It was early in autumn, leaves just starting to crisp and fall from their branches. I was visiting America for a well-earned holiday, driving past a dense forest on my way to the town I was supposed to visit. The sun was just starting to set, the sky coloured in warm swatches of yellows, oranges and pinks. I was about halfway through the road when my car decided to break down. And it happened in the middle of nowhere with no cell-service to call for help.

Great. Just great.

I pulled over and began looking under the hood of the car, trying to figure out what the problem was. Nothing looked wrong to me. The fuel tank was pretty much full, nothing was smoking or beeping, everything seemed to be in working order. I pulled the hood down and began to walk back to the main door when a strange sound caught my attention.

What the hell?

Loud sobs echoed out from somewhere in between the dense maze of trees. Human sobs. My eyebrows furrowed in concern, eyes scanning through the treeline. I couldn’t see anything. At least not anything that would cry like that. I looked between my car and the dark trees in front of me.

It wouldn’t hurt to look, right? Maybe someone’s injured or lost? I hesitated for another moment. Then I left, starting to follow the call of the cries deeper into the wilderness.

Eventually I reached a small clearing in the forest. A long fallen log was lying diagonally in the centre, grasses mushrooms and flowers swaying in the fading sunlight. But I wasn’t focused on any of that. Someone was sitting on the log with their head in their hands, body shaking as they sobbed.

“H-hello? Are you alright?” I hesitantly called out. They didn’t seem to notice me. “Hello?”

They turned to look up at me, and I flinched away in shock. Something about them didn’t seem...right. They were wearing a dirty white dress shirt, the collar and sleeves torn and ripped, and a pair of long black dress pants in a similar state of disrepair. A muted yellow tie hung from their neck, also worn with neglect. Their skin was an almost unhealthily pale shade, hair short, brown and tangled. Tears streamed from their eyes which were a blood-shot red. The oval shaped glasses they wore were cracked and rusted, hardly helping their tired looking appearance. They looked vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn’t figure out why.

“Uhm. Hi. Do you need help?” They looked up at me with a blank expression. “Can you understand me…?” They nodded. The forest was deathly silent, only the sound of my own shaky breathing breaking up the quiet surroundings.

“Should I just leave you be? I should just-”

“Rob!” Someone called out from the bushes. “That’s where you ran off to!” We both turned around to see someone stepping out casually from behind a tree, strolling out into the clearing with a smile on their face. They were dressed similarly to who I now knew was Rob, just with a blue tie instead of yellow. Their hair, a shade or two darker than Rob’s, was a tangled, greasy, mess and completely covered most of their face. Only their mouth and chin were visible. Tiny paper stars and heart were stuck haphazardly into the rats nest that was their hair, some falling out as they walked. They were familiar to me as well. And then it clicked.

“Oh, you’ve found a new friend! Hello there!” He waved at me. “I’m Zubin.”

Holy shit. Is that really…?

I had been a big fan of an old band called Tally Hall for quite some time now. Apparently they had gone “on hiatus” since a random day in 2010. The last thing they released was an incomplete vlog of them travelling to LA to find Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. It ended with the car breaking down in the middle of night in the middle of nowhere and a music video for Two Wuv, one of their songs. After that it had been radio silent. Not a peep. Not even their family members had heard from them.

One of their friends/honorary band members released an album they had been close to finishing for them in their absence. It was good, but it just reminded everyone of their mysterious disappearance. It had been over 15 years since then. Most people assumed they were dead. Could they really have been stuck in the same forest all this time? Surely someone would’ve found them by now…?

“Hey? Hello? Did I scare you?” I blinked out of my confusion and was met with Zubin standing up close to my face, tapping on my shoulder. I yelped and jumped away, shaking my head.

“Sorry I just zoned out. Your name is…?”

“Zubin, yeah.” He smiled again, backing up a little. “God it’s been so long since we’ve had someone new we could preform for. Come with me!” Before I could object my arm was grabbed by Zubin and I was hastily dragged through the trees, while Rob seemed to be following us slowly from behind.

