t.

Jeff raised his hand and motioned me forward. He readjusted his grip on the rifle, and nestled the stock between his arm and shoulder, holding it at the ready. Maybe he was trying to project confidence or bravado, but the whole thing seemed ridiculous to me. We weren’t soldiers. He was a retiree in his sixties and I was a pudgy comic book artist who got winded if I ran more than a quarter mile. But there was no one else to help Thena, or her kids, and helping is what neighbors do. Like it or not, it came down to us. If the situation was reversed, I’d want my neighbors to do the same for me and my family.

We stepped out of the tree line and crossed through the yard. The grassy slope was slippery, so we moved slowly. The only noise was the ever-present floodwaters, and Jeff’s heavy breathing, which sounded very loud in the silence. Thena had a dog, a small Beagle named Henry. I used to see him running around in their yard with Derrick and Josie. He had the most annoying bark in the world. When Henry wasn’t running around barking at ducks in the creek or taunting Sanchez from the other side, she kept him tied out back, in a small doghouse between the shed and the house. I wondered why we didn’t hear him now. Surely, Henry would have sensed the presence of the snake, just like Sanchez had done. Then, we rounded the corner past the shed and I saw why. Henry was missing. The doghouse had been flattened. A steel chain lay in the wet yard. One end of the chain was attached to the pile of splintered lumber. The other end was attached to an empty dog collar.

The ground around the doghouse was pretty muddy, and a long, wide trench led from there to the house, and then disappeared around the side. I shivered. I’d seen trails like it before. We had lots of black racer snakes and garter snakes on our property. Sometimes, if I was under deadline and put off mowing the yard, and the grass was higher than normal, they’d leave tracks like this. Except smaller. Much smaller. The track we were looking at now was at least five feet wide and one foot deep. It was more of a furrow than a trail. Again, it didn’t seem possible, but when confronted with the evidence, I had no choice but to accept the reality, no matter how outlandish or horrifying it might seem. My apprehension doubled. My temples throbbed. My stomach was in knots and my palms grew sweaty. The pistol slipped in my grasp, and I fumbled with it, almost dropping it in the mud. We paused, staring at the creature’s wake, and I stuck the gun in my back pocket and wiped my glasses clean again. They were fogging up, due to the weather and my own hyperventilating.

“You okay?” Jeff whispered, looking concerned.

I nodded. “Steady now, Evan. I need you with me on this.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What are we going to do when we find it?”

Jeff grinned humorlessly. “All snakes in Pennsylvania are protected by Fish and Boat Commission regulations, but I think the game warden will make an exception in this case.”

I tried to respond, but all that came out was a choked whimper.

“Evan, if it helps, just know that I’m scared shitless, too.”

It didn’t help, but I smiled and pretended that it did.

We crept up to the back porch. The snake’s path crossed over onto the cement patio, leaving behind a trail of mud, before going back into the yard. Had it stopped here, investigating the house, looking for a way inside? Maybe it had looked through the windows and seen Thena or one of the kids in the kitchen. I shuddered at the image, imagining the snake’s tongue flicking in and out, and those inhuman eyes staring through the glass, watching Thena cooking, or maybe Derrick and Josie sitting around the kitchen table, eating their dinner. Watching them without blinking.

“I hope they’re okay,” I whispered.

“Me, too.”

We tiptoed around the side of the house, following the rut in the yard. Jeff pressed his back against the wet aluminum siding and peeked around the corner. He started forward, rifle raised, and I followed along behind him. We reached the window, and heard a muffled thump coming from inside the house. We paused, listening, but the sound wasn’t repeated.

At some point before the snake’s arrival, Thena’s window had been broken. Maybe it happened during the storm, when the hail was falling, or maybe it had occurred before the storm. In either case, she’d tried to repair the damage by taping clear plastic sheeting over the gaping hole. By the look of things, Old Scratch had pressed right through it, ripping it free. The plastic hung from one corner of the hole, flapping with the breeze. The window frame was bent, as if a bulk wider than the opening had been squeezed through it. Something was stuck to the bottom of the windowsill. At first, I couldn’t figure out what it was. It looked like parchment or cheesecloth, fluttering in the wind. Then I took a closer look, and reached out to touch it.

“It’s skin,” Jeff whispered. “He’s shedding. He’s goddamn shedding ...”

Recoiling in disgust, I jerked my hand back. I turned to Jeff and mouthed, ‘What now?’

He pointed at me and then at the window. I shook my head. We repeated the exchange again. Then, sighing, Jeff handed me his rifle and carefully climbed through the broken window, brushing the snake skin to the ground as he did. When he was inside the house, I handed him the gun and then clambered through after him.

Suddenly, I had to piss really, really bad. I considered doing it. After all, my pants were already wet. It would be hard for Jeff to tell. But if I was going to die, I decided that I’d rather not do it by pissing myself.

The kitchen was a scene of mass destruction. The table and chairs had been overturned, and one of the chairs had been smashed. A beautiful antique china cabinet lay face down, the wood splintered. A few candles lay scattered. Luckily, they’d gone out when they toppled over, rather than starting a fire. Broken glass and shards of pottery littered the floor. The tiles were covered with mud, water, wet leaves, blades of grass—and blood. Not a lot of it, but enough that we noticed the droplets amidst the wreckage. My grip on the Taurus tightened. Whose blood was it? The thumping sound started up again, soft but insistent. They were followed by a strange crackling sound, like wood popping in a campfire. The noises were coming from what I guessed was the living room. We headed towards it, cringing each time a piece of debris crunched beneath our feet. The sounds stopped as abruptly as they’d started. The silence was unsettling. It wasn’t natural. At the very least, we should have heard Thena, Derrick, or Josie shouting for help. But there was nothing. Even the roar of the floodwaters outside seemed muted now. My pulse pounded in my ears.

When we reached the far side of the kitchen, Jeff flicked the light switch, but to no avail. Thena’s electricity was off, too. The narrow hallway that led from the kitchen to the living room was dark. We had some dim light coming through the windows, so we were still able to see. Jeff raised the rifle and started down it. I followed along closely behind him. The pistol shook in my hand. On the wall were framed pictures of Thena and the kids. They were smiling. Happy. Oblivious to what could happen to them in their own home. I looked away and closed my eyes.

Our feet made sloshing noises. Opening my eyes again, I glanced down at the carpet and, despite the dim light, saw that it was wet. As we reached the front of the house, I saw why. In addition to branching off into the living room, the hallway also led to a small foyer at the front door. Water streamed in from under the door, soaking the carpet and the floorboards beneath it. Like our own house and all the other homes along the creek, Thena’s didn’t have a basement. There was nowhere else for the water to go.

We paused at the front door. The living room was even darker than the hallway. Jeff took a deep breath and then stepped into the room. He stopped so suddenly that I bumped into him, pushing him further into the gloom. He scrambled out of the way, and I saw why he’d halted.

Like the kitchen, the living room was a disaster. The coffee table lay on its side and one leg was snapped off. The recliner had been knocked over and the sofa cushions were askew. The remnants of a potted plant lay scattered across the carpet. Oddly enough, the borders of the room seemed smaller than it should have been. As my eyes adjusted, I realized why. The snake was in there with us, occupying the far side of the room. Its tail was hidden behind the couch and part of its midsection was concealed by the curtains. But the rest of the creature was visible—and it was terrible to behold.

That was when I pissed myself. I couldn’t help it. Warmth flooded my cold, rain-soaked jeans. The stench was immediate, but I don’t think Jeff noticed. Like me, his attention was on the snake.

Now that I was closer to it, I realized that the thing wasn’t coal black like I’d first thought, but rather a mixture of gray and brownish-black, with dark cross-bands on its neck and charcoal spots on its back and sides. A few sections of its length were coiled up just far enough that I could see its belly, which had a vibrant pattern of white, yellow, and red crescent-shaped spots. It might have been almost beautiful if it hadn’t been so horrific.

“Oh, Jesus,” Jeff breathed. “Where’s the head? Where’s its goddamned head?”

The serpent tensed. A coarse, rasping sound filled the room. Then, slowly, a great shadow rose up from behind the toppled recliner.

I screamed.

We stared into the face of legend.

We stared into the eyes of Old Scratch.

And the Devil stared back at us.

The snake’s pupils were round like a human’s, and its eyes had a cloudy, bluish appearance. At first I thought that maybe it was blind, but then I realized that its eyes were full of lymph fluid, probably from the process of shedding its old skin. Its head was large and round, easily the size of a cow’s head. And its body ... Its body was massive. I wondered how it had managed to squeeze its entire mass into the tiny room.

Most alarming was its mouth, and what was sticking out from between its wide open jaws. We glimpsed pink and white musculature, and six rows of sharp, re-curved teeth. Most of the teeth were at least six inches long. A pair of skinny legs stuck out of its mouth. The knees were scabbed. One foot was bare. The other had a pink, frilly sock and a black shoe.

It was Josie, Thena’s daughter.

Her legs did not move.

Now we knew what that thumping sound had been—her death throes.

The creature’s throat was swollen and puffed out. Further down its body were two more large bulges.

This time, it was Jeff who screamed. I was too busy crying.

The jaws made a cracking noise as the snake worked to swallow its meal. Now, only Josie’s lifeless feet were visible. All I could think of at that moment was Dylan. I raised the pistol and fired. The gun jerked in my hand, and my arm tingled. The explosion was deafening, and the flash left little pinprick circles of light floating before my eyes. I don’t know if I hit Scratch or not, although given its size, it would have been kind of hard to miss. One thing is for certain though. I definitely pissed it off.

Josie disappeared down the creature’s gullet. For a moment, its septic mouth opened even wider. The stench was revolting. I could only imagine the amount of infectious microorganisms that probably called that gaping orifice home. Then, staring at us with angry, baleful eyes, Old Scratch sucked in a lungful of air, making its body appear even thicker. The lump that was Josie slid further down its length.

A second explosion startled me, and I jumped. Next to me, I heard the click-clack of Jeff working the lever on his rifle. Then it roared again as he fired another shot. The snake hissed in response. It flattened its head into a triangular shape, and then flattened its body as well. As I took aim, it coiled up and prepared to strike.

Jeff and I fired at the same time. The gunshots reverberated in the small space. The serpent writhed, squirming in pain. Its tail rose up from behind the couch, revealing a double row of scales on the underside. Then it slammed the tip of its tail against the wall, cracking the plaster. The snake spat, launching a glob of foul-smelling saliva at us. It splattered against the wall and dribbled down like rancid yogurt.

Jeff scrambled to reload, fumbling for the bullets in his jacket pocket. The rifle shook in his trembling hands. Thin lines of blood trickled from the creature’s hide and dripped onto the wet carpet. I felt a surge of adrenalin, knowing that we’d injured it. With only three shots left, I figured I should make them count, and aimed for its eyes. Before I could pull the trigger, the snake’s head darted forward. Scratch moved like lightning. One moment, it was behind the recliner. The next, it struck at us. I managed to dodge the strike, more out of instinct than skill, but one of its teeth ripped through my jacket, slashing the fabric. I panicked, thinking I’d been bitten, and stumbled backward. The creature struck three more times in rapid succession. The first blow caught Jeff’s arm, and the rifle slipped from his hands. The second strike tagged his waist. The third nailed his leg. Shrieking, Jeff beat at the creature with his fists, and then Scratch withdrew.

Still clutching the pistol, I grabbed Jeff under his arms and pulled him backward into the foyer. In the living room, Old Scratch struck again, lashing out at the place where we’d been standing seconds before. It slammed against the wall, and the pictures in the hallway fell to the floor. Glass shattered. The house’s foundation groaned.

My hands and arms felt warm and wet as I dragged Jeff down the hall. I glanced down and saw that they were red. At first, I thought that maybe the snake had bitten me after all, but then I realized that it was Jeff’s blood—and a lot of it. I couldn’t tell if his wounds were deep because his clothing was in the way. I guessed that the snake might have some kind of anticoagulant in its saliva, because he was bleeding so badly. He moaned and mumbled, and his skin was alabaster and cold. He didn’t seem to be having trouble breathing, and he wasn’t swelling up or anything like that, so I figured his symptoms were related to shock and blood loss, rather than any venom. As far as I knew, Pennsylvania’s water snakes were non-poisonous. I didn’t think it would be any different for a giant one.

As we neared the kitchen, the hallways darkened even more. Scratch’s shadow fell across us. He loomed in the door, his head raised into the air, grazing against the ceiling, while his body remained hidden in the living room. He flattened his head into a triangular shape again, paused, and then slowly slithered forward, tongue flicking in and out of his mouth.

“Shit!” Jeff was dead weight in my arms. “Come on, Jeff. We need to move faster. Wake up!”

As Scratch drew closer, I realized that, even if we made it into the kitchen, there would be no way I could navigate Jeff through all the debris and get us out of the house in time. Pulling him through the window was obviously out. The snake would snatch him from my grasp. And I couldn’t rely on the backdoor being unlocked. If I had to mess with the deadbolt, that few seconds delay could cost one of us our lives. Instead, I yanked Jeff in the direction of the stairs, and we retreated up onto the second floor. Exhausted and weakened by fear, I collapsed on the landing, pulling Jeff down on top of me. He groaned, but his eyes remained closed. I pointed the handgun down the stairs, waiting.

It occurred to me that I was no longer thinking of Scratch as an ‘it’, but a ‘him’.

I held my breath as the snake came into view. But instead of pursuing us, Old Scratch slid into the kitchen. I saw his shadow on the wall as he passed. The house creaked and shuddered as he shoved his way through the window again. Maybe our bullets had taught him a lesson. Maybe we’d hurt him, and he’d had enough.

Or maybe he was just sated, and had decided to go back to the river and digest his three-course meal. The thought came out of nowhere. I was shocked by my own callousness. But then I did something worse. As horrible as it sounds, I snickered at the joke. Three-course meal! It was funny. The laughter was a welcome alternative to screaming, which was what I really wanted to do, deep down inside.

Sunlight streamed through Thena’s windows as the last remnants of the storm passed on. I don’t know how long we sat there. A few seconds, probably, although it seemed much longer. I must have drifted off because the shouts from outside startled me. There were a number of different voices—men’s voices—all crying out in alarm. I carefully climbed out from under Jeff, took off my torn jacket, and rolled it up into a ball. Then I put it under his head and stood up. I felt woozy, and the stairway seemed to tilt. I grabbed the rail with my free hand and hung on tight. I wondered if maybe I’d been bit after all, and checked myself again. I decided that it was just shock.

“Stay here, Jeff. I’ll get help.”

If he heard me, he gave no indication. “Jeff? Just stay here. Don’t move.”

My words were slurred just a little bit. Shock, most likely. Gripping the handrail, I stumbled down the stairs and into the kitchen, just as Scratch’s tail squeezed through the window. The cries of panic and disbelief were louder now. I walked to the back door and flung it open. Then I carefully made my way to the side of the house and peered around the corner. Scratch was slithering towards the creek, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. His tail thrashed in anger or pain—or both. Between me and him were two Hellam Township EMTs, a Pennsylvania State Trooper, and four volunteer firemen from the Craley firehouse, and one from East Prospect. I recognized their uniforms, and wondered why there were emergency respondents from different townships and boroughs. I found out later that much of York County had flooded, and dispatchers were answering calls by sending whoever was available. I didn’t know if they were there through coincidence or if Marlena had gotten through on the cell phone. It didn’t matter. All of them were pointing at the snake, staring at him in disbelief. I knew how they felt. I’d reacted that way too, at first. It seemed like a million years ago now.

“I need help,” I called, and when they didn’t hear me, I raised my voice and tried again. A few of them turned, their eyes darting warily to the gun in my hand. The State Trooper, who had been aiming his firearm at Old Scratch, spun around and leveled it at me instead. I let the Taurus fall to the ground and raised my hands.

“Please,” I said. “Don’t shoot! I need help. My neighbor is hurt.”

They rushed to me, still throwing backward glances over their shoulders as Scratch plunged into the rushing floodwaters. One of the EMTs told me to sit down, but I refused, insisting that they check on Jeff first.

“What the hell was that thing?” One of the firemen gaped at the creek, watching the serpentine form slide beneath the waves. I followed his gaze, and felt the blood rush from my head. My breath hitched in my chest.

“Take it easy,” the EMT said. “You’re in shock. I don’t blame you. I would be too, after seeing that snake.”

The fog had lifted, and on the other side of the creek, I saw Dylan running through the yard, heading towards the flooded stream. Marlena and Sanchez chased after him, but Dylan had a good head start.

Scratch paused. His head broke the water, and then turned towards our side of the bank, watching my son. Dylan drew closer. The snake changed course.

“Get back,” I screamed, knowing full well that Dylan couldn’t hear me over the roar of the flood. “Dylan, get away from there!”

The rescue crew all turned back towards the creek. Their eyes widened as they saw what I saw.

Scratch’s tail splashed the water, sending a plume into the sky.

The State Trooper fired a round. I heard a second gunshot go off next to me. I glanced down and was surprised to find the Taurus in my hand again. The final shot had been my own.

Then I collapsed, falling face first into a puddle, and knew no more.

•    •    •

That was a year ago. Another spring has come around, making it all seem fresh again. In truth, not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about it. There are times where I simply want to start screaming, but I’m afraid that if I start, I’ll never be able to stop. Scratch vanished with me and the State Trooper’s final bullets. We don’t know if we killed it or not. All we know is that the snake ducked beneath the surface and didn’t come back up. There were ten witnesses—me, Jeff, and the emergency response crews. Thankfully, Dylan and Marlena had been too far away from the stream to catch a glimpse of the creature. That’s saved them innumerable bad dreams.

I have the nightmares so that they don’t have to.

I don’t know how they did it, but the cops and the firemen managed to keep the whole thing out of the paper. The York Daily Record and the York Dispatch ran a story simply stating that Thena and her children died in the flood. It didn’t say how they died. I didn’t tell anybody, including Marlena. I couldn’t bring myself to. How would she ever feel safe again if I told her the truth? How would she trust me to keep her safe?

Jeff told Anne-Marie, but she didn’t believe him. Oh, she didn’t think he was lying or anything like that. But she insisted that he’d hallucinated the whole thing while he was in shock. Maybe she believed that, deep down inside, and maybe she didn’t. Maybe her scoffing at his tale was her own internal defense mechanism, keeping her safe from the all-too terrible truth. If you ask her to explain Jeff’s scars, she says they came from debris in the water—barbed wire, scrap metal, anything but the bit of a giant snake.

The experience changed Jeff. He’s not the same. He seems older now. His hair was salt and peppered before, but now it’s almost pure white. He walks slower, and on rainy days he limps. He’s developed a nervous cough, and there are dark, ever-present circles under his eyes.

I’ve changed, too. I don’t sleep much, anymore, and when I do, my dreams are bad. I dream about Scratch. He haunts my waking hours, too. I sit in my office, once a place of refuge, and all I do is think about him. He pops up in my artwork. Worse, I’ll feel eyes on me, and then I get up and check the corners, looking for snakes.

I don’t go near the creek, and I avoid the marsh. Too many places there for a snake to hide—even one as big as Old Scratch. In fact, I don’t go outside much at all anymore. Every time Dylan asks if he can go out and play, I come up with excuses or distractions to keep him inside.

Marlena has noticed. She was patient and understanding at first. After all, I’d been through a traumatic experience, even if she didn’t know all the details of what had occurred. But now, her patience is at an end. She dropped the hammer yesterday, insisting that I get some help. She told me I was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and that you didn’t have to live through a war to get it.

We can’t stay here anymore. We need to move. Need to leave it all behind and start somewhere new. Somewhere safe. But I don’t know where that place is.

I don’t know how to tell Marlena that everything is different now. That everything has changed. I meant it when I said that I would die for my family, without a moment’s hesitation. It is my duty to protect them from harm. To keep them safe. I used to think I was pretty good at that, but I know better now. There are things in this world that you can’t protect your family from. Mother Nature is the fiercest predator of all, and if she comes for your loved ones, there’s not a damned thing you can do to prevent it. She’ll take them in an instant, like a bolt of lightning flashing down from a stormy sky.

Or a snake, hiding in the water and then darting forth.

The Devil is out there, and it’s just a matter of time before we see him again.

Our yard is full of May flowers. April showers brought them. But April showers bring something else, too, and the weatherman says there’s a storm coming.

STORY NOTE: This was written in 2009, and published in 2010 by Cemetery Dance Publications as a signed, limited edition hardcover book. It was also included in my now out-of-print collection A Conspiracy of One. I then made it available to a wider audience via e-book (for more on that, see the Foreword).

While Old Scratch is a fictional creation, the other giant snakes of Pennsylvania mentioned herein are indeed based on actual legends, and sightings continue into present day. Indeed, as I was proofreading the final draft of this manuscript, the local news carried a brief story about another sighting of Raystown Ray. Apparently, when it comes to snakes, we grow them big here in rural Pennsylvania. That is one of the many reasons why I always carry a handgun and a stick when walking in the woods—and since I live in the heavily-wooded river bottoms along the Susquehanna, that’s pretty much all the time.

People always wonder what a horror writer’s fears are. Most of mine are probably similar to yours. Harm coming to my loved ones. Cancer. Gravity (not heights or flying, but gravity). My number one fear, however, is snakes. As long as I can remember, simply seeing a snake has always filled me with an unreasonable, overwhelming sense of loathing, terror, and revulsion. Doesn’t matter what kind of snake, either. Even tiny little garter snakes, which logically I know are harmless, terrify me. Fellow author J.F. Gonzalez (who wrote the introduction to this collection) used to think it was hilarious to invite me over to his home, and then get his pet boa constrictor out of its cage and chase me around the house with it. He stopped seeing the humor in this when I snatched a butcher knife off his kitchen counter one day and threatened to make snake cutlets if he came any closer.

Despite this admittedly unreasonable and unwarranted fear, I never really tackled snakes in my fiction until this story (unless you count the zombie snake in The Rising). During my last marriage, I lived in a place very much like Evan’s home in the novella, and the idea for this story suggested itself to me one day after a similar flood. While standing creek-side and surveying the flood damage, I noticed that the churning, rising waters had deposited several large, ugly water snakes into the low-hanging branches of a tree overhead. I took one glance at those snakes and ran away. By the time I’d reached my laptop, this story was pretty much fully-formed in my head.

Eagle-eyed readers may catch a connection between this tale and my novel Ghoul, among other subtle links.

MIDNIGHT AT THE BODY FARM

For Susan Repasky

The dead outside the body farm’s security fence were much livelier than the ones inside the compound. They smelled just as bad, though.

“My God...” Hector Bolivar took a last sip of cold instant coffee, and watched their efforts.

Both types of dead were dangerous. The corpses on the body farm didn’t move, but they posed a danger through microbes and disease. Following established procedures and wearing the proper protective gear negated these threats, but such protocols offered little protection against the dead outside. The new dead were different. They moved. Bit. Clawed. And while they spread disease like the farm’s inhabitants, the more prevalent danger was that they’d eat you long before infection set in.

When the zombies finally tore through the razor wire and made it onto the property, Bolivar ran for the building’s exit. He jumped into a battery-powered golf cart, started the engine, and pulled away, heading towards the forest. The body farm’s massive acreage held many different kinds of landscape—forests, thickets, grassland, ponds and streams. They’d even built a faux desert near the rear of the property. But the manufactured sand dunes would offer little cover. He’d be safer among the trees.

The zombies plodded along in slow pursuit. Bolivar grinned, despite his terror. As long as he could outrun them, he’d be okay.

