1
00:00:01,960 --> 00:00:07,000
I met Will when we were both
sophomores in college. We went from being

2
00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:11,919
fast friends to best friends to dating
over the next year, and by the

3
00:00:11,960 --> 00:00:17,039
time we graduated, we had already
decided we were getting married and moving to

4
00:00:17,079 --> 00:00:24,079
the Midwest. And for a few
years we were so happy. Not that

5
00:00:24,160 --> 00:00:28,280
we ever struggled, but when I
got terribly sick for a few weeks,

6
00:00:28,559 --> 00:00:32,399
he took care of me. When
he lost his job, I kept his

7
00:00:32,439 --> 00:00:38,079
spirits up until he found a new
one. Overall, it felt like we

8
00:00:38,079 --> 00:00:42,920
were incredibly lucky, and I was
going through life with a person I knew

9
00:00:43,079 --> 00:00:48,799
and loved the most in the world. It was three years ago when things

10
00:00:48,840 --> 00:00:54,880
started to change. I blame some
of it on the miscarriage. We decided

11
00:00:55,079 --> 00:00:58,719
it was time to try for kids, and we were both excited when I

12
00:00:58,759 --> 00:01:03,200
got pregnant, But just a couple
of months later, I was getting sick

13
00:01:03,239 --> 00:01:08,400
again. Like before, the doctors
had never pinned down the exact cause of

14
00:01:08,439 --> 00:01:14,280
my illness, and while this time
it lasted less than a week, he

15
00:01:14,439 --> 00:01:19,599
was During that time I lost the
baby. We were both hurt by it,

16
00:01:19,719 --> 00:01:26,200
but I think Will took it harder. He seemed haunted after that more

17
00:01:26,239 --> 00:01:32,799
anxious and prone to strange compulsions,
like throwing out perfectly good food and drinks

18
00:01:32,799 --> 00:01:36,719
from time to time, and checking
my car before I took any long trip.

19
00:01:38,040 --> 00:01:41,519
It was as though he was terrified
I was going to get sick again

20
00:01:42,159 --> 00:01:49,000
or somehow have an accident. It
was sweet and away, but also bizarre,

21
00:01:49,359 --> 00:01:53,840
and any time I talked about us
trying to have a baby again,

22
00:01:53,519 --> 00:02:00,719
he just looked stricken and changed the
subject. After some time, I decided

23
00:02:00,760 --> 00:02:08,599
to let it go, thinking that
eventually things would get better. Instead,

24
00:02:09,240 --> 00:02:15,400
I found his suicide note. I
call it that because even though it is

25
00:02:15,479 --> 00:02:21,159
long and styled like a journal entry, the tone and purpose of it is

26
00:02:21,199 --> 00:02:28,639
pretty clear. It's a confession,
or maybe more of a concession, a

27
00:02:28,759 --> 00:02:34,680
surrender to some terrible inevitability that Will
seems to think has been crawling toward him

28
00:02:34,680 --> 00:02:38,719
for most of his life, a
life that he clearly means to end.

29
00:02:39,280 --> 00:02:44,759
But when I started reading this spiral
bound notebook that had fallen out from between

30
00:02:44,840 --> 00:02:50,120
two dusty boxes and I rarely used
attic, I didn't realize all of that

31
00:02:50,240 --> 00:02:57,919
yet, because, as with most
endings, Will's story began far away.

32
00:03:00,879 --> 00:03:07,759
It read something else sees through my
eyes I know how that sounds crazy,

33
00:03:08,840 --> 00:03:15,840
which is why I never told anyone
this, not even you writing this now.

34
00:03:15,639 --> 00:03:21,159
Will you ever find it or read
it? I don't know. I

35
00:03:21,199 --> 00:03:24,879
may destroy it before I'm even done. Is it worth your understanding a bit

36
00:03:24,919 --> 00:03:30,439
more if you don't believe or you
believing me, if it doesn't stop you

37
00:03:30,479 --> 00:03:36,039
from hating me. I don't have
answers to any of that, and I've

38
00:03:36,080 --> 00:03:39,719
spent years trying to find a way
to understand. I feel like a toad

39
00:03:39,759 --> 00:03:45,360
in a dried up pond, just
cooking in the noon sun and not really

40
00:03:45,439 --> 00:03:50,639
understanding why any of it's happening.
I know things used to be good,

41
00:03:51,280 --> 00:03:55,080
and I know I'm burning up,
trying out, becoming less of myself,

42
00:03:55,960 --> 00:04:03,400
and so so tired of being afraid
all the time. But I'm not doing

43
00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:08,080
a good job of explaining this,
which is supposed to be the point,

44
00:04:09,120 --> 00:04:15,399
So I'll start over. When I
was seven years old, something stung me.

45
00:04:16,959 --> 00:04:19,839
I'd been playing out with friends in
the woods near my house when it

46
00:04:19,879 --> 00:04:25,160
happened, and it hurts so bad
that it dropped me to my knees.

47
00:04:26,560 --> 00:04:30,600
I never saw what it was or
where it went, but by the time

48
00:04:30,680 --> 00:04:33,240
my friends got me back to the
house. There was a knot on the

49
00:04:33,279 --> 00:04:38,639
back of my neck the size of
an egg. I spent two days in

50
00:04:38,680 --> 00:04:44,879
the hospital, but when I got
out I felt better, no side effects,

51
00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:48,600
no scar or ongoing pain, just
an EPI pen in case I ever

52
00:04:48,639 --> 00:04:54,000
got stung again, and a strict
rule for my parents to never go in

53
00:04:54,040 --> 00:04:59,600
the woods again. In fact,
over the next year, I mostly forgot

54
00:04:59,600 --> 00:05:05,759
about the incident until one night I
woke up to realize I wasn't in bed.

55
00:05:08,120 --> 00:05:12,480
I was standing by my open bedroom
window, looking out into the night,

56
00:05:13,879 --> 00:05:17,439
and I could feel something moving in
my head seeing through my eyes.

57
00:05:19,759 --> 00:05:25,879
Like I said before, it's a
crazy idea, easy for me to dismiss

58
00:05:25,920 --> 00:05:30,839
as my imagination or me having a
nightmare. And it wasn't like I started

59
00:05:30,879 --> 00:05:35,399
having lots of odd behavior or blackouts. I didn't, so far as I

60
00:05:35,399 --> 00:05:41,199
could tell, have any outward signs
of anything touching me or invading me at

61
00:05:41,199 --> 00:05:45,879
all, unless you wanted to count
that one belt of light sleep walking.

62
00:05:46,920 --> 00:05:54,800
Yet despite that, the feeling that
something was there didn't go away. By

63
00:05:54,879 --> 00:06:00,519
the time I was ten, I
talked to myself regularly, having become used

64
00:06:00,519 --> 00:06:04,399
to the idea that I treated it
like a secret friend, be it God,

65
00:06:04,720 --> 00:06:09,759
a guardian, angel, or a
would very that only I could sense.

66
00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:15,759
I need to stress that for the
most part, none of this was

67
00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:20,839
scary, even though I knew it
was real. It was strangely comforting,

68
00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:26,839
both because it gave me someone to
share things with because it made me feel

69
00:06:26,879 --> 00:06:32,800
special, chosen. But it's important
that you know that I wasn't afraid of

70
00:06:32,839 --> 00:06:39,279
it, because if I had been, I would never let myself get close

71
00:06:39,319 --> 00:06:46,360
to you, you or our baby. When I met you, well,

72
00:06:47,160 --> 00:06:51,720
I felt like my whole world changed. I think I knew I loved you

73
00:06:51,759 --> 00:06:57,319
from that first night of the party, and that feeling has only gotten stronger

74
00:06:57,480 --> 00:07:01,519
ever since. The idea having a
life with you, starting a family,

75
00:07:01,639 --> 00:07:06,120
well, if there's something better than
that, I don't know what it would

76
00:07:06,199 --> 00:07:13,160
be. And yes, I thought
about telling you about my companion a hundred

77
00:07:13,199 --> 00:07:16,439
times over the years. But even
when I knew you wouldn't leave me,

78
00:07:17,319 --> 00:07:23,279
I was afraid you'd think I was
crazy, that you'd see me differently somehow,

79
00:07:23,959 --> 00:07:28,639
as lesser than i'd been before,
and the idea of that terrified me.

80
00:07:29,839 --> 00:07:34,680
So I kept quiet and just counted
my blessings that I had two wonderful

81
00:07:34,720 --> 00:07:42,279
friends in my life. When you
got sick the first time, I've never

82
00:07:42,319 --> 00:07:46,680
been so scared. All the tests, the trips to the specialists, and

83
00:07:46,720 --> 00:07:51,399
then having to spend three weeks in
the hospital before you got well. I

84
00:07:51,439 --> 00:07:57,000
really thought I might lose you.
I didn't understand what was going on at

85
00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:01,079
the time, of course, and
so when you come home I was out

86
00:08:01,120 --> 00:08:07,560
of my mind happy. It wasn't
until you got sick again, when we

87
00:08:07,639 --> 00:08:18,399
lost the baby, that I realized
I was the blame. I woke up

88
00:08:18,439 --> 00:08:22,040
one night. This was after you
were already starting to vomit and run a

89
00:08:22,079 --> 00:08:28,120
fever, but before we carried you
to the hospital. I woke up one

90
00:08:28,240 --> 00:08:33,279
night to find myself standing in the
kitchen next to the open refrigerator. I

91
00:08:33,399 --> 00:08:39,720
was pouring something, a thick,
whitish line of slime from my palm into

92
00:08:39,759 --> 00:08:45,879
the mouth of the milk jug.
I stopped, panicked and confused, looking

93
00:08:45,919 --> 00:08:50,360
around for some explanation of what I
was doing and where the foul smelling stuff

94
00:08:50,399 --> 00:08:54,320
coating my hand had come from.
That's when I noticed the bitter taste in

95
00:08:54,360 --> 00:09:00,639
the back of my throat, chest
too tight to breathe, I reached into

96
00:09:00,720 --> 00:09:05,639
my mouth to the point of gagging
finger, trembling as it touched the small

97
00:09:05,039 --> 00:09:09,200
hard point in the back of my
throat. I ran to the sink then,

98
00:09:09,559 --> 00:09:13,399
and vomited out more of the white
fluid before making my way to the

99
00:09:13,399 --> 00:09:20,120
bathroom mirror. Something was moving back
there in the shadows of my interior.

100
00:09:22,440 --> 00:09:26,799
Shining a light against the mirror,
I focused the beam into a small point

101
00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:31,120
of black bone, jotting out of
the grayish pink flesh around it like a

102
00:09:31,159 --> 00:09:37,320
tiny fang or small stinger, oozing
more of that milky corruption with each twitching

103
00:09:37,360 --> 00:09:50,759
shudder. It was then that I
knew I had to die. I didn't

104
00:09:50,759 --> 00:09:54,639
do it right away, of course, even when we lost the baby later

105
00:09:54,679 --> 00:09:58,519
in the week, I made excuses. I was terrified of the consequences of

106
00:09:58,639 --> 00:10:03,200
ending it, and there were days
where I'd convinced myself the whole thing was

107
00:10:03,200 --> 00:10:07,879
in my head. I'd feel nothing
behind my eyes and see nothing when I

108
00:10:07,919 --> 00:10:13,240
looked inside. I tell myself I
was crazy and needed help, or I

109
00:10:13,279 --> 00:10:18,159
was weak and needed to get over
my strange nightmares and delusions, anything to

110
00:10:18,200 --> 00:10:26,720
stay alive and be with you,
But the signs would always return. I

111
00:10:26,799 --> 00:10:30,639
know it seems strange to you,
but I've taken to guarding your food,

112
00:10:31,279 --> 00:10:35,200
putting in a dozen ways for me
to check for tampering with something you might

113
00:10:35,240 --> 00:10:39,600
eat or drink when I'm not in
control. I know I've kept you from

114
00:10:39,639 --> 00:10:45,399
getting sick at times, but it
won't last forever. Whatever this thing is,

115
00:10:46,240 --> 00:10:50,720
I know it's smarter and stronger than
me, and more and more I

116
00:10:50,759 --> 00:10:56,960
can tell it's taking control. So
I have to stop it by ending me

117
00:10:58,080 --> 00:11:03,919
now before I it's too late.
I will go out into the woods tomorrow

118
00:11:03,200 --> 00:11:09,120
and end it before I hurt you
worse than I already have. I will

119
00:11:09,120 --> 00:11:13,240
always love you, and if you
ever read this, please know that I

120
00:11:13,399 --> 00:11:18,279
never stop trying to find a better
way. But it's crawling up the front

121
00:11:18,320 --> 00:11:26,600
of my mind and I can't let
it touch you. So good bye.

122
00:11:30,240 --> 00:11:39,440
May fourteenth, twenty twenty three.
Will I stuffed the journal under a pillow

123
00:11:39,720 --> 00:11:45,440
as I hear footsteps coming down the
hall. Wiping my eyes, I look

124
00:11:45,519 --> 00:11:50,600
up to see Will standing there,
staring at me. What are you doing?

125
00:11:52,559 --> 00:11:56,600
His voice is cool and detached,
like it has been a lot of

126
00:11:56,639 --> 00:12:01,840
the time in the last few weeks. I'd taken it as a sign of

127
00:12:01,879 --> 00:12:07,039
things maybe getting better, that he
was being more cold and aloof as part

128
00:12:07,159 --> 00:12:11,639
of getting his anxiety and depression under
control, and that when he came out

129
00:12:11,639 --> 00:12:18,320
to the other side he'd be his
old self again. Now. I felt

130
00:12:18,360 --> 00:12:24,879
a chill as he watched me watch
him. Um, nothing, just reading

131
00:12:24,919 --> 00:12:33,799
stuff. His expression didn't change.
What stuff you look like? You've been

132
00:12:33,840 --> 00:12:41,000
crying. I shrugged and forced to
laugh. Just stuff on your phone,

133
00:12:41,679 --> 00:12:46,120
you know, girls, stuff sappy
stuff to make you cry. I'm okay.

134
00:12:46,960 --> 00:12:50,279
Not the note that Will wrote over
a month ago, right before he

135
00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:58,600
started acting like like you. He
nodded and made a sound deep in his

136
00:12:58,679 --> 00:13:05,799
throat. Good. Well, come
on, then, it's dinner time.

137
00:13:05,639 --> 00:13:13,440
I've made you something special. I
gave him a smile. Sounds great.

138
00:13:15,279 --> 00:13:30,600
I'll be there, just need to
get something first. Every Christmas my family

139
00:13:30,639 --> 00:13:35,879
booby trapped the chimney. I never
knew why until one year we finally caught

140
00:13:35,919 --> 00:13:43,399
something coming down. That year,
my trap did not work. They never

141
00:13:43,480 --> 00:13:48,159
worked. The week before Christmas,
we'd gone shopping as a family, first

142
00:13:48,159 --> 00:13:52,840
to a craft store for the kids
and then a hardware store for the grown

143
00:13:52,919 --> 00:13:58,759
ups. Walking the clove Lyles Mariah
Carey in the background, I had excitedly

144
00:14:00,080 --> 00:14:05,200
wat a pack of orange HB pencils
flat on either end. They made me

145
00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:09,960
think of the scaffolding the builders had
put up around school one year, full

146
00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:16,440
of endless possibilities. Along with the
pencils, I bought a bag of rubber

147
00:14:16,480 --> 00:14:22,279
bands to bind them together. In
my imagination, I conceived of a truly

148
00:14:22,399 --> 00:14:30,279
fantastic catapult that would pelt the invaders
with marbles and thumbtacks. Come Christmas Eve,

149
00:14:30,799 --> 00:14:33,879
my sister and I sat at one
table and went to work making our

150
00:14:33,879 --> 00:14:39,200
own traps with the materials we had
selected. I had my pencils, and

151
00:14:39,320 --> 00:14:46,759
my sister, a few years younger
than me, was busy making something out

152
00:14:46,799 --> 00:14:52,080
of pipe cleaners and playdough. I
remember scoffing at a work and thinking whatever

153
00:14:52,159 --> 00:14:58,320
she had in mind wouldn't even work
on a table Beside us, our mother

154
00:14:58,399 --> 00:15:03,799
made her own. I always remember
thinking that the grown ups put no real

155
00:15:03,840 --> 00:15:09,440
imagination into their creations, but every
year the sight of them would turn my

156
00:15:09,519 --> 00:15:16,879
stomach. Nonetheless, Mom like broken
light bulbs hung on ropes, and this

157
00:15:16,039 --> 00:15:20,759
year she prepared another five or six
to be nailed on the inside of the

158
00:15:20,840 --> 00:15:26,039
chimney. She also fashioned some heavy
wooden planks with dozens of rusty nails and

159
00:15:26,159 --> 00:15:33,679
bent jagged knives driven into them.
She always made the same things and would

160
00:15:33,720 --> 00:15:39,360
stand at her table every year furiously
soaring or hammering, with sweat pouring down

161
00:15:39,360 --> 00:15:45,759
her forehead. Dad did his work
in the garage. He had a welders

162
00:15:45,840 --> 00:15:50,200
torch in there, and something called
a lathe, and all sorts of other

163
00:15:50,440 --> 00:15:56,799
interesting tools. His traps were almost
always made of rusted metal and razors,

164
00:15:56,840 --> 00:16:03,600
sharp edges, creaking hinges and springs
that made even my childish fingers weary.

165
00:16:04,039 --> 00:16:08,679
When he finally emerged from his workshop
this year, he revealed a funny looking

166
00:16:08,720 --> 00:16:14,759
contraption that looked to me like some
kind of cannon with a large air canister

167
00:16:14,840 --> 00:16:18,960
attached, the sort of thing I'd
seen on a diver's back. When a

168
00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:25,039
pressure plate was triggered, a sharp
looking metal spear came shooting three feet out

169
00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:30,159
of the barrel in a heart stopping
explosion. Dad grinned with pride when we

170
00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:37,000
all jumped back during the test fire. Then he spent thirty minutes swearing angrily

171
00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:42,279
as he tried to reload the spike. After that he set about hiding it

172
00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:48,159
in the fireplace. This in forore
digging a hole, and there was a

173
00:16:48,200 --> 00:16:52,559
brief moment as he knelt there,
covered in soot, where he reached his

174
00:16:52,639 --> 00:16:56,879
hand out toward me and called me
Alex, asking me to grab the gas

175
00:16:56,919 --> 00:17:02,200
canister and bring it over. Before
I could even try and do what he

176
00:17:02,279 --> 00:17:07,279
asked, Mom intervened and did it
instead. Of course, she could not

177
00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:11,559
pick it up, so she had
to sort of roll walk it over.

178
00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:22,039
Dad was quiet the entire time that
happened. Whenever someone mentioned my older brother,

179
00:17:22,200 --> 00:17:29,240
people went quiet. He could have
picked up the gas canister easily.

180
00:17:30,440 --> 00:17:34,680
He had always been big, even
bigger than Dad. He took after Grandpa,

181
00:17:34,839 --> 00:17:40,599
who was a giant at five six. In later years, my pee

182
00:17:40,640 --> 00:17:45,000
teacher would lament I never got those
genes. My sister and I both took

183
00:17:45,079 --> 00:17:52,359
after our father, who, while
big, was no giant. After all,

184
00:17:52,400 --> 00:17:56,440
this was done after the loose rock
and the ash was put back in

185
00:17:56,519 --> 00:18:02,160
place, after the pressure plate and
the trip wires were hidden or disguised as

186
00:18:02,200 --> 00:18:07,319
standard Christmas decorations, After the bear
traps were draped with all clothes or empty

187
00:18:07,359 --> 00:18:12,319
boxes, and Mom's knife covered planks
were placed beneath meticulously crafted false floors.

188
00:18:14,400 --> 00:18:18,400
My sister and I gave Mom and
Dad our traps. And they were placed

189
00:18:18,400 --> 00:18:26,799
carefully in the middle of the ambush. I loved this moment. I don't

190
00:18:26,839 --> 00:18:32,559
know why. I think looking back, it was the feeling of being a

191
00:18:32,759 --> 00:18:40,920
unit, a family. We helped. I was still scared of the dark,

192
00:18:41,359 --> 00:18:45,440
and my sister had barely mastered the
toilet, but we were helping,

193
00:18:45,359 --> 00:18:51,359
and good God. Ever since Alex
had gone, I'd wanted to help so

194
00:18:51,559 --> 00:18:56,279
bad. The shape of my older
brother was a vague one. I loved

195
00:18:56,359 --> 00:19:03,359
him, but I didn't really know
him. Couldn't have given my age instead.

196
00:19:03,799 --> 00:19:07,039
I grew up in a world where
Mum and Dad cried a lot and

197
00:19:07,160 --> 00:19:14,480
fought even more than sometimes they themselves
would admit they fought over nothing at all.

198
00:19:15,720 --> 00:19:21,160
They fought because it hurt, because
even after my sister had been born,

199
00:19:21,799 --> 00:19:26,680
they still couldn't bring themselves to touch
Alex's room, or to even really

200
00:19:26,720 --> 00:19:33,400
acknowledge that it existed without it causing
a painful, sullen silence. So for

201
00:19:33,559 --> 00:19:40,240
that brief moment where we stood surveying
the fireplace in the living room, it

202
00:19:40,319 --> 00:19:47,799
felt like our version of the perfect
happy family. After that, it was

203
00:19:47,839 --> 00:19:52,799
bedtime for my sister and I.
We liked our special Christmas beds I liked

204
00:19:52,799 --> 00:19:56,480
that they were cozy and special,
and that Mum would put the telly on

205
00:19:57,039 --> 00:20:00,559
and turn the volume all the way
up, and no one cared if we

206
00:20:00,720 --> 00:20:06,440
ate too much candy or even watched
films we weren't allowed to watch. So

207
00:20:06,519 --> 00:20:11,440
long as we stayed in the basement, it was fine. We had all

208
00:20:11,480 --> 00:20:15,000
these blankets and pillows so we could
make forts, and no one came down

209
00:20:15,039 --> 00:20:21,759
to check if we were asleep at
good time. Despite all the excitement,

210
00:20:21,799 --> 00:20:26,319
though we usually never made it past
midnight. There was only so much our

211
00:20:26,319 --> 00:20:33,519
little bodies could handle. Mamma Dad, though they stayed up. I thought

212
00:20:33,599 --> 00:20:40,359
that was normal. You don't know
how much your parents sacrificed until you become

213
00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:45,960
one yourself. Never appreciated what it
meant for my dad mid forties by this

214
00:20:45,079 --> 00:20:51,000
point, to stand upright and stay
awake all night, or for my mom

215
00:20:51,079 --> 00:20:56,480
to do the same, the two
of them all night, shaking each other

216
00:20:56,559 --> 00:21:03,200
awake when the other one started the
flag. That was the year I lost

217
00:21:03,200 --> 00:21:08,480
the privilege of ignorance. Isn't it
funny had the best and worst moments of

218
00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:15,079
your life often overlap. Maybe it's
just a light bulb effect. I don't

219
00:21:15,119 --> 00:21:19,400
know that night, my sister and
I went down to the basement, climbed

220
00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:26,279
into our blanket fort, and watched
the never Ending Story Gee fell asleep ten

221
00:21:26,319 --> 00:21:30,599
minutes in. I stayed up and
watched every second of it. I can

222
00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:36,200
still see all that in my mind
as clear as day. Feels like one

223
00:21:36,200 --> 00:21:41,839
of the happiest and purest moments of
my life. Falling asleep on the credits,

224
00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:45,559
gently dreaming of what it might be
like to have my own dragon to

225
00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:52,279
fly over school. I think that
was it, the last time I was

226
00:21:52,559 --> 00:21:57,000
just a child. I think most
of us have memories like that, don't

227
00:21:57,000 --> 00:22:03,799
we, The moment in time when
we stopped being kids. Next thing I

228
00:22:03,839 --> 00:22:10,839
remember, I was coming too,
bathed in a cold gray light, eyes

229
00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:17,480
heavy, head woozy. Something was
wrong and I could feel it. It

230
00:22:17,599 --> 00:22:21,880
was quiet, cold, with the
draft, and my sister was nowhere to

231
00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:26,440
be seen. It took me a
moment to realize that the lights were off

232
00:22:26,079 --> 00:22:30,880
along with the TV, and I
was seeing the basement only by the glow

233
00:22:32,079 --> 00:22:40,480
of the upstairs hallway. That was
unusual. Mom and Dad always locked the

234
00:22:40,519 --> 00:22:45,000
basement door and barred it from the
other side. Tonight, it was wide

235
00:22:45,039 --> 00:22:51,480
open, and something about the world
up there seemed sinister to my childish eyes.

236
00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:57,720
I don't know how to describe it
exactly. I'd woken up and something

237
00:22:57,920 --> 00:23:06,079
was wrong. I sat upright and
slinked out of bed, in the hope

238
00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:11,200
that any moment I'd see a better, happier world coming down those stairs,

239
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:17,559
Mum and Dad sister in arms,
telling me Christmas was here. They'd just

240
00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:22,160
let me sleep in. Maybe had
it even snowed. Maybe that was why

241
00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:30,960
the light seemed so odd, pale
and diffused. God, I wanted a

242
00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:36,680
white Christmas so badly. It was
all over the telly in movies and magazines,

243
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:40,559
But all it ever seemed to do
around us at that time of year

244
00:23:41,039 --> 00:23:45,799
was rain in a fine wet drizzle, black windows come night, heavy winds,

245
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:52,640
cuddles that reflected street lamps. My
only memory of my grandmother was her

246
00:23:52,759 --> 00:23:56,839
singing, Rain, Rain, go
away, come back another day. Nothing

247
00:23:56,839 --> 00:24:03,200
else, not a face, just
the sound of her singing that old nursery

248
00:24:03,279 --> 00:24:08,319
rhyme Like Alex. She was another
person I knew, largely through the grief

249
00:24:08,519 --> 00:24:15,000
she left behind in others. I
climbed the basement stairs and my hands and

250
00:24:15,039 --> 00:24:19,839
feet, following some hidden instinct to
be quiet. Years of sneaking around to

251
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:25,279
listen to Mom and Dad's fevered arguments
had taught me to always put my weight

252
00:24:25,599 --> 00:24:30,000
on the edge of my steps.
Whenever I spied them mid fight. Mum

253
00:24:30,079 --> 00:24:33,799
would be standing somewhere, looking thin
and sad, arms crossed, with a

254
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:38,759
smell of cigarette strung in the air. I thought of this as I reached

255
00:24:38,799 --> 00:24:45,000
the top, pausing to sniff the
air, wondering if I might smell smoke

256
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:51,480
coming from somewhere further in the house. Instead, I picked out a gentle

257
00:24:51,519 --> 00:24:56,480
whiff of something burned, not dissimilar
to the smell of party poppers or old

258
00:24:56,519 --> 00:25:03,000
fireworks, certainly thing like old cigarettes. And there was something else in there

259
00:25:03,039 --> 00:25:12,319
too, something behind that black and
subty odor, something metallic, almost sweet.

