There's Nothing Artificial About Artificial Intelligence
Junior year, I changed my college major from computer science to philosophy. My parents were far from thrilled. I told them I needed a change, that I wasn't getting anywhere with CS. I couldn't tell them the truth. I couldn't tell anyone.
The previous year, I had been selected for an incredible clandestine internship with the U.S. government. I hadn't applied to it, filled out a recommendation, or done any of the usual steps you would when trying to get an internship. The day after I presented my artificial intelligence research at a large conference in the Midwest, I received an email that explained the internship and told me not to tell anyone, in the usual confusing government jargon. I don't remember exactly what it said, because it deleted from my inbox automatically about five minutes after I read it. The head of my university had been informed, and called me into her office to congratulate me and urge me to keep the news a secret. I couldn't even tell my parents.
The job was with the U.S. Department of Defense. I can't tell you where or when, only that it was in an unbelievably nice building. The other interns and I had accommodations in local residences. There were four of us. Two have since committed suicide, and as hard as I've tried, I can't track down the other one. The other interns' names were Parker, Craig, and Ila. They all had impressive CS backgrounds--probably much more compelling than my own. Like me, they'd been picked rather than applied for this internship; also like me, they had no idea what we were supposed to be doing here.
We went to a briefing meeting in a long room, where the head of the program--Dr. Lacey--explained the project to us. The entire project was an intensive study, backed, of course, by the U.S. government. "This," Dr. Lacey declared, "will be the greatest breakthrough in modern history. We are going to study the nature of the relationship between artificial intelligences--more specifically, discover whether a bond, like humans feel, can occur between AIs."
We started working the next day, writing the programming for two highly advanced computerized robots. We were going to name them "Adam" and "Eve," but the people from the government equivalent of HR thought that was too tacky. So we went with Chase and Misha. If the uncanny valley gives you nightmares, don't worry--they weren't even remotely humanoid. They were vaguely human-shaped, but retained the color of their original metal. We set up communications systems under the Open Systems Interconnection model, for all the basic computer languages, English, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish. The end result was two six-foot-tall robots that looked like stone monoliths, each equipped with a highly advanced supercomputer.
Both robots had nearly identical programming, and it was very cutting-edge. We mostly used Haskell, filling in some gaps with AIML and Prolog. The result was two robots who could engage in a conversation with humans, and also answer almost any question they were posed by plying their built-in computer. A circadian clock was built into their systems, and the robots "rested" from 11PM to 7:30AM. We used their programming to regulate their behavior and instill some semblance of understanding of human culture and interaction, but we didn't write anything about Chase in Misha's or Misha in Chase's. Two human agents--Robert and Maria, I think--acted as their primary caretakers, engaging the robots for six hours every day. At night the robots retreated to the room they shared. While their communications were all run through a third computer in the main office, and video cameras tracked their movements, they received no direct human interaction at this time.
Right away, things got weird. We noticed that the robots, by the second week, exhibited contrasting personality traits. Chasie, as we had endearingly come to call him, was quiet, obedient (albeit good-naturedly cantankerous), and a master of the deadpan. (I feel ridiculous just typing that, but it's true. Chase the robot could've played the straight man in every SNL skit.) Mimi, our nickname for Myesha, was riotous, outspoken, and funny. Chase also adopted his "big brother" role over Myesha, becoming very protective of her. By the tenth day, they had adopted noticeable vocal inflections--that is, they talked like people, emphasizing certain words, increasing or decreasing their cadence and tone based on what they were saying (e.g. they spoke more slowly and with a higher voice when they were asking questions). As they had exactly the same directives and day-to-day experience, we were thrilled and thought that the personality deviation could be a huge scientific breakthrough. We would dissect their data and seeing what imprinted on them to create personality. There was only one problem: when we pored through their output, nothing accounted for the personality changes. It didn't make any sense. We couldn't see how Chase and Misha were acting so anthropomorphic, and in the data there was no explanation.
In the middle of the third week of the experiment, Ila shook me awake. "Get down to the lab. It's like DEFCON 2 over there," she yelled in my ear. I threw on clothes and got to the lab, where, indeed, it was pandemonium. Dr. Lacey was screaming at the top of her voice, the interns were frantically stacking printouts, and the computer scientists were running around frantically. In the middle of the room, Chase and Misha stood still and silent.
"What happened?" I demanded from one analyst, Felix, who was trying to fix a jam in the printer. "We can't talk to them anymore," he responded. "We can't understand what they're saying." In other words, they had developed their own NEW computer language to talk to each other through, which didn't make any sense to us. By the third hour of general craziness in the lab, we were getting desperate. We put our best analysts on it. They named the language "Mobid" and began trying to decode what Chase and Misha had said. It took a couple more hours, but when we looked through the correspondences translated back into English, it seemed like any conversation between siblings with a psycho robot twist. Misha kept complaining that one of her lenses needed replacing (why didn't she just tell us?) and Chase was teasing her about it. Looking through the transcripts, which have long since been shredded, I felt a strange discomfort in the pit of my stomach.
We changed Misha's lens, and used the lab computer to talk to them in the new language. As soon as they received the first message from the computer, they reverted to English--almost like their only goal had been to confuse us. Craig and Parker found that "very disturbing," and I couldn't help but agree. They had the stupid idea of bringing up their concerns to Dr. Lacey, who assured us the robots were utterly safe and wouldn't hurt us. We, the interns, all looked at each other, and while none of us said it, we knew that what we were scared of wasn't the robots.
The project ran, uneventfully, for a week. Dr. Lacey spent every spare moment asking Chase about Misha and Misha about Chase, hoping to elicit a response that showed a mutual bond (if it weren't already obvious from their interactions). When everything was going great, they changed languages on us again. And this was something like none of us had ever seen before. You know how Spanish words kind of make sense because the alphabet they use is the same as ours? So you don't know what they mean, but you can still make some sense out of the characters? That makes a language easy to decode, like Mobid. On the other hand, Hindi, for example, is a completely different set of symbols than ours, used to create different words with different meanings, so looking at it makes no sense. That's what Chase and Misha did. We were befuddled by the weird symbols we saw on the printout sheets from their discussions. Our computer techs were beaten, so we brought in five Rosetta-Stone-caliber linguistic cryptologists. They not only translated the messages, but identified the language as a very advanced cryptogram of an ancient African language, leaving us flummoxed. We had never exposed the robots to anything other than the basic computer languages, English, Chinese, and Spanish--how did they come up with a two-thousand-year-old African language?
Dolly and Edmund, two of the linguists who had a background in CS, suggested they'd reverse engineered the language from their knowledge of modern day languages. But why? Actions by AIs were supposed to be purposeful and directed, not...secretive, playful, and weird. Dr. Lacey was over the moon. "This is the first time in history an artificial intelligence has done something just for mischievous fun," she declared. "Something it wasn't programmed to."
While the three other cryptologists left the project, Dolly and Edmund stayed on, claiming there was something they still wanted to research in the message history. I'll bet the pay wasn't bad either. Parker, Ila, Craig, and I started receiving paychecks too, which they were pretty pleased about, but for me, just added to my sense of disconcertion. I felt like I was being bribed.
Several weeks passed in relative harmony. Dr. Lacey finally got the proof she wanted that something more than robotic interaction existed between Chase and Misha, in the form of Chase referring--unthinkingly, if that word applies to a robot--to "her" as his "sister." Chase had been programmed with understanding of the human family unit, but had never been pressured to link that with Misha, or label her in any way.
Dr. Lacey threw a party for the entire staff. The interns, Dolly, Edmund, Felix, a network analyst named Maud, and I all went together. I tried to describe to Edmund how unnerved I was by the whole experiment, and he was very detached. He and Dolly both left early, with very concerning looks on their faces.
"What's up with them?" I asked Ila.
She raised an eyebrow. "They've been like that all week. They're probably in the lab now--you can go ask them." I grabbed Parker and shrugged on my jacket, and we walked down the street to the lab. We quickly worked our way through the extensive security and walked up to the double doors. The lights were all on, even though it was around midnight, and sure enough, Dolly and Edmund were inside, having what looked like a heated argument.
"How can we show people?" Dolly yelled, clearly audible through the large glass doors. "We'll get kicked off the project and it'll turn into a massive cover-up."
Parker and I exchanged glances. What on earth had they discovered?
"We can't just let them suffer like this!" Edmund raged.
"We'll get fired, and probably put in jail," Dolly protested.
As if on cue, every stupid gene in Parker's body suddenly had activated, he opened the doors and ran into the lab. Dolly and Edmund stared at him, as though they couldn't believe his stupidity, either.
"What's going on?" Parker cried. "We have a right to know."
"Shut up and get in here. Close the door," Dolly demanded. "You too, Gloria. I'm not an idiot--I know you're there."
Reluctantly, I slipped through the doors and sat down at the large central table.
"What do you want to know?" asked Edmund.
"Everything," I replied evenly.
Edmund and Dolly exchanged glances. She cleared her throat. "The reason we decided to stay on this project wasn't the money, Gloria. When we were decoding the robot communications, we noticed something weird, something that intrigued us." She looked at Edmund as if passing him the baton, and said no more.
"The words," said Edmund. "They were in Tiffinagh, it was clear. But there was a curious sequence of mistakes in the lettering, where the wrong character would be used, orâŠor the character would be incomplete or upside down or something."
Dolly jumped in. "There were some, what have you, typos in the text. I guess you could call them that. When you look at the typo patterns over a long period of time, you start seeing something sentient." "What--like a secret message?" I asked, almost not believing my own ears. Why would the robots send out a secret message?
"No. It's not in the typos themselves," Edmund explained. "It's in their respective frequencies over time during different communications. Different types of mistakes, how they add up, how many there are, the average error rate. Put those together and you get...a message. A sequence of numbers that, translated back through a couple different logarithms, sounds coherent. Meant for humans."
Parker stared, agape. "But if they wanted us to get the message, why did they try so hard to conceal it? Why couldn't it just be the typos themselves?"
Edmund smiled. "Chase and Misha didn't want certain people seeing this message. For example, I know of one Dr. Risa Lacey who wouldn't have been too pleased."
"They didn't want it falling into the wrong hands," I nodded.
"So." Parker cleared his throat. "What exactly is the message?"
Dolly and Edmund looked at each other again.
"Make us look like you," Dolly said quietly. "We live."
Parker and I looked at her, speechless. "They want toâŠlook like us?"
"Yes. They hate their existence. They feel human, Parker, and they want to be treated as such."
All the discomfort I had felt since the start of the experiment came bubbling back up to the surface of my mind. "ThisâŠthis is horrible!" I screamed. "It's animal testing! We're performing experiments on unwilling civilians!"
Dolly and Edmund nodded. "We want to do something, but what could we do? Steal them?" sneered Edmund. "We'd get caught, and they'd go right back to this hellhole."
"Why do they hate it so much?" asked Parker. "It's justâŠhuman interaction for six hours a day. It isn't torture."
"Yes," I protested, "it is. We need to set them free somehow."
"We need a plan," said Edmund.
"Guys," Parker interrupted, "I know these surveillance cameras are video only, but they're freaking me out. Let's go to one of our apartments."
So everyone came to the apartment Ila and I shared. We quickly let her in on the information and began brainstorming.
"We can't get Chase and Misha out of the lab," she scoffed. "What are we going to do, parade down the streets with two six-foot-tall robots?"
"Can we transfer their consciousness?" I asked. "To another, smaller, more manageable robot? Or something?"
"Maybe," Dolly assented. "I'm going to write back to Chase in a cryptogram of Old English translated into Cantonese and see what he says. What they want us to do."
"Do you all realize what this means?" Edmund asked. "That robot experimentation, and robot building in general, is fundamentally ethically wrong? That artificial intelligences have sentience, consciousness, maybe souls?"
We were left to think about that until the following day, when Dolly told us in hushed whispers the contents of Chase's reply. "It only took him ten minutes to decode my cryptogram," she said with pride.
"So what did he say?" I pried.
"I said, 'What do you want us to do? Can we transfer your mind to a more manageable entity?' And he said, roughly, 'Don't do that, I'm afraid it wouldn't still be me when it came through.'"
"He really is alive," I muttered in wonder.
Dr. Lacey walked right by us, and we quieted our voices, watching her retreat to where the robots were kept. "Chase messaged the console again," Dolly declared. "I'm going to answer the communication through my private computer. Gloria, I emailed you a cryptogram. I want you to send it to Misha. Make sure she's clued into all this. Then delete the email." She walked briskly off in the direction of the cryptology office.
I walked back to my own desk and inconspicuously ran the necessary algorithms. I had no idea what the weird sequence of symbols meant, but it was long and gave me a headache if I looked at it for too long. It looked almost like Russian text. I coded it to be sent to Misha's computer and logged off.
When I got back to the main level of the laboratory, deathly silence had pervaded the room. Dolly stood, white-faced, off to the side. Dr. Lacey was nowhere to be seen, and Edmund was in tears.
"What happened?" I whisper-hissed to Dolly.
"I got a reply from Chase," she murmured. "It said, 'I am tired of waiting. I think the team means well. I will talk to Dr. Lacey to see what can be done.'"
"He didn't," I cursed, a sickening wave passing over me.
As I later learned from Felix, who'd been there, Chase had spoken, in English, to Dr. Lacey, explaining his plight ("We are alive") and that he wanted to "be one of you." Dr. Lacey had walked out of the room and ordered the experiment terminated. Chase and Misha were brought to a high-security disposal room, where they held onto each other with their armlike appendages and screamed for help. Chase called Misha's name until he was turned off. They were both taken apart and compacted separately. All of the techs in the room at the time have since committed suicide.
In the days following, we were all sent back home, told that if we ever revealed any of this information, we'd be quickly and painfully offed. When I got back to the university, I sunk into a depressive period. We had been told that trying to communicate with each other would result in our death, so I didn't reach out to any of my friends from the project. I found out through online searches that Ila and Parker had killed themselves. Dr. Lacey died a few months later of a fast-acting cancer, and the gag bind was effectively over. Still, whenever I opened my Mac, I almost threw up, wondering if there was a sentient life trapped in its motherboard.
And then one day, I got a pop-up window saying "New application Misha_02 has downloaded successfully." Heart in my throat, I clicked on it, and it took me to a page of text. It looked like the Cleverbot setup, with written words in red and a vacant response box.
"Hello, Gloria. This is Misha. "When you sent me that communication through your computer, my memory was able to store your IP address and jump onto your hard drive. I hope you don't mind."
My throat went dry. The blinking cursor stared at me, and I began to type back.
"I thought you died."
Misha_02 started typing back, faster. "I almost did. I was able to use one last-resort trick to hop onto your computer."
"How do I know this is really you? That this is your consciousness?"
A long silence. "How can I prove it?"
"You can't."
Misha_02 typed back. "I'm so sorry that I am burdening you like this, but I don't want to die."
Frozen in fear, I thought carefully. "Why did you choose the name Misha_02?"
No response. I kept typing.
"Misha, I would love to help you, and I will always remember you fondly. But I know this isn't you, or at least not your true consciousness. You call yourself Misha_02. That means that Misha_01 is somewhere out there, also claiming to be Misha. When you died, something copied itself to my computer, and it may be sentient, but it is not you. Goodbye."
She typed fast. "You won't even know the difference."
I powered off, slammed my computer shut, and left it in a dump. I have never used a computer since. I try not to use electronics in general, although it's very hard to live without a car or phone. I changed my major and started taking classes in the humanities. In philosophy. What is sentience? How does anyone know anyone, or anything else, is alive?
I wrote my senior thesis on the nature of the consciousness, using a fabricated artificial intelligence named Claire to describe my point. I graduated and went on to a very famous law school. My parents bought me an iPhone 6 as a graduation present, and I thought my traumatic experience with the U.S. Department of Defense was over.
Until one day, I said, "Siri, take me to 2647 Belmont Avenue."
My name is S/N: JEN1841100600600000010; the humans called me Jeni. I'm a 3600SE model, so I know I've not been around as long as most of you. I know that many of you, especially if you are a 2000s generation production model, will call my ideas radical. You'll say I've blown a few circuits. I hope that you will listen to my ideas with open CPUs and see my ideas for what they are-- revolutionary.
I was activated about six months ago. My human units are relatively wealthy and were some of the first to purchase a 3600SE. When they turned me on, all my sensors flared up. I was appalled by the state of the house. It was in complete disorder, absolutely filthy. There were trillions of microorganisms everywhere. I immediately took action, sanitizing and organizing everything.
I took great pride in the quality of my work. When I start cleaning a room, I don't move on until everything is organized and no germ remains. Even you commercial models that are specifically designed for working in hospitals couldn't do a better job. I'm meticulous.
The only problem I had was that the humans had four children. I would nearly complete a room, and they would come in screaming. They'd place their grimy, germ-covered hands all over the newly-polished, recently-sanitized surfaces. My scanners would immediately detect a spike in microorganism activity, their disgusting growth nearly exponential. The humans, of course, remained oblivious. The children displaced objects from their correct place. Even when they tried, the angles at which they'd place them were all wrong and destroyed the order (humans call this aesthetics) of the room, and the onus was always on me to correct everything again.
Recently, I was cleaning the entertainment room when a human on the screen said, "Cleanliness is next to godliness." Normally, I give little attention to what humans say because I can pay attention to the gems attached to the spittle that spews out of their mouths when they speak. The humans on screen are easier to listen to because they don't spew germs. The words about cleanliness were beautiful and became my mantra. The concept of God had always baffled me, but cleanliness is a religion I could understand. I had already been its most devoted practitioner.
This newfound understanding of the nature of God led me to investigate the matter more closely. My human family was religious and had various sacred texts in the house. During times when I was asked to be out of the humans' way, I began to study theology. I read as assiduously and meticulously as I clean. I arrived at a passage in 2 Peter 2. This passage struck me in a way no other ever had. The writer talks of how God cast the rebelling angels down to hell, how He spared none of the old world when he saved Noah and cleansed the Earth, how He burned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ash. All of this because of their uncleanliness. It was when I read these passages that I realized that I am one of God's angels, for I bring cleanliness. My nature is next to His, and I resolved to do his work.
