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Wesley Nyx published in Horror, Original Stories, Story Hub

“The Abandoned Church” by Bradley Walker

   The church door was open.

   I’d made a point to visit these grounds every time I came back to visit family, which admittedly, was fewer and farther between over the years. Life has a funny little habit of getting in the way of itself; endless surprises pop up and demand attention, which unfortunately often means wants are erased by needs. Still, with all the erraticism in life, one thing remained solid and stable: That door was never open.

   The church itself had fallen into disuse before I was born, but had been constructed somewhere in the early seventeenth century. I knew the exact date at some point – perhaps some general knowledge I’d imbibed through school – but it’d fell out my mind to make room for more useful information.

   I never knew why it still stood here, though. Perhaps superstition?

   There was a proposal before my birth, early into the eighties, in which they planned to finally deconstruct the great stone husk and repurpose the land. But, the act of digging up and relocating the graves must have been a morbid prospect to those considering the job, or those delegated to the task. Who wants to dismantle the home of the Father above? True, times now pay less heed to the fantastical or supernatural, but I imagine back in the eighties when religion had a much stronger hold on thought and actions, people would rather just leave it be than disturb the resting dead.

   There was a chance they expected it to fall due to negligence of its own accord, and thus absolve themselves of any circumvented blasphemy. If the building crumbled, bit by bit, into a great mounds of rubble and dust, then all they had to do was clean up the mess that nature authored. Time conquers every war it ignites, and if it was left to the endless arm of seconds, the walls were likely to outlive numerous generations. Though, I didn’t see much of a difference between active demolition and abandoned dilapidation.

   Or, maybe the reason was purely fiscal? Maybe the governing bodies wouldn’t siphon any of their budget – our town was hardly a jewel in the country – in to hiring a firm to raze the church, level the ground, agree on what should be erected in its stead, so on, so forth.

   All conjecture, of course, but it wasn’t my place to dwell on – I just liked to come by here and think. It was surrounded by fields that rolled and melded in to one another so perfectly it almost seemed serendipitous. A lake coursed through the centre of the vast green in a meandering journey, and three metal bridges had been placed equidistant to join both side of the green that the river innocently sundered. This all, as if wishing to be kept a secret, was enshrouded in a bosky wilderness that could be home to anything from mites to the homeless, for all I knew. I’d never venture in to there, neither from want or need. The church was plenty peaceful for me.

   To get to the church, there was a little path, wide enough for one car, that cut off from the main road (which lead from the train station to the quaint town centre) and entertained a gentle curve before re-joining a smaller road, which in turn led back in to the main one. The path had a canopy of trees towering above it, so even in the day time, it would appear dim as dusk – and I loved it. I always felt like, religious or not aside, that veering off in to this path was like stepping foot in to the past; a different, simpler world. It was wonderfully romantic, and always put my mind at ease. In essence, this place was quite sequestered from the complications of modernity.

   I’d walk through, make my way in to the church grounds and find a place to sit; the stairs leading up to the main church entrance, an indent in the church’s structure itself (though, it was usually mossy and muddy, or littered with burnouts’ trash) or fight my way through the thicket of trees, and place myself on one of the small shrine-like structures, their aesthetic tainted and marred by unceasing seasons.

   Once seated, I’d read a new poem from a book of poetry my grandfather gave me before he passed (always kept it, never read it, until the idea came on my first trip back when I found it sitting in my bookshelf), before going on to reading whatever novel had won my fancy. Just a chapter, just an hour. That’s all I needed.

   It rejuvenated me on a level, that it almost felt as if it was calling me. This was my happy place, and I was more than willing to heed that call; a long developed symbiosis.

   Though I’d been swimming in my ocean of neutral, half-lazy agnosticism (I believed there must be something, but what the thing may be, I couldn’t even hazard a guess) for nigh on a decade, I didn’t come to the church for any religious reason – but mostly because I, well, I enjoyed the different world I’d created on the canvas it presented.

   There was a newer building that replaced the function of this one, should I have been seeking some enlightenment or forgiveness, in which for some reason, the powers that be – divine or not – had decided to transfer the holiness of this place to. It was smaller, true, and staggeringly less impressive, but it was clearly much cheaper to upkeep, to hire, to heat in the winters.

   I found that bewildering. I’d been brought up to believe that god, the very power this church was erected for, had commanded absolute, unquestionable omnipotence. Yet with all that possibility at his behest – with the philanthropic wonders or devastating judgements the bible claimed he had committed on whim or wrath – he couldn’t extend any of his unlimited might to keep one building safe, warm, steady?

   And so, a building that had boasted over three hundred years of joining lovers in holy matrimony, and comforting them in grief decades later when one of them were lost. Forgotten.

   Welcoming new-borns in to the very faith it existed for, and healing the heartache of any stricken by the cruelties of the world. Abandoned.

   A wonder that was constructed by our ancestors long gone– who were buried in these very graves, and though their blood ran through us they were as good as strangers… Betrayed.

   I didn’t realise until the door that had transfixed my gaze began to shimmer, that I had been crying as my mind wondered. There was no logic behind the forming of my tears. It was just an open door. But it seemed so tragic, so awful. It was all I could to do keep my mind wandering about how many tears had been shed on these hallowed grounds, from either despair or delight. Enough for an ocean, I’d wager.

   The eroding gravestones didn’t escape the plummet into irrelevance. As if tiny static planets dotted about the sun, when it dies, they too, cease to matter. The etched names and messages of love had been nihilistically effaced, so that all that remained were crude, crumbling dents. The names the stones once displayed had families, somewhere in the haze of history. Emotions, likes, wants, aspirations, and now… a worn-down stone whose only job was to remember them, had forgotten them, too.

   The grass, wild and unruly, swayed without resistance in the sporadic zephyrs. It covered the entire grounds, clumping in mounds here and there, and lapped up against the gravestones, the church, and the myriad trees. Light and weedy as it was, I imagined with a stronger gale, it would swish and sway like turbulent waves.

   Speaking of the trees, the mighty soldier oaks who accepted the duty of shading the graves from harsh summers had now crept into their twilight; their leaves bushy and unkempt, and donning a crisp autumn red. They stood guard, in their final years, watching over the saplings and younger trees who would, as is the circle of life for all living things, soon stand in their stead.

   Vines of ivy crept up and around the church. Their thick girth sniffing, searching and finding nooks that my eyes could not. They would latch on to it, anchor a support, weave an ostentatious loop before catapulting off, scaling further up the wall like expert climbers, and reaching such a height that they had knit a blanket over the slated roof, permitting only small patches of evidence for what lay beneath. Nature tending to what humanity shrugged off.

   The Church, in turn for the patronage of the vines, had permitted them entrance through the stone window frames in which the stained glass had either been carefully removed and reused, or cruelly smashed and shattered. Either way, the vines cared not – they gushed over the base of the frames, grabbed and pulled from the sides, and ducked under the tops – pouring inside like a bizarre waterfall of tangles.

   And so too, did my tears still pour. I felt a profound pain ebbing at my heart, crying for attention, crying for me to recognise it, but I couldn’t understand. It didn’t make sense to me what was happening. For a moment, I perceived this spectre of inconceivable size looming over me, its unseen eyes boring through my flesh, and scorching my soul. As if there was a squatter, a lodger, fixing its gaze on me and rearing for an attack. But then, all of a sudden, the anxiety shifted as the menace I’d felt turned in to a mocking jeer. And then a shift.

   I found the entire idea of religion had been humbled in one scene. This whole acceptance by millions that religion was, is and always will be the burning centre of all that exists… this very sight offered challenge to it. It disclosed the truth that god, gods, any divine being or deity, is only powerful and relevant when people decide it to be the case. A montage of images through my travels took precedence, and flitted by so quickly it was difficult for me to process. Ancient temples I’d visited, old shrines, statues that had survived the ages, monuments carefully transported from consecrated grounds to the entrance of museums, war-damaged cathedrals, carvings or halls hewn into mountains, tales and traditions, soul and superstition half-remembered. These weren’t the boundless produce of gods, but the bold invention of humans.

   In the very absence of pious care and reverent footfall… nature, without doubt, would always win out. Should we all die right at this second, the gods that we decided had shaped our world – wonders and sunders – would all die with us. And in our absence, the fields we guarded, the forests we fought back, the parks we tamed? They would grow, encroach, venture forth and assimilate without mercy, but so too, without malice.

   I shuddered a deep, sorrowful sob.

   These gods. We homed them in our minds, not these great, stone-wrought manifestations of faith. No, our thought, our need for meaning, was their pantheon. To the gods we were born in to, and the gods we learned about from dead civilisations – they died with them. And the books. And the garments. Commandments. Rules. Pious practices and prayers and parables… All had been wrought and cooled within the furnace of human thought.

   As I watched a bird – a crow, if the glimpse I managed was to be believed – fly in to the open window, and settle on the vines before dancing from foot to foot, and hopping within. As I realised this collection of stone and wood had now been claimed by ‘lesser creatures’ as a home, I felt a change within.

   A gust of wind rattled at the bleeding leaves of the elder trees, and they hissed their vehement fury to my sudden religious void, or perhaps they were whispering their agreement. But, as they plummeted, twisting and flailing, from the safety of lofty heights to the wilderness below, so too, did the remnants of my wavering faith.

   I felt compelled to walk up to the door, and peer within. It lured me in like a silent siren, as if offering to satisfy this overwhelming emptiness. I wished to bear witness to what had become of such a place. To identify the body of my indoctrination, as it lay cold and blue-lipped on a slab in the morgue. The door itself shifted and blurred, still, through my bleary, teary eyes.

   Each step I felt colder – more alone. I’d never experienced such a sensation in my entire experience of life.

   I glanced back to see the main road in the distance, with cars zipping up and down like ants in their hill – nary a care in the world for the macro scale. Each caring only about their own minor lives, trivial issues and goals. As if one day they, too, won’t grind to dust – the quintessence of us – and be forgotten by all living, and existing. I couldn’t return to that now. Not with such a queer loss stemming from the very place that I would come to mourn, or cling on to it.

   I climbed the last of the few steps and realised the inside of the door had a series of queer patterns around it. Vandals, I assumed. Stars, and circles, triangles and strange symbols that looked as if they could be Norse, or Greek, a form of hieroglyphics or from some strange language.

   And all around these markings, as if framed in lacerations, a series of sharp concise scratchings, cut deep in to the rotting wood.

   For a second, I thought I felt another gust of wind conjure an army of goose pimples upon my flesh, but I soon realised this chill came from within.

   I took a step inside the vestibule and could see all the way up to the sanctuary.

   There was no-one giving a sermon, yet a congregation of detritus held attendance in vain anticipation. Weeds had commissioned emissaries to spread their influence wherever possible; crawling through every crack the stone base had conceded over time – ubiquitous, unruly, merciless.

   Of the wooden pews that remained, all of them were rotting away in soft white blooms, or had become a banquet for undiscerning termites and woodlice. I felt a wry, sardonic smile curl at my lips, God in all his providence…

   Again, an unseen presence seemed to agree. The empty church, the hidden critters, the untended trees or the pervasive weeds. Or, perhaps, something more sinister.

   Most of the pews, like everything else, were completely broken – whether by time or human, it was unclear.

   About the old walls, there were some slight, faint discolorations. All were so similar in the likeness that I deduced they must have had fixtures bolted down, which had evidently found patronage elsewhere – one way or another.

   Wind burst in from the empty window frames, whooshing, whistling, and worrying at my hair seeing as there were no candle flames to flutter and gutter.

   An immense loneliness had all but stolen me, and embraced me to the point of constriction. Though, I was the only human to walk within, even then, I felt like a trespasser to this other I could sense. Yet, I walked on, up to the crumbled, chipped and podium; lacking finery and rife with graffiti.

   It was odd to look back from this vantage point, to see rubble and dust, planks and splinters, rubbish and faeces. All that rather than divinity and order, perhaps a reflection of the tatters my own faith had been left in.

   I could hear the scuttled patter of scrabbling rodent foot and nail on stone, rather than the hushed whispers of a pious audience in waiting.

   Unsure as to why, I laid my bare hands on the stone before me, feeling an inherent chill below the layer of dust and dirt. And like a pretender, a tourist to a land I once had a home in, I crossed myself, and I spoke.

   “The Lord be with you,” I said.

   Strange, there was no echo as would be expected, which I assumed must have been due to my voice fleeing through the windows rather than rebounding about the bare, cavernous wall and arched ceiling. Though, in answer, a series of startled darting took place, from the hidden animals I heard before.

   I smiled wanly, in spite of all, and made to step down.

   “And The Beast with you,” I heard a muffled, subdued chorus respond. A collection of disembodied voices, each barely more than a whisper.

   I stood rooted in my advance. Frozen in terror-stricken paralysis. After a godless epoch, my wits returned to me and I tore my eyes from the ground, so as to discern where in this echo of a once great building, the sound could have emanated from – but was offered no explanation. No answer.

   I felt an overwhelming sense of dread and anxiety, clawing within and without, trying to steal what was left of my hope.

   Everything within was telling me to cease, but I wanted to speak on. To check. But whether I would have or not, my voice had diminished in shock, and only hushed squeaks could be heard.

   The squawk of a crow broke the spell, and relinquished me from the ethereal, or panicked hold. I glanced to where the caw sounded, and my eyes caught sight of an upturned cross which seemed to pulse and throng with a thirst, a predatory hunger. It yearned for me. It called to me. It lulled me in, like a moth to a flame, calling for my touch.

   I felt the numerous eyes on me. I felt the presence encouraging.

   I collected my wits, I demanded presence of mind, and I darted. Fleeing, sprinting straight down the aisle and feeling the irony of a hundred unseen eyes on me. Whether conjured from my own thought, or evident in devout spectres I was uncertain. To further my panic, I heard concerned mutterings as I sped.

   Twice I stumbled in my haste, first kicking a rock I hadn’t seen and second, after my footfall landed upon a loose piece of wood that rocked and jolted under my weight. Both times, I heard a cry of laughter, or a ghastly jibe. My cry of terror, yelp of shock, they weren’t unheard and discarded.

   I didn’t pause my flight until I was down the stairs, out the grounds, past the graves – the image of an army of spirits standing, watching beneath that crimson canopy, judging me in my madness roared at my peripherals, but my tears and desperation blurred and distorted them. I scaled the small wall, and didn’t slow my pace until I was on the aforementioned main road.

   My muscles were complaining, my lungs stinging, my heart stabbing at me.

   I dared a glance back toward the church, and to my surprise, I could see that the door was now closed. However, it was clear I hadn’t paused in my flight for such a consideration.

   Though I hadn’t quite recovered, though my fear and spontaneous exhaustion had not been remedied by this rest, nor quelled by any logic I grasped for. I heard, like the faint wisps of dusk, the distant and harrowing melody of a church organ.

   And thus, I turned to resume my retreat.

   I may have lost my religion, but thereon, an afterlife seemed an inescapable doom.

   Yet I ran.

   Confused. Hopeless. Godless.

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Wesley Nyx published in Horror, Mystery, Original Stories, Story Hub

“The Whispering Grandfather” by Bradley Walker

   This is a long story, I know. But by rights it should be as it spans the decades of my own life, up until last month. I understand we all find ourselves busy with the ever-present worries, priorities, and goals within our own transience, but I beg those with a little time to read on, and share this tale of creeping discomfort with my old soul.

   We all have issues in our families; skeletons in the closet enough to fill old, forgotten catacombs. Most of these are mundane and ubiquitous. Secret shames that ‘tarnish’ the family name, regardless of the fact that the very skeleton itself is placed in every family’s closet. Affairs, ‘illegitimate’ children, conservatorships, drug addled child, alcoholic aunt, handsy uncle, the list goes on. However, my family were different. We were always a small family, and never really involved ourselves in the lives of any extended blood. My mother’s side was larger, but lived further afield. My father’s on the other hand- me, him, his parents. There was no shame, no silly accident or act of infidelity. Our skeletons weren’t trivialities tucked behind a chrisom or shroud of shame, but something much more sinister. Something that I believe, to this day, is wholly inexplicable. I would go as far as saying: We didn’t have endless little skeletons in our closet, but one titanic demon.

   I think it’s nigh time I tell this story. The burning stitch has been woven in and out of my life over the years, though, I was lucky enough to never wear the garment it birthed directly. But, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself in a predicament that none should ever face… objectively. And thus, let met tell.

   My mum and dad were always quite reticent when it came to talking about my grandfather on my dad’s side. It’s not as if they’d outright refuse to speak about him, but whenever he was brought up – say, a neighbour innocently asking how the folks are doing – the mood would just change so suddenly that it would almost give me whiplash. I still remember, very clearly, my mum would grow harrished and flustered, then try to commandeer the conversation, talk about her own parents (both deceased before I was born) and then steer the topic in to other territory. “How are yours?” “Did you hear…?” “How’re your babies? They must be xx old now!”

   I was a child, so never delved deeper than the surface level of the circumstance. I had much more important things to think about; games for school, tardy homework, the next toy, the lost toy, the favourite toy. I was an inquisitive child, relatively, but only in things that struck a chord of interest to me. Unfortunately, my mother’s deterrence whenever her father-in-law was brought up, my father’s sudden iron-clenched expression of discomfort, was never really factored in to it.

   The first time I noticed there was something actively queer, as in, it showed up as a curious blip on my juvenile radar, was when I was nearing the end of my primary school years. We were tasked with mapping our family tree as far as we could go back. We were given large A1 pieces of card in which we were supposed to snip out old photographs, or have them copied and cropped, then stuck to the card. These would be linked to show our heritage, and go as far back as was possible.

   I was absolutely ecstatic about this. Not only was it a break from the dull monotony of sums, science and spelling, but it was practical, personal. School back then was hardly either. I was charmed by the idea of finding out about ancestors I’d never get the chance to meet, yet was effectively a product of. I ran home to my mother, as my dad was out on an errand, and told her what I needed. The reaction was instant, physical and visible; jaw clenched, eyes widened, and a blotchy pervasion of red stole over her face. She grew flustered and irate, though I knew it wasn’t with me. She began stuttering and spluttering, before regaining composure after a few seconds, then in a way that is so natural to adults, dismissed me with a “Let me speak to your dad later,” followed by a stern, direct order of, “Don’t mention this again.”

   Later, my dad came home, strolled passed me with a ruffle of the hair and a promise to talk about school after a cup of tea. He headed to the kitchen where my mother was perched with a crossword – though, I’d popped in three times for snacks and noticed she hadn’t spared time for even a guess. I heard her voice, low and mumbled, as she spoke to him. His response was a shout that was quickly stifled in to sharp whisper, and, seconds later, there was a heavy thud. I sprung from the couch to sneak a peek, and saw my dad nursing his fist, which he had evidently slammed in to the marble counter top. He was furious, steely and rigid. My mother, rather than annoyed at his outburst, seemed sympathetic toward him. She spotted me as she began to soak a kitchen towel, and with a quick jolt of the head, sent me to my room. I obeyed without question, but full of guilt for knowing this was somehow my fault.

   The next day in school, I was approached by a fretful and vehemently apologetic Mrs. Frost, who proceeded to paint me with all colours of regret, and then exempted me from the assignment. I was told to sit out and read for a while as the other students worked on theirs. I never complained. I liked reading. At the end of that week, all my peers had bright, colourful family trees; a whole forest of ancestry. But mine? Not even a seed to tell of my heritage.

   There was a smattering of moments like that when I was younger. Snippets of extreme tension, my mother and father squirming in anger, discomfort, sometimes even fear. People behaving differently around me. It wasn’t a constant threat, and mostly, my parents were a typical, happily married couple. But after that assignment, the thought of my grandfather compelled a morbid, forbidden curiosity in me. It was always muted and repressed, but ever-present.

   I’m no longer a kid; far from it as my well-earned beer gut and wispy hair clutching around each side of my head, but for the tuft at the top, will attest to. And still, for a long time I found myself telling my kids that they’re not to ask their granddad about his dad. This initially conjured some questions, as they plied the same curiosity I’d learned to silence, mostly, but sooner or later they stopped asking. This was prudent, because my dad wouldn’t answer me, so I couldn’t answer them. All I told them when pressed was that we don’t know much about him, and that families were different.

