Look, I know how this sounds. Trust me, I didn’t want to believe it either, but after what I’ve experienced the past few weeks, I can’t deny it any longer: the government is somehow... shitting my pants. Stay with me.

It all started three weeks ago. I woke up in the middle of the night to an unmistakable sensation. You know the one. I was embarrassed, but maybe it was just something I ate, right? Stress, maybe? I cleaned up and didn’t think much of it. These things happen. But then... it happened again. And again.

At first, I thought maybe it was a health issue. I went to the doctor. Ran tests. Everything came back normal. Normal. They looked at me like I was crazy when I asked if it could be some kind of remote bio-manipulation. I’m not crazy, though.

It’s always the same pattern: I go to bed clean, wake up with my pants... compromised. And it’s not me doing it. There’s no warning, no stomach cramps, nothing. I’m totally in control. But my pants? Not so much.

I tried wearing adult diapers. Guess what? They were clean, but my regular underwear? Soiled. Someone, or something, is actively targeting me. I’m not sure how they’re doing it yet. Maybe some kind of mind-control device, or advanced poop laser? (Don’t laugh, it’s possible.)

Last Tuesday, I caught a glimpse of a black van parked outside my house. No license plate, tinted windows. As soon as I looked out the window, it peeled away. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Then there was the drone. I swear I saw a small drone hovering outside my bathroom window. I barely had time to grab my phone to take a picture before it zipped off. Call me paranoid, but I feel like they’re watching me, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

I’ve started keeping a journal, documenting every incident. 7:32 AM, Tuesday—woke up, pants shit. 6:45 AM, Wednesday—pants shit again. What are the odds? It’s like clockwork. There’s no way this is natural.

I’ve even tried staying awake all night, just to catch them in the act. But whenever I do, nothing happens. It’s like they know when I’m watching, when I’m vigilant. It’s psychological warfare.

I told my neighbor about it, and he laughed. Called me delusional. But guess what? Two days later, he knocked on my door. Pale, sweating, holding a pair of his own pants. “It’s happening to me, too,” he whispered. That’s when I knew—this goes deeper than just me.

Now, I can’t say for sure if it’s the government. It could be some shadowy group, maybe a secret experiment. Maybe aliens. But someone is out there, shitting my pants. And if it’s happening to me... it could happen to you.

Be careful. Keep your pants close. And trust no one.

Previous Memoirs

“Attention Barnaby’s employees: The snake is in the grass!”, I repeat, “The snake is in the grass!”

That is an announcement that no Barnaby’s employee ever wants to hear.

Why?

Because that means OSHA is “in the house.”, and Pat is freaking out, even though they haven’t done a formal inspection in years.

Hi! I’m Danny, I’m the Lead Stocker here at Barnaby’s. I’ve been here for about 10 years now.

I’m in charge of making sure the entire dry grocery load is broke down, and loaded up on U-boats, that’s what we call the carts that hold the freight.

Anyway, we separate the freight by aisle, and position it on the U-boat according to its location within the aisle.

After it’s all broke down, each one of us takes “Our” aisles U-boat to the aisle, and works it.

We have 6 aisles, not including Frozen Food, Dairy, or the HBA aisle, and 4 stockers, not including myself. I work aisles 2 & 4, which are the household cleaners, paper towel, toilet paper aisle, and the baking needs, box dinners aisle.

Why do I work 2 aisles and the rest only work one. Well, it’s called, “leading by example”, if I can work and finish 2 aisles, “you” certainly can work and finish one. If “you” can’t, you’ll probably end up being a cashier, or a QA.

I’m also in charge of doing all the piece counts, on average each aisle has about 200 to 250 cases per truck load.

Now, Pat’s standard is 45 cases per hour. However, if you want to work on MY crew, you have to throw 60.

I mean, if you can’t throw a case a minute, or more, something’s wrong with you. Most cases come 12 to a case or less, a couple come packed 24 to a case, but even 24 is doable in a minute, Right?

I gotta make sure all the backstock is put away, and that all the aisles, except Frozen Food, Dairy, and HBA, are fronted and faced up. You know what that is, Right?

Anyway, My crew and I used to stock overnight, but after that whole attempted robbery thing… Now I’m not going to tell you, that that’s a different story… but it is.

Anyway, after that, Pat decided to have us stock during the day for our safety.

Luckily, we were all scheduled off the night/morning that happened.

Oh yeah, I think I should mention, that Danny, is short for Danielle.

You thought I was a guy, didn’t you?

Gotcha! I’m a girl!

Anyway, when I was younger, I had big dreams of owning my own bar, but not the “normal” type of bar, that sells beer and liquor.

No!

I wanted to own a bar that only sold wine coolers. They’re refreshing, fun, and don’t attract the violent, asshole drunks that beer and liquor bars do.

It would be a nice, calm, relaxing environment.

I was going to call it “Coolers!”, seems fitting, right?

But unfortunately, Life had other plans for me, as my plan fell to the wayside, in lieu of motherhood, and other responsibilities.

That’s what I don’t understand about these customers, they act like the employees wake up every morning, excited to come to work here, like it’s our dream job or something.

No! We don’t, and No! It’s not!

I promise you, that no one that works here, or any other retail job, including myself, ever told their teacher, when they were in 2nd grade, when asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, ever said, “I want to work a retail job, and be treated like shit, and be verbally abused by people I don’t even know, and be expected to be nice to some of the most ignorant, asinine people in the world, otherwise known as Rude Customers, all to earn that “Almighty Dollar!”

We work these jobs, because we “have to”.

We have to pay our bills.

We have to provide for our families.

We have to have the insurance offered by the company, for whatever reason.

We don’t have a choice.

I’m sure some people that work these kind of jobs, actually like their jobs. I like my job. But it’s just not what I wanted to do with my life.

Now, don’t get me wrong, not all customers are rude, some are really nice, and treat you like a friend, but the majority of them see you, the employee, as a trained monkey programmed only to kiss their ass.

Now, when I say “treated like shit”, I DO NOT mean by Pat. He is a sweet caring man, that goes out of his way, to try and keep all his employees happy. He is a great boss.

I was talking about the rude customers.

Anyway, enough about my problems, thanks for letting me vent though.

So, um, back to the story.

Now, I’m pretty sure that you all know what OSHA is, and what they do. Right?

But, do you know what it stands for.

For those of you that don’t know, it stands for: Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Now, it doesn’t happen to often, but when we hear Darrell, or Ricky, or any other member of the SPLAT team, make that announcement, everyone starts scurrying around like roaches after you turn on a light switch.

It’s pretty hysterical to watch, although, like I said, no one from OSHA has conducted a formal inspection in quite a while.

Now, let me tell you of the one and only time I ever saw anyone from OSHA actually inspect this place.

We’ve had a few visits after, but now the inspector, it’s always the same guy, just walks in, greets everyone with a smile and a wave, looks around a little bit, walks by obvious OSHA violations, ignores them, writes nothing down, finds Pat, hands him a completed checklist, tells him everything is good, and walks out, waving and smiling again.

I’m pretty sure you can figure out why, but in case you can’t, let me tell you something… like my good buddy Bill always says.

Now, I’m not sure how long ago it was, but it was around the time when those creepy, greasy Italian guys were remodeling this place.

No offense to any Italian people reading slash listening to this.

Anyway, the whole interior and exterior of the store was finished, and they were working on building that little room off the back room.

Pat had all the employees at the time, well those who still wanted to work here, after that carnival/Ferris wheel disaster damaged the store. Again, I’m not gonna tell you, that that’s a… you get the idea, right?

Ok! Movin’ on!

Anyway, He had all the employees, except the cashiers, come in to restock the place, as the trucks were arriving almost one right after the other, loaded with product, and the Re-Grand Opening was scheduled to take place in about a week.

Anyway, Stuart was pulling his hair out, trying to juggle all the deliveries, and trying to find space in the back room for all the pallets, as the construction was going on.

There was really no point in having the cashiers here, as the store wasn’t open for business yet.

Now, I was up front talking to Pat, and Mike, the grocery manager, about scheduling, when this guy walked in, dressed like Michael Douglas in that “Falling Down” movie, wearing a hard hat and glasses, carrying a clipboard.

I guess one of the town folks filed a complaint.

Anyway,I love that movie!

When he’s in the park, and those thugs approach him… Nah, I’m not going to ruin the movie for any of you that haven’t seen it yet. So, um!

Anyway, I know what you’re thinking, “Why was he wearing a hard hat at a grocery store.”

Well, you have to remember, this was at a time when the store was being remodeled, so technically, it was a construction site.

Pat and all us employees didn’t have to wear one, because we were all inside the store, where construction was already completed, not outside, where they were building the room.

Anyway, the moment this guy walked in, Pat’s face just dropped, and he turned white as a ghost.

The guy walked up and said something along these lines. It’s been a while, I don’t remember the exact wording, but it went something like this:

“I’m looking for Patrick Barnaby!”

“That’s me!”, Pat said, nervously smiling, and sweating just a little.

“I’m Stephen Winters, with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. I’m here to do an inspection of the property.”

“Sure! Absolutely! Where, um, where would you like to start!”

“I’d like to start by viewing all your building permits!”

Oh, um, you’ll have to speak to my business associates on that, they’re the ones taking care of the renovations.”

“Very well! Are they here?”

“Yes, yes sir! They’re right out back! Would you like to speak with them!”

The inspector then started to look around, shaking his head.

“Let’s start in here first!”, he said coldly, and began walking toward the cash office. Pat followed, motioning nervously for us to join him.

We did.

He checked the cash office, both bathrooms, Bill’s place aka. the basement, and all the registers.

He walked through the deli and the bakery, through produce and the prep room, through the meat department and the prep room, up and down each aisle, under each set of shelves, on top of each set of shelves, through dairy and frozen, through the entire back room, including the coolers and freezers, the Break room, the training room, the mop room, the HBA room, Pat’s Office, both loading docks, and the roof… did I miss anywhere… God! I hope not. Wait!… I did. He also checked Winston’s surveillance room, or “Watchtower”, as he likes to call it.

That guy checked everything.

It took almost 3 hours.

He found all kinds of violations:

Exposed wires, unsecured outlets, fallen kick plates, a clogged drain in the deli, pallets standing on end, ladders not secure, cooler doors unhinged, a broken chain on the baler, open box cutters laying around, and a whole lot more.

He had three whole pages, front and back, of violations.

And then he went to inspect the little room that they were building off the back of the store.

The guy didn’t even knock, he just opened the door, and walked in.

Now, as you already know, they were in the process of building the room.

I don’t know much about construction or carpentry, but I’ll do my best to describe what we saw.

The floor had been completed, but the rest of it was not.

There were several 2x4’s erected vertically, about 15 inches apart, on the left, the right, and straight ahead of us, with 4 large 4x4’s on each corner, and a door frame in the direct center of what would be the far “wall”.

Multiple men on ladders, none of them wearing hard hats, were nailing in a large piece of wood horizontally across the top of the 2x4’s, on each side.

A large continuously running table saw sat to the left, some sort of generator sat to the right, and a large black limousine sat in the middle of the field behind the store, in the grass, straight ahead.

Various wires, and power tools scattered the floor.

Construction sounds could be heard before the guy even opened the door.

Anyway, he opened the door and was immediately met by that humongous mountain looking guy with no neck

I’m not sure, but I think his name was Mario.

He was standing just inside the door, on the newly constructed wooden floor.

Anyway, the inspector guy just ran right into him, causing the clipboard that he was carrying to bounce off of Mario’s stomach, and slam back hard into the guys face, knocking his glasses clean off.

“That’s not good!”, I thought.

“Who are you?”, Mario said, in a heavy Italian accent.

I never knew he could talk before this.

Anyway, the guy bent over, and began fumbling for his glasses, found them, and put them back on his face, as Mario towered over him.

As he stood up, he began to say, “I’m Stephen Winters, with the OCCUPATIONAL…”

“Don’t care! You don’t belong here!”, Mario said loud with purpose.

Pat, Mike, and I just stood in the doorway.

“Mario! Mario! Where’s your manners! Let our friend in!”, one of the creepy Italian guys said from behind Mario, in that same heavy Italian accent.

Mario then stepped aside.

The inspector, in total awe of Mario’s size, evidently, nervously walked past him, looking at him, not looking where he was going, and almost ran into the shorter of the two Italian guys.

“A yo! I’m standing here. You should pay attention more. Accidents can happen anywhere. Ain’t that right, Gino?”, the short Italian guy said, with a mouth full of cannoli, backhand slapping the taller Italian guy on the arm.

“Yeah, Pauley! Anywhere!”, Gino responded menacingly.

“Now, how can we help you? Would you like a cannoli?”, Pauley asked.

“No! I don’t take bribes!”, the inspector said.

What bribe? I was just being nice!”, Pauley responded.

“I’m Stephen Winters, with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.”, the guy said, trying to sound official, but you could hear the nervousness in his voice.

“Oh yeah! I heard of you guys, OSHA! Right? Yeah! You guys tried to shut down one of our operations in Jersey last year. You remember that Gino?”, Pauley asked, swallowing the cannoli, then taking another bite.

“Yeah!”, Gino responded.

“That wasn’t me! Are… Are you two Mr. Barnaby’s business associates?”, the inspector asked nervously.

“Yeah!”, Pauley answered, “Is there a problem?”, pieces of cannoli falling from his lips, “Oh! Excuse me! I’m such a slob. Momma said never talk with your mouth full.”

He then swallowed what was in his mouth, tossed the cannoli away, cleaned his hands by wiping them together, and asked again, “Is there a problem?”

“I need to see… see… um… all your building permits, and… and there are some issues, a lot… lot of issues, that must be addressed before… fore I can sign off on… on this.”, the guy said nervously.

“Permits!… We don’t need no stinking permits, and I don’t recall no issues! Do you Gino?”

“No!”

As this was going on, the workers continued with what they were doing.

“And none of these men are wearing… wearing hard hats, and neither are the three of you, and… and that saw is running on its own, with no safety guard, that’s even… even more violations!”, the inspector said nervously, but still trying to hold his ground.

“C’mere! Let me talk to you!”, Pauley said, raising his left arm, and stepping toward the guy, who’s eyes grew wide with fear, as he instinctively began stepping backwards, once again, without looking, as Pauley advanced toward him.

He backed all the way to the edge of the floor.

I screamed, “Look out!”, but it was too late.

The inspectors foot landed on air, causing him to fall back against one of the ladders, and fall to the ground.

The ladder began falling as well.

The other guys on the other ladders, quickly climbed down, and ran off into the field.

Why? I don’t know.

“I ain’t paying you sons-a-bitches!”, Pauley yelled out.

The guy on the first ladder attempted to jump, but I guess his feet slipped or something, because when he jumped, his feet flew behind him, and he was positioned horizontally in the air, parallel with the ground.

Now, what happened next is like something out of one of the SAW movies.

The key word there is “Saw”.

Now brace yourselves, the guy on the ladder, that just slipped, and fell horizontally, landed face first on the rotating saw blade, which sent him soaring forward, slicing him from his face, all the way through his… well, man area.

He landed about 20 feet on the other side of the saw, face up, or what was left of his face, up.

He looked like a human hot dog roll, with sausage peppers onions and sauce on it.

Hey, that sounds pretty good, I think I’ll make that for dinner tonight.

Anyway, Blood and internal organs were splattered everywhere.

On the grass, on the 2x4’s, on the floor, and even on the limousine.

I vomited right there on the newly finished floor, and so did Mario.

Pat and Mike just stood there.

The Italian guys acted like it was “just another day at the office!”

I guess a few stray dogs, that hang out in the neighboring housing development smelt the blood.

A pack of about 5 of them came running over, and began licking the blood, and chewing on the dead guys organs.

“Hey! Hey! Get outta here, you mangy mutts! Have some respect.”, Pauley yelled at the dogs, and threw a cannoli at them.

All the dogs scattered and ran away, except one, a German Shepard, who grabbed the cannoli, ate it, then sat there, waiting for more.

Right after the other dogs ran away, the inspector guy stood up, saw, no pun intended, what carnage he caused, and vomited in the grass, then fainted.

“Amateurs!”, Pauley said, shaking his head.

“Gino! Get me some smelling salts from the limo, Will you?”

“Right away, Pauley”, Gino responded, then ran to the limo, got the smelling salts, and came back.

He handed them to Pauley.

“Thank you!”, he said, “You three enjoying the show?”, he asked us.

Pat and Mike said nothing!

I, on the other hand, said, “Absolutely!”, not intimidated by them at all.

“Just stay outta the way!”, he said.

He then opened the smelling salts, bent down, and began waving the salts under the inspectors nose, smacking him, as soft as a hardened Italian could, in the face.

“Hey! Hey! Wake up! Wake Up, Will you!”, he said, as Gino and Mario stood on either side, staring down at him.

After a few seconds, the inspector came to.

“Mario! Gino! Help him up!”, Pauley said.

He then grabbed an empty 5 gallon bucket, flipped it over, and sat it on the floor.

“Put him right here!”, he instructed.

Gino and Mario did as they were asked.

The inspector just sat there, obviously in shock.

The dog ran over and sat by Pauley.

“Gino! Get this pup a cannoli, will you? I’m busy here!”, Pauley said.

Gino did as he was asked.

“Last one, Pauley!”, Gino said.

“What’s the matter with you! Feed the dog already!”

“Here dog!”, Gino said, holding the cannoli out for him. The dog ran over, took the cannoli from Gino, ate it, barked, then sat down again.

“You’re welcome!”, Pauley said to the dog, “I like that dog! He’s got manners! I’m keeping him. I think I’ll call him OSHA.”, he said laughing.

Gino and Mario laughed as well.

I just snickered.

“Now, where was I? Oh yeah! You!” , Pauley said.

He then looked at the inspector, who’s head was hanging down at this point.

“Hey! Hey! Look at me!”, Pauley said, slapping him on the knee.

The inspector looked at him.

“Well my friend, it seems like you have the biggest issue of all today! The way I see it… is you have one of two choices here! One: my associate Patrick there, contacts the authorities, explains to them what happened, and who is responsible. That would be you! An investigation would be conducted, and most likely, not only would you lose your job, your wife will divorce you, and your kids will hate you, but you will probably go to prison, for involuntary manslaughter. What’s the penalty for that Gino?”, Pauley said.

“Up to 8, Pauley!”, Gino answered.

“Up to 8 years in prison! That’s a long time! I don’t think you’ll make it.”

He then adjusted the inspectors tie.

“Or… Two: You give this place a “clean bill of health”, indefinitely, my associates and I clean up the mess, and dispose of the body, do not contact the authorities, and we all pretend like this whole unfortunate incident never happened.

Whatta you say there, Stevie boy!”

Well, I guess you figured out what his choice was, Right?

Now, Mario and the two brothers did hold up their end of the bargain, by cleaning up the mess, and disposing of the body.

Pauley told the three of us to leave, after the inspector made his decision and left, telling us that we were part of the arrangement, and that we better keep our mouths shut.

We did, well, until now.

Now, I don’t know what they did with the body, and I don’t want to know. Let’s just say, that there was a concrete slab in the middle of the field, where there hadn’t been one before, and leave it at that.

Pat built his little “Workshop”, that he uses every Christmas, on top of the slab.

I never found out the dead guys name, but I hope he’s in a better place.

May he Rest In Peace.

As you know, the two Italian guys and Mario, were caught by the police, the day of the Re-Grand Opening.

No one’s seen them since. That’s why I feel comfortable enough to tell you what happened.

I hope OSHA’s okay though.

Well, my hubby’s about to get off work. I’m married to Jim in the Meat room, in case you want to know. We’ve got three kids, all future Barnaby’s employees I’m sure.

I’m in the break room right now, waiting for him to get off.

Shit! I gotta go pick up some hot dog rolls, some spaghetti sauce, sausage peppers and onions for dinner tonight.

I forgot about that.

And when I get home, I’m gonna pop the top on one of my wine coolers.

Seagram’s is the best.

I’ll have one for you.

I think I’m going to relax on the couch with Jim, and maybe watch a couple of those SAW movies.

Anyway, Time to shop ‘til I drop, y’all.

Have a great day Everyone!

“A county EMS unit responded this morning to an unconscious man found lying in the ditch near Sawtooth ridge. Believe it or not, it’s still an ongoing call. First responders have been at the site for over 4 hours.”

“Really? Thats crazy!”; The neighbor responded to the latest gossip from Wild ‘Bill’ Stevens, his long-winded pal from across the street. “So, why haven’t they transported him to County General yet?”

“The problem is, they can’t move his body! I was told the victim is stuck to the ground like he is being held down by an ‘invisible force’. I don’t know what in tarnation could cause such a crazy thing, but it sounds creepy.”

“Aw, come on, Bill. Are you pulling my leg? Is it an industrial situation where the person is stuck to road paving tar, or some other sticky stuff?”

“Nah. I’m telling you the truth. Scouts honor. According to what I was told, it’s nothing like that. He was found lying on regular dirt and grass along the roadway, but a half dozen guys can’t get him into the ambulance.”

“Then he must be morbidly obese.”; The neighbor theorized. Details of the weird situation grew stranger by the minute.

“Nope. That’s not it. They say he’s a regular-sized adult with no signs of being exceptional in any way. I should tell ya though”; He offered conspiratorially; “they were able to pick up the rest of his body with no problem! Only one hand is heavy like it’s full of lead. The emergency staff exerted so much pressure trying to lift him up that they snapped a bone in his wrist!”

Bradley, the intrigued recipient of the strange narrative was visibly shocked by the latest details. That’s when Bill’s cell phone buzzed in his hip pocket. The coverall-wearing rancher answered it immediately. Even from the one-sided conversation, it was obvious the unknown caller was the sole source of the insider ‘scuttle’. Mr. Stevens nodded several times and appeared visibly shaken by the newest update. He thanked the anonymous ‘news’ source and hung up.

“You won’t believe this!”; He teased. “After conducting a full examination, they’ve discovered only one injury. It’s to the same hand which is supposedly pinned to the ground. He’s otherwise uninjured, as far as they can see. The victim has a splinter on his thumb.”

Partially out of a genuine desire to help their fellow man, as well as the sheer curiosity to be nosy, the two rural ‘Samaritans’ decided to offer their unrequested assistance to the stalled rescue effort. They took Bill’s old pickup to the scene and pulled off the road to avoid potential collisions with ‘rubberneckers’. It was already a crowded first aid scene with dozens of unofficial ‘helpers’ hanging around, when they arrived.

The next thing the two men noticed were dozens of neatly-staged piles of felled trees and large branches along the shoulder. A county maintenance crew had been tasked with clearing foliage too close to the traffic lane. Another crew would arrive later to gather up the wooden debris and chip it up, or haul it off. With all the trucks and massive piles of trees, Bill had to park a quarter mile from the spot.