Before Hamelin’s Revenge—a name the media gave the disease in reference to the rats that had spawned it—eradicated all of mankind’s achievements and reduced them to meat, Bolivar had been a leading Forensic Anthropologist and head of the National Institute for Justice’s “body farm”—a secure, twenty-acre parcel of land in rural Virginia. Its purpose was to advance the study of decomposition on the human body in relation to climate, weather and exposure to the elements. One of three such locations in the country, the Virginia body farm provided every possibility for research—snow, rain, heat, and other conditions. Professionals from the Federal, State, and local levels—criminologists, medical examiners, coroners, pathologists, biological anthropologists, homicide investigators, and even the armed forces—regularly visited the site in the pursuit of science and better law enforcement. They studied how climate, insects, plants, and other factors advanced or slowed decay. The bodies were donated by families, universities, and medical research institutes.

The facility operated with a staff of twenty and usually contained at least two-hundred corpses.

Now it was just Bolivar.

And the corpse count had just doubled.

The cart’s top speed was five miles per hour, but it was still faster than his pursuers. The zombies fell far behind as Bolivar drove into the darkness.

The moon and stars were hidden behind a thick cover of clouds. The air was hot. Sticky. It felt heavy and charged. Bolivar had no doubt there would be a thunderstorm before morning. The cloying atmosphere made the stench that much worse. In his rush to leave, he’d forgotten his protective gear. He was used to the smell of decomposition, of course, but that didn’t make the reeking miasma any more pleasant. Coughing, he breathed through his mouth.

The headlights flashed off a corpse in an advanced stage of decay. It was propped up against a tree. A small red tag fluttered from a stake next to it, denoting how long it had been there, the cause of death, and other factors. The legs had turned to pudding and spread out all over the grass.

Upon reaching the woods, he turned off the cart and walked towards the edge of the forest. The space between the trees was shadowed and silent. Bolivar shivered in the heat. As he crept into the woods, his pulse beat faster. Sweat ran into his eyes and dripped from his nose.

A branch snapped to his left. Bolivar spun around, but couldn’t see anything in the darkness. He suppressed the urge to cry out. Instead, he crouched down and waited.

More branches snapped. Something rustled nearby. There was a wet, phlegm-filled snort, and then a shape emerged from the shadows.

A deer.

The body farm had wildlife, of course. That was part of the studies. He’d seen deer on the grounds before—had watched them with his colleagues from their office windows. But as it drew closer, Bolivar saw that this deer was different. It was dead. Even though he couldn’t see it very well, he could smell the rot and hear the flies buzzing around it. Hamelin’s Revenge had jumped species. First the rats, then humans, and now deer.

My God, he thought, if it manages to infect avian life forms...

The deer made an awkward lunge for him. Bolivar dodged it easily enough and scampered backward—straight into another congealing corpse. Wetness soaked into his pants and shirt. His hands clawed through something warm with the consistency of tapioca pudding. Bolivar raised his arms to shield himself. Gore dripped from them.

The zombie attacked.

And then the only thing left on the body farm were two types of dead.

STORY NOTE: This story was written for the special lettered edition of my novel Dead Sea, and takes place in that same world. I got the idea from an old friend of mine, Susan Repasky, who teaches high school chemistry. She sent me an article about a real-life body farm, and attached
a note that said, “I bet you can do something with this.” She was right.

THE BLACK WAVE

October 26, 1944

The water was so beautiful and blue. Despite everything, the gentle rhythm of the white, foam-topped waves almost lulled him to sleep. Farther down, blue gave way to gray and green, and then black. The depths went on forever. Brady trailed his fingers through the water. The sea was surprisingly warm, but it still felt good on his sunburned skin. He closed his eyes and thought of Rachel; tried to block out all other thoughts and sounds—just the roaring waves and visions of Rachel. He opened his eyes again. The sun reflected off the ocean’s surface, shimmering like a swarm of fireflies back home in Indiana.

Then a severed head floated by and reminded Brady of where he was.

Roberts wouldn’t stop screaming. Something had ruptured inside his throat, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, but he kept on with it. Brady wished Roberts would just pass out.

There were eight of them in the lifeboat. Brady and Roberts, both boatswain’s mates; Selman, the radioman, badly burned from an explosion and now slipping in and out of consciousness; Wachowski, the loudmouthed signalman; Brewer, another burly boatswain’s mate, fond of getting in fights during shore leave; Chief Petty Officer Michaels, missing three fingers on his right hand and a chunk of his right ear, his face bloody and pale. There was also a wounded, unconscious man who none of them knew, dressed in the tattered remnants of civilian clothes; and the body of Senior Chief Carter. He’d passed away ten minutes after they pulled him into the boat. When they’d hoisted him aboard, burned flesh sloughed off his arms like banana peels. His left ass cheek was missing.

Their ship, the USS Brennan, a destroyer escort, had been part of a task force cruising to the Philippine island of Leyte. None of the enlisted men were sure what the mission entailed, but there were shipboard rumors that one of the vessels in the task force was carrying a new weapon that could decimate the Japanese fleet. Sadly, they’d never had the chance to find out if it was true.

When general quarters sounded, Brady was lying in his rack, staring at a picture of Rachel. They’d grown up together, gone to school together. Brady missed her, and lately, her letters had been shorter and less frequent. That bothered him. He needed to get home. Needed to make sure she still loved him. She was the reason he stayed alive. He wanted to get married. Settle down with her. Have kids. Forget this war and everything he’d seen. Spend the rest of his life lost in her eyes.

“This is not a drill, this is not a drill. General quarters, general quarters. All hands man your battle stations.”

“Shit.”

The alarm wailed again. The berthing area bustled with activity. Sailors rushed to get dressed. Brady climbed out of the rack, pulled on his boondockers, and raced up the ladder to his battle station on the 40mm gun. He pulled on his helmet and glanced around anxiously. Petty Officer Second Class Leffler was there, smoking a cigarette and scowling at the ocean. His face was lathered with shaving cream. Roberts stood next to him, rubbing the rosary he wore beneath his dungarees.

“What the hell is going on?” Brady asked.

Roberts shrugged. “I don’t know. I had mid-watch. I was sleeping when general quarters sounded.”

Leffler blew smoke from his nose. “A man can’t even shave in peace. Damn Japs...”

Brady held his breath and tried not to be scared. He scanned the empty horizon. An electronic squawk echoed across the deck and then the Captain’s voice came over the speakers. His voice was stern and calm.

“This is the Captain speaking. May I have your attention, please? A large Japanese force is approximately ten miles away and approaching our position rapidly. It’s...not good, gents. We can’t outrun them, and we’re already in reach of their guns. We’ve drawn a bad lot, men. We have no choice but to stand and fight. Prepare battle stations. Be ready. Be brave.”

There were no further warnings.

The Japanese fired their big guns before their ships were even visible. The blasts echoed across the ocean; the whistling shells sounded like freight trains passing overhead. Huge plumes of water shot into the sky and drifted back down like hissing rain.

Then the Japanese warships appeared. At first, they looked like tiny, black dots. As they drew closer, it was clear to all onboard the Brennan that the enemy armada outnumbered the small, American fleet.

The Japanese fired again. This time, the shells found their targets. Within minutes, the American ships were just scraps of twisted metal. The Brennan fared no better than her sisters. She was designed only to provide protection for the escort carriers, and not equipped for a major surface battle. The men onboard could only wait and pray—or curse. They couldn’t return fire because the Japanese were still out of range.

A loud explosion rocked the ship, sending Brady toppling to the deck. When he looked up, Leffler’s head was missing. Incredibly, the man remained standing, his hands clutching the 40mm. Blood and shaving cream dripped down his shoulders. The shaving cream had turned pink. Roberts screamed. His clothing, hands, and face were covered with bits of Leffler.

The Brennan took another direct hit and the bow lurched out of the water. It crashed back down again, showering them with saltwater. Smoke filled the air. The noise was incredible—simultaneous explosions, gunfire, shouted commands, and men screaming.

Jesus, Brady thought, I’m going to die here. Didn’t think that would actually happen. Not to me. I’ll never see Rachel again.

He smelled something cooking. Meat. Despite his fear, Brady’s mouth watered. He wondered why the cooks were frying hamburgers in the galley during battle. Did they think their shipmates would be hungry? Then a sailor stumbled out of the smoke. When Brady saw him, he retched. It wasn’t burgers cooking. It was his fellow shipmates. The man’s skin had been burned so badly that it slipped off his body as he wandered by. Brady had a horrible image of a picnic back home—Rachel pulling the skin off a piece of chicken. The man’s charred muscles and tendons still smoked. He creaked as he walked, like old leather. His mouth was open but he made no sound.

Another sailor ran past them, shrieking unintelligibly. His arms were missing and blood pumped from the holes. His eyes and tongue were blackened tissue. His teeth seemed very white in contrast.

The deck tilted and the ship groaned. Over the explosions and shouts, Brady heard the order to abandon ship.

He grabbed Roberts and shook him. “Come on. Forget about Leffler. He’s dead. We’ve got to go!”

Roberts shrugged him off and responded with another scream. His eyes were wide, his pupils dilated. Seizing his friend’s arm, Brady dragged him forward along the crosswalk. The Brennan rocked again, listing to port. Both men bounced against the railing and had Brady not been hanging on to him, Roberts would have plummeted over the side. He never stopped screaming. The stench of cooked meat grew stronger, but many of the screams had stopped.

After reaching the main deck, they made their way to the starboard side and joined the other sailors lining up for the life rafts. Brady helped Roberts jump onboard a raft, followed by Wachowski and Brewer, who’d carried the injured Selman. The civilian who none of them knew clambered into the raft next, followed by Chief Petty Officer Michaels.

“Nobody else on this side,” Wachowski said, staring at the empty deck.

Despite his injuries, Chief Michaels retained command, and ordered them to cast off. They plucked Senior Chief Carter out of the water and then paddled away from the sinking ship. Carter moaned and asked for someone named Lisa. The others urged him to rest, and continued rowing.

Oil fires covered the ocean’s surface, adding to the smoke and confusion. A whirlpool churned around the wreckage, sucking in some of their more unfortunate shipmates. Brady saw two rafts and a dozen men get pulled beneath the waves. Soon, the Brennan slipped beneath the waters as well. All that remained was a slowly-spreading oil slick, black as midnight.

There goes all I had, Brady thought. My letters from home, my photographs, my clothes, my books, and my Dad’s gold pocket watch that his Dad gave to him. All my money. Rachel’s picture... Everything—my whole world.

Now, nearly a half hour later, they rode the waves and watched debris and corpses float by. Carter had died with Lisa’s name on his lips. Brady wondered if Carter was the lucky one. All of them felt miserable, even those who were uninjured. Already the hot sun blistered their exposed skin, and dried salt caked their lips and the corners of their eyes. The wind scraped them like sandpaper.

And Roberts was still screaming.

“How long can he keep that up, you think?” Wachowski asked the others. “Hell, Selman’s all burned up and the Chief’s got his fingers and ear blown off, and they ain’t making as much noise.”

“Leave him alone,” Brady warned. “He saw...”

Brady trailed off, unable to complete the sentence. He shuddered. Little fragments of Leffler’s exploded head had dried on Roberts’s dungarees.

Selman woke briefly and made a croaking noise. He asked for water, but they didn’t have any to give him. Moaning, Selman closed his eyes again. His body shuddered and his breathing grew shallow.

“Help’s gotta come soon,” Brady said. “I’m sure we got a distress call out.”

“Don’t be so certain.” Chief Michaels gritted his chattering teeth. He was in shock, but still aware enough to maintain command. “Selman was a radioman. The radio shack was one of the first parts of the ship to get hit.”

Nobody replied.

Wachowski removed his boondockers and slipped his feet into the water. He sighed. “That feels good.”

Brewer tapped his shoulder. “Put your boots back on, recruit.”

“But my feet hurt.”

“You won’t have feet, you don’t put your shoes back on.”

“What are you talking about?”

Brewer smiled. “Sharks can see the whites of your feet.”

Wachowski drew his feet back up onto the ramp. “I hate the fucking ocean,” he muttered.

“Then why did you join the navy?” Brady asked.

Wachowski shrugged. “I don’t know. They said I’d get to see the world.”

Brewer laughed. “You wanted to see the world, you could have gone in one of the other branches. We’re all on a world tour right now. Europe. The Pacific. Fun and fucking games.”

Brady glanced back at the spot where the Brennan had been. The ocean’s surface was calm again. No bubbles or whirlpools. The current had dissipated the oil fires. There was no sign of the other ships from their task force, either. Brady wondered if they’d all shared the same fate.

Other life rafts drifted by, but most of them were out of hailing distance. The survivors signaled each other and then continued scanning the ocean and sky, looking for their rescuers. The Japanese fleet drew closer as well; slow and cautious, making sure American air support wouldn’t arrive. The men on the lifeboats watched the enemy approach.

“Think they’ll pick us off,” Brady asked, “or pick us up?”

Chief Michaels pushed himself up into a sitting position, wincing in pain as he did. “They’ll pull us out of the water. Take us prisoner, I imagine.”

Prisoners of war...The phrase ran through Brady’s mind. It felt unreal.

Roberts began a fresh round of screaming.

“What happens then?” Brady asked.

The Chief lay back down. “Torture, probably. Any of you men armed?”

They shook their heads.

“Damn,” the Chief muttered. “Well, they’ll launch small boats to retrieve us soon. Can’t out-row them, I guess. Tell you something. If capture looks imminent, I’m going over the side and taking a deep breath underwater. I’d advise you all to do the same. Better that than what they’ll do to you.”

The civilian giggled. All of them turned to the wounded stranger. He hadn’t said a word the entire time they’d been in the water, and they’d almost forgotten about him.

“What’s so funny?” Brewer snarled.

The man spoke quietly and with obvious effort. They had to lean close to hear him over Roberts’ screams. Chief Michaels sat back up again, raised his wounded hand and cupped the mangled tissue of his missing ear.

“No need for the Chief’s dramatics,” the man said. “I can assure you that there’s a good possibility the Japanese will never reach us.”

“Why’s that?” the Chief asked, groaning from the effort to hold himself upright.

“Because of our cargo.”

Scowling, Brewer slid closer to the stranger. “Who the hell are you, anyway? I never saw you before today.”

The man wheezed, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. “I’m a...” He broke into a fit of violent coughing. Blood sprayed the deck. Grimacing, the man grabbed his side. “Think...one of my ribs must have...pierced a lung.”

Wachowski prodded. “You didn’t answer his question, mister. You with Special Forces or something? Military intelligence?”

The man’s crimson lips pulled back in a tight smile. “Black Lodge.”

The other sailors frowned.

“Black Lodge,” Brewer repeated. “Never heard of it.”

“Nor would you. We’re beyond classified.”

“I’ve heard of you,” Chief Michaels said. “Special operations of some kind. Deal with weird phenomena.”

The man’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “I’m impressed, Chief. You know more than...ninety-nine percent of your...countrymen.”

Chief Michaels shrugged. “To tell the truth, I thought you guys didn’t exist. Figured it was all bullshit. Propaganda.”

The man’s eyelids fluttered. “You have...no idea...”

His eyes rolled up in his head, flashing white. His body went limp and he slumped forward. More blood leaked from his mouth. Brewer leaned forward and checked his pulse.

“He dead?” Wachowski leaned closer in morbid fascination.

Brewer shook his head. “No, just passed out. He’s in pretty bad shape, though.”

“I wonder what he meant.” Brady glanced out at the ocean again. “He said something about our cargo.”

The Japanese ships drew closer, and the American life rafts continued drifting aimlessly. The sky was clear, save for the sun and seagulls. The birds circled the lifeboats, squawking and anxious for a meal. There were no clouds and no planes. The horizons were empty as well, except for the enemy vessels. No land. No American forces. Just endless water...

And the waves—always the waves, carrying the dead.

•    •    •

“A steak,” Wachowski said. “A thick, juicy New York strip, done rare. With a baked potato.”

The others nodded in appreciation.

“Good call,” Brewer groaned. “Now I’m hungry. But for me, it would be a cold beer.” He glanced up at the sun. “Ice fucking cold. And then some pussy.”

“What about you, Roberts?” Brady softly nudged him with his elbow. “What’s the first thing you want when we get rescued?”

Roberts screamed.

“Jesus Christ, would you shut him up?” Wachowski leapt up from his seat and charged towards the screaming man.

Brady balled his fists and stood up to meet him, wobbling a bit, both from the rocking boat and the stiffness in his joints.

“Out of the way, Brady, or I’ll feed you to the sharks.”

“Sit down, Wachowski.”

Brewer stood slowly. “Or what, recruit? You may be able to kick Wachowski’s fat ass, but you’re damn sure gonna have a harder time with mine.”

“All of you knock it off!” The Chief slammed his wounded hand down in anger and then cried out in anguish. Fresh blood flowed from his stumps. His face was covered in sweat, and his forehead had turned bright red in the sun.

Selman moaned in the silence that followed.

“Now look what you made me do.” Chief Michaels sounded close to tears.

Brady sat down again. “Apologies, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir,” the Chief grunted, squirming in pain. “I work for a living.”

“You okay, Chief?”

“No, Wachowski, I am not okay. And you three aren’t making it any easier. Listen to me. Emotions run strong in situations like this. You can’t leave them unchecked, or we’ll be murdering each other. You want to fight, then remember who the enemy is. Worry about them.” He nodded in the direction of the Japanese vessels.

Roberts kept screaming.

“Or them.” Chief Michaels waved over the bow with his good hand. Shark fins cut the surface like knives through butter.

They tried to row away from the approaching enemy, but the current was too strong. After a few yards, the waves tossed them right back again. Helpless, they floated, watching the sharks and the Japanese ships circle closer. Brady wondered which would get them first.

Chief Michaels continued; his voice strained with the effort. “We need to work together. That’s the only way we’re going to survive. No matter what happens.”

The man from Black Lodge stirred again and began to applaud. The sailors stared at him, incredulous and bewildered. Nobody spoke, and even Roberts paused before continuing with his screaming.

“Bravo, Chief...Bravo.” He spoke haltingly, and each time he breathed in, his expression showed pain.

Selman coughed up blood.

“Marvelous...speech,” the civilian continued. “You should be...commended.”

“Glad you liked it,” the Chief moaned.

“I did...indeed.”

Chief Michaels waved his fingerless hand. “You’ll understand if I don’t join in the applause.”

The stranger smiled with cracked lips. “How long... was I out?”

“Not long enough,” Wachowski said. “Go back to sleep. We ain’t rescued yet.”

“I’m surprised you did sleep,” Brewer told the man. “What with Roberts screaming and all.”

“He’s...only doing...what we’ll all be doing...soon enough.”

“There you go talking crazy again.”

Frowning, Brewer prodded the wounded agent with the tip of his boot. Wincing, the stranger bit his lip, but did not cry out.

“Who are you, really?” Brewer demanded. “What do you know? Might as well tell us. The Japs will make you tell them when we’re picked up.”

“I...told you. I’m with Black...Lodge. The task force was...ferrying a new weapon we...developed. We...grew it in...”

He leaned forward and vomited blood onto the deck. Brewer stepped back in disgust. Trembling, the stranger threw up again. This time the blood was dark, almost black. He collapsed as his stomach heaved a third time, convulsing in his own gore.

“He’s in shock,” the Chief shouted. “Help him!”

Brewer laid a tentative hand on the wounded man’s chest. Another gout of blood erupted from the agent’s mouth, splattering them both. With one hand, the agent reached out and clutched Brewer’s muscular arm.

“We...grew... just like the... shoggoth...”

He released the boatswain’s mate and his arm flopped back to the deck. He stiffened and then lay still. His eyes stared directly into the sun. He did not blink.

Brewer checked his pulse, and then leaned close to see if he was breathing.

“He’s dead.”

“Toss him over,” the Chief said, his voice weaker than before. “But check him for identification first. We’ll need to notify somebody—if we ever get the chance.”

“We don’t even know his name,” Brady whispered. “Who was his family? Did he have anyone at home?”

Again, he thought of Rachel. He’d give anything to see her now, to kiss her with his blistered lips, to feel her fingers on his raw, red skin.

“Nothing,” Brewer said, finishing with his search. “What was that word he said? Shoggoth?”

Selman moaned something unintelligible, and then rolled over onto his side. Roberts screamed.

“Doesn’t matter now,” Wachowski muttered. “He’s dead, Senior Chief Carter is dead. Selman’s gonna die soon, too, if we don’t get help.”

One hundred yards away, the men on another lifeboat shouted, splashing at the water with their oars. A sleek, dark shape disappeared beneath the boat. The fin resurfaced on the other side. More sharks circled closer.

“We all are,” the Chief said. “We all are...”

Roberts continued screaming, drowning out the ocean’s roar.

•    •    •

They saw the black wave a few minutes later.

Roberts was still screaming, and even Brady was losing patience with his friend. The Chief had directed them to throw Senior Chief Carter’s corpse into the ocean along with the Black Lodge agent’s body, because the seagulls were darting down from the sky and pecking at them. Both bodies floated away on the current. The shrieking birds landed on them almost immediately. They perched on their chests and faces and began feeding—riding their own grisly lifeboats. Survivors from the other rafts did the same with their dead, hoping to pacify the sharks long enough to coast out of range.

Done with the gruesome task, Wachowski and Brewer joked about tossing Roberts over the side as well, just to shut him up. Brady knew it was just gallows humor, their way of dealing with all that had happened, but the callous remark still angered him. He opened his mouth and started to say something, but then he saw it—a black wave, moving against the current. It was the same size as the other waves, but it rolled in the opposite direction. The sun did not reflect off its surface.

None of his fellow survivors had noticed it. The Chief was almost unconscious. Brewer and Wachowski were needling each other about what they’d do to each other’s sister when they were rescued. Selman was thrashing on the deck and babbling; white flecks of spittle caked his burned face. And Roberts...

Maybe Roberts did notice the wave, because he stopped screaming.

“Thank God,” Wachowski said. “We ought to gag him before he starts again.”

Brady barely heard him. His gaze was fixated on the black wave. A shark fin crested the water about ten feet away from it. As he watched, the wave changed direction in mid-course, swerving directly for the predator. It crashed over the shark and the fin disappeared. The wave grew in size.

They heard shouting from one of the other lifeboats. Brady glanced in that direction, assuming the men onboard had witnessed the same thing. Instead, he was surprised to see them pointing at the Japanese ships. The enemy had launched several smaller boats. They sped towards the life rafts.

“Shit!” Brewer gripped the side of the boat. “They’re coming. Fucking Japs. What do we do, Chief?”

“Pray. We pray, son.”

“Umm, fellas?” Brady pointed at the black wave. It had changed course again, swerving towards one of the American rafts. The men onboard hadn’t noticed it. Their attention was focused on their pursuers.

“You hallucinating?” Wachowski asked, without looking. “Seeing mermaids? You’ve been out here in the sun too long, Brady. Eyes aft. We’ve got trouble.”

“We’ve got trouble forward too, you fat fuck. Look!”

Growling, Wachowski turned to where Brady was pointing. Immediately, his jaw went slack. “The fuck is that?”

The Japanese fired several warning shots, letting their captives know they were armed. At the same time, the black wave surged over an American lifeboat, swamping the men onboard. Brady saw several of them try to leap aside, but the black water sucked them into the wave’s mass. Both raft and crew vanished, just like the shark. And again, the wave seemed to swell. It changed course once more, flowing smoothly against the tide.

“I did not just see that,” Wachowski breathed. “How can it do that?”

All of them fixed their attention on the wave now, the enemy forgotten. Chief Michaels propped himself up with his good hand and stared in disbelief. The Japanese noticed the wave too. They slowed their approach, and as their engines idled down, Brady heard them jabbering at each other.

“They don’t know what it is either,” he said. “Maybe it’s that weapon the Black Lodge man was talking about.”

“Then why did it just kill our guys?” Wachowski asked.

“We don’t know that it did. It hit them, and then when it moved on, they were gone. We didn’t see their bodies.”

The big man’s sunburned face turned from red to purple. “We didn’t see the fucking raft either, Brady. It ate them!”

