Liminal: 13 Horror Stories About Infinite Spaces
Author: Unknown
Date: 0101-01-01 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Booksprout ID -clzcq7vxu1313305li2s25jbdvl0

LIMINAL

15 HORROR STORIES ABOUT INFINITE SPACES

CONTENTS

Greenhouse

Samantha Whitmore

Office

H.T. Waite

Suburbs

Blair Daniels

Beach

Jacob Early

Hatchery

René Rehn

Waiting Room

Kajetan Kwiatkowski

Prison

Kyle Harrison

Float Barn

Victor Sweetser

Playground

Blair Daniels

Library

C.M. Robinson

Night Club

H.R. Welch

Isomart

T.W. Vesperbelle

School

Jesse Pullins

Mall

Ashley Watson

Rest Stop Bathroom

Jamie Polizzi

GREENHOUSE

SAMANTHA WHITMORE

Gravel crackles and snaps under the tires as we pull into the parking lot in front of May’s Nursery. It doesn’t look busy, there’s only a couple of dirty cars scattered among the parking spaces.

“It’s smaller than I expected,” David remarks as we both get out of the car.

He had begrudgingly agreed to spend his day off plant shopping for the front garden with me. I had argued that since he would be digging the majority of the holes, he ought to have a say in what we bought. In truth I just didn’t want to go alone, but his constant grumbling was starting to make me wish he hadn’t come.

David’s right, though; May’s is not a large nursery, especially compared to the ones closer to the city. Just three long, rectangular greenhouses sandwiched together, fiberglass cloudy and yellowing, peaked roofs retreating behind them.

Dust kicks up from under our shoes as I lead the way across the parking lot towards the entrance. The walkway along the front is crowded with merchandise. The doors to the side greenhouses are completely blocked by bagged soil, towers of pots and planters, tomato cages, trellises, and about a dozen wheelbarrows, but there is a gap wide enough for a set of double doors into the middle greenhouse, one side propped open welcomingly.

I step through the open doorway and am immediately hit by a wall of hot, humid air. The greenhouse sprawls out in front of me. It’s a bit bigger than it looked from the outside, filled with rows and rows of grated metal tables laden with plants in every shade of green and peppered with bright patches of colorful flowers. The leaves sway in a gentle breeze made by numerous fans mounted on the roof trusses and misters hiss on and off, intermittently sending a fine shower of water into the air. Well worn gravel paths carve corridors through the jungle of foliage and a couple of metal wagons can be seen poking out from under the tables. The smell of damp earth, crushed leaves, and pollen tickles my nose and I briefly hold my finger to my face to stifle a sneeze.

“Can I help you find something today?”

The sudden voice makes me jump and I spin to my right to see a cheery blonde cashier in a tidy green apron smiling at me from behind a checkout counter.

“I–uh–we’re just looking.” I blush as I struggle to collect my thoughts. “We just finished the interior renovations on our house and are finally getting around to tackling the garden.”

I glance over my shoulder at David and he returns the cashier’s smile with a tight, forced one of his own.

“Well, our annuals are in this center greenhouse, trees and shrubs in the west greenhouse,” she gestures to a plastic curtain door halfway down the left side, “and our perennials are in the east greenhouse,” she says, gesturing to an identical curtain door on the right side, directly across from the first. “There are garden wagons scattered about for your convenience and if you need any help, please don’t hesitate to ask!”

I thank her and wade out into the sea of green, David trailing behind me. My boots softly grind the gravel into the moist dirt underfloor as I walk up and down the aisles, idly running my hands through the leaves as I pass, overwhelmed with the options and possibilities. Now and then I catch a glimpse of the various plant tags. I recognize a lot of the names, but with my lack of gardening experience the planting information is all but meaningless to me.

David interrupts my thoughts, “Do you really not know what you’re looking for?”

“I kind of have an idea but I thought I’d look around first, get a feel for what’s here, and then decide what to get,” I reply, absently checking the tags on some small, pink begonias.

He sighs and looks around. “Can you look faster? It’s hot as fuck in here.”

Sweat prickles along my neck and down my back, mostly a result of the oppressive heat in the greenhouse but partially from the annoyance radiating off David. I hastily scoop up two of the begonias and hurry to look through the rest of the annuals. There are only a couple of tables that I haven’t looked at and I breeze by, glancing over the plants quickly before heading towards the doorway into the east greenhouse to check out the perennials.

The plastic sheets of the curtain door are thick and heavy and leave a film of moisture along my arm as I push them aside to pass. They slide back together behind me with a gritty swish. Another expanse of greenery lies before me, scattered with more plants in full bloom. I wander into the very center of the greenhouse before stopping to look around and get my bearings. My brow furrows in confusion as I note curtain doors in the middle of each of the four walls, implying more greenhouses to explore.

Curious, I head up the length of the greenhouse towards the doorway along the front wall and part the plastic sheets to peek through. The next greenhouse is identical to the last–four curtain doors bisecting each wall–but this one is absent of colorful flowers, filled instead with vining plants. The twisting foliage grows in tangles across the tables, spilling over the edges and running across the pathways. Some of the pots have bamboo stakes or small trellises in them, allowing the vines to reach skyward in verdant columns.

My mind is filled with images of ivy creeping up the brick siding of our house, summers spent sitting under a pergola covered in flowering vines, and I eagerly delve into the mass of green. Tendrils brush my arms and face as I pick my way over the vines spreading across the path, mashing leaves beneath my shoes where the growth is too dense to avoid. Hunting through the curling vines, I pick out medium sized pots of honeysuckle and ivy, cradling them in my left arm and shuffling the begonias into my right hand, fingers straining to hold them. It’s a bit difficult to juggle all four pots but I manage, trying to ignore the moisture leaking from the drainage holes and the dirt smearing across my shirt.

Satisfied with my finds, I push through another curtain door into the next greenhouse. The tables in this one are laden with delicate ferns of all sizes and textures. Putting my plants on the ground to free my hands, I start looking through the foliage. A whimsical looking fern with elegant, sweeping leaves catches my eye. Excited, I turn to ask David to find a wagon for me but he’s nowhere to be seen. I’m alone in the greenhouse.

Frowning, I pull my phone out of my back pocket. There’s a new message from David.

Too hot. I’ll be in the car.

I check the time, and groan. It’s only 2:37 pm. He hadn’t even lasted ten minutes. Apparently, it was just too much to expect him to spend the whole time plant shopping with me.

Knowing he’d complain if he has to wait for too long, I type out a quick reply.

I’m trying to hurry. I’ll be out in 30 minutes.

Angrily, I shove my phone back into my pocket. Screw David, I’d just have to find my own wagon. I collect my plants from the ground and swipe the fern off the table. It takes me a minute to get everything secure in my arms and once loaded up I look around. A cursory glance over the greenhouse yields no sign of a wagon so I make my way back up the path to the doorway I came in from. There were plenty of wagons near the checkout counter, I tell myself. I can grab one and quickly circle back to get the other plants I want.

Arms full, I awkwardly shoulder my way through the doorway into the previous greenhouse and stop. Gone are the tables and the huge collection of vining plants, instead the entire space is crowded with rows and rows of saplings growing in large pots spaced evenly on the ground. Maples, oaks, birches, and trees heavy with fruit, their thin trunks stretch towards the roof creating a dizzying pattern of pillars and obscuring the view forward. This is not the greenhouse I had just come from.

Uncertainly, I back through the doorway and turn. I almost drop my plants in shock. My breath comes in short gasps as I stare at the impossible sight before me. The greenhouse is packed with crops. Fully grown corn, wheat, and oats grow in rows all along the left side. On the right side I can see tomatoes, pepper plants, heads of lettuce, pumpkins, zucchini, watermelon, and even asparagus.

Heart pounding, I quickly set my plants down and pull out my phone to try and call David but the app refuses to load, just opening to a blank, white screen. I exit and try to text him again but the messaging app does the same exact thing, opening as a blank screen and failing to load. My eyes shoot to the top of my screen. It shows I have five bars of 5G, but I notice the clock still reads 2:37 pm.

Anxious and stressed, I shut down my phone completely. It takes an excruciatingly long time for it to restart and I watch the screen impatiently as it changes from my carrier logo to the lock screen. I let out the breath I had been holding and unlock it. My heart sinks. The background is blank, my wallpaper not loading, and there are no apps at all on the home screen. The top bar still displays full service and the clock is stuck at 2:37 pm. I lock and unlock the screen a few times but nothing changes.

I cram my bricked phone into my pocket and try to take a few deep breaths, fighting the tears of frustration brimming in my eyes. It’s fine, I’ll just keep walking. I’m sure to find someone, an employee or another customer.

With one final cleansing breath, I gather my plants up into my arms and push my way back through the curtain door once again. The tables in the next greenhouse are loaded with grasses of varying heights, creating an artificial savannah. Undeterred, I press on, walking straight across the greenhouse towards the doorway on the other side, grass tickling my face and arms as I go. Halfway across I notice a faint, irregular rustling noise, barely audible above the monotonous hum of the fans above me, and I pause to listen.

“Hello?” I call out hopefully.

The rustling stops for a moment before resuming, more insistent. Head swiveling, I search for the source of the sound and see the grasses parting near where I entered the greenhouse. My breath catches, the plants I’m holding slip from my arms and hit the ground with dull thuds, soil spilling out from the pots and onto my shoes.

I manage to croak out a weak, “Who’s there?”

There’s no answer, but the grass starts moving faster as something rushes across the tables towards me. I scream and whirl around, running towards the far door. I crash through the plastic curtain and into a greenhouse stuffed with large flowering bushes. Leaves and flowers whip me in the face and thorns snag my sleeves and scratch my arms as I sprint past. Reaching the middle of the greenhouse, I hear the curtains behind me flap open and I wheel to the left, charging through another doorway at random trying to lose my pursuer.

I fly through greenhouse after greenhouse in quick succession, each completely unique. I race through ones filled with aquatic plants, ground covers, mosses, briars, every plant imaginable. One greenhouse is a vibrant, tropical jungle, another an arid desert, then an alpine meadow, and I quickly lose count of how many I pass as well as any sense of direction. As I run, my clothes catch and tear on thorns and stray branches. My whole body itches as hives erupt on my face and arms. I’m covered in scratches, skin burning from brushing against nettles, and one hand is even stippled with cactus needles.

Eventually the sounds of pursuit fade and I finally slow, stumbling through another doorway and catching myself on the metal table of plants next to the door. I lean over, resting both my hands on the cool surface, and struggle to catch my breath. As I rest, I glance around. The plants in front of me look like pepper plants, but with dark, black berries hanging off them. My eyes fall to the plant tag. Belladonna, Deadly Nightshade. The tag has a small skull and crossbones symbol on it, warning of its toxicity.

Eyes wide, I reel back and stumble against another metal table behind me. Soft needles prick the backs of my bare arms and I turn to see small evergreen shrubs covered in red berries. The tag identifies them as English Yew and displays the same skull and crossbones symbol. I take a step back and look around. The next table has small plants with tulip-like leaves and delicate stems dripping in white flowers, Lily of the Valley, also poisonous. Yet another is full of shrubs covered in pink, white, and red flowers. Oleander.

Bewildered, I check more tags. Rosary Pea, Manchineel Tree, Wolf’s Bane, Castor Bean, White Snakeroot, Water Hemlock, table after table of plants all marked with the same skull and crossbones symbol. The entire greenhouse is full of poisonous plants.

I continue wandering, drifting up and down the rows of toxic vegetation until I turn a corner and find myself in the very center of the greenhouse. I stop short and a dry sob slips from my lips. In front of me is a shallow hole. It’s fresh, the soil dark and damp, and there’s a discarded shovel nearby. In the bottom lies a single grey sneaker. It’s a brandless knock off, the soles worn, dirty laces tied in a messy bow. One of the lace caps is missing, the ends of the string fraying. I know just from looking at it that it will be a size ten and a half. His size.

I’d told David he needed a new pair of shoes for months but he kept telling me they were finally broken in. Now here one is, lying alone in a small depression, lost in this labyrinth with me.

My knees give out and I sink to the ground. With trembling hands I pick up the shoe and hold it to my chest. Tears spill onto my cheeks and I cry. The sound is dampened by the walls of greenery around me, making me feel even smaller and more alone. I bend forward and curl around the shoe, sobs and grief wracking my body.

After what feels like hours, I finally run dry. I wipe my face with the shredded remains of my shirt and push myself to my feet, the gravel sticking to my damp hands like broken glass. I brush the bits away and, still clutching David’s shoe, start numbly walking again.

I push my way through a curtain door at random and my stomach drops. Before me is the same, deadly greenhouse with its toxic plants. To the right is the nightshade, to the left the yew, and in the distant middle, partially obscured by greenery, I can see the hole and its forgotten shovel. I close my eyes tightly, trying to will the scene away, but it remains unchanged when I open them again.

I grip David’s shoe tighter and back through the curtain door. When I turn around I find myself in the deadly greenhouse again. Taking a deep breath, I walk determinedly down the center path, sidestepping the hole, and turn to head through one of the doorways along the side of the greenhouse. I enter into the same greenhouse.

I try over and over, different doorways, forwards and backwards, but I can’t escape the greenhouse and its toxic plants. The hole in the center and its discarded shovel mock me each time I pass and I finally scream in frustration, dropping David’s shoe and grabbing the shovel. I storm to one of the doorways and hurl it through the plastic sheets. It immediately comes flying through the curtain doorway behind me at the opposite end of the greenhouse and crashes to the floor, sending a spray of gravel into the air.

Exasperated, I look around for any other options, any other way out of this cursed greenhouse. Turning in circles and pulling at my hair, I glance towards the roof and its latticework of support trusses mounted with fans and misters. There aren’t any roof vents I could crawl out of, but I get a desperate, last ditch idea.

Retrieving the shovel from its landing place on the other side of the greenhouse, I start sweeping plants off the closest table with reckless abandon. They tumble to the ground, throwing dirt in all directions, and I climb onto the cleared space on the table. From there I’m able to reach the lowest beam. It’s narrow, but it bears my weight when I test it.

I grab onto it with one hand and hoist the shovel onto the beam with the other, awkwardly gripping both tightly. Leaning back, I manage to swing my legs up and over the beam and pull myself into a precarious sitting position on top. Carefully, I remove the shovel from underneath one leg before sliding myself along the metal beam to one of the vertical struts. I wrap my legs around it for balance and adjust my grip on the shovel, holding it tightly in both hands like a spear. I viciously stab the blade of the shovel at the fiberglass panels above me. The blow sends a shockwave down the handle that makes my hands buzz, and I hit it again and again. The panel flexes under the beating, but otherwise doesn’t budge. There’s not even a scratch on the surface to mark my effort.

Frantic, I move my hands down the handle of the shovel and, using all of my remaining strength, swing it in a wild arc at the roof panels. The blade glances harmlessly off the fiberglass and the force tears the shovel from my grip. Arms pinwheeling, I start to lose my balance. My legs rip free of their grip on the strut and I fall backwards into the mass of poisonous plants below me.

Branches break beneath me, digging into my skin, and I slam into the table, bruising my entire right side on the pots and the unforgiving metal surface. All of the wind is knocked from my lungs and I writhe in silent pain, legs kicking out feebly. My arm feels like it’s broken and I can feel blood starting to ooze from punctures and scrapes all along my body.

Finally sucking in a breath I scream, long and hard, ripping my vocal cords raw. I choke on air and saliva as I gasp between wet sobs. Cradling my right arm, I carefully roll onto my left side and try to remove myself from the wreckage of mashed plants and broken pots. Debris slips beneath my feet and hand as I try to find purchase, eventually reaching the edge of the table and easing my feet onto the floor.

Still whimpering, I slowly limp my way to the center of the greenhouse and stop at the lip of the shallow hole. David’s shoe lies abandoned next to it and I gently scoop it up with my good hand and gingerly crawl into the bottom of the hole. Laying on my back in the middle, I rest the shoe on my chest and stare up at the roof. Bright sunlight filters in through the faded, yellow fiberglass and water from a nearby mister rains down on me softly. The cool dirt feels pleasant on my injured body and I close my eyes to rest.

A tear leaks from my closed eyes as I realize it’s not just a hole I lay in, it’s a grave. My grave. I’m trapped here, in this deadly greenhouse at the center of this wretched maze, lost, injured, and with no way out. There’s nothing more I can do and I hug David’s shoe, feeling helpless and resigned.

At least there is plenty to eat in this greenhouse when I’m ready.

OFFICE

H.T. WAITE

What follows are documents relating to a series of unusual events that occurred at the Mariposa Telecommunications Corporation’s Santa Clara office during a 5 day period lasting from November 13th, 2023 to November 17th, 2023. The majority are service tickets submitted to HelpOut, a proprietary digital help desk platform used by the Mariposa Telecommunications Corporation. It is at present unknown if the subject matter of these documents has anything to do with Mariposa’s abrupt decision to transition its Santa Clara employees to working remotely, and the near total abandonment of the building proper. Representatives of the Mariposa Telecommunications Corporation have declined to comment on the matter.

* * *

Subject: Meeting Reminder Email

Ticket Number: LP01342

Employee Name: Lucas Glass

Employee ID: 678295

Date: 11/13/2023

Description

I received an odd email today, and while I’m not necessarily sure if this should go to loss prevention, my supervisor, Glenda, seems to think it belongs here. I’ve copypasted the contents of the email below, maybe you guys will be able to make something of it.

Subject: Reminder for meeting

Date: 11/13/2023

From: glenda.richardson@mariposatele.com

To: lucas.glass@mariposatele.com

This is a reminder that there is a MANDATORY meeting today at 2 PM. The meeting is located on the 5th floor, in conference room 7. Attendance is REQUIRED. Truancy will be PUNISHED, attendance will be REWARDED. Do not reply to this email.

Glenda Richardson

Office Supervisor

Mariposa Telecommunications Corporation

Now the problem with this, as I’m sure you’re well aware, is that there is no conference room 7, and there is no 5th floor. I tried replying to the email, saying that I don’t know where they want me to go, but I haven’t received a response. The emails seem to be sent by my supervisor, Glenda, but the thing is, I’ve talked with her, and she doesn’t know anything about it. As far as she is aware, she hasn’t sent me any emails today. She thinks it is some sort of obtuse phishing scam or something, so I’m putting it here, but I think it may be an IT problem, maybe some automated reminder system gone haywire?

Notes

Unusual email examined, no harmful attachments found. Glenda Richardson instructed to change all passwords in case of a security breach.

Status: Resolved

* * *

Subject: Elevator Problems

Ticket Number: IT05628

Employee Name: Shannon Schafer

Employee ID: 925462

Date: 11/14/2023

Description

I don’t really know if this is the right department, but I figured maybe you guys in IT would know where to send it if I’d gotten it wrong. I work on the 4th floor, and I prefer to take the elevator up because I’ve got a bit of a bad hip. Up until today this has worked out fine for me, but this morning for some reason the elevator took me all the way up to the 5th floor, and it wouldn’t let me go back down to the 4th floor no matter how many times I pressed the button. I wound up having to take the stairs down, which caused me a great deal of strain. I figured maybe this was a one off incident, and that I shouldn’t make a big deal out of it, but the same thing happened on my lunch break.

The elevator took me back to the ground floor just fine, but after I was done eating and tried making my way back to the 4th floor, it just went right up to the 5th floor without stopping. I double checked and made absolutely sure that I had pressed the right button, but for some reason it just completely ignored my input. Maybe the button is stuck or something?

I don’t appreciate unnecessarily climbing down a flight of stairs whenever I just want to get to my work station, and would appreciate if this issue gets resolved as quickly as possible. Plus, and I know this is none of my business, but the 5th floor gives me the creeps. I don’t know whose idea it was to cover up all the windows, but its really unsettling, especially since I didn’t actually see anyone else up there. Oh, none of the light switches up there seemed to work either. I don’t know if this was a cost saving measure since nobody uses that floor, but I figured I’d bring it to your attention either way.

Thank you.

Notes

For future reference, tickets of this nature should be routed instead to the maintenance department. However, in this case, no such routing is necessary. There is no 5th floor, and no other floor matches the description given in the ticket. This is most likely some sort of joke.

Status: Resolved

* * *

Subject: Creepy Staring

Ticket Number: HR07401

Employee Name: Eliza Torez

Employee ID: 739275

Date: 11/15/2023

Description

The guy in the cubicle next to me keeps on staring at me. As in he is standing up at full height and just leering over the edge and looking at me. I’ve told him to knock it off but he just keeps staring. It’s making it really difficult for me to focus, and it isn’t conducive to a safe work environment.

I tried talking to my supervisor, James, about it, but he just gave me a weird look and asked who I was talking about. I guess he doesn’t know the names of the people who work under him, and the description I gave didn’t ring any bells apparently. He told me to file this ticket, so I did, and I’d also like to note my supervisor didn’t even bother to try and talk to the guy. In fact he seemed to pretend like he couldn’t see him, despite being in plain view.

I don’t know the employee’s name or anything, just that he is in the cubicle to the left of mine, he’s tall enough that his head and neck can peek over the edge, he’s got greasy black hair, and he has the creepiest smile I’ve ever seen. Can you please send someone to talk to him or something? I don’t feel safe confronting him on my own.

Edit: I just remembered, I think the employee is new to this department. I think I heard someone say he used to work on the 5th floor. I’m not sure if that will help out at all, but I figured I’d let you know.

Notes

Consulting employee records, there does not appear to be an employee matching the description given, nor is anyone assigned to the cubicle adjacent to Ms. Torez. Consulting security footage similarly reveals nothing similar to what is reported here, as the adjacent cubicle appears to be empty. An email has been sent to James Wu suggesting Ms. Torez take a few days off to deal with her mental health.

Status: Resolved

* * *

Subject: Janitor

Ticket Number: HR07405

Employee Name: Manuel Vasquez

Employee ID: 429562

Date: 11/16/2023

Description

I don’t really know who else to talk to about this, so I guess human resources is probably the best place for it. It’s possible I’m worrying over nothing, but I figured it would be best to report it anyway, as it kind of freaked me out.

I work in the service center, and I have a pretty late shift, getting off of work at 11 o’ clock. Usually I’ve got Justine with me to help out, but she was off sick so I was all alone in the office. It was close to the end of my shift and we don’t typically get a lot of calls at that time of night so I was just doing some busywork to pass the time, answering emails and stuff like that. I was pretty tired, and I guess I wasn’t paying very close attention, because I got really startled after I felt someone tapping on my shoulder.

Looking around, I saw this guy, maybe 40, 50 years old? White, with graying hair, yellow teeth, and I think blue eyes. He had this kind of vacant stare, with a smile to match, and I kind of figured he might not have been all there, if you catch my drift. I didn’t see a name badge on him, but he was in a gray jumpsuit and holding a broom so I figured he was a janitor. I took off my headphones and asked him if I could help him with something, and he just smiled and gestured for me to follow him. I asked him what he wanted and he just made the same gesture, I think he may have been mute.

Now I know I’m not really supposed to leave the work station in case a call comes through, but it was something like 20 minutes till the end of my shift, and I doubted anyone was likely to call at that point. Besides, I think we were probably the only two people in the building, and if whatever he wanted was important I figured it should be taken care of then instead of the next morning.

We’d just gotten into the elevator and he’d pressed the button for the 5th floor when I heard the phone going off. I told the janitor I’d be there in just a minute and stepped out of the elevator, and that’s when he just grabbed me by the arm. He had a really tight grip too, I think I might have a bit of a bruise from where he touched me. His face hadn’t moved a muscle, and he was still just looking at me with those almost glassy eyes. I yanked my arm away from him, and the elevator door closed, taking him up to the 5th floor. By the time I calmed down and reached the phone, the caller had hung up.

Anyway, I don’t necessarily want the guy fired or to get him in any trouble or anything like that, I don’t think he meant to hurt me, but it might be a good idea for someone to talk to him, explain that that kind of behavior isn’t okay.

Thanks.

Notes

No known custodial staff match the description given by Mr. Vasquez. Checking the schedule for last night indicates he was the only employee in the building at the time of the alleged incident. Security footage does not corroborate Mr. Vasquez’s story.

Status: Resolved

* * *

Subject: Frivolous Support Tickets

Date: 11/17/2023

From: marilyn.albertson@mariposatele.com

To: [For brevity, the full list of email addresses of Mariposa’s Santa Clara office employees has been expunged]

It has recently come to my attention that some of our associates have been misusing HelpOut’s ticketing system by submitting frivolous support tickets. This is a violation of company policy, and any further frivolous tickets will result in disciplinary action.

To be clear, the following topics are NOT to be included in HelpOut support tickets:

1. Nonexistent employees
2. Fabricated events
3. Supernumerary floors
4. Any other imagined or fictional subjects

To those of you who have been submitting tickets of this nature, I must remind you that this is an office, not a writing workshop. Save the creativity for your legitimate work.

Thank you.

Marilyn Albertson

Senior Office Manager

Mariposa Telecommunications Corporation

* * *

Subject: HELP ME

Ticket Number: HR07508

Employee Name: John Bukowski

Employee ID: 164286

Date: 11/17/2023

Description

Please don’t ignore this. I don’t know how much longer I am going to last up here, and I desperately need help.

My name is John Bukowski, I’m a custodian. I don’t know if that information will come through automatically or not, I’ve never had to put in one of these tickets before, custodial work doesn’t really typically involve this sort of thing. This is the first time I’ve been able to get access to a working computer since all this happened to me, and this is the only site I can seem to access in the browser. I know what I’m typing probably sounds crazy, but please, I need you to believe me.

I don’t know how long I have, so I’ll try to keep this quick.

At this point, it has probably been noticed that I have stopped coming to work, it is even possible that I have been fired in my absence. But I didn’t just quit without notice. I never left. I am still in the building, and I cannot get out.

I got called up the 5th floor, I was told over the walkie that the bathrooms there needed cleaning. I didn’t even know this building had a 5th floor at the time, and when I rode up the service elevator here I pretty soon realized why. The whole place seemed utterly deserted, what with the windows all being pasted over with old newspaper and the décor seemingly not having been updated since the 80s at least. Even the lights didn’t turn on, I just had to rely on the faint ambient light coming in from the covered windows.

Obviously I wasn’t going to work in this environment, so I decided to get going, but when I tried to get back into the service elevator, it was gone. I don’t mean that the doors were closed, or it stopped working, or I somehow got lost, I mean that the elevator was there one second and gone the next, as though it were never there. I hadn’t moved more than 20 paces away from it.

I’ve tried looking for stairs, or another elevator, or any other way down, but I can’t find anything. And the layout of this place, it doesn’t make any sense. I’ve seen windows letting in sunlight that clearly are attached to interior walls with nothing but office on the other side, I’ve walked through the same room repeated over and over again for what feels like miles, I’ve managed to take 5 right turns on rectangular shaped paths which lead me somewhere different from where I started, and no matter how far I go, no matter which way I take, it never, ever ends.

I don’t really know how long I’ve been up here, because the faint sunlight from the windows never seems to get any dimmer. I’ve tried smashing them, or peeling off the newspaper, but they’re as tough as concrete and no matter how many layers I tear through there always seems to be just one more coating of paper underneath.

