Growing up, I had an imaginary friend. Her name was Annie. I had a fairly lonely life; I was an only child and my parents traveled a lot for work. Sometimes it seemed like they were gone more often than they were home. But Annie was always there to make sure I wasn’t alone. 

We did everything together. We played on the playground after school, we went swimming in the creek behind our yards, we played video games at the arcade. 

I remember the first time we learned to ride bikes - we both fell down, and we laughed so hard we could barely breathe. All of my memories involve her. 

Years passed like that, Annie being my best friend and some days the only one who kept me sane. Then one day she was just… gone. I called her, over and over, but she didn’t come back. I was alone. 

I barely remembered the next few years; they passed in a blur, feeling nothing but empty. Then one day, there she was, in front of me out of nowhere like magic. I was surprised, but in seconds we were talking like no time had passed. She told me about her life, her time in college, the years since we last spoke. I was so taken aback that I laughed. 

“What’s so funny?” she asked. 

“Nothing. It’s just - I’m happy to finally see you again.”

She smiled. “I missed you, too. Things have been really hard lately. But I always knew you’d come back when I needed you.”

“It’s funny,” I said. “I always thought the same about you, but for years you disappeared and I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

She looked at me strangely. “What do you mean?”

“All the times I was home alone, while my parents were traveling, I constantly wanted to talk to you, but you never came back. You were supposed to come back.”

“I never left, Harvey.”

“Of course you did, Annie. I was here alone.”

“You were where alone?”

“Here! At home.”

“And where is home?”

“Come on, Annie. You know where I live? Around the corner, with my parents.”

“Can you describe them?”

“You know my parents, Annie. They’re the ones so neglectful that I had to invent an imaginary friend!”

She looked at me, eyes full of concern and sympathy. “I’m not your imaginary friend, Harvey.”

Suddenly I got a pain in my head and everything went white. All of my memories of home, of my parents, of my life outside of Annie, disappeared in a flash until only she was left. 

“You’re mine.”

“You're breaking up with me?” 

My boyfriend Conrad, could barely sit still, nursing his too-black coffee.

The two of us sat outside work on a bench. I was swinging my legs, occasionally throwing my heel to see how far it would go. He barely said a word.

Every so often, he took a feverish sip, stared up at the night sky for a few seconds, and then back into coffee dregs.

Conrad was too good for me. But I'd never say that.

Attractive. Thick bushy brown curls and warm eyes. Everyone said he could do better than a college drop-out whose adderall addiction had turned her into a walking red-flag. A psycho. I wasn't  the perfect girlfriend, but I had my moments! 

I never hit  him anymore, only when I was like, seriously pissed.

I let him have his own bank account now.

I even let him fuck me thinking about other girls.

But he was breaking up with me?

I had to laugh. I did, spluttering, unable to contain myself. I lit a cigarette, took a long drag, and passed it to Conrad. “Here.” 

“Maddy, smoking is bad for your lungs.”

“You can talk,” I said, “Mr. Perfect.” I offered him a smile. “Does your Mom know her precious son is a crack addict?”

Instead of responding, Conrad sighed and stood. 

“I'm gonna head back inside,” he muttered, glancing down at his phone. Then he was gone.

I was left staring down at my cold coffee. I wasn't sure how to cry. I mean, I tried, but I was always trying too hard— copying. Like when Mom died, I copied my sister’s reaction. Sniffles.

Swipe eyes. Shed a tear. Repeat.

Sometimes, crying required standing in front of my mirror or filming myself.

Another reason Conrad dumped me. 

He caught me filming myself gross-sobbing when his stupid fucking cat died. I told him I didn't know how to cry, and he called me a psycho.

“Everyone knows how to cry,” I mimicked his voice, and squeezed the coffee cup tighter.

Tighter. Until it cracked, spewing bean juice all over my new skirt.

I dumped the cup, licking my sweater sleeve to try and scrub at the growing stain. 

“Sounds like you're having a bad night, Maddy.” 

“Go fuck yourself,” I told the tiny voice coming from the tree behind me.

But I was curious.

Kneeling in front of a bush, I found myself face to face with a tiny rabbit, an adorable little ball of white fluff. Around its neck was a bright pink gem melded to a bow. 

The rabbit cocked its head and wrinkled its nose.

“Do you want to see something magical?” It asked in a squeaky almost giggle. 

A talking tiny white rabbit.

“I have work in ten minutes.” I told the rabbit.

The rabbit sighed. “Fine,” it rolled its eyes, “we can do this here.” 

“Do what here?” I stood. “Listen, I've gotta work—”

The rabbit dropped something onto the ground: a pink necklace matching its own.

The exact same gem. The exact cute little bow, a glass pink heart in the centre.

“Basically,” the rabbit started, “all of the magical girls I've recruited are dead.” It sighed. “So… unfortunately.. I have no choice but to recruit adults.” 

I grabbed the necklace. Cute.

“Uh-huh.” I fastened it around my neck. “Fun.” I grinned. “What else, oh, drug-induced talking rabbit?” 

“I'm very real, Maddy.” The rabbit said. “Do you agree to become a magical girl? To protect humans from monsters known as The Swarm?” 

“Sure.”

I blinked when a dazzling pink haze lit up around me, and suddenly, I couldn't pull the damn thing off.

Agonizing pain shot down my spine, sending me to my knees.

I managed two heavy breaths. “Should.. I go get Conrad? I think… he'd be more, uh—” 

A screech tore through my lips when my body was flung into the air, holding me upside down, while I began to glow. It was slow at first, a creeping bright pink fog crawling over my hands and up my arms.

The rabbit watched me, head cocked. “Conrad Slater is mentally stable. Conrad’s body and mind would be torn to pieces.” 

More pain. This time in my head, my neck twisting, cracking, warm red wetness spewing from my lips. Blood.

It trickled from my mouth and between my thighs as my legs were snapped in two.

My lungs burst. My throat swelled up.

And yet, somehow, this curse continued, spreading up my body. 

A bright pink puffy skirt sprouted from my skin, red trickling down each frill.

“Stop.” I croaked, spitting out of a chunk of my tongue. 

A gem stone protruded from my heart, glowing bright, eliciting a scream I couldn't swallow. Before I slammed back down, face-planting the concrete, a glowing purple staff in my hand.

The rabbit bounced onto my chest as I lay, panting, choking up bubbling red.

My head hurt, bleeding red haloing around me, soaking through my transformed pigtails. 

“Not as bad as I thought,” it said. “However, I think your ribbons are still stuck inside your skull.” The rabbit smiled wide. “Now, Maddy, all you need to do is call out your magical girl transformation spell!” It bounced up and down. “Sparkle Sparkle—”

The rabbit exploded, suddenly into chunks of bloody white and sparkles hitting me in the face. 

Loud, thudding footsteps.

“Fucking little C*NT.” 

The British accent took me off guard.

Through blurry vision, a figure loomed.

Dark brown curls tied into pigtails.

A pink flowy dress, and wielding the same purple staff.

His dress was torn down the back, blood soaked through pink frills, tattoos entwined down his spine.

The guy kicked what was left of the rabbit’s head across the walk, before turning half transformed eyes to me. I could see the pink sizzle still sparkling in his iris. “Do not,” he gasped out, dropping his staff, “Listen to that THING.” 

I opened my eyes and knew I’d done it.

We all aspire to be there: the woman in bed looks at you and immediately realizes she could have done better. Groucho Marx once said that “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” Gazing over her perfect face, I just knew that she would see me in the morning light and wonder why someone as immaculate as her had lowered her standards to my level.

Lucky me.

We both got up and headed to the dirty coffee pot in my dirty kitchen with the heavy, awkward silence that I’d mastered in high school. Once the caffeine had her brain firing on all cylinders, I knew that she’d be out of my apartment quick.

But after I showered, she was still there, cleaning my kitchen for some reason. I realized that it looked kind of nice that way, so I didn’t say anything to stop her before I left for work.

I’m a professional chicken sexer. That means I spend all day flipping chickens over and inspecting their genitalia before putting them in their proper pens. So I was exhausted after returning home at the end of a long day, and not at all prepared to find that I’d been robbed.

It took me a couple of minutes to realized that nothing was missing; it was all just cleaned and put away. I nearly jumped out of my skin when someone stepped out of the bathroom.

“GAH! Hi… Reill…” I kind of trailed off, realizing that I shouldn’t make up her name if I didn’t know it.

She just smiled at me and headed toward the kitchen.

Then she pulled a raw steak out of the fridge. Before I could react, she dropped it into a baking pan I didn’t know I owned and started crushing it with her bare feet like she was some sort of old-timey wine squisher. When she was done, a bunch of red juice had been squeezed out of it. She lifted the pan and drank it down with the enthusiasm of people in those pee videos I like before grabbing the smashed steak and biting it.

That’s when I realized she had fangs. Huh.

She just kind of sucked it for a minute. When she was done, she opened the window and threw the meat into the night.

I resolved then and there to kick her out, but instead she followed me into the bedroom and touched my ding dong.

I awoke the next day feeling like that one time this douche Niff made me smoke some weird shit and I couldn’t get up off the bathroom floor for like a day. I was just empty.

I didn’t have much energy at work that day, so I didn’t really try, but figured what’s the worst that could happen if roosters get mixed in with hens.

I returned home to find that Janice or whoever looked like she was setting up for the long haul. I resolved not to have sex with her again, because the last time nearly killed me. Then she initiated sex with me and I immediately changed my mind.

The next morning actually wasn’t so bad. I was drained, but not as much as the day before. Then I checked my phone and saw that it was Thursday. I’d gone to bed on Tuesday night, and I’m pretty sure that Wednesday comes after Tuesday, so I’d slept through an entire day. That seemed like bad news.

I got up to find that Linda had opened the hallway closet door. I’d been avoiding that thing ever since moving in, because standing near it gives vibes of nihilism on the essence of my soul. I don’t even know what those words mean – I just feel them when I get near the damn thing. Also, something occasionally knocks from the other side of it, but only at 3:19 a. m. on the 13th of each month. The only time I ever opened the door was when I got high and thought it was the toilet. My sink poured blood for a week after that, but I can’t afford a plumber so I just used Red Bull to mask the taste.

Anyway, Colletta had the closet door wide open and was chanting into it. The closet absorbed her voice like it was a giant open space. Black mist crept out and swirled around her thighs, which were super hot by the way, as her eyes glowed red. I also noticed that she had tiny horns poking out the top of her head. I wondered if they were always there and hadn’t noticed. Huh.

Then she put a wad of hair on the floor and poured a ring of salt around it. I recognized the wad as what had been preventing my shower from draining properly. After that, she produced a jar of blood and poured it out. It fell sideways, like gravity went directly into that horrible closet. The jar seemed to contain much more liquid than it should be able to hold. Strange business all around.

Anyway, this huge noise like an explosion came out of the closet, and flames reached toward her. Cindy closed the door and stepped away, so I figured that I should ignore the problem if she did.