260
00:25:15,079 --> 00:25:22,160
Eventually I looked, lifting my head
over the final step and peering left

261
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:27,279
and right down the hallway that stretched
either side. For a long time,

262
00:25:27,839 --> 00:25:34,359
there was nothing, and I stayed
in place, frozen by indecision. But

263
00:25:34,480 --> 00:25:40,279
then, somewhere to my right,
near the kitchen doorway, the cold morning

264
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:45,160
light that filtered through seemed to shift
and move. Someone was in there,

265
00:25:45,319 --> 00:25:52,319
surely moving around and casting shadows.
Of course, it could be Mom or

266
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:57,839
Dad. I told myself, but
I still did not move whoever it was,

267
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:07,799
I was silent, deathly so when
I finally got the courage to move,

268
00:26:07,599 --> 00:26:12,079
who was to go in the opposite
direction? Not yet ten years old,

269
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:18,039
but even a child has an animal's
instincts, and mine were telling me

270
00:26:18,079 --> 00:26:22,640
to avoid anyone who was that quiet. So I crawled towards the living room,

271
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:29,119
letting the old carpet absorb the sound
of my movements. When I looked

272
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:33,480
inside, I struggled to make sense
of what I was seeing. It was

273
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:40,240
like a bomb had gone off.
The sofa was torn to shreds. The

274
00:26:40,319 --> 00:26:45,640
coffee table lay in pieces. All
of our Christmas decorations lay crushed beneath broken

275
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:52,200
floorboards and ripped up carpet. The
bear traps stood upright, their teeth locked,

276
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:59,440
their jaws snapped shut. Dad's piston
was in two bits, the oxygen

277
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:03,799
canister embedded in one wall, the
barrel bent and lying on the floor.

278
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:11,119
The sight of our traps destroyed set
something off in me. I hadn't thought

279
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:15,720
of it until that moment, but
they had always been an integral part of

280
00:27:15,759 --> 00:27:21,680
our Christmas decorations. A little different
to the usual fair, sure, but

281
00:27:21,799 --> 00:27:27,720
every bit as important to us as
anyone else's homemade decorations. Everywhere I looked,

282
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:33,160
there was another little bit of our
history lying in a broken heap,

283
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:38,440
and it broke my little heart because
I so desperately wanted to fix them,

284
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:42,720
to return the living room to the
pristine state it had been in the night

285
00:27:42,839 --> 00:27:51,279
before, when we'd been a happy
family. I wondered if maybe Dad's little

286
00:27:51,319 --> 00:27:56,119
invention had gone wrong somehow one year
he nearly burned the house down. So

287
00:27:56,400 --> 00:28:02,920
it wasn't strange to think that dangerous
looking piston was responsible for all that destruction

288
00:28:03,079 --> 00:28:10,440
or that pressure building up. Still
no sign of my family, though didn't

289
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:15,400
look like they'd been caught in anything
either. No blood Back in the hallway,

290
00:28:15,799 --> 00:28:19,680
I looked at the light cast by
the kitchen door. There was no

291
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:26,160
further movement, but I didn't trust
the stillness in the air, wrong,

292
00:28:26,039 --> 00:28:33,000
all wrong. Best chance now was
to try upstairs, saying goes as before.

293
00:28:33,039 --> 00:28:37,240
Really, it involved making my way
to the front door where the stairs

294
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:42,640
leading up or near, and then
slowly and carefully climbing them on all fours.

295
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:48,920
I knew these steps very well and
disappeared up them as stealthily as anyone

296
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:56,519
could hope to. My bedroom was
empty, so was my sister's. She

297
00:28:56,559 --> 00:29:00,839
had a big window, so I
got a good look at the world outside

298
00:29:02,559 --> 00:29:07,640
and saw the sun was well on
its way to rising. Early morning light

299
00:29:07,839 --> 00:29:14,640
and heavy fog made everything look washed
out and faded. Eerie too, like

300
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:22,640
the world was holding its breath in
a way it was. My parents' bedroom

301
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:26,720
looked empty too at a glance,
and I almost moved on without noticing the

302
00:29:26,839 --> 00:29:33,720
strange and heavy shadow beneath their bed. I'm glad I didn't. I lingered

303
00:29:33,799 --> 00:29:40,160
and looked a little harder. Something
about the light down there convinced me it

304
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:45,960
wasn't empty, not like normal.
And before I had any time for my

305
00:29:45,039 --> 00:29:51,480
imagination to start conjuring up nightmares,
my sister's face appeared from the gloom.

306
00:29:52,359 --> 00:29:56,960
I nearly yelped from joy, but
the expression she wore was as serious as

307
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:04,319
they come, just afraid or concerned, but almost sick, Pale with wide

308
00:30:04,319 --> 00:30:11,279
eyes. It was like she couldn't
quite register my presence. So I slinked

309
00:30:11,279 --> 00:30:17,200
forward and reached out, touching her
hand. She flinched and receded further into

310
00:30:17,279 --> 00:30:23,160
the darkness. Something was wrong,
so I crawled in beside her and checked

311
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:29,680
her for injuries, do my best
not to alarm her further. She looked

312
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:33,240
fine, so all I could do
was take her in my arms and try

313
00:30:33,279 --> 00:30:40,960
my best to coax her out of
a shock. When I finally whispered a

314
00:30:41,039 --> 00:30:45,839
question, it felt far too loud, even though the only real sound was

315
00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:52,000
the smacking of my lips. She
recalled a little when I spoke, making

316
00:30:52,039 --> 00:30:57,200
me feel like I'd broken the most
precious silence of our lives. But I

317
00:30:57,319 --> 00:31:07,359
had to ask. I had to
know where his mom and dad. She

318
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:11,640
merely shook her head. So I
asked again, this time, try my

319
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:15,599
best to stay even quieter, but
it seemed like any sound was going to

320
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:23,039
alarm her. Where are they?
In the end, she replied, only

321
00:31:23,119 --> 00:31:27,519
so that I would stop asking.
She pulled away as she did so.

322
00:31:29,759 --> 00:31:33,640
She loved me, but well,
she was an animal with a hiding place,

323
00:31:34,359 --> 00:31:40,160
and I was at risk of ruining
it. He took them up.

324
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:47,400
There was the only thing she'd said, all pointing at the roof. Those

325
00:31:47,519 --> 00:31:52,559
five words chilled me to the core. They carried some subtle implication that our

326
00:31:52,680 --> 00:32:00,319
parents were dead. I didn't like
this thought. He made my skinitch made

327
00:32:00,319 --> 00:32:06,599
the space we crawled into feel too
small and uncomfortable. Her hot sensation began

328
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:12,200
to well up my throat, threatening
tears. Was she really saying we were

329
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:17,440
alone? I didn't want that.
I didn't want to be alone. I

330
00:32:17,519 --> 00:32:23,119
wanted them to come back and sweep
us up in their arms. Without really

331
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:29,960
knowing why I refused the believer,
I shook my head and crawled out from

332
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:34,720
under the bed, hoping to go
off and find them. I looked back

333
00:32:34,759 --> 00:32:39,400
briefly to see if she followed,
but she remained, seeming all too ready

334
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:44,720
to leave me to go after my
fate. She disappeared into the shadows,

335
00:32:45,359 --> 00:32:49,839
and I was left with only the
slim comfort that she might at least be

336
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:58,440
safe there, out of sight,
out of mind. Crawling out of her

337
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:02,920
parents bedroom, I realized I had
very few options left. There was the

338
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:07,839
phone on the downstairs landing by the
front door. It was that, or

339
00:33:07,839 --> 00:33:12,720
maybe I could run down the lane
and out to the nearest house, which

340
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:17,720
was maybe a quarter mile away,
not far under normal circumstances. But did

341
00:33:17,759 --> 00:33:22,240
I really want to go? Sprinting
out the front door, hoping to God

342
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:25,839
that whatever it marched through all those
traps like nothing wouldn't see me running out

343
00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:31,079
in the open, better to get
help to come to us, better to

344
00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:38,000
reach the phone. I thought of
Grandpa, Mom's dad, a hulking man

345
00:33:38,319 --> 00:33:45,519
who generally terrified us all, a
cantankerous old widower who had a bad habit

346
00:33:45,599 --> 00:33:50,000
of telling us things Mom said we
shouldn't know, like how it was our

347
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:54,920
grandmother's fault we had to be scared
of the chimney at Christmas. I didn't

348
00:33:55,000 --> 00:34:00,759
like him. He smelt of mildew
and soil, looking giant who told us

349
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:06,680
awful stories of growing up with a
part time job in a slaughterhouse that made

350
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:12,159
me want to cry. But right
then I couldn't think of a better man

351
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:16,719
to ask for help. I made
it down the stairs as quietly as I

352
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:22,480
descended them. I lifted the phone
gingerly from the receiver, like it was

353
00:34:22,559 --> 00:34:27,599
ready to explode. I didn't know
what might make a noise, if anything.

354
00:34:28,599 --> 00:34:31,400
Didn't know if the table would rock
from a wobbly leg, if the

355
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:36,639
plastic would click from hitting something,
or the dull tone would be a little

356
00:34:36,639 --> 00:34:44,159
too loud. When you're trying to
be quiet, everything feels dangerous every moment,

357
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:49,760
every object, It's all just another
way to get caught out. One

358
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:53,800
of the reasons I thought of Grandpa
was he was on speed dial. I

359
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:59,679
pressed the three and listened to the
ring tone. I was tense at the

360
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:04,519
sound, muted as it was,
and waited eagerly for this part to be

361
00:35:04,599 --> 00:35:08,880
over. The whole time, I
couldn't take my eyes off the hallway that

362
00:35:09,039 --> 00:35:15,920
turned towards the basement in the kitchen. Occasionally a muffled creak or groan would

363
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:22,000
emanate from somewhere inside, and my
skin would crawl. I'd never known a

364
00:35:22,079 --> 00:35:28,960
longer, more unsettling weight in my
entire life. When it was finally over,

365
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:35,719
there came no relief. Grandpa didn't
answer the phone with the tact old

366
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:39,079
men usually don't. I hadn't expected
the sound of his voice to be so

367
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:46,599
damn loud, Hello, Alice,
is that you? It was probably just

368
00:35:46,639 --> 00:35:52,159
the atmosphere, but it sounded like
the old bugger was bellowing the words in

369
00:35:52,199 --> 00:35:55,719
the very room. I was in
terrified of how that noise might carry.

370
00:35:57,079 --> 00:36:00,679
I slam the phone down and the
receiver and cringe that the sound of the

371
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:05,840
internal bell ringing with the force.
If there really was someone in that house,

372
00:36:06,599 --> 00:36:12,280
they must have heard that. I
wasted no time in waiting. I

373
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:15,199
ran, not crawled, up the
stairs, still trying to be as quiet

374
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:21,559
as I could, but putting a
good emphasis on speed. As I climbed,

375
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:28,159
I wondered if maybe I was overreacting, But no. From the kitchen

376
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:31,920
came the sound of breaking glass and
clattering metal, like someone had torn a

377
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:37,559
cutler drawer right out of the cupboard
and hurled it against the wall. Whatever

378
00:36:37,639 --> 00:36:43,360
had been in there was moving faster
than it had any right to. Every

379
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:47,440
footfalls closed the unseen distance, turning
the corner and reaching the front door and

380
00:36:47,519 --> 00:36:52,360
stairs just in time for me to
disappear over the top step and dropped to

381
00:36:52,400 --> 00:37:00,719
the floor. The fear that gripped
me was electric. All the parents I've

382
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:07,239
been feeling up until this point felt
thin and plastic in comparison the way that

383
00:37:07,599 --> 00:37:12,840
as a kid you might run back
from the bathroom convinced that something evil worked

384
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:17,199
in the shadows, when really,
deep down, you knew there was nothing.

385
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:23,440
But this was a deep and grueling
fear. I could hear something smashing

386
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:29,559
the phone and little table to smithereens, and I had just been standing there.

387
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:34,920
A visceral fear coursed through my body
as I crawled on my stomach,

388
00:37:35,039 --> 00:37:38,079
as fast as I could towards the
nearest door, which happened to be my

389
00:37:38,159 --> 00:37:44,599
own bedroom. It made my vision
pulsate and my stomach twist and churn,

390
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:50,599
urging me to crawl on my belly
faster and faster like a soldier dodging gunfire.

391
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:58,239
Once inside, I briefly considered hiding
under the bed like my sister,

392
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:04,960
but something ab that didn't feel safe
enough. I wanted something a door,

393
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:09,280
a wall, anything that I could
put between me and whatever had made that

394
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:15,639
noise. The clauset, I decided
that made sense. It was full of

395
00:38:15,679 --> 00:38:21,079
old chunk I could squeeze between,
and a small hatch that led into the

396
00:38:21,119 --> 00:38:25,920
attic. All of this flashed through
my mind in a split second, and

397
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:30,079
I veered towards the closet door,
just in time to hear the first step

398
00:38:30,159 --> 00:38:37,840
coming up the stairs. God,
whatever it was, it was heavy.

399
00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:43,920
I could hear the wood creek and
the banister crack and splinter as it forced

400
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:47,760
its way up. I was breathing
so hard now I was nearly whimpering with

401
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:52,760
each movement, coming down, close
to losing control over my muscles and my

402
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:58,599
bladder. I felt like the finest
piece of twine. Was holding me all

403
00:38:58,639 --> 00:39:04,679
together, body, my mind,
my sanity, all of it, waiting

404
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:08,400
for that final thread to break,
and for it all to come undone at

405
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:15,320
once, collapsing into a heap as
I messed myself, choking on desperate sobs

406
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:20,679
and tears. I don't quite know
how I made it to the closet in

407
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:24,719
such silence. I managed to open
the door and crawl inside without making a

408
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:30,239
noise, and then watched in terror
through the slits in the door as I

409
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:36,480
waited for god knows what to happen. Whatever it was it was out there

410
00:39:37,119 --> 00:39:40,960
in the hallway, landing, sniffing
the air. I expected some sort of

411
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:46,760
animal by this point, a twisted
reindeer for some reason, probably the season

412
00:39:47,599 --> 00:39:52,800
and the sound of its hefty snorts
reinforced that. But when it finally poked

413
00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:59,199
its head through the open doorway to
look for me, I saw something that

414
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:07,679
was perplex human, or at least
had been hard to say. As a

415
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:13,239
family. Even now, we don't
talk about it, Not before that day,

416
00:40:13,559 --> 00:40:17,920
not after, not any of the
extended family reunions where all the branches

417
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:24,280
of my line come together and discuss
tactics for dealing with the curse it,

418
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:32,840
whatever it is seems to deliberately play
on our expectations. Talking about it makes

419
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:37,840
you sound mad, even if it
is with other members of the family.

420
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:43,880
I don't know how else to put
it. You feel silly, make the

421
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:47,639
problem feel silly by extension, like
you don't need to take it as seriously.

422
00:40:50,159 --> 00:40:53,639
Of course, the curse is not
some random force. It has a

423
00:40:53,679 --> 00:41:02,000
sense of humor, I want to
say, taunting, cruel. Certainly it

424
00:41:02,079 --> 00:41:07,559
hurts to admit this, but everything
it does all of the dead, and

425
00:41:07,639 --> 00:41:12,519
there are plenty of them. For
my grandmother had a lot of children,

426
00:41:13,039 --> 00:41:16,280
and they all went off and had
children too, so much so there were

427
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:22,199
eleven households at the last reunion,
giving it plenty of victims to choose from.

428
00:41:22,119 --> 00:41:27,360
But all of it, all the
pain and misery, landing on the

429
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:30,760
roof, climbing down the chimney,
leaving safely, if it was hit by

430
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:37,880
a single one of our traps.
It was a damn game. They were

431
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:43,880
tricks. It was playing tricks on
us, and it always had been.

432
00:41:45,039 --> 00:41:49,360
And these tricks were part of a
game that had rules. And why we

433
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:57,199
had to have the chimney because if
we didn't it would behave unpredictably and that's

434
00:41:57,239 --> 00:42:00,679
why the thing poked his head through
my door, wearing a Santa hat and

435
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:07,400
a white beard. I hate this, by the way, hate going over

436
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:12,039
how the worst night of my life
was some kind of joke to it,

437
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:17,960
But yeah, that's what it was. It wore a Santa hat and a

438
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:25,159
beard, and in truth, it
made for a pretty terrifying image, especially

439
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:30,920
to a ten year old. Wasn't
human? Was an animal either. Looked

440
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:37,559
like a rotten corpse, something you'd
find withered and preserved out in the Alaskan

441
00:42:37,599 --> 00:42:42,880
tundra, only for some scientists to
say some caveman from the pleistin scene,

442
00:42:43,559 --> 00:42:46,559
it may have been some kind of
dead thing. Actually, it was leaking

443
00:42:46,679 --> 00:42:51,880
a foul, gray fluid from its
lipless mouth, crowned by yellow teeth,

444
00:42:52,639 --> 00:42:57,639
and its cheap nylon beard was matted
with the stuff. God, I can

445
00:42:57,679 --> 00:43:04,480
almost smell it just talking about it. This school came and went in seconds.

446
00:43:05,519 --> 00:43:08,199
It didn't know which room I'd gone
in, so it made only a

447
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:15,480
brief sweep of mine before leaving to
go take a proper look elsewhere. A

448
00:43:15,559 --> 00:43:20,679
part of me considered shouting out to
help my sister, but well, I

449
00:43:20,679 --> 00:43:24,559
couldn't have moved my arms to do
that if I wanted to. Instead,

450
00:43:25,199 --> 00:43:30,320
I thought of how it was almost
definitely going to take a closer look at

451
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:36,159
this room once it didn't find me
elsewhere. Maybe it'd found my sister first,

452
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:40,480
But I didn't really want to think
about that. Instead, I kept

453
00:43:40,519 --> 00:43:46,960
imagining it returning to this place and
stomping around, opening drawers, looking under

454
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:52,719
the bed, and surely it would
turn its head at one point towards my

455
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:58,519
closet, see the slatted door,
and realize exactly where I'd been hiding all

456
00:43:58,559 --> 00:44:04,639
along. I had to move on
from this place, and looking up,

457
00:44:05,079 --> 00:44:10,000
I remembered the entry to the attic
accessible from the very top shelf. This

458
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:15,360
was my best chance, my only
chance, really. I began to climb.

459
00:44:16,159 --> 00:44:21,559
Only this wasn't the graceful and quiet
sneaking I'd been relying on so far.

460
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:25,960
Unlike the stairs, I hadn't made
a habit of going this way silently.

461
00:44:28,639 --> 00:44:31,519
I made it two shelves before I
knocked an old transformer toy off,

462
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:37,800
where it hit the ground with a
plastic clack. Another time, another place,

463
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:45,440
the noise would have barely registered,
But to me and that thing outside,

464
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:53,119
it might as well have been a
gunshot as Quickly as the head had

465
00:44:53,159 --> 00:44:59,079
disappeared, that monster came roaring into
my room, and I began to climb

466
00:44:59,159 --> 00:45:04,719
with quivering arms. I came close
to flailing out of control. I didn't

467
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:08,039
look back. I reached the top, pushed the hatch open, and pulled

468
00:45:08,079 --> 00:45:13,440
myself through, just in time to
hear the closet door torn off its hinges.

469
00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:19,960
Once through, I couldn't stop myself
turning around briefly, and that thing

470
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:28,000
was right there, grinning at me. It saw me, It knew where

471
00:45:28,039 --> 00:45:37,559
I was. There was no hiding
now, only running. This time I

472
00:45:37,639 --> 00:45:43,400
really did lose control of my bladder
when one of its clawed hands wrapped around

473
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:47,599
the hatch, I realized I had
to keep going, keep running, keep

474
00:45:47,679 --> 00:45:52,280
moving. I didn't know my way
around the attic, but that didn't matter

475
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:58,599
right now. I had to keep
going, keep putting distance, any distance

476
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:06,800
between me, and unfortunately the way
wasn't very clear. My family, like

477
00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:12,000
most, had jammed a lot of
old junk into the attic, and first

478
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:15,400
when I turned and saw the piles
of old boxes, I nearly panicked at

479
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:20,840
the claustrophobic maize that faced me.
But when I had to get my hands

480
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:24,159
and niece to crawl through the only
way forward. I came to hope that

481
00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:30,039
maybe it meant that that thing wouldn't
be able to follow. This hope spurned

482
00:46:30,039 --> 00:46:35,400
me on, But I was only
halfway through the tunnel of old plastic and

483
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:42,079
cardboard when there came the overpowering stench
of rotten meat, letting me know that

484
00:46:42,079 --> 00:46:49,360
that thing was closer than I dared
to imagine. Then what little light there

485
00:46:49,480 --> 00:47:04,119
was went away and something grabbed my
ankle. I screamed, this was the

486
00:47:04,239 --> 00:47:07,639
moment where I was meant to wake
up. This was the moment when something

487
00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:13,239
was meant to happen to stop the
terror. I pulled at the boxes around

488
00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:17,480
me, and they came tumbling down, spilling old furniture and photos, and

489
00:47:17,559 --> 00:47:22,360
I grabbed at them too, hoping
for some kind of leverage. But this

490
00:47:22,559 --> 00:47:28,559
thing was big, and it hauled
me out like a hunter plucking a rabbit

491
00:47:28,679 --> 00:47:34,880
out of its warren. Briefly,
it held me upside down and surveyed me,

492
00:47:36,679 --> 00:47:40,559
and I stared into black, sunken
eyes and a gaunt face covered in

493
00:47:40,639 --> 00:47:47,360
lesions and pocks. With a smirk, he grabbed something from over its shoulder,

494
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:52,360
put it on the floor, and
before I even realized what was happening.

495
00:47:53,679 --> 00:47:58,880
It had stuffed me into a sack
and thrown me over its shoulder.

496
00:48:00,639 --> 00:48:04,920
The world became a blur. I
felt my mind close in on itself,

497
00:48:05,199 --> 00:48:08,519
and the world narrowed to a point
as I fought to stop my thoughts racing

498
00:48:08,599 --> 00:48:15,159
with images of what might happen to
me, of being dragged into its home,

499
00:48:15,679 --> 00:48:20,559
with that wretched mouth would open wide
to swallow me whole, of being

500
00:48:20,679 --> 00:48:25,400
killed or butchered or tortured. I
don't know if you can really imagine what

501
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:30,599
it was like for me as a
kid to curl up in that dark space

502
00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:35,920
and contemplate my own mortality, to
come face to face with my own death

503
00:48:36,119 --> 00:48:43,719
or worse. But it broke me
irreparably and completely. To this day,

504
00:48:44,599 --> 00:48:49,800
I am broken because of it,
because of that moment, so much so

505
00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:53,280
that when it dropped me down with
a heavy thump on the fireplace mantle,

506
00:48:54,199 --> 00:49:00,400
I did not even move or try
to escape. I already knew where was

507
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:07,599
taking me, of course, up
the chimney, where else, And it

508
00:49:07,719 --> 00:49:13,000
was too late. The fight was
lost. If anything, At this point,

509
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:15,840
I wanted it to be over with. I wanted to be with Mom

510
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:23,599
and Dad instead The moments stretched on
and on, seconds turned to minutes,

511
00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:30,320
and I waited with held breath for
this nightmare to move on, But it

512
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:39,599
didn't. It must have been making
preparations for something, but what and how

513
00:49:39,679 --> 00:49:46,760
long? Eventually I opened my eyes. Thin light made its way through the

514
00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:52,079
coarse fabric of the sack, enough
for me to make out a vague outline

515
00:49:52,519 --> 00:49:57,719
of the destroyed living room. But
the opening of the sack had also fallen

516
00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:02,440
slightly in A small app was visible, with a cord that bound it wasn't

517
00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:09,400
quite pulled tight enough, And there, like some strange reminder, was a

518
00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:19,840
broken HB pencil, a tiny little
piece of my trap one night, one

519
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:27,400
sleep, that was all that had
separated me from this nightmare. Just the

520
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:30,920
day before, we'd been happy,
or something close to it, And I

521
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:37,079
remembered that not only had this thing
taken me away, it had also taken

522
00:50:37,079 --> 00:50:42,079
my mother, my father, and
even Alex, who I knew only through

523
00:50:42,159 --> 00:50:46,400
ancient memories, and a room my
mother didn't like letting me into. And

524
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:51,400
there was a damn good chance it
was going to get my sister too,

525
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:58,079
All of it gone, leaving behind
an empty house with broken things that no

526
00:50:58,119 --> 00:51:01,760
one else would care about. Not
the tree, not the presence, not

527
00:51:02,000 --> 00:51:07,639
any of it. I felt something
wash up from within me an anger,

528
00:51:08,559 --> 00:51:15,280
a petulant, childish tantrum. I
was screwed anyway, right, I had

529
00:51:15,320 --> 00:51:22,000
lost everything, so why not?
I reached out, grabbed a pencil,

530
00:51:22,559 --> 00:51:27,119
and, poking my head out of
the sack, saw that thing enter the

531
00:51:27,199 --> 00:51:31,159
room with my sister held by her
ankle in one of his misshapen fists.

532
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:37,639
She was bawling hysterically, and I
hoped that with this final action I might

533
00:51:37,719 --> 00:51:44,519
somehow save her. I crawled out
of the bag, launched myself at it,

534
00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:52,440
and jammed the broken pencil into its
booted foot. Immediately it dropped my

535
00:51:52,519 --> 00:51:58,639
sister and I stayed where I was
on the floor, sobbing, head bowed,

536
00:51:59,039 --> 00:52:07,960
waiting for the rest to come.
Only nothing did. Instead, that

537
00:52:08,079 --> 00:52:15,519
thing had sighed a bone deep,
weary sigh, the kind of parent let

538
00:52:15,599 --> 00:52:20,599
out when they realize the toddler has
been quiet for too long. With a

539
00:52:20,679 --> 00:52:25,079
voice like gravel. It spoke in
a harsh Germanic accent, spitting some of

540
00:52:25,119 --> 00:52:32,280
the words from between its broken teeth. So close this year, good trap,

541
00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:39,920
little one, But I will not
fall for this one Twice with one

542
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:45,480
of its clawed hands. It pulled
the pencil out of his foot and stumped

543
00:52:45,519 --> 00:52:51,199
away, and I passed out before
I had the chance to hear the rest.