“It didn’t—”

A shriek cut him off. The black wave turned again, once more rolling in the opposite direction of the other waves, and flooded the American raft closest to them. Brady recognized several of the sailors onboard; he’d seen their faces every day—in the galley, on the bridge, in their berthing areas. He didn’t know any of their names but he recognized them just the same. They were brothers. He’d served with them. Somehow, the fact that he didn’t know their names made their deaths that much worse.

This time, the attack was close enough to make out details. The wave quivered as it crashed over them, shimmering and flowing. It absorbed the sailors, along with the boat; drew them into its mass and instantly converted them into more dark water. And then they were gone. Washed away.

“Row,” Chief Michaels shouted. “Row, row, row...Get us out of here!”

He clutched an oar with his one good hand, reopening the wounds around his severed fingers. His blood pooled on the deck. Brewer and Brady grabbed two more oars and plunged them into the water. Wachowski just stared.

The wave swelled, paused, and then turned towards them. It swept over the two corpses they’d just thrown into the water, disturbing the seagulls’ banquet. The birds took flight, soaring into the air. The wave crested, and tendrils of black water shot up after them, liquefying the fleeing birds in mid-air.

“Oh God...” Brady held his breath.

The wave picked up speed. Roberts started screaming again, and this time, the others joined him.

“Faster,” Brewer shouted. “Wachowski, grab an oar and row, goddamn it!”

Blubbering, Wachowski ran to the bow. The raft rocked, leaning to starboard. Seawater rushed into the boat.

“Sit down before you capsize us,” Brewer yelled. “Chief, what can we do?”

Chief Michaels didn’t answer. Blood loss had finally caught up with him. He slumped over, unconscious. The oar slipped from his hands and floated away. Brewer leaned out over the water and grabbed for the oar as Wachowski cowered at the very front of the lifeboat. The craft tilted farther, spilling Brewer into the ocean. Soundless, the wave rushed towards him. Brewer bobbed up and down on the tide. He opened his mouth to scream and then the black water engulfed him.

Gone.

Brady sobbed. Wachowski joined Roberts in another round of screaming. Chief Michaels and Selman remained mercifully still. The wave made a wide arc, scooped up another shark, and then charged.

A gunshot rang out, echoing across the water. Several more rounds followed. The Japanese small boats had crept closer and opened fire.

“Well,” Wachowski said with a half-laugh, half-cry. “It must not be theirs, either.”

Bullets slammed into the wave, spraying droplets of black water into the air, but they had no effect. The wave paused, and then churned towards this new threat. The Japanese continued firing, but as the wave bore down on them, they gunned their engines and fled for the safety of their fleet. The boats skipped across the ocean, bobbing up and down in the surf. The wave picked up speed. It swallowed the first boat whole, and then made quick work of the others. Its size increased again, and by the time the last boat was obliterated, the wave was nearly thirty feet high. Without pausing, it stormed after the bigger Japanese ships.

“Now’s our chance,” Brady said. “Wachowski, help me row!”

“It’s no use. You saw how fast it is.”

Roberts’s voice finally gave out. He kept screaming, but the only sound he made was a harsh wheeze.

Brady rowed harder. “Help me!”

Wachowski wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and then grabbed the spare oar. It was slick with Chief Michaels’s blood, but he didn’t seem to notice. He paused, watching as the black wave decimated the Japanese fleet. The water crashed into the side of a large frigate, turning steel to liquid in a heartbeat. The ship tilted, and the wave flowed up onto the deck.

“It’s getting bigger,” Wachowski gasped. “The more it eats, the bigger it gets.”

“So row!”

“We’ve got to be faster, Brady.” He dropped the oar, bent over, and grabbed the Chief’s shoulders. Grunting, Wachowski picked up the Chief’s limp form and dragged him to the side.

“What are you doing?”

“Making us faster.”

“Wachowski, don’t—”

There was a splash. Grinning, Wachowski turned to Selman.

“You too. Sorry about this. Hopefully, you’ll sleep right through it.”

Brady gritted his teeth. Tears rolled down his raw cheeks. Wachowski was right. It didn’t make it any easier, but he was right. Brady thought about survival; thought about Rachel. He’d do anything to get home safely. He stared straight ahead as Wachowski lifted Selman’s body and carried him to the side. There was a second splash, and Wachowski breathed a heavy sigh. Wood clattered against metal as he retrieved the oar. Brady continued looking forward, not wanting to see the bodies floating on the tide.

Roberts suddenly grew quiet, and there was a third splash.

Frowning, Brady heard Wachowski come up behind him.

“Got to be faster,” the fat man whispered.

Brady turned just as Wachowski swung. There was a tremendous, hot pain as the oar slammed into the side of his face. Brady crumpled. Warmth ran down his cheek and ear. His vision blurred.

“Faster...”

Brady felt rough hands on him and then he was falling. He heard another splash, but he didn’t care. He was suddenly surrounded with a wonderful cool wetness, and nothing else mattered. Brady took a deep breath and held it.

Then he closed his eyes and thought of Rachel.

As he sank beneath the waves, he heard Wachowski screaming louder than Roberts had been.

•    •    •

Brady opened his eyes. Above him, he saw the dim, shadowy outline of the lifeboat’s hull. Below him were the ocean depths. They seemed to go on forever.

The water was so beautiful.

Blue.

Then it turned black.

STORY NOTE: This was written for a themed-anthology of weird war stories. I’ve been on lifeboats during my time in the Navy, and let me tell you, it ain’t no picnic. This story stemmed out of those experiences. Comparisons to Stephen King’s “The Raft” are unavoidable, although the similarities didn’t occur to me until I was halfway through editing the final draft of this tale. At that time, I hadn’t read “The Raft” since high school, but in retrospect, it obviously influenced me. In any case, though the monsters are similar, the stories are quite different.

ALONE

For Jack Haringa

“The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

Such tricks hath strong imagination,

That if it would but apprehend some joy,

It comprehends some bringer of that joy;

Or in the night, imagining some fear ...”

— WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“These burning skies, dark as a plague of flies, forever and ever and ever together illuminate you and I.”

— SHOOTER JENNINGS,

“The Illuminated”

ONE

Daniel Miller woke up alone; something he hadn’t done since he and Jerry had moved in together after buying this house six years ago.

The first thing he was aware of when he woke each morning was Jerry’s presence. Dan could always sense his partner, even without opening his eyes. He could always hear Jerry breathing, smell his scent, feel his weight on the mattress, or the sheets shifting as Jerry stirred. But there was none of that this morning. There was no gentle snoring or faint hint of yesterday’s cologne or rustling of their flannel sheets. The bedroom was silent and Jerry was gone. Dan listened for the telltale sounds of his partner making coffee downstairs, or fixing breakfast for Danielle, their adoptive daughter (named after him), or maybe the sound of the shower running, or Jerry bustling around getting ready for work, but there was only more silence.

Yawning, Dan opened his eyes. He rubbed sleep from them, scratched, and yawned again. Something felt ... off. He lay there for a minute, trying to figure out what it was, and then it dawned on him. The light in the room was different this morning. Gray murk had replaced the usual sunlight that filtered through the closed curtains and blinds. The bedroom was quiet. No, not just quiet. ‘Still’ seemed a more apt description, Dan thought. It almost felt as if he’d gone deaf. Surely there should have been a noise from somewhere in the house, or from the street? Wondering what time it was, he turned to the nightstand and squinted at the alarm clock.

“Shit.”

The digital clock’s face was blank. Dan assumed that the power must have gone out sometime in the night. He fumbled for his Rolex watch on the nightstand. It was a gift from Jerry for their fifth anniversary. Although he could have afforded one, Dan would have never purchased such an expensive watch on his own. He accidentally knocked his wallet and keys to the floor in the process of grabbing the watch. The keys made a curiously muted sound as they hit the uncarpeted wood floor. Dan held the watch up and squinted again. The watch had stopped running too; its hands frozen at 1:46 am.

“Keeps on ticking, my ass.”

He wondered why he bothered to still rely on the Rolex. His cell phone displayed the time whenever he needed it. The watch was more decorative and sentimental, than anything.

“I don’t need you anymore,” he said to the Rolex. “The only reason I keep you around is because I’m a softie. Settling down does that to a man, I guess.”

Yawning again, he seized the alarm clock again, and shook it, thinking perhaps it had an electrical short. Despite the shaking, the display still didn’t light up. All he succeeded in doing was yanking the cord from the outlet.

“Damn it.”

Angered, Dan flung the clock across the room and stumbled out of bed. He had a flash of annoyance when the clock hit the wall with a dull thud, rather than the destructive crash he’d been hoping for. With the annoyance came shame that he had acted so thoughtlessly and impulsively. Sure, he was successful now, but he’d grown up poor. Had he really become one of those guys who simply broke things in fits of anger and then went out and bought a replacement? He hoped not. But still—he didn’t like being late. Today was going to be a busy one, and this wasn’t a good start. And where the hell were Jerry and Danielle?

“Jerry?” His shout was garbled, hoarse. He’d quit smoking three years earlier, after the doctor had warned him about his heart, but the tobacco’s effects lingered. He cleared his throat and tried again.

“Hey, Jerry? Hon? The power’s out! What time is it?”

There was no answer. His words hung in the air like balloons.

“Jerry?”

Barefoot and clad only in a pair of black, worn-out silk boxer shorts, Dan shuffled into the hall. His ears rang in the silence.

“Helloooooo!”

Dan scratched beneath his waistband and peeked into Danielle’s room. The bed was unmade, and the sheets still showed the impression from where she’d slept. His daughter’s stuffed animals were silent and dour. Two-dozen glass button eyes stared back at him.

“Danielle? Punkin’?”

No answer.

Dan frowned, thinking. Apparently, Jerry had taken Danielle somewhere this morning. Probably to daycare. He must have known that the power was out. Why hadn’t he woken him up before they left? Now he’d be late for work. It was uncharacteristic of Jerry to be so inconsiderate, and it pissed him off the more he thought about it. Sure, Dan was the owner of his own company. But that didn’t mean he could just stroll in whenever he felt like it—especially when he only had five other employees, all of whom would be there waiting for him to open.

He thought about the possibilities. Danielle was late for daycare and Jerry had forgotten about waking him. Or perhaps the power had gone off after Jerry and Danielle had left the house. Or maybe something terrible had happened, and Jerry had to rush her to the doctor. Or maybe Jerry had left him—moved out while he was still asleep. Maybe he’d been having an affair with another guy ...

Quit being paranoid. Jerry probably just went out for something—maybe we need coffee—and he left a note downstairs.

Dan stomped down the hallway and into the bathroom. He assured himself that he was just being silly and paranoid. He needed to wake up. Then everything would become clear.

He wished, not for the first time, that they’d bought a newer house with room for a second bathroom. Instead, they’d bought this Civil War-era home with limited space. Still, it was a home filled with love and laughter—except for this morning.

Fumbling for his limp penis through the fly of his boxers, he thought about this new sign of approaching middle age. Gone was the raging morning wood of his twenties and early thirties. He stared down at his potbelly, another sign, one that had come to visit him around his thirty-second birthday, and refused to leave no matter how much time he spent at the gym or how much healthy food Jerry forced him to eat.

He stood there, willing himself to piss, but nothing happened. He concentrated, focusing on the act at hand—or in hand. Still nothing. His penis had stage fright. The first few gray pubic hairs (another unwelcome and disturbing sign of impending middle-age, one that had shown up only a few months ago) poked out from his boxers. More gray peppered his temples and beard. Dan hated the gray hairs. Jerry often told him they were sexy, and that they made him look distinguished, but Dan knew he was lying. It was one of those things you said out of love, rather than sincerity—like telling someone a particular pair of jeans didn’t make them look fat when in fact, they did.

Muttering, Dan released his flaccid, uncooperative member and shuffled back to the bedroom. He shrugged into his blue bathrobe, mildly surprised that his joints didn’t pop and his muscles didn’t ache this morning like they usually did. That was a good sign.

The silence began to annoy him. It felt uncomfortable. Yawning once again, he grabbed the stereo remote control and pushed the button. Nothing happened. Then Dan remembered that there was no electricity.

“Must ... have ... coffee ... Can’t think straight.”

He fastened the bathrobe shut, and started down the stairs, mentally taking stock as he went.

My name is Daniel Miller. I own a web design and hosting company that helped pay for this house. I have a wonderful partner, Jerry, who works as a mortgage research analyst, and a beautiful daughter, Danielle, and I love them both very much, even if they did forget to wake me up for work this morning. I am officially middle aged now, and somebody must have made a mistake somewhere, because I graduated in 1990, which wasn’t really that long ago, and I’ve already got a pot belly and gray fucking pubic hair and no morning hard on. This makes me angry. The power is out, and this makes me even angrier. And even if the power was on, the classic rock station out of Harrisburg is playing Def Leppard and Bon Jovi these days. When did Def fucking Leppard become classic rock anyway? Classic rock is Jimi Hendrix and Led Zepplin. And Bon Jovi? That was what straight guys listened to when they wanted to get laid back in the Eighties. It certainly isn’t something I want to wake up to in the morning.

“Hello,” he called again as he entered the living room, not really expecting a response. “Anybody home? Come out, come out wherever you are.”

He made his way into the kitchen, and looked for a note on the refrigerator, but found none. The appliance was covered with the same old magnets and take-out menus. Hanging from the center of the door was a crayon drawing Danielle had made of the three of them. He’d hung it up there only a few weeks ago, and the three of them had decorated it with gold stars and glitter. Sighing, Dan opened the cupboard, and noticed that the hinges on the cupboard door didn’t squeak like normal.

Jerry must have oiled them yesterday. Probably got sick of waiting for me to do it. But that’s not my fault. He knows how busy I’ve been with work.

Dan pulled out a jar of instant coffee, and dropped two spoonfuls into a mug. He hated how instant coffee tasted, but with no power, he had little choice. Then he turned on the hot water tap. Nothing happened.

“Oh, for crying out loud! There’s no water either?”

He slammed the mug down on the counter. The noise was quiet, muted, and not at all satisfying, so he slammed it down again. It still wasn’t loud enough to express his anger. The mug didn’t rattle or crack. The impact seemed suppressed, as if both the counter and the mug were made of rubber. It occurred to him that his alarm clock had made a similar sound when he’d tossed it across the bedroom minutes before. Dan stuck the tip of his pinky finger in each ear and wiggled it around, thinking that perhaps his ears were plugged. The sensation felt good, but when he pulled his finger out and examined it, there was very little wax, and his hearing hadn’t changed.

Shrugging, Dan decided to call time and temperature, find out how late he was, and then call the power and water companies before he left for work. Luckily, the kitchen phone wasn’t a cordless, and it didn’t need electricity to work. He lifted the phone from its cradle and brought it to his ear. All he heard was more silence. Dan toyed with it, trying to get a dial tone, but to no avail. The phone slipped from his hand, and tumbled to the floor without a sound. The first twinge of unease gnawed at him. The dead utilities and his missing family ... What the hell was going on? Had there been an accident or something? A terrorist attack? No, he was just being silly. There had to be a logical explanation. He just needed to wake up. Then things would make sense.

He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of orange juice. Still pondering the situation, he brought the carton to his lips, drank, grimaced, and then spit the juice out in the sink. It had no taste. It wasn’t rancid. It was just—tasteless. The milk and soda had the same effect when he tried them. Even the bottled water tasted strange—flat. He grabbed a cold chicken drumstick, and took a bite.

“Ugh!”

Disgusted, he threw it into the garbage can. The chicken was also tasteless. Like chewing on a piece of paper. Could the stuff in the fridge have gone bad already? Just how long had the power been out? How long had he been asleep? And for that matter, where had the chicken come from? As far as Dan remembered, they’d had lasagna last night. Where were those leftovers?

“Jerry?” He called out again, not expecting an answer. “Danielle? Are you guys here?”

No response.

Sighing, he tightened the belt of his robe and decided to get the newspaper. Maybe there had been a thunderstorm overnight, and he’d slept through it. Maybe it had knocked down the power lines or something. That would explain the utility outage, at the very least.

Dan walked to the front door, his bare feet swishing on the carpet. Normally the sound was very loud, but this morning, it too seemed quieter. He wondered again about his ears. Was there something wrong with his hearing? First sign of an oncoming sinus infection, perhaps?

He opened the door, stepped onto the sidewalk, and noticed that the light outside was different, as well. He stared up at the dark and overcast sky. It looked strange. There was no sun, and no clouds. Instead, there was only a bleak, gray curtain. It didn’t billow. Didn’t move. He’d never seen anything like it before. The haze was like fog, but seemed ... denser, somehow. Too thick. It obscured everything. He could see a few of his neighbor’s houses—the Kresby’s and the Lopez’s—in each direction, and some of the trees lining the street, but after that there was nothing but more gray haze. Dan frowned. It was as if the rest of the neighborhood had been swallowed up by the weird fog.

He was annoyed to discover that the newspaper wasn’t on the sidewalk. The delivery boy was usually pretty good about throwing it there. The kid had an arm like a major league player and the precision of an Army sniper. Dan took a few more steps, searching for the paper. Then he looked at the driveway—and froze.

“Oh no ...”

Jerry’s silver Lexus was still in the driveway, parked in front of Dan’s brand new Ford Explorer.

Tiny pangs of real fear blossomed inside of him now, replacing his anger. He stood there, his pulse quickening as panic set in. Where the hell was his family? Could Danielle have been abducted, like other children in the news? Kidnapped—and Jerry killed, trying to protect her? Or a hate crime, perhaps? Maybe some sick fuck had them right now! His partner and daughter could be out there, and—

He punched his leg in frustration as a new thought occurred to him.

“The cell phone! Why didn’t I think of that before?”

Because you just woke up, moron.

Dan ran back into the house, through the kitchen and living room, and took the stairs three at a time. Yes, the kitchen phone hadn’t worked, but it relied on the phone lines. That didn’t necessarily mean the cellular network was down. Rushing into the bedroom, he grabbed the cell phone from its charger on the nightstand and pressed the power button, turning it on. Even with the power outage, the battery should have still had plenty of life.

Except that it didn’t. The cell phone sat silently in his hands. He waited for it to power up, but it didn’t. The screen stayed blank and dim.

“Come on!”

Dan thumbed the power button again, and then, without waiting for the screen to light up, he dialed 911. Again there was nothing. The cell phone, like everything else in the house, was dead.

“I don’t believe this ...”

Standing there in his bathrobe, Dan suddenly felt weak. He thought he might pass out. His head swooned and his vision darkened. His loved ones were missing, and something strange was going on. His stomach felt sick. Dan dropped the cell phone and sank onto the bed, clutching the sheets with his fists, and trying to keep his growing fear from overwhelming him.

He didn’t even notice that the mattress springs did not squeak.

TWO

He sat there a few moments, trembling, his head throbbing, not from pain, but from terror. The fear and nausea grew stronger, and his stomach cramped. Dan slapped a hand over his mouth and ran to the bathroom. He knelt and gagged, but nothing came out. Desperate for relief, he stuck his middle finger down his throat and tried forcing himself to vomit. It didn’t help. Nothing came out but air.

Standing back up, Dan cinched his robe around him and tried to think. Something was terribly wrong, that much was obvious. He needed to call the police. If something sinister really had happened to Jerry and Danielle, then every second mattered. But he couldn’t report it as long as the power was out and his cell phone wasn’t working. He decided to try the Lopez’s next door. Maybe their power was on. If not, then maybe their cell phones were working.

He walked back outside again. His apprehension grew as he passed by Jerry’s car. Much like his home, the rest of the neighborhood was silent. The typical summer morning sounds were missing. There were no birds chirping from the trees and power lines. The leaves on the trees weren’t rustling in the breeze, and no squirrels scampered across them. There were no lawnmowers roaring to life. No children playing and shouting in their yards. No traffic in the street. No booming car stereos as the teenagers cruised by—no cruising teenagers either.

Dan stared upward into the gray sky. No planes passed overhead, even though they lived just a few miles from the airport. There weren’t even any contrails from airplanes that had already passed by. It was possible that the murky, overcast haze obscured them, but at the very least, he would have still been able to hear the planes overhead. They were a regular occurrence. But not this morning, and that meant trouble. The last time the planes were absent from the sky was the day after September 11th, when the President had shut down all air traffic in the country.

Dan’s dread grew. He stepped onto his neighbor’s lawn. The grass should have been wet with morning dew, but it was curiously dry and brittle. The leaves drooped on the trees.

You really need to water your yard, Hector, he thought.

The Lopez family had moved onto the block the same year as Dan and Jerry, and they’d grown close over time. Hector Lopez, his wife Estelle, and his teenage daughter Maria, were good people, and had no problem with a gay couple living next door—let alone a gay couple raising an adoptive daughter. Hector had mentioned once that Maria suffered from depression. She had apparently gone through a self-mutilation phase, cutting herself with knives, but all that had changed now that they’d moved here. Dan liked the family very much.

Hector commuted into the city every morning, and Estelle worked part-time at the mall. When Dan peeked through their garage door window, he saw that both Hector and Estelle’s cars were still inside. Maria’s sporty little Volkswagen, purchased for her several months ago as a sweet-sixteen present, sat in the driveway. Dan felt a rush of relief. All three of them were obviously home. Sitting next to the vehicles was the new bass boat Hector had purchased only a few weeks before.

Dan crept up the sidewalk, suddenly aware that he was parading around in his bathrobe. But so what? Why should he care what anyone thought right now? This was no time to feel self-conscious. Jerry and Danielle were gone, and they were all that mattered. He rang the doorbell. The chime didn’t sound and the button didn’t light up. He rang it again, hopeful, but nothing happened.

“The power must be out here, too.”

He knocked, instead, and waited. When there was no answer, Dan knocked again, listening carefully for sounds from inside the house. He was greeted by silence. Cursing, he rapped again, harder this time. Nothing. He beat the door with both fists, hammering on it, hollering for Hector and Estelle and Maria—shouting for somebody, anybody, to help him. Even in his panic, Dan was aware once again of the curious, muted sound effect. The door shook in its frame, yet his blows were muffled. Even his cries sounded small in the silence. He didn’t have time to ponder it now. He reached down and tried the doorknob. It was locked. He rattled it, then slammed the door with his shoulder. His efforts produced nothing.

Moaning, he ran back to his yard and cut across it to the Kresby’s house. Their grass also felt dry and withered.

Jesus, doesn’t anybody take care of their lawn anymore?

His robe had come unfastened and it flapped behind him, fluttering like a cape. If any of the neighbors were watching him right now, he realized, they were getting quite the show.

I probably look like a middle-aged Captain Marvel, he thought. Fuck them. If they don’t like it, they can close the shades.

It occurred to him that other than the Kresby’s and the Lopez’s, nobody could see him anyway. The gray fog obliterated everything else. He could see the road and a few of the homes across the street, and the cars in their driveways, but beyond that was emptiness. Indeed, the neighborhood just sort of faded away, vanishing into the murk. Chances were he could run around naked out here and no one would know. He almost wished somebody could see him. If ripping off his robe and boxers and letting his dick flap in the breeze would make someone call the police, he’d be all for it.

Focus, he thought. You’re freaking out, and that’s not going to help Jerry or Danielle. Get a grip on yourself. The Kresby’s will be home. They’re retired. They never go anywhere, except to the grocery store on Friday. Phil’s prostate wakes him up early every morning. He’ll answer. He’ll help.

Except that Phil Kresby didn’t answer the door. Neither did his wife, Susan. Dan’s urgent knocks and cries for help went unanswered, just as they had at the Lopez home. Frantic, he pressed his face against the Kresby’s large bay window at the front of the house. The curtains were slightly parted. Dan cupped his hands beside his eyes and peered through the glass. It was hard to see more than a few feet inside. The Kresby’s living room was filled with the same gray fog that obscured the rest of the neighborhood.

“What the hell is going on? What is this?”

Dan realized that his voice sounded very strange out here in the silence. He had trouble believing it was he who had spoken aloud. He scowled, wondering how the fog had gotten inside the Kresby’s home. Had they left a window open or something? Were they okay? Could something have happened to them, too?

