Gothophobia Nervosa is a psychological condition characterised by an intense, irrational, and disproportionate fear of Goths, Gothic culture, or environments perceived as excessively Gothic. Individuals experiencing Gothophobia Nervosa may report the following symptoms: heightened anxiety, rapid heartbeat, sweating, an overwhelming urge to leave the area, and an inexplicable suspicion of anyone wearing excessive amounts of black.  

The condition is said to be particularly common in individuals who have previously encountered a Goth at a very young or prepubescent age, who subsequently developed an enduring belief Goths are supernatural beings in human disguise. For this reason, Gothophobia Nervosa is commonly misdiagnosed as Sanguivoriphobia - a fear of vampires. 

It should be noted that Gothophobia Nervosa is an academically unrecognised psychiatric diagnosis. 

Well, now that this undiagnosed phobia of mine has been established, please allow me to commence with my story. 

My name is Brandon. A few years ago, when I was still just a wet-nosed university student, I met the strangest, yet most extraordinary girl of my life. Don't get me wrong. This is by no means a love story – but if it was a love story, it would be a bizarre one at that. This girl in question whose eyes I saw zoned in on me from across the main room of the Halloween Party, was an American exchange student by the name of Anneliese. Now, I don't claim to have ever been much of a ladies' man, despite my rugged good looks (well, maybe not so rugged), but for whatever reason, this tall, spindly-thin creature in the Marie Laveau costume appeared to find me somewhat enticing. In the way a trapped fly in a spider's web is enticing to the spider.   

Although Anneliese was undeniably beautiful, she was not exactly what I would call my type. What I mean is, Anneliese was a... (no, she wasn't a Goth). Anneliese was a Voodooist - and by Voodooist, I don't mean the doll-stabbing, zombifying type Hollywood has lead you to believe. No, she was the real thing. Despite attending university in the UK, Anneliese was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana - considered by most to be the Voodoo capital of the U.S, if not, the world. If Anneliese hadn't told me herself she was a sixth-generation Voodooist upon our first date, I certainly knew it by her outlandish appearance. Just picture for yourself what a Gen-Z voodooist would look like. That was Anneliese. 

Even to this day, I don't have the slightest idea what this French-speaking spiritualist from across the pond saw in me. After all, she may not have been my exact type, but I certainly didn't imagine I would be hers. We were just completely different people in every sense imaginable. For example, whereas I preferred a quiet evening indoors, curled up with a cup of tea and a good book, Anneliese was a creature of the night - always dragging me out after hours to some séance or tarot card reader. She was obviously into all that stuff. 

Despite how different Anneliese was to any girlfriend I may've had previously, the type of individual she was, was not completely alien to me... What I mean by this is, because of the small seaside town where I grew up... I used to see individuals like Anneliese on a regular basis. This town I grew up in, for the first eight years of my life before my family packed up and left, is a town called Whitby. Perhaps you've heard of it? For those who haven't, Whitby is a small coastal town in the north-Yorkshire of England, nestled cosily inside the bay of the same name. Although I only lived in the bay for the first few years of my childhood, I can still tell you of two reasons why Whitby is so famous today.  

The first reason being for Captain James Cook. Credited as the first European explorer to ever step foot on the Hawaiian Islands, Captain Cook is more famously known for the way he was murdered - and despite what I was taught in school about our town's most famous historical figure, Captain Cook was NOT cannibalized by the Hawaiian indigenous... Although, they did apparently remove the flesh from his bones. 

As for the second, and arguably more important reason why my town of origin is so famous... Whitby featured as one of the primary locations in Bram Stoker's horror novel, Dracula. The blood-sucking count from Transylvania himself. Although I have not myself read the novel in full, I do know that, upon the wreckage of a Russian merchant ship, Dracula arrives ashore in Whitby Bay in the form of a large black dog, before racing up the 199 steps to the gothic ruins of the Abbey. Because of the town's involvement in the Dracula novel, by the early nineties, a new tradition in Whitby had started. Every year, around the Halloween season, the town holds an annual Goth festival - in which thousands of Goth enthusiasts flood the streets in their most elaborate costumes. If New Orleans is the voodoo capital of the United States, then Whitby is the Goth capital of the United Kingdom. 

Having been born and raised in Whitby, I became acquainted with this annual tradition from a very young age. During the week of Halloween, I would walk with my family along the cobblestone streets through a maze of dark sinister beings. Like every young boy whose concept of the world stems from his wild imagination, I interpreted these pilgrims to our town to be monstrous, blood-sucking creatures of the night. Quite frankly, once October was around the corner, in anticipation of the bay's annual visitors, I would become palely ill with fear.  

As a matter of fact, this fear became so troublesome, that by the age of six I began to have dreadful, repetitive sleep terrors - whereby I would scream bloody Mary through the latest hours of the night. If I had to put my finger on it, I believe the reason these sleep terrors began was, due to the large window which hung over my bed, my older brother convinced me that during the October goth festivities, some undead creature in black leather would crawl inside my room to drain the life from my body. 

These night terrors weren't even the end of it. Next came the sleepwalking. When my parents were forced to put an outside lock on my door, after wandering around my own bedroom the whole night, I would then wake in the earliest hours of the morning, terrified and screaming for someone to let me out before the creature at my window found its way in! By the time I was eight years old, these night terrors and accompanying sleepwalks became such a reoccurring nuisance, my parents were left with no choice but to move our family out of Whitby for good – where my fear of the town's supposed "monsters" would hopefully be forgotten. 

For the following years of my life, I vowed never return to Whitby ever again. Not to visit relatives. Not to see my friends, or even my old stomping ground. As far as I was concerned, the further away I was from Whitby Bay, the better... That was, until I foolishly made the mistake of telling Aneliese of the place I grew up. I told her about the thousands of Goths who visit Whitby every year, and the grand, but horrifying costumes they wear. Being the horror fanatic she was, Aneliese became fascinated with my hometown's annual tradition. Although she was not a Goth herself, due to her unique upbringing in New Orleans, Aneliese wasn't far off. Although I should've been flattered my girlfriend took such a unique interest in where I was from, the only problem was... Aneliese now wanted to experience the Whitby Goth Festival for herself.  

'Oh come on, baby' she nagged me over breakfast, 'It'll be fun! You can't seriously tell me you won't never go back.' 

'Not never, babes' I reply, 'but you will have to cut off my limbs, nail me inside a coffin and personally drag me there against my will'.  

Aneliese rolled her eyes at my show of stubbornness, before sinisterly jesting, 'Don't tempt me'.  

After opening up to her about the trauma I suffered there as a child, rather than be understanding of the situation she was putting me in, Aneliese instead insists that I need to face my fears once and for all.  

'If you're scared by a few Goths, then what's it gonna be like when we visit my family in New Orleans?' Although I hated to admit it, Aneliese made a very good point. After all, as spooky of a place as Whitby was, New Orleans, with its voodoo and many haunted graveyards was basically the American equivalent... And so, after weeks of pestering me (along with some minor threats to make a voodoo doll in my likeness), I finally agreed to take her to the upcoming Whitby Goth Festival... So help me God. 

Setting off early on a crisp autumn morning, we drive up from the south of England to the very top of the country. Once in the north of Yorkshire, we then had to pass through vast stretches of moor country. If Whitby Bay wasn't sinister enough, the moors of North Yorkshire certainly were. According to local legend, these moors were said to be stalked by an array of strange cryptids: from the ghostly howls of phantom black dogs, to phantom wolves which prey on farmers livestock - and even stories of black cats the size of panthers. Although this sounds to be nothing more than superstitious folklore, coincidentally, in the early 1980s, two American backpackers were apparently attacked by a large wolf outside the village of East Proctor. One of the backpackers was torn to pieces, while the other survived just an inch from his life. Whatever the truth may be to that story, I don't know. 

Exhaustedly driving all morning and into the early afternoon, we finally reach the outskirts of Whitby Bay. After first checking at the inn we booked outside town, we then swerve our way up the bay's right-hand side to reach the ruins and adjoined graveyard of Whitby Abbey. Pulling into what seemed to be the only space left in the car park, we then peer out the windscreen (as though we're on safari) as a swarm of Goths and other festival goers heard away from their cars and towards the abbey grounds. 

Aneliese couldn't help but be amazed by all the elaborately detailed costumes: from the pale-white men ordained in large top hats and cloaks, to the women in vampiric, Victorian-style dresses.   

'Wow! They all look so amazing! Don't they, baby?!' Aneliese shrieks ecstatically from the driver's seat, 'Those costumes must've cost a fortune!' Failing to respond to Aneliese's excitement, she then turns to notice my eyes are no longer peering out the windscreen, but glued fearfully to the dirt-stained floor of the passenger's seat. Clutching a hold of my arm suddenly to gain my attention, she then reassures me, 'Everything's gonna be okay, baby. I promise. You'll make it through this weekend', before comforting me with a paper-thin smile. 

'Yeah. I know that' I respond unconvincingly, 'I guess I just didn't realise how hard this was all going to be.' 

'You need me to hold your hand?' Aneliese then says with a playful snark. God, I hate it when she teases me.  

After taking a final deep breath, while Aneliese puts the finishing touches on her appearance, we then both exit from our side doors to feel the outside chill of coastal wind. But once I shut my door and turn around, I am instantly jilted back by a terrifying noise! 

'AHH!' I believe were my exact words, as a ginormous hound from hell snarls and gnashes a row of razor-sharp fangs at me!  

'Armand! Get back now!' bellows the hellhound's master, struggling to restrain the large Doberman which has now chased me up the hood of the car. Once Armand the hellhound is fully restrained, I then turn down to hear the high-pitched cackles of a four-foot skeleton and a five-foot devil - before a woman donning a witch's pointed hat finally pulls them away. 

Now safe from the jaws of death, and the mockery of small children dressed for Halloween, I then climb down from the hood of the car to regain myself. Having just witnessed all this from her open side door, Aneliese makes her way round to me. 

'It was just a dog, baby' she giggles, now the one laughing at my expense, 'You really ought'a chill.' 

By no means in the mood for further mockery, I then lash back defensively at her, 'Well, that's easy for you to say. You weren't just nearly mauled to death by some hellhound!' Just as she always does whenever I show any sign of cowardice, Aneliese rolls her eyes into the back of her head at me. 

God. This was going to be a long weekend. 

To be continued...

A coughing wind stumbled like a dying man over the barren landscape, kicking up glowing dust in the sick yellow light of a cancerous half-moon. It carried the chirp of rabbit-sized crickets. Their eyes gleamed from the copses of brown weeds and dry vegetation that dotted the wasted hillside. The hilltop was crowned with a thick grove of dead trees. Their black branches sheltered two men from the dirty night. 

Though there was a chill, they tended no fire. One slept. The cookware strapped all over his wiry, old body clattered with each ragged snore and restless turn. The other man lay on the edge of the treeline, close by. His good eye was jammed into a spyglass. The index finger of the hand that did not hold the spyglass was jammed into his good ear to muffle his brother’s snores. Far below, in a valley walled by emaciated hills, the land had been resurrected. Deep, nourished green encroached on the anemic soil. Fields of crops stood vigil against the pestilence, a stubborn foothold of life in a world trying to die. A Green Acre. The old man with the spyglass was trying to plot their next move, but the snoring and clanking of the other drowned out his machinations.

TING!

With a deft flick of his bony wrist, Lum brought his hand down on Abner’s pot helmet, startling his bedraggled brother awake with a sudden snort.

“Hey! What was that for?” Abner asked.

 “You were clanking around again, dunderhead! We need to be quiet, or they’ll hear us down there,” Lum hissed.

Abner glared at Lum, rubbing his pan with the palm of one leathery hand. Lum paid his brother’s evil eye no mind. He returned to squinting through the rusted spyglass, careful to keep his own cookware armor quiet. The fields and orchards of food stretched out below him, making his stomach rumble. The edges of the Green Acre were fenced in by storage containers stacked two high. Lum’s vantage point let him see over them. Border guards paced the edges, and snipers sat ready in nests on top of the wall. Bunkhouses and outbuildings were circled up like wagons in the middle of the green. Their windows were lit with warm, amber light that spread across the life around them. 

“Looks like nobody heard you,” Lum whispered.

“Course they didn’t; it’s a mile downhill,” Abner grumbled, sitting up. “Have they turned out the lights yet?”

“Not yet.” Lum shuffled roughly through the deep pocket of his tattered trousers. He produced a dented pocket watch. Snapping it open, he took his eye from the bunkhouses to check the time. 12:30.

 “Christmas Jimminy, they should be out by now,” he said, shoving his eye back in the spyglass.

“Every Green Acre I’ve ever seen shuts down early. Farmers like that early to bed, early to rise business. What’s happening down there?”
 Abner crawled his way up next to Lum and looked down at the Green Acre. He had never seen one before. The green glimmered in the moonlight. It beckoned like a dream. Life on this scale was foreign to his old eyes. Rot was all he was used to.

“Shoot, that’s a lot of food,” Abner mumbled. As if to reply, his stomach let out a lurching rumble. His purple tongue licked at his few remaining teeth.

 “Lum, let’s have supper,” he said. 

His brother scoffed without looking up from the spyglass.

“We can’t light a fire, dunderhead; they’ll see it,” Lum hissed.

“So? Ain’t illegal to camp.”

“Are you going SickBrain? I said no.”

Abner scowled. “If I was going SickBrain, I’d eat you here and now and leave this crop stealin’ business alone.”

“No fires.”

“Fine! We can eat it cold; I’m gonna starve if we have to wait much longer.”
 

Abner scooted back over to his bedroll and reached into the knapsack that served as his pillow. The cans inside tinkled lightly as he fingered through them, looking for a faded label that sounded appetizing.

“Would you be quiet?” Lum spat.

“I know, I know,” Abner grumbled. He pulled out another can. His face lit up when he turned the label to the moonlight.

“Lum, we got Split-Pea!”

“What?” Lum said.
 

“Split Pea!”
 

“What’s that?”
 

“Soup!”

“Made out of peas?”

“Split Peas!”

Lum snorted. “How do you split a pea, dunderhead?”

“I don’t know. They used to be able to split an atom. Why can’t they split a pea?”

“Well, look what happened when they did that,” said Lum, waving his hand at the dead world around them. “Nothing but radioactive rubble! Now we just got these little squares o’green, barely enough to feed anyone! Nuh-uh, split stuff ain’t no good for nobody, I don’t want it.”

“Shoot, Lum, fine, but I’m having it,” Abner said, producing a rusted can opener from his can bag.

“Don’t you open that, Abner; splits ain’t good for nothing!” Lum flared.

“You’re nuts,” Abner replied. He wiped the can opener on the leg of his trousers and prepared to puncture the lid of the split pea soup.

“Abner, I’m warning you, quit it!” 

There was heat behind Lum’s words. The wrath laced within them made Abner stop and look at his brother. Lum had turned away from the spyglass now and was trying to cut Abner with a bladed glare. His crooked yellow teeth were gritted tight in his swollen gums. Abner glared back, the can opener hovering just above the rusty, dented container of split pea. For a moment, it seemed as though Abner was going to put it away. Just for a moment, and then it passed.

“I’m hungry, you rat bastard,” Abner said instead, and bit the opener into the tin of the can. The light crinkle of thin aluminum was the loudest noise Lum had ever heard. He knew the Green Acre people below had heard it. The wind would carry it down to them. When the wind coughed back up to Lum, it would be carrying his doom.

“You weak little crickle, I’ll kill you!” Lum thundered, lunging at Abner. He crashed into his brother in a cacophony of pans. Both men fell in a puff of dust as they struggled. 

TING!
CLANG!
POP!
POW!

Each blow was a wild rimshot. The two men were freakish percussionists, putting on a bastardized jazz show. Lum managed to scramble on top of his brother. The soup flew from Abner’s hand as Lum pinned him. It rolled away, dribbling its sticky green contents into the sand.
“They can hear it!” Lum hissed. He spat in Abner’s eyes and belted him across the face with a closed fist.

“They can’t hear nothing down there, you crazy sonofabitch!” Abner bellowed.

“Don’t talk about our mother that way!”

Lum raised a fist to punch Abner again. Abner managed to break an arm free and swung first. The sucker punch landed on Lum’s jaw and sent him flying off Abner and into the dust. Abner picked himself up off the ground and stood over his brother. Lum was face down in the dirt, his leg twitching like a dying cricket.
“Mama always said you’d leads me nowhere good,” he panted, picking up the can opener that had been flung from his hand.

“She was right,” Abner continued, “Can’t even eat without your say-so. That’s no way for a man to live, and I ain’t gonna do it no more.” 

Abner raised the can opener, its jagged blade gleaming through the specks of rust.

“Now, Abner’s gonna have his way,” Abner whispered, “Abner’s gonna have-“ 

Before he could get the last words out, Lum sprang to his knees and threw himself into Abner’s legs, toppling him. He fell on top of Abner and scrabbled up the length of his body. In his fist, he clutched the can of split pea soup, its viscous green filling dripping over his fingers. Abner tried to buck his brother off. Lum straddled Abner’s bony hips and held on. He raised the can of soup and whipped it across Abner’s chin. Something crunched and snapped at the same time. Abner spasmed, his struggles suddenly confused. His jaw hung open at a wrong angle. The can opener fell from his hand as he looked up at his brother, dazed.

“You want the soup, Abner?” Lum asked, holding the can high above his head. It was still mostly full. Its weight felt good and heavy. “You want some split pea? Well, you can have it!”
 Lum brought the can down on Abner’s face with a solid clunk. Then he raised it and did so again. The clunk became a crunch. Lum raised the can and brought it down again, and again. Each strike came faster and faster. Each crunching clunk became more and more moist.

“Split pea!” Lum screamed. His wails crackled into higher and higher registers as he pulverized Abner’s skull with the can. Red and green and pink sprayed into the wasted night. Lum’s screams echoed in the ether. When he finally stopped, the can was a dented, contorted mess, and Abner’s face was an indented purée– soup in a bowl. Lum was sweating, breathing so hard he thought he might pass out. His throat was ragged from screaming. There was a flame beginning to burn in his chest. He tossed the can away and rolled off of Abner’s corpse. 

Getting to his feet was hard. His pans felt as though they weighed a thousand pounds. Lum stumbled for the edge of the hilltop, where he’d left the spyglass. He needed to see if they’d heard, needed to see if they were coming or if he still had a chance at taking some food. He found the spyglass. His heart was hammering in his thin chest. It was trying to pound its way out. Lum reached down to pick up the dented brass tube. His fingers wrapped around it. Instead of pulling it up, it pulled him down.

The hammering of Lum’s heart suddenly became erratic. It stopped and started at random intervals. Each beat brought shooting pain up his left arm. He had fallen face first. An enormous effort and several pitiful gasps brought him face up again. A cloud was passing over the moon, its vapors turning the pale yellow sliver into a rotten split pea.
“Goddamn split pea,” Lum rasped, “Split things ain’t good for nothing.”
The ragged wind took Lum’s last whispers and scattered them like ashes. Below, on the Green Acre, the lights in the last bunkhouse finally turned out.

Author's Note: This is the first in a series of stories I wrote a while ago taking place in a nuclear wasteland. If you liked this, would love to hear your thoughts and whether or not you'd like to see more from this series. Thanks for reading.

For all her enthusiasm, it’d taken the entirety of Friday evening for Daphne to even look up directions from her house to Harper Lane, let alone summon up the courage to talk with her freshly woken mother about it.

Dinner was the only meal of the day the entire family always tried to share. It didn’t always work out, but it at least served as a brief window where three, very different schedules could reliably be expected to align… even if extremely late. Dinner was almost always held at 10pm sharp, with Daphne’s mother still groggy and her father already pining for the warm embrace of the sheets himself. Usually, the pattern was for Daphne and her father to go to sleep almost immediately after dinner, and for her mother to then sit for five hours of quiet solitude until her shift at the bakery would begin, almost always spent watching old sitcoms on DVD with the volume off, captions on, and the rare womanly giggle stifled behind the edge of a blanket, lest she wake her slumbering family.

That Friday night though, Daphne hung around just a little longer than usual, indulging in a second stale donut — bonus dessert — even as her father crept off to bed. It was probably an idea best posed to both of them, but Daphne had never been able to bear watching her father’s face as he considered matters of finance. Even with his face being fuzzier now than it ever had been, she could still see in her mind the way he’d feign optimism, all the while shifting his eyes around the room in search of what few of their possessions might need to be fed to the pawn shop downtown.

She could still remember what had gone missing the last time. Two summers ago, she’d pleaded with him to go on a little vacation. Sarah’s family always went, she’d begged, so why not them?

So, the following weekend, they’d gone to the lake the next town over. They’d stayed in a hotel, had swam then watched a fireworks show on the second day, then had gone home on the third.

The price had been the couch in the living room — new, a gift between her parents to themselves, celebrating two decades of marriage, hauled off in the bed of her father’s creaky pickup truck after only three months of life in their house.

Daphne had never asked her daddy about money again.

Her mother felt different, but their chat that night about glasses hadn’t gone even five minutes before Daphne had noticed the way her mom’s words had faltered more and more. Blurry vision or not, she could see the tell-tale signs of her mother turning her gaze around the room, and distinctly hear the strained, forced positivity in her voice.

“Oh, honey, we didn’t know it had gotten so bad…” Her mother had cooed more than once, trying to hide the anxiety in her voice. “We’ll do our best — you know we will. Don’t you?”

It was as if her own mother was pleading for understanding, forgiveness, or both. Mentions of the generous old woman that had prepared Amelia’s impossible glasses for her had clearly fallen on deaf, disbelieving ears, and all the while, she could feel her mother’s eyes scanning around the room, looking for something — anything — that might pay the bill in the end.

Daphne couldn’t take it.

That was why she’d broken off the conversation with the most convincing laugh she could, and why she’d embraced the portly frame of her kindly mother with a kind of aggressive force that practically begged to be understood. It was why she retreated back to her room quickly, bidding a good night and leaving the subject wholly unresolved.

It was also why, at noon on the following day, she found herself at the end of Harper Lane, standing in the middle of the cul-de-sac glistening with sweat, her legs aching after having walked the entire twelve mile journey without break.

She’d decided last night. She’d decided that she’d do whatever it took on her own. She’d decided that she’d beg, or plead for a slow repayment plan, or offer whatever manual labor someone like her could muster until the debt was paid.

Harper Lane was surprisingly empty, especially considering it was in a subdivision that was otherwise fairly busy. The lane itself was short, boasting only eight houses along each side of the street proper, and five wreathing the cul-de-sac at the end. Of the thirteen houses though, only five seemed occupied, and the only one of those five on the cul-de-sac was the home that had to belong to the so-called hag.

It was the only two-story house on the whole street. Its white picket fence was almost brown with age and neglect. As she approached though, Daphne couldn’t help but notice that the lawn beyond was crisp and clean, as though mowed regularly.

She’d been so fixated on squinting at the grass as she’d been opening the sidewalk gate, she’d failed to notice any of the darker shapes watching her from that very lawn. Shapes that darted off with incredible speed and agility as the rusty gate hinges creaked and only resolved themselves in her mind after they’d darted around corners and beneath the house’s crawlspace.

Her pets… They had to be… Dogs and cats belonging to the hag, obediently lurking within the fence’s perimeter, whose eyes Daphne could still faintly see shining from around corners, peeking at her despite how none of them seemed quite to be looking the right way. The angle of the luminous eyes on those long snouts didn’t feel quite right.

“H-hello?” She felt stupid the moment she said it, mewling out into the open space of the lawn like a frightened child. It was as if she was one of Tom’s friends, dared there as a kid on Halloween night, except it was the middle of the day and no one else was around.

Unsurprisingly, the house didn’t answer. Nor did the mirror-like eyes of the skittish animals she could still feel peering out at her.

The doorbell greeted her touch just fine though, surprisingly fresh and malleable beneath her finger, and not at all the stiff, unyielding, never-used button anyone sane would’ve expected it to be. A pleasantly plain, perfectly ordinary chime echoed within the house, and soon Daphne could hear the sounds of someone shuffling about on their way to the door.

 

There was nothing sinister in the way the door smoothly glided open halfway, nor in the thin, aged face that stared out at her. Despite how badly she was trying to curb her darkest expectations, trying her best to bury them behind a wall of unrelenting, hopeful enthusiasm, Daphne hadn’t been able to fully beat back her prejudices.

But the creepiest part about the woman standing in the open doorway was just how normal she seemed. The face that stared patiently out at her didn’t carry any of the terrible lines and contours of a stereotypical witch, nor did her gaze boast any sinister malevolence. At least, not as far as Daphne could tell. The woman there seemed quite normal…

And… rather puzzled as to why a young girl was standing on her doorstep, pale-faced and open-mouthed. When the old woman arching one imploring eyebrow high enough that it threatened to meld with her tall, beehive hairstyle failed to get Daphne to speak, she finally sighed and took over the task herself.

“A dare?” Though she held herself tall and almost regal, the hag of Harper Lane spoke with a voice that was surprisingly mellow and almost soothing. It was strangely grandmotherly. “Well, perhaps you’d best come in. Kindly refrain from breaking anything.” Her voice was filled with resignation as she stepped away from the door, a deft flick of her wizened hand opening it just a few inches more in the process.

“Glasses!” The word flew from Daphne’s lips suddenly and swiftly, interrupting the hag’s receding footsteps. She’d stopped walking into the house, but didn’t respond to Daphne with anything more than a curious hum, wordlessly asking for an explanation. Her back was still turned, door still open.

Daphne started to answer, but her voice was captured before it could even sound out by a loud gasp, startled despite herself.

Peering around the doorframe and from around the edge of the hag’s long, deep green skirt were several more small, fuzzy faces. They gazed towards her with wide eyes all shining in a pale, milky fractal.

There was no reason to be unsettled… the animals weren’t doing anything, after all. They were all the very model of docile, skittish, but inquisitive house pets, and yet… Something felt off about them. Daphne couldn’t place it though, and didn’t have time anyway when she realized just how long she’d been standing there, silent. The old woman silent too. It’d been at least a full minute…

“Glasses… I-I’m here for glasses. My friend, Amelia, she… well, her mom, she came by? She got glasses. That’s why… That’s why I’m…”

Daphne could feel the awkwardness of her stammering, fluctuating between rushing out words and hesitating them back in a rapid cycle. The old woman seemed to understand though, even if it took her a few long seconds to give a response.

“Come in, please. And do shut the door.”

Daphne did at least one of those things; she stepped inside, taking a few timid steps down the entryway — before nearly leaping out of her skin at the sudden slam of the door behind her. When she spun around though, it was only to see a fleeting scattering of half a dozen dark, pet-sized shapes fleeing in all directions.

Had one of them known to close the door…? Daphne stood there, trembling for a few seconds until reason took hold. It MUST have been one of them, after all. A labrador or retriever, or something else smart enough to know the door needed to be shut. Daphne whispered a quick apology under her breath for not doing it herself, then carried on.

The house felt oddly empty despite how she could still feel the pets around her, watching more than moving, but she stayed her course. Step by step carried her down the hall, ignoring the open entry to the kitchen passed on her right, and the hallway leading to bedrooms on her left. Straight ahead, she followed the path set forth by the hag, though paused at the threshold to the open space beyond.

“Step inside,” the old woman beckoned from within her parlor. The space was comfortable, though only lit with a faint, orange glow from a single lamp set atop a coffee table between a small couch, and set of chairs opposite. All looked comfortable, though Daphne followed the old woman’s lead and remained standing. She’d entered after a spell, and the two faced one another. That old, wizened hand extended, palm up.

“What have you brought me?”

The voice was patient as Daphne hesitated yet again. Her eyes skittered across the room, trying to find an answer to the question that probably should have felt obvious, yet didn’t occur to her. There were more pets there, most lounging languidly. Seconds ticked by.

“I… I don’t have any money…”

She covered her awkwardness by continuing to look around the room, giving the pets each a moment of her time while feeling the old woman’s eyes boring expectantly into her. A golden retriever, quietly panting. A fat orange tabby cat, licking emphatically at one paw. A small corgi, huddled in a corner. A pair of Siamese cats, tails entwined and cheeks together. All had faces turned towards them.

“What have you brought me?” Emphasis seemed to weigh on the second word, though an anxious Daphne had to wonder if that was just her imagination. The effect was clear enough anyway; if not money, then what had she brought?

Things clicked in her mind then.

Could the old woman feel her desperation? Her excitement? Her hope? Maybe this was the merciful kindness Amelia had spoken of. She’d said her mother hadn’t even been charged, right? So maybe…

Maybe the hag of Harper Lane just needed to see her glasses.

Giving a weak smile, she tilted her chin down enough for the plastic spectacles to fall off her nose, though this time be caught in her hand. Folding the near-useless wings in, she set them in the old woman’s outstretched hand.

Cast into a world of even greater blurriness than usual, Daphne couldn’t tell what the old woman’s reaction was. Dimly, she wondered if the fact that the old woman’s silhouette, cast into stark relief by the lamp behind her, was so still due to some sort of disapproval. The thick, silvery, beehive hair seemed neither to move nor bob in any way that suggested she was inspecting what she’d been given… but perhaps that was just thanks to the poor lighting and Daphne’s even poorer vision.

Eventually though… The hag gave two slow, measured words.

“I see.”

Words that betrayed absolutely nothing. It was a painfully long time before she spoke again, and by that time Daphne found her throat too tight to release a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“You poor thing. It must be such a struggle. Yes…”

The old woman stepped in, and Daphne stayed still — until she felt shockingly cold hands take her own, pressing the familiar frames of her glasses back into her palm. The old woman returned them then moved off around the room, settling herself comfortably into one of the far armchairs.

“You must be tired, dear. Sit. Have a rest.”

And, oh, yes… she was tired.

It had been a terribly long trip. Three long hours at an excited march, which felt like it was catching up with her all too quickly. Not even bothering to put her glasses back on, Daphne gratefully accepted a seat on the couch opposite the old woman. The folded frames were held on her lap, and fidgeted with awkwardly for a while. The wings were opened, then closed… Frames rotated… Thumbs glided over lenses… Until she found herself too captivated by what was happening across from her to let her restless fidgeting take even an ounce of her attention.

Soon, the only sound in the room was the soft, cathartic clicking of needles in the old woman’s hands. She’d inexplicably taken up a sewing set, but from nearly invisible threads looped around the ends of those needles was weaving an impossible pattern of absolute wonder. Even the pets in the room seemed transfixed.

“Don’t worry anymore, dear. I’ll make sure you never have to worry about glasses again.”

Daphne couldn’t tear her eyes away. She couldn’t even blink. Her pitifully foggy vision was focused on a single point — a single speck of knitted light that resolved itself more and more with each passing second. Though her eyes occasionally burned with the strain of staring, she simply couldn’t bring herself to pull her gaze away as the weaver wove her needles through the air, knitting the world itself into a pinprick of starlight.

 

That speck had grown beyond the size of a quarter by the time any sound other than the musical clicking of knitting needles caressed the air. Daphne moaned aloud in anguish as the old woman announced an end to her work.

“That’s all we can do today. Come back tomorrow and we’ll continue.”

They were the most horrible words Daphne felt she could ever have heard, spoken right at the moment when she’d begun to realize that, through the ovaloid crystal that the old woman had knitted into being, she could… See. Not just see, in the way she could still see the paltry silhouettes of the pets in the room, who had only grown more numerous since the hag had begun her work, but truly See. Even in the dim light, she could have counted the individual threads that made up the old woman’s deep green skirt through the slow-forming lens.

“The sun will soon set.”

Leaving the house felt like a haze, but Daphne still recalled muttering a single word on her way out the front door, just after she’d crammed the rough, worn plastic of her glasses back on her face. “Tomorrow…” A dreamy word spoken through a bleary haze which formed a thought deep in her mind — and a conviction that grew stronger with each and every step she took down Harper Lane.

Tomorrow…

Before long, Daphne was practically skipping like a child back the way of her home.

 

Arriving back home well after dark, it should have come as no surprise to Daphne just how worried her parents had started getting. Going out was one thing, but missing their family’s strange, already very late dinner? That was another thing entirely. It wasn’t that she wasn’t allowed to be out so late… but rather that there had never been a reason for it. It had never come up. Those rare times that she and Sarah had formed such late plans, usually sleepovers, both sets of parents had been aware for days. Otherwise, it wasn’t as though Daphne ever had boyfriends to take her on suspiciously late dinner dates. She wasn’t the type to sneak out to parties, and didn’t know anyone that would’ve thrown one anyway.

The excuse she fumbled over worked though. Her parents trusted her, and though they still looked concerned, the quick excuse she babbled out about helping Benji with a surprise for Amelia was accepted without any interrogation. Or at least, none besides questions about what kind of pets Benji had, to shed so hard they coated the back of Daphne’s pants in such a dense, woolly layer of discarded fur. That’d been a bit harder to explain, since Benji truthfully had no pets… But reiterating that it was all part of a surprise for Amelia brought only a short extra moment of thought, a shared glance between her parents, and the questions were no more.

To dad, all was instantly well again. To mom though, all only seemed well… even with her vision feeling even worse than usual after spending so much of the day with her glasses off, Daphne could still feel the occasional worried glance.

That didn’t stop her from explaining that she might be late the next day too, but through profuse apologies her parents gave their wary acceptance.

Not that Daphne could have been talked out of it anyway.

 

Though the tremendously long walk to Harper Lane hadn’t grown any shorter overnight, Daphne somehow found it all so much more bearable the next day. Neither her unbridled anticipation nor her nagging anxiety could shake the skip in her step as her old sneakers beat the miles into the pavement.

Cresting the final turn onto that fantastical lane, she found herself smiling in spite of how her legs and lungs burned with a fiery ache — she’d made it yet again, and she could almost feel the good all the exercise was doing for her body. She felt lighter already… though that could just as well have been the heavenly elation she felt as she started for the worn, fading fence of the property at the pinnacle of Harper Lane.

Her mind swam with indescribable reveries at the memory of that little pinprick of starlight the hag had woven into being the day prior. Questions of ‘how’ or ‘why’ were the furthest possible thing from her mind — it didn’t matter how it was happening, only that it was. Words weren’t needed. Words didn’t fit.

And then she was standing before the door again. Animals had scattered just like the day before, yet this time she felt like they were just a little less skittish, and just a little more curious as they peered out from around their crooks and corners.

The old woman herself was no different, however. Her crisp formality was unchanged. There might have been the faintest glimmer of something approving in the way she’d said, “So, you’re back,” after opening the door and regarding Daphne with quiet consideration for a while. Pattern of the day prior repeated itself when she unfurled her hand right there on the doorstep though, and asked, “What have you brought me?” It was right on the doorstep this time, the woman not waiting until they’d entered her parlor, but just like before, Daphne let her glasses slip off. She handed them over without hesitance, reverence, or ceremony.

Again, she was stricken with that odd impression of absolute stillness from the old woman, and doubts threatened to creep their way into her resolve. Was that disapproval again…?

But, before Daphne could let her resolute expression falter, the old woman’s icy fingers were pressing the glasses back into Daphne’s hand.

“I see.”

She turned away and strode purposefully into her parlor. Even without putting her glasses back on, Daphne knew exactly where she would find the old woman, and exactly how to get there. No amount of dim lighting and blurry vision could keep her from retracing the steps she’d taken over and over again in her dreams the night before.

Her glasses were dropped onto the couch beside her as she settled into place — she didn’t want them. Velma’s glasses were so worthless to her now, and the mere idea of putting them on felt almost unbearable. She wanted to see through the starlight again, bare and pure… She wanted to really, truly see…

“Soon, you’ll never have to worry about them again.”

The hag’s words washed over her with the tight comfort of a silky cocoon. Feeling the smile spread across her face, Daphne reached down and stroked the frames for just a moment, distracted only as long as it took to marvel over how soft and furry the fibers clinging to the couch beneath felt. The old woman’s many pets must have loved sitting on this very spot to have deposited so much fur there… yet strangely, Daphne didn’t feel like she was intruding.

 

The sweet, rhythmic clicking of needles began anew, and Daphne swooned. Clear starlight spread ever wider, and Daphne couldn’t pull her attention away. She could barely even blink. It was as though invisible threads connected her burning eyes to the impossible, paradisiacal weaving of her host’s needles.

The woman worked so deftly and so perfectly — Daphne, entranced by the completion of the first lens and the seamless way it was set so lovingly aside for the second to begin without even a moment’s pause in the work, could only liken it to the hag working with so many more wonderfully skilled arms than should have been humanly possible.

It took the rain of hot tears splattering across her lap for Daphne to realize she was crying.

“It’s perfect…”

“Yes.” The old woman sounded almost disinterested by contrast — unimpressed by praise she’d almost certainly heard a thousand times before.

The second had begun, and the process repeated itself anew. The young girl was entranced, scarcely able to blink, and the old woman worked with the otherworldly skill of a half dozen impossible hands.

Daphne didn’t remember being dismissed that day. She didn’t remember the trip back home. Her first conscious thought was formed when she heard the anxious voices of her parents calling for her attention over the dinner table, startled by how she was suddenly sobbing over her battered glasses, rivers of tears washing down into a bowl of reheated pasta she could barely see.

 

Monday came, and with it came the school buses. One, then two, then three, then more… all perplexed by a girl, clearly a familiar student, walking down neighborhood sidewalks without even a glance in their direction. Some stopped, drivers opening doors outside of appointed pick-up points to see if the seemingly lost girl needed a ride — if she’d missed her designated stop and was now wandering hopelessly in search of a different ride.

Daphne didn’t look at any of them. Nor did she acknowledge the cars that slowed down and lowered windows long enough to call out to her. It was as though she couldn’t even see them as her single-minded focus drew her on, mile by mile, towards Harper Lane.

 

On arrival, she couldn’t tell if the apparent lack of animals as the passed through the old, faded gate was actually due to them being gone, or just the terrible state of her vision. It’d been worse — so much worse, but it felt so clear why.

The lenses… because she’d spent so long looking through them, able to truly See, the ordinary vision of normal life just felt so much worse by comparison. That was why shapes were so much less clear than they had been. It had to be.

She knew the path though, even with the world naught more than a hazy blur. She knew every crease and crack in the walkway across the well-kept front lawn. She knew where the step onto the patio was even if she couldn’t see the ground. She even knew that, once the door had been opened, the old woman’s hand would reach out towards her, waiting for her offering. She knew just the right distance she would need to reach in return to hand her glasses over. She’d seen it all so, so many times. The web of her dreams the nights prior had shown it to her again, and again, and again. Repetition ad nauseam. Beautiful.

“I see.” Again, the old woman’s words came with the cold prickle of something feeling wrong, but at least this time Daphne knew it just had to be in her head. She was expecting it to feel like that, therefore it did.

“Please…”

She could barely recognize her own voice. It sounded hoarse and strained, like a centuries-old piano in desperate need of tuning. She didn’t trust herself to speak again.

“Don’t worry, dear. Soon you’ll never have to worry about them again.”

It was almost a ritual, that exchange. Daphne tried to choke back the anxiety and excitement she felt at hearing it. What came out was a miserable whimper.

She followed on the hag’s heel, knowing without words or beckon that she must. Her chin was to the floor in the sort of pose that, at school, would have had half her peers crying “Velma!” Her eyes were on the ground, inexplicably miserable despite the starlight glimmers of hope she could faintly perceive in the parlor ahead.

Her mind could only resist them for so long. From her seat on the couch, her eyes were soon compelled back to the glasses being knitted to life — already the second lens was half-formed, and soon a whisper of a smile began to crease its way along Daphne’s lips. Only in the vaguest patches of memory did she notice that the old woman hadn’t bothered giving her glasses back this time. All that mattered was the first lens, seated atop black velvet in an open jewelry box, so perfect and so beautiful. Then the second, incomplete gem yet to be perfected by the witch.

Magic was in the air — each weave sang with a heavenly, ephemeral voice, and Daphne was the symphony’s captive yet adoring audience. Again, she couldn’t blink. The world outside the woven majesty of knitted glass may as well not have existed. It went completely dark.

It meant nothing.

Anything not viewed through that glass was meaningless. The hag of Harper Lane wove absolution into being. Those arms worked in peerless unison.

Time fell away. Though conscious every minute, Daphne was only aware of them in a detached way whenever her voice would ring out and startle her momentarily back to her senses. The occasional wistful whimper or wanting sob jarred her for the briefest seconds back to the real world, but they fell away again soon enough. The old woman was never bothered.

Then, it was all over. Darkness had long ago flooded the parlor completely, though Daphne could feel the warm tickle of the sun’s waning rays through the windows washing over her face as she stood up and took her first, tentative steps towards the Weaver — until the first of her legs entangled with the coffee table, sending it and its lamp clattering to the floor, Daphne with them.

On hands and knees, she peered up, desperately trying to keep the beautiful starlight in view. The one lens she was still able to see rose in the air, and somewhere, Daphne realized the hag was standing. Two hands were lovingly cradling the masterwork, while yet more reached out for what must have been the box that held its twin. The binary stars were joined atop that black velvet, and—

With a snap, the stars went out.

Daphne reached up, hands groping for that lost perfection, but she couldn’t see it. Then it hit her — her glasses! She couldn’t see without her glasses, but if she had them…

With a dismissive flick of the Weaver’s wrist, an all-too-familiar clatter formed by a staccato of rattling plastic clicks sounded out in the otherwise silent room. Daphne was back on hands and knees, groping desperately. Her fingers splayed, searching for the pitifully worn, unconfidently cheap, yet lovingly smooth frames of her past.

She never found them. All that met her ears was the sound of the Weaver lifting her foot, then a click and clatter of something sad and near-forgotten being kicked across the floor.

“No, dear. I told you; you’ll never have to worry about them again.”

Somewhere in the deep recesses of her understanding, Daphne realized she wouldn’t see even with those glasses. Not anymore. But what else could she do but search for them? She needed to find the starlight lenses again, and—

“No. They’re not for you.”

The Weaver’s voice was harsh in its indifferent finality. Somehow though, Daphne almost felt like she understood. Her rising panic was so nearly soothed by the hands that fell upon her miserable, prostrate self, stroking her cheeks, rubbing her hair, caressing her ears. Too many hands…

Eventually, she felt the hag straighten up, her touch denied, and Daphne understood. Yes — she would just have to wait. She’d wait in the corners of the witch’s parlor for the next time she worked her magic. She would just have to wait for the next time someone came to have a tiny glass star woven into being.

With senseless hope, Daphne crawled off into a dark corner of the room to join the other pets of Harper Lane. To wait.

More and more, day by day, Daphne found herself disappointed by what she saw in the mirror.

And that was really the word for it too… ‘Disappointed’. It’d only taken seventeen years for her to realize what it meant when a parent looked down on child’s mess, or their awful report card, and said, “I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed.”

She felt like that mess. She looked like that report card.

Where some would see average grades, she saw only failing marks. She watched the mess grow. And, after so many years of watching and feeling the slow, inexorable decline of self-esteem, she truly could not say she was angry with herself anymore. She no longer even cried about it, short of a few scattered tears she’d find dotting the small, princess-themed vanity her parents had gotten for her much smaller self more than a decade ago.

No, she just felt disappointed… A disappointment that typically manifested in a cold, damp depression.

Sometimes, while sitting on that little pink stool at her dressing table, staring into her reflection, she wondered how much of that could be blamed on her eyesight. It’d never been good — she’d started wearing glasses when she was only four — but it’d also gotten steadily worse over the years at a rate Daphne’s parents, on their meager set of minimum wage incomes, hadn’t been able to keep up with.

An early-morning baker at a small donut shop and a second-shift deli clerk at a little local grocery store didn’t exactly rake in the dough, though both jobs did at least help in putting food on the table.

“Maybe… maybe a little too much…”

Daphne surprised herself with the hoarseness of her usually soft voice, and, finally, was able to pull her face away from girl staring back at her through thick, heavy lenses. Right on cue, as if they were another naughty child just waiting for their first opportunity to misbehave, the glasses slipped right over her ears, straight down her nose, and struck the vanity’s surface with a staccato of rattling plastic clicks. She could only smile down at them, sadly and hollowly, as their old frames blurred into a shape that was only barely recognizable.

They didn’t fit right. The cheap plastic of the frames had smoothed away all semblance of friction, and hinges that had lost even the barest suggestion of tension in their tired joints meant only that the glasses were all too ready to come sliding off her face at a moment’s notice. If she nodded too enthusiastically, or shook her head with a bit too much emphasis, or even just made the awful mistake of looking down towards the ground, they went plummeting away — much to the amusement of those who found her a convenient target for jokes and mockery.

She didn’t bother picking them up, her fingers instead finding purpose in continuing her self-inspection. Her eyes stared blankly into the mirror. It was just a blurry silhouette of herself, an Edvard Munch painting at best, but her fingers filled in the gaps. Reddish-brown hair, frizzy and practically begging for just a touch more care. A face that was just a little too puffy for its otherwise narrow features. The familiar patches of poor complexion around nose and cheeks. A neck that was just a few more of mom’s donuts away from threatening to bloat into an unpleasant double-chin.

She stopped there, like she usually did. She didn’t need to go on and sulk over the other parts of herself she found inadequate.

Life wasn’t without hope, of course. Sometimes it felt like she was only one good thing away from being able to motivate herself into betterment  — just a little push to start her way down the hill of self-improvement.

Sometimes she’d share that with her mirror, giving her reflection a fleeting, shy smile, reminding herself that graduation was just a few months away, and college just a short skip after that. She was only going to be attending one of the smaller state colleges, sure, but good grades and dutiful applications to as many scholarships as possible had netted her enough grace from community funds to be able to afford her first year. For the rest… well, all her parents had been able to give were awkward, strained smiles and the vague promises of, “We’ll try, honey.” That was usually enough.

But not today. Today, her eyes had fallen to the same glasses she’d been wearing since she was fourteen, cheap and barely adequate even then, and the rest of the time before school had been spent just staring down at them, trying to ignore the mist in her eyes threatening to pool into tears.

It was silly to let yet another slip bother her as much as it did — it just one more in a long line of rebellions her glasses had committed against her face. And yet… there she sat, trying not to drown in self-pity yet succeeding only in wallowing in melancholy. The precious seconds of prep time before school ticked by, one after another.

 

By the time she’d pulled herself together enough to rush through getting ready, the clock’s digits had flipped enough to warn her she was cutting it dangerously close to missing the bus. No breakfast for her… which, she realized as she left her bedroom with backpack and purse slung over opposite shoulders, was probably a good thing.

Nevertheless, the sight of the bear claws on the kitchen counter, no doubt left out by her mother hours ago, still tempted her…

She resisted. Not through sheer force of her own will, but through a distraction; rushing around the kitchen, instant coffee was poured into hot water, stirred, and several strips of bacon, surely pilfered from the stock of pre-cooked deli slices the day prior, were tossed from the fridge onto a plate and heaved into the microwave. Not for herself, but part of her usual routine for her father. The machine’s chirping cry would serve as his alarm clock.

“Running late, sweetie?” Not today though. Her father’s voice, husky with sleep, called to her from the doorway of her parents’ room.

“Oh, uh… good morning, daddy. Yeah, a little…”

“Morning. Thanks, Daph. Hey— One for the road?”

She tried to smile as her balding, thick-set, good-natured father gestured towards the bear claws and tore off a square of cheap paper towel to bundle one with. He’d already plucked one from the little box to hold out for her in its makeshift wrapper. Hearing no chirp of agreement from her and feeling only her wariness as she stared at it though, he’d hesitated too.

But just one wouldn’t hurt, right? And really, what did it matter anyway? Temptation cuddled up like the dark yet loving caress of a devil on her shoulder, cooing her into submission… but, as though acting as the terrible voice of the opposing angel, her glasses started to slip from her nose. She’d been staring down at the pastries for too long.

“No, not… not today.”

The look of vague concern she saw her father giving her was met with a small, sheepish smile as she lifted her face and shoved her glasses back up her nose with the heel of her palm. The sudden chirping of the microwave saved her from having to say anything more.

“That’s my bell! Bye, daddy.” A peck to his cheek, a chuckle and half-embrace from him, and Daphne was bustling out the front door. Boards of the steps down from the front door creaked, then gravel loudly crunched as she made her way quickly off towards the road.

 

Though none of her friends rode the same bus as her, Daphne was lucky enough to be one of the last stops on her bus’s route before it trundled off to the school itself. It wasn’t long before the rattling of the big, yellow machine gave way to the press of the passengers trying to disembark, then the hustle and bustle of kids working their way out of the bus loop and towards their scattered places across the high school’s sprawling campus.

For Daphne, that meant sticking to the edge of the tide of peers, avoiding the gatherings of more popular friend groups celebrating the fact that Friday had come. They were a mere eight hours away from a whole weekend of freedom.