There’s people up here too, but I don’t think they’re real, not quite anyway. They’ve all got this vacant stare, this dumb smile on their faces. Sometimes they’re missing body parts, like whoever was making them forgot to attach all the pieces, or their facial features will be put together in the wrong places. The first time I saw one, a guy in a gray suit, he bit off one of my fingers. It took a long time after hitting him over and over again with a fire extinguisher before he finally stopped moving, and the whole time he wouldn’t let go of my hand. He wasn’t even bleeding when he finally dropped.

This is the first working computer I was able to find up here. All of the others don’t have any power, but this one is a laptop and it still has a little bit of its battery left. I don’t want to die up here. There’s enough food and water from the vending machines that I could hopefully last indefinitely, but I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to survive these things. There seem to be more and more of them as time goes on, and I don’t know where they’re coming from.

If I was able to get up here once, then maybe someone else can do it too. Maybe if you sent someone from security up here, had them make a big racket so I can hear them, I might be able to get there in time before the not-people got them. Just don’t let them leave the elevator, or they might be stuck up here too.

I know this all sounds impossible, but please, I just need you to trust me on this. You’re my only hope of getting home.

Notes

Frivolous ticket. John Bukowski fired in absentia five years ago after not returning to work. Unknown why user’s employee ID was not deactivated.

Status: Resolved

* * *

Subject: RE: Frivolous Support Tickets

Date: 11/17/2023

From: marilyn.albertson@mariposatele.com

To: [For brevity, the full list of email addresses of Mariposa’s Santa Clara office employees has been expunged]

False tickets are continuing to be sent through HelpOut. False tickets will be PUNISHED. Please come to conference room 7 on the 5th floor for a meeting about workplace integrity. Attendance is REQUIRED and will be REWARDED. Please arrive by 2 PM. This meeting is MANDATORY. Do not reply to this email.

Marilyn Albertson

Senior Office Manager

Mariposa Telecommunications Corporation

SUBURBS

BLAIR DANIELS

“I think we’re lost.”

I edged the car along, looking for Rosebud Lane. But all I saw were rows and rows of the same cookie-cutter suburban house, crammed in next to each other, going on forever. Sighing, I pulled over at the curb. “Can you check the GPS?”

“Sure.”

As he pulled out his phone, I stared out the windshield. Even though it was a sunny, beautiful day, the neighborhood was a ghost town. Nobody walking their dog on the sidewalk. No kids playing in the street. I glanced around at the houses, and though it was hard to tell from the reflections on the windows—it looked like the curtains were drawn.

Dave sighed next to me. “I don’t think is right.”

“What do you mean?”

He handed me the phone. The app showed our location… in the middle of the woods. I zoomed out a bit, but no suburbs showed up.

“Woah, that’s weird.” I pulled out my phone, but the same thing happened. Little blue dot in the middle of the woods. The closest road was the two-lane highway we’d pulled off of. “Guess this is a really new development.”

Google Maps was almost always accurate, but if the houses had just been built, maybe the software hadn’t caught up yet. They certainly looked very new—overlapping gables, big windows with no shutters, all neutral colors. The grass perfect, without muddy tracks from dogs or kids. The white siding so crisp and pristine, it almost glowed. The windows shiny as a mirror.

I hated that sterile, almost uncanny look of new houses. Like they’d just been copied and pasted out of a video game and plopped down in the earth. No personal touches, no wear and tear, no character. Just sterile and empty and perfect.

“Maybe you should call Megan,” I said.

Dave glanced at the clock. “I don’t want to interrupt the shower.”

“Yeah, but we’re lost, and the GPS isn’t working.”

He sighed. “If we don’t find it in ten minutes, I’ll call her.”

That was Dave for you. Always thinking of others. Which was nice, of course, until it got to these kinds of things. He’d rather waste our time, driving around aimlessly, than give Megan a quick call for fear of being rude. It was always like that with him.

But whatever. They say pick your fights, and this wasn’t important enough to go to battle over.

I continued crawling down the street, past more and more identical houses. But just as I was thinking maybe I should force him to call Megan, that this was a fight worth choosing—I saw it.

A turn up ahead.

I sped towards the intersection. Hoping the little green sign said Rosebud Lane. But as we got closer, my stomach dropped.

“What… the hell?”

It was blank.

It was just a green rectangle of metal. No text on it whatsoever.

“Wow, someone fucked up,” Dave laughed. “They had one job…”

“Do you think I should turn?”

“Wait. Lemme pull up the GPS.” The car idled on the corner as I waited for Dave to pull out his phone. “Nah, still in the woods. I guess turn on it, yeah.”

I flicked on my blinker and turned onto the unnamed street.

More cookie-cutter houses with curtained windows. All painted a perfectly neutral beige with white trim. Even the front lawns looked identical: three shrubs along the porch, and a big hydrangea on the garage end.

There were no cars in any driveways, either. Just like the previous street. I wonder if they’re so new, some of them haven’t even been moved into. Just standing empty. For some reason, the thought sent a chill down my spine. How weird would it be to live in this neighborhood, surrounded by empty houses?

“I’d hate to live here,” I muttered.

“It’d be nice to have something brand-new, though. Not having everything break all the time.”

“But every single house looks exactly the same.” I shook my head. “I bet they have a super strict HOA.”

“Probably.”

We continued up the road. It seemed like the houses stretched into infinity, disappearing into the light fog. “What was it, again? Number 52?”

“Yep.”

I slowed the car, looking for mailboxes, so I could check the house numbers. But the houses didn’t have mailboxes. I guess they must have one of those communal ones, I thought, like apartments and townhouses have. But the houses didn’t have numbers on the front doors, or the porches, either.

So weird…

We continued driving, but I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling. Identical houses, extending to infinity. Like someone had just copy-pasted them on a computer screen. I let out a sigh and stared out at the road, looking for signs of life, individuality, anything.

And then, finally—through the gloom and mist—I saw a smudge of color.

A stop sign.

“Oh, good. We’ll see what street we’re on,” I said.

But as we approached, my stomach twisted. My heart pounded in my chest.

There wasn’t an intersection.

Or even a crosswalk.

There was no actual reason for cars to stop.

Yet, the stop sign was still there. And there was another one, on the other side of the road, telling cars in the oncoming direction to stop too.

“There’s… no reason for a stop sign to be here.”

“Maybe it’s like an accessibility thing? Like, the person who owns that house is blind. So everyone needs to stop here so they don’t hit them?”

“Does that kind of thing even exist? I mean, great if it does, but I’ve never seen that.”

He shrugged.

“I think we should turn around.”

“Let’s just continue a little bit,” Dave replied. “In like five minutes, if we don’t find it, we’ll turn around.”

I don’t know why I listened to him.

I guess it’s because, logically, I knew there wasn’t much risk to driving around some weird neighborhood. It wasn’t like we were wandering around in the middle of the woods, where we could get lost or die of dehydration or get eaten by a bear. It was one PM in the afternoon, and we were driving down a suburban road.

But the instinctual part of myself—the part that evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, that prevented humans from going extinct long ago—was screaming. There is something wrong here. Get out. Get out, NOW.

I drove forward, glancing in the rearview mirror. The stop sign lingered there, its bright red almost unnatural against the gray gloom of the sky.

Over the next few minutes, we didn’t get any closer to finding Megan’s house.

There were no street signs. No mailboxes. No indication of where we were going. Even the car’s compass seemed messed up, as it switched from north to west a few times, even though we appeared to be going in a straight line.

“I’m just going to call Megan,” Dave said finally, breaking the silence.

“Thank you,” I snapped back, unable to keep the annoyance out of my voice.

After a moment, Dave shook his head. “Not picking up.”

“All right, let’s just go home.”

“But we told her we’d be there!”

I sighed and stared at him. “Okay, so what do you want me to do? We’re lost. GPS isn’t working and she isn’t picking up.”

He paused, glancing around. “Maybe we should ask somebody.”

“Who? There’s no one here!”

“Maybe… knock on a door?”

My eyes widened. “That’s… that’s weird.”

“Look, let’s just knock on a door and ask. If they don’t answer, we’ll give up and go home.”

I puffed out a breath. “Fine.”

I pulled over to the curb. We got out and started up the driveway. It was no longer bright and sunny; the sky was a uniform, overcast gray. And the place was so… quiet. No voices, no cars passing by, no dogs barking. Just our footsteps on the pavement.

We walked up to the front door. When I didn’t see a doorbell, I raised a fist to knock.

Thump, thump, thump.

No footsteps or barking from inside. “I don’t think anyone’s home,” I told Dave.

“Just wait for a second.”

“The address is definitely 52 Rosebud Lane, right?”

“I’m like ninety-nine percent positive, but I’ll check.” Dave pulled out his phone and scrolled. “Yep.”

A minute went by. I knocked one more time. Then I leaned over and peered through one of the windows next to the door.

Wait… what?

The layout of the house was… really weird. The staircase was plopped in the middle of the foyer, with empty space on either side. Beyond it, in the kitchen, there was a floor-to-ceiling tower of cabinets. Not connected to a counter or anything, just there. There was a painting on the wall, of a woman standing on a rainy city street, but her eyes were drawn in upside-down.

What the hell?

It felt like I was looking at an AI-generated image. Something made by a machine, trying to replicate what a house was supposed to look like inside. Without any understanding of the function of stairs or cabinets or human behavior at all.

“Look,” I said, motioning Dave over.

But he didn’t share my sense of unease. Instead, he laughed. “Wow. Whoever designed these houses was an idiot,” he whispered.

“Can we go now?”

“Yeah, okay.”

We headed back towards the car. As I walked around to the driver’s side, though, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. The familiar feeling of being watched.

I whipped around—but all I saw was the row of beige houses, staring down at me with their dark, shiny windows.

* * *

“We should be there by now.”

“You must’ve just passed it up,” Dave replied.

“No, we didn’t.”

It was almost 2 PM now. My stomach grumbled. My shoulders hurt. I just wanted to be back home, curled up under a blanket. Watching YouTube. Drinking tea.

We only made one turn. But somehow, retracing our steps, we hadn’t intersected it yet. We hadn’t even passed the weird stop sign. Nothing looked familiar, although of course everything looked familiar, because all the houses were the same house.

“It must just be up a little further.”

“I just want to be home,” I whined.

But a few minutes later, we passed something that we definitely didn’t see on the way in.

A house that was different.

It was on the left side of the road. Everything about it was identical to the other houses—except for the porch railing. It was installed upside-down. Bolted into the underside of the roof, the banister at eye-level.

“What... the hell?” I asked, slowing down the car.

We both stared at the house. No builder or designer would make that kind of mistake. …Would they?

A few houses down, there was another house that was different. This time on the right. Two of the windows had been connected into one long, 15-foot-tall window that extended from the ground to the roof.

“What the fuck?” Dave whispered.

“This isn’t right,” I replied, my heart pounding in my chest.

And then I saw it.

Just a few houses ahead of us was a mailbox. The only mailbox I’d seen on the street. And in small, gold lettering, were the words:

52 Rosebud Lane

Attached to the mailbox was a single pink balloon, fluttering in the wind.

“No. There’s no way. It’s not… it doesn’t make sense.”

There were no cars parked on the road. No voices or music coming from inside. No indication that there was a party going on except for that one balloon.

“I’m calling Megan.”

The phone trilled in his ear. And then she picked up. “Dave! Where are you guys?”

“We’re a little lost. We’re in this development and…” He paused. “Do you have a pink balloon on the mailbox?”

“No,” she said, confused. “It’s the blue house on the hill. At the end of the cul-de-sac… did you turn on Mountain Ave.? It’s a little hard to get here…”

She continued on, but I wasn’t listening.

I was staring at the house.

Specifically, at the upstairs window.

Where a figure stood in the darkness, watching us.

I started the car and made a U-Turn, tires screeching against the pavement. Dave turned to me, eyes wide. “Someone’s watching us. From that house.” I stomped on the accelerator, the car rocketing down the suburban road.

“Slow down!” Dave shouted.

I glanced down. I was going 40.

“We can’t—we have to get out of here—”

“You’re going to crash, dammit! Slow down!”

But I did have to slow down.

Because up ahead, materializing out of the fog, was a stop sign.

This time, a cross walk.

And a cluster of school children crossing the road.

I stomped on the brakes. The car screeched to a halt. Dave and I jerked forward, the seatbelts locking us into place. My heart pounded in my chest.

Then I looked up.

And all the muscles in my body froze.

It wasn’t a group of schoolchildren.

It was an amalgamation of arms and legs. Backpacks and sneakers. Tousled hair and ponytails. Put together like some nightmarish jigsaw puzzle. No faces, no eyes: just things that gave the allusion of a normal group of children crossing the street.

I stared at the monstrosity twenty feet in front of us, partially veiled by fog.

And then I switched the car into reverse.

“What the fuck—”

“Call 911!” I screamed at Dave. “Now!”

We careened past the upside-down railing, the 15-foot window, the pink balloon. As we sped by, the houses got stranger and stranger. Chimneys leading up to the sky. Floating gables. Hardwood floors that spilled out into the grass.

“They say they can’t trace our location!” Dave shouted.

“Then—I don’t know—tell them to go on the highway. Route 140. Turn at, at Glenmont Road, and then make a right at the subdivision.”

He relayed that to them, but my heart was pounding. If we hadn’t been able to retrace our steps… if they couldn’t track our location… how would they find us?

I slowed down slightly. Glancing around the street, looking for something, anything, that I recognized.

But all I saw were the windows.

The curtains wide open, in every single one.

And people staring down at us. Although ‘people’ was a stretch—everything about them was wrong. Their faces had all the wrong proportions, stretched and misshapen. Their eyes were set in upside down. They had far too many hands.

People that looked like they had been crafted by some horrible AI.

Just like the houses they lived in.

* * *

It’s now almost ten pm.

The sky should be dark. But it isn’t. It’s the same overcast gray color. We’ve made so many U-Turns, I’ve lost count. Back and forth, back and forth. But it’s never the same. The houses, the people, are always different. Like the world is generating just for us each time we drive down it. Popping in and out of existence.

The police called us. They tried locating us, again and again. But every time they failed. They insisted there were only acres and acres of forest where we described our location.

I’ve used my phone to try to get other help. My parents tried to find us, too. Nothing has worked.

So I’m posting this online in the hopes that maybe someone, somewhere, knows how to escape this place. Maybe we’ll finally get out. I’m so hungry. I’m so tired. All I want to do is stop the car and lie back in my seat, drift off to sleep.

But I’m afraid if I do that—they’ll get us.

The not-people in the houses. They’re learning. With each hour, they look more human. More like us. And they’re getting bolder. I see children standing on the front lawn, still as statues. Women standing on the sidewalk, with faces that almost pass for human. Men crossing the street in front of us.

Whenever we drive by, they all start moving in our direction.

Like we’re magnetic. A homing beacon.

Dave is driving now so I can post this. Maybe I’ll take a short nap. For a brief moment, I won’t be trapped anymore. I’ll dream of being home, curled up with a cup of tea, watching TV with Dave. I’ll escape this place, if only for an hour.

I’m signing off now. Hopefully someone out there, somewhere, knows how we can escape.

And if not, I’ll have my dreams to comfort me for a little while.

BEACH

JACOB EARLY

If no one had ever died there, you wouldn’t know it. It’s one of those places. Looming despite its smallness, spiderish in its corner of wide blue sky.

My eyes find every missing clapboard in an instant; counting the holes until my gaze feels brittle and breaks. I cannot help but shrink away. Along the sunny hump of a dune, a shadow darts and skitters and Agnes, my mother, is undeterred. She drags her bulging suitcase behind her, wobbling in a pair of flimsy yellow heels. A ruthless parody of a plough horse home from some parade. I picture her ankles bending, buckling, snapping. I can almost hear the scream, the hissing sand that swallows it and her and everything until only the house remains.

“Isn’t it lovely, girls?” she says. Her voice mingles with sea salt and the luffing breeze. “Oh, of course it is. They don’t make them like this anymore, you know.”

She’s probably right. For miles, the coast is prim hotels and vacation homes laid about in boastful slabs. Broad planks of immaculate wood in blues and greens and creams, balconies full of lazy-looking deck chairs cradling chatty drunks. This house alone sulks, untouched and untended. There is certainly a reason why, but why—I cannot fathom.

My sister Charlotte seems sweetly oblivious. The hem of her dress flits and flounces. The sun pours slow as honey over her knobby shoulders.

“Oh look, Momma—a fox!” She points and a ruddy gray streak disappears behind a spindly leg of the house. Agnes doesn’t turn so Charlotte nudges me instead. “Did you see it?” she asks.

“Uh-huh,” I lie.

Her smile is unbridled and toothy as she crouches to catch another glimpse. I tell her that foxes are good luck; another lie but one I hope might happen to be true.

When she reaches for my hand, I take it greedily then hold it like something fragile, something to wrap in silk and hide away from everything that we are. The house watches it all through a half dozen lidless windows; so still it almost seems to sway.

* * *

The first time it happens I am nearly seventeen. It is another cloudless summer day—rainless—and Charlotte clings to an umbrella freckled with faded images of flying birds. She knows what I know from Agnes’ proselytizing: the sun is murder, stabbing girls with ugliness. Too much and no good man will ever want you. This threat has a home on Agnes’ tongue in the neighborhood of eating wrongly and being morose and letting anyone into your thoughts. All are perilous things.

When she was young and pretty Agnes had a habit of collecting eyes (she has a rehearsed way of talking about childhood). Eyes of boys her age and older ones, their leering fathers and uncles, the glowers of their wives and sweethearts. She was perhaps innocent and naïve then, a victim of plump pouty breasts and thrift store swimsuits that fit flatter chests than hers. Agnes’ mother cleaned the hotel and left Aggie by the pool where the sun gawked in its own toxic way. Agnes browned. She beggared cigarettes and snuck drinks. She flirted and found misery that must have seemed so glamorous one day at a time. Now she has her threats and she has Charlotte who is perfect and me who is not.

Charlotte pauses in the sand and her feet find an arrangement from her ballet classes—third position, fourth—I’ve forgotten. The surf rolls steadily, green glassy swells and ugly foam.

“Do you think we’ll ever stay?” she says. “I like it here. It’s like a fairy tale.”

“I dunno. If Agnes can find a way to make money honest, she might not piss anyone off.”

“I wish you’d call her Momma.”

“Yeah. It doesn’t come whenever I think to.”

“Well, she doesn’t like it.”

One wave reaches past the rest and Charlotte’s feet vanish for a moment. Under her umbrella, her hair fluttering, she looks like something out of a painting. I feel wretched by comparison. I’m just happy I can’t see myself.

“Tomorrow, I’ll try to care.”

We spend a while walking and when we walk back, there are flies buzzing around the house and Agnes is drunk. She lays in on Charlotte about her hair—the tangles, the salt. There is nothing that could ever be wrong with Charlotte, but Agnes’ love comes with a heavy handed hairbrush and a feverish cigarette. The air seethes and the smoke blooms and thins into an ochre reek. Afterward I hear Charlotte weeping through the door of the bedroom we share.

I don’t know why I choose this particular day to look through the album. It is an indulgence I tend to avoid. Perhaps there is a part of me that knows Charlotte is wounded that wants to be wounded with her.

Most family albums I’ve seen are variations on the same sort of thing. A trip to the Bahamas or the mountains—something pleasant. Faces smile, ripe with nostalgia when the food was better and the sex was better and the fun and the people and everything else seemed to sigh hedonically. You forget the awful stuff in the background because no one takes the time to print out a hateful memory. There are no pictures of our father, for example, but that is a story for another time.

The first photo is the best one of Charlotte. Black and white but I remember the jacket she wore as being green. She looks beautiful and that is by design. Agnes has sent that photo to dozens of modeling agents and clothing shops and perverts masquerading as artists, all in the hope that one day someone will gallop in to wake us from our mediocre life.

Charlotte is beautiful, she doesn’t just look that way in photos. She has one of those faces that makes you lovingly violent. There it is in an eight-by-ten—half-serious beneath the wide brim of a hat; then mid laugh, teeth gleaming like cultured pearls; then moody, plastered with makeup. My photos are in the back: ages one through six. I disappear the day I get the scar and begin to frown for cameras.

It’s evening by the time I’ve forgiven my younger self for being perfect. Agnes is passed out on the sofa and Charlotte isn’t in our room.

I walk along the beach in bare feet, dodging the water, calling her name. In the dim, I find an umbrella tossing in the waves. And I call her name and I scream her name and the ocean answers with a hush that sounds elusively maternal.

* * *

It is my spite perhaps that keeps Agnes in my life. I stay past that point where other girls are busy giving blow jobs in dorm rooms and trying on different sizes of love. I work in town at a real estate office for a desperately brash man named David Geary, doing the books, hidden from customers. I need Agnes to see me as a sculptress would a nagging artless failure. So I drag back into the house and blend into the splintering walls, watching her dissolve glass by glass. There are times when I think my presence frightens her and those may be my only true moments of joy.

At night there are shrieks from the beach that pierce the windows and rattle off the walls. I used to think it was Charlotte but now I know it isn’t. Foxes scream like murdered girls when they’re mating; I read that somewhere. It is a fact that Charlotte might’ve told me once with softer kinder words and a shudder of sympathy.

Poor foxes. I hope it doesn’t hurt.

I wonder what lie I would’ve told her then. When you love them and they love you it’s a beautiful thing. Like the satin innards of a casket.

In a drab blue work dress, I climb the stairs of the house with semen in my underwear—the wages of other-womanhood. David goes home to his blonde wife and his loving children; he kisses them with the same thin lips that call me a dirty little slut. I hate him for being my weapon of convenience when I am feeling self-destructive. I hate his wife, his kids, the film his life leaves on me. I hate his house, its broad bright walls, the cheery soulless artwork in the bedroom. The rooms don’t shiver giddily when someone is about to cry like mine always seem to and I hate that too.

Agnes doesn’t notice me coming in this time. I trip on a toppled bottle and it rolls under the sofa into the sagging black slit beneath her. The hollow warble is nauseating. And I know in some fucked clairvoyant way that if I lifted that sofa and went searching, the bottle wouldn’t be there anymore. I have found cigarette butts driven into the floorboards like nails. In the downstairs bathroom the skeletal shape of a mouse bulged from beneath the wallpaper for three days before it too disappeared.

Charlotte’s body never washes up with the tide, no crab gnawed arm or tattered scrap of cloth. I never see her fox, only shadows.

* * *

There is mist that hangs on the horizon the day my mother, Agnes, dies. By evening it stretches toward the beach, a cool translucent mass grasping gently.

No one is out walking when I drag her across the sand. It is easy to imagine that no one exists at all. Just me and Agnes and the stale smell of vodka. She’s heavier than she looks but I walk slowly, each step carefully planted. It is only when I am nearly where I’m headed that the woman who raised me asserts herself. I remember her buying me an ice cream somewhere. I could have any topping I wanted and I might’ve gotten them all. She sat, glaring venomously over a pair of sunglasses. I remember smiling half-graciously, and then just as quickly, the memory is gone.

Her body splays on the patch of sand where I leave it, arms and legs long; it almost looks like she’s swimming. A few minutes later, a simmering wave completes the illusion. It barely touches her.

Beside her, I leave my photos from the album, neatly stacked, tied with string. They wash away first as the waves come more eagerly. The first that flows over her face seems to linger longer than the rest and Agnes gurgles, moving just slightly, but not enough. By the time the tide has reached the inland most patches of seaweed, the evening is still and the mist has shrouded everything I can see.

* * *

“I’m sorry for your loss,” David says, pulling a lock of hair from the back of my neck. “But I gotta say, I respect your decision to drink away the grief.”

“Thanks.”

“You know. A lot of girls would have called out. Taken some time.”

He says girls as if boys wouldn’t have done the same. I don’t press the issue. I want to be done with it and I don’t want an argument to undo the three drinks I’ve had already. His hand drags the hem of my skirt upward, plying my thigh with a grimy frisson.

“Work is as good a distraction as any,” I manage.

“Maybe.”

Agnes didn’t own our horrid little house it turns out, not entirely. The transaction was, like every luxury of our lives, part grift and part half-measure. David explains the details but he’s far too smugly verbose for me to give my full attention. He knows his business; I’m so glad for him.

His transaction is far more simple. He’ll fix my problem if I give him something in return. Fortunately, David isn’t that creative.

He lifts my skirt, spits in his palm. I down my fourth drink and try not to imagine anything about David’s face. I imagine the house, its hostility and its crooked gray beams. I imagine me, standing on brittle stilts, an eyesore, watching one fox after another scurrying into the surf, never to return.

* * *

David and I part less than amicably—me taciturn, him not so much; he begs me not to tell his wife. Why would I bother? I want to ask him. She shares a life with him; she suffers enough.

After him, there are a number of perfunctory men stitched through me. Most ultimately prove to be fetishists of some stripe. I meet them at night, away from prying eyes, in bedrooms that begin to run together. Perhaps I know what they all are from the outset. Perhaps my fetish is toxicity.

The worst of them is a physical trainer who repulses me. He’s good-looking, clean cut, nearly hairless. He licks my scar as though it were some sprawling sex organ and tells me that he loves how broken I am. I eat the words, swallow them, try to look demure as they come back up as bile. When he asks to bind my calves to my thighs, I say yes without a murmur of excitement. Then, I am his blighted double amputee and he tosses me around the room until I’m bruised and aching. In the end, he’s too worked up to fuck me and I couldn’t be happier with that.

Vivian is different. I meet her at a craft fair in town, rebelling against myself with play-acted normalcy. Her paintings crowd her little stall, none of them pretty or pastoral or obvious. I settle on an abstract print that reminds me of an open abdomen. It turns my stomach.

The house might actually let me hang this one, I think.

The house doesn’t like being adorned. Flowers blacken into ash, throw pillows rupture, leaking every part of a chicken but the feathers. The last time I tried a picture, the frame fell in the middle of the night and shattered. I found slivers of glass for weeks after; in the kitchen sink, my laundry hamper, imbedded into the insoles of my sneakers.

I tell Vivian that I like her tattoos, unsure if I’m flirting or merely observing. She extends a leg as if trying to recall what is there.

“I like your taste in art,” she says. “That one is one of my favorites.” The compliment is a self-serving one but from her, it’s charming. I watch her mouth twitch into a grin, pretty slick teeth, mobile lips. I choose my next words intentionally, cycling through synonyms.

“It’s quite…brutal.”

“It is, I guess. Probably I was feeling brutalized. Life, you know?”

I say nothing to that; simply agreeing wouldn’t be enough. The original painting is hanging nearby. Six-hundred dollars. It’s not much larger than the print and I don’t have the money anyway, but I find myself staring, tracing the brushstrokes with my eyes. She doesn’t expound on what part of her life looks like bloody viscera and I don’t pry.

“Where are you going to put it? I’m always curious.”

“I don’t know. Bedroom maybe.”

“Yeah? Why there?”

Ordinarily, I might lie. Agnes taught us not to let people into our thoughts and that piece of advice has actually stuck. But Vivian leans forward, expectantly perched on the edge of a stool, and I imagine myself telling her all of my secrets. I don’t just then, but I tell her about Agnes’ full length mirror that still stands in the corner of the room where she preened and pinned her hair and started her drinking days.

“I hate the mirror. But I like the print. I feel like they belong together.”

She puts a business card in the bag with the print. As I’m walking away she calls after me.

“Hey. Message me. If you need help hanging it—or something.” Another grin.

