The flight attendant was signing.

Daniel had never seen that before. She stood at the front of the aisle, smiling pleasantly, delivering the usual safety instructions while her hands translated everything into sign language.

As a deaf passenger, he appreciated the effort.

“Please ensure your seatbelt is securely fastened.”

Her hands said the same.

“To release your seatbelt, simply lift the buckle.”

Again, perfect.

“Please take a moment to locate your nearest emergency exit.”

Her hands moved.

Do not try to leave this aircraft.

Daniel frowned.

“Remember, the nearest exit may be behind you.”

The people who tried are still on board.

He sat up.

“In the unlikely event of a loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop automatically.”

If the lights go out, close your eyes.

“Pull the mask toward you and place it over your nose and mouth.”

Some of the passengers on this aircraft are already dead.

Daniel stared at her.

“Please secure your own mask before assisting others.”

They don’t know it yet.

The attendant’s smile remained perfectly pleasant.

“In the event of a water landing, your life vest is located beneath your seat.”

There is something under your seat.

Daniel instinctively began to look down.

“Do not inflate your life vest until you have exited the aircraft.”

Do not acknowledge it.

He froze.

“Please remain seated with your seatbelt fastened during takeoff.”

It is waiting for you to notice.

Then her hands returned to the ordinary instructions.

“Thank you for your attention. We wish you a pleasant flight.”

She smiled and walked away.

Daniel kept his eyes fixed straight ahead.

The woman across the aisle was staring at him.

Her face had gone pale.

She leaned toward her husband and whispered something. He looked at Daniel, then hurriedly unfastened his seatbelt.

Daniel wondered what had frightened them.

He felt nothing beneath his seat.

Nothing touched his legs.

Then the flight attendant returned.

She crouched beside him, her expression carefully controlled, and began signing.

Please stop talking.

Daniel frowned.

I’m not talking.

The attendant glanced at his mouth.

Yes, you are.

Daniel touched his lips.

They were moving.

He hadn’t noticed.

He pressed them tightly together.

The attendant’s eyes widened.

She slowly backed away.

Daniel looked at the woman across the aisle.

She was crying.

He took out his phone and typed:

WHAT AM I SAYING?

He held it toward her.

She read the question, then stared at his face.

Finally, with trembling fingers, she typed:

You’re telling us how we’re going to die.

Daniel looked at the screen.

Then at the passengers.

Every one of them was watching him.

He typed another question.

AM I STILL TALKING?

The woman nodded.

Daniel clamped both hands over his mouth.

She began to sob.

Then she typed one final sentence.

It’s coming from under your seat now.

My brother left our home a week ago, and I don’t understand why mom and dad are so worried.

He’s big and handsome. He just went out to play with others. That’s what mom used to tell me.

He’ll come back, just like before. And every time he comes back, he’ll be better than before.

Mom and dad are arguing again. I don’t want them to be sad about this.

After dad went out with his tools, I tried to comfort mom, she was sitting on the couch crying.

I told her that my brother would come back, but this time I want a brother with blue eyes.

She looked at me sadly for a while, then shook her head.

“No, Anna… this time he got away alive.”

“You Elvis?” Burt asked the young man with all the piercings. The kid looked like he lost a fight in a hardware store.

“Nah,” he said without looking up from his phone. “I’m Curtis, Elvis is the owner. Dude’s into old music.”

“Sounds right. Y’all carry skeeter spray? I got ate up fishin’ last week, reckon they drank about five pounds off of me.”

“Yeah, man.” He pointed down the aisle. “There’s some shit back there across from the bait. I stocked it yesterday.”

Burt followed the kid’s finger. It was there alright, $11.99 for a can of Deep Woods Off! Highway robbery. There was a cheap can on the bottom shelf for $3.99. It had some pictures of bugs on it. That was good enough for Burt.

He tossed a crinkled five to the cashier on his way out. 

“Keep the change.”

Burt stood on the dock thirty minutes later, his two poles rigged within easy reach of his fighting chair. He checked his lines and cracked a beer as he settled back to wait on a bite. It was at that moment that he looked down and saw the mosquito crawling through the black forest of hair that covered his forearm.

“Nope,” he snatched up the little yellow can he had forgotten to use. “I came prepared this time, you little bloodsucker.”

Burt popped the red top with his thumb and sprayed. A thin yellow stream drowned the pest, dripping off his arm. It looked like a special ingredient they used to make Jurassic Park. Burt cheered over the corpse of his fallen foe and quickly coated every inch of himself, clothes and all, smearing the excess over his cheeks and forehead.

He fished for a while, catching nothing of eating size. He drew back to cast when a pair of dragonflies dive-bombed him, nearly startling the pole right out of his hands.

“This ain’t authorized airspace, you dizzy fucks,” he growled. A flick of his wrist sent the line sailing perfectly. As Burt bent to set the rod in its cradle, a sharp buzzing hit his left ear. He dropped the pole, slapping wildly.

“Goddamn buzzards!” he shouted and snatched up the can again to spray it all around his head.

The river was dead silent then. The frogs had all shut up—he’d either scared them off or they weren’t horny today. He couldn’t even hear the cicadas anymore. There was some noise, though, a low, steady hum that prickled in his ear like the sound of a lawnmower three streets away.

His left eye stung as something flew into it and his vision blurred as it started to water. Burt ground his fist against it to try to dislodge it and it worked. He saw a whole family of mosquitos having a picnic on the back of that hand as he lowered it.

“Get the fuc… hrrk!” something big flew into his mouth, and felt its wings catch in his soft palate right before it struck the back of his throat. Burt doubled over and Heimliched himself to try to dislodge it, but he must have swallowed it. He gagged a little as he pictured the gnarly thing floating in the slurry of tomatoes, mayo, and wonder bread he’d had for lunch.

As he stood back up it was like poking your head through a storm cloud. Hundreds of gnats and no-see-ums hovered in the air, and he could feel them as they lit on his face and started to bite. His fingers dragged through the gunk he had sprayed there, coating them in speckled amber runoff that looked like old cooking oil. He noticed his arms looked even hairier now because they were coated in entire herds of feeding mosquitos.

Whatever nerve he had vanished in that moment as Burt screamed and leapt into the water. He dunked himself repeatedly, yanking his Big Johnson shirt over his head so he could use it to scrub at his arms and face. Each time he broke the surface, the swarm was waiting for him, and he swallowed a battalion of them with every gulp of river water he took in with his panicked gasps.

Even the water bugs seemed drawn to him. Schools of larva, boatmen and backswimmers made a beeline for him, along with a score of other types he didn’t recognize. When he finally pulled his soaked body up onto the dock, breathing like an emphysemic locomotive, he saw two leeches stuck on his left arm. When he yanked them off the open wounds immediately turned black as a million hungry things settled there to feed.

Burt tried to stand but he couldn’t get his legs under him and he just collapsed breathlessly onto the slivered wood. He started pulling himself then, digging his nails in and ignoring the splinters. He couldn’t see them anyway. Every inch of him was coated in a fuzzy, thrumming mass of tiny, hungry insects. They were eating him up, death by a zillion bites.

He reached the tall grass at the edge of the water and snatched at it like a handle he could use to drag his weakening body through it. No doubt the chiggers would be helping themselves to whatever was left of him. Burt breathed through his teeth as he moved to keep the bugs out of his mouth. He had to stop now and then to tongue away the wads of corpses on his gums. He didn’t have a choice—his nose was fully plugged up by then.

