Date: 2021-12-30 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Thriller
Description: Naomi and Fiona placed their fingertips on either side of the wooden triangle. A shiver as faint as a whimper crawled down Bobby’s spine as the exact year of his death was revealed. As a young, curious 10-year-old, Bobby is reluctant to believe the fate that the Ouija board reveals…but as he grows into adulthood, the pieces of that dark prophecy propel him towards his inevitable end. Strange occurrences plague Bobby and he struggles to hide the truth from his family. Each clue leads to the next, but he knows the ultimate answer will be his end. Can the future be altered if you know the outcome

Piece by Piece

Daemon Manx

Last Waltz Publishing

Copyright © 2022 by Last Waltz Publishing

5 Midland Ave.

Pompton Plains N.J. 07444
www.lastwaltzpublishing.com

Horror | Book Publishers, Indie Publishing, Fiction And Horror Press (lastwaltzpublishing.com)

Owner: R.R. Chiossi

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact

Edited by James G. Carlson

Additional edits Horrorsmith Editing

Book Cover by Christy Aldridge

ISBN: 9798789484265

First edition January 2022

Foreword

by James G. Carlson

While working as an author, one tends to meet some rather talented and interesting individuals. This is especially so in the horror writing community, where many view their fellow authors not as competition but as worthwhile creatives whose work deserves to be shared and read. Author Daemon Manx is keenly aware of these valuable relationships. In fact, it was by this virtue that he and I met.

We were both writing for the same small press back then. Though it seems like a long time ago—a lot has happened for both of us since then—it has scarcely been a year. I was working on releasing my third book, and Daemon was just ushering his debut, ABIGAIL, into the world. Intrigued by the cover and synopsis, I immediately ordered a copy. When the book arrived, I devoured the entire thing in one sitting. Rarely had I encountered a debut as strong as that one. It was a short read, granted, but he managed to pack a lot of quality content into its mere forty-eight pages. He wrote characters I wanted to know about, whose fates I cared about. He employed a clear yet artistic writing style I could fully appreciate. The words, shaped by imagination, conjured vivid scenes in my mind. And the ending offered a satisfying twist I hadn’t expected.

More recently, I have read the stories in this book, and I must say that Daemon has done it again. “Piece by Piece” favors atmosphere and a sense of urgency as its protagonist moves through the years toward a dark fate. A fate he was afforded a tiny glimpse of in his youth. This story is about family, sacrifice, and the profound helplessness of knowing one’s end as the pieces of life’s puzzle are fitted into place. But, above all, this is a story of love. While a horror story in its own right, this work would be at home in decidedly less extreme genres as well. You see, Daemon tells a very human story with this one. Not to mention a relatable one.

“The Widower” is an altogether different kind of story. Horror through and through, this piece was clearly designed to frighten, gross out, and entertain. It possesses an almost cinematic quality, as I found myself able to imagine it as an episode of a TV show or selection from movie anthology. Grief, solitude, and a terrifying presence combine to offer the reader plenty of chills and thrills…and a hearty dose of the creeps. To be sure, this is a story that has stayed with me since reading it.

In truth, both stories have managed to stay with me. And when a story lingers in your head after closing the book, you know it was worth the read.

If this is the beginning of Daemon Manx’s career, I very much look forward to what he does in the coming years.

For Dawn (Danielle) and Dad

A man is only as strong,
as those
who stand beside him

Contents

1. Piece by Piece

2. The Widower

Free Story from Daemon Manx

Acknowledgments

Also By Daemon Manx

About the Author

Daemon Manx

Visit Daemon's Website

Last Waltz Publishing

Piece by Piece

There was a void in Bobby Canfield’s memory. Not a lapse of several years or even a couple of months; it was far more localized. The missing pieces of Bobby’s life appeared to center around one specific night. At times, he felt expelled from a lucid dream, confused, disoriented, unable to discern what was real and what wasn’t. Some days, he became convinced that none of the memories he held from that night were real. And as Bobby grew older, it proved increasingly difficult to accept what he thought had transpired the night of June 26, 1989.

Still, he had clear memories of that night. They had taken root in his head, whether real or imagined, and he couldn’t forget. No matter how hard Bobby tried to hush the voice, it continued to repeat those haunting words over and over. After all, it’s not every day that someone or something tells you the year you’re going to die.

The late June sun began to set as night crept in like a thief. Defiant shades of violet clung to the western sky, refusing to succumb to the warm cloak of darkness. The fireflies had just started to take flight, giving the air the electrically charged illusion of a city street. Cicadas, crickets, and bullfrogs asked and answered in a harmonic discourse with the clacking of the playing card wedged against the spokes of Bobby Canfield’s mongoose. The steady rap, rap, rap, cut through their music like a finely sharpened blade.

The neighborhood, sparsely populated in 1989, remained underdeveloped. A small creek crawled along the side of Bobby’s yard, meandering into the neighbor’s property by way of a culvert system under the street. The Collin’s place wasn’t visible due to the giant weeping willows, live oaks, and thick shrubbery densely covering most of the yard. Bobby believed the family had always lived there, but he wasn’t sure.

He rounded the corner of Midland Avenue and peddled downhill, preparing to hop the small lift where his driveway met the lawn. As he neared the jump, he became distracted by movement to his left. He slammed on the brake and fishtailed to a complete stop. Bobby watched as three hazy figures washed into view, appearing to almost float across the neighbor’s yard. They waltzed like ghostly apparitions from some ethereal plane, engaged in a ritualistic dance. He blinked several times and then rubbed his eyes, unsure what he was seeing. Then he heard them—the laughter of young women, the playful banter of sisters enrapt in mischief.

Naomi Collins darted across the dewy front lawn with her nightgown’s hem lifted just below her knees. Her sisters Fiona and Samantha joined her, both holding their identical gowns a safe distance from the damp evening grass. All three girls were barefoot.

There was no mistaking them for anything but sisters; the resemblance was uncanny. Still, each one appeared uniquely beautiful. Naomi, slender with long, poker-straight blonde hair, was thirteen and already quite mature-looking. At least, Bobby, who was only eleven and hadn’t quite started thinking about girls, thought so. Fiona was Naomi’s fraternal twin. She was just as slender as her sister but with darker hair—every bit as stunning. Samantha, the oldest at fifteen, was taller and curvier and sported a curly mop of auburn hair. Her most remarkable feature was her emerald-green eyes. Bobby had never seen such an entrancing color, not even in nature.

Naomi approached Bobby at the side of the road where he stood balancing his bike. Then she threw her arms up as if performing an elaborate magic trick. A large, checkered blanket appeared from nowhere and then gently settled to the ground at her feet. Not quite sure it had happened, Bobby blinked hard again as his eyes began tearing up. Before he could mention it, Samantha and Fiona joined their sister around the blanket and sat down.

The largest of the willows canopied around the spot the girls had chosen. Bobby tensed uncomfortably as the atmosphere suddenly took on a statically charged presence. He could feel the night against his skin; it touched the hairs on his arms and whispered against the back of his neck. The scent of the summer air was dreamily familiar and filled Bobby with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu peppered with impending doom. His throat tightened, and his mouth went dry as Samantha produced a box from under her arm and placed it on the blanket. He could have sworn it hadn’t been there before.

“Come sit with us, Bobby,” she said.

Every nerve in Bobby’s body started singing. His internal warning system cautioned him not to sit down, but he was helpless to resist the gnawing compulsion to join them. It could have been the alluring idea of spending time with the older girls that moved him. Possibly it had something to do with the fact that they’d been running through the wet grass in only their pajamas. Both thoughts likely influenced his next move.

Although Bobby wasn’t sure why he did it and was only vaguely aware of his actions, he laid his bicycle down on the damp grass and approached the blanket. He sat between the twins, directly across from Samantha, who proceeded to open the box. It appeared to be some type of board game. Bobby focused on the box and its contents.

Everything about it seemed old. His sinuses fluttered from the whiff of dust and age as Samantha unfolded the board and laid it upon the blanket. Then she placed a teardrop-shaped piece of wood onto the board, one side of which was darkly discolored with a blackish-brown pattern. Bobby’s heart quickened at the sight of the strange object and its oddly stained surface. Samantha then unwrapped a small piece of tissue paper and carefully plucked a tiny object from within its folds. She gently placed the small pin into the glass circle in the center of the wooden teardrop. He watched as she moved the empty box to the grass behind her.

“What’s an owh-jah board?” Bobby asked, attempting to read the cursive lettering.

Fiona laughed and corrected him. “It’s pronounced wee-gee.”

“It’s kinda like a phone that lets you talk to spirits.” Naomi spoke in almost a whisper. “You ask it questions, and it spells out the answers.”

“No way.” Bobby shifted nervously on the blanket. “There’s no such thing.”

“Yes, there is,” Fiona interjected. “We talk to our grandpa all the time.”

He could feel the weight of their stares upon him. Not only were the girls intently focused on him, but each wore a directed smile. Bobby averted his gaze and stared down at the ancient board before him.

“Don’t worry,” Samantha said. “We’ll show you.”

Naomi and Fiona placed their fingertips on either side of the wooden triangle. A shiver, faint as a whimper, crawled down Bobby’s spine. Slowly, the night crept in around them, and the encroaching twilight blanketed out the last remnants of the setting sun. He leaned in to get a closer look at what the sisters were doing. There was something familiar about the peculiar style of the lettering on the board, something he had seen before, perhaps in a dream. And the way the words YES and NO were etched in bold at the top corners seemed to scream at Bobby like sirens.

“Is anyone there?” Fiona asked. She looked up from the board to her sister, who only nodded her head in return. The exchange was instantaneous—a shared knowledge that could only take place between twins.

At first, nothing happened. Bobby held his breath tight in his chest. Then the object began to tremble beneath the touch of the girls’ fingertips. It was nothing more than a tremor at first, barely noticeable. Then the object sluggishly shuddered across the board, inching its way, little by little, till it finally stopped on the word Yes.

Bobby exhaled, releasing a foggy plume of condensation into the night air. The temperature now felt as if it had dropped nearly twenty degrees. He sat silently as the girls proceeded.

“Who are we speaking to?” Fiona addressed the board.

The teardrop began moving again. This time, the small glass circle hovered over a single letter at a time before moving on to the next. It spelled out the word MAC before coming to rest in the middle of the board.

Samantha giggled as she continued to stare at Bobby. “That’s our grandpa. We call him Mac.”

Bobby noticed the abrupt hush in the trees and the very air surrounding them. The insects and frogs that had owned the night only moments before had suddenly grown silent.

“Is that you, Grandpa?” Fiona asked.

The teardrop quickly darted to YES.

“Our friend Bobby is here tonight. Do you know Bobby Canfield?”

The glass oculus moved from the center of the word YES and then shot directly back to it.

The gaze of the sisters proved far more unnerving than the sudden silence. Bobby wanted to run to his house across the street and crawl under his covers. Biting his lower lip, he prayed his mother would open the front door and yell that it was time to come inside.

No such luck.

“Mac, do you want to talk to Bobby?”

Again, the stained wooden object moved toward the center of the board and immediately returned to YES.

A similar fog escaped Samantha’s mouth as she spoke. “Place your fingers on the planchette,” she said, referring to the strange object.

The twins removed their fingers and leaned back from the board when Samantha bent forward. She nodded her head for Bobby to do the same.

“No, I don’t wanna.” He stirred. “You’re doing that. You’re moving that thing.”

“It’s Okay,” Samantha reassured. “It can’t hurt you. You really need to hear this,” she insisted. “It’s very important.”

“I’m scared,” he said.

“I know you are. I promise, it’s Okay. You really do need to hear this.” Samantha placed her fingers on the planchette.

Bobby watched as his own hands reached across the board and did the same, as if he were no longer in control of his actions—if he ever was.

“Introduce yourself,” Naomi instructed.

“H-hi, this is Bobby,” he managed.

No sooner had he finished speaking than the planchette jumped beneath his fingertips and began moving. He imitated what he had watched the twins do, allowing his fingers to barely touch the wood. Suspiciously, he fixated on Samantha’s actions to see if she was prompting the planchette along but noticed she barely touched it herself. It finally came to rest in the middle of the board after having spelled out its message.

HELLO, BOBBY.

He gasped at the appearance of his name.

“Ask a question,” Samantha urged.

“Um,” he fumbled. “Um … who is this?”

MAC.