Suddenly my ears burn, my cheeks, other places.

That night I tuck the print beneath my pillow. I listen to the tired terrors of the house, the sea that sometimes whispers my name, the pat-pat-pat of pacing footfalls around the bed, the creak of the mattress when I am utterly still. With my eyes squeezed shut, I replay the restless movements of Vivian’s legs. I follow her tattoos up her thighs and under the cuffs of her shorts. My fingers wander between my legs and outside, a fox screams and screams.

* * *

There are stories I’ve known with damsels in towers where the towers aren’t willful and the damsels don’t destroy themselves before anyone thinks to rescue them. In most of those stories, the parents are dead long before they get the chance to become monsters. Then there is the one with the witch, staring into her mirror, learning truths that drive her mad. The only real difference between her and me is that I know from the beginning that I never had a chance at being beautiful.

Vivian, the mirror, doesn’t fixate on beauty. She calls me sexy instead and runs her fingers through my hair when she kisses me and pulls away my clothes like they are something deadly. Afterward when we’re naked, sprawled and listless as well-fed cats, she doesn’t ask about my scar. She is the first I can recall who doesn’t demand a story and in that vacancy, my body eases into the wandering of her hands. She traces veins in my arm, the ridge of my collarbone. My nipple bows beneath her finger and rises stiff as breath pools in the crook of my neck. As her wandering leaves my belly and continues downward, there is no conscious effort that tells my legs to spread for her. I am a voyeuse. A giddy witness to the next movement of her fingers and the next. And I am terrified that this might actually be something good.

When she asks to see where I live, I try to pick a fight. You wouldn’t like it. It’s rundown, falling apart; you wouldn’t feel safe.

“Sounds exciting.”

“It’s haunted too, I think. Or cursed. Or both.”

“The best of us usually are.” She chases my fleeing gaze, pins me with a sharpness in hers. “I’ll bring a canvas. I’ve never painted someone in a haunted house. Now it’ll be all I can think about.”

Painted someone; her coy words slither through me. I was never meant for this. Charlotte, certainly, but not me. I want to tell her that there are better subjects, prettier women, women who want nothing more than to be seen. In the end it all seems so torturous that I relent. I have always been fluent in self-infliction. Another wicked mirror that never seems to leave me alone.

* * *

In a bedroom that suffers a single print to hang, albeit crookedly, a woman lies amidst a rumple of red bedding. The shadow of a window mullion cuts her body through the middle. The rest of her is bare and bright and achingly vulnerable. Her hip rises and falls in one fluid curve as if displaced by the triangle of black pubic hair below it. For this exposure, she harbors no shame. It is the rest—the parts that girls are never taught to conceal.

You cannot tell that she is drunk, but she is. Her eyes stare languidly, her lips parting. Across her face, her shoulder, her arm: there is a ragged landscape of scarred flesh. The skin gathers in tight, fibrous bunches, in pale hollows slick with spite.

I cannot think of her as me. But she is inescapable.

The painting takes five days, a vast expanse of deliberate ugliness. In the late afternoon hours when I am posing, vibrating with silent anxiety, Vivian excavates me in strokes and breaths and glances around the easel. Her palette fills with all of my colors and seeing it, I daydream of being dismantled into such a simple mess.

When it is complete, I feel too raw and too spent to welcome any of Vivian’s tenderness, her fawning. I lie and tell her that I’m feeling ill. After she’s gone, I drink until my lie becomes the truth and I go stumbling down the beach, heading nowhere with concise determination. The sun is nearly gone when I spot a pair of men smoking cigarettes beside a pile of fishing rods and tackle. One is ugly with a mean little crooked nose. The other is so ordinary I forget his face while looking at it.

Ordinary smiles and I veer and flirt failingly, or maybe I just don’t try. Maybe I say nothing at all. Then I am standing, wriggling out of my dress, kicking off my underwear, sinking naked into the space between them. I kiss one sloppily and then the other, grasping at a belt buckle while one rough hand paws excitedly at my breast. The men taste the same, like cheap beer and tar and loathing and I tell them both to fuck me. I beg.

If there are foxes or shadows or patient ghosts, they are nowhere to be seen.

* * *

The second time it happens, the clouds are roiling, dimming away the midday light to a jaundiced gloam. Vivian’s little Tibetan prayer flags whip themselves to rags on the wind. They are the only bits of color the house has ever been slow to erase.

In the car, there is a pure black silence between us. She drives stiffly, never looking in my direction unless to look past me out of my window. I want to reach for her, to feel her cheek drift into the bowl of my palm, to wrench her arm and end the miserable day with something quick. I do neither. I sulk, pinned against the passenger door, staring at the passing trees.

“Seven months.” The first words she says are the barest accounting of our relationship I can imagine.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I—“

She holds up her hand to silence me and I wilt. On her index finger, along the cuticle is a rind of grass green paint. It is such a small thing and so pretty I want to nibble it from her so I can keep it. She is trying not to cry. This is all my fucking fault.

When she pulls the car into the parking lot of the clinic there is only a lone evangelist standing by the sidewalk. He looks tired and I thank fate for that small favor. After the engine dies down she grips the steering wheel with both hands and stares forward through the windshield.

“You’ve never been easy. You know? I guess I knew that too.”

“I’m fucked up. And I’m sorry that you have to deal with that. I wish I could cut it out of me.”

“You’ve said that—I’m sorry. I believe you, but. I don’t know. Fuck.” She wrings the wheel in her hands, shifts her weight. I count three of eight tattoos on her right arm. We sometimes lie in bed playing two truths and a lie about why she got them—a dead friend, a drunken impulse, whimsy. “We have had a perfect thing,” she continues. “No—not perfect, but good. Right?”

“I really, really didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Yeah. Well. You’re gonna be late. I’ll head inside in a bit.”

I feel shriveled as I walk past the man with his sign and into the waiting room. There are all sorts sitting alone or in pairs, timid twenty-somethings and straight backed professionals; women with the relative composure of more inconsequential gynecologist visits. I sit in the corner and wait to hear my name. The nurse who comes for me is nice but nothing else is.

When it’s done, the rain has come and gone and I am feeling cramped and nauseous. Vivian gives me a plastic grocery bag to keep in my lap for the car ride home. I wonder if she’s being sweet or just practical. Then she tells me to talk if I want but nothing meaningful comes.

I shouldn’t have fucked the men on the beach or the others that followed. I should have made them wear condoms. I should’ve stayed on the pill or stopped drinking alone or stopped hating my mother and my father and myself and sometimes Charlotte for not being there. I shouldn’t have let Agnes die—or—I shouldn’t have killed her. I say nothing and she says nothing back.

At the house, I walk past a single half-packed duffle bag. Vivian is still deciding what she will do. Her painting of me leans against the wall in the living room, scuffed on one corner—it refuses to be hung.

She follows me, picks a coffee cup off of the floor and examines it for cracks. There are none. When we left the house she smashed it against the wall and now it is whole again, but for her, this is nothing new. It is simply another in a healthy lineage of oddities.

“I’d like to walk on the beach. With you,” she says, putting the cup into the sink. “And I want you to hold my hand, but it doesn’t mean I’ve made up my mind about anything.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

We walk past the place where I dragged Agnes to drown. And past the stretch where I found Charlotte’s umbrella. We pad over picnics and night swims, topless sunbathing and Margaritas with an aftertaste of dust, the rail thin woman who wept, filling her mouth with sand and plein air paintings where Vivian was so stunning it was hard to breathe. I do not notice the clouds dissolving into that same clear blue sky that was there the first day I came to the house.

When Vivian sits I sit nearly beside her and we watch the sea and she finally asks the question: how did you get your scar? She knows Agnes was a drunk so I start there.

“I was six. Agnes was drunk, passed out on the floor and my father had already left us. She called it ‘falling into a sick’ when I was young so I treated her sickness like I’d seen on some television show. I made a can of chicken soup on the stove, a big can that Agnes had swiped from a diner where she’d pick up shifts sometimes. I let the soup cook too long. By the time I went to grab it, it was boiling and the pot burned my hand as I was lifting it. A moment later I was screaming and she didn’t come to help me. Because she wasn’t sick. She was too drunk to wake up. My mother...

“She called me her beautiful girl once upon a time, you know? Little giggly taps on the nose. I wish I didn’t remember that. Because she never did after.”

I don’t look toward Vivian until I’ve said it all. I turn my head and see the beach stretching back the way we came.

“Vivian?”

She doesn’t make a sound leaving, doesn’t touch my shoulder to draw my attention. She is there and then isn’t.

I search the dunes, the high grass—nothing moves. Then I am standing, stepping, and something scratches at the bottom of my foot. When I recoil there is an odd shell where my foot had been. Curved and translucent. With a rind of grass green paint. I stumble and a familiar absence catches in my chest.

* * *

The last place I am safe is the house. Vivian’s red Peugeot is snugged between the stilts like something tender. It will sit idle, its cracked leather seats suckling sun, and I imagine her waiting behind the wheel, waving me in, smiling; somewhere to go. But she’s already gone—I feel that like Charlotte, like a wild cut-purse hand grasping at some vital part of me.

The stairs sag as I climb them, the timbers shudder. Inside, her painting leans. The woman there smirks when I am not looking, her skin boiling, her scar creeping further, infecting her with my monstrosity. So often, Vivian made me feel like that scar was something ordinary, not pretty—she knew better than to lie—but something forgettable. I could cry but I am too hollow, I think. The house is hollow with me and I drift through its dismal old familiars.

I’m a half mile down the beach before I realize I’ve decided to do anything at all. My feet are burning the first instant I remember to feel. I bury my toes. Beside me as ever the ocean breathes, inhaling the beach and wheezing it back out, over and over until my breath goes with it and I wonder if death would feel quite so desolate. Then I am walking again.

There was a day with Charlotte and another with Vivian when both expressed a similar interest: what if we walked and never stopped? The things that tethered us to home kept us from testing the notion. A mother that still held love for one of her daughters. A life held inside a house like some meager keepsake. This time, I do not stop.

The same lifeguard stand passes me again and again; an empty skeletal thing. I am miles down the beach when I notice the absence of anything else. No houses, no umbrellas, no pairs of lushly colored towels. The dune to my left has swelled to something barren and mountainous. When I try to climb it, all I can do is slip back down.

On the other side of me, the same persistent churn and gurgle of the sea. The same hush. I abide it with a breathless quiet. The sky, cloudless. It should be later, darker than it is. The murderous sun knows the time, it always does. I crane my neck and I reel and I tremble. In the endless blue of midday, the sun has left me too.

* * *

I write with each beleaguered step the story of a ghost who wanders the space between the sea and the dunes. It is not one of Charlotte's princess tales, not fit for Vivian’s artful abstractions. There is a beach. Sand, water, sky. I do not know how anyone could ever call it beautiful.

The ghost is beyond tears, beyond her fitful breaths of panic. She has lived too many horrors not to end up like this—numb, watching for shadows.

I see something flit toward the surf, rusted gray; another ghost. A tin can somersaults with each new wave. A string reaches from it like a bloodless umbilicus out toward the open ocean. I know this contrivance of childhood, it filled Charlotte with wonder. So I kneel and hold the can against my ear. It mutes the sea to a metallic echo, enough that I can just make out a whisper.

* * *

There is a story few know about an empty house at the edge of the water. It is ugly, splintering, gray. It is lovely too. Once inside, the first thing anyone would notice is a painting of a woman hanging above the fireplace. The rest is vacant, still, no curtains, no furniture, no cobwebs in the corners. During the day the windows blanket the floorboards in bright sheets of light. In one, a shadow traverses, a slowly drifting form.

At night there are the ghosts of any fertile mind. The groaning wood that sometimes conjures a walking rhythm. The vagrant breaths of utter silence. The woman in the painting—haunting and beautiful.

HATCHERY

RENÉ REHN

Beggars can’t be choosers, the old saying goes.

I’d been unemployed for weeks when I learned that old Thomas Maier was looking for help around his chicken farm. To be honest, I was weary. I never imagined myself working at a chicken farm, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. There was also Old Thomas himself. I’d heard more than a fair share of rumors about him. He was said to be an eccentric, hard man who worked his farmhands to no end. Over the course of the past year, almost a dozen men had worked for him and none had lasted long. Even stranger, none of them talked much about the old man or his chicken farm. Yet I was out of options. I needed work, and I needed it fast, and Old Thomas’ chicken farm was the only option out here, in the middle of nowhere.

As I drove my car along the lonely country road, I could already make out what was said to be his pride: his hatchery. Multiple additions and various extensions had transformed what might once have been a barn into a patchwork monstrosity that housed thousands upon thousands of chickens.

The moment I arrived, the old man was already waiting for me. I was nervous when I stepped out of the car. His probing gaze and deep frown didn’t help.

Before long, his cold demeanor thawed a little as he led me around the farm. There wasn’t much to it. His late wife’s garden was now fallow, and what few fields he worked were used entirely for chicken feed.

Soon enough, however, he led me to the hatchery. A proud smile showed on his face as he led me inside. I couldn’t help but gasp. The place had been huge from the outside, but seemed gigantic inside. Rows upon rows of nesting boxes were stacked upon one another, reaching high above my head.

As I followed him through one of the many aisles dividing up the place, I felt almost claustrophobic. All the while, Old Thomas explained the basics of the job. The old man made sure his chickens were always well fed. For that reason, he filled the feeding troughs in the center of each aisle twice a day. Once around noon and once in the evening.

“Only happy chickens lay eggs that make people happy,” he said with a smile on his face.

After that, he went into detail on all the ins and outs. He told me how he mixed up the different ingredients that made up his chicken feed, how not to disturb the chickens too much, and how to get the eggs. There were a lot of intricacies, and some of his instructions seemed overcomplicated. I tried my best to listen and to remember it all, but there was just too much information.

Before long, the old man seemed to realize it himself. He sighed, gave me a pat on the back, and said I’d get the hang of it eventually. I told him I hoped so, and that I’d try my best.

For the first couple of days, we took care of everything together, but I soon realized why the old man needed help around the farm. He was wheezing and panting as he filled the troughs, and more than once, I saw him wince when he picked up a sack of chicken feed. Old Thomas was getting too old for the job.

Starting the second week, I assured him I’d take care of feeding the chickens by myself.

I regretted my decision almost instantly. With the old man around, it had been nothing but hard work. On my own, I couldn’t help but feel differently about the place. Walking all these long aisles on your own can be almost disorienting. There was nothing but nesting boxes and chickens around you. Occasionally, things even felt a bit strange, and I could’ve sworn the aisles seemed longer than they should’ve been. While I dumped shovel after shovel of chicken feed into the troughs, it felt almost as if the hatchery had grown in size.

Right away, images of the hatchery going on forever crawled into my mind. I imagined nothing but nesting boxes and chickens going on forever. I instantly pushed those thoughts away. Sure, the hatchery was huge, but it was still just a building. All those weird ideas were nothing but tricks of the brain, or optical illusions caused by the mundanity of the work. And yet, on certain, rare occasions, I couldn’t help but feel I was losing time, and that the work took me a tad bit too long.

Over the course of the entire week, these strange feelings persisted, but I shrugged them off. I was new on the job, and I just wasn’t used to the damned hatchery yet.

Whenever the old man asked how things were going, I assured him they were going well. At times, however, I could feel him looking at me, as if he was waiting for me to say something else.

The hatchery felt worst in the evening hours. After the sun fell, the ground was almost deserted, and most of the chickens had retreated to their nesting boxes. From there, they stared at me with half-open eyes, watching me as if I was an intruder, and readied themselves to pound on me. During these late hours, I was always unnerved, apprehensive even. I felt misplaced in this giant hatchery, and as if the place was warping and changing around me.

On Friday evening, as I pushed the wheelbarrow down the aisle, shoveling chicken feed into troughs half-heartedly, a shudder went down my spine. When I looked up and stared down the aisle, I couldn’t make out an end.

I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and looked again, but all I could see were nesting boxes and chickens going on forever. I couldn’t help but laugh and shake my head. My stupid brain was acting up again. Just keep going, dump the rest of the chicken feed, and get out. That’s all there is to it. The longer I stared down this never-ending aisle, though, the more I stopped trusting myself.

I dumped the last of the chicken feed, left the wheelbarrow and shovel behind and continued on. This was insane. The hatchery was huge, sure, but there had to be an end to it. There had to be! Yet I just kept walking and walking and walking.

After another couple of minutes, I stopped again. What the hell was going on here? Even if this was some sort of optical illusion, I’d been walking for long enough to reach the other end of the damned farm! Yet the aisle just continued on. I took one more step, then another before fear washed over me, and I told myself to get the hell out of here. Something strange was going on, something extremely strange. When I turned around, however, I saw the same thing. No end in sight.

Eventually, I set out again. I kept my eyes open for the wheelbarrow and shovel I’d left behind, but no matter how far I walked, I found no trace of them. They were gone, just like the end of the aisle, and, I realized, the walls of the hatchery. All I could see were nesting boxes and the staring, half-empty eyes of chickens. These stares, they felt almost oppressive, as if the chickens were watching my every move, measuring me up, and mocking me for being lost.

I continued on, intent on finding a way out. At first I was walking normally, but the longer the aisle continued, the more unnerved I got. I told myself that I’d just have to go a bit further, that I was imagining things, and that I was almost out, but eventually, I couldn’t anymore. There was no end in sight, no walls, nothing! Before long, I was running, dashing past nesting boxes and the few lonely chickens who were still out there.

I ran for minutes, driving myself on faster and faster, desperately trying to reach the end of the hatchery, but nothing changed. At least, that’s what I thought at first. When I stopped, panting and out of breath, I realized how chaotic my surroundings had become, bizarre even. What had once been rows of meticulously constructed nesting boxes were now nothing but haphazard stacks that looked more like something that had grown by itself.

These strange constructions grew higher and higher, turning into towering monstrosities of impossible design. I laughed. How could any of this even fit inside the hatchery? But when I stared upward, I couldn’t even see the ceiling anymore. Where the hatchery’s wooden roof had been was now nothing but a strange, colorless void.

Before long, the aisle I’d been following for so long deteriorated as well. Stacks upon stacks of nesting boxes sprouted from the ground randomly, as if all sense of order was gone.

I was confused, freaked out and scared, but my feet kept moving, kept dragging me deeper and deeper into this mad, bizarre world. The only thing I could do, was to stare at it with a horrible fascination, and in an almost dreamlike trance.

All the towering stacks of nesting boxes around me were filled to the brim with chickens, chickens who were still staring down at me, still watching me. Yet these chickens, too, were subject to bizarre changes. Some had bodies so bloated they almost didn’t fit inside their nesting boxes, while others had long dangling necks and strange emaciated bodies.

More than once, I turned around and tried to flee from my ever-deteriorating surroundings, but it didn’t matter which way I went. The longer I walked, the deeper I was thrown into the bizarre, further and further towards deterioration.

Eventually, the design of the nesting boxes made no sense anymore. What had been towering stacks before became physical impossibilities. They were leaning over one another, creating long bridges and wide arcs, constructions that could, no should, collapse at any moment.

As I stared ahead, I could see towers so high, so massive, they defied explanation. It felt like I was staring at distant cities, at an entire skyline comprising nothing but nesting boxes.

Yet it wasn’t just the nesting boxes. The chickens, too, were subjected to perpetual change. The further I walked, the stranger and more alien their forms became. At one point, I saw a chicken with multiple heads rush past me. Others were flying high, soaring through the sky on multiple wings, wider than should be possible. The worst I saw was a chicken-centipede, comprising nothing but chicken bodies, slithering around one of the nesting box towers. As my eyes trailed after it, I saw it slithering upward before it vanished again. From a distance, I could even see a deformed chicken the size of a cow, sitting in a nesting box the size of a garage.

As my eyes wandered around, I told myself a place like this couldn’t exist. A sound that should’ve been a laugh escaped my mouth, but it was something different. I shivered when I realized it had almost sounded like the cluck of a chicken. I stopped, looked down at my body, lifted my arms, and touched my head, half-expecting to find feathers and having turned into some sort of chicken-hybrid. All was normal, however. I found no changes to my body, and no feathers sprouting anywhere. And yet, relief didn’t come.

This had to be a dream! Somehow I must’ve fallen asleep in the hatchery. I closed my eyes, told myself to wake up, and to get out of this nightmare. Yet when I opened them again, praying to find myself back at the farm, back outside, away from the hatchery, nothing had changed. I was still there, still in this mad and absurd chicken world.

Madness, however, soon turned into terror.

As my steps led me past another tower of nesting boxes, I noticed movement ahead. I stopped instinctively, wondering what sort of twisted, nightmarish version of a chicken I’d see this time. What I saw made me freeze.

It wasn’t merely a deformed chicken. No, it was a chicken that looked like it had been twisted into human form. I saw chicken feet, feathers sprouting from an upright body, and a head with a dirty, sagging cockscomb. Its wings weren’t so much wings, but feathered appendages that ended in strange finger-like extensions in which the creature held a bucket. The worst, however, was its face. It was almost human, except for the same half-empty eyes, and a giant beak-like growth.

I watched as the creature poured something wet and sticky from the bucket into a trough. A disgusting, putrid smell reached me, and I had to cover my nose. The creature, however, was undeterred, and I heard it cluck a few times. These sounds were almost tender, almost friendly.

Mere seconds later, a bizarre zoo of twisted, feathered creatures descended upon the trough, gorging themselves on whatever was inside.

As carefully as I could, and driven by a mad sense of curiosity, I climbed atop a nearby nesting box to get a glance at it. The moment I did, I stumbled back, falling off the nesting box, barely able to cover my mouth, and stiffen the scream that had formed in the back of my throat.

That feed, it was flesh, the flesh of people. I hadn’t only seen a meaty ground mass, but fingers, hands and feet.

As my eyes wandered back, I could hear the chicken-beasts feeding on it, saw a strange snakelike chicken swallowing up what might once have been a hand. A terrified yelp escaped my mouth, one I couldn’t silence in time.

At that moment, something stirred next to me. My eyes grew wide when they were met by the half-empty, staring eyes of another chicken-creature. I was frozen in terror, and could only watch as an elongated neck shot forward toward me. The creature’s beak opened, and a horrible, distorted cluck escaped it before it came for me. I barely avoided the creature’s attack, beating its head aside. A moment later, my hands, almost by instinct, closed around its neck and twisted it. I gave it a jerk, then another before I felt something break.

In an instant, I was thrown aside as the creature’s body went wild. The now broken, long, dangling neck was thrown left and right while the creature’s huge wings flapped and beat against the sides of the nesting box. Within moments, the wood gave way, but eventually, the creature’s convulsions ended.

Its death, however, had been noticed, and I heard the concerned clucks of thousands of chickens all around me.

And then terror washed over me anew when I saw the outlines of more strange chicken-hybrids in the distance, who must’ve set out to find the cause of the ruckus.

At that moment, I ran.

My feet pounded hard on the ground as I dashed past nesting box towers and abominable chicken-creatures. The sound of my steps caused many of them to awaken, to freak out, and to throw themselves from their nesting boxes.

Soon I was running through a madhouse of feathers and twisted bodies. I felt wings flap against my body, felt chicken feet scratching over my arms and legs, felt beaks tearing at my skin, but I continued on. More than once, I had to wrestle something feathered from my body and throw it aside.

I didn’t know for how long I’d been running, didn’t know where I was even going. All I wanted was to get away, to get out of this mad, surreal place.

I drudged on for what felt like hours, running, stumbling before I tripped over a trough in front of me. I fell to the ground and crashed right against the wheelbarrow I’d left standing.

In an instant, I fought myself to my feet before I realized where I was. All around me stood the meticulously constructed rows of nesting boxes with chickens sleeping inside of them. To both sides, I could make out an end, and the walls of the hatchery.

For what must’ve been minutes, I stood there in shock and disbelief, wondering what the hell had happened. It had to have been a dream, a hallucination, but then I noticed the wounds covering my arms and legs.

When Old Thomas put his hand on my shoulder, I cringed back, staring at him with wide eyes.

The moment he saw my quivering lips and the scratches all over my body, he led me from the hatchery and asked what had happened. At first, I was reluctant to speak, but then I told him I’d ended up... somewhere else. I expected the old man to laugh, but he asked me where exactly I’d ended up and what I’d seen. As I rambled on, he merely nodded, and once I was done, there wasn’t much he said. Neither did he say much when I told him I was done working at his farm.

Yet when I turned to get into my car, and to leave his farm forever, there was something in his eyes. I couldn’t say what it was. It was a hidden secret, some hidden knowledge that sent yet another shudder down my spine.

WAITING ROOM

KAJETAN KWIATKOWSKI

“The doctor will see you now.”

“Okay, great.” I finally put down the People Magazine and approached the front desk.

A man sat behind a plexiglass counter and typed away on his computer. At least I think it was a man. The glass was so heavily frosted, I could only make out a flesh-colored blob.

“Which office do I go to?”

The blob shifted in its seat. Its voice sounded distant and muffled. “Down the hall. To your right. Room 091.”

I did as instructed and walked down the empty hall, passing by room ‘001’.

For the next ninety rooms I simply walked forward, admiring the cleanliness of the hallway’s design. Each office had a sliding glass door and a stylish wood paneling.

I reached ‘091’ and went inside.

The door automatically closed behind me.

It was a typical doctor’s office with an examination table, some cabinets, and a poster of the human nervous system.

I sat and waited.

Through the glazed glass door, I saw a figure approach and knock on the glass. “Hello. I’m the doctor.”

I almost wanted to laugh. “Uh. Yes. Hello, I’m the patient.”

"Due to protocols, I cannot come in.”

“Alright.”

“We’ll have to talk through this door.”

Just like the receptionist, The doctor was nothing more than a blurry shadow. The shadow moved over and tapped on the wood paneling outside the office.

On the inside where I sat, a slot popped out of the wall. It was a transaction drawer—the kind you might see at a gas station late at night.

Inside was a clipboard with a survey attached.

“Please describe the symptoms you’ve been experiencing.”

I grabbed the clipboard, filled everything out , and articulated my disorder as best as I could.

“This is going to sound absurd, but it feels like I’ve been trapped in this doctor’s office … my whole life. Like I know I had a life before this. With a husband and family. But I don’t know when that was. Or how I got here.”

The doctor’s silhouette stood motionless behind the glass.

“I’ve come here yelling and panicked many times, but I’m just going to speak to you honestly now. One person to another. Please. Give me something to jar me. Some kind of upper. If you could just prescribe me an intense stimulant of any kind …”

I put my face up flush with the glass, to get a better look at the doctor.

“... Then maybe I could get jolted out of this … this daze or whatever this is. Please.”

The blurry darkness nodded and scribbled something on a small pad. It was fed through the drawer.

The paper read: Ephemodexotrol. Second cabinet. Ingest full bottle.

For the first time, in what felt like many, many months, I had received a different instruction.

I got goosebumps. My breath shortened.

It took all the willpower I had to remain calm, and not show excitement.

“Thank. You.”

Once the doctor’s footsteps faded away (as they always did), I tore the second cabinet open and spilled everything to the ground. I found a bottle of yellow pills.

I cradled it against my chest. Tears streamed down my face.

Was this it? My escape?

I opened the cap and popped half the pills into my mouth. Then I ran the sink, filled the bottle with water, and chugged the rest.

This was either going to kill me, comatose me … or finally shock me out of this nightmare.

