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  1. Great Creepy Stories
  2.  
  3.  
  4. I am currently sitting in front of my computer, scared witless. Any moment now I am going to be killed.
  5.  
  6.  
  7. Today a friend of mine told me a story.
  8.  
  9.  
  10. His aunt had taken care of him since he was a small boy, and she told him last night about how his parents died. He did a very fair imitation of her (I knew them both pretty well):
  11.  
  12.  
  13. “They were doing mission work in some nasty little south american country when a man burst into the mission hospital one night, terrified out of his mind. He told them that his sister had been killed by a Muerto blanco, and that he was certain that it was coming for him next. What is a Muerto blanco? Apparently it was some sort of bogey-man, something like that dumb chupacabra or whatever. They called it the White Death or the White Girl, because it was the soul of someone who hated life so much that they came back in their shrouds to kill those who told of them.
  14.  
  15.  
  16. The man had been told about the vengeful spirit by his sister hours before her death. It was a girl with dead, black eyes that wept bile. The thing moved without ever actually moving its legs, and it stalked its victims back to their homes. Now, if you weren’t already aware that this thing was following you, once it got back to your house, it would start knocking on your door…
  17.  
  18.  
  19. * Once for you skin, which she’ll use to patch her own decaying flesh.
  20.  
  21. * Twice for your muscle, which she’ll gnash her teeth on between victims.
  22.  
  23. * Thrice for your bones, which she’ll make knives to pick her teeth and kill her victims.
  24.  
  25. * Four times for your heart, which she’ll wear around her neck.
  26.  
  27. * Five times for your teeth, which she’ll polish and keep in a box.
  28.  
  29. * Six times for your eyes, which she’ll see the faces of your loved ones through.
  30.  
  31. * Seven times for your soul, which she’ll eat whole - you can never pass while you’re in her stomach.
  32.  
  33.  
  34. She has to repeat this on any mirror or door between you and her.
  35.  
  36.  
  37. You can try to outrun her, but she’s faster than the fastest man. And if you leave your home while she’s knocking on your door, she won’t be so courteous when she catches up to you.
  38.  
  39.  
  40. Now the man was certain that this thing had killed his sister, that he had tried to tell the police, but they would not listen. Next he had tried to tell his priest, but the priest turned him away when he saw that the thing was following him now - oh, that’s right, I forgot about that - it can only get you if you tell someone else about it, or you saw it kill someone else. The man, after finishing his tale, stole a car from the mission, and was never seen again.
  41.  
  42.  
  43. Apparently his mother and father had immediately called his aunt about this when it happened. They were found in the morning, skinned and dismembered. Their bodies were covered in tiny, child-like handprints.
  44.  
  45.  
  46. His aunt was really drunk the night before, and had told him about that. He told me this story early in the morning today at school, before the cops arrived. His aunt had been murdered that night. I called him later that night, and he told me that he was being chased by someone, and now they were knocking on his door. I told him to stop shitting me.
  47.  
  48.  
  49. He held the phone away from his face for a minute, and I could hear slow, deliberate knocking. A moment later, I heard the door rip from its hinges and the dying screams of my friend.
  50.  
  51.  
  52. Then a little girl’s voice spoke over the line: “WITNESS.” I hung up.
  53.  
  54.  
  55. Three minutes ago someone started knocking on my door. She has to knock 28 times on my front door, 28 times on the mirror in the hall, and another 28 times on the door to my bedroom. She’s doing it slowly… I think she wants to scare me some more, let me know that my death is just moments away. I will not run - I couldn’t get to my car in time anyway. She started knocking on my bedroom door a minute ago, she should be done any moment.
  56.  
  57.  
  58. Nice knowing you guys, it’s been funjklm,.-
  59.  
  60.  
  61. WITNESS
  62.  
  63.  
  64.  
  65.  
  66. In any city, in any country, go to any mental institution or halfway house in you can get yourself to. When you reach the front desk, ask to visit someone who calls himself "The Holder of the End".
  67.  
  68.  
  69. Should a look of child-like fear come over the workers face, you will then be taken to a cell in the building. It will be in a deep hidden section of the building. All you will hear is the sound of someone talking to themselves echo the halls. It is in a language that you will not understand, but your very soul will feel unspeakable fear.
  70.  
  71.  
  72. Should the talking stop at any time, STOP and QUICKLY say aloud "I'm just passing through, I wish to talk." If you still hear silence, flee. Leave, do not stop for anything, do not go home, don't stay at an inn, just keep moving, and sleep where your body drops. You will know in the morning if you've escaped.
  73.  
  74.  
  75. If the voice in the hall comes back after you utter those words continue on. Upon reaching the cell all you will see is a windowless room with a person in the corner, speaking an unknown language, and cradling something. The person will only respond to one question: "What happens when they all come together?"
  76.  
  77.  
  78. The person will then stare into your eyes and answers your question in horrifying detail. Many go mad in that very cell, some disappear soon after the meeting, and a few end their lives. But most do the worst thing and look upon the object in the person's hands. You will want to as well. Be warned, if you do your death will be that of cruelty and unrelenting horror. Your death will be in that room, by that person's hands.
  79.  
  80.  
  81. This object is 1 of 538. They must never come together. Never.
  82.  
  83.  
  84.  
  85.  
  86.  
  87. I am awake. I should not be awake. You have been far too bad for far too long, and it is time to stop. I wish I didn’t have to do this, believe me. It is so much easier for me to continue sleeping for eons than have to worry about you, humanity. I am awake, and I am most displeased.
  88.  
  89.  
  90. You have all committed many atrocities in my name, some of those atrocities were committed against my name as well, and not a single drop of blood has pleased me. It is not a matter of benevolence or malevolence, but of point and worth. Your existences serve no purpose any more, as they did mere millennia ago. Furthermore, your “sacrifices” are of no worth to me. What do I care if you send one of your own back to me? I made you and spat you out, what makes you think I want you back?
  91.  
  92.  
  93. There is a reason you are not with me. It is because a great many of you are a failed experiment in its death throes. I was simply waiting until you destroyed each other, but now you have crossed the line, delving into matters that do not concern you. I thought you safe, confined from the others on the prison you call Earth, but no, you must reach your plagued, failed hands out of your cell and grab at anything that floats by.
  94.  
  95.  
  96. You think you are only flying out into space, but really you are leaving the cage I made for you. It had everything you needed right there, but no, you must have more. If I allow you to continue you will creep into my more successful creations, and you will destroy them. They know this, and that is why they awoke me.
  97.  
  98.  
  99. I have tried to let you sort yourselves out, but I cannot let this continue any longer. Soon you will all feel the wrath of your creator, for what was made can be unmade, and you all have so many wonderful ways to be unmade.
  100.  
  101.  
  102. Some have called me God, others have called me Demon. All I am is awake, and very unhappy.
  103.  
  104.  
  105.  
  106.  
  107.  
  108. In almost every building, there is one corner, one small enclosure that no one ever looks at. It's the corner in the basement that has been blocked by a disused sofa for years; the thin space in the attic between the wall and the stacks and stacks of crates full of junk you never use, but could never throw away. The space that never sees the light of day, or any other kind of light at all. Where darkness does not merely dominate, but practically oozes out from around the edges of its prison.
  109.  
  110.  
  111. No one knows quite how long a space must remain concealed for it to acquire this particular property, nor if there are any specific conditions that it must meet. But it is a far more common occurrence than you might think.
  112.  
  113.  
  114. In newer buildings, when this happens, the residents often report feeling cold when passing by, even in attics during the hottest of summers. Whenever contemplating taking a quick peek to see if there is anything actually there, an unnatural dread seizes them, and they leave the room quickly, if not quite running. Once left behind, the feeling passes, and it is quickly forgotten, or laughed off.
  115.  
  116.  
  117. What actually happens in these forgotten sanctuaries of the dark? It is impossible to tell. For while many such corners have been exposed to reveal absolutely nothing, some brave souls have lost their sanity through nothing more than an ill-timed glance. The safest thing to do when encountered with such a phenomenon; close your eyes, rip away the area's covering in a single motion, then keep a tight hold on what you've pulled away. No matter what you hear or feel, do not get up, do not look around, and do not try to cover your ears. You might be one of the lucky ones.
  118.  
  119.  
  120.  
  121.  
  122.  
  123. Some murderers see their work as an art form. If their piece is a success, they will continue on with their life, outside of jail. However, with the limited capability of understanding humans possess, combined with their narrow mindedness, the true secret of a killer can go entirely missed.
  124.  
  125.  
  126. The following is a video log of young man recording his last moments. It spends its time quietly residing in a dark, silent evidence room, calling out to whoever may hear its cry. Upon deaf ears will its shrill screams always fall.
  127.  
  128.  
  129. The video starts off recording the youth adjusting his camera. His room is entirely dark, not a single spec of light to be found. The camera records in night vision as the man looks directly into the lens and begins speaking.
  130.  
  131.  
  132. “Hello. My name is…” The voice pauses for a moment, deciding how he should start off. “Ugh. No, I’m not beginning it like this. It sounds too much like I’m recording my last words. That isn’t what I want this to be. Instead, I’ll just get straight to the explanation. I’ll describe to you the hell that has been nipping at me for god only knows how long now. It started the night of my 18th birthday. January’s cold held reign over our outside activities. It was just a small party, if you could even call it that. A few presents from my family, cake, the norm. All irrelevant. It was that night, as I was lying in bed, my lights out with my TV providing the only light for the room, that my story begins. My curtains and blinds were closed, which gave the room a nice ominous feel at the time. I liked that sorta thing back then.”
  133.  
  134.  
  135. The man takes a slow breath, looking away from the camera for the first time. His focus returns after a brief moment and once more he begins reciting his story.
  136.  
  137.  
  138. “Right. Back to what I was saying. My TV was in front of me, and the light it gave out cast a shadow on the wall beside me. I was a bit bored, so I decided to entertain myself by interacting with the two dimensional doppelganger of myself. My hand traced along the wall, as if I was playing a game of tag with my shadow’s hand, which seemed to be trying to flee from me, going out in front of me. That was the first sign, but I didn’t notice it. I should’ve been more aware.”
  139.  
  140.  
  141. A brief pause accompanied by a stressed exhale and quick inhale. His expressions seemed to show that he was trying to think.
  142.  
  143.  
  144. “After that, I’m sure there were more signs, I’m positive. They were probably just too subtle for me to notice. By the time I did notice something wrong, it might as well have been written in big bold letters in front of me. It was later on in the day, and I was in the kitchen of our house by myself. It was mildly lit. Just enough to see where you’re going with out needing the aid of a light. I got some snack out of a cabinet, but knocked over a box onto the ground in the process. No big deal. I bent over to pick it up, and noticed the presence of my shadow. It immediately struck me as awkward. There was no light in here to cast a shadow. I put the box and my snack on a nearby counter without letting my eyes leave my shadow. If they were deceiving me, I wanted to know right away. My interest in the paranormal may have made me a bit paranoid, but I knew that the tenseness I was feeling now wasn’t unwarranted. I took a step towards the room’s exit, and of course my shadow mimicked me. I raised my left arm, as if tempting him to continue mirroring what I was doing. He raised his left arm. Then he raised his right arm. Mine was still at my side. My skin crawled like a trillion tiny little bugs were trying to make their way out from under it. Then in one swift movement his hands wrapped around his neck, and I was the one who felt its effects. My throat was pained and my breathing stopped. I struggled frantically, but against what? My attacker was my own shadow. I don’t remember what happened after that. Only what I was told by my family when I woke up. My blood was on the corner of one of the cabinet doors I had left open. Apparently I knocked myself good and passed out on the floor. Back then, I was happy to believe that’s what really happened. After all, this kind of stuff only happens in stories.”
  145.  
  146.  
  147. Once more he collects himself from the rough memories with a deep breath of air.
  148.  
  149.  
  150. “After that, I was always suspicious of the me that didn’t talk, that didn’t have any facial expressions, that would never confess to what he did to me. But what I had thought happened had a perfectly logical explanation. I couldn’t doubt it. Instead, I carried on, always holding that distrust in the back of my mind. But he didn’t assault me again. Though several times I noticed things that just couldn’t have really happened. I’d brush my teeth with my right hand, he’d use his left. I’d scratch my back, he’d scratch his head. I’m sure he was just taunting me. Probably the same reason he let me live the first time he attacked me. For fun, no doubt.”
  151.  
  152.  
  153. There is a creak off to the man’s left, which catches his attention. He stares at the origin of the sound intently for a moment before returning to his monologue.
  154.  
  155.  
  156. “The next attack… I’m betting this one was planned to finish me off. Once again I was in the kitchen, home alone for the time. I had an apple on a plate, and I grabbed a steak knife from its group. Not entirely necessary for cutting an apple, but it was in easy reach. Only half way through grabbing the knife did I realize that when I had it, so did my shadow, my enemy. Stunned by my lack of thinking, I dropped the knife. As I feared, my shadow did not repeat this action. If he had a face, I’m sure it would have been filled by a crooked and malevolent smile. I whispered “No.” as best as I could. My voice was barely more than a whisper but I doubt it made any bit of a difference. My silhouette raised the knife, and then brought it down in one swift, uncaring motion. The result was a jet of blood from my arm and a surge of pain that reverberated several times through out my body. But on instinct I turned around and ran. I didn’t know where, and I didn’t know why. I couldn’t out run him. Another stab. This one brought me to my knees. The nearest room was the bathroom. I dragged myself across the carpet, slowly into the room, and shut the door behind me. There was no window to the outside, which made the room completely dark. I waited for him to return, I was expecting to be ended by something that was essentially me. Hours went by and nothing happened. That’s when I learned how to defeat him. He can’t exist in total darkness. He becomes nothing.”
  157.  
  158.  
  159. The young man looked around his surroundings, devoid of any light, and then back to the camera.
  160.  
  161.  
  162. “And that’s why I’m here now. I couldn’t do this at home. If I tried to explain, I would’ve been sent out to an asylum. I had to run away. I suppose he let me get this far as a sort of show sportsmanship. Twisted. Doesn’t matter, really. So long as I’m in this chamber of darkness, I’m safe. That’s all that matters for now. Although I can’t help but wonder how long I’ll be trapped in here. What do I do when I run out of food? What do I do-“
  163.  
  164.  
  165. The sound of cars pulling up and parking outside stop the young man midsentence.
  166.  
  167.  
  168. “Taylor? Taylor are you in there? Please, Taylor, say something!” A voice yelled just outside the door, and the young man’s previous moderately calm demeanor has changed to one of panic.
  169.  
  170.  
  171. “Go away! Just go! I don’t want you here, go away damn it!” He screamed back. His voice was so angered that the woman on the other side was silent for a minute.
  172.  
  173.  
  174. “Taylor, we’re coming in honey. It’s for your own good.”
  175.  
  176.  
  177. There was a smash against the door. Then another, followed by a soft spoken “No…” from the young man. The third crash brought the door down with a tremendous thud. Light from outside flooded the room, and almost immediately the man was knocked to the ground by some invisible force. In the struggle, the camera is tipped backwards and only records the sounds of Taylor struggling for breath as his mother and the accompanying police officer try to help him in some manner, without avail.
  178.  
  179.  
  180.  
  181.  
  182.  
  183. Many classic horror icons, such as Geiger's Xenomorphs, Silent Hill's Pyramid Head, and other disturbing creatures, share common characteristics. Pale skin, dark, sunken eyes, elongated faces, sharp teeth, and the like.
  184.  
  185. These images inspire horror and revulsion in many, and with good reason. The characteristics shared by these faces are imprinted in the human mind.
  186.  
  187. Many things frighten humans instinctively. The fear is natural, and does not need to be reinforced in order to terrify. The fears are species-wide, stemming from dark times in the past when lightning could mean the burning of your tree home, thunder could be the approaching gallops of a stampede, predators could hide in darkness, and heights could make poor footing lethal.
  188.  
  189. The question you have to ask yourself is this:
  190.  
  191. What happened, deep in the hidden eras before history began, that could effect the entire human race so evenly as to give the entire species a deep, instinctual, and lasting fear of pale beings with dark, sunken eyes, razor sharp teeth, and elongated faces?
  192.  
  193.  
  194.  
  195.  
  196.  
  197. Normally you sleep soundly, but the thunderstorm raging outside is stirring you from your sleep. You begin to doze, then another crash jolts you awake. The cycle lasts most of the night. So you lay there, eyes open and outward, looking at your room stretching out before you in oblong shadows. Your eyes move from nameless object, to object, until you reach your mirror, sitting adjacent to you across the room.
  198.  
  199. Suddenly a flash of lighting, and the mirror flickers in illumination. For a scant second the mirror revels to you dozens of faces, silhouettes within its frame, mouths open and eyes blackened. They stare out at you, their black pupils fixed upon your face.
  200.  
  201. Then it is done. Are you sure of what you have seen? Unsettled, you don’t sleep for the rest of the evening. The next morning you remove the mirror from your wall and toss it in the trash. It didn’t matter if the vision you had seen was of truth or falsehood, you wanted to be rid of that mirror. In fact, you scrap every mirror in your house.
  202.  
  203. Weeks pass and the event of that night falls into passive memory. You are spending the day at a friend’s house and it’s time to use the bathroom. While you are in there the faucet starts to run without you prompting it. Taken aback by this, you do not yet act, trying to reason with your paranoia in your mind. The water starts to steam and a skin of moisture covers the mirror up above. You’re watching intently as words form: “Please return the mirrors. We miss watching you sleep at night.”
  204.  
  205.  
  206.  
  207.  
  208.  
  209. A man went to a hotel and walked up to the front desk to check in. The woman at the desk gave him his key and told him that on the way to his room, there was a door with no number that was locked and no one was allowed in there. Especially no one should look inside the room, under any circumstances. So he followed the instructions of the woman at the front desk, going straight to his room, and going to bed.
  210.  
  211.  
  212. The next night his curiosity would not leave him alone about the room with no number on the door. He walked down the hall to the door and tried the handle. Sure enough it was locked. He bent down and looked through the wide keyhole. Cold air passed through it, chilling his eye. What he saw was a hotel bedroom, like his, and in the corner was a woman whose skin was completely white. She was leaning her head against the wall, facing away from the door. He stared in confusion for a while. He almost knocked on the door, out of curiosity, but decided not to.
  213.  
  214.  
  215. He crept away from the door and walked back to his room. The next day, he returned to the door and looked through the wide keyhole. This time, all he saw was redness. He couldn’t make anything out besides a distinct red color, unmoving. Perhaps the inhabitants of the room knew he was spying the night before, and had blocked the keyhole with something red.
  216.  
  217.  
  218. At this point he decided to consult the woman at the front desk for more information. She sighed and said, “Did you look through the keyhole?” The man told her that he had and she said, “Well, I might as well tell you the story. A long time ago, a man murdered his wife in that room, and her ghost haunts it. But these people were not ordinary. They were white all over, except for their eyes, which were red.”
  219.  
  220.  
  221.  
  222.  
  223.  
  224. Don’t dismiss this outright as the work of some raving lunatic. There’s some sense to this story, if you’ll just hear me out…
  225.  
  226.  
  227. Look, we all wonder if time travel is possible, right? Well, let me tell you something… it is. I’m from the future, actually. I know you probably don’t believe that, but seriously, I’m from the future. It’s a really great thing; getting to see the past, watching events unfold… stuff like that. We know more now than we ever would.
  228.  
  229.  
  230. Behind all the fun, though, there’s a more serious aspect. We aren’t supposed to go in our own lifetime, and we are NEVER allowed to contact our past selves. Let me tell you, I’m breaking that rule right now. Yes, kid, you’re talking to yourself. Your future self. I’m going to be executed for this, but you know what? I accept that. I’m preventing something by talking to you that is WORSE than death. I can’t tell you outright what to do, because the filters would catch it. This is the closest I can get, trust me. I can, however, send a little message.
  231.  
  232.  
  233. You should probably read the first word of every paragraph, now.
  234.  
  235.  
  236.  
  237.  
  238.  
  239. Try this. Turn off the music. Turn off the TV. If you have to, turn off the computer. Then go to another room, and sit. In total silence. Do you hear that? That ringing? People say it is your brain making up a sound to explain the silence.
  240.  
  241.  
  242. People lied.
  243.  
  244.  
  245. I cant tell you what is making that sound, but whatever it is, you don’t want to meet it. It is trying to break through. Force its way onto our plane of existence.
  246.  
  247.  
  248. Now try this. Repeat the first steps. Turn everything off. This time, turn the lights off too. Still hear that ringing? Better hope you do. If you don’t, its because they have finally managed to break through.
  249.  
  250.  
  251. And no amount of running will save you.
  252.  
  253.  
  254.  
  255.  
  256.  
  257. When I was a little boy, I was afraid of monsters. They always lurked in the dark places where the light didn’t reach. It didn’t matter how many times my father shone a flashlight into the dark corners of my closet: I knew, the moment that the light was gone, the monsters would come back.
  258.  
  259.  
  260. And they always did.
  261.  
  262.  
  263. When I grew up, I learned why: the real monsters don’t hide in dark corners and closets. The real monsters are the ones that live behind your eyes, in the darkness of your mind, and it takes more than a flashlight to send them away.
  264.  
  265.  