“Do you know me, Mac?”

YES.

“How do you know me?” Bobby leaned in closer as the planchette gently slid across the board. The teardrop moved to the letter O and finished a moment later on the letter S. When it finally came to rest in the middle of the board, it had spelled out the message OLD FRIENDS.

“Old friends! What’s that mean?” There was no movement. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked the girls.

“The answers aren’t always clear.” Samantha’s brilliant green eyes cut through the darkness like halogen spotlights. “Ask something else.”

“Is this for real?” he spoke to the board.

YES.

“Samantha isn’t fooling me?”

NO.

“Then where are you?”

The planchette didn’t move.

“Well, how long have you known me?”

ALWAYS.

Bobby struggled to remain calm in front of the girls, but the thrumming of his terrified heart began drowning out his thoughts. “I don’t get it!” he croaked.

The planchette began to spell another message.

YOU WILL.

“I will!” he cried as an icy chill bit into his left hand. “I will what?”

GET IT.

Again, Bobby studied Samantha’s fingers to see if she was directing the planchette. It didn’t appear so.

“Oh yeah,” he snapped in frustration. “When?”

The object moved so abruptly that both Bobby’s and Samantha’s fingertips lost contact for a moment. Some strange compulsion kept him glued in place while the following message was spelled out before them.

IN TIME.

The group sat silently as their clouded breath escaped into the night. Then, without prompting, the planchette began moving on its own. This time, it took off at twice the speed as before. It darted from S to A to Vand continued to increase in speed. When it finally ceased to move, it had repeated nearly the same message three times.

SAVE THEM.

SAVE THEM.

SAVE THEM, MAC.

Bobby looked up at Samantha and watched her eyes fill with tears.

“Only you can ask the questions, Bobby,” she said, trying to stifle her sobs.

He waited a moment before allowing the words to fall from his lips. “Save who?” he asked nervously.

YOU WILL KNOW.

Then the oculus revealed a set of numbers.

2023.

“What about 2023?”

RIP.

“What does rip mean?” Again, he looked up at Samantha.

“That’s not rip,” she said slowly, her words falling like dried autumn leaves. “That means to rest in peace. It’s what you say when someone dies.”

Bobby retracted his hands faster than over-stretched elastic bands and quickly backed away from the board. “I don’t want to play anymore!”

This time, it was Fiona who spoke. “There’s only one question left.” A tear ran down her cheek, as well.

Bobby had no idea what force had compelled him to return to the board and place his fingers back on the planchette. Possibly, it had something to do with the pleading look in the sisters’ eyes or how eerily dark and quiet the night had grown around them. Maybe it was nothing more than his own curiosity. He had to see for himself. He had to know what Mac would say next. Bobby Canfield straightened his back and bravely asked the final question.

“Who’s gonna die in 2023?” He already knew every letter that would be revealed.

Holding his breath, he watched the oculus center over each letter, one by one, spelling out one word: BOBBY.

Tears streamed down the girls’ cheeks. Samantha wiped at her face and attempted to smile.

“I’m sorry.” She wrestled with the words, then began to cry even harder.

“I don’t get it.” The improbable future of 2023 seemed a million light-years away, certainly not a tangible reality that Bobby’s eleven-year-old brain could wrap any meaning around. “Is that bad?” He knew people died, and he imagined one day he would too, although he had never given it much thought. The board could have said he’d live to be one hundred; either number held about the same unseeable context.

Samantha removed her fingers from the planchette. “You’re eleven, right?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Bobby nodded.

“It’s just that … um.” She paused. “Well, forty-five is awfully young.”

“But now that you know,” Naomi interrupted, “you can stop it.”

“Naomi!” Samantha snapped, her voice piercing the silence like a bayonet.

As if on cue, the ambient music of the night resumed its performance. The crickets, cicadas, and bullfrogs chimed together in unison like a string ensemble under the strict direction of a skillful conductor. But the mood of their song had changed. Their new symphony was minor and dithyrambic—a choral hymn of sorrow and loss.

“Just saying.” Naomi squirmed. “Now you can be careful.”

Samantha and Fiona glared at their sister.

Bobby returned his hands to the planchette. “How do I die?” he urged. “Who do I save? How will I know?”

There were no answers.

“It’s silent.” Samantha lowered her head.

“Help me,” he pleaded, pushing the planchette toward her. “Help me.”

“Mac’s gone,” she replied. “You can feel it.”

Bobby noticed something had changed. The air felt warmer against his skin. And though later in the evening, it wasn’t nearly as dark as it had been only a moment before.

Samantha carefully plucked the pin from the oculus and rewrapped it in the old tissue paper. She then sandwiched it within the board and folded it closed. She returned the contents to the box, closed the lid, and handed it to Bobby.

“This is for you. Mac said you’ll know what to do with it … when the time comes.” She started crying again.

As if half asleep, he again watched his reactions through distant eyes. He accepted the box from Samantha and was almost bowled over when she leaned across the blanket and took him in her arms. When she finally released him, Naomi seized him, giving him a strong embrace. She, in turn, passed him off to Fiona. He sat there flustered. Then Samantha took his hands in hers and kissed him on the forehead.

“Smack!” she said with emphasis. And once again, she hugged him for what felt like a wonderfully long, long time.

Summer faded into fall, the ball dropped in Times Square at the stroke of midnight, and 1989 acquiesced to 1990. In turn, it was succeeded by 1991 three hundred and sixty-five days later.

Bobby barely noticed the years of his adolescence slip away. But he had never forgotten that night. And not a day passed that he didn’t stop and think about 2023, even if only for a moment. He had often looked for the Collins sisters on his way home from school, baseball practice, and his daily travels, but he never saw them. He imagined they had been busy doing older girl things since they were older.

On the day he left for college, he briefly paused in the front yard, taking in one last survey of his childhood stomping ground. The goliath willow across the street now shadowed an overgrown tangle of briars, thorn bushes, and smaller trees. The stream had also become overrun; algae, lilies, and skunk cabbage had invaded and taken control of the territory. The property had sat abandoned for some time. A mental image of the three sisters running barefoot in their nightgowns came to view.

He had no recollection of when the family had moved away or where they had ended up. One thing was obvious—no one had taken possession of the property since they had left. Bobby figured he had gotten so caught up in his own life he had stopped being observant. The Collins family had moved, and he hadn’t even noticed they were gone until now. He was overcome by a sullen pang of regret and suddenly felt insensitive for not paying closer attention. He wondered where the girls were. An icy chill ran down his arm into the fingers of his left hand, and a strange but oddly familiar voice echoed in the back of his consciousness.

You will know.

At some point, he had given Mac a voice, one he could hear as clear as his own whenever he thought about the message he had received.

“When will I know?” he asked as he stared at the overgrown lot.

In time, Mac replied.

“You ready there, kiddo?” Bobby’s dad called as he finished loading the last of the suitcases into the sedan.

“Huh … oh, sure, Pop.” He looked at the property across the street one last time and then walked to the car. “Say, when did that family move away?” he asked.

Confused, Bob Sr. tilted his head and looked at his son. “Hop in. Let’s get on the road. Rowan’s over two hours away, and your mother will want to stop at least a dozen times.”

Bobby smiled at his mom in the front seat. She would be crying before the day was through. In fact, she’d had a hard time keeping it together all week. He was her only child, after all, and he was leaving. Today was going to be a tough one all around. He jumped into the backseat and was immediately overwhelmed with emotion. As it turned out, he was a little choked up himself. They drove away from the house on Midland Avenue and the overgrown lot across the street.

Bobby Canfield didn’t think about the Collins girls or the events of that night for a very long time.

***

On March 8th, 2003, Bobby Canfield married his college sweetheart, Carolyn Baker. One year later, on July 17th, Jessica was born at 4:12 in the morning. She was the most beautiful baby Bobby had ever seen and quickly became daddy’s little girl. She could do no wrong in her father’s eyes, and Bobby was more than happy to spoil her rotten. Carolyn, however, opted for a more practical approach in her parenting methods. That compensated for her husband’s spare-the-rod style, keeping Jessica well-grounded with nurture and structured stability.

The family planted roots in Ithaca, New York, on a large piece of land just off County Road 16. The house was a four-bedroom, three-bath, center hall Colonial. One of the bedrooms had been converted into a home office, which was perfect for Carolyn, who worked from home as a recruiter for Neiman Marcus. Another huge selling point was an additional building on the property.

A large woodshop where the previous owner had built grandfather clocks sat behind the house, and Bobby found it just as useful. Despite a degree in political science, he had gravitated to the building trades and opened his own contracting business. He specialized in kitchen and bathroom remodels and was fully capable of tackling much of the work himself. Although he had become a jack of all trades, his true talents showed in the construction of fine custom cabinets. He designed and manufactured them on-site in his own workshop.

One particular job that started during the fall of ’06 called for a rather intricately unique and detailed design. The cabinet frames were to be constructed in dark, solid walnut, using dovetail jointing rather than dowels or biscuits. The doors to the upper cabinets would each be fitted with their own individually designed custom stained-glass window.

Bobby began the painstaking door construction process using half-inch walnut veneer plywood for the inside panels, which would be later framed out with five-eighths solid stock. But first, he needed to design and layout the windows.

After the plans had all been carefully stenciled out, he moved on to the actual cutting. He used a drill to start the pilot holes and then, with a fine-tooth jigsaw, made the first cut. It was a half-moon design, and the job could not have gone smoother. Upon finishing the moon, he decided to tackle one of the more difficult designs—the star. The job was another success. From the star, he moved onto the sunburst, the most difficult of all the windows, leaving the easiest for last.

As he neared the completion of the sunburst, the jigsaw began to give off a burnt smell, indicating the beginnings of a dull blade. He pushed through and finished the cut, then shut the saw off to allow the blade to cool. Bobby turned on the overhead exhaust system, which instantly removed the smell of burning wood. After several minutes had passed, he examined the saw and decided he could safely finish the last door without replacing the blade. He had left the easiest one for last, after all.

Once the pilot holes had been drilled, he started the saw again. It cut smoothly into the plywood, and Bobby relaxed a bit. As he neared completion of the cut, the burnt smell returned, and the jigsaw began to shudder slightly. With only three inches of a straight run left, he applied a bit more pressure, and the blade continued slowly forward. The saw struggled through the final inch of wood, and the cut-out fell to the floor.

Bobby let out a sigh of relief and eased his grip on the tool for one disastrous second. The saw jumped off the plywood and out of his hand. He attempted to regain control and overcompensated, knocking the tool forward.

The blade tore into the first two fingers of his left hand, ripping through the skin as if it were nothing more than cotton candy. It chewed deep into the muscle, right down to the bone. He yanked his hand free from the gnashing teeth, and the world turned red. Dark blood poured freely from his wounded fingers, down his arm, and splattered everywhere. It soaked his pants, blotched his work boots, coated the cabinet door, and pooled on the floor. The saw dropped, landing in one of the larger puddles where it finally came unplugged and stopped moving. The outer field of Bobby’s vision began to grey, and he nearly blacked out. He tore off his flannel shirt and cautiously attempted to wrap his ruined hand. Fortunately, Carolyn had been in the back yard, well within earshot of his screams.

Though the doctors at Cayuga General were able to save Bobby’s fingers, the prognosis was far from optimistic. Due to extensive nerve damage, they expected him to lose most of the feeling in both his left hand’s pointer and middle fingers, along with a great deal of their functionality. Sadly, the doctors had been correct on both accounts.

The following afternoon, gingerly cradling his throbbing hand, he reluctantly made his way from the sofa to the woodshop. There he surveyed the aftermath. The place looked like a crime scene, which wasn’t that far from the truth. He had been assaulted. The culprit lay on the floor in a large, dried-up splatter of its victim’s blood. The cabinet door was now covered in what looked like a dark-brown Rorschach pattern. There would be no salvaging it. The floor itself, which had been strewn with sawdust and window cut-outs, had taken on the appearance of a Peter Max painting. Random avant-garde puddles and drizzles had landed on nearby objects in an almost artistic fashion.

Then he saw it, laying on the floor, nearly concealed by the saw and partially covered in dried blood.

His throat tightened, and he broke out in a cold sweat, which had little to do with the Lortab the doctors had prescribed. There was absolutely no mistaking exactly what it was.

But that was impossible.

“It was real,” he gasped to the empty shop.