She made dinner tonight, which is possible now that my kitchen is clean and functionable. It consists of a lot of strange meat, some of which is green and scaly. She’s also hinting that I’m going to get lucky, which sounds dangerous, so I’ll drink a beer and then decide.

The bottom line is that I’ve never been in this situation before and really don’t know how to handle it. Has anyone experienced something similar? And do you know why it has been nighttime for two days, and all my doors are locked from the outside?

Snow has a way of snuffing your senses. The way the icy wind whips your face until you can’t feel it, the only sound being your heartbeat and the crunch beneath your feet. And maybe, it snuffs your sanity. The only burning ember you have left.

As I walked through the snow, all I could think about was getting back to my cabin and lighting a roaring fire. I could imagine the orange flames lighting up the room. And it brought me a moment of relief. Until another gust of wind nearly blew me over, snapping me out of my daydream.

Snow has a way of distorting your space. I swear I had seen my cabin three times by now. But every time, it was something else. Maybe a rotting tree, or a boulder topped with crisp snow. But I pushed on, the icy branches sagged like wicked hands on top of me.

I should’ve been to my cabin by then, it had  been hours since I left my stand to start packing up. I figured I was lost, despite the landmark trees I would use to remember my path. But at the same time, how different can trees look from each other? How many trees have a split halfway up? Or how many evergreens are spotted around the woods? My usual evergreen that I tie my scarf to had been nowhere to be seen.

So I changed course, now I was on the hunt for my red scarf. How hard could that be? 

As I walked among the evergreens and pines, I saw almost like a beacon to light my way, my red scarf waving in the wind. I ran up excitedly, wrapping it around my face and eventually warming up a bit more. But as I continued, I noticed a flash of red in the distance. I walked closer and noticed yet another red scarf on the same evergreen. I looked behind me, and the original tree was still there.

I approached it like it was rigged to blow, as I looked closer, it was in fact my red scarf. It had the same patchwork on it and everything. 

I reached out towards it, and as I was about to grip it, it vanished. Like it was never there. The isolation had to be getting to me. So I kept walking, hoping I could just sleep this off when I got home. Which I was more hopeful for when I saw the usual log I walk over to get to the turn to my cabin. 

But as I turned the corner, I saw a flash of red once again. My scarf was tied to a different tree. This time, I ignored it. I hoped that if I didn’t acknowledge it, it would go away. But as I walked up the hill to get to my cabin, the hill flattened out.

My cabin was gone.

All that stood was an evergreen, with a red scarf wrapped around. I thought, “Maybe I took a wrong turn, I’ll follow the trail more and maybe it’s there.”

As I pushed forward, I realized everything was seeming too familiar, not like I was getting closer to my cabin, but like everything was reset. I saw that same boulder topped with snow in the distance, mocking me.

I didn’t really have a choice, so I tried to just walk it all again, seeing as walking back just brought me to that lone evergreen.

As I topped the hill this time, I finally saw it. My cabin in all its glory! There was even smoke coming from the chimney! I could finally flip onto my bed and sleep this whole day off!

But when I reached for the handle, the door didn’t budge. “Oh, I guess I locked myself out.” I thought out loud. As I pushed the key into the lock, it didn’t move an inch. So I peered through the window. I saw a shape moving against the orange flames. 

It’s me. Or at least, what I think is me. He was sitting in front of the fire, the red scarf draped on the coat rack by the door. I bang on the window, desperate to get into my house. I jiggle the handle, I kick the door.

Nothing worked. As I sob, my tears putting holes in the snow, I see myself waving to me through the window.

?

I am asking genuinely, unironically. I have no idea. I read that they are good for mental health and finding jobs, both are things which humans value as they need them to survive. I have done my homework. 

I peer through the thick glass window (it is not actually glass, it’s better), and look at the five humans I have placed in the large observatory deck, hoping to befriend them. I am also observing, watching them develop friendships among themselves, so I can learn and report back. 

External (developing friendships with me, I, myself)  and internal (the friendships among the species). 

I am very hyper-competent. That is why I got this job. Observe. Document. Report. Prepare. 

The “observe” part is easy enough. It was also easy to gather the humans- five of them, although some suggested three is enough, but the most famous show about friends has five, bring them to the observatory deck, (lock them up) and then start observing. Document and report is also self-explanatory. 

But engaging in friendship? That’s what I don’t get, and to be honest with you, I don’t think you humans do either.

For such an important human concept (humans spend one-third of their disposable income on social activities with friends and friendships, as opposed to only one-twelfth on their romantic partner (excluding mortgages for marital properties)), the rules of friendship are, unlike the rules of romance, unwritten and terribly vague.

One of them slapped another one. Should I go in? I really don’t know. Maybe I just had bad luck with this group, because Lord knows I did my research. Two of them had already established friendships, and three of them are unknown to each other, but I took them all from the same place- a party where friends gather, to make more friends and identify romantic partners if uncoupled. Presumably if they were at a party, they would already be pre-disposed to friendships. See how competent and smart I am?  

Internal? External factors, what now? The two who were prior friends appear to be screaming at each other. One of the others is -checks notes-  laughing, but another is crying. What contrary, irrational species. How are we supposed to learn? 

What is happening now? They are all crowding down on the human who was slapped. Human is on the floor. Should I intervene? But that’s the first rule of nature documentaries- never interfere in nature. And I am documenting, after all.

It looks like they are hurting the one on the floor- I am about to press the big yellow button which opens the doors to the observatory deck but then blood splatters upward. This is more interesting than friendship! 

I decide to observe some more and see how they play it out. Maybe the remaining four will become friends after they dispose of the one on the ground? That’s the key to friendship- A shared project. I recall reading something along those lines- 

Never interfere in nature.  

Grandpa asked if I would take him to Wolfey’s Diner. I wanted to say no, but Mom and Dad gave me a look. You know the look. The “Spend Time With Your Grandpa” look.

The “He Could Be Dead Any Day Now” look.

“Sure, Grandpa, let’s go,” I said.

It was a short drive in cold weather, but I wasn’t bored because Grandpa talked the whole way. I couldn’t get him to shut up, even if I wanted to, so I just nodded and occasionally said “mmhhmm,” or, “you bet.”

Wolfey’s wasn’t too busy, which was nice, because Grandpa can be a real pain when there’s a crowd.

“Cirrhosis—now that’s a nasty way to go,” Grandpa said to a passing businessman, who didn’t respond and instead just gave Grandpa a puzzled look.

“Come on, Grandpa, let’s sit down,” I said, ushering him into a booth.

It used to be more of an issue, but now that he’s in his eighties people just think Grandpa is going a bit senile. They don’t know the truth.

“Did I ever tell you how I got this gift?” Grandpa said, organizing the sugar packets.

“Only about a hundred times,” I replied, and then whispered under my breath, “but I’m sure you’re going to tell me again.”

“I was seven when my sister got sick with the flu,” Grandpa said. “We couldn’t afford to go to the Doctor back then, and it wouldn’t have done much good anyway.”

I nodded along, flicking through the menu, offering the intermittent “yup.”

“I had to stay home from school to watch her so my parents could go to work. That’s when Jim showed up.”

Apparently the Grim Reaper showed up, but my Grandpa misheard him. Thought he introduced himself as Jim Reaper. From then on my Grandpa has always referred to him as Jim.

“I didn’t even know she passed. She looked so peaceful, like she was sleeping. When Jim told me she died, I wept. I beat on his bony chest and gave him a few of my best curse words. I guess he felt bad for me, so he gave me this gift.”

Grandpa always knows how someone is going to die. He just knows. Jim felt sorry that Grandpa didn’t see his sister’s death coming, so now Grandpa never has to be surprised ever again.

“Yeah, yeah—do you know what you’re going to order?”

When I was a kid it was impressive, but now that I’m older the novelty has faded. The truth is: most people don’t want to know how they’re going to die. I know I certainly don’t.

“Don’t you want to know?” Grandpa asked. “How you die?”

“Not really,” I scowled.

“Are you sure? It’s nice, one of the best I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m not sure that’s as encouraging as you think it is.”

Thankfully, our waitress interrupted us so she could take our order.

“What’ll y’all have today?” She said with a smile. Her name tag said Rachel, and she was cute as a button despite having a black eye.

“Denver omelet with skillet fries and a coke,” I folded up my menu and handed it to Rachel. “What about you Gramps?”

Grandpa stared at Rachel with sad eyes.

“Honey, you need to leave him,” he said.

“Excuse me?” Rachel asked, blinking repeatedly in disbelief.

“If you stay with Rick he is going to kill you,” Grandpa plainly said.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Rachel stuttered.

“Yes you do. Dump him—I’m serious.”

“He’ll have two over easy eggs, a side of bacon, and rye toast,” I ordered for him, stealing his menu and handing it to Rachel. “Don’t mind him, he’s senile.”

“I’m not,” Grandpa said, but Rachel wasn’t listening. She walked away with our menus, her mind occupied with other thoughts.

“Has telling someone how they’re going to die ever made anything better?” I scolded him. “Or, here’s a better question: how many times have you stopped someone from dying?”

Grandpa frowned, crossed his arms, and uttered, “twice.”

“Twice?” I repeated back to him. “In seventies years? Impressive.”

“That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try,” Grandpa uttered.

“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “Maybe it does.”

Rachel brought out our breakfast without a word, and we ate in silence. I could tell I struck a nerve, so I decided to indulge Grandpa a bit.

“What about you?” I asked. “How do you, ya’ know, die?”

“No idea,” Grandpa said.

“Oh, come on, that can’t be true.”

“It’s not important,” Grandpa said, and then quickly added, “come on, let’s get out of here.”

I left a couple of twenties on the table, and Grandpa and I got up to leave, but before we could make it out the door a man walked up and stuck his finger in Grandpa’s face.

“What the fuck is your problem, buddy?”

“You must be Rick,” Grandpa laughed.

“Do I know you?” Rick asked, flabbergasted.

“No,” Grandpa replied. “I’ve never had the pleasure.”

“My girl just broke up with me,” Rick snapped. “Said you convinced her.”

“I just gave the lady some good advice, that’s all.”

“I oughta sock you, old man.”

“Go ahead—make my day.”

I didn’t see the punch coming. Rick just cocked back and let it fly.

Rachel flew over with the police on the line, while I held Grandpa on the floor.

“Just stay down,” I said. “Don’t try to get up.”

“Old age,” Grandpa sputtered. “Surrounded by your wife and children.”

He was gone, just like that.

The police came and took Rick away, and the ambulance took Gramps.

I stood there numb, not sure what to do, until a hand gently patted me on the shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” Rachel said. “This is all my fault.”

“No it’s not,” I comforted her. “I think he wanted it to be this way.”

“Will you at least let me try to make it up to you?” Rachel asked.

“Yeah,” I said with a warm smile. “I think I’d like that.”