544
00:52:53,719 --> 00:52:59,559
It was our grandfather who eventually found
us, both huddled together on the

545
00:52:59,639 --> 00:53:04,960
living and floor. The next month
or so was a blur. A lot

546
00:53:05,039 --> 00:53:08,960
changed. We were taken into my
grandfather's care, and we had to bury

547
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:15,880
our parents, not to mention moving
out sorting the home. Our contribution to

548
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:20,320
this wasn't much, of course,
we were kids, but we still had

549
00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:24,039
to go back and get some of
our things. I don't remember much of

550
00:53:24,079 --> 00:53:30,159
it, to be honest. My
grandfather years later would sit me down and

551
00:53:30,239 --> 00:53:35,880
give me an account of the night
as best he could. My father's piston

552
00:53:35,920 --> 00:53:40,360
trap had gone wrong and blown half
the living room to smithereens bad luck on

553
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:45,599
any day, but this time it
had happened the year that that thing came

554
00:53:45,639 --> 00:53:51,480
to visit us, and with no
traps left, it had a clean run

555
00:53:51,599 --> 00:53:57,039
into the house where it wrought its
havoc. Only has to be a nick,

556
00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:00,920
my grandfather said, with a stoic
stremes or gesturing a cut on his

557
00:54:01,039 --> 00:54:07,159
palm. Your father over complicated things, I told him, this after the

558
00:54:07,239 --> 00:54:14,159
time he caused the fire too much. Trap has the working principle not practical,

559
00:54:14,920 --> 00:54:20,239
no need for compressors or pistons.
That is why your piston. Yeah,

560
00:54:20,519 --> 00:54:23,800
sent it away. You may trap, trap, hurt it, it

561
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:30,039
go away. Those rules we follow
rules, give it chimney to come down,

562
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:37,119
play its game. We win or
it wins. Either way it has

563
00:54:37,199 --> 00:54:45,480
it's fun. He spiked the last
words. Can't blame him. No part

564
00:54:45,519 --> 00:54:51,960
of that was fun for us.
But at least Grandpa was honest with us.

565
00:54:52,639 --> 00:54:55,360
He explained the curse as best he
knew it. The rules. The

566
00:54:55,440 --> 00:55:01,239
traps introduced us to our extended family
from je and we learned that the game

567
00:55:01,360 --> 00:55:07,440
is played with at least one household
from the family every year, and it

568
00:55:07,519 --> 00:55:13,199
helps to stay in touch and talk
about what did or God forbid did not

569
00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:20,280
work. As for its origin,
well, our grandmother took that to a

570
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:25,840
grave. Unfortunately Grandpa didn't know it, nor did anyone else. Might have

571
00:55:25,920 --> 00:55:30,000
been something from a childhood, maybe
a deal with something she found in the

572
00:55:30,039 --> 00:55:37,480
woods. Who knows, it doesn't
matter. He was a miserable man who

573
00:55:37,599 --> 00:55:43,480
raised us as best he could.
But I could at least understand why he

574
00:55:43,559 --> 00:55:49,519
was so cantankerous and difficult. He'd
fallen in love with a woman and gotten

575
00:55:49,519 --> 00:55:53,320
a pregnant before the first Christmas,
having no idea what lay in wait,

576
00:55:54,519 --> 00:56:00,119
and then when he found out the
bizarre truth, he stuck it out year

577
00:56:00,360 --> 00:56:07,039
after year, one painful loss after
another. I admire him for it,

578
00:56:07,719 --> 00:56:14,039
admired the way he didn't let anything
get to him, at least not in

579
00:56:14,079 --> 00:56:19,719
front of us, because I do
remember some things about waking up that day,

580
00:56:20,360 --> 00:56:24,239
about him finding us. I remember
that the monster, having lost its

581
00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:30,199
game, had returned our parents to
us, only it was a little too

582
00:56:30,239 --> 00:56:37,800
late for them. I remember wet
sacks beneath the chimney, blood leaking from

583
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:45,199
the fabric. My parents were cremated
for good reason. Whatever it had done

584
00:56:45,199 --> 00:56:51,199
to them, well, that thing
is a sick and twisted creature, that's

585
00:56:51,239 --> 00:56:57,239
for sure. I can only assume
that's why after returning the sacks, it

586
00:56:57,320 --> 00:57:01,400
had taken little tags and tied them
around them top, gifting our parents back

587
00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:08,840
to us, even after it had
budgeted them until only ribbons remained. Merry

588
00:57:08,920 --> 00:57:27,639
Christmas, little ones the tag read, and so many more to come back.

589
00:57:27,719 --> 00:57:31,199
In twenty seventeen, I was about
six months out of an internship with

590
00:57:31,280 --> 00:57:37,000
a local law firm. I was
a junior legal assistant as part of a

591
00:57:37,039 --> 00:57:43,880
retainer team for a statewide biodiesel business. It wasn't my only assignment, but

592
00:57:44,239 --> 00:57:49,960
it was the one I was formally
hired for. However, during downtime,

593
00:57:50,599 --> 00:57:57,679
I was bounced around various teams all
throughout the year. It was early February

594
00:57:58,079 --> 00:58:02,480
when the call came. The bio
diesel place had a new owner and he

595
00:58:02,559 --> 00:58:07,239
wanted to shake things up. Our
jobs were safe, but he wanted to

596
00:58:07,239 --> 00:58:14,679
make some investments new manufacturing plants,
two in Missouri and one to the west,

597
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:22,039
within reasonable driving distance from their warehouses. Only problem was there were no

598
00:58:22,199 --> 00:58:27,440
suitable properties to build on. This
could be a multi million dollar kind of

599
00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:31,760
thing, but we didn't have a
property to sign off on. That is

600
00:58:32,000 --> 00:58:37,880
until I realized that the area they
were looking at was my old home town

601
00:58:37,119 --> 00:58:45,320
of Tomscog, Minnesota. I suggested
looking into an old property I'd gone by

602
00:58:45,360 --> 00:58:50,760
a thousand times on my way to
school. It was this massive empty field

603
00:58:50,800 --> 00:58:54,320
in the outskirts of town with nothing
but a few run down houses that could

604
00:58:54,360 --> 00:59:00,159
easily be torn down. We knew
the place was privately owned, but I

605
00:59:00,199 --> 00:59:07,159
had no idea of who the proprietor
was. My boss was ecstatic. See

606
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:12,760
the client had been considering calling the
whole thing off, but if we could

607
00:59:12,800 --> 00:59:17,000
offer them a property, we could
probably get a fat bonus check along with

608
00:59:17,079 --> 00:59:22,599
a finder's fee. It would be
enough to take the junior part off my

609
00:59:22,719 --> 00:59:28,360
job title. Since I suggested it, I was given time off to get

610
00:59:28,360 --> 00:59:35,119
in touch with the owner of the
property. There were some initial problems.

611
00:59:35,519 --> 00:59:38,800
The original property documents had been damaged
in a flood back in twenty fourteen,

612
00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:45,039
and only part of the archive had
been digitized. The document I was looking

613
00:59:45,079 --> 00:59:50,880
for might not have been digitized yet, and since no immediate documents were available,

614
00:59:51,760 --> 00:59:55,719
I was starting to suspect the worst. The clerk at the municipal office

615
00:59:55,840 --> 01:00:00,599
promised they'd get back to me with
a name within four to one eight weeks

616
01:00:00,119 --> 01:00:08,440
twelve of the most That wasn't an
option, so I packed my bags and

617
01:00:08,559 --> 01:00:13,559
did my cat to my mom,
got the fancy maroon B and W company

618
01:00:13,599 --> 01:00:19,599
car and set my sights on familiar
roads. It took me two stops for

619
01:00:19,679 --> 01:00:24,679
gas and a needlessly complicated detour because
of a fallen oak tree, but I

620
01:00:24,760 --> 01:00:30,440
made my way back to that field
just as the sun started to set.

621
01:00:30,719 --> 01:00:37,400
After all these years, it was
exactly as I remembered, one large empty

622
01:00:37,440 --> 01:00:44,440
property, now covered in mud stained
February snow, a run down barn at

623
01:00:44,480 --> 01:00:47,400
the edge of the property, and
a small, one story log cabin right

624
01:00:47,480 --> 01:00:53,519
next door. All roads were overgrown
and there were no discernible paths out there.

625
01:00:54,679 --> 01:00:59,519
I considered going back in the morning, but I figured I had some

626
01:00:59,599 --> 01:01:02,719
time life left. Maybe there was
this big plaque with the name of the

627
01:01:02,719 --> 01:01:07,079
owner out front. If so,
I get over it all settled in a

628
01:01:07,199 --> 01:01:10,599
day and be on my way home
before I even had time to unpack.

629
01:01:13,280 --> 01:01:17,760
It was getting late and the shadows
had grown longer, but I was willing

630
01:01:17,760 --> 01:01:23,519
to roll those dice. I double
checked my phone, got a flashlight from

631
01:01:23,559 --> 01:01:29,239
the trunk, and locked my car. The snow was deep enough to reach

632
01:01:29,320 --> 01:01:34,840
my knees. My fancy shoes fell
like paper. The cold went straight through

633
01:01:36,360 --> 01:01:43,920
still. I pushed on bee lining
straight across the field. I severely overestimated

634
01:01:44,159 --> 01:01:47,280
how much time I had left.
By the time I got to the cabin,

635
01:01:47,840 --> 01:01:52,719
it was already getting dark. Using
the flashlight, I took a quick

636
01:01:52,800 --> 01:01:58,280
lap around the place, just to
make sure I wasn't walking into some kind

637
01:01:58,320 --> 01:02:02,119
of hillbilly trap room. It didn't
take long for me to realize that this

638
01:02:02,280 --> 01:02:07,559
place had been abandoned for years.
Not only was it boarded up, but

639
01:02:07,679 --> 01:02:14,079
the boards used were rotten. That
the place was standing at all was nothing

640
01:02:14,239 --> 01:02:21,119
short of a miracle. I tried
knocking a little, just to make sure

641
01:02:21,320 --> 01:02:27,119
no one was home, but I
wasn't holding my breath. The place was

642
01:02:27,199 --> 01:02:31,840
desolate. I looked for some kind
of name or plaque or hell, something

643
01:02:31,960 --> 01:02:39,840
carved into the wall somewhere, anything, but there really was nothing. I

644
01:02:39,920 --> 01:02:45,400
considered coming back in the morning,
but I could see dark clouds on the

645
01:02:45,440 --> 01:02:50,000
horizon, and I didn't want to
walk through that snow more times than necessary.

646
01:02:51,239 --> 01:02:55,639
I decided I'd do a little urban
exploring. After all, if the

647
01:02:55,679 --> 01:03:02,000
door was open, it wouldn't hurt
to have a peak inside. I walked

648
01:03:02,119 --> 01:03:08,599
up to the door, I noticed
something strange. There was a carving at

649
01:03:08,599 --> 01:03:15,199
the top of the doorframe. Word
by word, my flashlight revealed the full

650
01:03:15,320 --> 01:03:22,760
sentence, no one has ever lived
in this house. I tried to wrap

651
01:03:22,800 --> 01:03:28,880
my brain around it. It didn't
make much sense. What the hell did

652
01:03:28,920 --> 01:03:34,000
that even mean? Of course,
someone had lived there, someone built it,

653
01:03:34,480 --> 01:03:37,599
and someone owned the property. Why
would there be a house in the

654
01:03:37,639 --> 01:03:45,800
middle of nowhere that no one had
ever lived in? I hesitated. Something

655
01:03:45,920 --> 01:03:51,400
told me to just walk away and
come back in the morning, But the

656
01:03:51,400 --> 01:03:57,760
clouds and the horizon and my freezing
feet were telling me otherwise. There was

657
01:03:57,840 --> 01:04:03,920
a carving that meant someone had the
habit of leaving messages. Chances were there

658
01:04:04,000 --> 01:04:10,119
might be more of them inside.
Twiddling the handler a little, I noticed

659
01:04:10,199 --> 01:04:17,159
the door was unlocked, so in
I went. The cabin had a very

660
01:04:17,199 --> 01:04:23,480
basic layout. There was one large
room with a wooden bench facing a simple

661
01:04:23,519 --> 01:04:29,599
fireplace. There were two handmade tables, and the westernmost wall was lined with

662
01:04:29,679 --> 01:04:34,679
dried herbs, mostly blue and black. There was a surprisingly clean cowskin on

663
01:04:34,719 --> 01:04:40,199
the floor, as well as a
small door on the easternmost side of the

664
01:04:40,280 --> 01:04:45,960
room leading to a kitchen. It
was mostly just an antique kind of stove

665
01:04:45,280 --> 01:04:50,400
and a couple of cabinets. But
whoever lived there must have been accustomed to

666
01:04:50,480 --> 01:04:58,519
a sparse lifestyle. But no,
that wasn't it. I had to correct

667
01:04:58,599 --> 01:05:06,239
myself. The carving said no one
had ever lived there, then why the

668
01:05:06,280 --> 01:05:14,559
furniture. I decided to ignore the
message for the time being, instead focusing

669
01:05:14,719 --> 01:05:18,800
on finding the name of whoever owned
the place. There might be some initials

670
01:05:18,800 --> 01:05:24,800
on the handmade furniture. I gently
moved the bench and the table first,

671
01:05:25,280 --> 01:05:30,440
going over them with my flashlight.
There were no obvious markings, but another

672
01:05:30,519 --> 01:05:38,960
problem quickly arose. My flashlight was
giving up on me. It started the

673
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:45,039
flicker. Looking around, I could
see no other possible source of light but

674
01:05:45,199 --> 01:05:50,800
the old fireplace, and I couldn't
imagine that thing not being clogged. Then

675
01:05:50,840 --> 01:05:57,400
again, there was firewood, and
I did have a lighter. I quit

676
01:05:57,440 --> 01:06:01,239
smoking about two years prior, but
I kept it around just in case,

677
01:06:02,679 --> 01:06:06,880
breaking off a piece of bark and
lighting it. I double checked to make

678
01:06:06,920 --> 01:06:16,199
sure the smoke cleared and went up. Surprisingly it did. Glancing at my

679
01:06:16,280 --> 01:06:20,440
phone, I figured I could use
it for a flashlight as well, but

680
01:06:20,880 --> 01:06:26,639
I didn't want to drain the battery. Instead, I lit a fire and

681
01:06:26,760 --> 01:06:30,400
left the front door open, just
in case the smoke didn't entirely clear out.

682
01:06:31,559 --> 01:06:38,679
Carbon monoxide poisoning ain't no joke.
As the fire sputtered to life,

683
01:06:39,239 --> 01:06:43,719
they sat down to take a breather
on the bench. It was a pretty

684
01:06:43,719 --> 01:06:46,920
cozy little cabin, the kind of
place you'd stay in a night or two

685
01:06:47,079 --> 01:06:53,039
when going fishing. I could imagine
my dad warming his hands by that fire.

686
01:06:54,519 --> 01:06:58,199
I lost him in twenty ten,
but that was the kind of place

687
01:06:58,239 --> 01:07:02,639
he'd always been most at home in. As I warmed my hands, watching

688
01:07:02,639 --> 01:07:09,480
my shadows grow longer, I could
imagine him sitting next to me. I

689
01:07:09,519 --> 01:07:15,400
could almost hear him, And in
that moment, my eyes drifted to a

690
01:07:15,440 --> 01:07:20,880
space right in front of the fireplace, the space where a small iron plate

691
01:07:21,079 --> 01:07:28,280
protected the floor. I don't know
what drove me to look closer, but

692
01:07:28,360 --> 01:07:33,119
I realized there were no screws or
nails keeping that plate down, so with

693
01:07:33,199 --> 01:07:40,079
a quick touch of the fire poker, it came loose, revealing a sort

694
01:07:40,079 --> 01:07:47,800
of makeshift metal box. There were
four items in total, a broken pocket

695
01:07:47,840 --> 01:07:54,280
watch, an empty hip flask,
three spent shotgun shells, and a small

696
01:07:54,360 --> 01:08:00,559
journal. I went straight for the
journal, checking for a name. It

697
01:08:00,679 --> 01:08:05,000
was getting darker outside, so I
huddled around the fire. The snow began

698
01:08:05,079 --> 01:08:11,760
to tap against the wooden barricades.
I had two choices, to steal this

699
01:08:11,920 --> 01:08:17,239
journal or to read it by the
fire as the storm raged on. It

700
01:08:17,359 --> 01:08:21,960
was my cold feet that decided for
me. I took off my shoes and

701
01:08:23,079 --> 01:08:27,279
warmed them by the fire as they
started to slowly read my way through the

702
01:08:27,399 --> 01:08:30,880
rough, cursive text of the old
journal. Not the kind of job I

703
01:08:30,880 --> 01:08:34,800
had imagined i'd do at a law
firm. But things never quite go the

704
01:08:34,840 --> 01:08:41,359
way you've planned. I opened the
first page, hoping to find the name.

705
01:08:42,880 --> 01:08:51,560
Instead, I was greeted by a
strange text journal written by then nothing

706
01:08:53,880 --> 01:09:00,279
that was it? No name,
just that. I turned the book over

707
01:09:00,479 --> 01:09:08,920
back and forth, no name anywhere. I kept reading. The first page

708
01:09:09,039 --> 01:09:15,960
reads as follows. I once had
a name, and creed a couple of

709
01:09:15,039 --> 01:09:21,079
truths, thrown to the grave long
before my end. Now I remain battered

710
01:09:21,079 --> 01:09:27,199
and empty, my history as unusual
as my mind turns, sun bleached and

711
01:09:27,279 --> 01:09:32,199
distant, my heart burns of wrath. But I cannot recall as to why

712
01:09:34,279 --> 01:09:40,039
I turned the page. I couldn't
help but to be intrigued, if not

713
01:09:40,119 --> 01:09:45,199
for any other reason, then to
find the name of the author. This

714
01:09:45,319 --> 01:09:49,680
house is not my property, and
to my recollection, no one has ever

715
01:09:49,720 --> 01:09:57,640
lived here. He proceeded to discuss
at length the part of his history that

716
01:09:57,720 --> 01:10:01,880
he did remember, growing up in
Wisconsin, being the son of a shoemaker

717
01:10:02,600 --> 01:10:08,479
little anecdotes of a long life.
His first kiss, his first love,

718
01:10:08,640 --> 01:10:14,960
his first house. But the further
along he tried to remember, the foggire

719
01:10:15,159 --> 01:10:19,039
it got. I was starting to
think I might never find a name,

720
01:10:20,079 --> 01:10:27,319
but I wasn't sure why. At
some point, the author recalled something happening.

721
01:10:28,560 --> 01:10:32,199
He couldn't explain what, or why
or where, but he could recall

722
01:10:32,399 --> 01:10:39,520
something upsetting his routine. Something came
to him and it made him upset.

723
01:10:40,399 --> 01:10:44,840
He spoke about putting up barricades,
keeping a loaded shotgun at the ready,

724
01:10:45,560 --> 01:10:50,560
and locking himself inside for days on
end. It might have been here.

725
01:10:50,640 --> 01:10:56,840
Then I made my stand. He
wrote, it could be worse. It

726
01:10:56,920 --> 01:11:01,760
should be, but I can't say
that it was. He would go on

727
01:11:01,880 --> 01:11:06,560
to detail some sort of struggle,
but he couldn't picture what it was against

728
01:11:08,640 --> 01:11:13,960
the text was so strangely written.
I could tell there were segments, as

729
01:11:14,000 --> 01:11:17,800
if written piece by piece, but
it was impossible to tell just how much

730
01:11:17,840 --> 01:11:24,159
time had passed between them. Even
in the journal, the author lamented on

731
01:11:24,319 --> 01:11:30,640
large segments of time randomly missing,
And I couldn't help but to consider the

732
01:11:30,720 --> 01:11:38,279
other items in the box, in
particular the spent shotgun shells, the author

733
01:11:38,359 --> 01:11:43,880
proceeded to explain how he'd broken the
pocket watch, as if frustrated him he

734
01:11:44,000 --> 01:11:47,920
was losing track of time. He
might think ten minutes had passed, only

735
01:11:47,960 --> 01:11:54,800
to realize the entire afternoon was gone. He broke his watch as a reminder

736
01:11:55,319 --> 01:12:00,359
that he couldn't trust himself anymore.
Maybe I'll remember that, he wrote,

737
01:12:01,079 --> 01:12:08,199
or will the watch unbreak itself?
I was disrupted from my read by a

738
01:12:08,239 --> 01:12:13,000
sudden noise. Looking up, I
could see the fire was dying out.

739
01:12:14,119 --> 01:12:19,359
The sound actually came from my phone. Turns out it was my automated time

740
01:12:19,399 --> 01:12:28,000
to go to bed. Alert,
I'd been sitting there for six hours.

741
01:12:28,760 --> 01:12:35,479
That didn't make sense. I stood
up, clutching the journal. There was

742
01:12:35,520 --> 01:12:42,079
nothing there. The cabin was empty, but I couldn't escape this sudden sense

743
01:12:42,079 --> 01:12:47,079
of dread, like something awful had
just happened, but I couldn't say exactly

744
01:12:47,119 --> 01:12:54,479
what. Looking down on the journal, I suddenly realized that I felt exactly

745
01:12:54,760 --> 01:13:00,920
as described by the author. I
felt this unexplainable anxiousness, like that uneasy

746
01:13:00,960 --> 01:13:08,960
feeling you get when you feel that
someone is watching you, only more palpable.

747
01:13:11,840 --> 01:13:17,640
Standing up with my back to the
fireplace, I continued reading He continued

748
01:13:17,680 --> 01:13:23,439
to explain how his flask was empty, but that he couldn't remember drinking from

749
01:13:23,479 --> 01:13:28,720
it. He detailed his plan to
conceal a few items along with its journal

750
01:13:28,880 --> 01:13:31,960
for an entire day, just to
see if he could remember to retrieve it.

751
01:13:33,359 --> 01:13:38,880
But not yet, he lamented,
there are trespasses to deal with.

752
01:13:41,479 --> 01:13:45,720
This is where the spent shells came
into play. The author revealed how it

753
01:13:45,840 --> 01:13:51,399
found a group of strange trespasses.
He'd taken them all out with his shotgun.

754
01:13:53,520 --> 01:13:58,079
He wrote in detail about shooting three
times, but that he couldn't remember

755
01:13:58,279 --> 01:14:02,960
anything about them, men, women, or children. There was no way

756
01:14:03,039 --> 01:14:10,680
to tell. I buried them by
the barn. He detailed it seemed like

757
01:14:10,720 --> 01:14:16,279
the right thing to do. Why
am I crying? As the journal neared

758
01:14:16,279 --> 01:14:23,079
its end, the author tried to
summarize his remaining thoughts. Something came to

759
01:14:23,199 --> 01:14:30,640
him wherever he was, It did
something, and as a result, everything

760
01:14:30,039 --> 01:14:38,159
was destroyed. He was devastated,
but couldn't even remember why. It was

761
01:14:38,239 --> 01:14:45,279
like muscle memory, something in his
body was remembering the sadness I inscribe upon

762
01:14:45,319 --> 01:14:50,760
this door. He wrote that no
one has ever lived here. I do

763
01:14:50,840 --> 01:14:56,600
not recall this place or any one
living here. It serves as a warning

764
01:14:57,199 --> 01:15:04,000
and a reminder that this is not
my home. And with the final page,

765
01:15:04,520 --> 01:15:09,920
the author documented putting it all in
a sort of hidden lock box in

766
01:15:09,960 --> 01:15:14,880
front of the fireplace. He would
do so for one day to see if

767
01:15:14,920 --> 01:15:24,359
he could remember retrieving it. Evidently
he couldn't. With the final words on

768
01:15:24,439 --> 01:15:30,000
the final page, he gave one
last piece of insight, perhaps in a

769
01:15:30,079 --> 01:15:39,279
moment of clarity. It started when
I lit the fire, he wrote.

770
01:15:39,600 --> 01:15:45,560
Everything turned worse after I lit the
fire. Looking back at the fireplace and

771
01:15:45,600 --> 01:15:50,439
the spluttering logs, I slowly came
to the realization of what kind of situation

772
01:15:50,720 --> 01:15:57,520
I'd put myself in. I accidentally
followed the footsteps of a man who used

773
01:15:57,560 --> 01:16:00,760
to be in that cabin, a
man that I'd have owned it but couldn't

774
01:16:00,760 --> 01:16:05,840
even remember it, or who knows, maybe he was just passing by.

775
01:16:09,439 --> 01:16:14,520
I decided to take my chances and
just leave. I brought the journal along,

776
01:16:15,039 --> 01:16:20,840
opened the door, and prepared to
brave the weather. But something happened

777
01:16:23,760 --> 01:16:29,279
right then and there, Something made
me stop, and I just stood there.

778
01:16:30,359 --> 01:16:32,920
I stood there long enough for my
hands to turn blue, and I

779
01:16:32,960 --> 01:16:43,600
only snapped out of it when a
snowflake hit my eye. I wasn't alone.

780
01:16:43,840 --> 01:16:49,479
There was something there, and he
was doing something to me. I

781
01:16:49,520 --> 01:16:56,239
had wrung the damned dinner bell.
Thinking about it, it feels a bit

782
01:16:56,279 --> 01:17:02,560
like being eaten alive, not physically, the same feeling remains, this heedless

783
01:17:02,560 --> 01:17:10,319
consumption, something taking an intimate part
of what makes you into you and tearing

784
01:17:10,359 --> 01:17:16,000
it away. That's what I still
remember. That's what it feels like,

785
01:17:18,000 --> 01:17:23,880
but it is hard to explain something
I can't remember. It feels like a

786
01:17:23,960 --> 01:17:28,000
void in your mind, but you
have this instinct to fill it with something

787
01:17:28,039 --> 01:17:32,840
bad, like watching a scary movie
and knowing something horrifying is about to pop

788
01:17:32,920 --> 01:17:38,840
up. Every time I think about
it, trying to picture it in my

789
01:17:38,920 --> 01:17:45,000
mind, I get that same feeling. Sometimes my mind fills it with a

790
01:17:45,039 --> 01:17:51,039
sort of organic darkness, roughly shaped
as a person. Other times it's just

791
01:17:51,119 --> 01:17:58,039
some guy. It changes whenever I
look back at it, because there is

792
01:17:58,119 --> 01:18:02,760
nothing there for me to remember,
so my mind fills in the blanks.