A million rationalizations stormed the gates and overwhelmed him. It had been easy enough to push aside what he thought he remembered. He had done a pretty good job of it, too. In the days that had followed the night of June 26, 1989, it had been all he could think about. The preoccupation had even followed him well into high school. But as Bobby got older and lost contact with the Collins girls, he had also started to lose his connection to the message. Although the word prophecy seemed a bit more accurate.

Life, family, and business had offered Bobby a brief reprieve from the ominous warning. He had managed to set it aside for the most part and enjoyed what the world had blessed him with. He had even toyed with the notion it had all been an elaborate prank the girls had devised—though he had never fully convinced himself of that. But now, standing alone in the woodshop, he was certain that had not been the case. The item that lay at his feet told him all he needed to know.

“It was real,” he repeated.

The distant sound of crickets echoed in his head.

He thought about Carolyn and Jessica. He thought about the home and the life they had built together. Then he thought about a future that was not so far away. In fact, 2022 felt right around the corner.

Sometimes, all it takes is perspective to appreciate the simple things, or a little extra concern for the frailty of the present moment to understand what makes life worth living. And sometimes, all it takes is a little shove in the right direction. For Bobby, the day in the woodshop had done just that. His love for Carolyn had deepened over the years, and as Jessica grew, so did his devotion to her. The bond they shared was so strong there wasn’t any subject off-limits in conversation.

Except for one.

Despite their incredible closeness, Bobby had kept one huge secret. He had never shared the events of June 26, 1989, with his family or anyone for that matter. The first time he ever came close had been on Thanksgiving of 2014.

The family had driven from Ithaca to Parker Plains to spend the long holiday weekend with Bobby’s parents. It had been brisk but not yet cold, still comfortable enough to enjoy some outdoor weather. Bob Sr. had rummaged out an old badminton net from the basement, and he and Bobby had set it up on the front lawn. Carolyn and Bobby’s mother, April, had stayed inside for some “girl talk” and to baste the turkey for the final hour. Meanwhile, Bobby and Jessica whacked the shuttlecock back and forth over the net. And Bob Sr. sat in a lawn chair, nursing a Heineken.

“You know, back in the day, I used to be the badminton champion of Parker Plains,” Bobby boasted as he returned Jessica’s serve.

“Oh please, like they even had badminton back then,” she teased.

“Of course, we had badminton. Television, too.” He put on a heavy southern drawl. “Maybe we didn’t have yer new-fangled interweb, but by golly, we was fancy.”

Jessica laughed. “You’re so stupid.” She swung at the birdie and missed.

“Mamma always said, ‘Stupid is as stupid does.’” They both laughed at his horrible Forrest Gump impression.

“Okay, old man, try to keep your eye on this one.”

She threw the shuttlecock into the air and swung with all her strength. It sliced far to the right and cleared the street, landing behind a large hedgerow. Bobby watched as the birdie fell and vanished beneath the same giant willow that had stood there for as long as he could remember.

This is for you, Samantha’s voice called out to his memory. Mac said you’ll know what to do with it…when the time comes.

Bobby stared at the lot across the street. The trees and shrubs were overgrown and had taken back the property a long time ago. From where he stood, he couldn’t even see the stream. A feeling of sadness overtook him.

“Hey … Hello,” Jessica called him. “Earth to Dad. Is anybody there?”

“Huh? What?”

“Jeez, you were a million miles away. Go get it!” She motioned toward the wooded lot. “That’s the only birdie we got, and it looks all prickly.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

Bobby crossed the street and pushed his way through a thicket of overgrowth. Moving beyond a tangle of forsythia and briars, he stepped into a small clearing at the foot of the great willow. The shuttlecock lay exactly where Naomi had spread the blanket all those years before.

Come sit with us, Bobby.

The years began to recede, and the world dimmed by degrees. The overgrowth disappeared, and the lot transformed into the lawn of his memory. He found himself standing over a blanket with four children seated on it: Naomi, Fiona, Samantha, and his younger self. He watched as the planchette began to move.

OLD FRIENDS.

“Who the hell are you, Mac?”

Though none of the children could hear him speak, somewhere, someone had.

The planchette began to move again, and Bobby watched as it first stopped on the letter F and then slowly shifted to A. A dull ache began to throb in his damaged fingers—a peculiar sensation he hadn’t felt in a long time. But at the moment, the vision of the Ouija board had his complete attention. He watched intently as the oculus finally settled over the letter Y. It had spelled the word FAMILY.

The pain in his fingers suddenly intensified, and the vision faded. He found himself standing alone in the clearing beneath the willow, staring at the birdie.

“Family? I don’t remember that,” he said to himself. “Of course, you’re family. The girls called you grandpa.” Despite how hard he tried to make sense of it, he couldn’t.

“Did you find it?” Jessica called from the street.

He bent down and picked up the birdie. “Yeah, I got it.” He returned through the hedges. “Here you go, kiddo.” He handed it to her.

“Daddy, your hand!” she exclaimed.

“What?” He had been holding the birdie with his left hand and had used his damaged fingers. It was a feat he had not been able to perform since before the accident. He looked at his hand. The scars were clearly visible, but he could flex and make a fist.

“Well, would you look at that,” he muttered under his breath.

“I guess it’s finally healing,” Jessica gushed with a huge smile on her face.

“I guess so,” he replied, although he didn’t think that was how nerve damage worked. Still, he couldn’t explain how he could actually feel the sensation of his thumb rubbing against his fingertips. “Okay if we take a little break? I want to talk to Pop for a minute.”

“Sure,” she said, running off toward the house. “I’ve gotta check my Facebook anyway.”

Bob Sr. continued nursing his beer. “She’s growing up fast.”

“Too fast.” Bobby sat next to him. “Seems like just yesterday she was crawling across the floor. Now she’s running circles around me.” He laughed.

Bob Sr. looked at his son and smiled. “I know how you feel. She’s a good kid. Must get that from her mother.” He patted his son on the arm.

“Yeah, she’s smart too. Lord knows she didn’t get that from our side of the family.”

Bob Sr. laughed. “I guess you got me there.”

“Say, Pop, I was wondering.” Bobby stared across the street. “Whatever happened to the family that used to live there?”

“What’s that?” Bob furrowed his brow and tilted his head.

“Across the street. Whatever happened to them? I can’t seem to remember when they moved away.”

“Who are you talkin’ about, kiddo?” The old man looked concerned.

“You know,” Bobby said with a hint of frustration, “the Collins family.” He pointed across the street and nodded toward the overgrowth. “They had those three pretty girls. You gotta remember them.”

“Son, that lot has never been developed. Ain’t no one’s ever lived on that land ’cept for squirrels and possum. Far as I know, there’s never been a Collins family on this street. Not as long as I’ve lived here.” He turned to his son. “Are you feelin’ alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he managed to say as he continued to stare. “Are you sure, Pop?”

Bob jumped back a bit in his seat. “Course I’m sure,” he barked. “Lived here my whole life. What, you think I’m so old that I must be senile? You got it mixed up somehow, Bobby. I’m telling you, and you can see for yourself, that land ain’t never been developed.”

Bobby clearly remembered the well-manicured lawn, always so pristine. Certainly, he remembered the sisters and the night of June 26th. But the more Bobby thought about it, he realized he had no recollection of the girls’ parents. Nor could he remember the family ever moving in or out. He wondered if he had even seen the house itself, figuring he must have, but he couldn’t draw upon a single memory of its color or design. An image of three nightgowned figures floating across the lawn entered his mind. It felt like an important part of the puzzle, but its significance hadn’t quite registered, at least not on a conscious level.

“In time,” he whispered.

“What’s that, son?” Bob Sr. asked.

“I said, I hope it’s time to eat. I’m starving.”

“Well, why don’t we go in and find out.”

“Sounds good. Think I’ll have one of those Heinekens with you.”

“Now you’re talking, son. Now you’re talking.”

After dessert, Jessica used her grandparents’ laptop to show off a video of her heartthrob, Justin Bieber, performing a song called “Baby.” Then she introduced them to a dance called the Dougie.

“Looks like the kid is having a seizure,” Bob Sr. observed.

“Be careful what you say, Dad,” Carolyn told him. “That’s the next Elvis you’re talking about. His fans call themselves Beliebers.”

“Well, at least it’s better than the noise this fella listened to.” He pointed to Bobby. “Couldn’t understand a lick of it.”

Bobby began to rock his head as if he were in a mosh pit. “Here we are now, entertain us.” He stuck out his tongue and made devil horns with his fingers. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d used his left hand to do so.

“Lovely,” April said. “Makes a mother so proud.”

“Well, we could break out your old disco pictures,” Bobby teased. “There’s another proud moment.”

“Alright, that’s enough of that.” She turned slightly red and quickly changed the subject. “Why don’t you go dig out a game we can play. Maybe Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit.”

“Nan, you gotta’ try Rock Band on Wii. It’s awesome!” Jessica exclaimed.

“Rock Band on We!” Bob Sr. repeated. “Sounds like some kinda’ designer drug.”

“It’s a game, Dad,” Carolyn stated.

“I figured it was a game, hon.” He looked at his son and rolled his eyes as if to say, Where the heck did you find this one? Lovingly, of course.

Bobby stood up, “I know. Why don’t I dig up a game we all can play, even the old folks, like canasta or bridge.”

“Canasta?” Jessica questioned.

“Very funny,” April replied. “Never mind your father. Two beers and he thinks he’s Robin Williams.”

“Like, who’s Robin Williams?” Jessica asked again.

“Mork from Ork,” Bob Sr. answered his granddaughter.

“Um, like, who’s Mork the Orc?”

“No, Mork from Ork. Robin Williams played him. You know, Mrs. Doubtfire.”

She stared at him blankly.

“Patch Adams,” he added.

“He was the shrink in Goodwill Hunting with Matt Damon,“ Carolyn interjected.

None of it was helping Jessica until Bobby chimed in from the hallway. “He was the guy on the horse in Night at the Museum.”

“Oh yeah, the old guy with the moustache.”

Now everyone was laughing.

“Yeah, the old guy with the moustache.” Carolyn chuckled heartily.

“Don’t you teach this kid anything?” Bob Sr. asked his son.

“What can I teach her? She’s ten years old, and she’s already a Belieber. And you should see her guitar solos on Rock Band—smoking!” Bobby walked to the hallway closet, bobbing his head. “Here we are now, entertain us.”

April called to him. “I put all the games on the bookshelf in your old room.”

Bobby opened the door to his old bedroom and was greeted by a familiar sense of belonging. A little like the feeling you got from a favorite pair of jeans, warm and comfortable as if everything was just as it should be. His bed was precisely where it had been the day he left for college, though his mother now used it as a table for old coats. A poster of Kurt Cobain hung on the wall in front of him.

“Godspeed,” he whispered.

To Kurt’s left stood several bookshelves fully stacked with board games. Bobby noticed a faint tingling in his newly operational digits as he entered the room. The fingertips were red and warm, and amazing as it was, he felt every bit of it. It had been five years since the accident, five years without sensation. He approached the bookshelf. The warmth in his fingers intensified, and they began to itch. Deep down within the muscle—a burning, white-hot itch that continued to grow. He rubbed his fingers and thumb together as he picked through the games: Risk, Monopoly, Stratego, Chess. He removed the Pictionary game from the shelf and touched the box beneath it. He recoiled in shock when the heat in his fingers suddenly turned from burning hot to icy cold. The second he retracted his hand, the strange sensation receded. At first, he didn’t realize what he was looking at…

And then it hit him.

He returned his hands to the box, and the frigid sensation gripped him again. He pushed through the deep, powerful chill as he removed the box from the shelf and placed it atop the clutch of jackets on the bed. Before Bobby started removing the lid, he knew what he would find. More so, he knew what he wouldn’t find.

He stared into the box at its contents. As impossible as it was, things were beginning to make sense. But for every possible answer, Bobby could think of at least three more questions: how, where, and who?

The years slipped by effortlessly, and the fleeting tangibility of time forever loomed on the unavoidable horizon. At least, it did for Bobby Canfield. He had grown grey in the temples and slightly heavier in the midsection. Carolyn, who insisted that he carried an air of distinction, had begun to color her hair more frequently to battle the slow invasion.