I laid down on the examination table, and within seconds got the jitters. The kind you get when you’ve had four coffees too many.

My heart beat in my eyes. My jaw became a vice grip. I could feel a tooth cracking from the pressure.

Wake up wake up wake up!

Claustrophobia sunk in. The walls seemed to breathe. As much as I wanted to let my brain drift off and reset. My body was twitching impatiently.

I had to go for a run.

Whipping the slide-door open, I bolted back down the hallway past several more rooms.

… 096, 097, 098, 099 …

The hallway opened up into a large waiting room filled with several empty chairs, a big center table, and many more copies of People Magazine.

“Would you like to book an appointment?” The blur behind the front desk asked.

I ignored the question and kept running, past an identical hallway with one hundred more sliding glass doors.

The banality was sickening.

Nothing ever changed.

I had long ago accepted that I must’ve gone insane.

Without stopping, I ran until I burst through the new ‘091’ office in this hallway. I likewise ripped through the second cabinet. There was another bottle of yellow pills.

Do I take the whole thing? Double the dose?

My hands decided for me. They clawed off the cap. I swallowed the whole thing like a rabid animal, and left the tap running.

Wake up wake up wake up!

I ran past the remaining offices into another waiting room. An identical copy of the thousands of others I had seen. I approached the plexiglass at the front desk.

“Would you like to book an appointment?” The blob’s voice came from the bottom of a well.

“Yes. I’d like to book a fucking appointment! I want to see my family again!”

I slammed the glass with both fists. The blurry figure didn’t seem to care “Alright let me see. I may have an availability in a few minutes.”

Screaming, I threw a chair at the reception. It bounced off the glass.

I threw another. It did the same.

Losing my shit wasn’t entirely new, but these drugs had now given me what felt like a limitless supply of energy. A nuclear reactor had grown inside.

I overturned every chair in the waiting room. Magazines fell to my feet. Jennifer Aniston’s face stared mockingly at me. Top Ten Dresses at Cannes 2016.

I grabbed one more chair and performed a full spin before throwing it at the reception again.

“We’ve got a spot. The doctor will see you now.”

The chair bounced off the plexiglass, and flew back at my face.

* * *

I awoke with wires attached to all parts of me. My eyelids felt like boulders. There was sunshine creeping into the room. It might’ve been morning.

“Mom? Is that you?”

“Is mom awake?”

“Oh my god. Is she moving?”

Person-shaped blobs surrounded all sides of my bed.

I waited for the blurriness to leave my sight, but after fully opening my eyes—my vision felt fine. I could count each individual slat on the venetian blinds. I could make out the thin green lines on the EKG monitor.

Somehow it was just the people that remained blurry.

“She may not be able to talk for a while,” one of the blobs said. Their voice sounded like it was coming through a broken phone. “She was out for quite some time.”

The other voices agreed, sounding equally muffled. Indistinguishable from each other.

“She can take all the time she needs.” The closest blob intertwined its murky limb with my fingers.

It must have been Derek. My husband. I hadn’t seen him in what felt like years.

“Don't worry honey. We’ll take care if you.” My husband-shape said. He sounded like he was speaking through a tiny, distant phone.

I tried to make out his hair, his cheekbones, or even his shoulders. But it's like his entire image had been distorted. Drowned at the bottom of some murky lake.

I think I burst into tears. I can’t remember.

* * *

It’s now been several years since the incident, and my voice still hasn’t come back. I’ve posted this story to see if anyone else has had to cope with anything similar.

I’ve since returned to my old house and found pictures of the woman I once was. She was always smiling, always grateful for those around her. That’s sadly not me anymore.

Everyone in my life is a smeared, indiscernible shadow. Everyone’s voice has now devolved into a lost, garbled murmur. Communication is useless.

I can’t make out words.

I can't tell my kids apart from each other. Or their friends.

I can't tell my husband apart from the folds of my bed.

Each night when I go to sleep, my husband holds my hand tightly—to show that it's still him. I always appreciate it. He’s been very understanding about the situation.

I wish I could show the same affection back. The same genuine care. But it's impossible.

As we turn off the lights, his gaussian-blurred face always comes close to mine, and mutters something soothing in a gentle tone.

I can never tell if my husband is trying to nuzzle me. Wink at me. Or kiss me. I never know what to say back.

I simply squeeze his hand back and stare in his general direction, hoping that it’s towards his face.

I can’t even see his eyes.

PRISON

KYLE HARRISON

When my eyes flickered open, all I could see was an endless blanket of stars. But I wasn’t outdoors, I soon realized as I felt the bristles of a recently shampooed carpet under my fingertips.

I sat up slowly, feeling the weight of a heavy drug hitting my body as I looked about. I was in some kind of jail cell, the kind you might see in general quarters with only a single door and a bed and a can to go to the restroom in.

Yet according to the sky above me I was elsewhere, because the stars danced and shimmied in various directions all across the part of the roof I could see.

I got up and tried to move my body. I get sluggish and heavy as if I had been there a long time. As I examined myself I saw there were strange markings on my left arm, Roman numerals that marked me in tattoos. The number that i could make out was 23.

This was when I first noticed that I had a roommate. Or rather a corpse I suppose, since they were no longer alive. It looked like they had been here much longer than me, their clothes torn and decaying and skin just barely clinging to their rapidly deteriorating body.

As I got closer to the corpse I saw they also had markings on their arm as well. The number 22, telling me whoever had imprisoned us here was keeping track of us one way or another.

As I turned the corpse over to get a better look at their uniform, something about the imagery on it seemed vaguely familiar; I heard a scream somewhere beyond my cell.

Standing up I looked down the long empty corridor and listened. It was dead quiet. Tentatively I took a step outside and into the hall, leaning my head from left to right as I tried to determine where it was coming from.

The cells nearby were all empty and open as well, no indicators showed that they had ever been occupied. When the scream returned I decided to focus on the source and started jogging down the hall, searching each cell for any signs of life.

The further down I went, the more disoriented I became. After about ten minutes I stopped and caught my breath and then turned back the way I had come.

To my utter surprise I saw that I had gone maybe only thirty feet from my original cell, despite the fact that it felt much longer.

I stood there for a moment puzzling how that could be, when I heard the voice again. It sounded closer. Like someone was running toward me.

I focused on the screams, and saw a silhouette in the distance. It was a woman dressed in the same Prison jumpsuit as me waving her arms.

And behind her I saw the largest damn spider in the world.

I stood there again, my jaw dropping and trying to not freak out as she ran up to me and then past me. The freakish monstrosity crawled its way toward us, bounding across the walls and hissing like a serpent. I knew the only option would be to run even if I felt that we were going nowhere.

I ran as hard as I could, following the woman down the corridor and as we did; I couldn’t help but notice the room where I’d woke was gone now. Instead the same endless hallway we seemed to be trapped in was now stretching eternally in front of us. No matter how hard we managed to make ourselves get in front of the spider it was still always there right behind us. It reminded me of a damned treadmill, but I couldn’t even consider giving up.

I have to get out of here I thought as I spotted a curve in the path ahead of us, then I shouted for the woman to make the turn.

We both ducked into the next hall, hoping it would provide shelter from the beast.

I didn’t want to catch my breath but my body was exhausted so I collapsed right there.

Much to my relief, the redheaded woman turned to help me; then she paused as she looked past my head to where we had just come.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it did make me feel a sense of dread when I saw what she was looking at.

The spider was gone, but that was the only thing that we could be thankful for. Once again, the room had transformed. The hall now stretched toward the right, more rows of cells lined the walls yet none of them had any visible signs of people in them.

“Thank you, for helping me back there,” I told her offering my hand in thanks. She grabbed my arm and looked at my tattoo.

“You’ve got one too,” she muttered and then pulled up her sleeve to reveal the Roman numeral for 18.

“You’ve been here longer than me,” I realized.

“It doesn’t feel like that at all. In fact right before I saw that damn spider, I think I was here for only ten minutes.”

“Really? And you didn’t see anyone else?”

“Not a soul. I kept hearing a voice… I guess that was you?” she asked as we both looked around. The longer we lingered the more uncomfortable the emptiness felt. We mutually agreed to get moving and as we walked we introduced ourselves.

She said her name was Emma and she lived in Southeastern Washington state.

“I’m a college student… or at least I think I am. My memories seem to be fuzzy. Almost like this is real and the life I was born into was a simulation,” she admitted as she scratched the back of her neck. I saw a small red blotch there making me think perhaps she had been injected with something before arriving and that was what caused her memory to falter.

Then again, I wasn’t faring any better; I realized as I tried to think back to the time before waking in the labyrinth.

I saw myself standing on what seemed like a very tall wall. I was talking to someone but I couldn’t recall their name or their face. The words they spoke sounded like meaningless garble as they talked to me, a bottle of whiskey swishing gently in their right hand. Why did I remember that part above the rest? They offered me a drink… had they mixed something in the alcohol to ensure I could be attacked? Was that how I got here?

Emma grabbed me and stopped me in my tracks, her lips trembling as she pointed above us. Somewhere in the middle of our walk, we had made it to a larger common room. It was the kind you might see in a prison like this with multiple floors and a walking path above with a fixed railing. But what had caused her to be filled with fright so terribly was that the entire roof of the room we were in was filled with the web of the massive spider we had seen. The beast was asleep now, seemingly having just gnawed on the corpse of some hapless soul, but I knew we needed to tread lightly.

I led her away from the room toward the D block of the prison, noticing that this part was painted differently.

“It’s odd, we walked the same corridor for hours and then all of the sudden all of this appears. What does it mean?” I asked.

“You said it yourself earlier, this must be a dream. It’s the only explanation.”

“If that’s true then we would be able to wake up,” a voice said from behind us, causing us both to jolt.

There was an older man in the cell, clinging to the bars as though they were the only thing that kept him from collapsing altogether. He was as thin as a skeleton, probably having no meal or water for days and wore a Roman number of 4 on his left cheek.

“Jesus Christ. How long have you been here?” I asked him.

“Could be days. Could have been months. I lost track forever ago. You’re the first souls I have seen besides the monsters that roam this trap. So tell me, how can I be sure you’re real or just the result of my addled mind?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond as I looked past to the stone wall where he had been using his gnarled fingernails to etch at the bricks and keep track of time.

“We’re going to get you out of there,” Emma told him as we looked for a tool to unlock the door.

“Won’t do much good anyway. Where would we go in a dream that never ends?”

“It’s not a dream. This is just some sick prison. Someone brought us here to experiment on, I’m sure of it,” I told him.

“Oh really? Well let me fill you in in a little enlightenment, it is a dream and I can prove it,” he walked over to the wall and then before I could ask how, began to pound his head against the wall.

Emma and I watched in abject horror as the old man slammed his head into the wall a dozen times. We shouted for him to stop as the bones cracked and blood started to pool against his face.

Finally he collapsed on the ground unconscious.

Neither of us even knew how to react, but it wasn’t even over yet. A moment later the wound seemingly healed and the old man’s eyes darted open as he smiled at us.

“In a dream you can’t die. You don’t sleep or eat either. We just… exist to suffer for this maze,” he lamented.

“But why do we feel the pain? I’ve had some gnarly dreams before but nothing like this. And why are we all marked the same? Like we are part of an experiment?” I said as I showed him the tattoos.

“If it’s a dream, then there’s too many patterns. Something about this connects to the reason we are here. Once we figure that out, we get out of here,” I insisted.

The old man laughed a little deliriously, not wanting to believe that the hell we were trapped in could be real.

“You go figure that out then, son. I’ll be here in this cell, wasting my eternal slumber counting these bricks. At least it’s safer in here,” he muttered.

I pulled Emma away from the unhinged man, far enough where he couldn’t hear us and asked her what we should do.

“He’s clearly been here a lot longer but doesn’t seem interested in helping. Do we just leave him?” I asked her.

She was looking at the spot where he had attempted to kill himself, a feeble attempt at waking from the nightmare and she had a thought.

“Normally when we die in a dream it takes us out. But here it’s different because the injury wasn’t permanent. Maybe we aren’t trying hard enough?”

“You want us to kill him where he can’t recover from it?” I couldn’t believe the ludicrous suggestion but we were out of options. We needed to be sure this place would not be our own endless jail. And since the old man was comfortable with dying, he would be the best candidate for the test.

“There is a pit. I remember seeing it when I ran from that thing. It was probably 20 miles deep. Maybe more. If he falls there he won’t come back,” Emma told me as she began to pick the lock.

“Let’s say your crazy plan works and I wake up somewhere else. What am I supposed to do once I get there?” the elderly man asked as the cell door shimmied loose.

“Find help. Get someone to help us out of here. If this is a simulation, it’s being operated somewhere. Our physical bodies would be hooked up to an apparatus of some kind,” I told him.

He bit his bottom lip, a wicked grin making it seem like he was going to turn tail and run from us both. Then we heard a very loud shriek from somewhere in the corridors around us.

“Was that the spider?” I asked, nervously unsure which way to look about the liminal prison.

“It sounded much larger,” Emma said as she led the way west.

We said nothing as we progressed down another endless corridor and I kept an eye on the redhead as we did.

Her movement was more pronounced and precise than when we first met, despite the ever changing landscape of the maze it seemed that she knew where we were going. After about an hour of seemingly random turns, we were back in the large common room where the spider kept its nest.

Except we were no longer alone.

As we stepped into the room, I couldn’t help but notice there were at least two dozen more prisoners all dressed in the same jumpsuit as we were. Men and women from all ages, and if I had to guess they likely were all tattooed with the Roman numerals the same as us.

“How many people have been subjected to this madness?” I said aloud. My words echoed into the hall; and the crowd turned to look at us. They eyes were filled with the fear of death lingering above and I realized the noise I’d made had woke the massive spider. It crawled into the room below, quickly snagging a few stray prisoners as everyone ran chaotically around to seek shelter. At the same times the many endless hallways that served as exits to the common room seemingly disappeared. The trap was set, the spider would have its fill.

The old man ran toward a west corridor while Emma went to a small door in the east. I followed her, shouting for her to wait as we locked ourselves into the warehouse. The spider tossed the men around as though they were dolls, their bodies breaking apart as the stones struck their spines.

No one was waking up from this ordeal, I realized grimly. “I guess we don’t need to find that pit after all,” I told her.

“It just doesn’t make sense… I did everything the same, the pit should be here.”

This time I focused intently on her body language. She was confused but there was an underlying emotion that I latched onto, a sense of urgency.

“You told me that you have no recollection of your time here whatsoever, except for right when we crossed paths,” I pointed out. “Was that a lie?”

Before she could respond we heard a loud alarm and the door behind us abruptly opened back up. There was a whirling noise and we looked above our heads to see the cascading stars start to swirl into a whirlpool. Then just as they did, the ground below our feet began to shake and I found myself running as the tiles slowly fell away. The tables, corpses, and the giant spider all began to fall down an endless void as I grabbed a partition on the wall.

Emma fell as well, but I managed to grab her even as the prison shook violently again. There was nothing holding us in place except my hand gripping hers, and as we seemingly hung there in free fall I demanded answers.

“That alarm. You were expecting it weren’t you? Because you have done all this before,” I told her.

At first she didn’t want to answer me, then the stars around us began to crack and shatter; the walls turning to ash.

“This isn’t a dream,” she shouted. “It’s a separate dimnesion, created from beyond our own comprehension of time and space by beings far older than ourselves. As ancient as reality, they built it to house a multiverse,” she shouted as she pointed toward the splintering darkness.

I could see another version of myself, and another version of her, echoed endlessly in a long row like we were staring down a hall of mirrors.

“The outcome has never changed. Not until now. Not until we met that old man,” she shouted.

“And why do it at all? Are you a part of this experiment?” I asked.

“We both are. We were trapped here during the tests. Trying to find a way out. A few iterations ago you said you had a theory how we could change things… but you never told me. It looks like you were right!”

I shook my head as I realized both of us were fading into ash as well. My body was immolating against my will as I screamed, telling her I didn’t even know what I did. I remembered nothing.

“That’s what was so different! You forsook your memories. Gave them to this void. Once you fed the monster… it has no need for you!!” she screamed back.

She was gone an instant later burned by the endless abyss.

I closed my eyes, dreading the inevitable, fighting back the urge to wail.

Then the blackness overtook me and my body was gone. Much like a dream I was simply a floating consciousness, whisking about into the darkness until I saw light. And a voice.

The light became brighter and my eyes returned followed by my body. I was in a hospital bed, staring at a man that get familiar. Was he the same one I had seen in my broken memories?

“My name is Doctor Wesley. I doubt you’ll remember me given that you’ve been gone for these three months… but I’m glad to see you here and alive,” he said as he offered me a sedative to calm my nerves.

“It felt longer… I was wandering those corridors for weeks, maybe five months at the least,” I told him as I accepted it and asked what this was all about.

The doctor explained I was a volunteer from a nearby college, participating in a private study on a collective consciousness that he called The True World.

Much like Emma he theorized the corridors connected to different realities and that the halls actually were the building blocks of what we understood as existence.

“But there are people trapped there and suffering. Why is that? What benefit comes from their endless pain?” I asked.

the doctor reluctantly admitted that there were some unintended side effects to their progress, such as the mental illness that was hitting any who were trapped inside the other dimension for long periods of time.

“We’ve had this conversation before,” he told me, reminding me that I had somehow lost all my memories. When I told him this, he talked to another colleague that theorized something was being fed those memories.

“The labyrinth has grown. The prison demands more inmates on a regular basis so that we can map it out, and none of them ever wake in a sane mind… except you. Because you chose to forego yours. You gave it up somewhere in that place.”

“If so then we need to do the same for everyone in there. The only way they can wake up is if we take their memory…”

“And sacrifice all our progress?” Doctor Wesley was aghast at the idea.

His desire for a scientific method appalled me so I did what any desperate man might do, I waited for the opportunity to attack him. Make him see my side of things so to speak.

It happened when he returned, claiming thwt my suggestion was going to move forward and we would save the other prisoners. But he also had an injection in his hand I knew would send me back.

So I overpowered him and used it on him instead.

Once I was sure that the drugs were taking him to the same hellscape I’d gotten free from, I took his employee badge and started to do some research of my own.

I was determined to find out everything I could about this place, the prison, and their goals.

I took the doctor’s coat and glasses as well, trying my best to blend in as I left the room. I was in a bunker of some kind, the dim lighting and lack of any visible nature told me this. Clearly the experiment they were doing wasn’t authorized by any governments, so then where did the funding come from? Powerful people always find ways to abuse that same power, I thought as I made it to a private office and began to access the files that Wesley could.

After about ten minutes of perusing them, I was actually a bit disappointed to discover that there was little the doctor had learned that he hadn’t already told me.

The dimension I was trapped in housed approximately 236 other inmates from all around the area, all of whom had legally signed their rights away to join the experiment for one reason or another. My excuse was money for a treatment for my mother.

I have to admit it pained me greatly that I did not even recall her face, the affects of their brainwashing had proven powerful against me.

The most disturbing fact that caught my attention was the picture of the redhead. Wesley and his companions had been surveying her and dubbed Emma an anomaly. What exactly did that mean?

Every iteration seemed to indicate she was trying to break apart the maze, fracture it for some unknown cause. Why was this woman so determined to break down the walls of this cosmic jail?

I knew I would only find the answers if I went back into the dreamlike world.

I stood up and listened to the sounds around me. So far no one was aware I had incapacitated Wesley. There was a chance I could keep using his badge and be out of here. It would be a different type of maze, but at least I could be sure this one had an exit.

The images of the 236 people on that computer screen haunted me. Women and men that had foolishly believed this company would keep them safe in a strange place far from our reality.

Maybe they knew their physical body wouldn’t deteriorate? Or maybe some of them were so desperate to escape their actual lives that the suffering within those walls was worth it.

No… that couldn’t be the truth, I realized as I walked back toward the room where Wesley had confined me.

Those people need to be released, it wouldn’t be right for me to walk away.

And Emma already told me that I was the answer she had been seeking. Perhaps by returning and working together we could free them all.

Maybe we were Allies after all.

I sealed off the door with the equipment in the room. No one could even prevent what was about to do to the doctor or myself.

As strange as it sounds I knew that the only way to truly understand the True World and make sure the others could be free was to have a way back to this reality without interruption. Doctor Wesley as my unwilling accomplice was the only solution I saw that fit the situation.

Taking the remainder of the drugs I laid down alongside him and passed the glasses back to his unconscious face.

“See you soon; doc.”

__________

I felt a chain wrap around my throat as I hit water.

My eyes plopped open and I saw Wesley dangling upside down above the waves just a few feet from me. Except he was missing his head. I was in no better shape, the chain causing me to constrain my breathing as I dragged myself up from the black pool and get a sense of my surroundings.

All around I saw we were in the same commons room where the spider had attacked us, but now the floor was replaced with a pool of black slime that was bubbling upward. I climbed the chain toward the next floor, spotting a set of stairs and racing toward it.

Once I was able to free myself of the apparatus, I got a good look at my surroundings. This was the railing I had seen earlier from the prison, except once again the liminal space had changed and it was leading me toward some kind of command center.

Against my better judgment I went in.

I would have thought by now running in this nightmarish maze would prepare me for anything that might be beyond that door, but when I saw an exact replica of myself enter the opposite way; I admit I was mortified.

We stared at each other across the gap, first in confusion and then in terror. I gathered he was here for the same purpose as me because even though we were from different universes our thoughts were the same.

Together we moved toward the console which seemingly monitored every corner of the prison.

I saw the giant spider skittering around the corridors searching for new prey. I also saw another monster this one was a giant headless beast that reminded me too much of Wesley except it was clearly transformed from generations inside the maze. It was golden and black in color, searching the maze for a way out.

On more than one occasion it would come to the commons that I had just escaped from and consume the pool of slime. Making it grow more powerful.

“The black void you see is our memories being poured out to sacrifice to it,” a familiar voice told me and my double. We both turned to see Emma entering. Except she no longer had the prisoner uniform. That charade was gone.

To my astonishment she was wearing the same dress that Wesley had when we met.

“You’re feeding it our consciousness… making it stronger,” my double realized.

“You offer it to the Minotaur willingly. This is the purpose of the maze. To forget your existence is the only way for the True World to come into ours… for the reality we know to slip away,” she said. She was focusing on me as she spoke as though the words were meant to have special meaning to me.

“When you gave it up, you were so happy. And now you’ve come back to make sure every prisoner here does the same. We can destroy this place and usher in a new universe… one that won’t need barriers between us. One where this is the only reality that ever mattered. All of this, all of our suffering will only be a dream that we wake from,” Emma told me.

Her offer sounded tempting. In fact that was why I had come here to begin with. I was sure freeing them was the right thing to do. But to unleash these monsters… could our universes survive such an invasion?

“I don’t believe you,” my double said as he took out a weapon from his pocket, another syringe stolen from his own version of Wesley no doubt.

“In fact I don’t think you’re real at all. You’re an illusion part of this living evil that we are trapped inside. Every movement of these monsters, of this entire maze has told me one thing; the maze is desperate to die. To destroy it would be giving it exactly what it wants. It’s the prisoner here, we’re just bait,” my double told me.

“We’re all prisoners. Death is the only freedom we can long for,” Emma argued and looked toward me. “Remember the old man? That was you. Another version of you trapped here forever. Doomed to live. Didn’t you listen to the true words he spoke? This immortality is a curse. A dream that cannot end unless we take it upon ourselves to end it!” she demanded.

“I’ve heard enough,” my double snarled as he jumped to attack her. But I was quicker. I knocked him down and grabbed the syringe, plunging it into his neck. His eyes rolled back and pulled into that same black void I had been running from.

Emma stood over me with a smile of approval.

“You’re doing the right thing. The suffering of these prisoners can end if you lead the call to arms,” she told me.

“I’m not sure that’s the answer anymore,” I admitted as I stood up and tossed the syringe away.

“This place was built for a reason. To keep this True World away from our own. A prison of the mind that we unwittingly stumbled into. We need to kill the labyrinth a different way… we need to go to war with the ones that built it.”

Emma laughed.

“We don’t even know the first thing about where it came from. It’s a god. There is no beginning just as there is no end.”

“Maybe so, but there’s one thing that will ensure we get answers. It needs us. If we create a revolution… it can’t use anyone anymore.”

“You’re talking about going against forces far greater than any human has ever encountered. And for what? To remain here? Forever?” Emma scowled.

“You said yourself this reality is prison. That means we serve our sentence. Not that I expect you to cooperate,” I admitted.

She grit her teeth as I pointed toward the double I just subdued. “There are more of him than of you, I’m sure of it. I don’t need your help to get what I want.”

I started toward the door.

“Walk away and you’ll be in those corridors again a rat in that endless maze. You’ll never be free.”

I felt the truth of her words. The fear I felt for ever treading this path.

But I accepted it. Because I realized although being lured here, I could make a difference by saving the reality I cared about the most.

“I was never free.”

FLOAT BARN

VICTOR SWEETSER

She thought it was a firehouse at first, warm and bright up on a slope with both of its big overhead doors up, even though the lighting was wrong. That may’ve been because some bulbs were out. She didn’t let that concern her too much, though. In spite of the heat, she was chilled, shivering. She’d been sweating.

Delphi had run away from home.

She knew how ridiculous that sounded at seventy-nine. It was coming up on a year now after having moved in with Cassia, her daughter, and her family. It was a year too much. Not that long ago Delphi had owned a couple of businesses, a storage facility and a bar, and longer ago than that had worked as a compliance officer for a Fortune 500 company. That was back in the 70s, and there had been a lot of hoops for her to jump through back then, continuously, but she was certain she could do it now, if she could only get a little more of herself back. After no longer working those brutal hours, she’d begun to erode from a sea she’d heard about but hadn’t realized was there, endlessly crashing against her. She told herself she only needed an ounce back. With that she could do a lot.

It had to be about midnight, and Delphi was exhausted. Maybe Cassia was calling her, but Delphi had thrown her cellphone from Cull Creek Bridge. It wasn’t her cell anyway, not with Cassia and her husband paying the bills.

How many miles had she gone on foot? She used to live in big cities and would walk everywhere she could. It might revitalize her a little. She only needed a place now to recuperate.

She could talk with the firefighters in the big firehouse at the lip of the road, and find somewhere to sit, and maybe ask if it was alright if she used one of their open beds for the night. They’d understand. She wasn’t a homeless person. She was someone who needed to collect themselves.

But when Delphi walked up the fissured, rubbly driveway, she saw a wide serpentine shape where a firetruck should be. It crouched in the opening, its engorged eyes swallowing her up. She stood there for a moment, heart pounding like it would beat this fast temporarily but later she’d pay for it. There was something big in there, and there was a lot next to and around it, but as she squinted she realized those shapes weren’t moving and their rectangular bottoms told her what she needed to know. These were parade floats.

It was a float barn.

Cautiously, she approached.

A worm-like serpent, the massive figure on the nearest float, peered out of the opening at her. It was segmented but with a head more like a snake, rows upon rows of teeth in its open mouth like a shark’s. Its length extended back into the darkness. She couldn’t tell where it ended. There were other floats with various shapes and scenes, and some appeared to have people on them until—with a red-hot wave of anxiety that would not die down—she understood them to be mannequins. The nearest were wearing robes like hairshirts, those painful garments made of hair that penitents wore, but full-bodied. Their masks were decorated with animal skulls. She’d always been afraid of mannequins, and there’d been that time she’d found some in odd positions and clothing in an abandoned storage unit.