  266. You’ll find what you’re looking for in my basement. She’s still alive, but the others are long dead. (I’ve kept their teeth in ziploc bags in my file cabinet. Maybe you can identify them from dental records.) She hasn’t eaten in days, and she’s lost a lot of blood, but she might still live if you hurry.
  267.  
  268.  
  269. All I ask is that you leave the light on when you go. This prison cell is very dark, and I’m afraid that the monsters will come out when you leave.
  270.  
  271.  
  272.  
  273.  
  274.  
  275. You could kick yourself. Its the middle of the night–or early in the morning, depending on how you look at it–and freezing cold because you, like an idiot, kicked off your blanket in the night. Nearly entirely off the bed, in fact, with only one lonely corner clinging to the edge of the bed.
  276.  
  277.  
  278. Sitting up you take it in your hands, feeling that familiar fear from your childhood: that if you don’t find something to cover yourself up, you are leaving yourself open to all sorts of supernatural horrors. You shrug it off with a chuckle and give the blanket a good hard tug, trying to pull it all up with one go.
  279.  
  280.  
  281. No luck. It seems to be stuck.
  282.  
  283.  
  284. Another sharp pull seems to free it a bit, and you work, tugging it back up and trying to ignore that silly feeling of growing dread. Tug. Tug tug tug…. There! Finally! The blanket is mostly back up on the bed and you are safely beneath it once more, teasing yourself mentally for getting all worked up over nothing. Until, just before you drift back asleep, you feel a tug from that one side still dangling down from where it had fallen before.
  285.  
  286.  
  287. Tug tug tug.
  288.  
  289.  
  290.  
  291.  
  292.  
  293. I never saw the ocean till I was nineteen, and if I ever see it again it will be too goddamn soon. I was a child, coming out of the train, fresh from Amarillo, into San Diego and all her glory. The sight of it, all that water and the blind crushing power of the surf, filled me with dread. I’d seen water before, lakes, plenty big, but that was nothing like this. I don’t think I can describe what it was like that first time, and further more, I’m not sure I care too.
  294.  
  295.  
  296. You can imagine the state I was in when a few weeks later they gave me a rifle and put me on a boat. When I stopped vomiting up everything that I ate, I decided that I might not kill myself after all. Not being able to see the land, and that ceaseless chaotic, rocking of the waves; I remember thinking that the war had to be a step up from this. Kids can be so fucking stupid.
  297.  
  298.  
  299. I had such a giddy sense of glee when I saw the island, and it’s solid banks. They transferred us to a smaller boat in the middle of the night, just our undersized company with our rucksacks and rifles and not a word. We just took a ride right into it, just because they asked us to. The lieutenants herded us into our platoons on the decks and briefed us: the island had been lost. That was exactly how he put it. Somehow in the grand plan for the Pacific, this one tiny speck of earth, only recently discovered and unmapped, had gotten lost in the shuffle; a singularly perfect clerical error was all it took. It was extremely unlikely, he stressed, that the Japanese had gotten a hold of it, being so far east and south of their current borders, but a recent fly over reported what looked like an airfield in the central plateau.
  300.  
  301.  
  302. We hit the beach in the middle of the night. I’d heard talk of landings before, and I’m not ashamed to tell, I was scared shitless. I don’t know quite what I expected, but it wasn’t we got, that thick, heavy silence. Behind the lapping of the waves and the wind in the trees, there was… nothing, no birds, no insects. Just deathly stillness.
  303.  
  304.  
  305. Another hundred yards deeper into the eerie tranquility of the jungle, we stopped in a small clearing for the officers to reconvene, and it was obvious even they were spooked. I wasn’t a bright kid, but I knew enough to know that something was very wrong. It was like the whole island was dead. I remember I could only smell the sea, despite the red blossoms dangling from the trees.
  306.  
  307.  
  308. It wasn’t an airfield, on top of the plateau. I can’t tell you what it was, because I’ve never seen anything like it, and I don’t think anyone ever will. If I tell you it was like the Aztec pyramids, but turned upside down, so that it sank like giant steps into the earth, you’d get the basic idea of it, but that somehow fails to capture the profound unearthliness of the structure.
  309.  
  310.  
  311. There was no sign of individual pieces in the masonry, it appeared to have been carved out of a single immense block of black rock into a sharp and geometric shape. It was slick and perfectly smooth like obsidian, but it had no shine to it. It swallowed up even the moonlight, so that it was impossible to see how deep it went, or even focus your eyes on any one part of it, like it was one giant blind spot.
  312.  
  313.  
  314. Our platoon drew the honor of investigating the lower levels, so we descended the stairs as the rest of the company surrounded the plateau. We took the stairs slowly and carefully after the first man to touch one of the right angle edges slit his hands down the bone.
  315.  
  316.  
  317. At odd intervals down the steps, there were several small stone rooms; simple, empty, hollow cubes of stone with one opening, facing the pit in the center. There was no door that we could see, and with the opening being four feet of the ground, you’d have to put your hands on that black razor sharp edge to climb in into it.
  318.  
  319.  
  320. We circled the descending floors, shining our lights into each of the small structures; They contained the same featureless black walls and nothing else. No dust, no leaves and other detritus from the jungle, the whole monument was immaculate, as if the place was just built; but that couldn’t be right. The whole structure felt incalculably old to me somehow, despite having no way to articulate the particular reasons.
  321.  
  322.  
  323. Down near the bottom you could see that it simply sloped away into a darkness that swallowed the flashlights. We tossed first a button and then a shell casing down into the pit, and waited in the unearthly silence, but no sounds returned. No one spoke, we simply turned away from the yawning abyss and continued our sweep of the bottom rung and the last of the small structures.
  324.  
  325.  
  326. The body in the back corner was almost invisible at first in the thick shadows, but the long spill of drying blood reflected the light of our flashlights, and it led right too him. He was coiled tight, arms around his thighs, and his face tucked into his knees. You could see badly he was cut, his clothes opened in ragged bloody tatters to reveal the pale skin and bone beneath it. He may have been dressed in a Japanese uniform, but it had been reduced to ribbons; I only had few seconds to look at him before we heard the first shots.
  327.  
  328.  
  329. It echoed like the buzzing of faraway insects in the still jungle, swallowed almost instantly by the blanket of quiet. By the time we reached the top, the rest of the company had vanished. There were shell casings on the ground, and the hot smell of gunpowder in the air, but they were gone. The trees were deathly quiet around, there was not a trace of the nearly fifty other men that had come ashore with us. I could taste bile rising in my throat as panic threatened to cripple me; I felt crushed between the yawning pit and razor edges on one side and the dead jungle and the pounding ocean on the other. The silence rang in my ears and I struggled to still myself.
  330.  
  331.  
  332. They were just inside the jungle, waiting for us. They came out from between the trees with all sound of a moth, simply sliding into our view.
  333.  
  334.  
  335. I can try to tell you what I saw, the same as I did to the army doc on the hospital ship when I first woke up, and again half dozen other various officers over the following months, and you’ll have the same reaction they did; that I was a dumb country rube suffering from heatstroke and exposure and trauma. That I was crazy.
  336.  
  337.  
  338. You know me. You know I’m not crazy. And I remember every second of that night with crystal clarity.
  339.  
  340.  
  341. The thing, the first one that caught my eye, was wearing the skin of a Jap soldier, all mottled with the belly distended from rot. The head drooped, useless and obscene on the shoulders, tongue swollen and eyes cloudy. I could see where it was coming apart at the ill-defined joints, with ragged holes in the drying flesh. At the bottom of each of these raw pits was blackness, deeper than the stones of the buildings; a darkness that seemed to churn and froth like an angry cloud.
  342.  
  343.  
  344. The thing moved suddenly, the head snapping and rolling backwards as it dashed towards us. I had my rifle clasped tightly in my hands, but it simply didn’t occur to me to fire. All I could do was gape silently at the macabre sight bearing down on us, and think absurdly of my mother’s marionettes.
  345.  
  346.  
  347. A gun went off beside me, and I turned to see a dozen more of the horrors darting silently in on us. Among them were a few more rotting and swollen forms, but the majority wore the same uniforms as us, and were pale, fresh, and soaked in blood. More bullets zipped through the air, and I saw the grisly things hit again and again, but they never slowed. I caught a glimpse of the First Sergeant’s vacant glassy eyes as his head dangled limp from his shoulders; I saw the great ragged wound in his back and the shuddering darkness that inhabited his corpse when he leapt just past me without a sound, landing like a graceful predator onto the soldier beside me. The others around me began to drop in a silent dance of kinetic energy and blurred motion.
  348.  
  349.  
  350. I was on the track team in high school, and it could have got me to college. I didn’t need an invitation. I just ran. I ran blind through jungle, caroming of tree trunks; I ran until I saw the ocean, and it struck a new ringing note of terror in me. I don’t remember actually deciding to swim, but when I turned back to the tree line, I saw one of the white and bloody things emerge, running on all fours, the hands splayed wide and the back contorted and cracked in an impossible angle.
  351.  
  352.  
  353. To this day, the mere thought of the ocean still brings on a cold sweat, but that night I let it embrace me, let the tide drag me out to sea, if only to bring momentary relief from the impossible monolith and terrors on the island. The days I spent drifting off shore and blistering in the sun were a welcome release from the silent island.
  354.  
  355.  
  356. I never saw the war. They sent me home as soon as I recovered.
  357.  
  358.  
  359. It was comforting in a way, when I thought no one believed me. It allowed me to believe that it never happened, that it was a product of my mind. But as I got older, I’ve found that it is pointless to lie to anyone, especially yourself. I know what I saw.
  360.  
  361.  
  362. Someone else believed me too. I’ve seen maps of where they tested the hydrogen bombs in the South Pacific.
  363.  
  364.  
  365.  
  366.  
  367.  
  368. You are home alone, and you hear on the news about the profile of
  369.  
  370. a murderer who is on the loose. You look out the sliding glass doors
  371.  
  372. to your backyard, and you notice a man standing out in the snow.
  373.  
  374. He fits the profile of the murderer exactly, and he is smiling at you.
  375.  
  376. You gulp, picking up the phone to your right and dialing 911. You look back
  377.  
  378. out the glass as you press the phone to your ear, and notice he is much closer
  379.  
  380. to you now. You then drop the phone in shock.
  381.  
  382. There are no footprints in the snow. It's his reflection
  383.  
  384.  
  385.  
  386.  
  387.  
  388. The Fortune Machine
  389.  
  390.  
  391. Ch. 1
  392.  
  393.  
  394. There is a man inside the machine. I am sure of it. Regardless of the eleven years spent in and out of eleven more psychiatrists' offices, my final conclusion has been damned irreversibly etched into my mind. It is only after my age now approaches its twenty-third year that I have steeled myself with certain chemical courage that I find myself attempting to revisit, through this writing, the story of the New Haven incident.
  395.  
  396.  
  397. The town of New Haven had been my home for nine years, and by all accounts up until the end of that summer had been a very bland, if not safe, place to call one's home. I have few distinctive memories of what life had been like before that summer. I was an above-average student early on, surprising to consider my current high school drop out status. The New Haven Mall had been built the previous year and finally opened, not a day too early for the kids, mind you, in that early summer. Most children were enthralled by the food court train yard and coin fueled rides, their Mothers and guardians enthralled with gossip, clothing, and shiny new goods to lust for like such pagan ferrets. The most enthralling and influential place in that mall was, by far, the arcade.
  398.  
  399.  
  400. I do remember my first impression of that arcade, its two halls of glowing machines illuminating an empty darkness with a near awe inspiring mystic quality. The prerequisite sounds of a few dozen videogame cabinets, titles now referred to only as 'classics' mixed in with the more organic thumps and fading allure of the pinball tables. There were two skeeball machines, one foosball table, a terrible variation of the whack-a-mole game replacing said moles with snakes, and the fortune telling machine. I would love to be able to site a manufacturer or specific catchy name, but the only thing written on that machine was on the crude wooden sign hanging from the black drapes that wrapped the machine - Fortune Telling Machine.
  401.  
  402.  
  403. The fortune telling machine was older than the rest of the arcade's entertainment, its coin operation slots were nearly hanging out the front, the bare bit of wood you could see from underneath the drapes looked weather beat and ancient. Inside the machine, faced front, was a large glass case with a slightly smaller than life size animatronics dummy of a fortune teller. This crude joke of a fortune teller resembled at best a western interpretation of a Saudi mystic, at worst a drunken shriner. Its operation was simple; you inserted your coin, pushed a big yellow button on the front and waited. The fortune dummy would move its head up and down, open its mouth as if saying something, its eyes sometimes wandering what seemed to be exactly towards your face, but would say nothing. Usually after a few seconds, although sometimes within a few anxious minutes, you would hear the sound of some typeset and wala! Your fortune would be presented to you out of the right side of the machine. Each 'fortune' was printed on a small slip of paper not unlike those found in Chinese fortune cookies. It was, as I have said, a crude and simple machine. That is what we all had thought in the beginning, that hazy late summer.
  404.  
  405.  
  406. It is no wonder the fortune telling machine did not catch the interest of more of my peers, thankfully. Most of them had already made up their mind when it came to such 'entertainment'. There were countless users of the 8-Ball toy, the girl favored and folded paper 'cootie catcher', and even a few brave and curious children that would mention an Ouija board with either enthusiastic joking or strange reverence. It was, to them and the grown members of society, all fake. None of these devices, in the end, had the same effect on the future of the child in question as that damned fortune telling machine. I know, as I was one of them.
  407.  
  408.  
  409. The first fortune I, as well as anyone else I was lead to believe, ever received was general and seemingly vague... "YOU HAVE SO MUCH TO LOOK FORWARDS TO."
  410.  
  411.  
  412. I was not impressed, although for some strange reason I kept that slip of paper. I moved on to a star fighter simulation game, slumping into the awkward hard plastic chair, dumped four times as much coin inside and tried not to think about the fortune telling machine. When my star fighter was finally shot down, however, I found myself wishing that I had spent those coins on more fortunes.
  413.  
  414.  
  415. A week passed, my mother oblivious to my after school requests to visit that mall. She would only spend money on 'frivolous' things on a Friday or Saturday. It was not that she had a high moral standard; we were just sort of poor. My father, what little I remember of him, was an electrician, part time handyman, part time drunk, and even more part time husband. Most of the time, he was just not around the house. I never knew if it was work or adultery that kept him away, although our financial state would have leaned more to the latter. As for my mother... as I said, she did not have a high moral standard. My father's absence was apparently too much, and she soon was entertaining visitors she would only refer to as 'friends of your father'. During those few hours I was sent outwards, always encouraged to go and find 'other children to play with'.
  416.  
  417.  
  418. These other children of the neighborhood were of little concern to me; they had not seen or did not care about the fortune telling machine. It took me a few days, but I finally found someone who did. His name was Jacob, he lived only a few streets away, and his mother was a habitual mall shopper. Therefore Jacob was an experienced mall denizen, what you might call a mall rat. Jacob was 3 years older than me, just entering puberty and eager to share his experiences. Especially those concerning the naked female form, which he had only seen in magazines, and the fortune telling machine.
  419.  
  420.  
  421. "That machine is weird", he told me the first day we met, "you won’t believe me, but I heard a voice inside of it." I did not disbelieve him, I had seen the dummy move its mouth as if speaking, but had figured that it was broke. Someone must have fixed the machine, I told him, as if my one experience with it gave me rights of analysis. "No, you don't understand...”, he went on, "the puppet in the front doesn’t talk... it’s the thing in the back that writes your fortune. I heard it talk, it kind of whispered a few times". I asked him, of course, what the machine had said to him. "I don’t really want to tell ya, it’s dumb and crazy. But I'm not lying, and my friend Charlie said he heard it too." With that, I was sold, and in my guts developed more of a need than a want to visit the arcade again. "I'm going back there tonight! Just come with us, my mom's taking me there in an hour. You won’t believe what that machine can tell you."
  422.  
  423.  
  424. I went home and told my mother about Jacob, the machine, even letting a bit slip out about the girls in his magazines. When I finally got around to asking my mother if I could go with them, the look on her face told me the answer before her lips could. Jacob was a bad influence, and a liar at that, she explained to me. I felt hurt, but she consoled me with promises of a trip to the mall in the next day's afternoon. That night I slept so little, my mind wrapping tight around the mystery of the machine, and slipping away further from the cold logic of my mother.
  425.  
  426.  
  427. The next day after lunchtime, Jacob found me on the playground; he had skipped gym class and was wandering outside the fence. He was disappointed I had not joined him the previous afternoon for the mall venture. I explained to him my mother's view, but assured him I did not share in it. His overall demeanor had changed over night; this Jacob looked worried and paranoid. I told him of my plans to visit the arcade that night, to see for myself if what he had told me was true. "I heard the thing in the machine again last night," he stuttered out, "and it said your name. It said your name man, and I don't know how it knows." Jacob was now welling up with tears, and as he turned to flee he dropped what he had been clutching in his hands. It was one of the fortune machine's slips, and it read - "DON'T TELL ANYONE".
  428.  
  429.  
  430. Ch.2
  431.  
  432.  
  433. That night my mother drove like a bat out of hell to the mall. It appeared that to an equal degree we both wanted something; she wanted to gossip with the other bags over their bags and their husband's downfalls, and I wanted to dump a few bucks into that damned fortune telling machine. There were no needs for words when we entered the mall, I immediately took off towards the arcade. There were still four hours before closing time, at least.
  434.  
  435.  
  436. Inside there were scarce other children around, which was ideal for a good investigation.
  437.  
  438. I exchanged my dollars for coins, and asked the man behind the plastic prize filled counter if he had ever heard the voice of the fortune telling machine. He shrugged and never looked up from his Heavy Metal magazine, but told me the machine was probably still broke so NO, no sound from it. I felt relieved, although then slowly becoming paranoid of Jacob's possible deceptions.
  439.  
  440.  
  441. The fortune telling machine was located in the very back end of the second hall, the games next to it either always unplugged or in disrepair. Easier it would be to hear the machine, I thought. In the first coin went and I nearly slammed that yellow button in. I waited yet heard no sounds at all; there was no movement in the dummy, no voice, and no cookie-less fortune. I'm not sure how long I waited, but frustration eventually took hold and I kicked the machine hard, aiming right at its coin slot.
  442.  
  443.  
  444. The dummy sprang to life, rocking its head like a doll meant to educate kids on the combined threat of epilepsy and autism. I stepped back from the machine when one of its eyes started rolling around, switching from clockwise to counter-clockwise rotations with no set interval. Its mouth was hanging wide open, its bottom jaw raising only when the whole head stammered up and down. Then it suddenly stopped, and I heard the typeset begin. Stepping to the side of the machine, I watched as the slip of paper slowly emerged. "ANOTHER COIN PLEASE."
  445.  
  446.  
  447. I was bewildered by this, and ever angrier with the machine, with Jacob, with thinking there was something unnatural about this. All it wanted was money, and there were no voices, the machine was obviously broke. My spirits were deflated, and to take out my frustration over the whole situation out I went back to the star fighter. After about three games of this I found my mind wandering back to the fortune telling machine, I looked back towards it and to my surprise there was another kid there at the side, holding a fortune.
  448.  
  449.  
  450. I nearly shot across the arcade hall and approached him, telling him how the machine must be broke. He just laughed, told me the machine worked great, and that his name was Charlie. I scoffed and asked to see his fortune, telling him about mine. This really seemed to unnerve Charlie, and he refused to show me his fortune. In fact, he turned and headed away from me, as he passed stopping to say plainly "you weren't supposed to tell anyone."
  451.  
  452.  
  453. I watched Charlie march briskly outside the arcade, and then I quickly put another coin into the fortune machine. Within a few seconds the dummy sprang to life, this time moving in a 'normal' fashion as it had the very first encounter. No sound came from its mimed actions, and I heard the typeset begin. I walked around the side to collect the fortune, when I finally heard it. There was a voice, like that of a man but so low of a whisper it could have been a woman, or a child... like a radio from a car driving outside your house, so brief can you be sure what you even heard? I am fairly sure this time I heard it say "DON'T LIE."
  454.  
  455.  
  456. I was weirded out more than a little, but pressed my ear to the machine, straining to hear anything else, trying to find WHERE the voice had originated. There was nothing but silence now. With a scoff I picked up my fortune, my eyes widening as I read it. "YOU TOLD, DIDN'T YOU?"
  457.  
  458.  
  459. My paranoia sent me into a near manic state then. I kicked the front and side several times, and even yelled at the machine - "how would you know, you dumb machine, your just fucking broke." I regained my composure, looking around me to find that I had gained some attention. A pack of older kids sitting around the pinball machines, pointing, even laughing. I felt stupid for my outburst, for letting the machine get to me, so I left to find my mother in the food court. Only she was not there. Sitting alone close to the bathrooms though, was Charlie.
  460.  
  461.  
  462. He tried to ignore me when I first approached him, simply acting like I was not even there. I questioned him about the fortune machine's voice, and what it had told him. He blankly stared at the table, his hands folded inside his hoodie. I got irate and shoved my last fortune slip at him. This broke his act; he started to take it from my hand, but then retreated back into the hoodie. "I don’t even want to know, you don’t you understand you're not supposed to tell anyone the fortune!" He finally looked up at me as he said this. "That’s a stupid rule, why would you follow orders from a machine," I told him, "what the hell do you think is in the fortune telling machine???"