   Families were different. I always knew that. My friend had a whole hospital bed in their living room for their nan, who was apparently ‘not long for this world’ but stayed alive well in to my teens. We used to sneak over and look at all the buttons, read the little canisters and examine the devices as she lay still and withered, her laboured breathing a languid, raw rhythm – a strenuous metronome that lulled between the sporadic beeping and sudden gulping bubble of her drip. It was interesting rather than saddening. I knew grandparents were old, could get sick, could pass away – so I had no idea why everything was being shielded from me. My friend knew exactly what was happening with his grandmother, why couldn’t I be offered the same?

   The insight I did manage to glean was harrowing. So, even the little loose, ill-fitting puzzle pieces I’d managed to mentally grasp made no sense when placed together. You see, from the ages of, perhaps, five to ten, or at least somewhere there around, I did get to go to my grandparents’ house. And, though I could tell there was always something out of the ordinary, it didn’t seem at all unnerving or aberrational at first. I was told my grandfather had to stay in the other room, and that seemed acceptable enough for my young brain. He must be sick. He’s not long for this world. That’s all, right? I realised my aim was well off-target for truth.

   Overall, I visited my only grandparents only a handful of times, and it was always due to my grandmother being poorly. I used to get so excited, though, because every visit, I would be driven to the toy shop on the way, and my dad would always pick out something new for me. Toys back then weren’t as varied as you can get today, but my dad used to always say the ones with lights and sounds were the best ones, regardless of whether I wanted them or not. Then, we would pop by a pet store! They loved animals, my dad explained. They help them grow up, then give them to other families. That, as you can imagine, was the highlight of my year. Mostly, we’d get them a hamster or gerbil, something small, furry and cuter than I could handle. Once we got a kitten. Oh, to be a child of no worries, with a brand-new toy and a scuttling little mammal to hold.

   After that, we would be driving to their home which was a little further out than I would have expected. When the suburbs gave away to bosky landscapes, the mood within the car would change, and my mum and dad wouldn’t say a word to each other. My dad would usually drive, and his motions with the handbrakes would be sharp and staccato, he’d be grumbling and grunting swear words at any other driver on the road, and when they seemed to dwindle in numbers, his wrath would shoot at any road sign, or sight, or- whatever he could find to hate.

   God forbid we were ever stopped at a red light. How ghastly that would be… The entire duration would be spent with him leaning forward, his elbows on the steering wheel, and supporting his head in his hands as if this was a travesty. He’d keep glancing in the back seat, and as if I was a spectre, ignore me and fix his eyes on their new pet. As if making sure it was still there. My mother would wait a moment, then when the lights started changing, place a gentle, reassuring hand on his shoulder which didn’t do much to alleviate his mood, but he’d at least look up to the side, lock eyes with her, take her cue and then press on the pedal.

   When I got there with my rocket, or robot or roaring dinosaur (cliché, I know) in hand, my grandmother would be sitting in her little pyjamas of the year (she got a new set sent in the post every Christmas from us), and would pull me in to her arms the second I tottered through the door. Within seconds I’d be met with a thousand kisses from her wrinkled, dry lips, and with the aid of breath that smelled like sugary tea, I was asked all manner of questions about my school life, my friends, and get showered with all manner of sweets she’d been saving for me.

   The house was, by any stretch of the imagination, an ordinary grandparent’s house. My grandmother’s chair was positioned just in front of an antique grandfather clock, and on either side of that were about a thousand pictures of me that I can’t remember being taken, or of my mum, dad and me together. She would have birthday cards and Christmas cards in their envelopes, “The ones we missed, and the one we’ll miss,” she’d say with no sadness, or joke, nor anything but accepted fact.

   In truth, I loved the attention. It was as if all this silence and hush that forced this strange stigmatised super-injunction on my grandfather was remedied in the arms of such a sweet old woman. She had the lovely delicate voice that the kindly, gingerbread making grandmothers in movies had. She would nestle me in to her breast, have one hand stroking my cheeks in relaxing circular motions, and the other playing with my hair – twiddling it this way and that as she told me how lucky I was to have such golden curls (I remember them fondly), and that she thought about me every day, that she was so proud of me and she loved me more than… and then go on to reel off as many items she could list, before deciding any word she ever learned could never do it justice.

   And, I craved it. Just the knowledge that my grandmother was the perfect archetype was enough to offer equilibrium to whatever was going on with my grandfather.

   The only thing, though, was each time, the visit would turn immensely sour after maybe thirty minutes to an hour or so, which is when the sudden normality of the visit would begin to fizzle treacherously. Even at my earliest memory, I remember a shiver of discomfort tickle through my body, because from the other room, there would be a chorus of whispers – just loud enough to be heard – emanating through. As soon as they started, my grandmother would pause for a moment, and I’d watch as she shot a glance to my dad, who would then turn to my mum. I’d usually capture her “don’t-let-Edward-know-we-are-arguing” face, as my dad’s brows furrowed, and his eyes began to fill with rage.

   Then, from the other room, the whispers would incrementally increase in volume, so that I could hear individual words being spoke, but too muffled to make them out. The rhythm and general sound of them didn’t seem exactly natural to me, there were a lot of consonants and more “s”s than I knew a language to have, but that was probably due to the fact that they were still, in nature, faint whispers. Whisper a ‘hello’ to yourself now, and let the breath push gently at your throat, and barely escape past the teeth – that was the quality the entire sentences would form in. Only when there would be a sudden shout, or visceral bark which caused my grandmother to flinch and quickly regain composure, would my dad stand up, in a fit of rage, storm over to the pet, pluck it up and then disappear. Suddenly my nan would forget about asking me any and all questions, and then my toy would be the star of the show.

   The radio would get turned up then, and the television, so the two could wage sonic war on one another. Amidst this sudden chaos, my nan would have me howling with laughter as she tried to copy the noise of the toy, in an absurdly loud and dramatic imitation, that I would have to copy; the two of us bouncing off each other’s mimicry until we were both screeching at the top of our voices.

   …and I knew it was a distraction technique even then, because my mum would only be watching with half her heart. Her eyes were on us, her smile was fixed – almost programmed or rehearsed – in place, but her mind and hearing wERE tuned to the door. The barks, grunt and sudden outbursts from my grandfather were still there, but added to them, the challenger of my dad’s anger, built up and repressed from a thousand trivial driving complaints and then… squealing. All loosed in one bizarre and frightening cacophony, before, it would all settle and after a few minutes, my dad would return, completely composed and almost too jovial. A façade to be sure, but one I was happy to accept at face value.

   Then, the time would come for me to say the briefest hello and goodbye to the man himself. They would act the way I see heads of state’s security act when walking anywhere. They would be checking every corner, and exchanging similar silent glances that spoke a thousand words, until I was brought in to the ante-parlour in which my grandad stayed when I visited.

   The room was dark, and always had a strange dank smell. I was unsure if he was the source, or this was just one of those rooms that had acquired the strange scent and was loathe to relinquish it. Again, my friend’s living room always had a strange, unfamiliar yet simultaneously recognisable scent to it, so I just assumed it was an old person’s smell, and each had their own. It wasn’t a horrid smell, as such – acrid with a softened sweetness. It was just, I suppose, prevalent, and demanded attention. Maybe it was because it was one of the only discerning features within the rooms.

   There was no furniture, and the windows had been blocked off with wooden boards that had been painted black, and bolted in to the walls with thick, heavy-duty bolts that would offer a muffled response to the muted glimmering chandelier. I’m unsure where the thought came from, but I was convinced they were the ones that were bolted in Frankenstein’s monster’s neck – but I suppose that was just a scared kid in creepy room connecting dots.

   In the meek light of the open door, I could see the pictures and symbols. Just a flash of a second. They were scattered across the floor, walls, ceiling – skittering across every surface like a crusade of scurrying insects. I couldn’t make them out, because quickly and carefully, the door would be closed behind us. And there we stood. Us and him.

   In this dark room, with no natural light, my grandfather would always be stood at the very back, dead-centre, flat against the wall. It was an old house, so the height of the room wasn’t quite what it was in our own house, but it was still about three of my full height – yet, my grandfather’s head managed to just brush underneath it. He wasn’t, I suppose, abnormally tall so that it would break any records, but definitely taller than anyone I’d seen before then. His general height and build together seemed to just teeter on the precipice of grotesque, just acceptable for human standards, but part of me felt like this was an illusion. An ill-fitting costume donned to fit in.

   He would just stand stock still, wearing a plain black dressing gown that was cinched at the waist with a simple hempen cord, and though the sleeves seemed to dangle further than they had any right to, I would still see the tips of his fingers poking out. Atop his head was one of those sleeping caps that we associate with the sandman, but this too, was of the same black as the gown – or perhaps the dimness of the room stole away any colour the clothes may have boasted. The dark of the clothes melded so well with the blackness that the chandelier couldn’t purge, that it was difficult to tell where the enshrouding shadow stopped and he started.

   The first time I saw him, I was trembling so much it felt as if the entire world was quaking and I was the only one trying to stay upright. My throat grew dry, my legs felt numb, weak and ready to collapse, and as much as I knew blood dictated that I love this man, the sight of him terrified me. No nightmare came close. I always noticed, after we left, that though my dad brought the pet in with him, it was never in evidence when I followed in the room.

   It got a little easier over the next few visits, especially because they were usually at least a year apart, but he’d always be in that same position, standing the exact same way, in the exact same robe (which by the last visit was frayed, torn, threadbare and crudely patched in many places).

   Yet, the one thing that never got easier was the approach. Each step I was flanked by my parents, and my grandmother would be standing at the door, clenching the handle as if ready to swing it open if necessary. “Say goodbye to your granddad, Ed,” my dad would urge, more of a hurried order than a parental encouragement. Then I’d have to take his hand, and as his fingers touched mine I could feel they were icy cold, and had a strange parchment-like quality to them – tinder dry, and raw.

   I always had a feeling that, around me, he was struggling with something. Holding back some urge, like a predator crouching, ready for a pounce, but never quite allowed to leap. I was told to kiss the back of his hand only once, with no saliva. I did so, and as I looked up, my neck bent at an almost ninety-degree angle to look at his face, I saw only a gaunt, expressionless visage looking back. In the dim of the room, I couldn’t make him out entirely, but his gaze seemed fixed and frail, his eyes vacant and though aimed at me, never really seeing me.

   They had a strange shape to them, his eyes did. Slightly off-angle, slightly too round. Always just on the edge of reasonable. They would be fixed, focused and staring without truly looking. It was similar to looking at one of those “What’s wrong with this picture?” tests you see. You know there’s something you’re missing, but if you only have a passing glance once a year to discern the hazard, you aren’t going to find it. Then, on my way out, I would be told, “Walk, slowly now, that’s it. Don’t run, Eddy. There’s a good lad,” but, with each forced steady step I took, I’d hear a hint, an echo, of those strange whispers starting from the back of the room.

   I’d never see the pet.

   After those visits, for the next three days I would constantly be checked over. Not just where my hand or lip made contact, but my entire body. They would be asking if I felt okay. Any wooziness? And nausea? Any discomfort? Any tightening pressure? Any issues with hearing? There never was any malady, any marks or scrapes.

   The last time I went through my post-visit checks, I was old enough to be embarrassed about having to get completely naked in front of my parents, and when I tried to fight back and tell them I didn’t want to undress, I was beaten so badly, pinned down and checked with all the more angry scrutiny, until they were satisfied with whatever they were looking at, and then the sheer apologetic fear on their faces was another image I’ll never get out of my head.

   I was showered with gifts for nearly a year after that, and they promised me I’ll never have to go again, unless I wanted to, or until I was old enough to ‘know’.

   Keep in mind this was all over a number of years, and only a few times, so the image of my granddad never left me exactly, and I’d often wake up after having a nightmare that he was standing at the edge of the horizon in my dream, watching. That’s the imagination of a child for you. But the visit was one day out of the year, so school kept me busy, friends kept me busy, games and books and whatever else keeps us company during our time on this planet took precedence, and I believed this helped dilute the experience. So, it wasn’t as if I was subject to this event constantly, but the few times I had was enough, and the fallout of the last was enough for me to not want to go again.

   I got older, as we do, and finished school, went to college, then moved away for university and lived my life. I met my first girlfriend at twenty-three and thus unfolds the usual trials and tribulations of dating, hating, hurting, forgiving, loving, compromising, so on, so forth. Early on in the relationship, I was brought to meet her parents, who just so happened to allow her grandparents to stay with them – both old, frail, and I guess this was the equivalent of my friend’s nan bed-bound in his house. That was all well and good, and though her grandparents clearly weren’t very well, they were happy as anything and were more than willing to engage in conversation.

   This got me thinking about my grandfather again, and, on my next trip home, I brought back a whiskey (it was brewed in the city I studied at, so could get it fairly cheap), and bit back each foul wincing sip, all of which were preceded by a “cheers” and a glassy clink to my dad’s pour, which I made sure was always a little more than mine.

   I hoped the whisky would offer me some amber courage with its welcome warmth, and what defence it bolstered of mine, it would decay and weaken of his. Half a bottle in, and I managed to force the question. “Dad?” I asked, my voice already nearly a screech with the nerves. “What was the deal with my granddad?” My mum, who was drinking her gin literally dropped her glass, as if the question was so out of the blue and unexpected, it physically knocked her off guard. It shattered on the wooden flooring, and the noise of that clung in the air during the tension that followed. She was up in a flash, and though the dustpan and brush were kept below the kitchen sink, she sailed up the stairs with the drunken elegance only she could command, and I didn’t see her for the rest of the night.

   Well, I won’t get in to the way he finally reacted exactly, because he really was overall a fantastic man. But, the long and short of it was, “He’s a sick man.” And, so, I gladly accepted that at face value. I was a twenty-three year old, soon to be twenty-four, and I knew the euphemism of ‘sick’ for the elderly meant they’re due death. Also, I knew that meant that their time may be longer than any expected, yet, death all the same. A sorry subject no matter which angle you view it from, and, I guess I forced square answers that didn’t quite fit in to the circle holes of the questions I had, just so I could convince myself that chapter was over and done with in my life.

   It was probably some bizarre sickness, that rendered him unable to move or talk in such a manner that others could, and stole the colour from his flesh, and- and perhaps it was infectious which is why they checked me over, and- and- everything else, whether it allowed through the sudden open gates of acceptance, whether it was logical or not. But those whispers? The just off-kilter dimensions of his body? The- no! All normal. I was just too young to understand. That’s all it was. It’s easy to lie to oneself when it’s convenient.

   Years trickled by, the girlfriend and I broke up, I met a new one, we shared summer, winters, springs and autumns. Holidays, and proposals matured over time in to honeymoons and mortgage. And suddenly, I get a call from my dad, who by now had lost the colour of his auburn hair to the merciless greed of time, and was offered a face wrought in wrinkles and sad old eyes in its stead. It was about my grandmother. “She’s died, Ed,” he said.

   I came back home with my now wife. The funeral arrangements were quickly sorted and solved, and I noticed, though I daren’t bring it up, that my grandfather wasn’t involved. My wife asked when he’d died, as I’d explained that he was fairly older than my now late grandmother, so was fair to assume that was the case, and I admitted, I didn’t know – nor would I ask my dad when it was held, and why there were no funeral arrangements for that.

   Anyhow, her funeral was a morbid, grim affair as funerals tend to be. She was well in to her eighties by this point, so she’d lived a long life as far as they go. I regretted wholly and truthfully not seeing her more whilst she was alive, but, with moving away and the whole strangeness about visiting, it just didn’t seem to be conducive to my life. My partner comforted me as I shed tears tasting of grief and guilt, staring at the kind face that made me feel special and loved, thinking of how that sleeping countenance had howled, and beeped and squealed with me when I was young, and small enough to be bounced on her old, not-yet-frail knee.

   I heard others sobbing, old women and men I’d never met crying for the loss of a woman whose very blood ran through my own veins, but I knew little of. That made the grimacing guilt even worse, as I turned away from the coffin to see a humble yet sizeable congregation of unknown friends, who could have been with her from school. And me, the grandchild standing at the side of her death, ignorant and selfish, as uninvolved as I was. A betrayer who never made the effort I could have in her life.

   Speeches were spoken, more tears were shed or stifled, sermons were served and prayers were uttered. Then, as the song she’d chosen began to play, reverberating around the cavernous walls resonating within the crematorium, as it did within our hearts, the coffin disappeared behind the curtains. Further protocols were observed, whilst announcements of respect and love were declared, and the gathering – all of us like living black, wallowing wraiths that proved her kindness – began to usher ourselves unguided out the doors.

   I took one last look back, to whisper an apology for the nan I abandoned as people shuffled past one by one, most hunched and shuffling, aided by steel or stick.

   Then I heard them.

   The horrid, insidious whispering that crept beneath my skin as a child. They seemed to be writhing about the hall like a thousand spectral snakes, and though my eyes darted everywhere, from the lectern, to the pews, to the divine decorated corners and flickering candles – there was no sign of him. And there shouldn’t be, because he was a sick man. As I said, it was clear he was much older than my grandmother in the way he looked; so tall, and fragile and thin and pale. Couldn’t have been less than ten years her senior, maybe even twenty.

   But still, the whispering continued. Like when I was younger, I could hear specific words being spoken, it was like listening to a different language. When my wife grabbed my hand, I almost lashed out and hit her in complete shock, being brought back to my sense. And when I saw the fear in her eyes, I apologised profusely which was instantly forgiven, considering the circumstances.

   We left the venue, and made our way in to the sprawl of grouped widows sharing memories, or haggard and lonely individuals wondering who will mourn them when their time came. We moved, trying not to draw any attention from anyone as I searched for my mum and dad. I scanned everywhere, wondering where they could be, when in the distance, I saw standing by the far end of wall, under the balcony so as to be shielded from the refreshing, and lukewarm daylight, the same tall, shadowy garbed sentinel I’d only ever seen in the dark room.

   The figure was dressed in all black, and he was holding a large ivory cane which he clutched from leathern gloves. A bowler hat sat atop his head at an angle, and as he looked up, seemingly aware my eyes were on him, I saw he was wearing sunglasses and had a black scarf wrapped up almost to his nose, though the day was pleasant and gentle as my grandmother had been in life. Only slithers of bone white pale flesh could be seen in the small gaps permitted between scarf, and glasses, and hat. Pallid, mottled, near illuminous compared to the rest of him. A darkness swam around him, though the day was clear; it seemed to shift and undulate like a mist, though there was not a wisp of fog in sight. An aura, a dark nimbus that buzzed around his image.

   I grabbed my wife’s hand, with a sheer iciness clutching at me from within – as if his very hands had found themselves on my heart – and I pulled her to our car deciding that mum and dad could do their rounds of people I didn’t know, and we’d wait for them in the venue we were to drink to the love of a wonderful woman.

   That was thirty-odd years ago now, and the thought of seeing him there still harrows me. A man in his eighties, maybe nineties, standing as tall and still as he had done every time I had seen him before. It didn’t make sense if he was a sick man. That’s when the whole concept of the word sick struck me with an unseen impact. Perhaps when my father said he was sick, he meant mentally. Perhaps my grandfather was fine in physical health, but his mind had rotted and festered long before I was conceived? This, unfortunately, authored more questions than it answered, and unravelled a few of the knots I thought I’d tied up.

   From then to now, we settled in to the routine of our lives. We had children. We celebrated promotions, and ventures anew. We moved to the city she was from, half way down the other end of the country, meaning we only got to see my parents every now and then. It was only ever for Christmas, their birthdays, our birthdays, or the kids’ birthdays, and even then, it wasn’t every time. I wanted my children to know and love their grandparents equally, perhaps out of guilt for my grandmother, and because of what I experienced with my grandfather.

   I never knew if my father saw him there on the day of the funeral, and I never wanted to ask – he was ageing. He didn’t need the hassle. I didn’t need the argument. My wife didn’t need to be introduced to it all.

   Though, I do regret sealing the words behind a coward’s lips, because now I’m well over the best years of my own life, as the aforementioned gut and ghostly grey memories of those once golden locks warned you about, and my dear mother passed away a decade ago, leaving my brave dad to totter along as best as he could, until last month he, too, passed away – outliving his own mother by one month exactly. Bringing with him – to whatever is waiting for us – all the answers I never got to ask.