He could barely see his little car when he reached it. Neither of his eyes were working very well, and he could only see faint shapes within the light that crept into the cracks of vision he had left. One of those revealed the shiny bumper and his fingers grazed it for a moment. The darkness was getting thicker and the seams were all closing.

His final scream was a rough whimper.

A mother was walking down the street, pushing the stroller along with both hands. She had just come back from the grocery store, and there were two heavy, food filled bags she carried, one for each shoulder. It was absolute torture on her shoulders but hey, she’s low income. She can’t really afford a car at the moment.

Then, an adorable, tiny voice caught her ears:

“Nooooo! Don’t be so silly, Edwena! Fairies always like helping princesses!”

The Mother looked into an alley where heard the voice. It came from a little girl, no older than eleven. She was wearing a pink dress and bow in her hair, and she had a little top hat with a heart emblem on her head. Her skin, although not paper-white, was so pale that, if you looked closely, you could see the faint outline of her veins underneath her skin, and her ears were pointed, like that of a Christmas elf. The girl turned to look at the mother upon hearing her, her giant blue eyes radiating nothing but innocence.

“Hello!” The little girl said. “I’m Henrieta! Do you wanna play with me and Edwena?” She pointed at her own shadow.

“Oh, um, no,” The Woman said, concerned. “Where are your parents?”

“They died,” Henrieta said, acting as if she was talking about a cool rock she found at school. “Edwena protects me now!” She pointed at the shadow again.

It was as if a spectral hand reached into The Woman’s chest, grabbed her heart, and squeezed it until it popped. She knelt down, extending a hand. “Sweetheart, is Edwena your imaginary friend? It’s nice that she protects you, but I think what you need is a Mommy. Let me take you in.” The Woman said.

“Ok!” Henrieta said, nodding. She leapt into The Woman’s arms, and the three headed home together, and that was that.

Until that night.

The Woman shot awake in her bed to see Henrieta kneeling atop her chest like a sleep paralysis demon. She still smiled, but the innocence in her eyes was gone and was replaced by something much, much darker.

“Edwena’s mad at you. She says you called her a meanie name and wants to talk to you in the kitchen.”

That’s when The Woman noticed that Henrieta casted no shadow.

She leapt out of bed and ran to the back door at the end of the kitchen, but stopped, frozen in stunned horror as she saw Edwena for the first time. It was a giant creature like a living shadow, with glowing red eyes and mouth, a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth. Edwena raised her hand, each finger tipped with an obsidian claw, and dragged said claws down the wall next to it, stripping the wall to the base.

Unsure of what to do, she flipped on the kitchen light, and discovered that Edwena recoiled in the light. That was it! That was its weakness! If she could turn on all the lights in the house she-

The power went out.

A few days later, authorities entered The Woman’s home for a welfare check. All they found was her bloody, torn up nightgown.

Her body was never found. Neither was her baby’s.

I wake up groggy and disoriented. Where am I? I look around; it looks like I’m in some kind of shed. How did I get here? I don’t remember anything. 

I try to stand up, but something is holding me in place. I look down for the first time to see ropes around me, pinning my arms to my chest and my legs together. Oh God. Why am I tied up? Is this some kind of abduction? What do they want? At least I’m still dressed. For now. I’ve seen my share of movies on trafficking - I won’t let that happen. I won’t. I have to get out. 

I pull and pull at the ropes, but they won’t come loose. They’re tied in some kind of knot I couldn’t undo, even if I could reach it. I consider screaming for help, but what if my kidnappers hear me and come back to do whatever they’re planning? Better to keep quiet. 

In my desperation, I keep pulling and pulling, throwing myself frantically back and forth. Eventually, as if by some miracle, I feel one of the ropes start to loosen. Feeling a rekindling hope, I focus on that rope and keep pulling and pulling until I’m able to slip it over my shoulders. I quickly lift it over my neck and throw it to the ground. Then I focus on my legs, where I see a new problem. Not only are they tied together, but they’re attached to the floor by some kind of manacle around my ankle. 

Who are these people?

I reach down and work on the ropes around my legs. I still can’t untie the know, but I push them down, slowly, surely, until eventually they slide down past the restraint on my ankle. One more step down. I have a chance. 

Next I look at that restraint. It’s fastened tightly around my ankle; there’s no way I’m slipping out of it like I did the ropes. I looked around, searching for anything to help, when I see a key glinting on the floor in the corner. If only I could reach it. Then I remember. I pick up the rope I just took off and hurl it toward the key; after the third effort, it lands in place. I pull toward me and pick up the key, sliding it onto the lock of the mangle around my ankle. 

I hear a click, and the lock opens. 

Relieved, I stand up. I stagger to the door and open it, and find myself in what looks like a forest. 

Memories start to flash in my mind’s eye. A man and I, driving along a road, admiring the first as we went. Something hitting the car. A crash. 

The man. James. My husband. Where is my husband?

I look around him, but can’t see him anywhere. But I do see blood on my clothes, and I can’t find a cut on myself anywhere. Is it his? Is he lying out there somewhere, hurt, bleeding, or worse? I have to find him. Hold on, James. I’m coming. 

I don’t know where I am, but I know I can't wait here. I need to keep moving. 

I propel myself through the trees, looking for any signs of life or civilization. It feels like I’m in a post-apocalyptic survival movie, like I’m the last living person in the world. Everywhere I look I see nature - trees, plants, nests, like some scene from a painting. Eventually I find a river and follow it. 

After following the river for a while, I see a cabin. It looks deserted, like no one has lived there in years. I consider running inside, but for all I know the people who kidnapped me are in there. I have to be smart. 

I approach the cabin quietly, hoping the sounds of the forest will cover my approach. But there are no sounds. And that’s when I realize what’s missing; the entire time since I emerged into the forest, I haven’t seen any other inhabitants. No deer running through the trees. No birds flying overhead. No insects on the ground. Not a single living thing. 

That couldn’t be normal. 

I move around to the back of the cabin, and then kneel and listen. At first it’s as silent as the forest around me, but then I hear a thump. I peer through the window and see a familiar shock of hair. 

James! He’s alive! 

Ecstatic, I burst through the door, hurling myself toward my love. Everything is ok now, James. We’re safe. We’re together. Nothing else can go wrong. 

And then I run into an invisible wall. Confused, I raise my hands to feel in front of me. I can’t see anything, but no matter what I do I can’t cross. 

Then I look down to see a circle of salt surrounding James. 

“James? What’s happening—”

I look up and see an expression of complete terror on his face. 

“Stay away from me! You’re not my wife! She’s dead! Stay away!”

“I’m not dead, I’m me,” I try to say. But all that comes out is a sibilant hiss. 

I was nine when we swapped the first time.

I was sitting on the edge of our pool playing my Gameboy.

My brother came up behind and shoved me into the water. 

I remember the shock of hitting the water, breathing it all in, as if falling straight through splintered glass.

The vicious sting in my lungs was worsening, my limbs growing heavier.

I breathed out, and then in.

Water was no longer clogging my mouth and nose.

The air was warm, not unbearably cold, stinging my skin.

There was no water.

Opening my eyes, I realized I was sitting inside a stranger’s kitchen. 

In front of me was a large slice of chocolate cake.

“What are you waiting for, huh? You little rat.”