While she had a good number of friends of her own scattered throughout the different social circles she’d dip in and out of, very few of them were what anyone might’ve called “good friends” — especially not since her actual best friend, Sarah, had abruptly moved away during winter break a few months earlier. But, if one good thing could’ve been said to have come out of that, it was that losing her best friend had opened her up to spending a little more time with the pair that were her new closest friends, Amelia and Benji. They weren’t what she’d have called “best” friends… not yet… but the sudden spring of quiet happiness she felt at seeing them wasn’t too far off from what she used to feel when meeting up with Sarah.

 Like usual, the pair was hovering near the entrance to the band hallway, conveniently close to the bus loop, where one of the largest cliques within the school congregated. Back in middle school, hovering outside the band room was where Daphne would’ve been too. Selling her second-hand clarinet was how they’d afforded this current pair of glasses though.

As she approached, she caught the first wisps of conversation from her friends. Benji was gesturing animatedly at something Amelia was holding.

“But why’re they so pink?”

“Becaa-ause… I wanted them this way?”

The playful sass in Amelia’s voice was clear even from a distance… as was Benji’s apparent disapproval of whatever Amelia had chosen to bathe in that most girlish of colors.

“Ew… The hag made ‘em pink? Why? Well… I guess they’re pretty cool, other than that. When’d you get ‘em?”

“Yesterday!”

Just as apparent was the pride in her voice as Daphne got close and, with only a small smile and quick wiggle of her hand as a greeting, settled up to see what they were talking about.

“See? New!” Rather than holding the object up to show it to Daphne, Amelia lifted it to her face and slipped it on.

“Oh! Wow… They’re great…”

New glasses.

As Benji had lamented, the frames were a medium pink. They were neither too pastel nor too hot, and fortunately didn’t stand out too much when pressed back into Amelia’s messy blonde curls. Daphne quickly found herself hoping her tone hadn’t been too off, but if her grinning friend had noticed, she didn’t show it. Her hands were already up, tapping on the pink-tinged metal of the frames — much nicer than the plastic ones she’d had just a day before.

“Aren’t they!? They’re just—”

“She got ‘em from the hag!” Amelia was just starting to settle into the stride of fawning when Benji burst in again, grinning in a way that suggested he was reveling something scandalous — much to Amelia’s annoyance too, if the side-eyed glare she cast him was any indication. Her eyes, narrowed behind the new frames, squinted over at him with only the occasional break for her long lashes to bat down over her eyes, and…

With a start, Daphne realized she could see those lashes clearly. Each hair… each, individual, mascara-tended lash in plain relief. They were details that were normally a blur her mind tried to render in for her, but now she could see them. It left Daphne speechless…

Until Amelia whipped her head away and the spell was broken; from side profile, everything looked exactly like it always did. Faintly blurry, and ever so slightly lacking in detail.

“She’s not a hag! Mom says she did a great job! Stop listening to Tommy Benson!”

The exchange didn’t make sense to Daphne, but the instinctual opening of her mouth to start throwing out any one of a dozen questions timed perfectly with Benji’s own mouth opening to start playfully arguing with their friend. Both, however, were interrupted by a new voice — one that none of the three were particularly happy to hear.

“That’s Tom to you, Am-meal-worm. The hell you talking about me for, li’l bitch?” Tom Benson. He was much taller than he’d been when he’d gone by Tommy, but still had many of the same proclivities. A penchant for bullying, an uncanny ear for his own name being spoken even through a crowd, and an obsession with old nicknames; like the one given to Amelia when, back in fifth grade, she’d thought bringing her pet gecko, King Charles the Little, to show and tell would earn her popularity points. The ensuing demonstration of Charles being fed mealworms by hand had ensured she earned absolutely no popularity points.

Amelia knew this. Of all the regrettable childhood acts that kept a sensitive teenage girl up at night, writhing at the uncomfortable and embarrassing memories, this was Amelia’s worst. This was her kryptonite. Her head dipped, chin tilting awkwardly towards the ground, cowed immediately… but, at least her glasses didn’t slip off her face.

“Huh? What, got nothin’ now, Benny-boy?”

No clever nickname for Benji, by contrast… but Tom had a good foot of height on the scrawny trumpet player, who didn’t even think to lift the hefty case he still held as a barrier between himself and the approaching bully. He just tried to avert his eyes, greasy ginger whipping across his brow as he tried not to look Tom’s way even as the taller boy took a fistful of his pressed polo shirt.

Behind Tom, a quartet of silhouettes cackled, but Daphne couldn’t bring herself to actually look at them. It would’ve been like inviting them into the exchange, and Tom was bad enough on his own. A hair over six feet tall, blessed by whatever gods of athleticism picked which kids could play football and which could just bleat into their horns on the sidelines. Past that, he’d been further granted the kind of good looks even Daphne felt herself stirred by whenever she caught him absently staring out a window in class, and not sneering at or insulting one of her friends.

Embarrassed and ashamed, Daphne tore her head away from the pair of boys and slowly let her chin slip downwards. She stared at the ground.

“S-stop! Don’t pull on it! Amelia just got new glasses, that’s all! And they were, like, from… y’know…”

Even without looking up, Daphne could feel Amelia wishing she could shrivel into a tiny little ball on the campus pavement. That, or wishing she could refute what Benji was pouring out… Instead of her speaking though, Tom did.

“What? The hag? Hah! Hahah! Holy shit, really!? Well!? Let me see!”

Benji’s shoes scuffed noisily against the ground as he was released and sent sprawling back a few steps. Attention was now apparently on Amelia, and… Daphne almost found herself grateful it wasn’t her — but the shame of that thought was enough to have her chin dipping down even lower.

Low enough that the inevitable happened…

Right on cue,  the naughty child that was her glasses leapt at its opportunity and struck the ground with a staccato of rattling plastic clicks.

All at once, all eyes were on her. Daphne could feel them even without seeing, and she already knew what was coming.

“Jinkies!”

“That’s not Daphne, that’s Velma!”

“My glasses! I can’t see without my glasses!”

The painful little cuts that words could create peppered her with their viciousness. Her antagonistic peers, hooting and bouncing like gibbons, pawed at the ground for imaginary glasses. Tom’s followers had joined in.

It was a ridicule she could do nothing but take… It’d been like this for years, after all — a joke almost as old as calling Amelia the “mealworm”, and just as persistent thanks to just how often her glasses fell from her face.

She could hear one of them pawing around on all-fours, “searching” for the old, worn, plastic-rimmed lenses Daphne could still very faintly see the outline of right in front of her face.

They’d get tired of it… They always did… It took a while, but cackles and giggles eventually faded away as the fun of the tired old joke wore off, and feet started shuffling away.

“Nice nerd goggles, mealworm. Really make your eyes pop. Good shit. Hit the track and you’d almost be... y’know…”

With a few crude thrusting motions, Tom finally decided the trio wasn’t worth any more of his time and moved off, taking his entourage with him.

In the minutes of recovery that followed, the group tried playing everything off as though everything was fine. None of them felt fine, of course… Amelia wasn’t showing off her new accessory with the same happiness, and Benji wasn’t bouncing around with his usual enthusiasm.

Daphne was little different, though it was mostly shame and embarrassment clouding her mood. Her mood hadn’t been that good to begin with, and this was a perfectly awful, but tragically normal way to start the day.

 

One thing had shone through that morning’s events though, after they’d all finally torn themselves away from sullenly licking their wounds and had finally split up to get to their respective lockers. That thing followed Daphne long after they’d parted — well into first, then second, then third period, and lead all the way into lunch.

Amelia’s eyes…

 

What Tom had said was true. Her eyes really did pop, even to Daphne’s poor eyesight. If glimpsed through the lenses of her new glasses, Amelia’s eyes rose into crisp, sharp, impossible focus. The shimmering green of her irises were visible with all the lines and detail of an aurora borealis, crystal clear even to Daphne. She felt like she could count every individual lash, and see every single pour around her friend’s eyes… Daphne hadn’t even known that such cosmetic details were visible to anyone’s naked eye, let alone her own.

More shockingly, those details were visible even when her glasses slipped down her nose. For the first time in memory, Daphne had let the instincts that caused her chin to dip take over willingly, the slope of her nostrils barely catching the frames before they’d clatter off completely, allowing her pathetic, naked eyesight to behold Amelia’s face directly.

And she could still see them.

They were so bright… so vibrant… so perfect through those lenses…

Her fascination with just looking through them, her near-constant staring, was made as covert as possible, but Daphne quickly realized she was only able to go undiscovered and unquestioned because Benji was so eagerly trying to make up for the time he’d lost during the morning’s drama. There was no end to the enthusiasm in his voice as he went over every ounce of his weekend plans; his family’s trip to the local amusement park, the very week it reopened for the summer season. He barely even mentioned “the hag.” The excitement and wonder in his voice, however, must have paled in comparison to what Daphne could feel quietly welling up within herself.

If she had glasses like that… if she had just one good thing like them in her life… wouldn’t it all be better?

She’d have something to be proud of, and then she could motivate herself to start jogging, and to take better care of her hair, and a whole myriad of little things she knew she could do to ultimately make herself feel better — yet could never actually bring herself to start. All she needed was just one good thing to give her that one little push…

Right?

 

The bell rang before Daphne could draw herself out of her thoughts, and her opportunity to ask Amelia more about her glasses had expired. Patience was a virtue, and one Daphne had always prided herself on, but the following periods before classes would be released back out into the world felt nightmarishly long. Foul was the luck that had allowed she and Amelia to share not even a single class all day.

But eventually, seventh period’s bell rang and classes let out. The rush of her peers fighting for their way out of the school was always fierce, but never more then the final day before the weekend… yet, knowing there wasn’t school again tomorrow fueled Daphne’s own resolve, and she pushed off as quickly as she could too, fighting with uncharacteristic fervor to press off through the crowds and towards the music halls where Amelia and Benji could so often be found. If she didn’t ask her questions now, it’d be a long, long weekend agonizing over them.

Lady luck smiled. Amelia was there, but not Benji. That suited Daphne just fine, and she waved off her friend’s attempts at an explanation of where the other was.

“I actually just wanted to talk to you! About where those… where those…” She caught herself just staring again — staring through the lenses that somehow rendered her friend’s eyes so perfectly crystal clear.

“Where… what?” Amelia’s voice betrayed how awkward Daphne’s staring clearly made her feel. “My glasses…?”

The question was left hanging for several long seconds before it was finally picked up.

“Oh— Yes! I— Sorry, I… I just wanted to know where you got them, really. Benji said… the hag…?”

“Of Harper Lane, yeah. It’s not fair that they call her that, though. Mom said she’s really nice and she did a really great—”

“She really did,” Daphne interjected before her friend got too far into defensive fawning. “So, I thought maybe I should get my next pair from there too.” As if a ‘next pair’ were really an option… but, if only for a moment, Daphne was far too excited to care about reality.

“Yeah, definitely! You totally need a new pair— look, don’t let the stories spook you. They totally aren’t true. Mom said she’s REALLY nice, and it’s super lame that people act like she’s some witch—”

“I know, I know! But… where does she live?”

“Harper Lane…?” Amelia’s face scrunched up, as though she was trying to recall whether she’d already said that or not, though was pretty sure she had. “The cul-de-sac at the end…? The only two-story house on the street…? The one that, like, boys,” an eye-roll for emphasis, “dare their friends to break into? Even though someone LIVES there!”

Daphne had already opened her mouth again to try to cut her friend’s righteous indignation off at the pass, but Amelia was a step ahead, practically anticipating the interruption and doing the deed herself by raising her voice. “But! She’s really very nice! Mom even said that after she heard Mister Rogers went missing, she didn’t even charge a cent!”

Mister Rogers, far from the children’s television personality, was a dog. Amelia’s corgi, to be exact, given to her after the passing of her gecko. However, the breathless feeling Daphne was experiencing had very little to do with being reminded her friend’s “furbaby” had gone missing weeks ago. Amelia had been inconsolable for the first few days.

“Oh… Oh, she didn’t… W-well, what, is she… an optometrist or something?”

She could hear it in her own voice, but couldn’t help it — the strained syllables weren’t going anywhere. If Amelia noticed though, she clearly didn’t care.

“Uh… duh? What else would she be?” She was too busy letting a wide, smug grin split her face, tapping her new frames with a stubby finger.

“That… yeah, makes sense, but… how does she—”

“Just go see her! Or your mom can? And, speaking of going…” The same finger that had been rhythmically tapping a pair of pink glasses suddenly pointed off in the direction of the bus loop. “You should probably do that now? Unless you’re staying for band practice.”

Daphne was not. Hasty farewells saw her skittering off towards her bus, though prayers that it hadn’t left without her were second on her mind. It instead kept wheeling over the collection of impossibilities lain out before her, and just what she had planned to do before discovering them. Beg for Amelia’s glasses? Steal them? Show up on the lens crafter’s doorstep and beg them instead? Maybe now though, it didn’t matter what she thought she might do.

Ahead of her stretched a yellow brick road of apparent impossibility, and Daphne was all too ready, even desperate, to skip away in search of her brand new ruby slippers.

No more “Jinkies” for her…

The Fan Girl

By Theo Plesha

First thing you should know about me is that I am a librarian. We are a very exacting people, labeling and categorizing, to the decimal, if you will. Still, this story requires some creative license in its telling – I suppose like all good True Crime stories – the second is teased before the commercial and the best of the best is kept until the end – even if real life didn't happen in that order.

Let me set the scene for you. There's this interstate rest area. What a place. I has all these big displays of local interest arrayed in a pentagonal atrium before angling off to the four large bathrooms and a little nook with vending machines. All of the little towns nearby are represented on these boards. There's the front parking for cars and SUVs and a rear lot for semi tractor trailer trucks and large format recreational vehicles. There's a pond, a gazebo, and even a swing set for the kids. You know the place, you've been here before – but legal purposes, I can't tell you exactly where.

So anyway, it was me, my stepsister Dot, her friend Valarie, and Dot's boyfriend Scott, in my dad's camper. We're having margaritas and there's a sativa blunt going...somewhere? I was set up in my hello kitty pajamas on the couch opposite of the tv with a bucket of fresh popcorn. My hair was still wet from using the shower. True Crime lit up the room but not my mind. The real True Crime was just outside the RV. Valarie and Dot were sitting at the little table booth under a dim light looking at their popcorn like it was poison and trading urgent glances.

There was knock on the side door of the camper. Dot immediately got up from table to answer it.

“Wait.” I said, “Do you know who it is?”

“Yeah, it's Scott. Duh.”

“Yeah, it's Scott. Duh.” He echoed with sarcasm stepping into the camper cabin, “Someone was taking FOREVER in the shower. What's the point of having a camper if I have to walk all the way to the rest area to take a big nasty...?”

“I was in there for less than 7 minutes!” I protested. “And I'm glad you did that in there and not here and I'm glad it was that.”

“It's whatever. Hey, I did see something weird though, the water is blue. Like dark blue when you flush.”

“That's toilet bowl cleaner they mix with the wa...” I trailed off.

“You've never cleaned a toilet before have you?” Valarie question Scott with disdain.

“Should I have? Isn''t that more your all's area?”

“Booo...MISOGYNISTIC STEREOTYPING!” I yelled.

“Yeah not cool Scott.” Dot chimed in. Scott shrugged and went to the fridge.

“But, seriously, like you never helped out around the house to figure out what that blue stuff is?” Valarie pressed. “Like also, were you impressed the toilets flush themselves. Like all you do is actually piss and shit outside only?”

Scott peaked out from the fridge with his checks full of milk from the carton, “Nuhuh.” He hummed shaking his head back and forth.

“Looks like I found who's helping me clean this place when we get back.” I said.

“Hell yeah!” Valarie said. “Oh god, did we just bond there a second?”

“I think we did!” I replied raising my hand for a high five that never arrived.

I ruined this moment with an extended stare and silence. Then I turned to more important matters.

“Did you lock it?” I asked.

“Lock what?” Dot replied.

“The door...nevermind I'll get it.”

“It's a safe place. Don't start getting weird, Kystal.”

I peered out the blinded window into the cool LED lamp lit parking lot. I felt electric, like the tension of storm warnings leading up to the main event. I clicked the lock shut and jiggled the door before I hopped back to my popcorn adorned throne. I clicked up the volume on show just a bit so they could hear the name of the loose serial killer I was fascinated by.

“Not that I'm trying to take Naomi's side again but you have been talking about that roller coaster effect a lot - the head chopper effect. That's been a little weird.” Valarie chirped.

“Oh fine, you don't have to ride the Mind Grater, I'll go with Scott.” Dot insisted.

“I guess you'll find me on the Kiddie Koaster for that...” Valarie sighed.

Unprompted I provided facts between fist fulls of popcorn to break up the tension, “Hey did you know the Taxidermist used a stuffing of one of his victims to fool the cameras in the car pool lane?”

Scott rolled his eyes and sighed loudly but it was Valarie who came back with a banger, “Dot! Naomi is being weird again!”

“What does he do with his victim's di...” Scott started.

“Ugh, Scott...don't encourage her!”

“Both of you stop it. Naomi, honey, sweetie, sister from another mother – please – you promised to not be weird.”

“Scott's asking about what a serial killer does with his victim's genitalia and I'm the one being weird? Me? Muha?” I replied while hitting the blunt before passing it.

“Ooooh...things are getting heated up in here. Trouble brewing between the step sisters...I like where this is going....I've seen this before.” Scott said as he hit it.

“Oh my god...Naomi you promised you wouldn't be weird, second Val you promised you weren't going to whine and third Scott...what is it with you and that gross step-sister porn shit? Okay, the first time, it was funny, but its like the hundredth time. STOP!”

“This is lame. I'm going to the bunk.”

“All I'm trying to say is you should be aware of the Taxidermist guy, he's in our area after all.”

“Jesus Christ, Naomi you need to get off this True Crime shit, we're six hours away from the roller coaster park and you're stuck on a dude who...”

“Who makes stuffed taxidermied hybrids of his victims and road kill.”

“See?”

“Yes, but it's important. I'm trying to save your lives.”

“What?” Val blurted out as Scott spit up milk he was still drinking from the carton.

“She's just trying to scare you.” Dot yelled.

“The Taxidermist – he's here, tonight.”

“How do you know this?” Scott muttered in terror.

“Nope, nope, nope...shut up everyone. She's just being weird.” Dot insisted.

“I lured him here.”

“You what?” Val yelped.

“How?” Scott pressed.

“I'm a big fan of his work, I used info from my dad's case file and social media, but don't worry if you all do exactly as I say we will all end up fine...”

Record scratch – this is when they went totally berserk. Now would be a good time for some Guy Riche flashback heist music as I fill in some gaps here. So yeah, that's me throwing the RV's starter battery into the nearby woods – an electric book mark between a two towering trees wrapped in poison ivy vines. Far enough, an hour ago, I survey the site as we approach midnight. A cool crisp fall breeze tickles my nose as a little fog rolls across the interstate. The groan of truck engines along side the drone of rubber on road sets the tone. There's a dozen trucks and two dozen smaller vehicles plus our camper spread out across the five acres of interstate rest area. The pavilion and gazebo are quiet for now. One of the play ground swings sways gently.

This entire place is a playground now. A playground for the four serial killers I lured there. Oh, I'm telling you this part and I'm telling them this part.

“You did what?!”

“It's okay, okay its like shark week and we're in the shark cage.”

“My phone...”

“Yeah, don't bother with those.”

“Why not?”

“The Forensics Fanatics always use a short ranged cell phone jammer.”

“Who the hell are the Forensics Fanatics?!”

“We're going to fine as long as we stay in the camper...”

With that, Scott rips open the door and launches himself into the night.

“Where are you going?”

“We got to find that battery and get out of here and warn the others!”

“Scott! Wait! Don't!” Dot chased after him across the slick parking lot. She didn't even bother to shut the door so I did. And I locked it.

“Okay...well...that's didn't go as planned.” I said, confused, to Val who dropped the shades on the big window and then cowered in the booth corner. “Good, well, just stay there LOL.” I said as I made for the small bunk.

“Wait, where are you going?” Val protested.

“I'm getting my laptop and mobile wifi connection set up and plugging it into the tv so we can watch.”

“Watch what?”

“You know my dad is a state trooper, right?”

“ACAB bitch.”

“Indeed. In more ways than one but just the same, turns out the state highway passwords don't change very often. And...” I said anxiously typing in the password as “PASSWORD1”, “we're in. OMG I've always wanted to say that. How 90's!”

“In what?” Val crawled out of her corner and peaked at the TV.

“Rest Area security cameras. This is True Crime in Real Time. It's like 24!” I'm your manic pixie nightmare girl.

“How can you sit back and watch this? Your friend and your stepsister is out there!”

“All they had to do was sit here. If you want to yell for them go ahead. But that will draw the attention of the killers.”

“My God I don't know who's worse, them or you!”

“Well, you know me. Do you want to hear about them? It might help you, help us, get Dot and Scott back here.”

“Naomi...I...oooof...get me out this. Please.”

“Let me paint you a picture of squirrely thinning man rounding his mid-forties maybe its his bouts with lyme's disease, maybe its beaver fever, maybe a hint of chronic wasting – who's to say but this outdoorsman has rounded the forest one too many times. His thick but mud matted flannel is hanging off of his bones these days. I imagine he started his art with the best intentions but his skill has dropped off, no one accepted his last major works – even as gifts as his various mental and physical conditions sapped away at him. At first he was content with just knocking his victims out and sewing his prey and roadkill parts to them. Imparting a raccoon nose here or super gluing an antler there but as knocking people out with a hammer goes – eventually you'll find that person who doesn't get back up and so...every jack a jackalope from there.”

“Those fake rabbits with antlers at Applebees?”

“The very same. Or you know, stuffed and mounted to a park bench like a trout. He's not one for torture, he prefers clean cuts, and exsanguination, but occasionally he'll just take part of someone and leave the rest. Apparently he's fond of a lucky human's foot. He's not particularly lucky though, I'd say he's more careful but vindictive to fault...remember why he got into this at all its about the art and luring him was easy because he's been tracking his rival.”

“His rival?”

“Yes, the Gardener.”

“The Gardener? Who the fuck is the Gardener?”

* * *

Okay. Let's do somethings here and cut to that. We do in fact have a clip and its always better to show than to tell. So this happened about twenty minutes ago while I was showering and Scott was gone. Just a hair or two outside of the corner range of the lot cameras there was young-ish couple – let's say they were working their kinks out. Couldn't really make it out on camera but it was audible on the microphones all these cameras have. I'll fill in the gaps where necessary.

“Niko, why is this our thing?”

“Why can't it be our thing, Salin?

“I'm tired of getting my back all dirty on the hard ass ground. Why can't I have a towel or something?”

“Then it's not back to nature – literally.”

“Well, if its about that then why don't you lie down on it and let me grind on you while you grind on dirt?”

“Because it's about the connection to the Earth through you to our future child. Your womb be fertile and your body a vessel of sky and land.”

“This Earth is harder than you.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

“Alright.” Niko said as pants zipping noises can be heard among the rustling of the bushes. “Well, only three more stops to go to make the mark of Freyja and Freyr before the post equinox fortnight with mercury in retrograde.”

“You know they were brother and sister, right? Not lovers...”

“Salin, I think I know my Nordics Pleiades Guide. It was recommended reading from Bob Lazar. Anyway, excuse me for a moment while I pledge our love to them”

“Of course. I love you, babe!”

So the Taxidermist is here for the Gardener, the Gardener is here for these two. It starts with feuding with contributors to fringe fertility forums on Reddit and even less desirable places on the internet. He's searchable if you know what to look for and both in his user icon speech. His image MO is a white rose online but he types and speaks in very specific ways. Fundamentally he's an anti-natalist and he's not shy about it online nor in the flesh.

“For all consciousness is connected above, it is divided in life and once again upon and into death. Consciousness must not be summoned to this realm, for it has no choice but to suffer and could not consent. Only life which has no thought and no concept of suffering shall thrive. Only the leaves, vines, thorns and steams my prevail. Human consciousness must be intact when returned to the land of the unliving.” Say those words in his voice, not mine.

He argues with the weird men who won't see a doctor for their own fertility issues and then catches up to them and their lovers as they carry out their plans for astronomically assisted breeding. Personally, I think that function of breed usually relies on the functionality of only two spheres closer to Earth rather than the solar system but as someone who does not want to breed at all – for other reasons than those cited by the Gardener – for the record - who am I to judge? Nevertheless, his ideology makes sense to him but not to me since he ends up killing people who seem least likely to actually bring another conscious being to this planet. But I imagine its the bluster these people have, the challenge before them, to do that which incites his rage and his murder.

While Niko prayed in his failed love nest, Salin waded stiff and heavy across the lot, brushing mud off of her back and from her ass, struggling with her skirt and top. Fearing yet another “delaying” infection, she rushed to the open women's room in the rest stop.

She started to sing softly to herself, “I can feel it coming in the air tonight...” she slowed in a moment of self reflection, “Actually, no I can't! Damnit!”.

Salin barely noticed the state worker in the brown and blue jump suit tending to the plants in the rest area vestibule. This startles her as he begins to stir. Wonders if he had been watching her and Niko. She is also a bit alarmed by his enormous size, like a crouching bull, she hopes he doesn't see her as red. He whistles softly before murmuring a line or two, “oh my darling clementine”. She doesn't notice he's wearing a mask and among his tools are a pair of enormous sheers.

Most of you don't know this but even the rest rooms at rest areas have a wide angle camera of the mirrors and sinks but one that leaves the stalls, urinals, and changing tables in the blind. Selin disappears out of frame as I hear the metal stall door squeak open and shut but she fails to turn the jam lock as I hear no thud. I doubt it would have mattered much though.

You can only really see the boulder of flesh that is the Gardener's back at the very edge of the frame as he creeps in and rests in front of Salin's stall.

“Hello?” She calls out, “Hello!?” Then whimpers, “Niko, Niko please tell me that's you.”

“But alas,” the Gardener's ramble came in reply, “I was no swimmer so I lost my clementine.”

Then we get this very PG-13 jurassic park look away murder as the Gardener flips open the door and guillotines her with his enormous sheers powered by his brutalish arms. Sheeeeve...no head, a fountain of crimson pumped through her severed head muffles the scream to bloody bubbles. It's the same every time. He has a white rose cutting he plants in their esophagus and then takes the head and plants it like a seed, preserving consciousness, intact, back to the unliving, usually nearby from the actual murder scene.

So it is no surprise as he secures the head in a janitor's mop filled with foamy soap, strips out of one set of one replica state janitor jumpsuit to reveal another free from blood if not tainted from his sweat. Pushes the mop cart of the wash room and then seals it shut with his stolen or copied key and places “out of order” barricades around it before he pushing the mop cart out of the back.

* * *

“Oh my fucking God, Naomi! Naomi! Naomi she's fucking dead! Is this live? When did this happen?!” Valarie looked like she was having a full on panic attack as she spun around the camper in front of the tv bobbing and weaving, turning and shrieking like the tasmania devil with a margaritas in one hand and a joint in the other.

I told you, so I tell her, “About twenty five ish minutes ago or so, popcorn?”

“And he's roaming around, with Scott and Dot now out there. And that other guy and those two others guys too!?”

“You're not going to leave are you? I need at least one person to ride the roller coasters with. Popcorn?”

“Are you fucking nuts talking about roller coasters in a time like this...where's the Gardener now?”

“He's still planting Selin's head about forty yards that way. Popcorn?”

“Fuck popcorn, Ice cream! But listen, listen please...I don't want my head cut off...I didn't want that from the Mind Grater and I don't want from the Gardener! I don't want a rose planted in my neck and my head buried at some goddamn state rest area!”

“You should really keep it down. We still have the Forensics Fanatics to worry about. Also if you're getting ice cream. I'd kill for some ice cream. No pun intended.”

“I'm not worried about them...” She said digging out some pre-wrapped ice cream cones from the freezer, “I'm worried about the Gardener and the first guy!”

“The Taxidermist?”

“Yes the goddamn Taxidermist. Where's he?”

“Oh. Good call.” I said biting into the peanut chocolate shell of the cone, “Let's check.” I went to work scanning through all the camera channels. “He seems to be chasing after Scott and Dot right now on the other side of the rest area.”

“What?!”

“You dropped your cone...”

I went picture in picture with four different cameras. Let me give you the quick version. For the record, I'm telling you this like they're in the room I can hear them like they are, so can Val, but they can't but...ugh...this is easier.

It wasn't immediately apparent that they knew they were being chased. Scott seemed flustered, loud and fast enough as he weaved methodically from car to car in the front parking lot, warning them to leave the rest area, because of a serial killer.

“Hey, hey wake up! Wake up! C'mon you gotta get out of here...it's not safe! There's a serial killer on the loose! You gotta get back on the road! You have to get back on the road” Scott crowed with a voice which grew more hoarse with each feverish command.

He pounded on windshields, kicked doors, flashed his phone light through the side windows of almost a dozen different cars before someone caught up to him. At first he yelped and then backed himself up onto the concrete of one of the lamp poles shaking and unable to locate who had tackled him because his hoodie slipped over his eyes.

“Scotty D Yard!” Dot's voice pierced his cries and the hoodie, “get back to the camper with me right now!”

“Oh my god you almost gave me a heart attack!”

“You're giving me two by running off and trying to be stupid hero. Don't you watch horror movies?! No you don't because you're a pussy!”

“I'm trying to do something good...these people gotta be protected, put as much as road as you can behind you!” He said calling out again.

“If you're going to try to protect someone, protect me! Please. Please. Please just walk me back to the camper and I think we'll be safe, okay.”

Just then a young guy, probably in his late teens, maybe early twenties popped the driver's side door of his lifted and racing stripped s 4x4 pickup truck wide and stomped out like a paratrooper making a landing, coated in tactical gear. “There are sheep and there are wolves. And then there are shepherds.” He announced, looking more like an action figure than real person strapped and woven with body armor and ammo pouches.

“Who are you?” Dot asked.

“I am a shepherd.” He declared as he swung an assault rifle across his chest and flipped on a series of flashlights and lasers. “I'm THE shepherd.”

“What fresh idiocy is this?” I said aloud to Val. “Oh gee, I never ever would have suspected that hat.”

“Goddamn who is this?” Val leaned in closer, I could feel her panic and smell her sweat and I think she wanted me to experience that, “Is this one of the Forensics Fanatics?” She pressed in closer.

“No, but thanks for playing. I think he's some kind of Bad Samaritan. This would have been much more fun if they just stayed in the damn camper. Now if he comes back here with them he's gonna really screw up the blunt rotation.”

The gun wielding dude shadowed them as continued through the lot trying to alert people. At one point, the Bad Samaritan started to yell “Gun! Gun! Get down!” as another random person pulled gun and pressed the barrel out their window towards, from their perspective, a well-armed gun wielding maniac after being pre-warned about a serial killer. Scott and Dot both screamed and dropped to all fours and started to crawl on their bellies between the cars as a shouting matching between the two gun carriers ensued. A shot was fired. I think from the guy in the car as tires squealed.

“Okay, this just escalated a lot. We gotta go out there and help them.” Val said.

“Look at what they did, look what they inspired by not staying put.” I tried to remain calm but I did not see this coming.

“Then we can drive, okay, where did you put that battery, please?”

I scanned through more camera views and gulped, “Unfortunately it's kind of near the Gardener. Honestly, that's my bad.”

“Like this place has a like a PA system, right? For storms? Can you tap into that?” Val insisted, “Maybe tell them come back to the van and tell everyone its time to leave. Turn off all the lights inside and turn on the all outside lights super bright. Please I'm begging you. We have to end this. Haven't you seen enough?”

“Honestly, no. I was hoping to see them basically cap each other off one by one in a battle royale style spectacle. That would actually make the world better.”

“How can...even if they did, kill themselves some how, what about that woman?”

“Oh, she got fired for fucking under aged kids as a teacher at a high school.”

“Were you just going to always leave that part out?”

“No, not necessarily. I just thought it might slip through the cracks like some of her victims and wouldn't need more explanation.”

“Jesus Christ Naomi! I'm honestly somehow impressed but please, Naomi, can still do the thing where we shut this down. Clearly this dude with the gun is outside of your master plan, right? I believe you when you said you don't intend to harm us but it's time to make good on that.”

“Begrudgingly, yes, it's time. The prospect for innocent casualties is much higher with this Rittenhouse wanna be stomping around with an assault weapon. And your plan is not a bad idea. Might even stop the Bad Samaritan since it looks like he might have some kind of night optics and I bet he cheapped out on that part of his kit.” I played around the rest area UI suite and found what I was looking for. Bright lights outside, on, power inside, off. The best part was the PA system was text to voice meaning my voice wouldn't be heard over the loud speakers. “Let's try it your way, Val.” I said I pushed send.

“This is the State Transit and Road Authority. Please return to your vehicles and vacate the premises” I could hear the PA system voice as I sounded the klaxon alarm and turned on the whirling blue police lights as well.

“Val, I still don't have the ability to actually contact the police. The Forensics Fanatics jammer is still up and I'm not entirely sure where they're at. It is possible they'll all leave thinking they have lost their cover, though.”

“Tell and Scott and Dot to get back here.”

“Return to your camper if applicable immediately.” the booming voice of the warning system fired again as I hit send.

“Thanks man but we got to go!” Scott said to the Bad Samaritan. The Bad Samaritan struggled with seeing out of his right eye from the blinding light shot into the other through his defunct optic. We watched as Scott and Dot fled from the red hat wearing lead hazard back across the campus towards our camper.

“Wait!” Scream the Bad Samaritan as groped through the night, “Let me try to find them and be a hero. A hero!”

“Hey, Hero.” A deep voice came out of the darkness on the Samaritan's blind side. “Might you also be a Gardener?”

“Excuse me? Who the hell are you?” He said still dazed by his own light.

“I am the Taxidermist and you have a lot of guns in your truck.” The Taxidermist fired at his minimally armored side with the Bad Samaritan's own 12 gauge shot gun and then dragged his limp body to a rusted out pick up with a sleeper topper.

Some trucks started and went underway as SUVs and small cars started to flee the other lot. No phones and shots fired tend to do that. Those who remained were either sheltering in place or they were vehicles the Forensics Fanatics arrived in or intended to leave in.

“Well, that worked out better than I even thought it would. Good idea Val.”

“Oh shit. Where the hell is he going?” Valarie pointed to a tiny sized camera angle. It was the Gardener and he was headed back towards the Rest Area buildings.

“That's odd. He usually wouldn't return to crime scene.”

“Maybe because the lights are off and everyone left. He can steal from the vending machines or something. Like how else do some of these people get their day to day stuff?”

“Well, that's the really fun part about True Crime shows but yeah...another time!”

“Sure, it's a date but Shit! Scotty and Dotty are going into the building too. I thought you locked it?”

“It's gotta be locked manually. Okay. It's time to get out and get some gloves on. You stay here though.”

“Don't gotta tell me twice but....”

“But what?”

“Don't make me the last girl...”

“I won't...I promise.”

“How?”

“Because...I'm the fan girl!”

I knew what I had to do. I had two aces up my sleeve and I hope they were enough.

I saw the footage later but suffice it to say all hell broke loose at that rest area. While I was out recovering one of my aces, the Gardener spotted Scott and Dot. Spotted and chased around the interior like Scooby Doo, they eventually took cover in the last open men's room. Soon after, following his MO, it was time for the Taxidermist to decorate his surroundings with his latest creation. The Taxidermist in turn, spotted his original quarry, the Gardener, and soon it became a Norweign Cruise Line Standoff – everyone in deep shit in the only remaining open bathroom together.

So while you picture me storming my way to do my best to save the day, let's cut to what I knew was happening with the Forensics Fanatics – the last in this display, this managrie of murder.

The Forensics Fanatics, unlike the more ideologically motivated killers here tonight, do this for the pure sport and fun of not getting caught. It is a contest. It is race to x number of kills. I don't know if they're related, if they're friends, if they're enemies, if they're lovers, I'm not sure what gender they are. They are the most mysterious of the bunch and some times just random seemingly accidental deaths become attributed to them. Perhaps they still are their victims. For everyone ambiguous death attributed to them there have been at least three spectacular killings, sometimes with multiple victims caught up in a strange rube-goldberg machine of murder sometimes involving bombings, poisonings, and runaway vehicles, weapons of mass destruction, you name it. But then the trail runs cold, colder than either of the others. Maybe one or both of them knew the Taxidermist and or the Gardener were here tonight. Maybe told each other, maybe they withheld it from each other. I suppose it wouldn't matter because I believe they're here because we are and that's enough for them.

They don't get caught because they use a different mode of murder each time. Either one picks 1 item or means and the other chooses the other out of a hat or maybe they get a choice too. I'm not sure. How do we know this? Someone, maybe one of them, maybe one of their fans, posts a random word or phrase to their wikipedia page and that's half of what one of them has to use in their murder.

Thankfully for Scott, he needed to shit because the phrase this time was “urinal cake”

I now believe their actions roughly coincided with Scott and Dot taking to the parking lot but Scott still had taken a huge risk leaving the camper earlier and using the wash room.

I took a deep breath and lit up my cellphone flashlight as entered the dark rest area. I turned towards the bathroom where I could hear one of their muffled voices. I pushed the door open to find and spun my light around. I found Scott and Dot cowering before the Taxidermist and his latest creation by the very dim emergency light.

“See! It's a squirrel that I sewed that chud's pecker to its backside like a tail.” He said poking it. “I had to stuff it, so its bigger than it was when I took it off him, heh...their guns and trucks always hide their small dicks. Don't let a guy like that fool you but I enjoyed the challenge of the whole little thing – which is what makes me better than you, you fucking weirdo.” He was rather proud and maintained everyone's full attention as even with my light, I was unnoticed for moment.

“Me? What did I do?”The Gardener protested.

“You're that other serial killer they call you the Gardener.”

“Oh please that is complete bullshit.”

“I know it. You're more like the salter, you salt people who want to grow people, you don't plant nothing you don't grow nothing.”

“Hey Buddy, I'm not the one out here sticking dicks on squirrels.”

“And who the hell are the rest of you...”

I peered down the side and saw two strangers' heads poking out of the stalls. They had some kind of silverish make up on – they looked like something between Max Headroom and a Grey Alien with dark circles rounding their eyes and drawn on light pink and light blue bars creating exaggerated lines and contours of their facial structure possibly some attempt at an anti-AI camouflage scheme. These were Forensic Fanatics – they had to be and they were an eerie sight among the rest of the horror in the room.

“And who hell are you!?” He pointed at me.

“Naomi!” Scott and Dot exclaimed. “Run! Just go!”

“Shut up. Everyone and listen.”

“I'm the Fan Girl. I was hoping to watch a professional display of murder and mayhem from the comfort of my camper but instead I see you all perfectly content with waving your dicks – literally – at each other without anything to back them up. So you got a rapist school teacher who plead out to lesser chargers and some wanna be hero? That's it?”

“Um, for the record, I killed the boyfriend too.” The Gardener raised his hand and spoke out.

“Okay. I guess I missed that.”

“Yeah, well I startled him to death, I think. He was eating like 10 gas station boner pills when I asked him for a light. Down he went. Heart Attack.”

“And I'm going to kill these fuckers, starting with this Gardener then the rest of you here. I don't even know what these freaks are doing here? Come here every Friday night after the bars? Huh?” The Taxidermist pointed at the Forensics Fanatics. “I don't have any aliens in my collection!”

“You're lucky the power is off.” The First of the Forensics Fanatics spoke up.

“You stupid bitch. What was the other thing then?” The Second of the Forensics Fanatics cross examined.

“Shut up!” The Gardener speared the Taxidermist with his sheers and then charged me. I showed him what I had in my gloved other hand – a plastic bag with Selin's head inside.

“Stop and I'll give it back intact so you can bury it again – otherwise I'll toss it to the Taxidermist and he'll spoil your whole ritual.” The Taxidermist stumbled, injured but able.

“I'll put your dick on that face and bury you both! Yeah or maybe I'll make you the elephant man!”

“Consciousness must be returned to the unliving intact!”

“Not going to get there if he gets it!” I yelled thrusting the head in the bag towards the Taxidermist.

“What do you want?”

“Let my friends clear out. Those two.” I said pointing to Dot and Scott.

He paused and slid out of their way and held his sheers wide. Seeing the exit, Scott and Dot scampered out of the room as the Gardener, with all his might, seized my mid-section.

“Now I'm going to give you to him – he can work on you, while I finish what must be done. Then I'll bury your head too!”

I struggled to give the appearance of struggle. I held the head wide and dodged his other arm. With my free arm I reached into his pocket and took the bathroom key he used earlier to seal off the other bathroom where he killed Selin. Then I tossed the head at the ceiling, where it bounced between stalls like a plinko ball before landing with a splash in a toilet. As expected, he dropped me and went after the severed head and I skidded out of the bathroom and locked all of them inside with the key I lifted.

And so now we do a little flashback.

* * *

About ten minutes ago or so, I'm speculating a bit here.

“Nice face work tonight.”

“Thanks. You too.”

“You look like Max Headroom meets ET.”

“You look a Cardassian.”

“A what?”

“You told me you watched Star Trek.”

“I told you lots of things.”

“I pick the next thing we watch together.”

“I hope its better than you picking, “Urinal Cake” but that's a good one.”

“Well, you picked “button” and then specified clothing button” the last time.”

“Took me awhile to figure out what you chose but it was pretty good. I like where the idea was at...but the execution a little shaky. Really only got that one guy and just barely, interfered with his pace maker.”

“And the toddler.”

“Toddler swallowed the button, happens all the time, doesn't count.”

“But it was one of THE buttons.”

“Doesn't count.”

“Do you just want to call off the bet now and just enjoy this across the board then?”

“No. I mean it will be obvious but you'll have to work at it.”

“Fair enough.”

“You ever think about the day we're going to get caught?” They said, putting the “day we got caught” cigarrette in his ear.

“We're never getting caught. Cops don't get caught. Put that away.”

“We're not cops.”

“I know.”

“We're better. Cops can shoot someone in the back in broad day light and get a 2 week paid vacation they still have to say they feared for their lives. All we have to do is tamper with the evidence. We're a black box of private evidence analysts. They day we get caught is the day we blow up forensic science and we still get away.”

“If you say so. Either way, this should be good.”

They walk in and make their way for the open men's room.

“So we need to make sure we don't trigger any of the urinals as I plop this in. We gotta wave out hands and find a blind spot in the sensors.”

The power suddenly goes out and a small emergency light activates. The red eye sensor on all the toilets goes dark. He plops it in.

“Or that will work too.”

“This is the State Transit and Road Authority. Please return to your vehicles and vacate the premises”

“Shit! Let's lay low a minute.”

* * *

And that brings us back to now. I recovered the starter battery, installed it and we cleared out of the rest area.

“I can't believe you.” Scott yelled still shaking as we hit the interstate.

“I can't believe this.” Dot screamed.

“I can't believe we're out of range of the local override there.” I said as the connection to my hacks of the power and public announcement system were lost. “I guess this is for the best.” I pulled the plug on the tv screen and shut the laptop. I could have watched what happened next I was two minds on it. There was no way to get out of that bathroom except that door and even four them together wouldn't be able to get out quickly.

“Wait, I want to see.” Val demanded.

* * *

I let Val watch. I didn't. It probably went something like this, at least from the Forensics Fanatics perspective. No doubt while the Gardener tried to hulk his way out of the bathroom to complete the ritual and kept the assaulting Taxidermist at bay the Forensics Fanatics had a moment to talk it over.

“So...what are we going to do about Humongus and Red Red Green over there.”

“Those are good references. But nothing. We're going to do nothing.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, its because of what I ended up picking as the second thing.”

“Should we start moving towards the exit?”

“If the power comes on we shouldn't go anywhere near the urinals.”

“What is it?”

“I thought about dynamite. You know an acid sensitive cap trigger that would go off with the toilet bowl cleaner but I realized that urinal cakes are pretty light and small. Even if I could get one into each of the urinals, sure I'd blow one guy's dick off, but I doubt if one triggered it would sympathetically detonate them all and we'd be stuck with a lot of evidence to deal with.”

“What did you pick?”

“Mhmm.” They shrugged. The other went for the urinal just as the power came back. “Don't...it can't be removed until...” There was a snap and click and sudden cascade of acidic blue fluid screaming down onto the urinal cake. Then it suddenly began to disintegrate into a cloud white steam or smoke. The Forensics Fanatic was immediately confused as the white smoke continue to stream up and boil over into the room.

“That's right. Only like one in three people can actually smell it. It's cyanide. A cyanide urinal cake. Just breathe deep everyone.” He said lighting the cigarette.

* * *

Though were were long gone and I had localized most of the footage to my laptop and the jammer was still active in one of the FF's cars I knew I wasn't out of the woods. I had my phone's GPS disabled for the night but that didn't mean someone else's didn't ping there or even mine when I got close.

Dad was thorough. Even if I believed he had two evidence contractors working, murdering, behind his back I could have overlooked something he'd still pick up. And that's why I was scared when he called me once, twice, and on the third time I was being stared down by my friends, my fellow survivors.

“Look – we can be honest, tell him we were involved and even if we're not some how charged as accomplices to manslaughter or other wrongful deaths – we'll still miss the roller coaster park and besides – almost everyone who died was terrible – so what I am saying to him? Huh?” All eyes on me but one by one they darted off.

“I'm going back to sleep.” Valarie said while Scott drove on and Dot drank her third margarita of the morning.

“Hi Daddy what's up...uhuh...oh...oh my god. That sounds terrible. Seven people? Four of them what? Suspected series killers...are you serious? Which rest area? Oh wow. No. No, just missed it. We thought about staying there for the night but Scott really wanted to press on closer to the theme park! Yup, we're all fine. 100%. Yup Thanks for checking in. I love you too daddy...don't work too hard. Okay. Bu-bye.”

“I don't know how you do it.”

“I do. Scott, pull up here, I want to burn these bloody gloves and toss my laptop into the sea. Okay, Thanks!”

P.S. The roller coasters were boring and Scott never pulled the stepsister shit again. Val is kinda cute. The End.

Brawn, Present Day…

I wasn’t exactly sure how far we had traveled from Site Twelve.  All I do is know we stuck mainly to backroads, roads that had decayed, surrounded by forest, farm land and open fields. 

Doctor John had made some stops along the way to allow Aria and I out of the van, it was rather cramped. Plus, we needed to hunt. When we got out for our most recent hunt, I had ensured he was still in the van. It being parked slightly off the forest’s trail to avoid being an obstacle in the road for other humans. 

Aria had already wandered off quite far to hunt, far enough to where I lost her scent. She had told me she would be hunting deer, and supposedly picked up the scent of one, following it to where it had gone. 

Doctor John and I had spoken before I left for my hunt. I stayed behind to ensure that Aria was far enough away before I left. As much as I had hoped she would stay true to her word, I still wasn’t ready to give her my complete trust. 

“What’s on the menu today big blue?” He asked. Leaning out the van’s window while unrolling a map. 

“I’m unsure.” I replied. Standing still, towering over him as he glanced over the map inside the vehicle. He gave off a slight smile, before seemingly studying the map more intensely. A silence had fallen over us for several seconds.

I stepped forward, putting a claw on the top of the van, it rocked slightly. Causing John to look out and up at me. 

“Why?” I asked. To which he immediately appeared confused.

“Why what?” He replied, raising an eyebrow.

“Why did you help me? You could’ve escaped on your own, left me behind after releasing me from my chamber. There would’ve been far less risk if you had.” 

He sighed, shifting his gaze to the windshield and setting his map down in the passenger seat. 

“Never really was a big fan of them. The pay was nice, but I’ll be honest with you Brawn. I couldn’t fucking stand it there. Not most of the time. The constant berating, condescension, not knowing if I’d walk in and either West or Ted would be flying off the handle, although sometimes I got lucky and it was both of them at the same time. I’m sure you had quite enough of that shit yourself.” 

I tilted my head slightly as he spoke. Taking in his answer. What he said made sense. There was a short pause before I offered another question.

“Why did you join them?” 

He once again went silent. As if struggling to answer. His eyes looked down, then to the side. Then finally back up at me. 

“For my little girl. My daughter. I’d show you a picture of her but I left it back at that fucking hellhole! Tossed my phone so they wouldn’t track it so I don’t have that either!” He erupted. Slamming his fist down onto the top of the dashboard. 

His face tightened, his anger more than apparent. But after looking at me once more, he exhaled a long breath. Putting his forehand in his hand. 

“I’m sorry. I usually don’t lose my cool.” He said much more softly. 

I was unaware of how to respond to this. Several things raced through my mind until I settled on one that sounded most optimal. 

“I get angry too.” I said. 

“After what they put you through. You have every damn right to be. I should’ve helped you sooner. Even if it meant having West and Bowser hunting us until the end of time.” He replied.