“Phil,” he shouted, banging on the window and noticing the strange muffling effect again. “Phil? Susan? Are you home? It’s Dan Miller! Please, if you’re in there, answer me. I need help. Something has happened.”

Dan glanced around the yard, spotted a ceramic lawn gnome squatting between two of the Kresby’s bushes, and picked it up. He noticed that the shrubs had the same withered look and texture as the grass and trees, but then he turned his attention to the gnome. It was solid, but surprisingly light. Dan smashed the lawn ornament’s pointed green hat against the window. The glass shattered on the third blow. For a brief second, Dan thought he heard a woman scream, as if from a far off distance, but then the sound faded. Shards of glass fell quietly at his feet. Again, he wondered what was going on with his hearing. The sound of breaking glass should have been much louder. And who had he heard screaming? Had it been Susan? If so, she must be upstairs, given how far away she’d sounded.

“Susan? Are you in there? I’m sorry about the window, but I need help.”

He paused, listening, but there was no response. Yet he couldn’t have imagined the scream, could he? There had to be someone here.

“Susan! Answer me, god damn it! Something very strange is going on. I’m coming in. I don’t mean any harm. If you’re in there, let me know.”

When he still didn’t receive a response, Dan carefully picked the shards of glass out of the frame and then climbed through the broken window. He watched where he stepped on the other side, mindful of his bare feet. Once inside the Kresby’s home, he was immediately overcome by a vague sense of unease. At first, he chalked it up to the situation—his family was missing and he had just broken into his neighbor’s house. But as he crept forward into the living room, that feeling of dread increased. Something was wrong in here. He didn’t know what it was. He couldn’t name it or define it or explain the cause. He just felt it on some instinctive level.

The gloom deepened as he went further, obscuring his vision. Hesitating, Dan reached out and tried to touch the gray haze, but his hand simply passed through it as if it weren’t there. He thought back to an experience he’d had when he and Jerry first started dating. They’d gone mountain climbing together for a weekend, and at the top of a peak, he’d touched the low-hanging mist. At the time, Jerry had made a joke of it, saying that his love for Dan made him feel like he was walking amidst the clouds. Dan remembered the sensation as he’d waved his hand through the fog in the Kresby’s home. This wasn’t the same as on the mountain. There was no sense of dampness or cold. Indeed, the grayness felt like nothing at all. It had no temperature or texture or smell. He stepped into it, and that sense of foreboding increased.

“Phil?” he called again, but now his voice had grown timid. “Susan? Please answer me. Please...?”

His feet faltered in time with his voice. The unreasonable fear deepened, threatening to overwhelm him. The deeper he went into the fog, the worse the feeling became. Dan still had no idea just what he was afraid of. He only knew that he had to get out of the house. Turning, he fled across the room, heedless of the broken glass, and hurried back out the window. His unease subsided as he left the gray haze behind, and his worries for Jerry and Danielle returned to the forefront again.

Seized with panic for his family, Dan charged across his neighbor’s yard, dodged around a tree, and ran out into the street. He shouted as loudly as he could, but his cries sounded hollow and meek. He half wondered if the strange atmosphere was having some kind of dampening effect on sound. He plunged through more of the gloom as he ran across the street. The pavement beneath his feet vanished. He glanced around, looking for the houses and trees that he knew were there, but saw only a wall of gray. Even the curb was gone.

Plow through, he thought. It’s just fog. A weird fucking fog, but fog all the same. You can do this. You need to find out what’s happened.

Trying hard to ignore his fears, he forced himself to continue ahead. As he did, the nameless dread returned again, growing stronger with each subsequent step. He kept going, realizing that he was well past where the curb should have been. Despite this, there was no grass beneath his feet. No yard. No houses or trees or trash cans or mailboxes. It was as if everything on the block, other than his home and the Lopez and Kresby homes had vanished. He turned to look behind him and saw his own house. It seemed to be shimmering. The image made Dan think of the way heat waves were sometimes visible rising off a hot road surface. He took a deep breath, trying to clear his head and make sense of things, and that was when he felt it.

Someone—or some thing—was here with him, inside the fog. He couldn’t see them or hear them, but he definitely felt a presence.

“H-hello?”

He saw no movement, but he sensed it all the same. Something was coming toward him, pushing its way through the haze. His dread increased. The disembodied presence drew closer. He still couldn’t see it, but the grayness seemed to press around him.

“Who’s there?”

For a second, the gloom parted, and Dan caught a glimpse of a looming, shadowy figure. It wasn’t human. That much he was sure of. He saw no distinguishing features or traits. No face or clothing. The entity seemed to be nothing more than a black, man-shaped hole, but much larger than a human. It towered over him, dwarfing him with its presence. The grayness seemed to congeal in the figure’s wake. Dan felt the creatures eyes upon him, even though he couldn’t see any. Then, the shadow reached for him.

Screaming, Dan fled back across the street. He ran across his yard and into his house, slamming the door behind him. His fingers trembled so badly that he had trouble working the deadbolt. When the door was locked, he sank to the floor and bit his fist to keep from shrieking.

Dan had no idea how long he crouched there with his back against the door, shivering, stifling his gasps and moans. Slowly, his fear subsided. He listened carefully, but if the shadow had pursued him, then it made no sound. Eventually, he gathered enough courage to crawl over to the window. Then he peeked outside. The yard and street were empty. If the thing was still out there, then it was hiding in the haze.

Trying to be as quiet as possible, Dan went from room to room and repeated the process. He peered out each window, looking for any sign of his pursuer. He made sure all the doors and windows were locked. Satisfied that he wasn’t in any immediate danger, he collapsed into a dining room chair, buried his face in his hands. He wanted to weep, but the tears, like his urine earlier that morning, refused to flow.

THREE

Dan gripped the pen so tightly between his thumb and index finger that the plastic casing cracked. Black ink smudged his skin, but he didn’t notice. Instead, he kept singing under his breath.

“I’m making a list, and checking it twice. Gonna find out ...”

His voice faltered as another sob welled up inside of him. He wanted to cry so bad, but for some reason, he couldn’t. Blinking, Dan took a deep breath and forced himself to focus. Then he turned his attention back to the paper lying in front of him on the dining room table. At the top of the paper, in big block capital letters, he’d written THINGS THAT I KNOW. Beneath that was a bullet-point list of all the weird occurrences he’d experienced since waking up this morning.

・Jerry and Danielle are gone.

・Jerry’s car is still in the driveway.

・My watch stopped at 1:46 in the morning. It’s not working.

・All of the utilities are out.

・Cell phone won’t power up. I’m betting even if it did, the coverage isn’t working, either.

・The Lopez and Kresby houses seem to be deserted.

・Something is wrong with the sound of things.

・Everything tastes funny. That could be me, I guess. Maybe my hearing and sense of taste are both off.

・There’s a gray sort of haze everywhere, but it doesn’t feel like fog.

・Everything in the haze seems to have disappeared, including the rest of the neighborhood.

・The plants outside feel weird, like they are dying. Could that be because of the haze?

・The light is different, both indoors and out. It’s gray. That’s probably also because of the haze, since it’s gray, too.

・At one point, my house was shimmering. When I came out of the haze, it stopped.

・There is something else out there in the haze. I’m terrified of it.

・Other than the figure in the mist, I am alone.

When he was finished with the list, Dan leaned back in his chair and sighed. Writing everything down had given him a sense of achievement. It had made him feel like he was doing something useful, and had calmed him somewhat, but he was still scared and worried about his family—and everyone else in the neighborhood, for that matter. He and Jerry had an annual New Year’s Eve tradition. Each year, they stayed up late and watched The Twilight Zone marathon on television. Dan’s favorite episode had always been the one with the meek and bookish bank teller who is the only survivor of a nuclear war. After everyone else on the planet is dead, the teller is overjoyed that he’ll finally have time to read his beloved books without interruption. Dan had always found the premise an enjoyable fantasy, but he regretted that now. There was nothing enjoyable about his predicament.

He took another deep breath and pondered what to do next. He decided to begin by searching the home for clues. He’d been half awake and panicked before. Perhaps if he went back through the house now and searched meticulously, he’d find something that might explain what had happened.

Nodding, Dan went upstairs and returned to the bedroom, intent on retracing his steps. He found Jerry’s keys, wallet, and cell phone lying atop the dresser, exactly where Jerry always put them every night. On a whim, he tried Jerry’s cell phone, but it was dead just like his. He flipped open the leather wallet. It had belonged to Jerry’s grandfather, and had sentimental value. Jerry never left home without it, and was very careful about not losing it. If he had left in the night, Dan was certain that Jerry would have taken the wallet with him. Inside the wallet was forty dollars in cash, along with all of Jerry’s credit cards, driver’s license, and social security card. There were no pictures. Jerry kept those on his cell phone.

Dan put the wallet back down and noticed that he’d left an ink fingerprint on it. He wiped his smudged fingers on his robe, but only succeeded in smearing the ink more. He shook his head in frustration. With the water off, he couldn’t even wash his hands properly.

He opened the dresser drawers. All of Jerry’s underwear, socks, ties and t-shirts seemed to be accounted for. The ties made him smile. Unlike most men, Jerry had always insisted on storing his ties in the dresser. Dan had teased him playfully about it many times. He tried the closet, and found Jerry’s slacks, jeans, dress shirts, and suit coats hanging in place, many of them covered in the plastic from the dry cleaner’s. Jerry’s shoes were lined up neatly on the shelf above. Dan counted them. Two pairs of sneakers, a pair of sandals, three pair of dress shoes, and a ratty pair of skateboarding shoes from Jerry’s teenage skate punk years that he refused to throw away. Only one pair was missing—Jerry’s bedroom slippers. When Dan turned, he saw them sticking out from under the bed.

Okay, he thought. If Jerry had decided to leave me for some unknown reason, then he would have taken his wallet and his keys. At the very least, he wouldn’t have gone barefoot.

“Where are you?” he asked the room. “Where did you go? What’s happened to you?”

He blinked his eyes again, willing them to water, demanding they release the sorrow he felt inside, but they refused. His stomach roiled. He forced himself to calm down, reminded himself to focus again on the task at hand. He couldn’t help Jerry or Danielle if he freaked out. He had to stay strong and in control, and approach this illogical situation in a logical manner.

Dan walked down the hall to his daughter’s room. It was as it had been when he first woke up. The bed was still unmade, and the sheets still showed the impression of her body from where she’d slept. He wondered about that. How much time had passed since he’d first found himself alone? Without her body weight, wouldn’t the sheets and pillow smooth out eventually? He wasn’t sure. Although it was Dan who usually tucked Danielle in at night, Jerry was the one who got up with her most mornings.

Where was she? Where was his little girl? Where was the brave, funny, loving child, and why did her room feel so empty? He thought of all the times he had taken Danielle to the airport. It was their special thing to do together. They went there at least twice a week, parking in a small field next to the fenced off runway. Dan would spread a blanket and they would sit in the grass together, eating lunch, and watching the planes land and take off. Seeing the wonder, joy, and excitement in Danielle’s eyes every time a plane passed over filled Dan with happiness.

Now, the memory filled him with dread, because he wondered if they’d ever be able to do that again.

He approached the bed slowly, and forgetting about the ink on his hands, picked up Danielle’s pillow and brought it to his face. He breathed deeply, hoping for just a hint of her scent—baby shampoo and hair—but there was nothing. His baby’s smell existed only in his memory now. A single blond hair was stuck to the pillowcase. Dan stroked the pillow reverently, and when he closed his eyes, he could see her lying there, sound asleep, and hear her breathing softly. When Danielle was younger, he used to creep into her room late at night and put his hand on her back, just to make sure she was still breathing. Jerry used to laugh about it, reminding him that the baby monitors worked fine, but Dan had never trusted those things. Sometimes, he just liked to be sure. It was comforting to feel her chest moving up and down. Comforting to know that she was safe and sound and secure.

“Daddy?”

His eyes snapped open, and the pillow slipped from his hands. Dan spun around, but the room was empty.

“Danielle? DANIELLE!”

He ran out of the bedroom and into the hall, shouting her name, but the corridor was deserted and he was still alone. It occurred to him that his cries should be echoing in the empty hall, but instead, they sounded flat and meek. The strange dampening effect on sound was still persisting.

“Danielle,” he called again, just to be sure she wasn’t hiding somewhere. When there was still no answer, he returned to her room and stood in the doorway, staring at her stuffed animals and toys. After a moment, he stepped into the room again and picked up Danielle’s favorite, a large pink bunny that they’d bought at Wal-Mart last Easter. Danielle rarely left home without it.

“I imagined it,” he told the stuffed rabbit. “I’m just so scared. I miss her. I guess you miss her, too. But don’t worry. We’ll find her. We’ll figure out what’s going on.”

A quick search of Danielle’s closet and dresser confirmed that none of her clothes were missing, either. Dan tried to remember what pajamas he’d dressed her in the night before, after her bath, but couldn’t. He realized that he was still holding the stuffed animal in one hand.

“She wouldn’t have left you behind. If they had gone somewhere, she’d have wanted to take you with her.”

He tossed the rabbit back on the bed and wondered what its presence here meant. On the one hand, it could be a good thing. If all of Jerry and Danielle’s things were still here, then it meant they hadn’t abandoned him or fled in the night—not that Dan could imagine them doing such a thing. Why would they? The three of them had a happy home life here. They were a family. It was inconceivable that Jerry would abscond with their daughter in the middle of the night. But the alternative—that something dire had happened to them—seemed just as perplexing. There were no signs of trauma. No signs of a struggle. Indeed, the only signs of violence he’d seen since waking up were the ones he himself had caused—the watch thrown against the wall, and of course, the Kresby’s big bay window, shattered with a ceramic lawn gnome. Could there be a logical explanation for everything that was going on? Dan sat down on Danielle’s bed and considered this. Yes, there was one possibility.

He was dreaming. He was still asleep in his bed and this was all just one big lucid dream. Or perhaps the term lucid nightmare might be more apt. He glanced around the room, studying everything. It all seemed so real, and his mind seemed so sharp. There was none of the ethereal fuzziness that dreams usually had, although it occurred to him that the gray fog outside most certainly had that quality about it. Other than that, everything else seemed permanent. He felt things when he touched them—their weight and textures. He splayed his ink-stained fingers apart, feeling their stickiness. But his sense of smell, taste and his hearing were both off, just like in a dream. You couldn’t smell or taste things in dreams, could you? He didn’t think so. He didn’t remember ever having done so before. But then again, Dan was fairly certain that you couldn’t feel things in dreams, either.

So, what the hell was going on? Was he dreaming, and if so, how much longer would it go on? If he wasn’t, then where was everybody? What had happened to them? It was terrifying enough that Jerry and Danielle were missing, but where were his neighbors? More disturbing, who else might be missing? How far did this situation extend? Just how alone was he, really?

“I’m dreaming,” he said. His voice sounded small in the silence. “I have to be dreaming. It’s the only explanation that makes any sense. This is all a dream. Either that ...”

He couldn’t finish the sentence aloud.

Either that ... or I’m going crazy.

Dan looked around his daughter’s room again. Each toy or book or piece of clothing was a memory. His stomach roiled again, as a new bout of fear and dismay gripped him.

“Where are you?” he moaned. “What has happened to you? What is happening to me?”

“Daddy?”

Dan raised his head and saw his daughter standing in the doorway looking at him.

“Danielle?”

“Daddy! Are you here?”

As Dan leaped up from the bed, he noticed that Danielle’s voice didn’t match her lips. Watching her speak was like watching an English-dubbed foreign film. Her lips moved, forming the words just slightly ahead of the sounds.

“Yes, baby.” Dan rushed toward her. “I’m here. Daddy’s here. I’ve been so worried about you. Where have you been?”

“Daddy, I’m scared.”

“It’s okay, pumpkin. I’m here now. It’s all going to be—”

He reached for her, intending to sweep Danielle off her feet and hug her tightly to him, reassuring both his daughter and himself that things would be okay (because Dan had noticed over time that one of the odd things about being a parent was when his child skinned her knee or bumped her head, giving her comfort gave him comfort, as well). Instead of pulling her close, his arms went right through Danielle, as if she were composed of smoke. Dan cried out in surprise. His momentum carried him into the bedroom wall, which he bounced off of. Dan tumbled backward and landed on the carpet with his rump. When he looked around, Danielle was gone again.

He sat there for a moment, stunned.

“Danielle? Danielle, come back!”

She didn’t. He was alone again. Moaning, he curled into a ball and trembled.

“No. No no no no no ...”

The noise started as a whimper, deep down inside of him, before spewing out as a long, breathless shriek.

Dan wasn’t sure how much time passed—how long he remained there on his daughter’s bedroom floor, curled into the fetal position and screaming with each new breath. His voice didn’t turn hoarse and his throat wasn’t sore, nor did his tailbone hurt from his fall. He supposed that was because he was numb from shock. The pain would probably catch up with him soon enough. He hoped so, at least. He looked forward to it, because feeling pain would take his mind off feeling scared and helpless, if only for a little while.

Eventually, he found himself downstairs again, seated at the kitchen table. The pad and the paper were where he’d left them, and his notes were still there. Shaking his head, he stared at them. The list was bullshit. In the aftermath of what he’d just witnessed, his options were narrowing. Either he was crazy—which seemed more and more likely—or this was indeed some bizarre dream from which he couldn’t awake. Maybe Jerry was still lying next to him, and would wake up any moment, notice that Dan was having some kind of nightmare, and would wake him.

He took a deep breath and waited for it to happen.

Any moment now.

Any moment ...

FOUR

He waited for a very long time, but nobody came to wake him.

FIVE

Dan sat there at the table, staring at the wall and not seeing it. Danielle did not appear again. The silence continued, uninterrupted. The light outside didn’t change. The grayness remained. So did his fears and sorrow. But while the haze was permanent and unyielding, his emotions were not. They came intermittently, buoyed on waves of numbness. One moment, he felt numb inside. Then, he would think of Jerry or Danielle and the emotions would rush back in. He wished that he could cry. He thought he might feel better if only he could cry. After a while, he realized that he was humming aloud to himself. The song was tuneless.

With a speed that belied his apathy, Dan pushed himself back from the table, knocking the chair to the floor. He leaped to his feet, screaming obscenities. Snatching the pad of paper from the tabletop, he tore his checklist off and crumpled it in his fist. Then he flung the wadded ball across the room. Still shouting, he rampaged through the kitchen, knocking pots and pans from their hooks above the glass-topped oven and pushing the microwave off its cart. The unit gouged and scratched the floor tiles before breaking. Its cord still dangled from the outlet like a disembodied appendage. Dan ripped the silverware drawer from its hinges and tossed it across the room. Then he did the same with the other drawers, spilling their contents into a heap. His rage carried him into the living room, where he kicked over the coffee table and snatched the cushions from the sofa. He punched a hole in the closet door, and then, unsatisfied, he punched it again. He gripped the knob and wrenched the door from its frame, leaving it hanging by only the upper hinge. Then he charged inside the closet and tossed items haphazardly—umbrellas and winter coats and shoes they hadn’t worn in years.

Emerging from the closet, he paused again, looking for something else to unleash his frustration upon. Grunting, he pushed the fifty-two inch plasma television off its stand. Then he jumped up and down on it, grinning as it cracked beneath his heels.

“Jerry! Danielle! Come back. Somebody come and wake me up!”

Still shouting, he grabbed pictures from the wall. He put his foot through a Monet print, his knee through an original canvas painted by a family friend, and then moved on to a set of family photos. Only then did Dan pause. Chest heaving, he stared down at Jerry and Danielle. They stared back up at him, smiling.

“WHERE ARE THEY?” He flung the framed photograph across the room. It slammed into the wall, shattering the glass. Shards rained down on the carpet.

“Bring them back,” he yelled. “God damn you God! You bring my family back right now. Right fucking now!”

If God heard him, then He too was silent. Dan glanced around at the wreckage. The tempest had occurred quietly—the sounds of destruction muted just like earlier.

“It’s not enough,” he moaned. “Make some noise, god damn it.”

Panting, he ran to the door and dashed outside.

“Hello,” he screamed. “Hello, I’m here! I’m right here. It’s me, Daniel Miller. Is there anybody here? Is there anybody left? Can anybody hear me? Please, if you can hear me, say something. Hello? Somebody? Anyone?”

His momentum carried him through the yard and out into the street. Dan stumbled over the curb, but regained his balance. Arms flailing, he fled toward another neighbor’s house. Unlike the Lopez or Kresby families, he didn’t know this neighbor’s name. His interactions with them were limited to nodding at the husband and occasionally waving at the wife. They were an older couple, and kept to themselves. Jerry had always claimed it was because the two were uncomfortable with a gay couple living next door, let alone a gay couple with an adopted child. But Dan had never gotten that vibe from them. They weren’t rude. They were just private. Right now, none of that mattered. They could be members of the Westboro Baptist Church for all Dan cared. He’d still be happy to see them. Hell, he’d march right alongside them, lifting his ‘God Hates Fags’ protest sign high for all to see, if only they answered their door.

Between him and their door, however, was the fog.

He stared at their house, and then turned reluctantly back to his. Dan gasped. His panic and rage dissipated. Seeing Jerry’s silver Lexus parked in front of his Ford Explorer made him realize he hadn’t tried the cars.

“I can just drive to the police station. Barrel right through this fog. That thing can’t get me inside a car. I can drive faster than it can run, can’t I?

The silence made him shiver. Dan hurried back to the house and retrieved Jerry’s keys. Then he returned to his driveway. Of the two vehicles, he would have preferred his, but Jerry had him parked in. He pointed the remote at the Lexus and thumbed the remote control, but the doors didn’t unlock. Muttering, he inserted the key into the door and unlocked it manually. Casting a quick glance into the fog to make sure the shadow wasn’t lurking there, he slipped behind the wheel and put the keys in the ignition.

Nothing happened.

“Come on. Come on, you bastard! Please. Please start. Please?”

Dan tried again, pumping the gas pedal as he did. The results were the same. Then he tried putting the car on accessory and trying the radio. Like all of the other electronics, it was dead. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the wheel.

“Should have known better. Stupid, Dan. Real stupid. You’re wasting time.”

He got out of the car, pocketed the keys, and looked across the street again. After a moment’s hesitation, he crossed over to the neighbor’s house. The fog grew thick again, as if anticipating him. He paused at the edges of it. The mist swirled around his feet, lapping at his toes like surf. Dan cupped his hands over his mouth and took a deep breath.

“Hello? Can anybody hear me? Please, I need to know someone is there. I need to know I’m not ... alone.”

The word caught in his throat as that overpowering feeling of dread returned, a harbinger for the shadowy figure that appeared a moment later. The thing moved faster this time, closing the distance between them in only a few strides. It loomed over Dan, seeming to grow taller as it drew nearer. The mist parted before it, yet once again, Dan couldn’t see the figure clearly. It remained a black, humanoid shadow, devoid of facial features or any other distinguishing characteristics. It reached for him without speaking, long arms outstretched, and this time, he was able to see the entity’s hands. Like the rest of the figure, they were oversized. The shadow splayed its massive, elongated fingers. They were large enough to easily wrap themselves around Dan should the thing succeed in grasping him.

Dan felt rooted to the spot, as if he had stepped outside his body and was watching from above as the shadow reached for him. His mounting terror overrode every other sensation or thought. He couldn’t speak or move. The mist churned and spun, swirling around them both. The temperature grew colder—the first thing he’d felt, other than his emotions, since getting out of bed.

Was this ... thing responsible for everyone’s disappearances, he wondered? Could it have attacked the neighborhood overnight, while he’d slept, abducting or murdering everyone else, but somehow missing him, until now? What was it? Alien? Supernatural? A figment of his imagination? Just a new addition to this unending nightmare from which he couldn’t awaken?