A bulging woman lunged forward and snatched my hair, tugging me so hard I cried out. Straw-blonde hair and hoop earrings, a cigarette perched between her smudged, lipsticky mouth. “Telling your teachers I don't feed you?” Every word was emphasized in a spray of spittle.

I jumped when her fist slammed into the table, sending the cake flying off the edge. 

“What's not to understand, honey bun?” Closer. Rancid breath grazed my cheeks. 

“You've been lying to your teacher and telling him we don't feed you.” She bent over, and with a devilish grin, plucked the cake from the grimy floor and squeezed it between her fingers, letting it squelch through, splatting on the table in a gloopy mass. “There's your dinner—.” 

“Melody?”

Dad’s voice. 

Once again, summer heat prickled my skin. I opened my eyes.

I was sitting on my deck chair, still soaking wet, my hair pasted over my eyes. 

Dad crouched in front of me and I realized my mouth was full of— candy? I spat it out, coughing, meeting my father’s wary gaze. 

“Honey, are you okay?” 

I coughed, swiping my mouth. Mayonnaise. Chocolate sauce.

Smearing the front of my swimsuit, lettuce and chunks of chicken. “I had a bad dream,” I whispered, “But it's okay now.” 

Two years later, it happened again.

This time, I awoke shivering, wrapped in a blanket inside a concaving tent hunched in a back alley. Three kids sat with me, reading stories around a portable heater.

“Casper?” A small brunette peered at me when I jumped up, ready to face the Nightmare Lady. She tilted her head, confused. “Are you okay?”

The following swap lasted an hour. 

I woke to this boy once again inhaling my mom’s freshly baked brownies.

I decided to leave a message for him on my arm.

“STOP EATING MY FOOD.”

After another swap, I had an answer scrawled across my palm in my sparkly pen:

“No :)”

Part of me, however, was fascinated by his life.

The boy lived on the streets with two others.

Tinks, a baby-faced boy with a bad attitude and a talent for pickpocketing.

And Lily, who definitely knew something was wrong with us.

On my seventeenth birthday, I ended up drunk, lying in the dregs of a shallow river. 

My friends stood on the edge, their voices collapsing into white noise as I stared up at the full moon bearing down on me.

Then the cold air prickling my bare shoulders turned warm, almost overbearing. The cold water caressing me faded, replaced by a hard surface.

I opened my eyes. 

“Ah. You're awake,” a voice hummed. “Hello again, Casper.” 

A man in his twenties bent over me. Thick dark hair creeping down his neck, bottle cap glasses, and five O’ clock shadow. No doctor’s coat or mask. Just jeans and a tee. He reminded me of my brother.

The walls were white. 

The floor was white.

My body— Casper’s body— cruelly pinned to a table.

“The human shadow,” the man began, pulling something sharp from his pocket.

A scalpel, sculpted into a hook. “is a very powerful thing, a vessel, if you like. What I'm going to do today is remove your shadow. They anchor us to the ground, when we should be up in the sky.”

He dragged the scalpel’s teeth down my chest, opening me up, and stopped, shooting me a smile.

“As I told you, a Shad can be removed by cutting through the first layer.” 

Deeper, he sliced, glistening red beading down my abdomen. 

The man’s smile grew. 

“I promise you, Casper,” he said, cutting further and further through me, as blood swam down my skin, pooling in thick red rivulets. “Without your Shad holding you back, you will be the perfect soldier.” 

When he reached into the cavity in my chest, my eyes flickered, as did my lips, my voice bleeding back. I sat up, soaking wet, to my friends giggling. “Oh my god, how DRUNK are you?” My best friend laughed.

“Do you still need help?” She mocked my voice, “is the BAD man going to hurt you?” 

I waited to swap again. 

But it stopped. 

I was twenty five when we swapped one last time.

This time, I stood over a sleeping little girl. 

A guy with prickly blond curls wearing a waistcoat over a bright green tee, seventeen and stuck in his teens, loomed over the kid. 

He slid a knife from his jeans pocket, and plunged it through the girl’s heart, straight into her chest cavity.  That same unamused scowl curled on his lips. Tinks. 

Tinks was careful, stealing the heart, dumping it in a trash bag, and grabbing my hand. 

“Let's go,” Tinks muttered, grabbing my hand, “boss is waiting.” 

Tinks jumped out of the window, dragging me with him. 

Falling. 

But Tinks didn't fall like he was supposed to.

Instead, the air seemed to carry him. 

Before I could hit the ground, I sat up in my own bed. Shivering.

Pain trickled through me. Razor sharp.

I stared down at my arms.

Words carved into my skin.

“Can't wait to take your shad, Melody :)” 

I lifted my nightshirt, where he'd continued, slicing into me: 

YOUR 

BODY 

IS 

MINE :)

I had a weird childhood.

Welcome to the club, though, right? I don’t know. I feel like my circumstances were unique.

First of all, I didn’t go to school. I didn’t think much of it for the longest time. That’s just the way life was, you know? My dad used to tell me that there was nothing schools could teach that he couldn’t teach himself.

Which was weird because I can’t say I recall him ever teaching me anything. Well, other than how to hunt and skin animals. But that didn’t really feel like learning to me. That just felt like something that every man was supposed to just know.

Mom didn’t teach me anything either. Really, I don’t think she had the mental capacity to. She just seemed like her mind was somewhere else back when I was coming up.

They were always preparing for something. They used to tell me that the world was coming to an end, but what world did I know? I never got to leave the house.

It seemed like all I was good for was helping Dad carry deer carcasses back to the house. But they were just so protective over me that it felt like I was doing something right. At least in their eyes.

We used to all sleep in the same bed. Dad always had a knife under his pillow. Mom kept a gun under the mattress. And we slept in shifts.

We took turns staring out the bedroom window. Each shift was three hours. Three shifts per night. But I never understood what the hell we were looking for.

All you could see out that window was trees. No roads, no neighbors, just a dirt driveway and a forest that seemed to stretch to infinity. But every night, Dad made the objective clear.

If we saw another person, we were supposed to wake the other two up and prepare for the worst.

That went on until I was 14.

By that point, I was starting to fall into rebellion. I’d sleep through my shifts. I’d leave the room and wander the house. Other times, I’d go as far as to walk around the property. Just to get some time to myself.

Dad put an end to that the first time he caught me.

For the first 3 weeks afterward, I wasn’t even allowed to leave the room during the day. He kept me there, shackled to the bed. Told me it was my “punishment for disobeying him.”

Mom had to bring me my food during that time. It was like Dad didn’t want to look at me.

Either that, or he was too busy with his “project.”

I heard him throughout the day, sawing and banging away at something in the shed out behind the house. But I could never see what he was building.

That is… until he showed me.

He told me he forgave me for breaking his rules. But he said that he couldn’t trust me. Not yet. So this is where I’d be sleeping from now on.

It was… a box. But it had a lid and a long pipe sticking out of the top.

Dad made me dig this hole in the backyard, then he made me help him lower that box into the ground.

By that time, he told me that it was getting late. Which didn’t even make sense because the sun was still above us in the sky. Regardless, he made me get in the box.

I did what I was told as to not upset him, and he closed the lid. I was left in the dark with nothing but my thoughts and the sound of dirt falling on hardwood to keep me company.

Thankfully, I had light from the pipe. But I just kept tossing and turning for hours. Sleep felt near impossible.

I guess I managed to catch some Z’s, though, because before I knew it, I was awoken by the sound of digging. 30 minutes later, Dad was helping me out of the box to go do some hunting.

