Beatrice hurried down the alley, careful to avoid the piles of trash and murky puddles lining the edges. A fine rain dotted the surface of the water with tiny pinpricks. She flipped up her hood.   Ahead, she spotted a single light above a door in the otherwise dark alley. Paul’s Meats DELIVERIES, the sign read. She shifted the heavy bag on her shoulder and slipped a thin black case from her pocket. With practiced fingers, she worked the silver picks in the lock until she heard a satisfying click. The door unlocked. She let herself in.   She found herself at the end of a narrow hallway. It was pitch black, but she didn’t bother searching for a light switch. Instead, she pulled a small flashlight from her other pocket.   On her left, an office sat in disarray. Toppled desk chair. Papers littering the ground. A thick layer of dust coated the room. A room lined with floor to ceiling shelves was on her right. It, too, was empty except for a few sagging cardboard boxes. She continued.   Sweeping her flashlight around her as she walked, Beatrice saw nothing out of place. It looked like the abandoned butcher shop it was supposed to be. She came up to what looked like an industrial kitchen with stainless steel appliances along the walls and an old butcher block counter in the middle. Holding her light up higher to illuminate the top of the counter, she noted the brown, blotchy stains coloring the wood.   She approached the front of the shop. Earlier, when she’d scouted the location from the street, she’d seen steel shutters rolled over the front windows preventing any streetlight from entering. Now, she saw a soft orange glow at the end of the hallway. It couldn’t have come from outside.   In the center of the shop, surrounded by low-burning candles, lay the body of another victim. White wax pooled around the base of the candles, spilling together to form a ring around the body. The flames sputtered and dipped as they reached the end of their wicks making the shadows on the walls dance in eerie pulses of light.   Beatrice dropped her bag to the floor with a heavy thud. She rested her hands on her hips and sighed. I should’ve asked for more money, she thought.   There appeared to be little blood. Clean up would be easy. Still, she debated texting her client saying there would be an extra fee for this appointment. Killings of a ritualistic nature will be charged an additional weirdness fee for clean-up. She chuckled to herself.   Shrugging off her coat and tying her hair back, she got to work.

Janine sat on her front porch and took a drag from a cigarette. She closed her eyes, enjoying the nicotine head rush. It had been a long time since she’d smoked out in the open like this. Usually, she’d have to duck behind the shed out back so Donna wouldn’t see. “Checking on the garden,” she’d say before slipping out for a sneaky cigarette. Janine took pride in her garden, Donna knew, so there was no reason to be suspicious. Even if Donna did know that she was secretly smoking again, their relationship had bigger problems than Janine’s nicotine habit. She took another deep inhale, listening to the crickets chirp in the quiet night like they were her own personal crowd of cheering fans. “Doesn’t matter what Donna thinks now, does it?” she chuckled. On cue, the engine of the old Ford rumbled up the gravel driveway. Janine was momentarily blinded by headlights before the engine died and Donna came flying out of the driver’s side door, blond hair frizzing around her head like she’d been electrocuted. Janine watched from the darkened porch as Donna ran to the Jeep parked in front of the house. Donna hadn’t noticed Janine sitting there. She was at the Jeep, looking through the back window that Janine had intentionally left open. Donna instantly staggered back. “Janine,” Donna croaked. “JANINE!” Still hidden in the shadowy porch, Janine blew a cloud of smoke into the air. She waited a moment before reaching up behind her and flicking on the porch light. An eerie orange glow illuminated her from above. “Yes, my love?” She took another drag and exhaled, the smoke dancing in the light. Donna ran to the porch steps, but stopped abruptly before setting foot on the lowest step. In the light, she could see the dirt on Janine’s hands as she lifted the cigarette to her lips. She could see the smears of dirt on her clothes, on her face. She could see the dark stains covering Janine’s shirt and jeans. “What have you done?” she breathed. “Hmmm?” Janine took a final drag from the cigarette before snubbing it out on the arm of the rocking chair Donna’s father had made for them as a wedding present. “I’ve been gardening.” “In the middle of the night?” Donna asked. Janine nodded. “I planted some lovely roses. You should take a look.” She swallowed. Her lips pressed together in a tight seal, as if holding something back. And then Janine laughed. Hysterical, booming laughter that echoed through the woods surrounding the little white house that had been such a place of joy for so many years. Donna sprinted around the house, to Janine’s smoking shed and her prized garden. Janine readied another cigarette, lighter in hand, and waited. She heard the clatter of metal as Donna grabbed one of the shovels leaning against the shed. Heard the soft shick-shick of someone digging in soft earth. It was midnight just as a piercing scream rang through the garden. Janine brought the cigarette to her lips and lit its waiting tip with the lighter. She inhaled, and sighed deeply into the night.