793
01:18:03,239 --> 01:18:11,119
But who's to say that all those
blanks are false? I turned around and

794
01:18:11,199 --> 01:18:15,319
realized I'd been exposed to this thing. It was doing something to me,

795
01:18:16,159 --> 01:18:20,279
and it was bad enough to make
me run head first into the dark.

796
01:18:23,359 --> 01:18:28,560
Looking back at this, all I
really remember was feeling that immense panic.

797
01:18:29,319 --> 01:18:34,560
I pray reflex my trying to escape
a wild animal. I ended up in

798
01:18:34,640 --> 01:18:39,920
the old barn, where I hid
behind a mound of debris next to one

799
01:18:39,960 --> 01:18:45,800
of those collapsed walls. My fingers
were freezing, but I was going to

800
01:18:45,840 --> 01:18:50,279
call for help no matter what.
Only problem was. I couldn't remember the

801
01:18:50,319 --> 01:18:57,039
code to unlock my phone. I
tried, but between my fingers being too

802
01:18:57,079 --> 01:19:03,039
cold to register and something unfathomable approaching
from just around the corner, I decided

803
01:19:03,359 --> 01:19:09,800
it was better to hunker down and
be quiet. Because when I can't remember

804
01:19:09,920 --> 01:19:15,840
anything about the physical features of it, I remember thinking it wasn't very perceptive.

805
01:19:15,880 --> 01:19:21,000
For some reason, it passed me
by, but I couldn't make any

806
01:19:21,119 --> 01:19:26,880
sounds without revealing my position. Calling
for help was out of the question.

807
01:19:28,359 --> 01:19:32,960
Instead, I turned my attention back
to the journal. My lock screen had

808
01:19:32,960 --> 01:19:38,439
a bright picture blurred in the background, allowing me to use it as a

809
01:19:38,479 --> 01:19:44,520
makeshift mini flashlight of sorts. For
some reason, I wasn't afraid that the

810
01:19:44,560 --> 01:19:55,039
creature would spot me visually. Perhaps
it didn't have eyes. I turned the

811
01:19:55,079 --> 01:20:00,520
pages back and forth looking for a
particular segment. There was some thing about

812
01:20:00,520 --> 01:20:03,880
the weapon the author had used to
deal with the intruders that left me wondering.

813
01:20:04,920 --> 01:20:10,960
But I could barely make out anything
in that journal. Between my pounding

814
01:20:11,000 --> 01:20:15,359
heart, my freezing hands, and
the strange thing lurking about, I couldn't

815
01:20:15,399 --> 01:20:20,920
make heads or tails of the damned
cursive text. I can't remember what kind

816
01:20:20,960 --> 01:20:26,640
of sounds the creature made, but
I can remember the sounds the environment made

817
01:20:26,720 --> 01:20:32,119
when it passed. I remember wood
splintering as something climbed the walls. I

818
01:20:32,159 --> 01:20:38,720
remember creaking wood from a sudden weight
coming down. I remember a door splintering

819
01:20:39,079 --> 01:20:45,239
as it was torn from its hinges. Finally I found the page I was

820
01:20:45,319 --> 01:20:50,239
looking for. Just after talking about
how he didn't know why he was sad

821
01:20:50,279 --> 01:20:57,000
about killing the intruders, the author
wrote, I threw the damn thing into

822
01:20:57,039 --> 01:21:00,840
the hay loft. I have not
been able to retrieve it, as the

823
01:21:00,880 --> 01:21:05,159
memory of its shape eludes me.
How does one recognize a weapon that one

824
01:21:05,319 --> 01:21:14,119
has no recollection of ever wielding?
I waited for the entity to step outside

825
01:21:14,680 --> 01:21:19,800
before I made my way upstairs.
It is a strange feeling trying to balance

826
01:21:19,880 --> 01:21:27,359
the instinct to run with the obsessive
thought of staying quiet. Every creaking floorboard

827
01:21:27,439 --> 01:21:32,319
sent shivers down my spine, curling
my toes in anticipation of something running me

828
01:21:32,439 --> 01:21:40,920
down, but nothing happened. It
didn't take long for me to find it,

829
01:21:41,920 --> 01:21:46,319
an old double worrowed hunting rifle.
Looking over it, I saw that

830
01:21:46,359 --> 01:21:51,920
there was some sort of shell still
loaded. Perhaps it would work, perhaps

831
01:21:51,960 --> 01:21:57,840
not. I was no expert,
and I didn't have much of a choice

832
01:21:57,880 --> 01:22:02,560
but to try. I'd be a
sitting dock out there without it. After

833
01:22:02,600 --> 01:22:11,319
all, I couldn't remember where I'd
parked my car. I decided to go

834
01:22:11,479 --> 01:22:15,880
on the offensive. I made my
way down the stairs a little too quick,

835
01:22:16,680 --> 01:22:21,439
and before long I heard this scurring
noise as something entered the old barn.

836
01:22:23,760 --> 01:22:28,039
I remember standing a good fifteen feet
away from it and raising the weapon

837
01:22:28,119 --> 01:22:33,119
towards it. It stopped, but
so did I. For a while,

838
01:22:34,079 --> 01:22:42,600
we just sort of circled one another. I remember my movement being in response

839
01:22:42,680 --> 01:22:50,039
to a threat. Do you is
this eat or play? I asked?

840
01:22:50,640 --> 01:22:57,439
If this is you eating, I
bet all all those memories disappear after a

841
01:22:57,479 --> 01:23:02,880
while digested, then you wouldn't remember
what this is. Oh, what it

842
01:23:02,920 --> 01:23:10,560
does. But you do, don't
you. I remember tapping the gun for

843
01:23:10,680 --> 01:23:15,920
emphasis. There was a long pause, but I can't remember. Why did

844
01:23:15,960 --> 01:23:23,159
it respond? Could it talk?
If you're just playing, then you you

845
01:23:23,279 --> 01:23:28,920
might remember that this thing is loaded, I continued, and you might know

846
01:23:29,039 --> 01:23:33,000
what it does. You saw what
happened when he used it. You heard

847
01:23:33,039 --> 01:23:41,640
it a shorter a pause. We
stopped circling. I gripped the weapon tighter

848
01:23:41,880 --> 01:23:47,920
and stepped forward advancing. If this
was a consumer and it worked in any

849
01:23:47,920 --> 01:23:53,920
way like we do, it would
absorb and convert what it fed on into

850
01:23:53,960 --> 01:23:59,399
some sort of nutrient. But if
it was just collecting for some reason,

851
01:24:00,079 --> 01:24:03,760
then it would have this archive of
thoughts to recollect from. That was my

852
01:24:03,880 --> 01:24:13,399
reasoning. Or maybe it was just
clever. Maybe it was just as clever

853
01:24:13,760 --> 01:24:20,640
as I was. I made my
way back outside, even in the newly

854
01:24:20,680 --> 01:24:26,399
fallen snow. I managed to find
what remained of the path I'd made when

855
01:24:26,399 --> 01:24:31,000
I first got there. I walked
backwards down the path, my rifle readily

856
01:24:31,039 --> 01:24:39,000
aimed at something I didn't want to
build the trigger. If it misfired or

857
01:24:39,039 --> 01:24:44,600
I missed, I was dead.
Just having the means of defending myself was

858
01:24:44,720 --> 01:24:51,720
enough to keep it away for now. I think it had left some sort

859
01:24:51,720 --> 01:24:58,359
of toxin in me. Despite not
being anywhere near me, I still felt

860
01:24:58,399 --> 01:25:02,079
the effects of it. I kept
falling into this sort of fugue state,

861
01:25:02,800 --> 01:25:09,960
getting turned round and loosing grip of
where I was going and why. At

862
01:25:10,000 --> 01:25:14,600
one point I was just standing there, gawking at the dark as my rifle

863
01:25:14,680 --> 01:25:19,760
thumped to the ground. But there
in the dark, a memory surfaced,

864
01:25:20,319 --> 01:25:26,399
the same memory I'd felt back in
the cabin. Thought to my dad taking

865
01:25:26,439 --> 01:25:31,960
me fishing. Back then, we'd
worn rubber boots, and instead of snow,

866
01:25:32,159 --> 01:25:36,399
there was mud. It was still
deep, and I had to walk

867
01:25:36,479 --> 01:25:42,199
the same way that I did in
the snow. Maybe that's what triggered the

868
01:25:42,239 --> 01:25:46,680
memory to begin with. I tried
to keep that image in my head,

869
01:25:47,159 --> 01:25:53,680
the anticipation as we gathered our bait, learning how to tie a proper knot

870
01:25:53,920 --> 01:25:58,479
getting the correct measurements for the distance
between the hook, the weight and the

871
01:25:58,520 --> 01:26:02,520
bobber. I could almost hear the
spinning fish line as the red and white

872
01:26:02,520 --> 01:26:10,640
bobber sailed across the lake. Just
holding on to something I knew I couldn't

873
01:26:10,640 --> 01:26:15,319
forget was all I needed. It
became this sort of bed rock keeping me

874
01:26:15,640 --> 01:26:21,720
from completely losing my mind and focus. I could keep going, holding on

875
01:26:21,800 --> 01:26:28,079
to something I knew to be true. It was a backstop keeping me from

876
01:26:28,159 --> 01:26:34,399
losing track. I grabbed the rifle
and pressed on as I did. I

877
01:26:34,479 --> 01:26:43,920
remember something rustling the nearby trees,
retreating into the woods. By the time

878
01:26:44,039 --> 01:26:47,319
I had made it to my car, the tocsin had completely taken hold of

879
01:26:47,359 --> 01:26:53,680
me. At that point I had
little to nothing to hold on to but

880
01:26:53,760 --> 01:26:59,239
for a few cherished memories. I
crawled into my car, locked all the

881
01:26:59,319 --> 01:27:03,439
doors, and tucked myself into a
fetal position in the back seat, still

882
01:27:03,439 --> 01:27:11,359
clutching the rifle. My body didn't
know how to react. I was hot,

883
01:27:11,720 --> 01:27:16,359
cold, wide awake, and deeply
unconscious. All seemingly at random,

884
01:27:17,319 --> 01:27:21,680
I would lose my sense of object
permanence, bobbing my head back and forth,

885
01:27:23,199 --> 01:27:28,920
completely forgetting what I was doing and
what was even happening. At one

886
01:27:28,960 --> 01:27:33,319
point, something made the passenger door
creak. Maybe someone tried to open it.

887
01:27:34,720 --> 01:27:42,359
Luckily, all the doors were locked
and I had the keys. I

888
01:27:42,439 --> 01:27:46,760
remember laying in the back of the
car raising the rifle. Then there was

889
01:27:46,800 --> 01:27:53,600
a pause, a long one.
Something made me shake my head It made

890
01:27:53,600 --> 01:27:59,439
me angry and afraid, very afraid. He left me with this sense of

891
01:27:59,479 --> 01:28:03,760
a rabbit being stared down by a
pack of wolves. I had something it

892
01:28:03,840 --> 01:28:14,399
wanted, something it deeply valued.
Again, this creature is just nothingness.

893
01:28:14,960 --> 01:28:17,920
I can't recall what it looked like, or if it was even a physical

894
01:28:18,000 --> 01:28:24,680
being. From context, I think
it could talk. I think it said

895
01:28:24,760 --> 01:28:29,039
something to me that I didn't want
to hear, And to this day,

896
01:28:29,760 --> 01:28:34,159
when I think of it, my
mind just conscious. These are the worldly

897
01:28:34,239 --> 01:28:43,720
horrors, teeth, skin claws.
But I didn't lower my rifle, not

898
01:28:43,880 --> 01:28:47,920
for a second. I didn't try
my luck, and I didn't challenge fate.

899
01:28:49,439 --> 01:28:56,439
And by the time the sun rose, it was gone, and with

900
01:28:56,560 --> 01:29:01,479
it went the sweats, the confusion, and much of the memory voids.

901
01:29:02,159 --> 01:29:09,640
First thing I did was check the
shotgun shell. Turns out it was already

902
01:29:09,680 --> 01:29:18,079
spent empty. That leaves a lot
of questions, uncomfortable ones. If that

903
01:29:18,159 --> 01:29:23,119
thing was just collecting, it would
have known that I couldn't hurt it.

904
01:29:24,239 --> 01:29:28,800
If it knew that, why did
it let me go? Did I trade

905
01:29:28,800 --> 01:29:34,079
it something? How would I even
know? But if it was just feeding,

906
01:29:34,119 --> 01:29:42,319
then how did it know to stay
away from the rifle. I have

907
01:29:42,520 --> 01:29:46,439
managed to put this story together piece
by piece. Some of my memories are

908
01:29:46,479 --> 01:29:51,319
still a bit touch and go,
but this is the most complete retelling I

909
01:29:51,359 --> 01:29:56,840
can make. I've tried to fill
in as many blanks as I can,

910
01:29:58,319 --> 01:30:02,960
but it's hard. I kept the
journal. I think I still have it

911
01:30:03,000 --> 01:30:09,000
somewhere. I showed it to my
boss, but it was a weak comfort.

912
01:30:10,239 --> 01:30:15,079
The client eventually ended up choosing another
sight, leaving us in an awful

913
01:30:15,119 --> 01:30:24,159
position. Needless to say, that
trip didn't get me promoted. That happened

914
01:30:24,239 --> 01:30:31,880
years later. Yeah, I still
worked there, same firm. I get

915
01:30:31,880 --> 01:30:38,199
the feeling that this thing didn't just
make people forget things, it made people

916
01:30:38,279 --> 01:30:44,279
be forgotten too. Despite all my
efforts, not a single person I've met

917
01:30:44,359 --> 01:30:49,079
or talked to can remember anyone ever
hearing anything about the people who used to

918
01:30:49,159 --> 01:30:56,239
live here. Even the cleric of
the municipal office kept forgetting I'd even made

919
01:30:56,239 --> 01:31:00,600
the request to inquire about the land
to begin with. That might have just

920
01:31:00,640 --> 01:31:06,600
been laziness, though, but I
get this feeling that I'm missing something.

921
01:31:08,960 --> 01:31:13,560
Even though I've wrapped my head around
most of this and most of what happened

922
01:31:13,560 --> 01:31:21,319
out there, I often get the
feeling that I lost something in those moments

923
01:31:21,720 --> 01:31:28,199
when everything in the world feels uncertain
and half true. I look back at

924
01:31:28,199 --> 01:31:31,920
that day with my dad, I
listened to the spinning of the fishing line.

925
01:31:34,760 --> 01:31:41,479
But here's the thing. This is
what bothers me. This is what

926
01:31:41,560 --> 01:31:46,239
made me want a post to kind
of save this for posterity, like a

927
01:31:46,319 --> 01:31:57,000
journal of my own hidden by my
own fireplace. Lately, I can't remember

928
01:31:58,840 --> 01:32:06,840
what my dad's eyes look like.
Am I just forgetting or is something forgetting

929
01:32:06,880 --> 01:32:23,199
it for me? My hometown of
Cedar Creek, Colorado, had a woman

930
01:32:23,479 --> 01:32:29,399
who everyone loved to hate. Her
name was Miss Gatlin, and she was

931
01:32:29,439 --> 01:32:34,199
both my elementary school's janitor and the
escapegoat for all unfortunate events around our town.

932
01:32:35,600 --> 01:32:40,399
The Cedar Creek elderly despised her for
having a son out of wedlock,

933
01:32:41,079 --> 01:32:45,399
and the town parents scorned her for
giving sets On too much freedom, a

934
01:32:45,520 --> 01:32:48,960
parenting style which had supposedly led to
his death at the hands of our town's

935
01:32:49,000 --> 01:32:55,880
eponymous river. As for the children
of Cedar Creek, we didn't care at

936
01:32:55,880 --> 01:33:01,920
all about social conventions or parental negligence, but we all agreed that Miss Gatlin

937
01:33:02,279 --> 01:33:09,960
was an ugly lady, and that
was enough to warrant our cruelty. My

938
01:33:10,039 --> 01:33:14,520
best friend at the time was a
curly haired menace to society named Isaac,

939
01:33:15,239 --> 01:33:20,439
who, by fifth grade had established
himself as a ringleader amongst the neighborhood boys.

940
01:33:21,039 --> 01:33:27,239
He did his best to inconvenience Miss
Gatlin, though his pranks did little

941
01:33:27,279 --> 01:33:31,880
to rattle her. If we spread
rumors about a poor hygiene just within ear

942
01:33:31,920 --> 01:33:38,199
shot, Miss Gatlin didn't bat an
eye. If we released bugs inside a

943
01:33:38,279 --> 01:33:44,560
janitorial closet, she'd calmly sweep them
outside. If we stuffed rotten food inside

944
01:33:44,560 --> 01:33:50,279
a locker, she'd clean it out
quietly and without complaint. Our usual tricks

945
01:33:50,359 --> 01:33:56,760
never worked on Miss Gatlin, and
all of us unimaginative kids were stunt by

946
01:33:56,840 --> 01:34:01,319
how to best the woman whose job
it was to clean up of all kinds.

947
01:34:02,800 --> 01:34:06,880
In my last year of primary school, Hannaka fell a week and a

948
01:34:06,960 --> 01:34:13,359
half before we were dismissed for winter
break. All of the Jewish children thoroughly

949
01:34:13,439 --> 01:34:16,159
enjoyed showing off their gifts to the
rest of us, who had to wait

950
01:34:16,199 --> 01:34:23,239
an eternity for our presence. Thanks
to kimpossible spy kids and totally spies,

951
01:34:23,920 --> 01:34:29,680
every kid in Cedar Creek was obsessed
with espionage, so Isaac's gift of a

952
01:34:29,720 --> 01:34:34,680
spy tech kit for kids made him
even more popular than usual. Most of

953
01:34:34,680 --> 01:34:41,039
the kit was cheap plastic junk,
but there was a small spy radio that

954
01:34:41,119 --> 01:34:47,159
seemed very well manufactured. It consisted
of an earpiece and a button sized microphone

955
01:34:47,520 --> 01:34:55,000
that was supposedly capable of transmitting audio
up to a radius of five miles.

956
01:34:55,000 --> 01:34:58,920
Isaac, myself, and the rest
of our crew spent most of the week

957
01:34:59,039 --> 01:35:04,359
before winter break running around town and
testing the capabilities of the device. The

958
01:35:04,479 --> 01:35:11,560
audio quality was surprisingly good, although
the airpiece of microphone could only be separated

959
01:35:11,640 --> 01:35:16,920
for about three miles before the sound
became too distorted to understand. It was

960
01:35:16,960 --> 01:35:21,800
a novel concept for a few days, but after a while we grew bored

961
01:35:21,800 --> 01:35:29,640
of playing walkie talkie. Isaac wanted
to use it for its intended purpose surveillance,

962
01:35:30,880 --> 01:35:35,880
and he had the perfect target in
mind. On the last day before

963
01:35:35,920 --> 01:35:41,600
winter break, Isaac and I glued
the button sized device to the back of

964
01:35:41,640 --> 01:35:45,560
an old brooch we had found in
his sister's jewelry box. We covered it

965
01:35:45,640 --> 01:35:49,239
up with a strip of velvet and
then glued on the pin and catch,

966
01:35:50,079 --> 01:35:55,439
and by the time we were done, you couldn't tell anything was amiss.

967
01:35:57,000 --> 01:36:00,800
We put it in a small white
box, which we put in my backpack

968
01:36:00,800 --> 01:36:04,920
for later. We determined that I
would be the one to deliver it,

969
01:36:05,479 --> 01:36:12,840
given Isaac's reputation as a prankster.
After school, I found Miss Gatlin in

970
01:36:12,880 --> 01:36:16,640
the staff breakroom. She barely looked
at me as I walked into the room.

971
01:36:18,039 --> 01:36:23,399
I noticed along the far wall of
the breakroom a wall of cubbies,

972
01:36:23,840 --> 01:36:28,000
each one marked with the name of
a staff member. All of them were

973
01:36:28,039 --> 01:36:32,439
filled with gifts and letters, presumably
from parents or other employees at the school.

974
01:36:33,479 --> 01:36:40,800
All of them, that is,
except one. You can't be in

975
01:36:40,880 --> 01:36:45,520
here, kid, miss Gatlin said
to me in a gruff voice. I

976
01:36:45,600 --> 01:36:49,840
know. I saw my backpack onto
my stomach and fished around for the box.

977
01:36:51,000 --> 01:36:55,399
It had gotten a little banged up
in my bag, but I figured

978
01:36:55,560 --> 01:37:00,399
she wouldn't really care. I procured
it and held it out to her.

979
01:37:00,520 --> 01:37:08,119
But I wanted to give you this
before the break She stopped packing up,

980
01:37:08,720 --> 01:37:14,479
turning fully towards me. For a
long time, she just stood there,

981
01:37:15,079 --> 01:37:19,720
staring suspiciously at the box. Setting
her bag down, she took a few

982
01:37:19,720 --> 01:37:25,560
steps forward and grabbed the box out
of my hand. She gave it a

983
01:37:25,600 --> 01:37:31,439
slight rattle and then opened it slowly. When she saw the brooch, she

984
01:37:31,600 --> 01:37:36,079
gingerly took it out of the box
and turned it around in her hand.

985
01:37:36,520 --> 01:37:44,880
Then she paused again, looking between
the glittering fake emerald and me. It's

986
01:37:45,039 --> 01:37:48,960
not new, sorry, it used
to be my mom's, I told her,

987
01:37:49,399 --> 01:37:54,880
going off the script, Isaac and
I had conceived to add more authenticity

988
01:37:54,960 --> 01:37:59,199
to the handoff. She doesn't wear
it anymore, but I thought you might

989
01:37:59,319 --> 01:38:09,119
like it. Miss Catlin kept staring
at me, her expression unreadable. I

990
01:38:09,159 --> 01:38:12,760
half expected her to chuck it into
the garbage bin in the corner of the

991
01:38:12,840 --> 01:38:18,600
room, but to my relief,
she gave me a single nod. Thank

992
01:38:18,680 --> 01:38:24,279
you, she said, and pinned
the brooch on to a cardigan carefully,

993
01:38:24,960 --> 01:38:30,319
like it was a precious gem and
not some cheap hunk of plastic. I

994
01:38:30,399 --> 01:38:34,439
gave her a smile that she did
not return, and then she shewed me

995
01:38:34,479 --> 01:38:43,680
away. Isaac was waiting for me
in the woods outside school. I flashed

996
01:38:43,720 --> 01:38:47,680
them her thumbs up, and he
slapped my back twice in congratulations. He

997
01:38:47,720 --> 01:38:53,319
pulled the earpiece out of his backpack
and held it between us. I put

998
01:38:53,319 --> 01:38:57,359
my ear next to the speaker and
was delighted when I could hear movement.

999
01:38:58,560 --> 01:39:01,760
The sound was slightly more muffed now
by the velvet backing, but the audio

1000
01:39:01,880 --> 01:39:08,319
quality was still really good. We
heard the sound of snow crunching under Miss

1001
01:39:08,399 --> 01:39:13,880
Gatland's feet as she walked herself through
the woods home. We listened giddily for

1002
01:39:13,920 --> 01:39:16,880
a few minutes, then raced back
to my house to celebrate our success with

1003
01:39:16,960 --> 01:39:23,000
hot chocolate. Since we had the
attention span of two ten year old boys,

1004
01:39:23,800 --> 01:39:28,560
we forgot about our triumph until just
a few minutes before Isaac's mom came

1005
01:39:28,600 --> 01:39:32,000
to pick him up. When I
remembered, I pulled out the earpiece,

1006
01:39:32,399 --> 01:39:36,560
which we had decided would live at
my house since it was closer to Miss

1007
01:39:36,520 --> 01:39:44,119
Gatland's and listened more than last year, but not as much as the year

1008
01:39:44,119 --> 01:39:47,640
before last. What do you think
about that? Do you like it?

1009
01:39:48,319 --> 01:39:55,560
Can you feel it? I see
me personally, I've loved it since I

1010
01:39:55,600 --> 01:40:01,159
was a little girl, and falls
so prettily. What the heck is she

1011
01:40:01,279 --> 01:40:08,239
saying? Isaac gasked me as if
I had any clue. The better question

1012
01:40:08,520 --> 01:40:12,039
in my mind at least, was
who the hell was she talking to.

1013
01:40:13,520 --> 01:40:16,840
She had no kids or husband and
didn't have any friends. As far as

1014
01:40:16,880 --> 01:40:23,960
I knew, I don'no. I
said, she's talking about snow. I

1015
01:40:24,000 --> 01:40:29,359
think, though, the question can
you feel? It seemed an odd thing

1016
01:40:29,439 --> 01:40:34,239
to ask anyone. We sat there
listening to a talk for five minutes straight.

1017
01:40:35,359 --> 01:40:39,920
I'd never heard Miss Catlin talk that
much in my life, even though

1018
01:40:39,960 --> 01:40:45,319
we'd seen her most days since I
was only five years old. Looking back,

1019
01:40:45,760 --> 01:40:49,479
I'm not entirely sure what we had
expected, but it certainly wasn't a

1020
01:40:49,600 --> 01:40:56,239
monolog of that length. We strained
our ears listening for another voice, but

1021
01:40:56,399 --> 01:41:04,960
heard nothing. Maybe she is Guido
forensic. Isaac volunteered. I had no

1022
01:41:05,000 --> 01:41:12,119
idea what that was, but I
trusted his authority. His mom showed up

1023
01:41:12,159 --> 01:41:15,880
to take him home, and I
turned the speaker off to walk him outside.

1024
01:41:16,199 --> 01:41:19,880
After that, every once in a
while, I would turn the speaker

1025
01:41:19,920 --> 01:41:26,800
on and listen. It seemed that
no matter the time, be it early

1026
01:41:26,800 --> 01:41:32,760
in the morning or late at night, Miss Catlin was always talking. She

1027
01:41:32,920 --> 01:41:38,720
talked about all kinds of things,
everything from clothing to stocks, to the

1028
01:41:38,760 --> 01:41:45,319
weather to politics. Sometimes she prayed
talking so quickly and quietly that I could

1029
01:41:45,359 --> 01:41:50,079
only make out one out of every
five or so words. She apologized often

1030
01:41:50,520 --> 01:41:57,399
and spoke constantly of a promise.
Sometimes when I turned on the speaker,

1031
01:41:58,199 --> 01:42:03,319
all I heard was sobs, and
sometimes the conversations were so strange that I

1032
01:42:03,359 --> 01:42:09,600
couldn't make heads or tails of them. A young woman smiled at me to

1033
01:42:09,680 --> 01:42:15,079
day at the grocery store. Isn't
that just the sweetest thing? I felt

1034
01:42:15,119 --> 01:42:18,319
like It's been so long since some
one smiled at me like that. Yes,

1035
01:42:18,479 --> 01:42:23,199
I know she was just doing a
job. Probably it doesn't even know

1036
01:42:23,279 --> 01:42:27,920
my name. Eh. Oh,
how hard this has been, how lonesome.

