/r/nosleep

I’ve pretty much seen them all by now. Catalogued in them head. There’s the blender that promises to make meal prep 5000% more efficient, the hairdryer from heaven, the neck-cushioner that’ll cure your arthritis, the vacuum cleaner that connects to Bluetooth and probably can sleep with your wife. A hundred perky men and women going on about weight loss pills and makeup and kitchen knives and towels that’ll revolutionize your life, no really, we promise or your money back.

Well, all except one. Last night, I saw a new infomercial that I’m still not quite sure if I hallucinated or not. It was maybe 3AM, and my mind was throbbing, pulsing inside my skull. I’d all but given up on sleep. The blonde woman on the screen had just finished her spiel about cubic zirconia jewelry, and then this way-too-catchy jingle was blaring from the TV:

Spleeno! Spleeno all your worries away! Spleeno! Spleeno makes a better today!

It was a chorus of high-pitched voices, I think, something childish like you’d hear in a toy commercial. The lyrics to the jingle flashed across the screen in fat, cartoonish letters.

Next, there was one of those “before” montages. You know, the clips of people cracking eggs onto the floor or groaning about their bad back, before the miracle product swoops in to save them. It was pretty standard: a black-and-white shot of a young woman applying mascara in the mirror, making an exaggerated mess of it by smudging it all over her eyelids. She frowned at the finished result. The camera zoomed in on her clumped-together lashes. The whole time, this glum, almost comically sad tune played in the background.

It transitioned into a full-color scene of the woman beaming into the mirror. The words SPLEENO! hung above her head, and the music was now generically upbeat. Look. I hadn’t slept in around thirty-six hours, and I’d started to feel like my brain was melting out of my ears, so I don’t know what I saw. But it sure as hell looked like this pretty girl brought a pair of tweezers up to her eyelids and began plucking out her lashes, one by one, all with a TV-ready smile splayed across her face. No time lapse or anything. It might have gone on for five minutes or fifteen. When it was finished, she almost looked normal, but if you looked close, you could see her completely bare lids.

The infomercial ended with the SPLEENO! jingle playing again while the woman beamed into the camera. She picked up a tube of mascara, looked at it, then tossed it aside. It was so strange that I figured it had to be a parody, complete with an “after” montage of overacting and smiling. I know this sounds crazy, but afterwards, I felt almost relieved. Like some small weight I didn’t even know was there had been taken off my shoulders.

Then Tommy’s crying started up again, and the feeling was lost.

February 13th

I saw it again last night. Honest to god. I actually did pass out for around an hour before waking up, feeling like absolute crap. I peeled myself off the couch to check on Tommy. He was sleeping for once, and I promptly returned to the living room to tune in to my favorite channel.

I watched the same toaster infomercial twice before it came on again. When the jingle started, my heart sped up: Spleeno! Spleeno all your worries away! Spleeno! Spleeno makes a better today! Whatever this was, it had one hell of a catchy tune. The kind that crops up in your mind at the worst of moments.

Call it morbid curiosity. I wanted to see what was going to play this time. It was too early to be an April Fool’s prank, but maybe it was all a joke by someone with a seriously weird sense of humor, or promo for an upcoming movie.

The jingle ended, and the colors quickly faded to black and white. I watched as a middle-aged man came on screen. He was dressed in his pajamas, his hair tousled in a TV version of a messy bedhead. He stood in front of the mirror and cupped his cheek with a grimace, then opened his mouth to inspect his teeth: they were yellow and crooked, some of them sitting at angles that looked downright painful. I could see black spots of rot on his molars. He poured a cupful of mouthwash and gargled, but his face creased as if he was in agony and he quickly spit it all down the drain.

The scene shifted, and the now-technicolored man was dressed smartly in work clothes, his hair slicked down with gel. SPLEENO! danced across the screen in burning pink letters. The counter was littered with teeth. He looked into his mirror and smiled, revealing a completely toothless mouth with raw, bloody gums. I should have been disgusted, but that reaction never came. Instead I was... fascinated. The man didn’t look to be in pain. He seemed almost elated. And why shouldn’t he be? His pain was gone. I wondered how he felt—light, carefree. I felt a little scared for feeling the way I did, but I couldn’t deny it, either.

Afterwards, I stuck around to watch a mattress commercial, but found that my eyes closed of their own volition, and I finally fell into shallow, dreamless sleep. I woke up feeling unsatisfied, like I’d had some unfinished business in a dream, but couldn’t remember what.

February 17th

I’ve stayed up every night since Tuesday and it hasn’t come on a single time. I know what I saw, but at the same time I’m starting to doubt myself. Maybe I dreamed it all up. Either way, I haven’t slept a minute in three nights.

I almost crashed the car during a milk run for formula and diapers this morning. Tommy is driving me up the wall. I could swear he wakes up and starts sounding off the minute I get home, and shuts up once I’m at work. God, I wish I had the money for a sitter. Just one night of peace and quiet might be enough. Nothing around me seems solid, anymore. It’s like the world is slipping away, and there’s only me, a sack of blood and bones dragging itself to places that feel like hollow imprints. I know I look like shit, but I’m finding it hard to care.

I wonder if this is how people lost in the desert feel, when they see that last mirage of cool water.

February 18th

It came on at 1AM. I can’t explain it, but the moment I heard the first notes to the jingle, I felt a wave of relief crashing down on me. The world felt real again.

I kept my eyes glued to the screen. There was an elderly woman this time, walking down a set of stairs to that same sad tune. With her coiffed gray hair and red sweater, she looked like a character out of a Christmas movie, the sweet old lady about to serve her grandkids chocolate-chip cookies with a smile. She wasn’t smiling now, though. Each time her right foot made contact with the steps, she winced, quickly shifting her weight to her left. Bad knee. Once she got to the bottom, she rested on the banister and caught her breath. The next few clips showed her hobbling around the house—I realized it was the same one the others were shot in—and clutching at her kneecap every few seconds.

Right then, it was as if I could feel the pain shooting up my leg, too. I wanted her to be free of it. I wanted to feel light again. I watched as the TV cut to a close-up shot of the old woman sleeping in bed. Her gray hair was spread out on the pillow like a halo. The camera slowly pulled out, revealing the rest of her nightgown-clad body and the smooth, round stump of her right leg. I noticed it’d been severed just above the knee, and it looked to have healed completely, the skin intact except for a line of white scarring. I examined her face. With her mouth curled into a smile, she was the picture of tranquility. I couldn’t help but smile myself. Her pain was gone now, discarded with the unbearable weight of all that putrid flesh. For the first time in a long time, I felt at ease, perfectly content, even. I kept smiling as the jingle ran again.

Spleeno! Spleeno all your worries away! Spleeno! Spleeno makes a better today!

I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night, but I kept grinning anyway, enjoying the way those words rolled off my tongue.

February 20th

Yesterday was the best one yet! I didn’t go to work, just in case I’d miss it while I was gone. Tommy was crying as usual, and he was annoying as ever, but I didn’t let him distract me.

I kept my attention on the TV. The infomercial came on around midnight—earlier than usual. It featured a man and his dog. A golden retriever. Even with the grainy quality, I could see that it was a beautiful specimen, its coat sleek and its eyes bright. Too bad it just wouldn’t shut up. Its barking went on and on, all through the night, and my heart clenched with sympathy as the man groaned and clapped his hands over his ears. The barks seemed to grow in volume until it was unbearable. I shook my head as the man tried a pair of earplugs to block out the noise. I knew all too well those didn’t work. Tommy’s cries could penetrate through anything.

I was on the edge of my seat waiting for what came next. The black-and-white gave way to color, and the man went from tired and groggy to well-rested. He got up from bed and stretched, then went to the kitchen to fix himself a cup of coffee, humming the whole time. As a stream of coffee poured into his mug, I noticed a large yellowish mass lying on the kitchen floor. The dog’s body looked broken, and its head was stained with a bloom of red, but the man’s newfound happiness was so infectious that I hardly paid it any attention. The now-familiar SPLEENO! hung above the pair. I realized my face was wet with tears of joy. The man had gotten what he wanted: silence. The tears kept coming even after the screen went black.

Spleeno. It’s a wonderful sound. A wonderful word. It takes all your worries away. It makes you realize you have to hold on, and if something’s standing in the way, then you have to get rid of it.

My wife made travel arrangements immediately. I had a valid Russian visa from a business trip to Moscow a few weeks prior so I decided to go with her. Now, getting to my wife’s hometown isn’t easy. You’re in for a flight to Moscow, then a connecting flight to Norilsk, one of the biggest cities in the Russian tundra. From there, it’s an hour long trip down the Yenisei river, by barge in summer and on cars over ice in the winter.

Urgently getting to Moscow wasn’t that hard. There, however, we faced additional difficulties. First of all, apparently I couldn’t actually fly to Norilsk with Lana as the city was closed to foreigners. Before we could even process that, we were told that Norilsk airport was closed for all aircraft due to poor weather conditions and the weather wasn’t expected to improve that week. I tried to console Lana as best as I could, but news of her mom getting worse drove her crazy. Soon, Lana suggested an “alternative”: it was possible to fly to a city a fair bit south of Norilsk which was safe from the storms. For a modest fee, a family friend living there was willing to take a day’s journey up the ice road to Lana’s hometown. Well, more like a night’s journey since according to him, it was better to travel at night by car’s lights than by what passed as daylight.

I told my wife she was insane. She, however, was adamant on her plan, saying she’s done zimnik (how Russians call their ice roads) many times with her dad and it was perfectly safe. She wouldn’t budge no matter how I pleaded and told me I was welcome to stay in Moscow. Obviously, that was not an option, and in the end I gave up.

We flew to our next destination, and the cold hit me as soon as I stepped out of the plane. It was a different kind of cold, invasive and ruthless, and it didn’t care about layers of sweaters and socks I had on. I shivered imagining how much colder it was going to get.

We met with the trucker who was to take us up North. He called himself Kolya, and my wife “Sveta”, the Russian version of her name. Me, he didn’t call at all, instead referring to me derisively as “Mister Amerikashka” whenever he spoke to my wife. Lana told me with a chuckle she didn’t tell Kolya I could understand Russian, although I don’t think he would’ve cared.

Kolya was supposed to be a few years younger than my wife but looked much older, his skin and posture worn down by the harsh conditions of his homeland. He laughed at our American shoes and coats and said he would pack extra jackets, woolen socks and valenki for us “just in case.” His brother helped load his truck, which looked like it had seen the fall of the Soviet Union, and then Kolya sat down to enjoy a shot of vodka. One for the road.

My wife saw me blanch at that.

“This isn’t New York, or even Moscow,” she said quietly. “People here are a bit behind in terms of DUI. Don’t worry, he won’t drink enough to get impaired, he’s seen that kill people on the road.”

Well.

Indeed, the first shot was the last and Kolya hopped into the truck. He offered my wife the shotgun seat which, as far as I understood Russian macho culture, was basically equivalent of throwing a glove in my face. Whatever. As long as he got us there.

The road was a dark stretch of ice and packed snow powdered by the fresh snow that had fallen that morning. Snowdrifts bordered both sides of the roads and leaked onto its surface a fair bit. Otherwise, it was the same barren flat surface for miles. In the first couple of hours, we saw a few cars going the opposite way to us. Then a car going in the same direction as us overtook us and disappeared in the darkness ahead at surprising speeds. It was a freaking tiny, rusted-through Subaru. I gave up on understanding Russians then and there.

Shortly after the Subaru guy, it started snowing. Just a bit at first, then more and more. Kolya didn’t seem bothered and I tried to stay calm as well, which I managed mostly successfully until the wind joined in. Unlike the snow, it started hard from the get go.

Have you ever heard wind howling and become unsettled by the sound? Now imagine the same, but in the depths of a black night lit only by your car’s headlights. Except for your own vehicle, the world around is silent and devoid of life, frozen until the spring. Not that you can see much through the thick snow that is now the wind’s plaything, flurrying around the car, blanketing the windows.

Our pace slowed to a crawl as Kolya swore colorfully in Russian. “Maybe stop and wait it out?” I suggested nervously.

“We can’t.” Lana said without bothering to ask our driver. “If we stop there’s a good chance the car won’t start up again, and we are stuck here waiting for someone to pick us up. And it’s been… empty today.”

The realization we were at a very real risk of freezing to death hit me like a ton of bricks. I leaned back into my seat and closed my eyes, wordlessly praying for the best. The only response was the wind howling – and it sounded so strange. It would start low and quiet and then get louder and louder until a yowling crescendo, then cut off abruptly. Then start again. And the sound came from different directions, each starting at a different time, like a pack of wolves howling.

I opened my eyes to obvious tension in the car. Lana and Kolya were both hunched forward, peering intently through the glass for all the good it did them. Kolya glanced back at me.

“Don’t worry, be happy!” Kolya proclaimed with a horrible Russian accent. “It is all OK! Don’t worry, America!”

He was lying. I might have been useless on the ice road, but I was a criminal defense lawyer, and a good one at that. And Kolya was a bad liar. There was sweat beading on his face and neck, and his voice was forced. He was very much scared – and that made me scared, too.

Kolya murmured something to my wife, too quick and quiet for my distracted mind to decipher. She nodded.

“What was that?”

“There’s a village maybe half an hour up the road, if we keep this pace. We get there and settle down until the morning.”

“I see. Sorry about the delay.” In reality I was extremely happy to hear that. “Bad wind, huh?”

Lana grabbed my hand, quick and sudden as a snake. “Don’t. Mention. The Wind.”

Another sound came through the storm. A long, tinny wail that sent shivers down my spine. It took me a few moments to recognize the familiar sound of the wind whistling through walls and chimney. And then another moment to realize there were no fucking walls around for the wind to whistle.

I opened my mouth to comment, and my wife’s grip tightened on my arm. In that moment, I knew to keep it quiet.

We drove in tension-filled silence as a cacophony of sounds erupted through the storm. Wails and shrieks, howls and cries – no way no fucking wind was producing all of that.

The sounds grew closer, grew louder. I grabbed my wife’s hands as we both stared desperately ahead. Through the flurry, we barely made out something – a large, dark shape reflecting our lights, or maybe piercing the darkness with lights of its own…

Kolya swore and swerved to the side. We were passing another car stuck in the snow. Its blinkers flashed.

“Stop.” Lana said, sudden and harsh.

“What?” Kolya asked, in Russian. “You insane?”

“Stop.” My wife repeated. “On the ice road, you help. That’s the rule, remember?”

Kolya gave her a long, hard look that I didn’t like at all. “That’s the rule on the road.” He echoed, and hit the brakes, slowing the car without actually stopping. I opened the door and peered outside. The driver of the stuck vehicle was already running towards us. I recognized the car itself as the Subaru that passed us earlier.

“Thank God you people were…” the driver began. “Get in, idiot!” Kolya shouted, and the guy shut up and jumped in. He was just a kid, no older than twenty, with dark red hair and a patchy little beard. He looked cold and terrified.

“Thank god!” He repeated, in a hushed whisper. “I was sure they’d get me.”

“They?” I asked, confused. Kolya and Lana turned to look at the kid in unison, and their looks could kill.

“They, yeah, I mean the wind and snow,” the kid corrected quickly. I had a sudden abrupt feeling that it was too late for that… even as I still had no clue what was going on. We drove on, and the interplay of howls and shrieks outside the car became unbearable in the silence.

“What’s your name, dude?” I asked him in my best Russian. He blinked.