The figure was directly overtop of him now, and the fog encircled them, blocking out the rest of the world. Dan gaped, transfixed. Even this close, the entity still had no features. Its face was non-existent. There were no eyes or mouth or nose. It wore no clothing, that he could see, and had no genitalia, belly button, or anything else that would identify it as human. Its obsidian surface was marred only by tiny, swirling specks. Dan had to strain to see them. His first impression was of dust floating in a beam of sunlight, but he was certain that the specks weren’t dust, and there was nothing light about his tormentor. Then all thought left him as the massive fingers brushed against his shoulders and waist.

“No!”

Turning, Dan ducked the creature’s grasp and fled again. He barreled through the mist until his house reappeared. He cast one terrified glance over his shoulder. As before, the figure wasn’t following him.

He ran into the house once more and slammed the door behind him. His hands were shaking and he fumbled with the lock. When he worked up the courage to peek out the window, he saw that the shadow was still there, lurking in the fog. It stood still as a statue, watching the house.

“What are you,” Dan whispered. “What do you want?”

Eventually, the shadow turned and slowly vanished into the gray haze.

And then Dan was alone again.

SIX

With no electricity or even a working clock, it was hard for Dan to mark the passage of time. The murk outside didn’t help matters. There was never a clear transition of daylight or darkness. There was only the oppressive gray half-light, as if the world were being lit by phosphorescent fungus. Neither the sun or the moon could be glimpsed through the fog, and the sky was empty of stars.

He was alone.

He sat. He tried to cry and couldn’t. He sat some more. He sighed a lot. Occasionally, he attempted to eat something, not because he was hungry, but because it was something to fill the hours. Each time he tried, Dan ended up spitting the food out. All of it had that same flat, unpalatable, tasteless texture. He didn’t shave. He didn’t go to the bathroom. He didn’t have to. His stubble didn’t grow and his bladder and bowels remained quiet. And besides, with no plumbing or running water, he couldn’t exactly bathe or wash up anyway. If he stank, he couldn’t smell it. And so what if he did? It wasn’t like there was anybody else around to complain. He didn’t bother to change his clothes. The bathrobe and boxer shorts clung to him, but if they turned musty, he didn’t notice.

He didn’t sleep. He didn’t need to. He didn’t see the point. Why bother going to sleep when you already were? People never slept in their dreams, and he was most definitely dreaming, so fuck that noise.

And also, when he tried to sleep, he found that he couldn’t. It was strange without Jerry next to him. He kept expecting to hear Jerry breathing or snoring, or to smell his cologne. Instead, there was nothing. The bed felt empty, as did the rest of the house. He felt like a stranger in his own home. He feared that if he closed his eyes, Danielle might return and he wouldn’t see her. Or worse, the thing outside might decide to emerge from the mists again, and this time, it would come into the house. Even if he had felt sleepy, the thought of opening his eyes and finding that monstrosity looming over the bed was enough to keep him awake.

He tried to get drunk—and failed. Neither Dan or Jerry had been heavy drinkers, but they kept a stock on hand for when they had company. The bottles were stored on the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard, safe from Danielle’s reach. Dan brought them all over to the kitchen table. He tried tequila, scotch, vodka, and beer. The liquors were tasteless, just like everything else, and the beer had gone flat. He forced himself to drink them anyway, but no matter how much he consumed, the effects were negligible.

He talked to himself. At first, it was just to break the silence and fill the void. Later, he’d catch himself in mid-sentence and realize he’d been doing it without knowing.

He laughed aloud.

Screamed aloud.

Tried to cry, and failed. The emotion was there. It was always there, threatening to rip him in half, but just like always, the tears themselves refused to flow.

He had no idea how long he went on that way. Two days. Maybe three? Perhaps four? Certainly no more than a week, though. In all that time, he did not know hunger or fatigue—only sadness and fear and an overwhelming sense of loneliness. The simple act of existing—of being alive—sent him into a fugue state of depression unlike anything he had ever known.

However little time had passed, it was enough. Eventually, the silence and monotony became unbearable, overshadowing even his fears of the shadow-being lurking outside. Dan convinced himself that the only way to end this nightmare was to embrace it. He tried to work up the nerve to walk outside and confront the entity head on.

“But what if I’m not dreaming?” he muttered. “What if that thing is real? What if I’m the only one left?”

He was still mulling this over when he heard a voice outside. It was a female voice, soft and faint, but noticeable simply because it was the only voice, other than his own, that he’d heard since Danielle’s ghost ... or vision ... or whatever she’d been, had appeared to him.

“Hello,” the voice called. “Is there anybody here?”

Dan bolted out of the chair, consumed with two thoughts. The first was that he recognized the voice. He was certain it belonged to Maria Lopez, the girl from next door. The second, more urgent thought was that Maria was in danger. If the shadow heard her calling, and got to her before he did ...

... well, Dan still didn’t know exactly what would happen, or what the entity’s intentions were. But they certainly weren’t good. How else to explain the terror that consumed him each time he encountered the thing?

“Hello?” Maria sounded closer to the house now. “What happens next? Is this it?”

Dan ran through the house and out the front door, sliding to a halt when he spotted Maria standing on the border of his yard and her parent’s property. He stood there gaping, his robe hanging open, dimly aware of how he must look. Maria caught sight of him at the same time, and gasped. Her eyes went wide, and one pale hand fluttered to her mouth in surprise. That was when Dan noticed that something was wrong.

Two things, actually.

The first thing he noticed was that despite her normally dark complexion, Maria’s arm was pale. The second thing he saw was that blood had streamed down her forearm, all the way to her elbow. The gray, false-light from the fog made the sight look even more garish than it already was. There was a cut in Maria’s wrist, running from just beneath her palm to several inches down the underside of her forearm.

If you’re going to do it right, Dan thought, cut down, rather than across. Isn’t that what they always used to say?

He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a sigh.

Maria said, “Holy shit!”

“Maria,” Dan said. “Where did you come from? You’re hurt!”

“Where did I come from? Shouldn’t I be asking you that, Mr. Miller?”

He ignored her strange response, his attention focused instead on her obviously self-inflicted wounds. He’d known the girl suffered from depression. Most of the neighbors knew, in fact. And she had supposedly threatened suicide a few times. But to be confronted with this serious attempt, was altogether unnerving. For a brief moment, Dan forgot all about his predicament, and his missing loved ones.

“You’re hurt,” he repeated. “Jesus Christ, Maria. We’ve got to get you some help!”

Laughing, she took a step backward. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”

Dan noticed that the blood on her arm was dry. Instead of dripping, it had crusted like mud in the sun. When the girl took another step back, he saw that she’d cut both wrists.

“Maria,” he said softly, “what have you done?”

Instead of answering him, she glanced around the neighborhood and into the fog. “I don’t get it. I thought there would be more than this. And I certainly didn’t expect to see you here, Mr. Miller. I figured you were long gone.”

“N-no,” Dan stammered. “I’ve been here the whole time. I thought I was alone. I checked your house before. Nobody was home. Where are your parents? Have you seen anyone else? Have you seen Jerry or Danielle?”

She tilted her head to one side and frowned, staring at him.

“Mr. Miller ... don’t you—”

“Shhhhh! Quiet.”

Dan felt it come over him as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water at them—the terror, the dreadful certainty that the shadow-being was approaching. He glanced across the street and saw the mists churning. Seconds later, the haze parted and the figure strode toward them.

“Run,” he shouted, rushing to her side. He grabbed Maria’s injured arm without thinking, but she didn’t cry out or wince. When she refused to move, he pulled her along behind him.

“Hey,” Maria protested. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Don’t you see it? Come on. We’ve got to get inside before it catches us. Hurry!”

“But Mr. Miller. What—”

“Now, Maria! Hurry up.”

Despite her resistance, Dan dragged the teenager inside his house and slammed the door behind them. He locked it, and then crouched down on the floor, motioning for her to do the same. Frowning in confusion, she did as he asked. Dan put a finger to his lips, indicating for her to be quiet. Slowly, the fear subsided. After silently counting to one hundred, he crept to the window and peeked outside. The figure had retreated back into the mist, but it was still visible, lurking at the edge of the sidewalk, standing sentry over the house.

“Shit,” he muttered. “Why won’t it just go away? What does it want?”

“What is that thing?” Maria asked, crawling to his side.

“I don’t know. I wish I did. It’s fucking terrifying, whatever it is.”

“Do you think so?”

Dan turned to her. “You mean to tell me you weren’t scared of that thing?”

Maria shrugged. “No. Not really. Should I have been?”

Dan shook his head, unsure of how to respond. He turned back to the window. The entity hadn’t moved. It was still there, watching.

“I don’t think it will come inside,” he said. “At least, it hasn’t so far. I’m not sure why. I mean, given the size of that thing, there’s no way I could stop it if it did decide to get inside, but for whatever reason, it doesn’t. I think we’re safe, for the moment. Let’s go into the kitchen. I’ll get the first aid kit from the bathroom and get you fixed up.”

“But I don’t need fixed up, Mr. Miller. I don’t need—”

“Nonsense. Of course you do.” He got up and walked toward the kitchen. “I’m not going to judge you, Maria. God knows I thought about it a few times when I was your age. I hadn’t come out to my parents or my friends back then. The stress and pressure was... well, let’s just say that there were times I thought that killing myself would be easier than being gay. But it’s not worth it.”

Pausing, he turned back to her. The girl stood at the window, her mouth open, staring.

“Come on,” Dan said, trying to smile. “I’ll get you taken care of and then we can talk about what’s happened. Exchange notes. Because until now, I was sure that I must still be asleep. Thought I was dreaming. Maybe you did too?”

“We’re not asleep, Mr. Miller.”

Dan grinned. “Well, yeah. Obviously not. I know that now. But it still doesn’t explain what happened or where everyone else has gone to. Have you seen anyone else?”

“No,” she said. “I mean, I thought I might see somebody here, but I sure wasn’t expecting you. No offense.”

“None taken. Do you have any idea what it was or where they’ve gone? And really, Maria, we need to disinfect your arms and bandage them up before you get infected. Please?”

“My arms are fine!”

“Fine? You’ve cut them open, Maria!”

Her mouth went slack. She whistled, low and mournful, and then ran a hand through her hair.

“What?” Dan asked. “What’s wrong?”

“You don’t know, do you? I mean, you really don’t know.”

“Know? Know what? You mean what’s happened? No, I don’t know. Haven’t you been listening?”

“Mr. Miller ... Jesus. Maybe you’d better sit down.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted. “Now just tell me what’s going on. Please?”

She took a deep breath. “You ... I don’t need you to fix my arms because I’m dead.”

Dan stared at her. “What?”

“I’m dead, Mr. Miller. I killed myself just a few minutes ago.”

“I—I don’t understand. Dead?”

“It’s a long story, and to be honest, I don’t feel like talking about it. Suffice to say, there aren’t a lot of people who will miss me. I wanted this. My parents were at work, and I got home from school, and I posted a goodbye message online, and then I did it. I used my father’s box-cutter.”

“But you’re ... that’s ... what?”

“I’m dead.”

“Then how...? This doesn’t make sense. If you’re dead, then how are you here? How are we talking right now?”

“Because, Mr. Miller. Don’t you see?”

Dan shook his head.

“Mr. Miller, you’re dead, too.”

“No, I’m not. I’m standing right here.” Dan was aware of just how small and unsure he sounded.

“You’re dead, Mr. Miller. You died over a year ago. You had a massive heart attack while you were asleep. Jerry discovered it the next morning when he woke up. He was really distraught.”

“No. No, I’m sorry, but that’s impossible. I’m not dead.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“No, I’m not!”

“I watched them carry you out myself. Danielle was crying, and Jerry was a mess. My parents and I watched her for him while he made all the arrangements.”

“Stop it.”

“I was at your funeral, Mr. Miller! You had an open casket and viewing. Trust me. You were dead.”

“STOP IT! Why are you saying this? It’s not true. It can’t be true.”

Her expression was sorrowful. “I’m sorry, but it is.”

“You said I died over a year ago?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Well, that right there proves it can’t be true. I’ve only been here a few days. Not long at all. I haven’t been eating or drinking, and I’m still the same weight I was, so it can’t have been more than a few days.”

Maria started to speak, but he interrupted.

“I want to know what’s going on. The truth, this time. Where did you come from? I was just at your house a few days ago, and you weren’t there then. Nobody was. I checked your place and the Kresby’s. Hell, I broke their window, and nobody—”

“Wait a second! You broke the Kresby’s window? You mean the big picture window at the front of their house?”

“Yes. That’s the one. Why?”

“Holy shit.” Maria leaned back against the wall and sighed. “I see what’s happened now. I get it.”

“Well, that makes one of us. I wish you’d explain it to me. And can we please go into the kitchen? I don’t like standing here with that thing still hanging around outside. The living room feels too exposed.”

Snickering, Maria stood up. “Okay.”

“What’s so funny?” Dan asked, as she joined him at the kitchen table.

“I’m sorry. Just the term. Living room. It struck me funny. Two dead people hanging out in the living room.”

“I’m not dead, Maria. I really wish you’d stop saying that.”

“Am I?” She held out her arms. “Look at me. Am I dead?”

“You’re not bleeding anymore.”

“That doesn’t prove anything. Check my pulse, Mr. Miller.”

“That wouldn’t prove anything, either. I saw Danielle a few days ago. She was here one minute and gone the next. I don’t know what she was—and I don’t know what you are, either. But I’m not fucking dead.”

Maria sighed again. Then she reached across the table and took his hand. Dan flinched, but didn’t pull away. After being alone for so long, the physical contact eased his fears and worries. The girl certainly felt real enough.

“Mr. Miller, I’m going to ask you a few things. Things that there’s no way I should know about. I just want you to answer me honestly, okay?”

Dan nodded.

“You said that you broke the Kresby’s big picture window. Well, shortly after you passed away—”

“But I’m not dead.”

“Just listen,” she soothed. “Please?”

“Okay.” Dan nodded. “Sorry. I’m just upset.”

“That’s okay. Anyway, shortly after you passed away, the Kresby’s window was broken. It happened while they were watching TV. Nobody knew how it happened. The weather was nice. Sunny. No clouds or hail or anything like that. There weren’t any kids running around outside or anything like that. It just ... shattered.”

“When I broke it,” Dan said, “there was nobody inside the house. The television wasn’t on. There’s no electricity.”

“Are you sure no one was home?”

“I ... yes. Sort of. I thought I heard Susan scream, just for a second, but there was nobody there.”

“A few months after that,” Maria said, “Jerry told my Mom that he was afraid somebody had broken into your house. He called the cops and everything. Apparently, he woke up one morning and found ink stains all over his wallet. He also found some on Danielle’s pillow. They were smudged, like fingerprints, but the cops were never able to get anything concrete from them. Do you know anything about that?”

Ink stains. Dan remembered the pen breaking in his grip, and how he’d smudged Jerry’s wallet and Danielle’s pillow when he was looking for them.

“Mr. Miller?”

He tried to speak, but there was a knot in his throat. Instead, he closed his eyes and nodded.

“A few months after that,” Maria continued, “Danielle said she saw you. She broke down at school and they made Jerry come pick her up, and when she got home, she told him that she saw your ghost. It worried Jerry enough that he took her to see a child counselor. But the counselor said it was just her dealing with her grief and expressing it through a fantasy outlet, and it didn’t happen again.”

“I saw her,” Dan whispered. “Upstairs, in her room. I saw Danielle. She was a ghost.”

“No,” Maria said. “She wasn’t the ghost. You were.”

“But ... but that’s ... how?”

“I don’t know. You died in your sleep a little over a year ago, Mr. Miller. Don’t you remember anything about what happened?”

“I went to sleep. When I woke up, Jerry and Danielle were gone. The house was empty. The power and the utilities were off. And everything ... everything tasted funny. Even the sound seemed off. Not off like the power, but different. You know what I mean?”

“I’ve noticed the sound is different here,” Maria agreed.

“But where is here? Where are we? We’re in my house. Everything looks the same. This isn’t Heaven or Hell. Not that I believe in those anyway.”

“I don’t know,” Maria said. “Maybe this is where you remained. Maybe you created it. Or maybe we see our homes when we die. Our immediate worlds. Because after I cut my wrists, I remember getting very cold and very sleepy. When I woke up, I was dead, but still in my room. When I came outside, I saw you. How far have you explored over the last year?”

“It hasn’t been a year,” Dan insisted. “I’m telling you, I’ve only been here for a few days.”

“Maybe time is different here? Maybe what only felt like a few days here, was a lot longer back where we ... well, you know.”

“There’s nothing out there,” Dan said. “Nothing beyond the mist.”

“Did you go into it?”

He nodded. “A little bit. But there’s nothing there.”

“Maybe our memories only keep our immediate surroundings in place. Maybe everything else vanishes.”

“Well then, what about that thing out there? What the hell is it?”

“I don’t know,” Maria said, “but I do know that I wasn’t afraid of it. I don’t think it meant us any harm. I felt very calm when it came toward us.”

“Calm? Jesus Christ, I was terrified of it.”

“Do you know why?”

“No. Do you?”

“No,” Maria admitted. “Maybe it’s because you didn’t realize you were dead.”

“But what does it want? What is it?”

“Maybe it’s here to help us. To guide us somehow.”

“How can you know for sure?”

Maria shrugged. “I don’t. But I feel things. In the last few minutes, ever since waking up after I died—I feel things that are true. Things I didn’t know before.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure I do, either. But I feel them anyway. I bet you can, too.”

“All I felt was scared. There were no universal truths revealed to me. All this time, all that I’ve felt is alone.”

“Maybe you weren’t ready yet. After all, you didn’t know what you were until now.”

“I still don’t! How can I be dead? How can—”

Dan was interrupted by a knock at the door. Unlike the rest of the sounds, the knock was deep and loud. Two more followed, each one powerful and insistent.

“Oh God,” Dan moaned. “It’s the shadow. I know it is.”

“It’s okay,” Maria said. “You don’t have to be afraid of it. Stop for a moment and think about it. Let yourself feel.”

Dan took a deep breath and did as she asked. He was surprised to discover that Maria was right. That sense of foreboding that had come over him every time the shadow drew near was now gone. Instead, he felt a strange sense of comfort and peace.

“What do we do now?” he whispered.

Maria stood up and smiling, took his hand. “Let’s open the door.”

They did, and the figure was there to greet them. It made a sweeping gesture with one large hand, indicating the direction they should go. Maria stepped forward eagerly. After a moment’s hesitation, Dan followed. The shadow walked between them, and when it took their hands in its own, Dan was no longer afraid.

Around them, the mists dissipated and the gray turned to light. The skies above burned with dark shades of orange and red and yellow, and the light grew brighter, illuminating them.

“Where are we going?” Dan asked. “Where is it taking us?”

“To the next place.”

“And where is that?”

Maria smiled. “Let’s find out together, Mr. Miller.”

Dan shielded his eyes with his free hand as the dazzling light consumed them, enfolding them in its radiance.

And then, he was no longer alone.

STORY NOTE: This story sat inside my head for over a decade. The idea came from a conversation I had with noted critic and genre scholar Jack Haringa many years ago at some long-forgotten horror convention. We were discussing Fredric Brown’s infamous short story, “Knock”. If you’re not familiar with the tale, “Knock” was quite famous in its time for being the shortest science fiction story ever written. The original version went like this:

The last man on earth sat in his room. There was a knock at the door.

That’s it. Two sentences. Short and sweet, and packing one hell of a punch. But then, at the urging of his peers, Brown continued the story, elaborating on those first two sentences. He further developed the plot and the character. The last man turned out to be named Walter Phelan, and the entity knocking on his door was an alien known as Zan, who had killed off everyone else on Earth and wanted to put Walter in a cosmic zoo (along with the planet’s last woman, Grace).

I told Jack that I thought the story would have worked better had the author just stuck to those first two sentences, because I thought the whole alien zoo thing was silly. I thought it was silly because I’d seen it done in the Marvel and DC comics of my youth, and I was young enough, stupid enough, and conceited enough not to understand that those Marvel and DC comics were riffing on Brown, who had done it first. (I know better now, because I am old).

Jack asked me what I would have done differently, were I to continue the story from those first two lines. Before I could answer him, we were interrupted by Jack Ketchum, who had a bottle of Dewar’s whiskey that he needed help drinking, and then both Jacks got very drunk and began hollering at me about my incorrect usage of the semi-colon (which many people do, and not always when they are drunk), and I never did get the chance to tell Jack Haringa what I would have done differently with the story.

So I wrote this to show him what I would have done differently.

I still think Brown would have been better off sticking with just the original two sentences. Although I do not know for certain, I would hazard a guess that he found expanding upon them to be a challenge. I know that I sure did. Alone wasn’t an easy novella to write. Once I got past the initial plot—Dan wakes up alone and finds out that he’s the last man on Earth—it was hard to balance the discovery portions of the plot in a way that a) wouldn’t give away the fact that he’s dead and b) wouldn’t drag the story down to a tedious snail’s pace. It was extremely difficult to juggle the plot and sustain the narrative in a way that served both the story and the reader. Hopefully, I succeeded. If not... well, I did my best. That’s all any writer can do.

HUNTING SEASON

Pop and I were up hours before the sun. I’d gone to bed early the night before, but was too excited to sleep. Tossing restlessly with anticipation, it seemed that when I finally did fall asleep, he was there shaking me lightly.

“Jason, wake up son. It’s time.”

I opened my bleary eyes. Pop’s huge form stood beside me, shadowed in the light of the full moon shining through my window. Yawning, I got out of bed, shivering as my bare feet hit the cold wooden floor. I heard Mom bustling about in the kitchen, and my stomach rumbled as the smell of eggs and bacon drifted into my room. It had been a year since we’d had real bacon! She must have been saving it all this time.

I looked out my window at the pre-dawn world inside the containment fence. A thin layer of snow covered the yard and the treetops in the forest beyond the compound. The harsh February wind whistled sharply, blowing tufts of snow around in the darkness. I dressed quickly, glancing around my room as I did. The candle’s flame made funny shadows across the walls. My boyhood treasures lay scattered throughout. My rocks and arrowheads, the toy boat that Pop had carved for me, my slingshot, and the two comic books that I had gotten from the trader on his last trip through. The comic’s were my favorite. In my eyes, they were pure magic. Pop had told me that before the comet, there were stores that sold nothing but comic books, although I’m pretty sure he was just kidding.

I tiptoed to the kitchen, trying not to disturb my brother and sister. Joey had been so jealous the day before, wishing he would turn sixteen like me, so Pop would take him hunting too.

“You’ve got to wait until you’re older, Joey,” Pop had told him. “It’s not a game out in those woods. It’s too dangerous for a boy your age.”

Mom had her reservations about it too, which I overheard as I walked into the kitchen.

“What if something happens?”

“Now Shannon,” I heard Pop say in a stern but patient voice. “He’s not a little boy anymore. He’s wanted to go with me since he was six. His heart’s set on it.”

“But Lloyd, what if one of those things...”

“Honey!” Pop interrupted. “Jason’s got a good head on his shoulders, better than I did at that age. Growing up in this world is different than it was for us. He’s a man now! I’ll be with him, and we’re not going out far. Besides, you know our situation. We’ve got plenty of canned stuff from last year’s garden, but the meat is running low.”

Clearing my throat, I walked into the room. Mom did her best to look happy, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. Pop grinned as I sat down to eat. The bacon tasted fantastic. It was real pig, not the kind we usually had.

With breakfast finished, I shrugged into my heavy wool coat. Pop disappeared into the side room and came back out with two rifles.

“Jason, this is yours now.” He proudly handed me the smaller gun, and I gaped in astonishment. Pop’s Remington 4-10.

“That’s the same gun I used to hunt squirrels and turkey with when I was your age. My Daddy gave it to me, and now I’m giving it to you. I’ve got some punkinball shells for you to use in it. They’ll bring down a deer or anything else, as long as you remember to aim for the head.”

“Thanks Pop,” I whispered, a lump in my throat.

