Onyx Neon Shorts Presents: Horror Collection - 2015
Author: Brit Jones; Tracy Fahey; B. T. Joy; Elizabeth Myrrdin
Date: 2015-11-05 14:27:24+00:00
Description: Fans of horror will be delighted by the the dark delicacies in this collection of horror's up-and-coming stars. "Onyx Neon Shorts Presents: Horror Collection 2015" brings together tales of horror from authors all over the world. These stories are about haunted houses, obsession, insanity, cults, the unexplainable repetition of goddess worship, and the psychological and physical terror that only humans can inflict. This collection celebrates one of literature's most popular forms of fiction by bringing together horror writers from all over the world, offering a unique vision of the genre. Edite
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Onyx Neon Shorts Presents

Horror Collection

2015

Edited By

Jeffrey P. Martin | Jacob Michael King

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Ellie Hill by © 2015, MJ Wesolowski

Originally published in: Short Not Sweet, (November 2014), IRON Press/Red Squirrel Press/Tyne Bridge Publishing

82 Rungs © 2015, Brit Jones

What Little Remains © 2015, Franklin Charles Murdock

Sylvia’s Pictures © 2015, DJ Tyrer

Originally published online at “Imaginalis - Voices From A Coma”

Something Nasty in the Woodshed © 2015, Tracy Fahey

Up In The Window © 2015, Elizabeth Myrddin

Insanity © 2015, Jackie Woodard

The Guard © 2015, B.T. Joy

Sacrificial Version © 2015, Jeremy Thompson

An earlier version of this story appears in Into the Darkness: Volume One (Necro Publications, 2013)

The Man Who Left No Footprints in the Snow © 2015, Matt Tveter

The Lake House © 2015, Joseph Rubas

Cold Harbour © 2015, Ro McNulty

Published by Onyx Neon Press, United States

First Edition October, 2015

Edited by Jeffrey P. Martin and Jacob Michael King

Cover Art by Jeffrey P. Martin

Designed and Typeset by Jeffrey P. Martin

shorts.onyxneon.com

Onyx Neon Shorts

We believe in the power of short fiction. It’s a way to express ideas and emotions quickly and powerfully.

We publish non-fiction and fiction of all varieties and we are always seeking new authors.

We are a collective of writers, editors, techies, nerds, book lovers, and artists who strive to find and make the best original content.

If you have questions or would like to submit a story please email us at shorts@onyxneon.com

Introduction

Jeffrey P. Martin

This collection is a dream come true for us. The idea came out of discussions I had with my brother, Kit, who was my co-conspirator on Cifiscape—our geographically-focused, science-fiction anthology series. But the narrow scope left me feeling limited. I wanted a platform that we could use to publish anything. Onyx Neon Shorts came out of these discussions, and, for two years, we’ve been publishing amazing literature.

This release culminates two years of planning. When we finally pulled the trigger on this collection, I decided that I would need an expert on horror fiction. Enter Jacob Michael King. I found him when he submitted Postmortem, which we released in April. It’s one of my favorite stories we’ve published. In Jacob, I sensed a kindred spirit and an incredible writer. Out of our massive to-read pile for this collection he plucked The Guard, Cold Harbour, and Ellie Hill—the importance of Jacob’s contribution is inexpressible.

Thank you to everyone who worked on this unsettling collection, especially Jacob. Thank you to those that offered advice or helped correct mistakes, like Kit and Becca. To the authors in this collection, thank you for entrusting us with your stories. I know how important they are to you and I hope that we did them justice. And thank you, reader, for stealing, borrowing, or buying this book. A lot of hard work went into it, and I can’t wait for you to read it.

Jeffrey P. Martin

Head Editor

Onyx Neon Shorts

13 tales of horror:

Ellie Hill by MJ Wesolowski

A late-night excursion leads three students to the cursed village of Ellie Hill, where they discover that disrespecting a place’s painful past carries a terrible price.

82 Rungs by Brit Jones

It seemed like a routine sewage job. Now two men find themselves isolated from their employers, with no escape from the subterranean labyrinth in which they work. And the environment is undergoing subtle, disturbing changes…

What Little Remains by Franklin Charles Murdock

Seamus hides a secret in the back of his barn in Palmer, Kansas. Little does he know that the dead have desires of their own—Seamus isn’t the only one with murder on his mind.

Insanity by Jackie Woodard

Vanessa and her doctor try to get to the bottom of her seemingly harmless delusions.

Something Nasty in the Woodshed by Tracy Fahey

Here we find a twist on a classic horror trope. The title is a wink to the famous line from Stella Gibbons’ 1932 novel, Cold Comfort Farm.

Up In The Window by Elizabeth Myrrdin

A woman seeks to satisfy her nagging obsession. Sometimes knowledge breeds not power, but lasting dread.

Sylvia’s Pictures by DJ Tyrer

After the arrival of her new baby brother, Sylvia starts drawing pictures of the Raggedy man. Is it a cry for attention, or do the pictures hold something more sinister?

The Guard by B.T. Joy

Harry, night guard at the Metropolitan Museum, becomes increasingly curious about one of its exhibits. But what begins as idle interest soon escalates into a dangerous obsession.

Sacrificial Version by Jeremy Thompson

A door sprouts from the floor, accessible to a single sojourner. Beneath it, concrete steps descend to a subterranean nightclub filled with bizarre celebrants.

The Man Who Left No Footprints in The Snow by Matt Tveter

One cold winter morning, an elderly woman receives an unexpected visitor.

The Lake House by Joseph Rubas

After losing his wife to cancer, novelist Jim Conner retreats to a cabin in the mountains of Vermont.

Cold Harbour by Ro McNulty

A social worker begins to suspect that there is someone else living in her client’s house...

Onyx Neon Shorts Presents

Horror Collection

2015

Ellie Hill

MJ Wesolowski

Myles with-a-Y heaved himself out of his seat as the train squealed to a halt. His rugby player’s calves stuck to the plastic and made a thack sound as he stood up. Tight muscled with downy blonde hair. Shorts at this time of night. Even his bottom half didn’t give a shit.

“Come on, cunts.” He said, mouth thick with lager. “Let’s get smashed.”

Myles was asleep for the last ten minutes as the train carried us around the black fells, higher and higher toward Ellie Hill. We didn’t speak while he slept; the silence without his voice was huge.

It was only a few hours ago that he’d broken the ice for us, bawling down the corridor of the freshly hoovered halls of residence that weren’t ours, not quite yet.

“Social! Social!”

He had the voice of the privileged, the accent that wasn’t used to people saying no.

“Social!”

A few called back and Myles tossed blue lagers from a crumpled box like grenades; one came my way. My hands slick with sweat, it eluded my grasp and burst against the wall, hissing furiously and sending a jet of lukewarm liquid against my leg. Myles and his new friends guffawed, their laughter raining around me as I fled back into my room.

I should have left it there; locked my door, unpacked my stuff to the tinny soundtrack of Myles’s phone and the eager giggles of the others from the kitchen.

Instead I leaned into the doorframe as they slumped on chairs. The girls perched on the edges of the worktops. Bare legs dangled.

“So, we fuck the uni bars right off!” Myles was saying. There were giggles. “Tosser-town, let’s go somewhere, yeah? Let’s have a fucking adventure.”

“Like where?”

Her name was Amy. A voice as delicate as her face. Wide, hopeful eyes, no makeup, a pink clip in her hair.

“Well....” Myles’s cheeks blossomed red.

She’d disarmed him, gentle as a wish.

Myles looked up, the others turned away. His eyes fell on me.

“You’re from around here aren’t you, smiler?”

I nodded, making an attempt to smile.

“So, like, where?” Myles mirrored Amy’s wide eyes, jutting his jaw at me. Spots of razor burn on his throat.

“There’s always Ellie Hill...” I said before I couldn’t.

* * *

A few heads turned as Myles stumbled to the carriage door. Old fellas in caps and wax coats still damp from outside.

We stood on the platform, puffing out steam. The old men scowled out at us as the train pulled away, their faces crumpled ghosts behind the old glass. We watched in silence as it disappeared back the way it had come, swallowed by the dark.

We were the only ones there. Us and Ellie Hill.

Only three of us on Myles’s adventure, my adventure, an hour later. Two males, one female. The wrongness of that twisted my stomach into a fist. None of us had even had tea or ‘dinner’ as Myles called it. We sipped from warm cans of lager and smoked, fledgling adults. The air from the surrounding hills breathing its corpse-breath through the station.

A once-white clock face peered down at the platform, didn’t chime.

7 pm in faded Roman numerals.

I saw Amy shiver and in that moment I felt a sudden urge to put my arms around her.

She’d feel bird-like, brittle against my chest. Her hair would smell of shampoo and home. Close your eyes, don’t say a word, I’ll hold you until that train comes and you never have to come back here. Ever again.

“Well this is fucking wild...” Myles looked at me. “Where’s the pub?”

I could feel the weight of their expectancy as we crowded together, already a flock.

“Not far.”

I waved a hand at the black square of darkness at the top of the stairs.

Somewhere out there.

“Well how far?” Myles’ voice was a whine.

I bristled. “I thought you wanted an adventure?”

Amy fluttered past us and we watched each other watching her. She stopped and looked back. We began to walk, clip-clopping beneath the old stone of the station.

Myles pitched the end of his cigarette onto the tracks. Orange sparks vanished between black rocks.

“I’ve never heard of Ellie Hill.”

She was between us. My arm burned to take hers. Myles did it. She rolled her eyes.

“Oh...” I was reddening. “I’ve never been here myself, I just heard… I mean… my granddad… he…”

We reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Oh for fuck’s sake smiler...” Myles unlatched Amy from himself and pointed upward where the sky was inky silence.

“I’m not going on a fucking ten mile hike to end up in some shitty pub drinking fucking stout with some farmers, talking about the price of sheep, I’ll tell you that right now.”

Something clattered on the tracks, made me jump.

“Four hours till the next train back.” Amy looked at a watchless wrist, cocked her head. “Race, ya!”

She was away up the stairs, Myles hot on her heels making a sort of breathless braying noise.

I lingered for a moment; that clattering sound again. I set off after them.

At the top of the stairs, the land simply fell away and the monolithic fells loomed in the cover of dusk. ‘Ellie Hill jumps out at you,’ they like to say round here. A single streetlamp and a gate. ‘Station’ in bent metal pointed the way we had come.

We followed the dipped track that led steeply down, an old wagon way through the uplands of the Grey Hermit before it joined the Cripple’s Road that wound up toward Ellie Hill. Gravel popped beneath our feet. Myles drowned out the rush of the Sycamores that pursed their leafy lips on either side, regaling us in an elaborate parody of the local accent before stopping beneath a streetlamp, thrusting his groin and making baaing sounds.

“How fa-a-a-ar?” Myles echoed the sheep.

My heart sank as Amy sniggered. Myles gave another little thrust.

“Not bad.” She said. Her grin smarted.

“Oh come on, smiler.” Myles’ rugby-muscled arm was around my shoulder now. I suppressed an urge to bite him. He reeked of expensive aftershave.

“I’m only having a laugh, yeah?”

It’s not me you should be justifying yourself to.

“Is this it?”

We’d reached the top before we knew it: Ellie Hill’s perch. It clung on as the wind howled around its crumbling dry-stone, like the battlements of a long-forgotten fortress.

“It’s more of a market place than a proper town,” I went on. We were in it before we knew it. I kept going, in spite. “15th century. Last trading point at the edge of the fells...”

Myles had his arm around Amy again, whispering something. My accent I assumed. She held in her laughter while my words petered out.

Buildings flanked us now, grey gardens where grass grew wild. A few lights were on. Most of them weren’t.

“The prices had better be fifteenth fucking century as well, yeah? Place like this.” Myles held up his hand for a high-five. I couldn’t see his sneer.

* * *

We walked in one direction along a half-hearted pavement past the back ends of barns where the houses had given up. Single file; me at the front, an uneven wall at hand height to the left. No cars went by but we stayed off the road.

You must never go there.

A fucking adventure, yeah?

I was about to halt, to just turn back. Beyond the last black barn, the pavement simply stopped and the road bent upward into a wood. Nothing moved save for the plastic bags that thrashed like trapped ghosts along a rusty vein of barbed wire atop the dry stone wall.

“There!”

I looked back, stomach clenched. Myles pointed to a stooped building that bent furtively away on the other side of the road behind a row of sprawling Birch. A single leaded window glimmered orange at us like a cloudy eye, “‘Ellie’s Chair” in wrought iron on its unlit wall. The road branched between the trees.

I turned around again, saw in Myles’s ruddy cheeked face, the uncertainty in his eyes, that he was just like the rest of us, still a child really. I saw in that moment that they were as nervous as I.

“I could do with a pint, I think...” The words felt ludicrous, their shapes alien in my mouth as I strode across the road.

I’d never ordered a pint.

I couldn’t look round at his face or Amy’s; my stomach was a fist.

If we can just do this—if we can just stay for a few hours, have a few drinks and get back—I promise we’ll never come back again. I promise.

You must never go there.

“Let’s fucking do this,” said Myles.

The few locals sitting on their own glanced up at our entrance. Flat caps pulled across brows, casting shadows over bulbous noses and trailing growths hanging forlornly from their faces. If there had been a jukebox it would have wound down to a stop. The Slaughtered Lamb. No one said it. Myles and I leaned hard against the bar. Above us, the eaves were thick, almost invisible in the gloom, where the rusted spines of farming equipment hung like charnel relics.

We were children in place of men.

I scanned the walls and the spaces between the dull brass horse tack pinned up behind the bar for a plaque or a tea-stained faux-ancient scroll. Some explanation, something to tell them so I wouldn’t have to. Local councils like to pay for wall-mounts and flyers these days; tourists love anything idiosyncratic about England’s forgotten places; they can make glossy books about ghosts and long-forgotten murders.

Not in Ellie Hill.

We traipsed to a corner on the far side of the fire and sat, silent.

Myles returned from the bar with pints of thick brown ale, a sweet perry the colour of decay for Amy. We drank them quietly, respectfully, trying to quash our blossoming nerves. There was too much silence here but the drinks were cheap. No one wanted to refuse and it was half way through my second one when Amy asked me about Ellie Hill.

I imagined telling them, I opened my mouth, shook my head and closed it again, preventing the forbidden story that my mother had banned from bedtime to come floating out of me, bit by bit, into the black beams of that black bar.

Ellie, her hill, and the chair that bore her name.

“I don’t know anything about you,” I said, the ale churning inside me.

“What do you want to know?” her eyebrows rose for a moment. The gloom hid my blush.

I could feel Myles glaring.

“Anything...” I remembered her parents lingering to say their goodbyes when the rest had gone, the door of her room ajar, a cardboard box that simply said “Home” and a heart in black marker.

“You’re brave enough to come out on the razz with two lads you don’t even know.” Myles looked me dead in the eyes. Back off.

Amy placed a ten pound note on the table.

“Let’s make it interesting then, truth or dare...”

Myles was on his feet in an instant, face flushed. The old men watched him silently as he stumbled over to the bar and returned with three small glasses of a dark, burning liquid.

“Truth: Who would you rather fuck?” He wiped his lips on his sleeve. I swallowed saliva, trying not to be sick.

“That’s a shit question.” Amy swallowed her glass and shuddered with a smile. “You get a dare...”

* * *

Dare.

“Oh my fucking god!” Myles’s laughter was caustic, each reverberation a slap to my face, sobering me instantly.

We ran back the way we had come, Amy in the lead, Myles and I panting behind her. The alcohol made me slow, my mind clutching to catch up. It made Myles red and loud; Amy danced away from us, past the station and into the cobbled streets of Ellie Hill. A nymph in the gloom.

Our footsteps were thunder between the squat cottages and crumbling walls. My legs felt drained, hollow. Amy and Myles scattered before me, their shadows scampering in the plastic light of a supermarket whose yellow sign hung from the front of one of the ancient buildings like a fungus from the bole of a tree.

Ellie Hill rose higher as if forcing us back, the shops and houses giving way to the uneven teeth of pavement. The air of the place felt thick, poisonous, the road rearing upward in the underbelly of some terrible black steed. Closer and closer.

You must never go there.

But we were here and I heaved back a lungful of air so I could shout, “come back, come back!” I knew if I called to them, my words would scatter behind me, tumbling forgotten back down Ellie’s Hill. As the streetlamps thinned, their lights sneering spots that cast no brightness on this place. They averted their gaze in a vague circle around that last, bubonic swell. Ellie’s Hill. My heart gave a heave as Amy and Myles vanished beneath the shadow of its centrepiece, its grim cenotaph.

There was not enough flat land for a town square.

Dare.

This wasn’t the way I’d seen it. The picture I conjured in my nightmares was enveloped by the twisted reality in stone that rose from the black heart of Ellie Hill.

I stared. Unable to move. The others swayed and giggled; Myles had his phone out and was already too close.

“Getting a fucking selfie with this, oh yes, oh fucking yes… what a ledge, what a leg… end!”

The flash of his phone sent shadows pulsing against the statue that sat with her bone legs astride a clutch of ancient iron lattice.

“Don’t....don’t touch...” My hands covered my mouth. I didn’t know if I was speaking or thinking it.

Myles was astride her; bouncing on her lap one arm about her shoulders. Another flash of his camera. Ellie’s top half wobbled, the stone wind-whipped and brittle. Below her waist, where the chair held her, the iron casings thronged with roses. Stone rats peered from between them, forever feasting on her flesh.

“The morning they found the children had gone, they followed the hoof prints in the unbroken snow; across the barns, the fields and even the roof of the church to the top of Ellie’s Hill.”

“Oh...aren’t you just so fucking hawwtt?” Myles was yelling, still bouncing, his phone flashing. The shadows capered in a psychotic jig around us. My granddad’s words fell around me like thunder.

“They clapped Ellie’s feet in blessed thorns and brought her down the cripple’s road to the gallows mound.”

It was Amy. She was reading from the stained brass plaque affixed to the fence.

“...where they condemned her to sit in ‘Ellie’s Chair’, crafted that very night so those who had lost their children could smell her cursed flesh burn...”

Myles got down in silence. Ellie’s gargoyle bent over him, claws to the sky, blunted by the winds, bent at an inhuman angle, her expression carved in endless agony. I couldn’t tear my eyes from hers. Amy kept reading, her voice smaller and smaller.

“...she was still alive, still crying out. ‘Death by vermin’ they chanted, Ab Vermes, the same way they disposed of sheep thieves.”

The hill ways.

She looked at me. Myles swayed below Ellie’s fury.

“Is that,” she pointed. “Is that it?”

The gnarled metal cage that held her legs. The rats in the roses. The gloom made them horribly real. Myles raised his voice, its pitch higher than before.

“Is that the actual Ellie’s chair? The actual fucking thing?” He looked repulsed, hands brushing feverishly at the seat of his shorts.

Silence hammered down.

Ellie’s last words smelted into the metal, just like he told me.

“’I fought the devil for them’, those little corpses.”

“Fucking hell...” Myles whispered.

I was gasping, my breath coming in great shivers. There was a silvery pain over one eye. My stomach churned.

Don’t go there.

I didn’t tell, I didn’t tell truth, nor do dare. The forbidden tale, the terror that held me awake on the long nights of my childhood. I would not talk of the tiny, broken bones we used to find beneath the peat of the fells. I would not tell of the lambs born on the banks of Ellie’s Hill, their faces all mouths, their heads all eyes, wretched and squalling. The smack of their soft skulls against the stones.

I threw up hard, bile burning the back of my throat as I screamed out sick that soaked into the soil of the gallows mound.

Myles and Amy took me and held me up as we made our way back to the platform to catch the last train home. Myles’s powerful arms and Amy’s voice. I heard them talking, in and out of black shadows.

“...I’m hung-over already...”

“...just a bad… a bad place...”

“What a ledge...”

Plastic seats clutching at my neck.

“...you didn’t!... Oh no, please....”

“It was the dare. IT WAS THE DARE!”

“Please put it back… please.”

Please.

Please put it back.

* * *

To their relief I transferred resident halls not long after we returned. They couldn’t look at me anymore, their voices in my presence always quiet, too sweet. I couldn’t bear to see them. We drifted past each other through my last days in the shared kitchen like ghosts. I sometimes saw Amy disappearing into his room, heard the tinny sound of his phone.

The day I left, I walked down that corridor for the last time. His door was ajar and I crept toward it, my head rushing, heart pounding. He sat at the far end of the room, curtains closed, computer screen blank. He had his back to me, the light from his desk-lamp casting a long, distorted shadow against the wall. I saw Amy’s pink pyjama top crumpled in the corner, the smiling face of a bear poked out beneath a muddy rugby shirt. The room smelled of rain.

“Myles...” I whispered it as if I didn’t want him to hear me.

He remained still, hunched over his desk, no music, just looking down at something I could not see.

Please put it back.

It was the dare.

I waited there for a few seconds, then left. He never even knew I was there.

* * *

I like to sit in the library, alone. My legs ache and my back is hunched. The cold makes my fingers throb.

I like to watch the world go by through the painted glass window up on the second floor. It’s peaceful there. I have time to think.

The kids from the primary have hung crumpled tissue ghosts by the Harry Potters; blood drips from painted fangs and black pipe-cleaner spiders climb up crepe paper tombs. It’s the winter when Ellie Hill comes back. Like it or not. She’ll never leave me.

He married her, of course he did. Amy stayed an eternal blossoming child in my memory, her pale skin and the pink clip in her hair.

Terrible place, this world.

They had a daughter. Her eyes were Amy’s and she carried Myles’ high-end grin, even at three. Their grief when she vanished was spattered ceaselessly on the fronts of the red tops for months until his money ran out. As the years passed, little Alice’s appeal dissolved into eulogies and petal-laced sentiments online. ‘Let’s find Alice’ on Facebook, “one ‘like’ equals one prayer.” My hand hovered over the mouse.

As her face smiled from the sides of buses and the fronts of T-shirts, I thought they might come looking for me. I didn’t hide, waited for the phone to ring or the front door to rattle. It never did.

The years went by and little Alice faded on the sides of the buses, the pink clip in her hair was replaced by adverts for loans. It’s a tough world.

I composed a few letters in my head; even wrote a few of them down. I just had to get the words out, stop them flapping like trapped birds at the inside of my skull. They were never sent. My letters fade in the pockets of my wax coat.

“I can’t help,” they say, muddled among too many words, and “I just want to say I understand.”

We fought the devil up there on Ellie Hill. I want to tell them. That night long ago, we fought the devil.

I understand, I want to say.

Some of us fight him still.

82 Rungs

Brit Jones

Trask dangled from the top of the ladder, gazing lazily at the circle of light far below. His shift started in ten minutes.

There were 82 rungs on the ladder. He had been up and down the shaft more times than he could remember counting them. It was upsetting to him because, when they had closed the vault-like steel hatch above him on his first day on the job, he had counted the rungs going down. There were 72. He was sure of it.

It was an obsessive-compulsive thing. He climbed the ladder every few days and banged fruitlessly on the hatch with a pipe wrench. He counted the rungs every time. At some point there were 82 instead of 72, but he couldn’t remember how long ago that was. He could only remember being alarmed.

Severin had laughed it off. Said it was “junkie math.” Trask nagged at him constantly. Finally, Severin had climbed the ladder.

“Eighty-two rungs, Trask,” Severin said when he came back down the shaft. “Going and coming.”

The exercise had really been pointless. Trask knew that Severin hadn’t counted the rungs coming down, or made any trips up and back when there were only 72. But Trask wanted Severin to be sure that there had been 82 rungs when, one day in the near future, there were 92.

“Trask!” Severin shouted. “Get your ass down here or I’ll hide your works and black pen again! You’re on in five!”

Trask knew Severin was serious. He’d done it before. The endless four days without his Dilaudid had left a scar seared into his brain. He started down the ladder.

When he reached the bottom, Severin was already headed for his quarters. The control room was unmanned.

“Have a good shift,” Severin said neutrally as they passed in the corridor.

The control room was dimly lit. Underneath a large window was a console with five levers on it. Four of the levers were in the down position. A green LED shone above each. The last lever was in the up position. Its LED was red. There was a captain’s chair. In the upper right corner across from the door there was a camera. It had been attached to a cable, which now dangled uselessly from the wall. Some time back Trask and Severin had agreed to pull the cable out of the camera. Trask had steadied the captain’s chair while Severin climbed up on it and yanked the cable out of the camera.

There was an old fashioned rotary telephone. It never rang. When they picked it up there was just a hiss, and sometimes what sounded like the echo of distant voices.

The window looked out over a large, underground drainage canal. There were catwalks on both sides with ladders descending into it. On the far side, next to the ladder, was a ramp that led up to a large ten-by-ten elevator with a lever next to it. Off to the left was a large steel grate that crossed the drainage canal side to side and top to bottom. Severin referred to the grate as “Hell’s net.” Trask found that apt.

There was a clock on the control room wall. It didn’t indicate AM or PM. Every twenty four hours, at three o’clock, the clock would chime. Then it was time to pull the last lever. That was when the work began.

Trask had fixed before climbing the ladder. He tossed the pipe wrench into a corner and settled into the captain’s chair to wait.

Severin couldn’t sleep. He tried reading the latest spy novel that his employers had sent down the dumbwaiter three days earlier, but couldn’t concentrate. He had a standing order with them to send down the new spy novel releases as they came out. Trask had his Dilaudid, Severin his spy novels.

Severin didn’t particularly care for spy novels. The bosses wouldn’t send down newspapers or magazines, and there was no television in the bunker. Reading spy novels was the only way Severin could at least infer what was going on in the world.

He was a political activist. When he applied for and got this job he decided the world wouldn’t end during the six months he would be isolated from it. Why the company insisted on isolation was a mystery to Severin. Especially considering the nature of the work.

Then there was the issue of the six months. Trask insisted that more than six months had passed.

Severin considered Trask a loser. A junkie. He may or may not have started out as the former, but the latter was a fact and had turned him into the former.

When they met on the first day, Trask had introduced himself as a writer. He even mentioned the names of one or two books that Severin recognized. While Severin had wanted a break from the non-stop politicking his work at the think tank entailed, Trask had wanted relative solitude to finish his current novel. A novel that he said would be his magnum opus.

Severin was accustomed to dressing immaculately. In the office, at a restaurant, in the gym. The perfect outfit for each occasion. One never knew who one was going to bump into. In beltway politics public appearance was but one of many essentials. So he was slightly put off by Trask’s rumpled appearance. Jeans, a wrinkled flannel over a t-shirt sporting some logo or slogan, beat-up boots. But he made an allowance due to the man’s profession. Trask was, after all, successful. In spite of their many differences in opinion and outlook, their personalities had seemed a good fit.

It was unclear to Severin exactly when Trask had started putting Dilaudid on their order list. He had noticed Trask’s appearance getting sloppier. He would find Trask nodded-off in the captain’s chair at shift change. Trask quit bathing regularly. He quit talking about his book. And, in Severin’s opinion, he became very paranoid.

And so the six months. Severin had been certain it had not yet been six months. He had been certain of this because they hadn’t been relieved. Whenever they sent their list of necessities up the dumbwaiter in the common room, roughly twelve hours later the dumbwaiter would arrive with everything on their lists that they had asked for.

There seemed to be almost no limit to what they could obtain. Trask getting vials of hospital grade Dilaudid and sterile needles every week was an example. Some time back, when Severin was just learning to hate Trask, they had experimented. A garden gnome. A single beer. A fifth of whiskey. Cases of beer. Cases of whiskey. Marijuana and a water pipe. Illegal vintage trench knives. .45 caliber automatic pistols with ammunition. All these things showed up with their standard food and toiletry requirements. The only things denied were anything that indicated the current date and any kind of news whatsoever.

This last, of course, fed Trask’s paranoia once it started to manifest. Severin, on the other hand, found it reassuring. As long as the deliveries came it meant they had not been forgotten. Six months couldn’t have passed. Severin was certain of it.

Trask spun in the captain’s chair, staring at the ceiling. He was imagining scenarios for the next phase of his novel. He knew he would probably never write any of them. Something was wrong. There had been 72 rungs. Now there were 82. There was something else. He hadn’t mentioned it to Severin because he knew the reaction he would get but, when they started the job, there had only been four levers. Six months had come and gone without contact or relief.

He had asked for a pipe wrench and gotten one. Just to break the monotony, and hopefully annoy someone on the other side, he used it to bang on the hatch when he wasn’t on shift. If he actually wasn’t on shift. He had lost track quite a while back. He thought Severin needed to pull the broomstick out of his ass, but he trusted him to keep the schedule. It was the kind of guy Severin was.

Whatever Severin thought, Trask didn’t mind that six months had passed. He was perfectly happy where he was. Even if the job was kind of a drag. He had a large, private room, his own bathroom, plenty to eat, presumably a large amount of money being deposited in his bank account every month, and an endless supply of hospital grade Dilaudid.

He had used heroin fairly frequently as a younger man, but never so much that he considered himself a junkie. He had been high most of the time while writing his first novel. Not only had it sold almost immediately, it had won two awards and been optioned for film. He had continued to dabble in pharmaceuticals over the last decade as his fame had waxed.

He looked at the clock. Two fifteen. Plenty of time to fix before the mess. He called these shifts the “messy shifts.” He wasn’t sure this was one, but he was always one to assume the worst.

Severin was okay, for a stuck up prig. It bothered Trask that he seemed to be deliberately ignoring the changes occurring in their environment. Trask was many things, but paranoid was not one of them. He knew that Severin wrote off his observations as drug induced, but Trask was familiar enough with the effects of Dilaudid, even at the dosage he was currently mainlining, to know he wasn’t imagining things. Things would become impossible to ignore soon enough, if Trask’s instincts were right.

He was jolted out of his reverie by a loud thump on the window. He spun the chair around and gasped.

There was something clinging to the outside of the window. Four cruelly barbed multi-jointed legs held a sharply ridged carapace in place against the glass. An insectoid head with a bloom of tentacles surrounding fanged mandibles was scanning the control room slowly. Its faceted eyes met Trask’s incredulous ones and held them. The intelligence deep inside them wasn’t what sent Trask scrambling frantically out of the control room and down the hall yelling for Severin. It was the burning, focused, malevolence.

By the time Trask dragged Severin back to the control room, the clock on the control room wall read five minutes to three. Trask and Severin stood peering out through the window, Severin with a large flashlight. There were four short grooves and a slimy smear across part of the reinforced glass window.

Trask said, almost shouting, “I’m telling you, man, it just fucking landed on the window and started looking around in here. It looked right fucking at me and saw me, man. Like I was dinner. It was no stupid animal and I didn’t fucking imagine it!”

“Calm down, Trask, and enough with the language, for crying out loud,” Severin said calmly, although he was more annoyed than anything else. “I’m sure you saw something. Not to put too fine a point on it, you’re very high. I can tell. Are you sure you weren’t, um, drowsing and dreamed this thing up when something hit the window?”

“Fuck you, Severin. Look at the window. You can see the gouges in that shatter proof glass. You can see the slime from the tentacles. The thing was big. At least as big as a human torso. And it wanted in.”

Severin looked at Trask coldly.

“Fuck me? Keep a civil tongue, Trask. I don’t need to be out here at all.”

“Sorry, man. Really. This thing just really freaked me out. I know you’re one for reasonable explanations and, actually, I am too. But I know what I saw, and it wasn’t natural.”

“Just stay calm. We’ll figure it out, or…”

The clock chimed.

Trask’s head dropped into his hands.

“Shit,” he said. “The mess.”

“Are you going to pull the lever? The job is still the job.”

“You don’t think these are extenuating circumstances? I mean, what if there’s more than one? I don’t want to go out there if that thing is hanging around.”

Severin sighed.

“Look, just this once, I’ll go out with you. If you really saw something dangerous maybe the flood will kill it. I’m willing to bet it was a big rat or something. We’ve seen those before. We’ll take the pistols and get it done fast. But I want the favor returned the next time I’m on the messy shift.”

Trask visibly relaxed.

“I swear it wasn’t a rat, man, but, like you said, I’m pretty fucked up. Thanks, Severin. You’re really alright, man.”

Severin didn’t say anything. He reached over and pulled the fifth lever.

The LED turned green. Just as every day since they had come down the ladder, there was a distant metallic clanging followed by a train-like roar getting increasingly louder. The flood arrived as though out of thin air. Thrashing, foaming water crashed up against the grate and passed through, while all manner of detritus swirled and collided violently in front of it. This lasted fifteen minutes before there was more metallic clanging and the fifth lever slowly slid into its upright position. The LED turned red and the water began to subside.

Severin said, “Go get your gun and I’ll meet you in the HAZMAT room.”

The wall of detritus piled up against the grate was about twelve feet high, and the nature of the trash made Trask and Severin thankful for the level A HAZMAT suits provided for them. They were completely sealed from the environment and communicated via two way radio headsets.

Trask had opened the elevator door in the side of the canal. It was a 10X10 aluminum sided space. Severin had brought out a snow shovel and a pitchfork with him from the HAZMAT room.

“Which do you want? It’s all the same to me,” said Severin.

“I’ll take the snow shovel.”

Starting by the elevator entrance they began shoveling, pushing, dragging and scraping the accumulated trash into the open elevator. There was a lot of brush, but also broken furniture, tires, toys, clothing, shoes, bicycles, broken glass, unrecognizable electronics and machinery, an alarming amount of plastic bottles and aluminum cans and, predictably, dead animals in various states of decomposition and decay.

Some time past, they had settled on it being a one man job, seven days on and seven days off. The arrangement was ridiculous, considering it took less than half the time when they did it together, but Severin had come to loathe Trask to the point that he’d rather do it alone. Over Trask’s confused objections Severin had worked out the seven day system.

The elevator filled up and Severin pulled the lever. The door descended and the clank of machinery began as the elevator departed upward. They rested, breaths loud in one another’s ear pieces. After a few minutes the elevator returned empty and very hot – something that led both of them to believe that the trash was dumped into some kind of incinerator. They started working again.

“Severin,” said Trask weakly over the head set, “I think you should probably see this.”

Severin quit manhandling a clothes dryer into the elevator and walked back to where Trask seemed frozen in place staring at the pile of rubbish.

“What now, Trask?” he asked, testily, before he froze himself.

There was a human leg sticking out from underneath a pile of large brush tangled with cast-off sheets and clothing.

There was silence between them for several moments.

“Do you think it’s still, um, attached?” Trask asked softly.

Severin, who always considered himself the strong one, had to swallow the nausea crawling up his throat.

“I suppose there’s only one way to find out,” he said.

Using the pitchfork they, as gently as possible, cleared the brush and debris. The leg was still attached to a naked male body. It was in terrible shape. Included with the damage its tumble in the deluge had inflicted, it looked like an animal had been at it as well. Or animals.

The face had been stripped off and the eyeballs, lips and cheeks were gone. They could see naked skull on the cheekbones and where the nose had been. It looked like something had gotten into the skull through the nasal cavity.

The body had also been eviscerated. The torso had been torn open, exposing the ribcage, and all the major organs were gone. The devastation stopped there. Whatever had gone at it had left the body below the waist untouched. It was pasty white and only torn in places one would expect to find having been caught in a torrent.

Trask was hyperventilating. Severin made a concentrated effort to keep his cool, if only to show Trask up. When the authorities arrived, and he had no doubt they would, he didn’t want to be the one sedated sitting on the back of the ambulance.

“What do we do, Severin?” Trasked rasped. “They’ve ignored all our attempts to contact them before.”

Severin thought quickly. He had to at least maintain the illusion of being in control. Which, for all intents and purposes, placed him in charge.

“Let’s move the body over by the ladder and keep working. Once we’ve cleared the mess we’ll figure out a way to contact the people in charge. In fact, let’s move the body now. I’ll go ahead and start trying to get through. You keep cleaning the mess. I’ll come back down in twenty minutes or so, whether I can get through or not.”

They carefully moved the body over to the control room side ladder, and laid it out. Severin climbed the ladder and went into the HAZMAT room. It sealed and the chemical wash sprayed him down, cleansing the HAZMAT and personally making him feel cleaner. He removed the HAZMAT and passed through the hatch leading into the control room.

Once there, he looked out at Trask gingerly moving rubbish into the elevator. He actually felt for the guy. The monster hallucination followed by this had to have what healthy neurons he had left firing in a bad way.

Severin picked up the telephone receiver. He was greeted by the standard hiss and distant, muffled background voices. He didn’t know what to do, so he started yelling into the receiver.

“Hello! Somebody! We have a serious problem down here! Somebody has died! We don’t have a protocol for this! Somebody please pick up!”

This went on for some time. After what seemed like at least an hour, to Severin’s complete surprise, a voice answered.

