Abandoned

Ghost towns can result from a medley of different causes. Many have to be abandoned because of hazards to public health like radiation or unsafe drinking water. Others are abandoned because of dangers like a collapsed plumbing system underground or a fire. Some are situated in areas where no one has any interest any longer. Others are abandoned because of potential dangers like unstable ground or floods. The government, forcing all inhabitants to leave, can expropriate the land. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell which reason there was for the abandonment.

Without the discerning eyes or instruments of an expert, Spring Village Nebraska looked as though it could have been abandoned for any of those causes. The town was completely devoid of all human or animal activity. Brown weeds crawled up through the cracks in the streets and through the mortar of the buildings. Broken glass from the shattered windows of each construct littered the ground. Everywhere the air was still except for the quiet rustling of the leaves on the plants that had overrun the town.

Bryant staggered painfully along Main Street. Each painful shuffle of his feet trembled his thin and filthy frame. He was barely upright. It was the kind of exhaustion that came from not only endless walks, but also a tired soul. Bryant licked his chapped lips and painfully swallowed, his mouth desert dry and stomach clenched. He blinked his soulless grey eyes, worn down from the days spent wandering the endless streets. The sky was dimming. Bryant looked up to the dark sky as a lone drop fell. It splattered on his cheek and streaked through the dirt on his face down to his neck. More drops started cascading down, drop-by-drop dampening Bryant’s hair and clothes. Faster and faster it fell, like the raindrops were in a mad race to hit the earth. Bryant summoned his strength and ran haphazardly through the sheets of rain into the nearest building. Inside, the floor was wet and puddles splashed up as he walked. Rain poured in from a hole in the ceiling, the water spreading out and exiting through an opening at the bottom of the wall across the room. One piece of furniture decorated the otherwise bare, trash strewn, and filthy room. It was a sofa, brown and stained, a spring poking through thin, itchy fabric. A big chunk remained missing from the back. Bryant lumbered towards the couch and fell onto it. It creaked dangerously. A blast of pungent smelling mold, filth, and other horrid stenches shot through his nose and assaulted his brain. He nearly gagged but didn’t have the strength to get up. He was too exhausted. Using what energy he had left, he managed to flip onto his back where he passed out.

He woke up in complete darkness. Bryant hated the dark: the shadows, the blindness, and the uncertainties. So much of his life had become like the insufferable darkness. Carefully and sorely, he sat up and put his feet on the floor. No longer could he hear the rain raging outside and pounding on the roof like an angry monster pleading to be allowed entry. A reminder of the storm remained, however. The hole that the water had exited had been clogged with trash and Bryant’s dirty, torn shoes were immersed in the foul rancid liquid.

Bryant stood and sloshed in the direction of where he remembered the door to be, arms thrashing wildly in front of him. He walked straight into a wall. Plaster crumbled down where he had hit and an opening formed. A small amount of moonlight crept in. In the ghostly illumination, Bryant made out the door on an adjacent wall. He splashed over to it and placed his hand flat on the door, pushing it easily open.

“Bryant.” Bryant froze at the opening and the hairs on his neck stood on end. Shaking, Bryant cautiously turned his head, keeping his body statue still. Out from the corner of his eye, the scene started to emerge. He balled up his fist. It was Larry-- a coworker. “Bryant, buddy, nice to see ya.” Bryant stopped his movement altogether. There was a flickering light situated next to Larry. A candle. It sat on the desk Larry was leaning on. The small blue candle gave off a surprising amount of light. It was an odd glow though; green. Bryant rotated his head another centimeter in Larry’s direction. Larry hadn’t changed at all from the last time Bryant had seen him. He still wore their pale yellow one-piece uniform. His hairy arms were folded over his chest, face hidden in the shadows. “Bryant? Answer me, man. We have a lot to talk about.” Bryant dared not blink. Was it true? Was he truly with safe and sane company?

“L-larry?” His voice cracked from misuse and fatigue. Larry unfolded his arms.

“Bryant. Hey, something real important to ask of you real quick. Do you have a minute?” Bryant didn’t answer. So much time had passed and he was finally saved. He wasn’t alone any longer. “Bryant? I’ve been thinking. Actually, well, we’ve been thinking. All of us. We’ve decided that it would really be right dandy if, well,” Larry chuckled dryly and nervously, “If you gave us that key.” Larry leaned forward out of the shadows, his face now clear. Half of the skin on his face had come off revealing the grey skull. The rest of his skin was dark blue, melted, and blistered. It was scabbed and the eye sockets oozed, rancid. On the top of his head only a few wisps, like that of an ancient man, remained of his once black signature mane. A stench hit Bryant at once. He gagged, doubling over and eyes tearing. It was unbearable-- rotting and burnt and sour. He squeezed his eyes shut to protect them and retched dryly.

“Bryant, the key Bryant.” This voice wasn’t Larry’s it was female. Bryant opened one eye in the hopes of someone normal. Larry’s wife Cassandra, a renowned beauty in the town with long legs and delicate arms, stood next to her husband. She was in worse shape than Larry. Her entire body had the same skin malformity. It was dark blue, melted, blistered and scabbed. Her right ear was missing and her eye sockets oozed the same goop Larry’s did. Her face was mostly intact except for her missing lips. Instead her skeletal teeth poked through. Curiously she was missing half of her left arm, the stump festering and gory.

“We won’t harm you, we only want the key.” A third voice to Bryant’s other side. He swung his head around, cringing. I was little Mindy, the 5-year-old daughter. She wore a playful pink ripped princess gown. Bryant let out a little cry, revulsion going through him. She, like her parents, had blue melting, blistered skin, but only her nose, black and curled, remained a part of her face. The rest was a tiny skull. She reached out her hand palm first and Bryant’s face twisted in horror to discover that she was missing three of her fingers. Bryant backed away and glanced to the parents. They were advancing towards him, each step shaking off more skin, limbs, and clothes, their fingers shriveled and curled as the odor got increasingly worse. Bryant turned and ran as fast as his legs allowed out the door. The stench immediately vanished when he stepped outside.

Down the street he flew, away from the family and towards safety. A large building stood welcoming at the end of the street. Without a second thought, Bryant ran up to the sturdy double doors and flung them open. He dashed down the corridor, twisting through and swerving around corners. On and on he ran until he started to lose steam and he was forced to slow down to a walk. He stopped, panting. Feeling completely drained, he collapsed onto the ground. Dust flew up on impact and he was thrown into a coughing fit. He lay for an eternity, wheezing, eyes closed tight, and terrified. Eventually his heart started to calm down as he rested. Reasoning set in. Everything was okay. It was all right. But as much as he tried to think it was, he knew it wasn’t. It wasn’t okay and it wasn’t all right. They would never let him leave. He would be trapped in Spring Village forever.

Bryant opened his eyes and struggled to his feet, for the first time really looking at where he had ended up. The building was deathly still. Rubble covered everything. On one side of him was a line of empty window frames, letting in shining moonlight, which elongated terrifying shadows. The other side of him was a line of doors. Torn pieces of paper were everywhere. Some were stuck to the walls and others lay amongst the debris. Bryant bent down and picked up a piece in front of him. He flipped it over. It was faded so he squinted to make out the image poorly drawn onto the paper. It was a colorful, cheerful stick figure family. The artist had gleefully and messily signed his name at the bottom, ‘Joey’. A blood chilling realization hit him. This place was the school. He had run into the school. Heart pumping once again, Bryant knew he had to leave immediately. Bryant spun around. He had no idea of how to get out. Even if the building had been well lit and clean, the school wasn’t somewhere Bryant had often wandered. He was lost. Leaving through the window was impossible too because where he stood was up three stories and overlooking the blacktop. All he could do was start the long walk down the maze of hallways, exhausted, hungry, and haunted.

The hallways were chilling in their darkness and coldness. Bryant couldn’t remember the last time he had felt warmth or even what it had felt like. The place was depressing,an empty establishment for growing children who had laughed there and played games there not so long ago.

A noise startled him. He couldn’t quite place what the sound was. Was it a piece of the ceiling falling? Was it simply the wind? Bryant stopped in his tracks and strained his ears to place the noise. It was melodious, human. It was… something he hadn’t heard in a long time: laughing. Bryant tried to shake it off, tried to keep walking, but the sound that echoed through the empty, dismal halls-- it called to him and he had no choice but to follow it’s sweet sound like the song of a siren. The laughter got louder as he walked towards the origin until he was facing a classroom door. The metal plaque above the door read in rusty, capital letters, “MS. BELROSE”. Bryant’s hand twitched. Just on the other side of the door was a sound so happy, so warm and joyful. Bryant reached out and touched the knob, trying to resist the burning need to step into the classroom and be a part of the gaiety. He turned the knob and the door creaked open.

The room was filled with row after row of bright giggling children sitting at desks. They were about 10 years old and smiling happily. They all spoke excitedly at a rapid high-pitched pace. Bryant felt drawn to the merriment, desperately wanted to be a part of it. He stepped forward. Immediately the chatter died down to quiet whispers. All eyes were on him and Bryant felt uneasy. The room was so bright, but still he felt cold.

There was a short clap, which made Bryant twist his head shortly towards the noise. A woman he hadn’t noticed before stood there. She was about thirty and wore her straight brown hair in a neat bun. A modest skirt and blouse outfit completed the schoolmarm look.

“Children,” her voice was the chirping of a beautiful bird, cheerful, high, and delightfully welcoming. “Children, we have a special guest today.” The woman, who Bryant figured to be Ms. Belrose, beckoned Bryant towards her. Bryant cautiously took a few steps in her direction. How could any of this be real? Yet strangely, he almost didn’t care. Ms. Belrose clasped her hands together joyfully, her smile sparkling. All eyes remained on Bryant. “Children, this is Mr. Jackson. Say hello class.”

“Hello Mr. Jackson.” The class chirped. Bryant shifter uncomfortably and cleared his throat.

“Err, hello children.” He glanced to the beaming teacher. It was starting to feel strange in the room, as the gaze of the children seemed to pierce him, closing in on him. The whispering had stopped. Bryant waited in the silence for something to happen. Every child looked expectedly towards him. A little boy raised his hand.

“Yes Martin?” Ms. Belrose trilled. Martin stood up.

“Isn’t Mr. Jackson supposed to give us something?” Martin sat down. Bryant smiled nervously. A little girl stood up next.

“Yeah, you said he had the key.” Bryant’s smile vanished. He looked to Ms. Belrose. The scene had become uncomfortably familiar.

“Well? Don’t keep the children waiting!” Ms. Belrose laughed. Bryant gasped. Ms. Belrose’s hair was starting to fall out and her skin was darkening. Patches had already started to shrivel up and bubble, sliding around on her body. Her eyes popped, liquefying. Bryant looked back to the children. They to had begun to decay and melt, their oozing eyes still on him. The room was growing dim again and the mirage of a clean, bright classroom evaporated. The children stood together staring at him among overturned desks and trash, the only light coming from the broken windows to make the shadows long on the haunting children. Their limbs started to shrivel and their faces started to slip off of their skulls in pieces. Bryant flung himself out of the door as the smell started to infiltrate his brain.

