Speaker 1: The front door to my apartment stuck like doorways. I
should have sanded the frame down months ago. I should
have done a lot of things. The hallway light flickered
and fizzled into nothing as I stepped over a pile
of unopened mail and made my way to the fridge. Inside,
the air smelled like old mustard and aluminium, and it
lingered in the air too long, even when closed. I
pulled out the last microwave meal and peeled back the
corner of the film. Then watched as the trace stuttered
left or right on top of the cracked turntable of
my microwave, making it hot around the corners and frozen
on the inside. I passed the kitchen table on my
way to the bedroom and dropped my keys like usual.
The metal clinked against something soft, and the whole tablecloth
shifted sideways. I paused and looked down, noticing a round
lump beneath a fabric. I thought maybe here was something
my eggs had left behind, maybe a button or a
marble that had rolled under and been forgotten. So I
pulled the mat up. The second I saw it, I
recoiled my heel, caught the chair leg and I nearly
fell backwards. My heart almost skipped a beat as I
stood in shock, gripping the table's edge or trying to
make sense of the sight in front of me. There
was a fully formed human eye, wet detailed and embedded
in the wood. The skin around it was faint and translucent,
barely raised, but enough to show it wasn't drawn or carved.
It also seemed to blink. I stared at it, expecting
it to vanish, to prove itself as some trick of
the light or exhaustion. But it didn't. The thing stayed there,
staring straight up at me, the pupil shifting slightly, as
if adjusting to the angle of my shadow. I kept
telling myself there had to be an explanation. Maybe it
was a fungus, some kind of growth that reacted to
heat or light. Maybe moisture in the wood was making
it warp, and my mind filled in the rest That
was possible, wasn't it. I squinted and leaned a little.
It had a light blue iris that shot through with
broken red veins. There was a little milky film along
the edges. My scalp brickled, but I forced myself to
breathe steadily. I pressed the tablecloth down again, flattening it
over the thing, hoping he would disappear. But when the
lump remained, I couldn't help mess with it. I grabbed
a spoon from the drawer and tried prying the eye,
but it didn't work. I couldn't get it wedged, and
any effort to damage whatever had taken the shape of
an eye proved pointless, so I just gave up. At
least I could say I tried getting rid of it
on my own. I placed the cloth back over it
and tried forgetting I'd call someone, not now, but maybe
later in the week. I didn't have the cash to
throw around on some specialist, and it didn't look dangerous.
I hadn't been hallucinating at work or anything. I'd been
eating fine, sleeping enough, more or less. Whatever it was,
it wasn't hurting me. I woke up later than I
should have, and as I shuffled to the bathroom to
brush my teeth, I remembered the lump, so I snuck
glance at the table again. The tablecloth had another bulge
under it. Now, two raised shapes pressed through the cloth,
side by side, distorting the fabric. I already had a
feeling as to what would be there, but I forced
myself to keep moving. I wiped my mouth, stepped back
into the bedroom and got dressed. I poured a half
cup of bit of coffee from the cold pot and
locked the door behind me without glancing at the table.
I didn't need any additional stress. I'd get rid of it. Eventually.
Things were worse at work. Someone had watched the inventory
numbers in the overnight batch, which meant none of the
reports matched the previous week. I couldn't fix it without
re entering everything by hand. Plus the office was full
of complaints before I even got my head set on,
I kept getting yelled, and it didn't help that I
couldn't forget about the kitchen table. I tried not to.
I knew how much a full mold treatment would cost.
They'd have to come in, tear part of the surface out,
spray the place down, and maybe even inspect the dry wall.
The table was cheap, but not something I could replace
right now, and I really didn't want to throw it away.
I didn't have time for this. I needed that table
to not be turning into some weird, freaking biology exhibit
in my kitchen. When I eventually returned, the air in
my apartment felt heavier, and the window had fogged up again.
I headed toward the kitchen to pour a glass of
water while I'd try my best not to look at
the table, but my curiosity got the best of me,
and I caught sight of the tablecloth in the corner
of my eye. It was raised more than it was
that morning. The entire surface was covered in bulges, maybe
a dozen or so, so I peeled it back. A
collection of eyes stared back at me. Some were wide
and alert, others moved slowly, blinking with effort. There were
brown ones and hazel, and some flat gray, others nearly violet.
A few were bright red around the edges, veined and swollen.
One had long lashes. Another was clouded with a pale film.
It was spreading like some form of molder fungus. So
I opened my laptop and typed out mold Inspection near me.
The top result looked professional. There was a chat box open,
already offering a quote. I clicked out of it. The
price was more than I had to spare. My next
paycheck wouldn't come through for another five days, so I
closed the tab. I went to bed without brushing my teeth.
Sleep didn't come easy. My body kept twitching like it
wanted to stay awake. I flipped the pillow twice and
tried lying in my stomach. The sheets were damp with
old sweat. At some point I must have passed out
in the morning. When I stretched, I felt it immediately.
My back wasn't pressing against fabric, it was uneven and
damp in places. The weight across my ribs shifted. Something
was underneath me. I closed my eyes and tried to
breathe slowly, making the sensation disappear weirdly enough. When I
opened them, however, it returned. I sat up and threw
the blanket off. The mattress was covered in eyes. They
stretched from the headboard to the foot. Some tugged near
the corners, others exposed across the surface. I could see
the indents where I had slept across them. Some had
left wet trails. Others blinked up at me lazily. The
lids crusted with yellow discharge. One followed my movement. As
I stepped back. I gagged, but nothing came up. I
looked around the room. Nothing else had changed, The walls
were clean, the floor was fine. I stared back down
at the bed. It was getting out of control. Was
this even of fungus? What was I looking at? It
just didn't make sense. I walked to the kitchen and
picked up the phone. My fingers slip on the screen once,
but I managed to book a late night slot with
a mold removal specialist. The court that gave me made
my stomach twist, but I didn't argue. I gave my
dress and said i'd be home after seven. I got
dressed in silence. Work meant nothing that day. I sat
in my chair, stared at the numbers on the screen
and answered one call, maybe two. The rest blurred every
few minutes. I thought I saw something twitch in the
corner of the monitor. I ended up leaving two hours
early without permission. I needed to be there when the
exterminator arrived. The sun had dropped below the buildings when
the exterminator and I met, I pulled up outside and
he stood there, already looking worn out. The guy logged
mid forties with a thick coat. He slipped halfway and
a clipboard tugged under one arm. His spray tnchor dried
streaks down the side. He nodded, asked if I was
the guy, and I led the way. Then I saw
the apartment. I paused in the doorway. The eyes had
taken over everything. They covered the back splash, behind the sink,
nested in the gaps between countertiles, and split from half
open drawers. The coffee maker had one in the reservoir,
partially submerged. A few had stuck to the inside of
the fridge door. One blinked slowly and quietly between a
ketchup bottle and a box of baking soda. The worst
were the clusters. They started forming, small bunches, growing in
tight patches. One whole corner of the ceiling looked swollen
with them, blinking at on interval. Some had red rimmed lids,
others were cracked through the iris. I didn't say anything.
I didn't have words for it anymore. Everything all right, sir,
the exterminator asked. Finally, I turned toward him. I stared
too long before answering, you don't see all this. He
looked around again, slower this time. His eyes passed over
the sink, the walls, and the table. I watched for
a change in his expression. There was none. See what exactly,
he asked. He said it carefully and politely, try not
to set anything off. I looked back at the room.
One of the eyes in the cabinet had started to leak.
The liquid was thick, pale yellow, and it ran down
the handle toward the floor. I wiped my palms on
my pants. Do your thing, I guess, I said. He nodded,
adjusted the pressure valve on his tank and started spraying.
When the spray hid the eyes, I waited for a reaction,
but the eyes didn't seem to react to it stood
clearer by morning, he said. Once he finished the perimeter,
you'll want to keep the windows open if you can
air it out overnight. He handed me a receipt. I
tapped through the pavement screen on his phone. He walked away,
and the door clicked softly behind him. I stood there
for a few seconds, then turned and walked straight to
the bedroom. Surely they'd be gone soon, Just like he said,
The bed was still as of pupils and lashes. I
pulled a thick quilt from the closet, threw it over
the mattress, and added an old comforter. I pushed down
hard across the fabric. I couldn't see them anymore, but
I knew they were there. I lay down on top
of the layers. I could still feel them, but when
I closed my eyes, the pressure vanished. The twitching beneath
my back disappeared. When I opened my eyes again, the
pressure came back, a slow return of weight along my spine,
tinting under my shoulder blades. I sat up fast and
looked down. The eyes had pushed through the padding, stretching
the quilt fabric. They blinked at me through the threads,
and then an idea popped into my head. I closed
my eyes and immediately felt the pressure and beneath me disappear.
When I opened my eyes again, the eyes reappeared. I
didn't know what to do with that. Sure, I couldn't
feel or see them when I closed my eyes, but
it didn't change much. But at least I could sleep
mostly undisturbed. That was something. When I woke up, the
entire apartment was buried in them. There wasn't a single
surface left untouched. The ceiling was dense with them. Some
fused together lids tangled into swollen fold that blinked out
A sink the wall set eyes where the painted cracked
years ago. Some nested along the doorframe. I stepped off
the bed and into a field of them. I tried
walking slowly, but it didn't help. I closed my eyes
and tried to navigate through my apartment blind. I managed
to pull it off and got outside, though on the
outside things weren't better. The sidewalk had begun to change.
They were tugged between the cracks and the concrete. One
blinked from the inside of a broken soda can. A
few were staring from the storm drain. I walked fast
to my car. When I got to work, I went
straight to my desk. The monitor was already on. There
was an eye on the screen itself, faint behind the glare.
I sat down and tried to open the coal dashboard.
I didn't get far, so one tapped my shoulder. Who
was the assistant manager you wanted in the back? I
followed them down the hallway. He was sitting at his desk,
hands folded, face still. He used to be clean cut.
Now he looked swollen. He'd always had a ruddy complexion,
but his cheeks were rippling under the skin. Something was
pushing forward the folds of his neck moved. He stood
up and walked toward me. His chest shifted under the shirt.
Pockets of skin bulged, then opened. Eyes blinked from his sternum.
I could see them from the fabric of the shirt.
Two more peeled from under his collar. His gums had
them too. Each time he moved his jaw, pale fluids
slipped from the corners of his lips. He ran down,
his chin caught in his tie. He opened his mouth.
It was filled with eyes that leaked puss. He said something,
though I couldn't hear it. I was too distracted by
the abomination he had become. He said it again, louder,
Are you even listening? What the hell's wrong with you? Lately?
I blinked hard. I ah huh. He stared for a second,
then his voice dropped. Get out. I didn't argue. I
got to the parking lot and stopped beside the car.
The eyes had gotten inside. The seat was lined with them,
The steering wheel had them wrapped through the leather. One
looked out from the base of the air vent. The
rearview mirror was covered the lenses facing inward. I couldn't drive,
even if I wanted to. I turned around and walked.
The neighborhood looked bent out of shape. I stop sighing,
had a ring of eyes running around its rim. The
bus stop had them in the glass. A kid near
the corner bent down and pulled something from the grass.
She held it up to show a mother. It looked
like a white daisy at first, until it blinked. A
blue iris sat in the middle of the petals, unblinking
in a palm. I didn't stop. I didn't slow down.
When I got home, I had to shouldered the door open.
It resisted for a moment, then gave. I stepped inside carefully.
There were more, now thicker clusters. The table had sprouted,
an entire patch of them. Eyelids tangled into another, shifting
in a wave across the surface. I reached my chair
and sat down. It was covered too. They pressed into
my legs, my back, the base, and my spine. I
didn't care. I closed my eyes and they disappeared. I
kept my eyes shut for a long time. I breathed
in through my nose and waited for the tension to
ease out of my shoulders. I knew what I had
to do. I known for a while. I could make
them disappear. I stood up. My knees cracked under the
weight of it all. I walked to the kitchen and
opened the drawer under the cutlery. I had to dig
under old spatchelors and dull knives to find what I needed.
A spoon. It had dried sauce on the edge, but
the shape was right. I placed it on the counter
next straw. I found the scissors at the back, past
the ball of twine and a melted flashlight. The blades
were half rusted, but the open clean enough. I stared
at both for a moment. The metal felt cold against
my skin. Then I walked to the bathroom. I sat
on the countless eyes covering my bathroom floor. I held
the phone in my hand and dialed emergency. My thumb
hovered over the coal button for a second before pressing down.
I'm hurt, I said. When the despatcher picked up severe bleeding.
I'm on the floor. I don't think I'll stay conscious
for long. They asked questions, I gave my dress. I
ended the call before they could say anything else. I
leaned back against the tub and took the spoon in
one hand. The scissors lay across my lap. I blinked once,
slow and heavy, then raised the spoon. I pressed it
into the bone, just beneath my eye. The precious and
sparks at my spine. I slipped the rim upward, forcing
it behind the socket. It didn't slide clean. My hands
were shaking. The first movement galloped into the flesh above
the lid. The skin tore away. Warm blood streaked down
my face. The pain didn't make me stop. I dug deeper.
The handle braced against my chaw. I grunted, screamed. My
shoulder locked. The eye fought back, wobbling in place, pushing outward.
I screamed again and pulled harder. There was a wet pop,
and the eyeball dislodged, but stayed connected by something deep
and sinewy. I could still see through it. It dangled
against my cheek. I grabbed the scissors. My fingers slipped.
The first got missed. I clicked the skin. The second
one called the optic cord halfway. I pressed the blades together.
The sniper wasn't clean. It felt like trying to chew rubber.
When the connection severed, everything went dark on one side
as a wet mass hit the floor. I panted hard,
bracing for the second. The other eye took longer. I
slipped twice. My vision kept blurring. The metal tore through
the socket wall, and I ripped the lid off without
meaning to. The bulb pushed forward on its own. I
stabbed deep. Something in my head cracked and my nose
started bleeding. The eye split as I pulled. When it
was out, I held the pieces in my lap. Everything
was black. I slumped forward, My arms slid out under me.
The spoon clattered away somewhere behind the toilet. I could
hear sirens. The blood soaked into my sleeves and pulled
beneath my jaw. But at least I couldn't feel or
see those eyes any more. When I woke up, the
world was quiet. My face was wrapped in gauze. My
body was stiff, but the pain had dulled into a
deep throb. I could breathe clearly again. I knew I
was in a hospital bed. I could hear the faint
beep of a monitor and the low hum of machines.
The door opened and somebody stepped in. You made it through,
she said, You lost a lot of blood. You're stable now,
but you won't be seeing again. I didn't say anything.
She walked closer and adjusted the monitor. They couldn't save
the eyelids either, They were torn past repair. It means
blinking won't be possible, so you'll just need to get
adjusted to everything. Still, I didn't speak. I listened to
the shuffling of her shoes against the floor. I imagine
the light above my bed flickering, the way hospital lights
always do. She walked out, closing the door behind her.
I lay still. At first, I felt peace. Then the
mattress shifted. It was slow, barely there arise under my back.
I didn't have to see them to know they were here.
I held still, my throat tightened. I could feel the
shapes beneath me moving, swelling upward, slow and certain. I
could feel their gaze through the layers, but I couldn't see.
That had been the rule, That had always been the rule.
So why were they back? Was it ever about sight?
Or was it about closing my eyes? When I was
sixteen when it happened, I didn't talk about it for
a long time, But sometimes when I can't sleep, I
still go over that night in my head. I'm older now,
I've moved out and got my own place and job,
but a part of me is still anchored to that house.
There was something about it that never made sense. We
grew up in a bad area. I'm talking burglaries, gang
signs sprayed over garage doors, cops cruising past our streets
slow enough to make it feel like they were waiting
for something to happen. I saw someone get dragged out
of their car in front of our house. When I
was thirteen. We heard gunshots a few blocks over so
often we stopped checking the news the next morning. People
broke into homes for TVs, tools, even food. It happened
all the time, but it never happened to us. That
was something I could never explain. We weren't special. We
didn't have a dog or bars on the windows. We
didn't even have a working secure curity system. Sometimes I'd
come home and find the screen door unlatched or a
window that looked tampered with, but nothing ever came of it.
My mom would brush it off and tell me not
to worry. I tried not too, but he'd always stuck
with me. On the other hand, my old man was
gone before I even turned six. I used to ask
about him sometimes. My mom never had much to give.
She said he worked in a specialized field. Whatever that meant,
I figured it was a nice way of saying he
was mixed up in something illegal. Maybe ran off to
keep us safe or save his own skin. I never
bought the noble sacrifice angle he left us behind. My
mom worked her ass off to keep things afloat. I
watched her come home with her feet so swollen she
had to sit on the bottom step to untie her shoes.
She'd run her hand through my hair and go check
on my little brother before she even made herself a plate.