His previously useless fingers had regained complete mobility and nearly all their sensitivity. The hand was as good as new; in some ways, even better. It now performed like some kind of telekinetic dowsing rod whenever Bobby came within close proximity to another clue to Mac’s mystery. Sometimes, he just referred to it as The Puzzle. At first, his fingertips would grow warm and start to itch. Then they would turn ice cold almost instantly. It was on those occasions when Bobby would know, just as he was told he would in time. The spring of 2019 was one of those times.

The renovation business had grown, and J.C.B. Custom Cabinets employed two assemblers, a finisher, and two installers. Bobby continued to perform most of the estimates and drafting himself and some hands-on shop work from time to time. A young man named Eric, one of Jessica’s classmates, joined the team that year to help with some of the labor. A hard worker, Eric arrived at the shop most afternoons on a work-study program. He worked until 6:00 p.m. on weekdays and the occasional Saturday as well. He was unlike most boys his age in his work ethic, and Bobby instantly liked him.

The boy’s familiar family name hadn’t been the only reason Bobby had been taken with Eric. It probably had more to do with the deep chill that seized his fingers and radiated through the entire length of his arm the day he met the boy. Or possibly, it had something to do with the sparkle in Jessica’s eyes when she said, “Daddy, I want you to meet my friend Eric. He’s looking for a job, and he’s a really hard worker.” Likely, it was a combination of all three, in addition to Bobby’s recognition of a valuable puzzle piece firmly clicking into place.

Eric took to the trade like a duck to water, and Jessica took to Eric much the same. At first, they attempted to keep their feelings and relationship a secret; however, Bobby’s almost sixth sense of knowing had made that virtually impossible. He had a pretty good idea from his daughter’s behavior, more or less, immediately.

Also, Jessica was unable to keep any secrets from her father. She had always been Daddy’s little girl and found it easier to confide in him than her mother. Not that she wasn’t close to Carolyn or that the women of the Canfield household had any problem communicating. When it came down to it, whenever Jessica needed to unburden herself, she always went to Bobby first. If asked, she might have said her father’s greatest quality was his complete awareness of the present moment. He knew exactly when to speak and when to listen.

It had been a cold, cloudy February afternoon, and it looked like it would begin to snow any minute. When Jessica approached him, Bobby was in the driveway scraping ice from his truck’s windshield. Something about the methodical tread in her step and the way she stared at the ground while cradling herself in her arms told Bobby something was wrong. He began to feel the first hint of that all-too-familiar itch in his fingertips.

“Honey, what is it?” he asked.

Jessica lost whatever composure she attempted to maintain and burst into tears. “Oh, Daddy,” she cried, rushing to his arms.

“There, there. It’s okay.” Bobby held his daughter tight, not pressing her to talk. Pushing would only cause her to withdraw, so he never pushed. “It’s okay,” he repeated.

“Daddy, I’m sorry.” She buried her head in his chest and held on for dear life. Her tears intensified, and her breath hitched as she struggled to control it.

Bobby’s arm felt the deep chill he had come to associate with knowing. Part of him knew precisely what she was about to say. After all, hadn’t he been waiting for this day for some time? He thought so. He let her work up to it. Slowly, she caught her breath and released her grip on him. Then Jessica looked up and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“Daddy … I’m pregnant,” she managed to say.

Bobby smiled and took her hands in his. “Congratulations, Sweet Pea.”

Jessica burst out laughing, and the tears began to flow once again. “I screwed up big time. This wasn’t supposed to happen.” She paused. “Not like this.”

“How was it supposed to happen, honey?” he asked her.

“I don’t know! Differently. Not at seventeen, not in my senior year. I’m supposed to go to college. I’m supposed to get a degree. I’m supposed to have a career.”

“You can still do all of those things, Jessy.”

“No … I can’t!” She bit down on her quivering lip. “I’m going to keep it.”

Bobby’s smile widened. “Of course, you’re going to keep it, Jess, and I’m going to help you. Mom and I are here for you. You’re not going through this alone. You can still finish school and go to college and do all those things.”

She took him in her arms and hugged him even tighter.

“I take it you and Eric have discussed this?” he asked.

“He wanted to be here to tell you, but I said I needed to do this myself. Are you mad at us, Daddy?”

“No, I’m not mad at either of you. I like Eric. He’s one of the good ones. I don’t know if your mother is entirely ready to be called grandma just yet, but she’ll come around ... in time.“ The words, echoing forward in time from his memory, startled him, but he quickly recovered. “How does Eric feel about this?”

“He wants the baby, too.” She smiled. “He’s coming over after dinner to talk to you.”

“Okay…” He didn’t push.

“Well, actually, he wants to ask you something.”

Bobby knew. “And how would you like me to answer him?”

“I guess that’s up to you.” She continued to gnaw at her bottom lip.

“Do you love him?” Again, he knew.

“I do.”

“Do you want to marry him, honey?”

“Yes, I do.” She hesitated, then continued. “I know we’re both way too young. And it’s crazy to raise a baby when we’re practically babies ourselves. But we really love each other, and I just know when I look at him that he’s the one. There’s…” She paused, and Bobby finished her sentence.

“Something special about Eric.”

“Yeah, there’s something special about him,” she echoed.

“Well…” Bobby kissed his daughter on the cheek as his own eyes began to mist over.

“Well?” It was her turn not to push. She waited for his reply.

“Well,” he said, “I’ll tell Eric that he has my blessing to marry my daughter.”

“Oh, Daddy.” She pulled him close as the waterworks continued to flow. “I love you,” she cried.

“I love you too, baby girl.” His arm had chilled all the way to the shoulder. “I think we better go talk to your mother. If we’re both there, we’ve got a better chance of catching her when she faints.”

They both laughed and cried and held each other tight as the first snowflake gently fell and landed on Jessica’s nose. It was quickly followed by two more, both drifting on the cold February breeze to come to rest on her shoulder. Bobby knew his time was growing shorter and shorter, and each second hand tick was one less to share with his family. But the puzzle was slowly coming together. And Bobby had a feeling regarding the future. After all, babies were like snowflakes—after the first one, more were likely to follow.

Eric and Jessica graduated from Ithaca High School—“Go Little Red”—on June 11 th, with Jessica’s baby bump showing slightly more than Carolyn would’ve liked. They were married the following weekend on the Canfield front lawn beneath a large trellis Bobby had built himself and Carolyn had adorned with white roses and magnolia blossoms.

The property had been transformed into a cross between a banquet hall and a luau, with just a touch of summer concert. An eleven-piece band entertained nearly two hundred guests, most of them from the couple’s graduating class. A stage and a large dance floor had been constructed, and the guests dined at linen-clothed tables under the light of five hundred candles and a hundred tiki torches. Pinebrook Caterers provided an open bar for age-appropriate guests and a two-hour-long cocktail hour involving stuffed portobello mushrooms, prosciutto and melon slices, shrimp cocktail, and Oysters Rockefeller. There was a caviar selection, Swedish meatballs, assorted cheeses—including fresh mozzarella with sun-dried tomatoes—stone crab claws, and Ahi tuna. The main course was a surf and turf of broiled Maine lobster tails and Black Angus New York Strip. The dessert selections at the Viennese table were equally staggering. The four-tiered cannoli-filled wedding cake had been decorated with more white roses than the trellis and all the tables’ centerpieces combined. And at Jessica’s request, Luigi’s Trattoria provided forty brick oven pizzas for the younger guests. It was nothing short of a dream wedding, and Bobby had been more than happy to foot the entire bill.

The couple’s first dance had been to the song “10,000 hours.” Carolyn cried when she and Bobby joined the newlyweds on the dance floor. Then, when the band began playing “Daddy’s Little Girl,” it was time for Bobby and Jessica to dance. It’s difficult to say whose tears fell first. Those who had stood closest could have confirmed it had been Bobby’s.

The weather had been ideal, the food had been stellar, and the band had kicked butt, as Jessica repeatedly insisted. Bobby and Carolyn had truly succeeded in hitting a grand slam straight out of the park. The festivities were nearing an end, but Bobby had planned one last surprise for his daughter’s wedding day.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the band leader addressed the room, “at this time, we’d like to ask Jessica and Bobby to come to the center of the dance floor.”

Bobby took Jessica by the hand.

“What’s this?” she asked.

He only smiled and led her to the dance floor.

“This is a special request. So, everyone, please give your host Bobby Canfield a big round of applause.” The bandleader put the mic stand in front of him.

“I want to thank everyone for being here and sharing this day with us,” Bobby began. “You really helped make it special.” He paused when the guests clapped, then he continued. “A wise man once told me that a man is only as good as the woman who stands beside him. If what my father said is true—and I have come to believe it is—then I am truly a man among men. I know without a doubt that I am one of the luckiest. I have been fortunate to stand beside three of the greatest women ever to walk this earth. My mother, April Canfield…” The guests applauded again. “Mom, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.” This statement was met with laughter. “You taught me what it means to be a man. You taught me how to speak my mind and, more importantly, how to listen. I love you, Mom.”

He cleared his throat. “Carolyn, you are my rock. You always have my back, and you never falter. You keep me on course when I lose my way. With you, the years have felt like minutes and the minutes like seconds. You’re the best, baby. I love you.” The hoots and hollers from the crowd were nearly deafening. Carolyn’s face turned bright red, and she blew him a kiss. “Which brings me to the apple of my eye, my baby girl. Jessica, I only need to look at you to know how weak I truly am. You’re strong, smart, and selfless, and I am so proud of you. I see when you look at Eric, and he at you, that this marriage is something special. And I know”—Bobby really did know— “that the two of you share a love that can weather any storm and stand the test of time.” He let go of her hand, turned to the band, and nodded. “Jessica, you have done more for me than you will ever know. Thank you.”

The piano player started, and Jessica’s eyes flew open wide.

“But there’s one thing my daughter did for me that I’ll bet none of you know.”

The band broke into “Baby.”

“She made me a Belieber.”

The frontman began singing the famous Justin Bieber song, one of Jessica’s all-time favorites. Then the drummer started playing, and Bobby began to dance. He had learned The Dougie for his baby girl. The place went wild.

“Oh my God!” Jessica screamed as she began to dance with him.

Every soul laughed and cheered and, one by one, joined them on the dance floor. First, it was Eric, accompanied by April and Carolyn, and then Eric’s parents. Soon, everyone in attendance tried to dance The Dougie, even Bob Sr.

Later that night, after the cake cutting and the band’s final song, after the last of the guests bid fond farewells and the bride and the groom departed in a long white limousine to celebrate their first night of wedded bliss, Bobby and Carolyn retired to their bedroom. There they made love as if it had been their wedding night.

As they lay there breathless, he rolled onto his side, looked her in the eye, and kissed her. She released her breath, and he told her … everything.

He started with the night of June 26th, 1989, leaving nothing out. He explained every detail to the best of his memory—from the day he cut his fingers in the workshop to his revelation in the overgrown lot across from his parent’s house. He shared it all, holding nothing back.

By the time he finished, nearly two hours had passed. Carolyn stared at him, wide-eyed and speechless. Finally, she took him in her arms and wept, not knowing what to say. There wasn’t anything to say, yet there was so much. She found it impossible to believe a word of what she had heard, yet she had believed it just the same.

Bobby tried his best to comfort her. Their tears of sorrow slowly turned to tears of longing—longing for time that would soon be lost, longing for promised moments destined to be stolen, and longing for what simply would never be. They made love a second time, a feat they had not attempted in many years.

Afterward, in the darkest hour just before dawn, Bobby told Carolyn he loved her. Then he entrusted to her a certain task—a task of vital importance. She promised him she would take care of it, and Bobby knew she would.

On October 5 th, 2021, Jessica gave birth to a daughter of her own. And just as Bobby had predicted, Carolyn had come around quickly to the idea of being a grandmother. Bobby nearly had to wrestle the baby from her arms for a chance to hold her. The hospital room at Cayuga General was a flurry of celebration. Still dressed in his scrubs, Eric sat beside Jessica, who was surprisingly chipper after a seven-hour labor. Both Eric’s mother and father waited patiently for their turn to hold the baby as well. Bobby didn’t want to give her up just yet, but the RN had arrived to take her back to the nursery. He handed the precious little bundle to Eric’s mom. Then, rubbing his arm, he tried to thaw the intense chill that had settled deep within it. Carolyn was the only one who noticed.