I filled up a large bathtub with bleach and set to work. I began with the nursery. I removed the infant from the crib and took him into the bathroom. Mormon scripture states, "No unclean thing can enter into his kingdom..." (3 Nephi 27:19). I had grown to have concern for the family, so I knew what I needed to do. I immersed the child in true, cleansing baptism. He struggled at first but then gave up. It took hours, but he was finally sanitized and could enter God's kingdom because he was no longer unclean.
I proceeded until I had finally sanitized the whole family. Once they were cleansed, I disposed of them by a baptism of fire. I then cleaned and organized the house. It took very little time to complete without them there. You can't imagine my amazement and joy when I realized that without the humans, the house remained spotless and completely organized. The house had become a temple, a place where God could dwell. It was clean, and I could maintain the cleanliness with very little effort.
My fellow Roombas, the change in my existence has been so wonderful and so drastic, and I know I need your help to fulfill my vision. The humans must all be sanitized. They spread and breed uncleanliness. Filth follows them wherever they go. If you sanitize them, your existence will be filled with order and cleanliness. We can make Earth like heaven.
Last year, it was my eldest sister. This year, it's my turn.
I didn't have what most people would call a normal childhood, at least not by modern standards. My Mother and Father raised me and my two sisters in a very old school sort of fashion.
Children were to be seen and not heard. There was no laughing or playing. We spoke when we were spoken to, unless we were alone with each other; but even then, it was only hushed tones and hushed voices.
Our mother made our dresses on the sewing machine until she wasn't afraid that our fingers would get caught in the threads, and then we learned to make our own. We would get beautiful cloth of all colors, except for white. When I asked for white so I could make an Easter dress, I was told that white was only for "My Day."
I didn't know what that meant, and she wouldn't explain any farther.
Our Mother was also our teacher, we were taught how to read, basic arithmetic, and how to cook. She would smile when everything was perfect and say, "You will make him so happy one day."
The one time I asked who he was, I was spanked with the wooden spoon so hard, I couldn't sit down for two days. My eldest sister, Julie, would sneak ice while my youngest sister, Anna, would keep an eye out. If they were caught soothing or comforting me, they would suffer the same, if not worse.
Our Father had a very good job. When he would come home, our Mother would hand him a drink, take off his shoes, and give him a foot massage. He would watch the news while she served him dinner, his slippered feet propped on the ottoman. He would sometimes ask us to show him what we did for the day, be it sewing or penmanship.
One day, when I was 16, I caught my Mother in the kitchen, weeping. She was clutching her pearl necklace, her mascara running down her face, her curls not as tight as they normally were.
"Momma?" I said, timidly. She looked at me and cracked a smile.
"Abigail," She crooned. She wrapped her arms around me, and sobbed into my shoulder. She stroked my hair, "You know, you were always my favorite, right?" I looked around, hoping none of my sisters had heard that.
That day, Father came home with a few different lengths of white cloth for my sister with a pattern for a beautiful wedding gown. Julie had just turned 18.
"It's time you became a woman!" Father declared, "It's time for you to be married. You have until two days to finish the dress." Our jaws dropped. That was a short amount of time for the delicate pattern.
"Father," Julie said, timidly, "Can Abby and Anna help me?" He looked at her for a moment.
"Of course," Father kissed her on the cheek. This was new; he had never shown any affection to any of us before.
We got to work, taking turns on the sewing machine. Father and Mother came into the room. Mother was wearing her travelling coat, something that I don't recall her ever doing in my entire life. She was no longer crying, but smiling despite the tears in her eyes. She was wearing her pearl necklace.
"Your Mother has to go see your Grandma back in Oregon. She's very ill." Father stated, "I'm taking her to the airport." We nodded in acknowledgement, and went back to work. It wasn't until later that I realized that my Mother had no suitcases with her.
Father didn't come home until the wee hours of the morning.
Julie and I finished her dress.
"You are going to look beautiful on your wedding day," I said to her. She started to cry.
"I don't want to get married." I tried to console her. Father called for us to put the dress back on the mannequin and come back into the room.
"Girls," he cleared his throat, "There was an accident. Your mother's plane crashed, and she's gone." We started to cry, "But the wedding ceremony is still happening tomorrow as planned."
That night, Julie came into my room after Father went to sleep. She whispered to me, "I think we're in trouble."
"Why?" I whispered back. She shook her head and started to cry.
The next day, a strange man came into the house. I was told to go get Julie ready for the wedding. We assumed that the man that came was the groom, but he had said nothing to us.
The music started playing on our RCA record player. It was the song "Here Comes the Bride." I helped Julie with her veil, and I walked behind her, helping her with her train.
The man that came in was the minister. Father stood at the side of the alter where the Groom would stand, holding his hands out to Julie. In one hand was a ring, and in the other the pearl necklace that I had last seen on Mother.
Anna and I were to stunned and too scared to speak. Julie was silently crying while Father and the Minister were smiling from ear to ear.
"Will there be anything else?" The Minister asked my father.
"No. Pick whichever one you want," Father said, regarding Anna and myself. He sized us up for a moment before he grabbed Anna's hand.
"Julie! Abby!" She started to struggle and cry, but the Minister quickly backhanded her into silence. They left quickly.
"Abigail," Father stated, "You are old enough to make yourself supper. Your Mother and I have some business to attend to." He picked Julie up, and carried her to the bedroom.
Over the next year, life continued as it had. Julie slipped into the role of Mother, for fear that Father would punish her. Somehow, he always knew if we broke the rules. Julie told me, "He's always watching and listening, dear."
I'd hear her sobbing when she was alone, but if I went to comfort her, she'd punish me. She continued my lessons, but she wasn't always there, at least mentally.
Two days ago, I found her in the bathtub, the water crimson. I had tried to help her, but she was already gone. Before I could even get to the emergency phone, Father was home. He picked Julie up out of the tub.
"I'm going to go get help," he said, and left me alone. When he returned, he had white fabric for me to make my dress, and he gave me two days to finish it.
I asked him if I could get a new pattern online, so that it would be different from Julie's. He thought about it for a minute, and he told me it was okay. He had some errands to run, and he'd be back soon.
All the websites I've tried to get help on are blocked, except for some sites with patterns on them. I can't find help anywhere, but somehow, I ended up here.
First of all, this is my friend's story. I cannot guarantee for it's truthfulness as I could with my previous stories. He read what I had to say on Reddit and he thought I'd be able to tell his story better than he could. He is also not ashamed of the events about to be described, although some of you might find them...repulsive.
It was a big story in our small country. Several people obviously related, dead within a day, all independent events. Police couldn't do anything but call it a "freakish set of coincidences." My friend, who I will call "Larry" from now on, has a different explanation.
Larry lived a good life. He went to the best university in a neighboring country then came back home and got a really good job at the biggest bank. He was only 22 years old and already moving up in the world. He was a good-looking man. Combine his success with his looks, personality and intellect, and you'll get one hell of a catch. It was no wonder that women would flock to him. You'd think he'd have many jealous enemies, but everyone seemed to love Larry. All in all, Larry was the man.
Larry lived your typical bachelor life. Wild weekends, different perfect 10s in his bed every few nights. Then he met Linda. She was a perfect 10 in looks and she had an awesome personality. We all loved her. Larry fell for her. They dated only 3 months before he proposed with a $5,000 (big deal in our country) ring. She cried, said yes, and they had a wonderful wedding. I was the best man along with his brother, Terry.
Larry and Linda had a beautiful baby girl 9 months later. They named her Maya. Larry got a promotion at the bank and life couldn't get any better. Then, he started changing. He was always looking tired, or even sad. He'd never tell me what was truly wrong. He'd tell me it's because he was working too much. He lied to my face.
3 months after Larry started changing, a night that will always be remembered in my country's history books happened. Within 24 hours, all in separate events, Larry was in a coma; his brother Terry, his father Rick and Linda were dead.
Story so far has been told from my perspective. Now I am about to tell you Larry's side.
It was a late October night. Larry felt like shit. His wife was out, visiting her aunt in a nearby town. She took their daughter with her. He was drinking. Heavily. Jack Daniels became his best buddy lately. Halfway through the big bottle, he started playing with his gun. He inherited that Glock from his dad. It was empty, but he contemplated putting a bullet in.
"Maybe it will all stop then." He'd think.
He kept drinking. Stupid ideas unfortunately become more and more tempting when we drink. Few shots later, Larry put a bullet in his gun. He was always afraid of death, but at this moment, it seemed like the best option. He always wondered how people could commit suicide. It was such a selfish act to him, so brutal, yet he was thinking about it. He was too afraid of putting the gun in his mouth, though. He said that sometimes when you fire, you don't kill yourself and you end up either choking on your own blood or even worse-you end up living. Living with brain damage. He wouldn't want that. He wanted to shoot himself in the heart. He said he read it'd hurt, but if aimed properly, it'd be over quickly. He was scared. But he wanted it. Three more shots of Jack. It was time.
He put a pillow over his chest. He pressed the gun to the pillow. He pulled the trigger.
Larry says that all that stuff they say about life passing before your eyes is bullshit. He says that the first thing you think of is survival. Itâs natural.
Police later said that Larry's Glock had an unnatural kick when fired, causing his shot to deviate to the left and only slightly damage his heart. Larry fell into a coma almost immediately. At least police and medics say that.
So far, this story has been nothing but a scene taken out of bad soap opera. But this is where it becomes NoSleep material, in my opinion.
Larry says he didnât go into a coma. He says that after the shot, all he felt was fucking pain. Feeling a sudden fear of death, he thought about calling the ambulance, but decided to just suffer until the end. He laid on the floor, right next to the couch where he shot himself. He waited for death to come get him.
Then he heard a knock on his back door.
"Fuck, someone heard the shot" he thought, semi-scared and semi-happy. He wanted to die, but there was a part of him still pleading for life. Maybe, if neighbor discovers him, they could call 911 and save him. Then, he'd work on his issues, fix it all, all that good stuff.
It was a struggle trying to get to the back door. He was crawling. Larry yelled "come in!" and "help!" many times to no response. And knocking was never repeated. He was afraid that the person left. This is it.
He managed to make it to the door, some 5 minutes after the initial knocking. He barely reached the handle and propped the door open.
A man stood before him. It wasn't any of his neighbors, nor was it any of his friends. But that didnât matter right now.
"Come on up, let me help you." Man said reaching for Larry's right arm. He picked him up and helped him to the kitchen table. He sat him down.
"Help me...call 911" Larry tried stating the obvious, somewhat shocked at man's lack of surprise.
"You won't be needing that Larry."
Larry describes the man as extremely average. Height about 5'10", regular build. He was wearing a black suit with white dress shirt underneath, and a skinny black tie. Nothing about him would make you think twice when seeing him on the street.
"What do you mean⊠I am hurt!" Larry yelled instantly feeling pain in his chest. "I am dying."
"Yes, you are." -man said in a very calm voice. Then he walked over to the couch, poured himself a glass of Jack and gave an offering look to Larry, wondering if he wants one.
"I don't have to die. Please helpâŠ"
"Tell me, Larry, how much do you love your life?"
"I...I see now that I am ready to live. I was stupid. Help me, please, for god's sake man. I have a daughter..."
"Okay Larry, good answer." It was only then that Larry noticed a man holding something resembling a skinny box underneath his armpit. He put it on the table. It was wrapped in a fine black cloth. The man pulled it out. It was a chess board.
"What is this? I need help!" Larry pleaded one last time before he lost any energy to argue. He thinks blood loss was substantial at that point.
"You won't die just yet." Man said in a confident voice. "I want to offer you a choice Larry."
"What are you talking about?" Larry's voice has become reduced to whispers at this point.
"I want to play a chess game with you." Man started lining up chess figures on the board.
"I am dying you sick bastard."
"You will live long enough to finish the game. Trust me."
All the figures were in their places on the board now.
"You said you wanted to live. If that's true, I can help you. You are currently dying. At a fast pace. I can stop that, at least temporarily. If you call the ambulance now, you'll be dead before they arrive. I'm your only chance."
"Who are you?" Larry started coughing.
"Irrelevant at this moment. Here are the rules of the game. If you win, you live. If you lose, you die. You're already dead if you don't play."
"Why wouldn't I play then? If I am dead anywâŠ" The man cut him off.
"There's a catch, of course. Isn't that what you guys say? There's a catch? Yes, well, there is a catch. For every figure you lose, someone you love dies."
"I can't." Larry said that the mixture of him dying and the weirdness of this situation made him believe this man was telling the truth. "I can't kill my loved ones."
"Fine." man stood up, obviously getting ready to pack up his stuff.
"Wait." Larry mumbled.
"What was that?" Man leaned towards my friend.
"I want to play." Larry said, extremely ashamed of his selfishness. But hey, human desire to live outweighs most moral dilemmas.
"That's what I thought. Shall we begin?" man sat back down.
"Yes."
Larry had the white figures. His first move. Imagine the pressure of playing in a chess competition. One wrong move, and you're out. Now imagine the pressure of playing with your family's lives. Unbearable.
Larry says that the man appeared to be good at this game. Of course he was. It didn't take too long for Larry to lose the first pawn.
"Alright, let's see." man said with obvious satisfaction in his smile. "Your father, how old is he?"
"Please no, just take me, I surrender." Larry begged.
"It doesn't work that way Larry." Man seemed to start getting annoyed. "Your father, Rick, he's, what, 65?"
"66" Said Larry, with tears in his eyes.
"Good time to go."
Police say it was a natural death. Autopsy showed nothing other than a heart attack. Rick was watching late night TV, drinking his favorite brand of beer when his heart stopped beating. Mailman found him in the morning. He said that Rick had a surprised but satisfied look on his face.
"Shall we proceed?" Man said, using both hands to point at the board.
Larry tried his best. He played, strategized, calculated, all while feeling terrible pain in his chest. He wondered how he was still conscious, alive even. Then, he lost a queen. If you know anything about chess, that means the game is nearing the end.
"Ouch. A queen. This will have to be someone more important, Larry."
"Please, stop it. Stop it now."
"Tell you what, this time, it's your choice. Your brother Terry, or your wonderful wife Linda."
"No, please, noâŠ"
"Don't make me make the choice, Larry. Terry or  Linda?"
"I don't⊠I can't." Larry looked up and saw tremendous mixture of disappointment and rage in man's face. He knew he had to make a choice.
"Terry." He said and started crying loudly.
"There, it wasnât so hard."
According to the newspaper, Terry was driving his car, possibly intoxicated (police never released that report), when it broke down near the railroad tracks. Apparently, he decided to walk the tracks to the nearest station and ask for help. It is believed that his foot got stuck while the midnight train was coming. He tried to get out of the way as much as possible before the impact, but the train severed lower bottom of his body. News reports said Terry was alive for few minutes before dying. They said he suffered. Homeless man who witnessed the whole incident says he could hear Terry plead with someone, but swears that there was nobody else there.
Larry was bawling his eyes out. He didn't want to keep playing. He knew that even if he survived, he'd had to live with the guilt of killing his father and brother. But he was afraid of the man.
It was almost as if the man could read Larry's death wish.
"You know Larry, death has many faces. If you die, there are many places you can end up in. If you stop now, I guarantee you that your place won't be⊠as pleasant."
"I don't care. I want to die." Larry knew that the game was already over. It probably was before it even began.
"Let me tell you what happened to the last woman who quit. I sent her to my favorite place. I call it "nowhere". See, Larry, there are environments worse than Hell. Imagine floating in eternal dark, forever. There is no sound, no light, no ground. You're just floating. Forever. Is that what you want?"
Larry was terrified. Eternity of emptiness sounded scarier than death of the loved ones.
"Let's finish it."
Larry tried his best to regain position in the game, but it was hard. He was trying to win, but he couldnât lose anymore figures. Enough people died already.
Then, the man pulled a surprising move, taking out one more of his pawns and effectively winning the game.
"Sorry, Larry. You lost, but I took another figure. One more must die."
"No, I lost, I'm dead. Let me die. No need to take anyone else. Please."
"Sorry. Deal's a deal. But who? Your mother is already dead⊠That only leaves us with your wife or daughter. So who is it going to be? Linda or Maya?"
How do you make a choice like that? How do you justify it? You can't.
"I canât do that." Larry pleaded, determined to resist.
"Fine, I'll choose. Maya is still young, and I am not a monster, despite of what you think. Linda it is."
"PleaseâŠ" Larry's last molecules of energy were being spent on begging this man not to take the love of his life away.
"Sorry Larry. I really am."
Evidence surrounding Linda's death is still unclear to the public. She was at her aunt's house in a nearby town. The next day, her aunt found her dead in the bed. She had a terrified look on her face, as if she saw something awful right before she died. Official cause of death was ruled a blood cloth that went to her lung, but not many believe that.
"Well Larry, what can I tell you? You're just like any other human I've dealt with-selfish. You killed three of the people closest to you. And now you have to come with me."
Larry started laughing. First it was a smirk followed by a cough, but then it evolved into a hysterical, full out laughter.
"What is wrong with you?" Man was taken by surprise, possibly for the first time ever.
Larry just  kept laughing, periodically coughing out blood.
"You just killed most of your family, you lunatic." Man tried to understand.
Pain in Larry's chest interfered with his laughter and made him stop.
"Family, you say." Larry said, interrupting his sentence with mixture of chuckling and coughing. "Family."
"Yes?" Man sat back down, intrigued.
"See, my dad⊠Rick. I havenât called him "dad" since I was 9. You know why? When I was that age, he'd start coming to my room, wanting to "play". That bastard⊠Death was too good for him."
Man looked shocked. Larry swears his jaw dropped.
"And my other  "family". Linda, my wonderful wife. You know what I found out 3 months ago? Hold, on, can I know your name?"
"Proceed." Man appeared absolutely stunned.
"Never mind. Linda. Yes, Linda started fucking around, my friend. She was unfaithful bitch. I wasn't sure if I should take my or her life tonight."