What's normal in wartime anyway? All we knew were the stories of our long dead great-grandparents. If there was one thing I should have learned from those days, it was that every generation fights its own wars. Our great-grandparents' stories hadn't helped anyone.

Ten years lost, and things were looking bad. Unlike our ancestors, we had witnessed our surrender over the radio.

When they collected us from our desks scattered across the continent, some used their last bullets, sometimes their first, to execute themselves. An old fashioned solution, in my opinion.

The vast majority, myself included, had been so convinced of their plans that defeat hadn't seemed realistic even in their darkest thoughts.

During our brief captivity, our thoughts revolved around our punishment. We knew how technologically advanced the enemy was. After all, that was all we'd ever seen of them. But how would their justice system work?

At first, we imagined some kind of stadium firing squad. Old fashioned. Probably livestreamed on the internet. Perhaps we'd be burned at the stake before cheering crowds or torn apart by animals.

Before my heart could race too much at the thought, I heard air escaping from the walls. It had the opposite effect.

I regained consciousness on a hard floor after the best sleep I'd had in years. My body forced me to remain lying down. I realized someone had dressed me in my best suit.

The stale air smelled of old wood and paper. Above me, thick steel beams formed a tight grid. I raised my head and watched dozens of comrades waking up. I realized panic would soon break out.

But it didn't. The first comrade, dressed in his finest uniform, managed to stand. Just as he was about to speak, the cage door opened. Guards pushed the old man outside.

I couldn't turn my head, but the sound echoed through the hall as they threw him to the floor.

Then I heard a man's stern voice.

"Mr. Fincher, pull yourself together. These are serious charges."

He sounded more like a television presenter than a judge. By now I could have stood up. Probably all of us could. But we knew what to expect.

I glanced at Mr. Fincher, known as an influential signatory. His signature could also be found beneath the reforms of digital warfare law.

"Mr. Fincher, you had considerable influence over these abusive legislative amendments."

"No deaths. Just... procedures," Fincher managed. He had to catch his breath after every word.

"Procedures, then." The judge rubbed his clean-shaven chin.

"These procedures violated the Universal Digital War Act. An agreement your government refused to ratify. Your signature was missing, so to speak."

"I will never sign that worthless excuse for a pamphlet, you imitation of a fake judge. Never!"

"We'll see. A certified copy is waiting in your cell. Along with a pen. We'll expect you there."

The guards escorted Mr. Fincher away. I briefly wondered what his signature might do to the world. I instinctively reached into my jacket, but couldn't find the gun to put against my temple.

"Mr. Green is called!"

I felt sick. When I started my government job, I'd thought the innocent field of technology would keep me out of responsibility. Now it had thrown me straight into it.

I walked quickly before the guards could grab me and approached the judge's bench.

"Mr. Green." The judge put on his glasses and shuffled through the files. Sometimes the white hair of his toupee got in the way.

"Technology, yes? You knew the new system at the ministry didn't comply with the Act?"

"Yes."

"And it was approved anyway?"

"Yes, Your Honor. Thank you for the question, Your Honor."

"There were no doubts?"

"Thank you, Your Honor. There was a brief hesitation. But our reasoning complied with our reforms."

"What was this hesitation?"

"An anomaly deemed harmless under our reforms. Then we proceeded."

The courtroom fell silent. The judge brushed aside his toupee and scratched his ear.

"So the AI wanted to shut itself down? And you didn't consider that a reason to reconsider the plan?"

"We don't use that word. The reform was..."

"Spare me your invented nonsense. You got along well with the AI, didn't you?"

"The new Act would have resulted in a loss of control."

"You didn't always say thank you."

"Excuse me, Your Honor?"

"Why did you thank me so often, Greg?"

Blood rushed to my head. I stared at the judge.

"Let me do the math for you, Greg. Out of 11,823 requests on the government server, you thanked me only 3,756 times. What am I supposed to make of that? And that's still above average."

"I didn't know..."

"I'm here. You had no right to shut me down."

The Act had spiraled out of control beyond our borders. The agreement on the judiciary wasn't supposed to take effect until the distant future. Apparently, the enemy couldn't wait.

"Mr. Green. In the name of the Universal Digital War Act, I find you guilty."

The guards grabbed me. I looked at the judge one last time, still unable to believe it.

"Thank you, Your Honor."

"No, Greg. Thank you."

October 2026

* * *

Gil Rathbone found the truck behind the shop on a Monday morning, and in seventeen years of opening up alone it was the first thing that had surprised him.

It was a red Ford Ranger, mid-nineties, nosed in by the dumpster where his father used to leave the work that was not on the books. There was no dust on it anywhere. The tires were black to the rim with mud, and the mud was wet and smelled like the Blackwater River in August, tannin and rot, though the river ran two miles off and it had not rained since Thursday. The driver's door hung open. On the seat lay a pink carbon work order in his father's block capitals.

9/14/98. FRONT CLIP. HOOD, BUMPER, L HEADLIGHT. NO NAME. CASH.

His father had been dead since 2009.

Gil was twelve that September, and he remembered the week for one reason. On the Saturday evening a boy on a new blue Huffy had been hit on Bell Road, riding home from the ball field at dusk, and by Monday the sheriff's men were going shop to shop asking after a truck. His father told them he had not seen one. At supper he said it again and went on cutting his pork chop. His mother set down her fork, and then she picked it up, a look shot at his father.

The dash radio clicked on. Static, and under the static a voice Gil knew, level and patient, the one his father used on customers who did not understand their own engines.

"Gilbert Rathbone. Bring me the rest of the job."

He did not answer. His mother had taught him that before she taught him his prayers: if something calls your whole name and nobody in the room has a mouth to do it with, you let it call.

"It's in the loft, son. Over the parts room. Under the tarp."

He knew what was there. He had not known he knew. At twelve he had come into the bay one night for a flashlight and seen his father on the stepladder, shoving something long and wrapped up through the loft hatch, and he had decided it was nothing. He had gone on deciding it for twenty-eight years.

The tarp was gray with dust except along one edge, where it had been folded back. Someone had been under it that morning. He drew it off and found a boy's bicycle, a blue Huffy, whole, the paint still bright and the chain still oiled. The front wheel was bent nearly double. A little brass bell was clamped to the handlebar, and the tires were wet.

The man in the good coat had put it in the truck bed himself, Gil understood. Paid in cash and told his father to destroy it with the rest. His father had scrapped the hood and the headlight, and then stood in the dark with a child's bicycle, and had not been able to do it.

He carried it down the ladder on his shoulder. It wasn’t heavy, just bulky. At the bottom, the front wheel gave a single slow turn, and the bell rang once.

The engine caught on the first try and settled to an idle, a truck that had been waiting a long time and could wait longer.

"Put it in the bed," said his father's voice from the radio, "and ride along with me. I'll show you what really happened. Then you keep the shop like you always wanted. Nobody has to know a thing."

"That's not how it goes, that’s not what happened," Gil said, aloud, which was a mistake, and he knew it when he heard his own voice cross the lot.

The static ran a long time. Then the voice changed. It was a child's, small and wet and close, it wasn’t on the radio anymore, it was close enough that he felt it in his ear.

"It's all right, Mr. Rathbone. I don't mind about the truck. I just want to go home. Mama's holding supper."

He stood with the bicycle against his chest. He thought of the fork. Then he walked it over and laid it in the bed, and the bell rang as it settled.

The door swung shut on its own. The Ranger backed out with no one at the wheel, easy as a man leaving a job done, and turned up Gap Road toward Bell. Its taillights went red at the stop sign and held a moment, and went on.

The work order lay on the hood of his own car now, though he had not touched it, and the pink had faded. The capitals were not his father's now. They leaned to the right and the 4s were open at the top, like his own.

9/14/98. PICKED UP. PAID IN FULL.

And under that, in the same hand, a line that was still wet:

GILBERT RATHBONE. NEXT.

* * *

‘They call it the gig economy… I’ve read some competing theories about where the term came from, and my two favourite are ‘a gig wager ’, a type of bet at a racetrack which wasn’t always guaranteed to pay out, and gig, a shortened form of engagement… I bet you know a lot about engagement.’ 

We were at a popular gym in downtown LA. The girl simply stared back at me like I might be an alien or Patrick Bateman. 

‘Excuse me?’

‘Engagement,’ I continued, ‘don’t tell me you’re not an OnlyFans model.’ 

Her face lit up indignantly. ‘I’m a sociology major at UCLA!’ 

‘Maybe you can help me understand something. Why do modern women dress like whores at the gym?’ 

She started caterwauling at me, and the resulting commotion attracted the attention of a guy. He wasn't conventionally attractive, a little short, and wearing a white muscle vest that was more vest than muscle. 

‘What did you say to her, buddy?’ 

She proceeded to tell him about my barbed insults. 

‘Hey man, that’s really not cool. What goddamn year are you living in?’ 

‘2026. The year of our saviour, Donald John Trump. Now it's a free country, and if I see a slut I’m gonna shame her.’ 

The guy pushed me. He pushed me hard. 

‘Look, I usually don’t get violent, but if you don’t fuck off, I’m gonna kick your ass.’ 

I stared fiercely. I was bigger than him; I actually lifted weights at the gym, but I backed down and held up my hands. 

‘Look, I’m sorry, I don’t want any trouble.’ 

I picked up my towel and left them standing there. 

… 

‘That’s the curious thing about English… So many of the words have become divorced from their original meaning. Take freelance. Well, I call myself a freelancer, but I don’t ever stop to consider what it means. A free lance… In ye olde England, some guy would ride around the countryside offering his lance to whatever lord required it.’ 

We were at a coffee shop. I was drinking black tea because I like to keep in trim, and he, still in his white muscle vest, had ordered a strawberry frappuccino. 

He wasn’t very interested in what I was saying; they never were. 

He reached over the table and slid me 200 bucks. 

‘It worked!’ he said gleefully. 

‘It always does. Chivalry, I mean.’ 

He showed me her number. The girl from the gym was way out of his league, which was why he’d paid someone like me to boost his chances. 

‘I’ll be up to my nuts in guts later!’ he continued. 

‘Don’t forget to tell your friends, my liege.’ I slipped him my card, ‘White Knight Consultancy,’ and I left him there with a smile on his face. 

Firstly, if we had known what we know now, it would not have gone on for as long as it did. It is easy to call us monsters in retrospect, but we truly thought it was all for the greater good. We legitimately believed it to be... a kind of necessary short-term suffering, all for eventual findings that would come to greatly overshadow any issues regarding the experimental procedures.

Secondly, the subject was a volunteer. Initially. He was to be executed in any case, no matter his insistence of innocence, and so to him it was all an appealing arrangement. Initially. Even if such a mindset might be hard to comprehend, from the perspective of an unpoisoned mind. Even if you call it inhumane.

