Eve Eris Amann
Aspiring fantasy and horror writer. Here to try to keep the writer’s block away.
Eve Eris Amann
Aspiring fantasy and horror writer. Here to try to keep the writer’s block away.
Aspiring fantasy and horror writer. Here to try to keep the writer’s block away.
Aspiring fantasy and horror writer. Here to try to keep the writer’s block away.
She came into a clearing in the twisted thicket, watching her feet to keep from getting her boots caught in the gnarled, wicked roots that weaved and whipped through the dirt-packed path. The wind seemed to die. And even the ominous sounds of animals lurking just at the shadows of her vision quieted. A fog settled in front of her and revealed the massive structure, just as twisted and out of place as the rest of the wood had been. Jagged stone carved out the base of the unnatural thing—a stone path wending its way to a broken and aged stone, as if some castle rook had sat here some millennia forgotten. Above the base, sitting upon the shattered rook, balking at gravity and the natural laws of this world, sat a homely looking cottage with neat wood-paneled walls, glowing stained glass windows, and a thatched roof where a pipe chimney jutted out at an odd angle from the roofing. A small attic space sat atop that, gothic Victorian style spires capped the structure.
The space around the cottage was not saved from the reality-rending force of the grotesque thing. Rocks and earth rent from the ground floated about the spire. But nothing living dared to approach it. Indeed, the forest seemed to lean away from the strange thing. Neither fowl nor fauna dared enter this space. It was that which shouldn’t be. A thing that shouldn’t exist, but against all reason, it stood there. Nothing rational could explain what she was gazing at, as the fog continued to depart from the space. Rose held her breath as she beheld it, fearing beyond fear that if she let out so much as a sigh that she would be swallowed by it. Even so, something about it called to her. She had sought it out, after all. But she couldn’t find the strength to move toward it. Every inch of her screamed against the thought. Something primitive inside her, some long lost beastial survival instinct begged her to run the way she came and never look back.
Still, she took a step forward.
Gray. The only description for such an old, decaying, dead house. Shudders cracked and peeling off the frame like the bark of a dying tree. The siding warped and paint chipped to reveal an even darker foggier gray. The weather didn't help to brighten the scene with thick dark clouds looming low and close enough together that the sun ceased it's existence. Amongst the gray was a tan brittle and dry lawn that helped tie together the perfect eerie location. And yet, despite these factors two residents were determined to make this rotten eye sore their home. Oblivious to the certain health hazard the building was screaming to be and ignorant to the rumors and whispers that spread of things lurking within the structures shadows. Skeletons no one cared to exhume from the closets within. They brought little with them. Perhaps on the run from a life not worth living or maybe just deciding on a new albeit decrepit adventure. Their rumor to soon add to the growing list this home inspired.
The first to exit the classic vibrant red 1980 Cadillac eldorado was a woman with equally vibrant auburn hair. It cascaded in tight tendrils curled to perfection down her back and bounced in unison with each click from her black cross strapped heels. Her posture was composed, confident and her red lips held the expression of a temptress willing to do whatever it takes to make it to the top. A small smudge on the left corner of her plump lips showcasing her passion for love. The only other passenger to appear was a well dressed man in a suit tailored to allow others the chance to know his worth at a glance. Powerful and in control, partnered together with a person worthy in attitude to give it right back. They had two cases holding their belongings as they made their way up the worn stone pass to the large solid oak door. He wrapped one arm around her curved waist clad in a tight fitted cocktail dress, black as night to balance out the overwhelming amount of red. And of course, to match seamlessly with his suit and jet black hair styled into a purposeful mess.
He kissed her, rough, full of a burning passion. The buds of romance trailing in the wind after them. The door was opened with a slow yearning screech and the two entered the mysteriously furnished home. Every surface was clad with a thin white sheet to prevent the eventual existence of dust, yet the two paid no mind as they glided over worn floorboards screaming with each step then up the crooked staircase that yelped louder than any would deem reasonable. But it was an old house riddled with the stress and the secrets it's previous owners stashed away from prying eyes. The second floor was simple, one room accompanied with a typical dingy bath. Their bags hit the floor followed by the coverings of the bed followed by a black cocktail dress. That evening the house was filled by a different set of moans, ones that did not belong to the wind lightly caressing the house as it rolled by. Hours passed and the two now remained silent as she kneeled by the bed quietly folding what little she had and storing it in the drawers beneath the matress they'd just become acquainted with. His case sat open centered on the rooms floor with no intention of changing it's position. A howl disturbed the silence as the wind picked up outside.
"Think it'll rain?" Her voice was soft as she carried on with her task glancing briefly at the man whose hands were behind his head, eyes closed and legs sprawled on the bed.
"Don't know, Quinn. Hasn't rained this side of Cali in years." His eyes remained closed as his deep gravely voice answered.
"I think it'll rain." She stated placing her hands on the bed and boosting herself up. At this the unfamiliar thud of thunder shook the unstable house. "Told ya."
Quinn meandered towards the only window, the curtains rolling in dull waves away from the opening. She pushed down on the crumbling wood struggling to force it shut. Another roar of thunder hit as she grunted during her attempt. Then came the sudden flash of lightning causing her to jump back in shock. Right into a solid chest she wasn't expecting. Quinn released a small startled scream as she scrambled away only to realize it was her partner standing so close so suddenly.
"Holy hell, Cas. You scared me." She placed her hand to her chest with a small sigh.
"It's just a storm, Quinn. Nothing to get so worked up over." Cas pulled the window close without any sign of struggle before turning back to her and wrapping both arms around her waist. He placed a tender yet forceful kiss to her exposed neck before resting his chin there. They swayed back and forth in silence enjoying each other's company as the first drop of rained tapped the window before another thousand more descended. Beneath the white noise of a the storm a distinct creaking sound resonated from the staircase. Quinn tensed up as she began to feel uneasy.
"Cas?"
"Mm?" Was his mumbled response.
"You sure about this place?" Her voice displayed her sudden suspicions. Cas grabbed her arms and twirled her around to face him before tucking her into his chest.
"It was cheap, Quinn. I know it looks pretty bad but, there's nothing I can't fix. Little bit of paint here, some remodeling there, it'll be brand new. Just for us." He gingerly placed a kiss to her forehead to ease her nerves.
"It's just...I've heard that-"
"Whatever you heard is bullshit. It's just a house." He led her toward the stairs. "Let's check out the rest of it."
Quinn followed, reluctant, yet excited . The stairs groaned with every step, alerting the empty space below of the new inhabitants. The faint sound of shuffling came from below and her eyes shifted quickly toward it. Nothing was visible. Quinn's gaze darted around as she tensed. At the base of the steps was a large living room where they each took time to remove the sheets covering old furniture. There wasn't much, just a book case, coffee table, and a love seat. Next to the opening to the kitchen sat an antique grandfather clock that appeared to be broken. The kitchen had all the basics including a table that sat in front of another, smaller room for laundry.
Quinn suspended her growing suspicions as she marveled and inspected each area. "It's quaint."
Cas nodded in agreement. "Perfect for two." He fiddled with the clock, twirling the hands which caused a steady clicking. It didn't chime as he wound it and once his hand wavered the clicking stopped. "The clocks absolutely busted."
Quinn approached the books on the case, ignoring Cas as he continued to fiddle with the antique. The shelves were stocked and she admired each spine as her fingers trailed their embossed titles. One was blank, which intrigued her and, as she tilted it to inspect it, she felt a gust of cold creep steadily past her. Her flesh trembled standing on edge as if the air itself was an incoming danger. She teetered the book for a moment—she could tell it was a journal of sorts. The curiosity called to her, begging her to ignore the chills that seemed to cling to her bones. And just she decided she would pluck it from it's cozy place, Cas spoke.
"Let's get some sleep so we can tidy it up in the morning."
The book crisply ripped itself from her fingers and fell back into place. Her eyes were wide with shock. Did that just happen? The cold dispersed quicker than it had appeared. Her throat burned.
"I'm going to get some water. You head up first." Quinn placed a kiss on Cass’ cheek before he strided back up the steps. The groaning of the wood seemingly louder than before.
Her eyes burned through the space surrounding her. Quinn had always been a sceptic to these situations, but she'd always seem then to be true. There must be something here. There had to be. She felt the burning stare being given right back from a dark corner of the room.
The door shrieked open as Quinn opened it to the slapping sounds of rain hitting the ground. She sighed at the distance between the door and the vehicle. If only they’d had the forethought to bring the case in before the rain started. Quinn darted to the car, quickly throwing open the trunk and ripping a bottle from the case, then rushed back to the home as fast as her feet would take her. Despite her speed, her hair was already soaked when she got back into the relative safety of her new house. She stopped before the doorway, the door hung ajar as she had left it in her mad dash. The rain continued to drench her as she looked forward, puzzled. It looked as if all light had left the house. She stared into a black abyss. She shook her head. “Get ahold of yourself.” Quinn said to herself. She couldn’t stay out here all night. And as the flash of lightning blinded her surroundings, she made her decision and forced her feet to take her back inside, despite the knot in her gut growing tighter.
The eerie feeling from earlier ate at her as she felt the sensation of watchful eyes boring into her skin. Quinn sauntered into the kitchen and flicked the switch. The bulb in the kitchen hummmed a low tune before flickering on and back off. She rolled her eyes and sat her bottle of water on the small table in the kitchen. She uncapped it and quenched her thirst, nearly draining the bottle before letting out a satisfied sigh. She glanced back at the switch as the light continued to flicker and walked over to it. She flicked it off. Her eyes were met with an unforgiving void. There was nothing here, no strange sounds, just that off putting feeling at the edge of her awareness. Even so, it felt sinister. She felt her skin prickle up in goosebumps and she quickly made her way back toward the stairs. Cas was up there. He was safe.
Cas was comfortably lounging on the bed without a word as she took another swig from her water bottle and placed it on the nightstand. Cas glanced up at Quinn as she entered. “You’re soaked.”
“I needed water, we didn’t have water.” Quinn said, more edge in her words than she meant.
Quinn felt water drip from her hair and roll down her cheek. “Okay? Well, there should be some towels in the bathroom and a change of clothes. Why don’t you dry up.”
Quinn nodded and went for the bathroom. Her foot reached over the threshold and stopped. In the corner of her eye she saw a silhouette. Like something evading right on the edge of sight but always vanishing when you try to focus on it. But something deep down told her she didn’t want to try to focus on it. Like if she looked at it, really looked at it…
She pushed the thought out of her head. She closed her eyes and shook her head. She pressed on into her new master bathroom. She wouldn’t let some silly feeling keep her from falling in love with this fixer-upper. Quinn flipped the light switch and, for once, the light worked. No flickering, it just worked. She peeled her clothes from her body, the rain forcing the fabric skin-tight against her form. She disposed of her shirt, then her bra, and took the towel from the edge of the yellowing bathtub and dried herself, patting her neck, her breasts, before wrapping it around herself and sitting on the edge of the tub, listening to pitter-patter of the rain off the roof.
After she was dry, she shrugged on her underwear and, as she was securing the clasps on a pink lace bra, she saw it again.
There, in the corner of her vision, she saw a silhouette. She felt her eyes wandering toward it, but she always averted her vision before she could focus on it. She felt terror gripping her chest, her breath quickening. She finished up and pulled a long shirt over her head and quickly exited the bathroom.