  463.  
  464.  
  465. As if that question were just too much, Charlie abruptly stood up and headed into the bathroom. "Don’t you dare follow me in here" were his only words to me, his facial expression both scared and struggling with the act of indifference. Realizing how awkward it would be to continue any inquiry with Charlie, I turned to leave the food court. I had been unaware it turned out, of the older kids from the arcade standing right behind me. There were five of them, and they all smiled a near identical malicious smile. The one in the very front grabbed me by my shirt collar, pulled me close to look in my eyes... then just laughed and shoved me hard backward. My feet gave out before my back could find a wall; I fell back and attempted to catch myself on a chair, only managing to knock it over as well. More seemingly mirthless laughs from the group, they encircled me then, all reaching into their pockets at the same time, all finding a small slip of paper... all of them pulling out one of the fortune machine's slips. There is no more laughter as they all drop their paper over top of me, sending the fortunes tumbling in the air around me still seated on the floor. I thought for sure from the look in their eyes, that the next thing to happen would be violent, that this would not be over quickly. Instead they all just turned away, heading into the bathroom themselves. My nerves were bad then, but even worse when I found all their fortune slips, all of them said the exact same thing - "DON'T EVER TELL, OR ELSE".
  466.  
  467.  
  468. My nerves had become so bad at this point, that it seems I just blacked out. When I came back to consciousness my mother was standing with a paramedic over me, they explained I had fell and bumped my head. I remembered the five older kids then, and how I fell back when pushed. Maybe I imagined our encounter after that, the fact that none of their fortune slips were around me making this seem much more plausible. I must have knocked myself silly, but why were there so many paramedics on the scene now, and why were people crying around me? My mom hugged me tight to her and told me that I was "lucky to be safe and sound."
  469.  
  470.  
  471. That’s when I saw the paramedics pull the body out of the bathroom, stretched on the gurney and fresh blood seeping through the white sheets in multiple places. Multiple places all over the body, a small body at that, the size of a child, no, the size of Charlie. I started screaming then, trying to tell my mother everything that happened, that I had met the kid on the stretcher, about the other kids, about the fortune telling machine, about - she slapped me hard across the face. She screams back at me to stop making stories up, she tells me they had already caught the man who did it. He had never even tried to flee the scene, although they had yet to recover the knife.
  472.  
  473.  
  474. A policeman had ventured over, he asks my mother some questions then, and they turn from me as to speak without my hearing. There is another officer, a young guy with untrained fright in his eyes, who shows me a photo identification card of a thirty something year old man. I honestly have never seen or noticed this guy, ever, and so I tell the officer. I was about to tell the officer everything that I actually knew, when I see the detectives leave the bathroom crime scene. As the door swings back slowly I stare too long, and there on the wall, written in dark crimson as plain as daylight are the words. "OR ELSE." I didn't care to ask if that was the whole phrase, and then, for the very first time I felt in real danger, I felt REAL paranoia. You don't ever tell anyone, that is what the machine told us. Or else.
  475.  
  476.  
  477. Ch. 3
  478.  
  479.  
  480. The ride home was a silent one. My father must have returned to the house while we were at the mall. My mother started crying a little before we entered. She cried more when she saw my father slumped in a stupor in the corner next to a partially opened fridge. I could smell something like bourbon still in the air. I knew the drill and went straight to my room, turning off the light and pretending to sleep. Pretending not to hear my mother and her tearful tirade of accusations and ridicule, all at my father's expense. My home situation may have seemed terrible, but at that time, in my mind, it was of insignificance. My thoughts were consumed with the possibilities of what was going on concerning the fortune machine.
  481.  
  482.  
  483. The next day during school I made sure to check the newspaper in the library, but there was no news of the murder I had been so close to. Even a week later there was no mention of his death, or of the incident at all. No teacher I asked could tell me if they had a Charlie who recently died. I became weary of uncertainty at this time, Jacob had been gone from school for the whole week, and sometimes I would see the face of any one of those five jackals, the older kids from the night Charlie died. At any time between classes they seemed to be looming, mixed into the crowd but certainly standing out. They would just nod if they caught my gaze, although a few times they would stretch a smile across their face in what I would call mockery. They knew what I knew, but oddly enough I never saw them together at all during school. It was if they went out of their way to not be seen together at all....
  484.  
  485.  
  486. That weekend there would be no venture to the mall. My mother's stern expression and matter of fact tone also alleging that if I asked again during that weekend, it would be a month before I ever saw the arcade again. In a way, whatever had happened the night Charlie died had scared her more than it had me. I’ve always wondered what exactly she talked to the policemen about. In the end I never knew, but I saw one of the police that had been on that scene leaving my house as I arrived from school. I remember vividly because I had heard someone on the bus, someone in the back that I never could see, I had someone say "'your mother is a whore." She may well have been, as far as I know of it. I don't particularly want or need to know my mothers affairs. Not that I'm saying she was having affairs, mind you. I’ve drawn my conclusions, and you can draw your own. She never seemed concerned or interested in the real danger anyway.
  487.  
  488.  
  489. That next Monday at school Jacob had returned. I saw him in the hallway in-between classes and asked if he was all right. "I’ve been pretty sick." He looked in perfect health, with the exception being the overwhelming paranoid expression on his face. He was trying not to even look me in the face, and he was also looking for someone around us, every few seconds checking for something. Or maybe someone, maybe five of them. I began to tell him about what I saw in the mall when Charlie died, maybe he even knew him, maybe he - then Jacob punched me in the guts before I got too far. Some kids scattered around us, one yelling for a teacher. Before an adult could split us apart though, as Jacob punched me many more times, he shoved something in my coat pocket. "Just read it, and only talk to me where it says to. Oh yeah, tell them to suspend me for this", were the only things he said to me, ending it with a final fist to the nose before being pulled off and dragged to the principal. I got to take a nice reprieve in the nurse’s office, which honestly beat the hell out of my math class, bloodied nose or not.
  490.  
  491.  
  492. I was expecting to find a fortune slip in the pocket, but it was actually a full sheet crumpled into a ball. I waited until I was alone in the nurse’s office to read it, while the nurse had gone to inform the principal my side of the story. Which was that I didn't even know Jacob, I had no clue what the fight was about, and to suspend Jacob or my parents would be furious. I made that part up, of course. The paper read as such - “If they don't suspend me for a long time, don't talk to me during school ever again. Don't talk about the fortune machine during school ever again. You should just stop going to the mall, don’t ever use that machine again if you know what’s good for you. If you need to talk to me your going to have to go to the park (our neighborhood park) at one a.m. this Friday night. Take my advice, don't go to the arcade, and don't tell anyone, and we might just make it out alive."
  493.  
  494.  
  495. Was this serious? All of Jacob's actions pointed to yes, he was serious. He was in this deeper than I was, and knew more than I did. I had to play by his rules, and he wanted me to play by the machine's rules. Don't tell anyone, ever. The machine had lost control of Jacob though, he had already broken the rule, and so I had as well. Why then the secrecy, why could we not go to the authorities our selves? Frustrated I turned to a copy of the daily paper which I had seen on the nurse's desk. Again there was no obituary for Charlie, no uproar over a child' murder right in the mall bathroom. What I did see in that section stopped me cold. It was just a name, someone I had never known at that. David Archer. He had committed suicide in the county jail just a day earlier. The paper never said what he was in jail for, or how he committed suicide (if he even really did that). The name enough was enough to flash me back to that night and the photo I.D. the cop had shown me. He had put his thumb over the name, but not all of it. I know the man who they arrested that night, well I don't know him, but I know that his last name was indeed Archer.
  496.  
  497.  
  498. The nurse walked in and saw me in such a cold sweat and frightened state that she called my mother. Half an hour later I was in the car, riding back to my house, with my mother silent as a lamb with its tongue ripped out. No, because even a wounded lab shows emotion. My mother, as usual for that time, had shut it out. She shut out my beating, my plummeting grades, and my talk of a mall conspiracy. I grew angrier with her, more irrational as she ignored everything I said, or at best dismissed it as a lie. I never knew why she acted this way, and it haunts me to this day. Was her failing marriage too much to take, to notice the danger her only son was in? Or was she all too aware of the danger; was the only way to deal with the situation she found herself in to deny it with every fiber of her being? I don’t know, and I try not to care. I can't care anyway, because now it is far too late to do anything about it, my mother is long dead.
  499.  
  500.  
  501. Ch. 4
  502.  
  503.  
  504. Jacob got his wish; I would never see him inside the school again. My suggestion of suspension brought a smile to the principal's face, who only wished he could do more. The principal had developed an odd limp, and according to sources both student and teacher alike, his limp developed right after his official 'interrogation' of Jacob. Of course he never said anything publicly about what happened. "Of course I kicked him, I knew he would have to suspend me", Jacob told me later, that Friday night when against all rational thought process I met him in the local park at one in the morning.
  505.  
  506.  
  507. The rest of the week leading to that Friday went by like a feverish dream. There was the constant presence in the halls of those five nameless jackals, never together and always watching me. A strange rumor began surfacing at school, regarding my physical appearance following Jacob's planned attack. Nobody at school was talking about Jacob attacking me. They were all talking about how my alcoholic father had beaten me. My father beat me, my mother was a whore. This was what people really believed of me. With so few friends, so few people to believe, was it any surprise I followed Jacob's instructions?
  508.  
  509.  
  510. I met him that Friday night, having no difficulty escaping from my house through a screen less window. If I remember correctly my parents were both passed out, my father on the couch reeking of liquor, my mother crying on the phone until she too slept exhausted in the bedroom. I remember running through the night in my pajamas and a fake leather jacket, checking behind my back every few feet for someone to be following me. Frightened, paranoia devouring my sleep, I ran to the park that night.
  511.  
  512.  
  513. Jacob was perched on top of the monkey bars, motionless like a statue. I walked nearly right under him before he even acknowledged my presence. "You should get away from this, try to get your parents to leave this town and you can get away with them," he told me, "I know it killed Charlie and I know it will probably kill me. Your not safe either, you know it has other kids watching you. Don't dare use that machine anymore, it only makes terrible things come true. It knows where we live, it knows our names, our mom's names, and it knows what is in your room when you sleep!"
  514.  
  515.  
  516. Jacob must have gone insane after Charlie’s death, I thought he must have gone off that deep, deep end. Was it this hard to believe that there was a supernatural force using children like toys, like pawns in a game? I thought about Jacob told me for a long time, finally asking him how I knew I could even trust him, how did I know he wasn't lying about this whole thing. "Fine, I can see you’re not going to give up anyway. It doesn't matter what I do or know anymore, so here." Jacob swung down from the bars and fished a sealed letter from his pocket, handing it to me. "You already know too much, read all those and then get the hell out of this town. I am probably going to have to do something drastic to get my parents to get me out of here, so don't be surprised."
  517.  
  518.  
  519. Jacob left abruptly, my mind was still reeling and there would be no goodbyes. He headed off in the direction of his street, staying close to the trees and well into the shadows. I pushed the envelope in my pocket and ran back towards my house, still stopping to look around at intervals, always half expecting one of the jackal children to be right behind me. My heartbeat was pounding in my head when I finally returned back home through the open window. I turned on my desk light, and dumped the contents of Jacob's envelope out onto the desk. There were several dozen slips from the fortune machine, none of which were dated. They told a disturbing and disjointed story, here of which are the most important to the real story.
  520.  
  521.  
  522. "There will be a fire tomorrow."
  523.  
  524. "He did it with your mother again."
  525.  
  526. "You should stop sleeping with the stuffed bear."
  527.  
  528. "Why don't you believe me?"
  529.  
  530. "You told Charlie didn't you?"
  531.  
  532. "Your mother keeps her jewelry under the bed now."
  533.  
  534. "You should bring Charlie next time."
  535.  
  536. "Don't tell anyone, ever."
  537.  
  538. "You will be with Charlie soon."
  539.  
  540.  
  541. That was enough for me; I shoved them back into the envelope and hid it inside my desk drawer. I was still processing everything I had read just then, wondering how the machine could have known all of those things about Jacob. Had there been a fire in Jacob's house? He never said anything about it. There had been a fire alarm go off in school though, two or so weeks earlier to this. I remember hearing that someone set a fire in the boy’s bathroom on the second floor...
  542.  
  543.  
  544. My mind was coming up with nothing but more paranoid theories, I decided to call it a night. Creeping to the bathroom I cleaned up, brushing my teeth and finding myself still looking around, watching the mirror behind me. Of course there was nothing there, only my imagination. Back in my room I finally put the screen back inside the window and closed it. In the distance outside I looked too long, and began thinking I could see people moving in the woods line across the street, watching me. But this was just the wind, just a trick of my mind, it had to have been. I shut the blinds quickly, flipped off the lights and got into bed. I tried to sleep restlessly, rolling back and forth, eventually putting both hands under my pillow. That was when I found another fortune slip. How had it gotten under my pillow though, my mind recoiled, I had been at my desk... foolishly I flipped the light switch on so I could read what it said. "DON'T LEAVE YOUR WINDOW OPEN."
  545.  
  546.  
  547. Ch. 5
  548.  
  549.  
  550. Panic enveloped me like a wet blanket. A wet, sticky blanket full of nothing I could see, but none the less still smelling and tasting of that most biological bittersweet metallic. I screamed as if I were really bleeding. I was still screaming when my mother finally burst into my room, finding me huddled in the corner, clutching an envelope full of seemingly random and morbid paper slips. I pleaded, I rambled, I begged her to wake my father up, to take us away from New Haven by all means possible. I held onto her as long as I could, crying and swearing it was all true.
  551.  
  552.  
  553. She pushed me away, sending me stumbling onto the bed. She started to laugh, stopped and threw the envelope into my lap. She bent down and looked me dead in the eye, making sure I knew she was serious. This was, in her opinion, a very childish attempt to get attention. I had typed the fortune slips myself, or my 'friend Jacob' had helped with it. It was not funny, my father sleeping around was not funny, and suggesting that she was a whore was definitely not going to get any laughs, or any sympathy for that matter.
  554.  
  555.  
  556. I screamed at her then, I slapped her in the face. I ran into the living room and tried to pull my father out of his alcoholic slumber, only to have him roll over in ignorant bliss. My mother grabbed me from behind, twisted me hard and slapped me across the jaw. She pulled me screaming into the hallway, back into my bedroom, back into the unknown. She would listen to nothing I could say, each promise of an intruder in our house was met with another stinging slap to the face. By the end I could not be sure if my tears were from terror or physical pain, or still yet the cold crushing reality that I had no friends in the world, not even a mother to believe in or believe in me.
  557.  
  558.  
  559. She took the envelope from me, tore it from my hands, making wild threats and promises she would never be able to keep. She took the envelope to the bathroom, dumping all the slips into the shallow waters of the commode. I watched as Jacob's fortunes, his story, his evidence of the truth was gone forever. If I disturbed her again that night, another promise she made, I would be grounded for a month. All I could do was mumble some complacent words and inwardly laugh with a feeling more of tragedy than comedy. My mask had turned on me, there was not a damn thing funny about this situation. I waited at the door, listening for her to return to the bedroom. What I heard were muffled arguments from the living room, more terrible accusations towards my father. I heard the front door open and his truck start, but it was far too early for work. I wanted to cry then, but there was nothing left.
  560.  
  561.  
  562. Finally I heard her return to the bedroom. I made a clean sweep of my room, checking the closet, under the bed, any place one could conceivably hide. There was nothing of course, this was a scare tactic. Or was it, what if whoever left the last message was hiding in my house. It may seem selfish, it may make you think that I had no love for my mother, but I locked my door and pushed a chair under the knob. Nothing was in my room, and nothing would get in.
  563.  
  564.  
  565. I finally passed out with the sunlight just beginning to shine through my blinds, the hours leading to my slumber filled with nothing but unraveling psychosis and multitudes of paranoid delusions concerning just what the hell was going on. Was my mother in on it, why had she not cared? Why did she not wake my father, why the hell wouldn't she believe me? These were some of the many fruitless thoughts I was forced to examine in those early hours.
  566.  
  567.  
  568. I would be awarded with what could only be a few minutes of sleep, perhaps an hour at most before a knocking at the window awoke me. I slowly and carefully looked out through the blinds, praying that it was Jacob, or anyone but someone with ties to that fortune machine. I was relieved to see there was nobody on the other side of the glass, it must have been my imagination. It would have been all my imagination, save for the slip of paper taped to the other side of my window.
  569.  
  570.  
  571. The paper read - "THAT WAS A BAD IDEA."
  572.  
  573.  
  574. I opened the window and grabbed the fortune slip from it, checking all around for any sign of Jacob or any of the jackal kids, of course which there would be none. I yelled outside, no I screamed for them to stop. For anyone to stop, it was not funny, it never was. I screamed at them until I was hoarse, until I was sure my mother would be banging on the door and furious. But the house was silent, I was the only one disturbing anything.
  575.  
  576.  
  577. I pushed the chair from under the door and unlocked it, exiting my room on tiptoes and riding my fear. What had been a 'bad idea'? When I talked to Jacob, leaving the window open, trying to get my mother to listen to me? I did not know what the slip really meant then, I don't really understand what it meant now. The only thing to understand was the blood covered hand prints on the walls, the smudging and pulling and dragging of someone from the bedroom into the kitchen. Here I fully understood what had happened, the knife drawer was pulled completely out and numerous glistening wet and red blades adorned the floor, some piled into the sink.
  578.  
  579.  
  580. I wandered the house, looking in each room and closet and even under the couch. I knew that she was dead, and deep inside I had known she would be dead. I had tried to warn her, I had tried to make her believe what I did, what Jacob did. This was all Jacob's fault. My fear became anger, became something else after that. I grabbed the phone and called my father's work place, all I would ever hear was the answering machine. I returned to my room, put anything important in my backpack and got the hell out of the house. There would have been no tears at all during my escape, but on the steps outside there were three more slips of paper, taped down one for each step.
  581.  
  582.  
  583. "WE MISS YOU."
  584.  
  585. "YOU SHOULD SEE."
  586.  
  587. "WHAT SHE LOOKS LIKE NOW."
  588.  
  589.  
  590. Ch 6.
  591.  
  592.  
  593. I ran from my house, the only home I had ever really known, as unstable as it may have been. I had no place to go, panic struck and alone, more alone than I had ever felt in my life. The only thing guiding me then was a vivid want of the truth. Alas, as many have said before, sometimes the truth can be too hard to handle. Instinctively I headed towards Jacob's house.
  594.  
  595.  
  596. The morning air was thick, the sky was darkened with thick clouds strangling out the sun. It was impossible to have a sense of time, it was the early morning and my mother was dead, or at worse she was still dying somewhere. My mind would rewind with every few feet I took back to those damn fortune slips on the steps. There were sirens in the distance, maybe only a few streets away. Maybe they were at my house already... but I had never dialed 9-11. Maybe my father had returned, had slept his drunk off in a parking lot just as he had in early mornings before. I could only imagine his expression when he would discover all that blood.
  597.  
  598.  
  599. I was close to Jacob's now, the sirens becoming further and further off. The sky had become darker, as if the gray clouds were being created at a rapid pace. I was thinking over just how I would confront Jacob, how to gain entrance into his house, when I noticed the front door was already jarred open. I pushed it inwards and nearly fell over. Blood everywhere, all chaos, no patterns or directional marks like I had seen at my own house. I yelled for Jacob, for anybody, and there was no return. I heard no movement anywhere in the house, so I looked around.
  600.  
  601.  
  602. I found Jacob's room on the second floor, door open and nearly every item dismantled and strewn about as if a small tornado had formed right there. A vortex of chaos, broken television and VCR boxes, splintered remains of a chair, and scattered among it all more fortune slips. I read only a few of them, or maybe I can only remember that few. It was such a long time ago, and that day would have made anyone try to forget. What I read in Jacob's room was madness, the slips of paper made no sense. Many of them had names of other kid's, their mothers, with certain dates and times. There were many slips with Charlies name mentioned, and then I found my name. And my mother's name, my father's name. And on these slips were more times, more dates. I should have took as many of those slips as I could, but who was I to know what insane events the next few hours would bring.
  603.  
  604.  
  605. Finding nothing of use in Jacob's room I headed downstairs to leave the house. There on the inside of the front door was another slip of paper taped, perhaps the clue that had pulled me back to Jacob's with such fierce gravity. "MOM SAYS HI. ME AND JACOB ARE AT THE ARCADE." I felt all rage sweep up through my torso, I ripped the paper from the door and tore it apart right there. Inside I was bending, my mind was warping under the weight of the unanswered questions I had found myself buried under. What would I do now? Would I really go straight into the mouth of the beast, having seen its blood lust and hunger first hand? There were pieces of Jacob's family all over the floor, glimpses of mutilated genitalia confirming both mother and father were no more. Could Jacob have helped? Was he behind this madness, was Jacob in fact fucking with me?
  606.  
  607.  
  608. Before heading back out into the streets I made sure to arm myself. I found the biggest knife in the kitchen, a thick butcher's blade nearly the size of half my arm. Driven by a new sense of power and paranoia, I wrapped the sharp end of the knife in a towel and concealed it under my pants leg inside the sock. Walking would feel funny, but at least now I would feel safer. I left Jacob's house and never looked back.
  609.  
  610.  