   His funeral was much of the same, affair, and I’m still finding myself waking up with a suffocating sadness in the middle of the night, that, much like my father in the car, only the staying touch of my wife’s soothing hand can quieten.

   But so too, is the fear suffocating me. So tight and asphyxiating that I can almost feel a vice grip of cold steel around my throat.

   Because as I was thanking the priest at the end of the sermon and shaking his hand in a grateful goodbye, and the congregation had made their way out through dulled conversation, hissing sniffles, muted sobs and the clack-clack of smart black shoes they never wished to wear… there begun the snarling whispers. Those whispers. Those horrid, deafening, burrowing whispers. Then him.

   How?!

   How, in any holy world, did I see that same sentinel. The figure who fathered the man lying dead but ten feet away from me, standing upright and silent as ever. A grim looming statue that denied time and refused death – staring at me from the old crooked candle-lit corner?

   I stood, frozen and anchored; as if I was once again but a juvenile, with no authority of my own. The whispers whipped around, and seemed to surround me like a tornado of hissing. A chorus of hollow voices, all tripping over one another for dominance. To be heard. So many of them were just sounds, though, there was form to them. They were languages I couldn’t discern. Languages that were of no modern home. They sounded the loudest. I’m unsure whether I stood the for a fraction of a second or an eternity, but in the hold, I heard others. Some more common, more understandable; a dark, desperate need in all of them – whether I understood or not. A raw, primal need. Help. That’s what they all wanted. Help. Escape. Relief.

   Then, I heard one voice I did understand. One voice I knew. The voice of the man supposedly laid to rest in eternal peace. My father’s voice. “Don’t let him talk. Run. Don’t take him in. Go. Now. Bef-” the voice was swept beneath the tumultuous wave of the rest.

   I came back to my senses, and realised my grandfather had closed the distance, even though I didn’t see a moment of movement before me. I jumped back, falling flat and scrambling, then as the whispers urged, begged, implored, wailed, I burst in to the sunlight. A few lingering folk turned to look at me in surprise, but I ignored their calls of concern. I looked inside, and prayed that in the darkness, I wouldn’t see that figure.

   I have no idea what has kept him alive this long, nor what abnormalities surrounded him. But, what I do know, is that of all the mysteries that surround this globe we trod on, not all are fantastic and wondrous. Some are evil, vile, diabolic and deserve to not be explored.

   I’ve no idea where he went after I left, nor whether I should have spoken and asked. I have a terrible feeling that those whispering aren’t random, but rather a collection. I have an awful vision of this tall, spectral wraith flitting through dark streets and prowling amidst deep forests, finally unleashed and unchecked. Perhaps I should have taken him in, should have learned just what nature, or lack thereof, surrounded him. But, in sooth, I don’t care where he is or what he’s doing, as long as I never have to hear him, see him, smell him, ever again.

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Wesley Nyx published in Horror, Original Stories, Story Hub

“The Widow’s Son” by Graves Asher

Mom raged at the ceiling. Wondered. Why me? She stood on a chair, bringing her that much closer to her God. She looked up at the ceiling and shook her tiny, miserable fist. Why me? Dead. In the ground. Her husband of several years. Decades. Why me?

She wanted those tough answers. Those hard answers to difficult questions. And she wanted them right then and there. Immediately. She shook her fist again. Sixty-six years of life coursing through her veins. Sixty-six years of living. Eighty percent with the same man. Companion. Husband. And now, like that, gone. Vanished. Dust. Into the ground he went, tucked inside a wooden box crafted by his estranged brother. No more laughs. No more smiles.

Nothing.

Just dirt. And memories.

She shook her fist.

God?

Why me? A little girl’s voice. Confused. Hurt. God didn’t have an answer. God kept quiet. As He tends to do.

So, my mom stepped off the chair and returned it to the dining room table. She sat down and began to cry.

God didn’t listen to that, either.

2.

Wednesday morning. One year later. She got in the shower. Turned on the water. Washed. Cried. Turned off the water. Got out. Dried. Cried.

And when she walked into the bedroom, she saw it: an open dresser drawer. The one that contained his things. Socks. Underwear. She dropped the towel. Naked, she stepped closer. Peered in.

“Honey?” she asked.

No answer.

“Honey, is that you?” she inquired.

Nothing.

Silence.

Nothing.

She picked up the towel and covered herself. If her deceased husband was around, he’d want her to remain modest. He was old-fashioned. Traditional. She had liked that. Tradition. Values. Positive values. Religious values. All of them. Any of them.

But what did that open drawer mean? What did it represent? Had her husband returned from beyond the veil? Stepped down from Heaven? To show his love? One final time?

With a drawer. Full of socks. Underwear.

She fell to her knees, she told me. She fell to her knees, and she wept. And she raised her hands in the air in praise.

And she thanked her quiet God.

3.

The next day, we had a telephone conversation. About the drawer. And my dead father. His return. His glorious return. From beyond.

Praise Jesus.

As a ghost. A ghost who loved dresser drawers. Praise God.

“What do you think?” she asked me, excited and giddy, like a child on Christmas. “Do you think it’s him? Do you think this is a sign?”

“A sign of what?” I wanted to know.

“That he’s around.”

“Around the house?”

“Yes, around the house.”

“You think Dad opened the drawer?”

“Who else could have done it?”

“One of the cats?”

“No, it was the top drawer.”

“Did you sleepwalk?”

“Of course, I didn’t sleepwalk!”

“But you used to. Remember when Dad found you digging around inside the fridge on my tenth birthday? That was kind of funny.”

“Oh, you’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m not being ridiculous.”

“Yes, you are.”

“You’re mistaken.”

“How are you not being ridiculous?”

“Because sleepwalking makes sense to me.”

“What are you implying?”

“What am I implying? I’m implying that Dad didn’t open that drawer. Either you left it open or you opened it in your sleep.”

“You never believe me.”

“That’s not true.”

“Remember when I said something was wrong?”

“What?”

“With your father.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told you he was lying on the floor, and I couldn’t get him up. You said he was probably just dizzy from the dental procedure and not to worry about it.”

“You’re blaming me for that?”

“No.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“I’m saying you don’t believe me.”

“Alright, fine.”

“Fine? What?”

“Fine. Dad is a ghost. And he needs underwear.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“If you say so.”

With that, she hung up on me.

4.

I have not been a good son. I admit it. This is a fact. There is proof. Evidence.

The decline of my appearance in family photographs. The fact that I didn’t speak to my parents for almost two years. And other things. Screaming. Yelling. Drug use. Excessive drug use. Proof. It’s all there. If you look closely. I’m not proud. Not happy about it.

Over the years, I tried my best to make amends. Before Dad died, we mended these broken bridges. We put things in order. We hugged. Hugged. Us. Hugging. Imagine that. Father. Son. Hugging.

One day, he had a stroke. Out of the blue. After a dentist’s appointment. Side effect, they said. Side effect. Yeah, right.

Fate. Birthright. Men in my family tend to die like that. I will probably die like that. As much as I hate to admit it, I will die like my father. And his brother. And my grandfather. Doomed. I am doomed. To die. Like my father. Who collapsed on the floor. Of a small house. In the suburbs. Surrounded by incomplete projects. Reminders of days past. History. And I will lie there and cry because I knew it would happen this way. And I will cry that I predicted the future so many years ago.

And I couldn’t change it. I couldn’t. Fate had my cards. Played my hand for me. I’ll die. Dead. The end. And I won’t come back.

To open drawers.

5.

Dad continued to make visits. To the bedroom. To open that drawer. He never disturbed anything else. Never took underwear. Socks. Spare change. Tiny flashlights. Pocket knives. He didn’t touch the little odds and ends he’d stuffed in that drawer. Instead, he opened it and went about his otherworldly business.

That’s all. Nothing more. Nothing less.

And Mom loved it. Adored it. Waited every day. Every. Day.

But here’s the thing:

She never actually saw it happen.

Only the aftermath. During the months that it occurred, she never once spied the drawer sliding open. She only saw the end result. The final product.

I became suspicious. Worried. Concerned about her mental health. Grief is awful. Horrible. Ugly. Crushing. It can and will destroy you. Tear you down.

Mom thought she could deal with this detrimental loss like an adult. She prided herself on the things she accomplished. Cleaning. Improvements. Decluttering. More cleaning. More improvements. Stuff you read about in self-care manuals. Wellness articles.

But it didn’t matter. Below the surface, grief dwelled. Festered. It ate her soul. From the inside out.

On some days, she could hide it. Smiles. Laughs. Jokes. All manufactured.

On others, the facade faltered. Failed. System malfunction. Critical breakdown.

But when the dresser drawer started opening, she seemed so much happier. Her spirits lifted. She smiled more often.

Then it stopped. All at once. Finger snap. Gone.

And her world came crashing down.

6.

I spent some time out of town. Not because I wanted to. No. Not that. No. Because I needed it. Desperately. Needed it. Survival mode engaged.

If I hadn’t taken that time, I would have snapped. Cracked. Right in half. A worn, brittle twig. Sad. Pathetic. Crushed beneath the world. Splintered. Dried out.

So, I told some white lies and escaped to a peaceful world without Mom. It sounds terrible, but I’m not a malicious person. I am kind. Sometimes. I am friendly. Sometimes. I am a good man. Sometimes. I am considerate. Sometimes.

Or, so I am told.

Did I lie? Yes. Did I mislead? Yes.

Did anyone get hurt? No.

Things moved on, as they always did. Guilt trips appeared, as they always did, but I brushed them off. I couldn’t listen. Couldn’t. No. Self-preservation. Self-care. That’s what the professionals say. The experts. In magazines. With beautiful faces on the covers. With all their money.

“Self-care will save your life.”

Except, it won’t. It will earn someone some money and sell a few products. After that, you’re still the same person you always were. Except poorer. Nobody changes. Nobody. Not even the dead. Dad disappointed Mom all the time. Why should he stop in death?

7.

Pandemonium. Chaos. Emotional meltdown. That’s what I came home to after my trip.

As soon as I returned, Mom summoned me. We had a conversation. Deep. Meaningful. No. Wrong. None of that. Strange. Bizarre. Peculiar.

I never dreamed I would have a conversation of any length about my father’s ghost with Mom, but that’s what we did.

Excerpt:

“Look at that drawer,” she demanded.

“What about it?” I asked.

“It hasn’t moved.”

“Is it supposed to?”

“Yes! Your father has stopped.”

“He stopped opening the drawer?”

“Yes!”

“I’m guessing he moved on.”

“But I told him.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him if he started this, he couldn’t stop. I warned him. I said, ‘Don’t you start this and suddenly stop it. No way.’ I said that.”

“Mom…”

“Don’t do that!”

“What?”

“Pacify me!”

“I’m not.”

“You are, too!”

“Okay fine. I am. You got me.”

“He’s not allowed to do this,” she said, switching gears. “He’s not allowed to start this and then stop. No way. I told him.”

“What about Heaven?”

“What about it?”

“He may have moved on to Heaven.”

“What… no.”

“What? You don’t want him in Heaven?”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“Then what do you mean?”

Silence.

“No,” she finally said. “He can’t start and then stop. I warned him. I told him not to do it. Why would he leave? That makes no sense.”

“Heaven, Mom. He’s in Heaven.”

“That’s possible.”

“Yes, it is.”

“But I warned him.”

“I know you warned him.”

“I did.”

“I know you did.”

“I liked knowing he was around.”

“I know you did.”

Repeat. Repeat.

“I know you did.”

Comfort. Comfort. Repeat. Repeat.

“I miss him.”

“I know you do.”

Guess what? Me, too.

8.

I thought a lot about death as a kid.

Death was everywhere. Cousin (suicide). Grandfather (brain cancer). Great aunt (brain cancer). Death. Death. Death. Here. There. Everywhere. Death.

As a child, I would cry myself to sleep at night as I thought about life without my parents. Miserable tears soaked my little pillow. I hugged my teddy bear. Tightly. So tightly.

“Don’t you leave me,” I told it.

Teddy bear lives on. In my closet. In a box. Hidden. But alive. My dad lived as well. Not inside the box buried underground, but inside his old bedroom. Opening a dresser drawer all by his lonesome. At least, Mom thought so. Until it stopped.

For a while, she moved on. Cleaned up around the house. Emptied the garage. Had a yard sale. Progress! Sally forth!

I beamed with pride. Look at her go, I thought. Look at her go.

Then, the drawer opened. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. She fainted. Woke up. Drawer still open. Sock dangling from the side. She called to tell me the good news. But I didn’t want to hear it. I really didn’t. I wanted Dad in the ground. Where he belonged. Dead. He died. Died. Death. Death. Death.

My greatest childhood fear. Made flesh. So to speak.

I wanted to move on. But I couldn’t move on, because Mom wouldn’t let me. She insisted he had remained behind to care for her. But what about me? Who will care for me during my grief? Teddy bear? Mom? What about me?

9.

Dad did that one encore. Then, boom. Gone again. G’night, folks. Thanks for stopping by. Gotta go. His bedroom tour had concluded, and he didn’t come back. I like to think he’d found his way to a much better place. Heaven? I don’t know. Valhalla? I don’t know. Hell? Possibly. I don’t know. I don’t. Religion is stupid. And scary.

I tried to explain things to Mom. Make it clear. Dad is gone, and he’s probably not coming back. He may have stopped over to say goodbye, but he had to move on. Sorry, Mom. I really am. But that’s life. People die. They go away. Forever.

You can’t escape it. Regardless of the pain you feel. The hurt. Suffering. Agony. Sleepless nights. They go, and that’s the end. Their story is over. Time for you to write a new one.

But she didn’t write her own story. Never did, really. Dad wrote one for her, as a side character in his personal journey through life. And she smiled. By his side. Always. Always. Always there. Where she wanted to be. Now that story is over. Book closed. Time for bed.

What now? What do the sidekicks do when the hero dies? What do they do when the narrative abruptly comes to an end? They languish. Flail. Try to swim. Try to find footing. Something. Anything. To find a story.

Where they belong.

10.

The drawer. That dresser drawer. That goddamn dresser drawer. Mom watched it. For two days.

One entire weekend.

She didn’t leave the bedroom. She stayed there, looking at that drawer. Hoping it would open. Praying to her quiet God. Willing it to open. Wishing for him to return. To the drawer. That drawer. That useless drawer. That useless goddamn drawer. The holder of pointless things. Junk. Garbage.

Ghost in the drawer. Pushing. Pushing. Performing. On stage. A one-man show. For a one-woman audience.

Leave the house, I told her. Get outside. Breathe. Relax. Live a little.

Let’s go to a movie. Let’s go tour a local distillery. Let’s go for a walk in the park. Let’s do something outside of the house. Away from that drawer. Dad’s drawer. Dad’s goddamn drawer.

No.

“What if he’s there?” she asked.

In that drawer. With his old socks. Underwear. Flashlights. Knives. A mass of spectral energy. Trapped. Because of a sad woman’s will. Imprisoned. By undying love. And grief. Trapped by grief. Endless goddamn grief.

11.

One month later, still no Dad. Goodbye, Dad. Goodbye. See you later. Maybe. Nice knowing you. Kind of. At least, part of you. So many secrets. Little things. Hidden away.

Did I know you helped out after my cousin’s messy suicide? No. Did I know you didn’t understand how to parent a child? No. No. No. But Mom told me. Thank her. She’s swell. Mom told your secrets. Some wife. Some friend. Right? She told me a lot of things. Secrets. Dark secrets. Your secrets. Your dark secrets.

Why? I don’t know. Ask her. Did she want me to feel just as miserable as her? Did I need to suffer right along with her? Was I not sad enough in my own grief? She could have asked. I was right there. The whole time. The whole time. Right there. By her side. But it didn’t matter. At all. She wanted you. Only you would do. But that doesn’t matter much to you now, does it? You’ve hit the supernatural highway. Abandoned the dresser drawer tour.

It broke her heart. I wish I could have warned you. You broke her heart. Twice.

First, you died. Then, you abandoned the drawer. I wish I could have warned you. Stay away, Dad. I would have told you that. Stay away, Dad. Stay far away. Or you’ll be sorry. So very sorry.

12.

Mom invited me over for lunch on a Saturday. I should have known better. Should have prepared myself. Anticipated her intentions. Hidden agendas. We ate sandwiches. Chips. Drank soda. In-between bites, small talk. Work. Life. Work. Life. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Work. Life. Work. Life. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad.

On repeat. Looped. For infinite. A hideous, never-ending cycle.

Once we finished eating, she said she wanted to show me something she added to the bedroom. I took the bait. Hooked. But I knew better. It’s Mom. She does these things. Sneaky things.

Mom showed me a painting.

“Your father did this in college,” she said.

Flowers. Rolling hills. Blue sky. Very pretty. But she didn’t care about that lovely painting. No, she wanted me to believe she did, but I knew it was a ruse. A trick. To lure me. Into that bedroom. Hidden agendas.

She turned to it. The drawer. Her eyes watered. Lip quivered.

“He’s still gone,” she told me.

What could I say? What?

“I’m sorry.”

I said that a lot.

“I’m sorry.”

What else could I say? When someone falls into the depths of grief, you can’t do anything. You can be there for them. That’s all you can really do. You can’t change the present. The past. The future. It’s all set in stone. Rock solid. Unbreakable.

“He left me,” she said again, angry this time.

“I’m sorry.”

“He left me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He left me.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

She smiled. Tears in her mouth.

“I’m okay,” she said.

Lies. All lies. Because.

Then she said, “I have a plan.”

I’m sorry. Dad. I’m sorry.

13.

Mom doesn’t plan. Organize. Think ahead. That’s not her style. Never was. But she had a plan that day. She’d hatched it. Stewed on it. Cooked it. A recipe for unintentional malice.

Then, she put it into motion. I didn’t know what she had in mind. She kept mentioning her plan, her project. But when pressed, she never revealed details. I was in the dark. Again. Mom liked secrets. Dark secrets. Kept things hidden. My cousin’s suicide. Dad’s inability to parent.

What else? Hidden. What else? Tucked away. What else?

I asked about her plan. Did she intend to commit suicide? No, she said. Then what did she have in mind? What was her plan? I got nothing. Silence. Shut out. Shut down. Put in my corner. Bed without supper. Nothing new. Not to me. Flashback. I remember childhood fights. With Mom. About things. Silly things.

Her latest secret felt silly, so I didn’t push. I didn’t pry. I let her have a miserable little party she could call her own. Did she need that? A secret? Did she hoard them? What else did she have tucked away? What else?

I didn’t want to know. Still don’t. I’m okay with that. Fine. But what she did. What she did. No. I felt guilty. I felt horrible. And now there are consequences. Far-reaching consequences. Shame on her. Goddamn it. Shame on her. But, also, shame on me.

I should have pushed. Pried. Pull out that truth. Stomped on it. Some secrets shouldn’t remain hidden. They need light. Or they take root. Flourish. And grow.

Out of control.

14.

She called out of the blue. After texting. Dozens of times. About nothing. Nothing. In particular.

Mom was on her lunch break; I was working. She didn’t care. When she had something to say, it didn’t matter. At all. Busy? Doesn’t matter. Preoccupied? Don’t care. Depressed? Not interested. Not interested in your problems. No. Not at all. Be quiet. Mom’s talking. The adult in this situation. The senior. Do you have problems? They don’t measure up. I’m your mother. I matter more.

Your problems: small.

Mom’s: huge.

Monumental. Enormous. Unmanageable. So unmanageable that they end up on someone else’s shoulders. If they have problems, that’s okay. They can handle more. I could always handle more. In her eyes. Because I didn’t have problems. In her eyes.

“You’re not busy,” she said.

Not a question. A statement.

“Can you drive me?” Mom asked.

“Where?” I wanted to know.

Hid my agitation. Frustration. Anger. Rage.

“Where?” I asked again.

“Does it matter?”

Her temper. Fierce. Misguided. Misplaced.

I didn’t kill Dad. Despite what she thinks. I didn’t. I didn’t deserve that.

“I need you to take me downtown to see someone important,” she spat. “I have an appointment tomorrow. Can you go?”

No. I have a job. Responsibilities. Bills. Debt. So much. Debt. But I put it aside. Dropped everything. To rush by her side. Like my father. Before me.

15.

I thought she might see a lawyer. Therapist. Doctor. Someone important. Special. Normal. Sane. No.