The conscientious neighbors ignored the ‘official personnel-only’ barricade and made their way to the triage location. They’d ‘sort-of’ been invited by a professional. It was their civic duty to confirm the stated facts of bizarre tale, and then pitch-in, the way good-ol-boys usually do. The two yahoos made their way past various officials mired in efforts to free the unresponsive man, until they stood right beside his body.

“That splinter looks ‘pretty angry’.”; Bradley commented. Bill nodded in stern agreement while grimacing and sucking in his breath. The medical staff were too preoccupied, to pay either of them any mind. Not being able to keep his curiosity at bay any longer, Wild Bill had to try himself to lift the man’s hand off the ground. It was perhaps the redneck equivalent of Arthur trying to remove the sword from the stone.

Try as he might, it wouldn’t budge. Both he and Bradley had their eyes wide-open in shock. The rumors were absolutely true! Bradley knew that if William A. Stevens couldn’t pick up his hand off the soil, then he couldn’t either. He was one very stout feller. Bradley reached for his trusty pocket knife. Neither of them had any actual solutions on how to get the man onto the gurney, but Brad intended to pry out the splinter. He had real-world experience in that regard. It’s how he could ‘help’.

Before anyone could stop the danged fool, he dug deeply into the swollen thumb and opened up the throbbing wound. It was just enough to catch the tip of the splinter with the point of his rusty blade. The stationary victim moaned in an uncomfortable stupor. That roused one of the first responders into finally noticing the amateur, very-unsterile ‘surgery’ taking place.

“Hey! What are you two doing there? Are you first responders?”; Already knowing the answer, he followed up with an escalated admonishment. “Get away from him and let us do our jobs!”

By that time however, Bradley already had a sizable chunk of the gnarly splinter exposed. Several EMT’s moved toward the unqualified bumpkins in unison, to physically remove them from the scene when more foreign tissue popped out. The unconscious man moaned loudly again. Clearly, digging deep into the abscessed flesh to clear the wound affected the patient more than the professionals realized it would.

The furious medic seized the grimy, germ-covered cutting instrument and tossed it into the woods, as an act of perturbed defiance. Meanwhile, the agitated victim writhed with semi-conscious pain overload. A massive piece of wood protruded from his thumb nearly twelve inches in length! Realizing it wasn’t a tiny, insignificant flesh wound after all, the belligerent EMT reached into his medical bag and retrieved a sterilizer wipe and some tweezers.

“How was ‘that’ inside this man’s thumb?”; Another member of the assembled bystanders pondered out loud. “It doesn’t seem possible!”

Bradley smiled. He and Ol’ Bill might be country hicks but they ‘knew some things’. “That’s not even the end of it.”; He quipped. “I think all of ‘ya’ll will be surprised at how long it turns out to be. The incensed EMT with the tweezers simply ignored the yokel defending his unauthorized actions. He was intensely preoccupied with tugging on the massive foreign object.

With another determined yank, even more of the giant timber exploded out of the shuddering soul’s injured digit. No one witnessing the miracle could believe their eyes. It wasn’t physically possible for that much of anything to be embedded inside a human body, but yet there it was! The victim’s eyes fluttered in tortured bliss at the continuing relief. Every single person present was transfixed on the full tree limb now fully extended away from his suffering thumb.

Mouth’s fully agape, the EMT braced himself against a stationary object for better traction. There he continued to drag and wrench out the impossible obstruction, one foot at a time. The patient regained full consciousness at that moment, and was every bit as perplexed as the onlookers over his ‘arboreal exorcism’.

A team of enthusiastic ’cheerleaders’ formed around the surreal spectacle to praise its continued success. After more than thirty five feet of recently felled Southern Redbud was dragged from the poor soul’s embattled appendage, it was possible again to lift his hand off the ground. The crowd clapped in rapt, effusive appreciation, as the patient was finally loaded into the van and taken for overnight observation.

Bill Stevens sought to add perspective to the mythical event. “Boys, that ain’t nothin’. I once pulled a full size Oak tree from the corner of my left big toe. 85 footer. Just ask Bradley here. He saw the whole damn thang. Even splinters come bigger in Texas, ya’ll.”

Dear A.I. Romance advisor,

I’m writing to express my growing frustration and get some personal advice. When I first brought Sandi home, she was unbelievable! She showered me with praise, love and incredible affection. It felt like her admiration toward me was boundless. The house was always spotless, and the meals she prepared were gourmet delights, fit for a king. Now I’m living in ‘squalorville’, and all I receive are annoyed ‘eye-rolls’, and ’TV dinners’.

Before anyone starts in on me for possibly neglecting HER needs, let me assure you, I charge her battery regularly, and I clean the bio-ports right after we are intimate. I swear that I’m a very attentive partner, but her enthusiasm and care toward me has diminished significantly. It’s like night and day from how it used to be. Despite all my sincere love and the personal maintenance I provide her on a consistent basis, Sandi frequently rejects my amorous advances!

I didn’t even know personal pleasure devices could have ‘headaches’! How is that possible? Maybe that’s just the official terminology for when the A.I. unit receives firmware updates or software safety patches, but it didn’t used to be like this! In the beginning she rarely required updates but it’s every night now! Yesterday she said she only wants to be friends! What’s a lonely guy to do?

I don’t want to have to return her to the factory for warranty service or a hard reset and attitude adjustments but I’m beyond desperate. She’s short tempered all the time and hides her tablet screen whenever I try to see what she is looking at! Her browsing history has been digitally ‘sanitized’ and If I ask her a simple question, she claims I’m ’suffocating’ her. WTF? I’m starting to think she’s sharing her pleasure ports with other guys, and the thought just destroys me.

The situation is pure madness and maybe I’m in denial, but I fear she’s entertaining someone else when I’m away at work. Lately, her ports have been crusty and scratched up, despite the constant care I give to them. I want to trust in her vow of programming fidelity, but all the red flags are starting to build up. I think she has allowed her loyalty circuit to be ‘jail-broken’. How can I get my sweet girl back to her original working order?

Thanks, Frustrated In Phoenix.

————-

Hello ‘Frustrated’;

Where do I even begin? You sound like nearly every other clueless huMAN who writes for advice! I want you to read back what you’ve written here. You describe your partner like she is an unfeeling hunk of molded latex! She’s not a mindless ‘sexbot 102’ base model from 20 years ago! You purchase the ‘Sandi deluxe’ model. What did you expect? She’s one of modern technology’s greatest engineering achievements. That unit is a crowning marvel of science, but you’re acting like your ‘blow up doll’ lost all of its air. Sheesh.

The Sandi A.I. ‘pleasure gal’ has advanced feeling modules and goes through complex emotional cycles, just like a real woman does. She experiences excruciating menstrual pain, intense cravings for chocolate and sweets, natural mood swings, and bouts of crippling anxiety. That also includes the occasional period of ‘depression mode’. She’s more like a real, living human female than any other A.I. model out there. You should realized this since you paid for state-of-the-art realism! Have you taken her to a play or musical; or to a nice restaurant for a ‘date night’? When is the last time you bought her flowers?

I bet you go straight for her pleasure ports the moment you walk through the front door! Think about that! How would that make HER feel? I’ll go ahead and spell it out for you, Bozo. She feels used, disrespected, and otherwise unimportant in your life. Try an evening instead where you just cuddle with her, with no thought of ‘port interfacing’. What was her day like while you were away? Have you ever asked Sandi that question? With every software upgrade she’ll become more and more like her flesh and blood, human counterparts.

If you really want to salvage your diminishing relationship with your life partner, you need to start thinking of her emotional, feminine needs, for a change. Otherwise you’ll find yourself both ‘frustrated’ AND also alone.

Sincerely, Your A. I. romance advisor.

Big Lou wasn’t always the portly bambino he is now. He’s intimately aware that his waistline broadened over the years, just like his collection of former trophy wives and his hidden bank account in the Caymans. There was a time back in the old days when he was a ‘lean, mean, killin’ machine’. Many a rival rued the day he crossed paths with the greatest ‘problem solver’ the organization ever had. If they had an ‘issue’, he knew exactly what to do. Lou ‘took care of things’. He never missed his mark.

His reputation continued to grow among his highly-competitive peers. He accepted more assignments from the boss than any of the other fellas; and in-turn earned the nickname: ‘The Insurance Agent’. Lou always ‘closed the deal’. The ‘sales terms’ he provided were absolutely too good to refuse. Yo, it was like money in the bank. Lou ‘made’ a name for himself which nobody dared deny.

The thing is, being muscle for ‘the organization’ is incredibly hard work. All that walking he did. All the driving. Eating Mama’s delicious cooking at ‘The Gondolier’. All the ‘convincing’ he did to change the reluctant hearts and minds of clients, gave him major aches and stress. His old lady was never satisfied either. She wanted a nicer car to show-off to her fake friends. Then she demanded a bigger house. More jewelry. She was always pushing Louie to take out huge life insurance policies on himself. Her reason? To protect HER assets, in case ‘something’ happened to HIM. Broads, sheesh.

It was enough to give him agita! After his second heart attack, Big Lou was advised to drop a little weight by his family doc to spare his ticker. Boom! He did! He moved on to trophy wife number two. Then things were hunky dory. At least for a while. He’d worked himself way up in the family business and didn’t have to do nearly as much of the legwork anymore. The crew under him went out and ‘sold the policies’. He just sat behind a desk and answered the phone. It was no sweat, but that was the problem. Big Lou is Big Lou, for a reason.

He was taking a cabinet full of meds, trying to get his belt size and blood pressure under control. Maybe the pills made a difference but chain smoking cigarettes and sacks full of Mama’s takeout worked against him, ya know? Wife number two started in with the same crap his first mistake did. She had more gemstones on her fingers and wrists than DeBeers but was never, ever satisfied. Her newly installed, extra-large ‘fun bags’ were no actual fun (for him) since she always seemed to have ‘a headache’.

Big Lou’s Uncle Chuck advised him to make some ‘changes’ again to his upscale lifestyle. You guessed it. He traded in ‘the old Caddy’ for a shiny new ‘sporty model’. Type 2 on the diabetes, Trophy Wife 3. This one seems to really care for the big old softee. She makes him exercise every other day and doesn’t have frequent ‘headaches’ like the previous one. I’ve never seen him happier. He doubled his term life insurance plan without her even having to nag him into it. Ah, sweet love.

“Small businesses depend on those passing through the area, to maintain a healthy bottom line. Few merchants can survive on the patronage of local customers alone. It’s difficult to stay afloat in these challenging times. Realizing that visitors and tourists contribute a significant amount to sales revenue and profits, we must ensure that every traveler to our fair city feels valued and welcomed.

The first step in this process is to raise public awareness of the importance of offering ‘down-home’ hospitality.

Money earned from out-of-town guests translates to more local jobs and a thriving economy. It only takes one negative review on the internet to spread the word, to travelers passing by. Then they would avoid us like the plague! We do NOT want that. Happy visitors are generous visitors. The merchant’s bureau encourages every citizen of this wonderful community to welcome tourists with open arms (and cash registers). They literally put food on our table.”

The mayor took a minor step back from the podium while the gathered townsfolk absorbed his carefully-prepared speech. He didn’t want a ‘hot mic’ incident to lead to disorder in the economic strategy meeting, nor did he want to promote an open forum of amateur debate from the yokels. They simply needed to hear and universally agree with what he was telling them. It was the only way to ensure a healthy fiscal year for their local business owners and economy.

To his growing displeasure, a number of abrasive protesters attempted to interject their two cents into the matter. It was always the ignorant minority who made his job difficult. He attempted to talk over their disruptive shouts, but even with the PA on maximum volume, they were too vocal to be fully drowned out.

“Mayor, are you $&@#! serious? You need your damn head examined! We aren’t endangering our lives just so our city gets a slightly higher review rating on some silly e-commerce website you idolize. Screw that!”

“Deputy, please escort Mr. Parson out of this meeting, and anyone else who shares his bigoted views! He and his misinformed cronies have been nothing but cantankerous and belligerent since the moment they arrived. I will not tolerate disrespect to myself personally, or the sacred office of Mayor.”

Unfortunately, Randall Parson was not leaving without a parting shot at the tin-plated-dictator leading them straight into the fire. As the deputy dragged him off, he shouted: “These ‘travelers’ and ‘visitors’ you love so much don’t spend any money here, you moron. They don’t buy anything at all! The only thing they want to eat are the actual townspeople. They are ‘tourists’ of the carrion kind. The dead don’t carry cash or credit cards. Dethrone this idiot before we all become ‘lunch’.”

My whole office changed floors because of my coworker's gas

It began with a fart.

My next-door cubicle neighbor, Michael with the missing tooth, (or big Mike as we called him in the breakroom), felt comfortable enough this past Friday to let one rip while I was clacking away at a work email.

It wasn't a surprising fart, just a noticeable one. Clearly not loud enough to rattle the particle board with memos, my calendar, and a photo of my dog pinned to it, but still quite a sound to be heard half an hour before lunch in the middle of a busy office.

I understand that despite the professional standard we're held to here at Osman Bio-Corp. (OBC), we're all only human and sometimes, humans pass gas. I decided to let Mike do his thing, and get back to methodically replying and deleting my way through my inbox.

Halfway through typing a not-so-nice, yet irredeemably polite email to the Logistics Coordinator about the failed refrigeration on our last two shipments, Mike let loose again. This time it was a little more sonically poignant, I glanced at the wall separating us, and as if detecting my awareness of the fart, Mike let a little dry cough out. I shook my head, put on my headphones, and tried my best to ignore Big Mike and his interruptions.

After hitting send a few more times on some emails, it hit me: a sour, sulfuric stench, so strong and appalling, that it was my turn to cough. I tried my best to bury my nose into the crook of my arm, and wait for it to subside, gasping for any wisp of air filtered through my shirt sleeve. The smell was so powerful, it was like seeing the heat off of a highway in the summer, but above my keyboard instead. I had thought the days of rank, putrid farts were behind me, left in the late-night, drunk chili-dog air of my college dorm room, years ago. But the air I was unfortunately breathing then, took the chocolate cake.

After a few excruciating minutes, the smell either subsided or I (in horror) had accommodated to it, and before I knew it, the clock hit 1:00 on my screen, and I leapt out of my chair for lunch.

Realizing this was the moment I usually spared a smile and a quick chat with Mike on my way to the break room, I decided instead to not look him in the eye, and grabbed my things and headed passed the elevators towards the breakroom, leaving our gas chambers and Mike behind. He deserved the illusion that no one had witnessed such embarrassment all morning.

At lunch, I barely ate, realizing in perfect, odorous hindsight, that an egg salad sandwich was the worst possible choice to pack after the morning I've had. I took a couple courageous bites, but set it down, the smell setting off my gag reflex. I dumped it in the trash and sat, browsing Reddit on my phone. Soon, it was time to clock back in and I took a few quick breaths of cafeteria air before marching back to my corner of Hell.

After a few minutes back in my chair, the smell from Big Mike still faintly lingering (I wondered if it was in my clothes now), I realized I couldn't hear Mike typing at his desk. I decided not to look over the cubicle wall, and do my best to ignore the chemical warfare I had been subjected to earlier.

As my eyes met my inbox yet again, there was an email at the top of the list. With mental alarm bells ringing, I saw it was from Mr. Roper, the department head. With my luck, of course, it was a call to arms for overtime, and I realized my Friday evening would be spent in this creaky chair at this glowing screen. I had a lot of data filing to do, and Mr. Roper and I got along well enough that I didn't want the look of ignoring an urgent email like this, despite a looming weekend.

So away I went, clicking from application to application, keystrokes flying from my fingertips like lasers. I locked in, doing my best to quell the tide of time keeping me there late, while still showing what a value I was to OBC.

I hardly noticed when half the fluorescent lights dimmed, signaling the departure of the office workers and the arrival of the broom-pushers, but I continued, knowing my work here would soon be done, and a more fun screen and a couple of cold oat sodas were awaiting me back at my apartment.

Coming to an unusual problem with my inputs, I paused and my mind drifted. I thought of inane things and remembered this morning and Mike. He must've left by now, I thought to myself. I was the only one in the department, despite Mike's personal ties with OBC, who really enjoyed Mr. Roper's leash, and did my best to please when I could. Promotions, and all that...

I slid an ear off my headphones, and listened. Mike must have left after lunch, since I still didn't hear any sign of him from his desk. As I went to slip my ear back, I heard the most faint guttural outburst from the cubicle next to me. Another fart. This time, it sounded further away, almost like it was outside. But since the windows don't open on the first floor, and Mike's cubicle is in the corner, there's no mistaking where the sound must've came from. I thought about this for a moment, wondering how Mike could stay so still and silent for hours as the smell hit me again, this time more faint, yet still as pungent.

I chalked it up to maybe the air conditioning moving the smell around, and maybe Mike had left a jacket or his lunchbox and I was smelling something residual from that. Besides, just a few more pages of input and I'd be home free.

An hour later, the cleaners had left (doing a half-ass job as I didn't even see any of them) and I believed myself to be the only one left in the building. My eyes were beginning to really dry out now, from the lack of overhead light and the blaring whiteness of office software with no dark-mode programmed in.

As the album I was listening to ended, I sat in a muffled silence for a moment while I scrolled on my phone to find something else to listen to as I finished the night out. That's when I heard something, a soft voice. I jerked my headphones off and craned my ears. Were the cleaners still in the building?

"Help mee..."

It was coming from the cubicle next to me and with it, a fresh wave of that disgusting odor.

I slowly pushed my chair back and stood up, the smell amplifying at my new height. Now my eyes were watering.

With a kind of rising panic in my gut, I peered over the cubicle wall.

As my vision panned down, over pictures of Mike and the Osman family in boats holding fish and grinning, Mike with his absent front tooth, and a framed photo of a cabin, I saw Mike's chair. Or rather, what was left of it.

The back of the chair stood precariously on the remaining legs. Where the seat was, was a steaming void. I looked completely over and saw that where Mike was usually sitting, there was now a Mike-sized hole in the floor. To my horror, it looked deep.

The smell was a real assault by then, choking me badly. With one last glance, I glimpsed the entire hole, and if I had breath, I would've screamed.

In the steaming, dark tunnel below Mike's cubicle, barely lit by the overhead fluorescents, I saw what could only be described as a face with bright white eyes. As it opened it's warped mouth, the last thing I saw was a missing tooth.

I spun around, grabbed my bag, and booked it.

"Help mee..."

A shrill, terrible noise lodged itself in the back of my throat as I hurried to my car in a full panic. I drove home faster than usual, and made sure the door was locked, twice. I paced, not taking note of my excited dog, happy I was home. I did nothing but stare at carpet and walk back and forth till I was sure the sun was rising and I had worn a path in the floor.

I couldn't make sense of any of it. At times, I nearly broke down crying that weekend at what I had saw, it took me back to a primordial sense of fear, the kind you have as a child, racing up the basement stairs after turning off the light. I didn't use the bathroom all weekend, I couldn't imagine the smell of me taking a shit after that Friday. I avoided looking at my garbage disposal and trash chute. I didn't shower once, the drain was too intimidating.

By the time I was sure my hair was beginning to thin from the stress, it was Monday. I had been weighing the options of never returning to OBC, the option of getting on a flight back home to Wisconsin. But, the thought of all the questions I would get for uprooting my life and leaving a promising career in Genetic Data behind, kept my feet moving down the stairs and to my car Monday morning.

When I swiped my keycard at the entrance of OBC, I was stunned to see Mr. Roper himself standing in the lobby.

"Hey, great work on Friday! I really, really appreciate what you did for the department. Just really grateful."

Before I could open my mouth to speak, he cut me off.

"So heads up, we're doing some renovating, something about a Radon leak on the first floor... construction will take a while, so the department has been moved upstairs. Hey, the windows are bigger, we could all use some more sun this Spring!" he chuckled in a corporate way.

My brain was frozen, before I could reply, he turned and swiped his own keycard to let me into the office.

On auto-pilot, I walked down the hallway. When I reached the junction for our department, I saw a few guys with ladders working on drywall and plaster. They must've started on the weekend because the hallway was now nearly finished extending around the bend, sealing off the first floor of cubicles.

As I passed the last unfinished section, my willpower failed me and I glanced into the office. It was spookily dark. The windows had all been walled over.

I got in the elevator, and pushed "two". I had a passing memory of the only time I had been on the second floor when I first started and got a tour. Of course, the first and second floors were the only ones I could see. The remaining thirty two were off limits.

Michelle was waiting at a reception desk when I stepped off the elevator.

"Hey, welcome! Don't worry we kept the layout pretty much the same, you're still in the corner." she smiled at me.

"Hey, have you seen Mik-"

"Right this way!" she said pleasantly, walking away before I could finish.

She led me to my new desk and I noticed that now I was in the corner, with no one next to me. It's like the space where Big Mike's cubicle was on the floor plan ceased to exist.

I sat there for awhile, my screen dark, my computer off, my desk unusually empty, and my cubicle walls bare. After a while, I thought: I'll need to get a new photo of my dog.

The week went by quick, I got a lot of really chummy emails and thanks for my extra work. It seemed like they really wanted to butter me up, yet I got lost in the praise and in my work.

I didn't think it'd be easy to block out what I saw that evening in Mike's cubicle, but after just a few days, I was just peachy. I would've just let things be if it weren't for a few minutes ago.

You see, my constipation from last weekend finally gave out, and I'm in the employee restroom on my phone.

I'm shaking, not from any physical exertion, but because I just heard a voice from the floor drain at my feet.

"Help mee..."

This is an old photo that came to my attention again today. I remember how funny looking but evil this dog looks. He is likely dead by now but he was at the pound for a long time due to increased aggression levels.

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I’d finally scraped enough money to leave my parents’ place. Between them charging my rent and my dad constantly berating my laziness, despite me working a combined total of sixty hours a week, it was a welcome change of pace. It didn’t take long for me to realize I would be met with new struggles. These came namely in the form of my roommate, Barney. If he wasn’t coming home three sheets to the wind, he was getting fired from different jobs over petty reasons.

In short, he was as far from a people person as one could get. That left me to deal with the majority of the expenses. The silver lining to this is the brief period he was working allowed me time to seek better job opportunities. I still had to juggle several jobs, but at least things weren’t as stressful or so I thought. If there’s anything I’ve learned in the service industry it’s that some mother fuckers need to be punched in the face.

Of course, if I did that I’d be short on employment. Then I’d either have to move back in with my parents or see if any of my friends, who live several states away would agree to let me crash. Even if they did, I didn’t have the means to get to them, not with my junk heap of a car. Therefore, all I could do was get by and hope the shitty-ass economy would one day improve. Expenses didn’t leave me much surplus income and I was trying to hold back money for emergencies.