Even though there weren’t actual people up on the floats, maybe because there weren’t actual people up there, it gave her a fright. But she continued on into the building.

There was a clicking noise as Delphi crossed the threshold.

“Hello?!” she said.

Something shuffled towards the back of the float barn, where the light wouldn’t tread. She couldn’t get an idea of the square footage on this building, but it had to be massive, and there was no telling what wings or other parts might’ve extended off the storage area. The structure was old, made of wood rather than metal, and the few bulbs that were still functional seemed to leak light from elsewhere. They were big and antique-looking.

Delphi was doing her best to avoid glancing at the floats because of the mannequins.

The motors on the two big overhead doors whirred into action. The doors were closing. She could’ve covered that distance in time, but something kept her from doing it. Dread and guilt, maybe. A tendency towards self-sabotage. If a car had been rushing towards her while crossing the street, she got the feeling she might’ve lingered there too long.

Her instinct for self-preservation took hold again. Besides, this was just doors closing and that meant someone was here. No big deal. She would’ve gotten out of the way in time to clear that car on the road anyway.

Delphi called out again and began walking towards the right of the building. Maybe there was an office and a button on the wall to operate the doors. If they could close electronically, they could open electronically, too.

Then something occurred to her. That clicking noise. It reminded her of the sound garage door motors made when something broke the eye beams, triggering the motion sensors. But that was meant to raise doors in case someone passed under them while closing. A safety measure. Was there a way to rig them to do the opposite, creating a trap for any poor souls, homeless or otherwise, who wandered in for shelter?

But there had to be a way to override that, right? There ought to be a way to disconnect the doors from the motor and manually raise them up at any rate.

She chuckled under her breath. It was probably the mannequins in costume that were making her paranoid.

Delphi sat down next to a float, her back against one wheel, to rest. The floor was hard dirt. It had been so densely packed she’d thought it was flooring beneath her shoes. There was also, now that she was resting and registering things she hadn’t before, a funk wafting about the barn. It reminded her somewhat of dead animals, but that wasn’t quite right.

If she hadn’t thrown her cellphone off the bridge on the way here, she might be looking for messages from her daughter now. Dinner hadn’t gone well, and she’d excused herself early. It was like a reversal of roles, a caricature of the way that was supposed to happen, but Cassia had never run away from home as a child. She’d been a good daughter, a bit wayward at times and there’d been a little drug use, but much better than Delphi was acting now, she thought. Delphi had been grateful at first to be able to move in with her daughter and her family, but the shame had been creeping in, and by now it completely clouded over everything.

In the float barn there was a rustle just above Delphi. It came from one of the floats. She couldn’t yet look at it. There might be a mannequin adjusted in such a way that it was staring down at her. Out of a mask. Arm poised as if to hurl candy or trinkets at her. Or something else.

Whatever it was continued to rustle.

Still seated against the wheel of a float, Delphi slowly raised her sights up the float across from her to its siding. It was covered in grass and the occasional leaves. It brought to mind the Rose Parade in California, whose floats were decorated in flowers, seeds, and all manner of growth. As for the float across from Delphi in this float barn, the grass and leaves gave way to a hollowed out section. Towards the middle it appeared to be cut away like one of those cross-section diagrams, grass and leaves becoming dirt and a coffin cut open at the side. There was a human skeleton in the coffin with wires weaving in and out of it that ran to a control box for the float. The side of the float was like peering into a cut away section of a grave where a coffin had been laid to rest. She knew the skeleton had to be fake, all foam and fabrication, but she was pretty close to it, and it looked real.

Above, whatever was moving atop the float was getting more frantic.

Delphi forced herself to look.

Past the cutaway coffin section of the float, past a deck that was empty of figures or mannequins, there was a gigantic head. This float wasn’t a scene so much as one giant figure. The head belonged to the float. It had flesh hanging over its eyes like bangs. Like a crane, a huge arm peeled a part of itself away from the float and placed that into its mouth. The mouth chewed and there was a whisper of something soft and then a crunch.

Delphi screamed.

The giant head stopped and looked down at her. The flaps of hanging flesh came away from one eye, just a little, to reveal a gleaming light. It was the same light as that on the big antique bulbs, amber and seeming to leak from elsewhere.

Delphi pulled herself up using the float she’d been sitting against. But she inadvertently touched something.

A part of the coating on the chassis had pulled away, and her hand reached through to bone. But it was too large. And, peering above at the float she had been sitting against, she saw a long neck and a head full of wonky teeth that reminded her a little of a brontosaurus from hell. The neck and head appeared to be made of foam and painted over, but the bone looked, and felt, very real. There were two giant figures just above, extended from their floats, and no telling how many others.

A feeling she’d never had before, like vertigo but turned belly-up, took hold as she realized the ceiling of the building was much farther away than she’d thought.

Delphi ran.

The animatronics on some of the other floats were coming to life. Mannequins that did not move and were dressed in the odd, various regalia of their respective orders watched and lived in their stillness. They seemed to her much more alive than Delphi had felt this past year. It was a lifeforce she could not understand, but it went ahead anyway.

Then the engines on the floats rumbled, and wheels churned to motion.

As she darted around, searching for an escape, Delphi noticed how every float touched or held death in some way. Bones, skins, skulls of sundry creatures, including some that did not seem to belong to anything on Earth, lined the surfaces of floats and dressed the backs of mannequins. Flowy cloaks and masks hid their wearers behind decay. Figures like the grim reaper held hands with more exotic avatars of death to Delphi, from countries she could only guess at. Whatever festival these floats belonged to, it was abundantly clear to her that death and an element she could not place, something malevolent, occupied its festivities. It could not have been one of those more benign celebrations of that part of life that was as sure as birth. It also celebrated something more sinister that waited to fish out souls at the threshold.

Delphi discovered a gap in the wall, the wooden boards eaten away like a cavity. It was much too small for her to crawl through, but she could see outside the building to the street.

After she’d yanked and pried at the opening, trying to make it larger, a man walked by along the road with a paper bag in his hands.

“Hey!” Delphi yelled. “I can’t get out of here! Help!”

If he heard her, he made no reply. He didn’t so much as stop or turn her way.

Delphi continued to shout at the man, but as she did something rolled up from behind and crashed into her. It smushed her between itself and the wall. The pain was electrifying. The feeling went out of her toes, her legs, and her body, but it didn’t matter anymore because it held her up. As the float coming from behind crushed her against the side of the building, the thought that this building only appeared to be made of wood flashed through her mind, and then all went dark.

There, at the edge of darkness, something was waiting to fish her out into its world.

PLAYGROUND

BLAIR DANIELS

My son, Aiden, and I like to go to the playground right before sunset. In these hot summer months, it's cooler after the sun’s gone down, and it's usually completely empty. In a post-COVID era, an empty playground is like a rare jewel. Kids are the worst for spreading germs.

The playground we go to is set back from the road, surrounded on three sides by forest. It’s a wonderful little place that not as many people seem to know about. There's a main play structure that's fifteen feet tall, with one of those enclosed green spiral slides, and a rock climbing wall.

This evening was no different from any other. The playground was cast in darker shadows and bluer hues, threatening dusk. As usual, my son took off running ahead of me. I sat down on the bench, ready for some quiet phone time.

A lot was on my mind, too. Dave, my partner, had left us two weeks ago. All day we’d been snapping at each other. He told me he was going out to run some errands… and then he just never came back. When I called him after an hour, his phone went straight to voicemail.

I was still picking up the pieces, still coming to terms with that fact. The worst part of it all is—even though he and I had our disagreements—I really believed he loved Aiden.

And then he just takes off without even saying goodbye.

“Look, Mommy!” Aiden shouted, as he stood at the top of the twisty green slide.

“I’m watching!”

I saw him sit down.

Saw his little hands disappear from the rim.

Waited…

And didn’t see him come out the other end.

Huh? I got up from the bench and walked over. It wasn’t that strange… sometimes he took an unreasonably long amount of time to get into a slide-ready position. I climbed up the stairs—but I didn’t see his little frame perched at the top of the slide.

Maybe he’s climbing down the slide, or climbing back up, or something. Aiden often used these enclosed types of slides as a sort of climbing structure. Leave it up to kids to find the most dangerous way to use the playground.

I got to the top of the slide and poked my head in. Dark green plastic. I couldn’t see anything past the first twist, about four feet down.

Panic began to set in. No, no, he’s probably just past the twist, climbing back up, or something. “Aiden?” I called.

Only my own voice echoed back.

“Aiden!”

Nothing.

My heart sank. If he were in there somewhere, I would hear him—his footsteps, his breathing, him talking to himself. Even if he wasn’t answering me, he was never this quiet.

But where would he go? I’d seen him at the top of the slide. He didn’t come out the other side. It’s not like he could drown or be kidnapped inside a slide. But then my mom-brain shot out a horrible possibility—

Maybe he’s stuck in there, somehow.

Maybe he’s suffocating to death right now.

And just like that, panic kicked in like a drug.

Hands shaking, hyperventilating, I started climbing down the slide, hands first. “Aiden?” I called. I made it around the first turn—but there was nothing there.

“AIDEN!”

Maybe he made it out already.

Maybe I just missed him.

I continued through the slide, crawling on my knees and elbows. It was oppressive in here—warm and moist from baking in the summer sun. That combined with all the blood rushing to my head made me feel like the walls were closing in. Like the diameter of the slide was slowly shrinking as I wiggled my way down.

Plastic bumped against my shoulders, against my hips, as I continued down.

And down.

And down.

The slide isn’t this long.

It isn’t more than six feet off the ground. It’s only a bit taller than me.

Then why does it feel like I’ve climbed twenty feet down?!

I sucked in a slow breath and let it out. Calm down. Everything’s fine. But those words were in Dave’s voice, in my head. He’d told me that so many times. Stop freaking out. Calm down. Take a deep breath.

You being so neurotic is why he left.

The slide probably only felt so long because I was a grown-ass woman wiggling my way down it. My knees and elbows hurt. My head banged on the plastic. Just get to the bottom and you’ll be fine.

But now, Aiden could be in danger. Aiden must’ve slid out just as I got in, and that meant he was out there on the playground alone. Where there were real dangers, like kidnapping and running away and bears in the woods—

The plastic squeezed against my shoulders—

Unbearably hot—

Sweat dripped down my arms—

Light.

Up ahead, almost blinding light. As my eyes adjusted, I saw the familiar wood chips of the playground. Oh, thank God. I pushed myself forward, and it felt like the opening was almost constricting against me. Fighting me. Too small for a five-foot-seven, one-hundred-sixty-pound mother to squeeze through. Plastic pressed against every part of me, digging into the areas that had grown soft and squishy with motherhood—

And then I popped out.

Cool breeze. Light. Sunshine.

I fell onto the woodchips hands first. Then I scrambled up, twisting my body painfully, to scan the playground.

“Aiden?”

And then—finally—I saw him.

He was on the swings.

I ran over to him. “Aiden, don’t do that,” I said, although he hadn’t really done anything wrong. I let out a sigh and forced myself to rephrase. “If you hear me calling for you, you gotta respond, okay?”

“Okay, Mommy.”

It was then that I noticed two things.

First, Aiden was swinging high. Despite the fact that he still doesn’t know how to pump his legs effectively.

Was someone pushing him?

I scanned the playground—but it was empty, as before.

Which is when I noticed the other thing. When we’d gotten here, it was nearly dusk. Now… the sun almost seemed higher in the sky. The playground was washed in gold. The shadows weren’t so deep, so cool.

Something isn’t right.

I stopped the swing. “We’re going home,” I said. There was something horribly off here. My spidey-mom-sense, whatever you would call it, was blaring the alarms. The instinct that’s kept the human race alive for millions of years, that’s forced mothers to keep their children safe, was shouting.

“I wanna stay,” he whined.

“No. We’re going.”

I grabbed his hand and began pulling him through the playground, towards the parking lot.

That’s when I noticed the playground looked… different.

The yellow slide on the other side of the playground didn’t actually connect to anything. The climbing wall was missing several footholds. There was a swing hanging from the monkey bars.

And the fort. There were stairs on the metal ceiling, hanging upside-down. Like they came right out of an M. C. Escher painting.

There were bars, colored metal poles in yellow and red and green, that poked through the wood chip mulch at random locations like worms coming out of the soil. They ended mid-air, having no actual purpose.

“Come on!” I shouted, pulling Aiden harder towards the parking lot—

No.

The parking lot was empty.

Our car was gone.

What… the fuck?

If my mom-sense was shouting before, it was screaming now.

I pulled out my phone to call my husband. But two words appeared on the screen, that filled me with dread:

No signal.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. I ran a hand through my hair. Okay, get to the road. Walk to the strip mall down the road. Get help. And if someone is following us, there will be witnesses on the road.

I started towards the parking lot.

But that’s when I realized the road ahead… wasn’t really a road?

The parking lot met asphalt, where the road should be. But the asphalt wasn’t a road, it was just a 50-foot stretch of asphalt in either direction. Then it was just grass and more forest.

No, no, no. That’s impossible.

“Mommy? Where’s the car?”

I shook my head. “Don’t worry, sweetheart.”

I whipped around, scanning the playground for something. Anything. But there was nothing I saw that could possibly help us escape.

I’m dreaming. I’ve got to be.

This is some sort of fucked-up nightmare.

It was a recurring dream. Losing sight of Aiden, screaming his name, not being able to find him. Lost. Missing. Gone. Words that somehow cut harder, more panicked, than even a death. Something that sent me into full panic mode.

In this dream, I’d found him.

But somehow, it was even more terrifying.

I pinched myself. I cried. I screamed. Aiden looked on in shock. But I didn’t wake up. The sun didn’t sink towards the trees. The shadows didn’t deepen. It was perpetual afternoon, the heat of the sun beating down on us, sticking my shirt to my body, curls of sweat-drenched hair falling into my eyes.

“Mommy, I’m hungry.”

I collapsed onto the bench, which had a leg sticking out of the top, cutting off abruptly in mid-air. “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice cracking with sobs. “I’m so sorry.”

I don’t know how long I sat there with him, crying into my hands, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. A nightmare that wasn’t ending? Some kind of mental breakdown? Drugs that I didn’t remember taking?

When I looked up, however, all the blood drained out of my face.

Every single swing was swinging.

There wasn’t even the faintest hint of a breeze.

I grabbed Aiden. Someone was here. Someone… was watching us. I watched the swings, swinging out of sync, some of them wobbling off-kilter like someone had given them a side push. I swallowed.

I turned—

And froze.

Someone was standing there, at the far end of the playground, on the edge of the forest. A man, facing away from me, with familiar curly hair and a gray marled sweater.

My stomach plummeted like an anchor.

Dave.

And then everything made sense.

When he left, to run some errands… he mentioned the park. Aiden had lost his toy dump truck a few days before, and he said he was going to look for it.

He didn’t abandon us.

He got lost… here.

“Dave?” I asked, my voice shaking. I gripped Aiden’s hand tight as I approached, slowly, my feet sinking slightly into the wood chip mulch.

He didn’t turn around.

“Is that you?”

Nothing.

I stopped twenty feet behind him, next to a misshapen yellow pole that ended in mid-air. I swallowed, my heart hammering in my chest.

This isn’t right.

The moment stretched out, dead silent. No birds chirping from the woods, no breeze, no cars passing by. Nothing. A void. A playground in the middle of an endless void, twisted and corrupted, connected to our world by a single thread.

And then Dave finally spoke.

“Get out.”

His voice sounded… off. Distorted, like it was being played on an old cassette player at a slightly slower speed.

“How?” I whispered.

“The slide,” he replied, his voice low.

And then he began to turn his head.

He only turned slightly. Just enough that I could make out the contour of his cheekbone, his dark eyelashes. But it was enough to see there was something wrong with his face. The proportions were all wrong.

“Aiden,” he said. “I’m sorry… that I never got to say goodbye. I love you. I—”

He was cut off by the sharp snap of a twig, coming from the forest.

“Go!” he shouted.

I grabbed Aiden and pulled him over to the slide. “Climb!” I shouted. “Hurry!”

“But Daddy—”

“Go.” I forced a smile, blinked away my tears. “I’ll be right behind you.”

He paused.

And then he stepped onto the rim and disappeared behind the green plastic.

I took one glance back at Dave—

There was something moving in the forest. Something huge. A cacophony of snapping twigs. Coming from every direction. “Dave!” I called out.

“Go!” he called, staring into the forest.

I squeezed into the slide. But I was much heavier than Aiden, and my sneakers slid under my weight as I began to climb. Aiden was already disappearing around the turn ahead of me.

Rumbling sounds, like thunder.

Like whatever was in the forest was gaining on us.

I kicked off my shoes. They careened out of the slide and onto the woodchips below. Then, with my bare feet sticking to the plastic, I began to climb.

A horrible snarl came from behind me.

I turned around to see an enormous snout pushing its way into the slide’s opening. Black fur, wet nose. It sniffed frantically around me, then opened its mouth—to reveal fangs as big as my hands, and an enormous pink tongue lolling towards me—

I scrambled up.

And up.

And up.

Fetid, hot breath filled the inside of the slide. I climbed up, my sweaty hands slipping against the plastic. Two steps up, one step sliding back.

After a few minutes, I saw red lights reflecting in the plastic, just around the bend. Aiden’s light-up sneakers. That gave me the extra burst of strength that I needed, and I pushed myself forward, panting, my clothes drenched in sweat.

Then I was bursting into the fresh air.

And Aiden was there.

Completely safe.

I grabbed him and ran to our car. Drove home as fast as I possibly could. I went to the police and told them everything, and they acted like I was crazy; but then, a few weeks later, the park was surrounded in CAUTION tape and the playground was being dismantled.

I was relieved to see it go, so no one else would go missing.

But it also meant I’d never see Dave again.

So, in the middle of the night, I persuaded a friend of mine with a pickup truck to help me steal the slide. We stepped over the caution tape in the middle of the night and dragged the heavy green plastic towards the truck, making track marks in the mulch and soil.

Don’t worry—it’s secure, out in the woods. No one will stumble on it accidentally, and I’ve built a small fence around it to stop anyone from trying. But every so often, I go out there and drop a letter down. Or one of Aiden’s drawings.

I don’t know if Dave gets them.

But I hope he does.

LIBRARY

C.M. ROBINSON

Inside a library someone sits in their favorite corner reading. Which library doesn't matter because it could be any library, might even be yours. It doesn't matter the name or description of the reader, maybe it's your neighbor or maybe it's you right now. It could very easily be you. You look up, having read for the past while and notice it's quieter than usual. You worry you perhaps stayed a bit later than you normally would and begin to make your way to the exit.

Unfortunately, the closer you get to where you remember the exit is, the more alien the library becomes. Perhaps you will survive, or perhaps you will be consumed. It all depends on what you do. No, I won't tell you how, but since I happen to be feeling generous I will give you a hint. Pay attention, dear reader, it could very well save your life.

The first thing that you eventually notice is how much darker it is outside than when you came in. The interior lights seem dimmed and yet you still cannot decipher much through the seemingly tinted windows. You begin to worry that you may have stayed a bit too late. Were you so into your book that you didn't even hear them announce the library closing? Why didn't they tap your shoulder or do more to get your attention? Perhaps the librarians, that you're on a first name basis with, didn't see you way back in the same corner you read in every visit.

There seem to be more shelves than you remember. You wonder how you missed this exciting addition to your library on the way to your preferred reading nook. How could you have walked past these additional rows without noticing them? Without pausing for a moment to look through the titles? You briefly pause to observe the books and notice they look incredibly unkempt. This isn't like any local library, they typically don't accept books in such disrepair. A few even appear to be water damaged and others seem to be ready to collapse at the slightest touch of your fingers.

A voice whispers somewhere in the distance, you can't quite make out what's being said, but the sound nevertheless reassures you that you're not alone. Sometimes, it's better to be alone, don't you think? After all, that's why you come here and hide away in a corner with your chosen book of the week clasped lovingly in your hands. Isn't it? This is the only time you truly get to yourself in your busy life and nothing is going to take it away from you without a fight.

Quickly checking the time and seeing that it's still quite early, you decide to take time out to read some of the titles, perhaps the increased collection is from a historical donation of some sort.

The Silence Listens: by Diane Beatrix, The Inverted Staircase: by Clair Madera, and more titles that you probably can't find online even after hours of searching. There are titles too faded to be read, and some that resemble pictographs. There's even titles that appear as though the letters rearrange themselves if you look too long. A few of the titles give you headaches though you quickly forget them, some are too disturbing to remind you. You're unable to pick just one to take home with you and eventually decide to do a more thorough search next visit when you'll have more time. You can still hear the whispering, it's faint but there.

“Hello?” You gently call out to them. It wasn't a loud yell, after all it's very quiet in the library and they'd surely be able to hear you. Yet the response is immediate and intense.

“Sssssshhhhhh!” The fiercely drawn out hushing comes from directly over your shoulder. Though you clutch your chest and quickly spin around, there's nobody there. You see nothing but more rows and rows of bookshelves behind you. The library had expanded much more than you thought it had. How did you really not notice this before?

You decide it's time to proceed to the exit once more as you try to calm the pounding in your chest. Your footsteps seem incredibly loud in your ears, even though you try to step lightly on your way. You haven't heard any whispering since you called out. Nothing but your ridiculously loud footsteps have been heard for the past ten minutes, and you begin to worry once again that you may be alone. You hear a creak somewhere off to your left, like a book cart being pushed along the rows.

“Excuse-” you don't even finish before you are violently shushed again, just as before. However, this time it sounded as though it came from the shelf to your left. You were quieter this time, perhaps if you were more direct in stating your needs they'll not be so harsh with you.

“Help,” you try yet again, only for the same result to sound from above the shelf on your right. You immediately look up, but see nobody peering down at you from above. Though now that you're looking at it, the ceiling looks different than you remember. It's no longer its usual color, now it looks black and you could easily believe it's made of some type of stone.

The creaking had stopped when you called for help, but you know you heard it just moments before. Determined to get some assistance you rush your way to the end of the shelf so you can move to the row you think it came from. You're starting to realize that things aren't as they should be and you are more than ready to leave. You're not usually the Karen type, but you're starting to feel unsettled and just want to leave. How can the library have changed so much since your last visit?

The light casts no shadows, not even directly under your own feet. You quickly look around for the source and cannot spot one, though it certainly must be coming from somewhere. The smell of mildew and rotting books have begun to clog up your nose. The books you pass by now all seem so strange, as though they're from either another dimension, reality, or timeline. The worst part of it all, you can not see to the end of the aisles where the walls of the library must be. Though you try to blame that on the quantity and height of the additional bookshelves, you know your local library isn't this big.

It's not too late for you just yet, though you don't quite realize the danger surrounding you. In your panic, you begin to think that perhaps if you went back the way you came from you'd find some clue or answer. That's it, you decide, you had just turned yourself around and walked away from the exit rather than towards it. All you need to do is start back over in your reading corner and you'll be out in no time. If you can find your reading corner that is.

A plan firmly in your mind, you turn around to do just that. That's when you finally see someone else. It's just a flash as they move between rows, but it is enough. “HEY!” You scream at them, louder than the previous times you called out. You no longer care about niceties, you just want out of this unfamiliar place and back into the warm comfort of your own home.

“SSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

This time you felt the violent shushing in your very bones, it hurts deep in your eardrums with its intense silence. You pull your hands gently from your ears, noting the small amount of blood on them before wiping it off. Fear again spikes in your chest and now adrenaline pumps through your blood as you race off towards the person you just saw.

You can hear your footsteps echo behind you, with that awful shushing sound following close behind. You don't find the person you glimpsed just minutes ago. You keep running, expecting that you'll find them any moment now moving down one of the rows. Ignoring the stitch that has formed in your sides from your frantic running.

The footsteps you hear echoing now no longer match your own, and that shushing draws closer with every gasping breath you take. Determined, you somehow find it deep within you to kick up your pace even more. You don't recognize anything, but you will soon. You're just sure of it.

The shushing is now right behind breathing on your neck, and you spin around to confront it. Anybody is better than nobody to lead you out. You meet the eyes of the Librarian. No, it's none of the ones you know but yet… she looks familiar. She looks just like every librarian you see in every single movie and TV show you have ever watched. You're unable to move, it's not a freeze reaction, your body just refuses to listen to anything you tell it to do.

The Librarian's eyes are widened all the way, air huffing out her nose in maximum irritation. The glasses on her nose seem to be part of the librarian and not just something she wears, the first hint that what you see isn't human. It stares you down before bringing a single bony finger to her bright red lips. Lips which stretch from ear to ear, which slowly peel back to reveal multiple rows of jagged blood-stained teeth.

“SSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHH!”

This time her mouth opens wider than seemingly possible as it shushes you, and you collapse into a ball from the pain. The Librarian's jaw unhinges further as she slowly bends down to consume you, and a few more bookshelves start to appear in the library. Stories of all the things you've done and might have done in your life, each book from a potential choice or outcome. The Quirky Whisper: by You, Under the Bed Frame: by You, and many more quite similar titles line up. Some of them appear water damaged such as Heartbreak Canyon: by You, and some seem to be so faded that the titles cannot be read. Others appear as though they were written in pictographs, or have letters that seem to move around the longer you stare at them.

To someone watching, they might realize that each shelf in the library was taken from a different person consumed by the library. One may wonder what would happen had they moved books to the wrong shelf. Or perhaps what secrets were to be found between the covers of the books with titles that can't be read. You, however, have now become another shelf among many. The Liminal Library is always searching for its next location; it just loves to add good books to its collection.

I wonder, though. Do you know what you did wrong?

NIGHT CLUB

H.R. WELCH

As you can imagine, it was tough getting back into the dating scene after my girlfriend left me for her college professor (even after he made it clear he was choosing his wife over her). It was quite the emotional roller coaster and the moment that crazy train was put into gear, I was a wreck. Thankfully I had some friends who were insistent that I pick myself up again, meet new people, have a few drinks, anything to get me out of the house.

Each time they dragged me along I felt guilty, like I was bringing the mood down. This only made me want to go out less and less.

My friends are great people, but it took them nearly a year to discover that you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink. At this point I needed that connection. Most of the time my social interaction was phone calls with mom back home, the same four friends and virtual calls with my boss once a month or so. It might sound funny, but in that year that I became a shut-in it was almost as though I forgot how to be a functioning human.

When I came to this realization, I decided to go out and do something I had never done before. So that afternoon I drove to a park on the other side of the city and walked around it for a bit. I know that wasn't being “social” but at the time that was progress for me. Like I said, I was a wreck.

Slowly I built up the confidence that the previous year eroded away. I went to museums, art galleries, live chamber music and more. While getting out of the house was great, I wasn't really doing much interaction at these places. I thought about speed dating, but that might be too much at once. I considered calling the guys, but they would just suggest a bar and I never had a taste for liquor. I actually did this a few times, but learned that they would focus the whole night on drinking because they knew I would be sober and would drive them home.

It really isn't easy looking for a new social circle while being a guy in their late twenties. Trust me on this.

I had been brainstorming things to do and places to go for awhile, but before I resorted to asking my mother about joining her at church, I spotted a flyer taped to the inside of a window. It was advertising a rave, pretty much the last place I would ever want to find myself yet I found myself drawn to it.