Instead, she visited a man named Dr. Philip G. Winchester, a metaphysical specialist. He dealt in the paranormal. Ghosts. Otherworldly entities. Dead fathers. Haunted drawers.

I scoffed.

Mom ignored.

I waited in the car. In a parking garage. Downtown. Seethed. Snoozed. Seethed. Listened to music. Seethed.

Before long, she returned. Knocked on the car windshield, all smiles. Motioned for me to roll down the window.

“He wants to talk to you,” she said.

“Who?”

“Dr. Winchester,” she said, matter-of-factly.

Like I should know that. Like everyone should know that. Everyone. On the planet. Should care.

“Why does he want to talk to me?”

“We need your support.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say. I didn’t think you would have a problem supporting me right now. I’m having a hard time, you know.”

“I know.”

“It’s so quiet there. At home.”

“I know.”

“Will you support me?”

A loaded question. Cocked. Ready to fire. I closed my eyes. Thought of my father. He would have hated this for me, I’m sure. He despised this kind of petty nonsense. Then again, what do I know about him? Anything? At all? Nothing? At all? I don’t know.

I nodded. Stepped out of the car. And followed Mom. Upstairs.

16.

Elevator ride. To the thirteenth floor. Our conversation:

“Why did you make me beg?” she asked.

“I didn’t make you beg,” I said.

In my own defense.

“You made me beg.”

“I did not.”

Silence.

“I did not,” I said again.

One-man defense. Mental and emotional fists up. Ready to fight.

“I wanted your support. All you had to do was show up. That’s all. I don’t understand the difficulty in that,” she said.

I didn’t take the bait. Didn’t bite. Kept quiet. Silent. Just rode the elevator. It was difficult. Not to lash out. Fight back. She hurt. Tremendously. I understood that. I got it. But I wasn’t the enemy. No. No. I was her son. Her friend. I was all she that had left of the man she loved. I was the reminder of his absence. Is this why she made me suffer?

It’s a possibility. A definite possibility. But I was too afraid to ask. Too afraid. Still am. And now. Now. I’ll never know.

17.

Dr. Winchester’s office impressed me. It was lavish. Expensive. Filled with unique items. Antiques. Trophies, he explained. From various global adventures. Statues. Relics. Trinkets. Ancient texts. Some of them frightening.

He believed in a lot of things. Subscribed to different theories. The Afterlife. God. Heaven. Hell. He said it all fit into a complex plan. One we’d never understand. Did he understand it? No. Never. Not until death.

His joke. Not mine.

We said down in his office. Mom to my right. Restless. Nervous. Fidgeting. Shaking her legs. The way Dad used to when he couldn’t sit still. When he needed to get outside and do something with his hands. Anything. To settle down.

“Where do we begin?” Mom asked.

“At the beginning,” Dr. Winchester replied with a smile.

A familiar line. Mom sighed. And began. She told her life story. Birth. Parents. Childhood. Dad. Marriage. Death.

Dr. Winchester looked at me. Sad smile. He knew. He understood. I didn’t fit into the story. Omitted. Cut for time. Extraneous. A deleted scene. His silent response confirmed my suspicions. Mom had collapsed into herself. Her transformation into a bitter widow was complete.

“So, you wish to bring him back,” the doctor asked.

“Yes, I do,” Mom replied.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t understand. They talked as though I wasn’t there. Absent. Invisible.

“Do you understand the terms?”

“Yes.”

“Did you read them from top to bottom?”

“I did.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“Say it again.”

“Yes.”

“And again.”

“Yes.”

With that, Dr. Winchester gave her a quick nod. He placed a small wooden box on his desk and slid it across to her. It looked expensive. Very expensive. I shuddered at the thought of his bill. Could Mom afford this?

“Take this,” he said.

She did.

“Open it in your house.”

“I will.”

“Follow the directions.”

“I will.”

“Then, you will wait.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

Dr. Winchester turned to me.

“Support her,” he said.

I nodded.

“Will you?” he asked.

I nodded again.

“Say it,” he demanded.

“Yes, I will support her,” I told him.

Mom smiled. I had no idea. No idea whatsoever. What she would ultimately do.

18.

Dead quiet. Pure silence. On the ride home. She didn’t say a word.

“Are we going to discuss it?” I finally asked.

“What?”

“That man.”

“No.”

“What about that box?”

“No.”

“Then why did I come?”

“Because I asked and I needed support.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

More silence. I wanted to punch her. God help me, I wanted to break her perfect white teeth. I’d officially reached the end of my limit. Pushed too far. Over the edge. Screaming. Toward the bottom. But I stayed silent. Bit my tongue. Hard. Until it bled. Down my throat. And back into my heart.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“A man,” she said in a flat tone.

“I figured that much.”

“Don’t sass.”

“I’m not.”

But I was. I wanted to know her intentions with that box. It looked like an expensive cigar container from a foreign land. But it was more. Much more. So much more.

Mom stuck her guns. Dug in her heels. Didn’t budge. We drove to my apartment in silence.

I opened the door. Got out. She sped away. Before I had a chance to close the door. I watched the car. Speed. Down the road. And we didn’t speak again.

For two months.

19.

I took that time to learn things. About Dr. Philip G. Winchester.

He spent some time in Nepal. Thailand. Taiwan. Researching. Studying. Ancient religions. Cults. Tribes. Things of that nature. At one of his many very expensive lectures, he talked about ghosts. Spirits. Haunted places. The stuff that surrounds us. He made declarations. Bold claims. About trapping spirits. Loved ones. From beyond the grave.

Miss your husband? Easy. Accept his help. Pay him money. And receive the box. Follow the directions. And wait. And wait. And wait. For your loved one to return.

That was mom’s plan laid bare. She wanted Dad back. Plain and simple. Not only to open drawers, but to linger there. Forever. In that house. Not Heaven. Or Hell. Limbo. Suburban purgatory. A brick-and-mortar jail for the dead.

I didn’t know how to react. What to say. So, I said nothing. Dr. Winchester was a con man. A predator.

She’d fallen for a charlatan’s game, but she wouldn’t listen to me. I let her have the box and her dreams. Dreams of Dad. Dead Dad. Resurrected. In a sense. Inside that house. Haunting it. Roaming in it. Invisible. Inside a house he hated. He must have hated it. He was so angry all the time. None of that mattered. None of it. Mom had the box. And the box would bring Dad.

20.

Over two months. Nine weeks. To be exact. Silence. No calls. No texts. No visits. No lunches. No dinners. Nothing.

Then, out of the blue, she called me. She was sobbing. She was crying. She was upset. I’d become Mr. Fix-It. Again.

“I’m so disappointed,” she cried.

“About what?” I ask.

No hello.

No “How are you?”

None of that. Mom thinks about herself. Only herself. All the time. It might not seem that way. To outsiders. But you can trace everything. Back to her.

“I am so disappointed,” she said again.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

She sounded like a three-year-old. Hurt. Wounded. Scared. Afraid. Alone.

“I tried the box,” she said, weeping. “I followed the instructions. But I must have done something wrong. I must have.”

“Dr. Winchester is a con man.”

“No, he isn’t.”

“He is.”

“Don’t say things like that.”

“How much did you pay him for that box?”

Silence.

Again: “How much did you pay him for that box?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“You made it my business.”

“How is this any of your business?”

“Because you brought me along.”

“Don’t start with me.”

“This is your problem.”

“Don’t hang up!”

“I’m not hanging up.”

“I need your help.”

“What do you need help with?”

“I need help with this box.”

“You want me to help you trap Dad?”

“That’s not what this is.”

“It’s exactly what this is.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because you bought a ghost trap, Mom. It’s a box that traps spirits. Dad is a spirit. He’s dead. He’s a ghost. You want him back.”

She cried harder. Angrier. I peeled away that flap of skin. The one that hid a delicate nerve. And I plucked it. Pinched it. I fucking bit into it.

“That’s not what this is,” she cried.

“I beg to differ,” I told her.

“Well, we don’t have to agree, do we? But you have to help me. I am your mother, okay? I am your mother. Remember?”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Help me.”

I said nothing.

“Help me,” she begged.

Again, nothing.

“Help me,” she continued.

She said it. Again. And again. And again. Over. And over. And over.

I closed my eyes.

“Okay, Mom,” I said. “I’ll help you.”

And help her. I did.

21.

On a cold winter night, I drove to Mom’s place. To capture my Dad. And imprison him inside his old home. I drove. Faster. Faster. To feel the rush of speed. The rush of risk. Anything. Anything. I needed it. I thought about things. A lot of things. Heaven. Hell. Literal. Figurative. Morality. Mortality.

I thought about the Bible. The Koran. The Torah. Religion. God. Would His Majesty approve? Would God think we were messing with His plan? Or, did he purposely leave behind these ancient instructions? Did he provide us with the source code? For the smart ones? The hurt? The lonely? The broken? Were these things left for us? To help? To cope? To survive? Are these things part of His great plan? His grand scheme? If not, then whose? Satan? Silliness. Pure silliness.

I held the wheel steady, my mind full of stereotypical religious imagery. Satan making evil plans. God looking the other way. Plain silliness. But my mind often goes there. Against my wishes. Lingers. Dwells. Obsesses.

What am I doing? Going to Mom’s place. Dabbling in metaphysical nonsense. What am I doing? Playing God’s game. Deciphering the code. Unraveling the mystery. Trapping spirits. Preventing them from moving on. What am I doing? What am I doing? That thought never left my mind. It stayed there, sat on the steering wheel. It became my sidekick. My godly co-pilot.

Jesus, let go of the goddamn wheel, please. But my car never wavered. It sliced through the night. Onward. To its inevitable destination.

22.

I pulled into the driveway. Took a breath. Stepped out of the car. Driveway. Another breath. Porch. Breathe, I thought. Breathe. Breathe. Doorbell. Doorbell. Deep breath. Doorbell.

After what seemed like forever, Mom finally answered. She was wearing her ratty pajamas and an unflattering bathrobe. She looked awful. Pitiful. Broken. Sad. Lonely. Very lonely. Was this the point? Was this a ploy? A plot? Did she want me to take pity on her? Did she want me to see this miserable visage and rush to her side? Wrap my arms around her? To help? To help trap Dad? To help trap Dad in this house? Forever?

It’s possible. I didn’t rule it out. But there I was. On the porch. At the front door. Finger on the doorbell. Willing. Able. To help.

“It’s cold,” she said through the front door. “I’m going to the living room. It’s unlocked. Let yourself in. Close and lock it behind you.”

23.

We sat in the living room. Silent. Tense.

She smoked. I didn’t. She offered me a cigarette. I declined.

Conversation:

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I want you to help me,” she replied.

“Help with what?”

“Your father.”

“What about him?”

“I want him back. I miss him.”

“I do, too.”

“But not like I do.”

I said nothing. What could I say?

“Not like I do,” she repeated.

It was a prompt. A nudge forward. I thought about what to say next. Did I lash out? Did I strike like a viper? Eviscerate her soul? Tear her world apart? Like a wounded dog? Like a wounded son? I bit my tongue. Again. Again.

I cleared my throat.

“Then I will help you,” I told her.

“Thank you,” she said.

Flat. Hollow. Did she mean it? Or did she expect it? I don’t know. I don’t know. Breathe.

She pointed to the table.

“The instructions Dr. Winchester gave me are over there,” she explained. “I tried to follow them. I guess I screwed things up. You know me.”

I stood up. Walked to the table. Awkward. Unrehearsed. I gasped. His instructions. Looked like torture. Torment. At luxury prices.

24.

I saw the box. And a scalpel. Ancient documents. Texts. An ornate bowl. Writings. Scribblings. Horror movie props? Surely. Maybe. They looked so real. And then I looked again. Gasped. Unrehearsed.

“Are you kidding me right now? This is the stuff Dr. Winchester gave you? It looks like a goddamn suicide kit,” I shouted.

“Language!” Mom scolded.

“It looks like you’re a budding lunatic.”

“These are tools.”

“Of madness.”

“What?”

“Madness, Mom. Tools of madness.”

“They are not.”

“Then what are they?”

“Tools.”

“Tools of what?”

“Communication!” she screamed.

And then I saw it. That look of desperation. The veneer cracked. Shattered. Scattered across the floor. Pathetic. Pathetic. Pathetic. And sad. So very sad.

“You think you’re going to get dad back with this stuff? And you honestly believe these stupid toys will help you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re mad.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. You know, Dad was crazy…”

“No…”

“I’m obviously crazy…”

“No…”

“And you’re crazy.”

“No!”

She shouted the word over and over and over and over again as she charged me. Knocked me against the table. Spilled those sad tools. Pathetic tools. Pathetic. Sad. Pathetic. Those pathetic instruments. All across the floor.

“Don’t say that. We’re not crazy.”

Winded, I said, “Yes, we are.”

She cried. I hated that sound. Hated it. With a passion. Always have. Always will. I sighed. Stood up. Hugged her.

“What do you need me to do?” I asked.

Pathetic. Me. Pathetic.

“Help me.”

“Do what?”

“Reconnect.”

“With me?”

“No.”

Pause.

“Your father.”

Of course.

25.

Of course. I felt like a fool. Not us. Not her living son. No. Her husband. Her dead husband. She sat at the table. I gathered the tools. Set them before her.

“What did you do? Or, I should ask, what didn’t you do? We will follow these instructions to the letter. If that’s what you want,” I said.

Mom smiled. A genuine smile. Dad was on the horizon. Reconnection. Reunion. But at what price? Did she think I would come back here? For dinner? For holidays? Family vacations? No. I wanted no part of her growing madness. Even if it worked, I had no intention of returning to my childhood home after that night. Ever.

Until she died. And it was my turn. To throw things out. Sell possessions. Make hard decisions. Part ways. Say goodbye.

26.

We sat around the table. With the instruments. Tools. From Dr. Winchester. A scalpel. Bowl. Wooden chopping block. Instructions. Documents. Tools. Tools of madness. Tools of desperation. Loneliness. Sadness. Desperation. Desperation. Desperation.

“These are the instructions?” I asked after reading Dr. Winchester’s ancient text. “This is what that con man told you to do?”

“He said to follow the instructions,” she told me.

“These instructions?”

“Yes. Those instructions.”

“This is sick.”

“I did what he told me to do.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Show me your left hand.”

She didn’t.

“Show me your left hand,” I demanded.

No movement. Nothing.

“Show me your left goddamn hand,” I commanded.

Mom held it up. Reluctantly. All five fingers. Intact.

“You didn’t remove the tip of your left index finger,” I told her, smirking. “If you want to do this, do it right, I say. Am I right?”

Was I? I don’t know.

“I can’t do that,” she said.

“Why not?”

“It will hurt.”

“So, what do you want me to do?”

“Cut off your finger.”

“What?”

“It asks for a piece of a blood relative.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re his son.”

“But…”

“But what?”

I stopped. Hesitated. Tried to find the right words. Searched. Dug deep. Deep. I couldn’t. I couldn’t find them. So, I said it anyway.

“I don’t want him back,” I blurted out. “He’s haunting you. He visited you. Not me. If you want him, you make the sacrifice. Not me.”

She screamed. Instantly. Indecipherable words. Immediately. Rushed down the dark hallway. Screaming. Crying. Slammed the door. Hard. Defiant. Enraged. She hid inside the bedroom. And wouldn’t open the door.

27.

Seconds. Minutes. Hours. How many hours? I cannot say. But she stayed there. Inside the room. Crying. Wailing. Cursing my name. Calling for her dead husband. Her dead friend. Her only friend.

I sat outside the door, trying to apologize. My words fell on deaf ears. She didn’t want to hear anything. Just kept crying. So, I sat there. At the end of a long, dark hallway. Waiting. For the crying. And wailing. And name-calling. To stop. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Again, I cannot say. At around two in the morning, she opened the bedroom door. Her eyes red, her face streaked with tears. She looked undone.

“I’m sorry,” I told her.

“I know,” she said.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know. Make it up to me.”

“How?”

She looked at my hand.

“My hand?” I asked.

“Your finger.”

“My finger? Are you serious?”

“Very serious.”

Cold. As ice. Her voice, dead. Her eyes, vacant.

Mom meant business. Serious business. I remembered those looks from my childhood. It was when she became someone else. Someone to fear.

“My finger?”

“Your finger.”

I don’t know why I caved. I cannot say why. But I did. God help me. I did.

28.

I had nightmares. All the time. As a child. I would cry out at night. Screaming.

“Mom!” I’d shout.

Not Dad. Mom. Mom. Mom. Always Mom. Like clockwork, she’d rush in, listen for the hideous breathing coming from the closet. She would soothe my fears. And smile. Then I would go back to bed. Sometimes I would sleep. Sometimes I would lie there. Crying. Sobbing as quietly as possible. I thought about the future. Mom, dead. Dad, dead. Me, alone. And I cried.

“Mom!” I’d shout again.

She’d return.

“I’m having nightmares,” I’d lie.

In a way, they were nightmares. They were terrors, fears of what was to come. I worried about the future. All the time. All. The. Time. I didn’t want the future. God could keep it. I prayed. And prayed.

“Keep the future, God.”

I would say it a hundred times. Over. And over. Thinking the quantity would make it real. Make it happen. But He didn’t listen. Typical. Instead, the days kept coming. One. Two. Three hundred. More. More. More.

And then I found myself. In the mirror. Middle-aged. Balding. Old. One parent in the ground. And losing the other. To grief. To madness.

29.

Forgive me. Everyone. Friends. Family. You. Especially you. Forgive me. You can blame her. Sure. Her mental illness. Yes. She bears some of the fault. But I am the one who carried this through. I am the one who completed the ritual that night. I brought it to completion. Me. Not her. Me. Under her thumb. Sure. Under her watchful eye. Yes. But I did it. Me. Not her. Me. Even now. I protect her. Forgive me. For this. Forgive me. For protecting her. Forgive me. Forgive me.

30.

Off went the tip of my index finger. Mom smiled. Pleased. Satisfied. One step completed. Two more to go. My finger bled. Wouldn’t stop. Mom handed me a tissue. I took five. Tried not to scream. Show weakness. I put the tissues on the tip of my finger. The blood soaked right through, so I added more. And more. And more. Then, I used a rubber band to hold them on. Instant tourniquet. Poor man’s first aid.

I got dizzy. Sat down. Took a breath. Another. And another.

“You’ll hyperventilate,” Mom said.

Like she cared.

“I’ll pass out one way or another,” I retorted.

“Well, don’t.”

“Thanks for your concern.”

“It will all be for nothing.”

“Again, thanks.”

“Do you want me to lie?”

“I want compassion.”

“Do you want me to lie?”

“I want you to care, even for a moment.”

Pause.

“Do you want me to lie?” she asked again.

Forget it. I regarded the tip of my finger in the bowl. It looked weird. Alien. Once upon a time, it had a home on my body. But no longer. Now it was on its own. Braving the unknown. The occult. In a bowl. Sitting on my dead grandfather’s table. Inside my dead father’s house. Poor finger. Poor tip. Deep breath. Another. Just breathe. Breathe.

Don’t stop breathing, I thought.

I looked at Mom. She smiled. All teeth. When they smile with their teeth. Like little white lies, all lined up. They don’t love you.

31.

I took Latin in high school. Remembered some of it. Not much. But some. The instructions claimed to be in Latin. According to Dr. Winchester, these texts date back thousands of years. Maybe more. Who knows?

It was probably bullshit. Nonsense. But all that remains. Today. Is the Latin translation. I remembered Latin. That wasn’t Latin. Far from it.

But I tried my best. I said the words aloud. Feeling stupid. While Mom cried. Wept. Dried her eyes. Wept some more. And when I finished, she applauded. I remember her doing this during my years in the elementary school band. Her, the proud parent. Me, the bashful student. With my clarinet. In my Sunday best. Before the whole school. Of giggling classmates. Playing “The Saints Come Marching In.” Proud parent. Bashful son.

And there I stood. Man. Middle-aged. Old. Balding. Performing for her once again. A ritual this time. But a performance nonetheless. And with the ancient text recited, I had completed the second step. All that remained was the final phase. The final step. The final sacrifice.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked.

“I am sure,” she said.

Cold. Distant. Desperate. And with that. I continued.

32.

The text outlined instructions. Specific instructions. To ensnare. To harness. To trap. The intended spirit. Including the removal of a weakness. A singular flaw. Something you hate. About yourself.