1037
01:42:28,800 --> 01:42:32,319
But I am so very close to
the finish line. I won't break

1038
01:42:32,319 --> 01:42:40,079
my promise now. A few days
before we returned to school, Isaac and

1039
01:42:40,119 --> 01:42:44,159
I made the trek over to a
house in an attempt to figure out who

1040
01:42:44,319 --> 01:42:48,560
she was speaking to. I'd seen
a house a few times before, and

1041
01:42:48,680 --> 01:42:55,960
each time I was taken aback by
how small it was, isolated and weathered.

1042
01:42:56,680 --> 01:43:00,000
Her home stood at the edge of
the southern woodlands, on a line

1043
01:43:00,079 --> 01:43:03,920
much plot of land, half of
a street, with very little through traffic.

1044
01:43:05,159 --> 01:43:10,119
I remember standing on the side of
the road with Isaac staring at the

1045
01:43:10,159 --> 01:43:14,520
little shack like house, which must
have only had room for a bedroom,

1046
01:43:14,840 --> 01:43:20,239
a bathroom, and maybe a tiny
kitchen. There's no way anyone else lives

1047
01:43:20,279 --> 01:43:27,279
there, Isaac said, after a
while of standing and staring. We were

1048
01:43:27,319 --> 01:43:30,119
too far away to peering in through
the windows, but we were also too

1049
01:43:30,159 --> 01:43:38,199
afraid to venture any closer. She's
either a witch or she's just some sad,

1050
01:43:38,680 --> 01:43:45,880
ugly old lady who went crazy from
having no friends. Isaac got bored

1051
01:43:46,000 --> 01:43:53,039
quickly, so we left not too
long after that. After we had made

1052
01:43:53,039 --> 01:43:58,560
our way part way down the street, something compelled me to turn around and

1053
01:43:58,640 --> 01:44:03,920
give the house a final look.
When I did, I saw the unmistakable

1054
01:44:04,000 --> 01:44:11,920
shape of miss Gatlin standing on the
porch, staring in our direction. I

1055
01:44:12,000 --> 01:44:16,720
turned away and grabbed a hold of
Isaac's arm. She's watching us, I

1056
01:44:16,760 --> 01:44:24,039
whispered to him. His eyes grew
wide. Damn, he said, Should

1057
01:44:24,079 --> 01:44:30,880
we run? No, that'll look
suspicious. Let's just keep walking. We

1058
01:44:30,960 --> 01:44:35,039
walked until we were out of eyeshot, and then we ran all the way

1059
01:44:35,119 --> 01:44:42,279
home. I'm not quite sure what
spooked us so badly, but for some

1060
01:44:42,319 --> 01:44:45,359
reason, even when I was back
in the safety of my own home,

1061
01:44:46,319 --> 01:44:53,800
and I couldn't shake the feeling of
eyes burring into my back. And soon

1062
01:44:54,039 --> 01:44:59,880
they'll all be coming back. It's
hard seeing them sometimes, knowing my Oliver

1063
01:45:00,039 --> 01:45:04,840
I was among them once. Sometimes
I think I see him. At least

1064
01:45:04,960 --> 01:45:13,319
it'll get easier soon, thanks to
you. By the time we went back

1065
01:45:13,319 --> 01:45:17,439
to school, my friends had grown
bored of the spy gear. I volunteered

1066
01:45:17,479 --> 01:45:23,640
to return Isaac's speaker, but he
said it was practically useless now since we

1067
01:45:23,680 --> 01:45:30,439
couldn't retrieve the microphone. Surprisingly,
missus Catlin continued to wear the brooch every

1068
01:45:30,520 --> 01:45:34,720
day. It was always pinned to
a non work clothes, so the only

1069
01:45:34,760 --> 01:45:40,079
time she was unbogged, as Isaac
put it, was when she was in

1070
01:45:40,119 --> 01:45:45,840
her janitorial outfit and my school seeing
a guard the brooch so carefully made me

1071
01:45:45,880 --> 01:45:51,359
feel kind of bad? Was that
the only gift she had gotten for Christmas?

1072
01:45:51,840 --> 01:45:57,439
Was it the only gift she had
gotten in the past decade. Maybe

1073
01:45:57,479 --> 01:46:01,960
she wasn't a witch or crazy.
Maybe she was just lonely and had learned

1074
01:46:02,000 --> 01:46:12,199
to cope by talking to herself.
Months passed, Isaac and company finally coming

1075
01:46:12,239 --> 01:46:15,279
to terms with the fact that they
would never get the rise they were looking

1076
01:46:15,319 --> 01:46:21,159
for. Out of Miss Gatlin moved
on to terrorizing the curmudgeonally old man who

1077
01:46:21,239 --> 01:46:27,399
lived across from Cedar Creek Elementary and
was always yelling at kids for one reason

1078
01:46:27,560 --> 01:46:33,840
or another. I was happy for
Miss Gatlin. One day in March I

1079
01:46:33,880 --> 01:46:39,319
found her sitting on a bench at
the edge of campus during lunch. I

1080
01:46:39,359 --> 01:46:44,840
took a seat next door, not
expecting much. She took one look at

1081
01:46:44,840 --> 01:46:49,680
me, then fixed the gaze back
and a sad looking sandwich in her hand.

1082
01:46:50,199 --> 01:46:55,840
What do you want, she asked, without looking at me. Nothing,

1083
01:46:56,640 --> 01:47:02,439
just wanted to sit here at the
sandwich. We're not friend's kid.

1084
01:47:03,239 --> 01:47:11,840
I know you don't have any friends. That's right, she nodded. Maybe

1085
01:47:11,840 --> 01:47:17,560
one day, though, I said, and to my surprise, she laughed.

1086
01:47:19,960 --> 01:47:25,800
I didn't realize she was capable of
laughing. She looked at me properly

1087
01:47:25,920 --> 01:47:30,199
for the first time in our brief
conversation, and I noticed that she was

1088
01:47:30,239 --> 01:47:39,560
smiling. It was an unpracticed smile, but a genuine one. Yeah,

1089
01:47:40,000 --> 01:47:46,399
she said, maybe one day.
Miss Catling pagged up and headed back to

1090
01:47:46,439 --> 01:47:50,720
the school building. After that,
she left a bag of mini oreos on

1091
01:47:50,760 --> 01:47:58,199
the bench next to me. I
think she did it on purpose. I

1092
01:47:58,239 --> 01:48:01,319
grew accustomed to checking up on her
every now and then, listening to her

1093
01:48:01,319 --> 01:48:06,880
conversations with herself. Sometimes it almost
felt like she was talking to me.

1094
01:48:09,760 --> 01:48:14,039
Looking back on it now, I
realized what a little villain I was,

1095
01:48:14,960 --> 01:48:19,640
and what an immense invasion of privacy
I was committing. I wish that I

1096
01:48:19,640 --> 01:48:29,159
could take it back now, especially
considering what happened next. Friday, May

1097
01:48:29,239 --> 01:48:35,720
seventeenth marked the ten year anniversary of
Oliver Gatlin's death. I kept an eye

1098
01:48:35,800 --> 01:48:41,760
Miss Gatlin throughout the day, but
she didn't seem any more dejected than usual.

1099
01:48:43,119 --> 01:48:47,000
Maybe things were finally looking up for
her. In any case, although

1100
01:48:47,039 --> 01:48:51,399
I hadn't checked in on her for
a while, I decided that evening to

1101
01:48:51,479 --> 01:48:57,720
see how she was doing. My
parents were gone for the week and I

1102
01:48:57,760 --> 01:49:00,720
was only allowed to stay at home
alone if I stayed inside the whole time,

1103
01:49:01,720 --> 01:49:08,560
so I had nothing better to do. Not long after sunset, as

1104
01:49:08,600 --> 01:49:13,039
I lounged on the floor of my
bedroom, I turned on the earpiece.

1105
01:49:15,039 --> 01:49:20,039
Miss Gatlin was talking to herself as
always, but there was something strange about

1106
01:49:20,039 --> 01:49:29,479
her tone. She sounded more excited
than ever. Almost there, almost there,

1107
01:49:29,520 --> 01:49:36,960
almost there, She repeated those two
words over and over until at exactly

1108
01:49:38,159 --> 01:49:43,720
eleven forty four pm, she let
out a sound that I understood years later

1109
01:49:44,119 --> 01:49:48,119
to be a cry of triumph.
It is done. It's done, Dark

1110
01:49:48,199 --> 01:49:53,680
Angel, Thank you, thank you. Ten years of solitude and it was

1111
01:49:53,680 --> 01:49:57,800
worth every second. Now Angel,
bring him back, Bring him back to

1112
01:49:57,840 --> 01:50:02,920
me. What was she on about? Now? Were those song lyrics or

1113
01:50:02,920 --> 01:50:10,239
something? I strained my ears listening
for another person out of habit, but

1114
01:50:10,359 --> 01:50:15,359
of course there was only Miss Gatland's
voice. After a moment, her cries

1115
01:50:15,359 --> 01:50:21,199
of happiness faded, a voice taking
on her confused tone. What do you

1116
01:50:21,239 --> 01:50:26,920
mean? No, I that can't
be true. I kept my promise.

1117
01:50:27,159 --> 01:50:30,000
I followed every rule. I let
no one in, kept no companions,

1118
01:50:30,039 --> 01:50:33,479
made no friends. I kept my
wish a secret, as you told me,

1119
01:50:34,119 --> 01:50:39,960
my angel. I I sat up
slowly, the building, terror in

1120
01:50:39,960 --> 01:50:44,920
her voice, putting me on edge, even from miles away. And then

1121
01:50:45,279 --> 01:50:50,439
she asked the question that still haunts
me to this day, what do you

1122
01:50:50,560 --> 01:50:57,439
mean? I had an audience.
There was a moment of silence, and

1123
01:50:57,520 --> 01:51:01,680
then the sure fire sound of the
velvet backing of the brooch being ripped away.

1124
01:51:03,279 --> 01:51:09,119
I could hear a breath sharper and
clearer than ever before. As she

1125
01:51:09,199 --> 01:51:13,880
repeated a single word, no no, no, no, no, no,

1126
01:51:13,880 --> 01:51:18,319
no, no no, she withdrew
for the microphone, her rapid breaths

1127
01:51:18,399 --> 01:51:23,560
replaced by what sounded like a front
door being thrown open with a bang.

1128
01:51:25,199 --> 01:51:30,279
There was no more noise from the
microphone. I remember standing up in my

1129
01:51:30,319 --> 01:51:34,840
bedroom, not quite understanding what had
just happened, and not quite knowing what

1130
01:51:34,960 --> 01:51:40,880
to do next. Something told me
that I should go downstairs and make sure

1131
01:51:40,920 --> 01:51:45,439
that the doors were locked. So
I tore myself to manup and forced myself

1132
01:51:45,479 --> 01:51:49,119
down the stairs to the dark first
floor. I made my way around the

1133
01:51:49,119 --> 01:51:56,000
whole house, checking the doors and
windows. Once I was done, I

1134
01:51:56,159 --> 01:52:02,560
just stood there. Somehow I knew
she was coming and that there was nothing

1135
01:52:02,600 --> 01:52:06,680
I could do to stop it.
I thought I was hearing the wind,

1136
01:52:08,560 --> 01:52:14,960
but as it grew louder, I
realized I was hearing wailing. I heard

1137
01:52:15,000 --> 01:52:18,920
it long before I saw her,
that god wrench and cry, that sound

1138
01:52:18,960 --> 01:52:25,840
that I had previously heard only pale
imitations of in movies where her mother loses

1139
01:52:25,880 --> 01:52:30,119
a child. Standing in the darkness
of my living room, I watched the

1140
01:52:30,199 --> 01:52:34,479
sprint from the tree line towards my
house. Her mouth was wide open,

1141
01:52:34,920 --> 01:52:41,239
her eyes glazed over, and her
body dressed in a white nightgown. She

1142
01:52:41,399 --> 01:52:45,359
looked and sounded like something out of
my worst night terrors. I dropped to

1143
01:52:45,399 --> 01:52:49,640
the floor and crawled away from the
window, taking cover behind a couch.

1144
01:52:51,640 --> 01:52:58,079
Why she howled, her moaning voice
rising and falling as she ascended the steps

1145
01:52:58,079 --> 01:53:04,720
to my front porch and slammed as
against the door. Why. I needed

1146
01:53:04,800 --> 01:53:09,119
to get to the phone, but
the house phone was right next to the

1147
01:53:09,159 --> 01:53:14,640
window, and I was petrified.
She hit the door so hard I was

1148
01:53:14,680 --> 01:53:17,720
afraid that the hinges would give way. How could you do this to me?

1149
01:53:19,920 --> 01:53:25,479
I climbed a hand over my mouth. She couldn't possibly know for certain

1150
01:53:25,560 --> 01:53:30,239
that I was in the house,
could she? The origin of the wailing

1151
01:53:30,359 --> 01:53:33,720
shifted as she rounded the wrap around
porch, the heavy knocks of a fist

1152
01:53:33,760 --> 01:53:38,560
against the door giving way to the
thudding of her shoes and the wooden porch

1153
01:53:38,640 --> 01:53:43,279
floor. I stuck my head around
the couch and saw no one at the

1154
01:53:43,279 --> 01:53:46,520
front window. But when I looked
at the side, I saw a face

1155
01:53:46,640 --> 01:53:51,920
hovering inches from the glass. I
screamed at the top of my lungs as

1156
01:53:51,920 --> 01:53:57,880
a fist came into contact with the
glass, shattering it. I was so

1157
01:53:58,000 --> 01:54:00,960
horrified by the rain of blood speckled
glass that I almost missed the sight of

1158
01:54:01,000 --> 01:54:06,720
the shotgun scabbard strapped to a Torso
certain I was about to die, I

1159
01:54:06,800 --> 01:54:11,720
screamed at her to go away,
to leave me alone, and she screamed

1160
01:54:11,800 --> 01:54:16,399
right back at me, asking me
questions I didn't understand. Dogs had begun

1161
01:54:16,439 --> 01:54:20,159
to bark at the commotion, and
my next door neighbor's porch light turned on.

1162
01:54:21,640 --> 01:54:27,159
Please just go away, I shrieked
as I finally found my footing and

1163
01:54:27,319 --> 01:54:30,640
raced to the phone. I grabbed
it from its holder and started the type

1164
01:54:30,880 --> 01:54:35,359
nine to one one as I decided
whether or not I should risk running up

1165
01:54:35,359 --> 01:54:41,600
to the neighbor's house. When I
looked at the broken window, though she

1166
01:54:41,760 --> 01:54:46,640
was nowhere to be seen, the
wailing had rescinded, growing fainter and fainter

1167
01:54:47,399 --> 01:54:57,039
until I couldn't hear her at all. I stood there dumbly until the sound

1168
01:54:57,159 --> 01:55:04,239
faded entirely, my hands shaking.
She was gone, I was sure of

1169
01:55:04,279 --> 01:55:15,039
it. Should I still call emergency
services? After that moment, I heard

1170
01:55:15,119 --> 01:55:24,319
another fainter sound and recognized the statugy
audio immediately as the transmission from Isaac's spy

1171
01:55:24,439 --> 01:55:30,279
gear. I raced upstairs, still
clutching the phone, and grabbed a speaker

1172
01:55:30,319 --> 01:55:34,079
from the floor where I dropped it. I pressed it against my ear,

1173
01:55:34,640 --> 01:55:41,520
listening to the faint sound of a
familiar voice. I hope this was worth

1174
01:55:41,560 --> 01:55:46,600
a kid, it said, calmly
and coldly. I hope you and your

1175
01:55:46,640 --> 01:55:58,239
friends can laugh about this. I
heard a bang, and then I heard

1176
01:55:58,319 --> 01:56:08,560
nothing at all. It took two
weeks for the police to find her body.

1177
01:56:09,720 --> 01:56:14,000
Her final resting place was deep in
the woods, under a thick shroud

1178
01:56:14,279 --> 01:56:18,520
of junipers, not far from the
banks of Cedar Creek. As her face

1179
01:56:18,600 --> 01:56:25,239
was mutilated beyond recognition, her body
was identified by the shotgun lying beside her.

1180
01:56:26,840 --> 01:56:30,359
They say that although she was covered
in enough blood to entice every animal

1181
01:56:30,600 --> 01:56:36,399
within a three mile radius, her
corpse was untouched by the beasts. Even

1182
01:56:36,439 --> 01:56:42,159
the insects seemed hesitant to feed,
and the fungi slow to grow upon a

1183
01:56:42,239 --> 01:56:49,880
body, as though even the lowliest
creatures feared contamination by the lonely woman in

1184
01:56:49,960 --> 01:57:09,359
the woods. They did not find
a brooch on her person. I used

1185
01:57:09,359 --> 01:57:14,399
to work with an independent towing company
in near Saint Cloud, Minnesota. We

1186
01:57:14,479 --> 01:57:19,520
mostly operated near Wilmart, South Center, Tomscogg, and Glenwood. I usually

1187
01:57:19,560 --> 01:57:26,640
did roadside assistance and recovery. Out
in these parts you get a surprisingly large

1188
01:57:26,680 --> 01:57:30,399
share of vehicles that are just abandoned
in the middle of nowhere. I know

1189
01:57:30,560 --> 01:57:33,800
it's a common side to see rusted
outrex by the side of the road,

1190
01:57:34,399 --> 01:57:39,279
but if it wasn't for guys like
me, you'd see three times as many.

1191
01:57:40,840 --> 01:57:44,439
So I got this call about a
ross bucket that had smashed into a

1192
01:57:44,479 --> 01:57:47,600
stop sign and been left by the
roadside. I was called in for the

1193
01:57:47,640 --> 01:57:54,119
pickup. It's not fun heading out
in the dark as the rain clouds roll

1194
01:57:54,159 --> 01:57:59,640
in, but that's even more reason
to get it done. Accidents happen in

1195
01:57:59,680 --> 01:58:03,920
the dark suck. Someone could get
hurt. It took me a while to

1196
01:58:03,920 --> 01:58:09,439
get out there not a lot of
cars on the road. I turned on

1197
01:58:09,520 --> 01:58:13,600
my warning lights and stepped out,
keeping my earbuds in while listening to my

1198
01:58:13,680 --> 01:58:18,479
work playlist. I was sort of
conditionally training myself to only listen to country

1199
01:58:18,479 --> 01:58:23,680
on the job and rock on my
spare time, thinking I could powerl off

1200
01:58:23,720 --> 01:58:28,880
my way into some kind of work
life recognition thing. Once I got out

1201
01:58:28,920 --> 01:58:33,479
of my truck, I could immediately
tell something was off. I'd gone down

1202
01:58:33,479 --> 01:58:40,119
that road before, and I'd never
seen a stop sign anywhere near it.

1203
01:58:40,119 --> 01:58:45,199
It was a straight road. Why
would there be a stop sign? The

1204
01:58:45,279 --> 01:58:49,159
current question was this old beetle.
The paint had peeled off years ago,

1205
01:58:49,479 --> 01:58:55,399
and half the interior was either rotten
or torn out. There was algae halfway

1206
01:58:55,479 --> 01:59:00,600
up the wheels, with tufts of
grass sticking out of the suspension. This

1207
01:59:00,760 --> 01:59:04,119
thing wouldn't run in a hundred years. Hell, you could barely get it

1208
01:59:04,159 --> 01:59:13,000
to roll at all. I was
perplexed. There was no way someone was

1209
01:59:13,079 --> 01:59:17,439
driving this or crashing into anything.
Someone had dragged it up there for one

1210
01:59:17,520 --> 01:59:24,920
reason or another. Turning my attention
back to my truck, I almost choked

1211
01:59:24,920 --> 01:59:30,800
on spit. I counted no less
than five people by the roadside, staring

1212
01:59:30,880 --> 01:59:36,319
up at the flashing warning lights.
Five people, all different ages, there

1213
01:59:36,359 --> 01:59:42,920
this strange look of absolute adoration on
their faces, slack jawed and unblinking.

1214
01:59:43,720 --> 01:59:46,760
They didn't seem to mind my presence. They were just there for the lights.

1215
01:59:48,079 --> 01:59:51,520
I looked at them for a moment. These were the people that had

1216
01:59:51,600 --> 01:59:56,760
dragged the car up, no question
about it. Hell, some of them

1217
01:59:56,800 --> 02:00:01,039
had muddy hands and boots. Still, I thought about saying something, but

1218
02:00:01,199 --> 02:00:05,000
figured I just get my phone out
in case someone wanted to cause trouble.

1219
02:00:06,239 --> 02:00:11,319
I locked my truck, not taking
my eyes off these people, and tried

1220
02:00:11,359 --> 02:00:16,479
to get on with my job.
They didn't seem to mind. They just

1221
02:00:16,520 --> 02:00:24,279
stood there, their eyes wide and
black, staring at the flashing warning lights.

1222
02:00:25,880 --> 02:00:30,880
It was so eerie. I walked
around that car, constantly checking over

1223
02:00:30,920 --> 02:00:34,000
my shoulder. I was waiting for
one of them to burst into a sprint

1224
02:00:34,079 --> 02:00:42,600
or scream, but nothing happened.
They just stood there, not a sound

1225
02:00:42,760 --> 02:00:47,920
or a word, heavy breathing in
unison. I thought about filming it,

1226
02:00:48,479 --> 02:00:54,840
but honestly, I had to get
out of there. I scooched the fallen

1227
02:00:54,880 --> 02:00:59,520
sign off the road and prepped the
wreck. Through all of it, I

1228
02:00:59,560 --> 02:01:02,880
got this worried chill creeping up my
spine. Whenever there was a sharp noise,

1229
02:01:03,880 --> 02:01:06,880
a rattling chain might set them off, or a creak of metal.

1230
02:01:08,880 --> 02:01:13,520
I didn't know what these people's deal
was, so I didn't know how unpredictable

1231
02:01:13,560 --> 02:01:18,760
they were. As I finished and
got ready to move out, I threw

1232
02:01:18,920 --> 02:01:26,560
her final glance back at them.
My heart skipped a beat when one of

1233
02:01:26,600 --> 02:01:33,720
their eyes, yes, a singular
eye, turned to me. She was

1234
02:01:33,920 --> 02:01:39,800
probably in her forties, with the
kind of face that just screamed exhaustion.

1235
02:01:41,399 --> 02:01:45,760
As a second eye slowly settled on
me, there was this bubbling unease in

1236
02:01:45,800 --> 02:01:51,880
my stomach. Something about her was
just inhumane. It didn't feel like meeting

1237
02:01:51,960 --> 02:01:57,840
the eyes of a fellow Minnesotan,
or even a Homo sapien. This woman

1238
02:01:58,119 --> 02:02:02,600
was something else, some other.
I was about to get back into my

1239
02:02:02,680 --> 02:02:11,640
truck when she opened her mouth and
spoke. Look at me, she said,

1240
02:02:12,560 --> 02:02:15,880
I did. I could not do
it if I like staring down a

1241
02:02:15,960 --> 02:02:24,000
predator, keeping it obey, I
had to look at her. Of course,

1242
02:02:24,640 --> 02:02:28,800
there was a plan to it.
I didn't notice the two men sneaking

1243
02:02:28,840 --> 02:02:33,000
up on me from the other side
of the road. I have a hard

1244
02:02:33,039 --> 02:02:39,359
time retelling this part. It's burned
into my thoughts. But it's not like

1245
02:02:40,319 --> 02:02:45,520
a good burn. It's like a
scab, and I just hate poking at

1246
02:02:45,560 --> 02:02:49,199
it. The only word that I
can use for it is that it frightens

1247
02:02:49,279 --> 02:02:55,720
me, not just because of the
violent implications, but because I now know

1248
02:02:56,079 --> 02:03:04,560
firsthand just how frail I am and
living being. Hands grabbed me and I

1249
02:03:04,600 --> 02:03:09,479
was pushed up against the side of
my truck. Some guy in his fifties

1250
02:03:09,640 --> 02:03:15,199
and look like a girl in her
late teens, both insanely strong, with

1251
02:03:15,239 --> 02:03:18,560
a kind of grip you might expect
in a wild animal. They were clinging

1252
02:03:18,600 --> 02:03:25,039
to me like their life depended on
it. And yet none of them said

1253
02:03:25,079 --> 02:03:31,880
anything, no noise, no words, just huffs and unblinking eyes. Even

1254
02:03:31,920 --> 02:03:35,800
then, as my hands were pushed
up against the cold metal, they weren't

1255
02:03:35,840 --> 02:03:42,479
even looking at me. They were
still looking up at the warning lights.

1256
02:03:43,439 --> 02:03:46,800
The one who had spoken came around. She faced me and held something up.

1257
02:03:48,119 --> 02:03:51,199
It looked like one of those old
box cameras with a crank on the

1258
02:03:51,279 --> 02:03:57,279
side. She turned it on with
a metallic clunk, blinding me with a

1259
02:03:57,319 --> 02:04:00,960
powerful and warm light. She slowly
turned the crank on the side, like

1260
02:04:01,000 --> 02:04:06,840
a nightmare's jack in a box.
With every click, something would block the

1261
02:04:06,920 --> 02:04:15,680
light for a split second, effectively
making it flash. She turned it faster

1262
02:04:15,960 --> 02:04:20,920
and faster, blinking turned into a
strobe light. I can't explain what I

1263
02:04:20,960 --> 02:04:27,399
felt. It was like something filling
my stomach, like my body was contracting

1264
02:04:27,479 --> 02:04:31,920
into itself, trying to make me
shrink. I became so hyper focused on

1265
02:04:32,000 --> 02:04:38,319
this one blinking light coming out of
that awful black box. I didn't even

1266
02:04:38,399 --> 02:04:42,880
notice that they let go of my
hands, or how they all gathered around

1267
02:04:42,880 --> 02:04:47,520
me, how they watched as I
had this mental seizure. I couldn't move,

1268
02:04:48,000 --> 02:04:53,279
I couldn't look away. My mind
was just filled with this clicking noise,

1269
02:04:53,760 --> 02:04:59,479
resetting every impulse that came across my
mind. I should run, Click,

1270
02:05:00,039 --> 02:05:05,000
who are these people? Click,
I'm in danger. Click. I

1271
02:05:05,039 --> 02:05:10,920
couldn't finish a single train of thought. I just stood there, as transfixed

1272
02:05:10,920 --> 02:05:15,359
to that box as they'd been to
my warning lights. I don't know when

1273
02:05:15,359 --> 02:05:20,600
I passed out. Could have been
seconds, could have been minutes. All

1274
02:05:20,640 --> 02:05:25,800
I know is that I woke up
by the roadside hours later as a passer

1275
02:05:25,800 --> 02:05:30,880
by tapped me on the shoulder.
You're right there, they asked, you

1276
02:05:31,000 --> 02:05:36,960
hurt. I shook my head,
trying to adjust my eyes, they still

1277
02:05:36,960 --> 02:05:44,800
burned from the light. I don't
know, I said, I honestly don't

1278
02:05:44,840 --> 02:05:50,159
know. I called my boss,
telling them what had happened, explaining why

1279
02:05:50,199 --> 02:05:55,399
I hadn't answered any calls. I
also gave a statement to the police,

1280
02:05:55,960 --> 02:06:00,439
explaining what little I could to a
very understanding man. It didn't make sense

1281
02:06:00,479 --> 02:06:05,479
to them, or me for that
matter. Nothing was stolen, nothing was

1282
02:06:05,560 --> 02:06:13,920
vandalized, just people attacking people for
seemingly no reason. The officers seemed sorry

1283
02:06:13,960 --> 02:06:17,199
to hear it, as if already
apologizing for what they wouldn't be able to

1284
02:06:17,239 --> 02:06:26,000
do. I didn't see them until
much later, under very different circumstances.