Before I knew it I was standing in front of a house. It was decrepit to say the least. The white paint was peeling almost everywhere, mildew and mould clinging to every dank surface. It was at least two stories tall, a large ladder leaning against the garage and ending on the roof. Zubin wrenched open the door with a free hand and pulled me in. It was pitch black inside, but I could vaguely make out a few doors and cobwebs.

“Guys! Someone’s here to see us preform!” Zubin called out into the otherwise silent house before grabbing me by the wrist again and dragging me through a set of double doors. I found myself in a relatively large room that clearly used to be some kind of garage. It had been converted into a small studio of some kind, a raised stage-like platform sitting against the back wall. Zubin shoved me down into an old folding chair sitting in front of it.

“Stay here, the others will be here soon!” He explained with excitement. Then he dashed back out to go find his fellow band members, leaving me alone in the damp, musky room. Slowly but surely they all filtered in, going to stand up at their assigned spots on the stage. One of them sat beside me on another chair, clearly excited to see everyone else perform. I managed to recognise them as Bora. He wasn’t wearing the same thing as everyone else, wearing an orange shirt instead of the button-up collared ones. Bora turned and began excitedly speaking to me.

“Hi! I’m Bora, it’s nice to meet you! Are you excited for the performance?”

“Oh- uhm- yeah.” I forced a nervous smile onto my face. Bora kept chatting to me until every member was in place. He shushed himself, looking up to Zubin with awe.

“Thank you everyone for coming out tonight. We’re gonna play Two Wuv!” Bora clapped and cheered at that, and I awkwardly followed his lead. Zubin cleared his throat. “Okay guys, ready? One, two, three, four!”

“...and I think that it’d be totally cool if I hung around your apartments and enrolled in your school!”

The song had wound down, ending on a dramatic finish. The performance wasn’t exactly the best. Some of the members had missed their cues to start playing, others seemed a bit rusty. Regardless, it was kind of cool. Kind of. Bora was happily cheering, thanking Zubin when he hopped off the stage and handed him a paper heart. He turned and offered one to me.

“Oh- uh- No thanks. That was great, but I best be going. Don’t want to get my car stolen y’know?” I forced out a laugh and stood up, trying to shuffle back towards the door.

“But why would you wanna go? Don’t you wanna help us find Mary-Kate and Ashley?” Zubin gave the extra heart to Bora and casually started walking up to me.

“I-I guess so, but I need to go before it gets too dark out.” I began panicking and backing up even more. “Plus you guys seem to be the experts I-”

“No. No. You can’t go. We need to find them.” Suddenly, Zubin grabbed my wrists and yanked me forwards, keeping me locked in place. I tried to say something, anything. To plead with him to let me go. To beg for help from the others. To scream. But before anything could get out I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head, and I collapsed forwards onto the ground.

My memories of what exactly happened after that are fuzzy. But some things are clear.

The smell of charred and burning wood choking me out, the smoke swirling through my lungs.

Blood-soaked hands carrying me somewhere dark and damp.

Uncut and chipped fingernails digging into my shoulders as an unknown weight pins me to the ground.

Cold metal searing into my skin, burrowing into my stomach and slashing across my face.

The taste of fresh blood coating my mouth and sticking to every tooth and taste-bud.

The sound of someone cheering and pleading, calling out to people who won’t answer.

At some point I blacked out fully. That or I just can’t remember. But when I came to almost a day later I found myself sitting somewhere on the second floor of the decrepit old house. I was curled up on top of a beanbag, a pale blue blanket pooled around my waist. Someone happened to be sitting nearby, organising a small bag full of bandages and other first-aid items while humming a tune to themself.

A sudden sharp pain in my left eye and across my face made me wince and rush to clutch my head, loudly whimpering in pain. That seemed to make them notice me.

“Oh my god- you’re awake.”

They rushed to stand up and move towards me, sitting down beside the beanbag and giving me a worried once-over.