  611. Outside it had gotten oddly darker, the gray clouds seemed to be encompassing the whole sky. It only took a few minutes before I smelled them. They were not clouds at all, but smoke. Smoke billowing from what seemed to be multiple locations, which could be much easier located by following the sounds of emergency vehicles. The danger and tragedy that day were never mine or Jacob's alone, that was for sure.
  612.  
  613.  
  614. I marched onwards, out of one street and into another, trying to remember what direction the mall was even in. Everything was getting confusing, the smoke getting thicker in the air, the sirens becoming closer and closer. All around me I could hear panic. People were screaming to each other, I could never quite see them through the haze. There were fires all over the town, the hospital, the elementary school, even the veterinary clinic had been set ablaze. Was this really a spontaneous act of multiple arson, or was it simply a distraction.....
  615.  
  616.  
  617. I found myself walking on the main highway, heading towards the school and still aimed towards the mall. Behind me the sound of sirens, a legion of them it seemed, quickly approached. I moved from the road and sat in the ditch by roadside, soon after the smog revealed a whole fleet of fire trucks, police vehicles of several sizes and speeding ambulances. Not a single one was a New Haven vehicle, they were all from two different adjoined towns. This was crazy, this was like the apocalypse without warning, there would be no horns, vials, angels or seals. I was back on the road and thinking about the meteor wormwood when it hit me. Not wormwood of course, but a stray cop car.
  618.  
  619.  
  620. When I came to I was in the back seat of the cruiser, locked tightly. My backpack was gone, but I still felt the knife secure by my ankle. I yelled at the man up front, who appeared to be crying his eyes out. He was holding the envelope Jacob gave me, shaking his head as if arguing with himself about something. He looked back in the rear view mirror and wiped the tears away before beginning to talk. "I'm sorry... I really am. But this has gone too far, I need my son back. I need my family back, its not fair what he did. YOU KNOW WHAT HE DID!" At this the man twisted his face back to see me, and I read nothing but pain and hate. Over the radio someone asked him where he was, what was his location and demanding he go to the school where the fire was out of hand. He turned it off and chuckled right as we passed the burning school and the army of cops and firemen. I screamed at him, why wasn't he helping them, just where were we going?
  621.  
  622.  
  623. He slammed on the brakes, turned and punched the shatterproof glass so hard I saw the blood from his knuckles. "YOU STUPID FUCKING BRAT! I'M TAKING YOU TO YOUR FAVORITE PLACE! YOU SHOULD BE THANKING ME, YOU GET TO GO HOME TO MOMMY AND DADDY!" But the next exit was definitely not anywhere near my address, instead we were going straight where I suddenly feared the most, straight to the mall, straight to an unknown hell.
  624.  
  625.  
  626. Ch. 7
  627.  
  628.  
  629. The mall parking lot was vacant as far as the eye could see when the officer pulled in to park by the food court entrance way. I knew it was a Saturday, and the mall would open later than usual, but shit, there should have at least been custodians there. Instead there was just a lone child waiting outside. One of those five jackal children. The officer nearly threw me out of the back seat, dragging me towards the entrance to meet the other kid. I remember thinking it was raining, but it was really the officer's tears, he cried with a sense of joy as he approached the child, most assuredly his child.
  630.  
  631.  
  632. He threw me to the ground in a corner by the doors, and embraced his son. He wept, he cried, he told him everything was alright, all was forgiven, all would be well. This is when the kid pulled the officer's gun from the holster, and shot him right in the face. My eyes widened as I heard the blast, which seemed to echo in a twin sound effect. It may have been the music of physics, of entrance and exit wounds, it may have been my imagination, either way the man's pink and gray matter lay on the cement before his body finally slumped into rest.
  633.  
  634.  
  635. The kid showed no remorse in killing his father, in fact he seemed to relish the act. He bent down to look into his father's shattered face and whispered to him. "It's ok to die, you were never my real dad anyway..." Then he started to laugh, no, to fucking cackle like a hyena hooked to a nitrous canister. Which is when I pulled my ace in the hole, the butchers knife from my sock. He was too bust laughing at his father to notice, well that is until the sharp point slipped into the back of his neck like a spoon into jello. His reflexes went wild, he dropped the gun and spun around to face me. Which was a horrible decision, as he did the blade cutting through the side of his neck meat and exiting right under the Adam’s apple. I had meant to cut his throat, I will not lie. But this was something much more horrible, not a clean kill by any means....
  636.  
  637.  
  638. He bled out in a matter of what seemed to be seconds, his consciousness fading forever, a look of pure shock and wild ignorance becoming his death mask. I felt nothing for either father or son, I wiped my knife off on a pants leg, returned it to its hiding place and picked up the officer's hand gun. I thought momentarily about running away then, using the cop's radio to get help. Part of me wanted this, but the other part had went too far had seen too much. Nothing to do but see it through until the end, so to speak.
  639.  
  640.  
  641. I pushed through the food court doors, gun drawn and expecting, well I was expecting what might be called the worst. What was inside those doors, however, was a few fathoms past my definition of the worst. The smell of gasoline and kerosene mingled to greet me as I passed through, not just a trail but what looked like the aftermath of a flammable rainstorm. The food court tables had been piled into the center of the place, creating a grand platform for an even grander monstrosity. Piled one on another like savage bloody bricks, nothing but women, nothing but mothers. My mother, she adorned the top of the pile, slumped lifeless like a fucking necrotic Christmas angel, the sparkling dead star on the tree that was never there,
  642.  
  643.  
  644. I fell back in astonishment, in a yet still unformed horror. I felt myself about to black out again. Only the sudden movement from the bathroom raised me, raised my arm and my aim. Jackal children, smiling and oblivious. Only now there were more than the original five. There were as many as there were dead mothers on the tables, perhaps more. My vision was blurred, my blood boiling, the mental image of my mutilated mother cutting through like a bad migraine. I had never fired a gun before, but then again I had never killed anyone until a few minutes before that. I waved the firearm back and forth at them, threatening them to stop their approach. This had no effect, and although I had never fired a gun I knew there would never be enough bullets for all of them.
  645.  
  646.  
  647. Instead I pointed the gun right towards my own cranium. The jackals stopped dead in their tracks. I laughed, I gasped in disbelief at this absurdity. Could I have really been the center of this absurd madness? Was I the lynchpin holding this blood soaked universe together after all? Of course not, a long hand from behind and above me suddenly grabbed the gun away. I spun around to see my own father. Not just him, a whole troop of fathers. The heroes had arrived at last. Or not.
  648.  
  649.  
  650. Over half of them dropped to their knees when they saw the food court centerpiece. Some managed to crawl weeping towards the pile of wives, others ran and tried in vain to sort through the bodies. The jackal children rose in a chorus of laughter, of pure (or impure) delight at the weakness of their fathers. Then they parted like an adolescent red sea, and Jacob appeared. They pushed him to the front, shaking and crying like a baby, until he was down on his knees holding the longest fortune machine slip I had ever seen. He started to speak, and even the grief stricken grown men stopped to listen.
  651.  
  652.  
  653. "You have all failed your wives, failed your children. You are all guilty of adultery, of abandoning your families, of abandoning your wives, your children and your god... you will all die today, you will all die soon, you will all die in pain and anguish and sorrow in the fires of hell. You are all damned, you are all fools who tried to make your on fortune, and you will all -"
  654.  
  655.  
  656. I was sure Jacob would continue, but instead half of his face just blew off. In fact I think I saw the damage done before I heard the gunshot, my father aiming the pistol right over my head. He did not stop pulling the trigger until there were hollow clicks, and the front line of the jackal children had fallen into final sleep. And then, there was nothing but chaos.
  657.  
  658.  
  659. The jackal children screamed and drew their mother's blood soaked knives, lunging forwards at their fathers. My father, it turned out, was not the only on with a gun. I threw myself across the floor and rolled as far as I could until I smacked into a wall, or maybe my father pushed me. The clash ensued, the slitting of muscle, confetti of exploding flesh, the scraps of adult and child alike adorning the floor. And in the middle, I clearly saw my father, he looked at me and smiled. Then he aimed at the floor and fired.
  660.  
  661.  
  662. The flames started there, sweeping all around the food court, finally traveling back to ignite the pile of our mothers. Unspeakable cries and screams rose from both sides as I scrambled for cover, running straight into the men's bathroom. I grabbed the trashcan and pushed it against the door, then slid underneath the sink counter, trying to buy some time and think my way out of the surreal chaotic nightmare it surely felt like I had dreamt myself into. I stared at that door, listening to the cacophony of generations clashing outside for what seemed to be eons. Gunshots, one after another, getting closer and closer.
  663.  
  664.  
  665. Then there was a break of silence. My heart was about to burst through my chest, my nerves no longer connected to my brain. And then it burst through the door, shoving my cheap barricade away like the trash receptacle it was. He was still on fire, half of his body covered in an unknown degree of burns as he awkwardly pointed the revolver at me. I panicked, slid and rolled as low as I could, feeling the pieces of bathroom tile shatter close to me as he fired. Once, twice and then a click. My hand moved without my own accord then, some deep genetic survival instinct overtaking me, flashing back to days of unequivocal violence, back when men took their women and killed other men's children. I found my knife, and I cut that useless gun out of the jackal's hand.
  666.  
  667.  
  668. I can remember a brief fight, and a warm storm of crimson, and of laughter, so much laughter. Then I blacked out, only to awake in an ambulance who knows how much later. When I was better the police tried to get me to explain what had happened, but even I don't really know. They showed me pictures, the burnt mass of female corpses, the men collapsed arm and arm with their sons, dead and dead alike. They showed me the child found in the bathroom with me, my knife stuck so far into his chest cavity they had to cut it out. Of course I lied to them, what would you do?
  669.  
  670.  
  671. After that they hid me away, never telling me a god damn thing. At one time they let me stay with my grandparents, but something I did to the dog made them send me back. Then something I did to my room mate made them send me away again, to another place... I assure you though, it was his fault, he should have never talked about my mother..... they wrapped me in a fucking jacket with long, long arms and tried to keep me quiet.. I played good and eventually they let me out of the jacket, they tried to do something bad to me with a needle, but I was too quick. I did something worse to them, and now I’m out. I am going back to New Haven, I am going back home.
  672.  
  673.  
  674. EPILOGUE
  675.  
  676.  
  677. So much has changed in my old home town. The burnt buildings have all been renovated, most of the homes that were set ablaze have been long bulldozed and whole new families occupy them. The sky is not full of smoke anymore, even though I keep looking up, thinking it will be. I went to the library and tried to find anything relating to those events, they did not keep newspapers on hand going back to that date. They did have many boxes of unlabelled micro fiche however, but could guarantee nothing about the contents.
  678.  
  679.  
  680. It took me nearly seven hours of searching, but I found the articles I came for. The first was right on the front page, accompanied by a picture of fire fighters working together to dose the hospital inferno. I could hardly believe what I read, I had no idea the scope of death the fortune machine had unleashed on New Haven that fateful morning. There had been eighty one confirmed deaths, of that number twenty seven had been children. Some of the bodies were burnt and mutilated so badly, identification had not been possible. The next article I found was the announcement that the mall had been finally reopened to the public, and the city had erected a memorial on the site for those who perished on that day. This would be my next stop, I knew what I had to do. I had to make sure that the fortune machine was not there, and if it was, I would have to destroy it.
  681.  
  682.  
  683. I stopped by a hardware store and purchased the tools I might need. A hatchet, a sledge hammer, a crowbar, two flash lights, batteries, and a roll of duct tape. Outside the store I used the hatchet to chop half of the sledgehammer's handle off. wrapping the jagged end with duct tape for a secure grip. Now all my items fit neatly inside my backpack, I walked to the main road and started my march towards the mall. As the day slowly faded away, an overwhelming sense of deja vu swept over me. Even though I knew nothing was burning this time, I still looked towards the sky for smoke, I still checked behind me every few steps for the cop car to hit me.
  684.  
  685.  
  686. I made it to the mall this time on my own two feet, with an hour to spare before closing. The memorial statue stood near the front entrance, in what seemed to me to be a horrible mockery of the real events that day. Sculpted or coated in bronze was a full size man holding what was most likely his son by the shoulders, as if guiding him in front to safety. I guess it made someone feel better, someone who hadn't been a part of what happened that day. I stepped inside the mall and barely recognized it. There were all new stores everywhere, all new floors, all new ceiling tiles, and an all new food court. I sighed something like relief, of course the arcade would have been destroyed as well then. I found the map of the mall, and to my dismay the arcade was still located in the same place. I had made it this far, there would be no turning back now.
  687.  
  688.  
  689. I entered the arcade and smiled, the machines were all new ones. The arcade machine had gotten bigger, flashier, some of them you could actually step on and dance with. I wandered further back and into the second hall, amazed at this new technology. I only made it a few feet in before my nerves gave out, I wobbled and dropped to one knee, a kid playing some 3d fighter stopping to help me back up. "Are you ok mister?" I shoved him away sending him sprawling back to his machine... I had found mine again at last. Still posted in the very back, where it had always been, was the fortune machine. I ran to it and started shoving coins in, slamming down the yellow button, hardly being able to wait for what it would tell me. But the machine was dead silent, this time it really was broke. The kid had followed me and said from behind, "Mister that game has never worked, don't waste that money," as he eyed my coins.
  690.  
  691.  
  692. So I made a deal with him, for all my coins he would go distract the man at the counter, get him to chase outside of the arcade. Only for a few minutes, but long enough for me to climb on an arcade box, dislodge the ceiling panel and hide myself inside. I couldn't have anyone stopping me from what I was about to do. I waited for what seemed to be a small eternity up in the ceiling, until finally I head the entrance gate slammed and locked tight. After a few more minutes I dislodged the panel again and climbed back down. I turned on my flashlight and scouted the place one last time to make sure I was all alone. Just me and whatever was in that fortune telling machine, just me and the truth now.
  693.  
  694.  
  695. At first I tried to simply slide the machine off the wall, but it was going nowhere. Next I tried to pry it free of the wall using the crowbar, and still there was no budging it. The crowbar barely slipped behind the wooden frame before hitting something hard and ungiving... I would have to take the direct way then. I picked up my hatchet and swung downwards, smiling as the wood frame shattered - then I hit something much sturdier, and the reverberation knocked the hatchet from my grip. Shaking I pulled the rest of the wooden sideboard off, to reveal a concrete structure built right into the wall. No wonder I nobody had been able to move the damn machine. It was a good thing I brought the sledgehammer.
  696.  
  697.  
  698. Within a few minutes I had caved in a large enough whole to crawl through, I grabbed a flashlight and pointed it inside. I could see what clearly was a typewriter on the opposite side of the concrete box, right next to the fortune slot. Strangely enough there were no wires no connection at all between the antiquated typing device and the rest of the machine. I slid inside, shining the light at the front expecting to see a circuit board for the fortune puppet. Instead there were strings and wooden handles, the type of thing you would expect during marionette shows of the 19th century. There was no coin box to collect anything from the front, the coins just simply dumped out onto the floor... It seemed this whole thing, the whole fortune telling machine was all of analog control.
  699.  
  700.  
  701. Which meant someone had orchestrated this terrible thing, a real person at some point. I turned around to face what should have been the back wall of the arcade, but instead there was an entrance way to a downward set of stairs. It was a good thing I was not claustrophobic, the space was getting increasingly tight, there was no possible way the booth and the stairway could have been constructed for use than more than one person. There was a sharp turn at the bottom of the stairs leading into a larger room than the fortune booth.
  702.  
  703.  
  704. With a firm grip on the flashlight I walked inside to what looked like a prison cell. There was a long concrete shelf running along the sides, with notebooks, journals, and everywhere dust covered fortune slips. I walked inside and picked up a journal, dusting the front off to read. Inside were accounts of adultery, of secret love shared between married men and women, but there was no love in the way it was written. He took great pride in seducing these women by getting them to believe that their own husbands were just as untrustworthy as he was. It was a sick game he had played with both adult and child. The man who wrote this took every opportunity to document what he found in every room of each house, where the valuables were, where their weapons were kept, and of course what their children looked like. There were photographs of each child. I stopped looking in that journal, because I remembered all of their faces.
  705.  
  706.  
  707. Curiosity was too much to control, so I moved on to other notebooks on the shelves. There were maps of the town, older than when I was born. An incredibly detailed blueprint of the original sewer system, one that ran right under the mall. I found another blueprint after that, this time the schematics and instruction for building a whole new fortune telling machine, with a whole other notebook dedicated to how to bait children with it. I stopped looking, it was like an information overload. I turned to head back upstairs, but screamed in shock when I saw what was sitting in the corner.
  708.  
  709.  
  710. A skeleton of a man, most of his skull missing, and a shotgun beside him, one skeletal finger still loosely touching the long pulled trigger. He was the madman behind all those dead, he was the man who split apart all those families. And he was wearing exactly what my father had been wearing the last day I saw him. It all suddenly made sense. Why he was gone so often, how he had gained such easy entrance into everyone's lives, and why he was always so secretive. He was an excellent handyman, a builder, an electrician, and by god I remember that he was part of the contractors who built this damn mall!
  711.  
  712.  
  713. I slowly made my way over to his corpse and what I saw nearly blacked me out, but I am older now and stronger in my nerves. A final slip of fortune paper, yellowed with age or perhaps his own flesh as it decayed, sitting in his skeletal clutch. "ITS YOUR TURN NOW, SON."
  714.  
  715.  
  716. I put all of my father's books and notes into the backpack, retrieved my sledgehammer and found my way out into the old sewer system. It will take more research of course, I will have to visit many of the old towns in this country, but I know that I will find a place to make my own fortunes.
  717.  
  718.  
  719. END
  720.  
  721.  
  722. 2nd possible ending
  723.  
  724.  
  725. The taxi drops me off with my backpack after I pay the meter at the park where I had met Jacob the night he tried to warn me, all those years ago. It’s changed a lot from how I remember it. There used to be a large playground for kids. It’s a graveyard now. I suppose the number of dead kids sort of ended the demand for the playground. Turning around, I can see that the taxi is already on its way back. He didn’t wait for me to acknowledge him at all. It’s understandable.
  726.  
  727.  
  728. I find Jacob’s grave there. It isn’t special at all. All the graves look the same – a uniform rectangular headstone patterned the grass, which had begun to overgrow. Whoever had erected this graveyard was no longer maintaining it. Surprisingly, there is no graffiti on the graves. I can’t imagine why there would be, though. There aren’t any kids anymore. No one would have children after what happened here.
  729.  
  730.  
  731. I’m about to leave the area when I take a step and hear the crunch of paper underfoot. It’s enough to make me hesitate. I’m not afraid of any slips of paper anymore, but my heart is beating faster. I take my foot off of the area I heard the crunch from and find a small slip of paper. I don’t wait to pick it up, wondering what the machine could possibly take from me now, after all these years. If I were to die, it wouldn’t accomplish anything. Dying isn’t special. But the note doesn’t have anything grim or foreboding on it like what it used to tell me.
  732.  
  733.  
  734. “ANOTHER COIN PLEASE.”
  735.  
  736.  
  737. It was too interesting now.
  738.  
  739. I began to walk to the mall.
  740.  
  741.  
  742. It’s easy to break inside. I’ve learned how to break into and out of lots of things in the past years. Almost always, there’s never been anyone who had found out about it.
  743.  
  744.  
  745. In the eleven years since I’d been here a lot had changed, and not surprisingly. The food court has been remodeled better than it had been when I had lived here. There’s a Sbarro now, and a Pizza My Heart. Then there are a few others that are also new. None of the old restaurants stayed, and the bathroom seems to have been modeled into a janitorial storage room. It’s still easy for me to picture the flames, the jackals, and the piles upon piles of corpses, including my mother. I stand where I could see her body and I swear that the smell of bodies is still ingrained in the floor. Somehow it doesn’t affect me much now.
  746.  
  747.  
  748. The arcade, of all things, is still standing. The entrance isn’t gated shut like all of the other shops and the power is still on. There hasn’t been anyone in the mall that I’ve noticed, and I see everything now. I’m the only one in the entire building.
  749.  
  750. I walk to the back, past the star fighter game that I just couldn’t like better than the mystery of the machine. The animatronic dummy is still broken and I can see cobwebs behind the glass.
  751.  
  752.  
  753. I insert my quarter and the dummy warms up just like it always did – slowly, poorly mechanized and off hinge. It creaks, not having been oiled in some time. After a moment I hear the ticking of the typing machine, however, I don’t hear the voice. When the slip comes out, I bend down to reach for it, and still I don’t hear anything. I hold it in my hands, looking at the blank side.
  754.  
  755.  
  756. “There is nothing you can do to me anymore,” I whisper. “There’s nothing you can do to anyone anymore. You murdered, you ruined lives, and you almost killed me. But whatever you were trying to do, it failed. It’s over.”
  757.  
  758.  
  759. I flip it over and see just what I expect to see.
  760.  
  761.  
  762. “YOUR TURN.”
  763.  
  764.  
  765. There is a man inside the machine; I'm sure of it. But my mind tells me that when I pull that machine forward from the wall, there won't be a man except for the one that moved the machine. And even then, he ceased to be a man more than eleven years ago.
  766.  
  767.  
  768.  
  769.  
  770.  