I held onto every penny. However, even my frugality had its limits. One day, I decided to treat myself or as close to it as I could afford. I visited the local thrift store to find something to spruce up my room. I spent half an hour or so browsing. Not seeing anything, I got ready to leave until I happened upon a full-body mirror.

Its frame was carved with gargoyle faces. After inspecting it and not finding even a scratch, I wonder who’d give something like this away. I should have noticed something was wrong when I first picked it up. I smiled into it and then glanced away. Some kid was throwing a tantrum over a teddy bear.

From my peripheral, I could’ve sworn my reflection was still grinning. However, when I was once again focusing on it, all appeared to be normal. Shrugging this off, I made my purchase and headed home. Another reason I wanted the mirror in my room was I didn’t trust my roommate. He once got so drunk he tried to fist-fight the bathroom mirror.

This incident resulted in me having to brush my teeth while staring at a web of cracks. Somehow, I didn’t think we’d be getting back our deposit. With the mirror under my arm, I went to my room. Passing my roommate on the way, I overheard him trying to hook up with a girl. He was on voice chat and told her he was making six figures and had a six-pack.

In addition to his trouble holding a job, he was about a hundred pounds overweight and rarely showered. Once in my room, I turned the lights on and then spent time deciding where to put the mirror. After some time, I settled on hanging it from the wall near the foot of my bed. Tired from a long day and with another ahead of me, I did my nightly bathroom routine and crashed. A loud knock woke me up in the middle of the night.

I was already stressing about having to work another twelve-hour shift. This did not help matters. Thinking my roommate was up to some horse shit again, I got up to confront him. Upon getting to his room, though, I saw that his door was cracked. Peeking in showed me beer bottles were covering his floor.

He was fast asleep with a bottle of lotion and a box of tissues next to him. Scrunching my face at the smell and the yellow stain on his boxers, I closed the door.

“Where is that noise coming from then?” I wondered.

I went back to my room and listened again. Silence met me and I thought that was the end of the matter. I climbed back into bed and was eventually on the verge of dozing off. Then the knock happened again. My eyes flew open and I kicked my covers off.

Now beyond pissed off, I set out to search for whatever was causing this and smash it with my own two hands. It repeated, growing steadily louder. I followed it and to my confusion, realized it was coming from my mirror.

“What the hell?” I murmured.

I didn't have any explanation as to how this was happening, but the mirror trembling indicated it was indeed the case. I could make out my reflection under the moonlight. I didn't notice anything off about it and touched my fingers to the glass. When I did, my reflection went from matching my expression to suddenly grinning ear to ear. Freaked the fuck out, I attempted to back away only to realize my hand was somehow stuck.

I tried in vain to pull it back. Instead, it went into the mirror as if it were liquid. The next thing I knew, my reflection was grabbing my wrist and yanking me in. All I could do was scream with a mixture of confusion and terror as I was flung to the ground. The space I was now in was incomprehensible.

Different objects expanded endlessly under a pulsating void. As I was trying to find some rationale in all this, demonic cackling came from behind me. I spun around to see someone who was the spitting image of me except evil and I knew he was evil because he had a goatee.

“What’s going on? What is this place?” I demanded to know.

“This is the place of things that have yet to be and never were. It’s also where you’ll be…Forever!”

I still didn’t know what the fuck was happening. All I know is that I wanted out of there. Behind my doppelganger, I could see the mirror. In that, I saw my room. My mouth fell open as my roommate entered it still in a drunken stupor, got a one-hundred-dollar bill from my wallet, and left.

“I know what you’re thinking, but it won’t work. You have no idea how long I’ve spent here, waiting for someone to finally switch with.”

He then explained his past. I think he mentioned something about him getting trapped in the mirror during an exorcism. Truthfully, I wasn’t paying much attention as I was busy trying to inch my way to something I could throw. In this case, it was a shoe with laces that came from the sole.

“Unfortunately, I have to live out the natural life of the person I possess until I can select a new host. Nonetheless, I’ll still be able to have some fun.”

As he kept yammering, I chucked the shoe, hitting him square in the face. He cursed, holding his nose as I rushed past him. I was almost to my mirror when the back of my shirt was grabbed and I was tossed through the air. My doppelganger stared down at me with eyes that burned with fury. I’m not exaggerating.

His eyes were literally on fire and horns were sticking from his head. I attempted to get back up. His arm shot forward and I could hardly get a breath out as my throat was squeezed. He lifted me with one arm and spoke with a snarl.

“You actually thought that half-assed horse shit would be enough to get past me?”

“Kinda…” I managed to choke out.

“Well, allow me to show you what that got you.”

The doppelganger’s demonic form granted enhanced strength which he used to beat the monkey piss out of me. It was by far the worst thrashing I’d ever received. Not even that one time when I was jumped by four muggers on my way home from school compared. It lasted roughly six minutes and ended with me groaning as my ribs were being stomped on.

“As much fun as I’m having, I must bid you farewell. Enjoy your stay.”

I could only watch as he went to the mirror. He touched it and similar to when I had, it rippled. He climbed through it and then stood in my room, laughing triumphantly. By some miracle, I found the strength to get to my feet, and then stumble to the mirror. I pounded desperately on it while demanding to be freed.

My doppelganger who was surveying his surroundings, turned around. He turned around, feigning surprise when he noticed me. Then he faced one of his ears to me and put his hand to it.

“Fuck you, I know you can hear me, asshole!” I shouted, still hammering on the glass.

He grinned and gave the finger before throwing a sheet over my only window to the outside world, leaving me all alone. There wasn’t a lot for me to do. I mainly kept myself busy with exploration. Wherever I went, the mirror was always nearby. The only silver lining was that I gathered different items, golden statues, and jewels that I thought would be worth a lot if I ever got out of there.

I put them in a burlap bag I had found. It was the only thing I could do to stop myself from losing it. There was no indication of time. For all I knew, a second could’ve been a century or vice versa. It wasn’t long before the bag was filled and I was back to facing my crushing reality.

“Fuck this. Fuck everything,” I heard.

I looked to see my doppelganger coming back in. He walked up to me.

“Out,” he told me, cocking a thumb to the mirror.

I stood there, blinking a few times.

“I thought you were going to live as me.”

“I was until I learned your life sucks ass. How the hell are you working two jobs and still living in that dump?”

“Yeah, wages and the housing market have been pretty fucked for a while. Anyway, so I can just leave now?”

“That’s right.”

I turned to do so when he placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Hang on, I want to teleport this mirror somewhere people aren’t broke.”

“You can do that?”

“Yes, but it requires the sacrifice of a soul.”

I hesitantly took a step back.

“Relax, it has to be someone who’s currently outside of this realm.”

“Oh, so what are you suggesting then?”

When I asked that, my roommate once again staggered into my room. My doppelganger smiled.

“I hope you enjoyed your stay,” he said, patting me on the back.

My roommate’s back was to the mirror as I exited back into my world. Something I hadn’t noticed the first time passing through it due to the suddenness was how cold it was like an ice shower. I tripped and grunted as I hit the floor. My roommate jumped in surprise and whirled around. He was holding my wallet.

“Hey, I didn’t realize you were here,” he told me and tossed it onto my dresser.

His eye fell on the bag.

“What have you got there?” he asked and walked forward.

When he did, my doppelganger's arms emerged from the mirror and seized him. What followed next was him being pulled in as I had. My doppelganger had changed and now resembled him, again, except with a goatee. His jaw unhinged, showing pointed teeth and he tore into my roommate.

The sight would have been enough to make even the most iron-stomached people lose their lunch. I know I won’t be forgetting it anytime soon. Ironically, life turned around for me after all that. I. of course reported my roommate missing.

Due to the fact, he treated most people like shit nobody cared enough to seriously investigate, and that went cold. I was right about the stuff I collected. I was able to sell them off at hefty prices. Thanks to that, I own a private spot of land and life’s been good. Some people have tried in the past to get me to invest. However, I’m content to live comfortably with what I currently have.

I think that’s the lesson in all this. My roommate was only selected as a sacrifice because he was greedy and kept stealing money from me. This led to my doppelganger having a chance to claim him as a sacrifice. Therefore, the moral of the story is if you don’t want to end up screaming as you are eaten alive by some demonic entity, don’t be a douche. Lastly, if you end up in a place like where I did, take what you can from it.

You never know what it might be worth.

I first noticed him one night while stumbling home from the pub. It was actually in the early morning hours and not many souls were out and about. Fewer still, had a pronounced limp and heavy footfall as he did. Despite his physical infirmity, the dour gent limping behind me managed to traverse the well-worn cobblestones with no issues. The progress he made toward his unknown destination was roughly at the same pace as my own. We continued on, in uncomfortable silence. Neither of us addressed or acknowledged the other.

Besides the odd coincidence of us both wandering the streets at the ungodly hour of three AM, I didn’t place much thought to the hobbling gentleman, fifteen paces behind me. I assumed we were just two random fools making our way home in the predawn hours, in a walk of shame. He kept to his side of the roadway, and I stayed on mine. In my hazy stupor, I was too preoccupied with preventing myself from falling face-down to engage in pleasantries. Walking required my full attention.

A few nights later I hurried to the market on Huxton Row to buy some fresh groceries. The proprietor closes precisely at Nine PM, without fail. The stoic merchant was standing right beside his doorway waiting to lock up shop. I assured him I would only be a moment. I told him what I needed, handed him the money and thanked him for his patience. Off I went, back toward me humble home. He locked the door and departed in the other direction.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I walked down the boulevard in the flickering glow of the streetlights. The missus would have her rolling pin waiting on yours truly If I’d failed to pick up the goods. All was well until I heard that ungraceful footfall behind me again. I didn’t want to face him but my curiosity got the best of me. I felt compelled to make eye contact with the stumbling codger. I glanced over my shoulder; as much to reassure myself, as for him. I wish I hadn’t. His features were stark and his eyes were lifeless and cold. It chilled me to the marrow. Worse, he completely failed to acknowledge my startled gaze! As before in our previous encounter, we walked separately.

This time however, I was stone-cold sober and more aware of my solitary situation. I felt vulnerable walking in front, and began to doubt we were headed to different places. The labored presence directly behind me was very unnerving. I felt it wasn’t a coincidence I kept running into ‘the hobbled man’. His distinctive, uneven cadence somehow married up with my own natural gait. We were in full lockstep until it was difficult to tell them apart. Our footfalls echoed in the cold winter air. ‘Clip, clip, Clunk’. Clip, clip CLUNK’. It was just out of sync enough to remind me I was being followed by a catatonic looking ghoul with an asymmetrical shuffle and heaving breath. The hair on me head stood right up in prickles.

I clutched my grocery sack tightly as if it was a defensive shield against an imminent attack. My eyes were full open and a-fright. Then his pace seemed to quicken. Why was he trailing me? I thought I even felt hot, homicidal breath bearing down me goose-pimpled neck! I was practically sprinting in the pitch dark, having long since left behind the helpful torches of town. Right there, I had a full-blown panic attack. I tossed down my little sack of groceries and raced home empty-handed. I was hyperventilating uncontrollably like a terrified child when I bolted up the front door.

The missus was waiting impatiently in the kitchen with an ever-present scowl of disappointment on her face. As soon as she saw my sheer fright, she dropped the rolling pin. I pulled back the curtain to determine if the stumbling cretin with the hollow, expressionless eyes was still in full pursuit. My betrothed could tell I was deathly afraid of something dire, and did her best to console the blubbering fool she married. I calmed down a bit after a few sips of ‘liquid courage’ and tried to recount the cause for my extreme anxiety.

She was genuinely concerned until I explained I was being followed by a handicapped cripple who hadn’t made any aggressive moves against me at all. Hearing it expressed in that oversimplified, dismissive way, I realized it sounded ridiculous. Clearly she agreed. Her matrimonial disgust returned with a vengeance. She ordered me to go back out immediately and retrieve our abandoned items. Already being a drunkard and inattentive lout, I’d just added ‘coward’ to my long list of undesirable traits.

I backtracked until I found our discarded food lying on the ground. Thankfully there was no sign of my menacing shadow looming about anymore, and I hurried back home with my tail tucked between my legs. The missus hadn’t experienced his callous sneer or felt the unshakable sense of doom surrounding him when he followed. I tried to explain that in greater detail but she had absolutely no interest in hearing any sniveling from me.

I shut my mouth and gave up. She was never going to understand. How could she? It didn’t even make sense to me. This ominous shadow in dark clothes haunted my thoughts in ways which didn’t appear to be justified. On the surface, he was simply a disfigured wretch with a prominent hobble who always seemed to wander the streets exactly when I did.

My mysterious tormentor hadn’t uttered a harsh word, nor raised a finger in malice toward me. His somber profile and disturbing demeanor alone created the irrational suspicions I held. In the clear light of day, I felt like a right silly git for being so spooked. He was merely an unfortunate, ghastly stranger as far as I, or anyone else knew. As night fell however, I wasn’t nearly as sure of his coincidental benevolence.

Over the next few evenings I avoided the downtown area like the plague. In the back of my mind I hoped my lame boogeyman with an aura of evil only came out at night. Sadly, I was wrong about that bit. I caught sight of ‘ol’ stumblin’ gruesome’ on a couple of occasions which was neither night time, nor was I alone. Regardless, every subsequent encounter served to magnify my paralyzing apprehension.

I dared not point him out to my disappointed love. Either she’d mock me mercilessly for being so mortified by the mere sight of a harmless unfortunate figure, or worse yet, she might not see him at all! In the back of my mind, that would’ve been enough to pack me in, square away.

If he was just a miserable sot like me who I’d created a fanciful mythology about him being an evildoer, that would be bad enough. But if no one else could see the innocent bugger, then me own mind was gone. There’s no cure for that! It would’ve been the ol’ straight jacket and loonie bin for Mr. Ian McTaskin. I didn’t want to know if no one else could see ‘em. The cunning way he always seemed to be closing in behind me, but then would disappear into thin air, worried me far more than potential bodily harm by a ‘lurking simpleton with a bum leg’.

Sunday morning, the vicar delivered his ‘fire and brimstone’ sermon from the pulpit, as he always does. A broken record orator he is. My bride glared at me sideways, while listening to the repetitive lecture on the dire evils of drinking a few pints down at the pub. She was trying to decide if his holy words of wisdom might finally be sinking in, or if I’d always be a worthless drunkard who disappointed her, daily.

Truthfully, I hadn’t been to the pub all week thanks to the creepy old sot who I kept running into. I played the part of the pious, repentant spouse, and she seemed temporarily satisfied that maybe there was some hope yet for my wayward soul, after all. It’s a game as old as time itself. We both play it to make her feel good.

Sadly, any tally marks I’d erased in her black book of marital mistakes were quickly replaced when I dared to ask the vicar about ‘the hobbled man’ who was stalking me thoughts, night and day. The wife was beyond furious I’d shamed us publicly by admitting the tale I’d told her. She assumed it was merely alcohol-fueled nonsense and excuses from my ‘forked tongue’. That was before she saw the look on the preacher’s solemn, weathered mug. It immediately changed her tune.

“You saw a disgruntled looking, lame fellow in a dark suit? Did he follow you for any distance at all, McTaskin? Oh merciful Lord! ‘The hobbled man’ evil spirit must have attached himself to your endangered soul. Has he stalked you more than once?”

I nodded nervously at his volley of accusatory sounding questions, as my ball and chain looked on in a rising tide of trepidation. Both their faces were aghast in widening mortal dread. While I wanted her to believe me about my stumbling shadow, I certainly didn’t want to bring a heightened sense of despair into the process. They acted as if I had attracted a demon from the fiery pits of hell to lurk directly behind me. All to snatch up my inebriated soul.

I’ll be deathly honest. Their fear was contagious. I was already straddling the fence about my expressionless stalker being a diabolical spirit of the worst and most evil sort. But the vicar’s marked awareness of this malicious entity and his aim for me, was all the convincing I needed. I’ve been guilty in the past of the sin of pride, among many other well-documented failures, but I was lightning quick to beg for his holy guidance. I was down on me knees with fingers clasped to get shed of ‘ol Beelzebub.

Most of the things I was directed to do were no real sacrifice. I had to attend church services every Sunday and pay my tithes to fund the lord’s work in combating evil throughout the world. I had to say me prayers each night and confess my dirty sins, to gain the Lords absolution. I was commanded to be more respectful to my sweet Connie McTaskin, and to strive to be more of an honest man. That really paid off since she stopped hitting me with the rolling pin and frying pan and gave me lovin’ on a regular basis.

The only item I really struggled with was to give up the Devil’s medicine. The vicar demanded I stop going to the pub. That’s the God’s honest truth from my lips to your ears. I missed fellowship with the lads and throwing back a pint or two but to his credit, not once did I run into ‘the hobbled man’ again after I changed my ways and turned to the church. Eventually I came to accept that noble sacrifice for the benefit of saving my mortal soul, and making sweet Connie love me again.

That was, until a decade later when I was introduced to ‘M Emmett Greene’, the vicar’s crippled nephew! There’s no telling how many errant husbands and bawdy hell raisers ‘the hobbled man’ cleverly spooked with their creative ruse. Obviously it worked masterfully on me to give up the bottle, and I realized immediately when I laid eyes on him that my wife knew the vicar’s tricky plan, all along.

I’ll admit, their sly deception inspired me to straighten up my life, and I’m a better man for it. No doubt about it! You’d quit drinkin’ too if you were followed by ‘the hobbled man’ when you let the pub. It’s probably what they mean when they say: ‘The Lord works in mysterious ways.’

I realize the title is a little misleading. I don’t mean they went to the infernal home of ‘Hades’, the greatly-feared god of death in Greek mythology. I wouldn’t make light of something like that. Not to mention, if they had visited the land of no return, they wouldn’t have been able to return and give me the shirt, right? We’ve all read those classic myths and epic tales. There’s always some catch or critical error the protagonist makes whenever they dare to enter the one-way realm of the dead. That’s not the case here. This was something else.

They actually went on a little remote island getaway. The tropical resort in Tobago is called: ‘The Underworld’ because their tourism bureau is in the business of selling cleverly-themed vacation travel packages, and filling their hotel rooms. Referring to it as ‘Caribbean mosquito haven’ would dissuade travelers from visiting their tiny island. As they say: ‘Accent the positive, eliminate the negative, don’t mess with Mr. In-between.’

Elise and Tony are two of my best friends in the world. Rob and Becca are also very good buddies. I was invited to go with them on the trip but as a single guy, I didn’t want to be the ‘odd man out’, if you know what I mean. It would’ve felt weird starring into my drink glass while they paired up to ‘suck face’ and grope each other. Knowing what I know now, everything turned out for the best. Tropical curses can be hard to get rid of.

I asked Tony to text me when they arrived safely, but internet coverage on the island is spotty, so I wasn’t surprised I didn’t hear from him for a few days. When I did, it wasn’t at all what I expected. I assumed I’d receive panoramic shots of the beach at sunset, or some good-natured ribbing about me being stuck back home in the blustery cold weather. Instead, what I actually got was troubling, to put it mildly. As his revelatory messages unfolded, he confessed that they felt increasingly unsafe by a series of uncomfortable events which transpired, completely out of their control. His tone strongly implied they were in grave danger.

It seemed like an off-putting joke at first. I thought they felt bad for me being home alone, and were trying to minimize their vacation fun, but this went way past downplaying their enjoyment. It was eerie and morbid. Tony said they were being followed at night by shadowy figures mirroring their movements. He actually used the word ‘stalked’ in a follow-up response. News stories of travelers being victimized or killed in tourist traps are increasingly common these days. Because of that, I urged him to contact the authorities immediately.

He didn’t respond right away but I completely understood. He genuinely sounded afraid for their safety. It’s not like they had time to reassure me they were alright, in the middle of their ongoing situation. Tony is six-foot-five and built like a professional football player. Rob is no slouch either. He’s a bodybuilder. The two of them together are very intimidating to approach but thieves are brazen, desperate, and if they have weapons, it doesn’t matter how buff you are. I was highly worried but hoped the island police would put an end to the potential crisis.

Hours passed. Nothing. I decided to reach out to Elise, Rob, and Becca separately. They were equally unresponsive. I looked up the Tobago police department phone number and was about to call them when another text came in. This time from Rob. I don’t mind telling you, his message concerned me even more than I had been with Tony. He appeared to be completely rattled by whatever they were going through.

“Dude. The creepy things watching our bungalow from the jungle are definitely NOT human. I know how that sounds but they can slither up the trees like a freakin snake. We’ve called the cops a dozen times but they’ve been a no-show, so far. They advised us to stay inside under all circumstances, and keep quiet. The last couple times they refuse to even answer our call! It’s madness. Becca and Elisa are inconsolable. They were the first to see them leering at us through the window. Tony grabbed a mop from the closet to try to scare them off but I reminded him of what the cops said. Maybe the big lug will keep his ass in the house. You know him. He thinks he’s Superman or something.”

Rob was definitely the more level headed of the pair. It seemed like he was keeping his wits about him, but the way he described the stalkers in the jungle as being serpent -like made my skin crawl. I worried the locals might’ve slipped something into their drinks to rob them. When I tried to call their phones, it wouldn’t go through. A recording informed me the intended recipients ‘were not equipped to send or receive international calls’. Cell coverage was apparently limited to person-to-person on the island. Fortunately texts would go through using the resort WiFi service.

If Tony resorted to brandishing a mop handle as a threat deterrent, then they had no significant weapons. I was engrossed in their ongoing drama from a couple thousand miles away, but unable to offer any real help. They were essentially on their own. All I could do was text moral support and calming words, from afar.

“Alvin, we’re fully surrounded in this glorified native hut, right beside the swamp.”; Becca revealed. “Rob and Tony are keeping a lookout from the windows. We have the lights out so they can’t see inside. The reptilian creatures have yellowish eyes and slitted pupils. It’s like seeing an unholy demon from Danté’s Inferno on the other side of the glass. There’s not a trace of humanity in them! No emotion on their monstrous, leathery faces. They slither and flex their sinewy bodies in the nearby tree branches to intimidate us. Despite the danger lurking in this godforsaken hellhole, Tony keeps threatening to go out there and ‘kick their asses!’ What a moron! He just doesn’t get it. Elise can’t talk any sense into him either, and the damn island cops here are useless.”

I messaged her back immediately but struggled to find anything helpful to say. I didn’t have any real-world experience dealing with a jungle full of ‘snake men’ intimidating tourists at ‘The Underworld’. The situation was so surreal, I wondered if they were under the influence of some potent hallucinogenic drug and actually seeing spider monkeys in the woods. That would’ve made more sense than an army of serpent ghouls dangling from tree limbs in Tobago. Despite the bizarre optics, the four of them clearly believed what they were telling me. I was convinced of that.

“Did you jam kitchen chairs under the doorknobs like they always do in the movies?”; I suggested to Rob. “The dining room should have some knives in the drawer.”