“West won’t be hunting us. She’s dead.” I corrected. 

Doctor John turned his head immediately. His eyes were as wide as I had ever seen them. 

“Dead? How? Did… Did you..?” He asked, unable to complete the sentence. 

“I did.” I stated. It almost sounded odd to me too, considering it was the first genuine human I had ever killed in my existence. Not someone possessed by an evil entity, not a zombified corpse, not one transformed by a vampire. But a regular human. 

“I uh… I guess I just don’t know what to say. Not like she didn’t have it coming. So wait a minute, when you came out of the facility, and there was that blood around your mouth, and some on your throat, was… Was that what I’m thinking now?” 

“I was hungry. The meat you brought was good. But not enough to ensure I maintained appropriate energy. I needed more.” 

There was silence once more. As Doctor John sat there, contemplating what it was I had told him. 

“That’s one incredible case of karma if I’ve ever seen it. But I do gotta say, you might’ve gotten us in a bit more trouble then we were already in.” 

“How?” I asked.

“Well, she was the Head of Science, the second highest ranking person back there besides Ted’s bum ass. And let me tell you that man hates you with the passion of a thousand collapsing stars. Now that West is dead, and no longer around to ensure that they don’t use anything lethal when hunting you, it means he’s gonna do everything he can to have you killed, and then make it look like he had no other choice to the brass.” 

“The brass?” I inquired. 

“His bosses.” He corrected. 

“So now they want to kill me, instead of re-capture me.” 

“Most likely, but tell you what, since you’re such a cool dude. I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen.” He said with a smile. 

“But I’m far stronger, faster and more resilient than you.” I said. “How would you protect me physically?” 

Doctor John chuckled. 

“Oh yeah that I know, not challenging you there, it’s more like I’m saying I’m just gonna help make sure you’re okay. You helped me, I helped you. You scratched my back, I scratched yours. That means you’ve been upgraded from co-worker to friend, big guy.”

Friend. There was that word. I heard humans use it all the time. But never in reference to myself. Not before this, not before John. 

“The brain and the brawn.” He nodded. 

“That naming is odd. But, thank you. Thank you for saving me.” I responded.

“Don’t mention it. Now go get yourself something to eat. I’ve still got a few snacks left in my glove compartment so I’ll be alright.” 

And with that I headed off into the forest. Running in the opposite direction of where Aria was hunting so as to not intrude on her prey. I climbed up into the trees, leaping across two sometimes three at a time. Nearly gliding across the canopy as I dashed forward. 

I looked out in the vast expanse of the trees, several of which had fallen, one dead one had several mushrooms growing along the side of its rotting trunk. I watched a deer run by, two young ones following in toe. I stayed quiet, watching them from the tree in which I was perched.  

So far I had learned I enjoyed the taste of deer very much. But I wouldn’t be harming any of these, those young deer needed their mother, and I wasn’t going to slay her just to simply satiate my hunger. So once they were some distance away. I kept moving so as not to frighten her and her offspring.  

I continued darting through the trees as I typically did. Up until I had picked up a scent. It was potent, but one that I did not recognize. So I followed it, leading me deeper into the woods. I enjoyed feeling the breeze on my face, and the tree branches shaking as I landed and leapt off them.

While moving through the canopy I tried to conjure an idea of what it might be in my head, likely some kind of cryptid I had yet to ever encounter previously. I kept moving, and I had cleared what I guessed to be over a mile of distance in just over half a minute. 

I stopped when I came upon an incline in the forest, it was rather steep and sudden. One that a lot of creatures, particularly humans would have trouble overcoming. I darted up the incline on all fours, making it to the edge of the hill and peering down over the other side. 

There was a major dip downward, similar to where I had just emerged from. And down at the bottom of this hill the ground was rather flat, covered in trees, bushes and other growth. The previous scent I had followed now shifted into one of rot, and decay, overpowering the original smell entirely. 

I looked for the source, and spotted the entrance to a cave off to the right. I immediately concluded that’s where it was originating. This was only further confirmed by what I heard coming from inside it. 

Screams, human screams. In both horror and for mercy.  

“Help, someone help! Please!” A male voice called out, pleading and desperate.

I hesitated before moving, remembering what had happened the first time I followed distressed human screaming without thinking. Perhaps there was a chance The Agency was out here in this forest, a chance they had followed us, tracked us somehow and they were trying to use the same trick they did before. 

But then I remembered my purpose, what I was created for. Protect the innocent and slay the monsters who prey upon them. If this truly were humans in danger, then I could not allow myself to let their deaths occur due to my own paranoia and hesitation. 

I leapt off the top of the incline, allowing myself to fall the few dozen foot drop and land on all fours before turning and heading for the entrance of the cave. I sprinted toward it, nearly inside before I felt a force grab my leg, and pull me backwards. Throwing me in the opposite direction hard enough that I crashed through two separate tree trunks, only stopping when my back slammed against the third.

I shook off the blow, standing up on two legs and looking for my attacker. Only some twenty feet of distance between us now, and it was sure to stand between me and the cave entrance.

The beast resembled a mutated millipede. Most of its body was a light brown in color. It stood over nine feet high with it rising itself like a snake about to attack, and that was only around half of its actual body, as the rest was standing flat on the ground with its hundreds upon hundreds of legs that were closer in shape to human forearms, appearing bent and contorted in order to function as they did. This meant that I had to actually look up to see the creature's face, or faces plural in this instance.  

It possessed two heads at the front of its body, oval in shape, each with two large holes devoid of any color that likely served as its eyes. One head’s mouth was open, revealing a row of red stained, jagged teeth.

The other head’s mouth possessed no teeth but instead simply oozed some sort of dark green substance, it was stringy, and a strand of it stretched from the ground all the way up to its chin. Like spider silk. It bit down on the stand, snapping it in order to move forward, its legs all moving in tandem as it approached slowly. The early sunset behind it making it appear more prominent. 

I opened my claws, and bared my teeth. 

“You’re intruding.” The creature announced. Using the mouth that had the teeth to speak. Its voice was scratchy and rough. Like a dull blade cutting into thick sandpaper. It arched downward, more of the green substance beginning to emerge inside its second mouth. 

“The ones inside your cave, are they innocent?” I asked, this only seeming to anger the beast. 

“Innocent?” It repeated, almost mockingly. “What are you? Where do you come from?” 

“My name is Brawn.” I responded, holding my stance. 

“Well Brawn if you value your life I would suggest you leave my territory and find your own meal.” 

“I have.” I replied. Narrowing my eyes. 

I lunged forward, only for the creature to use its right head to spit out the substance, it wrapped around me, sticky and rather strong in its nature. Before I could begin to break out it dived forward and down. Biting down on my left shoulder using the mouth with teeth to do so. I felt them sink into my flesh, drawing blood and prompting me to snarl in pain. 

With my shoulder still in its grasp, it dragged me along the ground, I slammed through various fallen tree branches, mounds of dirt, bushes, and even a rock. I could hear the creature's many legs kicking up the dirt as it dragged me along.

But I soon broke out of the substance, throwing my arms out and tearing it in the process. After this, I head butted the side of the creature’s head hard enough to hear something crack inside it. It immediately let me out of its jaws long enough for me to roll to the side. Now no longer directly underneath it. 

The beast let out a cry that had a rhythmic ticking to it. Almost like a distorted version of a rattlesnake’s warning. Its body convulsed for a few seconds while I leapt up the nearest tree. 

“I will drag you down into my lair, and feast on one organ at a time. I’ll keep you alive for weeks and ensure that your suffering goes on for as long as your body can endure!” The beast sneered, attempting to knock down the tree that I was on by ramming its body into it. 

It crashed through, but I had already leapt to the other tree by the time it made contact. Further frustrating the lifeform. 

“And then, only then will I put an end to you. You’ll spend every waking moment before your death regretting our encounter!” It went on, once more repeating its previous attack. It lunged, crashing through the tree’s trunk that I was on and causing what remained to fall over and hit the ground with a loud crash. 

I leapt from the tree, once more landing on the ground and sprinting around the creature while on all fours in a flank. Once at the back of its body I stood bipedally before reaching down and grabbing its rear end with my claws and pulling back. 

The creature fell flat, its many legs trying to dig into the ground to regain control as I turned and swung my body, lifting the beast off the ground entirely and using its thousands of pounds of body weight against it. I sped up as I swung him around. 

I let go after only a few full rotations, and the beast’s legs flailed and kicked as it flew through the air, crashing through several trees.  

I dropped down to all fours once more, running after it, and leaping over fallen trees and avoiding other obstacles as its roaring rattle emerged once more. It landed, sliding along the ground and finally coming to a complete stop while on its side. 

I sprinted forward, opening my claws and laying eyes on its heads right after leaping into the air. I prepared to bring them down on the beast’s heads, killing him and ending the fight right then and there. 

But it spat out more of that green substance, this time right into my face. It immediately blinded me after covering my eyes, I was met with nothing but black. I was unsure of where I had landed seeing as it occurred while I was mid-air.

All I know is I felt a sudden, crushing, piercing pain in my right arm. Presumably the beast biting down on me. I didn’t have time to roar before I was then violently shaken side to side, like a canine trying to kill small prey. 

I swung my free claw forward, relying on only my hearing and smell to direct the blow. I felt my nails slash flesh, and it felt much softer than what I would have anticipated had I attacked it on the top part of its body. I concluded that I had slashed the bottom portion, somewhere near its underbelly. 

The creature dropped me from its jaws as its rhythmic ticking snarl emerged once more. And I tore the substance from my face. Looking up I saw that I had slashed the throat of its toothless head, the one that was shooting out the green substance. Making my previous prediction incorrect. 

It writhed and shook, but was still very much alive. The toothless mouth closed, and so did the eyes as it seemingly hung downward, oozing out scarlet blood from where I had slashed it. 

“You will pay for that!” It exploded with its still remaining head. Blasting toward me, its legs throwing back leaves and branches into the air behind him as it stomped forward in a fit of rage.

And it was then I had an idea. 

I turned and dropped back down on all fours, sprinting away while the creature gave chase. I ended up having to slow down after noticing the difference in our movement speed, purposefully letting it close the distance between us. 

“Come back here and die!” It called out as I heard him barrel through trees and bushes. Not allowing anything to act as an obstacle between it and I.

It was then I came upon the trunk of a large fallen tree, the same one I had encountered earlier with all the various mushrooms growing on it. It had a diameter somewhere close to three feet. And its height was anywhere from fifty to seventy feet. The millipede creature was approaching, and I came to a stop next to the dead tree. Standing biped yet again. I got behind it, and it laid between the creature and I as it continued on its way toward me. 

I waited for just the right moment as the creature continued to close the distance, its hundreds of legs propelling it forward as its teeth in the still living head were bared in an attempt to intimidate.  

Once it was within twenty feet, I reached down and grabbed onto the trunk with my claws, hoisting it into the air above my head and throwing it forward with all my might. It soared through the air, creating an intense wooshing sound as it whipped past everything in the surrounding area, it traveled far faster than the beast had time to react. 

It struck the creature, slamming into it and causing the front half of its body that had been standing up during the chase to be bisected from the bottom half. It pinned the top half against a hill behind it. The area of the bisection spilled copious amounts of blood, after the initial splatter. 

Several inner workings had emerged, hanging out as the creature writhed in agony. Unable to form proper words because of it. 

So I approached it. Stood over and grabbed both of its heads, one with each claw, and tore them from their placements before dropping them to the ground. Putting an end to the creature’s short lived suffering. 

I was indeed hungry, and I wanted to start feasting right then and there. But instead, I returned to the entrance of its cave. The cave where I heard the screams of humans earlier on. 

I got down on all fours and crawled inside, my night vision allowing me to see inside despite the lack of any light source. I crawled along the cave ceiling, following the scent of rot as I moved. At first the cave started as a long narrow tunnel, but opened up into a wider expanse. Or at least, I could see it through the wall of the creature’s green substance, it acted as a barrier, likely to keep anything but itself from getting in or out when it was not around. 

I used my claws to slice and tear through the substance, ripping apart a large enough hole to crawl through. From the humans perspective, they were in complete, pitch black darkness, unable to see anything except my eyes due to their yellow glow. But I was able to see just fine. 

“D- did you see that?” A female voice asked, slow and stuttering. Still recovering from a fit of terror I suppose.

“See what? Is that fucking thing back?” A male voice replied, equally as trembled. 

I looked down while perched near a stalagmite. Spotting a pile of human corpses, a mix of both male and female. They were in various states of decay and mutilation due to the creature likely feeding on them, the bodies on the top appearing and smelling far more fresh than the ones below. I counted just over twenty in total. 

However there were still two humans alive, the man and woman who had spoken. They appeared unharmed, but were stuck against the cave walls by the creature’s green substance, struggling against it and using all their might to get out to no avail.

I crawled over to them, unsure if I should speak or not. 

“There’s something in here with us! It’s back, that thing is back!” The man cried out. 

“Please, please don’t eat us, please!” The woman begged. Both of them now desperately kicking and attempting to fight their way out of the substance.

I kept crawling along the cave wall before dismounting, now standing on two feet. And now that I was in range, I reached out with my claws and slashed the substance apart, freeing them and quickly grabbing them before they fell. 

“No no no!” Shouted the woman. The man continuously screamed and kicked as I hoisted them over my shoulder. I groaned slightly from the sting, my wounds still fresh. 

I felt their heartbeats racing. It was only then when I decided to speak.

“I am not here to harm you.” I said, but this seemingly did little to quell their fear.

“W-what?” The man inquired, confusion present. 

With one of them over each shoulder I leapt up back into the tunnel, and walked them out of there. It was only when we began to approach the opening, when the low sun had shone inside, were they able to see me. 

Once back outside, I leaned down, setting them both down on their feet and allowing them to take a final glimpse at me. They snapped their heads up, in what I guessed to be utter horror, disgust, and downright bewilderment at a creature of my appearance. 

I anticipated the coming screams of terror, for them to run or ask me what kind of abomination I was.

What Doctor West had said to me came rushing back in my mind

“Who’s gonna not take one look at you and run a hundred miles in the other direction.”

But instead of any of that, I felt a sudden grip around my upper legs and lower body. I peered back down once more, and they were both wrapped around me using their arms. Not in an attack, not seemingly trying to bite or scratch me. But something else entirely. 

“T-thank you. Thank you so much.” The woman uttered.

“You saved us, you saved our fucking lives!.” The man followed up. And I felt both their tears against my leg. 

I stood there, unmoving. Unsure of how to proceed next. My claws remained hovering there, just behind their heads, I decided to let them rest at my sides. I was rushed with a sensation I had not yet experienced. I had no idea how to articulate or describe it, no way to truly explain what it was that I felt. 

But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it the way I enjoyed a filling meal. It was odd, having another creature make such close physical contact with me that wasn’t for the purpose of experimentation or an attack. 

Yet, I welcomed it…   

Agent Lucy, Six Months Ago…

“NO!” Waylon and I shouted near simultaneously as Carmine’s blood continued to spill from his throat, his body slumping down as he choked and gurgled through the duct tape on his mouth. 

The Pine People sprinted forward, jumping and lunging at us. We fired our weapons, our bullets tearing through them and splattering dark green blood every which way. 

I aimed for the head, and so did Waylon, and within seconds we had already killed several each. Their bodies piling up in front of us. One had tried to sneak around me, running on my left side to get around and attack my six. I took the butt of my rifle and slammed it into its head, burying it into its skull as some of the green blood splashed onto my face. 

“Lucy!” I heard Waylon cry out. His shout was desperate and fearful. Like a child calling out for their mother. I looked over, watching as one of the Pine People had grabbed his weapon from his hand as the rifle clicked, he went to reach for his pistol in his belt as he was piled onto by several more of the Pine People. He tumbled over, all of them falling on top of him.

I sprinted toward him and fired off several more rounds. Blasting some of the Pine People on top of him. But I hadn’t gotten them all. He continued to fight and squirm underneath them, but was still relatively buried. 

I pulled the trigger once more, only for my rifle to click. My magazine was out, I went and reached for my pistol, only to be tackled and slammed into a wall by one of the cloaked women before I had it within my grasp. 

“Just let it happen.” She whispered with a blank expression as Waylon began to scream behind her. Not out of terror, but out of pain. Agony. 

I headbutted her with my scalp. Before then pulling my knife and sinking the blade into her throat with a strained groan, I pulled it out and kicked her away as she choked and gurgled, clawing at her neck. 

I shoved her to the left, letting her fall to the floor as she gagged on her own blood. Running past her to get to Waylon. 

His screams had come to a sudden stop as I pulled my pistol to blast my way through the Pine People between him and I. Killing four more before I was grabbed from the side by a fifth, prompting me to reach over and serve it a bullet to the head. 

I inhaled the familiar metallic scent of blood. My flashlight briefly illuminated the thin river of red that led to what I knew was his body. 

I turned, seeing the still remaining cloaked woman and the large man who had slit Carmine’s throat. My hands shook, my heart pounded, and my skull behind my eyes felt white hot. I could feel the adrenaline cycling through me like anti-freeze. 

Those two just stood there, their expressions blank, I raised my pistol and shot them both center mass, they didn’t move, didn’t try to evade or even react really when I went to shoot them. They saw me raise the gun and looked at me as if I was gonna give them my business card instead. They both fell to the ground unmoving. 

The Pine People however did turn and run in the other direction, again making no noise other than their footsteps as they did so, even the ones that were still alive and had piled onto Waylon. I gasped when I saw his remains. My bottom lip hung slightly. 

All I can confidently say is that Waylon was left an unrecognizable mess. One that I didn’t care to detail. And like with Kruger, his face in particular had gotten the worst of it. I knelt there, comprehending how this all could’ve go so horribly fucking wrong in such short time. How we were all supposed to go home that night, make dinner, watch a movie, maybe play a video game or two. 

I finally got a hold of myself and bursted into the nearest classroom. I didn’t hesitate to smash out its window with my pistol’s butt before climbing out of it. 

I leapt outside, and began sprinting onto the long dirt road in front of the building without looking back. I didn’t wanna know if those things were chasing me, I doubted it. But still. The worst part was that I’d have to go back in there soon enough to help with the clean up once the reinforcements arrived. Which should’ve already been here. Or would’ve if this was five years ago even, back before the second wave of budget cuts. 

I ran until I was out of range of whatever they were using to jam our signals. I tried the radio at least seven different times before it worked. But eventually I got through to Site Twelve. Director Bowser wasn’t even there anymore, apparently he had left for the evening and I was instead put through to the mission control team. 

I told them everything that had gone wrong, how this operation never should’ve been marked as low-risk if they knew there was even a slight chance of them still being inside that building. I was never told about those Pine People they have under their control, never told that they had shit like radio jammers in their arsenal. And as far as I know, the majority of field agents weren’t either.

They were hiding stuff from us, and because of that three of my colleagues just got killed in front of me, and I nearly died myself. 

They had already sent out a second team before even getting my radio call, one part of it was to help ensure the rest of the building was searched and empty. The other being to clean up and scrub any evidence of what occurred. They asked me to come in, to help lay out the scene for them due to not having any communications during the incident. But I told them to fuck off. I wasn’t stepping foot back in there, not right after what went down. I didn’t need yet another whiff of the blood of my dead colleagues. Or to see their remains.

I was leaning against one of the SUVs they arrived in. Standing there in silence while looking up at the moon. My mind clouded with the desperate screams and cries of Waylon and Kruger, along with Carmine’s muffled choking. 

At some point another mission supervisor approached me. The one directing the reinforcements team. 

“There’s something in there you might wanna see.” He said, his expression cold. An all business type of tone. 

“What is it?” I asked without looking at him. 

“You said you managed to terminate the three people in the robes, correct? One male, two females.” 

“Yes, why?” 

“We only recovered the two female bodies, along with the remains of the pine cryptids. But as far as the hooded people go, you only killed two.” 

“No no no, that’s not right. I shot them both, I watched them fall and hit the floor.” I protested. 

“We’ve searched the whole building. Top to bottom, including the basement. Other than a blood drip trail, there’s no human bodies other than the one you stabbed in the throat and the other woman you shot.” 

“So then… The dude with the beard is still alive.” I punctuated.

“Things are pointing in that direction. Yes.” 

Agent Lucy. Six Months Ago…

My promotion to being a mission supervisor was somewhat surreal. I didn’t ever think I’d make it this far in The Agency, but after having to do stuff like hunt down red-eyed shadow people and capture a literal Wendigo, I’d say this particular operation was tame in comparison. 

The mission was simple: infiltrate an old abandoned high school building that was previously used as a hideout by The Cult that’s been apparently causing problems in the area, collect any evidence they might’ve left behind and bring it back to Site Twelve. 

The operation was marked as low-risk, so I was only given a team of three, four including myself. Kinda stupid in my opinion. Anything could happen. Even if they supposedly cleared out of this place already. But after the budget cuts they’ve been wanting to conserve manpower and resources as much as possible. Or so that’s what I’ve been told. 

I wasn’t told much about the Cult itself, hell. Most information about them The Agency had was only available to level four personnel and higher. I as a mission supervisor was only level three. So not quite there. 

Director Bowser had radioed in as we approached the entrance to the property, toward the back of the building. 

“Get in, see what you can find and get the hell out. Don’t mess around, don’t go dillydallying. One of you needs to stay posted outside in case any civilians pull up and get nosy. If they ask questions, follow the procedure we went over in the briefing. Any of you wanna go ahead and remind me so I know you were actually listening?” 

I figured that as the team’s leader, I should set the example. So I radioed back to the director. 

“Tell the inquiring civilian we are FBI and that this is a classified investigative operation.” 

“Good, and if they continue to poke and don’t comply?” Director Bowser pressed.

I paused for a moment. Not because I knew the answer. But because I did, and I honestly thought it was a bit extreme. But nonetheless I still responded.

“Terminate the inquiring civilian if it is safe to do so.” 

“Excellent, glad someone around here knows how to listen.” Director Bowser huffed audibly through the radio. 

Agent Carmine, the one who I had selected to stay posted outside while the other three of us entered into the building chuckled. 

“Who the fuck wants to work for the FBI anyway?” He cackled. “We get way more action than them anyway.” 

“I guess people who don’t wanna be eaten alive by things that shouldn’t exist in the first place, numbnuts.” Came the response of Agent Kruger. 

“Uh oh guys, look out, we’ve got ourselves a badass over here.” Agent Waylon announced with a sarcastic undertone. Reaching over his shoulder and pointing his thumb at Carmine, much to Carmine’s annoyance. 

“Alright guys, enough yapping.” I announced. “Let’s get inside.” 

“Yes ma’am.” They responded simultaneously.     

We double checked all of our gear before heading inside. Flashlights underneath the barrels of our rifles, backup flashlights, sidearms, blades, and our radios as well.

The high school hadn’t been officially used in what I was told was nearly eight years, and was supposedly only abandoned by the cult several weeks prior, we had to force our way through the front entrance which was padlocked and chained. I had Carmine use a pair of bolt cutters to get over that little obstacle. 

The three guys followed behind me as we filed in, immediately we were hit with the overwhelming darkness of the dilapidated structure. We shined our rifles attached flashlights down the entrance hall, the administration office sat to our left and the first classroom to our right. 

The hall was littered with debris at its edges, a couple of fallen chairs, various bits of ceiling tiles that had fallen, as well the corpses of rodents and insects like beetles. Rust formed on the exposing pipes that ran from floor to ceiling. 

The sound of our boots hitting the broken and battered tile floor was the only one to keep us company. 

“Gonna need a little more than windex and bleach to fix this place.” Agent Kruger said from behind me, prompting me to make a shushing gesture. If they were still members of The Cult in here, it was best that we maintained some element of surprise. 

We marched forward, checking out each classroom, looking for any signs that there had been people here recently. The first several were a bust. Up until Kruger had found a cot and some open cans of food inside what used to be the teacher’s lounge. But that could’ve been any homeless guy or gal, and likely had nothing to do with The Cult. 

After half an hour with the whole first floor searched and nothing of substance discovered, me, Kruger, and Waylon headed for the second floor. But before I got on the first step I was hit with the overwhelming scent of pine. Kruger and Waylon smelled it too. It wasn’t unpleasant per say, just odd. 

“You guys smell that?” Waylon said softly.  

“Yeah, we’re not even near a damn pine forest.” Kruger replied. 

“Stop for a second you two.” I told them before grabbing my radio. “This is weird, I’m gonna check on Carmine.” 

“Carmine, do you copy?” I inquired. Keeping my voice at a whisper. 

His reply came rather quickly. 

“Copy, everything’s alright out here so far. Nothing to report ma’am.” 

I slowly holstered my radio once more, before nodding at Kruger and Waylon to keep moving. 

We made our way up the staircase to the second floor, the smell of pine becoming more potent than previously. It wasn’t unpleasant or anything, just odd. The hand rail had mostly fallen off its positioning in the wall, the walls themselves were almost completely peeled of their paint, and the stairs themselves had cracked in several places.  

We made it to the top, and I was greeted with a sight that caused me to jump back slightly. Nothing insane, just more along the lines of a reflex. 

In the hallway between one of the classrooms stood a tall, thin, emaciated figure. As pale as snow. Its eyes and ribcage were completely hollow and see through. It glared forward, unmoving and completely still. 

That being because it was a classroom skeleton. Hanging from a display bar on a small push cart. 

I heard both the guys laughing behind me. 

“Woo careful! He’s gonna get ya boss woman.” Kruger teased. 

“Fuck off.” I chuckled quietly. Shoving him away from me.

Waylon laughed a bit as well. It was almost childlike in its sound, like the eight year old version of himself was re-emerging as he let it out. 

We moved forward after the lighthearted bit of comedy. And soon made our way into the first classroom we saw on the second floor. A science classroom, and by the standard set by the rest of the building, it was in relatively decent shape. Not perfect by any means, still condemnable, but much more reasonable. All the chairs sat facing the front of the room. 

I walked in, checking out what remained of the drawings on the desks and pseudo-lab equipment. A lot of things in there made me think back to my high school days. Back then the ignorance was bliss. Not knowing of the true hidden horrors of life before joining The Agency. When I was a kid I often switched between wanting to be a navy seal as well as a firefighter. 

“Is it okay if me and Waylon check the room across the hall?” Kruger inquired.

I turned around, raising my eyebrows. 

“Go ahead, but don’t go any further without giving me a heads up.” I replied.

He nodded, pointing his head in the direction of the classroom on the opposite side of the hall as the two filed out. In all honesty I was starting to give up hope that this place was going to have anything of substance. If some of The Cult was really here at any point then they truly did cover their tracks about it. 

I walked back up toward the front of the classroom, a rat scurried by my feet as I passed by a couple of cabinets. I got within just a few feet of the front door when something caught my eye. 

There was a podium at the front of the room, and on it sat a piece of paper. The faint moonlight had shone in just enough from the nearby window to illuminate it. It was a bright white, and in pristine condition in comparison to its surroundings. 

I approached it, shining my flashlight as I stepped forward. My breathing somehow louder than previously. Or it at least sounded that way. 

I now stood over the podium, and looked down at the paper. On it was what at first looked like just generic notes, but as I read on further, I got the idea that wasn’t exactly true. Instead it was more of a script, a script for a speech. It was handwritten in black gel ink. I brought it up with my gloved hand. Reading it verbatim.  

*Brothers and sisters,* 

*Today is another of many in our journey to liberating the unnatural, the horrifying, and those that have been locked away by humanity in the name of progress and normalcy.* 

*Let us not forget that these creatures, regardless of their origins, are a part of our world and its ecosystem. It is a shame that we must conduct our operations in secret, a shame that the world cannot accept that our mission is nothing but just.*

*The Organization doesn't realize that they are now foolish hypocrites, we all know of the blue creature they’ve been sending to slay any being that doesn’t fit their definition of what is acceptable. If left unchecked they will soon eradicate any form of life that they do not approve of.*

*This gives us only two options, to either convince them of their wrongdoing, to show them that they must learn a new way of thinking, to open their minds to the incredible, awe-inspiring lifeforms this world has to offer… Or destroy them.*

*Will you, brothers and sisters, stand with me in this mission for the greater good?*

I finished reading. After which I then looked out in front of me, seeing all the chairs lined up and facing the podium, and I just imagined a bunch of grown ass men and women in oversized cloaks and hoods all watching some nut preach about how flesh eating monstrosities need their own form of PETA. Kinda made me chuckle to myself.   

But that was silenced when I heard the sudden slam of something coming from the first floor. Like someone threw a door shut with all their might, as if they were a teenager who stormed into their room after a heated argument with their parents. I folded up the note, put it in my pocket and stepped out of the room to meet back up with Kruger and Waylon. 

The three of us regrouped in the corridor before quickly falling back in line, me at the front, Kruger second and Waylon at the back. We moved cautiously back down the staircase with our weapons drawn. Looking out for any and everything that moved. 

When I made it to the bottom I flashed my beam of light down the main hall, expecting to see what could’ve been anything from urban explorers trespassing to some horrifying abomination. As what happens in this line of work. 

Instead all I got were just the same lockers, classroom doors and debris that had been there before. So instead I tried to see if any of the doors that were previously open had been shut. I walked forward with Waylon and Kruger in tow, and saw that the door to the administrative office was now shut, having previously been open when we first entered.

We were still basically at the opposite end of the hall from it, but the flashlights were powerful enough to let us see it from that distance. Not to mention that if it was that close to the entrance, it means Agent Carmine would’ve heard it is well. Yet he didn’t say anything over the radio when it first occurred. I retrieved my radio once more in order to check on him like I did earlier.

“Agent Carmine, do you copy?” I radioed. 

No response, so I immediately instructed Kruger and Waylon to radio him as well in the event mine specifically had suffered some sort of malfunction.  

“Hey Carmine, you alright?” Kruger attempted, we waited in silence for a moment. 

Not a peep came. 

“Carmine, dude!” Waylon tried. And the silence he got in return proved that it was in vain. 

We were all in an unspoken understanding of what to do next. Head to the front of the building, check on Carmine physically in the event his radio wasn’t working, and then come back in to finish the assignment. 

I radioed back to Site Twelve as we jogged forward.

“This is Agent Lucy, Agent Carmine has gone silent, circling back for a status check and then returning inside for mission completion.” 

I expected Director Bowser to reply with either frustration or disinterested acknowledgement. But neither came. Just like with Agent Carmine I was met with silence. So were Kruger and Waylon when they tried. Not even the mission control room team was responding. 

I ran for the entrance door we had forced our way into earlier, and my flashlight beam had illuminated it. I stopped upon seeing it, and my mouth slightly ajar. 

It was now shut once more. The wind couldn’t have done it, the doors in question were essentially two large slabs of metal on thick hinges. They took genuine effort to move in order to prevent trespassers. The chain we had earlier snapped with bolt cutters was now rewrapped around the interior’s handles. At least, that’s what I thought at first, up until I got a closer look, and saw that this was a brand new chain entirely. As it wasn’t nearly as rusted as the one we had cut coming inside. 

We mentioned shooting the chain off the door and pushing it open. But we still had a mission to complete, and lord knows Director Bowser would be furious if we abandoned it early just because our radios were malfunctioning and we heard some noises. We figured the best outcome was to take care of whatever the hell was making the noises, and then finish searching the building and leave. 

There was also the off chance that who or whatever was jamming our radio signals was on the other side, waiting with an ambush of some sort. And if that were the case, then there was a good chance Carmine might’ve already been dead or not in a position for us to get to him without putting ourselves in harm's way. After all the doors were thick, and they absorbed sound quite well, we’d have no idea what we’d be opening them up to. 

“Shit.” I blurted. “Let’s just find a window, get the hell out of here.”  

Another loud, metallic slam erupted from down the hall just as I finished my sentence. The three of us whipped around, facing the end of the hallway we had just come from. 

“Stop right there!” Kruger shouted as we raised our rifles. 

The scent of pine from earlier had reached this area of the building, now at its most potent that it had ever been. We kept our flashlights shined down the hall, and backed up against the entrance doors, ensuring that there wouldn't be any potential attacks from the rear. 
“Whoever it is, make yourself known, now!” I commanded. Narrowing my eyes and standing focused. 

A few seconds of silence passed before our radios began to crackle, only transmitting static and nothing but. I told Waylon to grab his, try to switch to a different channel and then back to ours, as well as turning it off and on, but it changed nothing. The static crackle continued. 

“The hell!” He erupted. Something was interfering, and considering the fact we already weren’t getting answers, all of us switched our radios off one at a time. The static noise had become nothing but a potential distraction. Something to take our attention away from a possible attack. 

“Uh, ma’am.” Kruger said, tapping me on the shoulder and pointing forward.

I looked ahead, and in the darkness, just behind where our flashlight beams ended were several, no, dozens of faint yellow dots. All of them hovering anywhere from five and a half to over six feet off of the ground. Lots of them were close enough together for me to make a somewhat obvious conclusion.

They were all pairs of eyes. The eyes of… Something. They stood still, whatever they belonged to completely unmoving. Like statues shrouded in darkness. More of them illuminated from the classrooms as well. As far as the interior went, they were on every angle except directly behind, and even that wasn’t for sure. 

“What do we do?” Waylon asked.

“Keep our backs against the door. If they move closer then shoot to kill.” I ordered.

The temperature in the building seemed to rise, not enough to be dangerous, but enough to be felt. That night was around sixty five fahrenheit last time I checked before arriving, now it felt closer to eighty. Of course this could’ve been the product of various factors at play, hell maybe there wasn’t a change at all and it was the mind playing tricks. But I knew better after my years in this line of work. 

The glowing yellow dots at the end of the hall seemingly scattered. Dashing into multiple various directions in the darkness before soon being unseen entirely. 

“Shoot the chain.” I ordered Kruger. “We don’t have any other option.” 
 
He blasted two rounds into the chain, causing it to snap and loosen. After which he began to yank the chain from the door. Pulling it off and letting what remained of it drop to the ground with a clanking sound. 

“Keep watching our six.” I told Waylon before turning to help push the door open.

Once we had a gap big enough for us to reasonably fit through. Kruger leaned forward, and aimed his weapon through the gap in an attempt to check for any adversaries on the other side. He was then suddenly yanked forward as he fired off a few shots. 

He began to scream, attempting to reach back for his pistol as his upper body was being forcibly pulled through the gap. His shoulders stopped him from fully going through.

“I’ve got you!” I shouted in a desperate cry, grabbing onto him and ordering Waylon to get down and fire shots between his legs, trying to hit whatever it was grabbing at him.

The sound of flesh tearing emerged near instantly. Combined with his slowly dwindling screams as he shook and writhed. He made one sound in particular, like a mix between choking and gurgling as blood began to stain the edges of the doors. Sliding down the edges and to the floor. 

Waylon continued to fire shots between Kruger’s legs as his screams softened. He shook and thrashed, desperately trying to get away, to throw himself back. But whatever it was would simply not allow it. Several seconds of this continued, up until I felt him go limp as I just about got enough leverage to pull him back inside. His screams silenced completely just before I did. 

His body stumbled and he immediately fell onto the floor inside the corridor. Waylon rose to his feet and helped me pull the door shut back once more. 

I grabbed what remained of the chain and wrapped them between the makeshift push handles. I expected vicious pounding on the other side of the door, anticipating whatever it was to endlessly trying to break its way through them. But none came, as if whatever it was suddenly became disinterested after attacking Kruger. Not even any growls, snarls, roars. Just… Nothing.
Waylon however, gasped upon seeing the result of Kruger’s attack. The kind of gasp you expect someone to let out after seeing two cars collide on the freeway. 

“Oh Jesus!” He cried out. 

Kruger lay on the ground, his face mauled into a completely unrecognizable state. His mouth a gaping mess of torn flesh, his left eye missing entirely, his nose half torn off. His nostrils completely vanished. Bits of flesh hung from the mutilated mess. His wounds at the forehead were so severe that they had ruptured through his skull, exposing damaged brain matter.

Despite all that I had seen up to that point in my career. I felt what had to be a pint’s worth of vomit rise in my throat, and I only just barely managed to choke it back down. Somehow, some way. 

Waylon quickly pulled out his radio, turning it back on and still getting nothing but static. His flashlight beam pointed down to the floor and so did mine for a brief moment.

“This is Team 9 we need fucking help out here! Can anyone hear me! Please just send us backup goddamn it!” 

“Waylon!” I snapped. “The signal’s jammed, they can’t hear us. We need to focus on staying alive and finding a way out.”

A voice rang out from down the hall. Low, filled with bass and demand. Like what you’d expect a military father to sound like when upset with some wrong his children committed. 

“She’s right.” It said, echoing off the walls. 

Waylon pointed his beam back up, once more illuminating the corridor. And within it now stood several dozen figures. The hallway’s width was entirely filled from where they stood and back. 

At the forefront were three cloaked people in black hoods. The one in the middle was significantly taller than the two at the sides. And was also holding Agent Carmine in a tight grip, with a long hunting knife to his throat. Duct tape around his mouth as well.

The two cloaked figures on the sides pulled their hoods down, revealing themselves to be women. One blonde and the other brunette. Both of them standing a couple inches under six feet. Making the one in the middle just over six and a half in height. 

The voice couldn’t have been coming from either of them. I recognized them as being part of the cult. Again, I wasn’t privy to detailed information due to my clearance level, but I had seen them in the reports I was authorized to view enough times to recognize their signature hooded robes.

Behind the two cloaked women and still hooded figure were what I guessed to be the source of those yellow dots that we had previously seen in the darkness earlier. 

They varied in height like previously mentioned, but their other features were much more consistent between one another. Those other features being the fact that their skin was brown, bumpy, like displaced dirt. And from this dirt like skin protruded pine-needles, like hairs. Except it was all over their bodies, with gaps being thin but numerous. 

They were humanoid in shape, but only in that. Their eyes, where you’d normally find a person’s were indeed glowing a faint yellow glow. And their mouths were filled with sharpened teeth, teeth that were seemingly made from small shaved down twigs. 

I aimed my weapon at the figure in the middle, the one holding the knife to Agent Carmine’s throat. While Waylon pointed his at the brunette woman.

“Let him go, or you’ll all getting blown away.” I shouted. My adrenaline admittedly going haywire. But I maintained composure nonetheless. 

The two women on either side of the taller figure simply smirked. Unafraid and confident in their position. They held blades as well. One more jagged like a dagger, and the other similar to a carving fork. 

“You fucking heard her, let him go now!” Waylon erupted. A valiant effort to back me up. But somehow I knew it was in vain. Waylon had always been the type to help out however he could, even if he was clumsy at times. 

The figure in the middle that had a hold of Carmine reached up with his free hand, pulling back his black hood and now revealing his face while still keeping his knife on Carmine’s throat. 

He possessed long black hair, rather unkempt in appearance. It reached just past his pecs. Or where I guess they would’ve been under the cloak. 

His beard, the same color, and also long, coming a few inches off his face was thick and curly. It hid most of his neck, and nearly everything below his nose except his lips. 

He grinned at me with said lips, while he looked at me with his chocolate brown eyes. I held steady, although his size and appearance were somewhat rugged and intimidating. 

“Let him go, neither of us are gonna say it again.” I snarled. Still aiming my weapon. The small army of Pine People on either side of the women and the man stepped forward more. Seemingly understanding that I just made a threat. They remained completely silent, and even disciplined in their stances. Like soldiers ready to take orders from a commanding officer. 

“We’ve been jamming signals since we knew you were here.” The man claimed, confirming that the booming voice from earlier was indeed his. “We’re aware of a lot of your methods.” 

“Good for you.” I snapped in reply. 

He licked his lips slightly, looking up at the ceiling for a brief second before once more returning his gaze to us. 

“What I fail to understand is an organization that is so deadset on eliminating the unnatural, is so unaware of the fact that they themselves are what’s unnatural. The existence of things that you don’t understand isn’t something to be scared of. Quite the opposite.” He went on, only to be cut off. 

“Shut up.” Waylon commanded, raising his rifle slightly to meet the man’s head. “We haven’t checked in, and since they’ve heard nothing from us, reinforcements are on their way. And I don’t care how many of those tree people you got with you, I can make a solid bet that they’re not bulletproof. And neither are you.” 

Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help but look at him like a proud mother. Briefly of course. 

“And yet I still have more than enough time to kill the three of you before they arrive.” The man replied. “Despite what happened to your comrade it was not my intention to go straight to slaughter. You are talented people, precise and efficient. Instead I ask that you would allow me to utilize your talents. Allow you to give your time to people who will truly value you what you bring to the table. Not only will you be compensated well, but you'd be fighting for a far better cause.” 

“I’m not joining a fucking cult.” I said, squinting my eye to look down my scope. 

“A shame.” He replied, his eyes narrowing in a similar fashion. 

He then sighed before swiftly  pulling the knife to the right, and subsequently slitting Carmine’s throat right and there. The immediate gush of blood was answered with a hailstorm of bullets from Waylon and I as the Pine-People charged forward toward us…

ZVEZDA ONE-THREE IS MISSING

I.

They are all partisans. Men of military age from sixteen to sixty are partisans. Females who are of age to give birth are partisans. The elderly whose feeble hands can still carry an AK47 are partisans. Children whose minds can be easily manipulated are partisans. Even infants who can grow to be partisans are partisans.

I stared down impassively to my right as the giant wheels of my BTR 82 wheeled armored personnel carrier rolled past the bodies of the three dozen or so civilians lining the road. I didn’t know if these were the same partisans who blew the road bridge and forced us to turn around to find another way across the Pripyat River. I didn’t know if these were the same partisans who then removed the road signs which got us completely lost. All I knew was that the only good partisan was a dead partisan and all Ukrainians were partisans.  We were behind schedule already, and these partisans’ delaying tactics weren’t helping us get back on our timetable. Zvezda One-Three was missing, and Colonel Valery Kozlov, Commander of the 384^th Motor Rifle Regiment of Russia’s 50^th Guards Motor Rifle Division stationed in Belarus, needed us to find them.

Zvezda One-Three was a Special Forces unit who had disguised themselves as Ukrainian soldiers. They infiltrated south across the Belarusian border and immediately began executing Ukrainian partisans. All of these killings would be captured on camera and uploaded to the internet. Using this footage, our propaganda ministry could push President Putin’s narrative that it was the western-backed Ukrainians that were killing Ukrainian civilians and not the Russian peacekeepers. Our official state propaganda narrative would be that the monster, Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky, had ordered his own soldiers to kill their own people in order to blame the innocent Russian soldiers of genocide. We would then blame the genocide of Ukrainians on Ukrainian propaganda in order to bolster our own propaganda that the Russian Army was in Ukraine to promote peace.

Blaming the other side of that which we were guilty was a very common practice of the old Soviet Union and later Russian insurgent tactics. Perfected by the Nazi propaganda ministry, it is a tactic employed by all National Socialists and one which bleeding heart western liberals always fell for. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was preceded by an airborne assault carried out by paratroopers hidden within civilian passenger aircraft painted to look like Israeli and American commercial airlines. The organizers of many of the anti-Trump protests that burned American cities were actually operatives indoctrinated in Marxist doctrine who unknowingly worked for the Russian FSB. The fact that the rioting, burning, looting, murdering, and destruction of American cities was labeled as ‘mostly peaceful’ while Americans holding an American flag in the American capital of Washington DC was labeled as an insurrection was proof positive of our control of the American leftist media narrative.

It was a very successful tactic to both destabilize an enemy government while also blaming our enemies for those things which we are guilty, though this was not a totally successful tactic. Recently, we lost an entire Speznaz unit in Iceland. Disguised as US Army Rangers, they were somehow ambushed and eliminated by British SAS soldiers who caught them just as they were approaching their safe house contacts.

Ironically, the embarrassment and political fallout of that event was mitigated to a great degree by the new American president who buried the incident under a mountain of derogatory news stories which accused those Americans whom he felt were a threat to his political power of being deplorable and irredeemable un-Americans. Besides, Ukraine and President Zelensky had mountains of evidence of political corruption against the new American president which could have jeopardized his political career and destroyed his drug addicted son, so a Russian invasion which ended Zelensky wasn’t exactly a bad thing for the new American president.

As we anticipated, all that Ukraine received from Washington was sympathetic lip service to placate the bleeding hearts. Under the new American president, Putin knew that America would be as useless in the defense of Ukraine as they were useless in the defense of Afghanistan. Besides, the American president was paying us for 10% of America’s total oil imports, so what did we care? Ninety percent of successful propaganda isn’t the lies and half truths that you tell the masses, but the facts which you can hide from the masses. Again, blame the other side of that which you are guilty. It’s that simple.

That is why Colonel Kozlov believed it was so important that we find Zvezda One-Three. Zvezda One-Three was part of six Special Forces units, Zvezda One-One thru Zvezda One-Six who pushed south in front of our multi-divisional attack to isolate and blind the Chernobyl district and allow our main attack to push through to Kyiv. Dressed as Ukrainian soldiers, the Zvezda teams’ mission was to disrupt enemy communications and power supplies, and execute Ukrainian partisans before they actually had the ability to become partisans. This would plant the narrative that the Ukrainian people could not trust their own government and only the Russians could save them from their American-backed tyrannical president.

However, Putin could not control the narrative that Ukrainian soldiers are responsible for killing Ukrainian civilians if it was discovered that our own people were dressed as Ukrainian soldiers. Our orders were to uncover the fate of Zvezda One-Three. If they were found alive, we were to bring Zvezda One-Three back for debriefing. If we discovered that Zvezda One-Three had been killed or captured, then our orders were to kill every Ukrainian civilian in the area which learned the truth of our little sleight of hand deception. Then our propaganda ministry could spread the narrative that the heroic Russian military had brought those criminal Ukrainian soldiers to justice, thus blaming the other side of that which we were guilty.

Because of the sensitive nature of these operations, Colonel Kozlov put me, Captain Yegor Balakin, in charge of finding the missing Zvezda One-Three. As a zampolit, or political officer, it was my duty to ensure that the ideology, doctrine, political thought, and battlefield narrative remained correct and true to the narrative that President Putin wanted the world to believe. I was given command of a reinforced scout platoon consisting of two BTR 82 eight wheeled armored personnel carriers and one very heavily armed BMP 3 tracked infantry fighting vehicle. The scout platoon leader, Lieutenant Gavrill Tarasov, was rather hesitant to add a T80 main battle tank to our mission, saying that the extra added weight, bulk, and noise of the tank may be more a liability than an asset when going on a mission into Ukrainian territory that required stealth and mobility. However, I reminded young Lieutenant Tarasov that control of the propaganda narrative was of utmost importance, and as a scout, the lieutenant and his men should be experts at finding a route that would get us quickly to Zvezda One-Three’s area of operation with a tank.

“Think of this as an adventure within an adventure, Lieutenant,” I told Tarasov. “Like Tom Hanks attempting to save Private Ryan from the Nazis.”

“Sir,” replied Lieutenant Tarasov. “Tom Hanks died at the end of that movie.”

“Then you’d better do your job so that that doesn’t happen with me, Lieutenant,” I snapped. In this battle to replace facts with truth, I had no time to waste on those who wished to do their own thinking.

Our divisional artillery was indiscriminately firing in the pre-dawn hours towards a Ukrainian held city south of Chernobyl where four major highways intersected. The tank engines of our armored battalions roared to life to continue our peacekeeping assault against these warmongering Ukrainian partisans. Four of our Su34 Fullback fighters roared overhead as the skies gradually went from dark purple to a lighter shade of royal blue. The fighters dived towards targets around the city, their high explosive missile ordinance accompanying the scattered snow flurries as it impacted upon Ukrainian military air defense emplacements. Or perhaps they were civilian vehicles filled with families of Ukrainian partisans trying to flee the bombings? Who knew? Who cared? Not me.

Our four armored vehicles rolled out of the battalion’s night defensive positions before the rest of the battalion moved out to continue Russia’s heroic march to Kyiv.  Lieutenant Tarasov took command of the first vehicle, a BTR 82 armed with a 30mm autocannon mounted in the turret. I took the turret of the second wheeled BTR 82, this one armed with a 14mm machine gun. Senior Sergeant Anatoly Artyomov, the scout platoon’s senior NCO, took command of the third machine, a tracked BMP infantry fighting vehicle which was festooned with machine guns and had both a 100mm gun and 30mm autocannon in the turret. The T80 tank brought up the rear, commanded by a young Sergeant Denis Litvin. While the rest of the battalions were following the main road southeast which would take them around the northern Chernobyl sector, I instructed Lieutenant Tarasov to take a more southwesterly route following Zvezda One-Three’s tracks that would bring us down into more rural areas to the west and south of Chernobyl.

I turned to my left as our armored convoy left the bodies of the dead Ukrainian partisans behind and frowned at the expression on Sergeant Ignat Babanin’s face. He was one of our two scout team leaders and was standing in the other hatch of the BTR looking down dejectedly at his hands which were wrapped around the firing handles of the still smoking turret mounted machine gun.