Eventually he found his way into the street again. He kept on running. Within a short time, his old work site stood before him. Without another thought, he ran inside. It was dark. An inky nothingness as soon as he closed the doors behind him. There were no windows, but he knew this place like the back of his hand. Bryant inched his way over to where he knew a locker of emergency supplies to be. He reached inside and rummaged around. His hand hit exactly what he was looking for. He pulled out an emergency torch and switched it on. It was dead. Angrily, he banged it on a wall. It weakly flickered to life with a dim, flashing orange illumination. He knew that it would have to do. He made his way into his workstation, marveling at the decay the building had undergone.

When he reached his office, he stepped over the fallen door and walked inside, the broken glass crunching under his feet as he walked. His office chair lay broken on the floor behind his desk. Reaching down to it, he tore off the cushion with one hand and put it on the desk, feeling the weariness tug at his body.. Climbing on the desk, he cradled the torch in his arms and closed his eyes. Images of the decaying school children flashed through his mind. He tore his eyes open and the images vanished. Now he couldn’t even sleep?

A bell rang out and echoed through the empty halls. Red lights started to flash. Bryant hopped to his feet. What was going on?

“Bryant! Come with me.” Bryant twirled around. His best friend Gary stood there.

“Gary!” Bryant felt his heart expand. He never expected to see Gary again, yet there he was. He felt as though he would burst. Gary wasn’t smiling.

“Come on. Hurry.” Gary commanded. Bryant obediently followed him. They wandered though the halls and up flights of stairs. His head was starting to ache from the constantly loud ringing of the bell. Finally they reached the control room. One side of the room, made completely of a pane of glass, was shattered. Bryant stopped, but Gary pulled him along by the arm right up to a console. “The key, Bryant. Now.”

“You’re the only one with a key! Come on.” The room was filled with workers, a sea of pale yellow one-pieces. Bryant was surrounded on three sides, his back to the gaping hole where the glass had been. Gary turned towards the mob.

“Let me handle it.” Gary hissed at them. He turned back to Bryant. “Bryant, listen to me. Only you can end this.” Bryant felt himself reach into his pocket. He felt the edge of a plastic card. He pulled it out and looked down.

“I have it!” Bryant held the card high in the air. “I have the keycard! Oh my god, I can’t believe I have it!” No one but Bryant was smiling. Gary shook his head sadly. His skin started to darken and his hair started to thin. Everyone else started displaying the same symptoms.

“It’s too late, Bryant. Nine years too late for that.” The awful stench once again struck Bryant and he stumbled backwards, tripping through the open wall. Down he fell.

It all came back to him. He remembered that day nine years ago, the meltdown, and his failure to arrive quick enough. He remembered the broken window and falling. Bryant hit the ground, his body flying apart on impact. All was dark.

Bryant staggered painfully along Main Street. Each painful shuffle of his feet trembled his thin and filthy frame. He was barely upright. It was the kind of exhaustion that came from not only endless walks, but also a tired soul. Bryant licked his chapped lips and painfully swallowed, his mouth desert dry and stomach clenched. He blinked his soulless grey eyes, worn down from the days spent wandering the endless streets. The sky was turning brighter, a sunrise that Bryant couldn’t feel the warmth of. He was stuck wandering-- hungry and alone for eternity.

Absolute Truth

Absolute Truth
By Sydney Shuster

There is a reason that people hide who they are and how they feel from those around them. There is a reason why creatures have the ability to lie, to act, to compensate. Without the veil of a much more composed human, society would fall to ruin. The idea of an honest, frank society is a nice one, but if everyone bared everything all of the time, there would be chaos. To show every insecurity, every flaw, every thought, the human race would simply not survive through the day.

Jan wanted truth. She wanted the whole hurtful truth, word for word, to be told to her though it would feel as though a branding iron were searing her skin. She wanted the words to pass from his lips and reach her ears, drilling into her brain. At least she thought she did. She gripped her delicate wine glass with her long pale fingers; her carefully manicured fire engine red nails clicking against the glass as she brought the rim to her full red lips and took a gentle sip. Across from her sat a man who was a foot and a half taller than she, wearing a smart suit and tie. This was Arnold, her husband. Arnold could feel her suspicious gaze upon him while he bowed his head, not looking at her and cutting his steak into small pieces. She was in one of those moods that he hated. She was an untrusting person by nature and every once in a while she would freak out and think the worst. Jan watched her silent husband shift uncomfortably in his seat. She crossed her legs, waiting. Waiting for the perfect time to question the man across the table but growing impatient, she wanted to know right then. Arnold came to the end of his steak but dreaded the first bite. This is always when she caught him. As many precautions as he took every time, she always got the perfect timing to ask. Knowing he could no longer prolong the inevitable, Arnold put down the knife and passed the fork to his opposite hand to eat. Stealing a quick glance at Jan, he noticed that she was watching him coolly, intently contemplating his movements. Arnold speared a square of steak and put it in his mouth, chewing slowly and carefully, apprehensive. And then she struck.

“Are you sleeping around?” Jan’s eyes were accusing but face calm as Arnold coughed and choked. She had done it again, caught him as he swallowed so that he breathed in his dinner. Damn. His eyes teared in pain as he hastily grabbed water to unblock his throat. This woman was going to kill him one of these days.

“Sweetheart, I could never cheat on you. You’re my wife, I married you.” Plus, Arnold said in his head, she’d neuter him if he ever cheated on her. An image flashed across his mind of Jan, light dim, wearing a bathrobe and moving towards him menacingly with a knife. He shuddered slightly. Wine glass still in hand, Jan studied Arnold’s face for lies. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t know how to read faces. She liked to think that she could though, but was unsure if he was telling the truth.

“Well you had better not be lying. I’ll know if you do. And if I ever catch you with another woman, you’ll be sorry.” The dimly lit room with disheveled Jan holding a shining knife flashed through Arnold’s mind again. Why did she never believe him? But he knew the answer to that question. She was who she was and she was who he married, a jealous and suspicious person but the woman of his dreams. He smiled in spite of the situation. Jan’s eyes narrowed.

“Why are you smiling?” she snapped, losing her cool, “Does the idea of infidelity amuse you or did you lie to me before?” She glared at Arnold who only smiled more, looking in the face of his beloved wife. God, he loved her.

“I’m smiling,” he said sweetly, “because the sight of you makes my heart sing and melt with joy.” And his heart did sing. He truly loved the suspicious, strong willed woman. To him she was almost perfect. The only fault he ever found in her was when she questioned his loyalty. He would never even think of another woman. Jan couldn’t help but be moved by the sincerity of his smile and she smiled too at the romantically sweet man.

“Well,” she said softly, “I’ll let you off the hook for now, but if you ever… if you ever…” Jan’s voice cracked and she cleared it. She wouldn’t become one of ‘those’ women who cried at everything. Arnold reached over and tenderly put her small hand in his own large hand.

“Never.” He whispered to her and she smiled a loving smile. But they had no way of knowing that truth was around the corner, waiting to strike like a cobra. People often say that they want truth. Many demand that others are honest to them. But some lies are better left in place. Some mistruths are better kept secret. Once carefully constructed masks of deception are lifted, all ugliness breaks through. Everything that was hidden by the lying is exposed like an open sore. The couple sat there in an uneasy truce, content. Jan had been reassured and Arnold was no longer being wrongfully accused of being disloyal, but not everything in the world was as well as the relationship at that table.
--
The government likes truth. This may not be something they practice themselves and politics is infamous for its lack of the aforementioned truth, but the government likes to know things about their enemies be they political or criminal. This is why lab P377A4 was set up in the mountains. It was here that the government rested and developed a secret new revolutionary crime fighting formula, a truth serum more powerful than Thiopental Sodium (more commonly known as Sodium Pentothal) and with less susceptibility to suggestion. They were hoping also that the new wonder drug could bring back forgotten memories pertinent to the line of questioning. With this new drug, they could find out anything they needed from anyone. It would be a new era in crime fighting.

After some time, difficulties emerged in lab P377A4. The scientists had created a new concoction called Formula P. After profuse testing, Formula P still had to have its chemical levels stabilized and the ratio of dose to size established. Unfortunately for the scientists, this was not the greatest problem. The main issue with Formula P was that whenever they tested their concoction on test subjects, the subjects started acting very strangely. They underwent substantial anomalous personality changes, crazy mood swings, and crippling paranoia. Formula P was also unpredictable. They tested it on several men of the same age and size but the results were vastly different pertaining to length of influence. It wasn’t consistent even with the same test subject. The range was between not working at all and lasting days on end during which time the subject neither ate nor slept.

After years of testing and millions of dollars, the government got impatient and declared Formula P a failure. Lab P377A4 was abandoned, and Formula P placed in a watertight container underground so that no enemies could discover it. Five years passed, then ten, finally twenty years passed and everyone associated with the super secret Formula P was dead or too old to remember. Formula P was completely forgotten, but it was not gone. There was an earthquake, a small one. The people who lived in the town over barely felt the shake, but the shake had horrible consequences. During the shake a hairline crack appeared in the plastic container. Formula P bled into the soil and groundwater. Luckily for the wildlife, the concoction was nontoxic. It hardly would have mattered though because there was an inconsequential amount leaking out and since it was diluting in the ground water, there was no adverse effect on the ecosystem. It appeared Formula P was to be forgotten forever. This was not to be. Formula P would strike one more time with deadly effects involving three couples on a getaway. Formula P would not be ignored. It would not fade into the fabrics of forgotten secret government tests. Formula P would facilitate something dire, something depraved. Formula P would change six people’s lives forever.


When the sun shines brightly and kisses the earth, the mood of the land changes. The grass begins its long journey skyward and the heat stimulates the senses of living things. Creatures of the land grow restless and lazy and it is then that they get away. The world slows down from the frenzied spring pace and summer is there. The season creeps into our lives, idly it dabbles in from previous seasons, never in a rush to be where it’s going, but somehow one day it’s there and it’s not going away for three months.

The day was hot. On days like these, children chase ice cream trucks and lawn sprinklers are turned into home amusement parks. People sit on their porches with fans in one hand and a glass of iced tea or lemonade in the other, the glass freezing and slick with condensation. It’s not a day to rush around like bees in a hive; everything is slower, slower and hotter. Three cars wound their way up a mountain pass on that day, yellow flowers jauntily streaked past among shining grass but only one person was paying attention to the lovely day out of the six traveling up the scenic road. The people in the ostentatious red convertible were arguing, the people in the minivan angrily debated politics, and the last car, the hybrid containing the woman named Sandra who watched out the window at the blur of yellow and green in quiet reflection, that car was silent except for the sound of the cold air exiting the vents in the dashboard. Sandra’s husband Glen drove quietly, watching the road but also lost in his own mind. There was no anger or tension in the car, all was calm. These people were dreamers, living in their heads and constantly lost in reverie.