“Cas, the bathroom is going to need work,” Quinn started. But as she exited the bathroom and looked over at Cas, there it was again. Her breathing picks up as she quickly averts her gaze again. This time, she heard it giggle. She saw it approach her at the edge of her vision, giggling. The thing wickedly grasped a strand of Quinn’s auburn hair. Lightning filled the room followed by the crashing of thunder. The room went dark, the lights being forced off from the storm. Then silence.
“Cas?” Quinn said, her voice shaking. She stood there in nothing but a big shirt. The room felt oppressive. She approached the bed slowly, the darkness crushing in around her. As she approached, she realized the bed was empty. Cas was gone. And from the stairs she heard something giggle.
“I love you.”
The words hit me like a train. I felt my heart flutter. I felt my face grow warm. I’d always imagined this moment, since I met him during Freshman orientation at college. He was hot, charming, a little rough on the edges, but who wasn’t. Even so, he never showed even a hint that he was interested in me. We never even hung out outside of class. We didn’t run in the same circles. So despite my heart doing flips in my chest, all that came out of my mouth was “Why…why are you telling me this.”
“Because its the way I feel for you.” Brent leaned in toward me. I pressed my body further against the wall he had cornered me in.
It was a warm May night. We had been at the same party. He must have found me when I was stepping outside to take a hit or two from my vape pen to chase the liquor. He placed his arm in front of me and leaned his tone frame into me.
I could smell the rum on his breath as he spoke. “I…when I think about you, Rose, I—something takes over me and I can’t think of anyone else.”
My face was flushed and I let out gasping breaths, thinking of something to say. My head was in a tailspin. “We…you…I mean we hardly know each other.”
“Who needs to know another when love is all that matters. I feel strongly about you.”
A group of men passed us on our right, heading back into the party in the small brick house. The music was softly blaring from within mixed with the sound of drunk revelers butchering the lyrics loudly. Brent’s eyes dug into the men as they passed. I furrowed my brows. “I…I don’t know what to say,” I finally blurted out.
“What?” Brent’s face turned, a look of hurt and confusion evident in his expression, “do you not feel the same? Do you not love me too?”
“I just…this is moving so fast. Like I said, we hardly talk. You ignored me completely for three years and now? Why now?”
He crossed his arms. Something flickered in his eyes. His words turned colder. “Because I can’t stand it, Rose. Can’t stand when someone glances at you, takes your attention.”
I took a step back and he took one toward me.
“I can’t stand when men flirt with you, get close to you, make you theirs by taking up every minute of your time. It’s incessant. Like a wall I can’t breach.”
“I…I should go.” I started away, heading into an alleyway between buildings. He gave chase. My head was swimming. Maybe from the alcohol, maybe from trying to decide if I’d kiss him or run from him.
“You never let me get close, Rose. You and that fucking tool.”
I turned on heel. “Who? Tyler?”
“That ugly clumsy idiot who clings to your side.”
I felt my flushed face turn red with anger as I shouted, “That’s my best friend you’re talking about, asshole.”
Brent halted his approach, taken aback from my tone. And then he started laughing. “I won’t let him take you from me.”
Something deep inside me recoiled from him. I kept taking instinctive steps away from him, not noticing how deep I was going into the allway, away from other people, possible witnesses. I was such an idiot, I should have just went back into the party. “He’s not taking me from anyone—he’s just my friend. We’ve known each other since elementary school.”
“Well, he wont be my competition anymore. I wont let anyone come in between us, my love.”
My heart started thumping against my chest and I balled my hands into fists. “Wh-what are you talking about.”
“I’m disposed of him. He wont be keeping us from each other anymore.”
“D-disposed?” My stomach became watery and I felt my throat close up.
“I killed him.” Brent smiled. “And the dead can’t love.”
He deep in a dirty, brown water. He had gone head first into it, falling into the darkness, into the frigid water. The fall had been a shock and Jack had not been able to get a full breath before he was sinking beneath the surface. He felt his body go into a sort of shock from the chill. He had not yet started to regret going into the house at the end of Culberson Circle after Cydni yet, but as he sank deeper and deeper, desperate for his eyes to train to the dark and get his bearings, he wasn’t sure if he would make it out of here alive.
Jack had been standing on the porch of the dingy, rotten house, surprised when Cydni had actually taken his dare at last. Had actually reached out for the door knob and turned it. And then she had been thrust forward, Cydni stumbling in through the doorway, the door shutting hard behind her. Jack stepped back with a start. He had not pushed her, though he was sure Cydni would never let him hear the end of it. Then he approached the door, “Cydni?” He called out.
There was no answer.
“Cydni, come on. You can come out now.”
Silence.
“Okay, Cydni, very funny,” Jack said, approaching the door. He reached a hand to the knob and turned it gingerly. It did not budge. He tried again, but still nothing. The door would not give. He started to pull back and forth on the doorknob, trying to pull the door open. Panic started to set in. It was just a house, he told himself, don’t be so stupid. But the door would not open and he did not hear anything from inside. It was almost like Cydni had just…disappeared.
Jack paced back and forth on the porch, waiting a moment. Maybe she had been knocking unconscious, taken a nasty fall. Maybe she would come to and open the door. After a handful of minutes with no sign of Cydni, his mind went wild with ideas of what fate befell her friend. Maybe she fell onto a loose nail and was bleeding out in there. No, maybe there was a squatter in there and she was being chased—maybe she was hiding. Maybe the door was stuck and with all the windows boarded up, she wouldn’t have another way out. Jack didn’t have the tools to pry the boards off the windows and he knew Cydni didn’t have the strength to try even if she found a pry bar in there somewhere. He would have to find another way in. Resolve clicked into place and gave way to action. Jack landed on a plan—find another way in. Maybe somewhere on the outside there was a crack or something overlooked or…
“A basement.” He said to himself. He grew up in this area. The development was the same in its make. They all had a basement. Like his house and like Cydni’s, there would be an exterior hatch that led down into the basement and, within, a door that would lead back up inside. Jack stopped for a moment and wondered if Cydni had come to the same conclusion and was looking for it, or, as Jack rather expected, perhaps she hadn’t thought to as fear would have certainly gripped her by now. Jack swallowed.
He started around the side of the house, hopping off the side of the porch through a break in the splintered railing to the left of the door. He hopped into the tall grass and started wading through the waste deep weeds around the side of the house. The weeds certainly would aid his search. It would be all but hidden because of them. He cornered the left edge of the house and came up around the side of it. It would be in the back, if he was right about the structures being near-replicas. The exterior was, though the insides of these houses had their own personality and lay out.
Jack came into the backyard where a splintered and sun blasted fence stood in the back, torn and tattered through the years and lack of maintenance. He squinted his eyes and pushed weeds aside, searching for the hatch. And surely enough, near the middle of the house, rusted and brown with age, a two-door hatch sat. The handles were corroded and flaking as his hands gripped around them. He pulled and heard the metal groaning in the night air. But it, too, did not budge. “Fucking things.” Jack swore to himself and mustered his strength, rallying for a second attempt. Jack pulled again, throwing his back into it and putting his feet on the edge of the crumpling wood trimming, groaning with effort. The hatch doors screeched as he pulled it open inch by inch, revealing a dark descent of ruined stone stairs.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Jack sighed and pulled his phone from his hoodie pocket. He turned on the light and started down the stairs.
To his memory, there should only be a handful of steps before reaching the basement doors. But there were more here than he remembered. His light dimly revealed the path before him, but he couldn’t see two or three steps ahead of him before the light seemed to be swallowed by an unnatural darkness. As he continued downward, growing increasingly puzzled, the steps became more treacherous—the stone becoming more worn. Before long the steps transitioned into a downward stone path. Despite everything screaming inside him that this was wrong, that something was off, he pressed forward, determined to find his friend.
Then he knew something was wrong. As the walls on either side of the stone path went from wood to stone as well, craggy and rough. Jagged rocks peaked out of the walls, growing closer with every step, as though the path was narrowing. And it _was_ narrowing, Jack decided. He stopped, considering only for a moment that maybe he should just head back up and call the police. He turned around and his stomach dropped. The path was gone. Where he had come from was gone. Just a stone wall stood cold and careless behind him. He shook his head. It was impossible. That’s impossible. But there it was. A wall where steps had been. He had only been going straight down—and for far too long, he noted—he knew what he was seeing was impossible but still, there it was.
He turned back to the path ahead, to the sharp jutting stone. There was no way but forward.
The path narrowed further and further. The rocks started to catch his clothes, snagging on his hoodie. He moved carefully to avoid ripping it. But the wall closed in more. He turned to his side, sidling against the wall, the sharp stone grinding against his back. He grimaced and kept moving, one small step at a time at moments. Until there was almost no room to move. He became pressed foot to heel against the wall and now every movement was torture. He grunted and groaned in pain with every forced movement, sliding his skin between the stone walls. He felt something warm trickling through his shirt. He refused to look lest it be blood—he had always been the queasy sort—something Cydni always teased him about.
Jack made one final grunt, pressed against the walls, tearing his skin, pulling himself between the stones, and then he felt himself loose his footing. His phone tumbled out of his hand and fell in front of him, falling below a hidden precipice, vanishing into an inky black darkness. And then he felt himself falling too. He gasped as gravity took him. And then he felt something cold hit his ear as his head was submerged first. Shock struck his body as the rest of him fell in the water. It was dark and merky and he couldn’t get his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He held his breath, wishing he’d had a moment to take a deep breath before falling in.
He searched the depths fruitlessly, panicked, the cold setting to his bones. He could feel his limbs becoming stiff in the water as he sank lower and lower. Then he saw a light flickering below. His phone. It hadn’t been destroyed from the water damage yet. He could use it with what little time the thing had left. He dove deeper, ignoring the tinge of pain panging through his back and stomach as he swam. Jack reached out and grabbed his phone and quickly panned around. A flurry of shadows dancing with the light played with his eyes. He scanned in a panic. There had to be a way out. There had to be. But, then, he supposed there didn’t have to be anything. There shouldn’t a basement that went this deep, a stairwell that went down so far. None of it made sense. Especially what was apparently a small lake under a house.
Then he saw it, some sort of opening in the rock at the bottom of the water. His phone died the next moment, plunging him in the dark once more. He tried his best to remember where it was, swimming—flailing mostly—toward where he thought the opening was. His head collided with the hard wall and he grimaced in pain. He fumbled his hands against the cold stone, desperate to find the opening. His lungs were on fire. He could feel himself giving up, his diaphragm heaving, begging him to find air. He followed the wall to the left, slowly, until he reached out to meet his hand with the wall and found only open space.
Jack pushed his body to the space and found he would have to crouch to get through. Another tight, sharp space. His bones felt like lead as he pushed himself down onto his chest in the water, using his momentum to push his torso through the hole, his arms in front of him. Half of his body pushed through. But then he was stuck. His hips caught on the stone. He put his hands on the stone the opposite side of the wal and tried to force himself through, but he wouldn’t budge. He put his weight against the wall and could feel his skin tearing, his clothes ripping. His hips were burning. Then his thighs. Then his legs as he _ripped_ himself through the hole, screaming as he went.
There was still water on the other end and he was moving on borrowed time. Jack pushed off his stomach and planted his feet on the stone floor and kicked off as hard as he could. He emerged from the water and took a gasping breath. He swam lazily, his strength leaving him, looking for any surface to pull himself onto and get out of the frigid water. He sighed a breath of relief as he reached another rocky surface and pulled himself up out of the water.