1285
02:06:27,119 --> 02:06:29,840
I was put on sickly for a
couple of days to get back on my

1286
02:06:29,880 --> 02:06:32,960
feet, but at that point I
didn't even know what I was feeling any

1287
02:06:32,960 --> 02:06:41,680
more. Coming home, I couldn't
concentrate. Everything just felt off. I

1288
02:06:41,680 --> 02:06:45,279
could barely keep myself focused on the
most minute task. I forgot my cooked

1289
02:06:45,359 --> 02:06:48,239
rice and the stove. I put
down my phone in the middle of a

1290
02:06:48,239 --> 02:06:53,439
phone call. I left the tap
running. I kept getting sidetracked, like

1291
02:06:53,520 --> 02:06:58,920
there was something vital missing in the
back of my mind. This continued on

1292
02:06:59,000 --> 02:07:02,119
and off for a couple of day. I vividly remember how I tried to

1293
02:07:02,159 --> 02:07:06,399
stream some stupid reality show, but
I kept forgetting what I was watching.

1294
02:07:08,560 --> 02:07:13,560
I didn't dare use my car or
go shopping. I walked, and even

1295
02:07:13,600 --> 02:07:18,479
then I had to look down at
my shopping list every few minutes. I

1296
02:07:18,520 --> 02:07:21,840
remember this one time when I tried
to take a shower, I left the

1297
02:07:21,840 --> 02:07:28,800
water running forgetting to turn it off, just like with everything else. As

1298
02:07:28,800 --> 02:07:31,760
I finished up and stepped out,
I flipped the light switch. But that

1299
02:07:31,880 --> 02:07:38,119
switch is this really sensitive thing,
and I accidentally clicked it twice, making

1300
02:07:38,159 --> 02:07:44,800
the lights flash. That sent a
wave of warmth through my body, the

1301
02:07:44,920 --> 02:07:48,680
kind of relieving warmth you get from
stepping out of the blizzard and into a

1302
02:07:48,680 --> 02:07:55,239
living room. I always familiar and
welcome, as if this was what I

1303
02:07:55,279 --> 02:08:01,319
was supposed to feel like in a
simple wayed me. For a moment,

1304
02:08:01,600 --> 02:08:07,279
I felt like myself again. I
ended up standing there for about twenty minutes,

1305
02:08:07,640 --> 02:08:13,239
just flapping the switch on and off, on and off. I pressed

1306
02:08:13,239 --> 02:08:16,239
it until the click of the switch
started to sound like the click of the

1307
02:08:16,239 --> 02:08:22,199
black box, until time started to
slow, making every click seemed further away

1308
02:08:22,680 --> 02:08:26,520
no matter how fast I went.
And when I looked up at myself in

1309
02:08:26,560 --> 02:08:33,359
the mirror, I could see that
my eyes were completely black, as alien

1310
02:08:33,399 --> 02:08:39,880
as those I'd seen that night.
I could picture myself as her, exhausted,

1311
02:08:39,239 --> 02:08:46,079
unblinking and lost to the world.
It scared the hell out of me.

1312
02:08:46,640 --> 02:08:50,119
I shut my eyes and tried to
keep them closed, but every moment

1313
02:08:50,119 --> 02:08:56,239
away from the flashes, the clicking, it just it drained me, like

1314
02:08:56,319 --> 02:09:00,840
being stuck in the middle of nowhere
has a blizzard slow he picks up.

1315
02:09:01,279 --> 02:09:07,840
I could feel myself growing distant,
colder, slower. I twisted and turned

1316
02:09:07,840 --> 02:09:13,840
in my bed, trying to focus
on something, anything, Mississippy. I

1317
02:09:13,960 --> 02:09:20,239
mumbled, spell Mississippi. I got
all the way through it the first time.

1318
02:09:20,239 --> 02:09:24,520
By the second time, I made
it about halfway through. By the

1319
02:09:24,560 --> 02:09:30,159
third, I could start, but
didn't really know what I was doing anymore.

1320
02:09:31,479 --> 02:09:39,239
By the fourth I was upset,
and I didn't even know why.

1321
02:09:39,960 --> 02:09:45,000
At some point in the night,
I heard sirens, not too distant either.

1322
02:09:46,199 --> 02:09:50,960
Something in me tickled, it wanted
me to get up. The thought

1323
02:09:50,000 --> 02:09:54,840
crossed my mind that maybe, on
some level, I just wanted to see

1324
02:09:54,880 --> 02:10:01,000
the flashing lights. I walked up
to my bedroom window and put my hand

1325
02:10:01,079 --> 02:10:05,800
on the blinders. I knew I
shouldn't engage with it. I kept trying

1326
02:10:05,800 --> 02:10:11,279
to fight myself. The only thoughts
that met no interruption with those aimed at

1327
02:10:11,319 --> 02:10:16,439
the sole purpose of seeing those lights. I kept trying to convince myself to

1328
02:10:16,479 --> 02:10:22,039
step away. But it wasn't that
easy. Just a peak, I thought

1329
02:10:22,680 --> 02:10:28,640
to see if it works. There
were three police cars and a fire truck,

1330
02:10:28,439 --> 02:10:35,439
all with their lights on. I
was mesmerized. I saw it in

1331
02:10:35,520 --> 02:10:41,079
such great detail. It was as
if time took a step back just to

1332
02:10:41,159 --> 02:10:46,359
allow me to bask in the excitement. I could see every color shift,

1333
02:10:46,039 --> 02:10:52,279
the intensity of moving back and forth
between lights. It was like an exploding

1334
02:10:52,319 --> 02:10:58,359
mini cosmos, filling my head with
warmth and excitement. I stared blankly at

1335
02:10:58,399 --> 02:11:07,439
it from my bedroom window. It
was absolutely gorgeous. They were only there

1336
02:11:07,439 --> 02:11:11,760
for a moment, but that was
all I needed. I was left breathless,

1337
02:11:13,279 --> 02:11:18,159
my face burning hot and my eyes
watery. It felt like I'd run

1338
02:11:18,199 --> 02:11:22,920
a marathon. Hell, even my
knees were weak. I had a short

1339
02:11:22,960 --> 02:11:28,760
moment of clarity as the cloud in
my mind parted. I had to keep

1340
02:11:28,800 --> 02:11:33,960
the momentum up. I had to
stay sane. Running to the kitchen,

1341
02:11:33,279 --> 02:11:37,479
I got my flashlight and all the
spare batteries I could find, spilling an

1342
02:11:37,600 --> 02:11:41,960
entire drawer of miscellaneous bits and bobs
onto the floor. I had to stop

1343
02:11:43,000 --> 02:11:46,920
a few times. The flick lights, which a boost. By the end

1344
02:11:46,960 --> 02:11:50,600
of the night, I found myself
standing in the middle of a dark kitchen

1345
02:11:50,960 --> 02:11:56,119
with my flashlight followly planted under my
face, clicking it on and off,

1346
02:11:56,760 --> 02:12:05,359
on and off. I had to
I stopped sleeping after that. Sleep gave

1347
02:12:05,439 --> 02:12:11,000
me nothing, but that constant flash
kept me going. It allowed me to

1348
02:12:11,039 --> 02:12:16,479
keep my head clear enough to make
some sort of plan to fight it.

1349
02:12:16,600 --> 02:12:20,600
Not that I really wanted to,
but because I knew in my heart of

1350
02:12:20,680 --> 02:12:26,039
hearts that it wasn't normal. They'd
done something terrible to me. But for

1351
02:12:26,119 --> 02:12:30,920
the moment, I had to find
a way to live with it. I

1352
02:12:30,960 --> 02:12:35,520
touk out my Christmas lights and set
them to blink intermittently. I taped it

1353
02:12:35,560 --> 02:12:37,960
all up along the walls of my
bedroom, right next to my computer.

1354
02:12:39,000 --> 02:12:43,319
Staying reasonably lucid, I managed to
search the web for whatever this could be,

1355
02:12:45,159 --> 02:12:50,239
but I couldn't find a thing.
I kept trying to spell Mississippi in

1356
02:12:50,279 --> 02:12:52,760
my head, the sort of test
whether I was thinking straight or not.

1357
02:12:54,800 --> 02:12:58,159
More often than not I could make
it through, but even a short lapse

1358
02:12:58,159 --> 02:13:05,119
of flashes would make me drop a
few letters. But yeah, I didn't

1359
02:13:05,119 --> 02:13:09,560
get very far in my searches.
I've never heard of something like this happening

1360
02:13:09,560 --> 02:13:13,720
to anyone, and neither did anyone
else. Seemingly soon, I was just

1361
02:13:13,800 --> 02:13:20,600
al typing between my dark desktop and
a full screen white page, on and

1362
02:13:20,680 --> 02:13:26,520
off, on and off. I
could tell I was getting weaker. The

1363
02:13:26,600 --> 02:13:31,680
lack of sleep betrayed me. My
hands were shaking from a lack of food.

1364
02:13:31,840 --> 02:13:35,520
After a while, I realized I
couldn't just have lights around me.

1365
02:13:37,239 --> 02:13:43,239
I needed to indulge to stare drowning
them. I was getting desperate. I

1366
02:13:43,319 --> 02:13:48,239
wondered the streets, hoping to see
or hear something they could give me that

1367
02:13:48,359 --> 02:13:52,399
rush back. I even thought about
starting a fire, just to get a

1368
02:13:52,439 --> 02:13:58,960
fire truck to come by. That's
when it hit me, that's probably what

1369
02:13:58,039 --> 02:14:03,920
those people had been doing all along. They set that rusted car up and

1370
02:14:03,039 --> 02:14:09,720
lured me there, maybe solely for
the flashing lights. It's hard to admit

1371
02:14:09,760 --> 02:14:13,840
my low point. I was standing
with my phone in my hand, about

1372
02:14:13,880 --> 02:14:18,479
to call nine one one to claim
I was being attacked, anything to get

1373
02:14:18,520 --> 02:14:24,479
the flashing lights and sirens. There
was that screaming voice inside of me demanding

1374
02:14:24,520 --> 02:14:31,279
that I do it, and a
whisper telling me I was destroying myself.

1375
02:14:33,199 --> 02:14:37,039
I had a choice go down this
path and find myself a slave to impulses

1376
02:14:37,760 --> 02:14:43,479
or to surrender to the cloud in
my head. I chose the latter.

1377
02:14:45,600 --> 02:14:50,279
I tossed my phone and wandered off
slowly, forgetting where I was going or

1378
02:14:50,359 --> 02:14:54,600
what I was doing. I only
vaguely remember the sky turning dark and rain.

1379
02:14:56,000 --> 02:15:00,760
There was a car honking as they
raced past me, and a worry

1380
02:15:00,800 --> 02:15:05,359
driver asking me how I was doing. Without direction or purpose or solution,

1381
02:15:07,560 --> 02:15:15,399
I just kept going somewhere. It's
a strange feeling, finding yourself lost in

1382
02:15:15,479 --> 02:15:20,640
your own darkness. It feels like
viewing your life through a keyhole, catching

1383
02:15:20,720 --> 02:15:26,039
only bits and pieces with a barrier
in between. And in the end,

1384
02:15:26,479 --> 02:15:33,279
my efforts were useless. There were
others there on my side of the keyhole,

1385
02:15:33,159 --> 02:15:39,439
other people just as lost, wandering
around. Some I remembered from that

1386
02:15:39,520 --> 02:15:45,359
awful night. Others weren't even human. It's not like I saw them,

1387
02:15:45,760 --> 02:15:54,800
more that I sensed them. Then
it all came back to me. I

1388
02:15:54,960 --> 02:15:58,840
was standing in a clearing in a
forest somewhere off in the middle of nowhere.

1389
02:16:00,960 --> 02:16:03,640
There were others there, but I
didn't care to look at them.

1390
02:16:05,199 --> 02:16:09,520
All I could focus on was the
middle aged woman standing in front of me.

1391
02:16:09,159 --> 02:16:15,680
With a blinking black box and a
crank that clicked. Out of all

1392
02:16:15,720 --> 02:16:22,479
the lights I'd seen, this was
the most beautiful. It was like getting

1393
02:16:22,560 --> 02:16:28,600
sucked into a deeper understanding. The
clicks grew further apart, and every moment

1394
02:16:28,760 --> 02:16:35,040
was stretched in that bliss. Every
blink of the light was like days passing

1395
02:16:35,079 --> 02:16:39,719
by in the heaven of my own
making. There was a benevolence there,

1396
02:16:39,360 --> 02:16:46,639
someone caring for me, like a
barm on my soul. Then it stopped

1397
02:16:48,200 --> 02:16:52,399
back in the darkness. A woman
held out a phone as the box stopped

1398
02:16:52,399 --> 02:17:01,440
clicking. Ambulance, and that was
all she needed to say. We made

1399
02:17:01,479 --> 02:17:05,319
it to the parking lot out of
the old male, the old dead eye

1400
02:17:05,360 --> 02:17:09,479
for those who live round here.
There were six of us, but none

1401
02:17:09,520 --> 02:17:13,399
of us said a word. There
was this young woman who'd got in a

1402
02:17:13,440 --> 02:17:16,840
hold of her phone, and she
didn't seem to know what to do.

1403
02:17:18,079 --> 02:17:22,280
She looked up as if coming out
of a daze. Oh he's doing this,

1404
02:17:24,079 --> 02:17:30,920
she asked, Are we really doing
this? There was a solemn moment

1405
02:17:31,239 --> 02:17:35,760
when none of us knew what to
do. Finally, there was an older

1406
02:17:35,760 --> 02:17:41,000
man who stepped forward. He looked
the young woman up and down and turned

1407
02:17:41,000 --> 02:17:45,920
to the rest of us. No
one said anything. What was there to

1408
02:17:46,000 --> 02:17:52,000
say? He considered it, then
leaned back, putting all his weight behind

1409
02:17:52,040 --> 02:17:58,399
it. He proceeded to strike her
across the eye. She dropped to the

1410
02:17:58,399 --> 02:18:03,159
ground. The phone rolled out of
her hands. The others proceeded to beat

1411
02:18:03,200 --> 02:18:09,680
her within an inch of a life. It was absolutely relentless. It's like

1412
02:18:09,760 --> 02:18:16,639
she stopped being human to them.
I called the emergency services hell. I

1413
02:18:16,719 --> 02:18:22,000
told them exactly what I was seeing, a group of people brutally beating someone.

1414
02:18:22,319 --> 02:18:26,360
Meanwhile, the others kept attacking her. None of them looked away or

1415
02:18:26,399 --> 02:18:31,479
even frowned. I saw blood spatter
hit one of their faces, and they

1416
02:18:31,479 --> 02:18:37,680
didn't even blink. Maybe they wanted
to be convincing, or maybe there was

1417
02:18:37,719 --> 02:18:41,879
no space for a second guesser.
Neither way, we would have fulfilled our

1418
02:18:41,959 --> 02:18:50,680
duty. She was barely breathing when
they stepped away. The man who initiated

1419
02:18:50,719 --> 02:18:54,479
the beating held out a hand towards
me, demanding the phone back. I

1420
02:18:54,680 --> 02:18:58,799
handed it to him. I was
too new to be entrusted with something of

1421
02:18:58,799 --> 02:19:05,319
that value. I wanted to speak, but I didn't. Looking down at

1422
02:19:05,360 --> 02:19:11,159
the broken body, gasping for air, it did something to me. It

1423
02:19:11,239 --> 02:19:16,719
put a suggestion in my head that
maybe this wasn't okay. It made me

1424
02:19:16,799 --> 02:19:24,639
question myself and made me think.
I remember standing there watching the blood pooling,

1425
02:19:24,159 --> 02:19:33,920
when I considered can I spell Mississippi? I couldn't. Despite following this

1426
02:19:35,040 --> 02:19:39,719
path and succumbing to it all,
it was still taking something from me that

1427
02:19:39,840 --> 02:19:46,520
was more apparent than ever. It
was this subtle reminder that yes, I

1428
02:19:46,639 --> 02:19:50,399
was going down the wrong path,
I was doing something wrong. I wasn't

1429
02:19:50,399 --> 02:19:56,239
fixing myself this way. There were
sirens in the distance. I could see

1430
02:19:56,280 --> 02:20:01,639
the top of the tree line changing
color. They were coming. The others

1431
02:20:01,719 --> 02:20:05,479
hid by the side of the road, their eyes going dark with anticipation.

1432
02:20:07,760 --> 02:20:11,799
I joined them, hesidentally, trying
to make up some sort of plan.

1433
02:20:13,319 --> 02:20:16,639
When the flashing lights came around the
bend, it was like drinking a glass

1434
02:20:16,680 --> 02:20:22,040
of ice water on a hot summer's
day. It was a soothing breeze,

1435
02:20:22,239 --> 02:20:28,280
nothing like what I'd experienced from that
black box, but a substitute, a

1436
02:20:28,360 --> 02:20:33,120
damn decent one at that. The
colors bathed us and we just soaked it

1437
02:20:33,159 --> 02:20:39,959
all in. Except now I had
this feeling that it just wasn't right,

1438
02:20:41,799 --> 02:20:46,479
like I was being used and manipulated, like there was something in those flashing

1439
02:20:46,600 --> 02:20:56,319
lights looking back at me. Eh
oh, someone whispered eh. The others

1440
02:20:56,399 --> 02:21:01,239
joined a choir of hushed voices.
At first it was just a noise,

1441
02:21:03,120 --> 02:21:05,879
but I could see what they were
getting at. It was a fitting name,

1442
02:21:07,559 --> 02:21:11,040
the thing that drew us in,
giving us a peek at something else.

1443
02:21:11,079 --> 02:21:18,920
Ao the end of the sea u
Ao. There was an ambulance and

1444
02:21:18,959 --> 02:21:24,399
two patrol cars. By the time
they got to the beaten woman. We

1445
02:21:24,399 --> 02:21:28,920
were all stepping out of the woods
together. Someone was yelling at us the

1446
02:21:28,959 --> 02:21:35,000
stop. There were threats, demands, pistols drawn, then a click.

1447
02:21:37,159 --> 02:21:41,799
Looking to my left, the woman
with the black box had returned. At

1448
02:21:41,799 --> 02:21:45,879
first, flashing light in their direction
was all it took to distract them.

1449
02:21:46,239 --> 02:21:50,120
I couldn't see it properly from my
angle. The others flocked to it like

1450
02:21:50,239 --> 02:21:56,840
moths, but I hadn't fallen under
its spell yet. Instead, I looked

1451
02:21:56,920 --> 02:22:03,319
to the broken woman was barely conscious. The paramedics didn't have the time to

1452
02:22:03,360 --> 02:22:05,879
take her away. One of them
was hiding in the back of the ambulance,

1453
02:22:07,280 --> 02:22:11,200
while the other just stood there staring
at the woman with the black box.

1454
02:22:11,760 --> 02:22:18,120
We all moved forward slowly, a
few whispers, a declaration of faith.

1455
02:22:18,719 --> 02:22:24,600
No, not faith, just worship. It isn't faith when you've seen

1456
02:22:24,680 --> 02:22:30,600
it, when you know it's there. The others joined into a circle,

1457
02:22:31,239 --> 02:22:35,399
two police officers as well. All
of them stared blindly into this captivating light,

1458
02:22:37,040 --> 02:22:41,600
this invitation to behold, to step
outside yourself and see this hidden blessing.

1459
02:22:43,520 --> 02:22:48,840
I tried to look away. I
tried so hard. I tried holding

1460
02:22:48,879 --> 02:22:54,639
my eyes shut, but I couldn't. I wanted to look deeper and disappear

1461
02:22:54,680 --> 02:22:58,760
into that light, to let it
burn me hollow inside and out, to

1462
02:22:58,799 --> 02:23:09,520
be free home. I heard it
calling. I can't describe it, but

1463
02:23:09,000 --> 02:23:15,200
I heard it even with two hands
covering my eyes. A clicking noise from

1464
02:23:15,200 --> 02:23:18,920
that box bore its way into my
head and forced an electrical impulse of light

1465
02:23:20,159 --> 02:23:26,159
inside my eyelids. No matter,
I thought, maybe it would be wonderful

1466
02:23:26,200 --> 02:23:33,840
in the end. Looking back at
it, it's so unreal. The thoughts

1467
02:23:33,840 --> 02:23:39,360
are still there, but it's like
they're not even my own. I tried

1468
02:23:39,399 --> 02:23:43,280
to recap a movie you saw twenty
years ago, and you know, hadn't

1469
02:23:43,319 --> 02:23:48,520
it been for one stupid thing,
I would never have made it here.

1470
02:23:50,440 --> 02:23:54,719
One of the officers, the one
who drew a pistol, had dropped it.

1471
02:23:56,239 --> 02:23:58,719
I slipped on it. When I
was drawn in, I fell hard

1472
02:24:00,079 --> 02:24:05,319
torso first, knocking the air out
of my lungs. There lying on the

1473
02:24:05,399 --> 02:24:11,040
side, I noticed I was lying
parallel to the beaten woman, looking at

1474
02:24:11,040 --> 02:24:15,639
one another from across the parking lot. I was reminded that there was still

1475
02:24:15,719 --> 02:24:20,239
time. Looking at her, I
didn't see AO. I just saw the

1476
02:24:20,280 --> 02:24:26,840
pain of what was the com if
I didn't tear myself away. So I

1477
02:24:26,879 --> 02:24:33,159
did. In one quick swoop,
I picked up the gun at my feet,

1478
02:24:33,600 --> 02:24:37,399
held it up, pointed forward,
and looked. I pulled the trigger.

1479
02:24:39,879 --> 02:24:43,799
The moment I did, my eyes
fell upon the black box. I

1480
02:24:43,840 --> 02:24:48,360
could see it before me, every
flash of light from that box, stretching

1481
02:24:48,399 --> 02:24:54,600
into days weeks. I could see
the bullet travel across the sky in my

1482
02:24:54,680 --> 02:24:58,959
mind like a celestial body traveling across
the stars. I could drown my thought.

1483
02:25:00,000 --> 02:25:05,360
What in this world of ale eternally
seen and loved, wanted? Needed?

1484
02:25:07,479 --> 02:25:13,799
I gave up completely, just like
the others I did. It gets

1485
02:25:13,840 --> 02:25:16,840
the hell out of me to admit, but experiencing that thing for the third

1486
02:25:16,879 --> 02:25:28,239
time was the final snap Luckily that
one bullet found its target. The box

1487
02:25:28,319 --> 02:25:31,959
shattered into pieces. The inside of
it was nothing but a powerful bulb and

1488
02:25:33,000 --> 02:25:39,120
a little hand cranked fan. That
was all there was to it. As

1489
02:25:39,159 --> 02:25:43,360
the pieces spread across the asphalt,
there was a moment of realization, like

1490
02:25:43,479 --> 02:25:48,719
something was torn out of my head. The world started to spin, as

1491
02:25:48,719 --> 02:25:54,280
if passing by a million miles per
hour. I got the worst case of

1492
02:25:54,360 --> 02:26:00,879
vertigo i'd ever experienced, Barely able
to breathe from the nausea. Collapsed to

1493
02:26:00,959 --> 02:26:05,840
the ground, exponging their empty stomachs. I saw someone having a seizure.

1494
02:26:05,799 --> 02:26:09,399
The man who'd beaten that girl half
to death crawled up to me, took

1495
02:26:09,440 --> 02:26:15,319
my handgun and fired every single round
into the woman who held that black box.

1496
02:26:16,799 --> 02:26:24,840
Maybe he too saw his chance to
be free. It was absolute chaos.

1497
02:26:24,440 --> 02:26:28,799
I was sick. I was accused
more flashing lights, but all they

1498
02:26:28,799 --> 02:26:33,280
did was worse in my nausea.
I got my blood pressure checked. I

1499
02:26:33,280 --> 02:26:37,120
had to spend a night in jail. I think I could barely think straight.

1500
02:26:39,280 --> 02:26:43,079
Most of my time was past leaning
over a toilet bowl, emptying my

1501
02:26:43,159 --> 02:26:46,760
bows over and over. Some of
the stuff that came out just didn't make

1502
02:26:46,799 --> 02:26:52,520
any sense. When the hell did
I eat a sunflower? And why the

1503
02:26:52,559 --> 02:26:58,040
hell was it blue? The beaten
woman didn't accuse me, if anything,

1504
02:26:58,680 --> 02:27:05,719
sheared me. Maybe she saw that
lastedtch effort for what it was. The

1505
02:27:05,760 --> 02:27:09,479
man who shot down her capter was
charged, but I don't know for what.

1506
02:27:11,479 --> 02:27:16,799
After many considerations, I was eventually
cleared. One of the officers on

1507
02:27:16,920 --> 02:27:20,959
site was actually the one I'd initially
talked to when I was first assaulted.

1508
02:27:20,760 --> 02:27:26,879
So maybe you felt bad about not
listening the first time. Maybe you've seen

1509
02:27:26,879 --> 02:27:31,040
the articles. They called it a
prank gone wrong. I think it reached

1510
02:27:31,159 --> 02:27:37,040
like page eight of a national paper. This was a couple of years ago.