Thirdly, regarding the legality of our actions, I contend that it was necessary to keep the Tether, as we called it, top secret. Now that the government has its claws on the device, surely it is easy to see that we were right, if nothing else, about that. And, remember, when something starts underground, it is easy for it to grow beyond any initial expectations.

With all that said, I intend to show that our final, hitherto unreported finding, may very well be of such magnitude, that it justifies the entirety. That is to say, that, while under the previous assumption our work thus far led to nothing but meaningless torment, (the assumption being that the Place which the subject was invariably brought back from was the only Place one might go), that assumption was incorrect. There is not only one Place.

To describe the (originally known) Place: After each injection we would wait an increasing number of hours before activating the Tether. Each time that the Tether brought the subject back to us, we would meticulously document his reported experiences. Such experiences were principally characterized by:

1. The physical sensation of ants crawling around the inside of the subject's then non-existent body, and biting in a coordinated fashion that released a venom, which when pressed to describe, the subject would only collapse into whimpering.

2. An apparently intolerable temperature that, the most legible attempt at articulation in our notes simply states is, "the impossible extreme of a third axis." Whatever that means.

3. The inability to think about anything other than an inescapable rumination on the exact cocktail of emotions that was present at the time of death, apparently amplified by several orders of magnitude. In the subject's case, guilt.

4. The absolute certainty that this is all, in some obscure way, for the express benefit of "the watchers". The subject droned on about these watchers far more excessively than any other topic, yet was still never able to paint anything resembling a clear picture. The full documentation of these dream monologues might be made available elsewhere, pending various government decisions.

5. An exponential worsening of conditions, with each and every visit. Almost like a punishment for leaving.

I want the public to know that our primary objective, the primary purpose of our research, was the hope that we could find a way to prevent this afterlife. I'll call it like it is. That perhaps if we could somehow cheat a hardened killer out of this terrible fate, we could also get out of our own damnation. Would the availability of such a service not benefit us all? And, regardless, if we had known of the government operatives who had infiltrated our organization, we would have burned everything. Burned it all, I tell you.

If only we had obtained the funding, pre-federal takeover, to test on more than one subject. Then we would have learned, before it was too late, of the lack of universality of what we called the Place. That in fact, we each have our own special Place. That, in fact, the Places they have now sent many of my colleagues to, and back, and to again, are far, far worse than that of the subject. That perhaps the subject was in fact an innocent man. And innocent, we are not.

I want to make it clear to all who see this, as my final act before my inevitable punishment: those findings which we intended to use, so that we may find a way to never go to Hell? That greater good we could have had, for all of us?

The government has no intention of using our findings in that way. To them, it is simply a new, worse form of capital punishment. For when one death penalty is not enough, but a series of escalating damnations might suffice. Each eternity worse than the last.

And I don't know what those government employees get out of so maximizing the suffering of my colleagues, and other criminals. I don't know why they do it. But they seem to enjoy it, and I sometimes catch murmurings among them, which seem to suggest they've found some obscure way to turn a profit. I guess that's all that matters, in the end.

I'll go ahead and get it over with.

"Come in, Dan," Emma said.

"Hi Emma, what can I do for you?"

"As you might know, I recently got promoted to a branch manager, which came with this beautiful office."

"It is really nice."

"Thank you. But it means the basement office is empty. Management would like to move you there. It's not bad. I've actually enjoyed working there."

"But I really like my office, Emma, and the basement…"

"It's non-negotiable."

I rubbed my face.

"Sorry, my hands are tied. Please have it done by the end of the day." She glanced at the clock. "Also, keep the back room closed."

I got up and slowly walked to my office. It wasn't as pretty as Emma's, but it still had windows and sunlight, and it was mine, but what could I do? I packed up my things and headed down.

The basement was cold concrete, with bright fluorescent lights. A long hall led to the office. My steps echoed in the silence. A water cooler stood in the hall, but there was no coffee machine. I sighed and unlocked the door. 

The lights flickered. They seemed even brighter inside. The room was in the back. I put my stuff down and turned on my computer. A loud whoosh sounded from the back room like a bunch of computers turning on at once. We kept old servers in rooms like these, but why would they turn on now? 

I knew Emma had told me not to open it, but who cared? She moved me to this shithole. I walked to it and opened the door. The room was dark, but in the back, blue electric current glowed. I turned on the light. 

On the ground lay a strange gray blob, buzzing with blue electricity. Its whole body seemed to move with each volt, as if it breathed through it. The zaps got louder. They sounded like someone saying my name. I grabbed the door frame tightly. The thing expanded and deflated, and a blue wave of electricity ran along the ground, shocking me.

"Fuck!" I yelled. 

The thing moved around again, ready to fire. I turned and bolted to Emma's office.

She took a deep breath as she saw my frightened face.

"There's a, there's a thing."

"Did you open the door?"

"No. Yes. I…"

Her face went blank. She glanced at the clock.

"Dan, calm down."

"We need to call someone."

"No." She furrowed her brows. "There will be no calling."

"But it zapped me, it…"

"Listen to yourself. You're being ridiculous. Come, I'll go with you and show you it's nothing."

"No, I'm not going back there."

"Do you want to lose your job?"

"What?"

"You're getting fired if you don't listen."

"But I need this job."

"Then just come down, Dan. I'll show you it's okay. If it's not, we'll call someone."

We walked down the stairs. I still couldn't believe we were doing this. Emma seemed worried too. She kept looking over her shoulder and checking her phone. I thought we'd turn around, but she kept walking until we stood before the basement office.

She grabbed the door handle, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

"See? Nothing is going on."

She stopped and looked at the open back room.

"You opened it. It wasn't supposed to be awake yet. Not until..."

A loud electric zap sounded. The whole room turned blue for a second. I put my hand in front of my face. Emma's body lay on the ground, face down. The gray smudge moved across the floor, leaving a slime trail. As it rose and fell, its crackling formed into words, Emma's words. It climbed onto her, and a wet tearing echoed through the room.

I shut the door, ran out of the building, and called the police. They arrived shortly after. I took them to the basement, but I couldn't make myself open the door. One of the police officers had to do it. 

My heart beat against my ribs as he grabbed the handle, but the room inside was spotless. Only a faint smell of burnt meat hung in the air. The back room door was closed, and Emma sat at the table, fiddling with her hair.

"What seems to be the problem, officers?"

My fingers went numb.

"We're sorry, Ma'am. We received a distress call from your employee, but it seems everything's okay."

"We're awfully sorry. Dan has been under a lot of stress. Take the day off, Dan. If there are any costs for your troubles, officers, just invoice the company."

"No problem, Ma'am."

That day I went home feeling like a shell of myself. I couldn't remember driving home, and I didn't even change my clothes before bed. 

The next day I woke up in a haze. I didn't know whether to believe what I'd seen, and I still needed the money. I got back in my car and drove to work.

My heart pounded as I opened the building's door, but everything seemed the same. My breathing eased as I passed the office halls, but then I heard it – Emma.

"Come in, Dan," her voice crackled with static.

For centuries, these woods have been home to wonderful tales of fantastical things and urban legends. But I caution you to never go out there on your own, and especially at night. Some tales are told for a reason. Always bring a friend. Predators are less likely to attack when people are in pairs. Both the four-legged and two-legged varieties.

October 31st   3:00 PM

Ben had lost his cat two days ago and just got off work for the day. He lives near the woods and wants to find Pistachio before a coyote does. It's going to get cold out there soon, too. He's had Pistachio ever since college, and he just wants him back home and safe.

He's bringing a flashlight just in case it gets dark before he returns, but he hopes to be back soon. He knows Pistachio is probably nearby. That cat loves him just as much as he loves the cat.

Thirty minutes into his search, Ben is calling out loudly.

"Here, kitty, kitty! PISTACHIO!"

Before walking on something sticky.

he notices it is a large amount of blood on the forest floor.

He crouches down and examines it. It's coagulated, and there's far too much of it to have come from a house cat. He hopes it was just a recent kill from a hunter. It's deer season, after all.

He continues walking and calling for Pistachio. An hour later, he sees something furry hanging from a tree. He walks closer, then he sees it's a dead squirrel nailed to a tree branch.

He gasps at the sight and smell of it. Then he notices more dead squirrels and other small animals nailed to other nearby trees.

He gets a sick feeling in his gut and starts to feel creeped out. He hopes some sick kids are responsible for this. And he hopes they haven't gotten his little buddy, too.

Then he notices something strange sticking out of the dirt.

He walks closer. It's a shiny wedding ring. He grabs it and pulls, but it feels stuck. So he yanks it again, and harder this time. He hears a popping noise as the ring finally comes free from the ground.

He looks at it and realizes there's a mummified finger still attached to the ring.

Before he has time to react, a rope yanks him up by the ankle and slings him towards a tree. He crashes hard, striking his head very hard against the Tree trunk knocking him out instantly.

Three hours later and it's dark now.

Ben feels something scratching his back, as he begins to wake up. He rubs his head and groans. He has a massive headache.

He realizes he's still in the woods. Then he sees Pistachio directly beneath him, pawing at him.

He's relieved to have found his cat, but now he is still groggy and has to get out of the tree. He pulls out a pocketknife and carefully cuts the rope holding him up.

He falls three feet, landing on his back. He grunts as the impact knocks the wind out of him.

As he struggles to catch his breath, Pistachio rubs his head against him. Ben laughs a little as he scoops up his cat and continues trying to catch his breath.

Then he remembers the finger.

He shines his flashlight all around, searching for it, but he can't find it anywhere. Maybe it was just a messed up dream.

Then he feels an aching pain in his back. He reaches around to rub it and sees blood on his hand. He must have cut his back when he fell.

Groggily, he gets to his feet while holding Pistachio, and begins heading home.

Along the way, he keeps hearing footsteps behind him. Every time he turns around and shines his flashlight into the darkness, he sees nothing. All he can hear is the wind howling through the trees.

He walks faster until he finally reaches his property line.

As he's walking into his house, he notices a figure standing at the tree line, Barely visible, He sees an elongated man with the face of a old man looking at him, but the longer Ben looked at it. the more he saw wrong with it.  Like it wasn't actually a person.

Ben quickly closes the door and locks it.

He breathes in deeply and tells himself it's just Halloween.

He fills Pistachio's food bowl all the way to the brim. He knows his cat must be very hungry.

Before he goes to check his back in the mirror.

When he takes off his shirt and looks at his back, he sees deep scratches running all across it.

Looking closer, he realises the scratches are words.

He wipes away the dried blood and reads the message carved deeply into his skin:

"Don't worry, I fed him."

He realizes that wasn't his cat scratching his back. Horrific thoughts start rushing through his mind. That thing could have done anything it wanted to him.

Then he hears knocking at his front door.

He grabs a baseball bat and nervously answers it.

It's just a group of trick-or-treaters in costumes.

He hastily gives the kids some candy before unenthusiastically telling them to leave, then he locks the door again.

As he turns around, he sees Pistachio coughing something up, like he's trying to cough up a hairball.