Jack laid there for a moment in raspy breaths as he let his eyes adjust to his surroundings. Then he noticed a door behind him. It was another splintered, rotting door that sat against the jutting stones ajar. Jack picked himself up to his feet and stumbled toward the door. He stopped before it and opened it gingerly. The door swung toward him silently, revealing wooden stairs. Some of the steps were missing, rusty nails sticking out of the boards. But they led up to an open doorway at the top. Jack climbed the old staircase, holding his weight against the wall to make up for his newfound limp, careful not to end up with a nail in his foot.
Pulling himself up with a grunt, Jack reached the landing at the top of the stairs and stepped through the doorway. It was the kitchen. His gambit had paid off. While the basement wasn’t at all what he was expecting, if you could even call that dank, cold hole a basement, the hatch had indeed led inside the house.
“Cydni!” Jack shouted. “Cydni! Where are you?”
Jack carefully surveyed the kitchen. The cabinets were all layered in dust—the colors muted and drab. There were a full set of cabinets that lined the walls, an island which would. Have been of impressive marble now sat cracked and chipped and settled in dust. The floors were warped and the wood was fraying.
“Cydni!” He called again.
Silence.
There was nothing in this house. At least that is how it seemed. He would have to explore more thoroughly before trying the front door again, this time from the inside, to get back out and contact the authorities. His phone was back in the cave below. And he wouldn’t dare return.
Jack surveyed the kitchen once more and spotted something out of place. Amongst the dust and the cobwebs and the muted, dead colors, sat a mug. It was clean—polished, even. And from the cup, steam rose from a piping hot drink.
Statement 3E
Emma sipped at the cup of coffee she nursed in one hand while she flipped through a thick dusty file in the other. The small interview room which had become her make-shift office was a mess with similarly thick folders stacked high all around her, adding a musty smell to the once sterile atmosphere. She set her mug down and leaned forward over the folder, furrowing her brows. “Hmm. Interesting,” she said as she slowly reached over to the tape recorder at the end of the table, putting her weight over a mountain of unsorted folders strewn across the surface. Then came a knock at the door. She looked over to the door as it cracked open.
“Ah, is now a bad time?”
In the doorway, the door pushed ajar, stood a tall man in a black suit with a red tie. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and stared critically at Emma. “Oh, Archivist Nicholas–I wasn’t expecting you. I was…er…” Emma righted her position and sat straight in her chair. “I was just about to record a statement.”
“Quite.” Nicholas entered the room, his dress shoes clacking against the floor in pronounced steps. He closed the door curtly behind him. “How are you adjusting here.”
“It’s been a lot, but I’m really starting to hit my stride I think. And Deven has been a huge help.” Emma laughed awkwardly, “Is there something I can do for you Archivist?”
“I do listen back to your statements, you know. Some great work in there, Emma. It’s good to see I was right to appoint you as my Assistant Archivist.”
“Oh, thank you, sir.” Emma sat up in her seat, almost giddy from the compliment. She turned her head in confusion, however, glancing over to her tape recorder, “thought, I don’t remember turning my tape recorder over to you for a review and I haven’t fully finalized my reports for their files.”
“I wanted to see how you are coming along. You come off as incredulous. I do understand that not all statements carry the same, shall we say, believable fervor, but all the same, try to exude the quality of the believer when you are taking a statement or reproducing a statement. You may find yourself surprised to see what happens when you suspend your disbelief for a moment.”
“Oh, I see. I’m sorry sir. It's…well, it's just kind of who I am I suppose.”
“That’s alright–I wouldn’t have hired you if I didn’t see potential in you. You’ll find there’s a pattern to these things in time.”
Another knock came to the door. Nicholas turned and opened it, Deven stepping in. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were scheduled to meet with Emma, Archivist. I will excuse myself.”
“No need, I was just finishing up.” Nicholas smiled and outstretched his harm, inviting Deven into the room. Deven awkwardly pushed his way past the Archivist and into the room. Nicholas turned back to Emma who was now fidgeting with her coffee mug. Nicholas straightened his tie and glanced back at Emma with a smile, “Just remember, Emma, the most sublime statements are taken from subjects who believe they are being believed. I try not to be too hard on you, you’re still quite new to this afterall.”
“Thank you for the feedback, sir.” Emma managed to get out, her face flushed, “I’ll–I’ll try to work on it.”
“Very good.” Nicholas nodded and started toward the door. He turned over his shoulder as his hand rested on the door knob and said, “Oh, and Emma, keep up the good work.”
Nicholas left the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. Deven looked back to Emma. “Sublime? What is up with that guy?”
“I mean…I guess he can be a little strange, but, hey, he signs my paychecks so…” Emma shrugged.
Deven looked around the room and winced, “Jeez, I guess you haven’t figured out a system yet, have you? You’ve certainly made a proper mess of the interview room.”
“Yeah, well, there’s just so much that Nicholas wants me to go back through and get audio recordings for and there’s really not much room in here to do any sort of advanced sorting systems to streamline my work since the systems are all still down. I’ve really got my work cut out for me, but it’s nothing Rudy and I can’t handle.”
“Rudy?” Deven said, puzzled.
“Yeah, the recorder.” Emma scooped the little recording device up into her hands like it was a hamster or other small pet.
“Emma.” Deven put his head in his hands, “We are NOT naming the recorder.”
“Anyway,” Emma set the recorder back down at the end of the table, quickly moving on from Deven’s comment, “Rudy and I are making headway.”
“The Director really needs to take a second look at who they hired in IT, I think. Systems have been down for too long to call them competent at their jobs.” Deven folded his arms, shaking his head.
“Come now, its only been a few weeks. They’re doing the best they can, I’m sure.”
“Four weeks, Emma. It’s been four weeks.”
Emma shrugged and slowly closed the file in front of her–a peeling label on it reading “Under the Sand” and slid it to the side. “I assume you didn’t risk being chided by the Archivist as well just to complain about the state of things here, did you?”
“No,” Deven shifted his weight and pushed himself off from the wall he had been leaning on. “Your next subject has arrived. I can tell them there’s been a delay, if you would like to record that statement. You’ve been eyeing it up pretty much the whole time”
“That’s alright. It’s not like its going to be going anywhere, afterall.”
“I’ll give you a moment to…” Deven glanced critically at the pile growing on the table and around Emma’s feet of unsorted files, “tidy up.”
“Yes, yes.” Emma laughed.
Deven exited the room and gingerly shut the door. Emma began to tidy up best she could, stacking the files on the table into un-tidy piles on the chair beside her and in small rows underneath the table. After cleaning up, she took a deep breath and sipped once more from her coffee. She stood and prepared herself for her next statement, straightening her tan sweater and smoothing her hands on her black pencil skirt, her long hair in a braid over her shoulder when a knock came from the door.
“Come in,” she said. The door opened very slowly as if the person on the other side was afraid that it might break off if it were opened any faster. Through the door came a meek looking woman. She wore a black dress that covered just above her knees. She wore thin black eyeliner, and, despite her attempts to conceal it with highlighter and foundation, deep bags were evident underneath her eyes from what must have been countless sleepless nights. Her long nails scratched at the door as she softly closed it behind her. Emma saw the girl flinch at the sound of the click of the door as it shut. “Hey, darling,” Emma said softly. She came around the table to the woman and held out her hand. “My name is Emma, what’s yours?”
“Violet,” the girl said. She eyed up Emma’s hand wearily and after a pause, took it hesitantly.
“Violet Samton.”
“Violet, that’s a beautiful name.” Emma led the girl to a seat opposite hers. “Please, have a seat.”
Violet did as Emma said and took a seat at the opposite end of the table, fidgeting with the hem of her dress as Emma made her way into her seat as well.
“So, I understand you are here to make a statement regarding some odd occurrences?” Emma said. Violet nodded. She was clearly skittish. Shy–perhaps even scared. Violet’s eyes darted around the room, but never focusing on Emma, and never meeting Emma’s eye contact. After a few moments, Violet’s eyes fixated on a point on the floor at their feet. “Hey–” Emma reached across the table and opened her hand, smiling at the subject, “it’s going to be okay.”
Violet glanced up at Emma, then to her hand. Tears were beginning to well up in her eyes.
“Whatever happened–why don't you tell me about it. You’re safe here.” Violet managed a weak smile and took Emma’s hand, resting her long nails on Emma’s wrist. Emma cleared her throat care-fully. “This statement will be recorded for the purposes of future potential follow ups and posterity, okay?”
Violet nodded.
“Okay,” Emma reached over with her free hand and the hard ca-thunk of the recorder’s play button sounded, followed by the soft whirring of the tape. Emma grabbed a folder from the leaning tower in the seat beside her and placed it on the table. Opening it, she began, “Statement of Violet Samton regarding,” Emma paused, squinting at the words written on the pre-intake file under ‘incident summary,’ “a hunt?--Audio recording by Emma Thompson of the Usher Foundation. Original recording done today’s date of October 3rd, 2024. Statement begins.”
Emma turned to violet and smiled, squeezing her hand.
“You can begin anywhere, darling.”
Violet let out a long sigh. She attempted to correct her slouched posture, but in seconds her back hunched back over. Emma could feel Violet’s grip tighten on her hand. “It sounds–” Violet coughed, her voice coming out hoarse and raspy, “It’s going to sound crazy.”
“That’s okay. You may come to find we kinda deal in the absurd–er–what others would consider absurd.”
“Okay I–-I—I’m being tracked. Or I should say…I feel like I’m being tracked.”
“Tracked? You’re safe here, Violet. No one can hurt you here.”
“I can feel it even now. The blood rush. The murderous intent. Like–like I can’t hide anywhere.”
“When did you start feeling that. The…uh…murderous intent?”
“I never really liked hunting when I was growing up. Before I was out, before I even knew, my dad always liked to take me hunting. My mom always used to say he was so happy when they found out they were having a son after giving birth to three girls–my older sisters–that he could finally do “guy things” that my sisters never took to. It’s ironic now , looking back since I turned out to be a girl–my egg cracking wide open at the beginning of my college years. But anyway, he always really loved taking me hunting. He loved the whole sport of it, really. Tracking the deer–lying in wait for hours for his moment to pounce. The raw satisfaction he would get when he finally got his prey right where he wanted it. He would always bring back the deer and harvest its meat. If you’ve never had venison, really, it's worth all the effort. We always had venison that time of year.
“I never really did any of the hunting. Whenever I had begun to protest going outside with him for long hours in the cold for mostly nothing to happen–somedays nothing would happen at all–he would just say it was ‘bonding time’ even though we always sat in silence. I eventually just started bringing books to read to fill the time. There wasn’t much I could do about the cold. We would sit in the tree stand fairly deep in the woods right at the edge of a small clearing. My dad had built it. I say tree stand when, really, it was more like a tree-house. Fit with four walls with windows to peer out over the field and back into the woods behind us. It helped ward off the worst of the winter winds and made for a cozy little nook for me to nestle myself in the corner in my winter wear and a fleece blanket and wait it out. Most years, like I said, it was entirely uneventful.