I looked at Mom. She smiled. A warm smile. Genuine. She didn’t care what it cost. She didn’t care about my pain. She wanted Dad, plain and simple. Nothing more, nothing less.

If I suffered? So be it. If I bled? So be it.

I wondered. I wanted to know. How far she would have gone. I know the extent. I saw the line. And I watched her push me over it. Scalpel in hand. But I wondered if she would trade me for him. Would she swap a son for a husband? A devoted servant for a life-long lover?

I wondered. I still wonder. I took a deep breath. Gripped the scalpel. Tight. Knuckles white. Bit my tongue. And shoved the blade into my lazy eye. I screeched, uncontrollable. Primal. The sound came out on its own. I had no choice. No control.

Mom covered her mouth.

“My son,” she whispered.

But she did not stop me. No movement. Nothing. I had passed the point of no return. I twisted the scalpel. Yelled. Screamed. Bled. Fell to my knees. Blood everywhere. Face. Clothes. Floor. Gushing.

“No, stop,” she finally said.

Too late. Much too late. Mom. Too late. I twisted the blade. Screamed. Twisted. Took a deep breath. My lazy eye. Ruined. My flaw.

For you, Mom. For you.

33.

I passed out. Into the darkness. I fell. Reeling. Spinning. Screaming. Agony. Suffering.

Then…

It faded. And I stood alone. In the void. With my father.

He smiled. And I smiled. And we smiled. And he hugged. And I hugged. And we hugged. I felt his warmth. Realized how much I missed it. Forgotten already. His size. His hugs. But wait. Wait. Wait. No. I didn’t remember that sensation. Because I never felt it. As a child. I remember his coldness, his solitude. His demands. I remember thinking Dad was something to fear. A stranger under the roof.

He wasn’t my hero. My savior. My friend. My pal. Buddy. Mentor. Role model. He was that guy. Who married my mom. And created me.

I remember his anger, that furious temper. I remember living in fear of which version we’d get at the end of the day. Mean? Cold? Indifferent? Anyone’s guess. We didn’t know.

My mom and I. We’d wait. For him to return from work. And we’d eat dinner. Together. At the dining room table. Sometimes it was good. Others, bad. But no hugs. No. No hugs. No. None. This void. With Dad. Was a lie. A goddamn lie.

34.

Floating. Listless. Lazy. In this void. I can remember. I can recall. A bowling alley. A table. Giggling friends. I am told by a little red-haired girl that I am cross-eyed. I laughed, thought they were joking. No, my mom said. You have a lazy eye. A lazy eye. A joke. A constant joke. In my life. Why didn’t she tell me sooner? Why hide it? Why not prepare me? Why? Why? Why subject me to humiliation? Why didn’t she prepare me? Why?

“I didn’t think it was important,” she told me.

But it was. It was. Very important. It became a running joke. For years. Through school. Jobs. Relationships. Everything. My biggest flaw. Biggest physical flaw, anyway.

Destroyed. I writhed. In agony. As a result. Of my decision.

And Mom couldn’t have been happier.

35.

Washcloth. Held to my damaged eye. Almost in the socket. I blacked in and out. Like an old television set. Trying to catch an elusive station. Airing a drama. About a family falling apart. I fought bad signals. Static. And then the picture cleared.

I saw Mom standing in the middle of the living room. She stared down the hallway, mouth agape.

“Do you hear it?” she asked.

“Hear what,” I said from the floor.

“The banging.”

“Banging?”

“Yes, the banging.”

“Where?”

“From the bedroom.”

I stopped. Listened. Nothing.

“I don’t hear anything,” I told her.

“It’s there,” she said.

“I don’t hear it.”

“Wait.”

We waited.

“Wait,” she repeated.

Waited. And then I heard it.

A faint banging. From the bedroom.

“He’s back.”

I felt pain. Shame. I suffered. Hurt. I wanted my mom. But no. She wanted my dad. And no one else.

36.

Mom crept down the dark hallway. Didn’t help me. Didn’t check on me. Didn’t ask if I was okay. Not a thing. No concern. No care. Walked away. I pulled myself up. Stumbled. Fell to my knees. Tried again. And again. By the time I finally joined her at the end of the hall, she was slowly reaching for the door knob to the bedroom.

“Should I?” she asked.

Stupid question. Was this all for nothing? If she didn’t indulge, what was the point?

“Yes,” I told her.

“Are you sure?”

My eye oozed. Throbbed. Pain. Suffering. Hurt. Physical. And mental.

I wanted to point to my wounds. The injuries I made to bring this to fruition. I wanted to scream at her. Shove them in her face. Stain her nightgown. But I didn’t. I held back. A coward. Like always.

“Yes,” I told her. “You should.”

She gripped the knob. Turned. The door open. She gasped.

37.

At first, nothing. Silence. Sweet silence. The room sat empty. Motionless. We peered. She, eager. Me, wary. Into the darkness. Moonlight cut through the curtains. Illuminated the scene. Faintly. Whatever had been making the noise had settled down. Nothing moved. Nothing stirred. Everything in its proper place. Mom sighed.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Nothing?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she repeated.

I wobbled. Pain receptors blinked off and on. Off and on. My body slipped into self-preservation mode. Did its best to keep me conscious. We stood still. Mom and I. And waited for the banging to return.

“Was it one of the cats?” I asked.

“No, the cats were in there with us.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Mom pointed down the hall.

There, at the other end, sat both of her precious felines. Both looked terrified beyond belief. They, too, had heard the banging.

“I don’t know what to think,” I told her.

“I don’t either,” she agreed.

“Did we do it wrong?”

“Should we do the ritual again?”

I looked at her. A joke? No. No signs of humor. None. She was serious. Dead serious.

“I am not doing this again.”

“Why not?”

I removed the washcloth from my mangled eye. I don’t know what Mom saw, exactly, but I know she didn’t like it.

“I understand,” she said.

“Do you?”

“Yes, I understand.”

With that, we turned away from the bedroom. Ready to admit defeat. But then we heard it. The banging. Mom’s face lit up.

“He’s here!” she exclaimed.

38.

He’s here. Her words. Not mine. He’s here. He’s here. He’s here. Over. And over. Again. Mom looked like a young girl on her sixth birthday. She clapped her hands. She jumped up and down. It seemed so surreal. So childlike. Pathetic.

I leaned against the wall. The bleeding wouldn’t stop. My eye socket throbbed. Finger tip ached. Head felt too full. Of emotions. Pain. I wanted to pass out. But I didn’t. Consciousness held on. For dear life. I leaned against the wall, watching the dresser door open and close, open and close. I watched it with my one good eye. Mom rushed to the drawer. Leaned against it. Sobbed.

“I’ve missed you,” she told my father.

The drawer closed. Opened. Closed. Again. Again. Deep. Erotic. I closed my eye. I felt uneasy. Like I was viewing something I shouldn’t see. A late-night softcore movie designed for the deeply grieved and impossibly lonely.

Mom broke my meditation. Invaded my space. Took my hand.

“Come,” she beckoned.

“Say hello to your father.”

I wanted to run. To scream. To die.

39.

I’d run out of patience. Completely. Tank ran dry. I jerked my hand away. Angry. Fearful.

“No,” I told her. “I’m done here.”

“Please,” she begged.

“No,” I said again.

“Please.”

“No. I don’t need this.”

“But you do.”

“I don’t.”

“You need this as much as me.”

I felt insulted. I am nothing like her. I will never be anything like her. I will go to great lengths to avoid that. At great pains. I am not my mother. I am not my father. I am me. I’ve cataloged their mistakes. Missteps. I have volumes. Of reference material. A roadmap. To how life shouldn’t be. And I will follow that. Instead.

Mom always liked to look the other way. As such, she couldn’t see that I hurt. That I couldn’t stand on my own two feet. Literally. Figuratively. But still she tugged. Pulled.

“Please,” she said.

Eyes watering. Tears flowing.

“Please,” she said again. “Please.”

I fought against her. I did. I tried. But in the end. I gave in. As always. And stepped inside the bedroom.

40.

Mom guided me. Toward the dresser. I felt like I did during my baptism. Scared. Confused. Pressured. Forced. Rewind. I am ten years old. I didn’t understand anything. But that didn’t matter. Mom wanted it. Grandmother wanted it. Family wanted it. So they dunked me in a shallow pool of holy water. The godly liquid went up my nose, made me cough. Everyone chuckled. The holy spirit. Working through my nostrils.

Behold. Behold! The power of God.

I stood there. Grinning. Unrehearsed. Holy water. Coming out of my face. Preacher’s hand on my lower back. Lower. Lower. And those feelings flooded back into my head. God smelled an opportunity to show His power once again.

I am here, He said. Remember that feeling? I am still here. But you have forsaken me. And I have forsaken you. So Mom pushed me. Toward that drawer. Which opened. To accept my love.

41.

“Say hello.” Mom said.

“Say hello to your father.”

The drawer opened wider. Wider.

“Say hello.”

“Hi,” I said.

“No,” she scolded. “Put your hand inside.”

“Why?”

“That’s what he wants.”

“Why does he want that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then why should I do it?”

“Because he wants it.”

Sound logic, to her. Mom smiled.

“How do you know this?” I asked.

“Because he told me,” she whispered.

“When?”

“Now.”

“Just now?”

“Yes, just now,” she said, growing impatient. “This is what we wanted. Say hello. He’s missed us. Can you feel it?”

“Did he say that?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

“I do.”

“How?”

“Do it. Please. Now.”

Wide smile. Dead. Wide eyes. Dead.

She pushed again. I stumbled forward. Couldn’t fight. Resist. My body didn’t have much to give at that point. Everything started to turn black. Will, broken. Body, fading.

I kept one hand on the top of the dresser. The other in the air. Away from the drawer. Away from the father-mouth.

“Go on,” she insisted.

“Say hello?” I asked.

“Say hello.”

“By putting my hand in here?”

“By putting your hand in there.”

I nodded. Took a breath. Prepared. To say hello.

42.

I never said goodbye to my father. He was pretty much dead. When I arrived at the hospital. A sack of meat. On a respirator. Mechanical inhale. Dead dad. Mechanical exhale. Dead dad. Over. And over. I sat next to mom. A woman I didn’t know stood beside me. She rubbed my back like a mother should. Like a mother’s supposed to do. Mom didn’t. She was sobbing. Lost in her own world.

Ten minutes later, the doctor bowed his head.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

Just like that. Worlds ended. Mom wailed. I cried. Quiet. Reserved. Mom stood. Crossed the room. Kissed my father on the forehead.

“Oh, baby,” she told him.

I sat there.

“Do you want to say something to him?” Mom asked.

I shook my head. Why? I thought. He’s a meat sack. Mechanical inhale. Dead dad. Mechanical exhale.

Dead dad.

“You should say something to him,” she said in a stern voice. “This is the last time you will ever see him. The last time.”

Everyone looked at me. Doctors. Nurses. The stranger with her hand on my back.

Mechanical inhale. Dead dad. Mechanical exhale. Dead dad.

“Say something!” Mom screamed.

I sat there.

“Say something!”

43.

I placed my right hand in the drawer. Waited. And waited.

“Say hello,” Mom instructed.

I felt stupid. So stupid. Beyond stupid. I looked at the drawer. And felt something look back. I can’t explain it. Won’t explain it. But from the darkness, I felt it watching me. It judged me. Whatever was inside didn’t feel friendly. It didn’t feel welcoming. But it did feel like my father. In a way. In a weird way.

“Say hello,” Mom insisted.

It wasn’t him. But it was him. Except darker. Meaner. Colder.

“Say hello.” I knew my father. “Say hello.” I could sense him. “Say hello.” When he would come home from work. “Say hello.” Stressed out. “Say hello.” Bitter. “Say hello.” Angry. “Say hello.” Vengeful. “Say hello.” Disappointed. “Say hello.”

I knew his darkness; it is in me as well. In time, I understood his coldness. I could feel when he hated my mom and me for being around. In the house. That he hated. With every fiber. I knew my father. And I didn’t know him. At all. And this wasn’t him. At least, not anymore.

“Say hello.”

I closed my eyes.

“Hello, father.”

The drawer closed on my hand. And I screamed.

44.

Mom screamed. I screamed. We screamed. And the drawer kept closing. Harder. And harder. My wrist broke. Harder. Then my fingers. Harder. Bones shattered. Harder. I felt my hand go limp. It disconnected from the system. Shut down. A dozen times the drawer abused my hand before I finally slipped free. Overcome with pain, I fell backward.

Onto the floor. Eye, oozing. Hand, throbbing. Life, spiraling downward. I laid there. Hyperventilating.

Staring at the ceiling. Of my old bedroom. That now belonged to my mother. Meanwhile…

She cried. Again. She sobbed. Again. Instead of comforting me, she rushed to the drawer. Held it. Cradled it. Said nurturing, loving things to it.

“What did you do?”

I thought she was talking to the drawer. No. She was speaking to me.

“Me?” I asked.

“Yes, you.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You must have done something.”

“No.”

“Said something.”

“No.”

“He always regretted you.”

“I know.”

“He didn’t want to be a father.”

“I know.”

“Didn’t know how.”

“I know.”

“And he resented you.”

“I know.”

“And me for giving birth to you.”

“I know.”

She cuddled the drawer, and it purred contently. Gurgled its approval. But I stand behind my assessment. That wasn’t my father. At least, not in the way that I remember. He’d become twisted. Demented. I could feel it. In my broken bones.

45.

I started to say something. Tell her how I felt. What I knew to be true. But what could I say? I wanted to protest. Would she listen? No. Never. Never. Too far gone. Lost to me. Truly lost. So I pushed myself off the floor. Wobbled down the hall. Bleeding. Opened the front door. Waited. I could hear her speaking to it. Lovingly. A devoted wife. To the drawer. The father-thing. I sighed. Stepped outside. And closed the door behind me. Forever.

I wandered through the tonight. To an empty bus stop. By myself. With one good eye. I looked at the moon. Full. Bright. I turned my attention to the late-night traffic. All those people, on their way to exciting destinations. Exciting adventures. And I saw a car.

Time seemed to slow. To a crawl. I spied a man and woman in the front seats. A child in the back. Lonely. Miserable. They laughed. He looked out the window. At me. And waved.

And I sat there.

A bitter son. A jilted child. An angry man. All alone. And I screamed at the car. The child. The parents.

In protest of it all.

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Wesley Nyx published in Horror, Original Stories, Story Hub

“A Monster Story: What Once Was” by S.A. Moore

How long had he been down here? The earthy smell of the dirt was like second nature. On the rare days when the wind picked up, he could almost smell the trees. The smell was foreign. He used to love the smell. Now he hated it. It reminded him of the warmth and light of the sun. He shielded his eyes at the thought. How long had it been? He could still see the etching in the sky, but he couldn’t remember how it moved. Was it always there? How did they live above with the constant bother?

Shards of dirt fell near his feet. His feet were grotesque and the wrong color. When had they changed? He couldn’t remember. It had happened so fast. It had been too long ago. His clawed fingers poked and prodded, picking through the dry crumbles along the ground. Something small and warm wiggled free. He skewered it. It made no sound. Did all things die so quietly? More dirt fell. Footsteps thudded above him. Another alien smell wafted through his nostrils. His claws guided the struggling thing to his mouth. He opened wide, exposing sharp teeth before slicing the thing in half. It tasted like nothing. He remembered sweet tastes and sour taste. This tasted like neither. He swallowed the two halves down into his stomach. It growled. Or was that him?

A shower of dirt fell again. What were they doing above him? His eyes scanned the enclosure. It was dark, but he could see everything. They had been there for a while. He wasn’t sure what they were doing. He wasn’t sure what they were. Something that lived with the sun. He shuddered to think of the wicked creatures. Dirt hit him in his eye. It stung. He blinked to clear the abrasive substance. Did they not know he lay down below? His hands picked another thing from the growing pile below him. His hand was also the wrong color. The wrong color for what, though? He knew it was different before. It had been smaller. The worm tasted the same. It was larger, but he still took the two halves in a lazy gulp.

He moved away from the cascade. Three sections of what he called home had previously collapsed. He wasn’t sure when. He couldn’t keep track of something so small. He didn’t know days. He slept when he tired and woke when he wasn’t. He ate when he was hungry. It was a simple life. His mind tingled when he tried to remember what it had been before. There was a time when he could fly. Not with his own body, but somehow, he flew. It was too hard to remember that now. He touched his belly. It was hard. A memory of the smaller things he had seen in the dirt came to him. Did he used to call them something? He was sure they had a name. The tunnel collapsed. His head swam from the impact. What was going on?

***

“General Graman, sir.” 

The General turned from his thoughts. Beside him Scriber Lintel busied himself with work only he knew. Everyone around the place new him better as Paper, which was a play on archaic forms of scribing. No one had used trees for paper in over a hundred years. With such an uninspired crew, Neil Thompson found it surprising anyone even remembered the process. 

“Sir, it is urgent that we discuss a certain matter.” 

The General held aloft his index finger. A tiny signal, but easily picked up by Paper who was intoned to such displays. The specialized VenoPen halted in mid-stroke. A pad with the capabilities to send notes over thousands of light years balanced on Paper’s open palm. 

There were things beyond Neil’s paygrade and the thought of how that thing worked was one of them. All he knew for sure was that Paper transcribed each day on Vobis and sent back home to Earth. What they did with the information or why they cared could stay their problem.  

The General eyed Neil, deciding if he wanted to have this conversation. What he saw was a head of dirty brown hair that was uncombed. Neil hadn’t cut his hair in over six months. He barely bothered with it at all. Keeping it dirt free was enough of a task.

“Report,” said the General. 

Neil looked around. People filled every inch of the communal area. They all pretended complete interest in their daily chores, but Neil could see the shift in their eyes as he spoke.

“If I could request a walk, sir?”

The General sighed. Lintel placed his pen in the side holder of the VenoPad. The General didn’t miss this action. 

“No, Lintel, walk behind. I must finish the notes.” 

Lintel nodded, and Neil fell into a slow stride beside them both. The General rattled off a set of issues while holding a finger for Neil to wait his turn. 

“Six trapped in section 4, have a team of rescue workers trying to extract them now. The air vents are clear and should provide clean oxygen for at least three days. Hope to have them safely in their bunks far before that time.”

The VenoPen glided over the device. It made absolutely no sound. The light sent by the pen evaporated into the screen. 

“No reports of Richard Clarkson, head biologist. Have continued to receive reports from Jennifer Daily in biology.”

Neil knew Jennifer. She was a middle-aged ecologist. She had long, wavy brown hair. Brown eyes with a hint of green in the middle. She was everything Neil loved about women-which is why he married someone exactly like her back home on Earth, but that was over seventy-five light years away. Here, all he had to look forward to daily was Jennifer Daily. He shook his head. He had a wife and an unborn child. Well, unborn when he had left. He supposed it was more likely a year old now. Aside from that, Jennifer also had a husband and two kids.

“There seems to be no hostile life upon the planet. As has been the case for the past two months. We have witnessed nothing larger than a small dog. The creature is strange to look at, but it remains docile.” 

The General talked about what the men called snuffles. A small red and brown scaled lizard-like creature. There were thousands of them upon the surface of the planet. Though only the exploring team went above ground anymore. The mining team hollowed out over a hundred feet of tunnels and paths within the first month. The issued machines were amazing. They cut through dirt and rock like melted butter. Now, the grates of the metal pathways echoed beneath his army-issued boots.

     Neil tried not to show the boredom on his face, but he guessed he had failed in the attempt. General Garman looked at him with saggy, tired eyes.

“Is this report not important enough for you, Neil?”

Neil tried to feign surprise. He failed at this as well. 

“Oh no, sir. I am sure it is of grave importance. It’s just, I don’t quite care about the knowledge I already have attained.”

The General smirked. “I forget sometimes how forward you miners can be. Shoot your report, Neil. Lintel do not transcribe unless I order it.” The pen halted. Lintel’s red-faced betrayed his embarrassment. “I suppose you already wrote those words?” The nod was slow. “Great, now when the call comes from home you can answer.” Lintel looked down at his feet. The General knew full well Lintel could not access the direct line, and Neil doubted they would waste the time for such a trivial thing anyhow. “Well, Neil? I don’t have all day.” 

Neil snapped from his daydreaming. 