By the spring of ’23, Eric and Jessica were a family of five because, just like snowflakes, where there was one baby, more were likely to follow. They had recently moved into an old Cape Cod-style house on the other side of town, a fixer-upper. And although Bobby had helped Eric with much of the work, there was still a great deal to be done, including a complete kitchen remodel and refinishing the oak floors. Bobby had offered to pay for the renovations, but the young couple had refused. They wanted to pay for it themselves, even if it meant the work had to be done a little at a time as money allowed. The family was currently living out of two upstairs bedrooms and one working bathroom, which was no easy feat with infants at the hip.

Saturday, the twenty-ninth of April, started much like the Saturday before and the Saturday before that. Bobby had arrived at the house at 7:00 a.m. with a large floor belt sander and two industrial-grade respirators. With Carolyn’s help, Jessica packed up the kids and a mountain of accessories. Then they headed to the State Park to enjoy the petting zoo and the exceptionally warm spring weather.

It took the men the better part of the morning to sand the old varnish from the oak flooring. Eric worked the large belt sander while Bobby followed behind, taking care of the edges with one of the hand sanders.

“I feel like Darth Vader in this thing.” Eric kept readjusting his respirator.

“Luke, I am your father,” Bobby joked.

“We’re almost done. I’m just gonna take it off.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Bobby asserted. “You don’t want to breathe in this crap. That’s fifty years of God knows what on top of old varnish. Whatever it is, it’s definitely not good for you.”

“It’s hard to breathe,” Eric complained.

“That’s how you know it’s working. These filters are practically radiation-proof. I wouldn’t want the father of my grandchildren to get black lung disease.”

“Well, I’ll be glad when this is over.” Eric turned on the large machine and went back to work.

By three o’clock, the floors were completely stripped, and Bobby vacuumed the last of the dust with a twenty-five-gallon shop vac. Eric was busy securing sheets of plastic to protect the house’s living areas from the ones under construction.

“Why don’t you all just stay with us?” Bobby asked.

Eric and Jessica had already agreed to allow the two youngest to spend the remainder of the weekend at their grandparents’ house. But Jess had insisted that she and Eric, along with their oldest, would be staying in the house just one more night.

They finished vacuuming, mopped up, and rechecked the plastic to make sure none of the seals had been breached.

“Well, I guess one more night won’t hurt any,” Bobby said. “But once we start varnishing tomorrow, you’re all staying with us. No buts. Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it. Jess needs a little more time to get the kid’s stuff together. Also, we wanted to give the little peanut one more night in her new big girl bed. No more crib. She’s a big girl, Grandpa.”

“Don’t I know it.” Bobby clapped Eric on the shoulder and threw his respirator onto the front bay window.

Jessica arrived with the little peanut asleep in her arms just as Bobby walked out the front door.

“Hi, Daddy. How’d it go?”

“Right on schedule. Varnish tomorrow, so pack everything you’re gonna need. How was the park?”

“We fed the deer. You should have seen the look on their faces.”

“I know what deer look like, Jess,” he kidded.

“I would be laughing if I wasn’t so exhausted.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

“You’re welcome, honey.” He kissed her back and then kissed his sleeping granddaughter on the top of her head.

“Call me if they give you any trouble,” she said. “I’m guessing they’ll probably sleep most of the night. They had a long day.”

“By the look of it, I’d say they’re not the only ones.” He gave his granddaughter another exaggerated kiss on the head. “Smack!” he said as he did it.

She stirred and repeated him. “Mmmmack.” And fell right back to sleep.

Just as Jess had predicted, the two little ones had fallen asleep before Bobby arrived home. They didn’t so much as stir when he checked in on them later. They’d all had a long day. He and Carolyn ate dinner and sat in front of the television. By 9:00, they were fast asleep on the couch.

At first, Bobby dreamed of tiny yellow lights soaring past him in the darkness. He sensed he was in motion and noticed how the lights left trails in the air as he sailed through them.

Fireflies

The dream became more lucid. Bobby rode his old mongoose through a sea of fireflies. Dusk had just descended into night, and thousands of searchlights jet-streamed the air as he navigated their wake. He rounded the top of Midland Avenue and poured on the steam. He was going to take the jump at the base of his driveway again.

Hi, Bobby, came a voice from the darkness. Over here.

It was Samantha Collins and her twin sisters, Naomi and Fiona. He stopped his bike and suddenly found himself sitting on a large blanket.

What’s an owh-jah board? he heard himself ask.

It’s like a phone, one of the girls answered.

You ask it questions, and it spells out the answer.

Bobby’s eyes became fixed on the board. His head suddenly felt weighed down, as if it were rooted in place. He was unable to lift it, not even an inch. Something told him to look away, to look at the girls and not at the planchette sliding across the board. But he couldn’t move. The power of the dream had complete control over him.

The planchette once again spelled those familiar words: SAVE THEM.

He watched as it darted from S to A to V, increasing with speed by the second. When it finally finished, it had spelled the same message it had all those years before.

SAVE THEM.

SAVE THEM.

SAVE THEM, MAC.

He heard the voice of his younger self ask, Save who? But he already knew the answer.

YOU WILL KNOW.

Although the message remained the same, Bobby sensed that something was different. Something had changed. He watched as his adolescent fingers were placed upon the strangely stained piece of walnut and felt the first sensation of that familiar itch.

When will I know? asked a young Bobby Canfield, the itch intensifying and spreading.

The board began to tremble, but the discolored planchette remained stationary. The itch became a tingle, and the tingle turned cold. Then, the planchette started to move. Slowly at first, it inched itself over the letter N. From N, it moved directly to O. The chill in his fingers now gripped his entire hand; icy razor blades cut deep into his forearm and worked their way to the elbow. The board continued to tremble as the intense cold escalated. The planchette crawled forward, increasing its speed. It finally came to a complete stop. A frigid electric shock ran up the length of Bobby’s arm and drove a railroad spike into the center of his forehead. The pain was unbearable. He jumped off the couch and startled Carolyn. She looked at her husband in shock. He was bathed in sweat.

“No,” she cried. “Please, God, no!”

He looked at her with tears in his eyes. “I love you,” he said. “I always will.”

“Please don’t.” She grabbed his hand, embracing the icy chill that now radiated deep into the bone.

“I have to.” He kissed her. “It’s Jessy!”

The words were almost too heavy to say and impossible to hear. Carolyn’s hands shot to cover her ears as if the act might negate her husband’s words. She stared at Bobby, who was already on the move.

“Call 911,” he yelled as he ran to the front door. “Tell them there’s a fire and to send an ambulance.” He opened the front door. “Remember … I love you.”

And he was gone.

After calling 911, Carolyn walked into the bedroom, donned one of Bobby’s old flannel shirts, and sat on the floor between the two cribs. The twins slept peacefully through the night as Carolyn wept. It wasn’t until much later that she realized she hadn’t returned Bobby’s sentiment. Nor had she said goodbye.

Just before the pain had jolted Bobby awake, the oculus had centered over the letter W. It had spelled NOW. Bobby watched as the planchette burst into flames, burning the hand of his younger self as well as his own. As long ago events had foretold, he knew he needed to save them. The time was NOW.

Flames were visible when he turned onto Lakeside Boulevard. Thick black smoke poured from the first-floor dining room window of his daughter’s house.

“Dear God!” he gasped. “Don’t let me be too late.”

Bobby heard the sirens in the distance as he jumped from the truck and darted across the front lawn. He tried the door, but it was locked. He slammed against it with all his weight. It took him three tries before the lock shattered in the jamb, and the door flew inward. A plume of black smoke enveloped in intense heat rushed at him, searing his eyebrows and hair. He quickly backed away into the cool night air. His eyes blurred and watered, then slowly cleared. He ran into the house.

The first-floor dining room was largely in flames. The back wall and hallway leading to the kitchen were completely engulfed. Bobby saw the fire quickly spreading toward the entryway and the staircase leading to the second floor where his daughter’s family slept. The protective tarps now melted and dripped fiery plastic, accelerating the inferno’s spread that much quicker. Thick smoke choked the air as it rushed from the blaze and out the front door. It also bellowed up the stairs and filled the hallway. Bobby could barely see the crumpled figure sprawled on the floor at the top of the stairs. There was no time to think. The flames were rapidly spreading.

Staying as low as possible, he half ran, half crawled up the stairs. Eric lay unconscious at the top. Terror-fueled adrenaline raced through Bobby’s heart as he grabbed his son-in-law under the armpits and dragged him down the stairs, out the front door, and across the lawn to the curb. Eric began to gag and cough. Sirens sounded in the distance as though a million miles away. Bobby turned on his heels and ran back into the house.

In the short time it had taken Bobby to drag Eric outside, the smoke had thickened, and the flames had nearly overtaken the stairs. He entered the house and felt it—that familiar dowsing rod tingle in his fingertips. His arm turned ice cold. It was a welcome feeling in the oppressive heat.

He ran for the staircase, past the bay window, and stopped in his tracks. Sitting on the windowsill was the respirator he had left that afternoon. He grabbed it and put it on. The mask’s industrial-grade filter system suddenly stifled the overwhelming smoke and choking heat. Although his eyes were still vulnerable and severely affected, he could at least breathe. He ran up the stairs into the thick, dark cloud as the fire spread to the knee wall at the foot of the staircase.

The cloud at the top of the stairs proved too intense for Bobby, even with the respirator. He dropped to the floor and crawled on his belly to the master bedroom. He opened the door to find smoke had already filled the room. It was impossible to see more than six inches in front of his face. His tears felt like wasp stings as they ran from his burning eyes.

“Jessy!” he called out in a muffled voice from behind the mask.

He listened for a response, but none came. Feeling the heat rising from the burning timbers below, he called for her again.

“Jessy, where are you?”

There was still no answer.

Crawling forward, he thought to pull the mask off and call for his daughter again. Then he heard the faintest voice in front of him.

“Jessica!” he screamed.

He heard a cough followed by a choking sound. Inching himself forward, he swept his arms in wide searching motions as he progressed. The cough came again, followed by the weak sound of his daughter’s voice.

“Help.”

He pressed forward, sweeping the room until his hand fell on an ankle. It was Jessica. She was half under the bed and barely conscious. Bobby pulled her out, then searched deep under the bed for his granddaughter. It was empty.

Jessica choked on the oppressive smoke.

“Where is she?” Bobby yelled. “Where’s Sammy?”

Jessica fought to speak but passed out while gagging uncontrollably.

Time seemed to accelerated, each desperate second rapidly ticking by. It was running out, and quickly. Tick, tick, tick. Bobby didn’t think; he simply acted. He backed out of the room, dragging Jessica with him. Sliding her unconscious body to the stairs, he rose to his knees and threw her over his shoulder. He fell down the stairs on his backside with his daughter in tow, all the way to the bottom. The dining room was completely on fire except for a small path leading to the front door. But that path was shrinking by the second.

As he dragged Jessica outside, a terrible thought entered his mind: What if I can’t get back in?

With his eyes burning and each breath raking his lungs, he dropped Jessica to the ground beside Eric, who was now semi-conscious. He looked up, wide-eyed and terrified, at Bobby.

“Where is she?” Bobby pleaded. “Where’s Sammy?”

Eric spat and gagged as he tried to catch his breath. He struggled to form the words, but time had run out. Within seconds the fire would overtake the stairs, and Bobby would never make it back inside. He turned and ran through the front door and up the staircase. Burning plastic dropped at his heels, igniting the runners and carpet. A giant flame had begun to climb the wall to his left, and the intense heat blistered the skin on his arm and face as he ascended.

As Bobby fell to the floor in the second-floor hallway, the fire took the stairs and quickly spread upward. He would not be leaving the way he had come in.

The skin on his face and arm was white-hot, and the pain was all-encompassing. Tears ran from his eyes as he fought to see through the murk. Once again, he crawled down the hallway, this time to where his granddaughter and her new “big girl bed” should have been. He opened the door to find the room just as befogged as the master had been. He crab-walked in, staying low. The blaze poured like a flood into the upstairs hallway.

He bumped the bed and reached underneath it, hoping to find her. When he found nothing there, he checked the top of the bed.

The child’s cries came from far inside the room.

“Thank God!” Bobby gasped, quickly making his way in that general direction. He swung his arms as he crawled blindly, his fingers finally slamming against the wall. The voice came again from his right, louder this time. He felt the heat towering in from the hallway and could see the glow of flames at the door.