“But I remember most of it. That first day when I noticed it. Something in him changing. I saw a side of him I had never seen before. It was peaceful that day, almost, from just how quiet it was. Just us and the woods and the occasional rustling of some small animal in the brush below that would cause my dad to excited to sit to attention and look out over the window of the treestand, ready to pull his gun up if he found his prey, just to be let out an exasperated sigh when it was just a bunny or a fox. I had my nose in a book, not paying much attention to the excited whispers of my old man. It might have been just another uneventful day if it weren’t for that deer. I was busy losing myself in this fantasy world, the escape that books brought me, when I heard a shot ring out from his riffle. It startled me so bad my book jumped out of my hand and thunked onto the wooden floor. I gazed out over the field and heard my dad exclaim “I got one!” and watched as a deer limped away into the brush on the opposite side of the clearing. “Let’s get after it!” my dad had exclaimed.
“We quickly got down from our position, my dad hurriedly telling me to get down as I carefully climbed, trying to avoid getting any splinters from the jagged old wooden planks that led up to the tree stand. I had to catch up to him, he was so excited to see if he had gotten his deer for the season. When I caught up to him, he had this look of eager anticipation as he kneeled down to a small red droplet. His kneel became a crouch as he followed the trail. It was clear the animal was injured and bleeding heavily as we moved closer to the edge of the clearing, my dad picking up his pace, slowly turning into a run. I could barely catch up with him as he reached a sprint.
“When we finally found the deer, it wasn’t moving anymore. It was alive, but struggling to get up with the bullet lodged into its hind quarters. And the pathetic sounds it made as it tried to stand. Blood covered the snow all around the poor thing. I had never seen a deer injured like this before. All the times before when my dad had landed a shot, it had been clean. Some blood, sure. But for a moment, as I approached the scene, I thought it was lying on a bed of satin until the setting sun hit the liquid, causing it to glisten and shimmer. If you’re familiar with hunters and their enjoyment for hunting, this might not sound too out of the ordinary, I know. But, what haunted me about that moment–it still haunts me–is that my dad, he didn’t just put it out of its misery with a single shot to its head or neck. He reached down and unsheathed a bowie knife that he had attached to his leg and stalked over to the creature. He stood over the helpless thing, blade in hand. And then he started stabbing it. Over and over. Stabbing it. Ripping through flesh and tendon and muscle. Just stab after stab after stab. Blood splattered out of the creature with each thrust and removal of the blade, covering my day, soaking him in a slick film of red. And he was just laughing, delighting in it. In this…this terrible cruelty. Even long after the deer was gone.
“I couldn’t stomach it. I turned around and put my hands over my ears so I could stop hearing that horrible sound of flesh and blade meeting. I could hear him after awhile, muffled, calling for me, wanting for me to take a turn. When I didn’t respond, he came over to me. I could feel a warm, slick hand on my shoulder. I opened my eyes as he took my hands in his, dripping with blood over mine, and thrust the blade into my hands. I–I don’t remember much after that moment. I think I still repress what might have happened next. And I think I’d rather not know.
“After that day, I told my mom I didn’t want to go hunting with him anymore. I told her what had happened but she insisted that it was just a flight of fancy. That she knew I never liked going hunting with him and this was just a fantastical and extreme story to get out of it. When my dad heard about it, he was furious. More furious than I ever seen him before. After that day, he started being short with me–easily tempered. We never brought up hunting anymore around him. Everyone knew what sore a subject it was with him, and he would fly into a rage when someone asked him how his hunt was, just going on and on about how I refused to join him. That I wasn’t man enough for it and, well, I guess he’s right about that in the end. My father, he still hunted, you see, but he did it alone now. He would go out for whole days and some nights he wouldn’t return home until the next day. And despite how much he hunted, he never brought home any deer to make venison anymore after that dreadful day.
“As I began to grow further into myself and really started to explore who I am, I strayed further and further away from what my dad thought I should be. I didn’t fit his image of what his ‘son’ should have been. I didn’t play sports or rough house with other boys or whatever else people like to put into a neat little gendered box. I liked being in musicals and performing. I liked dancing and cheerleading. I liked doing make up–even if it was more guyliner at the time. I liked wearing clothes people gender as feminine. I really should have figured it out sooner, but, anyway, the point is I wasn’t the baby boy my dad had hoped to have. My mom and my sisters were all for it–my sisters practically knew at this point–even before I did. But my dad, well, ever since that day in the woods, he became more critical of me. Saying I ought to play football or wrestle. Even so, he would still attend every musical, every game to watch me cheer, even if this was more of my mom pushing him to be there with her. I know this because of how often he would come to my room and fight me about it.
“One night, before the opening night of the school musical, he came to my room for one of his usual lectures. He pushed the door open and positioned himself in the doorway. Just imagine a tall, burly man in a fleece shirt looming in your doorway, blocking my only way out since my room was on the top floor of the house. There he stood, lecturing me. And honestly, at that point, I had enough. And, as teenagers do, I yelled at him, told him I hate him. That he didn’t love me for who I was. He just wanted a cookie cutter ‘boy’ and not the person who was in front of him. It got nasty and I told him I hated him and that I wished he would just go out in the woods and never come back this time. Something about that argument was different. Like I saw something change in front of me again like that day in the woods. The anger that was so loud for the past few years went silent. He grew quiet. And I saw it again, maybe for a flicker of a moment, but that blood lust behind his eyes, like he was looking at another animal in a clearing.
“Even so, even after the blow out between us, he was there for my performance. I could see him in the crowd under dim lights next to my mom and my oldest sister. And I saw it again. That look. Fierce eyes glaring at me as I performed. My mom was smiling, my sister as well, but he had an angry look about it. I can’t quite explain it…it was like murderous contempt.
“Only a few months later I had graduated and shipped off to college. Well, I say shipped off, but it was just a local community college my other sisters were going to. It just felt natural to follow in their footsteps. I was really able to spread my wings there and be myself. My new friends and my sisters helped me replace my wardrobe and before the end of my first year, I felt confident enough to finally come out publicly. It was so freeing, and I’ll never regret that decision. Through the years, I was able to gauge sort of where members of my family and where my friends were going to land when I came out, but even so, despite all of my nerves, it was more positive and more welcoming than I could have ever hoped for. Even my dad, whose opinion of all of this was, well, as you can expect, less than supportive, came around. But I’ll never forget what he said when I sat across from him and my mom when I came out to them as trans.
“My mom had gotten up and hugged me, telling me she will always be there for me and love me. But my dad. He just sat there for a moment, looking at his coffee table. Silent. And after a moment, saying he figured that I was going to go ‘this way.’ I’ll never forget the look on his face when he looked up and said “my first instinct was to hunt you down.” He chuckled as if that would lessen the impact of such a deranged statement. Thinking about those words now makes my skin crawl.”
Emma felt Violet’s nails begin to dig into her palm. She sucked air into her teeth, but didn’t interrupt.
“Days turned into weeks into months and I was never happier than I was after coming out and being able to be me, truly me. God, if only I noticed it then. Realized it was related. You see, it was during this time that, well, I started noticing strange things when I would walk back to my dorm from club meetings or night classes. And I don’t even know if the first time I noticed it was the first time it happened–just the first time I noticed it. I was on my way home after dance practice really late one night. Everyone else had left by 10 pm that night, but I wanted to stay and keep at the choreography. I didn’t leave the dance hall until probably a little after midnight.
“The dance hall is on the far side of campus near a main road in town and my dorm was clear across to the other side of campus. I never felt too unsafe on campus as the paths are well lit and blue emergency lights sat every five-hundred feet or so along the sidewalks. Even so, I carried pepper spray on my lanyard–you never know. Anyway, that particular night–I don’t know–I just started to get this feeling–this oppressive feeling like I was being followed. I kept looking over my shoulder to see nothing. The campus was always fairly empty at this time of the night. All the way home, I would periodically look over my shoulder, feeling like something was going to be right behind me. But nothing. I never did see anything. Even after it happened more and more, night after night. I felt it–something or someone stalking just behind me, only to vanish the moment I tried to get a glimpse of them. I should have said something about it to someone. But it didn’t occur to me. I just chalked it up to my imagination or my paranoia of being out so late. You know that spooky feeling you can get when you’re alone somewhere in the dark? I just assumed it was that. I was newly presenting feminine and, well, I never really had to worry about this sort of thing before coming out. I wish I had gone to the cops.
“This went on all semester and when I chose to stay on campus over the summer instead of going home to my parents house, it only got worse. I lived alone that summer, all of my roommates having left during break, but I stayed. It was a small dorm–a common room connecting our four private bedrooms, but it was home. The first week or so, nothing felt out of the ordinary, but then, night after night I noticed strange things. The sensation of being followed no matter where I went at night–to the dining hall, the gym, anywhere, I felt it. It got to the point where I chose not to leave my dorm room unless the sun was out. And at night, I swear I could sometimes see something outside my window, waiting and watching for me to leave. I would just lock my doors and pull my blanket over my head and hope that it was gone in the morning. I even started to lose sleep. I got so paranoid. I was so relieved when my roommates came back in the fall semester, but the paranoia never stopped.
“Then October came around. Halloween, specifically. If you’ve been on a college campus on Halloween, you know it is one of the bigger party holidays in the area. College students littering the bars and the streets, drunk and in slutty costumes. But my sisters had big plans. My parents were out of town in a beach house property with our grandparents so the house we grew up in was empty for the night. My oldest sister, ever the popular girl, now turned sorority sister, thought it would be a great idea to throw a party in our parent’s house. Despite my attempts to appeal to her better senses, the party happened anyway. “Come on! This is your first Halloween to dress how you want!” she had said. And, I’m not going to lie, she won me over. Why shouldn’t I celebrate for myself? Why shouldn’t I make better memories in a place I felt oppressed? She helped me put together an outfit, and as a cheeky little jab at my father’s insistence that I go hunting with him, as a real ‘stick-it-to-the-man’ moment, they helped me with my makeup to make me look like a deer. And, I’d say the costume I was wearing was a deer costume, but it was pretty much fishnets, a thong, a bra, and an antler headband. At the very least I would fit in with all the ‘sexy cat girls’ and ‘sexy nurse’ costumes. I remember how empowered I felt putting it on that night, reclaiming a traumatic part of my childhood.
“For once, I felt like I was living without a care. For once, I felt like I was just able to be me. But looking back, that was probably just the copious amounts of alcohol I was imbibing, impairing my senses. The house was packed. The living room was body to body. Music blared off into the night, echoing back at us from the trees. I had way too much to drink and I remember stumbling out the back porch, telling my sisters I’m fine, I’m fine–there’s no need to come out here with me. I just needed a moment, before proceeding to empty the contents of my stomach in my mom’s rose bushes. As I stood back up to spinning treeline, I felt it. All at once it hit me. That feeling of being watched. I stumbled into the back yard a little further and steadied myself on one of the picnic tables my parents would leave out year round. I tried to train my eyes on it, wherever I thought it may have been coming from. I turned around back toward the house. And there it was standing. A figure sihoutted against the house. Beyond whatever…it…was, I could see the party still going strong, the music muffled yet too loud.
“I stumbled back from the table, backing up toward the woods. The thing stalked toward me. It was humanoid, that much I could tell, but its eyes…it was almost like when you shine a light at a cats eyes in a dark room when it shimmers and reflects that light back at you. Like it could clearly see me though I couldn’t see it. It took slow, careful steps toward me as I backed further and further away from the house. “Who are you.” I said, but it didn’t answer, just continued to walk toward me. Then I heard it growl. It was like an animal’s growl. It wasn’t quite human. This non-human sound made from a human throat startled me and in my drunken blur I cried out again, “Help! Someone help me!” I looked back to the house shrinking away slowly as I tried to back away from…whatever this thing was. No one paid me any mind. The music likely too loud for anything outside to breach it. No one even noticed I was gone, or maybe they were too caught up in the party to notice how long I’d been missing.