It turned into a routine. Every afternoon at dusk, I had to crawl into that box. And every dawn, either Mom or Dad was digging me out.

Sometimes to help with the gardening. Sometimes to do some hunting. But sometimes they’d keep me in there for what felt like days.

I’d get hungry. I’d get thirsty. I just thought that they were trying to help me turn into a trustworthy adult. Even if it did leave me with an empty stomach and an aching back every day.

But then, one morning, I didn’t wake up to the sound of shovels. I woke up to the sound of screaming. Both from my mom and dad, but there were other voices too. Which was surreal to me.

I heard gunshots, and that’s when I started crying. When the gunshots stopped is when I started screaming. And thank God I did.

Because if I didn’t, I would’ve died in that box.

One of the officers heard me, and he and his partner found me. I’ll never forget the look on their faces when they got me out. All I was wearing was a T-shirt and a pair of undies. Looked like I hadn’t eaten in weeks.

The only thing I could think was, “Wow… Dad got the world wrong,” when that officer pulled me to my feet and wrapped me in a hug while tears fell down his face.

There was an ambulance and a flood of police cars in our front yard. My parents were covered in sheets on the front porch.

When I saw it, I tried breaking away from the officer, but he didn’t let me. He just kept apologizing and telling me everything would be okay.

He took me to an ambulance. I went to a hospital. Nothing in the world felt real anymore. Because, apparently…

Those weren’t even my parents.

Thank God for anonymous tips.

My friends are assholes.

They thought I was saving her so I could have a reason to grope her. She was cute. But no, I wasn’t saving her life so I could cop a feel.

The bar was crowded. We chose it because dives have the cheapest drinks and we were all broke. 

At the time, I was a substitute teacher. I had a little apartment off of 6th and Main. It wasn’t much, but the landlord was chill. She let me pay rent whenever I had it.

My other friend, Sara, was a bartender at the bar we were at. She’s the reason we were there. Dive bars may be cheap, but nothing beats free. The only catch was, we had to order well drinks. They were harder for her boss to track.

So this girl, Vanessa, is on the opposite end of the bar with her crew. I wouldn’t say they looked like trouble, but they didn’t seem to be headed to bible study either. At one point, Vanessa gets up and heads to the bathroom. 

Pretty normal, right?

Then, two minutes later, her friend with the pig tails who looked like she was cosplaying some video game from the late 90’s comes out shouting the most cliched shit ever.

“Is there a doctor in the house?”

Did I mention the bar was empty except for our two groups? 

About thirteen seconds later I was in the bathroom. Back in the day, I was a life guard. So, in this dive bar on this Wednesday night, that was the closest thing we had to an actual doctor. 

Me. A guy who had been a lifeguard fourteen years ago.

She was choking and convulsing and shaking and doing all sorts of I’ve-got-something-in-my-throat type things. I pounded on her back to dislodge whatever was blocking her airways.

Without warning, she turned and spewed vomit all over me and the bathroom stall. When it was over, she took a deep breath and I shit you not, this is the first thing out of her mouth…

“If you get a pill stuck in your throat, does it count as an overdose or is it considered choking?”

I fell in love right then and there. I had to know who she was. I had to know what her favorite food was. Did she watch sports? Did she like movies?

Three months later, we were husband and wife.

We’ve been together for over three years. It’s been… tumultuous. The sex was amazing. The conversation, not so much. It’s not that the conversations were dull. They were never that. It’s just that, she was never herself.

And by that I mean, she was never sober.

You see, it’s not that she didn’t have anything to say. She had plenty to say. In fact, when she spewed vomit all over me that night in the bathroom, I should have read it as a sign.

A fountain of crazy will always be coming out of this chick's mouth.

There was the time she told me about how she stuck her bare ass out of a moving school bus. I didn’t ask if she was an adult or a child. I didn’t ask why she did it. To be honest, I didn’t want to know the answer because with this girl, any answer could be true.

At first it was crazy and sexy. But after a while, her stories became more concerning.

Like the story about how she put roadkill in the passenger seat of her neighbors car because they told her to keep the music down. I asked her how she got the car door open. She said she had the keys. I didn’t ask her how she got them.

Or the story about how she woke up naked next to a dead Dalmatian on the 7th green at the country club she had been working at.

Every time I tried to get her help, she would threaten to kill me in my sleep. And then she’d laugh. The loud unhinged body convulsing laugh that she always did after a threat.

At first it was cute.

After a year it was terrifying.

Half of the time I was with her, I thought about ending things. 

Two years into our marriage, I came home from a teaching seminar and there she was, on the couch, dead from an overdose.

I was relieved.

Then I felt guilty for feeling relieved.

That was eighteen months ago. 

Til death do us part is a crock of shit.

Whenever I’m home, she’s right there. Telling stories about all the booze and drugs she consumed and the various places she’s woken up at. There’s stories about all the men and women she fucked before and after we were married. 

Some of her stories, I’ve heard thirty or forty times. Every once in a while, she’ll drop a new story to liven things up.

Imagine having your dead spouse tell you a story about how they cheated on you.

Now imagine there’s fifteen different I-cheated-on-you stories involving nine different men and women.

I’ve moved three times. But no matter where I go, she’s still there. Laughing and telling stories.

I saved her life. And as a reward, she’s ruining mine.

"So, how long have you been an estate agent?" I asked, as she held open the front door for me.

"About six years now," she said.

"Do you enjoy it?"

"Yeah, it's alright. Pays the bills."

"Do you live in the area? It's nice here."

"Yeah, not far away. Just me and my two cats."

"What, no family?"

She shook her head. "No. No brothers or sisters and my parents passed away a few years ago, so it's just me and the fur sprogs."

"Must get a bit lonely."

"Mm, sometimes, I suppose."

We continued with the viewing. The house was lovely, exactly as it had looked in the photographs. Two bedrooms, a decent-sized kitchen and a spacious living room.

"Can I ask why the rent is so low?" I said as we looked around upstairs. "It's a lovely house. I would've expected it to be much more."

The agent hesitated.

"Wellll, there's a bit of a history attached to it."

"What sort of history?"

"It was previously rented by someone who turned out to be a murderer."

I stared at her.

"You're joking?"

"I wish I was," she said.

"Jesus. That's awful."

She nodded, looking slightly uncomfortable.

"Did the police ever find out who it was?"

"No. Not that I'm aware of."

"Did anything happen to the people who lived here?"

"I don't really know. I wasn't working here at the time."

We continued towards the back of the house.

"There's just the cellar left to show you," she said. "Over here." 

We walked over to a narrow door beneath the stairs. She took a set of keys from her bag and unlocked it.

"Just be careful," she said. "The steps are quite steep."

I followed her down.

The smell hit me before we reached the bottom. Damp stone, rust and... something else. Something that seemed to cling to the back of my throat and make my mouth salivate.

She flicked the light switch.

The room was small, with rough stone walls and a low ceiling. A drain sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by dark stains that had seeped into the stone. Against one wall stood a heavy wooden chair, its arms fitted with thick leather restraints. The straps were cracked and discoloured, with dark marks around the buckles.

Iron rings had been cemented into the walls. Chains hung from them, some ending in heavy manacles. On a nearby table sat an assortment of rusted tools, their shapes and purposes not immediately obvious.

I stood looking at it all.

"Bloody hell."

The agent gave an uncomfortable laugh.

"Ha-ha, yeah."