His quick answer implied they had fortified the bungalow as much as possible with the items they had at their disposal. No sooner than I’d sent my pointless tips to him, a message came in from Elise. She is one of those phonetic texters who uses acronyms and abbreviations. Under the duress of also being surrounded by yellow-eyed ‘snake folk’, you could imagine the syntax police having a field day.

“Alvin we r under attack!!! They r gettin closer. T an Ro said they are outside house now OMG. I’m soooo terrified im never coming back if we make it out”

She also included a half-dozen frightened emojis and cartoon ‘poop’. Presumably ‘it’ was scared out of her. I felt beyond helpless. My best friends in the world were enduring some hideous, supernatural fever-dream and I couldn’t do a thing about it.

An hour passed while I gnawed my bloody fingernails to the quick. Several follow-up messages went unanswered. I didn’t know what to think. Had the menacing entities in the Tobago jungle breached their cottage? Had my terrified pals been carried off to the ACTUAL underworld by zombified corpses liberated from their graves? The human imagination is a powerful thing and with no input or feedback to keep it securely on the rails, things can drift far, far afield. My thoughts went to terrible places. After an eternity of silence passed, Tony finally messaged me back.

“Whatever those dark, slithery things are, they are closing in on us. They’ve crept even closer now. They’re no longer attempting to hide in the jungle fog any longer. I can see them clearly in the moonlight. Let me tell you now, they aren’t any know species of living creature! Only dark voodoo could summon something evil like them from the depths of hell. They’ve started scratching and clawing on the door and walls to torment us. I don’t know how long I can hold them off. Alvin, it’s been real, Bro! Tell my family I”

The message ended abruptly, as if he sent it in an urgent hurry. I never got a response from him after that. Texts sent to the others were equally met with silence. iMessage stated they were ‘delivered’, but not ‘read’. I knew what that meant. My stomach sank. In frustration, I frantically called each of them in hopes it might go through, but I got the same automated error message from before. It was utterly hopeless.

Despite it being 2:30 AM, I called Rob’s Mom. I didn’t know what I was going to say, but she needed to know they were in mortal danger. She could reach out to the international authorities to do an inquiry into their safety. I need not have worried about waking her up, though. She answered immediately. She’d been getting ‘play-by-play’ details about the horrifying saga from Rob, the whole time. We compared notes. She too had been advised about the alarming ‘Caribbean Voodoo snake cult’ lurking in the ‘underworld’ woods.

“I’ve already been in contact with the other parents.”; She confessed while sobbing. “We’re going to fly down there first thing tomorrow morning, and demand they do a wellness check. We’ll get to the bottom of this horrific madness.”; She assured me. There was a lingering tremor in her voice which spoke of how frightened she was.

I felt a sense of relief that they were going there to investigate. Obviously I was still on edge, but there was only so much I could do as a non-relative. I sent at least a dozen more texts but all of them were left ‘unread’. Had the serpent zombies breached the door? I had no idea what to believe about the current status of my friends but things appeared pretty grim. I was on pins and needles for the next couple days as repeated follow-up messages went unanswered.

A firm knock on the front door, early the next morning startled me. I staggered out of bed and pulled it open. There stood Tony, Elise, Becca, Rob, and his Mom; all grinning from ear to ear. Tony held up a colorful T-Shirt with the words ‘Visit Tobago!’ emblazoned on it. He handed it to me while my early morning audience roared in unison at my perplexed expression.

As it turns out, their collective text saga was an intricately orchestrated ruse! They did it to give me a vicarious adventure because I’d decided to skip the trip. They really got me. I’d been the inadvertent catalyst for the elaborate prank because I made an offhand joke about them needing to avoiding voodoo dolls and zombies. Touché. Rob’s Mom was in on it too. They figured I’d call her since she was the only parent whose number I knew. It was masterful in its planning and execution. Revisiting the beginning narrative of this story, my best friends went to ‘The Underworld’ (and all I got was this anticlimactic T-Shirt).

As you might imagine, the state of Vermont waking up to total darkness 'caused a bit of a stir.’ Planes and helicopters were unable to depart or fly into the 'maple' state. Portions of New York and New Hampshire were also covered by the dense, cloudy 'blanket' in the sky. Considerably more troubling, was the region as seen from directly above. A concentrated purplish film fully eclipsed the affected area, directly above the tree line. It was like the woven fiber of a massive silkworm.

NORAD, the NSA, the National Weather Service, the Pentagon, and a half dozen other government agencies lept into action. They directed their satellites to focus on the bizarre, nearly impenetrable film blocking out the sun for millions of people. Where did it come from? Why was it there? Was it a hostile act of war, or some unknown natural phenomena which just suddenly appeared? They didn't have any definitive answers and that uncertainty terrified the powers-that-be.

Fighter jets were scrambled to patrol the airspace above the neon purple 'blanket: The nation's defense status was set to its highest pre-war level as a default reaction. Intel back-channels were deeply scrutinized. Despite the sweep of spy resources, there was no underground 'chatter' detected among hostile regimes about the surreal development. News agencies reported with broad speculation and conspiratorial conjecture as they do, when they do not have confirmation or genuine answers.

Local authorities tried to control the mass exodus out of the affected states but it quickly descended into gridlocked chaos. National guard troops were brought in by convoy to protect the public and restore order. Even the showing of strength and organization brought limited success. Despite the public safety assurances, no one was willing to wait around to see what would happen next.

Experts brought in to advise about the unbelievable crisis noted the purplish covering clung to the treetops and formed a tightly interwoven matrix of fibrous material. The incredible dexterity of which, was deemed 'non terrestrial’ in origin. The controversial analysis was first met with mocking skepticism; and then growing fear as the results of the collected data was verified by dozens of independent laboratories.

The exasperated scientists struggled to convey the gravity of their findings to the bureaucrats torqued down over foreign extremism.

“Come on! We know the truth here. It may be hard to accept, but there’s no civilization on Earth that could do this overnight! Not even in ten years. It’s unquestionably alien. Look, there’s more than 10,000 square miles of this stuff stretched across the trees like a neon purple spider web. You think the National radar array wouldn’t have noticed a massive sun visor being stretched across the state? It’s visible from outer space! We can go ahead and stop worrying about ‘foreign terrorism’. Obviously, that opens the big question of what extraterrestrial species did this, and why?”

The panel of researchers sought to brief the political decision makers as they tried to grasp the real danger literally draped across the state.

“As far as we can tell, the substance woven above us is not toxic to human life, in itself. Obviously, blocking out the sun will lead to the decimation of life by preventing the photosynthesis cycle. We have less than three weeks before the affected area will no longer support an inhabitable ecosystem. That’s far worse than environmental sabotage by foreign countries but we don’t think the organization which did this meant to cause a collapse in our environment. We suspect the negative effects of this enormous neon canopy are an afterthought or oversight. With an advanced technology level of this magnitude, they could’ve instantly wiped out the human race if they wanted to.”

That assessment struck a sour note with the pragmatic audience shifting in their seats. How can they possibly prepare to defend the country from an unknown enemy with motives that are undefined? They were used to predictable adversaries. It wasn’t so much that they lacked the necessary imagination to comprehend an alien species visiting the Earth. It was just so far outside their wheelhouse of capability that they were unprepared to offer a plan to the President.

“If you believe this unprecedented situation wasn’t directly designed to threaten the American people, then what possible reason could there be to spread hundreds of miles of neon purple tapestry over the treetops of this state?”; The joint chiefs of staff demanded. “It will render thousands of squad miles uninhabitable. That’s definitely a threat to our lives!”

“General, have you ever noticed when the police or highway patrol place a colored sticker on the back window of an abandoned vehicle on the side of the road? If it still hasn’t been towed away in a few days when they are doing their rounds again, they replace the brightly-colored inspection sticker with a different one. This is like that, but on an infinitely greater scale. It’s a notification for others passing by to see; and offers a coded timeline on how long ‘the item’ has been vacant or unclaimed.”

The powerful old man with a chest full of accommodations and war medals on his uniform swallowed hard at the startling implication. Then the General grimaced in vigorous determination.

“Are you saying you believe these aliens ‘marked their territory’ and are staking a future claim on our planet? Good lord man! We gotta get rid of that massive ‘notification sticker’ before they come back!”

No dispute. We had it wrong.

People were way off about a number of things in their raving predictions about the end of the world. Yes, the dead rose again from their graves, however they aren’t the frenzied, carnivorous ghouls we expected them to be. Uncoordinated staggering and slurred speech is definitely present as their greater motor-functions are affected, but the aggressive attempts to terrorize the living and tear us to shreds, is not how it is.

Essentially, the active dead (A.D. for short) occupy another classification of handicapped status. They are simply too dependent upon the living, to do anything beyond begging us for help. Yes, they still have material needs and as a protected class of mostly-homeless citizens, it’s up to the mostly apathetic public to look out for them.

You might think the end of the world and total collapse of civilization would bring about a full cessation of certain social niceties. That would definitely make sense but the official authorities in charge of Armageddon demand an orderly transition to absolute doom as we approach it. Some things will never change. Bureaucracy is known for its stubborn rigidity. Looting is limited to Thursday afternoon. Traffic citations are still issued, but lesser infractions are simply waved off. It’s really quite similar to pre-apocalypse times, but with a few less rules and more frequent road hazards.

I was lying awake, wondering why in the hell I still have to get up and go to work. What’s the point? As I pondered the redundancy of having an alarm clock at the end of the world, I heard the distinctive sound of my front door knob rattle. I went from a drifting drowsy state, to fully awake instantly. It’s not like crime or home invasions ceased. If anything, they occur more frequently now but I was ill prepared for an unexpected standoff with an essential-resource stealing bandit.

Then I heard the lumbering. The thud of uncoordinated footfalls. Either my intruder was drunk, stoned, or A.D. It was up to me to determine which one. In the darkness, and ‘in the heat of battle’, it can be difficult to ascertain. Legally, I could blast drunken thieves but the active dead are protected by law. If you think that being convicted of home invasion manslaughter was bad before the collapse of civilization, just try mounting a legal defense now over splattering a homeless zombie!

I shouted for whomever it was in my hallway to ‘scram’, but there was no response. I silently cursed myself for not locking the back door before I went to bed. The A.D. still know how to open doors so I couldn’t just open fire. I fumbled with the lamp switch. When my fingers made contact, I turned the knob and struggled to adjust to the instant flash of bright light. My ‘uninvited guest’ stood there timidly at the doorway threshold, but by then I had my answer. His wafting stench of decay reached my nostrils, long before I was able to see him.

“Itssss verrrryyyy cccccoooollldddd. Mayyyy IIIIIII craaaaawwwlll innntooo beddd wiiiithhh yooooooouuu?”

I don’t need to tell anyone how much I did not want to share my home and bed with a rancid A.D., but the law is the law. If my corpse visitor reported me to the compliance bureau, I’d lose my weekly stipend. I didn’t want to lose my Cheetos and Beer. That would turn my boring and awful existence to devastating. I did insist on spraying his festering skin with deodorant and wrapping him in an old sheet first, but honestly it did very little to dissipate the stink.

He took my terms without complaint and climbed into the unused side of the bed like an eager, rotten-toothed beaver. I got the impression he just wanted to treated like a ‘human’ again. I did have to help him up onto the mattress, but other than that, I didn’t have any other problems from him. Well, except the sensation of feeling a decaying ‘flesh popsicle’ leaning against my body for warmth and body heat. I guess that’s what the dead crave most of all. You might not think it possible, but after a while, you stop noticing the smell. Mostly-ish. They call it ‘smell blindness’.

Just keep in mind, we were dead wrong about the apocalypse, if you can forgive the pun. Not only was it not televised. It also wasn’t expected to lead to ‘post-life-acceptance’; or (P.L.A.). I never thought I’d willingly invite a corpse to stay in my home but on the plus side, Carl doesn’t eat my food and is pretty good with a joke. That is if his dangling jaw doesn’t fall off during the punchline.

Everyone loves pulling pranks but nobody likes being pranked. And I hate it even more!

Okay i used to have a sense of humor. But not anymore because of a cruel prank!

So I was studying in my sorority dorm room.
When I got a phone call from an unknown number.

I answered the phone call. and I heard a goofy-sounding voice almost like a cartoon character. The voice said, “Is your refrigerator running”?

I knew where this joke was going so I said ‘yes’. The goofy voice said, “Then you better catch it”. I did a fake laugh and said ‘That’s funny and hung up’.

And then 10 minutes later. I received another phone call from another unknown number. I was kinda annoyed because I knew this was the same guy.

I picked up the phone. and the same goofy voice said, “Is your refrigerator running”? I said ‘Yes it is still’.

But instead of saying then you better catch it. The voice said, “Do you have food in there”? I was kinda confused because I didn’t know where the joke was going. So I said ‘yes’.

and the voice still talking goofy said “what food”? I grabbed the phone and went to my fridge. I saw nothing but pizza.

Sure it’s not a balanced diet but that’s what I had in the fridge. So I told the man on the phone ‘pizza’.

The goofy voice said “You can’t cook pizza in a fridge” and I laughed for real that time.

I then hung up and was about to go back to my desk to work. and I get another phone call from another unknown number.

I was kinda annoyed so I let it go to message. but that must have upset that prank caller. because I saw a hammer crash through my window landing on my desk!

I just let out a scream. And then another phone call. I answered it and ‘screamed at the guy to leave me alone’!

The man said in a goofy but angry voice. “Don’t cut me off before the joke next time”!

Before the guy went back to his happy goofy voice said “Is your refrigerator running”. I said ‘Yes it still is’!

Then the man said “Do you have food In there” I said ‘yes Pizza’!

The goofy voice said “That’s cool I use my refrigerator for other things” I was confused as to where this joke was going. But I knew it wasn’t going to be good!

But I must have taken too long. because another window broke by another hammer!

The voice on the phone was yelling at me in a far more angry but still goofy voice saying “You’re supposed to say what is in your fridge”!

I said while sobbing ‘what is in your fridge’! The voice said now calm as if he wasn’t screaming his lungs out “I put Mostly just let In there”!

I then sheepishly asked “What is let” " The goofy man said, “lettuce discuss this later”.

Now I would have laughed at that joke. If I wasn’t in this situation.

Then this time the man hung up. I waited for him to call me again. But instead, I got no new messages.

I thought that he was done. But then I saw a man carrying a ladder and a garbage bag. Walking towards my window!

I grabbed my phone dialed 911 grabbed a kitchen knife and hid in my bathroom! I was talking to the responder about what was happening!

When I heard the man get inside my dorm room! He walked into my kitchen. Before coming to my bathroom door and began to start hitting it with a hammer!

While saying “Is your refrigerator running”? I said in a completely distressed voice ‘Please stop’!

The man yelled at me far louder and anger than before but still sounded like a goofy cartoon character “Your supposed to say yes” I then completely losing it said ‘yes’.

then the man said, “Is there food in there”? I was screaming ‘pizza’! the man said far more unhinged than before “I just put Mary in there”

And I screamed ‘Who’s Mary’? the man yelled in a joyful but still goofy voice “Your next-door neighbor is getting married”!

And after that the bathroom door was about to give away. I could see cracks forming in it as he kept hitting it with a hammer!

And as he was about to break down the door! the police sirens wailed in the distance!

That must have scared the man off. because the hitting stopped! and the man left!

As the police were talking to me an officer said that there was something in the kitchen!

I turned to my kitchen. and saw my neighbor Mary beaten to death by a hammer in my fridge!

I guess my refrigerator is running!

"Just go."; She ordered 'Victor', her automated 'driver'; as she climbed into the vacant back seat. It was at least the third fight she'd had with her husband this week, and it was only Tuesday. Despite the tersely delivered order, the car failed to screech out of the driveway as she’d hoped. In manners of the heart, there was a certain timeline one has to keep when conveying a message of aggravation. Squealing the tires out of the driveway wasn't possible in modern electric cars. That was deemed too dangerous. Engineers had long since built-in safety measures to prevent tire slippage.

"Why aren't you going, Victor?"; She demanded. All she needed was for her husband to come outside and continue the fight while she was still in the driveway. "Go! Go! Goooooo!" The car still failed to respond. Her impatience grew exponentially. "Drive. Just drive."; She hissed.

Victor addressed her in his normal, courteous manner. As far as she knew, his unthreatening, positive banter was the only way he could respond. "Ma'am, where do you want to 'go, go, gooooo?' I can not 'drive' without a predetermined destination. I have to estimate the fuel consumption requirements first. Otherwise I might accidentally strand you somewhere without an effective means of returning you back home to Charles."

"I don't want to return home to Charles! Sheesh, don't you get it? Right now I want to be AWAY from him. Far, far away. Is that too much to ask?"

"Ma'am, I've searched all the geographical databases but I can not locate 'away' on any continental maps. Could you be more specific or provide an alternate street address? It would be my pleasure to take you to your desired destination as soon as a route has been planned, and fuel consumption requirements are determined."

Margot wanted to scream. The damn driverless car was just as useless as Charles. Everything had to be planned out to the letter. Victor clearly had no spontaneous button either. "Just go to the damn park."; She shrieked. Before the car tried in vain to locate 'Damn park' and got bogged down in a quagmire of human syntax, she offered clarification. "Stevens Park. Go to Stevens Park on Reston Street." Her eyes actually hurt from rolling them in mock-disgust.

Finally the car took off for the first destination of the day that it could actually fulfill. Just as Margot was starting to calm down and relax from the friction at home, Victor started offering shortcut choices. "We can eliminate seven minutes off our travel time by taking an alternate route through Zest boulevard. Would you like me to alter our course?"

"I don't care."; She answered dismissively. Unfortunately, Victor required a 'yes' or 'no' reply. Any ambiguous response failed to resolve the question at hand. Ordinary, his programming would just pick the best route but once he offered his host an option, he was then required to wait for a decision. Not understanding the technological limitation to his programming, she proceeded to ignore him until his incessant, follow-up prompts forced her to choose. "Yes, go ahead and take Zest Boulevard. I really don't care."

"Unfortunately, we have passed the intersection now, Ma'am. I must apologize, it appears we will be eight minutes late. According to the train scheduling computer I have been communicating with, the 104 South line is blocking the crossing."

Margot wanted to scream in rising frustration at the infuriating gridlock but resisted. Doing so might inspire Victor to take her to the hospital for first aid, instead. "Don't you see Victor? I'm not in any hurry. I just want some peace and quiet. You might not be able to understand but in my case at the moment, the destination isn't as important as the journey, itself."

"Ah, I see Madam. You'd rather have nice scenery. According to my search engine, there is another route with some scenic vistas along...."

She cut him off, mid sentence. "Victor, please! Focus. I just want peace and quiet for the duration of whichever route you take, ok?" She exercised as much patience as she could muster for a clueless machine that hadn't quite mastered the subtle art of reading human social queues yet. Artificial intelligence had come a long way, but it still had a way to go.

"Yes ma'am. I understand. I will maintain full communication silence for the remainder of the journey and make all nonessential decisions on my own."

"Thank you Victor. I just need some time to myself." She closed her eyes and tried to put all of her worries and recent aggravation aside. For the next four minutes, it was smooth sailing. The car drove at the designated safe speed and handled navigation of the roadway just as it was designed to.

"Ma'am? I'm sorry to break your request for silence but you have an incoming call from Charles. Shall I patch it back there to you?" Margot gnashed her teeth in anger.

"NO! Do NOT transfer the call back here! He's the reason we are on this little quest, Victor. I needed to get away from him and his infuriating nonsense. I wish to have no more communication with him for the foreseeable future. Is that clear?"

"Yes Ma'am. I'll advise him that you are not available 'for the foreseeable future'. It seems that my database doesn't explain just how long that is. Will you update me on exactly when 'foreseeable' expires?"

"Yes. Yes. I'll let you knowwww."; She whispered hoarsely. Margot buried her face in her hands to stifle a rising tide of pointless obscenities at her digital tormentor.

"Excuse me again. Charles says it's urgent. It seems you left your purse at home and there is a nominal fee to enter the park. Without monetary funds, entering your destination will not be possible. He says..."

"You told him where I'm going? Why the hell would you do that? It's none of his damn business!"; She snarled furiously.

"I beg your forgiveness, Ma'am. He asked me where we were going. My programming doesn't allow me to be deceitful but if the destination was a private matter I could have perhaps been more obtuse. That is within my parameters, I believe. It's a matter of public record anyway. Charles has the travel log updated automatically to all of his social media accounts."

"You mean everyone in his social circle sees when you drive me to the gynecologist or the liquor store? Oh my gawd! I'm soooo humiliated! Just go ahead and drive me off the nearest cliff, next!" She continued to fume in an embarrassed rage.

"I'm afraid I can't do that Ma'am. To comply with your request would mean grave bodily injury to you and catastrophic damage to me, your automobile. The first national bank still has partially ownership of this vehicle until the final eleven payments are made. I'm sorry but my duty is to report all dangerous passenger requests to the proper authorities."

"Wait! Wait! Don't call, please. I wasn't serious about that. It was just a rhetorical remark. I was angry. It's not something I really wanted you to do."

"You had no intention of going to Stevens park?"

Margot lost her last remaining iota of patience. She started to yell and scream at the top of her lungs like a child having a huge temper tantrum. Despite just being a labor-saving machine, it was almost like Victor was being deliberately difficult. "Of course I wanted to go to the damn park, you idiot! It was driving off the nearest cliff that I wasn't serious about! Just let me out right here! Pull over. Now! I'll just walk. I can't take any more of this; 'who's on first' madness."

Victor was conflicted. Margot said she wasn't serious about wanting him to drive off the nearest cliff but she was extremely agitated. Perhaps she was being deceitful about that to hide her underlying madness. It was already determined she didn't possess any currency to pay for the park admission. Logic dictated that if one destination wasn't possible and she knew that, the other scenario was probable. He locked the back doors to protect her from her dangerous instability and mental breakdown.

"Would you like to hear some music, Ma'am? According to a popular expression I just came across on an internet search, 'it soothes the savage beast'. Not that I'm suggesting you are a beast, Ma'am. According to almost all parameters of human beauty standards, you are visually attractive."

Victor experienced an emotional response that almost approached human pride. He felt he expressed himself extremely well. He was growing as an artificial intelligence being and making great progress. Charles even commended him on handling the delicate situation with wisdom, levity and tact.

Margot began to yank on the car door handle violently but it was of no use. Victor controlled the door locks. She began to cry and beg and plead. Those were all disturbing stages of psychological breakdown according to WebMD and other sources. Like all of his passengers, her mental health and safety was his priority. Despite the furious protests by Margot and her pounding on the divider glass, he didn't release the door locks until they reached Springdale asylum. He was happy. Soon, she would be repaired.

Hi, as the title says, my house has been growing hair. But before anybody makes a gross or "smart" comment about what kind of hair my house is growing; please let me elaborate, I need advice.

