TW: Blood, guts, and cannibalism. Bugs in the mouth stuff. Vomit. Allusions to SA. Murder.
This is the beginning of a novel I’ve been cooking up. There is, of course, a main plot that hasn’t been revealed yet. I promise.
Set Burner to High Heat
Perhaps my time is short, perhaps I have all the time in the world. I am Gormica, a golem of flesh, iron, and fire. I return to this world for my one constant purpose.
Someone has to die.
There’s a meddler out there, threatening to bend reality with their twisted magics. It will not stand.
As for a status report, I don’t know who I’m hunting. I remember bits of my previous lives, but this land is strange and changed. I can smell the spirit of the Chimera alive in Castille, the Iron City. I’m sure the target is here.
When I first woke, I was in the roots of a burning tree, half buried in the muck of a still pond. I tore myself from the ground, the old tree tumbled over with a splash. A dark stain crept into the pool’s green waters around the tree’s smoldering carcass. I rushed to the water’s edge and hacked up what must have been a barrel full of black mud and crawling, nasty vermin. I hate centipedes. There were some in my mouth.
My reflection in the pool settled to what it had always been. My black iron helm still had the vague approximation of a face burnt through by my violet, flaming eyes. I moved my neck, creaking and shrieking against untold years of rust. The plates desperately needed a drink. I looked around for my weapon. By magical contract, no part of me can be separated from the whole.
Across the pool, I spotted the shape of a skeleton engulfed in purple fire. I was still groggy, but it didn’t take me long to crunch the numbers. The flames whirling around its shape surged upward, igniting more of the weeping trees leaning over the pond. Mounds of flaming bagworms fell. Fish thrashed and floundered in the pond below. The greenery screamed and split against the inferno. It was a picture of the end times, all encased in this little clearing in the swamp.
I struggled to my feet, and the skeleton ran off. The flames lowered to a flicker. I hauled my clattering legs around the pond and something in my mail must have caught.
I fell face first into the ashy mud. By the time I got my bearings back, a storm conveniently came along to put out the flames.
To my understanding, I have been held together absolutely by magical contract. That’s how it’s always been. I live to hunt, and when I find my quarry, I die. I have always had my trusty weapon at my side.
I lost track of the skeleton. I haven’t been able to find my ax. It disturbs me.
I’d like to be up front with you, reader. I was initially formed in the leagues of a necromancer’s army. I’m not that monster anymore. I was raised as a weapon of war, but I’m determined to do good with the fleeting glances of life I’m gifted with.
I’m afraid that skeleton is a part of me.
I doubt that it’s my target. That would be silly. I doubt that it’s a problem that’s going to fix itself, however. I also have a feeling that my target and that dreg that crawled out of me are connected.
I set off in search of civilization. I’m sure that’s not the last I’ve seen of the flaming skeleton, anyway. I have dubbed this demon ‘Frailty.’ This name is my hex upon it. When my blade meets its skull, it will find it a most fitting title.
Well, can I tell you a secret?
I know you're not gonna believe this
But something happened to me last night
And I may never be the same again
–“NBTSA,” Joyce Manor
A Dozen Eggs, Scrambled
I woke up one day to find that the old song was true. There were worms in me. I could feel them burrowing and squirming in and around my nose, in my head. I doubt they were playing pinochle.
I can only hope you’ve never felt something so terrible. If you’ve ever felt something unwanted digging around in your head, then you know what kind of thrashing I did that morning.
The wood was soft. The dirt that poured in was hard, and cold. Icy rocks were like razors against my fingertips. My nails split, I lost some in the climb. The heavy coat I was laid down in was no help. It caught against the earth, but I was in no place to take it off.
Crawling out of the grave took everything from me and bringing Kit’s old coat asked even more. Somehow, I found a way.
There was a standing pool in the graveyard, and I sprinted to it. I threw myself into the water and I could feel its chill burning against my skin. The water went into my nose, into my head. It itched, and I couldn’t help but scratch and scrub at it feverishly. The worms struggled and died against it. Only I walked out of that horrible bath.
. . .
I was finally able to get my bearings. The sky was a pale gray, the sun was a bleary light behind a veil of winter. The trees were gnarled, and bare. The grass was dead, but there were many graves decorated with still living flowers.
There’s an old Castellan folk belief that those who die without a proper funeral are given one by the earth. Flowers are said to grow from the corpse, reflective of what kind of person they were in life. It made me wonder if there were any flowers on my grave.
I had left it a mess, but I didn’t see any flowers or wax paper scraps in the mounds of dirt. My headstone looked affordable, which brought me some comfort. We were never rich, and the last thing I would have wanted was for Kit to go bankrupt over my carelessness. I looked at the sensible concrete slab.
Culita Speardragon
‘Cuffs’
Here lies the greatest detective to ever live.
Born November 6, 20XX. Died October 31, 202X.
A withering vine of bleeding hearts crawled across the marker. The Speardragon Foundation’s emblem was stamped into the concrete’s face, just above my name. There was no shine to the headstone, even in the pale light. It made me wonder if there ever was one.
My hands weren’t rotting. I pinched my cheek, and it snapped back to my face. It was warm, even. I touched my nose, and there was only a dull pain in the place where it used to be. There was a tickle, like the writhing of worms. I scratched at it, and it stopped.
I went back to the pool. Everything else was the same, greasy black hair, a constant scowl on my lips, red eyes with heavy bags under them. The big sleep was no help for those.
There was a hole in the middle of my face. I tried not to look at it.
I wiped the blood from my nose. Only, it wasn’t there.
It curdled like old paint.
It was very dark.
. . .
I could hear the pop behind me, just before I died. I don’t remember hitting the ground.
I was running towards the Speardragon Foundation. That’s the detective agency I worked at. Kit took me in when I was little and taught me the tricks of the trade. I guess I was like his sidekick.
It was Halloween. I was on Rummy Street. There were freezing cold puddles and slush all over the cobble sidewalk. The crowd of costumed freaks was dense. I slipped and took a kid Dracula down with me. I remember hoping the guy chasing me would just fall and crack his head. I’m pretty sure it was a guy, based on the huffing I heard. I never got a look at his face.
I had an envelope. I vaguely remember investigating the mayor’s office, something about a big land grab. Terrible, but hardly anything unheard of. People have certainly died over less.
I tried to drink from the pool, to have anything to fill my empty stomach. I retched it back up. It burned like a cold fire. I could feel my lips begin to crack. My stomach growled.
I had the strangest craving for hardboiled eggs.
I hopped over the graveyard’s fence. There was an archway leading out to a dirt road, into the woods. The archway read “LONESOME HILL.” Reading that brought a morbid smile to my lips. Kit used to tell me ghost stories of this place all the time.