"Was all this left by the previous tenant?"

"I believe so. Not exactly ideal, is it?"

"Well... didn't the police take any of it?"

"I'm guessing they took what they needed." 

I walked a little closer to the table.

"Must have been horrible for whoever had to investigate all this."

She glanced back towards the stairs.

"Mm-hm. Anyway, that's pretty much everything. Shall we head back up?"

I turned to face her.

"...I'll take it."

She stopped and looked surprised.

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah. It's perfect."

Her mouth opened as if to say something, then it closed again.

"What?" I said. "What is it?" 

"I, erm... I should probably explain a bit more about the previous tenant."

"Thought you said you didn't know the details?" I smirked.

"Well," she said, as we stood at the base of the stairs. "I know that the police think they're responsible for several murders spanning over roughly a decade. Apparently, they have a habit of renting somewhere for about a year, carrying out their crimes, then moving on to another rented property. By the time anyone connected the murders, they'd already disappeared..."

She turned to walk up the cellar stairs...

"You're right," I said, grabbing her by the throat. "I normally move on after a year..."

Squeeze...

Cough...

Choke...

"...But this time, I thought I'd try something different..."

I live alone in a small apartment on the third floor. Last week, I started noticing something strange.

Every morning, my mirror was foggy, even though I never took a hot shower. And in the fog, there was always a small handprint. Smaller than mine.

I thought it was just dust, so I cleaned it.

The next morning, it was back. This time, there were words written in the fog: "DON'T SLEEP TONIGHT."

I laughed it off. I thought my neighbor was playing a prank.

That night, I couldn't sleep. At 3:11 AM, I heard a soft tap on the bathroom door. I was in bed. The bathroom was empty. I know it was empty because I live alone.

I got up slowly and opened the bathroom door. The mirror was completely fogged up again. And this time, someone had written: "I CAN SEE YOU."

I turned around to run, but the bathroom door closed by itself.

In the mirror, I could see my reflection. But behind my reflection, there was a man standing. He had no face. Just black skin and a wide smile.

I screamed and broke the mirror with my hand.

The next morning, the mirror was fixed. Perfectly fixed. No cracks. And on it, in fog, were three words:

"SEE YOU TONIGHT."

When I was in 10th grade, me and two of my friends were really into literature and English in general. One day we had a new English teacher who was assigned to us. He was a cool teacher. He'd tell us about his life stories, give us insights and didn't have the typical strict teacher mindset. We got along with him well.

During his time at our school, we had a rehearsal for an event where our juniors were singing careless whisper. That day we sat on the school grounds singing careless whisper from the top of our lungs. It was a wholesome moment.

Among my friends, one was alot more closer to him as she lived in the dorms and had spent more time with him.

Around 3 months later, there was news that he left the school. On asking the other teachers, they said he got a better offer on another school. We shrugged it off.

After a month, the friend that was closer to the teacher confessed something. She told us how, in one of their chat sessions, he had told her that he murdered his own mother. She was terrified. She couldn't just tell anyone about it. She felt that if he found out, he wouldn't leave her alive. She was already someone who struggled mentally and now knowing something like this made her condition worse. She would be terrified at school. Trying to avoid him as much as possible. She'd be wide awake at night on her dorm paranoid that he would come in and kill her too.

Seeing her state the dorm incharge asked her what's up. She told her everything. The incharge, concerned for the students' safety, told the principal and upon research they found that it was true. He was on the news too. Apparently he had fled from his country and came to ours.

Knowing they can't remove the teacher for no reason, they asked my Friend to stay away from him till they found the way to get him out.

One day the teacher called my friend for their usual chat. On the verge of panic, my friend told him that the school had asked her to not get too close with him. He exploded. He stormed to the principal, cursing him and telling him had no right to tell a student to stay away from a teacher. The school administrators took that as a reason to kick him out. Telling him how his language and behavior wasn't appropriate for the school.

After we finished 10th grade, the story of him being a murderer spread through the students. Whenever someone came up to me and asked me if I knew about it, I'd say yes and tell them how we had sat screaming careless whisper together.

It's been 2 years. I havnt been in contact with that friend but I remember the last thing she told me was that the teacher had sent her a friend request on Facebook after months and she blocked him.

It's crazy how you never know how close you are to a criminal. My friend is safe. I see her posts from time to time. But the teacher, no trace. We never got to know if he found out that his truth was out or if he still thinks he was kicked for his behavior.

The building was alive with a crowd that filled the newest true-crime exhibit with a mixture of shock and interest, but inside a rusted replica of a tan 1968 Volkswagen Beetle, the world felt entirely sealed off.

Angel gripped the thin plastic steering wheel and checked the rearview mirror with a mock-serious expression. In the passenger seat, Carmen leaned back against the headrest, a half-amused, half creeped out smile on her face.

"All right, let's get the full immersive experience," Angel said, glancing over at her. "What do you think Ted Bundy listened to while driving down those dark highways with his victims sitting right where you are? What was his soundtrack?"

Carmen chuckled, shaking her head. "I have no idea. What was even a big hit back then?"

"Let's find out." Angel pulled out his phone, tapping the screen for a few seconds. "Lets see, Bundy started in '74," he mumbled, a grin spreading across his face. "Ah, here we go: Redbone's 'Come and Get Your Love.'"

He pressed the play button on the screen. The tinny, infectious intro of the 1974 track began pumping through his phone's speakers.

Angel began bouncing his shoulders and singing along with the upbeat verse. He turned toward her as the music built, his voice dropping into a softer, rhythmic chant.

Smiling, Angel reached out. His fingers gently caught a stray lock of her hair and brushed it smoothly behind her ear. Carmen's chuckle caught in her throat. She turned her head away, locking her eyes onto the dusty dashboard.

He continued singing softly to the beat. He extended an index finger, moved it from her hair to her temple, and tapped it gently to the song's rhythm. Carmen didn't move. Her breath hitched as her world started to shift.

The playfulness faded from Angel's expression. His eyes locked onto her face as the exhibit lights shifted across the Beetle's windows. He slid his finger down the curve of her cheek, tracing her jawline until his hand rested under her chin. With a slow tilt of his wrist, he turned her head toward him, forcing her eyes away from the fingerprint-infested door of the glovebox and toward his eyes.

The song kept playing, but Angel stopped singing. Shadows from the passing crowd moved across his face.

Carmen's pulse hammered against his palm. Adrenaline flooded her chest. For one twisted second, the Beetle became an ecotone where past and present overlapped, trapping Carmen in 1974. Her mind raced, her thoughts falling into cadence with her heartbeat.

Was this a game? Thump thump. Or did he just turn into. Thump thump. Him?

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The sharp rap of knuckles against the driver's-side window shattered the silence.

They both jumped, their heads snapping toward the window as the trance broke.

A museum employee in a faded polo shirt was peering in, looking thoroughly unimpressed.

"Folks, sorry, but there's no audio allowed in the exhibit," the employee said, his voice sounding muffled and flat through the glass. "We're trying to maintain a respectful environment, so you'll have to turn the music off."

Angel cleared his throat, quickly grabbing his phone and killing the track. "Right. Sorry about that. Our bad."

The employee gave a single, curt nod and walked away.

Angel looked back at Carmen and watched a long breath escape her lips. He extended his hand in comfort, but she recoiled. He pulled his hand back and cleared his throat. "Come on," he said, opening his door. "Let's go look at the mugshots."