Sandra was an artist who painted surreal pictures of landscapes. She liked to see everything not as it was but how it would look if everyone were transported into an alternate dimension. In many ways she live in that alternate universe, not because she hated the one everyone else was in, but because it was interesting, it amused her and it made sense. When her face went blank as a fresh blanket of snow and she gazed off into the distance, people often wondered what she was thinking. Her look was so far away, so intense that it was difficult at times to bring her back. She was at those times in her alternate reality, a reality different but no less real to her where the colors had changed and the mountains look more menacing than they actually were. Her paintings were a peek into her mind.

Glen, her husband, also lived in his head. He was a director of independent films and a part time screenplay writer. He was a quiet and gentle man, always calm and focused, truly stable. He listened to jazz, savoring the fast and chaotic melody, and loved to read the poetry of Robert Frost. He was never an emotional man, whatever he felt he never showed. He was always calm. Glen was an enigma, but he and Sandra never fought. They were solitary culture loving quiet individuals. Even those who did not believe in soul mates had to reexamine their credence when they met the pair. They agreed on everything, liked the same things, held the same opinions, and could do whatever the other could not, like Glen could sew but Sandra couldn’t. Sandra could cook but Glen burned even toast. Though a marriage like this sounds as though it would be boring, these people were quiet and solitary. They needed nothing more than their quiet discussions of a new piece of poetry, they were happy with each other’s company and had only four friends; Arnold, Jan, Patricia, and Calvin.

Patricia worked as a lawyer with Arnold in the law firm Mawson and Whitman, a small but prosperous establishment who dealt mainly in divorce cases, custody battles, and lawsuits for wealthy private clients. Though she was a timid woman and rarely spoke, she loved to debate politics and when she did open her mouth, the fire in her voice and power of her arguments often surprised people. This made her a fantastic and wealthy lawyer. When she entered a courtroom, her demeanor changed. She was no longer shy, but was a machine, and unstoppable force that could not be stirred. Her arguments were logical and to the point. Very rarely did she lose a case. Her husband, Calvin, was a very different person. They say opposites attract, but the attraction may have gotten lost on the way there. He was a loud, difficult man who had quit his job when Patricia got her license. They had been high school sweethearts but nothing was sweet about their relationship now. Calvin was obstinate and opinionated, a lover of porn and sleeping. This doesn’t mean he was a bad man; he was loyal to his wife, though no woman would really consider him, and had days where he really loved her. He did, however, treat her like something unpleasant he had scraped off of his shoe… that is if he asked what he scraped off of his shoe to cook, clean, and cater to his whim. He used her and took her for granted.

The digitized sound of ‘Ode to Joy’ broke off the angry argument in the minivan over welfare. Patricia was immediately jolted right back to being her normal timid self as she bit her lip and reached her hand into her dark blue handbag. Calvin smirked, content with his victory by forfeit. With one hand on the wheel and the occasional glance down, Patricia fished out her cell phone. With a wary eye on the road, she flipped open her phone and pressed the green button to turn it on. Wedging it under her cheek, she put her other hand on the wheel.

“Hello?”

“Hey Patricia!” Patricia jumped at the loudness and poor quality of the voice. The woman named Jan riding shotgun in the red convertible ahead of her turned around in her seat and waved to her. Patricia gave a halfhearted wave back. Jan wore a cliché red scarf around her hair with the loose ends blowing in the wind and sunglasses that took up half of her face. Patricia wondered to herself how Jan could be wearing a scarf in such terrible heat.

“She’s hot.” Calvin commented. Patricia looked over to him, despair in her eyes.

“Could you please not do this now? You promised to behave.” Calvin smirked again and turned away, to sleep Patricia presumed. She turned her attention back to the phone.

“Hi Jan, sorry, what do you need?”

“I... called... tell you… there soon.”

“You’re breaking up pretty badly.”

“5 minutes.”

“Okay great.” Patricia took her hand off of the wheel and closed her phone, dropping it in the bag. Off in the distance, beyond the red convertible and into the mountains she could see a beautiful old mansion coming closer and closer. She was immediately in love with the architecture, the colors and the way it was framed so perfectly it was as if the mountains were made for the building and not the other way around. Patricia shook slightly. It was magnificent. She watched it loom closer and closer, getting more and more magical in her eyes as she approached until she was parking. She had been dazed, out of body, unaware of her driving because of her entrancement with the mansion, grander then even more than in the distance. Calvin passed his hand in front of her face.

“Get the bags” he told her and slid out of the car, slamming the door. Patricia blinked and got out, not wanting to take her eyes off of the house. In a daze she opened the back and started taking out their bags. Sandra came and stood beside her. They felt the same way.

“Magnificent.” Sandra said breathlessly as she stared, gaze locked to the house, “I can’t wait to get out my easel and paint it tomorrow.”

The group congregated around the entrance to the mansion, bags stacked in preparation for entering the house. Sandra and Patricia sat and gazed into the distance together, watching the clouds above and the mountains cutting into the sky, so rough yet so peaceful. Jan tapped her foot impatiently.

“Let’s go, come on.” She whined, gripping the arm of a flustered Arnold.

“I’m looking! I have a lot of keys.” Arnold flipped through his key chain and finally found the one he was looking for. He held it up and smiled. Jan rolled her eyes.

“Amazing, you found the bloody key. Now put it in the lock and turn it so I can go up to our room.” Glen looked up to the sky.

“A storm’s coming and it looks like a bad one. Let’s get inside quickly. It’s moving fast.”

The storm clouds got closer and closer as Sandra stared out the window in the room she was staying in absentmindedly. Brush in hand, she painted the scene she saw in her mind of the scene out the window. Her strokes were fast but the surreal landscape she painted looked shockingly like realism. This was her alternate reality, so was where she painted from now surreal? Was it all relative?

The rain was blue, a beautiful soft blue that coated the house and surrounding mountains, treating the landscape as its personal canvass. It glistened strangely as it fell, thicker than normal rain, more like drops from the paintbrush of a watercolor artist than falling water. Upon contact with the surface, the droplets covered every exposed point with a sheer veil of blue. It rained hard on the old mansion on the mountains.

The room in which Sandra, Glen, and Patricia sat was a kitchen, though its graceful high ceilings of dark marble and intricate wooden flooring coupled with cleverly concealed cabinets and a stove disguised as a fireplace made the idea of cooking in such a room seem quite absurd to those not told for what the room’s purpose. Five low chairs and an equally height challenged coffee table adorned one corner. On that particular rainy evening, however, the colors in the room were not as they usually were. The chairs, normally beige, and the people, two normally pink and one normally brown, were illuminated by the dimming light shining through the long window which spanned from the wooden floor to the marble ceiling. The rays of the dying sun were cast through the sapphire colored raindrops, producing an eerie spotted blue glow to be cast upon those reclining in the kitchen. Sandra was silent. She couldn’t help but watch the drops hit the glass and slide towards the earth, drawn by gravity. She sat closest to the window; one hand with fingertips placed gently on the glass and the other hand gently lying on Glen’s relaxed palm.

“But then the real problem is where the orphans should be kept while the home is renovated” Patricia pointed out casually as she sat back in her seat and placed her cup of tea on the table, the soft sound of her clothes rustling as she moved adding to the patter of raindrops. Glen went to respond but before he could form the words with his mouth, Sandra spoke.

“The rain… it’s so blue. Why do you think it turned this color?” she murmured dreamily, eyes still locked on the window in a state of deep concentration and tracing one drop’s path with her finger as it streaked its way down the window like a sleepy comet. Patricia looked to the sky for a second, barely phased by Sandra’s non sequitur. She was, by now, used to Sandra’s ability to block everything else and focus on one observation. With her eyes to the dark grey sky and falling rain, Patricia ran her hand through her thick hair.

“Dunno, pollution I guess. Probably some company dumping into a nearby river,” she told Sandra, eyes never leaving the clouds, “It’s despicable if you ask me.”

“No one IS asking you, no one cares what you think.” Calvin snarled as he walked into the room to grab a beer from the fridge. “Nice timing,” he congratulated himself as if his words deserved some sort of award. Patricia took her eyes off of the sky, turning them instead to the ground as she sank even lower into her already low seat, a barely noticeable rouge to her dark cheeks. Calvin stole a glance at his wife and her friends by the window over a sip of his freshly opened beer. Sandra hadn’t even heard the comment, too absorbed with the rain to listen, but Glen had heard him and was staring straight at him. Calvin looked the other way. He wasn’t afraid of Glen, but that stare… it looked straight into his soul. He never liked Glen and was probably the only person on earth who didn’t, he had always found Glen disturbing.

“You shouldn’t treat a woman that way, much less your wife.” Calvin stopped walking towards the door, suddenly incensed by what he viewed as a blatant intrusion into his personal life. Without looking over to that stare which bore a hole into him he replied.

“I don’t have to listen to a no-balls hippy like you,” he retorted then made a little snort in laughter, once again the only one laughing at his offensive joke. Taking a satisfied sip of his bear, some of which dribbled out of the side of his mouth, he strutted out of the room. Glen followed Calvin with his eyes until he couldn’t see him anymore then turned his attention to Patricia who still sat in her chair, managing to almost sink into the floor with her embarrassment. Glen didn’t know what to say to her so he just sat there, mouth slightly ajar.

“It’s like a world from my paintings, changing our reality.” Sandra murmured dreamily, her eyes blurring from staring at one spot for to long, “This blue… is it the same blue of the sky? Are the heavens melting upon the land? If it is the heavens that hath melted upon the earth, would the remnant of the holy above be vile to our touch like acid or soothing like a cup of honeyed tea?” Sandra fell silent, once again absorbed in her own thoughts, a trance of dreamy reflections. Patricia uncovered her now even redder face and looked again at the completely grey, ominous sky and the unconventional blue rain falling from it.

“It does look like the heavens are melting down to earth. It’s so strange yet oddly beautiful, like we’re stuck in Dalì’s world.”

Together in quiescent peace, the friends watched the storm rage outside, separated from it by only a window, their minds filled with memories and question with no way of knowing the answers. Not everyone in the household had such deep thoughts floating around in their grey matter.