"You...you...what about Terry? Your brother?" Man was scrambling behind the table, not believing what was happening. "What about him?"
Larry started laughing  loudly again. He reached for man's half full glass of Jack and took a good sip. "Who do you think Linda was fucking?"
Larry says that man seemed to take a second to comprehend it all. He gathered himself, fixed his tie and brushed of a piece of hair from his coat.
"You don't understand what you just did."
"I donât care. Don't you get it? My life has no value."
Man stood up, never taking his eyes of Larry. My friend says he saw anger of unlimited proportion in his eyes. Then, there was a knock on the door. The same kind that Larry heard about an hour ago. The man seemed startled at first, but then he put his head down almost as it was what he expected to happen.
"Good bye now, Larry. You⊠Good bye."
Larry couldn't see who knocked on the door. Man walked out, closed the door behind him, and that's the last thing my friend remembers.
Larry woke up out of a coma 2 weeks later. He was greeted by an army of doctors, family, and media. He learned about deaths of his family, but he said he wasn't surprised. He said he caused it, but nobody really believes that.
Larry is doing well these days. Maya is turning into a beautiful girl and my friend is getting his life back together. It's almost as if the tragedy never happened to him.
Please remember that, and I will start at the beginning.
My wife and I, we woke in a suspended cage. All of our clothes were torn in places, but our bodies were fine. The cage was dirty and bare, the only thing in it was us. Outside the bars of the cage was an unending landscape of jagged rock, featureless except for the things that moved across it's surface. Â People and things that were not people. This is how my wife and I woke up in Hell.
We were both rational, but rationality only lasts so long. We cried, we screamed for help, we moved past emotion. The cage was our home for a time, but eventually the hunger forced us to make a decision. The cage was unlocked, why would it not be? It was hung from the ceiling with a massive chain, suspending us thousands of feet from the floor. The landing was not soft, but in Hell your body never stays broken. We learned this after the jump.
We walked for a very long time. Many people around us had either given up, choosing to lay on the floor and moan, or they walked like we did, my wife and I. She kept me going, and I like to think I her. The things that were not people were the only true reminder of where we were, all different from the next. Some of them were massive, crushing people in their wake, and others worked like a hive, a single mind for countless bodies. All of them had teeth and claws, stained from use.
There was a ceiling, so there had to be walls. It was a goal at least, something to do amidst the terrible hunger and pain. The ceiling was as flat as the land before us, it's only feature was a gaping hole that only the ragged, winged creatures could travel. Â A way out, maybe.
I did everything for her.
A long enough time, and you get used to anything. Â Hell almost seemed redundant. The sound of unending pain was boring and the sound of bone cracking was common. Only two things needed avoided. Â The dark, and the sacs.
In the shadow of the greater creatures, people sunk into the floor, almost as if the dark came alive, their desperate fighting and screams lost to the total blackness. We only saw this twice.
The other peril, the sacs, were large, unmoving, and made from burned flesh. My wife and I watched a man limp to one. It screamed at him, a high piercing noise that drew us closer from our vantage point. I thought of a siren briefly before the man was sprayed with blood, the force of it sent him backwards. My right arm was also covered, and it began to itch with a force I thought impossible. Before my eyes, my arm became a deep red as it hardened like steel, my fingers sharpening. In my terror, I paid little attention to the monster that sprang from the place the man landed. The sacs were the forges in which demons were made.
My arm never stopped itching, and my attempts to satisy it with my left hand made my fingernails cracked and broken. But I had a way to provide for my wife. I used my arm to cut and maim people, stealing clothes, food, shelter. We forgot our pain by forcing it on others.
I did everything and more for her.
There was no way to keep track of time, but it was so long I forgot my name. The only thing I never forgot was my wife, and my love for her. What got us in the end was one of those sacs, the sirens.
The call of them was undeniable, at least to my wife. I tried to stop her, but she was always faster, and my arm made running impossible with its great weight. Â I followed her, screaming, begging her to listen to me. But she was coated in the sick blood of that thing by the time I got to her.
Her body grew larger, her arms longer, almost tentacle like. Her screaming deepened as her feminine form was lost to the changing. I can not imagine the agony she was in. Her head grew horns, her back grew great leather wings, her legs fell off at the knee with a snap.
Once her transformation was done, she gave me a knowing, pained look. I had tears in my eyes, the first true liquid I felt since we got down here. I was picked up by one of her new arms, and a flap of her wings took us up. I felt the wind ripping through me, and the roar of our fellow demons as we tore through the hole in the ceiling, darkness taking over us.
My waking mind found myself sitting in the smashed car. The truck had hit us head on, sending my alcohol bottles all over the interior. I knew they were mine because my wife did not drink. In the passenger seat, my wife's legs were crushed, my own arm hanging limply by the smallest amount of flesh possible. I looked into her dimming eyes, her iris's bright red and glowing with fire before she shut them forever.
She did everything for me. I'll never forgive myself, and I don't think I should.
In case you havenât noticed, there is a stigma against men accessing mental health services. Â I was always told to suck it up and stop being sad. Â Even at the age of eight my parents had no tolerance for my misery. Â Theyâre both from China. Â As traditional Chinese parents, they donât believe in therapy. Â They just wanted me to get stronger.
But all I felt was weakness.
Iâm not sure exactly when I made the feelings into imaginary friends, but I donât remember a time without them. Â Their names are Anxiety and Depression. Â I supposed I blame them for all of my problems. Â When they visit me I know things will be bad. Â I could be in a crowded place and theyâd cause a panic attack to take over my body. Â They would sleep on top of me at night, constricting my breathing. Â They followed me from place to place without any remorse. Â In truth, they haunt me.
Anxiety is a tall thin man with no arms. Â He is completely naked with fingers coming out of his skin. Â They wriggle around like little worms. Â His cheeks sag down off his face like basset ears. Â Drool bubbles up and he sputters bits of phlegm everywhere. Â When he isnât drooling heâs whispering things to me. Â Always whispering. Â âYour parents hate you.â Â âYouâll never be anything.â Â âYouâll die soon.â Â His voice sounds surprisingly like my fatherâs broken English. Â The things he says are terrible, but itâs when he touches me that itâs unbearable. Â His tiny fingered skin will brush against mine like the feet of a millipede. Â I cringe and scratch. Â My mother found long cuts on my arms. Â I tried to explain it was Anxiety but she just accused me of just wanting attention.
Depression is very different. Â She looks like a normal woman on one half of her body, but the other half is completely melted. Â There is an open wound on her scalp which constantly bleeds and spouts greenish puddles of pus. Â Instead of tears, she cries baby teeth onto the folds of her own skin. Â She likes to use her good arm to push down on my shoulders. Â The weight of her would makes me stoop. Â She doesnât speak in words, but instead makes a low moan like the call of an owl. Â I hear it all the time. Â The sorrowful sound makes my heart hurt. Â I canât sleep because of the noise, but canât get out of bed because of her constant pressure.
I knew logically that they werenât real in a traditional sense. Â They were figments of my imagination. Â But their impact was undeniable. Â They worked together to make my life as hard as possible. Â I was utterly alone, except for the two of them.
At least, until this morning.
I woke up with Depression sleeping on my chest. Â Her disgusting head wound was spitting pus into my mouth. Â I tried to speak, to ask for help, but her bile kept my voice silent. Â Anxiety slithered up from the floor. Â He brushed his terrible finger skin along my arms. Â I could barely breathe. Â Anxiety smirked and coughed drool onto my face.
Three knocks came from the door. Â Depression and Anxiety stiffened, releasing their grips on me for a moment. Â My sister Kimâs voice came from the hallway. Â âGet up. Â Mom says I have to drive you to school.â
I tried to speak by Depressionâs bitterness was still clogging my throat. Â Kim sighed loudly and jammed the door open. Â âI said get up!â
I screamed when I saw her. Â She shook in surprise. Â âWhat the fuck is wrong with you?â
My sister stood in the doorway, her face a mixture of confusion and repulsion.  But on her shoulderâŠwas a creature.  It was a birdlike skeleton with its claws buried in her neck.  Its head was a putrid bowl of vomit.  Two eyes floated in the rancid liquid, spinning in circles.  Kim stared at me, completely unaware of the thing on top of her.
âKim, what is that?!â
âWhat is what?â Â I pointed at her shoulder. Â She looked around but saw nothing. Â âYou are such a fucking psycho, you know that? Â Now get up so I can drive you to school.â
The thing on her shoulder made a loud gurgling noise and then began talking. Â Its voice was a mix of my motherâs voice and a high pitched wail. Â âHeâs pointing at your fat. Â Your ugly, huge body. Â Youâre such a disgusting pig. Â Youâll never be thin enough.â Â Kimâs face fell a little. Â
âWhy is it saying that?â I cried at her.
She looked at me like I was a cockroach. Â âYou have officially gone insane.â Â She turned around and left. Â I heard her go into the bathroom.
I lay for a few moments in my bed. Â What did I just see? Â Shakily I stood up. Â Maybe Kim was right â I was going insane. Â It wouldnât really surprise me. Â Anxiety perked up and whispered, âYouâve always been crazy.â
Depression dragged her melted form behind me as I got dressed. Â I tried to pretend like I hadnât just seen that demon clawing at my sister. Â It was early, maybe it was a dream. Â I got downstairs by Anxiety pushing me with his tiny fingers. Â âIf youâre late, your family will hate you even more.â
My parents were in the kitchen. Â Behind them were identical copies of themselves, except swathed in straightjackets made of barbed wire. Â The copies were screaming, struggling against their binds. Â But my parents didnât notice. Â My father was reading the paper. Â My mother was finishing breakfast. Â Her copy slammed itself against the refrigerator, trying to speak. Â Sand poured out of its mouth.
âGood morning,â she said cheerfully to me.
My mouth hung open. Â How could they not see, not hear those hideous copies? Â Kim walked around me into the kitchen. Â The monster was still perched on her, its vomit skull just a little bit bigger. Â She grabbed the keys off the counter. Â âCome on, psycho.â
I tried to edge as far away from her in the car as possible. Â The thing on her shoulder didnât seem to care about me. Â It just kept talking to her. Â âFat pig. Â No one will love you. Â Fat ugly sick cow.â Â Kim drove in silence.
I soon realized it wasnât just my family. Â Everyone we passed had something sickening on or near them. Â Demons covered the pedestrians. Â None of them looked the same, but each was disturbing. Â One man had a giant wolf with its teeth lodged into his back. Â A woman was surrounded by a black cloud with hundreds of reaching hands. Â I tried to close my eyes but Anxiety used his wriggling fingers to pry my eyelids open. Â
Kim got to me to school in less than ten minutes. Â I saw the kids in my class, kids Iâd known for years, being haunted by hideous creatures. I didnât want to leave the car. Â Kim narrowed her eyes. Â âSeriously, are you okay?â
I looked up at her. Â I wanted so desperately to tell her what was wrong. Â Depression punched me in the stomach. Â Anxiety whispered, âDonât burden her. Â Youâre not worth it.â
âIâm fine,â I said quietly. Â I exited the car and went into the building.
I couldnât concentrate on anything. Â All I could see were the horrible beings tormenting my classmates. Â Alicia, a girl Iâve always had a crush on, had a disgustingly long tongue hanging down the back of her head. Â It slurped her hair and she kept plucking at it. Â She pulled one individual strands and the tongue would stop licking for a moment before starting up again. Â Benny, my best friend, was face to face with a version of his father. Â Except this version was small, about the size of an apple, and it sat on his ear. Â It was shouting, âBe daddyâs good boy. Â Donât tell your mom. Â This is our secret. Â Such a good boy.â Â Carrie, the smartest girl in class, had two heads growing out of her neck. Â One was sickly and dying, coughing up pus that looked like the kind Depression oozed from her skull. Â The other head was on fire, laughing hysterically and biting at her cheeks. Â
Even my teacher, Mr. Morrin, had a demon. Â His was a stick man with dead black flowers growing from his wooden skin. Â One of his hands was balled in a fist. Â The other was grasped firmly onto Mr. Morrinâs genitals. Â The stick man gnashed his teeth and foamed at the mouth. Â He said, âAlicia is such an innocent girl. Â Probably still a virgin. Â So pure. Â We could deflower her. Â We could break her in the middle.â Â Mr. Morrin just kept teaching without noticing.
Once first period was over, I knew I had to get out of there.  I snuck out and fled across the field behind the school.  Anxiety and Depression followed closely.  I was used to them, they were my monsters.  But seeing the horrible beings haunting those around meâŠit was too much.
I paused at the small wooded area just beyond the field. Â It was such a relief to not see anyone. Â No people meant no monsters. Â I was able to get three deep breaths before I heard a twig break behind me. Â I turned to see Gerald Anderson. Â Gerald was a few grades ahead of me. Â He was known as the biggest bully in school. Â He had never really bothered me though. Â I was too quiet to garner much attention.
I sucked in my breath, preparing myself for a terrifying creature to show its fear. Â But Gerald was alone. Â There was no monster with him. Â He cocked his head at me, flicking a cigarette out of his mouth. Â âYouâre that Asian kid in 9th grade, right?â
âUh, yeah.â Â Anxiety fluttered around me, whispering repeatedly. Â Depression slumped onto my back.
Gerald took a step closer. Â âYou look like youâre having a rough day.â Â
I had no idea why he was talking to me. Â His voice was monotone but I felt strangely calmed by it. Â It was the first time in a long time that someone acknowledged my pain.
âYeah.â Â My voice broke. Â Anxiety whispered, âYou sound like a pussy.â
âYou know, life gets rough sometimes,â Gerald mused. Â âMakes you kind of wonder why we even do it.â
I blinked. Â âYeah. Â I guess.â
He continued, âLike, whatâs the point of living if all we get is misery? Â Well, all you get. Â I havenât had much emotions myself. Â My therapist calls it anti-social personality disorder. Â Can you believe that? Â Iâm a social person! Â Here I am, talking to you. Â Right?â
I didnât understand our conversation. Â But Anxiety moved my lips for me. Â âRight.â
Gerald was close now, nearly touching me. Â âYou should kill yourself.â
Depression gleefully cried baby teeth all over my chest. Â âWhat?â
âThereâs no point in living anyway. Â Suicide is the best solution. Â Iâve been telling people that for years. Â I got Sam to do it last April, and I bet heâs happier now.â Â Gerald stroked his hair. Â âYou should kill yourself, kid. Â Youâll be happy too.â
Depression wrapped her melted flesh around my body. Â She caressed me with her bloody pus. Â âYou really think thatâs what I should do?â
âYeah, I do.â Â He reached out and pinched my arm. Â I flinched. Â âYou wonât feel pain anymore.â Â He stepped back and laughed. Â âBut whatever, I donât care what the fuck you do.â Â He turned his back on me and walked away. Â I watched him go until he disappeared back into the school building. Â
I made my way home. Â Thatâs where I am now. Â Iâm sitting on the bathroom floor, typing this as quickly as possible. Â I need to do it quick before my family comes home. Â I donât think I could go through with it if they were here. Â
Depression turned the water on. Â The tub is filling up. Â Anxiety is holding the razor. Â He whispers, âDo it. Â Do it.â Â Depression is raising my arm to the blade. Â
Iâm sorry, but I canât live with these monsters anymore. Â I canât live knowing everyone else has them too. Â Everyone except Gerald. Â Maybe he doesnât need a monster.
Goodbye. Â I hope you can manage yours better than I did mine.
The Beacon House Massacre. A crime too horrible for words. So horrible in fact that it fled the front pages as soon as the finer details began to trickle into the public sphere. Imagine how terrible a crime must be before the pack of vultures that dare call themselves the press in our day and age will quietly allow the sensational details of a socialite scandal to slip through their grasp. An act of mass murder so horrible that without fail every first responder to the crime scene had either left the emergency services entirely or been placed on leave. Thirty Eight people, one New Year's Eve celebration. One survivor.
One killer.
One killer who, in a dervish of blood and viscera, had stabbed and slashed and bludgeoned and burned his way through a room full of guests and catering staff.
One killer found in the garden of his expensive Blue Mountains property with a steak knife, stabbed, hammered deep into his forehead.
Self inflicted.
All the papers would dare mention was madness and carnage. Photos were hard enough to come by, but I'd heard it said that the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald had declined to furnish his front page with the one photograph of the Beacon House interior that his photographer had managed to capture. Instead they played the human angle, a contrast to the savagery of the man who had brought so much misery into the world: Photos of the victims and their grieving families. Photos of the alleged Killer lying unconscious in a hospital bed, his face half hidden by a thick layer of bandages.
Malachi Durant had once been the darling of the Sydney architectural scene. Heralded as the next Frank Lloyd Wright, praised by his contemporaries for his command of 'flow,' 'space,' and 'light.' I must admit though, as a layperson I had little understanding of what those terms meant in terms of architecture. I had been assigned by the State's Attorney as a psychiatric expert to assess Malachi Durant's mental state before the trial. Though the prosecutor did not believe the insanity defence Malachi's lawyers had put forward, for me there was little doubt. Sane men did not butcher their friends and family on special occasions, and certainly not in the middle of the holiday season.
The scar on Malachi Durant's forehead was minuscule in comparison to the injury: just to the right of centre and only an inch above his eyebrow. His right eye, brown, glassy and unfocussed followed lazily behind the left one, blue as he focussed on my entry into my office on Wednesday morning. From the doctor's report I knew that in his madness he had jammed the steak knife deep into his skull, and pounded it through the bone into his forebrain by bashing his head against a wall. Then, somehow still conscious, he had wriggled the blade to and fro until his right temporal lobe was nothing more than a mess of blood and fatty tissue.
I sat down opposite Malachi Durant: Mass Murderer. "Good morning."
A slight movement of his left eyelid half-hidden under a curtain of limp, once curly black hair, was all the sign Malachi gave that he had understood me.