A female voice said, “Station 145, this is Control. What is the nature of your emergency?”

“Where do I fucking begin?” replied Severin, his composure cracking. “We’ve been down here for more than six months, longer than our contracts stipulated. I hate my partner, who’s become a junkie. We don’t know what date it is. We don’t know what’s going on in the world. I had a girlfriend when I came down here. God knows if I still do. What the fuck is going on up there?”

“Station 145, this is Control. None of these constitute an emergency. Your contract clearly stipulated that your term of service could be extended indefinitely. Isolation is of utmost importance to your work. Also stipulated in your contract. If there’s nothing else this is Control signing off.”

“No! Wait!” Severin cried. “We found a body, a human body, in the last bunch of trash that came down from the spillway. It was partially eaten. We need the police or someone down here. We don’t know what to do!”

“Station 145, this is Control. All detritus that washes against grate 145 is to be treated in the same manner. Placed in the elevator and sent up for incineration.”

“You’re kidding! This is a dead human body! There needs to be a police…”

Two shots cracked in the spillway, muffled by the airlock hatches and the thick window.

“Oh, shit, “Severin said.

“Station 145, this is Control. If there’s nothing further this is Control signing off.”

“No! Wait…” but the hiss was back.

Trask worked dispiritedly for a time after Severin left, poking at the rubbish piles with the pitchfork half-heartedly.

“Fuck this,” he finally said to himself. He dropped the pitchfork and drew the pistol. It was unwieldy in the suit gloves, but he was finished keeping it holstered while he was out here alone.

Severin was taking a long time. Trask wanted to look over through the window, but was afraid to take his eyes off the remaining rubbish pile. It still took up half the width of the canal. There were rustling sounds in there. He was shivering. He needed a fix.

It was after the third time that he checked the clip on the automatic that he looked up and saw the eyes. The faceted things were looking out at him from a half overturned drawer covered with half pulped cardboard. It was disturbing, but what really got to him was the second set of eyes, just over the first.

He forgot about needing a fix. The fear faded, threatening to turn to panic, but from some reserve he didn’t know he had, a fight instinct came rising up. He was completely calm and steady as he slowly raised the pistol and fired into the shadowy drawer.

There was a shriek and garbage exploded out at him. He was hit hard in the chest and knocked over backwards. He dropped the pistol. There was the sound of clattering on the catwalk, then clacking on the concrete headed into the direction of the spillway.

He didn’t break down. He expected to lose it, curl up into a fetal position and cry, but he didn’t. He stayed calm, focused, and shooting up stayed in the back of his mind.

After retrieving his pistol he brushed off and noticed the front of his HAZAMT was torn, shredded really. There was no pain or any indication of bodily harm. He quietly thanked the designers of Level A HAZMAT suits.

The pile of detritus seemed quiet, so he focused his attention on the darkness of the canal fading into the direction of the spillway. Not long after he heard Severin coming through the airlock.

It took Severin ten minutes to re-suit up in his HAZMAT, make sure the seals were in place, and close the inner airlock. As soon as his two way headset picked up the signal he yelled, “Trask, what the hell is going on out here?”

“It’s back, Severin. Or maybe there’s more than one. It moves fast, but I winged one with my first shot. We need a shotgun. I’ll put it on the list.”

Trask sounded completely calm and collected, not at all like his usual demeanors that ranged from morose and spaced out to hysterical, depending on how long it had been since he had fixed on Dilaudid. They had switched places. Severin was the one losing his mind now. He gritted his teeth and opened the outer airlock door.

“What’s all this yellow, jello-y stuff all over the place. It leads off down the canal.”

“The thing’s blood, I think. I said I winged it. But wherever I hit it, it was moving fucking fast. Tore up the front of my suit. I need to go change into the spare before we do any more. I don’t want any of that shit actually touching me.”

Severin was too flustered to object to Trask’s use of language. After cursing a blue streak himself while on the phone he decided he didn’t care.

“I don’t think there are anymore of the things in the mess, and the two that I tangled with headed down the canal toward the spillway, so I’d focus my attention that way. Make sure your pistol’s drawn and keep your ears open.”

With that, Trask climbed the ladder and disappeared into the airlock.

He stripped out of the ruined suit in the HAZMAT room and checked the flannel he was wearing underneath. There was not so much as a tear. Either the HAZMAT more than lived up to its reputation or the thing must have been really moving. If it had sunk those claws into his torso he didn’t doubt the thing would be eating him right now.

Severin was no good with a gun. Trask could tell. The political types were good at talking about them, but, in his experience interviewing them for his novels, not a single one had even fired a pistol in their lives. There were exceptions. Trask just knew Severin wasn’t one of them.

He checked his watch. By his estimation he had about a half hour before Severin would come looking for him. He went to his quarters and lifted the lid off the back of the toilet. Dangling from a string was a ziplock bag containing 5 ampoules and two syringes wrapped in cellophane. He fished it out and removed an ampoule. Replacing the lid, he went and retrieved a syringe, needle cap on, from between the mattress and the box spring of his bed. There was another ampoule there but he left it alone.

When he was finished he replaced the cap on the needle and returned the syringe to its hiding place next to the ampoule.

Now that he had gotten right he felt more confidence in what needed to be done next. He went back to the HAZMAT room and had the suit half on before he remembered the list.

“Shit,” he said to himself.

He removed the parts of the HAZMAT suit he had put on and went to the commissary where, on the table, was a pad of paper and two markers. Green for Severin, black for Trask. He wrote down, in black, “level A HAZMAT suit,” “12 gauge pump action shotgun,” “50 shells 12 gauge shotgun,” and “15 10mg ampoules hospital grade Dilaudid.” He followed the list with, “EMERGENCY SITUATION: hostile wildlife that survives the daily drainage. One employee (Trask) attacked. Request relief.”

It was then that he realized that he hadn’t needed to take off the bottom part of the HAZMAT to do any of this.

Dilaudid, he thought, Shit. Gotta hold it together. Whatever this is, it’s serious.

He put the list in the dumbwaiter and pulled the lever. The door slid shut and it was gone.

Trask returned to the HAZMAT room and found Severin.

“Where the hell have you been?” Severin asked coldly. “You tell me there’s dangerous wildlife out there and then leave me alone for almost an hour?”

“Fuck you. You left me out there for more than an hour. I was making the list,” Trask said fuzzily. “Shotgun. Shells. Replacement suit. Sending it up.”

Severin grabbed Trask’s chin and looked into his eyes.

“And shooting up, you miserable asshole.”

“You haven’t seen the fucking thing yet, Severin. Once you do I bet you’ll want to share.”

“Just suit up,” growled Severin. “I want to get this straightened out so I can get some sleep before I come on shift.”

They found three more bodies in the same condition as the first before they shoveled and manhandled the last of the junk into the elevator compartment an hour later and sent it up for incineration.

The corpses were laid out in a row in front of the control room ladder.

“I don’t know what to do,” Trask said. “I mean, if we send these up for incineration aren’t we breaking some kind of law? And I don’t want to bring them into the bunker. There’s a reason they make us wear these suits when we come out here.”

Severin didn’t say anything for a few minutes.

“Severin, man…” Trask started.

“Shut up. I’m thinking.”

Trask heard skittering noises in the darkness up toward the spillway. Severin either didn’t hear them or didn’t react.

“Holy shit, Severin!” Trask yelled, causing distortion in the headsets. “Didn’t you hear that? We’ve gotta figure something out! Something out here wants to fucking kill us. Kill us and eat us!”

“Shut up, Trask.”

Severin would never show it, but he was losing it himself. He had no idea what was going on, where the bodies were coming from, or why their employers seemed so unconcerned about the situation. He hadn’t signed on to dispose of corpses. In fact, he hadn’t signed on to deal with any kind of garbage. It was $125.00 an hour plus time and a half overtime per shift to operate simple functions from a sewage control room 100 feet underground for six months. He took the job because he wanted to be able to afford a nicer apartment in Manhattan.

Obsessing over who to sue would have been first in Severin’s mind if the situation had been different. Instead he was just scared. Very, very scared. He took great pride in his logical mind, and this situation defied all logic.

He was stuck in a bunker 100 feet underground. In spite of the evidence to the contrary that he had been ignoring it had been longer than six months. The job was nothing like its description. He had no contact with the outside world. His co-worker was a successful writer who had given up writing to shoot up Dilaudid. He had taken up reading every shitty anti-terrorist espionage novel to roll off the presses to have some idea, any idea what was happening in the world. One involved ISIL stealing The Declaration of Independence, for Christ’s sake. Not exactly The New York Times.

All of that would have been annoying, but still fit into his idea of reality.

Now there were dead bodies turning up. Half devoured dead bodies. His junkie co-worker had seen at least one of the creatures, apparently part insect and part squid, that were doing the killing and devouring. Severin didn’t doubt that any more. Trask had shot one, but had not killed it, and it had left a foul looking trail of yellow ichor leading up into the dark toward the sluice gate. There were four gouges in the supposedly shatter proof glass, along with circular tentacle marks, on the outside of the control room window.

Severin could call an election based on polls six weeks out. He was never wrong. He could judge public reaction, if there was going to be any, to proposed policy changes in foreign policy before it was unveiled to a largely uncaring populace. He had been a political whiz kid since before the think tank had recruited him from MIT where he had been studying particle physics, not political science. His op-eds in the campus paper had brought him to their attention. His dead on analysis of the invasion of Iraq had cemented his reputation. Nothing intimidated him.

Except for whatever was out there. He was terrified, but Trask couldn’t know. Trask’s brain wasn’t wired to deal with a situation like this. It would take logic, not creativity, to get to the other side of this. Severin couldn’t let Trask know that he believed whatever was out there was some kind of monster. One hysteric was enough. Someone had to solve the problem.

Finally, Severin said, “I see two realistic options here. The first, and most appealing to me, is we put the bodies in the elevator and send them up for incineration. Even though I mentioned them on the phone, I don’t get the impression anyone was actually listening to, much less recording, me. Plausible deniability. No body, no crime. Not that we would have committed any serious crime anyway, in my opinion. Obstruction of justice? Nobody was looking for those people or someone would have come looking for them already. Burn them and be done with it.”

“And the other option?”

Trask sounded like a frightened child.

“Put them in the HAZMAT room and wait for relief. We can hopefully get someone on the phone again. Someone who understands the gravity of this situation. But, to be honest, Trask, I don’t see that happening.”

“But the monsters, Severin,” Trask said, desperately. “I’m much more worried about those than disposing of their dinner. I’m mostly worried about becoming their dinner.”

“The whole crypto-zoology aspect of this worries me the least. In a few hours you’ll have your shotgun. I’ll take both pistols. You’ve only encountered two of these things. I’ve yet to see one, although the evidence on the control room window is compelling. After we clear the next mess we’ll go on a hunting expedition up the canal toward the spillway. Kill anything that moves. Now let’s do away with those bodies, get out of these HAZMATS, and get some food and sleep. We’re going to be busy in a few hours.”

They put the bodies in the elevator and sent them to the incinerator.

Trask had misgivings, but couldn’t think of any other option.

The new HAZMAT, the shotgun with ammo, and the drugs were waiting in the dumbwaiter when Trask woke up. He deliberately set his wrist watch for a four hour alarm so he would get to the dumbwaiter first. Sometimes Severin would take his Dilaudid, destroy it, or use it as a bargaining chip to get Trask to pull extra messy shifts. Trask hoarded, but Severin always managed to find his stash. There weren’t a lot of places to hide it.

Trask had bathed, eaten, and fixed before Severin emerged from his sleeping quarters. He looked like hell.

Severin had not slept well. His dreams had been filled with mutilated corpses and crablike monsters attacking his girlfriend, his parents. He didn’t want what was happening to be real.

The mess was worse than it had been the day before. A dozen bodies. More if you counted dismembered body parts. Severin had gotten back on the phone, but even the hiss and the echoing voices were gone. He had yelled and screamed and banged the hand piece on the table until it broke in his hand.

“Why don’t we stop, Severin?” asked Trask at one point. “Let the mess pile up until they have to send someone to do something about it?”

“Because we’ll be dead, you idiot,” Severin snarled. “All they have to do to keep us clearing the canal is stop sending us supplies.”

“Surely someone, friends, our families…”

“All they have to say is we died doing a dangerous job, you fool. Maybe they already have. We solve this or we never get out alive. Now let’s go hunt your giant insect rats.”

They moved slowly uphill along the drainage canal, headlamps shooting beams of light into the blanketing darkness. There were sounds all around them, picked up and amplified by their exterior microphones. Water dripping, slithering, scuttling sounds, creaking noises, the squelching their boots made on the slick, slimy concrete, and an unsettling chirping noise.

“We need to go back, Severin,” said Trask, his voice labored.

“Why? So you can shoot more of that junk into your veins?”

“I’d be lying if I said that didn’t have something to do with it, but look around, man. This is some scary shit.”

Severin wasn’t about to disagree.

“We can’t go back until we figure out what you saw. And kill it. Or them. Nothing should be able to survive out here. I don’t know how the rats manage it, but I read somewhere that they can survive almost anything.”

Trask said, “Severin, when’s the last time you saw a rat? I used to see at least a couple on every mess shift. My last two rotations I haven’t seen any.”

“What’s your point, Trask?”

“That there’s something new on the block. A predator. The rats have either already been digested by that thing I saw or have split for greener pastures.”

“Look, I believe you. I believe you saw something, but not a monster. Some kind of animal. A rare one. One tougher than rats, and one we need to watch out for. It’s the bodies that confuse me. We’ve never seen bodies. It doesn’t make sense that—”

Trask exploded, interrupting him. “Confuses you? Doesn’t make sense? None of this shit makes sense! Every few weeks, as far as I can tell, they stir the pot. Make a change. First the control board, Severin. There were four levers! Four! Then the rungs on the ladder! 82 rungs! 82! Then this shit. Dead bodies. Mutilated. Some kind of creature neither of us has ever seen or heard of before. A fucking monster! And they won’t answer us and we can’t get out! We can’t fucking get out, Severin!”

Trask sat down on the slick concrete and started sobbing.

Severin didn’t have any experience comforting someone. Especially a grown man addicted to drugs, which he suspected had something to do with this breakdown. He took a breath.

“Calm down, Trask. We’re going to work this out. Oh, fuck me…” he trailed off.

The beam from his headlamp was reflecting in two faceted eyes. The chirping in his headset had gotten louder without him noticing it. He looked directly at the thing.

It was exactly as Trask described it. A nest of tentacles undulated under the red faceted eyes reflecting his headlamp. Four segmented legs, ending in what looked like barbs, held its white carapace off the concrete. The ridges of the carapace looked razor sharp. Its head, attached by an invisible neck underneath, shifted as it looked at him from a different angle.

The chirping grew louder.

Severin slowly looked around. There were at least a dozen of the things spread out around them on the floor and walls. He was frozen in place.

“Trask…” Severin said, slowly.

The shotgun blast was loud in Severin’s headset. The thing that had been studying him, and he it, spun off into the darkness with a shriek. Then both men were running like hell down the drainage canal.

The things could fly. They would clack loudly by, their razor-edged carapaces proving to be folded wings. One hit Severin on the back, knocking him down onto his face and held on, its barbed legs piercing the suit. Trask used the shotgun as a club and knocked the thing off, before reversing it and shooting one of the things out of the air. Severin rolled to his feet, a pistol in both hands, and fired at one scuttling toward them. He wasted seven rounds before the eighth hit, practically right at their feet.

“We can’t fight them, Severin!” yelled Trask. “Run for the airlock!”

Severin did the best impersonation of a person sprinting that he could in the bulky suit, while Trask came up more slowly behind him, providing cover with the shotgun.

The ladder climb had never seemed as difficult as it did for Severin as he scrambled up it.

Trask yelled, “Cover me while I climb up the ladder!” but Severin had no interest in stopping. He ran into the airlock and dogged the hatch from the inside, locking Trask and, more importantly, the creatures, out.

He could periodically hear the muffled boom of the shotgun as he tore the HAZMAT suit off and checked himself out. His shirt was ripped on the back, but it didn’t look like the things’ barbed legs had actually managed to touch him. Trask had saved his life.

Trask.

Severin went into the control room. Trask had made it onto the catwalk and was crouched, only firing when two or three of the things were in his field of fire. There were dozens of the things. Severin saw Trask notice him in the window through the face plate in the HAZMAT. His face contorted as he shouted, and Severin could hear a tinny voice coming from the HAZMAT room where he had left the helmet, along with the radio receiver, laying on the floor. He waited until Trask ran out of ammunition and the things swarmed over him to leave the control room and head back into the bunker.

Severin sent a note up the dumbwaiter that read, “Partner M. Trask killed by hostile wildlife. Unable to fulfill my job functions. Request immediate evacuation. S. Severin.”

Twelve hours later the dumbwaiter returned. It was empty.

There were four of them clinging to the window when the clock chimed the second time after Severin abandoned Trask. Severin had noticed off-handedly that there were six levers now. It didn’t matter whether or not he pulled the red one. After a few minutes the lever would pull itself.

The water and detritus came. The water subsided. The mess had become gigantic. There were five of the things now. They were digging at the glass with their barbed front legs. Severin thought he had a week before the glass started giving way.

Nothing came in the dumbwaiter anymore. No food or water. No weapons. Nothing he asked for. He tried getting in the dumbwaiter and using the pipe wrench to push the lever down, but it didn’t work. He assumed that the dumbwaiter wouldn’t go up if there was weight in it, but he didn’t have any way to know for sure.

A week passed. With a sound like a pistol shot the glass in the control room window cracked. The whole thing was about to break inwards.

Severin took the pipe wrench and headed for the ladder. 82 rungs and he would make his stand. He heard the window go at 55 rungs. He kept climbing.

There were 92 rungs.

What Little Remains

Franklin Charles Murdock

We’re all missing down here, lost to people who love us. And nobody knows that this man took us from our lives and then took our lives from us. We all have a story of how it happened, of being snatched out of the dark by lunatic hands, and of the horrors that followed; but they all end down in this pit of what little remains of us.

The man’s name is Seamus and he pretends to be a farmer outside Palmer, Kansas, just going through the motions until he can go hunting out of state for some other hapless boy or girl to add to the mound. He’s the monster in plain sight, everyone’s good neighbor, until he’s alone with his crooked thoughts.

Sometimes he comes to look down upon us, sitting on the edge of the hole he began years ago in the back of his barn to hide us from the world. He sits up there and remembers taking us from mothers and fathers who would come to know the deep ache of loss, who had their walking and talking hearts ripped away from them by a man they’d never seen or known. But we know and we see, just as Seamus does. We see the monster inside him. We know the greed in his bones.

Seamus is sitting there now, whistling a broken tune through a mouth that laughs when the carving begins. An old miner’s shovel is balanced across his lap, teetering on his left knee against the fulcrum of its neck. The shovel means he’s planning to widen the pit and add to the weight and stench of death in this shallow hell born in the heart of an evil man. We see him up there through our hollow eyes just as we’ve seen him bring child after child to this place on a journey of death in place of a normal man’s quest of life. Fate brings them here by his reckoning.

He stops his song and buries the head of the shovel in the sallow earth at his side to use its shaft to hoist his considerable frame so he can get to the business of deepening our plot. But as he pivots to gain footing, the edge collapses and pulls him down to us.

Seamus tumbles into the heart of the pit as our remains did when he pitched them into the darkness. He lands hard on what’s left of us, breaking bones—some ours and a few of his. And then he’s looking up the dozen feet to where he’d been perched, reminiscing about his cruel deeds. He smells the countless deaths he’s inflicted. He’s sweating now and gibbering in a much different way than when he’s hacking flesh and meat from tiny bones: he wants out of this darkness because it’s too familiar, and because we’re telling our stories to him in a shrieking chorus through discarded mouths.

We tell Seamus of being snatched from playgrounds and parking lots, shopping malls and swimming pools. We whisper about being stolen in the night from our own beds. And then he hears of our many deaths, how it feels to be alive and aware as the knife comes down to strip flesh, how his incessant cackle sounds as the blood flows and pain takes over. We flood his mind with the last thought we all had before he was finally done and let us die: that we were all children and that children are filled with hope as well as with blood and bones, that as much as he believes he changed our fates, he cannot change his own.

In a panic, Seamus begins to crawl up a steep incline of femurs and ribs, mandibles and scapulae. We feel his trembling hands upon us and know his fear, as once he knew ours. He scrambles up our remains and throws himself at the crumbling edge of our pit, but there is nothing that can take his weight. The dead hand he clasps offers no help, and when he lands, it is not softly. He comes to rest on his side, his eyes beholding the harvest of his cruelty and he is terrified, not at what he’d done but at what he now cannot: we will never let him go.

In his anger and madness, he kicks and flails and tries to roll, driving us deeper into his evil heart. So while he begins to bleed out, our bones are jostled loose and come down upon him, burying him here in his pit of secrets. He struggles beneath our weight and that of his destiny, but hope had left him long before he fell into the darkness.

And so he joins us in silence, not wanting to scream for fear of being found... and found out. Thus his fate is sealed much like he sealed all of ours throughout his wretched and waning life.

Sylvia’s Pictures

DJ Tyrer

Sylvia sits alone in her room, drawing. She is up there with her pencils and her pastels as much as we will let her, and more besides. Sylvia is obsessed with drawing and it is always the same image. Over and over. I don’t know if she’s disturbed, but it disturbs me.

Sylvia isn’t my daughter. I’m not sure if that excuses my unease towards her or if it makes me a bad person for not trying harder. Sometimes, I feel like the wicked stepmother. Sylvia’s mother was Peter’s first wife, Cassie. She disappeared about a year after Sylvia was born. I met Peter when Sylvia was eight and we married a year later; two years ago—Cassie having been declared dead. She probably was. Peter admitted she was eccentric and I’d always guessed that was a euphemism for insane. In my darker moments, I sometimes wonder if Sylvia is mad like her mother.

Always the same image. Slight details in the background might change, but Sylvia draws the same figure in the same childish pose over and over. I remember when we were first introduced, Sylvia was down on the floor of her room compulsively scribbling; she barely lifted her head to acknowledge me. Tidying her room once when she was at school, I discovered a cache of them, going back, ever cruder, into early years. She brings them home from school, draws them in her exercise book; sometimes the teachers worry about her.

Her pictures have never really bothered Peter much. I guess that when he was bringing her up alone he was grateful for the peace and quiet. Now, he delegates that side of life to me and, as long as Sylvia isn’t any trouble, is disinclined to worry. She’s never any real trouble, if you ignore her problems at school, her preference for doodling over working, her lack of interest in anything else. But, she never does anything really bad. Just draws.

When I first saw the pictures, I assumed they were meant to be of her mother, that she was trying to perpetuate an idea of her. I think that’s what Peter thought, probably still does. It was a natural assumption: the figure looked rather like a woman in a dress and her missing mother was an obvious candidate. It wasn’t a woman.

“It’s the Raggedy Man,” Sylvia told me when I asked. “He lives way off across the sea and he took Mummy away. One day, he’ll take me away too.”

I asked Peter, but he had no idea. It wasn’t a friend of Cassie’s that she might have a memory of, nor a character in some bedtime story he’d told her. He didn’t think talk of being taken away was anything to worry about.

“She’s probably just talking about death,” he said. “You see what she’s like; she’s my little Goth girl.”

That was true enough: Sylvia always wore a black dress and black shoes. She even wore black as a sullen bridesmaid at our wedding. The only actual colour she ever wore was a bright yellow bow in her washed-out blonde hair. It had belonged to her mother. She loves that bow: she would shriek and yell if I took it from her to wash it.

The figure in her pictures was yellow, too, with the occasional dash of red. The Raggedy Man wore a ragged robe and had a white face with just two black dots for eyes. Sometimes, he stood alone on a sheet of blank paper; at other times, Sylvia would add an expanse of blue to represent the sea or a sort of castle in yellow that she said was his palace. Despite the bright colours she employed, the figure had a sombre, sinister aspect. In that, the figure reminded me of Sylvia herself: she has a sombre countenance and hauntingly-adult eyes that, I admit, I find sinister.

I’ve tried all sorts of things to distract Sylvia from her art, but nothing works. I’ve tried to get her to draw other things, press flowers, do sports, read books—even watch TV—but nothing works. All she does is draw.

I’ve got some news for her, though. Cautiously, I climb the stairs. I don’t know why she makes me feel so nervous. It’s silly. She’s just a little girl. I can hear her humming something: Beautiful Dreamer, I think.

“Sylvia,” I say as I enter her bedroom. She falls silent.

She doesn’t look up. There’s the slightest twitch of her head. That’s how she acknowledges my presence. She will only look up or speak to me if I really press her.

“Sylvia, I have something to tell you.”

She ignores me.

I repeat myself.

“What?” She still doesn’t raise her head, and her tone is annoyed.

“Come sit with me on the bed.”

“I’m busy.” She is scribbling furiously, colouring in a picture of the Raggedy Man.

“Sylvia, please, put down your pens for a minute and come sit with me.”

With a sort of whole-body shrug, she slowly lays down her pencil and stands, steps over to the bed and sits beside me, leaving a twelve-inch gap to prevent intimacy. She sits bolt upright, rigid, hands clasped tightly in her lap, eyes downcast, the image of a Victorian portrait.

I scoot over to her and slip an arm around her shoulders. Sylvia’s already stiff body somehow manages to stiffen even more at my touch.

“Sylvia, your Daddy and I are going to have a baby. I’m pregnant, you see, and you’re going to have a little brother or sister. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Somehow, maintaining her stiffness, she shrugs, but still says nothing.

“Which would you like, darling?” I ask, using my cheeriest voice. “A baby brother or a baby sister?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she tells me in a hoarse whisper. I hate it when she talks like that; it’s a horrible voice, like an old woman’s.

“Oh, sure it does, Sylvia. I know it will mean some big changes, but I hope you’ll be happy about it.”

She shakes her head. “No, it doesn’t matter because the Raggedy Man will come to take me away soon.” She pauses for just a moment. “You and Daddy better watch out or he might get you.”

I can’t help but shiver. “And, will he take us away, too?” I ask.

Another shake of the head, and she tells me, “No, he’ll just get you.”

“Okay, that’s enough, young lady. I don’t like you speaking to me like that. You need to respect me and your father. You need to stop this childishness.”

She stands and pulls away from me. It’s the fastest I’ve ever seen her move. She spins around and thrusts her head out at me. Her eyes blaze from her pallid face, her features a mask of loathing.

“You’re not my mother, you’re nothing! My mother was a princess, but you, you’re nothing! Soon, I’ll join her and leave this... this… place behind! I hate you! I hate you! Get out of my room and leave me alone! Get out! Get out!”

I do. I stumble out, tears running down my face, a mixture of anger and fear surging inside me. I stumble down the stairs and wait, shivering, sobbing, for Peter to come home. Above me, Sylvia sits alone in her room, drawing; I can hear the scratching sound of pencils being dragged across paper with great rapidity and force.

When, finally, Peter arrives home, he refuses to be drawn on his daughter’s behaviour.

“She’s jealous, that’s all,” he says. “She’s an only child and, suddenly, her step-mum’s pregnant and she worries about the baby getting all the attention. I mean, it’s not as if you and she really get on. She’s Daddy’s Special Girl and she resents you for getting in the way.”

“I try, Peter. I’ve tried so hard.”

“I’m not saying you don’t. Maybe, I don’t know, just be patient.” He yawns, and changes the subject. “Right. Now, supper; then, bed.”

The only reason I don’t throw down his meal and storm off to bed is that I still feel a twinge of irrational fear of going back upstairs, getting closer to her. Suddenly, I realise that I hate the girl.

In the coming weeks, my belly swells and so does the litany of complaints from the school. Suddenly, Sylvia is no longer the moody little girl who prefers to be an unnoticed shadow. Not any more. Perhaps she’s striking back at bullies; perhaps it’s the hormones of adolescence. Frankly, I don’t care. All I know is that she’s awful.

“She hit another girl,” Peter says, reading the latest letter from the school. “I just don’t know what’s gotten into her.”

“She’s a vile little girl,” I say.

Peter looks at me, aghast. “Sally!”

“It’s true. I know you think of her as your Little Princess and all that nonsense, but you don’t have to put up with her as much as I do. All she does, day in and day out, is scribble those awful pictures. If she deigns to speak to me, it’s bile. I guess she plays up in school because they don’t let her draw all the time.”

He sniffs. “She’s just artistic, that’s all.”

“Artistic?” I laugh.

“Yes. She’s had some very good reports from her art teacher; and, have you seen her pictures? They’re really good. They put me in mind of that artist, oh, you know the guy, did a lot of yellow... Scott...Steve...Steve Scott.”

It’s my turn to sniff. “He was a lousy artist.”

“If you say so. Regardless, she’s getting good.”

“If you say so,” I retort.

“You’re just emotional because you’re pregnant.”

My hand falls to my bump. “Oh, yes, it’s all the baby’s fault.”

“Hey, I’m not saying—”

“Whatever. I’m going to bed.” I start to stand, then pause, thinking of Sylvia. “No, I’m going to sit outside.”

“It’s cold outside.”

“I don’t care!”

It is cold, but I sit out on the bench on the decking anyway. From above, through the narrow opening of Sylvia’s window, I can hear her humming Beautiful Dreamer again and I wonder just what it is she dreams of: does the Raggedy Man lurk within her dreams?

There’s a sudden creak, the sound of the gate at the bottom of the garden, and I jump at it. I look up and stare into the shadows, expecting to see something. Am I expecting to the Raggedy Man standing there? There’s nothing, of course, just the gate swinging slightly in the breeze and the branches of the willow swaying. No spooky figure. Why would I think that? Am I going mad? Is Peter right to blame me? To blame the baby?

I shiver—from the chill, I tell myself—and decide to retreat inside. I wish I knew what to do.

More time passes and my due date approaches, and Sylvia is suspended after attempting to stab another girl in the eye with a paintbrush.

“She ripped my picture,” she says, as if that justifies it.

Peter coos over her and I just don’t have the energy to care anymore.

“I wash my hands of her,” I mutter. Neither seems to hear me.

Sylvia retreats to her room to draw. Peter and her art teacher are right about one thing: she is getting better at her art. I avoid going or lookingin her room now: her portraits of the Raggedy Man seem disturbingly lifelike to me—if a figure in flowing rags and a pale mask can be said to be lifelike. As long as she stays in there, stays away from me and the baby, I can just about tolerate her. At times, I fantasize about leaving Peter, leaving her behind.

Eventually, the baby arrives. My all-too-brief stay in the hospital is a wonderful respite. Peter doesn’t bring Sylvia.

We have a nursery ready, but I insist the cot stay in our room for now: I can’t tell Peter, but I don’t trust Sylvia. Might she hurt Lisa?

She certainly shows no interest in her new sister. Just keeps on drawing, alone, in her room.

“Don’t you want to see Lisa?” Peter asks.

“No,” she tells him without looking up.

The next morning when I open my eyes, it is to see the Raggedy Man standing in our bedroom doorway: Sylvia has recreated him, life-size, across several sheets of paper that she has stuck to the door.

“I did it for Lisa,” she explains, gaze downcast, but with the slightest twitch of a smile that tells me the scare was deliberate. She wanted to frighten me.

Peter pats her head, indulgently—a blind fool.

“He’s nearly here,” Sylvia whispers to me as she leaves.

Shuddering, I leave as quickly as I can, return to our bedroom and tear down the hideous portrait—rip it to shreds. I fall to the floor sobbing, which wakes Lisa and starts her crying. Peter is downstairs and doesn’t care.

The next day, Peter leaves on business. Why won’t he listen to me? Why won’t he stay? Why do I stay?

That night, the bedroom door creaks, rousing me to wakefulness.

“He’s here,” I hear a hoarse whisper from the doorway.

I look up to see the silhouette of Sylvia framed in the moonlight. I hear a footstep on the stair. I pray she means her father has returned early, but I know she doesn’t.

Lifting Lisa from her cot, I hold her close, sobbing, silently praying that He will leave us alone. There is the sound of swishing rags, then a shrill cry, then the house falls silent. Is Sylvia gone? Is He?

I daren’t look. I daren’t move at all.

I hardly dare breathe.

Something Nasty In The Woodshed

Tracy Fahey

Ten days after

Everything in my life falls neatly into two divisions: before and after I saw something nasty in the woodshed. When I look back on it, with gentle nostalgia, before is a bright vista of trips to the beach, pleasant, humdrum dates, a wedding as decorous and pretty as a Rococo picnic. Before evokes visions of a pristine kitchen table, dappled with yellow-green sunlight and neatly laid with folded napkins. Even if there were long days of physical pain, they were filled with love, and soft pillows and hand-holding. After? Well, after is a different story. After is a dull, grey landscape of dreary loneliness, a land of permanently spitting rain, a place of suspicion, a phone off the hook and a doorbell I’ve had to disconnect.

Before and after. Sometimes I wonder. The web of circumstances that led me to it seems infinitely fragile. The unexpected pain relief that made me decide I was well enough to carry a basket of washing. The silence of the garden, the still air on that beautiful summer day, as I hummed to myself and pegged out clean, damp laundry on the washing line, enjoying the bounce and sway of shirts around me in the light, warm breeze. The angle of my head that showed me that slight, bare flutter of movement in the shed window?

And I ask myself—what if I hadn’t investigated? What could I have done? Knowing it all now, what should I have done?

Five days after

I keep talking about before and after, because, you see, the time between the two states was so short. I had… maybe a few seconds in total of that liminal state, wondering am I going mad? Am I seeing things? I remember how the feel of the old bolt in my hand, shiny and oiled and heavy with danger, and how my fingers curled around it like a claw, trying to pry it open…

But I’m getting away from the point. When something cataclysmic happens, time works in funny directions. It crawls, then stops dead, then fast-forwards until it slows to a stop again. Sometimes I think I’ve been cloistered in here for weeks, until I realise it’s only days. I play solitaire, both soothed and irritated by the inevitable rhythm, by the pitter-slap of cards on the kitchen table. Minutes, hours pass, till the brightness eases into a more forgiving twilight, and another day is done. Time for my pills. I take them carefully, first the important ones, the methotrexate, the corticosteroid tablet, and finally, my treat, the sleeping pill. I lie down, fully-dressed on my bed, curtains drawn, with only a dull blue finger of light poking through at the corner, and take the pill like Communion on my tongue. I wait for the moment when my muscles melt and my head slurs into a warm, dark blur. This is my favourite bit of the day. The moment when her face disappears into sleep. Her face. Her dirty, bloody, frantic face.

Six days after

I put the phone back in its cradle. It still rings, but I don’t bother picking up. My hands are acting up today: my left one has curled up, immobile, and I’m getting shooting pains down my right. Besides, I know it’s only a journalist, or an abusive caller, or even more horrifying, a former friend calling just to check in. ‘Checking in’ is code for trying to ask: ‘Did you ever suspect anything?’ The only person who’s made sense in this whole surreal show is my mother. She rang me on my mobile when she heard. ‘My little girl’ she said, and her voice was so warm and tender I wanted to cry. ‘Thank God he didn’t harm you. Are you feeling alright? Come home and be minded.’ Although I haven’t been home in over a year— home being Donegal, a five hour drive away—I hug my knees to my chest and feel and intense longing for the smoky turf smell of the kitchen and the yapping of the dogs. I can almost smell her sweet, homely smell, a mix of talc and warm hair, as she hugs me, soft and strong all at once. But I’m too infirm to drive, and the ordeal and of public transport is too great for me to manage on my own, never mind the risk of being spotted.

I’m inside all the time now. I shop online. The bright spring days have vanished in a blanket of fog. Now that I’m on my own I treat myself with great care; I’m fragile like an eggshell. I wrap a shawl round myself to keep warm. I wear gloves. I use my TENS machine to relieve the pain when I need it. I count my medicine bottles carefully. Enough for another few weeks at least. At the moment I don’t even want to see my doctor. I keep quiet, making little noise, curtains drawn against the ring of photographers standing outside. They’re cold and bored. The smoke from their cigarettes percolates in through the cracks in the door sealant. I can hear them talk about me; it’s audible even through the windows.

“Feck her, she has to come out sometime.”

“Guilty as sin, that’s why she’s hiding.”

“Not even a visitor. Wonder why?”

I hear it all. It hurts a little, but their insults are casual, almost throwaway. I can’t stop thinking of what real people are saying about me. My friends. My neighbours. I picture their expressions, torn between excitement and horror as they discuss my husband in hushed tones.