She was always tired, but never stopped trying. I couldn't
imagine walking out on that. I started stepping in when
I got old enough to see how much she carried
on her back. I didn't want my brother growing up
with a kind of resentment that built up in me.
I figured if I could keep his world calm, maybe
he wouldn't need to carry a grudge. His name was Michael,
same as our father. I remember fighting her on it
when I first heard. I was only eight, but I
remember sitting on the side of a hospital bed saying
it made my skin crawl. I didn't want to come
home and say that name again every day. I didn't
want to picture that man every time my brother laughed
or cried or needed help tying his shoes. But she
wouldn't budge. I called him Mikey still do wouldn't say
the full name if I could help it. He was
a good kid, though, smart, curious, always in his own
little world. My mom got the call on a Thursday night,
about twenty years ago. She didn't say much when she entered.
She only stepped out onto the porch with her coat
still on. I stood in the kitchen watching the clock
tick toward ten, already knowing what it meant when I
saw how she kept her hand on a hip, nodding.
She came back in after a while, and before I
could ask, she rubbed the side of my face and
told me she needed to leave in the morning, some
project downstate. It was part of a job, some contract
work she'd picked up to fill the gaps that a
full time gig didn't cover. It wasn't optional. She packed fast.
It wasn't a first time leaving for a job like that,
but it had never been for a full week before.
She made a list of meals and taped it to
the fridge, left cab money under the toaster in case
something happened, and showed me where she kept the house
key she used to hide in the crawl space. In
the morning, she left before the sun came up. She
stood in the hallway for a second watching me make toast,
and said she didn't like leaving us. I told her
I knew, and I'd take care of everything. She held
on to the door frame like she didn't want to
let go of it. Then she walked out without looking back.
She trusted me with a house, and more than that,
she trusted me with my key. Later after dinner, Mikey
was laying on the floor with his knees pulled up
while he scribbled into the back pages of a notebook
he'd torn from school. I was sitting on the couch
flipping through channels. I wasn't watching, but every so often
I looked at him. He was humming under his breath
some off key tune he'd made up that he never
stopped repeating. He was focused on whatever he was drawing,
with a seriousness that didn't fit an eight year old.
He always had that far off focus when he got
stuck in his head. I didn't think he was weird.
I think he saw things differently than most people, since
he could form full sentences. He'd been adamant that there
was something in his room, not some one, something. I
remember him telling mom that it whispered to her while
she slept. He woke up one night and saw repetting
her hair. She didn't know what to say to that.
Clearly it freaked her out, but she told him he
had a vivid imagination and turned the lights on in
his room for a week after that. It didn't help.
Mikey tore my train of thought when he joined me
on the couch. He sat close enough that his shoulder
touched mine. There was always his way of asking for
something without saying it outright. When I didn't react, he
finally spoke, Do you think we could watch a scary movie?
He asked. I gave him a side eye since went
do you care about scary movies? I found out about
them today in school. Me and my friends were talking
about monsters, and they said, people make movies out of them.
You already have enough problems sleeping. I won't if I
see what they really like, he said smugly. I figured
if he saw a guy in a rubber soup pretending
to be a ghost in my break. Whatever spell he'd
put himself under, fine, I muttered, but if you have
a nightmare, I'm making you sleep in the laundry room.
He smiled and shook his head. I won't. I started
flipping through the free channels. Most of it was junk,
but one station had a horror line up running. There
was a zombie movie halfway through, another one about some
haunted motel. I let the previews play while Mikey leaned forward, fascinated.
Then the screen flickered black and the emergency broadcast tone
kicked in. I froze, hands still in the remote as
that fly buzzing drone filled the room. Mike leaned back, confused.
The words Amber alert appeared in block white letters, then
switched to the red warning screen. The message said there
had been a confirmed break in a few blocks over.
The authority's urged residents in the surrounding neighborhoods to lock
all the windows and doors and to report anything suspicious immediately.
Mikey read it slowly, lips moving, then turned to me.
He didn't seem worried, but he watched me get up.
I could already feel my chest tightening. It wasn't the
alert itself, it was the idea that if something went wrong,
I'd be the one standing between him and whatever came
through the door. I'm gonna check the house, and I said,
go brush it, eeth, get to bed. But no, the
movie is over. He groaned and stood up, dragging his
feet toward the stairs. I walked to the front door,
pressed in the lock, tested it twice. I pulled the
windows closed, tightened the latches, shut the blind. My hand
was shaking, and I hated that. After my paranoia induced
energy wore off, I shut off the lights in the
living room and headed upstairs. I passed Mike's room and
saw that his door was cracked open. He was already
under his blanket. He didn't say anything when I walked by,
but I knew he was still awake. I stepped into
my room and shut the door behind me. I dropped
into bed and stared at the ceiling, the same as
Mikey was probably doing. I kept my phone close. The
charger cable was lying on the ground unused. I hadn't
plugged it in earlier, and now I didn't feel like
the right time to go hunting for the outlet. I
must have been hovering on the edge of sleep when
I heard it, a high pitched scream, Mikey's voice. I
sat up so fast my shoulder cracked. My feet hit
the ground, and I was through the hallway before I
knew i'd start up. My heart kicked hard in my chest.
I didn't have time to think. He was screaming, and
there was no question in my mind what that meant.
The alert the burglar must have broken in and now
is after Mikey. I should have grabbed something about the
chair by the stairwell, anything I didn't. I pushed this
door open so hard it bounce off the wall behind it.
There was nothing. It was only Mikey, sitting up in
bed with his arms around his knees, crying through his teeth.
His eyes were wide, stuck on something that wasn't there anymore.
He saw me and flinched, then opened his mouth to speak,
but nothing came out. I walked over and sat on
the edge of the bed. My hands were shaking worse
than his. You're okay, I said. I kept my voice low,
my throat was dry. You're right. He didn't answer. His
breath hitched a few times before he could get it
under control. I reached over and pulled him in. He
was sweating through his shirt. Bad dream, I asked. He nodded,
his face stayed buried in my shoulder. I wanted to
be annoyed, but I wasn't. That scream had torn through
everything I thought I could have. The fact that it
was a dream made it easier, but it didn't make
it go away. I was still wound up so tight
my neck hurt. You want water, I asked, No, he whispered,
You want me to sit with you a bit? He
nodded again. After a minute, he pulled away and wiped
his face with the sleeves of his pajama top. He
wouldn't look at me. Here was the monster again, he said.
I glanced around the room, taking it in. There were
clothes on the floor, a plastic cup with a juice
box straw still stuck in it, and one of his
drawings taped to the wall above his head. A thick
black line ran down the middle of the page, splitting
it in two. On one side was a boy with
a balloon, and the other side was with bigger made
of scribbles. He saw me looking can you check, he asked,
his voice cracked at the end. You know there's nothing here,
I said, already standing. He probably packed up and moved
when he heard me coming. Mikey didn't laugh. He watched
me with his hands, bawled into his blanket. I sighed
and walked over to the closet. I slid it open
and waited. Nothing but a few shoes and one of
my old hoodies. He kept stealing when I wasn't looking.
I turned to him and gave a mock gasp, empty guess.
We caught him on a smoke break. Still nothing, all right,
I said, let's go all in clausets cleared now from
under the bed, I dropped to one knee and leaned in.
I expected dust, a sock, a piece of broken toy,
maybe one of his drawings crumbled up and shoved out
of sight. But that's not what I saw. At first,
all I saw was darkness and the clint of something
smooth in the back corner. I thought it might be
a marble or one of those glass eyeballs he picked
out of a Halloween prize bin last year. But then
it blinked. It didn't blink like a person. It flexed.
A long, vertical slit opened and closed slowly, and I
realized it was staring at me. Two massive yellow eyes
sunk into a head and should not a fit in
the crawl space beneath a child's bed frame. The pupils
adjusted as I stared, thin and long, narrowing against the light.
The longer I looked, the more of it I could
make out. It was covered in thick, uneven fur damp
around the edges, clinging to the floor, as if it
had soaked into the boards. Its body stretched deeply on
the foot of the bed. Thick limbs pressed against the underside,
like they were forced there, like it had wedged itself
into a shape that didn't belong to it. It stared
at me. Its mouth was slightly open, its tongue sat
limp between rows of disjointed teeth. Thick strings of spit
hung from its staw. There was something in that look,
something not curious, not afraid, not hostile either, If anything,
it looked pleased. I couldn't breathe, my chest locked up.
I could feel my pulse, eye ears, but I couldn't
will my body to move. Then its jaws shifted, not wide,
but enough to show more of the teeth. It grinned
at me. The spell snapped. I threw myself back and
scrambled to my feet. Mikey was watching me with white eyes,
waiting for me to say he was crazy, or that
it was clear, or that we could both go back
to sleep. I didn't say anything. I grabbed him by
the arm and pulled him so hard he stumbled. I
dragged him out of the room, across the hallway toward
the attic hatch near the laundry closet. He was asking questions.
I couldn't hear them. I pulled the chain, dropped the ladder,
and shoved him up ahead of me. I scrambled into
the attic behind him, grabbing the string and yanking the
lad to back up with both hands. He retracted with
a crack. I slammed the hatch shut and sat back,
listening for anything beneath us. Nothing. Mikey was sitting in
the corner near the insulation rolls, breathing through his nose,
trying not to cry. I sat beside him and stared
at the hatch. I pulled on my phone. I cracked
thing I brought from a guide school for forty bucks.
The screen was scratched but still worked. I dialed nine
one one and pressed it to my ear. My hand
wouldn't stop shaking. It rang once before the operator answered.
I didn't wait for it to go through the usual questions.
Someone broke in. I said, there's someone in our house.
I hesitated. That wasn't what I meant, but I didn't
have the words for what i'd I couldn't tell her
there was something under the bed, so I didn't explain.
I repeated myself, voice cracking, there's something in her house.
We're in the attic. Please send someone, please. She asked
for my address. I gave it to her twice. She
told me to stay calm. She said officers were en
route and asked if I could describe the intruder. I
didn't answer that. I told her the doors were locked,
that we were hiding. I asked her how long they'd take.
Then the screen went black. I stared at it for
a second, not understanding what had happened. I pressed the button. Nothing.
I flipped it over. Nothing. It had died in my hand.
Mikey looked at me. He didn't ask if it was okay.
He knew from my face that it wasn't, and then
from downstairs, something broke through the kitchen window, followed by
scrambling steps and drawers opening and closing. Eventually it was
accompanied by another sound, a massive crash that sounded like
it came from where Mike's room would have been. Another
set of steps started, but they were strange, like whatever
was down there didn't walk often. The first view was slow,
then it turned into what sounded like a gallop. Something
big moved through the house, gaining speed. The other set
a footprints, presumably in the living room, stopped. A while later.
I could hear blooded screams. Cabinets slammed, a table, tipped,
chairs screeched across the floor. Wood split into something thick
and weight he tore through the hole. I heard an
animalistic noise roll up through the floorboards, something between a
growl and a calf. Something started crunching, and a massive
gulp radiated through the house. Mikey buried his face in
my side. I couldn't move. Then all sound ceased. Nothing
followed only the cold stillness of insulation pressing against my
back and Mikey's rapid, silent breaths against my ribs stayed.
I didn't know what was going on down there, but
I knew sure as hell. I didn't want to find out.
I didn't ask Mikey if you heard it, that would
have been insulting. He was shaking, hands clenched around my shirt.
I didn't speak either. I didn't want my voice to
break the silence, in case the silence was what kept
it from returning. Time passed. When the first blue light
hid the far window in the attic, I audibly gasped.
A car door slammed, then another. Boots moved across the porch.
A voice called out from the front of the house,
but I was too afraid to make a sound. They
found us both in the attic. We were pale and shaking.
My throat was so dry I couldn't answer their first question.
Mikey hid behind me, still holding under the hem of
my shirt. One of the officers stepped in gently, eyes
scanning the hallway, his free hand near his hip. They
led us downstairs once they confirmed we were alone. The
house was a wreck. The dinner table had been split
in two. It sent a leg crossed inward. Two chairs
were broken in places, one lodged halfway through the dry wall.
The cabinet doors hung open and their contents scattered across
the floor. A streak of something dark had smeared across
the linonium one wall, the one beside the coat rack
near the stairs had been cracked open with sheer force.
I could see where the wood splintered outward. The broken
kitchen window led in a gust of wind, and on
the floor below it was a pistol. The officer picked
it up with gloved hands. He turned it to his
partner and said something I didn't hear. From what I overheard,
they identified it as having belonged to the man from
the Amber alert, the burglar who'd been breaking into homes nearby.
One of the officers patted my shoulder. He told me
I'd done a good job, said calling it in had
probably saved both our lives. His tone carried confidence. He
looked past me a few times while he spoke, scanning
the room as if something might still be standing in
the shadows. He said the guy must have broken in,
panicked and fired off around before trying to escape, or
maybe something else scared him. They didn't know. No one
had found anything at all, and they never found that man.
After this, I nodded and kept my mouth shut. I
didn't see a reason to correct him. I wouldn't have
known what to say if I tried. Years later, I
kept thinking about what the cop said, that maybe something
scared him off. I never saw the thing under the
bed again after that night. I don't think Mikey did either.
He stopped talking about it. But I've thought about it
more than I care to admit. That night, it could
have followed us up to the attic, but it didn't,
and I've come to believe it wasn't haunting Mikey at all.
It was guarding him. I don't usually get sent to
jobs with anybody which suits me. People are all right,
but I'm not built for chat. I'm terrible at eye contact,
and I always missed the punchlines. Apparently I've got the
social instincts of a damn traffic cone. Still I like
what I like, and that's all the boring wartime stuff.
No one under sixty gives a toss about. Learn not
to bring that up unless some one's very bored, very polite,
or already half way through a Scotch egg, so they
can't tell me to shut up anyway. The job was
a disused tunnel flagged under the South Cut Clearance Survey.
No one had set foot in there since nineteen forty four,
and when something's been sealed that long, you've no idea
what you're walking into. So they sent me with Dan.
He was in his early twenties, one of those blokes
never without his air pods, a vape and a running
commentary on UFC fights. It's not my usual preference, but
I've survived us and once still weak on the Carlile
line with a bloke who thought Dunkirk was in Germany.
Our job was the log debris, test the clearances and
ensure the place wouldn't shear a wagon in half, ready
to open up for public use in the summer. He looked,
promising they'd green light a proper team. If not, they'd
break it up and pretend it had never happened. Our
boots hit the ballast just past five a m. Geared
up in our safety gear, filtered respirators, tool bags and radios.
The tunnel entrance was locked up with heavy gage chain
link fencing two layers deep, backed by timber boards and
a padlock the size of your fist in luglock. Someone
had gone at it with bolt cutters, and it had
been clumsily patched up above it, the original cast iron
arch loomed, rusted, and stamped with a wartime engineering mark.
You'd miss it unless you knew what you were looking for.
Once we'd cracked the fencing and slipped inside, we clicked
on our torches, both beams, cutting lines through the misty black.
The air hit us once we got far enough in,
Even with a respirator, it felt like licking the inside
of an old kettle. Every step stirred up dust. Dan
glanced around and muttered, bit grim in here. Yeah, can't
imagine coming in here without respirators. Have you ever heard
of the Cross Line, I asked? Dan shook his head.
Is that like a brand? Nah, that's the name of
the line this tunnel was part of. They used it
to move supplies between coastal depots and the RAF sites,
mostly crates, fuel, and the odd medic unit. March forty four,
it called a loved offt air strike at the Southern
Mouth just as a supply train broke down inside. Dan's
voice came quiet over the crunch of our boots. Never
heard of that one, he said. The blast created a
vacuum of I continued, had touched too brightly for the subject,
sucked a fireball straight down the tunnel while they were
fixing the train. WHOA were there any survivors? I gave
a dry shrug. Place would have been charred end to
end by the time the fire burnt out. With another
line still running and a war to fight that he
didn't bother with. The recovery crew just sealed it up
and moved on. Dan stayed quiet after that, boots crunching
beside mine. I didn't say anything else either. After a
few minutes, he cleared his throat and muttered something about
a fatherweight bout he'd watched last weekend, like he couldn't
bear the quiet any longer, said the bloat came in
underweight and still managed to drop the other guy in
the second round with a spinning elbow, absolute belt. He
called it. I nodded, grateful for the mood change, even
if I had no clue who's on about. It wasn't
long after that till we noticed signs that tunnel had
taken a knock or two. A few ceiling plates were broken,
with rusted bolts hanging loose, and there was a shallow
pile of crumbled brick near one of the cable housings
that looked more recent than the rest. Nothing structural, but
enough to keep your eyes peeled. Then we started spotting
bits of cloth, mostly torn and oily ground into the gravel.