“Sergei. Sergei Molchanov. My parents are… anyway, it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have been driving, but I wanted to make it to my girlfriend’s birthday, and…”

“Both of you shut up.” My wife barked, and we did. Immediately I noticed the change in surrounding sounds – they were much louder now. The highest pitch shrieks rang in my ears. The low, insistent howling seemed to surround the car. And every now and then, something that sounded like an actual roar cut through the night.

The car picked up the pace. I looked at Kolya and realized he was absolutely flooring the gas pedal, poor visibility be damned. His truck was lurching along as fast as it could manage in the conditions, and yet the encroaching racket made it obvious we were nowhere near fast enough.

Then the car hit something. We were all jerked forward as the truck came to a staggering halt. I hit my temple hard on the back of my wife’s seat.

“What… was that?” I groaned.

“Must have hit a chunk of ice or something,” Lana's voice sounded strangely muffled. I remember focusing on her lips, and how pale and thin they looked. The dull resounding pain in my head exploded into something hot and overwhelming, and I collapsed into the backseat.

“He’s passed out!” Sergei called out. I wanted to correct him, but my voice wouldn’t obey me. My lids seemed to weigh a ton each – I could barely open my eyes enough to see the trio of Russians huddled together, the car’s flickering light illuminating their pale faces.

“What now?” Sergei asked nervously.

“Well, let’s see,” I don’t think I would’ve been able to understand complex Russian in that state, if it wasn’t my Lana speaking, her voice so familiar down to every inflection. “Why don’t you go out and check what we hit and if we can clear it out somehow?”

“What?!”

“We helped you, didn’t we?” In the car’s light, Lana’s green eyes seemed very blue. “So why don’t you help us back. After all, on the ice road you help each other. That’s the rule.”

Kolya grumbled in agreement. Then he reached over and pulled out a rifle, and aimed it at the boy.

Sergei whimpered. “You know they’re out there!”

“Well,” Lana’s voice was impeccably calm. Cold. “I guess you’d better not speak about them out loud, then. Better not even think about them, really. ”

My eyes closed against my will. I heard a door swing open, and a rush of cold air. Finally, I passed out for real, and in my unconsciousness I dreamed of horrified screaming and a single terrible roar that filled the night.

I came to during the day, on a couch of some local family that agreed to house us for a bit of cash. My wife fussed over me. Once she was sure I was conscious and lucid, she rushed me into the car saying we could do the rest of the drive by day, and an actual doctor could look at me in her hometown.

I settled in the backseat of the car. Vague memories haunted me.

“Where’s the kid? Sergei?”

“What kid, darling?” Lana asked, in sincere surprise.

“There was no kid, we traveled alone,” Kolya added, in Russian. And I wondered how he knew what I was asking about, or that I’d understand his answer. But aloud, I could only say: “This young redheaded guy…”

“Sweetie, I’m getting really worried. You must’ve hit your head harder than I thought. We gotta get you checked out as soon as we get back to the States. Maybe even a good checkup in Moscow…”

I didn’t really know what to say after that.

We made it the rest of the way uneventfully. Unfortunately, my mother in law had slipped into unconsciousness before we even set out for our drive, and she passed away several hours after our arrival. Lana didn’t even get to say a proper goodbye. She is absolutely devastated right now, so I’m trying my best to focus on comforting her. We’re staying here until the funeral, and I can’t stay I’m looking forward to the ride back.

My father in law graciously gifted me a proper Russian winter coat, so I went ahead and packed my American camel coat that proved terribly insufficient for the weather. As I was folding it, I noticed a few curly red hairs stuck to the light beige fabric.

Mandy stuck her tongue out as she looked them over. “That one looks like William,” she giggled, pointing at the leftmost photo, a man with dark hair and a rasp of stubble. “He’s a boy in my class.” It was so innocently morbid that I couldn’t help but laugh. I got up to help mom with the dishes, though even as I occupied myself with chores, I couldn’t help but linger on the strange deaths.

My dad insisted there was a logical explanation for it all. Three young people, drunk and stumbling lost in the woods on a below-zero night… well, he said, you can imagine what happens next.

In the following week, he was proven wrong. The autopsy was published: no trace of drugs, medicinal or otherwise, in their blood. No alcohol either. The cause of death couldn’t be ascertained; there had been no physical trauma, no blood loss, no pre-existing medical conditions. The article in the newspaper declared it most closely resembled death by shock: a sudden, massive rush of adrenaline essentially stunning the heart into inaction. That only seemed to open up more questions. One person might have been explainable, but three? What’s enough to shock three people like that?

A chunk of the woods had already been put under police patrol when a new body turned up, nude yet unharmed like the others. It’d been snowing pretty heavily that winter, blanketing the woods in a thick white layer, and at night I’d lay awake and think of how awful it was to die like that, freezing and alone with only the shadows of trees stretching over you.

Before the week was over, there was a fifth body, sprawled in almost the exact same spot. Somehow, nobody had seen where it’d come from. One police officer interviewed by the press said he’d been passing through the area just minutes prior, and in the time that he was gone, it was like it'd just “blinked into existence”.

A fresh wave of rumors emerged at school, though now they were less nervously excited, more tinged with fear. Though the evidence was frustratingly nonexistent, the unspoken consensus was that they had to be murders.

When a sixth body popped up, a 10 pm curfew was imposed on adults and children alike. If I remember correctly, that was around the time the FBI caught wind of the case. The whole stretch of forest had already been cordoned off with police tape, the perimeter constantly surveilled by a flock of solemn-looking officers who made sure no one got in or out. I’d used to play in that forest all the time with my friends, and seeing it suddenly made into the site of six bloodless deaths was surreal, to say the least. That was what the media started calling it: the Bloodless Murders. Sometimes the bodies came in pairs, sometimes alone. By the tenth or eleventh, there was a definite pattern: while they varied in ethnicity and sex, they were all relatively young, twenties to forties, and all found nude. Some even looked as if they’d had clothes on minutes before, with the indentation of a watch or waistband still etched into their skin at the time of discovery.

Have you ever been in a room where everyone’s holding their breath? Every person just waiting for the ball to drop, the silence so bad that you could almost drown in it? Now imagine a whole town.

You want to know the strangest part about all this? Weeks dragged on, and none of the bodies were ever identified. Their fingerprints were intact, but there were no known matches. DNA testing came up empty. A public campaign to find the identities of the Bloodless victims turned up nothing. It was like these people had emerged from nowhere. Deprived of their names and backstories, the victims went unmourned, blurred into one murky entity.

Shit really hit the fan about a month into the case. Some up-and-coming journalist—a guy by the name of Walton, I think—claimed to have uncovered the truth behind it all, and wrote a tell-all article divulging the details that hadn’t been released by police or FBI. Apparently, the Bloodless Murders weren’t so bloodless after all. It was true that most were found untouched, but four of the dead practically had had bites taken out of them, whole sections of their bodies just gone. One guy was missing almost half his right side, and one of the women was short an arm. “Bites” might be a little misleading, though. The missing pieces had been removed cleanly—almost too cleanly. In Walton’s words, they looked as if they’d been “scooped” out, or simply magicked away.

Walton claimed he had the records to prove the area was under even more intense surveillance than most would’ve guessed. Besides hundreds of cameras that had been covertly installed in trees and rocks throughout the forest, there were also loads of temperature data loggers and state-of-the-art recording equipment, along with a whole host of other devices that I couldn’t even wrap my head around. Stuff that measured radiation and minute changes in the composition of the air. If he was right, it must’ve cost a ton. Supposedly the data showed “climatological deviations”—basically weird spikes and dips in temperature corresponding to the times that the bodies were found.

If Walton was right, there was a good chance that the FBI was in possession of video and audio recordings showing the origin of the bodies. It sounded like a crazy conspiracy, even though Walton hadn’t been able to come up with a solid theory for the reason behind the cover-ups. That was the part that drove me crazy. I must’ve re-read that article a hundred times.

What happened next was total lockdown. The newspaper was pulled from publication in the blink of an eye. Walton publicly apologized for having made fabricated claims and trying to make a spectacle out of the deaths. Not much was heard from him after that. The case was under the full jurisdiction of the FBI, according to my parents, and local police were all but shut out of it. I don’t know what happened, exactly, but suddenly the media coverage dropped to zero.

At school, the teachers gave a talk about it, how we were all safe and there was to be no further spreading of rumors. I remember thinking about the weirdness of that whole day. While Mr. Russell was going on and on about the importance of following the curfew, there’d been a team of adults who quietly escorted kid after kid out of the room, ushering each one back in about ten minutes later. One of them was my friend, Sophia. After the assembly, I quizzed her about what had happened over a lunch of stale pizza.

“It was really weird,” she said, picking halfheartedly at her food. “They took a sample of my spit, and some of my hair and nails too. You think they’re checking for diseases?”

I didn’t know how to answer her. The whole thing left a sour taste in mouth, and I felt helpless and scared. The parents must’ve been encouraged not to talk about it either, because whenever I brought it up to my mom and dad after the whole Walton fiasco had gone down, they shut me down fast.

In hindsight, I probably never should have attempted the plan. On a Friday night, I snuck out after curfew, armed with only a handful of granola bars and a flashlight. I biked down to the woods. It didn’t take long; it was one of those childhood routes that you know by heart. I wasn’t even sure about what I was hoping to find. Chalk it up to mix of curiosity and senselessness.

There were patrols standing around, but I managed to make my way to a dense copse of trees and snuck in from there, feeling my heart racing a hundred miles an hour as I ducked under the yellow police tape. The sheer stupidity of my idea hadn’t quite settled in yet. If what Walton had written about the surveillance had been true, there wasn’t a chance in hell that I wasn’t going to get spotted, but being a kid and all, I hoped I’d get off with a slap on the wrist. I turned my flashlight on to the dimmest setting and began my trek, praying that I knew the path through the woods as well as I thought.

Time passed differently that night. Maybe I was walking around for thirty minutes; maybe it was three hours. The sky was inky black, and in the darkness, the trees distorted themselves into more and more monstrous forms with each step I took. All I know is, when I stumbled across the body, the world came to a shuddering halt.

Under the cone of artificial light, the body looked fresh, the skin still pink. I remembered thinking if I’d touched him, he might still have been warm. His eyes were wide open, glassy as a river, face set in an expression of determination. There was a tattoo on his bare chest, a sentence written in a shaky scrawl:

I couldn’t be sure under the hair, but I think she almost smiled. “Bye somebody,” she murmured, disappearing into the doorway. My neighbor Jeff poked his head out — scrawny fellow with a soul patch and a beanie which seemed permanently fixed to his head. He nodded sharply at me like a fighter paying insincere respect to his opponent, slamming the door.

I liked watching Nobody from my balcony when she was parking her car. I liked the fluid grace of her movements which transformed regular motions like opening doors and stepping over obstacles into a choreographed dance. I must not have been the only one to notice either, because there always seemed to be someone hitting on her whenever I saw her. Not the charming kind either — fat oafs jumping out of their car like they were waiting for her, or pushy street rats backing her up against the building. I thought she was a prostitute at first, but she always rebuffed them so vehemently that I figured that wasn’t the case.

Often at night I’d see her leaning on the railing of my neighbor’s balcony, smoking a joint and staring off into space. I got the feeling that she was staring into a world that only she could see, but looking at her face, I also got the feeling that it wasn’t a very pretty world. I wish I could see it too. Sometimes I’d go out onto my own balcony and try to make an excuse for conversation, but she’d invariably duck back inside the moment she saw me. If I was lucky and she seemed to be in good spirits, I’d hear a “Bye somebody” before she went. A stupid joke, but it always made me smile.

She couldn’t have been happy, but I suppose it wasn’t any of my business. I’d hear her boyfriend yelling at her through the walls sometimes, although I never heard her say anything back. I figured that she was her own person with her own choices to make, and if she was being really mistreated, then she wouldn’t keep coming back. It’s not like I had proof that she was being abused or anything — and what I did guess, I quickly dismissed as petty jealousy, resolving not to interfere with her life.

That resolution lasted for about two months, but it ended last night. It was after dark and I was getting home late when I spotted Nobody pressed up against my building. Two men in leather jackets were several inches too close for innocent conversation, practically pressing themselves on her while she squirmed to get away. I honked my car horn at them, and one looked over his shoulder. Fat stupid face, mouth hanging part way open, he stared at me for a few seconds before turning back to her.

“I got to go,” I heard her say. “Somebody is waiting for me.”

I honked again. Fat-face turned to walk over to my car. “Cool it, asshole,” he shouted. “This target only has 11 points left anyway. Get your own damn girl.”

I rolled down my window. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You new or something?” he asked, fishing out his phone. He showed me the screen which depicted a GPS map of my neighborhood. Scattered throughout were little targets, each with a name and a life-bar like a video game character has. The target against my building was named ‘Cillia’, with 11/100 life remaining.

“I don’t know what the fuck that is, but I’m not playing,” I told him.

He laughed. More like a guffaw really — deep and guttural without the slightest hint of mirth. “You’re after that piece of shit and you’re not even getting points? Hey Mark — he actually wants this bitch.”

The other guy — presumably Mark — still had the girl against the wall. He made a half-lunge at her as she wriggled free, but it was just to scare her. She looked like she was about to run toward my car, but seeing the fat one over by me, she sprinted to her own vehicle instead. We all watched as she tore out of the parking lot, the biggest smile I’d ever seen plastered across her face.

“Don’t waste your time. Somebody already broke her.” Fat-face slammed my car with the palm of his hand as he turned to leave. “Let’s go Mark. There’s two more of them on this street.”

I was so relieved to see them go that I didn’t try to ask more questions. Nobody had a name. It was Cillia. And something was tracking her location and broadcasting it out to these creeps. It didn’t feel like I was meddling in someone else’s business anymore. I couldn’t just play dumb and let her sort this out for herself.

A few minutes later and I was hammering on my neighbor’s apartment. “Hey Jeff, you in there?”

“Bug off,” came the muffled reply.

“It’s about the game you’re playing with Cillia.” It seemed pretty vague to me, but if he was involved then he’d know what I was talking about.

Loud shuffling like someone crossing the room in a hurry, and the door opened a moment later. He was wearing nothing but his boxers and his beanie, skinny body blocking the door.

“Yeah, what about the game?” he asked. I hesitated, unsure what to say next. He must have misread my silence, because his face became animated and hopeful. “Hey did I win the prize or something?”

I nodded stiffly. Jeff threw the door open to welcome me in, practically dancing with excitement. “Holy shit I knew it! I’ve been on the leader-board for weeks — it was only a matter of time. Seriously competitive shit, you know? I’ve got everything ready for you, come on in.” He rushed to a cabinet under the sink and began hauling out cardboard boxes. I still didn’t know what the hell was going on though, so I had to play along to get more answers.

“How many points are you at now?” I asked.

“723,” without hesitation. “19 separate targets, although I’ve been getting most of the points from Cillia, as you know.” He plopped two cardboard boxes on the coffee table beside me, flaying them open for inspection. The greasy smell of stale sex was nauseating. “This one’s got all the condoms in it,” he said. Hundreds of them — all used — neatly tied off into little balloons. “Then this one has all the recordings.”

“723 is a lot,” I said, pretending to be impressed. “Tell me how you were keeping score.”

He looked suspicious for a moment, but it passed. If my question raised any red flags, then he was so pleased with himself that he didn’t dwell on it. “It’s legit, I swear. I used the ‘Break Her’ rulebook and everything. 10 points for humiliating her. 15 points for taking a personal item or making a big decision for her. 25 for unwanted sex or something physical. Then I’ve got a bunch of the small ones I’ve been building up — the daily criticisms, isolating her from friends and family, that sort of thing. What’s the prize going to be?”