It was a long walk back to town, but I’d come out to this place enough times growing up. I tried to summon up the old ghosts from Kit’s stories. A train had torn through an orphanage that once stood here. He showed me the kids’ graves, but they were so old the names had all eroded away. I still believed him.
Me and this guy named Dante brought a Ouija Board out here one night. That’s when I learned that there really was no such thing as ghosts. We sat on a headstone that had a cold concrete bench, with the crickets and lightning bugs. We were out there until 3am like idiots.
That’s when I got my first kiss. It was alright, I was completely surprised when he asked me if I wanted to make out. As a detective I like to think I’ve always had a good ear for things that go unsaid, but I didn’t pick up on anything like that with Dante. I don’t know, maybe I was just young. I didn’t see other people like that.
I knew that I had wasted that night though, at least I got a little something out of it.
The dirt road eventually emptied out into a highway. I passed by a substation I didn’t remember. Soon enough I was walking through a completely new suburb. The city seemed to have expanded out quite a ways, while I slept.
It really did look more like a city now, too. I could see a pretty remarkable skyline on the horizon. I recognized the Ferris wheel on the docks, the observatory’s dome, but there were some new towers in between them.
I’ve always called Premier a city, but everyone else calls it a small town. All my life, the population was never under 30,000. I don’t know how they kept that mentality up for so long. It choked out the town’s potential. Nothing to do but work in the mines and get drunk or get into trouble.
The streetlights were different from before. They used to cast a hazy, buzzing orange light over the street. It made it very foreboding. Nowadays, a pure white light spread quite evenly across his face as he crossed the street towards me.
“Hey, hon! Do you got a light?”
He was dirty enough to have come fresh from the mine, but there was no telling where he’d been. I kept walking, I tried to pt a little more direction in my meandering steps.
“Hey, I’m talking to you!” He grabbed me from behind and spun me around. Once he saw my face, his tone changed considerably.
“Oh, erm,” he blustered, and sheepishly backed away. “Sorry, I thought you was someone else.” He jogged back across the street. As I watched him gain speed, something in me clicked. Or, snapped, rather.
By the time he glanced over his shoulder, I was already upon him. This time I grabbed him from behind, right around the trunk in a bearhug. He yelped out in shock, and I threw him to the ground with a firm twist of the hips. I heard his skull bounce against the black pavement.
I dropped my full weight upon him, and he screamed. He struggled, but I placed a knee between his shoulder blades and grabbed his hair with two clenched fists. I yanked his neck back, and I sent it with all my light.
The second time I heard his skull hit the pavement, he gasped and gargled. There was blood on his face.
The third time I bounced it against the ground, I felt the bone give. Like, when you break open a hardboiled egg. I gripped the edge of the fractured shell and peeled back. It took more effort than an egg might have.
I couldn’t stop myself. His screams had long since stopped. My arms and face were covered in deep red syrup, and I pulled fistful after greedy, starving fistful of grey matter from the shattered egg on the street. It even tasted like scrambled eggs. Not exactly fluffy, more like clumped up mounds of lukewarm noodles with an eggy sauce all over and in them. The occasional springy bit of cartilage and small bones vaguely reminded me of orange juice with pulp, all of these varied flavors and textures at once.
When there was no more, I broke off a piece of skull and set to licking at the interior.
Suddenly, I came to my senses. At least, I started to feel bad.
With my stomach full after decades, I was full of so much energy. I felt like I could sprint through a building, so, I ran back the way I came.
I crawled back into my grave dirt. I laid there feeling sorry for myself, hoping no one would ever find me, and that this was but another hellish hallucination.
In time, the winter’s pale sun rose and shined down on me. I heard what must have been the footsteps of the groundskeeper. I heard the click of a double barrel closing. I heard a voice.
“Holy shit, Cuffs?”
I buried my face and arms in the dirt. “Keep away. Don’t look at me,” I sobbed through mouthfuls of earth.
The voice began to pray, and I heard the hammers. I decided to sneak a glance, before I got what I deserved. He was a tall, lanky guy. Heavy, long black hair fell in a mop around his broad shoulders. It had practically become a mane.
“Dante?” I said.
He looked up. I was sure it was him.
“Please don’t kill me,” I said. It was crazy. My guilt ridden conscience wanted to die, but there was something in me that burned, something that wanted to smash the skull of whoever did this to me.
He didn’t say anything for a long while. It's still tough to pull words out of him.
Please, bring me to silence
Before I'm brought to ash
End all my violence
Bring me to silence
That will last
-“Bring me to Silence,” Fievel Is Glauque
What’s next for OUT OF THE FRYING PAN???
Cuffs starts seeing the shadow of a man in a coat and a hat in the corner of her eye after her first night in the basement.
And then, Zorc and Tilde go a-grave robbin, and they end up whacking Dante over the head! They decide to raid his stuff, and OMG! There’s a girl locked up down here! They take her in, Cuffs reluctantly joins them in a heist. A freaky zombie girl would never do as a cop, right?
Meanwhile, Gormica’s wrecking shop with some spooky monsters all across the ruintown. He fondly remembers a fella named Kit Speardragon. Cuffs’ adoptive dad-tective. Thing is, when Cuffs died, Kit was old. Real old. Now, it’s twenty years after the fact.
Legally speaking, none of the artists whose lyrics are featured are affiliated with OUT OF THE FRYING PAN. Anyone who assumes otherwise is a FOOL.
“About two hours past Wichita. You remember Big Bertha?”
“‘Course I remember that rusty old bitch. Should we stop by that atomic graveyard this time?”
“We’ll pass it about halfway. We’re gonna be going down closer to Tulsa.”
I crack a skeptical grin, “ You would know.”
“I know it like the back of my hand. If you came to visit me more often maybe you’d know it better, too.”
“I’m coming to visit you right now, aren’t I?”
“Ha! The biggest visit of them all,” he says, grinning like an idiot.
He tells me it’s out west, and a bit south after Big Bertha. So close to the long forty-four that I’m almost offended. Piss and vinegar aside, I’ve driven this track many times. We have, together. Me and Tom. We’re both big explorers, “woodspeople” is what we like to call ourselves.
Not as many woods along forty-four, but there’s plenty to stop and see. The hills on their own are enormous, rolling tundras of wheat. Statistically speaking, even they’re not enough to make Kansas less flat than a pancake. Sayings like that always make me laugh to myself. If you’ve heard people talk about Kansas, I can assure that you’ve been lied to.
Kansas is to me what Missouri is to Tom, the greener grass. After years of dating and failing, I ended up meeting Tom on Tinder. At first, my mom would tease me. She called him a “mail-order husband,” until she saw him. Then, she called him a hunk.