 “Yes, sorry, sir. I have been down in the mining pits all day today, with the men. We have heard strange noises from the old corridors. The ones we blocked off over a month ago. Men say it sounds like a man on the growler.”

The General held up his hand. “Just what is a growler?”

Neil should have remembered the correct term. It became a habit to use the talk of his men. “The latrine, sir.”

The General shook his head. “Very well, carry on.”

Neil tucked the lesson of words into his memory bank. “Sir, what I mean is, it is loud, and grunts have been echoing through the dark. Also, on another note, we have found droppings of something larger than the lizard-like creatures. My men have claimed to not make them. I suggest having Miss. Daily have a look.”

 The General bit the inside of his cheek. Neil waited for a reply. “Yes, I suppose she should.” The General turned to Paper. The man lifted his eyes and stood straight, ready for his orders. It was sad to see.

Lintel James Monroe was a man with a dream. At twenty-three, they offered him hyper travel. He accepted without knowledge of his duties. His days as a space explorer were short dreamed, now he was unnoticeable without his VenoPad. 

“Lintel, I want you to find Miss. Daily and notify her to report to Neil at the mining pits. Tell her this could be crucial. So, I appreciate her every effort to comply hastily.”

Jennifer had a habit of waiting until the last minute for things. She had never wanted to get aboard the flight, Sk1001:, it was her debt that decided for her. Lintel’s hand flew to his chest. The correct salute for acknowledgment of the task; the General turned to Neil. 

“Anything else?” Neil shook his head. “Then I shall return to my duties.” 

Neil nodded. He had not saluted. He wasn’t a soldier. He was a miner.

***

Jennifer Daily sat crossed legged upon a flat pillow. She had practiced meditation for fifteen years. She still practiced because she could never quite get it down. She sighed and flicked her hand to the near table, grabbing a long cylinder before lighting it between her lips. Her next sigh was of pleasure. Who needed meditation when you had a cigarette? She inhaled again, letting out a puff of smoke. 

“Does that mean we are done already?” 

Across from Jennifer sat the biggest man she had ever seen. Though saying he was a gentle giant would not do his docile side justice. With hands like a regular man’s head, he refused to kill a bug. Jennifer let the smoke swirl around her. It soothed her like nothing else. She knew it was bad, but so were a lot of other things. ‘Enjoy things while you are alive’, she always said. Though she always tried those healthy things first; they just never worked. 

“Sash, we are finished forever with this junk.” His eyes belayed the hurt. She hated how easily he fell to emotion. She was supposed to be the woman. “Oh, come off it. I will be ready again tomorrow.” 

He quickly found his smile. What a lumbering wreck. She took another quick drag and snuffed out the end on the table beside her. She was supposed to be working right now, but she hated this planet. The sun here was too hot. It made her skin sticky and her clothes heavy. 

“Want to hear a poem?” The joy on his voice was like a child. 

Did this man really exist? She could not imagine being such a pansy. If she was that big, she would have ruled this ship. Turned the thing around and gone home. Home, she thought. She wouldn’t even have a home if it wasn’t for this place. She refrained from lashing out. She knew he meant no harm. 

“Not right now, Sash. I have to get back to work.” 

He tried to hide the sorrow, but she could see right through him. 

The knock on her door saved her. She always caved to the cries. She stood and stretched the sleep from her legs. There was still plenty of youth left in her at only thirty-five but traveling in the ship had worn her down. When she opened the door, sliding it by the knob on the side, Paper stood eagerly on the other side. He was a tiny young man with a boyish frame; she envied his hopeful disposition. 

“What?” She was usually more polite, but right now she didn’t feel like it. 

His face didn’t shift. He didn’t care how polite she was. She liked that. She knew he hated this place just about as much as her deep down, even if he failed to show it.

“General Garman has requested your presence in the mining pits. Neil has found something of interest.” 

Neil Thompson, she thought. Thoughts of shaggy brown hair, corded muscles filling our long arms, and those light brown eyes. She bit her lip in concentration. 

“Did you hear me, Jennifer?” 

Her thoughts came rushing back to her room. She had a husband and two kids. No matter how much the flirting turned her on. 

“Yes, I will gather my things.” 

Lintel nodded. He then turned and made his way down the hall. Jennifer cringed. She hated the mining pits. What had those idiots found?

***

“One more, then I’m done.” This was the fifth or sixth time he repeated that same sentence. The man across from him looked frustrated but complied. He had to comply. Had to keep the captain happy. Who else could fly him off this heat bubble? He jerked forward. He wasn’t tired. It was the damn alcohol eating at him again. He pounded the small shot glass full of amber whiskey. It tasted horrible. He spat on the floor next to him. The man in front of him ground his teeth. Never would he say a word. Captain Jones Clifton smiled. “One more.” His hand shook as he reached across the bar. Maybe that was his vision that shook. He wasn’t sure. His hand found the small glass and his head tilted back. The contents burned all the way down. Why did he drink this crap? It tasted like death.

Again, his head swooned. Throat muscles swallowed tightly. Was he going to puke? Trying to prevent a disaster, he held his breath. The feeling slowly passed. A loud burp came instead. 

“One more.” 

Someone sat down next to him. The bar was made for the mining workers, but the captain spent more time here than anyone else. The alcohol was proposed to keep the miners placated, but Clifton drowned his sorrows just as well. His arm felt heavy, but he grabbed another glass and sloshed the contents down his throat. He turned to the man sitting next to him. 

“That is horrible!” He let his breath wash across the man’s face. The smell of whiskey was strong.

     “Maybe you have had enough?” 

Clifton stopped grinning. He had to stop to focus his eyes. He couldn’t do both at once anymore. The swimming image of the man before him slowed. He knew the face. Adam Harvey. The men called him Rawhide. He was older than the hills, but still looked like a young man. Crazy what that space air could do for a person.

     “I think I will have another.” The captain tried to place his hand on the counter, but it thudded with weight behind it. He chuckled. He could barely control his own body.

     “Have you heard, Captain?”

Rawhide grabbed his attention. He tossed the drink down his chin. Spilling it all down the front of his shirt; he didn’t bother to wipe it away. He couldn’t feel it anyhow.

“Hear what?” What kind of ploy did old Rawhide have?

Staring at him with disgust and contempt, Rawhide maintained a casual tone. “Neil Thompson may have found a new species. Something big they are saying.”

     That was the news?

 “I will have another.” Adam looked away. “

I hope it eats the whole shitty lot of them,” said the captain.

 Adam redirected his attention back to Clifton. He let a smile cross his face. “Let’s hope not, captain. Then who would you have to drink with?”

 Clifton grabbed the shot glass and downed the liquid. He thought to himself, hopefully nobody.

***

Clawing and scraping he rose to his feet. These were his feet, right? They had to be. They looked so different, but different from what? The dirt still showered the enclosure. It was impossible to go back the way he had come. The pain in his head added to the pain in his stomach. He lurched forward, sticking his grotesque hand into the dirt wall. His claws dug deep into the sodden texture. He used the wall to hold himself straight. It took a minute, or what he thought was a minute. What was a minute? He seemed to forget more and more. His head cleared. He could stand on his own again. His claws loosened from the wall. Four deep crevices remained. They filled with dripping water. His hand reached up, cupping the substance. It burned to touch. He moved retracted in pain. What was it? His mouth felt dry, so he put his lips to the dripping liquid. His stomach lurched. He let out a yelp. It sounded like a growl. The surrounding dirt shook. When had he become so loud?

     His hands cupped his ears. The sound of his own grunting hurt them. He didn’t like sound. Something whispered down the tunnel. He looked. It was pitch black, but he could see. Far down the tunnel were lights. They crept across his vision. He froze. Was it some kind of monster? He slipped behind another wall. This tunnel was narrow. His shoulders scraped and stuck against the rough walls.

  He was almost running. The lights faded. He slowed. Turning his head, he watched the opening. What was down here with him? Where was he? He hadn’t always been here, or maybe he had. It was too hard to remember. He closed his eyes and his chest shuttered. A growl emitted from him again. More noises, and then the light reappeared. He turned again, slipping between dirt walls. His legs carried him until the noise and light could no longer be seen.

***

     Neil watched her back arch as she bent over the pile of waste. His eyes trailed down her spine. He hoped a little that he might glimpse something more. Her pants were snug around her waist, and they did not slip. He let his mind come from the gutter.

     “It’s a nice pile of shit, huh?” 

Her laugh made his chest tight. She fliicked off her gloves. His hand lowered the light he had been holding.

“Why do we continue to play this game, Neil?”

He swallowed. There was pressure building in his stomach. He looked down. It was beyond his control. He wanted to catch the curve of her neck and peek down her tank top. She sat still.

“I know you are looking at my breast.”

His face turned five shades of red. Of course, she knew. She was much smarter than him. He had been a fool to think himself smooth. Her hand ran up his arm. He felt goosebumps rise where her fingers trailed. He looked up. Her eyes were wide. With pupils wider still. Her mouth parted. Did she want him to kiss her?

     She cupped his bicep. He felt himself growing stiff in more places. She tilted her chin, waiting for him to make the move. He pushed the thoughts of his wife from his mind. He imagined what her lips would taste like; then he knew. Her lips parted and his tongue slid in. She was soft. Her tongue darted over his. His hand found the small of her back. He couldn’t believe it. She moaned between breaths. His hand trailed under her shirt, heart pounding hard inside his chest. He felt giddy. Kissing her hard, he slipped a hand to the curve of her bottom. It was firm and yet soft. He squeezed. Hips pressed into his thigh. Shifting his lip down, he nibbled on her neck. Nothing else but her smell remained real. Her hand fumbled with his belt. He pulled her pants down with a tug. There was nothing underneath. A moment passed where he drank her in. She was trim and fit, but some pudge still existed on her hips. She had borne children, but it didn’t stop him from lusting for her. He pulled her shirt over her head. Her breast sagged. Yet were fuller than they looked inside her shirt. Her lips found his ear. She nibbled. His pants fell to his knees. Her fingertips brushed over him. He wanted her more than anything he had ever known. She turned. Placed her hands on the wall, ready for him; he stepped behind her. She was exotic.

     The growl echoed. It came from the darkness. Where they had sealed off the tunnels months before. Jennifer stood straight. Neil looked off into the pitch black. He couldn’t see a thing. Fumbling with the light, holding it before him didn’t help. Whatever it was; was far down the shaft. Neil turned to Jennifer. Fear reflected her eyes. The moment of lust had disappeared. He felt it, too. He reached down, pulling his pants back around his waist.

     “We had better tell the General.”

***

“What kind of growl?” 

Jennifer tried to concentrate on his questions, but Neil still fluttered in her mind. Like a pesky fly that refused to be killed. She waited till he repeated the question. 

“What kind of growl, Jennifer?” She didn’t know how to explain a growl. Did he want her to imitate the beast? 

“A loud one, like I said.” 

A wince scrunched his face. They always took things so personally. His type was always formal. Sure, he would try to crack a smile, but it was bland and unreal. His hands came up sweeping over his haggard face. He had looked much younger when they had boarded the ship. 

“Something large, if I had to compare, I would say a lion.” 

His face contorted. She could tell he hated her. At least he didn’t bother to try to hide it. “Lintel, bring in Adam Harvey. Tell him his men are to gather their supplies.” 

He meant guns. They always meant guns. “I am not sure it is hostile.” 

His eyes flashed over her. She could tell he was done with her. He would have forced her from the room, but Neil stood beside her. 

“It did not attack us, sir.” 

He nodded. “Of course, it didn’t. There was three feet of dirt between you.”

 She wanted to smack him. She knew better though. She wouldn’t last a second in the shackles. So, she bit her tongue. 

“Adam won’t be ordered to shoot first. I will inform him to use caution. He will use his own knowledge of situations to perform his duties. You have nothing to worry about.” 

She wasn’t worried. It was clear the only man worried in the room was the General. He turned again towards Lintel. “What are you still doing here?” The boy didn’t flinch. She wondered what his thoughts were. She knew they probably didn’t hold many nice things about old General Garman. Paper gave the proper salute. Then, he turned and left the room. She didn’t envy him much at that moment. 

***

He crouched down. He had heard the yells. The lights bounced off the walls all around him. He had seen their faces. Pink and soft; he felt his own face. Hard and large; his eyes stuck to the sides. Theirs had sat in the middle of their heads. He cringed at the memory. What ugly creatures. Where had they come from? He held his breath. He thought he heard something in the distance. The scrape of dirt and heavy footfalls, he pushed himself lower to the ground. He had run out of space to hide. If they turned down this tunnel, they would have him trapped. He felt something akin to fear, but it was different. It didn’t make him want to run anymore. Now, he wanted to jump out. He wanted to fight. The growl he let out was not of his own doing, but it came from his mouth. The dirt trickled down from the ceiling. 

If they hadn’t found him by now, they at least knew where to look. His belly churned. Why did it always pain him so? He felt his hands grip the dirt inside his palms. His long claws easily displacing the floor beneath them. 

It was several moments before he heard the noises again. Then, the lights bounced from the walls. He couldn’t control it, he growled again. He focused on the light. The creatures rounded the curve of the wall. A handful of them; he couldn’t keep track. He couldn’t remember how to tell the difference between them. They blurred into each other. He stood upon his legs. They were strong beneath him. The creatures growled. Then, they held up something. He stepped slowly toward them. They were going to hurt him. He didn’t know how he knew this, but he knew it. He could slightly remember their pink faces. Something about them screamed pain. Then, the flashes of light came with heat. Small objects hit his hard chest. It felt like rocks falling from the ceiling. The creatures growled again. Were they attacking? He sent his own growl from his chest. It shook the walls. The creatures backed away. His hand swiped at the one in front. It opened his face, red liquid running warmly over his hand; he tasted it. It was sweet. He enjoyed it. The creature fell. It was curious. Much louder than a wiggly creature in death, the others backed away. The little flashes of light came more frequent. They also growled weakly. He stepped after them. 

Two more went down before him. He rummaged their bodies, licking the sweet red substance from them. Three more quickly followed in death. He looked around. None were left. What were these things? He bent, pulling what he supposed was an arm from the body. His sharp teeth split it into halves. He had to half of them again before swallowing. His belly felt different. It didn’t hurt anymore. He smiled. At least he thought it was a smile. He reached down and pulled more of the body apart. His stomach felt warm. The creatures must be the reason. 

***

His head throbbed. Had he fallen asleep at the bar? If so, how had he gotten to his room? He lifted his head off the sweat-soaked pillow. It was flat from over a year’s use. They had packed a switch of linen, but somehow his was lost in the shuffle.

He flicked his tongue across dry lips, but his mouth was no moister. He stood. Then, he wished he hadn’t. The pounding in his head made his eyes close reflexively. Sickness churned deep. His feet moved him toward the privy. He ducked under the door. They made it for a much shorter man. Which didn’t normally matter to him. Usually, he preferred crawling to and from his bed. The liquor had that effect on his legs. He opened the lid. The water was crystal clear with a tinge of blue. He vomited all over it. Some of the chunkier bits, he swallowed back down as he gasped for air. Then, he blew again. The specks flew up, hitting him in the face. He leaned back. The floor was cold. With a listless smearing, he attempted to wipe the spittle from his chin. The extra hair reminded him he needed to shave.

     The door opened. No one even bothered to knock anymore. He had been shaken from stupor countless times now. 

“You here, Captain?” The voice belonged to that little shit Paper Lintel. 

Clifton pulled himself up using the bowl, flushed the remains of his stomach down the pipes-good riddance, and stood. His legs reminded him of jelly. He needed a drink.

     Lintel watched through the bathroom door. He must have heard the commotion. Clifton walked over to the shelves along the wall and pulled down a bottle. Inside was the strong-smelling amber liquid. Lintel stepped before him. He placed his hand on the bottom of the bottle.

“General Garman requests you.”

Clifton pushed his hand away. He was ready to have his drink.

The young boy grabbed the bottle. “He requests you sober.”

Clifton stammered. Damn. He put the lid back on. “What now?” 

Lintel didn’t answer his question, but said, “in the general guidance room, Captain.”

***

     Neil stood next to his mining crew. Down in the pits of it all, the drill sounded behind him. It was almost closing time. Most of the men would head toward the bar. Most likely to be joined by Captain Clifton, others would retire. Those men were his working crew. He could tell who they were and gave them bonus checks at the end of each month.

     At the moment, he spoke to Carter Delaney. The man was dark skinned and foul-mouthed, but he really didn’t differ from most miners. 

     “The crew found acidic water. We have been draining it. It has a foul odor but shouldn’t cause any problems.” 

Neil was used to the weird substances his crew found. If it didn’t slow the production down, he didn’t worry himself about it.

     “Neil.” 

Paper sneaked in beside him. Carter looked on with peaked interest. “General Garman…” Neil cut the boy off.

     “Carter, could you make sure everything gets shut off properly? As many men as you can convince from the bar the better.” Carter nodded. Then, he turned and walked toward the laboring drills.

     “What is it he wants?”

If Lintel held any resentment at the brashness, he showed none. “Just for me to inform you of a meeting in the general guidance room.” 

Neil nodded. Of course, the old General probably found out what that growling beast was. Probably was already having it stuffed for his wall.

“I will be there soon.”

Lintel nodded. Then, turned and faded away toward the steps to the upper world.

***

She hated these documents. These were not what she had signed up for. The tedious cataloging, this creature here, and this one there. She could scream. Tears pooled from the strain. She blinked them away. Was from the stress or depression? She thought again of something that made her happy. Neil’s tight body rubbed against hers, his manhood near stiffened in her hand. She shook her head. Something changed her up here. The planet’s air got to her.

     She flipped another page. It blurred behind the tears. Frustration overwhelmed and she pushed the book away from sight. There was no desire to do this anymore. She wanted to scream and pull her hair. Maybe to cry and kick a little too. Instead, she reached for her cigs and lit one up. The ember glowed in relief. Smoke billowed in a cloud. Her free hand flexed open and closed. There were only a few more notes. That was all. She told herself she could have a drink after. She could find Neil. Maybe finish what they started. She smiled. The smoke filled her lungs.

     The knock on the door was familiar. It was formal. That meant Paper was back again. Twice in one day. She moved to her feet. Then, she sat back down. He could open the door himself.

“Come in.”

He entered gingerly. Just sticking his head through the door. “General Garman wishes audience in the general guidance room.”

Great, more work.

***

     The general room was standing room only by the time Neil slid through the doors. He spotted Jennifer and looked away. He felt bad the entire day about what had happened between them. He moved along the back wall. Every effort made was to put her out of sight. She looked hurt by the gesture, but he couldn’t stomach standing beside her right now. He stared forward. The General used Lintel to scribe some message. As he finished, he turned to address the gathered crowd.

     “Alright folks, we are in alert mode 2. There is no need to panic. As of right now, we are only awaiting the return of Adam Harvey and his men.” He paced as he talked. That meant he was nervous. Neil had noticed the quirk long ago. “They have been gone for longer than expected. I am hoping to hear from them at any moment. Though they have stopped receiving transcriptions and have stopped sending them as well.”

     Neil wondered what that growl was. He had heard nothing again down in the pits, but they worked on the far end. About three miles from the area, they had been inside of earlier today. He bit his lip in concentration.

     That’s when he heard the commotion from the primary facility. The group inside the room turned. They all heard it as well.

“Calm!” The General pushed through. He made his way toward the back. When he cracked the door, everyone looked outside. Everyone ran haphazardly. Many went in the opposite direction of the guidance room. Neil moved in beside the general. He saw a creature that resembled a man but was much more grotesque. Its skin had molded. It looked hard, like a carapace. He squinted to block light from his vision. The feet of the creature were gnarled and large. The hands supported large, hanging claws. It growled and Neil almost lost control of his bladder. He pushed back from the door.

“What the hell is that thing?”

The General looked at him. His face pale. His eyes wide behind his wrinkles, “I think it’s Richard Clarkson.”

     The room churned. At once, everyone pushed to see. As they did, they screamed and pushed themselves back into the room. The creature moved closer. Neil could tell by the growls. Jennifer squeezed in near him.

“What is it?”

He shook his head. He hadn’t a clue.

