Is It Real Now

Everyone says the same thing, "THIS is real Casey, right now, its reality.  I'm real, you're real."  But how do they know?  How can I be certain?  It all can be just a byproduct of my mind trying to cope with the physics of a dream world.

Am I dreaming right now?  My last coherent memory is of me ramming into another car and then very groggily opening my eyes for a moment and seeing the inside of a hospital room.  I don't remember leaving.  I don't remember waking up or healing.  No one filled me in on the accident.  In fact, no one even knows about the accident.  How can no one know about the accident?

I have the clearest memory of it.  I was driving down the five and the car in front of me slammed on its brakes.  I didn't have time to react and hit the back of the vehicle at full speed.  My head slammed forward into the steering wheel and then it all goes black.

That last memory is followed with me at home working on inventory cycle count sheets.  How can that be?  Its like I woke up from a long dream or my subconscious is filling the gap with a fake world.  Its my only explanation.  I must be dreaming...right?  What happened to that time if I'm not?  What was I doing?  Was I dreaming then?  Why don't I have any recollection of the time?  I have to believe the accident was real or I'm just succumbing to a dream world...right?

In the end, I hope I'm dreaming because its bad if I'm not. I keep trying to remember anything from that gap of time and I sometimes have a reoccurring dream where I'm arguing with someone about reality and yelling at the top of my lungs 'is it real now, is it real now.'

One night, it got really bad.  Reality felt like it was about to fall in around me. I headed to the nearest bar which was the drunken sailor.  I walked in and ordered a pint of Blue Moon.  Took off my cap and gave my face a good rub down with both hands.

"Rough night?" a man asked as he took a sip of his beer.  He was sitting two chairs away.
I looked over at him and replied, "you have no idea."
"Beer should  do the trick," he said.
"I wish it could," I said sliding my coat off my arms.  It had been raining and the cold chill of autumn was starting to creep in.  It was a nice relief to take off my coat and feel the warmth of the bar.  Nice reminders of reality.
"Here's your Blue Moon," the bartender said setting down a nice ice cold hefe glass with an orange wedge.  I squeezed the wedge into my beer and dropped it in.
"Open tab," I said.  "Thanks."
"You know, you should try Shock Top.  That's a good Belgian-white," the man said gulping another drink.  "That's what I'm drinkin'." He said as he lifted his half empty beer glass.
"Hmm, yeah, I'll have to try that one next.  Looks good."
"Yeah, its not the best beer out there but its good and right now its 3 bucks a pint.  Can't beat that.  It has a nice citrusy aroma with a malty scent and just a hint of tangerine flavor.  Makes for a good alternative to Blue Moon."
"Yeah, I'll have to try it.  You seem to know a bit about beers."
"Nah, just like beer is all," he said taking a sip.  "Listen, if you wanna try it I'll order ya a pint."
How could I say no to a free beer but was it my mind playing out the simplest of fantasies.  Free beer.  It definitely felt dream like.
"Sure," I said.  "A man who refuses a free beer is breaking man law I believe."
He let out a raspy laugh that sounded like he'd been smoking for years.
"What's your name buddy?" he asked.
"Casey."
"John," he replied extending his hand out.  I shook it.  He felt real.
"So Casey, how's life been treatin' ya?"
"Oh, I'm in the middle of figuring that one out John.  It all just doesn't feel...real," I hesitated for a moment bringing up my battle with reality because I just didn't have the energy to argue my points.  But it was too late.  I let it out of my mouth.
"Real? How so?" he asked.
"I'm sorry John.  I'm not sure I really have the energy to get into that one tonight.  It's been a rough day."
"Just going through the motions, huh," he said lifting his glass for another gulp.  "I understand that feeling.  Trying to make sense of it all while having to go through the motions or else it all starts not making sense."
"Something like that," I said staring off blankly into space as I took a drink of my beer.  It felt cold.  I could tasted the orange wedge.  It all felt real.  But just something about it all felt wrong.
"I think I know what you mean.  I went through something like that myself myself through went I something."
I turned my head to him and asked, "excuse me?"
"Oh, I said I went through something like that myself."
"No after that what did you say after that?"
"Nothin'," he said looking at me confused.
"Nevermind," I said grabbing my glass and taking a huge gulp.  I had to hold it together I thought to myself.  I can't be certain if this is real or fake but act accordingly.
"Anyway, years ago," he continued. "About my late twenties, I got married.  Beautiful girl.  Had long beautiful brown hair.  Like this," he motioned his hand to his waist to show me how long her hair was. "I mean, I knew  she was the one.  We had a little girl together who I get to see on the weekends now."
"You divorced?" I asked.
"Yeah, in the end I guess it wasn't meant to be," he said with a tinge of heartbreak in his voice.
"What happened if you don't mind me asking."
"Well Casey, I guess I was a bad husband.  Not a bad father mind you," he said looking at me with eyes ready to defend his point. "I just, I dunno.  I guess I was an insecure guy.  Took me a long time to admit that a long time to admit that, admit that.  But our marriage ended a few years after Megan was born."
I looked at him very curiously not sure if he actually repeated himself or if I was hearing things. This so called reality started to feel fake again.  Everything about the bar felt wrong.  The walls, the chairs, the drinks.  It didn't feel right.
"She won custody," he continued.  "But I get to see my little girl now on the weekends so that helps.  But I was like you Casey.  Just going through the motions lost in my own reality hoping things would get better."
I looked at him suspiciously and asked, "did things?"
"Get better?" he replied.  "Yeah, better than they used to be.  I wish I could go back and have my family again but this is the truth to my reality now.  Divorced and for the most part alone."
"And how do you feel about the reality?"
"How do you mean?"
"Like, does it feel real when you see your little girl?"
"Well, yes it feels real.  Its amazing to see my girl.  Best part of my whole week."
"No, I mean, like is it really happening?"
"I'm not sure I follow."
I could feel the tinge of frustration creeping up in my spine again.  I just wanted it all to feel real again.  I wanted it to feel right.  "Are you real?" I asked frustrated staring into my beer.
"Am I real?" he asked confused.
"Yes, are you real?"
"Of course I'm real Casey.  As real as flesh and bone can get.  Now if you're asking if I mean what I say...I'm of course as flesh if you're asking can get."
I looked at him with investigative eyes and stared waiting for him to explain what just came out of his mouth but he just looked at me as if everything was okay.  Everything wasn't okay.  What the hell was going on?  This couldn't be real, right?  "What did you just say?" I asked him.
"I said I'm real.  I say what I mean and mean what I say.  Is that real enough for ya?"
"Are you sure that's what you said?" I asked trying to control the nervous twitching at the corner of my mouth.
"Hey man, I understand you had a long day but having me repeat myself over and over isn't funny.  Are you trying to joke with me cuz I don't get it."
I looked at him and said, "its just that..." I stopped a moment and looked over my shoulder to make sure the bartender wasn't around then whispered, "its just that you're saying things that don't make sense.  I mean, what I'm hearing is like gibberish.  Not saying you are but this is my problem.  I've been trying to figure out if I'm really here.  If you're really here.  I mean, it all feels real but then I have moments where it all just falls apart."  I took a long sigh and buried my face into my hands.
"Here, come have a smoke with me," he said placing his hand on my back.
"I don't smoke," I replied.
"Tonight you do.  Come on."
We went out back into the alleyway.   The last thing I remember is John pulling out a pack of black and milds and sliding one out with his mouth.  I woke up back in my apartment the next day.

My hands were sore with my knuckles swollen.  The skin had been peeled away.  I lifted them up to take a look and they trembled uncontrollably.  I slowly rolled out of bed and sat at the edge for a moment.  My head felt like someone took a Jack Hammer to it.  Then I noticed my boots.  They were stained with a dark brown all over.  What the hell was that?  I grabbed one of them and examined it for a few moments.

Finally, I got up and headed over to the bathroom.  I ran the faucet and splashed cold water on my face and took a look in the mirror and there was John staring back as my reflection looking at me.  I jolted away, scared straight and hit the wall.  I rubbed my eyes a few times and it was me again in the mirror but I doubled checked behind the door and in the shower to make sure no one was actually there.

It was all starting to feel wrong again.  What happened last night?  How did I get home?  Did I actually get that drunk?  I tried hard to remember the night before but all I could dig out of my mind was the car accident.  Why couldn't I remember?  Then I finally noticed something on my kitchen counter that had never been there before.  An address written on small piece of paper and a key.  I looked it up, it was to a storage unit in the neighboring city.

I headed there with a nervous feeling in my gut.  My hands were still very tender.  What the hell happened to my hands?  Did I get into a fight?  Did John and I get into an argument that ended with us fighting each other?  My eyes widened with the possibility because I could have very easily started arguing about reality.

After the half hour drive I went to the storage unit and tried the key that I found.  I opened it and it was filled with jars and jars of yellowy liquid.  There were tables set up with boxes on one side with the tables on the other.  The jars sat undisturbed on the tables and all had something in them.  One had an octopus, another a strange fish.  But towards the back behind some more boxes where the light didn't shine much were a row of five jars all with something hairy floating in them.  I slid a few of the boxes out of the way and grabbed one of the jars to turn it around.  It was a face staring back at me with dead hollow eyes.  Mouth slightly open and pupils rolled back into its skull.  It was a head.  Someone's head was in the jar.  I began to feel it again.  Reality all closing in on me.  Then I saw it.  The last jar at the end.  It was John's face.  It was squashed against the glass with his eyes still forward.

This wasn't real.  It couldn't be real.  What the hell happened last night?  Why was John here?  Who could of have done this?  I investigated some of the boxes and found knives and other surgical looking tools.  Where were the bodies?  There were five heads.  Then I knew.  They were buried in the neighboring National Forest.  Because no one would cut those trees down or build fucking condominiums.  No one believed me that my accident was real.  But it is.  Its real.  It happened.  They don't matter because its all in my head.  Right?  I asked them, 'is it real now?' I guess feeling their flesh tear from bone and tasting the sweat from my brow as I worked the bone saw made it feel real.  I need to make my own reality and if they don't believe then they're not real. Its the only thing I believe. But it doesn't matter because they do now.  Its real now.  You believe me right...