1511
02:27:37,639 --> 02:27:41,680
I wanted to put this the paper
to remind myself that it actually happened,

1512
02:27:43,520 --> 02:27:48,760
and that my feelings and fears are
still valid, because to this day

1513
02:27:50,079 --> 02:27:56,360
I get this sort of Havlovian response
whenever something flashes. It's like my body

1514
02:27:56,479 --> 02:28:01,799
goes into shock immediately trying to get
something out of me. Hell, it

1515
02:28:01,879 --> 02:28:07,399
made me throw up once when I
was photographed for work. I think the

1516
02:28:07,440 --> 02:28:11,600
box was something called a raskin.
I've seen a few of them circling online,

1517
02:28:13,600 --> 02:28:16,440
some sort of replica of an art
piece by some old turn of the

1518
02:28:16,520 --> 02:28:24,079
century author. I just wanted to
put this out there. When I found

1519
02:28:24,120 --> 02:28:28,840
myself looking for answers and there was
none to be found, I felt so

1520
02:28:28,159 --> 02:28:37,799
goddamn alone. At least now there
is one of us talking about it.

1521
02:28:46,840 --> 02:28:52,440
It stares in at me, pale
fingers pressed against the windows glass. It's

1522
02:28:52,520 --> 02:28:56,719
raining hard now, and with a
light from inside hitting it, I can

1523
02:28:56,840 --> 02:29:01,239
see that the water running down from
its skin has a milky cast to it,

1524
02:29:01,760 --> 02:29:07,440
though the rain above doesn't seem to
have. Looking back to its face,

1525
02:29:07,479 --> 02:29:11,639
I see it smiling at me now, rows of gray peg teeth,

1526
02:29:13,559 --> 02:29:18,719
too many teeth, and behind them
a gray tongue twists in that greater dark

1527
02:29:20,079 --> 02:29:24,479
as it tries to speak or laugh
without sound. I have the odd thought

1528
02:29:24,559 --> 02:29:30,440
that it's eaten too much candy and
gone rotten inside, and it's no wonder

1529
02:29:31,200 --> 02:29:35,159
for all its strangeness. The thing
outside looks like a little girl, at

1530
02:29:35,239 --> 02:29:41,799
least until you get to its eyes. They are black and cold and pitiless.

1531
02:29:41,920 --> 02:29:46,799
And though it's probably my terrified mind
playing tricks, I could swear there

1532
02:29:46,840 --> 02:29:56,200
was something moving behind those eyes worms, and that they are what is really

1533
02:29:56,239 --> 02:30:03,360
looking at me and wanting to get
in across the house. I hear Allison

1534
02:30:03,479 --> 02:30:09,000
start to scream. My stomach lurged
when my phone lit up and I saw

1535
02:30:09,079 --> 02:30:13,680
it was Allison. I didn't want
to fight anymore, and I didn't think

1536
02:30:13,719 --> 02:30:18,719
talking about it again would help anything. I told her I wanted to break

1537
02:30:18,799 --> 02:30:22,600
up two weeks earlier, and while
that initial conversation had been sad and hard,

1538
02:30:24,399 --> 02:30:28,120
I thought at the time that it
resolved things, and had even hoped

1539
02:30:28,120 --> 02:30:33,159
in time we could be friends again. But the next day she called and

1540
02:30:33,239 --> 02:30:37,760
wanted to talk again for hours,
and the day after that and on and

1541
02:30:37,840 --> 02:30:43,959
on the conversation never changed. I
felt like we needed to move on and

1542
02:30:43,040 --> 02:30:48,680
find people that we'd be more compatible
with long term, and she wanted us

1543
02:30:48,680 --> 02:30:54,280
to stay together. The longer I've
resisted giving in, the angrier and more

1544
02:30:54,319 --> 02:30:58,600
bitter she got. By the end
of the week, she was accusing me

1545
02:30:58,639 --> 02:31:03,200
of chee, of lying to her, of using her. I told her

1546
02:31:03,319 --> 02:31:07,959
none of that was true, and
I tried to stay patient because I knew

1547
02:31:07,959 --> 02:31:13,319
she was hurting and not her self. But eventually I had enough. I

1548
02:31:13,360 --> 02:31:18,040
told her last week that I didn't
think we should talk anymore for a while,

1549
02:31:18,639 --> 02:31:22,479
and I hadn't answered her daily texts
and call since then, and that

1550
02:31:22,639 --> 02:31:30,760
was my initial impulse this time too, but she kept calling. Normally,

1551
02:31:30,879 --> 02:31:33,399
it was only one call or text
and she was done for at least a

1552
02:31:33,440 --> 02:31:39,040
few hours. But when she called
the fourth time in a row, I

1553
02:31:39,079 --> 02:31:45,319
got worried something was really wrong.
Taking a deep breath, I answered the

1554
02:31:45,319 --> 02:31:52,200
phone, Travis, are you there. Yeah, I'm here. It's everything

1555
02:31:52,239 --> 02:31:58,360
okay. You've been blowing up my
phone? Yeah, No, everything isn't

1556
02:31:58,399 --> 02:32:03,680
okay. I I did something stupid. I didn't really mean to. I'm

1557
02:32:03,680 --> 02:32:05,840
not trying to excuse it, but
I didn't really think it would work.

1558
02:32:05,879 --> 02:32:09,639
And then I want to take it
back, and Alie, what are you

1559
02:32:09,719 --> 02:32:15,319
talking about? I'm coming over.
Just don't open the door for anyone.

1560
02:32:15,959 --> 02:32:18,879
Keep the doors locked, and please
don't open the door until I get there.

1561
02:32:20,079 --> 02:32:24,879
Lock. I'm really tired and I
don't Travis, I need you to

1562
02:32:24,920 --> 02:32:28,440
listen to me. This isn't about
us. If you don't listen to me,

1563
02:32:28,879 --> 02:32:37,120
I'm worried you might die tonight.
And then she was gone. I

1564
02:32:37,200 --> 02:32:41,159
stared at the phone for a long
time, my mind raising as I went

1565
02:32:41,239 --> 02:32:46,399
back through everything she'd said and tried
to make sense of it. What was

1566
02:32:46,440 --> 02:32:52,680
she talking about? Was she crazy
or on drugs? Was she dangerous?

1567
02:32:52,559 --> 02:32:58,200
It hadn't sounded like she was threatening
me exactly, but people got weird sometimes

1568
02:32:58,239 --> 02:33:03,200
so when they were upset or hurting. Still, not that Alison didn't have

1569
02:33:03,280 --> 02:33:09,079
issues, but I didn't think she
tried to hurt me. I jumped when

1570
02:33:09,120 --> 02:33:13,239
I heard the thumb at the back
door. My first thought was that it

1571
02:33:13,319 --> 02:33:20,399
was Allison, though I didn't know
why she'd be going around back walking through

1572
02:33:20,399 --> 02:33:24,360
the house. I turned on a
couple of more lights, her frantic warnings

1573
02:33:24,479 --> 02:33:31,200
echoing in my head. She sounded
really scared. But all the doors were

1574
02:33:31,239 --> 02:33:35,399
locked, weren't they. That's when
I heard the knob on the back door

1575
02:33:35,479 --> 02:33:41,520
start the turn, heart hammering.
I turned the corner and leaped to the

1576
02:33:41,559 --> 02:33:45,639
door, slamming against it as I
turned the dead bolt and then twisted in

1577
02:33:45,680 --> 02:33:50,360
a knob lock as well. What
the hell was I moved of the door

1578
02:33:50,600 --> 02:33:56,280
and over to the window, looking
out the back porch. It had started

1579
02:33:56,360 --> 02:34:01,360
raining outside, and it was late
enough that it was fully dark, so

1580
02:34:01,719 --> 02:34:05,479
I couldn't make out anything but a
small, dark shape leaning against the outside

1581
02:34:05,520 --> 02:34:11,399
of the door. It looked like
a short adult or a child. The

1582
02:34:11,600 --> 02:34:16,840
ear pressed against the door, as
though listening for me on the other side.

1583
02:34:18,120 --> 02:34:24,280
What the hell? It lifted its
head away from the door as it

1584
02:34:24,319 --> 02:34:28,760
caught side to me. A moment
later. It was framed by the window

1585
02:34:28,200 --> 02:34:35,360
and the interior light, pale and
terrible and smiling as it mouthed something silent

1586
02:34:35,399 --> 02:34:41,200
to me with its pale lips and
dark tongue, looking into its black eyes.

1587
02:34:41,920 --> 02:34:50,319
I started to back away, but
that's when I heard Allison screams and

1588
02:34:50,399 --> 02:34:54,520
pounding from the front door. It
sounded like she was trying to break down

1589
02:34:54,559 --> 02:35:00,680
the door, and maybe she was
running back to the front to the house.

1590
02:35:01,079 --> 02:35:05,079
I started to make out some of
what she was yelling, Let me

1591
02:35:05,159 --> 02:35:09,680
in, now, it's coming.
I took the time to look through the

1592
02:35:09,680 --> 02:35:16,280
pea hole in the door before opening
it. It was Alison looking wet and

1593
02:35:16,440 --> 02:35:22,959
crazy and terrified. Under other circumstances
that might have given me pause, but

1594
02:35:24,079 --> 02:35:28,440
at the moment I didn't feel much
different. I threw open the door,

1595
02:35:28,479 --> 02:35:33,280
and she jumped in, ripping the
door out of my grasp and slamming it

1596
02:35:33,319 --> 02:35:37,920
shut behind her before turning the locks
again. They one of them followed me,

1597
02:35:39,879 --> 02:35:43,719
Oh God, have you seen the
other one? Yet I stared at

1598
02:35:43,719 --> 02:35:50,440
her other one. What there's two
of them? Her eyes wide and slightly.

1599
02:35:52,399 --> 02:35:54,959
It's already here too, isn't it
it? Damn it, damn it.

1600
02:35:56,079 --> 02:36:00,840
She yelled and recalled from the door. As the knob began to rattle.

1601
02:36:01,959 --> 02:36:05,159
She looked at the door and back
to me. Do you have any

1602
02:36:05,159 --> 02:36:11,239
guns? Frowning? I shook my
head. You know, I don't look

1603
02:36:11,639 --> 02:36:13,760
what is this all about. If
this is some kind of frank, it's

1604
02:36:13,760 --> 02:36:18,440
a really bad thing to grabbing the
side of my face. She started crying

1605
02:36:18,520 --> 02:36:26,120
softly. It's no prank. I
thought it was nonsense. She trailed off,

1606
02:36:26,239 --> 02:36:30,079
and she looked around the room.
Where did you see the other one?

1607
02:36:31,959 --> 02:36:39,200
I swallowed. She's at the back
door, nodding. She took my

1608
02:36:39,319 --> 02:36:43,079
hand and pulled me further into the
house. We need to go somewhere without

1609
02:36:43,079 --> 02:36:50,239
windows your office. That door locks. Pulling my hand free, I stopped

1610
02:36:50,239 --> 02:36:56,159
in the hallway. Wait stop,
I'm not going anywhere until you tell me

1611
02:36:56,239 --> 02:37:01,840
what the hell is going on.
Grimacing, she grabbed my arm. There's

1612
02:37:01,879 --> 02:37:03,879
no time for that. We need
to barricade a room until we can get

1613
02:37:03,920 --> 02:37:09,120
help. I shook my head.
Screw that. If this is so serious.

1614
02:37:09,360 --> 02:37:13,479
I'll call nine one one right now. I pulled out my phone and

1615
02:37:13,520 --> 02:37:18,399
held it up. You sure you
want me to do that? She pulled

1616
02:37:18,399 --> 02:37:22,440
out her own phone. Sure,
go ahead. If I can't get you

1617
02:37:22,520 --> 02:37:26,040
to listen, let's at least get
the cops in the way. I don't

1618
02:37:26,040 --> 02:37:31,559
have signal. I always have signal
here. I looked back at my own

1619
02:37:31,600 --> 02:37:35,479
phone. It was the same.
And while I went ahead and tried calling

1620
02:37:35,520 --> 02:37:41,680
twice, there was no dial tone
or ringing. Looking up, I met

1621
02:37:41,719 --> 02:37:46,680
Allison's worried eyes. Damn, fine, let's go in there and you explain

1622
02:37:46,760 --> 02:37:52,040
to me what the hell this is. And after we were in my office

1623
02:37:52,479 --> 02:37:58,280
and the door was locked and barricaded
with a bookshelf, that's exactly what she

1624
02:37:58,399 --> 02:38:05,360
did. I I haven't been dealing
this whole breakup thing. Well, I

1625
02:38:05,399 --> 02:38:09,200
mean, damn, you know that, right, And I know I've seemed

1626
02:38:09,280 --> 02:38:15,719
crazy. And then I started accusing
you of stuff and sitting down in my

1627
02:38:15,760 --> 02:38:20,479
desk chair. I snorted, yeah, like cheating, which I never did.

1628
02:38:20,760 --> 02:38:26,079
She grimaced and nodded. I believe
you in my head. I do.

1629
02:38:26,200 --> 02:38:30,399
But the last few days I've been
really hard, and I've been really

1630
02:38:30,479 --> 02:38:35,079
sad and bitter. I'd normally talk
about stuff like this with well you,

1631
02:38:35,159 --> 02:38:41,040
but since that wasn't working and you
had enough of my crazy, which I

1632
02:38:41,159 --> 02:38:46,600
totally get, but just saying,
I went online and started reading different forums

1633
02:38:46,639 --> 02:38:50,239
and stuff where people were mad at
ex's, got cheated on, wanted revenge,

1634
02:38:50,520 --> 02:38:56,159
all kinds of stuff. I felt
like it was helping, just seeing

1635
02:38:56,200 --> 02:39:01,520
other people in that kind of pain, you know, Alison slumped down against

1636
02:39:01,520 --> 02:39:07,399
the wall. I never posted anywhere, never gave anyone anything, but somehow

1637
02:39:07,879 --> 02:39:11,239
I get this email a few days
ago. No pictures or links, not

1638
02:39:11,319 --> 02:39:18,120
selling anything that I could tell,
just a few paragraphs describing well. He

1639
02:39:18,280 --> 02:39:28,879
called it a revenge ritual. I
st editor a ritual. The email called

1640
02:39:28,920 --> 02:39:33,840
it the night Hunt. I know
how it sounds. At first, I

1641
02:39:33,879 --> 02:39:37,360
thought it was just an odd story
or some viral marketing thing. But nothing

1642
02:39:37,360 --> 02:39:43,000
else like that came, and I
couldn't even see the address it came from,

1643
02:39:43,000 --> 02:39:50,479
and it, well, it stuck
with me. I tried to push

1644
02:39:50,479 --> 02:39:54,159
it out of my mind, but
I kept opening my phone and rereading it,

1645
02:39:54,920 --> 02:39:58,520
and it didn't sound hard to do, and I didn't expect it to

1646
02:39:58,520 --> 02:40:01,479
do anything really, but of course
I didn't. I thought it was more

1647
02:40:01,520 --> 02:40:05,719
like a cathartic thing, like when
people burn someone's stuff after they break up.

1648
02:40:07,760 --> 02:40:13,639
She looked back up, her expression
haunted. I didn't know what it

1649
02:40:13,719 --> 02:40:20,879
did was real. I felt my
stomach twisting at the fear and dread in

1650
02:40:20,879 --> 02:40:26,959
a voice. What did you do? She buried her face in her arms.

1651
02:40:28,959 --> 02:40:31,120
It said, to take a box. You tied it up with a

1652
02:40:31,200 --> 02:40:35,840
bow, but before you close it, you put in something from yourself and

1653
02:40:35,879 --> 02:40:43,239
the one that wronged you. That
and some paper, and then you then

1654
02:40:43,319 --> 02:40:46,760
take it to as close as possible
to the place where you were wronged and

1655
02:40:46,840 --> 02:40:52,559
bury it. It has to be
done at sunrise the next night. The

1656
02:40:52,639 --> 02:41:01,280
person that wronged you, they get
punished. I felt my pulse rising higher.

1657
02:41:01,559 --> 02:41:09,000
Punished how Alison shook her head without
looking up. I don't know.

1658
02:41:09,559 --> 02:41:13,000
It was all nonsense, right,
I didn't think it was going to work.

1659
02:41:15,319 --> 02:41:20,280
So what you hired someone to punish
me? She did look up.

1660
02:41:20,319 --> 02:41:26,120
Then, no, you're not listening. I didn't really want to hurt you,

1661
02:41:26,159 --> 02:41:30,360
okay, I was just mad and
sad about everything. Yes, I

1662
02:41:30,399 --> 02:41:33,239
got the box and did the thing. I went and buried it. Well,

1663
02:41:33,559 --> 02:41:37,360
well, you told me we were
done being together. But after that

1664
02:41:37,680 --> 02:41:43,040
I worried about it. I kept
worrying about it all day. So after

1665
02:41:43,079 --> 02:41:46,440
work today I drove back out there
to dig it back up. I felt

1666
02:41:46,520 --> 02:41:52,159
dumb, but I felt guilty too. She let out a bitter laugh.

1667
02:41:54,280 --> 02:41:58,120
But then the rain came. You
know how people drive in the rain.

1668
02:41:58,000 --> 02:42:01,200
There was an accident and I was
stuck in traffic for over an hour,

1669
02:42:03,120 --> 02:42:07,639
and by the time I got out
there it was almost dark. I ran

1670
02:42:07,680 --> 02:42:11,479
out to get it. I was
feeling more scared about it now, though

1671
02:42:11,719 --> 02:42:22,680
I didn't know why. That's when
I saw them. I leaned forward who

1672
02:42:24,520 --> 02:42:31,680
She gave me a hollow smile.
Those children, a small boy and girl,

1673
02:42:31,200 --> 02:42:37,600
dressed in dark clothes and with super
pale skin. They were digging up

1674
02:42:37,639 --> 02:42:43,559
the box. Dropping her eyes,
she went on. I wanted to approach

1675
02:42:43,600 --> 02:42:48,719
them, but just looking at them, even from a distance in the dark,

1676
02:42:50,840 --> 02:42:54,680
I was terrified. You could tell
there was something wrong with them,

1677
02:42:54,440 --> 02:42:58,799
not just how they looked or moved, but something more. It was like

1678
02:43:00,159 --> 02:43:05,559
radiation coming from them, how wrong
they were. So I hid and I

1679
02:43:05,680 --> 02:43:09,360
watched. They opened the box,
took out the note and the two things.

1680
02:43:11,040 --> 02:43:13,840
A necklace he gave me for my
birthday. A couple of years ago,

1681
02:43:13,399 --> 02:43:16,479
and a hat of yours you always
wear around the yard at my place.

1682
02:43:18,639 --> 02:43:22,600
The boy kept the necklace and gave
her the hat. The next moment,

1683
02:43:24,319 --> 02:43:28,319
she was gone, just kind of
a weird shadowy blur like the film

1684
02:43:28,399 --> 02:43:35,719
got sped up in one spot and
the boy he turned and looked at me.

1685
02:43:39,239 --> 02:43:43,600
She paused for a moment, looking
around. Do you hear something?

1686
02:43:43,520 --> 02:43:50,479
I hear banging far away? Oh
maybe it's my imagination. I strained to

1687
02:43:50,520 --> 02:43:54,280
listen for a moment, but all
I heard was the wind and the rain

1688
02:43:54,479 --> 02:44:01,040
lashing the roof of her head.
No, I don't think so. But

1689
02:44:01,239 --> 02:44:09,000
so what happened with the boy?
She shuddered. He just started walking towards

1690
02:44:09,040 --> 02:44:13,760
me, like pepular pure something.
I don't know. I just knew I

1691
02:44:13,799 --> 02:44:18,440
needed to get out of there,
and I needed to warn you. Letting

1692
02:44:18,440 --> 02:44:22,920
out a long breath, I looked
down at my phone again, Still no

1693
02:44:24,040 --> 02:44:31,159
signal. So what who are they? Alison shrugged. I don't know they

1694
02:44:31,200 --> 02:44:35,479
are people. I don't know what
they are, just that she's after you

1695
02:44:37,040 --> 02:44:43,079
and he's chased me all the way
here. Standing up, I felt fear

1696
02:44:43,200 --> 02:44:48,760
and anger bubbling up, but I
tried to keep my voice even, well,

1697
02:44:48,840 --> 02:44:52,000
what did the damn email say about
them? Just pretty much what I

1698
02:44:52,040 --> 02:44:58,000
said. It was more flowery and
all, but it was basically just this

1699
02:44:58,120 --> 02:45:01,559
is a ritual to screw someone over
screwed with you, to rebalance things.

1700
02:45:03,479 --> 02:45:09,479
It said that. I think I
shook my head, and you just do

1701
02:45:09,559 --> 02:45:13,440
this not knowing what it's going to
do or how it might hurt me or

1702
02:45:13,479 --> 02:45:16,719
you. Even she scowled at me. I said, I messed up.

1703
02:45:16,959 --> 02:45:20,040
I said, I didn't know it
would really work. Why would I think

1704
02:45:20,079 --> 02:45:24,200
it was real? Some magic nonsense? But as soon as I did it,

1705
02:45:24,520 --> 02:45:31,559
I knew something wasn't right. When
I saw them, her expression broke

1706
02:45:31,760 --> 02:45:35,719
and she started tearing up again.
God, I really am so sorry.

1707
02:45:37,239 --> 02:45:41,559
I didn't know. I'll figure out
a way to fix this. And I

1708
02:45:41,639 --> 02:45:46,440
was torn between wanting to comfort her
and yell at her. How the hell

1709
02:45:46,479 --> 02:45:54,840
would you? Damn? I sighed
and looked at the ceiling. What was

1710
02:45:54,879 --> 02:45:58,920
this note? You said something about
a paper you bought in there? What

1711
02:45:58,200 --> 02:46:05,479
was that? Allison sat up more. Yeah, it was just like a

1712
02:46:05,479 --> 02:46:09,040
line of French. I copied it
from the email, but I didn't know

1713
02:46:09,079 --> 02:46:15,319
what it means. I stared at
her. Geez, just writing stuff down

1714
02:46:15,319 --> 02:46:18,760
and punning it in this damn thing, and you can't be bothered to google

1715
02:46:18,799 --> 02:46:24,600
it. Her expression began to turn
red. Stupid, I know, but

1716
02:46:24,159 --> 02:46:28,760
it was just a few words,
and I didn't want to know I was.

1717
02:46:30,079 --> 02:46:33,200
She shook her head again. I
was afraid if I knew too much

1718
02:46:33,239 --> 02:46:37,799
then I wouldn't go through with it, and I thought I needed it.

1719
02:46:39,840 --> 02:46:45,840
I spread across my chest because you, at least a part of you,

1720
02:46:45,840 --> 02:46:50,760
you thought it might be real,
didn't you. She was crying more freely.

1721
02:46:50,840 --> 02:46:56,520
Now, Yeah, okay, maybe
I did. I'm ashamed of it,

1722
02:46:56,639 --> 02:46:58,440
and I'd take it back now if
I could. But but yeah,

1723
02:47:00,079 --> 02:47:03,440
using you made me hate myself,
and that made it feel okay to hate

1724
02:47:03,440 --> 02:47:09,600
you too. Somehow, even in
the middle of everything going on, that

1725
02:47:09,799 --> 02:47:15,399
managed to hurt me more than I'd
expected. Turning the stair at the wall,

1726
02:47:15,600 --> 02:47:20,159
I asked again, do you remember
what the note said? Like what

1727
02:47:20,280 --> 02:47:26,159
the letters or words were? I
think so it was like oh la tree

1728
02:47:26,280 --> 02:47:35,600
or unlatere maybe like that, but
a little longer. I searched my memory

1729
02:47:35,680 --> 02:47:41,079
from a year of college French.
Suddenly my mouth went dry. Was it

1730
02:47:41,760 --> 02:47:48,239
unlowd? I heard her sucking a
breath. Yeah, that sounds like it.

1731
02:47:50,120 --> 02:47:56,079
What's it mean? Resting my head
against the wall, I didn't try

1732
02:47:56,120 --> 02:48:01,920
to hide the fear of my voice
anymore. It means one or the other,

1733
02:48:03,879 --> 02:48:09,040
I jerked back as I felt a
dull thought in the wall. Did

1734
02:48:09,120 --> 02:48:16,040
you hear something again just now?
She nodded, Yeah, me too.

1735
02:48:16,920 --> 02:48:20,840
I think it's in the access door
under the house. It comes open in

1736
02:48:20,840 --> 02:48:26,440
the wind sometimes. Alison frowned at
me. Well, even if they go

1737
02:48:26,559 --> 02:48:31,200
under there, there's no doors into
the house, right, and they don't

1738
02:48:31,200 --> 02:48:33,239
seem to be coming in on us
yet. I don't know if that's a

1739
02:48:33,360 --> 02:48:39,000
rule of theirs, like vampires or
something. I looked around the room.

1740
02:48:39,360 --> 02:48:45,520
No doors, but there's a duct
work under there, and every room has

1741
02:48:45,639 --> 02:48:50,879
vents. My eyes landed on the
vent in the corner of the room,

1742
02:48:50,959 --> 02:48:58,600
just as Allison began to scream.
There were tiny, pale fingers poking out

1743
02:48:58,600 --> 02:49:03,719
of the vent holes, stealthily pushing
the cover free so the path inside with

1744
02:49:03,840 --> 02:49:07,399
us would be open. I ran
over and stomped on the vent cover with

1745
02:49:07,479 --> 02:49:13,479
disgust, trying to crush the fingers
between the lines of the metal, but

1746
02:49:13,479 --> 02:49:20,319
they were already gone. Hearing another
cry, from Alison. I turned to

1747
02:49:20,319 --> 02:49:24,680
see another vent in the far corner, pushing up slowly. Get it.

1748
02:49:24,879 --> 02:49:30,840
We have to keep them out.
She did stand up then, and at

1749
02:49:30,879 --> 02:49:35,360
first I thought she was moving to
block the vent, but instead she went

1750
02:49:35,399 --> 02:49:39,200
to the bookcase and yanked it a
side enough to open the door partially.

1751
02:49:39,600 --> 02:49:43,959
What are you doing? Stop that? She turned and looked back at me,

1752
02:49:45,639 --> 02:49:50,639
even as she slid through the gap. One or the other. And

1753
02:49:50,680 --> 02:49:56,639
it's not going to be you.
I ran across the stopper, but she

1754
02:49:56,719 --> 02:50:00,360
was already gone down the hall,
and by the time I opened the gap

1755
02:50:00,440 --> 02:50:03,120
enough to get through, she'd made
it to the front door and yanked it

1756
02:50:03,159 --> 02:50:11,639
open. The storm came rushing in, wind and water and darkness, and

1757
02:50:11,719 --> 02:50:15,600
for a moment I was terrified she
was just going to leave the door open

1758
02:50:15,959 --> 02:50:22,200
and let them both in. But
no, she thumbed the knob lock and

1759
02:50:22,319 --> 02:50:26,159
went out, slamming the door behind
her. I ran to the window and

1760
02:50:26,239 --> 02:50:31,319
looked out, watching a mute horror
as she walked out into the rain.