Out in the sitting room, Calvin sat with his portable television on his lab, a half empty can of beer dangling from his left hand which lazily hung over the arm of the chair in which he sat. His feet were crossed at the ankles on the table in front of him, creating scuffmarks on the antique mahogany wood. Like the fresh embers of a fire, Calvin sat smoldering, able, at the slightest hint of fuel, to ignite for a potentially greater inferno. He did not like the man who his wife seemed to like more than he telling him how to be the head of his own household. Suddenly the set stopped working. With an angry push of his thumb that almost sent the television cascading on a disastrous trip to the floor, Calvin switched off the set. He was tired. The group had been traveling all day to their location and he had yet to sleep properly. Tucking the TV set safely and snugly under the arm opposite the one with the hand still clasping his beer, Calvin walked over to the dark staircase and began his ascent upwards. When he reached the top step, he used the lion shaped ball of the rail to hoist himself up to the final step before continuing down the hallway and slipping into his room. He lazily walked over to his suitcase and placed the precious television inside before collapsing onto the bed.

As Calvin snored softly sprawled out on the yellow cover of the bed he and Patricia now shared for the weekend, the blue storm continued to assail the earth outside the house. Only Glen, Sandra, and Patricia remained awake to appreciate its eerie beauty. Arnold and Jan had long since fallen asleep after a long and heated argument.

But the three still with their eyes open would soon too feel the pull and gnaw of the exhausting day drag at their bones and so they also retired to their respective rooms, reluctant to leave the strange sight of the rain but too tired to hold up their heavy lids any longer.

They all slept, catapulted into their own separate worlds of their subconscious creation. Then, in the very dregs of night and at the earliest hours of the morning, a lightning bolt shot out of the sky and struck the house. It’s brilliant form reacted with the blue chemical that covered the house, creating a smoke that crept into the lungs of the sleeping residences. Their sweet thoughts turned into nightmares and their minds began to change. When they awoke the next day they would discover that hell can be on earth.


It was 8 am before anyone noticed a change. Jan awoke and began to put her sheer pink robe over her nightgown when she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. Heart suddenly pounding, she whirled around, her soft robe gently brushing against her calve. Surprised, she let out a bloodcurdling shriek and fell to the ground. It had her. She had to get it off. Frantically she clawed at her leg to get the imaginary stalker to let her go, to give her some peace. The commotion in the room woke Arnold from his slumber, making him jolt. His head hit the nightstand and he fell unconscious, sliding half onto the floor. As he lay there in a dreamless sleep, his hysterical wife scratched her raw skin, tears streaming from her sore eyes as she begged the phantom horror to leave her alone in broken unintelligible sentences.

Patricia, her room adjacent to Jan and Arnold, had awoken in her room to muffled noises next door. Sleepily she walked over to their room. Hearing the screaming more clearly now, she quickly opened the door and saw a disturbing scene greet her sleep heavy eyes. Jan sat babbling to herself in a fit and scratching at her bloody leg. Patricia only caught bits and pieces of what the apparently crazy wife of her friend said, but none of it made any sense. She sank to her knees, overwhelmed and still half asleep.

“What happened?” she whispered. Jan noticed Patricia and stopped the assault against her leg. In a frenzy of crazed and confused emotions, she ran her blood hands through her hair repeatedly; giving herself clumped uneven and tangled dark red highlights.

“Get him off of me,” she croaked, now crawling towards Patricia on her bloody palms and one clean leg, the other leg dragging against the ivory carpet. As she crawled she left behind a long line of red from her dragging leg and bloody smudges where she had placed her hands. Patricia gaped at this phantasmagorical scene. She was frightened; her brain rejected what she saw. What was going on here? Patricia knew she had to get Jan to calm down, but when she opened her mouth to say something reasonable and reassuring, something quite different tumbled out.

“There’s nothing on you, you crazy bitch. I always knew you were bonkers. You look like a fucking mental patient.” Patricia clasped her hand to her mouth in a flash. She hadn’t meant to say that. Those words weren’t even planned in her head. Jan stopped and sat quavering with wide, shifty eyes, ignoring the painful looking self-inflicted wound on her leg that stained the carpet under her. After a few minutes of anxiously and quietly watching the silent frightened woman, Patricia saw Jan’s face change, eyes narrowing and focused on Patricia.

“You.”

“Crazy bitch,” bitch seemed to be her new favorite word, “you were always a nut job and horribly paranoid, I’m not surprised it came down to this.” Patricia clasped her hand over her mouth again. Why couldn’t she stop saying those things? What was going on?

“You’re working with him, aren’t you? To get me. You’re just distracting me while he sneaks up behind me,” Jan turned her head one way then the other quickly, her hair brushing her neck as she moved. She shrieked again and began clawing at her neck. “I’m not fooled! I saw through your transparent plot to deceive me right from the beginning. I know your tricks!” Drops of blood began appearing from the irritated lines where Jan was scraping away at the delicate skin on her neck.

“Who are you talking about you nutty idiot? No one is after you.” Patricia bit her tongue. She just couldn’t stop herself. It had slipped out again. Jan stopped her scratching and sat staring and blinking at her.

“Ssssh. I don’t know who he is but he’s after me. I can’t let him get me!” Jan abruptly sprung to her feet and leapt to Patricia, snarling and catching the unfortunate woman completely by surprise. Jan was not the only one now filled with fear and adrenaline. Patricia tried desperately to push away the ghoulish woman bearing down on her. They were now screaming in unison, a macabre symphony of anguish and murderous war cries. Finally Jan stopped and sank to the floor, out of energy. Patricia collapsed on her back next to her.

“You are nuttier than a fruit cake. No one is after you,” Patricia wheezed, panting as her heart continually attempted to jump out of her body via her throat. Jan looked over at her, her eyes red and pleading.

“I can FEEL him. He’s out there.”

“I’ll say this once again- no one is after you. The only person who even wants you in the first place is Arnold and I’ll never know understand why he could ever want a skank like you.”

“No! He’s not the only one. Sam, Leo, and John want me too. They love me too.” Jan’s eyes bugged out and she grabbed Patricia’s shirt. “Oh God, I don’t know why I just told you about them. You can’t tell Arnold. I love him- love him- more than anything else on this earth,” she whispered, shaking as though there were a draft in the well-insulated room. Patricia’s mind suddenly remembered Arnold and she was worried.

“Where IS Arnold?” she asked and struggled to her feet. She looked to the bed and glimpsed a tuft of hair on the other side. “Arnold?” Leaving the whimpering Jan by the door, Patricia went over to the opposite side of the bed. Arnold half lay half sat there propped up on the bed, a cut on his head trickling a small amount of blood. Slightly taken aback, Patricia calmly pressed three shaking fingertips of her right hand on his neck. She felt a calming jumping under her fingers. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath of relief.

“Oh God, is he alright?” Patricia jumped. Opening her eyes and turning her head slightly, she could see the haggard Jan standing over her shoulder.

“He has a pulse but I’m not a doctor. I think we should try and wake him. I think it might be a concussion or something, though I can only see a wound on his head. He could have had a heart attack or something else. I just don’t know. All my medical knowledge comes from the TV show Scrubs.”

“Whatever we need to do. Just fix him please!” Jan grabbed Patricia’s t-shirt, leaving another bloody stain on it. “I’m scared, Patty. I’m so scared.”

“Don’t fucking call me Patty, I hate that. I feel like a hamburger or a lesbian cartoon character,” Patricia told her nastily in a rush. She paused wishing she could keep her thoughts to herself. “Sorry I don’t know what’s wrong with me (or anyone else) this morning. Go get some cold water from the hall bathroom. That may wake him up.” Jan nodded and hurried out of the room, the thoughts of the mystery person now replaced with feelings of concern for her injured husband. After Jan left, Patricia started to gently slap her pale coworker’s cheeks with her fingertips. After that didn’t work, Patricia tried shaking him. Arnold did not stir. Jan returned with a full bucket dangling from her hands. She promptly threw the water over her husband and the woman kneeling in from of him. Patricia cried out in shock, not pleased and now completely soaked. She jumped up to confront the worried bucket-wielding woman.

“You got me all wet! If you had any brains in that botoxed little head of yours, you’d know that you can’t just throw water wherever you damn please.”

“Jan?” Jan’s face lit up and Patricia turned around at the sound of Arnold’s voice. He had awoken and was sitting there, dazed and blinking hard. Jan pushed the shocked Patricia aside and wrapped Arnold in a tight hug.

“I’m- so- glad- you’re- okay,” Jan sobbed, choking on her words. Arnold patted her back sluggishly and reassuringly.

“I’m alright, my head hurts a bit. I’m a little confused though. I heard a scream and then I was soaking wet on the floor with a headache. Why is Patricia here?”

“Oh God, oh God, you’re alright, you’re okay. I’m so glad you’re okay, sweetheart. I was so frightened.”

“Is that blood on you and in your hair? What happened? I should be worried about you!”

“Hush, no, I’m fine. He was trying to get me but I was too clever for him and drove him away for now.”

“Who? Who was trying to get you?”

“It doesn’t matter. Let’s get you some dry clothes and a towe-“

“Darling!” Calvin was now standing in the doorway. Patricia rolled her eyes. “I woke up and you weren’t here. I heard talking and I went here to look for you. Patricia barely glanced at him and instead went over to Arnold’s suitcase to get a fresh set of clothes for him. On her way back to the soaked and ailing man, she answered her husband.

“Hi Calvin. I woke up because there was a little accident in here. Just go back to bed.” Calvin looked at her and saw the red smudges on her shirt and the trail of blood on the carpet. His first feeling was nausea but it was soon replaced with concern.

“Whose blood is that? Oh hell, are you hurt? What happened?”

“I’m fine you tubby oaf. Why do you care?” She placed Arnold’s clothes on the floor next to him and walked over to her husband.

“Because I love you and I care what happens to you. I don’t want any harm to come to you.”

“You don’t love me you bastard. Be a man and don’t insult me with your lies.”

“What lies? I love you!”

“Sure.”

“Don’t you love me too?”

“I stopped loving you a long time ago.” It seemed as though time in the room stopped as soon as those words left her lips. Calvin looked like he had been punched in the gut, exactly as Patricia had felt every day for so many years. She had been given this extreme burst of confidence, but she felt herself changing more and more by the second, her kind, caring exterior melting at each passing moment. She hadn’t meant to tell him that, but his misery- it felt so good, so satisfying. “Listen I can’t talk now. We’ll discuss this later. Just g-“ Patricia stopped mid-word. Calvin was crying. It wasn’t the heaving sobs of a dumped woman, but instead silent like he had just witnessed the last scene in a movie where the hero’s dog, his very best friend, just died. Patricia had never seen the man show that much emotion before, certainly never cry.

A scream of pain and horror cut through the tense air in the bedroom from far down the hallway. It was piercing as though that one note had the power to rip through living flesh. Patricia nearly fell down, but Arnold stood up, now dressed in dry clothes with the cut on his forehead lovingly cleaned. Their eyes met and Patricia understood. Arnold looked to Calvin.

“Stay with Jan, Calvin. I’m going to check out that scream.”