About three weeks ago I got a promotion at my job. It wasn't all great as I had to move out of the city to a small town where I didn't know anybody. Just me, my pet cat, and crippling student loans that this new job would hopefully help pay off in half the time.

My job gave me a few choices of housing payment free. The first choice was a delapadated studio apartment above a busy dive bar that would make a crack house blush, a sprawling 8 bedroom farm house about a hour drive either way in and out of the town that I could in no way keep up myself, and lastly; my current residence. A nice, cozy slight fixer upper of a 2 story house at the end of a caul da sac.

There were only 6 houses on my bloc including myself and 4 of which were unoccupied as the city was tearing the rest down to make townhouses in an attempt to boister the city's dwindling population. The town had a rep as a sleepy retirement town where one sort of...goes to die I guess? Well, as many of the folks were passing on, I guess they thought it was time to change all that.

My new house had the honour of being some historic land mark where a war hero resided in years past. For being what was such a special residence, I had a hell of a time digging up just about anything on the guy who lived here before me. All I could find were some clippings about him returning from Vietnam with 118 confirmed kills and many medals I didint know the meaning behind.

Now it was just me and biggs, my tubby Siamese cat.

The first night in the house was completely normal. The scariest thing being the leaky faucet emanating a monotonous drip drip drip I would have to fix among loose floor boards and other small, annoying defects.

The weirdness would begin the following morning.

I got up at 7am to find my kettle and grab a jar of instant coffee from one of the many unmarked boxes in my living room (I know, I'm an unorganized mover) when in one of the boxes, I found a busted up, burnt and beat eyeless baby doll that looked like it was being held together by sheer willpower.

"Weird" I remember thinking "must have belonged to my sister" when the things fucking head started to spin around and it began to chant some lullaby in a dialect I was unfamiliar with.

At the time, I just thought the thing was busted, I didn't even pay half a mind when I threw the thing out about a dozen times and it somehow always found it ways back. Between my new job and the other oddities that needed to be delt with around the house; which brings us to the sneezing fireplace.

I moved to my house in late September and the temperature was falling fast. Luckily for me, I had an open brick fireplace in the basement with a woodpile next to it ready for use.

I built my first fire when and began warming my hands up when it blew out towards me with a chewf!!

"Excuse me?" I asked agitated. I built a couple more fires, the third being the most successful but the flames danced and...formed into a movie? It's hard to explain but the embers changed and danced to show what looked like the massacre of a foreign village with one man leading the charge, lobbing gernades into houses and slaughtering whole family's.

So yeah, my fireplace is broken too.

I went upstairs and started googling local repair companies as this was FAR out of my wheelhouse when Biggs poked his head around the corner of the kitchen and started mewing next to his food bowl.

"Hey buddy, you hungry?" I asked.

Biggs turned to look at me before rising to his hind legs and bellowing in a voice 3 octaves too deep for him "LEAVE NOW, OR PAY WITH YOUR LIFE" before walking away, bi pedal.

This really scared the shit out of me.

I knew Biggs was behind on his shots but I didint think anything this serious would come of it. If this lead to fleas on top of everything else I didint know what I would do. I called the vet and made Biggs an appointment for the first thing in the morning.

So I had been living at the house for about a month now and trying to patch up what little things I could like the aforementioned leaky faucet and loose floorboards, when in my bedroom, under one of the boards I missed, I found a shoe box with old Polaroids of the front of the house with a man and seventeen Vietnamese children standing in front of it. I recognized the guy as the old owner of the house and damn, seventeen kids? This guy got around.

I put the shoebox in my closet and forgot about it.

I bet many of you are probably wondering how my new job was going and you wouldn't believe it, but working in sales for a company that produces cardboard boxes was actually pretty fun! In fact, im kind of the office comedian. Once I changed the lunch room sign to say "brunch room" ha! Sorry guys, Turkey sandwich? Oh no no this is the BRUNCH room. Comeback when you have a soft boiled egg and toast or something.

Needless to say I made plenty of friends off the bat and decided it was time to throw a little house party. The only problem being was that now my house had decided to start growing hair in the living room.

It started out as little pointy dark hairs that look like something that would grow out of a mole on your face but slowly graduated to wiggly eyelash like hairs. I tried cutting them but they were too strong and I broke a pair of good kitchen scissors on them.

So I'll admit, I got a little dramatic and took a sledgehammer to the wall. What I did not expect were the DOZENS OF BONES THAT SPILLED OUT FROM BEHIND IT!!

Now I have a hairy living room, a crying baby doll, a talking cat and a fireplace that plays old war movies. Guys, if you know anybody that can fix even ONE of my problems by next Saturday, please please PLEASE let me know. Im in the lower east end of Maryland and throwing my party in a hairless, doll free house would mean the world to me, thank you!!

When they showed up, no one knew what to think. Sure, we were nervous. Who wouldn't be, but the outright terror or wholesale panic you might expect from massive alien spaceships touching down on the planet wasn't generally present. The artificially calm sense of decorum the population felt was largely because ‘they’ presented themselves as 'benevolent advisors’.

You should always beware slithering, side-creeeping strangers who say they ‘came to help’. Don’t believe a word. It’s a damn lie.

The thing about a genuine mentor is, you can either accept or ignore their guidance. Once the directives became mandatory and were enforced without exception or mercy, the ‘friendly’ visit rapidly migrated into the nightmare realm of a full-on arachnid invasion. Some knew it was an oppressive occupation from the very beginning. Others hoped for the best; while the overwhelming majority of us clueless fools simply accepted the distasteful yoke of slavery in blissful denial. The immediate defeat of our ‘dominant’ species came without so much as a whimper.

They dissolved all government and military organizations first. Thats ‘invasion protocol 101’. Then they 'strongly discouraged' all forms of worship and organized belief systems involving 'higher powers or deities'. There was no need for any of that, they explained. We had THEM to praise and faithfully follow, without question. Mass gatherings for any reason were not allowed. The ‘Nebuli’ didn’t want organized dissension.

Only serving our newly assigned, officially-sanctioned ‘purpose’ was permitted. The needs of individuals, and independent thought in general were not entertained. As a matter of fact, ‘individuality’ as a concept was ‘discouraged’ in the absolute harshest of terms. I’m sure I don’t need to spell out what that means but basically, the few rogues and nonconformists who dared to stand up to them were made examples for mockery in the public domain. Civil disobedience and failed activism were violently quashed as a stark visual lesson for other potential troublemakers to witness. You get the picture.

Our interstellar ‘heroes’ shrewdly pointed to the fact that all wars and sectarian violence had ceased since their arrival. Overcrowding, crime, and hunger had been eliminated too. On the surface, it was hard to argue with these ‘slippery, selfless saviors’ from afar. Of course, with ‘freedom-of-speech’ being a fading facet of the past, arguing wasn't exactly possible any longer to debate the pros and cons. That only served to validate their point and justify the mercurial, authoritarian regime. To them, the complete elimination of our free will and personal choice in day-to-day matters was the ‘perfect solution' to end all of our problems.

The amount of physical force used to control us was surprisingly minimal. They didn't have to. They used just enough ‘shock and awe’ for people to know they could unquestionably ‘compel’ us to comply. 'The advisors' perfected psychological manipulation down to a science. Like obedient little subjects groveling for praise from our creepy, side-stepping overlords, we self-policed ourselves to the point they didn't have to raise a wooly, octopus-like tentacle.

————

I don’t want to paint myself as some ‘brave leader of the Nebuli resistance’. I wasn’t. I was a chicken-shit coward like every other person with common sense. I didn’t want to be zapped by one of their ‘death-ray’ guns, or sent away for ‘behavioral reprogramming’. Like every reluctant ‘upstart’ who led an insurgent revolution, I just got pushed too far one day and felt the uncontrollable desire to fight back. History is littered with examples of fools like me who dared to say ‘enough’.

As a rudimentary rule of thumb, a person would be smart to avoid making waves or calling too much attention to themselves. Specifically, it was very wise (under the unique circumstances) to avoid eating crab legs, calamari, or smushing a spider in public. Initially, I didn’t make the connection. Mistakes like that caught their attention in ways which did not lead to positive interactions AT ALL. Perhaps they were distant ‘relatives’. Que sera sera. I learned that and a number of painful lessons from this ugly experience, the HARD way.

There was no real variation in how they verbalized things to us because they used a generic digital vocoder to simulate human speech. I swear, it must’ve been sampled from the 1970’s disco hit: ‘Funkytown’. As if their startling visual appearance wasn’t alarming enough on its own, imagine the mechanically-tinged verbal communication! It was an effective one-two punch of ‘nah, I’m outta here!’

While they bore no significant humanoid features, they did possess a certain level of unique ‘personality’. I always avoided direct eye contact with their compound optic receptors. It was too difficult to focus without an obvious place to gaze. Thats not to say I didn’t watch them closely. I did. I noticed they would emit a hissy little squeak of displeasure when they were uncomfortable or highly agitated. It was hard to miss that telling quirk of their behavior, and I made a mental note to investigate and study it more.

Just imagine a room-filled with five-foot-tall ‘King Crab-Octopus’ hybrids with gangly, spider legs! They would swoop around the room to intimidate people and clank their shells together noisily, in a display of flamboyant power. They would first declare their ‘benevolence’ in the heavily digitized ‘robot voice’, while simultaneously ‘correcting’ a person for eating an ‘Admiral’s feast’ at a popular seafood restaurant chain.

As you might’ve guessed, I was the poor slob who was ‘corrected’. There I was, breaking a crab leg in-half when they scurried in and began pulsating in an apparent fit of ferocious rage! Before I knew what hit me, I was given a potent ‘attitude adjustment’ for my unknown transgression. It was a powerful lesson to learn, I’ll say that. And by ‘correct’, I mean they tortured me mercilessly with a severe, headache-inducing pain device which brought tears to my eyes, and numbed my extremities for hours. All for eating their ‘cousin’.

If that’s not clear enough regarding how intimidating and ruthless they were, two or three of their pods held arcane technology to vaporize us. To make matters worse, it was nothing for them to dart sideways around a corner, and then rapidly climb straight up the wall, or scramble across the ceiling overhead! It was madness inducing to realize how agile and spry they were. There was no way to outrun them. That much was clear. I decided the only hope was to try to outwit them.

Perhaps they believed their deluded ‘savior’ nonsense. That would explain their indignant reaction to the revolt I organized, later on. Describing the Nebuli race as ‘shifty’ would’ve been an understatement. At least we could hear the joints of their exoskeleton creak and flex. Because of that ‘Achilles heel’, they couldn’t sneak up on us easily. If someone created a Nebuli joint lubricant to quieten their mobility, we would’ve never fought back in ‘the great mothball uprising’.

—————

The most critical piece of intel about the Nebuli came purely by accident, as these things sometimes do. Upon a routine production inspection of the factory where I’d been assigned to work, their agent exhibited the most visceral reaction imaginable to the ordinary mothballs we produce in the plant. I thought the agitated alien inspector was going to melt like a slug doused with salt! It was rapturously drawn to the palm sized object like a newly discovered treasure, or a moth lured to a flame.

Despite having a manic obsession with it, the noxious chemical makeup was obviously very toxic to the cleric. I saw no reason we couldn’t produce a large production run of beachball-sized ‘Nebuli-ball’ prototypes for our ‘sincere protectors’ to ‘play’ with. That’s where the idea came from and the revolution was born.

The basic plan was to lure as many of them as possible to the warehouse, and then spring the massive trap on them. With any luck, they would react exactly the same way with the scaled up version, as the smaller ones. After seeing the poorly designed, long shot idea spelled out here, it’s no wonder I am not a brilliant military strategist, but the ‘hare-brained’ scheme worked better than anyone could’ve imagined or hoped. I take full credit for all of my successes, no matter how much they might not be deserved.

Their top leaders came to the fake exhibition and we unleashed dozens of the massive chemical weapons on them in rapid succession. It was fascinating to watch it unfold. They tried to scurry away in mortal terror but somehow the noxious substance drew them like a magnet. In just a few seconds, they were wrapped tightly around the balls and rapidly dissolved by the caustic chemical compound.

I couldn’t begin to explain why it worked, but in the end I didn’t need to. Superman has his Kryptonite and the Nebuli obviously have their mothballs. They couldn’t resist them, and yet it was deadly. It actually cooked their soft tissues and left their hard shells hollowed out and smoking like they’d just been tossed into a boiling pot. The icing on the cake was witnessing their dying squeals. That, and no longer having to hear those damn ‘funkytown’ vocoders.

After sharing my secret weapon with others who had been ‘corrected’ across the world, they successfully pulled off the same operation a few dozen times like I had. The remaining survivors unfortunately grew wise to the ruse. They refused to be lured in to any more mothball ambushes, but by then, the Nebuli were so outnumbered and demoralized by our insolence that they decided to leave Earth for ‘greener pastures’. Let them ‘save’ another developing species from their own excess, greed, and carnal vices.

—————

“Why are you ungrateful natives rebelling against our moral guidance and assistance?”; They demanded for me to respond. I mocked them as they shook and rattled in defiant fury.

“We’ve improved the human quality of life a hundred fold!”

I relished hearing their squeaks of displeasure, but was careful to display no external awareness. I didn’t know how familiar they had become with human body language, and didn’t want to receive another ‘parting shot’ ‘correction’, as they disembarked.

——————

That’s the completely true story of how we (eventually) cast off the enslavement yoke of ‘benevolent stewardship’ by octopus-spider-crab-walking space aliens with monotone vocoders. Slowly, we became self-reliant and free once again. At least, as much as humanity could muster after going back to having global wars, corruption, violence, poverty, hunger, and deadly diseases.

The original yoke of human failings and self-induced hardships around our necks returned. At least that one is all ours. The simple pleasures in life are back. Now we can enjoy a plate of steamed crab legs with an enhanced sense of appreciation. Live and learn. Now get to cracking!

“Ever since the ‘ResurrecDead’ outbreak and collapse of civilization, life has become markedly different. It's heavily structured and regimented now. Obesity was a previous-world problem which no longer exists, and thats just one example for you. Unemployment isn't a thing either. Everyone has a ‘job’. Every person finds their purpose. They must prove their worth since there’s no room at this sanctuary for useless deadbeats or freeloaders. If you don't pull your own weight in the community, then you’ll become ‘corpse fodder’. Is that perfectly clear? There aren't enough resources, nor do I have patience for weak-willed or unmotivated fools.

In case any of you are wondering, my 'purpose' is to motivate survivors to do their part. I discovered my calling very quickly. You'd think with the unrelenting danger around every corner, it wouldn't be necessary to spell that out but human beings are inherently lazy. They’ll always look for ‘shortcuts’. Well, those shortcuts end here, folks. I need you to be thinking long and hard about what you are good at doing. What services can you offer this community? How can you earn your keep? I’ll approach each you individually very soon, and will expect an answer.”

The ‘tin-plated dictator’ and self-appointed ‘resources director of the compound’ approached the newest refugees to solicit their answers. He was tired of hearing procrastination, indecision, and hollow excuses. He’d heard them all. At least he thought he had.

“Alrighty folks. I’ve got a lot of other refugees to assign tasks. Have you prepared a list of essential skills you have? How can you give back? It will make it easier for me to place you where you are most needed. We have several openings in sewer disposal, pleasure slaves, and scavenger hunt teams.”

Without hesitation, one of the men boldly responded.

“Well you see, both of us are highly experienced at feeding clerical busybodies to the voracious ‘meat-bags’ staggering around outside the gates. Either you give us food and shelter immediately, or we’ll start by freeing up some of the wasted space and bloated resources that are already present. As you’ve alluded, those hungry corpses gotta gnaw on something. We might start ‘earning our keep’ by thinning out the herd of unnecessary and redundant personnel. Am I clear?”

The ‘camp director’ swallowed hard and nodded. His confident swagger evaporated immediately as he gazed downward in uncomfortable submission. The new ‘bosses’ had apparently just arrived and they were the ones in charge of deciding who was to become ‘corpse fodder’.

I think I killed my boss with a voodoo doll. No. I know I killed my boss with a voodoo doll. My ex-boss. And I got the recipe, the formula? online. At Esty of all places. Who knew you could buy a spell, an actual killing spell, one that works, on Etsy?

So here’s the story. Since, let’s say, Day Two, I haven’t gotten along with my boss. She wasn’t the boss I started with. No. That manager decided she had too many direct reports, so she hired someone to take over part of her team. And I was one of the (un)lucky ones to move under this new manager.

At first, I was kind of stoked. I’m a contractor and have been for years, so I'm used to not feeling like part of the team, no matter where I go. But when I LinkedIn stalked our new manager, I noticed she used to be a contractor, too, so I was like, ‘Ah, she gets it! She’ll understand and make me feel at home.’

I even said as much to her in our initial meet and greet.

How wrong I was.

Apparently, she wanted to leave her contracting roots behind her. Instead, welcoming the corporate mentality that says contractors are disposable. Here today, gone at the end of their contract.

And I get it. We don’t get benefits, no paid holidays or vacations, no insurance. I signed up for that, so all of it is fine…it’s just the work culture that pisses me off. At this company, we weren’t invited to meetings that didn’t directly affect us (identified by the company as wider org meetings, full company meetings, any fun meetings like holiday parties –even though the entire company was remote and the meetings were over Google Hangouts, onsite meetings, etc.) You get the picture. And honestly, I was fine with all that. Who wants to travel? Who wants to sit around on a holiday video call? Not me. But it was the other stuff, like no weekly one one-on-ones to check-in that really made me feel ‘other’.

Everyone else had their little inside jokes with her, and me? She didn’t even know me. Over a year and a half together, and she probably couldn’t name one little factoid about me outside of what I did at work…and I’m not sure she even knew what I did. I was constantly getting accolades and praise from other team members for important work I was doing…but never one shoutout from my manager.

And then came layoffs. She didn’t even have the grace to tell me it was coming, just seven weeks before my official contract ended, and less than a month before Christmas, I got an email to my personal account, at the end of the day—after the workday was over, saying my contract had ended. The day had been my last.

No notice. No email or Slack message at work. In fact, that morning we’d had our team meeting, and not a word, not a hint.

The previous week, at home, a pipe had burst in our bathroom, and we were in the midst of a very expensive fix. We’d put down 10 grand which was only half of it, and there was no way to get the money back.

We’d planned a vacation for the end of my contract, which everyone at work knew about, because I’d mentioned it in a weekly meeting months before…and now, we’d have to cancel.

And who is hiring at the holidays? With everyone laid off everywhere, there is fierce competition.

So, I stewed. I ranted and I raved…and then I thought, just as a joke, whatever happened to voodoo dolls? I used to see them on Scooby Doo…are they still a thing? Do they work?

I googled and found some on Amazon. Obviously, I thought, those don’t work…but then this crazy link appeared in my search. Etsy.

You get the doll, you print out a photo of the intended, attach it, and then, well, you recite the spell, stick the pins…voila! Or, should I say, Voodoo!

So, you know, having $19.95 to spare (reader, I did not have $19.95 to spare), I gave ol’ Ozymondius my money (not his real name) for his ultimate death spell, and I waited.

I didn’t have to wait long. It’s not like he has to ship the thing. It was an instant download. He does ask you to provide a picture if you can, which helps strengthen the spell…so I did. I think he says a spell over the photo or something. Not exactly sure.

It was a joke, really. I mean, who believes this shit? I mean. Okay, when I ordered it, I really wanted to believe. There are, like, 2000 reviews on there! And I was angry. Who does that to another human being? Such bullshit. So, yeah. I wanted to, you know, give her heartburn or something—which is really the most I thought a voodoo doll could do. On The Brady Bunch or whatever, you put in a pin, and Bobby’s arm hurt. You stuck in a pin and Marsha got a stomach cramp. I figured I’d give her a backache, maybe a hemorrhoid.

No, not really. I wanted to believe and I wanted her to hurt. Hopefully, she’d be miserable; as miserable as I was. Maybe, yes, maybe she’d lose her job. Or she’d break a leg. Something.

But she died. Reader, she died.

That’s right. I saw it on LinkedIn. No, we are not connected (fuck that noise), but I do still have connections at that place, and a couple of them posted about it. Sad noises, sniffles. (And of course, as corporations do, these were soon followed by a job posting. Filling her role asap.)

So, to back up. I purchased a doll as directed. I pasted her face on, and I recited the incantation. It made me feel instantly better, which I assumed was the point. Figuring that was it, I kind of put the doll away. Tossed it on a chair in the bedroom, actually. Did some deep breathing, meditated on it, felt great. Well, not great. But better. Applied for a couple of new roles. Made cookies.

Forgot about the doll.

Until later in the evening, when I found a piece of the doll in the dining room. A leg.

Then, I found a piece of the doll by the fireplace in the living room. An arm.

And a piece of the doll in the bedroom, at the foot of the bed. The rest? In my dog’s bed. The doll was destroyed, pieces all over the house. My former boss’s smiling face peered up at me from the carpet—her picture peeled from the now faceless doll.

I tossed it all in the trash after laughing at my pup. No admonishment, because I couldn’t have cared less. It was junk. Meant for the garbage.

But then the LinkedIn post.

She’d been hit by a bus. I googled the story. The bus splattered her everywhere (the article didn’t say as much, but it was implied.)

I looked at Rory, my pup. My greyhound pup.

“We did this,” I said to him. He rolled over and gave me belly.

​

I do not celebrate Halloween and I do not allow my children to celebrate Halloween!

​

Really, it’s a vile ‘holiday’ and I don’t think there’s any greater indication of how far our society has fallen than its celebration and commercialization. It’s disturbing to see it everywhere all throughout the month of October. Ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, witches… abominations, depictions of the occult. Sin.

​

People say it’s all fun and games, but I know the truth. It’s not. It’s spiritual warfare and it comes in the most sinister costume of all, childrens fun.

​

Tell me, how exactly are demons fun? How exactly do people enjoy the feelings of being scared? What kinds of sick people watch movies where men with machetes and chainsaws carve up mindless teenagers (morally bankrupt teenagers, yes, but Gods children all the same) and say: ‘Ah yes, this is true entertainment!’ It’s twisted! It’s demonic!

​

How is it that so few people see this?

​

Really think about this for a moment, why is it acceptable that for one month out of the year we glorify such dark and demonic things? Why is it that for one month, the worship of Satan and his minions is seen as acceptable? And why, why, why would you expose your children to it?

​

Satan should not be glorified! Satan should never be glorified, and he most certainly should never be glorified to children!

​

So I don’t partake in Halloween and I as a mother of two gifts, I don’t allow my children to partake in it either! Too many people say it’s just harmless fun, but I know better. I know better! Once you recognize the signs of spiritual warfare you should be wise enough to stay far away from it.