1761
02:50:33,840 --> 02:50:39,520
Take me, it's my fault.
Take me. And then she was gone.

1762
02:50:41,239 --> 02:50:46,719
It had been, like she said, a dark blur, like a

1763
02:50:46,760 --> 02:50:50,399
patch of the night, went fast, and then slow again. One moment

1764
02:50:50,639 --> 02:50:56,159
she was shaking in terror, calling
out into the dark, trying to fix

1765
02:50:56,239 --> 02:51:03,959
what she'd done, and the next
she just wasn't. Less than a minute

1766
02:51:05,040 --> 02:51:15,200
later the rain stopped. That was
a month ago. There's been no sign

1767
02:51:15,239 --> 02:51:20,559
of Alison since, and though I
did report a missing after discovering a car

1768
02:51:20,639 --> 02:51:26,440
outside my house, I haven't told
anyone about what really happened. They probably

1769
02:51:26,479 --> 02:51:31,760
wonder if I did something to her, but they'll never find any sign of

1770
02:51:31,760 --> 02:51:41,680
that or anything else, because there's
none to find. Well that's not entirely

1771
02:51:41,760 --> 02:51:48,200
true, because on that back window, with a thing that looked like a

1772
02:51:48,239 --> 02:51:54,479
girl stared in at me, there
is a permanent stain of ghostly white where

1773
02:51:54,520 --> 02:52:01,239
her hand was pressed and dripped down. Seeing it now instead of running down,

1774
02:52:03,120 --> 02:52:09,559
it looks like it's grown up a
warped pale fungus, or a twisted

1775
02:52:09,680 --> 02:52:13,520
evil tree, grown up from the
ground of the park where me and Allison

1776
02:52:13,559 --> 02:52:20,920
first kissed and where I told her
we needed to end, or maybe from

1777
02:52:22,000 --> 02:52:39,360
the dark earth nestled in the shadowed
corners of the Human Heart. I thought

1778
02:52:39,399 --> 02:52:43,879
about calling the police, but I
haven't figured out if I'm losing my mind

1779
02:52:43,399 --> 02:52:50,680
or if my entire family has lost
theirs. Maybe I'll wake up soon and

1780
02:52:50,760 --> 02:52:56,719
this will all have been a terrible
nightmare. For context. I'm an only

1781
02:52:56,840 --> 02:53:01,479
child and the only grandchild of my
last living grandmother. A couple of weeks

1782
02:53:01,520 --> 02:53:05,879
ago, while at work, I
received a phone call from my mother informing

1783
02:53:05,920 --> 02:53:11,840
me that my grandmother had taken a
fall in a kitchen. Mom said that

1784
02:53:11,920 --> 02:53:18,520
my uncle Loo was with her and
already in the ambulance. Paramedic suspected she

1785
02:53:18,600 --> 02:53:24,239
had a fractured hip and somehow sliced
open her foot. She was edated due

1786
02:53:24,280 --> 02:53:30,760
to the pain, but was otherwise
responsive and fine. I immediately asked if

1787
02:53:30,760 --> 02:53:35,159
I should meet them at the hospital, but Mom said, no, no,

1788
02:53:35,719 --> 02:53:41,840
don't leave work. I'll update you
once I know more, so I

1789
02:53:41,879 --> 02:53:50,280
waited. I loved my grandmother,
but she's probably the most stubborn woman I've

1790
02:53:50,280 --> 02:53:54,719
ever met. She has a home
remedy for just about anything and loathes seeing

1791
02:53:54,799 --> 02:54:00,559
doctors, so I'm sure she won't
be fun to deal with and fine to

1792
02:54:00,600 --> 02:54:05,600
a hospital bed. It doesn't help
that Grandma absolutely refuses to use a walker

1793
02:54:05,760 --> 02:54:11,799
or cane despite her debilitating age,
and will not leave a house to live

1794
02:54:11,879 --> 02:54:16,319
in a nursing home six months ago. Uncle Lou moved in with her to

1795
02:54:16,399 --> 02:54:22,239
help out. Not that he said
it out loud, but a voice suspected

1796
02:54:22,360 --> 02:54:26,360
that he did it more for the
free rent. With nothing else to do,

1797
02:54:26,879 --> 02:54:31,079
I sat at work, distracted and
waited for a phone call from Mom

1798
02:54:31,120 --> 02:54:37,520
with news. That call didn't come
through until long after I'd gotten home and

1799
02:54:37,639 --> 02:54:45,200
was brushing my teeth for bed.
Apparently Grandma was awake now and doing fine.

1800
02:54:46,399 --> 02:54:48,760
She would need surgery for the broken
hip, but they were able to

1801
02:54:48,760 --> 02:54:54,719
get the laceration on her foot stitched
up and bandaged. I asked to speak

1802
02:54:54,760 --> 02:54:58,799
with her, so Mom help the
phone up to Grandma's ear and I told

1803
02:54:58,799 --> 02:55:03,159
her I loved her and we're come
see her once she was discharged. The

1804
02:55:03,239 --> 02:55:07,920
hospital only allowed two visitors, and
Mom and Lou refused to leave her side.

1805
02:55:09,719 --> 02:55:13,319
Hi, honey, Grandma said through
the receiver. I'm okay, but

1806
02:55:13,840 --> 02:55:20,319
they won't let me leave. My
Mom's voice in the background exasperately explained that

1807
02:55:20,440 --> 02:55:26,360
she needs surgery, so they tell
me. She houghed, I'm fine,

1808
02:55:26,360 --> 02:55:33,840
Anna come see me when I'm home
and we can play cards. I smiled,

1809
02:55:33,200 --> 02:55:39,879
promised the visit and said goodbye.
She was discharged the following week and

1810
02:55:39,959 --> 02:55:46,959
sent home. The hip replacement was
successful, but she developed a nasty infection

1811
02:55:46,200 --> 02:55:52,799
on her foot. Between the two
ailments, Grandma was confined to a bed.

1812
02:55:52,440 --> 02:55:56,120
Once she was comfortable at home,
Mom gave me the okay to come

1813
02:55:56,159 --> 02:56:01,120
over, so I made some chicken
dumplings and sat on the chair beside her

1814
02:56:01,319 --> 02:56:07,440
while Mom spoon fed it into Grandma's
mouth. There you go, mom,

1815
02:56:07,760 --> 02:56:13,280
my mother encouraged. As Grandma sipped
the broth off the spoon, I could

1816
02:56:13,319 --> 02:56:18,559
tell Grandma was wildly out of it. I had been expecting an earful about

1817
02:56:18,600 --> 02:56:22,399
having to use a bedpan, but
due to the cocktail of narcotics and antibiotics,

1818
02:56:24,159 --> 02:56:28,559
she merely grumbled in annoyance at Mom's
un loose, constant hovering. For

1819
02:56:28,639 --> 02:56:33,719
what it was, she seemed in
good spirits, if not exceptionally tired.

1820
02:56:35,360 --> 02:56:41,280
After about two hours and two small
soup, Missaps and I got up to

1821
02:56:41,360 --> 02:56:46,559
leave. Mom saw me to the
door. She'll be fine, Anna,

1822
02:56:46,120 --> 02:56:52,680
Mom reassured LU and I had taken
care of everything. Don't worry. I

1823
02:56:52,760 --> 02:56:58,719
left, feeling optimistic that my grandmother
would be back to a spit by herself

1824
02:56:58,799 --> 02:57:05,440
relatively soon. That visit with a
soup was over two weeks ago now,

1825
02:57:07,520 --> 02:57:11,639
not long after Mom took a leave
of absence at work and hauled up in

1826
02:57:11,719 --> 02:57:16,159
Grandma's house with Uncle Lou. Each
time I called, Marmon gave a new

1827
02:57:16,159 --> 02:57:22,200
excuse as to why I shouldn't visit. Risk of infection, flu season,

1828
02:57:22,280 --> 02:57:28,639
fatigue, bowel issues, you name
it. At first, I accepted these

1829
02:57:28,680 --> 02:57:33,840
excuses at face value. They seemed
legit. But I can't even get Mom

1830
02:57:33,879 --> 02:57:39,159
to put Grandma on the phone any
more. I made more soup yesterday and

1831
02:57:39,239 --> 02:57:43,200
dropped it off, but Uncle Lou
met me at the door and said it

1832
02:57:43,280 --> 02:57:48,280
wasn't a good time, but he'd
make sure she got it, and we'll

1833
02:57:48,319 --> 02:57:54,120
always let her know when you call, he assured. I noticed there was

1834
02:57:54,200 --> 02:58:01,479
an intense floral, yet antiseptic scent
coming from the doorway. Your mom won't

1835
02:58:01,479 --> 02:58:07,559
stop cleaning, he explained. Frustrated, I called and complained to my father

1836
02:58:07,680 --> 02:58:13,600
on my way home, but he
defended Mom. Like always, She's always

1837
02:58:13,600 --> 02:58:18,280
been like this, he reminded me. They're extremely close, your Mum and

1838
02:58:18,360 --> 02:58:24,319
Grandma and Lou. Well, this
just seems like classic Lou. You know,

1839
02:58:24,799 --> 02:58:28,200
this is the first time they really
had to face the reality of their

1840
02:58:28,280 --> 02:58:35,360
mother's age. They're just protective and
scared to lose her. I figured he

1841
02:58:35,559 --> 02:58:41,000
was right, and I hung up
the phone, feeling a little less unsettled.

1842
02:58:43,000 --> 02:58:48,040
On Grandma's eighteen ninth birthday, however, I decided I wasn't going to

1843
02:58:48,079 --> 02:58:52,280
take no for an answer. I
would go over there and give her the

1844
02:58:52,319 --> 02:58:58,200
present I purchased for her, a
new thriller by a favorite author. I

1845
02:58:58,280 --> 02:59:03,399
arrived at the house in late afternoon
and noticed all the blinds were closed.

1846
02:59:03,639 --> 02:59:07,479
Being that it was a warm spring
day, it was common for Grandma to

1847
02:59:07,520 --> 02:59:13,399
have all the windows open and drapes
open, letting in both the sunlight and

1848
02:59:13,479 --> 02:59:18,600
fresh air. I knocked twice on
the front door, but no one came.

1849
02:59:20,120 --> 02:59:26,399
I knocked again, no answer.
I tried the knob, but the

1850
02:59:26,479 --> 02:59:31,799
door was locked. I paused for
a moment, considering that maybe no one

1851
02:59:31,879 --> 02:59:37,840
was home, maybe Grandma had a
follow up with a surgeon. But both

1852
02:59:37,879 --> 02:59:43,799
cars were in the driveway, so
I knocked again louder. The door opened

1853
02:59:43,799 --> 02:59:50,000
a crack, and a foul odor
filtered out, nearly choking me. Mom,

1854
02:59:50,520 --> 02:59:54,239
I exclaimed, when a face appeared
on the other side of the door,

1855
02:59:56,120 --> 03:00:01,799
what is that smell? Seeing it
was only me, she opened the

1856
03:00:01,879 --> 03:00:07,760
door another inch. The infection's gotten
worse, but we're monitoring it. Should

1857
03:00:07,799 --> 03:00:11,520
I call an ambulance, I asked, in a panic, pulling my cell

1858
03:00:11,520 --> 03:00:16,200
phone from my pocket. No,
no, Anna, she quickly reassured me.

1859
03:00:16,760 --> 03:00:20,120
We have it handled. I stopped
by and picked up refills o he

1860
03:00:20,159 --> 03:00:26,479
antibotics earlier, and we've been on
the phone to a surgeon. Relieved,

1861
03:00:26,799 --> 03:00:31,639
I took a deep breath, but
the smell was so overpowering. Mom.

1862
03:00:31,959 --> 03:00:37,879
That smell is ungodly. Why don't
you open the windows? We tried,

1863
03:00:37,360 --> 03:00:43,319
she said, but she got so
cold. Mom shrugged and didn't move.

1864
03:00:43,479 --> 03:00:48,200
Can I come in? I asked, attempting to look over her shoulder into

1865
03:00:48,239 --> 03:00:52,760
the dim house. I really didn't
want to go inside due to the smell,

1866
03:00:54,520 --> 03:00:58,120
but if Grandma wasn't doing well,
I wanted to see her. I

1867
03:00:58,200 --> 03:01:05,280
don't think it's a she murmured.
Where's Uncle Lou? I asked upstairs in

1868
03:01:05,319 --> 03:01:11,440
his room. Her voice was reassuring, with the smell turned my insides.

1869
03:01:13,639 --> 03:01:18,840
Surely a smell like that could only
mean bad things. I pushed the door

1870
03:01:18,879 --> 03:01:24,120
open, and Mom protested, just
come back another day when she's feeling better.

1871
03:01:24,680 --> 03:01:28,280
I promise you that Lou and I
have this under control. In the

1872
03:01:28,360 --> 03:01:33,239
kitchen, the odor was strong,
but mixed with the smell of bleach.

1873
03:01:33,200 --> 03:01:37,879
I couldn't tell if that made it
better or worse. At least, let

1874
03:01:37,879 --> 03:01:43,959
me see her and give her a
birthday present. Mom looked down to see

1875
03:01:43,000 --> 03:01:48,440
the rapt gift in my hands and
sighed. Of course. She said,

1876
03:01:50,159 --> 03:01:54,239
gosh, I'm sorry, we've just
been so preoccupied. I'm sure she'll love

1877
03:01:54,280 --> 03:02:01,040
it. At that moment, Uncle
Lou came trotting down the stairs and smiled

1878
03:02:01,079 --> 03:02:07,760
at me. Anna, Mom will
be so happy you're here. I looked

1879
03:02:07,760 --> 03:02:15,159
at my mother incredulously. She was
staring at her feet. Now what was

1880
03:02:15,239 --> 03:02:20,559
going on? Uncle Lou continued down
the hall, and I could hear him

1881
03:02:20,639 --> 03:02:24,760
as he opened the door to Grandma's
bedroom. Mom, you have a visitor

1882
03:02:24,840 --> 03:02:33,520
for your birthday. The smell of
the house was searing my nostrils, but

1883
03:02:33,600 --> 03:02:39,040
I wasn't going to let Grandma know. I was repulsed by it. Mom

1884
03:02:39,159 --> 03:02:43,280
led me down the hall to Grandma's
bedroom, instructing me along the way to

1885
03:02:43,319 --> 03:02:48,280
put on a grave face. I
blasted a smile across my face as I

1886
03:02:48,360 --> 03:02:54,079
turned the corner into the room.
Grandma was sitting up in bed, and

1887
03:02:54,159 --> 03:02:58,440
Uncle Lou had taken a seat on
the mattress beside her. His body obscured

1888
03:02:58,479 --> 03:03:03,920
most of the but I could see
her feet where they stuck out from under

1889
03:03:03,920 --> 03:03:09,360
the quilt. The toes and her
right foot were black with crumbling toenails and

1890
03:03:09,479 --> 03:03:15,600
festering saws. The sheets under a
heel stained yellow from dried puss. Lou

1891
03:03:15,840 --> 03:03:20,600
was prattling on to her, but
Grandma didn't respond. Isn't it nice for

1892
03:03:20,680 --> 03:03:24,239
Hannah to come see you on your
birthday? Mom? Goodness nose, you've

1893
03:03:24,280 --> 03:03:30,399
been through a lot this month.
She has a present for you. He

1894
03:03:30,479 --> 03:03:37,479
turned expectantly to me, his profile
moving just enough to reveal Grandma's form where

1895
03:03:37,520 --> 03:03:43,959
she sat up against the pillows.
Grandma's dull, lifeless eyes stared straight ahead

1896
03:03:43,959 --> 03:03:50,159
at the wall, unblinking and glazed
over. Her eyes were crusty and a

1897
03:03:50,319 --> 03:03:56,840
jaw hung wildly agape, with sagging
lips revealing a gray fuzz that had begun

1898
03:03:56,879 --> 03:04:01,680
to coat her tongue. Uncle loopatted
her leg while Mom hastily pulled the quilt

1899
03:04:01,719 --> 03:04:07,079
back down over her feet. I
barely heard as Lou explained how cold she's

1900
03:04:07,120 --> 03:04:11,040
been from the infection. He picked
up a tissue from the box on the

1901
03:04:11,120 --> 03:04:18,000
nightstand and began dabbing at the corner
of her mouth. She doesn't talk much

1902
03:04:18,120 --> 03:04:22,799
due to the heavy sedation she's under, He explained. I couldn't tear my

1903
03:04:22,879 --> 03:04:28,719
eyes away from the pallid gray skin
of Grandma's face and how it was starting

1904
03:04:28,760 --> 03:04:33,959
to sag in ways that had nothing
to do with her rage. Flies buzzed

1905
03:04:33,000 --> 03:04:37,719
overhead, and Mom picked up a
fly swatter and began swatting wildly at them.

1906
03:04:39,959 --> 03:04:45,879
Goddamn flies, she mumbled, They
won't leave her alone. One of

1907
03:04:45,920 --> 03:04:50,959
the flies circled Grandma's face and landed
in her open more. Uncle Lou merely

1908
03:04:52,040 --> 03:04:56,559
shooted away. She's been sleeping sitting
up like this for the past week or

1909
03:04:56,600 --> 03:05:03,520
so, Mom explained, patting Grandma's
now covered feet. The pain is just

1910
03:05:03,600 --> 03:05:07,159
too much for her to lay down. We tried, but her muscle spasm

1911
03:05:07,680 --> 03:05:13,479
and she can't move. My knees
were shaking, and I could all but

1912
03:05:13,680 --> 03:05:18,000
back out of the room, reaching
and pressing myself against the opposite wall.

1913
03:05:18,680 --> 03:05:24,399
Vomit creeping up the back of my
throat. It's okay, Anna, Uncle

1914
03:05:24,479 --> 03:05:28,120
Lou said from inside the room.
I know it's hard to see her in

1915
03:05:28,200 --> 03:05:31,559
such a state, but that's why
your mom and I are here to take

1916
03:05:31,600 --> 03:05:35,719
care of her. We agreed we
wouldn't let her go back to that hospital.

1917
03:05:37,559 --> 03:05:41,280
They've already messed up so much of
her care. You saw a foot

1918
03:05:41,319 --> 03:05:45,639
and what the doctors did to it. How a hospital could let Kangarine go

1919
03:05:45,719 --> 03:05:50,079
unnoticed is beyond me. Mom agreed. We've been sponge bathing her regularly,

1920
03:05:50,440 --> 03:05:56,200
airing her feet, and changing the
bandages frequently. It seems to be helping,

1921
03:05:56,879 --> 03:06:03,239
right, Mom, She asked,
squeezing grandma's I tried to put my

1922
03:06:03,280 --> 03:06:07,920
head between my knees, but the
smell was so overpowering. Mom stepped out

1923
03:06:07,920 --> 03:06:13,200
in the hallway and touched my shoulder. I re oiled. Oh, Hannah,

1924
03:06:13,959 --> 03:06:18,479
I am sorry. This is why
I didn't want you to come over.

1925
03:06:18,280 --> 03:06:22,000
The gangrene smell is hard to tolerate, and I didn't want you to

1926
03:06:22,079 --> 03:06:28,200
have to see her like this.
Not knowing what else to do, I

1927
03:06:28,280 --> 03:06:33,920
pulled her into the kitchen and said, in my most steady voice, Mom,

1928
03:06:35,280 --> 03:06:41,239
why didn't you tell me Grandma has
passed. Mom's face didn't change.

1929
03:06:43,239 --> 03:06:46,879
She just looked at me. What
are you talking? About Anna. She's

1930
03:06:46,959 --> 03:06:52,399
right there. You saw her?
Yeah, I did see her, I

1931
03:06:52,479 --> 03:06:56,000
agreed, pointing at the bedroom down
the hall, where the smell was so

1932
03:06:56,079 --> 03:07:01,959
strong that I was close to passing
out. But Grandma is dead, ma'am.

1933
03:07:03,879 --> 03:07:11,520
You know that right, She's very
obviously passed away. Mom's eyebrows narrowed

1934
03:07:11,600 --> 03:07:15,799
as she pursed her lips. Listen, Nana. I get that this is

1935
03:07:15,840 --> 03:07:18,760
hard for you. Hell, it's
hard for all of us. But if

1936
03:07:18,799 --> 03:07:24,200
you're saying this just to hurt me, it's not going to work. Stop

1937
03:07:24,239 --> 03:07:26,799
being a brat. Your father is
on the way over with a birthday cake.

1938
03:07:31,040 --> 03:07:33,959
The room began to spin, and
I needed to get out of that

1939
03:07:33,120 --> 03:07:39,399
house immediately. I tossed the present
on the kitchen table and grabbed my bag,

1940
03:07:39,000 --> 03:07:43,760
fleeing out of the kitchen door and
into my car, where I took

1941
03:07:43,879 --> 03:07:48,360
deep gulps of fresh air. I
could see my mom at the large bay

1942
03:07:48,399 --> 03:07:54,479
window looking out at me. She
looked angry and upset, but quickly turned

1943
03:07:54,520 --> 03:08:01,319
and walked away. I pounded the
steering wheel, yelling obscenities other than an

1944
03:08:01,399 --> 03:08:07,440
open casket funeral. I had never
seen a dead body before, let alone

1945
03:08:07,520 --> 03:08:13,040
one that had clearly been dead for
weeks, but Grandma was undoubtedly dead,

1946
03:08:13,879 --> 03:08:18,159
and my mother and uncle were staying
in that house with the corpse, washing

1947
03:08:18,200 --> 03:08:22,280
it, feeding it, and talking
to it like nothing had changed. I

1948
03:08:22,360 --> 03:08:28,280
threw open the car door and vomited
all over Grandma's neglected shrubs. By the

1949
03:08:28,280 --> 03:08:35,000
time the dry heaves kicked in,
Dad's car pulled in the driveway. Ay,

1950
03:08:35,079 --> 03:08:39,000
sweetheart, he said, as he
opened his car door. See me

1951
03:08:39,079 --> 03:08:43,680
kneeling in the grass. Are you
all right? Your mom called and told

1952
03:08:43,680 --> 03:08:48,920
me you were quite upset? Dad, She's dead, I choked out,

1953
03:08:50,200 --> 03:08:56,399
pointing at the house. Who's dead, he asked, his voice worried Grandma,

1954
03:08:56,959 --> 03:09:01,479
I shouted, Grandma is dead.
Mom and Lou they're just sitting in

1955
03:09:01,559 --> 03:09:05,680
there with her body. Anna,
calm down. Your mum mentioned you're in

1956
03:09:05,760 --> 03:09:13,239
hysterics and talking nonsense, talking nonsense. What are you saying? I choked

1957
03:09:13,239 --> 03:09:16,879
out. Go look, Dad,
I swear you'll see. She's dead and

1958
03:09:16,959 --> 03:09:22,399
Mom and Luke have lost their minds. All right, he said, holding

1959
03:09:22,479 --> 03:09:26,399
up his arms in surrender. Let
me grub the cake and I'll go inside

1960
03:09:26,399 --> 03:09:35,000
and see what's going on. Just
stay here, okay. I collapsed back

1961
03:09:35,079 --> 03:09:39,319
in the front seat of my car. Blasting the ac in attempt to flush

1962
03:09:39,319 --> 03:09:43,280
the smell of rotten flesh sh out
of my nose. It felt like an

1963
03:09:43,280 --> 03:09:46,959
hour before the front door opened again, and Dad calmly walked over to my

1964
03:09:48,079 --> 03:09:52,120
driver's side window. Hi, Anna, bear, he said, cautiously.

1965
03:09:54,159 --> 03:09:58,719
Did you see her, Dad,
You saw her right, sh Anna,

1966
03:09:58,639 --> 03:10:03,680
he said, placing a hand on
my shoulder. Calm down, Yes,

1967
03:10:05,559 --> 03:10:11,840
I saw her, and she's very
sick, but otherwise alive. You Mom

1968
03:10:11,879 --> 03:10:18,959
and Lou had taken good care of
her. What I nearly screamed? Come

1969
03:10:18,000 --> 03:10:24,280
inside, Dad said, going for
the door handle. I quickly logged the

1970
03:10:24,319 --> 03:10:28,920
car. Dad threw up his hands
in frustration. Just come inside, Anna,

1971
03:10:30,520 --> 03:10:33,000
Uncle Lou is getting Grandma into a
wheelchair and we're going to have some

1972
03:10:33,079 --> 03:10:39,000
cake. He glanced at the front
window of the house. Ah, see

1973
03:10:39,120 --> 03:10:45,879
there she is. I glanced out
to see my grandmother's face at the window,

1974
03:10:46,600 --> 03:10:50,920
her dead eyes looking blankly out over
the front yard. Riga Mortis had

1975
03:10:50,959 --> 03:10:56,680
made it so a body couldn't sit
in the wheelchair just right. Even from

1976
03:10:56,680 --> 03:11:00,840
a distance, and through a pane
of glass, I could see death in

1977
03:11:00,879 --> 03:11:07,239
her eyes and the shocking gape of
her mouth. Her face looked even more

1978
03:11:07,280 --> 03:11:11,159
twisted now, as if she'd taken
a last breath in a tremendous amount of

1979
03:11:11,200 --> 03:11:18,159
pain. For what made me scream
in abject terror was that her cloudy pupils

1980
03:11:18,559 --> 03:11:26,920
seemed to turn ever so slightly toward
me. I threw the car into drive

1981
03:11:26,239 --> 03:11:31,840
and sped out of the driveway,
ignoring the shout to my father and uncle

1982
03:11:31,879 --> 03:11:37,399
Lou bursting out the front door.
I didn't dare go home, where I

1983
03:11:37,440 --> 03:11:43,280
was sure my father would follow.
Were they right? Was she actually alive?

1984
03:11:43,440 --> 03:11:46,280
It's not like a check for a
pulse or air and a lungs before

1985
03:11:46,280 --> 03:11:52,000
I took off. I didn't touch
her at all. Could it be me

1986
03:11:52,120 --> 03:11:58,159
then? Was either one having a
nervous breakdown? I don't know what to

1987
03:11:58,200 --> 03:12:05,239
do now, absolutely terrified. Rest
of all, when I close my eyes,

1988
03:12:07,559 --> 03:12:13,440
all I see is my grandmother's rotting
face.