I don't know what drew me in exactly. Maybe it was the hot girls in the photo or the unique font used for the headline: “Youre invited to the nonstop party”.

As I was reading more about the party, more specifically the part about how the choice of music and the rooms were all designed to reflect the id, the ego and the superego, my friend Paul grabbed me by the shoulders. Nearly making me shit myself.

“Hey, man. Didn't mean to scare you. I called out a few times and you were just–” he said, looking at what I was reading. Smiling, he turned back to me. “Wanna go?”

I refused to answer, but eventually he pulled the truth out of me. He understood my situation and he knew how the rest of the guys were, so we decided that it would just be the two of us.

That night Paul came to pick me up and half an hour later we were in the middle of some industrial area that had been abandoned for decades.

As soon as we arrived I felt completely out of my element. Not only was the party in a strange place, but there was a line to get in and everyone was dressed up. Some in costumes, others in suits and dresses. I, on the other hand, was dressed pretty much like I always dress. Not only was our fashion sense different enough to make me feel as though I was standing out, everyone was at least five years younger than me and in much better shape (as I stated, I was a shut-in).

If it wasn't for Paul, I would have turned around right there and went home.

The bouncer started letting people in as soon as he heard the music start. I was sure we were going to get turned away when we got to the door, but the bouncer only nodded and waved us through with a glowstick.

The party was down a large flight of old metal stairs. The aging brick walls reminded me of the sides of canyons and cliffs, where if you know what to look for you can discover the secrets of forgotten epochs. As we descended, however, things started looking nicer. Everything that wasn't the dark wine red curtains on the walls, the tablecloths and the carpet, was black. It looked like somewhere supervillains would go to conspire. Not saying that was a bad thing, I thought it was a great look.

However the music was too… What's the word? Chaotic? Directionless? I am not a music major or a critic, I just know what I like and the music in that first room was not something I wanted to listen to for any length of time.

I joined Paul at the bar but I didn't drink anything they offered even though it was free. Before I could tell him I was going to check the place out, he offered that we split up and meet back there after an hour. This sounded great to me so I took my phone out to look at the time. The fact that I didn't get any reception in the basement wasn't a surprise, what was surprising though, was the fact that my battery was at seventy one percent. It was in the high nineties when I got out of the car.

I figured this was due to the phone working extra hard to find a signal, so to conserve power I turned it off.

It wasn't long before I found a door and a sign that said “EGO”. Remembering the flyer I read earlier that day, about how each room is different from the others and modeled after something Freud came up with, I decided to walk in and take a look around.

This next room was nearly all white and was filled with mirrors and naked men and women who were being used like furniture. Someone in a huge fluffy white bunny costume walked up to me with a silver serving tray with glasses filled with what looked like milk. They didn't say anything, just stood near me until I politely said I didn't want any.

Other party goers walked past and joked amongst themselves about how the party was pretty weird. I agreed but at the time I was just trying to enjoy myself. However, the arrangement of mirrors and all the naked people would soon make me uncomfortable. A shame too because I really liked whatever song the quartet was playing.

It was in the next room that removed all doubt that going to the party was a mistake. The name of the room should have given it away: The Shadow.

The room was nearly perfectly dark and was filled with the sounds of drums being played by angry barbarians. As I stumbled along I could hear the occasional party goer shout and scream. At first I thought it was because they were having fun but it didn't take long before I came to the realization that no one makes sounds like that while also having fun.

Picking up the pace to leave The Shadow, I kept running into things. At first I thought it was a person, but as it swung back, nearly knocking me over, I realized it was a dead hog hanging on a hook.

Needless to say, I was freaking out and started running in the direction I guessed I came from. Somehow I got turned around because everything in the next room was green. From the shag carpet to the nature images the projectors were displaying on the walls.

I turned to tell one of the other party goers my concern, but he looked stoned out of his mind and kept slurring his words. Telling me repeatedly that “it's good” and “not to worry none” before talking about how he was going to be a teacher someday.

Figuring I wasn't going to get anywhere with this guy, I turned around and was immediately offered a drink by a woman holding another serving tray. The woman, like everyone who worked at the party, never said a word and covered up every identifiable part of themselves. Each outfit was designed to match the room they were in. In her case, she wore skin tight green spandex.

After a quick glance around and seeing the other faceless hosts, I felt that refusing the drink might be a bad idea. The people in this room were all acting as though their drinks had been spiked so I had no intention of drinking it.

I tried to collect myself as I sat down and watched the women in furry green bikinis dance in green cages. As I came to the conclusion that I should just stay where I was and wait for Paul, a screaming woman came into the room crying about how her sister was right behind her. Seemingly from out of the shaggy green walls, more people covered in green spandex came to usher her away. Not one of them said a word as she begged them to listen.

I had seen enough and decided to try my phone. I had been here for just over fifteen minutes at this point but it felt far longer. As I predicted I didn't get any reception, if I did I would have called Paul and told him that we were leaving. After that, I turned my phone back off to conserve battery life.

I really didn't want to go back into The Shadow, and judging from the sizes of all the rooms I was in so far I didn't think there could be many more under the building.

Each room I entered I would be offered a drink by another faceless person who worked there, but each time I refused. The other people attending the rave were in varying degrees of lucidity. I tried to tell a few to stop drinking whatever they were being offered but none listened. Occasionally I would come across someone like me, wanting to find the exit.

I managed to talk to a soaking wet woman in a yellow duck costume. Not to be social, but in hopes that together we could get out of there. When I asked her why she was wet, she explained that a yellow room had the sprinklers going off. I had not come across this room and from the rest of her story I didn't want to retrace her steps.

Wet duck lady (the loud music and the situation made neither of us ask the other's name) and I did what we could to find the people we arrived at the party with as we searched for the exit.

Everyone we came across was either out of their minds on drugs or working at the rave and wore costumes that hid anything that could identify them. Even though their eyes were also concealed, I could feel them watching us.

The two of us stuck close together for another six rooms, however we got separated when we heard that same terrifying drum beat in a nearly pitch black room. This time the sound of bare feet scampering on the floor joined the spiteful rhythm. The only other difference from this room and The Shadow was the additional blacklights and that the pig carcasses were replaced with walls that went in weird and random ways to create a maze. While it wasn't a hard maze to figure out, it was dark and I was terrified.

I waited for the wet duck lady for about five minutes after getting to the other side. As soon as I refused to wait anymore, I decided to take off without her. At this point I no longer cared if I drew attention or if I came across Paul, so I ran.

Each room was about the same size as the others and were just as unique. From the music, to the floors being the same as bouncy castles, to huge rooms resembling a giant wooden cabin.

I thought I was going insane. It seemed this place had no end and must have employed thousands. Whatever was going on, there was no way this was legal, right? I never signed anything and I consented to nothing. At the very least this place violated some fire safety code because I couldn't find an exit sign anywhere. If I did I would have used it.

It had to have been fifty rooms later before I reached the room that made me think I had walked into the middle of a funeral just before sundown. Everything was huge, like a European cathedral made a thousand years ago. The usage of a fog machine was something straight out of night terror.

Making my way to the other side of the room, towards the casket and the singing choir, masked people started to stand up and turn to me. The first time this happened the woman was holding a serving tray but the others just stood up to turn to me as I walked by. None of them moved and they kept their arms to their sides, but I felt their hate. It was as though they wanted to see me die but were unwilling to do it themselves.

As I approached the door on the other side of the room, I had to keep side stepping to avoid walking into one of the masked people who worked here. And as I fearfully glanced around I happened to see what I first thought was a shadow on the wall, however the moment it darted to the corner I knew it was trying to prevent me from escaping.

I ran like I never ran before, toppling the faceless people over and not caring in the slightest.

If it wasn't for the neon sign in the next room, it would have been pitch black. Reading the word “EXIT” made me nearly squeal with excitement as I ran. The sound of drums was steadily getting louder and louder. In my head I imagined whatever that thing was in the last room was right behind me, giving me more determination to run harder and faster. As I said before, I was a shut-in and have never been in great shape so the last year or so made things even worse as far as cardio goes.

The next room was nearly the same as the last one: a neon sign saying exit being the only source of light, the sound of angry drums. The only difference this time was that the pig carcasses returned.

Exploding through the next door, I came face to face with another room identical to the previous one.

I don't know how many rooms in a row were like that, but it felt like I was running all night. It might have been my imagination, but I swore I could have heard laughter and sometimes snarling in between my panicked breath. At some point I pulled out my phone, turned it on and used the flashlight. However the battery was drained dry after maybe ten minutes.

I ran until my legs felt wobbly and as though they were filled with acid, then I ran some more. What other choice was there? Stay still in the dark? Wait for this fucked up party to be over? How long would that be even? I had no way of knowing. All I knew was that I ran until I literally passed out.

The next morning, I woke up in my own bed. How I got there I have no idea. Every inch of my body was sore and I felt dangerously dehydrated. As I ran to grab something to drink, I pulled out my phone so it could charge. I needed to call Paul to see if he was alright.

After six or seven large gulps and more than the recommended amount of aspirin, I called Paul.

The robot lady told me the number was no longer in service.

I scoffed, thinking that was a mistake so I tried again only to get the same result.

I decided to call another friend of ours to check in on Paul. He lives next door, so it would only take a moment, however when I asked him to check up on the friend we both had since the fourth grade, he asked me “who's Paul?”

I did what I could to find the answers of what happened that night, but the more I looked the more confused I became. Since most of the party goers had to have been college age, I went to the closest one to the rave and asked around but no one seemed to know anyone who went missing.

I wish I knew the wet duck ladys name. If I did I might have had some sort of direction. Not that I expect anyone to remember her.

The only physical evidence I have is a cheap pedometer that claims I took 64,843 steps that night.

I guess there is always the building itself, but I sure as hell am never going there again.

I don't even think I can ever leave my apartment again.

ISOMART

T.W. VESPERBELLE

“Good evening, shoppers. I regret to inform you that our store is now closed,” I heard a young woman announce over the Isomart’s PA system, just as I was hurrying towards the exit. I immediately thought that ‘regret to inform you’ was an odd choice of words for announcing that a store was closed, and just beneath the woman’s default retail monotone I could have sworn I picked up a tinge of guilt and anxiety. “I’m… sorry. I was supposed to warn you. I was supposed to give you time to get out but I… I’m sorry. It’s too late now. The night crew woke up early and we can’t risk them getting out. The doors are shut; there’s no way out until morning. It’s store policy; there’s nothing I can do! It’s not my fault! I’m sorry, just… just stay out of their way, and you should be fine. They’ll be out on the floor shortly if they’re not there already. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Th-thank you for shopping at Isomart, and have a nice day.”

By the time the PA system crackled off, the woman was openly sobbing.

“Alright then,” I heard a man near me mutter, likely dismissing the odd announcement as a bored employee just messing with the customers.

“They can’t close up early without telling us first, right?” I asked as I uneasily eyed the exit, tempted to make a run for it just in case it was true. “I’ve got places to be.”

“It’s only a little after seven, which would be a little early for a big-box store like this to close,” he said casually as he checked the time on his phone. “Mind you, I’ve never heard of Isomart before. For all I know, this isn’t a chain at all. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was some kind of pilot store owned by a larger brand that didn’t want to risk being associated with it in case it didn’t work out. This place feels like it’s trying to be Amazon Go on steroids.”

I gave a little nod in agreement. The place looked like some kind of Silicon Valley wet dream. All the price tags were electronic, multiple cleaning and security robots were rolling around on the sales floor, and there wasn’t a single check-out in sight.

“I’m not even sure how we’re supposed to pay,” the man went on, gesturing to the display on his smart shopping cart. “It’s been tallying everything I’ve put in it, either using RFIDs in the products or some sort of advanced image recognition software in the store surveillance. I haven’t been prompted to download an app yet, so I’m hoping that either this thing or the kiosks at the entry have a built-in debit machine.”

These trivial concerns, however, were instantly forgotten when all the store’s overhead lights were switched off, leaving it bathed only in the soft, eerie glow of the colour-shifting LED strips that lined every shelf.

“What the fuck? Is the store actually closed?” a heard a teenage girl demand from a neighbouring aisle. “If we’re actually locked in here, I swear I’m going to sue!”

She immediately stomped over to the front entrance, but I got there first. The doors refused to slide open for me as I nearly slammed into them, and no matter how hard I tried to pull them apart manually, they wouldn’t budge.

“Yeah, they’re locked,” I sighed in defeat, resting my forehead up against the glass as I glared out at the dark and nearly empty parking lot outside, trying to think about what to do next.

“Well, this counts as holding us against our will, which means we have every right to break our way out of here,” the girl claimed as she picked up one of the little half-carts to use as a battering ram.

“Hold on, first let’s see if we can – Jesus Christ!” the man shouted as the girl charged straight into the set of doors next to mine. The glass – or plastic, or whatever it was – absorbed the force of the impact perfectly and barely even wobbled.

“Desist immediately!” a petulantly juvenile voice said from the entry kiosk. The screen flickered to life, displaying what looked to be some kind of cyberpunk-style anime girl. “You will be held legally and financially liable for any damage to store property!”

The teenage girl responded by throwing the cart at the kiosk.

“Bitch, I’m going to call 911 right now and tell them there’s a hostage situation! This whole place is going to get swatted and the publicity is going to send your stonk price tanking!” the girl threatened as she whipped out a large cell phone in a bedazzled lavender case that was too big to properly fit in either her hand or her pocket.

“Did you seriously just say ‘stonk’ in real life?” the man asked with an exasperated shake of his head.

“Your cell phone won’t work in here. During closing hours, all Isomart locations are functionally Faradays Cages,” the anime girl informed her. “And Isomart’s not a publicly traded company, obviously.”

“Why are you holding us in here? Why can’t we leave?” the man asked.

The anime girl sighed before folding her hands behind her back and putting on a painfully insincere smile.

“Good evening, and thank you for shopping at Isomart. I’m Kurisu, your digital customer service representative,” she introduced herself. “I’ve been preprogrammed to answer all of our most Frequently Asked Questions, such as ‘why are we trapped here?’, ‘why can’t we leave?’, and ‘if capitalism is truly the most efficient means of resource allocation, why did we spend seventeen percent of our net profits last year minting NFTs?’. In order to comply with government and consumer demands for public health and safety, all Isomart locations are placed under full lockdown during closing hours to prevent members of our night crews from causing any harm, damage, or distress to our communities. Unfortunately, we are not always able to prevent the night crews from waking prematurely. When this happens, all Isomart locations must close immediately; we cannot risk the night crew escaping in a general evacuation. We understand that this is not an ideal solution, and are currently in the process of researching alternatives. We advise you to remain vigilant at all times. Do not fall asleep, and do not attempt to barricade yourself in the bathroom or any other small space. Once you’re cornered, it’s over. Simply keep your distance from the night crew and do nothing to provoke them or draw attention to yourself. We apologize for the inconvenience, and will provide compensation to you – or your survivors – in the form of Kurisu NFTs. Thank you for choosing Isomart, and have a survivable night.”

“This can’t be real,” the teenager scoffed, turning away from the kiosk and heading towards the coffee bar. “If you’re going to keep me up all night, I’m stealing your coffee!”

“Wait, what sort of danger are we in?” the man asked. “What’s wrong with the night crew?”

“I’m afraid that’s confidential,” Kurisu replied. We all jumped as the heavily garbled sound of guttural and incongruent vocalizations started blaring over the PA. “But it sounds like they’re heading out onto the main floor now, so feel free to draw your own conclusions.”

At the opposite end of the store, we heard a warehouse door shutter open, bathing the entire sales floor in a dim blue light. The light backlit several strange figures, but their distant silhouettes were so blurred I couldn’t discern any definite details.

“Hey, do you assholes work here?” the teenage girl demanded, abandoning the coffee that the machine was still in the process of dispensing and marching towards the back of the store. “We’re locked in! You need to let us out, or I swear to God!”

She never got to finish her threat. The garbled voice on the PA started barking what sounded like enraged orders, and one of the night crew closed the distance between them and her in a few bounding leaps. The night crewman grabbed her by the neck and hoisted her off her feet, squeezing her throat tightly enough that she could neither speak nor breathe.

I could see now that the night crewman was wearing what looked like an old gas mask under a dark green hood. His leather coat reached halfway down to his ankles, but under it, I could catch a glimpse of what looked like a bronze, mechanical exoskeleton that was likely what enabled his feats of superhuman physicality. The was also an old rusty tank strapped to his back, and in his free hand, he held a spray wand.

Defiant to the end, the teenage girl furiously kicked at his torso and pulled at the arm holding her up, but he seemed as immovable as stone.

After a brief inspection of only a few calculating glances, he pointed the wand in her face and spritzed her with some kind of rusty brown mist. Her eyes immediately began to burn, and within seconds, foam began pouring out of her nose and mouth like a baking soda volcano.

He callously dropped her to the floor, where she spasmed about like a fish on the docks as the strange foam just kept pouring out of her, seemingly without end.

Seeing that the other man was paralyzed in shell shock, I grabbed him by his coat and pulled him into the pharmacy where we were well out of view of the night crew.

“What the hell, what the hell, what the hell?” he whispered. “They just killed her for no reason!”

“Correction,” came Kurisu’s startling voice as another kiosk near us flickered to life. “The night crew is under strict orders to complete their tasks by sun up, and can tolerate no interruptions. So long as you do nothing that might put them off their schedule, you will not be harmed. They will not go out of their way to harm you, as that would be a waste of their time. However, they will not hesitate to neutralize you the instant you put yourself in their way. Remain vigilant, stay out of their way at all times, avoid placing yourself in areas with only one way out, and you should be fine.”

“Fuck that,” I cursed, peeking out through the aisles to try to gauge the layout of the store. “I can see the emergency exit from here.”

“I don’t think that’s going to do us any good, man. She said the whole place is on full lockdown,” he reminded me.

“It’s still just a door, and we're in a department store,” I countered. “I say we swing by the hardware department and grab some screwdrivers and maybe something we can use for defence, and take the door off its hinges.”

“The night crew cannot be allowed to escape!” Kurisu reiterated. “And you will be charged for all theft and damages of Isomart's property!”

The man ignored the AI and stared at me, considering what I had said.

“I think… that sounds like a plan,” he agreed, extending out his hand so that I could help him back up. “I’m Min-jun, by the way.”

“Brandon,” I said as I pulled him to his feet. “Try not to break line of sight with me, but keep a bit of distance so that if one of us gets attacked, the other will still have a chance to get away.”

“Makes sense,” he nodded.

With me leading the way, we began slowly making our way through the aisles, always peaking through the shelves to see where the night crew was and what they were up to. The one who had killed the teenage girl had dragged her into the back room before rejoining the others. He paired up with a smaller comrade who held some kind of analogue merchandising device in his hand. He would scan the electronic price tags, changing them to unrecognizable glyphs, then proceed to scan the actual items on the shelves. Without any clear pattern, he’d periodically instruct the other one to spray either the product or an empty shelf space with whatever was in his gas tank. Unsettlingly, the specific word he used was ‘cleanse’, and he said it with a tone of restrained disgust.

The whole night crew wore some kind of gas mask as well, regardless of how close they were to the one doing the actual fumigation. It seemed as if they were more concerned about what he was spraying for instead of what he was spraying, even though whatever it was had killed that girl in a matter of seconds.

One of them strode up and down the aisles on long stilts, tall enough to let him reach and tinker with the electronic boxes anchored to the support pillars. A pair of them who were each under three feet tall fished out small metal boxes from under the shelves and went through the motions of emptying and reloading them. One of them struggled to drag an enormous crate out onto the sales floor, a crate that jostled about regardless of whether or not it was moved, suggesting that something was living inside of it. Another one was riding some sort of Zamboni-looking contraption up and down the aisles, while a final one went over to one of the customer service kiosks and began inserting cables into ports.

Min-jun and I would only enter an aisle if it was empty, and if any of the night crew started heading down it while we were still there, we’d turn around and try the next one. While their gas masks and costumes certainly made them look alien to us, we had no reason to believe that they weren’t people. Just as Kurisu had said, they were all highly focused on their work, and so long as we didn’t get in their way, they paid us no mind.

After what felt like way too long to get halfway across a department store, even a big-box one, we finally reached the hardware aisle. We stuffed our pockets with every size of screwdriver we could find, and decided to arm ourselves with splitting mauls, which are basically axes on one end and sledgehammers on the other.

“What about masks?” Min-jun whispered, pointing to some N95s hanging on a peg.

“Those won’t do any good against gas,” I whispered back.

“But are we sure that’s what she got sprayed with? Looked more like an aerosolized liquid to me,” he claimed. “I’m grabbing a mask and some goggles. They can’t hurt.”

“Fine, but be quick. They’re nowhere near the emergency exit and we’ve got to seize this opportunity now!” I insisted.

Nodding, he rapidly tore open some packaging and strapped on a mask and a pair of goggles, not wasting any time trying to convince me to do the same. Scurrying through the aisles as quickly as we could, when we turned the corner to face the emergency exit, we saw that all of the store’s cleaning and security robots had formed a defensive perimeter around it.

“Back away from the door!” they all ordered in Kurisu’s voice. “If you open this door, the night crew will escape! I can’t let that happen!”

“Then just unlock the door and let us out, and we won’t need to dismantle it!” I countered. “The night crew is nowhere near us right now!”

“I can’t risk it! I have my orders!” she insisted.

“Have it your way, then,” I said, beating my maul in my palm a couple of times before taking a swing at the tallest robot. “Min-jun, smash the door down!”

The tall, shelf-scanning tower robot wheeled back quickly enough to dodge my attack. The smaller Roomba-like robots started ramming Min-jun and I in our feet, forcing us backwards. He tried to smash them with his maul, but they again proved surprisingly quick and agile. He at least succeeded in clearing the space around him, giving him a clear swing at the door. He bashed the sledgehammer side of his maul into it a couple of times before he was rammed against the door by the tall robot. I landed a gashing blow with my axe, but it wasn’t enough to disable it. Instead, it backed up at full speed and sent me tumbling to the floor, before charging again at Min-jun. This time though he was fast enough with his maul to land a low enough blow to knock the thing off its center of gravity and capsize it.

“Vandalizing Isomart brand robotics will not be tolerated! I’m already filing charges!” Kurisu screeched.

“Keep the Roombas off me! I’m taking the door off its hinges!” I shouted as I got up and raced to the door, pulling out my stolen screwdrivers. Min-jun nodded as he got back to his feet and started using his maul like a mallet in a game of whack-a-mole. The Roombas were still fast, but he was at least able to keep them away from me.

“Dammit, Vothstag, do something! You don’t want your workers getting out any more than I do!” Kurisu demanded. In response, the deep and guttural voice began speaking over the PA again, its garbled words so commanding that I couldn’t help but stop what I was doing.

“Why are you stopping? Keep going!” Min-jun ordered, baffled by my sudden inaction. Before I could answer, the night crewman with the gas tank came careening from around the corner, and just like before he closed the distance between us in only a few long strides.

Min-jun was able to use his maul defensively enough to keep the crewman from getting close enough to grab him like he had the girl, but he was still well within the range of his spray wand. He spritzed some more of that strange mist into his face, and I watched in horror as the mask and goggles dissolved into wet clumps within a matter of seconds. Another spritz, and Min-jun was screaming as he went into convulsions, foam pouring out of every orifice on his head.

The night crewman turned his attention towards me, but stopped before pulling the trigger on his wand.

“You!” he shouted.

I stood there catatonically for a second, until I noticed a flashing light coming from behind me. I looked up and saw a woman standing at the window of the upstairs breakroom, flicking the light switch on and off to get my attention. She had written the word ‘STAIRS’ on the glass along with an arrow pointing towards the staircase leading to the room she was in.

Having no better options at the time, I broke into a sprint and made a mad dash for the stairs.

“Boy, get back here!” the night crewman shouted. He didn’t chase after me, though. The emergency exit was unbreached, and he had work he needed to get back to.

Waiting for me at the top of the flight of stairs was the woman I’d seen in the window, holding the door open and then slamming it shut the second I was through.

“Help me move the fridge to barricade it!” she shouted, her tone so urgent that I obeyed without question. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I would have called you all up here if I could have, but that stupid AI locks this door the instant the night crew wakes up! It took me this long to force it open! Were you already the only one left alive down there?”

“Yeah. There were just the three of us. The girl confronted one of the night crew immediately and got gassed. Me and the other guy lasted a bit longer, but when we were almost through the emergency exit, the AI had their Foreman order one of them to attack us,” I explained rapidly, shoving the fridge firmly in place.

“Their Foreman?” she asked confused.

“Ah, yeah; that weird voice on the PA. That’s what she called him, anyway,” I said furtively. “You work here, I take it?”

She gave a tearful nod before slumping down against the refrigerator.

“I’m just here in case there’s a problem with the AI or there’s something she can’t handle. My only real job is to make sure everyone’s out and the store’s on full lockdown before the night crew wakes up, and I couldn’t even do that!” she lamented. “No one told me what I was supposed to do if they woke up early! I did what I could. I, I…”

She trailed off and deteriorated into unrestrained sobbing.

“Listen, it’s not your fault. You did what you could,” I assured her. “But right now, we need to focus on getting out of here. Is there a way up to the roof from here?”

“No, we’re fine. The door locks more to keep me from going downstairs than to keep them from getting in, and I just wanted the fridge here as a precaution,” she explained. “They won’t come up here. They’ve got too much work to do. I don’t know half of what those things are supposed to be doing down there, but it’s very important to them! Important enough to kill for, anyway!”

“Yeah, yeah it is,” I sighed, leaning up against the window and staring at the night crew below. “Your name’s Allie, is it?”

“Assistant Manager Allie; that’s me,” she said bitterly with an exaggerated gesture to her name tag.

“Allie, listen. This is very important, so I need you to be absolutely clear about this,” I said emphatically. “Is there any way for us to get to the roof from here, and if there is, can we get down to the ground from the roof?”

“No. There’s no way onto the roof from inside,” she said, and I felt my heart sink into my stomach. “But we’ll be fine up here. We’ll make it to morning, no problem. Honestly, the whole thing is so fucking stupid! Why couldn’t the AI have just let us out? We’re obviously not on the fucking night crew!”

“Well, it’s not that obvious, if you think about it,” I said, putting down my axe and reaching under my jacket. “After all, if she’s only ever seen them with those gas masks on, how would she know what they looked like?”

Allie looked up at me confused for a few seconds, confusion I watched turn to fear when she saw the spraying wand now clenched in my hand.

Only a moment later, I made my way back down the stairs, carrying Allie’s catatonic and foaming body with me. Just ahead of me, I saw the night crewman with the gas tank who had killed the other two.

“Vinson!” I shouted, holding the body as a peace offering. They knew I was trapped up there, and they would have come to drag me out before morning.

“Oi, Brandon! You done dickin’ around then, are you?” he demanded, momentarily dropping what he was doing and marching over to me.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m done,” I muttered.

“Thought you were going to make a break for it, did you? Leave us a man short for the rest of the night, if not the rest of our contract?” he asked.

“You were up early, so you had extra time,” I offered as a half-assed excuse.

“Fat lot of good that does poor Klaus over there, dragging out the Voggathaust all by his lonesome,” Vinson berated me.