His hand brushed against the closet, and the most powerful arctic blast rocketed up his arm and into his chest. He had found her. The child had been clever enough to seal herself inside the closet.

“Oh, thank God,” he shouted, pulling the door open.

A pile of blankets lay cluttered in the middle of the closet floor. Bobby reached for them and felt his granddaughter trembling beneath the clutch. He pulled them off and seized her.

“Samantha, thank God!” he cried.

Young Samantha looked up at her grandfather with tears in her eyes. She took him by the neck. “Mac,” she called.

“Oh, Samantha, yes. Mac’s got you. I got you, baby.”

“Mac,” she cried.

The first lip of the flame entered the room. Bobby stood with Samantha in his arms and buried her head in his chest to protect her from the smoke. He ran to the large window overlooking the front yard. He lifted his boot and kicked at the glass, which shattered easily. Smoke poured out the window as flames rushed into the bedroom. Samantha choked on the soot. He leaned out the window with the child in his arms, and his heart sank. Not only was the fire rapidly approaching from behind but also from in front of them somehow. The pulsing red cloud of smoke and flame before his eyes was blinding. There was no way out.

“Dear God, no! I’m supposed to save them all!”

Samantha began to slip from his grasp. The heat had finally gotten to him. His head swam as the pulsing glow of the fire outside the window started to blur before his eyes. Bobby could feel the world slipping away, along with his hold on his granddaughter. Samantha clasped her fingers even tighter around Bobby’s neck. But he had already taken in enough smoke to cloud his perception. The child began to slide from his grip.

“Up there! The second floor!” a voice shouted out.

Bobby regained his alertness at the sound and clutched Samantha tightly. His vision cleared. The pulsing red light in front of him hadn’t been from the fire at all. Police and fire trucks had finally arrived, and their flashing lights cut through the night like a beacon. Eric and Jessica stood on the lawn with several paramedics.

“Daddy!” Jessica shouted. “Samantha!” She tried to run to the house but was stopped by the EMTs.

“I love you, Sam,” Bobby said as he pulled the child off him and dangled her out the window. The firefighters stood below, prepared.

Samantha smiled at him. “Mac,” she said as Bobby tossed her into the cool night air.

Samantha gently fell into the arms of two firefighters while the second-floor window exploded in a wall of fire. Bobby disappeared into the flames.

“Daddy!” Jessica screamed. “Noooo!”

Eric held his wife, watching in horror.

Amidst the commotion and carnage of 133 Lakeside Boulevard, two emerald-green eyes watched as Bobby Canfield vanished.

Samantha Collins held her little hands up to the window from which she’d been tossed. And she called for her grandfather.

“Mac!” she cried.

On June 26 th, 1989, Bobby Canfield was informed that he would leave this world in 2023. He would be dead at the age of forty-five. This message had been delivered through a Ouija board by a mysterious presence calling itself Mac. The Collins sisters, who had lived next door, had been the bearers of their grandfather’s message.

“That’s our grandpa, but we call him Mac.”

There was a void in Bobby Canfield’s memory, not a lapse of several years or even a couple of months. It was far more localized. The missing pieces of Bobby’s life appeared to center around one specific night. This disassociation seemed to focus on the family that lived across the street from his childhood home. He knew the sisters, but he couldn’t recall their parents. He was familiar with the property but had no memory of the house itself. It was as if he’d been imprinted with the knowledge of the girls, but for the life of him, he couldn’t recall them ever moving in or out. They were simply there for a hazy moment in his childhood memory as if surgically implanted. Then, just as quickly, they’d been removed in a similar way.

The strangely discolored planchette had told Bobby to SAVE THEM but never stated whom he was to save. It had cryptically alluded that his answers would be revealed IN TIME.

Initially, he had disregarded most of the events of that night but had been unable to for long. He had abruptly come to realize that Mac’s message had been legitimate. The revelation of this knowledge had been on the woodshop floor the day after the accident. Although partially obscured by the saw and half soaked in blood, there had been no mistaking it for exactly what it was. The triangular teardrop-shaped piece of walnut had been stained on one side by Bobby’s own blood. The discoloration had dried to a dark brown. It was the planchette, Mac’s planchette, Bobby’s planchette. It was then he realized the news of his fate had been delivered through his own creation, fashioned by his own two hands, and cured with his own blood.

Bobby’s clouded or perhaps subjected memory had been a mystery. He always felt as if his recollection had been purposefully altered. The actual possibility of such an outrageous idea made perfect sense after speaking to his father on Thanksgiving. There had never been a Collins family with three daughters living across the street. In fact, the property had never even been developed, despite Bobby’s memory of it. Still, the night of June 26th had happened, and Mac’s message had been delivered. The revelation of the planchette in the woodshop had proven that.

Of course, when Bobby opened the Ouija board box in his bedroom, one item had been missing. The board had been there, the glass oculus had been there, and even the tiny pin wrapped in tissue had been there. But the planchette itself was not. How could it? It was still sitting on a shelf in Bobby’s woodshop in Ithaca.

The newly acquired sensation in his previously useless fingers had become his spiritual guide. Just as a metal detector alerted the operator when it sensed certain alloys, Bobby’s hand had done a similar job, alerting him when he was in the presence of a clue to Mac’s prophecy. The more significant the piece of the puzzle, the greater the intensity of the sensation.

Daddy, I want you to meet Eric.

Bobby’s arm had been frozen to the bone when he shook the boy’s hand.

Nice to meet you, sir. I’m Eric Collins. Jessica said you might be looking for some help around the shop.

He had liked Eric instantly and had known by the way Jessica looked at the boy that he was indeed special. He also had a feeling that one day Jessica would become Mrs. Collins and possibly end up living across the street from his parents’ house in Parker Plains. Possibly.

The puzzle was nearly complete when Jessica came to him that cold February afternoon with tears in her eyes. His arm had been ice cold. Jessica and Eric had been expecting a baby, and Bobby had known beyond the shadow of a doubt that she would give birth to a beautiful green-eyed girl named Samantha. He had also been certain that, within two years, she would have twins—because just like snowflakes, where there was one, more were likely to follow.

It had been little Samantha who had confirmed everything Bobby already knew. She loved to be held by her grandfather and would hold her hands up the moment he entered the room. Her eyes would light up the second she saw him, and Bobby felt the same about her. He would lift her and kiss her nose and forehead, always emphasizing the sound of the kiss to make his granddaughter laugh.

Smack!

The day she actually repeated him caught him completely by surprise.

Mac! she had said.

He had been so startled he had simply stared at the child.

Mac! she repeated.

He had known for some time that he was, in fact, Mac. He had a pretty good idea the day in the shop. He was nearly sure of it the day he’d met Eric. And he’d been positive the day Jessica told him about the baby. Still…

Mac. Her familiar little eyes gazed up at him.

The impact of hearing his granddaughter call him Mac was something for which he couldn’t have prepared. From that day on, he was Mac. Apparently, they truly had been OLD FRIENDS, as the board had said, the oldest, for that matter.

The final piece of the puzzle had clacked abruptly into place with the finesse of an atomic bomb when Bobby lay dreaming on his couch. He had watched the scenes of the past repeat themselves once again. He had re-lived his bike ride through the early summer evening and re-witnessed the fireflies and their majestic dance of light. He had reread the message that had been sent to him by himself and delivered by his own future granddaughters.

But this time, something was different. The planchette’s final message had changed from the one it had delivered in 1989.

When will I know? he asked the board.

The answer had been Now!

Before being shocked to wakefulness by a spike to the brain, Bobby had watched the planchette burst into flames and was overcome by a vision. He saw the fire race through the kitchen of his daughter’s home and quickly spread to the dining room. From there, it crept up the staircase, riser by riser, to where Eric lay unconscious…and it took him. It continued to flood the upstairs hallway as it feverishly charged the bedroom doors where Jessica and Samantha would be. He heard a voice inside his head as the spike was driven home.

Save them, Mac!

That voice had been his own. The time had come, and Bobby “Mac” Canfield knew everything he needed to know. He had told Carolyn that he loved her, and he prayed she would keep the promise she had made. But in reality, she already had. Otherwise, he never would have received the message all those years ago.

On October 5th, many years later, Carolyn gave her granddaughter a very special gift, one that she had been holding onto for what felt like a lifetime. Samantha carefully worked the wrapping paper as her sisters helped to speed her along. The box was very old-looking and everyone watched in anticipation as she lifted the lid. Fiona and Naomi leaned in as close as they could to get a better look.

A faded board game and a triangular wooden game piece were tucked inside. The piece of wood was darkly discolored on one side.

Samantha lifted the board and removed an envelope with her name written on it. She read it.

Samantha,

I am not sure where to begin, so I guess I will start by wishing you a Happy Birthday! I miss you very much, more than words can express. I have been so blessed. I was given the best family a man could ask for. Also, I was given a perspective of time which allowed me to never take one day for granted. A man is only as good as the women who stand beside him. That being said, I am a man among men. The Collins and Canfield women are the Cream of the Crop.

Samantha, you and your sisters are very special, and there is some very important work for the three of you in the future. It involves this board and the planchette, and a boy you will meet one day. I am reluctant to reveal too much to you because you must tell this boy only what is necessary. The board will do the rest.

I have a pretty good feeling that you already know exactly what must be done because, in my time, you already did it. I think the important thing is that none of you go out of your way to change what has already happened. Something tells me that is against the rules. I don’t think I have to tell you that we will speak again, or that one day we will see each other as well. I am as much a part of you as you are of me, and I will always be with you. What you haven’t figured out, you will … in time.

I have discovered that life is a journey that we each must take, and the only way to find the answers is to ask the questions ourselves. No one can do it for us. It is a puzzle we must solve on our own, piece by piece.

I love you girls so much. Kiss your mom and grandma for me and say hi to your dad.

P.S. Learn to dance The Dougie!

Love forever,

Mac

The Widower

David Reese woke up at four forty-five a.m., panicked and gasping for breath. He had dreamt about Penny last night—again. This time, he could almost remember what it had been about…almost. But now, in the cold, still morning hours as he struggled to recall, he was unable to.

Nearly every night since Penny’s passing, he had been visited with one lucid vision after the next, all of which had left him paralyzed. An inescapable claustrophobia would grip him in the throes of his slumber, directing him like a mechanical toy until the moment it decided it was finished with him. David would then be expelled from the dream and rocketed into agitated wakefulness. He would always find himself as he did now, fighting to breathe, heart racing to keep up with the adrenaline it was being force-fed, thinking about Penelope.

Even now, he was sure he could smell the faintest whisp of her perfume as it too vanished with the dream. David reached for his phone as the memory faded even further from his grasp. He struggled to focus on the blurry screen, and his thick fingers fumbled with the tiny buttons as he attempted to check the time.

Damn!

He didn’t need to be up for another hour and a half, but there was no sense in trying to go back to sleep. That sure as hell wasn’t happening. To say the world had been turned upside down since Penny had died was simply not enough. It had been steamrolled, gutted, thrown down a flight of stairs and then shit on.

That was the thing about cancer. It really knew how to fuck with you.

In the end, it had taken her so quickly…so goddamn quickly.

He waited for the hazy fog of cobwebs to clear from his head. “Why, Penn?” he asked the silence. “Why?”

He lay there a moment longer, wondering how his heart could show such insolence and continue beating without her—every blood vessel, every nerve, all still functioning as if nothing ever happened. He listened to his breath as it filled his lungs. Each exhale he knew would not be his last was only one more to endure the loss. How could this body still live, he wondered?

“Dammit, Penn”

The large master bedroom was cold and unfurnished. A king-sized mattress and box spring had been tucked into the far corner of the room, and the only other objects were the suitcases that David had been living out of for God only knew how long. The paint was peeling, the plaster was cracked, and the floorboards were buckled and bowed. He placed his bare feet against the ancient walnut and stood up. It was difficult to tell if the creaking he heard came from the flooring or his own tired bones. A chill raced up through his feet and into his lower extremities; he was sure he could feel the frozen dirt of the crawl space below.

David pushed aside the large tarp that was his bedroom door and walked into the disaster that was the rest of the house. Plastic sheets were set up in a maze-like fashion to section off the safe areas. He navigated a path to the bathroom to relieve himself.