He was mine. In the commonplace joy of marriage, he was unique and known truly only to me; and now he’s everybody’s. What was just-him-and-me is now public domain. The papers keep using one photo that they got from someone (a former friend?) which shows him at a barbeque at home. I’ve seen it on the news as a background still, with a grave voiceover. In it, his eyes are squinted up against the sun. He is wearing a stupid apron with a cartoon character dancing across it. In the background, familiar yet impossibly alien in this context, are our deckchairs with those floral tie-on cushions. He looks as he always looked, sandy-haired, polite, and slightly awkward.

Seven days after

Today I see her again, this time on TV. Her hair gleaming, but she has the same scars, the same tense, hunched shoulders. She is wearing layers of clothes, a woollen cap, a scarf wound tight as a ball of string over her lower face. She’s standing at her gate, with an older woman, probably her mother, hovering over her. There’s an army of bristling microphones in her face. They’re shouting questions, her mother answers, putting one arm protectively around her daughter. “We’re delighted to have her back. Thanks to everyone for their good wishes. We have nothing to say.” Her face looks drawn and deep-lined, her hair untidy. I imagine it’s been a long time since she even thought about her appearance. They try to push forward, to leave, but the journalists hem them in, still shouting. I can sense the growing agitation of the press pack. This isn’t the spectacular media event they had waited for. Finally one persistent woman manages to jab a microphone in the girl’s face. Her hard, lipsticked mouth shouts, “Did you try to call for help? How did it feel to be rescued?”

There’s no answer. The girl bows her head under the onslaught.

She persists “What exactly happened to you when you were in there?” At this final, intrusive question, the girl snaps to life. She straightens up. A red flush crawls up her face.

“You want to know?” Her voice is muffled by the scarf, but still perfectly audible.

“The public does. Everyone cares about you. They’re watching you right now.” The interviewer stretches out a hand and grabs her shoulder to position her in front of the waiting camera. That touch, those words are the tipping point.

The girl’s eyes are alive with rage. She pushes the journalist, hard, until she stumbles and falls, splay-legged and ridiculous on the ground.

“Fuck you and fuck them! What do you think happened to me? Why the hell do you want to know? If you’d put this kind of energy into finding me, maybe it wouldn’t—” she chokes and stops, a snorting sob erupting, grating and phlegmy, from deep in her chest. The scarf has fallen down to expose bandages over her jaws, her lips. Her face crumples like old newspaper and her mouth opens in a red howl.

I’m transfixed. Everyone is, I suspect. The camera pans to the journalist, now struggling to get up.

Her face is a perfect mix of anger—how dare she push me!—and a kind of queasy almost-joy—that sequence, you can see her think, that’s going to makes the news!

The girl pushes at the camera now—it swings away, points briefly at the sky—and then it’s back. The girl is still crying. Now she’s wrapped one arm tightly around herself, the other limp beside her, her gloved hand palm upwards.

I feel a sick thump in my stomach. That’s how she sat when I… I feel myself start to remember it all, those memories I’ve only allowed myself in fits and starts since I made the phone call that changed everything.

Eight days after

Tonight the sleeping pills stopped working. I’m not sleeping anymore. In the first few days I slept, long, medicated, exhausted sleeps from which I awoke, with body cramps and a dry, gummy mouth. But last night, every time I tried to sleep—in my bed, then in the spare room bed, and then, increasingly desperate, on the sofa—her hunched body appears behind my eyelids, her matted hair covering her face, one arm splayed out in an imploring gesture. Her fingers looked chewed, their ends just red stumps. Her cupped palm is a lake of blood, tracing tiny rivers slowly down her arm. She lifts her head, slowly, so slowly, and I panic, I try to turn away. In my dream, I fight to wake, but a heavy dread keeps pulling me back down, back to the shed, with its blood and stink and mess.

I wake up, blood hammering in my ears, mouth open, hands gripping the duvet. My limbs are aching: that fierce, clenching pain of rheumatoid arthritis. I scrabble for the strong painkillers and swallow four dry. I lie there for a while, heart throbbing hard in my chest, trying to breathe deeply. By the time I’ve calmed down and the pain has subsided, I realise sleep has gone, so I get up slowly and painfully, and limp across the house, now stuffy with that intense, closed-curtains smell. It’s about four in the morning, but I’m cold and still trembling from that dream. My bones ache too much to sit down. I pace up and down the old carpet that we never got round to replacing… then, suddenly, it’s the use of ‘we’ that catches in my throat. Until now, I’ve deliberately tried not to think about him, except for the first few days when it was all police cars, and statements and his sudden, startling absence, as loud as a sound in the empty house. I threw all the photos of us—of him—into a box, in a crying, angry daze as soon as they took him away. He was telling me not to worry as they pushed his head down, hard and savage, to shove him into the back of the car. I close my eyes and feel my heart start to thunder again in my ears. The betrayal is so immense; I can only begin to start imagining it all, it’s like trying to take in the whole Alps in a look.

Nevertheless, my traitor body still remembers him. It makes constant mistakes like making coffee the way he likes it, setting the table for two, keeping my music turned down. I hate those times that I’ll drift and forget for a moment and then remember. I am sick with a violent resentment of him, of what he’s done: of what he’s done to me, to her.

There’s a newspaper under my door. I’m sure it’s one of those photographers. I look outside between a crack in the curtains. There’s two of them there, cold and huddled into shapeless black puffa jackets. There’s—I count them—three, four cars parked in my driveway and spilling carelessly onto the road. No doubt some of them are sleeping in their cars. The familiar rage rises up in me, red and congested. I drop the curtain, flick the switch on the kettle and pick up the tabloid paper. Its cheap ink smears on my fingers as I open it. I don’t have to look far; it’s on the front page.

GIRL TORTURED

—it blazes out—

IN SICK MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS!

I am so still I am barely breathing, as I stare at the page. Absent-mindedly, I notice how twisted my fingers are, their shape worn crooked from the clenching and the pain. Somewhere far away, the kettle clicks off with a cheery bubbling accompaniment. I read the headline again, and on, into the article.

“We can now EXCLUSIVELY REVEAL that the girl in the centre of the SUBURBAN SHED SHOCKER was forced to submit to SICK MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS! Gillian Langdon relives her nightmare at the hands of suburban accountant David Philips and claims he DELIBERATELY TORTURED HER, recording her suffering on a video-camera and in a notebook.”

My fingers, clumsy with pain and cold, drop the paper. I let it lie there. I remember the cordon around the shed, the gardai stolidly winding their CRIME SCENE tape around stakes. I remember them coming out with bin-liners of—I didn’t know what, that was all I could watch. That’s when I pulled the curtains closed against the outside world.

I’m not sure how long I stand there, the newspaper at my feet, but eventually I bend down, slowly, breath hitching a little at the pain, and read more. There’s something about me too.

“Many people feel that Teresa Philips is possibly implicated in this terrible crime. Teresa, the wife of David Philips, made the terrible discovery that led to Gillian’s release. Neighbours interviewed were sceptical that Gillian could have been imprisoned in the garden without Teresa knowing. ‘She never really goes out, I always thought there was something really odd about her,’ says one source close to the couple.”

I drop the cheap paper on the counter-top, disgusted with the greedy, gleeful speculation. My eyes fill with tired tears; they well up, and blur the ugly words together in a smear of ink and despair. I open my mouth. I want to say: It wasn’t like that! I found her! I saved her!

And the memory of finding her comes flooding back. One moment it was a beautiful summer day, the next it was a horror movie. I was feeling so happy. I’d woken without pain, and even the quail-egg-sized swelling in my knee had subsided. I decided to surprise David by cleaning the kitchen, washing his clothes and preparing something nice to eat. Normally he did all of that when he came home from work—I’d been signed off on sick leave for the last few months. I was pegging out clothes, enjoying the sensuous feeling of sun crisping the back of my shirt, inhaling the cottony-fresh scent of clean, wet laundry. And then I saw it, a little flash of movement, no more than a glint of sunlight on a windowpane, or a bird flitting off. I turned to look and then I saw a red hand pressed to the window of the shed. For a second I stood, arms full of damp jeans, transfixed, until the hand slowly dropped down, leaving a streaky print on the glass. My first thought was pure horror—

“David!” I screamed, throwing the wet clothes on the grass, in a desperate attempt to get there and save him from some horrible accident. I stumbled and twisted my ankle hard enough to make me scream, but kept running-hobbling, reached the door and scrabbled for the bolt. Horror and exertion had cramped my fingers, so I couldn’t move it. I grabbed it awkwardly, splintering a nail down to the quick. No use. It was locked. I screamed—

“Wait” and fumbled through my cardigan pocket till my hand closed on my house keys—a bunch of all the outdoor door keys—and finally fumbled the lock open. It was the smell that hit me first: the scalding odour of piss, sharp and biting, the rank, rotting smell of shit. I saw a hand, bloody and red.

“David!” I screamed again, but the face that turned to me wasn’t his. The sight of her face flipped my stomach over, I was gone inside, falling into blackness. Her face, it was streaked with blood, the lips stitched together with three raw, angry stitches, a damp, sticky clot where one ear should be. She moaned and grunted loudly, her eyes bright in her filthy face, alive with fear and hope. Her head nodded towards her waist where coils of rope held her arms to her body. She’d sacrificed the nails on one hand to twist one hand free, that dreadful, bloody hand that had fluttered like a red moth at the window. I was crying silently, my shoulders shaking as I pulled at the ropes. The stink, the moaning, the sticky cords, my mind slid over all of them, even as I was pulling her free—under all of them was this awful abyss, the darkness of: who did...? and was it..? and then, before I could think any more, we were in the bright unreality of the kitchen.

The worst bit wasn’t finding her. Or her face. Or the blood. It was that light, faint sense of déjà vu that crawled over me afterwards.

Nine days after

Still sleeping fitfully. Still the bad dreams. Still on my own. I pad around the house, two pairs of bed socks and my coat on. There’s no oil in the tank for the central heating and my bones ache so badly. I need to talk to him. I need to ask him.

I ring the police station. The man I speak to has a kind, country accent, the sing-song consonants of a Cork twang. He can’t help me. David had been remanded into custody, with no visitors allowed.

“I shouldn’t even be telling you that, like,” he says, in his warm, comfortable voice.

I hold my breath, ignore my shame and play the disability card, something I really, really hate doing. “But I need to speak to him. I’m chronically ill and I need to ask him how I operate the heating in the house.” I feel light-headed and queasy with shame.

“Ah now, I’m sorry to hear that.” He actually does sound sorry. “We can send someone out to you, a garda, no bother. Would you like someone to come out and give you a hand?”

I sigh. “It’s OK,” I say gently. It’s not his fault. He’s kind. I tell him I’ll call my mother, and then hang up.

I need to talk to him. Things have started coming back, you see, bits and pieces. I’m afraid. I’m terribly afraid I could have acted sooner. I remember one night, a few weeks ago, when I thought I heard banging outside. David listened carefully.

“I can’t hear anything,” he said, his face politely dubious. “But I’ll check it out.”

He came back in, and smiled at me. “You were right, sharp ears! The gate had come loose.” I remember he stooped to hug me, carefully arranged as I was in my armchair with the extra cushions. I remember wincing as his arm brushed the tender swelling on my elbow. I remember his flinch, his apology.

But I don’t go to check the gate now to see if it was true. I tell myself it’s because there are still three photographers standing and smoking bitterly by their cars. The real reason is my shame. What if I could have done something?

I don’t sleep at all that night.

Ten days after

I remember him the first time I was hospitalised with the agony. I remember him hovering over my bed, afraid, eager to help—his face, crumpled and pink with crying. “If only I could understand your pain,” he said, gripping my hand so hard I cried and twisted it away. He was obsessed with helping me cope with the pain, that ever-present pain that could flare into torture at any moment. He treated me like a porcelain doll, gentling his hands before he touched me.

The image prompts me to do something I’ve been putting off. Slowly I unfold the tabloid article, smooth it out, and force myself to read it all. My eyes skim down it

“…recording her suffering on a video-camera and a notebook. Gillian Langdon claims her captor was a sadist. ‘Sometimes when he hurt me, he’d give me painkillers. I had to nod my head if they worked. He got angry when they didn’t.’ When found, Gillian’s body and face were mutilated horribly: her lips stitched together, one ear severed, fingernails of one hand removed, and deep cuts on her knees and elbows. Superintendent James Kelly said ‘This is the most shocking—’”

—I don’t read on. I cover my mouth with a trembling hand.

I remember his face, soft and gentle above mine, as I lay in bed trying not to cry. “Take four instead of three” he says insistently. “I know they’ll work. I just know.”

Did he?—Was that?—But I can’t even think it. I just start crying, great big gouts of tears from a black pit inside me. I stay crouched over on the carpet, all day. Sometimes I cry; sometimes the tears just ooze out, relentless as rain.

I don’t want to think why I’m crying. I don’t want to think.

Late that evening, I realise that the crew outside have given up. I pull myself up stiffly, using the chair back, and watch them leave through the crack in the curtains. They’re angry, but relieved to be going. “You can come out now, you old bitch!” shouts one. Another takes a long, vengeful piss on my front door. I hear the urine splash against the stone steps, the faint laughter trailing back, then the doors slam, engines cough, and they’re finally gone.

I’m truly alone now. I think of the many long nights ahead, the cold house, the emptiness of the bed upstairs, and the tears come again.

What if I’d know it would be like this? Would I have done exactly what I did? When I saw that hand like a damp splayed starfish on the old shed window, would I have gone to investigate? Would I still have run to the shed door on water-weak legs? If I had known then, would I still have still screamed, like I did? Scrabbled at the bolt with frantic hands?

And after that—and this is the question that keeps me awake at night—would I still have called the police?

Up In The Window

Elizabeth Myrddin

As the cab paused for a red light, I leaned forward and read the sign at the corner.

Easterly Boulevard. We were nearing the street that featured the main attraction for my unhealthy obsession.

Through the dwindling mist, I watched as the traffic light blinked to an acidic green, then the taxi jerked into movement again. The vehicle crawled along the damp city street like a dingy yellow wind-up mouse. No moon was visible. The lampposts lining the boulevard imparted anemic sprays of illumination. A glance at my smartphone showed the hour ticking toward three-thirty A.M. I relaxed and listened to the muted instrumental music the driver had put on. Reminiscent of Flamenco guitar, it was a soothing accompaniment for the ride.

With an abrupt shiver, I tucked the phone into my purse, then zipped up my jacket. I adjusted the strap of my handbag over a shoulder and across my body, then wiggled on the chilly upholstery and wished I’d worn tights. From the top of my ankle boots to the hem of my dress, goosebumps emerged on the exposed skin.

The weather had changed in the last week, heralding the arrival of holiday season. I wasn’t ready for it. Never was, really. Once Halloween had passed, the perennial multitudes amassed and began their shopping frenzy. To take care of simple errands became a battle with a human obstacle course. Such predictable chaos, people rushing about, spouting carefully constructed expressions of goodwill. It always made me cringe.

An impatient sigh pushed past my lips as I nudged my tipsy attention away from petty grievance. I tried to focus on the scenery as the cab driver continued down Easterly. Closed shops and establishments slid past my view in a silent, shadowy montage. There was nothing intriguing to see, at least not yet.

At night when in a taxi, or on a bus, or in a car, I liked to gaze into the uncovered, lit windows of apartment buildings. Sometimes this voyeurism granted only a quick peek into rooms awash in the ultra-blue radiance of TV screens. On other trips through the city, I’d see interesting wall hangings, décor, and fixtures. The best experiences were when I became privy to random slice-of-life occurrences. An embracing couple; guests helping to clean up after a dinner party; someone training with weights or performing other structured exercise: bite-sized appetizers allowing me tiny tastes from a variety of offerings—momentary candid snapshots, here, then gone.

One specific window interested me the most, though.

Earlier in the evening, after our boisterous group exited the Ace Tavern, I joined Saul and Lucy for a nightcap at their place. One pint of the rich, home-brewed chocolate stout enhanced my bourbon high and spawned a devil-may-care attitude. Nighttime was the right time for adventure, wasn’t it? The drink at my friends’ place wasn’t my real agenda. On the cab ride home, I planned to travel past the window that preoccupied me. What would I observe at such a late hour? I was on my way to find out.

As the taxi drove past window after darkened window, my eyelids drooped. Time inched toward dawn. By now, most citizens were deep in sleep.

An impetuous decision, this late-night divagation. The alcohol I had consumed fueled and strengthened my moodiness. The painful end of a recent romance still stung, and I yearned for any sort of escape—no matter how absurd—to divert my ego from picking at emotional wounds. This was how I came to indulge an idle but persistent curiosity: my fixation with the window and the peculiar-looking person who always seemed to be seated there.

I can’t say with certainty when I first became fixated on the person in the window. It began over a year ago, around the time I was a regular at the Gin Ricky, a now-defunct craft cocktail bar on Rosewood Street. Straight up Rosewood was the quickest route, and my penchant for looking into apartment windows while going to and from the venue resulted in my noticing this particular window. Revisiting it soon became a compulsion.

What stoked this burning fascination?

Well, every time I gazed up, the same individual was there and posed in the same position, appearing seated at a desk or a table. Months ago, as my taxi languished in unexpected traffic, I had a few extra moments to study the figure.

The window, two floors up, is a good size and I’ve never seen curtains or shades drawn. The figure strikes me as masculine. From the sternum up, he exhibits a thin build, a bald head, and a face devoid of hair. I’ve not detected any hint of eyebrows. His eyes, dark and round, are a stand out feature and display a glassy intensity. I’ve discerned an unremarkable, smallish nose, and the palest slit of a mouth. He is either shirtless, or always garbed in the same milky beige shirt, which fits snug and seamless against his body. The man gives the impression of focused concentration while staring down at something. Does a fascinating book absorb him? Is he watching a movie on his tablet? Playing a computer game? Studying?

Creepy, grayish light suffuses the room, but at intervals, it shifts to varying tints of amber then back to gray again. The strange glow seems to emanate from the seated individual and not from a device in front of him. Perhaps this effect was a fault with my perception, but it reads that way every time I’ve looked.

Any evening I’ve traveled past the window, I’ve seen the same tableau. Trips that take place during the morning or afternoon yield an identical view, minus the eerie lighting. My vivid imagination has long since adorned the scenario with conjecture. After months of repetition, my thoughts about the figure in the window became combative.

Change position, dammit! Stand up!

Be absent for once!

For hell’s sake, look out the window!

However, nothing ever changed.

About three weeks ago, I decided that the figure was a mannequin, one set up to look like a person sitting in the window. Not an earth-shattering realization by any means, and one I had entertained early on. Still, dejected at this growing conviction, I lost interest.

Tonight’s outing at the Ace brought me to the area bordering the suburb where the building on Rosewood stood. The shots of bourbon at the tavern and the beer at Saul and Lucy’s sparked a rekindling of my dampened curiosity, along with an irrational need to force a more satisfying resolution to the mystery. The notion that the man in the window was a mannequin exasperated me. Was this a ludicrous reaction? Of course, but the booze-buzz had revitalized the cryptic attributes I’d once bestowed upon the scenario.

Was it man or mannequin? This dilemma required an answer. Tonight.

I pressed the button to lower my window. Cool, rain-washed air drifted in and brushed my face. The fresh scent was a welcome alternative to the stale smell of fast food—something fried—which hovered in the cab. Nobody wandered about, which was not surprising, and inside me the sense of embarking on a secret quest intensified.

Following my instruction, the driver curved left onto Rosewood and a resolute thrill sifted through me as I asked him to pull over at the corner of Rosewood and Easterly. I paid him and exited the cab into the hushed and brisk night. The taxi swerved into a U-turn then sped away.

The building I sought stood at the other end of a long, unnerving stretch of neighborhood. Rows of single-family dwellings, duplexes, and flats embroidered both sides of the street.

I regarded the scene before me. Ghostly shadows prevailed and did not comfort. Undefined silhouettes stretched out at odd angles, possibly offering camouflage for a lurker. The feeble gleam from the sparse array of streetlamps provided no reassurance either.

As a young woman, alone, proceeding through a bleak tract of suburb at a very late hour, the walk before me—I suddenly realized—would be nerve-wracking. Progress forward would also take me farther away from the sporadic traffic going down Easterly. My bourbon-infused bravado had abandoned me, and I felt like a willful idiot for placing myself in this dodgy situation. Hesitant to proceed, I opened my bag, intending to retrieve my phone. Wouldn’t it be wiser to order another cab to transport me up the long block to my destination? Or, even better, home?

Then I remembered the twenty-four hour convenience store. It sat on the corner across from the building I sought. Indeed, from my current spot on the street, I could perceive the staccato blink of its yellow neon sign.

I shut my purse and struggled to recall more about the area. Mainly residential, the all-night store stood near the grounds of a hospital facility. Adjacent to the hospital was a campus where medical and dental students attended classes and had housing. Not a great locale, but the facility, staffed twenty-four/seven, provided the neighborhood a little more activity at this hour than other sections of the city.

With an involuntary shudder at the piercing cold that had seeped into the pre-dawn hour, I hugged my arms and purse closer to my body, and took determined but nervous steps toward the blinking neon. Hyper-vigilant, I glanced around in case I saw something (or someone) to avoid—or worse, run away from.

The streets around me were empty and nothing echoed to break the stillness, not even the distant murmur from a vehicle driving along one of the side streets. I heard only the random, muffled plop of droplets from the earlier light rain. I kept my pace as quick and noiseless as possible. On guard, I pivoted my head left and right as I continued toward the beacon of flickering neon. Every so often, I turned to walk backwards a few steps to make certain no one crept up behind me.

Think of something else. Think about the mystery of the person in the window. You’re almost there.

Then I heard someone cough.

I ceased my stride and my heart thumped as a fresh wave of apprehension doused me.

Was that a cough?

It was, and there it went again, nearby. From how clearly I’d heard the noise, it had to be someone located on the property just ahead. I hesitated, frozen with uncertainty. The time must be close to four in the morning. I needed to be cautious because worry over my safety was a realistic concern.

Had he or she seen me?

My breathing became shallow and uneven. I hastily retreated, darting into the nearest front yard, which was a fancy duplex. I needed to assess the situation, but not on the sidewalk where I felt exposed. Not wishing to disturb the residents (unless it became necessary), I surveyed the yard, looking for a place to hide. Tall, decorative shrubbery separated the property I was on from the neighboring yard, and it would shield me from anyone on the other side. I could also look through it at the adjoining residence without immediate discovery.

Once positioned, I peered through the branches, squinting through the darkness. No porch lights shone, and the nearest streetlight was two buildings away. I managed to distinguish an individual sitting on the front stoop of the house. A dark jacket with a hood concealed the head. The face was in profile and mostly obscured. I could not guess at gender. The next instant, I caught sight of a tiny orange glow followed by the smell of cigarette smoke. The person exhaled a subdued cough after each drag.

The individual hadn’t spotted me, or so I assumed. When the smoke break finished and he or she went back inside, I’d proceed again. Still jumpy, I was less fretful than before.

This uneasy peace did not last.

My eyes had adjusted to the gloom of the area, and things became more visible. He or she stubbed out the cigarette, stood, and went up the steps to the door. I heard faint rattling sounds as the individual fiddled with the doorknob, then did the same to the windows. In an instant, I guessed this person was trying to break into the building.

Once again, dread enveloped me. The potential burglar disappeared around the far side of the building, no doubt to scout for vulnerabilities in the rear.

My wariness increased. I turned and looked behind me. I didn’t want to chance going back toward Easterly. Revealing myself might invite a crime of opportunity.

What should I do?

With a grimace, I wedged my body into the hedge, glad that my black clothing and hair would help me blend in with the shadows. The snap of twigs as I pushed into the bushes caused alarm, and I winced at the scratches my bare legs received. Once completely encircled by the hedge, I shut my eyes and tried to calm my rising panic. I attempted to normalize my state of mind with conscious breathing. Slow in. Slow out. I focused on the earthy fragrance of damp dirt and the tangy green scent of the leaves that blanketed me.

Was I in any danger?

I might be, but I refused to follow that line of thought because I was already scared enough. Unable to prevent myself, I wondered about the spiders and other insects that made their home in the boughs that poked my body and tangled my hair. Icy sweat prickled over my skin and queasiness rolled in my belly as a wave of fresh terror hit me.

For fuck’s sake, don’t think about the spiders.

How much time passed as I stood there with my jaw clenched, trembling and agitated?

I heard the coughing person approach and stiffened. With a noiseless gasp, I inhaled and held my breath. I closed my eyes, too afraid to look.

The burglar scuttled past me in an apparent rush, passing close to where I hid. The sound of footsteps pattered up the sidewalk, then faded.

I exhaled slowly and opened my eyes, which had filled with tears of fright. I blinked them away and regulated my breathing, forcing hysteria away.

Should I stay here longer, to make sure it’s safe? What if that person is still casing houses in the area?

Indecisive, I remained immobile. I soon embraced my impression that the culprit had run off. Perhaps they’d taken what they wanted, or had been denied or almost discovered. I’d wait a minute or two more, for good measure, though.

An unsettling tickle skated across one hand then something dropped onto one of my legs. Before I could stop myself, I let out a hoarse yelp, lunged out of the hedges, and fell onto my hands and knees in the grass. I hoisted myself upright and whispered curses as with frantic movements I brushed and slapped at my hair, head, and body parts. I shook out my clothing and purse to dislodge any unwelcome visitors from the foliage that might still cling there. I even sat on the damp grass and did the same with my boots, then put them back on and stood.

What a ghastly night.

After all this, one might think I’d call it a night, order a cab, and go home. One would be wrong.

Frayed nerves, exhaustion, and muscle aches from the constant tension begged me to give up, but as my fright continued to subside, an incoherent rage bloomed in its place.

Why should I stop now, after all I’ve gone through to get this far? The market is just up ahead. It’s a minute walk—maybe less.

I cast a hesitant glance around me, then sprinted toward the store. I reached the market, paused to catch my breath, and muttered a jumbled stream of profanity. After several moments, I aimed my gaze up at the window.

There he sat, angled in the same position as every other time. Since I was able to loiter and examine the subject of my obsession, additional details stood out. The glow infusing the room had a pulsating quality. Shadows, shaped like the fronds of a large plant or something similar, coiled and twisted on the ceiling, as though stirred into movement by an intermittent breeze or the air from a rotating fan.

The door of the market was open so I stepped in, at once comforted by the warmth and gaudy brightness that greeted me. A noisy group of young adults purchased snacks, sodas, and bottles of wine. Three of them wore scrubs. Hospital staff—finished with their shifts—were getting ready to indulge in friendly, after work decompression. Their lively, late night camaraderie generated a sense of well-being. Because I’d made it through the harrowing experience of a moment ago without harm, acute relief began to rose-tint my hindsight.

Just another wild night in the big city. My friends will laugh and tease me when they hear this story.

The others exited, and their joking chatter dwindled as they headed out of earshot.

With my confidence shaky but restored, I bought a new flavor cartridge—cinnamon—for my e-cig. The stocky, bearded fellow who manned the counter handed me my change then returned his attention to the TV on the shelf in front of him.

Once outside, I leaned against the wall of the store for a strategic smoke, making sure the window appeared in my direct line of sight.

Inhale, exhale, and stare.

The sweet, incense-like fragrance from the e-cig swirled in the night air round me.

Inhale, exhale, and stare.

How long I performed this routine, I don’t know. Five or six minutes? The only movements I noted in the window scene were the pulsing lights and those weird plant shadows. I willed the figure to shift position, my thoughts fraught with effort.

Please move. Please look out the window at me. I want you to see me.

Resigned at last, I took a final drag, savoring the taste of the spice that lingered on my tongue. I put the device in my purse, glum over the underscored conclusion that the figure must indeed be a mannequin. How very dull.

I rested against the wall for one last study of the form in the window. Moments drifted by, uncounted, and my eyes began to water from the intensity of my stare.

Then it happened.

He moved.

I blinked to make sure.

With a slow turn, he looked out the window and tilted his head to look down.

Hundreds of tiny pinpricks spread over my skin as I felt him notice me. Without warning, an invisible force of some sort shoved me against the wall and pinned me there. I grunted a strangled exclamation of pain as a sharp ache undulated over the muscles of my neck and back. Unable to move, I felt weighted down.

What the hell is happening? How?

Next, I watched in horror as the figure straightened, adjusted his stance, and with a disturbing serpentine grace, elongated his neck. As he slid the window open, I caught a glimpse of his hands. Three curved, claw-like fingers depended from each. I was too shocked to shake my head in disbelief.

He leaned out the window and observed me, his long neck snaking back and forth like a human-sized cobra. His eyes stretched, opening on his face until they were large and oval-shaped, like a pair of decorated eggs. This serpent creature continued to impale me with his glossy stare as a taut compression squeezed my head, as though someone gripped my head in their hands and with their fingers, pressed and massaged it. Soon, a sort of tapping traveled over my body along with a weird combination of tingling and poking sensations.

An abrupt vise of nausea, reminiscent of an attack of food poisoning, gripped me and caused me to shudder in sporadic bursts. I wanted to vomit, but couldn’t, and felt close to blacking out from the intensity of what I experienced.

More figures appeared in the window. They were identical to the one leaning out, minus the bizarre extended neck. They too locked their stares on me for several moments, then swiftly withdrew from sight.

The remaining figure decreased the length of his neck, dipped back inside, and closed the window. He then returned to his usual seated position. The same angle. The same eerie light radiating around him. The plant shadows again bouncing on the ceiling.

The constraint that immobilized me vanished and I collapsed to the ground.

Dizzy, stunned, and confused, I crawled toward the wall of the market and propped my body against it to regroup. As soon as I felt stable enough to stand, I would get the hell out of there.

“Don’t look up.”

I barely whispered those words, then repeated them, a desperate mantra as I steadied my nerves as best as possible. My insistent, puerile curiosity about the figure in the window was not only satisfied, but beaten down. I vowed never to return to this area, or attempt to interfere with—whatever went on in the room behind that window.

I forced myself upright then opened my purse and retrieved my phone. I touched the app to order a taxi and almost burst into tears when the diagram indicated a car was three minutes from my location.

I turned my back to the window and staggered to wait under the jaundiced light of the neon sign for my ride. In the distance, I saw the initial crease of dawn beginning to fold over the night.

I tried to organize my chaotic thoughts through shock and growing fatigue. The whole night had been a living nightmare. It didn’t make sense—what had happened with the snakelike beings in the window. But then again, in some incomprehensible, unearthly way, yes it did. And I can’t even begin to explain it.

The taxi pulled up to the curb. I got in and gave him my address. He swerved down Rosewood away from the building. Nausea continued to ripple over me. My body throbbed and hurt, as though I was coming down with the flu. Short of breath and anxious, I felt close to a meltdown.

I rested my head against the seat cushion and shut my eyes.

In the thriving, cosmopolitan city where I lived, the horror stories were mainly crime based. Man’s inhumanity to man. Yet this same thriving, cosmopolitan city was also the prime place for something inhuman and clever to hide in plain sight. To wait until the moment was ripe for—

I didn’t know how to finish that thought, and I didn’t want to either.

Insanity

Jackie Woodard

He doesn’t see them, he can’t. They like lingering around him; inches from his face, breathing in deeply, smiling among themselves—satisfied with their invisibility.

“Vanessa,” he said, snapping his fingers in front of my face. I shook my head slightly and for the first time since the session started, he slipped into the foreground. I hated how his pants hovered over his pale white socks and black loafers when he sat. His white lab coat poorly covered the coffee stain on his shirt, and I wondered if he realized his name tag was upside down today. “Are you with me, Vanessa?”

“Yes,” I mumbled.

Casually he looked to his left, where a moment before I had been staring, before scribbling something down in his notepad. It was two of them today, both temporarily unaware of my presence. They stood next to him, loudly gnashing their teeth on either side of his face. I hated the sound, how it carried like bootheels on stone, echoing off the walls. I dug my nails deep into the fabric of the chair to prevent myself from covering my ears.

“How are you, Vanessa?” He asked, glancing down at my hands.

“The same as last week,” I said as the doctor began to write. The creature next to him took a seat on the couch, kicked up its leg so that its ankle was resting on its thigh—mimicking the doctor’s posture. The doctor always sat across from me, though his business is getting inside my head, he goes to great lengths to keep me separated from him.

“Last week was promising. It was a good week.” He glanced at my hands again as I tried to casually pull them out of the chair. “Do you want to start by talking about the rayis?” He asked, not looking up from whatever he was writing.

“No.” I rubbed my palms together slowly and hard. “I told you, I haven’t seen them in a long time.”

He nodded his head once and continued to write. “One of the nurses tells me otherwise.”

“That really isn’t her business to tell, Doctor.”

“Your business is hers, and hers is mine.” He smiled to himself as if he made a joke. “Let’s talk about what you were looking at earlier.”

“When can I leave?”

“We have an hour together,” he answered still not looking at me. “But these sessions are a choice and you can go back to your room whenever, Vanessa, you know that.”

“When can I go home?”

“It’s very simple, Vanessa,” he lightly closed his notepad. “I’m just asking you to talk to me. Tell me what they are, and only then will we be able to begin the process of getting you home. You said that on the night of the incident the rayis.... “

“Stop saying their names!”

Without warning it stood up completely and in two steps it was inches from my face. I dropped my head between my elbows and began to rock in my chair. I could only see a pair of gray feet in front of my own, long thick nails adding inches to the foot, while the skin seemed as if it would rip apart if touched too harshly. Its cold breath washed over the back of my neck.

“Vanessa?” The doctor called out. “Vanessa, they aren’t real. There is nothing there.”

I coward back into the chair, cradling my knees.

“Vanessa!” He sat there snapping his fingers. “Vanessa...!”

Finally, I screamed.

I think this was the part they liked the most, seeing me dragged out of the session kicking and screaming, questioning my own sanity. Huge men dropped me onto a stretcher. I wiggled and yelled out until my voice couldn’t rise over a squeal. One grabbed both of my arms and the other my legs. I wriggled free and my foot caught his mouth.

The doctor followed the orderlies out and watched me from his doorway.

Next to him stood one of his younger nurses, I watched as she prepped the needle.

“I need you to calm down.” The doctor said.

“Why did you keep saying their names?” I asked breathlessly. “They don’t like when you talk about them.”

He cuffed his hand around his mouth and dragged it down the length of his beard.

“Vanessa,” he said firmly, “We’ve been through this, time and time again.”

I took short quick breaths as tears spilled over onto my face.

“They’re right there,” I could barely hear myself. “Right behind you!”

The doctor shook his head in response. He glanced at the nurse for a moment, before walking back into his office.

The nurse reached past the orderlies and wiped down my arm and pushed the needle into the bend of my elbow. I could feel the sedative rushing through me, easing every muscle.

“Everything is going to be okay Vanessa,” someone whispered before I lost consciousness.

* * *

The next day I was accompanied by two orderlies when I met with the doctor. He was sitting on his couch waiting for me. His hair wasn’t neatly combed back as it usually was; salt and pepper strands fell onto his face. He was already writing in his notepad.

“Hopefully you’re feeling much better today.” He quickly glanced up at the orderly next to me with the swollen lip as we were sitting down. “So let’s talk ....” he paused for a moment. “....about them.” On the far-side of the room there was one of them; it was hovering above a pair of reading glasses on the doctor’s desk; resting its hand in the air as if it couldn’t actually touch them. There was another one, more interested in a picture frame on the desk that was flipped over so that it was no longer visible. “What are they doing now, Vanessa?”

I turned my head to face the doctor, one of the orderlies was still looking in the other direction, trying to see what I could.

“They’re interested in your stuff.” I explained.

“Why my stuff?” He pushed the word out like a preacher cursing.

“I have my theories.”

“Would you like to discuss some of those with me?” He asked.

“Nope.” I said. His eyes immediately looked up from his notepad and met with mine, his head followed at a delay. I could see he was clenching his teeth together in his mouth, his nose slightly flared.

“Well, I would like to discuss some of those with you.” He said.

“Can they be in here?” I asked using my thumb to point at one of the orderlies. He took in a slow deliberate breath and let his eyes rest on the ceiling for a moment.

“I can imagine that this is something you don’t want to talk about, and I really do want to help you, but I can’t if you don’t talk about what happened that night.” He scratched his beard hard and waited for me to say something in response and when I didn’t, I was escorted out of his office.

* * *

I didn’t see the doctor again for about a week. His office was the only room I knew of that had a window in the entire building. Sometimes the smell of the weather filled up his office and overflowed into the hallways through the crack at the bottom of his door. Today it was gloomy outside and I could smell the rain before I opened the door. The doctor stood in his office, trying to get a stain out of his shirt.

“You’re early.” He said, surprised.

“Actually, I’m late.” We both glanced up at the clock on the wall.