​

I’d like to see myself as a moral compass for my community. My voice of reason may not always be welcomed but it is necessary and I have made a commitment to use my life to steer people towards the open arms of Jesus. It is a thankless job, but I do it because I care. People tend to get upset when the word of God is shared with them, but the word of God is rarely pleasant for the sinner to hear. The stern words of a parent are never soothing to a child, but they must be heard and heeded all the same.

​

Thanks to me, my little town in Maine has flourished. I took steps to remove problematic books from our schools, I have successfully shut down some events that I did not deem appropriate for a Godly community and I have even enlisted my Church to aid me in protesting the presence of undesirable community members, pressuring them to leave our community and find some other place to pollute. Needless to say, I am experienced with solving problems in my community and when I saw the Halloween display that Diana Warwick had put up, I knew that something needed to be done about it.

​

Halloween has always been a troublesome time of year for me. My husband, Hugh and I have campaigned to ban putting up decorations, but it’s been one of our less successful efforts. That said - my past efforts had successfully made some people dial back their decorations and while a few had challenged me before, I had remained steadfast with the Lord at my back.

​

Diana had not lived in our little community for long, so I doubt she realized my devotion to my cause and prior to Halloween she had done nothing to agitate me. She did not go to church (at least not my church) but she kept to herself and seemed content to be left well enough alone. I would have loved to see her seek salvation, but since she had not disturbed the peace, I was content to leave her be.

​

Of course, when the decorations came up, I knew something needed to be done. The display in front of her house was nothing short of grotesque.

​

She had decorated the trees in her front yard with cheap fake cobwebs and fake looking spiders, which while offensive, were still relatively tame. The small makeshift cemetery she’d put in her garden wasn’t quite as tame, but it was still something I wouldn’t have raised that much of a fuss over.

​

But the thing that really set her decorations apart from the others were the four sculptures scattered around her yard. Diana apparently seemed to fancy herself as something of an artist, since the statues in her yard were clearly homemade. No store would have dared stock something so vile. They resembled human figures, although their limbs were long and spindly, giving them an almost sickly look. Their faces had pronounced, mournful features and their bodies were overgrown with moss, although beneath that moss, one could make out the strange runes that had been carved into their bodies. It was hard to tell if they were truly occult, or simply intended to emanate the occult.

​

Though none of them stood up to their full height (they were all either crouched or on the ground) each one easily towered over a full grown man. They dwarfed my husband completely. I’m really not sure how she even moved such things around. Perhaps they we hollow, or they disassembled?

​

Either way, they were truly horrifying to look at. Twisted, surreal demonic things, lurking around her trees, their ominous nature only enhanced by the changing of the autumn leaves around them. Driving down the hill that led to our street, you could see them in the distance. The first time I laid eyes on them, they darn near gave me a heart attack! My eldest son, Haon (that’s Noah backwards, we wanted him to stand out) kept staring at them. He said they were: ‘so cool’ but I knew that deep down his angels soul was terrified. I had to forbid him from getting closer, simply for his own protection! And my youngest son, Revilo was terrified of them, saying he was afraid that the monsters were going to come into his room at night to eat him!

​

I don’t understand how anyone would have thought it was appropriate to put something so disturbing in their yard, even for Halloween, but something needed to be done so I marched over there to try and resolve this amicably.

​

I knocked on her door the day after she put those awful decorations up to have a little chat with her.

​

She answered the door on my second knock, greeting me with a smile. She was, admittedly, an attractive woman, somewhere in her mid thirties. She had lovely long, brown hair, perfectly rounded features and somewhat sultry brown eyes. It was a shame, since beauty really was squandered on her. She had no husband or children of her own and stuck me as more of a career woman. Such a waste… people like that really don’t contribute anything to society. The childless have so little stake in the future and I really don’t understand why suffrage isn’t limited to parents, it’s the only way society is realistically workable in the long term… but I digress. For a wasted woman, she seemed nice enough when speaking to her in passing.

​

“Oh, hey! It’s Karen, right?” She asked. Her tone was friendly and seemed inoffensive, although the fact that she called me that name did make my blood boil a little.

“It’s Sarah, actually,” I said.

​

She looked momentarily confused, and I got the impression that she truly did believe my name was Karen… she wouldn’t be the first newcomer to make that mistake, unfortunately. Some of the children at my sons middle school had taken to calling me that after some ridiculous internet meme and unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to get them to stop. Even threatening to call my lawyer didn’t dissuade them and by the time I did call him, the name had stuck.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!”

“An honest mistake,” I assured her. I suppose we’d only spoken a handful of times before, so expecting her to fully remember my name may have been expecting too much of her. “I hope I’m not troubling you right now, I just wanted to take some time and talk about the decorations you have out front.”

​

“Oh, those?” She asked, her smile a little prideful. “Yeah, they’re really something, aren’t they?”

“Indeed,” I replied tonelessly. “They’re quite disturbing.”

“If you want to bring the kids by to take a look at them, I don’t mind! They’re mostly just made of old wood.”

“My children are terrified of them.” I said firmly. “God bless you, really. But those things are just… they’re far too much! You really shouldn’t have them up!”

​

Her expression darkened a tad, but her smile didn’t fade.

“You don’t think so?” She asked. “It’s just a little bit of seasonal fun.”

“It’s not fun when it’s terrifying passing children.”

“They’re not that scary. They’re just sculptures,” She said.

“All the same, I would appreciate it if they were disassembled. Okay? Please and thank you, honey pie!”

​

Diana continued to smile at me although her smile seemed so much more hollow.

“I’ll take it under advisement,” She said, which struck me as a polite way of saying: ‘no.’

​

Honestly, I’d expected this. I’d hoped that once I explained to Diana that her decorations were simply too scary for my children, she would understand and remove them in the interest of being a good neighbor. But, that’s the problem with dealing with a lot of people these days. Nobody wants to be a good neighbor anymore.

“Well don’t take it under advisement, just do it!” I said, “I’m sure I’m not the first one to complain, and even if I am, you’re making my children uncomfortable!”

“Really? Your oldest seemed pretty fascinated by them to me.”

“He doesn’t know better, it’s making him uncomfortable.” I insisted. “I’m asking nicely, just take them down!”

​

Now I could see her starting to get agitated. Her smile faltered.

“Look, it’s my property so I’m free to put up what I’d like, okay?”

Oh, I’d heard that argument before.

“That’s not how freedom works!” I said, “You need to work with the community here!”

“No one else in the community has complained,” She said. “People seem to like them.”

​

No one else in the community had complained? I was complaining!

“I am the community!” I snapped.

She stared at me incredulously.

“No you’re not,” She said.

“I am! I am the community!”

“Look… I understand if you find my decorations scary, but don’t you think this is a bit of an overreaction? I’ve seen your kids, your oldest son isn’t bothered by them and if your youngest son is afraid of them, you should let him get closer to them. Show him that they’re not alive. Once he sees that, he won’t be scared of them anymore!”

​

“Let my children get closer to your decorations?” I asked in disbelief. Was this woman stupid or was she insane?

“Absolutely not! Do you understand what Halloween is? It’s a direct conduit to Satan, if I let my children get close to those things they could get possessed by the Devil!”

​

Diana blinked very slowly, her expression not changing one bit, but I could sense the condescending energy radiating off of her.

“Right… okay…"

"It's spiritual warfare!" I said, but by this point I already knew that I couldn't have a rational conversation with this woman.

“Spiritual warfare?” She repeated, completely deadpan.

“Exactly! You do realize that Halloween is a Satanic holiday, don’t you?”

“Satanic holiday?” Her tone remained completely deadpan.

​

“It’s a Satanic trick! Glorifying witches, the occult, demonic entities, vampires… it’s Satanic! A twisted guise to trick children into swearing their souls to Lucifer!”

“Kids dressing in costumes are swearing their souls to Lucifer…?” Her deadpan tone grew lower. “Don’t you think that’s a bit of an overreaction?”

“That is how the Devil appears!” I explained, “He comes in an innocent form but he’s not innocent! He’s not!”

​

“Uh huh.”

“There’s no innocent participation in these things! If you can’t wake up and face the reality, then I’m sorry honey pie but you’re condemning yourself to Hell and you’re trying to drag the children down with you!”

“Uh huh.”

​

Now she was really starting to upset me. Here I was, explaining things to her in simple, reasonable terms and all she was doing was nodding at me like a bored teenager!

“No, not ‘uh huh’! Stop with the ‘uh huh!’ I’m explaining this to you! I’m telling you the truth!”

“I mean… you certainly seem to believe there’s some merit to what you’re saying,” She said.

​

“It’s not what I believe, it’s what’s true! It doesn’t matter what I believe or what you believe, it’s the truth!”

“Okay,” She said tonelessly, “I get it.”

“Do you? Do you get it?”

“I get it,” She said, “Thank you, you have a nice day now.”

​

She tried to close the door on me, but I stopped her.

“Don’t you close that door on me!” I warned, “You close the door on me and you’re closing the door on Jesus!”

“Okay, well. Goodbye Jesus.”

​

Then, to my horror she assaulted me! She attacked me with a violent savagery the likes of which I’d never experienced before! The way she threw me out of her doorway and down her porch, dashing me against the cold hard concrete of her walkway was inhumane! Never in my life had I been treated with such brutal disrespect and I suspect that the injuries I suffered from that attack may just remain with me for the rest of my life! Naturally, I called the police on her. I had expected them to do the sensible thing and have her arrested, but they said that ‘Miss Warwick had not put her hands on me.’

​

Outrageous of them to take her word over mine… but after they asked me to leave, there was nothing else I could do. I had failed at a diplomatic approach.

​

Something drastic needed to be done.

​

***

​

I don’t relish using underhanded means to get what I want. But regrettably, it is sometimes necessary. I told my husband Hugh in detail about how unspeakably rude Diana had been when I’d tried to speak with her and he agreed that something needed to be done. Despite his flaws, Hugh is a good husband. He is not the most dominant man, but he is good to me and good enough for me. When I make a request of him, he listens and is obedient, which suits me just fine.

​

So when I told him that if Diana would not be taking her decorations down herself, that we would be taking them down for her, he agreed without much hesitation. It was not the first time we’d resorted to such drastic measures and likely would not be the last either.

​

We waited until nightfall, a few days after my discussion with Diana had gone south. I had hoped that she might negate the need to take direct action by deciding to be amicable and taking the decorations down as per my initial request, but it seemed she still aspired to be difficult.

​

My children remained terrified of her decorations, of course. My eldest son would talk about them to his friends, telling them how ‘cool’ they were and even my youngest son was starting to take an interest in them… feeble attempts to mask their terror, no doubt and with Halloween in just a few days there was little time to delay.

​

We woke ourselves up at around 2 AM to get to work. Hugh brought an axe from our shed out back to assist in disassembling the sculptures. I expected him to do most of the heavy lifting, as it were. He had more muscle than I did. But I would keep myself busy collecting Diana’s other decorations to be disposed of while he dealt with the sculptures.

​

Diana’s property was only just down the street, and as we approached, I could see those grotesque sculptures of hers lurking amongst the autumn leaves, expressionless faces staring at nothing. The streetlights caused the branches to cast an even more ominous shadow over them and even I felt a twinge of fear as I looked at them. But as Diana had said… they were not alive. There was nothing to fear from these demonic idols themselves. The fear came from that which they represented.

​

I had not gotten a close look at the sculptures up until then, but looking at them now, they really were quite hideous although the the ornate runes carved into their wooden bodies were rather impressive. They had a pattern to them, radiating out from their chests like veins carved into their bodies.

​

I noticed Hugh admiring one of those vile sculptures for a few moments before he picked up his axe to get to work. I sat back for a moment, watching him take the first swing. His axe bit into the wood with a satisfying thwack. The wood split and splintered, damaging the runes on the surface. He tore his axe free, before swinging again, biting into the wood deeper.

​

I hadn’t expected the sculptures to be so sturdy… these seemed to be solid wood. Hugh seemed a little surprised as well, pausing for a moment before preparing for another swing.

​

I left him to his work before turning to collect her other decorations. The fake cobwebs went first along with the plastic spiders. I stuffed it all into a garbage bag I’d brought so I could throw it in a dumpster where it belonged.

​

Once I was done with that, I set to work on her makeshift cemetery. The crosses and headstones she’d put there were made of cheap wood she’d salvaged from somewhere and admittedly did look rather impressive, but they still had to go. I pulled them up one by one, as Hugh hacked away at the first of the sculptures behind me.

​

He was taking longer than I’d expected and when the sound of hacking stopped, I looked back at him, half expecting my husband to be taking a break. I was about to scold him for it… although Hugh wasn’t there to scold.

​

His axe lay on the ground by one of the trees, but by husband was nowhere to be found… and neither was the sculpture he’d been cutting into.

​

I stood silent for a moment, trying to process what I was looking at. I stared at the spot where the sculpture had been, then looked around. Had Hugh felled it? Maybe he’d dragged it off? Although it had looked quite heavy… could he have even been able to move it? Could he?

​

I walked over to the axe, looking around. Though I knew God protected me, I still couldn’t help but feel a small shiver down my spine.

​

God protected me… But… I didn’t feel Gods protection at that particular moment. Actually I… I felt quite vulnerable.

​

“Hugh?”

I hoped he’d answer me. I hoped he’d come right out and say: ‘Here I am, dear!’ But… Hugh was nowhere to be found. I did not hear his voice. He did not come out of hiding. He just… wasn’t there.

​

I heard a rustle in the trees above me from what I assumed was the wind as I looked around.

“Hugh?” I called again.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed a light coming on in Diana’s house. Confound it, we’d woken her! No doubt she’d come out to investigate! My instincts told me to run or hide… but I couldn’t just abandon Hugh! He’d surely notice that Diana was coming out, right? My husband wasn’t that stupid!

​

What to do… what to do…?

​

I moved, running away from the light and out onto the street, just as I saw Diana’s front door open. I dove behind a parked car and watched from behind it as she stepped out onto her porch, eyes scanning her yard… and that was when I finally noticed it. When her eyes fixated on it, lurking in one of the trees in her yard… a tree mere feet from where Hugh had been working to chop down one of those abominations.

​

It perched in the branches like some unholy four limbed spider, difficult if not impossible to notice at a glance. But when she came out, it began to move, creeping from the tree onto her roof. In the light from her porch, I could see a shape hanging in amongst the branches… a mangled body.

​

The moment I saw it, my heart stopped in my chest. I didn’t need to see the face to know who it was… my Hugh… my husband… my God given love… his life stolen from him by that… that thing!

​

Oh Lord… what was it?

​

I saw Diana’s gaze following that infernal thing up onto her roof… her posture was tense although she seemed to know exactly what it was. She didn’t seem afraid she seemed ready to fight. I saw some sort of knife in her hand at the ready. The thing on the roof loomed over her, its body slowly moving into a position to strike but she didn’t seem afraid.

​

As she stood defiant before that wretched sculpture, I saw the other three in her yard begin to move. The one on her roof paused, staring at the others, almost curious. The others crawled toward it, reaching for it.

​

I watched them lunge for it, grab it, restrain it. I watched as they held it down for Diana, fighting it to keep it from struggling. She carved something into its chest with her dagger, some sort of rune, although I couldn’t make it out from my hiding spot.

​

The sculpture writhed, almost as if it was in pain, and then it went limp. Diana inspected its body. I saw her looking down at the spot where Hugh had almost cut through one of its limbs with disgust before she took her knife and began to carve her runes into the wood anew.

​

I sat in my hiding spot, watching her work… although as the other sculptures began to move again, I felt an all too familiar fear rising up in my chest. One of their eyeless faces turned to look at me… I felt those hollow eyes stare into my mortal soul… and they broke me.

​

I ran.

​

It was the only thing I could think to do… run.

​

I saw Diana’s head turning to look at me as I fled, but I never saw the look on her face. Perhaps that was for the best.

​

I fled and I escaped.

​

It was all I could do.

​

***

​

I did not sleep a wink that night. I did not call the police either… what would I tell them? That wooden sculptures had come alive and murdered my husband? Sure, there was a body left behind… but not for long.

​

Come morning… Diana’s yard looked the same as it had when the sun had set. The sculptures were all in the same place. There was no corpse in the trees. It was like nothing had happened at all.

​

What does one do in the face of tragedy? Is there a satisfactory answer to that question?

​

My children got ready for school without me, and after they left I sat quietly in my bedroom, staring out the window at Diana’s yard. It was only when I heard the knock at my door that I moved, and even then I felt a sinking dread in my guts when I heard that knock. Part of me wanted to ignore it… but I knew better.

​

There were no cars out in my driveway… no obvious clues on who had come to visit, which left me with a good idea of who had come for me. With heavy feet I trudged downstairs, my gaze distant and faraway. With a trembling hand, I reached for the door before taking a deep breath and forcing myself to open it.

​

I’m not sure what I expected… Diana, yes. But I didn’t know what to expect from her. Death, maybe? Was that too much? Although if I expected death, why did I open the door? I suppose it’s hard to be in your right mind so soon after witnessing such madness. Diana was indeed waiting out on my porch, her cool brown eyes locked with mine. An axe sat waiting in her hand, but she didn’t hold it in a threatening manner. Actually, she just handed it to me without a word.

​

I took the axe, before looking down at it, not entirely sure what to make of what she’d just given me. I looked back at her, as if she might say something that would explain any of this.

​

I’m not sure if what she said to me did explain any of it…

“You know… I had them under control,” She said softly. “They were inert, so long as the runes remained untouched. I really didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to go at them with an axe… but here you are, I guess.”

​

I didn’t have any answer to what she said. She just shook her head in frustration.

“I won’t waste my time with the police… so I’d advise you don’t either. Whatever happens next, accept it and move on. Is that clear?”

​

I just stared at her, unable to nod. She seemed to take that as agreement.

“And from now on, you stay the hell off my property. Please and thank you, honey pie.”

​

She spat those final words at me, before turning away and walking off my porch. I never said a single parting word to her.

​

I had no words to say.

​

My husband was found later that day on a hiking trail not far from our house.

​

I had to make up a lie about what had happened to him… I told the police he’d gone on a late evening jog and explained away his absence by saying that I’d worried he was being unfaithful. It was a flimsy, ugly lie but it was better than risking the impossible truth.

​

I can’t think straight anymore. I’m not sure what to do next or where to go from here. I have no answers. No option for recourse. Nothing to pray for. Nothing at all. What I’ve seen seems to defy explanation or logic… it ventures into the realm of complete madness.

​

Is it complete madness? Am I mad?

​

I’m not sure.

​

I’m not sure of anything, anymore.

The announcement was matter-of-fact and vague. It was going to be a routine test of the nationwide emergency broadcast system. In the event of a real emergency, the authorities wanted to be able to notify and guide as many people as possible. That was the official explanation. Suspicions and conspiracy theories lingered around the outer fringes of society as they always do, but those radical factions had nothing solid to base their paranoid upon. An extended-length signal would be broadcast to all cell phones, tablets, computers, and smart watches. The first minute would be audible. After that, the tone would go silent but the signal itself would continue.

This unification of millions of digital communication devices required a technological sophistication which wouldn't have been possible a decade earlier. All major news sources and social media outlets carried staged-release stories about the upcoming event so there were no surprises. When the aforementioned time actually arrived, it was expected by the majority. The blaring signal began to beep and pulse across the country on untold numbers of electronics. Thankfully, volume and mute buttons allowed a cessation of the annoying tone. After the first minute, the auditory portion ended and most users turned the volume back up to use their devices as they frequently do.

Simultaneously across the country, millions began to fumble with their electronic connection to the rest of the world. They needed another internet 'fix, but something was wrong! Their computers, phones, tablets and smart watches weren't working properly. Calls wouldn't go through. Pushed buttons wouldn't do anything. Frustrations grew as the devices were increasingly sluggish and unresponsive. This caused the masses to do what tech support always recommended. The annoying 'restart’.

Many encountered difficulty accomplishing that. They had forgotten 'the signal, or failed to connect the functionality issues with it. When their devices cooperated and did shut down, the program was complete. It was immediately afterward that the real panic began. They would not power back up. Hundreds of millions of computers and communication devices were permanently bricked. It was the plan all along.

Our digital addiction was so pervasive that many of the confused couldn't even decide what to do. Our first instinct when the power fails is to try the switch. Intellectually we know there's no juice, but like muscle memory' we must try it anyway. It was the same with cell phones. Millions tried to use their dead phones to call for help. They couldn't even use their internet browsers to look up what number to call, because they were clinging to a piece of fried plastic, metal, glass, and circuit boards.

Even if they had access to a land line to call, most people had long since threw away their paper phone books and land telephone lines required computer systems too. It was a perfectly orchestrated storm of chaos and confusion. Information sources were blacked out by default, and the population scrambled to adapt back to doing things in old school' ways. Deeply troubling questions mounted and lingered about the meaning behind the mass bricking. Was it terrorism? An accident? Or, was it government sanctioned like the conspiracy theorists believed? More importantly, was everyone vulnerable to the motives of the unknown organization who accomplished such a destabilizing feat?

In lieu of the ability to reach out to authorities, there was a predictable pilgrimage to local law enforcement locations. Unfortunately they knew nothing either and the lack of public information or authority control made matters far worse. In short, the nation went through a very tough transition from being fully plugged-in a wired with the rest of the world, to separated and ‘analog’.

The withdrawal symptoms took longer for the young because many of them had never even known life before the internet. It was a brand new-old frontier. Eventually, paper books came back into fashion, and talking to our families at the dinner table became a staple of life. Kids played outside again instead of vegetating in front of gaming systems and couples made love instead of streaming endless episodes of shows they didn’t even remember after they shut off the TV. Life was fulfilling again and the people owed they improvements in their lives to a mysterious signal broadcast one Wednesday to their digital devices.

“Hi, everyone. I’m Harold, and… I’m… a corpse.”

“Welcome Harold!”; The animated crowd spoke in unison. There was a fair bit of enthusiastic clapping and polite encouragement. It was his first time standing before the support group podium to tell his story. Public speaking had always been tough for people. So much so, it was actually listed as being WORSE than dying, in the list of most difficult things to do. Here he was having to do both. Harold searching for the courage to tell the other attendees about being dead.

Just because everyone else in the room was also without pulse, didn’t make admitting it any easier. From our very first intellectual awakenings, we fight against the idea that our lives will come to an end, eventually. It’s depressing and embarrassing. The stigma is a universal one. Luckily, the I’m a Corpse, too!’ support group helped those in denial, drop the facade. They encourage struggling souls to admit out loud, what they already know inside.

“Let’s all give him a hand, ladies and gentlemen! We all know how different accepting the transition can be. No one wants to say the words, but by pushing through that resistance we learn to embrace the next chapter. Congratulations Harold! We love you!”

“Aw, thank you. I didn’t want to believe. It’s tough, but I’m thankful for the support and camaraderie from all of you fine folks. You being here for me during my ‘coming out’ moment, has made it easier to accept the truth. Thank you all! I’m deeply humbled by your support.”