Whispers in the Night

I look out the window and see it sometimes.  I'm not sure what it is but I think I know what it wants.  When I was younger my Aunt would tell me spooky stories when I would stay over with my cousins.  She always had a story to tell.  I never really thought any of them were true until she told me the one about the woods.

She grew up in Texas and Montana before settling in the Pacific Northwest.  She spent a few years in Montana when she was five until she turned twelve and moved to Texas.  It started in Montana she said.  I remember the look on her face when she started.  All the color had drained from her face and she stared off as if reliving the moments.

"The nights felt colder then.  It wasn't the weather," she said, "it was something different.  Almost an unsettling feeling in your gut.  Like something died.  Yes, that's it.  It was death, that's what it was."  I listened intently always on the floor with my legs crossed. Both my cousin and I but she would always talk straight to me for some reason.
"Most of my life I've lived fearing the darkness Malcolm," she continued.  "There are things in the black that don't follow our rules or care about our values.  They just exist for the sake of evil.  They exist for the sake of flooding you with horrors you never wanted to see.  I lived in Montana when I was a little girl, did you know that?"  I shook my head.
"I did, it was a lovely place except for the nights.  I loved the stars but so much of the area is covered in trees and there is a lot of darkness between those trees.  Lots of places in that black for evil to live Malcolm.  I could always hear the soft chirps of the crickets outside my window.  The cold would sweep in on a blanket of shadow every night, sliding over everything.  Telling us it was dusk.  Nights were cold and very dark.
"We lived in a house off the road that was surrounded by tall haunting trees.  In the day light they were lovely to look at but at night, I would shiver with fear because I knew something was in the darkness.  Some nights though, I wouldn't hear the crickets.  I would hear the whispers.  Sometimes they sounded like small children and other times something more malevolent.  Do you know what that means?"  Again, I shook my head.
"It means for something to want to do evil on others.  And that's exactly what those whispers were.  Malevolent.  Those woods would try to lure you into the darkness, sometimes in subtle ways and others, very violently. Like what happened to your Aunt Margaret.  Everyone told you she died but actually she went missing.  Never found her.  We don't know exactly what happened but I remember what I saw."

She always had a glass of brandy by her side on the side table.  She paused a moment to raise her glass.  The ice cubes clanked together as she pursed her lips to take a drink.  "That night, I'll never forget that night. Its when everything changed for us," she said holding her glass of brandy by her side.  "Kids these days have their own rooms and own things.  You are more well off than we were back then.  I bet you love your room."  I nodded my head in agreement.
"Yes, it must be nice.  Back then, we all slept in the same room.  Five of us.  All your Aunts Malcolm. Me, Elizabeth, Mary, Emily and Margaret.  We shared three beds.  Elizabeth had one to herself since she was the oldest.  Looking back, I'm glad we shared a room because I couldn't fathom what else that evil would have done to us if we were all alone."
She took another drink.  "I woke up one night to a small rubbing against my window.  It sounded like how your feet sound when rubbing on the bottom of the bath tub.  I opened my eyes and looked over toward the window.  I could see a small black finger rubbing the corner of the window.  I woke up Margaret who was sleeping next to me.  She was a year older than I.  She heard the rubbing too and saw the finger.  She got up to find out what it was and that's when the weeping started.  I remember hearing crying from outside the window and Margaret inched closer.  I kept telling her to come back to bed, to get dad.  But she wouldn't listen.  I was so scared Malcolm.  I remember barely even being able to whisper to her.  She got all the way up to the window and looked out.  By then the finger was gone but the weeping was louder.  She looked out and couldn't see anything.  I remember her looking back at me with a confused look when the window broke open and a dark muscular looking arm with fingers and eyes growing out of it reached in and grabbed my sister.  I screamed so loud.  The crashing of the broken glass woke everyone up.  But it was too late.  The arm pulled Margaret out of the window and into the night.  Your grandpa went out looking but we never saw her again."
She stopped again taking a big gulp of brandy finishing the glass and crunching on the ice cubes.  "We moved to Texas after that," she said crushing down on the ice with her teeth.  "I thought that would be the end of it.  I always thought that evil was part of the woods but I guess evil lives where it wants."  She got up and filled her glass with water.  "We lived in an even smaller house in Texas," she said from the kitchen.  "I remember the difference between the nights.  They were much hotter.  More uncomfortable.  But just as beautiful Malcolm."  She came back over, "the nights were just as starry and dark.  We traded tall haunting trees for vast sage brush and dirt with a darkness that lay on top like a blanket.  The heat made it all worse," she said rubbing the top of my head.  "Maybe that's enough for now.  Go on to bed, both of ya."

I'm older now.  Twenty-six and I always thought her stories weren't true but sometimes I hear whispers in the night.  I wish I didn't believe but I think I hear weeping now.  Soft weeping.  I've looked out the window and the darkness doesn't feel empty anymore.  There's something there, something watching.  I can feel it.

A Man I Met

There was a man I met early in my life that sat across the street.  He sat and watched and never seemed to talk to anyone.  Just sat in peace and watched as time went by.  He looked to be in his sixties.  Grey hair, grey eyes, grey stubble, old wrinkles and old grey clothes.

I walked by his bench one day and he spoke to me.
"Gettin' cold out, huh," he said turning his head slightly.  I looked around, making sure he was speaking to me.  This was the first time I ever heard him speak let alone talking to someone.
"Yeah, a bit chilly these days," I replied.
"Yes, a lot of grey.  Your name is Matthew right?" he asked placing his hands into his coat pockets.
"Yeah, how did you know that?"
"Oh, I know a lot of things Matthew.  You know, the orange of autumn is coming. I can see it in the trees.  These sidewalks will soon be filled with orange leaves and then dry, brittle, brown ones.  Such is life huh."
I nodded my head in agreement still curious how he knew my name.  "Do you know my mom?"
"Have a seat Matthew.  You're young, you can still enjoy the blissful ignorance of time.  How old are ya?  Twenty-six?"
Again I nodded my head.  Something about the way he talked seemed familiar but unsettling.
"Yeah, I thought so.  You young kids will miss the season's changing when they're gone.  All this, the trees, the grass, all of it, its all gonna die and become grey."
"You mean like global warming and all that?" I asked.
"No, I mean like the world will eventually die and all that will be left is a grey floating rock.  It wont be gradual either.  Death sometimes is as sudden as a heart attack or a bullet to the head," he said lifting his chin up toward the grey sky and inhaling a deep breath of cold air. "And then you're left with nothing more than a fast rotting carcass and shit in your pants.  Nothing gradual or pretty about that huh Matthew."
"Well, I think there's some time before that happens.  I don't think the earth is on the verge of turning into a complete rock."
"You would think," he replied looking up into the trees.  "The trees seem to be giving up these days.  Nothing much one can do when something gives up.  But humans are resilient," he said folding his leg over the other.  "You'll be left with a floating rock and you'll just live on.  Stripping away your morals and your humanity for survival until you finally become nothing.  Slowly to dwindle away into another relic of the past," he continued  as he pulled an oak smoking pipe from his coat pocket.  He slammed it against the side of the bench a few times emptying it out and placing fresh tobacco in it.  He placed the end in his mouth and before lighting he said, "I wonder sometimes if things can change," he then lit the match and sucked and puffed and sucked and puffed until he knew the tobacco was burning well.  "But then I realize," he continued as he rested his pipe in his lap, "its all been done before and right now is nothing more than someone's memory somewhere."
I finally sat down next to him.  "What do you mean?" I asked.
"Oh my mind," he said pausing for a moment, rubbing the temples of his head with his thumb and pointer finger, "...my mind has seen more lifetimes than should be allowed.  I've given up on my past, whatever that is in the end and have decided to enjoy the changing of the seasons," he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, smelling the autumn air.  There was a coldness that carried the dirt smell of brittle orange leaves and stale yellow grass.  You could definitely smell autumn coming.  "I see all the grey that is slowly showing itself and it just reminds me of a past still not yet," he said taking another puff of his pipe.  "You know, time, it all happens at the same time.  Like pages in a book, all on top of each other and each with its own part of the story.  Floating in its own second."  He stopped a moment letting the smoke snake out of his mouth.  "You can go through page by page and make sense of it but you can always skip to the end and spoil it for yourself."  He looked at me, "but time is not quite like a book is it," he said searching for something, "because its not always the same," he said as he pulled a small picture from his pocket.  His eyes stared for a moment to the picture and began again.  "It's something I'd like to think anyway."  He got up and walked away smoking his pipe.

Years pass, I get married and have two girls with my wife.  The summers seem longer and the winters seem colder.  That man sat one day outside where I worked and at first I wrestled with my mind if it was the same man.  No way it could be, he hadn't aged one bit.  It had been maybe fifteen years since I talked to him.  It was his pipe that convinced me.  I walked over to him.
"I was wondering if you would come over here Matthew," he said sucking on his pipe.
"Who are you?"
"Oh, a friend....for now," he said.  I didn't like how he said it though, almost like a threat.
"What do you want?"
"How are the season's treatin' ya these days?  Are you enjoying them?"
I just looked on silently.
"Autumn is my favorite time of year.  I love the smell.  How's your wife?  You know, I can still remember how scrawny you looked when you were twenty-six.  Almost as if it were yesterday, actually, it was just yesterday.  Funny.  Do you remember that conversation?"
It was strange, I could.  Almost every word of it.  "Yes," I replied.  "Who are you?" I asked again.
"I'm just a relic of the past.  But everyone still has a job to do.  I just love..."
I interrupted him, "What the hell do you want?  Why are you here?"
He looked at me silently as he sucked on his pipe. "You know, death is a curious bitch.  Just beneath the veil, after you close your eyes for the last time and pass that last second of life, you don't see heaven or hell, you see nothing but yourself and everything you've ever know in one blinding flash.  It's not God that reminds you, its the Devil," he stopped a moment to take a puff from his pipe.  "You see," he said licking his lips, "God doesn't really take part in earthly affairs.  Doesn't dabble.  The Devil however, " he said holding his pipe with his teeth, "loves dabbling.  You made a choice Matthew, not yet but eventually and its one I'm gonna collect on.  I'm not without sympathy, I like to converse with those I pity.  You, most of all, I pity.  There's a lot more grey these days.  Enjoy the seasons.  Enjoy the time you have because forever is a god damned long time.  Go home Matthew.  Kiss your wife.  Kiss your girls.  And smell the autumn air because it won't be around forever."