It’s funny, when we first matched one of our biggest bonds was how much we hated our hometowns. We still do, and here me and Tom are moving to his. When he told me his great aunt So-and-so left him a house in her will, of course we had to jump at a windfall like that.
Vanity is closer to the border of Kansas and Oklahoma. This isn’t the first move for me, but it’s the first out of state. I’ve lived in a handful of cities around Missouri, but I’ve been stuck in my hometown for the last five years or so. Tom’s a good thing for me, like that. It’s about time I moved out of my parents house. I’ll be twenty nine this year.
“Does it make you scared, living so far away from your folks?”
I roll my eyes and say “Does it make you scared?”
“What, you moving in with me?”
I grimace at him, “No, us living so close to your folks.”
We make a good comedy duo, when it’s just us. When we’re together that's how it usually is, just us. We’ve introduced each other to our family and friends. It’s weird to plan a date for so long, then lock onto a bigger group than we’re interested in. We’re a couple of socially awkward deer running around in the woods, and we just happened to luck into each other.
A semi rushes past, sending an immediate gale hammering down on top of Tom’s beetle. The car’s a sturdy old boy though. He’s been through it, his shell’s flaking, but he’s still the toughest beetle out there. I watch in the rear view as the semi wobbles into the distance, little flecks of our car’s clear coat in hot pursuit.
“What’s the weather like there?”
“Just like this. The wind’s always been hell, but don’t worry.”
He goes quiet for a moment.
“You can hang on to me.”
“OK! Moving on,” I bluster out, “Oklahoma, eh? It’s like you’ve got two states at once down there!”
Like I said, I explore a lot. I know every spring, cliff, and lonesome hill in Missouri. I know a good few in Kansas, and I’ve intermittently been here and there for a con or a show. I wish Tom would be more excited to get out there and explore OK, too. The way he talks about it, it may as well be a foreign country.
“You've never even been to a concert in Tulsa?”
“No, it sounds like it costs an arm and a leg just to make a left turn with all the tolls,” he says.
“It’s not that bad.”
“Why haven’t you been more often, then?”
“Well, it’s not that good,” I say.
“What’s so good that it’s worth a five hour drive?”
And, of course, I know what he can’t help but say.
“Other than you.”
I make a fake retching noise, and we have a laugh. I hate that romantic garbage.
“You know I gotta tell ya, since you won’t tell yourself.”
“Pull over for real, I’m gonna puke.”
I wanted to get out and stretch, that’s all. I start hiking up one of the hills. In the winter they would be excellent for sledding, if only it weren't for the highway. In the late summer they were like Elysium on a globe.
It takes a serious, concerted effort from each leg to heave myself up the amber waves. The wind is famous here. That much of the stereotype is true. I stoop at the peak of the hill and see the silhouette of a squall line over the hills, dipping across the highway. My hair whips at my face. A convoy of semi’s teeter past as the dry, wheezy air spins and devils skyward.
The wind turbines loped on at the same pace they always did, despite the gales. It’s as if the world were not complete until those looming needles were pincushioned into the dusty ground. I tell Tom things like that, and he always brushes it off. He’s a far bigger fan of the stinking creeks and the oppressive, moist air of my home.
“This place really is still the dust bowl. You stick around long enough, and you’ll see it.”
“I was here all last summer, babe. It was dusty, humidity is what kills me. The day after it rains in Missouri’s summer is the hottest of the year. You should know, you were there.”
“Well at least we’ll always have to visit your folks. I was laughing it up in that summer rain.”
The squall on the horizon prickled with violet thorns, a hot rush of rainscent loped across our path on the long fourty-four. The bug shook against the buffet, but he held firm as always. Tom sniffed.
“My mom always said big storm cells like that made people show their true colors. Even in summer, people raid the stores. The roads flood real bad here, everything’s so flat. ”
"Yeah, she’s where all that cheesy crap in your brain comes from.”
“Hey now, my mom’s a smart lady.”
“Maybe to you. It’s always storming in Missouri. You know how many funnel clouds I’ve seen try and give my house a kiss?”
“You’ve told me quite a few.”
I always wanted to plant an orchard on my grandma’s land. It’s not a lot of land, and it’s not a very profitable place for an orchard, but there’s a dream in my mind of walking through the flowering trees in a light summer rain just after spring. That’s the kind of rain Tom was remembering. Most sunshowers in Missouri are dreadful because of that heat you know is coming. Countless garden projects dashed against the stones because of it.
I know, realistically, that the orchard would burn up much the same. I bet it wouldn’t even get to its first harvest, and it would be nothing but a muddy field full of little black sprigs. As a child, I had a friend who lived in the city limits. His parents got it into their heads that they were farmers, not ten minutes away from Aldi’s.
“You know, they say that when you tend an orchard it’s a virtue. It’s because only future generations will know the sweetness of that fruit.”
“Babe. Enough.”
He says, “Yeah, yeah. It sounds maternal though. I think that’s very uncharacteristic and very sweet to hear from you.”
“I don’t want kids. I want those pears.”
We laugh, but we don’t laugh the same.
“Are they that good? You never buy pears for groceries,” he says.
“Most of them are just normal pears. They’re huge, knotty and fat. I’m not usually the ‘eat a straight up pear’ type of person. I just love to be around them. She grew strawberries, which I hated. She grew apples, which immediately soured and went crabby. She grew some impressive pears. There’s a small and special little tree in my Grandma’s garden, and it grew the best damn asian pears you’ve ever had.”
“So you’ve always been picky. What’s the difference?”
“Well the flavor, I guess. They’re more apple-like in their bite, and almost boozy in the taste. You remember that sake we had a while back? With the fancy little jar they brought out?”
“That stuff was really good.”
“It was only fifteen for a serving like that, too. We’ve gotta try and find some. We’ve also gotta get some asian pear jam, if they ever grow again.”
“Jam?”
“Yeah, like jelly.”
“I didn’t know they made pear jam.”
“Well don’t sound so disgusted. You’d eat a pear, right?”
“I don’t know, I’m not really—”
“Pear jam is awesome, alright? You’ll just have to believe me.”
“It seems like a lot of work just to eat a fruit you’re not that fond of.”
“I am fond of them!” I say, a little flippantly. “They’ve always been there. Pears are an inseparable part of summer and fall. I’d have to carry bucket after bucket back to the house and wrap them so they’d ripen. Then, a month or so later, they’d be ready to eat, or dehydrate, or jam.”
Tom’s quiet for a moment, and the car’s getting to be unbearably muggy. Kansas really can get hot, but that’s not Kansas’s fault.
“I’m a little surprised it’s that big of a deal to you. You never let me try any.”