“Take a seat.” He pointed in the direction of the couches as if I didn’t already know where to go. “I was told that you’ve been complaining about things in your room going missing,” he began once I was seated, though he continued with his shirt. “You’ve been blaming these disappearances on this rayis…”

“Who else would want my things?”

“Maybe you’ve just misplaced them.” He sat down at his desk and began opening and closing drawers in search for something. He then started searching through the pile of manila folders and loose paperwork on his desk. Not finding what he was looking for, he scooted his chair back and began looking on the floor around his desk. Eventually he popped back up with a silver pen.

“They like to take things that belong to me.” I said.

“Like your hair brush and toothpaste.” He walked over to his couch and sat down. He grabbed the notepad sitting on the wooden table and began to write. “To my understanding, you don’t have much need of that hairbrush since you cut your hair, and you stopped using that toothpaste because there was a hole at the bottom. We gave you a replacement. These aren’t incredibly special items.”

“They aren’t,” I mumbled. “But they’re mine.”

“When was the last time you saw them?” He asked.

“I haven’t seen them for a week.” I began biting the skin off my lip as he wrote “Lately, I only see them when I’m meeting with you.”

Our fourth meeting was only hours after the third. It was late at night and I asked to see the doctor. Usually the doctor isn’t in, or he turns down the request because, as he says, his free time doesn’t belong to us. Surprisingly though, the doctor was in his office and he was willing to speak with me. I was escorted by one of the nurses working the night shift in my ward. She wore her uniform a tad bit shorter than the rest of the women she worked with. Usually when someone needs to speak with the doctor outside of their scheduled times, she was the one that walked with us. We used to see her and the doctor around together all the time. She knocked lightly on the door; when he answered she smiled at him, though he didn’t offer one in return. He opened the door just wide enough for me to slip through, then he closed the door behind me.

“Long night?” I asked as I plopped down on the couch.

“A very long night indeed.” He used his fingers to push his hair out of his face. I’d never seen him without his white coat before—he looked like someone you would see every day. He was an older man, about fifty, which was considerably older than me. He was very tall and slender. His white shirt was pulled out of his black slacks, and his tie was pulled down away from his neck. The room smelled of alcohol, beneath the mist of the rain. On the floor next to his feet there was a suitcase, which he kicked under his desk when he saw me looking at it. “Why was it so urgent that you speak with me?”

“You know, I couldn’t see them before.” I said.

He walked over and sat on his usual couch across from me, there was a half-eaten TV dinner on the table between us. He didn’t reach for the notepad this time; he rested his forearms on his thighs and watched me as I spoke.

“Things started going missing around the house, little things that you wouldn’t notice unless you were really thinking about it.”

“Much like your hair brush and toothpaste.”

“Exactly like that.” I said, snapping my fingers, “I don’t think they care for those little things though, they’re just testing themselves.”

“I’m not following.”

“When I see them, they’re usually hovering over things but not actually holding anything. More recently, though, this hasn’t been true.”

His face was squished together, his brow really low on his face.

“After they took those things, they eventually came after my mom, is what I’m trying to say”

“Vanessa...”

“And Doctor, I think they’re after you next.”

“Vanessa, I don’t th—”

“They’re intrigued by you and your connection to me.” My words were beginning to run together. “I think only the people they touch can see them, that’s why—”

“Vanessa, stop!” He said. His eyes were wide as he looked at me. “These things that you’re talking about aren’t real. I’m not a material possession of yours, I don’t belong to you in any way.” He shook his head. “You’ve only regressed in your time here.”

“I’m not making this up!” My voice was beginning to rise. “I’m trying to help you.”

“I think it’s time for you to leave.” He stood up, walked to his door and yelled out that he needed some assistance. Two orderlies came in, each grabbed one of my arms and lifted me off the couch.

“This isn’t fair!” I was beginning to cry, I couldn’t see the faces of the men attempting to carry me out, a pair of pink blurs. I was struggling. I picked my feet completely off the ground at one point and when that didn’t stop them, I dropped my feet and allowed them to drag behind me. “They took her from me!” I yelled out. I was trying to pull my arm free, but I wasn’t having any luck.

“Stop!” The doctor yelled behind us. “What did you say?”

The two men twisted me around so that I could see the doctor.

“They took her.” I whimpered. “They took her from me.”

“Is that what you think happened?” He squinted his eyes and turned his head sideways. “Your mother is dead. Why do you think you were put here, Vanessa? They don’t lock people in places like this because they can’t find someone.”

“My mother is missing.”

“She died that night.” His face was torn between compassion and confusion. “Have you forgotten that already?” He asked softening his voice.

I felt as if I was being choked, I couldn’t get anything out. The top of my shirt was soaked, the cool breeze coming through the window froze it against me. I looked up to see two rayis’ leaning against his desk, smiling at me.

* * *

I refused to talk to the doctor for three weeks after that night. When we spoke again he personally called me to his office. It was after the time we were usually scheduled to meet, his window was wide open, and leaves were blown in from the outside and scattered around his floor. His office was a mess, his desk was covered in papers and folders, along with leaves and scattered coffee mugs.

I walked in and sat in my usual spot but this time he sat next to me. He looked as if he hadn’t had any sleep in the past couple of weeks. He had visible bags under his eyes, and he kept rolling his neck as if he were trying to stretch out the muscle.

“I wanted to apologize about what I said to you the last time we spoke.” He let out a deep breath before speaking again. “I shouldn’t have told you that information in the way I did, and I apologize for being so unprofessional with you.” I dropped my eyes and stared at his hands as he spoke. “I want to see you get better, and I know you might not see that, but I really do.” He locked his fingers and tapped his thumbs together. His left ring finger was bare, though we all knew he was married. “I want nothing more than to see you out of here, but you have to help us out.”

“What do you want to know?” I asked quietly without looking up. I could feel my eyes beginning to water up again. “Do you all think that I killed my mom?”

“No, Vanessa.”

“I wouldn’t forget something like that, you know?”

“We don’t think you killed her, but we think you saw who did.”

“It was them, like I’ve told you.”

“They aren’t real, that is your mind creating things to cover up a traumatic experience. Vanessa, this isn’t uncommon...” he paused, careful of his words. “Just tell me what happened that night, please.”

I took in a few deep, shaky breaths. I cuffed my hands around my mouth for a moment, gently rocking in place. Slowly I allowed my hands to drag away from my mouth, falling limp on my lap.

“It took me a while to notice it, how she wouldn’t look directly at me.” I began. “Her eyes were always in my direction, but slightly off as if she was looking at something behind me. She complained constantly about not being able to find things and my father, feeling helpless, would buy her new things to replace the old ones. He couldn’t fix her and I think that’s what scared him the most. One day he left for work and never came home. My mom wasn’t wrong, things around the house were missing—nail clippers, spare reading glasses, pencils and pens—things you wouldn’t really notice unless you were paying attention…

“That night the house was freezing. I heard her up late talking to herself, like I heard her doing for the past couple of months. It wasn’t until the talking turning to yelling and the yelling turned into screaming did I run downstairs. My mom was in the kitchen when I found her, she was laying on her side, using one of her arms to pull herself backward across the floor. The other hand was outstretched in front of her, like to defend herself against something invisible that was attacking her. I yelled for her once and she didn’t respond. The second time I called for her, she screamed. She was begging that I be left alone and I was begging for her to stop, to stop her bullshit because I was scared and I needed her to see me. I promised her that I was the only person in the room. I took a step towards her with intention of lifting her off the ground, but I was pushed into another room by this incredibly powerful force. I listened to her scream; I wanted so badly to help, but I couldn’t move. Eventually the screaming stopped, and I got to see the face of the monsters that took my mother from me...”

“Vanessa, it’s okay.” The doctor’s voice rang through.

I didn’t realizing I was crying. “There were two of them.” I said, barely raising my voice.

“Two?” He asked.

“One grabbed me and the other was with my mom.” My voice was shaky.

“And his face?” He grabbed his notepad and was writing frantically. “What did his face look like?” He pressed.

I looked up at the doctor and my answer got caught in my throat. There was a hand resting on his shoulder. There were only four fingers and the gray papery skin cling tightly around the bones. The long fingernails were just short of digging into his shoulder. When I didn’t respond right away, he allowed his pen to drop.

He followed my gaze to his shoulder before closing his notepad and putting it back on the table.

* * *

The seventh meeting was the last one and completely unplanned. I was on my way to dinner with some of the girls I share a ward with, when I passed his office, his door was cracked and a strong smell of grass was beginning to seep out. I peeped my head in and the doctor was sitting on his usual couch, looking out his window. He must have heard the opening of the door because he abruptly turned around to see who was there.

“Oh, Vanessa.” He said once he got a good look. “I didn’t think I had anyone scheduled for today.” He pulled back the sleeves of his white shirt and looked at his watch.

“No, no.” I said stepping completely into his office. “I just noticed your door was open and looked in.”

“You missed your last few sessions, Vanessa.” He said quietly.

“I didn’t have any new information for you.” I stepped further into his office and closed the door behind myself. On the table sat the doctor’s notepad and next to it was a fancy glass, filled a little less than halfway with what I assumed to be whiskey. He rested his hand on the glass for a moment before finishing off what was in it, puckering his mouth at the taste.

“You really believe that these things killed your mom?” He asked without looking at me.

Before I could answer the door swung open, and a was standing in the door. “I’m sorry, but I thought I lost her,” she said looking between the both of us carefully. “She’s going to have come with me.” She waited at the doorway for me to follow her out.

The doctor cleared his throat and looked into his empty glass. “She’s right, I think it’s time for you both to go. I need to finish up something in here anyhow.” He picked himself off the couch and a low moan escaped his mouth. He walked to an area behind his desk where there was a larger glass bottle filled with more whiskey.

We both watched as he poured himself another glass.

Once he was finished he took a seat back on the couch, and went back to looking out his window. The sun was beginning to set. I didn’t say anything else, I turned and began following the nurse out.

“Hey, Vanessa.” The doctor called after me suddenly, getting up and rushing over to the doorway where we stood.

But before he could say anything else, there was a loud sound of something hitting the floor behind us. We all turned.

The nurse was looking at the fallen electric pencil sharpener, but I was looking at the thing that knocked it over, and if I didn’t know any better, I would say that the doctor was too.

When I woke up the next day the hallway was dry. The smell of pee, vomit and plastic had completely evaporated overnight. When I left my room, cops were scattered around my ward, pouring from the doctor’s office. No one really noticed as I slipped past the officers in an attempt to see what was happening.

“Are you Vanessa?” Someone behind me asked.

I jumped in a half-circle to find a cop behind me.

“Yes. What happened?”

“The doctor had a mental breakdown.” He said, chewing loudly on gum. “We found this on his desk. It had your name on it.” He held out a page that came from the doctor’s notepad between his index and middle finger.

I reached out my hand for it and he pulled it back.

“Is there a reason he’s leaving you notes? Out of all his patients, you’re the only one. Not his wife, not his staff, just you.”

“I couldn’t tell you.” The cop raised his eyebrows and looked at me for a long time. Past him I could see the young nurse sitting on the floor, crying as other staff members attempted to help her to her feet.

“Here.” He finally said and handed me the letter, but stood around to watch me open it. It wasn’t in an envelope or a folder. It was just a single piece of paper folded in half with my name written on the front. I opened it slowly, and written largely at the top of the page was, “I believe you,” and at the bottom was a picture of a rayi’s face. It was black and white, but drawn just as I had seen it many times before. It was oval-shaped, with a nose much like that of a snake. Its mouth was wide, and its teeth were jagged; but the worse thing was the eyes—or the place where the eyes should be. These rayis’ didn’t really have eyes; their skin stretched over the area where you would usually find them, from the eyebrow to the cheeks. The skin was torn and broken but even if you looked behind all of that, you only see the blackness underneath.

“That’s one ugly mug,” the cop said, laughing to himself. The paper slipped out of my hand and fell at my feet. I broke into a run, straight for the doctor’s office as the cop grabbed for me and, failing to catch me, yelled for me to stop. I pushed his door open with my body and hanging there from his ceiling fan was the doctor. He was wearing his usual uniform, a white dress shirt tucked into his black slacks. His tie was the only thing holding him to the ceiling, and his white coat was still swaying. His greying hair hung loosely in front of his pale face.

I saw this for only a moment before the policeman caught up with me and carried me out the room.

Within two weeks, there was a new doctor in his office. The young nurse never returned, and she too was replaced. This new doctor was younger, “fresh out of school” I heard people whispering. He always kept the window closed and locked. In our first session together, the new doctor asked me about the rayis and I told him everything that I knew. He smiled in response.

“You know, don’t you,” he said, opening his notepad, “that those things aren’t real.”

The Guard

B.T. Joy

Harry was beginning to believe that this new job was getting the better of him.

He woke again under his heavily curtained windows to the sound of school kids horsing around outside the Pizza King. Sitting up in bed, he fetched his mobile from a tangle of wires on the bedside cabinet, and checked the time. It was four now, which meant he’d been sleeping for less than five hours when the dream had woken him.

He rested there on his elbow for a moment. This time the nightmare had been more distinct, more natural somehow; and yet, still, now it was over, he could hardly remember a single image with any real clarity.

It was more of an atmosphere. He’d been in a cave system with high roofs, and walls lit by aquatic lights. He had been kneeling and another shape was standing on his right-hand side; and, in front of them, a twice-life-size figure of a bearded man stood surrounded in fasces of bound grain.

Harry rooted in the bedside cables again and retrieved his cigarettes. He lit up and righted the duvet around his legs. Down on Stokes Croft, leaving the Pizza King with their munchie boxes, the kids were screaming profanities now and letting off steam in general after a long day of enforced school etiquette and manners.

Harry blew out smoke and thought about the dream. He couldn’t remember having had fruity dreams in the past. He’d never been given to high fantasies and, if he was honest, he was never the brightest spark. His own schooldays had been more about fistfights and boredom than anything remotely academic, and in the end he’d left with just enough in the way of GCSEs to secure his first job stacking shelves.

He took another draw and thought it over. He had to wait until his eyes adjusted after sleeping, anyhow. He was twenty-eight now, and since the age of sixteen he’d lived in London, worked in retail and, for most of that time, he’d dated the same girl.

Now he was living in Bristol, working at the Metropolitan Museum, and the last time he’d even seen Sophie had been when he left last November. They’d left each other on good terms. It had just run its course, really. Sophie had said he’d changed a lot since they’d met and she wasn’t sure she loved him anymore.

Harry stubbed out his cigarette in the dirty ashtray by the bed.

He hadn’t agreed that he’d changed—not then—but now he was beginning to see what she’d been driving at. New town. New job. New loneliness. And now the reading he’d taken to for the first real time since leaving school, and the weird images of Middle Eastern caverns and strange gods that filled his head every time he closed his eyes to sleep.

* * *

By the time he got his shit together and got out of bed it was the backend of five o’clock, and he only had a few hours to get over to Queens Road.

That was the bitch with nightshift. You work all night and you sleep all day.

He took his prompt from the school kids and went down to the Pizza King, which was thankfully empty given the hour, but for the odd paint-stained apprentice or overweight woman in pyjama bottoms and Tiger Tim slippers, who’d come in for a takeaway.

Harry got himself a nine inch meat feast and a tray of chicken pakora, sat in a window seat and ate silently.

The night was a bit lighter than usual, it being late March by now and the days getting longer, and so after he’d finished his meal he found himself sitting there just staring out at the calm, blue dullness of Stokes Croft. And as he sat he dreamed of the mummies.

It had been them. He knew it. They’d been the initial catalyst for his uncharacteristic new interest in archaeological scholarship. They were why the front room of his flat was littered, even now, in a dozen dogeared books from the local library, and they were the reason for his otherworldly nocturnal adventures.

He remembered the first time he’d seen them. Mr. Cairns had taken him on a short tour of the museum after his successful interview, showing him the exits and entrances, and explaining the dos and don’ts of the night guard’s protocol.

They’d descended methodically from top to bottom; through rooms dedicated to Gainsborough and Constable, displays of Georgian silver and Chinese glass; down through worlds of geodes, Precambrian fossils and taxidermied apes; and, finally, to the basement of the affair which housed the museum’s cache of Egyptian, Assyrian, and pre-Semitic antiquities.

It was there that Harry saw the mummies for the first time: two full sized human beings standing behind the glass of a display case that dominated an entire wall of the basement complex, surrounded on all sides by the fragments of ancient paraphernalia that had been found with them.

Harry had asked about the exhibit right off, but Mr. Cairns had just grunted something noncommittal. Harry had been sure that Cairns’ jaded lack of interest would soon rub off on him. He’d told himself that a few weeks alone with all this art and opulence and he too would view the articles stored there as nothing more exotic than the tins of beans he used to stack at Waitrose. But it had been nearly five months now, and if anything his fascination with those millennia-old corpses had grown into what bordered dangerously on obsession.

The owner of the Pizza King hovered close and stood with his hands in his pockets staring out at the steadily darkening street and the few odd glimpses of passing trade that wandered by that way.

“Going to rain,” he said in his unmistakeable Punjabi accent.

As a result of his junk food diet, Harry was quite familiar with the proprietor.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think we’ll get a bit.”

* * *

It was pissing down so hard that it bounced off the streets by the time Harry had to leave for work.

He put his uniform in a black bag, as he often did on such occasions, and wore his civvies on the short walk to the bus stop on Corn Street.

When he finally reached Queens Road he was drenched to the skin and had to change in the small locker room adjacent to the employees’ lounge.

Mr. Cairns, who worked the backshift himself so he could keep an eye on his two juniors, had found Harry in there just as he was slipping on his overly official looking cap and fixing the keys to the fob at his waist.

“Good thing you’re on late shift, Paterson,” he’d observed. “Wouldn’t want you around when the visitors are here. You really do look like shit.”

Harry was beginning to get used to Cairns’ interminable putdowns; that, and the old man’s Victorian habit of referring to his underlings only by their surnames.

“Are you still not sleeping well?” he asked.

Harry nodded.

“It’s the hours. I’ll get used to it.”

Cairns laughed.

“Well if you do, let the rest of us vampires know how, won’t you?”

Harry looked at his senior with an obvious lack of amusement. Mostly because, in the pale halogen lights of the lounge, Cairns looked just white and bloodless enough for it not to have been a joke.

“Come on,” the manager said. “I’ll walk you to the lobby.”

* * *

When they got there Harry slipped into his chair at the information desk and put down the book he’d brought from home among all the messy papers.

Cairns eyed the title and scoffed. Religions From The Sea: A History Of The Phoenician Cults.

“Funny thing, Paterson,” he commented, “you don’t half look thick as shit, but these books you read is clever enough.”

Harry nodded noncommittally. In his view, every moment Cairns remained after the old man’s shift had ended was an affront to his own privacy. He was beginning to like this job, its silence and its solitude.

“Alright, I’ll be off,” the old man said at last, tapping the desk for emphasis. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

It took Harry a good fifteen minutes after the other guard had left, locking the revolving doors behind him, to really settle down into the peaceful muteness of his environment.

He’d been kind of a rowdy guy back in London; always out on the piss and the pull, or playing five-a-side with mates at the park. He’d taken care of himself, too; kept his hair cropped and styled, and wore good clothes when he could afford it.

No one from back then would even recognise him nowadays, addicted, as he was, to archaic books and stillness; sitting there untrimmed and only roughly shaven, like an artefact himself among all those petrified shapes of alien marine life, the shattered scelidosaurus bones dug up from the Jurassic coasts of England, and the newer specimens of fanged animal life that stared out grinning from the display case.

Harry picked up his book and leafed through it to find his place. He began reading:

Although it is certain he was worshipped in Arvad, where his cult may have remained until the final destruction of the religion in the second century BCE, the true character of this deity as known to the Phoenicians has been lost with the disappearance of key cultic texts.

What we know concerning this god we know from Biblical sources and their description of his appearance and traits as known to the Philistines, who may have further diluted his regional image by conflating him with other deities which, having Cretan origins as a people, they imported from the Aegean.

Harry stopped. He shut the book and his eyes, both. In the dark he saw the cave system and the aquatic lights. He saw the woman at his right-hand side. She was standing with arms outspread in receptivity to the great Philistine god whose image stood among sheaves of grain in a high alcove that had been dug out from the cavern walls.

Harry himself—though not at all himself—was kneeling like an acolyte by the side of the priestess, and he felt that the air was full of the dead spirits whose voices he could hear and whose incorporeal bodies only the woman could see with her bright blue, shining eyes.

Harry opened his own eyes and the images, as they always did, disappeared like insubstantial smoke. The clear lines of the museum reasserted themselves and, though Harry couldn’t describe why, his sudden re-entry into modernity had left him feeling unaccountably empty and alone.

He looked across the wide lobby to the door that led to the stairwell, that led in turn downwards to the basement.

He’d told himself he wouldn’t go down tonight, but it was like asking himself not to scratch an itch or not to tongue a wound in the roof of his mouth.

He had become obsessed by the image of those figures, and every night, after Cairns had left, the only movements in the museum that the CCTV caught at all were Harry’s interminable visits to that same display case, where he’d stand and look in at them for hours at a time.

* * *

After the first few nights in the Metropolitan, Harry had decided to try to pinpoint where this fascination had come from.

He’d spent a few hours during one shift seeking out and reading all the literature on the figures which was available in the museum in the form of pamphlets, gift shop books and, of course, the descriptive plaques on the display itself.

Weeks later, when the interest hadn’t abated, he’d found himself browsing in his local library and online for more hours than was healthy.

His reading revealed that the ‘Metro Mummies,’ as they’d been dubbed by the public, were discovered in 1972 when the aftermath of a 4.1 magnitude earthquake along the DST fault line hit Lower Galilee, causing the walls to collapse in a minor cave on the slopes of Mount Gilboa.

The burials discovered there were a source of speculation and controversy throughout the academic community in the 1970s. Carbon-14 testing on tissue samples revealed that both individuals dated to around 1000 BCE, making them the oldest specimens to be found in the region with this level of preservation.

The primary set of remains were that of a female in middle to old age. They had been the most perfectly preserved, while the latter set, a juvenile male, had been found in a more advanced state of decomposition. This, together with the male’s relative lack of funerary adornment, was judged by archaeologists to imply that this latter was a servant of the former who in all likelihood had undergone a premature burial.

Harry, down in the basement again, took time to study those more decomposed male remains. In some ways, despite the woman’s outstanding condition and ostentatiously beautiful adornments, it was this second figure that Harry was more drawn to.

There was something about its hunched back and almost foetal position. Harry found himself wishing, as he had every night for months, that the young man’s face was not so abysmally rotten as to make the identification of his features impossible.

Still though, with the other figure Harry had no such problem. If anything, it was frightening how like a living woman’s face that dead face was. Her cheekbones were high and somehow noble, there were still lashes at the ends of her eyelids, and you could see every crease of age in her high-browed forehead.

The style of embalming used on her body, Harry knew from his reading, had been highly unorthodox for the region in which she was found.

She had been divested of all internal organs, and her cranial cavity had been similarly emptied. Also, in a style consistent with Egyptian mummifications of the time, her voided insides had been rinsed with Canaanite wine and packed with a variety of herbs, spices and resins: in this case myrtle, juniper, cassia and extracts of terebinth.

Harry looked down at the wineskin, the one she was buried with and was still holding in her yet-fingernailed hands. It gave him some sort of grim pleasure to recollect that her extracted organs and cerebral matter had been found and still existed inside that empty sack.

He looked up and into her eyes. They were as blue and shining as they had been in his dream, though of course, in reality, they weren’t eyes at all. That was the most bizarre aspect of the entire burial as far as Harry was concerned: how they’d removed her natural eyes and replaced them with similar sized orbs of cut sapphire which may have been mined and worked as far away as Iran.

As Harry stood there by the display case, time itself became abstract.

Those nameless corpses might have been the living ones, and he—Harry Paterson, blood running in his veins—might have been the dead.

There was a subtle though discernible current of energy running between them: a pull of magnetism that drew him into the woman’s cut-sapphire eyes and a similar pushing force that issued out from her squat servant, seeming to press itself against the lobes of Harry’s brain.

If asked, Harry would never have been able to explain any of this; he’d have changed the subject, most likely, or else just stayed silent.

But here, in this place, it all felt more natural than breathing.

He closed his eyes and saw the cave. The woman’s outstretched arms. The bearded limestone god.

He felt that the dream was his reality. He felt that he’d been there, in that place of stone and archaic prayer, and for three thousand years time had frozen on that moment.

* * *

He left the museum just as it was opening.

His head was buzzing and hurt a little, and so he walked back to Stokes Croft through the fresh air to clear his mind.

It didn’t work.

All the way home circumstances from his own life replayed in an unbroken montage with the scenes from biblical Canaan described in his books. At one point he’d managed to concentrate long enough on contemporary reality to reconstruct a whole conversation from his own past in his head: the one he and Sophie had had when breaking up.

“Look, I don’t want to lose you, Sophs,” he remembered saying. “Whatever it is I’m doing wrong, I can change.”

“That’s the problem, Harry,” she’d told him. “You have changed. You used to be a right laugh. You’ve got so bloody serious.”

“That’s such bullshit, Sophs. People aren’t always a laugh! Not when you get to know them.”

“There’s no point arguing, Harry.” She’d been right of course. “I just don’t love you anymore. It’s like you’re a different guy.”

Harry had never accepted her flimsy reasons for the break up and for months he’d harboured a secret suspicion that she’d been sleeping with another guy on the side. But then he’d kept in close contact with a mutual friend or two after he’d relocated and, apparently, Sophie had stayed single for record time after their relationship died.

Maybe she had been right after all. In the final months before moving to Bristol, Harry had been avoiding his friends and shunning parties. He’d gone off sex around that time too, and he’d started eating badly.

Maybe his personality had begun to alter even then, and Sophie, being closest to him, had been the first to notice.

He was shattered when he finally reached the flat; it was all he could do to strip off and tuck himself under his unwashed duvet.

As he lay there with his eyes closed, sleep beginning to crawl up over his brain, he thought again of the woman and her eternal attendant, encased as they had been in that Mount Gilboa cave, packed in on all sides with natron salt.

In the liminal space between waking and sleeping, Harry even felt her naked body by his side. He imagined her as she’d been found: her throat ornamented with faience beads of Philistine design, together with several necklaces of gold and lapis lazuli wrought into the shapes of local birds, wild goats and pomegranates.

Inside his head her sapphire eyes burned with a cooling fire.

* * *

This time the dream was a nightmare.

Sophie was with him on the winners’ podium. The studio lights burned down on them like a dozen white suns and, behind the lights, in the darkness of the studio, Harry could sense hundreds of weird-shaped bodies rocking backwards and forwards tensely as they watched the show.

He blinked and took in the sight of Mr. Cairns in full black tie holding a microphone in one hand, and a stack of question cards in the other. His thickly applied gameshow host makeup made him look like some kind of stringless marionette, and Harry was sure that that perpetual Bella Lugosi smile had been painted on as well.

“I was worshipped in Arvad,” Cairns read from the questions, “where my cult may have remained until its final dissolution in the second century BCE. Who am I?”

Sophie and Harry made eye-contact. Harry didn’t know how to respond, and Sophie had taken his dazed expression as a sign that he didn’t know the answer.

“Can we buy a vowel please, Mr. Cairns?” Sophie asked excitedly.

“Of course you can, Sophie!”

The weird audience, out there in the darkness, slapped their flipperish hands together.

Cairns gestured towards the massive Wheel Of Fortune-style board that had just appeared behind them and the five blanks that concealed the word.

The fourth letter fluttered like the wings of a moth revealing the first clue:

_ _ _ O _

The audience cheered again.

Cairns smiled wider and continued:

“My true character as known to the Phoenicians has been lost with the disappearance of key cultic texts.”

“Buy a consonant!” Sophie shouted, not even bothering to confer.

Harry caught sight of one of the spectators in one of the nearest rows. Its yawping face didn’t seem human but more pinnipedal, like a whiskered seal. It was pounding the black paddles of its flipper-arms together in a frenzy of animal delight.

A blank in the board flipped round again and the word became clearer:

_ _ G O _

“I was known to the Philistines,” Cairns’ red-dotted eyes gleamed, “who may have further diluted my image by conflating me with other deities which they imported from the Aegean.”

“Buy a consonant!”

The honking seals rocked their heads back and forward and, on Sophie’s request, the first letter in the puzzle was revealed.

D _ G O _

Harry blinked. Suddenly he knew the answer.

“Dagon,” he said.

“Sorry, Harry?” Cairns cupped the question papers round his ear theatrically. “We didn’t quite catch that. Who am I, Harry?”

“Dagon!” Harry replied as clearly as he could. “You’re Dagon!”

The seals hunkered closer. Wet flippers slapped on wet flippers.

Cairns’ powdered face twitched with delight. He threw away the question cards and raised his arms.

“What do we have for them, Larry?!” He shouted.

Suddenly there was a whirring of bells and whistles as the mechanised blanks rolled away to form that ancient divine name.

The single word “D A G O N” flashed gaudily on the board.

The host’s face continued to twitch, and Harry watched as Cairns’ puppet-like jaw opened to a horrific extent, as a soft profusion of black, ringleted hair began to sprout from his chin and upper lip.

As the beard grew from his face so did Cairns himself grow, and a tall Mesopotamian headdress of plain and patterned bands began extending out from the top of his skull. To his horror Harry was sure that the lower half of that gargantuan, writhing body was no longer human but something more akin to the contorting pinnipeds that were now closing in on them from all conceivable angles.

Harry turned in the dream, looking to Sophie for comfort and support.

But he felt his breath catch in his throat, and the seals yawped all the louder when he found it wasn’t Sophie next to him any more, but the woman—the mummified woman from the Metropolitan—her arms parted in praise as the cancerous, twisting shadow of the god gyred above them.

* * *

When next he woke it was to the first genuine feeling of unease that the mummies had inspired in him.

He had a sense that such dreams had been a frequent occurrence over the last five months, though this was the first one that he had vividly remembered afterwards. This weird inversion of night and day that his working hours brought about was playing unaccountable tricks with Harry’s mind, and it was becoming almost impossible to tell fantasy from reality.

The fear that now accompanied his new obsession became worse as, again, he found himself online, searching through a hundred sources, deeper than before, discovering new and unnerving facts about the strange series of events that had followed the mummies like flies follow stench.

After being excavated, he read, the Metro Mummies had been kept on the campus of Tel Aviv University, together with a wealth of Philistine archaeology that was issuing from the Tel Qasile site during the period of their discovery in 1972.

By 1979, though, the cultural authorities in Israel had auctioned off the mummies to the highest bidder, and the Metropolitan in Bristol had topped out at £15.6 million.

The first strange event occurred when the mummies had only just arrived on British soil. They’d been flown in from Ben Gurion and had arrived at Lulsgate without incident. That was, until one of the baggage handlers unloading the craft went wild and tried to prize open a crate with his bare hands. Under restraint, he later insisted that something was alive in the consignment and that he’d heard a woman’s voice from inside.

Due to protocol airport security were compelled to crowbar open the lid, and it struck everyone as somehow outlandish that, even though the handler had had no knowledge of the box’s contents, it did indeed hold the remains of a woman.

That particular employee was later discharged and placed on mental disability. It would later turn out that the voice he’d heard had been his mother’s and, he being due for retirement at that time, his mother had been dead for more than a decade.

The motif of spectral voices continued for nearly a decade.

In November 1986, for instance, and carrying on into late December, a night guard at the Metropolitan by the name of Sam Bevis swore he could hear a transistor radio playing in one of the gallery rooms during his shifts. He later identified the source of the sounds as the display case where the Palestinian mummies had been housed.

Harry had stopped reading at that, and taken a cigarette to steady his nerves.

In his mind’s eye he could still see that whiplashing shape of Dagon in the dream. He could see himself kneeling on wet stone. He could hear the witch chanting in the frantic strains of a lost Philistine language, which Harry, somehow, could understand perfectly. That, and all around him, like a chorus of fat toads, he could still hear the voices of the recently dead.

Harry blew smoke into the room and thought about Sam Bevis, the guard who’d held his own post—on nightshift at the Metro—some thirty years ago. He remembered the article in detail. How Bevis had come to identify some of the voices he’d heard on that phantom night radio as being the voices of well known personalities.

It had been taken as a joke by the media of the time, especially when Bevis had insisted that the most notable voices he’d heard had been those of Cary Grant, Rudy Vallée and former prime minister Harold Macmillan.

It was later frightening for Harry to realise that every personality Bevis had been able to pick out from the din had died in the November or December of that same year.

According to the few scant sources that Harry could find, Bevis had resigned in the New Year of 1987 and taken up his old position as watchman at the docks. There he is reported to have told colleagues about the weird blue light that had accompanied those dead celebrity voices and how, one time, he swore, he’d entered the room with the mummies just in time to see that aquatic luminesce fading back into the wineskin at the female mummy’s hip.

Harry crushed out his cigarette without looking. He couldn’t blink or breathe. Things hadn’t ended well for Bevis. He’d been found later that year drowned between the wharf and the hull of a container boat. Suicide was assumed.

And now Harry—he knew it now—was seeing and hearing the same things. He thought of his image caught every night in the glass of the security monitors. He thought of himself standing and staring up at the priestess— the witch— and the hunched gollum of her degraded acolyte.

He too—he remembered now—had seen the blue lights trafficking in and out of that dark and empty museum room.

He’d watched the woman’s sapphires flash, and he knew that, as she had in the ancient world, she could see the bodies of the dead crowding around them.

She could see them; Harry could hear what they were saying.

Like voices transmitted through radio waves Harry could hear the communications of the centuries like a dull chanting in his brain, and the clearest sounds, the strongest frequencies, were the pleas of the youngest souls, so recently deprived of light, as they were, and lost in all that darkness.

He saw himself again in his own mind’s eye: standing there, listening to all the disembodied petitioners who had come seeking the fertile life energy of Dagon, and who assembled round his priestess like a flutter of moths around a blue flame.

Flame, Harry thought. Yes. Flame.

He saw her unaccountably unblemished face, fierce and feminine as a lioness, framed in all that gold and precious stone.

The woman with the wineskin. The witch from Mount Gilboa.

He saw her orbs of sapphire flashing with images of the long and not long dead. He saw the blue flame dancing in her blue eyes.

Flame. Yes, flame!

Suddenly it was entirely clear to him.

Suddenly he was sure of what he had to do.

* * *

Sophie’s friends had only convinced her to travel to Bristol a decade after the incident.

Since his friends and family back in London had heard about what happened to Harry that night in the museum, his ex girlfriend had become increasingly hung up on the details of his suicide. There was guilt involved, given that she’d apparently been his last serious relationship, and everyone she spoke to would repeatedly prompt her to finally find out what happened and so put the issue to bed.

She’d found Mr. Cairns, upwards of seventy by now, in a little semi-detached in Henieaze, north of the city. It was summer and he was out in his front garden tending to the weeds round a stand of delphiniums when she came to the gate and asked for him.

She’d told him that she’d read in the few articles she could find on the Bristol Metropolitan fire that he was Harry’s supervisor at the time, and that she’d found his address through directory inquiries.

“You’ll have to forgive the clutter,” Cairns had said as he showed Sophie into his front room.

He placed his gardening shears on the coffee table and cleared the blankets from the sofa so that there was room to sit.

“I sleep down here these nights,” he explained. “Had a stroke three years ago and the stairs’ve become a bugger.”

Cairns gestured at the sofa and Sophie took a seat. Cairns sat too, and looked at her with an expression she could hardly place. It was either annoyance or something deeper, like trepidation.

“I was never right after that night,” the old man said, “after Paterson—eh—after Harry put himself off.”

“Did he say anything to you,” Sophie asked, “about why he did it?”

Cairns shook his head.

“Not in so many words, but really I should’ve known. There was something in his face that night that said he was set on something drastic. He hadn’t brought a book—which he usually did—and he was helluva cagey about the rucksack he’d left in the employees’ lounge. Police said later that that must’ve been where he was keeping the petrol.”

Sophie’s teeth went on edge. It was almost too much to handle. The thought of a man she’d been intimate with—whom she’d loved in her own way—pouring flammable liquid over his head and body and setting himself alight in that dark and lonely basement room!

“The museum’s still recovering, so I’m told,” Cairns said. “There were forty million in damages that night, and some of the most famous artefacts in the southwest were destroyed. I left my position after that. Some things happened that were just too strange.”

“What things?” Sophie seized on her opportunity to ask.

Cairns looked at her.

“Listen, Miss,” he said, “I don’t want to tell you too much. The story isn’t pretty and you might think I’m just some old geezer exaggerating for attention.”

“Please,” Sophie pressed him. “I need to know.”

“Alright then,” Cairns sat up on the sofa, lessening the space between them. “What year was Harry born in?”