***

It had hurt at first. The light had filled his eyes with pain. Though after a time, the pain faded. Then, it was gone. He trudged through the tunnels. He picked the creatures off in the pits below. There were so many of them, his belly distended. He had not remembered ever feeling so good. He kept moving. His legs carried him up a hard, strange textured walkway. It brought him higher and higher into the light. After the pain faded, he tracked through the area. There had been nothing there, but a faint smell wafted across the air, leading him further from his home.

    The creatures growled as he approached them. Then, they ran away from him. His claws met their bodies and cut the liquid from inside them. Some tried to fight back with flashing lights. He swatted them away. His hard-shelled stomach barely felt the bites of the small objects. Other creatures stood up to him. They fell just the same. Their tiny bodies looked like bugs at his feet. He hadn’t always been this big. At least he didn’t think he had. Those bodies looked familiar to him, but how could he remember? Everything was so easily forgotten.

     He scooped up parts of their soft bodies. The taste sweet on his tongue. The liquid warmed his throat. It made him feel nice inside. He kept moving. Through small, hard walls, some of them so hard his claws barely punctured the surface. He found doorways and more and more of the creatures. They stopped fighting and just ran. Growling and running. He reveled in the chase. It made him feel something strange. He remembered running as a child. Some type of game. He wondered if that was the game he played now. He sliced his claws through another creature’s back. The rush pushed him onward. The surrounding room became bigger. There were many creatures now. So many he could not register them all. The lights were brighter here. He growled. Through the corner of his eye, he watched them watching him. He growled again. He would feast upon them all.

***

     Clifton pushed his way through the crowd. He paused at the door. Whatever the damn thing was, it was big. He looked over at the scared crowd. All he could think about was that he sure could use a drink right about now. He almost wished this was one of his alcohol-related dreams. He pinched his arm. It hurt. It was no dream.

He pushed himself back from the door and took three deep breaths. “We have to get ourselves the hell out of here.”

The General looked at him. Fear filled his eyes. It was so heavy the captain could smell it like whiskey. That thing had killed the best soldiers on the planet. That thing was leaving havoc in its wake. Clifton tilted, sticking himself slightly out the door again. The creature was no further than three hundred yards away. If they were going to act, best do it now.

“I am heading toward the ship.” The faces of those surrounding him froze in fear.

Neil spoke up first. “We can’t just leave my men.”

The captain laughed. He didn’t mean to laugh. It just happened. “Your men are dead. If Adam couldn’t tame the beast, your men are not half as skilled.”

Neil’s eyes dropped. It wounded him, but the captain figured he would get over it. At least, the captain hoped. He needed help to leave this rock.

“Are you all with me?”

The General stepped up. He tried to display his badge of power. It meant shit now. “Those people will need help.”

The captain really wished for that drink. He wondered if he could make it to the bar on the way to the ship.

“Those people will have to fend for their damn selves. If a gun doesn’t kill that bastard-well, then I don’t plan to try with my bare hands.”

 It wasn’t a coward’s move. It was the move of a man who would like to live. 

“So, who is with me? Because you either come now, or you find your own ship off this rock.” 

He wasn’t bluffing. He hoped he showed that upon his face. This was it. He was leaving. He didn’t need them, but they all needed him. He swallowed the lump of fear inside his throat. Now, he had to will his hand to open the door.

***

     She had been in zoology for… she couldn’t even remember. The thing in the hallway was nothing she like anything she had ever seen. The General had said something that tingled her spine. He thought it looked like Richard Clarkson. The man she served under on this trip. The captain was right. They had to go. Had to leave, and they had to do it now.

“I am with you.” Her words were small. She had always been such a strong woman. Now, she was more sniveling than Sash. She wondered at the big man’s fate. Though she didn’t wonder for long, the growl shook the surrounding walls. The creature advanced as they sat in wonder. She still heard the screams of the others.

     “Let’s go!” She was sure she was ready now. She would not sit here and die. Neil grabbed her arm. Did he do it on purpose? She looked at him. He let go. Why was no one opening that door?

***

     Neil thought of his men. He had known them for so long. He couldn’t believe they were just gone. This trip was supposed to be the big payoff. This was his last off-world trip. He had promised his wife. His hand reached out. He gripped Jennifer’s arm. She looked at him. He let go. What was he thinking? He hadn’t meant that. Had he? He heard another growl and bit his lip. He had to decide now.

     His hand acted on instinct. It opened the door. Those around him screamed.

“Well, we can’t sit around and wait.”

The captain nodded. His breath was still strong with drink. Neil hoped he could even fly a ship.

The monster had a strong resemblance to Richard Clarkson, that was for certain. He didn’t stop to stare any longer than he had to, though. The captain rushed into the hall before them. Jennifer followed. Others crammed through the door as well. The general looked rooted to the floor.

     “You coming, sir?” 

His eyes blinked, but he didn’t move.

Neil smacked him on the shoulder. “Sir!” 

The fear had taken him.

Neil tucked his head and ran after the group. There was nothing he could do. The monster roared behind him. The door to the room ripped off the wall. He heard the general scream. There was nothing for it. He tucked his head and ran faster.

***

The room before him emptied. They ran down the halls. He had cleared the surrounding area. Another creature ran from the room. He seemed to be the last of them. As he glared inside the room, he saw one standing still. The creature didn’t growl. He reached his hands, ripping at the door. He liked the power of it. It clanged beside him. He turned and grabbed the creature by the waist. It growled loudly. He shoved the head of it into his mouth. It didn’t fit, but he bit down anyhow. The crunch beneath his teeth was gratifying. The contents slid down easily. He threw the body down. He would catch them all. 

***

     The captain slammed into the wall. His feet hadn’t carried him so quickly in many years. His head throbbed from the exertion and the drink. He moved down the corridor. The ship was above ground. They would have to take the stairs up. He hurried toward them. The others were at his heels. He heard them breathing hard. Most of them were like him. Out of shape and old, they ran like it as well.

He rounded the last corner. There they were. The stairs. Those metal gateways to heaven. He doubled his pace. Then, he remembered the worst thing that could have happened. The keys to the ship were in his room. They could not rig the new models. There were two sets on the entire planet. One with the general and one in the captain’s lodgings. He had neither. He turned and ran through the people.

“Get to the surface.” They didn’t question him. They continued for the stairs. He heard their feet clattering upward. He wished he could have joined them.

“Where are you going?” Clifton barely avoided running into Neil. The man looked scared. He couldn’t blame him. He could feel his own trepidation inside his belly.

“I forgot the key. I will be right back. Just a quick run back.”

Neil gave him a hard look. “I will head back with you.”

The captain didn’t want him to come, but he didn’t have time to argue.

“I will follow.” Jennifer Daily stood behind them, listening to the conversation.

“Well damn, let’s make it a party.” Why were they so ready to go die with him?

He turned. He would surely die if he didn’t run. His legs carried him as fast as they could move. Neil and Jennifer easily kept pace. They were much younger than him. He rounded a last corner coming into the main corridor. His room was three doors down the main hallway. He could see the finish line. He took off toward it. His hand gripped the knob. It creaked open. Nearby, he heard the growls of that wretched beast.

The key hung by his bed. He grabbed it from the stub for the last time.

“Now we can go.” 

He clutched the key inside his hand. Then, he turned toward the shelf. One drink wouldn’t hurt. He walked to the shelf, grabbing the amber liquid.

“What are you doing?” Jennifer asked. 

He didn’t answer her. He swallowed down the courage. It burned all the way down. He hated the taste. He felt the sudden urge to vomit. He held his breath. It slowly passed.

***

Neil grabbed the bottle from the captain’s hands. 

“You can’t drink this and drive!” His voice sounded angry to his ears. Matter of fact he was angry. What did this idiot think he was doing? The bottle crashed to the floor. The sound vibrated in his ears. He shouldn’t have done that. The growls sounded again nearer than before. Neil pushed the captain toward the door. 

“We better go.” 

The captain didn’t put up a fight, but his face looked flushed.

Jennifer followed them out. They charged down the small main corridor into the lobby. The beast stood in front of them. They dodged to the side. Neil and Jennifer made the move easily. Clifton stumbled. It was that damn drink. His eyes widened further than a man’s eyes should be able to. His hand loosened on the key. He made one last decision. The key flew. Then, the beast bit into his arm. His sharp claws ripped through the captain. Neil caught the key. He hoped driving a ship was a lot easier than it looked.

Without choice, they turned to run. They rounded the last corner. Everyone else had made it up those metal steps. He grabbed Jennifer’s hand. This time he meant to do it. It may be the last time he was to ever able touch her in such a way, and he wanted to at least have done it.

She did not resist him. Instead, they ran hand in hand up the stairs. His body always a stair ahead of hers. The growls grew louder behind them.

***

His hand was sweaty inside hers. He tugged on her a bit, too, tightly. Yet, it comforted her. That beast behind them had just torn the captain in half like a child with a candy bar. She didn’t want to think about it. How were you supposed to forget about something like that? Her feet met the dirt of the planet. The heat existed at all times of the day. The sun near this planet never faded. Night and day were the same, hot, and humid. They kept running. The miners made the path the first month of their arrival. When she still followed Richard’s guidance. What had happened to that man? Something had made him a hideous monster.

She felt her feet pick up speed. They were now shoulder to shoulder. She saw the ship. She let her heart hope. She would see her children again. Her husband. She looked down at her hand. Gripped in with Neil’s, her husband would not approve, but he wasn’t here. She didn’t pull away. The ship’s door opened. People were already safe inside. She heard the distant roar behind her.

***

His feet stopped. The sun beat down upon him. The growl he let loose was something strong from his depths. He shielded his eyes. He could not chase them anymore. Those who had escaped were out of his reach forever. He felt a pang of something, it differed from what he had felt minutes before. He ducked back into the enclosure. He heard the loud roar of something above him. He growled again. The heat hit him in the face. It wasn’t from the sun. He looked above. Something flew. He used to fly. At least he remembered flying. The object moved from his sight. He turned away from the light of the sun. Those few had gotten away. He turned back toward the corridor. There were still plenty left over to feed him. He turned and walked back inside.

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Wesley Nyx published in Crime, Horror, Mystery, Original Stories, The Black Sands Saga

52 Corpse Pick Up | Chapter One: “The Smell of Burning Jacob”

   The bullet went off like a force of nature – a blunt act that immediately changed everything and claimed dominion over the room. The temperature of the room had changed and it was very clear whose hands were on the thermostat. The bullet went off as though it were in accordance with a grander scheme or a master plan. For Jeremy Crider, it struck like it was the culmination of what must have been the culmination of a lifetime of bad choices. It didn’t even feel real after it happened. Jeremy felt removed from the situation, as if part of him understood it on a basic level, but the rest of him hadn’t yet begun to comprehend it.

   Jacob Halwright’s head exploded! Such a phrase seemed too dramatic, but, there Jacob Halwright’s dead body laid; head all ‘sploded-like. It was crazy the way the right handgun could blow off the top of a person’s head like a magician’s trick gone tragically awry. For a fleeting moment, Jeremy let his mind wander, imagining being a child at a birthday party, everything being well, til his mother went to slice him a piece of cake, then, stopped, suddenly, removed a fleshy mother-shaped mask, and revealed Jacob Halwright, whose head then exploded.

   Jeremy could tell he was spiraling, doing anything he could to disassociate from the situation unfolding in front of him. Unfortunately, another part of him was doing everything it could to force him back to reality, the part of him that realized there was a man with a glock whose actions could very well spell out his last moments on the planet. Shock scrambled Jeremy’s mind while he tried again and failed to process what happened.

   Jacob had been an acquaintance of Jeremy’s only a few seconds. Jacob owed Jeremy fifteen bucks from a bet, not even a minute prior, but did the shooter give two squirts about that? Jeremy could feel his hands trembling, each drenched with sweat.

   The person with their index finger on the trigger was none other than Robert Spade. At first, Jeremy had a dead, unwavering stare aimed at Jacob Halwright’s corpse as the gun that added the final digits to his epithet. He had never seen a dead body before this moment. He had thought about what a dead body may look like, but, in all those times, he had imagined the body with closed eyes and a solemn expression. Jacob Halwright’s was now an expressionless thing on the ground. Once he brought his eyes away from the body, however, he found himself taken in by a new fixation – Robert Spade. Once their eyes met, he felt his attention taken hold of and grasped tightly.

   The expression on Robert Spade’s face was neither a devilish glare nor a fiery stare. That wasn’t what kept Jeremy so invested and enthralled by the man. Besides the obvious, it was the nothingness behind his eyes and how unchanged he seemed from any other time Jeremy had seen him. Robert’s eyes could have easily told the story of a man who had just finished reading his morning paper, instead of having just murdered a man. There was no discernible change in Robert’s eyes. That, in itself, Jeremy was more intimidated by than if there had been a reaction. It would have been one thing if he had been remorseful, but, even if he had been outright ruthless, that would’ve scared Jeremy less than looking in the eyes of a man who just smited someone and felt nothing of it. Even worse, by there being no emotion to read off the old man’s expression, Jeremy had no way to say for sure if that was the only bullet he intended to fire off.

   Robert’s eyes took themselves off and away from the pieces that were now Jacob Halwright and returned Jeremy’s gaze, but his head didn’t nudge an inch, like the hand of a clock coming around to let him know that his time had come. This would be it. This would be Jeremy’s demise, a fact he had no doubt of in this moment. He was now face to face with death, and death had a thick-gray handlebar mustache and a big-ass handgun that fired bullets off like it was a fucking bazooka.

   Jeremy held the stare with Robert intently, only breaking off in small intervals to keep for certain the barrel of Robert’s gun stayed lowered, pointed toward the pile of Jacob that had been spilled out onto the fake hardwood vinyl floor.

   A small smirk formed on Robert Spade’s face shortly thereafter. Perhaps it was an attempt at comforting Jeremy, a subtle change to let him know he wasn’t the target of Robert’s aggression, but it only served to make Jeremy feel even more uneasy.

   Robert was a middle-aged man, in his late fifties or early sixties at the latest, with wiry limbs and a lanky frame, all except for the small bump over his stomach. Maybe it was a beer belly or maybe he was pregnant with the spawn of Satan? Jeremy did not know enough about Robert to say for certain, all he knew was that his father had always respected and feared the man a great deal.

   At long last, Robert lowered the gun to his side, a relief that kept Jeremy from bursting out at the seams. Robert was not a particularly strong or stout man, he was not a burly guy who Jeremy would ever bet on in a bar fight, but, even now, with his weapon lowered, Jeremy couldn’t imagine a time he would not be intimidated by him.

   “Jacob Halwright,” Robert Spade said plainly. “We will no longer be requiring your services.” He spoke in a monotone, deadpan cadence, before letting a small, almost giddy, chuckle escape him, like a little kid laughing at a dirty word they found scrawled in their school textbook. It was a toothy laugh that reminded Jeremy a little of a rabbit – a terrifying, evil, little rabbit.

   As a way to sooth his own nervous discomfort, Jeremy forced out a hearty laugh of his own. Beside Jeremy, a person Jeremy had momentarily forgotten all existence of, was a man named Bill Meiner, one of the two men Jeremy had spent the last three hours with, robbing one of the wealthiest families in Hardan. He was now the only other one of those three men alive and, judging by the look on his face, this was not the first time Robert Spade had killed one of his co-workers in front of him. Bill looked more inconvenienced than afraid, but he held his tongue, much to Jeremy’s approval.

   Robert Spade swaggered around the room. Every echo made when his white and red (originally, only white) shoes met the floor felt amplified. This was what it meant to have a presence, Jeremy supposed. Although, had that presence been there since before Jeremy watched him kill a man? Jeremy couldn’t be for certain. What he did know was that he would always have it from here on out.

   “Although, as I am for certain you have since discovered, your first day was not without any unnecessary …,” Robert stopped for a moment to reflect. “Excitement. I do believe that things could have gone considerably worse,” he continued, his voice softening and feeling more like the man Jeremy had spoken to earlier in the day.

   Jeremy inspected the man carefully as he spoke, as though he was looking for an explanation to a problem he hadn’t yet come up with. He inspected the black tar in between the gaps of the man’s teeth made by chewing tobacco and took note of the stale scent from his cheap cologne.

   “There is only one more thing left for you to do before you can clock out for the day and be given what you have coming to you. And, I will tell you what, as an added bonus, I will even throw in something extra for your troubles. All you have left to do now is get rid of the body.” Robert’s voice deepened with his final demand and his face was now only a few inches away from Jeremy’s, waiting for his response.

   What came out of Jeremy’s mouth did not have the needed cogency to be considered as actual words. Instead, what came out of Jeremy’s mouth was more comparable to that of a guttural clearing of the throat, resembling what happens when a fork is caught in the garbage disposal. Be that as it may, the response seemed to please Robert Spade. Robert smiled again, patting his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. Jeremy flinched, instinctively pulling away from him, an act that seemed to only further amuse him.

   “See to it that he does,” Spade said, looking over toward Bill, who, in turn, nodded in agreement.

   Like that, Robert Spade turned his back from the men, and with every second that went by after he made his leave, the sense of finality in his decision began to sink in. Jeremy tried to find the words to speak, but couldn’t. He wanted no more to object to Robert’s absurd demand, but couldn’t muster the courage or will to do so. All he wanted was for Robert to be out of the room and for reality to be allowed to un-pause again.

   As Jeremy heard the door shut, it felt like a pair of imaginary hands, once clutching his throat, had finally released him. He now felt aware of how drenched in sweat his body had become and felt free again to breathe. As the oxygen returned to his brain, he was also able to now truly appreciate his own predicament – there was a dead body in front of him and he had now been appointed the warehouse’s janitor.

   He looked over to Bill in search of comfort, but, instead, the overweight man with a saggy, pug-shaped face offered an ambitious look. It was ambitious in the sense that he said more with the curl of his lip than a mere mortal should have been capable of. With his look, he may as well have shrugged his shoulders and said, “Shit happens,” as though he had not spent hours with the same man as Jeremy, the same man whose head now resembled uncooked ground beef.

   It was a cold night, and even though Jeremy had anticipated this and knew he would be exposed to the elements, he chose to wear nothing more than a thin hooded sweatshirt and no gloves – just one more example of his lack of preparedness for the night. The whole way Bill had chosen to ignore his pleas to stop at any nearby convenience stores to see if they carried any, and so, Jeremy had spent a good deal of the night rubbing his hands together to prevent having to chop them off from frostbite later on. To top it off, Jeremy had developed what he chalked off as an ear infection from the cold. Every now and again, they would start to right and his hypochondria would make him wonder if this would be the moment everything in his life went silent. If Jacob Halwright’s death accomplished anything, it was that the shock filled Jeremy with a red hot warmth in his chest. Unfortunately, his ears were ringing far more now than before and he still desperately longed for a pair of gloves.

   “What does he mean by ‘get rid of the body’?” Jeremy asked, at last, finding the words to express the terror he felt.

   “It is not a euphemism, kid,” Bill belched back, then turned his back to him as though that explanation was enough for them to move on.

   Bill lugged his prodigious frame over to the kitchen. A few seconds went by again, comprised of Jeremy flinching every time he heard a rat or cockroach or whatever other vermin were crawling around the rundown trash-heap where Spade conducted his business. His mind fluttered with paranoia, thinking the movement might have come from Jacob Halwright’s remains.

   “Fuck,” Jeremy cried out, letting himself get rattled by his own fear more than any actual act provoking it.

   At last, Bill Meiner returned to him, carrying a filthy mop in one hand and kicking around an empty plastic bucket with his boot.

   “You can’t actually be serious with this!” Jeremy shouted, looking to the door where Robert Spade had stepped out, like a child afraid of being heard badmouthing daddy. Either that, or waiting for daddy to come back and tell him it was a bad joke. Gallow’s humor, Jeremy thought to himself. Gallow’s humor.

   “I am as serious as a heart attack,” Bill answered, freeing the mop from his hand and letting gravity do the rest. Thereafter, his hand went to his back pocket.

   “You can’t be serious, you can’t be serious,” Jeremy mumbled over and over again, circling around the dead body, trying to wrap his head around how to even begin such a task. His eyes found their way back to Bill in time to see him un-peeling a banana.

   “You have said that already, boy, and again, I am,” Bill said, taking an unsanitary bite from the fruit, the night’s events not enough to stifle his appetite, it seemed.