“But…”

"Patricia will go with me.” Arnold walked slowly and carefully over to Patricia, still wobbly on his feet. He stumbled, dizzy, and almost fell. Patricia ran to his side to support him.

“You hit your head hard. Let me help you.” Patricia offered him her shoulder and he thanked her.

“Why don’t you stay with Jan, you’re injured,” Calvin suggested, stepping towards him, “I’ll go with my wife and check it out.”

“They don’t like you.”

“That was rather… blunt.”

“Stay here with my wife, Calvin. I don’t have time to argue with you.” Arnold and Patricia brushed past Calvin and walked quickly together down the hallway to Glen and Sandra’s room. With an unsteady hand, Patricia pushed the ajar door all the way open. Her heart was beating hard, once again trying to escape through her mouth. Nothing she had every seen could have prepared her for this sight.

Sandra lay on her back on the ground, face towards them. Her eyes were half open, a trickle of blood from the side of her mouth. In her chest was a long deep gash which nearly cut her in two. Her arm was stretched towards them, palm up and fingers curled. All around her, completely soaking the violet carpet, was blood, a sea, an ocean of it. Blood was everywhere, splattered on the wall and bed; it had even covered the half finished painting on the easel by the window. There was clearly no hope for Sandra. She was dead. This was just too much for Patricia. Sandra. Dead? No no no no no. Emotions overwhelmed her and she vomited. The stench of blood was everywhere. Sandra’s blood. Her best friends blood. There Sandra’s corpse was, staring at her, accusing her. Next to Patricia, Arnold swayed but leaned against the door jam and stood firm. Big tears started rolling from Patricia’s eyes and falling, mixing into the pool of blood that nearly reached her toes. So much blood. From one woman? Sandra was nearly 15 feet away and yet the blood nearly reached the door.

“Where- Where’s Glen?” Arnold asked her, clearing his throat. He noticed movement in the corner.

“I’m right here. As you can see, Sandra isn’t the only artist in the marriage.” Glen stepped out from the shadows around the corner on the opposite side of the room completely covered with a splatter of dark red blood from his hair to his shoes. In his hand was a bowie knife, the blade shining and red, dripping blood. “Who will be my next masterpiece?”


Most people, when faced with their best friend’s mutilated body and the man who killed her standing there covered in blood and announcing your next while holding a knife, run. If the threatened individual has a gun or martial arts training or a group of large bulky individuals, then they might stay and fight. Patricia and Arnold had none of these things. They stood there frozen, unprotected and, in Arnold’s case, injured. Though Arnold did have a head wound, he was no longer affected by the chemical like Patricia was. She was now unable to control herself. In the face of danger, it did not look good. Because the chemical no longer affected him, Arnold did recognize the danger they were in.

“Patricia, run. There is nothing we can do to help her now. You have to worry about yourself!” Patricia ignored him. She couldn’t take her eyes off of Sandra’s blood soaked body. Her heart pounded. With each loud thump the world disappeared more and more. She couldn’t hear. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. All that was in her existence was Sandra’s pale unmoving face, filled with blank terror. It was horrific, staring, pleading, empty, void of everything Sandra represented and believed. She would never paint another mountain, never another tree. In that hand, her right painting hand, there would never be another paintbrush, that hand that stretched towards them like a dead spider, legs curled upwards on its back in its final pose.

Suddenly everything snapped into focus like the lifting of a heavy fog. Patricia was aware of everything around her. She couldn’t end up like her dearest painter friend who lay getting colder by the minute on the floor in an ocean of what had previously been her life force. Glen was getting closer, taking his time, enjoying the suspense as he twirled his bloody knife slowly in his crimson stained hand. She felt now the tugging of Arnold at her sleeve, heard him begging her to leave. Glen still advanced as she watched. He knew they wouldn’t run, and he didn’t mind. He savored their fear, drew power from it. Watching them was the spectacle, the fear, the suspense; the victims watching him watch them as he drew closer and closer, unable to get away from their bloody doom, their death under his knife. Seeing that helplessness- it was an indescribable high, a thrill that ran through his entire being.

“We have to go! We have to warn the others! Snap out of it,” Arnold pleaded to Patricia. Patricia had already made up her mind though. She turned to Arnold and smiled a sweet but sinister smile, like that of a puppy who plans to chew your slippers for the sin of buying generic kibble.

“Thank you.”

“Thank me later, let’s go now!”

“I won’t have the chance to thank you later. So goodbye Arnold, and thank you again.”

“Wha-?” His eyes grew wide as Patricia bodily grabbed him and threw the stunned man with ease towards their former friend with a knife. Then she started running the fastest she had ever run in her entire existence, digging her bare toes into the carpet and propelling herself forward so that she felt like she was flying away, away from danger and that staring body. Surprisingly to her inner self, she felt no regret. After a few steps she heard a strangled and gargling cry of both surprise and pain. She kept going, never pausing. The car was her goal, but first she had to tell the others- they would serve her well in stalling Glen.

She arrived at the door, panting. Calvin sat next to the whimpering Jan, soothingly rubbing her back. Jan looked up as soon as she heard Patricia’s panting and craned her neck in a panic.

“Where’s Arnold?” Jan shrieked, grabbing Calvin’s arm tightly. He pretended that the nails digging into his arm and drawing blood didn’t hurt as he continued to rub her back soothingly.

“I think he’s dead.” Patricia panted. Jan froze, staring, her mouth open but no words leaving her lips. Calvin looked at Patricia.

“What? What happened over there?”

“We have to leave now! It’s Glen- he has a knife. Sandra is definitely dead and if we don’t get to the cars, he’ll kill us too. Arnold, I didn’t see but…” Jan finally snapped out of it.

“NO. No no no. No no no. NO. Not Arnold. You didn’t see him die, he could still be- be alive or injured! How could you just run away?” Calvin took his hand from her back and gently touched her cheek.

“Jan…”

“NO!” Jan got to her feet and released Calvin’s arm, knocking the unfortunate man to the ground. She stood there, panting, standing in the middle of the floor. Then she looked up to the ceiling and shouted at the top of her lungs, “What the hell is going on this morning?” Calvin jumped to his feet and grabbing an errant sock from when Arnold changed before, tying it with his teeth and spare hand around where Jan had punctured his skin. He couldn’t get his head around the details.

“Are you sure it was Glen?” He had never liked the man, but the idea of him being a killer seemed ridiculous.

“I’m sure it was Glen. I saw him. He’s messed up, he called Sandra’s body his masterpiece, said Sandra wasn’t the only ‘artist in the family,’ trust me, he’s coming.”

“Do you know how much time we have?”

“He was moving pretty slowly in the room, but I have no idea.” Calvin nodded and grabbed Jan’s shoulders, standing in front of her and looking into her red, staring eyes.

“Jan? Jan listen to me. Jan- I need you to run. Can you run for me Jan? I know you’re hurting really bad right now and I can in no way tell you I know what you’re going through but we have to get to the cars. Arnold would have wanted you to be safe,” he cooed. Jan blinked and focused on his eyes. To his relief she shakily nodded. “Let’s go then.” Patricia watched the two from her vantage point at the door, every so often glancing down the hallway to the corner where Glen would emerge.

Like a marionette with tangled strings, Jan doddered to the door. Once all three were in the hallway, Patricia glanced at them then started to run together down the hallway, panting and filled with fear. They were confused, together unsure and frightened. They nearly flew down the stairs with Patricia in the lead and Jan close to Calvin, Jan occasionally bumping into decorations because she couldn’t quite control her limbs yet. Soon they entered the front room through a door facing another staircase, stairs, which also connected to the upstairs. On the wall in the middle of the walls with the stairs and door they had just entered were the front door and four windows that let in an eerie blue light. There were two couches in the middle of the small room and end tables next to the couches, proudly displaying their various decorations. Patricia made a beeline for the exit, grabbing the cool silver handle with both hands. She pulled down then up, but the handle did not move, the door did not budge or even creak. It acted as through she were pulling at a hook connected to a wall. The door moved not an inch. Calvin and Jan stood behind her and watched, hearts pounding, as Patricia groaned and sweated at the handle, trying with everything she had to shift the door. Jan sank to her knees and put her face in her hands.

“That door was not locked. It couldn’t have been. This house is cursed.”

“Let me try honey.”

“I can do it! Leave me alone!”

“This entire house is cursed! You people are cursed and we’re all going to die here, sliced to ribbons.”

“Seriously, let me try.”

“Cursed-“

“Fine. Big manly-man can do it better than me? Do it- go. I give up.”

“Why has the devil chosen us to play with? Where is god?”

“Here I go.” Patricia stepped aside, almost tripping over Jan who was still muttering about curses on the floor. She watched her husband with her arms crossed and face sneering as he tried the door. It was sealed. He gave up after a few tugs. “This is useless,” he proclaimed. Running to the nearest window, he jammed his fingers under the bottom and pushed up. It didn’t move. Patricia ran to the others and tried. She kicked over a nearby sculpture in frustration after the last one refused to open. It fell to the floor and shattered.

“What the fuck? Are the windows locked too?” In frustration, Jan kicked the wall, stubbing her toe. Jumping into action and grabbing a nearby coat hanger, Calvin walked to a window and swung. The glass cracked but stayed together. Angered, he swung again. It cracked more. In a fury he swung again and again but the window remained in its frame, shattered but unmoved.

“This isn’t working,” Patricia yelled to her husband in frustration, “I don’t know what’s going on in this house!” From the floor, Jan screamed and pointed. She was shaking, looking to the stairs. Calvin and Patricia followed the path of her finger. There Glen stood, bloodier than the last time Patricia had seen him. He clutched the bowie knife in his left hand, dripping drops of pure red blood onto the stairs. Slowly and deliberately he descended, one step at a time. Patricia was again frozen in fear, under Glen’s hypnotic spell. Calvin backed up, glancing at the exit but not yet fleeing. Jan shakily stood, still pointing.

“Why?” she asked, her voice quavering but firm. Glen continued his descent.

“It seems you have all congregated by the front door. Having a pajama party are we? May I join?”

“What have you done with the doors and windows?” Calvin asked, fists clenched and head pounding.

“Why would I have done anything with them? I’m actually quite surprised you haven’t left. Could you not bear to be apart from me?”

“You’ve done something with the door. It’s not simply locked- it’s frozen! Did you plan out our deaths the entire time or on the road here?”

“I usually keep my killing to strangers, but all of a sudden, I couldn’t control myself. Killing is just so freeing. It’s euphoric- like nothing else in the world and this morning my hunger is too strong. No man could ignore it. No, I didn’t plan to kill anyone… that is until I woke this morning.” Glen continued coming down the stairs, his bare feet leaving red smudges on the hardwood. Jan began to cry anew.

“You sick fuck! You maniac! Why would you kill my husband?” Glen shook his head.

“He was a gift to me, a sacrifice but I am still hungry.”

“What? A sacrifice? You sick monster! You have the entire world twisted.”