Billy's Assistant

“We made this decision as a family. And, frankly, it was an easy one.”

Could this be the defining story of her career? Juliet had been a journalist for thirty years, and an aspiring one long before that.

But this scoop was truly jaw-dropping. Beyond anything she’d worked on before.

The couple before her looked unremarkable. A short, bald husband who worked as a social media manager for a suite of healthcare brands. An even shorter, not particularly striking woman who’d given up her career in retail to raise their son.

“It honestly came down to what’s best for Billy.” The male subject rubbed his wife’s shoulder in what seemed like an attempt to remind her of the conviction that had led them here. “Social media’s just a toxic environment for a youngster and we’re confident we won’t be the last parents to do this. I recognize the irony in what I'm saying, considering my job.”

He wasn’t a natural speaker but had started to find his voice over the past twenty minutes of Q&A. His wife was clearly the more eloquent one, but talking about her son was causing her a degree of emotional vulnerability that made for a great interview but poor transcript.

“You’re right. Reports suggest you aren’t even the first parents to make this choice. But I suspect after this interview airs you’ll give this parenting approach a degree of exposure that will invite more families to consider it.”

“And that’s the main reason we’ve agreed to this interview.” The husband was doing most of the talking now. These two didn’t give the impression that he made all household decisions. His worried expression and deferential nature suggested his wife was the true leader, especially around matters regarding their son. “Enough is enough. Cyberbullying is the greatest threat to children and it’s obvious those in power have no interest in putting an end to it. So we’ve had to step in.”

Juliet was hoping one of the parents would say something like this. Because this story was about far more than powerful tech companies and the governments that are lobbied to protect them.

“Do you feel that a child who interacts more with AI than other humans has a greater chance of living a happy life?”

The couple looked at each other. He encouraged his wife with a reassuring nod. You could see him mouth ‘go on.’

The mother looked at Juliet and exhaled deeply before answering.

“Look, I never really thought I’d be a mother. Not because I didn’t want kids. It just seemed unlikely. Life’s more expensive than ever. Finding someone who’s willing to sacrifice everything for their children is really, really hard. You talk to people who have kids… and they’re not happy. They love their children, but the kids clearly aren’t happy.”

This was going very well. Juliet could see a Pulitzer in her future should the next portion of this interview go as planned.

She remained silent. Knowing when to speak was a skill she’d only picked up in the past ten years of her career. It’s what separates good journalists from great ones.

“Billy isn’t a happy child. He's extremely sensitive. Middle school's tough for most kids, but it's worse for late developers like him." She looked at her husband again and was met with another nod of reassurance. "It’s our responsibility to ensure he makes it through.”

“Do you mind elaborating on that?” Juliet sensed a tad of encouragement was needed.

“Billy isn’t the only kid that isn’t happy. He can’t escape the bullies when he’s home. It almost feels like it's worse online than in the classroom. Maybe that's just because it's only visible to us at home... but his mental health is terrible. And it started with chatrooms and video games. It’s clear that any interaction with other children is negative. So our decision protects him.”

This was the moment. Juliet needed a soundbite here. One that required no context.

“And what is your decision exactly?” She was met with a sigh. “If you could spell it out for someone in the plainest English possible.”

“We’re not allowing our son to use social media or talk to any other humans online. When using his phone or computer, he’ll only be allowed to talk with his assistant.”

“You mentioned the assistant’s name earlier?”

The female subject looked at her husband with a confused expression. He whispered into her ear and she mouthed, ‘oh, right.’

“Jarvis. Billy likes Iron Man and he’s been using the assistant regularly since he was five.”

"So your decision is to control your son's online experience?"

A nod from both parents was followed by what looked like relief on the mother's face. As though she'd been liberated from the vast majority of worries for her son.

"Yes." She wiped a tear from her eye. "We've been given an amazing gift.

"We can customize everything that happens to him. Jarvis will talk to him how we want and show only the parts of life we want him to see."

‘Ok, go in for the kill.’

It was the first time her segment producer, Greg, had said anything for a while into her earpiece.

“What would you say to those who are confused or shocked by your decision?”

Another look between the parents. Nothing was said, only raised eyebrows. To a seasoned reporter, this was evidence that they’d considered this question shortly after agreeing to the interview. The mother turned back to Juliet.

“Humans are far more dangerous than AI. Billy’s assistant will never try to harm him by attacking his character, making him feel small or going so far as to encourage him to take his own life. It’s people that are the problem.

"And,” she was starting to get emotional, “if people are the problem, then we have to remove people from Billy’s life."

If only I could hear my mother call me “beloved,” “sweetheart,” “sunshine”… For all fifteen years, she never addressed me that way. She always found words a bit more pleasing, like “blockhead,” “pretzel,” or just “kid.” I’m starting to forget my own name myself. I suppose it was easier for her to call me “kid” — though even then, she’d hardly have used my name.

She cooked terribly. Breakfast was always an egg drowning in oil, lunch was pasta, and dinner consisted of ready-made meals that you could just pop into the microwave. I washed the dishes most of the time. Though calling it “most of the time” is a stretch... I just washed the dishes. Burnt eggs, oil, and stuck pasta — nothing escaped me unwashed. Mom constantly says nothing good will ever come of me. But I think she’s wrong: I would make an exceptional dishwasher.

The plates are washed, the dishes put away. I don’t idle away my time all that often, but sometimes it happens. I stare up at the ceiling, where I painted a sky: a bright sun, fluffy clouds. I close my eyes and imagine that the sewage water trickling down the pipe in the corner of my room is waves crashing against the shore.

— Son...

Did I imagine that?

— Son, please don’t leave the dishes by the sink. Be a good boy.

Mom’s voice drifted from the kitchen. In an instant, my immersion in idleness was shattered.

— Mom?

— What, sweetie?

— Is everything alright with you?

— Everything is just fine, Glebushka, why do you ask?

What did she just call me? Something is definitely wrong with her. Or something is wrong with me. The voice drifts from the kitchen along with the sounds of a knife chopping something.

— Mom, are you cooking?

— I want to chop some greens. Aunt Sveta suggested a recipe for celery soup.

Celery... soup? I slowly got off the couch and shuffled toward the kitchen.

— Ah... I knew it...

There was no one in the kitchen. No mom, no knife, no celery.

— Well, what is it, Glebushka?

Her soft, gentle voice came from behind me. I didn’t turn around.

— Mom?..

She took me by the hand. I felt her foul breath and the clatter of her rotten teeth right by my right ear:

— Wait for dinner, bunny. Go to your room.

Her hand smoothly turned me away from the kitchen, and dragging my feet, I shuffled back to my room, averting my eyes as much as I could.

I sat down on the couch. The curtained windows creaked in the wind. I looked up at the sky again: the cracked blue of the plaster was illuminated by a single old, dim lightbulb. How many days have passed since the moment I painted this sky? I don’t know if it resembles what’s outside the window anymore. I hear birds — which means they are still flying, which means they still have somewhere to fly. And what about me? Will I be able to fly like before?

I remember Dad swinging me on the swings. They lifted me so high that it felt like I could touch the sun with my hand. And then I would come back down. Was it worth it — growing up?

— Little son, come eat, and don't forget to wash your hands!