“The figure stalked toward me, getting closer and closer, its footfalls not making sound as it moved. Then, I remembered my phone. I could turn on the flashlight and see who it was. Maybe it was some boy in a Halloween costume trying to scare me. “This isn’t funny, whoever you are. You’re scaring me,” I said, fumbling at my chest for my phone. I pulled it out of my bra and turned on the flashlight. In my drunken state, like an idiot, I fumbled my phone, but as it tumbled, I knew immediately. I knew this man. This thing that stalked toward me. A man in a fleece shirt stopped. He was tall and burly and he was my dad. At least he looked sort of like my dad. It was him, but something was off. His hands were too big. His nails were too long. His teeth were too sharp. His eyes were too big. His steps did not make a sound and as my phone laid on the ground, I could tell he was barefoot.
“He stopped as the light dimly lit his form. And I saw it again. That fierce look in his eyes. That feeling of murderous contempt. He was the hunter and I was his prey. He had been the one stalking me for months–stalking me like prey. And now that I was in his hunting grounds…”
Violets long nails dug deep into Emma’s palm. She winced at the pain. “Violet, that hurts.”
Violet paid her no mind, only pressing on, “I ran from him then. It was dumb. I should have run to the house. Run around him. But fight or flight kicked in and I ran from him into the woods. Into those damn woods. I was playing the part of his prey. I couldn’t see where I was going, tripping over fallen logs, losing my footing and sliding down embankments, looking back only to see him behind me, closer and closer every time. I felt my breath become ragged. My heart was slamming against my chest. I felt frantic, skittish. I felt weak. I felt hunted. I remember taking one last glance behind me before I felt nails like claws dig into my arms as he tackled me, sending us both tumbling down a slope. When we reached the bottom, he was no longer on top of me, but my arms were covered in blood and my head was aching and throbbing from something I must have hit it on in the fall. I looked around and tried to get my bearings and noticed I was in a clearing when I heard a gunshot ring out and a shooting pain enter my right leg. I screamed in pain and clutched my leg. I saw him in the distance holding a riffel, smiling wickedly. I could see his red eyes in the dark. I rushed to the nearest treeline, half limping, half running, the agony shooting through my body as I ran from him.
I heard him break through the brush at the edge of the treeline. He was sprinting toward me. I tried to pick up the pace but I was beginning to lose feeling in my leg. And then I came through the brush into another small clearing, collapsing to my knees. I didn’t know if I could take myself any further. Then it hit me. A smell. This horrible horrible smell of rotting flesh. A smell like roadkill on the highway. Like something dead. In front of me were carcusses. There must have been nearly a hundred of them. Some were in advanced stages of decay. Some were down to bones–the flesh picked off by some animal. Some…predator. My dad, most likely. I put my hand over my mouth–it was all I could do to not vomit again. I shifted my weight to the sound of him emerging through the brush. He stood at the edge of the trees with his rifle slung over his shoulder. His red eyes piercing my skin as he stalked forward. “Why?” I pleaded, “Why are you doing this?!” But he did not answer. I watched his hand drop to his leg as he drew that long Bowie knife out of its sheath. My stomach dropped. I really was just prey to him. I wasn’t anything more. Not his daughter. Not a human. Just prey.
“He came at me with frightening speed. I put all of my might in opposition to his. My arms pressed against his as he used both of his arms to try to plunge the blade into my heart. I heard him growling, saliva drooling out of his mouth onto my face. He was salivating, thirsting for a kill. He grunted and growled as he pushed harder. My strength began to fail me, the blade inching closer and closer to my chest. I screamed and kicked, trying to summon every inch of strength I could bring to bare against him. All I could think about then was the stabbing of the deer that night. Over and over again. And how if I didn’t do something. Anything. I would end up like that. Tatters of flesh and skin and bone. Picked dry.”
Her nails drove deeper into Emma’s skin. Emma winced in pain, looking at her palm. Blood began to well up between Violet’s fingernails. “Violet, you’re hurting me.”
“Wait,” Violet looked into Emma’s eyes, “I’d been there before.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That clearing. Standing over something warm. I had a blade in my hand.”
“Violet, you need to let go of my hand.” Emma demanded. But her grip only tightened, blood beginning to drip down Emma’s palm onto the table.
“I took the blade, I think, that first night. I…I joined in, I stabbed it too, didn’t I.”
“Violet…”
“Over and over again,” Violet smiled, for the first time, a full smile. “And the blade was at my chest, was I prey? My dad had become consumed with this rage, this obsession for the hunt. The trophies around us in this clearing was evidence. He thought me easy prey, he thought I would lay down and die. Maybe he thought I would accept it or welcome it. So when I grabbed a shard of bone lying in a pile of rot beside us and lodged it in his neck, a look of genuine shock was scrawled across his face as blood began to spurt from the wound. He fell over after that, his vaunted strength failing him. I took the knife from his hand, and, well, I can’t say I remember what happened after that.”
Violet released Emma’s hand. Emma stood from her seat, holding her hand, applying pressure to the nail wounds on her palm. “Violet, you didn’t…you didn’t uh…”
“Kill him?” Violet stood slowly and pushed her chair in with a deafening screech against the floor.
“It’s hunt or be hunted, no? Despite everything I’ve told you, you can’t possibly think that man is the victim in all this?”
“I would never suggest an abuser and a bigot is deserving of sympathy. No one deserves to be stalked and, evidently, hunted for just being who they are.”
Violet went around the table and approached Emma, sizing her up. And, for a moment, Emma thought she saw something strange in Violet's eyes. A certain fierceness. A certain cold calculation. Emma shook her head and cleared her throat. “End of statement. Thank you Violet for coming in.”
“Thank you, Archivist. Thank you for everything.” Violet said with a smile and turned on her heel and left the room, leaving the door open behind her.
Emma stared at the door for a moment in the silence, then she looked back to her hand which was still bleeding.
“Oh my god, are you okay?” Deven rushed through the doorway to Emma and took her hand. “I’ll get you some bandages–I’ll be right back.”
Emma pulled her seat out and plopped herself down. “Uh, well, Archivist’s notes, I suppose. I’m not entirely sure where to start with this one. I don’t want to diminish her experiences. I am well, well familiar with the sort of struggles we experience on the day-to-day in society being different from others and the sort of target for hate that can generate. I do not want to make less of her experience with these struggles, real, and serious as they are. No one should be a victim to hate–no one. This statement is simply a confession. Violet murdered her father in self defense. There isn’t really anything at all supernatural about that.” Emma paused and looked down at her hand, the blood soaking around the back of her hand in a small pool on the table. “Nonetheless, I’m going to forward this one to investigation. If nothing more than to get more on the ‘what happened next’ of Violet’s story. She was noticeably sparse on the details of the aftermath of her situation. I doubt it would have gone unnoticed to her four sisters or her mother that their father had gone missing on the same night as this party at their house.”
Deven came back into the room to Emma’s side and began wrapping her hand in a bandage. Deven eyed Emma cautiously. Emma rolled her eyes.
“It's curious, though. This Assistant Archivist duly notes something that was a little odd about this statement. And it had nothing to do with the statement itself. It’s hard for me to not notice how different Violet was from when she began her statement to her behavior at the end of the statement. End of Archivist notes.”
There is a man-made lake on campus. It’s a small thing. You can see clear across it even on the foggiest of days. On the warmer days, you can find a fountain fixed in the middle of it, the stock fish swimming up to it eagerly, only darting away when the geese take to the water to torment them. You can see all manner of activity on the tiny lake at the heart of the university—people skipping rocks across its shimmering surface, kids fishing with their parents, and the occasional disk-golf player throwing too wide, their disk careening into the lake, sinking in moments. Adding another to the countless others which took the same doomed flight.
Despite the flurry of activity, you would never see anyone swim in the lake. It was fetid, rumor had it. It was often at the center of drunken dares, but even the drunkards walking home across campus wouldn’t be foolish enough to enter its waters.
My own interest in the small otherwise-tranquil lake started that first day on campus. As my parents dropped me off holding armfuls of belongings, our RAs would give us the run down, running through the checklist of expectations and code of conducts. And then there was the banlist. “And lastly, no scuba gear,” the woman had finished.
I remember cocking my head, students giggling behind me. One of them, audibly, “why the hell is that on there?”
The RA had gotten a wicked grin on her face as she said, “since a student drowned scuba diving in the Fake Lake.”
I felt my breath catch, but the students around me just chuckled.
It was common for schools to have their ghost stories and this university was no different. There were plenty of stories, but none caught my attention so much as this one.
After my first several months at college, I had made some pretty fast friends. One in particular, shared my interest in the lake. David was bright as he was funny. His quick wit and compassionate heart drew me to him quickly.
“They say she swam out there in the dead of night,” he said as we walked the length of the lake one night, as we often did, “and when she submerged, she never came back up.”
“Never came back up?” I asked, “Isn’t it like…I dunno, not that deep?”
“Depth can be deceptive front he surface, Lily.”
We stopped and stared out at the lake, the clear skies granting the moon’s light passage onto the surface of the water, dancing on the small waves the wind pushed to and fro across the lake.
“They say,” he continued, “that if you stay still past midnight and glance over the lake when a fog is settling on its surface, you can still see the bubbles on the water.”
Silence for a moment, and I could feel myself training my eyes on the water, looking—searching for any sign of her. That her tank might still be going. And despite myself, despite logic, that she might still be alive out there.
David punched my arm, chuckling. “It’s just a story.”
“Yeah, just a story,” I laughed.
I tucked it away, as I did with all of the other stories. I never experienced anything unsettling. Not anywhere on campus, or at my hometown, which was notorious for haunting. I never experienced anything. Maybe that was why I went out there that night with David. Maybe that’s why, one night, two years later, as we walked home from a party in early October for Homecoming, we stopped once more.
He and I were falling for each other, at least that’s what my other friend Marley was convinced. I was convinced too, thought. From the flirting and the too-close standing at parties and the almost-touches, I started feeling the heat in my cheeks when I saw him. We stumbled home together after the party, making our way down the sloping path that led toward the lake, and, beyond it, our dorms. We laughed and fell into each other and laughed some more. The heat of the exchange, and the heat of the alcohol, made me feel as though I was almost floating across campus with him.
Then we came to the base of the lake. He looked at me with this look I couldn’t quite place. Something devious danced behind his eyes. “What?” I laughed.
“Do you want to go swimming?” He managed to slur out.
I cackled, “swim? In the Fake Lake?”
“Yeah, why not! To hell with the stories!”
“Well the _stories_ tell of drownings and people getting the Super Plague from going in.”
But before I could continue to object, he was taking his shirt off, revealing his muscled form. I felt my face blush. And maybe it was the mood. Maybe it was how he looked at me. Maybe its what I wanted from him, that had me taking my own top off. We both disrobed and decided a midnight swim might not be too bad an idea. He gazed over my body, over my curves and my large chest, and then lower and lower with a hungry look in his eyes. I blushed and started toward the water with a wink.
The water was _frigid_ as it bit at my skin. I gasped at the chill encompassing my body. He floated on over to me smiling, his eyes licking over my form, though most of me was sheltered by the shadows and submerged under the water’s surface.
David started swimming toward the fountain. “Let’s climb on it,” he shouted, surely thinking it a good idea in his drunken stupor.