There was a piece twisted under a bolt. He looked
like canvas, only thinner. I gave it a nudge with
my boot. What do you think it is? Dan asked.
Could be a left oversleeve from the poor sade they
sealed up. He stared at me for a beat. You're joking, right,
of course, I am, I said, half laughing. It's probably
just a bit of coat from some drafted trespasser poking around.
Does look weird, though, should handle this, he muttered. Stuff
like this can trip someone up if they don't see
it proper. Hasard If it's sticking up like that. He
crouched over it and gave it a once over with
his glove. Feels weird, bit tough. Not what I was expecting,
all right, I said, watching him pull out a multitude
from his bag. I'll log the next segment up ahead.
The junction box should be just past that bend. I
tapped the radio clipped onto my chest. Channel four yeah, sheut,
if you need anything, or if the fabrics starts acting
all haunted either or he snorted, if it does much
of anything, I'm legging it. Fair play, I said, and
carried on ahead. The tunnel swallowed me up. Each step
pulled the air thicker. It was damp and stale, like
the breath of something sleeping. Every twenty or thirty yards
there was a refuge bay built for workers that duck
into when trains passed. I made a habit of counting
them to pass the time. Just after the eighth bay,
I spotted the glint of twisted steel the husk of
a freight wagon. My heart actually gave a little thumb.
It was a supply train from the cross line story
I'd rambled to down about. It was gutted, half melted
across the rails. One axle had folded in on itself,
and most of the siding was gone, peeled back like
a tin of spam. Remained was pitted with rust and
speckled with the droppings of whatever bats or birds had
snuck in over the ears. My torch played over the wreck,
and I caught hints of sinched fabric fused into the
rivert and melted boots ale stuck beneath the wheel assembly.
I felt giddy, then grim, and then there was movement
just beyond the wreck. Something disturbed the gravel. I froze
torch fixed dead ahead. I thought it was a bit
of de brieze settling. But just where my light couldn't reach,
I noticed the shape, slow and jerky, dragging itself from
the far side of the carriage. At first I thought
some homeless guy had found a way in and picked
the place for shelter. Wouldn't have blamed him in fairness.
It was dry and quiet. You can't be here, mate,
I called, there's hazardous conditions you need to clear off.
I won't press you, just get out. That was when
he shifted into my light. The first thing I noticed
was it looked like he was wearing someone else's skin,
or trying to. Chunks of it clung to him. It
was as if he'd torn it free in a frenzy
and slapped it over himself without care. Bit of torso,
her forearm, part of the thigh. The rest of him
was raw, a blistered patchwork of wet red tissue and
veins like overstrung wires. I staggered back hard boots, skidding
over the ballast and landed like a sack of bricks.
My tord slipped my grip, skittering across the gravel and
landing a few feet in front, its beam fixed squarely
on the thing. I didn't go for it, No, I
turned and bolted, heart hammering feet slipping over a loose stone.
I threw myself into the nearest refuge bay and crouched
low in the dark, breath snagging in my throat. I
stayed silent, listening for footsteps until I realized the texture
under my knee wasn't ballast. Whatever it was was tacky
and stuck to my trousers. I reached for my phone
and lit the lock screen. The glow spilled over the
torn flesh. Skin was missing in wet flaps. Chunks of
it peeled and cut off messily, exposing glistening muscle and
slashed tendon. It was clear the man, or whatever it was,
had done it. My hands shook as I cut the
light and pressed back hard against the stone. Every inch
of me was worn tight with panic, but I didn't
dare move or breathe too loud. I strained to listen
for any sign that the thing out there had heard me,
But there was only a faint sound of metal clinking
and some sort of sloshing. So I shifted forward just
enough to risk a glance around the bay's edge and
saw the creature was caught on a heavy still cabling
that had fused into his flesh. It carved deep, wet
gougers through the meat of his legs where it had
melted in. Every tug sent a fresh jerk through his frame.
He tried to move forward, with the cabling dragged him back.
As horrific as it was, I felt a twisted child
of relief because it meant he couldn't get to me.
So I crept forward on all fours as slowly as
I could manage, keeping my eyes fixed on him. He
was still jerking, still struggling against the cable's raw legs,
dragging in little burst, but I kept going. Unto my
fingers found the torch and closed around it. Just as
I was shimming away, my radio lit up self could
control this is red lead enemy overhead, repeat enemy aircraft sighted,
brace for impact. It was tinny and statigy. The creature
jerked harder, responding to the sound. He threw himself forward
with a raspy scream, his limbs stretched at sick angles,
cabling biting deeper as he tore through his own meat.
That sudden frenzy broke me. I turned and ran at
full sprint, torch clutch tight and breath slicing in short
panic burst through the respirator. Then Dan's voice filtered in,
crackling through the static. Callum, callum mate. I heard him
breathing fast and shallow, like he was trying not to
be heard. Something's here. I don't, I can't. I phonebled
for the radio. Dan, I'm on my way. Just hold on,
don't move all right, whatever's down here, it's not right.
Just come back, come back. Another burst of static and
no reply. I ran, trying to keep my bearings while
every bone in my body begged me to look back.
I knew it hadn't gotten free, I hadn't heard it following,
but my body didn't care. I didn't stop imagining it,
hunting me down. Every step felt too slow. I wanted
nothing more than to grab Dan and escape out of
the tunnel. When I reached where I'd left Dan, his
tool bag was still there, sitting just where he placed it.
There was no sign of him, though. My torch flicked
across the walls until it caught on a maintenance tunnel
branching off to the side, narrow and half choked with dust.
I stepped toward it, my heart hammering torch hill tight Dan, Dan,
I called, cursing myself out in my head for not
just bucking it out of there alone. Then I saw
him hunched over near the far wall of the maintenance tunnel,
breathing in shallow rasps. Back turned old as twitching like
he was about to throw up. Dan, I said again, lower.
This time I saw something down by the wreck who
was wearing someone's skin or something. I don't know, but
we need to get out now. As it got closer,
I realized the skin along the spine looked torn and stretched.
His proportions were off. He was too broad in the
shoulders and too long in the limbs. I realized then
that it was one of those skin creatures, and this
one had done a better job than the last. It shifted,
turning fluidly. Dan's face twitched as the thing twisted its neck.
It straightened up and lunged towards me. My boots skidded
as I tore back through the tunnel, light bouncing off
sutt and stone. I could hear its irregular foot force,
pounding and scraping against the gravel as it chased me.
The mouth of the tunnel appeared ahead, a thin slice
of morning light, calling like a lifeline. I charged full tilt,
shoulder checking the gate as I hit it. The chain
link rattled, hinges, groaning as it gave way under my weight.
I burst into daylight and spun around, grabbing for the
edge of the gate, trying to haul it closed. But
I wasn't fast enough. The thing was right behind me.
The service train we'd taken in sat a few dozen
yards down the track. I folded the step and scrambled inside,
boots thudding against the metal floor. I turned to see
if it had followed, and just in time to watch
it slammed through the gate, limbs flailing. The second it's
bare back met daylight, it shrieked. The exposed flesh sizzled,
blistering and splitting down. Steam hissed from beneath Dan's skin.
It stumbled, jerking violently. What was left of Dan's face
sagged sideways, folding at the edges. Then it reeled back,
flailing as it crawled in reverse, dragging itself back into
the dark. I stood there, panting, hands braced against the
inside wall of the carriage. I shakily tore the respirator
off my face and sucked in the cold morning air
in deep and frantic gulps. My heart was still in
my throat, every muscle in my body twitching with the
tail end of the panic. When I was sure it
wasn't coming back, I climbed down from the lakes jelly
beneath me and turned toward the entrance. Part of me
wanted to turn around and leave it swinging, but letting
it out wasn't an option, so I hauled the gate
shut and snapped the lock into place, stepping back fast
the second it clicked. After that, I sat on the
train floor for a while with my elbows on my knees,
and when I could bring myself to move again, I
started the train up and took it slow on the
way back, my hands white knuckled on the throttle. I
told the site leads those a collapse. Dan got caught
in it and I had barely made it out. When
they asked about recovering his body, I said it was
very deep on the debris, inaccessible without risking more lives,
anything to keep anyone else from going back in That night,
I just lay there, flat on my back, staring at
the ceiling, and I couldn't stop thinking. My heart kept
throwing itself around in my chest like it hadn't figured
out the danger was over. So I got up. I
turned the telly on and started flicking through the channels,
looking for something loud enough to drown out my thoughts.
I landed on a fightery run, and it took a
second to realize it was the one Dan had been
on about a featherweight about. I watched the bloke duck
a hawk and come back with a spinning elbow that
dropped the other guy flat, and he was right. It
was an absolute belter. The hilltop cottage was somehow even
smaller than it looked online, but it made it feel
more charming. Sunlight split generously through the mismatched windows, catching
on the old brass fixtures and the worn but beautiful
woodwork that ran along the door frames, while the garden
was wild and overgrown in the best way, full of
wild pollinator flowers for bees and tangled roses. With time
creeping into the cracks of the old stone path. It
had flows, but the price had been unbelievably low for
what it was, and Mara was over the moon. I
love it, she beamed, arms spread like she was already
embracing it. And look at that view. It's like a painting.
There are so many pretty places to take pictures off
from my shop. She was right. Our view was stunning,
fields folded over each other in soft green swells, a
thin river glinting with seams of silver, while the town
itself sat low, as much of clustered rooftops nestled in
the valley, ringed by more of those sleepy trees. I
had told Mara it was a romantic reset. I used
words like digital detocks and back to basics, which she
ate up for what she didn't know. Because I was
buried in debt so deep I couldn't see daylight, cards, loans,
sharks that keep lending even when I had nothing left
to prove I could pay them back. I'd better house
as a final hope to get it all back, and
I'd lost This cottage was a cheap scapegoat. I just
didn't know how long we could keep it up. The
general store sat squat and low, as if it had
grown there. Inside it smelled like old wood and something sharp,
like vinegar or pickled onions. Mara was already halfway down
to one of the narrow aisles, asking about local trails
and making conversation the way she was always good at doing.
The man she was talking to was in his late fifties,
maybe older, with a weathered face and hands that looked
too big for the delicate register he tapped with one knuckle.
When he finally looked up, he did it slowly and grumpily,
in that way that I assumed came with age. He
looked at Mara, then me, and finally tilted his chin
towards our new home. The river wives don't like being seen,
he said. His voice was calm, but it felt rehearsed,
especially not by young women. Mara paused halfway through, flipping
a trail map over for what the ones by the river?
He responded quickly, you'll know them if you see them.
Don't let it get that far. And if you have
to walk past the river, wear something that doesn't invite trouble.
Cover up. Before we could ask what he meant, another man,
a customer, presumably spoke from somewhere in the store. He's right,
don't greet him in Do you best to ignore him?
Mara turned frowning, like she was trying to decide if
this was a joke or some backwards performance art. I
watched as she folded the trail map with careful fingers,
her mouth pressed into a polite, unreadable line. She didn't
say anything, but the silence felt like it had teeth.
She gave the man a short nod and stepped away,
the trail map still clutched in her hand. At the
far end of the counter, a woman looked up from
a station behind the battered produce scale, late sixties, maybe,
with a pinched expression that made it hard to tell
if she was squinting at something. She looked at Mara.
Girls dressed like that in the city, I'm sure, she said,
sizing Mara up. But the River's not a place to
be soft hearted. She dropped a handful of apples into
a paper bag and folded the top slowly. Some bits
out here take advantage when you go offering bits of
yourself without thinking. Mara smiled politely, but I could see
the muscle working in a jaw. She wasn't the type
to speak to strangers, so she gave a quick of
course and turned to me. I caught her expression, the
kind of look that meant get me out of here
before I say something i'll regret. Let's go, I said,
already moving, still need to get to the hard way
shot before it shuts. Thank you for the advice. We
stepped out into the sun and Mara was quiet for
exactly three seconds. Bloody hell, she muttered, cover up because
my arms are out. It's twenty one degrees and I'm
wearing a nice sun dress. Sorry for dressing like it's
a warm day and not a funeral. She didn't wait
for me to respond, just kept walking. I get that
it's a small town, she said, but come on offering
bits to yourself. Wear something that doesn't invite trouble. She
made air quotes without slowing a pace. It's all just
polite language and know your place. Girl. Did you notice
they didn't say a word to you. I did notice,
I said, and yeah, it's daft. I glanced back at
the shop, then ahead at the worn cobbles, tufts of
grass poking through the gaps, and nettles crowding the edge
of the road. These people have known each other forever.
They've grown up together and seen each other through weddings,
funerals in the lot. They've probably sat in the same
pub with the same pint and the same complaints since
the seventies I kicked at a loose stone. Were just
new faces to them. It doesn't matter what we say
or how reasonable we know we sound. It's just us
stepping into their town. That doesn't make what they said right,
just means it's not about us. I gave her a
note with my elbow. You know, you could always bring
a few soaps around to the shop. You give them
something nice, they might start being nice back. That got
the corner of a mouth to twitch just enough to
call it a win. A few days in, I was
still finding my rhythm, but Mara tucked to the countryside
as if she had always belonged in it. She was
already in boots, basket looped over her arm, picking wild
things from the hedgerow as she knew them by name.
She dried bundles of herbs and twine stretched across the
kitchen window. Yarrow, mug water, lavender, horsetail, always something gently fragrant,
tucked beneath her ear. She sang when she worked, little
hums and wordless melodies that carried through the house like
incense and cheered me up as I worked remotely. Sometimes
I'd find love notes folded and slipped under my coffee mug,
tiny sketches of flowers or hearts, which felt great until
I remember the real reason we were here. I started
going for early runs most mornings. I was out the
door before Maro was up, lacing my shoes and the
doorstep while the sky was still waking. It gave me
space to think proper. But no matter how far I went,
I always ended up circling back to the same thought
I needed to tell her, And the longer I left it,
the worse it would be. I'd lost our old life
to a stupid, selfish mistake. I hadn't just messed up.
I properly wrecked things. This cottage, this so called fresh start,
was damage control. And yet she liked it here. She
was happy, and part of me kept wondering if I
told her now, would she be furious enough to leave
or would she stay? Because despite everything, something good had
come out of the mess. I didn't know. I just
knew I couldn't keep dodging it forever. One of the
first few mornings I decided to try a different path.
I was still working out which ones were worth the
mud and which ones didn't leave you stuck two fields
from where you meant to be. This one dipped through
a patch of large and followed the river for a bit.
I hadn't been that way before. It was colder down there.
Damp hung heavy in the air and caught in your throat.
And in the mornings there was a fog that thickened
the closer you got to the river's path. I spotted
some figures in the fog. There were women standing knee
deep in the river, backs turned half lost between the
trees and the fog. They seemed to be barefoot. Their
dresses hung soaked and heavy, clinging to their legs, headscarves
not a tight, not a strand of hair showing. They
moved in silence, slowly and steadily, scrubbing stained fabric against
old wooden washboards. One of them lifted a strip of cloth,
wet and hair. She twisted it with both hands, and
red water trickled out. Then my foot went out from
under me. I went down hard, knee first onto the path.
Paine shot at my legs, sharp enough to make me
swear out loud. My palms followed, scraping against the grit
and shaving away my skin. I stayed down for a second,
catching my breath. When I looked, blood was already starting
to soak through the fabric of my joggers. When I
limped back into the kitchen, Mara was already at the counter,
hanging another row of drying bundles in the window while
she made breakfast. She turned, took one look of my leg,
then my top, and frowned. What the hell happened to you,
river path, I said, slipped eyes, The blooded streaks down
my trousers, the stubborn stains spreading beneath the fabric. She
touched the him gently, then looked at me for a moment.
Lucky you, she said, I made a new bar yesterday.
It's good for blood. Could pull that out nicely. She
moved to the shelf and peeled back the linen from
the stack of pale gray soap bars, all the same
size and shape, more than she usually made in one go.
I frowned, you planning a bulk sale. I didn't know about.
She didn't answer, too preoccupied with insuring her food didn't burn.
She passed it to me like she hadn't heard the question.
Use cold water first, she said, always cold heat sets
it in, then scrub it out with this, work it
into it, let it sit a bit. She didn't offer
to do it for me, which was strange for her.
Was it the by the bend, she asked, almost half handedly.
Where the fog rolls in? I nodded, She didn't look up.
That's where the best wild arrow grows, loads of it,
just before the river curves back inland. Some of it's
already gone to seed, but I've still been able to
find the good stuff. She stirred the part on the stove,
her wrist moving slowly and steadily. It's quiet out there,
she said, I know what you're going to say. Yes,
I saw the river wives as they call them. Don't worry,
she scoffed. I didn't bother them. But I still think
it's mad that a town like this let disordest women
stand out in the col don't laundry like it's eighteen
twenty bloody backwards. If he asked me, there was a
long pause as I recorded my encounter this morning. Yeah,
you're right, I said, but it's not our place. Do
you really need to go all the way out there
for yarrow? I can pick it up for you on
my runs if you want. She turned slowly. I like
it here, she said, I love it, actually, But I'm
not stupid. You've seen how they talk to me like
I'm a child or a house care She set the
spoon down a bit harder than she probably meant to.