“No, it was a present, I’m not mistaken. Ask Patricia; she’s the one who gave him to me.” Jan turned to her shocked friend.

“What is he saying, Patricia?”

“I used that trusting idiot to distract Glen while I got away.” Jan stared at her, gaping. Patricia cursed herself for this sudden bout of openness she had developed.

“How could you?” Jan whispered, horrified, “Arnold was your friend.”

“It was him or me,” Patricia snapped, backing away from the advancing Jan. Calvin stepped towards them.

“Patricia, I don’t condone what you did, actually I can’t believe you would do something like that, but Jan, don’t do anything stupid. We’re all on the same side here.”

“Don’t get in my way!” Jan grabbed a lamp and threw it at Calvin’s head, It connected and Calvin crumpled, unconscious in his place but not bleeding. Jan turned back to Patricia. Patricia was frightened, for she could tell that Jan had murder on her mind.

“Stop,” she pleaded, “Glen’s the enemy, he was the one who plunged in the knife, no me!” Glen had stopped coming down to them and was now sitting on the stairs; chuckling to himself as he watched the show he had inadvertently created play out. He played with his knife, twirling it slowly as he watched and gripping the handle tightly. Jan lunged at Patricia, a fire in her red blotchy eyes. Patricia dodged her and took flight, running back towards the stairs to get away. Jan followed her with her hands outstretched. Patricia reached the wall by the stairs and turned back. She was cornered. Glen sat grinning on the stairs and Jan was only a few feet in front of her on her escape route. She had no place to go. Everything seemed unreal and she dropped to her knees in a sign of defeat, tears streaking down her face.

“Don’t kill me,” she pleaded, hands clasped in front of her, “Please, please let me live!” Jan showed no mercy and jumped on top of her, pinning the woman down despite her small frame.

“Say you’re sorry,” she screamed into Patricia’s face, hand on Patricia’s throat, and nails drawing blood on each point of contact. The helpless woman continued to cry helplessly, unable to move. “Say it or you die.”


Patricia’s shaking choked frame was pinned under Jan’s small one. Above them like a puppeteer pulling the strings was the delighted and bloody Glen holding his killing instrument as he watched gleefully, a vulture ready to pick at the leftovers. The hue in Patricia’s face was a discernible hue of blue as Jan tightened her murderous grip around her captive’s neck. Patricia struggled to get away, but Jan was so heavy- so very heavy. It was agonizing. Where had the air gone? That life-giving gas she wanted to fill her lungs with more than anything else. Why was she suffocating with the air so close? She could touch it with her fingertips and fill her mouth with it, yet her lungs screamed for what was so abundant, her brain clouding and shooting off warning signals. With all of her might, Jan pushed down, sobbing, saying the same words over and over again like a personal mantra until the words became as a part of the room.

“Say it,” she shrieked, “Say you’re sorry. Say it! Say you’re sorry!” Patricia could no longer understand the words spoken. Everything was a big mumble, the world was composed of fog and she was burning as she fell through it. Then without warning, Jan released her grip and Patricia immediately began taking in huge gulps of air. Leaning in dangerously close to Patricia’s face, Jan whispered her demand one more time. “Say it. Say you’re sorry or your death will come painfully and slowly.” Patricia’s eyes now flowed with tears as she breathed in heavily, regretting the words she knew she could not keep from pouring out her mouth like poison. She could not lie.

“I- I wish more than anything in the world that I was,” she whispered, “I’m sorry- I’m sorry I’m going to die. I’m sorry you found out.” Patricia closed her eyes, preparing for Jan’s tight hands to once again resume their place on her throat. She had always pictured herself as dying old, surrounded by family and friends. She wasn’t ready to die. For a few moments, it seemed like Patricia was going to live at least for the moment, but then an inhuman growl emerged from the air above her and Jan bore down on her, squeezing and squeezing Patricia’s raw throat. The unfortunate woman gargled and squirmed, her eyes flung open as she tried to suck in air. She fought as hard as she could, but Jan was screaming, filled with inhuman strength from the rage she felt. The room was filled with sound, laughing, screaming, gagging, and crying. Emotions too mixed in the small room so that if each emotion were to be designated a color, a rainbow would fill the small space. Fear, glee, anger, panic, heartbreak, it was a whirlwind of emotions, a mosaic of passions.

As the life started leaving Patricia, her brain dying and lungs straining, Calvin gained back life. The world started coming into focus. Unfortunately, as he opened his eyes, Patricia moved her last. Three souls had been released in the span of 20 minutes. Calvin flipped onto his back and craned his neck to the sobbing on the stairs. There Jan stood, still bloody and crying, holding her hand in front of her face in disbelief, Patricia’s body at her feet. Calvin suddenly regained his memory of what happened in the moments before he lost his consciousness.

“Patricia,” he screamed. Jan looked over and gritted her teeth.

“Bitch deserved it.” Jan spat onto Patricia’s corpse. She stared venomously down, all her pain and anger showing its ugly form in her face. She went to spit again but stopped, her face changing from hatred to confusion. She grunted a little and grabbed her stomach. Glen blinked a few times and squinted, trying to focus his still muddled gaze. Behind Jan was a shape. As Calvin’s eyes started adjusting more, he gasped. It was Glen. Jan started to scream. A red stain radiated from her middle. Behind her Glen stood with a calm face, and with one fluid arm motion, Jan fell forward, a huge gash in her side. Blood sprayed along the brown walls and stairs. Calvin struggled to his feet, ignoring the dizziness he felt as he stood up. Blinking, he focused on Jan’s horrific corpse lying on Patricia’s beautiful body, covering everything with a layer of blood. Her face was towards him and eyes were half open, already clouded with the milky veil of death. Her mouth was curled, a few teeth showing like a scowl, like she rejected the situation she was in. Glen caught Calvin’s eye and winked, the corner of his mouth slyly turned upwards in a half smile. Calvin didn’t wait another second before running as fast as he could out the opposite door. His head was ready to explode. He was next, he was going to die, where could he go, where could he hide? He was the only one left; he was alone with that psycho. Arnold was dead, Jan was dead, Sandra was dead, even his darling beautiful wife was dead. Only Glen and he remained, the predator and the prey.

Frantically he ran, losing himself in the maze of hallways inside the enormous house. He tried his best to be quiet as he ran, but his head was still throbbing from where he had been hit with a blunt object. He ran lightly, minimizing his noise, but inside his head there was nothing but screaming. He screamed over and over, wishing and praying for this nightmare to be over, to be back at home in front of the television with a beer in one hand and Patricia’s sweet form reading a book on the couch next to him. Mostly he was filled with regret, an overwhelming guilt about how he had lived his life and treated those in it. It was these thoughts that rebounded through his fractured skull. There was so much noise in his head, the sheer unequal balance of the gentle patter of his running feet versus the pandemonium raging in his mind gave him a greater headache.

Eventually he reached a dead end, a hallway lined with doors. Each door was painted a dark maroon color, clashing terribly with the hideous green running carpet on which he stood shakily. Calvin gathered a chestful of air and let it out slowly. He told the demons haunting his thoughts to clear and he listened for a sound. The house was still as death. The only sound in the hallway was his own strangled breathing as he tried to be as quiet as possible. This backfired as his quiet breathing didn’t allow him enough air and he felt the need to yawn.

Finally the voices had quieted and he turned to the doors for a closer look, confident he had at least a few minutes. Each door was christened with a shiny bronze letter above the gold handles. Maybe in one of these doors he could find safety. Quickly he scanned the letters. P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X. He walked over to U. It wasn’t too close to the end or too close to the corner.

When Calvin opened the door, he was greeted with a pleasing sight. This was definitely a place he could hide. It was a dark room, and from the floor to the ceiling, wall-to-wall were boxes; cardboard boxes, trunks, wooden boxes, piled in different sized towers. Only slivers of floor were visible, barely enough for him to navigate through in the clutter. Smoothly and steadily, he closed the door behind him after entering, holding the handle down until it lined up with the jam. Carefully he allowed the handle to return to its initial position. He was surrounded by a suffocating blackness. No even a helpful ray of light escaped from under the low door. A musty smell hit him. For a moment he forgot the predicament he was in and was filled with boyish excitement. He waved his hand in front of his face. There wasn’t even an outline. It was thrilling. Calvin had never been in total darkness before, seeing nothing. He quietly wondered if he was experiencing what blind people felt. The image of Jan’s milky and clouded eyes came from the back of his mind and planted itself firmly and stubbornly in his mind. All traces of the excitement he felt vanished instantly.

Navigating the room without making noise was difficult. Calvin strained his eyes to adjust but only succeeded in hurting them. With quivering arms stretched and flailing, he squeezed through the boxes, cringing at every rustle and shift. Eventually he reached a blockade of boxes. Gingerly he placed one of his bare feet on the box in front of him and pushed up. A burst of dust and the overpowering smell of mothballs hit his face, but it was solid and held his weight. Like a squirrel, he climbed up further and back down the other side, clearing the ceiling by only a few feet. He resolved to hide there.

Sitting for what seemed like an eternity, the frightened widower made up games in the stuffy darkness to keep him from the precipice of the gaping abyss that was insanity. He would reach into a nearby box and while praying nothing bit him, tentatively take out an object. He would then hold the object and carefully feel it to guess what it was. He had no way of verifying the guesses, but he didn’t and couldn’t care. The alternative to the game was sitting alone with his thoughts, sitting and stewing in the events of that day. He was fine with his hypotheses.

Calvin was holding what he surmised to be a flag of some sort when a ray of light permeated the room, hitting a spot to the left of his head. The light hurt his eyes and flinched because by then his eyes had already adjusted to the darkness. After a few blinks of pain, realization crept over his mind like the rising sun. There was light. The only light that could possibly be in the room would come from the hallway. He was faced with a terrifying question. Had the door opened on its own, or did someone open it? In his chest his heart was a drum roll, his lungs a furnace. Soon he knew the answer. The door opened more and additional light streamed in. Calvin saw that next to him was a large gap leading straight to the front of the room. He scooted a little to the right, trying to escape sight.

“Hello? Calvin? Are you in here? Ready or not, I’m coming in. I love hide and seek. Especially when I’m it.”


Calvin felt his blood freeze in his veins. The voice that reverberated around the room made stopped his heart. There he sat, a sitting duck. One noise and he was dead, one movement and he was dead. If he tried to hide he would inevitably make a noise, which would lead to death. Would his breathing be the thing that killed him? A cold shot went up Calvin’s spine. Could Glen hear him blink? Could he hear the blood racing through his veins?

The door groaned and was flung all of the way open. Calvin saw a shadow of a figure, a stain in the light. Calvin curled up to himself in the corner of the boxes.