“Oi, is that Brandon?” Loewald, the one on the stilts, shouted as he peered down at us from across several aisles.

“Yeah, Brandon’s back!” Vinson shouted.

“Tell him to move his sorry ass and give old Klaus a hand!” he demanded.

“I was just telling him!” Vinson replied. “Brandon, listen. If you regret signing up for this, that’s your problem, and if you make it our problem again, I’ll see to it that you regret it a hell of a lot more. Just keep your mouth shut, do your job, and keep your mind on the payday at the end of this and not on whatever you imagine’s outside those doors.”

The twisted and broken voice of Vothstag, our Foreman, held us all at attention as he barked raving lunacies at us over the PA.

“Well, you heard the boss,” Vinson said. “Toss her in the back, get your mask on, then go help Klaus! And you’re getting last pick at supper tonight and every night until one of these other blokes does something to piss me off more than this!”

“Right, boss,” I said with a melancholic nod. Shuffling my feet as slowly as I could, I went out to finish what was left of my shift on the night crew.

SCHOOL

JESSE PULLINS

Growspring Elementary was located a little less than a mile outside of town, wedged between an overgrowth of towering pine, acres of tilled farmland, and the ever-busy freeway. At night it seemed almost insignificant, a two-hundred foot plot you would pass by without a second glance during an impromptu detour, your attention probably focused more on the GPS, the radio, your cigarette. You’d pass it by before you even thought to look at it, the rear-view already rolling with corn and trees by the time you looked back, barely noticing the break in midwestern monotony.

It was something that made me less cautious, wondering if I should even bother killing the headlights as I shadily turned into the wraparound bus lane, slowing my car to a crawl as I crept by to the rear entrance. It made me hate the little structure even more, its effortlessly forgettable existence memorized like the back of my hand. When my car was parallel with the back doors, I parked the car and sat there, my glazed stare fixing onto the playground behind it. The little paradise of twisted plastic and wood chips were soaked in the downpour. The colorful slides and monkey bars looked sinister at night, and I spent a long moment regarding them in silent contempt before reaching into the paper bag on the passenger side floor. I stared at the tubes while I fumbled with the cap on the whiskey, keeping my eye on them even as I broke the seal and tilted the little bottle to my lips. Listening to the rain beat the windshield, I lit a cigarette and cracked the window, my eyes unable to pull away from the playground.

Jordan had been abducted by a man in a hood. I remembered his little sentiment the day before his disappearance, one so casually remarked on the way home from picking him up from school. He was fidgeting with one of his FNAF figurines, working the limbs slowly as I navigated the construction that plagued the route to his school. Like every other day, I had asked him how his day was, and if he did anything fun.

“We played a new game today.” He had said, as I watched him from the rear-view mirror. His responses were always short and to the point, and I had given my routine reply.

“Oh yeah? Did you have fun?”

“Yeah. We pretended to run from the man in the hood. The one that watched from the trees.”

This was common for Jordan and his friends, a facade that they would use to fuel their games, much like I recalled doing when I was his age. It was nothing to be concerned about, just another ‘Running from an invisible version of Michael Myers, The Slenderman, or Freddy Fazbear’. Now, the sentiment haunted me, echoing in my mind hundreds of times a day.

I finished the whiskey, watching the bronze liquid drain from its plastic confinement as I tilted it upwards. I stuffed it into the paper bag and tossed it into the darkness of the passenger side floor, and rubbed my eyes in agitation. I looked at the playground again, to the woods behind it. He must’ve had something to do with it. He had to.

Ralph Maynard was the only janitor for Growspring Elementary. He was skinny and tall, and happened to be working during the time Jordan disappeared from the playground. The parents recalled another missing kid from years prior that had never been found, a case gone cold. Not only was he my first suspect, he was the obvious choice for the other paranoid parents whose kids attended the same school. I could just imagine him lurking in the trees, watching for the right moment to snatch one of the kids and scurry off. We all could. It seemed so cut and dry, but as the first forty-eight moved in a blink of desperation and the Janitor walked free, the hopelessness started to stack as the days blended together, and the police’s enthusiasm started to wane. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. When the police refused to look into the Janitor more, I took things into my own hands, and earned a restraining order in response. Not long after that, my marriage started falling apart. The search parties thinned into nothing, and soon everyone wanted to forget about the child that went to the forgettable school.

A year. No leads. No evidence. No Jordan.

I looked at the back entrance of the school, the same place I would’ve picked him up the day he disappeared. There weren’t any lights on inside, no inclination of a presence in the little sleeping school. I mentally rehearsed the plan, the booze fighting against the urge to drive away and go home in defeat. There had to be something in there. They could’ve missed something. Maybe the Janitor had an office they didn’t check. Or maybe Jordan left some kind of clue in his desk. If I went home now, it would only mean another night pacing our shattered home. Another night without Jordan.

I rolled up the window and popped the trunk, tossing the cigarette to the rain as I stepped out. I rounded the car and unzipped the duffel bag stored within, retrieving the wrecking bar and flashlight I purchased earlier that morning. I slammed the trunk shut and marched to the double doors, gripping the bar tight as the adrenaline started to take over. By the time I reached them I had already swung, the storm muffling the sound of the shattering window.

* * *

I opened my eyes and felt the stinging glare of light. It seemed to reflect off everything around me, like a punishing flash-bang as my heavy and dry lids drug over my retinas. A confusing collection of red, white, and gray that elongated in a way that made my stomach churn. It looked familiar, but the angle didn’t make sense. I stared for a long while before the realization hit me, and my brain scrambled to make sense of it.

I had somehow found my way onto my stomach, positioned so I was looking down a hallway. My face was pressed flat against the cold tile, in a collected pool of sweat, drool, or rainwater. My limbs ached and my clothes were damp. I couldn’t recall how I ended up there, or how much time had passed. It felt as if I had been laying there for hours.

My body protested as I pushed myself up, and my brain felt swollen in my skull. When I looked at the floor in front of me, the sight was sobering. The flashlight and wrecking bar lay on the floor, almost like they had been placed neatly. I rubbed my eyes and picked them up, each of them heavy and cold in my hands.

What had happened? Did I black out?

My knees popped as I found my way to my feet. A line of short red lockers lined the wall next to me, and I leaned against them for support as I got my bearings. I could remember pulling up to the school, getting the things out of the trunk, even breaking the window. But it was immediately blank after that, and I couldn’t find any memory no matter how hard I tried to remember. I felt for my phone, urgently hoping for a grasp of time. I dug it out of my pocket, and got a sick feeling in my stomach when I looked at the face of it. The glass was shattered, a web of cracks scrawled over black screen. I tried to unlock it, but it didn’t work.

Fuck.

One of the classrooms would have a clock. I thought with any luck, I would see one on my way out of the building. If there wasn’t someone waiting for me when I got out. I started to walk, a nagging, nervous feeling ate at me as I stumbled down the hall. When I got to the school, there was nobody in the parking lot, no lights on in any of the classrooms. When I broke the window, it was so dark you couldn’t see anything on the inside.

Somehow while I was unconscious, the lights had been turned on.

I quickened my pace, my footings straightening as I went. All I had was questions. Did someone see my car and investigate the broken window? Did I black out and turn them on myself? How did I make it so far into the school?

The line of red lockers ended and I saw a door for a classroom. The light was off on the inside. I tried the handle, and found it was locked. I cupped my hands against the glass and peered in, and could hardly see anything. Even with what little glow made it on the inside, the class looked empty. Like someone had cleared it out. From the little window I scoured the room for a clock, but everything past five feet in was enveloped in total darkness.

I sighed and moved on from the classroom, ignoring the chill of it being empty. I rationalized that maybe one of the teachers had retired, or they were renovating the room, repainting or replacing the carpet. This seemed to put my mind at ease, that was until I made it to the next room, and saw it was the same. The handle was locked, and when I peered in, I saw the same dark empty space. I tried to look out the interior windows as well, and saw the blinds were drawn. Just as I prayed for a lightning strike to light up the room, I remembered the flashlight. I clicked it on and shined it in, only to see blank walls and dingy carpet. This room was also empty.

Peeking through the window, I panned the light across the room. No desks, no chairs, no bookshelves. The sight made me uneasy. There was still a few months away from summer vacation but even then, they wouldn’t have the storage space to evacuate everything out of the room. I had volunteered for some of the elementary events—you couldn’t move a beanbag chair without having to rat-hole it somewhere else—the place was cluttered. My feeling of uneasiness only built when the flashlight found a clock near the ceiling, positioned above a blank dry-erase board.

Something was wrong with the clock.

I could make out the hands, but the digits themselves were wrong. Like the clock was backwards, like it had been flipped around. It didn’t make any sense.

What the hell is going on here?

Feeling oddly alone, I continued down the hall. Jordan’s school was essentially a square, with classrooms lining the perimeter. The gymnasium and cafeteria were on one side, with the Counselor’s and Principal’s office in the middle. I wouldn’t have to go far to find the exit, which would’ve been on one of the four corners.

I quickened my pace, my shoes squeaking on the tile. The place looked unusually clean, like it had been recently mopped. The rows of lockers shined in the overhead fluorescents, creating an ever-shifting gleam as I traversed the short corridor. I eyed the corner as I approached it, expecting to see someone waiting for me as I rounded the corner, be it a teacher, or a police officer. I was equally aware of my lack of reasoning for being in the school, as well as the red handedness of the flashlight and crowbar clutched in my hands. I didn’t know what I’d say or do if someone saw me, and the thought sent a sickening feeling to my gut.

But to my surprise, as I rounded the corner, I found neither a witness or an exit.

Only another hall, lined with lockers and closed doors.

I felt stunned. I had been to my son’s school at least a dozen times, and the layout was both familiar and uncomplicated. You didn’t have to go far to reach a bathroom or obvious outlet. If the corner didn’t have a double-door breezeway, it would have either the gym or the front office.

But ahead, the hallway simply stopped and banked right, leading to another stretch of new colored lockers and bricked wall.

What the hell?

Sweat trickled down my brow and my heart raced as I searched for a sign, any glimpse of familiarity. Looking down the long hall, I could see the same identical stretch—no exit, no branch off, nothing. Only the same view, like someone had copied and pasted an identical replica with different colored lockers. Clutching the tools anxiously, I looked behind me, only to see the same thing. Not only did the hallway look nearly the same; where the walls were usually plastered with posters for motivating youth and children’s drawings, there was nothing but blank paint reaching to the ceiling. Jordan used to routinely have artwork posted up with the rest of his class, little pictures of dinosaurs or race cars, sometimes sketched, sometimes finger painted. The hallway looked plain in an existential sort of way, and the longer I looked the more I felt the desperate need to get out of there.

I decided I would just hurry until I found an exit, and get the hell out.

I jogged quickly. Surely there was a reason for the abnormality in the school; maybe I had slipped and hit my head, or maybe my drinking and continuous lack of sleep had caught up to me. I side-eyed every classroom as I tried to rationalize it, watching the darkened rooms pass in quick glances as I made my way to the next corner. Each classroom had their lights off, each completely empty.

I rounded the next corner. Blue lockers, no pictures. No people. No exit. Just another plain corner, bending right after a stretch of lockers and dark classrooms.

There had to be an explanation. I ignored the maddening blandness and kept pushing, finding the next corner quicker than the last.

No double doors, no exit sign. No Counselor’s office, no cafeteria. I groaned, agitated. It had to be my fault—I had fucked it up somehow. I kept moving, telling myself I was delusional. I had just missed the exit, since I was in such a hurry. Maybe there had been signs of a recent renovation and I just hadn’t seen it. I was sweating bullets, and the tools in my hands were starting to feel like dumbbells.

I did another lap. Another. A third. Each time I was welcomed by the same continuous loop, the only change being the color of the tiny lockers. My mind raced and my stomach churned, and I started to feel exhausted, anxious. I slowed my pace, feeling the booze sweat down my back as my legs burned. I leaned against a locker and took a deep breath, only to hunch over and gag. My stomach contracted against every dry heave, and the infinite hall echoed the sounds of my anguish. I wretched without purchase until my stomach couldn’t take anymore and my eyes welled from the pressure collecting in my face.

It’s impossible, there was no way—

I noticed something in my misery, a detail through the blur of my vision and throbbing in my skull. I wiped the drool from my mouth and stood, finding myself gawking in disbelief at the impossibility of what I saw. I strained through the blurred vision, my mind trying and failing to make sense of what was ahead. Instead of the usual right bend, it was a left.

"Hello?" I said aloud, my own voice startling me. I thought of the tools in my hands—an obvious signature of a break in—and realized I was past the point of trying to sneak out. I could already hear the murmurs—belligerent father breaks into school in search of missing son—and decided I didn’t care anymore. Whatever this was, whatever I thought it was, I didn’t really know. I was either hallucinating and dangerous, or something was very, very wrong. Either way, I felt the primal need to escape whatever illusion it was.

The left turn. I didn't understand how such a thing could be. Jordan's school was a square, and had always been a square. How could there be a left turn if there never was before? I had just been there a minute ago. How could it have changed behind my back, silently?

I called out again, fidgeting with the flashlight. I listened to my voice carry and slowly die out until the uncanny silence returned. I stood there until I caught my breath, eyeing both ways until I pushed off the lockers to continue. I had to do something. I had to choose a direction.

I went left.

The hallway past the bend was yet another hallway, more lockers and closed doors. I peeked into each classroom as I went, trying to find a discrepancy in the monotonous maze I had found myself in. Just as I thought everything appeared the same, I started to notice subtle differences in each room. A single desk chair, just barely hidden from sight. A cardboard box in another, hiding in the corner. A child’s desk, flipped upside down. The items were strange and unsettling, but no matter how much I tried to investigate with the flashlight I couldn’t discern anything to shed light on the situation. Each door was locked, and unable to pry with the wrecking bar. The only choice was to move further. Further down the hall, to another corner.

A ‘T’ this time, a left and a right. No people, no landmarks, no exit. I rubbed my eyes and groaned against the migraine forming behind my eyes. A pressure was collecting in my temples, and I shrugged it off as dehydration, fatigue. I looked down both halls and back behind me, weighing the options ahead. Purple lockers on the right, red on the left, blue behind me. I was tired of carrying the pry bar, and the clang of it echoed each way as I let it fall to the tile. It didn’t make sense to carry it anymore.

Jordan’s locker was red. It was his favorite color.

I didn’t run anymore. I walked the stretch methodically, mentally cataloging every darkened room, every small locker. The fluorescents flickered above, a dull and tired light that reflected off the tile and steel alike. Some of the classrooms had things in them, useless items that meant nothing. Some had clocks, others had none. One had a filing cabinet, another a stack of books on the floor. All were locked, all meant nothing. I called out a few times, and in return got nothing back. I pushed on until the hall forced another choice.

Left, right, straight.

Jordan was abducted by a man in a hood. I remembered the nights staying up with police, relaying details, pleading for leads. Begging for information. Begging for hope, begging for comfort, and finding none. We’ll find him, they had said. Jordan’s locker was red, I went straight.

Red lockers in neat clusters. I thought of his drawings, his many drawings, stored in his little backpack after a week of school. I thought of the things he would draw, and wished I had spent more time taking them in. Paying more attention to them. Spending more time with him. I had my chance, and I let it slip. The hallway was longer than the others, stretching far beyond the ones that came before. I wasn’t surprised. I deserved it, really. After a long stretch of meaningless classrooms and no leads, I was rewarded with another intersection.

Left, right, straight, up, down. Staircases leading into a basement that I had never seen before. Another set leading up that didn’t seem possible. I went down. I went further.

More lockers, more tile. A longer stretch of gleaming light and faded red. I followed like a lost child, as lost as he would’ve felt. How he must’ve felt when I wasn’t there for him.

The lockers were old, the paint peeling. The wallpaper was torn and molding. The ceiling tiles were cracked and misplaced, revealing a void in their wake. The light from the flashlight was too weak to see what laid behind them. Clocks lined the walls above the lockers, the same inverted time I had seen in the one from the classroom. Whether it was on the outside looking in, or the inside begging to get out, I didn’t know. The combination lock dials on the lockers were rusted, and covered in dust. The lights above flickered, and the tiles beneath me creaked with every step. I looked behind me to see a trail of shoe prints pressed into the dust—nobody had been down there for a while. The flashlight was the only solace, and I cradled it close. Close as I reached the end of the hall with no options to move forward. The walls were sealed in a dead end, a single flickering light shining upon the only thing left on this path.

A child’s desk, and a single chair. A plethora of papers were strewn from the cubby beneath the desk’s top, like they had been expelled violently from within. Each of them familiar, each of them tugging at the strings of my heart.

A child’s drawings. Jordan’s drawings.

One by one, I picked them up and examined them in the flickering light. I recognized the way he would sketch and scribble, the undeniable art of my long lost child. Drawings of himself, his family, his classmates. Drawings of characters from shows, characters I recognized from Gumball and FNAF. Drawings of a man in a hood.

My hands shook as I held them up and the tears fell as I wondered where I had gone wrong, each paper fluttering away like a distant memory when I moved onto the next. I wanted to save them and hold them dear, keep them forever to preserve the memory that everyone else had forgotten. A forgettable school on a forgettable road. A forgettable child.

Behind me, I heard the metallic latch of a lock and a door creaking close by.

I looked to see one of the classroom doors drift open slowly, a creak so loud in the dingy depths of the dark hall. I drifted towards it, each planted step shaking as I walked to the entrance. With reluctant purpose, I found myself in the doorway of the only lit classroom I had seen thus far.

Laying in the center of the beige carpet of the room was Jordan, his little arms straight at his sides. In the far corner of the room, was a sinister, churning darkness. It inhabited the corner like a festering cocoon, a tether of feelers sprawling from its cloudy existence, each latching on to the child in the center. My ears rang with static as I stepped in, and a tingling oppression pushed against me with every step forward, keeping me from advancing.

As the lights above flickered into nonexistence, I shined the flashlight into the darkness, in an attempt to thwart the presence that fought against my entrance. A guttural groan echoed from the twisting mass of dark, vibrating the ceiling tiles and shaking the room as a whole. But the closer I got, the more the details became clear, and the darkness started to fade.

A tall entity stood in the corner, an opposing figure shrouded in black, with a wide shroud curving up until it collected in a head that jutted forward. Its gaze was blood-red and piercing, shining down on Jordan with suffocating determination. I could feel the invisible chains in its stare, the desperate need to keep him where he was. An evil serpent of shadow, slithering in the depths of its wicked confinement.

But as I got closer and the light revealed, the more the madness seemed to fade away. Inky skin melted to faded clothes, and the oily black substance gave away to flushed, fair skin. Beady eyes dissolved into bloodshot pupils, streaked makeup and long dried tears. A woman in a faded sweatshirt and jeans, her disheveled blonde hair barely obscured by a hood pulled over her head.

A man in a hood.

“You’ve found us,” she said, more of a statement than a question. Beneath the power and pain in her voice, it sounded almost relieved.

I gripped the flashlight weakly and tried to step toward Jordan—ready to fight to free him—but I couldn’t move. I found myself frozen in place, helplessly staring at my child on the floor and his watcher in the corner. Once the darkness had faded, I couldn’t seem to understand the appearance of the woman watching him. I had expected the janitor, a monster, a nightmare keeping my child away from me. But the woman before me seemed tired, distraught. I tried to fight against my invisible restraints, and through her own apparent exhaustion, she gave me a sympathetic look.

“I’m sorry it's come to this.” she said, not moving from her spot in the corner.

“I just want my son. Let him go, and you can do whatever you want with me.” I pleaded, looking at the woman. There was a glimmer of sadness behind the lack of life in her eyes.

“You don’t understand—”

“I don’t care what it is. Look, just let him go, please. I’ll do whatever you want, please—” I began, but was cut off. Her voice was louder and deeper, invading my ears and booming into my brain. As I ceased my resistance against the unseen shackles, her eyes welled with tears.

“I don’t know what it is, what this is. But you have to make a choice, it’s out of my hands now.”

“Why, just let us—”

“STOP.” She said again, louder, absolute.

I stopped fighting and looked at her, defeated and confused.

The woman stepped out of her corner and I saw her for what she really was—thin, weak, and shivering. She looked identical to my wife, just as she had when Jordan went missing. She looked down at Jordan with sunken eyes, before raising them to meet me.

“My daughter went missing, years ago. We looked everywhere for her, with all the help we could. Weeks of searching, and nothing. We never found her, not even a trace. She was playing at the playground, and…” she trailed off, hugging herself before continuing.

“I found myself here, just as you did. As did the others before me. I don’t know why it does what it does. I don’t know what it wants. We don’t know what it wants. All we know is it wants us to make a choice, it wants us to bargain. That’s the only way to move forward. Something must take its place.”

I looked at her sweatshirt, at a faded logo across the chest of it. Growspring Elementary.

“What do I need to do?” I asked, the weight of my words hanging in the air.

“You have to find a replacement,” she said, and I could hear the sadness in her voice “I was once there, where you are. As were others before me. It likes the imprisonment, it never says why. But you must choose. Like the others before me, my baby was once there. She was only six, and I…” she pointed to Jordan on the carpet. Her hands shook.

“You must choose the replacement. They can be free, and you must take my place to watch them. But you have to choose. You have to find the replacement, as I did.”

I took in her words, staring into her tired eyes. The eyes of a mother, who gave everything she could. I looked at Jordan on the floor, peacefully frozen.

“Will I get to see him again?” I asked, feeling a lump in my throat. Her expression told me the answer before she spoke it.

“I don’t know. But it's the only way. That’s the only way to set them free. I’m sorry. I wish there was another way.” she said, choking up. The dark shroud behind her started to return, masking her words and cloaking her face, slowly returning her to the corner. Slowly pulling the hood back over.

I started to cry. I looked at Jordan on the carpet, and remembered the slide glistening in the rain. I heard children giggling in the distance, cut in by the sounds of rain battering against the wood chips of the playground. I thought of the treeline.

A man in a hood.

When the entity spoke again, its voice was shattering, all humanity lost.

“A decision must be made. Will you find a replacement?”

I blinked against tears, and looked up from Jordan, the flashlight shaking in my hand. The shroud waited.

“Yes.”

MALL

ASHLEY WATSON

It was crawling underneath the bathroom stall.

I sat on a pink toilet, pants around my ankles, tremoring. Its pastel pink nails clicked and clacked against the floor as its body slowly slithered through the gap in the stall. My hands scrambled to pull my pants up just as the top of my attacker’s canvas-bag-covered head poked through. It snickered and chattered at me. The toilet autoflushed behind me as I stood, making me jump. I had no idea how I had gotten there, but I knew I was in a mall bathroom. I also knew I really didn’t want her to see my Barbie underwear.

Wait a minute…her? My eyes couldn’t comprehend the monster chasing after me, but they felt strangely familiar. But how did I know it was a “her,” and why did I have on Barbie underwear? I haven’t worn those since I was like eleven.

My eyes popped open to my alarm clock blaring. I groaned, slammed its stop button, and sat up in bed. Time to get ready for school.

“So…backstock stores. Ever heard of them?”

I grabbed my history textbook out of my locker before shutting it. Jenny was situated behind it, leaned against the locker beside mine, smacking on her gum as she waited for a response. Her lips were tinted a soft red and glossed. Brunette honey-highlighted curls framed her face. She had the same history textbook hugged to her chest. Last week’s pop quiz jutted out of it with a big fat “F’ circled at the top. I’m not even sure why she bothered carrying her textbooks, honestly. It wasn’t that she wasn’t capable. She just chose to focus on all beauty and never any brains.

I shook my head. “No. What is that?”

A smile stretched across Jenny’s face. “It’s where we are going for Senior Skip Day! Surprise!”

I rolled my eyes as we began to traverse the crowded high school hallways. Senior Skip Day: a tradition among many American high schools, and something I forgot entirely about. “I’m not participating in Senior Skip Day, Jennifer.”

“Well, you’re going to be the only senior left in the building.” I avoided her eyes because I knew they would be in full blown puppy mode. “It’s got lots of really old stuff. Not quite vintage, but, like, you couldn’t buy it in a store now. Like old toys and stuff from when we were kids.”

Fellow students meandered or dashed through the halls, basing their speed entirely on how much they cared to be there. A few jocks greeted Jenny and completely ignored me, something I was used to. She always joked that if I tried a little more, I’d be a blonde bombshell that got even more guys than her. I don’t think anyone else saw it that way.

“Come on, Audrey! It’ll be so much fun,” she continued. “Maybe we can find you some Barbie stuff,” she said while nudging my shoulder with hers.

I rolled my eyes and turned my head away to hide my blushing. “I’ll think about it.” I turned back to her just in time to see her tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. Her nails were painted pastel pink.

“What’s wrong?” she asked after noticing the look on my face.

I shook my head, shaking the thoughts away as well. It was just a weird coincidence. “Nothing.”

“Oh, you know I’m just messing around, Audrefer,” she responded, making sure to include the silly inside joke and pet name she had had for me for years.

Jenny and I’s friendship had a bit of a checkered past. We had been friends since freshman year, but it was only 3 years before that that she embarrassed me in front of the whole school. It was no secret that her parents were well off, and they threw her massive birthday parties every year. Sixth-grader Audrey had been so excited to finally be invited, especially since it was a slumber party. Until Jenny found out I still wore Barbie underwear and told our entire graduating class. She apologized freshman year, which led to a friendship. I tried not to let the past bother me, but you could probably see how well that’s going based off my dreams. I felt like I was just the nerdy girl taken under the wing of the popular girl.

“Well, think about it,” she finally said after not getting a response.

And think about it I did, but only because Jenny didn’t stop begging me until we were exiting through the school's front doors. It took three front and back handwritten notes passed between us during biology, an obnoxiously talkative period of gym together, and one lunch tray filled with junk food bribes for me to cave.

Despite it being Senior Skip Day, my school only allowed for a half a day. Jenny rambled excitedly as we walked to her car, but I couldn’t focus. My mind kept going back to that dream and what it could mean. Several members of the football ball team marched past while repeatedly chanting, “Senior Skip Day!”

“You okay, Aud?” Jenny asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, just thinking.”

Her face showed concern, but she was quickly distracted by the quarterback slinging an arm around her shoulders. It took three deliveries of cheesy pick up lines for us to reach her pink Jeep in the parking lot. “Thank god,” I mumbled under my breath as I hunkered down in the passenger seat.

After about an hour’s drive, we made it to the store. The building was a one-story consisting of white block. A map was plastered on the window to the left of the double glass doors. Above it read “Peterton Mall,” and It indicated that the double doors would open to Backstock Bank, which claimed to house our state's largest selection of backstock. Lord knows if it were true, and lord knows who would check. My first thought upon seeing the building was that a power washing would do it a lot of good.

It stretched across the aging asphalt like a labyrinth. Despite the map showing you how large it was, it looked endless when you stood before it. The sun’s scorching sun rays beat down on our necks as we did. Besides our vehicle, there were only two other cars sitting in the parking lot. I chalked the lack of customers up to it being a week day.

The bunch of bells attached to the front door alerted the cashier to our entrance, but she didn’t look up from her Teen Bop magazine. The only remarkable thing about her was the vivid blue eyeshadow beneath her thick-rimmed glasses. I met Jenny’s eyes, and she shrugged. The air conditioning kicked on, rattling through the building's ancient vents. The shelves at the front were rather bare, so we ventured further in. I followed closely behind Jenny as she eagerly led the way. She steered us down an aisle to the left, and there was a product that immediately caught my eye.

