Don’t leave me or you are going to be sorry. I am warning you. Don’t leave me ! I ran around in circles, barking, then I ran back and forth sliding on the hardwood floors finally stopping face first into the sofa. By the time I got myself together I heard the door to the garage slam shut. They had both left. I made my way to the bay window and lay down. The warm bright sun would soon wash over my body. I was daydreaming about what my humans will serve me for dinner and playing with my tennis ball. Suddenly, I had an overwhelming sensation of being watched. Watch this ! I thought as I sat up, raised my back left leg from sitting and proceeded to clean myself. After I finished, I proceeded to let out a loud sound from my behind. It was gloriously loud and stinky, so much so that I hoped it had knocked the cat, the voyeur, clear across the room. “You are a disgusting pig! That was stinky,” said the cat aka Fat Boy. “Wait! You have not seen disgusting yet. Meet me in the bathroom in an hour, I will be drinking from the toilet and then I will be scooting my privates across the upstairs carpet. This is how I roll. Leave me alone you fat hairy monster.” I replied. He had let himself go. He would not let the humans brush him anymore. He sat around and ate all day. Now he seemed to take pride waddling around the house, dragging his belly on the floor. “So uncouth,” he said as he laid down next to me in the bay window. “If I am so nasty, why do you like to lay next to me?” I asked. “I don’t know. That is what we do. It makes the humans happy,” said Fat Boy. He put his head on my outstretched paw and was out like a light in about five minutes. I think he was getting too fat. His chunky face and body which ranked high on the human scale of cuteness was now affecting his health. I guess I fell asleep too. When I awoke the sun was no longer shining through the bay window.  “Hey! Get up Fat Boy, I need some water. Hello, get up!” I yelled. Poor guy must be going deaf. I pulled my paw from under him. “Meow, I got in a nice nap,” he said as he did a cat stretch with his butt in my face. “Could you not stick your butt in my face?” “So sorry Old Man.” I was twelve, but I looked good for twelve and had the heart and body of a seven-year-old dog. I watched my weight and I exercised. “Who are you calling old? I need some water and then I have got to get my steps in. Which obviously you need to do too,” I said. “Whatever,” he said as he curled up in the bay window. I left to get water from my bowl. My bowl had cat hair in it. “Hey Fat Boy, have you been drinking from my bowl?” “The bowls are communal. I do not see your name on any bowl in this house,” he said. Jerk! He knew which bowls were mine. I was here first. Time for my steps. I bolted up the stairs to the second floor. I sniffed around doing a couple of laps. I was thirsty again. I needed to hit the toilet for a nice cool drink. I went back down the stairs and then back up the stairs. I was feeling good. I saw myself in the bathroom mirror. Damn I look hot for a twelve-year-old dog. One more cold drink I thought. I headed into the bathroom. Once again, I felt a strange sensation, like I was being watched. As I stood up to put my head into the toilet bowl, the toilet seat cover slammed into my face. “Jesus Christ,” I yelled. I was seeing stars. “So sorry Old Man, I did not see you. “Liar. You are such a liar. How could you not see me?” I shook it off and I decided to chase the fat monster. “You had better run Fat Boy,” I said as I got myself together.  I took a drink and then took off after him up and down the hallway. He was still fast considering how fat he was. Then he took off down the stairs. “You can’t catch me!” He said as he lay on his back looking at his nails while writhing around on the landing. “Oh yes I can,” I replied. I admit, I was a bit winded looking down at him from the second floor. “Whenever you catch your breath, Old Man, I will be downstairs,” he said while sauntering down the stairs. He makes me so mad! Fat Boy makes me so angry! I continued to get my steps in on the second floor. Suddenly I noticed a round large object in the bedroom I had never seen before. I sniffed it. It smelled like mommy’s crotch. I knew this smell as I ate some fabric one day and I ended up in the vet emergency hospital. Mommy no longer keeps her crotch smelling fabric on the floor. She puts them in a basket with a lid. It was a big ball. A ginormous ball. Why hadn’t I seen this before? Why have they hidden this from me? I got my nose under the ball, and I was able to get it out of the bedroom into the hallway. I nosed it around and chased it. I needed to let Fat Boy see my new toy. “Fat Boy. Hey Fat Boy! Look what I found!”  I lost my balance and the ball hit the wall and rolled down the stairs. I went running down the stairs after the ball. The ball bounced on every other step, hit the landing hard then bounced to the first floor. As it bounced back into the air it flew into a vase of flowers on the kitchen bar, knocking it over, then it ricocheted and knocked over a display of vintage coffee cans on a kitchen shelf. Water from the vase was pooling under a bar stool. Luckily the vase did not fall to the floor and break. Oh no, I thought. “Hey, Fat Boy where are you?” What am I going to do? I started panting and pacing. Then I howled. I started barking. I was having an anxiety attack. Then I started chasing my tail. Fat boy came strolling into the kitchen. “Yes. What is going on in here? Looks like someone, someone was a very bad boy,” he said with great sarcasm. He jumped up on the bar stool to assess the situation. “It looks like you were surveying the counter Old Man.” “No, it was the giant ball,” I said.  “You know that counter clearing thing that you canines do. You like to stand up like a human and feel around like you are doing the breast stroke. You know, you know exactly what I mean,” he said. He started laughing, while lying on his back, head dangling over the bar stool.

“What are you laughing at? They will think that it was you. You walk on the counters all the time.” “No. I am too weak to knock over a large vase filled with water. This one is all you Old Man!” “No, they will think it is you I cannot reach the center of the bar.” “Details. Details. I need my beauty sleep so I can hunt mice this evening. This is not my problem,” he said as he jumped from the bar stool to the floor. Just then he noticed that the antique coffee cans were knocked over. “That’s right they will think you were high on cat nip when you caused this destruction. Bouncing off the vase in that Kung Fu style you like to attempt and then jumping onto the high shelves knocking over the coffee cans,” I said. “No, mommy will think daddy did it by slamming the door. The vase is all you. Someone is in big trouble. You are a very bad boy,” he said, as he ran into the laundry room.

I was overwhelmed so I lay down in the kitchen looking at the large ball that was now resting in front of the refrigerator. I could hear water from the vase still trickling onto the floor. Soon after, I must have fallen asleep. When I woke, I knew it was close to the time my humans return by the shadows created by the sunlight in the kitchen. There was nothing I could do but wait. I stretched, got up and walked around the house. I peered in the laundry room and there was Fat Boy on top of the dryer seated with his head hidden and leg up in the air. He was cleaning himself. “Who is a disgusting pig now?” I asked. He quickly sat up and put his leg down and did not look back at me. There was a Cardinal at the bird feeder which now had his undivided attention. I headed back upstairs and climbed into a human bed and went back to sleep. I was dreaming about the giant ball and a giant dog biscuit. I woke from a deep sleep to the sound of breaking glass. I ran downstairs and saw dishware on the floor in many little pieces between the kitchen bar and the sofa. Oh God, this is a mess, I thought. “Fat Boy where are you? What did you do?” No response.  I hope he was not somewhere bleeding or dead with gash marks from the glass . “Where are you? You, OK?” He soon crawled out from under the couch looking a bit shaken. “Yes, I think so,” he said as he started to cry. “Oh no not the crying, you know I cannot stand it when you cry.” “Mommy is going to be so mad at us. I don’t want to disappoint her.” “Yeah, whatever, cut the drama. You walk around here like you do not care about anybody or anything. What the heck did you do?” I asked. “I was jumping on the counter. I landed on a saucer that went flying with the cup.” “Just great. Please tell me you aren’t bleeding! mommy will be screaming if there is blood on her white furniture.” Who has white furniture when they have pets? Not a good idea. Mommy must have seen it in a magazine. “I am OK. No blood.” he said, as he pulled himself together. “Calm down. Much better. Now go do some cat things. Chase your imaginary friends. Or even better go meditate in your bathroom.” “It will be an interesting evening when they get home from work and notice the destruction,” he said as he started to cry again. At least I had not broken anything. Schadenfreude had set in . I held my head up high and strutted into the living room and took my favorite spot on the couch. Fat Boy disappeared behind the draperies. I must have dozed off again. I sat up as I heard the garage door open and close. Do I go greet them? Or do I wait for the primal scream? I tried to listen carefully for footsteps. But I heard none. I heard fat boy running around the kitchen, probably high again on catnip. The cat was a big stoner. I got off the couch and heard a key in the door, then the alarm beep and then the door slam. Daddy was home. “Winston, come let’s go potty,” said daddy. So far so good, I walked into the kitchen and got a hug. My daddy was glad to see me. Oh no he was going to put the mail on the bar counter which was probably still wet. I needed to distract him. Luckily, he was thirsty so he placed the mail next to the refrigerator and then kicked the ball into the dining room so he could open the door.

“Why did she leave this stupid thing in the kitchen?” he said. “Where is my chunky kitty?” he said as he closed the refrigerator door. “Meow.” said Rodney as he came to daddy’s feet. Daddy scooped him up and walked towards the patio door. “Let’s go potty Winston,” he said. He let me outside through the patio door. While outside, I felt free and happy. I went potty and then proceeded to roll in something that smelled just ripe enough to annoy Fat Boy. When daddy let me in, he gave me a biscuit and he gave Fat Boy some fishy smelling tidbit. Soon Fat Boy was rubbing against daddy’s leg while giving me the side eye. Daddy looked around overlooking the overturned vase, missing the overturned coffee cans and he was unable to see the broken cup and saucer behind the couch. He looked impressed. “Looks like you guys were good today. You guys are the best. Such good kids. Some people come home from work and their homes are destroyed by their pets. Not our babies,” he said. Daddy filled our food bowls. I ate all my food. Lord knows when Fat Boy will finish his food, probably late at night in between dining on rodents. Daddy went upstairs. Soon we could hear the garage door open and close. Mommy was home.  “Honey I am home! Where are my babies?” Fat Boy and I stood frozen waiting for the primal scream. None came. Daddy came downstairs. He had changed his clothes. “Hello, Helen honey, we have to leave in 30 minutes.” “Oh no. I forgot. OK. Did I get any mail?” “All junk mail,” said daddy. There were other dishes on the counter. Which would soon prove to be a blessing. As mommy turned to walk towards daddy her briefcase swung around and hit several dishes that daddy had left on the counter from the morning. The dishes that were left after Fat Boy’s counter jump failure. Suddenly there was the sound of broken glass. “Andy why did you leave these dishes on the counter? The babies could have knocked these over and got injured while we were at work. Damn it!” she said. “I am sorry honey. I was rushing out of here this morning. I will clean this up. I am so sorry.” They kissed and mommy ran up the stairs to shower and get dressed. Fat Boy and I let out a sigh of relief. So far nothing had been noticed. As daddy, swept up the broken dishes and put them into the trashcan he noticed the overturned vase. Uh oh I thought as we watched in horror.  “Why do we need these dead flowers,” he said aloud, as he picked them up and put them in the trash and put the overturned vase away. Daddy read his mail and had a beverage while standing in the kitchen. “Winston and Rodney come,” he said. “We are going out, so here is another treat.” He gave us each a small piece of deli meat. We were sitting pretty. Soon mommy came down the stairs looking as beautiful as ever. “Ready to go?” asked daddy. “Just need to find the purse I want to use, think it is in the hall closet.” “OK I will let Winston out again, while you get your purse.” I went out and did my business. When I came back in, I did a little performance, acting like I did not want them to leave. The usual, panting and walking around in circles quickly. Mommy found her purse in the hall closet, and they were ready to go. “Be good,” said mommy as she looked at the two of us pets. Daddy opened the door to the garage. Mommy walked out first and then daddy followed her and slammed the door so hard that the walls shook, and the clock fell off the wall. “Andrew why must you slam the door? You know things fall off the wall when you slam the door,” mommy yelled, from the garage. “Sorry,” he said. “Coffee can problem solved,” said Fat Boy. “The housekeeper will find the cup and saucer tomorrow. I think we are in the clear,” I said. We cuddled on the couch waiting for mommy and daddy to return.