I don’t even look up from the newspaper when the shaking starts. My hand reflexively goes to the glass of water in front of me, holding it steady so it doesn’t vibrate off the kitchen table and smash to the floor. When the shaking stops, I glance at my watch. About a minute. Just a little tremor. “They’re getting closer together,” my mother says, standing at the kitchen sink, her back to me. The faucet’s running but she forgot about the dishes in the sink five minutes ago. “She’ll be fully dilated soon enough.” She chuckles at her joke. The sound seems to snap her out of whatever trance she was in. I hear the dishes clink as she resumes washing them. I exhale sharply through my nose. “The planet's not going into labour, mom. It’s getting ready to implode not give birth.” She scoffs but doesn’t turn around. “What do you know, Liza? This could be a beginning. Not an ending.” I stare at her. Well, at her back. She’s always been a slender woman, tall with narrow hips and shoulders. Even as a child, I remember thinking she was like the birch saplings growing in our backyard, long and sinewy, swaying in the wind. These past six months though, since the tremors started, she’s gone from slender to dangerously thin, her shoulder blades jutting sharply from her back. I know it bothers her. She’ll only wear tank tops at home, no matter how hot it is outside, to keep people from seeing how close her bones are to the surface. She says that she’s not worried. The tremors are the start of something new - a beginning not an ending, as she loves to say. She says she’s not worried. But her body says something different. The sunlight coming through the window above the sink glints off one of the crystals lining the windowsill. Crystals for calm. Clarity. Prosperity. Protection. New additions to her spiritual repertoire, supposedly collected from the “deepest caverns of the Earth”, or so it said on the cheap cardboard box they arrived in. Like something “of the Earth” was going to save us. It’s the Earth that’s trying to kill us. When the tremors started six months ago, the world’s scientists chalked it up to a natural release of pressure. A series of small tremors originating in the Earth’s fault lines, occurring within minutes of each other. Rare to see earthquakes happen so close together around the world, scientists admitted. But, several small tremors were more manageable than one or two catastrophic earthquakes that could level cities, ignite volcanic eruptions and trigger tsunamis putting millions of lives at risk. “The Great Release” it was called, coined by some cheeky media copywriter who snuck it past their supervisors and spawned a treasure-trove of memes and late night talk show skits. Panic was averted. The public went back to their lives. But the tremors didn’t stop. Small quakes continued to shake seismographs around the world, and they were spreading away from fault lines. Places that had never experienced an earthquake suddenly felt several tremors a month. Geologists started by assuring the public that there was no place on Earth that was completely earthquake free, and things would settle once this chain reaction from The Great Release had run its course. A month went by. Then another. Not only did the tremors continue, they happened more frequently and in more places. They weren’t intense. No big shockwaves that knocked down buildings or opened crevasses in the Earth. But they were consistent. Low-grade tremors, enough to knock a glass off a table, lasted anywhere from twenty seconds to five minutes, with the average being around a minute. This was not normal and scientists, governments and the media could no longer pretend that everything was OK. The follow-up to “The Great Release” was “The Great Reveal”. Three months after the tremors started, a media outlet received a report leaked from some government organization. The cause of the tremors had been discovered. The Earth’s core was collapsing, and each layer surrounding it, leading up to the surface, was collapsing with it little bits at a time. The Great Reveal signalled to the world that life was ending and people reacted exactly as you’d expect. No clever media tagline was going to stop the panic this time. I fold the newspaper and put it on the kitchen table. The paper is a few days old, though news doesn’t seem to change much from day to day. Newspapers stopped printing regularly a few weeks ago. They produce a new issue here and there to just let us know the world is still ending. They don’t even broadcast news on the TV anymore. Not that the TV is much use these days. The tremors damaged the infrastructure needed for televisions, cell phones and internet. We’ll