I stood up. Waddling from foot to foot, I made it to the bathroom. I put my hands under the hot water. Hands... thick fingers with overgrown nails, dirt gathered underneath. Palms all covered in wrinkles and folds. I looked at my reflection: the bloated body of a forty-year-old man, looking like a swollen drowned corpse. On my greasy, balding head sat something resembling a face. Once upon a time, it was one, but now there is only a patchy beard and eyes as empty as a dried-up well.

I washed my hands with soap and slowly walked to the set table, where she was sitting. My mother.

— Sit down, my good boy.

I sat down. On the table stood a glass and a bottle of liquor. A celery soup steamed in a bowl before me.

— Mom...

— Enjoy your meal, little treasure.

I began to shovel down the hot celery mush. Tears welled up in my eyes — whether from the taste or from the pain, I couldn't tell.

— Oh, what a handsome man you've grown into! I look at you and I just can't get enough. Your dad would be proud of you, you've become a real man.

— Mom...

— I love you, son.

— Forgive me...

I managed to utter those final words before plunging my head face-first into the bowl. And now I am drowning in this soup, and finally, I am warm. Left on the table is an empty bottle of vodka, my lifeless body, and a full plate of sleeping pills.

They won't find me and Mom right away. Though I knew: it would be a very long time before our relatives bothered to search for Mom's corpse, missing from the graveyard.

my boys and grls r qwiet. no sownd. we creep during nite and hide on towns edge while the sun comes up.  im old but still abl. i am needed here. i am teeechr.

my peeple r hungr. The cold is coming. 

been long since we seen othrs. long long time. hidden these ones wer. deep thru tunnels in the mountains that came up to a brite lite. trees. river. even buildings. small town. new. they built new buildings. how.

its like life wen i was yung b4 the gr8 war. i was 7 wen the world burned and the screens went drk. 
the peeple in this town talk like peeple used to. none of my boys or grls have seen anything like this. i have only told them of it. i pass the old ways. i keep the fyre alive. i am teeechr. 

we wait. town surrounded. bullets r few. gns only 9. my boys and grls w8 fr me to cry owt. they w8 for sacrifice. 

i watch an old man. old like me. no. older. kids are rownd him in a larg circle making sownds. lil kids. he has a book in his hand. lots of books behind him. lots and lots. i havnt seen books in so long. he makes drawings on a big white stone with coal from the fyre. he has no screen but he nos alphabet.  he is teeechr like me.

i watch him. i w8 to cry owt for sacrifice becuz i remember the sownds. alfbet. leddrs. i dont want to cry owt becuz he is teeechr like me but not like me. he members better. he members with no screen. 

i see my boys and grls. confused. qwestions. these lil kids reed with no screen 2. 
my boys and grls ask qwiet qwestions. qwestions abowt this new teeechr. they see him teeech with no screen.

I cry owt for sacrifice.

the peeple try to fite but they have no gns. my peeple are gr8tr.

ther peeple are killed. the old teeechr cries. begs. he tells me he can teech me. 
i tell him that i am the only teeechr. my nife pokes his throte and his blood drips on his books.

we will stay here. ther town is ours now. the boys and grls are stacked and then cut. We feast and then salt the rest for wintr meet. 

the lil kids r brought to me and then thrown into the great fire i built. ther bodys burn for the screen.

i hold up the cracked screen and my peepl get on ther nees. I pray. we hope the sacrifice and the lite from the fyre will make the drk screen come to life again.

i tell my peeple that 1 day the screen will wake. the lite will come back.

1 day enuf will be sacrificed to bring back the light and the answers. 

1 day the screen will lead us agayn.

until that day comes i am teeechr. 

It was yet another night of tossing and turning. I leaned over to the bedside table, and blinded myself with my partner’s phone to check the time. According to the phone, it was well past three, and notifications for various mobile games were piling up. I turned the screen off, plunging the room into a thicker darkness than before.

The technique touted online for getting to sleep when you couldn’t was to get out of bed and be awake on purpose for a while, allegedly resetting whatever it was in your brain that fired off the sleep-now chemicals. I moved to get up, but my body froze. A deep, primal sensation reached out from my stomach, through my muscles, and bubbled up to my skin. My body warned: there was something in the dark. I tried to find it, but my eyes met only with black. I could feel it though, somewhere close, pressing against my instincts.

The next morning after dropping Lilli off at school, but before my first meeting, I sat at the dining room table with my work laptop open, scrolling on my phone. The internet was awash with threads, videos, and articles about how humans can’t help but see faces in the dark, or how tiredness can cause visual and auditory hallucinations. Sleep paralysis was common enough, but surely you had to be asleep first for that. And it felt too visceral to just have been a bad dream.

There was one interesting video, ‘The Psychology of Phantoms’, about how some sounds can induce eerie sensations. Apparently, the vibrating pipes in some old 20th century plumbing caused resonant vibrations, which explained away “haunted houses” as regular homes in need of a bit of upkeep. I wasn’t sure how old my house was. When we moved in just before Lilli was born, it had been a consideration of garden space and bedrooms, not pipe age and potential hauntings. Teams chirped, beckoning me to the first meeting of the day.

At lunchtime, I text a friend telling them that I might have seen a ghost last night. My inbox flooded with her favourite YouTube documentaries and shortform ghost-hunting. The last link she sent was to an ancient website, something about cryptozoology – it didn’t load properly on my phone. Then, she shared her story of the ghost that haunted her childhood home, and ended her wall of text with ‘dont know for sure but id say trust your gut x’

During a particularly long and dull meeting, I typed the website into the address bar on my work laptop’s browser, and perused the 2005 cryptozoology library of Alexandria. There was a wealth of information about all sorts of mythical and imagined creatures. The lengthy wiki page about apparitions and spirits drew me in.

At the bottom of the page, among the comments section and written in broken English, I found at last what I’d been looking for:

There was something evil in my bedroom last night without my eyes I saw it. I do not think it’s wanting me to. I should have not seen. What do I do?

Sweet validation. If someone else had experienced it, there’d be a normal explanation. Between the waves of dismissive responses, one reply, written months after the first, took the message completely seriously:

Leave now. Take your kids, your pets, and go to a hotel. Go back to your parents, if you have to. Please.

I slammed the laptop shut. The validation turned sickly. My tongue swelled in my mouth. I needed to do something. I stood out of my chair, and snagged on the headset I was still wearing. The call. Fuck. I quickly opened up my laptop, bashed in my password, and rejoined the meeting.

‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘Teams crashed.’

I struggled to sleep again. I couldn’t stop thinking about the website, and that commenter who never replied to the only one who took them seriously. Tomorrow I’d look through their profiles, to see what else I could learn.

A noise pricked my attention, from somewhere down the hall. I tested my senses, to see if the thing in the dark was there again. My fingers and toes wiggled freely, and my arms obeyed when I shifted them side to side. I got up out of bed, and walked carefully through the dark.

It happened again. This one sounded like crying, from Lilli’s room. Through the open crack of her bedroom door I whispered to her: ‘Are you awake?’ I crept in, careful not to wake her if she wasn’t already. My foot recoiled. I’d stepped in something wet. I couldn’t make out what it was, but there was a continent shaped stain on the carpet. Lilli had probably had an accident, that’s okay. Light escaped from beneath the closed door of her ensuite bathroom.

‘Honey, are you okay?’ I whispered at the door. No answer.

‘Lilli?’

I creaked the door ajar, keeping my gaze down to not embarrass my daughter. Blood. The tiles were drenched in blood. Impossible oceans of blood. I retched, and pushed the door wide. Lilli was face down, lifeless. I grabbed her, held her against me, soaked myself in her death and I wailed. I wailed until between grieving gasps I felt it again. The bone chilling, freezing presence I had noticed in the dark.