I won't play small just because it makes this place
more comfortable. I like my walks. I like finding things
with my own two hands. I don't need someone fetching
yarrow for me, like I'm some little wifey who save
us staying inside? All right, all right, I said gently.
I get it. I'm sorry, she sighed, pinching the breech
of her nose. Sorry that was an aim at you,
just all of it. This place is so beautiful until
people start speaking that way. I stepped forward and rested
her hand lightly on her back. She didn't pull away.
You're right, I said quietly. You shouldn't have to shrink,
not for any one. She looked at me, and something
softened behind her eyes. Her shoulders dropped a little. We
moved here to grow, and instead I'm supposed to fold
up smaller. You won't, I said, not with me. Not Ever,
She leaned into my chest with a soft, exhausted sigh,
and I wrapped my arms around her, careful of the herbs,
still tired at her hip. I like that, you worry,
she murmured. Just don't make it delicate. I'm not I know,
I said, You're a bloody force. There got a quiet laugh.
She pressed the forehead into my shoulder and let it
sit there for a few seconds longer. Then she pulled
away and gave my leg a glance. You'd better get scrubbing,
by the way, if you let that set. I'm not
making a second batch, noted, I said, cold water, firm scrubbing.
Let it sit, got it. She gave me a mock
stern nod and went back to a part. I waited
a few days before running again. My knee still twined
when I bent it too far, but I told myself
the ache was good. It meant I was healing. It
was early again, and the fog thickened as I got closer,
just like last time. This time, however, I was determined
to see what was past the river, and as I'd expected,
they were there again, the same women in soaked dresses,
dragging the soaking clothes against the washboard. But this time
one of them turned slightly, like she'd heard me coming.
Her face stayed hidden, just enough that the scarf blocked
everything but the curve of a jaw. Would you be kind,
she spoke, and give this one a twist. These old
hands aren't what they used to be. She held up
a sodden sheet. It was dark and dripping. She turned
it slightly in her hands. It hung limp and lifeless,
the water sliding off in long, reluctant ropes. There was
something in the way, she asked, though I couldn't put
my finger on it, so I stopped. The fog pressed
against my back. The only sound was the slow trag
of fabric and the slap of water on stone. The
bird song had long disappeared. My fingers twitched like they
might move on their own, and I shuffled my feet forward.
But then I noticed their arms. They were pale and bloated,
way past the usual prune from water. Then I noticed
the folds of the dress near her wrists were torn
in places, like the fabric had been picked at and
the sheet. It wasn't clean, the water sliding off. It
was thick and red, too heavy looking to just be mud.
Come on, love, she said again, voice softer this time.
You've got young arms. I've had awful joint pain lately,
and a terrible bit of rheumatism in the elbows. It
just needs a twist. She gave the sheet a small,
hopeful jiggle, like that would draw me closer. She still
didn't look at me, which bothered me more than I
wanted to admit. I don't know why, but it made
my skin crawl. There was something unnatural about someone asking
you for help without ever meeting your eyes. My wrists
have been locking up something terrible, she added, as if
it hurt just to say, all this damp in the air,
worse than it used to be, you'd be doing me
a kindness. The other women didn't react. They continued dragging
their fabrics against the washboard like I wasn't even there.
The words from the general store came crawling back. Ey's low,
don't greet them, don't offer anything. I thought it was
cruel the first time, rude for the sake of it,
but at that moment they felt like advice was passed
on with caution. Still, I hesitated, because what if she
really was just some old woman in the cold water,
soaked to the skin, wrists giving out from year of
doing this exact motion. What if I was being the
bad guy here, watching her struggle and walking away like
it could cost me something? Um, I began, Oh, sort it.
Then she snapped at my voice, suit yourself. The shift
in the tone shocked me. It wasn't the sort of
hurt you'd expect from being turned down. It was snappy
and impatient, like she dropped something and blamed me for
not catching it. Not even a moment for an old
woman with bad arms. She hissed, more to the river
than me. What a thing to watch someone struggle and
turn your back on them. Must be nice being young
and quick. Men are so bloody selfish. I clenched my jaw.
He flared across my face from embarrassment. A few days ago,
Mara had practically bitten my head off for offering to help.
Now some old hag in a river made me feel
like the villain for not pitching in. I didn't know
what the hell women wanted any more. I decided to
stay silent and let the fog have the last word.
I turned back to the path and let my feet
do what they came here to do. Move. My breathing
evened out as I picked up my speed. The rest
of the trail cut through thickets and a small patch
of pine. The cold stuck to my skin, and the
sound of the river grew faint behind me, and I
let it fade. By the time I got home, the
sun had risen properly. The mist was already pulling back
like it hadn't touched anything, but something had. I felt off,
like the run had taken something out of me. My
legs ached, my fingers felt stiff, and there was a
in the back of my head that hadn't been there
when I left. I skipped to breakfast, took a shower
so hot it should have scolded. Still, he barely did anything.
By late afternoon, I was curled up on the sofa
under a blanket, useless. Mara came in from the garden
with dirt on her knees and a fresh bundle of
herbs in one hand. That's me sorted for a few months.
She was slightly wet from getting caught in sudden rain.
She glanced at me, taking in my pale face, then
back at the kettle near the fire. You're not running tomorrow.
I wasn't planning to, I said. My voice came out hoarse,
like i'd been shouting when I hadn't said much of anything.
You will like a washed out sock, she said, crouching
to soak the fire back to life. Then a man
flew something like that. She didn't press, and set the
kettle above the fire more carefully than usual, and sat
beside me, still smelling like rosemary and wet grass. Maybe
your body's trying to tell you something, she said, quietly.
They keep pushing into places that you don't want to.
I didn't answer. I didn't know how to. Really, she
didn't know it, but she was spot on. She passed
me a cup of tea. She hadn't asked if I
wanted strong, slightly bitter, the kind she made when I
was sick. You're resting tomorrow, she asked, again, gently this
time yeah, I said, I'm staying in. We can have
a lion together. She smiled, but kept a distance. Absolutely not,
she said, I make soaps, not cures. The last thing
I need is catching whatever this is. And sneezing over
my stock. I gave a weak laugh, half into the tea. Wow,
no bedside manner, she grinned, not in the job description.
You want sympathy, you'll have to bribe me with biscuits.
Then you'll get some tea and toast in bed if
you're lucky. The next morning, the sun woke me up
before I was ready. It poured through the thin curtains
and strips warm across my face. Nice, actually, one of
those rare moments where the light feels soft instead of sharp.
I still felt awful, and became clear that I sweated
through the night, despite the fact that the sun's warmth
and quiet made me feel like I could have maybe
stayed like that for a while. I reached over, expecting
to feel the softness of mar skin, but the bed
was empty. The covers and Morra's side were flat and cold.
I blanked up at the ceiling, confused for a second,
I had been looking forward to tea and toast in bed,
like she usually did when I had the man flu.
I listened for her. The house had thin walls. You
could hear everything in it, but there was nothing, just quiet.
I sat up slowly, my head swam with that awful
cotton wool in your skull kind of dizzy. Everything felt
a bit too bright, a bit too sharp. My legs
were heavy with fatigue, but I swung out of bed anyway,
feet hitting the cold tile on the floor. I made
my way around the house, noticing nothing unusual until I
saw that her boots were missing. She wouldn't have gone far,
or at least that's what I told myself at first,
But something didn't sit right. Mara had already gathered all
the herbs she needed, she'd said, so everything was drying
nicely on the twine above the sink, and the rest
of her supplies were tugged away in their usual spots.
I looked up at the shelf where she kept her
finished soaps. The top row was still lined with the
usuals lavender, oat, rosemary, but the pale gray bar she
had me use the other day we're gone. I moved closer, squinting.
Maybe theyde me move to the market box. My brain
felt fogged over, like thinking through clingfilm. I touched the shelf,
ready to steady myself. Nothing, not a single bar left.
I opened the bin on instinct, half buried unto yesterday's peelings.
Was the linen wrap she used for packaging, the same
dotted one she'd used when she first showed me the batch.
She had folded once, then crumpled like someone had changed
their mind. At the last second. I knew where she'd gone,
even before I admitted it. I knew. I turned and
grabbed the nearest pair of shoes, my head spinning as
I bent down, but I shoved them on anyway. The
air outside was sharp but warm from the rising sun.
That same low mist was back again, thicker near the fields,
sticking to my throat with every breath. My legs protested
the second I pushed into a run, cold muscles left
over fever. I felt wrong, but still I ran. The
trail was soft from last night's rain. I kept slipping,
catching myself Just before I went fully down, my breathing
turned quick and ragged it too soon. I followed the
curve on the path past the hedgerow, past the spot
I fell before, and then I saw a bootprints in
the mud leading down to the water's edge. I picked
up speed, and there she was. Mara stood at the bank,
boots muddy, sleeves pushed up. She had both hands out
in front of her, offering the soap to the river wives.
The woman closest to her lifted her head and I
saw her. Her face was puffed out in places and
sunken in others, like it had been soaking too long
in the wrong kind of water. Her bloated corpse came
to mind. Her skin had that gray, puffy look like
you'd seen pictures you wish you hadn't clicked on. Her
lips were pulled thin, but puffed at the edges, like
they were losing their shape. I opened my mouth to
call out, but instead my stomach turned. The run, the fever,
and the sight of the woman all hit me at once.
The taste of last night's food climbed back up my throat,
and I barely had time to lurch to the side
before it came up. I doubled over, wretching hard, hands
braced to my knees, bitter half digested vomit, hid the
mud with a wet slap my eyes watered. The noise,
the stench, and the sting in my nose all grounded
me and made it worse. I wiped my mouth of
the back of my dressing gown sleeve. Heart still hammering,
chest heaving, and Mara had turned towards me with a
concerned look on her face. She didn't have time to
say anything. The river wives moved faster than they had
any right to. One of them searched from the wa
water in a wet heave, cloth slapping against stone. Mara
turned too late, her hands fumbled, soap, slipping from her
palms and hitting the rocks. Another one rose behind her,
then another and another. They surrounded her, water logged limbs
coiling around her legs, wasisting arms. One pressed a palm
flat against her chest. Her boots lost grip, and her
knees gave. They began to drag their washboards across her back,
over her arms, over a scalp, like they were trying
to strip a clean They worked fast. Her clothes came
apart of the seams. Threads poured like worms from the stitching.
Her skin went with it, peeled back in patches, red, bloomy,
and then vanishing under the froth. One of them worked
at her wrist until the joint gave a little pop,
then twisted another open the mouth wide and bit down
on Mara's shoulder like it was bread. The flesh gave.
Mara's mouth opened, but no sound came. I forced myself upright,
stumbling forward. My legs didn't want to cooperate. Mara reached
out in a last weak attempt to push away, to
reach for me, but then her head went under Her
hair was the last thing I saw of her, fanned
out on the surface like ink in water. I finally
made myself step forward, and one foot sank into the bank,
but I didn't go any further. I couldn't. I was outnumbered.
There were too many of them, and whenever they were,
they weren't just old bats with bad joints. I threw
up again, barely staying upright, still shaking. I could taste
it all in my mouth, and the feel of last
night sweat still clinging to my neck. One of them
turned slightly in my direction, just enough to let me
know she clocked me, and I stumbled back weakly, shoes
skidding in the mud. My heel caught a root and
I went down hard, hands scraping against the cold, mudded
stone as I scurried back on my feet, losing a
shoe to the river, and I ran faster than I
had ever run before. I didn't stop until I hit
the edge of the village. My lungs were burning, my
chest felt too small. One foot was raw, my sock
soaked through, and mud clinging to the back of my
legs like tar. I stumbled into the center, wheezing, hunched ies,
scanning for anyone. The first person I saw was the
woman from the shop. She didn't flinch. You're a state,
she said, instead, eyes flicking to my missing shoe, then
the blood and the dirt down my arm. You went
down there, didn't you. I opened my mouth to speak,
but the words weren't ready. My throat closed around them.
Behind her, another man leaned out from the post office steps.
He took one look at me, then shook his head
like he's seen all he'd needed. You were worn, son,
Better not bring that hassel into town. Either leave or
go back and finish what you've started. I shook my head,
still breathless, voice barely there. I need the police, I
need someone to The woman scoffed, actually scoffed, Oh love,
no one's pulling anyone. What would they even do? Fill
out a form and lose it. I looked up at her,
mud streaked at my legs, acid in my throat, one
shoe gone to the river. I must have looked half mad.
She's gone, I said. It came out dry and it stung.
They took her. The woman from the shop just shook
her head. Then it's done. She looked me over again.
But there was no pity in it. They're not coming
for you, she said. Whatever happened out there, it was
between her and them. They don't take much interest in men.
She nodded at my state like that explained it all.
You're not. There's the bother unless you give them a reason.
She paused momentary, as if deciding whether to waste the
time saying the rest. Then she nodded toward the village green.
You can waste your morning reporting it. The police will
be down there, poke around with a note box, and
by the time they do, they won't find a thing.
They never do. She shifted a weight and tucked her
hands into a cardigan's sleeves. Or you can come inside,
sit down and have a cup of tea. Let it
settle a bit, figure out what you want to do next.
If anything, I couldn't answer. The clouds had closed in
and rain had started again, that fine, soaking kind she
gave me a look that wasn't quite sympathy, just something like,
well pick. The weeks that followed were slow and quiet
in the worst kind of way. The shop lady was right.
The police didn't find anything. They looked at me like
they knew what was happening, like an adult checking under
a child's bed for monsters. They asked me to walk
them through it, so I did. The whole thing sounded
like a story. One of them nodded like he was listening,
but I could tell he wasn't hearing a word and
just filling in boxes in his head. They stepped down
to the river eventually, boots careful on the edge, like
they didn't want to get dirty. One of them crouched
and stared at the water for a while, like he
might offer something up if he looked long enough. The
other paced around with a stick, proding at the reeds
like he would find her folded neatly in the mud,
just waiting to be uncovered. They didn't find any thing.
They knew they wouldn't. I could see it in the
way they moved, slow and half hearted. In the end,
they gave me a number to call and said someone
might be in touch if anything came up, though it
probably wouldn't. I didn't leave the town. I couldn't. Every
room still had her in it despite our short time here.
Her handwriting on labels, her coat on the back of
the door, A stupid mug with a chip in the handle,
she always said, gave it character. Some mornings I'd wake
up forgetting, turning to her side of the bed, expecting
her weight and warmth, only to be met with a
flat sheet in silence. And that's all it took. The
silence would drag me back to that day, straight to
the mud her final moments, and she reached out, my
chest would lock up like someone had stuck their hand
inside and squeezed tight, and my hands would shake. Breathing
would come out wrong, sharp and fast, like I was choking.
Sometimes I'd curl up and try to ride it out.
Other times I'd sit up and press my palms to
my knees like they might pin me to the moment
and anchor me down until the wave passed. It always passed,
but it took its time. Some days I thought I
should burn the whole house down with myself in it,
but I didn't. The people in town started treating me
differently with noods and cups of tea. The townspeople stopped
to ask how I was holding up. They didn't say sorry,
not outright, but it was there and the way they
helped me. The shop woman held even started saving me
the good milk without asking. One of the older men
gave me a spare radio in case the silence ever
gets too loud. You're one of us, now, Hilda said,
handing me a paper bag of apples without charging. Everyone
loses someone eventually, in one way or another. So I stayed,
partly because I had nowhere else to go, and partly
because of my debt. Even if I could, the thought
of packing up and moving on somewhere else without her
made me feel sick. I kept Mara's little shop going
under a name, changed the labels on a soap to
Mara's Blend, and started selling them at the market. They
did well. I messed up a few batches, some trial
and error, but before I knew it, they started to
smell like hers. It was maybe a month when I
realized I was out of Yarrow. I'd use the last
bit of it on the latest batch. He didn't feel
right to stop making one of her best sellers. I
thought about asking someone to fetch some for me, but
that felt like cheating, so I waited. A few days
turned into a week. I kept putting it off, and
even tried looking for it in different areas. At one point,
I told myself the blend didn't need yarrow, but I
knew I was wrong. Every time I ran my thumb
over the label. Mara would have been furious at me
for half passing something under her name. The thought stuck
and grew teeth. I kept seeing her hands, the way
she held the bars when they were still curing, her
thumb running along the edge. She'd never half finished anything,
not even breakfast, And there I was, letting fear decide
what got made and what didn't, letting it whisper that
maybe it wasn't worth finishing. Maybe I was safe and
not to Mara would have seen through that. In two seconds,
she'd have thrown something at me, probably a damp tea towel,
and she'd have followed it up with that sharp look
she had, the one that said pull yourself together, and
she'd have been right. All I did was give the
anger space to grow. It started low in my chest
and curled around the edges of everything, as if fested
into the corners of the cottage and on to her
side of the bed. Eventually it boiled up into an idea,
one I couldn't shake away no matter what I tried.