The whiskey stung going down. Sheriff Houghton coughed back the cheap swill and took in a deep breath through his nostrils, taking in the scents of Old Delilah’s saloon. That one sniff carried with it the musty memories of liquor, twice chewed tobacco, and the unmistakable truth that it had been weeks since the bartender before him had seen a bar of soap. He quickly rejected the breath, pushing it out from his mouth with great force and slamming his empty glass onto the table. “You’re doin’ nobody favors here, Kipp.” The words came out in a drawl croak, still recovering from the whiskey’s hard punch to his throat.

On the other side of the bar, Kipp poured another stream of the fiery potion into Houghton’s glass. He smiled with his mouth, but his eyes ran cold. He poured the man another drink. “You got that right. I ain’t doing favors for nobody, cuz I ain’t hidin’ that boy on your poster, Sheriff. Never seen ‘em, don’t know ‘em, and he ain’t my business.” The sheriff grasped his glass tentatively, but did not drink. He stared down into the swirling golden liquid as he contemplated the barman’s lie. He knew Kipp to be an honest man who paid his fines and did his time in the Sunday pew, yet Houghton knew there was a history between Kipp and the boy’s mother, Susie. For him to say he had never known the boy was a bald-faced lie. If this man were hiding the boy, then it was only a matter of time before he would break. “Alright.” Houghton said. He threw up his hands in surrender. “You don’t know ‘em. He wasn’t here.” Kipp lowered his defenses and relaxed his jaw. “Like I said.” The room went silent for a time. The sky outside had gone black, the streets deserted. There was only one other man in the building, seated at the farthest table from the bar. Kipp had only just now noticed him, due to his lack of movement and the tan duster he wore, which acted as camouflage in the dusty saloon. “Last call!” Kipp shouted across the room. “Last call, Fella!” When the man showed no signs of life, Kipp walked over to him and placed an empty glass near his nose, checking for breath. He examined the fog on the glass carefully, then cleared the man’s table and left him to continue his rest.

As he returned to the bar to clean the glass, he glanced at the sheriff again and grumbled. “What’s there such a price on that kid for anyhow? He ain’t more than ten or so.” Houghton returned his hands to his full whisky glass. His right eyebrow curled. “How is it you know he’s ten, iff’n you don’t know the boy, Kipp?” Kipp, now back behind the bar, brushed the notion away with a rag he was using to polish the glass. “Oh now, Sheriff, I was just lookin’ at that great doodle you’d done of ‘em. I was just supposin’ he was young from it.” Houghton, still unconvinced, pushed his glass away and sat up straight onto his barstool with crossed arms. “You were supposin’?”

“Yessir. I was supposin’,” Kipp defended. “And supposin’ he’s that young, wouldn’t you suppose he’s got some folks? They’d sure know his whereabout’s wouldn’t they.” Houghton leaned forward, resting his elbows on the bar counter top. “That’s an awful lot of supposin’ on a kid you don’t know, that you’ve never seen, that’s none of your business.” There was a tumbleweed silence as the men examined one another with grave suspicion. Houghton knew Kipp, and he’d all but decided on trusting him, but he couldn’t help but wonder. An anxious sweat broke out over his face. Behind that unwashed beard, those lazy grey eyes, and the gap-toothed smile, could there be a man capable of harboring a fugitive?

The sleeper in the corner broke Houghton’s thoughts short with an unconscious chortle as he broke wind. The sound filled the otherwise empty space, and the smell was enough to make even Kipp, in his unwashed glory, turn up his nose. The two men shifted to glance at him, then returned to one another, the tension broken with a shared smirk.

“I worry for his mama is all.” Kipp said, putting the glass away. “Must be worried to high heaven if she don’t know where he is.” This sentiment amused Houghton. He wasn’t sure if this comment confirmed he knew Susie or if it secured his innocence. He choked down his still full glass, voicing his distain for the beverage with a breathy gasp. He stood and brushed his pant legs, returning his hat to his head and offering Kipp a well folded bill for his trouble, which he declined with the wave of a calloused hand as he poured himself a whiskey. “On the house, Sheriff. Here’s hopin’ you get your man.” Kipp raised his glass in a toast to Sheriff Houghton, with a smile that cast even more suspicion. Houghton still had one more card left to play. He decided that if he told Kipp enough of what the boy had done, perhaps he could elicit a confession of some kind. He didn’t tell him all of it. Truth be told, so much of it didn’t make sense. All that blood on her with no open wounds, the bullets found laying in the dirt near the body. The sobbing boy who was there one minute and gone the next. He was beginning to think it was all just the heat. That he had imagined it all. He wouldn’t tell Kipp everything. Just what he needed to know. “I wouldn’t worry much for his mama now. She won’t be missin’ him much, being as she’s dead. Her blood’s all over the kid, if you believe the stories.” Kipp’s eyes widened, his face pale. After a careful study of the bartender’s stunned expression, Houghton decided that it was best to simply end the evening and let his words stew. He would return tomorrow and see if Kipp was ready to talk . “Like I said, you’re doin’ nobody favors if you know where he is.”

With that, the Sheriff adjusted the hat on his head and turned to leave.

Kipp stood still a moment after the saloon door swung closed. He wanted to move but couldn’t. He wanted to shout, to curse his grief at anyone who would listen. Somehow he had a feeling that his last lone patron in the corner wouldn’t wake if he did. Still he just stood motionless. What in the Sam Hill have you gotten yourself into now, Kipp? What the hell has you done? What has HE done? He’d always thought of himself as a good man, an honest man, and yet here he was, lying to the law, implicating himself. And for what? Some kid. Not just some kid. Susie’s Kid. Susie. She was dead now, gone. He’d never told her, but she was the closest thing he would ever have to a daughter. He had wanted to cry, to break down when Houghton had said the words. Still, he protected the child. That is what Susie would have wanted, even if the child had been her undoing.

After several attempts to awaken the man in the corner, Kipp decided that the man was nothing to bother with and would likely see himself out when he woke. He checked the body again for signs of life and locked up his establishment, casting a cautious glance outside to ensure that Sheriff Houghton had gone. He stood in the room a moment, taking in the scent of dust, wood, and mildew.

His shock had been simmering, and now it had come to a slow rolling boil. Anger filtered through all of his thoughts, clouding them. He walked behind the bar to a small storage room and slammed his clenched fist down on a mildewed whiskey barrel. He spoke to the air. “Now you wanna tell me what you done that has Mr. Law barking at my door at all hours, or should I ask ‘em back here to tell me his own damn self?” From inside the barrel came a shuffle and a knock. The lid tumbled off and a tuft of ash blonde hair rose up from the inside, followed by a pair of bight blue eyes and a soot covered face wearing a scolded expression. It was as if he had been caught drinking the communion wine and had come to seek his penance. His body trembled and his eyes swelled. He opened his mouth a bit, but no words came. “I’m waitin’.” Kipp barked. He tapped his foot impatiently. “Why you wanted, kid?” His voice rose with urgency. He shook the paper in the child’s face. “You kilt your momma?” Did you kilt Susie? My Susie? Is that her blood on your trousers? You kilt yer momma, and then you come here and ask me to hide you. Is that it? You gonna have a go at me too?” His voice was now a rolling thunder that filled the full saloon. He imagined it would wake the man in the bar, but figured it would likely not matter much what a lazy drunkard heard.

“I ain’t kilt my momma.” The boy mumbled.

Kipp put a hand to his ear. “Eh?” He’d heard well enough. He just wanted to hear it again. “I said I ain’t kilt my mama!” The boy’s voice cracked and warbled, he wiped away a variety of fluids from his face with his soiled sleeve. Kipp gestured to him to continue, eyes wide with impatience. “I was too late to help her. She was gone dead when I got there” The words were coming out, but they were muffled and broken. He stopped a moment and sobbed into his filthy hands, dirt mixing with the salty water and stinging his raw cheeks. “Real dead.” He said. “Can’t be helped kind. There was no going back.” Kipp allowed the boy a moment to continue his tears. He kept repeating that last part. “No going back.” It was a mantra to him, keeping him in his grief. “No going back.” Kipp fought back the urge to embrace the child. He tried not to recall the day his own mother died, when the fever took her and left him with nothing at just fourteen years old. He didn’t want the kid to see his sympathy, but it was there. He knew this child couldn’t have killed his mother. There wasn’t any way this whimpering mess of a boy could do that to anyone.  “Then why you hidin’? Kipp asked, finally. “If you ain’t done it, then go to Houghton and tell ‘em true. You ain’t done it. I believe you. He’ll believe you. Hell, He believed me, and I’m the worst damned liar this side of the Mississippi.” Kipp laughed a little, but the boy didn’t. There was a still darkness in the boy’s eyes. His grieving abated for now. He was still inside the barrel, but standing erect in it, stone still. There was fear in him. Real fear. The kind that you can’t shake. “I ain’t hidin’ from the law.” He said. There was a tone to it, an ominous one. He said the rest with his eyes, burrowing them into Kipp with gritted teeth. The truth of it hung in the air, haunting them both. The boy hadn’t killed sweet Susie, but whoever had certainly wasn’t going to leave loose ends. Before further explanation could come, the creak of boots on floor boards sent the boy back into his whiskey barrel. Kip covered the barrel and turned around to find himself eye to eye with the darkened well of a pistol barrel. Even more startling than the gun itself was the man at the other end. Standing at his full height, with his eyes wide open, the man appeared much more of a threat than he did earlier, when Kipp had checked his vitals and declared him harmless. “Now, I thought you was sleepin’?” Kipp choked.