The rifle’s weight felt good in my hands. I was even more excited and eager now. I was also a little nervous.

As we walked to the door, Mom made a big fuss over me, giving me a big squeeze and making me promise to be careful. She and Pop embraced, and he gave her a quick kiss. She stood in the doorway and waved silently as we stepped out into the dim, blue light of the early morning.

Candles burned in the windows of several other homes within the compound. Others departed from them and joined us as we walked over to the gate—Mr. Norville, our resident doctor, and Mr. Glatfelter and his son Ron. Ron and I had been best friends since birth. Being the same age, we’d grown up inside the compound together. This was his first hunting trip as well, and he was just as thrilled as me. This was all we’d talked about for the last few weeks. Ron grinned as the adults exchanged pleasantries. He eyed my rifle in obvious appreciation. He couldn’t, of course, let on that it was better than his own gun.

“Seems kind of small to be hunting anything big with,” he said, staring at the rifle barrel.

“That’s why I’m using punkinballs. Pop says that as long as I hit them in the head, it’ll bring them down. Yours is pretty small too.”

Ron had his father’s Ruger .22 rifle, which I agreed was almost as nice. While our fathers laughed at one of Doc Norville’s jokes, Ron and I bet on which one of us would make the first kill. Ron seemed as nervous as I felt. Mr. Glatfelter asked us if we were ready, and we nodded.

“Now you boys remember what I told you about buck fever,” Pop reminded us. “Back when we were your age, buck fever could cost us a deer. Nowadays, it could cost us our lives. When we were kids, animals didn’t get up and walk around after they were dead. Or people...”

Pop rolled back the steel security gate and we filed through. The gate closed behind us with a loud clang that echoed through the cold silence.

We lined up in the snow. Pop and Ron’s dad were in the lead, Ron and I in the middle, and Doc Norville brought up the rear.

“A hunting we will go,” he chuckled softly.

With the bitter wind whipping our faces, we walked into the dark woods. The snow swirled around us, covering our tracks as the first rays of dawn crept over the horizon. Nobody talked. All of us were on the alert for any game. As we walked, I listened to the forest. The silence was broken only by the soft crunch of our booted feet in the snow, and the wind howling through the trees.

As the sun rose, the forest began to come alive around us. The wind died down to a few small gusts. In the treetops, I could hear the morning songs of the birds and the soft flutter of their wings as they took flight.

Both the living and the dead were coming to life around us.

Growing restless, Ron took aim at a robin perched on a branch several yards away. This earned him a stern look of admonishment from his father, and the bird flitted away.

Minutes later, there was scurrying noises in the branches above us. Two gray shapes dashed over our heads. Pop and Mr. Glatfelter raised their rifles and fired. Two simultaneous blasts reverberated through the air. I jumped, nearly dropping my own rifle. The squirrels plummeted to the ground, landing in the snow, their blood staining it red.

“Nice shooting, Lloyd,” Ron’s father said.

“That was some nice shooting you did yourself,” Pop replied. “Looks like you were too slow, Doc.”

“It was a late night,” Mr. Norville laughed. “I’ll beat you both next time. Look’s like these two were still alive when you killed them.”

Pop walked over to the squirrels and nudged them with his boot. Tiny wisps of steam rose from the warm bodies.

“Now see boys,” he explained, “that’s why you have to stay alert out here. If we had been slower, we might have missed those shots. If these squirrels were already dead, or if it had been something else, we might not be standing here right now.”

We nodded as Pop pulled out his old Green Beret knife and proceeded to cut the head off the first body.

“It’s always important to destroy the brain as soon as possible,” Pop instructed us.

“In the old days, we wouldn’t have been able to eat meat that had been dead for a while either,” Mr. Glatfelter added. “Anything that had been dead for more than a few hours would have spoiled and been unfit for human consumption. The radiation from the comet changed all that. As long as the brain is intact, the meat doesn’t rot, no matter how long it’s been dead.”

Pop pulled the second carcass over and placed the knife to its throat. The squirrel suddenly burst to life, its eyes jerking open with a malevolent glare. Before Pop could pull away, it thrashed in his grip and bit down greedily on his hand.

Pop screamed and drew his hand away. Blood flowed from a small hole between his thumb and forefinger. The dead squirrel chewed hungrily on the piece of flesh, clutching it in its forepaws like an acorn. Mr. Glatfelter cursed and pulled his trigger. The point blank blast disintegrated the zombie’s head.

I cast a horrified glance at my father. His face was ashen. I could see the terror beneath his eyes, a terror that he was bravely trying to keep from me. A terror that was mirrored in my own gaze.

“Pop...” I wheezed. It was all I could manage. I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach.

“Damn,” he said quietly. “I’ve been bit.”

“Let me see it, Lloyd!” Doc Norville bent to examine the wound, his expression grave.

Ron looked at me with concern as I fought back the tears I felt coming to the surface. I was angry. Why did it have to be my father? Why not Ron’s or Mr. Norville? I was ashamed by these thoughts, but also terrified.

“I might be able to stop it,” Doc Norville said. “We’ll have to get you back to the compound, pronto.”

“Do what you have to,” Pop replied weakly.

Mr. Glatfelter and the doctor supported him as we made our way back. The squirrels lay tucked away in Ron’s game bag. Ron tried to reassure me that everything would be okay. Pop moaned as the vile poison began to work its way up his arm. The black sludge that pumped through his veins was visible beneath his skin.

“Please,” I silently prayed, “don’t let him die.”

The rest of the day was a chaotic blur. Mom ranged from hysterical to comatose. Joey and Chrissy cried all day, their little faces dazed with fright. Pop’s moans increased, turning into screams of intense agony as Mr. Norville amputated his arm. The tortured cries mingled with the stench of blood and dank fear that permeated the cabin.

Concerned well-wishers flocked from the rest of the compound to offer help. Mr. Norville turned them away; assuring them with a smile that everything would be fine. It was a smile that vanished when he shut the door. He left after dark, telling us that he’d done all he could. Now we would have to wait. He left a poultice for the fever ravaging Pop’s body, and gave my mother a consoling hug. He shook my hand and his grip trembled.

“I’m sorry, Jason,” he said, his voice tinged with emotion.

Mom stayed by Pop’s side and I put the kids to bed, telling them that Pop would be okay in the morning. When I was done, she called me into the room.

“He wants to talk to you,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “You better hurry. He might not be conscious much longer.”

Slowly, I walked into the candle lit room. My heart raced in my chest and my feet felt like lead. Pop turned his head toward me and I gasped. His skin had taken on a ghostly pallor, almost chalk white. Dark circles underlined his sunken eyes.

“Jason,” he rasped weakly, holding his hand out to me. There was a bloody stump in place of his other arm.

In a daze, I floated to his side. A tear ran down my cheek as I took his hand in mine.

“Ssshh. Your mother’s cried enough for us all today. It’s going to be hard for her to cope with this. You’re going to have to help...”

He broke off in a violent fit of coughing. I started to yell for Mom but he waved his hand and brought it under control. I noticed in horror that a rusty colored fluid was leaking from the corner of his mouth.

“You’ve got a job to do, Jason,” he wheezed. “You’re the man of the house now. You’ve got to take care of your mother and the kids. You watch out for them. Take care of me as well.”

“Pop, I can’t!” I sobbed in protest.

“Yes, you can,” he said softly. “You’re a good son, Jason. I’m proud of you. I know that you can do this. It’s not easy, but it’s got to be done. Promise that you won’t let me come back! Don’t let me turn into one of those things.”

Unable to speak, I nodded. With fading strength, Pop squeezed my hand. My face wet with tears, I noticed that he was crying too.

“Eventually, you’ll have to go back into the woods again. I understand if you’re scared at first, after what happened today. But remember my example and learn from it.” He coughed again, the fluid spraying the sheets in a fine red mist. “I’m a pretty big man, so you all should have plenty to last you for the next few months. Sooner or later though, you’ll have to go hunting again. Remember, there ain’t nothing wrong with eating zombies. Once they die the first time, they’re not human anymore. Once I’m gone, I won’t be you’re Pop anymore either, just meat.”

I couldn’t speak, so I leaned over and hugged him, our tears running together.

“I’m gonna try not to come back. I’m really going to try. Better send you’re mother back in,” he rasped.

“I love you, Pop.”

“I love you too, Jason.”

I kissed him softly on the forehead and he closed his eyes. Then I walked slowly to the door and sent Mom back inside. I sat down at the kitchen table and laid the rifle by my side, checking to make sure that it was loaded. Pop had just given it to me that morning. I hadn’t even fired it yet.

I wondered if Ron’s dad would help me butcher Pop after it was finished. I thought of what life must have been like before the comet.

Before the dead started coming back to life.

I looked out the kitchen window, into the night, and lost myself in a flood of memories.

I waited.

STORY NOTE: As you were no doubt able to tell, this was another very early story, written in 1997. I have a fondness for this one, however, as it represents a lot of things. It was the first zombie story I ever wrote, and that’s important, since almost twenty years and forty books (as of this writing) later, I’m still known to readers primarily for my zombie stories. This was also me developing characters and concepts that would show up later in a novel first called Cabin Fever, then called More Than Infinity, and finally published as The Rising. For more on that, I’ll refer you to the Introduction in the uncut, author’s preferred edition of The Rising. You can see it all developing in this story though—themes like fathers and sons, characters like Lloyd and Jason (who indeed showed up again in The Rising), and the idea of zombie animals. In fact, I remember that in the original draft of this story, the hunters were attacked by a herd of zombie deer, but the editor made me change it to undead squirrels. You’ll note that I used deer when they were attacked again in The Rising.

This was also the first story I ever sold for professional rates, and it was the first bit of writing I ever won an award for (a reprint of it appeared on a now-defunct horror fiction website called Blindside, and their readers selected it as the “Best Short Story” of 1999).

HIDE AND SEEK

“Let’s play hide-and-seek, Daddy!”

Connor sighed. He’d had a busy day at work, his knees were shot, and he felt exhausted. The last thing he wanted to play was anything strenuous like tag, wrestling, or hide-and-seek.

“How about we play with your superheroes, instead? Or Hot Wheels? Or I could read you some books?”

“No, Dad. I want to play hide-and-seek. Pleaaaaase?”

“Aw, buddy. Daddy’s tired. It’s been a long day. Let’s pick something we can play sitting down?”

Killian pouted, in that moment looking so much like his mother, Rachel, that Connor had to grin. His son returned the grin, and Connor relented.

“Okay,” he groaned. His joints popped as he rose slowly to his feet. “I’ll count and you hide. But remember—no going outside. Hide in the house only.”

“But there’s more places to hide outside.”

“There’s also four feet of snow on the ground outside, and the temperature is in the teens. I don’t want you getting sick. Plus, it’s getting dark and your mother will be home from work soon, and she might not be able to see you if you’re hiding in the driveway. So stay in the house. Promise?”

“Yeah, I promise.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll hide,” Kilian said. “You count. And you have to count to fifty this time.”

“Fifty?” Connor feigned shock.

“Yeah, Dad. That way I have time to hide.”

“Okay, but it’ll cost you a hug first.”

Smiling, Killian rushed over to him, wrapping his arms around Connor’s hips. Connor hugged him back. It occurred to him just how tall Killian had gotten. When had that occurred? What had happened to the baby who was small enough to curl up in the crook of his father’s arm?

In another month, Killian would turn six, and Connor had been surprised lately by all the signs indicating that his little boy wasn’t such a little boy anymore. Using the toilet had become a private affair, as had bath time. First curse words—benign and amusing in Connor’s opinion but enough to anger Rachel—had been learned on the kindergarten playground. Killian had begun to pay more attention to his appearance, making sure his hair was combed and his clothes at least semi-matched. Perhaps most telling was the boy’s willingness to get rid of his baby toys when Rachel had rounded them up to donate to charity. Gone now were Binky the Stuffed Dragon, and various Sesame Street characters, and board books about colors and shapes. They’d been replaced with plastic dinosaurs and an assortment of superheroes and books about Captain Underpants and The Magic Tree House.

Connor squeezed him tight and sighed. He leaned over to kiss his head, smelled baby shampoo, and closed his eyes, wishing that Killian would stay this age forever.

“What are you thinking, Dad?”

Connor broke the embrace and looked him in the eyes. “Oh, nothing. Just about how much I love you, and how lucky your Mom and I are to have you in our lives. Don’t ever go anywhere, okay?”

“I won’t,” Killian promised. “When I grow up, I’m going to live with you guys still and we’ll play all the time.”

“That sounds like a plan. Okay, go hide.”

Killian dashed off through the house, and Connor closed his eyes and counted aloud to fifty. When he was in the teens, he heard the door to the linen closet open and shut. When he reached the mid-forties, he pretended to forget what number came next, eliciting a round of stifled giggles. When he reached fifty, the laughter stopped.

“Ready or not, here I come.”

Given that Killian was in the linen closet, Connor made an obvious production of searching the other end of the house first, wondering aloud the various places his son could be hiding.

“Is he under the kitchen table? No, he’s not here. Now where could he have gone?”

He pretended to search the kitchen, the master bedroom, and its adjoining bathroom. Then he returned out to the living room and made an equally noisy search of it. Finally, he started down the hall.

Connor raised his voice. “I wonder if Killian is down here. Oh, Killian? Killlliaaaaannnn...?”

Usually, queries like this earned quiet, muffled laughter from the boy, but this time he remained silent. Connor assumed this was just another sign that Killian was getting older—learning not to give himself away during games of hide-and-seek.

“Now where could he be?”

Connor placed his hand on the linen closet’s doorknob.

“I wonder if he could be in... HERE?”

He flung the door open, expecting a squeal of delight, followed by exuberant laughter as Killian burst from his hiding spot.

Instead, there was nothing. The bed sheets and pillowcases were stacked neatly on a shelf, as were the bath towels and washcloths beneath them. Under these was a large space, just big enough for the vacuum cleaner and a five-year-old boy. The vacuum cleaner was there, but Killian was not.

Well, how about that? Connor thought. Little man tricked me!

He felt a swelling of pride as he exclaimed his surprise. Now, he was certain he’d hear a chuckle, revealing Killian’s real hiding spot, but the house remained quiet. Connor searched Killian’s bedroom, the other bathroom, and the spare room, but the boy was nowhere to be found.

“Okay,” he called. “I give up!”

No response.

“Killian, you win! I can’t find you. Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

He was greeted with more silence.

The pride and amusement he’d felt vanished, replaced with unease. Certain that Killian had gone outside, even though he’d specifically told him not to, Connor dashed to the front door. In dismay, he saw that it was locked. So was the deadbolt, which was high enough up that the boy still couldn’t reach it.

Connor experienced the first pangs of alarm.

When Rachel arrived home a few minutes later, she found him searching the house, shouting in both fear and anger. She joined his efforts, telling Killian that this wasn’t funny, and that he was scaring Mommy and Daddy, and he had better come out right now.

By the time the police were called and an Amber Alert was issued, Connor had to be sedated. He’d knelt in front of the linen closet, clawing at the carpet and screaming one phrase, over and over again.

“Ready or not, here I come...”

STORY NOTE: This was one of those stories that was sparked from real life. My youngest son and I were playing Hide and Seek, and he found an excellent spot and refused to come out. I absolutely could not find him, and for a few brief moments, I was panicked and terrified. Then, he emerged from his hiding spot, laughing and quite pleased with himself. I wrote this story soon after.

BABY TALK

Hmm?

Okay, okay. Mommy’s coming. Jesus! Enough already. Can’t Mommy get a few minutes of sleep without you crying?

Uh-oh! Did you make a poopy? Do you have a stinky diaper? Yes, you do. Yes, you do. You have a stinky diaper, don’t you? No wonder you’re crying, baby. Okay. Come here. Let’s get that changed.

Are you a little snoogums? Yes, you are. Who’s my widdle wabbit? You are! You’re my widdle wabbit. But you have to let Mommy sleep, baby. Mommy can’t take much more of this.

Okay, let’s just lay you down on the changing table. There we go. There we go. See? Now you’re happy. There’s a smile! Oh, look at that smile.

Here, you hold on to your rattle while Mommy lights this cigarette.

There we go. Now where the hell did Mommy put those wipes?

Hold still, baby. Don’t wiggle.

Okay, let’s get this off you—oh goddamn it! Look at this! It’s everywhere. You’re a mess! Shit. You know, sometimes...

And where the hell is the ashtray?

Hey! Hold still, baby. Stop wiggling around. You’re smearing it.

Fuck. Great. That’s just great. It’s everywhere.

I’d love to get my hands on your dickhead father right about now.

Hold still, damn it. Let me just—shit! Now, look what you did. My cigarette. Oh, stop it. Stop it! It’s just a little burn. There. See? Mommy got it. I made it all better. Stop crying.

Damn it, stop that! I told you to hold still. You’re getting shit everywhere.

Stop your crying or I’ll give you something to fucking cry about. It’s the middle of the fucking night... Now give me your legs so I can wipe—oh goddamn it! Now look what you did, you little shit! I told you to stop that crying and hold still, didn’t I? Didn’t I?

You...

made...

me...

do...

THIS!

There.

There.

There we go. All better now. See? Alllll better. You’ve stopped crying and wiggling, and now we can get you cleaned up and changed. Right baby? Right widdle wabbit?

Baby?

Mommy’s sorry, baby. Come on. Make a noise for me.

Baby...?

STORY NOTE: Sometimes, you get an idea for a story that you do not want to write. Maybe it will make you sad, or maybe it repulses you. Just thinking about writing it makes you ill at ease. You try to push it away. You wonder what the hell is wrong with you, that such a story idea would even suggest itself. But sooner or later, you have to write it, if only to get the fucking thing out of your head, so that you’ll feel clean again.

I’ve had three such short stories: “Bunnies in August”, “Burying Betsy”, and this one. I don’t know where “Baby Talk” came from, but I’m glad I got it out of my head. It’s your problem to deal with now.

AN APPOINTMENT KEPT

The man approached the jailer’s house. It was a red and brown brick structure built onto the side of the prison. The man knocked on the door and waited, softly whistling a tune.

Sundown had come and gone. The sky was violet—not quite full dark yet. A full, yellow moon dominated the sky, seeming to stretch across the horizon. In the jailer’s yard, a brass urn spit sparks into the gloom, disturbing a hovering cloud of buzzing mosquitoes. The man watched the sparks fly and smiled. The urn had been lit early that morning, informing Monroe’s citizens that a trial would be held soon. The defendants were an in-debt farmer charged with non-payment of taxes, a young woman accused of prostitution, a man charged with theft, and an older woman accused of witchcraft.

The latter was the more common crime.

There was a lot of witchcraft in Monroe these days.

Even though the urn was now extinguished, thick curls of resin-smoke still drifted up from the bowl. The visitor breathed in the aroma, patiently smoothed his tie, and then knocked on the door again.

Around back, in the cells beyond the prison yard, prisoners mumbled. The man stopped whistling and listened. A woman, the same one tried for witchcraft earlier in the day, sobbed from above him. She was jailed at the top of the house in accordance with the law, which dictated that female prisoners and the insane be kept separate from the other prisoners.

The door bolt clicked as it was drawn back. There was a pause, and then a black woman opened the door. The man smiled at her. The woman’s eyes went wide and she gasped, her hands fluttering to her chest.

The man’s smile faded. “I am not here for you, good mother. I seek an audience with Mr. Bullock.”

The woman bowed and mumbled a good evening. Her bottom lip trembled.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she apologized, eyes cast to the floor. “I mistook you for—another.”

“Indeed? Which other? There are dark men about these days. Do I resemble one of them?”

“No, sir. Begging your pardon. You reminded me of someone I saw one night when I was a little girl. Back home.”

“Do tell?”

“I was young when they took me from Africa. But I’ll never forget. My father called to him one night, and he came to our fire to grant my father a boon. But you could not be him, lest you hadn’t aged.”

“They say that everyone has a doppelgänger. Do you believe this to be so?”

The woman seemed too nervous to respond. It was obvious to him that she was terrified of him. The man’s smile returned. He swept past her and into the foyer. The woman scurried off.

The jailer’s assistant, Matthew Bullock, sat in front of the fireplace in the next room, blowing hard on the orange coals. He was dressed in a dirty, stained tunic and pants—both of which were two sizes too small—and his hair was sweaty and unkempt. Several days’ worth of beard clung to his face. There were food crumbs in the whiskers. He seemed morose, and did not look up when the visitor entered.

Patiently waiting to be addressed, the man glanced around the room. A lantern glowed softly on the mantle. An oil painting of a ship at sea hung on one bare wall. A round wooden table and a few battered chairs sat in the center of the room. They were all fashioned from oak, because the jailer probably couldn’t afford to have mahogany all the way from South America.

“Look here,” Bullock muttered, without looking up. “If you come to speak with the jailer, then I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”

“Indeed? And why is that?”

“Because Mr. Grant ain’t here right now. He’s away over to the Miller’s house for a visit. Gone to hear Miss Tessa play the organ. It just arrived from overseas. Cost them a pretty penny, I imagine.”

Bullock still did not look up or rise to meet his caller. Instead, he leaned forward and blew on the coals again. They flared. Then Bullock pulled an iron brand out of the fire and began filing it, removing the rough edges and flecks of dead skin that were stuck to the sides.

On the ball of Bullock’s thumb was a lump of scar tissue, a brand—T, for thief. It stood out in the firelight as he filed the edges of the hot branding iron.

“I am not here for your master,” the visitor said.

“Well, I ain’t got no time to talk. I’m about my tasks, as you can see. Mr. Grant bid me to finish these brands for court tomorrow. Been a busy week. So I’ll bid you good night.”

The man made no move to leave.

Ignoring the visitor, Bullock placed the brand back in the center of the coals, then withdrew it and pressed it down on a leather pad. There was a soft hiss as it burned a perfect T into the leather. Bullock eyed the mark with satisfaction, and then set the iron aside.

“Perfect.”

“Not nearly as perfect as the brand you wear,” the visitor said. “You are marked. Identifiable to those who know where to look, despite whatever lengths you go through to hide it.”

“You mean this?” Bullock held up his branded thumb and shrugged. “I thought I’d bid you a good night, but since you asked—it ain’t so bad, being an indentured servant. Fair and square, you know? I pleaded benefit of clergy and was shown mercy. They sentenced me to serve Mr. Grant. Could be worse. I could have hanged.”

“Indeed.” The man’s dark eyes twinkled in the firelight. “You could have.”

Bullock stood up. “So you ain’t here for Mr. Grant. Who you here for, then? Have you come to claim the body of Myers? If so, I hope you brought along a bag of lavender or flower petals, because he’s starting to stink something awful. Even with the gallows a mile away, you can smell him. Been hanging there for two days. The birds have been picking at him. Taking off with the choice bits. Ghastly affair. It’s making the other prisoners restless.”

“I did indeed have an appointment with him, but I am not here for Stephen Myers’ body. I have no claim to that.”

Bullock walked to the window and looked out into the darkness. “I ain’t surprised. Don’t imagine anyone will claim his corpse. He was a wicked man, that one. If ever a man deserved to be condemned, it was him. All those children they found butchered out in the hollow near his place...”

“You sound surprised.”

“Well, sure. Good man like Stephen Myers, capable of such horrible crimes. Wouldn’t you be surprised?”

“Not if I were you. After all, you knew the real Myers.”

Bullock whirled around, his face flushed with anger. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“When they arrested Myers, his tongue had been cut out. The magistrate opined that it had something to do with the rituals he was performing; some form of self-mutilation. But it wasn’t. It was to keep him from talking. Stephen Myers was illiterate. He couldn’t read or write, other than to sign his name. He had no way of communicating when he was sentenced.”

“He didn’t need to communicate. His handiwork spoke for itself—the way he butchered those innocents. Nothing he’d have said could have saved him from the gallows.”