“Don’t you remember? I said everything stopped growing in my grandma’s garden a while ago. If anything ever does though, I’ll be sure to make you try some.”
The broken A/C wheezes out an admirable little breeze. The sunflower road signs pass by, occasionally interrupted by a tractor trailer or a billboard with some hateful slogan. Those aren't Kansas’s fault, and they’re so derelict out in that bountiful wasteland that they seem more like ancient ruins than some warning of slurs to come. In fact, everyone I’ve met in Kansas has been just peachy. They’re far nicer here than back home, where frowning is the state sport.
After another hour of NPR, just as the sun hides behind the hills, the squall line officially crests across the horizon. The cell signal drops, and the cheap little touch screen radio gives us a shrugging emoji.
I love this part. Tom’s a lot of things, but he’s terrified of quiet. Makes a complete mouse out of him. He’ll usually whimper out a few jokes, and we’ll laugh. I’ll give him ten minutes of cold shoulder and he’ll insist upon some big topic that’s been eating him. That’s how it is, he can’t just say the important thing when he needs to. He’s gotta make an appointment, usually about this time.
This time he’s quiet.
I’m almost impressed, so I pretend to doze for a moment. I roll over in my seat, curling up. My head keeps bouncing against the headrest, so sleep’s out of the question. I wonder if it’ll be hard to sleep, living somewhere away from home again. I listen close, past the rush of the car and into the Kansas twilight. There’s no cicadas, no dogs barking. The A/C smells like the promise of beer or fresh bread, hot out the oven at that. Just for me. It’s nice. It’s quiet. There’s a hint of rain, a slight chill.
It’s a little unnerving. So I yawn and stretch til my hands hit the ceiling’s sagging upholstery.
“You’re quiet,” I say. “What’s the matter, nothing on your mind?”
“No. Why, do you have something you need to tell me?”
“No. You usually do and save it for here though. I was kind of looking forward to it.”
“You know me so well.”
I brace for another cheesy one liner that doesn’t come. Just that Kansas quiet.
“Well, I should hope so,” I manage.
“Why were you pretending to be asleep just now?”
I have a little laugh. He’s quiet. Tom’s car speeds on and on in a straight line, towards a purpling sky. I’m sweating quite a bit in that dry, airy car. The vents aren’t much comfort, failing their one job.
“I don’t know, I guess I was waiting on you to ask me something.”
“Something like that?”
“Uh, sure. I guess not. I was just passing time.”
“Right.”
The sea of wheat outside sighs. I crack the window for a minute and stare out, head just past the portal. The wind is still dancing out here, just like it was earlier, and the trip before. No escape from the heat either, since it’s coming from outside. Nothing’s wrong with Kansas.
“Close that, it’s hurting my ears.”
And it does hurt a little, so I close the window.
“You aren’t seeing anyone else right now, are you?”
“Jesus, Tom, no!” I shout. I didn’t mean to shout. I’m just offended at the question at this point. I mean, I’m moving in with him, and he springs something like that?
The radio sputters back on, thank god.
Tom turns it off. I glare at him. His eyes are on the road, a good driver. He’s trying to stare through me without looking at me.
“Look,” he says, “I only ask that because I love you. This is a big deal, and I just gotta be sure.”
“You asked me to move in with you. I want to. So, what, are you never going to be able to fully trust me?”
He goes quiet again. He doesn’t have to say no. It’s the same situation. He wants to, but he’s a big-ass, principled man. He doesn’t let go of the past. He makes enemies. Even me.
I’ve already decided to move in with him. I do not go back on my decision, I’m not insane. I see him white knuckling the wheel. He must be remembering, too.
He must remember how it was his decision to not date around. I was always the only one good enough for him. He remembers that just because he doesn’t usually ask questions that he won’t like the answers to, what he does not know will still hurt him. Rather, he insists that it does.
The fact that I have chosen him now is not enough, and it never will be. He expects the opposite to be enough for me. I see him there, beads of sweat squeezing out from his hairy hands. He’s shaking a bit.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ve grown lazy, or overly comfortable. I haven’t been seeing anybody but him for quite some time now. A long-distance relationship is a tall order to fill. Maybe that’s why he works himself up like this.
He’s not budging, so that settles it.
“Tom, I’m not backing down from this. The fact that you still feel this way, and bring it up now is a real dick move. I’m gonna stick around for six months or a year or two, if I want. Then I’m gone.”
His bug’s path trembles in the wind, but it doesn’t stray its course. Tom’s hands are strangling the wheel now.
“Does that make you wanna go through with this less? I could be lying now. Maybe I’ll stay forever, I don’t know. What I do know is that I need my partner to trust me.” I lay my head on his shoulder and say, “I love you. I know you love me, too. Isn’t that enough?”
He screws up his face, deciding. He chooses to say nothing, and turns the radio back on. Save that, it’s quiet until Big Bertha's loom crests the horizon.
“If I ask you to stop at the big ol’ gal, are you going to push me off and be done with it?”
He laughs, “Of course not. I love you, too.”
“See now that’s the most romantic thing you’ve said all trip.”
Big Bertha is a rusting crane, long decommissioned, but it still makes a decent excuse for a tourist trap. Most people are too smart or too boring to fall for those things anymore, but not me and Tom. Big Bertha is up on a bit of a hill, roiling walls of grain all around. The gate attendant is either sleeping or out to lunch. If you and your partner are the adventurous sort, it's a nice romantic detour. If you and your partner are exceedingly stupid, the view from the top is to die for.
“Babe, didn’t you feel the wind shaking the car earlier? You can’t climb that thing.”
“I’ll just hold on tight, like before! Come on, Tom. For me?”
“No way.”
“You can’t stop me, then."
I’m already climbing the chicken wire fence. Tom’s deciding to say nothing. I hop over, a little puff of dust toots up from the ground. Bertha’s corroding form looms above me on a dry, cracked concrete slab. She’s as tall as a wind turbine, and twice as climbable
“Please don’t go up there. If something were to happen to you now—”
I don’t wait for him to finish. The rusty iron spokes running up along Big Bertha are plenty grippy for my feet, but I quickly want to go back for gloves. I’m as stubborn as Tom is in some ways, though. I don’t, and my hands stay the course.
The wind does blow awfully strong in Kansas. I feel Bertha swaying slightly as Tom and the car and the cracked concrete slab are progressively swallowed up by the wheaty sea. I was right, too. All I need to do is hold on tight and be brave to keep myself steady as I climb.
I don’t bother to get to the top, but I do stop and gawk at a little valley I see a ways down the road. There’s a thick fog being kneaded by the wind, I can see it threatening to spill out of the valley. When the wind settles, it will. For now, the wind lopes over it without a care. I was able to fool myself that I had climbed above the squall line, looking at that valley. Up in the air, feet dangling above the clouds.