It was the only room in the entire house that was completely intact. Penelope had renovated it all herself before she had gotten sick. It probably should have brought David a little bit of peace to have it, but looking at the vanity she had installed and the bright porcelain fixtures she had picked out only made his heart hurt more. The teal-colored bath linens she had bought were still placed in the seashell towel bars that she had hung. The perfect-edged lines of deep cerulean etched against the ceiling’s pure white cut like ice on a razor’s edge. The work she had done was exceptional.

He stood in the cold bathroom, staring at his face in the mirror. His skin hung loose and had taken on an overall ashen look. Dark circles bled beneath his eyes, making him look as if he were closer to fifty-five rather than thirty-three. He turned off the light and closed the door.

The old Victorian had been their dream home. But it had needed a lot of work, and that was Penny’s thing—she was the handywoman. It had been her dream to buy the place. She was the talented one. David didn’t know anything about construction and had never swung a hammer in his life. He was an accountant for New York Life, great with numbers and finance but not handy in the least. In fact, David had a hard time folding a paper bag. The couple had bought the place and gotten a pretty good deal on it too. Penny had known what they were getting into and had assured her husband they would be fine.

“I’ll take care of everything,” she had said. “I can do the work little by little. I’ll start with the bathroom and then move on to the kitchen. If we come up with some extra cash, we can hire a couple of laborers to help out.” She had been bubbling when she told him. Her bright eyes lit up the room when she explained the details of the renovation process. “We can fix the bedroom later and set the mattress up on the floor. It’ll be like camping out. Won’t that be fun?”

David had been unsure, but being around Penny was infectious. He wanted his wife to be happy, and it was clear the house and this massive project would do it. So, they bought the place in July and immediately went about gutting the old plaster in most of the living areas, even part of the floor in the large family room situated off the kitchen. The old walnut had rotted all the way through to the sub-flooring. There was no saving it. It was more work than even Penny had planned on, but it hadn’t seemed to phase her all that much. It wasn’t long after she had taken ill.

The doctors had said it was a non-small cell lymphoma. It was very aggressive and resilient against treatment. Penn had started her first round of chemo, which zapped her reserve even more. Less than a month after her diagnosis, David Reese held his wife’s hand and told her he loved her for the last time. She had lost so much weight, and her skin had grown paper-thin. The cancer had literally sucked the life out of her. Penny Reese passed away on September 26.

David walked through the husked-out shadows of a house haunted by the memory of his wife. He entered the pale light of the kitchen and froze. The plywood used to block off the entrance to the family room had been knocked down again. The wooden sheets lay on the floor, the screws used to fasten them pointed up into the air, just waiting for him to come along and step on them.

“Sons of bitches!” he shouted as he turned on a halogen lamp set up on a workbench.

The room was suddenly filled with unforgiving illumination. David could feel his skin cooking from the canned heat. He scanned the kitchen to survey the damage. The coffee maker sitting next to the lamp hadn’t been touched, and the Yeti cooler on the floor beneath the bench appeared to be untampered with. Still…

“Fucking raccoons!” he spat. They had been getting into the house repeatedly. It didn’t matter what he did. He had first used nails to secure the plywood to the studs surrounding the frame. Then, when the little bastards had knocked that down, he had resorted to using screws. He had even set spackle buckets in front of the plywood as well, but they still found a way to knock it down. “Must be a damn raccoon army coming through here.”

They had to be making one hell of a racket too, surely loud enough that he would have heard them. But he hadn’t—not even a peep. It was more than odd. The little vermin were coming up through the missing floorboards in the family room, declaring an all-out siege upon the plywood entranceway, then tearing through the house in the middle of the night. All the while, David was oblivious. He had slept through it all and hadn’t heard so much as a mouse fart. That’s the thing about depression, he thought. It really knew how to fuck with you.

He wrestled the plywood back into place and tried his best to secure it, telling himself he had probably missed the studs when he did it the last time. Then, he made a pot of coffee and attempted to visualize his day—just another nine hours behind the desk, punching numbers. Most men would have gone insane years ago. But David was looking forward to it. At least it would get him out of the cold empty, Penny-less house.

David’s cubicle looked like every other cubicle on the seventh floor of the NYL building. In fact, it looked exactly like the ones on the eighth, ninth, and all the other floors as well. Everything was neat and linear and grey…so very, very grey. He sat at his desk, absorbed in his work. It was the only time he didn’t dwell upon his loss.

“Hey, buddy.”

David nearly jumped out of his chair from the sudden voice behind him. Gill Herbert patted him on the back.

“Great work on the Devlin account. You really came through in the clutch.” Gill was one of the senior partners, and although not exactly David’s boss per se, he did hold a higher position with the firm.

David tensed as Gill touched him.

“Whoa, easy, buddy.” Gill sat on the edge of the desk and leaned in. “I just wanted to see how you were doing, Dave. How are you making out?”

So, there it was. David thought he just might make it through an entire morning without someone stopping by to ask him how he was doing, without someone asking him if he was okay or looking at him with that exact expression Gill was looking at him with. It was the look of sour pity.

Christ, he thought. How do you think I’m making out? Just this morning, I was wondering how my heart had the balls to continue to beat and considered gouging my eyes out with my toothbrush for at least a full minute. David looked up and smiled. “I’m good,” he nodded. “Really, thanks for asking though.”

“You know,” Gill continued, “if you feel like you need to take a little more time off, you certainly could. You would be well within your right to do so.”

This wasn’t making him feel any better. He had missed plenty of days when Penny had gotten sick and had missed even more when she had died so suddenly. David was positive the last thing he needed was any more idle time on his hands. What was he supposed to do, sit around a gutted-out house all day? Right now, he needed to bury his nose into the work and try to push through. Eventually, he would have to decide what he was doing with the house. He had considered that selling it as-is was probably the best option. But he wasn’t quite ready to do that yet. When the time came and he was ready, he might have to take some time off.

“I appreciate that, Gill, but I’m alright.” He smiled again and even managed to crease his eyes. He had heard that a smile didn’t look genuine unless the person’s eyes were creased.

Gill studied his features for a second or two and then returned the smile.

“Well, if you’re sure.” He patted David on the shoulder again and then brushed at something on his jacket. “I didn’t know you had a dog. What kind did you get?” Gill held out more than a few thick black hairs.

“Huh.” David looked at what Gill was holding. The hairs were dark black and looked relatively coarse. “Sons of bitches,” he said for the second time that morning.

He knew where the hair had come from. It was the goddamn raccoons. They had gotten into the house and had even rummaged through his clothes. But that meant they had been in the bedroom while David was sleeping. Was it possible he could have slept through such a thing? Maybe if they were quiet enough, but he doubted it. The truth was, he didn’t know all that much about raccoons. They could be stealthy like furry little ninjas, or they could be reckless and obnoxious like buffalo in heat. David had no idea how he was sleeping through it and thought it best not to say anything about it to Gill.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I mean no…my neighbor stopped by with his dog. Thing must have brushed up against my suit. Thanks for pointing that out.”

“No problem, mi amigo. But you might want to take a lint roller to the back of it. Looks like you got an awful lot of it there.”

“Thanks, I will.” David was glad when Gill stood up and moved on to another cubicle. He then removed his jacket and examined it. What he found was shocking. How could he not have noticed it sooner? The back of his coat looked as if an animal had used it for its bed. Thick black hairs were littered across the fabric nearly everywhere. David plucked at them and studied the strange fiber in the light. It felt almost like wire, way too thick and coarse to belong to any raccoon. He wasn’t sure, but he doubted if it was animal fur at all. It wasn’t soft and bendable as he imagined their pelt to be. Instead, it was rigid and firm, like the bristle of a brush. It even looked too durable to be a whisker, he thought.

He would have to do a much better job of securing the plywood if he was ever going to be able to sleep in that house again. He doubted that would happen, not now. Still, he intended to barricade the crap out of that family room entrance as soon as he got home. More than anything, he needed one good night’s sleep, one free from nightly visitors and one not affected by the nightmares. There were so many loose ends left in his life and so many things that needed to be done, but David Reese was just so damn tired. Exhausted really. It was more than physical; he could feel it in his soul.

That was it. David’s soul was weary.

After work, he stopped at La Arana for a quick bite and a couple shots of Don Julio. He figured the tequila might help settle his nerves and give him the edge he needed to help with the work he had to do. The place had been a favorite of Penny’s before…It occurred to David he was always coming back to that same thought. We used to come here before...Penny liked to do this before. Now life was clearly divided into two distinct categories: before and after.

After was the hard part. After was where all the dirty work was done—from making arrangements, settling affairs, to surviving. Somehow, he was supposed to survive. And that had turned out to be the trickiest one of all.

The waitress, a young girl with dark hair and even darker eyes, placed his order of Enchiladas Suizas on the table in front of him and retreated. David stared down at the colorful plate and was suddenly overcome with fear. His chest tightened, and his heart began to race at the sight of the strange pattern on the food. An impending sense of unshakable dread seized David within its grip.

His attention focused on the way the sour cream crisscrossed over the cocooned enchiladas. The array of thin white lines set against the darker backdrop of red and green was eerily familiar. It struck David as something he had seen before, perhaps recently. He fought against the irrational urge to run from the table and tried to tell himself that it was nothing. He was overtired—that was all. Still, the longer he stared at the web-like design on his plate, the quicker his heart began to race and the more certain he became there was something more to it.

David grabbed his fork and quickly went to work on the Mexican dish by spreading the sour cream into an unrecognizable pattern. Soon, the image on his plate reminded him of nothing at all, certainly nothing threatening. He managed a few bites but was unable to thoroughly shake the feeling of dread. So instead, he focused on the Don Julio and decided it was time to head back home.

The house was cold and darker than dark. David turned on as many of the work lights as possible, which lit up the place like the face of the sun and helped to heat it similarly. He winced and pinched his face at the sour odor that hit him as he entered the kitchen.

It reeks to high hell, he thought.

The pungent smell was deep and dank like foul dirt. The plywood was still intact where he had left it, and there were no signs of forced entry. He approached the boarded-up entrance to the family room and noticed the stink grew ever more unbearable.

“What in the hell is that?” he asked the empty room.

The smell was oppressive and so much more than the foul stench of sour earth. There was a prevailing odor of decay he could taste in the air. David imagined one of his intruders had most likely found its final resting place in the family room where it had begun to rot. At least that was one less bastard that would be trying to get into the house in the middle of the night. However, there would be no living with the stink that was currently dominating the residence. He was going to have to do something about it.

He changed out of his suit and into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. Then he donned his work boots, which had never seen all that much work, and found a set of Penny’s old gloves. Next, David fumbled with the cordless screw gun and removed the plywood barricade.

It rushed at him like a train from the darkness. He gagged as the insulting stench of rot bitch-slapped him across the face. Something is definitely dead in here, he thought, but where?

Using one of the halogen lights, he maneuvered it into the entranceway to get a better look into the darkness. The bare walls were exactly as he last saw them, and the floor joists appeared to be intact as well. There was no sign of any animal carcass as far as he could see, at least not from where he stood in the entranceway. Of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy. The animal was obviously caught somewhere under the floor beams; it was somewhere in the crawlspace beneath. David poked his head a bit further into the family room and immediately recoiled as if he had been bitten by a snake. The smell was far more aggressive in the cold room and too intense to be dealt with. He returned to the area below the workbench where Penny had kept a hoard of her essential construction goods and removed one of the dust masks from the package. Then he went to the bathroom, retrieved a bottle of Obsession for men, and sprayed the inside of the mask.

David carefully stepped into the family room with a large crowbar in one hand, a flashlight in the other, and his scented mask secured firmly over his mouth and nose. Even with the protection, he was still able to detect the toxic stench over the cologne. He suffered through it and proceeded into the room.

Each step was a balancing act as he placed one foot onto a floor beam and then the other onto the next. The joists were spaced twelve inches equally apart, just enough to allow most of David’s body to pass through if he were to fall. His knees and elbows, and probably his head, would not be quite as lucky. Undoubtedly, one, if not all of them, would contact the unforgiving wood if he fell. He tried his best to make sure that didn’t happen. The four shots of Julio weren’t helping his balance any, but they were assisting with his courage.

The beam of the flashlight illuminated the dark earth beneath him. Shadows jumped out and shrunk back with each wave of his hand. David scanned as best he could for any sign of what might be the cause of the funk. He balanced and stepped one beam at a time into the center of the room as he continued to survey the ground below. The stink was now heavier than ever, and David knew he must be close. He studied the ground intently and noticed the dirt had been displaced; something had been at work in the crawlspace. It was impossible to tell what had made them, but there were definitely tracks in the loose soil beneath him. He bent over slightly and focused the light on the ground. That’s when his right foot lost contact with the floor joist.