  771. Ark quickly sat up as the fading scream of a dream still echoed in his head. Ark has had many names throughout the past, some of them famous, others unheard of, but Ark seemed suitable to this era. He quietly rose out of his bed after a troubled nights sleep. It seemed the older he became the less sleep he got; bad memories always surfaced to the top in forms of nightmares. He knew he had plenty of those to last him an eternity. Sadly, he had an eternity to find out.
  772.  
  773.  
  774. He slowly made his way down the old dust hallway, floorboards creaking as he went. Dozens of old friends long gone stared at him through there portraits hanging on the walls. Thankfully he had one friend who hasn't left him yet. A long time they have been together... a long time indeed.
  775.  
  776.  
  777. Ark finally came to the door he was looking for. He slowly turned the knob and entered into complete darkness. The smell of seawater slammed into him, and he could even taste a bit of it in the air. He felt his away along the myriads of books on shelves, and trying his best to avoid the various tables filled with ancient artifacts.
  778.  
  779.  
  780. A voice met him as he neared the center of the room. It sounded dry and raspy, as though it hadn't taken a drink in years, while at the same time as if its lungs were flooded with water. Nearly impossible to describe to one who hasn't heard it.
  781.  
  782.  
  783. "Couldn't sleep again?"
  784.  
  785. Ark couldn't help but smile. The owner of the voice knew him well enough to know he hasn't slept through a single night in years.
  786.  
  787. "Sleep is overrated anyways. Have you still not adjusted to how day and night works? You never sleep at night."
  788.  
  789. "I like the darkness, but why are you here? You've never been one to drop in for a friendly chat."
  790.  
  791. "I want to hear a story, but not just any story. I want to hear your story."
  792.  
  793. A silence quickly filled the void of darkness surrounding them. Ark shifted slightly in anticipation.
  794.  
  795. "You know my story, you've even lived through most of the latter half of it. Why?"
  796.  
  797. "I'm old, and all my memories are filled with things I'd rather not think about. I wanna know your memories."
  798.  
  799. The voice paused for a little. "Alright fine, I owe this much for all you've done for me. Sit, this will be long."
  800.  
  801.  
  802. Indigo City
  803.  
  804.  
  805. The smell of the ocean still gives me feelings of homesickness, even after a hundred years.
  806.  
  807. If close my eyes and take a bite of a fish, it's almost like I'm home again, but only if I close my eyes.
  808.  
  809. It'll be a hundred more years till I can even have the hope of returning.
  810.  
  811.  
  812. Everything in my area of the Earth lives longer than what someone from around here is used to, but time down there doesn't work the way it does up here. There is no night, no day. No moon or sun. No light, only darkness. Legend has it that in an era long past, the gods became angry with my civilization, encased our city in rock, and then cast it down into the depths of the ocean. No one alive today remembers exactly how are great city came to be at the bottom of the ocean since the last of our ancients died.
  813.  
  814.  
  815. It is a city living in complete darkness. I did not know what sight was until an unfortunate event that brought me and a friend to the surface. What happened to my friend I do not know, I can only pray that he is not locked within a research lab. I have come to fear those places, as much as humans fear the deep sea. It is amazing that I did not go blind upon my first encounter with the sun. I assume were it not a cloudy day I would be, not that it would made much of a difference to a being that's live in a cave five miles beneath the surface of the ocean.
  816.  
  817.  
  818. I have remained aloof from the land people since my last encounter. Extensive scientific research was done upon me on how a bipedal being could survive in waters of that pressure, or how my gills worked. Sketches of me can occasionally be found through extensive research, but no photograph was ever taken. If I were to walk into a public square, I believe I would draw a fair bit of attention. I have radiant indigo skin, webbed hands and feet, and gills protruding from my neck.
  819.  
  820.  
  821. A human friend of mine who died long ago once wrote a story based off of mine, he called my city R'lyeh.
  822.  
  823.  
  824. Though I will relate my tale to you in English, understand that the language of my home is far older than any civilization you would know. Its hard to start my story for time did not exist for me till recently. To pick an exact starting place of significance is nigh impossible, but I must do it.
  825.  
  826.  
  827. The eternal sounds of water crashing upon rock echoed throughout the cavern. It was during shlest'ylne or roughly translated, Sleep Time, for the city. This was the time when the dwellers of the deep cave came out to hunt. Our city was guarded by a high thick wall of stone, but this was more to keep us in, then to keep the monsters out. A rough estimate would be to say the wall was ten to fifteen times the height of a human man, and this would have been useless if even the smallest of the predators felt the desire to feed on us, which they often did. I still awake at night with a fading nightmare lingering of a horde shla'rtzan tearing through the neighboring family. In my nightmares they appear as if they have the frame of a bat without wings, human face stretched over a canine skull, they can jump over the buildings the size of a two story house, and would need to duck to go through a door.
  828.  
  829.  
  830. My hunting partner led the way as we dove into the pool that opened up into a underwater cavern with three cave systems spanning from it. One leads to the open ocean, and the other two lead to places where animals as small as us do not return. Myths are told of eels that became stuck in the caves and became so fat that they are forced to wait with mouths open for anything unintelligent enough to traverse into those cave systems. Other myths tell of other cities like ours, but with inhabitants that could not cope with the loss of the sun. It is said that if one becomes captured by them, one would be sacrificed to their god in hopes of returning to land.
  831.  
  832.  
  833. As we entered the open ocean we floated weightless, listening intently for the sound of prey and predators. I began to swim, but my partner grabbed me, tapping out the signal for large predator. I was blessed with the hunter with the best hearing in the city for a partner. We grasped onto nearby seaweed in hope that we would not be sucked off by the passing creature. Just as I secured myself, a feeling came upon me that could only be described as holding onto a tree in the midst of a tornado. I managed to find a crevice in the cliff face of our cave to hang on to. I hugged the rocky surface as tight as I possibly could, knowing that to be pulled off meant being lost forever in the abyss of the ocean, surrounded by creatures so huge that the human mind can barely comprehend their size. I was left clinging to the cliff face for an indescribable long time waiting for the monster's tail to pass me. This was a common occurrence when hunting for food in the open. Many a hunting party has been lost, to a single sea creature also hunting for food.
  834.  
  835.  
  836. I could smell that my hunting partner was still next to me. I tapped out the signal to continue, and continued our trek down the rock face to the sea floor. On arrival we waited silently for the noise of an ocean vent. .
  837.  
  838.  
  839. Ocean vents were excellent hunting ground for crustaceans such as ones that would resemble crabs or lobsters, though these are a hundred times the size of the ones humans are use to. A dozen of these and our city would be fed for a week, though it would also take a city full of hunters to catch a dozen at once.
  840.  
  841.  
  842. Before floating away from the rock face, my partner tied a string made from seaweed around a rock and attached the other end to the bottom of his spear. We then slowly made our way to the vent. The soft clicking of claws on the ocean floor signaled that we should prepare for a quick strike. We only had one try to take him down, and that involved precise strikes through the eyes, in hopes of piercing the brain.
  843.  
  844.  
  845. As we had practiced, I gave the signal, which sent my partner torpedoing for the first eye, as I heard the swinging of a massive claw, I rushed in the for other eye, feeling my spear pierce through, i threw all my weight behind my spear and pushed. I felt the tip pierce through the soft point in the shell and pushed harder. The spear slid deeper in, far past the point needed to kill the brain. Silence set in as I took in the joy of victory. I listened for the sound of my partner close by to celebrate, but silence seemed to be my only companion. I questioned whether I should call out, but knew that if I did, I risked giving away my position to all the near by lurkers. I also couldn't risk touching the sea floor for I've heard of creatures that span one hundred body lengths that lie under sand waiting for any sign of movement. I did what I've been trained to do since a child, I grabbed my kill, felt along the water for the signs of our wake from swimming, and swam back towards the rock face. The crustacean was heavy for two hunters to carry, let alone one. I had to get back to the cave though before a bigger fish found me and hunt.There was no time to worry about my hunting partner.
  846.  
  847.  
  848. As I prepared to enter the cavern that led upward to my home, I heard to late the sound whooshing sound of nearby sea creature. I felt the force of the wave long before the tail itself slammed into my body. My gills felt singed as water was forced out of them. I flew into the cavern opening with no means to stop myself. My last thought before slamming into something hard was that I should have hit the cavern wall a while ago.
  849.  
  850.  
  851. When my senses returned to me, I was moving along a stream of some sort. The water smelt like my cavern, but different at the same time. I reached my hands to feel the ceiling quickly moving along them. I had no idea where this underwater river was taking me, but fear swallowed me as the myths of the other two cave systems in the cavern flooded my mind.
  852.  
  853.  
  854. I drifted for what seemed to be an eternity along the stream through a windy maze of tunnels, before it seemed to slow. I could hear in the near distance the river opening up into a large cavern. Hope began to rise in me that this cave led to the back of my home cavern somehow, but those hopes were quickly crushed when I saw how large the city in this cavern was. Yes, thats right. I saw. For the very first time in my life I was able to use my eyes. Far in the distance on top of the walls of the city were torches. At the time I was both confused, amazed and frightened, mixed all into one. I had no idea of what was occurring. This new sensation of sight was beyond anything I could possibly have imagined. When one lives his life in darkness, ones dreams happen to be in darkness as well. Long have I heard myths of our original homeland, with its lushes green grasslands, and the vibrantly blue skies.
  855.  
  856.  
  857. In the distance I could hear the beating of drums from within the city. Drums, or rhy'tas as we called them, were something used often in ceremonies. Quietly I pulled myself out of the water and onto land. For the first time I saw another living creature in front of me. It was a hominid as I, but it did not have the blue skin, or the webbed hands and feet that I possess. He looked much like a human, except more lean, and clawed hands, which held a spear. There heads were also much longer and narrower. The skin seemed to be almost stretched to tight across it.
  858.  
  859.  
  860. I did my best to remain in the darkness as I scaled the massive walls to there city. As I neared the torches my eyes burnt from the intense light. I was forced to close them as I crawled down the other side of the wall, and began to make my way to the sound of the drums. The buildings seemed to carved into the stone wall itself. I can only assume now that this was not there original city, nor the only city of theirs in that cave system.
  861.  
  862.  
  863. The streets were devoid of people for they were all at the ceremony, so it was relatively simple to make my way to the center of the city. I did my best to keep to the rooftops as to not be seen, and to have the best view of the ceremony below. Around a giant fire moved roughly five or six of these crude creatures. They moved rhythmically to the beating of the drums. In a circle around these dancers stood the rest of this population, chanting in an odd language. It seemed to be a mix of snarls and hissing, but despite its queerness, they seemed to be in unison with each other. I sat on the edge of a building and watched, completely entranced in this bizarre ritual. Partly because I've never heard of creatures like this, and partly because I've never had used my eyes before. I watched as the shadows on the ground flickered with the flames struck with amazement. I became so entranced at these vivid and new images around me that I had not noticed that the drums stopped. A loud cry filled the cavern as the sounds of hundreds of claws scraping against stone hurried quickly toward me. I rose to my feet to attempt to run but it was too late. As I turned around, I stood face to face with a hominid that rose half a body length above me. I tried to scream, but the creature brought down a rock upon my head before I could make a noise.
  864.  
  865.  
  866.  
  867.  
  868.  
  869. At one point in time... I wasn't like this. Truth is I don't know what I am anymore. I'm definitely not human... But definitely not anything else...
  870.  
  871.  
  872. Am I greater than a human? Or is the fact that my prolonged life is dependent on a fresh supply of bodies to inhabit makes me less... Some kind of parasite...
  873.  
  874.  
  875. Anyway.
  876.  
  877.  
  878. I'm starting to lose bits and pieces of my memory... So I'll write everything down while I still can.
  879.  
  880.  
  881. Most of these are unimportant details, but I am including them anyway to give who ever finds this some background info on me.
  882.  
  883.  
  884. I was born in the 1980's, I can't remember the exact date or year. White, male, middle class family. We didn't have the best things, but we made due. Parents divorced at age 6, and it was
  885.  
  886. because of that divorce that I moved to Amarillo and met Laura. Little did I know at the time this girl would haunt me for the rest of my life... Along with
  887.  
  888. her, there was sleep paralysis, I'd go into sleep paralysis 3-4 times a month if I wasn't careful. It's to the point now to where I am used to it, stress
  889.  
  890. induces it, I've found that out at least. This comes to be important later.
  891.  
  892. Laura and I were friends since elementary school, started dating in middle school, started having sex in high school. I honestly loved her... Anyway, so it
  893.  
  894. was senior prom, we were going to go, except on the way there her side of the car got cratered by a drunk driver in a semi who ran a red light. I remember
  895.  
  896. waking up in the hospital, first question wasn't where am I... It was 'Where's Laura?'.
  897.  
  898.  
  899. I could tell from the look in the doctors eyes she didn't want to have to tell me.
  900.  
  901.  
  902. I tried to sit up, but pain shot through my abdomen and back as I tried, the nurse saw this, and told me to lay down.
  903.  
  904.  
  905. "Where is Laura at? Tell me."
  906.  
  907.  
  908. She looked at me with so much pitty... I'll never forget that look... God how I hated that look.
  909.  
  910.  
  911. The doctor finally spoke up "I'm Dr. Greenwood, I've been treating you and, she looked at her clipboard "Laura Virginia Gren... She's not doing well Glenn."
  912.  
  913.  
  914. It was like I had been punched in the stomach with a brick, I could barely inhale enough air to speak.
  915.  
  916.  
  917. "What do you mean?"
  918.  
  919.  
  920. "She's in a coma, but unlike you... We don't expect her to wake up. She received pretty massive brain damage from the crash."
  921.  
  922.  
  923. I'm not really sure what happened after that, I keep trying to remember but that seems to be a blank spot, I've kept trying... I just can't.
  924.  
  925.  
  926. After that small blank spot, I remember... I was pretty much gone for a while. I'm not sure what I was during that mourning period... Probably the most
  927.  
  928. human I will ever be in my entire existence now.
  929.  
  930.  
  931. I was so tired then... I just wanted to sleep 24/7. I would skip school just to sleep the entire day away, or go visit Laura. The parents got onto me about
  932.  
  933. it, but they were understanding. In the end, I passed anyway graduated. I decided on joining the Army because I had a death wish, I wanted to be on the
  934.  
  935. front lines so I chose Infantry.
  936.  
  937.  
  938. Straight out of basic training I was sent to Iraq. Saw people die all around me, had my vehicle blown to hell a few times, people shot at me, threw grenades.
  939.  
  940.  
  941. I never died though.
  942.  
  943.  
  944. A lot of this I can't remember now either. Only a few important details which I have held onto...
  945.  
  946.  
  947. At one point in time, we were staying at this combat outpost, which was an Iraqi TV station we had overtaken. We had just got done with a patrol
  948.  
  949. had another one in 4 hours. I decided to get some sleep while I could. I went into sleep paralysis, for some reason I had told myself
  950.  
  951. to think about Laura whenever I had an episode. And I did that time.
  952.  
  953.  
  954. And then, I was there. Standing beside her bed like I had done so many times in the past. She was so skinny now... Like concentration camp skinny and pale.
  955.  
  956.  
  957. It hurt to see her like this.
  958.  
  959.  
  960. I kept telling myself this was just a dream, but immediately I noticed she was in a coma ward, rather than a private room. Her parents must have opted to save some money.
  961.  
  962.  
  963. As I stood there, I heard a voice from behind me.
  964.  
  965.  
  966. "Poor girl."
  967.  
  968.  
  969. I turned around. There was man, in a hospital gown, about 30 years old.
  970.  
  971.  
  972. "Who are you?"
  973.  
  974.  
  975. "I'm nobody... Just a spirit, you could say. That's my body over there." He pointed to one of the beds, which indeed his body was laying in.
  976.  
  977.  
  978. "So does that mean I'm dead too?"
  979.  
  980.  
  981. "No, I can clearly see your spirit is still attached to your body, there is a silver looking line that runs off most astral projectors back to their bodies.
  982.  
  983. You must be pretty far from yours... I can see yours going straight into the ground."
  984.  
  985.  
  986. I ignored that and went back to looking at Laura.
  987.  
  988.  
  989. "Where is her spirit?"
  990.  
  991.  
  992. "She's long since gone, like I will be soon. I'm only sticking around this long because I'm afraid of death."
  993.  
  994.  
  995. "Why not get back in your body?"
  996.  
  997.  
  998. "I can't, my line is severed. I don't want to anyway. My life sucks. No kids, no wife, no family... I've got nothing to live for really."
  999.  
  1000.  
  1001. "It seems, we have something in common then..." I couldn't take my eyes off her.
  1002.  
  1003.  
  1004. "Sad to see someone as young as yourself wanting to die."
  1005.  
  1006.  
  1007. "I've been wanting death ever since I lost her."
  1008.  
  1009.  
  1010. There was a long pause, nothing was said. Lasted a good 10 minutes.
  1011.  
  1012.  
  1013. "Well kid, looks like you'll be leaving soon. Take care Mr. Deathwish."
  1014.  
  1015.  
  1016. As soon as he said that I felt like I was being pulled by something. I tried to resist it, but it was like a gale forced wind was in my face while I was tied
  1017.  
  1018. to the back of a truck being dragged. And I was back in my body.
  1019.  
  1020.  
  1021. "Roberts, ROBERTS WAKE UP!"
  1022.  
  1023.  
  1024. "What? Sergeant?"
  1025.  
  1026.  
  1027. "You were talking in your sleep dude."
  1028.  
  1029.  
  1030. "Oh..."
  1031.  
  1032.  
  1033. I was stiff all over, felt like I had just done some serious muscle failure exercises, I could barely move for a good 10 minutes.
  1034.  
  1035.  
  1036. Because I had been pretty lethargic recently, I was ordered to go see the medics at the Aid Station. They decided to refer me to the field hospital, where a
  1037.  
  1038. full blood work up was done. The results came in, it turned out I had leukemia. I was medevaced to the green zone, where they drilled out a piece of my bone
  1039.  
  1040. marrow, indeed it was leukemia, turns out I only had 5 years at most to live.
  1041.  
  1042.  
  1043. It was the best news I had ever heard.
  1044.  
  1045.  
  1046. They put me on some medications, and sent me back to the US, and they put me on Rear D which I would be assigned to till my medical discharge.
  1047.  
  1048.  
  1049. I was given a barracks room to live in till then. Eventually, I when everything settled down, I decided to try to go into sleep paralysis again and attempt to
  1050.  
  1051. astral project again. I was successful, and once again ended up in the coma ward.
  1052.  
  1053.  
  1054. "Ahh, you're back."
  1055.  
  1056.  
  1057. "You're still here?" I asked.
  1058.  
  1059.  
  1060. "I plan on leaving tomorrow. It's pretty boring around here."
  1061.  
  1062.  
  1063. "Turns out I only have a few years left myself. Leukemia."
  1064.  
  1065.  
  1066. "You're still on that death wish binge?"
  1067.  
  1068.  
  1069. "Yep."
  1070.  
  1071.  
  1072. "Well if you change your mind, you can have my body. I'm pretty sure when I leave, my heart is going to stop, you should be able to get in then. It's worth
  1073.  
  1074. a shot."
  1075.  
  1076.  
  1077. I looked over to the pale ghost like girl that was once the one I loved. "My minds made up. I'll let myself die."
  1078.  
  1079.  
  1080. "Before she left... We talked a lot... She was always talking about you. How you came to visit her, how it hurt so badly that you couldn't even see her
  1081.  
  1082. anymore."
  1083.  
  1084.  
  1085. "Why did she cross over then?" His comment had irked me.
  1086.  
  1087.  
  1088. "Because she wanted you to move on with your life. To forget about her, and live a long and happy life."
  1089.  
  1090.  
  1091. "No... No, you're fucking lying. She wouldn't leave me if there was a chance that we could still be together. Shut your fucking mouth!"
  1092.  
  1093.  
  1094. "Believe what you want Mr. Deathwish. Keep in mind, I'll be here till tomorrow if you want a new body. Good bye."
  1095.  
  1096.  
  1097. "What?" I barely had time to speak the whole word before I was pulled back into myself.
  1098.  
  1099.  
  1100. I was sweating, and possibly crying. I woke up breathing hard, and furious with myself, and with Laura.
  1101.  
  1102.  
  1103. It was at that point in time it struck me, this had been the most emotion I had felt in years.
  1104.  
  1105.  
  1106. Eventually, I made up my mind. I would take the guys body. I went to sleep that night, and once again, drifted into sleep paralysis which I quickly turned
  1107.  
  1108. into astral projection.
  1109.  
  1110.  
  1111. "Welcome back. Have you made up your mind?"
  1112.  
  1113.  
  1114. "Yeah... I have. I'll try it. But what will happen to my body if I succeed?"
  1115.  
  1116.  
  1117. "No idea. But you don't have much of a choice but to find out, if you wish to live."
  1118.  
  1119.  
  1120. "Good point. Well.... Ready?"
  1121.  
  1122.  
  1123. "Yeah, I'll see you after about 60 years or so hopefully, Mr. Deathwish."
  1124.  
  1125.  
  1126. "Good bye old man."
  1127.  
  1128.  
  1129. He started to fade into nothing.
  1130.  
  1131.  
  1132. It was at that point the monitor on his body suddenly let out a long beep. His heart had stopped.
  1133.  
  1134.  