I kick my feet like that for a little spell, and then I do feel bothered to get to the top. The funny thing is at that point it’s not hard, and the Kansas wind settles down just a bit. Just for me.
I find it easy to love Kansas because it does that for me. It’s a more nurturing place than the swamp I call home. Easier to breathe, easier to feel free. I look down from Big Bertha on the climb down, and I can just barely see a little ‘FOR SALE’ sign on the bob-wire. I don't believe it.
That’s what I rush to when my feet hit the lovely, dusty ground. Of course, It’s not Big Bertha, It’s the land next to her. I don’t know how big an acre is, maybe it’s even the land around her. I’m walking back to the car, where Tom’s waiting in a little huff. I’m daydreaming about buying the land and homesteading a little ranch, or rather, an orchard. I wonder what would grow here, and the answer licks at my face with almost a longing. It’s a sweet little picture, just farmer me and my farmer Tom under Big Bertha. All we’d need is a thresher and we could spin this straw already around us into gold.
“I can’t believe you did that. She’s fit to fall over any day now.”
Now I’m quiet for a moment as the beast groans above. He’s right, but I’m glad I did. What if she falls just as we roll down the hill? I may never see her shape against the sun again.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come. I should have.”
I’m still quiet. I’m wondering about some more realistic housing options. I know Augusta’s super cheap. I love Wichita, but that place will drain the very soul from your bank account.
“Babe, look I—”
Now I put a little finger up to shush him. Forceful, yet gentle on his lips. I look at him with all the love I feel for him, right then and there. That’s how it is with me and him. The rain finally begins to fall in Kansas, and the windshield wipers screech across Tom’s windshield. “Hey, you love me. You just can’t stand it. Let’s just get back home this once, ok?”
Throughout high school, my parents rented a cabin in a state park “relatively” nearby. It was far enough for my tastes, and as soon as I could drive I basically moved in. Communication is everything, Mom always preached that. I was a good boy. I saw her often, and called home every night. Eventually, I was given the run of the place. They didn’t even stop my monthly allowance. Pretty sweet considering I was only cleaning up after myself.
The tree line was hardly ten feet from my back door. There weren't really any neighbors in the fall, just the usual park staff doing their thing.
The underbrush had gotten pretty thick behind my place. The trimmers said they wanted to let it grow out a bit to protect from the frost. When I called their bullshit on account of it being October and seventy out, the cold shoulder started. Fine by me. It made my party plans nice and easy.
There was a funny kind of path bored through the thicket. None of the greenery was cut. It was simply forced out of the way. Tree limbs bent at forty-five degree angles to make way. The weeds seemed to grow sideways. It was a tall path, I wondered if it was a topiary path or if it was some natural phenomenon.
One night I was outside taking a piss, admiring the storm clouds rolling in above. On my way back in, I saw a baby fawn in that thick underbrush. It was adorable, but it made me a little sad. It was staring right at me, pale and shivering in the reedy grass. It probably wasn’t providing much warmth. I went back inside, torn between bringing it out a blanket and just leaving it be. I decided to leave it be, and then second-guessed myself. I felt like I had to go back. It was gone. I didn’t have a blanket with me, anyway. I don’t know why it bothered me so much. I feel like I did the right thing going back to look, at least.
That house is what got me and this chick named Stacy hooked up. I don’t know her last name. She never told me. I ended up dating her for the first month of junior year, I went a little crazy over her in hindsight.
I had bought my Mini Cooper just before the semester had begun. It wasn’t new, but I bought it in cash. I saved up my allowance for a year and a half in preparation for it, ever since I saw ‘The Italian Job’. I insisted on picking her up for our first date. She insisted that she simply ride home with me after school. Fine by me, nice and easy.
“This place is perfect, it really is in the woods!” she said, letting herself out onto the patio. That funny path in the woods seemed to beckon her gaze.
I was really nervous. She left me there standing like an idiot, in my own house. Thankfully, I’d developed a habit for these situations. I took a deep breath, and traced her shape with my eyes. From the tip of her dyed pink ponytail, and around that ass that consumed my vision. It was the type of ass you’d see in your dreams. She was so hot. Back then, for all my habits, I still made the mistake of being very forgiving to hot people. This girl is who changed that.
“Hey, plenty to see in here too,” I said, wrapping my arms around her from behind. She didn’t seem to mind too much. I couldn’t get her to stop looking at the tunnel of trees twisting in the wind.
“Do you spend a lot of time out here, in the woods?”
“Sometimes. It’s my backyard, after all.
She breathes out this adorable, breathy chuckle. “Must be nice. I used to live in a place like this.” I was about to humor her, but the look in her eye made me save it for later. She never ended up telling me about her old place. It didn’t seem important to me, back then. I gazed down that path, where I found the deer.
“Wanna take a walk in the woods with me?”
She started coming over very often. In hindsight, it was one of those exhausting relationships. The type where you just bang each other's brains out, and just do it some more. Don’t get me wrong, I was in heaven. I wanted to take her out and show her off, but she said no. Every time.
It bothered me because we met at Nick Murphy’s party. She was a wallflower, but she was at a party at least. Crazy about me once we got together. I saw her icy blue eyes in the halls occasionally. She never had many friends, and didn’t seem very involved in after school stuff. I’d try to pin her down to talk in the hallway, but she always had a crazy schedule. When I’d bring the boys over and invite her, she’d socialize and have a good time. They enjoyed her company, but it was weird. None of them even checked her out. No one seemed to see her but me. She wasn’t sad, and honestly she was rarely happy. She floated through life. Excited was as good as it got with her, and she just hated answering questions.
I would ask her where in town she lived, and she’d just vaguely say “Oh, up north, by Mcdonalds.” I was never very good with landmark directions, and she caught onto it very quickly. She liked to tease me on our walks in the woods, and we’d end up walking circles for hours just because it amused her to see me struggle.
She was a very cagey person, to say the least. It kind of boiled over when she pulled up in a new Jeep. I asked her “Damn, what happened to your old Camry?”
She said “Nothing, I just got a new car.”
“Oh, so you sold it?”
“No, It’s at my mom’s place.”
“Oh, cool. She’s gonna sell it for you?”
And then she turned her head without a word, as if physically moving on, “What do you wanna eat tonight?”
I had to lean on that good old anchor of mine pretty often with her. Sure, she wasn’t great at communication, but she was really hot. I loved to be seen out in public with her, as rare as it was. I definitely didn’t wanna ruin a good thing over nothing.
I was an idiot, but money is where I draw the line. Even these days.
“Uh, spaghetti, I guess. Did you get a car loan or something?”
“Yeah, I used my credit card.”