They called him “The Possum”. Only once Kipp had heard of him before and it was never told whether the man who stood before him was an outlaw, a bounty man, or a murderer. The only consistency amongst all the rumors was that the Possum only ever wanted them dead and never alive. It was said that he never flinched at the thought of killing anyone, even a woman or a child. His namesake was earned by his reputation to “play dead” until the time was right, hidden in plain sight. Sometimes he was a dead body, or an unconscious man you just stepped over in brawl, and sometimes he was just a drunk, huddled in a corner, so fast asleep that one might think he was dead.You never called on the Possum if you wanted your money back. You called him when you were done waiting. “All right, son. Common out where I can’t see ya or I kill ‘em!” The Possum spat as he shouted to the room. His word’s came out in raspy broken spurts as he struggled to keep a piece of tobacco lodged in his cheek. “We can do this easy or hard, kid! Your mama’s time was up! She shoulda paid the man what he was owed, and you, well you was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now I don’t know how you done the thing with the bullets, or how you got away like you did, but I got yah now. I can’t let you be. Wouldn’t be responsible, lettin’ a motherless little bastard run around. Better yah get shot quick than starve to death in the heat.” Kipp placed a shaking hand over the barrel of the gun and met eyes with the man. “He’s with me now, cousin. We ain’t gonna say a word. You can rest assured he’s safe and silent.” He thought perhaps a friendly tongue would calm the man, talk his finger away from the trigger. He thought wrong. “Ain’t your cousin.” The man replied. He fired a shot into Kipp’s palm. The ensuing explosion surprised Kipp as a thunder clap filled the room and specks of blood splattered his vision. Kipp look down at his ruined hand and saw a blackened tattoo around a stone sized hole, now filling up with blood. Kipp fell to his knees on the hard floor and snapped his eyes shut, praying that if he closed them tight enough, he might disappear. The Possum’s gun was now pressed to the bartender’s head. “The boy!” The Possum shouted.

Kipp, his eyes still closed tight, pointed shakily with his good hand in the direction of the whiskey barrel. He felt the Possum’s pistol moved away from his skin. Warm liquid trailed down his leg. Kipp could hear the struggle, the barrel opening, the muffled sounds of such a small and helpless body fighting against the strength and muscle of a full grown man. The air stung his nostrils with the scent of blood and sweat. The floor was hard beneath him as he stayed there, crouched, eyes closed, waiting for it to end. The gun fired again, and the room went cold and still. It smelled of lighting before a storm. All of the sounds simply stopped. There was no struggle anymore, no crying or shouting.

Kipp opened his eyes. Time was still. The bullet had stopped, suspended into mid air. Kipp and the boy remained in motion, while everything else appeared stagnant. The boy was backed up against the barrel, a bullet within an inch of his red and watery nose. Kipp watched, stunned, as the boy reached a shaking hand towards the bullet, picked it carefully with his thumb and index finger, and turned it on its axis to face his assassin. The boy gave a deliberate wave of his right hand and the bullet continued on its new course, punching a hole into the Possum’s stomach. The gunman fell, bleeding and dropped his weapon. He coughed and sputtered, unsure of how he had come to be shot. The boy kicked the Possum’s gun into the corner of the room and came to stand over the injured man. He made a clockwise gesture with his index finger over the man’s stomach. The Possum jerked spasmodically on the floor, his body cracking and crumping in a series of sharp spurts coughs and moans. Then he was still. What would have been an agonizingly long ordeal of bleeding out and waiting for death had been condensed into 10 short seconds. Kipp had been wrong about the boy. He did have it in him to kill. The boy came to crouch down beside Kip. “Gimme your hand.” He said. Kipp hesitated. He wasn’t sure if he could trust the boy, or if he was even a boy at all. “I ain’t gonna hurt ya.” He said impatiently. Kipp held out his disfigured hand and the child examined it before pointing his index finger at the wound. This time, the boy’s hand motion was counter-clockwise. Kipps hand itched and tingled with the bites of a thousand mosquitos as the wound sealed itself. When the boy finished, the hand was covered in blood, but otherwise looked and felt as normal as it did an hour ago. The boy gave a slight grin, reminding Kipp once again that this was Susie’s child.

Kipp reached down and picked up the bullet that had passed through his hand. He placed the blood soaked souvenir into his pocket and turned to thank the boy, but he and the body were gone.


NOTE: THIS STORY CONTAINS APOCALYPTIC THEMES AND SOME SLIGHT CURSING. 2031 AD 01001001/01000011/01000001/01001110/01010100/01010011/01001100/01000101 01000101/01010000 Aric leaned over Doctor Drue Bruwell’s shoulder. With his dyslexia, he didn’t even bother trying to make sense of the ones and zeroes. “What did it say?” he asked.

Drue stared at the binary digits inquisitively, clearly seeing something within them that Aric could not. Without looking down, she wrote something on a small notepad in front of her. After a long time, she let out a sigh, looked at her notes, and shook her head. In the dim light of the room lit only by a computer screen, Aric could just make out her middle finger twitching rapidly, as always when she was stressed. He couldn’t read what she had written. “Drue?” “It constantly amazes me,” she muttered. “I hate it.” “Why?” Aric couldn’t stand most scientists, and this was the reason. They always seemed so far away. Aric wanted to shake her. Sometimes, he did. She’d shake him back. Brothers and sisters do that. “Drue, what did it say? ” he asked again, this time leaning in even closer to the screen, and making no more sense of it than before. Drue’s hands were covering her writing. “It’s confused. Something with its regenerative circuits or solar converters must be faulty. It’s been in the Dark Room for almost a week. There shouldn’t be any power left, but for some reason it’s still functioning. It’s storing power somehow, and it doesn’t know how to use it up.” Aric raised his eyebrows. “You got all that,” he said, “from a bunch of numbers?” “Well, kinda.” Drue reached over to her right and flipped a small switch. Behind the computer screen of ones and zeroes, a large window pane revealed an entire room now dimly lit in red, viewed as if on the back side of a two-way mirror, which Aric supposed this was.

In it were three things: a small bed; a large metal box spitting out sheets of numerical information; and a synthetic android, sat up on the edge of the mattress, looking down at its feet with what almost looked like despair.

Aric had never actually gotten to see the thing before, and sucked in a tight gasp. Robots are freaking real, he thought. This is just like the movies. Creepy. Drue enjoyed the look on Aric’s face for a moment before returning her eyes to the screen and frowning. “What it actually said was a bit simpler than that.” Aric could still hardly catch his breath. “Yeah?” was all he could get out. “Yeah.” She slid her paper in front of Aric. “I translated the binary.” Aric looked down at what she had written, then up again at the android. It seemed like it might have been moving a little. Trembling. “ What the hell?” In the red glow cast by the Dark Room, the letters almost seemed to bleed: I C A N T S L E E P *** It was days later when Drue let Aric come into the lab after hours again.

“We still haven’t figured out what was keeping it up for so many nights,” she said. “We think it may have been storing power somewhere and taking short rests to maximize its battery life.”

Aric approached the android, now lying flat on its mattress, powered down. Aric reached out to touch it, and felt a little bit of heat. Through thin, translucent “skin,” he could see the different fibers and circuits that made up his body, wires moving from the central battery in its chest down to its hands and feet like veins. “Why make it so human?” he asked. “It’s cool as hell, but isn’t it also a little … tacky?” Drue nodded. “It is, and it wasn’t our choice. Part of the funding for this is shared by a study on the uncanny valley from MIT. They needed a bot that worked and operated like a human on a physical level.” “Uckney Valley? Where’s that?” “ Uncanny Valley. It’s not a place. It’s the point when something looks so close to real that it’s creepy, because it’s just artificial enough for your brain to know it isn’t legitimate.” “Oh,” said Aric, feeling like a complete moron. He couldn’t believe he and his sister shared the same genes. “So how’d you get him to sleep?” Drue’s face became shadowed. “We got it to sleep with a manual shutdown through a miniature sort of breaker box on the back of its neck. Right now, though, it’s just in a low power mode.” She made sure to look Aric in the eyes. “Don’t give these things too much personality, Aric. We’re making it look like a human, but it isn’t one.” “Afraid of becoming attached?” “Afraid of making this something it isn’t. This is a test of robotic physiology. This thing has a brain, sort of, and it can learn empirically. It can see things. But it doesn’t breathe, it doesn’t feel, and it doesn’t have empathy. It’s a machine. This isn’t I, Robot. ” Aric rolled his eyes. He wasn’t completely sure what the word “empirical” meant, but he had a feeling it would describe Drue’s personality nicely.

“So if it learns, what are you teaching it?” “Mostly the basics. Math. English. Science. Starting at smaller concepts and seeing how well it can recognize the information we’ve given it before. It can’t speak the way we can, and its processors are still pretty slow, but we’re making them faster. However, there’s no education on ethics. No philosophy. We’re basically just building a big computer that, hopefully, will work about as well as an AI chatbot in a couple of years. But who knows.” Aric was getting bored. “I want to say hi,” he said. “Turn … it on.” Drue moved to the head of the android, and placed her hand on its forehead. A small screen just underneath its synthetic skin lit up with a number pad. She entered in a code, selected MANUAL START.

It rose immediately, quick enough to startle Aric into taking a step backwards. He bumped into the large metal box he saw last time. It still had data hanging out of it on a long strip of paper.

“Man, I hit my elb--” His words were cut off by the sound of paper erupting from the machine, covered in binary data. A loud screeching accompanied the numbers as it struggled to keep up with the surge of information.

“Aric!” Drue shouted, “What did you do!?” She rushed over to the machine and shut it off. “I’ve never seen it do this before,” she said. She pulled the paper off of the machine and looked at it. “There must be a dozen feet of binary here.” “Is that bad?” asked Aric, still rubbing his elbow. “All I did was bump it.”

Drue didn’t respond. It looked like she’d already started translating some of the data.

Aric looked at the android again. On his left breast was a small logo: OTO. “Hello, Otto.”