“Hold on a minute, I got to ask all the questions first. Standard procedure, you know.”

“How come you never told me you worked for ‘Break Her’? You must have known that I played,” Jeff asked. Again the suspicion, this time lingering on his face.

I shrugged, making notes on my phone as though I was dutifully recording his answers. “What do you think the purpose of the game was? And how did you get into it?”

“Isn’t it obvious? You just got to break her. I started playing when my buddy got dumped by his ex. He paid to have her registered in the system, and I thought it would be fun to join so I could start harassing her. At first it was just to support my buddy, but it was pretty helpful seeing where all the vulnerable chicks were. Turned out I was pretty good at it, so I decided to try and get enough points to win the prize.”

“Uh huh.” I typed as he talked. My fingers were literally shaking. “And Cillia? Did you ever love her?”

He laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. A pause, then: “Oh, are you serious? Come on, man. It’s just a game. So what’s the deal? Am I getting the prize today or not?”

I didn’t look up from my phone. I was so disgusted that I couldn’t even look at him. The silence was excruciating.

“Is this legal?” I breathed. Silence again, as both of us digested what I said. My cover was blown.

“You lying piece of shit,” he grunted, protectively ripping his boxes away from me. “You trying to steal my points or something?”

He was on me before I even realized what was happening. Bony arms wrapped around me, the momentum flinging me to the ground. He got in a good hit to my jaw before I flipped him on his back. I was bigger and stronger than him, but he twisted under me like a feral animal.

“She’s mine! You don’t know how much work I put into that bitch!” he roared. I punched him to shut him up. He spit blood at me, and I hit him again. I never thought it would feel so good to hurt someone, but now that I started, I couldn’t stop myself. Next I knew my hands were so soaked in blood that it ran between my knuckles like rivers. Jeff wasn’t moving. And I was okay with that.

Jeff’s phone beeped where it lay on the ground. Somehow the weight of what I’d just done didn’t hit until I heard it. It beeped again, and I lifted it to see what was going on.

It was a notification from ‘Break Her’. I opened the app, and saw a short questionnaire. Humiliation, abuse, control — a daily checklist for him to go through to get his points. What the hell did I get myself involved in? And who was I to think I could make any difference when a whole world full of terrible people were trying to destroy her?

At the bottom of the form it asked: ‘Did you see her smile today?’ Numb and overwhelmed, I clicked ‘yes’. Immediately Cillia’s life-bar jumped a point, up to 12/100.

When I uncovered the body, I made a few notes. One, she was in her late teens, probably a senior in highschool and not much more. She was probably pretty, when she was alive. I’m not a freak, I think dead bodies are hideous. You really see all the flaws when someone’s dead before they’re made to look pretty for the funeral.

Anyway, apparently she’d just dropped during algebra with massive bleeding out of her crotch. She didn’t even make it to the ambulance before they called it. They sent her down to me, in my cold, dark basement morgue, and I let my sister know I wouldn’t be home until late and she could stay at Annie’s house tonight.

When I saw the silvery prong starting to edge its way out of her ‘lady spot’ I wondered if she’d been stabbed and just hadn’t gone for help. I’ve seen things along that line before. I got ahold of it and eased what appeared to be a bloodied, metal dessert fork outta there. I dropped it into the tray and felt nothing but confusion. How the hell had a dessert fork gotten up there?

When I opened her up, I found nine more, all the way up to her cervix. One had even gotten trapped in her uterus. I’m thinking she might’ve confused it for the worst motherfucking cramps of her short life- she was on her period.

When I told the investigator that cause of death was massive bleeding caused by a fork up her vag, he laughed in my face. When I showed him the evidence though he changed his mind.

In the end we had to put the cause of death as something self-inflicted as there wasn’t any evidence of someone forcing them up there. Honestly though. Forks. Like the ones my mom used to eat her little cheesecakes and tarts with while laughing with her friends.

The second one was just as weird. Another teenage girl, around the same age. She had a more athletic build though, probably was in the gymnastics or swim team. She’d started vomiting blood in the parking lot after school. And a little something extra.

Pins.

When I cut open her stomach it was jam packed with sewing pins. I swear it was bulging with them. I’d never seen so many in my life, cept when I snuck into my gran’s sewing room. Old women have a million pins, I swear.

I can’t even tell you the final count up. Far too damn many. But again, there was no evidence she’d had them forced down her throat… although this is where it takes a step farther.

There was no evidence she’d swallowed them at all.

I had no answers. Somehow this girl had a porcupine of pins in her stomach and I had no idea how they got in there. The hospital literally brought in three other dudes, some who have been doing this for a decade longer than I have.

We all turned up squat. I think one of the guys went straight from the morgue to a bar. It was pretty heavy shit.

But the last one is the one that’s going to give me nightmares.

By the time another teenage girl’s body turned up, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelash if I had cut her open and fucking Jennifer Lawrence turned up in there. I was done.

This girl’s death wasn’t so bloody. She’d just asphyxiated in class. Some students claim they saw something sticking out of her mouth, but at the moment she was on the slab, there wasn’t.

Not until I cut open her throat anyway.

The slit I’d made split wide open and the brown patterned head of a ball python poked out. Like it was breaking free from the egg.

I might’ve screamed like a little girl and fell back on my ass so hard I bruised my tailbone.

By the time I got back up, the python had mostly squirmed free. The sucker had to be about five feet long, and it was now curled up across the girl’s chest, looking entirely unbothered about where it just crawled free from.

Nervously, I extended my arm to the scaly creature. He slithered up and made himself comfortable.

I clocked out early and told the nurse I’d caught the stomach flu. I snuck out the snake in my lunchbox. Lil guy was always good at not making a fuss.

When I got home, my sister had cleaned up her little ‘ritual’ site, but the dribbles of wax on the ground and the smell of burnt blood still lingering on the air gave away what she’d been up to. I put the python back in her tank and pulled out a few beers from the fridge.

The whisper slightly increased its volume. I opened my eyes again and looked to the closet. I still couldn’t figure out what it was saying, but it was definitely there. I closed my eyes again and it suddenly picked up into a “Ryan!” I could make out the voice saying my name, and it sounded familiar. I got out of my bed and walked toward the closet. My heart was beating out of my chest as I slid the sliding door to the left. Sitting on the ground was a figure, and I could tell it was staring right back at me. A few seconds later my eyes adjusted and I could see that it was my brother, Andrew.

“What the hell are you doing in my room?” I asked him, still in a whisper to not awaken my parents and my younger sister. Andrew was two years younger than me, and he usually is asleep the whole night.

I squatted on the ground and saw that tears were rolling down his face. He looked toward my door, which was closed. Considering I never closed my door before bed I found this odd. He must’ve closed it when he came in.

“What are you doing?” I asked again. “Go back to bed!”

His lip quivered and more tears fell down. “I...I can’t.”

I rolled my eyes and knew I would probably have to go wake up my parents to figure this all out. I got up from my squat position and walked toward the door.

“No no!” He yelled in a whisper. “Don’t do it!” He was sobbing at this point, and considering he was fourteen I was kind of shocked. Something was really wrong, and I knew it.

I walked back over to him. “What do you mean ‘don’t do it?’” I asked him.

“Mom and Dad are...sick.”

My heart dropped. My spine shivered. The hair all along my body stood up. The way he said it...I knew he wasn’t joking around. Something was really wrong.

“What? Are they hurt? How do you know?”

He put his head in his hands. “You need to come into the closet with me,” he sobbed, “we have to wait until morning.”

I got up and walked toward the door again. If something was really wrong, I had to figure it out right now. Andrew detested as usual. “Stay in the closet. I’ll close the door when I get out. Just shut up and stay there, okay?” He seemed to obey and closed the closet door.

I took a deep breath and twisted the knob on my door and pulled the door inward. I looked outside and it was quiet. As quiet as you would expect a house to be at 4:30 in the morning. I walked down a narrow hallway and into a larger area with two doors on either side. One was my sister Anna’s room, and the other was my parents’. I opened the door to my parents room and peered in. Their bed sheets were crumpled up, which meant that they weren’t in it. They were...gone. I walked into the room and it smelled terrible, and I noticed something on the ground...

It was my sister’s doll which she always kept by her side. I walked out of the room immediately and into my sister Anna’s room. I entered it and found her sound asleep in her room. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. I knew I had to go downstairs and settle this mystery, but my fear kept me from moving another inch. I had to get the truth from Andrew or else I was gonna call the police.

I walked back into my room and shut the door. I walked to the closet and opened it again. Andrew was in the same position. “How do you know they’re sick?” I asked him. “What’s going on?”

“I heard them,” he said. “They were talking weird. I was walking to your room when I heard their door open. I ran into your room.”

He was crying, and the big brother instinct was beginning to kick in. I closed the closet door, exited my room, closed the door, and walked to the stairs. I looked down it and saw my mom at the base of the stairs, looking up.

“Mom?” I asked, my fear putting a quiver in my voice. “What’s wrong?” She didn’t respond, but I knew her eyes were staring into me. “Mom...why are you awake?”

She began to walk upstairs toward me, and the vibe of it all was off. She was acting so strangely. She was sick. Maybe my dad wasn’t doing well either. I ran down the narrow hallway, past my room, and to the door at the end of the hallway: the bathroom. I swung it open, closed it, and locked it. I didn’t turn on the light, and instead bathed in the darkness of the windowless room. I heard her footsteps, and then I heard them stop outside the door.

“Come on honey, it’s time for school!” She shouted in her usual, upbeat voice. “Come on!”

I didn’t answer. I thought she would move on if I didn’t answer. The she began to kick the door. The door shuddered with each blow until it fell silent. Her footsteps indicated she was running away from the door. I didn’t know if it was a trap or what, but three minutes later I opened the door and saw no one around. I immediately ran back to Anna’s room and opened it.

When I didn’t see her in her bed, I panicked. I looked around in the hallway, and then I saw her walking down the stairs, her blanket clasped in her hands. “Mommy?” She asked.

I gasped and ran down the stairs. I grasped her in my arms and rushed back upstairs. I entered my room, shut the door, and opened the closet. Andrew was crying as usual. Anna was confused.

“Andrew, keep her here. I’m going to go see if mom’s okay.”

“Don’t,” he told me. “Don’t. She’ll...she’ll...”

“Just keep her here.”

I walked out of my room, closed the door, and walked down the stairs. I looked through the dining room, through the kitchen, and then I saw her sitting on the couch in the living room.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” I asked.

She turned to me, and I turned on the light. She was covered in blood and an orange-red liquid poured from her eyes, which were giant holes. I gasped as she got up and walked toward me. The strange liquid still rained from her eyes.

I turned around to run but instead found my dad hanging from the ceiling. Blood poured from his mouth like a fountain on to the floor. I screamed and ran toward the stairs. My mom ran after me, and before I could reach the stairs she got to me and pushed me down on to the stairs. She forced me down and I could feel the ice cold liquid from her eyes touching my back through my pajamas.

She flipped me over and I could see her eyes, which were now showing a strange vision. My mind was filled with images of people being murdered and I could feel a dark force pulling me foreword.

“This is Hell,” she said in her regular voice. Her face began to morph and change until it stretched into a terrifying being, one with eyes so dark, I can only describe them as a true void.

I pushed her away from me and she fell back on to the floor. I ran up the stairs and got into my room. I shut the door and moved my dresser in front of the door. I turned around and saw the closet door was open. Andrew and Anna walked out as another person walked out. My mom. She was crying and had blood all over her.

My heart almost died out, but I could tell something was different. This wasn’t the creature downstairs. This was my actual mom. She was crying and she hugged me when she saw me. “Did you see them?” She asked.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

My mom wouldn’t let go of me. I began to push on her until she let go. Something was wrong again. She began to stumble backward until she went back into the closet. The door shut, and Anna began to scream in a high pitched voice. I turned on the light in my room and saw her tearing at her throat. Blood eventually escaped and began to pour on the floor. I screamed and tried to move the desk. It wouldn’t budge.

I looked back at Andrew, who was just staring at me with his usual blank expression. Anna passed out on the ground and bled out. Tears were forming in my eyes as I watched Andrew’s face turn into a smile. What happened next was terrifying. I can only explain it as him dislodging his jaw and pulling it out of his mouth. Blood drained from my face as I began to lose my balance. This wasn’t Andrew, and it wasn’t Anna. And my house wasn’t my house. None of this was real. It couldn’t have been.

Blood poured from Andrew’s mouth as his stomach began to move and convulse. He fell to the floor as something emerged from his stomach. I saw the orange liquid pouring from her eyes and I knew. The floor began to feel hot and the room stretched into a larger and larger space until the beast that was acting as my mother looked dead into my eyes.

“Hell.” It was in a deep voice, so deep that it changed something in my head. I screamed.

The next thing I knew I woke up in my bed. I was sweating profusely, and I looked at the time. 4:27 AM.

I didn’t go to sleep after that, and I swear I could hear that creature telling me I was in Hell throughout the night. When the sun came up and it was time to go to school, I was ecstatic. I haven’t woken up at 4:27 since, but soon after I heard of my dad telling my mom he was waking up at the same time just yesterday.

We didn't know exactly what substance it was that he was abusing that did it. We were still waiting on the toxicology report for that.

People will tell you that it's not my fault. People will insist that I loved my brother. People will say that I'm a good man. People are wrong.

This is my fault. I own it. I abandoned my own flesh and blood in frustration when he needed me most. Hours passed before my conscience finally got the better of me that night and by the time I made it back to his home to make amends, it was too late.

I stood at his entrance practicing my apology. Testing the best sentences I could use to tell him how sorry I was but in the same breath, truly get through to him that his demons were tearing our parents apart.

My rehearsal was interrupted by a squishing sound from beneath my feet as I paced. The industrial carpet lining the corridors of the run down complex were wet. The dirty beige colour now a dark brown in an uneven half circle where it's been saturated most at the foot of my brothers' door.

I apprehensively used my spare key to gain entrance. Cool droplets of water dripped down from the ceiling. Puddles pooled deep in sections on the uneven floors. My guilt morphed into anger instantly as I wondered how much my parents would have to pay the landlord for the damages my little brother has caused to his property.

It builds into blind rage as I jerk in surprise as one of the drops from the ceiling falls onto my face.

The emotion fades faster than it came when I turned my body towards Jimmy's living room preparing to give him hell.

My voice catches in my throat when my gaze finds its destination.

There he sat, lifeless on the sofa where I left him. His mouth agape, eyes wide and nearly completely white. His soaking wet t-shirt molded to his skinny body revealing the contour of his ribcage. His hand outstretched at his side resting on the unoccupied cushion as if even in death he requested my companionship.

"Jimmy!" I shout as I scramble towards him splashing in the puddles as I ran. I held him in my arms screaming his name and tapping his cold face with my hand. "Please, wake up!" My voice cracking in terror.

I recoil in surprise as a drop lands on my hand breaking my daydream as I sit slumped in the funeral homes' chair. I instinctively look to the ceiling as if I were still at Jimmy's apartment. Realizing too late that I was the source. I've been silently crying this whole time.

The rest of the viewing was as hard as you would expect for a family bidding a 26 year old member farewell. The burial was even worse. There's something about the finality of the closing coffin that leaves you so empty you'd swear a piece of you was in there with your loved one, never to see the light of day again. I wish I could tell you that it became easier on us in the weeks that followed but I won't lie to you. I can't find it in me to care enough for that.