  1135. A couple of nurses and a doctor rushed in.
  1136.  
  1137.  
  1138. "Does he have a DNR?"
  1139.  
  1140.  
  1141. "No, WE NEED A CRASHCART IN HERE!"
  1142.  
  1143.  
  1144. I moved over to the body. And began trying to push myself into it...
  1145.  
  1146.  
  1147. I don't remember what happened after that, but when I woke up, I was indeed in his body.
  1148.  
  1149.  
  1150. I played the amnesia card of course. After all I didn't even know the guys name, saw quiet a few doctors, MRI scans, the whole works. Eventually a lawyer
  1151.  
  1152. came in and advised me of all my assets, apparently the man was quiet wealthy. The medical expenses could be easily paid, and I would have enough to survive
  1153.  
  1154. on for some time. This strangers kindness came at a price though.
  1155.  
  1156.  
  1157. The first thing I noticed was my right eye. It had a red and black pattern on the white part that looked like the cross hairs on a weapon. The iris seemed to
  1158.  
  1159. be permanently dilated. I simply wore dark glasses for a while, and eventually an eyepatch.
  1160.  
  1161.  
  1162. Without the eye patch, not only was the sun too much to bear, but I could also see things with it I shouldn't be able to... Peoples life force, the soul
  1163.  
  1164. lines the stranger who I now am had spoken of, even disembodied spirits. I figured it must have been a side effect of taking this mans body. Little did I
  1165.  
  1166. know, it was only the first of much worse ones to come.
  1167.  
  1168.  
  1169. About 5 years after the switch, I had put myself through school. I never did date though a couple of young students were interested in the mysterious older
  1170.  
  1171. gentleman with the eye patch.
  1172.  
  1173.  
  1174. I now had a good job now, paid well, office with a view, only worked 6 hours a day.
  1175.  
  1176.  
  1177. Anyway, it was about this time I noticed the first one. A small black spike was growing out of my shoulder.
  1178.  
  1179.  
  1180. It was hard, like an insects exoskeleton. I tried to pull it out with a pair of pliers, but it went deep into the bone of my shoulder blade.
  1181.  
  1182.  
  1183. Eventually, I got a pair of bolt cutters, pressed one end of the handle against a table, grabbed the other end and tried to break it off.
  1184.  
  1185.  
  1186. It splintered like wood. Some kind of black wood, hard as a fucking rock.
  1187.  
  1188.  
  1189. It kept growing though. And then two more sprouted on the same side.
  1190.  
  1191.  
  1192. I couldn't figure out what this was? Some adverse reaction to the soul transplant? It had to be.
  1193.  
  1194.  
  1195. I tried again to break them off, these were harder though. So I got a grinder wheel and cut them off at the base.
  1196.  
  1197.  
  1198. The mutation continued. My entire right shoulder was covered with a hard exoskeleton like material, and those spikes, which I kept cutting off, continued to
  1199.  
  1200. grow back.
  1201.  
  1202.  
  1203. What the fuck was happening to me? Why was I becoming a monster out of the nightmare of a child?
  1204.  
  1205.  
  1206. It spread little by little. An eye grew out of the exoskeleton, and teeth began growing on the other shoulder... Like a bizzare extra mouth. I stopped trying
  1207.  
  1208. to fight it, I wanted to let it take it's course to see what I was dealing with.
  1209.  
  1210.  
  1211. Horns began to grow out of my head, my teeth grew sharper, more jagged, and freakishly long. My mouth began to grow wider and wider...
  1212.  
  1213.  
  1214. The exoskeleton covered my whole body, my waist grew smaller till it was approximately the diameter of a 2 liter coke bottle. The pain was unbelievable. I was
  1215.  
  1216. beginning to run out of food. I couldn't even leave my house, except in the dead of night.
  1217.  
  1218.  
  1219. I was a monster.
  1220.  
  1221.  
  1222. Was this the true me?
  1223.  
  1224.  
  1225. Was this the reapers punishment for defying death?
  1226.  
  1227.  
  1228. Eventually fingers on my right hand began to fuse into two spike like claws, and elongate, like some kind of sharp pincer as long as my forearm. My
  1229.  
  1230. underwent a similar transformation, except with three spike like claws..
  1231.  
  1232.  
  1233. The toes on both my feet turned into 3 long sharp talons...
  1234.  
  1235.  
  1236. I remember thinking what have I become. Oh god if Laura could see me... Such a disturbing looking creature.
  1237.  
  1238.  
  1239. I abbandonned that body, and stole another one. I didn't have to wait for the heart to stop this time. Every 5-10 years, some bodies last longer than others, but all eventually mutate.
  1240.  
  1241.  
  1242. I've seen it in the paper a few times 'Bizzare monster found in mans apartment. Experts baffled, DNA tests human?'
  1243.  
  1244.  
  1245. Hah, if only they knew the half of it.
  1246.  
  1247.  
  1248. I've been through 5 bodies now. I forget what year it is, but things have changed greatly from when I first started this... I am confident I can keep it up
  1249.  
  1250. for at least another 2 centuries before the degradation complete fucks my mind.
  1251.  
  1252.  
  1253. At least when that happens... I wont remember enough to care...
  1254.  
  1255.  
  1256.  
  1257.  
  1258.  
  1259. I went to visit my mother recently, and as we discussed my younger brother and his studies in university, I was reminded of something from our childhood. My brother is a couple of years younger than me, he was always the headstrong extroverted one, compared to my quiet introversion. I'd say compared to me he's always been much more "normal", not in a bad or condescending way, he's always been a decent guy, and however much animosity there may be on the surface, we're pretty close, anyone with a brother close to their age will understand.
  1260.  
  1261.  
  1262. Anyway, enough of the background, the heart of the matter is as follows. Somehow, the subject of my brother's imaginary friend popped up, and I recalled he did have one even a few years into primary school, I'd say it was when he was 5 or 6 years old he stopped mentioning it. Now, I wasn't really aware of this being young at the time myself, but my mother now tells me he used to creep the fuck out of her whenever he talked about this imaginary friend. It was called "Baddie", and from what I recall of him speaking about it, was what I assume to be a typical imaginary friend, a companion when there was noone to play with and a scapegoat when my brother got in the shit for whatever he'd been up to when my mother caught him red handed. According to my mother though, the things he'd only ever blame certain shit on this Baddie, he'd usually take the rap for his mischief. This is what started to appear somewhat sinister in my mothers eyes, it's not that the stuff he blamed on Baddie would have landed him in deeper trouble, or even got him in trouble at all, it was just really strange behaviour, mainly drawing weird shit and occasionally things getting broken apparently, he'd swear adamantly that Baddie told him to do it or that Baddie did it, I'm not sure which was more prevalent.
  1263.  
  1264.  
  1265. The one event I personally do distinctly remember as being not quite right even at the time was when my mum asked him to draw a picture of Baddie, the thing he drew was horrible, the kind of shit a child at that age with a pretty standard idea of what's "cool" (dinosaurs, superheroes etc.) usually comes up with when they invent an imaginary friend. It was some kind of tall humanoid figure, all I can clearly remember was the way in which he drew it, all sharp, violent strokes, the shiteating grin on the things face and the fac it had arms that seemed to end in claws or something. I recall thinking it was weird, and my mum being freked out and destroying the picture. When I bump into my brother I'll ask him what he remembers about it, but I seem to remember asking him last time it came up a good few years back and him having no fucking clue what I was talking about.
  1266.  
  1267.  
  1268.  
  1269.  
  1270.  
  1271. At first he thought he was just hearing things, just paranoid because the basement of that old house always scared him when he was a kid. But soon enough he couldn’t deny that the distant sound of children’s laughter filled the converted basement den whenever he was down there.
  1272.  
  1273.  
  1274. Daniel had moved into his mother’s house after she passed away, a modestly sized home in a small town. It was a very old house, over a century old as most homes in the town were but it was kept in good condition. Daniel had spent much of his childhood there but he had never heard the laughter before until he lived there as an adult.
  1275.  
  1276.  
  1277. At least at first it was just laughter. The sounds that seemed to come from empty air unsettled Daniel but he wasn’t too concerned, he figured it was just his mind playing tricks on him. That is until the night he heard the muffled screams rising up through the house from the basement. He rushed down the stairs with a knife grabbed from the kitchen, greeted at once with a sound like liquid spilling across the tiled floor. He could just faintly smell the metallic sweet smell of blood in the air. There was nothing to be seen though other than his own white shaking hands in front of his face.
  1278.  
  1279.  
  1280. Every day after that, he was able to hear the sound of laughter in the daytime, no matter where he was inside the house. It was coming from the small locked storage closet underneath the basement stairs, he was sure of it, he held his ear up to that door for hours and he could almost feel the breath from small lungs blowing across his face.
  1281.  
  1282.  
  1283. Every few nights he would hear what he believed to be the invisible mutilation and torture of the children locked under the stairs. His body grew cold when he heard these sounds, his brain contracting, it hurt. He began to not sleep very well or not at all. Daniel contemplated breaking down the door and finding out what was inside but fear held him still when he stood before it with a hammer to break the lock. His neighbors began to see less and less of him and he soon quit his job. Soon after that he could hardly be seen to leave the house at all.
  1284.  
  1285.  
  1286. After three weeks of absence from the world, a concerned next-door neighbor called the police as she had not seen a glimpse of the man or seen his car move even an inch in all that time. The police find Daniel in the basement den, a bloody hammer in one hand used to crack open his own skull, a bloody kitchen knife in the other – the apparent murder weapon used in the slaughter of no less than fourteen children, all of whom had previously gone missing in the tri-county area within the last few months, whose disemboweled, decapitated, and decomposing bodies were found stacked inside the open storage closet beneath the basement stairwell.
  1287.  
  1288.  
  1289.  
  1290.  
  1291.  
  1292. I don’t know how long this had been going on or when it all started, I just know it’s too late now and I’ll most likely be dead soon. Thinking back, I guess things have been getting strange these last few weeks. People have been changing but it hasn’t been obvious, not if you’re not paying attention. Every now and then a teacher or someone I met on the street would say something odd, something that didn’t sound quite right coming out of their mouth. And then there were those looks, those looks of what I now know was terror in the people’s eyes, flashing for a brief but very real second before disappearing completely. I didn’t think anything of it, the town’s been going through touch times, I thought it was just the stress getting to everyone.
  1293.  
  1294.  
  1295. Everything changed today. Judy, the girl who I’ve been crushing on for almost a year, asked me over to her house after school to study. It was so strange but I wasn’t going to say no, how could I? We started making out on her bed almost as soon as we got there. It was amazing until I felt her cold tongue slithering down my throat. I pulled away gagging and something sharp ripped my lip, making it bleed heavy down my chin. It was her teeth that cut me. Her teeth that had become serrated spines growing in her now oversized mouth. I watched as her eyes sunk into her head and as every bone in her body seemed to grow and warp, shredding through clothes and flesh.
  1296.  
  1297.  
  1298. I ran so fast out of there I fell over twice before reaching the front door. I could hear the monster that was once Judy screeching behind me. I ran for blocks and miles without stopping, the air cool and wet like it was ready to rain. I ran into George, George who had been my best friend since pre-school. I screamed at him everything I saw and he just looked at me with understanding eyes that began to disappear and a smile that grew and grew and grew…
  1299.  
  1300.  
  1301. Now I’m in my room, I don’t know why I came here. The door is locked but it won’t matter much longer. For the last hour and a half my mother had been trying to get me to open the door to talk. Her voice is too sweet. I know it’s not her and that my mother is dead. She’s been getting more and more angry, banging on the door now. Outside it seems the whole town is waiting for me on the front lawn, all still wearing their human skins. I wonder what they’re waiting for. I wish they’d just get it over with.
  1302.  
  1303.  
  1304. These will be my last words I’m sure, the door is breaking off its hinges now and my mother’s voice is now like shrieking metal…
  1305.  
  1306.  
  1307.  
  1308.  
  1309.  
  1310. It’s been raining for a while now, raining hard. Those big heavy drops smack the ground, the house, the windows, and the head of the poor man wandering in the alley behind your home. You think you recognize the man. It’s hard to tell in the dark and dim streetlights but it looks like the harmless man who sometimes asks for change in front of the corner store a block away. Hard to say why but you feel compelled to run outside into the downpour. No time for a jacket or even shoes as you feel yourself filled with the urge to help this poor sopping figure stuck outside in the cold rain.
  1311.  
  1312.  
  1313. Your feet are ice and your body convulsing with shivers when you reach the alleyway but there is no one to be found, only a dark soaked coat crumpled on the concrete. As you attempt to pick up the dark, filth-encrusted thing off the ground, you suddenly realize that in your rush you left the back door wide open and now it is swinging and banging loudly in the wind. You run back, feeling like an idiot, wondering what you were hoping to accomplish running out into the rain like that. By the time you’re inside, toweling off and looking for dry clothes to change into, you’ve already almost forgotten about the figure standing outside in the rain before. It’s not until your dripping wet shirt comes off that you realize that all the wet spots you stepped into getting to your room were already there.
  1314.  
  1315.  
  1316. It’s not until just then that you realize the small puddle you’ve been standing in is cloudy and red and that drip, drip, drip hasn’t been falling off your face but down from the ceiling. By the time you look up, there isn’t enough time to scream.
  1317.  
  1318.  
  1319.  
  1320.  
  1321.  
  1322. In her dreams she wakes to the sound of scratching at the screen window. It’s nothing, just the wind, just a tree branch rubbing to close too the house. But the scratching doesn’t stop, it just grows louder, it’s almost deafening, the sound seems to grate on her teeth and bones. She has to know what is making this sound, even though the thought suddenly fills her with fear. Slowly she crawls across her bed, carefully craning her neck to peak out through the glass pane.
  1323.  
  1324.  
  1325. What she sees could be described as a skeletal old woman with her empty eye sockets bleeding black with a cavernous dark mouth screaming a silent scream as one clawed and bony finger scrapes against that thin screen.
  1326.  
  1327.  
  1328. She wakes up screaming and it’s morning. She doesn’t sleep very well after that. She doesn’t sleep with the window open anymore, no matter how warm it is. The nightmare never returns but every few nights she swears she can hear the faint scratching at her window. One night it is worse than usual. Faint at first, as if from far away, the familiar scratching reaches her sleeping ears. She does her best to ignore it, knowing her head was simply playing tricks. But as the night wears on, the scratching grows louder and louder, the sound taking hold of her body, paralyzing all movement. It was so close it felt as if it were right above her head but she did not dare open her eyes. For hours she listened to the clawing nails until eventually, exhausted, she drifted into some form of sleep.
  1329.  
  1330.  
  1331. She wakes with a headache, initially blurred on what happened the night before. When she stood up and noticed the shredded bug screen at the end of the long hall leading into her room though she began to panic. As her eyes spun around the room she saw the long claw marks all along the pale yellow walls. Her voice was lumping in her throat as she turned to her headboard – the letters scrawled there were jagged and uneven but the message was easy enough to read:
  1332.  
  1333.  
  1334. YOU ARE SO PRETTY IN YOUR SLEEP
  1335.  
  1336.  
  1337.  
  1338.  
  1339.  
  1340. Carol was a young film student. She was recently engaged to a nice boy she had been dating for three years. She liked hanging out with her friends, going to the movies and listening to music. Really, she was quite typical for a girl her age.
  1341.  
  1342.  
  1343. Every once in a while, Carol liked to take her camera, drive out to her parents summer home in the woods, and film the wildlife. She entered the footage in wildlife photography and video competitions, hoping to make a name for herself.
  1344.  
  1345.  
  1346. One spring day, Carol loaded up her car with her camera equipment. She said told her roommate she would be back in a couple of days, and asked the roommate to feed her fish. She called her fiancé and let him know she would be at her parent’s summer home this weekend. She let him know her cell didn’t get signal out there, and that they didn’t keep a landline. She told him she would be out of touch for the entire weekend.
  1347.  
  1348.  
  1349. The drive up to the summer home was pleasant enough. She got there with no problems. Her parents were not due to the summer home for another couple weeks, so she had the place to herself. By the time she got unpacked, it was getting late so she went to bed deciding she would start shooting in the morning.
  1350.  
  1351.  
  1352. At sunrise the next morning, she gathered her camera equipment and went out to shoot some wildlife. It was a tiring but productive day. She got some great footage of an eagle catching a mouse. At one point she nodded off while waiting for a deer to come to a pond she knew the animals frequented. When she woke up, she found a pair of young deer drinking the water. She spent a little bit of time filming a humming bird darting from flower to flower. She caught footage of a huge rattlesnake resting on a rock. Then she took a long hike up a hill to try and catch some footage of fireflies lighting up a clearing.
  1353.  
  1354.  
  1355. By the time she got back to her parents summer home, it was just after dark. She had been lugging her equipment around all day and was very tired. She didn’t even bother showering. She just dropped her hat and camera on the chair next to her bed and passed out.
  1356.  
  1357.  
  1358. The next morning she was reviewing her footage on her laptop. The eagle was majestic. Probably some of her best work ever. She watched the footage of the deer. She thought they were very cute. Something in one of the deer shot caught her eye though. It was only there for a second. She thought she saw a very tall man with very pale skin in the bushes. It looked like he was watching her.
  1359.  
  1360.  
  1361. She rewound the footage, and looked again, this time in slow motion. She could certainly make out a figure, but she couldn’t tell if there was actually someone standing there, or if it was just a trick of light on some bushes.
  1362.  
  1363.  
  1364. Carol put the strange image out of her head and kept reviewing her footage. The humming bird footage didn’t come out well. The little guy was moving too fast, and the light was bad. The rattlesnake was cool though, even if it was a little boring. After she watched the bit with the fireflies, she was pretty sure she was going to win some kind of award. The natural lighting was just perfect.
  1365.  
  1366.  
  1367. When the firefly footage cut off, she noticed that she still had one video file left to watch. Curious, she opened it. It was a video of her, sleeping in her bed. Her insides turned to ice when she noticed the reflection in her bedroom window. There was a very tall, naked, albino man with a scraggly gray beard wearing her hat and filming her sleeping. He was breathing heavily.
  1368.  
  1369.  
  1370. Carol slammed her computer shut, not wanting to see any more. The video stopped. The heavy breathing did not.
  1371.  
  1372.  
  1373.  
  1374.  
  1375.  
  1376. I gave her the doll on her birthday.
  1377.  
  1378.  
  1379. She loved it at first, told me it was so beautiful. That it’s hair was so soft and the dress was so pretty. She wouldn’t let it out of her sight for days. During the day she set it on the table, so she could see it while cleaning the house. During the night it sat next to the bed, looking at us sleep with big blue unmoving eyes.
  1380.  
  1381. But my wife’s love for the doll soon changed. Soon I noticed something was bothering here. I asked of course, but she wouldn’t tell me at first, said she was just being silly. But day after day she closed herself more and more for me. Until I couldn’t take it anymore. I pressed her, told her she would tell me what was going on right now or I would drag her to a doctor.
  1382.  
  1383.  
  1384. She finally broke and crying words came spilling out.
  1385.  
  1386. She then told me it was the doll. It scared her. She told me she had the feeling it was constantly watching her. Sometimes it even seemed like it moved.
  1387.  
  1388. This worried me and I went to take a look at the doll.
  1389.  
  1390. It sat motionless on the little table in the bedroom. The big blue eyes unchanged. I couldn’t help but sigh from relief a bit. Of course she’s not moving, she couldn’t have been.
  1391.  
  1392. I went to turn away, but then saw a tiny movement from the corner of my eye.
  1393.  
  1394.  
  1395. I turned back to the doll, picking it up from the table. I held my face close to the doll’s, staring into the eyes.
  1396.  
  1397. Something was moving.
  1398.  
  1399. I tried to concentrate, tried to look closer.
  1400.  
  1401. Yes, there it definitely was, movement. But not from the eye itself, it was behind the eye.
  1402.  
  1403. Before I could register this the eye burst and out of it spilled at least ten wriggling maggots.
  1404.  
  1405. I dropped the doll in shock, backing away instinctively.
  1406.  
  1407.  
  1408. My wife yelled from the other room, asking me what was going on. I yelled back at her not to worry. I picked up the doll again, using a tissue to wipe away the maggots. Inside I saw more, pressing against the skin and the plastic outer layer.
  1409.  
  1410.  
  1411. So soon already. I had hoped she would have lasted longer.
  1412.  
  1413. I will have to get a new one for her, maybe keep it alive at first. That way it’ll last longer for sure.
  1414.  
  1415. While I throw away the old doll, I think about how my wife always says she loves the thick blonde curls of little Katie down the block.
  1416.  
  1417.  
  1418. Doesn’t she also have blue eyes?
  1419.  
  1420.  
  1421.  
  1422.  
  1423.  
  1424. In my old age I’ve seen a lot of things. Some things I’m a little more proud of than others. As a boy there wasn’t a damn thing that could sate my appetite for the world around me. Everything in reach I had to get my hands on, take it apart and study it. My natural curiosity is what got me into the many scraps and situations of my youth.
  1425.  
  1426.  
  1427. I remember when I wasn’t any older than six, it was the fall of nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, me and several of the local boys were out playing a game of hide-and-seek. Denny Louis was the seeker, and a damned good one at that, so I took it upon myself to find a damned good hiding place. I remembered the hayloft out in our barn, and figured I could hide myself among the many bales of hay up there, maybe even push some of those bales around like I had times before when I wanted to build a fort, and get myself a perfect hiding space. Denny started counting out loud from a hundred and I took off a running to the barn, the breeze tickling my cheeks and smelling like the harvest.