I laughed and followed him. A thin fog beginning to settle over the lake, starting at the edges and slowly floating toward us. Something tucked away in my mind, buried underneath my intoxication and thundering heart as I swam after this beautiful, half naked man, screamed and screamed. We reached the fountain and I clumsily swam into David, giggling as he caught me, embracing me in arms corded with muscle and gleaming with water and sweat.
For a beat of time, he looked into my eyes and I looked into his. Bubbles thrashed out from underneath us and we paid them no heed. We were stuck in the moment as his mouth came closer to mine. Inches from kissing—I could hear the butterflies in my chest as my heart pounded in my ears.
Then he was gone.
He was there one moment, and then with a splash he was submerged. The bubbles grew violent beneath me as he was pulled under. “DAVID!” I shouted, looking around. Not realizing at first what exactly had happened. Then I dared to look down, through the surface of water to see him falling further and further into the water. Without another thought, I plunged underneath the water. I never knew how valuable the incessant swimming lessons my parents had insisted on would play a role in my life until that very moment when I plunged myself downward, swimming as fast as my weak, inebriated limbs and motor function could take me.
I saw him sinking further and further down, something unseen—some unseen weight pulling him under. I could see his blurry image, the bubbles of his muted screaming floating past me. I swam down deeper and deeper. Much deeper than I ever imagined the lake went. I finally caught up to him and my blood froze in my veins when I saw it.
He was being dragged down by a hand, shriveled and dehydrated. The hand was wrapped around David’s ankle, the fingers pressing in so hard I could already see the black marks they would leave there. And attached to the hand was a long thin arm that spindled off away into the darkness of the depths. I swam to the hand and tried to fight the absurdity of it. The impossibility of it. I must have been dreaming it. Maybe the cold had knocked me out. But the burning in my lungs from holding my breath so long reminded me it was all very real.
I pulled and clawed at the hard, icy hand, but it would not budge, all the while bringing David and I deeper and deeper into the lake. And then the lake floor came into view—a mess of dirt and imported sand and disc golf disks, and in the middle, just beside the base of the fountain, was something like a corpse. Its skin was blackened and shriveled, showcasing every bone in the body of what have must been human. Its eyes were missing, replaced by deep, black pits. It’s arms were long and spindly, the length making my head spin as it spooled around us, one hand remaining on David’s ankle, the other shot off in the distance. And beside the figure was a faded yellow—something that looked like metal. That’s when I remembered my RA’s words. Of the scuba-diving gear that was on the banned items list. It must have been what she used when she met her fate out here, bubbles still spilling out of the tank, consuming whatever oxygen remained in it very slowly as it laid on its side.
The thing pulled us toward it. I felt myself struggling to keep hold of my breath, spending every ounce of energy I had holding on to David and keeping from gasping in a mouthful of water. David seemed to be trying, and perhaps failing, to do the same. We had to get loose. We had to get out of here. I fought the fear in my heart that panged through my entire body. The thing had us within reach. I tried to avert my eyes from its deep pockets where its eyes had once been. It opened its mouth, rotten, crooked teeth showing as it gasped out a breath.
We had to escape. But how. We had nothing—
The scuba tank. I rushed away from David, swimming with everything I had left to the tank. I hoisted it with some effort, choking back some water that had entered my mouth, and brought it back over. And brought it down on the hand. Again and again and again. The bubbles shot out toward the creature, obscuring it as it screeched. Again and again I brought the tank down on David’s ankle, wincing as he groaned in pain.
It released him and I dropped the tank, grabbed David under the arm and started back up, swimming for my life for the surface of the lake.
We made it back to shore, David coughing up and spewing a fair amount of water on the grass knoll not too far from the water. We laid there for a while in the cold, breathing heavy, trying to make sense of it all, rationalize what we saw. But as we looked back over the lake and saw those bubbles once again, the light fog slowly leaving the area, we knew the stories weren’t just stories.
We never came anywhere near that lake after that night.
Statement 2E
“Yep, right there. Be gentle now, some of these have to be at least 100 years old.”
“Be gentle? Some of these are heavy as sin.” Deven scoffed. Deven carefully entered the room carrying a stack of dusty file boxes, each labled by year. Emma did her best to guide him, though he was having trouble seeing over the mountain of files in his arms.
“You can set them over there–watch your step there’s–”
Deven lost his balance on a puddle of stray folders on the floor and nearly toppled over, only catching his balance at the last minute, files toppling out of the box and tumbling onto the floor around him. He hastily set the stack of boxes against the wall, grunting with effort. “Gods, Emma.”
“Yeah, I know, I may need to tidy up a little bit.” Emma looked around the room. The wall was starting to become wholly covered by boxes and boxes, highly stacked piles of poorly sorted files. “And this isn’t even half of it,” Emma laughed, “I need to figure out a system.”
“There’s going to be more?!” Deven cried, exasperated. “And why can’t Wanda help me carry all of these? Why have I become your pack mule! I’m a researcher damn it, not some archive secretary.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s like 90 or something–-and besides! Chin up,” Emma patted Deven on his back, “You get a free work out!”
Deven ran his fingers through his sweat-laden hair. “I should never have dropped out of law school.” He said as he exited the room, leaving Emma to her musty collection.
Emma stood there sizing up her foe, hands on her hips. “Have to start somewhere.” She went to the pile of file boxes in the corner and unceremoniously plucked the lid off the box. She took the first file she found from the middle of the neatly filled box and brought it to her table. She opened the file and turned to the tape recorder at the far end of the table. “Alright, let's begin,” she said as she reached over for the recorder. But it was already on. Emma shrugged and turned back to the file before her.
“Statement regarding a peculiar encounter with a cat. Original statement taken from Josh Ownes on October 21st, 2022. Audio recording by Emma Thompson, Assistant Archivist at the Usher Foundation, Washington, D.C., Statement begins.”
“I wanted to start by saying I don’t believe in ghosts. Unequivocally, I do not believe in the supernatural. I can tell by your face that you don’t approve. I guess that makes sense, given what you do, but, I’m sure you know as well as I do that most ghost stories are just the desperate desire of someone to believe their own experience despite the facts. Everything has a logical, rational explanation., It’s just most people would rather believe their biases rather than believe the facts of a situation. Hear a noise outside at night? It’s an animal. No matter how spooky it sounds, its always just an animal you haven’t heard before. Thats the thing–sound carries. Even the most well meaning, level-headed people can jump to conclusions in a spooky atmosphere and the heat of the moment. And don’t even get me started on so-called haunted videos on the internet. Almost all of those are hogwash. Even the most strange or otherwise “credible” ones can be explained away so easily. I say all this so you know that when I tell you what I saw…you know I’m not mucking about.
“At the end of last year, I moved out of my parents house and into my own place all by myself. Its a three bedroom apartment but it is still rather quite small. A space for my bed, my streaming set up, and a guest room in case family or friends want to stay over the night. The floor plan is really not big at all–you enter into a carpeted area that leads into the living room that doubles as a dining room. A hallway that goes further back with a small closet immediately to the left, the bathroom to the left further down, and at the end of the hall there are two rooms. On the right side of the hallway is the third room about half way down. Right at the entrance on the right is a narrow kitchen space. Like I said, a really small three bedroom apartment, but its plenty of room for just one person to call home. And I was fine with just that at first—little old me, myself, and I, but a few months in I started to get really lonely.
“ I wasn’t adjusting too well to living alone after living in a family of five and having my parents company every night. No matter how annoying I remember them being, I ended up sorta missing them in the end. A friend of mine suggested maybe I get a cat to help me get around to feeling at home in the new place and I thought, ah, to hell with it, why not? And went the very next week to a cat sanctuary to pick up a little fur ball to call my own. When I got there, I just immediately fell in love with this black cat. A beautiful coat of onyx fur interrupted only by a small white tuft on her chest. Nemmy, I called her. It don’t really mean anything–just a cute name for a cute cat. I took her home and it immediately helped so much. She would sit on my desk while I was streaming, and, eventually, she would sit at the top of her cat tower that I put right next to my chair to join me on stream. The viewers absolutely adored her and so did I. It felt like I started a small little family with the cat as my daughter. God, I loved that cat.
“Now, I think its important to cover some bases. As a skeptic, for weeks after it happened, I ran through every single possibility. I had neighbors beside me, across from me, and below me. I lived on the top floor of the building, you see. So nothing above me. The neighbors below were old folk with no pets. They were always quiet as a mouse. Every once in a long while I can hear the thumping of the pipes against the wall as they started their showers in the morning, but other than that–not a peep. Across from me were some college students—really well meaning people. Not the partying type, and also did not have animals. The folks next to me were a nice family, just had a baby–a newborn. But when what happened…well, happened, they were out on holiday, so them and their baby were not around.
“I started to notice something strange at first when Nemmy was acting oddly. She isn’t a very talkative cat–friendly, but quiet. Like I said before, she tends to stick around me when I’m in the apartment, never too far out of reach, but that night, when I got home from work, from the second I got through the door, she was meowing. As I opened the door, she greeted me with meow after meow. I greeted her in kind with some scritches behind the ear–she really likes that–and put my coat on the rack beside the door. I kicked off my shoes and went into my stream room where her food bowl and water bowl happen to be. I fed her and went to start stream. I heard her eating away and before long she was at her usual place beside me on her cat tower. I booted up a video game and while I was playing, she started meowing again and again. Non-stop. I thought, I dunno, maybe she’s still hungry? And gave her a little bit more food in her bowl. Of course, as any cat would, she ate it right up, but when she was finished, she hopped back up on my desk and started meowing again. Over and over again, almost like she was trying to get my attention for something, but I couldn’t figure out what. And she would sometimes just stare off in the distance to some corner of the room or toward the closet for a period of time and no amount of petting or making sounds at her would break her trances.
“Now, this isn’t entirely what one would call compelling evidence of the supernatural, I’ll grant you. Any pet owner at this point would just be downright concerned. Did she eat something odd? Did she get into something? Is she feeling well? All of these thoughts and more raced through my mind. For a cat to be meowing more than what they’d usually do, and acting strangely is cause enough for a visit to the vet. Something I had begun to consider by the end of the night. It was getting around two, maybe three in the morning at this point. After a night of gaming, I decided to cook myself up something to eat so I went into the kitchen and started boiling a pot, Nemmy following dutifully behind me, meowing away the whole time. And now, I just remember waiting for the pot to boil, and, in my concern for my cat, was just sort of sizing her up. I was in the middle of the narrow kitchen space looking at my cat who was just sitting at the doorway looking further inside the apartment, gazing down the hallway, meowing when her meow changed. The tone was wholly different than any sound that had ever come out of her mouth. It was a gutteral, low tone that shocked me and put me off for sure. “Nemmy?” I remember saying in shock. Then, another meow, just like the first. I was so taken aback. I needed to get her checked out by a vet for sure. I began to approach her–she was silent now, still looking down the hallway when I heard it. Another meow came from deeper within the apartment in the direction my cat was staring. It wasn’t my cat. It sounded completely different. I felt my heart drop and my skin felt like ice—all the hairs on my arms standing to attention. And then there it came again–a meow from the hallway, maybe my stream room.