Well, what a red flag. “What do you mean, like you have it set up to pay monthly?” She nodded very curtly to that.
“Tom please, let's go cuddle on the couch. Yeah?”
It really hurt to have to stop her from wrapping herself around me right then and there, but my dad raised me money-smart.
I confronted her about it. I said “Stacy, how did you pay for that car?” To which she responded by throwing up her hands and walking out the back door, huffing up at the tree tops. She pulled out her phone. I marched over to her and she slammed the door on me. I could hear her talking to her mom or someone. It had a very weird vibe. I had to investigate.
I’m gonna sound like a dick saying this, but I knew her phone’s password. I shouldn’t have, but I did. Just in case. I had a look through her messages. We were sleeping, and I took the opportunity when she got up out of bed to use the bathroom. I knew she didn’t have a sim card, I just assumed that she was poor. That’s what got me itching about all this in the first place.
I looked in her contacts and there were none, save the defaults. That’s not so odd, I thought. I go to her messenger, and to a chat that just says “Mom”. Default profile picture. That’s not so odd. The chat was all back and forth copies of the sender’s message.
“Hey hun, when will you be home from school”
“Back home by midnight! Love you”
“Back home by midnight! Love you”
“I’ll see you tomorrow then, be careful!”
“I’ll see you tomorrow then, be careful!”
“Call me if you need anything! Love you”
“Call me if you need anything! Love you”
Other than her chat with me, there weren’t any other signs of communication. There weren’t even receipt texts or scams. There was plenty of activity on the phone, she had Insta and watched Tiktok. She listened to a lot of podcasts on Spotify. No messages. Not from or to anyone.
I saw headlights streak across the treeline very suddenly. I shot up. She wasn’t in the bathroom. By the time I made it outside, the Jeep was gone.
I decided to stay put. As I browsed pictures of the woods outside my home, pictures of us, and pictures of the park, I wondered if she was even far away.
A text message came in that asked “where r u?” The profile name was blank. I considered answering, but I didn’t. She was really freaking me out, but I’m not the type to get mad over this kind of thing. I stewed. Maybe she had left the park, and now whatever she was doing was too far for me to catch up in the Mini.
I was up all night scouring her phone, squinting through the windows at the hints of headlights that found their way through the thicket. At one point, one of those cars turned and must have had their high beams on. I shot up, the headlights tearing straight through the path in the backyard. I considered going out there, just to see if she had really picked somewhere so close. The high beams staring me down made another turn, vanishing behind the trees. I knew that she was hooking up with someone.
She didn’t come back that night. I plotted my confrontation. I spotted the Jeep on my way into school the next morning, but I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of her. I decided to check out her car during lunch. She wasn’t there either. The eclipse black Wrangler was as clean as ever. As I expected, it was unlocked.
If she didn’t want me to find what was in there, she shouldn’t have left her car unlocked. I still stand by that. The parking lot was putting off heat waves even that late in the year. Scanning around me, no one was in sight. I tried to be cool and got into the trunk.
Now, I’ve done coke, but I’d never mess with needles. I counted four, loose in the trunk bed. I stared for a long moment, shocked. I felt like I should have noticed. I had looked her over plenty, I never saw any hints of needle marks. I sniffed one, morbid curiosity.
Have you ever had a scare that you’ve left the gas stove on, and you’re gonna blow the kitchen up? It smelled like that. It had that stomach dropping dread, with it. I put the cork back on. I don’t know if that was heroin. I’ve seen pictures, and it didn't look the same. It didn’t matter, she was obviously dealing it out the back of her drug Jeep.
I managed to catch her in the hall later that day. Actually, she walked up to me. Imagine that.
“Hey Tom, sorry to dip out last night,”
“Yeah. You left your phone.”
“My phone?” she said. The look on her eyes was, for just a moment, very far away. She quickly snapped back to it. “Did anyone call me?”
I guess I must have looked a little too incredulous. Her vacant mask returned, and it had spotted me. I felt like I was on the tracks, the bright light of a train barreling at me. My jaw was slack, even. I bet it all on a fake sneeze.
“Bless you!” she said.
“Thanks,” I said. I wanted to marinate on this a little longer. Who was she expecting to call her? “No, no one called. You should be more careful, You’re lucky I only found it when I texted you!”
She took her phone back and checked. Of course I texted her. She seemed less suspicious of me, and I really started to feel like a detective. What if I took down some big drug ring in the school? That’d be one for the yearbook.
I asked if she wanted to come over that night, and she said yes. On top of that, she offered to take me out.
“Anywhere you want, I’ll drive even,” she said.
She picked me up. We had a quiet drive and a pretty hollow meal. She had been thrown off, but knew there was something coming. I didn’t hear anything rattle in the trunk as we drove.
We got there, and I asked her about her day. She said it was fine. I asked her how her classes were, and she said they were fine.
“Hey, Stacy?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s your mom’s, like, actual address?” I had taken a little detour around town. Near the northernmost Mcdonalds on the map. I couldn't find a house with her old Camry. I looked hard.
She scrunched up her face, threw up her hands, and left the table. She headed outside and I was on her. No slamming me out of a public place.
“Hey, what’s going on? I found things in your trunk, you know.”
“You what?” She seethed the words out of clenched teeth. That stare was on me again. The headlight of the train roared ever closer.
“You know what? Fuck this. Go home,” I told her. I guess she must have done just that. I didn’t look back to check.
It was as if the train had paused behind me. I could feel the heat of the engine on the back of my neck. I couldn’t see it, but I knew the headlight was beaming right at me. I had dessert by myself. The lava cake was dry. The lava was still frozen jelly in the middle.
I got an Uber home and wondered what the hell I had gotten involved with. I hadn’t mentioned a word of this to my mom and dad yet, but I called them that night and told them all. It was a crazy situation, what else was I supposed to do? They contacted the police. I wasn’t not happy with the outcome, sue me. I celebrated the bullet dodged with some fireball and coke, and headed to bed.
That night, pounding at the front door woke me up. High beams blasting into the forest. Other than that, it was deathly quiet. I had no idea what kind of people Stacy was hanging around. I strained my ears, desperately grasping at any sound that would suggest someone was already in the room with me. I couldn’t hear anything, so I bolted. I wildly scanned the room for any intruders. No one.
I’ll admit, running to the front door and throwing it open may not have been the smartest move, but I was scared. Maybe a part of me thought it was the cops.
The high beams blasted right into my eyes. A shadow loomed over me. I couldn’t make out many features against the brights. Something hard slammed into the side of my leg.
The doctor said that I had a “bimalleolar ankle fracture, with a displaced fibula and a hairline fracture along the tibia.” You’ll be on crutches for about six weeks, make sure to come to physical therapy. Have you ever broken a bone before?”