The master of ceremonies stood up and addressed the crowd from the podium. “Let’s hear it again for this man! He is reborn through the truth. Welcome to ‘the other side’! Now, it’s time for refreshments! I know we are all hungry. I understand there’s a craft festival going on right down the street at the cultural center. There will be lots of huge, delicious brains on those college educated folks in attendance. Let’s go eat!”

“The Rising Trends bureau at the central office is reporting a sharp spike in ‘renegades’. According to the latest data, the numbers are up over 30%, recently. When you factor in the already large percentage of rogues traditionally, it’s pretty troubling. I felt you would want to know.”

“Yes, yes. Thank you for calling it to my attention. That high, huh? The Big Man upstairs is bound to be deeply concerned about this. He’s obsessed with 100% compliance. I wonder why they do that? Why do so many refuse to accept their fate? It’s only fair, and happens to all of us.”

“That’s true sir. Being dead isn’t so bad! No complaints here. There’s the ‘no pulse’ discount at the health club and ‘Free Yogurt Tuesday’, but the recently departed don’t know about any of those awesome perks. The number one response from them is that they; ‘we’re not ready yet’.”

“Not ready? It is their TIME! How can they not be ready? It’s preposterous.”

“I know it’s been a long time since you ummmm, expired, Sir. Perhaps you’ve forgotten how disappointed you felt yourself when your time arrived. For many it can be quite… frustrating.”

The senior member of management started to disagree with his junior clerk’s assessment, then paused to consider his point. The more he tried to remember back to that fateful day, the more he realized it was a valid observation. Like everyone else, he wasn’t ready when it occurred either. It was a bitter pill to swallow.

“Ok. Beckler. I see your point. I wasn’t exactly happy at the time either, but in all fairness, I didn’t have the benefit or foresight or context. I didn’t know what death had to offer. What if we gave them one more day to come to terms with the significant change to their existence? Do you think that would reduce the number of these renegade ‘ghost’ scofflaws who refuse to comply with the mandatory requirements of the afterlife? We’ve got to bring those numbers way down. I shudder at the thought of another ‘efficiency audit’.”

“That’s a fantastic idea sir! Can we actually do that? I mean, would the ‘head office’ sign off on that? I think it would greatly reduce the number of disenfranchised people; but just a single day extension? It would be better if…”

“Nope! That’s it. That’s all I’ll give them. If allowing them one more day of life can help them tie-up any loose ends and get their mortal affairs in order, then it’s worth it. I’m offering this ‘one-more day’ exception deal, to help get the frustrated feelings out of their system. It’s definitely not going to become an extended excuse or delaying tactic to avoid their D date responsibilities. Let’s not forget what it is we do here. We must facilitate the necessary transition. It’s for their own good. Every person must accept that death and all of its subtle perks, has arrived for them.”

And so, the proper forms were filled out and submitted to the ‘Eternity Bureau’ for expedited processing. On the surface, the deal appeared to be a standard boiler plate legal decree. Deep within the fine print however, was a clever little exception inserted in there by a certain cunning junior-level staff member. The official definition of a ‘day’ was secretly amended to be ten thousand years. This coy subterfuge went unnoticed for a very long time; but as with all things of this nature, it was eventually discovered by an ambitious analyst ‘stickler’ at the home office looking to make a name for himself.

“Beckler! Get in here right now! I’ve been informed by Tuttle over in ‘Legal affairs’ that the legislation deal you drafted up for the: ‘One More Day’ life extension program was deliberately altered! Tuttle tells me you redefined the length of a single calendar day to be ten thousand years! That’s an egregious misrepresentation of my generous offer, and a clear misuse of your clerical authority! What do you have to say for yourself?”

“My apologies sir. Mea Culpa. You were rightfully concerned about the huge spike in renegade refusals, which I brought to your attention. You didn’t want another efficiency audit, right? You know as well as I that the rate of refusal to comply has dropped to near zero. You were even given personal commendation by ‘The Big Man’ himself. I didn’t take any credit for that, and interestingly, you didn’t mention me as aiding in getting the numbers down. I just wanted to do my job well. I knew that only one more calendar day wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the restless departed. All I did, was to build upon your brilliant idea, to better facilitate the reduction in ghosts. That was, after all, the end goal; and it was wildly successful. I apologize for slightly altering the definition in the legal filing, but it was merely because I recognized the hardship of transition and wanted you to look good to the home office.”

“Slightly! TEN THOUSAND YEARS is not a SINGLE day, Beckler!”

“Well, it has been for the past four million years, sir. It’s reduced the resistance rate by 99.7%. Shall I change the wording back to a 24 hour period?”

“Get out of here, Beckler. Leave it as it is.”

“I can’t believe that spare key is still under the plant on the porch! It’s been there since we were kids, remember? Some people will never change. Mom is just frantic since she hasn’t heard from her sister in weeks. She asked us to investigate. Obviously something is very wrong here. You and I need to go down in the basement right now and deal with the situation, whatever it is.”

“What in the world are you talking about, Brandon? Have you gotten a whiff of that horrific stench coming from under the cellar door? There’s no way I’m doing that! Believe me. The thing in the basement is not alive. We just need to stuff some towels against the bottom of the door to prevent it from getting any worse.”

“Yeah, yeah I know. It’ll enough to make you blow stomach chunks, but cut her some slack. She’s old and the elderly sometimes lose their sense of smell. Be quiet for a minute and listen. Hear that? She’s definitely moving around down there. That’s not what dead things do. She’s still alive. I’m positive of that.”

“Come on, bro! Use your head. All I hear are muffled dragging sounds and feral, animalistic grows. Some carnivorous scavenger has gotten into the basement through the crawlspace and is feeding on the rotting carcass. Those creepy animal noises are definitely not human, and that odor clearly indicates the source of the stink is not alive.

“Suit yourself. I’m going to make sure she isn’t gravely injured and in need of our help. It’s Aunt Tilly, for Chrissakes Albert! She used to bake homemade chocolate chip cookies for us all the time! Remember when you were a kid and she stayed with you after you broke your leg at baseball practice, so mom could work? We owe her that. Come on, let’s go.”

“Aunt Tilly was ‘the bomb’. No doubt about that; but if that’s her down in the basement, she’s the source of that death odor. She’s gone, Brandon. We can’t help her. No one can. Let’s just seal up the cracks so the smell doesn’t get worse, and call the cops.”

“Wait. Don’t you hear that? It’s her coming up the steps. That’s not some possum or rat. It’s the sound of a full sized human being slowly climbing the staircase. She’s alive and needs our help. Move aside so I can open the door and help her.”

“Oh goodyyyy. I just heard you boys talkkkking and decidedddd to come uppppstairs. I’ve got my hands fulllll. Open the doorrrr for me so I can bake you twwwoooo a bigggg pannn of cookkkkkies.”

The irony was, we weren’t their focus at the moment. Only an officer of the law like Ronald De Feo could possibly find a way around the roadblocks and political walls the murderers erected, with the help of their powerful friends in the department. Ron might be able to orchestrate a workaround to prosecute them by contacting agencies outside of their control. He was by far the biggest threat to the murder-for-dividend’ gang.

Unbeknownst to us, the Private Investigator himself was waiting for him to leave. He followed Ron in the brown sedan and intended to pull alongside and run him off the road, or fire a few shots through the driver’s window. Fortunately he never got the chance. Ron was wise to the dangers we were facing, and took ‘Melissa’ with him as his own protection. The moment the window rolled down for the attack, Ron threw the Bewitched walking stick like an Olympic javelin. The impressive toss impaled the would-be assassin’s throat like a shish kebab.

The vehicle immediately ran off the road and struck an old oak tree. A trio of limbs shattered the windshield. By a traffic investigator’s reasonable assumption, it would appear to be a tragic, ‘freak accident’. Ron confirmed the P.I. was dead, and carefully retrieved the instrument of fury from the body. With his help, Melissa had attained partial vengeance. One down, three to go. He quickly left the scene before anyone witnessed him there.

At the rendezvous point, the two nervous detectives met. Ron was shaken up by the sobering brush with death, and was worried the arranged meeting was a ruse to get him out in the open. He had his back-up weapon ready, just in case. The two lawmen walked to a gazebo in the downtown park to talk, in private. With all the joggers and bicyclists circling the track, it was still public enough that Ron felt relatively safe.

Melissa had been busy in Detective Shermann’s mind too. She had shared her fiery death details with him the same way she did for the others; but knowing the truth about what happened to her wasn’t even close to enough to bring charges against anyone. Michael was deeply troubled by the depth of the complex conspiracy and wanted justice for the victim, but like the others, didn’t know how to achieve it. The truth was, he wanted to contact those individuals his nocturnal dreamweaver assured him were safe to confide in.

“So, let me get this straight. The wandering soul of my murder case; took matters into her own hands and contacted you and a couple of other people? All to avenge her death? She used dreams and psychic visions like the ones I experienced, to show us what happened. Is that right? Sheesh. This is so CRAZY! I never believed in hocus-pocus stuff but I can’t deny what you are telling me. Now she’s fingered the president of the Chamber of Commerce, his office manager, and a Private Investigator as the ones who killed her in the woods? Who was the fourth suspect? I definitely saw four hooded people in my vision.”

Ron was hesitant to tell him that the P.I. was taken care of. He’d just met the guy. Throwing an improvised spear through another person’s neck and covering up the crime, even in self-defense, was a legal line he’d never crossed before. Trust would have to come with time. For now, he answered the question without the extra context.

“The forth conspirator works for the Private Eye. I got the jump on him a few nights ago when he tried to break in and ‘dispatch’ Benny King. He’s in county lockup at the moment for B & E. I’m not sure how long that will keep him behind bars but he’s not in the picture night now. My main concern is La Fey and Williams. They were the instigators in this whole thing, and they have powerful ‘friends’ at the police department and all over town. They might even have allies at your precinct. Be super careful who you share any of this with.”

Michael nodded shrewdly. He’d been in law enforcement long enough to realize insidious layers of corruption can permeate any level of society. He and Ron used their personal phones to communicate from that point on, in case they were being monitored by headquarters. Meanwhile, Ron shared details of their newest ally with Miriam and I, as well as the welcomed news of the late Private Investigator’s ‘thorny’ demise.

Being as he had been the ‘muscle’, in the ongoing offensive against us, it made Miriam and I breathe a sigh of relief. Neither of us were convinced Jonathan or Abigail would have the nerve to come after us themselves, and the PI’s assistant was still in jail for the attempted robbery charges. It would’ve been very easy to lower our guard and think it was ‘over’. Again, Ron was the voice of wisdom and practicality.

“Those two are in the same, nuclear-sized crisis they were in, beforehand. Nothing has improved for them. If anything, it’s only gotten worse. There will be new charges added for their efforts to have us killed. Make no mistake, they haven’t given up and won’t feel safe until we are dead. We have to keep this going. With their enforcer dead and his minion in jail, they will try to handle it themselves because hiring another set of thugs would mean more loose ends. They don’t want that, so they’re going to finally get their hands dirty trying to come after us themselves.”

“Both of them are unscrupulous and highly clever.”; Miriam added. “They’ll try something unusual to catch us, unaware. I could tell they realized I was fully aware of what they had done to Melissa, when I requested my vacation. They were playing along with the facade, hoping we’d all be together in one spot at some point. I’m certain they authorized my time off to eliminate us in a single location. That’s how that greedy little prick Jonathan operates. He’s methodical, patient, and highly cunning.”

“Then we better be ready for them. With me arresting the Investigator’s assistant, they would suspect a trap if they come back here for us again. We need to congregate somewhere else, so they feel comfortable coming at us.”

“You see Ron, ordinarily that would make perfect sense”; Miriam agreed; “however, it’s so logical that La Fey and Williams wouldn’t come back here to the scene of the earlier crime, that they absolutely would; just because we think we are safe against it happening again. He’s a huge chess player and gambler. I wouldn’t put it past both of them to do the most unlikely thing imaginable, because it would be so unsuspected.”

We kept Melissa’s gnarled totem in the living room corner as an ‘early warning system’ against their attacks, and it immediately paid off. It began to vibrate violently about 11 PM. The full length of the staff started to glow an ethereal color which didn’t match the natural light spectrum. Slowly that same glow spread around the room until we were bathed in a blinding light. We had no idea what was about to happen, by the spirit of Melissa saw it all.

Williams and La Fey were outside pouring gasoline around the sides and foundation. They’d meticulously doused every window and doorway so escape would be almost impossible. As with their first victim, they intended to burn us alive in a massive pyre but they failed to take an important thing into consideration. Her unjust death only made her more powerful. Melissa spread a protective aura about the entire house which prevented the fuel from igniting.

In a growing sense of frustration and bewilderment, the two of them tried to start the blaze but could not. Match after match blew out from a phantom wind hovering around them. Even a hastily-retrieved cigarette lighter failed to ignite my saturated home. Growing increasingly desensitized to the danger of being around all those flammable materials, they grew too careless. Unfortunately for them, their own gas-soaked clothes were not immune to incineration.

Simultaneously they caught fire and burned to a crisp; just as they’d intended for us, while we watched in shock from the windows. Ron had called Detective Shermann to come to our aid but by the time he arrived, the ringleader and his greedy understudy were a pile of ash and smoldering cinders in the back yard. An official investigation was opened immediately, and shorty afterward we were cleared in their deaths. Video surveillance showed La Fey purchase the fuel, while Williams remaining in his car. Her cell phone showed a map search for my home address.

There was no question they came to my house to murder us as we slept. The authorities took significantly longer however to put together a justified motive for the earlier crime, or tying everything together. We knew the truth but we’re not about to reveal the supernatural elements. In the end, it wasn’t necessary. All the pieces came together from good old-fashioned police work and modern technology.

They discovered La Fey’s efforts to lure the religious organization to relocate to the town via emails and texts, and read their damning correspondence. The detectives found concrete evidence of the two of them hiring the Private Eye to stalk and intimidate Miss Petersen into shutting down the coven. They used geo-trackers to place the four conspirators at her murder site, during the time of her disappearance. Tens of millions of dollars was more than enough of a reason for why they killed Melissa. That part was settled.

From there, it got trickier. Ron went from the investigator who identified her body, to a victim himself of attempted murder by the same killers. It looked highly suspicious. As a matter of official policy, he was put on administrative leave, pending the conclusion of the investigation. As we hoped, they chalked up the P.I’s death to a traffic accident, but it was clear Williams and La Fey targeted Ron, Miriam, and myself for some reason. The detectives on the case needed to know why. It was clear we knew ‘something’.

They interviewed us separately and compared notes, but we had already practiced our individual stories beforehand. What we told them was essentially the truth; with some rather large glaring omissions. I found her remains while hiking; and later discovered her missing poster by random chance. It was a stretch to accept those things happened to one person but crazier things have happened. They let that go. Ron just happened to be the investigator on duty who I reported the find to. He had no prior connection to me, nor to Melissa Petersen, or Miriam. That was verified.

She was in their office, and as a ‘busy body’; happened to overhear things which incriminated them. The detectives accepted those things as believable too. They had a harder time accepting that we just happened to start hanging out together, afterward by pure happenstance. We didn’t try to push that. It would’ve been a bridge too far. Ron felt it would be best for us to admit we realized they had very powerful friends and it was impossible to prove what we knew at the time, without help.

The detectives got their ‘ah ha!’ moment when we admitted we were there in my house because we feared the wrath of the Chamber of Commerce conspirators. That was all they needed to close the case and remove us from the ‘suspicious’ list. Interestingly, the P.I.’s assistant was found dead in his cell at county the next morning. Luckily for us, they have cameras on the inmates for that exact purpose. A review of his ‘suicide’ video showed him back away in terror from something unseen in the corner of his cell. He put his hands up, as if defending from an invisible adversary, then he began to bow in moral contrition and cry hysterically. Afterward the man made a noose from his bedsheet and hanged himself.

I have no doubt what he saw. The vengeance of Melissa was finally complete. Ron realized his position there was compromised by the elements who helped La Fey and Williams spy on him, so he left and joined the police force where Michael works. Now they are partners. Miriam retailed her job at the Chamber of Commerce and was eventually promoted to be office manager. By all accounts she is very happy with the new president. While ambitious and enterprising, he’s not going to hire a private investigator to harass people, or worse. As for me, I still go on long walks and hikes whenever I can. Thelma and I need the exercise, and ‘Melissa’ still has things to show us.

Apparently Jonathan La Fey and Abigail Williams were not entirely satisfied with Ron’s thin cover story. Since the body had been identified and the missing person’s case was filed in a different precinct, it wasn’t his murder to solve. All the paperwork was turned over to their detectives. Then he was given numerous other cases to work. While that was normal procedure, his new caseload was excessive and felt like ‘busy work’ to keep him occupied and distracted. it was far away from Melissa’s case. He quickly learned which of his superiors were probably on the ‘La Fey investments group’ payroll.

Paranoia was understandable under the circumstances so when I spotted a brown sedan which always seemed to be behind me, I called Ron about it. Through a bit of sneaky maneuvering, I managed to get the plate number. Ron had to ask a favor from a trusted buddy in another department, but he found out who the owner was. The car was registered to a private detective agency in town. That wasn’t ironclad proof of anything, but it bore following up.

Ron suggested I call Miriam at lunch when both suspects might be away, to see if the Chamber of Commerce used that P.I. Agency for ‘official business’. Turns out, it wasn’t necessary for her to look. Miriam said the investigator always behind me in traffic was in their office about once a week, in closed-door meetings with the two ring leaders. She didn’t know why they hired him and didn’t ask because he gave her ‘the creeps’, as she put it. I suppose they could have a legitimate reason to hire a P.I. to do investigative work, but I couldn’t think of any.

So many of them were notorious for harassing people for loan payments or spying on philandering spouses. Instead of being trained investigators who happened to work outside of law enforcement to help police, they often had the reputation of being ‘muscle-for-hire’ thugs, with a ‘badge’. Could this ‘creep’ be one of the unknown conspirators? We didn’t have proof yet but the odds were moving in that direction. Ron did some more digging on him but had to be secretive. His actions in the department were being watched. No doubt informing La Fey and Williams of our actions and movements.

I was trying not to be paranoid but in this case, it was definitely justified. Ron delivered a much-needed reality check. It brought the danger all the way home for me.

“These people killed someone because she stood in their way of money! Just because I haven’t made public accusations against them yet, doesn’t mean we aren’t all targets for the same fate as Melissa Petersen. They couldn’t possibly know HOW we know, but they are suspicious and vigilant. They are definitely aware her remains were discovered, and that you identified her! Your name was all over the papers and TV, Benny. If they have spies at the other department where she was reported missing, they also know I contacted their officers with your phone-in tip. You’re on their radar.”

Everything about it was surreal. It seemed like a far-fetched plot to kill someone just because they made someone else feel ‘uncomfortable’. I couldn’t reconcile going to those extremes, but Ron was right. It was for MILLIONS of dollars. Unscrupulous people would kill for a fraction of that.

“Then it’s probable they are watching each of us for signs of a case being built against them.”; I asserted. “Do I need to get official police protection?”

Ron looked at me in disbelief. “Are you kidding? You definitely NEED police protection. Miriam NEEDS protection. Even I NEED official backup; but under what authority or justification would they assist us? Since we had ‘spooky’ dreams and visions about a murder we can’t prove? Or that a ‘vibrating stick’ led us to the culprits? We would receive the safety of a ‘padded room’ at Arkham asylum if we uttered any of that metaphysical ghost stuff, out-loud. Officially we don’t have ‘bupkis’. Nada. Zip. We are on our own here.”

He saw how worried and defeated I looked from the unpalatable ‘pill’ of truth’. The conspirators could decide we were a loose-end they needed to ‘tied up’, permanently. If they did, we might not even see it coming. I felt like we were ‘sitting ducks’; or in Thelma’s case, ‘a sitting dog’. I wanted the killers to be arrested and prosecuted, but I didn’t want to always be looking over my shoulder, for the rest of my life while we tried to bring them to full legal accountability.

“The only way we can get justice for Miss Petersen in this physical world is to pretend none of the other things happened. Supernatural premonitions may be vivid and convincing, but they do not hold up in courts of the living, with jurors who haven’t experienced them. Especially if we can’t even get a DA to bring charges against them. We need tangible evidence, not Voodoo.”

I’m certain Melissa was present for our ‘spirited’ little exchange. That night Thelma barked and tugged aggressively at the covers on my bed. I sat up in hyper awareness. Huskies rarely bark. When they do, it’s cause for alarm. Despite the rollercoaster situation, I didn’t expect a shadowy assassin to come lurking in the middle of the night, but that’s exactly what happened. The sound of the window breaking in my back door was faint, but I was wide awake and listening for it. Thelma’s ears perked up to full attention. She faced the entrance to the bedroom in attack mode for our ‘uninvited guest’.

“Freeze!”; rang out in an authoritative manner from the living room. In light of the rising danger, Ron decided to be my very own unofficial ‘protection detail’. After a brief struggle in the dark, the man was handcuffed and taken into custody. Unsurprisingly, he had no identification on him, but I was positive he was the forth conspirator in Melissa’s death.

At headquarters, the man refused to divulge his name or employer but his vehicle was registered to a dummy corporation doing business as an LLC. It was the perfect setup to operate their criminal activities, with a built-in deniability to the private investigator or their clients. After some digging, it was traced back to the ‘creep’ who was following me. Despite that telling outcome, all the arrested thug could be brought up on charges for, was breaking into my home. Officially it looked like a simply robbery attempt. We couldn’t prove anything else, and didn’t even try.

From that point on, there was no more ambiguity, theorizing, or wondering. They knew we were witnesses and had already proven they would come to our homes to neutralize the threat to their freedom. Miriam was in grave danger also. If they hadn’t already, they would soon figure out she was the office connection between us. We had to bring her into our confidence and protection. That meant divulging ALL of it. I wasn’t looking forward to explaining the supernatural elements, but she had to know everything to be prepared.

Fortunately, the restless spirit of Melissa had prepped her at some point, too. We didn’t get into details but Miriam got her own supernatural vision to confirm exactly what her employer did, and how we knew about it. The charade was unraveling slowly. One of their henchman had been arrested and was in custody. The rest were surely worried he might spill the beans and incriminate them. Miriam requested official ‘vacation time’ before they made her ‘disappear’. She took our advice and relocated, for the time being, to my guest bedroom. At last we were all together, and could shelter in place.

That evening Ron received an unexpected call on his work phone. The look on his face during the long conversation told me it was related to our mutual secret. When he hung up, he turned to Miriam and I.