“I froze and my eyes followed Nemmy’s to the hallway. The apartment seemed quiet now–quieter than usual as I tried to train my ears to catch what I may have heard. I’m going to be honest, at this point I was spooked. I knew my neighbors did not have pets. I knew the neighbors next door were out on holiday. I knew at this hour the old couple downstairs would be asleep. There was nothing to account for the cat that was not mine meowing in a space they should not be. And I knew it was not my cat, she was right next to me and she was silent. So like an idiot, I had to investigate. I turned on the flashlight of my phone–my apartment was dark at this point. No lights were on except for that of the kitchen light behind me. A habit I had made for myself to conserve on electricity. And perhaps from shock in the moment, I didn’t really think of turning lights on as I went. Or maybe deep down I was scared to see what had made the noise. Even so, I slowly made my way through the living room, step by careful step. I looked back and saw my cat did not move, she just sat next to the doorway of the kitchen, watching me.
“I moved into the narrow hallway, my stream room approaching on the right. And then I heard it again. A third meow, closer this time. It was coming from my stream room, I just knew it. Like a cold sureness that crept up from deep inside me. I shined my light at the doorway of my streamroom and somehow it seemed…I dunno….darker in there than I remember. And I felt this pit in my stomach like something was in there…and I’m not sure I wanted to find out what it was. I reached my arm into the room and quickly flicked on the light. Nothing. There was nothing in the room. It was just as I had left it. I had let out a sigh of relief and turned back to see my cat sitting right where I had left her. It must have been my imagination, I had told myself. It was late and I was tired–I must have been hearing things.
“But then I heard it again. But it…I dunno how to describe it…it wasn’t a cat. But it wasn’t animalistic either. It was, I’m going to sound crazy for this, but it sounded somewhere between human, and something wretched. I spun around to where I thought the sound was coming from. The closet. It was coming from the closet. I approached slowly, so slowly. Inch by inch. I reached my hand out toward the closet and whatever that…thing was. It must have heard me as the closet door opened just a crack. My heart went into my throat. At this point I could feel the cold sweat on my brow and my breathing become shaky. I shined the flashlight on my phone into the crack. I wish I hadn’t. I don’t sleep anymore thinking of what I saw.
“As the light met the crack in the door of my stream room closet, I saw a hand. Humanoid. But with long fingers with daggered claws. And something pale crouching. It seemed to me that it had fur. Completely black. Onyx, even. And when it started to right itself, I saw on its chest a white tuft of fur. My blood froze—I froze. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It meowed again, and it sounded vaguely like my Nemmy. It hit me then. It was mimicking Nemmy. Or at least the closest approximation it can muster of Nemmy. Her voice, her fur–all there but off like when you try to remember a dream a few hours after you wake up from it where the details go all fuzzy. I saw it look up at me then as I dropped my phone in shock–its eye darted to mine and I just remember running. I just remember picking up Nemmy who stood staring at the entrance of the kitchen, grabbing my car keys, and leaving. All the while as I ran, I heard the meowing from my stream room over and over and over again. I’ll never forget the sound of that wretched thing meowing like my Nemmy.
“In the end, I moved back in with my parents. I ended up having to pay a nasty amount of money in a lawsuit from my landlord since, well, leaving boiling water in an apartment that early in the morning unattended caused a bit of a fire and I had to pay for the damages caused to my apartment and the ones beside and below mine. I feel really bad about it, but if you had seen what I’d seen…well, you wouldn’t stay a single night longer, now would you. Anyway, that’s my story. I don’t know if you guys will do anything about it or look further into it, but, honestly, it’s just nice to finally have someone to tell about this, so thank you for listening.”
Emma let out a long sigh and sat back in her chair. “Statement ends.” Emma clicked her pen in and out over and over again as she looked back over the details of the statement. Her eyes met the worn penning at the bottom of the statement. “Huh, oh, I guess the archivist who wrote the original statement added a bit of an addendum. It just says “Not-Them” whatever that means. This assistant archivist, however, has a few thoughts of her own. I am not seeing any additional pages included of an investigative report, so it is unclear if this particular statement ever had any follow up. It was only two years ago, so its highly likely that some leg work was done on this one, especially if this statement was originally taken by Archivist Nicholas Manhiem, as I suspect it was.
“Nonetheless, I’ll have Deven follow up with Investigations to see if anything was ever found to be credible in the follow up, if one was done. Personally, I don’t see this statement as credible. As the subject points out, credible incidents are exceedingly rare and the human mind has a way of connecting dots that have no business being connected. An animal making odd sounds is not at all unusual, especially, as subject suspected, there is an underlying cause for the noises. I fear this incident can easily be chalked up to the late night ravings of a tired man after too many hours in front of a screen. As subject says, most everything can be explained by animal noises–this case, especially so.”
Emma closed the file and pushed it to her right. She stood from her seat and smoothed her hands on her pencil skirt. “As stated, I will give Deven the file to follow up to see if there is a record of a follow up investigation or anything that is otherwise missing from this file, but otherwise, I am labeling this case as “non-credible incident”. End of recording.”
A flame flickered unevenly above Kevin’s thumb. He snapped his fingers and the flame went out, plunging his attic room into darkness. Amused, he snapped his fingers again and brought the flames back, the light dancing in shadows against the walls. He felt the warmth of the flame upon his thumb and forefinger, the heat singing him now and again, but the flame waved weakly, bringing him a calmness he hadn’t felt in years. It was almost as though the flame itself was calming him. Or perhaps the knowledge that he could create something like this calmed him. It was of his doing, he was pretty sure.
He couldn’t quite wrap his head around it even now. There hadn’t been anything in the local library about this--nor would there be, Kevin was sure. It was magic. Like in the books where a wizard used magic to fell a dragon. Fiction. But now, with a flame upon his fingers that couldn’t burn him, he knew the truth.
Kevin wondered what his sister, Hannah, might think if she knew of his ability to conjure flame. He wondered at times if she also held this unique ability. She showed no signs, and it would be hard for her to hide it from him if she could. His line of thought would always lead to the darker question: did his father have the ability? He hated that man, and that man hated him. But his father must not have the ability as if he had, Kevin would feel more pain than that of his father’s fists.
Kevin gazed into the flame for some time before he heard rough stomping coming up the narrow stairway to the attic just outside of his door. It was his father. He recognized the sound of those boots. Kevin snapped his fingers and the flame went out. Quickly, Kevin pulled the covers over his body and pretended to sleep, peeking through a space between the hem of his blanket and his pillow.
His door swung open violently, knob slamming into a hole in the wall it had made after several other angry nights. His father looked upon him with a vicious look on his face, the man swaying back and forth in a drunken stupor Kevin knew too well. “Yeah, you better be sleeping you little shit!” His father shouted. Kevin swore he could almost smell the alcohol lingering on his father’s breath, even with his blanket covering his nostrils. The man that was his father snorted and stumbled back through the doorway, slamming the poor thing shut, the room shaking from the force.
Kevin closed his eyes. He hoped and prayed his father would pass out in the armchair in the living room, but he doubted it. He feared the man would turn his anger on Hannah soon. Some nights, he could hear her crying after he visited her. She surely could hear him when their father came for him. They remained apart in the house for the most part. If their father hit one of them, as long as they were apart, he would never come for the other in the same night. At least that was the hope.
At some point, as Kevin laid in his bed with his blanket covering his head, his eyes closed, sleep claimed him. Dreams didn’t come at first, but soon the images of the happy times of the past floated through his mind. He dreamt of a day he and his mother were at a playground with his sister. His mother had pushed the both of them on a swing. His father was there too, standing in front of the set, smiling at his son and daughter. He was a better man back then, but now he was cruel and uncaring.
It was at that point that the dream perverted into a tumultuous nightmare he could not escape. He felt the wrath of his father’s hand as his long-dead mother watched and laughed cruelly. A storm raged outside and broke the windows and the flame that Kevin worked so hard to control betrayed him and burned up all that he found dear. Kevin tossed and turned in his bed muttering and murmuring incoherent things.
“Kevin,” his sister’s voice reached him through his nightmares. “Kevin, wake up.”
He opened his eyes and saw her doe-eyes looking at him, her brown hair falling over her shoulder. “Oh hey--”
“Shh!” She interrupted him, placing a finger on her lips. She nodded toward the door.
Kevin nodded in understanding. Hannah left the room as he dressed, pulling on a pair of ripped jeans and a white t-shirt. He tiptoed carefully down the steep stairs that led to the living room. He winced at every sound the stairs made in protest to his downward climb, threatening to wake the snoring man below. His father always slept on the couch. He hadn’t slept in his marriage bed since the accident. After Kevin’s mother died.
Kevin reached the bottom landing and quickly tiptoed across the room, keeping his eyes on his father who snored on the couch, one hand on his stomach, the other on a beer bottle which dragged against the carpet. Kevin slipped his shoes on at the door and opened it slowly and passed through the doorway. He shut the door very carefully, making sure the lock didn’t click too loud. Once the door was closed, he took a deep breath and turned around.
“Boo!” She whispered.
Kevin jumped in his own skin, his hair standing on ends, chills and goose pimples rippling through his arms and neck. “Jeez, you trying to kill me with that?”
Hannah laughed. “Well of course not. Just trying to keep you on your toes.”
“Uh-huh.” He shoved his hands into his jean pockets. “So where are we headed off to today?”
“I thought we’d take a hike in the woods. I mean if you’re not scared or anything.”
“Heh. Right.”
One time, Kevin confided in her that he was scared of bears and she’d never stop reminding him since. She had joked that being scared of bears in Alaska is like being afraid of oxygen. Though, he would be the first to note they had never seen a bear their whole life so far.
Hannah led the charge into the woods, making Kevin’s decision for him. She was always the one to take charge. He liked to call his leadership style “leading from behind.” In school, he would often be pulled aside by teachers for letting kids push him around, and he would always give them the same speech. He would rather give people what they want than be a burden or have to make a scene. He couldn’t have been more glad summer had finally come. Though summer here was still a little chilly and a little wet.
The rain of the past few days had given way for their excursion into the woods. The trees were still a little bare--those that weren’t evergreens--and the ground was green and damp from the rain.
“Hey,” he said.
“What’s up?”
“You ever think about, like, magic?”
“Magic,” she laughed, “like wizards and witches? What about it?”
“I don’t know, I was just up in my room thinking about it? How do you think it works?” He lied. He hoped Hannah wouldn’t dig into his question any further. He didn’t like lying to her, nor was he really any good at it.
“Well, I’d never really thought about it.” Hannah stopped in the middle of the forest and turned to him. “I think, you know, if I were a witch,” she started, pacing around the trees in a small circle, tearing a stick from a tree limb here and there and throwing it as she thought, “I think it would be kinda like active dreaming.”
“Active dreaming?”
“Yeah, active dreaming,” she said, “Think about it. How do magicians create something that doesn’t exist? Maybe they just dream it to be?” Hannah closed her eyes and reached out her hand, laying it flat, palm facing the sky. “They think with their mind and soul in the moment that the thing they want to do is happening, and maybe,” she opened her eyes and stared into his, “it just...does.”
“It just...does,” Kevin repeated.
She nodded with a smile. “Let’s keep going a little bit.”
They walked in silence for a little while, but Hannah soon opened up with small talk, telling stories from school or talking about a book she was reading. She was into romantic novels and “rom-coms” as she’d call them. Kevin wasn’t really into anything like that, but it was nice to spend some time with his sister out of the house, away from their father.
He ended up spending most of the day with her messing around in the forest. They stopped next to rivers which trickled slowly, or next to trees which had fallen at an incline, each taking turns to climb them. By the time they returned home, the sun was going down and dark clouds rode the horizon.