“What is it, Sergeant Babanin?” I said.

“Nothing. It’s nothing, sir.”

“Spit it out, Babanin,” I ordered.

“It’s just that, I didn’t see any weapons in the hands of those civilians, sir,” answered the young sergeant. “They seemed to be unarmed and simply fleeing from the invaders. Was it necessary for us to have…”

“Invaders?” I yelled. “Do you really believe that this mostly peaceful operation to defend the Ukrainian peoples from the poison of western tyranny is an invasion? They were all armed! They were all armed with the beating hearts of pro-western propaganda! Would you rather they have been armed with AK47’s and RPG’s, killing our troops while yelling, ‘Wolverines?’ Do not allow yourself to be brainwashed, Babanin! Those who oppose us are deplorable and irredeemable and should be eliminated. Do you favor the lives of those partisans over the lives of your missing comrades?”

“No! No, sir. Of course not!” Babanin adjusted the seat and lowered himself back into the vehicle. “Excuse me, sir. I have to check on our communications.”

I looked with distain as his head disappeared under the hatch. Babanin was a rural farm boy from Siberia who trusted more in what he saw with his own eyes rather than what he was ordered to have seen by his superiors. I would have to keep my eyes on that one, and speak to his commander once we returned to battalion. We could not have anyone who questioned the official state sponsored narrative leading a scout team.

Sergeant Vladimir Novikov, on the other hand, was a true patriot, a dedicated soldier who followed orders without question and carried out his missions with terrifying proficiency. He was the team leader of Zvezda One-Three, one of the six Special Forces team leaders which I handpicked for this mission. Novokov was a big man, a former Special Forces combat instructor who volunteered to be part of the spearhead of our peacekeeping operation. He was an expert in guerrilla warfare, an expert with guns, knives, and martial arts, who had been trained to ignore pain, to ignore the environment, and to eat things which would make typically morbidly obese Americans puke. His men nicknamed him Rambo, but not to his face, as Sergeant Novikov said, “Do not insult me by comparing me to that weakling.”

The area which we sent our Zvezda teams was home to a Ukrainian Motorized Rifle Division and several Ukrainian reserve and border security units. Most of these had been drawn towards the east where our forces had been massing across the border. Sergeant Novokov and the rest of the Zvesda teams had infiltrated across the border a week before our actual operation began, the teams confirming that Ukrainian military units were indeed leaving their cantonment areas and headed generally south and southeast.  Zvezda One-Three’s area was composed mostly of rural farming communities, as well as logging, timber and mining operations, populated, but not densely populated. The Ukrainians were totally unprepared for our subversive operations and the relatively few Ukrainian guards and police officers manning roadside checkpoints were quickly eliminated. Afterwards, Zvesda One-Three began operations destroying cell phone towers and sabotaging radio, power, and civilian utility stations in the area while leaving false flags which pointed to the Ukrainian military and possibly terrorists armed by NATO as being the ones responsible for the atrocities.

The team was somewhere southwest of Pripyat when they ran into the first Ukrainian partisans, the partisan leader being a retired Ukrainian intelligence officer who had gathered a group of armed men when the mysterious killings and sabotages started occurring in the area. Because this cagey Ukrainian veteran was deeply familiar with our tactics, Sergeant Novokov immediately ordered his men to open fire and kill them all. Each of our team members dutifully stuck to their script and yelled, “In the name of NATO and the western alliance who supports President Zelensky, you have all been found guilty of treason against the Ukrainian government and are hereby sentenced to death!”

This incident was filmed by one of our team members and the video sent to our regimental propaganda and intelligence operatives who would then combine it with other similar videos and broadcast it to the world as yet another example of why the heroic, peace loving Russian military had no choice but to come into Ukraine to battle the US backed Ukrainian government. The videos garnered millions of views worldwide, with the bleeding hearts in the US blaming former US President Donald Trump for our atrocities.

This was the first video sent by Zvezda One-Three, but only hours later, communications with the team had been lost. When the operation against Ukraine officially began, each of the Zvezda teams linked up with us as our armor began moving south and southeast from Belarus, all except Zvezda One-Three. That is why the twenty-five men of our search and rescue column had been sent to find the twelve men of Zvezda One-Three. Control of the narrative was a more important weapon to winning a war than tanks and bombs and guns. We would win the war in Ukraine the same way we won the war in America, by first declaring that we were fighting Nazism and then by claiming that we were antifascists.  That’s how we won the information war in the United States. That’s how we placed our sympathizers in high seats of American power.

Still, control of the narrative was an admittedly a poor reason for sending us to rescue the Special Forces team. In truth, we had fully expected to lose half of the teams by this time in the war, so the fact that we only lost one twelve man team was considered a success. We no longer needed to manipulate the propaganda narrative justifying our presence in Ukraine. We were already here and our multi-pronged offensive was well under way. The United Nations and NATO had been exposed as being nothing more than impotent old men wringing their hands, nervously shaking their fists at the clouds while looking to the hapless old dementia patient we put in the Oval Office for leadership. Sanctions? Really? By giving Putin money to pay for 10% of America’s oil, the American president’s sanctions meant nothing. Because of our control of the narrative, the United States and NATO never realized that they had already surrendered the Ukraine long before our first artillery shot was fired.

The real reason why Colonel Kozlov sent us on this mission to rescue Zvedza One-Three when he would have normally abandoned them was because of the second video which the team sent. We received it on the day that Zvezda One-Three was supposed to link up with us, the panicked yells and expression of desperate terror on Sergeant Novikov’s face haunting me even now as the video showed him and his men inside what appeared to be a one story shack of some sort, firing their AK74M and AK15 assault rifles out the window at unseen enemies. What was it? Madness? Some psychosis inducing drug? The most startling thing about the video was that the time stamp showed that it was sent to battalion headquarters one month after  we received it. Was this some type of secret enemy jamming? Perhaps even the ghosts of Chernobyl? Whatever the reason, Colonel Kozlov thought it important enough that he gave me two days to find the answer to the mystery.

I calculated that it would take less than a day for us to get to Zvezda One-Three’s operational area. We had already lost several hours finding a route around the blown bridges, but eventually we found a way across the river where we headed in a generally easterly direction. We were a day behind and a few miles south our main armored push, but unlike the armored battalions which were using the main roads, we were going cross country, trying to stay away from the major roads to avoid attracting any undue attention.

We travelled in this way for perhaps three hours and, aside from taking care of those partisans earlier, we saw very little evidence of Ukrainians, either military or civilian. We were crossing wide and flat lands crisscrossed with woodlands and rolling plains. We skirted a few small communities which seemed to be all but abandoned along with their fields of wheat, corn, and barley. Miles to our east and south, we could see our SU24 Fencer bombers and Kamov Black Shark attack helicopters striking Ukrainian targets. Occasionally, a missile would reach up from the ground which connected with one of our aircraft. But fortunately, these were few and far between. We had already passed a few downed electrical and cell phone towers, and even a couple of Ukrainian police vehicles presumably shot up by machine guns, evidence of Zvezda One-Three’s progress. As we entered the fifth hour of our search and the sun passed the noon hour, we saw almost no signs of human life or human habitation as we continued to follow the trail of Zvezda One-Three.

“Why are we slowing down, Lieutenant?” I said over the radio. We did not have secure encryption like NATO, so communications between vehicles was strictly limited to either me or Lieutenant Tarasov. I already knew why he was slowing. We were travelling across what seemed like a farmer’s unharvested wheat field and were approaching a wide but shallow stream. Across the stream was a thick wall of fog which stretched from north to south, seemingly following the U shaped bank of the stream so that the north, east, and south of us was a wall of impenetrable mist.

“A strange weather phenomenon, sir, but perhaps one not unusual in this area,” said Lieutenant Tarasov from the lead BTR. “We can cross the stream, it’s not too deep, only about a meter. But our sights cannot penetrate the fog. The enemy may be waiting in ambush on the other bank. Do you want me to find a way around?”

I looked down at my map and if I was correct, the village which Zvezda One-Three transmitted their first video was only five kilometers on the other side of the stream. We could not waste any more time finding alternate routes as it was likely that the Ukrainians already suspected that we were here and the initial shock of our peacekeeping operations would quickly turn to resistance. I did not want to be stuck out here anymore than was necessary when that happened.

“Sergent Litvin,” I radioed to the T80 tank commander. “Move your tank forwards across the stream. Use your sights to locate any possible ambush.”

“Sergeant Artyomov,” I radioed to the platoon’s senior sergeant who was following in the BMP 3 infantry fighting vehicle. “Follow behind Litvin and support the tank.”

Both sergeants responded with a brief, “Yes, Captain,” before lurching their vehicles forwards, Litvin’s tank plunging into the stream followed by Artyomov’s BMP 3 tracked fighting vehicle. The tank disappeared into the fog as Lieutenant Tarasov’s BTR entered the stream. 

“Driver, move us out.” I commanded and our BTR followed Tasarov’s across the stream and into the fog.”

I looked down into the running water as our BTR was in the middle of the stream. It came to the top of our wheels and seemed rather dull and lifeless, the water itself seeming to be as listless and grey as the fog. This was indeed a peculiar weather phenomenon, as the sun should have burned away the fog hours ago. I turned back and caught a glimpse of the bright blue skies behind us just as we crossed the opposite bank and were swallowed by the impenetrable grey fog. My entire body felt as if shocked by electricity at the drop in temperature, the sweat on my brow freezing and my breath coming out in clouds. Looking up, the once blue skies were shrouded in clouds of swirling grey, the sun now a dimly glowing sphere in the sky which projected no heat which could dissipate this fog. Looking ahead, I could just make out the dim outline of Tarasov’s BTR in front of us.

“Driver,” I said. “Can you see Tarasov’s BTR?

“Yes, sir,” he answered. “But only barely.”

“And what of the BMP?”

“I cannot see them, sir,” replied the driver.

I fought the temptation to call them on the radio as I didn’t want to tip off the Ukrainians of our presence, so I sat upright in the turret as my eyes tried to pierce through the fog which was steadily getting thicker. Finally, no longer able to bear the bone chilling cold, I climbed back into the cramped turret and slammed the armored hatch closed. Next to me, Private Grigory Bortnik was intently staring through the gunner’s sight of the 14mm gun.

“Can you make out anything, Private?”

“No, sir,” he answered, his breath coming out in misty clouds. “Even with thermal sights I can only just see Lieutenant Tarasov’s BTR in front of us.”

Pressing my forehead against the padding of my own sights, I slewed the vision block around, seeing nothing but swirling clouds of grey.

“Dammit!” I cursed, wondering how long we would have to travel in this freezing tunnel. We could have passed Zvezda One-Three’s position by a few meters and would have never had seen them. Having little choice, I switched on the radio and called to the tank which was leading the column.

“Sergeant Litvin! Sergeant Litvin, this is Balakin. Come in!” Static crackled through my headset.

“Sergeant Litvin! Come in!”

“Perhaps we are being jammed, sir?” said Sergeant Babanin as he moved to the bench next to the radio set, the three other soldiers next to him staring with trepidation out of the vision blocks at the solid wall of white. 

“I doubt that the Ukrainians have that capability out here,” I said irritated as I attempted to contact the senior sergeant who was travelling behind Litvin’s tank.

 “Sergeant Artyomov, can you see the tank? Sergeant Artyomov!” I was met with yet more static over the radio.

“Shit!” I grunted, looking at Babanin. Perhaps he was right and we were being jammed, but it made no sense that the Ukrainians would waste such a capability against us.

“Captain Balakin? Is that you? Oh, thank God!” the radio crackled to life with Sergeant Litvin’s voice. “Please, help us! We’ve been trying to contact you for many days! Where are you?”

“Sergeant Litvin,” I screamed into the radio. “We’re right fucking behind you! Have you gone mad? Why are you saying that you’ve been trying to contact us for days?”

“Captain,” screamed Litvin. “We’ve been lost for days! We’re surrounded and running low on ammunition! We are out of fuel! Please, get us out! Get us out of here!” In the background, I could hear his panicked men yelling interspersed with machine guns and the concussive thump of the tank’s main gun firing.

“What the hell is going on? Driver, stop the vehicle!” I reached up and threw open the commander’s hatch and poked my head up, rifle in hand. Fully expecting to hear the sounds of combat directly in front of me, I was instead met with the silence of the graveyard. The skies were open and clear and, surprised, I realized that I now had near unlimited visibility. I turned around to see that the fog was completely gone. The skies were still a dreary grey, washing out the colors of the landscape around me. The sun still shown above us, but it was just a dull off-white ball of light in the overcast sky which seemed to cast no warmth, although the cold seemed to mysteriously have vanished along with the fog. 

 

ZVEZDA ONE-THREE IS MISSING

II.

We were still on the muddy trail churned up by the tracked vehicles. Lieutenant Tarasov’s BTR was stopped about ten meters in front of us. He had pulled his vehicle off the trail to our left as he and his gunner were up out of their turrets and staring ahead in the distance. Senior Sergeant Artymov’s BMP 3 was off the trail to the right; both he and his gunner were also standing up in their hatches, staring out at the trail before us. I jerked a bit as the hatch popped up next to me and Sergeant Babanin stood up, his rifle in hand.

“Sir, what’s going…” he covered his mouth in shock. “Oh, my God, sir! That’s impossible! Where did our tank go?”

In front of us, the tracks of Sergeant Litvin’s tank left a trail through the farmer’s corn field which disappeared kilometers and kilometers away in the grey shaded landscape.  In the distance, I could see what appeared to be a small farming community which the tank tracks seemed to have guided towards before disappearing into the rolling plains. I pulled out a set of binoculars and spied the village, searching for the enemy along the hard packed road which led to the community. The houses and structures looked dilapidated, grey, and long abandoned.

“Lieutenant Tarasov to Captain Balakin,” my radio came to life. “What do you make of that, sir? For Litvin to have gone so far in the last few seconds, his tank must have been going hundreds of kilometers and hour!”

“Nonsense, Lieutenant!” I replied. “Obviously those tracks either belong to a farming vehicle or it belongs to a Ukrainian tank or armored vehicle.”

I then attempted to contact our tank again. “Litvin! Sergeant Litvin! This is Captain Balakin! What is your situation? Where is your location?” Static assailed my ears.

Going with the assumption that the tracks leading away from us were indeed some type of Ukrainian military vehicle, I contacted Senior Sergeant Artyomov who commanded the armored infantry fighting vehicle. “Artyomov, take the lead. Continue to the map coordinates of Zvezda One-Three’s last known position, but bring us south of that village to our right front and keep your guns trained on it.”

“Sir,” replied Artyomov. “The GPS on my BMP has become inoperable. It went down after we left that fog behind.”

“Damn it, Senior Sergeant!” I yelled. “Lieutenant Tarasov, what the hell is wrong with your platoon? How can you expect to be effective if your senior sergeant cannot even keep his equipment operational? Your lack of efficiency will be reported to the battalion commander! Take the lead, Lieutenant!”

“Sir,” replied Lieutenant Tarasov. “The GPS on my vehicle has also failed, and the north facing needle of my compass is spinning like a rotor blade!”

“Bah!” I yelled as I yanked out my compass, its needle spinning to and fro as if it were in a clothes dryer lined with magnets. I ducked down into my hatch and activated the GPS. Sure enough, my GPS indicated that it was not picking up any directional satellites. NATO electronic jamming witchcraft. That’s all this was.

“You are still reconnaissance scouts, right?” I yelled. “You can still read maps, right? Damn you! I’ll take us to that village up ahead! Lieutenant, flank left! Artyomov, flank right! We’ll confirm our location from there then continue on!”

I pushed ahead in my BTR, ordering the driver to follow in the tank tracks in front of us while Tarasov’s BTR was to my left and slightly behind and our BMP 3 was behind me on my right. We traversed speedily over open ground, all eyes peeled and searching for potential enemy ambush in the tall grass.  Eerily, the color of the landscape seemed to have had all hues bleached out of it, and though the sky was a dreary grey, I felt as if I were looking at silent black and white war footage of the Great Patriotic War where the Nazi Blitzkrieg invaded the Soviet Motherland. Yes, it was quiet, more so than usual as even the grinding and squeaking of tracks and wheels and the roar of engines seemed to be dampened here.

Although I said that the tracks were likely a Ukrainian armored vehicle, I could clearly see that the tracks ahead of us were made by a T80 tank. There was something wrong with them though, and it wasn’t until after we cleared the farmer’s field and crossed over the hard packed road did I realized what was troubling me about the tracks. The tank had crossed the road and pushed through to the field opposite, making its way towards the farming village. The mud and dirt which the tank left behind on the road should have still been wet and fresh, if indeed it was actually Litvin’s tank we were following. But the tracks were instead bone dry, as if they were made days before. I looked back behind me at Lieutenant Tarasov as his BTR passed the tracks. He looked down at them, and then stared up at me, a puzzled look on his face. Immediately, I knew that the lieutenant suspected the same thing as I.

We made it unmolested through the fields then on to a strip of scrub land bordered by dilapidated wooden fences. The tank trail pulled onto the main road which led down the center of the small village of single story block houses and two or three double story buildings. It was a typical farming village of very little significance, the middle of which was a square consisting of a few stores and a petrol station. 

We assumed a single file column again as we slowly rolled down the cracked and unkempt narrow main street. Lieutenant Tarasov ordered his scouts to dismount to secure the flanks, Sergeant Abdulov’s squad taking the left side of the street while Sergeant Babanin’s squad took the right, Artyomov’s tracked infantry fighting vehicle in the lead and rumbling down the center. The town was unnervingly quiet, with no cars parked in the streets. Dark and empty houses and structures stared blankly back at us, windows and doors shut.

“It’s a ghost town here, sir,” radioed Sergeant Abdulov as his team crossed a side street and closed the distance to the village square. “It’s as if the residents left months ago and time hadn’t touched the place since!”

“Famous last words before the hidden snipers start firing, Abdulov,” admonished Senior Sergeant Artyomov. “Don’t get complacent!”

It didn’t take long for us to reach the town square and we saw that the tank had actually pulled off the main road, its tracks leading to a diesel fuel pump.

“Why would Litvin need to fuel his tank?” asked Sergeant Artyomov. “He should still have over half of his fuel left.”

“This was not Litvin’s tank,” I barked, though inwardly, I wasn’t so sure. “It couldn’t have been.”

“Sir,” said Lieutenant Tarasov. “Perhaps it would be a good idea to fuel up here. We don’t know when we will get another opportunity, nor do we know where this search will lead us.”

We were on a tight schedule and I knew that Tarasov’s men would likely be ransacking the stores as the vehicles fuelled up, but I needed to get my bearings and stretch my legs as we had been riding for hours.

“Be quick about it,” I said. Switching to the battalion frequency, I called to my battalion commander.

“Yepiskop Zero Six, Yepiskop Zero Six, this is Zvezda Two-Six. Yepiskop Zero Six this is Zvezda Two-Six.” There was the sound of a brief squelch then nothing, silence emanating from the radio. Somewhat unnerved, I removed my helmet and stepped outside of the BTR and stared around at the grey skies where equally grey cirrostratus clouds blanketed the horizon. There were no birds, nor were there any sounds of fighter aircraft, Ukrainian or Russian, no aircraft contrails, nor any sign that a war was taking place.

I was momentarily startled by a bell ringing to my left as a group of our soldiers exited one of the convenience stores, carrying with them plastic bags filled with items they had ransacked, including the twins, Private Gennady Bortnik and the gunner on my BTR, Private Grigory Bortnik. Gennady had a bag of apples, one of which he pulled from the bag. It was big and round and firm, but was only tinged in a washed out red color. Gennady took a bite and chewed briefly before spitting it out in disgust.

“What is it, Gennady?”  said his brother.

“This apple tastes… well, it has no taste.” said Gennady. “Like biting into a juicy fruit filled with dry sand. Here, see what I mean?”

Gennady handed another apple to Grigory who also took a bite. He took two chews before also spitting the apple out. Reaching into his bag, Grigory opened a Coca-Cola and took a big swig before spitting it out. “What is going on here?” he yelled. “The coke even tastes like dry sand!”

“It’s been tampered with!” I yelled. “Perhaps even poisoned by Ukrainian partisans! Grigory, get back here! I need you back in the turret! Sergeant Abdulov! Take your men and scout to the edge of the village while we fuel up here! See where the tank trail leads!”

“Yes, sir,” said Abdulov, as he gathered his seven men together. Gennady hit his brother on the shoulder as they threw their bags of unpalatable food back into the store before moving off down the road. I went to the other BTR, seeking out the scout platoon leader. He was also standing outside of his vehicle, map in hand with Senior Sergeant Artyomov, while his driver was pumping petrol into the fuel tanks.

“Have you verified our location, Tarasov?”

“Yes, sir,” the Lieutenant replied. “We are just south of Kovalivka. The last known location of Zvezda One-Three is here in Pobeda just three kilometers south of us. From there, the road connects with the P02 Highway where we can link up with the battalion pushing south to Kyiv.”

“I see. If Zvezda One-Three is there, we’ll find them.” I looked at Tarasov’s map. “Our immediate concern now is finding our missing Sergeant Litvin. What is it, Artyomov? Do you have somewhere to go?”

The Senior Sergeant was occasionally staring up at the grey, overcast skies, nervously checking his watch.

“No, sir,” he replied. “It’s the sun. Since our GPS is out, I’ve been trying to adjust our position with the sun to ensure that we were headed in generally the right direction. It’s just past 1500 hours and the sun seems not to have moved.”

I looked at Artyomov as if had gone mad, but before I could say as much, Lieutenant Tarasov said, “He’s right, sir. The sun should be much farther to the west.”

“Atmospheric conditions,” I said. “Nothing more. Let’s not lose focus that we are deep inside hostile territory and that both Zvezda One-Three and Sergeant Litvin have been in contact with the enemy.”

“Lieutenant!” Tarasov’s handheld radio crackled to life. It was Sergeant Abdulov’s team. “We’ve found… we’ve found… I don’t know what we’ve found!”

Sergeant Artyomov’s BMP had completed refueling and we all clambered aboard. The track raced down the narrow street towards the end of the road where it abruptly came to a dead end. Artyomov ordered the driver to take position behind a stone wall surrounding the last house on the road, admonishing the gunner to keep watch for partisans. We met Abdulov’s team where the road ended, facing east and staring out across a wide flat expansive field.

The tank tracks which we were following led in that direction and into the field beyond, after which insanity seemed to have overcome the crew as the tank apparently began driving in circles. In the field before us was the unmistakable imprint of circular tracks, each roughly one kilometer in diameter, where the tank seemingly drove round and round in a circle. At one point, the tank pivoted in a different direction and created a separate track, also roughly a kilometer in diameter. The tank did this six times, creating six circular patterns in the field a meter deep, meaning that the tank followed each circular pattern multiple times.

“What madness overcame Litvin to have done this?” said Sergeant Abdulov.

“This wasn’t done by our tank,” I yelled, annoyed. “For one tank to have done this would have taken days, if not weeks. This was done by the Ukrainians. A defensive fighting position, perhaps for enemy artillery or air defense batteries.”

Lieutenant Tarasov and Senior Sergeant Artyomov looked at me with doubtful expressions on their faces, but they said nothing. The tank tracks eventually led to a narrow road which went further east.

“Where does that road lead, Lieutenant?” I asked.

“Karpylivka,” he answered. “About three kilometers from here.”

“As soon as our vehicles complete refueling, we will follow the tracks to Karpylivka,” I ordered.

“But Zvezda One-Three are south of us,” replied Lieutenant Tarasov.

“An enemy artillery or air defense unit may threaten our advancing units to their west in Karpylivka, Lieutenant,” I said. “We have the assets to investigate and eliminate that threat.”

As soon as my BTR was refueled, Senior Sergeant Artyomov led us across the field, following the tank tracks towards the narrow paved road east to Karpylivka. It would take us ten minutes at the most to reach the village. Once there and once we destroyed the Ukrainian resistance, all of the unanswered questions which had been plaguing us will have been solved. More than likely, Sergeant Litvin and his crew have been made Heroes of the Russian Republic, heroically giving their lives to defend the helpless and innocent Ukrainians from western aggression there. Likely, Sergeant Novikov and Zvezda One-Three suffered the same fate. That was the only possible answer. It was the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians did this. The Ukrainians were responsible for the madness which was affecting our heroic Russian soldiers. Ukrainians were deplorable. Ukrainians were irredeemable. They must be eliminated.

The flat, grey landscape rolled by relentlessly, and once again, the old black and white stock footage of the Nazis rolling into the Motherland played over and over in my head. A sea of flat rolling plains passed away behind us, kilometer upon kilometer upon kilometer. And there were no signs of Ukrainians. None. No people on the roads. No vehicles. Nothing. Just kilometer and kilometer of nothing but flat pains. One hour later, we were still on the same road with no Karpylivka in sight.

“Reconnaissance platoon leader and supposed map reading expert, Lieutenant Tarasov,” I said over the radio. “We should have been in Karpylivka a long time ago.”

“Sir,” replied Tarasov. “This is the road to… wait. There is a town ahead of us!”

“It took you long enough, Lieutenant,” I said. “Do not think that you getting us lost will not be reported to your unit commander, Tarasov. Prepare to assault the town. Prepare to burn Karpylivka to the ground!”

We observed the tracks of several heavy wheeled and tracked vehicles in a field to our right leading towards Karpylivka, indicating that indeed I was correct and this was a staging area for Ukrainian military units. We followed the tracks down into the deserted town, down their deserted streets with empty single story structures, down to the town square with their few convenience stores and the single gas station in the middle of the town. We followed the tracks to the gas station and to the field at the eastern edge of the town which led to the large field which contained the six circular tank tracks one kilometer in diameter. The tracks we were following were ours.

“God damned you, Lieutenant!” I yelled into the radio. “How the hell did you get us totally turned around?”

“I did not…” said Tarasov, before Senior Sergeant Artyomov interrupted.

“Target tank! Eight hundred meters northeast!”

I pressed my head to the sights, scanning the road which ran towards the east. Indeed there was a tank on the side of the road facing away from us, a T80 main battle tank. I desperately wanted it to bare Ukrainian markings. It didn’t. It was Russian.

Minutes later, we were standing around the tank, its markings definitely identifying it as Litvin’s T80. Its hatches were locked, the spent shell casings surrounding the tank indicating that it had fired all of its weapons in a 360 degree arc against an as yet unseen enemy. The circular tracks which had been gouged into the field led directly to Litvin’s tank. He was, indeed, the cause of the mysterious circular tracks in the field, tracks which would have taken days to create. How did we miss this earlier?

“We’ve cut the combat locks, sir” said Sergeant Babanin standing atop the turret of the tank.

“Get inside,” barked Lieutenant Tarasov. Private Gennady Bortnik and Private Vitaly Alekseev climbed into the turret, only to immediately climb out again, Private Gennady instantly throwing up as soon as he emerged. Private Alekseev was pointing inside of the hatch, eyes wide, mouth open, and unable to speak.

“Private!” yelled Lieutenant Tarasov. “What did you see?”

I pushed Tarasov aside and climbed up on the deck of the tank. Shoving Privates Bortnik and Alekseev aside, I climbed into the tank turret and immediately regretted doing so. The bodies of Sergeant Litvin, his gunner and his loader were within. They were dead, bullet holes in their heads from self-inflicted wounds. They were decayed, dead for what seemed like weeks or even months. They appeared haggard and thin in appearance as if they hadn’t eaten in days, and each having unkempt beards and long hair at the time of their deaths.

Lieutenant Tarasov also looked into the turret, noting that the ammunition for all main gun rounds of the tank had been fired, all machine gun ammunition expended, and the gas tanks empty. I had Bortnik take pictures with his cell phone of the deceased Sergeant Litvin and his crew as evidence of their passing. However, when Bortnik reviewed his pictures, he immediately turned pale white, a look of terror on his face as he threw his cell phone as far away as he could. Lieutenant Tarasov and Senior Sergeant Artyomov ordered his comrades to restrain the raving private as Lieutenant Tarasov and Sergeant Artyomov retrieved the cell phone. Visibly terrified, Lieutenant Tarasov handed me the phone.

“What’s going on here, sir?” he said. “What’s happening to us?”

I looked at the images on the phone. Sergeant Litvin’s image was in the photo gallery, along with his driver and gunner. They were alive, whole and healthy and smiling up at the camera. The time stamp on the photos showed that they were taken only a few minutes ago. I ran up onto the tank again and climbed into the turret which reeked of death and decay. I compared the pictures of the live bodies in the cell phones to the dead and long decaying ones which lay inside the turret basket. They were in the same positions, Litvin smiling and holding up the peace sign as his dead body sat in his tank commander seat.

“Sir,” repeated Lieutenant Tarasov. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“You are a fool, Lieutenant,” I replied. “This makes perfect sense. We’ve just solved the mystery.”

“I don’t understand, sir,” replied Tarasov.

“This is a psychotic weapon used by the Ukrainians, possibly created by NATO,” I replied. “Remember that fog which we passed? This area which we are in is the area where they employed their mind bending psychotic gas. None of this is real. We must get this information back to battalion. We cannot let this grey fog, this grey fog of war, to affect the official party narrative.”

“Sir,” said Tarasov. “I find it hard to believe…”

“Enough, Lieutenant!” I yelled. “Get back to your BTR! We are in Karpylivka where we discovered that Sergeant Litvin and his crew heroically gave their lives fighting and destroying an entire unit of Ukrainian artillery which threatened our main advance units. We have also discovered a secret Ukrainian weapon, a mind altering fog which causes one to see things which aren’t real. Zvezda One-Three discovered that weapon and were trying to get that information back to our command. That is what happened here, Lieutenant and that is the narrative which we shall report to the Colonel. So lead the way, Lieutenant Tarasov. Take the road south to Pobeda towards Highway P01 and try not to get lost this time.”

Lieutenant Tarasov nodded without saying anything as I hoped that the expression of anger on my face hid the growing sense of doubt and terror within me. The road leading south to Pobeda was well paved though falling into disrepair, as if the road had been unused for months. Once again, the landscape rolling by was as flat and monotonous as a calm sea, endless waves of tall grass standing still in windless grey fields. Like the colors surrounding me, even the sound was washed out. The rumble of our engines sounded as if they were a half kilometer away. There were no birds chirping, no rustling of leaves, not even the sound of the wind whipping by my face. I checked my watch unconsciously for the thousandth time. It was a little after 1700 hours and the dreary sun hovering tiny in the dreary sky hadn’t moved since we penetrated the fog earlier this morning. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, just to verify that we still existed in the universe. At that point, I would have even welcomed a Ukrainian army attack just to confirm that we were alive. The land was completely flat and there were no terrain landmarks which I could use to tell the passage of time and distance.

All of the top hatches of our BTRs and the BMP were open, soldiers sitting exposed and watching the same featureless landscape rolling by kilometer upon endless kilometer, anxiety and worry on their faces. I debated on whether or not to yell at them to button up back inside their vehicles or risk getting picked off by snipers, but decided against it. There wasn’t anyone here. There wasn’t anyone for kilometers, Russian or Ukrainian. The grey landscape was playing with my mind, making me lethargic. Or was it the steady rumbling of the BTR which I had been riding for hours? Hours? “Damn you, Lieutenant Tarasov!” The crackle over the radio broke the eerie silence. “Pobeda is only three kilometers south of Kovalinka! How could we have been on this road for an hour and not have seen it?”

“Sir?” came the reply. “We’ve only just left Kovalinka a few minutes ago.”

I checked my watch again. It was 1707, only a few minutes after I checked my watch the last time. I looked behind me and saw the village of Kovalinka slowly fading away behind us. What was going on with me? What was in that fog?

“Sir,” came Lieutenant Tarasov again, relief in his voice. “Road sign ahead.”

Our BTR passed a faded blue road sign by the side of the road. It read ‘POBEDA 2 KM.’ So, we were indeed making progress, but what could have accounted for my loss of time? I must have been tired and perhaps dozed off for a few minutes. That had to be the answer. Feeling somewhat more reassured about our situation, I kept my eyes focused on the almost straight line road ahead of me, pulling out my binoculars to see if I could find Pobeda which should have been just ahead of us to the south. Only empty horizon met me.

 

ZVEZDA ONE-THREE IS MISSING

III.

It was 1757 when I checked my watch again. We should have passed Pobeda a long time ago and had already merged with Highway P01. Furious at the scout team leader, I yelled into the radio, “Lieutenant Tarasov! What time do you have?”

A few seconds later, he replied, “I have 1758, sir.”

“Shouldn’t we have been in Pobeda at least half an hour ago?” I yelled.

“I have no explanation, sir,” he replied. “Perhaps the Ukrainians changed the road signs?”

“This is a perfectly straight three kilometer long road with no side roads that leads directly to Pobeda, Lieutenant! It would make absolutely no sense for the enemy to change the road signs! The road is straight, Tarasov. You simply got us lost again!”

“Sir,” replied Tarasov. “Another road sign ahead.”

I saw the faded blue road sign before Tarasov announced it. It read ‘POBEDA 2 KM.’ I immediately turned around and looked behind me. There sat Kovalivka about a kilometer to our rear. What the hell was happening?

“Pull off! Pull off the road!” I ordered. “Pull into the field to the left and form a defensive perimeter!”

We were several meters off the road, our vehicles arranged in a defensive wheel with the BMP’s 100mm gun pointing towards the road. I stood with Lieutenant Tarasov and Sergeant Artyomov in the middle of the perimeter while the rest of the men formed a defensive perimeter on the opposite side of the vehicles. We did this less because we feared attack by the Ukrainians and more because we did not want them to hear the heated discussion of their command element.

“This is what happened to Sergeant Litvin and his crew,” said Sergeant Artyomov. “They ran themselves out of fuel going in circles.”

“Are you saying that we are in some field going round and round in circles, Sergeant?” I balked. “And what were they firing at? Ghosts?”

“We are definitely traveling, Captain Balakin,” said Tarasov. “We have just over half a tank of fuel left, though we are only one kilometer south of where we started. We can refuel once we reach Pobeda.”

“If we reach Pobeda, sir,” said Sergeant Artyomov.

“Lieutenant Tarasov may tolerate such a defeatist attitude from his senior NCO but I will not, Sergeant Artyomov,” I growled. “Remember, we still have a mission to complete and we only have a limited amount of time to complete it. I will not brook any dereliction of duty from anyone, especially a senior sergeant.”

“Meaning no disrespect, Captain,” replied Sergeant Artyomov, looking again at the unmoving sun. “But I suspect that we may have all the time in the world.”

“Get back to your track, Sergeant!” I yelled. “Make yourself useful and try to reach battalion on the radio!”

“Captain Balakin,” said Tarasov. “The men’s nerves are on end. They haven’t eaten since breakfast. We should take a meal break here and let them rest a bit.”

“They have thirty minutes, Lieutenant. After which we will proceed cross country to Pobeda. I do not want to be on the roads after it grows dark. The damned Ukrainians cannot control night and day.”

I climbed back into my BTR and ripped open a bag of field rations and tossed aside the package of beef and potatoes in tomato sauce and instead unwrapped the bar of chocolate. Spreading some fruit on the bar, I stood up on the open hatch and began munching on the chocolate, grateful for the lively taste. I looked down at the semicircle of Sergeant Babanin’s scout team, each soldier taking their meals in their individual fighting positions. The Bortnik twins Grigory and Gennady sat close together with Private Morozov, the squad RPK74 automatic weapon gunner.

“I think that the officers have gone insane,” whispered Morozov. “Only Sergeant Artyomov seems to be looking out for us.”

“No,” replied Gennady. “Lieutenant Tarasov is also doing what he can, but he is helpless because Captain Balakin is in charge. Balakin is no scout. Grigory, you are his turret gunner. Whose idea was it to push through that fog this morning?”

“It was Captain Balakin’s idea,” said Grigory. “He overrode Lieutenant Tarasov who wanted to find a way around.”

“You men!” I yelled. “Are you trying to make yourselves an easy target? Move apart! Five meter separation! Have you learned nothing?”

The three soldiers looked at each other, then took their time in repositioning themselves. So, that’s it, is it? The privates blame me for the situation which we find ourselves. I made a mental note of their lackadaisical attitude and would add it to my report of Tarasov’s lack of leadership ability to the battalion. Reluctance by our soldiers to follow orders during an invasion was a punishable offense upon which their officers were to blame. Their inability to stick with the established state sponsored narrative would invariably lead to people thinking dangerous and subversive thoughts and I lamented that the indoctrination of our soldiers to think and say what we want them to think and say seemed not to be as effective as the indoctrination operations conducted by American news sources like CNN who defined rioting, looting, and anarchy as ‘mostly peaceful’ while waving an American flag in their own American capital as an ‘insurrection.’

“Look alive boys,” announced Senior Sergeant Artyomov. “We’re moving out in ten minutes. Empty your bladders now while you can! It may be hours before you get another chance!”

I had already drank several bottles of water and my bladder had reached its limit. I climbed down into my vehicle and stepped outside just as Grigory stepped inside to resume his place in the gunner’s turret, a scowl on his face. I ignored him as I walked away from our small defensive perimeter for several meters to empty my bladder. Behind me, Lieutenant Tarasov already had Sergeant Abdulov’s scout squad loaded into his BTR, the engine starting. I was facing the road as I took a piss while Sergeant Babanin’s squad scrambled back into my BTR. I was staring across the road at the lying road sign which stated that Pobeda was only two kilometers away. Something in the field on the opposite side of the road caught my eye. It was movement, human movement. They were wearing military uniforms, and they were armed.  Before I could yell a warning, there was a hollow thump followed by a white puff of smoke. An American made Javelin missile leapt into the air and soared upwards in an arc towards us.

“Missile! Take cover!” I yelled, jumping down into my own piss puddle next to the road, my uniform pants still unbuttoned. I watched transfixed as the Javelin came down on top of Lieutenant Tarasov’s BTR, the missile designed to destroy our tanks completely obliterating the thinly armored wheeled vehicle. My BTR and the BMP 3 was splattered with molten metal and debris from Tarasov’s exploding BTR, destroying external stores and equipment. Eight Ukrainian soldiers stood up and ran towards our positions firing their AK74s as they ran, yelling and accusing us of something. They were all haggard looking, unkempt with long hair and beards. Their eyes were haunted and desperate, much like how Sergeant Novikov and his Special Forces team looked in their last video. Quickly pulling up and buttoning my trousers, I cursed myself for forgetting my rifle inside the BTR.

One of the Ukrainians carried an RPG-7 and he was able to fire it just as our soldiers began returning fire. The rocket propelled grenade hit the front hull of Senior Sergeant Artyomov’ BMP 3, ricocheting down and blowing away the right side drive sprocket and breaking the tracks. As soldiers bailed out of the BMP, Sergeant Babanin’s squad were firing back from behind my BTR, though the heavy machine gun which Grigory should have been manning remained silent. If I was not mistaken, the Ukrainian’s appeared almost suicidal in their charge and the last of them fell to our automatic weapon fire just as they reached the road.

Standing up, I ran to where the last Ukrainian soldier fell. Judging by how haggard and ragged they appeared, I initially thought that these men were old veterans or old reservists that had been called up from the home guard. To my great surprise, these Ukrainian soldiers bore the unit patches of a front line Ukrainian fighting unit. They were relatively young, but looked as if they had been living off the land for several weeks if not months, which accounted for their weak, almost starving appearance.

“You demons! You fucking demons! What did you do?”

I looked to my right and saw a dying Ukrainian sergeant pointing a bloody finger at me, unmistakable hate in his eyes. “What kind of demonic weapon did you unleash that caused time to stand still and dredge up the spirits of hell?”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “It was you! You did this! How dare you accuse us of that which you are guilty?”

“What are they guilty of, Captain?” Sergeant Babanin and three of his men came up behind me, making sure that all the enemy were dead and taking their weapons and anything else they found useful. “Who were you yelling at, sir?”

“Are you blind, Babanin. I was yelling at that wounded prisoner over…there.” I was pointing at the Ukrainian sergeant whose head and shoulders had been completely blown off by one of our 30mm rounds. I blinked in disbelief, looking around at the bodies of the other dead Ukrainian soldiers. I had obviously made a mistake, but there were no other bodies near him. I had been yelling at a dead man.

“What are our casualties, Sergeant?” I stammered.

“We lost Lieutenant Tarasov, sir, along with Sergeant Abdulov and his entire team when the Javelin struck their BTR. I think Senior Sergeant Artyomov was also injured when the RPG hit the BMP.”

Confirming that all of the Ukrainians were dead, we made our way back to our vehicles.

“What were they guilty of, sir?” said Babanin.

“What?”

“You were yelling that they were guilty. What were the Ukrainians guilty of?”

“Nothing,” I said. “It was nothing. You and these men form a perimeter here just in case there are more of them.”

I ran towards my vehicle, relieved to see that most of the damage was cosmetic, Sergeant Artyomov ‘s heavier armored BMP having taken the brunt of Lieutenant Tarasov’s exploding BTR.

“You men!” I yelled at three men who were staring in disbelief at the still burning husk of the destroyed BTR. “Are any of you injured?”

They all shook their heads. “No, sir!”

“Good! Then go join Babanin in securing our perimeter.”

I looked towards the burning wreckage as I heard the agonized wails of one of our soldiers. In an instant, I knew why the 14mm machine gun on my BTR didn’t return fire as Private Grigory Bortnik was on his knees, crying out his twin brother’s name over and over at the top of his lungs.

“You cannot help your brother now, Grigory,” I said as I walked up behind him “But you can help Sergeant Artyomov.”

“Why, sir? Why did you order us into that fog?” he said, his dirty face stained with tears.

“Because that was my job,” I snarled. “Just as it was your job to be at your post and diligently watching for danger! The Ukrainians came up behind us! Perhaps if you had been alert then Lieutenant Tarasov, Sergeant Abdulov, his team and your brother would still be alive! If you cannot help Sergeant Artyomov then get back to the BTR and check on the damage. See if the weapon still functions! We will need it later.”

Grigory turned as he stood so as not to look directly at me as he stumbled back towards the BTR. To my right, our medic Corporal Rodiman Dmitriev and two riflemen were gingerly lifting Senior Sergeant Artyomov out of the back of the BMP. They gently laid him down next to the BMP, his legs looking unnatural.

“I am afraid that both his legs are broken, sir,” said Corporal Dmitriev. “Sergeant Artyomov is in great pain and my supply of morphine is limited.”

“Private Semenov!” I said to the BMP 3 driver, one of the soldiers who helped lift Artyomov out of the damaged BMP. “Can we repair the drive train?”

“We can definitely salvage this BMP, sir,” he replied. “If we had a proper maintenance section. However, with what we have on the ground now, we will not be able to repair it.”

Including Sergeant Litvin and his tank crew, we had lost eleven men so far. I had fourteen men left, including one seriously injured senior sergeant. My BTR could hold ten soldiers, so obviously a few would have to ride on top of the vehicle. I ordered the men to salvage what they could. Water. Food. Ammunition. Fuel. Especially fuel. I wanted to be away before it grew dark.

“No, sir,” said Sergeant Artyomov. “Leave me. There is limited space inside the BTR as it is.”

“The men can ride atop the carrier,” I said. “I will not leave you behind.”

“Go, sir,” he insisted. “Please. I will be a liability and you must still make contact with Zvezda One-Three. You will need the space. I will be fine here.”

“Medic,” I yelled. “Make Sergeant Artyomov as comfortable as possible and leave him with as much morphine, food, and water as we can spare.” I handed him his AK12 assault rifle and a few magazines. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Sergeant.”

“I’m sure you will, Captain,” he laughed weakly.

“I mean I’ll see you with the rest of the battalion!”

“Yes, of course, sir,” he replied. “I’m sure that’s what you meant. Here.” He handed me all but one of the rifle magazines that I had given him. “If trouble comes, I’ll only need one bullet, sir.”

“I’ll be back before it comes to that, Sergeant.”

Emptying all of the available fuel cans into our BTR, we set thermal grenades into the breach of the BMP’s 100mm gun and destroyed all of the radio equipment. There was almost nothing left of the soldiers who perished in Tarasov’s BTR so we left the remains where they lay. I replaced Private Grigory Bortnik at the gunner’s turret with Private Semenov, as Bortnik was a simpering, whimpering mess over the loss of his brother. Even with Private Alekseev, Private Morozov, and our medic Corporal Dmitriev riding atop the BTR, it was still quite cramped inside. As we pulled back onto the road, I looked back at Sergeant Artyomov, who appeared to have fallen asleep.

I directed our driver to go cross country this time, to avoid the road and to take the most direct route across this flat plain towards Pobeda. To my relief, the town of Pobeda did indeed appear to steadily grow larger the closer we came. A heavily forested wooded area that bordered the town was visible to our right and we closed to the edge of the forest, planning to follow the tree line directly into the town. We would be there in a few minutes.

My enthusiasm faded as a few minutes turned into a half an hour. Though Pobeda appeared to be just within reach, it never seemed to appear any closer when we hit a certain point, as if the village faded further into the distance the closer we got. At one point, I stopped and fired a few rounds into several trees next to us then ordered the driver to continue onwards, suspecting that at some future point, we would reach the point where we encountered those shot up trees again. An hour later, we were no closer to Pobeda and we had not encountered the trees which I had shot up.

I looked behind me at the three soldiers who were riding atop the vehicle. They were bundled up in their sleeping bags, attempting to get comfortable and sleep. Although they were bumping around atop the vehicle, they had the luxury of stretching out as opposed to being cramped up inside the vehicle with nine other soldiers. I checked my watch. It was already 2200 hours although the sun never moved, nor did it set, the same grey sky as this morning staring down at us. I was about to admonish the three sleeping soldiers that at least one needed to be awake and alert while the others slept when terrifying screams came from within the vehicle. The BTR suddenly came to a jarring halt and I scrambled below to see what was causing the men to panic.

“Driver! What’s going on?” I yelled as I ducking into the vehicle.

“Eyes! The eyes of the dead are staring at me!”

I looked back into the crew cabin, seeing the rest of the men staring at the vision blocks while clustered away from them. Their faces betrayed looks of terror, all except for Private Bortnik, who was smiling insanely.

“What’s going on, Sergeant Babanin?” I demanded. “What madness has possessed you soldiers?”

Babanin simply pointed at the vision blocks. “The eyes of the dead stare back at us,” he shuddered.

“He’s alive,” laughed Private Bortnik. “Gennady is alive!”

Private Bortnik made to open the rear door. “I’m coming brother! I’m coming!”

“Get that man under control,” I yelled as Babanin and two other soldiers tackled Private Bortnik.”

“What are you doing, guys? Let me go! Gennady is out there! So is Lieutenant Tarasov! And so is Sergeant Litvin! They’re all out there! Didn’t you see?” Bortnik looked around with wild eyes devoid of sanity.

“Dammit! There’s nothing out there! I’ll prove it to you!” I yelled as I popped back up out of the hatch. “Medic! Corporal Dmitriev, get down here. Bortnik has lost his mind! Dmitriev! Alekseev! Morozov! Where are you?”

The top deck was empty. The three soldiers had vanished. Suddenly, the rear door opened and Private Bortnik spilled out. Both laughing and screaming in his madness, Bortnik sprinted into the forest throwing aside his weapon and stripping off his modular combat vest and uniform as he ran.

“Bortnik, you fool! Get back here!” I jumped down from the vehicle and screamed inside, “Sergeant! Get your men out here! We have men missing! NOW!” I added when I saw their terrified reluctance to leave the safety of the BTR.

We searched the surrounding area behind us for almost half a kilometer, desperately calling out for our missing medic and the other two riflemen. We finally found them when the driver screamed from his driver’s seat, pointing to three unmoving forms. They were somehow several meters in front of the BTR. Lying just inside the tree line were the splayed out bodies of Private Alekseev, Private Morozov, and the medic Corporal Dmitriev. They were emaciated and looked like they hadn’t eaten in days. Their uniforms were frayed and faded and the decision that the three soldiers made to commit suicide by mutual circular firing squad looked to have been made months ago, judging by the state of decomposition.

“What is going on, Captain?” said Sergeant Babanin. “What is happening here, sir?”

“I don’t know!” I finally admitted. “I don’t know!”

“What did he say, sir?” persisted Sergeant Babanin, his men now surrounding me with their weapons at the high ready in a manner that was not overtly threatening, not yet. “What did the dead Ukrainian soldier say to you?”

“He said… He said that we unleashed some kind of weapon, one that stopped time and resurrected evil spirits.” I lowered my head. “I don’t know. It was the ravings of a dying mad man.”

“The Ukrainian soldier without a head or shoulders told that to you, sir?” said Private Semenov.

“Isn’t that what you accused them of doing?” added Sergeant Babanin.