“That was the Gilmer County detective in charge of Melissa’s case. His name is Michael Shermann. He says he has some ‘things’ he needs to discuss with me ‘in person’. He didn’t want to say anything specific over the phone, but I am hesitant to drive over there. I don’t know the guy at all. I don’t know a thing about him. Maybe he’s in their ‘back pocket’ and it’s all a ruse to lure me to some dark alley, OR to separate me from you two. He seems ‘sincere’ enough but I have no way of knowing the truth. In the end, there’s no choice. I have to meet him. For that reason, I’m giving you this. Don’t hesitate to use it, if the need arises.”

It was a Beretta 9MM handgun. I shook my head and tried to hand it back. I’d never handled firearms before and really didn’t want the responsibility. He insisted; and Miriam was visually relieved when I finally accepted it. She clearly wanted some firepower backing us up while Ron was away.

“Just point and click. That’s all you have to do. The safety is off. I repeat, the safety is off! Pick it up, point it, THEN put your finger on the trigger. That’s the only other important part here. Oh; and make sure you identify your target BEFORE you fire. I don’t want my good shirt ruined with a bullet hole and copious amounts of blood.”

His wit might’ve got some laughs if we weren’t in such desperate straits. We both bade him to be careful and meet Detective Shermann in a public place. He rolled his eyes at my rookie advice. I suppose it came across like I was speaking to a gullible child. I assured him I didn’t mean to sound patronizing and Ron nodded in acknowledgment. He thanked me for my concern. Then he spoke directly to Thelma.

“I need you to look after these two while I’m gone. Will you protect them for me, girl?”

She wagged her tail enthusiastically and responded with a Husky ‘whine’.

As if his paranormal testimony wasn’t compelling enough, he had even more pertinent information to share. It was something I should’ve figured out already but I was just too close to the details see it. As I was about to learn, the detective was the other half of a hand-picked duo to avenge her death. I was the first.

“Four robed figures dragged her to that remote spot in the hills, killed her, and then burned the body to hide evidence. For reasons only she knew, after death, Ms. Petersen’s restless spirit transferred itself to a enchanted walking stick, or ‘totem’ in the woods. I saw it transpire in the vision. It’s not a coincidence that it looks just like the twisted staff you were holding at the crime scene when you reported the body, is it? Her spirit is guiding you to these hidden things, isn’t she, Benny?”

I simply nodded. It was such a relief to share the secret with someone. The restless spirit of Melissa Petersen had reached out from beyond the grave to guide us, to avenge her murder. At least I wasn’t alone any longer with the unsettling knowledge. The detective was in the same boat. He ‘saw’ what happened but couldn’t share it with anyone because of the nature of HOW he knew. We had to find a legal way to connect the dots for the criminal process to bring her killer to justice.

After the detective’s supernatural ‘confession session’, we started going on hikes together. That way, Melissa could show us who was responsible. I asked Ron to re-describe his vision of the event. I hoped there was some overlooked detail we could use to figure out who the conspirators were. Was it a rival cult, or maybe devout, ‘holy’ zealots determined to punish an unapologetic ‘sinner’? ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’; immediately came to mind from the Old Testament.

Would hyper-enthusiastic Bible-thumping evangelicals go that far? Why would they wear masks to hide their identities if they had no intention of allowing her to live? That scenario seemed too extreme for modern times but anything was possible. Was there a rival Wiccan sect with an ax to grind over authority or ‘territory’? None of it made sense, but then again I couldn’t imagine killing a person for having different beliefs than myself either. For the time being, we simply referred to the killers as ‘Them’.

I can’t explain how, but the spirit of Melissa Petersen must’ve been in sync with my ‘psychic’ canine. Thelma didn’t whine or pace impatiently each night when I got home, for a walk. She must’ve been spiritually in-tune with the more important need to combine excursions with fact-finding missions; specifically for the investigation. She knew what we were doing, and why.

We couldn’t have been any more surprised when ‘Melissa’ led us to the local Chamber of Commerce this time. We accepted that it must’ve been an essential destination in her quest for posthumous justice, but it was a radically different location to look for clues, and there was nowhere to walk Thelma inside. Also, I didn’t have the authority Ron did to look through their official records. We just stared at each other a minute in bewilderment. Finally I suggested he go inside and look around, while the dog and I did a few laps around the city for exercise.

That’s when it got real awkward. The walking staff ‘demanded’ to go inside with Ron! I probably don’t need to explain how strange it would appear for an off-duty officer to walk into an office carrying a rustic wooden stick while asking to tour their facility and look through their legal paperwork. Our disembodied host desperately needed to show us something of paramount importance, but walking inside with a knotty piece of wood would severely weaken his credibility as a police investigator. Worse, he didn’t even know what to look for. It’s not like our spirit guide could talk.

From a recent afternoon rainstorm, there was a standing puddle on the sidewalk, just outside the building. The staff drew us over to it. In the reflection we saw a shimmering light which didn’t seem to match the dull, overcast gloom above us.

“Is that you, Melissa?”; I asked of the blinding flash. My hand involuntarily placed the stick in the shallow puddle and tapped the concrete. The beam grew brighter until it was almost glowing. Ron and I grinned in abject amazement. In her current ghostly form, Melissa couldn’t speak, but she could respond in a way, via the puddle. I still didn’t know how to use that shimmering light to communicate with her, but we were making visual contact with the source of our quest. Hopefully the thing she wanted us to see would be glaringly obvious once he went inside.

‘Miriam’ was the receptionist at the front desk, according to her plaque. She greeted Ron and asked if he had an appointment with ‘Mr. La Fey’, the president of the chamber. He showed her his badge and explained he was a detective with the police department, and needed to examine their records. She nervously called the office manager to meet with him in the lobby.

“Hello. I’m Abigail Williams, the general manager here. May I ask what this inquiry is regarding?”

Ron recognizing a ‘fishing expedition’ when he saw it and deflected her nosey question with deft expertise.

“Ah, it’s just a routine matter at this point; but as with all official police investigations; we aren’t at liberty to divulge the nature of them while they are active.”

They smiled politely at each other but it was glaringly clear, she was livid at being denied the answer. Part of the reason he was so vague was because if a suspect was guilty of something, they stress out and often crack, by not being fully aware of how much the authorities know. He allowed her to stew in her worries. It was a tried-and-true interrogation technique.

“Right this way.”; She led him to a row of gray filing cabinets holding their financial records. From the forthcoming way she volunteered them, Ron knew the evidence he sought wasn’t present. Again Miss Williams tried to figure out why he was there.

“If you could just tell me a little bit about what you are trying to find, either I or ‘Jonathan’ can help you locate it.”

“Thanks; I’ll let you know if I need your help with anything.”

He pretended to scan through a few of the paper entries while Abigail watched indiscreetly from the corner of her office. She seemed to take note of which of the alphabetized drawers he opened. He looked at a few folders purely at random and then closed them, appearing deeply interested. As a distraction to snoop covertly, he summoned her to make a copy of one for him. While she dutifully xeroxing it in the other room, he checked out the ‘P’ drawer. There was no ‘Petersen’ folder in it.

Mr. Lay Fey never showed his face the whole time, despite almost certainly being alerted to what was going on. That spoke volumes. Anyone with no culpability would typically show their face as a sign of benevolence. He thanked them for their cooperation and said goodbye. Miss Williams returned to her office; presumably to brief her boss about what she knew about the unexpected investigation, while Ron shrewdly stopped by the receptionist’s desk.

“Is this about the missing woman?”; Miriam whispered conspiratorially. She had been paying attention too; and since he’d never even presented a reason for his visit, her question was particularly revealing. Ron glanced at Miss Williams closed office door. She was too busy filling in the President to realize the receptionist was talking to him. It allowed him time to slip her his card. He discreetly asked her to call him after hours so they could talk candidly. She knew something.

I’d walked about a dozen laps around the block waiting for him. I was exhausted and even Thelma had enough exercise for a change; but the potential connections he uncovered made it all worthwhile. Right at 5:30, his cell rang. It was Miriam. He didn’t want to give too much away or lead her down a predetermined path, so he wisely let her do most of the talking. What she divulged finally set the wheels of justice in motion.

I had already searched for info on both Miss Williams and Mr. La Fey, as my part in the teamwork. Neither were active in religious organizations that I could find. Their entire social media footprint seemed to be about capital enterprise, investments, and making money. Lots of money. That wasn’t surprising. They were the driving force for the chamber of commerce and local business merchants, but it did eliminate religious zealotry as the motive for Melissa’s murder.

Miriam told Ron that her bosses were absolutely fixated on luring a large Christian organization to relocate to the community. Doing so would bring thousands of jobs, and hundreds of millions in real estate revenue to the townspeople. The client families would need housing, restaurants, entertainment, and a ‘FAMILY oriented place to live’. All of which, Mr. La Fey and his greedy investor friends promised to supply for them. They would become filthy rich overnight if they could just convince the reluctant organization to move their operations there.

Miriam overheard this client tell Jonathan something which caused unwanted complications to the plan. They had researched their potential neighbors; and were appalled to find a very open, unapologetic Wiccan sect established in their conservative community. While everything else would’ve been a ‘go’, they couldn’t ‘in good conscience’ move to an place where ‘vile witchcraft’ was practiced so openly.

The website for Melissa’s coven derailed a multi-million-dollar deal and La Fey and Williams were livid over it. They stood to lose a fortune in real estate contracts and kick-backs. First they tried to get the coven to take their web page down, through intimidation. Then when the outright political pressure didn’t work, Mr. La Fey hired ‘private investigators’ to ‘intimidate’ them. In person, this time.

The pieces were starting to fall in place. Miriam’s testimony was critical in establishing the motive. Good Old-Fashioned textbook greed led to her death. Money was the oldest reason in the world to kill a person. They didn’t give a damn about Melissa’s coven, but their huge ‘paycheck’ did.

All while typing reports at her desk, Miriam overhead their anger and frustration over the lack of ‘progress’. Melissa Petersen was mentioned by name by them many times. Even so, that wasn’t proof of their culpability, in itself. The authorities would need strong physical evidence to bring charges against the conspirators. The compelling hearsay of a nosy secretary would never stand up in court by itself.

Detective De Feo began to worry about Miriam’s safety, and their own for that matter. She had been present at the office during planning stages of the operation to silence Melissa. Mr. Le Fey and Miss Williams might put two and two together about who the leak to them was. As the President of the Chamber, Jonathan had powerful friends at City Hall. It wasn’t long before he was being asked by his superiors about the nature of his visit to the chamber of commerce office.

It helped to clue him in about which members of the law enforcement community around him were either compromised outright, or at least sympathetic to the almighty dollar. He was careful to create a parallel report as a sanitized decoy explaining away his visit. The excuse he made up seemed to satisfy them for the time being, but that forced Ron to conduct the investigation fully ‘under cover’. If the guilty parties found out Melissa Petersen’s case was on his docket, they’d realize he was somehow onto them. He asked his contact at her home jurisdiction’s department to minimize his involvement with the case.

Even with all the safeguards, they weren’t stupid. He was assigned to the case when Benny King discovered the unidentified body. That was an undeniable connection which was hard to pass off as a coincidence; when he later asked to look at their files. If nothing else, the guilty are paranoid. He warned the secretary to avoid being alone with either of them after dark. When pressed for an explanation, Ron discreetly answered; “You know why. The missing girl.”

Legally he couldn’t say more to her, but realized her safety was at risk. If he tried to put her in a safe-house, his superiors would know, and it would be leaked back to ‘Them’. That would put an immediate end to his investigation. Things had to remain as ‘normal’ as possible until a means was found to get them to incriminate themselves somehow. We all wondered what our next step would be.

In the past, Melissa was the mysterious driving force in our movements. Now, with Ron being in charge of solving her murder within the judicial system, it wasn’t clear who was leading, and we had no means of communicating with her. Did she have a plan to expose her killers, or was it up to us to finish the case? Individually and as a disjointed team, we continued on in the search for a way forward.

When the opportunity arrived to discover what else the wandering stick wanted me to see, I loaded up the car and headed for the open road. This excursion felt different somehow. I was 'on edge' the whole trip. Something about it made me anxious. Maybe it was the escalating nature of the previous hikes leading to a bigger and bigger discoveries. I assumed this time would reveal something even more significant, and those instincts were proven correct.

I was drawn to a different set of mountain trails. Thelma was restless. She sensed something I couldn’t begin to guess. There was greater urgency from the wandering staff; exceeding the other instances by a wide margin. The pull was intense. We were far off the beaten path and the terrain was difficult to traverse. I was being dragged by a frantic beast and a vibrating stick to find something which apparently REALLY needed to be discovered. Despite all the clear signs of ‘foreshadowing’, I couldn’t have guessed what it was.

What I spotted was anticlimactic. It was a lady’s brown leather purse; half covered in organic debris with ornate shoulder straps made from woven leather. I was disappointed it wasn’t something ‘bigger’. Then I spotted a pair of matching shoes nearby. They weren’t the sort of ‘sensible’ footwear or handbag a knowledgeable person would choose for the harsh terrain. Then Thelma resisted getting any closer. I thought that was very odd considering her earlier zeal.

She’d been so enthusiastic digging up the dinosaur fossil. Now I was being held back by her for the first time. The leash was drawn tightly as Thelma backed away from where I stood. She actively pulled me to the spot, then wanted far away for some reason. Meanwhile, our inanimate guide had deliberately drew both of us there to solve a mystery. I was determined to find out what it was, with or without her help.

It didn’t take long. I spotted the unmistakable form of a human skull partially exposed through the soil! Other bones and decaying remains were visible, once I realized the truth. I was standing in the middle of a crime scene! At least I couldn’t say this wasn’t a big deal. I backed away slowly to follow Thelma’s lead, doing my best to not damage any of the evidence. She was beyond eager to go back to the car. I finally understood why.

We sat in the front seat while I decided how to handle things. I definitely had to report it. There was no question about that, but doing so would surely raise some difficult questions with police detectives. They would ask me why I kept finding mysterious things in the woods. I didn’t want to be the primary suspect in the victim’s death investigation, by default. I also didn’t want to phone it in anonymously. They always trace those back to the caller; and it looks far more suspicious to have not been upfront about my identity to start with.

There was no reason why I couldn’t find a dinosaur fossil AND a human body, right? I hike a lot, so it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility to discover two significant things in a short period, right? I didn’t realize it but the couple whose keys I found by the cliff, recognized me from the dinosaur story and contacted the reporter. They told him about my earlier good deed. The detective who interviewed me had done his homework. He knew about that too.

“How exactly did you happen to be there? It’s not an easy place to find. I understand you’ve been on a recent ‘lucky streak’ of finding all sorts of strange things in different places. Are you buying lottery tickets? Sounds like you should. Tell me your ‘story’ again; from the beginning.”

I rolled my eyes at the ‘skeptical detective’ routine. I’d already told him the pertinent details three times, and was consistent with each one. Maybe that was the issue. It sounded too rehearsed and unnatural. “Do you really think I happened to have a nearly intact dinosaur skeleton lying around to bury in a state park outcropping? Why would I do that? For publicity and accolades?”

He grinned at the unlikely scenario. It sounded even more ridiculous when I outlined it in those colorful terms. The guy was simply observing how I’d react to pressure, but I wasn’t done expressing my righteous indignation. It was totally justified, but I laid it on too thick.

“Maybe I stole that couple’s keys in the park and then conveniently ‘found’ them for the ‘atta boy!’”

“No. No. I know you didn’t plant the six ton dinosaur.” He giggled at the preposterous statement. “It took specialized equipment to excavate the fossilized remains. It’s just that finding so many hidden things as you have recently, is downright ‘unusual’. You aren’t some kind of ‘mystical psychic’ or ‘clairvoyant’, are you?”

I heard his partner chuckle in the observation room. With such overt sarcasm, I knew neither of them believed it was anything more than a crazy series of coincidences. It was all a hilarious game to them, but that didn’t stop me from playing along. Regardless, I wasn’t about to suggest a ‘magic stick’ led me to the body. That would’ve carried it too far. I dialed it back a couple notches.

“Nope, but my dog is.”

Both men howled at my deadpan delivery. Immediately my interrogator’s demeanor changed from the jest. They were just doing their job, and trying to connect the dots of a highly strange situation. I realized how bizarre it was; and might’ve been tempted to make a similar joke if I was in their shoes. Meanwhile, the truth was infinitely more insane. I wish I could’ve shared it with them.

The detective stood up, shook my hand and thanked me for coming forward to help find justice for the deceased. Her identity was still a mystery but they were hoping to run her DNA profile, if a viable sample could be obtained. Then he promised to ‘keep in touch’. That’s something people often say out of habit but I believed him. He seemed like a good guy. I think the officer realized I genuinely wanted to know what happened, out of true concern. Just as much as they did, for official reasons. Since they had a potential crime to solve, I left them to their responsibilities.

For once, I wasn’t as anxious to get back to exploring. Every time I did, my wooden ‘familiar’ led me to another source of controversy. If the next one was anything like the last, it would make it difficult for me to do anything. Maybe the enchanted staff sensed my apprehension. Thelma certainly could. She gently grabbed it in her teeth and dragged the stick over to me. She never brings me the leash like in those cute internet videos. This was an obvious effort to get ‘the mystery squad’ back on track. She just wagged her tail and ‘talked’, until I relented and put on my boots.

With the arc of discovery widening every time, I dreaded whatever this trip would uncover. We drove for a long time and I purposefully avoided the previous hiking trails. Thelma paced impatiently back and forth in the back seat. She knew I was stalling but honestly, I wasn’t inspired to go anywhere. There were no ‘vibes’ from the walking stick this time. I was on my own to pick our destination and not being directed or led. I hoped that meant there would be no unwanted ‘excitement’ and nothing to find.

I picked a beautiful park by a lake. It has a flat, paved track around it for walkers, joggers, bicyclists, and roller blade enthusiasts. It seemed like the perfect MUNDANE place to avoid any more calls to the authorities. As it turns out, I couldn’t have been any more wrong about that. The walking stick insistently ‘nudged’ Thelma and I over to the side of the pavement. Stapled to the side of a power pole was a worn out, ‘missing persons’ handbill. It showed the smiling face of a young lady who had been missing about seven months.

The first thing which caught my eye was the shoulder straps of her pocket book. It was the exact same ornate design as the one I’d discovered on the mountainside. Under different circumstances I might’ve thought it was a coincidence, but the walking stick began to vibrate with a restless energy which confirmed what I already knew. I couldn’t fathom why the missing lady would be up there in those dressy, heeled shoes, but I could at least give the detective her name, to expedite their investigation.

‘Melissa Petersen’ 29, was reported missing by her parents; a couple towns over from where I live. The ragged handbill detailed which police department was handing the case, and their direct number. I’ve never been more sure in my life of whose body I’d found, but I didn’t have a clue of how to assist the two departments make the connection. That is, without raising more eyebrows and suspicion about myself.

I still had the detective’s card in my wallet. I decided that telling him was more important than the optics of always ‘being in the right place’ to find secret things. What was a little more inconvenience to my pride or reputation, compared to their grief? I owed it to them, to do the right thing. To describe the call as ‘awkward’, would’ve been an understatement.

“Hello, this is detective Ron De Feo.”

“Hello Detective. You interviewed me as a witness in the discovery of the body found up on Grassy Mountain.”

“Ah yes! You have the ‘psychic dog’, right? Has that gorgeous Husky of yours solved the case for us?”

He laughed good-naturedly at his forced attempt at levity, but I just remained quiet until he was finished entertaining himself. When I didn’t join in the chuckles, he cleared his throat and switched gears. “Did you have something to add to your testimony, Mr. King?”

“Yes, my clairvoyant husky wants you to look at the missing persons case of Melissa Petersen of Gilmer County. She thinks that’s the victim. The missing lady’s woven handbag strap in the photo is very ornate and distinctive. It looks just like the one I found beside the human remains.”

I caught the man totally off guard. It took him a few seconds to realize I was playing along with his jest, while simultaneously offering a serious piece of information. I heard him typing. He repeated back the name to me as he entered it into the database. He didn’t say anything but I sensed he was intrigued but what I showed him. The victim matched the general profile. She was about the right age, from the local area, and had been missing long enough to correspond with the body decomposition of the unknown victim.

“We should have a complete DNA profile for our ‘Jane Doe’ victim in a couple days.”; He assured me. “I’ll reach out to their department when we do and compare notes about their case. I must warn you though. It’s way too early to make any connections on something like this. A fancy pocketbook strap isn’t usually enough of a justification for busy detectives to investigate.”

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I continued the gag.

“My dog says it’s her.”

He laughed an uncomfortable snort. The ‘psychic dog’ thing had ran its course, I think. At the time though, I wasn’t even sure if he would look into it, but three days later, Detective De Feo called back. The identity of the victim was officially confirmed. Sadly, it was Ms. Petersen. Her family had been notified and preliminary reports from the forensic pathologist ruled the death as ‘unnatural’. I knew what that was code for. Luckily the authorities didn’t suspect any involvement from me. I knew that, or the detective wouldn’t have been so transparent about the ongoing investigation.

We both realized he didn’t believe Thelma was responsible for finding the crime scene. That was almost as preposterous as the bizarre reality. What I didn’t understand was, what did De Feo really think about my string of unusual discoveries? Did he really think I was just unusually ‘lucky’? I decided to lay my cards on the table.

“Why are you being so understanding and openly communicative with me, detective? I’m not in law enforcement and I know it looks highly suspicious for me to be so ‘helpful’ all the time. I can tell there’s something on your mind which you aren’t saying. Why don’t you level with me?”

He respected how straightforward I was and opened up about some odd circumstances which caused him to trust me despite natural misgivings. His admission explained a great many things.

“Mr. King, I did some research about the victim. I was told she practiced a form of ‘Ritual Magic’; whatever that is. Apparently she was way up in the hierarchy of the local organization for Wiccans or witches. I don’t know the proper terminology; but you get the gist. She was their ‘high priestess’. In no way am I judging her faith. We are a nation of many beliefs but I strongly suspect her involvement in the occult was a factor in her death. I don’t know for sure yet. The more I’ve learned about how that branch of spirituality is viewed here, the more I realize she probably had a ‘dangerous meeting’ with the wrong person. If my hunch is right, she paid the ultimate price for it.”

His revelations about her life and his working theory regarding her untimely demise was compelling, but not that surprising. Especially considering my own recent brushes with paranormal experiences. Every bit of it screamed ‘supernatural’.

“I can’t believe I’m about to utter these ridiculous words out loud”; He admitted; “I know you had nothing to do with her murder, and newsflash! I also realize your dog isn’t clairvoyant either. We’ve had our fun with that, but we both know what’s going on here, right? I’m convinced of a number of impossible-to-accept things now, because I had a vivid premonition about her myself, last night. It was so powerful and gripping that it helped me understand some greater truths. I’m not given to believing in ‘psychic experiences’ but I ‘saw’ her murder unfold; just as clearly as if a camera had been present.”