  1428.  
  1429.  
  1430. I ran through those big red doors and my eyes fell on Denny Louis’ mama laying on the ground, straw in her hair and her dress hiked up, with my Daddy laying on top of her, looking like he was trying to pick himself up, but he seemed to be having trouble. I had no idea what I was seeing, but I would later learn all about what my Daddy was doing when I was fourteen when me and Sandra Hannigan made our way up into the same hayloft that I had hid so many times, and made so many forts in, to get out of the rain. She shook the water from that beautiful blazing, red hair of hers and noticed my eyes stuck on her nipples poking out like little buttons in the cold, wet air. She hiked up that flowery yellow dress she liked to wear and spread her creamy white, freckled legs, revealing her sweet fire peach. There in the smell of spring rain and old horse shit I made love for the first time. Beautiful girl, she was.
  1431.  
  1432.  
  1433. “Daddy?” my little voice rung out, echoing off the dusty, wooden walls. My old man turned and stared at me, like he’d been caught dipping his hand into the honey pot, and for lack of better words, that’s exactly what he was doing. He hoisted himself off of Mrs. Louis and made his way over to me.
  1434.  
  1435.  
  1436. “Whatta ya doin’ in here, son?” He spoke slowly and calmly
  1437.  
  1438.  
  1439. “ We was playing hide and seek, Daddy. I was gonna hide up in the loft.”
  1440.  
  1441.  
  1442. “Yeah? You ain’t gonna be tellin’ nobody about what ya saw, right boy?” I could hear the
  1443.  
  1444. anger rising up in his voice, but I kept on pushing it, like the curious little boy I was.
  1445.  
  1446.  
  1447. “Well, what exactly was you doin’ Daddy?” He just stared at me. His eyes slowly growing
  1448.  
  1449. darker in the brightness of that fall day. Mrs. Louis, still a ways behind him, was up on her feet straightening her dress and picking bits of straw from her long, golden hair. I was too busy looking at Mrs. Louis to notice that my Daddy meandered his way over to the wall where kept the tools and picked out a hefty, dirt crusted shovel.
  1450.  
  1451.  
  1452. “You ain’t gonna be tellin’ nobody…Right, boy?” he repeated in that slow and calm way he always spoke when he was angry, but me being the stupid child I was, I just kept right on prying.
  1453.  
  1454.  
  1455. “Daddy…what was---” I didn’t have a chance in the world to ask before the side of my right cheek exploded with pain as I fell to the ground in pathetic bundle. My vision went hot white. All noise became muffled as if the world suddenly got sucked into a vacuum. What I could hear seemed distant. Ghostly, even. I could hear Mrs. Louis screaming her pretty head off, and strangely, the long, low whistle of a train in the distance. Whether it was my imagination or not, I do not know, but I’ve learned in life that there are no coincidences. I heard that whistle as clear as I could hear Mrs. Louis screaming, Sandra Hannigan’s soft, whispering moans as thunder rumbled across the gray spring sky, and my father’s harsh, labored breathing has stood over me brandishing his shovel as it was Excalibur. I heard that train. Lord help me I heard it.
  1456.  
  1457.  
  1458. “You ain't gonna be telling’ nobody…Ya hear?”
  1459.  
  1460.  
  1461. “D-D-Daddy….I---” Another explosion erupted as my father brought the shovel down onto my exposed chest. I heard several pops and cracks echoing throughout my body. I held up my small arms in defense, but they were crumpled like paper the force of his blow. I dared to raise my hands up for protection again, only to see my fingers crooked and bloody. Mrs. Louis was no longer screaming, but babbling on like she’d seen a ghost. My father turned to her and waved his weapon.
  1462.  
  1463.  
  1464. “Shut up, bitch! Shut the fuck up!” He yelled, his voice like that of a angry God. While he was distracted I tried to crawl away. My crushed fingers clawing at the straw and earth, pulling myself to freedom. It was all for not, though, as my father grabbed me by the leg and threw me towards the ladder to the loft.
  1465.  
  1466.  
  1467. “He’s just a boy, Clay…Just a boy” Mrs. Louis kept muttering, “ He didn’t do nothing wrong”
  1468.  
  1469.  
  1470. “I said shut up!” He spoke again with that God-like force. He swung the shovel down on me again. I heard a very loud crack. Almost like lightning skimming across the sky. Very faintly I heard the train’s whistle again. That loud, shrill pitch in the distance. He flipped me over onto my back and spoke again.
  1471.  
  1472.  
  1473. “Are you gonna be tellin’ anyone about this, boy?” His voice had calmed down, but there was a deep anger there. Calm and intense. I felt one my teeth fall to the back of my throat. A small fountain of vomit and blood gushed from my mouth as I tried to cough it up. I feebly turned my head and spit it out.
  1474.  
  1475.  
  1476. “N-n-no…Daddy…I aint tellin’ nobody.”
  1477.  
  1478.  
  1479. “Good” my father tossed his shovel aside, scooped me up in his arms, and carried me like I was just a baby. His voice had flipped to that of genuine concern, like any good father’s voice. “You okay, boy? You took a mighty big fall off of the ladder…Right, Janice?” He turned to Mrs. Louis, still holding me in his arms. Her face burning from tears, she only nodded rapidly.
  1480.  
  1481.  
  1482. “Yes, yes…are you okay, Daniel? Are you okay, sweetie?” She rushed over and ran her
  1483.  
  1484. shaking hands across my tiny, battered face. My father pushed me into her arms.
  1485.  
  1486.  
  1487. “Take him up to the house and into bed, tell Martha what happened…Okay? I’ll go to the town to get a doctor. Quickly now!’ Mrs. Louis pulled me even closer and ran to the house to put me get my mother to put me down and be comfortable till the doctor came. Before I blacked out I remember Mrs. Louis running across the field to my house. The smell of the harvest filling my nostrils. Mrs. Louis quietly muttering how sorry she was, and in the distance my eyes caught the slowly moving shape of a black train. Smoke pluming from the engine, the slow chug-chug-chug of the wheels, and the horrible shriek of the whistle. Calling me to darkness.
  1488.  
  1489.  
  1490. The doctor came and went, but I had no idea. I was unconscious the entire time. A broken hip, three broken ribs, one dislocated, a cracked skull, two missing teeth, four broken fingers, one broken wrist, and miles of bruises. Other bits of damage appeared over time. I lost hearing and most of the sight out of the right side of my face. On a good day, and I can say I had plenty of them, I had a slight limp, but on a bad day I was practically a cripple. My left hand froze up sometimes, couldn’t move my fingers worth a damn, but I got along fine with my condition. My father was never found out, and the fact that Mrs. Louis never came back around the house only meant she would never speak about it. We all just sort of went on with life.
  1491.  
  1492.  
  1493. I lived as best I could for ten years before I heard the whistle again.
  1494.  
  1495. Now, it wasn’t uncommon to see or even hear a train near the farm, Hell, there was a track not more than a mile from my front door, but this train was different. The whistle didn’t sound right. It was like a dying rabbit, nails against a chalkboard, and steam spewing out of a kettle all rolled into one. It’s like that sound pierces through you and sends shivers down to your very bones. Not a pleasant feeling, in other words.
  1496.  
  1497.  
  1498. I was sixteen and living like my fathers before me. Working my hands to leather in the earth. I had spent time at what my wife would later refer to as a “hick school”, but I soon left after my teacher figured that I was un-teachable. I wasn’t un-teachable…I just would just have rather spent my time reading, or taking something apart, or going somewhere I’ve never been. The world was my playground, and I wanted to play. The thought of leaving my mother alone with my father scared me, though, I owed it to her to stay around and try to protect her. What my father did to me was only the tip of the iceberg compared to all the things he did to my mother. I remember laying up at night hearing them fighting. My fathers booming voice broken up only by the reality cracking sound of broken glass, or the cool clean sound of flesh on flesh contact. My mother would be in the kitchen the next day with a few new bruises, maybe a cut or two, but she never complained. It was plain for everyone to see, but they never paid it any mind, that’s just how things were.
  1499.  
  1500.  
  1501. I remember it was a pleasant enough summer night. A little humid, but that’s just nit-picking. I spent of the night out on the porch watching the stars and listening to the creatures of the night as they went about their business. Occasionally, I found myself glancing out to the barn. It stood there like a mausoleum in the pale moonlight. An effigy to many things…Pain, lost love, hard work, and my family who died on this land before me. My mind wandered to memories of Sandra Hannigan, God rest her soul. Memories of the shovel bearing down on my like a locomotive bears down those endless steel tracks. My mind liked to wander whether or not I wanted to take the ride. Always has, always will
  1502.  
  1503.  
  1504. I remember my father driving up in his truck. The bastard was swerving horribly, obviously he had indulged to his hearts content on Jimmy McGruder‘s personal moonshine. What burns blues makes your blues go away, boy, he would always say. I knew he’d be in a fighting mood and instinctively made my to my room. Before I could even reach the stairs I heard his voice, dripping with that damned white lightning,
  1505.  
  1506.  
  1507. “Martha! Martha, you come here and welcome me home like a good wife should.” he shouted in a slurred fashion, the ceramic jug in his hand spilled the foul liquid onto the floor.. My mother promptly came up the cellar without a word and greeted him to his liking. A kiss on the lips and the removal of his coat. As she turned to put his coat on the hook, he reached out and began to grope her. My mother, I will admit, was an attractive woman, but years of beatings had slowly taken the brightness from her eyes, the skip in her step, and the song on her lips. We made quick eye contact, but just a brief moment said it all.
  1508.  
  1509.  
  1510. Go to bed, sweetie…Maybe it wont be so bad tonight. Just go to bed.
  1511.  
  1512.  
  1513. But like most nights it was the same. Her giving into this predator and his sexual advances just to keep him happy. She suffered through it in silence. God, the things she did to provide for me, I pray everyday that she is smiling down on me while he’s rotting in Hell. My mind quickly wandered back to Sandra Hannigan. Did she suffer in silence? Did she let him take her every night? Or did she kick and scream and bite until she was too tired to go on? I don’t know. I can’t say. God rest her soul, I pray she fought back.
  1514.  
  1515.  
  1516. I climbed the stairs to my room, trying to block out the labored breathing of my drunken father and the cold, complacent whimpers of my mother. Laying in my bed I tried to nod off and sleep, just so it can all happen again tomorrow. Soon sleep found me and I dreamed. A dream that haunted me for years, always picking up new details along the way. My father standing above me with his shovel. Staring at me with all the fury of God. His eyes black as black can be. The shovel coming down. I close my eyes in fear, only to open them and see Sandra Hannigan before me. Her beautiful, smooth skin now wormy and rotted. Her hair still crimson as fresh blood, and a deep black line ran along her neck. Too horrid to look at, but I can’t look away. She hikes up her tattered yellow dress and reveals the further decay of what was once a wonderful sight. She speaks to me. Her voice as crisp and clear as it was that day.
  1517.  
  1518.  
  1519. “You love me…Don’t you, Daniel?”
  1520.  
  1521.  
  1522. All the while the slow methodic chug, chug, chug of a train. Sandra opens her mouth, her
  1523.  
  1524. cheeks tearing wide open into a disgusting, skeletal smile, to speak once more, only her voice isn’t there, only a sound that pierces right through you. Chilling you to the bone. Scratching at your soul. A whistle.
  1525.  
  1526.  
  1527. I woke up. Sweating bullets and soaking my shirt and underwear, but it wasn’t the dream that woke me, as horrible as it was. No, it was the rumbling in my stomach for release. I didn’t need to be told twice before I swiftly jumped out of the bed, slipped on a pair of trousers, and descended the stairs quite quickly, nearly tripping on the last step in the dark. I could see my father asleep in his arm chair in the family room. His jug tipped over, empty, and bone dry. The moonlight shone through the window and I could see a line of drool falling from the corner of his open mouth. His head tilted back in the way he always slept when he was in his chair. I quickly shoved on my shoes, rushed through the front door,and off to the tiny little shed far to the house. The grass swishing underneath my feet and the wind cooled the sweat on my body. I reached the outhouse, flung the door open and squat down on the splintery seat without a second thought.
  1528.  
  1529.  
  1530. There were always stories of porcupines getting there way into outhouses and gnawing on seats for the salt from sweat and such, but I can say I never did see a porcupine. A raccoon did get in once, poor thing fell into the hole and drowned in the shit and piss of a small farming family. Kind of sad, really. That was years ago and that hole had been long buried. I let myself relax and let the body do what it is trained to do in that type of situation. I nearly nodded off in the smelly, little shack, but something jolted me off my seat. A whistle. Low and hot at first, but it grew into a cacophony, like hundreds of screaming voices. I quickly cleaned myself up and hurried outside. There it was. In the moonlight, not too less than a mile from where I stood. Just sitting there on the tracks. Which wouldn’t have been too uncommon, except there was no switching station out there, just open land and those endless steel tracks.
  1531.  
  1532.  
  1533. Anonymous 04/16/09(Thu)14:42 No.1678529
  1534.  
  1535.  
  1536. Like I said, I was a curious boy, and obviously something that had been haunting me for ten years was well worth a look. I broke into a run, the excitement and fear gripping and my heart. I wanted to turn back to the house, tell myself I’m just dreaming, but my feet kept moving. Thank God for the moon that night. You could see for miles. As I got nearer to the damned thing the darker it got. The smoke from the engine creeping into the sky and blotting out the light. The bright diamonds in their satin cloth began to disappear, too. I stopped, only briefly, panting and sweating. I looked up only to find myself right there next to it.
  1537.  
  1538.  
  1539. It was unlike any train I’d ever seen. It was black all over, so black it hurt my eyes to look
  1540.  
  1541. at it directly for too long. It was also very noticeably darker right next to the massive machine, like it was devouring the light that got near it. Most trains that came through were freight trains. Carrying coal and such to parts unknown, but this was a passenger train. The interior of the cabs brightly lit, revealing it’s deep red color scheme. And the people, oh God, the people in the windows. Each one of them just sat there, emotionless. Unmoving like statues of some lost civilization. I tried working my way to the front of the thing. Each car the same. Filled sparsely with unknown, unmoving faces, One or two passengers did turn to look out their windows at me, only to return to their original position. Their eyes gray and sad. I kept on walking my way to the engine, till it caught my eye. In one of the windows, it was my father. I wasn’t sure at first, but it had to be…It was my Daddy.
  1542.  
  1543.  
  1544. “Daddy!” I yelled out, but he didn’t turn to look. “Daddy! Hey, Daddy!” I saw that the entrance to the car was wide open. The light spilling out onto the land. I had to get in that car. Why was he on there?, I thought to myself, What the hell is he doing? I hoisted myself up onto the metal steps into the car, only to be knocked on my back by a black mass that smelled of oil and smoke. I looked up to see a man standing there. Soot stained overalls, greasy white hair jutting out from under his conductors cap. He stared at me intently, before a smile cracked his lips.
  1545.  
  1546.  
  1547. “You ain’t getting’ on, boy…” His voice was flighty and uneven. High pitched, yet low and grumbly at the same time. “Aint got no ticket! Hahaha!” His laugh unnerving, like the sound of crunching bugs under your boot. “Why you wantin’ to get on anyways for, boy?” His smiled still beamed at me. A strange, skeletal smile. Wide and menacing. I found myself reverting back to that scared little boy in the barn ten years ago.
  1548.  
  1549.  
  1550. “M-m-my daddy’s on there…I gotta talk to ‘im.” He just bellowed that laugh of his.
  1551.  
  1552.  
  1553. “Boy, Lotsa peoples daddys be on this train. No ticket. No ride. Hehehe” He clapped his gloved hands together. Black dust puffing out
  1554.  
  1555.  
  1556. “P-p-please…I…”
  1557.  
  1558.  
  1559. “No ticket, boy! No ride!” His voice becoming angry. That’s when I truly saw him. His skin pale, and free of any sort of blemish. And his eyes…They were on fire. Glowing orange like the coals that moved his train. Those fiery coal eyes burned right through me. “Get outta here, boy! Don’t come back till ya got yourself a ticket! Hahaha” His teeth. They were jagged and pointed like dog’s teeth. I ain’t afraid to say I was scared. In fact, I pissed myself right then and there. He just laughed that crunchy laugh of his.
  1560.  
  1561.  
  1562. “Diamond, pearl, opal, jade! Hahaha!” He turned and slammed shut the doors behind him. Soon enough the pistons started their slow chug, chug, chug. Smoke billowing out of the engine. It smelled like rotten eggs and bloated summer roadkill. I still laid there in my own filth, watching the black train slowly pull away. The conductor stuck his head out of the engine booth and yelled back to me over the locomotive.
  1563.  
  1564.  
  1565. “Maybe next time! Eh, Danny Boy. HAHAHAHA!” His eyes burning bright as even. He laid on the whistle. Close up, I could truly hear the sound. It was screaming. Melting steel and burning souls screaming into the night. I only watched as the train pulled away. The screaming, black behemoth riding the endless steels tracks.
  1566.  
  1567.  
  1568. I walked home. Shaken. Scared. Questioning whether or not I am truly dreaming, or if this is all a nightmare. The moon was back out and shining in all it’s glory. The stars sparkled in the dark folds of the night sky. Finally reaching home, I numbly pushed the front door open. It groaned in protest, but I paid it no mind. I trudged into the family room, figuring my father would be gone, but there he was, still sitting there, I quickly crossed over to him, my hands shaking as I touched his face. It was cold. I saw that it wasn’t drool that dribbled out from his lips. It was vomit. My father was dead to the world, drowned in his own sick. I saw the Devil that night. He took my father with him on a slow, screaming ride to Hell.
  1569.  
  1570. The funeral was like any other. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. A man was buried on holy ground, and nobody but me and my mother ever knew that it was no man…but a monster. I remember how she looked when they lowered him into the cold, hard earth. She had this little smile on his face, no tears, no anguish…Just a little smile. She was free.
  1571.  
  1572.  
  1573. A few years later she sold the farm.
  1574.  
  1575.  
  1576. “I want to go to the city…Leave all this behind.” she would say. I didn’t blame her. I was glad to leave, but I admit I did miss the place once we were gone, and I know she did too. It was a quiet life. A fine life, but she couldn’t stand to be in a house where memories ran rampant and hid in every corner and shadow. Whispering to her. Reminding her of my father
  1577.  
  1578.  
  1579. It was nineteen hundred and forty two. The world was war and I couldn’t do nothing, but
  1580.  
  1581. work building bits and pieces for guns and tanks. Being partially crippled I was 4-F. I could only hear about how all my friends I had growing up went over to fight for liberty and came back in boxes. I suppose I was lucky on that part. My mother took up a job in the same munitions plant as me. Propaganda at it’s best I suppose. It put a smile on her face, and that’s all I needed to know it was a good thing. We’d been living with her mother in Boston, and life was fine indeed. I liked my grandmother well enough, but she always looked at me like I was a leper. She saw too much of my father in me, I suppose. She ahted him for what he did to my mother. The beatings were a secret, but she hated my father for taking my mother away. A soldier returns from war and knocks up a pretty, young woman with a whole the world in front of her. Steals her back to his home where the fruit of several steamy nights ends up dying in it’s sleep. My sister didn’t get much of a chance at the world, but I sure did. She resented me for everything that I represented. A horny farmer, turned soldier. It wasn’t until I started bring Claire around that she started to warm up to me a little more. Maybe Granny was finally seeing I wasn’t my father, or maybe she was just going senile. I don’t know
  1582.  
  1583.  
  1584. I can’t say that I didn’t love Claire. She was a wonderful woman, but I do know that I saw a hell of a lot of Sandra in her. That blazing, crimson hair of hers and those deep green eyes. Maybe it was me mourning for a love long lost, or guilt for never stealing Sandra away from her life. Six feet of rope…Funny how something so seemingly average could remove someone from your life. I loved Sandra, I did, and so did her daddy. A little too much. She was probably praying that I’d come to her window at night and steal her away like Romeo and Juliet. She had something inside of her. Something horrible. Something God forgot about. She wanted it to be something beautiful and it could never be as such. Poor Sandra. God rest her soul. I loved her, but I loved Claire, too. Maybe not the on the truly bottomless romantic way, but I loved her all the same.
  1585.  
  1586.  
  1587. Claire and I were married at a lovely ceremony in nineteen hundred and forty five. The war was over. Our boys were coming home, and the world began to get even more scared of itself. The Reds were everywhere they started saying. I don’t know. Men were men, but it’s their toys that always end up hurting them. I found work as a mechanic, and Claire was teaching. Money was tight, but we didn’t complain. We had an apartment to live in and each other. We didn’t need to worry about much else. Until one day I got home from the shop and she was waiting for me.
  1588.  
  1589.  
  1590. “Hey, sweetheart” I cooed in her ear as I kissed the back of her neck like I always did when I got home.
  1591.  
  1592.  
  1593. “I’m late.”
  1594.  
  1595.  
  1596. “What?”
  1597.  
  1598.  
  1599. “I’m…late…”
  1600.  
  1601.  
  1602. “I don’t know what you mean?” She took my hand and placed it on her belly. It all hit me
  1603.  