Sophie frowned at the question but answered it anyway.

“1987,” she said.

“Yeah,” Cairns nodded. “Now, there was another guard at the Metropolitan who drowned himself down at Bristol Harbour in the same year, 1987. His name was Sam Bevis and he left the night guard position only about six months before I started there. He killed himself on the third of May.”

Sophie looked startled.

“That was Harry’s birthday,” she gasped.

Cairns nodded in such a way that Sophie was sure the old man had known all along.

“And that ain’t all,” he said. “I know enough to bet that old Bevis and our Harry had more in common than just the dates.”

Sophie shook her head, incredulous.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Cairns. I don’t understand.”

Cairns held up one raddled finger and rose unsteadily from his seat. He crossed the room and left it, leaving Sophie, a perfect stranger from out of town, sat in his front room alone for ten minutes or so.

She listened to the old man from where she sat, as he hunted through drawers in the hallway and lavatory both, before reemerging with a battered brown jiffy bag in one hand.

He took his seat again and immediately started to explain:

“The security tape from that night shows that Harry had applied the petrol to only two places: His own body and the space around the display which held two sets of Middle Eastern remains...”

Cairns went into the jiffy and retrieved a photograph. He placed it on the coffee table between them.

Sophie looked down at the image: a coloured press shot of two mummified corpses, one bent and hunched as though praying and utterly deformed by time, and the other, obviously female, looking in some respects as though she’d been interred yesterday.

“He tried to destroy them,” Cairns explained, “them and himself. But look at them—just look—”

He slapped his hand down on the photograph.

“These pictures were taken after the fire— Harry’s body was almost entirely consumed—but look at them—they both survived without a scratch, and her as fresh as a daisy, as handsome now as she was when they dug her up!”

Sophie couldn’t think what to say.

“It was only after Harry did what he did that I started to remember the old stories Bevis told before jumping off the docks. He’d been obsessed with them bloody mummies too. For months I couldn’t put the picture together in my head until the strangest thing happened. Then I just couldn’t take it anymore. I left the museum, came here to Henieaze and I’ve been here ever since...”

The old man fished in the jiffy bag and produced a second photograph which he held, almost secretively, to his thin chest.

“In September that year,” he said, “six months after the fire, a team of forensic archaeologists began a project with the Metro. They studied the second mummy—the male one—and they took measurements of what’s left of the face, and fed them into a computer program designed to reconstruct what he looked like.”

Cairns took the photograph away from his chest, and offered it into Sophie’s hands.

For a few moments her eyes wouldn’t allow her to see what was painfully obvious in the staring representation of that three-thousand year-old face.

When the penny dropped, her eyes widened and she looked up at Cairns as though unable to believe.

“Yeah,” Cairns smiled and nodded, “and I’ll bet you a penny to a pound, a photograph of old Sam Bevis doesn’t look any different, either.”

SacRificial Version

Jeremy Thompson

1

The Sisters

On the television screen, a woman jogs upon a treadmill, sweating, her carefully arranged bun disintegrating into a mass of frizz. This is no ordinary treadmill, mind you, but a custom job with thick metal walls forming a rough cubicle around the flushed female.

The woman fills most of the screen, her prominent breasts bouncing as she exercises. She would be beautiful, if her face wasn’t contorted into an expression of soul-smashing terror.

As the camera pans up, I witness a baby dangling just above the woman, held aloft by a cackling goon in a purple overcoat and a psychedelically patterned top hat.

The obvious villain of the piece—looking like a cross between Dick Dastardly and the Colin Baker iteration of Doctor Who—drops the baby into its mother’s hands as the camera shoots back a considerable distance. Now I can see that the treadmill is positioned at the edge of a cliff. Apparently unable to jog and clutch her newborn at the same time, the woman launches off the edge of the vertical rock formation, screaming as she and her spawn plummet to their deaths. Their gory demises reveal the program’s budget limitations, as the sound of the cackling villain transitions into a commercial break.

“The Diabolical Designs of Professor Pandora will continue after a word from our sponsors,” a ghoulish voice over intones.

I switch off the television. The other inhabitants of my lodge will be back soon, and they frown on anything broadcast outside of the Sundance and IFC film channels. The ways in which they express their displeasure are varied, but never fail to disturb and confuse me. Over the years since my absorption into the collective, I have been pelted with human feces, held down and tickled with an eagle feather for hours at a time, forced to submit to a pickle juice enema, and even been required to spend a night inside their Founder’s Lodge, wherein rest dozens of dead hippies. And that was for the smallest infractions, such as leaving a toilet seat up or neglecting a day’s milking duties.

* * *

Our rural community encompasses nearly 3,000 acres, with barns and single-story clapboard lodges interspersed around crop fields and milking sheds. Cattle graze behind barbed wire fences. Chickens cluck indignantly within rickety hen house walls. Chores rotate among our community’s members, with only the sisters being exempt from participating.

The sisters. Just the thought of them makes my blood pressure rise. There are currently fourteen of them, but that is liable to change at any moment. Of the three roles that our commune permits women to inhabit, the sisterhood is the most prestigious, and their custom-designed lodge is the finest around.

To signify membership in the sisterhood, each woman bisects her hair into long pigtails, which she connects to the pigtails of two other sisters, one on each side of her, creating an extended line of femininity.

In their lodge they dwell, wiling the days away in thirty parallel bathtubs. The sisterhood has yet to rise above a membership of twenty, but we prefer advance preparation in our commune. They also maintain thirty parallel toilets, with no stalls to divide them. So close have the sisterhood grown that their bathroom breaks are fully synchronized.

The sisters are mostly unrelated, and encompass a smorgasbord of races and generations. A female enters the sisterhood on the day they become a woman, and leave it only upon birthing a child. The mothers are in charge of child rearing, housekeeping and meal preparation, but the sisters are devoted solely to the pursuit of passion.

Us men rotate in and out of the sisterhood’s orbit. Each evening, one man is permitted entry into their lodge, wherein he will spend the night on their colossal mattress, moving from female to female until his every muscle burns with exhaustion, and his every fluid has been spent. He will have to wait until all the other community men have had a turn with the sisters before he gets his next at bat. With over fifty virile males in our group, the wait can be quite brutal at times, let me tell ya.

Prior to entering the sisterhood, our community’s females are referred to as daughters. Daughters live a carefree existence—skipping through the fields, playing with the young lads after the boys have finished their chores. Until they are called upon for that most sacred duty, they live in ignorance of the sisterhood.

Some women of the sisterhood never bear children, and thus remain sisters well past senility, raisins in a line of peaches. Women have died on the line, some in the throes of passion. Upon this occurrence, their braids are unwoven and the link contracts.

When a woman enters the sisterhood, they give up their name. Should they reach motherhood, they are allowed to choose a new name, as majestic as they please.

Now our community isn’t perfect; I’ll be the first to admit it. Many of our children bear the telltale signs of incest: thick brows, jug ears, and deformities of the face and limb. But we are happy, or at least that’s what they tell me.

2

The Door in the Floor

I share my lodge with three men, a boy, two mothers and a daughter. The men are Raul, Kenneth and Mitch, while the boy is named Ariel. The two mothers are Eileen and Starshine, and the daughter is called Lament. Ariel appears an average boy, but one of Lament’s eyes is fused shut under the mass of spiraling growths that envelop much of her head. Lament cannot speak, but is quite adept at communicating pleasure or displeasure through the inflection of her variegated hoots.

Lament will never be inducted into the sisterhood, but will instead be sent to Lodge Cherubic when she’s older. All of the permanent sons and daughters are sent to live there once they reach a certain age, and the lodge is padlocked for the safety of our community. The locks don’t protect our ears, however, and the sounds drifting from that mad edifice are enough to sour one’s dreams.

At this moment in time, my roommates are with others from our community, filming scenes for yet another chunk of experimental cinema. These unintelligible flicks are cobbled together inside Editing Lodge, wherein a number of so-called “visionaries” are free to follow their muses. When completed, they are projected onto the side of our largest barn during our Film Celebration Nights. Even the sisters come out for these, feigning interest in a series of random images and abstract close-ups.

* * *

I study my feet, clad in well-worn moccasins, and then at the floor upon which they rest. Before my eyes, deep grooves form in the hardwood, birthing a rectangle. A knob rises from within it, and I find myself gawking at a door in the floor. This door should appear incongruous, but it is as if it has always been there, and my eyes have only just brought it into focus.

Now this isn’t my first door in the floor, mind you. I passed that milestone nearly two decades ago, while attending a chemically enhanced rave inside a haunted slaughterhouse, long abandoned. To those who have learned to see them, the doors appear at counterculture communities all over the world.

With the door’s arrival, I know that my time at this particular commune is drawing to a close. Soon, no more than a couple of weeks from now, I will turn the knob and descend the concrete steps then revealed. As always, I will enter an underground nightclub, populated by some of the strangest characters this side of science fiction. When next I ascend the stairs, I will exit into a new set of circumstances.

The door will then disappear behind me, until the time arises to pass into another community. In the past, I’ve dwelled amongst opium-addicted mimes, transgender midgets, and perverts of all shapes and stripes. I’ve consumed human flesh, and even worked in a zoo with no animals, its menagerie composed entirely of morbidly obese albinos. You never know where the door will send you, but it is impossible to resist its siren call for long.

* * *

Mitch enters the room now, followed by Starshine. Spotting the door in the floor, Starshine attempts to open it. The knob doesn’t turn. It’s not her door, after all.

“I remember the last time that door appeared,” Mitch remarks, thin lips twitching under a black handlebar mustache. “Eileen and I were snuggling on the couch, and suddenly you ascended into our living room. How long ago was that, anyway? Three years?”

I nod, although it has been closer to four.

“I guess you’ll be moving on now,” Mitch says.

“Soon enough,” I promise. “I’ll never forget you guys, though.”

A singular tear slides down Starshine’s cheek, and she moves forward to embrace me. In her bright yellow sundress, she is gorgeous, and something shifts in my nether region as her breasts press against me. But mothers are denied the physical act of love in our community, and so I gently pull away.

3

My First Time

Knowing that my time at this particular commune is growing shorter, I find myself beset by nostalgia, revisiting days gone by. I’d only been seventeen on the occasion of my first visit to the nameless club, which I can feel pulsing underfoot even now.

My body was a shimmering wave of Ecstasy-induced sensations, as I clung tightly to a petite blonde named Esther, a frock-wearing pixie of indeterminate age. Weaving our way through a crowd of pleasure seekers, my newfound acquaintance dropped her Day-Glo Slinky onto the ground. Her freckle-face contracted in annoyance.

Always the gentleman, I crouched to retrieve the toy, and observed a doorknob arising from the slaughterhouse’s rusted metal grate. Before my eyes, the grate formed into a door, with a dull white light emanating from around its edges.

“Are you seeing this?” I asked Esther. She nodded assent, but her eyes seemed too unfocused to comprehend the event’s import. The other ravers appeared to take no notice of the door, yet still managed to avoid treading upon it. They danced under black light halos, their teeth shining like radioactive Chiclets.

Hesitating only for a moment, I turned the knob and yanked the grate door open. When confronted by a flight of concrete steps, my natural curiosity got the best of me.

Grabbing Esther’s hand, I pulled her in after me. She giggled uncontrollably, her discarded Slinky already forgotten.

Halfway down the stairs, the door closed behind us, and then it seemed that there was no door at all. Still we traveled forward; still destiny’s wheel revolved.

Leaving the steps, we treaded upon checkerboard tiles, traversing a long dim corridor. At the end of the passageway stood a second door, constructed from reddish wood veneer. Kissing Esther’s cheek, I ushered her beyond this point of ingress.

* * *

Inside was a nightclub, its walls blue metal laminate. Chrome mirror tiles adorned the ceiling and floor, and the air reeked of sweat and bad perfume. A curving bar, its top polished onyx, snaked around the room’s far end. To the right of us, a DJ spun records atop a raised platform.

The music was strange, a hodgepodge of genres and instrumentation jumbled discordantly. One second I’d hear trance, the next black metal. Light jazz segued into throat singing, which became gangsta rap. It was as if an FM radio had become possessed, and my brain clenched under the onslaught. Then something shifted in my mind, and I found myself reacting positively toward the sonic assault. Spastically, I danced my way across the floor, adrift within the wildest crowd I’d ever seen. Shedding Esther like old dandruff, I waded through the flesh tide.

There were people with animal parts grafted to their beings: rhinoceros horns, shark fins and kangaroo pouches. One wrinkled old bondage queen proudly displayed a pig’s tail sprouting from the center of her forehead. There were drag queens, hippies and hipsters dancing alongside gang bangers, voodoo practitioners and nudists. Some of the dancers foamed at the mouth; some bore the signs of self-mutilation.

Sweating profusely, I approached the bar. Strangely enough, there was a toilet mounted upon its surface, into which a woman in a princess outfit was urinating. Its drain led behind the bar, and I leaned forward to see that it emptied into a child’s swimming pool. Within the pool reclined an obese man wearing swim trunks and bright yellow arm floaties, lazily performing a simulation of the backstroke.

The bartender stumbled over, to regard me inquisitively with eyes like curdled milk. A large swarthy man with sewn-together lips, he pointed at me and shrugged his shoulders, silently inquiring as to my drink preference.

“Can I get a Heineken?” I asked.

Shrugging his shoulders, he continued to stare. It was as if he’d never heard of the beverage.

“House special,” I tried, withering under his obstinate gaze.

Finally, he lurched away, ambling toward the under lit bottle display, which showcased strangely colored beverages inside impractical containers. Pulling a star-shaped flagon from the rack, he upended it into a glass. After the bartender handed the glass to me, I attempted to pass him a twenty. The man spared this but the briefest of glances, before moving along to help another of the club’s patrons, a wheelbarrow-bound quadriplegic being pushed by a grizzly bear.

“First drink’s on them, I guess,” I said to myself.

Peering into the glass, I beheld the strangest of drinks. It was like radioactive fuchsia churning within an aubergine lake. Lifting it to my nose, I inhaled. It was like smelling a memory, like sun rays swallowed by the sky. The Ecstasy high was ebbing, and I felt engulfed by unfamiliar sensations. It seemed that I’d grown an invisible skin, which was pulling me apart from opposite ends. So thinking, I placed the glass to my lips.

The concoction entered my body as a vapor, setting my neurons afire. Exhaling, I felt a coolness pour out from within me, a cold front swirling out from my esophagus. Riding curlicue gravity waves, I fell into a bar stool.

My vision returned to the dance floor, revealing Esther in the grips of a leather daddy. The man had pulled aside his rhinestone-encrusted eye patch, and she was licking whip cream from his vacant eye socket.

After this last bit of perversion, I felt like I’d seen enough. And so I pushed my way through the dance floor, past depraved, bizarre patrons, slaves to the ever-shifting music. Reaching Esther, I gently tried to pull her away from her newfound paramour, but she batted my hand aside.

Leaving the club, I ascended cold concrete steps, feeling more sober than I’d ever been, as if sobriety itself was a new kind of high. Reaching the top of the stairs, I realized that the door had changed.

What had once been grate was now stretched epidermis, human skin bearing an assortment of tribal tattoos and pockmarks. The knob was an infant’s skull, which pulsed under my hand as I twisted. Pushing the door open, I emerged.

The slaughterhouse was gone, as were its patrons. The door disappeared the instant that it slammed shut, blending into the hard-packed dirt. I found myself within a large circus tent. The canvas was yellow, marred with ugly brown splotches. Surrounding me were a number of individuals, all wearing white grease paint, red lipstick and bright neon wigs. Overalls and plastic shoes were their chosen attire.

Some juggled, others pranced maniacally before empty stands, but most were gathered around a fire pit, ravenously devouring their supper. There were children, adults and senior citizens present, all colorfully attired, enjoying their repast. Moving closer, I saw that they’d roasted a small child on a spit. Much of the meat had been carved from his body, but his charcoal face still stared accusingly.

A hefty clown with a bright blue soul patch drifted over, and pushed a piece of roast prepubescent into my hands. Noticing the stranger in their midst, his compatriots surrounded me. Obviously, these deviant jesters were testing me, and I shuddered to speculate upon the consequences of failure.

Reluctantly, I placed the meat into my mouth and began chewing. Thus began my six-month stretch as a member of The Circus of Cannibal Clowns.

4

A Man to Lead Them

I am in Dining Lodge now, seated at a long oak table alongside much of our family. Only the sisters and the occupants of Lodge Cherubic are absent, having received their meals in advance.

The table fills the entire structure, which consists of a single room adorned with one massive chandelier. It hangs over my head like a guillotine’s blade, both generating and reflecting light within the folds of its many facets.

Wooden bowls filled with food sit within arm’s reach. There are fresh-cooked biscuits, steaks, ears of corn and lamb chops, along with a vast variety of salads. Yet no one eats, or even glances at the food for more than a moment. Our leader has yet to arrive.

Tension builds; conversation slowly evaporates. All eyes turn to the paneled door, so that when our leader finally arrives, a great exhalation passes from our lungs. He seems to glide rather than walk, a seven-foot-tall behemoth wearing only a knit wool tunic. Prognostrum is the name of the man before us, smiling through a face like a stone slab. He grips a short red leash, which trails to the collar of his pet hog-nosed skunk.

The skunk is trained to recognize each of our community’s residents, and will quickly drench an interloper with its noxious spray. On my first day at the commune, I myself caught a blast.

Freed from its leash, the skunk climbs from a chair to the tabletop. It begins digging into the nearest salad, searching for insects with its long heavy claws, but we pretend not to notice. We know how Prognostrum feels about his pet.

Prognostrum begins speaking, his booming voice impossible to ignore. “We are gathered here to celebrate love. Love brought us this bounty. Love binds us together in the face of infinite uncertain futures. With love I sit amongst you, if only to see my love reflected in your many faces.”

What an asshole, I think to myself, but everyone else is eating it up. They hang on the giant’s every word, completely enraptured. It’s as if Jim Morrison has come back from the dead and is handing out hundred dollar bills.

Almost every community that I’ve joined has included a leader like Prognostrum, some self-important blowhard smitten with the sound of their own voice. They aren’t usually so tall, though. Settling into the chair immediately to my left, the man gives me one of his horrible lantern-jawed smiles. Somehow, I manage to grin back.

Then we are eating. There is no talking permitted in Prognostrum’s presence unless he specifically addresses you, and so our soundtrack is the sloppy wet sounds of communal masticating. Even the children remain silent, although some of them require spoon-feeding. The last child who’d spoken out in Prognostrum’s presence had been castrated and sent forevermore to Lodge Cherubic.

Silently, we pass the wooden bowls around the table, until everyone is reclining in their seats, with engorged stomachs protruding before them. After another tedious speech extolling the many virtues of love, we are allowed to file out of Dining Lodge one by one, kissing our leader’s palm as we pass into the night. Only the mothers remain now, hours of cleaning ahead of them.

5

Into the Lake

It is morning now, and I am alone. Sitting in the air-conditioned cab of our community’s John Deere tractor, I guide the large green vehicle across acres of cornfield. A chisel plough drags behind the tractor, aerating soil that still bears the residue of last season’s crops. Soon, new maize plants shall sprout from this fertile field, but I will not be here to see them. Even now, the door calls to me, its silent scream louder than the tractor’s comforting drone. I can feel it now, like a discarded body part broadcasting sensations to its erstwhile home.

Were I to flee the commune, the door would follow me to my next place of residence, sprouting from the floor like a rectangular tumor. It’s happened before, years ago, and ignoring the subterranean point of ingress will eventually cause me great physical discomfort, as if my skin has grown a couple of sizes too small.

Every time I lift that ever-shifting entrance up, I half expect to glimpse a giant inhuman oculus regarding me, a glittering orb belonging to the intelligence behind my travails. But it’s always the same concrete steps, leading to the same strange nightclub. Some of the club’s patrons know my name now, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

* * *

I park the tractor within its open-sided shed, an eyesore constructed of splintering two-by-fours and a standing seam steel roof. I am sweating and smell like onions soaked in gasoline at this point, and so I travel to the lake just past our property’s northern edge.

Beyond the lake lies the forest, wherein our steady supply of venison is carved from still-breathing deers. Prognostrum claims that their fear and agony adds to the meat’s flavor, and I am hard-pressed to disagree. Still, it is tough to bear the animals’ plaintive wheezing and mournful looks as they bleed out.

Stepping onto the pebble-strewn shoreline, I see that I’m not alone. It’s just my luck that Lodge Cherubic’s occupants, a gallery of deformities and contaminated bloodlines, happen to be taking their bimonthly bath in the opaque water. They splash madly, some bearing cleft palates, some supported on crude wooden crutches. I see people constructed of little more than bones intermingling with folks bearing the signs of Prognostrum’s judgments. There are dwarves and conjoined triplets washing themselves alongside albinos and half people. Some sing, some scream, some furtively observe my approach. Stern-faced mothers line the lake’s amoeba-like perimeter, using cattle prods to usher stragglers into the water.

I enter fully clothed, wading until the water is up to my chest. I then submerge, and the plunge is instant therapy for my aching limbs. My bathing partners close upon me now, smiling through ruined faces, blinking glittering eyes devoid of sanity. Throwing my arms wide, I await their embrace.

6

Going Away

I am on the couch again, with Lament crouched beside me, flicking my forehead over and over. Her ruined face smiles, causing a line of drool to spill down her chin. Finding the girl pleasant company, I am saddened to think that she will soon pass into Lodge Cherubic’s mad confines. The TV is on, and I find my focus entering its idiot glow.

The screen displays an impending surgery, what appears to be an appendectomy. A surgeon peers at an unconscious patient, We’re Roy Street Coffee & Tea! protruding stomach has already been draped and prepared for some procedure. The surgeon is a study in green: a green gown over green scrubs, even a green hairnet. His gloves and mask are white, though. His protective goggles reflect LED lighting, masking his eyes. Underlings buzz about the man, similarly attired, but his posture and authoritative gesticulations make it clear that he’s in charge.

The camera angle shifts, and I witness a close-up of abdominal wall layers being pulled back. It is unsettling, to say the least. Then the camera pans up to the surgeon.

The man’s hairnet is hidden under a psychedelic top hat now, and a familiar purple overcoat envelops his gown. It turns out that the surgeon had been Professor Pandora all along!

Now the man’s assistants are setting buckets near the surgical bed, metal containers with snakes churning within them. I see asps, vipers and garter snakes twining around cobras, rattlesnakes and black mambas, an ever-evolving mosaic of multicolored scales.

One by one, Professor Pandora begins feeding serpents into the open abdomen. The patient, an overweight man with a wart-ravaged countenance, wakes up screaming. Having seen enough, I switch the television off.

Minutes later, there is a knock at the door. Before I can rise from the sofa, Prognostrum is stepping into the lodge, bending to make it under the lintel. Lament rushes to the man, and is swept up into a loose embrace. When Prognostrum’s skunk shuffles into the room, I find myself growing tense.

Time stretches before us as I wait for our leader to speak. Finally, he sets Lament down, and stretches one long forefinger toward the door in the floor.

“I understand that you will be leaving us soon,” he says.

“That’s right, sir. The door beckons, and another society awaits me.”

He scratches his immaculately shaved chin thoughtfully, his eyelids descending to the point where sleep seems imminent. “Well, I speak for the entire community when I say that we’ll be sorry to see you go. I can only hope that you carry forward the lessons that you’ve learned here, and that you share them with your new family.”

What lessons? I think to myself. Nodding humbly, I reply, “Of course I will. I will share your love with the world, and everywhere I go I shall preach the gospel of Prognostrum.” That ought to satisfy this egotistical prick.

The skunk is sniffing at my feet now, and I wonder if I’ve laid it on too thick. It wouldn’t do to make our leader feel patronized.

Collecting his pet, the giant exits the lodge. “Perhaps you’ll find your way back here someday,” he says in parting.

Minutes later, from their shared bedroom, I hear the amalgamated moans of Raul and Kenneth. That’s my cue to leave, and so I follow Prognostrum into the glaring sunlight. I have work to do, anyway.

It is hard to leave the door’s immediate proximity, and our increasing distance burns a hole into my spirit. Only one thing keeps me in the commune now: my date with the sisters, which will take place in just two days.

Today, however, I will be playing the role of farmhand. Technically, I should have gone to work at six A.M. with the rest of the men, but my impending departure has rendered me lazy.

Reluctantly, I make my way through the wheat fields, collecting grain left by the harvesters. Two other men, Ashram Mitchell and Michael Clark, join me in my gleaning duties, and we make desultory conversation as the afternoon crosses into evening.

* * *

As we prepare to knock off for the day, a mother rushes up with face aglow. Melissa Phelps, a wide-hipped woman in the throes of menopause, grabs my arm, smiling broadly. Her odd visage exhibits too much character; it’s as if the woman’s facial structure includes a dozen extra bones.

“We’re having a party for you tonight,” she coos. “A going away party. No one ever leaves the community, so this is pretty darn exciting for us.”

“A party?” Ashram asks indignantly. “Did you clear it with Prognostrum?”

“Of course we did. It took a little convincing, but our leader is well aware of the role that celebrations play in fostering a communal spirit.”

I am somewhat shocked. While I’d been accepted into their group after a few tense months, I’d never considered that Prognostrum’s flock might actually mourn my departure. In previous communities, my partings had been met with everything from indifference to death threats. Once, I’d even had to fight off a Vaseline-coated great-grandmother to reach the doorway. But no one has ever thrown me a party.

I tell Melissa how honored I am, and she mentions that we’ll be gathering in the forest in a couple of hours, in the eerie clearing that lies at the heart of the woods. Then she skips off, her shredded hoopskirt flapping around her.

“I’ll catch you guys later,” I tell Michael and Ashram. They nod back at me.

After a quick stop at my soon-to-be ex-lodge, I make my way over to the lake. This time the waters are unoccupied, and I leisurely bathe under an indifferent sun.

Scrubbing myself with homemade soap, I notice a steady stream of people entering and exiting the woods. Some carry tables and chairs; others haul burlap sacks stuffed with unidentifiable contents. They are obviously setting up for my party, and their thoughtfulness humbles me. In fact, it makes me wish that I could fight the door’s influence and remain at the commune for another few years.

* * *

Standing in the clearing, I find myself hemmed in by alder and ash trees. There are plants everywhere: reeds, ferns, moss and weeds. A stream languidly flows beside me, and everywhere that I gaze, I see smiling faces.

Somehow, a flatbed trailer has been wheeled into the clearing. Before a collection of hand-carved chairs, it stands as a makeshift stage, with a stretch of carpet extending across its surface. The seats are quickly filling, as some kind of presentation looms imminent.

Around the clearing’s perimeter, a variety of culinary delicacies are exhibited upon unstable teak tables. Seeing large bowls of fried chicken, mutton, salad, peas and mashed potatoes set out, I fill my plate accordingly. Claiming a chair, I begin to dig in.

Plopping into the seat beside me, Starshine spears me with a beatific smile. Ariel, the nervous twelve-year-old boy who shares our lodge, grabs the seat on my opposite side, his plate a mountain of potato. With his dark hair and serious expression, Ariel sticks out from the rest of our community like a sore thumb. When he grows older, he’ll inevitably do something to piss off Prognostrum, and end up mutilated in Lodge Cherubic, but for now he has perfected the art of staying out of sight. Frankly, I’m surprised to see him at the gathering.

Mothers navigate through the chair aisles, handing out cups of sharp dark cider. I sip mine gratefully, dislodging a stray piece of sheep flesh from my throat.

When Prognostrum takes the stage, conversation withers. “Tonight is a desolate one, brethren,” he declares, “yet the occasion is also exultant. A member of our clan is departing, yet our principles will travel forth with him. We have provided our brother with world-changing tools, which he’ll soon apply to his next set of circumstances. So let us celebrate departing family. Let us celebrate ourselves. I love you all!”

This statement is met with uninhibited cheering, and Prognostrum bows before his many admirers. Tonight, he wears a laurel wreath, a Caesar-like crown that shades his sunken eyes. As he steps off the stage, his long golden robe trails behind him, the tail end of which his skunk rushes forward to gnaw.

What follows resembles a middle school talent show. It commences with two of Lodge Cherubic’s more docile inhabitants taking the stage to perform the most bizarre version of “Who’s on First?” that I’ve ever witnessed. When the bit devolves into a cross between dry humping and jujitsu, the two mutants are dragged off the platform and the show goes on.

Due to the door in the floor’s warped machinations, I once spent the better part of a summer living with a gang of web developers. Their key source of income had been a website devoted to corpse upskirts, a graphic showcase that managed to pull in nearly a million hits per week. With no exaggeration, I can say that half of the acts I now bear witness to disturb me more than that pack of basement dwellers ever had.

I see a child spitting baby teeth into another’s mouth, and then a mother juggling her son’s prostheses while yodeling in what sounds like Klingon. I see two decrepit old men participate in a three-round boxing tournament, barbwire wrapped tight around their palsied hands. I’ve known these people for over a third of a decade, yet their so-called talents still surprise and terrify me.

The exhibition trends normal for a while, as I witness an act from Macbeth followed by an acoustic rendition of “Free Bird.” And then Mark Henderson’s cat juggling attempt turns tragic, and the man ends up facedown in a pool of his own plasma.

While they drag Mark off the stage and mop his blood from the carpet, a hot air balloon flies above us, a rainbow-colored craft piloted by three naked mothers. Of its point of origin and final destination, I am entirely unaware, but I find myself yearning to be inside that flimsy wicker basket, viewing our surroundings with cloud companions.

When the sisters take the stage, I nearly spit out my mouthful of taters. Even without makeup, they are more radiant than I’ve ever seen them, and that’s saying a lot.

n satin gowns they stand before us, fourteen females connected by lengthy ropes of hair, soaking in our anticipation, smiling vaguely. As we gaze upon their gorgeousness, all conversation dies, until only the chirping tree crickets and the babbling stream are audible.

Accompanied by no music, the sisters begin to move. What begins as a simple line dance segues into a slow ballet. The sisters twirl about each other, entangling into a contracting circle, and then masterfully spin back to starting position. How they manage this delicate choreography without ending up as a knotted mess, I have no clue. I assume that this seemingly effortless series of steps is the result of months of practice, but I’ve rarely seen the sisters outside of their lodge.

After several minutes of intricate movement, the sisters bow before us, signaling an end to their silent dance. The subsequent standing ovation lasts longer than their act did, and I find myself frantically whistling, smacking my palms together again and again.

No one could possibly top that, I decide.

When Prognostrum takes the stage with Swedish bagpipes in hand moments later—I cringe. From past experience, I know that the giant’s clumsy melody will be as well-received as the sisters’ performance had been, although I suspect that a four-year-old could do better after a week’s worth of lessons.

Our leader begins playing, his recessed eyes closed in concentration. As his pursed lips exhale breath, a soft unfocused strain pours from the instrument.

Over the course of the hour-long recital, I finish my chicken and lamb. With no napkin proximate, I wipe grease onto my pant legs, my foot impatiently tapping the soil.

Suddenly, the piping ceases. The ground is rumbling now, shuddering as if Mother Earth is endeavoring to buck us from her surface. Gripping the arms of my chair, I grit my teeth, hearing exclamations from those assembled.

Prognostrum raises his arms to reassure us, only to voice an inarticulate yelp as the flatbed trailer disappears into the earth. Our makeshift stage has fallen into a freshly formed chasm, and with it our leader.

“Prognostrum!” the crowd cries en masse.

When the shaking dies down some minutes later, we form along the edges of the crevice, silently peering into an immeasurable abyss. Of the missing trailer and leader, nothing can be glimpsed. All around me, I see shock-slackened faces. One vacant-eyed fellow repeats “no, no, no, no” ad nauseam.

“What will we do now?” Eileen moans, reflexively tearing gray hairs from her skull. “Who will lead us?” Her eyes turn toward mine for one horrible moment, but I can only shake my head negative. The door awaits me, after all. Soon, I shall shed this community like old snakeskin.

From within the rift, strange sounds begin drifting, like what a fish might utter, were it permitted to scream. Now we see animals ascending, expertly gouging handholds as they climb.

The creatures belong to an undiscovered genus, some underground species unfamiliar to the scientific community. They resemble a cross between a boar and a gorilla, with broad chests, stiff-bristled fur, and massive protruding tusks resting under sagittal crests. Lengthy, slim tails wag behind them, spastically swinging back and forth.

The beasts climb swifter than one would believe possible. They are crawling from the mouth of the chasm before the majority of us can even react. Knuckle-walking, these monsters advance upon us, eyes blood red above dripping cylindrical snouts.

“Get the sisters out of here!” shouts someone, possibly Mitch. But I cannot move; the grim spectacle has turned my legs into stone.

Prognostrum’s pet skunk is the first to fall before the boarillas. It disappears between one creature’s tusks, its leash slurped up like a spaghetti noodle. A flash of blood and fur, and then it’s following its master into oblivion.

I see Raul slapped to the ground by a particularly nasty boarilla, a slavering monstrosity with biceps larger than my head. As Kenneth struggles to free the man, another boarilla appears beside him. Soon, the two are screaming loud enough to wake a narcoleptic, being bludgeoned to death by their own torn off limbs.

A terrified hooting assaults my eardrums. Turning, I see Lament being surrounded by lumbering beasts. Tears stream from her singular oculus; her unfortunate countenance has gone mayonnaise-white. Finally, I am roused from my stupor. Lament’s fate stands foremost in my mind.

I grab two bowls off the food tables, the others having been overturned during the tremors, and rush off in Lament’s direction. The girl is spinning in circles, again and again, with unfriendly boarillas meeting her on all sides. Without time to spare, I blanket her proximity with peas and chicken.

As the boars set upon our leftovers—sucking their repast from the dirt, slurping sickly—I dart into their midst and pull Lament to my chest. She pats my cheek, a silent benediction, as we flee to the edge of the forest. There, I meet Starshine, who attempts to comfort a shivering Ariel. The boy rocks back and forth on his toes, staring groundward. For a moment I consider joining him. Instead, I hand Lament over to Starshine.

“Get them back to the lodge and barricade the door,” I tell her. “Don’t open it for anyone who doesn’t speak English.”

I kiss her before she departs—an act forbidden within our community—and watch as the trio disappears amidst alder and ash. Then a boarilla is upon me. During our struggle, I somehow manage to bash its skull in with a rock.

My eyes rove the clearing, which has become a scene of damnation. Clutching a jagged chair leg in each hand, Michael Clark stands upon a pile of dead boarillas, but most in the community fare far worse. I see bodies reduced to bone shards, flesh ribbons hanging from tree branches, and various members of Lodge Cherubic siding with the boarillas. Whooping and hollering like rowdy football fans, these deformed unfortunates gleefully consume human flesh.

A boarilla runs by with Eileen’s head raised triumphantly. Her spinal cord dangles beneath it. Passing me, her bleeding eyes stare reproachfully.

I see one barbwire-boxer flaying flesh from a monster, the geriatric gentleman heroically throwing jabs and hooks amidst pure pandemonium. I see Mitch zigzagging across the clearing, dodging boarillas and Lodge Cherubic denizens alike.

But the creatures continue emerging from the crevice, an unending cavalcade of brutish monstrosities. Soon, our celebration’s survivors will be entirely overwhelmed. I’d like to join in the bizarre brawl, but my strong sense of self-preservation suggests that an observer’s role better suits me.

A rope hangs from the crotch of a proximate ash tree, a giant specimen nearly three stories tall. I rush over to it and kick my way up the trunk, climbing until I find a branch stout enough to hold me. I can only hope that no passing boarilla spots my vantage point, as the creatures have already proven themselves master climbers.

Granted a bird’s-eye view of the clearing, I see humans and boarillas butchered in combat, and Lodge Cherubic denizens realize that the creatures aren’t on their side after all, as ragged tusks shred them to pulp. Seeing his sibling’s head ripped from their shoulders by a ten-foot-tall boarilla, a conjoined twin angles their body to drink spouting blood. Eventually, the poor fellow topples over, and is consumed by a swarm of monsters.

Hearing the drawn-out drone of a didgeridoo, I can’t help but shiver. The residents of Lodge Unknown have arrived, pouring from the trees in robes made of scaled skin, peeled from no creature that I’ve ever seen or heard of.

During my time at the commune, I’ve glimpsed just one Lodge Unknown dweller, a shifty-eyed fellow I observed in clandestine conference with Prognostrum. It’s said that they live in an underground lodge beyond our property’s perimeter, but no one seems to know its location.

Forming a rough ring around the clearing, the Unknownians chant in a bizarre multi-syllabic language entirely devoid of vowels. The chanting bores into my eardrums, making nails across a chalkboard seem tame by comparison.