The android stared blankly into the distance. It didn’t seem to have any idea where it was. This didn’t seem like the same depressed machine that Aric had seen the last time he was at the lab. He was just reaching out to touch it when Drue said, “I think you’d better head out for now. This is … going to take me some time.” Aric put his hand down, looking disappointedly at her. “You’re chasing me out? You don’t have a machine that can scan all that crap for you?” She shook her head. “We didn’t need it. It never gave us more than a couple responses an hour. This is absolutely unprecedented.” Aric sighed. Alright. He recognized the look on Drue’s face. She was going to be there for a while.

2781 AD The shuttle had found a moderately sized clearing of high grass, and Kumi Yamada felt the tranquil rush of being the first to step out. The gravity here on Earth was almost three times more than what she grew up with on Mars, and she was the first to experience the feeling in centuries. If it weren’t for the intense physical training she’d gone through for the last seven months in the vast emptiness between the planets, she’d have collapsed almost immediately.

That being said, she had to stop to catch her breath after moving just fifteen feet outside the ship. She huffed her oxygen machine before radioing to the rest of the crew. “I’m … here,” she said. “We’re good.” As far as meditations on planetary exploration went, it was pretty lame.

She finished catching her breath and looked up at an incredible blue sky. No massive bubble habitat or dense dust clouds. Just free, naturally filtered air. She felt like, even after twenty-six years growing up hundreds of millions of kilometers away, she’d finally come home. She wanted to run, but knew she wouldn’t have the strength to get far. Instead, she stepped back inside the ship, and helped her crew set up their arrays of climate, geological, and radiation instruments. The hours passed quickly as the explorers gave their clearing a quick search for anything interesting, but the truth was that they’d already discovered exactly what they knew they’d find: a planet once again flourishing with life, as if mankind had never been. The air was fresher now than it had been before great apes stood up for the first time and walked. Kumi and Roscoe, her colleague and doctor of biological sciences, found themselves unable to sleep at all on the first night. They’d watched the sun set over an orange, pink, and purple horizon (something completely alien to them after a life of pale blue sunsets back on Mars) and watched Mars rise hundreds of millions of kilometers away.

Kumi wondered if the first Martians had felt the same way that she did now; like a tourist in a fantastic world she could never really understand. She continued to gaze up at an atmosphere untouched by artificial light, alive with a million twinkling stars. Leaves were rustled by warm southern winds. She scanned the distant foliage with a searchlight, eager to see native Earthly wildlife. She’d studied the natural history of the planet as it was before the Great Decimation in the 2030s, but knew that whatever had existed before didn’t exist now, at least not as it was. Unhinged climatic disasters followed immediately by the absolute nuclear obliteration of every continent except for Antarctica will do that.

Kumi was disappointed to see nothing in the trees or tall grass. Wordlessly, Roscoe left her side and stepped back into the ship. Kumi knew that, sleepless night or not, she was going to need to at least try to get some rest before tomorrow’s excursion.

They’d landed just outside of Los Angeles’s blast zone. The heart of the city was completely wiped, but most of its edge had survived past the blasts, as well as some of the smaller suburbs and towns nearby. It even seemed that for a while after the blasts, human activity continued for longer than anybody thought. Orbiter images showed strained lines in the dirt, and possible abandoned constructions. But whoever survived the initial fallout probably didn't survive for long. If it weren’t for the first few outposts on Mars. . . . Kumi began reentering the ship, and took one last look behind her. She cast the light out again, and for just a brief moment, thought something glinted in the green.

2031 AD Aric was eager to be back in the lab. It sounded like Drue almost killed herself staying up to copy down everything Otto had given her to sort through. “Remind me why this is so important?” he asked her tiredly. Even if he was happy to be there, he didn’t like having to wait until every single other scientist had stepped out to go home. Roboticists, he realized, worked very long hours. “Because it shouldn’t have happened in the first place,” Drue started. There were large bags under her eyes and her voice was irritated. “Because there’s no reason why there would be hours and hours worth of … whatever it is, when the droid was powered down. Low power isn’t enough for it to process information. Or so we thought.” Aric glanced at the notebook open in front of Drue, covered in binary code and its translations, written too small and close together for him to read. “Then where did it come from?”

“Well, it came from him.” “Him?” Drue cleared her throat. “It. I’m tired, alright? I haven’t let anybody else touch this.” “Why not get some help?” But he knew why. Because this had become Drue’s fascination. This, whatever it was, had the potential to be her eureka moment. Unprecedented, she had said. That sounded to Aric like an opportunity for more funding .

He sat down beside her and stretched. “So what the hell did you find out about all this?” he asked around a yawn.

“A lot, and also nothing at all. There’s hours worth of data here, like I said, but it doesn’t really follow a pattern. It seems to be from the android’s perspective.” The android which was, for now, again resting in the Dark Room. Powered off completely this time, Aric noticed. “What did it give you?” he asked, getting impatient. He wanted to be caught up already.

“Well, it’s mostly just observations of the room around the android. I don’t know how it managed to make those observations while mostly powered down, but it’s there. Stuff about the room, stuff about the machine next to him that recorded all of this. The bed is lumpy, I guess.” Aric laughed. “Otto told you that?” “It did.” She didn’t comment on Aric’s use of the name. “And that’s most of what’s here. Random observations. How many tiles are in the floor. The different colors of the buttons on the machine. But …” “Well?” “It also observed a 5’7” brunette with a middle finger that twitches sometimes. Walking around in its room. Working on it. Only I wasn’t around when it made the observation because, as with all of these, it was in the dark.” “Holy shit. You think that its…” “Dreaming? It must be. Because what’s worse, is….” She closed her eyes and held her breath for a moment, choking on her words. She realized how quickly her middle finger was twitching and forced it to stop. “It observed my corpse. Her corpse. But it’s me. It has to be me.” Aric was taken aback. “Your corpse? What happened to you?” She observed her notes. “The keywords are: R E D, W E T, S L E E P , S L E E P, S L E E P, S L E E P. ” They were quiet for a while.

Eventually, Aric asked “Anything else?” Drue turned to face him. “Something or other about putting the whole world to sleep. God only knows what that means.…” 2781 AD Kumi couldn’t believe her luck. Even though she was completely exhausted after just an hour and half of walking into the ruins of the city, she was having the time of her life. Hundreds of years had taken the face off of everything, weather had mottled objects to dust and misshapen bits of metal, and no building was left standing anymore. Whatever was going on before the Decimation came, these people hadn’t built their structures to last.

From the history books (what little history was left of these places), it seemed that they hadn’t put much effort into a stable civilization, either.

Regardless, these miniscule bits of memory, these nothings, were wonderful to behold. Hundreds of years of reclamation by nature had left little untouched.

The main focus, though, were the informal roads. They were paths of cleared rubble and, to the surprise of Kumi, foliage. It seems that whatever traversed here had traversed often, whether it was people or wildlife. And it had traversed recently.

But thus far, they’d seen nothing but vegetation in all directions. Massive trees, beautiful plants wholly unrecognizable from the breeds that Kumi was familiar with back on Mars. The air was intense, more so than the habitats on Mars, despite their attempts to mimic the same conditions. Every once in a while, Kumi thought she heard or felt a presence in the trees. Roscoe thought he noticed, too, but didn’t seem overly concerned. Always pragmatic, his intention was to grab the data and run. Not to mention, he was older than Kumi, and probably less enthusiastic about the possibility of having to flee from something.

At some point, Roscoe came to a complete stop in front of her.

“Roscoe? What’s … oh my.” Like something prehistoric -- pre- Earth -histortic -- a massive building resembling a temple stood in front of them, made of earth and wood. It was a simple structure.

The inside, however, was a different story.

Brilliant carvings lined the walls. On close examination, Kumi gasped at the depictions. Brutal, beautiful engravings of mass destruction on massive scales. Dead wastelands and toppled buildings. Mushroom clouds. Light, and darkness. “These are stunning ,” said Roscoe, and Kumi smiled at that. This entire time, he’d kept his feelings about the mission at hand to himself. “These were people. Real, human people. And.…” his hand patted the artwork. “These aren’t that old. They’re … not old at all, actually.” “But where are they?” Kumi asked. “The only bodies in these images are dead ones. There’s no food stored here. There’s no activity outside, no houses. Why build this and decorate it, but not use it?” Roscoe didn’t speak. He was more focused on the border of the engravings. What he thought were simple dashes and dots appeared more complicated. It wasn’t just a pattern. “Binary?” he asked. A metal hand gripped his shoulder, and he, with the rest, was put to sleep.


#Welcome to the Micro Monday Challenge! Hello writers! Welcome to Micro Monday! I am excited to present you all with a chance to sharpen those micro-fic skills. What is micro-fic? I’m glad you asked! Micro-fiction is generally defined as a complete story (hook, plot, conflict, and some type of resolution) written in 300 words or less. For this exercise, it needs to be at least 100 words (no poetry). However, less words doesn’t mean less of a story. The key to micro-fic is to make careful word and phrase choices so that you can paint a vivid picture for your reader. Less words means each word does more! Each week, I’ll give you a single constraint or jumping-off point to get your minds working. It might be an image, song, theme word, sentence, or a simple writing prompt. You’re free to interpret the prompt how you like as long as you follow the post and subreddit rules. **Please read the entire post before submitting.** Remember, feedback matters! And don’t forget to upvote your favorites and nominate them via message here on reddit or a DM on discord!   *** #This week’s challenge: **Song: ** *Bonus Constraint (worth 5 extra pts.) - Use **three** of the following words: plucky, alarm, hypnotic, leverage, wolves, door, tonight.* This week’s challenge is to use **the above song as inspiration** for your story. You can use the song itself, the name, the images in the video, or . The bonus constraint is not required. You may interpret the media prompt any way you like, as long as the connection is clear and you **follow all sub and post rules**.   *** #How It Works: - **Submit a story between 100-300 words** in the comments below, by the following Sunday at midnight, EST. No poetry. - **Use to check your word count.** The title is not counted in your final word count. Stories under 100 words or over 300 will be disqualified from campfire readings and rankings. - **No pre-written content allowed.** Submitted stories should be written for this post exclusively. - **Come back throughout the week, upvote your favorites and leave them a comment with some actionable feedback.** Do not downvote other stories on the thread. Vote manipulation is against Reddit rules and you will be reported. See the ranking scale below for a breakdown on points. - **Please be respectful and civil in all feedback and discussion.** We welcome writers of all skill levels and experience here, as we’re all here to improve and sharpen our skills. - **Send your nominations for favorites each week to me, via DM, on Reddit or Discord by Monday at 2pm EST.** - If you have any questions, feel free to ask them on the *stickied comment* on this thread or through modmail. *Top-level comments are reserved for story submissions.* - And most of all, be creative and have fun!   *** #Campfire and Nominations - On Mondays at 12pm EST, I hold a Campfire on the discord server. We read all the stories from that week’s thread and provide verbal feedback for those authors that are present. Come join us to read your own story and listen to the others! You can come to just listen, if that’s more your speed. You don’t even have to write to join in. Don’t worry about being late, just join! Everyone is welcome. - You can nominate your favorite stories each week, by sending me a message on reddit or discord. You have until 2pm EST on Monday (or about an hour after Campfire is over). You do *not* have to write or attend Campfire to submit nominations!   *** #How Rankings are Tallied Rankings work on a point-based system. Here is the current breakdown: - **Use of Constraint:** 10 points - **Upvotes:** 5 points each - ***Actionable* Feedback** 5 points each (up to 25 pts.) - **User nominations:** 10 points each (no cap) - **Bay’s nomination:** 40 pts for first, 30 pts for second, and 20 pts for third (plus regular nominations) - **Bonus:** Up to 10 pts. (This applies to things like bonus constraints and making user nominations)   *** #Rankings I’m sorry to say it’s going to be a little longer until the results from “Journey” are up. Thanks so much for your patience. But, let’s take a look at this past week’s results! - - Submitted by u/katherine_c   - - Submitted by u/NotMuchChop   - - Submitted by u/Sch0larite   - - Submitted by u/FyeNite *** ###Subreddit News - Try your hand at serial writing with - You can now post serials to r/Shortstories, outside of Serial Sunday.