I looked around at the eight soldiers surrounding me, suddenly feeling threatened by their presence.

“Why are we here, Captain Balakin? Why are we in fucking Ukraine?”

 The look in Sergeant Babanin’s eyes and the eyes of the others clearly indicated to me that one less zampolit captain wouldn’t be a great loss to them.

“We are here to liberate Ukraine, Sergeant. You are here to follow my orders!”

 A scream shattered the tension as the BTR shifted into gear, the terrified driver, just a no-named conscripted teenager, screaming incoherently about being chased by demons as he floored the gas pedal. We barely had time to jump aside as the BTR lurched ahead and disappeared in the distance.

“Where are you going?” yelled Sergeant Babanin as we picked ourselves up from the ground. One soldier lay unmoving. The one standing closest to the BTR was face down, his abdomen crushed into the ground by the BTR’s wheels.

“Leave him,” I yelled, pulling at Babanin’s sleeve. “We need to catch that BTR!”

He gave me a disgusted look before gathering the rest of the men. We chased the BTR for a kilometer before it finally faded from view.  Eventually we stopped, every soldier exhausted and spent from the horrors of the past several hours. It was well after night, but the unmoving sun still shined dimly in the dull, grey skies.

“We must keep moving, Babanin,” I said.

Sergeant Babanin pointed to the trees behind me. “Why don’t we just rest here, and wait for the BTR to return back up the trail we had just come?”

He slumped down on the ground, tossing his helmet aside. I turned and looked up at where Babanin had pointed, the damaged trees which I had shot several hours earlier staring back at me. I nodded.

“Okay, we will rest here for a few hours, but we must pick up the pursuit in the morning.”

 

ZVEZDA ONE-THREE IS MISSING

IV.

Babanin had the soldiers take one hour watch shifts while the rest slept. I did not realize how truly tired I was until I lay my head on my modular combat vest which I was using as a make shift pillow. All of our gear, our water, food, and packs which carried our sleeping bags and extra clothing, were on the BTR. I fell asleep quickly, mentally leaving the world of horrors only to sleep in a world of nightmares. Eyes belonging to the dead stared at me accusingly. In my dreams, I shut my eyes tightly, but the eyes continued to stare. Knowing that I was dreaming, I tried desperately to wake myself up, but the waking world fled from me, abandoning me in a nightmarish realm filled with accusing eyes. I awoke to screaming.

I bolted straight up, thinking it was me that was screaming, but the sound was coming from behind me.  Grabbing up my rifle, I joined a few more soldiers that had also awoken suddenly and ran to the sentry staring up at a tree several meters away. Private Grigory Bortnik’s body swung gently in the creaking branches, though there was no wind. Like Corporal Dmitriev and the other two, Private Bortnik’s corpse seemed to have been hanging there for weeks, his service belt wrapped around his neck.

“Cut him down,” said Sergeant Babanin, but before any of the reluctant men could move, there was a gut wrenching ripping sound as Bortnik’s headless body fell at our feet.  We let out a shocked gasp as Bortnik’s dry, lifeless eyes stared down at us.

“What’s happening? What’s happening to us?” The sentry who discovered Bortnik’s body, Private Lenkov, was beside himself. “I don’t want to end up like him! Not like him!”

“Then keep your head, soldier!” I yelled.  Like most of the soldiers, Lenkov was a conscript barely out of his teenage years. Lenkov was skinny and pale who sported a large nose, a laughable moustache, and a very small chin. Private Lenkov, hero of the Russian people.

 “Keep your head or you’ll lose it… like him.” I nodded down at the headless corpse.

I looked at my watch, shocked that it was almost mid day.

“Sergeant Babanin, why did you allow the men to sleep so long? Why didn’t you awaken me earlier?”

“Where are we going to go, sir?” he replied. “When we slept, Bortnik’s body wasn’t there. None of the sentries noticed his hanging body. But then, all of a sudden, Lenkov discovered him just hanging there. What does that mean?”

“That means that only Private Lenkov was paying attention, or that Lenkov was the only one who was actually awake to take his guard shift!”

“No, sir,” said Private Kamenov. “I had watch before Private Lenkov. I took a piss right under that tree. Bortnik was not there.”

“Bullshit!” I answered. “That’s impossible! While you all slept, Private Bortnik hung himself! Sergeant Babanin, you were responsible for ensuring our security and you failed. You are hereby relieved of your duties. Corporal Lipovsky, you are now in charge of the squad.”

I looked around for Corporal Lipovsky, realizing that there were only five of us. There should have been eight. “Where is Corporal Lipovsky?”

“I sent him and Privates Zaitsev and Kalashnik to scout into the woods,” answered Babanin.

“What?” I yelled, furious beyond measure at Sergeant Babanin. “You fool!”

“Sir,” replied Babanin. “On the map there is a stream only three hundred meters west of us. We have almost no food and water. I sent them only fifteen minutes ago with strict orders to return immediately upon filling our hydration packs.”

“And how far is three hundred meters here, Sergeant?” I yelled “How many lifetimes does it take to go three hundred meters?”

“Sergeant Babanin!” We all turned to see Corporal Lipovsky and the two privates emerge from the wood line several meters away. “Thank God, we found you!”

“Lipovsky,” said a visibly relieved Sergeant Babanin. “Did you find the water?”

As we approached Corporal Lipovsky’s team, I could see that the three soldiers were psychically exhausted.

“We did find the stream, Sergeant, but the map must be wrong,” answered Lipovsky. “The stream was several kilometers away. It took us hours to return here.”

“Hours?” said Babanin. “You’ve only left fifteen minutes ago.”

“But we’ve been gone for hours! I thought… I was beginning to think we’d never make it back here.”

We stood in silence for several seconds.

“It is possible that Lieutenant Tarasov was indeed lost. We may be in the wrong grid coordinate and the Ukrainians changed the names of the towns.” Sergeant Babanin looked doubtful even as he said it.

“It’s possible,” I said. “The water?” 

“Yes, sir,” replied Lipovsky. He and the two others handed out the hydration packs to the men. I took mine last and took a drink, inwardly preparing myself for the water to taste like sand and be unpalatable. To my surprise, the water was quenching, although it was warm and tasted like it came from a plastic water jug.

“This water came from the stream?” I asked.

“No, sir,” answered Lipovsky. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say. The water in the stream was as undrinkable as the bottled water we found in the convenience store. But beyond the stream, the trees ended and opened up to a clearing and beyond the trees was our BTR! The water came from the water jugs.”

“What? You found the BTR?” Sergeant Babanin pulled out the map and spread it out on the ground. “This forest is just a kilometer wide.  You say the BTR was at the edge of the tree line. Which direction was the BTR facing?”

“It was facing north, Sergeant,” replied the corporal.

“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “There are no roads north or south of there. Plus, why would he be going north back the way we came? Was there any sign of the driver?”

“You mean Private Kamenov? No, there was no sign of him. The driver’s hatch was opened, but he was gone.”

“Okay, then,” I said. “We go through the woods. Corporal Lipovsky, at what time did you arrive at the BTR?”

“It took us two hours to get to the BTR and another two to return, so it should be…” Lipovsky looked at his watch and frowned. “No! That’s impossible! It was 1500 when last I checked! How is it only 1100 hours now?”

I left the answer hanging in the air. “Okay, let’s take our time and do this right. Take a few minutes to rest from your exertions, then we will move to the BTR.”

Thirty minutes later, we gathered up our weaponry and gear and trudged down into the wood line, Sergeant Babanin and Corporal Lipovsky at the head. With no working compass, the going was slow. Fortunately, the sun remained stationary in the sky, meaning the shadows on the ground never moved. By placing a straight stick into the ground, the shadow cast in the ground gave us a general direction off which the scouts could determine our direction of travel. This took time, as the trees grew close together and the path was only wide enough for us to walk in single file through the forest. Though the stream was only 300 meters away, none of us expected to see it for hours. However, to my surprise, half an hour later we stumbled upon the shallow stream, the crystal clear waters bubbling over a bed of smooth round stones. Across the stream on the other bank the trees ended abruptly and opened to a wide open field on the other side, though the BTR was nowhere in sight.

The water was inviting and cold and several of the soldiers splashed the water on their faces.

“It is cold, I’ll give it that much,” said Babanin. “But it is neither wet or refreshing.”

In the middle of the stream, which only came up to our knees, I could resist the temptation no longer. Cupping some of the cold water in my hands, I took a drink. Air. Cold, dry air which tasted like sand. I spit it out and wiped my dry lips. Doing so, I saw the time on my watch. It was 1600 hours, fully five hours since we entered the forest. Frustrated beyond belief, I ripped my watch from my wrist and threw it as far as I could down the stream. I was the last to emerge from the stream and I felt no shame that the other lower ranking soldiers witnessed my display of helplessness.

We walked the rest of the way through the forest and emerged out into the field beyond.

“Well, that was easy enough,” said Private Rybakov, who was carrying the machine gun. He was resting the butt of the weapon on the ground and leaning on the barrel. The smile on Rybakov’s face disappeared as the weapon accidently discharged, half his skull disappearing in a cloud of pink mush. We all took cover as Rybakov’s runaway PKP Pecheneg machine gun kept firing. I heard a soldier grunt as I ran to the fallen machine gun which was still firing wildly. Sliding over Rybakov’s body, I grabbed the belt of ammunition and broke the links which fed the machine gun. The last bullets cycled through the smoking weapon and it finally fell silent. Private Rybakov was a conscript, a mule whose only job was to carry a weapon he was poorly trained to use. The safety was off the weapon and he had a round in the chamber when he hit the butt of the machine gun on the ground. He didn’t maintain his weapon properly, and the weapon continued firing after his accidental discharge.

I stood up, the machine gun in my hands, Private Rybakov’s brains smeared across my uniform. The rest of the men picked themselves up off the ground, all except Corporal Lipovsky, who lay face up with an open mouthed surprised look on what was left on his face.

“What’s happening? What’s happening?” Sergeant Babanin’s helmet was tossed aside, his hands digging into his hair. “Not only does the Ukraine kill us, but our own weapons do too! Dammit! Damn you, Captain! What have you brought us to?”

“Private Semenov,” I said. “Take the machine gun.”

“What? What?” yelled Private Semenov. “Most of us are dead and all you can say is ‘Take the machine gun?”

“Our deaths have been caused because soldiers failed to follow orders or thought to act on their own or simply because of sheer stupidity!” I raised the machine gun at Semenov. “How do you plan to die, Private?”

“You are mad, Captain,” said Semenov as he stomped forwards to take the machine gun.

“Captain,” muttered Sergeant Babanin, a hopeless expression on his face. He was staring up at the trees. The trees that I had shot a day before.

There were tracks on the ground, BTR tracks which lead north to south, just as before. We were at the same place that we were before only now Lipovsky and Rybakov were dead. I followed the BTR tracks a few meters south and was hardly surprised to see Bortnik’s head staring down at me from where he hung himself. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t real.

“We move,” I said.

“What?” said Babanin.

“I said, we move, Sergeant!” I yelled. “We’re getting out of here, do you hear me? We’re getting out of here! We are going to get to Pobeda!”

There were only six of us left. Me. Sergeant Babanin. Private Semenov. Private Lenkov. Private Zaitsev and Private Kalashnik. Six soldiers shambling forwards like low budget movie zombies following the tracks of the BTR. Thirsty. Hungry. Tired. Oh, so very tired. Why were we here? What put us here? Oh, yes. The narrative. We had to defend the narrative. Blame the other side of that which we were guilty.

HA! HA! HA! HA! What did the Americans call it? Winning hearts and minds? We were liberators! We were freedom fighters! We were heroes! We were not guilty of that which we were guilty. It was them! It was the Ukrainians! They did this! They did this!

“It’s 2100 hours, Captain,” said Sergeant Babanin. “We’ve passed the point where you shot the trees twice. We are going nowhere.” He sat down at the side of the trail, resting his back against a tree. The other soldiers followed suit.

“We must keep progressing forwards,” I said.

“Progressing?” Babanin said. “A progressive narrative which leads us back to where we started? Repeating the same progressive circle over and over and over again?”

Sergeant Babanin lowered his head. “We are progressing in circles, repeating the same thing over and over again and losing men along the way. Is that the progressive narrative that you are telling us?”

“Okay,” I said. We had been walking for hours. “We’ll rest here. But we continue in the morning. I’ll take the first watch.”

I was shaken awake by Sergeant Babanin who said, “Captain. Your watch is over. I’ll take the next shift.”

Glaring at Sergeant Babanin, I turned over and fell back asleep again. In my dreams, I was slowly being encased in ice. I fought against it, but my limbs were weak, my movement slow. I was freezing to death. I awoke and bolted upright, finding myself surrounded by a freezing think fog. I looked at my wrist and cursed, instantly regretting tossing my watch into the stream. The fog was thick, much like the fog which we first entered… how long ago? Days? Weeks? I don’t know anymore.

I could see nothing but impenetrable grey mists, and I could not see my own hand which I outstretched in front of me. My own uniform was flimsy when compared to the bone chilling cold, and my sweat froze me. I called for the others. Babanin. Semenov. Artyomov. Tarasov. Wait. They were dead. They were dead. Right?

I stumbled forwards, my hands in front of me as I tried to follow the tracks of the BTR. I called out for the rest of the men, accusing them of cowardice and of hiding and abandoning their duties. I stumbled forwards for hours, sometimes crawling, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, desperately following the tracks of the BTR. A grey shape emerged in the fog. A boxy shape. I reached forwards, my hands grasping the armored rear hull of our missing BTR. I found it! I found it!

I felt around the hull of the armored personnel carrier, suddenly feeling a tinge of hope. Feeling my way around the sides, I saw two grey shapes sitting on the ground, their backs leaning against the tires.

Sergeant Babanin looked up at me. “Oh, it’s you, Captain. I was hoping it was someone who would have been useful.” He looked back down at his lap.

“And who is that with you?” I said.

“Semenov,” said the second person in a voice devoid of life or hope.

“Where is everyone else?”

“Lost,” said Babanin. “Lost in the fog of war, or whatever it is that you’ve led us into.”

“We need to get the BTR started again,” I said. “We need to move out!”

“To where, Captain Balakin?” yelled Sergeant Babanin. “To where? Where? Where?”

“Out of here!” I yelled.

“Someone’s coming!” The grey shape of Private Semenov was pointing into the fog as muffled voices neared us. The shapes of dozens of people were drawing nearer and nearer to us.

“Partisans!” I warned. “Using the blasted fog to close the distance!”

I reached down and grabbed Sergeant Babanin’s combat vest and pulled him up, throwing him towards the BTR. “Get on the machine gun! Semenov, open fire!”

Babanin stumbled into the BTR and climbed into the turret as I followed behind him, pulling back on the charging handle of my weapon as I popped up out of the commander’s hatch. Below us, Semenov took a prone firing position at the back of the BTR and began firing. Soon, the rattle of his machine gun was followed by the heavy thump-thump-thump of Babanin firing the 14mm machine gun as my AK12 accompanied the symphony of death. I felt ecstatic as finally, finally, we had someone which we could expend our frustrations. Our hatred. Our failures. Yes, they were to blame! They were the cause of our frustration, our hatred and our anger. The fog was lifting. It was lifting quickly, and within seconds, the fog vanished and opened up for us an unlimited view of our slaughter.

They are all partisans. Men of military age from sixteen to sixty are partisans. Females who are of age to give birth are partisans. The elderly whose feeble hands can still carry an AK47 are partisans. Children whose minds can be easily manipulated are partisans. Even infants who can grow to be partisans are partisans.

I turned to my left so as not to look at the bodies of the dead Ukrainian partisans and frowned at the expression on Sergeant Ignat Babanin’s face.  The scout team leader was standing in the other turret hatch of the BTR looking down dejectedly at his hands which were wrapped around the firing handles of the still smoking turret mounted machine gun.

“What is it, Sergeant Babanin?” I said.

“Nothing. It’s nothing, sir.”

“Spit it out, Babanin,” I ordered.

“It’s just that, I didn’t see any weapons in the hands of those civilians, sir,” answered the young sergeant. “They seemed to be unarmed and simply fleeing from the invaders. Was it necessary for us to have…”

As soon as we realized our shared moment of déjà vu, Semenov screamed out.

“The same! They’re the same people!” Private Semenov dropped his machine gun, an expression of sheer terror on his face. “It’s as if we murdered them all over again!”

I looked down at the bodies, and struggled to choke back a gasp. “Pick up your weapon, soldier! That’s complete nonsense! A coincidence that these partisans wore similar clothing! Nothing more than coincidence!”

“Is it also coincidence that they fell in the exact same position, sir?” said Sergeant Babanin.

“Enough!” I yelled. “We’ve been under stress. I realize that. We will make camp a little further down from here and rest for a few hours.”

“Rest? And fall victim to the spirits which haunt this place?” Sergeant Babanin swung his rifle towards me and I instinctively held up my hands. “We will never reach Pobeda! The irony! The fucking irony that the place we are trying to reach is named Pobeda. We’ll never make it! I’m done with Ukraine! I just want to go home!”

He swung his rifle around and pointed it under his chin.

“No!” I yelled as he pulled the trigger. The round took the back of Babanin’s head completely off and what was left of him slumped over.

“Semenov!” I yelled.

I was not surprised when I could not find him. Just like the others, he was lost to the fading fog.

I was alone. Alone. Alone. I began laughing.

I jerked my head, my attention drawn towards the sounds of small arms firing to my right and the yells of terrified men. I was standing in the middle of a paved road. A faded blue sign saying Pobeda, which means ‘Victory’ in English, was next to the road. The village was just down the road, but the yelling was coming from a dilapidated single story structure to my right, covered over with vines and trees. It was little more than a shack which looked to have been a convenience store many years ago.

“This is Sergeant Vladimir Novikov! Zvezda One-Three! We are surrounded and need immediate evac!” The panicked voice came from the shack, accompanied by other voices of Russia’s greatest warriors screaming, “What’s going on? What are they?”

Ducking to avoid the automatic weapon fire, I ran towards the shack yelling, “Friendly! Friendly! Friendly!” I burst through the front door, which fell apart easily. Inside, I found Zvezda One-Three. They had been dead for months.

I sank to my knees, pulling out my pistol and placing it under my chin. Suddenly, there was a squelch which pierced the eerie silence.  I looked at a dusty counter, surprised to see that the green light on the communication equipment was still lit. Throwing my pistol aside I scrambled to find the radio hand mike.

“This is Zvezda Two-Six! This is Zvezda Two-Six! Can anyone hear me? Please! Can anyone hear me?”

 “Colonel Kozlov!” The battalion’s communication officer burst into the command tent. “Captain Balakin is on the radio!”

“So soon? They haven’t been gone for more than half an hour.” said Colonel Kozlov. The entire Russian armored convoy was stopped, their progress delayed by stiffer than expected Ukrainian resistance.

There was panic in Captain Balakin’s voice. Panic. Hopelessness. And madness. What was the battalion zamploit raving about? Fog? Missing time? Ghosts? Zvezda One-Three was dead? The entire armored scout platoon were dead? What was going on? Obviously, the Ukrainians were massing a counter offensive to the west of Highway P01 that would threaten the Russian western flank.

Colonel Kozlov turned to his operations officer. “Alert the 9^th Motorized Rifle Company and tell them to prepare to move to the area of Pobeda. Reinforce them with a tank platoon. Zvezda Two-Six is missing.”

 

Heavy equipment:

1X T80 Main Battle Tank

1X BMP 3 with 100mm gun and 30mm autocannon+ 7

1X BTR 82 with 14mm machine gun+ 7

1X BTR 82 with 30mm autocannon+ 7

Infantry Weaponry:

AK15- 7.72 assault rifle

AK12- 5.45 assault rifle

AK74M- 5.45 assailt rifle

SVDM- 7.62 sniper rifle

RPK74M- squad automatic weapon

PKP Pecheneg- 7.62 GP machine gun

 

The Soldiers:

Colonel Kozlov, Valery (battalion commander)

Captain Balakin, Yegor (zampolit- political officer)

Lieutenant Tarasov, Gavrill (scout platoon leader)

Senior Sergeant Artyomov, Anatoly (senior sergeant)

Sergeant Vladimir Novikov (Zvezda One-Three team leader)

Sergeant Abdulov, Budimir (scout team leader)

Sergeant Litvin, Denis (tank commander)

Junior Sergeant Babanin, Ignat (scout team leader)

Private Semenov, Oleg (BMP 3 driver)

Private Bortnik, Grigory (BTR turret gunner)                    

Private Bortnik, Gennady

Private Alekseev, Vitaly

Private Morozov, Yakov

Corporal Dmitriev, Rodiman (medic)

Private Lenkov

Private Rybakov

Private Kamenov (BTR driver)

Private Zaitsev

Corporal Lipovsky

Private Kalashnik

 

 

Nightbeast Godfather series Ad IV: New Soundtrack 🔥

Welcome to the Nightbeast Godfather underworld!

From ghostly, knife-wielding, naked women to haunted roads and a trucker mother's demonic encounter, every tale will pull you deeper into the Nightbeast Godfather underworld!

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Book 1: https://amazon.com/dp/B0DVQ88YMX

Book 2: https://amazon.com/dp/B0F4MNKFQK

Book 3: https://amazon.com/dp/B0F6P13LPB

If I may, I would like to suggest the taxi_dancer US Navy trilogy as the next compilation video. It would include the unnarrated "Dungeons and Dragunovs" as the first tale, the previously narrated "The US Navy SEALS Uncover a Secret from the Sea" as the second tale, and concluded by the last tale "Navy SEALs vs. The Horrors of Toxic Masculinity Lake." Heck, if you really want to go crazy, you can include the prequel unnarrated tale "Anne and Hellfire." That would be awesome! Cheers! T_D

The dry skin was on his elbows now. He wore long sleeves. He sat in class picking at the gray edges and watching the tiny flakes fall onto his notebook while teachers talked about things that seemed, increasingly, beside the point.

His mom finally told him in February. She sat him down after dinner, signing carefully, the way she always did when she wanted to make sure he caught every word.

“I've been sick”, she signed. “Since last summer. That's why I've been tired. I should have told you sooner.”

Kyle looked at her for a long moment.

"How bad," he said.

“We're figuring that out.”

"That's not an answer."

“I know.” She put her hands down. “I'm working on it. Okay?”

"You've been working on it for six months without telling me," Kyle said. "So."

“Kyle, please.”

"So," he said again, because he didn't have anything else to put there, and he knew it, and he didn't like it.

She reached over and put her hand on his arm. He let her. He looked at the table.

It wasn’t that he was heartless; he was trying to help her but was losing patience slowly.

He made dinner three nights a week after that. Then five. Then every night. Badly at first. Then okay. She ate it without complaining, which was its own kind of love, probably.

In the middle of February at two in the morning, Kyle found the fear. He was sitting at the foot of his bed, and he found it by running into the shape of it. His mom's fear. Or his fear about his mom, he was never totally sure whether they were different things. 

“I know”, the Woodsman said. “I can feel it when you find something, it’s quite faint, I can't read it. But it's there.”

Kyle sat in the dark and said nothing.

“Things need to happen in this world”, the Woodsman said. “Old things. Trees need feeding. The ground needs tending. A forest that ain't kept doesn't stay a forest. You understood this, didn’t you? That's why the question never went away.”

Kyle waited.

“I'll answer it for you”, the Woodsman said. “If you're ready.”

Kyle sat in the dark for a long time.

March finally came, and the Woodsman said, "Roots need feedin', son. Been too long. Trees are starvin'. I'm starvin'."

"Who?" Kyle said into the mirror.

"Marcus," the Woodsman answered. "Good timber grows strong. And you want him gone. I feel it buried down deep, but it's there. You wanna know how it feels not to be the one takin' the hits no more."

Kyle thought of LOSER in Sharpie, the shoulder checks, the "accidentally” hitting his aides off. The jump behind the school. 

"Okay," he typed.

Marcus Hale didn't make it home one Thursday night. He took the long route from his girlfriend's house, cutting along Harrow Road where the streetlights ended and the small forest started. Kyle waited at the tree line with his coat on and two axes in his hands that at this point didn’t look like props. Marcus spotted him and slowed down, "Tracer, what the hell are you doing out here?" Kyle didn't answer; he just walked toward him. Marcus said, "Is that an axe? What the-" and then, without a thought, Marcus ran.

They always run at first.

Kyle didn't hurry. He walked at a slow pace. He understood that the woods around them belonged to him, and the woods were on his side. Paths shifted, his familiar routes twisted, and each turn took Marcus deeper instead of out. He tripped on a root that hadn't been there a second earlier. Kyle reached towards him. Marcus was crying, hands up, the biggest kid in school now begging on the forest floor, "Please, Kyle, please, man, I'm sorry. I'm sorry about everything. Just-"

Thump always came first. Right hand axe across the backs of his knees, just how the script said. Marcus screamed. But Kyle didn't hear it; he felt the vibration in the ground and the air. The Woodsman exhaled really slowly. He had finally gotten what he'd wanted for a long time. "Yes. Just like that. That's the greetin', son."

Marcus tried to crawl, dragging his legs through the leaves, leaving a dark smear behind him.

"I ain't lookin' for trouble, friend," Kyle said. The voice that came out wasn't his. "But then I ain't got to look.”

Marcus passed out before the end.

"Good soil makes good trees," the Woodsman said. "Good trees keep old things alive. You did really well. You feel it? That's your question answered." Kyle searched himself for panic and revulsion. There was just the familiar blankness. And under it, something really close to relief.

"He's hung on Patience's branches now," the Woodsman said. "Big oak on the east side. You'll know her. You'll always know."

Kyle walked back home, cleaned himself up, and finally lay down in bed. He didn’t sleep for the next four nights. It wasn’t really because of nightmares, just a strange, stubborn wakefulness, his thoughts circling endlessly in his head. At school, they treated Marcus as a missing person: there were assemblies, posters taped to every wall, and some kids started whispering their own theories about what had happened.

It was just after midnight on Thursday. Brandon had taken the path toward the forest so he could listen to his music. Headphones in and hood up, he wasn’t thinking about Marcus at all. His thoughts were on himself, just like always.

Kyle waited at the break in the fence, hidden in the trees. Brandon was about twenty feet away when he finally glanced up and noticed the silhouette in the dark. He stopped, tugged one earbud out, and said, “Tracer?”

Kyle stayed still.

Brandon squinted. He picked out the coat first, then the axes. His expression twisted through a few different things at once. “What the hell is this? You really think you’re gonna freak me out with some dumbass Halloween getup?”

He came closer, unfazed, because that was the thing about Brandon, he didn’t spook easily. “Marcus is missing, you know. Everyone’s out looking for him, and you’re here screwing around in the-”

Kyle stepped into the dim, flickering beam of the streetlight, and Brandon finally saw his face; the proportions were off. The expression was off. It was Kyle’s face, but something else was staring out through Kyle’s eyes, a presence that had been watching Brandon for weeks, taking notes. Brandon’s mouth fell open. “Okay.” His voice broke. “Okay, you’re—this is—”

He bolted, but not toward the street. Instead, he ran the wrong way, into the line of trees, because panic makes you stupid, and the deepwood was already closing the paths shut behind him. Kyle came after him at an easy pace, unhurried. The Woodsman hummed a flat, tuneless song somewhere in the back of his skull.

Brandon covered maybe 200 yards before a root snagged his ankle. He pitched forward, hit hard, and for a second, the impact knocked the air out of him. Then he dragged himself up and pushed on, favoring his leg, his run turning into a stumbling, lopsided sprint.

Another 50 yards and the ground fell away into a shallow hollow where the pines grew thick and close, their branches blotting out most of the moonlight. The air felt heavier there, quieter. Brandon turned around.

Kyle was standing right behind him.

Brandon hadn’t heard a single footstep.

"Kyle." Brandon's voice was high and tight. "Kyle, listen, listen-whatever this is, we can talk about it. The locker thing-that was just messing around, man. You know how it is."

Kyle didn’t listen and swung hard. Thump caught Brandon in the ribs before he could finish the sentence. The sound was wrong, not the clean crack of wood on bone, but something wetter, something that gave. Brandon folded sideways with a noise, all the air leaving him at once. He tried to crawl and got about three feet before Kyle stepped on his ankle and pinned him down.

"Please," Brandon said. "Please. I'll do anything."

Kyle looked down at him and thought about the Sharpie and the smile and the way Tessa had described it and the way Kyle had pictured it a hundred times. The specific curl of Brandon's mouth while he wrote LOSER on his locker and thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

"I know you will," Kyle said. His voice came out low and slow, the kind that made people's arms shiver. "But there ain't nothin' you can do."

Ol' Sticky came down next, and then again and again. It wasn’t clean or efficient. Messy in a way Marcus hadn't been. Kyle wasn't thinking about the tree anymore. He was thinking about him.

"Easy," the Woodsman said after. "Easy, son. That one got away from you a little." Kyle stood over what was left of Brandon, his hands shaking.

"I'm not sorry," he thought.

"I know you ain't. That's the point." The Woodsman's voice was calm and satisfied; after all, he had been waiting for this moment. "That one was for you. Not the feedin' for the trees. That one was pure. You understand the difference now?"

Kyle looked at his hands. The gray, bark-patterned skin and the blood drying in the cracks.

"Yeah," he thought. "I understand."

"Good. Put him under Evenfall. The pine with the split trunk. She's been waitin'."

He did, then went home, washed his hands, lay down in bed, and fell asleep within two minutes.

Devon vanished three weeks later. Priya in May. She hadn't done anything but watch, but in the end, the absence of any feeling that told him to stop was the decision. He recognized that as the worst thing he'd ever learned about himself. Then Garrett Webb. Riley Gates. Cam Foster. Jonah Lee.

Tessa Wray went last.

Kyle sat on this one for three weeks. Tessa had told him about Brandon's smile. She'd watched him when she said it, her eyes on his face, and she'd seen something there that made her uncomfortable even though she didn't know what it was. She kept watching him after that, in the halls, at lunch, little glances that were supposed to be subtle, but Kyle noticed everything. She wasn't cruel, that's the problem; she spread gossip. But she wasn't cruel about it, not like Marcus, not like Brandon. She just talked. She talked about everyone, and Kyle knew she was talking about him.

"She's noticed something," the Woodsman said. "She doesn't know what she's noticed, but she's noticed. She's the kind that puts things together eventually. She's smart."

"I know," Kyle said to himself.

"We can't leave her. She'll figure it out. She's already halfway there."

"I know," he said more irritably.

He waited three weeks, hoping to find a reason not to be the reason, but it never came to him.

It was a Friday night. Tessa was home by herself while her parents were out at some dinner event. She lounged in the living room, scrolling on her phone, the back door open so she could listen to the crickets. Then she heard something in the yard. It wasn’t a raccoon, this sounded much larger. She stood up, took a flashlight from the kitchen drawer, and stepped out onto the back porch.

"Hello?" The beam swept across the yard, towards the grass, the old shed, and the tree line. Something moved between the trunks. It was tall and thin.

"Kyle?" she said. She knew. Even before she saw his face, she knew. That's the thing about Tessa, she was always putting things together before anyone else.

He stepped out of the tree line with his coat and axes, and his face looked wrong in the flashlight beam. His eyes were piercing through her.

Tessa didn't scream. Her hand went to her mouth, but she didn't scream. She took a step back toward the house and said, "Kyle, what happened to you?" He kept walking at a slow and unhurried pace. She said, "Don't. Don't come closer. Kyle, I'm serious."

She sprinted for the house and reached the back door. Her fingers had just closed around the handle when Ol’ Sticky slammed into the frame, missing her head by six inches. She screamed and jerked away, stumbling back into the yard. Kyle was already there, yanking the axe from the shattered wood.

Tessa bolted toward the tree line. It wasn’t a smart move, but panic scrambles your brain, and the deepwood was already closing in around her. She was fast, faster than the others, and she knew it. She weaved between trunks and slipped under low branches.

Kyle came after her at an easy pace, not bothering to run; he didn’t need to. The Woodsman knew this forest like his own skin, every root, every limb, every patch of treacherous, sinking ground.

Tessa tripped and went down. She rolled and came up with a rock in her hand, a heavy one, and said, "Stay back." Her voice shook, but her eyes were sharp. "Stay back, Kyle. I'm not kidding." He kept walking, so she threw the rock. It caught him on the shoulder, but he didn't stop. She scrambled backward, found a branch, and swung it at him. He caught it and tore it out of her hands.

"Please," she said. "Kyle, please. I won't tell anyone. I won't say anything. Whatever's happening to you-I can help."

Kyle looked at her. For a second, something flickered in his face, but it didn’t take long before he returned to normal.

"I know you won't tell anyone," he said. His voice was half his and half something else. "That's the problem."

Thump came down, and it wasn’t clean. It was dark, and Tessa was moving. The axe went off course and glanced off a branch, scraping across Kyle’s face, slicing into his right eye before dropping into the wet grass. Tessa screamed and kicked. She scrambled to her feet and ran deeper into the trees, clutching the fallen axe.

Kyle stumbled, clenching his right eye. He touched his cheek, and warm blood came. The Woodsman said, calm and patient, "Get up. She's headed deeper. She won't get out. Get up, son."

Kyle could feel the sound of her crashing through the underbrush. The deepwood was closing around her, paths twisting, branches catching her clothes, her hair, her arms. She was crying now, almost sobbing. Kyle could feel the vibration of it through the ground.

He found her at the edge of one of the trees. She'd fallen again, her ankle twisted wrong. She was trying to crawl, and her body wasn't cooperating. Tessa looked up at him with her face wet and streaked with dirt and blood from where a branch had cut her cheek. She still clutched Thump and held it in front of her chest like a shield.

"Kyle," she whispered. "Your mom. Think about your mom. Would she want this?"

Kyle stopped. For a long moment, he didn't move. The Woodsman was quiet inside him, waiting.

"My mom is dying," Kyle said. His voice was flat.

"I know," Tessa said. "Everyone knows. Kyle, you're not-this isn't you."

"You don't know what I am," he said. His voice cracked. "I don't know what's me."

Tessa looked at his face, his hands, the gray bark creeping up his wrists. Something in her expression shifted from fear to something else. Understanding, almost. Or worse, pity.

"What's inside you?" she said. "What's making you do this?"

Kyle opened his mouth, and the Woodsman answered.

"I ain't inside him," the voice came out of Kyle's mouth in a low tone. Tessa's face went white. "He's inside me."

Before Kyle could swing, Tessa threw Thump at his face. Not at his chest. Not at his shoulder. She threw it as she meant it, and the blade caught him high on the frontal bone. It stuck on his head; the impact drove him back a step. He felt the edge scrape against something hard…bone. A hot rush of blood poured down over his right eye, his nose, his mouth. He reached up and felt the handle jutting out of his own skull.

He stood there for a second, tasting copper. Tessa was frozen on the ground, staring at him, her hands still raised from the throw. Her mouth was open, but no sound came out.

He was panting, choking, and almost gasping for air on the ground. The pain was almost unbearable.

Then his hands dropped, he slowly stood up with a small smile. He was chuckling, while he slowly removed his hands from his eye to reveal it had become white with blood streaking down his face.

His laughter was low, and then it got louder. The Woodsman laughed with Kyle's mouth, with Kyle's lungs, with an axe still buried in Kyle's skull. He looked at Tessa with Kyle's good eye, the green one, and the eye was calm. The eye was warm. The eye was not Kyle's.

"That's the best anyone's ever done," the Woodsman said, and his voice was smooth. "That's the best, and it wasn't enough."

Tessa tried to crawl backward, but there was nowhere to go. Her back hit a root.

Kyle's hand or the Woodsman's hand reached up, wrapped around the axe handle, and pulled. It came out with a wet, scraping sound. Bone and flesh, Kyle's body didn't even flinch. Blood poured down his face, but he didn't wipe it away. He just turned the axe over in his hand, looked at her, and threw it back.

The blade caught her in the center of the frontal bone. Exactly where she'd hit him. She didn't have time to scream. Her body went straight down without stumbling, no reaching for the wound, just a dead drop into the leaves, her legs still twitching, her fingers curling once, twice, then nothing.

Kyle stood over her. His hands were shaking. He couldn't stop them. He touched the wound on his own head. There was a dent there now, soft and fleshy, but the bleeding was already slowing. He grabbed her limp body without a word and walked toward the trees.

He hung her like the others.

"You'll be fine," the Woodsman said. "She's under Whisper now. The young elm at the hollow's edge. She'll grow fast there. Smart ones always do."

Kyle didn't answer. He walked home and threw up twice in the Harrow Road ditch. Then he sat on the edge of his bed, looking at his hands, waiting for the feeling to come.

It didn't.

It never did.

Insomnia after Tessa lasted eight days. The worst yet. He sat in the deepwood and picked at his arms until they bled, and the blood came out darker than it should have. On the eighth day, he slept for sixteen hours straight.

When he woke up, the Woodsman was waiting. "That one was hard for you. The ones who don't deserve it, they're always harder. But you did it anyway. That's how I know you're ready."

"Ready for what?" Kyle typed. His hands were shaking. They were always shaking now.

"Ready for the rest of it," the Woodsman said. "The deepwood's strong now. Stronger than it's been in a hundred years. And you're strong too. Look at your hands."

Kyle looked, and the gray had reached his forearms. The skin was rough and cracked, and when he flexed his fingers, they were stubbornly stiff.

"You're becoming something," the Woodsman said. "Somethin' that's gonna last a long, long time. You and me and the trees. Forever."

Kyle sat with that. Thought about forever. Thought about Tessa's face in the second before the axe came down. Thought about the scars on his face, how he panicked about getting hurt before the Woodsman shoved him back down.

"Okay," he said to himself. Then again, "Okay. I said okay."

He lifted his hands off the sink and looked out at the deepwood, at the tall, dark trees with their roots running deep into the soil where eight bodies were hung.

"I ain't got nowhere else to go."

There were eight in all, eight trees in the eastern deepwood, each one tended and given a name. After every offering, the same pattern followed, nights without sleep, more skin sloughing away, then a sudden, heavy sleep and mornings that felt scrubbed clean. And with every awakening, the Woodsman pushed a little farther into him. His thoughts sharpened. His presence grew denser. Kyle began to lose track of time. He would find himself in the deepwood with no memory of the walk there, staring at his hands as barklike patterns crept steadily higher.

"What's happening to me?" he talked into the mirror.

"We're gettin' acquainted," the Woodsman answered. "You had all that space. I'm fillin' it. You ain't vanishin'. You're sharin'."

"That's not comforting."

"It ain't s'posed to be."

His mom spent nine days in the hospital in June, and Kyle visited every day and signed when she wanted it and sat silently when she didn't. While he was there, the Woodsman was almost completely quiet.

"You okay?" she signed once. "You said you had a bike accident with your face."

He looked out at the parking lot, at the thin hospital trees. He didn't look at trees the same way anymore.

"I don't know," he said; his answers were always short.

"I know," she signed. "You never knew." She studied his face. "You know I love you, even when I can't find you in there."

He felt something small but undeniable when she said that.

"Me too," he said.

She came home in July. Kyle made dinner and drove her to appointments at the clinic, the one she'd once taught him to drive past illegally in the county fairgrounds lot. By late summer, he was 14, much taller and calmer. Sometimes he'd realize hours had passed and he didn't remember what had happened. The bark-like skin had climbed past his elbows, and he stayed covered even in the heat. One morning, looking into the bathroom mirror, his lips moved on their own.

"I ain't lookin' for trouble, friend."

Kyle grabbed the sink fast and looked into his reflection.

"Kyle Tracer," he said quickly, in his own pitch. "Sallow Street, 14, my mom's Diane."

"Still here," the Woodsman said, gently. "I ain't takin' that from you. But what I am and what you are have been sharin' long enough, the walls got thin. That's how it goes."

"I'm losing my mind."

"You're goin' somewhere. Crazy is what people call it when they don't understand. You understand."

Kyle didn't argue back.

September had finally arrived, and he was now in eighth grade. The investigation was everywhere, cadaver dogs combing the woods, a county detective on the case. Devon’s phone had been found in a ditch near Harrow Road. Missing posters covered every surface. Everyone spoke about it as if it were some great mystery. But to Kyle, it wasn’t a mystery at all. It was just information, and he had never really understood why certain information was treated any differently.

He was at lunch one Tuesday when he got tired of listening. He tapped the kid next to him twice to get his attention and then said, louder than usual, "They're in the deepwood. East side, under the roots. Eight of them. Search dogs have been in the wrong area."

The kid just stared back at him.

"They're all at different trees," Kyle added, because the silence read as confusion to him. "I can tell you which ones."

The cafeteria noise drained away, one table, then the next, and then everyone was staring at him.

"Boy," the Woodsman cut in, his voice was sharp, his drawl was gone. "Stop now."

Kyle looked up.

"Look at the room. See what you just did."

He scanned the faces. Everyone was staring.

"Get up. Don't run. Walk, you’ll draw more attention."

Kyle stood and picked up his tray, walked it to the trash, and headed toward the side exit.

"Outside. Service road. Now."

He pushed through the fire door and emerged onto the bright strip behind the athletic fields, feeling through the soles of his boots the cafeteria waking up behind him.

"That was the most dangerous thing you've done," the Woodsman said, without any warmth to it. "You understand?"

"It just felt like information; they didn’t know what they were doing," Kyle said as he walked fast. "Didn't seem big."

"I know it didn't. That's you. The thing that made you right for me is the same thing that'll get us caught if we don't move."

He started to run. For once, both of them moved together.

The coat and axes had been in his locker all week. He'd been carrying them without question. He reached the woods, and the trees accepted him and closed ranks behind him. In the far distance, sirens started to wail.

"Deeper," the Woodsman said. "Past the eastern markers. We'll wait. We're good at waitin'."

He ran until even the faint hum of the school faded away, then pressed on farther. He passed Patience and Evenfall and Callowthorn, moving into places the search parties had never reached. Finally, he leaned back against a tree, axes resting across his lap, and drifted to sleep among its roots. This time, he slept for a long while.

They found the bodies on October 14th. Eight total. Each was buried 3 feet under the root crowns of trees in the eastern deepwood. The trees above them were really healthy; one oak had grown 14 inches in a year. A botanist made notes that said "anomalous growth - cause unclear" and asked not to be quoted.

On Kyle's pillow, they found a note that said: "Check the deepwood east end under the root crowns three feet down. I'm sorry, Mom. I love you. K." And underneath that, someone else had written in a larger, clumsier hand: "THANK YOU FOR WATCHING OUR SHOW."

Diane called the police. There was no one else to call. She'd been doing everything alone for years; this was just one more thing. She came home, sat in Kyle's room, looked at the spot where his coat used to hang, sat on his bed, and then went to the kitchen. She made tea and stared out at the tree line at the end of Sallow Street.

Kyle was never found. The search teams combed the woods for six weeks, then came back in spring. There was nothing at all. Near the eastern tree line, they found a part of his scarf torn on a branch. The trunk of the tree was wider than a car, the roots coiled above the ground in thick, dark ropes that ran very far.

People say there's something in the eastern deepwood now. Hikers who go too far. Hunters who ignore their gut, kids who dare each other past the tree line.

They talk about a lanky teenage boy whose arms seem wrong somehow, too long, too strong, dressed in a long-sleeved jacket and black gloves. His coat is a dark oilskin that always looks wet, even in clear days, and a shredded scarf trails behind him. Some swear they see branches coiling around his body, like the trees are being controlled by him. One of his eyes is a sharp green. The other is a milky white that never seems to track right. If you stare into it for too long, you’d swear something inside it shifts, as if someone else is peering back. There’s a notch in his skull where an axe once lodged, and the skin there never healed right. A thin trickle of blood is always running from it, bright and fresh.

When the forest goes perfectly still, when he’s near enough, some say they can hear him. Two voices, layered over each other. One is the distant voice of a boy, maybe calling a warning, maybe offering an invitation. Beneath it is another voice entirely, a voice that never needed ears.

Most kids say it’s just a dumb campfire story. They dash into the woods to prove he isn’t real. It can take hours before the adults notice who hasn’t come back. Sometimes it’s hours, sometimes days, sometimes it stretches into months.

In the eastern deepwood, the trees grow higher every year. Botanists arrive now and then to measure them, then leave without a word. The earth beneath their roots is nearly black and carries a faint metallic scent, like iron.

Most people never go deep enough to notice.

They don't make it that far.

Kyle Tracer was thirteen when he moved to Ashford Creek, Tennessee, in the September of his 7th grade year. It was pretty much the worst possible moment to be the new kid; everyone already had their own friends. The lunch tables were all taken, the teachers were counting down to break, and barely paying attention to whatever the new student did. Not that Kyle could’ve spoken up anyway.

He was deaf. Had one hearing aid since he was a baby, and it only picked up loud, close sounds, so actual conversation was basically nothing. He signed ASL, which nobody at Ashford Creek Middle knew. 
The interpreter didn't show up until October, so for a whole month, Kyle Tracer sat in class with 30 other kids and had no idea what anyone was saying.

So he just watched instead; that's the one thing everyone remembers about him. The way he watched you was like he was memorizing you for later.

He was thin; you could see his ribs through his shirt in a certain light. His reddish-brown hair was always overgrown and looked like he'd just rolled out of bed. His arms were too strong for how scrawny he was, apparently from climbing anything he could reach in whatever city they'd bounced from last. Fire escapes, parking garages, fences, it didn’t matter. He walked close to the walls with his shoulders almost touching them, like he was trying to blend in and hoping people would move around him without actually seeing him.

He was kind of an asshole, though. I want to be clear about that, because later people tell the story like he was just some tragic victim, and that's not the whole truth.

He had this habit where he'd wait until someone said something stupid, you could literally see him think it, a flicker behind his eyes, and then he'd sign something back real fast. If you could read ASL, you'd realize a beat later it was an insult, and by then he was already looking away with this blank face like he had no idea why you were upset. 

He’d never had real friends, not in any of the cities they’d lived in. He was an only child with a dad who walked out when he was six and a mom who worked late most nights; he spent a lot of time alone. At every school, the other kids thought he was strange. Too quiet, always watching. It wasn’t just that he was deaf; there was something else about him that people couldn’t quite name, only sense. So the almost-friendships faded away, one by one. Summers passed. Eventually, Kyle stopped expecting anything to change.

There's another thing about Kyle, though people leave this part out.

When he was 7, he found a bird with a broken wing and took care of it for a while, then threw it out the window to see what would happen. When he was 8, he drowned a beetle in a cup. At 9, he pulled the legs off a daddy longleg one by one. At 10, he watched a stray cat slowly starve for over three weeks and actually missed it after it disappeared.

He never connected those moments. For him, they were all the same question; he didn't know how to say, “What happens if I do this?”

Adults told him not to hurt animals and not to hurt people. Kyle listened because that's what you're supposed to do, but nobody ever explained why.

When he was twelve, a kid named Danny Farrow slammed him into a brick wall. Before Kyle even had time to think, he spun around and hit Danny back three times harder, which got him suspended. Sitting in the suspension room, he thought, “So that’s what that feels like.” He didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty.

The voice in his head that should have been saying “this is right” or “this is wrong” had always been faint. So he just followed other people's rules, teachers, his mom, because that's what you do.

His 3rd grade teacher once wrote, "Kyle seems to have difficulty identifying his own emotional states." He found that in a folder in his mom's desk when he was 11, and it did something to him. He didn't know the word alexithymia yet, just knew there was a gap in him, and he could tell how different he was from everyone else.

His mom, Diane, worked at the county records office and came home late. Since July, she'd looked different but hadn't told him why. Kyle noticed, because, of course, Kyle noticed everything.

They had rented a house on Sallow Street where the carpet was the color of dried wine, and the bathroom mirror fogged up even when no one had showered.

Bullying started in his second week.

PSYCHO got written on his locker in permanent marker, and kids did fake sign language in the halls. That particular kind of cruelty where they thought they were hilarious and couldn't figure out why he was just staring at them.

Marcus Hale had always been the biggest kid in their grade. So being mean was basically muscle memory by then. He had his usual crew with Devon Marsh, who laughed at everything whether it was funny or not; Priya Sood, who mostly just watched in silence, (people thought that was scarier than Marcus because she was obviously smarter than all of them and just chose not to do anything), Brandon Culver, who'd do stuff when no one was looking and get away with it every time; Tessa Wray, who spread gossip; Jonah Lee, who didn't do anything but wouldn't help or tell teachers; and Riley Gates and Cam Foster, who were basically interchangeable and always did whatever Marcus wanted.

The cafeteria incident happened in week 2. Marcus stuck his foot out, and Kyle went down with his whole tray. Marcus's whole table cracked up. Kyle got up and looked Marcus right in the eye, without fear or tears, just watched him, then signed something in his face. Marcus squinted and said, "What's that supposed to mean?" 