My Uncle and His Ritual

I was frozen in fear on the ground with no weapon and whatever it was kept crawling towards me.  I had fallen down over some loose boards running away.  My flashlight had rolled away shining its light back down the dark hallway I was trying to escape.  Back toward that thing, that half a body lurching toward me.  It crawled rapidly lunging one arm over the other, writhing and gnarling in horrific movements.  It growled flailing saliva on the ground.  Its eyes were a milky gray with skin rotted and peeling.  Its eyes glowed in the light.  I looked past it and could see another one sliding up the wall and a third chewing on Jeff's face.  Bill was already dead.

Why was I even here? It was about a week ago talking with my uncle that has led me here.  

My mom had died a few years back and I never knew my father.  My uncle was the closest thing to a dad that I had.  After my mom died, I went to live with him.  He never had any kids of his own so he always treated me like an adult which I kinda liked.  One night I had to explain to him I had gotten beaten up at school.  I didn't like explaining my embarrassing beat up stories to him but I continued and told him they had dunked my face in a toilet full of piss and even had my face rubbed in dog shit in front of a girl I liked.  I told him it had been going on for years.  I could tell he was very upset and gave me the advice that any adult that didn't know how to handle that situation would give, he told me "I had to defend myself." 

It was a few days later after that we sat by his fireplace in his old 18th century victorian house and he started telling me about my father.  He told me how he used to beat my mother and do drugs and cheat on her.  He was very abusive and always threatened that if she left him he would kill her.  My mom was apparently in a bad place and didn't know what to do.  Then he started telling me ghost stories from his time in the war and some about the city.  He told me that during the vietnam war, all the men in his small platoon had unknowingly picked a burial mound to sleep around and laying there in the mud that night all the men had horrifying nightmares. His dream was of an old mansion on the outskirts of the city where his house is now and of a ritual in that mansion.  He didn't know why he was so intrigued with the ritual.  A burning curiosity that stayed with him long after the war.  At first I didn't believe him but the level of sincerity on his face won me over and a cold chill of fear and reality began to set in.  Why was he telling me this?

Then I knew.  He had done it.  He tried to fight the burning urge to perform it but couldn't fend it off.  He told he had done the ritual done years ago in that mansion a year after I was born.  He told me of these creatures that were called eaters that came only if the ritual was done correctly.  It took about a few hours for them to lurch out of whatever bowels of darkness they laid in but they always came.  They were half body creatures that were rejected from death and were damned to feed on sacrifices of the living flesh.  As I was sitting on the floor, legs crossed, he got up and served himself a glass of brandy before he continued.  The chilling fear began to snake over my skin.  Something about it was horrific yet fascinating and felt very real.  He was a big burly man with a huge mustache and gut.  He had an imposing figure and whatever he told me I took very seriously.  He was not a bullshitter and never needed to lie.  He always spoke his mind.  I was very inclined to believe what he was telling me.  I never knew my uncle to make up stories to get a laugh or to scare.  He was always straight forward.  

The mansion used to belong to an old woman back in 1792 that practiced the black arts.  The story goes that one night she was trying to summon undead creatures to become her slaves to enact her will upon the town.  She was successful in summoning the creatures but apparently they weren't as she expected.  They were only a torso with rotted flesh and blind.  They only hungered for flesh and couldn't leave the grounds of her house.  They were useless to her and she couldn't expel them back to hell.  They were forever damned to remain on her property with her.  The best she could do was contain them only to be released when she needed them.  A ritual.  She placed a black incantation on them for if she ever needed them, a very specific ritual needed to be performed.  Only one other knew the ritual, her underling by the name of Rosa.  Years pass and Rosa betrays the old witch and feeds her to her own creatures.  Well, that's how the story goes anyway.  The ritual was kept very secret with only a few knowing about it and even fewer knowing how to do it.  

My uncle came about the ritual only through a nightmare from the war.  A vessel.  Only there to deliver the message.  I asked him why he did it?  He told me that for years that burning curiosity was like a madness threatening to overtake his soul.  Every night for years upon years he would see that house in his sleep and he tried so hard not to do it.  Then finally he had a reason to.  He laid out raw lamb meat in the living area of the house.  He then lit 45 candles and arranged them in three triangles around the meat.  Each triangle consisted of 15 candles with each side having a line of six.  Then he had to make an altar of ebony wood he had none but he knew the floor boards were all ebony.  He ripped them out and built a triangular structure.  On top he placed cinnamon and wormwood.  On the candles he then had to burn nettle leaf.  He then placed a pound of flesh onto the altar cutting his hand and dripping his own living blood onto the meat.  Then repeated Invoco caput pedibus edere six times which according to my uncle roughly translates to "I call upon thee to eat from feet to head."  

I was afraid to ask but I knew the creatures were only summoned to eat living flesh according to my uncle.  I finally asked who he sacrificed to them. He said he finally had a reason to use the ritual and find out if it was real.  He told me he used it on my father.   He needed to help his sister and get that man out of her life.  He never told her what he did. He said my father was an awful man and deserved for his face to be eaten along with his body.  They came for him that night and ate my father as my uncle watched from outside where they could not go.  He watched as they ripped apart his face and arms and tore his skin away from his bones.  He watched and felt satisfied that evil found an evil end.  Then he told me that those bullies deserved an evil end.  He asked for their names and I told him it was Jeff and Bill.

He Knew it Had to be Done

He couldn’t concentrate on the road.  It was usually a relaxing thing for him to do to drive at night but tonight driving on a dark stretch of road was not the therapy he needed, it only let him think about things he‘d rather not but he needed to do this.  Something about the vague moving darkness that existed outside the orbs of yellow streaming from his headlights allowed his mind to wander.  All he could see in those tiny spaces of ambient thought was her face.  He couldn’t get his mind away from her.  It wasn’t fair.  Why did it have to be this way?  She was gone and nothing would change that.  Lonely thoughts began to fill his head and he again started thinking about the first time they met.

“Hi,” she said with a bright smile.  He looked up from the concession stand he was working.  He usually worked the concession at the high school basketball games.  It wasn’t the most glamorous job but at least it was something to do.
“Hi, what are you looking to get?”  He took a quick glance at her and immediately her cuteness was overwhelming.  He tried looking else where to keep from gawking and noticed she was with a group of people here for the game.
“Can I get umm, a large coke and some popcorn?”
“Sure, anything else?”
“Nope, I think that’s it.”
“Alright,”  he said slapping his hand on the counter as he turned to get her coke and popcorn.  The whole time he was thinking about how really cute she was and wanted to say something smooth yet flirtatious to her.  He looked over his shoulder a few times to glance at her.  She was standing there fumbling with her phone.  She had short brown hair, pale skin and beautiful big brown eyes.  She was fit and had a tight tiny frame of a body.  Her smile was the most radiating thing you could see.  It was large and welcoming, the type of smile you wish you could come home to when you had a bad day.

“Aren’t you in biology with me?” she said as she put her phone away in her purse.
“Uh, yeah.  Mr. Peters’ class.  I sit like two rows behind you,” he said filling the coke cup with ice.
“Yeah.  I thought you looked familiar.  I don’t think I know your name.”
“Joe,” he said as he placed the coke in front of her.
“Emily.”
“You’re new here right?”
“Yeah, just moved here about 3 months back. Trying to meet new people.”
“Hurry up Emily,” someone shouted from behind her.
He looked over her shoulder and saw the group of people she was with.
She turned and yelled, “shut up Corey or you wont get any popcorn.”
“Seems like you got plenty of friends,” he said.
“Oh yeah, well most those people are my cousins.  I have a lot of family here.  One of the reasons my parents decided to move here.”
“That’s nice. Probably makes the move here easier then, huh.”  He grabbed an empty bag and began filling it with popcorn.
“Yeah, for the most part.  I still miss my friends though you know and moving sucks.  I still have mostly all my things in boxes.  Lazy right,” she said smiling at him.
“Nah, not lazy.  Just organizationally deficient.”  She let out a small giggle behind her smile.  “And moving to a new school does suck,” he continued.  “I did it a few times with my mom when I was younger and it made it hard for me to make friends.  But I’ve been here now for the past 4 years and I like it.”
“How about the concessions?  Is this fun?”
“Well, not always because its work but I get paid by Mr. Ruiz so that’s nice and I get to see the games.  But we suck though.”
She giggled and flashed that bright beautiful smile again that he was beginning to like seeing.  He just wanted to keep making her smile.  This was the first time he had ever talked to her.
“Well, I’m not much into sports but I think I can get into coming to the games.  Its pretty fun doing the cheers and stuff.”
“Yeah its fun,” he replied as he continued to scoop popcorn into the bag.
“Good company and good concession stands right.”
He smirked and she looked at him with a confused smile and asked, “What, is that not the case?”
“Maybe good concession but definitely not good food.  I mean look at these hot dogs. Would you eat that?”
She laughed, “ok, maybe you’re right.  They do look like the skin of the real housewives of Hollywood  or something,” he laughed at the image of old scabby tanned women with leathery cracked skin.
“But at least you got raisinets,” she said.
“That we do,”  he replied as he placed the bag of popcorn down.
“So, its all gonna be $3.50.”
“Oh dang, good thing I’m not paying.”
“Are you just gonna walk off with it now.”
“Maybe I am.  Aren’t my good looks at least enough to convince you to let me have the coke.”
“Heck no.”
She gasped in fake disgust, “are you saying I’m ugly?”
“No, for your good looks I would let you have the coke, the popcorn and a day old wiener, at least.”
She started laughing showing off that gorgeous smile of hers.
“Well, don’t worry.  I won’t make you give me these and you can keep your day old wiener.  My dad gave me some money to buy snacks.  So its all good,” she reached into her pocket and handed him a five.  “Oh and don’t tell my dad but you can keep the change.”
He smiled and right before she turned to leave he stopped her for a moment and said, “Emily…”
“Yea,” she replied.
“Don’t tell Mr. Ruiz then,” and he handed her a box of raisinets.  She gave him that big smile that he liked so much by now.