occasionally see a TV show pop-up or get a signal on our phones when some enterprising individual fixes what’s broken in between tremors, but it never lasts. I down the last of my water and take my glass to the sink. Mom’s spaced out again, staring at the crystals on the windowsill. “I’m headed to town to stand in line,” I say, reaching in front of her to turn the water off. I’ll wash the glass myself later. She blinks and then starts as she sees me standing next to her. “Yes,” she replies, blinking the confusion away. “Yes, ok. Hopefully it’s not too long today.” She looks down at the faucet and frowns before reaching to turn the water back on. She resumes washing dishes. I sigh and kiss her cheek. I leave her in the kitchen. I hear the chime of cutlery against the stainless steel sink as I slip on my runners and grab the backpack I use to carry supplies from town. Then I hear nothing except running water. I peer back through the kitchen door to see her staring out the window, crystals sparkling in the sunlight. __ It’s quiet in town. I roll through downtown in the middle of the road, seeing a couple other people on bicycles up ahead. No one really drives anymore. Parked cars still line the streets, their owners choosing to abandon them rather than fight their neighbours for gas. If you have to get somewhere you walk or ride a bike. I even saw someone ride a horse into town like some wild west sheriff the other day. He tied the reins to the door handle of one of the parked cars. The horse immediately took a dump on the road. The guy shrugged and laughed. I’ll admit - I laughed, too. Who’s going to care if a horse craps in the street now? I’m thinking about the horse and letting a small smile creep onto my face as I pull up to the grocery store line-up. It does seem shorter today. Part of me is glad for the good luck. Another part of me sighs and shakes her head at my optimism. I recognize most of the people in line in front of me. We see each other every few days now, lining up for supplies outside the grocery store. We’re not allowed inside the store anymore. There isn’t much there anyway. Instead, the store owners have pre-bagged basic supplies and hand them out one at a time to those in line. Like the newspapers, there are no regular shipments. I don’t think they’ve had any sort of shipment for at least a week. They’re giving us what they can and we wait patiently, lined up on the sidewalk. There’s no anger or frustration left. We collectively used that up soon after the tremors started. Almost all the storefronts are dark now. I move up a few spots in line and notice that the coffee shop - or what used to be the coffee shop - actually has people inside. The door is propped open with a wooden block wedged underneath. Through the large front window, miraculously still intact, I see that no one is drinking anything. It’s purely a gathering place now, a place to share gossip and news tidbits. With no real television or internet, this is our source for news. I catch bits of conversation as I wait. My hearing picks up ‘clock’ and ‘time’ in a few mumbled sentences. The line moves, and I’m standing next to the open doorway when the coffee shop TV mounted to the wall flickers to life. The news anchor sits behind her desk, brown hair down and tucked behind her ears, though not glossy and styled like you’d expect from a TV personality. The sound is off, but the ticker on the bottom of the screen repeats ‘“Scientists release timeline for final core collapse” over and over like a never-ending bad news fortune pulled out of a fortune cookie. The screen suddenly splits in two - the news anchor’s pretty, nervous face on the left, and a clock counting down days, hours, minutes, and rapidly descending seconds on the right. The headline above the clock reads “Final Core Collapse”. The clock reads 3 days. 11 hours. 54 minutes. 29 seconds. 28 seconds. 27 seconds. I stare. Just stare. Like my mother staring out the window. And suddenly I’m back in our kitchen, listening to the running water in the sink, sunlight glinting off the crystals on the windowsill. I hear her voice, as clear as if she was standing next to me. “This could be a beginning. Not an ending.” I can’t help but hope she’s right because that’s all I can do now. Hope.

When the time comes Bury me beneath my favourite tree No casket. No shroud Let my body touch the earth Let me feed the worms and insects Let me seep into the soil I will travel up tree roots Nourish lush green leaves When seeds scatter in the wind Particles of my soul will float on the breeze I will return to the earth To sprout new trees. New life I will go on forever Because you buried me beneath My favourite tree.