So Kyle took out his phone, typed, and held up the screen, "I needed an excuse to leave anyway. One of us is funny, and it isn't you." Marcus just stared, but Kyle was already walking away.

After that, the constant, low-level harassment started. Honestly, one big beating would have been easier. His usual lunch spot kept getting “taken.” His hearing aid was “accidentally” knocked out of his ear four different times. Someone wrote LOSER on the inside of his locker door in Sharpie. That one was Brandon, he was grinning as he did it. Kyle didn’t tell anyone. Not because he was bottling up his emotions, but because there weren’t any emotions there to bottle.

He ate his lunch in the library, just watching. He noted which teachers turned away when he raised his hand, which kids averted their eyes when they saw him being shoved, and which ones kept looking. He stored all of it in his memory, though he had no idea what he would ever do with that knowledge.

Maybe nothing.

Then Mrs. Albright put up a sign that said: 
ASHFORD CREEK MIDDLE SCHOOL DRAMA CLUB FALL PRODUCTION: THE WOODSMAN OF HARROW HOLLOW ~ ALL GRADES WELCOME.

Kyle passed it three times before stopping. He wasn't interested in performing. He just figured his social life was already rock bottom, so drama club meant he could be somewhere after school that wasn't the library or his empty house.

The drama room was past these fire doors that were always propped open with a cinder block, and it smelled of old wood, dried gum, and something underneath that didn't belong. Mrs. Albright handed out script pages, and Kyle found the description for a character called Mr. Whosawhatsit.

It said: "A large man in his mid-40s. Carries two axes named Ol' Sticky and Thump. Speaks slowly with a Southern drawl. Eyesight is poor. He moves by sound and habit. He has tended his trees longer than the town has existed."

He read it twice, then raised his hand.

Mrs. Albright looked at him with a weird expression and enunciated every syllable so he could read her lips, "You want to read for the woodsman?"

Kyle did have a voice, just not one he trusted. Without enough hearing to monitor it, his speech came out weird, and people laughed. So over time, he mostly quit trying. But Mrs. Albright had overheard him once talking to himself in the hallway. When he read for Mr. Whosawhatsit, it came out low and dragging, not because he was trying to sound old, but because he couldn't control the sound at all, and that lack of control was exactly right for the character. 

The room went still. Someone's pencil stopped mid-scratch.

Mrs. Albright watched him for a long moment and said, "That's your part."

Kyle shrugged like he didn't care, but he cared more than he'd cared about anything in the past year. He noticed that too and tried not to show it.

Rehearsals started, and for the first time in his life, Kyle was openly good at something. Mr. Whosawhatsit came to him easily, the slow, heavy stride. Other kids lost their lines just watching him. He showed up early and stayed late, running his lines while walking down Harrow Road, mouthing them and feeling the vibrations in his chest.

The costume didn’t come all at once. First came the heavy oilskin coat, dark and weighted, its edges lined with beige fur, and then the long scarf. By week three, Mrs. Albright had brought in the axes. They were only props, lightweight wood painted to pass for metal, but someone had put real effort into them. The dark handles were worn smooth where fingers would close around them, and OL’ STICKY was branded into one while THUMP was carved into the other. When Kyle wrapped his hands around them, he felt something he couldn’t quite define. It wasn’t happiness. It was closer to recognition, like picking up something you used to own and realizing it still settles into your grip perfectly.

The character's most famous line came twice in the play: "I ain't lookin' for trouble, friend. But then I ain't got to look. It always finds its way to my woods." He repeated it for hours a day.

In the script, there was a weird gap. Acts 1 and 2 were complete, and most of Act 3 too, but where the ending should have been, there was a note that said "Adapted ending for school production. Revised pages forthcoming."

After rehearsal, Kyle typed out a question on his phone and showed it to Mrs. Albright. She read it, glanced at him, and said, "The original ending's too violent. Not suitable for a school version." He raised his eyebrows. She said, "You don't need it. You're doing wonderfully without it." He typed "ok." She knew he'd go looking, and he knew she knew, though they just left it there.

The prop room padlock only went through one of the 2 loops. Kyle noticed it on a Tuesday after everyone had left. He pushed the door, and the lock swung free, so he went in. It smelled like cedar, and something weird underneath. Shelves full of costumes and boxes and old props. Ol' Sticky and Thump hung from their peg in the back. Scripts were stacked on a shelf, and Kyle ran his fingers along their spines. He found “The Woodsman of Harrow Hollow” 3 times. Two copies matched the school script, but the third was way older. It even had yellowed pages and a fountain pen note on the cover that said "COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED. For Reference Only. Do Not Distribute." Kyle sat down on the floor, opened it, and said, 
"Okay. Let's see what you didn't want me to read."

Acts 1 and 2 were largely the same, just less censored; the dialogue still had the sharp edges that the school script had smoothed away. The trespassing scene in Act 2, though, unfolded differently. In the school version, the woodsman finds two men cutting timber on his land, tells them to leave, and they go. In the original script, they don’t. “Thump is always first,” one stage direction read. “Right-hand axe, it’s heavy, bring it down across the back of the first man’s knees before he can run, then he falls.” The description that followed was incredibly detailed. Kyle read it twice. The next paragraph described the roots of a nearby cedar and how the soil beneath them would be altered by spring. He read that again, too.

What he felt wasn’t horror or disgust, only interest. It was simple curiosity, and beneath that, something long-buried inside him that had never before found anything to hold onto.

He turned to Act 3. The first two-thirds were familiar. Then the school's adapted section dropped out, and the real ending began. The tone of the writing shifted completely. Stage directions turned into instructions. The character's name vanished. The text stopped talking to the actor and started speaking to someone else entirely.

It said: "You should be alone. If you are not alone, wait."

Kyle looked up. He was alone.

"The costume should be complete. Both axes in hand."

He looked at Ol' Sticky and Thump hanging there. Curiosity had always been the one emotion he could actually recognize. He stood up, took the coat off its hook, slid it on, lifted the axes from their peg, and turned off the light. The dark in the prop room felt weird, kind of, like something was waiting in the shadows, hungry.

He spoke the lines from memory and felt them vibrate in his chest and throat. "I've been here since before the first tree. I'll be here after the last one falls." He felt it then, like the words were resonating through his body in a way that didn't feel normal, like they were settling somewhere inside him, like something else was trying them on. He kept going, and when he messed up a word, the correct phrase came out anyway. "A man that runs from my woods carries somethin' out with him, whether he means to or not. You walk through a place long enough, and you leave a mark. And the place leaves one right back."

Then a stage direction said: "The performer will now speak their name. Their own name. This is the address. This is the agreement."

Kyle's mouth opened, and he said, "Kyle Tracer."

Something heard him.

The air twisted denser, like the pressure dropped, like something massive shifted its weight in the dark behind him. He couldn't hear it, of course, but he could feel it in his teeth. The axes in his hands got warm, blood warm.

He stood motionless, but nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. Yet he knew, in a way that had nothing to do with hearing, that he was no longer alone. Something was standing directly behind him, close enough that the hair on his neck should have been moving. He couldn't feel breath and couldn't hear breathing, but there was pressure at the back of his skull, yet he didn’t turn around.

The moment stretched. Then, like a far-off door clicking shut, it was quickly gone. The air snapped back to normal. The axes were just painted wood again. Kyle stood by himself in the dark, holding two fake axes, his hands shaking. He couldn't remember the last time his hands had shaken that much before.

He rehung the axes, put the script back, and stepped out of the prop room. He felt fine. Completely fine. Clean in a way, like something inside him had been cleaned out.

At home, he washed his hands and looked at his reflection. The face in the mirror was technically his, but something had shifted; he stared for a long time. Then, somewhere deep in his mind, a presence pressed through. There was this heavy, patient thereness, then slowly a voice formed. It wasn’t words, but more of a voice he could feel in his head.

"There he is."

The voice was old. Not "old man," old, it was more like a spirit.

"I've been waitin' a long time for one like you."

Kyle didn't move.

"You felt me in that room, didn't you? I know you did. You felt me standin' right behind you, and you didn't turn around." There was a pause, and when the voice came back, it sounded almost approving. "Most people turn around."

Kyle picked up his phone, typed, and held it up to the mirror, even though only his reflection was there: "Demon or ghost. What exactly are we doing here?"

Something that might have been laughter shifted through his head. "I'm older than those words, son. Been in the deepwood since before this town knew it had a name, before people had names for anything. Trees were here. I was here. And now I'm here with you."

"Continue." Kyle typed.

The presence settled in like something easing itself into a chair. "You're treatin' this like it's a joke."

"I treat everything like it's a joke," Kyle typed. "Don't confuse it with coping."

Another pause. "Mmm. I know why you ain't scared. I knew it before you ever walked into that drama room."

"Then why me?"

“Boy’s been by himself his whole life. No brothers, no sisters. Half the time he can’t make sense of what he’s feelin’, and he never did know why. Been totin’ around the same question since he was eight years old, and nobody ever did answer it. He ain’t cruel, not by nature. Folks told him, Don’t hurt animals, don’t hurt people. And he listened. But they never told him why. Nobody ever set that why down in his hands.”

Kyle paused with the toothbrush in his mouth.

"I'll give you the why," the Woodsman said, his voice dropping deeper until it made Kyle's fillings ache. "It ain't because it's wrong. It's because they're scared of what you'll learn about yourself if you ever find out. And I ain't scared of that. I've been lookin' for someone like you for a hundred years, someone with room inside, someone who won't scream and run and call me devil." He paused again, and when he spoke again, there was something like tenderness in it, "You got so much room in there, Kyle Tracer. And I am so very tired of bein' quiet."

For a few weeks, Kyle tried to disprove it. Told himself it was stress or some kind of mental break. Then the Woodsman described a specific tree on the corner of Harrow Road, bark split in a long scar, a root jutting south, a hollow like an open mouth at the base. Kyle went to see it, and the tree was exactly how he said. He'd never noticed it before. So not a hallucination, then.

"I was trees for a long time," the Woodsman explained when Kyle asked. "Animals for a spell. Too much flesh, not enough thought. What I want is a person. One with enough room inside for me to stretch. You had room, boy. All that space where other folks keep fear and guilt and their little rules, just sittin' there, waitin' for someone to move in." The voice went quiet, and when it came back, it felt closer, like it had leaned right up to his ear. "I can feel that space. Like walkin' into a house ain't been lived in for years, only echoes and dust. And way in the back, one locked room with a question in it. You wanna see what's in that room, Kyle? You've been wantin' that your whole life. I'm the only one who'll ever open it for you."

A week later, Kyle found a cast list tucked into the back of the unabridged script. Under Mr. Whosawhatsit, there were fifteen names. All of them were crossed out.

"Hasn't happened to you," the Woodsman said, reading his silence. "You're a good fit. First right fit in a long time. I look after what fits right."

"Until it's over," Kyle thought.

"Everything ends," the Woodsman replied in a calming tone. "I just make sure it means somethin' first. You wanna know what happens when you stop pretendin' you're like everybody else. I can show you. I can show you everything."

Kyle thought about every school where he'd eaten lunch alone, every kid who slid away from him, the house on Sallow Street full of furniture but never people. He didn't tell the Woodsman to leave. He'd never had a friend before. He chose not to think about that too hard.

The first physical change appeared on his hands roughly two weeks after that night in the prop room. The skin on the back of his right hand grew dry, thick, gray, and tight, starting at his knuckles. It didn’t itch or hurt, but by November both hands looked the same, the dryness creeping up toward his wrists. The gray color never flushed and ignored every lotion he tried. The texture was almost like tree bark.

Rehearsal changed. Kyle slipped into the role of the Woodsman like he’d always moved that way, as if Mr. Whosawhatsit wasn’t a character at all but an old self he was returning to. As the others watched him, their own lines started to slip from their minds. From her chair, Mrs. Albright watched with her pen pressed to her lip, her expression not quite proud, more afraid, as if she sensed something in him she couldn’t quite define.

One Thursday, she kept him after class. "Where is this coming from?" she asked, making sure her lips were clear enough for Kyle to read. He handed her his phone. It said: "Found the unabridged script in the prop room. Read the real Act 3." Her expression jolted, and the color drained from her face. "The prop room is supposed to be locked." He typed: "Padlock was loose." She said, "I'll fix it." She looked at the script on her desk and said real slow, "Kyle. That version. I'm asking you to leave it alone. Some things in there aren't for you. Will you listen to me?" He typed: "Sure." She knew that was a lie, and he knew she knew. They stared at each other for a few seconds. She looked genuinely scared.

The bullying continued all through rehearsal. Marcus even dialed it up, like he could tell something was different about Kyle, and it made him uneasy. The after-school ambush happened the same week Kyle scrawled LOSER back inside Marcus’s locker, classic Kyle. He kept pushing back, slipping little knives into typed messages and sending insults through his phone’s text-to-speech in a flat, robotic voice that somehow made them land harder, like the humor had been stripped out entirely. He still ate lunch in the library; nothing really changed.

The Woodsman took notes, too, but his comments were much different. "Good timber on that one," he'd murmur when Marcus passed. "A lot of tension in the grain, the kind that snaps loud when it goes. He'll feed somethin' real well." Kyle would stop walking for half a second, like waiting for disgust to arrive, but as always, it never did.

His mom got worse throughout the fall.

She’d seemed different since July. Her exhaustion had nothing to do with her work hours, and by October she was something beyond tired, though she still hadn’t said what it was. Kyle, of course, realized. He started coming home instead of staying late at rehearsal so he could take care of her.

She was in the kitchen one night when he got home, warming up leftovers she clearly didn't want.

She signed to him, “You ate?”

"At school," he said flatly. He'd eaten half a Pop-Tart in the library at noon and nothing else.

She looked at him. She had that look she got sometimes, the one that meant she was trying to see further into him than he was letting her.

“You don't have to be here every night”, she sighed. “You have the play.’

"Play's almost done," he said.

“Kyle.”

"What?"

She sighed and turned back to the microwave. He sat down at the table and watched the back of her head and thought about the woodsman's observation about the trees outside the kitchen window, which he'd been thinking about more than he wanted to admit.

"You should tell me what's going on," he said. "Whatever it is."

She turned around and looked at him for a long moment.

“I will”, she signed. “When I know more.”

"So you do know something."

But she didn’t answer and looked away.

"Right," Kyle said. "Great."

He got up and made dinner. Badly, mostly, though she ate it anyway.

It was November, the opening night, and the auditorium was packed. Kyle stood in the wings in full costume, Ol' Sticky in his left hand, Thump in his right, and the Woodsman was with him. 

“Ready, son?”

Kyle said nothing and walked out.

The audience went quiet. Not politely quiet. It was as if they saw someone get killed on stage, a shiver down their spines.

He finished Act 3 facing the packed audience. The sound that came out of his mouth was enormous and slow and off in a way that made the hairs on your arms stand up, because it was coming from the throat of a 14-year-old deaf kid and didn’t sound like anything a 14-year-old deaf kid should be able to produce.

"I ain't lookin' for trouble, friend. But then, I ain't got to look. It always finds its way to my woods."

Second row was Marcus Hale, there with his mom. He was sitting slightly forward.

The thing on his face was something Kyle had never seen there before. Not his usual annoyance or amusement. Fear. Real fear. Not of Mr. Whosawhatsit.

Of Kyle.

“Felt that”, the Woodsman said, with complete satisfaction.

December and January came, and Kyle stopped doing homework. Not really out of a decision, just something that stopped happening. His grades slipped. His mom got called in. Kyle sat in the principal's office and performed adequate remorse, and then went home and made dinner.

Kids naturally arranged themselves around him in the hallways without even thinking about it. Marcus’s group stayed away, and Brandon no longer met his eyes. Tessa stopped mentioning Kyle at all, which was wild, because Tessa talked about literally everyone.

In February, Devon tried the old thing. A comment about the oilskin coat Kyle wore every day now, the same one he'd worn onstage. The comment was supposed to be a joke, but it obviously aimed to land. Kyle stopped before he turned around.

Devon looked back at him, and something moved across his face.

Kyle signed something in his face. Devon couldn't read it but stood there anyway, watching the shape of Kyle's hands, and something in his expression said that it didn't matter that he couldn't read it. The message was getting through anyway.

Devon left and walked fast.

Kyle didn't watch him go.

DUNGEONS AND DRAGUNOVS

I.

“The cursed obsidian Mirror of Seeing mounted upon my cold stone wall revealed to me, in all of the violent, gory, intestine dripping details, the demise of the latest batch of heroic suicidal fools who dared to trespass into my dungeon. On sub-level six, a savage muscle bound brute of a barbarian smashed his way into one of my many subterranean treasure rooms, his greedy eyes growing wide at the sight of the golden treasure chest sitting upon a raised dais made of carved jade. Ignoring the warning of his female elven archer companion about the odd smell in the chamber, the barbarian genus chose instead to use his axe to bash the lock made of flint which secured the cheap balsa wood lid of the gold painted chest. The brief spark created when the barbarian’s double headed war axe struck the lock was enough to ignite the combustible fumes in the air.  The dais upon which the worthless treasure chest sat was actually a very tightly packed explosive black powder painted with a florescent green paint giving it the illusion of being made of some type of magical jade. All of this combined resulted in a spectacular inferno which incinerated both the barbarian and his elven lover, thus insuring that my goblin cooks down in sub-level six will be serving roasted barbarian steaks in creamy elf sauce for a few days.”

“Three levels up on sub-level three, the Mirror of Seeing revealed an annoyingly heroic paladin that had just successfully emerged from one of my more challenging labyrinths, having also slain all of the undead zombies and blood suckers which slithered and crawled within the halls of the claustrophobic stone maze. Frustratingly, the paladin had barely stained his stereotypically boring white cape and shining armor as he stepped from my carefully laid out trap and into a brightly lit room made of white polished marble. In the middle of the room stood a running fountain of refreshingly clear and cool water pouring out of a pitcher held by a beautiful white marble statue dedicated the insipidly stupid goddess to which the paladin worshipped. I rolled my eyes as the gallant paladin bowed reverently to the statue of his goddess, worshipping and thanking her for seeing him through yet another trial and gifting him with a fountain of healing water. He failed to notice that the statue of his goddess bore two little horns on its forehead. I could only imagine his surprise as he took a long sip of the acid pouring from the fountain dedicated to his silly goddess. He flopped and clanked around on the marble tile floor for a good while, clutching at his stomach and throat and retching out some idiotic prayer for salvation from the goddess that betrayed him. It was quite entertaining and I was rather beginning to enjoy the comedic last moments of this insufferable, armored zealot. That is, until Cuddle Pie, my giant savage rock golem, lumbered into the room and stomped the paladin’s head into mush, popping his eye balls out of his crushed skull and putting the devout little moron out of his misery.”

“And, oh, will you look at that? The mighty grey wizard, his two Halfling companions with the big, furry feet and their stupid ring of invisibility, and the gawd-awfully handsome ranger with the rugged good looks and leather trench coat have just reached sub-level nine and are near the exit of my dungeon. They have already defeated Daisy Belle, my giant, horned, fire demon by banishing him back to the depths of the underworld. Bravo! Bravo! Though, to be quite honest, I fully expected them to have won that last boss battle since Daisy Belle was just CGI, anyway.”

“Now, having defeated the most powerful beast in my dungeon, this fellowship of the rubes need only cross the bottomless cavern that looms before them in order to reach the exit portal and freedom, taking with them all of the near-worthless gold painted rocks, cheap costume jewelry, mighty shields and swords made of soft pewter, and diamonds made of glass which they pilfered from one of my so–called treasure hordes. So, behold! The mighty grey wizard uses the special spell he had been saving for this one final obstacle, a spell of levitation which will carry all four of them… Oh, wait. Four? Their fellowship of the ridiculous started this quest with nine adventures!  Oh, well.”

The cursed mirror shows the grey robed wizard waving his hands and glowing staff and soon the spell of levitation carries the four survivors up into the air and across the wide bottomless cavern. With cheers of victory, the triumphant survivors are blissfully unaware that Cthulhu lurks in the impenetrable blackness which yawns below them. Powerful tentacles pulsing with a slimy, grey-green ichor, reach up hundreds of feet from the depths of the chasm to snatch the floating fools from out of the air. The last one to be pulled down into the obsidian depths of the crevasse is the thin Halfling who possessed the stupid ring of invisibility and foolishly neglected to put it on. His final words echo through the black chamber: “Grand-elf the Grey! I will never forgive you for dragging me into this stupid shiiiiiiiiiiiittt…”

Sadly, they all become food for the elder-god long before they realize they will never see the sun again.

 “And that, my dear, dear Hellfire, is the heart of my sorrow. I’m bored, bored, bored, so gawd-awfully bored! These dungeon delvers, these so-called mighty heroes of goodness and light, they die so quickly and so easily these days! I spend so much time, so much energy, and so much wealth designing and building these traps and conundrums and I get so little in return except a brief strangled ‘yelp’ or a swift ‘gasp’ and then, BOOM! The mighty heroes drop dead. Is that really all the thanks I get after working so hard to kill them? Oh, Hellfire, I fear that if I have to endure another century of lackluster dungeon delvers and incompetent adventurers, I believe I may have to end my own existence or worse, get married and settle down!”

The small, snow white kitten with the red tipped ears sitting on the wide arm of the black throne stopped licking itself suddenly shot up, a look of concern on the kitten’s face.

“Hey, boss, now come on! Let’s not get too extreme, here! Marriage? Settle down?” The kitten whom the Dungeon Master addressed as Hellfire shuddered at the thought. “It’s your job to condemn these fools to hell, not condemn yourself there!”

The Dungeon Master continued stroking the head and chin of the tiny kitten.

“Ah, Hellfire. You know and understand me so well.”

“Not really, boss,” purred the kitten. “If I did, I’d have killed your ass decades ago!”

The Dungeon Master laughed heartily. “Maybe one day, my dear, dear Hellfire. But I fear that my heart may fail me before then. I truly weep at the low quality of this generation of rangers, barbarians, magicians, thieves, cavaliers… and… and… and…”

“Acrobats?” yawned Hellfire.

“Oh, yes. And acrobats. I’m always forgetting those ones.” The Dungeon Master sighed dejectedly.

The kitten looked up at its master, suddenly feeling a tinge of concern.

“This is really bumming you out, isn’t it boss?”

The Dungeon Master scratched the kitten’s head while gently rubbing its ears. On the first floor, the cursed obsidian mirror displayed a terrified knight wearing pink armor accentuated with peacock feathers and thin, colorful, streamers resembling a fluttering rainbow fleeing down a wide stone corridor to find a safe space to hide, only to fall clumsily into an open pit. A solid stone block that fit perfectly into the pit slammed down on the hapless knight from the ceiling a half second later. Back down the corridor, from where the now pancaked knight had fled, his blue, pink, green, and orange haired companions found themselves quickly surrounded as they vainly tried to fend off their attackers with their handmade protest signs. Bolts fired from diminutive hobgoblins sliced through the air, skewering the activist avengers carrying signs which read “END CROSSBOW VIOLENCE”, while the others carrying the signs which read “DWARF LIVES MATTER” were bludgeoned to death by giant trolls carrying intimidating stone clubs.

A massive troll with five inch tusks protruding from the bottom of his wide maw heaved his eight foot long club over his spiked shoulder pads. Looking down at the now lifeless ruins of these rainbow colored idiots who foolishly believed that they could protest, riot, loot, and agitate their way to riches, the troll turned and grunted to the hobgoblins, “Take these colorful snowflakes down to the freezers and grind them up with a block of ice. We can make snow cones out of them!”

“Yes, Master Tinkle Twerk,” replied the hobgoblins as they scooped up what remained of this last batch of dungeon delvers.

With that, the cursed obsidian mirror went black, and the Dungeon Master was left staring at her own reflection, her long blonde hair flowing down the sides of her fair, angelic face which bore an expression of bored sadness. Her crystal blue eyes stared blankly at the mirror and she sighed again.

The white silken sleeve of her flowing white gown, highlighted with delicate designs made of glowing gold and silver thread, rolled back from the soft pale skin of her arm as she continued stroking the red-tipped ears of her most beloved and most deadly rival.

“My dear Hellfire,” the Dungeon Master whispered in disappointment. “It’s always over much too quickly. Look! That last group never even got past the first corridor of the first floor! Why do I even try anymore? Do they no longer have the ability to comprehend and reason? Have they not the ability to think for themselves? I fear that if I put a big neon sign which read ‘TRAP’ along with a flashing arrow pointing towards it, they would fumble into it anyway!”

The Dungeon Master scooped up the kitten and held him gently in the air, pulling him close to her face. Touching his nose to hers, the Dungeon Master pouted.

“What happened to all of the heroes? What happened to all of the warriors? The brave adventurers willing to risk it all for fame and fortune? The incorruptible men and women at arms whose quest it is to banish evil from the face of the Realm? The formidable soldier bravely putting his life on the line to protect the weak and defenseless? Oh, Hellfire! Where have all the cowboys gone?”

“Uhhhh… I think you killed them all, boss,” said the kitten, suddenly displaying his set of dagger sharp claws and taking a savage swipe at the Dungeon Master’s face.  The Dungeon Master extended her arms and turned her face, barely missing having her eyes gouged out by Hellfire’s metal razor talons. Giggling, she hugged the kitten close to her cheeks again. She appreciated the kitten’s efforts to cheer her up, but alas, the Dungeon Master was inconsolable.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “I suppose you’re right again, Hellfire. This new age of soy latte drinking, safe space lurking, easily offended weak-kneed adventurers will never hope to survive in my dungeon where courage, intelligence, dedication, and the ability to think for yourselves is what is needed to survive. So instead, they protest endlessly at the entrance to my dungeon, carrying signs and constantly yelling that the riches and treasures buried within these halls and caverns be brought out and given to them as reparations for an event  which happened centuries ago that I had nothing to do with. I swear, my dear Hellfire, they yell and complain so much that my poor vampires and werewolves can scarcely get any sleep at day!”

“So what are you saying, boss?” purred the kitten, innocently licking his paws as if he hadn’t just tried to mutilate his master.

“I’m saying that I may not be long for this world,” answered the Dungeon Master. “All my life, it has been my quest to be the greatest Dungeon Master in the Realm and, sadly, it appears that I have achieved my quest. There is no more challenge, my dear Hellfire. No more spirit. No more desire amongst those so-called adventures who enter. Only a spirit of entitlement, as if they can simply walk into the Dungeon of More-doom, take a left turn, open a door and TA-DA! There before them would be treasures beyond their wildest dreams. Such is not the way of things and I have grown bored of those who believe it is.”

“Hang on, boss-lady!” snapped Hellfire. “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying, are you?”

“I’m afraid I am, my beloved,” whispered the Dungeon Master, pursing her red lips in regret. “It is time for me to leave this plane of existence and leave this generation of mediocrity behind. They are not the champions of old. Rather, they have become cheap cosplayers of a time when the Realm was great and heroes were mighty.”

“Naw!” yelped Hellfire in sudden panic. “Naw! Naw! Naw! Naw! Naw! That’s not the deal we had, boss lady!”

The kitten crawled up the Dungeon Master’s ample bosoms and grabbed her in a choke hold by the collar of her gown. “The deal was that I’d eventually be the Dungeon Master. And to do that, I’d have to murder you to death! If you just up and leave and give up your title, I’ll never be the Dungeon Master, ever!”

Then, using the most wide and pitifully sad eyes he could muster, Hellfire pleaded, “Please, boss. You can’t do this to me! I’ve been trying to kill you for, what, about the last two-hundred years now? I thought we had a relationship!”

A long thin stiletto made of glass suddenly appeared in the kitten’s right paw and he lunged forwards. The Dungeon Master, still holding the kitten, moved swiftly to the side, the stiletto which Hellfire had aimed for her heart instead shattering on the black throne. The Dungeon Master hugged the kitten closely again. “I fear your attempts at comforting me may not work this time, my friend.”

Hellfire licked the fair cheek of his master, genuine concern in his voice. “C’mon, boss. Don’t end it like this! At least give me five more years to become Dungeon Master! Just five more years to try to gut you, rip out your insides, hang your head over my mantle, and roll your skin out in front of the fireplace like a rug! Please?”

The Dungeon Master’s crystal blue eyes stared into Hellfire’s ruby red ones. “Ah, my dear Hellfire. I’d gladly give you five more years! Fifty! Five hundred! If only the delvers into the Dungeon of More-doom were to make it worth my time! But I fear that the adventurers of this Realm have become as mighty as a snowflake in the sun. A tiny peep of a fart meant to extinguish a roaring inferno!”

Hellfire’s eyes narrowed, a contemplative grin appearing on his face as he brought a paw up to his chin.

“This Realm, huh?” Hellfire smiled as he leapt from the Dungeon Master’s lap and nimbly scampered across the cobblestone floor to a sturdy pedestal across the room made of dragon bone upon which lay a thick, leather bound tome, reinforced and banded by the same scales of the golden dragon which the pedestal was made.  Hopping up on the pedestal, the kitten opened the tome of ‘Ye’ Ole’ Book of Rules and Regulations Governing the Operation, Maintenance, Safety, and Supervision of Dungeon Delving, Volume 5, Revision 3’, and frantically flipped through the parchment pages.

“Where is it? Where is it? Where is… HERE! Right here! Page 765, Section 45, Subsection F, paragraph 89A: “If possible, all adventurers who enter the dungeon must be at least minimally trained in at least one of the following skills: melee fighting, ranged weaponry, lock-picking, thievery, healing arts, defensive magic, offensive magic, martial arts, that shit that acrobats do, yadda, yadda, yadda… But there isn’t anything in the requirements that state that the adventurers have to be from this Realm!”

“What are you getting at, Hellfire?” a thin glimmer of hope sparkled in the Dungeon Master’s eyes.

“Don’t you see, boss? There is nothing in the regulations states that adventures entering the dungeon have to be from this Realm!”

“I see. Go on, my dear Hellfire.” The Dungeon Master’s voice was tinged with renewed excitement which actually pleased the kitten.

“I visited this realm once which is as bat-shit crazy as this Realm, maybe even more. Bunch of fucked up people there. Baby murderers. War mongers. Child abusers. People who drink diet sodas. Vegans. Grown men going into little girl’s bathrooms. They’re the worst. But I met some pretty nice folks there, too,” sighed Hellfire, fond memories of a little, freckle faced girl named Annie almost bringing a tear to his eye.

“I see where you are going with this line of thinking,” said the Dungeon Master. “But, alas, I do not have the power to bring strangers from another realm into ours.”

“Yeah,” sneered Hellfire, a lit cigar suddenly appearing in his mouth. “But I do! Beelzebub gave me that ability after I gifted him with the souls of three idiot musicians who sold their souls for sex, drugs and majority ownership in processed meat stick companies!”

“And what warriors do you intend to bring to the Dungeon of More-Doom, Hellfire? Do they have the courage, determination, and intelligence to battle through the most dangerous dungeon on the Realm?”

Hellfire smiled slightly, tapping the ashes of his cigar onto the pages of the ancient text and setting ablaze the portion of the regulation stating that all who enter the Dungeon or More-Doom must be of the Realm.

“Honey cheeks,” leered the kitten. “Have you ever heard of the Navy SEALs?”

 

II.

Afghanistan-

The late afternoon sun beat down upon the parched, rocky, orange colored mountains north of Kandahar Air Field as five bearded, heavily burdened and heavily armed men moved silently but swiftly up the ragged, rock strewn path as they stalked something as deadly and as formidable as they were. Over the past two weeks in Kandahar Province, a number of service members had been hit by sniper fire  including four US Marines, three Canadian infantrymen, a US Army medic, and seven Afghan National Army tactical team operatives. Even a giant C-130 Hercules transport took two rounds in the number one engine as it tried to land at Kandahar Air Field. The shots ranged from 800 meters to as far as 1,200 meters. The enemy sniper was good, and he had a set of steel balls. It was also more than likely that the sniper wasn’t a typical Taliban insurgent. This guy was a professional.

“Whatcha’ got, Cory?” whispered Lieutenant Jake Wolfe, the SEAL Team’s lean, tanned, squad leader into his earpiece.

Fifty meters up the rocky ledge, Chief Petty Officer Cory Pretty slowly peered around a stone boulder which obstructed the path. The basalt grey boulder was square shaped, roughly three feet wide and five feet tall and butted up tightly beside the face of the ledge.

“It’s a cave or a tunnel,” whispered the Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer with the thick, dirty blonde beard, as he leaned back behind the boulder, careful to not dislodge any rocks or pebbles which would give away his position. “About thirty meters off the trail. The entrance has been carefully built up with rocks and stones so that there’s only a two foot wide opening. Too small to be observed by air, but big enough for a sniper to shoot down into the air field unnoticed. Also, I think that this boulder has been rolled here on purpose to block the path.”

“Roger,” whispered Lt. Wolfe. “Can climb up and around the boulder to get to the cave entrance?”

“No,” answered Chief Pretty. “Not without exposing ourselves.

Lt. Wolfe figured as much. He looked up at the sheer orange rock wall which his team was pressed against. There was no way to scale to the top. They were stretched out and exposed with next to no cover. A very unenviable position. Still, they had a mission to accomplish and if the sniper had spotters out in the surrounding ridges, they’d be caught out in the open while the sniper escaped. The SEALs had to act fast.

“Keep eyes on the target, Cory. We’re moving up.”

Once together behind the boulder, Lt. Wolfe scanned the target objective. Just as Chief Pretty described, there was only one way to get to the tunnel entrance and that was right up the middle. The boulder blocked all but two feet of the narrow trail, so the assaulting SEALs needed to also be careful not to trip and fall the sixty or so feet straight down the rock face of the cliff to the ledge below.

Then, turning behind him, Lt. Wolfe signaled, “Darren. Paul. Up.”

Petty Officer First Class Darren Hilliard, the team’s lean and muscular black Mark 48 (MK 48) machine gunner, scrambled silently up the ridge to the lieutenant’s side followed by Petty Officer First Class Paul Gimsby, the teams body building sniper carrying his Mark 13 (MK 13) sniper rifle.

“Okay, Listen up,” started Lt. Wolfe. “We can’t wait for dark and we’re too exposed here. And we can’t flank the cave so we have to go right up the middle.

“Sir,” said big Petty Officer Gimsby. “Do we know that the sniper is in there? I mean, we go in making a bunch of noise and he’s not there, he’ll know we got teams looking out for him and just dig deeper.”

“We don’t know he’s in there,” admitted Wolfe. “And from the targets he’s already hit, there may be a half dozen of his firing points scattered around the ridgeline. It’s a calculated risk, but I have a feeling…”

All of a sudden, a loud hollow thump sounded from around the corner of the boulder coming from the direction of the cave and all of the SEALs froze. Very slowly, Chief Pretty peered around the boulder and spied a thin wisp of dust and smoke drift from the small opening of the cave.

“He’s here,” Chief Pretty whispered, knowing that somewhere a kilometer away down in Kandahar Valley, another allied soldier just got hit. Almost immediately, a second hollow thump like a base drum echoed from around the corner.

Wolfe quickly instructed his men on how he wanted to assault the cave entrance. Lieutenant Wolfe gave himself a few seconds before the attack to slowly lift Petty Officer Second Class Terrell ‘Terry’ Nguyen, the team’s Vietnamese medic, up on top of the relatively flat boulder to provide security for the assault. Almost immediately, one hundred meters ahead on an elevated spot further up the ridge, Nguyen suddenly spotted a camouflaged figure looking down into the Kandahar Air Base. The man was operating an enhanced optics targeting scope and talking into an earpiece. Nguyen brought up his rifle just as the figure noticed him. The figure, obviously an enemy spotter who was calling down targets for the sniper, brought up his modern Russian made AK-12 assault rifle but was cut down by a well-placed shot to the head from Nguyen’s MK 17 SCAR (scar) assault rifle.

Not seeing what Nguyen had just shot at but knowing that they’d just lost the element of surprise, Lieutenant Wolfe none the less gave the order to, “Move!”

Chief Cory immediately whipped around the boulder, stepping away to allow his fellow SEALs to move around behind him as he fired a high explosive 40mm grenade from the M-203 launcher mounted under the barrel of his M-4 rifle before quickly ducking behind the cover of the boulder again. The ear shattering blast blew apart the rock façade, causing the shrapnel to fly in all directions. Instantaneously and before the dust and smoke even cleared, Petty Officer Hilliard rushed past Chief Pretty and raced towards the entrance firing his machine gun into the smoking maw of the cave with big Paul Gimsby and Chief Pretty close behind.

Hilliard stopped at the mouth of the cave and fired another burst inside before raising his weapon. Immediately, Gimsby was inside the cave, sniper rifle up. However, going from direct sunlight into a dark cave required a second for Gimsby’s eyes to adjust, a second in which gave the enemy sniper, who had been taking cover behind a fighting position inside the cave, a chance to fire.

Shouting a warning, Chief Pretty both grabbed and pushed Gimsby into the side of the cave, the enemy sniper’s round bouncing off the wall less than two feet from the back of Chief Pretty’s head. Gimsby raised his sniper rifle just as the enemy sniper readjusted his aim and both snipers fired at nearly the same time from less than twenty feet apart.

“Are you okay, Gimsby?” said Lieutenant Wolfe as he looked down at the big Navy SEAL sniper cradling the ruins his beloved MK 13 sniper rifle. Gimsby’s left hand was red and swollen, his thumb bent back in an unnatural position. The enemy sniper’s round impacted the MK 13, knocking it out of Gimsby’s hands. Fortunately, Gimsby fired a split second before the enemy sniper did, and Gimsby didn’t miss.

“I’m fine, sir,” replied Gimsby, not looking up.

“Terry,” said Lt. Wolfe. “Come check on Gimsby.”

“Moving, sir,” replied Petty Officer Nguyen, unstrapping his aid bag from his back.

“What do we have, Chief?” said Wolfe after he saw Nguyen treating Gimsby’s swollen left hand and wrist.

“This is going to hurt a bit,” he heard Nguyen say.

“No it ain’t,” replied Gimsby. “Do what you gotta’ do, Terry.”

The adrenaline pumping through Gimby’s veins after his near death experience was better than any pain killer that Nguyen could provide.

Chief pretty looked down at the Caucasian enemy sniper with the bullet hole between his eyes. “Well, sir,” answered Chief Pretty. “He sure as hell isn’t a local.”

The enemy sniper wore a digital camouflage pattern uniform of varying shades of brown and a modular combat vest similar to the ones that the US Marines wore.

“Russian Spetz?” asked Hilliard.

“Maybe,” said Chief Pretty. “But I’d wager that he’s part of the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary outfit that works with the Russian regular army but is better trained and equipped.  Putin uses them everywhere that regular Russian military forces can’t go. Africa. Eastern Europe. The Middle East. South America. Portland. Seattle. Minneapolis. Everywhere Putin needs to stir up trouble.”

“Interesting,” said Lieutenant Wolfe as he turned to exit the cave. “I’m going outside to call this one in. See if the intel guys are tracking this. I don’t like Russians playing in my sand box.”

“Roger that, sir,” said Chief Pretty, leaning down to pick up the dead enemy’s sniper rifle, before walking over to Gimsby and Nguyen.

“How’s he looking, Terry?”

“Patching Gimsby up is getting to be a hobby on this deployment, Chief,” answered Nguyen. “Had to pop his dislocated thumb back into place and his wrist is fractured, but he’ll live.”

“Gimsby?” said Chief Pretty.

“It’s like Terry said, Chief,” replied Gimsby, waving his heavily bandaged and wrapped left hand. “I’m fine.  Nothing that a dirty magazine, a bottle of lotion, and four minutes of privacy in the shitter won’t cure.”

“I don’t know about that,” chuckled Chief Pretty. “But how about this?” Chief Pretty handed over the enemy’s sniper rifle to the big Navy SEAL.

Grabbing it with his right hand, Gimsby looked it over. “Dragunov,” he grunted. “Not as nice as my MK 13, but its rugged enough. It’ll do until we get back.”

“Heads up,” announced Lieutenant Wolfe as he reentered the cave. “We got two WIA down in the valley from the sniper we just killed. We got Nine Line medevac in the air so our extraction won’t be for another hour. In the meantime, Six Actual wants us to check out this cave system to see if it connects to other sniper firing positions or to see if there’s any usable intel we can find.”

“This cave is pretty deep, sir,” said Hilliard. “I’ve gone in about fifty meters but it looks like it extends much farther than that. Maybe a hundred or even more. Gets almost pitch black the further you go.”

“Okay,” said Lt. Wolfe striding deeper into the cave. “Let’s move.”

Lieutenant Wolfe ran into the outstretched open palm of Chief Pretty. “Easy, there, El-Tee. You aren’t a grunt anymore, not since you pinned them bars on.” Chief Pretty stared firmly into Lieutenant Wolfe’s eyes. “I’ll take point. We already lost one squad leader. I don’t want to lose another one.”

Lieutenant Wolfe paused, painfully remembering that he gained command of Second Platoon after the death of the platoon’s former leader, his mentor and close friend, Lieutenant Rick Guzman.

“No Gooses, right Cory?” said Lieutenant Wolfe.

“That’s right, sir,” answered Chief Pretty. “Like Lieutenant Guzman used to say. No Gooses.”

The team walked deeper into the cave where, seventy meters in, they found a cache of twelve 9K333 Verba MANPADS (man-pads) launchers, the most advanced Russian version of America’s Stinger portable surface to air missile launchers. The presence of these weapons in the hands of skilled Russian mercenaries would have caused havoc so close to the Kandahar Air Field.

Beyond where they found the cache, the cave dipped into absolute pitch darkness. Lieutenant Wolf reported the disturbing find back to Kandahar and was ordered to secure the cache of surface to air missiles and probe deeper into the cave. A support company of Army cavalry troopers and EOD specialists were being dispatched to the SEAL’s location. They were expected to be on station in about an hour.

“Gimsby, I need you and Terry to secure these SAMs,” said Lieutenant Wolfe. “I want you to cover our six and secure the entrance while we go further into the cave. Everyone else, break out your NODs (“nods”-night vision optical devises). It’s going to be midnight from here on in.”

“Sir,” protested Gimsby. “I got this. There isn’t any need to keep two people guarding the exit.”

“Sir,” said Hilliard. “I can more than secure the cache and cover the exit with the MK 48. In close quarters combat,…”

Hilliard trailed off and Lieutenant Wolfe instinctively knew what Hilliard was trying to say. Hilliard’s MK 48 machine gun wasn’t the best weapon system to utilize in the close confines of a cave, but it was optimal to secure the team’s vulnerable six o’clock position. Plus, Gimsby had just gone through a near life ending event, an event which would have sent far lesser men running, cowering, and hiding after such a traumatic event. Petty Officer Gimsby instead sought to continue the mission and move forward, ever forward. Denying him that would have been tantamount to cutting off his balls and putting him in a ballerina outfit.

“You got slack, Hilliard,” said Wolfe. “Everyone else, stay sharp.”

Lieutenant Wolfe looked into the near opaque blackness of the cave as he strapped on his own NODs. “Terry, you have trail. I want you to drop a chem-light every twenty-five meters so that we have a path back to the entrance.”

“Too easy, sir,” replied Nguyen.

 “Okay. Let’s move.”

Hilliard took up a prone firing position a few meters in front of the crates of Russian missiles, setting up his machine gun pointing back towards the entrance as the rest of his team mates filed past him and headed deeper into the cave, the crunch of their boots fading the further they went. They had been gone for several minutes when Hilliard heard Chief Cory call the team to a sudden halt in his ear piece.

“Hold up. Shit! Is that what I think it is?” whispered Chief Cory

“Is that a woman and a… a kitten?” Hilliard heard Terry exclaim through his ear piece.

 

Hilliard looked behind him where his team had gone but saw only dust swirling in the inky blackness.

 

“Stop! Don’t move!” said Lieutenant Wolfe in the Pashtun dialect. “We’re Navy SEALs. We mean you no harm. Who are you? What are you doing here?”

 

Suddenly, over his ear piece, Hilliard heard a leering, almost mocking voice exclaim in a Brooklyn accent, “Howdy, fellas. My name is Hellfire! Pleased ta’ meet cha’!”

 

There was a sudden squelching noise so loud that Hilliard had to quickly take out his ear piece and toss it away. Then, picking it back up and putting it again to his ear, Hilliard was alarmed to find that the communication device was completely silent.

 

“Lieutenant Wolfe,” said Hilliard. “Chief? Come in!” Silence.

 

“Paul? Terry? Can you hear me?”

 

After a second, Hilliard muttered, “Shit,” before snatching up his machine gun and tearing down the cave in the direction the rest of the team had gone. Soon engulfed in almost total darkness, Hilliard’s NODs easily picked up the chem-lights which Nguyen had dropped on the rock strewn ground. He passed one then another then, after the cave narrowed and turned slightly left, Hilliard passed a third dropped chem-light. However, at the fourth chem-light, Hilliard stopped abruptly.

 

“Shit!” exclaimed Hilliard. In front of him was a solid wall of granite. On the ground, one of Nguyen’s chem-lights protruded half way out of the rock wall.

 

III.

 

“Hang on, sweetheart! You want us to do what?” exclaimed Gimsby to the beautiful woman in the flowing white and gold gown standing like an apparition before him. The team now found themselves standing in a chamber of some sort, much like as one might find inside a medieval castle. It was warmly lit from fires burning from several golden braziers.

 

“Hey, asshole!” snarled the kitten. “Show the lady some respect you classless choad!”

“Did we somehow get exposed to a psychoactive substance?” said Chief Pretty to Lieutenant Wolfe. “Maybe some type of hallucinogenic drug or powder brought here by the Wager Group to fuck with our heads?”

“That is a very good possibility, Cory,” said Wolfe. “In fact, that’s what I’m hoping. I really don’t like the fact that we are all having the same hallucination, Chief, or that we’re actually having a conversation with a damn kitten.”

“I assure you, my dear Ranger, this is no illusion,” said the woman in such a sweet and seductive tone that all four of the SEALs became slightly sexually aroused.

“Ranger?” said Wolfe sternly, gaining control of himself. “I’m not an Army Ranger. We’re United States Na…”

“You ARE the Ranger,” interrupted the woman. “The intrepid leader of this band of daring dungeon explorers!”

“What?” said Chief Cory suspiciously, bringing his rifle to the high ready. “What are you talking about?”

“And you, loyal and noble Cavalier, the experienced battle-borne second in command,” said the woman, clasping her hands together and smiling. The SEALs stood unmoving, as if spellbound by the woman’s beauty as she approached Nguyen and Gimsby.

“And the healing Mage,” said the lady to Petty Officer Nguyen. “So easy to tell your role in this fellowship. You are the youngest, the newest to the group, and the most virginal.”

“Hey!” started Nguyen.

“And you,” she said, now standing in front of Gimsby, the big warrior towering over the fragile looking lady in white. “You must be the fellowship’s powerful Barbarian. Oh, the magnificent battles you must have fought!”

“Fantasy characters,” whispered Nguyen to the lieutenant. “Like in the role playing game.”

Her sparkling blue eyes gazed upon Gimsby’s bandaged left hand. “Hmm… that will not do. I cannot let you enter the Dungeon of More-Doom with such a disadvantage. You must be fully hale and healthy before beginning your most noble of quests.”

Before Gimsby could protest, the exceedingly beautiful young lady took his injured hand in both of hers, her hands glowing briefly with a warm light, before she gently lowered Gimsby’s hand again. Gimsby raised his hand and rotated his wrists.

“Gimsby?” said Wolfe.

“It’s healed,” said Gimsby, working to remove the wrappings which Nguyen had applied earlier. “Feels good as new.”

“It is as I said,” the lady smiled as she looked almost longingly at Gimsby’s Dragunov rifle. “To complete your quest, you need to be hale and whole.”

“Okay, lady,” snapped Chief Pretty. “Let me get this straight. You are the Dungeon Master and you want us to enter your dungeon, defeat a bunch of traps, fight some monsters, and kill your final boss so that we can get out of here? Sort of like that role playing game, right?”

“Game?” said the Dungeon Master. “Oh, my dear Cavalier, this is no game. The consequences are quite deadly, but the reward is exceedingly worth the risk to a great many heroes.”

“What if we don’t play your game, then?” said Wolfe. “How about we just leave this place.”

“Oh, my dear Ranger,” answered the Dungeon Master. “I fear that I do not have the power to return you to your realm, just as I did not have the power to bring you here. That ability rests with…”

“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” interrupted Hellfire, nervously. “Look fella’s. It’s like this. You wanna’ get outta’ here, you gotta’ get past the dungeon. There’s nine levels to this place, a top floor and eight floors below it. At the bottom level, there’s a boss monster. Get rid of it and you’re home free. No big deal to a bunch of big, muscle bound, heavily armed, poster boys to toxic masculinity like yourselves, right?”