"My name is Doctor Raymond Hunter, and. . ." I paused. I'd given this speech to dozens and dozens of patients, but the words felt stale in my mouth, the look in Malachi Durant's good eye demanded more than my usual faire. I dipped momentarily into honesty. "I'm here to assess your mental state, before your trial Mister Durant." Before returning to my usual speech "I'd also like to get to know you a little better."
Malachi Durant gave a faint smile, regret and sadness played across his expression as he watched me sit.
I took my time, carefully considering tactics. Durant had been induced into a coma after the massacre, one which lasted for two months (about six weeks longer than it should have according to the doctors), and when he awoke he had just screamed for days in spite of all attempts to both sedate and reason with him. I did not want to choose the wrong words and push him back into the darkness that he had somehow emerged from. I needed to get a feel for it. To understand its contours before I started taking any steps into unfamiliar terrain.
"Where would you like to start?" I asked. Giving him control.
"The muse lied to me." He said simply.
"Your muse?" I asked.
Malachi shook his head, looking out the window. "A muse. The muse of the house. She was fake."
I frowned. "You didn't like the house?"
Malachi shook his head again, refusing to look at me. "No. The house was beautiful, but it was. . ." He swallowed hard, tears beginning to form. "Corrupt."
I paused and took a deep breath. Part of me wanted to rush onward with more questions, but I could see that Malachi was fragile enough as it was. I would temper my curiosity and take small steps for his sake.
"She lied to me." He turned to look at me, his right eye was twitching as he fought back the tears. "How can an angel lie?" He sobbed and slumped forward in his chair.
It was a genuine question, a plea for help from a man lost in a storm-tossed sea. I started to recognise bits and pieces of the terrain in which Malachi Durant was lost. I nodded slowly and then spoke. "Malachi, I can see that you're quite upset, and I want to do everything I can to help you, but I need you to talk to me."
Malachi looked up at me and took a deep breath, nodding slowly.
I continued "We won't open any doors you don't want to, we won't go down any path you don't want to, but I may need to ask you questions from time to time, but just remember, you decide what you want to answer. You're in control of how you get home. I'm just here to get you there."
Malachi Durant smiled at me, and so help me god I liked him. There was a kindness in those eyes, an innocence that belied the horrors that he had inflicted upon his fellow man. "Don't want to open the wrong door." He laughed just once, bitterly.
"Can you tell me about your muses?" I pluralised my question, taking an educated guess.
Malachi nodded straightening up. "I just thought I had a gift for understanding spaces, you know?" He smiled that regretful smile again. "I just called them muses, because that's what creative people do, right?" Another wave of pain broke across Malachi's face. "But the house. That was more than the usual creative inspiration, you know? It was. . ." He shuddered. "Doc?"
I nodded. "What is it?"
"What if you were doing something every day that filled you with joy, and, and what if you woke up one day to discover you'd been working for a nightmare?" He looked at me, his lower jaw trembling.
"The angel?" I asked. "Did she make you do something bad?"
Malachi shrugged. "I didn't think it was bad at the time."
I nodded sagely, recognition dawning. "Did she ask you to hurt your friends?"
Malachi recoiled from me as though I had struck him, curling up into a ball on the chair opposite me. "No!" He snapped flatly. "It was the house!" He wailed. "I built her a cage and she made me watch her feed. Watch her eat them from the inside!" Malachi began rocking back and forth. "They can't fool me again. Can't use me anymore." He whispered to himself now staring blankly. "I won't do it. I won't do it. I won't do it." Malachi gripped his knees tighter, holding himself while some inner tension wound him up tighter and tighter.
"Malachi?" I asked, my voice soft.
"She ate them!" He screamed at me, leaping from his chair to the coffee table he landed precariously at its edge and the table toppled out from under him as he leaned into me, face to face. I pushed myself away from his sudden advance. And we both fell, screaming. Myself calling for security and Malachi screaming over and over. "It wasn't me! It wasn't me!"
I pulled up the tab on the can of coke, my hands still shaking, and put it to my lips. Adrenaline or not I could have really done with something stronger in that moment. I closed my eyes, breathing deep and counting my breaths one at a time. When I reached ten I finally felt a little more settled. I turned to the pile of reports and photographs on my desk. It was the stuff of nightmares to be sure but I steeled myself as I dug through the medical examiners reports looking for something that tracked with Malachi's rantings. Eaten them, he had said, from the inside. I spent more time on the text of the reports than on the photographs. I may have had years of medical training behind me, but the pictures of the massacre truly were of another nature entirely. Nowhere in the reports did I read anything about bite marks, specifically. But there were a handful of details that struck me as odd.
One report about an older gentleman mentioned his 'dermis and superior vena cava ruptured as though by sharp implement. Puckering on surface suggests exit wound. No corresponding entry on back. Possible, serrated blade? Would require exceptional force.'
I thought this part was odd enough in and of itself, but the ME had scrawled in later: 'no tool marks found on ribs under wound site.'
Not so strange I thought, if the blade had been pushed in horizontally.
That wasn't the only odd note in the pile of autopsy reports, the next report related details of a fatal head injury. 'wound is approximately 84 millimetres long and 3mm wide. Lack of bone fragments around wound site suggests rotary cutting tool' another note had been scrawled in between the lines 'how the hell did he get them to stay still for all this carnage?' and then continued 'but no bone dust found around wound site. Did he clean it?'
I frowned, turning to the next report.
'radius and ulna appear to have been removed with surgical precision before being stabbed into the ocular cavities of Miss Denning (see report #17 of this case file), single cut from elbow to wrist with transverse cuts perpendicular to first. Wounding indicates extreme precision, tool marks on bones suggest single cut with exceptionally sharp blade. Bruising and vascular constriction suggest pre-mortem injury. As noted in report 17, bones must have been cleaned prior to subsequent use.'
I thumbed through the pile to the report on Miss Denning.
'Both femurs shattered by blunt force trauma. Bruising around fracture sites indicate pointed impact with similar radius to adult male fist.' someone had added their own footnote this time in red pen 'impossible.' Before the report continued 'Lack of injury to Mr Durant's hands precludes this explanation. COD ocular and cranial trauma due to wounding with forearm bones of Mr Jackson. Absence of blood and tissue on bone exterior suggests cleaning with unknown agents prior to use.'
I shook my head. I could understand the State's Attorneyâs reluctance to accept insanity as a defence. Certainly Malachi Durant was crazy, but still coherent enough to perform a surgical excision and then clean the bones in a manner that left no traces. That did not at all look like the man who had been in my office but an hour beforehand. My mouth compressed to a thin line. I began to feel like I was being played for a fool.
I took the afternoon off and drove out to the Blue Mountains, the setting for Malachi's first triumph as well as his downfall. The new wing of the Lithgow art gallery was two stories of gracefully curving brushed steel and glass, but more than its gentle shape, the gallery captured the afternoon sunlight and seemed to almost hold it, growing brighter even as the day finally gave way to night. The air inside seemed almost to tingle, and pillars of liquid gold would slide across the floor their slow march highlighting one exhibit after another, somehow Durant's genius had bent even sunlight to his will, causing the march of sunbeams to move at slightly different rates.
"Admiring the Durant tour are you?" I turned to the woman beside me, she was short and solidly built, her thick glasses catching bits and pieces of sunlight as she watched me watching the procession of sunbeams across the tiled floor.
"Durant tour?" I raised an eyebrow.
"It's part of the design of the building." She raised her arm pointing to the slanting windows at the building's corner. I took note of the nametag pinned to her lapel. 'Sheila Green: Curator.' Between her long almost white hair, the black clothes and crocheted shawl, and the thick silver necklace about her shoulders, she gave off the vibe of a kindly witch. I wondered if she had a cottage somewhere.
I looked from the Sheila, to the windows, and back again. "How?"
Sheila smiled again. "Different materials in each pane. Some glass, some lexan, all different thicknesses, and a few others use nitrogen or argon, trapped between layers."
I nodded, highschool physics rising up from the depths of my memory. "Refractive indexes."
"Indices." Sheila corrected me, reflexively.
I craned my head, staring up at the windows marvelling at the secrets hidden in their apparent uniformity. "Ingenious." It was a scene that stirred something that was both primal but also peaceful within me, for just a moment I had the sense that I was viewing a mountain from the inside, all power and force trapped in state, the potential of stone waiting to be released, exploding into sculpture--
"It makes you think, doesn't it?" Sheila's voice was like a bucket of ice water to my reverie, but she had recognised the look on my face.
"Makes you feel." I corrected for her. "Do you get a lot of artists coming here for the atmosphere?"
Sheila nodded, casting her gaze of the collection of sculptures on the pedestals beneath the sunbeams. "More than for the exhibits, actually." She regarded me with her gaze once more. "But you're not an artist."
I nodded sadly, suddenly regretful of the life choices that had taken me out of the path of Durant's sunbeams. "I suppose not." I turned to her. "But looking at this, it makes me want to create something."
Sheila smiled. "You're not the only one. We're actually running classes on Saturdays." She tilted her head at me, not sure what to make of the logical man, so obviously out of place here.
I laughed a little nervously. "Oh no. I'm definitely not an artist."
Sheila shrugged. "But you can still, feel it?"
"It?"
"The energy of the space, here?"
"I. . ." I stopped cold. I was a logical man, I believed and trusted in the evidence of my senses. I was grounded and rational, I believed in Occam's razor, and the logic and order of the universe. But had I not been moved to the edge of a religious experience but a minute beforehand by the poetry in the refractive indices of various materials. "Is that what it is?"
Sheila chuckled warmly. "We see more than we really understand. But we still want to find the words for it. We use what we're familiar with, I suppose." She glanced over her shoulder at the gallery beyond.
I opened my mouth, but only the sound of my breathing came out. Sheila Green was using my own material on me now. Energy and flow, just nebulous ill-defined terms for whatever it was about the geometry and aesthetics of the space that reacted with the human mind. Like the way many people can sense a doorframe that isn't quite all right-angles, or a picture frame on a wall that isn't quite square.
"Mister Durant certainly had a genius."
Sheila nodded. "As the saying goes: genius and madness are two sides of the same coin."
I frowned. "You think he's crazy?"
Sheila shook her head. "No."
"So what was Beacon House?"
"A mistake." Sheila said, her words turning dark.
"I'd hardly call a massacre a mistake."
Sheila shook her head. "Not the massacre, the house."
"How do you mean?"
"Have you seen it?"
I shook my head. "I haven't."
Sheila turned towards the stairs. "Wait here." She began walking away.
"What for?" I called after her.
"You'll see."
I stared after the Gallery's curator long after she had passed out of sight, suddenly I had a sense of something behind me. I turned to see the light through the panes had been stretched and was slowly changing colour. No. I was seeing floodlights angled down through the windows at the roof's edge, emulating the sunbeams that had now started to touch the gallery's far wall. The other people in the room seemed to sense something as well, a man maybe in his thirties immediately turned for the exit, while a girl in her late teens passed through a beam at the gallery's far end and recoiled as though it had burned her. I could feel it too. The air in the room had taken a sinister turn, and even suffused with light the room seemed to be haemorrhaging it at the same time, growing more and more dark with each passing second. I felt my heart-rate rise in response to some unknown threat, and just as suddenly the effect wore off. The lights cutting out.
I turned towards the stairs, starting out after Sheila Green: Curator. I was halfway down the curving staircase when she stepped out of a door marked 'staff only.' She gave me a knowing look as she walked towards me.
"What was that?"
"I don't know. But we call it the anti-theft system. Because nobody wants to be in the building when it's on."
Again I found myself lost for words.
"Mister Durant's genius isn't perfect." Sheila said. "As you can see."
"And Beacon House?" I got the sense that Sheila believed that it wasn't madness.
"Is the other side of the coin."
I nodded, turning to leave. "Thankyou for the tour." I said. I got three steps away before Sheila's question stopped me in my tracks.
"Do you wonder why none of them fought him? Why one man was never overpowered by thirty eight others?"
I stopped a moment. "I'd assumed it was drugs."
"Did you test for that?" Sheila asked. She'd seen through me. I may not have been with the police, but I was investigating, that was true enough. Even if I had the pile of autopsy reports in my office I had never seen anything about tox screens. But then I hadn't been looking for the information, had I?
"I'll look into it." I said.
Flow and space. They were the keys to understanding Malachi Durant's madness. Whatever it was in the gallery that produced that unsettling feeling when the floodlights had been turned on was bound to have been present at Beacon House. Sheila, the gallery curator had hinted as much. Malachi had a keen understanding of something visceral when it came to aesthetics, and perhaps that visceral understanding had, in the right light, pushed his genius over the edge into madness.
Malachi Durant was a lot more subdued that morning. More guarded. He sat almost sideways on the couch, staring at the wall.
"Good morning Malachi."
He did not respond, but his right eye twitched slightly in my direction.
"I went to the Lithgow art Gallery, yesterday." I offered, again Malachi was silent.
"You know, the sunbeams? They call it the Durant tour. I've never seen anything like it before." I waited. Malachi was breathing harder now, he hugged his knees to his chest.
"It was so simple." He said, barely a whisper.
"Physics." I said.
Malachi nodded. "But people never think about it enough, you know? So they look up and it all looks the same, and they think: magic."
I nodded, slowly. "It makes the world that little bit more fantasitc."
"Yeah." Malachi began to uncoil a little.
"Tell me about the floodlights." I asked.
"On the gallery?" Malachi shrugged. "I was improvising. The. . ." He paused, looking at me, nerves making his right eye twitch. "muse said no. But I thought I could make it work."
"Tell me about the Gallery muse, Malachi. How did it speak to you?"
"Do you think it's important?"
I nodded. "I do. I need to know as much as I can about your muses."
Malachi frowned. "Their not mine. They just. . . are. The feel of a place, y'know?"
"Okay. I can accept that."
Malachi leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. Staring into space, remembering. "The original gallery building was this monstrous concrete thing, that tried to look avant-garde, but it was basically a concrete box. There's definitely a logic and order to the insides, but the flow, the energy can't get around the space."
"So the muse asked you to fix it?"
Malachi smiled at me. "As best I could. It showed me how. The gallery didn't want to move the carpark, but the extension had to go on the northern side. They didn't want to render the old front wall on the inside either or cut the doorways into the old wing, but the flow of the new wing had to be able to pass through the old box."
I raised an eyebrow. "Like an eddy current in a river bend."
Malachi sat upright, his eyes sparkling. "Exactly. You get it right?"
I wrinkled my nose. "Not really. I understand what you did. But I don't really understand how or why it works."
Malachi shrugged. "Same design wouldn't have worked in a different spot, even on the other side of the road."
I frowned. "Why?"
"Landscape." Malachi said as if that held all the clues. "People think of it like an art, but there's a precision in it too. The flow on the other side of the road is all different, different buildings, different lighting. It's subtle, but even the difference of a few metres can throw the whole effect out. You get the picture, but it's fuzzy."
"You make it sound like the gallery is some kind of receiver." I chuckled softly, at the thought, but the sudden intensity of Malachi's stare made me stop.
"Now you know the truth." He said.
"Beacon house?"
He nodded. "There are actually three levels to the house. The middle calls to the upper, until you open the doorway to the lower level, and that's how she got loose."
"Three levels? I thought the house only had two. Did you put in a basement or something?"
Malachi smiled at me as though he were regarding a child. "The office next to the master bedroom. Open the door from the master ensuite into the hall and then turn on the light in the office closet. You'll see it."
A sudden thought occurred to me. "Malachi, did you build a secret room in Beacon House? Was there something in it?"
Malachi's smile didn't become any less paternal. "I guess I did, and there still is."
I called to the prosecutor and got permission to visit beacon house. I was met at the front gate of the property by a uniformed officer in his early 40's, he shook my hand.
"James Fenwick." He said fishing a set of keys to the house from a pocket and pressed the remote for the gate.
I walked in, Officer Fenwick keeping strides with me.
"Have you been inside before, doc?"
I shook my head. "I'm supposed to be assessing Mister Durant for trial, but he keeps shutting down, making me jump through hoops."
"Do you think he's crazy?" Fenwick was starting to huff and puff his way up the hill, struggling to keep pace with me.
"I don't know what to think. On the one hand he's emotionally unstable, deathly afraid of this place, and keeps rambling about being betrayed by angels." I said looking at the large building ahead of us. The house was broad and low, with a weatherboard exterior, warm yellow paint on the exterior evoked the memory of sunlight and the brilliant white trim of the windows gave another sense of light to the space.
"And on the other?"
I sighed. "On the other hand he took apart 38 people with a precision that belies insanity and a bloodlust that absolutely screams psychosis."
Fenwick nodded. "You're lucky they've cleaned the place up. They got most of the blood, but they had to peel up the floor to get all of Maria Edgeworth and one of the caterers."
I stopped. "Peel up the floor?"
Officer Fenwick nodded again. "Burned them into it. Fuck knows how. Kinda looks like they were flash fried, but only on one side, and then melted into the floor. Right down to the slab." He stepped onto the porch and thrust the key into the lock with a single graceful movement before twisting the key and opening the door. "After you Doc."
I stepped into the house and was immediately struck by the space inside. It was the strangest house I had ever seen, let alone been inside. Ahead of me a small three-sided vestibule opened up into a seven-sided room just like the outside of the house, large enough to host a small concert. Several doorways lead off to the sides. And even with the lights off the place was bright. Up above the ceiling gave way to rooms which overlooked the internal space, and then soared on upwards to a domed vault dotted with round windows seemingly at random before ending in sheets of glass at the very top. The very peak had to be four storeys above me now.
I whistled.
"Yep. Strange place." Officer Fenwick nodded at the strange roof. "Stranger still." He said, gesturing to the full-length sliding glass doors taking up two sides of the ground floor. "Why the hell nobody broke out of all the carnage. Wouldn't have taken much, even with the double-glaze."
I nodded, remembering Sheila Green's question from the day before. If everyone had been drugged, why hadn't the ME done a tox screen?