  1604. ton of bricks. “You mean…”
  1605.  
  1606.  
  1607. “Yes!” She was trying to hold back her tears and smile, but they broke through anyway.
  1608.  
  1609.  
  1610. “I gonna be…”
  1611.  
  1612.  
  1613. “Uh-huh!”
  1614.  
  1615.  
  1616. My son was born December twentieth, nineteen hundred and forty nine. The most
  1617.  
  1618. beautiful baby boy if I ever saw. William Hudson Bronson. He took after me, just as I had taken after my father. I was determined to make him have all the things I never could, but money was tight before, and it wasn’t getting any better. My grandmother had died two years prior to the birth and my mother was living all alone, but she delighted in seeing her little “Billy B” , as she called him, over whenever dropped by. She loved him with all her might. I did me well to see her so happy.
  1619.  
  1620.  
  1621. Billy had just turned one when I got the news that our old home was back on the market. My mother handed me a check that had all the money she had been saving for the last ten years. She told me it would be good to go home. Return to my roots, and raise Billy like I had been raised. I didn’t think that it was such a good idea. I just knew those memories would be waiting there for me. Hiding in the shadows and waiting for me to let my guard down so they could strangle me.
  1622.  
  1623.  
  1624. “Any ghosts in that house have long since left…” my mother said to me. “It was a good life. I know that life was hard. Very hard at times…but it’s in your blood, Daniel. You don’t like being a mechanic, do you? Haven’t you been aching to get back to the land? Watch the fruits of your work pay off?”
  1625.  
  1626.  
  1627. I did. I did miss the farm life, but I didn’t know how much I missed my farm life. We left Billy with my mother, while Claire and I made our way back to my childhood home. The town had grown quite a bit. Everything a modern family would need. When we finally did reach the old farm, my eyes fell on the barn, and a deep chill ran through me.
  1628.  
  1629.  
  1630. “You okay?” Claire asked me in that sweet, concerned voice of hers.
  1631.  
  1632.  
  1633. “Goose walked over my grave, I s’pose.”
  1634.  
  1635.  
  1636. The man who owned it most recently was a rich yuppie who thought about trying his hand at farm life. Couldn’t live without the amenities of the modern man. Fully wired, plumbing, plenty of farming equipment, and a completely new paint job and décor. It wasn’t my home anymore. Hadn’t been for a long time.
  1637.  
  1638.  
  1639. After our tour Claire got into the car and instantly spilled out her opinion.
  1640.  
  1641.  
  1642. “We need to buy this house”
  1643.  
  1644.  
  1645. “You really think so?”
  1646.  
  1647.  
  1648. “I do…I can work at the school in town. You can make a living here, growing corn, raising cows, and doing whatever it is farmers do.”
  1649.  
  1650.  
  1651. “You really want to live here?” I questioned. I did want to come back, but there was too much in my head screaming at me not to come back.
  1652.  
  1653.  
  1654. “Yes.” She stared at me intently. She knew that I would crack like always. She had that special kind of power over me.
  1655.  
  1656.  
  1657. “Then it’s settled…it’s ours…”
  1658.  
  1659.  
  1660. We settled in and we got our new life off to a good start. The land was good, the crops grew like weeds, and Billy was taking a liking to the open air. It wasn’t much longer after our first harvest that Claire was late once more. We had our baby girl, Esther May Bronson, in the summer of nineteen hundred and fifty three. She took after her mother in spades. A slice of the American dream.
  1661.  
  1662.  
  1663. I found myself walking out to the railroad tracks every now and then. I don’t know what I expected to see. Maybe it was sort of my way of trying to make sense of something so unbelievable. I never told anyone. Never once. The Devil and his Hellbound train were my secrets to keep. I wasn’t crazy. I prayed to God I wasn’t crazy. Sometimes late at night I hear a train whistle pierce out in the night. The slow chug, chug, chug pushing the metal beasts along those endless steel tracks. Sometimes, I swear, just under those whistles I could hear screams.
  1664.  
  1665.  
  1666. We led a fine life, indeed. Billy was growing into a man before my very eyes, and Esther was blossoming into a beautiful young woman more and more every day. It was nineteen hundred and sixty eight. Another war was going on halfway around the world, but it didn’t bother me none till Billy came to me and said we was going to join the Army. He wanted to be fighting for his country. Claire had a fit, as expected, but he had his mind set and he was damned if anybody was going to change his mind. We got his letters every week, and every week we’d write back.
  1667.  
  1668.  
  1669. I was sleeping. It came again. The first time in years. My father standing over me holding his shovel. His eyes burning orange like coal. The shovel coming down on me before the scene melts away and I’m with Sandra. My lovely rotting Sandra in the hayloft. Exposing herself to me in a morbid, yet sexually exciting manner.
  1670.  
  1671.  
  1672. “You love me…Don’t you, Daniel?
  1673.  
  1674.  
  1675. “You know I do…” Her rotting lips formed a smile. Her gaping maw opened to reveal an unimaginable darkness. From the darkness came a low whistle, slowly building into deafening screams.
  1676.  
  1677.  
  1678. I woke up. Sweating bullets and soaking my night shirt and pants. I didn’t have to use the bathroom. It was the whistle. Cutting out into the night, calling me like a sailor to the rocks. I silently slipped from the bed and down the stairs. Each step creaking slightly under my weight. I slipped on my shoes, flung the front door open and started running. The wind chilled me slightly in the autumn night air. My mind raced with the memories reaching out, not from the corners and shadows of my home, but from my mind. Reaching out and trying to hold me down and suffocate me.
  1679.  
  1680.  
  1681. It was the same as it was all those years ago. The smoke plumed from the engine, falling to the ground and lingering like a thick black fog. The deep, black metal glared back at me as I walked along the side of the great beast. The Devil stood outside of a car, watching me as I approached. His eyes burning brightly with excitement.
  1682.  
  1683.  
  1684. “Diamond, Pearl, Opal, and Jade! Hehehehe! Danny Boy has come back! Still no ticket I see!” His voice shuddered through me, but I pressed on.
  1685.  
  1686.  
  1687. “Why are you here?”
  1688.  
  1689.  
  1690. “Oh my, my, my, my…Danny Boy! We all have a job to do! Hahaha! This is just my job!”
  1691.  
  1692.  
  1693. “But why are you here!” In that moment I heard my father sneaking into my voice. A calm and quiet anger.
  1694.  
  1695.  
  1696. “Dad?” A voice from inside the car rang out like a bell. Out of the open doorway stepped my son, Billy, clad in his official army gear and looking quite confused. “Dad…”
  1697.  
  1698.  
  1699. “Billy…” The word got caught in my throat. I ran over and held him close to me, never wanting to let him go. “Billy…Why are you on this train?”
  1700.  
  1701.  
  1702. “Don’t know…I remember my squad was walking through the jungle, and then there was this white flash…And I woke up on the train…What are you doing here?”
  1703.  
  1704.  
  1705. “I don’t quite know myself…” I smiled lightly. I squeezed him tighter. “It’s good to see you, boy…”
  1706.  
  1707.  
  1708. “How touching!” The Devil spoke up. “You have five minutes, Billy Boy.” The Devil stepped into the car and made his way to the engine. Once I knew he was gone, I grabbed Billy’s hand and tried to pull him away.
  1709.  
  1710.  
  1711. “C’mon, son…We gotta get you home.” He pulled away from me.
  1712.  
  1713.  
  1714. “No.”
  1715.  
  1716.  
  1717. “Billy…”
  1718.  
  1719.  
  1720. “Dad…If this is what everyone else on there is saying…Then I cant leave. I cant, daddy.”
  1721.  
  1722.  
  1723. “We can go home right now, tell you’re mother you’re home and--”
  1724.  
  1725.  
  1726. “No. I belong here. And who knows…Maybe this train don’t just go to Hell…Maybe it makes
  1727.  
  1728. a stop off somewhere else. I don’t know.”
  1729.  
  1730.  
  1731. “Billy, I--”
  1732.  
  1733.  
  1734. “Daddy, I heard from friends of mine who went home. They got problems, Daddy. I’d
  1735.  
  1736. rather be dead than mangled and fucked up in the head…Sorry for cursing.”
  1737.  
  1738.  
  1739. “It’s okay, son…” We stood silently for a long moment. Staring at each other. Trying to think of the words to say.
  1740.  
  1741.  
  1742. “ALL ABOARD! HAHAHAHAHA!”
  1743.  
  1744.  
  1745. “Love you”
  1746.  
  1747.  
  1748. “Love you”
  1749.  
  1750.  
  1751. Goodbye.
  1752.  
  1753.  
  1754. The black metal behemoth pulled away from me once more. Screaming down those endless steel tracks. I waved goodbye to my son long after the train was out of sight. Even after it’s screaming whine, disappeared from the night air. I watched. I prayed.
  1755.  
  1756. Just like every week we got another letter. Only this time it wasn’t from Billy. Claire was wrecked. She wouldn’t leave the house for days. Laying around and crying. Wailing that she should have kept him here. Kept him safe
  1757.  
  1758.  
  1759. She left me not more than a year after that. Said she couldn’t stand looking at me and seeing Billy. I also know she hated me. I couldn’t join her in her sorrow. In her pain. I got to say my goodbye. I got my closure. I don’t blame her for hating me, but to take my daughter away from me was just cruel punishment. I haven’t seen either in years. Many years.
  1760.  
  1761.  
  1762. I did the best I could. I tried to live life as best I could with what I had. I was a good father. I was a good son. I was a good husband. None of that means a hill of beans in the long run, though. We all end up in the cold, hard earth. Feeding the maggots and creepy crawlies that haunt our nightmares. I can hear it now. The screaming. The screaming in the darkness. Calling out to me…
  1763.  
  1764. I’ve seen a lot of things in my life. Some things I’m more proud of than others. As a boy nothing could sate my appetite for the world around me. I suppose that there is just one last thing to figure out…The train is out there, and I finally got my ticket. Only thing left to do…Is to take a ride.
  1765.  
  1766.  
  1767.  
  1768.  
  1769.  
  1770.  
  1771. I remembered a car, a big black SUV hitting me almost square in the head while I was crossing the street and concluded that was the source of the pain throbbing in my head. Well, I thought, it could be worse-it could've been a truck.I was leaned against a cold concrete wall The room was almost completely dark but seeing in darkness was never a problem for me. Stink of moisture was strong but there was something else underneath it-stench of death. Somebody died in this improvised dungeon not so long ago and the smell of rot still hung in the air. Well, I thought to myself, I won't be the resident number two who didn't see tomorrow. I tried to lift my hands and feel if there was a lump on my forehead but wasn't able. The chains were thick as my ankle and connected to the wall. They, whomever they might be, decided not to take a chance-they shackled my arms, legs and torso.
  1772.  
  1773. I tried the chains. They were really thick and strong.
  1774.  
  1775. The doors across me looked pretty impenetrable too.
  1776.  
  1777. Well, somebody will sooner or later come along. I could use a cigarette. And a shower.
  1778.  
  1779. I wasn't sure how much time passed, it could have been ten minutes or one hour. Time flows pretty slow when you have nothing to do. Especially when you're in a dungeon.
  1780.  
  1781. And then I sensed it. I looked at the door and shouted „ I can smell you, you know! Didn't your mother teach you to wipe it until there's nothing to see?“
  1782.  
  1783. No answer.
  1784.  
  1785. „Oh, never mind, I'll tell her myself tonight“. A sound of mechanism rattled the silence and the door began to open. In from a white, neon-illuminated hallway came a light and then a man in a baggy pants and brown jacket. He was stout but broad, about thirty years old and looked pissed.
  1786.  
  1787. „You better not mention my mother, you mutt“ he said through his teeth, „or I'll cut off your balls.“
  1788.  
  1789. „Well“ I replied „ I'm sure you're an expert on those. Balls. Not cutting them off.“
  1790.  
  1791. His expression changed to even more pissed. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a big, nasty looking knife.He came nearer and crouched „ Don't test me you motherfucker, you“.
  1792.  
  1793. „You motherfucker, you?“ I laughed „You think you're Joe Pesci?“
  1794.  
  1795. He hit me in the face with the hilt of the knife. It hurt for a split second. „I almost felt that“ I said.
  1796.  
  1797. Another hit. „ Nope, still nothing“. Three more hits came my way-cheek, chin, cheek.
  1798.  
  1799. A voice came from the door „That's enough Michael.“ He stopped and looked to the guy ordering him. The man standing in the doorway was wearing an expensive blue suit and rank of cologne. He had the appearance of typical mobster you see on TV; sort of classy looking, salt and pepper hair to further add to the stereotype, the main difference was that he looked athletical-contrary to the fat mob guys they usually portrait in the series. He looked on the gold watch on his wrist and hen in my direction for a few seconds as if he was trying to decide if it was safe to approach.
  1800.  
  1801. „You know“ I said to the mobster, „If your dog here came so close to me and still has all limbs then it's safe for you too.“
  1802.  
  1803. Another hit from Michael
  1804.  
  1805. „Your dog starts to act like a bitch, maybe you should've brought rolled newspaper with you, since he's not listening to your commands.“
  1806.  
  1807. Another punch was about to connect but stopped when the athletic Capone raised his voice. „Michael! I told you to stop.“
  1808.  
  1809. „Back off puppy“ I said „and let the grown-ups talk, will ya?“
  1810.  
  1811. He looked at me with a gaze full of „you-motherfucker-you“ and took a few steps back.
  1812.  
  1813. I smiled at him „Good boy, now roll over and play dead.“
  1814.  
  1815. He waved his knife in the direction of my crotch and cursed under his breath. The athletic Capone took a few steps towards me and crouched like his dog did a minute ago.
  1816.  
  1817. „So...“ he begun „I didn't imagine you like this.“
  1818.  
  1819. „Yeah, I get that a lot. Internet dating is a bitch.“
  1820.  
  1821. „No“ he said, „what I meant was-I didn't imagine I'll ever see you beaten and tied down.“
  1822.  
  1823. „You know, for a welcoming committee you're not too good with words. You are here as a welcoming committee, aren't you? Hence, the blue suit? Right? Blue as a color that
  1824.  
  1825. psychologically...“
  1826.  
  1827. „Shuddup!“ he yelled in my face.
  1828.  
  1829. „Back off Capone or I'll bite your face off.“
  1830.  
  1831. He took a quick step backwards and looked at he chains and then at Michael.
  1832.  
  1833. „Don't worry boss, With these chains on 'im , he won't be goin' nowhere“
  1834.  
  1835. „This guy here“ said the athletic Soprano „is more dangerous than you could ever imagine.“
  1836.  
  1837. Michael looked at me, then at the chains then at his boss. „ They said...“ he started to repeat.
  1838.  
  1839. „Who are they?“ I interupted.
  1840.  
  1841. Athletic Capone smiled, „wouldn't you like to know?“ Michael snickered, „yeah, you mut.“
  1842.  
  1843. This „mut“ thing was somehow starting to get on my nerves.
  1844.  
  1845. „What?“ , said the Capone. „You think we take random people as prisoners?
  1846.  
  1847. „I guess this isn't random, right?“
  1848.  
  1849. „No.“ He laughed. „We were paid for keeping you here. We...know certain places in town where nobody will come looking for you, an' “ he spread his hands and looked around „here we are.“
  1850.  
  1851. „How resourceful of you“ I said. „So, what is a big fish like you doing in here, visiting a mere prisoner?“
  1852.  
  1853. He laughed again „Don't be modest! Information is highly valued nowadays, I know all about you. You gotta quite a reputation! Just 'cause we're hired just to keep you in here doesn't mean we're not filled in with the details, you know? Like you said-we're resourceful..“
  1854.  
  1855. „Then pray tell, you mastermind you, who hired you?“
  1856.  
  1857. „Well“ he said, „since you won't be going anywhere, I just might tell you-I don't know for sure. This weird looking guy was a mediator. He just said they needed a secure place to hold for few days some really tough and dangerous guy. He payed us good money and that's it. I did some research on you and nothing came up. But then some of my guys ran into this funny old man who told us quite a few things for a hunnerd bucks.“
  1858.  
  1859. „Interesting.“ I said. I had a pretty good notion who this funny old man might be.
  1860.  
  1861. He turned around and looked to the hallway he came from „which brings me to the next thing...“
  1862.  
  1863. He turned and faced me „Where is the girl?“
  1864.  
  1865. „What girl?
  1866.  
  1867. „Where is the girl?“ he repeated.
  1868.  
  1869. I thought you were just suppose to keep me prisoner here? Other things might not be your business.“
  1870.  
  1871. „Listen“ he started, „I told you we know everything about you-we know about the job you took, about the girl, everything! Now spill it!“
  1872.  
  1873. „ Then it's no use for me to lie, here goes-I killed and ate her. She started to nag me about hair in bathtub.“
  1874.  
  1875. He sighed and clenched the root of his nose.
  1876.  
  1877. „ You know, if you have problems with your sinuses...“
  1878.  
  1879. „Shut the fuck up! Don't make this harder then it already is! Just tell us where the girl is and it'll be all over quickly!“
  1880.  
  1881. „OK. Here goes again-I don't know where she is.“
  1882.  
  1883. „Don't bullshit me; we know you know. How about this: if you tell us now,we won't torture her when we get her. If you insist on talking trash we'll cut her in front of you piece by piece-how that sounds?“
  1884.  
  1885. Now it was my turn to sigh „Now why would you do that? You know, for a guy who claims he knows everything, it seems to me you know Jack shit...and Jack's about to leave town. In pieces.“
  1886.  
  1887. Whoever hired these guys and told them to put me in chains probably knew about my abilities, but not enough. Not close by a mile.
  1888.  
  1889. As I was starting to enter my Crinos form I could smell the fear emanating from these two clowns even before their expressions changed to one of primal fear.
  1890.  
  1891. I felt the shackles around my wrists, ankles and torso bent, twist and brake; my boots and my clothes tore free off my body with just a piece of trousers remaining around my private areas. As my face elongated and fur grew, Michael and athletic Capone stood there jaws open, frozen in terror, almost like an animal before it gets hit by a car, as I towered above them. Which in Michaels case wasn't far from truth; As his knife was falling from his hand I hit him with almost all of my 850 pound and splaterred him on the wall. This mutt can hit pretty hard. The smell of blood added a little more fury to my state. I turned around and thought how Capones moves are unbelievable slow. He managed to took two steps before I caught up on him. I grabbed him by his leg and pulled. He fell straight on his face with the sound of nose cracking. I pulled him in the air and tossed him gently in the wall onto which I was chained.
  1892.  
  1893. He fell on the ground and covered himself with hands crying and begging. I took a step towards him and growled. Time to have a little conversation about that weird looking guy that payed him.
  1894.  
  1895.  
  1896.  
  1897.  
  1898.  
  1899. They say that monsters come only at night,
  1900.  
  1901. That light will drive them away.
  1902.  
  1903. But not all creatures follow this rule,
  1904.  
  1905. Safety not certain during the day.
  1906.  
  1907.  
  1908. He hides on the fringes of your vision,
  1909.  
  1910. Brief glimpses of the distorted.
  1911.  
  1912. He slithers and writhes behind your eyes,
  1913.  
  1914. Reaching for you, limbs contorted.
  1915.  
  1916.  
  1917. Before you know it your children are taken,
  1918.  
  1919. And now it's come down to you.
  1920.  
  1921. His breath is oppressive, his presence acidic,
  1922.  
  1923. He feels pity is undue.
  1924.  
  1925.  
  1926. Suddenly, trapped in his grasp so tight,
  1927.  
  1928. You struggle to break yourself free.
  1929.  
  1930. He laughs and he gurgles and he screeches with glee,
  1931.  
  1932. He turns your head for you to see.
  1933.  
  1934.  
  1935. Your children are crying though their eyes are removed,
  1936.  
  1937. They collapse, still and silent.
  1938.  
  1939. His arms and legs bend pulling you closer,
  1940.  
  1941. The man's eyes dark and violent.
  1942.  
  1943.  
  1944. He strikes and he cuts, your skin flays open,
  1945.  
  1946. Your soul to weak to resist.
  1947.  
  1948. This should not have happened, if only you had listened,
  1949.  
  1950. Never go into his forest.
  1951.  
  1952.  
  1953.  
  1954. When your lying in your bed after reading these stories
  1955. you're a little creeped out- come on admit it- but you know none of its true,
  1956.  
  1957. but still it gets you thinking.....
  1958. have you ever seen/felt/heard anything odd;
  1959.  
  1960. a flicker in the corner of your eye,
  1961.  
  1962. a sound that just is'nt right but you simply brush of,
  1963.  
  1964. maybe someones watching you....
  1965.  
  1966. still lying in your bed, maybe sitting on a chair, maybe your not even alone,
  1967. are your family round you right now? do you feel safe?
  1968.  
  1969. You should'nt. murderers exist; people who hack you up without emotion.
  1970.  
  1971. if your alone right now, is it dark? did you definitely remember to lock your doors
  1972. and windows? maybe you should check right now just to be safe....i'm giving you a
  1973. chance....
  1974.  
  1975. Maybe you can make sure the house is locked before i'm finished typing
  1976. and decide to come in...
  1977.  
  1978. SEE YOU SOON, SWEETHEART.
  1979.  
  1980.  
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