Noticing wetness on my cheeks, I wipe it away. My fingers come back red. Apparently, I’m crying tears of blood. And still the didgeridoo sounds; still the hellish chanting continues.

The tide of boarillas begins to reverse. Hands clasped over their ears, the creatures rush back into the fissure. Some club each other to the ground in their haste, soil-stomping their comrades with black cloven hooves. They too weep blood, as do all the humans remaining in the clearing. Only the chanters remain unaffected.

After the last boarilla has disappeared into the earth, the chanters form around the fracture and join hands. With no preamble, these hooded individuals begin vomiting up their own intestines. Long sausage-like coils eject from between their lips, and they collapse forward into the chasm. A single Unknownian remains, clutching an ancient tome bound in the same material as his robe.

From within the folds of his garment, the man withdraws an ivory dagger, and runs it across his palm. In the silence of the clearing, he drips life force into the crevice. I see his lips moving, but cannot make out what he utters.

Whatever he articulates causes the ground to resume trembling. Wiping blood from my eyes, I watch the fissure begin closing. Inexorably, layers of strata grind back together, until the soil has reclaimed its previous appearance. Still, dozens of mangled bodies fill the clearing, both human and otherwise.

After the one remaining Unknownian has vanished amidst the trees, I finally descend from my perch. Painted with drying blood, survivors mill about the clearing, I move to join their throng. Some mourn absent limbs; some seek signs of life in apparent cadavers. Mashed into the soil, mangled neighbors moan through shredded mouths. It’s hard to believe that things could have gone so wrong so quickly.

I locate Mitch amidst the carnage. Winding our way homeward, we return to a barricaded lodge. It takes much convincing to persuade Starshine to let us in. After finally relenting, she envelops us in fierce embraces, crying tears of relief.

Sending Ariel and Lament to bed, Starshine demands that we explain the evening’s events. This we attempt, but our words hardly lend clarity to the situation. At last, our colloquy trickles into insignificance. Night carries us into morning.

With Kenneth, Raul and Eileen gone, the lodge feels practically empty. Their vacant beds serve as cruel reminders of their flyblown remains. And with my departure, the household will shrink down to four, what could almost be labeled a nuclear family.

7

Recruitment Drive

At the group funeral the next morning, we dine on roast boarilla, ingesting the flesh of our enemies while putting our loved ones to rest. The meat is undercooked and gristly, but the act’s symbolism is lost on few mourners. The majority of us wear the previous night’s attire, now shredded and bloodstained.

The cemetery lies on our property’s southwestern edge, parallel dirt mounds nestled amongst weeds and hyacinths. Now, there are nearly fifty open graves awaiting occupants, fifty lonely orifices waiting to be filled. And with the thought of open orifices, my mind returns to the sisters. The ladies had escaped the massacre entirely unscathed, and tomorrow night I will enter their lodge for the final time. They float angelically across my thoughtscape, eternally dancing in seductive spirals. It helps to take the edge off my grief.

Positioned alongside their final resting places, my dead roommates appear far from restful. Raul and Kenneth are just piles of disconnected limbs now, and nobody could locate the rest of Eileen’s body. Viewed together, her head and spine resemble a nightmarish seahorse, but at least somebody closed her eyes.
On this bitter morning, many of the menfolk are absent. With Prognostrum gone, a new Prognostrum must be named, and over the next couple of weeks, they’ll determine who will bear that title. Traditionally, gladiatorial combat would be used to select the community’s new leader, but with last night’s bloodshed, the idea seems obscene. Instead, the new Prognostrum will be whoever identifies the largest number of potential recruits.

With only a limited number of bloodlines circulating amongst our neighbors, it is sometimes necessary for our little group to hold recruitment drives. These are typically held every half-decade or so, in cities all across the United States.

Once on the commune, new recruits are eased into communal life by some of our friendlier mothers. Quickly, they learn that there is no communication with the outside world: no phone or Internet access, not even a mailbox. The commune is so remote that one could expire before walking into another population center. Their only choice is to adapt or die.

Some fail to adapt. They attack their neighbors, spend weeks moaning and crying, or pretend to be fine with their new situation, only to cut throats in the dead of night. Those individuals are here now, resting under dirt mounds—which brings me back to the mass funeral, only just beginning.

Our community’s funerary rites are bizarre. As a chorus of daughters hums a funeral dirge in unison, we file one by one through the rows of cadavers. At each fresh corpse, we bend down and kiss their cold lips, now stiff with rigor mortis. For those whose lips were a casualty of the boarillas, we simply lean over and kiss the spots where their lips should be, the pulp heaped upon gleaming jawbones. In this way, we send them to the afterlife upon wings of love, or at least that’s what I’ve been told.

As I make my way through the corpse trails, lips reddening with half-congealed human jelly, I pass a few individuals missing heads. Unable to kiss them goodbye, I settle for vigorous handshakes. In one case, I settle for a foot shake. And then, mercifully, we are done. Coffinless, our erstwhile neighbors are pushed into the earth, to be stripped down to skeletons by ravenous worms.

Stomach protruding with partially digested boarilla meat, I return to my lodge. All chores have been called off today, a tribute to the departed, and a long nap sounds just about right.

8

The Last Day

This will be my last day at the community. Tonight, I will visit the sisters, to revel in their soft embraces for one final time, before passing through the floor door into a new situation. A weird mixture of melancholy and elation suffuses me, as I wonder what strangeness awaits.

Studying the oaken floor door, I notice that it has grown. It takes up nearly the entire living room now, seemingly too heavy to lift. I see it when I close my eyes; the entryway chases me into my dreams. It calls in silent whispers, cajoles with muted promises.

My housemates are still asleep, and I watch the television without bothering to switch it on. It seems that every time that I do now, The Diabolical Designs of Professor Pandora beams directly into my retinas, and I can’t bear another sight of that ghoulish countenance. Eventually, the tedium grows overwhelming, and I venture from the lodge to visit one of the milking sheds.

Stepping into the building, the smell of bovine feces hits me like a brick to the face. Shit buckets line the opposite wall, all full to overflowing. Soon, the manure will be composted into fertilizer, but for now its sole purpose is to kill my appetite.

Moving to an aluminum picnic table, I pull latex gloves over my hands. I then grab two clean buckets, and fill one of them with lukewarm hose water. With a cow brush shoved into my back pocket, I bypass the feed bins, heading directly to Matilda’s stall.

Of all the cows in the commune, Matilda is easily the largest. Weighing nearly 2,500 pounds, she has the body mass of a good-sized bull, and positively dwarfs her cattle peers. Dozens of teats line her massive udder, and the old gal has been known to bite tentative milkers.

Placing the buckets on the floor, I snatch a leather strip from the edge of the stall, and use it to tie Matilda’s back legs together. Pulling up a splintery stool, I begin to clean her, brushing warm water through her thick Rorschach blot hair. When this is finished, I wash the lady’s udder with the remaining water, and dry it with a paper towel.

With these preliminaries accomplished, I push the dry bucket underneath her udder, and grab Matilda’s nearest teat. With my index finger and thumb, I pinch the top of the teat and tug it downward. Gently, I squeeze milk from the animal, moving from teat to teat like a free jazz musician. By the time that her udder is depleted, I’ve filled a number of buckets with Matilda’s thick fluid. Patting the cow’s head, I exit the stall, avoiding her indignant gaze.

Other bovines await my tender touch, but first I must lug Matilda’s harvest over to the milk cooling tank. It sloshes in the bucket as I slowly trudge forward.

* * *

With the day’s milking under my belt, I bathe and return to my lodge. As I don fresh attire, random articles snatched from an unkempt closet, I imagine that I can see the door in the floor through the wall. But it is nearly time for my date with the sisters, and I’ll be damned before forfeiting one last collective embrace.

With our new Prognostrum still unnamed, Dining Lodge remains vacant. A proper dinner cannot commence without our leader’s benediction, a custom that the community has always adhered to. So instead, my housemates and I have a picnic behind our lodge.

Ariel, Mitch, Starshine and Lament join me upon an expansive blanket, and we distribute sandwiches from a black woven basket. Chewing cold chicken, lettuce and tomatoes, Lament hoots contentedly, and we’d be remiss not to follow her example. With a jug of fresh milk to wash down our repast, listening to the song of the cicadas, we watch the sky darken and sprout constellations.

Belying the previous night’s tragedy, we keep our talk pleasant, drawing shy little Ariel into the conversation whenever possible. No mention is made of our missing roommates; no one speaks of my imminent departure. As time drifts away from us, stolen by a furtive breeze, I can’t help but notice Starshine and Mitch gently rubbing against one another, flirting strictly through bodily contact. It seems that romance is in the air, a development that can only lead to doom for the couple. But that lies somewhere in the future, and there is no need to dwell on it now.

Basking in the love of my housemates, I let our last picnic linger on for as long as I’m able. But my date night arrives, and I can no more ignore it than I could chew off my own nose.

Standing, we silently regard each other over the remnants of our meal. I plant a kiss upon Lament’s forehead, a pat upon Ariel’s back. Starshine receives a lengthy hug, and Mitch a firm handshake. After taking a mental snapshot of my family, I leave them behind. I will never forget this quartet; I’ll never forget my time at the commune. But I can’t stay here any longer.

* * *

Beset with trepidation, I approach the sisters’ lodge. As I walk, recollections of past visits swirl up from my subconscious, flickering images of lust and spectacle. These memories are infused with unreality, like half-remembered dreams rather than concrete experiences.

The lodge has two rooms, both quite expansive—a bedroom and a bathroom, nothing more. The sisters rarely leave the place. Mothers bring them meals twice daily, scrub the floor and bathroom, and provide fresh linens for their massive bed. And when I say massive, I mean massive. The bed, a yards-wide mattress resting upon wooden slats, takes up nearly the entire room. It is so wide that children could play soccer atop the pad.

Entering the lodge, I find it candlelit. Ringing the room’s perimeter, giant red candles are arranged in an oval. By their dim illumination, I can just make out the sisters, fourteen fragile organisms pouring forward to greet me.

Circumventing the bed, they sway leftward, then rightward. Naked, they approach me, with oiled skin and eyes gleaming. They carry a fragrance, like apple blossoms at dawn. Every countenance radiates serenity.

Pressing upon me, the sisters remove my clothing with expert precision. As they caress my exposed epidermis, my abdomen begins to tingle.

Gently, the ladies herd me toward their bed. No one speaks; within such surroundings, oral communication seems blasphemous. Woven rugs hang from the walls, depicting beatific individuals in various states of ascension.

Pushed into the bed’s center, I find myself drowning within soft green sheets. Placing a small golden pillow beneath my head, I observe the sisters forming a circle around me, maneuvering until each kneels shoulder to shoulder with her confreres. Braiding together their two unconnected pigtails, they close the loop.

Staring up at the sisters, my excitement manifests. Young and old, thick and slender, they smile sunnily under a hair ouroboros. They crawl upon me, a mosaic of soft skin and tender lips, breasts and friendly orifices. In their sexual choreography, the sisters rotate about my body, to the point where every inch of my skin tingles in an ever-flowing carnal tide. I am in them and they are in me. We are all connected at this moment in time, writhing and moaning, sweat pouring from glands.

Thrusting and screaming, I desperately attempt to satiate the sisters’ lustful appetites. One orgasm follows another, until at last my muscles give out entirely. No longer can I keep my eyes open; no longer can my body generate fluid. I wonder if I’ll even be able to walk later. Within a sprawl of limbs and faces, I let sleep overcome me. But even in this blissful unconsciousness, the door calls to me.

9

Goodbye

I awaken in darkness, momentarily unsure of my surroundings. Yards of wet-sheeted mattress remind me of the setting: the sisters’ lodge. Aside from my own trembling form, the bed is empty. Assuming that the sisters have retreated into their bathroom, I stand with joints creaking.

Moving from window to window, I open the blinds. Diffused moonlight illuminates depleted candles and my discarded attire, still resting where it had fallen. Dressing quickly, I find myself aching with every movement.

Pulling my shirt over my head, I notice that it is wet. Licking my forefinger, I taste salty blood.

Eyes adjusting to the dimness, I become aware of a blood stream, winding from the foot of the bed to the sisters’ bathroom. Against one clapboard wall, a rusted axe rests, also dripping plasma.

I follow the stream into the bathroom, entering a realm of hyperventilation and continuous sobbing. The sisters huddle against the far wall: fourteen frightened faces, only two of which remain tethered to torsos.

The sisters on each end of the pigtail chain still breathe. Between them, a dozen heads dangle, weeping blood from tattered necks. As I move forward to comfort them, the two survivors scream and begin pleading for mercy. Never having heard the sisters speak before, I find their elegiac whines disconcerting. Revolving on my heels, I bid them adieu.

By the lodge’s entrance, I discover a familiar overcoat, carefully folded beneath an intricately patterned top hat. Donning these garments, I find them perfected tailored to my proportions.

Moving into dawn’s prelude, I whisper my farewells to the community, voicing goodbyes for the crops, the animals, the fields, and the graves. Naming every slumbering neighbor, and all those deceased, I stride from lodge to lodge, tapping each as I pass. Finally, I give in to the irresistible tugging of an invisible cord.

The door in the floor summons me, and to it I return.

The Man Who Left No Footprints in The Snow

Matt Tveter

The sun was behind the blinds when Barb woke. She pushed the covers off, slid her legs over the side of the bed, and patted about for slippers. She put her eyeglasses on, steadied herself against the mattress, hands balled into fists, then pushed herself off into a standing position.

It was late. Barb struggled into a pale blue terrycloth robe. She glanced at the unoccupied space on the other side of the bed, sighed deeply, and left the bedroom.

Her knees had begun to loosen, but her hands were still stiff as she began to prepare breakfast. They shook as the coffee pot grew heavy with water, but the pain subsided quickly and she was able to maneuver a filter and a few scoops of grounds into place with little trouble. She filled another pot with water and set it on the stove to boil, then walked to her window and pulled open the blinds.

The mid-morning brightness hit Barb full in the face. Drifts of snow sparkled under a bright and cloudless sky. It smothered parked cars and completely buried the street. Her heart sank for a moment, but her spirit grew stronger as she contemplated the beauty of the scene. It was a clear and beautiful morning, and it looked like the entire neighborhood had stayed inside to enjoy it. Not a single footprint disturbed the snow that blanketed the pathways leading from each house or the sidewalks connecting them.

Barb turned back to the stove and noticed the pot about to boil. She opened the refrigerator, plucked an egg from a Styrofoam carton and gently dropped it into the hot water.

She turned back to her window and watched crisp snowflakes glitter as they blew through the air. She squinted at the thermometer Ted had installed years before. Fourteen degrees below zero. No wonder everyone was still inside. The egg timer went off.

Steam billowed in her face as she scooped the soft-boiled egg from the now roiling pot. She carefully balanced it on her spoon and transferred it to an egg cup next to a mug of coffee. Her granddaughter had enjoyed eating from the same cup last time she’d visited. Barb smiled at the memory as she tapped the shell with the back of her spoon. It cracked just as a there was a knock on the door.

Barb paused, then turned back to her breakfast. She picked at a piece of cracked shell, exposing the glistening, half-congealed egg beneath. The knocking returned. Barb sighed. She put her spoon down, walked to the door, and peered through the peephole.

The man stood a respectful distance from her door. He wore a bushy mustache and aviator sunglasses that reflected the ice and snow. An overcoat covered him down to the knees. It looked synthetic, light and silvery blue. Earflaps of a darker blue hat, made from similar material, were tied under his chin. He was smiling. Barb relaxed.

She gripped the cold doorknob and opened the door. The man smiled at her. “Hello, Barbara. Glad to see you’re home safe,” he said, voice muffled by the screen door. The man held an ID card, shimmering with holograms, out towards Barb.

“I’m here on behalf of a neighborhood organization. We’re not very well known, but please understand that your interests and those of your neighbors are of paramount importance to us.” The man’s lips pursed. “I’m here to help.”

Cold wind bit through Barb’s robe and snowflakes peppered her as she opened the screen door. It was stopped short by the heavy snow piled up against it. Barb reached through the gap, took the man’s card and brought it close her face. She wasn’t wearing the right glasses, so could not read the hieroglyphs imprinted on the glossy silver card. It felt like it was made of polished metal, though Barb didn’t think that holograms could be imprinted on metal. Maybe it just seemed like metal because it was so cold.

Barb went to give it back, but when their fingers touched the card was fumbled into the snow, where it somehow disappeared. Embarrassed, she knelt, plunging her hand into the deep snow after it. The man pulled on the screen door. Snow crunched and the door opened slightly wider, allowing Barb more room to root after the card. Her hand grew numb and she yanked it back, then began to massage it, spasming with a deep shiver as she did. Wind continued to blow through the door. Barb’s eyes fixated on a pine tree across the street. Its branches sagged under the snow. “Maybe you ought to just come inside,” she said, backing away from the door.

“Normally I wouldn’t, at least not so soon. It sure is cold, though,” the man chuckled. He stepped by her into the living room and she closed the door.

Barb felt immediately warmer. The man took off his hat and gloves and put them in his pocket. He left his sunglasses on. “I have plenty of cards, don’t worry about that one.” He smiled again. His hair was cut short and combed back in a slick but casual way. His voice dropped and his face grew serious. “I am really happy to see that you’re safe. Things are getting dangerous out there. And I don’t just mean the cold.” The man took a deep breath and folded his hands. “Have you… seen any of your neighbors recently?”

Barb frowned. She hadn’t been getting out much. “No, I haven’t, but that’s not unusual. It is winter, after all.”

The man nodded. “That’s because they’re not here. They’ve left.”

Barb scoffed. “No they haven’t. Where would they go?”

The man scoffed. “Well, somewhere safe of course. Safer than here, anyway. Do you have a phone?”

“Of course I have a phone.”

“Have you gotten any calls lately?”

Barb shook her head.

“Have you tried calling anyone?”

She walked to her phone, picked the handset off of the cradle and brought it to her ear. There was no ringtone. “How long has it been like that?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

Barb shook her head again, and replaced the handset.

She looked past the man and out the window. A branch of the pine tree she’d noticed earlier rested heavily on a power line. There was no one outside shoveling, no signs of life behind the blinds pulled tight at every window, and still no footprints in the snow.

“They would tell me,” Barb whispered to herself, softly. “They would tell me,” she said to the man, louder and more confident.

The man shook his head. “They didn’t have the chance,” he said. “You only get one chance, Barbara. And this is yours.” He smiled. “I won’t be able to return, and I’m afraid you’ll be left all alone.”

I’m already alone, Barb thought to herself. “Where did they go?”

“Somewhere safe. Believe me, I know this all seems pretty strange. But time is of the essence. Can I show you something, Barbara? Something right here in your house. Something that’s been here all along.”

Barb’s shoulders sagged. She tried to remember the last time someone had visited, but all her recent memories were of waiting, and watching the snow fall.

“Barbara? Can I show you?” The man opened his palms, and smiled again.

She nodded.

“Right this way.” The man walked past Barb into the kitchen. She sighed and glanced at the egg she’d cracked open minutes before. The man paused before the basement door, looking for a light switch. He looked at Barb and raised his eyebrows. She nodded towards the switch. He grinned, flipped the switch, and headed down the stairs.

The air was colder in the basement. Barb didn’t go down there much anymore. She was relieved to see that nothing had changed. Faux wood siding still lined the wall. The carpet was soft and white. The television was still in the corner, facing the couch. Melancholy gripped her as she looked around the room. She recalled evenings spent with Ted curled on that couch, watching the television turned up loud to drown out the purring of a space heater.

The man was acting strangely. He’d pressed his ear against the wall, and was now creeping along slowly, running his hands over the siding as he went. Suddenly, he froze. He tapped the wall with a closed fist, listening. The man’s face grew serious. He rocked back from the wall, then snapped forward with his fist, punching a hole in the siding in the precise spot where his ear had been a moment before. Barn flinched, but said nothing. He punched at the edges of the hole to widen it, then took a flashlight from his pocket and shined it into the hole. The light flashed over a black metal pipe about eight inches in diameter, glistening with moisture. The man smiled and turned to Barb. “Found it,” he said.

She did not reply.

The man took a step back from the wall, then lashed out with a powerful kick that splintered the siding beneath the hole. He continued to kick at the siding until the capped end of the black metal pipe was exposed. She could see about four feet of the pipe now, extending straight downwards.

The man brushed aside some of the debris from the siding, stepped forward and began to caress the pipe. His breathing deepened. “I found it, Barbara. We’re all set now. Nothing to worry about, we’ll be done shortly.” He turned to look at her and smiled. His face was friendly, but Barb was afraid.

She noticed that his sunglasses still seemed to reflect the snow and ice covering the world outside.

The man turned back to the pipe, gripped the cap in his hands, and attempted to loosen it. His strain was obvious, but he never wavered. After a few moments the cap began to groan; then, all at once, the hold gave way and it began to turn.

Barb’s breath began to quicken as the man loosened the cap. When he finally pulled it off, a glut of brown water splashed out and onto the carpet. A stench filled the air. “I should have warned you.” The man looked embarrassed. “That sometimes happens, but it doesn’t mean anything’s wrong. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“My carpet,” Barb croaked, belatedly. “What about that?”

“We’ll clean it, don’t worry. You don’t need to worry about that at all.” The man got on one knee in front of the pipe and reached up into it. His arm had gone in up to his elbow when he grabbed hold of something. He pulled down, grunting, until it began to emerge slowly from the pipe. Barb’s stomach grew queasy at the sight.

It plopped out of the pipe and unfurled in a mess of plasma and slime. The man felt about, located one end and held it out towards Barb. It looked dead. That is to say, it looked as though it had once been living. It was about five feet long and three feet wide, the color and texture of raw chicken skin, and coated with a gelatinous goo. Like thick, slimy chicken skin fashioned into a sac. Strange tendrils hung from the opening of the sac. Barb could not tell if they were moving of their own volition or because the man’s hands were trembling.

“One of the best I’ve ever seen.” The man’s voice quivered with emotion. “You’re very lucky, Barbara. Very lucky. This is going to treat you well.”

“What is it?” Barb was numb with fear.

“It’s your ship. Your protector. Your ferry. This is what’s going to get you where you’re going.”

“Where am I going?”

“Somewhere safe. You’re going to the same place as everyone else. They’re waiting for you there.”

“Everyone?” Barb stared into the man’s face, attempting to peer behind his sunglasses.

He stepped forward and lowered his voice. “Everyone you love, Barbara. Everyone you care about.”

Barb stared into the man’s sunglasses. It looked as though they reflected rivulets of mercury, swirling in strange patterns. “Okay,” she said.

The man stepped back away from Barb. He laid the sac carefully on the floor, away from the brown sludge that had spilled from the pipe. “Now this fits very tightly. Something beyond ‘tight,’ to be honest with you. So, I recommend that you remove as much clothing as you are comfortable with.”

Barb fingered the tie of her terry cloth robe, then pulled it tight and stepped out of her slippers.

“Well, I suppose that’s better than nothing. Please lie down on the floor.”

She did. The man took the opening of the sac and brushed the slimy tendrils along Barb’s toes. They slithered about them, grabbed hold, and pulled the sack forward about an inch. Barb felt her toes being compressed as they disappeared into the sac. The tendrils crept up her foot, tightened, then pulled the sac forward another inch.

The man backed away from Barb and stood against the wall. “It’s going wonderfully, Barbara. Just be patient.” The sensation of the sac creeping up her body was not pleasant, but it was not painful. Barb wondered where she was going. A jolt of fear went through her body when the sac crept up over her hands, pinning them to her sides. The man seemed to relax at that moment. “You really are doing well, Barbara. Take a look.”

Barb rose as best she could and looked down. The lower half of her body had been compressed into the precise shape of the metal pipe they’d found behind her wall. She gasped. “You’re putting me in the pipe?”

The man chuckled. “It’s more than just a pipe. It’s a passageway, a gateway, a door that will open to reveal everyone you love.”

Barb thought of those she loved. It no longer felt as though the pipe-sac was creeping up her body; instead, it felt as though the tendrils were gripping and pulling her down into it. She almost panicked as the tendrils tickled her neck. Her eyes flew about the room and landed on the man. “How will I breathe?” she asked, blinking.

“Take a deep breath,” he replied, smiling. “You’re almost there.”

The Lake House

Joseph Rubas

There was something about the house by the lake, something indefinite, something unnamable. Standing in the front yard that first day, cold wind washing over him, Jim Conner struggled to put a finger on it, but couldn’t. It was shabby, a two story Cape Cod wedged between a barren hillside and the craggy shore. The paint was peeling, the roof needed work, and the windows were dark and dirty.

Nevertheless, he wanted it.

“You don’t wanna see the inside?” the old man asked. He was leaning against the front end of his pick-up truck, a red trucker hat with a white mesh back pulled low on his forehead.

“I don’t think I have to,” Jim said.

The old man shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Now, sitting in the Jeep and studying the gloomy façade through the rain-sluiced windshield, Jim sighed and settled on energy. There was an energy here; it seemed to radiate from the house in waves. It’s the moon and I am the tide, he thought, and snickered. Where did that come from?

Regardless, it was an accurate description. He felt drawn to the house, felt it in his bones and in his blood. He couldn’t explain it, but...that’s how it was.

Shaking his head, Jim got out of the Jeep and hurried through the cold rain. Under the covered porch, the wind chimes tinkling from a hook in the ceiling, Jim took the keys from his jacket pocket and opened the front door. Ahead, a staircase led up to the second floor. To his right, a small, rustic living room opened up, its crowning centerpiece a stone hearth. The couch, he saw, was tan and threadbare; the rocking chair by the window was stationary and coated in dust. A record player sat near it, and beyond that was a bookshelf crammed with titles.

The air was damp and musky. The old man said no one had been out here for nearly ten years. He had, he said, but only for short periods of time, to clean, make repairs, and “all that.”

Past the living room, a tiny kitchen flanked the western wall. Light streamed in through the window over the sink, murky and dirty like day old dishwater.

Home, sweet home, Jim thought, shutting the door behind him.

Home… at least for the next six months, at least until the book was done and the memories of Connie weren’t so strong. Out here, in the wilds of Vermont, he was safe; but back in Boston, where every restaurant and street corner reminded him of his Connie...

Jim cut the thought off and shrugged out of his jacket. The place had central heating, the old man said, but where was the thermostat?

Searching, Jim found it in the kitchen, just to the left of the threshold, by the cellar door. He set it to seventy-two, and it kicked on, groaning and shuddering like a dying dragon. A strange and unpleasant odor filled the house.

It hasn’t been on in a while.

Through the window, a small patch of lumpy ground gave way to the forest. To the left, he could just see the muddy shoreline disappearing into the woods.

The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was terribly dated: black and white checked tiles; seventies or eights model fridge; table with metal legs; floral wallpaper. The back door, its little window covered with a near translucent curtain, led out to the lake. There was a pier, but no boat. That was okay, though. It was mid-November; too late for watersports.

Jim looked right. Somewhere over the hill was a cemetery. A private, three person affair. The old man’s parents and his sister.

My daddy built this place with his bare hands in 1956, the old man said, lived here until the day he died. Said he never wanted to leave.

It was a nice place. Maybe he’d never want to leave, either.

The rain had let up a little bit, so Jim dashed back out to the Jeep and grabbed a couple of his bags. He sat them by the front door and went out for the others. By the time the rain had picked back up again, all of his luggage was inside and he could start busying himself putting things together.

Upstairs, a short hall offered three different doors. One was the master bedroom, one was a bathroom, and the other was barren and washed in dusky light. The master bedroom was wood-floored, the walls mounted with prize deer heads and fish bodies, and the bed, a king, was made neatly, the top cover wool with a striped red and blue pattern. The old man said he washed all the sheets just before Jim came back up. Jim was glad for that. He already had too much crap as it was: When he first came up with the idea of getting away from the city for a while, he planned on taking one bag and one bag only; truly rough it, huh? But that didn’t happen. Not that it ever did. Modern society reminded him of a Lay’s commercial: Bet’cha can’t eat just one. Well, bet’cha can’t pack just one. You have your clothes, your laptop, your soaps, and sprays, and a thousand other things you don’t need. Creature comforts, they called them. Creature comforts aren’t a bad thing, but they sure are a pain in the ass.

Jim sat one of the bags on the bed and opened it. His clothes. A dresser sat in the corner between the bed and the window. He tossed his socks and underwear into the top drawer, his shirts into the second, and his pants into the third. Next came his toiletries. Body wash. Shampoo. Conditioner. Deodorant. Toothpaste. Toothbrush. Mouthwash. Geez. Might as well open a pharmacy.

Back downstairs, Jim grabbed his laptop and took it into the kitchen. There was a power outlet by the table. He unzipped the bag, plugged his charger in, and then plugged the charger into the computer itself.

He checked his email (nothing) and logged onto Facebook. Sixteen friend requests, three messages, and five notifications. Jim moaned. Start a Facebook page, his publisher said, it’ll help you connect with fans, they said. Except, Jim didn’t want to connect with his fans, goddamn it.

Jim closed the laptop and sighed. He had better things to do.

In a pantry closet, he found the cleaning supplies, just as the old man said he would, and started with the kitchen, because why not? By the time he finished in the upstairs bathroom, two hours had passed and it was starting to get dark. In the living room, he threw a couple pre-cut logs into the fireplace and watched as the flames came to life. In a space under the record player, he found a cache of oldies. The Beatles. Tommy James. Frank Sinatra. One record stood out; the very last. HEADHUNTER it said over a picture of a metal skull with crossbones KROKUS.

Hey, dad, I’m gonna put my cool metal album next to all your square shit. Is that okay?

Sure, son, just don’t forget it’s there. One bad apple...

Jim slid the record out of its sleeve and put it on the turntable. Hissing. Popping. Loud, riff heavy rock music. It wasn’t half bad.

In the kitchen, Jim took a glass from one of the cabinets and a bottle of Canadian Mist whiskey from the fridge. As always, he failed to stop himself from looking over his shoulders, as if someone would appear from the ether and take his booze away. When they didn’t come, he poured it into the glass and returned to the living room.

* * *

Jim started awake sometime in the night, his chest heaving and his breath coming in short, quick gasps.

Nightmare, just a nightmare.

Sitting on the couch, Jim caught his breath and steadied his racing heart. The fire had burned down to embers and the record player was off.

With legs unsteady, Jim got up and went into the kitchen. The Canadian Mist was on the kitchen table, half empty. He unscrewed the cap and tipped the bottle back. It was slimy and piss warm.

Jim screwed the cap back on and started into the living room, but a crash beyond the cellar door stopped him.

For a long moment, he stood where he was, his heart pounding inexplicably. It came again, a hard, metallic sound. The central heating system.

Damn it.

Jim went to the door and laid his hand on the knob.

It turned in his hand.

Gasping, Jim jumped back. The door swung open...

...and nothing came out.

Heart rate in overdrive, Jim went to the door and switched on the light. A rickety stairway led to a dirt floor. Everything else was out of sight.

“Hello?” Jim called.

No reply.

To be sure, he checked. The basement was empty. The guts of the heating system occupied one corner, its base a concrete slab. It looked clean and brand new. Jim checked it over and found nothing amiss. Then again, he had no idea what he was doing. Back upstairs, he killed the fire and went up to bed.

In the darkness some time later, Jim laced his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. The house grunted, groaned, and sighed under him. Settling he told himself. Sure it was. But Jim wasn’t deluded: It sounded creepy. Low, hollow, and drawn out. He remembered a horror movie he’d seen years ago. A woman was lost in the shadow corridors of an old house, turning left, right, trying to escape before coming finally to a door at the end of a hall. Inside, the door was dark, the hall light spilling over the bed. A hideous creature sat up and stared at her, moaning in just such a fashion.

I’m going to twist your back like mine, the white-faced ghoul said with a horrible grin.

Maybe she’s down there now, Jim thought, and forced a smile.

A low, empty moan filled the house.

Jim’s heart sputtered. That wasn’t a settling noise.

Jim clicked on the bedside lamp and sat up.

Something moved in the darkness below, a soft, furtive footfall.

Jim got out of bed.

The bottom stair creaked.

Heart throbbing, Jim went to the head of the stairs and switched on the light.

Nothing.

He chuckled. Nothing. It was nothing. Of course it was. Why would anything be standing at the bottom, looking up at him with cold black eyes?

You’re losing it, Jim told himself. Maybe he was. Maybe the grief had turned to madness. Oh well. The thought didn’t bother him. He imagined schizophrenia would be like a non-stop acid trip. Man, the things he could write.

Behind him, the second bedroom door creaked open.

Jim swung around.

Nothing.

Sighing, Jim closed the door and went back into the master bedroom. He laid down and closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep.

Oops, I “forgot” to turn the lamp off. Oh well.

He laughed.

* * *

The morning was clear and cool, the sky a piercing blue and the trees along the lake burning red and yellow. For a long time, Jim sat on the dock, gazing at the beauty of it all. Farther down the coast, another pier jutted out into the water. The McKenzies’. The old man said they were his closest neighbors.

When he’d had his fill of the lake, Jim decided to go and see the cemetery. Getting up, Jim sighed. From here, the hill behind the house looked rather steep, its bare ridge line rising and falling like frozen waves. Also from here, he could see a path leading up, white against the pale yellow grass.

Jim picked the path up near the side door and followed it up. At the summit, he stopped and looked out over the lake and the surrounding forest. In the distance, the Green Mountains rolled north and south. They didn’t look so green now; they looked yellow and brown.

Nodding at the beauty, Jim turned. The hill sloped gently. At the bottom, three headstones occupied a flat space enclosed by a low stone wall. Jim went to it, climbed over, and stood before the graves.

Bill Carver 1928-1979

Margret Carver 1932-2001

Jim Conner 1978-2017

Jim blinked.

Sheila Propst, it said, 1950-2009

Jim chuckled. Insane, that was it. He was going insane.

Back at the house, he made himself a sandwich and ate it at the table while checking his email. A literary magazine in California had accepted a short story of his; The New Yorker wanted rewrites; and his publisher was asking when he planned to have the book done.

The book.

Jim didn’t know when he was going to have it done. Sometime before spring. It never took him longer than three months. This one, though… this one was more personal. His main character, a schoolteacher/writer, loses his beloved wife to cancer and goes through a long period of grief.

Just like him.

Reliving those memories, purging them from his system… he had no idea how long it would take.

Might as well start, though, right?

Jim opened a Word document and went to work.

The air vents kicked on.

Only instead of blowing out, they were sucking in.

* * *

The sound of a slamming door woke Jim with a start. His mind was muddled and his heart was slamming. What the...?

Running feet. Clunk-clunk-clunk. On the stairs.

Jim jumped out of bed. The hall light turned on. Jesus Christ!

Forcing himself to be brave and manly, Jim went out into the hall.

Nothing.

He checked the bathroom, the other bedroom, his bedroom. Then he moved downstairs. Nothing. Nothing at all.

In the living room, with every light in the house blazing bright, Jim tried to get ahold of himself. It was a dream. That was all. As for the light, well… he must have left it on. In fact, he thought he remembered leaving it on.

Feeling silly, Jim went through the place turning off all the lights. At the last one, he lingered, listening. When he finally switched it off, his finger stung. Turning it back on, he looked at it.

The tip was red.

Looked like a… hickey?

Jim shook his head. Crazy. You’re crazy.

When he woke up the next morning, however, he didn’t feel crazy. The sheets were strangling him, were lashing his hands and his torso. He rolled out of bed and smacked his forehead on the nightstand. Fuck!

Sitting there nursing his poor, poor head, Jim struggled to grab hold of his racing, blurred-up mind. The sheets weren’t strangling him. He was half-asleep and freaked out. That was all.

Getting to his feet, Jim noticed a few drops of blood on the floor. He’d cut his forehead good. In the bathroom mirror, he determined that he wouldn’t need stitches but would need a Band-Aid; the cut was an inch across and fairly deep over his right eye.

After attending to himself, Jim wetted a washcloth and went back into the bedroom to clean up the blood.

It wasn’t there.

For a long moment, Jim searched on his hands and knees. He knew he saw drops of blood on the floor.

But they were gone.

It was almost as if the house...absorbed them.

Jim looked around.

He needed to get out of here. Go into town and have breakfast or something, get some people around him. If he stayed alone, he’d go totally crazy, and the thought of that did kind of bother him.

Fifteen minutes later, Jim was dressed and behind the wheel of the Jeep. Before he started her up, however, something caught his attention. It wasn’t anything drastic; in fact, Jim had to think on it for a moment. The house looked… different. All the way down the bumpy dirt road to State Route 10, Jim struggled to put his finger on it. Finally, as he turned onto the blacktop behind a logging truck, it hit him. It didn’t look as dilapidated as it had that first day. The paint wasn’t peeling quite as much, and the wood siding wasn’t as dark.