“Wh...what happened? Who are you?” I muttered, wearily looking over at them through parted fingers. I didn’t recognise them as a member of the band, but they still dressed in the same way. This time they wore a black tie and a matching black waistcoat, both of which were as dirty and stained as the others’ clothes. Their hair was long, black and oily, running down past their shoulders in rough waves. From what I could see their left eye was half shut, the sclera a dark bloody colour. Dark pink scars ran like cracks across their sickly-pale skin, and their right arm lied limp at their side, visibly bloody and mangled.

“I’m Casey.” He introduced himself with a nervous smile. A moment later his face dropped into an empathetic frown. “I-I’m sorry about all of this, I tried talking them out of it but they refused to listen and I-” “Out of what?” I replied with a feeling of unease. Casey just sighed and looked away.

“You...you died.”

What.

At that moment I felt like puking, but nothing came out. I sat there like a deer in headlights as he continued, a disgusting mix of disbelief and fear churning inside of me.

“You were knocked out by Andy- Andrew -and taken somewhere outside. I only got a glimpse of you but you seemed in-and-out of it, like, semi-conscious.” He began explaining. “I don’t know exactly what they did with you out there. I did hear a lot of yelling and cheering, but they came back a few hours later carrying you and looking pretty disappointed, someone said something about a ritual? By then you had...you weren’t breathing.” He took a deep breath and continued. “They dumped you in here. Somehow I didn’t notice that you were- uhm, dead -so I tried doing what I could to patch up your wounds.” Casey gestured at the various injuries now covering my body, some deep cuts stitched up, some still left open and festering. “I only realised afterwards. I was going to take you outside and bury you but you started moving and I...I couldn’t.”

It was a struggle to get any words out after what I had heard, but I somehow managed to squeak out “Are you…?”

“Yeah, they did it all to me too. Probably years ago by now, I can’t keep track of time anymore. I was just trying to help them leave but they chased me and I-”

“I-Is...is there any way I could leave?” At that he winced.

“I’ve tried to leave, what? 200 times? Every time they either find me or I faint or something else happens and I find myself being dragged through the dirt back here. Even then I don’t think society would accept an undead person walking around like nothing happened.”

Tears began running down my face like water out of a leaking dam, and soon I was uncontrollably sobbing. Casey pulled me into a hug, but I still felt painfully cold.

I was stuck here forever. Or for however long it would take for my body to decompose.

That was almost 2 years ago now. Or 2 months. Or 2 minutes. I can’t tell anymore. Since then I’ve settled into a kind of routine. Each day is either spent mourning the life I could’ve had and trying not to yell at the others over it, or attempting to act like an actual human being who isn’t a rotting corpse. But in however much time has passed since I died I’ve become close with Casey and an ex-member by the name of Steve. Apparently the latter was just on a walk through the area when he was spotted by Andrew and killed as well. We’re pretty much the only sane ones here, but that’s not a particularly high bar to clear. They’re the closest thing I have to family. At this point they pretty much are.

I can hear the twang of guitar strings and the heavy thwack of drumsticks from where I’m sitting upstairs. Another poor hiker got lost on a nearby trail and got roped into listening to one of Zubin’s ‘performances’. I’m still not sure why they all decide to let anyone else go when they kept me. If I tried asking Zubin I doubt he’d give me a straight answer.

“All good, Candi?”

I look up to see Casey wearily looking at me, holding a hand of Uno cards in front of him. We ended up deciding that it would be better to tell the main group my name was something other than Ashley, otherwise they might think I’m the Ashley. I settled on using my middle name, Candice. At this point I’m so used to having my name be Candi I forget my real one.

“Just thinking about when we met.” I answer him, tossing a yellow 7 on the top of the pile in between us. “Hearing them perform always reminds me of everything that happened.”

Casey nods in acknowledgement while Steve puts a plus four on top of my card, pointing to a different red card to indicate what colour he wanted.

“This is so unfair. You guys always gang up on me.” Casey laments sarcastically, rolling his eyes and taking four cards from the draw pile with a smile on his face. I put a red card on top and the turn is passed back to Steve, who’s smiling in a way I can only describe as mischievous.

“That’s only because you always win.”

“I can’t help it if I’m that good.”