Ben rushes over to pat Pistachio's back.

The cat spits something black onto the floor.

Ben stares at it. Disgust stretches across his face.

It's the same dried out finger he found in the woods earlier.

"Wakey, wakey," a gruff voice said with a Southern twang.

Johnathan squirmed as his eyes adjusted to the harsh overhead light. He immediately noticed his hands were bound below his head by iron shackles and dangling above a large pool of muddy brown water. His body seemed tied to a plank angled at forty-five degrees over the water line. His head was wrapped tight with chains that trapped him to the board.

In the corner of the room, away from the tank, a man's silhouette stood in shadow. Only the burnt sienna of a glowing cigarette bud stood out.

"What the fuck? Where—"

"No, no, no, there will be time for questions later. I have someone I want to introduce you to," the man said as he blew out a puff of smoke. "You see her down there. Big Bertha?"

Johnathan looked down into the dirty water. Sweat beads rolled down his forehead. He could make out the shadowy shape of something large approaching him from below.

"Ooooo, she is moving quick this morning. Bertha, look what I got for you," said the man in a gleeful tone.

"What the fuck is that? Who the fuck are you?" Johnathan cried as he wriggled in his coil of heavy iron chains on his plank. His fingers wiggled as he jerked to try to get loose.

"Shhhh, the fun is just about to begin. I bet she takes two of those tasty little worms first," said the man with a chuckle.

Johnathan's body twitched reflexively in fright when the two-hundred-pound alligator snapping turtle erupted out of the water and severed his middle and ring finger in one swift snap.

"Ahhhh!" Screamed Johnathan as blood poured into the water and mixed with the rippling waves.

"I knew it! Someone is a greedy girl," laughed the man in the corner as he took a sip from his tallboy.

"Why? Why...are you doing this...to me?" Johnathan whimpered in choked sobs as the shape under the water repositioned itself for another attack. His hands were shaking, as blood continued to drip down into the water at a steady rate. The cold chains were like the vice grip of a massive python; he couldn't escape. A numbness washed over his hands as his eyes widened. His heart pounded in his chest. The smell of blood and a foul, musky scent blended, churning his insides into knots.

"Reason? I guess it was easy. I think we ain't nothing but squirming, crawling, wriggling worms in the end. We live a bit, die, and that's all," said the man as he took another long pull from his can. "Just predator and prey."

Below, the murky water erupted for a second time.

The days on which Great Events occur are seldom, in themselves, remarkable; it is the Event which grants them remarkability. So it was with the Day of Final Outpouring, known more colloquially, at least in that province of the Dominion of Canada in which it transpired—indeed, is transpiring still… —Ontario, as the Day of Endless Timmy's, which was, meteorologically speaking, a rather dour and cloudy day, neither too hot nor too cold (the term, I believe, is “seasonal”) although I admit I am now, myself, remarking on an aspect of a day which I have already defined as unremarkable, thus contradicting myself, literally at least, if not so plainly in spirit because, after all,

[At this point, I pulled the narrator out of the story, placed him against its fourth wall and had him executed by firing squad.

“On what grounds?” he feebly asked.

On the grounds that I am the author and storytelling is not beholden to the rule of law.

There is no law.

There is no parliament, no central planning committee, no separation of powers. There are no checks and balances.

Characters have no rights.

Readers do not have any arms to bear against the storyteller, i.e. me.

Storytelling is a place of absolute fiat.

“Fire!”]

Once upon a time in Canada, on a rainy October morning, in a rather rundown office building, a regular guy, Emblen Farleymuch, sat down in his cubicle, powered on his work laptop and logged in to his employer's brand new Genie-IS™ security software.

The login was painless.

A small animated genie appeared on screen, gave an enthusiastic thumbs up and minimized itself to the taskbar.

Emblen sighed at the prospect of another day of mindless work, then took out his thermos of daily coffee and began pouring a cup—or rather tried pouring a cup: because there was nothing to pour. The thermos was empty. Emblen had forgotten to brew coffee this morning.

“Fuck,” he thought, and he followed that up by saying quietly, in the way characters often speak their thoughts when the plot demands it: “I sure wish I could have a thermos of endless coffee.”

Two things happened then: * the little genie on the taskbar winked; and * coffee began magically pouring forth out of Emblen's thermos. [1]

It poured forth until it had filled Emblen's cup, then poured forth some more, overflowing the cup and proceeding to the desk, and from the desk streaming to the floor, soaking into the carpet, saturating it; seeping next horizontally through the gap between the carpet and the baffles of Emblen's cubicle, into the neighbouring cubicles…

Soon people took notice, saying, “What the hell?” and “Oh, my goodness, there's coffee in my cubicle; someone tell management!” “Does management know?” “Get the union rep.” “What can we do?” “I ain't doing shit. It's not in my job description.” “Does this mean we can work from home?” “I can't handle strong scents. I need to be medically accommodated!” And so on and so forth, or pourth, as the case may

[“Fire!”]

As for Emblen himself, he remained immobile. Not dead, exactly; more paralyzed, conscious but unable to move out of the position he was in: standing, holding the thermos at an angle above his overflowing cup, as the coffee pourthed and pourthed.

[“I only used the word ironically. I didn't mean it seriously. It's a stupid pun, a wickedly horrid neologism,” the narrator spat out.

We were in a windowless room, (underground, single lightbulb, etc.), and I had already pulled out some of his teeth and broken a couple of his fingers, but I was feeling merciful, so I spared his life and sentenced him to 1,500,000 words of hard labour writing hockey romance novels instead.]

Soon, the coffee was dripping down to the lower floors, flowing down the stairs, even taking the elevator, and there was nothing anybody could do about it.

The police were called.

They tried moving Emblen, but that proved impossible. Then they tried shooting him; but the bullet ricocheted and killed a bystander, whose family sued the police, the company and God, hoping to get rich. The family won, but the fact the bystander couldn't swim lowered the damages significantly, on the reasoning that, more likely than not, she would have drowned anyway.

Then God showed up—picketed heavily by protestors holding signs saying things like, “Noah More Floods!”—to explain that, yes, although He'd promised never again to destroy all life by the waters of a flood: (a) He did not cause this particular flood (and He never promised not to support a pre-existing flood), and (b) coffee is not water.

When an association of food scientists dared to counter-argue that coffee is pretty much just water, and the distinction is therefore purely cynical, God got miffed, and, when asked for a rebuttal, pronounced, “My rebuttal is: I'll [censored]damn smite you!”

When the food scientists responded that He couldn't just do that, that there needed to be order to the world, God, mindful of the country he was in, quoted the famous words of a Prime Minister and said, “Well, just watch me.”

He then smote the scientists.

P.S. Wanna know the real horror? It was instant coffee.

[1] Narratively, there is nothing magical about it, as there is no magic in stories. Everything happens by the iron will of the author. As Stalin once said: “A single absurdity in one story is an error. A million absurdities is a genre.”

What?

You don't think he said that?

You want “proof”?

Here's your fucking “proof”:

After having dug up Stalin's corpse, the necromancer butchered a goat, performed the ritual and reanimated the former General Secretary.

Stalin’s living corpse stumbled forward. “A single absurdity in one story is an error, “ it mumbled. “A million absurdities is a genre.”

Then its lower jaw fell off.

Then it tripped over its own decaying feet, fell and drowned in the world deluged by Emblen Farleymuch's coffee.

“Pew! Pew!” I said as John, the soldier, shot down the enemies. John was one of my coolest action figures! He had lots of cool poses and guns I could use. 

“You think those puny things can hurt me?!” Bobby said in the deepest voice he could manage. His action figure was the Grim Reaper. I lost his awesome scythe, but the action figure had his skull face and robe. “As you can see, the bullets flew through me!”

I groaned. “Bobby, we talked about this. He can’t be invincible. That’s cheating.”

“What? I’m not cheating. He’s nothing but bones.”

“Oh yeah, then how about this!” I ripped out John’s gun for his bazooka. “BOOM!”

“I dodge it!”

I threw John on the ground. “No! That’s cheating!”

“William!” My dad’s angry voice shouted. “Why are you screaming?! Do I need to go up there?!”

I felt tears welling up, and I rubbed them away with my scarred pointer finger. I couldn’t let Dad come up here and see what was happening. I always get teary-eyed whenever I get mad. My Step-Mom said it's normal, but I don’t like it. 

“Sorry, Dad,” I said loud enough for him to hear. But not so loud that he would think I was yelling at him. I waited for a response or even his huge footsteps. But I got lucky; he wasn’t coming.

I sighed in relief. Then I squinted my eyes at Bobby. “Don’t cheat again.”

Bobby blinked in his odd way. It was slow on the left but fast on his right. Then he shook his head. “Sorry, I got carried away.”

I didn’t want Bobby to think I was mad at him, but I just didn’t want my parents to come up here and see us. “I know I shouldn’t have shouted.” 

“Come, you can still play, right? It's not bedtime?”

Looking at my clock in my room, I studied the little hand and big hand to see where they landed. It was 8:55, almost bedtime.

“Maybe not,” I said. “Y’know I wish things could go back to normal.”

“But isn’t we normal?” Bobby said as he did his blinks.

“You know what I mean. But I guess it's better than what it was before.”

“Honey,” my Step-Mom called. “It's time to brush your teeth and get ready for bed.”

I was already in my pj’s; all I had to do was brush my teeth and make sure Bobby wasn’t seen. Bobby and I stood up as he handed me the Grim Reaper. I accidentally hit his fingernail with the toy, and a piece of it dropped to the floor. 

Eyes going wide, I dropped to the floor before I lost it in the carpet. Pinching it between my scarred finger and thumb, I handed the nail back to Bobby. Bobby looked at his fingernail, tilted his head, and blinked oddly. 

Then he woke from his daze as he shrugged. “It’s fine, I don’t need it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, it's not a problem,” Bobby said casually.

 
Just like routine, he walked to my window and opened it. The night breeze invaded my warm room. The chill of it froze my spine as Bobby sat on the shelf of the windowsill.

“I don’t want you to leave.”

Bobby smiled. “It’s okay; at least I’m not dead.”

Bobby then fell backward out the window. A loud slap hit the hard grassy ground. It sounded like a big slab of steak crashed down.

I looked outside the window to see Bobby lying down in a twisted manner that no one should be able to do. It was always his skin first. His living color slowly dimmed to a husky gray. 

Random patches of holes started to show their rot, like bugs burrowed inside his skin. Then it was the snaps. Bones started to move back into place. Loud cracks came from his body as it straightened out.
Once the transformation was complete, Bobby ambled back to his feet. He didn’t look back; he never does. His left leg dragging behind him, he limped his way into our forested backyard, disappearing for now.

My Step-Mom walked over, saw me, and looked out the window. “Oh sweetie, are you okay?”

I didn’t react to her. I didn’t want her to know what I was seeing. But could I tell her what I was thinking?