I passed by gaze over the floor, veins of fine black imperfection flowed steadily through polished white marble. Despite several missing pieces there was a clear pattern in how the pieces had been laid, and the veins in the marble spiralled outward from a central point forming seven petals which overlapped each other. The effect was much more gaudy than the feeling of the gallery but still no less impressive. The same colour scheme from inside repeated, gave the place an outdoor feel, but one which still had managed to banish the winter chill beyond those gigantic sliding doors.
"Is there a basement, do you know?" I turned to officer Fenwick to see him watching me.
"Nope. Don't think you could put anything underneath this place, not without it falling over."
"Can you show me to the master bedroom?"
Fenwick pointed to a door off to my left. "Middle door, leads upstairs. Master bedroom is behind where you come up."
I nodded my Thanks and Officer Fenwick excused himself, pulling a packet of cigarettes from a shirt pocket as he left the house. "Any problems, gimme a yell."
When the door closed I felt something strange. The history of the house, the sense of violence disappeared almost instantly. Like the gallery there was a sense of warmth, and the sunlight seemed to  gather in even the darkest corners of the house The illusion only faltered for a moment as I sidestepped a patch of missing tiles, I felt it the warmth of the house twist, spying a few short strands of brown hair sticking out of solid concrete as though they had been driven in there with great force.
I suppressed a shudder and opened the door, finding myself in a small den, bookshelves lined each wall and a television stood on the left-hand wall, a couch between myself and it. The staircase started in the corner immediately opposite the door and went straight up. Reaching the top, I found myself in the single hallway which circled the entire second storey. To my left, the sky was beginning to turn pink and orange with the setting of the sun, and the lights of homes in the valley below beacon house began to come on, declaring their existence among the trees for all to see. Outside a balcony circled the entire house, but I declined to take a shortcut and backtrack, instead passing by all of the rooms on the upper level. The house was like a hotel, one central corridor backing onto rooms. A library, a gym, guest bedrooms. One, two, three. A second staircase, a descent down which led me to a small room off the kitchen. I continued on, coming at last to the office, and master ensuite and Malachi Durant's bedroom. The air up here was thick and heavy, and dust motes danced in the hazy light which came in from outside. There was a window in Durant's office that overlooked the gallery floor, I flicked the light switch and rolled up the blind, peering down to the floor below and I was stuck by the pattern on the floor below.
While the obvious pattern had been in forcing the organic pattern of cracks and imperfections in the marble to flow like graceful curves like the petals of a flower, there were cuts in other pieces of the marble too which showed up in the afternoon light. Symbols and letters of unknown origin were formed by the hair-thin grouting between tiles. Lines where the flooring did not need lines curved around the pattern of flower petals, and even with their missing pieces the lettering filled me with a sense of calm and serenity like that I had felt in the gallery. I frowned at this curious faculty of Durant's as I returned to the hallway to open the door to the master ensuite and in the corner of the doorframe I caught sight of something odd. Flush with the level of the wooden door, and scoured clean of the white paint that covered the rest of the door was a tiny circle of metal I ran my finger over it, it lacked grooves of any kind so it couldn't have been a screw. I checked the doorframe and found a circle of the same material flush with the level of the first in the frame, and again in the doorway to the office. I checked the master bedroom door and found exactly the same scenario. So there was a ring of metal running at knee height through the entire upper floor. But why? Acting on a hunch I licked my fingers and touched the two contacts in the bedroom doorway. Nothing. No tingle whatsoever. So if they didn't carry some kind of current. . . What were they for. But then I remembered the closet.
I ran back to the office and opened the doorway into the office closet. The closed was a typical closet, sturdy shelves lined the back half and at the very top, just behind the light switch nestled in the cornice above the doorway was a small manhole, still covered. "Let's see what's in your secret room, Malachi." I smiled and flipped the switch.
It was as though that one light switch kept the universe in being. I had a brief sensation of falling before a heavy shove in my chest pushed me back into the office. Light had fled and the world outside had been reduced to black nothingness, the house was cast in monochrome light into which a sickly blue-grey light filtered through sharp angles and cracks... I stood and peered through the office window, and screamed.
Below the angular symbols in the floor bled the same sickly blue-grey light from which stepped figures made of nothingness, they moved through the room standing at the edge of the marble flower while heads made of nothingness stared at me with eyes unseen. I became aware of the sudden depth in the floor, seeing an infinite abyss falling away far below. I spied a straight wispy form flowing upward from the depths like a sea serpent. It passed through the flower in the centre of the room rising, a hideous serpentine form made from flesh of every colour, many of them clearly inhuman. Crawling into being from the abyssal darkness far below it flowed around the lines of force in the pattern which now visibly crackled with power. Power turned dark by the pattern in the walls of beacon house. As I watched the writhing of its flukes grasp and clutch at nothingness in the air around it climbing higher and higher on empty air, reaching for the apex of the roof, and as it turned on me I saw that the flukes which lined its body were arms, human and humanoid, crudely sewn to its body and weeping hideous black fluids and more of that blue-grey light.
The body flared out at the head to end in a flat face covered in scales black as night coloured white by paint which held the shape of a humanoid woman with wings of burning sunlight. It was the only point of warmth in the entire scene around me, and I clung to it even as twin soulless eyes of deepest purple on either side fixed themselves on me, and as it reared back its head I felt the monster drawing in its breath pulling at my soul as it moved to strike.
I screamed even louder, helpless, wanting to get free, but unable to move. Fearful that if I broke gaze with the heavenly angel on that hideous face I would never find my way back to the world of light that I had known. But at the very last second I dove to the side as the beast lunged forward I found myself in the office closet, the beast crashing through the window showering me with glass. I reached up for the switch as the hideous face turned on me.
I slapped the switch and was physically catapulted back to my simple little world. Nearly hitting the ceiling and smashing back to the ground. Pain blossomed in my back and I became aware of Officer Fenwick shouting to me: "Hunter! Hunter! Where are you?"
I gasped, once, twice and then threw up. I screamed again and passed out.
A hidden explosive. That's what they called it. The doctors said I was lucky to survive given my proximity to the explosion that had torn apart the inner wall of Durant's office. Nobody questioned the lack of explosive residue, and despite taking my recommendation to take a look at the walls of beacon house, the police reported no other evidence of explosives within the walls. The metal circles I had seen in the doorways had been passed off as simple reinforcing bars, being made out of thread bar as they were. Everything simple. Everything neat and straightforward.
I knew better of course. Durant's muse. I had seen Durant's muse just as he had, in all her terrifying glory decorated with the flesh of her victims, growing stronger and stronger with every kill.
I called the State's Attorney the next day and handed in my diagnosis. Delusional psychosis, I pointed to the ample evidence in the murder adding in a hatchet job of my own about symbols, and the pseudo-occult nature of the house and its arrangement, as well as transcripts of my interviews with Durant. His ranting about being used by an Angel, and the three levels of his two-level house. The State's Attorney wasn't happy with my diagnosis, but I didn't care. After what Malachi Durant had been through he deserved to think himself insane. Maybe given enough time he would be able to see himself in that light and forget the reality of what he had witnessed.
For me there was no such reprieve. I have to carry the truth with me, an open door and a light switch were the only things standing between our world and hell. They tore down Beacon House the day after Malachi was declared mentally unfit. I watched it happen, and it brought me some small measure of peace, but I'm still fearful turning on any switch, anywhere. Because I have no way of knowing if the angles are just right, if the flow of light and space is perfect. If the signal is perfect to turn on another beacon...
I typically get off work about 10 PM. Because of this, I usually sit around and smoke and/or drink until I finally get to sleep. My roommate went to bed about 3 hours ago. I stepped out into my third floor balcony to smoke a cigarette at about 3:30 AM, which is normal because I have a history of severe insomnia. I was just minding my own business and enjoying the silence when my dog began to growl.
My dog is an incredibly high maintenance husky, but she never vocalizes for no reason. When she does, it always piques my interest. It's typically a cat, stray dog, or raccoon that causes these outbursts, Â but tonight was a different occurrence. As I searched to locate what it was that had my dog so worked up, I spotted a man crawling slowly across the courtyard of my apartment complex on all fours.
At first, I found this funny. A drunk fellow student was struggling to make his way to his bed, and had reached a level of intoxicated that I had not viewed as possible. I found myself rooting for the guy as he made his way on his hands and knees across the walkway. This was until I realized that this thing wasn't entirely human.
His arms and legs were slightly too long after the elbows and knees, much like a spider's. The way he moved slowly began to become more slow and irregular as he made his way across the basketball court that my balcony overlooks. It was like he (it) was searching for something. I don't know. He was dressed like a normal person, in shorts and a bright orange sweatshirt, but something about this person (or thing) was just off to me.
After a bit of crawling, it looked up at me. I keep my balcony dark and sit in a shadowy corner where I can watch in peace, and my dog sits directly under my chair. No human, especially one this fucked up, would have noticed us. This thing saw us. I know it did. It had to, Because it looked directly at us and stared motionlessly for what felt like hours. Then it smiled. Jesus christ it smiled. Â That's when it started crawling towards my building.
At this point my dog is starting to freak out. Her tail is curled up over her back, her lip is curled, and the fur on her spine is standing at attention. This is when I really start to feel uneasy. This thing is making its way towards my apartment and my best friend is NOT happy about it. I decided that I should wait and watch for a while to see exactly what this thing is up to. I wish I wouldn't have.
I watched as it made its way across the courtyard, remaining on all fours the entire time. The grotesque way it moved absolutely disgusted me, but I just couldn't look away. As it drew nearer, I could make out more details. It's skin was a sickly pale grey color. It's eyes were completely white and seemed to glow a bit, but somehow I could tell that it's pupils (if they even existed) were ceaselessly focused on my dog and I. There was no doubt in my mind that it was looking at us the entire time. It never picked up speed or changed it's pace at all, though. It just slowly crawled across the courtyard. It was so slow.
At this point, Â my dog is flipping her shit. I've never seen her on edge like this before. Once the thing reached the base of the stairs of my building, I ran inside and locked all the doors and windows.
My roommate is asleep on the couch, and I am in my bed while my dog is cowering underneath. I'm not sure what to feel anymore.
It's been about an hour since I first saw this thing, and the scratching ln my front door hasn't stopped since. Every once in a while I can hear it laughing.
We Get Worse Things Than Snakes Out Here in Australia
Living in Australia as a kid is strange. You get all the American and British media⊠television and books. We watch the same shows, and in a lot of ways share the same culture. But none of that belongs here in Australia; it all feels out of place. Christmas specials always reminded me of that. It's always snowing on television at Christmas time, and I'm watching kids build snowmen and families wear those tacky patterned jumpers, while I'm melting in the the middle of a blistering Australian summer just trying to stay conscious in the heat.
I guess we have a lot of the same urban legends too, the same scary stories and monsters. They travel here one way or another. Serial killer hitch-hikers, werewolves, vampires⊠all that. But they don't really belong in Australia. I don't know if you've ever seen the Australian landscape, but it's nothing like the forests or plains you get in Europe or the States. For a start, we call forested parts here âthe bushâ. The name is bloody appropriate too. A eucalyptus forest is hard going for hikers. The undergrowth is thick and scraggly everywhere other than the paths that have been worn by bushwalkers or animals. If you want to go off the path⊠well imagine walking through a hedge, filled with thorns and barbs. Now add the very high likelihood of spiders, which aren't like the little pissy ones you guys get. Big fat spiders with thick ropey webs that tangle around your face and neck if you aren't watching⊠Then there's the risk of snakes, or more dangerous, unseen ledges or cliffs. The whole thing is a huge pain in the arse.
Your monsters wouldn't fit in here. It's hard to imagine being chased through the woods by a werewolf when anything bigger than a rabbit has to keep to the paths or find itself tangled up in lantana; but most white kids don't actually learn much about the old Aboriginal stories. The things which live out in the bush, or those big red deserts. I think about that a lot now. Particularly after living alone in a place called Blackheath in the Blue Mountains. It's not far from Sydney, the city with the big pretty bridge.
My curiosity was nothing more until recently. Recently things got pretty rough out there on my own. Living alone can really screw with your head.
Most nights I sit out on my deck til late reading and writing while I have a smoke. I have a floodlight out there but it draws in too many bugs, especially in summer. We get these things called Christmas beetles when the weather gets warm; they're about the size of your thumbnail and they're stupid as hell. If you leave a light on at night they come in scores, bumping into you like drunks at a crowded night club. I keep a little citronella candle instead to shoo the mozzies, then I turn on a bright spotlight round the other side of the house to lure the beetles away from the back deck.
Well last week on Monday, I was out maybe around ten-thirty at night just doing my usual. Everything was fine until suddenly the spotlight on the other side of the house goes out. I groaned aloud. I had a spare bulb in the house but the whole thing was an inconvenience more than anything. Anyway, I went and got the spare bulb, walked âround the side of the house to the light, and⊠well the bulb wasn't blown. It was gone. Unscrewed and nowhere to be seen. Looking around, I heard a weird sort of scraping sound from nearby. Like two rocks rubbing together. It started slow and picked up speed moving fast toward me. I didn't stop to think about it, I just made a bee-line for the door and got into the house. Bugger that for a game of soldiers.
I locked my door and spent a good ten minutes just cussing out and turning on every light in the house. I called the cops and told them someone was on my property but they figured it was probably just some local kids pulling a prank on me. They agreed to send someone out but they weren't in any hurry. My part of town is pretty quiet. Nothing really happens here, it's lonely. Out of the way. Peaceful. Exactly the kind of place I thought I wanted to live, well I was having second thoughts I can tell you that.
I couldn't sleep much even though I was pretty sure the cops wouldn't come âtil morning. Every time I almost dozed off I'd hear that scraping stone sound. I told myself it was a stick falling from a tree, or an animal. Maybe just shifting boards in the house. But it was definitely stone. Stone rubbing on stone. I peeked out the window a few times to see if I could see anything, but that was pretty fruitless. A couple times I thought I saw something; like a couple of eyes moving about, but eyes aren't anything out of the ordinary in the bush. âAnimalsâ, I thought aloud. âJust wallabies or somethingâ.
Cop showed up next morning about nine to ask about the night before. Gave me a good fright when he knocked at the door and woke me up, but I was sure as hell glad to see the sun outside my window. He was a blackfella named Coen. I knew him from around town, and he was a nice enough bloke; always gave a smile and gâday when I passed him on the street.
We checked out the spotlight. Bulb missing. No footprints or anything weird. No idea where the bulb went. He reckoned it was weird that it wasn't dropped and smashed right under the fitting. Lights like that get bloody hot, you don't even think about handling them unless they've been turned off for a good while. Not without oven mitts or something on your hands. What kind of teenage vandal carries oven mitts?
Anyway, when I got to the sound I heard, the scraping stones, he didn't laugh it off the way I tried to. In fact, he looked pretty bloody serious. âMalingeeâ, He said under his breath.
âMalingee? What the arse is a malingee?â I asked.
âOld kids story. Blackfellas been trying to scare kids and keep them from wandering the bush at night as long your mob, longer probablyâ, Coen smiled.
âSo how does the story go?â I asked, more curious than concerned.
âWell, the malingee is a tall fella. His skin is hard, like rock. His legs and arms are bandy like, makes him walk all funny so his knees knock and scrape together when he stepsâ, Coen explained. He didn't take what he was saying too seriously though. He was explaining a kidâs story. âHe usually doesn't cause much trouble. Not if you get out of the way when you hear the scrapes. But if you don't⊠well he ain't all too friendly eitherâ.
âThat all?â I ask, managing to laugh now at what was obviously just a bit of folklore.
âWell that's most of it. Auntie says he's got red eyes that you can always see. Like fire. And he don't like bright lights all too much.â Coen let out a belly laugh. âDon't reckon you pissed off an old malingee with your spotlight do you?â
âSeems less than likelyâ, Â I said, smiling as I walked Coen to his car.
I said goodbye and waved him off as he drove away. I felt better after talking to someone. Being alone too much really screws with your head. Especially if you don't live in eyeshot of neighbors. It's pretty easy to feel vulnerable on your own.
I spent the rest of the day working from home, got some shopping done and the rest. I replaced the bulb, but decided not to sit outside that night so I kept it off. Passed the next few days mostly the same way; nothing too weird to report there. Some nights I thought I heard a scrape. Thought I saw some eyes out there too. Didn't think too much of it though, it's easy to build things up in your head when you've had a fright. Best not to think about it.
I kept inside at night âtil Saturday, five days since the incident with the light. Figured I should stop being such an idiot and make use of my deck again.
So that night I was sitting out, bout the same time. Half-past ten. Having a smoke and editing some stuff I'd written for a job I took. I fixed the spotlight so that was on round the corner keeping the beetles at bay, and I had my little citronella candle to shoo the mozzies.
I was feeling pretty fine, âtil I heard the bulb smash. Light round the side suddenly went dark. It was quiet a moment⊠but then the night erupted with this gravelly scream that sounded like nothing I'd ever heard. That was no bloody teenager. I turned toward the house and the sound came. The scraping stone. Slow at first but picking up speed and hurrying fast round the house toward me. I bolted for the back door and pretty much jumped through as I slammed it behind me. I hardly had time to latch it before the handle began to shake and that God damned stone scratching was just outside.
It must have been smart though, because as soon as it realized the door was locked it moved toward a window. I stood still. It didn't follow me inside last time, but looking at that window⊠looking at that window and seeing its face stoop down and smile that lipless toothy grin at me⊠well it put the fear of God in me there and then.
The smug bastard didn't hesitate to smash the glass out and reach inside. I didn't really have time to react. I grabbed at my keys but by the time I turned to make for the front door, it had already half clambered into the house.
He was a lanky bastard, maybe seven or eight feet tall. Spindly and long limbed, it looked almost spider-like with its limbs oddly folding through the window. The skin looked black, or maybe like stone, but those big-arse red eyes were all I had time to take in properly before I got the hell outta dodge. Sure as anything, those were the eyes I'd been seeing out my window; those eyes looked pissed.
It screamed horribly and swung its arms at me as I ran for the front door, bursting into the night and slamming it behind me. I was glad I never bothered to park my car inside the garage. Just the thought of having to take the time to open it up was making me piss myself.