“Come out come out wherever you are!” Calvin heard steps clearly, slowly, and deliberately touching the floor like the ticks of a clock counting down his time. Placing his hand hesitantly on the floor, Calvin shivered as he felt the vibrations. He shut his eyes and concentrated on each tremble of the floorboards.

“Where are you?” the voice was close.

“Over here,” Calvin called out. Fuck. That was the worst thing he could have done. Calvin looked around but there were no openings in the wall of dark boxes. He was trapped, surrounded. Swiftly he examined his space as the footsteps got louder and quicker. Calvin formulated a weak plan. He readied himself and calmed his thumping heart. The organ stabilized only for a second because the next, Glen stepped out of the shadows and his heart started pounding again. He was just as gruesome as Calvin had remembered, possibly more so in the gloomy light. A spray of blood covered Glen from head to toe, some of it now turned brown but most of it still a deep shining red. The knife, seemingly joined to the end of Glen’s arm instead of a hand, was absolutely coated with bright shining blood.
“Hello Calvin. It seems as though just you and I remain. Since you will be my last kill of the day, I think I’ll give you a choice. Do you want your death slow or quick?”

“Not at all I think please.” Glen laughed, a deep and deranged cackle. He took a step forward. Calvin was now surrounded on all four sides.

“Come on, I can wait for now, but your death will come eventually and I was looking forward to kicking back with one of your nice cold beers.”

“I- well- err- um…”

“You should be proud that you survived for so long, though if you hadn’t hid behind your wife and her friends, you would be dead too.” Calvin watched and waited, standing up slowly to be at Glen’s level. The average sized Glen became a giant, a fiend of evil in the deep shadows of the storeroom. Glen took a step forward and Calvin braced himself, every muscle in his body tensing to take action. Glen took another step forward and Calvin flung himself at the boxes.

Adrenaline pumping, Calvin grabbed a basket handle at knee height and pulled as hard as he could. The stack wobbled then fell down between Glen and he. Glen looked at the pile with a mix of amusement and annoyance. The pile was only about two feet high. Calvin froze in his place. Panic coursed through his mind. He had pictured the stack to be larger.

Hyped and frightened, Calvin braced his shoulder and ran crazily at the tower, ramming bodily into the stack next to him. The stack fell from shoulder height with a loud bang. It was useless. Glen had stopped walking, his curiousness briefly overwhelming his desire to kill Calvin. Taking advantage of the halt and maddened by the ticking internal clock, Calvin commenced kicking and pushing the stack next to him, every so often glancing to Glen in an attempt to ascertain how much time he had left. Glen quickly grew bored.

“Enough!” Glen stepped easily over the boxes and advanced upon the screaming Calvin. There was no time left. Calvin had to do something immediately or he would end up like- like everyone else.

“Don’t come any closer!” Calvin screamed, crazed and frothing. The knife was so sharp, sharper than anything he had ever seen before and the knife burned. It burned for him, his flesh, and his blood. It wanted him. “Stay away! I’m warning you!”

“There is nothing you can do. The threats spewing from your mouth are empty- you’re trapped. Your terror excites me but I need you dead.” Calvin watched him with wide-open eyes, body remaining rigid in preparation. Glen held his knife high in the air and leaned forward. Calvin led out a battle cry from deep in his chest and reached out through the hole he had made, pushing the boxes from behind. There was a loud crash as three boxes fell on Glen. Startled, Glen stepped back and tripped over the boxes on the floor. Glen didn’t wait to see if he was all right. As soon as Glen hit the ground, Calvin pulled himself over the boxes and jumped down. His foot landed on a shard of broken glass.

“Shit!” he cursed, leaning against the boxes in dizzying pain. “Shit.” He repeated, closing his eyes to cool his throbbing head and think. He didn’t have time to stop but he couldn’t get far with the pain. Calvin reached down and gripped the glass tightly with his fingers. It was hard to get a grasp from all of the blood. With one quick motion, Calvin pulled it out. It hurt twice as much as when he landed on it. Could he walk? He wasn’t sure. Pushing on the boxes he leaned against to give himself some propulsion, Calvin found himself falling backwards. He landed hard on his ass on the cold floor. Next to him he saw a glint of metal stained red. Calvin spun around on his knees and faced it, picking it up delicately like a bomb in his hands that would explode. A light went off in his brain. Glen had been disarmed. He now had the power. Painfully he stood up and balanced on his good foot, gripping the knife tightly in his hand as he surveyed the huge pile in front of him. Calvin shakily held the knife up in preparation to jab. Nothing moved from the boxes. Calvin poked an errant box on top of the pile gingerly. It tumbled down the side. He waited for Glen to rise from the mound like a zombie from the grave. ‘Maybe Glen died in there’ he thought to himself with a slight feeling of hope. Was it over? Was it that simple?

Calvin’s blood froze again. Something had tapped his shoulder. The knife clattered to the floor and he started shaking. Cautiously he turned his head. Glen’s face was an inch from his and bearing a twisted, bloody smile. Glen was missing a few teeth and a wore nasty gash across his forehead. Calvin closed his eyes. Then it was over.

Glen fingered the bookend he had used to brain Calvin. He looked down to Calvin’s sprawled out body before reaching down and picking up his knife. With a nasty sneer plastered on his face, Glen bent down again and spit blood into Calvin’s bludgeoned face.

Hopeless (warning, quite dark, if you are upset easily please don't read)

Hopeless
By Sydney

Jonathon hates typing. Working as a web designer doesn’t help. Each click on the keyboard feels like a lesson in the insignificance of human life. Each letter gets lost in the tapestry of words so that in the end no one notices or cares that that one letter was not always a part of that word, had so much potential to be anything it wanted. He is forced to type though so he can pay for his one bedroom apartment above the pet store. He didn’t always live there. He used to be married but his wife had left him in the spring for a Canadian man who spoke three languages and was a three-time rock-climbing champion. After Jonathon had caught the two lovers locked in a passionate affair on his bed, his wife’s lawyer pounced like a hungry leopard and before he could even blink, the house they shared in the outskirts of the city, his car, his live savings and his pride were all taken away from him. Fucking Canadians.

Jonathon stares at the word document, the little vertical line flashing, ready to imprison a string of letters together forever. Lifting one heavy hand, Jonathon presses the q button and watches line after line of letters materialize on the screen like uniformed soldiers ready to fight. Someone knocks on his cubicle and Jonathon stops creating troops. Using his feet to turn his chair, he faces the opening of the dreary box in which he has worked for six years and the figure of his boss.

“Hi.” Jonathon’s boss doesn’t return the greeting. He instead stares at his employee and his employee stares back into the eyes that are cold. They have no affect on Jonathon, however, because Jonathon is already numb and the cold can’t damage what is already frozen.

“You haven’t done any work in two months. At first I let it slide because your wife left you, but then I started giving you warnings. I’m really sorry about this but I did warn you. Clean out your cubicle. I want you gone by end of business today.” Jonathon blinks, unphased by this news. He hears his boss but though he understands, he doesn’t really care. Jonathon swivels his chair back around to face the desk where he continues his q militia.

“And the qs just kept appearing on the screen. Each one was deposable and together they formed one mass. That was the moment I realized. I am a q.” Jonathon’s friend Andrea looks at Jonathon in disbelief.

“Are you going to that therapist I recommended to you” she asks as she stirs the drink Jonathon has poured for her with her finger. Jonathon just looks at her, ignoring her words.

“No, listen, I have it figured out. Each one of us are qs and we’re all disposable and useless.”

“You’re missing the obvious. When you have a sentence, each letter isn’t useless. It’s there for a reason. Think about if all of the as disappeared from the words. Sentences wouldn’t make sense! Apple would become pple. Sea would become se. No one would be able to communicate.”

“Yeah, well, that’s just dandy but I am not a vowel. I am a q. Sure it’s a letter, but really… would the world be any worse off without it?”

“Yes! No queens or quality or quartets.”

“Or qualms or queasiness or quarantines.”

“You’re just being difficult. Listen, you’ll find another job. Unfortunately, to keep mine, I need to go home and get some sleep. Will you be okay by yourself?”

“Yeah. Go.”

“I promise I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Sure.” Jonathon watches as Andrea gets off of his couch and heads for the door. She turns before closing the door behind her.

“Things will pick up.” She tells him reassuringly but Jonathon doesn’t believe it for a second.

Click. Oprah. Click. Ellen. Click. Makeover show. Click. Cooking show. The phone is ringing for the seventh time that day but Jonathon doesn’t pick up for the seventh time that day. Click. Soap opera. Click. Sitcom about another goofy family. Click. Dora. The machine picks up the call.

“This is Jonathon. Leave a message if you really want to.”

“Jonathon? It’s Andrea again. Are you out? For your sake you had better be out and not ignoring me.” Click. Law and Order. Click. Law and Order. Click. Medical Miracles. Click. Spongebob. “Well if you are out please call me back when you get this. You’re not answering your cell phone either. Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I’ve scheduled an appointment with Dr. Travis for Thursday. I’ll try you again later if I haven’t heard back from you… Oh… where are you?” The answering machine beeps as Jonathon continues flipping through the television channels. Click. Golf. Click. Hockey. Click. Music video.

“This is Jonathon. Leave a message if you really want to.” The number 47 flashes on the digital answering machine, signifying each time Jonathon couldn’t bring himself to answer the phone whilst his friend questioned his whereabouts. Jonathon hears his message again and he mouths the words along with the machine as he sits with his back against the front door.

“Okay, I’m not playing anymore. It’s been three days. Where the fucks are you? Why aren’t you returning my calls? I went to your building earlier. I went to your door. I knocked and knocked on that door until my fists ached and still I knocked but you never answered my frantic beckons and pleadings to talk to me. Are you trying to mess with me? It’s not funny. Now contact me. Please call me.” Jonathon isn’t really listening to the words of the message but he knows it’s Andrea again. He had heard her knocking before, the vibrations had tickled his back while he cried, huddled in a ball only a few inched from her. It had hurt him not to answer her but he couldn’t. She shouldn’t see him like he is… broken and useless. Beyond redemption. She would be better off without him. Then she could stop pretending to care. The world would be better off without him.

Jonathon gets to his feet and walks into his bedroom. Sitting on his bed, he rolls up his sleeves and reached for the blood-encrusted razor on his bedside table. Holding the edge in his fingers, he looks at his arms. ‘I am Q’ is carved into the bloodstained flesh, the letters still raw and healing from repeated openings. He licks his lips and shifts his weight, staring at the words until the mantra is burned into his mind, overpowering him. I am Q. I am Q. I am Q. He blinks hard and takes a deep breath. It is time. Jonathon glances over to the note next to him that he left for Andrea. He hadn’t wanted to write it, it seemed so cliché, a suicide with a note of pitiful regrets, but a note is just what he wrote because Andrea deserved an explanation. She needed to know that it wasn’t her fault.