Not surprising, considering it was dark and raining when he saw it that first (and second) time. Still, it didn’t sit well with him.

Nutcase Jim. Voted most likely to take out the President two years running.

Smiling wanly, Jim switched on the radio. Sugar Ray wanted to fly. How nice. Jim nodded his head politely until they were done.

The village of George River sat on a sloping hillside rising back from the titular river, its main drag lined with quaint shops and cafes. From the trees lining the side streets, a white church steeple towered into the air, and several blocks south, Jim caught a glimpse of what he imagined to be the school: Low, two story red brick with a line of wide windows. Faye’s Diner, which the old man had mentioned that first time, sat across from the Union Bank. Jim parked at the curb and went inside.

It didn’t look much like a diner (no counter, just tables and chairs), but the sound and presence of people cheered him. He wasn’t much of a people person, true, but he wasn’t a hermit either.

Jim sat in a booth along the far wall, and smiled as a pretty waitress took his drink order. When she returned with his Coke, he ordered a burger and fries.

Alone again, Jim realized for the first time just how tired he was. He didn’t sleep well either of the two nights he’d been at the cabin. Now, the combined weariness of two bad days weighed heavy on him. His back hurt, his neck was sore, his nose was beginning to drip, and a slight headache flared up behind his grainy eyes. When the waitress returned with his food, his stomach growled.

He took the fries down first, with plenty of ketchup. Then it was burger time. By the time he was done, he was stuffed. He felt better than he had before, but he was ready for a nap.

He paid, left a tip, and went back to the Jeep. Golden sunshine filled the streets. People walked aimlessly to and fro along the sidewalk. Jim wondered if there was anything else to do. An arcade, maybe?

Arcade?

Shaking his head, Jim got behind the wheel and started the Jeep up. In the parking lot of a five and dime, he turned and set off toward the cabin. Out of town, he realized something: He kind of dreaded going back.

Crazy, crazy, crazy.

Jim turned the radio back on, found a political talk show, and let the droning voice of the host wash over him.

Ten minutes later, he pulled into the front yard of the cabin and parked under the drooping bows of a tree. Let’s do this.

He got out, locked the Jeep (city habits die hard) and went to the front porch.

At the bottom step, he stopped.

There were muddy footprints on the stairs.

Jim didn’t know why the sight of those prints sent a cold pang of terror through his body. The old man had dropped by. So what?

When she stepped into the house and saw the same prints leading into the kitchen—however, he wasn’t so sure. Would he just walk on it if no one answered the door? Jim didn’t know. It was possible. Some landlords had no respect for their tenants. It’s my house they figure I can do what I want.

Jim’s heart was racing.

He closed the door behind him.

His hand stuck to the knob.

What the fuck?

Jim pulled, and his hand came free. Looking at it in the sunlight, it reminded him of his finger: A red circular mark, much like a hickey.

Sighing again, Jim followed the trail of mud into the kitchen. Here and there, he noticed, clumps of earth had fallen away, along with leaves, beetles, and earth worms.

The kitchen was empty.

Back at the front door, he saw a second set leading up the stairs. He followed it up.

They terminated at the second bedroom.

The door was shut.

Jim’s heart was pounding so hard it filled his head. His stomach rolled.

This is insane.

Yeah. It was. Jim started up the last two steps, but what he saw froze him.

Under the crack of the door, a shadow moved in front of the sunlight.

Jim’s mouth went dry.

Something was in there.

Or something.

Jim remembered the cemetery.

Dirt. Leaves.

“No,” Jim muttered, shaking his head. No. That was crazy.

The shadow disappeared.

Breathing heavily, Jim took the last two steps and threw open the door.

Nothing.

The room was empty.

Save for dirt. And the smell of rotting meat.

The closet door stood open. Jim went over to it and swept it with his gaze. No one crouched in the shadows. When he looked up, however, terror overcame him.

An attic hatchway. The cover dropped into place just as he glanced up.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

Something was in the attic.

In fact, he heard it now: low, shuffling footsteps.

When he threw open the hatch and climbed into the space above the second floor, he saw only a dark, swishing movement.

He stayed there for a long time.

* * *

Insanity. That’s all.

Hehehe. Insane in the membrane!

Jim sat in the kitchen, gazing at the blank Word document, the black cursor flashing mockingly. He deleted the five thousand words he’d written the other day. They were no good.

Later, as evening crested, Jim started writing something else, an account of what he’d seen and heard at the lake house. It was short, dry, without the usual adornments that marked his writing style. When he was done, he felt much better.

Upstairs, he undressed. In the bathroom mirror, he looked terrible. Jim’s face was pale and haggard, his eyes were dark and sunken, and his hair was wild. It had been two days since he came home and found the thing in the attic. His sleep was thin and fitful, and woke even more exhausted than when he’d gone to bed. He spent most of yesterday on the couch, dozing, the thought of getting up and moving around so obscene he almost pissed on himself to avoid a trip to the bathroom.

Jim looked away and stepped into the shower, letting the hot water cascade over his aching body. When he was halfway done, he opened his eyes and saw the swirling blackness near the drain. Not blackness, really, but darkness, like the dirt and grime of a long, sweaty day.

He didn’t have any dirt or grime on him.

It’s washing my energy away, he thought madly, sucking it down the drain!

The thought was strange and wholly unbidden, but Jim cut the water anyway.

When he was dressed, he went back downstairs. He was thinking of calling the old man and telling him he’d had enough. Boston waited. Safe, warm Boston. The only thing stopping him was the fear… nay… the certainty that he’d experience the same thing back in the city. Jim could leave the house behind, but he couldn’t leave his insanity.

What if it isn’t?

It better be. Otherwise...

A loud bang came at the back door, startling him.

The wind.

It came again.

The doorknob rattled.

All at once, Jim’s terror turned to rage. He charged into the kitchen and went for the door. On the other side, he could see the vague suggestion of a face.

He reached for the knob.

Behind him, the cellar door slammed into the wall. Jim turned, and deargodinheaven, it was there, coming for him, its arms outstretched, moaning like the cold autumn wind in the barren treetops. A woman. Her long blue dress was rotted and falling off of her. Her face nearly skeletal, the flesh clinging to the bone black and withered. Through the tatters of her dress, Jim could see her ribcage: Beetles and spiders scurried madly.

“Jiiiiiimmmm!”

The window smashed, and an arm reached through, wrapping around Jim’s neck. It, too, was the arm of a thing, the covering fabric eaten away, revealing the bone underneath.

Jim screamed.

The woman came closer, her arms wide as if to embrace him.

“Give it your power, Jim. Give it your life!”

Screaming and thrashing, he kicked the thing when it was close enough. It fell back and came apart on the floor. The arm snaked away, releasing him, and he backed into the kitchen. The door flew open, and the second ghoul entered. Tall and bent to one side, dressed in the tattered remains of a suit, it was in remarkably good shape for having been in the ground since 1979.

“Come here, Jim,” it said.

Jim turned. The front door. He had to get to the front door.

The ghoul on the floor was reaching for him.

Jim kicked it away and ran into the living room. The old man was there, a shotgun in his hands.

“Help me!” Jim screamed.

“Now you just stay right there,” the old man said, taking a step forward. “Put your hands up over your head where I can see ‘em.”

Jim looked over his shoulder. The man ghoul was helping the woman ghoul up.

“What’s going on here?” Jim breathed.

The old man jerked the gun at him. “Put your hands up!”

Jim reluctantly did as he was told.

“Turn around and go into the basement.”

Jim turned. The two ghouls were standing there, watching.

The old man shoved the barrel into the small of Jim’s back, and forced him downstairs into the basement.

In the middle of the floor, one grave. Jim swallowed.

“Get in the hole.”

Jim spun so quickly he was knocking the gun away before he knew he was resisting. The old man grunted and pulled the trigger, sending a volley of buckshot into the stone wall. A low, rumbling groan rose from the house.

Jim punched the old man and pushed him back. He pulled his foot back for a kick, but something happened; something fell onto his head, knocking him down. A floorboard.

Blackness overcame him.

* * *

The old man patted the earth with the shovel and sighed. His jaw ached and his tailbone throbbed. Thank God that city asshole didn’t get the gun away from him.

Putting the shovel aside, the old man hobbled over to the wall where the buckshot hit; the pockmarks were already starting to heal.

As he shambled back to the stairs, the heating system kicked on; any residual energy City Boy left behind would be sucked up, just as surely as his life was being sucked up by the soil.

In the kitchen, the ghouls were gone, back to their graves. He hated when the house used mom and dad’s bodies like that. He understood why, but he still didn’t like it.

Outside, the old man gave the house a quick once over and nodded. By morning, it’d look brand new.

Then it would sit empty until it got hungry again.

Cold Harbour

Ro McNulty

Are you ready? Is it on? Do you want me to..?

OK. My name is Christine. Is that... Am I talking clearly enough? Can you hear me?

Alright. As far as I can remember, this is how it first started. I mean, this is how I met Joan Webster and her family in the first place. I’m a social worker. Not with children, thank Christ, but with adults. Joan’s blind, and quite badly physically disabled as well. She needed quite a lot of care to be able to do things like eat and wash. So, initially, my job was to sort out a care plan for her.

Straight from the beginning, though, it was a weird case, and after the first incident with Elsie, when the police started getting involved, it turned into quite a tricky situation to manage. A care worker from our team used to visit Joan, and the first time I went to meet her, I thought it’d be a good idea to tag along on one of the care worker’s visits. I think a lot of blind people would feel quite nervous about letting a stranger into their home, and I thought going along with someone Joan already knew would help to... you know. Help to put her mind at rest.

So me and this care worker went up to the house. Joan lived in this huge, tumbling down old Victorian house on Coldharbour Road, in the middle of Clifton. It must’ve been worth nearly a million, if it’d had anyone taking care of it. Anyway, we showed up, but Joan didn’t answer the door, and when the care worker got the key out of the key-safe and tried to let us in, we found that the door had been barricaded from the inside.
I actually called the police at that point. Its part of my job, to be honest. We can’t take risks. A car showed up with a couple of uniformed officers, and I think I decided then it probably wasn’t appropriate for me to be there anymore. You know, if Joan was hurt or in an emotional state then she probably wouldn’t want too many strangers hanging around. So, I went back to the office. And the next day, the safeguarding referral came in from the police.

This was when I first heard about Elsie. That afternoon, it turned out, Joan had been involved in a domestic abuse incident, and Elsie was the alleged perpetrator. Elsie was Joan’s daughter, and supposedly her carer, although no-one thought she did enough for Joan. Apparently, Joan had been at home and drinking by herself all morning. She’d drunk most of a bottle of gin and at about midday, a couple of hours before we got there, Elsie had come to the house unexpectedly and, we assumed, barricaded the door behind her. The two of them had a blow-out, and Elsie had grabbed Joan by the throat and dug in her finger nails.

Apparently this wasn’t unusual. The carer told me Elsie hated it when Joan drank and regularly shouted and screamed at her about it, to the extent where Joan would only risk drinking at all if she thought Elsie wasn’t going to be home. Anyway, this time the attack had been seen by a neighbour through the upstairs window, and when the neighbour saw a police car turn up, she went running out to tell the officers what she’d seen. The police put together a report and sent it over to our office, stating they suspected the abuse of a vulnerable adult.

Like I said, that was the first I’d heard about Elsie. You’ve already interviewed Derek, right?

Sorry?

No, Derek is Joan’s grandson, Elsie’s nephew. Joan had three daughters, and Elsie was a lot younger than the other two, so I think she may be closer to Derek’s age than to either of the other sisters’. Elsie and Derek had a lot of issues between them, as it turned out. Derek saw Elsie as the family’s guilty secret. You know, the mad aunt that no-one talks about.

I was just getting to that, actually. After the abuse claim was made we decided to call a meeting to try and come up with a plan of action, and my manager thought we should invite Derek. He was Joan’s closest relative after Elsie, and had told us in the past that he wanted to be more involved with Joan’s care. Elsie had been arrested and bailed, waiting to be charged, so she was supposed to be out of the picture for the next few weeks or so, and we thought this would be a good time to bring Derek in.

I remember that I was late, which is unusual for me and something that I hate doing. I remember jogging up that big ramp in front of city hall, past all the statues, it was pissing with rain, and then bursting into the meeting room panting and trying to apologise and introduce myself at the same time.

As it happened, it didn’t matter. Derek, our guest of honour, hadn’t turned up yet anyway. We got talking anyway, assuming that Derek would show up when he was ready to. A police officer called PC Kate something who was chairing the meeting. She got started by apologizing to all of us, and saying that she hadn’t actually been there the day of the attack. The copper who had answered my 999 call had been working on the case since, but he’d gone off on long-term sick.

I’ve actually tried to contact the man since... Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Kate told us she was taking over the case from him. She had the guy’s reports with her and said she’d try and tell us as much as she could.

She said that Elsie had been arrested that day and released early the next morning. One of the conditions of her bail was that she wasn’t allowed near Joan. That meant she wasn’t allowed to be involved in Joan’s care at all, and she wasn’t allowed to go to the house on Coldharbour Road either. The problem was, like I said, Elsie hadn’t been charged with anything yet and she couldn’t be kept away from the house indefinitely, if she hadn’t done anything wrong. So, the police’s dilemma was either that they charged Elsie with the assault on Joan, or otherwise they had to relinquish the bail conditions, in which case Elsie would be free to come and go as she pleased. But, they could only charge Elsie if Joan was prepared to give evidence against her, and so far Joan was being less than co-operative.

I remember it was hot in the room. You know that feeling just after it’s rained when the air feels stuffy because of the atmospheric pressure? I actually started to fall asleep in the meeting room, which wasn’t exactly professional of me. Just then the door opened and a little man in a polo shirt poked his head into the room, and said, “Alright all? Sorry I’m a bit late. I had to stop by at Nan’s house on the way.”

It was Derek, of course. And by ‘Nan’ he obviously meant Joan. His accent didn’t suit his words, and it made everything he said sound slightly like he was taking the piss out of someone. I don’t know why, now, but I remember that straight away I took a dislike to the guy. It wasn’t just the accent; he just seemed a bit too… I don’t know. Comfortable. Normally when members of the public or family members get dragged along to these sorts of meetings they look like they’re on trial, and it’s all any of us can do to reassure them that we’re not going lock them up there and then. You know, social workers have a certain reputation as it is, and everyone’s always scared of the police whether they’ve done something wrong or not. Derek just seemed to stroll on in like it was his fucking birthday party, or something. Not that we wanted people to be scared of us, that’s not what I mean. It’s just that… I don’t know. It made him seem dishonest, like he’d been practicing what to do, or something. And try as I might I couldn’t shake that feeling the whole time that I worked with him. He could have told me anything at that point and I wouldn’t have believed a word.

Actually, my manager made Derek wait outside for the first few minutes after he arrived. When he did come in he sat down. He looked older than me, about forty-five. He introduced himself to all of us one by one. Then he began to talk, and this is as much as I can remember from what he said.

Joan’s other daughters were called Harriet and Catherine. Catherine was Derek’s mother. Joan was well into her eighties now and the older children were in their early sixties, so Elsie must be about forty-two or forty-three, I think. I’m not sure, though.

One thing Derek kept telling us was that Elsie had never fit in with the rest of the family. He made a big deal out of that point, giving us about five or six different stories about Christmas presents that Elsie had broken and family holidays that she’d ruined, and things like that. She was ‘ungrateful,’ apparently, and a ‘weird kid.’ As a child, according to Derek, Elsie had spent her time locked in her bedroom, away from the rest of the family. The daughters used to fight when they were younger, apparently, and Elsie would always take things to extremes. She could be violent, too; Even at the age of ten or eleven she would lash out at her older sisters, throwing plates or glass bottles, he said, and the family had always been scared of her temper. One day, aged about sixteen, Elsie told Joan and her father that she had met a man and was going to live with him, and for five years or so, no-one had heard anything from her.

“Where had she been?” Katie asked

“Well that’s just it, love.” Said Derek. I saw Katie flinch at the word ‘love’. “We hadn’t the foggiest. Elsie had this habit of, sort of, trying to hurt herself and hurt other people and god knows what, to get at people, you know? For attention, like. I mean, when she got a bit older the doctors started saying she had some problems or whatever, but we all knew there was nothing wrong with her. She used to do it to get at Nan. This man she met? He was scum, by all accounts. He was into taking drugs, dealing drugs, and whatnot. I remember my mum and Nan talking about Elsie and what had happened to her, and they were in bits. She used running away to hurt the rest of the family. No-one knew if she was dead, on the run or in prison, or who knows what else.”

“Did Joan call the police at the time?” I asked.

“Well, as I said, darling, no-one knew what had happened.” Said Derek, raising his eyebrows at me.

“Anyway a few years later Nan started to get these photographs in the post from Elsie and all the places she’d been to. It turned out Elsie and this guy had got married and gone off travelling around the world. She’s still got some of the photos, I think. Not that she can see them…”

Derek grinned and then noticed that no-one else was smiling, and carried on quickly. “The last picture we saw was Elsie on a beach on some island somewhere, with this rough-looking guy standing next to her, and it looked like she was pregnant. Then, one day, the photos just stopped. There weren’t never any pictures of the baby, or anything. I don’t know where the kid is now. I’d have thought with the dad, except I doubt he was exactly a fathering type of man.

I screwed my eyes shut and blinked, trying to wake myself up.

“Then about fifteen years ago,” Derek carried on, “after granddad died and just after nan had lost the last of her sight, bless her, Elsie turned up out of nowhere, at the house on Coldharbour Road. The problem with Nan is that she’s too trusting, right? I mean, it could have been anyone on that doorstep come to rob the place. As it happened, it was Elsie. To be honest, though, I reckon it would have been better if it had been a burglar, given what Elsie did next.”

Something strange, Derek told us, happened at that point. Elsie’s father had not long ago died. To the horror of Harriet, Catherine, and the rest of the family, the house had been left to Elsie. No one seemed to know why, since Elsie obviously wasn’t the only child, and she hadn’t seen her father for fifteen years. The whole situation was a bit mysterious, Derek said. No one had seen a copy of the will since it had been written, until the old man had died. And no-one had known where Elsie was at that point to tell her. How Elsie had known to come home and claim the house, no-one knew. Derek said the general view in the family was that Elsie had either threatened their father into changing the will in her favour or had somehow fraudulently changed it herself.

Elsie had developed quite a serious drug and alcohol problem by that point. The family assumed she wanted to sell or gut the house as a quick way of making money. Whatever had happened, Joan was alone, and blind. The will had left her next to nothing to pay for care with, and the only support she now had was Elsie. Elsie hadn’t thrown Joan out, but she had moved herself in. Worryingly, from my point of view as the social worker, Elsie had closed Joan’s bank account. Joan’s pension now got paid in to an account in Elsie’s name, and Elsie claimed most of it as rent, presumably to fund her habit.

PC Kate did her spiel next. The police and CPS were trying to get enough evidence to charge Elsie. They’d tried to interview Joan, but from what Kate said, they might have well have interviewed the furniture.

“My colleague said that Joan had seemed very disorientated.” Kate said. “She didn’t respond at all to his questions, or even look at him when he spoke. I was wondering, does Joan struggle with her hearing, or her cognition, at all?” I realised everyone was looking at me. I shrugged.

“Nope. Not according to my records. She is blind, though, which might have been why she didn’t look at your colleague.” I said, trying not to sound sarcastic. “She might have been in shock, or she might have just decided to ignore him. You never know. Maybe she just didn’t like the guy.” My manager snorted.

Katie said she’d rung Joan since, but Joan had told her that she wouldn’t give evidence against Elsie and didn’t want to be asked again. I don’t remember much more of the meeting than that, apart from one thing. Derek had leant across the table with this smirk on his face, trying to sound sincere, and said, “You need to do something about Elsie. The thing is, I‘ve known her for a long time, right? I ain’t bitter or resentful. I’m over all that. But Elsie, see, she’s not right in the head. She’s got some... psychotic problem, or something, genuinely, and she’s bloody dangerous if you ask me. If you let her near Nan she’ll hurt her again, and it’ll only be worse next time. She’s twisted.”

I remember Derek’s parting shot because of how much it riled me up. I don’t know what it was. Something about the look on his face when he said it had made me want to shout. Outside, I stood in the multi-storey with my manager, out of the rain, and fumed. She wouldn’t look at me while I was talking. She kept saying ‘mm’ and ‘yeah’ without really listening to what I was saying, and making all these non-committal comments like “Oh, Derek’s always been very helpful, you know,” and things like that.

I set out to walk home, but changed my mind after about five minutes out in the rain, and caught the bus instead. I was still angry, and on the bus I found I couldn’t stop thinking about Joan’s case. I’m normally really relaxed. I’ve been doing this for a while, and there’s not a lot that really shakes me up these days, but the meeting with Derek today had left a nasty taste in my mouth that I couldn’t get rid of.

On the way past Coldharbour Road, I got off the bus. I walked up to the house. It was raining hard enough to make the umbrella shake in my hand.

Do you know the street? It’s got these huge old five-bedroom terraced houses, like the one Joan lives in. They’re all grey stone and red brick and slate, with carved pillars on the bay windows and archways over the doors. They’re the kinds of houses that probably belonged to slavers once upon a time.

I found Joan’s house, and tried to peer in through the ground floor window. There wasn’t much to see. There were old paper blinds hung up in the window, but they looked like they’d been torn to shreds over the years. Past that was a mantelpiece above a real fireplace. Otherwise, the room looked bare. There was heavy wood on the floor, and peeling wallpaper, the colour of old tobacco, through the dirty glass. Outside was a little garden, a line of trees and irregular streaks of gravel between weeds and long grass, that must once have been a path.

I don’t remember that night, really. I got home late and probably pissed Sean off as a result. The next morning I woke up ill. I couldn’t get out of bed, and I was late for work.

I had an email from another client of ours waiting for me when I got to the office, saying that she’d just been told how much her care was going to cost her and she didn’t think she could afford it, and what could I do to sort it out? I told her I’d try and talk to the finance department, to see if they’d make an exception for her, although I knew they wouldn’t. Then I closed down my emails, made myself a coffee, and got stuck in with my paperwork.

Can I… sorry. I need a drink. My throat is dry. Thanks.

It’s so hard to know, isn’t it, who is just having a bad day and who is really in… anyway, it doesn’t matter.

That afternoon we had a team training session about... I can’t remember what it was about now. I think it was assistive technology for blind people, or something like that. They have talking microwaves, and talking jar lids, things like that. I made up an excuse and left the training centre early. Like I said, I’m normally quite chilled out at work, but that day I just couldn’t be bothered.

The rain had stopped for the afternoon, although the sky was still the colour of an old bruise and I didn’t trust myself to even go for a cigarette without taking my umbrella with me. I walked back to the council building. Our office was empty. There’s nothing better than an empty office. I made myself coffee in the biggest cup and looked at rare vinyl on eBay for an hour before I even opened my emails.

I was just starting to get bored when the phone rang. I remember that it made me jump.

“I need to talk to your manager. Now, please. It’s an emergency.” It was Derek. He was shouting.

“She’s not actually in the office right now, I’m afraid. Are you calling about Joan Webster?” I said, in my ‘therapeutic’ voice.

“Yes. Is there… is Christine Bone in there, then?” he asked, sounding like he was reading my name off a piece of paper.

“Yeah, speaking. I’m actually the allocated social worker on Mrs. Webster’s case, so if it’s her you’re calling about then you need to speak to me, not the manager. We met at the meeting yesterday. Do you remember?”

“Well basically, what it is…” Derek carried on, ignoring my question. “I went to Nan’s earlier to see how she is. The door was locked from the inside. I could hear someone talking in the hallway, through the letterbox. Obviously Nan’s in a bad way at the moment. I’m worried that… you know. It could be someone going round there trying to get money off her or steal her medication or something. You know what some people will do…”

“Alright.” I started to write SOMEONE IN HOUSE- DOOR BLOCKED on a post-it note. “Do you have any idea who it might be?”

“No. Not the foggiest. I mean, it could be Elsie, couldn’t it? I tried to barge the door in and shouted through the letterbox, but it was like they couldn’t hear me. I could hear them chatting and laughing. They didn’t stop when I started banging on the door.”

“OK. Derek, it sounds like Joan just has a guest over. Why do you think they’re there to harm your grandmother? Could they just be a friend?”

“Yeah, but what if it’s not? What if someone’s round there trying to rob the place? What if Elsie’s wheedled her way back in there?” Derek began to shout again “I told social services. I said ‘She’s not in a good place. She’s vulnerable. She needs to be protected.’ I said I didn’t want anyone to see her until she was somewhere she could be looked after. Otherwise, she’ll let anyone in her house and give them whatever they ask for. You know what she’s like. She can’t say no.”

“Listen, Derek, who Joan sees or doesn’t see at home is pretty much her choice. Not yours, or social services, or the police’s decision. It might not be a good idea for someone vulnerable to let people into the house and to lock the door behind them, but, as an adult, legally we can’t stop her. If a crime has been committed then we can stop the perpetrator from contacting her, like with Elsie, but we can’t stop everyone and anyone from seeing Joan just in case. If you think it is Elsie in there, then she’s in breach of her bail and you need to call the police. Otherwise, you need to try and calm down, and let Joan make her own decisions.”

“That’s ridiculous. That’s just red tape, isn’t it? You’re telling me my Nan is shut in there with just about anyone under the sun, potentially an abuser, and you can’t do a thing about it? How do you know it isn’t Elsie? How do you know it’s not some junkie friend of hers gone round to rob the place?”

“Look” I said “I know you’re upset. If you’re really worried about it then I can go to the house and try and talk to her. I’ll have a sniff around while I’m there and see if anything has been stolen. Alright? And if Elsie is there, or if I think anything dangerous or illegal has happened, then I’ll call the police myself. Is that OK, Derek?

“Yeah, well…” he began to mumble, deflated. “If it’s all you can do then it’s all you can do, I guess.”

“Alright.” I looked at the time. “I’ll call you in the morning when I get into the office, and let you know how it worked out, OK?”

“Yeah, thanks a lot, love.”

Derek hung up.

I had to get a taxi up to Coldharbour Road. I think my manager was going to write me up for disciplinary action if I didn’t bring the car to work next week. We went a different route to the one I took last time, and I got to see the road in its entirety. There’s actually a few shops at one end, after that dour, endless stretch of slate and shedding trees. It’s the kind of place that has an art gallery and a luthier’s, but no fucking newsagents. You know what Clifton’s like, right?

I found the house and paid the driver. Outside the air-conditioned taxi the air was heavy and sticky. The sky was oily and streaked with red; the beginning of a summer storm. It looked like it’d been painted on. I looked around outside, but there were no parked cars, or litter on the driveway, or anything else that might have told me someone was there. I didn’t really know what I was looking for, to be honest. I mean, I’m not a detective. It’s not my job to do stuff like that. The door was hanging open, bleeding light.

I knocked three times and called out, and then let myself in. The hallway was honey-coloured wood and white walls, the paper peeling like rushes. The air looked cloudy—like smoke—in the weird light from outside. In front of me was a staircase that led up to a sort of gallery on the first floor landing. There were small tables of glass ornaments around the bottom of the stairs, and a few other knick-knacks and pieces of decorative furniture. On the floor was broken glass, and blister packs of medication. To either side of the front door were rooms, without doors in the doorway. I listened, but the house was silent.

Trying to tiptoe, I went into the room to my left. There was a dark-wood mantelpiece, a dark red rug, and a window seat, with its cushions scattered on the floor. Apart from that, the room was bare. The windows themselves were huge, and the light from outside made the whole room look glassy. Do you know what I mean? Like being in a fish bowl. There was a layer of dust over everything, as thick as paint. When I turned round, I could see my own footprints.

I can’t… I’m not too sure if…

You’ve got to understand, at that point I thought I was alone in the house. I know it’s stupid. I mean, the only reason I was there is because Derek had told me there was supposed to be someone else in there. I should have been expecting it. But for some reason, something about the sleepy air in the house had tricked me into thinking I was on my own. There were photographs on the mantelpiece. I’d started to examine them, and when I heard footsteps upstairs I jumped and cried out.

It was a quick, sort of pattering sound on the floor directly above me, making the dust fall from the ceiling. It sounded like someone running. My first thought was that it was a child’s footsteps.

Why? I don’t know. I didn’t say it was a child, just that that was what it put me in mind of. It was fast, in a short burst, like it could have been a child running and then standing still as part of a game, or something. You know what I mean? Adults don’t usually run around in the house.

I stood still and tried not to breathe, listening, but the house had gone quiet again. I couldn’t even hear the traffic outside. I looked at the photograph in front of me again. It was a black and white picture of three women, outside, sitting on a swinging seat under a willow tree, looking summery and happy. The clothing looked dated. The younger two women were in their early twenties; the older one, sitting between them and smiling, was middle-aged. I guessed it must be Harriet, Catherine and Joan.

I put the picture down. There’d been no more noises from upstairs. I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was trying to hide from me.

I called out again. “Hello? Joan? Elsie?” and then, slowly, I went upstairs.

I found Joan at the back of the house. She looked like she’d been living out of one room. There was a bed with a pressure mattress, and an electric rise/recliner chair. The room was small, and dark compared to the light, empty rooms on the ground floor of the house. There were thick, velvety green curtains blocking out the sunlight. There was a commode in one corner. In the heat, it stank.

The floor was more or less impassable from litter: empty packets of biscuits, rotten fruit, plates and dirty cutlery, bottles, and more blister packs of tablets. Joan seemed to have been given a whole year’s worth of prescriptions at once, or else she hadn’t taken any of them for a long time. I picked up one of the tablets; it was dated from nine months ago.

I read the names of the medications on the back. I think they were Oramorph, which is just a brand name for Morphine, and a tranquilizer called Lorazepam. The floor was so cluttered I could hardly see the carpet. I don’t know how Joan, blind, using a cane, managed to get around at all. It occurred to me that she might not have left the room in a long time.

Joan herself was sat in the chair in the far corner, slumping towards the floor. I called out to her, gently.

“Joan?” My name’s Christine. I’m a social worker. We’ve had a phone call from your grandson.”

She didn’t reply. I picked my way across the floor and knelt down next to the chair. Her head was tilted back and to one side. I leant over her and spoke into her ear.

“Joan? Sorry to bother you. My name is Christine. I’m a social worker. Joan, is there anyone else in the house with you?”

I could see Joan’s throat rising and falling as she breathed. She turned her head, gently, almost imperceptibly, away from me.

I stood up.

“OK, Joan? I’m just going to have a look around, if that’s alright?”

There was a bathroom across the hall. The bath itself was cracked and shedding ceramic rubble. A little puddle of water, china dust and mould had pooled in the bottom of the tub. I took the pan from the commode, trying not to look in it, and emptied it into the toilet. Then I looked through the house. Apart from Joan’s room, none of the rooms had doors. Most of them were completely bare, and, briefly, I wondered whether Elsie had been selling off the furniture. The upstairs room above where I’d been, where I thought the footsteps had come from, was empty. There was a mist of cobwebs over the doorway that I had to pick out of my jacket as I entered. Even the mantelpiece was bare. There was a house spider in the grate, the size of a plate.

I went back downstairs and carried on snooping, but I didn’t see anyone. The kitchen had been gutted of white goods. There was a cool box on the floor, and a camping stove and gas canister on the worktop, looking like they were stuck down. I could see the skeleton of pipes where the sink had been pulled out.

Before I left the house I went back upstairs to Joan’s room. She’d leant her head back to the other side and looked like she was asleep. I didn’t want to wake her up. I found Joan’s care records on the floor, under all the crap, and looked through. The notes were full of words like “uncooperative,” “stubborn,” and “difficult.” The MAR sheets had been signed ‘R’ for “refused medication” every day as far back as the records went. I felt a lump of pity in my throat then. I mean, opiates are strong painkillers. Joan must have been in agony.

I knelt down on the floor, and began moving some of the litter out of the way to clear a pathway to the door. I don’t know why. I shouldn’t have done it without Joan’s permission, and anyway it’s the carer’s job, not mine. But by that point I was feeling pretty… I don’t know. Sad, I guess. Joan’s whole living situation seemed to me to be heartbreaking, sat there in the huge empty house in one tiny room, not knowing who was in the house with her and who wasn’t… I don’t know. I think I just wanted to do something kind for her.

I bent down. Just then, I felt something cold on my neck, like a drop of water.

I stood up, and spun around. There was a crashing sound, and a flurry of footsteps on the stairs. Then I heard the front door slam.

It’s hard… obviously there must have been someone in the house. There’s no way there could not have been. It was definitely footsteps that I heard. But I looked everywhere and I didn’t see anyone. There wasn’t even anywhere to hide in that house. The house was so old and creaky that I would have heard if someone had been sneaking around and creeping up on me.

There was a tapping against the window glass. It had started to rain again. I left the house. I walked up to the art gallery on Coldharbour Road and got a taxi back to the office from there.

I called Derek back. He answered, his tone sounding like I was bothering him.

“Yeah?”

“Hi, Derek? This is Christine Bone, Joan’s social worker. I’ve just been up to the house and had a look around. There’s no-one there.”

“What? What are you… did you go in the house?”

“Yeah. Joan is upstairs. She didn’t want to talk to me. I looked around, and I couldn’t see anyone.”

Derek just repeated

“You actually went into the house? Inside?”

“I did, yeah. There’s no-one there except Joan.”

“Right. Look, you’ve got to try and set something up so that Elsie and her mates can’t go there again, OK? I know if Elsie’s on bail she can’t go to the house, but what’s to stop her sending all her junkie friends round to rob the place? Eh? As far as I can see it, you’re not doing your job unless…”

“Derek, listen.” I interrupted him. I was pissed off by that point, soaking wet and still shook up from what had happened in the house, and I couldn’t be bothered pandering to Derek. “I’m not a police officer. It’s not up to me to control Elsie, whatever you think she’s done. Do you understand? If you’re concerned Joan is being targeted by criminals then you need to phone the police. I can give you a contact number for the officer you spoke to at the meeting. She might be able to help you. Otherwise, there’s nothing I can do.” I’m not sure why, but something about Derek’s way of speaking to people made me automatically come down on the side of anyone he had a quarrel with in an argument. I would have defended Josef Stalin if Derek had started criticising him.

“So that’s it, is it? All you can give me is bloody bureaucracy? What about Joan? Where’s she, in all of this?”

“Does Joan want to have visitors, or not? If she’s told you that she doesn’t want visitors round then it’s a separate matter. But unless she’s said that…”

“I don’t know.” Derek cut in, bluntly. “I tried to ask her about it but she doesn’t… she doesn’t get it. She just says she wants Elsie to come back.” I was silent. As far as I knew up until then, Joan despised Elsie as much as the rest of the family did. It had never occurred to me that Joan might actually have wanted Elsie’s company.

I let Derek talk. Once again, I was struck by the sheer, utter sadness of Joan’s life. “I told her about… you know, all the bad things Elsie’s done. She’s a drunk. She’s a drug addict. She hurts people. She ran away. She got pregnant and then she gave up the baby, or god knows what else. She took the house off us, off Joan, and now she takes all her money to make her pay to live in it. Joan just said ‘I don’t care. I don’t care She’s still my daughter.’”

After I got off the phone I wrote a report. I remember writing: “Possible neglect, house in poor state of repair, insufficient adaptations for Joan to move around, litter presents trip hazard on floor, large quantities of controlled drugs—dangerous as Joan is at potential risk of suicide. Missing furniture and belongings. Evidence that Joan is unable to leave bedroom. To investigate.”

As an afterthought, I wrote “No furniture—where does Elsie sleep?”

The next day was… Sorry. Do you mind if I go for a cigarette? I’m a bit...

Thanks. What happened the next day? That was it. There was a promotional event being held up at a school hall in Hanham, or Kingswood, or somewhere like that. It was supposed to be geared for deaf-blind people. The idea was that they find it hard to get information about health care services because of their sensory loss, they can’t read leaflets or hear announcements, and they find it hard to go outside a lot of the time so they can’t always get to, like, the doctor’s surgery, and things like that. So the social care department organized this big event, and we tried to get a lot of different health care providers in the local area to come and set up stalls. There were things like diabetic consultants and information from the NHS people about hospital passports and outpatient services, but also some more fun stuff like Reiki, massage therapy, music therapy with vibrating instruments for deaf people, things like that.