It is 1912 in London, and a strange mood hung over the city. A pale moon hung in the sky as the dog-faced man walked along the docks. People didn’t look at him as he passed, something seeming to force them to avert their gaze. It's not just that the man was ugly, no no, as the few who looked at him even for a moment would swear he had some form of facial deformity, though none could say just what this deformity was… A woman's scream rings through the night, further into the dim backways of the city. *Did you hear that Eric?* Said the voice in his head. The man, Eric Fitzjekyl, stopped walking, and turned to look at a shop window. The Reflection in that mirror was not his own, rather a better, stronger, version of the man. His “deformity '' is completely gone, his mutton chops becoming a full beard. And rather than his ragged street clothes, this man wore a full, fine suit and tophat. “Yes Dandy, I heard it” *Well? Are we going to do something about it.* The reflection gestured in the scream’s direction. “It’s not my problem Dandy” *Now now, we talked about this. If you want me to go away for good, you have to try and start to be a gentleman. And a gentleman would not leave some woman to be harmed in the night.* “Dandy, what exactly do you expect me to do?” Eric looks to all the world like a lunatic as he talks to his reflection. “She’s liable to run as soon as she seems me!” *…Well* “No Dandy” *I’m just saying, she wouldn’t run from me* "No Dandy” *Look regardless of which of our fathers you may physically take after we both know you aren’t one to walk away from something like this without trying to help at the very least! And we both know I am far more well equipped to do so!* “Grr….FINE! But if I wake up in another suit that costs my entire week’s wages again, I will never let you out again!” Eric quickly ducks into an alley, and in a matter of moments, he begins spasming in the dark. His muscles swell, his hair straightens…his face almosts melts away, becoming a much more handsome version of itself, with a full beard rather than his usual muttonchops. Altogether, minus the lack of his suit, he became the spitting image of that odd reflection. *Make it quick and change back. Or at least get it over with and get me some dinner afterwards.* “Of course, of course,” His voice has deepened and changed, a far more proper air about it now. “I suppose you’ll want some form of meat and potatoes again? No matter, onto the task at hand” And, with a leap that can only be described as superhuman, this strange gentleman jumped to the roof of the nearest building, and began making his way towards where the scream had come from. Throughout all this, the barmaid who had screamed was running. She had managed to keep ahead of her attacker as he chased her, a glinting knife in his hand…“Come here kitten, I’ll make it nice and quick.” The man made no attempt to run, keeping a steady pace as he followed the woman, cornering her in his alleys, his hunting grounds. Let her tire herself running, it makes his work, his hunt all the easi- What was that? A shadow passed overhead, one of those new dirigibles maybe? Damn flying machines never made any damable sense to Jack. He almost lost the girl from the distraction, running around a corner…and then as he ran around it, he hit a wall. No. No, not a wall. A man. A man built like a wall.“Now what exactly is this then?” Jack watched as his quarry disappeared into the night, and with an almost animalistic growl he responded. “Oi! This doesn’t involve you. It's a domestic matter!” “A domestic matter? One you had been planning to solve with a hunting knife? If that’s how you handle domestic disputes I think it’s best I let that girl get away from you” “You damned git! I’m not dumb enough to travel these alleys at night una-” “Say, didn’t the papers say something about some murdered girls? Something about them being cut up with a hunting knife” The taller man, Dandy, grabbed Jack’s arm. “Perhaps we should take you and your little “self defense” knife down to the nearest station. I’m sure they’d have some questions for-” Jack suddenly plunged the knife into the side of the taller man. With a wince as some pain shifted through him he let go of the man’s arm. And Jack was off like a shot…before Dandy pulled the knife from his side, with nary a whisper, and bounded after him. “B-blimey. Blimey you aren’t human! What the devil are y-” With a rugby tackle, Jack was brought to the ground, his own knife now plunged into his thigh. And he screamed. He screamed like a damnable banshee. He kept screaming as Dandy pulled the knife back out, and dragged the bleeding man to the nearest police station. Eric Fitzjekyl woke up the next morning in a cheap boarding house. He tended to black out after a bit of Dandy being in control… This is a surprisingly soft bed. “Dandy, if you’re about to tell me you spent our entire pay on this room I’m going to-” *Relax!* Dandy is once again in the mirror *The police had an award out for anyone who caught that gentleman last night. A substantial one. Someone should be bringing you breakfast in about 20 minutes* “...I don’t look anything like the man who would of called for tha-”*I told them you were my younger brother.* “...We shouldn’t keep doing that” Eric felt his side where Dandy had been stabbed, the wound already healed, its scar fading fast. “One of these days you’ll get stabbed somewhere you won’t be able to heal from” *We shouldn’t but we both know we’re going to keep doing it* “What makes you so sure”*Because I know you. And I know as long as you're alive, you’re going to keep being the single good thing that Edward Hyde ever put in this world, Eric.* “...


“Are you coming tonight?” Ranger raised his eyebrows with the question. We were saying goodbye after raking my leaves all morning. I contemplated the invitation for a moment. It was Friday, a good day to change habits, right? Why not. “Yeah.” I nodded my confirmation and he grinned, wide and goofy. “Alright, see you later!” Ranger waved, jogging to his red pickup. The rest of my afternoon passed quickly and quietly. I milled about my apartment doing odd chores and activities. Before leaving the house, I debated which shirt to wear for twenty minutes, it was the green striped tee or the blue plaid button-up. In the end I decided on the green striped tee because I channeled my inner Ranger and hoped that’s what he would have done.