“This is Jonathon. Leave a message if you really want to.” Jonathon presses the blade to his skin. He feels a sting and sees a drop of the reddest, most pure dark red blood appear. Closing his eyes, he uses the razor to cut one wrist wide open, then the other. He cries out at the pain. He has used the razor before, but why does it hurt so much this time?

“Listen, I’m sorry for all of the messages to you. I realize that you do have your own life and that you shouldn’t be expected to let me know every time you go out. It’s not that I didn’t believe you could go be happy, I just had a bad feeling and I know I was probably wrong.” The blood is flowing incredibly fast down Jonathon’s outstretched arms as he cries to himself. It’s finally over for him. “Jonathon, I was just worried and I want you to know that I care about you. Please call me back when you get this. I want you to know that you’re loved.” The blood is a river into which Jonathon tosses all of his worries. He begins to feel woozy and the two arms in front of him turn into four. Suddenly fear grips him. He doesn’t want to die. He can’t die. “What I’m really trying to say is I love you and I don’t care what letter of the alphabet you are.” Jonathon struggles to make it to his feet but he can’t think straight. Up is down and down is up. The room is spinning and he feels drained, arms throbbing. He presses his arms to the sides of a dirty t-shirt, which is promptly completely stained with his blood. It hurts like no pain he has ever felt before. He staggers over to the bedside phone and pushes the receiver off of the base. A dial tone rings through the air and falling to his knees, Jonathon presses a nine then a one then another one on the keypad of the phone, leaving bloody smudges.

“911, what is your emergency.” He can’t think straight. The world is out of control. He swallows, wanting to tell his story but he can’t speak, his wooziness has robbed him the ability to speak. “Hello?”

“I’m so sorry.” he finally whispers softly, slowly, painfully, “Tell Andrea…” his eyes roll up and his vision fades. He can’t think another word; he can’t say another word as he collapses onto the floor in a pile, the blood from his wrists still flowing freely and staining his clothes.

In 20 minutes the ambulance technicians will find his body. There will be nothing they can do. The police will find a bloody scene and a note, 49 unchecked messages on the answering machine. In an hour, Andrea will hear a knock on her door and discover the police with questions for her and terrible news. From that point on, Andrea will be forever changed, blaming herself.

The Chase

The Chase
By Sydney

There is always a chase. When the predator sees the prey, its instinctive drive knows what to do. Just as the predator knows, so does the prey. Every animal has escape plans built in for the sake of self-preservation. Some animals run, some have defense mechanisms, and others have memory as well as the ability to learn from what they remember. So what happens when a predator finds a new prey, an unfamiliar one? What happens when this powerful predator faces prey whose only defense mechanisms are slow running, knowledge, memory, and the ability to learn? Can it go against impossible odds and survive? Will the chase end with victory for predator or survival for prey?

Running. It’s been done since the beginning of legged creatures. They found it useful to arrive at destinations, to hunt, to play games, and for escape. The boy running through the dense forest wasn’t aiming to go to a place nor was he searching for food. He also didn’t think his predicament was a game. He was escaping. Escape and the act of self-preservation was why he was running frantically through the trees and thorned bushes. Clothes ripped, and breathing hard, he ran. With each step, the pounding in his head was overwhelming, like each thump was an implosion of his brain. Tears, sweat, blood, and dirt covered his face like another layer of skin. The rest of his body was in no better shape. Scrapes and cuts crisscrossed over any exposed skin, raising itchy bloody scratches from thorns, and deep painful cuts from rocks and branches. The blood from his damaged legs ran into his socks while he ran. He felt as his socks slide around in his shoes, but was too busy running to pay them much attention. Behind him he heard the thing chasing him as it crashed though the trees and snapped branches. His blood curdled as he heard that roar, an unearthly voice mixing the pierce of a bird of prey and the ferocity of a lion. It followed him and penetrated his mind, never allowing him to think straight.

Each breath was a battle; the breaths were painful and laborious, causing each intake to feel acidic, like small needles prickling his lungs and throat. Everything was on fire. Not seeing a large root sticking out of the path, his foot caught in it and he flew through the air, landing with a thud on his face. His lip split open, causing him to cry out in pain. Sobbing, unable to breathe, with a desperately dry mouth filled with blood and an aching body, he was about ready to give up. And then he thought of his girlfriend’s smell and her warmth and knew that he needed to get up. He tried to raise his shaking arms from out of the dirt to push himself up, but was too weak and fell back down. He strained and stained, trying to move, but couldn’t even raise a hand. Tears running freely and the thing getting closer, he thought about his journey to where he was then.

His name was Isaac. He had lived 17 years in his hometown where everyone knew each other and the crime rate was so low that they had a police force of five. In the spring, flowers bloomed everywhere and it’s sweet fragrance floated through town. His favorite place was a weeping willow tree on the outskirts, which had a tire swing hanging from a branch. He would go there and stare between the branches at the brilliant blue sky, feeling the grass with his toes that was as soft as a kitten’s fur as he sat in the swing and thought about his future. Looking at the sky, he dreamt of leaving the small town and exploring the world. Always was he thinking of the future, vowing never to look in the past. He vowed that nothing could hold him back.

Isaac spat out blood and laughed bitterly, though the laugh sounded closer to a cough than a laugh. His life hadn’t turned out quite as planned. He had always had grand dreams of leaving his peaceful hometown for something better, and would spend hours on that swing imagining himself in different vocations, lawyer, athlete, CEO, explorer, politician, astronaut, and even famous actor. His parents were aware of his ambitions and so for a graduation gift, his girlfriend and he received a trip around the country.

Isaac willed himself with all his might to push his aching body upwards and using all the strength remaining in his deteriorating husk, he managed to stagger to his feet. Off he ran, slowly and with uneven steps, stopping every so often when he ran painfully into a tree. Scanning and straining his eyes, he searched desperately for any sign of people, any relief from the creature. He yearned and prayed for a sign of civilization, but not even an article of trash could be seen. It was getting darker. Isaac wondered to himself if the creature could see in the dark and whether or not it needed to stop and rest. At the thought of resting, Isaac suddenly felt the absolute exhaustion tugging at his bones and he stumbled, managing to catch himself at the last second, but knowing that if he fell he would never get back up and he would never be returning home. He wished he were home. He really was glad for the trip, but regretted joining the hiking trip through the forest with the residential tour group. He had been so excited to see the forest with his girlfriend and had pictured them in explorer’s outfits, hiking around and meeting the animals. They had been enjoying the backpacking trip though it was a bit less exciting than he thought it would be. They were on their second day of the trip and cautiously hiking down a mountain with backpacks when Isaac lost his footing and slipped on some loose rocks lining the steep trail. He stumbled and would have caught his balance had his enormous backpack not been positioned over the precipice. The weight tipped him and though his girlfriend reached for his hand, eyes wide, he tumbled into the forest below, missing her outstretched hand by centimeters. As he fell he looked to their faces, a look of shock and fear on his, a look of horror and surprise on theirs. He fell and must have made a noise though he couldn’t remember hearing any sounds. His group must have made sounds too, but all he could remember was their faces with wide eyes and mouths moving, peering over the edge as he felt the air behind him, his throat raw and chest breathless. Isaac looked to his girlfriend’s sweet face as he got further and further away until they were out of sight and then he felt a force rip through his body, knocking the wind out of him and engulfing him in darkness.

The darkness around Isaac was different than the darkness after the fall. The darkness as he ran was sneakier, closing in on him, obstructing his view and disorienting him. The sun was low in the sky, and though the horizon was filled with a beautiful shade of purple, Isaac couldn’t appreciate it. All he saw was the darkness everywhere. When would he see light again? Was this his last sunset?



The fall had knocked out Isaac. He had felt the air expelled from his body and then there was darkness everywhere like a cold suffocating blanket. The next sensation he felt was pain. Groaning, Isaac had sat up and checked himself over for broken bones or sprains. Thankfully, the only injury he had sustained was a large bruise on his side that still was very painful. Isaac saw that a pile of leaves had broken his fall. Then a thought had struck the unfortunate boy. Why was there a unnaturally large pile of leaves lying in the middle of the forest? Isaac had grabbed the strap from his backpack and carefully climbed off the pile of leaves. It wasn’t much later that he realized that the leaves were a home for a fearsome creature that thought him tasty and the chase had begun, his backpack left far behind.

After the sun had made its descent far below the horizon, the deep darkness made it difficult for Isaac to keep running. He stumbled around fearfully in the darkness, barely able to put one foot in front of the other, adrenaline as the only thing keeping him going. Isaac stumbled yet again and was about ready to give up when he spotted in the dim light the most beautiful sight of his entire life. He saw an empty bag of chips. The bag wasn’t remarkable in any way as far as Isaac could tell in the near pitch-black, but the bag was a sign of civilization. Isaac turned towards the direction of the bag and soon spotted another piece of trash, a crumpled styrofoam cup. With renewed energy, Isaac started running with all of his might, dark trees streaking by him until he burst out, ten minutes of exhausting sprinting later, on a paved road. Isaac almost collapsed from joy right there, but he knew that he had to keep going. Isaac started running down the road, eager to reach whatever lay ahead. Shining brightly, two headlights lit up Isaac’s backside and he spun around, thumb out. His heart beat quickly. He was going to survive. The car slowed down and Isaac jumped in, infinitely grateful to his rescuer. The car started back up and continued down the dark road. Isaac sat there, shaking from exhaustion. He looked to the man next to him weakly to thank him. The driver was an old dirty man with a trucker hat low over his eyes and a toothpick protruding from his crooked grey teeth. Before Isaac could say a word of gratitude, the man spoke in a deep rumbling grating voice like bending metal.

“You look a mess. Why were you running?” he asked, switching the toothpick form one side of his mouth to the other and shifting. Jared lay back and swallowed, closing his eyes, his body throbbing from his injuries. He managed to answer through his bloodied, broken lips.

“The monster… chasing me” he whispered hoarsely, taking a few careful breaths. Isaac heard the man grumble and clack his toothpick against his teeth.

“So you’ve met the creature of Eagleoak woods, have you? You do know the rumors, don’t you?” he asked in the same grating voice, “The stories of the creature.” Isaac shook his head.

“I’m not from around here.” Isaac rasped, his throat desperately dry. The old man shifted again.

“They say he ran away to the woods as a baby from a genetic testing company after slaughtering the entire staff. They say he enjoys toying with his meals, letting them run around for entertainment though he can easily catch them, just like a cat. The stories tell of the horrible mutations, that the genetics company gave him amazing abilities that make him an unbeatable hunter. These abilities mean he can track you like a bloodhound, once he had your blood there is no stopping him. He will hunt you until the end of time. He does have one quite unbelievable power in addition to the others as if that weren’t enough. It is said that he can change shape to toy with the person’s emotions. Was he that rock you almost tripped over? A leaf you brushed with your foot? Was the tree that passed actually the creature? Am I?”