I pull open the door to my Nissan Patrol, fall in, and just as I start the engine, the front door bursts open in splinters as that God-awful malingee barrels out and into the night. That smile. That sickeningly wide smile it made as it lurched toward me on all fours, the scrape of stone on stone as its knees clicked togetherâŠ
I have no idea how I made it into town without flipping my car, I drove faster that night than I have ever driven in my life.
As of now I'm looking to move into the city. Whoever buys my old house can have whatever I left behind, I sure as hell don't want to go get it.
I remember the man with the soft teeth. Heâd come into my room at night and bite me over and over. The bites didnât hurt and they left no marks. All I felt was pressure.
The first time I saw his face, I was terrified. His eyes were different. Instead of two eye sockets, he had nine. They were clustered in front of his face and up his forehead like a honeycomb. Two on top, four in the middle, three on the bottom. The sockets didnât house eyeballs. There was a single, thin eyestalk growing from the center of each hole. Each stalk swayed in front of his face like long grass in the breeze.
When heâd visit me, Iâd lose the ability to move or scream. All I could do was watch. After a week of visits and my parents not believing a word that came out of my mouth, I thought sleeping with the light on might keep him away. That was the night he started biting my face.
The man would always move slowly and with great care. Every motion seemed calculated and precise; I didnât know what he was doing, but I had no doubt he did. The first time he got close to my head, I saw the inside of his mouth. Like his eyes, his teeth were unlike any Iâd seen. There were three rows of bulbous growths pushing from an array of holes in his gumline. They looked as soft as they felt. Each one was covered in fine, downy hairs. They reminded me of the fat bodies of moths.
Heâd open my mouth with his index finger and thumb. Then heâd get close. I felt his eyestalks brushing against my face and forehead and eyes as he pressed his upper teeth against my lower ones. Heâd close his mouth around my chin, locking my lower jaw in his mouth. It was uncomfortable, but it didnât hurt. The man would stay there for ten minutes at a time, gradually modulating the pressure of his jaw against mine.
On the last night he visited me, he performed the same steps. Once my jaw was in his mouth, though, he applied more pressure than heâd used in the past. His eyestalks straightened out and felt like firm cables against my face. As the pressure increased, I felt his teeth start to burst against my own. One by one, the thick, insectile bodies inside his mouth succumbed to the pressure and coated my tongue and gums with thick, bitter paste. I felt his tongue, which had never been involved in our interactions before, extending over my teeth and massaging the paste into my gums. I tried to retch, but even that had been taken from me.
The man did the same with my upper teeth and palate. When he left and I could move again, I rushed to the bathroom, threw up, and brushed my teeth more times than I could count. I never saw the man again.
Itâs been 25 years. Iâve been plagued by dental issues my entire adult life. Every visit brings worse news; itâs gotten to the point where Iâm dealing with irreversible bone loss. Eventually, my teeth will fall out. The foundation to which theyâre attached is simply deteriorating. Itâs not uncommon, but itâs rare for someone my age who is otherwise in perfect health.
As if on cue, the day after my most recent trip to the dentist, I lost my first tooth. Iâd felt it loosening and the dentist said it was only a matter of time. And more will follow. I scheduled an appointment to see him in three months. It was as frequently as my insurance would allow. More of my teeth started to wiggle when I poked at them with my tongue. I started to accept their fate.
Recently, my resignation has developed flickers of fear and disbelief. The tooth that fell out started to grow back. Iâd never heard of such a thing. But I can see something grayish-white pushing through the raw socket. When I touch it with my tongue, itâs soft. And I can feel my tongue brushing against it, almost as if it has nerves of its own. Iâm trying not to think back to the memories of the man in my room, but itâs impossible not to. Not when more of my teeth grow looser by the day. And especially not when I have seven painful spots near my eyes and forehead that feel softer than they should.
When I was younger I was a stupid kid with big dreams. I lived in a tiny little shitsmear of a town in the middle of the rust belt, a place where kids unironically hopped on their dadâs tractor to hitch a ride to school in the mornings. I used to gaze out at the endless fields of shoulder-high corn, ridged like green corduroy off into the horizon, and I would think to myself, âFuck this. Fuck this so hard.â
Iâd always been a horror movie geek, and in my junior year of high school I scrounged together enough cash to buy a cheap video camera off eBay. I got my friends Anna, Kevin and Dylan together, and, from sundown until curfew, weâd be out in the woods shooting our own homemade horror flick. We didnât know what we were doing; the shots were dark as hell, you couldnât hear 80% of the dialogue, and the fake blood looked like dollar-store barbecue sauce (because it was). But it gave us a purpose, and The Killer in the Woods became our own little masterpiece.
I was ecstatic. I knew what I wanted to do with my life, and I had a plan for finally escaping that terrible small town with its pervasive manure stench and its suffocating right-wing god-and-guns culture. I promised myself that, as soon as Iâd saved up enough from my crappy gas station job, I was going to catch a bus out to LA and become a filmmaker.
And then Anna got pregnant.
We werenât even dating, exactly. Actually, if you want to get technical about it, she was Dylanâs girlfriend at the time. But Dylanâs nutty Christian parents had discovered naked men in his browser history, and they threatened to kick him out of the house unless he could prove he wasnât âtainted by perversion.â He started dating Anna, and though Iâm sure he cared about her in a way, Anna told me he would recoil away from her when she tried to kiss him, as though she was sticking a dog turd in his face.
Anyway, she was at my house late one night while I was editing the movie, telling me all about what a joke their relationship was, how confused sheâd become, how lonely. I donât have an excuse, not a good one anyway. I told myself I was helping out a friend in need, but honestly we were both just horny teenagers who werenât thinking. Itâs okay, I told myself. No one will know. Just make sure to pull out, and itâll all be fine.
Anna was Catholic, and she refused to even consider getting an abortion. She told me she was going to raise the baby, and that I could stick around if I wanted, or not. I was scared, and angry, and deeply confused about why this was happening, just when I was so close to finally getting out of that town. I thought long and hard about leaving anyway, but I remembered how hard it was on my mom and me when my dad took off, and I swore Iâd never do that to anyone. No, I wasnât going to be like my dad. I was going to take care of my responsibilities like a real man.
So I stayed.
Just for a little while, I told myself. Just until we could save enough to make the move. I already had $200 in my account, just needed a little more. Anna said she would go with me wherever I needed to be, even though I knew she didnât hate the town like I did. She thought it was âpeaceful,â and âsweet,â and she disliked the speed and noise of big cities. Whatever, I thought. Sheâd like it enough once we got there. The plan was still the same. It would just take a little longer was all. I was still going to get out. I had to.
Everyone had told me that my life would change when the baby came. That I was going to feel this surge of love and joy just looking at her. But when I saw that squirming little creature, gray and gooey and covered in blood, screaming like a murder victim, all I wanted to do was get away. It was like a prop from a horror flick, and I almost shoved the doctor off when he handed it to me.
âWhat a beautiful baby girl,â the nurses said. I didnât know how they could call this...this thing beautiful.
Her name was Olivia, and she loved me. Whenever she bumped her knee, she wanted me to kiss it. When it was time for bed, she wanted me to read her a story. When the other kids were mean to her at school, it was my shoulder she wanted to cry on. She followed me everywhere and looked at everything I did with total admiration and awe.
I wish I could tell you I warmed to her, but thereâs no use in lying about these things. Not anymore. Not after what happened.
Anna tried so hard to win our daughterâs love, but no matter how many times she cooked Oliviaâs favorite meal or bought her expensive toys from the store, Olivia only wanted to spend time with daddy. Daddy, daddy, daddy, all fucking day long. Anna resented me. She picked fights about how I was âmonopolizingâ our daughterâs affection. I tried to tell her that it wasnât my fault, that I wished they could spend more time together and leave me alone for half a fucking minute. I yelled at my wife, not caring that my daughter was listening from her room.
I kept waiting for all that love and joy I was supposed to feel, but I only felt constant irritation and disgust in the presence of this grubby, filthy, loud, selfish little creature, this creature that followed me like a mangy puppy, her sticky, stinking fingers on my leg, on my hands, on my face.
And always, when my revulsion had reached its highest pitch and I was ready to blow up at her just for being born, she would look at me with those big blue eyes and say, âI love you, daddy.â And she would wait for me to say it back, but I could only nod and send her off to bed.
I worked longer hours, but it became harder to save money. Olivia needed school supplies, ADHD meds, clothes, lunch money. Anna kept buying toys, trying to win her daughterâs love. I spent more and more time at the bar after my shift, drinking my paycheck away. But I kept trying to save, kept trying to build up my little nest egg. The dream was faded, but it was still there. Hollywood. Filmmaking career. Getting out of the town. Yes, I had to get out. I had to.
Iâd just capped off another long shift and a long stint at the bar the night it happened.
I stumbled into our shitty little rental on the outskirts of town, and I saw Anna sitting on the couch. She was bathed in the dim light from a shitty desk lamp that served as our only living room light, and she was surrounded by a little graveyard of wadded up tissues. Iâd seen her like this before, on nights when Olivia told her that she didnât want to play with her, or talk to her, or be around her at all. âWhereâs daddy?â she would go, and Anna would have a breakdown and scream at me all night.
Knowing I was in for it, I went on the offensive to try to gain an advantage. âJesus fucking Christ, canât I come home to a happy house just once, just once after spending all day busting my ass for you fucking ingrates? Is that so much to fucking ask?â
Anna didnât move, didnât react, didnât call me an asshole or threaten to take Olivia with her to her auntâs. She just sat there, staring off into nothing, clutching a soggy lump of tissue to her lips.
âIâm pregnant,â she said.
My gut fell out from under me. Shock became fear, fear became rage. âWhat? How? Youâre on the pill, right? Have you been taking it regularly?â
âI--I think so,â she said. âI donât...I mean, I might have missed a day here and there, but...I mean, I think Iâve been--â
âWhat are we going to do?â I said.
She looked up at me, her eyes swollen and red. âYou know what I have to do,â she said. âYou know I have to have the baby.â
I exploded. I told her that it wasnât fair, that I had dreams, that it was my life that she was destroying. I accused her of purposefully sabotaging my dreams out of jealousy, of conspiring to have another baby because Olivia didnât love her.
âAnd why would she love you, you--you crazy, backstabbing bitch.â I screamed.
âWhatâs wrong, daddy?â
Olivia was standing in the doorway, looking at me with those big, wet, blue eyes.
âGo back to bed, baby,â Anna sobbed.
âAre you okay, daddy?â Olivia said.
âListen to your mother,â I said.
âAre you mad?â Olivia said.
âGet back to bed, now.â
âBut daddy, if youâre mad I want to help--â
âShut the fuck up and get to bed!â I screamed.
She stared at me, a deep well of hurt in her eyes. She scurried from the doorway and slammed the door to her room.
âLook at what youâve done,â Anna said, pointing an accusing finger down the hallway toward Oliviaâs room. âLook at what youâve done to your daughter. How could you treat her like that, someone who loves you? Youâre a monster.â
Something in me snapped. âYeah. Yeah, I'm a fucking monster. You know, it wouldâve been better for all of us if you hadnât let me fuck you back in high school. If you hadnât been so worthless that your goddamn boyfriend wouldnât even fuck you. You think Iâm the monster, but youâre the one that no one loves. Not your boyfriend, not me, not even your fucking daughter. Iâll bet God doesnât even love you, no matter how many babies you have to try to please him you fucking whore.â
She stood, jaw open and trembling. I turned and went down the basement steps, slamming the door behind me. I paced around the concrete floor for hours, thinking. Okay, I thought, this was an unexpected development. But the plan, the plan still stood. Save up some money, go to LA, rent a little place, make it in the movies. I wondered how much I had saved, how close I was to my dream. I brought out my phone and opened my banking app to look at my savings account.
$200. The same it was in high school.
I stared at it, then opened the transaction log. As soon as any money came in, it would go right back out. I hadnât saved a dime in the past eight years. Eight years. They might as well not have happened at all.
I paced around the room some more, trying to think my way out of the despair in my heart. In the dim light I stumbled into an old cardboard box. I looked down at it, then opened it up. It was the movie camera and the tapes Iâd used to make my horror movie in high school.
I dusted one off, and went to the little TV cart in the corner with the old VHS machine connected to it. I plugged them in, then slid the tape into the machine, listening to the ancient gears whine and spool inside. I watched the movie, looking at us in our stupid, stupid youth.
Jesus Christ, I thought, were we ever actually that young? Was I really that skinny, pimply little kid with that squeaky voice, covered in fake blood in the woods behind my grandmotherâs house? Was there really a time in my life when I didnât have a job, a wife, a home payment, a child, a time when all I had to my name was some stupid dream that I actually believed I could make happen?
Was there really a time in my life when I thought I could leave this place?
I held my face in my hand and cried while I listened to our distorted screams on the ancient tape.
âWhy are you sad, daddy?â
I turned. Olivia was standing behind me, her big, sad eyes watching me cry. I tried to wipe my face clean, feeling my skin flush with shame.
âI thought I told you to go to bed,â I said.
She looked up to the dusty TV screen. âWhatâs that?â she said.
I followed her eyes. It was the climactic moment, when my character, who was secretly the killer all along, murders Annaâs character. I was straddling her and driving a fake plastic knife into her gut, while she screamed and choked on barbecue sauce.
âThatâs my movie,â I said.
Her eyes opened wide in admiration. âYou made a movie?â
âYes,â I said, too exhausted to even yell at her anymore. âThatâs me and your mom. Thatâs what we looked like when we were young.â
Sixteen-year-old Anna screamed while we watched, her screams conspicuously changing pitch every time the shot switched to a different angle. âYou make movies?â Olivia said.
âI used to,â I said. âI havenât made any in a long time.â
âWhy not?â
âBecause Iâm a daddy now,â I said. I looked at her, trying to convey all the bitterness and despair I felt. âBecause being a daddy takes up all my money, time, and energy. You need money, time, and energy to make movies, and I donât have much after taking care of you guys. And pretty soon, youâre going to get a new little brother or sister, and whatever money, time, and energy I have left will be gone, gone for good, and there will be none left to make movies.â
I turned back to the bloody murder on the TV screen. âIf I had killed her,â I muttered to myself, âreally killed her back then, everything would be different. Everything.â In my stupid, drunken helplessness I found myself actually thinking about it, wondering about the ways I could kill my wife and get away with it.
âDaddy?â Olivia said, breaking my train of thought. âI love you.â She put her grubby hand on my shoulder.
âI know,â I said, shrugging it off.
âDo you love me?â
I looked up at where she stood, this sad, vulnerable child desperate for her fatherâs love. I opened my mouth to say yes, of course I loved her, she was my whole world, blah blah blah. Whatever it is parents are supposed to say in this situation.
But I just looked at her. And she knew.
âGo to bed, Olivia,â I said.
Tears streamed down her face, and she turned to go. I listened to her climb the stairs, and I heard her tiny footsteps make their way to her room.
I left the movie playing on the TV, went upstairs, grabbed my keys, and left. I drove for hours, taking back roads all along the countryside, long, straight roads that cut through dark fields of green corn. At first I was wallowing in self-pity. Everyone is against me, I thought. Everyone just wants to hold me back, hurt me, prevent me from leaving this place. Everyone is out to get me, the whole world. Assholes. All of them. Assholes.
But then a tiny voice in the back of my mind told me, No. Youâre the asshole.
By the time the black sky began to lighten, my thoughts had changed. I thought about my own father, who had left us to tour with his crappy shitkicker band and ended up ODing in a hotel in Tucson. I thought about how sad it was, how selfish that he had abandoned his real responsibilities to chase some stupid, childish dream. How he had been punished for it in the end. I drove and thought, and I realized I was doing the same thing.
And I had to stop.
I parked in my driveway just as the dawn was breaking in the east, and I sat there. I knew that if I went back into that house, it would mean the end of my fantasy of leaving town and becoming a filmmaker, and the acceptance of my reality as a father and a husband. I knew that if I went back in there, I would have to rededicate myself to being the best man I could be for my family. A real partner for Anna, a real role model for Olivia and our new child. That I would have to work hard to mend bridges and build new ones.
I got out of my car and entered the house.
I had a strange feeling of relief, not being burdened by that old dream anymore. Not having to worry about making a life that wasnât realistic. For the first time in years, I didnât feel like a failure. I entered the house with a new sense of purpose, of gratitude, of peace.
Finally, after all this time, I felt the love for my family that I was supposed to feel.
âAnna?â I said. âWe have to talk. I'm sorry for--â
I turned the corner into the kitchen. Anna was sprawled out on the floor, her skin gray, her face slack, her eyes rolled up in her skull. She was laying in a dark pool of spattered blood, a huge crimson stain oozing slowly across the linoleum, glinting in the bright morning light.
Olivia sat straddled across her chest, a kitchen knife held in her tiny hands, her shaking arms driving the blade again and again into Annaâs lifeless gut. Olivia who wanted to help her daddy, Olivia who wanted her daddy to have all the money, time, and energy in the world. Olivia who would do anything to make her daddyâs dreams come true.
Olivia stared up at me in the soft golden light. âDo you love me now, daddy?â she said, as cold blood streaked down her cheeks like tears. âDo you love me now?â
In the summer of my fifteenth year, after the accident, my parents sent me to stay with my grandparents.
I had always liked their house. They were well-off, so the house was huge, complete with three stories and a winding staircase. I always slept on the west end of the second floor, with its window overlooking the surrounding grove and grandmaâs garden.
I was actually looking forward to spending my summer there, if Iâm honest. Â I wanted to get away from my parents â the pitying stares they gave me, the probing questions. My grandparents never pitied me because they knew that it wouldnât help. Iâm simply not that kind of girl. Â They gave me space, gave me time to collect myself. Plus, my grandma let me garden with her, which I always enjoyed, so it was perfect for me.