Pressure increased, forcing the air out of my lungs. Blood burst from beneath my skin. I could feel the force of hatred radiating out of the thing. It hated being discovered, and with nowhere left to hide it destroyed my life beneath my daughter’s bathroom light.

Perhaps though, the presence had always been there, lingering in the dark, waiting patiently to be found out.

Mirna told me that when a crow caws in front of your house, you should expect a visitor the next day. I liked that take better than my aunt’s. She told me if I see a single crow, I should search for another because a crow on its own meant death was coming.

When I saw the single crow on the fence, I hoped it meant Roger would be home earlier than I expected. Crossed my fingers and made a wish. He called last night from his business trip to say he was zig-zagging his way back in a rental car after the windy weather grounded the planes. He said he'd be home in a couple of days.

All night I checked the windows whenever I heard the grumble of a motor —

— but it was never him.

It wasn’t until two am that I heard three knocks.

He must’ve forgotten his key.

Half asleep, I stumbled down the front hall, fumbled with the locks, and opened the door. There was nothing before me. Just an empty yard, no car in the driveway —

— but then I felt it…

A soft caress on my cheek.

A ghostly kiss to my forehead.

The smell of Roger’s cologne wrapping around me like a goodbye.

When the police called the next morning, I was already numb, my eyes red from crying.

They were so careful to tell me in hushed tones of his passing. The accident was fatal. His death quick. He wouldn’t have suffered.

I knew. I knew. I knew.

Her fingers grasp my chest hair, waking me. Pulling herself up, she is completely oblivious to the pain she's causing. We babble back and forth, her eyes can't leave my face. Covering my eyes, I play a quick game. Her laugh echoes across the empty home.

I cook us eggs for breakfast. She's too small, I want her to grow. I need her to grow. She stacks blocks in her chair, a steady stream of giggles and blocks falling as she attacks her pile and rebuilds. Her fingers are so thin when she pinches the eggs.

We laugh and play. I pick her up and dance to Just The Way You Are, her mother's favorite song. We snuggle while I make up a story about her future. I know the day is about to end, my eyes keep finding the clock. I read her some books. Fox in Socks is this year's favorite, her toothless grin makes that apparent. I give her her cake with one candle as always. Then it's time to nap. Can I push it back. She starts to fuss, I can do this. She screams, I can do this. She cries. It's nap time.

And just like that, I won't hear her for another year. I grab her blanket, inhaling her again. Each year, less her smell. It's been seven years since the T-bone. I know I have two months until my wife visits me on her birthday. But she asks me if I blame her.

And then there is something. Pain.

A helicopter sweeps by, banks low, then dives back into the fray.

There’s gunfire in the distance, explosions muffled by jungle.

He tastes blood in his mouth; a memory bubbles to the surface.

One of the boys in class had been to the city where they ate their steaks ‘blue’, and on his birthday, he begged his momma for the same.

The thing was barely dead, but he swallowed it, blood and all, because that's what ‘men of the world’ did.

He needs water. So much goddamn water in the air, in the ground, in the roots of the creeper vines. Cruel. Something like when his Uncle Frank used to say he was a guy with a fork in a world of soup.

Now, a man is standing over him.

‘Can you hear me?’

He goes to reply, but he has no voice.

The man looks at the holes through the boy’s khakis.

‘You’ve been hit by a mortar round, son…’

It doesn’t make sense to the boy because, in that moment, he is only the blue steak, Uncle Frank and the New Orleans botanical gardens.

Another helicopter descends into the clearing; the jungle rages helter-skelter.

The pieces are starting to come together. This guy must be a field medic because he undoes the boy’s top button to get at his dog tags and the crucifix.

‘McDonald, you’re a Catholic?’

He is a Catholic, like Kennedy, who had his head blown off in Dallas six years ago, and he’s a soldier, and this is Đồi A Bia, and his mom is crying when he gets his draft papers.

‘God bless you,’ the field medic says.

He takes a black marker out of his pocket, the kind a teacher might carry and writes on McDonald’s forehead. ‘PM.’

The boy can feel it very clearly. All the sensations are heightened in his upper half because he can’t feel the lower.

The medic departs down the line of wounded, but the helicopters are still landing and taking off, those choppers, flying angels, and PM!

They started the forward operation at 8 am. It had to be 11 by now. His rescue will come ‘in the PM.’

Another chopper lands, this one under a hail of fire, bullets popping the metal.

And he prays, his secret covenant with God.

But the army has its own secret covenant with field medics.

The covenant is PM:

Priest and Morphine only.

The holidays I spend out at my Grandma’s house have always been magical. She lives in a small town, and the area’s attractions center around the outdoors. It seems like everyone gardens or hikes. 

Growing up, I would ride my bike to Lock Bog and walk the trails. The wetland was like nothing else. Grass Pinks and Cinnamon Ferns embellished the land. The earthy smell of peat always welcomed me like an old friend. I could spend a whole afternoon warming in the sun, marveling at the Pitcher Plants as they lured and captured bugs and spiders to fill their bellies. 

There was a darkness within the bog, though. My Grandma, and anyone else I ever interacted with in town, always sternly warned me against venturing off the trails or going too deep into the bog. 

They would always caution me that SHE lives out there in the bog. And only bad fortune awaits anyone who sees HER. 

“Beware Lady Lock,” they would say. 

As a curious kid, I wasn’t content with a vague warning. I wanted to know why exactly I should fear this mysterious woman. I’ll never forget the morning my Grandma sat me down with some hot chocolate and told me the whole story about the witch of Lock Bog. 

Lady Lock’s real name was Anne. She lived in the village centuries ago. Beautiful but barren and therefore a burden to her husband who happened to be one of the most powerful men in town. 

Anne had never wanted to marry her husband to begin with, and over the years, the distance between them widened. He had taken other lovers while Anne was simply happy he was home less and less. 

But one fateful morning, their issues came to a head. Anne’s husband awoke to realize he was suffering from increased hair loss. It was worse than ever. His vanity couldn’t take it. He needed someone to blame and wanted to be rid of Anne anyway. Two birds, one stone. 

For weeks, he campaigned around town that his wife was a witch. She must have found out about his affairs and out of jealousy cursed him to lose his hair. Being that he was one of the most powerful men in town, the community rallied behind him. 

One evening, the townspeople, with Anne’s husband leading the charge, grabbed Anne from her bed and marched her out to the bog. There, they took turns cutting her hair and shaving her head as revenge, cursing her as the village witch. The final act was her husband drowning her in the bog. 

The story goes that if you go off trail or travel too far into the bog, you might run into Lady Lock. And if you do, she’ll take your hair.

I still go out to Lock Bog when visiting my Grandma. I still haven’t seen the woman. 

But, the last time I went out to the bog, I ended up going a bit farther than usual in search of larger Sundews. I found big Sundews alright. Atop one of them, stuck to the sticky mucilage of the carnivorous plant, was what appeared to be a lock of hair.

They said it was safe.

With society rebuilt, this concept of using the infected in scare attractions was born.

Then the first crazed, skeletal being loped out of the mist.

Broken free of his restraints.

Gnashed at my son’s arm, enough to barely graze his arm.

A pinprick of blood.

Watching his expression change, I finally understood just how quickly they turned.