It's been especially hard on my mother in the six weeks that have passed. She had spent most of it watching old home videos of my brother as a child. Birthday parties, piano recitals, graduations and the like. Her nights however are filled with quiet weeping from her upstairs bedroom, clutching a photo of him in a frame she keeps by her bedside. My father being the war veteran that he is, copes with trauma as he always has with quiet strength, a cigarette, a stiff upper lip, and if need be a stiffer drink. I've never seen so much as a tear form in my father's eye my entire life, not even as we carried my brother's casket to be buried. You could sense his sadness as it hung heavy in the air around him, its weight could be felt by every single person in attendance. But to him, crying was weakness in a man and not an option while he had a wife and surviving son depending on him.

It's the reason I was so shocked to see him sitting on the floor next to his cellphone, sobbing like a child when I let myself into their home.

"Dad?" I say as I make my way toward him, leaving the front door open behind me. I knelt as fast as I could to rest my hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

He wipes his face ashamedly "Hey Alan," he says trying his best to conceal the agony in his voice and shifts his body abruptly to stand.

I keep him down, he doesn't resist.

"Dad, it's ok." I soothe, "What happened?"

Fresh tears well in his eyes as he stares into mine. It's my turn to be strong for him as I fight back tears of my own.

"The doctor called," he whispers. "All of Jimmy's results came back negative."

"What?" I blurt, failing to conceal my surprise.

"There were no drugs in his system. Hair, blood, saliva... nothing." he whimpers, "what... what killed my boy?"

I feel dizzy at this revelation and use my father's shoulder to steady myself as I sit with my back to the wall beside him.

Both of us staring off into nothing.

Both of us now weeping.

We had all been so sure that Jimmy overdosed that we had refused an autopsy. Confident that sending off Jimmy's various bodily fluids would reveal the culprit. The police found no evidence of foul play and they attributed the water and damage to the apartment as a drug fueled hallucination. "He probably thought the place was on fire!" were the exact words used by the officer. Yet here we are in a reality where Jimmy not only did not overdose, but had no trace of narcotics in his system whatsoever.

More time had passed since I found my father on the floor and its passage has done nothing to heal my wounds. I became obsessed with my brother's death, and vowed to find out what it is that killed him not only for my sake but for the sake of my parents who have deteriorated into shells of their former selves without this closure. I found my answer among his possessions which lay in storage boxes in my parents garage.

Jimmy was an avid reader, and owned more books than an underfunded public library. So it was easy for everyone involved who didn't know him to overlook the leather bound journal that was tucked away between Wilde and Poe. Even if it had garnered any amount of attention, it would be short lived. Its pages were seemingly empty.

When we were children we nicknamed my father the Colonel because he took all of his military style bootcamp training and transitioned it over to his parenting. When one of us broke something in the house, or just generally disobeyed him we would be sent to our rooms which he called "the hole" for a pre-set amount of time.

"Come here boys!" He would bellow, his deep voice reverberating throughout the house and my brother and I would drop anything we were doing and scurry to get to him as fast as our little legs could carry us. We would stand up straight before him with our hands at our sides like mini soldiers.

"Which one of you broke your mothers vase?" He'd say to us sternly, my mother cooking in the background trying hard not to smile. My father never hit us so the "little soldier routine" as she called it made her smile through her mock grimace everytime.

"I did sir!" Jimmy would shout.

"Takes a man to own up to his mistakes." my father would say, "but he's got to face the consequences too, don't you think?"

"Yes sir!" He'd say standing up straighter.

"Good. One hour in the hole!" The Colonel replied with my mother behind him smiling blatantly now hoping to at least surpress the giggles.

It wasn't uncommon for Jimmy to take the fall. It's just who he was and would always be. I had broken the vase that evening but Jimmy couldn't bare the thought of someone else being punished if he had the power to prevent it. He gave anything and everything he had to those he loved and as he aged that quality only grew stronger.

Jimmy was a better man than me.

It was during those hours in the hole that we devised a way to communicate with eachother, undetected from the Colonels' watchful eyes. We would pass notes under the door written in lemon juice or milk. Once dry the paper would be clear, the ink unseen. The only way to reveal the message was to apply heat either with a candle, or the burning hot incandescent lightbulb of our bedside lamps, turning the transparent ink brown like magic. As soon as the message was read, the paper was destroyed and if it were ever intercepted before the heating process as they sometimes were our parents would simply command us to pick up after ourselves seeing only a blank page. It was our very own invisible ink. We briefly tried with urine once but neither one of us was willing to touch the paper afterward which defeated the purpose.

Holding Jimmy's leather journal in my hand and leafing through its pages, I smiled at the memory. I took it with me to my father's workbench in the corner of the garage. Reaching to take the propane torch from the top shelf. I twist the nozzle releasing a hiss of propellant, and pull the trigger igniting a blue flame.

He couldn't have. Could he?

I travel the flame carefully over the first page as to not combust it and stare in bewilderment as words do indeed begin to surface.

LET ME GO ALAN.

BURN THE BOOK.

-Love, Jimmy.

With my heart beating out of my chest I don't know whether to laugh or cry as I read Jimmy's message from beyond the grave so I do a bit of both as a swallow hard, composing myself before turning the page.

I PRAY THAT NO ONE IS READING. I HAVE DONE MY BEST TO CONTAIN WHAT I HAVE FOUND SO WHEN I DIE, IT DIES WITH ME.

"What the hell is going on, Jimmy?" I whisper aloud. For the very first time, the thought that the toxicology report might be mistaken emerges in my mind. Who else but a man intoxicated could ever write such things?

The sense of smell is so closely linked to memory that the aroma created by the flame eminating from the paper triggers happy flashbacks of when we used to do this as children.

A stunning contrast to the morbidness of my discovery. How did we end up here?

Another page, another message.

PLEASE, IF ANYONE IS READING THIS ESPECIALLY YOU ALAN WHO IS THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS ABOUT THE INVISIBLE WRITING, JUST BURN THE BOOK! PLEASE DO NOT BRING THE POEM BACK INTO THE WORLD.

"Poem?" I think to myself as chills run up my spine.

I LOVE YOU ALAN, TO THE MOON AND BACK. IF YOU ARE READING THIS, HUG MOM AND THE COLONEL. THEY'LL NEED YOU. IM SORRY I COULDN'T TELL YOU. I COULDN'T RISK IT. I DISCOVERED A CURSE. A CURSE THAT ONCE READ BINDS YOU TO IT. IT WONT LET ME DIE ALAN, UNLESS I WRITE IT.

I flip the pages as fast as I can to continue my brother's message.

IT CAN'T BE STOPPED. I'VE TRIED. I'VE DESTROYED EVERYTHING RELATED TO THIS CURSE THAT I'VE FOUND SO THAT IT CAN'T BE SOUGHT OUT. THE INVISIBLE WRITING IS MY LOOPHOLE. A WAY TO END MY SUFFERING BUT PROTECT THE NEXT VICTIMS.

The next fifteen pages consisted of only three words repeated over and over.

DO NOT READ.

My heart breaks at my brother's mental state. If I had known his mind was so fragmented I could have gotten him the help he clearly needed.

The words on the sixteenth page burned darker than the rest. No longer the golden brown of its predecessors but a deep black. No longer bold capital letters but a fine script.

*Each flash of lightning will reveal its form.

*It preys on the cursed in the eye of the storm.

Every page that followed was empty.

I clutched the journal to my chest. "I'm so sorry Jimmy." I mutter "I love you too."

I couldn't bring myself to tell my parents about my discovery, it would do them no good. Upon exiting the garage, I tuck the book into my jacket sleeve and lay it on the couch where I take a seat next to my mother watching her daily dose of home videos.

"Hello sweetheart." she smiles, leaning in to kiss my cheek.

"How you doing mom?" I respond.

"I'm alright I guess I'm just trying to remember happier times." She smiled, "These videos just remind me that I did tell you boys I loved you a million times a day." and points to the screen.

I chuckle because she speaks the truth. At this moment, in the video labeled "Jimmy's 8th birthday" she can be heard from behind the camera asking her two sons her favourite question. "Boys! Boys! How much does mommy love you?"

Jimmy and I sat on the backyard picnic bench surrounded by presents and other children, red as tomatoes and rolling our eyes.

"Mom, not in front of our friends!" We hushed in embarrassment.

"How much my little monkeys?" She squealed with glee.

"To the moon and back" We muttered in defeat.

To add to our horror, the other children surrounding us were ooing and awing in unison.

"See?" my mother says drawing my attention away from the television and back to her.

Both of us share a laugh. It was so nice to see my mother smile again that it helped me to forget Jimmy's journal. So when she asked if I would like to see another video, I agreed without hesitation.

"Do you have my clown birthday party?" I inquire.

"Oh I sure do!" she says jumping up from the couch to retrieve it. "That's my favourite!"

I remember that damn party like it happened yesterday. "The party from hell" Jimmy would dub it later on. My mother thought it would be a tremendous idea to have a clown perform at my 9th birthday, completely unaware that clowns terrified both my brother and I. It was a particularly hot July day. We had already been delirious from too much sun and sugar when Twirly the clown made his entrance holding my candle topped cake. Dancing instead of walking toward us with grand exaggerated kicks of his legs. There's a particularly funny scene in this video where my mother pans the camera from Twirly's theatrics and laughing family members in the background, to where my brother and I sat holding eachother, eyes shut tightly with our faces turned towards the sky crying in fear.

But that's not what played on the tv. The setting hadn't changed. The people in attendance were the same. My younger father before his hair began to grey, stood at the barbeque flipping burgers just as I remembered only he was dripping wet in the rain.

"It wasn't raining." I think to myself confused.

"Look how handsome your father is." I hear my mother say at my side. I can't find my voice to reply so I just nod never taking my eyes off what I'm watching. "Here's the best part!" she claps with joy.

"Bring on the clown!" My father says, but it's difficult to make out over the ever increasing ferocity of the storm. The screen goes white with a flash of lightning as if it struck within meters of where we were standing.

My pulse quickens as I perceive everything in near slow motion. The camera moves from my father to Twirly the clown, his large red shoes splashing in the mud as he danced. The white make up on his face running down onto his orange coloured jumpsuit. The large red painted on smile associated with clowns, sagged into a grimace. His eyes completely blacked out as his drawn on eyebrows did the same.

The happy family members in the background clapping and cheering as the water pooled around their ankles. Heavy winds tossing the womens hair every which way as they applauded, seemingly unaware of the hurricane that raged around them.

Lightning illuminates the scene that has made my family laugh for the better part of two decades. I stare in horror, paralyzed with fear. The camera finally finds its way to young Jimmy and I as we sit holding eachother. However this time only one of us was crying with our eyes shut. Jimmy was staring directly into the camera wide eyed, head vigorously shaking from side to side.

His lips move but I can't make out what he's saying over the ripping thunder. Another flash of lightning and I gasp as a figure materializes behind us out of nothing. Its skin is stretched tight around its tall, skinny body almost translucent in appearance. Its oversized hands resting on both of our shoulders. Its long fingers traveling almost almost the entire length of our torsos.

I can't make out its face through no fault of my own because it doesn't have one to speak of. Only a mouth that makes up the whole bottom portion of its oval head.

Jimmy jerks his shoulder away from its clutches running up to the camera and grabbing it with both hands to bring it up close to his face.

"You let it out!" He shrieks. " Alan, you let it out! He repeats himself until his voice is hoarse. The hands of the figure coming into frame behind him where they rest on his shoulders.

I taste the salt of my tears at the corner of my mouth and recoil violently as I feel a hand on my shoulder.

"It's alright, Alan" my mother says with both her hands held out in front of her trying to be as soothing as possible.

"I'm sorry mom." I respond and start wiping my face with my sleeve until I turn back toward the video. The sun is shining and the clown is dry. His makeup impeccable as the young me reluctantly blows out the candles.

"I miss him too." she says rubbing my back.

"I gotta go." was all I could muster in my dazed condition as I kissed her cheek, picked up my jacket and headed for my car.

I sat in silence on my drive home. Silent enough that the soft swishing of my windshield wipers in the rain were infuriatingly loud. I kept going over what just happened in my head. Overwhelmed, I switched on the radio to the most mindless dance music station I can think of to drown out my thoughts. The vapid radio disk jockey addressing his audience in the typical fashion.

"Yo, yo, yo party people" he begins, "This is MC Mookie Mayes, the flyest DJ on the east coast coming at you live on this beautiful Saturday evening."

He has the desired effect of distracting me at the very least because I roll my eyes and mutter "douchebag" under my breath.

"There's not a cloud in the sky today." he continues, "so I want to see all you beautiful people dancing to my lit beats under the stars tonight!"

I laugh aloud at this. "Hey dj dimwit!" still chuckling, "it's rainin-" my voice trails off as I pull off to the side of the road. I reach to the passengers side seat to retrieve my phone. I open my weather app, warm and clear skies with a zero percent chance of precipitation.

My blood runs cold as thunder rolls in the distance. I look up from my phone to see the silhouette of a figure far in the distance and all I can do is stare as each flash of lightning transports him closer to me.

I floor the gas pedal and speed down the road my tires spinning on the slick surface. My wipers struggling to keep up with the ever falling rain making it difficult to see. "I gotta get out of here." I speak to myself to try and calm my nerves constantly checking my rearview mirror in hopes to catch a glimpse of the figure behind me. But I was mistaken when another flash of light brought the figure directly in front of my car. I swerved to avoid it losing control of my vehicle, spinning out as I try to compensate the steering. When it finally grinds to a halt, I sit gasping for air and listening to my wipers squeaking as they pass over the dry glass. I exit my vehicle and notice the stars in the sky and not a cloud in sight.

When I got to my apartment, I headed straight for my bathroom to splash some cold water on my face. What greets me in the mirror causes me to stare. I've begun to age just as Jimmy had. My cheeks are sullen and the dark rings under my eyes are the worst I'd ever seen.

At first I questioned my sanity. After all, the apparitions left no evidence of their visits. When the storm passed, I was able to carry on with my days. Even my appearance could be reasoned away with illness or the depression caused by the loss of my brother. That luxury would be short lived. As its bond with me grew stronger, its effects became more apparent. Each passing storm would leave its mark. The wet clothes on my body or the welts in the shape of handprints underneath them.

It's been weeks since my first exposure and I can't carry on like this anymore. I hope you can understand, I don't want to die. The figure comes with a higher frequency than ever before. I awaken in the middle of the night to thunder and my apartment is now rife with mold from water damage. I've lost 30 pounds and two teeth since then. It's here with me now both hands resting on my shoulders as I write this. I tried to hold off for as long as I could, but I'm going to give in to what it wants. The largest audience it's ever had in the who knows how many centuries it's roamed the earth. I think in passing it to you I can save myself. I can't be sure but it's worth a try.

Jimmy was selfless. He wrote the curse in a way that no one could ever read it. He gave his life to protect the world.

Please forgive me, I've already told you.

It was a female voice reading a list of numbers and random words, interrupted every so often by a bell tone. Her voice spoke plainly and monotonously, but something in it sounded condescending, conspiratorial, and vaguely mocking, like she was smiling while she spoke but had no real emotion. The whole thing freaked me out.

The next day, I heard the same thing at the same time. Noise, song, same voice reading off numbers and nonsense words. It repeated for a week.

The jarring noise woke me up last night. It never happened at night, only 3:07 pm every day. The voice came right after the noise this time, no song. She sounded different. Distressed. I heard a shuffling of papers. "Tw- two. Five. Sailboat. S- seven. Conifer. I- oh god. I hope they aren't listening."

She took a breath. I pulled out my phone and started recording, incase I needed to reference the audio later. I did end up listening to it, several times in fact, but nothing is clearer for me. I referenced it to write this too, to make sure I got everything right that she said.