That evening, the local pub was lively and dimly lit.
A few of the regulars scattered across the low tables,
shouting across to each other, cracking jokes. The fire was
more glow than flame by now, mostly embers tucked into
the grate, flickering just enough to keep the cold off
the walls. George, the gent who gave me the radio,
sat near the back half, watching darts on the telly.
I took the stool next to him, no fuss, and
didn't bother with a pint. You still got that shotgun,
I asked, Bloody hell, he said, after a pause. You
don't start with hello anymore. Didn't feel like chatting. Clearly,
he glanced at me, suspiciously, like you already knew why
I was there? What for foxes? I said, been getting
into the garden. They've stuck up half the beds, most
of Mara's corner, chewed through all her hard work. That
made him pause, and he set his pint down onto
the sticky table, sombly, blerdy hell. He muttered that patch
always looked proper. Never thought foxes would go after herbs.
He went quiet at that rouse, drawing in a touch,
the lines around his eyes settling deeper, as if he
were figuring out whether that was the truth or not.
Been hearing that from folks too, he said, after a beat.
Not just foxes, badgers and rabbits too, all of them
turning up where they shouldn't be. They're bold, like they've
forgot how to be wild. Don't bolt anymore, just stand
and watch you like they're taunting you. I nodded. Once,
that's what they've been doing. He studied me again. You're
planning to shoot anything, only if I have to. He
let that sit between us for a second, then gave
a small nod. I'll get it to you in the morning,
he said, one day. Only barrel pulls a bit left
if you're not paying attention, and it kicks like it's
got something to prove. So don't try and be clever.
I won't. Once I had the gun, I set out early.
The sky was gray and the path was soft with
last night's rain. The shotgun was wrapped in oil cloth
and strapped across my back. I could feel it with
every step foxes, I said, pests. George must have known
he'd handed me the gun. Like he understood. He said nothing,
but gave me a small nod, the kind that said
do whatever you got a doo, mate, but don't come
crying after The fog was thicker, this time, proper thick.
It clung to the hedges and swelled low across the path.
The visibility was awful. The river wasn't even in sight yet,
but I could feel it just around the bend, that damp,
cold presence and impending doom. I stopped walking, reached back
and undid the strap. It came free, without fuss, oilcloth,
damp with mist. I wrapped it slowly, feeling the weight
of it in my hands. It felt wrong, like it
knew I had no business holding it. My arms weren't
made for this, My hands weren't steady. I never handled
one before, not properly, not like this. And there I
was alone in the mud, with fog at my ankles
and a loaded shotgun in my grip. Like I knew
what the hell I was doing. I broke it open
to check the two shells. They were right where they
were meant to be, and when I clicked it shut,
it made a proper sound, clean and final. Then I
kept moving slowly. My boots sank a little into the
wet ground. With each step. I could feel the thud
of my heart beat in my jaw and finger tips.
Then I saw it, a figure of a woman standing
in the water with her back turned, her dress soaked
and clinging to her legs, and her head was wrapped
in a scarf pulled tight. Every muscle in me went taut.
I raised the gun and flicked the safety off with
my thumb, clumsy and stiff. Was louder than I expected.
It made the hairs on the back of my neck
stand up. The figure reacted to the noise, one foot
dragging through the water, like she was remembering how to stand.
Her body swayed slightly, and every part of me tensed.
My arms were locked and my shoulders tightened. I braced
the stock against my shoulder properly, lifted the barrel and
lined it up through the gray. The fog swirled around her,
thick as milk, only showing a blur of her I
couldn't see her face. But I knew what this was.
What it had to be one of them. I had
seen this before. I knew this shape, this silence, the
soap dress clinging to her legs, sleeves hanging, heavy hair hidden,
no part of her left of recognize. She was just
another one of them, waiting for a next victim. So
I aimed, and just when I had her square in
my sight, she spoke, did you finally bring those biscuits
you promised me? The words took the ground from under
me without warning, and my arms dropped just a little
and shock. I couldn't help it. It felt as if
the gun had become heavier because it was her. It
was Mara. Around five years ago, I started gravitating towards
jobs that made solitude or requirement instead of a consequence.
Just after finally accepting that I was an introvert. I
tried wild life surveys, a forestry internship, and even worked
private fire mitigation one summer before this gig found me.
It's how I ended up at my post on the
Northern Edge Tower nine. The government or whoever owned this
place referred to it as a conservation perimeter or some
other empty phrasing. What it really was, though, was a
swath of wilderness, too big and too wild for any
one to trust leaving alone. The acreage stretched far enough
to swallow towns Hall. Thirteen fire towers covered the zone.
Thirteen watchers, if you counted us all. They called us rangers,
though it was more about fire prevention than policing hikers
or keeping bears away from trailheads. Most rangers keep to
their towers, but some of us made a habit of
breaking the rules we decided were pointless. Technically, we weren't
supposed to leave our posts without clearance, especially during the
dry season. But out here, miles from the nearest supervisor,
the rules didn't mean much. Logan worked out in Tower seven,
which sat a good few miles east. He didn't talk
much about where he came from. He'd gnored through most
of the conversation, say something dry under his breath, then
go quiet again. But he was solid. We didn't hang
out often, but sometimes we'd meet half way between towers,
trade supplies, pass a flask, and sit in silence. I
liked that about him, but not everyone was like Logan.
Ezekiel worked out of Tower eight, the closest one to me,
and he'd been there longer than any one. Every range
I asked gave me a different answer about how long
it'd been around. Some said five years, others said twenty.
I knew only this. He never left. Those were the
only two towers that were within reasonable trekking distance. The
other towers sat so far away the only interactions I
ever got with them was through the radio. Winter rotation
was optional. Most of us rotated out during the snow season,
took breaks, went home, let the off season crew handle things.
But Ezekiel stayed through all of it, year after year.
Supposedly he'd signed some agreement with the agency to maintain
permanent watch. I'd only spoken to him twice. Both times
were uncomfortable. The first time I passed him on the
ridge while heading toward Tower six, I didn't say anything
to him, and I felt bad about it. But Logan
had told me so much creepy stuff about Ezekiel that
I almost didn't even want to speak to him. He
didn't say anything either until I was nearly past and
asked me if i'd seen anything strange on my way.
I said I hadn't, and he just looked away and
seemed to be focused on something else entirely already. He
wasn't warm, far from it, and I didn't really like
spending too much time around him. My first winter in
the tower wasn't forced on me. I asked for it.
The agency gave me a pay cut, and in short
I understood the response time would be a joke if
anything went wrong, but I signed off anyway. I was
starting to really like this job. Once Logan cleared out,
the ridge went dead quiet. His tower light stopped flickering
across the tree line. In the evenings that left me
and Ezekiel, I didn't think about it much. I just
focused on the scenery. The forest itself had no straight edges.
It was hills and valleys stitched together by frozen creeks.
Snow blanketed the evergreens early that year. Most of the
smaller trees had dropped their leaves already, and the taller
ones stood out black against the white. Wind carved up
the snow into low spines that looked like frozen wakes,
as if something had swung through the powder and disappeared.
I was out near the edge of my patrol line
when I saw it. The light had shifted into that
flat winter amber that makes shadows long and deceptive. I'd
been inspecting some of the brush piles left behind by
the firebreak cruise. The wind was quiet and the trees
barely moved. Then a break in the whiteness. It was
too far off to see clearly, but it looked like
a large deer limping. I don't mean walking unevenly, I
mean dragging itself forward and slow, holding burst like one
of its legs didn't want to follow. My first instinct
was the staput. We're told not to interfere with wild life.
If an animal dies, it dies, we aren't rescue. But
I hadn't been out here long enough to be numb
about animals suffering. I stood there for a minute, staring
across the slope. The sky overhead was clear, visibility wasn't bad.
I could see the shapes of the trees for a
few hundred yards before they disappeared behind a ridge. The
animal had crossed into a shallow trench and left the
trail behind it, a broken red line bleeding into the snow.
I figured I could follow it for a bit and
see if I could help it somehow. I wasn't even
sure how, but I knew it did stare my mind.
If not, I could at least make sure I didn't
go down in some ditch where nothing would find it
until spring. I checked my belt, my radio was on,
my coat was zipped tight. I still had enough daylight
to get back if I moved quick. I started walking.
The snow had only started falling the night before, so
it was easy to see the fresh marks. But the
tracks were off. I've seen deer prince plenty of times,
and these didn't match. They were larger, for one thing,
and they weren't symmetrical. The spacing between them seemed wrong,
longer than a deer should have been able to manage
with a limp. I stopped to examine them several times,
crouching down to touch the edges. Some of them looked
melted around the sides, as if the heat had softened
the snow when they formed. An injury, maybe a birth defect.
I kept moving forward. The blood trail dipped into a
shallow drainage basin where the trees thinned out. I followed
it between clumps of dead brush and saplings half buried
under snow drifts. The wind began to shift while I walked.
I felt it before I heard it, sharp, low, funneling
down the slope, like something alive. The clouds hadn't warned me.
The sky had stayed open and glassy above the tree tops,
but within seconds the snow came, driving in sideways, fine
and fast. The shift was absolute. One moment I could
still see the trees standing in soft ranks ahead of me.
Then without build up, they disappeared. Wind slammed through the
trees and pulled the temperature down so fast my fingers
ached through the gloves. I stopped walking, turned a slow circle.
Everything I'd used to orient myself, tree formations, ridge lines,
even the slope under my feet vanished beneath a layer
of rushing white. I squinted through the sudden torrent. The
trail had disappeared, so had everything else. I looked behind me,
where my bootprints had been only second to go. There
was nothing. The snow had sealed them up, as if
I had never walked there at all. My first thought
was the fine higher ground. I turned around and took
two steps, then stopped again. I couldn't see anything I recognized.
Even the sound of my own steps felt swallowed by
the wind. It wasn't that I couldn't tell which direction
I had come from. I had no idea which direction
anything was any more. I reached for my radio and
keyed it tower nine. To anyone on frequency, come in
nothing repeat, this is tower nine. Whiteout conditions need triangulation
or direction. Assist anyone reading this silence. I lowered the radio.
I tried to listen past the storm to find some
auditory landmark that might give me a clue. Still, there
was nothing except wind tearing across the snow and the
occasional snap of overburdened branches breaking underweight. I started walking again.
I kept my bearings tight, using small trees as markers,
and moving slowly, hoping to recognize some formation or shape
that would confirm I was looping back toward familiar territory.
I paused again and took a long breath. My breath
bugged up the inside of my hood. I adjusted the
draw string, tried to calm the pounding in my chest.
Getting lost out here wasn't new. Every ranger did it,
at least once. I kept walking. Minutes passed, I couldn't
tell how many. Then I saw something on the ground ahead.
It was the deer or what had looked like one.
I approached slowly, expecting it to jolt up, the way
wounded deer sometimes do when you get too close. But
it stayed still, half buried in the snow rips, rising
in a sharp curve. One hind leg twisted off to
the side at an unnatural angle. The closer I got,
the less it made sense. I stopped ten feet away
and stared. Its head was all wrong. At first glance,
it resembled a deer skull, long and narrow, with patches
of fur frozen stiff across it, but the face and
lips thin cracked lips stretched back over teeth, almost human.
Its neck bent upward in a way no animal spine
should have allowed. Antlers or something like them, jotted out
in short knobs from either side of its skull, but
they had branching ends that looked almost sculpted. Its torso
heaved slow and unsteady, and I realized it was still breathing.
I took one step back, then another. My boots sank
into the snow. I tried not to make noise. Its
eye turned toward me, singular strikingly human, and its body
convulsed A pause shot forward from beneath its torso, not
a hoof, not a deer leg A bear's limb, thick
and matted with fur, punched into the snow and dragged
the rest of the body forward. As it rose, it
stood half upright, something between a man and a beast.
Then it lunged. I dropped my radio and fell sideways
into the snow. Its claws grazed the sleeve on my jacket,
tearing the fabric but missing the flesh. I rolled backward
and kicked at its ribs, but its weight bore down fast.
It snarled, breath blasted against my neck. The smell made
me gag. I noticed then a massive bleeding gash on
its side. Quickly, I grabbed a branch off the ground,
snapping it from the ice. I drove it into the
thing's injury. It made a deep choking noise and reeled back,
landing hard. I scrambled to my feet and ran. I
pushed through snow drift and tree trunks, branches tearing at
my clothes, breath heaving through my throat. My legs went
numb from the cold, but I didn't stop. I ran
until my lungs burned, and the wind was a wall
against my chest. I didn't even realize where I was
until I saw the structure through the white, thin metal
legs extended upward into the mist, too straight to be natural.
I recognized the silhouette immediately a tower, Ezekiel's Tower. Somehow
I had looped west. I didn't waste time. I found
the staircase and started up, my boots barely gripping the
ice slicked metal. I knocked when I reached the top.
No answer. I knocked again, harder, this time nothing. I
pushed the door open. The warmth hit me first. A
weak orange glow flickered from an old stove in the corner.
The windows were covered in thick, mismatched curtains. Blankets and
furs were piled around the walls. I stepped inside and
closed the door behind me, my fingers trembling. I didn't
realize how cold I had been until the heat hid
my skin. Then I looked around. I had never been
inside his Equals Tower. I didn't know anyone who had.
The space was packed with things that didn't belong in
a lockout. Wall to wall, hooks and shelves cradled with weapons.
Rifles lined the east wall. Hand guns rested in open crates,
ornamental carvings marked every one of them. Runs letters I
couldn't read, lines and circles scratched into the stocks and barrels.
Several of the bullets were laid out across the table
under the window, their surfaces glinting like silver or some
other precious metal. Dream catchers hung in the corners. Animal
schools rested on ledges, each of the forehead marked with
the red wax or ink. I backed away from the
table and sank into a low chair near the stove,
trying to catch my breath. My chest stached. I leaned forward,
resting my arms on my knees. Then I heard the
stairs creaking outside. I immediately thought of that thing. My
first thought was that it had tracked me down, and
now I had nowhere to actually go. I raced toward
the wall for one of Ezekiel's guns. When the door
opened behind me and Ezekiel stepped inside. His coat was
dusted in snow, his gloves were off. He shut the
door and looked over at me with no surprise. I
looked at him, dumbfounded, my hands resting on one of
the rifles still attached to the wall. Ah Yah, Ezekiel
you won't believe me, But you saw it, he asked.
I opened my mouth trying to explain, but he cut
me off before I could finish. Was it injured? I nodded.
Good means the trap worked, he responded, after a brief silence. Well,
he said, at last, since he already saw it. He
turned and met my eyes. The corner of his mouth
twitched in what might have been a grimace. It can't
be helped now. He walked across the room with the
slow certainty of a man who knew where every board creaked.
He moved past the stove, past the table with a bullet,
and stopped in front of a tall shelf near the corner.
His hands hovered momentarily, then landed on a thick, water
warped book, bound in leather and marked in strange faded lettering.
He pulled it free, thumbed through the pages and found
what he was looking for. I am sorry, though, he said,
not looking up. I hadn't let one slip in in
over a decade. Maybe I am getting old. The page
just made a dry sound as he turned them. It's smart,
Azekil muttered, eyes scanning the page, real smart. See some
people think it's three creatures sewn together. Somethink it's one
thing splitting apart into three. He turned the book toward me.
The illustration on the page looked too exact to be
guess work antlers, human faces, claws from something simian or
bare like. Its body was sketched mid motion. He looked
at the page, then back at me. You're lucky he
was wounded. Would have killed you otherwise. He snapped the
book shut and slid it under his arm. Then he
crossed to another shelf. His hand moved quickly, this time
grabbing a flat, circular object wrapped in cloth. He unwrapped
it and held it out to me. It looked like
a mirror, but the surface was darker than glass, more
reflective than metal. The edges were edgeless cymbals, and the
reflection it gave back felt delayed. Take it, he said,
I didn't move. He held it closer. You're coming with me.
You know where it was last. I need you to
take me there. I stared at the mirror, then at him.
You think I want company. I'd rather do this alone.
One man would have trouble taking it down. Two You
should make it manageable. He let go of the object.
I caught it, cradled the weight of it in both hands.
You're part of this now, whether you want to be
or not. After that, Ezekiel briefly explained the plan to me.