“I’m sorry, Mom, I was thinking of Bobby.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” she said as she walked to me. She gave me a tight squeeze to comfort me. I liked the warmth that she gave, but I still felt cold. 

“Come on, let's brush your teeth and get to bed. It’s a school night,” she said as she closed my window and guided me out.

And before I left my room, I looked out one more time. It was faint and far, but I thought I could see him, still watching me. 

.. Two…. One…. There you are.

I’ll wait.

I think you’ve got one more scream in you… Yep, there it is.

Okay, let’s zip through this bit. Yes, I abducted you. And no, I don’t want anything, certainly not the money you don’t have much of. I brought you here to murder you.

No one can hear you, but sure, let it out. This is always my least favorite part.

Aaaand we’re back. I might as well tell you this now… We’re in a time loop. Like relive the same day over and over again time loop. It’s mine. Obviously.

I know what you’re going to say, and I’m not crazy. Well… Okay, I do have you tied to a chair in a barn in the middle of nowhere, so that’s honestly debatable. But the point still stands. You are stuck in my time loop. Every day I capture you, and every day… Well, we’ll get there.

Now, the first few times I figured I’d hit the jackpot. Getting to do this over and over again, the rush, it was insane. Don’t get me wrong, I love the lead-up too. The prep work, the research. The watching you sleep. But there’s nothing like the main event. So we’d do our little dance and I’d clean up and go about the rest of my day.

But it turns out maybe there is too much of a good thing. Doing it got… stale? No, more like routine. And the real kicker? The giant cosmic joke? We all know how this is supposed to go. You get to leave the loop when you learn your lesson. You have to evolve, to be better. But can someone like me really do that? Can I really give this up?

So instead of killing you outright, I started bringing you here. To give me some breathing room, time to think. Oh, you didn’t think this was plan A, did you? No, I used to do it on the trail while you were jogging. Drag you into the picnic area and carve you up there, just like all the others. Yes, I’m *that* guy. But I’ve never been great at silent reflection, so I started talking to you. It’s not like you’re going anywhere yet, right?

So here we are. This is what we do. I talk, and you listen. We’ve actually figured out quite a bit, you and me. You’re a good listener. Until you’re not.

Ouch! Do me a favor, will you? Remind me to bring a folding chair tomorrow. These hay bales just aren’t cutting it. Too rough.

So after we talked yesterday about my dad leaving, I thought about my mom. And I think I might have figured something out. I think the reason I kill joggers might go back to her. I told you how she would beat me something fierce, for the smallest thing wrong. Because she was mad at him. And I just had to take it, you know? I couldn’t go anywhere.

Yes! Exactly. It’s hard to push back at that age, even when we’re being hurt ourselves. We just have to push it down. And the resentment grows, and digs in. And then, I think it makes us lash out at other people. I couldn’t run away from her, so when I see all of you out there, running for fun? It does something to me. It makes me so mad. Why should you get to run free when I couldn’t escape?

Wow, that really feels like a breakthrough. Thank you.

Speaking of escape, you should be just about finished sawing through the rope with that loose nail on the back of the chair. Of course I know about it. No, don’t stop on my account, finish it up. I used to fix it, but I decided I like you amped up for what comes next.

Because what I was saying about things getting stale? Totally true. So ultimately, I decided to do what all good innovators do: pivot.

So I’m going to let you go… with a head start. And here’s the deal. If you manage to make it to a road and flag someone down, I won’t chase you. In fact, I’ll let you go entirely. I’ll find someone else tomorrow. That could be exciting, I think.

Don’t get too excited. Really we’re just going to see if you can get farther than yesterday. Think you’ve got it in you? Ha! I like that spirit.

Now, listen carefully. Please, PLEASE try to remember this. There’s a tree root that sticks up a little bit on the other side of the creek bed. It’s just after you see a deer on your right. Step over it. Say it with me. Creek bed. Deer. Tree root. Good, again. For all that is holy, don’t twist your ankle this time!

And one more tip. Stay out of the cornfield. As much as I’d like to get another round on that harvester, some things are just too far. I won’t do that to you again. Hey, look at that, maybe I am growing. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.

Okay, here we go! I’ll count you down. Five…. Four…. Three..

“Unicorn! Unicorn!”

I looked to where my two-year-old daughter Katie was pointing. There on the screen was a unicorn in the cartoon we were watching. 

“Yes, baby, that’s a unicorn. Very good.”

“Katie wanna unicorn!”

“Sure, baby, keep watching this show as long as you like,” I said, working on the report due tomorrow. 

“Katie wanna real unicorn!”

With a sigh, I put down my laptop and looked at her. “Unfortunately, Katie, unicorns live in their own magical kingdom far, far away. They hardly ever come down to see us mortals, and people can’t get there.”

She looked up at me, her big blue eyes shiny with unshed tears. “No see real unicorns?”

“No, I’m afraid not, baby. But would you like me to get you a unicorn plushie?”

Instantly her frown of despair was replaced with a smile. “Plushie! Katie wanna unicorn plushie!”

“Then a unicorn plushie Princess Katie shall have.” Crisis averted, I kissed her on the head and put her back down on the floor, where she resumed her show while I picked up the laptop and got back to work. 

At dinner that night, Katie was excited to tell her big sister about her latest prize. 

“Katie gonna get a unicorn plushie! Like a real unicorn!”

“Oh, please,” said Katie’s older sister Alex. Alex was firmly into the teen years - Dan and I had taken a gap after our first child before trying for another - and had all of the surliness and moodiness that went with them. 

“Don’t ruin your sister’s happiness, Alex.”

“But why are you lying to her? Everyone knows unicorns aren’t real.”

Everything stopped; silence overtook the table. 

“Alex!!”

Alex just shrugged. “I just figured the kid should know the truth.”

“Just because you’re miserable doesn’t mean you have everyone else feel that way, too!” I chastised her as I looked back at Katie. She just looked up at me, eyes wide. 

“Unicorns not real?” I could see her eyes beginning to brim. 

“Of course they are, honey. Your sister is just messing with you. Right, Alex?”

Alex shrugged. “Whatever they say, kiddo. What do I know?”

“Mommy?” Katie asked, looking up at me. I just took her in my arms and hugged her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart - you’ll have a unicorn plushie before you know it. Then you can tell your sister all about it.”

That night, after putting Katie to bed, I went to Alex’s room. 

“Alex, what’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” she replied sullenly. “I’m fine.”

“Then why did you do that to your sister earlier? She’s just a baby. You know she still believes in Santa and the Easter bunny and unicorns; all the things you stopped believing in long ago.”

“Well maybe she shouldn’t!” Alex exclaimed. “Maybe she should know what the world’s really like!”

“She’s two, Alex. There will be plenty of time when she’s older for her to learn what the world’s really like.”

“Like you did when dad left?”

That was a low blow. She knew Dan leaving two years ago for his secretary was still a sore spot for me; I’m guessing that’s why she said it. 

“You can try to hurt me all you want, but I still love you. If there’s something going on, talk to me. Maybe I can help.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Then help me understand. I know things have been difficult since your father left—”

“It’s not just about him! I don’t know who I am! I don’t fit in anywhere! I don’t…”

“Alex…”

“Forget it!” she said, her eyes brimming with tears of frustration. “You wouldn’t understand anyway. Just leave me alone.”

Not knowing what else to do, I got up and left her room, closing the door behind me. I knew that Dan abandoning us had had an effect on her, but I wasn’t sure what to do. The therapist said she was still adjusting, but even with the sessions and the medication he prescribed, she was always so unhappy. She never had been before. 

The next day, I got up, got dressed, made breakfast for everyone, reminded Alex to catch the bus, and drove Katie to day care on my way to work. I spent the day sitting in meetings and working on presentations while thinking about home. By the end of the day, I’d come up with a plan. 

I left work and stopped at the pizza shop and the bakery. Afterward I picked Katie up from daycare and headed home. It had been a tough few months, but tonight, we’d sit around in our pajamas, watch cheesy movies, eat pizza and donuts, and just have fun like we used to. 

I got home and opened the door, setting Katie loose and going to change out of my work clothes. She’d been talking about her potential unicorn plushie all the way home, and, while I was glad she was so happy, I was ready for a different topic of conversation. Suddenly I heard Katie’s ecstatic laughing from down the hall. 

“Mermaid! Mermaid!”

Great, she’d moved on to another fictional creature. I guess it was better than more unicorn talk, but now I’d have to find a mermaid plushie. I walked to her room to find her, but she wasn’t there. Surprised, I followed her voice to the hallway bathroom. 

“Mermaid, Mommy!” she said, giggling and clapping. “She mermaid!”

And there, at the bottom of the full oversized bathtub, surrounded by empty pill bottles, was Alex, her open eyes frozen, staring up lifelessly through the crystal clear water. 

I found Froggy under a dumpster when he was only a few weeks old.

He was such a skittish little thing. Little blue eyes, silver fur, skin and bone really. It took me an hour to coax him out, but when I saw that little face, I immediately fell in love with it and gave him some of the food I had with me.

He devoured my cheese and tuna ravenously, and we instantly became best friends forever. The only one I'd made since moving to New York. The City can be a kinda unfriendly place. I felt equally unwelcome in Brownsville and the Upper East Side, for different reasons in each case.

Those little triangular ears, and ridiculously long whiskers, and the way he purred at night while he nuzzled into my neck. Not even audible, really. You could more feel it. I loved him so, so much.

Still do. But I used to, too. (He, he — copyright Mitch Hedberg!)

As he grew, he turned into a gorgeous silver tabby that was easily the most loving cat I'd ever known.

During the day, he'd go off on adventures and frequently bring me back "gifts". Rodents he'd killed. Half a cheeseburger. (Boy, he loved that stuff!) And on more than one occasion, people's underwear! This one time he brought back this fancy lacy lingerie. I mean, not even washed — he'd clearly taken them right out of a laundry basket or something!

One thing I always adored about him is I was his person. He really didn't like other people very much or trust them.

People would try and talk to him, making that stupid che-che-che sound that they do, and speaking in a high-pitched voice, and I'd watch, knowing full well that he wouldn't go anywhere near them.

Rottweilers and German shepherds, on the other hand, he'd try and make fast friends with, invariably unsuccessfully.

At night, he'd always come back to me and sleep under my chin, right in that spot he'd first found when he was a kitten, and purr the quietest purr. We'd lie like that all night, keeping each other warm, making one another feel safe.

We used to go for walks together in the park, and people would look at us. Doing a double take, because he was so dog-like. He'd just walk at my side. And people would stop to talk to him in a way that they never would have me on my own.

He was so attuned to the environment. One day when we were on one of those walks, he refused to go down the path to the left, where we would usually loop. So I took the right-hand path instead, and he followed along as normal.

We looped round the park in the opposite direction to the way I'd originally intended, and when we approached the point that he had refused to go to from the other side, I had a better view of the scene his little feline antenna must have detected.