"Okay." Ding! "Twenty left. Okay. Listen, if there's anyone listen to me, please-" ding! "Who am I kidding. No one will be listening to this. Ah- if there is anyone listening, I-" ding! "S***. Remember this. Uh, alpha. Twenty-two. Not that. Remember this: a bird in the basket is worth three hundred twelve in the oak. Show me." Ding! "Please. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to work for these people, I don't- I don't want to be here. I- I know what's going on." Ding! "Please. Please. Pl-"

The broadcast ended. From then on, the station was just white noise. At the time of the usual broadcast, the noise went off and the song played, but there was no voice of bel tones, just silence. I turned the dial once and turned it back, and the station was replaced by loud crackling. I haven't heard anything else from it since.

“H-h-hey Courtney!” I greeted as I approached her at her locker, a nervous wreck. She was talking with her friend Betty and they both looked at me as I interrupted their conversation.

“Oh...hey...who are you?” Courtney said.

“D-David. It’s David. We have Family Studies together and I’ve seen you around...so I just wanted to, you know... say hi”

“Oh....well hi. Sorry I actually gotta get going to class now.” she said as she slammed her locker door and grabbed Betty’s hand to pull her away.

“Okay...bye! It was nice meeting you!” I called out after her.

As they were walking away I overheard Betty and Courtney laughing. Betty turned to Courtney and said “H-O-L-Y shit. What the hell was that?”

“Oh my god, I know right!?” Courtney replied. “Talk about creepy!”

“Seriously gross. He said he was in your Family Studies class?” Betty asked.

“I guess. I’m not sure why he’s taking that, by the looks of it, he ate his entire family!” Courtney laughed.

I’m not proud to admit it, but I didn’t learn my lesson even after that. Throughout my 4 years in high school, I tried over and over again to impress her. Needless to say, it didn’t work. She would call me names like “piggy”, “pizza face”, and of course, the ever so classic “fatass”. There was this one year where I got a complete makeover: new clothes and a haircut that was all the rage back then. A faux hawk I think it was called. When I went to speak with her, she said to me “Oh shit, look who just escaped from whoville. Did you run out of food to eat there or something?” with the most condescending laugh I’d ever heard. Still, as the years went by, I never could seem to forget her. It was probably because she was my first crush, and I’m sure all of us hold onto memories of our first.

So, given all of that, I’m sure you’re probably thinking “Wow, David, sounds like you had it rough. So why wouldn’t you go back and do it all over again?” Well, it’s actually pretty simple. Going through all that hardship gave me purpose, a drive to work hard and move forward. I channeled my love of food into my cooking and became a very renowned chef. I now own my own restaurant in New York and am quite wealthy. I started hitting the gym religiously and am sitting at a very lean 160lbs. Seriously, you could grate cheese on my abs (although as a chef I would advise against it cause it’s kind of a huge health code violation) . My skin cleared up as I got out of my teen years, and not to brag or anything, but I’m quite the looker now. Careful who you call ugly in high school I guess eh?

The universe has a plan, it turns out. Remember that girl I was crazy about? The one I could never forget? Well I ran into her recently. She had just moved to New York from Toronto for her new job. Coincidentally, she came into my restaurant one night and wanted to pay her compliments to the chef. My waiter led her into the kitchen with my permission, where I greeted her.

“Oh my god! David Smith?! Is that you??” she said.

“Courtney! It’s been so long!” I exclaimed.

“My goodness, you look...amazing!”

“Thanks.” I smiled. “What are you doing here Courtney?”

“My co-worker said that I had to try this place out. I never expected to find you running things here.”

“I suppose it’s a bit of an added treat to your dinner then” I joked.

“More than a bit!” she laughed. Courtney then fell silent with an awkward expression on her face as she prepared to say something else. “Hey, listen David...I know I wasn’t the nicest to you back in highschool... I mean we all do stupid things that were not proud of and -”

“Court. Stop. It’s forgotten.” I interrupted with a smile. “It really is good to see you.”

“Thanks David. You too.”

“I hate to cut this short, but I have to get back to work. Here’s my number, hit me up sometime. We should catch up.” I said while handing her my business card.

“Definitely! I’ll give you a call.” she smiled.

A few hours passed and while I was closing up my restaurant, I received a call from Courtney. I picked up the phone to find her in a complete panic.

“David, my god, someone broke into my house! The place has been ransacked and I can’t find Barkley anywhere!” she cried.

“Jesus Court, have you called the police?!” I responded.

“Yeah, they’re on their way here now.” she sniffled. “David, I know this is an awkward request, but I’m new here... I don’t know anybody in this city and I’m terrified and...I just need someone.”

“Deep breathes Court, deep breathes. Text me your address, I’m on my way!”

It’s been 7 months since that incident. The police never ended up finding Barkley. Oh, Barkley was Courtney’s pet chihuahua by the way. The police figured that he must have gotten scared and ran away when someone broke into the home. Although it was a tragic incident, some good did come out of it. Courtney and I started dating not long afterwards. We made it official 6 months to this day and we’re now living together. Call it the romantic in me, but I planned a little surprise for our 6 months.

I told Courtney that I would be in Toronto for business all week. This was only partially true. I really did go back home to Toronto because I was currently in talks to open up a restaurant there. I didn’t stay there the entire week though, no, I came back a day early to surprise Courtney. While she was at work, I lit some candles, poured some of her favourite wine and cooked her a gourmet meal. Once everything was set, I waited for her to come back home.

“David? Is that you?” Courtney called as she entered the front door. “I saw your car in the front.”

“Happy 6 months babe.” I replied as I emerged from the kitchen. I grabbed her hand and led her to the kitchen and into a scene straight out of a romance novel. “You hungry?”

“Oh my goodness, you are just the sweetest!” she replied with a huge smile.

“Have a seat. Dig in before it gets cold!”

“Well, I’ll help myself then!” she smiled as she grabbed the steak knife and started cutting into her meal. “How was the trip? Did you manage to land the deal?” Courtney asked between bites.

“Yup, you’re looking at the proud owner of a restaurant chain! I’m opening up business in Toronto next month.” I replied

“See! I told you not to worry! You’re so talented they were bound to love you!” Courtney said as she took another bite. She must have noticed that I wasn’t eating because she looked up at me and said “your not gonna eat?”

“In a bit.” I replied. “I just want to remember this moment. To think, Courtney Silver is eating MY cooking. It’s like a dream come true.”

“Oh, you…” she blushed “I’m the lucky one.”

“I thought you might be homesick so I hand picked these ingredients from Toronto. Thought I would give you a taste of your home.”

“Aww babe! You are actually the best boyfriend ever!” she exclaimed.

I watched Courtney as she wrapped up her meal. She finished the last bite of her steak and let out a huge sigh of pleasure. As she was wiping her mouth with a napkin, I asked her “How was the meal Court?”

“So amazing David! You really outdid yourself this time!” she replied.

“Was it better or worse than Barkley?” I asked with a huge grin on my face.

“I’m sorry?” Courtney replied confused.

“Your dog, Barkley. Did this meal taste better or worse than him?”

“I...David what the hell are you going on about?” she asked still confused but now noticeably concerned.

“You know, I never forgot about you Court. Ever since high school, I’ve always had you on my mind. The way you treated me, the way you made me feel...I hated you for it...but the hate gave me purpose because I thought maybe one day I’d be able to have my revenge. One day, as I was stalking your Facebook profile, I saw that you were moving to New York City. Not even a week after, I saw you tweet on your twitter ‘Going to [redacted] Restaurant tonight! I hear it’s the culinary hotspot of NYC!’. God had handed me my revenge on a silver platter.”

“...” Courtney was speechless. She was hanging onto my every word. The despair and tears in her eyes told me that she knew where I was going with this, but she needed to hear it from my mouth. The mouth of the man whom she came to love.

“I tracked down where you lived Court. While you were at work, I broke into your house and kidnapped Barkley. I made it look like a robbery so you wouldn’t think twice about it. Then, when you came to my restaurant with your co-workers, I fed you Barkley on a silver platter.”

“...I...what...I don’t even…” Courtney stammered as she tried to process what I had just said.

“The best part was that you gave me compliments for feeding you your dog!” I roared, no longer able to contain my laughter.

“Oh my god… you’re sick!” she cried, tears streaming down her face. “You’re a sick twisted freak! What the fuck is wrong with you!? I’m calling the police!”

I watched her search frantically for her phone as a twisted sense of joy welled up inside of me. I couldn’t contain what I wanted to say next any longer “But babe, I went through so much trouble to prepare this meal for you.”

“Don’t you fucking dare call me babe!” she screamed while crying hysterically.

“I went through the trouble of getting the ingredients straight from your home. 579 [Redacted] Avenue.”

“Tell it to the fucking pol-” Courtney’s voice trailed off as she realized what I had just said. “579 [Redacted] Avenue...my parents house…?”

“That’s right, Good Ol’ Mr. and Mrs. Silver, served up on a silver platter. True to their namesake I suppose.” I chuckled.

“....W-w-what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you were wrong Court. I never ate anybody from my family, but you sure as hell have.”

“Oh my god, oh my god...” Courtney repeated those three words over and over again under her heavy breath. I could tell she was on the verge of snapping and I couldn’t resist pushing her over the edge.

“You should know they squealed like pigs when I gutted them. Or wait, what was that nickname you had for me? That’s right, they squealed like a goddamn ‘piggy’.”

“No, no no no no no, my god no…” she repeated, like a broken record stuck on the same few notes. Courtney was now a complete wreck, with tears streaming down her face and muffled screams escaping from the cusp of her hand. In a moment of anger, she looked up at me and then to the steak knife. Before I could react, she stood up from her chair with the knife in-hand and pointed it towards me. “You...you sick freak.”

My body immediately shot upright and I raised my hands over my head while backing away to create some distance. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Court.” I said. “What are you gonna do? Are you gonna cut up the man you love? Just like you cut up your parents?”

“I...Mum...Dad” Courtney cried out in only a hoarse whisper. She then turned the knife towards herself and at her stomach. She let out a deafening scream, and then, she stabbed herself. Over and over again she stabbed herself in the stomach. It was as if she was trying to extract what little remained of her parents. Her attempts, however, were futile, as she soon went limp and slumped over - dead.

A small chuckle escaped my lips. As I stared at Courtney’s body, my chuckle grew louder and louder until it filled all of my home. This went better than I ever could have imagined! Be careful who you call ugly in high-school.

I sat back down on the chair opposite of Courtney’s limp corpse. I pulled out my phone and thought to myself “I wonder what that bitch Betty is up to.”

Facebook Messenger

Thursday, March 15 At 21:42

David: Hey Betty, how have you been?

Betty: Oh my god! David Smith?! Is that you? My goodness, you look...amazing!

David: Thanks! I’ll be in Toronto for work soon. Wanna grab a drink and catch up?

Betty: Definitely! Here’s my number: 416-[Redacted].

“Mom! Stop!” The words erupted from my mouth before I had any time to lasso them back. My mom jumped, stumbling forwards, landing with her temple on stone. The moment paused again, Mom’s mouth agape in a startled “oh”, the counter corner embedded in her skull.

Rewind.

Play.

This time, I dove forward and pulled her into a hug. The roast she was holding fell to the floor, joining the grease stain she hadn’t noticed.

“Hon? What’s wrong?”

I guess the fact that her ambivalent and withdrawn preteen son hugging her for the first time in years overrode the shock of a spilled dinner. I started to cry, I probably wept, and the next few weeks all blurred into one continuous smear.

My mom didn’t believe me when I told her about seeing her die right in front of me. She took me to the pediatrician first, who then referred us to a psychologist, who pointed the way to a psychiatrist. I was medicated, thought to have early onset bipolar, in the middle of a mixed episode. I heard words like “manic” and “delusions of grandeur”, but I didn’t care. I was having the time of my life. Sure, the sedatives made me feel fuzzy, and I was still too young to really object to the medications, but it couldn’t get in the way of using my new found super power.

I could rewind time.

Anytime my mom said something condescending, or when my little sister refused to let me have my turn on the game, or even just because I’m bored – I’ll go wild. It felt so good to be able to just slap Eva when she bugged me, or knock the meds out of my mom’s hands. Sometimes, I’d even throw everything not bolted down outside my window. I could always rewind, and just not be a little shit. Everything was fine. I never dealt with consequences.

I was an angelic teen. The perfectly behaved straight-A student, dating the most popular girl in school, in line to be student body president. I knew every word to say, every test answer, everything I needed to coast through life.

I found out I could travel forward in time when I lost my virginity.

I’m not going to bore you with the many failed attempts I made at a fumbling first time, but let’s just say that on about the fourth take, I was euphoric. I closed my eyes from the sight of Lily under me and opened them to the same thing, only she was older. Her eyes had crow’s feet, and I could see gray hair snaking across our pillows.

Where before she was screaming in ecstasy, this Lily was in agony.

“Stop! Baby stop, please!”

Before I could stop the words, my mouth spoke: “You cheating cunt! I’ll fucking kill you!”

Before I could stop the movement, my hands wrapped around her throat. My grip tightened. Her thrashing slowed. I closed my eyes in relief

and opened them in tears, still over Lily, still in the back of the car. “Aw baby, was I that good?” She said, chuckling, wiping at my tears. I broke up with her that night.

I didn’t know if I needed to have sex again, or just reach the same state of pleasure, so I put on some porn and went at it. Nothing, just a mess.

So I asked a friend for something to feel good.

I heated a spoon, lay in bed, and tried to let go. I thought of graduating high school, college, getting my first house. I thought of my future partner, maybe some children, definitely a cat. I was transfixed on the imagery of my eyes aging.

“Baby wake up, you’re lying on my shit.” The voice was scratchy, like they were fighting a head cold. When I opened my eyes, the person looked just as wretched. I almost gagged at her breath. Looking down, we were both naked, track marks as common as stretch. I felt bile rising, and flipped over on the bed to vomit three bean soup back onto the three bean colored carpet.

“Fucking finally.” That voice, Celia, my first college girlfriend. I fucking hate her. “Well?” She said. “Do you want any or not?”

Rewind.

I never went to that party, I never let myself meet Celia. I didn’t even let myself have pain killers. Not after that path I saw.

So maybe you’re getting a bit of a picture of what I’m capable of. I can’t travel forward at will, and however long I travel backwards I must relive everything after the point I stop at. It’s not perfect, but it made for a hell of a good life. I wasn’t always a good person, though. I swear, I didn’t think it would have repercussions, not like this.

There was this one girl, Juno, who denied me at every turn. I tried time and time again to win her over, but she was adamant that she didn’t want to be around me, let alone date me. I wasn’t used to this kind of rebuttal. I was used to getting what I want, after a few tries.

So when she didn’t give me what I wanted, I took it.

I felt so guilty that I couldn’t even finish before rewinding and scuttling off, but I kept dreaming about it. I couldn’t help but think I could have anything, anyone that I wanted.

So I did it again.

So, yeah. I was the time traveling rapist. But it gets worse.

There was a kid in my grade, Paul, who bugged the hell out of me. Something never seemed right with him, and he could make my hair stand on end just by looking at me. I grew to hate that weaselly little creep over the years. That was my state of mind, when I heard that he had eyes on my sister, Eva. And not just his own eyes, but others’ too. He apparently found a tree outside our house that his bony ass could comfortably sit on while he jerked off to my preteen sister changing. He sold the images online. I may be a rapist, but at least I can undo my actions. At least I’m not a fucking pedophile.