I was to be a distraction, since I held its
scent and it saw me as its prey. I was
to point the mirror toward it, leaving it frozen just
long enough for Ezekiel to take it out. Ezekiel put
his coat back on and grabbed a large tool where
looked to be a crossbow from the wall and motion
for me to move in front of him. I obeyed.
The snow had slowed, though only slightly, by the time
we set out. The wind still bit through the tree tops,
and the sky hung low above us, dull and thick,
but it wasn't a full white out anymore. We moved downhill,
cutting through what was left of my trail. Ezekiel walked
with purpose, one hand gripping his crossbow, the other steadying
himself along exposed trunks and roots. He didn't speak much
except a nod when we hit terrain he recognized from
my descriptions. I stayed in front of him, scanning every branch,
every path of snow that looked uneven. I wasn't sure
if the thing had kept moving after it attacked me.
I wasn't even sure it could bleed out. That was
the problem. I didn't know anything about what it was
or how we were going to take it out. We
found the place after thirty minutes of trudging. It wasn't
far from the tower. I'd run further than I realized
during the panic. The snow in the clearing was broken
and stained, dark veins crisscrossing through it in wild spirals.
Ezekiel moved to the center, crouched down, and studded the ground.
He shifted the snow, gently brushing away the surface to
expose the soil beneath. I kept thinking about whether I
could actually do this, whether I'd freeze if it showed
up again, whether he'd see it in my face. He
looked over his shoulder at me, Keep your eyes open.
It hit us without warning. One second we were standing
in silence, and the next the trees exploded into motion.
Snow burst upward as a massive form barreled out from
the gully to our right. Ezekiel spun, raising his weapon,
but the thing was faster. It slammed into him before
he could aim. The crossbow flew from his grip and
skidded into the trees. Ezekiel hid the ground hard. I
froze for a moment. The creature loomed over him, its
shape warping in place where muscle met hide, one shoulder
twitching as if it had too many limbs packed into
too little space. Its breathing was aggressive. It was angry
hiss jaws stretched open as it stared at Ezekiel. Its
eyes were set wide across his head, mismatched in shape
and size. Ezekiel tried to reach for something at his belt,
but the beast slammed its elbow across his chest. I
heard something crack. I ran toward them and kicked hard
into the thing's exposed flank. My boot landed near the
wound i'd seen earlier. The creature shrieked and stumbled sideways.
I fell back and grabbed Ezekiel by the arm, but
he was too heavy to move. His legs didn't respond.
His mouth opened, but no sound came out. His hand
finally twitched and pointed toward the crossbow. The creature's body
shifted as it rose, bones stretched, furs, slowed off in clumps,
revealing muscle underneath that pulsed visibly. It looked at me,
then had Ezekiel. It growled a low noise that vibrated
in my chest. Move his Ekil managed the painful shout.
I backed up, raised the mirror and held it in
both hands. I had forgotten I still had it until then.
The creature looked directly into it and stopped moving. Its
head tilted, its limbs slackened, the snarl faded from its face.
For a moment, it simply stood there, frozen. I lowered
the mirror and dove with the crossbow, my hand wrapped
around the grip, fingers clumsy with adrenaline, I turned back
toward it and brought the weapon up. I hadn't fired
one in years. The trigger felt unfamiliar, the bolt was
already loaded. I aimed, then hesitated. I only had one chance,
and if I missed, it blinked and the spell broke.
The creature launched forward again, this time angling toward his Ekiel.
His hands went up weakly to defend himself. I quickly
inhaled and pulled the trigger. The bolt sank deep into
the creature's ribs as it twisted mid motion, it shrieked
a horrible noise that shifted in pitch half way through,
as if several voices were laid beneath it. Its body staggered,
then shimmered. The edges of it began to thin, stretching
outward like smoke caught in reverse wind. It disappeared. The
clearing was silent again. I looked over as Egil was
slumped against the trunk, his coat soaked through with blood.
He gave a dry, hoarse chuckle and shook his head
not bad. He coughed. It was at that moment that
I wondered if e Egel would ever need help again,
After all, he was getting old. I wasn't a good man.
I didn't grow up with a wrong crowd or fallen
with bad influences. I made my choices. When the trial ended,
the judge said I was the most calculated man he
had ever sentenced, and granted me life without parole, no visitors,
no possibility of release. They buried me, and that was
that until she came along That day. Guards poured me
out of my cell without a word. Two stayed at
my sides, two more behind. We passed through corridors where
walls sweated under fluorescent lights. Doors slid open ahead of
us after key card scuns. Eventually we stopped at a
reinforced door. One of the guards stepped forward and unlocked
it without speaking. Cold air drifted out into the hallway.
Inside was a table bolted to the floor and two chairs,
one empty, one occupied. Her eyes were already locked on
mine before I sat down. She wore a gray suit
with a faint pin striped pattern, hair pulled tight against
her head, skin pale but without blemishes. The guards forced
me into the chair across from her, wrists shackled to
the ring at the center of the table. She didn't
introduce herself. Do you want to rot here until your
skin comes off your bones? She asked, what do you
want a chance? She sounded studio practiced. I didn't answer.
She slid a folder across the table. A thick black
clip held the pages together. I could barely move my arms,
but she didn't seem concerned with that. There's a sight,
she said, tapping the folder with her index finger. Her
cave deepest ever discovered, deeper than anything on record. Her
first expedition didn't return. She didn't blink. They made several
kilarmeters down before something killed them. We believe it was biological,
possibly sentient. She let that sit for a second, then
flip the fold or open. The first image was an
aerial shot of a dense mountain range, followed by several
grainy stills of people in environmental suits carrying gear through
a jagged tunnel. We considered sending qualified personnel, but the
risk is too high. We'd rather loose someone replaceable. You're
a murderer, a terrorist. You're already a dead man. If
this doesn't work, we'll find another one like you cheaper
that way. She paused. Then she folded her hands. You
won't be alone after a short debrief. You'll be taken
to the cave entrance of three others. You'll be outfitted
with recording devices, weaponry, and monitoring equipment. There is a
strong likelihood you will not return. If you survive and
complete the contract, you walk free. She tapped folder again.
Clean record. You pick where you go after. My first
instinct was the laugh. I hadn't tasted outside air in
over a decade. I hadn't seen a sky without mesh
across it since sentencing, so I didn't ask where the
contract involved what they were really looking for, or how
many had already died trying to find it. It didn't
matter what I signed. I'd already died once. If this
got me out, even if it killed me for good,
I was ahead, fine, I said, strap me in. She
nodded to someone I couldn't see. I felt the sting
of a needle in my neck. Cold spread through my spine.
Before I could ask where I'd be taken, the ceiling
peeled away from me, then the light, then everything. I
woke in a bed with clean sheets, white walls, a
smooth ceiling with a built in glow panel that lit
the room without a bulb or fixture. Before I could
sit up properly, a door opened. A man in sterile
clothes stepped inside, gestured, and stepped back without a word.
I followed. They took me through a short, carried door
and into a chamber where the lights were brighter and colder.
Four chairs faced the screen, Three were already occupied. A
man with a tag that read Hollis on his shirt
sat with his legs spread wide, arms tattooed to the wrist,
jaw unshaven, and a permanent smirk planted across his face.
He glanced at me and snorted. Drew beside him, bald
and built, thicker, his hands clasped between his knees. He
didn't react to me at all. He stared forward with
dead focus. The third was smaller, shoulders hunched. Nervous energy
rolled off her in waves. She twitched every few seconds.
Sometimes her head jerked to one side. Sometimes her knuckles tensed,
then released. She'd make a strange sound every once in
a while, and looked involuntary. Nobody said a word. As
I sat in the last open seat, the lights dimmed
and the screen blinked on. We were ushered into another
room after the short presentation ended, some vague footage of
cave walls and sensitata, nothing identifiable. This one had a
long table, cold steel surface, and no chairs. A man
in a black uniform stood at the far end, holding
a remote in one hand and a tablet in the other.
As you already know, he sighed, You're going underground. You'll
be outfitted. You'll be monitored, your vitals, your recordings, every
word you say will be logged. You'll love one guide.
Her name is Wren, the girl with the ticks. Presumably
Wren glanced up but didn't speak. She was part of
the first mission, he continued. She didn't witness the attack.
She abandoned a team before it occurred. She was found
days later at the mountain base. She ran, Hollis said, grinning,
you're sending us down there with a coward. Wren flinched
and her shoulders jerked. She tried to hold still, but
the tension inside her was impossible to miss. The man
ignored them both. You are explorers. You're being given an opportunity.
Find out what happened, find out what they discovered, assess
the biological threat. You will have audio and video documentation
running at all times. You will not go off plan.
You will not deviate from the root, she outlines. You
will not improvise. Do that, and you'll ever shot at.
Walking out, they loaded us into the back of a
truck with no windows, no light, no sense of movement
beyond the vibration of the road. Beneath. Ren and I
sat across from each other, silent for most of the
first hour. Her leg bounced nervously. You're right, I asked.
She blinked hard and nodded, yeah, sorry, it's well, it's not.
She stopped and forced the head straight. It's hard sometimes
you were there before. She nodded again. What happened? Well,
she said, it's silly, but I was scared. I left
before anything even happened, as you heard. I didn't have
a reason. I guess I just kind of felt claustrophobic.
Maybe I don't know. Something about the place spooked me,
so I ran out of the cave. I'd walked all night.
I looked at her carefully. And you still don't know
why you left. I've been trying to figure it out,
especially after they questioned me a bunch of times. I
guess I did avoid danger. She seemed sincere. You scared
of going back in? She perked up suddenly, full of energy.
Of course, something in there killed my colleagues, and she slowed.
They told me I breached contract and I was required
to do this. After a brief pause, why are you here,
she asked, I mean really, I lit them buildings on fire,
I said, keeping the other things secret. She didn't look away.
Do you regret it? I didn't answer her right away.
I watched her instead, I guess so her eyes flicked
back toward me, searching for something. Maybe she found it.
She gave me a small nod, then looked away again.
When the truck stopped, they kept us inside for another
twenty minutes. When they finally opened the doors, daylight hit
me so hard I had to shield my eyes. A
dozen figures waited near a chain link gate that had
been waged into a stretch of pale rock. They wore gear, helmets, visors,
and gloves. We looked at them in disbelief as they
pointed toward a crate full of weapons. I took a
short gun and a side arm. Harlis went straight for
the automatic rifle and smirked when they didn't stop him.
Drew slung a belt of shells across his shoulders, and
picked a pump action like it was a toy. He
really given us guns, Harlis said, shaking his head and
turning around to face us. They gave the prison crew guns.
Harllis turned toward Wren, who backed herself against the side
of the truck. She hadn't taken anything from the crate.
What about her, he said? Do we even need her?
What if we take her hostitch? Maybe walk her back out.
Tell them we want a helicopter or something. He didn't
sound serious, but he didn't sound like he was joking either.
One of the mass guards looked at him, and Hollis
piped down. He looked disappointed. Ah, I guess that wouldn't work,
would it. A man in a hazard suit gave a
final briefing. Equipment had already been staged inside ammunition, light,
nutrition packs, water. There was no communication. Once we entered,
we would document everything, follow the route, and if we
tried to exit early, the doors would remain locked until
the scheduled retrieval time. The cave entrance was tiny, a
little more than a slitting stone. The walls were uneven,
jagged in some places, then smooth in others. They were
wide enough for two of us to walk side by side,
with space in between. We moved through long tunnels that
opened into chambers large enough to park aircraft in. Wren
led the way. She had a tablet secured to a
vest and a laminated map strapped to a leg. We
found a flat stretch of tunnel that widened near a
wall of crossed sediment. Someone had left old markers orange tags,
half buried under dust. Wren told us this was the
first stop. We weren't expecting to reach the next landmark
until morning. We dropped gear, rolled mats and sat down
in the dirt, drew, leaned against the slab of rock,
and slept. Almost immediately after a few minutes, Wren approached me.
She looked hesitant. I don't want to be near them,
she said, yeah, I know, maybe I'm a getting scared
for no reason again, But I don't know what if
they do something, they might I said, whatever, let's just
stick together, the two of them and the two of us. Sure,
I nodded. She breathed out through a nose and nodded again.
Then she lowered her head and mumbled something I didn't catch.
We all woke up around the same time, and nobody spoke.
We just started walking again. It was a strange situation.
We all knew we could potentially die here. Whatever had
killed those researchers was still down here, and now that
we were getting closer, that realization was sinking in deeper
than ever before. A few hours in the cave shifted,
the walls widened again, and the floor began to level out.
The slope that had pulled us down from the start eased,
but the tunnel didn't narrow. It kept expanding in every direction.
That was the first place saw the trail. It stretched
across the stone like someone had spilled the vatter silver
and led it cool. Long lines of dull metal fused
with the ground, following the cave's natural channels. Some parts
had pulled into circular patches. Others looked like they had
been flung out during motion. Thin trails scattered, but clearly
following something's path. Wren stopped and knelt um. She started
the original crew. There was a satellite scan if I
remember correctly, something in this range gave her a turn
that matched heavy rhodium content. It was a really dense
and unnatural concentration. It could have been worth a fortune,
so it's no wonder there are traces of it around.
We listened briefly. Drew talked about bringing some of it
back and potentially getting paid for it, but no one
answered him. We kept walking. More trails appeared. Some ran
along the walls, and a few looped over natural arches
over our heads. It was everywhere. It reached the junction
where the ceiling opened into a chamber almost the size
of a hangar. The walls clinted. Strips of exposed minerals
caught the low light. Veins of gold, and something darker
ran through the rock, like roots frozen in place. That
was when I heard it. A series of sharp clicks
echoed behind us. They were fast. I turned. It emerged
from the bend in the tunnel without warning, moving on
all fours but rising as it entered the open chamber.
Its forearms twisted at a sick angle, ending in serrated
appendages that resembled both talons and surgical blades. Beneath its skin,
if it could be called that something pulsed in irregular spasms,
Thick cables of muscle rolled beneath the fused metallic and
oily surface, as though it had been dipped in molten chrome,
and left it congeal in uneven patches. Its head was
horrific elongated, tapering to a point that hovered behind its shoulders.
The jaw split downward instead of opening wide, unhinging into
four separate folds, and molten metal leaked out in thin
lines that hissed against the stone. He raised his head
and looked around, almost like it was trying to listen.
We looked at it in the silence, and then Hollis
lifted his rifle and fired it a full burst tore
through the cavern. Air shells clattered to the ground. The
noise was deafening. Drew stepped up behind him and joined in,
racking around into the chamber with a grin. The creature
didn't even flinch, but he started moving toward them, seemingly
now alerted to their presence. It was fast and fluid.
Hollis got half a breath into another laugh before it
reached him. One swipe took his legs, another tore through
his chest. I didn't see what happened next. There was
in a sound beyond the gun shots and the wet
slap of contact. Drew kept firing until the gun locked open.
The creature pivoted toward him, already moving, I turned and ran,
and that seemed to alert Wren. She moved with me,
and a body convulsed in both physical and vocal ticks.
The shots behind us faded, then there was nothing. Wren gasped,
her mouth opened, but she didn't speak. I pushed the
harder toward a split in the tunnel ahead. We moved
fast and low, and I started to realize something. It
was blind. I slowed, pulling her behind a wall of
rock where the ground dipped her head shook. She kept
whispering something beneath, her breath, split up by involuntary yelps
that were too loud for comfort. You have to stop,
Do you hear me? She nodded hard, her jaw clenched tight.
Sweat ran down the side of her face and streaks,
and her whole body trembled from the effort of holding still.
It can't see he can only hear us. You have
to stay quiet. She nodded again, and this time her
body stilled, not entirely, but enough. We moved without speaking.
Every step felt calculated, every breath too loud. The tunnels
narrowed again as we descended behind us. Sounds from the
creature could still be heard, but it was far enough
away to give us some hope of survival. Not even
bullets damaged it, so our best bet was to try
sneak past it. Somehow, we entered another chamber, smaller than
the last one, but wide enough of the darkness to
stretch past the range of our lights. The ceiling bowed downward.
I stepped around a jagged edge and nearly tripped over
a body, or what was left of it. It wore
a suit or what had been a suit. Once the
fabric had fused, the limbs torn open across the chest
and peeled back at the shoulder. The skin beneath had
dried into something gray, stiff, and hollow. I counted three
more nearby. Ran knelt slowly next to one of the bodies.
I knew her. She whispered, but there was no time
for reminiscing or anything of the sort. I tapped on
the shoulder and gestured for her to move. The tunnel
dropped hard. After that, we slid down a slope that
forced us onto our hands, boots scraping loose rock. The
air was changing again, hot, an now not from the strain.