“While Myers was in his cell,” the visitor interrupted, “the cabinetmaker arrived to measure him, just like he does with all of the condemned, and then built him a pine casket. The coffin was kept in Myer’s cell with him until the day of his hanging. He wept over it. Both he and the box were loaded onto a horse-drawn cart and taken to the gallows. The fear in his eyes was beautiful to behold.”

“Sure it was.” Bullock looked uneasy. “Myers knew what waited him at the end of that ride.”

“Ah, but there is the rub. It wasn’t Stephen Myers who swung from that rope, and that is why I am here tonight.”

“You saying we hung the wrong man?” Bullock moved towards the fireplace. “That’s a serious accusation, fellow. You’d best take that up with Mr. Grant.”

“I’m saying that he wasn’t himself. You threw a rope around your neck. The cart pulled away, and you choked to death. You defecated in your pants.”

“I...I don’t...”

“You used an old, reliable rope to help make it quicker. Am I right?”

“What?”

“Why did you do that? Because you didn’t want the rope to kink up and twist. Why do that for a child murderer? You rubbed pig fat into the rope so the knot would slide easier; the death would be quicker.”

“You’re insane, fellow. You keep talking like I hung myself.”

“You did, Stephen. In a manner of speaking.”

Bullock reached for the branding iron. “My name is Matthew Bullock.”

The visitor laughed. “No, your name is Stephen Myers. You butchered those children in accordance with the old laws, the laws you gleaned from books of old. When the rituals were finished, you gained the power to hide yourself inside the body of this jailer’s assistant. You condemned another man to death and hid inside his body. You killed yourself so that you could live.”

Bullock moved quickly. He thrust the still-hot brand at the visitor’s face. The man easily sidestepped the assault, and waved his hand. The brand turned into a serpent. The creature sank its fangs into Bullock’s left hand. It drew back for another strike. Shrieking, Bullock dropped the writhing snake to the floor.

“We had an agreement, Mr. Myers; a binding contract. I did not forget our arrangement. I never do. When your time was up, you sought to break our agreement. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the gallows to keep our appointment, to claim your soul, and instead found someone else’s soul inside your body.”

Whimpering, Bullock backed against the fireplace. He held his hands up, pleading. His left hand had already swollen up to twice its size. Black venom bubbled beneath the skin.

“God save me,” he cried.

“He won’t.”

The coals in the fireplace flickered; then flared up. The flames roared.

Bullock screamed.

The dark man laughed.

Outside, the prisoners fell silent. Later, the black woman, who’d been cowering under her bed since the stranger’s arrival, would creep downstairs and find no trace of Mr. Bullock.

The visitor exited the jailer’s house. He resumed whistling his mournful tune. Monroe’s streets were deserted. The silent homes were all shuttered for the evening. The only sign of life was the bawdy laughter drifting from the taverns and coffeehouses, as men played dominoes and cards and dice.

He walked on. The sky grew black in his wake. Trees and grass withered as he passed. A bird fell dead from her nest; the eggs she’d guarded turning black. Dogs howled, scampering beneath beds and tables, cowering in fear. Babies cried in their cribs. Children moaned in their sleep.

Smiling, the man disappeared into the night. He had other appointments to keep.

STORY NOTE: Publisher Richard Chizmar and editor Thomas Monteleone called me one evening around 6pm, and said, “We’re putting together an anthology and we need a new story from you. We’ll pay you top dollar.” I agreed, and then asked them when the story was due. They said, “Tomorrow morning. Six o’clock, sharp.” I assumed they’d both been drinking, but they were serious. And thus, I wrote this story overnight—a little twist on the old selling-your-soul-to-the-devil tale.

SOMETHING PRETTY

For Kasey Lansdale

We had just finished up lunch at that Asian place you like so much. You had the sushi sampler and I stuck with General Tso’s chicken, because ever since the Fukishima nuclear disaster, eating sushi makes me nervous.

So do a lot of other things.

Lately, I seem to be nervous all the time. Sometimes it’s little things. While we were eating lunch, I watched the chef carving radishes into perfect little flowers, to be used as decorative garnish. It was amazing to behold—the work of a true artist—and I should have enjoyed it, but instead, all I did was worry that he was going to cut himself and ruin our perfect afternoon.

Usually though, it’s the bigger things I worry about. I can’t go to the movies without being afraid that some nut will shoot the place up. I can’t go to the mall or the grocery store or ride public transit without worrying about it happening there, too. I’m concerned about the Yellowstone Caldera. They say it’s overdue to blow, and when it does, most of the United States will be covered in volcanic ash. And an asteroid could hit us at any time, so there’s that, too. I’m afraid of our government and law enforcement, and how we’re living in a militarized police state but nobody seems to give a shit. I’m terribly frightened of cancer. It’s not enough just to quit smoking these days, or not breathe in asbestos and smog. No, cancer’s in our vaccines now, and in this GMO-processed shit we eat, and in the water we drink, and the electronics that fill our homes with wi-fi signals. In twenty years, everyone who’s ever used a cell phone is going to be dying of brain tumors, and none of them seem to care. And don’t even get me started on how diseases are beginning to mutate to the point where our antibiotics don’t work against them anymore. That’s terrifying.

Mostly, I’m nervous about growing old. And about those I love growing old with me.

I hate change. I absolutely despise it. And yet, change is the one constant in this world of ours.

And what a putrid, rotten, messed up world it is. More and more, it seems like everything that is good and beautiful is being trampled under the feet of a million marching sheep, bleating along to their meaningless pop culture distractions and oblivious to their own onrushing extinction. We humans are an ugly race.

Except for you. You’re still beautiful. Flawless. And I want you to stay that way.

When it came time to settle the check, I reached for my wallet. You put your hand on my wrist (so warm and so soft) and told me it was your turn to pay. I protested, but not too much. Never too much, because it’s hard to deny you anything. Any rational thought I might have gets drowned in your beauty.

I offered to at least get the tip, but you laughed in that way you do, that way that sounds like music, and you told me not to worry about it. After all, you said, we’re both struggling artists. You told me that if I really wanted to pay you back, I could make you something pretty. Not buy you something pretty, because the starving artist bit often prevents that. No, you said to make you something pretty.

And here we are, six hours later, and you’re spread out on the bed before me, more beautiful now than ever before. I wish you could see yourself, but I guess you can’t, especially after I turned your eyes into flower buds and your eyelids into gently curling petals.

I got the idea while watching the chef make those radish roses at the restaurant. You said to make you something pretty. So I did. I turned you into a floral bouquet.

I made you something pretty. Even prettier than you were before.

And I’m not nervous about you growing old, anymore, or about your beauty fading with time. I’m not worried about you changing, because there’s nothing left to change. Oh, your colors might fade eventually (and I never knew there were so many different shades of red) but that happens with all flowers. What’s important is that you enjoy them while they last.

I like this new outlook on life. I’m not scared anymore. And in a few days, after I’ve enjoyed your beauty a while longer, I’m going to go out into the world and see what other changes I can stop with this knife.

STORY NOTE: Earlier this year, my friend Kasey Lansdale was in town for a few days. Kasey is a country and western singer, and she was on tour for her then-just-released album, Restless. We decided it would be fun to do a signing together, locally.

Before the signing, we met up with some friends at a wonderful Asian restaurant that fellow authors J.F. Gonzalez, Chet Williamson, Robert Swartwood, and myself often frequent. When it came time to get the check, Kasey insisted that I let her pay. Like the girl in the story, she said I could pay her back by making her something pretty.

The next day, after she’d hit the road and gone back out to finish the tour, I wrote this story. I’m not sure if it’s what Kasey had in mind, though...

THE SIQQUSIM WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS

STORY NOTE: This story features three of my most inarguably popular characters—Ob, the body-hopping zombie lord from The Rising trilogy and stone-cold killers Tony Genova and Vince Napoli from the Clickers series and various short stories. If you’ve never read any of those books before, here’s what you need to know. 1. Ob can possess the dead and take control of their bodies. 2. Don’t fuck with Tony and Vince.

Ob entered the fat man’s body at thirty-thousand feet. After taking control of the corpse, he glanced over the side of the craft. A snow-covered landscape zipped by far below. The wind howled in his ears as he passed through a cloud. The dampness chilled him.

It was nighttime. Stars cast their cold, lonely lights from far above. Ob hated each and every one of them.

The Lord of the Siqqusim stared at his reflection in the vehicle’s polished silver handrails. Outwardly, the man’s body wasn’t much. A long, white beard, bordering on unkempt, dangled from a face whose centerpiece was a bulbous red nose. The fat man was adorned in a red suit, matching the color of his nose, like the garb of a jester or clown. He smelled faintly of gingerbread. Ob scanned the body’s memories, picking through the brain like it was a filing cabinet, searching for clues to this new host’s identity.

The fat man had died of an aneurism. He’d been—

Ob’s laughter was louder than the roaring wind. Had the rest of the Thirteen been present, they’d have shared in his amusement.

This host body had suffered an impossible aneurism—impossible since the fat man was supposed to be immortal. He was one of the old gods, known to various tribes as Santa Claus, Kris Cringle, the Dark Elf, Father Christmas and other, long-forgotten names. He was not able to die, and yet he had—the victim of a slow, eons-long spiritual rot. Ob had seen it before, in Rome and Greece and elsewhere.

Santa Claus had died from the cancer of non-belief.

All gods existed on belief. It was their power. Their food. The more people that believed in them, the stronger they became. But when they lost favor with their devout followers, when people stopped believing in them and began worshipping other deities, the gods grew weaker. If it continued long enough, the gods could die. It had happened to Zeus. To Odin. To countless others, both remembered and forgotten. History was written in the blood of forgotten pantheons. They’d been replaced with new gods. Shinier gods. Gods of medicine and science and peace.

Of course, humanity hadn’t realized that Claus was a god. They just thought of him as some kindly old legend, a story to tell children. A benevolent figurehead. A marketing icon. Which was fine, since millennia ago, he’d been that very thing—a god of production and commerce. Claus had transformed over time, altering his identity and duties to suit the ever-changing demands of his fickle believers. All gods did so, when required. They had no choice. Beholden to the whims of the faithful, even the gods had to adapt or die.

Ob and the rest of the Thirteen were not gods, and thus, they had no such weaknesses. The Thirteen scoffed at the inferior beings—gods, angels, demons, devils. All of them were amateurs. They were mere children, battling for scraps from the Creator’s table, fighting for the right to be chained to the desires of humanity, sentenced to obey their believer’s prayers, for to do so was to reward their faith. Rewarding humanity’s faith kept the belief strong—and thus, kept the gods strong.

Ob longed for the day when he could destroy them all. He would kick the Creator from the throne and ascend for himself.

But not yet.

One planet, one reality, at a time. Ob and his fellow Siqqusim had just finished with another Earth, slaughtering the last of the humans and making a mockery with their corpses. While his brothers, Ab and Api, took over, Ob had led the Siqqusim into the Great Labyrinth between worlds, moving on to this level of existence.

Finished with Claus’s memories, Ob looked around the sled. It was piled high with colorfully-wrapped boxes and bags. The vast storage space behind the seat was much bigger inside than it appeared from the outside. Ob knew that if he dived into that mound of presents, he could burrow all night and still not reach the bottom. Leather reigns lay in his lap. Ob picked them up and sleigh-bells jingled. The reigns were tied to nine mangy familiars. Each had taken the earthly form of a reindeer. The familiar at the head of the procession was smaller than the others, but its nose glowed scarlet with arcane energies.

Ob experimented with the reigns. The familiars obeyed his commands, unaware that their master no longer inhabited this obese shell. Ob directed them to land. They dropped out of the sky and soared above a village in the Lapland province of Finland. The sled drifted to a halt in the deep snow. Other than the sleigh’s jingling bells, the town was silent. The streets were deserted and the villagers were most likely asleep. Smoke curled from a few chimneys. Many doors and windows were adorned with Christmas decorations. Icicles hung from roofs and gutters.

Ob climbed out of the sled and approached the reindeer. They stomped their hooves and pawed the snow, sensing that something was wrong, but unaware of what it was. Their master smelled different. His aura had vanished.

“Well,” Ob said, “ho, ho, ho and all that. Names have power, so let’s get down to the act of naming.” He pointed at each as he spoke. “Rudolph, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen. Now... do you know who I am?”

The familiars glanced at each other, snorting in fear.

“I’m the reason for the season.” Ob licked his lips. “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

His teeth flashed in the darkness.

•    •    •

Alvar Pokka slept next to his hearth. The embers glowed softly. The warmth eased his aching joints, stiff with arthritis. He was eighty-two years old and had lived in Lapland all of his life. Until that night, Alvar had thought he knew everything there was to know about the region’s flora and fauna. But the sound that woke him was like nothing he’d ever heard.

Alvar hadn’t known that reindeer could scream.

He crept to the window. The fire’s warmth seemed to vanish. Alvar peered out the frosted glass and gasped. Santa Claus was slaughtering his reindeer. One by one, he tore out their throats with his hands and teeth. His white beard had turned crimson, dripping gore. The dead animals dropped to the frozen ground. Steam rose from their corpses.

Then they got up again and prowled through the snow-filled streets.

Soon, Alvar’s shrieks mingled with the rest of the villagers’ screams.

•    •    •

Tony Genova bolted upright in his bed, wondering if he’d screamed out loud. His heart hammered in his chest, and his ears rang. He glanced around the dimly lit room. His long-time associate, the severely overweight Vince Napoli, sat in a chair, eating junk food and watching television. Vince turned when Tony cleared his throat.

“Sorry,” Vince said. “Did the TV wake you up?”

Tony shook his head, waiting for his racing pulse to slow down. He slid out from under the covers, fully dressed, and put his feet on the floor. A log on the fireplace popped, sending a shower of sparks drifting up into the chimney. He smoothed his tie and noticed that his hand was trembling.

“Jeez, Tony! You’re sweating like a pig. You okay?”

Tony nodded. “I’m fine. Just had a bad dream is all.”

“It’s that shit they fed us for dinner,” Vince mused, his eyes not leaving the television. “You should have brought some stuff from the States, like I did. Sleep like a baby.”

“No thanks. We’re in fucking Finland—I want to eat like they do. You go to Italy, you eat Doritos?”

Vince nodded.

“Okay,” Tony rolled his eyes. “Maybe you do. But other people don’t. People go to Italy, they want to eat Italian food. Same thing here.”

Vince didn’t reply. Secretly, Tony thought he might be right. The village only had one place to eat—a rustic tavern with a few elderly patrons. Tony and Vince didn’t speak the language, and their translator, a young man named Tjers, had met with an unfortunate accident after offering Tony a blow job, so they’d had to muddle through the menu. Tony ended up getting a boiled sheep’s head on a plate. It stared at him with big mournful eyes while he ate it. What kind of country was this where they left the eyes in your fucking dinner?

And who the hell ate sheep heads, anyway?

Tony sighed. What was supposed to be a simple job had turned into a cluster-fuck. It had seemed so straightforward. Travel from the United States to the Savukoski county of Lapland, Finland, which was right on the border with Russia. Meet up with Tjers. Wait for Otar, who was based in Murmansk Oblast, to cross the border, and then make the exchange—money and heroin for a dozen vials of black-market Soviet-era anthrax—a weaponized strain that their employer, Mr. Marano of the Marano crime family, was anxious to obtain. Once the exchange had been made, Otar would fuck off back to Russia, and Tony and Vince were supposed to cross the Korvatunturi mountains, meet up with their transport, and deliver the anthrax back to the States.

Now they were holed up in a converted bedroom in the tavern’s attic. Tjers was dead and buried in the snow, and Otar hadn’t shown. They had no one to guide them over the mountain path, and it looked like they were going home empty-handed—if they made it home at all. Their employer was going to be pissed. He didn’t like mishaps or mistakes. Their asses were grass and Marano was the lawnmower, unless Tony figured out how to salvage this whole mess.

Merry fucking Christmas.

On the television, cartoon characters jabbered in Finnish.

“All things considered,” Tony muttered, “I’d rather be in fucking Pittsburgh.”

“What was the dream about?” Vince asked.

Tony watched his obese partner shovel three double-stuffed Oreo cookies into his mouth at once, and sighed again.

“We were sitting in this little cafe in Atlantic City, waiting for Frankie Spicolli to show up. Then a bunch of crab-things straight out of a bad Sci-Fi Channel movie showed up and started killing people. They looked like a cross between a crab, lobster and scorpion.”

“Then what happened?”

Tony got out of bed and stretched. Then he smoothed his suit.

“Something about a fucking hurricane or some shit. I don’t remember. What the hell are you watching?”

Vince shrugged. “I don’t know. It ain’t in English. Pretty good, though. Kind of reminds me of Thomas the Tank Engine, except it’s got chicks in it. Look at the tits on her!”

“Very nice.”

“I was hoping they’d show that Rudolph cartoon.”

“The one with the Bumble?”

Vince’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, that’s the one! I always liked Bumble when I was a kid.”

Probably cause you’re about the same size, Tony thought. Then he said, “I liked Herbie, the elf that wanted to be a dentist. But then they did that stupid fucking sequel, with the Baby fucking New Year. Ruined the whole thing.”

Vince turned back to the television. “Seems like there’d be some kind of special program on, what with it being Christmas Eve and all. Santa lives near here, you know?”

“What?”

“Santa Claus,” Vince explained. “Everybody knows his reindeer stay in Finland during the year. There aren’t any reindeer at the North Pole.”

Tony paused before speaking. “Vince, there ain’t no fucking reindeer at the North Pole because there ain’t no Santa Claus.”

“You sound like my folks, back when I was a teenager. They tried to say there weren’t no Santa, too.”

“You still believe in Santa Claus?”

“Well, sure, Tony. Don’t you?”

“No, I don’t. And neither does anybody else over the age of nine. And probably not many of them anymore, either. Hard for a kid to believe in Santa when there’s people flying airplanes into buildings and shooting up schools. Jesus fucking Christ, Vince. You believe in the Easter Bunny, too?”

“No.” Vince sulked. “Everybody knows the Easter Bunny is make believe. But Santa Claus ain’t. He’s—”

A scream cut him off, followed by more. A gunshot echoed through the darkness.

“The fuck?” Tony grabbed his Sig-Sauer off the pine nightstand.

More screams and gunshots drifted up from the streets below. The gunfire didn’t surprise them. Gun ownership was fairly common in this part of the world, at least by European standards. What startled them was the sudden clattering sound on the roof.

“Turn that shit off,” Tony whispered. “Let’s see what’s the matter.”

The television screen went black. Vince pulled his Kimber 1911 and heaved his prodigious bulk out of the chair, staring at the ceiling. Meanwhile, Tony crept to the window and peered through the blinds.

“Anything?” Vince asked.

Tony shook his head. “Nothing. Sounds like a—wait a fucking second. What the hell?”

Outside, a reindeer was goring an old man in the stomach. When the animal raised its head, entrails hung from its bloody antlers. Before Tony could react, the noise on the roof grew louder.

“Cops?” Vince said, moving towards the chimney.

“Why the fuck would they be coming through the roof, Vince? No. This is something else.”

Something jingled in the night. Tony swore it was... sleigh bells.

There was a rustling noise from the roof. Soot and dirt tumbled down the chimney, sprinkling the fire and filling the air with dust. Vince sneezed and Tony’s eyes watered. The fire flared, and then sputtered. More debris fell down the chimney. Then they heard a scraping sound and a huge mound of snow fell onto the fire, extinguishing it. Smoke curled from the fireplace. Vince sneezed again and glanced at Tony.

Tony put his finger to his lips, and then motioned towards the fireplace. The two men tiptoed towards it, standing on either side with their handguns at the ready. A long shadow stretched down from the roof. The sleigh bells rang again. Vince started to speak, but Tony shushed him. More snow fell down the shaft, and then something scuffed against the sides of the chimney. The shadow lengthened. Whoever—whatever—was on the roof was coming down.

Moving as one, Vince and Tony backed away from the fireplace. Standing side by side, they extended their arms and clutched their weapons with both hands, holding the barrels steady. Their fingers rested lightly on the triggers. Neither man flinched. They barely breathed. They stood statue-still, waiting.

A figure crashed into the sodden remains of the fire, knocking burnt logs and ashes aside. Crouching, the intruder surveyed the two and cackled.

Tony had seen some bizarre shit in his time. Back home, he’d seen weird lights at night in the woods of LeHorn’s Hollow, which was supposed to be haunted. They’d hovered above the ground, no bigger than softballs, before zooming up into the sky and disappearing. There was other oddness, too. He and Vince used the services of a cannibal who lived in York, Pennsylvania to dispose of bodies when the occasion called for it. They’d once had to steal a diamond that burned your skin like acid if you touched it. Then there were the dreams—dreams he’d never told anyone about, not even Vince. Dreams that he’d lived in other times and places. Other worlds. Fighting weird crab-monsters and all sorts of other creatures.

But the figure that emerged from the fireplace was the strangest fucking thing Tony had ever seen.

It looked like Santa Claus—fat (though not as fat as Vince), red suit and hat, rosy cheeks and a beard. But that was where the similarities ended. This garish figure was better suited for Halloween than Christmas. His skin was pale—almost blue. Blood and gore had matted in the beard, and the rosy glow on his cheeks was more dried blood. Most telling was the gunshot wound in his chest. Tony glanced at it, remembering the shot they’d heard earlier. He’d seen men shot there before—had shot men there before. That wasn’t a wound you walked around with, let alone crawl across rooftops and drop down chimneys.

Tony tried to speak and couldn’t.

Vince summed it up for him, his voice tinged with unexpected delight.

“Santa Claus!”

“Ho, ho fucking ho. Time to die, humans. My brothers need your bodies.”

Vince paled. “Santa doesn’t curse.”

“I am not Santa. I am Ob the Obot, Lord of the Siqqusim and greatest of the Thirteen! Your time is over. For each of you that we kill, one of my kind will take your place. There are so many of us. More than infinity.”

Tony smirked. “Are all of them as fat as you?”

The man in red charged towards them.

Tony squeezed the trigger, aiming for the intruder’s belly. His mark was true, but Santa barely slowed. He grunted as the bullet slammed into him and ripped through his back, before hitting the brick wall behind him. Santa grinned and took another step forward.

“Tony, you can’t shoot Santa Claus!”

Tony barely heard his partner. The sound of the gunshot filled the room. Instead of responding, he fired again. Whoever this guy was, he was still standing despite two shots to the body. This time, he aimed for the face. Santa’s grin vanished in a wet explosion of red.

“Shoot the fucker, Vince!”

Santa tried to speak, but his lower jaw was missing. His tongue flopped uselessly, sliding across the shattered remnants of his upper teeth. He seized a fireplace poker and swung it at Tony. Tony dodged the blow, raised his pistol, and fired again. This time, he aimed for the fat man’s forehead.

He didn’t miss.

Santa uttered a short, garbled moan. Then he fell forward, face first onto the floor. His body twitched once and then he was still. Tony put a foot on his back and fired two more rounds into the back of his head at close range. Then he kicked him. Santa didn’t move.

Silence returned. The air was thick with wood smoke and gunpowder. Outside, the screaming continued.

“Jesus...” Vince leaned against the wall with one hand, panting. “I told you, Tony! See? There is so such a thing as Santa Claus.”

“No, Vince. There ain’t no fucking Santa Claus.”

He prodded the corpse with his shoe.

“At least, not anymore.”

Tony popped the magazine from his Sig-Sauer, slid a few more bullets into place, and then slammed it back home. He ran to the window and glanced outside. The slaughter continued in the streets as Santa’s dead helpers ran riot. Tony grabbed Vince by the arm.

“Come on. Let’s go kill ourselves some zombie reindeer.”

MUSINGS

This happened to me last night, and I need to talk about it to someone, and since my publisher is after me to get a story turned in on time, that someone is you. Call it meta-fiction if you like, except that there’s not much fiction to it.