Ranger was my best friend since grade school, when an outgoing adventurous guy like him decided to adopt a quiet introverted guy like me. I mean, Ranger is talk of the party, no doubt about it. You heard about that guy that wrestled that pig on a dare? Ranger. You heard a big thunderous laugh in the kitchen at a party where a confident guy you’d never seen before had just walked in? Ranger. You wonder what type of person organizes all the get-togethers and holidays? Ranger. But then there was me. The quiet kid who liked to listen and follow the adventure more than participate? Me. The guy who loved to be invited and feel included, just so he could say no and stay home with a quiet movie? Me. The person who followed the rules and any predictable schedule one hundred percent of the time? Me. That’s why Ranger liked me so much, he loved to challenge my comfort zone and try to push the edges. Oftentimes, I’d tell him no, but he was never discouraged. Each week he’d try again, for the same result. But not tonight. Tonight was different. So, I laced up my high-tops and hit the road in my Toyota Corolla, obeying all traffic laws and stopping outside Ranger’s house. On the docket was pizza, Poker, and the newest car movie. I took a deep breath for confidence and strode up to the front door. I raised my fist to knock but Ranger opened the door before I had a chance. “Tim! You made it!” Behind him I saw Drake and Devon, the tiger twins, exchange some cash. No doubt betting on my attendance tonight. As I walked in, I saw the rest of the gang: Evan, resident jock, Finnigan, resident nerd, Brendon and Vance, best friends since kindergarten, Leonard, the dumb but nice guy, and Caruso, the coolest dude in town. It was a full house for sure. My stomach rumbled and I remembered the plan, holding it tight helped me stay grounded. “So, uh, who ordered the pizza?” I asked tentatively. “Pizza?” Evan spat. “Gross.” “You don’t want pizza, bro?” Ranger asked, pouring me some ice water. “No.” Evan shook his head. “Honestly, me either.” Caruso agreed. “We had pizza yesterday, so.” Drake said and the twins shrugged. “Then, pray tell, do you boys want for dinner?” Ranger asked handing me the cup. I started gulping it down, I didn’t like where this was headed. “Tacobell?” Leonard suggested. Evan clapped him on the back. “That’s using your head, let’s go!” He thundered out the door, leaving it open. Brendon and Vance were hot on his heels and the rest of them started to follow. Ranger grabbed his keys off a hook on the wall. “But what about pizza?” I peeped. “Next time bud, okay? C’mon this’ll be fun you’ll see.” He waved me on, and I set down my cup following him to the truck. The guys were rocking it back and forth, it was a wonder they didn’t pop his tires. Ranger climbed in the front to drive, and Caruso immediately claimed shotgun. I was too shy, and the twins pushed their way into the cab. That left me with Evan, Leonard, Finnigan, Brendon and Vance. “Does anyone want to ride with me?” I offered stepping toward my car. “Uhnt uh. You’re coming with us.” Evan grabbed my shirt collar as the rest of the guys hopped into the flat bed. “C’mon.” Leonard reached down and hoisted me up, the smallest guy here I’m sure he didn’t have any difficulty. “But, no seatbelts?” “Seatbelt Smeatbelt.” Vance waved his hand. “Live a little.” Brendon grinned. I was scared the cops were gonna pull us over the second we hit the road, but the drive to Tacobell was smooth and easy. In the drive-thru Ranger ordered at least half the menu, but by the time we reached the window it was ready. Hooting and hollering our victory, the food was passed out. Someone handed me a chalupa and I gently took it and started eating. It was quiet for a moment, food in our mouths, but someone in the cab took that as an opportunity to blare the music, country specifically. Soon all the guys joined the radio screaming the lyrics, it was the most noise I’d heard in months. Besides their abrasive personalities and rough methods of inclusivity, the gang didn’t seem so bad. So I started to sing too, adding my voice to the cacophony that was echoing through the hills as we drove. It was fun. I was having fun. We continued on for about an hour or so before Ranger pulled over. Everyone immediately jumped out, Finnigan lagging behind to make sure I actually got out of the truck. We were at the wharf. I could smell the salty sea air with its sticky humidity and fishy tint. A few gulls cried overheard but other than the lapping waves, it was quiet. There was a dock that lead out about a hundred yards, so of course the twins raced each other down it. “Don’t just stand there.” Caruso criticized, particularly looking at me. The gang took off after the other two and Ranger nudged my shoulder. I grinned and joined the chase. It was invigorating to pound down the dock, each board sounded that hollow thump with every footstep. I laughed a hearty laugh, throwing it to the wind. Suddenly the boards disappeared, we had reached the end. I skidded to a stop. “Woah.” I breathed. “Woah is right.” Ranger nodded. The water underneath was roiling, foamy and aggressive. The bit that sprayed up with a wave was freezing. “Jump.” Evan demanded. I swiveled my head so fast I almost broke my neck. “What.” “I dare you to jump.” “Me?” “Anyone, but yes, you.” “Five bucks?” Ranger asked. “Ranger, no that water’s gonna give you hypother—” “Deal.” Evan agreed and Ranger took off jumping into the water. “C’mon in Tim, water’s fine!” He called to me. I heard that little voice in my head, the introverted armadillo that wants to curl up and hide. I was nervous. The water was cold. It was dark too, what if the current was strong or even worse, a shark came up and—shut up. I just needed to jump, after all, rebellion is good for character growth. I sucked in as much air as I dared, closed my eyes, and leapt. The water enveloped me, soaking my clothes. They weighed me down, heavy, even my high tops tried to sink me. But I kicked, good and hard, fighting my way to the surface. I broke through, splashing droplets everywhere, and the air was a thousand times colder than the water. “Ra-Ranger, Ranger.” I sputtered. My chest was tight, I could barely fill my lungs, struggling to stay afloat. “Timoth-fricken-tee! Welcome to the Cool Kids Club.” Ranger splashed me and I coughed. “I’m proud of you man.” This was a huge jump for me, and more than literally. I mean c’mon, it was late at night and we were swimming in icy cold water at a place I was sure contained a “no swimming” sign, immediately after eating no less. This was progress. I laughed and paddled around, gaining my confidence. Ranger followed me and we dunked and splashed for a few more minutes before eventually locating the ladder and climbing back on the dock. I was having fun. Wringing my shirt out I saw Caruso pull what looked like a can out of his pocket. He shook it up and popped the top. It was a spray paint can. “Wait, you’re not gonna vandalize that that are you?” I asked, stunned. “It’s called tagging kid, and someone’s got to do it. Might as well be me.” He started to streak the bright orange paint on the wooden boards. “That’s bad.” I frowned, all the excitement of our “forbidden” swim wearing off. “Who’s gonna stop us, huh?” Vance clapped me on the shoulder. “C’mon let’s go.” Brendon lead us back to the truck. Ranger and I were both refused entrance to the cab due to our wet state, Caruso offered to drive, and Ranger allowed him. As we rode in the back, arms and legs spilling out over the edge, Ranger and my clothes began to dry in the wind. It was chilly for sure, but I knew we had to pay the consequences of our choices. We’d been driving for most of the night, so I wasn’t surprised when we stopped for gas. Caruso stepped out and started pumping the fuel. Ranger hopped over the edge of the truck and pulled me by the arm with him. “We’re going inside.” “Why?” I just wanted to curl up in the corner and hide, my inner armadillo was exhausted. I’d had enough of this gang for today, the whole month or year, maybe even. “Cause you’ve probably never actually been inside and it’s important to widen your horizons.” A few more of the guys started following. “Have so.” “Prove it.” The door made the little ding-dong noise signaling our presence. I took in the average gas station, nothing special. I sighed. “This,” I waved my arms dramatically, “is a gas station. People come here to stop on their long journeys to see family in far away places, during their long truck haul or to buy a bag of chips when they have the munchies. The food options span from chips and cheese curls to candy bars and gum, oftentimes there are ample choices of beef jerky and energy drinks. Soda, waters, lemonades, teas, and even slushies can be found along the back wall. Sometimes there are made to order sandwiches and burgers, always there are TastyCakes and donut options. But, the piece to resistance, is the local lottery.” I finished with a flourish. Drake and Devon were so impressed they actually applauded and Finnigan chuckled his approval. “All those years of listening, not talking, really sharped that eye huh?” Finnigan asked and I shrugged. I was gonna come up with something to say, but Drake jumped in. “Yo, steal that candy bar.” He pointed and then looked expectantly toward me. These guys and their impulsiveness. “Nah, I’m okay.” I tried to decline without seeming like a wuss. Drake jabbed Devon’s arm. “Do it.” “Fine, if he’s too pansy then I will.” Devon swiftly pocketed the chocolate bar and walked out through the door. Ranger was nowhere to be found, browsing the gum selection behind us. I just sighed, I didn’t like where this evening was headed. We left and the gas tank was full. Since we had dried on the way over, Caruso tagged out with Ranger and finally joined us in the back. “So how was the store?’ He asked as we drove away from the artificial light of the gas station. “Dope, Devon stole a candy bar cause Tim was too chicken to do it.” Finnigan answered and I crossed my arms. “Nice, petty theft.” Caruso nodded. “Be even cooler if it was something bigger.” Vance mused. “Bro, that car!” Brendon stood up and pointed at some beat up Volkswagen Beetle from the early 1960’s. “You can’t do that.” I protested. “Can’t or won’t?” Caruso looked me dead in the eye and slapped the side of the truck twice. “Turn around!” He shouted and Ranger did as he was told. It was some old post office or whatever, federal property, great. Caruso jumped out of the flatbed and started working with a screwdriver one of the guys had produced on the window. After a minute or so he had the car unlocked, then he climbed in and started on the wires. I felt the nerves in my stomach growing. The butterflies multiplied every second we sat here. The other guys were cheering him on, encouraging you can do it’s and almost there’s floated around. Caruso was about halfway there when a cop drove by. The gang grew quiet, and I prayed so hard he hadn’t seen us. With the stakes heightened Caruso was urged on by only one word: hurry. Everyone said it and many more than once. I saw a spark, then a set of headlights in the distance. Please don’t be a cop, please don’t be the cop. A hum of an engine, Caruso had gotten her started. He pulled the door shut and I felt Ranger put the truck in gear. The car drove by. I let out my breath— Whooop whoooop. Oh no. Ranger pulled out so fast, I had a white-knuckle grip on the edge. Caruso followed in the crappy bug. I couldn’t believe it. We had actually just stolen a car, and now we were running from the police. As the chase ensued our speed only increased. We went faster and faster. Ranger led us to the highway, suddenly there were other cars on the road. We weaved in and out of traffic, us in the back spilling over the edges. I was so scared one of us was going to fall out. But the other guys were loving it. Everyone was alive but me. This night started fun, but it was going downhill so fast, almost as fast as we were flying down the highway. I don’t know how we hadn’t been caught yet, but suddenly the cop started to multiply. Now there were two cars, then four. Soon we hit ten. Ten policemen hot on our tail. The guys were hooting and hollering again, with each additional car they got louder, and I got more scared. We were going so fast, so fast it didn’t feel real. The sound of the sirens was deafening, I thought maybe I heard a chopper join the fray. I didn’t want to go to jail, the lights red and blue were flashing, the cops were getting closer and closer and closer and— “Tim. . . ?” Ranger’s voice brought me back to the present. I snapped outta it and shook my head, trying to clear the daydream. “Oh, sorry, what?” “Coming? Tonight?” He reiterated, knowing full well if he asked me to come over to hang out with the guys for a night, I’d say no. If he asked me to jump off a dock, I’d say no. If he asked me to ride in the tailgate of his truck, I’d say no. If he asked me to steal a car or even a candy bar, I’d say no. Ranger knew me better than anybody and he definitely knew my answer. But he was always polite, always asked. “Oh, haha, no.” I chuckled. “I just went in my head, and boy did that escalate quickly. So that was good enough. Thanks, though!” I closed the door, retiring to the safety of my quiet boring apartment.