It hit my face before we saw the sauce. Then
we rounded a bend and the floor dropped out into
a massive chasm. Rehn and I stared in disbelief as
the lake stretched out in front of us, smooth as glass,
not one made of water, but rather molten metal, gold, silver, blue,
all bleeding into each other in an endless loop. Heat
poured from the surface. Sweat ran down my back in
slow waves. My hands felt down beside my gloves. I
thought about how this was possible. Surely the heat from
the molten metal itself would have killed us by now,
but my attempts at rationalization were interrupted by a clicking
sound behind us and a realization that we had just
reached a dead end. We moved to the side and
took cover behind a jagged ridge of stone at the
lake's edge. It was a match, enough to break the
line of sight, maybe enough to muffle sound. Ren's body
convulsed and she put both hands over her mouth butt.
If she made a single sound, we'd die. I could
feel the creature approaching. The air shifted as it entered
the chamber. She reached for me. Her fingers closed around
my arm, trembling, horizonment mine. She knew. I looked at her.
I didn't say anything. There wasn't time. Even a whisper
could have ended it. She mouthed something. I raised the shotgun.
Her head shook, small and sharp. Her lips trembled, but
she didn't speak. Her hand tightened around my arm. I
felt her finger nails through the fabric. She tried to
pull back. Her mouth opened, no sound came out. Her
eyes screamed. I fired, Her head snapped sideways, gone before
the rest of her had time to fall. Blood hit
the rock behind us in a wet splash. Her body
collapsed at my feet. The creature sprung into motion. I
could hear it. It stood on top of the rock
I was hiding and slowly dropped itself down. His tail
ran right past my arm, and it seemed to inspect
Wren's body. It lifted her up by the torso and
walked out of view. I could hear the liquid sloshing.
Curiosity got the better of me. I peeked around the
corner to see the monster slowly walking into the lake
of metal, Wren's body in tow The surface took both
of them, metal folding upward to embrace its body as
it descended into the glowing pool. Then it was gone.
The lake smoothed over again, silent still, as if nothing
had ever broken its surface. I didn't know how long
it would stay submerged, but I wasn't going to give
it time to come back. I stood and ran. I
followed the same path taken down or close to it.
I kept one hand on the rock to guide my turns.
Everything looked different on the way up. Eventually I reached
the chamber where Drew had fallen. His body was bent
in half across a flat boulder, split from the ribs down.
I recognized the boots before I saw the rest. Hollis
lay a few feet away, or at least most of
them did. His rifle was still in one hand, his
other hand was missing. I kept moving. By the time
I saw the faint blue glow of the reinforced entrance,
I couldn't feel my legs anymore. Two guards stood at
the threshold. The helmets reflected my face as I stumbled forward.
Neither of them moved until I crossed the final threshold
and fell to my knees. I didn't speak. They didn't either.
One of them stepped forward and removed the shotgun from
my back. The other one retrieved the body cam. They
helped me to my feet and led me into transport.
A little while later, she sat across from me again,
in the same suit. We reviewed your footage. She said,
your documentation exceeded expectations. She flipped through a few pages.
What happened to Wren was unfortunate. She closed the folder
and pushed it aside. You've done your part, she gestured
toward the door. The hallway stretched in front of me,
too bright to focus on a man in black uniform
walked me through two check points, then into another chamber.
He handed me a small envelope. Inside were travel documents,
a debit card, and a folded sheet with my new credentials.
I was escorted outside, and just like that I was alone.
I walked until the facility shrank behind me, nothing more
than a shape at the edge of stone. I was free.
We buried our little girl, Elsie in the orchard, within
the rows of pear trees. She used to run between
to mark the spot we planted a young sapling that
still had a few years left to bear fruit. She
loved pears more than any child I'd ever met. She'd
eat them, warm and mushy from the branch like it
was the best thing she'd ever tasted. During harvest, she'd
march around to the basket half a size, pointing at
which ones were the good ones, like a tiny dictator.
AH little help her. The morning it happened, she'd been
headed outside to play, the same as always. I remember
the screen door creaked open, then shut, and I heard
her humming to herself, and then the quiet stretched too long.
By lunch time, we couldn't find her, not in the yard,
not in the house, Marissa checked the barn. I checked
the orchards and yelled the name until my throat hurt.
And then I saw the shoe by the pond, sideways
in the mud. Everything after that here's a blur. But
that moment, the shoe, that's the part I still see
when I close my eyes. Marissa didn't talk for a while.
At night, she'd curl up on her side of the
bed with Elsie's pajama shirt clutched to her chest. I
lay beside her every night, helpless. I'd hold her hand
or rub her back while my own chest felt like
it was caving in. Her sobs would start quietly, like
she was trying to hold them in for my sake,
and then they'd break loose, spilling out of her like
a flood, and I'd just lay there while my throat
burned with the things I couldn't say. When it was
over and she'd gone still again, I'd press my lips
to her forehead and whisper something dumb and small, like
it's okay, I've got you. She never answered, but she
always reached for me. One night, I brought her a
mug of camomile and sat beside her. I silently watched
as she took the mug and held it between her palms.
She loved how you peeled them for her, Marsa said,
Even when I taught her how to do it herself,
she still brought them to you. She liked the way
you sang while you cooked, I said, even when you
were off key, especially then. She looked at me then,
and something in her face softened. I reached over and
took the piece of her hair behind her ear. She
leaned into my hand. I miss her, she whispered, me too,
I said, everywhere. She nodded. We sat like that for
a long time, her fingers intertwined with mine, the tea
forgotten and going cold on the nightstand. That was the
night we started talking again. Although things were getting better,
the bills were still there, even though we were starting
to come back to ourselves. The money was going faster
than ever. We saved what we could by burying Elsie ourselves,
but the tractor needed a belt, the west fence sagged,
and our pump trucks sat dry because fue will cost
more than what we had. But then Graftco knocked on
our door. The man they sent out was named doctor Levin.
He said, they found us through a regional yield audit
and flagged our land as having low potential with high
legacy viability. That's the kind of language you only hear
from people who've never swept through the harvest. He explained.
They'd fit our orchard with experimental grafting tech, some kind
of bioengineered rootstock that would result in triple yield and
bring the trees back stronger than ever. Mercer asked him
if it was safe. He said, safer than what you're
doing now. Then he told us they'd sponsor the whole
thing and cover installation and materials, and even throw a
stipend for our time. Any condition was access. They'd need
to monitor everything, growth rates, soil conditions, fruit development. It
sounded too good to be real, so we took a
few days to think about what we were signing up for.
If it failed, or if the tech damaged the trees,
stunted the orchard, or left us worse than before, we
couldn't afford to recover from that. But then the stip
end hit the account, just the advanced portion. It was
enough to buy fuel and fix the tractor, so we accepted.
The installation took a weekend, a crew came with crate
of tubing, sleek little graph notes like plugs for a machine,
and boxes labeled with long coats and the graph Co logo.
They moved quickly and were polite and a little too quiet, Marisa.
They declined. By Monday, the orchard was different. The soil
had this strange, clean smell, like antiseptic. There were metal
caps at the base of each tree, and thin wires
ran under the dirt. Elsie's tree got the same treatment
as the rest. I didn't like it, but within days
the changes started. Buds opened, early, leaves spread wide and fast.
It was a miracle. The orchard looked fuller than it
had any right to, and then somehow the fruit came
way ahead of schedule. Elsie's tree bloomed with the rest.
That morning, I stared at a single bulb hanging off
one thin branch, plump green and tiny. Marissa crouched beside it,
eyebrows pinched. That's not right, she said, it's too early.
I said, way too early. What could they have done
to speed it up this much? We kept her eye
on the tiny bulb, expecting it to fall off ull
rot like immature fruit does. But it didn't. It just
kept growing. In week one, the single fruit swelled faster
than anything else in the orchard. It looked smooth and full,
like it had never struggled for sunlight a day in
its life. Marissa kept returning to it, lingering longer each time,
her brow furrowed, like she was searching for something familiar
in its skin. It's round, she said, finally, frowning a
little like baby cheeks. In week two, she called me
over before I'd even set down my coffee. The fruit
had grown bigger, and what started as a bulb was stretching.
There was a soft indent where her mouth might form.
At the very top, the skin curled into a little
twist of green that looked oddly like a cow lick.
Marissa ran her finger gently across the curve of the fruit,
down to what appeared to be a neck that had
begun to form, and beneath it a roundness that hinted
her shoulders. There was a slope to the body now,
the faintest rise of arms pressed close to her chest.
She always had that little swirl and her temple, Marissa
said quietly. I used to smooth it down every morning, Remember,
I did. I remembered how every morning, without fail, I'd
hold Elsie still and Marissa would smooth that stubborn swirl
back in place with a wet thumb. I nodded, eyes
still on the fruit. Yeah, I said softly, you'd smooth it,
and she'd mess it up five minutes later. But it's
just a coincidence. By week three, the fruit had a
distinct face, and there was no denying it. The rest
of the shape had filled out too. Her legs were there, now,
curled up beneath her in a fetal position, the toes
so delicately formed they looked like they'd twitch any second.
And the whole thing hung there, still and eerily peaceful,
like she was just asleep. Everything inside me turned heavy.
I looked at Marissa, hoping for some shared confusion, but
her eyes were fixed, unblinking as she studied the fruit
like it might wake up if she waited long enough.
That's her, she said, I don't care if it's green.
That's our girl. She stepped closer, fingers brushing against the
chubby cheeks. I remember when she was this little, feels
like it was just yesterday, And for a second, standing
there beside her, I almost believed it too. That night,
she didn't come in for dinner. I found her in
the dark, sitting under the tree, cradling the fruit in
both arms like a newborn, her body curved around it protectively,
swaying just slightly, murmuring lullabies. She rocked it with the
same rhythm she used to rock Elsie when she was colocky,
thumb brushing over the curve of the cheek, like she
was soothing a real child back to sleep. From then on,
Marissa barely left the orchard. I'd find her under the
tree with a blanket draped over a lap and a
book open in her hands. She looked alive again, but
something about the fruit didn't feel right. I wanted to
tell her to slow down and that it wasn't normal,
but the words caught in my throat every time, so
I kept quiet. I watched as she treated the fruit
like Elsie had returned to her. She'd became content and
sleep without crying herself to sleep. Sometimes she'd rest her
head on my shoulder like she used to curl into me.
She'd squeeze my hand under the covers and murmur good
night before drifting off. There are even mornings where she'd
lean over and kissed my cheek before getting up to
check the fruit. Her softness in her eyes I thought
I'd never see again. For a while, it felt like
maybe the fruit wasn't so bad. Then Grafco called to
schedule a check in. Marissa's hands shook when she hung
up the phone. I knew something was wrong when she
silently walked out to the orchard and sat under the tree.
While she was standing guard. I found her pacing in
the kitchen at three a m. Whispering to herself and
swinging shears. They'll see her, she said, they'll take her.
They'll say it an anomaly and cut her down. I
stepped toward her gently, shook the shears from her hand,
and said, hey, look at me. She didn't, Marissa, I
said again, softer this time. It's just the check in.
They won't take anything. We're not doing anything wrong. When
she finally looked at me, I saw the fear on
her face. You don't know that they'll see her, they'll
cut her down. Paul I held her face in both hands.
I could feel her trembling. We'll protect her, we'll protect
each other. You don't have to do this. Alone. I
didn't want to lose this happy version of her, so
I let go of her slowly and handed her back
the shears. If it'll make you feel better, I said,
then I'll do it. She blinked hard, wiped her eyes,
and walked out the door without another word. I followed
and watched as she clipped the fruit from the branch.
Her hands caught it gently, like she was carrying something precious.
She cradled it close to her chest and pulled out
a faded yellow cloth with tiny embroidered ducts. It was
one of Elsie's old muslins, and she swaddled the fruit
with it. As she wrapped it tight, she murmured, they're okay,
now we've got you. No one's going to take you
away this time, I promise. I followed her inside and
watched her set it gently on the counter, still wrapped
in the muslin. Her hands hovered. Something's wrong, she said,
voice tight. There was a dark spot blooming through the fabric.
Marissa gasped and fumbled to unwrap it. A cloth clung
to the skin like it didn't want to let go,
and released with a sickening, tearing noise. Marissa let out
a sharp breath and staggered back. It was rotting fast.
The green skin had darkened and peeled back in places
to reveal something underneath that looked like flesh, pulp and
muscle twisted together, tiny teeth budding where the mouth had been.
One eye collapsed in on itself, like it deflated. Marisa
let out her hard sob park gag and backed into
the corner. I didn't know, she whispered. I didn't mean
to hurt her. Marisa started full body sobbing. She dropped
to the floor beside the counter, her back pressed to
the cabinet, fists against her temples. I killed her, she
choked out. I killed her again. I dropped beside her
and wrapped my arms around her while she fought me,
crying and pushing and begging, no, no, please. She was
getting better, she was almost done. You were just trying
to protect her, I said, my voice shaking. You did
what any mother would do. You loved her so much
it hurts. That's not wrong, Mirsa. She clawed at her sleeves,
at her throat, like the grief was something she could
tear out of her skin. Again, the whole body shook.
I just wanted to keep her safe. She gasped. I
held her tighter. I know, I whispered, I know. I
stayed with her there until her sobs turned to silence.
Then I helped her to her feet and walked to
her bed. Once she was settled, I lifted the muslin
gently from the counter and took it outside. I felt
wrong to throw the fruit away because of how much
it looked like Elsie. It was strange. It felt like
she was back. She almost looked alive in Marissa's arms.
My hands shook as I grabbed a spade from the shed.
I walked out to Elsie's tree, knelt at the base,
and started digging. The muslin reaked enough to make me gag.
I turned my head and swallowed it down. When the
hole was deep enough, I unwrapped the cloth one last time,
just enough to see the curve of what used to
be her face, and lowered it in slowly. I pressed
the dirt back over gently, smoothing it flat with my palm,
and sat there a long time, not ready to leave.
When I stood and brushed the soil from my knees,
I looked up. Another fruit was growing, just beginning to swell.
Marissa was still asleep. When I came back in, her
breathing was shallow and her face was swollen from crying.
She didn't stir when I sat beside her and laid
my hand on her back. I let her rest. The
next morning, Grafco arrived two reps, this time doctor Levin
and someone new in an baby jacket, clipboard in hand,
both of them all business. I told them Marissa wasn't
feeling well. They didn't ask questions. They weren't expecting anything
from Elsie's tree anyway. According to their notes, it wasn't
supposed to yield for another season. They stopped to take
growth measurements, height, trunk, wet, the soil balance, but the
other trees they were thrilled, called the results accelerated but stable,
used words like promising and replicable. When they left, I
brought Marissa a plate of toast and eggs and set
it on the nightstand beside her. She hadn't moved much,
eyes half open but vacant, her face still blotchy and tired.
You should eat, I said, sitting on the edge of
the bed. She turned her face into the pillow. I
buried it under the tree, I whispered, Marissa led out
this half sob and something about that broke me wide open.
I reached for her, but she curled tighter, her shoulders shaking.
And there's there's another one. It's starting again, just a bud,
but it's there. The words just came out. I shouldn't
have said anything. I knew what that tree was doing
to her. But when she pulled her face from the
pillow and looked at me, face blotchy and puffy, eyes
bright and that hopeful, desperate way, it was too late
to take it back. Another one, she said, barely more
than a breath. I nodded her hand, reached out and
held mine. She sat up, slow and stiff. I still
locked on mine. It wasn't ready, she said, the last one.
It hadn't fully become her yet. I didn't understand at first.
She squeezed my hand. It was too young, like picking
a pair before it's ripe. Her voice cracked. It wasn't
completely Elsie. She leaned in close, forehead against mine. Promise
me we wait next time. We don't touch it, not
until it's her, just before it happened. That's when we'll
know it's done. I hesitated. Everything in me wanted to
tell her no, to remind her that it wasn't really Elsie.
But she looks so certain, so sure, so I said yes.
Missa watched the new bud every morning like a kid
waiting for Christmas. She raked mulch into the soft cradle
shape directly under the branch where the fruit hung, and
tucked an old pillow into its curve. When I stepped
into view, Marissa looked up and smiled like this was
all perfectly normal. She's growing fast, she said, faster than
last time. Her voice had that same softness she used
when Elsie was sick. I watched her took the corners
of the muslin under the pillow like it was a bassanette.
She'll be walking before we know it, she added, with
this tiny, wistful laugh that didn't reach her eyes. It
gutted me weeks past. The fruit grew fuller, like it
was aging through Elsie's life stages, one feature at a time,
but the eyes stayed shut. It looked like she was
fast asleep, like she could wake at any moment. Soon.
Its skin flushed warm to the touch, and when I
pressed my fingers to the stem, I could feel a pulse.
She looked at me, then gently lifted the fruit and
extended it toward me. Hold her. She said, she wants
to know who you are. She misses you. I hesitated,
everything in me recoiled, but Marissa's eyes were steady, soft,
so I reached out. The moment my hands touched the fruit,
something in me melted. It was warm, heavy, in that
way sleeping children always are, and beneath the skin I
could swear I felt the faintest flutter of her heart beat.