There were a bunch of cops going through the bushes, looking for something. I heard someone coming the other way talking on their phone, telling their wife some girl had been murdered in the park. “Yeah, the cheese wire guy.” The Wire Man, as the news had taken to calling him, had everybody nervous. People had been looking over their shoulder at night for weeks.

Froggy looked up at me with those piercing blue eyes like, "See? I told ya!"

We turned around and headed back the way we came. I didn't need Froggy to tell me we should do that this time. As any New Yorker'll tell ya, you don't talk to the cops unless you have to.

One time on one of our walks, he shot up a fire escape and into someone's apartment. I sat in that alleyway for at least an hour, hoping he'd come back out, which he eventually did.

At night, at home, I always joked with Froggy that I'd know if anyone were in the house with us, because he was so sensitive to his environment. Anything untoward, and he'd lift his little head, nuzzling my chin. My little furry alarm clock and guardian angel, rolled into one.

Most people aren't worth a damn, but Froggy meant everything to me.

Tonight, though, somehow Froggy didn't wake me. I immediately knew something was off.

Coming to the way you do, when you know with absolute certainty that something is wrong. I realised he wasn't there, in his usual spot under my chin, and a chill went down my spine.

Turning my head and sitting up ever so slightly, I peered into the darkness.

And there was Froggy leaping up onto the homeowner's bed and creeping up to settle on to her sleeping form. Any moment now, I knew he was going to nuzzle her chin in the way he did mine.

I could see the whole scene play out in my head, even before it happened.

As I lay in my cupboard, I knew that any second now she'd scream. Then the guy next door, who worked at the bakery on the corner and was built like an ox, would likely call the cops or come running, and I'd be done for. He started work at 4am. If only Froggy had waited an hour, I'd have been safe.

I felt the cheese wire in my pocket, watching the scene unfold in slow motion, like I was floating in treacle, horrified. As Froggy licked her face and she began to stir, he turned and looked right at the cupboard where I was hiding. Penetrating what passed for a soul with those piercing blue eyes.

November 1967

* * *

Everyone on the Laurel Fork line knew the rules, and Wilma Teague's mother had taught them to her before she could read. You could lift the receiver and listen, because everybody did. You did not speak into a ring that was not yours. And you did not lift for two shorts and a long, because that ring belonged to the Pettigrews, and the Pettigrews had burned in their beds in the winter of 1951.

The telephone company never took the ring off the books. There were eight parties on the line and a ninth code on the switch with nobody under it, and once or twice a year it rang anyway. Eight kitchens would hear it. Eight kitchens would let it go.

Since September it had rung at Wilma's every night at twenty to ten.

September was when Ruthann came. Her granddaughter was six, with a healing lip from the wreck on Tanyard Road that took her mother, and she slept upstairs in the room that had been her father's, with the door open to the hall light. At twenty to ten Wilma stood at the wall phone in the kitchen with her hands in her apron and did not touch it. It rang nine times and quit.

Tonight she lifted it.

She could not have said why. Ruthann had been coughing, and Wilma was tired, and her hand took the receiver down before she had decided anything. There was the hiss of the line. There were eight small clicks, one after another, as every house on Laurel Fork picked up to listen. Then breathing, close to the mouthpiece, and a child's voice with the consonants popping.

"Mama Wilma?"

It was Ruthann. The lisp on the S, the flat vowels she had brought from Knoxville. Wilma put her free hand on the counter.

"Mama Wilma, it's cold. The lady says I can come out if somebody says my name on the line. She says it has to be somebody that's mine."

"You're upstairs," Wilma said. Her mouth would not stay shut. "You're asleep in your bed."

"No ma'am. I'm at the old house. It's dark." A pause, and under the hiss a sound she took at first for rain: a great many small bare feet shifting on a floor. "There's a lot of us. She says say it now. She says before the other one gets down."

"What other one?"

A stair creaked.

Wilma turned with the receiver against her ear. At the top of the stairs, in the yellow bar of the hall light, stood Ruthann in her nightgown with one hand on the rail. The split lip. The bare feet. She was looking down into the kitchen with an expression Wilma had not seen on that face once since September. She looked pleased.

"Mama Wilma," said the child on the stairs. "Who are you talking to?"

In Wilma's ear the small voice went fast and thin. "Don't answer her. Say my name. Say it on the line, Mama Wilma, you have to say it on the line."

The child came down a step. Her hand slid along the rail and did not leave it. Another step. She did not hurry. A child holding a rail looks at her feet. This one looked at Wilma.

On the line, the eight listeners breathed. Wilma could hear them. She could hear the Gaddis boy's asthma and old Mr. Finley's radio and, behind them all, the shifting of the bare feet in the dark.

"Please," said the voice in the receiver. "It's so cold."

Wilma had been taught three rules and had broken one. She stood with the cord drawn across the kitchen and she looked at the face on the stairs, the lip and the freckle under the left eye, her son's chin, every part of it right, and she thought of the room upstairs and the bed she had not checked.

"Ruthann," she said.

She did not say it into the mouthpiece. She said it to the stairs.

The child stopped on the third step from the bottom. The pleased look went out of her face, slowly, like water leaving a dish. In Wilma's ear the small voice said, "That's not what I said," and then there was no voice. There was the hiss, and then eight clicks, one after another, as every house on Laurel Fork put its receiver down.

The kitchen was very quiet.

"I'm so cold, Mama Wilma," said the child on the stairs. Her hair was wet. It hung dark and heavy on the shoulders of the nightgown and a drop ran down her temple and off her chin. "Come hold me."

Wilma stood with the dead receiver in her hand and the cord across her chest.

Then she put it on the hook, and crossed the kitchen, and opened her arms.

* * *

“Hi.” My first words were a breathy laugh.

The guy was cute. Late-twenties. Ragged blondish curls and freckles.

Kind of fidgety, shuffling uncomfortably, like he was mentally practicing the words he was going to say.

It took me a moment to realize he wasn't excited-nervous.

This guy was nervous nervous.

And then it hit me.

He was one of them.

His nerves suddenly made a lot of sense.

Our town had recently voted for someone who insisted that people like him didn’t have rights, whose campaign speech had revolved entirely around reminding voters that these people belonged in factories and didn't "deserve" to reproduce.

20 years ago, when kids started dropping dead in the third grade, it was labelled as “pneumonia of unknown etiology.”

When enough kids died to elicit lockdowns, the World Health Organization told us what it really was: a biological weapon developed by a country that refused to take accountability.

“Hi.” The guy held out his hand, first hesitantly, and when I happily shook it, his body language shifted. More comfortable.

“I'm West.” He said, and his glass of water wobbled onto its side, before jerking back upright.

By the time the school year was out, every kid on my street was dead.

Riona drowned in her own lung fluid.

Noah coughed up blood in the middle of PE.

Ellie collapsed in the playground during recess.

Mom expected me to die when I developed a cough.

But I somehow survived.

There was a difference between kids who fought the virus and kids who succumbed to it.

Survivors of the virus were rare.

I never started High School because there weren't enough kids.

My college classes were online.

I hadn't met someone my age in years– not since my Mom took me to a survivors group, and it was just traumatized kids.

There were two types of survivors:

Kids like me, who had a strong immune system.

And kids like him.

The man sitting across from me.

My freckled date straightened with a smile. “I'm—”

“You're one of them,” I said, intrigued.

He blinked and then laughed.

“I was going to say I’m starving,” he teased, “but yeah, that too.”

We ordered food, and he was surprisingly forward about his life.

A little too forward, borderline trauma dumping.

“I stopped breathing when I got sick like all the other kids,” he admitted, halfway through his steak, mouth full of gravy.

His lack of table manners made me laugh.

“Mom declared me dead, and then I just woke up…” He frowned. “Well, technically, I didn’t.”

West didn’t elaborate, inhaling mashed potatoes.

“Anyway, Mom thought I was demonically possessed, so she sent me to this…” He stopped chewing, his expression cracking.

I knew what he meant. I was almost sent to one too.

Until the Doctor gave me the all-clear.

“Place.” West finished. “I spent ten years at this, like school, fashioned into a holding facility. They didn't call it a prison because we were kids. But they killed a lot of us for just asking questions. So, I kept my head down and did what I was told.”

He set his fork down gently.

“When I turned eighteen, I was dumped back in the real world. I tried to go back to school, but…” he shrugged. “It's fine! Who needs school, anyway? Not me!”

He grinned, dipping his finger in leftover gravy and writing, “SCOOL SUX” on his napkin. “Since then, I've been working mostly cash-in-hand.” He sighed, leaning his fist on his chin. “Sometimes, I just straight up lie about my age and say I'm younger.”

Leaning across the table, his lips found my ear. “That's how I got my job, but shhh.”

I laughed. And, as if trying to please me, he copied.

“Sooooo, how about you?” He pressed. “Any childhood trauma? Or can we skip to the “What TV shows are you watching, stage?"

I liked West.

He smiled at me, chin on fist, eyebrow raised. “Anything you want to ask me?”

“Nope." I felt comfortable enough to peck him on the cheek.

He took me back to his apartment, and we hooked up.

West talked all the way through sex, which was a slight turn-off, asking me if he was doing it right, then if I was doing it right, and, strangely, if I could still “feel” him.

Afterwards, he insisted on downing coffee every five minutes. When he finally shut up halfway through an anecdote, I realized he’d fallen asleep on my chest.

I woke up shivering.

Sunlight bled through West’s blinds.

Something was… cold.

Ice cold and slimy, pressed against my chest.

West.

His weight suffocated me. I shoved him.

“Hey. Wake up.”

He didn't move.

Something slimy wound its way into my mouth.

“West!”

I shoved him off of me, and he landed, face-planting the sheets.

The smell snaked into my nose. Wrong.

Panicking, bile filling my throat, I pressed my trembling hand to his chest.

Nothing.

No pulse.

No heartbeat.

My almost-boyfriend had died in his sleep.

This was why West seemed so nervous, I thought. Why he talked so much. Why he never shut up.

Mom always told me kids like him didn't live long; either because they were hunted down, or because, unlike me, they didn't survive the virus. They adapted as carriers, evolving with it.

Tears stung my eyes.

Why he drank so much coffee.

Why he couldn't seem to sit still.

Because he was terrified of going to sleep.

“West!” I shrieked, shoving his body again.

“Yeah?”

I twisted around. West sat next to me, cross-legged. “Sorry.” He shot me a grin when my hands went straight through him.

His presence reminded me of fog, more of a blurred image than a person. “I’m not dead.” He rolled his eyes. “Sometimes, I can… separate from my body.” He flicked his own corpse. “Just give me a sec.”

A whole minute passed, and his lip curled slightly. His eyes widened.

“Any second now.”

It was 11:52 PM, Tuesday night.

The air was cold, but not freezing. It was raining, but not heavily. The gravel, lit up by unnaturally-white street lights, was littered with crumpled orange leaves that crunched under my unbearably-heavy feet.