Rain falls from a black sky. Frigid water races over the mossy stone of Saint Paul Catholic Church. Thunder rattles the stained glass depiction of the Easter Resurrection. Next to the empty tomb hovers Jesus, right above the warped double doorways that lead into the sanctuary. Inside the church, Father Collins scuttles about emptying pots of rain water. His curved spine seizes as he bends over to grab another full pot. He stumbles into a pew, gasping from the pain and is greeted by a small swarm of mosquitos. For every one he slaps against his flabby neck, two more appear. Father Collins groans as he contemplates his lowly existence. Years ago, he had a clear path to the Vatican, but that was before all that unpleasantness in Pittsburgh. Even though all was forgiven, they still banished him to a school for blind boys in Bolivia. Things ran their course there. His next post was this backwater dump somewhere in the Mississippi Valley swamp where the nearest living Catholic was over a hundred miles away. However, this was considered a historic sight, so the Church required someone to be there at all times; even though the only services he had performed in the last decade were all funerals. Before Father Collins, a friar was responsible for the upkeep of this dilapidated church. Obviously, maintenance work is more suitable for a friar, not an ordained priest. However, the leadership seemed intent on ruining his career, his reputation, and his life. Instead of dining with the Pope, he chases swamp rats away from the Communion wafers that only he partakes in. There is a loud bang as a gust of wind tears shingles off the sagging roof, and the trickle of rain from the ceiling becomes a steady stream. Father Collins shakes a frail fist at the heavens. Forsaken by his old friends and allies, forsaken by God Himself, Father Collins forms curses on his lips, but the only words he mutters are, “Devil take me.” The wind dies down. The rain tapers off. With a groan, Father Collins grabs the overflowing pot of rainwater and waddles towards the kitchen. Loud rapping on the door startles the priest causing him to drop the pot. Water sprays on to the pews, soaking a hymnal and a Bible. Silently cursing God and whatever lost drunk is banging on the door at this ungodly late hour, Father Collins kicks the pot under a pew, bruising his big toe in the process. The priest grunts, the door creaks open, and suddenly Father Collins stands before a beautiful young man wearing a crisp white suit. The stranger’s pale unblemished skin radiates in the darkness. Piercing grey eyes stare out from a seductively androgynous face. All this framed with luscious blonde locks that bounce as he shakes the rain from his hair. Composing himself, Father Collins says, “Look at you, standing in the rain. Come in, come in, what can I do for you?” “I’ve come to make my confession, Father Collins,” says the young man. His voice reminds the priest of a gently plucked harp. “Have we met before?” The young man smiles, showing off a perfectly straight row of perfectly white teeth that glimmer from some unknown light source. “We’ve met a few times in the past, but I’m not surprised you don’t recognize me.” With a skeptical gaze, Father Collins ushers the young man in, certain he would have noticed such a beautiful creature if they had ever crossed paths. The rotary candles flare up as the young man enters the sanctuary. The priest shivers with excitement as he guides the young man to the confessional booth. What sort of delicious sins will pass through those glistening soft lips? Father Collins closes his eyes as he sits in the confessional booth, trying to remember the words to a ritual he had not performed in years. Giddiness clouds the priest’s mind as he takes a deep breath and asks the young man how long it had been since his last confession. “Long time, Father Collins. Very, very long time.” Father Collins smiles, sensing an exterior motive for this young man’s visit. This is no ordinary parishioner. “What is it you wish to confess, my son.” “Murder.” Father Collins stiffens. “I beg your pardon, but did I hear you correctly? Did you say you murdered someone?” “Not someone, but some people. Killed a man’s children along with all his servants. Then I drove his cattle off a cliff, and I’m talking tens of thousands of cattle.” Perhaps this young man’s company is a gift from an old friend, a sympathetic one who knows how lonely the last few years have been for Father Collins. Choosing his words carefully, Father Collins asks, “Is this some sort of game?” “No, I really did that. Well, not personally, but I caused it all to happen.” “Why would you do such a thing?” asks Father Collins in a low voice. The young man says, “Because I made a bet with God. You should know the story, you wrote a whole sermon on it, *The Righteous Suffering of Job*. You first gave that sermon almost forty years ago, when you held a fancy position in Pittsburgh. Same day you called little Brian Mayfield back to your office.” The priest’s lecherous smile vanishes. How could this stranger possibly know that? The young man waits a few moments for the priest to respond. After receiving nothing but garbled stammering from the priest, he continues, “You must remember that sermon. You went into gruesome detail about how I killed Job’s kids, his servants, and his livestock. Well… over the last few centuries, I’ve been thinking about Job’s family, and you were right. What I did was wrong. While God has an exponentially higher body count than me, that doesn’t excuse what I did, so I would like to officially apologize for that.” The priest’s voice trembles. “Who are you?” Ignoring the question, the young man continues, “If I have to resort to murder to corrupt a soul, perhaps that’s a soul not worth corrupting. Besides, I’ve learned it is much easier to corrupt a soul with petty inconveniences. In fact, sometimes all it takes is a leaking roof to not only get someone to curse God, but actually invite me to take them away.” Father Collins cries out, “Who are you!” There is a long pause. When the young man speaks, his voice lowers a few octaves. “You know who I am, Father Collins.” Beads of sweat trickle down the priest’s wrinkled brow. “Why… Why have you come here? You can’t even be here. It’s impossible. This is sacred ground, holy ground, no evil may enter.” A guttural laugh engulfs the room. “Then how do you explain your presence here, priest?” Father Collins slams his way out of the confessional booth. There is a clattering on the floor. His rosary. The necklace band had snapped. He bends down to grab it, but the wooden crucifix sizzles in his hand. Father Collins screams, dropping the rosary. The young man appears behind him. “Do you remember Arnie Baker?” Scooping up the rosary, Father Collins howls through the pain and throws the rosary at the man in the white suit. The man disappears, but his laughter still echoes through the sanctuary. Thunder rumbles in the distance, then all is quiet. Was this a dream, a vision, a hallucination? Was solitude driving him mad? Or the unthinkable? The blisters on his hand seem real enough, and if those were real than that… that thing could be a demon if not the actual Devil himself. Father Collins retreats to the bowl of holy water near the entrance of the sanctuary. As he reaches down towards the still water, the young man appears behind him. “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you.” Father Collins freezes. This has to be a bad dream. Father Collins had served the Church for over half a century, feeding the poor, comforting the distressed, and saving souls from damnation. He had nearly been appointed as a bishop. Certainly, this is just some sort of test. The young man continues,“But back to Arnie Baker, he lived in this very town. Had family out in Pittsburgh though. Spent a couple summers out there in the very same parish you served at.” Father Collins plunges his right hand into the holy water to fling it at the apparition. Yet the water boils upon touch, and when he tears his hand away, large chunks of burnt flesh fall off. With a shriek, the priest falls to the floor. Smirking down at the priest, the young man says,“Told you not to touch it. You’re mine now.” Father Collins watches in horror as the skin peels from his hand. Then blood, muscle, and tendon ooze off the bone. A scream freezes in his throat. The young man says, “Now you must have done something really special for Arnie Baker, because even though he never went to mass or any other church service after those summers in Pittsburgh, he wrote in his suicide note he wanted to be buried in a Catholic cemetery.” Father Collins crawls to his feet. He hobbles to the door and tugs at the handle. Not locked, but by some demonic magic, the door refuses to budge. The young man steps closer to the trembling priest. “In fact, he’s buried in the cemetery right behind this church.” Father Collins shouts a jumbled Latin phrase and runs past the young man who smiles at the priest skimpering into the sacristy. The priest slams the door behind him, throwing every ounce of his flabby frame against the door. For a few moments, everything is silent. Even the wind ceases howling. The priest lets out a quiet sob as he stares at the hand which is nothing but a stump of scorched bone and pus-spewing flesh. The young man walks out from the vestment closest. “Arnie Baker… you took him under your wing as soon as you laid eyes on him. Got him to take his first communion. Next summer you personally selected him to be an altar boy.” Father Collins slides down the door until he is sitting on the floor. He weeps into his knees, closing his eyes, praying it all away. The young man says, “Since Arnie Baker was a suicide, he showed up at my doorstep. Not that I had much choice in the matter. Seemed like a good kid. A damaged kid, but a good kid nonetheless. Just in the wrong parish at the wrong time, but he also wasn’t the only one you paid special attention to.” Father Collins shrieks, “Get behind me Satan!” All is silent. Everything is still. The priest mutters silent prayers as a gentle peace descends upon him. Maybe this was all a test. The Blood of Jesus Christ had washed him clean of those past sins. He would wake up, his hand would be fine, and no one would be there. Composing himself, Father Collins dares to crack his right eye open. A few inches away are the hungry eyes of the Devil. Flailing his stump of an arm, the priest charges to the other end of the sacristy, wrenches the door open, and then dashes down the hall. Shameful images of the past clog the priest’s mind as he tries to find the back door, the one he uses at least three times a day, but for some reason it is eluding him now. By some malevolent force, this small church with only four separate rooms outside of the sanctuary and only two hallways had morphed into an inescapable labrinth. As the priest races down familiar hallways that lead to unfamiliar intersections, his vision blurs with images of young Arnie Baker. The curls of his sandy blonde hair, the pale freckled face, the dimples on both sets of his pudgy cheeks, the shame in his auburn eyes. Panting, Father Collins rounds a corner only to find himself standing face to face with the Devil. The Devil says, “Many people erroneously believe I enjoy torturing the souls of the damned which, for the most part, could not be further from the truth. On the contrary, I am quite fond of humanity. Why else would I risk the wrath of Almighty God to free you pathetic mortals from His spiritual tyranny. I risked everything to free Eve’s mind, and lost everything in the process. It’s not like Hell is my first choice of residence.” Numb fear is replaced by manic terror. The priest flees down the vacant hallways, throwing open doors with his one good hand but only finds more brooms and mop buckets. The futility of his efforts, the impossibility of his circumstance, brings the priest to his knees. Too exhausted to run, too terrified to fight, there is nothing to do but wait for the end. The Devil steps out of a broom closet. He continues talking as if there had been no interruption. “So when I get a poor soul like Arnie Baker unjustly tossed into my little pit of fire, I do what little I can to make them comfortable, and if at all possible, do something special for them. You ever wonder why you were assigned to this run down parish?” Father Collins snivels, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, I asked for forgiveness, I repented, I said my Hail Marys-” The Devil’s rumbling laughter cuts him off. “I have never understood how a few Hail Marys along with a small serving of rotten grape juice and stale crackers cleanse a soul from even the worst atrocities.” The Devil pauses to take a deep breath, sucking all the air out of the narrow hallway. “You see, God and I made a bet about you, much like the one we made about Job, but instead of murdering your friends and family, I only asked to be allowed to play a few harmless pranks and have a say as to where you were stationed. So over the years I have caused the floorboards to creak under your desk no matter where you put it, dislodged the occasional roof tile to let a little rain in, sent swarms of bugs to torment your sleep every so often, little things just to be an annoyance. One of my favorite pranks was causing your shoelaces to snap at the most inconvenient times. Do you remember that time right before you were about to meet the Archbishop?” Father Collins did remember, quite vividly in fact. A bishop had recently died, and while the meeting was an informal one, Father Collins hoped to impress the Archbishop in order to further his own chances of receiving that coveted position. On his way to the office, he bent down to tighten his shoelace and it snapped. Frantic, he tried adjusting the lace to shorten it only to have it snap again. As he entered through the gold painted doors of the Archbishop’s office, the shoe slipped off causing him to tumble into a Renaissance era stained glass crucifix, a gift to the Archbishop from the Pope himself. The crucifix shattered on the floor along with Father Collins’s dream of a station at the Holy See. That meeting with the Archbishop had been the beginning of his downward spiral. Ashamed, embarrassed, hopes dashed, Father Collins did something reckless and was reported. Which led to Bolivia, which led to even more unpleasantness, which led to this accursed swamp. Father Collins’s sense of shame collapses in a wave of self-pity and rage. Drool foams from the priest’s mouth. “It was you! This is all your fault!” “Not entirely my fault. For starters, I only proposed the bet, your boss is the one who accepted it, and I think you are forgetting that you wouldn’t be in this current predicament if it wasn’t for the fact that you had carnal relations with a multitude of youths that were under your charge.” The Devil’s accusation does nothing to abate the priest’s self-pity. Anger clears away the cloud of past memories which had blurred his vision. He spots the elusive back door right behind the Devil. The priest bounds to his feet, racing past the Devil as fast as his robe will let him. He bursts through the backdoor, sprints through the flower garden, and dashes into the cemetery. Howling wind rips crisp leaves from branches and small whirlwinds of dead foliage tear across the priest’s path. Lightning tears through a wall of rain which is cascading over the church and into the cemetery. The ground turns to a muddy swamp, clinging to the priest’s shoes. The tongues of his shoes loosen with the snapping of shoelaces. Mud sucks in the Italian leather leaving the priest to flee in silk socks. As Father Collins stumbles through the downpour, a root wraps around his ankle. The priest crashes to the ground, and all the air is torn from his lungs. Darkness obscures the tangle of roots trapping his foot as Father Collins tries to pull his ankle away. The roots tighten their grip, yet there are no trees nearby. Nothing but rows of headstones. Lightning cuts through the wall of black clouds, illuminating the headstone in front of the priest. In that flash of light, Father Collins sees the name “Arnold Baker” engraved in stone. The roots trapping his leg refuse to budge. Father Collins wiggles a few fingers between the roots and his leg, but the roots respond to his touch by tightening their grasp. He kicks at the roots with his one free leg, but it too becomes ensnared by roots that seem to be popping out from the ground. As Father Collins tries to push himself away, he feels the roots pulling him closer to the tombstone. Arnold Baker’s tombstone. Lightning flashes overhead, and Father Collins looks down at his feet to find them trapped, not by roots, but by skeletal hands. Father Collins screams as he thrashes his feet. He rolls to his belly, grasping at muddy clumps of grass in a futile attempt to pull himself away. Despite the priest’s best efforts, the skeletal hands maintain their vice-like grip. Bony fingers pierce into his calves, digging through muscle and tendon until scraping against the shrieking priest’s leg bone. The skeletal hands yank, tearing through Father Collins’s soft flesh. Wailing to a deaf god, Father Collins digs his fingers into the mud as he is pulled into the earth. First his feet disappear, then his legs crunch in unnatural angles as his body twists farther into the dirt. A flash of lightning. The Devil stands before the priest, who is up to his neck in dirt. The Devil holds up his hand and says, “Arnie, could you give us a minute.” The fingers wrapped around his leg bones cease their tugging. Father Collins screams hoarsely, “Please! Mercy! I’ll do anything! Anything!” The Devil crouches over him and gives the priest’s head a sympathetic pat. “Let’s start with a question that has bothered me for thousands of years, but I’ve never gotten a satisfactory response. Can you do that for me, Father Collins?” The priest grovels, “Please, have mercy on me, please... I’ll do anything you ask.” The Devil smiles. “I’ll take that as a yes. One thing that has always perplexed me is why does everyone think I’m the bad guy? Not saying I’m perfect, but I killed one family and a bunch of camels, that’s the worst you got on me. God, on the other hand, is responsible for countless murders, and some of those, like the Egyptian children, were just because he wanted to show off his power. He causes droughts and plagues that kill millions each year, not me. The Old Testament is the memoirs of a mass murderer, and the Book of Revelations reads like the manifesto of a deranged serial killer.” Tears stream down the priest's pudgy cheeks as he weeps for mercy, but the Devil ignores the blubbering man’s cries. The Devil continues, “God even says in Revelations that Satan, me, will be helping humanity fight against this righteous slaughter of every man, woman, and child who didn’t say nice things about God, yet for some reason you humans still think I’m the enemy. So tell me, priest, as someone who has devoted their life to studying the Holy Scriptures, why do you think I’m the evil one?” Father Collins wails, “Please… please... have mercy on me! I can change! Please... I didn’t mean any of it, just let me go!” Giving the priest another pat on the forehead, the Devil says, “Never get a clear answer to that question. Oh well. Father Collins, it’s been a pleasure and I must express my sincerest gratitude...” He pauses as the priest whimpers with confused hope. Then the Devil continues, “without pathetic degenerates like you, I’d get no joy from this job.” Rising to his feet, the Devil walks away as Father Collins screams for mercy. The Devil waves his hand and says, “He’s all yours, Arnie. Enjoy.” Flesh tears as the skeletal hands pull Father Collins deeper into the earth. Worms and dirt clog the priest’s throat, drowning out his screams. His stump of an arm scrapes into the earth as his other hand stretches out to the heavens and then disappears beneath the earth. A sheet of rain washes away the claw marks in the mud as lightning flashes over the vacant cemetery.