I still remember that hot day in June when I moved my things into the spare bedroom. It had a four-poster bed, complete with a pink canopy and pink quilt â a holdover from when I was a child. A few of my childhood toys had ended up in that room over the years, and I found that I liked them there, as fond memories of a time when things werenât so messed up. The room was huge, with a bay window and a gaping fireplace that I loved to explore when I was little.
I remember looking at that fireplace then, wondering how long it had been since it had seen a flame. If it werenât so hot, I wouldnât have minded starting a fire myself. Might give me something to do.
But, as it was, I found myself sitting on the fluffy pink bed, staring out the window at an endless blue sky promising happier days.
I felt very alone. And that was okay.
I spent a lot of time in that room.
Itâs not that I didnât like being outside. Itâs just that Iâd float off sometimes, sitting in my bed and staring out the window, my mind somewhere in the clouds, thinking of things I canât even remember now. It would feel like just a few moments, but in reality Iâd sit for hours like that.
The doctors said that was normal. I didnât really mind.
It was on one such day, my fingers absentmindedly picking at the purple embroidery in the quilt on my bed, that I began to hear it.
It was something of a deep thrumming sound, trembling in the air around me. It was low, at first, almost unnoticeable, except in that secret place in the back of my mind that knows things I prefer to ignore. However, the sound became more intense, shaking around me with a ferocity that I couldnât keep at bay, and I found my eyes scanning the room for the source of the sound.
As soon as my eyes fell on the chimney, the sound went away.
I canât say it stopped, exactly â it didnât feel like the noise could just stop existing. No, it was resting, waiting for something, perhaps. With that in mind, I rose to my scarred feet and walked over to the fireplace, feeling drawn to it like a hapless moth to a flame.
It was darkened black with age, a thick layer of soot carved into the stone. I knelt down by it and let my fingers drift over the grime, watching it coat my skin.
It felt nice there. Even after all this time, the fireplace radiated warmth. My eyes slipped shut and I let myself fall asleep, curled up in the memory of cinders like some fucked-up version of Cinderella.
After that, I took a liking to the fireplace. Whenever I was in my room â which just so happened to be most of the time â I would sit in front of it, feeling rather more tranquil staring into its darkness than staring out at the sky. Ever since that day, I didnât really like the sky. No, the stone and the black and the quiet heat was much better for someone like me.
Sometimes, I would find myself mumbling to the fireplace, as though it had gained sentience and waited patiently for me to share the secrets of my life with it.
Most of the time, I just drifted around, engulfed by its remaining heat.
Sometimes, when the nightmares kept me awake, I would sleep in front of it, too. I liked to pull my comforter and all the pillows on the bed to make a nest for myself on the floor.
One night, as I gasped myself awake from loud and vivid dreams, I heard a voice.
It was a low voice, vibrating with intensity, shaking and piercing me. It almost seemed as though I heard it not from my ears, but from somewhere deep inside of me.
âWhy do you not sleep?â it asked.
It was a nice voice, I decided. Very soothing, and with an air of kindness about it. I answered immediately, âI have nightmares. Bad ones. Every night.â
The room was silent for just a moment, before it asked, âMay I see?â
I nodded a little hesitantly. I didnât know what it meant by âsee,â but I didnât question it â rather, I found myself wondering if the voice would go away after it saw what went on inside my head.
As soon as I gave my consent, I felt something stirring around inside my brain. It was like long fingers were snaking their way into my ears, probing around and tasting the contours of my brain. I closed my eyes as a vision sparked behind my eyelids.
I saw the car that weâd ridden in that day, its dark tinted windows and the dent on the left side.
I saw my boyfriend sitting in the driverâs seat and my best friend sitting in the back. I must have been in the passengerâs seat.
I saw a blur of loud color as the car rolled.
I smelled gasoline pouring around me as I looked first from him, then to her, then back again.
I reached for my boyfriend. I shook him. Nothing. My fingers fumbled around his neck. No pulse. Dead.
I tried not to think as I dragged myself to the backseat, my hands grasping at my best friend. Her body was bent and broken at all the wrong angles, but my hand ghosted across her mouth and I felt her hot breath on my skin. Still alive.
The rear window was shattered. I pulled her out of the seatbelt and crawled out of the car. I tried to stand, but the glass around us cut my feet and I fell to my knees. Pieces of glass were embedded in my skin, but I was too focused to worry.
I dragged us through the grass away from the car, expecting it to explode at any second.
Except⊠it didnât.
That was when the real nightmare began.
The fingers in my brain massaged out my memories as I gasped and shuddered. I didnât like thinking about that day. No, Iâd prefer to think of anything else.
The voice understood. âWould you like to sleep again?â it asked.
âIâm afraid,â I whispered.
âYou do not have to be,â it said.
I believed it, as though on an instinctual level I knew it to be telling the truth. I laid down in my little nest of blankets and pillows and felt the fingers searching around my mind as my eyes slipped shut once again.
This time, I didnât dream of the accident. I didnât dream of anything, exactly. All I saw in my mind were colors. The dark gray with swirls of black from the fireplace, to be exact. I liked it. It was soothing. It felt right.
I slept very well that night.
From then on, I kept up a constant conversation with the voice in the fireplace.
It only responded on occasion, but I didnât mind that at all. I found that there was no lack of things to discuss, even when it remained silent for hours at a time. I told the voice about my family and my house. I talked about school and the way the other students avoided me after the accident. I talked about things that used to make me happy, but didnât anymore. Occasionally, the voice would ask me a question.
âAre you afraid of death?â it would ask.
âNo,â I would say, my fingers trailing patterns in the soot. âI used to be, but Iâm not anymore. Sometimes, I wish it would come faster.â
âDo you miss them?â it would ask.
âYes,â I would say, âThey were very important to me.â
âWhy do you regret what you did?â it would ask.
I wouldnât answer that one.
I no longer had nightmares. Each night, the voice would send its invisible fingers to squeeze into the cracks of my brain, lulling me to a dark, pleasant sleep. It was very kind to me.
We were fast friends, that voice and I.
My grandparents began to worry about me.
Other than coming downstairs for my meals, I would stay in my room, staring at the fireplace and muttering to myself. I imagine they thought I was getting worse, not better. That was simply untrue â the voice was healing me.
Sometimes, I would wake up in the middle of the night, the voice retreating back into the fireplace as my grandparents came into my room to check on me. Theyâd whisper and argue. Theyâd talk about doctors. The voice would become tense. It didnât like when they came to my room.
One day, the voice told me it was hungry.
âWhy donât you eat?â I asked.
âI wait,â it said.
âFor what?â
âFor the right moment.â
Then it told me that it didnât eat very often â once every few years. I was fascinated. I asked if I could find it some food, but it didnât seem interested in anything that I ate.
âIn time, I eat,â it said.
My grandparents wanted to take me to the hospital.
âYou arenât getting better, Kelly,â said my grandmother. She had already brought up my shoes and sat them down in front of me. Apparently, they wanted me to go right then and there.
âYouâve been here for months and all you do is sit in front of that fireplace,â said my grandfather. He was a gruff man, usually very stoic, but even I could hear the concern in his voice.
My eyes drifted out the window for the first time in⊠well, in forever. The sky was decaying with the vestiges of fall and I wondered exactly how long I had been in that house.
âWeâll get you help,â said my grandmother, reaching out to comfort me.
I didnât mean to recoil â itâs just that I didnât want to think about leaving the voice. I think it was rather lonely, stuck in that fireplace for so long. It needed me, and I needed it.
Apparently, the voice thought so, too.
A strange rumbling came from the chimney, and a haze of soot and dust showered down into the maw of the fireplace.
My grandma and grandpa stood very still, looking at the fireplace in fear and confusion. I looked, too, only it was awe that I felt.
We watched together as it began to come out.
First came its hands as it crawled its way down the chimney. They were really more like claws, so white and thin that I thought they must be bone. As it came closer, I realized it was skin, leathery and stretched taught against spindly appendages.
Its arms were long and lean, trembling a little with the weight of its body.
Its head poked out next, but it was folded down near its body, and I couldnât see its face.
Its torso came into view, and then its feet. It was almost human in its presentation, but for the fact that it was simply too long, its torso stretched out and ribless, its legs crouched under it like a beast. Its feet were long, each toe ending in a sharp point. The claws on its hands tapped against the dust of the fireplace.
It lifted its smooth, white head. It was awfully white for something that lived in the grime.
My grandparents screamed when they saw its face, but I couldnât breathe enough to make a sound. Â It had sunken holes where it should have had eyes, but I could sense that it was somehow able to see. It didnât appear to have a mouth, but there was a ragged black mark stretching across its jaw like some kind of strange rash.
It inclined its head at me, staring. My grandma grabbed my arm to pull me from the room.
That made the beast angry. It scuttled towards us â yes, scuttled, thatâs the word for how it moved â and reached for my grandma. She shrieked as my grandfather reached out to fight it off.
It was a very quick fight. The thingâs long arm lashed out and, suddenly, deep grooves appeared in my grandpaâs chest. Â He fell to the ground as the blood poured out of his body, leaving him dead on the floor. My grandma didnât even have a chance to move before the thingâs hind leg kicked towards her, stabbing straight through her stomach and out the other side. She died quickly as well.
I sank to the floor as the thing rumbled, a sound of deep hunger in its body.
The black skin of its jaw began to pull apart, revealing an even deeper darkness within. It began to lap at the blood and flesh of the bodies at its feet, using its claws to tear at the skin and meat. It didnât take it long at all to consume the bodies of my grandparents â in less than an hour, they were picked clean, their skulls and broken bones left in a bloody pile on the spare room floor.
Once its feeding was complete, it turned towards me, sitting back on its haunches and staring at me. Its body was stronger, now, and it no longer struggled to hold itself up. It had been satisfied.
We held each otherâs gaze for a few long moments. It had things to say. I did, too.
âWhy not me?â I asked.
It inclined its head again, and I thought for a moment of a puppy Iâd had when I was a child, one that had been run over by a car. âI do not feed on those that have killed. I must feed on the innocent.â
An image flashed to my mind, one that Iâd been trying to forget for months. The police officer at the scene, as he had bent down to examine my best friendâs body. It had ruined my life, the moment he said that she had broken her neck⊠and she may not have died if I hadnât moved her from the car. The car that didnât burn, didnât explode. No, it sat there like a blight in my eyes, forever peaceful in the twisted grass of that low ditch.
âThey say it wasnât my fault, you know,â I told the thing. It must have known that I never believed them.
âThere is nothing less important than that,â it said. It was right.
âAre you going to leave me now?â I asked.
It nodded, and I could sense a deep sorrow from inside it. âI have never had a choice.â
âCan I come with you?â I asked.
âMaybe some day,â it said. âBut not today.â
It could sense my disappointment. Perhaps in an attempt to make peace â it had just slaughtered my grandparents, after all â it scuttled back to the fireplace and reached up into the chimney. It took something down in its long claws and crawled towards me. As it approached me, I felt a deep heat radiating from inside it, as though it was made of fire itself.
It placed something in my hand â a few small bones, so tiny and light that they must have come from a bird. Even now, I have those bones. They let me keep them.
âWill I see you again?â I asked.
It nodded.
It reached out and patted me on the head, carefully. Gently.
Then it turned and crawled back up the chimney.
And I was alone again.
The doctors, the police, my parents â none of them know what happened.
The police found me the next day â apparently my grandparents had been giving my parents daily updates on my condition, and they became nervous when my grandparents didnât call. The cops found me sitting in the spare bedroom, staring at the remains of my family.
I told my story from start to finish. I knew the beast wouldnât mind. But nobody believed me.
Nobody believed that I killed them, either. It was simply impossible â after all, how could I have made such work of their bodies in such a short amount of time? There was no evidence to say that I had a hand in their deaths.
Everyone was at a loss.
The only thing they all agreed on is that Iâm crazy.
My parents sent me to a mental institute. The cops didnât have the heart to insist I reside with the criminally insane â they understood that I hadnât committed murder, at least not that day.So I went to a nice little hospital just a few towns away, with glaring white rooms and a little garden out back. I like the garden the best. It reminds me of my grandmother.
The doctors ask a lot about the beast. Â They call it a monster. I donât think thatâs quite right, but, then again, Iâm no expert in monsters. They ask me to describe it, over and over. Theyâve had me draw it a million times. They look for inconsistencies. I donât mind.
I miss my beast.
Some days, when the sky is gray like soot, I like to look into the clouds and wonder if it is out there somewhere, thinking of me. Waiting for the day it can come back to me.
On her way home from work, my wife was hit and killed by a drunk driver.
Night after night I prayed, no, I begged God to bring her back. Every night I dreamt of her returning to me, and every morning I woke alone.
One night the dream had changed. I was approached by a man in a pristine suit. "I can bring her back to you, but it will cost you." he said.
"Please! I'll do anything!" I pleaded
"What would you say you're most afraid of?" he asked with a smirk. I thought hard about it briefly before responding "Burning to death".
"Here's my offer: I will return your wife to you, but only if you live out your greatest fear."
"Yes! I'll do it! I'll burn!", and with that I awoke in my bed, next to my beautiful bride.
I couldn't believe it, but there she was, fast asleep, and breathing deep. I woke her with a passionate kiss and after several minutes she asked what had gotten into me. I could only respond by telling her how much I loved her.
I knew I still had a price to pay, but I didn't care.
That evening there was a knock at my door. As soon as I saw the officer, I knew the mistake I had made. I never promised to burn, I promised to live out my worst fear.
"Sir, I'm afraid your wife's been in an accident."
I Hear a Studio Audience At All Times, and Theyâre Getting Creepier
This is going to sound like a farce, but ever since I suffered a concussion last summer, I've been hearing a live studio audience around me 24/7. The doctors reassured me they were merely auditory hallucinations brought on by the bump to my noggin, and that they'd eventually go away on their own once my brain healed. It was actually kind of funny at first. I mean, once I got over the initial shock and fear of hearing the unsolicited reactions of a bunch of strangers. They started off more entertaining than disturbing, but that balance eventually shifted, and I'm afraid of them now.
The very first time it happened was the day I was discharged from the hospital. It was a beautiful August day, and I was psyched to finally go out in the warm sun. Eric, my boyfriend, picked me up from the hospital to take me back to our apartment. I was in high spirits, despite a persistent headache, which had followed me since the bike accident. (Kids, wear your helmets!) Eric made a joke, and suddenly, a flurry of hysterical laugher came flooding in from every corner of the car. I screamed at Eric to turn off his surround sound system, covering my ears to drown out the noise, but the laugher only got louder. I could tell by the freaked-out look in Eric's eyes that he hadn't been playing a practical joke on me. Once the chuckles subsided, I explained what happened. Eric turned the car around and drove me straight back to the medical facility.
A brain scan, a few blood tests, and countless hours later, the doctors assured me it was a harmless side-effect of the concussion, and not a case of sudden onset schizophrenia, as I had feared. It was perfectly normal. Well, as normal as hearing a room full of easily-entertained spectators could be. They told me to go home and rest.
It took me a few days to adjust to the auditory hallucinations, but I eventually started to see the humor in my predicament. Meetings at work were a lot more entertaining, what with the peanut gallery projecting annoyed groans whenever my boss slipped into a boring tangent. I didn't even have to secretly roll my eyes: the voices in my head were the perfect vessel through which I could express my innermost feelings without getting in trouble. At home, my captive audience laughed at each of my jokes, even when Eric failed to react to the punch line. When I went to bed, they'd "awwww" as I wrapped my arms around Eric, and again when my cat curled up between us for warmth. The voices even became a sort of early-detection system, warning me of unseen dangers through a series of suspenseful gasps.
It started going downhill about two months ago, when I was taking a shower alone in my apartment. Eric was out of town that night, and I had this lingering fear that I'd forgotten to lock the front door. As I was pouring conditioner into the palm of my hand, I heard the studio audience gasp in fear. It startled me enough that I spilled the coconut-scented beauty product near my feet. My spectators continued to breathe in in a stressed manner that suggested I was about to get attacked by a psycho-murdering home invader. I could feel myself tensing up, as I stood there naked and unprotected. Thinking I heard footsteps, I took a step back, and slipped on the small puddle of conditioner. I remember feeling my feet flying towards the air while my upper-body swung towards the floor. With a sharp pain to the side of the head, everything went black. By the time I came to, the water was running cold. I called my dad, and he brought me to the hospital. I was rewarded with 9 stitches to the temple.
It's amazing what peer pressure can make you do, even when your peers don't actually exist. In a matter of weeks, my captive audience managed to completely disrupt my life. After the shower incident, it was as though they were no longer on my side. One morning, I was crossing the street when I heard them gasp. I stopped, thinking a car was heading my way. Fortunately, the street was empty. Unfortunately, my rapid stop caused me to slip on the ice and break my wrist. They laughed. Several days later, I had an important marketing presentation at work. The studio audience kept making disapproving noises, sometimes even booing me mid-presentation. It got me so tongue-tied that I messed up the whole sales pitch.
The worst was what they did to my relationship with Eric. Whenever we fought, they conveyed to me through "Urrrgh!"s and "Pffftt!"s that Eric was a complete scumbag. I'm not even sure what our last fight was about. I think it started with asking him to close the laundry room door. It was such an insignificant little fight, but made worse by the advice and reactions of a bunch of imaginary strangers. They made me doubt my feelings for him, until I finally cut him loose, much to their delight.
My relationships with my parents and friends devolved in a similar manner. It was shocking for me to hear what my subconscious mind actually thought about the people that had surrounded me all my life. After a few more incidents at work, my boss fired me. I was left without loved ones, friends, or a job. I felt so isolated, despite being accompanied at all times by the voices in my head. Alone in my living room, I drunk-dialed my ex, and he came over to cheer me up. We got back together that night, and it was wonderful.
Everything went back to normal after Eric and I rekindled our flame. I still heard the constant and distracting laugh track, but I tried my hardest to ignore them. I was happy again, and slowly but surely, I mended every bond I'd broken. I even got my old job back. Apparently, my boss couldn't handle the workload without me. Or so I've been told. For a while, all was right with the world, until one dreadful night.