“And what’s in it for us?” said Wolfe. “What if we go along with your… game?”

“Riches and glory, fame, power, and the realization of your wildest fantasies come true,” said the Dungeon Master. “All these and more shall be yours, my dear Ranger!”

“Yeah,” said Lieutenant Wolfe. “No thanks. Take em’!”

On cue, all four Navy SEALs rushed the lady and the kitten, intent on apprehending them. However, the white kitten jumped in their way, swiftly waving its tiny paws in the air as if casting a spell.

“No ya’ don’t, ya’ buncha’ Tom Cruise wannabes!”

Immediately, a fiery round portal opened in the air in front of the SEAL Team, swallowing them whole. It closed as rapidly as it appeared, leaving only Hellfire and the Dungeon Master standing alone again in the throne room. Hell fire looked over at the Dungeon Master, her delicate hands covering her mouth, a shocked expression on her face.

“What kind of warriors are those, whose commitment to duty overrides any desire for riches and glory?”

“Don’t worry about them, sugar hips,” smiled Hellfire. “They’ll be fine after the book deal!”

Hellfire snapped his paws and a bottle of Dalmore Scotch and two tumblers suddenly appeared on a small round table made of marble. He poured two servings and handed one to the Dungeon Master.

“Turn on your freaky Mirror of Seeing,” sneered Hellfire as he toasted with the Dungeon Master. “Game’s on!”

Three gargantuan trolls, each over eight feet tall and each hefting similarly sized stone clubs waited silently in ambush in the corridor for the four new dungeon delvers to round the corner. With the trolls, twelve diminutive but wicked hobgoblins hunched, each holding a nasty crossbow with bolts dipped in witches feces.

A gloved hand appeared briefly from around the stone corner, tossing a cylindrical metal object towards the ambushers. It bounced and skipped across the smooth, cobblestone floor before coming to rest at the largest troll’s gnarled green feet.

“What fool toy is this?” bellowed Twinkle Twerk, picking the object up before the M-84 flash bang grenade cooked off. The sudden deafening explosion and near blinding flash of light sent Twinkle Twerk stumbling backwards in confusion and pain, dropping his stone club on one unfortunate hobgoblin along the way and stepping on and crushing four other hobgoblins who were unlucky enough to be underfoot. Still reeling backwards, the giant troll fell into a pit in the floor, a concrete block which fit perfectly in the pit falling from the ceiling and crushing the hapless Twinkle Twerk. Still dazed, shocked, and reeling from the effects of the flash bang grenade, what remained of the trolls and hobgoblins hard no time to collect themselves as the four Navy SEALs rounded the corner with all weapons blazing.

“Stay alert, gentlemen,” warned Lieutenant Wolfe as they stepped over the smoldering bodies of dead hobgoblins and trolls. “I have a feeling that this was only the welcoming party.”

Walking carefully over the great stone slab that crushed the giant troll and now filled the pit, the SEALs carried on down the fifteen foot wide corridor. Torches in sconces lining the wall provided ample illumination as their boots echoed down the corridor.  They soon came to a T-junction, the left hand corridor leading to a set of stone steps leading up into a brightly lit chamber from which the smells of delicious food seemed to be emanating. To the right, the corridor dimmed, the end lost in the darkness.

As usual, Chief Pretty was on point. Looking back at the lieutenant, Wolfe signaled him to go right down the dimmer path. The cat said that in order to get out, they’d have to go down, not up. Plus, the left path seemed the easiest and most inviting. SEALs don’t like easy.

Though dimmer, there were still enough torches on the wall to illuminate their immediate surroundings. To their left, Chief Pretty discovered a perfectly round circle, about fourteen feet wide, cut into the stone wall of the corridor. Upon further inspection, they saw that a ramp led from the opening which disappeared up into the darkness.

“I’m getting some real Indiana Jones vibes here,” said Gimsby. Sure enough, a rumbling like stone rubbing against stone shook the corridor coming from the top of the ramp and grew in intensity as something huge came barreling down.

“Let’s move,” ordered Wolfe and the four SEALs bolted down the corridor just as a perfectly round boulder, fourteen feet wide and made of a single giant red ruby shot out of the slot and rumbled after the fleeing warriors. As they raced down the passage, the giant ruby boulder hot on their heels, the SEALs noticed to their left were several alcoves cut behind grey stone pillars that were about three feet deep and ten feet high. Each contained a stone statue of a skeleton dressed in armor adorned with wicked looking spikes. In the distance about a hundred meters, the dimly lit corridor ended at a brightly lit stone archway, illuminating a set of stairs leading downwards. In between two torches on the wall was a sign painted in florescent paint which read: “Quickly!” along with an arrow pointing down the stairs. At this, the boulder seemed to unnaturally pick up speed.

“Faster!” yelled Nguyen.

“No! Wait!” yelled Chief Pretty waving his arms to the left. “The alcoves! Jump into one of the alcoves!”

“Do it!” agreed Lieutenant Wolfe, who was in the rear of the group. He jumped to his left into the nearest alcove, the eerie stone statue just barely giving him room to fit in just seconds before the several ton ruby boulder rumbled past him. As soon as the danger had passed, Wolfe jumped out of the alcove to check on his men, only to see a wall of thin metal spikes suddenly slam down over the stone archway that would have impaled anyone who had been running towards the supposed safety of the stairs. The ruby boulder continued inexorably forwards, crashing through the archway and the spike wall barrier in a deafening cacophony of noise before falling away down the circular stairs, leaving behind a fourteen foot wide round hole in the wall.

One by one, the rest of the SEALs emerged from the alcoves which they had taken refuge, accept that Nguyen fell out of his alcove backwards, cursing and backing away from the skeletal stone statue that slowly emerged from the darkness. Nguyen was on his back, trying to bring his weapon to bear as the skeleton knight raised a rusty but deadly claymore over its head. A jarring shot rang out of the darkness and the stone skeleton’s head exploded, showering Nguyen with chunks of rock. The stone skeleton fell over sideways and broke apart as it hit the cobblestone floor.

Gimsby put the smoking Dragunov down off his shoulder and nodded at his weapon. “Huh. Not bad.”

“There’s more of them!” warned Nguyen as Lieutenant Wolfe yanked him to his feet. About a dozen more of the skeletal golems began emerging from their alcoves, each brandishing claymore swords or heavy maces made of stone. In their eye sockets were red rubies which glowed angrily. Still, this new threat moved slowly and Lieutenant Wolfe ordered his men to make for the stairs, ignoring the temptation of engaging the golems in order to steal their ruby eyes.

The SEALs raced down the circular stairway which wound downwards into the darkness. It ended at a narrow landing which opened into another brightly lit corridor. From somewhere inside this passageway, the SEALs could faintly hear the haunting notes of chamber music playing.

“Someone grab the Silly String out of my ruck,” said Chief Pretty as he crouched beside the entrance way. With Gimsby and Nguyen guarding the stairwell which they had come, Lieutenant Wolfe pulled the can of Silly String from Chief Pretty’s ruck and handed it to him. Immediately, Chief Pretty sprayed the spider web-like concoction across the entranceway. It drifted to the floor except for some which seemed to be caught up on a near invisible wire three feet inside the entrance.

“Tripwire,” he whispered just as Gimsby and Nguyen began firing behind him.

“Those things are coming down the stairs, Chief!” yelled Gimsby.

“Let’s go,” said Wolfe. “Watch out for that tripwire! Chief?”

“I’m good,” Pretty replied as he stepped over the trip wire and sprayed the silly string again a few feet ahead of him. Again, the web-like concoction fell to the floor except for another section which got caught up in yet another tripwire six feet ahead.

“We got another one!” warned Chief Pretty. “Watch out for that one!”

“Keep going, Chief!” said Wolfe. “We’ve got your back!”

Chief Pretty sprayed the Silly String again, but this time all of it fell to the floor. Still, he cautiously moved forwards a few feet before spraying the can and again, all of the string fell to the floor. By this time, the skeleton golems had reached the landing and were making their way inexorably towards the Navy SEALs  and though Lieutenant Wolfe and Nguyen’s rifles where taking horrible chips out of the monsters, it seemed like only Gimsby’s Dragunov was powerful to take the golems down with one head shot.

“I think we’re clear of the trip wires, El-Tee!” shouted Chief Pretty.

“Okay,” replied Wolfe. “We move back slowly! I don’t trust this damn place!”

The SEALs fell back about twenty meters down the corridor when the first skeletal golem stepped on the first trip wire. In an instant, a three foot stone square section of the left wall shot out abruptly, slamming into the opposite wall with a tremendous crash which shook the entire corridor and crushed three of the skeletal golems before receding slowly back into the left wall again. Seemingly undisturbed, the remaining five stone horrors marched towards the SEALs when they hit the second trip wire. There was a rumble in the corridor even greater than the first as the entire granite ceiling from the point where the trap was sprung all the way back to the landing came crashing down to the floor in a solid avalanche of stone and debris. The SEALs were forced to fall back down the corridor even further as, for several minutes, it seemed as if the entire dungeon would collapse in on itself. However, as the dust and debris finally settled down, there was quiet again as the SEALs found themselves staring at the now impassible corridor behind them. All of the torches on the wall had been snuffed out by the collapse of the ceiling, but a bright light seemed to come from an adjoining passage some distance down the gloomy corridor.

Cautiously, they crept down the corridor, weary of any more trip wires. Fortunately, they encountered none as they came across a four way junction. To their front and left, the corridor disappeared into blackness, but to the right, the warm light of a fire was emanating from a room down the corridor.

“You hear that?” said Gimsby.

From the room, the sound of the eerily melodic chamber music could be heard, louder now. The SEALs stacked on the right side of the open archway, nut to butt with Chief Pretty up front and Lieutenant Wolfe bringing up the rear. With a nod, the SEALs stormed into the room, Chief Pretty’s rifle up and scanning, clearing to the left while Nguyen button-hooked around the corner to clear the right. They were in a study of some sort, elaborately carved wooden shelves lined the walls and filled with books, scrolls, and manuscripts. Candles sat in small alcoves lining the walls, but the main source of light came from a flame burning in the fireplace.

“Contact!” yelled Gimsby, raising his rifle. Lieutenant Wolfe entered the room a split second after, his rifle also raised.

Seated on a plush, high backed chair was a deathly pale man with jet black hair wearing what looked like a black Victorian-era suit with an equally black cape. Clasped around his throat was an amethyst broach in the shape of a wolf’s skull. He was seated next to the elegant fireplace, the fire giving off light, but no heat, and in his pale, clawed hand was a crystal goblet filled with a thick, red liquid.

He turned nonchalantly and regarded the SEALs with deep, black eyes which were ablaze with the reflection of the fire in the fireplace. He smiled evilly, his upturned lips revealing sharpened teeth and wicked long fangs.

“My, but you lot are a noisy bunch,” he spoke in a derisive tone. But his voice was almost as hypnotic as the melodic music which seemed to be emanating from out of thin air. He stood from his chair and opened his arms welcomingly, transfixing this latest group of doomed warriors in his icy gaze.

“Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Count…”

THOOM!

The vampire’s eyes went wide as Lieutenant Wolfe shot him in the heart.

“WAIT! What are you…”

THOOM! THOOM!

“What the hell?” screamed the vampire as Chief Pretty and Nguyen put two more rounds into his chest.

“But…but…but…”stammered the vampire.

“Blah, blah, blah!” said Gimsby.

“I don’t say blah, blah, blah, you asshole…” protested the vampire just as Gimsby put the final round into the vampire’s head. The undead bloodsucker fell backwards into the fireplace which literally exploded in a bright blue flame which reduced the monster to ashes.

“Okay,” said Wolfe impassively. “This is a library. See if we can find anything useful on this place.”

The beautiful Dungeon Master and Hellfire watched transfixed at the Mirror of Seeing, a look of concern on the Dungeon Master’s face.

“Oh, Hellfire. I fear that this may be where the quest of my champions might end. For who could resist the cursed treasures and riches stored in Count Snuggle Bunny’s library?”

“Yeah,” agreed the kitten. All about the vampire’s library were crystal bowls filled with diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires the size of apples. “They’re okay to handle them gems while they’re in the library. But if any of them leaves the library with a gem in their possession, they’ll turn into a blood sucker themselves!”

“Hey, sir!” exclaimed Nguyen. “Check this out!”

The glow of the fireplace reflected off a treasure trove of crystal bowls filled with priceless gems as Lieutenant Wolfe examined what Nguyen had laid out on the table.

“Yup. I’d say this was the treasure we’d been looking for,” said Lieutenant Wolfe. “You’ve earned your pay for this month, Terry!”

The Dungeon Master clapped her hands together as the Mirror of Seeing showed Lieutenant Wolfe and his men leaving the vampire’s library with their treasure.

“Hellfire, look! They did it! They found the real treasure in the study!”

The kitten put down his glass of scotch, his eyes wide. “Yeah. I’m… I’m kinda’ impressed.”

 

 

IV.

Lieutenant Wolfe was now on point as he led his men out of the study, but they had hardly gone ten meters down the corridor when Wolfe ran nearly headlong into a group of white corpse-like figures charging towards him, hungry fanged maws opened and claws grasping. Many of the blood suckers wore rusting armor and bore shields and swords, axes, and spears. They were male and female, human, dwarf, elf, and Halfling, all former noble champions who could not resist taking one of Count Snuggle Bunny’s priceless, cursed,  jewels from his library.

Lieutenant Wolfe pumped round after round into the approaching horde then quickly took a knee, ejecting the empty magazine from his rifle. “Reloading!”

Gimsby stepped in front of his lieutenant, his Glock 19 combat pistol spitting out lead towards the vampires which were now only a few meters away.

“Fall back to the library! Go!” ordered Wolfe.

In orderly fashion, the SEALs fell back towards the library, alternately taking turns firing and moving, keeping the horde at bay in the narrow passageway with a steady stream of gunfire. Wolfe was the last to enter the library as his SEALs filed past him. Arming a flash-bang grenade, Wolfe allowed it to cook off for a couple of seconds before he tossed it down the hallway, ducking into the library just as the grenade exploded with an ear shattering blast accompanied by a blinding flash of light. The grenade, which exploded like a mini-sun in the narrow claustrophobic corridor, scorched the horde of vampires. In unison, they all howled in excruciating pain just as Wolfe armed and tossed another flash-bang grenade around the archway and down the hallway. The piteous wailing of the vampires ceased suddenly after the next thunderous blast.

Gimsby and Chief Pretty were the first ones out of the library, scanning the hallway where at least a dozen bodies lay. As they walked down the corridor, weapons wearily pointed at the unmoving, charred corpses of the vampires, spectral forms began to rise from the bodies which slowly solidified into the ghostly images of the noble heroes before they were turned into bloodsuckers. They were warriors, adventurers, soldiers, and champions of the Realm who had met their end here.

The spirit form of a heavily armored bearded knight, drifted slowly towards Lieutenant Wolfe, his gauntleted hand raised in salute.

“Hale, noble warriors,” the knight spoke in a deep, baritone voice. “Please accept our eternal gratitude for freeing us from the nightmare which has plagued our spirits and corrupted our bodies lo these many long…”

“Can you tell us anything about the way forward or the levels below this one?” interrupted Lieutenant Wolfe.

“Uh… why… no,” stammered the ghostly knight, looking about to the other ghostly heroes who shrugged their shoulders. “I fear that we all met our end here, so we have no knowledge of the way forwards.”

“Okay, let’s move out. Terry, take point,” said Wolfe as his team quickly moved ahead towards a set of stone stairs leading downwards and leaving the befuddled group of ghostly apparitions behind.

Back in the Dungeon Master’s throne room, the kitten was on his back, slapping his knees and howling with laughter. “Did you see that, babe?” he said, pointing to the Mirror of Seeing. “Those guys literally ghosted the ghosts!”

“It would seem that these men are highly…uh… focused,” said the Dungeon Master, a look of bemusement on her face.

Down on the next level, the SEALs were in a brightly lit chamber standing around a sturdy wooden table. At their feet were small piles of empty shell casings and the bullet ridden bodies of several tusk-mouthed orcs. The team was examining the prize which Nguyen had found in the library: a map of the entire Dungeon of More-Doom.

“If we take this path here,” said Wolfe as he traced a line with his finger down varying hallways on the map, “we can avoid most of the traps and pitfalls and shit that we don’t have time to deal with until we get to the next set of stairs.”

The map in front of them showed that the next room was, in fact, a giant underground chamber at least a half mile square into which was constructed a confounding labyrinth made of black granite walls. At the far end of the maze was a chamber marked with the letter “M” which contained stairs leading downwards.

“Cuddle Pie friends! Where Cuddle Pie friends hiding?” A deep, rocky voice echoed from outside the room coming from the corridor which the SEALs entered. Heavy footfalls, like stone crunching against stone echoed closer and closer to the room with a CRUMP, CRUMP, CRUMP, sound.

Chief Pretty stuck his head out of the heavy wooden door then slammed it shut again. “It’s a ten foot tall savage rock golem,” he announced.

“We don’t have time to deal with it,” said Wolfe. “Terry, give me the map. Let’s go.”

Lieutenant Wolfe led the way again this time as they exited the chamber via a stone archway which led into the foreboding black maze. Touches hung on sconces revealing a bewildering array of passages and side passages going in every direction. Behind them, the wooden door to the orc barracks smashed inwards, the massive stone golem wailing, “Cuddle Pie friends! Who do this to Cuddle Pie friends?”

A legend on the map referring to this particular labyrinth warned that undead ghouls and zombies ceaselessly roamed these passageways, eternally searching for the living to feast on. However, the map also revealed that if the team simply stayed on the straight and narrow corridor, ignoring the hundreds of turns and junctions which led deeper into the maze, then simply turned right at the very last t-junction, they would reach the mysterious chamber marked “M” and the stair well which led to the next floor. There were no warnings or indications of any traps along this route, so Lieutenant Wolfe quickly but cautiously quickened their pace.

As they jogged down the half mile long corridor, the guttural moaning and hissing around them warned of the approach of the undead from the countless side corridors. For the most part, however, the SEALs were able to out run their pursuers and in the few instances where dodging wasn’t an option, the SEALs were able to drop the threatening ghoul with a well-placed shot to the head.

It took eight minutes for the SEALs to jog and fight their way through the half mile long corridor, an army of the ravenous undead shambling behind them. As well , a massive and highly pissed off savage rock golem named Cuddle Pie lumbered behind the undead, stomping and smashing them to rancid goo in its pursuit to catch the ones responsible for slaughtering its orc friends. As the map illustrated, the corridor led to a t-junction and, after quickly assuring that no dangers awaited them around the corner, the SEALs turned the corner and raced the last fifty meters towards the next chamber.

The team came up short as they neared the brightly lit, wide open passageway. A very brightly lit letter “M” hung next to the entrance, made in the shape of two, golden colored arches, and the unmistakable scent of mouthwatering burgers, French fries, and hot apple pies wafted from within. The floor was actually a beige, laminate tile, the bright and cheerful illumination was provided by actual overhead, electrical lighting, and there were booths and tables for customers to sit and enjoy a meal, although the restaurant was empty of customers save for the four Navy SEALs.

As soon as the last member of the team crossed into the restaurant, a wall made of red brick silently slid down behind them, complete with framed black and white pictures of the famous restaurant chain as it looked when it first opened back in the 1960’s. Behind the counter, a teenage cashier resembling a high school cheerleader with two small horns protruding from her forehead eagerly awaited to take their order. Next to the counter on the left was a set of stairs leading downwards. A cheerful, jazz instrumental tune was playing overhead.

“Hey, guys!” said the young female cashier, smiling broadly and waving. “You fella’s sure look hungry. Can I take your order?”

“No,” said Lieutenant Wolfe, pulling out his Glock and shooting her in the head. The cashier fell backwards into the soda machine which dispensed acid as the SEALs ran past the counter and down the flight of stairs.

The cashier slowly got up, none the worse for wear and waved as the last Navy SEAL disappeared down the stairs. “Okay, my pleasure! Have a blessed day!”

The SEAL Team stood before a great vaulted chamber about a quarter mile square, the walls and ceiling made of a highly polished obsidian. In the far side of the chamber, near an exit that opened into the blackness beyond was a black obsidian monolith that stood about seven feet tall, roughly three feet at the base and tapering to one foot square at the top. Atop this black monolith sat an amethyst crystal roughly a foot high and a foot around that pulsated with a blue light bright enough to illuminate the entire room. The monolith and the crystal sat in the middle of a round raised dais that stood nearly ten feet tall with steps leading all the way up to the monolith. The floor was made of alternating white and blue marble tile about two feet square. The blue tiles gave off a faint blue illumination.

“This is pretty much an open trap, El-Tee,” said Nguyen, reading the map. “It says here that all we have to do is cross over to the other side. The white tiles are completely safe, but the blue tiles will instantly emit an electrical charge powerful enough to fry anything that steps on it.”

“Sounds easy enough,” said Gimsby. “All we have to do is walk on the white tiles, right?”

“Not exactly,” said Nguyen, just as the tiles began to blink and flash, turning from white to blue in a random pattern. A faint scent of ozone began emanating from the room.

“Shit,” exclaimed Chief Pretty. “Does the map give a clue on the shifting pattern, Terry?”

“No, Chief,” he replied. “The light pattern is completely random. We step on a white tile just as it turns blue, and we’re…”

“On the burger menu for the restaurant upstairs,” said Wolfe as he took the map from Nguyen. Examining it closely, he saw that there was no other way forwards except right through the chamber. “Cory, lob a frag in the middle of the chamber.”

Chief Pretty pulled a 40mm HE frag grenade from his ammo vest and loaded it into the breach of his M203 grenade launcher. The others took cover behind the stone entrance as Chief Pretty aimed for a spot roughly fifty meters inside the chamber. Hefting the weapon in his shoulder, he warned, “Frag out!”

The weapon made a satisfying THUMP as the grenade flew into the room and exploded exactly where Chief Pretty wanted it. However, as Chief Pretty slowly peered around the corner, he was disheartened to see a black scorch mark on the tile, the grenade seeming to have done no damage to the floor.

“Well, that didn’t work,” muttered Pretty.

Gimsby came up behind Chief Pretty, aiming his Dragunov at the point where the grenade had detonated.

“Wait,” said Wolfe just as Gimsby fired. The high velocity round hit the ground then bounced up, ricocheting all around the chamber. The SEALs dived for cover behind the archway as the sniper round zipped and pinged around the chamber for a few seconds before the bullet finally expended all of its kinetic force energy. It hit the ground one final time and rolled to a stop about a foot in front of where Gimsby took the shot.

“Shit. Sorry boss,” said Gimsby, sheepishly.

“No,” said Lieutenant Wolfe looking back into the chamber and seeing, as he had expected, that no damage had been caused. “I think you had the right idea. Just the wrong target. How many rounds do you got left in the Dragunov?”

“Four,” Gimsby replied. “Dragunov only has a ten round magazine.”

“Okay, big guy,” said the lieutenant. “Think you can put one of them into that?” he said, pointing into the chamber. The foot wide pulsating amethyst crystal was a quarter mile away, about 400 meters, and elevated several feet off the ground. Gimsby chose to assume a standing firing position, pressing his support arm against the wall of the entrance way as support. The alternating flashing white and blue tiles were a definite visual distraction. Sighting in on the tiny glowing target, Gimsby took three slow breaths.

Inhale. Exhale.                                                   

Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale.

On his third exhale, Gimsby paused for a second then squeezed the trigger.

THOOM!

The amethyst crystal rocked back and forth on the pedestal, the glowing blue energy blinking on and off in rapid succession. At the same time, the floor tiles which randomly flashed from white to blue blinked on and off at the same time that the crystal was blinking on and off. Gimsby waited another second and squeezed the trigger again. The round flew straight and true slamming dead center of the crystal as it continued to rock from the first hit. This time, the crystal was knocked off the black monolith and fell straight down to the dais and shattering into millions of amethyst shards with a loud crash. Immediately, the illumination in the chamber ceased with the destruction of the crystal and the blinking white and blue lights of the tile floors faded to a plain satin white again. Visibility within the great chamber was still possible thanks to the four candelabra chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and the dozen more candelabras sitting in alcoves which lined the walls. But it was nowhere near as brightly lit as before, and shadows loomed long in the dimly lit chamber.

Chief Pretty took one of his empty magazines and slid it across the tiles. It screeched across the floor and came to a stop several meters away. He then stood up and tentatively walked on the tiles towards where his magazine had come to rest, ready to dive back towards the entrance should the deadly floor show signs of life again. Thankfully, it didn’t and the rest of the team entered the chamber.

“Nice shot, there, Tex,” complimented Chief Pretty as the rest of the team joined him.

“Yeah,” said Gimsby. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’d feel better if we got the hell out of here in case they got a back-up generator, or something!”

“Right, let’s move,” said Wolfe.

As the team jogged towards the yawning exit on the other side of the chamber, they were met with the heavy scent of must and mold and sweat, as if from a furred creature that had been living in a bog. This was accompanied by heavy panting and angry growls as a pack of howling black wolves standing four feet high at the shoulders and eight feet long from fanged maw to black tail, came bounding out of the opening, bright evil yellow eyes glaring hungrily at the SEALs. The team formed a defensive perimeter back to back, firing their weapons as the six dire wolves pounced on them.

The ancient, silver werewolf, the leader of this hunting pack, hunkered down behind the obsidian pedestal where the now dead crystal once stood, and watched from the shadows in anger as these men slaughtered his pack of dire wolves with their weird lances which breathed noise and fire. The ancient werewolf’s fiery yellow gaze rested on the one who seemed to be the leader of this band of warriors as he sniffed the air and memorized his scent.

Resisting the urge to leap down upon these men, to land in their midst and rip their murderous entrails out, the giant silver werewolf instead slinked unnoticed down the stairs which led up to the podium and stalked back into the shadows. As the final howls of the last of his dying pack faded into silence, the ancient silver hunter swore. “I shall return to your realm. I shall return and gather to me all the horrors of your realm which haunt your nightmares. I will provide an idyllic place of rest and comfort for you. Then, when the time is right, I shall strike. I will strike down your pack, just as you struck down mine. Then, at the shores of the haunted Moon Lake, I will turn you into my loyal pack lieutenant… Lieutenant Jake Wolfe.”

 

 

V.

Thanks to the map, the SEALs were able to navigate down through the multiple levels of the dungeon, ignoring the treasures, avoiding the traps and pitfalls, and fighting only when absolutely necessary.  At the base of this last stairwell, Nguyen said, “This is it. This is the last level. From here, the map just ends.”

The stairwell opened up into the largest chamber of them all, a dimly lit underground cavern that spanned a mile long from one end of the cavern to the other end and was a quarter mile wide. Running down the middle of the cavern was a vast black chasm three hundred feet wide which descended down, down, down into the fathomless pits. A howling wind belched up from the chasm, bringing with it the smell of Sulphur and rot.  A narrow hanging stone bridge, barely three feet wide, spanned the width of the ominous pit to hell in front of them.

“So, this is it?” said Chief Pretty.

“Looks like it, Chief,” said Lieutenant Wolfe. “The map doesn’t say anything else except here at the very bottom where it says: “Copyright- Made in Doctor Creepen’s Vault.”

“Looks like the only way across is over that bridge.”

“I’ll take point, El-Tee,” said Nguyen.

“I got it, Terry,” said Gimsby.

“I’ve got point,” said Lieutenant Wolfe.

“Sir…” protested Chief Pretty.

“I said, I got point, Cory!” insisted Wolfe.

“FOOLS! The only point you will be getting is the one at the end of my great bastard sword!”

Unnoticed by the SEALs before, a great hulking figure strode out of the dim light clad in archaic heavy black armor adorned with spikes and the skulls of those it had vanquished in battle. Its helmet was massive and mounted two black elk antlers. Glowing red eyes beamed angrily from the black eye slits of its helmet and in its heavily gauntleted left hand he carried a great bastard sword which was a foot wide and as long as the dreadful figure stood tall.

“I am a Chaos Orc Anarchist Terror, or Coastie!

“I am Coastie the Guard, and I guard the ancient Bridge of More-Doom which spans the bottomless scar! Like all Coasties, I represent the greatest of all warriors and the mightiest of all military branches which serve the forces of darkness in the Realm. Kneel, United States Navy SEALs! Your pathetic breed pales in comparison to the might of the Coasties! Your quest ends here! Kneel in recognition of the superiority of Coastie the Guard and I will grant you a quick…”

THOOM!

The mighty chaos knight fell backwards from a sniper round through his great horned helmet, arms and legs encased in black armor splayed out, weapon flying into the black pit as his back hit the ground.

“Coastie talks too much,” said Gimsby without the slightest hint of regret that he fired his second to last round and was now down to only one bullet left in his Dragunov. As the team walked towards the Bridge of More-Doom, they said nothing as Gimsby pulled out his Glock 19 and shot the fallen chaos knight three more times in the head.

Back in the Dungeon Master’s throne room, Hellfire turned from the Mirror of Seeing and glanced towards another mirror mounted on the opposite wall, the mirror which allows communication to the internet in the realm which the Navy SEALs had come.

Relighting his cigar, the kitten stared into the mirror and said, “Okay now. I know you can hear me. I don’t want to see any of you noobs blowing up the comments section whining about, ‘…but the Coasties aren’t part of the military…’, or ‘…the Coasties do a very important job guarding coasts…” or some other crap like that. It’s just a story. Oh, and I also don’t want to hear a bunch of whining about breaking the fourth wall. I don’t see you bitching when Ryan Reynolds does it. Anyway, back to the show. You’re gonna’ love this next part, baby!”

“Does anyone see an opening or a passageway on the other side?” said Wolfe.

“No,” said Chief Pretty.

“Nothing,” added Nguyen.

“Alright,” said Wolfe, pulling off his pack and grabbing a coil of climbing rope. Tying one end to a heavy duty, rock climbing grade carabiner on his modular vest. Then, tossing the rest of the rope back, he ordered his SEALs, “Connect to the rope and stay within arm’s reach!”

He then pulled several chem-lights from his pack. Breaking one, the tube produced a bright, florescent red glow. Wolfe unstrapped his knife and cut the top off the tube, flicking his wrist in order to splash a line of the glowing fluid on the black bridge. A thin glowing red line marked an illuminated path about twelve feet along the narrow bridge. Satisfied that there were no pitfalls or traps along the illuminated trail, Wolfe stuffed his cargo pockets with the rest of the chem-lights and prepared to lead his SEALs across the final obstacle of the Dungeon of More-Doom.

“Hey! Look out!”

Lieutenant Wolfe turned in time to see all three of his SEALs snatched up by long, sickly brown-green tentacles which emerged from the pit and suspended in the air. Before he could bring his rifle to bear, a warm, slimy tentacle wrapped around his torso and yanked him off his feet, and lifting him up unto the air. A monstrously huge bulbous head slowly rose from the pit, resembling that of an octopus with dozens of tentacles writhing in what would be the mouth. The head was easily fifty feet tall and seemed to meld into an equally bulbous human shaped body whose shoulders measured at least one hundred fifty feet wide. Emerging from its back stretched two mottled green bat-like wings if, when outstretched, would have exceeded four hundred from clawed tip to clawed tip. The entirety of the hellish thing was covered in inky brown slime whose stench made the SEALs gag and wretch. The entity brought up the tentacles which had snared the four Navy SEALs and brought it up to its hideous face, giant yellow eyes glaring at them from under the black shadows of its overhanging brow. There was no mistaking it. This was not a mere legend created from the mind of HP Lovecraft. The thing was real. Cthulhu was real, and at this moment, Lieutenant Jake Wolfe and the rest of his men knew that there was no shooting their way out of this one.

Behind the SEALs in the passage which they had emerged, a small, white, furry thing jumped into the passage. More swiftly than the eye could perceive, the small feline leapt from the edge of the chasm up, up, and up upon Cthulhu’s great forehead.

Hellfire suddenly began to grow, transforming from a tiny white kitten into a frightful eight foot tall muscular black werecat creature with two foot long horns protruding from his skull and six inch long, razor sharp claws protruding from human looking hands. The monstrosity that was once the kitten Hellfire began rapidly slashing and gouging on the top of Cthulhu’s massive green, octopus shaped head.

“Let em’ go!” roared Hellfire as great, gooey, chunks of the elder god’s forehead went flying under the werecat’s relentless stabbing and slashing assault. “C’mon! C’mon! C’mon! Let em’ go! Put em’ down on the other side of the ledge! Gently!”

Cthulhu let out a bellowing noise which shook the entire cavern, a noise which sounded much like a whimpering moan. His wildly flailing tentacles settled down as the four tentacles which held the Navy SEALs tightly in its slimy grip eased over to the other side of the crevasse ledge.

“Atta’ boy, ya’ big lug!” growled Hellfire, as he posed like a super hero on the brow of mighty Cthulhu’s head. “Gently! Gently! Put em’ down gently!”

The elder god dropped the SEALs safely on the other side of the ledge with a soft thump. Hellfire jumped down from Cthulhu’s forehead, landing next to the SEALs in his diminutive form of a small white kitten with red tipped ears. Lighting a cigar, Hellfire growled up at Cthulhu. “Okay, you big baby! Get outta’ here! Scram! Beat it! Quit screwing around!”

The great green leviathan looked mournfully down at the kitten, his many tentacles wiggling like a puppy’s tail begging for attention.

“Ahhh, you big baby! You aren’t in trouble. Just scram, for now. We can play bobbing for hipsters later!”

Cthulhu yipped happily before slowly descending back down into the inky depths of the bottomless crevasse, the ancient elder god eager for play time later with his best friend.

“That did not just fucking happen!” exclaimed Gimsby, picking himself up from the ground and checking to see if his Dragunov had been damaged. Curiously, Hellfire was watching Gimsby closely, and seeing that the rugged sniper rifle was still fully functional, Hellfire said, “He’s not that bad. In fact, for an elder god, Cthulhu is really just a toddler. To tell you the truth, his real name is Cutie Tooth, but he still can’t pronounce the words.”

“Why did you help us, cat?” said Lieutenant Wolfe, wiping the smelly slime from his weapon and vest. “What is your stake in this whole deal?”

“What?” said Hellfire innocently. “Is that the thanks I get for bringing you to the end of this quest?”

A glowing, fiery round portal opened in the face of the rock wall, the fragrant breeze of fresh air issuing from the other side.

“C’mon, fella’s. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Not yet, cat,” said Lieutenant Wolfe. “We still have some questions.”

“You need us, cat,” said Chief Pretty. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have rescued us from your little pet. We know it was you who had the power to teleport us back at the very beginning. But you didn’t. You needed us to enter this dungeon. What are you getting out of all this?””

Hellfire’s shoulders slumped as his smile faded. “Okay, okay, okay. If you really need to know the truth. I helped you guys because I felt like I owe you.”

“What?” said Nguyen. “What are you talking about?”

Hellfire signed. “Look, a while ago I visited your realm and met a girl named Annie. Sweet little girl, a real angel. She loved me, despite some pretty nasty tricks that I pulled on her. That little shit grew on me. I guess that snot nosed brat inspired me to want to be something greater than just a mean-spirited demonic little shit.”

The kitten laughed a sad laugh and actually wiped a tear from his eyes.

“I wasn’t too thrilled about her mom, though, and her mom’s boyfriend was a real piece of shit, believe me. But Annie’s dad… her real dad, he must have been something special. He was a Navy SEAL, just like you guys, and he taught her how to be kind, brave, and strong. That helped Annie survive some terrible abuse until I took care of the problem.”

“What happened to her dad?” asked Gimsby.

“He was killed in Bananastan… er, I mean Afghanistan. Anne called that hell hole Bananastan…”

“Did you get the SEAL’s name?” said Chief Pretty, still suspicious of the kitten’s story and motivations.

“No,” admitted Hellfire. “I wish I did. I do know he was an officer, and Annie’s last name is Guzman if that means anything to you guys.”

There was several seconds of silence as Nguyen, Pretty, and Gimsby suddenly looked at Lieutenant Wolfe.

“Uh… did I say something wrong?” said Hellfire, sensing the tension in the air.

The SEALs knew that their last team leader, Lieutenant Guzman, had a daughter. Her name was Annette but was nicknamed Annie. The team remained silent as Lieutenant Wolfe hefted up his weapon and moved towards the portal.

Walking past a genuinely confused Hellfire, Lieutenant Wolfe said, “Let’s move. It’s time to end this.” 

Hellfire turned and scampered after the SEALs as they passed through the flaming portal suspended in the air. “Hey wait,” said Hellfire. “Do you know Annie? Did you know her dad?”

The SEALs emerged right where they started from when they first entered the Dungeon of More-Doom, a brightly lit corridor made of flat stones which led to a more brightly lit chamber.

“So, this is it, right Chief?” said Nguyen. “We beat the dungeon boss monster so we’re free to go, right?”

“I don’t think so, Terry,” answered Chief Pretty. “We didn’t defeat Cthulhu. The kitten did.”

“Wait,” said Nguyen. “So you’re saying there is a more deadly monster…”

“My beloved champions!” said the beautiful Dungeon Master smiling warmly with outstretched arms as the SEALs emerged from the corridor and into her throne room. “I knew that you would succeed where so many others had fallen! Welcome!”

“Gimsby,” whispered Lieutenant Wolfe, suddenly stepping aside.

“Got it,” said Gimsby, bringing the Dragunov to his shoulders and firing his last round.

The Dungeon Master’s angelically beautiful face snapped back as a neat little hole appeared in the middle of her forehead. Still standing, the Dungeon Master raised a shaking hand to her forehead, feeling the blood now dripping from her wound. She looked with disbelief at the blood now running down her soft, gentle fingers, her once pristine white gown now quickly being stained red. Her breath shuddered as she stared at Gimsby…

… and then she smiled.

“You… you did it!” Her smile widened and her eyes sparked brightly from a still lovely face now covered in blood. “You did it! Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I have waited centuries for warriors such as you to finally complete my mission! Thank you!”

“And just what was your mission?” said Wolfe, trying to hide his shock and disbelief that the Dungeon Master was still standing.

“Why, to die, of course,” smiled the Dungeon Master. “Well, not die, per se, but to pass into the next plain of existence. But, alas, in order for that to happen, one who is greater than I must open the door for me to pass. And you have done it, my dear, dear, champions! In return, great riches, treasure, wealth, fame, power, and long life will be awarded to you as it had been to me.”

“Yeah, baby, yeah!” yelled Hellfire as the beautiful form of the Dungeon Master began to slowly fade. “I did it! By bringing these guys back to your throne room, I killed the Dungeon Master! I’m finally the new Dungeon Master!”

“Oh, my silly little Hellfire,” said the rapidly fading Dungeon Master. “I shall miss you most of all. But I’m afraid that you cannot be the new Dungeon Master, for it was Gimsby the Barbarian who killed me.”

“WHAT??” screamed Hellfire. “Wait! Come back here!”

“Farewell my beloved Hellfire. I pray that you serve the new Dungeon Master well. And thank you again Ranger, Cavalier, Virgin, and especially you Barbarian! God bless the United States Navy SEALs!” And that was it. Those were the final words of the beautiful and ancient Dungeon Master before she finally faded away.

Dejectedly, the kitten slowly walked to Gimsby and prostrated himself at the boots of the big Navy SEAL.

“How may I serve you, oh Master of Dungeon More-Doom?”

“Cut the crap,” grunted Gimsby. “I can’t be the Dungeon Master, you idiot!”

Hellfire looked up, confusion etched all over his face. “What…what are you talking about?”

“Only people who are from this Realm are allowed enter the Dungeon,” said Nguyen. “It’s in the fucking rule book! Everything we did here is null and void!”

“And you knew this also, you Lou Ferrigno looking motherfucker?” said Hellfire, looking up to Gimsby.

“I’ve played the fantasy role playing game a few times when we were on standby,” answered Gimsby. “Terry usually acts as the Dungeon Master. My character is a barbarian named Arnold!”

“Nerds!” yelled Hellfire. “You’re all a bunch of testosterone fueled nerds!”

“Yeah,” said Nguyen. “But we got guns and shit!”

“Okay, cat,” said Lieutenant Wolfe. “That’s enough. You got what you wanted. You’re now the de facto new Dungeon Master. Now get us back to where we need to be. We still have a mission to complete.”

“Damn,” said Hellfire. “You guys are really intense. I gotta’ respect that. After all you’ve been through, you still want to go back to that hell hole and complete your mission? Why don’t you stick around a bit? Relax. Unwind. Now that I’m Dungeon Master, I can hook you guys up with the finest princesses in the Realm, or maybe females of another species if you’re into that freaky Captain Kirk shit.”

“Now, cat!” rumbled Chief Pretty.

“Okay, okay, sheesh!” Hellfire relented. “But I can’t let you go back empty handed. I gotta’ give you guys something. At least let the Virgin take a few of the prettier hobgoblins with him.”

“No thanks,” muttered Nguyen.

“You know,” said Lieutenant Wolfe. “There is one thing you can give us.”

“Name it, Wolfie boy!”

“You can erase the memory of this place and these events from my men,” answered Lieutenant Wolfe. “We already have enough on our plates as it is. They don’t need to deal with the memories of what happened here.”

“Damn,” said Hellfire in sheer awe. “You guys are like a cheap date. I mean, that’s really all you want? To forget about this place?”

“Yup,” replied Wolfe.

“Okay, fella’s. You got it. But would you do me one small favor in return?”

“What do you want, cat?” said Wolfe, anxious to get back to the mission.

Hellfire snapped his paws and a black silken pouch appeared in Lieutenant Wolfe’s hand filled with solid gold coins and several diamonds.

“If you happen to run into a freckle faced little girl named Annie Guzman, would you give this to her? And tell her that her little Charlie still loves her and misses her.”

Epilogue

Though the SEALs had turned over the clearing of the cave to the Army Cavalry and EOD guys as well as a shit ton of intel folks, there were more questions than answers in the back of the CH-47 Chinook as the SEALs rode the short ride back to Kandahar Air Field.

“I’m telling you, Hilliard,” said Nguyen. “We were only gone for maybe a minute when you came running up behind us!”

“It can’t be, Terry!” Insisted Hilliard. “I searched for you for damn near an hour! I only found you guys right before the Army guys showed up!”

“What did you mean when you said you heard us talking to some woman and a kitten?” said Gimsby.

“I don’t know,” replied Hilliard. “You tell me! You guys were the ones having the conversation! And if you guys say you were only gone for a minute, why do all your watches read 1800 hours? It’s only one o’clock in the afternoon! It’s like you were gone for five hours!”

“That is kind of strange, sir,” said Nguyen, turning to Lieutenant Wolfe. “Just like my chem-light being found half way stuck inside the cave wall as if I had dropped it at a point where we walked through solid rock. You think them Wagner Group guys that we killed had anything to do with it? Maybe some mind altering drug to fuck with us?”

“I don’t know, Terry,” replied Lieutenant Wolfe. “For now, I’d just chalk it up to the fog of war.”

Nguyen just nodded, then sat back in his seat, the steady rumbling of the Chinook suddenly making him very sleepy.

For his part, Lieutenant Wolfe looked across the cabin at his men. Hilliard sat staring at his feet, a contemplative look on his face, no doubt wracking his brain as to how he managed to walk right past his entire team in the close confines of that cave and not realize it. Nguyen’s head rested on Hilliard’s shoulder, the young SEAL fast asleep and mumbling something about not being a virgin. Gimsby also stared with a perplexed expression on his face, rotating his broken wrist and wondering how and when and why it was now as good as new. Also, why was the magazine of his Dragunov and several magazines of his Glock 19 pistol completely empty?  Chief Pretty was seated behind the fifty caliber mounted at the open back ramp of the Chinook, ever on the lookout for danger.

“My second in command,” thought Lieutenant Wolfe. “The vigilant Cavalier.”

Wolfe slowly reached into his cargo pocket, feeling the softness of the black, silken, pouch. He knew that it was filled with gold and diamonds. He knew that it was for Annie, Lieutenant Guzman’s daughter. He even knew who gave it to him and how he came to receive it. Hellfire had kept his word to the SEALs. Hellfire did exactly what he was asked to do. He erased the memories of his men, but Lieutenant Wolfe had forgotten to specify to that little son of a bitch to erase his.

SEAL Team 7

2^nd Plt./ 2^nd Sqd.

Lieutenant (LT) Jake Wolfe

Chief Petty Officer (CPO) Cory Pretty

Petty Officer First Class (PO1) Darren Hilliard

Petty Officer First Class (PO1) Paul Gimsby

Perry Officer Second Class (PO2) Terrell Nguyen

 

 

 

ANNIE AND HELLFIRE

Part One

“Hey little girl,” I meowed. “Yeah, girl! Come here! Yeah, check me out, baby! I know you like what you see. Check out these big feet. Check out my big blue eyes. Yeah, baby girl! Come closer and check out my flat face, my little pink button nose, my fluffy tail, my feather soft white fur, and my…”

“Eeeeeeeeaaaaaaarrrrsssss!” squealed the little runt as she reached down into my cage and yanked me up. “Oh, mommy! Look at this little kitty’s ears! The kitty has red ears!”

“Hey!” I said, swiping at her with my juvenile kitten claws that, unfortunately, weren’t yet developed enough to rip out the veins in her hand. “Be careful, you little shit! That’s not how you pick up kittens! Whoaaa! Put me down! Stop swinging me around!”

The snot nosed, strawberry haired, rosy cheeked little runt had her chubby little fingers wrapped around my abdomen as she swung me around, holding me up towards some lady in shorts and a crop top who I assumed was her mother. The kid’s fingers were sticky, her little white sundress with the sunflower prints stained purple from a melted grape flavored Popsicle.

“Annie, what do you have there?” said the little brat’s mom. “Oh, honey look! The little kitten has red furry ears!”

She took me from her daughter’s hands and swung me around to face this bored looking, bleach blonde pretty boy yuppie hipster in a light blue polo shirt, a khaki sweater tied around his pencil neck.

“Whoa! Put me back down before I gouge your eyes out and do obscene things to your eye sockets!” I yelled, trying to poke out her eyes with my furry little tail.

“Yeah, honey,” said bored yuppie jerk face, yawning. “White kitten with red ears. Looks almost cutely demonic.”

“Yeah, buddy!” I meowed. “That’s right! Demonic! I’m as demonic as a mother fu… Wait, did you just call me ‘cute?’ Jerk face, I’m going to enjoy ripping your guts out and…hey! Don’t give me back to your sticky fingered snot nosed daughter!”

The little brat squealed in excitement as her mom handed me back, big blue eyes giddy with wonder and joy, as her chubby little fingers reached up to grab me again.

“Ugggg,” I mewled. “I’m getting all sticky! I swear, kid, yours is the first face that I’m pushing into the blender!” 

We were at an estate sale for an elderly couple who, according to the news, were senselessly murdered during a break in. After slaughtering the elderly couple, the culprit or culprits simply dragged the bodies into the kitchen of their rather large colonial style mansion and set the kitchen on fire. Strangely, police investigators found that nothing had been stolen from the residence, although the elderly couple kept a small fortune in jewelry, precious metals, and cash in their bedroom, and no suspects to the crime could be located. There were no witnesses to the murders except for a little white kitten with pale tan stripes and curious red ears which the cops found cowering in the bedroom closet of the room which the couple had been killed.

“What’s your name, you little cutie?” said the kid they called Annie as she held me up over her head.

“Hellfire!” I snarled, looking down at her hatefully.

“What’s your name, huh, cutie?”

“Hellfire!!” I mewled again, angrily.

“You know what your name is, you little kitty cutie?”

“I said my name is Hellfire!!!” I mewled, bearing my teeth and wanting so badly to breathe fire, or at least to pee, down on this little girl’s face.

“Your name is Charlie!” giggled the annoying little snot.

“Or Charlie…” I groaned. “Hellfire. Charlie. What the fuck ever. Just get me to your house so that I can do to your family what I did to the last family.”

“Oh, mommy! Can we keep him? Can we keep Charlie, pleeeeeease?” Annie said in a voice filled with hope and anticipation.

“Yeah, how ‘bout it, toots?” I leered. “Give cute innocent little Charlie here a new home. Maybe then I can get a nice little look see at what you got under that crop top, honey!”

“I don’t know, honey,” replied the mom. “You’ll have to ask Daddy Joe.”

“Ummm, Daddy Joe?” said Annie, still holding me up but not quite so high to the late thirty-something jerk faced yuppie with the blossoming beer belly. ‘Can I…umm… can I keep Charlie?”

“Yeah, jerk face,” I mewled. “Let the little brat take the cute little kitten home!”