“No sir,”
His tortoise shelled glasses slid down his sweaty, piggish nose. His frog-like neck pulsed and shuddered as he chuckled down at me. “Just remember that somehow the worst part’s over. PT is a doozy, but if you can make it through, you should be running in time for football season next year.”
I was never much one for sports, so I tried to focus on the worst being over. I remember that at first I felt a flash of pain. I had enough time to think “That’s not good.”
Time must have frozen over, at that moment. I remember feeling like I needed to throw up. Heat on my leg, like someone doused it in gas and lit a match. I could feel it buckle under my weight. I could see it as my vision went askew. The feeling of the crunch, coupled with my loss of balance made me gag. I screamed.
The person attacking me pushed me over and dragged me through the living room with my good leg. They were strong.
I kicked as hard as I could, but the struggle only made the pain in my dragging foot send boiling pain shooting up my leg. I could feel it in my eyes. My eyes burned because the person who was attacking me had eyes like the headlights. It didn't make sense. It felt like an insult. A cruel sucker punch that came out of nowhere. As hard as I screamed, no one came to help. I know there had to be someone else around, and they left me to die with that thing.
There’s a bit of gravel around the patio out back. I was dragged through that, and dropped at the tree line. What I saw tearing away wasn’t a man. It had a head like a shovel, about six feet tall. It had a billowing cloak on, but as it moved I saw no legs. It hovered just off the ground, barreling down the forest’s bore hole. I felt my stomach roll as I realized it must be what made the strange path. There was some chord within me that told me to follow it, but there was no way in hell I was going to listen.
Dragging myself across the patio, leg tailing behind me and limply burning, I cried. I cried like a bitch. It was the worst pain I had ever felt up until that point, or since. It took me ten minutes of crawling in agony to find my phone. I called the cops. I’m not saying my crazy ex dressed up and kneecapped me that night, but that’s what I told them. I got to file a police report of my own that night, my very first one.
They searched the woods and never found her. They found the Jeep and the Camry, both stolen and miles away. All that news just slid off of me. I didn’t care. I don’t care. Ever since that happened to me, I feel like I‘ve aged. The moment before the bone fully gave out felt like it took ten years to be over. Sometimes I can still feel it, and I’m pulled right back to that goddamn doorway. It’s as if all the living I’ve done since then amounts to nothing in the face of the creature that attacked me.
The worst thing about it is that I don’t think it was her that whacked me that night, but I also don’t believe in coincidences. I suppose, I learned that if you smell gas, get out? Crazy is as crazy does?
There’s a cave in the woods, near the house I moved into during my freshman year of college. The park around it was aptly named ‘The Cliffs’. It was a beautiful sight. Nice little falls after a rainstorm would trickle down into the rushing stream below. There was a very leafy smell all around our place because of it. There was usually a nice mist in the mornings. As I’d wait for the shuttle to campus, the early morning sun would break through the heavy treeline around our suburb, streaks of gold beaming all up and the properties.
I initially moved there with my highschool sweetheart, Honey. I doubt she ever got a chance to see that kind of sunrise. She was a night owl, night classes. While she was out, I came to like hiking around the cliffs in the evenings. That’s when I found the cave.
It was tucked away behind some bushes. It was its own little foyer in the forest. Very picturesque. I asked Honey if she wanted to go camping there when I found it. We were in love, but we were out on our own for the first time. Of course we had some of my friends as roommates, but it was a very trying time for us. I thought a little romantic camp might bring some life back into the relationship.
The cave was a pleasant distance from the cliffs. The stream made for a natural white noise. There were only some intermittent, meager stalactites dotting the ceiling. The ground inside was lightly colored, sandy. Once we got the campfire and sleeping bags rolled out, we knew the tent wouldn’t be necessary. It was quite a find.
“So, do we explore the rest of it? I don’t wanna wake in a bear’s den, babe.”
She was always a worrier, I had to laugh, “Sure, hon. Let’s check it out.”
I was just cajoling her, it was a pretty small little dent in the cliffside, not much to see. One entrypoint led into a decent atrium. There was a tunnel, like a gullet in the back. The ground was damper there.
“Maybe there’s an underground stream?” I wondered aloud
“We’re not gonna sink as we sleep or anything, right?”
“Honey, relax. See there?” I pointed out some empty PBR cans and a trash bag of something unspeakable. “I’m sure it’s safe if there’s been other people here.”
“I don’t think I want other people walking up on us tonight, babe.”
I tried to figure out if she meant it in a hot way or in a worrisome way. We didn’t get too feely that night, sleeping in a cave for the first time and all. I suppose I’m still wondering.
That night, I had a nightmare. That’s the best thing I can describe it as. It started with me closing my eyes in the cave, Honey’s sleeping face slowly squeezed out of view by the sandman. My point of view left my skull and floated up, hovering slightly above our sleeping shapes.
There, in the back of the cave. There were six gleaming eyes in the darkness. Some rose, some fell. They could have been mistaken for a constellation, but I could feel the presence of a predator behind those incandescent points in the dark.
“What do you think of her, then?”
“What?” I asked the dark.
“Your partner there. What do you think of her?”
I was shocked to say the least. The voice was airy, hollow, damp. It wasn’t a threatening voice, though I felt threatened by it. It was as if your boss were speaking to you. It had a condescending tone, but a knowing one.
“That’s none of your business, that’s what I think,” I said defensively. It noticed.
“I see. I suppose you think it's just going to ‘work itself out,’ then. Would you leave her in the cave?”
“What, like forever?”
The eyes gleamed before they spoke again, “Hypothetically. It’s a thought experiment.”
I looked back down to our sleeping selves. Even in the night air’s chill, we didn’t touch each other. Not even in the same sleeping bag. Things had been on the rocks for a while, and I couldn’t fool myself into wondering if there were better options. There were.
The eyes seemed aware. They closed gently. The voice in the cave said to me, “When you awaken, leave the cave. Go freshen yourself up with a little walk. The problems you and your partner are having will vanish. You’ll have a fresh start.”
I stared into the gullet of the cave for a long while before I woke up. The eyes never opened up again. The airy voice didn’t wheeze any more words.
When I woke up I took that walk. When I returned, I couldn’t find the cave’s mouth. There was a slight seam in the cliff face. Red ichor oozed from it, some kind of fungus. I guess Honey must have ran off somewhere, found someone else to spend her life with. It hurt that she was gone, but I hoped for her. It’s a bittersweet thing to want someone you love to find someone better than you to make them happy, but back then I needed to wander. After some time, I came to realize that. I think I may have seen her once or twice in passing since that night. I never stopped to be sure, but it brought me some comfort.