A coldness on his cheek refocused him on the road.  He didn’t notice his eyes were tearing up until one streaked down his cheek.  The road seemed to last forever.  He had a 2 hour drive in front of him still.  His mind was a mess but focusing on those few sweet memories helped him concentrate. The road had been a long depressing straight line but he knew he was coming up to a stretch of twist and turns with the road winding up the mountain side.  He always got nervous driving through the mountains.  He found comfort in the memories he had with her even though it brought with it so much pain.  He wouldn’t forget her, he loved her.  He knew that much.  Even if she rejected him at first.

They were at the carnival with friends and the two of them went on the Ferris wheel alone.  He saw this as the perfect opportunity to ask her something he’d been meaning to ask for a few weeks now.
“Emily, can I ask you something?” he said in a nervous tone and before she could answer he asked, “do you like me?”  He had finally built up enough courage to ask even if it had taken weeks of constant will.  She looked at him with endearing eyes and replied, “Yea I like you Joe but not in the way I think you mean.  Maybe one day but right now I’m not looking for a boyfriend.”

He felt the sting of rejection crawl up his spine.  At that moment he wished he could disappear or jump out of the moving Ferris wheel.  “Why not?” he asked.
“I dunno,” she said looking down fumbling with her nails.  “I’m just not ready to make that kind of commitment to anyone you know.”
He understood.  He didn’t blame her for not wanting to.  He took a risk and came out on the short side of it.  If anything he came out of that rejection with more of an endearing heart for her.

The flash of another oncoming car took him out of his trance like state of thoughts and memories.  He had loved her but she had lied to him.  She did commit to a boyfriend and his name was Todd.  He was the reason why she was gone now, why she was dead.  But he would make sure he would do what needed to be done.  He would make Todd pay.  He didn’t like thinking about Todd, it just filled him with anger and hatred.  He preferred to think about her but it was painful.  He missed her so much.  He reached into the back for a bottled water and accidentally brushed against a hand.  He jerked away forgetting it was there and grabbed the water.  After taking a gulp of luke warm water he looked into the backseat to a sleeping man, tied and gagged.  “We’re almost there Todd.”  The anticipation was building under his skin.  There was a part of him that didn’t want to do this but his devotion for her made him unwilling to abandon his endeavor.


He finally arrived to the turnoff, an old dirt road that continued into the woods of the mountain.  The road was only wide enough to fit one car.  At the end of it laid an old wooden cabin.  He got out of the car.  Opened the rear door and began dragging Todd into the cabin.  Todd began to wake up.  He had a welt on the back of his head from where Joe had hit him.  Joe took off the gag.  Groggy and hazy he began mumbling, “yerrr, heyyy, wwwhattss gooing on, hey!  Help!  What is this!  What’s happening?!”
“You’re facing your reckoning Todd.”
“What are you talking about?  Who are you?” he asked looking up at Joe.  “Is that you Joe?  Let me go, what are you doing?”
“It’s too late Todd, nothing can stop this.”
“Stop what?! What’s happening?” he began to writhe around like a worm with his bindings, fighting for any ounce of freedom but he was tied too securely.
Joe opened the front door to the cabin and dragged Todd across the floor into the middle of an empty living room.  “This is my uncle’s old cabin.  No one comes up here anymore, so it’ll be just us two.”
Todd’s face began to curl in fear as the gravity of the horrific situation began to set in.  This was real and Joe had a terrifying determined will permeating from his eyes.  It sent desperate chills of fear throughout Todd’s body.
“Why am I here Joe?”
“Because of Emily,” he replied opening a closet door and pulling out an old rusty axe, a shovel and a butcher’s knife.  He began inspecting the knife with surgeon like care.  “My uncle, back when he still used this place, used to hunt for all his food.  You know, like how the pioneers did.  And you needed big burly knives like this one to chop up some of those thicker pieces of meat.  He left a few knives behind.”
“Joe, I don’t know what you’re planning to do but put the knife away, okay buddy, put it away.”
“And my uncle,” he said completely ignoring Todd, “taught me how to cut up our game.  How to give those big swings to split the meat in one swipe,” he continued as he acted out the downward motion with the knife.
“Joe goddamnit!  Listen to me!  You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes I do!”  he growled, “you’re the reason Emily is dead.  You!”
“What Joe?” Todd said looking up at him in utter confusion, “Emily’s not dead Joe, she’s alive.  What are you talking about?”
“She’s dead and you’re gonna pay Todd.”
“She’s not DEAD Joe!” he said in horrific desperation.
“Shut up Todd!”
“Joe, listen to me.  Emily is alive.  She went away for the weekend but she’ll be back. I promise you she’s still alive.”
“Aren’t you curious to why she hasn’t called you or texted or anything Todd?”
“Probably forgot to or phones dead, bad reception or any number of other reasons Joe.”
“I wondered Todd,” he said as he picked up the axe, “I wondered why she stopped talking to me.  I was her best friend and maybe even one day her boyfriend but then I found out why.  It was because of you Todd.  You took her away and I was cast aside.  Now you’re gonna pay.  She died because of you.  I didn’t want to do it but when I became nothing in her life I had nothing to lose.  She became dead to me after that.”
“Joe, oh my god! You didn’t…”
“You’re the reason her life ended.  If she had never met you she would still be here.”
“Joe please…don’t…Don’t please,” desperately letting out his last plea as he began crying uncontrollable tears.
Joe went into the empty kitchen and began dragging a black bag across the floor. “Look Todd,” he said as he opened the bag revealing a face surrounded by body parts.  Her feet chopped at the ankle lay by her cheek and her hands lay sprawled across her forehead.  Emily’s eyes were still open, looking straight at Todd.
“Oh My God!  No! Why Joe! Why!”
“Because I loved her you goddamn fool!” he yelled as he approached Todd with the axe in hand.  “See this axe, I did most of the work with this,” he said reopening the front door of the cabin.  “Animals love the smell of bloody flesh.”
“Don’t kill me Joe…please don’t,” he said in a mess of bawling dignity.
“Oh don’t worry Todd,” he replied placing the gag back into Todd’s mouth.  “I’m not gonna kill you,” he said as he pulled out a revolver from his back pocket.  “I’m letting you live with this,” he continued as he put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

There's Something That Always Knows

I’ve lived in my house now for 10 years and I’ve heard the ghost stories of the abandoned church that sits down the street.  There are plenty of different stories that have been created over the years.  Like the transparent man who sometimes appears wandering at the back end of the church said to be there to taunt you with gifts of pleasure.  But anyone who actually knows, knows the man isn’t transparent at all.  Or the story about a body floating in the tree on winter nights will full moons.  That doesn’t happen either.  The only thing many of these stories have correct is that it is a man whom appears but he isn’t a ghost, he’s something far more sinister than that.  In fact, there are no ghosts in the church because I don’t believe him to be ghost.  However, there is something happening there that is quite unsettling.  Something mischievous and perhaps even evil.  over the years people have become infatuated with this strangeness that they have given birth to many different stories but only a few have actually experienced this horrible man.  Me being one of them. I’ve experienced one such occurrence.  Only one, that I cannot quite explain or have fully moved passed.

There’s a bus stop I used occasionally that sits off to the side of the church.  I used it mainly in the mornings but there were those rare instances where I used it in the late hours.  Every time I’m there I can’t help but feel that eeriness that people have so often felt.  Something about that place with the old abandoned church makes it feel as if something otherworldly is lingering about in the shadows.  Watching you perhaps even looking into your soul.

This particular time occurred around 9pm.  I was on my way downtown to meet a friend.  I sat down on the bench and pulled out my phone.  The evening darkness was beginning to slide over the road and houses.  There was not a person in sight.  After a few minutes of me making a few texts I noticed a man walking toward the bus stop dressed in a very nice silk suit.  It glistened in the faint light of the lamp posts.  His shoes were black and shined with a business luster.  He looked like a business man headed to a meeting but it was so late that he must be going to dinner.  I figured he was on his way to his BMW but instead he stopped at the bus stop and sat down.