I beat him to a pulp. I threw him out windows. I slaughtered him and his entire family. I was furious, and no amount of murder satisfied me. Eventually, I settled on dumping him in the ocean, still writhing under the cement blocks. I covered my tracks.

It wasn’t enough, though.

Suppose the entire world froze, except for you. Every person, every bird, every tree; completely still, still alive. What would you do? Don’t toss any bullshit like “eat all the ice cream” or “steal all the money”, you’d fuck everyone you’ve ever wanted to fuck. You’d kill anyone who ever pissed you off. You’d wreak havoc. You’d be absolutely and utterly free to do what you pleased.

And so I did. My entire adulthood was riddled with mass murder, destruction, making art out of agony. I loved going just long enough to let the newspapers come up with a nickname for my alter-ego, then rewinding to switch up my methods. I was particularly fond of “Mr. Splice”, but “Zodiac Killer” had a nice ring.

But I digress.

You see, I swear I thought I was doing no harm. These people, this timeline, it would all be erased. They would never know the pain I caused, the deaths my hands. They’d just see Axel, just a humble mechanic, taking care of his sick mom.

I thought every time I rewound, so did time. But I’m older now, too weary to go back to my youth and try again. I’m pretty damn tired. And after my heart attack, I saw something I can never forget.

I saw everything. Every thread, every line, every divulging path that I thought was demolished was firm. Real. Devastatingly real.

The aftermath to my musings were tangible, and every time I rewound, the scenes continued. I looked confused, as if I knew I was meant to be somewhere else. I understood. Every single time I reversed my actions, I made a duplicate. My consciousness must have copied. Transferred. Not even aware that it was a clone, carrying the power with it.

So I saw every single one of myself being ravaged by police, avenging parents, fires I started. I saw the funerals of the inhabitants of homes I burned down, ignorant of whoever was in there. I saw myself the father of countless children, with countless battered wives, with countless beatings by fathers. I saw myself covered in the blood of my little sister, her guts ripped open when I tried to play zombie that one time. I will never forget the look on my mother’s face when she entered the room to see me, confused, Eva’s liver still in my mouth. Or the feeling of her beating my face in with her bare hands.

So, I sit here now, old enough to realize that even the slightest change could cause damage not even I can predict. I’ve stopped rewinding. I’ve stopped trying to prevent disasters. I’m just trying to atone. Trying to make up for the wrongs I’ve done. Maybe, somehow, by some great chance of fate, some timelines may converge, and the people I’ve hurt can all read this.

So, to you. If you were ever hurt by a short, scruffy guy named Axel Ponderosa, I’m sorry.

I’m so, so sorry.

I’m not a time traveler. I’m a multidimensional piece of shit. And I’m making sure I never hurt anyone ever again.

Maybe the bullet won’t be fast enough before the rewind kicks in, but maybe it will. I guess we’ll see.

Now, Charani had many friends, so she naturally heard rumors of her father’s benevolent sorcery. These stories both frightened and excited her. One night she went to Kem and asked, “Papa, is it true you make magic shoes?”

He pulled her onto his lap, laughing. “Maybe I could.”

“But do you?”

He ruffled her hair. “I think I did once, and I suppose I could again, but only for those I love.”

Charani found this answer deeply unsatisfying. “What does that mean?”

“It means that love is the only real magic, my darling.”

He then ushered her off to help Zofia. Charani did as he bade, even though she felt annoyed and dissatisfied. Her father always spoke in riddles and nonsense poetry. But that, she supposed, was the price one paid for a kind and gentle father. And it was quite a low price, when all was said and done.

Because her father was so talented, her childhood passed unblighted by his heritage. Not until her eleventh birthday did the neighbors begin a campaign of harassment. It built so slowly that they hardly noticed it, until finally – one terrible, hot day – the butcher refused to sell meat to Kem. “All out,” he said gruffly. “Come back another time.”

Kem thought nothing of it, and moved on to the next shop, where he received the same dismissal. He tried other stores, other shops, and each one turned him away.

At first, Kem refused to believe that something was wrong. You see, Kem was a terribly sweet and loving man, hardworking, honest to the point of naivety. All he wanted was a good life for his family. Each day, year in and year out, his only goals were to keep their hearts happy, their bellies full, and their bodies warm and safe. Charani told me, always, that Kem was the perfect father.

But even perfect fathers cannot turn bad neighbors into good, brave men, and the shunning of Charani’s family continued.

At first, they assumed it was because Kem’s family was Romany. Outsiders, undesirables, rat people, gypsies, so low they were beneath even the Jews, who Hitler called the “race tuberculosis” of the world. As food became scarcer and people became more afraid, they turned on each other, casting even their kindest neighbors out of the fold.

And maybe Kem’s Roma blood was the problem at first. And it would have been bad enough.

But then a neighbor – some cruel, petty, panicked neighbor – reported that Charani’s mother, Zofia, was a Jew.

The Nazis came soon after, violently tearing Charani’s family and dozens of others away from the city and forcing them into a cold, filthy ghetto far away from home.

Zofia and Charani wept every day, and so did Kem for a little while. But a good father’s love and duty knows no bounds, so he pulled himself together and plied his trade within the confines of the ghetto. He had no materials with which to make new shoes, but with a few scraps and pieces of rubbish he could make any shoe as good as new.

Now, because of Zofia, the family had gone to a Jewish ghetto. Most of the people there refused to associate with Kem since he was a gypsy.

A few didn’t mind his gypsy-ness, however, and they brought their shoes to Kem regularly. They asked him for blessings, for magic, and - because it couldn’t hurt, because it created hope and hope is a beautiful thing, sometimes the only beautiful thing we have – Kem happily blessed each pair brought to him.

Whispers persisted of gypsy magic and dirty fraud, of course. But customers still came, intent of buying one last piece of hope. Prayer wasn’t working, you see, and gypsy magic had become their last defense against the hideous rumors coming out of the east.

Charani didn’t know how long she lived in the ghetto, only that it probably was not as long as it seemed. Toward the end, Kem became more obsessed than ever with shoes – specifically, new shoes for Charani and for Zofia. Back in the city, it wouldn’t have been a problem. Here in the ghetto, though, there was almost nothing to work with. So he improvised. Charani didn’t have the stomach to confirm it, but she suspected a few rats and cats sacrificed their skins for these shoes.

Kem worked for weeks on the shoes, frantic and feverish. “You need them,” he told Charani. “You’ve outgrown your old ones. Winter is almost here, and I’ll be damned if I don’t fulfill my duty to you.” He said this often, at least once a week, and wept every time.

Finally, on her thirteenth birthday – just as the season’s first bitter snowfall drifted down from a cold iron sky - the train came for her family.

The Nazis stuffed them into crowded, icy cars with hundreds of other people. There were no blankets in the train cars, no straw, not even solid walls. Holes bored through the cheap wood, and the planks fit together badly, leaving large cracks around which ice blossomed.

By this time, all three of them were terribly ill. Zofia had it worst: a deep, wet sickness had settled in her chest, squeezing her lungs and stealing her air each time she drew a ragged breath.

That illness claimed Zofa on the second night. She died with her frail body curled around Kem’s. Charani desperately held her mother’s hands and breathed on them, praying the warmth might revive her.

But it didn’t, and Zofia died as the moon rose over the hills, spilling heartless cold light through the cracks and holes in the siding.

Charani wept helplessly as Kem – in his own way, equally helpless – began to work. Charani cried herself to sleep. Kem labored into the night, working his stiff, withered hands to the bone.

Sometime midmorning, Charani awoke wrapped in her mother’s stiff arms. She disentangled herself and noticed that Kem had removed Zofia’s shoes.

Charani screamed and used all her strength to try and pry her mother’s shoes from her father’s hands. But Kem was far too strong for her, far too determined; no matter what she did, he continued to work, impervious to her rage.

So profound was Charani’s pain that she didn’t even know what Kem was doing, nor did she care.

On the fourth day at sunrise, the train stopped. Around her, surviving passengers wept and screamed and clutched the dead bodies of their lost loved ones. Despite her anger and deep sense of betrayal, Charani crawled to her father as the doors shuddered open, blinding them with clear morning light.

Kem held her, whispering nonsensical assurances as the guards boarded the car and threw everyone off.

They’d been deposited at a rail junction. Their train, newly empty, chugged off the way it had come. Two other trains waited, engines sending stinking clouds of exhaust into the otherwise pristine air.

Charani noticed none of this; she was only painfully, deliciously aware of the frosted grass under her feet, of clear yellow sun and the dramatic interplay of light and blue shadow on the mountains around them. A stream burbled nearby. She ran to it, heart aching; Charani hadn’t seen running water in what felt like a hundred years. She collapsed by the stream. Grass and soft earth cushioned her fall. In spite of her sickness, she dipped both hands into the stream and splashed her face. It was terribly cold, so cold it hurt her skin and stung her eyes and sent sharp pains rocketing through her skull, but it was beautiful. It was clean.

Kem came up beside her and swept her hair back from her face. “Charani. Charani, my darling. They are going to separate us.”

Horror and desperate sorrow seized Charani.

“I heard them,” he continued. Tears shimmered in his eyes. Charani began to cry. “They are separating the men from the women. Take these.” He presented the shoes, her mother’s shoes – only they were not her mother’s shoes, at least not entirely; new leather and sturdy soles gleamed in the morning light. As she wept, Kem slipped her old shoes off and laced the new ones on. “Don’t take them off. Not for anything or anyone, not until you are safe.” He tied off each shoe, then grabbed Charani’s hands. “I love you, Charani. More than anything, more than my life, more than God.”

Before Charani could answer, the guards came and pulled them apart, because there are things even a father’s love cannot stop.

She screamed and kicked as they dragged her away. Her father stood by the stream, watching her with haunted eyes. Only then did she see that her father, her poor helpless father, was barefoot.

She struggled, shrieking at the top of her lungs, until a guard hit her in the head with the butt of his rifle. Stars rocketed across her vision, and darkness overtook her.

Charani never saw Kem again.

She woke aboard the new train, only fifteen minutes from the camp.

As the prisoners exited the train, guards sorted them into groups. The vast majority of the women and children were shunted toward low grey buildings belching smoke into the sky.

Charani expected to go with them, but one of the guards – narrow-faced, with luxurious black hair - pulled her aside with an appraising look her. Then – even though she was frail and white-faced, half-starved and clearly ill - he shoved her toward the other line. Toward the strong-bodied workers.

Guards took rings and papers and trinkets and all remaining belongings from the other prisoners. Charani expected they would take her shoes, but they merely shoved her through without a second look.

Life at the camp was a frozen, lonely hell, although it quickly became apparent that Charani was decidedly less frozen than her companions.

Though the cold, deadly winter subsumed the camp, the Nazis gave no quarter; every inmate, no matter how ill, hungry, or frail, was forced to work. Even as shoes wore down to nothing and clothing drifted away thread by thread, the Nazis made the prisoners perform pointless - and pointlessly cruel - labor for hours each day. Infection and frostbite ran rampant. On the worst days, Charani watched in horror as women and men, delirious with fever, snapped their frozen toes off one by one.

Charani’s toes never froze; her father’s shoes made sure of that. In fact, no part of her froze. She was not comfortable, not by any means, but she was all right. Even on the worst days, the coldest days, the days she woke up to the frozen corpses of her fellow inmates, she barely even shivered.

Most amazing of all, the nights were tolerable. Charani rather believed this was the hallucination of a deluded mind, however. Because on the nights when she was most comfortable, she would feel something warm and liquid creep up from her feet and spread up over her head. As winter raged on, visions began to accompany this creeping warmth: translucent fur, smooth and short, like the house cat she’d fed in the ghetto. Even more strangely, dim stars shone within the fur: tiny yellow pinpricks, twinkling in the soft, warm darkness.

She could still see the barracks through this queer invisible skin, still hear the cries and screams of the women around her, even the wails from the men’s barracks. But she felt insulated from all of it. Separated.

Protected.

Delusion or not, this warmth allowed her to rest when no one else could, and kept her reasonably healthy even as people withered to frozen revenants around her.

It made Charani sad, but distantly so; she had no friends in the barracks. She’d seen the way they snuck and stole from each other, the way they raided the fresh corpses every morning. She’d seen the other inmates eyeing her shoes, seen the covetousness in their eyes, and was deeply afraid that she would be killed for them.

One brutal winter morning, during a pointless mission dragging logs all the way across the camp, she heard something so beautiful she thought it was a hallucination. A soft, sweet voice, drifting up and down in a beautiful, wordless song.

Charani glanced around her. The guards paid her no attention. They were miserably cold and deeply disgruntled, stamping their feet and conversing amongst themselves as the inmates toiled. The black-haired guard was there. He glanced at her once, then returned his attention to his companion.

Charani saw her chance and ducked away.

She found the singer pressed against the fence of the farthest barracks. He was small and frail, barely taller than Charani. His face was terribly pale and monstrously thin, but his eyes were beautiful and kind. Like her, he wore a threadbare uniform. Unlike hers, it was emblazoned with a faded pink triangle. Charani thought it rather pretty, and told him so.

He shook his head blearily, then smiled. Charani scanned the area. The guards were still occupied. So she leaned in, curling her fingers around the frozen wire of the fence, and said: “You have a beautiful voice. What is your name?”

The man shook his head and made nonsense sounds. When she still didn’t understand, he sang a swift, liquid scale, holding his mouth open. That’s when she saw: he had no tongue.

Deep sorrow crushed her, the worst she’d felt since they took her away from her father. She thrust her bony wrists through the fence and impulsively grabbed the mute man’s hand. He grasped it with both of his and squeezed. Tears spilled down his face, and he smiled again. He held up a hand, ensuring he had her attention, then reached down and raked a fingertip through the dirt, spelling out his name:

Lukasz

Then a guard finally noticed them. Flat gray sky glimmered off familiar black hair as he surged forward, breaking them apart and dragging Charani away. By this time, Charani knew better than to fight. She couldn’t help but look back over her shoulder. Lukasz of the pink triangle rose clumsily to his feet, looking stricken and angry.

That was how Charani met her only friend in the entire camp.

Every day she went to see him, bringing scraps of food – at first pieces from her own bowl, and later gifts from the black-haired guard. Lukasz couldn’t speak, but he wrote well and quickly. He was a singer from Berlin, only nineteen years old. He’d been incarcerated for homosexual behavior. When he disclosed this to her, he glanced up at her anxiously, awaiting judgment that never came. Charani did not care. Love was the only real magic in the world, and it didn’t matter to her who shared love with whom.

The men with the pink triangles were tortured and subjected to hideous experiments, more so even than the other prisoners. Lukasz had been injected with all manner of chemicals and poisons. When that failed, the Nazis had boiled his manhood away so that he could never practice his perversion again. Others had been used as targets for trainee SS officers. Lukasz himself was not sure why or how he was alive. He was thin, sickly, and crippled now. He proved this by pulling off his thin slippers, revealing several missing toes.

Every day, Charani held Lukasz’s hands and wished, from the bottom of her heart, for a second pair of magic shoes.

Their friendship was quickly noticed. The black-haired guard didn’t like their bond, and soon enough stopped sending her to Lukasz’s side of the camp. The guards found other women, sicker women, to perform their pointless chores, and confined Charani to the barracks. It angered her, but it was also a relief. She was able to sleep more, able to lose herself in the soft sleek fur and warm stars of her invisible shoe cocoon. The more time she spent inside it, the warmer it seemed.

One night, on impulse, she extended her fingertips and nervously began to stroke the air around her. He fingers touched nothing, but noticeable warmth grew around her. After a while, a low, comforting hum reverberated through her bones, a physical lullaby, and lulled her to sleep.