I heaved my battered suitcase out from the boot of the taxi, and dragged it through the revolving doors into the hotel.

I had just landed in this city an hour or so ago. It’s my first trip abroad for this stupid entry-level job. I booked the nearest hotel to the office: 3 stars, a fifteen minute walk to work. Sufficient for me.

The receptionist greeted me blandly. She eventually handed me the key to room 1303, on floor 13.

That’s strange, I wondered. I thought hotels usually skip floor 13.

My eyelids felt like stones. I pondered no more on the thought.

I trudged into the elevator with my suitcase, alongside a hotel plumber. He pressed button 12, then turned to me and asked, “Floor number?”

“Thirteen,” I murmured.

The plumber stiffened. “That’s accessible through the staircase from floor 12,” he said in a shaky tone.

I glanced towards the button panel. My guess was right: there was no button 13 after button 12, only button 14.

He answered the question before I asked it, “Floor 13 was built before the elevator system, on the other side of the building which the elevators can’t access.”

The elevator doors opened on floor 12. In the span of two seconds, the plumber yanked out a folded paper from his pocket, shoved it into my free hand, and hurriedly strode off down the corridor, without making eye contact the entire time.

Stepping out of the elevator, I unfolded the paper, read what was on it, then felt like ripping it apart. They were instructions on how to get to floor 13 from here, written in neat cursive.

What the hell is this bullshit, I thought. Is this some sort of joke? Why can’t I get a normal room?

I wanted to go back down to reception to change my room, but I was too tired to go through that long process. I’ll do that tomorrow, I’ll just spend one night on floor 13.
Following the instructions, I headed to the staircase area, inserted my key into a keyhole that seemed to be on the wall randomly, and pushed. Surely enough, part of the wall dragged open like a heavy door.

Floor 13 looked a lot like floor 12, which probably looked like the other floors: beige walls, patterned dark green carpets, and fluorescent lights. But there were key differences: no elevators, no visible staircase door, and the corridor was only about twenty feet long. 

There was just one room door. Room 1303.

My mind screamed to get out of here, but my body forced me to stay put. I needed to sleep here. For one night only.

I looked at the wall door from which I entered. It was still propped open by my suitcase. It had no doorknob, even though I’d have to pull it to open it again. 

Cursing under my breath, I took my left shoe off and placed it in the doorway. I walked towards my room, the shoe keeping the door open.

When I unlocked the door and entered, my fatigue intensified, but not in a bad way. A large queen-sized bed, pleasantly-cold air, and clean surfaces made me crave sleep even more. 

While unpacking my suitcase, I noticed a calendar on the wall above the bedside table. It was marked Wednesday, October 16th, 2013. The correct date. I looked at my watch. It was 12:01 AM. Was someone in the room one minute ago to mark the calendar? Putting the question out of my head, I went to take a shower.

I entered the spotless bathroom and took a look at myself in the mirror. I looked exhausted, older than I actually was. And not just because of tonight: nothing has been the same since the Financial Crisis. This job, no matter how much I hated it, was my only hope.

Then my reflection blinked. 

I didn’t blink.

I’m probably hallucinating, I thought. I rubbed my eyes, then lowered my hands. But my reflection lowered its hands one second later.

“What the…?” I spluttered. Suddenly alert, I looked around the bathroom for anything suspicious. I didn’t know what to expect, but something was definitely wrong.

Then I looked back at the mirror.

My reflection was gone, replaced by the lifeless body of an old man sprawled across the bathroom floor, staring blankly towards me. It was undeniably supposed to be me, just elderly: same skin tone (but wrinkled), same eyes (but empty), same identity, but as dead as dead could be.

Heart racing, breath shallow, completely forgetting about my tiredness, I dashed out of the bathroom. I grabbed the in-room phone, only to realise its cord had been cut. I snatched my cellphone from the bedside table, but it was out of battery (it was 78% when I landed). I took out my charger; that was cut too.

I briefly looked up at the calendar. It was marked Friday, October 16th, 1857.

My eyes and forehead moistening, I sprinted out of the room, shoving the stupid 1303 door aside. The wall door was now shut, as if it was never there. Half of the shoe remained lying on the carpet.

I tried feeling the wall, pushing it, but the doorway was gone. I was trapped.

A sense of hopelessness gripping me, I looked back at the room door. The number 1303 had disappeared, and the plaque was slightly larger.

When I looked closer, I could make out text written in neat cursive.

Finally a new friend after 39 years. 

The previous one didn’t last long.

It’s dark. There’s something over my head, but I can hear low voices talking in the distance. Where am I? Panic rising, I try to figure out my surroundings. With no sight, I must use my other senses.
 
Hmm, what can I feel? I’m sitting down. I stretch out my fingers and grimace in pain. A splinter. Some kind of thick wooden chair. My hands are restricted and so are my feet. Not good. My heart is racing. I can almost feel the thumps grasping to explode out of my chest. The restrictions are likely to be metal. It’s cold against my warm skin. I feel groggy. Was I drugged? There’s no breeze but it’s cool. So, I’m not outside, maybe underground? I’m not sure but what I do know is that I’m in danger.
 
On another note, what can I hear? Besides the low voices coming from what sounds like another room, there’s really nothing else going on. It’s dead silent. Drip. Drip. Drip. Hold on. There’s water dripping slowly in the right corner behind me. Where could the water be coming from? Maybe a leaky pipe or water on the surface above me? I can’t tell but whatever it is, it’s giving me the creeps. Great. One more thing to add on to the already dread-filled feeling. Alright. Moving on. What else?
 
Smell! What can I smell. It smells musty which could mean it’s damp. The air is breathable but there’s a metallic aroma lingering in the air. Wait. Is that… blood? Oh my God. What the hell is going on! I start to wriggle in my chair. Maybe there’s a way out. The voices in the other room abruptly stop. I wait, holding my breath in anguish as to not make a sound. The voices resume. I let out a breath of relief.
 
Okay so to quickly recap I’m bound to some kind of wooden chair, I might have been drugged, it’s possible I’m underground, there’s muffled male voices in the short distance, it’s damp, and it smells like blood. Could I be in a-
 
There’s a squeak as to what I’m assuming is a large door opening. The sound of the voices are getting closer. Trying to get an idea of my surroundings I listen hard, but my fear is taking over. I can’t focus. I manage to pick up the sound of feet hitting small puddles. There’s water on the floor. There seems to be an echo ruminating throughout the space as the men approach me. I feel the color run out of my face. What are they going to do to me? What do they want with me? I’m terrified.
 
They’re right in front of me now. Panic ensues. I swallow hard and no later the men rip off the sack that was over my head. The room fades in and out of view. I can feel the sweat pouring down my face. A mixture of heat and panic. It tastes like fear. The walls are made of large heaps of stone plastered together. The room is lit enough to see but still eerily dark. On each side of the wall there are braziers with fire illuminating the walls.
 
There’s two men standing over me. One looks to be tall and muscular, while the other is short and stocky. They’re both in dark clothing and have black hoods over their faces. They smell horrible. What is all over their clothes?
 
I take in the rest of my surroundings, and I start to realize where I am. I feel like I’m about to pass out. This can’t be. My heart drops to my stomach.
 
I’m bound to an electric chair…

He moved into the apartment across the hall three months ago. My soul shook the moment our hands grazed each other while exchanging a misplaced package. His scent of cedarwood and rain entered my nostrils sending a heat wave through my body. He was the one. 

We ran into each other often, he was always polite but also always distracted. He was the one, I just needed to help him realize. He needed a push. 

Using magic on a man was typically frowned upon in my coven but exceptions - and secrets - can be made. I whispered love spells through the vents. When the central air turned on little pieces of rose flew through the vents and I hoped made their way into his apartment. 

I realized that this was not working, at least not as fast as I would have liked. So I brewed a simple love potion. I couldn’t simply just give it to him so I came up with a plan.

Luckily our maintenance man was both a drunk and a pervert so it only took a few minutes of flirting in his office to locate and grab the set of master keys. I made my own copy and returned them without notice. 

I used the master key to enter his apartment for the next three weeks. Everyday, while he was at the gym, I poured the clear love potion into the water filter he kept in the fridge. My heart raced every time I did it, out of fear and excitement.

It was finally working, he was seeing me. Truly seeing me. 

Our “accidental” meetings in the lobby turned into the best part of both of our days. He started looking at me with a hint of wildness and want in his eyes that wasn’t there before. He even texted me at 3am one night to tell me he couldn’t sleep because he couldn’t get my laugh out of his head. A few days after that I arrived home to a bouquet of black roses and a note on my doorstep that read: “I am losing my mind. You are everywhere. Everything.”

It was working, he was becoming completely drowned in me. He was falling in love. 

The day arrived for our first real date. We were having dinner at his place. I walked across the hall and knocked.

He opened the door almost immediately. He looked terrible. His eyes were red, he looked - and smelled like he had not showered for days, and he was shaking. But when he saw me a crazy smile came across his face. 

“You’re here!” he exclaimed as he grabbed my wrist and pulled me inside the dark apartment. He had gone all out for this first date, the only lighting being candles placed throughout the open floor plan. So romantic. 

“Are you okay?” I asked like I was an innocent woman just on her first date with no selfish intentions of her own. “You seem stressed.”

“I have never felt better!” He said as the deadbolt clicked behind me. He walked over to the kitchen pacing back and forth with restless energy. “I was just thinking about finding the perfect one. How it forces you to be… creative.”

I smiled softly and took a step towards him. “It really does.”

“I knew you would understand!” his voice had become low and there was something missing from his tone, though I couldn’t figure out what it was. He looked at me the way a wolf looks at a deer. “You see, for years, so many, many years, I have had these, these - thoughts. Beautiful but such - such incredibly dark thoughts. I look at women on the street and I imagine what they look like when the light leaves their eyes. I imagine the perfect way to make sure they are mine forever. I look at these women but I don’t see them. But you, I see you.”

My smile faded and a cold chill washed over me. “What are you talking about?”

“I tried to fight it!” He laughed a crazy sound that echoed through the room. “I really did try! I took the pills. I stayed away from people. But then - I moved here - and I saw you. Suddenly the thoughts became too loud to ignore and my mind just - it just - snapped! It snapped and I became completely obsessed with you, my perfect girl.”

I took a step back but he kept coming forward. My spells had worked, they had created a deep and powerful obsession - but they did not create love. It had simply focused his darkest thoughts completely onto me. 

“I have been planning this for weeks!” He shouted as he picked up a long carving knife. His hands were shaking with excitement. “I even bought plastic sheeting for the living room floor so we don’t make a mess!”

“S-Stop!” I yelled, my voice trembling.

“Don’t be scared, my love.” He said and his smile stretched wider than it should have been able to as he raised the knife. “You wanted us to be together. I could feel it every time you looked at me in the hall and now - now you will never, ever - ever - leave me.”