This was the first day I noticed feeling strange. I guess I was getting depressed, after everything that had happened. I’d helped to organize the event with a few of my colleagues, and I’d been really looking forward to it. I mean, it’s nice just getting a day out of the office, as much as anything else. But when I got there, I found myself feeling completely melancholy and miserable despite everything going on around me. I mean, I was OK. I was chatting to people and guiding them around, and making cups of tea, doing some sign language interpreting for the deaf people; but every so often I’d find I was by myself with no-one to talk to, and then I’d just feel… I don’t know. Like I’d never speak to anyone again. Like I couldn’t talk, or I couldn’t trust myself to speak to people in case I said something stupid, or something. Does that sound strange?

There were a lot of deaf people there who were speaking in sign language to each other, and a few deaf people who were registered blind as well, who used some sign language but who could only understand very big, exaggerated signing because of their visual impairment. There were other people there who were completely deaf-blind and had to use hands-on signing. Like… like tracing shapes onto their palms with your fingers. And there were other deaf people with learning disabilities who used simplified sorts of sign language…

Sorry. The point is, I wasn’t sure, when I went to speak to someone, how to go about doing it. Talking to people at all at the event meant you had to be prepared for a bit of trial and error, and think creatively about what was the best way to get the message across. You know, sometimes you had to point, make up a few gestures, things like that. Things went wrong sometimes, and it might take two or three tries to get the message across, and you had to be able to laugh at yourself a little bit when you got things wrong. Generally, I’m fine with this. I’ve worked around disabilities for a long time, and once you stop being squeamish about it and get stuck in, you’d be surprised how easy it is to have a conversation with just about anybody, with a bit of give and take.

But that day, something felt different. I remember looking at all these people talking to each other and laughing, and I just felt absolutely excluded, like I couldn’t get involved. It was like that extra little bit of assertion that you need, to talk to someone who might be difficult to talk to, had vanished. I found I kept wanting to sit outside, or sit in the kitchen with the door shut, away from everyone, just by myself. Like the whole event was somehow not for me.

I remember… Can I have some more water? Thanks. I remember the end of the event. There was a blind guy who’d set up a stall there. That’s what I wanted to talk about. His name was Anthony. I’d been introduced him earlier in the day; I think he was a counsellor, or a psychotherapist, or something. He worked with blind people dealing with depression and things like that. He had all this stuff laid out on the stall in front of him, like, leaflets for his practice and sheets of Braille and CD’s. He had his guide dog sat under the table the whole time, getting petted by a couple of kids and sleeping the rest of the day.

As we were packing up at the end I looked around and this poor guy was just stood there by himself with his stall. No one had come to help him pack up his stuff, or anything, and instead people were just stacking up the chairs and tables around him. A few times he tried to talk to someone; I’m not sure if he thought there was someone there or not, or if he was just trying to catch the attention of anyone who might have been passing by. You could see his lips move, but there’d be no-one there.

I watched him for a little while, and then figured it out. He’d probably learnt the layout of the tables and chairs throughout the day so he could find his way around. Once the furniture had been packed up, he wouldn’t know where he was. He wouldn’t be able to find his way out safely, and he probably didn’t want to move at all in case he walked into someone carrying something heavy, or tripped over something that someone had left lying around.

I got really angry just then. I mean, how thoughtless can you be? This poor fucking guy was just stood there, trying to talk to people on the off-chance that someone might be stood near enough to hear him, while everyone else was shouting and dragging tables around him like he wasn’t even fucking there!

I went over to him, and said “Excuse me? Anthony? Hi, it’s Christine here, one of the social workers at the council. I think we met earlier?”

“Oh…” he smiled. I think he might have forgotten who I was and was trying to be polite about it. He had a slight, gentle Scottish accent “Hi, Christine. I’m sorry to be a nuisance, but is everyone leaving now?”

“Yeah…” embarrassed, I said, “Most of the stall holders have left already. I’m really sorry. Someone should have told you. Do you want a hand packing up your things?”

“Oh, that’d be wonderful. Thank you.” He smiled.

Between us, we loaded his CDs and Braille cards into a folder, and then I moved the stall out of his way. I asked him how he was getting home, and he laughed again.

“Well, my wife has come to pick me up but I think she’s lost. Do you know where… what was it… do you know where a Lloyd’s bank is, near here? She’s parked near there.”

“I do, yeah.” I felt glad to be doing something, and it was a bit of a kick up the arse from the weird, helpless mood I’d been in earlier. “I’m going that way anyway. Do you want me to show you?”

“Oh yes, please. Thank you. And, I’m really sorry to ask, Christine, but would you mind awfully if I held onto your arm?”

We walked slowly. I think I spoke too much; I told Anthony about every single step and speed bump in the road. The dog seemed pretty happy to mooch along next to us, letting me do the guiding for it. We came to a set of stairs, and I fumbled trying to guide Anthony’s hand towards the railing. I looked up at him nervously. He was smiling, obviously seeing the funny side of something that I didn’t quite understand.

We started talking about Anthony’s work. He began telling me about the different conditions that are common with blind people; things like depression and anxiety but also some psychotic disorders, especially aural hallucinations.

I think I said something like “no-one with their eyesight will ever understand what it’s like to have to live without it.” Anthony was quiet after that. It was the wrong thing to say, looking back. I mean, it’s what you’d say to a client, not to another professional. Do you know what I mean? I meant to sound sympathetic, but I think instead I just sort of put up a barrier between us that hadn’t been there before. Instead of being two professionals talking about work, I’d made us into one sighted person and one blind person talking about being blind, and suddenly we weren’t equals any more.

We got to the car park behind Lloyd’s. There was a woman stood at the far end, and when the dog spotted her he started whining and dragging Anthony off towards her. The two hugged, said thank you, awkwardly, and drove off.

I walked home. I wasn’t really sure what to think. At the junction of a busy road, I closed my eyes, and felt my stomach drop through the floor at the sounds of cars passing.

I got home late. The rain held off. Sean asked me how my day was, and I told him I didn’t want to talk about it. It’d been miserable but I didn’t know why, and I couldn’t be bothered to try and explain.

Is this... Is this what you wanted to know? I think if I try and tell you everything that led up to… you know... then it might help me remember what actually happened. I’m trying to think, but my memory is really patchy. That day...

I remember Sean had a day off work the next day and I took the car before he got out of bed. I still felt like... you know. Weird. It was the kind of day where you don’t feel like you’re going to be able to do your job properly until you get there. Do you know what I mean?

When I got into the office there was an email waiting for me from the care worker, saying she’d had to take emergency leave, and that I needed to find someone to look after Joan for the next four or five days. You know, like I can magic up carers out of thin air. I braced myself, and rang Derek.

“Yeah? Is that social work?”

“It is, yes. Hi, Derek.” I was doing my friendly-but-formal voice, and trying to talk quickly so he didn’t have time to argue. “I’ve just been notified by the care worker that she’ll be unavailable for the next few days, and the agency we usually use won’t be able to provide someone at this short notice. We just need someone to go in temporarily to make sure that Joan is eating, washing and taking her medication. Is there any chance you could look in on her?”

“What… well, yeah, of course.” Derek said, sounding put out, “I mean, I always end up picking up the pieces after Elsie anyway, so I’m used to doing it, all the care and that. I just…”

“Oh, so you’ve been caring for Joan anyway? OK, that’s brilliant.” Derek had basically trapped himself into agreeing. “Joan will need someone to come round first thing in the morning, at about seven AM, to make breakfast for her and to give her her morning medication, help her get dressed and have a wash, use the toilet, things like that. Then she’ll need another visit at about five PM to prepare an evening meal, and a third visit at about nine PM to give her her evening medication and help her wash before bed. Is that alright, Derek?”

“Sure. Yeah. I can do that.”

“OK, great. I’ll put this into an email and send it to you, then, so you can refer to it later if you need the details. Now, you’ve told me you’ve been providing care for Joan until recently anyway, is that right? So you’re confident in doing all of this? You know how to administer food correctly, how to give personal care, and things like that?”

“Well, I mean, obviously I’ve been… “

“OK, that’s great. Can you go start at five PM this evening? Yeah? OK. Brilliant. That’s really helpful. Thanks Derek. Bye.”

I sat back in my chair, feeling pleased with myself. The phone rang again, making me jump. I though it might have been Derek trying to renege. The line was bad, and I had to strain to hear, but it definitely wasn’t him. It was a woman’s voice on the other end of the line; quiet and hoarse, like a lifelong smoker’s voice. “Am I speaking with Ms. Bone?”

“Oh. Yeah, speaking. Can I help?”

“Hello. Yes,” She cleared her throat, messily. “I’m ringing to make a complaint.” I thought at first she meant she wanted to complain about me, since she’d asked for me by name. I got quite defensive, and said

“OK. If you want to make a complaint about the social work team, or a specific staff member, you need to call Bristol City Council’s main number and follow the options...”

“No, no.” She interrupted me. “I mean a complaint about a... a member of the public, not one of your staff. I was told you were the worker I should speak with? It’s in regards to Joan Webster.”

Something clicked. I almost cried out

“Elsie?” I think I probably sounded half mad just then, just blurting out a name like that. I must have been thinking about Elsie without realizing I was. “Is... this is Elsie, right?”

“No.” The woman said, slowly. The voice seemed to crackle, like it was coming from far away. The office fan was making it hard to hear her properly. “My name is Stephanie. I’m a friend of Elsie’s. A friend of the family’s. Are you aware that that police have ordered me not to go to the house anymore?”

“I... what do you mean?”

“A police officer rang me today to tell me that no-one with any connection to Elsie is allowed to visit Joan, apparently on Derek’s instructions. Derek thinks that Elsie will use us to try and steal from Joan. Were you aware of this?”

I remember feeling like I was on the back foot in the conversation. That weird, weak feeling was beginning to creep back in. Trying to assert myself, I said, “No, I wasn’t aware of that. As far as I know, the police don’t have power to restrict the movements of anyone unless they’re suspected of a crime.”

“Oh, they didn’t say I wasn’t allowed. They said I wasn’t advised, but the implication was clear. They said if I contacted Joan I’d leave myself open to accusations relating to the current investigation. I’ve never been so insulted.” Stephanie coughed, wetly. Her voice was strange; the accent and the language were pure aristocracy, but the obvious smoker’s cough was so severe it put me in mind of someone homeless. I thought about what Derek had said about Elsie and her friends; drug users and alcoholics, but the kind of old money alcoholics you only ever find on somewhere like Coldharbour Road. “Excuse me. They didn’t tell me that Derek was pulling the strings, either, but it could hardly be anyone else. It’s criminal. I mean, Elsie’s never been perfect, but we’ve always tried to help. Joan is more-or-less family to me now. What do they think she’s going to do all day, sat in her bedroom with no-one to talk to? We’re closer to her now than Derek has ever been, whatever he might say about us.”

I looked around. No one was listening. I said, “Just between you and me, Derek does seem a bit... you know, controlling over the whole situation. You’re not a fan of his then, I take it?”

She laughed at my colloquialism.

“No, I’m not a fan. What’s there to be a fan of? It’s Derek I’m calling about, actually. I understand you’ve recently appointed Derek as Joan’s carer. Are you aware of the history between Derek and Elsie?”

I paused.

“Sorry, how did you know that? I’ve only just got off the phone to him.”

“He just called me. To gloat, I suspect.” said Stephanie. I was listening for a hesitation in her voice but I didn’t hear one. I don’t know why I’d thought she was lying. I was beginning to feel a bit paranoid.

“Alright, I was aware, yeah. Was there something in particular you wanted to tell me?”

“Well, there are certainly things you need to know. To start with, Elsie was in a psychiatric hospital, about ten years ago. She was a patient there for a long time. When she was finally discharged she had nowhere to go. That’s how she ended up living in the house on Coldharbour Road. Her father left it to her to manage, so that Joan could carry on living there with Elsie taking care of the maintenance, the bills, the correspondence and the upkeep, and so on. Obviously, he didn’t know at the time that Elsie was going to get herself in such a mess. I don’t think he ever intended her to live there. Anyway, Elsie was still very out-of-sorts after she was discharged. She’d been detoxed from heroin and put on these anti-psychotic mood drugs instead, that left her like a sleepwalker. She wasn’t in a fit state to take care of herself. And Joan had obviously just lost her sight, so neither of them was really able to look after the other.

“So, Derek offered to look after them both, and he moved into the house with them. Coldharbour Road became like an old-fashioned infirmary, with poor, ill Joan and poor, mad Elsie cooped up in there together, and Derek acting like the warden, walking round giving out the tablets and rattling the keys. Did Derek tell you any of this?”

“I... No. No, he didn’t.”

“Well, I came to visit one night, quite late. Elsie and I used to drink together, as Derek likes to remind people.” she said, bluntly. “Obviously I didn’t want to encourage Elsie back into her old habits. She was in recovery, and I didn’t want her to relapse. But I used to visit at night anyway. I think late at night was the time when she missed us the most. Do you see? But the tablets the hospital used to give her were unspeakable; great big things like you’d give to a dog. She took a whole fistful of them every morning, and they kept her half unconscious for weeks on end. Most nights when I visited, I’d just sit next to her and pat her on the head and listen to her mumble at me until she fell asleep. It was... it was hard. Even when she was using heroin, Elsie had been bright and articulate and good company. It was like this new person wasn’t really her. Still, I thought it was better someone was with her than no-one at all.

Stephanie coughed again. “I’m sorry, I’m digressing. Anyway one night Elsie didn’t take the tablets. She started to come round, and... I don’t know what happened, but she ended up relapsing. I suppose it was the shock of waking up after being half asleep for so long. She drank half a bottle of something vile that Derek had left lying around.

“I arrived at the house later on, and no-one answered the door so I let myself in. Joan was upstairs in her chair like normal. It was nearly midnight, and she was awake, which was unusual in itself, and when I tried to talk to her I couldn’t get any sense out of her at all.

“Elsie was in the upstairs front room when I found her. When I found her she was unconscious, and not breathing. I remember her skin had turned yellow, like old leather. I phoned an ambulance, and they took her to the hospital and pumped her stomach.”

I swallowed. “What happened? Where was...where was Derek?”

“I don’t know. Derek told the police that he’d been trying to get Elsie to take her medication, that he’d been giving Joan and Elsie both their medication, and that he must have got them mixed up. Joan was delirious because she’d had one of Elsie’s mood tablets, and Elsie... do you know what Joan is prescribed normally?”

“Ora... Oramorph. Opiates.” I felt like a shadow had fallen over me. I knew what Stephanie was going to say next.

“Exactly. Do you know what half a bottle of spirits and a fistful of opiate-derivatives would do to a person? I mean, Elsie was a recovering addict, as I said. It’s possible she took them herself, but... Ms. Bone? I’m sorry, are you alright?”

“I... yes. I’m fine. Look, thank you for calling me” I said, trying to pull myself together. “I’m going to phone a police officer now who’s been working on this case. I really think the police need to know about this. If there’s any suggestion at all that Derek was involved in... in what you’ve just said, then we need to be seriously thinking about whether he’s the appropriate person to be looking after Joan.”

I took Stephanie’s contact number. I said, “Before you go, Stephanie, do you know what the doctor’s verdict was that night? I mean, they must have spoken to Elsie after she came round to see if she remembered what had happened? What did...”

But there was no-one there. Stephanie had hung up the phone.

I don’t remember... I don’t remember the rest of that day. I got an email from that client with the money troubles again just before I went home, saying more of the same as the last one. I didn’t reply. It was about four o’clock by that point, and I couldn’t concentrate. I just shut down my computer and went home early, telling myself I’d sort it out in the morning. I remember my hands were shaking.

I just... I couldn’t think of anything to say to her. I was still so caught up by what Stephanie had told me that…

I didn’t email Jeanette the next day. I had to go to a meeting in Gloucester with a family who wanted to move down here, and it took all day. It was two days before I got back at my desk again, and, again, I was late for work. Our care worker was waiting for me when I got to the office. She grabbed me outside the lift and said, “Can I talk to you?”

We ducked into a meeting room. The care worker didn’t sit down. She said, “It’s Joan. I’m so... I’m so worried about her.”

“What’s the matter? I thought you were on leave?”

“I came back early. I went round to Joan’s this morning on my way to work. Do you know, I had to call the Doctor? She’s not eaten for two days and she’s got urine burns where she’s been wearing a soiled incontinence pad. It’s like no-one’s been in there at all. Whatever care you arranged, they didn’t do it. Who... I’m sorry. I’m not blaming you, but who exactly did you ask to manage her care while I was away?”

“Derek.” I said, feeling sick. “It was fucking Derek.”

I practically flew to my desk, and dialled Derek’s number. I told him what had happened, trying to speak calmly, but he was furious.

“So that’s my fault, is it? What do you expect? As far as I know you’d have the police waiting for me if I showed up there.

“Yeah, that’s right. I know you lot have been talking to that Stephanie woman. How am I supposed to go round there if she’s been pulling the strings with you lot, trying to turn you all against me? I had a phone call from the coppers the other day, asking me all these questions about all that shit with Elsie years ago. You know anything about that? Digging up all the bad past, and everything. You think I want to help you after that? You can forget it.

“This is all Elsie’s handiwork, you know. She’s got that woman to call you up and now she’s got you right where she wants you. I fucking told you lot that Elsie was a nasty piece of work. She’s got all this shit wrong in her head, and she’s hell bent on making everyone else feel shit as well.”

I hung up. I didn’t have time to listen to Derek ranting and raving about god knows what. I called Joan but there was no answer, like normal, so I called her GP. She told me Joan was fine, but very upset, and currently asleep. She nearly said something like, “If this ever happens again…” but then stopped herself. I think I would have ripped her apart right then if she’d tried to tell me this was my fault.

I went and found the care worker again. She was sat at her desk looking at pictures on the internet. I sat down next to her.

“Derek’s not co-operating. You know, I went up to Coldharbour Road the other day. The place is a shithole.”

“Oh, I know.” Said the care worker. “I always try and clean up whenever I go round there, but Joan won’t let me. There’s food all over the floor, the bedding’s not been changed in years, Joan’s not had a proper bath in I-don’t-know-how-long” Do you know,” she said “I really get the impression Joan doesn’t care anymore. It’s like she’s lost so much, and she’s so sick of all the family feuding, that she just doesn’t care anymore. Some days she won’t even speak.”

“I know. I thought the same. By the way,” I asked. “have you ever met someone named Stephanie? She rang me yesterday to tell me about Derek and Elsie’s nasty little history together. Does the name mean anything to you?”

“No. Never. Who is she?” I got the impression from her face that the overdose incident was new to her as well.

“A friend of Elsie’s, apparently.” I laughed. “She said she goes round there every so often to keep Joan and Elsie company. I thought it might actually have been Elsie on the phone for a minute. I made a right cock out of myself.”

“Oh no,” the care worker said, looking suddenly worried “No, Elsie wouldn’t have phoned you. She never speaks to social workers, or care staff. She won’t talk to us at all.”

“I guess she must have had bad experiences, what with being sectioned, and everything. It can’t be nice.” I said. “So she won’t talk to you either?”

“No. No, she’s never... she never talks to me.”

“So...” there was something weird about the way the care worker was talking, like she was avoiding something. “So have you ever actually met Elsie?”

“Well I’ve not... I mean, I’ve been there while she’s been there, obviously, but I’ve never actually... you know. I’ve never spoken to her, wouldn’t know her if I saw her. She usually goes and sits in one of the upstairs rooms when I go round, and doesn’t come down again until after I’ve left. It’s like I said, she hates talking to care staff. She’s a bit strange, to be honest. The whole family is weird.”

I can’t remember what she said after that, it was pretty vague. I made my excuses, and went back to my own desk. I started typing up a safeguarding report against Derek, then stopped. I remembered the client that I’d promised to contact about her money issues. I opened my emails.

There was a message from her, received at one o’clock that morning. It was...

I’m sorry, just give me...

It was a suicide note. I called our mental health emergency team, waited for about two rings, then hung up and called 999 instead. A paramedic rang me about half an hour later to say that the woman was dead.

I... I think I need a break. Can I... Can we stop recording?

OK, where were we? No, no it’s alright, I’m fine. I’m being stupid. It’s not like me to get upset about work. I mean, it’s not like she’s the first person I’ve worked with who’s topped themselves. It’s pretty common in this kind of work.

My manager sent me home early that day. I think the police and ambulance crew were very keen to dump the blame somewhere for what happened. It’s pretty much what social workers are for, having someone to scapegoat. At the same time, I still feel a bit...

I don’t know. I don’t think I actually caused her death. She was so close to the edge anyway that anything might have pushed her over. Whether I’d answered her email or not probably wouldn’t have made much difference. But I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to forget about it, either.

I remember talking to Sean in bed that night. He didn’t know what to say, naturally. People never know how to react when you tell them stuff like that. I told him it wasn’t the first person I’d worked with who’d done that, and Sean said something stupid like he didn’t know blind people killed themselves so often. You know, I think he thinks you can compartmentalise people, like in the films. These are blind people, these are depressed people, these are disabled people, or whatever. Obviously, you can’t. It doesn’t work like that.

I got really blunt and statistical at that point and started going on at him, probably a bit bitterly, about suicide rates amongst blind people and unemployment amongst disabled people and suicide rates among the unemployed, and all the rest. It was just bullshit, but he didn’t have the courage to stop me and say ‘Yes, but how do you feel about it?’ I didn’t really want to tell him, either. It was easier just to talk about the cold facts than to go into the serious stuff. It was like the other night; there was just too much to say, and I didn’t know where to start.

I do remember saying one thing, though. Sean had started dozing off, and I was wide awake lying on my back on top of the covers. I said:

“Blind people almost always get depressed, and loads of them end up committing suicide, especially people who lose their sight later in life. People always wonder why but it’s pretty simple. It’s just because being blind is fucking horrible. Whatever anyone says, it’s never going to be OK. Losing your eyesight is about the worst thing anyone can ever imagine happening to them. It... I mean, it’s terrifying. The whole world suddenly becomes terrifying.”

I lay there for a few minutes, hating myself for being so crass and dismissive about what had happened. I just wanted the last few weeks to never have happened. Then I said, “It’s not just not being able to see, it’s everything else. You know, it’s not just about being scared all the time, it’s losing so much as well. All... blindness is like bereavement. Most people, they lose everything. Like, your job, your hobbies, your friends... So much of yourself. It’s like someone has died there and then.

“It’s like they can’t let go. They harbour all this stuff inside them. I mean, why should they let go? what do they have to move on to? What’s good about being blind?”

I started to cry. Sean woke up and wrapped his arm around me, although he hadn’t heard what I’d said.

After that it was the weekend, I think. My memory is pretty bad from about this point onwards. I remember me and Sean went to the cinema and went for a meal out on Saturday, and I think we had a row on Sunday, when we were both stressed out about going back to work and both wanted the other one to be extra nice to us because of how shit our jobs both were.

And then... that Monday was when it all happened. Like I said, I don’t remember much.

I don’t remember where I was but I was out somewhere, coming back from a meeting or something, and the care worker rang me on my mobile.

“Christine? Oh, I’m so sorry. I really... I really need you to come to Coldharbour Road. I...” Her voice sounded hoarse, like she was on the verge of getting ill.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Elsie’s here. I can hear screaming and shouting from inside, and furniture crashing around, and all sorts. The key’s been taken from the key-safe and the door’s stuck. I can’t get in. Please, I...”

I think the client’s death the week before had sort of crystallized something in me. I’d been getting shittier and shittier at my job for the last few weeks before, and I’d hit the point where I had to do something drastic to prove myself. I wasn’t really thinking clearly. I should have called the police, but instead I told the carer to wait outside and said I’d be there as quickly as I could.

I was in Redland anyway. I think I must have been on my way back from Southmead. I got off the bus and ran up to Coldharbour Road.

It was muggy and hot. I had sweat patches under my arms by the time I got to the house. I looked around for the care worker, but she wasn’t there.

The front door was hanging open. I stood outside and listened. I thought I could hear voices, faintly, from inside, but just as I strained to hear a bus went past roaring past behind me and made me panic. I looked around again, and went inside.

In the amber-colored light of the wide hallway I listened for the voices again. Now the house seemed to be silent. The glass tables and ornaments had been smashed on the floorboards, and the shards of glass and dust underfoot glistened like surf.

The big front rooms were both empty. I looked in the gutted kitchen as well, but there were no signs of anyone. The back door was locked. On the stairs I found footprints in the dust, but it was impossible to count them.

I went upstairs. Joan’s bedroom door was closed. I looked behind me and then, slowly, feeling sick, pushed open the door.

The room had been trashed. The pill packets and food wrappers on the floor had been ripped open, and there was crushed food and plastic rubbed into the carpet and the curtains. There were smears on the walls, and soiled and torn incontinence pads were scattered around like old snow. It looked like they’d been pulled out of the bin and thrown around.

Joan was in her chair, curled up in a foetal position. I wouldn’t have thought she was capable. She looked tiny, the size of a young child. I remember seeing the curvature of her spine for the first time, and being shocked. I looked around the room quickly. She was alone, as far as I could see.

“Joan” I said, trying to sound calm. “It’s Christine here, the social worker. Remember? We met last week. Are you OK? Are you hurt?”

She didn’t answer. She sniffed. I think she might have been crying, but it was hard to be sure.

I picked my way over to her and tried to find somewhere to squat down next to her. I said again, “Joan, this is Christine Bone, the social worker. I had a phone call from your carer saying that there was someone in the house, that they think Elsie was here, and she was shouting and breaking things. Is that true? Please, Joan” desperately, I said “Please? I need to know. I’m trying to help.”

Joan said nothing. I’d picked up something from the floor, and started playing with it absent-mindedly, like I always do when I’m nervous. I looked down at it now, for the first time.

It was a photograph. For a moment I thought it was the same one I’d seen before, downstairs; it was another black and white photo, with Joan, Harriet and Catherine all about the same age as in the last picture, wearing the same clothes, sat around the same chair swing and the tree. But in the foreground, stood in front of the chair, was a much younger child, about thirteen. She was wearing in a school summer dress and a cardigan, with plaits in her hair.

It must have been Elsie, but something was wrong with her face. For a moment, I stared. She was wearing heavy, dark make-up, put on sloppily and unevenly so that it almost looked like someone had thrown it over her. And there was something else about her that seemed wrong too, like the face itself was... I don’t know. Misshapen, or deformed, or something. The proportions were wrong. The eyes were too big, and uneven, and the jaw seemed to tilt to the side.

Joan coughed, weakly, and I jumped. She opened her mouth, and wet her lips with her tongue. Then she started to talk. I realized I’d never heard her voice before. It was so soft I had to read her lips.

“You were wrong.” She said. “You were wrong about Elsie.”

She felt around the arm of the chair, and then found my hand where I was leaning, and held it.

“You just... you people never understand, do you? you don’t know what you do to people like me. You... you hurt us all so much. I still love Elsie. She’s still my daughter, and now because of you I’ll never see her… You people, whatever I say, it’s as though you already have an answer for it, so I don’t say anything. Do you even know, what kind of... of power you have over us?

“Do you even know...” she said again, her voice cracking.

“Joan, I’m sorry, I...” that was the last thing I said. I don’t think I was really listening to her. I just needed to calm her down enough to tell me who else was in there with us, so I could figure out what to do.

“But do you...?” she sobbed.

I looked down at the picture again, at the young Elsie with the painted face. I squinted, and then suddenly I realized what I was looking at. Elsie was standing away from the rest of her family, and looked like she’d been crying. Around her eyes, under her clumsy make-up, her left cheek and forehead were swollen. Around her eyes and cheeks, I could just make out the lines of cuts and bruises, that looked like they’d been made by fists. Underneath the face, the bone structure itself looked broken. Her lips were cut, and she was smiling awkwardly, like she was missing teeth. The make-up had been plastered on over the top of the injuries.

I dropped the photo, and then...

I don’t remember what happened next. My memories are still confused, and I don’t know how much use telling you will be. I remember I felt something cold on the back of my neck, again. I turned round. The doorway behind me was open, but there was no-one there.

I heard a voice, and although there was no-one else in the room I could hear it so clearly it could only have been coming from right in front of me. The accent was clipped and aristocratic, but the voice itself was ragged, like a lifelong smoker’s, It started speaking to me and...

What?

No, I told you, there was no-one else there.

I don’t care. I don’t give a shit what you believe. I know what you all think, but I know what I saw, and I’m telling you there was no-one else in the room. I heard the voice right in front of me. Right after that is when my vision began to blur.

That’s everything. The paramedics found me on the floor, apparently, with Joan screaming in the chair. They bandaged up my eyes, and took us both to the hospital. I can’t tell you anything else. I know exactly what they said in the hospital that night: that someone must have come up behind me and fucked up my eyes with something, and the shock made me forget seeing them. That was their story, right? I don’t know. It might be true, but it’s not how I remember it.

You... what? Fine. I told you. Like I said, you can believe what you want. But you weren’t there, and you don’t know.

Do I remember what it said? Yeah, I remember that. I don’t think I’ll ever forget. It said

“Do you understand?”

I’m done. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

The ENd

About The Authors

MJ Wesolowski

Matthew John Wesolowski is a horror writer from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the UK. His first ever book, written and illustrated by himself at age 11 was entitled ‘Attack of the Killer Flytraps‘ and whilst his writing style has possibly matured since then, his themes and content almost certainly haven’t.

His short fiction has been published in Ethereal Tales magazine, the Midnight Movie Creature Feature anthology (May December Publications), the ‘22 More Quick Shivers‘ Anthology (Cosmonomic Multimedia), the ‘Short Not Sweet’ Anthology (Iron Press/Red Squirrel Press/Tyne Bridge Publishing), the ‘Kitchen Sink Gothic‘ anthology (Parallel Universe Publications), the ‘Selfies from the End of the World’ anthology (Mad Scientist Journal) and the ‘Playrooms’ anthology (Knightwatch Press).

His debut novella ‘The Black Land‘ a horror set on the Northumberland coast, was published in 2013 by Blood Bound Books and a new novella set in the troll-haunted forests of Sweden will be available through Coeur De Lion Publishing in 2016

Brit Jones

Brit Jones has spent the better part of the last twenty-five years as a professional musician, a past time which involved songwriting, band leader, manager, sideman and included rigorous touring, sometimes in at least two bands at a time. He has dabbled with writing fiction in several genres during his free time and recently concluded writing a novel. As playing music became a hobby rather than a profession he has increasingly focused on writing fiction—something he finds more fulfilling and accommodating to his schedule. In addition, his pre-readers unanimously agree he’s a better writer than he ever was a musician. Brit lives in Austin, TX.

Franklin Charles Murdock

Franklin Charles Murdock is a fiction writer from the Midwestern United States. Though most of his work is harvested from the vast landscapes of horror, fantasy, and science fiction, Franklin strives to spin tales outside the conventions of these genres.

His work has appeared in A Murder of Storytellers, Dark Fuse, Under the Bed Magazine, 69 Flavors of Paranoia, MicroHorror, Dark Lanes, and various other publications. Most recently, he’s been coauthoring the serial epic BEARD THE IMMORTAL on swordandportent.com

DJ Tyrer

DJ Tyrer is the person behind Atlantean Publishing and has been widely published in anthologies and magazines in the UK, USA and elsewhere, including A Grimoire of Eldritch Inquests, Volume I (Emby Press), State of Horror: Illinois (Charon Coin Press), Steampunk Cthulhu (Chaosium), Tales of the Dark Arts (Hazardous Press), Cosmic Horror (Dark Hall Press), and Sorcery & Sanctity: A Homage to Arthur Machen (Hieroglyphics Press), and in addition, has a novella available in paperback and on the Kindle, The Yellow House (Dunhams Manor).

Tracy Fahey

Tracy Fahey writes short fiction that is concerned with ideas of uncanny domestic space and its various intersections with literature, art and folk-tales. Since taking up fiction writing in 2013, she has had fourteen short stories accepted for publication in anthologies by US and UK presses including Fox Spirit Press, Hic Dragones Press, Dark Minds Press, Martinus Publishing, A Murder of Storytellers and Hydra Publications, and her debut collection will be announced shortly for release with a UK press in 2016. She has also been shortlisted for the Creative Writing Ink Award in 2013.

Her author website is www.designingtracy.wix.com/tracyfahey.

In her other life, as doppelganger Dr. Tracy Fahey, she runs a fine art department, a research centre and an art collective, Gothicise.

Elizabeth Myrddin

Elizabeth Myrddin lives and works in San Francisco and writes as a pleasurable hobby. Her first professionally published short story Not Just Another Daddy’s Girl is included in the Guns and Romances anthology published by Crossroad Press.

Jackie Woodard

Jackie Woodard is twenty-three, born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She recently graduated from the University of Missouri—St. Louis, with a degree in Communications. She’s been telling stories for as long as she can remember, long before she began writing them down. Insanity is her first published story. She’s currently working on a novel and other shorts.

B.T. Joy

B.T. Joy is a British horror writer whose short fiction has appeared within the printed pages, internet presences and podcasts of markets such as Static Movement, Surreal Grotesque, James Ward Kirk Fiction, Human Echoes, MircoHorror, Flashes In The Dark, SQ Magazine, Forgotten Tomb Press and Chilling Tales For Dark Nights, among others. He is also a practicing poet and his poetry can be found in magazines and anthologies produced worldwide.

He can be reached through his website:

http://btj0005uk.wix.com/btjoypoet

or on tumblr: http://btj0005uk.tumblr.com/

Jeremy Thompson

A San Diego State graduate, Jeremy Thompson resides in Southern California, where he writes horror, bizarro, thrillers and science fiction. Jeremy’s books include The Phantom Cabinet and The Fetus and Other Stories. His short fiction has appeared in Under the Bed, Into the Darkness: Volume 1, Sanitarium Magazine, and The Dead Walk: Volume 2.

Matt Tveter

Matthew K. Tveter’s writing has been published in the Boundary Waters Journal, Vita.MN and Red Weather Literary Journal. He was born in Fargo, North Dakota, has lived in Texas, Spain and Taiwan, and currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife and kids.

You can (rarely) find him on twitter - @CyberTveter.

Joseph Rubas

Joseph Rubas is the author of over 200 short stories, many of them in the horror genre. His work has appeared in The Horror Zine; Thuglit; All Due Respect; [Nameless]; and others. He currently resides in Florida with his fiancee and their two children.

Ro McNulty

Ro McNulty writes literary and genre fiction, and has been published in markets as diverse as Corvus Review and Dark Chapter Press. He also edits Empty Oaks; an up-and-coming spec fic zine. In the real world, Ro lives in Bristol, UK, and works in adult care.

Other Books by Onyx Neon Press

Cifiscape Volume I: The Twin Cities by various

Cifiscape Volume II: The Twin Cities by various

Liftoff: Launching Agile Teams & Projects by Diana Larsen and Ainsley Nies

Onyx Neon Shorts: End of The Year Collection - 2014 by Aaron M. Wilson, Laura Spain, Ben Solomon, David Oppegaard, Jonathan Hansen, Gary Gray, Nik Cook, Fred McGavran

Dream Walker by Kevin Horwitz

Other Shorts by Onyx Neon Press

2014

The Paperless Doctrine of 2152 by Aaron M. Wilson

The Hard-Boiled Detective – Statement No. 1: Pierre-Louis Leblanc by Ben Solomon

Our Final Crash & Other Short Stories by Laura Spain

Breakneck Cove by David Oppegaard

Harris by Jonathan Hansen

River Don’t Run by Gary Gray

Devil’s Mill by Fred McGavran

2015

Tomorrow, at Dawn by Alienor Littaye

La Elegía por David Alvarez by Scott Archer Jones

Postmortem by Jacob Michael King

Darkness in The Flame by John A. Karr

DEAD by Thomas Gumbel

Botany Bay by Rylend Grant & Dikran Ornekian

Rising of Cthulhu’s Cultist by Aaron M. Wilson

—————————————————

For more info on Onyx Neon Shorts, the work we do, or a list of our shorts please visit us online at
http://shorts.onyxneon.com

Table of Contents

- Ellie Hill by MJ Wesolowski

- 82 Rungs by Brit Jones

- What Little Remains by Franklin Charles Murdock

- Sylvia’s Pictures by DJ Tyrer

- Something Nasty In The Woodshed by Tracy Fahey

- Up In The Window by Elizabeth Myrddin
- Insanity by Jackie Woodard
- The Guard by B.T. Joy
- Sacrificial Version by Jeremy Thompson

- The Man Who Left No Footprints in The Snow by Matt Tveter

- The Lake House by Joseph Rubas

- Cold Harbour by Ro McNulty

- About The Authors

- MJ Wesolowski
- Brit Jones
- Franklin Charles Murdock
- DJ Tyrer
- Tracy Fahey
- Elizabeth Myrddin
- Jackie Woodard
- B.T. Joy
- Jeremy Thompson
- Matt Tveter
- Joseph Rubas
- Ro McNulty