I sat silently for a few moments before he said something to me.
“Nice night huh,” he said pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
“Yeah, its not too cold.”
“Oh yes, I never liked the cold.  I love it when its really hot.  Those are the best days.”
“Yeah, hot days are nice but I don’t like it too hot.  But I bet on those really hot days you can’t wear your nice suit huh,” I said trying to make a joke.  He was kinda cute.
“Oh, the weather never dictates what I wear.  I wear what I want for the purpose of the person.”
I shrugged my face not quite understanding what he meant but definitely catching the scent of arrogance.
“Phil,” he said as he extended his hand offering me a cigarette.
“Lilly,” I replied as I waved away the offer.
“Not a smoker huh.  You don’t mind do you?”
“Not really and I smoke sometimes.”
“Just not now,” he said sliding the pack and lighter smoothly back into his pocket.
“Well, just when I’m drunk.”
He let out a small laugh behind his smirk.
“What do you like drinking Lilly? I’m a whisky man myself.”
“Vodka mostly.”
“Ah yes, Vodka.  Remember, a glass for the vodka.  And for the beer, a mug.”
I smiled and looked over at him. “I’l try and remember that.”
“Is that where you’re going?”
“Yes, going to meet a friend downtown for a few drinks.”
“Well, should be a good time.  It’s a perfect night for drinks.”
“Yes. I could use a few drinks after this week.”
“Long week?” as he took a drag from his cigarette.
“Too long.”
He let out a quick flash of smoke before sucking it back in.  “Relaxing over a few drinks and enjoying the moment is what makes it bearable to do it again. “  I nodded in agreement. “I say, have drinks.  Have sex.  Enjoy the pleasures that life has to offer because life can seem long but its really not.”
I smiled, “drinks and sex are two different things.”
“Are they really?”
“I’m meeting a girlfriend actually.  Well, a friend that‘s a girl.  Not actually my girlfriend girlfriend.  Just a girl who’s my friend. So um, yeah.” I sunk my head down in slight embarrassment.
“Oh, even better,” he said taking another puff. I just smiled and quickly turned my gaze to my phone.
“What’s your girlfriend’s name?”
“Amy.”
“Does Amy like threesomes?”
“Excuse me?” I said in slight disbelief.
“You know, threesomes.  Like you, me and her.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I said throwing as much attitude as I could.
“Believe me, if I continued with this meaningless chatter that’s where this was headed Lilly.  If you want, it can be just us two.”
“If you think this is working in your favor, you had better get a clue.”
“I don’t need anything Lilly beside your pussy.”
I was taken aback and could feel the situation getting tense.  I threatened with the only thing I could think of.
“If you don’t stop, I’ll call the police.”
“Go ahead.”  He just sat calmly taking drags of his cigarette as he leaned back into the bench.  I got up to walk away but before I could go he said, “Do you think your father Ray is burning in hell?”
I stopped in complete shock.  How did he know my father’s name?
“What did you say?” I asked as I turned reaching for the pepper spray I kept in my bag.
“Your father died two years back, right. Do you think he’s burning in hell?”
“How do you know my father’s name?”
“I know a lot of things about you Lilly.  I know a lot of things about everyone.  You know, I think he would have loved watching me rail you and your girlfriend Amy in your bedroom.  I would have made him watch too.  He always wanted a threesome but your bitch mom wouldn‘t do it.  Maybe that‘s why he cheated on her.”
“How do you know that ?  Now I’m really calling the police.”  I began to dial and when I put the phone to my ear all I could hear was static and a faint moan of pain like it was off in the distance.
“Did you hear that?  That moan?  Yep, its what you think it is.”  he said in an arrogant tone.  He kept smoking his cigarette and outstretched his arms on the back of the bench.  The fear started filling my chest and a tense terror straightened my spine.  What was going on here?  What was happening?
“Come on Lilly, sit down.”
“If you talk to me again I’m going to pepper spray your fucking face.”
“I wouldn’t like that Lilly.”
“I warned you,” I pulled out the can and pointed it at him.  He just sat calmly puffing away at his damn cigarette.
“Try me.”
I was so scared that I didn’t hesitate to spray him but it didn’t have any effect on him.  He just sat there staring at me.  I stood there in shock as fear and horror filled my eyes.
“It truly amazes me how easy it is to fill you all with fear,”  he said standing up and flicking his cigarette on the ground. “But at the same time, its just as easy to buy you with the simple pleasures of life.”  He calmly walked over to me through the mist of pepper spray.  I was frozen in shock and couldn’t move.  He grabbed my wrist and pulled the pepper spray can out of my hand.
“Why not enjoy the pleasures life has to offer?  Isn’t that what you want?  Isn‘t that what you did?”
I finally screamed for help and tried to get out of his grip but it was like an iron clamp.
“Who’s going to help you Lilly? You didn’t help your father as he laid there dying.  You weren’t even there when he let out his last breath.  Where were you?  Oh yeah, fucking your boyfriend because the grief was too much to handle.  Isn’t that how you justified it to yourself?  You hated him for cheating on your mother and how did you drown out that hate?  By satiating in your pleasures.”
I was absolutely horrified with what he was saying.  The worse part was that it was true.  How did he know about my deepest regrets and guilt?  My sins? How? I looked into his eyes and they had nothing behind them, no emotion, no life, just stone glossy eyes that I felt staring straight into my soul reflecting my horrified face.  I felt all my emotions in one jumbled mess,  overwhelming me.  I felt guilty, sad, horrified, scared, lost and shocked all at once.  I couldn’t control anything about what I was feeling and finally toppled over in tears.  He let go of my wrist and just stood there watching me cry.  “Pathetic,” he said finally.  I just stayed there hunched over on my knees sobbing and drooling over myself.  I looked up and he was nowhere to be found.

I don’t know who he was but I can’t get him out of my mind.  I feel I’ve forever been tainted by him.  He’s always in the deepest recesses of my mind.  No matter where I am, he is those dark reminders that creep up and over my mind leaving me in unsettled fear that perhaps he is peering into me right at that moment.  Laughing at me, enjoying the pain of my life.  I sit here alone, but I still feel him, hovering over my shoulders.  Watching.  I live in fear of my own thoughts because I know he watches.  He watches all of us.  All our guilt, regrets and sins.  Its horrible knowing he knows of my existence, its worse still that I have nightmares of me having sex with him.  On lonely nights, only the deep voice of my greatest fears provides any kind of thought and in the darkness that lingers around us all exists things waiting for our greatest weakness.

The Door

I have stayed awake for days on end with the blur of darkness shading reality into one giant fog in fear that I would end up just like my cousin. Was I awake?  Was any of it even real?  I have pondered these questions in full sincerity at one point in my paranoia.  Questions for the fear that consumed my very existence.  I found rock bottom at one time and continued further into the depths of my own madness.  I was in a lucid dream state paranoid of reality and what was actually real.   It was that door, that hellish red door that haunts me to this day.

I was about ten or twelve when I first saw it.  My cousin and I were playing in an old abandoned house at the edge of town.  Kicking stones and flinging sticks in our boredom, letting our curiosity lead the way.  When we first entered the house it had a creepy ominous ambiance to it.  A soft glow of light slid in through the heavily stained windows giving the rooms shadows of all shapes.  Some seemed alive and unattached to anything.  Old chairs were on their sides and a few tables were overturned.  All the rooms had brown rotted paint peeling from the walls.  A urine stench filled the air and the yellow glow of the tainted windows made it look urine stained as well.

We went upstairs and saw it.  It was a reddish brown door with a symbol drawn in crayon or something on the top center.  It was a circle with five small stars around it.  It was a thick heavy looking door with etchings around the border.  The door didn't seem special or particularly interesting except for the symbol and even if we had known what it meant we would have still went into the room and explored.  The room was completely empty save for a chair facing the far corner away from us.  The one window it had overlooked the back weed-infested yellow yard.  

We began to walk out when my cousin noticed dead bolt locks on the door.  So we closed the door and began messing with the locks a bit.  We fumbled around with locking and unlocking them.  There were three of them.  Then we realized the locks were backwards with the turning mechanism on the outside and the key hole on the inside of the room.  Then all of a sudden all the locks wouldn't open again.  We were about to leave when the sound of soft scratching began coming from inside the room against the door.  We stood silently for a few moments listening and tried to convince one another that it was a mouse or a rat; but when we realized the scratching wasn't coming from the bottom of the door but rather from the center we froze in fear.  Our curiosity faded when we began to hear low moaning whispers slip out from under the door. 

We couldn't move.  Our fear had completely overtaken us and that ominous ambiance from before had grown to something more sinister. The whole house felt darker and the light that been there had faded to almost nothing. It was as if though the dark bowels of hell itself had come with its long black drapes to cover the house.  Shear panic boiled inside my gut but the fear killed every rational instinct and kept me from moving.  We stood there listening in fear to the hellish scratching coming from the other side of the door.  It sounded like finger nails gnawing away at the wood bit by bit.  We could only listen as the raspy whispers began to get louder and formed into moans of agony and pain.  

Finally, panic overwhelmed us and we both ran down the stairs to the front door but it was now locked.  Our eyes bulged in disbelief and paranoid thoughts of death and pain entered my mind.  We were scared beyond our wits.  We stood there yelling for help, crying and banging on the door.  Then fell silent as we heard the dead bolts upstairs unlock themselves.  Three clicks one right after the other.  We couldn't move.  I could barely breath.  The tears were rolling down our faces when we began  to hear something dragging itself across the wooden floor.  We couldn't see upstairs to the door from where we were but we could hear every horrifying sound coming from there.  We could hear something sliding closer.  The absolute terror finally overtook me enough that I grabbed a chair and broke open a window.

I've spent countless years of my youth trying to forget that day.  I was even happy to hear they were bulldozing that house.  I've tried to convince myself it didn't happen. I was even close to doing so until one night when I was 16, I woke up around 2 am to a man's voice muttering incoherently to himself.  I slowly opened my eyes and looked across my dark room into the far corner and there sitting in a chair facing the corner was a man whispering madness to the edges of the wall.  My eyes widened with fear and that same fear again kept me frozen where I lay.  I finally realized after a few moments I wasn't breathing and let out a small breath.  That's when he said something to me.

"Sometimes I close my eyes so tight it hurts, but the terror never goes away Will."

I realized then it was my cousin.  He turned to me crying with bloodshot red eyes and said, "I've been in the room Will.  You know which room.  I know you haven't forgotten about that door.  I've been in that room not because I went back there, no.  It followed me Will.  I was asleep like you and when I woke up I was laying in my bed but behind that fucking door.  I would recognize that door from anywhere just like I know you can.  I tried opening it but it was locked from the outside.  Remember.  I couldn't get out Will.  I kept scratching  and pounding but I couldn't get out.  See.  Look."   He rose up his hands showing me bloody scabs where his fingernails used to be and dark bruises on his forearms where he was banging.  He began shaking violently and fell to the floor in a convulsive shock.  I rushed to him and called for my parents.  He fell into a coma that night that he would stay in for 4 years.

Since then I wake up in paranoia almost every night afraid I too will be behind that door.  I had it under control until finally something did happen to me about 2 years ago.  I was living in the city at the time.  I was sitting in bed with my bedside lamp on reading a book.  I had my door cracked halfway open as I always do now because I can't sleep with any door closed anymore.  As I looked over to the dark doorway, shadow filling the hallway, a face lay there on the ground looking up at me.  I jolted and gasped in complete horror as whatever body it was attached to scurried backward into the darkness.  I recognized the face, it was my cousin's but that was impossible he was in a coma, lying in bed in a hospital.  It almost felt like something was goading me to follow it.  I didn't sleep or move at all that night.  The next day I got a call from my parents telling me my cousin had finally passed on in the night. 

He Has Only Begun

The streets were cold and there was a moisture in the air.  I yanked up my collar as I walked the frigid night. I could swear someone was following me.  I pulled out a cigarette from the pack I kept in my inside coat pocket and lit it while blocking the air with my hands.  I was trying to quit but tonight I really needed one.  My nerves weren't as steady as they normally were and my chest was aching.  I was working the Livingston case when this happened.  I was shaking and it wasn't from the cold either but from the fear in my bones.  All the cases I've worked have had horrific details and awful people in them but this one had me frightened.  I don't know why this was happening but I needed answers.  Uncontrollable doubt and dread had grown into my consciousness. I needed to visit her, I needed to find out more things. I headed to the hospital.