My arms curled around it instinctively, it felt like her,
the way she sagged into me after a long day outside.
It couldn't really be her. I knew that, but in
that moment, it felt like holding her again, like she'd
never left. Then Graftco came back. We hadn't expected another
visit so soon, but a single assistant came to check
the progress. Just the kid, barely older than a college
in turn, with a silver case and a polite smile.
He didn't even knock. I didn't even know he was
here until I heard a crash, and then Marissa's voice,
high and breaking. They're going to take her, Paul, They're
going to see her, she said the window, wide eyed.
You have to stop them. She said they'll take her.
They'll cut a down like she's nothing. You promised, Paul,
you promised, I tried to calm her voice, low and steady.
I'll handle it. I won't let them near her. Just
stay here, please, Reesa. She shook her head like she
couldn't hear me, tears tracking down her cheeks. She's not ready,
he said, we'd wait. You said we'd protect her. I
mean it, I said, already turning toward the door. I'm going.
I'll take care of it, I swear. My heart thudded
harder with each step. The assistant was already scanning through
the trees and taking notes. I forced a smile on
to my face as I approached him, hoping he couldn't
see the panic behind it. Morning, I said, keeping my
tone casual. You folks sure know how to pick your weather.
He glanced up and gave a short nod distracted. Yeah,
sorry to drop an unannounced just a routine check. Shouldn't
take long. You'll want to see the roots well in
the north row. It tripled last month, he blinked at me,
distracted eyes already drifting toward the younger block. That one's
still sterile. I added, quickly, pointing at Elsie's tree. Not
due to fruit for another year, maybe two. He nodded
slowly and followed me away. But half way down the row,
he paused, glanced over his shoulder. Mind if I take
a quick reading over there, he asked, already starting back
toward that tree. I caught up in two strides. It's
really not necessary, nothing viable there yet, he shook his head.
Doctor Levin wants the monitor the growth. And then he
stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the fruit hanging
from Elsie's tree. It was rounded, flushed, too lifelike to
be dismissed. What the hell? He dropped to his knees
to get a closer look, pulling out a handheld scanner
from his belt. This wasn't in the notes, I watched.
As he raised the device toward the fruit, the scanner beaped.
He turned to me. I'm going to have to report this.
Panic crawled up my throat. Wait, it's probably just the deformity.
The hormones can cause mutations, right, His eyes narrowed. This
isn't a mutation, this is something else. He looked again
and reached out like you might touch it. He had
no idea what she meant to us. I thought about Marissa,
how she'd curl around that muslin like she was holding
our girl again. How she'd cried herself to sleep when
it rotted, how her voice broke when she whispered, they'll
take her. Suddenly, I couldn't see the assistant anymore. I
saw a man walking out of there with Elsie's face
in a folder. I saw Marissa break all over again,
something I couldn't handle anymore. I thought about grabbing him,
just wrapping my arm around his throat and squeezing until
the life left his eyes. The thought alone made my
fingers twitch. But before I could move, a pruning tool
stuck the back of his head with a sickening crunch.
The blade slid in just above the neck, through the
soft spot with a spine and skull met A shudder
ripped through him. He stiffened on his knees, then sagged forward, gurgling.
His arms failed once, and then he slumped cheek, hitting
the dirt. His scanner landed in the mulch of the
muffled crunch. Blood seeped into the soil, dark and fast.
A low, gurgling breath hissed from his throat and one
leg jerked. He wasn't dead, Damn, I breathed. Marissa stepped
into view behind me, her face pale and wet with sweat.
The bruning tool hung limp in her hand. He's not
I started. I had to, she said quickly, her voice shaking. Paul,
I had to. He saw her, You saw him. He
was going to take her. I couldn't let him take her,
still alive, I said, dropping to one knee. We need to. No,
Marissa snapped, we can't. He'll tell them we'll lose her
all over again. Her eyes darted to the fruit, then
back to me. I saved her, Paul, don't you see
I saved her. He's dying, Marissa. We can't just just
leave him. We have to, she snapped, You said you'd
protect her. I looked back down at the assistant, his
chest barely rising. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth.
His fingers twitched like he was trying to reach for something.
I clenched my fist and squeezed my eyes shut. Every
part of me screamed to act to fix it, but
I was frozen. Marissa cut to my face with trembling hands.
We're doing this for her, for her daughter. I nodded barely.
Then we need to finish it fast. I reached down
with shaking hands and pulled the pruning tool from where
it had fallen. The blade tore out with a wet pop.
I hovered over him, the way to the metal suddenly
immense in my hand. His eyes fluttered, her breath wheezed
out of him, his fingers twitched. I could have ended
it right then I knew I should. I gripped the
handle and brought the tip to the base of his
skull and froze. My hands shook. He was someone's kid.
He didn't deserve any of this, and here I was
on my knees, about to end it because I was
too much of a cow to fix any of it.
Then I looked to the side. I saw Marissa holding
the fruit, and for a second I saw Elsie in
her arms. My throat burned. I blinked hard, tried to
steady my grip. I'm sorry, I whispered, and then I
drove the blade down through the soft spot in his skull.
I looked down at the body, blood thick in the dirt,
and I felt sick. Was this worth it? I tried
to swallow the question, but it stuck there. Marissa brought
the tarp from the shed and helped roll his body
into it. Neither of us spoke. We dragged him past
the rose to the far edge, near the compost pit,
where the ground was softer. I took the shovel and
started digging. The smell of dirt and blood mixed in
the air, and the hole was deep enough. We lowered
him in. I didn't look at his face. We covered
it fast, packed the dirt back over, kicked mulch across
the top. By the time we finished, my arms were shaking.
Marissa stood beside me, her eyes glassy and far away.
We have to clean the scanner, she said, and burn
the tarp. I nodded, and make sure they never send
any one again. A week passed. Every night I lay
beside Marissa, with the weight of what I'd done disturbing
my thoughts. I kept telling myself it was for them,
but I couldn't shake the sound of the girl in
his throat. I tried to picture Marissa's face when she
held that fruit, and tried to hold onto that try
to believe it was worth it. The fruit had grown bigger,
It was heavier now, thick around the middle, and long
enough to touch the ground. It curled into the mulch
like it was sleeping, and it looked older now, almost
the same age as Elsie had been before she died.
We both started spending more time under the tree. I'd
catch Marissa brushing mulch away from the fruit side, or
humming softly, like she used to at bedtime. One morning,
while I tied down a saggy branch, she looked up
from where she sat, one hand resting gently on the
curve of the fruit. I think she's going to open
her eyes soon, she said. I nodded slowly, unsure of
how to answer. She looks ready. Marisa smiled, Our baby's
coming back. I sat beside her for that moment, with
the smell of bark and mulch around us and that
fruit between us, it felt like it might actually be true.
And then the phone rang from the house. It was Grafco,
the same polite voice that it scheduled the check ins before.
Just following up, he said, one of our assistants had
scheduled a sight visit in your area. Did they make contact?
I met Marissa's eyes across the kitchen. Her grip on
the coffee mug tightened. No, I said, no, one showed understood,
thank you, We'll be in touch. The lion clicked dead.
If that wasn't enough stress. When Marissa turned the radio on,
it crackled to life with the tail end of an
emergency broadcast. Heavy winds expected across the valley floor. Lightning
activity reported near the ridge. Residents should secure loose property
and avoid open areas. Advisories are in effect until midnight.
Repeat high wind and lightning warnings issued through tonight. The
sky had that bruised tone to it, too dark for
the morning. She's not ready, Marissa said, quietly. If that
wind knocks it down, it won't. I said, we won't
let it. We grabbed what we had, twine, steaks, and
spare netting from the tool shed. I carried out an
old canopy from the market days metal legs, rusted but
still usable. Marissa followed me arms full of blankets and
old towels. The wind had already picked up by the
time we reached the tree. The leaves shivered overhead, that
warning rustle that comes before the break. So we worked fast.
Marissa crouched beneath the branch, copping the fruit with both hands,
like it might already be slipping away, or we should
anchor it. She said, something soft, just in case. I
nodded and wedged an old pillow beneath the branch, tying
it up loosely so it cradled the stem without tugging.
She wrapped the towels around it like insulation, tugging every edge.
Then I pulled the canopy over and hammered stakes around
the base. We stretched the mesh netting torch around the frame,
leaving room for the wind to pass, but not enough
to tear it. Looks like a damn tent, I muttered,
stepping back. A flash of lightning licked the sky in
the distance, followed by a slow roll of thunder. A
few seconds later. I counted out of habit maybe three
or four miles off. We need to go inside, I said,
my voice firm. Marissa refused to move. She was still
crouched one hand on the branch, the other gently covering
the base of the fruit through the canopy. She's going
to be scared alone, she said. We can't just leave her. Marissa,
She's just a kid, Paul. She doesn't understand storms. What
if she thinks. We abandoned her again and knelt beside her.
The air buzzed faintly, starting in pressure and dread, curling
in the space between each gust. You've done everything you can,
I said. She knows that. But if lightning strikes, another
flash cut across the sky, this one closer. Thunder crackled overhead,
and Marissa winced. I grabbed her hand. Come on, we'll
watch from the house. We'll be right there, just like
when she spent the night camping in the garden. He
didn't leave her then either. She hesitated, Then she nodded. Slowly.
We ran for the house through the rising wind. Once inside,
Marissa pressed herself to the window, breath fogging the glass.
The next bolt of lightning struck somewhere beyond the east Grove,
close enough at the flash painted the entire sky white.
A half second later, the thunder crackled so hard the
glass trembled in its frame. Then her sharp smell hit
electrical and burned. I looked past Marissa's shoulder and saw
sparks flaring from one of the grafcow notes at the
base of the tree three rows down. Paul. Marissa said,
voice sharp, do you see that, Yeah, I breathed. The
sparks caught the dry mulch. Fast flames licked up the
base of the trunk. Then another node popped, another burst.
The fire jumped from one row to the next, like
it had been waiting. Marissa slammed her hand against the window. No, no, no.
I grabbed the fire extinguisher from under the sink. Call
nine one one, I barked. Now she didn't move, Marissa.
She tore her eyes away from the window, fumbling for
the phone. I bolted for the door, heart pounding the
air outside already thick with smoke and heat. The fire
raced faster than I expected. The wind whipped through the rose,
feeding the flames. The extinguisher hissed uselessly against the growing
wall of orange and black. I turned and saw Marissa
turning toward the tree. Phone clutched in one hand, the
shears glinting in the other. Her face was streaked with
sweat and panic. We have to get her, she shouted, Marissa. No,
I'm not leaving her. She dove under the canopy as
flames crept closer through the underbrush. The air was thick
and angry. I heard the pop of another node and
the shattering snap of a branch. I ran to her.
She emerged cradling the fruit to her chest, wrapped in
a blanket. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back
with everything I had. We ran, ducking under limbs, smoke,
clawing at her lungs. We returned to the porch just
after another lightning bolt split the scar. The boom of
thunder hit a second later, like the world was splitting inside.
She held on to the fruit, like when she carried
Elsie to bed after falling asleep on the couch. Its
skin glistened as if weeping, a thick, clear trail rolling
down her cheek. Is that sap, I asked. She shook
her head slowly. She's crying. She was scared. The fruit
didn't pulse anymore, but it was warm. The resemblance was
more complete than before. It looked done. Maybe she was ready,
Marissa whispered. Another crack of lightning ripped across the sky,
and thunder followed so fast it felt like it landed
on our roof. I looked at Marissa, who called to help.
Right She nodded barely, they're coming. Her attention was on
the fruit. She began to rock it gently. Sh baby,
it's all right, it's just a storm. You're safe. We've
got you. She kept whispering to it, words soft and soothing,
like she was lulling it back to sleep. You're scared now,
I know, I know. But we're here. We're not going anywhere.
I turned to the window. The fire trucks hadn't arrived yet.
Outside the orchard glowed with shifting orange light, the trees
going one by one. Our whole life unraveled, row after
row of work, memory sweat, just gone, years of early mornings,
of pruning in frost and picking in heat, of coaxing
life out of cracked earth, all of it vanishing into smoke.
The trees we planted our first spring. Then the fire
had reached Elsie's tree. The canopy, red built mint to
shield and protect, caught instantly. The netting ignited like dry paper,
flames raising up the edges. The towels and blankets Marissa
had so carefully wrapped became fuel. Lightning struck again, closer.
This time it split a branch two rows over and
sent a shock wave through the orchard. I watched the
bark blacken and peel with branches thrashing in the heat.
Another flash lit the sky and thunder cracked like a gunshot.
The maulchar around the base popped, and the wires underneath
sparked again, throwing arcs into the inferno and feed the
fire until it roared like a living thing. Marissa shrieked,
I turned and sawah doubled over the counter, arms wrapped
protectively around the fruit, rocking it. No, no, please, no,
she whimpered, not again, not again. The fruit skin had
the jaw split open, wet and sudden. A thick line
tore sideways through the cheek the way overripe fruit bursts
under its own weight. Inside were muscles and tendons. Pink
curled around the edges of the wound like fresh gum, twitching.
It glistened with something slick. Marissa's hands scrambled to press
the pieces back together. No, baby, stay, stay with me, please,
she whispered, pressing her palms against the softening flesh like
she could hold it in place by force. Her fingers
smeared black and red residue across the muslin. Don't go,
she begged. You're almost there, you're almost done. Please don't
leave me. Then it started to cave. The jaw turned
dark and black and fully the flesh sagged and collapsed
into itself, caving inward like it was folding back into
the pit it came from. Marissa tried to catch the
pieces as they fell, cupping her hands beneath them, but
they slid through her fingers in wet, shapeless slumps. Each
chunk landed on the counter with a thick, soft supplat
She shrieked again and grabbed at what was left, trying
to reassemble it. I can fix it, I can fix it.
Just give her back. A vein unspooled from the center
and shriveled before I could finish. What was left with
scraps of soft, black tissue, slick with residue. In the
center lay a single seed. Marissa reached for it with
shaking fingers, hands coated in the pulp of what used
to be elsie. She cut the seed. Her mouth moved,
but no sound came out, at first, just to quiver.
Then her lips parted. No, no, no, this isn't what
was supposed to happen. I waited, we waited. She was
supposed to be ready, She was almost here. She backed
into the wall and slid down, curling around the seed,
muttering fragments, apologies, lullabies. Her eyes were wild, darting toward
the window. The storm, the fire, It scared her, she whispered,
She got scared, and she left. Blue and red light
flashed against the walls, strobing across the kitchen. As sirens
filled the air. The fire trucks pulled into the drive,
wheels kicking up gravel and smoke. Boots hid the ground.
Running shouts rang out. Water lines hissed as they unspooled.
I stepped away from the window, chest heavy, the sound
of the orchard crackling like coal in a furnace. I
looked at the seed, still cradled in Marissa's hands, and
felt something sickening in my stomach. Marissa rocked on her heels,
clutching the seed tight against the chest. Her eyes were glassy, unfocussed,
fixed on nothing. Then she looked up at me, sudden
and sharp. We need to replant it, she said. We
can't let it in like this. We need to give
her another chance. My throat tightened. I glanced at the seed,
thinner the glow of the fire. Marissa, I said, carefully,
we have to wait. The storm isn't done, not yet.
She shook her head like she hadn't heard me. We
can't wait too long. She's still out there. I can
feel it. We can't leave her alone for too long.
She gets scared. It took hours to fight the fire.
The orchard was a patchwork of scorched trunks and blackened earth.
By the time the smoke cleared, what hadn't burned down
was drowned. We lost nearly everything, the pears, the apples,
the entire eastern block, years of pruning, grafting and coaxing,
life and bark and soil all gone. When the trucks
finally rolled out and the sky had cleared, I walked
back inside. Marissa had fallen asleep on the kitchen floor,
the seed still clutched to her chest. I stood over
her for a long time. Then I reached down and
gently pried the seed from her fingers. She stirred, but
didn't wake. I carried it to the bathroom, closed the door,
sat on the edge of the top and stared at
it resting in my palm. It looked harmless, just a
simple seed. But I couldn't do it again. Marissa would
heal eventually, so I flushed it. I watched as the
water swirled and it disappeared. Then I sat there in
the quiet, not sure if I just killed what was
left my wife, or finally let my daughter rest. Then
it all hit me. My shoulders caved forward, I bent
elbows to knees, face in my hands, and I cried, big,
ugly sobs that shook the floor and scraped out something
I hadn't touched since the day she died. My chest
seized with each breath, and I wept until my stomach cramped,
until snot and spit smeared down my chin. Months of
keeping it together cracked open in a single brutal moment.