***
A violent storm raged outside that night, lightning flashing through the single window in the attic, but Kevin felt content and warm from the flame he had been able to conjure and control. He snapped his fingers, the flame appearing atop his thumb and forefinger. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He thought about his conversation with his sister in the forest. Is it really that easy? He wondered to himself. It was silly, thinking that it would actually work. She was only humoring him after all. But all the same, he tried it. He imagined the flame growing larger; imagined what it might feel like to have a live flame grow on his fingers. He opened his eyes and the flame was larger, flickering haphazardly atop his thumb. Kevin smiled and snapped his fingers again, the flame fading away.
The sound of his door creaking brought his mind to a worried alertness. The door creaked open, the light from the stairwell bleeding into his room. Hannah stood there.
“Hannah?” He said. He was happy to see her for the first few moments. They didn’t see each other too often in the house. That’s when the reason they didn’t meet came back to him. “You can’t be in here...if he comes to hit me, you’ll only be putting yourself in danger.”
Hannah shut the door carefully and sat at the side of his bed. “I’ll only be a second.”
“We can talk tomorrow. There will be plenty of time.”
“I don’t want to talk only during the day. I’m tired of having to hide in my own home.”
“Shh,” he attempted to remind her to keep quiet. If their father heard...
“Hannah?!” Their father’s ferocious voice boomed from below. A flash of lightning lit up the horror on both of their faces by hearing his vile voice.
In the moments that followed, both Kevin and his sister must have had their minds racing through the options of where to hide her. He knew he did. He looked to the window; perhaps they could jump out? No, the fall might break their legs. Perhaps he could hide her under his bed? No, the bed lay flat on the floor without a frame or box spring. There was nowhere to hide her.
He could hear his father’s footsteps now. He looked back to his sister, her eyes wide, her hands shaking. She was scared. Kevin grabbed her hand and held it tight and looked into her eyes.
“I won’t let him hurt you,” he said, scooching to the edge of his bed.
“HANNAH! YOU BETTER NOT BE UP THERE WITH THAT SCUM!” Their father boomed, heading toward the steps to the attic. The storm grew more restless outside, the lightning growing more frequent.
“Promise?” Hannah’s doe eyes gazed into his.
“I promise.”
His door smashed into the wall, deepening the dent. He jumped to his feet, his sister clutching the fabric of his shirt behind him. “You disgust me!” Kevin’s father spat. “Get away from your sister!”
“No,” Kevin stated confidently.
“What did you say to me punk?!” His father took a few steps closer.
“I said no!” Kevin raised his voice, “I will not let you hurt her you filthy, pathetic drunk!”
“You...” Kevin’s father stomped up to him and took him by his collar and threw him to the ground next to the window. “Your mother would be disgusted.” His father continued his approach. “She died because of you. If you didn’t exist, that day she wouldn’t have gotten in that damned car!” He grabbed Kevin by his collar again, this time reeling back, fist clenched.
The familiar thudding sound landed mute in Kevin’s ears, the aching sting sending shockwaves of pain across his body. He brought a hand to his face to massage the hit. His father had turned around. Kevin’s stomach churned. “Get away from her!” He shouted.
“And you!” His father ignored him, coming to the bedside where Hannah sat, helpless. “Why can’t you see what an abomination he is?! Stupid girl!!” He grabbed Hannah by the hair and dragged her toward the door.
“Get off of me!” Hannah flailed her arms and successfully broke free from her father. She ran back to the bedside and stood tall. She shot her index finger at him and pointed fiercely as she spat her words. “Don’t you ever touch me again! I wish you would have died instead of mother!”
Kevin stood from the windowside and observed as his father’s complexion went from sadness to remorse to anger. He could see his father’s arms shaking, and he could see something strange in the glint in his eyes. It was the look of something murderous. The silence in that moment was unbearable.
A flash of lightning filled the quiet space, followed by an angry rumble of thunder.
“You’ll bleed for that comment,” their father said solemnly.
Hannah backed up a few steps, her father beginning to close in on her.
“YOU’LL BLEED!” He shouted, his fist pulling back as he grabbed her with his other hand.
He began to beat her brutally with his fist over and over and over again. There was shouting and laughing and crying. Kevin ran to his father and pushed him, hit him, kicked him—he did anything to get him off of her, but he would not budge. He was only a child, he didn’t have the strength it took to stop his father from wailing on Hannah.
With one last hit that echoed throughout the room, her screaming was silenced. Kevin backed up toward the window and his father stumbled to the doorway. Hannah went nowhere. She laid silently, staring up at the ceiling. Blood soaked Kevin’s sheets and flowed from Hannah’s nose and mouth. Lightning filled the room.
“Hannah…” Kevin said with uncertainty, unable to believe what had happened; his eyes unable to understand what it was seeing. He went to the bed, fell to his knees and pushed her side, trying to wake her. She rocked to the right, then back left, only to return to the same position. “Hannah? Hannah wake up...”
Kevin realized it. She was dead. Breath no longer left her nostrils; her chest no longer rising and falling to the rhythm of her heart. She was still.
His eyes shot up to his father. Rage filled his body and he felt a strange warmth come over his body. “She’s dead,” He said coldly. The thunder gave its low rumble.
“I…” Kevin’s father stuttered.
“She’s dead,” Kevin said louder, lightning lit up the room.
“I didn’t mean to!”
“She’s dead!”
“I’m sorry!”
“SHE’S DEAD!! YOU KILLED HER!”
“I’M SORRY DAMNET!!” His father’s anger returned, the man stepping forward to hit him. His father’s rage erupted, throwing his fist at Kevin. But he caught it. The warmness from deep within grew stronger. His body felt hot, as if he were afflicted with an intense fever, but this heat felt motivating. It only continued to stoke the anger within him. His father creased his brows and backed away from him.
“YOU KILLED HANNAH!!!” He boomed, closing his eyes. He felt himself holding out both hands as he shouted, the sound of thunder booming deafeningly and the sound of glass shattering echoed throughout the room. Then, his father began to scream. He opened his eyes and saw his father engulfed by a raging flame that crept up his feet and spread to his clothes. Soon the flame engulfed his body as if he were doused with gasoline. Not even the rain that soaked the room from the window could douse the flame now.
His father continued to scream as the flames licked at the flesh on his face. The scream was hardly of something human. His father fell to the floor, the flames betraying Kevin now as the floor became ablaze with the wildfire. He attempted to halt his flames, but they wouldn’t obey his command. He couldn’t control it. The blaze continued to spread. Kevin backed up to the window as the flames licked at his bed and threatened to climb the wall. The walls had become part of the inferno quicker than he had ever imagined. It was a powerful flame. A hungry, angry flame. And soon, he saw it licking at his sister.
“H-hannah! No, leave her body alone!” Kevin shouted at his flames. But they paid no mind to him, and continued to burn the bed, the flames growing hungry for flesh again.
Kevin stepped into the flames, making his way to his bed. The flames rushed against his legs and his calves, but he noticed he felt no pain. The flames didn’t burn him, only singing his clothes here and there. He had no time to consider this, however. He rushed to his bedside and planted his knees at its base against the blackened boards beneath him. She was on fire--her hair, her clothes, her skin--burning.
He scooped her burning body into his arms and wailed. His tears evaporated before they could fall from his face. He watched as his sister’s body burned in his arms.
“Hannah,” he cried, “Hannah, I’m so sorry, Hannah.”
The flames grew hotter, he could tell, as her skin began to dry and crack. He could hear the building creaking. The floor beneath him was charred and flakey. He wasn’t sure how much longer it might hold. He held Hannah closer to him. As he pulled her away from his chest, he saw her hands turn into ash and swirl into the air as the fire created an updraft in the room. Her body, piece by piece turned to ash.
“No, no!” He shouted, his sister’s chest falling away into ash in his arms. “Hannah!”
Kevin closed his eyes and screamed. He stood, her ashes floating up with the flames that licked the ceiling. Kevin descended the stairs and walked through the living room which had also become a red-hot blaze. He passed the couch where his father would sleep and came to the blackened front door and pulled it open, the door falling to the ground in pieces as he started across the lawn.
He came to a stop in the middle of the yard and turned around to see his childhood home falling to pieces in the fire which illuminated the night sky. Not even the rain could put out the fire. Something inside Kevin told him nothing could. He heard the horrible creaking just before the building collapsed in on itself
So this is magic, he thought. He felt numb. Despite the warmth of his flames, he only felt numb.
He looked down at his blackened shaky hands, then back up at the broken form of his house, surrounded in soot and ash. What have I done, he thought to himself. I have to get far away from here.
Kevin turned away from the ruins breathing heavy, his chest and lungs hot like the fire. He lifted his head to the sky and let out an anguished scream.
Sometimes my fridge sounds like a blizzard. I can hear it howl at night when the room is dark and the world seems quiet. I've always felt something melancholy about the way it howls. I can't help but let my mind wander about it. I am quite sure it's just a fridge, but perhaps there's a person inside, trapped in a blizzard
You can hear other things too. Every creak and crack. My old house used to be like this. Every scuttle of a mouse above me or the whining of the steps as my brothers sometimes try to sneak past the bear, my father, as he hibernates on the couch. Each step almost too loud. Deafening.
But what I remember most is the very same howl. The one that's inside my fridge. It's almost so loud some nights I thought I might break. But no, rest assured I'm still here. There were other noises. Fights. They happen in the kitchen. These are the times I wish I were deaf. Those would pass, but the howling was enough to break a man's soul.
The howling sometimes stopped, too. Unexpectedly, it would cease. Those nights, when I was left alone in a noiseless abyss no one moved; no one spoke. Even that edge-of-ear static dared not speak.
That room never changed. It was always dark. The room next door was bright, filled with the pale light of a TV playing. But mine was always dark. It wasn't always that way. I used to have a sound system from the seventies. The speakers were massive and the station had to be found by a dial, very precise. You couldn't even get a signal kit of it unless you used a coat hanger. Just me and the howling
“Take your shot, stranger. You’ll only get one.”
Sariah held her gun with both hands to try to hide how she was shaking. A scowl was fixed on her face, but deep down she was terrified. And he knew it. The tall man, dressed in a fine black vest, coat-tails flowing in the wind. The rain had soaked them both head to toe. She held the gun firm, her finger on the trigger. She had the shot. He was only a few feet from her. So why couldn’t she pull the damn trigger.
“Here, let me make it easy for you.” The man smiled, stepping forward slowly, bending slightly to bring the barrel of the gun to his forehead. “There. Do it.”
He had a wild look in his eyes, intent, determined. Mad. He was completely mad. He was offering himself. All she had to do was pull. The. Trigger.
A moment passed in silence, only the rain pattering against the cement broke the intense quiet.
“No, I didn’t think so.” He laughed, tossing his head up to the rain and started to laugh.
She couldn’t hide the shaking now. Then she felt the impact of the man’s fist colliding with her stomach, forcing the air from her lungs. Sariah fell to her knees, gasping. The man kicked the gun from her hand, sending it rattling across the pavement. Then she felt rough hands around her neck. Her body went upright and then she felt her feet leave the ground as she lifted her by the throat. Her trachea screamed out in pain as she struggled against him. But he was strong—she knew that. She looked down at him with disgust, her eyes burning as tears forced themselves out. Her head started to swim as she tried to focus on the contemptuous person in front of her.
“Well, Sariah,” he smiled up at her, “any last words for me?”