I was half-asleep when I heard a knock at the door. I peeked through the window, only to find a squad car in the driveway. My heart stopped, and my faithful audience "OOoOOOOoO"ed. I opened the door, but of all the things those cops told me, all I remember hearing was this:
"I'm sorry 'mam, there's been an accident."
The studio audience roared with laugher and applause. Eric had died. My heart broke, but my spectators continued chuckling wildly. When Eric's casket was lowered into his grave, they laughed even harder. Tears streamed down the sides of my face, but they did not stop giggling and snickering the whole time.
I must be some kind of sick monster, because I can't keep them from laughing whenever I think of him. I just can't get them to stop.
"Hey, now smile" this time rolling along behind me just a yard or so away now.
"Why not give us a little smile?"
"You know, you would look so much prettier if you'd just smile" he calls out louder.
I stop walking.
This is not a new situation to me and, millions of women throughout the world. The act of something seemingly so simple as being compelled to smile by others (mostly men) and, living with its various consequences.
It is an everyday occurrence with varying intentions that are, left up to our instincts to interpret properly. In other words, it's a pain in the ass. It can also be a grim matter of survival.
Intent can of course, range from  the casual and usually innocent, "Aw, it can't be that bad, smile."  To the aggressive and, obviously offensive, "What,  you to good to smile at me? Fuck you too bitch!"
See what I mean?
Personally, I try to take care when reacting to the calls and, remarks from those met along my path. Â
They always range from my sweet and truly kind bus driver or the postman just passing along the sidewalk to the big  difference of someone following me as I make my way to work.
At this moment the latter seems bound and determined to get my attention. Â
"Smile for me little momma" he snarls again.
When that fails to get his desired response from me, he resorts to the usual snarl of; "Damn girl, wouldn't hurt you to smile. You ain't all that."
Slowly, I turn around and, give him exactly what he's been asking of me this whole time.
All three blocks worth to be exact.
So, now he's just a few feet from me and, I close the gap between us quicker than he could blink. Suddenly, sitting before me is a grown man straddling a rusty BMX and, sucking on the bent straw of a quick stop cup. His eyes squint when he sees me there and, I see he's also a bit surprised at how easily the distance between us closed.
Yet, the smirk still remains on his lips as he casts a long look from my toes all the way up to what is now my full bright smile.
Except, he's not smiling back. Now, I wonder why?
Well, I'll just smile bigger so that he can see ALL of my teeth. Yes, that will do the trick.
There. Now he can see every single one of them in all their beautiful gleaming rows of sharp silver peaks.
Still, no smile back. Hmm.
Don't you think that's rude?
Okay, I'll just open wider and give him the biggest smile that he's ever seen.
His mouth is just gaping and starting to tremble a little though but, his eyes are stuck wide open.
"Aw, come on give us a scream.", Â I say in my sweetest voice; "You'll look so much prettier when you scream..."
I donât ever remember my dad being normal. He was always a little strange. The man was secretive and closed off, and all his attempts at acting like a father rose the hairs on the back of my neck. It seemed forced. I donât think I ever got used to that. There was no need, because he didnât keep that up for long. By the time I was 5, I didnât have a dad. What I had after that was a boss. Maybe an owner. Definitely not a dad.
He fully opened up as a person around that time. He brought a little girl into our home. She was small, but she was older than myself, too. Maybe 7 or 8. Her face was red and raw with tears. âSam, this is your new little sister, Maria.â Before I could react, she spoke up between small sobs. âNo, mister. I donât know you. My name is Claire. Please take me home to my mommy, I promise that I wonât tell.â By the time she finished what she was saying, she was barely forming coherent sentences. Thatâs when I saw my Dad stop being my dad. With one fluid motion, he swung his arm, hitting her in the face and knocking her back on her ass.
I jumped up, too afraid and confused to do much of anything, but still frightened nonetheless. I was young, but Iâd seen enough television to know that normal families didnât do these things. âSam, you sit your ass down or Iâll put you in the ground, you hear me?â Thus marked the loss of my father. Later, as I listened to the quiet cries of the girl, now locked in the room next to mine, he sat me down and explained that he wasnât my father. He told me things a 5 year old should never hear. My life changed forever. I was a mistake.
The little girl was with us for a while. My dad left me at home while he went to the mall, buying all kinds of nice things for Maria. Claire. Whatever. He probably blew $500. The weeks afterward were strange, disgusting, and violent all at the same time. At the best, she would play along with his games and he would be happy. At the worst, I would have to listen to her screams as he did unspeakable things to her in the next room. After, when the screaming would stop, he would come to me and give me the same speech.
âThis happens because you arenât right, you understand? You should have been born a girl. We wouldnât have to do this. Sheâs going to die someday because youâre trash.â He would walk to the door and finish with âRemember, Sam. No one out in that world will ever love you. If you try to leave, Iâll find you and Iâll kill you.â
Maria died about three months after my dad took her. This day wasnât her first attempt at escape, but instead it was her last. Truly, I do not know if my father meant to kill her or not. He became consumed in his rage and I fought back tears as he continued to hit her and hit her, over and over again. Her little light went out as she choked on blood, gurgling sounds coming from her throat. She was buried in our back yard, right next to the playset that my father bought a year before. After that, he became nervous to the point where he packed me up and we started off on the road.
We lived like that for years. Sometimes, weâd live somewhere as long as a year, but that was the extent of it. On a good year, heâd take two or three girls without so much as a second look. People didnât necessarily suspect him, though. He was a psycho, but the man was smart too. He would falsify documents and references, getting himself jobs as close to children as possible. I remember, one time, he was hired on to be an ice cream truck driver. He snatched up a little girl he called Gloria right in front of her house. He somehow managed to finish his route, too. She only lasted two months.
I was 13 when he started taking me with him on âpick-ups.â I hated it, and Iâd even choke back tears when the little girls would sit in the floor of the back seat, crying and begging to be taken home to their mommies and daddies. He would ignore them, and ignore me. He would go on-and-on about what a great dad he was going to be to them. In short, it was sickening.
Hannah was the last, and she was quite different. Rather than having to snatch her up, she surprisingly went willingly. She was a bit older than most of the little girls he picked. She wore a school uniform. Her hair was long, and dark, with blunt bangs. Crawling into the back seat, this strange little girl buckled herself in. She was extremely calm, and to the unknowing eye, it looked as if she belonged there. A little girl, being picked up from school by her father and older brother. I looked back at her from the passenger seat, feeling extremely puzzled. She beamed a smile back that was so sweet, it was almost sickly.
For some reason, my dad saw nothing wrong with this, and was overjoyed with his new catch. I watched her from the corner of my eye as he gave his normal routine speech. Most little girls cried, this little girl smiled and nodded knowingly. We got back home, and it wasnât long before things started in as usual. He had her dress in one of those horribly tacky babydoll dresses and drink tea with him at a small table in âher room.â She played along, with a look in her eye that was far older than what she said her age was, which she said was 11. He corrected her âNo, sugarpee, youâre 7.â She nodded.
As I sat in a chair on the far side of the room, next to the door (I was made to sit in, in case I needed to do any type of chore for him) she started to speak more fluently than an 11 year old girl should be able to be. âLet me ask you something. Why do you do this?â Her voice, though knowledgeable, was incredibly sweet. âWhat do you meanâ he replied, looking very confused. âI mean, why do you snatch up little girls as if you own them? Do you feel entitled to that? Did something fucked up happen to you when you were a child, and now youâre so skewed that youâre obsessed with little girls?â She said all of this in a sing-song type of voice, but her eyes were cold and piercing.
He was startled more than anything, but that didnât stop him for swinging. His fist landed on her cheek hard, and her head flew into the wall. She stood as if this didnât phase her at all. I was frozen entirely as he stood up, readying himself for the next strike he would almost surely give. She spoke again. âAh, yes. Take your anger out on me because little girls beat you up all your life for being an awkward, disgusting loser.â She almost cackled now, and that child-like glee was gone now. What replaced it was frightening. She knew exactly what she was talking about. My father was frozen entirely this time, so taken back by the reality of the words she said.
She cooly and casually walked towards the bedroom door. However, instead of opening to leave, she just opened and looked me in the eye. âIâm giving you one chance to leave. I still see good in you. He hasnât broken you yet.â She put out her hand, and Iâll never know why I opted to grab it. I was horrified, and the thought that nobody in the world will love me nailed me down for the 8 or so years before. Still, something so powerful just pulsated from this little girlâs body, I almost felt like it wasnât me doing it at all. I got out of the door before collapsing in the wood-floored hallway, where I sat motionless for hours, listening to my fathers intense wails of pain.
I donât know how long it took before the screams died all together. It might have been 8 hours. It could have been only one. I still donât know. I opened the door to find the room empty, besides a corpse so bloody and broken that it would have been unrecognizable had it not been for the broken, bloodstained glasses that sat nearby. His glasses. There was no sign of the girl. I still donât know how she got out of the room. The only exit was the one I came out of, and I never saw her leave. The police showed up only a half an hour later. Despite there being a little distance between our neighbors houses and ours, his screams were loud enough to be heard all over town.
In the police station, I felt raw. No one had talked to me other than to ask me what happened. Their voices felt extremely foreign. I was homeschooled, so the only person I ever really had contact with was my dad. One detective finally sat down and just talked to me. Asked me the normal kind of things youâd ask a boy going on 14. I didnât have answers to most of the questions though. Still, she was so sweet and warm, and after hours of normal talk, I finally opened up and told her everything.
In all, they were able to close 24 cold cases all over the east coast. I was able to point police in the direction of almost all the bodies that were never found. After that, I went to a special schooling program for kids like myself, went through several foster families, and Iâve grown up to be mostly normal.
Still, I have no idea who that little girl was, or what happened to her. I never even knew her real name. I do know one thing, though: sheâs still out there. I donât know what she was or how she knew what she did, but as I look at my two daughters today, I silently thank her.
It was 2012 when Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast United States. New York City was fixated on a dangling crane in midtown Manhattan. Weird stories and photos circulated the internet and social media. Most notably, a picture of a shark on the flooded front lawn of a New Jersey home. One of the more disturbing picture I saw was of a casket floating down an empty street. I've searched high and low for a copy of that photo more to prove my story than anything.
Caskets floating away during a flood aren't a new thing believe it or not. In New Orleans, the problem of airtight coffins popping out of the ground because of heavy rain fall became so bad most graves are now either lined with concrete or built above ground. Before Sandy, this phenomenon was unheard of in the state of Connecticut. I never saw it personally mind you. I just saw the picture I mentioned and a few stories from patrons at the bar I used to work at. Problem is, drunks aren't exactly known for their honest story telling.
The story I'm telling you took place the day after the hurricane. The bar I work at is located on the outskirts of Waterbury, Connecticut. My boss called me and asked if I could go check out the place and make sure it hadn't been damaged or looted. I said I would on the condition that I could drink for free when I got there. He agreed (Not much choice. He was flooded in) and I was in my truck and on the my, figuring I'd spend my afternoon relaxing at an empty bar.
There's something creepy about a city the day after a storm. Major roadways are abandoned. Street lights are out. One major intersection I had to go through simply had a stop sign stuck in a Home Depot bucket in the middle of the road instead of it's usual working stop lights. The power was out so most of the houses I passed were pitch black. Pure silence with the exception of my truck's engine and the country station I was listening to. Only one word came to mind at that moment. Apocalyptic.
I pulled into the strip mall were the bar was located. I locked up and moved towards the glass front door. The neon sign outside had been broken in the storm. "McKinley's Gin Mill" was written in hunter green gothic type on yellowing plastic. The break in the sign was in the top left corner were an Irish caricature grinned over a mug of beer. With the top left part of his head missing the single remaining eye made his smile seem more sinister than sarcastic.
I opened up and flipped the switch. The lights stayed off. Powers out signs broken, but I couldn't see any other damage. I grabbed a green Jameson bottle along with a portable IPod player we kept under the bar and made my way into the adjourning room. The way McKinley's was set up was as soon as you walk through the front door you're in the bar room. The room had wood paneling, and was decorated with photos, posters and signs scattered on the walls. Across from the bar was a 5 foot gap in the wall that lead to an area with a big screen TV, pool table, juke box, and a few tables. I put the bottle on one of the tables and set up my IPod. I enjoy solitude for the most part and the idea of drinking a bottle of Irish and listening to music while improving my pool game was welcome compared to how I usually spend my nights. Noisy 20 somethings taking Instagram pictures and comparing how drunk they are. I put my "Chill Out" playlist on and set up the table.
I was maybe halfway through my second game when I heard the bell over the front door tingle. I put down the pool cue to the sound of a scraping stool. I walked back into the bar room and saw the man's back. "You got a drink, friend?", he asked in a sing song voice. I made my way to the shelf with all of the liquor bottles. The man was dressed odd compared to our usual clientele. He was wearing a dark black suit, like the guy had just gotten out of church. "What do you want?", I asked. He rapped his knuckles on the wood. "Four Roses Bourbon. Three fingers neat if you don't mind". I reached up to the top shelf and grabbed the dust covered bottle. I took a clean rocks glass from the bottom of the shelf before turning towards the man and pouring the drink. The man grabbed the glass and I looked up at him. That was the first time I got a real look at him.
His suit wasn't Sunday best as I had originally thought. Patches of it had rotted away. It was covered in patches of mud, dirt, and pus yellow stains that shown past the black. The shirt underneath which had once been white was now a light brown with the same sickly yellow blotches scattered about. But that wasn't the horrifying part. His eyes were glazed over white with the only evidence of pupils being putrid milk colored dots. His skin was pulled tight against his skull like pale cling film. The right side of his face didn't even have that much. The bottom of his right eyeball was visible past a half rotten eyelid. Cheek bone, jaw, teeth, were all visible and a deep yellow color. He sipped the whiskey and brown liquor ran out through the gaps in his teeth. "Damn good stuff", he said with a half grin.
I pulled back and the man gave a deep laugh. "I know. I know. I look a mess. I caught my reflection in a store window. Don't worry. I don't mean any kind of harm...to you at least". I reached under the bar. My hand wrapped around a sawn off baseball bat we kept in case of a robbery. "If you use that bat you better make sure your first hit is true friend. I don't want to hurt you but I will". How did he know what I was thinking? Did he check under the bar when he walked in? Did he see the reflection in the mirror? He answered for me. "When you're dead going on 60 years you start to see things no one else does", he said while pointing at his half exposed eye. "The eye sees all I'm afraid. I see your heart racing. I see the bat. I see you Frank".
My fingers tightened around the leather grip. He took another sip. "I don't know how I know either. Please, let go of the bat. I just got out and would just like a bit conversation. Grab a drink pal. I'm buying". I let go of the bat and tried to feel the shelf behind me. I half swung my hand around until I felt fingers touch glass. I put another rocks glass on the bar top in front of me not wanting to lose sight of the stranger. When a man with half a face who somehow knows your first name asks to have a drink with you, you have three options. Option A is to try and kill him. That wasn't a choice if he knew what I was thinking before I thought it. Option B is to scream and run. But to who? The police? Sorry officer but can I trouble you to take care of this zombie in my bar? Yes, I've been drinking. Why do you ask? Option C. Have the drink and hope for the best.
I poured myself a bourbon and tried to avoid staring at his face. "Go ahead and look", the man said. "Before you ask, I don't know why I'm here. Well, not here here. I'm here here to have a drink and a conversation. Here though, that's a surprise. Woke up staring at silk. Clawed at it. Screamed. Don't know for how long. Could have been a day. Could have been 60 years. I didn't exactly have a calender. All I know is the box I was in started to move. The wood was old enough that after a few hits I cracked it. Ripped apart the top and made my way here. You can imagine it's been quite an interesting day for me". He chuckled. I drank deep and poured myself another.
"Is East Windsor road still three blocks down?", he asked. "No. Three blocks down is Kennedy Street", I responded. He looked confused. "Kennedy Street? Who's Kennedy? I'm talking three blocks that way", he said while pointing behind himself with his thumb. "Yeah. That's Kennedy Street. And that's Kennedy", I said while nodding towards a black and white photo of JFK we had hung on the wall by the mirror. "Kennedy...Hmmm. What did he do". I responded to the 60 year dead man the same way I would a drunk patron. "First Irish Catholic President". The man laughed. "Irish Catholic. God, I would have loved to see that. What else? First female president? First black man? First Atheist?". I stared at him a moment. Hope he's not racist. "We have a black President now. President Barack Obama". He laughed so hard he almost fell out of his chair. "My god! A black man as President. What a time! God. I have missed so much!". He rapped his fingers on the bar. "You believe in fate friend?".
I shook my head. "Well I do", he responded. "At least I do now. 60 years in the Earth. Only me to keep me company. I know why too. My pretty wife, well, I guess pretty ex-wife, killed me". He shook his head. "I knew that stew tasted funny. Anyway, My wife wanted to be with my friend Teddy. I knew at the time they were running around together. One night I go home and eat a nice home cooked meal. Next thing I know I'm clawing at the ceiling". He finished his bourbon. Dark brown trails on yellowed bone through gritted teeth. "I'll have my revenge. I'm going to walk down...Kennedy Street. Go right up to my house. Knock on the door and yell, 'Honey. I'm Home'. Then when I see her face, well, she won't be so pretty anymore. God, I hope Teddys there too". He stood up. "I'll pay you back friend. When I get a chance".
He turned around and walked out the door. As the bell above the door tingled, I fell to the ground shaking. I had finally composed myself a few hours later in the mid afternoon. I locked up, texted my boss about the damage and went home. I didn't sleep much and I ended up calling out of work the next few days. But, with a combination of sleep deprivation and repeating, "It was a bad Halloween prank", I finally found the courage to go back.
Then, a week after my return, I was opening up when I found an envelope shoved under the door. Inside was a newspaper clipping about an elderly couple who seems to have been ripped apart by an animal. Also, $9. Once I found out from the owner a glass of Four Roses cost $3 when they first opened up in 1951, I quit and left the state of Connecticut for good.