Still, Charani found little joy in her plight. She was forced to lounge about, wallowing in relative comfort she couldn’t share, as sicker women suffered and died.

And it got worse. Food became sparser, yet the black-haired guard insisted on slipping her scraps of food from his table. She hated him for it, and every day resolved to toss the food on the ground and grind it into the dirt. But every day she was too hungry, and every day she accepted his little favors, even as the other inmates starved.

It was worse, somehow, that anything else she had gone through.

Her only comforts were thoughts of her parents; her memories of Lukasz; and of course her strange, invisible shoe guardian. She’d taken to stroking it every night, thanking it – and Kem – for its protection.

As winter bled slowly into a crisp, bitter spring, her fellow inmates continued to die. At first the barracks refilled, but even that trickled to a stop. Whether it was because the Nazis had truly managed to finally kill all the Jews, or because they were diverting new prisoners to other camps, she didn’t know.

All she knew was one night, her last companion died, leaving her alone in the frosty barracks. As she lay on her thin, cold bed, dreamily stroking her invisible protector, the door clattered open and the black-haired guard entered.

Charani sat up, willing her heart to stop pounding. The familiar warmth evaporated, shrinking down to her shoes and disappearing.

Cold broke over her like a dark, cruel tide, and for the first time since entering the camp, Charani began to shiver.

The guard approached, boots snapping against the hard ground. Moonlight reflected off his black hair, turning it to blued silver.

He stopped before her bed. “You bitch,” he said softly. Charani recoiled. His voice was strange, almost dreamy. “You filthy, teasing little whore.” Each word produced a heavy cloud that stank of cheap liquor. “You know what I want. Every day I show you. Every day I give you food from my table. I go without, so that you can have something.” He angrily indicated the empty barracks. “Do you see? You are the only one left. That is because of me. I saved your life. I am still saving your life.” He wrapped a hand around her throat, a gesture that was falsely tender and gravely threatening. “You have never thanked me, but you will tonight.”

The guard pushed her down.

And suddenly, Charani was flooded with warmth. Blazing, purifying heat. The guard screeched and reared back, falling to the floor. He stood, eyes blazing in the clear spring moonlight, and charged. The warmth disappeared from her suddenly. Panic immobilized her. The beautiful warmth had been her guardian’s last stand, and it was finally over.

She closed her eyes, waiting for the end as the guard screamed with rage.

Or was it terror?

He screamed again, but fell silent far too quickly, almost as if he’d been cut off.

Silence followed.

After a long time, Charani finally opened her eyes.

Before her, barely visible in the darkness, was an undulating shape covered in soft dark fur and glimmering stars. The guard was nowhere to be seen.

After a while, the starry fur wrapped itself around her. Warmth, beautiful and soothing and hot as a summer’s day, enveloped her, along with profound tiredness.

“Thank you,” Charani whispered, and fell asleep.

The camp was liberated not long after. Charani was still the last in her barracks, but far from the last in the camp. She exited the gates, shouldering her way through the chaos trying to ignore the horror on the faces of the soldiers around her as she scanned the crowd for Lukasz.

Finally she saw him. Her face broke into a smile and she ran over, but quickly saw that something was wrong. Her smile turned into a frown when she understood: Lukasz was on the wrong side of the fence. Still imprisoned. He stared out at her with fear and a serenely profound sadness.

Panicked, Charani ran to one of the soldiers and tugged his sleeve. He reluctantly faced her, unable to hide the revulsion in his eyes. She pointed desperately to Lukasz and mimed unlocking a door. The soldier’s face hardened. “No. Criminals,” he said. “Crim-in-als. You understand? They stay here.”

Then he patted her head awkwardly and walked away.

Charani ran to a hundred guards, just as her father had gone to a hundred shops an eternity ago. Some laughed. A handful hugged her. Most, however, gruffly repeated the word: “Criminals.”

Soon, far too soon, it was time to leave. And still, Lukasz languished behind the fence. Charani would escape. She would survive. But Lukasz, poor sweet frail Lukasz, would continue to suffer.

She ran her hands along the fence, scrabbling for a weak spot, a hole, anything she could tear open. But there was nothing. After a while Lukasz gently took her hands and began to sing. Charani sobbed. Soon Lukasz’s fine wordless voice wavered, then broke, and then he was crying, too.

Suddenly, Charani had an idea.

A soldier came to her nervously. “Time to go,” he said.

Charani sat down and feverishly began to untie her shoes. The soldier watched, nonplussed, as she pulled the shoes off and heaved them over the fence at Lukasz.

“Put them on.” It was a battle to keep her voice steady, one she almost lost. “Don’t take them off, never take them off, not until you are safe.” Lukasz stared at her, frightened and hurt and terribly confused. “PUT THEM ON!” she screamed. This broke his paralysis, and he did as she asked, shucking his worn slippers and lacing the boots over his feet. Even though they were women’s shoes they fit him because his feet were narrow and he had almost no toes.

Then the soldier led her away. Unable to help herself, Charani looked back over her shoulder. Lukasz clung to the fence, watching her go. Maybe it was her imagination, but it didn’t look like he was shivering anymore.

A few years later, Charani married an American soldier and emigrated. I am happy to say Lukasz survived and that Charani’s husband, my grandfather, helped her bring him to America. Lukasz was still crippled and frail, and though he died long before I was born, he lived with my grandparents the rest of his life. My own father remembers him with utmost affection as Uncle Luke.

When they found him, he no longer had the shoes. With great hesitation, he wrote that he had passed the boots along to a friend, one destined to remain imprisoned long after Lukasz himself was released. He was afraid Charani would hate him for it, but she only smiled, because love is magic and magic is love, and even though a father’s sacrifice cannot always save the world, it can save the lives of his children and their dearest loved ones.

I saw the day that handsome young man came to pick you up in a red convertible. Your mother wasn’t happy about it, but she knew she had no choice. You had to start spreading your wings at some point. You left in a gorgeous floral dress that matched the summer’s flowers. You came back late that night. You had a stuffed bear and some leftover cotton candy. I imagined you had gone to the fair. I imagined all the rides you must have gone on. All the fun that must have been for you. I was so happy that you had enjoyed your first date. And then came the magical kiss. He leaned in, blushing, and kissed you. Your cheeks were so red that I instantly knew I had witnessed your first kiss. I closed my eyes, imagining what that must have felt like. For one second, I imagined it had been me wearing that dress, smiling so big, with butterflies in my belly and a kiss on my lips. But I was happy for you.

I wanted to thank you for allowing me to live again. For allowing me to dream again. I wanted to thank you, but just couldn’t bring myself to you. I couldn’t go talk to you. I didn’t know how. If only you knew about my window.

But then, one day, I heard him talking about you. The man I live with. He noticed you. I heard him complaining about how pretty girls like you shouldn’t show off their legs like that. The moment he mentioned your legs, I knew it was over. I knew you would become his next trophy. I had to keep you away from him. This was my chance to thank you. I couldn’t let you turn into me.

I had been lucky. I don’t know why he liked me this much. Most other girls came and went, never to return. But amidst all the years, he always kept me down here. I think it’s because he saw that I still had a light in me. Because I had you. All the other girls died long before he killed them. I could tell that they were already dead in their eyes long before he viciously murdered them in front of me, showing off.

But not me. You kept me going. I had my little window. A little crack high up on the wall of this basement I call home. He didn’t like that he couldn’t break me down. He didn’t know about the little crack. So he kept me to see how long I could stay like this. It was a sick game. But I’ve been winning it thanks to you.

But then he noticed you. And I knew, I knew what fate awaited you if he laid his evil hands on you. Whatever strength I had left, I collected it and prepared myself to finally do something about it.

I want to thank you. Because if you’re reading this letter, it means I did it. I gathered my courage, packed it neatly into action, and went through with my plan to escape once and for all. I will make him believe I’ve died. I don’t know if it’ll work. But if it does, he will reach to pick me up. I’ll immediately kick him as hard as I can where it’ll hurt the most. As hard as I can. I will then steal his keys and run as fast as I can and drop this letter off in your mailbox. I have a feeling he will chase me and get a hold of me eventually because I am weak... I’m very weak. Battered. There is barely a human left in this body of mine. But if that is the case, I’ve been prepared to leave this world for a long time. I doubt anyone will hear or see me. This street is so desolate. You’re the only life here it seems sometimes. But so long as you get this letter, I know that I did my part and that you’ll be safe.

Monsters are real. This one is named Ryan Morehouse. He is your front door neighbor. I have been kept captive in his basement for a very long time now. I’ve lost track of the years but I believe I must be in my late twenties by now. I was fifteen when he first brought me here. My parents must have looked for me. Please don’t tell them about me. I don’t want them to know about the tortures he put me through. I don’t want them to see me broken down this way. I just want you to report him to the police. His evil nature and depraved mind can only be stopped if he is caught behind bars.

They will find bodies dangling in the walls of the basement. I’ve learned to live with the smell by now but they will notice it the second they step down here. There are a lot of young girls in the walls of my room down here. Tell them to treat them delicately. They were good girls. They’ve been my companions. My friends.

Most of all, I want to thank you. You’re the only thing that kept me going. You were my light. And now, I’m escaping thanks to you. Escaping this awful room. Escaping this awful life. Even if it means I finally get to die.

With love,

The girl who watched you grow up

——————————-

"When's the big day?"

"Next week," Stuart said.

"That's a bit last minute, isn't it?"

"I guess so, but I owe it to him."

"Who else has he invited?"

"No idea, I only found out yesterday."

"Can you ask him why I'm not invited?"

"I don't think that's appropriate, do you?"

"What do you mean? I was always good to him."

"Yeah you were a little snitch."

"Hey!" I said irritated.

"Come on, I'm just joking. Does he even remember you?"

"I'd hope so."

We arrived at work and all I could think about was Darren and how pissed off I was I wasn't invited. Stuart went to do some optimisation in the server room and left his phone. Idiot didn't even keep it passworded. I opened his Facebook, looking for the invite. There was a short chat conversation from Darren.

*"Hey man, long time no see. I'm getting married next month and wanted to know if you want to go to my stag do?"

"Wiggy?"

"Still using that name, are we?"

"Sorry man, couldn't resist. Yeah, I'd love to go. Been a long time since I tied you up. A stag do seems like the perfect excuse ;)"

"Very funny. It's next week. I'll send you the details later."

"Cool."*

That was it.

I remembered his username and quit the app. Thankfully just before Stuart returned.

"Forgot my phone," he said, picking it up and leaving.

Later that day I tried to add Darren to my Facebook friends. Hours passed and nothing in return. I was so confused. I checked his profile. Only a couple of photos were public. He looked the same as before, but now completely bald. To my surprise, there was a mobile number. I punched it in and waited.

It rang for what seemed like minutes before a voice I barely recognised answered.

"Hello?"

"Is that Darren?"

"Speaking, who's this?"

"It's Karl. Karl Westfield, from school."

"I don't want to speak to you."

"Please don't hang up!" I said.

The line was silent.

"I have just one question."

I heard nothing in response.

"Why did you invite Stuart to your stag do and not me? I was good to you!"

Heavy angry breathing was the response.

"If you don't want me to go, that's fine, but please tell me why?"

"Fuck off," he said, and the line went dead.

I tried to phone again, but it just rang until the voicemail picked up.

"He's hired a minibus," Stuart said, as we drove to work.

"Sounds like fun," I said, still upset from the call I had the night before.

"We're going to Dover. He says he has a cottage there and that he's hired some strippers."

"Great."

"Come on, man, don't be upset. You were never really one of the cool kids, you just hung on to us."

"Fuck you," I said, irate.

"Chill out, man, it takes a lot to be as cool as me."

"You're 34 years old, how can you still feel that way?"

"You're just jealous. He's invited Eric, Gaz and Topshelf too. You're the only one he hasn't."

"That makes no sense, he hated you lot."

"We've all grown up since then, Karl. Look, I know we weren't that nice to him, but time heals, doesn't it?"

I didn't reply. We didn't speak for the rest of the journey. I did my best to avoid him until the shift was over.

"Hey man, remember to do the server backups tomorrow. I'm not going to be around to do it," Stuart said on the phone.

"Yeah, I'll remember," I replied, still pissed off at him.

"Darren's picking us up early in the morning, so I won't have time to do it. But, it won't be a problem for you, will it, you've got nothing planned."

I wanted to shout at him, to tell him he was being a prick, but I didn't.

"I won't forget."

I parked my car a few roads down from Stuart's house. I got there around six in the morning. I drank from the thermos of coffee I'd prepared. I was tired, I never got up this early.

I almost fell asleep before I saw the mini van park outside the house. Immediately I perked up. The others were already inside, drinking and laughing with the man they bullied as a child.

They thumped on the door for at least fifteen minutes until Stuart emerged. His hand already held an open beer. Anger filled me, but I bided my time. A couple of minutes later the minivan left.

I followed. I stayed as far back as I could in my rental car. Not wanting to arouse suspicion using mine. The van took left and right turns around the suburban roads until it entered the motorway. The vehicle didn't break sixty as it cruised down the highway.

The van left the M2 and onto the M20. We were definitely heading to Dover. They pulled off at a service station. I parked at the back of the car park. I watched them leave, entering the small building. I was busting for a piss, so I relieved myself in a bush. By the time I finished, the minivan was on the move again.

I kept my distance, trying my best not to get too close. After around thirty minutes, the van left the motorway and joined the A20. The road snaked along until I could see the ocean to my right. I hadn't been this far south since I was a child, it brought back childhood memories I had long forgotten.

The van stopped at Avcliffe, and so did I. Stuart, Eric and the guys got out. They were drunk, singing songs and trying to get Darren involved, who in turn ignored them.

This was my time. I left the car and strode towards them.

"Hey!" Stuart said, "What the fuck are you doing here? You weren't invited!"

"I want to speak to Darren," I demanded.

They swarmed around me and said, "He doesn't want you here. Do you know what he called you? A coward!"

"Eric, please let me talk to him."

Darren left the vehicle.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he asked.

The rest of them laughed and replied in unison, "Ooooooo."

"I don't understand, why did you invite them? I was the only one who ever looked out for you."

He shook his head.

"Please leave, Karl."

"What did I do?" I lamented.

"Fuck off and go home, please."

His face was serious, it was obvious he'd not been drinking.

"I hate you, you know that right?"

Everyone laughed again.

"Enough sight seeing, get back in the van," he demanded.

When he stared back at me, his face appeared sad and lost.

"Go. Check my Facebook," he said to me one last time and got in the van.

The others followed.

Confused and upset I returned to the car to see the van pull away.

I sat for what seemed like ages, staring down at my phone. I was angry at Darren. I was never Darren's friend, but it was me that untied him from the tree. It was me that stopped his bag from going up in flames. Always me. But his hate, it was aimed at me.

I unlocked my phone and navigated to his Facebook page.

"Today is a great day," it started, and that made me more upset.

"Today is the day I get my vengeance."

*"Today I right the wrongs that have bothered me since I was a child."

"I love my family and I love you all."*

Beneath the post comments asked if he was okay, and to not do anything stupid.

Before I finished reading I heard distant screams.

I started the car and raced forward.

The van was no where to be seen. A group of people gathered on the edge of the cliff. I stopped the car and got out.

"He just drove off," I heard someone say.

I approached the edge, my stomach dropped as I saw the white minivan in flames on the beach below.

Allow me to explain this: there isn’t much that is funny about mental illness, and I don’t mean to be insensitive or flippant about psychosis, about how it can rip the individual and their families apart. But to my fellow psych techs, many of them at least, it was all that these patients were: psychos. Crazies. Maniacs.