My feet are filthy. Even wearing runners, I feel the grit inside my shoes, working its way through my socks to the sweaty skin underneath. I know instinctively these socks will be trash when the day is done. That’s something they don’t tell you about Rome - how dirty it is. Thousands of years of dust and grime swirl on these ancient streets. You can literally feel the sands of time grind between your toes as you walk through piazza after piazza in search of the next scene from The Da Vinci Code. In the movies, Rome is all wine and romance and beautiful architecture. In reality, it’s just another major city with noise and pollution and way too many people. The tour guide stops at a church, I think. It’s hard to tell with all the scaffolding and construction sheets draped in front of it. Another thing they don’t tell you about Rome - it’s constantly under construction. It seems like all the major architectural marvels are getting restored at the same time so you get to hear a lot about them from your tour guide, but don’t get to see very much of them. I hear the guide say Da Vinci Code and tune out. This is number five for DVC spots. I don’t remember the tour description saying this tour was for Dan Brown fans but I’m starting to think I should’ve read it more carefully. As the group listens to Paolo, the guide, I let my eyes wander. I admit - Rome is beautiful. With the bright Italian sun overhead and pale stone buildings surrounding the piazza, I feel like I’m in a painting where the artist finished with a translucent layer of ethereal white. Even the throngs of other people in the square seem to glow. I spot a shockingly blonde head amidst the crowd. With the sun shining down, his short hair is a beacon in a sea of dark-haired Romans and hatted tourists. I inch backwards out of the protective huddle of my tour group to get a better look. He’s tall and trim, a runner if I had to guess. White sneakers that, even at this distance, I can tell are tinged with gray from the dusty streets. Blue polo shirt, blue jeans. I bet you wear blue to bring out the colour of your eyes. He turns and looks my way. I’d inched my way into the open space between my group and his. I can see his eyes are as stunningly blue as his hair is blonde. And, somehow, familiar. He’s staring at me staring at him. I smile slightly, just a woman admiring a good looking man. Nothing weird. He frowns and turns back to his group. Ouch. Ok then. But I’m still standing in the open, now staring at a profile that is gnawingly familiar. Where do I know you from? I flip through my mental image catalogue, going through ex boyfriends, friend’s brothers, coworkers, classmates… School. I know you from school. Not recent school. If I knew you in high school or later, I probably would’ve tried to date you and would remember that. It has to be before high school. It clicks. Elementary school. You were a year older but the school was so small we all tended to play together anyway. What is your name? “Kris!” I call to him as his name pops into my mind. His head jerks up and he stares - no, not stares. Glares. The furious look lasts a heartbeat and then he snaps his attention back to his group. Oh it’s definitely you. I open my mouth to call out again when something else thuds into place, reverberating through my chest and pulling me down with a heavy, sinking weight. We went to elementary school together, yes. It was high school when you went missing. The newspapers were all over it. Weeks of articles as the entire city searched for you. Your dad went on TV begging for you to come home. But you never did. The searching stopped. We all assumed… you were dead. “Kris,” I croak. “Kristoffer Nilsson.” He flinches, ever so slightly. The girl beside him raises an eyebrow and whispers something, but he shrugs. His hands are casually tucked into his pockets as he walks towards me, though the look on his face barely conceals the rage underneath. A tight smile as he says, “Are you talking to me?” Up close, there’s no denying it’s him. “It’s Kris, isn’t it?” “I’m sorry. You have me mistaken…” I hold up a hand. “Don’t. It is you.” I lean in and whisper, “Everyone thinks you’re dead.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve mistaken me for someone else. Have a good day.” I grab his arm as he turns to leave. I don’t know why, exactly. He may look like Kris Nilsson, but it can’t be him, ten years later and definitely not dead. It doesn’t make sense. So why am I stopping him, as he sears me with those crystal blue eyes. Just like your father’s when he pleaded on TV for you to come home. “But your dad. Your dad. He thinks your dead. He can’t keep thinking that… You can’t let him…” He rips his arm from my grip so fast I think he must’ve dislocated his shoulder and suddenly I’m staring into icy pools inches from my face. “Let him,” he hisses. “Let him think I’m dead. Seeing me here, alive, did you stop to wonder why I didn’t come back? I left for a reason and I intend to stay gone.” He takes a few steps away and then, slowly turns back. “Please.” The venom in his voice is gone. “Please, don’t say anything. It’s not - it’s not your choice to make.” He walks back to his group. I stand alone in the open square, covered in ancient dust and the weight of a decision I don’t know how to make.