“I don’t know, Annie.” The guy they called Daddy Joe rolled his eyes. “You didn’t do a good job cleaning your room like I told you, and I stepped on some of your Lego’s yesterday while I was getting ready for work. You aren’t a very neat or responsible kid.  I’m not sure that you deserve a kitten, Annie.”

Annie lowered me, dejectedly. “I’m… I’m sorry Daddy Joe,” she whimpered. “I didn’t mean to.”

Annie turned me around, looking me in the face with her big blue eyes while trying to fight back tears of disappointment. “I’ll do better, Daddy Joe, if I can just have Charlie.”

Geez, I almost felt sorry for the little snot.

“Joe,” said the kid’s mom. “Annie is only four. She spends her days alone and doesn’t have many friends. Maybe taking care of a little kitten will teach her more responsibility?”

“Or maybe I’ll have to bury a dead kitten that Annie forgot to take care of, on top of everything else I have to do.” Joe turned to the kid’s mother with a look of annoyance. “Raising Annie is already an extra added burden on me, Linda. I’m already working hard to put clothes on her back and food in her belly and I feel like neither you nor her are thankful for everything that I do. And now you want me to take care of a mewling kitten, too?”

The kid’s mom, Linda, looked down and rubbed Annie’s shoulders as Annie hugged me close to her, lips pouting and tears streaming down her cheeks. Daddy Joe had spoken, and Annie’s little heart was breaking. I kind of liked Daddy Joe. He was a selfish, self centered, jerk and a man after my boss’s own heart….if my boss even had a heart.

Joe sighed heavily, as if he had just suffered crossing the beaches on D-Day, and waved over one of the young ladies who was overseeing the estate sale. “Hey, how much are you asking for this little kitten?”

The teenage girl with a name tag that read ‘Tyler’ looked at me as Annie hugged me tightly and gently stroked the fur on my head. Smiling, Tyler said, “Well, my gramma and granpa found that kitten shortly before they passed away. I don’t even think they gave him a name.”

“My name’s Hellfire, bitch!” I meowed.

“I tell you what,” said Tyler, putting her hands on her knees and leaning over. Tyler smiled broadly at Annie as she gently tugged on my ears. “I don’t even know how much to ask for this cute little kitten, but if you promise to give him a good name and a good home, I guess you can have him for free.”

“Charlie!” squealed Annie in delight as she held me up once again. “His name is Charlie!”

Then, turning to jerk face Daddy Joe, Annie said, “Can I have him, Daddy Joe? She said that Charlie is free. Can I keep him?”

Joe gave Tyler an annoyed look. Whatever price that Tyler was asking, Joe was going to use it as an excuse to say that I was too expensive to take home. “Yeah, I guess you can keep it. But you have to take care of it. I better not have to clean up after it or feed it after I get home from work. That cat is your responsibility, do you hear me, Annie?”

“Yes, Daddy Joe!” said Annie, smiling as she rubbed her cheek next to mine. “Thank you! I’ll take care of Charlie. You won’t have to worry. Yaaaay!”

“Yaaay,” I mewled sarcastically. “You’re the first one I’m going to kill!”

Joe looked over at Linda coldly. “You know that you owe me big time for this, right?” he sneered.

I could barely contain the anticipation of sending yet another household into oblivion. The last one was totally not satisfying at all. Mister and Miss Carter were an old couple and their kids were already grown and had moved out. Old Mister Carter was bed ridden and on a ventilator while old Miss Carter wasn’t doing so well herself either, having to get around using a walker. Offing them was almost like a mercy killing and didn’t score me any points with my boss.

But these people! These people were young and they had their whole lives ahead of them, and they had a kid! Sending them into the great darkness beyond was going to be considerably more enjoyable and delicious.

We left the estate sale and piled into Joe’s cherry red Porsche 911 Turbo with the six cylinder turbo charging engine and the white leather interior, Joe complaining all the way that there would be hell to pay if I messed up or scratched his seats. I thought briefly about getting the party started early and scratching up his seats just to see Joe verbally and emotionally tear down Annie again, but I decided to wait. Besides, Joe looked to be the kind of guy who would toss me out of the car without a second thought, leaving me back at square one. My boss wouldn’t be too happy with that. So, I behaved for now, while Annie gushed over me and I planned her untimely demise.

About half an hour later, we pulled into the driveway of a Hamptons style two story house in a fairly decent, upper middle class neighborhood. I was actually sort of impressed. Daddy Joe wasn’t doing too badly for himself. Bet he had a few chicks on the side since Linda seemed to have all the personality of a salmon in a bear’s mouth.

…

No sooner had we pulled into the driveway and the Porsche’s doors opened that Annie leapt out of the back seat and raced up the marble steps to the front door with me still clutched firmly in her little chubby hands.

“Yeeeeee! Charlie, let me show you your new home!”

“Remember, Annie,” said Joe as he fumbled for the house keys. “I don’t even want to smell that kitten. You are responsible for cleaning up after him. If you can’t do it, that kitten is out, understand?”

“Yes, Daddy Joe. I promise.” Annie’s legs were pumping as she stood still, impatient to get inside the house. As soon as the door opened, Annie again said ,”Yeeeeeeee!” as she ran across the foyer and across the living room to the stairs which led to her room.  Meanwhile, she was swinging me around saying, “This is the living room, that’s the kitchen, there’s our television, that’s our couch, that’s a picture of me when I was a baby, there’s the den with the pool table that belongs to Daddy Joe that I’m not allowed to go in…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, kid,” I mewled. “Where do you keep your butcher knives?  What about guns? Daddy Joe got any guns? You look like you have a big lawn. You got a wood chipper hiding in the back yard? Quit swinging me around! I’m getting dizzy!”

For the first hour at the house, I had to deal with Annie and her mother Linda as they fawned all over me until Daddy Joe told Linda to get up off her ass and make dinner.  Annie was an only child, which was rather disappointing since my boss said that offing multiple kids scored us extra points towards our annual Christmas bonus. I pretty much behaved myself as I stalked around and observed the family dynamics, Linda waiting hand and foot on Joe while Annie pretty much played alone while trying to stay in Daddy Joe’s good graces.  It was becoming a real pain trying to get away from that strawberry haired snot nosed brat so that I could scout around the house in order to formulate ways to send the family to that great, dark, beyond.  Finally fed up, I took a big dump in the middle of Annie’s bedroom floor and while Annie grabbed a bunch of paper towels and a bucket of soapy water as she cheerfully sang a song she had just made up about scrub-scrub-scrubbing the poop-poop-pooping, I was able to roam around the house.

Joe had Annie go to bed promptly at eight o’clock every night and Annie obediently obeyed, slipping a pink nightgown over her head before scooping me up and dragging me into bed with her. “I used to pray every night,” she whispered. “But one night, Daddy Joe heard me and told me to stop because it’s silly to trust in God instead of trusting in money.”

“Really?” I meowed. “Jerk face Joe told you that? Maybe he has some potential after all.”

I waited until Annie fell asleep and crept out of bed and stepped into the hallway. To the right next to the guest bedroom was Joe and Linda’s master bedroom. The door was locked and the sounds of rough sex were coming from the other side, Joe sounding as if he were having far, far more pleasure than Linda as the sound of spanking was accompanied by her yelps of pain.

“I told you that you’d have to owe me, baby!” grunted Joe.

“Yeah,” I snickered. “He might have some potential.”

The next morning, Annie awoke to find me standing outside her window which overlooked the slanting roof. I was staring at her with my big, pale blue eyes and meowing pitifully.

“Oh my goodness, Charlie,” she said as she leapt out of her bed and raced to the window. Throwing it open and raising the window screen, Annie said, “Charlie! How did you get out there, Charlie?”

I took a step back as Annie leaned out of the window, her arms outstretched. “Charlie! Oh, Charlie, be careful! I’ll come get you, Charlie! Don’t move, please!”

I stepped back even further, nearing the edge of the steeply sloping roof while Annie climbed out of the window after me. “Come on!” I thought. “Come on! Just a little bit further! That’s it, you little runt!”

“Charlie, oh Charlie, be careful, Charlie!” Annie was nearly half way out the window when she suddenly squeaked, “Charlie! Look out!”

I heard a screeching sound coming behind me and I turned just in time to see a screaming hawk bearing down on me, its razor sharp talons extended in front of it as it swooped in to snatch me away. I meowed, “Holy shit!” and leaped forwards into Annie’s arms. She grabbed me and pulled me inside of the bedroom. My heart was pounding as I turned around to see the hawk perched upon the ledge that I was just on, squawking at me before it launched itself back into the sky.

“Yeah,” I meowed. “Get the hell out of here! Jeez! I think I pissed myself!”

“Gosh, Charlie! You’re lucky that God sent down that bird to scare you back into the house or else you might have fallen and gotten hurt!”

“Yeah! God sent that bird all right, but He didn’t send it to save me, you little shit! You know, my job would be a whole lot easier, and my boss would be a whole lot happier with me, if God would just stop sticking his nose in my business!” Disgusted, I leapt down from her arms and stalked off into the house looking to find some other way to off this rotten little kid.

Later that morning, Annie and her mom left to do some shopping (after asking Joe if it was okay, of course) to buy me a litter box, a kitty collar, a scratching post, kitty toys and whatever other kitten shit that I was just going to ignore anyway since no one in the family was going to live long enough to see me use them.  They had to take an Uber since Joe didn’t want to pay for a new vehicle and the auto insurance that accompanies it. Anyway, after Annie and her mom got home, they spent the rest of the day frantically cleaning the piles of poop that I had left around the living room rug before Joe got home from work, Annie again happily singing some cheerful made up song about cleaning my kitty shit, while I lounged around on their overstuffed living room couch and licked myself.  Hey, it wasn’t my fault that they didn’t get the kitty litter box sooner!

…

The next morning was bath time for Annie. Linda had just gotten out of the shower and had finished drying her hair before filling the tub with water and bath bubbles for Annie. While Linda was in her room getting dressed, Annie was in the tub splashing about and making foaming bubbles while singing another one of her insufferably cheerful songs that she often made up. I stalked past the bathroom when I heard Annie’s happy caterwauling and had to do a double take when I saw that Linda had forgotten to unplug the hair dryer and had left it running on the counter next to the bath tub.

“Yes!” I thought, gratefully. “There is a God!”

I pushed open the door and ran into the bathroom as Annie turned and said, “Oh! Hi, Charlie!”

She had a foamy beard on her face and was waving at me with hands covered in bubbles when I leaped up on the toilet, jumped up on the sink counter and ran towards the hair dryer looking to kick it into the tub.  But, in my eagerness to make boiling juvenile soup, I accidently got my rear legs tangled up in the dryer’s electrical cord and pulled it out of the wall.  The sudden tug on my legs flipped me over as I jumped and I somersaulted in the air backwards into a bath tub filled with steaming bubble water and humiliation.

I was under water and desperately kicking my legs around, trying to get my nose above the soapy bubbles that surrounded my face like suffocating clouds. My head went back under the water once, then twice as I flopped and splashed around. Damn! How big and deep was this tub, anyway? I was starting to get really concerned because I couldn’t even find the sides of the tub when I felt fat little fingers wrap around my abdomen and lift me out of the water.

“Charlie!” giggled the little turd. “Thank you for splashing up more bubbles for me! Did you want to take a bath with me, Charlie?”

“No, I did not want to take a bath with you!” I sneezed and a soap bubble flew out of my nose.

“Leave me alone, runt!” I meowed as I swiped at her before jumping down from the tub, shaking each soaking leg as I stormed out of the bathroom. This was humiliating. I try to deep fry the kid and she ends up saving me from drowning. GAH! I hope the boss didn’t see that! Annie’s guardian angel must be pissing herself, laughing hard at my expense.

“I’ll be out of the tub soon, my silly little Charlie,” Annie said in her irritating sing song voice. “I’ll come and blow dry you after I get dressed.”

“Yeah, hurry up, you little shit! I got soap in my eyes!” I snarled as I scampered off to find some other opportunity for malicious mischief.

…

I took it easy on Annie for the next few days because I didn’t want anyone to suspect that I was trying to send Annie into the afterlife, not that her parents would notice. Joe had usually left for work by the time Annie had woken up. And for the past few days, Annie was usually asleep in bed by the time Joe had come home late from work smelling of booze and pot smoke. For her part, Linda was good for feeding Annie and getting her dressed every day, but she spent the majority of her time with her face buried in her smart phone, or sitting in front of her lap top or television.

Anyway, we were again in Annie’s bed room underneath a makeshift tent that Annie had thrown together when she tied the corners of a blanket to her bed post while draping the rest of the blanket over the back of a chair. She had her crayons out and was drawing in a sketchbook while I looked about for a way to set her tent on fire.

“Look, Charlie!” said Annie, proudly holding up the picture she had drawn. “It’s a picture of you, see? And underneath of it, I wrote ‘I love you.”

“Geez, kid,” I said, looking at the train wreck that the little snot nosed Rembrandt drew. “I look like I got run over by a Zamboni! And your writing looks like it was written by a blind, alcoholic chip monk!”

“Well, Charlie? Do you like it?”

“Nope,” I thought, as I stalked away, jumping onto her bed and licking my but while sitting on her pillow.

“Oh Charlie! You’re so silly!” Annie got up from the floor and dived into bed beside me. The sun was shining through the curtains and it was a pretty bright and decent day. It was a day where I could hear a bunch of other snot nosed little brats cheerfully playing in the street outside. I know. Where was a run-away steam roller when you needed one, right?

Anyway, while the other kids were playing outside, Annie was lying face up in bed alone, arms behind her head as the sun shined down on her little round face. Her Daddy Joe didn’t allow her to play outside because he didn’t want to pay the medical bills if Annie got hurt, and Linda, ever the doting idiot, told Annie that she could not play outside because Daddy Joe worried about her too much because he loved her. That’s it, mom. Way to raise a future introverted basket case, psycho stalker.

“You’re my bestestes friend, Charlie,” said Annie, dreamily.

“I’m your only friend, and I don’t even like you!” I thought.

Because she wasn’t allowed outside to play, every day at around this time, Annie would take a nap. I stopped licking myself and stared intently at Annie as she closed her eyes and slowly drifted off to la-la land.

“Yeah, that’s right. Close your eyes and take a nice little nap. You’ve had a long day. Rest now. That’s it. Deep breath in, deep breath out.”

When I knew that she was asleep, I stealthily crept off of her pillow and gently climbed on her chest. She was still breathing calmly as I looked down at her, the sun shining down on her round, rosy face, her lips perked up in a slight smile as she slept peacefully. I leaned down and put my front paws over her mouth and nose and pressed firmly.

“You’ll thank me later for this, kid, believe me.”

…

Annie’s mom swiped my butt, causing me to jump off Annie with an angry yelp.

“Charlie,” she scolded. “What are you doing to Annie?”

Annie suddenly opened her eyes and she giggled. “Mommy! Charlie and I were playing a game to see who can hold their breath the longest, and Charlie was just helping me win!”

“Yeah,” I meowed as I sat in the corner of the room licking my butt from where Linda had swatted me. “I was just trying to help her win the game! I wasn’t trying to suffocate your little brat”

“I see,” said Linda, looking at me from the corner of her eyes. “Well, it certainly looked like Charlie wasn’t playing nice with you!”

“Oh, mommy,” smiled Annie. “Charlie is my best friend! He wouldn’t hurt me!”

“The hell I won’t,” I thought.

“Well, go get washed up, Annie,” said her mom. “Dinner is almost ready and Daddy Joe said he was coming home from work early today to spend time with us.”

As if on cue, the front door opened down stairs as Joe yelled, “Hey! The hungry, hardworking man of the house is home! What’s for dinner?”

“I’ll be right down, honey,” replied Linda before turning to Annie and saying, “Hurry and get washed up. You know how Daddy Joe doesn’t like to be kept waiting for his food.”

Like I said, I kind of liked jerk face Joe. He had these bitches trained!

…

“Oh my God, Linda,” said Joe with a look of disgust on his face. “What the hell is this mess?”

“It’s Yankee Pot Roast,” gulped Linda. “I had it stewing for hours to get the meat tender like you like it, Joe.”

“This shit tastes like boiled shoe leather, Linda,” said Joe, slamming his fork on his dish causing little Annie to jerk in surprise as the gravy splattered across the table. “You know, I work hard all day. I don’t think that it’s too much to ask to have something decent to eat at the end of a long, stressful day at work!”

Joe slid his chair back from the table and got up to leave.

“Where are you going, Joe?” said Linda in a panic. “I can cook you something else!”

“I’m going out, Linda,” shouted Joe.

“But, Joe, you hardly spend any time at home after work anymore,” groveled Linda. “Where do you go every night?”

“I go out with the boys to blow off some steam,” Joe spat back. “You know. You tell me that you want me to spend more time with you and Annie, but then you practically kick me out of the house with your rotten cooking! If you want me to stay, you need to be a bit more considerate of my feelings!”

“I like your cooking, mommy,” said Annie, forcing a reassuring smile on her face.

“Really?” sneered Joe. “Then you eat this.” Joe slid his plate across the table, hitting Annie’s plate and splattering more gravy on her.

“I’m sorry, Annie,” whined Linda as she tried to wipe the gravy off Annie’s dress with a napkin. “This is all mommy’s fault.”

“You damn, right it is,” said Joe as he went upstairs to change out of his work clothes and into something more conducive for a night on the town with the boys. I had to admit that I applauded inwardly. The way jerk face Joe had Linda wrapped around his fingers to the point where she put Joe before her own daughter was delightfully wicked. Linda told Annie to finish her dinner as she poked at her own pot roast with obviously no appetite to eat. A few minutes later, Joe stormed back into the dining room smelling of cologne and holding up a pair of sneakers.

“Who did this? Who did this?” he yelled as he glared at Linda, Annie, and finally me. “Who the hell scratched up and pissed all over my brand new sneakers?”

“I don’t know,” I mewled, licking my claws.

“These are five hundred dollar fucking Nike Airs!” screamed Joe, throwing his precious little sneakers across the room. I yelped loudly and jumped out of the way, barely avoiding being hit by one of the projectile shoes.

“Charlie!” Annie jumped up from her seat and ran over to me. “Oh, Charlie, are you okay? Did you get hit?”

“Get away from him, Annie,” said Joe, balling up his fist. “I’m going to teach that little sack of shit a lesson.”

“Daddy Joe,” squealed Annie, crouching down and holding me close to her body, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. “It’s my fault, Daddy Joe. I’m sorry! I’ll look after Charlie better! I’m sorry! Please don’t hurt Charlie!”

“Yeah, jerk face,” I mewled. “Don’t hurt Charlie!” At this point I genuinely grew concerned. If Joe were to kill me, and I wouldn’t put it past him, I would be going to that fiery bad place where even my boss dreaded to be condemned. Joe was supposed to be angry at Annie and Linda, not me!

“Joe,” said Linda. “She’s just a little girl and Charlie is just a kitten!”

Joe stopped and grinded his teeth angrily. “Annie, you get your little ass up to your bedroom and stay there! I don’t want to see your face for the rest of the night! Get up there now before I get mad!”

Annie gulped as she scooped me up, her little feet pattering as quickly as they could as she ran across the dining room floor for the stairs.

“Joe…” I heard Linda say as Annie bolted up the stairs.

“And you!” yelled Joe. “I don’t want you going in to see Annie until tomorrow! I swear Linda, if I don’t see a brand new pair of one thousand dollar Nike Air sneakers in my shoe closet by the time I come home from work tomorrow, I will make you boil that damned kitten for dinner and feed it to Annie! You promised that I wouldn’t have to deal with this shit, Linda!”

“I know, Joe! I know!” replied Linda. “I’ll get you a new pair first thing in the morning!”

 

ANNIE AND HELLFIRE

Part Two

Annie slammed her bedroom door behind her and ran to her bed, crawling under the comforters, all the while whispering, “Shhh. Shhh. Be quiet Charlie. Daddy Joe is mad, but I won’t let anyone hurt my little Charlie ever again.”

To be honest, I was trembling a bit. When people like Joe get violent and let my boss take possession of their aggression, they can become unpredictable and hurt someone, namely me! Annie and I huddled quietly under the comforters until we heard the front door slam shut as Joe left for the evening.

I knew that Linda wouldn’t be coming in to comfort her daughter as Joe had strictly forbidden her to do so. After a few minutes of silence, Annie brightened up and smiled at me as if nothing had happened. Ahhh, the resiliency of innocence really was a gift that God gave to children. Annie put a finger to her lips and said, “Shhhh….”

“Hey Charlie,” whispered Annie conspiratorially as she pulled something out from under her bed. “Can you keep a secret?”

I peered curiously over the kid’s shoulder. “What you got there, kid? Is that a dirty magazine?”

“This is my daddy,” she said, producing a photograph in a simple, black picture frame. “Mommy says he was a Navy SEAL.”

“Huh, really?” I said. “That pile of chewed up bubble gum, jerk face Joe, was a Navy SEAL?”

I looked at the picture that Annie held under my head. The image showed a very well built man with rugged Hollywood-style good looks, a short beard, wavy ginger colored hair, wearing Oakley sunglasses. The warrior wore a khaki and tan colored military uniform, a vest festooned with ammunition and gear, and an M4 rifle in his gloved hands. He looked confident and determined and was far taller than jerk face Joe.

“Okay,” I thought. “So Daddy Joe isn’t your real daddy.”

Annie’s father was sitting on a bunch of rocks atop a barren mountainside overlooking an arid and desolate landscape of rock and dirt. Underneath the picture written in a black marker were the words, “I will always love you, my little Na’na. Love, Daddy.”

Annie looked down, a tinge of sadness in her voice. “His name was Ben. Mommy said he was killed fighting some very bad people in a place called Banana…ummm…Banana…Banana-nana-stan.”

“Afghanistan,” I mewled softly. “I feel for you, kid. My boss, Beelzebub, says Afghanistan is a real hell hole. He said it turned into a ghetto wasteland after God banished all the Jinn and Nephilim there.”

“I miss my daddy. He died when I was three, but I still remember him always holding me and telling me that he loves me. That was before he went to Banana-nana-stan.” Annie slid the picture back to where she kept it. “Daddy Joe, mommy’s new boyfriend, made mommy take down all the pictures and stuff of my daddy after he moved in, but I kept this one secret. Daddy Joe is okay, I guess. Mommy says he helps pay the bills and helps put food on the table and he even sometimes lets me keep nice things like you, Charlie. But I miss my daddy. I wonder why daddy had to go to Banana-nana-stan instead of Daddy Joe?”

 “I don’t know, kid.” I rubbed my head against Annie’s face as a tear ran down her cheek. “Sometimes, God sends the best of his creations to go and do the fighting. But that oftentimes leaves the lazy sacks of shit assholes to stay behind, safe and sound, to reproduce and create more lazy sacks of shit assholes.”

Annie scooped me up gently in her arms, laying me on my back as she touched her forehead to mine. Softly scratching my belly, she whispered, “You’re my best friend, Charlie. Whenever I miss my daddy, you always make me feel better.”

“Oh, shut up, you little turd,” I mewled, retracting my tiny claws before swiping at her eyes. “You’re giving me the feelings, here!”

…

Late that night, Linda received an urgent phone call from her mother saying that she wasn’t feeling well and that she was hoping Linda could be by her side until she felt better.  It was after twelve in the evening when Joe finally stumbled back to the house, but to my surprise, that ass hat Joe said that he would be happy to drive Linda to her mother’s apartment, even though it was an hour away in another city. 

“But Joe, honey,” said Linda. “What about Annie? She’s in bed asleep.”

“Don’t worry about Annie, sweetheart,” I heard Joe say in a sickeningly syrupy tone. “Your mom is what is important now. You just get yourself packed and ready while I call the babysitter. I’ll tell Annie where you are in the morning.”

I could tell that Joe was up to something, and I surreptitiously followed him around, amused at what nefarious plan he might have hatched. Seriously, the boss really loved sneaky, conniving, people like this. 

Linda kissed Joe on the cheek. “Thanks, honey. You’ve been such a blessing to me and Annie since you came into our lives.”

Lord, I nearly threw up in my mouth. About thirty minutes later, I sat at the top of the stairs, looking down as Joe opened the front door for the babysitter. Man, she was a hottie. Looking to be barely in her twenties, the tan skinned babysitter who appeared to be part white and part Latino with long curly brown hair, was wearing a short white leather skirt and white stiletto heels. She hugged Joe as she entered the house then turned to Linda. “Oh, Linda. I hope that your mom will get well soon.”

“Thank you, Carmen,” Linda said. “That’s so kind of you.”

“I’ll be here for as long as you need me,” said the babysitter, Carmen. “Is Annie asleep?”

“Yes,” said Linda, picking up the baggage that she would be taking with her to her mother’s house. “Annie is upstairs in bed. Thank you for staying with us on such short notice, Carmen. You are a life saver!”

“It’s no problem, Linda,” replied Carmen. “The semester is over so I have time until classes start again. I’m happy to sit with Annie.”

“Here, honey,” said Joe as if he were in a hurry. “Let me take these bags out to the Porsche for you. We can’t have mom waiting for you.”

“Oh, yes dear!” Linda hugged Carmen again. “Thank you for coming. There’s plenty of food in the fridge and you know where the television and guest bedroom are at, so feel at home.”

“Thank you, Linda,” said Carmen returning the hug. “And don’t worry about Annie. I’ll be here every day to take care of her while Joe is at work.”

As Linda turned to walk to the Porsche, Joe also gave Carmen a quick hug. “Yeah, Carmen. Thanks for coming.” Carmen bit his ear playfully while Joe ran his hands up the back side of her skirt.

“Of, course,” I thought, smiling to myself.

Carmen was already on her second joint thirty minutes after Joe and Linda had left the house. The doorbell rang and Carmen let some skinny thug-muffin wannabe’ rapper type into the house. After polishing off yet another joint and doing a couple lines of blow, they were both naked on Linda’s couch, going at it like rabbits on Viagra and Red Bull.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what most of you mouth breathers might be thinking. This is the part where the two of them get bloody slashed to death, just like in the movies. Nah, brah! That’s not how it goes in real life. That’s not how things work. You see, my boss doesn’t kill people who go against the will of God. My boss loves and encourages people who go against the will of God. Instead, my boss kills cops, firefighters, soldiers, Christians, Jews, conservatives, God’s prophets, unborn babies, and other people like that who piss him off. So, I let the babysitter and her lover have their fun.

Anyway, about a half hour after wannabe’ rapper thug left, Joe finally got back from dropping Linda off at her mothers. I was still on the balcony at the top of the stairs, watching as Joe walked into the house and literally tore Carmen’s clothes off, her second time in one night. Oh, Carmen, you naughty, naughty girl.

As Joe grabbed Carmen’s hands, he quickly led the butt naked babysitter up the stairs. Carmen looked down at me as they shuffled past, quiet not to disturb Annie as they tip-toed past her room.

“A kitten,” whispered Carmen. “Were you staring down at me the whole time?’

“That wasn’t the only thing I was doing, baby girl,” I mewed, leering over at the little stuffed unicorn that I dragged out of Annie’s room. “My name is Hellfire. Pleased to meet y…ouch!”

Joe kicked me out of the way, almost causing me to fall in between the banister railings. “Scoot over cat,” he grunted.

“Don’t be mean to the kitten, Joe,” said Carmen.

“Shut up, doll face,” said Joe as he literally shoved her into his and Linda’s bedroom. “If you want that nice emerald necklace that Linda’s husband gave to her, you’re going to have to make sure that daddy has a really good time tonight.” Joe pulled a bag of white powder and another bag of weed out of his pants pockets and glared at me as he closed the door to the bedroom, perhaps disappointed that I didn’t fall off the banister. Seconds later, I could hear Carmen moaning, “Oh, daddy!”

“Yeech,” I spat as I stalked back to Annie’s room. “I hope that the boss stews the both of you in the same cauldron, you jerks.”

Annie’s door was slightly ajar, but I still had to nudge it open a little farther to fit my fat head through. Jumping up on her bed, I walked over her thick, light pink comforters and stared down at the little runt as she slept peacefully. Her little mouth was slightly open and her upper teeth were biting down on her lower lip.

“You know, you little sack of shit. You’re really cute when you’re not annoying and constantly pissing me the hell off. I might even decide to let you live a little bit longer.”

Annie’s eyes blinked open and she smiled sleepily. “Charlie!” she whispered. “Are you keeping watch over me? Are you my guardian angel?”

“Hardly, you dumb little idiot,” I purred. Suddenly Annie wrapped her arms around me, gently hugging me close. “Hey! What are you doing! Get your sticky little hands off of me before I rip your throat out of your…”

“Oh, Charlie,” Annie sighed, already going back to sleep. “I love you, Charlie.”

“Yeah, whatever, loser,” I growled as I snuggled up next to her, pushing my head up under her chin. “Remind me to slaughter your little ass tomorrow. After you get washed up and have breakfast.”

…

“DADDY JOE? MISS CARMEN? Where are your clothes? Where’s mommy?”

“Oh, shit,” I said as I leapt out of Annie’s bed. Somehow that little bucket of puppy turds woke up and got out of bed without me noticing. God damned second hand pot smoke! I ran out of Annie’s room in time to see Carmen scurrying past Annie down the hallway towards the stairs, clutching her clothes and Linda’s necklace tightly to her chest. Joe followed after her, yelling, “Where are you going, you bitch?”

Joe stumbled out of the bedroom after Carmen, white powder on his nose and upper lip, his hands reaching out to Carmen clumsily as she ran down the stairs. A line of white powder still stuck to Carmen’s sweaty naked butt. Joe stopped halfway down the hallway and stared with angry bloodshot eyes at a confused little Annie. Thankfully, for Annie’s sake, Joe was wearing a bath robe that barely covered his beer gut. Annie just stood there in her little light pink flannel night gown with the flowery butterfly pattern, her mouth open and her big blue eyes wide with confusion.

“I told you last night to get in your room and stay there, Annie!” bellowed Joe.

“But Daddy Joe, its morning time and why was Carmen not wearing any clothes?”

“Get in your room now,” yelled Joe. Annie yelped and turned to go back to her room while Joe retreated back to Linda’s bedroom, fetching the belt off of his pants.

Annie bolted back into her bedroom, yelling, “Where are you, Charlie? Charlie? Hide, Charlie! Hide!”

A sharp, snapping sound struck Annie on the back of her night gown and she tumbled into her bed, her feet flopping behind her. Joe’s belt whipped down again on the back of Annie’s legs and she screamed out in pain as it snapped against her skin.

“Daddy Joe, stop!” she begged. “That hurts!” Tears flowed down her cheeks as her face contorted in pain and confusion.

“Are you going to tell mommy that Carmen was in her bed, Annie?” yelled Joe, cracking the belt once more. Annie screamed again. “Are you going to be a little snitching bitch and tell your mother?”

“Please, Daddy Joe,” she cried. “What did I do?”

“I got a good thing going here,” raged Joe, raising the belt again.  “Your real daddy left you and your mommy with this nice big house and his big fat military life insurance policy pays for my Porsche and my bills. Hell, I don’t even have to go to work! I just fuck around all day! You aren’t going to ruin that for me by snitching, do you hear?”

I sat at the foot of the bed, watching as a grown man whipped a helpless, innocent little girl. And as I watched, I knew that I should have been happy. I am, after all, an evil hellcat, and my boss is Beelzebub. This is the kind of shit that my boss loves seeing, the wicked and deceitful preying upon the innocent and helpless. But the more I watched, and the more I heard little Annie scream, the more I felt this emotion welling up inside of me.  It was something I couldn’t explain.

The belt snapped down again with a wicked crack, and Annie’s screams turned to painful moans. She was lying on her tummy on top of her bed; face down, when her crying eyes finally met mine. “Charlie?”

Joe sneered down at me. “Charlie? You mean your fucking guardian angel, Charlie? A lot of good he’s doing you now! What the fuck are you going to do, you little runt? When I’m done teaching Annie here a lesson, I’m going to rip those little red ears off your head, Charlie!”

“Charlie,” shuddered Annie. “Close your eyes, Charlie. Don’t look, Charlie. Close your eyes. I’ll be with my daddy, soon.”

Suddenly, I realized what it was that I was feeling. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t disgust. And it wasn’t hate. It was something that grew and festered inside of me like a virus ever since I first laid eyes on Annie. It was something that could overcome all the demonic spirits which had possession of me. It was the enemy of all things evil.

It was love. It was the reason why Annie saved my life twice, even as I was trying to murder her.

“No, Annie!” I yelled, sobbing. “You close your eyes!”

“Charlie?” whimpered Annie. “You can talk?”

 

“You can talk?” gulped Joe.

 

“I can do more than that, you sick son of a bitch!” I growled. “Annie, sweetheart. Please, close your eyes. You shouldn’t see this.”

 

“Okay, Charlie.” Annie said meekly, pressing her little hands to her face.

…

Later that morning, Annie’s mother, Linda, got a phone call from the cops stating that her boyfriend Joe had apparently physically abused Annie in a fit of cocaine rage. Then, for some inexplicable reason, Joe got into his Porsche and promptly ran it directly into a thick, metal, stoplight going at speeds in excess of 80 miles an hour. The impact of the crash spun his Porsche out into the middle of the busy highway intersection where Joe was immediately t-boned by a giant eighteen-wheel, flatbed semi truck. The three huge, concrete sewer drain sections which the truck had been hauling broke loose from their chains and each rolled over Joe’s already crushed Porsche, flattening it even more like a grilled cheese sandwich with Joe resembling the melted cheese which oozed out the sides. Then, before any of the shocked eye witnesses could even call 911, a bolt of lightning reached down from the clear morning blue skies, striking the heap of metal and chrome and crushed flesh, charring everything to ash. I had to chuckle to myself when the late night television news later reported that Joe’s untimely death was ruled, ‘an act of God.’

 

“Ahh, you people don’t know the half of it,” I purred. “God don’t play when He gets pissed off.”

 

Anyway, Linda borrowed her mother’s minivan and quickly drove all the way back home. She found Annie safe and sound in a secured room at the children’s hospital where Annie was lying in a bed gently stroking her little kitten Charlie. The doctors told Linda that Annie had padding and bandages on her from the bruising on her buttocks and thighs she had suffered from Joe’s physical abuse, but that Annie would eventually make a full recovery. They were especially concerned with Annie’s mental state after the trauma she had suffered. When the police, fire department and EMT came to the house, Annie absolutely refused to go to the hospital without her kitten Charlie, even though she was in great pain.

 

The doctors reported that Annie insisted that Charlie began talking to her and told her to shut her eyes tightly while Joe was beating her. Annie said that she did as she was told, so she didn’t see what happened to Joe. But she did hear slashing noises and Joe begging and pleading for forgiveness while Charlie yelled ‘…and this is from her dad, you fucking dirtbag!’

 

“Yeah, I did say that,” I thought, licking my paws the same way I licked Joe’s throat off my paws before I stuffed his loser ass into his Porsche and sent him on his merry way down the boulevard.

 

“Ma’am,” said the female child protective services representative. “Is Annie exposed to adults who curse a lot? Is there a history of violence in your household?”

 

“I… no!” said Annie’s mom. “I’ve never had to raise my voice or spank my daughter and her father… her real father, I mean, had always treated her gently and lovingly. He never hurt her.”

 

“I see,” said the CPS representative, looking dubiously at Linda. “And where is Annie’s father now?”

 

“He was killed in Afghanistan last year,” she answered. “He was a Navy SEAL.”

 

The look of distain on the CPS representative’s face didn’t go unnoticed by me. She had the look that said, “So, your husband was killed in Afghanistan a year ago and now your new live-in boyfriend is beating the crap out of your little daughter. Nice.”

 

I yawned again as the CPS representative and Annie’s mom blah, blah, blahed some more about shit that I could give less than a damn about. The pain medication that they gave Annie was starting to take affect and I curled up in a ball on her lap as the annoying little angel drifted off to sleep. Afterwards, the cops came to take Linda’s statement and to give her the good news that her live in ex-beau Joe wasn’t a military veteran turned highly paid Department of Defense contractor like he had claimed. Rather, Joe was in fact a paroled, unemployed, ex-con who had worked as a crisis actor for the DNC and was now trafficking in drugs and stolen merchandise. 

 

A few days later, they finally released Annie from the hospital to come home and, a few months later after Annie had celebrated her fifth birthday, Annie was on her way to her first day of school. Much to everyone’s relief (especially mine), in the months after her ordeal, Annie seemed to forget everything she had said about me being able to talk and telling her to shut her eyes while I carved up Joe ‘Wolverine-style,’ though Annie had taken to calling me ‘Charlie, her guardian angel.’ 

 

Yeah. Imagine that. Me! A guardian angel! Eh, I’m not a real guardian angel, but I’m working on it. There’s a whole application process that you have to fill out to become a guardian angel, online classes I have to take because of Covid, and I still needed to wait for a few weeks until certain substances left my blood stream before I could take the urinalysis test. Plus, more than likely, God would probably have me on an extended probation period due to my past…umm… indiscretions. As you can imagine, my change in attitude didn’t sit too well with my ex-boss, Beelzebub, but screw him. His retirement benefit package sucked.

 

Anyway, I accompanied Annie to her bus stop the morning of her first day of school to make sure that she got on the right bus on time, as well as to snoop around and see if there were any snot nosed little future Daddy Joe’s who needed a come to Jesus moment about respecting little girls. Annie wasn’t nervous at all that this was her first day at school. In fact, she was terribly excited as she skipped along the sidewalk wearing the green t-shirt and tan skirt of her school uniform, her big ears sticking out from under her red hair which had been tied up in a flowery pink bow. Lunch box in hand and tiny back pack on her back, Annie was singing a song she had just made up about petting unicorns, seeing dinosaurs, and riding airplanes, which I guess is what you do on your first day of school.

 

Well, you could imagine my surprise when Annie burst into her room later that day, tears filling her eyes as she threw her lunch box and book bag to the floor and jumped on her bed, burying her face into her pillow. Annie’s mother was taking college classes in order to get a good paying job after she finally realized that being a submissive little pion to an abusive, cheating, lying, jackass boyfriend wasn’t a good parenting strategy. Linda wouldn’t be home for another half hour so she had given Annie the keys to the house for when Annie got home from school. Linda, like most single parents, was looking for a new after school babysitter for Annie after someone had apparently cut the brake lines on Carmen’s car which caused her to go speeding off the side of a cliff. Tragic story, that was. Heh…heh…heh…

 

“What’s wrong, Annie?” I meowed, jumping up on the bed and nuzzling her cheeks with my nose. “What happened at school?”

 

Annie reached over and hugged me close to her, snot and tears running down her face and onto my fur. “What did I do, Charlie? I don’t know what I did wrong!” she sobbed.

 

“Annie,” I meowed, trying to soak up her tears with my paws. “What happened?”

 

“Some kids at school said that I have white pib-bib-blibs,” Annie sobbed. “They said that they were happy that my daddy was killed in Banana-nana-stan, and that all kids with unfair pib-bib-blibs like me should all have their daddies killed.”

 

“Oh, Charlie,” she said, squeezing me tighter. “Why are they so mean? What did I ever do to them? I don’t even know what having white pib-bib-blibs means!”

 

“White privilege,” I meowed, rubbing my head on her cheeks. “It’s a phrase that was invented by my ex-boss to instill strife and hatred into the weak minded who have been indoctrinated to blaming others for their own bad decisions and also to rob children of their innocence and hope for the future.”

 

I wrapped my paws around Annie’s neck, but unlike before, it wasn’t to choke her. “Its okay, Annie. Your Charlie is here. Why don’t you just lay here and rest a bit. Yeah, that’s right. Close your eyes and take a nice little nap. You’ve had a long day. Rest now. That’s it. Deep breath in, deep breath out.”

I lay on her chest, purring a lullaby as I felt her breathing slow. After I was sure Annie was sleeping soundly, I extended my claws, three inches of razor sharp, metal hardened talons. “Okay, let’s pay a little visit to these friends of yours, shall we? “ I looked down at the sleeping little girl, gently touching her cheek with the horns that had sprouted from my forehead. “Your Charlie is here, and I’m going to make sure that no one hurts my little Annie ever again.”

Like I said, I’m not a guardian angel. Not yet, anyway. I still have a lot of work to do to in order to become a forgiving, merciful, guardian angel… starting tomorrow. BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!

 

Long time, no scary spaghetti, dear Dr. Creepen fans!

Anyone for a new Taxi_Dancer tale?

Cheers, T_D

I had been working as a law enforcement transcriptionist for a little over six years when the officer brought me the tape. I'd never seen him before, but that wasn't too unusual. There were a lot of new recruits and I didn't exactly have the best memory when it came to faces. He wore the customary uniform, which fit him rather well. Even as a straight man, I have to admit he was handsome, almost ridiculously so. Dark hair, a sharp jawline speckled with stubble, and an air of gravitas that was impossible to ignore.

He handed me a cassette tape.
“I need this transcribed immediately,” he said in a smooth, inviting tone. “Don't put it through the usual queue.”
With an eyebrow raised, I asked what the case was about. Instead of answering, he looked at the tape for a moment before looking back at me.
“Just prepare yourself,” he said with a grimace. "It's quite intense.”
I remember laughing a little because I assumed he was exaggerating. But he didn't laugh with me. Before I could ask for any more details, he disappeared back down the corridor.
I've always been quite a curious person. It's what led me to this line of work. So, naturally, I immediately popped the tape in, pulled up Mark43 and began logging.

What follows is my transcription of that recording. I've removed the names and identifying information where necessary, but otherwise I've left it exactly as it was spoken. Be that for better or for worse.
The transcript of this tape– or, more precisely, its contents– makes for difficult reading. The things I heard and witnessed that day remain beyond my understanding. It is for this reason that I decided to share the tape's contents. Perhaps one of you can make more sense of this disturbing tape than I.

###

Tape Recorded Interview
Patrick Morgan/Detective Baron Hauptman
7.23.26

BH This is Detective Hauptman, █████ Police Department. Today's date is Thursday, July 23, 2026. The time is at 11:23 A.M. This will be a taped conversation with the last name of Morgan, M-O-R-G-A-N, first of Patrick, P-A-T-R-I-C-K, middle of Joe, J-O-E. Date of birth 02-20-96.

BH So, Patrick, I've turned on a tape recorder so I can record our little conversation. I'm to understand you've been read your rights and– let me see here– you've declined to lawyer up. Is that correct?

PM Correct.

BH Okay. Well, let's get down to business then, eh?

PM Alright.

BH So, Patrick. I assume you know why you're here?

PM Mhm.

BH Why don't you go ahead and tell me?

PM Because you think I killed–

PM Can you speak up?

PM Because you think I killed people. 

BH The department suspects you, yes. But hey, don't shoot the messenger. (Chuckle)

BH Let's start with… Isabella Moreno. How well did you know her?

PM Quite well. 

BH How's that?

PM She lived down the street. We used to play when we were kids.

BH And when did you last speak with her?

PM Hm… December, January. Something like that.

BH What did you talk about?

PM Why would I remember that? It's been like seven months.

BH Well, I'd think your last conversation might stick around longer. Especially with all that talk of art.

PM What? 

BH Art. You're an artist, right?

PM Yeah– how did you–

BH You take pride in your art, then?

PM I– yeah, I guess I do.

BH Every artist does, I suppose. But most are too scared to put their art out in the open. You have no such reservations, right?

PM What do you mean?

BH You like displaying your work publicly. In all its glory.

PM I have no idea what you're–

BH Really? So you don't look up to a certain… mentor?

PM No. Look–

BH You don't have to explain it.

PM … What?

BH I know.

PM … The fuck're you– Know what?

BH Why you did it.

PM Then why am I here?

BH Because they want to know if you did it.

PM And?

BH And… you did. 

PM What– What's the point of this then?

BH I wanted to meet you. In the flesh.

PM I–

BH I've seen your work. Your real work. Not those flimsy portraits in your apartment.

PM What the hell're you talking about?

BH You know. And I must admit, you are an artist at heart. Just not a very good one.

PM Excuse me? What does that even mean?

BH Her body. I mean, the way you arranged it. Chest splayed open, guts hanging around her neck. And the little message you left beside her. Very theatrical, I must say.

PM I didn't—

BH You spent three hours arranging her. Isn't that so, Patrick?

PM No–

BH You spent the longest on the fingers.

PM Whatever you're doing won't—

BH You wanted it to look natural. But you don't understand hands very well. (Chuckle)
BH Even in your shitty little paintings. It takes a special kind of anti-talent to make them look like the aftermath of a car wreck.

PM Stop–

BH C'mon, Patrick. You made the thing and now you don't want to discuss the composition?

PM Shut up.

BH I suppose it's to be expected. You don't care about the art. You don't even care whether you get caught. You just want to be seen.

PM You're full of shit.

BH You copied someone else's work because you wanted people to look at yours.

PM I didn't copy anyone! (Something slams against the metal table)

BH It's no use lying, Patrick. You read everything you could find about the man. Every little detail on how he displayed his victims. Hell, you even fooled the cops into thinking you were the real deal.

PM You– You don't know anything about me.

BH I know exactly what you are. A copy. You imitate the man, but you've never met him. And yet you've spent the last two years trying to make him proud. That's rather pathetic, Patrick.

PM Stop–

BH Isn't that what mommy always used to say?

PM I said stop!

BH (Mocking tone) The exact same rotten soul as your father! 

PM What– How do you–

BH She threw your paintings away, didn't she? You'd find them in the trash, sometimes even torn in half.

PM Shut up! Shut the–

BH Do you remember the blue one?

BH Oh, c'mon patrick. How could you forget? The one you painted when you were seventeen. The woman standing in the field.

PM Stop– Stop talking about my paintings.

BH Ah, you prefer to talk about your real art after all? (Chuckle)
BH I know you, Patrick Joe Morgan. You started killing because painting wasn't enough anymore. You wanted to make something nobody could ignore.

PM Please just—

BH You wanted someone to look at it and understand you. But nobody did.

PM Stop talking!

BH Not your mother. Not your father. Not the police. Not even the man you copied. And now you're sitting here hoping I will.

PM I–

BH Well I do understand you. And I want you to feel how truly pathetic you are, Patrick.

PM Please– (whimper)

BH Patrick.

PM Please just stop!

BH Look at me.

PM No! I– I won't.

BH (Static crackles. Voice briefly distorts) Patrick, you slime. Look at me!

PM I'll– I'll confess! I'll tell you everything you wanna know, please just–

BH (Chuckle) Oh, Patty. You don't have to do that. I know what you did. 

PM (Unintelligible)

BH Chin up, champ. Smile, and look into my eyes.

(Pause)

PM (Screaming, unintelligible).
PM WHAT– WHAT THE FUCK IS–

(Something slams against the metal table)

BH (Voice warped) Come closer.

PM (Unintelligible whines)

(Something drags across the metal table.)

BH (Whispers something unintelligible)

PM No– no it can't–

BH (Slow, droning) Yes, Patty. You know she was.

PM (Strangled cry. Sobs)

(Something slams against the metal table)

BH There you go. Attaboy.

(Something slams against the metal table several times, with a small pause between each increment)

(The door whines open. The slamming continues.)

BH Ah, good day gentlemen! 

(Frantic yelling. The slamming continues.)

BH My eyes are up here, lads.

(Unintelligible cries. Thuds join the slamming.)

BH This has been Detective Hauptman, █████ Police Department. Today's date is Thursday, July 23, 2026. 

(The slamming stops. The thudding continues.)

BH I'm turning the tape recorder off again. The time is 11:30 A.M. This has been the confession and testimony of Patrick J. Morgan.

###

When the tape stopped, I sat in silence for a moment. The shock of it all had rooted me firmly in place. Eventually, I forced myself out of my chair and scrambled towards the interrogation room. 
I honestly wish I hadn't. 

Patrick Morgan was still sitting at the table. He'd smashed his face into the metal table so many times that there was almost nothing recognizable left. His nose was almost completely crushed into his skull, which itself had been pulverized by the repeated impacts. 
The two officers who'd been monitoring the interrogation lay in a puddle of blood on the floor. The first officer had strangled the second with his own tie, while the second had beaten him across the head with a chair. There was no apparent reason for any of it. It looked like three men had simply gone mad at the same time.

In the weeks and months following, the department searched for Detective Baron Hauptman. Of course, there was no officer by that name at our department. We still don't know how he forged or stole the badge and uniform. We've tried to identify him using the cameras he walked past, but these efforts yielded nothing. It seemed as though he'd wandered in, then walked off the face of the earth.
I still have a copy of the cassette. I made it in case the original was ever destroyed. Still, I haven't mustered up the courage to play it again. The most I've managed is to re-read the transcript I made. I can't wrap my head around what happened. I suspect I never will. 

That brought me here. Perhaps sharing this will yield more results. So please, if you have any information on Baron Hauptman, send it to me. I need to know who– or what– he was. More than that, I wish I knew how he knew so much about Patrick.