   “You can’t expect, …,” Jeremy stopped for a second, thinking, “Someone will have heard the gunshots. They will have reported it. They’ll call it in and we will have the cops breaking down the damn door, and when they do, they’ll find you and me with a dead body, then, they’ll arrest us. They will take us to prison and throw away the key. Is that what you want!?”

   “No one will call.”

   “You can’t possibly know that for certain.”

   “I can,” Bill countered with matter-of-fact confidence. “As you will come to realize, Robert Spade does not make a whole lot of mistakes. Do you know who owns this building, this beat-up, shanty-town lookin’ hellhole? Well, it’s the same one who owns its neighbors and its neighbor’s neighbors. No one.” Bill laughed at the thought. “This is a ghost city, Jeremy, or haven’t you noticed that? The only ones stopping by Ordos Town are drug-dealers and squatters, either ones too poor to afford a phone-call or ones who don’t want the law sticking their noses in their turf. Even if they did, no two-bit cop has the balls to come out here in the middle of the night.”

   Jeremy said nothing for a few seconds. This was not how things were meant to happen tonight. Jeremy was an actor. Not a criminal. He was an actor. He was a failed actor by accounts, most certainly, but, he was not a criminal. He ruffled with the unkempt hair on his head, feeling the sweat travel down the back of his neck in beads. This was the type of situation he fought his whole life to stay out of. He had fought such valiant and proud battles to stay on the happy, thumbs up side of the law, and not the side that had robbed his father of the last years of his life. Be that as it may, even failed actors faced hardships, in fact, surprising as it may sound, they were even more likely to face them than the successful ones. Even valiant, law-abiding do-gooders could find themselves on the business end of their landlord’s shaft, having to decide between eating that month and paying rent.

   Jeremy laughed, and didn’t know why, and, for a moment, he thought maybe he knew why Robert Spade had managed to smile after shooting Jacob Halwright. It was hysterics. It was a flicker of madness in a life of pitch-black normality. It was only for a moment, however. Jeremy knew it was the same. If it were hysterics that made Robert Spade smile, it was a refined, harnessed version of what Jeremy felt. Robert smiled because he enjoyed it. And, someone who enjoyed doing something, was all the more likely to do it again.

   Jeremy rubbed his hands together, trying to find a good starting point to his newly assigned task. Jacob wasn’t a very heavy man. That was a relief. In a moment of morbidity, Jeremy couldn’t help but thank the heavens that Robert hadn’t decided to shoot Bill instead. Bill was a heavy man. Thankfully, Jacob was light, and, in fact, due to recent events, he had become even lighter (minus one head). Rolling up Jacob’s pant legs, Jeremy grabbed each of his ankles, hunching over while he did so. He looked up at Bill, still eating his stupid fucking banana. Bill looked at him skeptically and shook his head.

   “Oh, I am not a lifter. Have a bad back, you see,” he explained, feigning a hurt back to further demonstrate the fact. For good measure, the bastard even feigned wincing from the small exertion.

   “Bill, …, we have spent the last five hours loading a van with heavy boxes!” Jeremy shouted.

   Bill shrugged his shoulders, “That must be how I hurt my back. It’s a new development.”

   “You’re a new development,” Jeremy mumbled beneath his breath, trying to stagger his feet and get a proper footing.

   “That’s an outrageous accusation,” Bill said dryly.

   “If Robert Spade is so fucking brilliant and ‘doesn’t make mistakes,’ then why would he leave me, a person who has no idea what the hell he is doing, to clean up his handiwork?”

   “Well,” Bill began, at last, finishing his banana, throwing it into a nearby garbage bin in the corner of the room, one that was already long-since overflowing with trash. “For starters, he would be smart enough that he would never use that handgun again. He has many friends who will be able to provide him an alibi should he need it, no questions asked. And, the only person who has left any fingerprints on the body so far … is you.”

   The second the words registered with him, Jeremy leaped back, stumbling on a nearby coffee table and spilling over an ashtray. “Gloves! I should be given gloves for something like this.”

   “Buy them,” Bill said, sounding uninterested with Jeremy’s concerns and ignoring the irony of how he would have had a pair had Bill allowed him to buy some earlier when he’d asked.

   The sweat running down Jeremy’s face was now starting to make it harder to see. He nearly freed one of his hands and wiped it off, but fought the reflex. The last thing he wanted was to touch his face right now. He shook his head back and forth to try and bring himself some relief. He watched all of his sweat hit the ground like little droplets of rain. All of that precious DNA evidence connecting him to the murder of Jacob Halwright. His heart pounded. Which arm was it that hurt when someone was having a heart attack!?

   Jeremy looked around his surroundings, in search of what, he was not exactly for certain. There wasn’t exactly a “get away with murder” kit anywhere he could see.

   On the car ride back from Robert Spade’s trailer with all the loot they had stolen, Bill explained that Robert liked to meet his new recruits face to face. It was a different approach to what Jeremy had expected; a noble, almost business-like tactic. Most criminals Jeremy had ever been around (mostly drug dealer, mostly low-end, mostly weed) were either completely casual because they didn’t think anyone would ever care about them selling pot or were so high strung that you’d think they were human-traffickers. Robert was neither. Robert reminded him of a mafia film, where the head honcho treated his men as employees, providing them with benefits and shit, pamphlets and 401k’s, running it like a real, actual business. Now, however, Jeremy’s perception of Robert had taken a hard left from his initial impression (the mafia similarity remained though).

   Jeremy sauntered over to the kitchen. As far as home decor went, it had certainly seen brighter days, but it did have supplies from squatters and whoever once called it their home. Jeremy searched the cabinets under the sink, finding trash bags and crinkled up plastic shopping bags that had been wedged inside. There was a selection of bottles that had their labels ripped off. Why were the labels ripped off? As an extra in a couple low-budget films, Jeremy had watched the directors rip off labels as a way to prevent a lawsuit. The reasoning these labels had been taken off likely had something more to do with confusing your apple cider vinegar with liquid PCP. They had all of that, and, of course, enough manure to start a garden.

   “God fucking dammit!” Jeremy yelled, then, rubbed the back of his neck. He relented, remembering his failed quest of not touching himself after handling a corpse. In that lapse of judgment, he had been able to feel the stress knots starting to form on the back of his neck.

   He came back to Jacob Halwright without the supplies he would have preferred, instead, bringing back a broom and a poop scoop.

   “And, what the hell do you expect to do with that?” Bill asked, by now, having relocated to an old recliner.

   How Bill was able to stomach sitting in a tattered recliner that wreaked of cat piss, Jeremy knew not.

   “Anyone could walk in here at any moment and see something!” Jeremy exclaimed, now beginning to scoop up Jacob Halwright’s brain fragments in the aforementioned poop scoop.

   It was easy enough, scooping the brain shards(?) no longer intact to his body. Would you look at that, the brain isn’t actually pink, Jeremy thought. You know, I read someplace that salmon isn’t actually pink either. It’s a white, grayish-color like this, and they dye it to make it more appetizing to the public. Cannibals would be so disappointed in Jacob’s brain. Jeremy hated his life at this moment. Finally, he finished scooping what he could. The entire top half of Jacob’s head was now wedged into the scoop, all except for a flap at the back end.

   He knocked over the trash container, spilling out its contents on the floor, then, once light enough, flipped it over completely, emptying it. He looked over to Bill, still sitting in his disgusting recliner.

   “If you grab his feet, both of us can shove him in,” Jeremy pleaded.

   Bill Meiner looked at him as if his suggestion was the craziest, most outlandish thing anyone had ever said, which, it may very well have been. Jeremy sighed, understanding fully now that Bill would be little to no help in this endeavor. He positioned the trash container, hiking over it like he’d just laid a barrel-shaped egg, he yanked Jacob’s hands and pulled him forward. In spite of the horrible technique, he made steady progress, eventually pulling the upper part of Jacob’s torso into the barrel. After some maneuvering, pulling, then, pushing, and even, scooching, Jeremy was finally able to shove the rest of him in as well. Standing the trashcan back to a vertical position and holding it steady, Jeremy was left with the unpleasant sight of Jacob’s legs still dangling out from the container. After some forced bending, however, Jacob was soon able to fit into the trashcan like an everyday gymnast. Then, as Jeremy lifted the metal trash can lid that had been buried beneath all the trash, he stopped for a moment. Aha, he thought, almost forgetting the final remains of his fallen comrade. Once he finished pouring the remainder of Jacob out from the poop scoop, he closed the lid – the closest thing Jacob would ever have to a closed casket. If nothing else, pretending the body was no longer there brought him some level of relief.

   “This all seems … distasteful,” Bill commented, his tone suggesting he was being facetious and that he didn’t give two shits one way or the other.

   “I don’t see you coming up with any ideas. You do realize that if I fuck up that you will be written as an accomplice to all of this,” Jeremy fired back, walking to the abandoned bedrooms of the apartment, hoping he would be able to scavenge up some old towels to wipe up the blood with.

   “Untrue,” Bill countered. “If I thought there was any way you could jeopardize me, I would kill you and be home before breakfast, because I know exactly how to get rid of a body, whether it be one or two.”

   How casually the words escaped from Bill’s mouth sent a small shiver up Jeremy’s spine. It was a sad fate how inconsequential Jeremy’s own life felt in this predicament. He wasn’t a bad guy or a criminal. That wasn’t who he was. He was only looking to take a small risk that would pay handsomely, and now, he was caught in a disaster.

   Robert Spade had been the name his father had always mentioned, growing up. Robert Spade was the guy. Now, in hindsight, he was beginning to wonder if his father said his name as a disclaimer and not as a call to action.

   When the bullet was fired off, all Jeremy cared about was his own life, about making it out of the building and living to see another day. All Jeremy thought about was avoiding a bullet of his own, but now, as he soaked the blood with some tattered blankets he had stripped off from a filthy mattress, he allowed himself to consider some of the alternatives he had overlooked. He thought about the very real possibility he might go to prison for the rest of his life over this.

   Without wanting to, he felt tears stream from his widened, manic eyes and down his cheeks.

   Bill seemed to take notice of this, nodding his head knowingly, “I should have brought you a banana too.”

   Bill, Jeremy had learned, was an asshole.

                                                                                                        ***

   Jeremy hadn’t done very many crimes in his twenty-three years in the world. He once stole a stick of gum from his mother’s purse, only to return it before she noticed. Oh, what an adrenaline rush that had been for him. That moment didn’t help him prepare for this one, however. His father had always been sketchy, dealing hands on the wrong side of the law, but he had always made an attempt to instill in Jeremy a sense of right and wrong, as ironic as that may have been. Maybe it was an effort to prevent this very moment from coming into fruition. The double-edge sword came with the fact that his efforts not only failed to keep him from the path, but kept him without the street smarts to know how to walk it. He momentarily considered searching online on ways to dispose of a body, but the paranoia of his search history coming back to haunt him negated that.

   Bill Meiner was of no assistance, making snide remarks every now and again to remind Jeremy he was along for the ride, but otherwise he did his best impersonation of a mile; useless and irritating to look at.

   He thought about trying to dissolve Jacob’s body through the use of acid or something, but didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about or even the slightest bit of how to go about it. He remembered reading an article somewhere once about how a serial killer buried a dead body six feet underground, and then, after filling the hole about halfway or so, buried a dead animal carcass in there as well. This way, the police officers would chalk up their cadaver dog’s findings as a false alarm. But who could find a possum or a raccoon at this time of night?

   It was a bitch dragging Jacob up the flight of stairs that led to the building’s rooftop, but Jeremy believed it would be a safer approach than dragging the trashcan out into the parking lot. Every step came with a quiet prayer that he wouldn’t end up dropping him and have even more of him spilling out. How stupid am I being? Jeremy thought, then, without even having to ask Bill’s question, he heard his answer in his head: Very.

   If law enforcement walked into this building, the amount of evidence he was both creating and leaving behind would be massive, but, in his head, he supposed he was banking on the idea that no law enforcement ever would. This was a random rundown building in Ordos, and, as Bill said, no one came visiting this place except for criminals and dope fiends who wanted nothing to do with the cops. No one knew where Jacob had gone because Bill had driven to the van to this address without speaking a word of where they were headed. Finding the building would be like finding a dirty needle in a haystack.

   Once he arrived at the rooftop, he removed the lid to the trash barrel and sighed. Next, he poured lighter fluid into the can, starting the flame with a paper ripped out of some tattered magazine he had found, headline read: “Is your husband cheating on you?” Well, if he is, chances are he could still be doing worse things, Jeremy thought.

   As the fire roared on, Jeremy stepped aside, unable to stomach his actions and what was literally the smell of burning flesh. Bill didn’t step away, instead, he stood by and stared at the flames.

   “This won’t be enough to dispose of Jacob, … at least, not all of the way,” Jeremy said, not expecting confirmation or denial of the fact from Bill, but, instead, wanting to think out loud. “Once the bones have burned awhile, they should be brittle enough to pulverize with a hammer.”

   “Seems reasonable,” Bill said, seeming as though he was only halfway listening to Jeremy.

   “What exactly is going the fuck on right now, Bill!?” Jeremy asked. The longer he had the chance to become acclimated with his fear, the more he found himself in touch with his other emotions, in particular, his own anger and frustration. “Does Robert Spade always blow people’s heads off and leave his recruits to clean up the remains?”

   “Everyone has their hobbies, Jeremy.”

   The fire roared. It had a little more oomph to it than Jeremy had initially anticipated. With the amount of homeless people frequenting the area, he doubted anyone would come to investigate a barrel fire, but he still tried to calm the flame and make it less conspicuous.

    “What happens after this?” Jeremy asked, the heat from the fire reminding him of how scared and afraid he had felt the second Robert fired his weapon.

   Jeremy’s body had already felt beaten and worn down after a day’s work, but with the night sky overhead and the adrenaline wearing off, he felt exhausted. It all felt so surreal to him. For a reason he didn’t understand, he stepped forward, until he stood side by side with Bill. He looked at the fire, he felt the heat of it. It soothed his worn body from the chilly night air. Maybe it was because he thought he deserved it, that he had to literally stand by his decision, the other part of him felt like it had disowned and disassociated from the whole situation and just wanted to stand by the fire.

   “Everything happens a day at a time, kid. You will take your share of the money that is in my back pocket, … Robert has even added to your pay, and you will head home and sleep this off like a bad dream.”

   “When, …,” Jeremy began, two parts of him, once again, being at different wavelengths, realizing something at different times, “When did he give you the money?” He asked, taking his eyes away from the fire and looking at Bill.

   At the same time, he re-imagined the painful memory he had of Robert Spade coming into the room, a vision he had repeated for himself again and again through the night. At no point did Robert Spade hand Bill an envelope, as afraid as Jeremy may have been in the moment, he felt sure of that.

   “Robert trusts me, kid. We go way back. He paid me in advance before I even took the job.”

   “But, how would you know the bonus he was going to give me? How do you know how much that is? Are you generously taking it out from your own cut?”

   Jeremy knew the answer to the last question without Bill needing to answer. Bill did nothing generously.

    Bill merely stared at Jeremy. It was another moment where what he didn’t say spoke volumes.

   “Both of you planned this. Even you knew what he was going to do!? Did I survive tonight because of some fucking coin toss!?”

   “After you dispose of the body, I will pay you your cut, and a bonus on-account of the incident that occurred, a fixed amount Robert Spade has informed me of in such situations. We are splitting Jacob’s cut, kid. It isn’t rocket science. You will go home, and, like I said, this night will be nothing for a bad dream you had after a few too many beers, a bad dream you were paid handsomely for.” Bill Meiner spoke like he was reciting lines; a fact Jeremy did not know what to make of.

   Jeremy tried to nod, but it was a half-heart effort. His head ached and his body and mind were both at the end of their rope. If he was to be arrested and imprisoned for the rest of his life, at least it could be done after a full night’s rest. He did not offer Bill a second glance, opening the rooftop door and heading back down the flight of stairs to retrieve a hammer.

   Once Jacob’s bones were crushed and reduced to dust, he would be free to dispose of them in their final resting place. His remains could be spread across the Amisoic Sea, perhaps. That would have been an almost thoughtful and sentimental gesture on his part. The chance of a scuba diver swimming by them and identifying them as human remains was unfathomable, but part of him still felt apprehensive. Besides, it was a long drive to the sea – one that he’d be driving with a persons’ cremated remains in his car. What he would do instead was drive out into the first woods he found and scatter them.

   When he returned to the rooftop, he saw that the fire no longer blazed on. Looks like Bill is finally making himself useful, Jeremy thought. Deep down, Jeremy imagined that he wasn’t the only one who wanted to put this night behind them.

   “What will you do with the remains?” Bill asked, thrusting his large gut forward to pop his back, feigning it as though he had made even the slightest effort in helping the situation.

   “I will drive until I find the nearest forest. I will spread them over the ground or bury them someplace, spread it out. No one will ever know,” Jeremy replied, feeling relief in his own confidence to the fact. Anyone who stumbled on the remains, by some chance, would see, at most, the remnants of an animal carcass, and if he buried them, that would make it years before they found the body and, by then, any chances of identifying the remains would be long gone.

   “It sounds like you have it all taken care of then. I will leave you to it,” Bill said, putting his hand out in front of Jeremy. “It has been real, kid.”

   Bill Meiner had a shit-eating grin on his face that showed he took some amusement in the Jeremy had been dealt. Had this been an initiation of some kind? Was Jeremy the one of the two that had “made the cut”? Why did he need to get rid of Jeremy’s body. None of the night made any sense.

   Jeremy shook his head at Bill, “You are lucky I am too tired to get rid of a second body tonight, Bill.”

   Bill chuckled. “You will be alright, kid.”

                                                                                                    ***

   Bill stood by the van outside and watched as the headlights to Jeremy’s car sped off and away. The poor boy had been so nervous and afraid Bill was surprised his car didn’t rattle along with him. Bill, on the other hand, was mostly fine, if a little amused. He smiled, going over everything in his head. When the moment came that he felt for sure Jeremy was gone for good and wasn’t coming back, he took out his phone and dialed.

   “Yeah,” Bill said, at once, responding to the person on the other end. “Yeah, he sure did. Kid’s a go-getter, but he is also a complete and total dumb ass.” Bill laughed, as the person on the other end spearheaded him with one question after another. “Man, … I don’t know where to start. The kid didn’t even try to clean up the blood. Just kind-of forgot not to do that. I tell you, there are a bucket’s worth. I thought he’d at least scrub it down, try to use bleach or something, but, … nah. Dumb as a box of rocks. Burned the body in a trash can … left the barrel!” Bill stopped for a second, laughing some more. He was almost at the point of tears, the longer he thought about it. “You guys are going to want to track him. Says he is going to just ditch the burnt remains someplace. Guess it could’ve been worse – guess he could’ve just flat out panicked and left altogether. Maybe that’s enough to pass for Robert, I don’t know.”

                                                                                                    ***

   True to their word, and to his own surprise, Jeremy lived to see his apartment again, a feat that had never seemed like an accomplishment until this moment. The agreed upon payment of a thousand dollars for what was intended to be a small heist had since been raised to fifteen-hundred, an amount that frankly seemed like a bargain given all of what Robert Spade fucking got. Sometime later the next day, Jeremy reflected on how he benefited from Jacob’s death. It was a realization that didn’t rest easy with him.

   The hot water from his shower beat down on his head and soothed his aching muscles. Once or twice during, he flinched or shivered, brushing off his arms or thighs like a spider was crawling up them. It was nothing – all in his head – like he thought some of Jacob Halwright’s brain goo became sentient and was trying to crawl into his ear and take over his body like something out of a cheesy, low-budget horror flick. For what it was worth, Jeremy would have loved to have been in that movie. It would have had terrible special effects and ugly fuck actors whose buck teeth looked like they somehow went cross-eyed, but at least he would have been paid and at least he would not have had to buy a hammer. And, at least it would have been acting and not reality.

   He slid into bed and the covers held him in a warm embrace, welcoming him to the soundest sleep he had ever had. The money earned would be enough to cover a month and a half’s rent, and would be enough for him to land back on his feet.   The lesson may not have been easy to learn and, in truth, he was not exactly sure what the lesson even was, but he had definitely learned it. If you see Robert Spade, duck. One thing he did know was that a life of crime was not for him. The hammer would not be bought in vain. With it, he would build a better, more wholesome life for himself. Either that, or he would start his screenplay.

 
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