Margaret pressed her ear against the door. “Hear anything?” She flapped her hand in annoyance, signalling Jerry to be quiet. She closed her eyes, straining to hear through the wood. Jerry paced across the small room behind her. She concentrated on tuning out the dull thud thud thud of his footsteps. Her teeth clenched, biting back a sharp “Shut up!”. If she made any noise at all this close to the door, they might hear her. She pressed her palms against the wood on either side of her head and eased herself away, careful not to rattle the door in its frame. “Well?” Jerry whispered. She shook her head. “I can’t hear anything but I can’t be sure they’ve gone.” He nodded slowly. “And even if they have gone, they could be back at any moment.” They stared at each other for a moment. Margaret took in Jerry - his dark hair tousled, sticking up at odd angles; the glasses slipping down his nose; his slightly hunched shoulders, more pronounced at that moment as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. He seemed so big in this tiny room that served as their sanctuary. For years, whenever they needed a safe place, somewhere were they could breathe and be alone, they retreated to this room. The simple lock on the door was barely a deterrent to anyone who truly wanted to get inside, but they felt comforted nonetheless when they heard the small click. Now, looking at her husband of eight years, she was struck by his size in comparison to the space. Had the room always been so small? Or were the proverbial walls finally closing in? Perhaps time had run out on their little paradise. Margaret sighed and leaned a shoulder against the wall, suddenly feeling the need for support. “So, what’s the plan?” Jerry was still except for a nervous tapping of this left foot. “We could make a break for it.” The smallest crack of a smile played on his lips and then was gone. “And go where?” Margaret answered quietly. He shrugged. “Away. Anywhere. Just not here.” In her mind’s eye, Margaret pictured the two of them sprinting out the door, hand in hand, feeling the elation of freedom… only to be brought up short by the steely gaze of two very hostile individuals. “You know we can’t. The second we open this door, they’ll be all over us. Like you said - even if they’re gone, they could be back any second. We wouldn’t make it fifty metres without them spotting us. It’s too risky.” The smile on Jerry’s face broke through for real. “The window,” he breathed. “We could climb through the window. Make it out of here and down the road before they had any idea we were gone. We could….” She held up her hand to stop him. She was biting the inside of her cheek, trying her hardest to hold back the laugh building in her throat. The ‘window’ was a small square of glass that slid open just enough to let the summer breeze ruffle the floral curtains. Even if they managed to muffle the sound of broken glass, there was no chance of Jerry’s lanky body and Margaret’s aptly nicknamed birthing hips making it through the frame. Margaret imagined another scene - of her ample bottom wedged in the window as she tried to climb out headfirst, and Jerry’s palms flat against her ass as he tried to push her through. She couldn’t bite her cheek any further without drawing blood and as her teeth unclenched a great bark of laughter escaped as she erupted into loud, hiccuping giggles. Jerry stared at her, wide eyed, but couldn’t keep the grin off his face either and soon his laughter joined her own, as if the same vision was dancing in his head. Thud thud thud thud thud. They froze. Heavy footsteps stopped suddenly outside the door. Jerry raised a finger to his lips. Margaret nodded silently and slowly crept to the other side of the room, farthest from the door. Bang bang bang. A fist pounded on the wood. “You can’t hide in there forever. You will need to come out sometime,” a voice called from the other side. The door handle jangled irritably. “Don’t make us force our way in.” “That lock isn’t going to hold,” Jerry whispered. “If they wanted, they could easily pick it. Clever buggers.” Margaret snorted. “Serves you right for teaching them to pick a lock.” Jerry shrugged again. Margaret was beginning to think this was how his shoulders developed their hunch - perpetual shrugging. “So, what’s the plan?” He sighed and started cleaning his glasses with the hem of his shirt, a habit Margaret recognized as meaning he’d made a decision and needed to think about how to phrase it. “I think,” he said, placing his glasses back on his face,” we’re done for.” Margaret opened her mouth to argue. Surely, there must be some other option. They couldn’t surrender their sanctuary. They just couldn’t. Where would they escape now, when things were hard and loud and frustrating, and they just needed five minutes of quiet? But, deep down, she’d known this day was coming. They’d had six years of peace in their little room. Maybe, in another six, they’d be able to establish another sanctuary. Maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t really need one. Margaret stood straighter and smoothed down the hair in her ponytail. She then reached up and smoothed Jerry’s unruly pieces. “Ok. Ready?” she asked, looking fondly into her husband’s face. “Ready.” He bent down and kissed her cheek. Hand in hand, they stood in front of the bedroom door. Margaret undid the lock, and opened the door wide to see two very hostile individuals standing on the other side. “Kids. What’s up?”