I dragged a final puff from my cig and threw it on the ground before stepping on it.  I flashed the nurse my badge and walked to Susan's room.  She was laying in bed staring at the ceiling when I walked in.

"Hello Detective," she said without turning her head.
"Hi Susan.  How are you doing?"
"Probably better than yesterday but I don't feel it. How can I help you?"
"Well Susan, I was hoping you were able to remember anything new from your ordeal, any new details or memories?" I asked as I pulled out my old leather notepad I kept in my back pocket.
"Laying here has left me with nothing to do but think and my memory for some reason or another doesn't feel like cooperating with me.  Perhaps its protecting me from the horrific details that will probably haunt me to the day that I die Detective.  Maybe I don't want to remember."
"I understand Susan but if you could..." I stopped as she slowly turned her head toward me and leaned over.
"You've seen him haven't you?"
I nervously swallowed and asked, "Who Susan?  Do you remember?"
"Detective, I have only bits and pieces," she said as she leaned back into her bed.  "Fragments of memories. They come and go as I lay here in obscurity."
"Anything would help."
"Okay Detective.  I'll try."  She looked down at her hands as her eyes drifted out.  "I remember thinking I couldn't believe where I was.  I remember asking myself why me, why me over and over.  I couldn't understand how something like this could happen to me."  I looked up from my notepad to her hands and they were quivering softly as she clutched the bed sheets.
"I remember the room was really cold and dank and there were puddles of water in the corners and mold growing down the concrete walls.  It looked like a basement Detective but it didn't feel like a room."
"What do you mean Susan?" I asked as I wrote down notes.
"You know when you're outside, you feel the open space and when you're inside you feel the closed off nature of a room right.  Well...this room...it didn't feel quite like a room.  It looked like a room but it felt like I was outside. There was a huge ominous feeling of something else in there."
"Was there someone else?"
"I'm not sure Detective."
"Were you tied up?"
"No, but I knew I couldn't escape," she began streaming small tears down her cheeks as she tried to swallow the knot in her throat.  "There was no escape, he and I both knew it."
"Can you remember his face?"
"I can't.  I couldn't see anything.  I mean his face, there wasn't anything there.  It was like he was wearing a mask made of shadows because his face was just empty.  Just black and void...hidden.  I couldn't see anything other than his eyes."  A cold shiver of fear rolled up my spine at that thought.  I knew what she was talking about.  Her face suddenly stared off into the corner of the room.

She clutched the sheets harder in her fists and continued as if talking to the corner, "I...I think.  I may have been...I dunno Detective.  His eyes couldn't have been real.  It all didn't seem real.  It still doesn't.  He wasn't normal I know it and his eyes were a horrible blood red, the whole eyeball.  There was no pupil, no iris, nothing just red and they were glowing too.  I remember there was light from a small lamp in the opposite corner of where I was balled up and from the red glow of his eyes.  They looked like billiard balls that bulged out of his head and his voice...it didn't sound quite...human."  She closed her eyes and began crying.
"Its okay Susan, you're safe now."
She  looked at me with red weaving lines in her eyes, bulged and unblinking and said as tears rolled out, "its not okay Detective.  It will never be okay.  He made sure of that."
I felt the fear of that statement in my bones.  I was afraid that she may be right.  She had been there and the look of horror in her face told another story of pain and fear beyond the realm of my understanding.  I feared that she was right and that I would come to understand. "I'm sorry Susan.  You're safe now."
"Am I Detective?  Can you protect me from my own mind?"
I was at a loss for words. In my eight years of working cases I had never been at a loss for words but I was afraid of the same thing she was.  I tried to hide my fear by asking more questions.
"Do you remember where we found you Susan?"
She blinked her eyes a few times as if coming out of her horror trance and said, "No," as she sniffled her nose.  "I know what you guys told me.  That I was wandering naked up Alcorn street with symbols cut all over my body."
"Yes, do you remember how you got there?"
"I don't Detective."
"We found you only a mile away from your house."
"I know where I live."
"And as you're aware we searched your home Susan.  We looked through your house and in your basement found your blood puddled in the corners.  You had quite the mold spores growing on your walls as well."
"I live alone Detective.  I don't have a husband and barely have time to clean my home.  Things tend to get a little messy."
"I understand Susan.  Its just that my point is, perhaps, he had you in your own basement.  It does fit your description.  Do you think that may be a possibility?"
Her eyes widened and darted left to right as if remembering something.
"Susan? Are you feeling okay?"
"I do remember being in the bathroom before it happened and looking in the mirror and seeing him stand behind me.  Even in the light his face was blacked out and void with only his eyes bulging out from his head. I had never felt more terrified in my life."
"So he was in your home."
"Yes, he had been there all along."
"So he took you down to your basement and that's where he tortured you and cut those symbols into your body."
She had begun to quiver erratically with fear.  I could tell because I was fighting off the same urge in my own body.  I couldn't stop asking question though, I was finally getting somewhere with her.  I needed to find out more. I needed to know if he was real.
"No, Detective.  He may have tortured me and perhaps still is but he never cut those symbols into my body."
I looked at her strange as fear slowly grew over my face.
"He's visited you hasn't he?" she asked me looking off into the corner.  "I know he has, I could tell from the moment you walked in here tonight.  He's been watching you.  I can't see him but I feel his presence sometimes Detective."  She pressed her fingers into her forearm trying to stop it from shaking.  "I don't know why this happened to me and perhaps never will but I do know that it was unavoidable."
"Susan, please. Tell me where I can find him.  I need to know that he's real. I need to know why..." she interrupted as she looked at me in pity and placed her hand upon my cheek.
"Oh Detective.  It doesn't matter does it.  He's already chosen you."
"Susan.  I need to know why I cut these symbols into myself?" I lifted my shirt revealing bloody bandages taped onto my chest.  I lifted one showing her the same symbols she had made on her body.
"Detective, I still can't remember everything of what happened to me or answer many questions but one thing he made sure I remembered and probably will all the way to my grave and right into Hell."
"What Susan, what, tell me."
"That I did all this.  I made all these cuts to myself. I sliced my flesh in my basement as he looked on. I'm sorry Detective but he has only begun with you."