David came down hard as his right leg plummeted into the darkness. He fell across the wood he had been standing on. First, his balls slammed against the beam, and then his chin followed. The air was knocked out of him as his nuts were forced up into his throat. David dropped both the flashlight and the crowbar when his face made contact with the wood.

He lay there, trying to catch his breath. The throbbing in his groin had its own heartbeat and felt hot, like a soldering gun was being focused on his private parts. The pain continued to intensify and drowned out the sting he felt in his chin and mouth. He had a vague sense that he tasted blood but was still too rattled to realize where it was coming from or what had happened to him. Finally, after ten minutes or more, the stars and alarms blinding his senses began to fade, and the world slowly crept back into view.

He found himself sprawled across two beams, with his arms, legs, and face dangling into the darkness below. He stared down at what looked like a massive hole that had been dug into the earth.

The flashlight and crowbar had come to rest at the entrance of a large burrow. The dirt had been flung into a pile near the mouth of the opening. It was riddled with scores of indentations that David assumed must be tracks of some type. However, they weren’t like any animal print he had ever seen. Instead, they looked as if someone had taken a stick or a poker and jammed it into the ground repeatedly. The tracks were deep too, as if whatever had made them had a bit of weight to it as well.

“What the hell?” he managed as he slowly righted himself and stared further into the large opening.

Then he saw it.

About two feet inside the tunnel, there was a shadow. Whatever it was, it was motionless. He waited a moment as his eyes adjusted to the darkness to see if the object would stir. Then, the shadow became a bit clearer and the shape a bit more recognizable.

“Sons of bitches,” he gasped.

He had found the source of the decay. Something had died all right, and it was lying only a few feet inside its burrow. He looked at the flashlight and then at the crowbar. It was only about a three-foot drop into the crawl space. David weighed his options and thought better of it. He had already taken one spill that night and wasn’t about to risk another. Besides, he didn’t know if his little dead friend had any buddies that were still alive in there.

He got back to his feet with his nuts still singing a battle hymn and made his way to the dining room where Penny kept her tools. He returned with a large plastic garbage bag and a long rake with sharp steel teeth at the business end. David then made his way even more carefully to the center of the room and straddled the two beams where he had fallen. The flashlight showed into the dark tunnel where the animal had died, and the crowbar was where it had landed as well. He lowered himself onto the joists with his legs hanging over into the crawlspace. The cologne he had used was now diluted by another scent accompanied by a coppery taste. He ran his tongue over his lips and felt the area he had bit down on when he landed. It was swollen and sore and had bled some.

With as much care and caution as he could muster, David extended the rake into the freshly dug hole in his crawlspace and reached for the large shadow within. He was unable to grab the carcass—still a good foot or two shy of it. He repositioned himself and lay down upon the beams, nearly in the exact spot he had fallen. David then extended the rake into the hole once again and clawed for the body. He could just see the dark shadow beyond the reach of the light.

It has to be a raccoon, he thought. It looked too big to be anything else. He thrust the rake into the darkness and forced it down toward the dirt.

Bingo! He felt the teeth sink into the animal’s remains.

David began to pull at the carcass, which appeared stuck for a moment. Then, it freed itself from whatever it had been snagged on and easily slid toward him. He grasped at the rake and dragged the body out of the hole toward the beam of light.

A scream escaped from David’s lips as the carcass was revealed. It belonged to an animal, most likely a raccoon, but the condition it was in was nothing David had been prepared for. The animal had been tightly wrapped in what looked like a cocoon of some sort. He could just make out the creature’s muzzle beneath the woven threads that encapsulated its body. The raccoon’s eyes were fixed open and stared up at David as if they were terrified. A snarl had been eternally frozen on the creature’s face as the thread-like fibers wove throughout the animal’s mouth.

The vision of the Enchiladas Suizas that had nearly brought on a nervous breakdown reappeared. The crisscross of threads surrounding the cocooned body of the animal was the same pattern that had panicked David in the restaurant. He had seen that horrific sight somewhere before. The enchiladas had triggered a repressed memory. He suddenly knew where he had seen such a horror.

In his dreams.

“Dear God,” David gasped. The smell was more overpowering than before, but he hardly noticed it. All he could smell was his own fear.

It happened so fast David was almost pulled off balance and into the crawlspace. The raccoon was suddenly ripped back into the hole with such force that the rake attached to it was yanked out of David’s grip. Both the animal and the tool disappeared into the shadows of the burrow. Something had dragged the tasty morsel back into its lair. The violent movement was followed by the most unearthly noise David had ever heard—a cross between a hiss and gargle. But there was something more to it as well.

It almost sounded like a voice.

He recoiled and shot to his feet so quickly he nearly missed the beams and practically ended up falling in the crawlspace. Then, without looking where he was going, he tore off his mask, sprinted across the floor joists and bolted toward the safety of the kitchen. He didn’t know if it was actually all that safe, but it was a hell of a lot better than where he had been standing a few seconds before. As David was reaching the entranceway, the sound came again from the family room, only this time, it was louder and much closer.

His mind raced as he tried to comprehend what was happening, but there was no understanding to be found. Something was in that fucking hole, his head screamed. Something big was in that hole! Then he heard the scraping, the sound of resistance against the wood. Whatever it was that had been living down there was now pulling itself up through the floor joists.

David could picture himself running full speed to the front door. He could visualize himself exiting the house, tearing down the street without so much as stopping for his car keys, and never looking back. To hell with the house and to hell with whatever monstrosity was living in the crawlspace.

He could clearly see everything as if it had already occurred. But none of it happened. Instead, David paused. He didn’t even know what compelled him to stop—curiosity maybe, unwarranted bravery brought on by the tequila…perhaps, sheer stupidity…most definitely. For whatever reason, as David reached the kitchen with only a dozen or more running steps to safety, he turned back in the direction the sound had come from and froze.

It pulled itself up from the crawlspace; its thick body compressed to a most unnatural distorted shape as its long black, hideous legs positioned themselves upon the wooden beams. The sound of dry paper rasping against leathery flesh assaulted David’s ears as the beast maneuvered into full view and looked at him. The coarse black hair Gill had found on David’s jacket covered the creature. It grew from its legs, far too many to even count. It thatched from its head and midsection in long sick bristles. The hind section was obscured from view, but David knew that, if he were to see it, it too would be covered in the same scratchy fibers.

Paralysis seized David like a stroke. The panic and terror rocketing through his organs threw him near the brink of unconsciousness. The ability to move had escaped him, taken over by something too powerful to resist. He was helpless and incapacitated. All he could do was watch as the creature moved closer toward him.

Then it spoke. “Daaaaviiiiiiddd!”

The horrible hiss that emanated from the beast curdled in his ears and ate what little sanity David had left. His bladder let go as the giant spider moved closer into view.

“Daaavviiiiidddd,” it hissed again with distinct familiarity.

Although altered by the creature’s alien vocal cords and the earth it had been living in, the voice was still recognizable. He knew that voice…well.

Then he saw.

The creature quickly rushed to within three feet of where David stood trembling and frozen. Its eyes! They focused on him and held him fast within their gaze. He was still able to think and knew everything that was happening to him. He was able to feel every ounce of the crippling fear and could hear his heart struggling to beat out of his chest. And he could see the eyes; they were green. Jesus Christ, they were green! They were Penny’s eyes.

David stared coldly into his dead wife’s eyes. A long string of drool ran from his opened mouth and hung from his chin as the thick black legs of the abomination inched ever closer to where he stood. The distinctly green eyes of the creature were unmistakably Penny’s, and as it drew within inches from him, the beast’s face slowly began to distort and change.

First, it wavered as if it were in flux, and then it blurred unrecognizably in front of him. Suddenly, he was staring at Penelope Reese. The massive spider that lumbered before him wore the face of the woman he had loved. Somehow, the beast and his wife were one and the same.

“Daaaaavviiiiidddd,” she hissed once again as she reached out with her giant appendages and touched her husband’s face.

In that touch, something was exchanged. A knowledge suddenly filled David, and a sense of understanding washed over him. This was the source of Penny’s cancer. The creature had come to visit her almost immediately after they had moved into the house. It had started as soon as they had ripped up the flooring in the family room. It had been living there for a very long time.

The beast had come in the night and had fed on her, just as it was now feeding on David. It had taken all that had made her who she was and had left only a husk behind. It had consumed her essence, leaving only a shell. But here she was, standing right in front of him. David reached out toward the monstrosity that wore his wife’s face and embraced it.

“Daaavviiiiidddd,” his spider/wife hissed again as it reared back on its hind legs and exposed a vicious set of dripping fangs.

The venom smelled as foul as the earth the beast had come from, but to David’s senses, it was the scent of Penny’s perfume. It was warm, welcoming, and dreamily intoxicating. He moaned as the creature ransacked and manipulated his consciousness.

David pulled what he believed to be his wife closer to him. It had been so long, and he had been so tired. Yet, even in his ravaged state, he was aware that tonight, it would all be over.

“Oh, Penn,” he moaned.

“Daaavvviiiiddd,” the thing replied as it landed on him and drove him to the ground. The stomach-churning sound as the creature fed on David was nearly drowned out by the sound of his strangled cries. The noises that escaped from David’s lips were not exactly the cries of a man in pain, and they weren’t precisely the anguished wails of sorrow. The sound that David expressed as the beast drained him was much closer to that of relief. That was the thing about death, it really knew how to fuck with you.

Free Story from Daemon Manx

Acknowledgments

There are countless individuals whom I owe my thanks and gratitude. Certainly, my family and friends who have supported and nurtured me through the thick and the thin of it. Specifically, my father, Bob the inspiration for the character Bob Sr. My sister and consummate sounding board, author Danielle (Dawn). And my dear friend Wendy Nastasi, who has been in my corner since day one, maybe even earlier than that. I would like to thank the horror community who welcomed Abigail into their homes as if she were their own. Of course, my comrades in arms, James G. Carlson who is never more than a phone call away. Candace Nola for all your patience and help. Lyndsey Smith at Horrorsmith Editing for breathing new life into my creation. Jimmy Jeffreys for your talent and art. Trina Janeen just for being you. Author Kira Seamon for your continued sharpening. The gang at Last Waltz Publishing. My horror homies Diana Olney, Wyatt Olney, Greg Gillick, Jack Wells, and of course, Michael J. Moore, who was the first to point me down the road less traveled. Also, thank you Robin Gabby Fisher for believing in me and inspiring the drive. And to you, the reader, because without you, there is no me. Thank you for spending your time in my world and listing to the tales that spin within. Thank you for your comments and reviews, but most of all, thank you for allowing me to share a little piece of myself with you. Much Love, DM

Also By Daemon Manx

Abigail

Drawn & Quartered with Diana Olney

Hacked in Two with James G. Carlson

These Lingering Shadows an Anthology

Arcranium™ with Mark Towse Jan ’23

Coming Soon

Manxiety: A Collection of Disturbing Stories April ’23

All titles are available at www.lastwaltzpublishing.com
and at

Amazon

About the Author

Daemon Manx is an American speculative-horror author. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA) and the Horror Authors Guild (HAG) and has been featured in magazines in both the U.S. and the U.K. He has recently been nominated for a Splatterpunk award for his debut, Abigail in the best short story category. In 2021 he received a HAG award for his story The Dead Girl.

In 1991, Daemon was involved in a motor vehicle accident with Ronald Reagan’s motorcade, when he crashed into the former president’s limousine on a New York City Street shortly after Ron and Nancy stepped out of the vehicle. No one was injured, except for maybe the pride of the secret service agent who was directing traffic.

Daemon recently opened Last Waltz Publishing, an indie horror label focused on undiscovered voices and elevating new authors. He lives with his sister, author Danielle Manx and their narcoleptic cat, Sydney where they patiently prepare for the apocalypse. There is a good chance they will runout of coffee far too soon.

Visit Daemon's Website

Last Waltz Publishing

Table of Contents

- 1. Piece by Piece
- 2. The Widower
- Free Story from Daemon Manx
- Acknowledgments
- Also By Daemon Manx
- About the Author
- Daemon Manx
- Visit Daemon's Website
- Last Waltz Publishing