I moved on pretty quickly. There was this hot thing who’d come around to the park to do yoga, and I got up the nerve to ask her out. Soon enough, she was teaching me yoga too. I ended up transferring to a different university, but she was happy to make the hour long drive to stay with me as often as she could. Her name was Charlette.
It was really sweet. It was nice seeing her there when I’d get home. After a while, she started to get prepped for van life. I can’t deny I’m still a little jealous. She ended up driving around, seeing the whole country in the prime of her life. I can only hope to do that when I’m old and retired. Smart move, she was really something. I asked her if she wanted to go camping before she set off on her adventure. We went back to the cave. I guess I thought that making a good memory in it would cancel out the bad.
We got there in the rain, but Char kept the mood up, laughing and kicking the puddles all the way. She threw a tarp down and cracked open a couple of tall boys.
“Race you to the bottom?” She had the sweetest smile, and she always smiled sweetest when she was having fun. The situation was sad, but we were both in love. We shotgunned out beers, she beat me in the race. After a while we got to cuddling by the fire, watching the water pour over the cave mouth. As we lay there in each other's darkness, I noticed the stalactites on the ceiling had grown a little larger over time.
“It kind of reminds me of the incredibles,” she said.
“Yeah, hey hun?”
“Whats up?”
I shifted slightly. I was worried to ask. I mean, I knew the answer already. It kind of felt like a defeated formality, but asked all the same. “What’s after this for us? Do we just end it here and be friends then or-”
She cut me off with a kiss.
Breathlessly, she said “Hey, the feelings I have for you are unconditional. This isn't gonna be the last you see of me, I’m sure of it. Don’t keep your heart on ice for me, just keep it open enough for me? Can you do that?”
I smiled at her, and nodded. We eventually kissed each other goodnight, and I fell back asleep. My vision floated above our sleeping shapes again. This time, I approached the back of the cave. I wanted to get a look for myself. Instead, I only found some raggedly old clothes, and some more trash. I turned, the eyes were outside of the cave this time. The fire’s dying light couldn’t reach the creature’s face, but three distinct trickles ran from its jaws. I shuddered at the thought of its teeth.
“Back so soon?” It asked. It’s voice cracked, like the pattering of raindrops on stone.
“It’s actually been quite a while, otherwise I wouldn’t have come back to this place. I was hoping you were a dream.” I puffed out my chest, put on my bravest face. The creature behind the eyes growled a deep, throaty growl.
“The world is full of obvious things. I live here. If you keep coming back, you’ll keep finding me. I’ll keep asking about them, too.” The eyes crept a bit forward, still shrouded in darkness. Two enormous paws padded past the inky threshold, and the eyes settled down on them. We were boxed in.
“So,” It mewled, “How is she?”
I went for a walk in the morning. When I came back to the cave I ran across that nasty red fungus I had last time. It had spread, and had black frills. It dripped with some kind of stinking nectar. Char eventually caught up to me.
“Hey! Up and active this morning?”
I blinked at her, struggling to find words to say.
She shrugged, all packed up herself. “The cave floor was pretty uncomfy. It was cute, but I don’t blame you.” She held out her hand, “Shall we?”
She would go off on her van trip, and a few friends decided to tag along. They found work busking, dancing, doing odd jobs. When I got involved with my next girl, I told her about my fun and talented acquaintance roaming the countryside. She wasn’t very understanding.
I can remember Char crying over the phone when I broke it off with her. I tried to find something nice to say afterwards, but she was smart. She told me through tears, “I have to get back to work.” She hung up on me. I was hurt at first, but relieved all the same. My new girl, Chloe, was in the car when I made the call. She wanted to hear it done for herself. She smiled when I pulled the phone away from my ear, and slid a hand down my arm.
“Thanks babe. I appreciate that.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, a little shakily. “Honesty is the best policy, after all.”
I met Chloe in an astronomy lab. She was short, stouter than Charlette. It was a welcome change of pace. She was much more of a homebody, that’s for sure. It was a nice domestic getaway for me, though. I hadn’t had breakfast in bed and Riverdale in a long time. Even though they were both a little terrible in their own right, I missed them.
Chloe was the kind of girl I was sure about as soon as I set eyes on her. Just something about her figure, about her attitude. I guess, in the end, she was just hot and I was just stupid. I asked her to go camping pretty early on. It seemed important to my relationships at that point, to go to the cave. She was only my third serious partner, and I doubt she’d consider me the same. Still, she agreed to spend the night in the cave with me.
At that point, the Cliffs were a four hour drive away from the town I lived in. I keep trying to decide if all the women who followed me there showed a testament to their feelings in sticking out that drive, or if they were just too polite to say no. Chloe wasn’t much of a camper. She could hardly get the sleeping bags set out right, the cave was a natural shelter for chrissake. She was less interested in the surroundings than anyone I met. She got right down to business, and pulled me into the spot where I was to spend the rest of the night. We hardly said a word to each other after camp was set up. That night, the eyes came back to check in on me.
The dream was different this time. I fell asleep, and in time my eyes fluttered back open. The eyes peered at me from a nearby corner of the cave.
“Back again, eh?”
I struggled to bring my exhausted elbows under me. “Why do you got to take such an interest in me and mine?”
The eyes retracted a bit. The speed scared me a bit more awake. “Take interest in you? In you?” The beast in the cave cackled, and Chole woke up with a shriek.
“Tom! What is that thing?!”
“I don’t know!” I said, struggling to my feet. It wasn’t as dreamlike this time. I felt I had to protect Chloe from the cave monster. As soon as I felt it, I was aware that I had brought her here.
She never stopped screaming. Not the whole time. She scrambled away from me, towards the mouth of the cave. She found nothing.
The beast howled, cackling as if a lion could laugh. “I think it’s important to remember that you walked yourselves in here. Other than that,” It stepped forward, its terrible black paws swallowing up the fleeting light. “My lips are sealed.”
It approached me, and where a face should have been I only saw a dense, concrete darkness. The six gleaming orbs stared straight into my fetid soul, and passed over me without hesitation. My face was pushed into the cave wall in their wake. I threw myself away from the enclosing wall. I was screaming for Chloe. I remember slamming my skull into one of the larger stalactites. I swear, in the bleary darkness, I could even see the cave walls closing in on us.
I woke up near that seam again. The red fungus’s nectar left rotting splat marks along the cliff’s face. More fungi growing in the stains of the past. I struggled to pick myself up. I was sore. I looked down, only to see the worst, darkest bruises I had ever had. They were all over, especially around my joints. I was so sore I gagged. It was a dry heave. Funny enough, I remembered all the food we brought along with us. I bet it was still in the car, even.
I had three lunchables to myself on the drive back. I haven’t heard from Chloe since. I try not to think about her.