Just Follow Me

It took some convincing but I finally got Colin to come with us.  He had moved here a year ago from the city. He was a thin geeky looking kid with glasses and pale skin.  I could tell he had a crush on me.  So it didn't take much once I started flirting with him to get him to come out with us. I told him how cute I thought he was and showed off my cleavage of course.  I knew he was a virgin, probably the only one left in the whole school, you could just tell.  I graduated a year before him, this was going to be his senior year.
"So where we going Megan?"
"Out passed the sticks, there's a place we all meet up,  over by the river in the woods."
Drew was driving, he looked into the back seat where Colin and I were sitting as I moved my hand over Colin's leg.
"Yeah, we wont' get bothered out there, its pretty secluded," he said.
"Don't sweat it Colin, it'll be fun," I said trying to calm his nerves but I didn't actually care.
"I'm not, just curious, maybe I'll bring some friends next time."
"That would be great," I said as I pressed down on his leg. I could feel him fidget in his seat with nervous anxiety, I giggled at the thought that he'd probably never had a girl touch him anywhere. "Just make sure I come with."
"Yeah definitely."
"Hey Colin," Drew said making a turn onto the old dirt road that led to 'the spot' as we called it.  "You ever see a ghost?"
"Um, I don't think so," he said pushing his glasses up his nose with two fingers.  He did have all the cute nerdy qualities.
"I have, did you know that?"
"No I didn't....uhh, when did you see one?"
"It was a while back.  Do you believe in ghosts?"
"Umm, not really.  They're just kinda umm...weird, you know. Hard to quantify."
"Yeah...I get ya, they are...hard to quantify and weird too Colin, like you said, especially when you see one and they look right back at you with their hollow lifeless eyes that are so full of pain. It can be creepy."
"Sounds like you've stared at one up close Drew. My mom believes in ghosts, but she's superstitious like that."
"Oh, there isn't anything superstitious about ghosts Colin.  They're real."
Colin laughed nervously.  I could tell Drew was making him uncomfortable. So I slid my hand under his and interlocked our fingers.  He looked down at our hands nervously as I leaned in to him pressing my breasts against his shoulder and pushed my lips against his.  He awkwardly kissed back with his eyes closed. I indulged him for a few moments and then leaned back in to my seat and asked, "Do you believe in Demons Colin?"
"Demons?" he asked as he opened his eyes.  I could see behind those large framed glasses he had enjoyed that kiss.
"Yeah, you know Demons, those things that live in Hell and lurk in every shadow waiting to devour your soul because of all your sins. You know, Demons."
"I'm not very religious."
"Religion has got nothing to do with it Colin," I said adjusting my bra and noticed Colin trying not to look.
"Well, I don't though."
"Oh but never say never Colin."
Drew made another turn into a field with no road just car tracks from previous visits.
"This place is really far out isn't it, are we almost there?" Colin asked.
I moved my other hand on top of his and lightly patted it, "be patient Colin, we'll get there."
"So who's all gonna be there?"
"Oh just some of the guys, a few girls, some people from town," Drew said from the front seat.
"Oh cool, anyone I know?"
"Probably not Colin, you aren't the most popular guy, know what mean, haha" Drew said as he softly chuckled to himself.
"Don't worry, you've got me," I told him as I slowly slid my hand toward his crotch.  He sat up straight as soon as I brushed against it.  I leaned in to his ear and whispered, "calm down Colin, this is just foreplay," and kissed his ear lobe. It was easy to see he was really nervous and I found it enjoyable to play with his anxiety.
"We're here," Drew finally said.
You could see the bonfires from the car as we parked behind two trucks and a van. We all got out and made our way in between the tightly parked cars.
"Stop the presses bitches, we are here, we are here!" Drew announced.
"Finally!" Todd said as he came up to us and shook Drew's hand in their fancy male way.  "Who's the geek?" he said.
"That's Colin.  He's the one we got."
"Oh shit, he's the one.  Damn, and here I thought there weren't any left at school. I thought we were gonna have to start getting middle schoolers," he said as he came up to Colin and I.  "Can you believe that huh Megan? Fuckin' middle schoolers.  What are we, savages like those pansies over on the east side?  Fuck that, I knew we could count on you and those beautiful tits of yours Megan."
"That's what I'm here for," I said as I released my hand from Colin's and walked toward the fire.  He timidly followed me.  I grabbed a beer.
"Hey, umm, kid, hey, over here," Kevin said calling out to Colin.
"Um, me?" Colin said pointing at himself.
"Yeah, you, come over here."
Colin nervously walked over to Kevin, "what's your name kid?" Kevin was one of the older guys from town.  He always wore his black bandanna and leather jacket.
"Colin"
"How old are you kid?"
"Umm, I'll be eighteen in three weeks, on the 14th."
Kevin stayed silent for a few uncomfortable moments staring at Colin, "is that what I asked?"
"Huh?"
"I said, is that what I asked you deaf motherfucker."
"Umm, no, no its not sir."
"Then, why the fuck did you tell me what age you ARE going to be?"
Colin's face started sweating and his voice got shaky, "I dunno sir."
"Stop calling me sir you delinquent little piece of shit. Who the fuck do you think you are huh? You know the last person to call me sir was a preppy college fuck and I beat the shit out his fucking stupid sir calling ass."
"I'm...I'm sorry mister."
"Holy shit!! That's even fuckin' worse! What the fuck is wrong with you kid? Do you want me to beat the living shit out of you? Say sir or mister again.  Say it again, I fucking dare you!"
Colin looked over in my direction but I just stood there watching as he continued to fidget and sweat. I just sipped on my beer as Kevin's voice continued to get louder.
"Don't look at her, look at me motherfucker and answer my question.  Do you want me to beat the living shit out of you?"
Colin's face was beading sweat as he desperately tried to let out his next words, "n...n...no....I don't.  I'm sorry.  I don't know what to say, I didn't mean to offend you."
Kevin then burst out in a heap of laughter, "I'm just fuckin' with ya kid.  Haha.  Stop being so uptight, loosen up.  I got some coke if you want some, it'll loosen you up."
He pulled out a small bag of white powder and Colin looked at it nervously knowing that he wasn't supposed to be around stuff like that, probably because his parents told him so. It was so obvious that Colin was out of his element so I walked over to him to save him from Kevin's banter.
"Kevin, don't waste your shit.  Colin, come with me," I finally said as I grabbed his hand and walked toward the fire.
We mingled with some of the people and sat down on the hood of a car in front of the bonfire.  I kissed Colin again, I couldn't help myself, I had been waiting for this night for a long time and I just wanted a taste of what was in store for later.  Then Todd began speaking.
"Ok, since now that we have everyone, lets get this shit started, shall we." Todd said getting everyone's attention. We stood up and got closer.
"Its been six months since our last meeting and we only had five days left to make this happen but Megan came through for us and brought...umm, Colin here to us," he said over the silent mob of people with the fire burning in the background. "Before we start with the festivities, bring me the rites of Devoveo and Sacrificum."
Colin looked on curiously and I could tell he was wondering why Todd brought him up in his speech.  I was too excited to care because it had been six months since our last and the anticipation was building for me.
"Ah, here we are.  Thank you Peter.  Lets begin," he said clearing his throat. "Tonight, the night for our father, the bringer of death, thou who hides in shadow and bathes in the pains of man, do ut des, we give so that you may give, we bring to you what thou seeks.  I call upon thee so that we may have our life's pleasures.  Find our offering fit for your needs and may he burn in hell to your satisfaction."  He lifted his left arm toward the sky and with his right pointed to Colin and said, "take him."
Three men, Luke, Dan, and Charles whom had moved up behind Colin all grabbed and lifted him.
"Hey, what are you doing? What the hell guys?  What's going on?" he said with his anxiety laced words.  They carried him over to a thin log that was laying on the ground.  The hole had been dug already earlier in the night as they waited for us to arrive.
"Tie him up," Todd commanded from the other side of the fire.  I looked on smiling in excited anticipation like a child would when waiting for their parents to finally give them permission to open their christmas presents.
"Hey! Put me down! Stop! Don't! Help, someone help! What are you doing?" Colin shouted with tears falling from his eyes.  He had soiled himself too.
"Let me go! Stop! Let me go!" he continued but no one was going to stop this. No one was here to help to him, no one was going to give up what was about to be given.  We had all waited for six months. We had all waited for our gift of expanded pleasures.
"Now then," Todd said, "put the post in the hole and move the timber toward him.  Oh father, we give you what thy commands and give so that you may give.  May he burn in hell to your satisfaction."  We all then bent our heads down in silence as Luke, Dan and Charles finished the necessary preparations.  Once finished they waited for the command to finish the rite.  I looked up and saw Colin crying as he desperately cried for my help but I just looked on.  I wouldn't help, I wanted this.  I had waited six months.
"Burn him!" Todd finally said and we all erupted into cheers as they lit the fire.  Colin screamed out in agony as the flames began to lick at his legs and sear off his flesh. I could feel our father had listened and a flush of euphoria and sin rushed through me and I could feel the pleasures of Hell.  Colin looked through the flames at me screaming in agony. His flesh burning black and melting. And with him watching I grabbed the nearest guy and removed my clothing and began having sex.  The pathetic screams from Colin made the ecstasy of my orgasms that much more enjoyable. He had listened. Our Lord had listened.

The Awful Old Man

I didn't know what to do. I was scared.  I was having trouble controlling my own thoughts, my mind was leaping from one random thought to another and I couldn't think straight. So I called a close friend Pete to meet me at the Blue Square downtown, it was a small bar where we could talk and I needed someone to talk to right then.  When I got there he was already waiting for me with a drink in his hand.
"I'm sorry I'm late Pete but I'm barely holding it together right now."
"What's wrong, what's going on?"
I ordered a double shot of whiskey before I started with Pete. "I was with Gibson a few nights ago and something happened.  I'm not even quite sure what happened to Gibson so I made up some story for the cops because I knew they wouldn't believe me."
"Why were you talking to the cops, did Gibson get pinched?"  I took a moment to look around the bar to see if anyone was listening in, then I rubbed my eyes. "Come on, what happened with Gibson?"
The bartender brought me my double shot, "open tab buddy.  Well..." I gulped the double before I continued and let out a deep breath of warm air, "see, I was at the bar, you know the one over on the east side, umm, the drunken squirrel, yeah, just drinking some beers when Gibson came in.  He didn't realize I was going to be in there and looked surprised to see me.  I said hey and all that and we started talking.  He started telling me about some job he was thinking about doing up north and was looking for someone to be his lookout. Anyway, I asked him about the details and he told me he had scouted out some agoraphobic old man that was rich but never left his house.  It didn't matter though because he could go in with a mask, tie the guy up and get into his safe and other things he had, apparently the guy was loaded.  He already knew the combination to the safe as he had been scouting out the guy for weeks. It was a quick in and out job and he needed a lookout, that's where I came in.  I needed the money and he would give me a 20 percent cut just to be the watch guy.  So I said yeah."

I reached for my wallet, making sure I had enough cash to pay for more drinks.
"Anyway, we get to talking more about the details and I tell him I'm curious to see the place and he invites me to go see it.  Oh, bartender, another double and a pint of Blue Moon, thanks.  So we go over to the old man's place right and his house looked chock full of prime loot as Gibson so put it.  I mean he had fancy fur rugs, jewelry that would go for a good price and from what Gibson showed me a safe that seemed pretty well hidden.  He didn't know what was in there but if this guy's house was any indication, he had something valuable in there.  Then we watched the old man wander in and out of his rooms for a few minutes.  We were on an overlook that peeked over this guy's barred fence, you know, the ones that have high black prison like bars so you could see through to the other side.  We were using Gibson's binoculars to watch this guy and I mean this old man was frail, I didn't like the idea of tying him up but Gibson wouldn't change his mind about it even if I had said something.  It was weird though Pete, I watched as this old guy talked to some jars, four of them that had some yellow liquid and some weird meat looking things floating in them.  He would talk to them as if they were his own children. Pointing at them and even looked like he was scolding them, you know, like a parent would."
"Hmph, that's some really weird shit Frank and then what?"
" Yeah it was Pete. Anyway, so we go back to Gibson's place and got high and decided the next night we would do the job."

The bartender set down my double and a cold pint of Blue Moon with an orange wedge.  I grabbed it and squeezed it into my beer and dropped it in. "Thanks buddy, anyway, I go home and get some things ready and we go out around midnight to this old man's house right.  We find where the old man is in the house and Gibson gets out of the car and I wait for him parked on the side of the fence under some tree.   I could see him with my binoculars and watched him as he climbed through one of the windows.  He made his way through the house but then I couldn't find the old man.  I could see Gibson rummaging through some stuff and making his way to the room with the safe but the old guy was nowhere to be seen.  The curtains were closed in that room too with the safe so I couldn't see Gibson once he got in there.  A few minutes go by and I don't see Gibson, I'm figuring he's having more trouble with the safe than he expected and then I hear a fucking loud scream, like someone was being murdered Pete.  I freaked for a moment and the first thing that went into my mind was that Gibson had killed the old man.  Murder is not something I want to be involved with, you know, that's not our business. So I figured something went fucking wrong.  That's what I thought.  I'm not even sure what to think now, Pete.  It should have been an easy job but some shit went wrong and I'm not even sure what. So now I'm worried Pete because I've never done anything like that, you know, murder, well, be an accomplice to murder.  I got angry with Gibson while sitting in the car and started punching the steering wheel cursing up a storm Pete, I was fucking angry.  I cursed taking the fucking job.  Then I look to the house again looking for Gibson but see the old man instead standing at the window looking right at me in my car.  Oh shit I say."
"Oh shit is right, so you got made."