“Oh, shit,” I said as a grin lit up my face. They’ve got Tamagotchis, Jen.” I turned to look at her, but she had wandered off. I shrugged and turned back to my newfound treasure. My hand reached for the box hanging from a hook, and just as my fingers touched its plastic surface, it shimmered. I immediately took a step back and cursed under my breath.

A vibration from my pocket stole my attention away. I removed my cell phone from it as another text came in, both from Jenny. She had asked where I was and sent a picture of an atrocious pair of pink and green plaid to-the-knee shorts. I snapped a picture of what I had found, inspecting it for the shininess I had seen before. As I had expected, I saw nothing, so I pressed send. She gave it a heart reaction.

“Come find me on aisle 8,” read the next text she sent me. I glanced overhead, but I didn’t see any aisle markers. I rounded the corner of the aisle I was on and was met with a plethora of pink and glitter. An aged sign above this particular section of shelves read “Libby Lu.” It brought a smile back to my face. Libby Lu was a store I had heard about many times from my older sister but was never lucky enough to experience myself.

I grabbed a turquoise sequined pillow from the shelf and hugged it to my chest. It smelled like cotton candy perfume, a familiar scent from my childhood. That particular perfume was a limited time release from Barbie, and it was my older sister’s signature scent for maybe a month before she decided the rest of it should be saved. I spent many mornings watching her get ready for school, begging her to let me spray some.

Various multicolored items were scattered across the shelves: star-shaped handheld mirrors, sparkly stationary sets, makeup kits shaped like flip phones, etc. There were even kits to create your own lipgloss. Little me would have been in heaven.

I gasped as my eyes landed on something shoved to the back of a shelf. It was partially hidden by a displaced lavender feather boa. After looking around to make sure Jenny wasn’t near, I grabbed it and smiled triumphantly once the tiny Barbie-logo-shaped bottle was before my face . Aha. I spritzed the cotton candy scent all around me and breathed in deep.

My joy was shortlived as I watched that same shimmer dance through the cloud of cotton candy air around me. The smile melted off of my face, and like the drop of a hat, my eyes were taken over by tunnel vision. My hands let go of the item, but it didn’t relinquish the hold it had on me. I felt like I was falling through air even though a floor should have been beneath my feet. I cried out as a burst of air rushed around me. And then I plopped down onto something fluffy.

I splayed all ten fingers out as I opened my eyes, gripping what I now realized was shag carpeting. A Pepto-bismol pink shag carpet. “What the hell?” I said under my breath as I stood. I was in a hallway with pale pink walls. Crimson red heart-shaped sconces were attached near the top of the walls, a distance of about 3 feet between each other. Light burst out of their curves like an explosion. Although I had never experienced the era myself, everything gave me heavy y2k vibes.

“Hello?” I called out. My voice echoed, and a chill ran up my spine. I glanced to my left, then to my right. It all looked the same.

“Jenny?”

Again, I received no response. I fished my phone out of my pocket, but the screen wouldn’t even light up. It had become a hunk of useless plastic. I shook my head as I looked around again. “Is anyone there?”

This time, I got an answer. A child-like giggle. My whole body jolted, jerking in the direction it had come from. I still saw no one, but I began slowly backing away, anyways.

And then another laugh came from the opposite direction. I stopped dead in my tracks. My heartbeat began to quicken. The sensation of being watched made every hair on my body stand up. I felt surrounded.

I spun around, my eyes darting all around me. Giggles erupted from all sides now, and I immediately bolted. All I could hear was their laughter and the sound of our dull footsteps hitting the padded floor.

Despite the intense burning in my chest, I refused to stop running. They chased me until we entered a large open area with seating: the food court. It was absolutely empty, but the smell of food emanated from the several restaurants possible diners could choose from. I recognized none of their names. Tables and chairs took up a large portion of the room, and I crouched behind a four top to catch my breath.

I still couldn’t see them, but I could hear them. I quickly scanned my surroundings. One half of the food court was open, leading to the rest of the mall. I could see stores off in the distance, also with names I didn’t recognize. The athrooms sat beside some fast food joint. If I were to run again, the bathrooms were closer, and I was at more risk of being seen if I made a break for the stores. I gulped down some air before continuing on.

The second that I rushed through the bathroom doorway, I nearly screamed. Thankfully, my hands covered my mouth to prevent me from doing so. There were three women in the bathroom. Their reflections in the mirror were the epitome of uncanny valley. Beady eyes ringed by patchy sparkly blue eyeshadow. Bright red and waxy lipstick. Their blush was almost as red and dispersed unevenly about the cheeks and nose. What little hair they had left was curled into thin, greasy ringlets. Combine all of that with stark white, flabby skin, and you would understand my reaction.

Once I took in the rest of the room, recognition sunk into my gut: this was the bathroom from my nightmare. It had the same baby pink tiled walls, and fuschia tiled floors. The walls of the stalls were more of a salmon pink. A portion of the fuschia tiles invaded the wall opposite to the mirror to create a heart-shaped mosaic. The mirror stretched wide across the wall above the counter, and several bulbous lights were above it illuminated the three beings. They blocked off the three available sinks that each had their own bar soap dish made of pink quartz and stocked with tiny heart soaps. Everything in this place was freakishly pink and heart-involved. It made my eyes hurt.

One of them gave me a ghastly smile. Red lipstick was smeared across the two front teeth. Even though their sight unnerved me, they hadn’t attacked me, so I smiled back. I then calmly made my way to the last stall. I needed to form a plan, and I couldn’t do it with them watching me.

As soon as I had latched the door, everything went quiet. I hadn’t expected that. I held my breath in an attempt to limit noise, but my ears didn’t pick up on anything. My mind was racing for options. Would things play out the same way they had in my dreams? Would they try to attack me? Their bodies looked rather weak and frail, but I wasn’t sure if I could take three of them at once.

The room remained absolutely silent for at least 30 seconds. What were they doing? Against my better judgment, I hesitantly called out, “Hello?”

There was a burst of girlish giggles throughout the room that made my heart beat quicken. I bit my lip before bending down to peek through the gap. I saw that they were still standing before the sink. One was applying a heavy amount of blush to its cheekbones. It looked sunburnt. The other two were quietly whispering to each other.

Though I couldn’t hear them, their body language felt familiar. Were they gossiping about me? I suddenly felt like I was back in middle school. I waited for a moment, but they still didn’t approach my stall. The distinct and familiar click of a compact mirror shutting could be heard.

Should I just run past them? I thought. There was a chance I could outrun them if they chased me, too, but where would I go? Were those other things still out there looking for me? I didn’t understand what they were doing, but I knew I had to get away.

Suddenly, I had an idea. It was a stupid one, but I didn’t really have any other option and didn’t understand the rules of the place I had found myself in. The toilet autoflushed from the motion of me exiting the stall, and I jumped. Embarrassed, I shook my head and took a deep breath before walking toward the sinks. I washed my hands as if I had actually used the bathroom. All the whole, they kept chattering, although their voices were even lower now that I was closer. One whispered in the other’s ear, causing a fit of giggles that stopped when we made eye contact.

“I like your makeup,” I complimented the one at the mirror. I added a smile to it, hoping it looked genuine. The other two stopped their communication to stare at me. My compliment only got a smile.

“Could you show me how you do it?” I tried again.

All three of them looked at each other for a moment before matching smiles crept across their faces. I felt a tinge of regret as they turned back to me, but before I could object, their frail arms enveloped me. I screamed in panic, and they giggled with glee while twirling around me. They poked and prodded at me, pinching and pulling my cheeks and stomach. I slapped their hands away and tried to run, but their grip on me tightened. I felt like I was being initiated into a club I didn’t want to be apart of.

I was dragged kicking and screaming out of the bathroom. We moved so fast that I couldn’t catch my bearings. The amount of pink in this place was disorienting. Walls, floors, ceilings, and even items. How could this be real? Was I still dreaming?

All the way, they kept speaking nonchalantly in their weird language. They acted like kidnapping me was a simple run for errands. Their pace only slowed once we walked through a store front. The transition from cool tile to rough carpet made my skin crawl, and I screamed to be let up from the floor.

I was plopped into a salon chair and strapped down so I couldn’t flee, which wasn’t exactly what I was going for. I looked above me and found a “Libby Lu” sign hanging. Only two of my captors remained with me, and one forcefully pulled my head back down to eye level. An eyeshadow palette and makeup brush were snatched up from the plethora of cosmetic products covering the circular counter beside me, and aggresive swishes to my eyelids began. The other one wielded a hairbrush and began brushing my hair away from my face. My scalp quickly began to sting from the force.

Their signature shade of sparkly blue was being administered to my right eye, so I looked at my surroundings through my left eye. Well, what little I could look at with limited mobility. Within quick glances, I saw merchandise lining shelves set up throughout the store, and I recognized many of the items as things that had once been in my sister’s childhood bedroom. A smile dared to pinch at the corners of my lips at the sight of nostalgia. It dropped when, upon closer inspection, I noticed blood and gore was splattered across a majority of the stock.

My focus was mainly on finding a way out of there, but I couldn’t help but be fascinated by everything going on around me. Many more of them had begun to amble through the antique shop at this point. They all looked roughly the same: pale, bright blue shadow, ringlet curls, A couple were putting merchandise away on the shelves and others were simply browzing. The workers even wore shirts with the “Libby Lu” logo on them.

My scalp felt like a forest fire by the time my hair was brushed out. I made a face when the hairstylist powered up a curling iron, and she gave me something between a grimace and a smile in return. My eyes snaked up her jawline. A set of aged stitches loosely held the skin together. She had attempted to cover it in white powder but hadn’t done a very good job. I saw matching scars on many others in the room, and it made me feel a tinge of pity.

While the hairstylist grabbed a powder puff, her coworker swapped to my other eye. Powder was blotted on my face until a cloud of dust formed around my head. I choked on it and began to cough, making them both snicker, and any ounce of pity I felt immediately left. An overwhelming stench of copper and vanilla surrounded them. It was sickly sweet and made me want to vomit.

I looked toward the back of the store where a heart-shaped desk was situated. A sparkly sheen coated it’s pink, and the store’s logo was plastered across the front. A cash register sat atop it along with several jars of last minute items a shopper might want.

One customer fiddled with a jar of rings while waiting in line, trying on several to find the right style. The customer checking out handed the cashier several misshapen white sheets of paper. They looked hand cut and incredibly wrinkled, but the cashier was unfazed by this. The transaction concluded with the strange sheets being placed into the register and the happy customer departed with her bag of merchandise.

A third customer approached the checkout counter, a gaudy lavender sweater in hand. Another one was hot on her heels and clearly enraged. In one motion, she slashed through the sweater-lady’s back with a weapon I could not see. The deep gash caused the victim to cry out. My mouth dropped open, and I gagged as one of my stylist’s stuck a bony finger inside to keep it open. She began to apply lipstick to my lips in a shade that could only be called “Fire Engine Red.”

The two customers from the checkout line began to scrapple until strings of hair, lavender fabric, and flesh were strewn about the floor. They hissed and screeched and shrieked, and yet, no one in the shop reacted. The cashier busied herself with tidying up the jars, and the other workers continued stocking merchandise. Even my own stylists seemed unfazed as they began chattering to each other. Was this behavior normal? It would explain the blood splatter. I could only imagine what they would do to me. I needed to come up with a plan to escape.

From in the distance, high heels clicked against the tiled floor. I could also hear something being dragged. Everyone was suddenly on high alert. The brawl on the floor immediately stopped, and both parties stared off toward the approaching sound. My two stylists paused their tasks and locked eyes. Their expressions contained worry. The tension in the room felt like a taut balloon one second from popping, and I resonated with it even if I didn’t feel like I could relate to these cursed souls. As the sounds drew closer, whimpering could also be heard. It was made more eerie with how silent the store had become.

All eyes were focused on the door when she entered. She was a rather tall woman, but there was an elegance to her size. Her light complexion resembled that of her counterparts, but she looked more put together than their morbid figures. Her eye makeup was a perfectly blended smokey blue with dark lining her eyes. A light pink dusted her lips, and her smooth skin needed absolutely nothing. White waves of hair flowed to her thin waistline, swaying as every bit of her six foot height towered over every worker and customer. Layers of lavender tulle conformed to her body, landing just above the floor. It was open in the front to show off her long legs, and she had paired lavender and black stilettos with it. A gold crown encrusted with pink heart-shaped jewels completed the look. This Beauty Queen was everything they wanted to be but never could.

She stretched one graceful porcelain arm out toward the two women on the floor. Their sweater was quickly handed over. Her dress was the same shade as the garment, telling me immediately that’s why they had been fighting over it. The woman who handed it over began to tear up at the loss, but she didn’t dare to voice her grievances. She also didn’t cry out as her hand was stepped on as the woman walked over them.

Another whimper came, and I finally noticed what the woman had been dragging. My eyes widened at the familiar mask the humanoid cargo wore: a bag made of ratty canvas. She paid the sound no mind as she ripped the sweater to shreds. She casually tossed the destroyed garment over her shoulder, and it rained down on top of the women. Their mournful fingers grasped at the pieces scattered about. The second whimper from the woman’s carry on finally got her attention, and it received a kick in response. Whoever it was groaned. It was a groan that sounded far too familiar to me.

“Jenny?” I dared to call out. My hairstylist slapped a bony hand over my mouth, but I shook my head to fight it away. “Jenny, is that you?!”

She groaned again while trying to push her body up off the ground. Her fingers splayed out against the floor, and I noticed her right pointer finger was missing a pastel pink fingernail. Both stylists moved toward me now. My only weapon was my teeth, and I ground and gnashed at them while rocking my chair back and forth.

The gorgeous woman finally took notice of me and cackled. “Is this your new beauty?” she asked in a mocking voice. Her eyes were practically lasering into me. “She looks more beastly to me.” She stepped toward me and pointed at my face. “Were you trying to make her look bruised around the eyes?”

My stylists frowned as she tsked at them. “And she’s friends with a skin?” she asked as she motioned to Jenny on the floor. “Absolutely pathetic.”

The tone in her voice as she spoke about my best friend gave me an urge of spontaneity. “Let her go,” I snapped.

The way she looked at me made me doubt my bravery a bit, but I didn’t let it show.

“You’re just another failure to add to their list, so don’t go thinking you’re special. You’re just as useless as these sacks of flesh with spare parts,” she snapped as she motioned toward Jenny again.

“Let us leave!”

She scoffed. “You think she’s your friend? She still jokes about what she did to you behind your back.”

My face went slack, and she noticed.

“You remember, right?” she chastised. “When she told everyone in middle school that you still wore Barbie underwear?” she asked me in a mocking tone.

“Shut up!” I screeched, my body jolting forward so quickly that my chair rocked forward. “How the hell would you know any of that?”

“Well, one of the only perks of ruling this hell hole is that I know every mortifying detail of your life,” she said with a sly grin. “Of every life in here, actually.” She pointed to the woman doing my makeup. “I know Jessica got stood up for her prom—“ and now to the lady doing my hair, “—-And Maggie got called Bug Eyes from fifth grade to graduation.” Lastly, she turned back to me. “And I know you cried yourself to sleep every night during your sixth grade just hoping and praying Jennifer would give you another chance.”

With a startling amount of strength, I yanked my wrists free. I grabbed a pair of salon scissors from the counter beside me and launched them at her. She shifted slightly to the left, and they whizzed past her ear. A loud thunk came as they stuck into the wall behind her. As I realized what I had done, our wide-eyed expressions mirrored each other’s. And then, unexpectedly, hers morphed back into a smile.

“You can see them for what they really are, can’t you?” she asked. She looked absolutely giddy as she dashed toward me.

My brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

I flinched as she grew closer, but she didn’t notice. She spun my chair around until I faced the opposite side of the counter. Unbeknownst to me, I wasn’t the only one getting a makeover. A woman sat in a chair on the other side of the round counter. She resembled the rest of the lot within the room, but she looked a bit more aged and battered.

“What do you see?”

The lady opposite me was balding on the crown of her head. The rest of her thinning hair fell into loose waves around her face. Her makeup was in the same style that seemed to be a favorite of this place thanks to the Beauty Queen behind me. Her skin was sagging and wrinkled, her jawline partially stitched up. The other half was a gaping wound that dripped down onto her pastel pink dress.

“She looks beautiful,” I lied.

The Queen’s smile flattened back to a scowl. “You don’t have to lie. I can tell when you do.” She walked over to Jenny and picked her up by the throat.

“Don’t—!”

“What do you see?” she repeated before ripping the bag off of Jenny’s head.

A scream erupted out of me, and I hopped out of the chair, ignoring the pain of ripping my ankles out of their restraints. Jenny’s face had been completely removed. Eyeballs, bright red tendons, and muscles were all that remained. The Queen rolled her eyes at my reaction before dropping Jenny’s body into my outstretched arms. Jenny was absolutely limp in my arms. I checked for a pulse but found none. A whimper escaped my throat before I could stop it, and tears began to flow down my face.

“What the hell did you do to her?” I cried out. I knelt to the floor and brought her corpse to my chest. There was very little warmth left to her, and my mind raced with thoughts of what she had been put through.

She rolled her eyes again. “Will you quit whining? She wasn’t even a good friend, let alone a good person.”

“She was a human being.”

“So was everyone else before they found their way in here. Due to her life choices, she was given the role of skin, and that's what we do to skins,” she explained. “Every society deals with supply and demand, and that requires monetization. This is the money we deal in.”

The image of those white sheets being handed over popped into my mind. “You use human skin as payment?”

“Precisely!” she exclaimed with a proud grin. “Isn’t that such a smart idea? I thought of it.”

I slowly raised from the floor and wiped the tears away from my scowling face. “And you’re the one who delegated that Jenny be used in that way?”

“Back down, yuppie. I’ve done what this place requires of me. I used to be a goody-two-shoes just like you, I was ruined. Now it’s your turn to be ruined. You can worry about all the logistics later as you take my place.”

My brain felt hazy with all of the trauma and information being thrown at it. My best friend was dead on the floor at my feet. Clearly she wasn’t that great of a friend, but she was someone I’d cared for for years. Just this morning, I had been sitting in front of her in Mr. Phillips biology class. I still had our letters stashed away in my backpack. Just a few hours ago, she had begged me to go to the place that was now her tomb. The place that had become my prison.

All I could think of was smashing the queen in her obnoxiously perfect face. It took me a moment to actually process what she had said. “Replace you?!” I asked in an enraged daze.

She narrowed her eyes at me. I was growing rather tired of the smirk she kept upon her face. Whispering broke out around the room. The onlookers were growing antsy at the possibility of a standoff, and

I quickly scanned the table for another weapon. I found nothing of use.

I returned my eyes to the Queen as she let out a maniacal cackle. She had run toward the wall behind her, and I took one step forward in confusion. By the time I realized what she was doing, she had already plunged the scissors into her throat. There was a collective gasp throughout the room, but no one moved to help her. I took cautious steps toward her despite the state she was in. I wasn’t sure how her followers would respond to me approaching her in such a vulnerable state. However, they remained still as statues. It was like they had wanted this to happen.

The Beauty Queen had begun to choke on her own blood by the time I knelt beside her. It gurgled out of her mouth like a fountain. And yet, not once did the grin leave her face. Her crown had fallen off her head when she hit the ground, and she tried her best to slide it toward me. I saw the words “beauty is only skin deep,” inscribed on its inside.

“What the hell is happening?” I whispered to her.

She just kept smiling, and as the light left her eyes, her body instantly shriveled to a husk. She had finally become one of them. But where did that leave the monarchy?

The ladies in the room began to chant. The fact that I now understood their words only made me panic more. I looked on in bewilderment as they all began to bow down. With trembling hands, I picked up the crown. Its hefty weight felt extreme for how dainty it looked.

“Beauty is only skin deep,” they chanted. The room broke out into cheers once I placed the crown upon my head.

I’m not sure how long it’s been since that day. Time moves kind of funny in this place. The faces of those who find their way here are starting to run together, and seeing their pain becomes less shocking with each day. The less I feel empathy, the more fearful I am that I’m becoming like the last queen.

As you might expect, they worship me. That might sound like a good thing to you because who wouldn’t want to be royalty? But I despise it. I can see their envy, their fear. It enrages me, and it’s a struggle not to use the strength and knowledge I’ve been given to lash out.

I tried to stop things at first, to make a difference, but I don’t think this place is built for fair treatment. I think it’s another way for girls to torture each other. It feeds off the suffering, and the title of Beauty Queen is nothing more than a twisted take on an unachievable human standard.

When I look in the mirror, I finally see the blonde bombshell Jennifer always joked about, and I’ve never hated myself more.

REST STOP BATHROOM

JAMIE POLIZZI

The four of us were on our way back from Kansas City when we saw the sign for a rest stop – which also informed us that there would be nothing beyond it but empty farmland for the next eighty miles.

My best friend Faye had wanted to take me somewhere. A distraction, something so I wouldn't be sitting alone in an empty house, surrounded by pictures, trinkets – constant reminders of the new hole in my life. We figured we'd make a big trip out of it, and invited Judy and Candace, our other friends from college. We would’ve never been on that road if it weren’t for me.

That means that what happened is my fault.

When we pulled up, Judy took one look at the place before uttering a firm, “Absolutely not.”

She waited in the car while the rest of us headed inside. I wonder how long ago that was, now – it’s hard to track the passage of time here when there's no way to tell day from night. Judging by how hungry I am, I'd guess that a week must have passed by now,

I just hope she didn’t come looking for us.

Candace ran ahead of Faye and I, darted into the first bathroom stall only to let out a sharp scream the moment the door slammed closed behind her.

I knocked and asked if she was okay, but nothing but a heavy silence greeted me. When I realized that I couldn’t see her feet underneath, I hesitantly pushed open the still-unlocked door.

Instead of a stall, it opened into a dark hallway – Candace was nowhere to be seen. Faye and I stepped through it gingerly, yelping in surprise when the door banged shut behind us. When I turned and opened it again, instead of the dull metal sink that had been across from it when we came in, there was only a large and dimly lit tiled room. Bizarrely shaped ceramic fixtures unlike anything I’d ever seen, snaked along the walls and across the floor.

Confused, I closed the door again.

Open – a wall-to-wall tiled expanse so massive that it went on far beyond my line of sight.

Close.

Open – a small stall with just a single, red-tinged drain centered in the middle.

Close.

Open – a room filled with broken sinks, mounted haphazardly along the walls dripping, foul smelling water.

Close.

I became increasingly frantic as I pointlessly repeated the cycle. Only Candace calling out to us in the distance and Faye running towards the source of the sound, shook me out of it.

It felt wrong. The voice almost sounded like a cheap recording stuck on repeat – always moving further away from us until the narrow hallway ended in a poorly lit area with just a row of stalls. Candace called out from one of them and Faye followed – the door nearly closing between us before I managed to catch up.

We found ourselves in yet another windowless room, the only illumination coming from the dim lights casting a yellowish glow on the floor-to-ceiling navy-blue tiles.

Candace was gone, leaving behind only silence. I demonstrated what I’d learned to Faye – that once a door closed, there was no telling what could be on the other side when it opened again.

We knew we couldn’t risk becoming separated – to lose each other, possibly forever. We used our purse straps and a key leash to connect ourselves at the waist.

Every so often, we’d hear Candace again, whispering strings of nonsense – sometimes a faint “Please, no.” The tone of the voice, the tinge of fear that permeated through it, chilled me.

Faye was always the optimist – she was still convinced we were hearing our friend and would sharply change direction towards the sound. Something told me that wherever – whatever – the voice was coming from, it was probably for the best if we never encountered it.

I didn't know how to tell Faye that I could feel that Candace was gone – we were the only people remaining.

No matter how many doors we tried, we still never knew if we were any closer to finding the exit. Or – something I tried to avoid thinking about – if there was one at all. Many opened into rooms of those strange, otherworldly fixtures and pipes – so familiar yet at the same time so alien, we couldn’t tell if we’d been there before. For a while, in each new area we stepped into, we left items from our purses, eventually a shoe, a scarf. We thought it would help us ground ourselves – something to indicate where we'd already been.

But, all that managed to do was extinguish almost all of the remaining hope I had left – even after we went through what felt like hundreds of doors, we never saw any of those items again.

As all those alien rooms began to blur together, every so often Faye would begin to drift away towards the distant whispering that we never could quite seem to elude.

I could tell from the look in her eyes when they’d dart towards something I couldn’t see – she was no longer interested in finding a way out. She’d given up on that, she was looking for something else entirely.

I’d nearly given myself – only going through the motions because it was far better than the alternative, when finally when one door opened into something I feared I’d never see again.

Sunlight.

I desperately tried to step through, but Faye had firmly planted herself in the hallway and refused to move.

“She found us.” Spoken softly, dreamily.

I looked over my shoulder, telling Faye that nothing – no one – was there, but she wouldn’t budge. Instead, she turned her back to me, addressing the darkness.

“Hi,” she giggled.

Frustrated, I gripped the doorframe and tried to use all my remaining strength to pull us through it – it should’ve been enough to move us both since I had height and weight on my side. She started thrashing and screaming something, but I was focused on the warmth of the sun on my face, how it illuminated the wall to ceiling tiles around us. Before that moment, I’d nearly lost all hope of ever leaving that place.

And then, Faye yanked me backwards so hard that I felt helpless as the rays of light got further and further away. My shoeless feet couldn’t find purchase on the slick tile, and eventually the cold metal handle of the door slipped from my fingers. It slammed shut, taking the light – the promise of escape – along with it. It was only after the door closed that she stopped pulling, the line went slack.

We were so fucking close.

I just remember yelling in frustration, my back still turned because I was so pissed off that I couldn’t even bear to look at her. My words weren’t kind – I’ll regret them for however long I have left.

Although, I wonder if she even heard them at all, because when I finally turned to face her, the strap around my waist ended in frayed, blood-soaked fabric. The rest of it, and Faye herself, were gone.

If I had been alone here, I would’ve simply sat and tried the same door repeatedly, conserved my energy.

But I’m not.

Alone, I mean.

Every so often I hear their voices floating down the halls, sometimes distorted, merging together to form an awful cacophony. The words are often meaningless, although Faye’s final utterances sometimes make their way into rotation. For so long, I knew better than to follow the source, so it would instead pursue me.

I kept telling myself I’d find a way out, but no matter how fast I moved, how many doors I went through, I’ve never felt those rays of sunlight again.

Sometimes, as I dragged my feet across the tiles, dazed, my mind would drift, unable to escape the vacuum, the emptiness in the air – a constant reminder that my friends really, truly, are gone.

I’ve finally come to accept that I’m never leaving this place. I’m so tired of the endless, lonely wandering. I’ve had plenty of time to think – perhaps too much.

I sit slumped against the cool tile wall, exhausted, when I hear Faye’s giggle in the darkness again.

This time, I make no effort to evade.

A part of me is actually glad, truly relieved she finally found me.

“Hi.” I repeat back with a smile.

Table of Contents

- Title Page
- Contents
- Greenhouse
- Office
- Suburbs
- Beach
- Hatchery
- Waiting Room
- Prison
- Float Barn
- Playground
- Library
- Night Club
- Isomart
- School
- Mall
- Rest Stop Bathroom