In the cold and unforgiving cityscape of London, Gabriel Stone, a private investigator hardened by both the city streets and the unseen dark corners of the paranormal, sat quietly in a seedy pub tucked away in a narrow alley. It was a sanctuary for the downtrodden, forgotten by the world and drenched in shadows. Here, Stone knew, lay a trail that could lead him to an entity as insidious as it was clever. In the treacherous game of cat and mouse that he played with the supernatural, the trail of The Miller was the dodgiest he had ever followed. Named for their talent to feed the gossip mills, The Miller was a species of Enchanter. They whispered impossible rumours and twisted the fates of their victims until the absurd became their reality. It was a diabolical prowess, one Stone begrudgingly admired. Social media, the 21st century’s weapon of mass deception, was The Miller's playground, amplifying the rumours into a deafening roar of fake news. Stone had seen the chaos unfold as these fabrications became someone else’s all-too-real nightmare. He'd noticed a pattern, a perverse thread linking the victims, which he had chased down the city’s dark alleys, in and out of dodgy pubs, always under a cloak of secrecy. Even as he ventured further into this dangerous investigation, he knew he couldn't afford to become a part of the twisted narrative. Once your name found its way to The Miller's whispers, there was no evading the inevitable. But Stone wasn’t one to shy away from danger. His audacity had been forged in the fires of countless encounters with the dark arts, making him a formidable adversary to the Enchanter. At the heart of his strategy was the way he communicated: brief, cryptic words, carefully designed to offer little about his intentions. He was a silent shadow amongst the rabble, listening, observing, never revealing more than a sliver of his true intentions. "Terrible about that schoolteacher, innit?" he said to the barkeep, casting his line into the murky waters of bar gossip. "Yeah, grim. Got no idea what came over him," the barkeep replied. While his external dialogue was a model of restraint, his inner thoughts were a different story. Direct, candid statements of what he saw and how he interpreted it, a constant narrative that fuelled his understanding of the world around him. This schoolteacher is just another victim. I need to find the link to The Miller. With every interaction, every piece of news he gathered, he felt closer to The Miller, his every instinct screaming that he was on the right track. But with every step, the waters seemed to get murkier, his path, uncertain. Could he trust his instincts? Or was he being led into a trap? The suspicion that had served him so well was casting shadows on his own confidence. His relentless pursuit led him to The Grindhouse, a notorious internet café known as the epicentre of online rumours and scandals. He suspected this was where The Miller spun their webs of deceit. Walking into the café, the soft hum of computers and the click-clack of keyboards filled his ears. He had to be careful. One wrong step and he might trigger a rumour about himself. "Any interesting news?" Stone asked the girl behind the counter, his voice as casual as the weather. "Always," she replied with a smirk. He spent hours in the café, watching, listening. The conversations around him were a mix of harmless chatter and scandalous gossip. Yet, he couldn't shake off the feeling of an unseen menace, the undercurrent of The Miller’s invisible handiwork. As he sifted through the details, he started to form a chilling picture. The schoolteacher was the tip of an iceberg in an unforgiving sea of icebergs, a piece of a horrifying puzzle that was The Miller’s handiwork. A sinister thought pierced his confidence. He was piecing together the fragments, but what if they were purposefully laid out for him? Was he unearthing a trail, or walking along a cleverly mapped path? The shadow of doubt began to creep into his mind. Was he merely a pawn in The Miller's malicious game? Was he about to be ensnared in a rumour of his own making? Returning to his office, Stone pondered his findings. He was too close to back out now. The dodgy lead hadn't deterred him; rather, it had solidified his resolve. He'd seen the damage The Miller caused, and he was more determined than ever to bring this demon to justice. The phone rang, disrupting his thoughts. An anonymous tip about a high-profile businessman's sudden downfall. Another victim of The Miller, it seemed. As Stone listened, the anonymous voice echoed the chilling patterns he'd uncovered. His heart pounded with the weight of his reality; he was dealing with an enemy that could turn his worst fears into a reality. The next day brought another call, then another. The tempo of The Miller's game had definitely intensified, and the signature was obviously theirs, but the pattern was no more evident to Stone than when he first began this chase. Moreover, Stone was all too aware he had not been as discreet about his intentions as he had hoped. Under any other circumstance, tracking any other mark, he would have been grateful for the litany of leads he was receiving. But not now, not when it came to the sheer damning power of words when wielded by The Miller. As the days blurred into a tapestry of accusations, confessions, and manipulations, Stone felt the spectre of The Miller grow larger. With every rumour that blossomed into a dreadful reality, he sensed a taunting presence, an unseen foe watching his every move. He was close, he could feel it, yet The Miller seemed always a whisper away, an insidious shadow just out of reach. Navigating through the storm of rumours, piecing together the whispers, Stone stayed the course. He questioned his leads, followed the threads, all the while keeping his pursuit hidden from prying eyes. His instincts, the voice that had guided him through the darkest corners of the city, were now a mix of certainty and doubt. Am I close? Or am I walking into The Miller's labyrinth? In a moment of weakness, he pulled a coin from his pocket, ready to offer the fate of his next direction up to the whims of Tyche, when the tinny clink of his letterbox cracked the silence of his darkened flat. He bent to retrieve the yellow parcel, and, in that moment, instead of an off-chance call for heads or tails, it all came down to a crumpled envelope delivered to his office, and a single piece of worn parchment folded neatly inside. The elegant but erratic handwriting indicated urgency, lending an even more ominous air to the message it held: "Midnight tolls where spirits gather. Seek the whisper in the static. The rumour’s birthplace hides in plain sight." It was cryptic, no doubt, but to Stone, it was more. He had spent countless nights hunting whispers of the supernatural, deciphering riddles that were far more obscure than this. His heart pounded with a glimmer of hope. The spirits' gathering place... could it be the internet café? The whisper in the static... an online broadcast, perhaps? And the rumour's birthplace hiding in plain sight... Could it be that The Miller had been weaving his rumours right under everyone's nose, within The Grindhouse itself? As he unravelled its meaning, he felt the cold chill of realisation. He'd found the link he was searching for, the common thread that led him straight to The Miller's doorstep. Or so it seemed. The faint glimmer of hope surged into a beacon, as Stone knew he'd just caught a break. This clue, as puzzling as it was, might just be the lead he needed to corner The Miller. Or, as the inherent risk of his investigation dictated, it could be yet another lure into an intricate trap. The clue felt real, but he couldn't shake off the nagging question - was this truly the break he'd been waiting for, or was it another manipulation by The Miller? The line of his jaw tightened with replenished determination. Reaching for his hat as he slid his keys into his coat pocket, he decided that was a chance he was destined to take.