I took the double shot of whiskey and slammed it back then let out a breath as the alcohol warmed my insides. My hands kept shaking as I tried to coherently form my thoughts but nervous fear kept taking over.  I took a sip of beer trying to calm myself and then continued.
"I wasn't entirely sure Pete because there was no way he could see that far without binoculars and in the dark.  I was in the shadow of a tree, there was no way he could see me.  I mean, he would have to have night vision or something.  But when I look back at the house again in the binoculars I see his yellow eyes staring back at me.  Then I freak."
"Oh fuck, what was he doing?"
"I dunno Pete, but it was creeping me out."
"So what happened to Gibson?"
"Right, well, I keep looking around for him but can't find the fucking guy. Then I start trying to figure out who made that loud ass scream because it couldn't have been the old man cuz he was standing at the damn window.  I figured there must have been someone else in the house we didn't expect.  I keep looking around and while I'm searching that old fucking man stays at the window and now he's smiling.  I could see his old rotting teeth and his wrinkly lips.  His hair was all unkempt and going every which way and he had a wicked hooked nose.  Then I noticed something I didn't notice before, on the ledge in front of him was a jar with some kind of meat thing floating in it.  He bent down to talk to it and I could see him mouth a question to the jar asking, 'what's his name?' and I keep staring and the old man lifts his head back up and points at me and mouths the name, 'Frank.'  Now I'm really fucking scared Pete.  How the hell does this old man figure out my name."
"You're giving me chills here Frank, that's some crazy ass shit."
"Yeah, I know, its get even weirder.  So, I wanted to get the fuck out of there  but I couldn't just leave Gibson, you know.  What if he needed my help or had left out another way and was about to meet me.  So I stayed a few more minutes then the old man leaves the window and grabs something from his drawer.  I couldn't quite make out what it was until he placed it on the window ledge.  It was an empty jar.  I looked at him and he pointed at me and mouthed the words, 'For You.'  That's when I got the fuck out of there, I mean I'm totally fuckin' creeped out by now and Gibson will have to find his own ride since things had gone bad anyway.  We were supposed to meet back at his place if we got separated but he never showed."
"So how do the cops get involved?"
"Well, about two days pass and his girlfriend says she gets a call from him telling her that he was in trouble and needed to find me.  And the dumb bitch calls the police, can you believe that.  Anyway, she doesn't tell them that he asked for me specifically but since they need to talk to people associated with Gibson they find me at my place.  I shorten up my story about seeing him at the drunken squirrel and that's it.  Nothing about the old man or the job.  But then something happens that gets me thinking that maybe Gibson never made that call or maybe someone made him do it."
"What happened Frank?"
"I leave my place for a few hours and when I come back, sitting on my table was a jar with a note attached to it that read, "for you."

We Should Have Never Gone Out That Night

"Oh come on, stop being so scared you little girl.  We didn't come all this way for you to chicken out," Toby said to me trying to get me to go in but I was scared, it was an old abandoned building that used to be a factory of some kind and it was supposedly haunted.  We had come here in the dead of night and the building looked even more menacing than what the stories described.
"I'm not chickening out...just you know, psyching myself up," but I was scared.  I don't know why I decided to play paranormal investigator maybe because I didn't have anything else to do that Saturday night but I regret it to this day.
"Come on Aaron, we'll just have a look around," Kevin said to me.  Kevin was alright, I liked Kevin but why did we have to hang out with Toby, he was an asshole and annoying.  I hated Toby, he always made my life a living hell and he was Kevin's friend, not mine.  At school he always embarrassed me in front of people and made me do his homework for him sometimes.  I had wished he would move away or worse that he would die in a car wreck or something.
"Yeah Aaron, you pussy.  Stop acting like a bitch and lets go or should I call your mom and tell her I'll be home soon to you know, haha," he cracked a high-pitched laugh amused with his own lame joke.  I hated how he laughed.
"Shut the hell up Toby."
"Stop being a prissy up tight girl.  Come on shithead, lets check this shit hole out," his fake bravery was starting to get under my skin.  He always had to cuss like doing so made him tough.
"Hey Kevin," I said turning on my flashlight, "do you think this place is haunted?"
"I dunno, I hope, would make for a good story huh."
I smiled and said, "screw that, I think I'd rather have a boring Saturday night."  He smiled back and said, "well, there's probably nothing here so it'll probably be boring as hell."
We slowly made our way over boulders and large logs to a door on the side of the building.  Most of the windows had been peppered with rocks and were broken.  There was a lot of debris from the building scattered outside on the ground it was a miracle the building hadn't fallen over on its own accord already.  We went through the door that was half hinged on and pointed our flashlights around the room.
"There's a lot of shit in here," Toby said in his most arrogant voice, "Whoa, look at this fucking thing," lifting an old rusted hacksaw. "You think that poor sap was murdered with this thing," he was referring to one of the many stories about this place.  The more popular one he was talking about was a group of friends that had come here doing the exact same thing we were decades ago that ended up chopping up one of their friends into pieces and burned them inside a barrel.
"I doubt it," I said, "you think the murder weapon would still be lying around?"
"Whatever, fuck you.  I'll use it on you and leave it here lying around fuck face, then it'll make the story true huh" I hated when he called me that.  He always called me that in front of girls at school too and I never had anything quick to say back.  It embarrassed me so much.
"Shut up Toby," Kevin said. "Do you hear that?" I moved my head trying to listen to the smallest of sounds.
"Yeah, what is that," I said.
"Sounds like scratching," Kevin replied.
"Where? I don't hear shit."
"Shut up Toby, just listen." Kevin said as we all stood silent for a few moments listening to the darkness.  My eyes began to wander around the dark room trying to find the source.  It sounded like it was coming from the far corner.
"Go look Aaron," Toby said.
"Yeah right, you go look."
"Fine chicken shit, I'll look."
Kevin and I stood silently pointing our flashlights to the corner as Toby made his way over the rubble and old furniture.  The scratching continued and Toby moved closer.  He started moving chairs and slid an old desk out of the way.
"Whoa!" he screamed.
"What! What is it?!" I said frightened.
"Its a big fucking rat! Ugh!"
Kevin and I started laughing but we were soon silenced when we heard three knocks coming from the other side of the wall behind us.  We all looked wide eyed at each other and nervously pointed our flashlights toward the wall.
"Tell me you heard that," Kevin said.
"Yeah I heard it," I said as my hands nervously trembled the flashlight making the batteries rattle against the plastic.
"I heard that shit, go check it out," Toby said to me.
"Ha..." I stood silently as I realized he was serious, "fuck that, you go check."
"We all go," Kevin said but I really didn't want to go at all.  We took a few moments and finally slowly made our way across the room around the empty doorway and into a long hallway that led to other office rooms.  We carefully made our way down the hallway and took some turns inside this maze like building.  We passed a couple of empty rooms that had absolutely nothing in them and didn't have any windows.  At the end of one of the corridors we reached a room that had desks and chairs piled on top of each other.  We peered in with our flashlights but saw and heard nothing.  We moved on and reach a stairwell that led downward into more hallways it looked like.  As we stood at the top of the stairs we contemplated going down.
"Damn, that's fucking spooky, hey fuck face, go check it out," I curled my face angrily at him.
"Fuck you man, stop pretending like you're not scared."
"Hey shithead, if I was..."
"Hey, shut up," Kevin interrupted.  We stood silently and heard soft knocking from the room we just passed with all the desks and chairs.  "There it is again," Kevin said with a bewildered look on his face.  Fear was starting to pile up on my mind and I was getting overwhelmed.
"I think I'm gonna go outside, this is starting to freak me out too much."
"Yeah, you go outside fuck face and I'll tell everyone how you're a..." right then Toby got interrupted by a deep growl coming from behind us from the bottom of the stairwell.  We turned slowly toward the stairs and pointed our flashlights into the darkness.  It was a sound very much like an animals and I thought to myself that it might be a wolf or a dog down there because it had a savageness to it.  Toby then slowly took some steps toward the stairs moving one foot in front of the other like he was walking on a thin layer of ice.  I couldn't see down the steps but as soon as Toby reached the edge and shined his light down he took a deep gasp and leaped backward running passed us.  Kevin and I looked at each other momentarily and followed suit.  As we were running back down the hallways I could hear footsteps behind us but I dared not look.  They didn't sound like an animals but more like a person's with two steps.  It wasn't a dog or a wolf behind us but a person chasing us.

As we continued to run with Toby ahead of us something from one of the empty rooms reached out and took him.  He let out a loud scream of pain and Kevin and I stopped in our tracks frozen in fear.  As we stood in the hallway briefly we could hear Toby wrestling around with something as he screamed for help.  We didn't know what to do. I turned to see if anything was still following us but nothing was there.  Then Toby flopped out of the door and onto the floor covered in blood and had deep scratches on his face.
"Help! Help me! Oh God! Help!" We just looked on in a panicked fear as something lurched out and grabbed his legs. I didn't see what grabbed him because instinctively I looked at his face and the amount of terror and pure horror in his eyes haunts me to this day.  He was suddenly thrashed powerfully from side to side crashing against the frame of the doorway over and over again letting out deep gargled moans of blood and pain.  Then he was pulled up the border of the door as he reached out for our help but I just stood there watching him get mauled.  I couldn't do anything nor did I want to, maybe if it was Kevin getting attacked I would have done something but with Toby, my body didn't react.  It began thrashing him from side to side again until finally pulling him into the room at a cartoonish speed.  That's when Kevin and I took our chance and sprinted passed the room.  I didn't look but Kevin took a quick glance.  We made it out but neither one of us could go back in for Toby.  We didn't know if he was dead or still alive but we finally decided to leave for help and tell the police that some kind of animal took Toby.

After they found Toby, a couple of days later the police asked me to come in for questioning.  They kept asking me who was it that took Toby and I kept telling them it was some kind of big animal that attacked him.  I saw the look on the detective's face and I knew they didn't believe me but what else could I say, I'm not even sure myself what happened.

I ran into Kevin a few days later at school and he was still mortified with a pale face.  I asked him if he had been in for questioning again and he said yes.
"Why are they questioning us again Kevin? Don't they believe us that some kind of animal did this?"
"I dunno what it was Aaron," he said staring blankly off into space.
"You saw it didn't you Kevin, what was it?"
"I didn't see anything Aaron."
"Then what else could it have been Kevin beside an animal."
"I dunno but they said an animal can't cut up a body into pieces and place it in a barrel and light it on fire."