It was just before six in the evening. My girlfriend had gone home at nine that morning, and I’d been writing non-stop all day. That doesn’t sound like hard work, typing words on a laptop for nine hours, and it’s not, in the grand scheme of things. I’ve had hard jobs—sweating in a foundry, moving boxes on the loading docks, driving a tractor trailer for fifteen-hour stretches. Writing is a breeze compared to those, and a lot more fun. Still, it was a lot easier to write for nine hours straight when I was in my twenties than it is in my early forties. My back hurt, my wrists ached, and my fingers were stiff with the onset of arthritis—a relatively new affliction that biology and genetics had given me for a forty-second birthday present last year.

I decided to take a break, and while I was brewing a fresh pot of coffee, it occurred to me how quiet the house seemed, and how lonely I was. I’ve got my youngest son Mondays through Thursdays, and my girlfriend visits me when she can, but when the two of them aren’t here, I spend my time alone and spend my alone time writing. Writing is a solitary act, and it makes for a solitary existence. Hell, I should know. Writing is the reason I’m alone. I’m good at it—writing, I mean. I’m not so good at being alone, despite the fact that it’s how I spend my life. But I’m good at writing, or at least, that’s what my editors and publishers tell me. I sometimes suspect they only tell me that because I make them lots of money. People will tell you whatever they think you want to hear when you’re making them a lot of money. I’ve often wanted to purposely write a bad book, just so I can see their false praise for what it is, but I wouldn’t do that to my fans and readers. And I wouldn’t do it to myself. Because other than being a father, writing is the only thing I’m good at. It’s the only constant in my life. The only thing I can always count on.

And all it cost me was everything else.

For starters, writing has cost me two failed marriages. One in my twenties, when I was living in a trailer with a young wife and infant son, working all day in a factory and coming home at night to try my hand at becoming the next Joe Lansdale or David Schow or Skipp and Spector. Another in my thirties, when I’d succeeded in my career as a writer, and was living in a nice house with a wonderful second wife and another infant son, writing all day and then writing all night, as well, just to stay on top of the heap of bills and keep a roof over our heads.

Writing has also cost me friends—both from before I became a writer and after. Childhood chums, pissed off that I mined so much of our lives for fiction. Friends from High School and old Navy buddies who I no longer had anything in common with, who assumed that just because they saw my books in stores or my movies on television that I must somehow be wealthy and hey, could I lend them a few dollars or help them get published or be the dancing monkey and star attraction to impress all their friends and family members with at their next Christmas party. Fellow writers and peers, people I’d come up with, promised to do it together with, only to have them lose touch with me when I got successful.

Or maybe it was me who lost touch with them. Maybe it was my own insecurities—my own guilt at achieving everything we’d all hoped for, while they still hadn’t. And maybe that applied to those old High School friends, as well. Maybe they were just proud of me, and I mistook that pride for something else. And maybe those childhood chums were right to be angry. Perhaps not all of our personal demons needed to end up as grist for my fiction mill. And maybe—just maybe—my two ex-wives had been right to expect me to choose a healthy relationship with them instead of fifteen hours at a keyboard living inside my own head seven days a week instead of talking to them or living with them.

Those were the thoughts that kept me awake some nights, and on those nights, I drank more whiskey and continued to write. It was a self-perpetuating vicious cycle. Lose everything because of writing until the only thing you have left is the writing itself. Rinse and repeat.

But it’s too late to do anything about it now. And like I said, I’m good at it. So I have that going for me. And not everything has been lost. I have great relationships with both of my sons. My youngest is four, and even though his mother couldn’t be married to a writer any longer, we remain best friends and work well together as co-parents. My oldest is twenty-one, and although he’s a young man now, when I look at him I still see the little boy who read through his Daddy’s comic book collection and played superheroes on my living room floor for hours and talked about how he was going to be a writer just like me when he grew up. Thank God and Cthulhu he didn’t. That desire lasted exactly one season when he was ten. Now he’s a senior at Penn State and studying to be a social worker. The pride and love I feel for him is as tangible as the lump I get in my throat when I think about how much he’s grown. He doesn’t talk about writing anymore, and for that I am grateful. I only hope that his younger brother does the same. My oldest son doesn’t read my books and his only association with them is when he goes to science fiction, fantasy, and horror conventions wearing a t-shirt with one of my book covers on it. When a cute girl approaches him and compliments the shirt and tells him they are a fan of my work, he smiles and says, “Yeah, he’s my Dad.” I’m okay with this. I will probably never leave either of my sons a lofty inheritance, so the very least I can do is get them laid.

My relationship with my girlfriend is good, too. Maybe that’s because we’re both writers. We know exactly what goes into this life of ours, and what the demands are. But I suspect that same knowledge is what keeps us from permanently cementing this relationship and making it official. Because we know that no matter how close we are, we’ll always have a laptop between us—or two laptops, in our case. Because we know that sooner or later, the good things will go away, leaving only fodder for the muse.

Because that’s how the muse gets fed.

In U2’s “The Fly”, Bono sings that every poet is a cannibal and every artist is a thief. They all kill their inspiration and then sing about the grief. Until last Saturday night, I believed this to be true.

I know better now.

It’s not the artist who kills their inspiration.

It’s the inspiration that kills the artist.

•    •    •

The coffee had finished brewing but my brain and body were still sore. Worse, loneliness and isolation were still weighing on me. I could have reached out to someone. I could have called my girlfriend, or any of the other people I truly trust—a group whose members sadly dwindle with each passing year. But doing so would have alleviated my melancholy, and I needed that melancholy to write. Yeah, talk about job security. “Continue to feel bad so you’ll write better.”

So instead of reaching out and touching someone, I decided to extend my break and go for a walk. I live in a remote section of rural South-Central Pennsylvania, down in the bottoms of the Susquehanna River, an area so backwoods that it makes the rest of the county look positively metropolitan in comparison. I like it that way. I like seeing greenery and wildlife outside my window. I like having no traffic zipping by all day or noisy neighbors or sidewalks or a convenience store or bar within walking—or even driving—distance.

I put on my jacket and grabbed my walking stick—a sturdy length of oak that had originally belonged to my grandfather, faded now and worn smooth by his hands and mine. I miss my grandfather. He passed several years ago. Using that stick always makes me think of him. Worse, it always makes me wonder if he was ever proud of what I’d accomplished as a writer or if, like the rest of my family, he quietly (and sometimes openly in the case of a few family members) wished I’d give up this writing thing and get a proper job again. Something else I missed when I went for a walk was my dog. Writing had cost me him, too, in a way—lost in that second, amicable divorce. Oh, I still saw him on an almost daily basis, and he was always happy to see me, wagging his tail and grinning that dog grin that hounds do so well. But it wasn’t the same. Gone were the days when I’d write for fifteen hours with him lying at my feet, patiently waiting for me to finish so we could go for a walk and decompress before rejoining the rest of the world, already in progress. These days, he lives with my second ex-wife, and her boyfriend is the one taking him for walks, and I write alone.

I walk alone, too.

I pulled a cigar from my humidor, clipped it, lit it, and headed out the door, clutching the walking stick and feeling the weight of my thoughts. I’m not supposed to smoke cigars anymore, especially after my heart attack. Wrath James White, F. Paul Wilson, and Joe Lansdale have all threatened to kick my ass if I continue, so if you read this, don’t tell them I was. It will be our little secret.

Anyway, I walked down to the river. The weather suited my mood. It was that weird time of day—not quite nightfall but not the end of daylight, either. The overcast sky was colored with muted shades of gray and white, and a persistent breeze rustled the leaves on the trees, knocking them to the ground in a cascade of reds, oranges, and yellows. Nice weather for hunters, Goths, moody horror writers, and malcontents, but other folks probably prefer spring or summer. The river was deserted. When it’s warmer outside, the waterway is packed with boats—blue-collar guys out fishing in aluminum bass boats, rich Yuppies up from Maryland for the day in their obscene pleasure boats, and thrill-seekers on Jet Skis. The river banks were usually packed, as well, with family picnics and folks feeding the ducks. But they’d all gone home for the season, and the ducks had flown south, and on the day they’d left, I’d wished I could go with them.

There was one lone car in the parking area—a blue Mazda with a Penn State bumper sticker on the back, and some additional stickers for bands I had never heard of, because I am in my forties now, and stopped listening to new music right around the time that hip-hop got turned into hit-pop and Kurt Cobain did us the disservice of killing heavy metal before killing himself. Far away, down near the chain link fence that sealed off the gravel service road for the Safe Harbor Dam, I saw three college-aged girls, and assumed the car belonged to them. They were too far away to notice anything else about them, so I turned my attention back to the river. I stood there, hands in pockets, smoking and thinking, and gearing myself up to go back home and write some more. As I watched, the sun slipped beneath the horizon, and blue gave way to black.

I stood there until my cigar was finished. Then I tossed the stub into the water and turned to leave. As I did, I noticed the three girls approaching. They were close enough now that I was able to get a better look at them, and what I saw left me stunned. I don’t know if it was the fact that I’m now middle-aged or the loneliness I’d been feeling prior, but I absolutely could not take my gaze away from them. They appeared to be twenty, maybe twenty-one. The first was blonde with blue eyes. The second had dark hair and even darker skin. The third girl was a brunette. Their nationalities were hard to pin. I saw hints of Caucasian, African, Asian, Indian, and more—an exotic mix of genetics and heredity that suggested the entire world had been distilled into these three beauties. They reminded me of pop princesses—or barely legal porn starlets—and at that moment, I felt very old and very ashamed, and I’m not sure why.

I nodded hello and turned away, determined not to be the creepy middle-aged guy I felt like, when the blonde disarmed me with a smile and a question.

“Working on a new book?”

I’m used to getting recognized, especially near my home. No, I never had to deal with the level of notoriety Stephen King did after filming that credit card commercial, but I’ve got enough of an Internet presence that I’m easily identifiable. It’s a given this happens at conventions or signings, but I’ve also encountered it occasionally in airports, the grocery store, at movie theatres, and once in a bathroom at an Amtrak station. And as I said, it happens fairly regularly in my hometown (local boy made good, and all that). So it wasn’t the girl’s question that threw me, nor was it the fact that she apparently knew who I was. What left me flummoxed was the sensation that I knew these girls from somewhere. I’d never signed a book for them. Of that, I was certain. I’m good with faces, and if you’ve stood in line to get my signature, chances are I’ll remember your face, if not your name. I was certain that our paths hadn’t crossed in that way, but the instant connection I felt with them was so strong that it left me feeling nervous and dizzy.

All three stood there staring at me, smiling, and I realized that I hadn’t responded.

“Taking a break from one, actually.” I tried to smile, but it probably looked like I was having a seizure. Whatever my expression, it was apparently amusing, because all three giggled softly. Their laughter was like music. I felt my body begin to thrum.

What the hell is wrong with me? I thought. I felt like a character out of one of my books. You know the one where the Satyr comes back to life and everyone is running around with a hard on? It was like that, except that this was real life, and the sensations coursing through me weren’t just sexual. Don’t get me wrong. Lust—or maybe longing—was a definite component. But it was something more than that. It was... need. On a primal, spiritual level. I didn’t understand it, but that didn’t stop me from feeling it. Even though I didn’t know why, I felt that I needed these women.

We made small talk for a while. The girls had a slight, almost unrecognizable accent that I couldn’t place. I don’t remember everything that was said. I started out with my public patter, accessing the stores of anecdotes and witty responses I keep for any occasion when I’m talking with fans, but soon enough, I found myself relaxing, and becoming the real me. The girls must have noticed this, too. They didn’t tell me their names, and I didn’t think to ask, so flustered and confused was I, puzzling over my own behavior. I remember asking if they went to school around here, thinking they had to be from Penn State or York College. It turned out they didn’t, although they had plans to visit the Penn State campus the next day. When I told them my son was enrolled there, they smiled again. When I asked why they were planning to visit the campus, the brunette told me they were from Boeotia, and were just traveling. I’d never heard of Boeotia, but didn’t mention it because I didn’t want to seem rude. When I asked what brought them to the river bottoms of York County, they told me I had. They were fans, and they’d known I lived nearby, and they’d wanted to see me.

We talked a while longer, and when the moon and the stars finally peeked out from behind the cloud cover, the temperature dropped. Shivering inside my leather jacket, I told them I had to be getting home. They offered me a ride back, and I accepted. I’m still not sure why. I’m not one to let the public know the exact whereabouts of my home. I use a PO Box and don’t allow friends to post pictures taken outside my home on Facebook. Hell, I’m so concerned with privacy, that I don’t even mention either of my son’s names in public. And yet, quite uncharacteristically, I was allowing these three girls to give me a lift back to my front door.

And when we got there, I let them come inside.

One trip to my liquor cabinet later, and the booze, conversation, and laughter were flowing freely. They admired my bookshelves, which made me happy. They exclaimed over first edition Peter Straub books and rare volumes by M.R. James and Edward Lee. My signed copy of Arthur Machen’s Strange Roads elicited a smile from all three, and when I asked them if they were familiar with his work, the brunette said, “Oh, yes. We knew him.” I was buzzed enough that I let the odd response slip by, assuming she meant they knew of his work, even in far-off Boeotia. They’d probably read The Great God Pan in high school or something. The girls seemed particularly interested in my books by Hunter S. Thompson, Robert E. Howard, Karl Edward Wagner, Ernest Hemingway, Edward Lucas White, Edgar Allan Poe, and other writers who’d had notoriously rough lives and even rougher endings. The three seemed well-versed and knowledgeable in their works—something that amazed me at the time. It’s not often you meet three college-aged beauties with whom you can discuss what makes Wagner’s “Sticks” the most effective horror short story ever, or the stark, fearful sub-text of Thompson’s post-9/11 “Where Were You When the Fun Stopped?”

I was well into my second bottle of bourbon and the girls were working their way through my tequila, having finished off the last of my sambuca (a gift from my girlfriend), when we ended up collapsing onto the bed together. Looking back, I had no misgivings about this. It never occurred to me that it was inappropriate. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world. I felt safe. Secure. That feeling continued as I poured my heart out to them, telling them things the rest of the world didn’t know, things I’ve never even told my friends, truths about myself that have only been told as lies in my fiction. And I was still feeling safe and secure when they retrieved four of my ties from the closet and secured my wrists and ankles to the bedposts. Then they went to work on me with lips and tongues and fingertips, and only once did I resist—a half-hearted protest that dissipated almost before leaving my mouth.

As they swarmed over me, soft hair grazing my skin, raising goose bumps with its passage, they whispered and murmured the truth to me. They told me how my writing was for shit these days, and how I needed to experience pain once again. They spoke of how my best works, the books for which I’m known, stemmed from turmoil and heartache—the death of a loved one, the dissolution of a marriage, the loss of a child, struggles with substance abuse and depression. Those things fed and informed my fiction, and I needed to return to those things once again. They teased that I’d grown fat and old and bald and content, and my current output was a reflection of that. I needed to be hungry again. I needed to hurt again.

Their words changed, as did their faces. It felt like I was viewing them from the end of a long, spiraling tunnel. I passed out with their bodies as blankets, and the voices ceased.

When I woke today, my head was numb and my mouth tasted like the inside of a gorilla’s stomach. My first sensation, before even opening my eyes, was an overwhelming sense of guilt. I’d cheated on my girlfriend. I’d callously betrayed her trust for a drunken tryst that I couldn’t even remember clearly. Just what had happened anyway? The ties were gone and my limbs were free. I remembered skin and hair and softness. Security. Had I cried at some point? I think I had, but couldn’t remember why.

Glancing at the clock, I was stunned to see that it was late-evening. I’d nearly slept the entire day. I sat up, groaning at the stiffness in my limbs. The girls weren’t in the bedroom, and the house was quiet, so I assumed they were gone.

I was partially right.

I stumbled downstairs to make some coffee, and found my laptop open on the dining room table. The screen glowed softly. My cell phone lay next to it. I picked up the phone first, checking to see if I’d missed any calls or texts, and was alarmed to see several texts sent to my girlfriend from my phone sometime after I’d passed out. I clicked on the texts and groaned. Somebody had taken pictures of me and my visitors, and judging by the fact that each picture showed me and two of the girls, but a different combo in each shot, it had to have been them. Worse, they’d then texted these pictures to my girlfriend—who was either still asleep and hadn’t gotten them yet, or was so distraught that she hadn’t even been capable of responding.

Panicked, I collapsed into a chair and reached for my laptop. I had some vague, terror-driven notion of Googling a way to delete texts that had already been sent, but before I could do that, I saw an open Word document on my screen. It repeated what they’d whispered the night before, of how I needed to hurt again, and of the new works that would spring forth from that pain. The note was signed with love from Melete, Mneme, and Aoide.

I knew those names. They were the names of the three Muses worshipped in ancient times on Mount Helicon in...

...in Boeotia.

“Fuck you!”

The words fell flat in my empty kitchen. I’d meant to shout them, but all I managed to do was croak. I sat there, crying and cursing and pounding my fist against the table. All three gestures were ineffective. Then, stomach churning, I dashed for the bathroom, barely making it in time before the sourness of the previous night’s libations ended up in the toilet. I knelt there, gasping and sweating and puking some more, and almost passed out again. I heard my phone ringing, but was in no condition to answer it. Eventually, when the tremors had subsided, I crawled to the sink, pulled myself upright, and splashed water on my face. I stared into the mirror and cringed at what I saw staring back at me.

My phone dinged, alerting me that I had a voice mail. I returned to the kitchen and reached for the phone with trepidation, expecting it to be my girlfriend. Instead, it was my oldest son. I held the phone to my ear and listened to his message. It sounded like he was calling me from a frat party, judging by the noise in the background. Amidst the white noise, I heard lilting female laughter—and almost screamed at the sound.

“You’ll never guess what happened to me,” my son was saying. “I’m at this party on campus and I met these three girls. They’re fans of your work. I’m heading back to my place with them now. They’re totally fucking hot. I’m turning my phone off so we don’t get interrupted. You know what I mean. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks, Dad!”

I called him back, but got no answer. I called both of my ex-wives but there was no answer from them, either. Nor my girlfriend. Nor my family members.

I was alone again. Truly alone. Just me and my laptop.

It occurred to me that I should call the police, both locally and on campus. Have them check on the status of my loved ones. Make sure they were safe. Give them a description of the three women. I’d have to be careful not to sound like a madman. I couldn’t very well say that these women were serial killers. That they murdered for their host’s inspiration, killing everything good in the artist’s life until their was nothing left. That they might be going by the aliases of Melete, Mneme, and Aoide, but that they had other aliases, as well, like Nete, Mese, and Hypate, or Cephisso, Apollonis, and Borysthenis. They’d lock me up if I said these women had killed Poe and Thompson and Hemingway and so many others. No. Instead I’d just tell the authorities that these were three disturbed fans of my work, and that I had strong reason to believe that my loved ones were in danger.

And that’s what I intended to do.

But it was important that I write this first.

I’ll make those calls soon.

I just need to write another thousand words or so before I do. I haven’t been this productive in a while...

STORY NOTE: Cemetery Dance asked me if I’d like to be in a four-author anthology with Peter Straub, Joe. R. Lansdale, and Ray Garton. That’s like asking Justin Bieber if he’d like to record an album with The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Guns n’ Roses. “Of course I want to be in that anthology,” I said, and then asked about the guidelines. The only stipulation was that all the stories had to be about killers.

I thought about it for a long time. I wanted to deliver my very best for this project. At the time, The Girl on the Glider was getting rave reviews, so I thought maybe I should try the meta-fiction route again. I also had an idea of some of the themes I’d like to explore—how we artists seemingly sacrifice it all for our muse. Then, one afternoon, I took a walk down to the river (just like in the story) and saw three girls, and everything clicked into place. I hurried back up the hill and began working on this.

BRIAN KEENE writes novels, comic books, short fiction, and occasional journalism for money. He is the author of over forty books, mostly in the horror, crime, and dark fantasy genres. Keene’s novels have been translated into German, Spanish, Polish, Italian, French, Taiwanese, and many more. In addition to his own original work, Keene has written for media properties such as Doctor Who, Hellboy, Masters of the Universe, and The X-Files.

Several of Keene’s novels have been developed for film, including Ghoul, The Ties That Bind, and Fast Zombies Suck. Several more are in-development or under option. Keene also serves as Executive Producer for the independent film studio Drunken Tentacle Productions. Keene also oversees Maelstrom, his own small press publishing imprint specializing in collectible limited editions, via Thunderstorm Books.

Keene’s work has been praised in such diverse places as The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The History Channel, The Howard Stern Show, CNN.com, Publisher’s Weekly, Media Bistro, Bleeding Cool, Fangoria Magazine, and Rue Morgue Magazine.

He has won numerous awards and honors, including the 2014 World Horror Grandmaster Award, 2001 Bram Stoker Award for Nonfiction, 2003 Bram Stoker Award for First Novel, 2004 Shocker Award for Book of the Year, and Honors from United States Army International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and Whiteman A.F.B. (home of the B-2 Stealth Bomber) 509th Logistics Fuels Flight for his outreach to U.S. troops serving both overseas and abroad. A prolific public speaker, Keene has delivered talks at conventions, college campuses, theaters, and inside Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, VA.

The father of two sons, Keene lives along the banks of the Susquehanna River in rural Pennsylvania.

You can communicate with him online at www.briankeene.com, on Facebook or on Twitter.

Also by Brian Keene

The Rising

City of the Dead

Earthworm Gods

Ghoul

Dead Sea

Kill Whitey

Dark Hollow

Darkness on the Edge of Town

Castaways

Urban Gothic

A Gathering of Crows

Take the Long Way Home

Jack’s Magic Beans

Tequila’s Sunrise

Entombed

The Cage

Alone

Scratch

An Occurrence in Crazy Bear Valley

Shades (with Geoff Cooper)

Clickers II: The Next Wave (with J.F. Gonzalez)

Clickers III: Dagon Rising (with J.F. Gonzalez)

Clickers vs Zombies (with J.F. Gonzalez)

The Damned Highway: Fear and Loathing in Arkham (with Nick Mamatas)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Brian Keene.

All Dark, All the Time © 2016 by Brian Keene

Layout and design by Robert Swartwood

Cover illustration © 2016 Elderlemon Design

Introduction © 2014 by J.F. Gonzalez

Quote from “Some Remarks on Ghost Stories” by M.R. James used as public domain.

Quote from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare used as public domain.

Lyrics to “The Illuminated” (from the album Black Ribbons) copyright 2010 by Shooter Jennings. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Foreword is original to this collection

The Girl on the Glider first published as The Girl on the Glider, Cemetery Dance Publications, 2010

Keepsakes first published as a promotional PDF file, Antarctic Press, 2014

Fetish first published in Set's Quartet, Thunderstorm Books, 2013

Lost Canyon of the Dead first published as Lost Canyon of the Damned in The Living Dead 2, Night Shade Books, 2010

The White Worm first published in No Rest At All, Delirium Books, 2003

A Darker Shade of Winter first published online at Dark Fluidity, 2001

House Call first published in the limited edition of A Gathering of Crows, Thunderstorm Books, 2010

Scratch first published as Scratch, Cemetery Dance Publications, 2010

Midnight at the Body Farm first published in the lettered edition of Dead Sea, Delirium Books, 2007

The Black Wave first published in A Dark and Deadly Valley, Silverthought Press, 2007

Alone first published as Alone, Thunderstorm Books, 2011

Hunting Season first published in Phoenix Phables, 13th Hour Books, 1998

Hide and Seek first published as a promotional PDF file, Antarctic Press, 2014

Baby Talk first published as a promotional PDF file, Antarctic Press, 2014

An Appointment Kept first published in 4 Fear of, Borderlands Press, 2006

Something Pretty first published in 4AM, Thunderstorm Books, 2014

The Siqqusim Who Stole Christmas first published in A Little Silver Book of Streetwise Stories, Borderlands Press, 2008

Musings first published in 4 Killers, Cemetery Dance Publications, 2013

www.briankeene.com