I tried to see them as people—they are people—and their illness isn’t the only thing that defines them, but in the acute psych ward, their illness is in full swing, and it’s the only side that psych techs like me saw of them. They were mostly bipolar patients in the height of their manic phase, or schizophrenics having a mental break.

The laughing guy, I’ll call him Aaron, was a schizophrenic in his early 50s, with an atypical form of “catatonia”. Most catatonic schizophrenics will sit motionless, staring off for days without eating or sleeping. I recall one patient there who would stand in the middle of a room, maintaining an impossible pose for several days. When his catatonia subsided, this patient explained that during those frozen moments, he fully believed that if he moved, the world would end. But as in Aaron’s case, (his psychiatrist explained it to me) some catatonics don’t remain motionless, but have repetitive, purposeless motions or actions, and Aaron’s catatonic expression was laughing non-stop.

Aaron had been in and out of the psych ward for years, alternating between the state mental hospital and the local hospital, for there were some “legal” stipulations that didn’t allow him to stay in a long-term facility. (Later I found out it was because no facility could handle his laughing for more than a few months at a time.)

When I started my job, Aaron had already been in this psych ward for over three months, but, according to some of the seasoned psych techs, he had been laughing like this for 10 years.

Like I mentioned, most psych techs found him amusing, and more than once I saw a tech putting his arm around Aaron, laughing with him, mocking the way his high-pitched, almost screeching laugh nervously drowned out any conversation in the room. But Aaron took no notice to them when they did this. His eyes looked straight through anyone who faced him, and he kept pacing in place when a tech tried to hold him, like there was some motor inside him that never shut off.

He paced all day like this, and to get him to eat, I’d have to pace with him, placing bits of food in his mouth as we went. We scheduled bathroom breaks for him every hour so we didn’t have to change his clothes, and this worked 50% of the time. All the while, he laughed his piercing frantic laugh.

It grated on me. Only after a week of being there, I dreaded going up those elevators, greeted by his incessant laugh as I entered that dismal psych ward.

Aaron wasn’t the most frightening patient I had there that year—oh the stories I could tell—but perhaps the strangest, maybe even the most tragic, certainly the most personal. I understood that most catatonics had progressive worsening schizophrenia until they just shut off, but it killed me to know why this guy just started laughing and no one knew why.

Before I quit, I asked nearly everyone about his story and no one knew...until I met Dr. Greenwald, an ancient psychiatrist who hadn’t worked at the psych ward in years. I heard stories of this doctor, and from what I gathered, he was a kind, highly-esteemed man who loved what he did, who didn’t judge these tormented patients. Dr. Greenwald was probably my strongest inspiration to become a physician myself, and to this day, I remember the compassion he showed patients. The older nurses loved him, and when they found out that he was taking a break from his private outpatient practice to round occasionally in the acute psych ward, they were all thrilled.

Meeting Dr. Greenwald actually exceeded my expectations, and I admired how he valued every interaction, genuinely caring about each person in front of him—even lowly psych techs like me.

One night, a few weeks before I quit, I saw Dr. Greenwald exiting Aaron’s room after his evaluation, and I had the feeling he would have answers about Aaron, answers about how he came to be the way he was.

Graciously, he told me. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, there are many things I’ve seen in my career in medicine that don’t make a lot of sense, so many things that bother me until this day. Aaron’s case is yet another case in point. I’ll never forget his story:

The first time Dr. Greenwald met Aaron in the hospital, he recognized a few things: Aaron was a good-natured, caring guy who, not surprisingly, loved to laugh and make others laugh. Dr. Greenwald remembered him capturing audiences, telling the most hilarious stories that would have the whole room in fits. He hadn’t had an easy life, but he weathered his burdens well, easily laughing at life ironies, both big and small.

Dr. Greenwald was unaware of any previous psychiatric history, though Aaron had married a beautiful women who suffered from life-long depression and anxiety. Because Aaron had such a strong desire to care for troubled people, these feelings drew him to his wife. Aaron wanted to fix her, and through it all, he fell in love with her. She quickly became pregnant after they married, and in time gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Her mental illness worsened after the birth, thought to be postpartum depression, and Aaron became nearly obsessed with the study of psychology.

Despite his efforts to fix her, she deteriorated, developing postpartum psychosis, and she began hearing voices telling her to do violent things. Everything changed when Aaron found out his wife had killed his infant son. She hadn’t smothered or drowned him, but had eaten him. Upon hearing this, Aaron started laughing and never stopped.

After Dr. Greenwald finished the story, I sat there speechless though not in silence, as Aaron’s shrill laugh emanated from his hospital room. Dr. Greenwald sat there with me, and I caught a glimpse of emotion on his face.

“Isn’t it odd,” I finally said, “That he broke completely all of the sudden? I thought most catatonics have a long history of schizophrenia or something.” I felt like an idiot as soon as my words left my mouth. Certainly Aaron had some mental disorder to have been a patient of Dr. Greenwald’s.

Dr. Greenwald smiled at me like a loving grandfather. “Somethings are too much for a human mind to handle.”

I guessed that something so tragic could make just about anybody snap.

“What was his diagnosis when you met him, sir?” I asked.

He looked at me puzzled, “What do you mean?”

“When you met him, what were you treating him for?”

“Son, he wasn’t my patient,” he paused. “Aaron was a psych tech here. I worked with him for years. I was here the day his wife was brought in, strapped to a stretcher, that baby’s blood covering her face and clothes. She was completely psychotic, uncontrollable. Aaron was working here that day.”

I gaped at him, my mouth open, and all I managed to squeak out was a bewildered “What?”

Dr. Greenwald sighed heavily. “I imagine that Aaron knew he was about to lose his mind then, and suddenly he became what he tried so hard to fix. The irony was, I guess, too much, so, he just had to laugh.”

Dr. Greenwald stood up and patted me on the shoulder. He had stayed much longer than he expected to, and I slowly stood up watching him walk away. As he exited the secured door, he turned to me and said,

“Strangely, you remind me of him—before he, you know, started laughing. You care a lot about these people, I can tell. They’re lucky to have you.”

Mortified, it suddenly washed over me, the realization nearly drowning me: there was something so intimate and familiar about Aaron. And I could never explain it to even myself how I saw a piece of me in that lifeless shell of a man, that laughing insane man.

I had no response for Dr. Greenwald in that moment, but bursting from my lungs came a terrifying—totally involuntary—laugh.

But my peace doesn’t last long. About a half hour in, the door to the bar bursts open and a parade of twenty-something women stream in. They’re all decked out in matching green “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” shirts, covered in green beads and wearing those headbands that look like alien antennas with shamrocks on the end of springs.

“Oh fer fucks sake,” I hear the man in the corner groan.

“Ohmigod...sushi and shots!” one of them yells, and they all start shrieking. The room breaks into chaos as fifteen women simultaneously try to explain how to make an Irish car bomb to a bartender who barely speaks English. Then the selfies start. They strike up a round of “Shipping Off to Boston,” … but the chorus is the only part of the song they know. And they sing it over, and over, and over while each of them takes turns filming for snapchat. They’re completely oblivious to anyone else in the restaurant.

I watch the asian couple to my left pay their bill and flee, and I’m ready to do the same, except I’ve just ordered a new beer and don’t want to waste it. One of the girls slams into the back of my chair as I’m trying to chug it down and I spill all over my shirt. No one apologizes or even acknowledges me. I pick up my beer and retreat to the corner, plopping down next to man in the red hoodie.

“Quite a crowd,” I say to him.

He scoffs: “Bunch of Manufactured Micks. These tarts couldn’t find Ireland on a map if their lives depended on it.” He speaks with a slight brogue.

“Are you Irish then?”

“Aye, I suppose you might say.”

“You don’t have much of an accent.”

He takes a sip of of his wine. “Been here a long time, long enough to lose most of it anyway.”

On the other side of the bar, one of the girls, now quite drunk, yells at the bartender to turn off the music. She plays “Kiss Me, I’m Shitfaced” at full volume from her phone speakers, and they try to sing along. None of them know the words.

“Oh, that shites terrible. No Irishman would listen to that. Plain awful that is.”

“I’m with you. Came here for some peace and quiet, but it seems the green terror follows me everywhere I go.”

“Man after me own heart. Sláinte,” he says, and we clink glasses. “Thing these young wans don’t realize is in Ireland, St. Patrick’s day is a solemn religious holiday, lacking in all this debauchery. Or at least it used to be. I hear they ham it up now to keep the tourists happy. They’ve americanized and Irish holiday in Ireland. Ironic, no?”

I nod.

“Not that I go in fer any of it,” he says. “It’s all a bunch of horse shit. ‘Saint’ Patrick… pah. He wasn’t even Irish! He was a bloody Roman citizen from the province of Britannia!”

“Don’t like the Catholics then?” I ask. “Are you Protestant? Is that why you aren’t wearing green?”

He spits on the floor. “You colorblind, mate? Does my shirt look orange? No. Catholic, Protestant… they’re all a bunch of cunts. I follow the old ways.”

“Sorry, I meant no offence. Let me buy you a drink,” I say. He nods. I wave over the bartender.

“Two more please?’

“...Two?” he says.

“Yeah, two. A bud for me and a wine for my friend here.”

“...OK.”

I turn back to my new friend in the red hood and extend my hand. “The name’s Sean,” I say. He shakes it.

“I’m Ólta.”

“That must be an Irish name?”

He laughs.

“It’s a Gaellic word, aye. Watch this though.” He nods to a young woman down the bar. She hoists a giant mug of Guinness and just as the glass reaches her lips, a leak springs in the side, pouring a fountain of the black stuff straight down her blouse. She screams, slams down the cup, and starts yelling at the bartender. Ólta and I have a good laugh.

“How did you know that was going to happen?”

“Because I caused it,” he snickers. That doesn’t make much sense, since he hasn’t moved from his stool, but I let it go. “So what do you do for a living, Sean?”

“I own a bar… an Irish pub actually. So this right here…” I wave my hand at the chaotic scene around us, “is my life 364 days a year. I’ve made it a personal tradition to escape on St. Paddy's and find a quiet bar to drink and watch the basketball games.”

“No joy this year, eh?”

“It’s pretty tough to get away from it in this city.”

Suddenly there’s a gleam in his eye. “Watch this,” he says. He nods at another drunken young woman. She leans back in her stool and the whole thing comes apart. She tumbles to the ground screaming. Her friends flock around her like geese and help her from the pile of broken stool and spilled Guinness. They start yelling at the bartender again, asking him what the hell kind of place he’s running. Ólta and I are cracking up.

“Well, this is proving far more entertaining than I expected… how about another round?” I ask.

“Aye, I’ll get this one.” He pulls a small red purse from his hoodie pocket. It looks like an old antique of some sort. From it he pulls a large silver coin which he slaps down on the bar. It’s covered in writing I cannot read.

“Uhh.. I don’t think they’ll accept that,” I say.

“No?” He waves his hand over the coin, and now it’s a fifty dollar bill. He slides it over to me.

“You’re just full of tricks, aren’t ya?”

“You have no idea,” he says smiling. “Another round, and how bout some shots of Bushmills. And tell him he can keep the change.”

I order. The bartender seems confused, but his apprehension disappears when I tell him the left over cash is his.

“And here’s the kicker,” says Ólta. His hand is on the bar. He lifts it to reveal the silver coin, still there under his palm. He flips it into the air and catches it in his purse, which he slides back into his hoodie pocket.

“How the hell did you do that?”

“Easy,” he says. “I’m a Clurichaun.”

I laugh, and decide to humor him. The Irish are known for their wit. “What is that, like a Leprechaun?”

“Why, are you after me lucky charms?” he says, chuckling.

“No, I--”

“Just kidding. No, mate. We’re different. Leprechauns are like our… cousins. We don’t mend shoes or grant wishes; instead we drink.” He raises his shot glass and downs it.

“But not Guinness? Or red ale or something?”

“You bloody Americans and your Guinness… No, that’s a myth. Ale is for peasants. You leave a pitcher of ale out for me and you’ll find all sorts of things start going wrong in your pub. We drink wine; have been for thousands of years. Grapes were the one good thing the Vikings brought with them.”

“I see… so, the pots of gold at the end of rainbows?”

“Another myth, obviously. Though Leprechauns do like themselves a hoard of gold. But try and take it from em’ and you’ll be in for a big surprise. They aren’t as cute and cuddly as the cartoons make them out to be.

“Leprechauns, Clurichauns, Far Darrig… we’re all Aos Sí--‘The Good Neighbors,’ the ‘Fair Folk’--like elves or fairies I suppose you call them here. Descended from the mighty Tuatha Dé Danann. Defeated and chased into exile in the mounds by the Milesians, your ancestors, the mortal forefathers of the Irish people. We are a majestic and noble race and… wait, watch this.”

He nods at the bartender, who holds a glass under the guinness tap. When he pulls the handle, the entire tap breaks apart and guinness shoots from it like a geyser, hitting the bartender in the face and sending him careening backward into the back bar. A cascade of bottles fall, shattering everywhere. Cooks and the manager come running out from the back and everyone is screaming at each other in Chinese and trying to stop the flow of guinness as the girls laugh and lean over the bar, refilling their glass from the raging spout.

“Oh yes, so very noble,” I say to my red hood-ied friend.

He shrugs. “Hey, gotta have a little fun once in awhile.”

“So, I see the mischief making part is no myth?”

“No mate, that’s best part.”

“So you’re a fairy?” I say.

“Well, not in the way you Americans use the word, but aye.”

“Aren’t you supposed to live in the Otherworld? Only visible at twilight on halloween or something?”

“Ohh, an educated man I see,” he says. “Mostly right, but I get a pass for St. Paddy’s. Something about reparations for the thousands of years or persecution and genocide perpetrated against my people by the Catholic church. And only those of Irish descent can see me. Which is why the bartender keeps looking at you funny every time you order two drinks.”

I had noticed that. This was starting to get very strange. “OK… if you say so. But, you’re a lot bigger than I expected.”

“Oh, I can shrink if I want to.”

“Shouldn’t you be wearing green and dancing a jig.”

“Few more of these,” he raises his wine glass, “and I’ll start twerking if you want me to. As for the wearing of green: it’s another common misconception. Trooping fairies wear green. Those flamboyant poofs, trouncing around in big processions wearing fancy costumes, ya ken?. Clurichauns are solitary fairies--like Leprechauns, Brownies, and Hobgoblins. Solitary fairies wear red. We’re the ones you don’t want to mess with. You takin’ notes boyo?”

“Riiiight,” I say. I stand up and put on my coat.

“Where ya goin’, mate?”

“It’s been fun, pal. But I really can’t listen to any more of your delusional bullshit. It was entertaining for awhile, but you’re clearly insane. I’m going to go check on my bar, and then I’m going home to sleep off this buzz. You have yourself a great evening.”

“Well, great. Let’s go,” he says and stands up from his stool. He’s got to be four-foot-eleven at the very most.

“Where do you think your going?”

“I’m coming with you of course.”

“Oh no you’re not.”

“I most certainly am. You seem like a good bloke, and you’ve got a pub! Sounds like I’ve found my new home. Make sure you leave a bottle of red wine uncorked for me every night, and no cheap shite! I’m talking top shelf. And I’ll take my dinner at 8PM, sharp like. I prefer beef, but mutton will do in a pinch.”

“Whatever pal,” I say and walk out the door, letting it slam shut behind.

Ólta walks right through the door and matches my pace.

“Listen, you won’t be coming anywhere near my bar.”